Evolving in Your Whitetail Hunting Journey

In this episode of the Pennsylvania Woodsman, Mitch interviews Cliff Bailey, a passionate hunter and creator of KEO Vlogs on YouTube. They discuss Cliff's background in hunting, the evolution of his family's hunting traditions, and the journey of creating his YouTube channel. The conversation delves into land management practices, the journey of targeting bigger bucks, and the lessons learned over the years. They also explore hunting strategies, the significance of wind, and how to manage pressure while hunting. Cliff shares insights on deer behavior, the role of food sources, and the impact of the rut on hunting success. The discussion emphasizes the importance of patience, knowledge, and adaptability in the pursuit of hunting big mature deer.

Mitchell Shirk (00:01.206)

All right. Joining me on this week's show, the Pennsylvania woodsman, got a great guest here with us. Been looking forward to having this one on Cliff Bailey from Keough vlogs. Cliff, thank you for joining us. Yeah, no problem. Thanks for having. Yeah. Thank you for your patience too. One of the things that I've, I've made it known to people who listen to the show on a regular basis is that I am not a technical savvy individual. We just spent about a half hour trying to figure out.

why in the world we couldn't get links to work and what a rodeo it's been. So I appreciate your patience. I hope you have that kind of patience and then some trying to chase a good buck this year. Yeah, I was throwing a curve ball with some of those links, but you know, we, ended up hitting out of the park and getting it to work in the long run here. So it worked out. Good deal. I've come onto some of your content you've posted on YouTube over the years. You've been pretty persistent, have a very solid YouTube page.

If you wouldn't mind, introduce yourself to those who might not know you. Yeah. So I grew up in Western New York. My grandfather owned a dairy farm, about 400 acres, and both of my grandparents and a lot of my family members grew up hunting on the farm. Nothing serious. They weren't necessarily big deer hunters at the time. A lot of it was just like a Thanksgiving.

Wake up go watch football eat turkey and it was a camaraderie of hunting that really brought the family together and why hunting became a really big deal in our family and Over the years that's evolved, know, we still keep you know the camaraderie of it But now it's turned into more like let's grow some big deer and try to kill some big deer on the farm. So You know, that's how the hunting aspect of it started but

I grew up in Climb, New York. I graduated high school and I joined the service. I was an infantryman. I deployed one time overseas and right after I got out of the army, I went to school and got a bachelor's degree and got a job. And I've been trying to balance, you know, a normal working life and hunting and YouTube. And I got a lot of stuff going on here, but I love it. So that's just a little bit of my backstory.

Mitchell Shirk (02:18.872)

Good deal. that's a, like I said, that's jam packed with a lot of stuff and there's a lot of, a lot of different avenues we could go down there. But the thing that of course, perked my interest up because it's something that's near and dear to me is you talked a little bit about how there was a shift in your family dynamic and your hunting dynamic within how you view hunting and your property. And I guess my question would be,

Who or what was the turning point that made you flip a switch and say, I want to do something a little bit different than we would do. I want to go beyond that step of that Thanksgiving tradition and a little bit of deer hunting and that's it. Well, it started with a few people start shooting some big deer and not necessarily on our farm, but in the neighborhood. And you know, it's like, man, we'd like to shoot a big buck like that.

And it came down to, well, in order to kill a big buck like that, you can't kill the bucks we've been killing. then it evolved into, well, once we get a deer that big on the property, how do we keep them on the property? How do we keep them from getting killed somewhere else? then it was like checkers. It just kind of evolved into what we have now. And we've got a property now that is

just prime for killing big bucks. It's taken 10 years to create, longer than that, honestly. But it's not just us, too. Our neighbors have done a really, really good job in promoting young bucks to get to the next year. And it's kind of a group effort around here. And it's pretty amazing. It's not just us that have seeked the benefits of it. Our neighbors are killing really big deer. One of our neighbors last year killed

145 inch gear which you know in Western New York's a really big gear and I killed 144 inch gear and you know it's not just us that are reaping the benefits of that we're all reaping the benefits of all the work we're putting into it so. Let's dive into that conversation a little bit more but first I did want to ask at what point did Keough Vlogs which correct me if I'm wrong is short for Kill'em Outdoors what when did that come into the scene for you?

Mitchell Shirk (04:39.382)

Well, I have a buddy in the army that was posting some videos online and I was a little bit curious about it and I got to thinking, well, what's, you what are my hobbies when I go home that I would like to share with people and stuff? And I was like, well, obviously I have a huge passion for hunting and stuff. So I started videotaping some of that and posting it online and I didn't do it as a serious thing. I did it just kind of because it was fun to go back and watch the videos and show my buddies and stuff. And then

It was a couple years into it, I started realizing, wow, there's a lot of people that are watching these videos. And then that's kind of when I took off with it really. Absolutely. And another thing I wanted to ask you too, so I've noticed on your channel, not only do you do a lot of great hunting content and I've seen a lot of land management and habitat stuff and just stuff you're tinkering with.

on your property but you also do a lot of gear and gear reviews. Would you consider yourself like a little bit of like a gear nut when it comes to sensor? Talk a little bit about that. Yeah, so at this point I could tell you everything you could ever need to know about a trail camera, a security camera. That stuff pretty much all just fell into place with the channel. I've had companies contact me about doing a review of their product or a lot of them.

Like we use one of their products in the videos and then add a link in the description and it's created a lot a lot of Extra revenue for me on top of you YouTube and the sponsorships and stuff. So that's kind of where all that that came about Yeah, good deal. And One of the questions I had for you was if you've got that much exposure with gear and Trying stuff and this and that you know, we're in a world where we're overly saturated with

Products and buy this and buy that and I swear I've hunted with people that have Backpacks that it looks like they're going on a 10-day elk hunt and they're going out and they're back 40 to shoot a deer So I wanted to ask you when you when you think about your journey as a hunter you think about the gear you've tried and the stuff you take to the field Talk to me a little bit about the balance there. I'm not sure what exactly but like if you had to

Mitchell Shirk (06:58.072)

think about the things that are most important to you where you find most value in the gear side of things. Where do you see the must versus the gimmicks in what you've tinkered with? So for me personally, the must like for all the equipment that I take out, set aside all my camera equipment and everything. I want to make sure one, my bow. My bow is extremely important to me. I need to make sure that that's top of the top of the line. I want the best quality arrows. I want the best quality

anything to do with the aspect of actually killing that animal, I want the best. And that goes for my rifle as well. I want the best rifle setup I can have. I want my rifle shooting as good as it possibly can. And then beyond that, everything's kind of secondary to me. You're never going to see me hunting with a huge, full, sick casute. don't, it's not, I got to be careful because I don't want to upset a bunch of people that...

You can say whatever you want. It's okay. We ruffle feathers all the time. Well, yeah, you're never going to see me in a thousand dollar sick as to because it's not needed and it's not necessary. And really, I don't want to portray. I don't want to portray that. I have a lot of a lot of my audience is actually kids between the age of 12 and, you know, 17 years old. And it's important to me to be a role model to them in more ways than one, including in.

the fact that you really don't need to spend thousands and thousands of dollars to go out and hunt deer or turkeys or waterfowl or whatever. you know, that's where I'm cutting costs, I guess, is what I'm going to say is the clothes that I'm wearing. You can get really good high quality apparel to hunt in that keeps you warm and dry for a decent, you know, not too much money, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. So that's where I would cut costs and stuff like that.

Absolutely. And there's a rabbit hole of different equipment things we could talk about, but that's not what I'm interested in talking about. I'm interested in talking about deer. started making a transition that you wanted to shoot some bigger buck. Now, you've learned over the past 10 plus years in doing this, it's a journey. There's a lot of hard lessons that you learn in the process of manipulating land to try to hunt bigger deer, grow deer, hold deer.

Mitchell Shirk (09:22.978)

Talk to me a little bit about those first years in that journey that you have gone on. What were some of the hardest lessons and the biggest things you had to overcome those first years in making this switch and this new goal for hunting? Well, the main thing was food plots. At first, I really wasn't aware of how to create a good food plot and getting soil samples and making sure your soil

has the pH it needs to have to grow good brassicas or good anything for that matter. So it was a learning curve. My brother and I actually started planting food plots back in 2008, 2009. And you would absolutely laugh if you seen some of the stuff that we did. But we've really evolved over the years and have got really good at it. So that was something that was tough was just learning the process.

Luckily, you through my grandfather we had the equipment with the plow and the disc and cold packer and a lot of the stuff we needed to implement all the food plots. But just because you have the equipment doesn't mean stuff's gonna grow. Sure. There's more to it than that. that was one thing at first and then the other hard thing was letting nice bucks go. I mean you kind of take for granted but at that time an eight point was a nice buck.

you know, whether it was a two and a half year old buck, three and a half year old buck, an eight point at that time was like, man, that's a nice buck. Getting to the point where you can let those deer walk by and be okay with it, knowing that you might have a chance at a bigger buck, it's hard to get to that point, but once you do, there's so much reward, you know, afterward. Talk to me a little bit about what got you to that point, because that's different for everybody. Yeah, and not...

You know, it's not necessarily what everybody wants when they hunt and that's totally fine. Hunting has to be something that's near and dear to your heart and you should never hunt dependent on what somebody else wants or thinks or you know, if you go out there and shooting a nice little eight point is what gets your heart pumping and what you know, is what you want and you're happy with it, then more power to you. That's what hunting's all about. So I don't want to portray the wrong.

Mitchell Shirk (11:50.366)

thing when it comes to that. It's all about your personal perspective. And what do you... Yeah, so I was kind of curious about what made you... What part of you said, you know what, this is what I want to do. When did you get to the point where you thought, you know what, I'm ready to make that transition that I want to... What was the want for you to shoot bigger? Because some people, like you said, you might not get there, but there's got to be something that trips your trigger that says,

I'm ready to do this. I'm good to do this because like you said, lot of people like to shoot bucks. I shot a lot of really nice two and three year old bucks, but I got to the point for me personally where I was not satisfied and I wanted something else, but it took me shooting a bunch of deer, getting some deer on my wall that I felt comfortable. Like I almost like I could prove to myself like I can do this and I'm okay.

being patient and waiting longer. Like, was it an experience to you or like, did you just have it in your head that come hell or high water, I'm going to wait for the biggest deer that I can because I know he's here and I'm going to figure out how to do this? No, I think it honestly, my situation is the same as yours. I had killed a lot of nice young deer and it got to the point where, especially as our property improved, it got to the point where it wasn't hard to kill a nice, you know, 15 inch eight point.

You know, there really wasn't challenging that at that point. And so it was the fact that I had killed a bunch previously and the, the want for more challenge. then, you know, I think once you kill a deer that's 130 inch, you know, know, 130 inch deer, you know, if you're in Kansas would be 150 inch or wherever you're at, once you kill that next level deer, it really lights a fire in you. It's.

You know, that fire wasn't necessarily lit until I did it for the first time. And then that's when it's like, I took off with it. Knowing the deer from year to year and then trying to put a plan together to get a shot at that deer. then, you know, everything, you know, seeing it go full circle was like, that's what I want to do every year. I want to, I want to know the deer I'm hunting. I want to learn that deer. I want to kill that deer, you know? And that's kind of what, what lit the fire under me really.

Mitchell Shirk (14:17.526)

Thinking about this because this is something I've experienced and I'm not sure how to articulate so bear with me here but you talked about the like lit a fire under and you wanted it and You know when you want it and you keep doing it and you see some success as time has gone on in this journey Has there ever been a point where? the the want maybe lessened or something inhibited your ability to want it bad enough that maybe

made you change course of action. I'm coming at this from a weird question but I have a reason I'm asking it.

Not necessarily. mean, there's highs and lows to it. Of course, when you only have a few deer that you're considering a deer you would shoot. And obviously, when that deer gets shot, it's like, man, that's tough. know, in this day and age, at least where I'm at here in Western New York, there's not really the possibility of 150-inch deer just showing up out of nowhere because we have so many cameras out around here, not just me, but the neighbors and...

you really don't have that possibility of a random giant showing up. And people will say, well, yeah, they travel long distances, which they do. But I've come to find what you're seeing on your trail cameras is exactly what's there. I completely agree with that on the public land side. On the camera side of things, in your private land, I completely agree with that. There's very few things that get missed.

The reason I asked that question, you know, I think about, how life has, has gone for me, you know, the, the journey you're discussing and hunting very similar for me, but it also got to a point for me. it's not that my desire to do those things get, it's like life gets in the way, life gets busy, things happen, things take away your time. And I think, you throw one fast ball after another of things that get tough. And sometimes it seems like it makes.

Mitchell Shirk (16:21.676)

the want or like that end goal with hunting a little bit blurry and navigating that is tough and you can't Here's the here's the most the biggest thing and I'm circling back to you starting off with you just talking about the want of the big buck and is trying to bring this full circles like Wanting something bad enough. You can't teach that like you can't You can't explain that to somebody really like

I relate this to like football. I played football in high school and I was fortunate. I played three years of varsity ball. I was able to go to college, but I think back to my experiences in football and everything else. And I realized I really didn't want it bad enough to take it to the next level. I didn't want to spend that extra time in the weight room lifting harder. I didn't want to go through. was thinking about deer at that point. So it just, never left me. And I think about how

things outside of, out in your exterior life can grab hold of your life. It's hard to grasp that. I'm getting off on a tangent here. I'm just thinking about this as we're talking about this. wonder if experienced it. No, I understand what you're saying for me. Work obviously gets in the way of a lot of what I would like to be doing and really going all out with hunting, which...

I do go all out with it, but you're right. You gotta have the drive and you gotta have the want and you have to put the work in, really. A lot of people don't think about hunting as something that you really have to work in order to be successful, which you don't necessarily do, but if you wanna consistently kill big deer, you really do. It takes a lot of work and that kind of is different than public land hunting where you really

It's two different types of hunting, public and private land hunting. I could go on and on about that, but I just really enjoy tracking a deer from year to year, learning that deer's habits and his tendencies, and then trying to harvest that deer when he's mature and of age. That's really what I enjoy doing.

Mitchell Shirk (18:43.438)

Yeah, absolutely. Magical thing there too. So I asked you a question earlier about some of the hardest things you had to overcome in that early part of the journey you brought up food plots. And that definitely stems from the land management or like practices and work type things. What about from the hunting side of things? Were there things that in order to go after some of these top class deer, you had to learn some hard lessons early on in your hunting strategy?

Yeah, absolutely. The main thing being the wind. You know, when I was a young hunter, I didn't really consider the wind much because I would, you know, there's situations where I would go out and I'd have does and ponds, you know, directly downwind and I'd sit there thinking, well, they don't really care that they're right downwind of me. But at the time I wasn't thinking like mature buck is not, he's different. He's a different animal than, you know, that doe and pond.

And it took me a few years to realize that you can't be sloppy with certain things, especially the wind when you're hunting mature deer. They don't deal with human scent, that's for sure. have to be smart in the way that you hunt big deer and you have to be very careful because you don't want to...

go into a spot where you do have a big deer and blow that deer out because a mature deer is, like I said, much different than a doe and a fawn and even a year two and a half year old buck. You know, once a four and a half or five and a half year old deer gets a whiff of you in that woods, you're in trouble. You know, there's certain situations from November 4th to November 12th where you can get away with a lot.

of sloppy hunting and still kill a mature buck. But that's kind of really the only window you have that you can get away with that wind. So that's one thing that I learned early on that wind is extremely important when you're hunting or trying to kill a mature buck. Certainly. Are there any other areas within your hunting journey?

Mitchell Shirk (20:55.18)

that really opened your eyes when you talk about targeting in different areas. What things have mature buck taught you that you didn't know early on? So early on, thought like big timber. You know, I thought the woods is where you want to be and stuff. You know, when you think, or at least me personally, when I was younger and I think of hunting, I think of big timber, open woods, you know, big buck just cruising through the woods and stuff. But, you know,

In our area, that's not the case. You want to find any edge that you can, whether it be an old clear cut, a crick bottom, a brush line, a field that meets brush edges. Big deer work edges. And I've seen it over and over and over again. And we have a few particular situations on our farm that are fantastic where you have real thick swamp areas and, you know, it's kind of a huckleberry brush.

or some type of swamp cherries they call them. And it turns to hardwoods. Wherever those edges are that you can find in the woods, big bucks travel them. And especially during the rut. You get on the downwind side of a thick bedding area or something, those bucks instead of diving into that thick cover, they're gonna work that edge with the wind coming out toward it.

looking for a hot doe and as soon as they get a whiff of one then they'll dive into that thick cover. But before they do they like running those edges. That's something that I've learned and I've killed some really nice deer during the rut on those edges. One of them being a buck that I called Wells that some people probably, they know me, recall the deer when I shot it. But edges are fantastic for mature deer. You were talking earlier about

Following the wind and being cautious keeping safety making sure you know You're I don't want to say you're tiptoeing around but you're you're being very very methodical and how you approach that property and some people view that as maybe not being aggressive and You flip that around you look at some of the other areas where we can do with consume media, you know There's people that listen to podcasts. There's there's other YouTube channels and stuff and you hear a lot of people talking about

Mitchell Shirk (23:20.248)

being aggressive on big deer and trying to really capitalize and making it happen and this and that. Can you try to articulate how you view waiting back and when the time for you is to capitalize and be aggressive because there's a balance there? Yeah. So you're absolutely right. Every situation is unique and every situation is different.

For example, if I had 140 inch deer or a big mature buck that I'm So just to give you an example, we have like four different sections of our farm and like hundred acre sections. And say one of those sections is holding one of our biggest deer. Now, if that section is holding our biggest deer and I know the neighbor is a killer, a really good deer hunter.

I'm diving in there and I'm trying to kill that deer immediately. I want to get in there and put an arrow in that deer as quick as I can because I know that guy's on to it. You know, but if it's in a section of our farm where I know I don't have a threat or not necessarily a threat, but I don't. know that there's not a really good hunter that's that's hunting super close to where that deer is. I'm going to be careful because I don't want to blow him out of there. I want I want him to be there.

be comfortable especially if I have the food. If you have the food and you have the thick cover and you have little pressure, say you don't kill that deer with a bow, he's going to be extremely comfortable there and eventually he'll slip up during a cold evening coming out into that standing corner or Nebraska. So like you said, it's all dependent on the particular situation you're in and I'll give you an example. There's a buck

that we had on our farm on a portion of our farm that I called Crabby. was 150 inch 10 point. One of the biggest deer we've ever had on our farm. You know, I'd watched him for years up there. He was a real homebody. He never really left. And it was the second week of October. I was getting a lot of trail camera pictures of him up there in that particular part of our farm. And daylight. I mean, he was coming out into the food plot during daylight. It was crazy. And, you know, I was really itching at it. I'm like,

Mitchell Shirk (25:35.862)

Cliff just be careful. You don't want to blow that deer out of there, you know, just wait, you know I had a really good idea what he did during the pre-rut and rut time frame that I knew I would probably get it get an arrow in that deer get an opportunity at it well he ended up getting killed before I even had the chance to hunt him by a neighbor and Boy did that really fry me because I knew I could have had a chance at that deer had I been aggressive had I not

sat back and been like, you know, just wait, you're going to get your chance, you know. So in that case, you know, if I could do it all over again, October 1st, I'm diving in. I'm going after that deer.

But then you have cases where, you know, I want to be careful. So it's really just a certain situation, you know, that makes that decision. I can't give you a broad spectrum answer to that. It's a very, very tough because it is very situational. And the things that I've learned over the years is number one, it's case in point on deer. One of the things, if you have the privilege to see deer get to an older age class,

And you get to watch them a little bit younger and you get to see some antics in which they, things they do throughout time frame. Sometimes you can use that to your advantage in the future. And I can think of a couple instances. There's, there's, there's one deer in particular that the things that I saw him do or we saw him do. then, you know, the day that he met his demise, it was very, very, followed a pattern in a sense. frequented this one area of this property.

And he would shift his summer range to his fall range. And we knew where that shift was. And the year before he was killed, we had him on there, but it was not as consistent. But the one difference was there was another really, really big mature buck that also spent time there. And I have reason to believe that year that those two got in a fight because there was some things on their bodies. I actually

Mitchell Shirk (27:43.712)

If I remember correctly, think one of their antlers got busted up. was a, there was a, it was just this whole thing that I just had this feeling based on pictures. saw him square off in a food plot once in pictures and, it made me believe that, you know, there was maybe a reason why he wasn't there, but you know, fast forward that deer, the, the, the bigger deer that year gets killed. And then fast forward to the year this deer I'm talking about gets killed.

He did that shift and he was in daylight that first week and he got killed. And it was, it was just so unique to see how that transition worked and use that to your advantage. yeah. That, that data that those trail cameras collect, from the previous years is so valuable, extremely valuable. had a buck that I called, HLB and it was a beautiful four and a half year old buck that I ended up killing.

What got that deer killed was exactly what you're talking about. I had so much trail camera data on him as a two and a half and then a three and a half year old buck doing, as a two and a half year old, he did the same things early on in October. As a three and a half, he did the same things and as four and a half, I killed him on the same hanging vine scrape that he hit as a two and a three year old. It was like clockwork.

You know like clockwork exactly and you know the other thing that comes to my mind as we're talking about this you were talking about that experience of that 150 that got away and I've been in those same situations where I'm trying to be you know play my highest odds and maybe wait back and don't get too aggressive but Here's the fact of the matter is if you've got a deer that is in daylight and You can you have a spot set up on your property that you can get into

and you can get out of and you have the right wind and they're not going to see you, they're not going to hear you, they're not going to smell you or that's at a very high percentage level. You don't have a lot to lose if that deer is in daylight in that case. You're absolutely right. Yeah. That's something that stings to this day for me. Half of your is hack for the guy that killed him. you know, the hard lessons are always the best lessons. Yeah. Just the fact that I knew that I could have hunted them and had a chance and didn't, you know,

Mitchell Shirk (29:58.798)

And it actually has really changed how I approach Big Deer like that since, you said, weighing all the options and stuff, I'm more apt to just dive in at this point. If he's there and he's daylight, I'm probably depending on the situation. Sure, sure. Case in point, we could probably come up with a bunch of different scenarios. But one question I wanted to ask you, you're talking about 400 acres.

trying to see deer get to the next age class and hunt bigger deer. Now, Quality Deer Management Association a few years ago posted a, now it's now the National Deer Association, posted some information. I've also seen this reflect in some of Penn State's research that, I'm losing my train of thought here, my phone's blinging at me here, so I'm losing my train of thought.

their research showed that a bucks home range is about three square miles. So with that in mind, and you're talking about 400 acres, you're talking about trying to get deer to the next age class, do you think that you are almost wasting your time if you don't have your neighbors help? Or do you feel that there are things you can do that even on 400 acres, even on 200 acres, whatever the case may be, that you actually can have an impact in seeing deer stay on your property and get to the next age class? No, I think

Even with a smaller property, you have the ability to hold and grow big deer with three things. You need food. You need good food, like grains, standing corn, brassicas, you know, any type of large food source that can sustain a deer throughout the winter is important. You need kind of big egg. So you have the food.

You need cover, thick cover. You can't just have open timber woods, you know, that's that you can see 200 yards through the timber. You know, that's not going to hold a big deer. You need thick cover, eye level, thick cover brush. And then if you have that situation and you don't pressure those deer, in other words, don't go into that brush. Stay out of the brush, hunt it, you know, on the downwind side. You have a situation where I think you can hold a big deer throughout the entire season. And actually,

Mitchell Shirk (32:18.242)

get that deer to the next year by doing that. So in certain situations, you can hold them in that three mile range that you're talking about. You can't really say that broadly about all the deer. Some deer have a really big range and other deer have a really small range. From my experiences watching deer on our property, some of them, once they feel pressure somewhere,

They'll dive into an area, just like I'm telling you, where there's thick cover, there's food, and there's no pressure, and they'll live there for the entire hunting season. You know, it's pretty wild how their ranges really shrink at that point. The rut is another story. know, at that point, all bets are off that Deer gets on a hot doe. He could be four blocks away in a matter of a few hours. So. Absolutely. And, you know, when people think about hunting whitetails with a bow mostly,

You're thinking mostly about that. You know, so how many times do people say sweet November, sweet November can't wait for the rut. Can't wait for the what? Right. If you had to pick one week of the season when you're talking about hunting on your private land and manipulation stuff, I'm curious. What week would you pick? the first and second week in November for sure. Okay. Yeah. So you would still say that if you're going to capitalize on a good deer, even on, on the

places that you're managing, you're still going to look for that rut, pre-rut to rut timeframe for you? Yeah, not just for the fact of killing a big buck, but just because that's what I live for. I love that, It's just like that, two weeks are incredible in the woods. If you have a big deer, you're really apt to kill that deer on that grain or food late season if he's there, especially if...

If you get a foot or two of snow and you've got lots of food and cover, if that big deer is there, he'll slip up and he'll come moseying out into that food plot at some point in the evening before the end of the season and you'll get a shot at him. But I still love the middle of the rut bow hunt. Bucks running, does chase, running all over the place and that's what I prefer.

Mitchell Shirk (34:42.754)

property manipulation and things like that. Ton of information out there for people to try to get things and ideas and try stuff. Some of it's good, some of it's bad. Some of it's good stuff that's interpreted wrong. Talk to me a little bit about your areas that you might gain resources for this type of work and then applying it to your hunting and what's worked well and maybe what's some things that hasn't worked well for you.

There's things you can do as simple as making gator paths through your woods. Like, I've killed a lot of my deer literally standing on gator paths. You know, where you drive your UTV or ATV through the woods. Deer in general like taking those paths because it's kind of branch free and it's quiet. A lot of times they're kind of muddy paths, you know, and they can walk through there pretty quietly. So something as simple as that, if you have a stand

Say it's out next to a golden rod field, take a brush hog and make a path that goes about 20 yards by your stand. A lot of the deer that are going to work out through that golden rod are going to end up getting on that brush hog path and walking that path all the way down through, depending on where you're going. But you can manipulate their movement as simple as doing something like that. it works. know, it seems so simple in your head. Just what you mean? Just brush hog a path by your stand? It's like, yeah.

I'm telling you, will walk on it and get you shooting at that distance. Absolutely. Are there things that you've tried on your property or habitat management or property management things that you felt were going to really pan out and they didn't?

Yeah, there's there is a one situation where I wanted to manipulate the deer movement by a certain stand and I thought, well, I'm going to there's some timber that I had to cut anyways and some tree tops. So I cut that timber and I piled all those. Excuse me. I piled all those tree tops up kind of in a line to manipulate that deer movement to keep to stop them from going where they were going. And I wanted them to go around the end of it, which would have put.

Mitchell Shirk (36:58.734)

put them at like 25 yards from one of my stands. And unbelievably, I'm sitting there watching and this doe comes up and she gets to the edge of that, you know, brush line that I had created. And I just seen her kind of disappear in there. And she went right through all that stuff and kept going. And I'm like, wow, that was surprising. I can't believe she went through all that. And then here comes the next deer and right through the same spot and I'll be darned. So I got down and I went and looked and there's a cow.

going right to the center of that line of tree tops. just put it like a jungle. And those deer, they refuse to go out around like I wanted them to. They'd go right through a maze to get through the tree tops. So that was a situation where I attempted to manipulate them, but it didn't really work out. I've seen that go both ways, and it kind of goes back to in some situations. I think some deer are individuals in a sense. Because I've seen

making walls of cover as my good friend John Teeter has said on his podcast many times about making walls of cover and manipulating where you make the deer walk. And I've seen that work, how a tree top cut can make them steer their path just enough for a shot. But I have also seen some very, very crazy paths taken by deer. I can think of a deer in particular that laid in a chop off, but it was just a mess of tops. And then you had

briars and brambles grow up through and like to get through it was a nightmare and the things that that deer would do and walking over stuff and get to get it was it blew my mind but there were other deer in that neighborhood that were not using those same paths so in some cases i actually think it's individually based too you're you're absolutely right i've seen that on trail cameras numerous times where you have a trail camera on a main trail and then you see a buck that's

Constantly kind of like on the back corner of the picture You know not really on the main trail but kind of taking his own path and you know You can kind of see a pattern where he's always doing that and it's like man that deer never actually walks down the Bizarre like you said there they take their own individual paths every once in a while certain deer so I got to ask this question the other night when I was a guest on a podcast and I was thinking about it and

Mitchell Shirk (39:20.718)

Of course now when you hear people talk about public eye and hunting for sure people talk about finding the hot sign and a lot of time to talk about rubs and scrapes and stuff like that Let's think about with privately. It's a little different me and I'm curious for you Do rubs and scrapes mean a lot to you or hold a lot of weight to you? When it comes to your piece of private land that you

For me, not really. mean, early season, those rubs and scrapes are important to know, especially if they're in a place that you do have a deer you want to kill, because what that shows is it's really close to where they're bedding. So like, and I'm talking October 1st to October 15th, you know, if you have a really big deer in a certain area and you find a spot that's really tore up and a lot of scrapes and stuff, you can be pretty assured that that deer is bedding really close to that spot. But beyond that,

For me personally, they really don't mean much to me. Yeah, and the more I thought about this in this topic, I would assume that they're there in that property. And the reason I say that is because if you've done everything right that you were talking about when you talk about having ample food, ample cover, ample security that they're not getting bit and they feel safe to be there.

deer are to do what deer do and they're going to let sign down there. And one of the reasons why I think sign doesn't mean that much to me in a sense is the places in which they lay it. I rarely go into and when I do go there, I'm not there long or I'm on the fringe or something like that. It might be a place where like, here's a scenario for you. I can think of a couple of stands that I've hunted over the years that

have a, a perpendicular access to that's off of a food plot. And when you get there, you kind of go through a maze of rocks and the deer don't use that area. But when you use that, you can use the topography and some, some brush to get there. But when you get there, man, you were really close to an area that they liked to bed. And it's kind of a, you know, a stand that maybe you don't hunt that often. You just gotta get the right wind, wait for the right time here.

Mitchell Shirk (41:32.886)

And if I get to a place like that and I'm seeing rubs and scrapes from the stand or on my way, well, that just reiterates what I would have expected because this was laid out for deer and they should be doing what they're doing. So I guess in the flip side, is even though I don't necessarily look a lot at it on a piece of private land like that, I guess if I wasn't seeing anything at all, would be a red flag to me. But yeah.

Yeah, so the sign is important if you're hunting early on, like early October and stuff. When it gets to the rut, I think you're much better off finding pinches in the edges. know, the bucks, I think during the heart of the rut when they're chasing and seeking does are more apt to be running those edges and pinches and not necessarily, they're not too worried about rubs and scrapes at that point going out of the

to hit them. Pre-rut, course, scrapes are hot. You can kill a big deer on a scrape pre-rut really easily, and you can do it during the rut, but my focus isn't on them during the rut. And that makes sense. One thing I've thought about too, of the one thing I'm thinking out loud, you tell me if I'm interpreting this wrong, but talking about October.

leading towards the pre-rut, maybe a little bit more apt to being cautious, hunting on the fringe and not being aggressive and maybe late season the same way. But, you know, it sounds to me like you find the most success in being aggressive in November. Is that an accurate assessment? Absolutely. You know, if there's a, like that area you're talking about where there's a lot of buck sign and straights and you're essentially in their bedroom.

If there's a time to dive in there and climb a tree in that bedroom, it's the first week, second week of November. Because, you know, at that time, it's not like early October where that deer is on a strict bedding, feeding routine. You know, he's at that point, all bets are off. He's seeking, he's looking for a hot doe. And if he hasn't found a hot doe that he's locked down with, he's out cruising.

Mitchell Shirk (43:59.084)

You know, if that pinch is in an area like you're talking where there's a lot of sign and it's in the bedroom, go in there and climb a tree. Relax, take a sandwich. You know, that's time to be in the tree at that point. So one of the things that I've wrestled with personally and feared for myself is if, you know, let's say that early part of the season, I'm hunting food sources or I'm hunting...

to and from bedding and food. That's a low impact spot to get into. I'm not really diving in so to speak. So it's kind of a safer play. Maybe it's closer to where they bed, but not as much. keeping that mindset, I find it sometimes still hard for me that even in November, I'm going to dive in and change what the deer are doing. My biggest fear is that

With that intrusion, I'm going to change maybe some of the local dough groups or something that's been there and throw that off. And I get worried that if I don't kill a buck during that time with that aggressive set, it could be a detriment to the end of the season. Now, I don't know if that's a true thing. It's a thing I've wrestled with. So from your experience, do you feel that it can be a detriment when you get to be aggressive and you're not successful? Does that make it harder?

when you get into the latter half of your deer season? I think it depends on what you're talking about later season. So are you talking later archery season or like rifle and muzzleloader or like the whole rest of the season? Pretty much the rest of the season. Does doing a couple of aggressive sits in a very intimate area like a bedding area, does that have a lasting impact in your opinion on your property for

the remainder of the season? No, I personally don't think so. think that as long as you're not overly piling, say you're hunting that spot three or four days during the heart of the rut, November 6th to the 10th, and you get out of there and you don't go back in there and you have good food close by and you have cover and you have no pressure, those mature bucks will, after the rut's all,

Mitchell Shirk (46:23.182)

pretty much come to an end and they're run down, they're gonna need food. And at that point, they've probably been run all over the country by neighbors and hunters and they've felt a lot of pressure. They're gonna suck in close to wherever that good food source is that has good cover close by. And if that's that spot, I don't think it would matter. I think that they're gonna be back there no matter what. Like in area that I hunt, there's really not that much food left.

everywhere else at that point. Like all the farmers have harvested all their corn, they've combined it, they've chopped it, they've taken their last cutting off the hay fields. You know, in some cases there's still food left over in some areas, but for the most part in the late season, if you have the food, you have the deer. It doesn't matter what you've done to your woods. If you have five acres or six acres of standing corn, you've got every deer in the neighborhood.

Man, that's one of those things I always wanted to experience. And the reason I haven't is the areas in which I've been fortunate enough to plant food plots. It still seems with the deer density and the food source around, man, they get consumed before we can get like, I don't even think about planting grain, corn and soybeans that have standing grain late season on those properties because gosh, I know they wouldn't make it with the amount of deer that are there. And it has a lot to do with what's surrounding them.

Right? You know, if you're in farm country and you've got more of the same that it levels that browse pressure out earlier in the year, you know, you can get it there. And then like you're talking about, you know, it goes from feast to famine when that harvester goes through the field. So if the, if famine is everywhere else, except on, on, on the Bailey property, it's a whole different ball game then. Yeah, you're, you're absolutely right. It's a

You have the food and especially, you if you get some really harsh, we actually haven't had, you know, tough winters the last two or three years, luckily. But, you know, if you do, if you did have a harsh winter where you got a foot and half of snow for a week or so, man, deer travel long ways for food to find that food and have access to it. You know, that's actually a time of year too, when deer show up that if there was a time like we were

Mitchell Shirk (48:46.766)

speaking before about random deer showing up, that's the time of year where deer can show up that you've never seen when they're hungry. I believe that. I really enjoy this conversation because we talked about some in-depth things, but we're not really making this too complex in a sense because when you talk about hunting big mature deer, the first thing you said was watch the wind, pay attention to the wind.

And then the next things you talked about were having food, cover, and security. And when you think about those things and the basics of that, in your opinion, is there anything more complex we're missing when it comes to taking it to the next level and trying to shoot a big mature deer? Is there something more detailed to talk about other than those things? No, I think it's important to really say it as it is, and it's simple. Food.

cover and no pressure. You know, if you have those three things on your property and that's what's cool about it. You don't have to have 500 acres. You can do this on 40 acres. Like, yeah, it's certainly a tougher situation because there still has to be a big deer in that area somewhere. But say you have 40 acres and your neighbors have 200 on each side of you. If those neighbors are in there,

hunting and climbing up trees and walking around and carrying on, you're likely going to be holding that big deer because they're not going to deal with that. They're not going to stand in the 200 acres when they're getting bumped around all day long and they're smelling, you know, this, that, and everything else. If you have 40 acres and it's got good cover and a lot of food on it with no pressure, you have the ability to kill the biggest deer in that block every year. know.

There's probably people listening to this that could still be confused by the pressure thing because you're still hunting and we talked about hunting aggressive, but we're talking about no pressure on your property. So can you try to define for you, what does no pressure or minimal pressure look like on your property yet you're still hunting and hunting fairly often if I, if I might add. So I always hunt edges for the most part, very rarely am I diving deep into our woods, depending on what

Mitchell Shirk (51:08.662)

what woods we're hunting in but I think you want to focus on hunting edges. know, even if especially if you have a small property, I don't necessarily think you want to dive right into the middle of it and it all depends on what your goals are, you know. If you're out there just trying to kill a 15 inch eight point and that would float your boat, you can, there's a lot of different ways you can kill that buck and you can.

walk into the middle of that woods every day and hunt it and likely end up killing a deer like that. But for me, trying to kill a mature buck, I like to try to hunt those edges with the wind in my favor. So you're never really going in there. that's especially important during rifle season because that's when a lot of pressure on neighboring properties actually happen with people that aren't archery hunting and they, you know, they're walking around and making noise and dropping set and, you know,

that those are the situations where those deer will pile into a little area where there's no pressure. I guess hunting the edges is extremely important during that period of time late season where you have the ability to hold those deer. You know, during the rut and stuff, I don't think it's as important to hunt those edges. Like I said, I think that's a time that that November 1st to November 12th

a lot of those rules and tendencies I have in my own head are kind of out the window. If there's a big deer somewhere, I just, I want to get in there and get after it at that point. Certainly. Certainly that makes sense. And when you talk about edges, you're talking edges as in habitat change or edges as far as like the perimeter edge of your property. So I'm talking about the perimeter edge of the property. So say you have a

like 40 acres of timber and then you have a 15 acre green field or something. I'm talking about hunting that green field from the edge and not necessarily the edge of the timber where those deer are coming through. You want to be able to get, if those deer feed in that field, you want to be able to get in there, hunt those deer and get out without booting those deer off that hoop lot or that bag field. You you see one thing that always,

Mitchell Shirk (53:30.122)

makes me wince is when you see you guys putting in these food plots and stuff and then they have their rifle stand on the edge of the woods by the food plot. It's like, you really want to get that stand away from that food plot. You want that, you want a shot, depending on how good you are with your equipment, you want to be far enough away from that food plot that when you get in or out of that stand, you're not affecting those deer in that food plot.

You know, that's a big misconception I think a lot of people have that they need their stand right on the edge of the food plot, which they do if they're archery hunting. You know, they want to, if they want to get a close 30 or in yard shot and they do, but I'm talking about rifle hunting or muzzle or hunting and you know, keeping, keeping off that food source and off the edge of that woods, get back and hunt the edge of the property, like the perimeter of the property. Does that make sense? Makes a hundred percent sense. And, and

You know, the only thing I would add to that is, know, that concept you talked about with hunting with a gun and being able to get in and get out and not affect those deer on the food plot. You can recreate that with the bow. takes a lot more work and, and, strategy and planning. But I, one of the coolest things I've ever seen is getting into a stand, whether it's a blind, you know, a box blind, a tree stand, even when you can walk right up to the edge of that food plot.

and you cannot see into it until you take a seat in your stand. You're screened access and you're cleaned in that way. It's one of the coolest things ever. And people like to talk bad about it if they've never experienced it or want to make claims of it's luxury hunting or whatever negative things you want to hear talk about people with private land. to be able to experience deer

do things that deer do in daylight hours, not pressured and see it unfold before your eyes of the hard work you put into it. Man, I have a hard time finding stuff that beats that in the deer woods for me personally. yeah. Same here. I love it. You know, I get a lot of criticism on my, some of my rifle hunts and stuff because of exactly what you're saying. You know, I have a carpet, I have carpets in my blinds. I have a coffee pot in my blind. I make tea.

Mitchell Shirk (55:51.596)

and I kill big bucks and people hate it. Like a lot of people just, you know, they're like, you should be out in a tree freezing and miserable. it's like, yeah, no, I'm going to be comfortable and, and still kill big bucks. So it's kind of, it's, it's kind of bizarre how some people just do hate that. I don't know why, but I've always leaned to it as, two different things. Number one, I think there's ego involved in hunting.

And I think different people's ego and perspective give people different thoughts. And number one is, and number two, think would be experience and sometimes jealousy. you know, there was a time where I didn't understand that being able to hunt the private land that I could hunt was a privilege and it's a privilege and not everybody gets to have. And that's a harsh reality thing right there is that some people don't have that privilege. I've learned to appreciate the fact that.

I have been privileged in my life to have those experiences. I'm thankful for those experiences and I feel bad for those people who don't and have had to hunt really, really hard on public land and maybe not have the exact same experiences. But that's why I try to be realistic. I hunt public land. I'm hunting public land this year. I'm looking forward hunting public land. I do have to change some of my expectations accordingly. I still have fun.

It's fun to do both. There's just a lot of differences. No, there is. It's like, you know, for me, if I were to go into a public land piece of wood, I would actually feel kind of free, like almost like a freedom about it, knowing that, you know, you could just walk in there. And at that point, I'm not really worried about what's going to happen three days from now.

You know, it's you're hunting it at that time at that place at that spot. Like when I'm hunting here, I'm thinking about what am I am I doing something that's going to hurt me three or four days from now? Whereas if I'm walking into a public land piece, I'm not thinking that way. I'm thinking I got to kill the deer tonight. You know, it's just a totally different mentality than private land. And they both have their their quirks and, you know, challenges. But

Mitchell Shirk (58:15.34)

You know, both of them are hunting at the end of the day and they're both a blast and I love doing both of them. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, hey, this has been a real fun conversation. I appreciate you coming on and joining us for the show. think it's going to be, it feels my fire talking about deer this time of year and thinking about what's ahead to come. You know, real quick before you go.

Anything special you got cooking up for this season? also be sure, please just let us know where everybody can follow you if they're not doing it already. Yeah. We have a YouTube channel called KeoVlogs. And you can find us on there and Instagram and whatnot. yeah, so I'll start with my vlogs October 1st. October 1st is opening day here in New York. And my plan for that first week is to hammer doughs.

I like shooting big does off my hidey hole food plots first thing. You know those food plots that I have in the timber that aren't very big. A lot of them are like a half an acre quarter acre. They're small and I like to those big does killed on those right away because they eat a ton of it. You know I want and right now in those areas I don't have as deer that I'm targeting so it's a great opportunity to get in there and not really worry about.

going to have fun. to stick some doughs. I'm excited about that. So that's what's coming shortly. Good deal. Well, hey guys, if you're not following Cliff already, check it out. Check his YouTube channel. A lot of great stuff there. And Cliff, I look forward to having these conversations again. We'll have to do it in the off season when we're thinking about specific topics and what we're doing on properties. And I'd love to pick your brain again. Yeah, I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on here.

You betcha.

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