Big Buck Talk w/ Cody Jenkins

Hey everyone, welcome to episode 167 of the Antler Up Podcast!

On this week's episode I was joined by Cody Jenkins from the Whitetail Legacy Podcast!  This was a podcast I have been looking forward to recording for quite some time and it did not disappoint.  Cody has been recording podcasts for over 6 years and has killed some big bucks and that is exactly what we discuss in this week's episode!

When we kick off this podcast we chat about Cody himself and how he has been able to be consistent recording episodes but also getting it done in the woods.  You really hear from Cody how important family is to him and what fun he is having getting his children into hunting.  We discuss other topics from improving yourself to be better in and out of the woods physically and mentally, current stages in preparing for next season! This was really fun to hear how Cody is finding big deer and the easiest ways to kill them! 

Cody also shares how he uses trail cameras, hunting stories from this past season, breaking down a property for scouting, and much more!  We also talk about perfect hunting setups and what exactly Cody is looking for when he sets up on a killable buck. Cody touched upon the current state of trail cameras and the excitement of taking his kids out next season for hunting.

Thanks again for all the support and best of luck out there and Antler Up!

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Antler of Podcast, brought to you by tethered the world's best saddle hunting equipment. We have an awesome show for you guys today, Anan, today's episode. I was joined by Cody Jenkins from the Whitetail Legacy Podcast. This was a podcast. I have been looking forward to recording for quite some time, and it did not disappoint.

Cody has been recording podcasts for over six years and has killed some big bucks, and that is exactly what we discuss in this week's episode. We kick off the podcast when we chat about Cody himself and how he has been able to be consistent recording podcasts, but also getting it done in the woods. You really hear from Cody how important family is to him and what [00:01:00] fun he is having, getting his children into the woods and into hunting.

And we discuss other topics from improving yourself to be better in and outta the woods, physically and mentally. What current stages he's in right now preparing for next season, and this was really fun to hear how Cody's finding big deer and how he is trying to find the easiest ways to kill them. We also talk about how he uses trails, cameras, hunting stories from this past season, breaking down a property for scouting and so much more.

We also talk about perfect hunting setups and what exactly Cody is looking for when he sets up on a killable buck. He touched upon his current state of trail cameras. With regarding Kansas and also the excitement of TA taking his kids out next season for hunting. So an awesome episode. I could have talked to Cody for another three, four hours.

Really enjoy this one. Looking forward to having him on again in the future. If you're not already listening to the Whitetail Legacy Podcast, go give it a go. Give it a follow and listen. [00:02:00] Again, thank you everybody for all of the support with Antler up the podcast. If you like what you hear, go give it a five star review on iTunes.

Also on Spotify. Thank you. Thank you so much. If there's anything that you're looking forward to hearing or want to hear, or a particular guest, shoot me a message on Instagram, email, whatever, and we'll try to get it done. Thanks again everybody for all the support. Have a great week, aunt Laura.

And before we dive into this week's episode, I wanna mention a few things regarding some of the favorite gear that I use and. Turkey season's in full swing down south in Pennsylvania. We're gonna be rolling here in a couple weeks and I cannot stress to you enough. If you like vests or if you want to be a little mobile and you wore them before, you couldn't find the right one.

I cannot stress enough how awesome this tethered new M two vest really is. There's a lot of good videos on it already. Jared Schaffer from Tether just posted like his pack out right now. I'm going to do one here soon. It's just awesome. It's extremely [00:03:00] modular. You could set it up a hundred different ways and there's other ways you could wear it into the whitetail woods fishing, just going out, hiking, scouting, anything like that.

It's not just a Turkey vest, so check it out over@tenation.com. It's made right here in the usa. Alright everybody, it is that time of year again where you are able to upgrade to the best trail cam that you could. Let's face it, we all have a camera that's lying around that's either broken or completely worthless.

Thankfully, right now, after a ton of great feedback from last year, Exodus is opening up an upgrade program. So how does this work? In short, order any camera on Exodus outdoor gear.com and use the code upgrade to save 25% on any Exodus render, render bundle, rival or rival bundle. After you place your order, the Exodus team will send you a return label for your trading camera.

After receiving the camera, they'll ship it straight to you. I've done this in a in the past. It's a great program. So if you're [00:04:00] new to Exodus though, and you want to give them an a TR a try, I'll just say this, they have a five year warranty, five year theft, and damage coverage, and the best in-class customer service.

I've been using Exodus for about three and a half years now, and they have been proven to be reliable, dependable, some of the best features. Really the best features of any trail camera that you can get. So be sure to take advantage of this unique savings opportunity and replace any old junkie camera with the Bulletproof, dependable Exodus Camera.

This program is only good for the remainder of April or while supplies last, so as always, be sure to head over to their website and sign up for their email newsletter to stay up to date with all their upcoming announcements. And I'll tell you what, I've caught wind of some really cool things that are gonna be coming down soon, so be sure to do that over@exodusoutdoorgear.com and sign up today and do the checkout.

The upgrade program Last year was a wild year for censorship for hundreds and anglers. We partnered with social media platform Go Wild to Combat [00:05:00] mainstream social media Censorship Go Wild was built by outdoors men and women by hunters and anglers. Just go Wild is a free social community. Not only are your photos not censored, they're encouraged on Go Wild and Go Wild.

Gives you points for things like sharing your trophies, gear reviews, and inviting friends. As you earn points, you unlock awesome rewards too, such as gift cards, free swag, knives, huge discounts on brands like Garmin and Vortex and so much more. And if you create a free account, you can unlock $10 just for trying it out.

Visit and download Go wild.com to get started. What's up everybody? Welcome back to the Antler podcast. I'm joined tonight by another Whitetail fanatic. Obviously, that's what I love to do, is talk to people that love whitetail hunting and just the passion, the drive that these people have. And on the other line, I have podcast hosts, Cody Jenkins from the Whitetail Legacy Podcast, man, Cody, I've heard amazing things [00:06:00] about you from friends.

I've listened to your podcast. You guys do an amazing job. Welcome to the show, man. Thanks. I appreciate you having me on and get to chat on another podcast. Always fun to, to go on another podcast and just get in there flow and have a good conversation where I'm not leading the conversation.

Someone else is. It's pretty fun to engage. It's always fun to shoot the shit. Talk about hunting, man. I love it. Speaking of podcasts and before you do a quick introduction about yourself and everything else that you're doing, do you remember maybe starting out a couple years ago when you were going and you're recording these podcasts?

Do you ever, you don't have to say the guest name, but does one episode come to mind when you're like, man, that shit was just a dud. Oh yeah. I had I won't say the name, but the guest had just shot the potential state, typical record for Oklahoma and I was doing the legend of the wood series. And I got him on like fairly quick.

And a [00:07:00] lot of times with these legends in the Woods series, what a lot of people don't know is like they're 3, 4, 5 year old bucks. Like they sure were shot that far that long ago. But it's because a lot of these people have like contracts with magazines like Rack Magazine or North American Whitetail or something where they can't give away the details until the article is uploaded by them.

Sometimes they just get the opportunity to be in there, and then sometimes they get a little bit of money, for putting a story in there. But he didn't want to go around that route. So I got him on pretty, pretty quick. And the dude, he just if I, that was me, I would be ecstatic.

I would want everybody to know about this deer. And he just wasn't real excited about it. I'm like, dude, like you shot a typical seven by seven freak of a whitetail. Like it's just Fourth of times on each side, all, typical as hell and you potentially have the state record. And he know it, he told a story, but maybe I [00:08:00] was just more excited than him and he was just this is what happened, and I'm like, dude, you should be way more jacked up right now.

Yep. Something similar. I didn't have someone on regarding like a ma monster kill, but again, I remember having a guest or two where I was really excited to have on. And then again, just, I don't know if they were just having a rough day or if that's their even keel p tone.

And they just did not live up to my expectations, of excitement. And I was like, oh, it was hard to keep a conversation going. And it was like, I remember writing stuff down and once I looked over at the road caster and I saw. I don't know, 35, 40 minutes. I already was just blanking in my mind.

I'm like, this is tanking. I was like, all right, man. That's a good one for, yeah. Let's wrap this up. Let's wrap this up. A lot of times I I'm watching the numbers take away when I'm recorded and I I feel like people love that mark or, a little less than an hour trying to keep it around there.

Sometimes I go longer, sometimes it's way shorter. I just fill out the guest and like you said, sometimes [00:09:00] you might catch him on a bad day where the guy's, his rough getting the kids to bed or, he got off work late or something. And you can just tell if the guy wants to be there.

Yeah. I'll let it go a little longer, but if I can see how he's flowing and then I'll step back, maybe not ask two or three questions I had. Just trying to be respectful of his time. Cuz one thing about us doing podcasts is we're. We're de dedicating our time, but the people coming on are also giving us content and time with little value for them, other than getting to be on a podcast.

So I try to make sure that if I'm filling a guy out and he's not really having a good time as short as possible. I'm with you though. I'm with you. I do think about 50 to that one 20 minutes. That is the bread and butter for me personally. That I like listening to certain podcasts. Now there's certain guests, I'll occasionally listen to a Joe Rogan podcast.

I, I was there for a while. Just, I like he had a good segue of guests on that. I was like, Ooh, I like this person. I like this person. When he has [00:10:00] some of his good friends on and they are three hours long, I'll just sit there and listen and laugh and everything like that. But yeah, for me, for a hunting podcast, if there's like a main topic or two to three main topics and it's a 20 minute kind of breakup conversation of each three of those topics, that is seems to be my, that what I like.

So it's, I think we, yeah, we do this cuz selfishly we like talking to people about hunting, so we selfishly lead, doing this. But man, Cody I, you're, I like this already where could, I guess introduce yourself? I always I'm a big baseball fan, baseball season's kicking off right now.

What is your back of your baseball card as far as growing up hunting your podcast, how long you've been doing it, all that stuff, man, introduce yourself. All right. Cody Jenkins I've been podcasting for almost six years. November will be six years, so five and a half years or so. Started when it was, I started with wired to hunt like everybody did, and then started listening [00:11:00] to working class.

And then I was like, man this is something I want to do. I'm, I was always the guy that like was talking about whitetails of people that didn't really care to talk about Whitetails. I work on the railroad, which a lot of people would think that's a blue collar job, so it'd be heavily hunting.

But there's not a lot of guys that hunt at my job. Like maybe they've went hunting or, but there's not a lot of 'em that like Turkey hunt or fish or there's just a select few. And it is, I think it's my area. It seems if I worked with guys from like Missouri or Oklahoma or something, oh, they're all about it, yeah. And they're chatted up. But when I was working, at home there wasn't like a core group of guys that were like, yeah, we're just die hard. They all thought I was crazy for taking three weeks off and hunting straight in November and stuff, and. So created the podcast and didn't know what the hell we were doing to start and fumble around and said some stuff we probably shouldn't have, and said some good things.

And I'm a really big guy [00:12:00] on consistency and doing what I say I'm gonna do. Really adamant on my kids on consistency. I feel like if you can do anything consistent in life, it makes other stuff easier. Podcasting isn't a struggle. It's not something that like, oh, it's Wednesday. I, it's, I need to get not, I need, I have to get a podcast up.

There's no I can miss a week. There's nothing like that. So outta those five and a half years, I've missed one Wednesday at 11:00 AM had covid for 19 days. And wasn't able to make it happen, but am central time for five and a half years I've released a podcast. Other than that, I'm a dad. I got four kids.

I have a eight-year-old boy, a five-year-old boy, a three-year-old boy, and a nine month old daughter. I'm a husband, I have a wife, Taylor awesome wife. Lets me hunt a shit load. Let's, the more that [00:13:00] the boys get involved, the easier she is. Pretty much anything for the kids. She's a, her mom's the same way, really.

Born to be, a mother. She's a nurse. She works full-time, takes care of the kids. I do my part heavily as well. I'm engaged as I possibly can with everything they have going on. And I've always been real adamant on my kid likes hunting. Cool. We're gonna go hardcore on that. One of my kids is into wrestling.

We'll go hardcore on that. One of my kids likes to play Fortnite. I don't know what I'm doing. He whoops my ass all the time, but I go in there and make a point to play Fortnite with him. But I've been coaxing him to Madden and I'm showing him the old dad. There you go. The old dad PlayStation, two Madden coming out.

I've been whooping up on him pretty good on that. But I just real adamant on being the best dad I can, the best dude I possibly can. And working on myself as well. Try to be as healthy as I can. Not for me or the way I looks, but my kid's eight years old and he's a [00:14:00] savage and my five year old's getting more and it's just like, how am I gonna keep up with these kids when they're 15 and 14?

And I don't wanna be that dad that's on the sideline. I wanna be that dad that's dancing on the dance floor. Goofy as hell, so in a nutshell, that's me is I literally give as much effort and 24 hours as I can. I don't sleep much. I. Try to get as much as I've done in one day and I never feel like I do enough.

Not, definitely not an overachiever, but definitely strive to, to make every hour worth it during the day. Yeah. So hell yeah, man. Motivation already for, myself already. I'm all jazzed up for, from listening to you say that and man you brought up a great point right before we started rec recording and how you said your older son is getting into hunting and you're, kind of strategy strategizing to get him going and getting him gear and stuff like that.

And ironically, yeah, it was yesterday I went to our local gun shop and I got [00:15:00] my daughter a four 10, my daughter's nine. And Nice. She's, she has shown interest in hunting. I've taken her out this past year a couple times with the crossbow as well, and she has a 2 43. So when you were saying these things, I'm like, oh yeah, I know exactly what he's going through.

It's so cool. Yeah, because I left school. And my wife's like, why are you going straight to Clearfield? I'm like, cuz I have to get Tory's before they close. I gotta get this gun. She's like, why are you buying a gun? I said, for Nora? She's she told you she'll just use what I said. Nope. Nope. She needs her single shot.

I want to get, yeah. Luckily these single shots are not that pricey, I was out the door for, with ammo and a red dot for less than right around $300. So it's just cool that now I don't know, I love just being able to get her involved and even though she's not like gung ho about it, she is shown showing interest and likes to go out with me and even scouting and stuff like that. I just have the one. But like you said, man, it is important to keep yourself healthy mentally, physically, is keeping [00:16:00] your wife happy in that relationship. Going and because man, with four of them running around here and getting that older like that I love that you were like, I want to be able to be that dad to dance.

And man, I respect that dude. Yeah. I wanna, people are like, why do you work out so much? I'm like, I just wanna rest. Says, Hey, we're gonna go hike the mountains. I'm like, I'm in. Hey, we're gonna go ice skating. I'm in. I, I don't care what it is. I just don't wanna be like, man, I don't know if I can do that.

Or I don't wanna be the dad that's like sitting down. We've been there for 30 minutes and I'm whited, I wanna be like, come on, let's go guys. Let's keep going, and that's me. I'm get, I got my kid, my oldest kid loves to run. I, we did a ninja obstacle mud course with him last year, mile and a half.

And I'm out in front, like pushing him and helping him over stuff. And he is I don't know if I can make it. I'm like, I gotta go over this after you do. So if I can make it, you can make it. And the, my dad was older and didn't hunt. And really, [00:17:00] Adamant on, making money and not really engaging.

So I just wanted to make my childhood, my kid's childhood, the complete opposite. I'm gonna be the annoying dad. That's like calling 'em when they're old. Be like, Hey dude, what's up? What do you got going on? Yep. Take the guesswork out of building your own arrows for this upcoming season by ordering a custom set of MMT arrows from Exodus outdoor gear.

They have developed and sourced literally the most precise archery components on earth. To build a tailored arrow for your hunting adventures, just head over to Exodus website and plug in your specifications in the Arrow builder and have your custom set sent straight to your door. And use code a U 12 to save 12% off your custom set over@exodusoutdoorgear.com.

I like that dude. What about you're talking about improving yourself and. What is maybe something that outside of hunting that you have improved [00:18:00] that then transitioned over into the whitetail woods? Something that I think I've, that's helped me a lot is the ability to, to working out is what a lot of people say and I do work out, but just the absolutely.

And not saying I need to work out, but you have to. It's something that you have to do, and if you miss a day, it's fine, whatever. And I, a lot of people don't know this. I was actually 45 pounds heavier than I am right now. I started traveling on the road when I first got my job, first had my first kids trying to make as much money.

I'm living out of a hotel, nine months out of the year, driving back on the weekends, eating gas station food, I'm driving like to New Mexico on Monday or Sunday, and then driving back from New Mexico on Friday and then driving back to Min Mexico on Sunday, every weekend, I'm doing a 17 hour drive to get home, to spend a couple days with my kids, drive back Texas Idaho, [00:19:00] Montana.

I'm all over the place. And it life just caught up with me. I got lazy and I lost that weight. And the fact that I was, you gotta lose the weight, gotta lose the weight, is what in my mind, these kids, they're growing. They want to do stuff, you're not gonna be able to do it. And I got to the fact where I was pushing myself really hard and if you followed my content like three or four years ago, we pushed ourself like really hard.

Like we went overboard. I did the same thing with working out. I got really low body fat percentage and I injured myself pretty bad, just doing too much. So something the past three years that I've learned is like, It's o it's okay to chill a day. It's not gonna ruin. It's okay to chill a couple days.

Like I know a lot of the people like listen to the Doggs and people, and they're like, every day you gotta be there. And if you need the motivation, that's cool. But it converts right back to honey. You don't, in my mind, if I don't hunt, I'm, I feel like I'm missing an opportunity that might be [00:20:00] there, right?

But now maybe I'll play it easy today. I'm a little tired. I'm gonna hunt, but I'm gonna hunt an easier spot and being okay with it. When three or four years ago I would've been like, we gotta go. And wouldn't had as much fun. I killed both ways, but me understanding over time that I can't be absolutely 110% all the time helped me out with you had a bad hunt.

Isn't the end of the world, tomorrow's a new day? You did. You didn't go as far as you want to, you didn't hang as quiet as you wanted. You didn't sit as long as you want. It's all cool because when you start losing weight over years and years, it's not like a day that matters.

It's at three months that matters, right? Three months of pretty consistent missing a few days is better than three months and then burning yourself out. So that's what I would say. I'm bettering myself. That helped me be a better hunter was just sometimes shit don't go right.

And it's not your fault. It's just, [00:21:00] yep, that deer spooked on the way in and ruin something or something, it's just, you just gotta roll with it. So that's what I would say. I like that man. I could totally agree and relate. I'm sure a lot of people listening can as well. And it's something right now that I think.

We work on, right? We are trying to, like you said, I know it's the working out thing and it's just to, to be healthier in general, it's also the mine. It's like that one-on-one thing and it's when you're in that right mindset and when it transo transitions over into hunting, those opportunities come, like you said, it's okay.

You're mentally, you're either one prepared and you're okay with maybe certain situations. If it doesn't go your way and you work your way through it, it just all seems seamlessly works together and it, and there's there's endless of situations really in that could go within that category and how that helps.

So dude, that you're spot on because when we work out and we train and we're trying to better ourselves, whether it be a husband in our positions and a father in our positions, and live a [00:22:00] healthy life, that's where. It, it's up here right in our mind. That we have to be solid too for that.

No, man. That's great. Right now where we're at, we're in the end of we're getting to the end of March. Dude, it is March 21st, and I had, I just put a new camera up over on Saturday, which would've been what, the 19th I think it would've been. And I just put up a camera, it was a cell camera, and I wanted to see what was going on in the area.

And I had a buck show up tonight with both sides of his, of Antlers. Still. I was like, dude, this is crazy, man. Yeah. March 21st, I got a theory. I got a theory for that, but a lot of people were like, why are they holding so long? And I have, at least for my area, I have a theory of why I think that is, but I know there's a lot of theories out there, but for a lot of people, like when I look back in my best shed finds, yeah, from the 15th to the 10th of March, Is when I find the most sheds.

That's, when I do that, I'm gonna go hit this place again. And then that's when I find,[00:23:00] that it might have been laying there three weeks, but I end up finding it then. And it seems like the biggest sheds I've found are either really early, like late January or this time, mid late March.

Yeah, I don't know, man. It's crazy. But talking about this timeframe, what are you doing right now? What, what does preparing for next season, next season look like for you? Really? Over the past few years I've this is how I'm explained it is I've took an a shotgun method where I'm trying to find the biggest deer to hunt and I'm going out and I'm not, but a lot of people, Don't realize that I think clicked for me for a few years ago.

I'm not only trying to find the biggest deer to hunt, I'm trying to find the biggest deer to hunt. That's the easiest to kill. Okay. Which a lot, it's, that skips a lot of people's mind. There's a giant deer here, but it's an insanely hard spot to, to kill that deer. Or maybe you've hunted him for two years and you're like, [00:24:00] man, this steer's really hard to kill.

But I run a bunch of cams, lot of different properties. I'm always scouting new stuff, bopping around. And it doesn't take a lot to really ah, man, this looks good. I need to get something in here. I need to get a caver. And there's always that in the back of my hi mind. What if there's a giant in here?

Like even if the sign's like mediocre, you're like, man, what if there's just a giant in here and he's, he is not getting pressured and there's someone's missing something. And a lot of camps if you run, I run right around 40 cams. Okay? If you run that many cams, you get a lot of bucks on cam and then it becomes the game of I got, this is a target buck, this is the target buck.

And you got done to take a shotgun and say, I think this boat up here might do this today I'm gonna go there. And then you're hunting 45 minutes away from home. And then you hunt there two days and now you're hunting 10 minutes away from home and then you're on another [00:25:00] buck, and then you hunt in for two or three days and then you're on another property.

That's what I've done in the past and I, this January, February, I started doing the same thing. I'm stretching out even further. I'm two hours away from home on public land. I'm two and a half hours away from home and I'm scouting stuff and then stuff's looking good and low pressure. Like I got one spot, man.

It's river bottom. Just opened up to honey last year, only three deer were killed off of it. No human pressure at all. Ooh. Incredibly thick. Good sign. I'm like, man, this, it feels like a lot of doze. And the private is, there's box blinds and stuff all around the private. I'm like, okay, pressure. No pressure here.

The dose are gonna be here. The, they're gonna get pushed in here. And it is one of those spots that's like twisting my arm, but it's on the state line, like it's pretty far, yeah. It's right on the river, on the state line. But I'm trying to rope it back in. When I [00:26:00] really started to lay down giants after giant, I had a stretch there where I just was killing, really solid big deer every year, a couple of.

And I'm still killing deer, but they're not, I'm not as consistent and I'm not killing them. Early October I did last year, but I'm just stretching myself too thin on too many different properties. Okay, so this year I'm gonna pick a couple bucks that I deem that I not only wanna shoot, but are that are to kill, that I think is the easiest to kill.

I got a buck that I missed last year that I named jojo. It's one of those bucks that I can only hunt the field edge, the buck's in nocturnal. I put a lot of effort in on that deer. I had an opportunity on him. October 30th, I hit a limb, I would've got it done, but he I ran 11 camps on the pieces within a mile of that area.

There. I, there's a couple different pieces of private, and I only had 'em on one cam in [00:27:00] daylight one time during the whole entire year. And then I encountered him in daylight. I seen him go into an area in the morning. And then I went back in there that evening and caught him coming out. And I thought he would come right to these scrapes and he went downwind of the scrapes yeah, pretty far.

And he hung on the field edge, which I never killed a big deer on a field edge unless it was on like a little secluded food plot. Like I've never killed one working the edge of a scrape on a field edge or something. It's always been in the timber or on a little food plot or in a pinch point or something like that, or c r p.

But he went downwind of it and he gave me that 40 yard shot, low light, hit a limb. And then I knew this steer was al already like really hard to kill. Cuz he. Daylighting on my piece very well. And then the spot that he was daylighting, I spooked him and then I continued to hunt that deer over and over on and off throughout the year and I should have just [00:28:00] washed it and ran cameras connected data and let him chill.

But that would be what I'm doing right now is trying to rope. I'm still scouting ground just cuz I would love to look at stuff and think about how deer would react and what the signs showing just to keep my mind in the game for when it counts. But whooping myself into, even with pulling all my trail cam data I got a pile of cards right here in front of the, in the table like 13 or 14 cards that I've been going through and just cipher and data and then cataloging do I deem this buck killable and is it something that I want to go after next year?

If it's not something I want to go after next year, I'm gonna pull some assets off of him and put assets on the bucks that I think are killable. Got it. Because if you hit that shotgun pattern, you only have so many assets, so much time. And if I would've had four more cams on that Deere, jojo [00:29:00] could have made a difference.

Maybe not, but Right. You can't hunt, you can't hunt 10 bucks. That's something that like I gotta really focus on next year. Cause I, you start getting bucks everywhere, you're like, oh man, I got, can go over here. I go over here and having a couple spots is good, but having 10 or 15 bucks. Or you're like, yeah, chew bad.

Like it's, that's that what you're gonna do. That's challenging, man. That's a big challenge. Now let me ask you this, about your cameras and multiple properties. Do you look at it on a a front of a. And number of years at all, do you say, Hey, this is like a three year plan where I'm gonna watch this area one year, get the lay of the land if things really pop up and like you said, I think it could be an easy kill, then you could go in there.

But say if it's not an easy kill and you really still like that property, cuz you still, they're like, you found that big deer, but it's not maybe daylighting or do you move those cameras, toss other cameras out. So come year two, [00:30:00] you see what it is, what that would bring. Do you have any philosophy regarding that?

Like a timeframe until you I don't wanna say leave a spot, right? But like until you're I'm going in on this spot instead of the other. So one thing that I've noticed over the past years of running I so many cams and so many different properties. There's always your consistently good spots for really big deer.

If a property has a really big deer there's, and it's, it's fairly good size. Even if that deer gets killed, there's gonna be another big deer, or there might be two or three good deer that are gonna be big deer. So I always, I have a piece of property that I've hunted for public, that I've hunted for five years.

I've killed one buck off of it out of those five years. And I've encountered some of the biggest deers I've ever hunted on that property. And got multiple pictures of 'em and countered them year after year. And it's [00:31:00] incredibly hard to hunt, but it's worth me running the content cuz the qual the gear there.

The cams because the quality of gear. Yeah. I have private land where. I run cams that spots that I know I cannot hunt. Like I can't get there and hunt, but it's still important for me to run a cam on that same tree every single year. And I get good fixtures every single year of, a lot of cruiser bucks there.

Like it's a cruising property. So it just gives you an idea of what's in the area, because I feel like a lot of people, they get so small minded when it comes to, this is my property, this is the deer that I have, but you get one picture of a random giant, right? You know that there's a random giant somewhere, so if you could pick up another 40 down the road, it's worth digging into that area a little bit more than if you say, I haven't got anything.

One 30 on cams here all year, like the [00:32:00] neighboring properties probably are in that same category. It's not, it's the, those random giants are out there. But if you have a property that consistently has a random giant, and maybe he's just a fire bug, there's a property that's holding him somewhere close, and that's something that I really try to do.

I get one piece and then I try to get something within a mile, get another piece, and then get another little chunk, and then get a waterway, and then get permission to shed hunt somewhere. But you can't even hunt there, but you can shed hunt there. Okay. What bucks are there during shed See, can you start adding some stuff up to where you can see the big picture of the plot map of an area instead of just your little slice of, I get a one, I get a picture of a giant buck running through here November 20th to the 25th every year.

What's the odds of him coming back? And if, you know there's giants in the area, there's a good chance that there'd be a giant in there in that timeframe. And Boer Town's a property that, it doesn't hold beer, but [00:33:00] I guarantee one 70 plus goes through that property every year because I get him on can.

It's just like you just, it's this property. Do you go in there and hunt and you could kill an absolute legend or you could see nothing. It's like that's just one of those areas. Yeah, those areas that. Have had great encounters with on bucks that you've killed. Maybe just again, just had great encounters with, and you look at now from, March until Greenup, are you diving into other aspects to learn, okay, this is how Deer I saw, maybe changed a little bit around the property.

How could I help just be like, help myself come fall? Because obviously I know a lot of people really put a lot of eggs in the basket right now, right? It's a great opportunity. However, one fall comes around, something could have totally messed up that area, right? There could have been intruder hunter, there could have been something that the game Commission has done.

There's different things that play that role and you have to go then off of that news sign. Is there [00:34:00] anything else that maybe you're looking at a map at a to topo map and you're saying, Hey, I want to check this out. Do you push in further in certain spots just to maybe get a little bit better?

Understanding of that piece of property? Yeah. What I like to do, if I was gonna go scout a piece of property that I've hunted in the past or brand new, I like to break it down. I pick some points that I for sure want to hit. And then from there, those areas, maybe it's like an inside corner of a private ag field.

Or maybe it's a, a peninsula on the edge of a river where I know they're gonna get pinched in, or something like that where I can get on some good sign. And I like to do the, I call it the fence method. Like I'll go to say the same on private. I'll go to the neighbor's fence line, I'll find the heaviest fence crossing and I'll trust him back into my piece and understand what are the deer doing when they come off the neighbors to get through this property.

Okay. [00:35:00] Where's the Buck Sign Co. Coinciding with these main trails. Is this main trail going to bedding? Is this main trail going to food? Is this main trail just coming off there and going to another property? And then, like I said, coincide that with the buck sign that you're seeing.

And I do the same thing on public. Find the ag crossing, find a heavy creek crossing, find a river crossing and go back from there. Cuz it gives you a really good point of where a lot of deer are meeting. And then you, instead of just zigs ag scouting through a piece, you have a point of reference of where you believe that most of the deer are gonna end up at the end of the rainbow when you can no longer hunt them.

This is where they're gonna be, where can I hunt them and go back from there. And maybe there's six crossings, on, on a piece of private, right? Yep. And you follow three out of those six and they lead to one ag field. Okay, now you've pinpointed three, [00:36:00] 50% of the main trails on this property is going to this ag or to this bedding.

And you run a cam on one of those three trails, you got a pretty good chance of getting the majority of the deer that are on that property. That's one thing that I love to do is find a common scout point and don't scout the property off of the whole entire 600 acre piece, scouted off of three points of interest, and then push in from that.

And if these are spots that you think that you can get into hunt or spots that you think, like 90% of the deer are, there's one spot on a piece of public I drive past repeatedly on the way to work and I always see doze crossing the road in the morning, the exact same spot. What do I. I park the car there, I go in there and say, why are all the doughs crossing right here? You go in there, there's a water pinch, makes perfect sense. You go, there's water pinch that's forcing the deer to come through here. If that's a spot that I hunted in the rut. I mentioned it on my rut [00:37:00] podcast.

I hunted that water pinch, had a really solid buck chase a dough right past me, past that water pinch just outta range. So finding a spot of interest instead of going and trying to tackle a giant piece. It's the same kind of thing as me not trying to do a shotgun pattern. Yeah, you're trying to snipe stuff out, you're trying to be like, okay, I'm really gonna focus on this area.

And then go from there. And then one thing that I think a lot of people fail on is they get out, they scout right now, they find the sign, they got a great plan that this stuff's clicking, man, it's gonna be a great year. They get out there. And it's not, the shit ain't working. Like it's just not, the deer aren't doing what you thought.

You're noticing that the deer are ridge over, but you're not making a move, right? Like you miss something. Maybe you altered them checking cans. Maybe someone else altered them. Maybe the neighbor put a juicy chickie clover plot in and it's pull more deer early season. There's something that's changed.[00:38:00]

So what I like to say is scout, but verify scout right now. But when you get closer to season, verify that what you think and what you've seen is still the same. And at least you're gonna have the upper hand of knowing the main travel corridors on that piece. That's key. Where a lot of people are like I got a nighttime picture of them.

The deer's alive, right? You know the area. You got the nighttime pictures of them. Think about that trail system, how it works through that property. Okay. Where's, if he's going east, where's the furthest east crossing that I can get to that he might be in daylight, run a cam over there, maybe he's still not daylight there.

Then, okay, this new's probably not daylight, and on this piece he's daylight somewhere else. That's how I go about it, especially this time of year. And I'm also out there, I'm planning, I'm marking potential cam sky sites. If I find a good spot like that, I find a scrape, I'm a sucker for ready to cam long [00:39:00] term, and I still have cams out right now.

I have three that I haven't got. And they're hella far away. They're hella deep. And I put good batteries in 'em. They're probably not still taking pictures. Maybe they are, but as long as they're not stolen, I got the content still. If I get it a year from now, I still got the content. But yeah, that's where I would start is get in an area where, You know there's good deer, and then find those main travel routes.

And then in season, when you get that choking picture in your mind, you can say, okay, there's a trailer goes here, A trailer goes here. What's this deer doing? Make a game plan off of that, Spartan Forge stands at the nexus of machine learning and whitetail deer hunting to deliver truly intuitive and sign based products that saves the hundred times spent scouting, planning, and executing their hunts.

You have dear prediction, journaling and the best maps on any hunting app platform there is Use code antler up to save 20% off your Smart and forge membership@spartanforge.ai. I love that. Dude, there is so many things [00:40:00] that were clicking for me. We've got some pretty good deer on camera the last couple years, right?

And we're learning a little bit more of how the deer are using the mountain to, like you said, to travel. And so this past. Year was the first year that I made a little bit of adjust adjustments with my cameras. And this year I, dude, I've produced more mature bucks and one and two more bucks just in general on camera than I my dad and I have ever had before my whole life growing up.

I'm 36 years old, I've been going up to the mountain with him for my whole life. And it's been really cool to see some things of, like you said, finding that travel corridor area. How are these deer? Why are these deer moving? And just putting it in different spots that he would've never really have hunted be before.

And this past year, and I just looked to continue that. And by you saying, getting in there a little bit more, figuring out like where these deer are moving. That's exactly what I'm [00:41:00] hoping. Kinda we could continue to figure out and put a little bit more pieces to the puzzle because man, I know you've killed a lot of nice big deer in October.

There were some chances this year that I don't know if I just messed up with the wrong wind because man, I was getting some good ones on camera that I was like, ah this might actually work. And years past, dude, like honest to gosh, I never had those opportunities where I was going in on an October hunt feeling confident that I was going to kill a buck.

I was confident that I could go kill a deer, meaning a dough or whatever. But this past year was the first year where I was thinking in my mind I might have a chance in actually seeing one of these bucks because of I was in that area. Yeah, I'm just trying to do a little bit better with that.

And right now putting those cameras out, I want to know what your philosophy is. Cause you were saying, you were, you are marking. Spots now where you plan on putting a camera. Like here, where I live currently, I don't have any private, I do hunt [00:42:00] public, like I put out a camera already. Just a, it's like a long term camera.

It's a cell camera. It's like you said, it's a little bit further far back deep. It's a pain in the ass to get back there. If I did not see really any human sign as far as ca cameras one or tree stands left up after the season. Cause I know not everybody takes them down here, but I left the camera up and I'm gonna let it soak long term.

And maybe sometime in October, that will be a morning that I go hunt. And when I quote unquote get down, I'm gonna go scout around and check things out to see like what you just said, verify. And that is something, a goal of mine is for next year is more. I wanted to scout a lot more right now. So I do have opportunities to hunt here locally in October.

A little bit more so than I, going off of historical data, I know in northeast pa. That end of October into early November does light up. That is my better chance of seeing a mature buck. But at the other side of things, it [00:43:00] is on that I wanna scout more locally here so I could have a better idea of what's happening here rather than going I don't know, go and trying to go find the sign now, which is, a lot more difficult.

So now is good, rather than trying to wait till hunting season. Yeah. The biggest advantage that, people always say kill your, your next year's buck right now. And what that means to me in a nutshell is, of a buck that is in an area that survived, that's key. You got a good chance, you got a good thought that this deer survived.

You don't wanna waste your time if he hasn't, if. If you don't know if he's alive or not, because we've been there. And we've done that game. And it's when you put assets and time in something and you know he was killed last year, it's a just a com complete waste. But anyways when people say that, I'm killing my buck right now through this coming year, what they're doing in my mind is they're going in where they know that Buck likes to be where he, they've seen him bed maybe where they got trail cam [00:44:00] pictures of him.

And they're really, they're like digging into 35 acres really deep. They're digging into 50 acres really deep. Why is this deer here? Why is he bedding here? What is connecting the dots and how can I hunt it? Like, where's the tree I can get into? Where can I access? What time of year do I need to be there?

And that's the stuff that they're figuring out right now. But sometimes, like we've had bucks, do the same thing, same area. They're back on the cams, same timeframes, and then. I, there's some bucks that there's just nothing that remotely patterns, anything. They just do whatever they want, right?

Yep. They don't walk on a trail really, even. They're just cut through shit. And one thing I have noticed the thicker the property, the less dense the deer travel. If you've got a kind of a open timber setting they, they're densed in a certain area, traveling in when you get into some sick c r p overgrown pasture, they're [00:45:00] doing a trail this day.

Maybe they take a trail day. But I have a lot more success and a wooded environment, this, and I can really pinpoint the gear down when they get into an overgrown pasture, cuz I hunt a lot of that. Cuz one thing my, my dad didn't hunt a lot, but my step grandpa from Missouri, he hunted a lot.

Okay. And he always said, if there's rabbits there and there's big bucks there, and that overgrown pasture is loaded with rabbits, and you go into a piece like that and there's buck sign everywhere, there's rubs on all the little trees, there's beds, there's scrapes, and it's just the deer like to be in that environment, cuz there's a lot of brows for them without even really moving.

A lot of, shrubs and high stem count stuff. It's also great thermal cover and yeah. Great visual cover, it's got kind of everything they need right there. And sometimes I get into, Some of that stuff and it's tore up and then other times it's not tore up. And I think it's just eristics of deer in an area [00:46:00] that just goes back to, like you said, you've been hunting this piece, you're seeing what the bucks are doing, you're getting more trail cam data.

And there be, there come a time on that piece where you're finding knack for that spot. And you're like, okay, this is something that I can do. And then your pill, and then you're be like, oh, and then you're killed again and you're like, oh, I'm really onto something. And then just like the piece that I killed, the Tina piece where I killed, I killed a 1 55 with a bow, a 1 48 with a bow. I shot and lost a buck. That was 180 plus I killed freeze at 1 93. I killed 155 inch 10 pointer. And it was just, I just figured that piece out and the shit was just clicking.

And I. Those bucks out of three different stands, but they were just, it was, they were all doing the same thing. It was just different times of the year, and stuff was really clicking for me and working good. And you'll get there where shit starts clicking for you and then you're like, God, I dig this.

And then as long as s don't change anything, or you don't pressure real hard you [00:47:00] can consistently kill in the same manner, these bucks. Because I don't know if it's a, a genetic thing or if the young bucks, even big bucks doing certain things and surviving, but big deer do big deer shit on property and then they just continued to do the same thing, yep. That's what I'm seeing. Big deer do. Big deer shit. I love that. That's gonna be like the title of this podcast. Kidding? Yeah. Yeah. That's just something that always comes back to Some might throw a wrench in the system and be like, why, man, why do he do that? But just like that buck. Last year I hit the limb on, of course he went down window of the scrapes and didn't walk right into the scrapes.

Every two and three year old does. Of course, he went down when and checked him. He's checking 'em from 50 yards away, cent checking em. He don't have to go to the scrape, it's just the small things that you see over time and then you're like, man, I'm a dumbass. I knew that he would do that, but me, I'm like, there's a scrape on my right.

There's a scrape on my left. I'm gonna get right in the [00:48:00] middle. He hits either one. I can shoot either one, and it was supposed to work, but he went downwind of both of 'em, it didn't really pan out. No, dude, you brought up some really great points and I love it.

And when you talk about, you having 40 plus cameras, do you do anything different as far as your camera strategy, your hunting strategy on the private to public at all? Just because, I know both have their challenges, right? Like they're not the same, but they're one I know for some people could say, yeah, one is easier than the other, but I don't really say that.

Because again, depending on what kind of property in your property layout is but, do you do anything different with your camera strategy or even your hunting strategy for either? Yeah. I consider them two completely different animals of how I hunt, how I approach 'em. The private, I, most of the time the private pieces are smaller.

So I'm way more fragile on there. I don't like to. Go in there. I don't like to press deep [00:49:00] public. I'm balls to the wall just trying to make stuff happen. I was a hundred percent public for a while. I lost most of my private, I'm picking up more private. But I'm, I would say I'm aggressive on the private w than I need to be, but I'm always aggressive on the public because why not?

You're not only trying to kill that deer, you're trying to beat everybody else to kill that deer. And some of the private that I run a specific cam. A lot of mine are specific cam People know me by that. They see me in the parking lot. I've been running this podcast for a long time.

They know the cams, they know the areas. I don't hang any preset stands for that fact. I run dummy cams to try to throw people off the trail a little bit. And The guys are savages. Dude. There's some savage dudes out there that are not. I got one guy, killer dude. Killer hunter. Real, just awesome guy.

But dude he goes harder than I do straight up. Yeah. I'm insane for it. And he is on there's no amount of [00:50:00] work for him. If he wants to get in a spot, if he's gotta spend a day and a half cutting a hand trail to get there, he's gonna get there with me. I'm like, it's a giant buck, but man, I got something that's pretty solid over here.

I'm gonna go take a poke at him. He's just not, and then the dude kills. Yeah, the dude he kills, he killed the second biggest deer on that public. And last year and, I was, that was Jack's farm, the dude, he deserves it. Yeah, I planned on going and getting in an area that was really hard and he was already there, I'm like, I see the cans back there.

I'm like, I know that is. And three minutes later I get a text message, ah, you're back in there are ya? I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna throw a couple cams up. And he is oh yeah, that's, we got a bunch back there. And we have respect for each other that we know. We're not gonna play dirty, but we're not gonna play easy either.

We're gonna, we're both gonna swing for the fences out there. And I struck [00:51:00] out passed a couple good deer and I was just after one specific deer out there and I I went in there and hunted him and one day I went in, it was. Really cold. It's a long ways in. You got a bike a long ways in, you gotta hike, you gotta pack the stuff in.

I got down in this bottom and I had a trail cam picture of him with some doze and I was like, okay, he's with these dough About two days ago, I said, if he comes off these doughs, where's he gonna go? Like, where would be the next dough group that he, right when he come off that dough, he would bump to.

And I went down that bottom and I hunted. I seen that group of four doughs, nothing with him. Little basket eight come through. End up passing a buck that was pretty solid. And eight, probably at one 20 s eight with a split two mid twenties. And I was like, man, good hunt. I end up, when I got down, I ended up bumping bumping those four doors that were coming out, that bedding area.

I was like, shit, I should have got out earlier, whatever. But I [00:52:00] went back to work the next day. That was the last day of my vacation. And Running a cell camp right where I was set up and snowed that night big, like two or three inches. And that morning he came through there, 9:00 AM all covered in snow.

190 inch plus deer. Oh, 20 yards from where I set up, middle of day like 9:00 AM working the wind. Exactly. Just going to that, going to those, do those dough. I was a day off when he bumped off. Those do to the other do, and I'm at work, I get that, I get the notifications, I'm like, I don't even wanna look at it, and then I, it's him out there just giant as hell and I'm like, dude, like it's, you feel good cuz you know you made the right movie or just a day off, and yeah. Props to that deer man. Yeah. Props to that deer. He hung with those girls a little longer than I thought he was going. Dude, I, so here's a random question and w and it's regarding this because I never.

I don't know if I would ever see a 1 93 [00:53:00] on the hoof here where I hunt. And in your mind there's been times where I've hung either like a new camera or if I was just o outside of a killing, like I laid my eyes on a buck that I was hoping to find. And when he, comes without killing that deer, and take the 1 93 out of it. Just take man, that was a great deer. I knew I was after. Do you look at that as I won. Do you look at that as like checkmate? I got you there. You just, you were just that, like you were the ult. He ultimate checkmate you, but you check made him because you found him.

Yeah. You do. You know what I mean? Do you see what I'm trying to say then? Yeah, I know what you're saying. I I have felt like that on a couple deer. One in particular was I had this buck An incredible eight pointer, probably high forties, 50, but he had a nine inch drop off one side. Okay.

So he'd have been a sixties class deer high, 50 sixties class deer. And that was a deer that I was like getting sporadic cams [00:54:00] pictures. And I was like, man, I just don't know where this deer's at. And there's this little bitty shitty itch on the neighbors. It's tiny little trees in it, grass brown bean filled, the driest brownest beans you've ever seen.

And I'm like, I bet you that deer's in there. I bet you he's in there, and I go out middle of October, it's warm. I'm sitting in this, I set up in this area. I've never seen a deer here, like never on the edge of the property. 250 yards from the house. Like I'm not really in thick cover.

That butt comes right out into those dried beans and starts eating. And he's at 70 yards and irun at him, and he puts his head down, he rips it up, he's got beans, stubble hanging down, and stuff. And I see that giant drop and I'm like, oh, I got you. I got you, man. Yeah, I know exactly where you're at.

And he didn't come into the grunt man. He just stood out there, come out at 70 and worked away in those beans and fed for 30 minutes in the daylight. And I was [00:55:00] like, you know what? I didn't kill that deer, but I was just so close. And it was off of just the pure fact. I got some pictures of him ran through my mind of this, where could he be, yeah. And I just was like, I bet you he's in there. And I ended up finding that deer dead. Oh. During shed season. I still have the deadhead salvage tag. Just a freaking awesome bucks. He got a little split too. And giant drop time right off the main beam. And drop time buck something I don't have That's, I missed a drop time buck last year.

Sure. Then jojo Buck had a little five inch main beam drop and I was like, that's the one. Yep. That's the one that got just the stuff I don't have that I'm ready to get, and I've, the buck that I shot and lost, that was high eighties. It had a drop time. I just got a curse when it comes to, to, to that feature I guess.

But that was one of those bucks where I was like, he died during shed season. I don't know how quick he died during the season, but I never had encountered him after that hunt. Yeah. But I was like, man, I was so close, and if he would've come to [00:56:00] that grunt, dead deer, and a lot of my situations have been like that where a buck I call Magna Pi, a lot of people know same thing, a hundred mid nineties class deer 75 yards middle of a C R P field.

Grounded at him. I was right there working through the pinch right where I needed to be. Just man, like I, when you get that close and you throw the grt at him, you throw the snort. We what? Can you do Yeah. Like you're a tree, a couple trees off. You gotta take some pride in that. And just know that wasn't, it wasn't your day, it was the deer's day, but going back to it, and you think about the situation of why the deer did it, and you're like, that makes sense.

Yeah. Why he was there. But it's hard to take all the. Everything into one nutshell, but it's way easier to see it, to do something and then talk about why it was there. Cause stuff starts clicking a little better. Yeah. Hell yeah, dude. Here's a little [00:57:00] educational piece that I think I would like you to maybe explain to listeners, because you brought up talking about that buck ear a little bit earlier, about hitting down, maybe getting down to river bottom, hitting a scrape.

And like you said, that Buck could just check that 50 yards down wind and doesn't need to hit that scrape. And, you could make a dumb access route. Maybe give your game plan or your. What you would do in this situation, you are hunting the middle of October. It's at October 18th through the 23rd.

I, I, timeframe you find some fresh sign, whether it be a scrape or some rubs, and then you boom, you come across that scrape and you know it's fresh. You're about to get some rain tonight, and tomorrow you think that buck's gonna refresh and not sucker up. What's your game plan with the wind?

You can give yourself like this scenario of maybe something you re you've already lived this or how are you [00:58:00] attacking this moment? So if I found a spot that I was pre fired up upon, what I would really want is historical data. That'd be number one. If I had historical data of a buck hitting that, scrape those bucks, come back to the same scrapes.

They just do. It's something you can write. If the deer's alive, more than likely he's gonna hit that scrape, depending on if it's if it's a buck that gets killed and he starts that scrape, then that, then the scrape might not be there. Like some, sometimes the scrapes just never pop back up.

And for what I've killed the deer and then went in there had a scrape that was fire for two years, killed the deer. That was always the first deer, the most active deer on the scrape. And then the scraps not there last year, so what I would want is I would want it to be October 3rd week or October, I would want it to be, An evening where the scrape is pretty close to bedding, where I think this deer is bedding.

I would want [00:59:00] some, a truck and daylight on it within the last 10 days would be awesome. Okay. But that doesn't have to happen. But I would want it to be, decent weather, don't need to be freezing, but like 55 for the high, like just a nice crisp, maybe 40 for the low 55 for the high third week of October.

If there was any rain in the forecast, I would want it to probably rain fairly hard for, an hour or so, giving me an hour and a half before dark. And I would wanna be set up. There's two ways I like to set up on 'em, and it's depending on how the deer is I'd, I wanna set up.

Right on the scrape where I can like, as close as I can get where I can cover the J hook. Got it. So if he comes in j hooking, I wanna be able to shoot that. But if I, if he comes directly to the scrape, I wanna shoot that. So try to play the buffer, is the deer gonna go downwind? Hit it. If he's [01:00:00] sent checks, it keeps rolling.

If he, Jay hooks in cuz the Buckeye killed off the urban piece be two years ago in October Keith Jay hooked right into that scrape, actually walked away from the scrape, circled out around it, and then came in and we were catching him trying to come in on the down one side and we shot him. But if we would've been set up on, on the other side of the scrape, it wouldn't have worked.

But you gotta give them enough of the wind on that scrape to where you can catch 'em before they make that 90 degree turn to J Hook. If they do Jay Hook, sometimes they don't. Cover the downwind side more than the actual scrape, but have the scrape in open. So maybe 30 yard shot to the downwind side and I can catch 'em angle, man.

It maybe a 25 or something. And then maybe 25 from the scrape or 20 from the straight. And I've set as close as five yards on top, like literally where the scrapes stand there at the base of the tree because I don't plan on killing that [01:01:00] deer there. I plan on killing them 20 yards away from there, 30 yards away from there.

But that's where I would want that to be, would be evening, little rain I got in a priest. That stand is always great. But if you got, if you hang a stand, you got a little cover noise with the rain and there's something about October rains, I will go down in history saying that just gets bucks up for some reason.

I have no idea why. But there's some, something about it where they're just like, oh, I'm gonna get up and move around. Yeah. But yeah, that would be my go-to time to attack that situation. I love that, man. Thank you for explaining that little educational piece. Now, before we there's two other things I'm hoping we could squeeze in before we get off.

I guess you run Exodus Trail cameras. Just, I, that's what I run mainly as. Obviously you saw the whole Kansas thing banning it and on, on public land and everything like that. What's your take? Are you hunting a lot [01:02:00] of out of hunt or out of state hunts? Do you agree with it? I'm gonna probably say no since you run 40 cams.

I'm with you on that side of things, I guess that's the hot topic right now. Couple weeks ago when ATA happened it was, oh, these live on demands. I'm not for that. Like it doesn't really do me any good. Exodus has been having that feature on scout tech for years anyway, and I never once don't think I used it other than when I wanted to make sure I never, yeah. I wanted, I never used it other than take a picture to make sure this game working is the only thing I've ever done. Yeah. Correct. What's your, what's I guess, what's your thought process man, because I was one that was potentially thinking about being dead red on going to Kansas and not, that doesn't steer me away.

I just don't know how. Maybe cuz last year was a really high application. Number for Kansas, and it's okay, what does next year do? Does that drop, does this now? Yeah. Cause people to think I don't wanna go, or does that cause people to say, Ooh, now I will go. You know what I mean? So yeah. [01:03:00] What's your take on it man?

I don't like it at all. Couple reasons. I just, from what I watched and what I've seen I don't believe it's actual game and benefit to hunting related. I think it's a controversy from two different types of hunters. And I have seen the controversy of that in my own stake where there's ground that's designated for one type of hunting and then they start allowing gear hunting on that area never goes well.

Like cams get messed with, cams get stolen, people are messing up your hunt on purpose. So I believe that's what it's about. I don't, that's just my speculation, because I know why Utah did it. And the way, the reason they did it makes more sense to me. But the Kansas dis it's a different animal than Utah.

It's, yeah. It's more of a, an open, [01:04:00] open land where you're not gonna push these animals so far that it changes how they're living, right? Like they're just gonna bump around and go a hundred yards from yet. But what a lot of people thinks that will do is it will lower pressure. I think it up the pressure.

I think people, one thing that I think trail cameras do, which is strange that people think about is I think it keeps them. Him and honest. Yeah. A guy doesn't wanna wreck a whole piece of public land, maybe because he thinks he's gonna be on 38 people's trail cams. Maybe it's November and he is thinking about going over here and scouting a ridge, but he sees two or three cams and he is ah, maybe I'll back out.

Or right maybe. Someone's probably hunting this area. It gives an idea of what's going on. But now it's gonna be just open and the thing with it is a law, but people are gonna follow it, right? Yeah. There's gonna be guys that are running cams and running cell cams and running [01:05:00] red cams and they're gonna have such an upper leg on regular hunters by breaking the law.

Yeah. And I, and that's how a lot of things are, you cheat. It's easier. And now Kansas public Land trail cams are cheating. Which without trail cams I, my, my success as a hunter when I started using trail cams, just encountering big deer skyrocketed because I'm, I was wasting time where deer weren't even living and just not knowing my learning curve. I think about a, maybe a 17 year old kid, maybe his dad don't hunt. He's just trying to get into hunting and he only has public land, and now he's just going out there. No idea what kind of deer on the ground. No idea. And I know people say the big topic is woodsmanship, right?

But what people don't understand about Woodsmanship is it's either passed down or learnt over like a generation, right? Like without the Intel [01:06:00] show cameras the woodsmanship learning curve would be how much time can you spend in the woods? That's what it would be. So a guy that didn't have a job.

Huge advantage on a guy who worked full-time and had, four kids. Yeah. A guy that, has been hunting the same piece for 30 years. Huge advantage over some new kid that's just starting. So a guy that is, or may, maybe it's an adult, when he's 30 years old, he's I'm gonna start hunting.

And he wants to be successful. He wants to just see doze, he wants to see deer. Yep. Like the whole tendency for them was about bucks in age class and this and that. And I'm like, if people don't know there's a one 70 out there, they're gonna shoot. The first one 30 they see it's gonna lower the age class.

It's gonna make it harder to find the deer. The deer are gonna have just as much pressure. There's gonna be people going into areas more scouting and hunting and. I [01:07:00] think there's gonna be people that outlaw it and then I think there's people that are gonna think it's be gonna be it's the cool thing to do now is team, no trail cam out there hunting the public land.

Look what I did. I got a demo's on a piece of ground with no trail cams. That's gonna be five years down the road. I'm calling it out right now. Yep. There's gonna be people traveling to specific states that don't allow trail cams, just so they can say, I got this done off of woodsmanship. Like it, that it is just, it's gonna happen.

And I think that, I don't think Kansas is gonna see a huge draw in tags. But it, I think it'll make a small impact. But I think they. The deer harvest numbers will go down. Yeah. I just per pure fact of a guy's man, I got seven doughs coming in here, I'm gonna go kill two of them. You're gonna, you're gonna just see less deer just straight up.

It's gonna be harder to find them. You're not gonna know how to access the ground. And people are gonna listen to this and say [01:08:00] that's woodsmanship. That's stuff that you just gotta find. But if you want people to have, you want people to continue to hunt, continue to buy tags, they gotta kill deer.

Like they gotta have a good kind. Yep. People say, I'm out there for the, to be in the wilderness and all of us are, but we also don't wanna go two or three years without killing anything. Yep. And if everybody if everybody, if I never had trail camps and they took every single one that I had right now and said, these are completely banned, you cannot use them.

I would say, My sidings of the age, the size of deer that I wanna chase would cut in half. Like the first year it would cut in half because I wouldn't know that Hunter Joe bumped him over here and now he's hanging out over here. It would just k with hurt my hunting substantially. So I'm against it. I know that Illinois's talking about public land banning every time of year already.

So I could see Illinois being [01:09:00] one of the next states that do it. But like I said, there's gonna be guys out there that, and the thing is it's we're not gonna do it. We wanna improve our herd. We want to do better for the H class, but we're not gonna push anything for private land. We're not even suggest that you don't use cameras on private land.

You can do whatever you want there, right? Yep. But public land, That the people pay for it, that everybody's supposed to own. You can't do this. Yeah, totally. That, and the game wardens, holy shit. Like the game wardens are like, there is, there's gonna be a impound lot of trail cameras. That's a mountain high.

Yeah. Because people aren't gonna go, okay, are gonna go get the cams for one, and then people are still going to run 'em. There's gonna be a few people that are like, I'm gonna follow the laws and do the right thing, but I'm gonna say there's gonna be 30% of guys that are like, you know what, I'm running cams.

So hell yeah. We head off. Then Cody, let's dive into a recap of, your [01:10:00] season this year and then anything that you plan on changing for next year. This year I encountered more of my big bucks than I ever did. Had close encounters, had close calls. I drew on the same buck three times the same day.

I, I ru, I grunted and rattled into shooter bucks at the same time. I missed that. What giant. By one day I shot and hit the limb on that other buck. Just, I hunted, I encountered really big, like high 1 48 with my kids in the blind. Came to 60 yards, wouldn't come any closer. That would've been the first year I ever killed an open cut cornfield with those.

Passed a really good buck during gun season. And there's something. It seems like November 25th to December 15th, I struggled during that timeframe. So all those close calls, [01:11:00] all those encounters didn't result in, I only released one arrow and that was at that buck I missed. But I ended up killing a buck December 28th on a little hill plot that I made.

Just a one you do with a four-wheeler and a hand sprayer and broadcast some seed. I was able to kill that buck and just a real solid three year old. It is right at 131 inch a pointer with some bass kickers, just who great buck, nothing insane. But I was really proud of that deer cuz my year had been one of if I was filming stuff.

So I have every, all the content and if people were following me around, they're like, dude, you're all over shit. Yeah. But I was just. I missed that buck and I was timid and I should have took some shots after watching the footage where I didn't. And I was seeing deer every shit though. Yeah.

Like I was in, in the game. And it was a really fun year. I hunted really hard. I took, I hunted 19 days straight. I [01:12:00] took a few mornings and evenings off there. And then I hunted late season fairly hard and ended up killing. And I killed a couple deer, couple dough. I killed a dough with a bow, and I killed a couple dough with a gun.

So it, it was all around Goodyear. But next year, like I said, I'm only gonna target a select few bucks instead of trying to span out and have that shotgun pattern. I'm gonna go back to the sniper pattern and just try to take out a couple and like I mentioned, before we started this, the kid's gonna start hunting.

First goal is I'd really like to get him just a deer, which it would be really easy. And then I really want to get him like a six point or like a basket eight or just something, just I'd never been like an incredibly emotional guy when it comes to my kids. I'm like the most emotional crying, like my kid, he's eight and he had he was playing basketball and he's having just an incredible game for an eight year old.

And it's a, it's a tie game and he steals the [01:13:00] ball and he's going down and it's that scene, yep. And he shoots it. He misses, of course. But like in that moment I caught myself tearing up I'm like, dude, this is my life right here, and now I get to experience that with what I love and deer hunting and I already know it's gonna absolutely rock my world of how incredibly impactful that moment's gonna be on my life.

Yeah. So I'm extremely excited for that. And we went overkill. We got him crossbo, we got him a three 50 legend. We got a Missouri rifle. He's going down Missouri rifle hunt with me to the family farm. So the kid's gonna be thrown into the mix of every different type of hunting and what he enjoys.

And I told my wife, I said, I don't care if none of they don't like hunting, but I got four kids. So I got four chances of one of 'em falling in love with it. And my five-year-old seems to really be, he asked for a [01:14:00] shotgun for his birthday at five years old. There you go. And stuff.

So I went and bought him one of those Breakdown. 4, 10, 20 twos. Yep. Survival rifles. I told my wife, I said, we can get him some other stuff as well, but they're recently priced and it's something he can have the rest of his life. And, when he shoots a squirrel when he is 40, hopefully he thinks about me.

That's what it, and thinks about the memories we had. Yeah, that's the main goal for me is try to neck down on the bucks that I'm targeting, focus on just a few, and then really focus on just being as low pressure and as fun and high energy with my kid as I can be about hunting.

If he messes up, if we spook deer, if whatever goes down we're gonna be out there just having the. Time of our lives. And it's the same thing with shed hunting. Like when we go shed hunting together, it's an adventure. Yeah. And my kids expect it now. Like we go on certain hikes, there's certain [01:15:00] spots that we sit, we have a snack, it's like an overlook.

And he's yeah, let's go shed hunting. But I wanna go to that one spot where we overlook the lake that looks like a tea with a rock. I'm like, okay dude, let's go. Let's go. And I walked out two weeks ago. But it's more of just having that spot. And there's a spot that he found a pair of sunglasses.

They were all scratched as shit. And he is always yeah, let's go back to the sunglass spot. Yeah. I'm like, that's not a very good spot for sheds. But he has association with those sunglasses. I'm like, all right man, let's go back to the sunglass spot. But Yep. Just trying to get them to understand.

How impactful hunting can be in their life, and it's something that they can enjoy forever. But we just went out recently and found our personal biggest four point side shed. I saw that the other day. You posted it, man. Yeah. And it's a, it's giant. I haven't scored it yet, but I was just trying to tell 'em like, you might not ever find a four point side bigger than this and your whole entire life, like this might be the peak of your shit hunting forever, this is it.

And trying to get him to [01:16:00] understand the heaviness of the situation and how I'm amped up, but yeah he just brought it to me. It's sucker man. GQ is insane dude, but Wow. Yeah, he's, it's a monster shed. So he found one on the same property, pretty good five point side a few years ago.

And this. Great grandpa's field. Like it's just a cool moment that I'll remember forever and hopefully him as well. So that'd be the goal is just making it as just absolutely over the top exciting for him. And and trying to kill a giant, I want to kill another, I want to go above that one 50 mark and get killed another one 60 with the bow.

Cuz that's the main goal, so I like it. And then Missouri Rifle gonna go down there and smash 'em, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Go down there and crush him. I like it, man. Before you get off here, Cody, just quick, rapid fire. What's the favorite day of the hunt? What's, what is your favorite day to hunt? If I got a cold front, October 15th, I've [01:17:00] killed two bucks on October 15th in the evening.

Something about the, that time of year, the leaves are starting to change. It's still nice out. It's not real cold. Yep. And you get that cold front and it's just that that first time where a lot of deer wanna move. Yep. And just a, that's a magical time in the woods. And I really like that timeframe.

I like it. Favorite piece of clothing, of hunting gear that you own or that you use? I have a pair of pry bibs from Badlands that I never really had invested in something that was expensive. Yep. And I bought that for late season hunting and now I have no excuse. If it's negative temps, I can literally go hunting.

And then another thing that I'll mention that a lot of people don't know and I ran ads for 'em for maybe a month and a half is a company called Under Warmer. I don't run ads for 'em anymore, but. Basically like a fitted wife beater and it has eight hot hands embedded in the t-shirt. [01:18:00] And like you can literally go out when it's insanely cold and wear a hoodie and a light jacket and you're like, warm.

Wow. Like incredibly warm. We went out and tried to kill a buck called, we call Buzz Lightner. And my old podcast go, oh, he ended up missing that deer that night, but it was negative 12 real temp. And we were out and I never even zipped up my jacket. And they're like 10 99 and they're you can zip lock bag.

You can get three hunts out of 'em. It's just like something that's incredibly cheap that a lot of people don't know about. Yeah. But it's like when you are able to go out there in any weather, it's just dynamite. Yeah. It's something that's, So cheap. And when you look at it, you're like, that's janky.

That ain't gonna work. But when you wear 'em, you're like, dude, this thing is epic. Yeah. Yeah. That's primo right there. I like it, dude. Cody, where could people find you? What day of releasing that podcast? I know you said it was Wednesday, just go [01:19:00] ahead and re-talk about touch upon where people could find you and what you got going on, dude.

Yeah, they can find me anywhere you can listen to podcast. I recently went to Waypoint as well, so you can find me on there. Spotify, iTunes Whitetail Legacy podcast. I released Wednesday at 11:00 AM Central time. I have for five and a half years. So I continue, I'm gonna continue to release episodes for the next five years.

One thing I'd like to mention is, we do this podcast and a lot of people ask me why I do it or what's the end goal. And the end goal is imagine, you said you have a nine year old daughter, right? Imagine your nine year old daughter, she's. 18 or whatever, and something happens to you or whatever, and you're not around anymore.

She's gonna have literally years Yep. Of your life where she can go back and listen to her dad, talk about what he loved, probably talk about stuff that she had going on in her life. Yep. Talking about the [01:20:00] kids and what they got going on and how powerful. How cool would that be if you had that for like your dad or your grandpa?

Yeah. My gosh. Yeah. Or he recorded something once a week about what he had going on and you got to listen to it 20 years ago because the content list forever. Yep. So the end goal would be, it would be incr. I would be incredibly happy if. My kid continues to hunt and I can just envelop him in the podcast and we go over what he's got going on, we go over what I got going on.

My next kid comes in and it's like a family tradition deal where we're just releasing content about what we going on. And then it's not only other people can listen to it, but it's stored forever in a way that we can go back and listen to it as well. So if he kills his first year this year and we get to record that and I have him on the podcast, I'll get to go back and live that forever ever and say, and listen to that story in his eyes, and him telling the story what he thought when, what [01:21:00] happened and then he'll get to relive that when he's 25 and he shows his kids.

It's just, it's something that's way more powerful than people understand other than just talking about bedding and scrapes and stuff. There's a lot, there's a lot more to it, but that's my end goal of podcasting is just. Leave a legacy is what I've been saying for five years. And this is my way of leaving a legacy for me, for people that know me, for my kids, for my grandkids.

How cool. You, your grand, your great grandkid one day is I wanna start hunting. Hey, great Grandpa Cody had a podcast back in the two thousands, and you can, he's got 5, 6, 7, 8 years of him learning how to hunt and then hopefully 10 years of him where he was crushing giants, so that's what I am bright for the future.

But I I appreciate you letting me come on and talk about the podcast and. What I got going on a little bit on your show. I appreciate it. Hell yeah, man. Dude, welcome to any time and I appreciate it. So if you are [01:22:00] already not listening, go put this into the rotation, man. I know you will not be disappointed.

So thanks again, Cody, for coming on. Thanks again everybody for listening. We'll see you next week. Till next time, aunt Laura.

‍