Big Woods Summer Scouting w/ Ryan Glitsky

Summer scouting season is in full swing.  Burning boot leather in the hot summer sun, moving cameras and gaining intel with the velvet rut around the corner, doctoring mock scrapes, all to prepare for fall.  Tackling new areas and large chunks of public land can be intimidating.  It can also be tough to read the woods this time of year with summer vegetation present.

This week's episode of the Pennsylvania Woodsman we chat with Ryan Glitsky.  Ryan is a diehard bowhunter native to PA who spends a ton of time in the offseason scouting and learning.  Our conversation is all over the place revolving around whitetail deer and scouting during summer.  We run down many rabbit holes discussing camera locations, mock scrapes, funnels, and learning from them during a difficult time of year to read sign.  This episode should have you fired up for fall!

Check out the Sportsmen's Empire Podcast Network for more relevant, outdoor content!

[00:00:00] You are listening to the Pennsylvania Woodsman, powered by Sportsman's Empire Podcast Network. This show is driven to provide relatable hunting and outdoor content in the keystone state and surrounding Northeast. On this show, you'll hear an array of perspectives from biologists and industry professionals to average Joes with a lifetime of knowledge, all centered around values, aiming to be better outdoors, men and women both in the field as well as home and daily life.

No clicks, no self-interest, just the light in the pursuit of creation. And now your host, the Pride of Pennsylvania, the man who shoots Straight and won't steer You wrong, Johnny Apple. See himself. Mitchell Shirk.

I could not have said it better myself, boys. Thanks for tuning into the show this week, guys. And you are listening to the show on the Sportsman's Empire with the coolest intro. There is, and I can say that. Because all the folks there that you just heard that put together that [00:01:00] intro for me and the Pennsylvania Woodsman Show, they're all my friends and partners on Sportsman's Empire.

Some of the voices you heard would be Nick Otto from the Hunt Ofor podcast, Nate Thompson from the Missouri Woods and Water, Andrew Munz from oh two Ohio Show, Josh Rail. He is the show host for the How to Hunt Deer Podcast in the Wisconsin Sportsman. John Teeter from Whitetail Landscapes. Dan Matthews from the Nomadic Outdoorsman, and none other than the Sportsman's Emperor himself, Dan Johnson.

Guys check all those shows out and check all the shows out on Sportsman's Empire. There's, that's just to name a few. There's so many other great shows, a lot of the state specific shows, and then other very specific topics that, that, Take up the majority of our network great shows, great content, check them guys out.

These guys have been so good to me. They've helped me gain [00:02:00] knowledge and understanding of how to run a podcast effectively, and I've developed great relationships with these guys and can't thank them enough. I, that was my cool little idea of how I wanted to include some of these some of these guys on my show and just thank 'em for all they've done.

Getting into it, we are in the last week. Oh, I gotta shut that off. I I'm actually, I'm making jerky today at the moment. That was my alarm that you probably heard in the background For my smoker, temperature we're supposed to be going on vacation the first week, full week of August, like the 31st of next week, 31st of July to August 5th.

And I say supposed to because we're supposed to be going to Canada and. We are still waiting on my wife's passport to show up at the door. We started our passport process back the first week of April. They told us it would take [00:03:00] 10 to 13 weeks to issue them and we got the passports for our two boys.

But this is now week 15, going into week 16, and we still don't have my wife's passport. We're doing everything we can to try to expedite that and make sure we get it. So hopefully it comes and hopefully I can go on vacation. If not, I am not sure what Plan B will be, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

But I was making jerky because I had some rounds from a deer that I shot. This past fall in the freezer and finally getting around to making some of that figured. It'd be nice to have some snacks when we're up there and stuff to be out. We're gonna be, we're supposed to be going out on the lake and going fishing, hopefully catch some walleye, some bass, whatever's biting.

I really don't care. It's just time to get away and enjoy that. So that's what's been on my radar planning for that. But we are in the last week of July, and hard to believe, 'cause now we're going into planting season for sure. And food [00:04:00] plots. Some of the food plots that I mess with are already planted.

I I say that kind of with an asterisk behind it. I've done very little on most of the properties that I hunt. I can't even really include myself in it, but some planting was done. I got some vitalized seed in the ground and I'm hoping to do some more planting throughout the month of August as time permits.

I'm trying to plan my schedule out between family and. And hunting as I can. And yeah, it's overwhelming. I, again, I've said it again, I've said it before, I'll say it again. I just can't believe how quickly this summer is going by getting into this week's show. I have somebody who I should, I can't believe I haven't.

It's taken me this long to have 'em on the show. 'cause they're a Pennsylvania native and they are a die hard hunter. They are constantly out grinding, scouting, doing everything they gotta do to prepare for the season. Big time scouter. And [00:05:00] the topic of discussion today is summertime scouting.

And that's none other than Ryan Glitz. And Ryan and I have A great conversation. We start off going that going down a bunch of rabbit hole discussions and part of me wishes that I would've just kept rolling with that because I enjoyed that as much, if not more than some of the stuff we talked about.

I. Revolving around summer scouting? I don't know. It's just me personally, like when it comes to scouting podcasts and getting information, I feel like everyone I've ever listened to, everyone I've ever done with somebody, I feel like you can only take it to a certain point. 'cause it's so hard to get specific in podcasts and really take it away and apply it to your yourself.

I understand a lot of the basic things we go through and there, there's so much information out there and so many good podcasts on scouting, whether it's terrain, features, habitat types, and there's always something to take away from somebody with a lot of experience like Ryan. But yeah, I just wish I would've [00:06:00] dug into that conversation in the beginning a little bit more with him just because it's the kind of stuff where it's experience and man, Ryan just gets you fired up.

'cause he's always, he's just always enthusiastic it seems. He's a really good hunter and it was a great conversation. So I don't think you can beat boot leather and trail camera information, putting your cameras out and just taking it for yourself and learning it yourself. I think once you do that, maybe it's a little bit easier to put into perspective something you might've heard in a show like this.

Speaking of scouting real quick, if you guys haven't followed, The Suffering Outdoors YouTube channel. I was fortunate enough to do a scouting video with John Kolb and we went through an area that I've been hunting the past few years, did some scouting, put some cameras out, pulled some cards, and we kinda went into detail what I'm thinking in this certain area and put it into video.

And it was a great time. Check out that show. John has a great YouTube [00:07:00] channel. John actually filmed a triple trophy harvest last year. He killed a bear with his bow and he got it on film. He killed a nice buck with his re, with his recurved bow. First one he ever killed with a stick bow. And then he killed a Turkey opening day in spring Gobbler for that triple trophy.

Great channel. Check it out and check out that video that I did with him that's suffering outdoors. But yeah, enjoy this conversation with Moose. His good old nickname. I should have asked him where he got that nickname from. I'm sure somebody out there has asked them that and but I don't know the information to that, but great conversation with him.

This one fires me up. I'm hoping to do, More scouting as it comes with whatever time I can make in my schedule. I'm really hoping I, I'm waiting for August because August is when New Jersey is going to announce their hunting seasons for the fall, specifically if they will have a bear season or not.

And if they do announce that and [00:08:00] do decide to have a bear season, I'm gonna hopefully shift my focus in August, September, early October to going down to some areas and scouting for bear. And that's where I'm gonna try to put some em effort in for early October. And then the rest of my hunting is probably gonna be picking and choosing a couple properties as I have time throughout the month of October into early November.

I, hopefully some of those places I scouted, hopefully some of those places I planted food plots. And then we will, by that time we'll get into rifle season and I'll be doing my fun hunt at camp, which I can't wait to can't wait to do every year. Without further ado, let's get to this show with Ryan Glitzy.

Before we do real quick, just wanna give our shout out to our partners. Radox Hunting Guys, again, trail camera season. If you are looking to get some Gen 600 regular cell regular trail cameras or m core cell cameras. Check out Radox hunting quality images, and really good as far as price points.

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So they've got a lot of great stuff. Oh, also, not to mention their stick and pick trail camera accessories, whether that's ground stakes for trail cameras or tree mounts, checkout radox hunting, and also hunt worth. I just got done going through doing an inventory of my hunting gear, hunting clothing, and I've gotten over the years, I've, I'm somebody who doesn't ever purge clothing and I got this mountain and totes full of hunting clothing, and I finally went through and got rid of a bunch of stuff because I'm making way for my hunt worth stuff.

I've got, Some great light and mid-weight [00:10:00] stuff that I think is gonna carry me through most of the season. I'm using the disruption pattern, which is their digital camera. I really like that. Keeps me warm, keeps me dry, keeps me comfortable using it in Turkey season. I was really happy with the way I felt mobility wise and temperature wise.

It was a great set of clothing. So check out Hunt Worth. And with that guys, let's get to this episode.

Hey, joining us this evening shame on me for taking so long to have him on the show. But we're speaking with Ryan Glitzy tonight. Ryan, thank you so much for hopping on. Hey, thanks for having, man. It's gonna be a good time. It always is. So how has your scouting season been post 2022 season?

It's been pretty solid. Coming off of 2022. 2022 is a, it was a rough one. Yeah. You know what I mean? It was probably my worst season. But that doesn't really deter me. [00:11:00] That's hunting, especially in areas in pa you're gonna have a season or two like that sometimes, you're not gonna punch the tags you wanna punch. But coming into 2023 here in the first year, I had the same mindset like I always do, balls to the wall, boots to the ground and just go, an area I was hunting last year was my first year in an area, so you know how that is, that first year going into my second, maybe third into certain areas I started to get some confidence in these areas.

Spending so much time in a tree last year coming into this postseason my hat, I saw a lot of things in the tree that I needed to get boots on the ground to confirm. And that's kind why I did this postseason leading into summer scouting here. And it's been really good. I ended up getting a, a few extra spots you can say that I feel really confident and I fine tuned a couple spots that I was in last year.

But I think I'm in the game this year. That's good to hear. And that was one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you. 'cause correct me if I'm wrong, Ryan, I was following along in stories and I heard you on a couple podcasts and stuff, and the areas that you spent the most time in last fall.

Am I [00:12:00] accurate? Did I follow this correctly that you spent most of your scouting in the summertime? Only in that location. There wasn't a lot as much post-season, winter scouting boots on the ground. Yeah. Yeah. Especially the last week. We finally got some at core weather, that last week of the season here in PA and the area I actually ended up hunting that last thing.

I, it's been old, my head's going, I'm getting old here, so I forget some stuff, some numbers. But the last would've, it's seven days or whatever the season. I pretty much hunted the hub system that I found in the summertime. And that's what I did. I put all the eggs in one basket.

I had some pretty good bucks on camera. The weather was there, everything lined up and I was in the game. It got to the point to where, man, I wish I had another day or two of the season, to be honest with you. I felt really good where I where I was at. But the problem with the summer scouting is once it got in there during the season, there was definitely things I missed.

I love summer scouting. You can put a lot of it together. But what I've learned with summer scouting, man, you really gotta gear it down when you start getting a good area, because it's harder to see stuff. You could still apply the same [00:13:00] thing post-season of summer scouting, but you really gotta slow it down and look at the details more.

I'm gonna backtrack before we get big into the summertime scouting, which is one of the things I wanted to pick your brain about. So let's rewind let's X out of 2022 season. And you were hard at it, like normal scouting this postseason in the wintertime, so I'm assuming that you covered a lot of ground and, covered some tracks and looked at stuff from different angles. Can you tell me some of the things maybe you learned in that postseason that you didn't realize when you were looking at it in the summertime? I would say when I went in here in the postseason, but we'll get back to that area hunting the last week of the season.

I went in there, that was one of my top priorities 'cause it was good. I was actually surprised by the amount of deer I seen and the amount of quality deer were in that hub system. So I really wanted to constraint there first this post-season. I think the biggest takeaway when I got in there was really was the bedding.

I'm not a bed hunter, a specific bed, buck bed, but I hunt the bedding areas in general [00:14:00] and to put the pieces together of the bedding areas, the travel corridor, the food to sit there and really fine tune everything in the wintertime. Be able to see the trails, be able to find the the faint sign, the bucks are leaving, stuff like that.

And really pin all that down to one or two. Specific locations in that hub system or just outside that hub system? Where I can go in, I feel it like the kill tree. That's where I was going is postseason to where I had a tree down in the hub system itself. And actually outside the system, also along the bedding ridge where they were bedding, I pi I picked out a fantastic spot there.

So it was the postseason go in there. It was a fine tuning more compared, once I was in there when the leaves were off, everything, the front sign was still fresh from the rutt. It was just going in there and fine tuning. And the big thing probably, like I said, would be the bedding I found in general really piecing the travel corridor together off of that.

So did that fine tuning and piecing the travel corridor, did that lead you to being, not that far off as far stand location? Did that change your mindset of how you have to access that property? What [00:15:00] are some of the minor detail changes that you're looking to forward to doing in that location this year?

If you're able to hunt it, Yeah, which was, as the season was ending last year, I was in that process, I guess you could say, and it carried over into the postseason because when I told you I only summertime scouted that area. Got in there first couple days and then being mobile, I was moving a day or two here and as I, once I got that sweet spot where I felt pretty comfortable where I could kill, the season was over, so when I went in postseason, I knew where I wanted to generally be.

And that post-season just fine tuned that enough where I'm probably, I'd say 30 yards from where I had the last day of both season where I ended up being. Now I feel really confident in that system right there where I can go and consistently kill something's in there. And is that just because it seems like that's gonna be a higher odds of traveling in that specific from that specific tree.

Is that a better wind advantage for you thermal advantages spot or what are some of the attributes that you think is gonna be a little bit better? A little bit of everything? [00:16:00] Yeah, it's a little bit of everything. The way the system sets up. I'm just on the edge, cutting that wind, the thermals, everything just on the edge of that hub where it's blown out to a dead area, like mature timber.

I learned they wanted to really hug the edge. There was a couple clear cuts in around, so that kind of helped me piece the puzzle together of that travel along that edge there. What they preferred. Yeah. Speaking of edge one, one thing I learned big time last year, it was during rifle season actually.

We were doing some bushes in clear cuts and there were clear cuts I'd been in of different age that were younger in the years past. Yeah. And I could find traffic throughout the entire clear cut I could find sign and everything else. Yeah. And this past year I was in a cut that was a little bit older and man, it was gnarly as all get out.

I came through, I was cut up. It looked like I was in a cat fight. And the big eye-opener for me in that cut and what had changed from years past is about the first 75 yards of use in that first 50 to [00:17:00] 70 yards within the edge of that cut is where I found the most deer activity when I got into heart of it.

Yeah. I had nothing. And that had really changed. And I think that was one Oh yeah, one piece when I started, yeah. Going back to my maps and I was looking at the ages of clear cut, I use the This the DCN R'S website for the state forest ground. And use that for telling you when that cut happened and everything else.

Engage. Yeah. Getting that age and stuff. And it doesn't take long till you look at a cut. And I can say I'm betting it's probably more of an edge use than an interior use based on that age. That was a big eye-opener for me. Oh yeah. Yeah. A lot, your terrain, your diversity, that all plays into that.

That's why it's so important to me, your postseason and like I said, summer scouting. It has, its, it's great you can do it, but it, the postseason, that's where it shines. Where you can get into them, areas like that, that thick, nasty stuff and not get killed going through it so much and really break down those areas.

Those clear cuts are just off those clear cuts a lot easier and you can really pick up a historical sign and know how they're [00:18:00] utilizing those cuts, depending on their age. Oh, it all plays in, like I said, that diversity of habitat. Diversity of terrain, you gotta put all those pieces together when you're in your scalping.

Yeah. It's a giant puzzle. And when you see it in its most barren state in the wintertime, man that, that tells the, that really tells the tale in my opinion. But, here we are we're almost in July and this episode's probably gonna be towards the end of July when you guys are listening to this.

And man it's full blown summer scouting. And yeah, again, we go, that goes back to how you how you were handling last year and stuff. So I kinda wanna know I kinda wanna circle back to last year and try to dig into your thought process a little bit. So you went into this newer area, only summer scouting it.

Did you have any mentality or strategy in breaking down this area from the summertime that would be different than what you normally do in the wintertime? To be honest with you, no I pretty much. [00:19:00] Handled the same way. You know what I mean? I'm still looking for the scrapes, the rub lines, the subtle subtleness of historical sign, the stuff you don't, thumb size limits snapped off on the ground that you would walk by normally, very minute details.

I'm still trying to look at in the summers I do in the postseason, it's just a lot harder to see, I can see 150 yards in the postseason fairly easy. I might be only seeing 30, 40 yards in the summer. So that's where you gotta gear it down and really pay attention to the details.

When I went in the area last year, it was first map wise ESC scouting. It just lined up. It had too much going for it for security cover because that's my number one thing. I'm not gonna say I'm gonna be right in that security cover, but security cover's pretty important, especially hunting and pa with rifle season in the deer drives, you gotta have something, you either gotta have some type of security cover in the form of clear cuts, Mount Laurel, something green briers, and also steep terrain that's gonna help 'em also survive.

And if you can get that all together, that's [00:20:00] fantastic, but I gotta have one of them, something in there that's gonna get some age, at least get these bucks to three and a half or older. That's something I'm looking to kill. And this area here, it crossed a lot of boxes off and then when I look at the topography of it, it all made sense for travel corridor for your travel type like not so much your thermal hub, but almost your travel hub more than a thermal hub, more of a travel corridor, a travel hub system was in there.

It around those cuts like that, when you can get a travel hub in between, a lot of cuts. Man that's deadly hunting in the Rutt. I mean them bucks, they're going to be cruising them. That and around them terrain systems and them hubs going from bedding area to bedding area. And if you can be patient and you can, play the wind, the thermals correctly, you can get in that squat for a few days in a row and you're probably gonna get an opportunity in my opinion.

Yeah. I wanna, I'm gonna stick on this rabbit hole for just a second before we cut back to some more summer scouting stuff. But I'm curious when you find a location like that you have a lot of confidence in. I know it's case by case and this is such a hard thing to just put it like a [00:21:00] constant too, but how many days are you comfortable sitting in some of those locations during the rutt?

You always hear first day's, the best day in certain situations, yeah. One day. But when you're in a big wood setting, I mean it doesn't even have to be a big wood setting to be honest. It could be farm country for all I care 'cause I've done it there. If your exit and entry are fairly solid y and you can understand the rutt, I mean I do see box stick to a core area, even indoor, the rutt.

But I think you can get away with a little bit more 'cause they're moving so much, one box here today, another one will be there tomorrow. So maybe you bulk up something that one day, but next two or three you're okay. Another situation's gonna happen. But I will hunt it if it takes one or two, if the condition's right, fine.

My dad hub system, I, it's like I said, seven days in a row, I think it was, whatever it was, give or take, I just didn't care. And other thing is I'm aggressive. Yeah, I'm not going to hunt, say I'm hunting a creek crossing, I'm not gonna hunt where the thermals of winds is blowing to that creek crossing.

But if I'm hunting a travel corridor or this one of these hub [00:22:00] systems that are focused on travel, I got 6, 7, 8 different trails coming to a certain, location. I plan on killing something if I'm gonna burn out Spart two, I still got five or six other chances. No, we've all been there and he comes down the trail that, the wind's blowing through and that happens.

You, you, that, that's rolling the dice and you gotta be aggressive. Some days you're gonna get busted, but it only takes one time for him to come down the right trail and everything be correct for you. And it's game over. You're season's done, you're punching your tack, so that's where I'll go in and I'll hunt an area 4, 5, 6 times in a row.

If I have the bucks on camera, everything's lining up. I'm gonna be aggressive. I'm gonna hunt it. So circling back to last season when you were pounding that spot pretty hard do you remember was the forecasted wind direction consistent or was that something that's irrelevant to you at this point?

Because it's mountain ground it's inconsistent in how it moves in that terrain. And did that make you I know you hunt mobile, so did you hunt that same spot but you maybe adjusted 10 yards this way, 20 yards that way just to [00:23:00] give yourself a little bit of an edge? Depending on how the thermal was when you got there.

I tell a lot of guys that you go into a spot, say you need a, west wind for an area. The forecast calls for east south winds. Man, it's hot, it's time to get in there, but the wind's just wrong or thermals are wrong, but you're hunting mobile. I think you'd be surprised if you sit back and really think about that spot getting into it.

You can manipulate that spot. Maybe you manipulate it for 20 or 30 yards. Maybe you're not in the tree, okay? Maybe you're just outside of that spot, but you're still in the kill zone where you can kill a deer. I think sometimes we think the spot that we take it as a big picture, and that's what the mistake I made in this.

We're gonna announce some rabbit holes here now, buddy. That's what I'm all about, man. Be, prepare everybody. But this spot here, what was interesting was I had a camera in this spot. This spot, literally, if we remember the Rutt last year sucked it, it was so damn hot. But leading up to it, I think it was October 27th, we had a little cold snap for a day or two.

I should have went in there and told [00:24:00] me we had east winds, southeast winds coming through, winds sucked for this spot. Thinking back now like this, what probably the summer scout hurt me. If I was in their postseason, I probably would've put this together a little bit, but I didn't, in the summer I thought, I can't hunt that with the wind and thermals in that spot.

And they, it was lit up. It was on fire those couple days and they're on camera. But I sat back 'cause of the wind. And then when I finally went in there, the light bulb went on. I said, you idiot, if you would've came in here on the 26th, 27th, 28th, you would've killed. I said, because I could've manipulated a spot I that East Wind, Southeast, I would've had zero problem.

I could've just hunted the edge of that hub system and I would've killed, was the train favorable even with that? Yes, I still would've been, like I said, not in that prime spot, but just off. But that time them bucks were cruising. They were looking for, they must have had a hot dough or first dough come in or something in that area.

My cameras went ballistic with mature bucks in there. All I had to do was slip in there and I, like I said, went in there, been aggressive. Maybe you bust a little bit here and there, but it was so hot in that spot. That's where [00:25:00] you can't sit back, man. You go out and go in and kill. And that was probably I'm the type of guy I get pretty aggressive.

I'm not gonna sit back. That was probably what one of the things that really hurt me last year is I sat back a little bit instead of being aggressive. And that, like I said, I come back probably not post seeding that scout that spot and that burned me last year. 'cause that was probably my prime time, the season where I could have went and killed.

But like I said, don't be afraid to think outside the box and manipulate those spots if you're mobile. And knowledge is power. Let's face it, if you get Intel that's pretty quick. Yeah. It makes it easy to pounce on that. But in the opposite I find myself all the time, like I am.

I'm not that aggressive and I'm trying to learn to be more aggressive 'cause I know I'm missing opportunities. But I've just had many instances in my life where I sat back, I waited because I knew there was a time when I could pounce And it's. It comes back to knowledge is power.

The times where I've been successful, it's been because all the stars aligned. And that was when I knew [00:26:00] to get in the tree. Like the buck killed two years ago, I believe it was. That was one the night I killed him. The wind for the location was awful, a little bit, but I knew he was there and I knew I had to.

I knew I had to make a count with the information I had. Yep. And I lucked out. So I guess in a sense I was aggressive, but I hunted him twice. And it's, yeah. We're talking about the same thing, but the interpretation is difficult and I'm still learning that. Yeah. Like when to be aggressive and when not.

It's tough. Yeah. I think that if I'd give anybody advice is to be aggressive. That's how you're gonna learn. You're gonna screw up 99% of the time, basically, your new hunter. You're gonna make the wa of being aggressive, being a young hunter or new hunter trying to figure it out. You're gonna make a ton of mistakes, man.

Your learning curve is gonna get short. On a side note, I've enforced and talked to some fantastic white tail hunters across this country. Some of the best. One thing I picked up from Andre Desto, he's arguably the goat, and that is what I picked up from him, is how aggressive he is.

I, I took that from him last year. I should have [00:27:00] applied it last year. And, but it was just to see his success and to get to talk to him. And I told a lot of those guys have in common too. They're not afraid to, they don't sit back. They go in and they kill. They're very aggressive. They don't wait.

When that opportunity is there, they're going in. And I think that's a. F from my point of view at co coming up I screw up doing a little bit more private land hunting when you're confined to that border. I think there's a little bit of a audible card in a sense like that because you can screw something up within your borders.

Yeah. But when you're talking about some of the places that we hunt in Pennsylvania, I hunt some places that are hundreds of thousands of acres and I know you told me before that you're spread out all over the place and when you've got big expanses like that, sitting back and I heard Johnny Stewart say this one time you get into an area that looks pretty good and you're like, oh man, I don't wanna screw it up.

I'm gonna tiptoe around this. And then you hunt a few days and then you're running outta time and then you buzz through it. 'cause you get pissed off. You're like, I should've been over here. I should've missed this. I like that. That's where that whole aggressive thing comes in.[00:28:00] It's a hard thing to, to figure out.

And it, and not that we'll ever figure it out, but I know that's, for me, that's been a big learning curve for me is that aggressiveness, not being afraid to cover some ground burn, some spots out along the way. Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. Like I said, I think you wanna become a better bow hunter. Be aggressive.

Man, I had summer scouting on my mind, but now I'm just thinking so many other rabbit holes. We told you, man, we're gonna get down some rabbit holes. That's what, and that's what I love about it. Being aggressive, and I know you do a lot of post-season scouting, from the wintertime.

Yeah. You do some summertime scouting. Do you usually get to a point where you're pretty confident that you don't have to do a lot of in-season scouting, or do you also do put some boots on the ground in the fall too? Yeah, I've repeated this a few times on podcast. You're in-season scouting is a third of it.

It's very important. Your post-season scouting's a third of it, and then your trail cam data and your sub there's little quarters or thirds of that. You gotta put all that together. Your post-season, your summer scouting, your trail cam information, you're in-season scouting, if you're hunting that general [00:29:00] area.

Put all that together. You're probably gonna get a pretty damn good idea where you need to be. You know that's you gotta, the in season's got is extremely important, especially a new area. But if you take if you're in an area you have a little bit of historical data with, you've got a couple years underneath your belt man, you put all those pieces together and when you walk in the in season, you see that open scrape line, that open rub line or something, or you cut a big track man, you can put everything together real quick.

Where's he beding? Where's he feeding? What's he doing? You can really put everything together real quick that way and get in the action. Alright folks, it's that time of year for fall food plot planning and this year I'm proud to be working with Vitalized Seed. I. I work with them because they're great people and they're extremely passionate about wildlife and soil health.

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Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So let's go back a little bit to summer scouting now. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, Give you a snapshot into my life. I got two young boys. I got house projects, I got this and that and the other thing. And yep. I can tell you right now that the, my priorities have shifted greatly while my mind is on white tails and all the [00:31:00] things I want, the places I'm hunting, the things I'm doing, it's all changing.

And I've done very little off season preparation this season to the point where it's a little bit alarming to me, but I've accepted the fact that this is gonna be a lot different season for me and I'm gonna try to embrace it. Yeah. So I know there's other people that are listening to this and there's other people out there that are probably in a similar boat when it comes to digging in and summer scouting.

And one key thing you said earlier was or I interpreted it seems like it's a little bit quicker because in the wintertime when you can buzz through things and see things better Yeah. It's hard to, so summertime scouting. When you look at terrain features, you look at things, you're looking on a map and stuff.

Do you use the terrain and the map sometimes to know I wanna spend a little bit more time in here and go a little bit more thoroughly through this dive into that. Just easing into stuff and being as thorough as possible to make that best decision for fall. [00:32:00] Kinda understand what I mean.

Yeah. For summer scouting wise. Yeah. Basically what I'm looking forward to get. Yeah. It all comes down to the e scouting first and it's pretty for me, I've been going long enough that some things are gonna pop out to me. The clear cuts are a big hot thing. Of course, we all know everybody's talking about clear cuts into clear cuts.

A lot of times you find a lot of pressure around the clear cuts. But that's security cover. So I will focus on, I'm gonna drop a pin in certain areas that have the cover. A lot of times I'm work off that those transitions, those edges white towel are an edge animal. To me, you start in the thickest, nastiest shit and you work the edges and you start reading that sign.

That's how I start. It doesn't matter if it's posting your summer scouting. I'm tackling it the same way you're looking for cover, or like I said, it can be steep terrain. Start there and work the edges off of that work, the entrance and exits of the terrain coming in and outta the spots.

That's how I tackle it. I got a point of interest, not saying that's where I'm gonna be hunting, but that's where I'm gonna start my scouting and I'm gonna work through that or off of that. That's how I'm tackling it. Yeah, and that [00:33:00] doesn't matter if it's the wintertime or the summertime. You're still working through that as best you can, even if it's.

It, yeah, it's the same I'd be honest with you, like I said, people like what are you doing in the summer? A lot of my trail cam stuff, I'm hanging the cameras now and stuff like that. That takes up a large portion of my summer, getting the cameras out, getting all that. I run 30, 40 cameras.

That takes a lot, covering areas I do. But I do say I didn't get to a certain area. I did this year. I didn't get to a certain area. This postseason, I really wanted to scout this area, so I was gonna have to summertime scout. I looked on a map it lined up good. I security cover.

I seen some private agriculture. I'm thinking, that kind of makes sense, this area. It might be mountainous, but it probably holds some deer. And I got in there, I by the terrain. I'm thinking there should be a scrape and these bottoms, thermal wise and sure shit. Got down there, started finding the signs, start seeing the trout patterns, find thermal hub.

You start, the scrapes, everything starts coming together. Even though it's green as shit and bugs and everything else, I still am able to put that together to keep me in the right spot. Like I said, [00:34:00] unfortunately law, this does come with experience. You gotta do it. I've been doing it for 30 something years.

So it's gonna click for me a little quicker than somebody's only been doing it me for five years. So some guys gotta learn. You just gotta have to be patient. This white tail game does not happen overnight. And like you said, me and you talked even off air, you're never gonna stop learning. Never are.

That's why we still keep doing podcasts. Yeah. Yeah. But trust me, I've been on like thirties damn things. People tired listening my ass. Oh man. Now we keep listening to you. I enjoy. 'cause like I said, I enjoy the new philosophies and stuff, yeah. Let's backtrack a little bit. Let.

Summertime, obviously vegetation's real hard, but edge is a huge thing. We already talked about that. Yeah. Edges are clear cuts, but edge can be more than just clear cuts, right? It can be any kind of vegetation transition edge can be Yep. To terrain, briers, terrain only mountain bolt terrain. Yep. Yeah.

Yes, exactly. Exactly. Absolutely can. Yep. Yeah. So on the topic of terrain I've heard so many different people with different philosophies in [00:35:00] terrain, upper level versus lower level. Thermal hubs in the bottoms and the rudd are better and, weather related stuff. Just very blanket.

I'm just gonna let you go down whatever rabbit hole you want. But when it comes to that terrain and stuff like that, how do you. Approach that when you get to a pro. 'cause I'm coming from myself personally. There's places I hunt that I can think the top third is gonna be the best section for me at this property.

Yep. And I've been at the opposite where I'm gonna be like, I'm not gonna spend the top half of this pro of this mountain at all. Because the actions down here and it might be food related, it might be cover related, but talk a little bit on that, Ryan. It, yeah. We all hear about the upper one third.

Damn. Good spot to kill a deer. And we hear about killing one down thermal hub. Damn. Good spot to kill a deer. You know what, they all have the best spots, in my opinion. All have the same thing in common though. It doesn't matter where they are up or down, left or right. It's a lot of that diversity of habitat, edge cover, terrain, [00:36:00] a lot of things coming together in one location.

A lot of times that's what makes a spot. Either it's on the upper one third of the ridge or it's down the bottom. A lot of it's the diversity, in my opinion, of an area that really makes it good or bad. I like that. I like that. Summertime scouting again it's miserable. What are some of the tools of the trade that you like to bring with you?

You're running cameras constantly, right? But what are some of the other things that you might have to have, that you usually like to have with you when you're going through something like this? I. Number one thing, I gotta have food, man. I go to eat. Yeah, you eat about 4,000 calories a day, right?

We gotta have the snacks and on top of snack, like if I don't have my food I'm, we ain't going nowhere. A lot of food and water, let's say that, but but yeah, you know what? I carry a, I think if I have the coup, I'm actually looking at it now. I think it's the 1800 or two. I can't remember which one it is, but man I got, I can pretty much live outta that damn thing.

Like I said, trail cameras right now, I always have this time of year I can usually put three or four cameras in there. My hangers, all that stuff. I'm big on ing, my scrapes up pretty much. 90 [00:37:00] plus percent of my cameras are going over scrapes. So I have my scrape kit in there. My scrape kit consists of two different pouches.

One, I run buck fever whatever you run, whatever your confidence in. But I run buck fever, the other pouch, I keep some rubber gloves, small little saw some Zip ties, stuff like that, doctoring up, I'll add some licked branches, stuff like that. Really beef, I like to beef the licking branches up to the, sometimes you find a great scrape, they've ripped the licking branch down.

I wouldn't have enough stuff here. Zip ties up and I'll go beef that back up again. Make it look natural. That's all kind, just odds and ends in there. But like I said it's, pretty much from postseason to summertime, I pretty much keep about similar stuff in my pack all the time. So outside trail cameras.

So trail cameras, you're making your big push in the summertime mostly correct. I. Yeah. June after Turkey seasons, not Tuesday. When I start getting out lot of SD cams will go up in June. And I will check those into August. My cell cams, I'll run cell cams. I have no problem with cell cams.

I love running cell cams. I don't hunt over my cell cams. I just, my [00:38:00] type of hunting, I, they're inventory purpose for me. Now I may see that camera from where I'm hunting or be within a certain, 50, 60 yards. Some locations, sometimes I might be 200 yards off it, but my cell cameras for inventory purpose, I just wanna know they're in there, and I typically start to put those out in July. Run lithium batteries. A lot of times I've been having pretty good luck just with lithium batteries in my cell cams. One pitcher, zero delay. I can pretty much run the whole way up through the season. I don't have to worry about checking them. I am starting to get a little more solar panels now 'cause as we all know, lithium batteries are ridiculous right now, so I'm starting to run a little bit more solar panels and let them out and not run the lithiums anymore.

Yeah, I think last year I paid a buck 20 per lithium battery and I just ordered a bunch for the scouting mission that I'm about to do, and I think they're a buck 50 a piece. Yeah. Just keeps going up. I drop about five. Yeah, I'll drop five, $600 in freaking batteries this year. It's insane. It doesn't take much.

It's insane. It doesn't take much. It's insane. Nope, it's insane. Camera inventory. So [00:39:00] re regular SD cards or cell cameras? You got 'em for inventory. So do you actually like to use cameras and put 'em in locations that there, there's probably no way you're gonna hunt there, but when it's in the summer months, it's giving you inventory of what you have or are all your camera locations relatively within firing distance of places that you think, this is probably where I'm gonna be hunting.

It's situational. Like I can't give you like I am within shooting distance of every camera. Sure. Or 50, like I said, some situations I may be 50, 60 yards off of a off a, because if I can hunt and shoot to a scrape, great. In my situation, like late October, scrap hunting's, phenomenal.

Mid-October, scrap hunting's phenomenal. You get in a rutt, it can still be great. If I got a couple good bucks showing up on a scrape with a cell cam on, yeah, I'm gonna go in and, if I have the opportunity to kill one offer, I kill one. But what I like to do is sometimes the terrain habitat for a kill opportunity, that kill tree, I'm off of that [00:40:00] scrape a lot of times and that's where I'm killing my kill.

I have my kill tree, so maybe I'm 75, 80 yards or whatever from that inventory, that cell cam's up there getting the inventory. I have three, four shooters on camera. I know if I get in that general area, Where I think I need to be killed, I'm probably gonna get into wanting to kill one. That's how I'd play it.

I don't necessarily, the scrapes in general, yes, I would like to shoot to it in general, you know what I mean? Even if it has a camera or no camera. But to me, the terrain, the diversity, all that's gotta play into that kill tree, that's what's important. You gotta put yourself in the right spot to kill.

Just 'cause your camera's telling you this over here doesn't mean you need to be there because the wind could be screwing, your thermals could be screwing you, all that stuff. So you gotta remember that. Just 'cause that camera's telling you there doesn't mean you're gonna kill 'em there. Do all camera locations for you require a mock scrape or some kind of focal point.

My camera locations, like I said, I'd say 90 plus percent of my camera setups are going to [00:41:00] be over in a, and I'd say 90% of them are a natural scrape. Okay. I prefer to finding that scrape now. I have no problem all scrapes. I've had fantastic luck. A lot of my situations, usually there is a natural scrape in a rounder.

I can doctor up, beef it up a little bit more, to my liking. Every scraps different too. Sometimes you got your good primary scrapes that you'll get deer on all year. Sometimes you get your more of a rutt type scrape. They're only gonna really hit that as the season progresses, you'll kinda learn that as you go a little bit.

But in general, sorry, I lost my train of thought. There. We tell how that ball. You're good man. You're good man. My damn kicked on and fucking threw me off. But anyway, I think what we were saying, excuse I get back to it. We're saying about my cameras on majority of 'em are on scrapes. Yeah. The other thing I really do like to put 'em on is a ditch crossing or Cree crossing.

That's phenomenal too. I love Cree crossings. I've had some fantastic luck on Cree crossings. Just great luck on them. I find so many times [00:42:00] Creek crossings are just in big woods, like the creek crossings that come to my mind a lot of the time. It's where multiple hollows or ditches meet. Yeah. Things like that.

And they're just so hard to access and hunt with because, just 'cause it's just like a bowl effect and I find it's really hard. Yeah. They can be difficult. A couple instances I have good luck. I've had good luck in the farm country areas with creek crossings. Hill country, farm country. We used to hunt a lot of flood control areas which of course a lot of creek systems around and those bogs are just thick and nasty.

Just big bedding areas. Man, you could access up that creek and you find a dynamite creek crossing. Oh man. It's, that's a hell of a location to sit all day and catch in bucks. They'll either run those creeks up and down parallel or they'll cross that creek crossing. You got just an intersection there.

Travel, just they, I've killed a lot of bucks in the flood bomb, the creek bombs, areas like that. Just phenomenal hunting. Yeah. One thing I do all the time when I'm scouting new areas, I did this last fall. There's a couple areas in [00:43:00] particular that I'm gonna be scouting here soon. But I put boots on the ground and get into, let's just say a point system.

And I get to this point and I see something that looks really appealing, and I might have four or five cameras with me and I stick a, i, I stick a camera there or vice versa. I'll do something where I find something that looks good, but I'm like, I think I can find something better. And then I go a little bit further and I don't find what I want.

Yeah. I end up sticking it on a logging road that meets to it. And I, logging roads are great, but I just always, I always feel like I want to have my camera at the spot where there's the most intersection in one location to try to get the best. Yes. And I struggle with that all the time, and I'm sure you do too.

Oh, yeah. That's why you always carry if I plan on putting out three or four cameras, I have five or six, on me. I always carry extra with me, at least one or two cameras extra. What I plan on, I, like I got this Saturday, I know I'm going to three spots, pull cameras out, guaranteed got marked on the maps.

But I wonder off, I, like I said, I summertime scout. I may see something, I [00:44:00] may cut a big track. Who knows what it is. Something's gonna interest me and I take off somewhere. I wanna have a camera to my bag just to cover that situation where I'm not leaving something pretty good to think I'm gonna find something better.

And I don't. And before you know it, you're two and a half miles from that spot. That actually was pretty damn good. So I'll put a camera up. I find a spot like, eh, I need to put a camera. I'm gonna put a camera there. I'm not gonna walk away from that area if that's my purpose of the day is putting cameras out.

One question I wanted to ask you. I, you've talked a lot in the past, I've heard on other podcasts, and you're talking about it tonight, about scrapes are important to you, congregation of where you get travel corridors that meet and stuff, just high traffic areas and stuff. For the rutt, do rubs mean a lot to you?

Yes and no. I don't, the priority is usually going to be the scrape. I just did a YouTube video with Jake Bush with, we went over the, like I was in a hub system and that situation there, rubs were really important. Because [00:45:00] what they helped me do was fine tune those multiple travel corridors to one location.

There was a lot of, nope, not really big rubs, but there was a lot of rubs that were aggressive, like thumb size or bigger saplings just sheared off. That tells me that's a pretty good buck. When I find a lot of that in a certain area go into a certain direction I can see where that mature buck, what his, where he wants to go, where he is favoring.

That helps me fine tune that tree in that look in that kind of specific thing that what happens like with rubs there, that really helps me fine tune that tree I want to be in. I see rubs all the time. Sometimes I pay attention, sometimes that's what gets me started going a certain way off a cut or off an edge, you're walking edge, you don't see something, you cut a big rub. Okay, then I, that gets me going somewhere. You know what I mean? That'll, that gets my interest possibly somewhere. But in, in general, when it comes to fine tuning my tree setups, the rubs, they'll kinda really dictate, they'll show you where those mature bucks are wanting to travel, where they prefer you get really lot of times what I like is historical [00:46:00] sign.

You find years worth of that stuff, the aggressiveness or big rubs in a certain line or a certain travel pattern that tells you immature bucks are like in that area. And you can definitely find that. It seems it's a little bit harder to find that. Now than before. And the reason I think that is just because amongst food sources changing, there's also more pressure in some of these places.

It's hard to get that consistent pattern in a lot of those places. Yeah. One thing, yeah it's histor. That's why historical sign's so important. When you do find an area that has historical sign that's telling you a lot they're wanting to go with the pressure, no pressure, whatever. Those bucks are wanting to utilize that area every year.

And that's what I'm keying in on for an all day sitting a rut. I want an area that I may not be right in the sign, may maybe the terrain, everything sets up where, but I have historical sign, I have something around, there's telling me they prefer this area. I may have to work off that sign 50, 60 yards and I'm on that ditch crossing.

There's no sign around that ditch crossing. But everything outside of there is leading to that. So I know I can kill [00:47:00] 'em here. And historical signs telling me they utilize this spot a lot. Security covers something you, you said earlier in the conversation's pretty important to you. However, I can think of a lot of instances and places I've hunted in Big Woods where let's just say security covers on top and then you get into some side, large side hills and drainages and things like that.

Maybe there's benches on there. You might get into a situation on Side Hills, benches, hos, where you get good terrain features that meet in the middle. But it's not really related to security cover. It's off a little bit. And certain cases, I have had really good luck in rutt movement with deer moving through those areas, even though it's a lack of security cover.

So is that something you ever run into and is there, are there times where you look at and say, Hey, this relates to security cover. And I think a buck could still move in daylight here, even though it's, [00:48:00] man, it's like a hundred year old forest. Yeah, definitely there, there's so many different situations.

Sure. Like al always and never, those two words do not exist in white. They don't. So a situation may come up. That's where I get a spot, like at it looks good. Maybe it's not making a whole lot of sense to me. There's not the cover's in a distance or something's just not lining up.

That's from a dump a camera. Maybe I don't give it a sit this year. Okay? Maybe I don't. I have other spots. I got 10 other spots that I feel pretty damn good about this spot, eh? Maybe it's gonna turn out pretty good. Turn. That's where a lot of times I will put a camera or two, let that camera hunt for me for the season.

Come back, pull that card. You might be pretty surprised if I have one. That camera, okay. There's multiple shooters that use that bench system. I need to go in there. Now. I need to put those pieces of the puzzle together. Why? Work that bench up, work those trails, work that system out. Maybe it's three quarters of a mile away.

There's the nastiest shit hole you ever see in your entire life. [00:49:00] It's a hundred acre, of just shit. A mo Mount Laurel, something that doesn't show up on a map. Then the light bulb goes on, ah, I see what's going on here. Then the other side, maybe some type of food source or a dough betting, who knows what it is.

You know what I mean? But you get in there, once you get some of that data, then you start breaking that down in, in the post-season to put that all together. You need to figure out that why. That makes a lot of sense to me because I've got an area in particular that I this will be, I think this will be season three that I've got some cameras in.

Yeah. And I don't have a lot. I might have somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 12 cameras in this specific location. But my mindset from the beginning, I took this from Bo east meets West not that long ago about talking about, having a little bit of. History in those locations. I know he's talked like a three year strategy, had him on the show this winter and using a three year strategy of collecting that information.

Yeah. Coupling that, that trail camera information with scouting boots on the ground, and then going in for formulation. I've had [00:50:00] that mindset with this location specifically, but I like how where my mind goes and what you just said is you're taking one picture on this system, but it's allowing you to expand boots on the ground to fine tune why he's doing what he's doing.

And that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. And to be honest with you, say that situation here, you got a camera run, you got two, three mature bucks. Run that system well. Okay, you got a piece of the puzzle there. Now you're looking for the, why are they doing this if things aren't lining up, security cover, stuff like that.

You know what I mean? But sometimes you work off of that and you find something better, and now that's also what can happen. Okay. Those bucks are in that general area. That's a pretty good spot, but maybe that's only a C level, B level spot. Maybe that a level spot's 300 yards in another direction.

You got a focal point there. Okay. You got mature bucks in the area and I've done that a lot where now my boots on the ground scouting is at work off of that and I find something even better. I've done that a lot of [00:51:00] times. That leads me to a, where an area maybe that does have a little more security cover, I feel a little more confident.

I'm gonna get more daylight activity and get an opportunity at something, instead of two or three times on that bench. Now maybe I found a spot where there's more bucks, maybe 6, 7, 8 times coming through an area during the rutt. Just in general. You know what I mean? That's a lot of times what I'll do.

You spend a lot of time in the woods post-season and during the season, and I'm curious I think there's only so many moments when you're scouting, preparing that you have like an aha moment of Yeah. Such. I'm curious, how often do you have an aha moment when you're breaking down a spot?

You me, finding just like where you go now I finally feel like I've honed in on this 'cause because the more time you spend the more you figured out. Every Saturday I'm out in the woods, say it's postseason. Or it could be even summertime. I'm scouting in general, not cameras, just scouting in general.

A lot of times I go all damn day, 7, 8, 9 miles, and sometimes the end of the day I finally find something that that, I'm [00:52:00] interested in, but to find, like I'm talking spots like, man I just damn, this is it. It don't happen very often. That just, it takes a lot of times.

I only get a couple spots. This year actually, like I said, I had a pretty good postseason. I ended up finding a couple spots, usually I might find one or two. I'm real excited about. I got a few more this year. I feel pretty damn good about, breaking down some of these areas. But they don't come around very often.

That's why I think some guys might get a little frustrated when you're putting in a lot of miles and you're not finding nothing. You just gotta keep walking. Even if you know what you're looking at on the map, stuff like that. A lot of times you go in there, there's hunting pressure, there's tree stands, there's trash, you gotta cross that area off possibly.

But you gotta put a lot of miles on to find the, to me, as a rutt hunter, this is a rutt hunter talking not early season, but to find like a good saw travel. Corridor or something that I feel really confident, I could sit a day or two or whatever many days all day to kill something. Man it takes a lot of miles.

I only find a couple year, to be honest [00:53:00] with you, and a lot of times I do go back into areas I love, I feel great about. I will go like at Hub System, it's a great, I'm going back in and fine tuning it, or, okay, I got a fantastic spot right here. The, like I said, the wind, you gotta go in and manipulate that spot.

Okay, maybe now I go in there. Okay, I got another, I got option B and C in here. Also, if I manipulate the spot with the tree stand, so when you go back in, don't be afraid to go back into these spots in the postseason and the summer scouting to be able to manipulate these areas for different wind, different thermals or everything's or curve ball comes around at you during the season where you can go in and you can still kill one those spots.

Also, the one spot might have one kill tree. Before you know it, you might break it down. You might have two or three possibly in a general area. One thing I do a lot scouting is obviously extremely important. There's a lot of, there's a lot of attention, especially on a podcast like mine for, somebody that's big into scouting and pick their brains and stuff.

But Ryan, there's sometimes when I talk scouting with guys and shows, I feel like we almost [00:54:00] make it more complicated than it really is and we beat a dead horse with the same stuff over and over again. Yeah. Yeah. One thing I've learned talking with you, talking with Bo back in the wintertime, a lot of guys, is we don't need to make this overly complicated, but it does take time and some miles on it to really have the success you get out of it.

Yeah. And to be honest with you, like I get a lot of messages from young guys, new hunters, And you just can't teach experience. You can't teach hundreds and thousands of hours in a tree stand. And even, I'm talking miles are important on boots, but I still say the number one teacher is the white toe itself, and he's going to teach it.

When you're up at that tree and you know you're putting in hours and hours in the season, now everybody has that chance. I get that. You know what I mean? But you gotta put time in a tree. You have to, that's where you're gonna learn. That's where you're gonna get busted. You're gonna learn what a mature buck does.

That's when even a dough, I don't care if it's a dough or a buck, what it is, [00:55:00] time in the tree is the most important thing. I think we do put, we do beat the dead horse with some of this, we overcomplicate it. Whitetails are very intelligent. I don't think they're. That intelligence that they're made out to be.

Sometimes, to be honest with you, sometimes you just gotta be on good ground, to be honest. If you're on good ground, you're gonna kill whitetail consistently. When you're on below average or average ground, that's when it gets a little more difficult and guys get frustrated. That is where you gotta do, put a little bit more, boots on the ground, a little more time in the tree.

They'd be successful. Like I said, I think sometimes yeah, we do we do make it a little more complicated than it needs to be. I feel that all the time. And that's not knocking anybody because it is. Scouting is one of those things to me where sign is a given terrain is a, is a.

Little bit of a given slash preference. You gotta learn that a little bit. Yeah. And it comes down to boots on the ground and trying to put things together. I do think it is easy to overlook stuff in the summertime. I've done that so many times and that's one of my biggest fears that I'm gonna overlook.

Thinking back, were there any we talked [00:56:00] about this a little bit. I was curious as anything stands out as easily overlooked last year to this year, or things that you easily overlook in the summertime, just generally speaking. Yeah. Like I said, when you have that thick cover you can, it's hard to really, look at the big picture, I guess you could say.

And like I said, we get back to the beginning of the podcast we're talking about, I was hunting that hub system. Being, everything was condensed. I couldn't see as good. I think maybe if I went in there in postseason I could see the big picture it in my head. I zoom out like Google Earth, to be honest.

That's how I do it. And I can see just how my head works with these damn white tails. I can just look at the big picture and I can just visualize how the travel's gonna be, how the edge transition, how that all flows. For every reason, I just can put that all together in my head. Postseason, it's easy to do that.

Summertime, everything's more tight and in, it is harder to put those pieces together there and really visualize it. And like that there is overlooked. If I would've seen it with no leaves, I could known, I could have manipulate a spot. Going in there. Whenever you can't [00:57:00] see 15 feet, in some spots it's hard to put that together.

Switching gears a little bit you're talking about it's hard to beat learning from the white tail itself, beating in, spending time and the tree stand stuff. I'm curious in all your experience and everything else what's one thing about archery, hunting, whitetails, whitetail, whatever, that you go, man, I wanna get better at this.

I wanna fine tune this. I wanna get, I wanna put a little bit more time. Is there anything like that stands out that you want, you wanna get better as a deer hunter? I've been doing for a long time. I, and like we talked before, I can't really put a finger on exactly one thing. I think just in general, I just wanna be a better whitetail hunter, just in general.

I'm always listening to podcasts. Watching YouTube, listening to, speaking to some of the best. Picking their brains, I have my system, everybody knows I'm a rutt hunter, but I could be a better early October hunter y and that's why I look at it, maybe I'm not necessarily a bed hunter, but there's things in my game.

I could be more aggressive in October, may. Sometimes I get, be honest with you, I'm so used to rutt hunting, once it gets in the twenties [00:58:00] of October and November, that's my time. Maybe instead of sitting back and being a little lazy those first three weeks of October, maybe I need to become a better hunter, be more aggressive there to where instead of punching my tag on November 9th, maybe I can punch my tag on October 10th.

Y you know what I mean? Where I can jump to another state. Then, sometimes I think I sit back a little bit waiting for the Rutt. Maybe I need to be a little more aggressive other times of year, like especially in October, 'cause I will say, I've talked to this before in the podcast.

I actually think I. On public. Probably you can get 'em some food plus Suffolk at, you can get them deer pattern and kill 'em public. I think one of the most dangerous things, if you can find them, 'cause they're not moving far from their core area, that middle of October, man on scrapes is deadly. I cannot tell you how many mature bucks I get on camera.

That mid-October now 2022. I didn't have, I had one buck. He was showing all over the place in daylight. But years prior, that middle of the month, like the October loft does not exist. That does not exist. If you can find these bucks, they're not [00:59:00] moving much. If you can find them, you can kill them.

They're on a pattern either on that scrape or going to a food source right off that security cover. You can kill 'em consistently if you can find them. I always believed that the lull was something mostly caused by human pressure. You have human, a hundred percent human pressure going in preseason or the first week or something like that, and then all of a sudden these deer go they're nocturnal.

It's too hot. It's this and that. And I there was a time I believed that when I, until I learned yeah. Things I was doing wrong and go, yeah this is baloney. Yeah, I believe there's a law, but it is human pressure related. Especially like I said, in Pennsylvania there's a lot of freaking hunters and a couple gener areas in the state.

It's ridiculous. First day, first couple weeks of archery, those deer, they've been around two or three years, they know. And a lot of times what I've noticed, so in public land probably why I'm not really super successful early part of October is I'll get some good bucks on camera. We all know the week or two before season, everybody's out in the woods.

Putting ladder stands up, putting all that pressure on him. Adherences even two years [01:00:00] old, he's been there, done this, he knows what's going on. I think a lot of those bucks will shift to private. A lot of times early to mid-October before their testosterone's really starting to raise, and they're starting to move a lot.

I think they just shifted little pockets. There is pockets on public, of course you can find them. But I think a lot will transition to a lot of the private where they're not getting much pressure and eventually their testosterone rises and it gets 'em in trouble. And I think as public land guys, that's why I concentrate under Rutt, where those bucks have shifted off for the early and mid-October due to pressure.

But then I'll see them shift back in a lot of areas as a rutt builds up. And another thing too, e even if they don't, they might not shift far, but I think about Big Woods, public land, heavy security cover, mountain Laurel Rend, clear cuts, all those things. I personally believe in some of the places I've experienced, they're still in those areas, but the amount of daylight movement or the distance they move during daylight in that first part is just not as far, there could be cases where they're, they push off a half mile within [01:01:00] their home range and come back.

Yeah. That's more farm country. I've noticed that more in the farm country. Okay. Where if I, where those pieces are a lot smaller, you get in a 10,000 plus some thousand acres of big woods mounts. So Yeah. That's where you see 'em. They're not leaving that core area. They're just transitioning to a little pocket where they're not coming out some, the nasty shit in the world.

They're just not coming out until after dark due to the pressure. Do you have a, do you have a favorite whitetail hunt place to hunt? I know you hunt mobile, so I wasn't gonna say style, but place or just I don't wanna say location base or maybe terrain type, what's your favorite of all it?

Or is it just wherever there's mature buck? Wherever. Wherever the, I'm having, I want an area where I'm gonna have multiple opportunities. It's hard to chase. I don't hunt one buck, I just don't do it. It's hard to do npa, especially in the public. Absolutely big. These big mountains, big woods, man, that, that's some guys, if you can do it, man, hat's off.

That's tough. So I'm looking for an area, if I get a camera pole and I got two, three, maybe four mature bucks, [01:02:00] that's and however that sets up. If it's either a hub system, a creek crossing, a ditch crossing the upper third running crus in the ridge top below a dough, bedding, it doesn't matter.

I'm looking for an area that's gonna hold multiple mature bucks because in a rutt, I feel pretty confident if I hunt a couple general locations in around that spot, one of those are gonna eventually come by me. Absolutely. Absolutely. Anything spec, anything specific you're looking forward to this fall?

I. Iowa. I drew the Iowa tag that's probably gonna be a good chunk of my, that's my main priority's gonna be there. I'll probably leave around the 30th October and I'll have about three weeks to put out there. Pa left a bad taste in my mouth last year. That was, like I said, my toughest season I probably ever had.

So part of me would like to either kill a good one before I go out, or I'm hoping if the good Lord blesses me, if a good buck in Iowa and I have some time here in pa I'm gonna come back and even a score, hopefully if one of these mountain bucks in pa [01:03:00] that's that's be almost, it might be my ultimate goal is erring to.

A good PA buck just to get this bad taste outta my mouth from the 2022 season. 'cause I burned my tags and everything. I didn't even wanna remember 2022 anymore. Man. That's some that's some serious emotion behind that. Oh, I tell you what, man, it she was a rough one. Yeah, but you know what?

One thing I really liked though I did follow along with a good portion of your season and amidst Yeah the. The difficulty you kept a very positive mindset and good attitude throughout it all. Yeah, it's hunting, man. It just, I live and breathe. You know what, you gotta have your priorities in order.

It's gotta be the good Lord. It's gotta be your family. Amen. For me. Then the third, number three is white tells Man, I absolutely, it is my passion. It drives anybody listening to me on a podcast can probably figure that out, my passion for Whitetails. But at the end of the day, it's a damn deer. I've been fortunate and blessed to kill some good deer, and I've killed a lot of deer.

So I guess that kind of eases the pain on a tough season. But we all gotta remember sometimes we get tied up, all this bullshit, the podcast, [01:04:00] social media, stuff like that. Man, I'm getting older. I enjoy just being out there in nature itself, in God's world and just enjoying it. And you know what?

It, end of the day, it's just my religious side. If the Lord says it ain't happening, It ain't happening boys and girls. And that's how I look at it. If it's not meant to be, it's not meant to be. You can't lose any sleepover, you just gotta be enjoy the moment that, that you're given that's how I look at it in the order I get And sometimes the lesson isn't in the kill.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Like last year, I got my butt kicked, but I learned so much hunting that new area. I would, I couldn't post-season scout or summer scout enough to learn what I did last season. Spending that much time in a tree. Yeah. I learned so much where I am confident, more confident going, hey, hunting big woods mountains.

I may go two or three years not killing a good buck. That's just part of the game hunting in Pennsylvania when you're hunting it. But I'm okay with that, especially when you start to raise your bar a little bit. That's part of the game and you've gotta be okay with that. Like I said, it ain't all about the likes and stuff on social media.

Hunt your own [01:05:00] hunt. I don't care if you're shooting a four corn or you're shooting 140 or be happy what you hunt or what you kill. And don't worry about all the other bullshit. Amen to that. One thing I think you'd learn though is if you can draw Iowa, you should definitely do it on a year after that.

Yeah. Or you just draw Iowa and kinda, there's no guarantee in anything in life, but I feel a little bit better having Iowa tag in a back pocket this year. Yeah. Hopefully. Hopefully, Lord willing, you can punch 'em both. Yeah. That, that, that's the ultimate goal. I'll be a happy camper at the end of the season if that's the case.

For sure. Good deal. Hey, thanks a lot for taking some time. BSing with us, hoping to have you back on another time and do a little bit more BSing, because there's a lot of rabbit holes we could down. Good time. Oh yeah. Like I said, we went, yeah, we were everywhere. But that's all right, man. That makes it fun.

Absolutely. Something to take from it. So thanks again, Ryan. Yep. Yep. Thank you.

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