How To Hunt Small Properties #2

In this episode of the How to Hunt Deer Podcast, Dan Johnson and Jason Thibodeau discuss the impact of weather patterns on deer hunting, share their Super Bowl experiences, and delve into the importance of accessing small properties for effective hunting. They emphasize the need for proper access routes to avoid spooking deer and maximizing hunting success. In this conversation, Dan Johnson and Jason Thibodeau discuss effective strategies for hunting small properties, emphasizing the importance of access routes, timing of hunts, understanding neighboring properties, and the critical role of wind direction. They share personal experiences and insights on how to maximize success while hunting in limited spaces, including the use of trail cameras and the necessity of careful planning to avoid over-pressuring the area.

Takeaways:

• Weather patterns significantly affect deer movement and hunting success.
• Mild winters can lead to fewer shed finds and smaller antler sizes.
• Proper parking and access routes can greatly influence deer behavior.
• Family activities around the Super Bowl can be enjoyable and memorable.
• Kendrick Lamar's poetic talent was highlighted in a trivia discussion.
• Personal preferences in music can vary widely among listeners.
• The rise of girls wrestling is impacting traditional sports like basketball.
• Accessing small properties requires careful planning and permission.
• Understanding wind direction is crucial for effective hunting access.
• Small changes in access can lead to significant improvements in hunting outcomes. Access routes are crucial for successful hunting.
• Lazy access can lead to poor results.
• Small properties can often become mere travel routes for deer.
• Trail cameras provide valuable insights into deer movement.
• Getting into your stand early can improve morning hunts.
• Understanding wind direction is key to accessing properties effectively.
• Neighboring properties can impact deer movement and hunting success.
• Overhunting small properties can quickly lead to diminished returns.
• Using terrain features can enhance your access strategy.
• Scouting should be done slowly to observe wind patterns.

Dan Johnson (00:00.192)
Alright everybody, welcome back to another episode of the How to Hunt Deer Podcast. I'm your co-host Dan Johnson and today, as always, least until the unforeseeable future, Jason Tibbido, Jason, what's up dude?

Jason Thibodeau (00:15.487)
you

sun's shining and we are finally going to get some snow this week.

Dan Johnson (00:23.776)
Yeah, and it doesn't just look like a little bit either. It looks like it looks like I mean, I think they're calling for anywhere between four to eight inches where I

Jason Thibodeau (00:27.565)
No.

Jason Thibodeau (00:34.402)
Yeah, I was looking this morning and it says probably by Sunday up to 10. So yeah.

Dan Johnson (00:40.468)
That's nuts, man. Like I don't mind snow and I know I know we need it like I know we need a lot of moisture and I would love it if it could just snow a little bit throughout the rest of the winter and then just not necessarily flood everything but you know a little bit of rain going into the summertime. Get that ground moist. Get the everything that needs the water to have the water. But and usually how it works it's drought drought drought. So much rain it floods.

Jason Thibodeau (00:46.967)
moisture.

Dan Johnson (01:10.228)
damage, damage, then like it's really dry, really wet, really dry, really wet. And that seems like, that seems to be the, the story, the last shit five years, maybe.

Jason Thibodeau (01:11.564)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Thibodeau (01:21.39)
Yeah, I was reading, I think it was the other day that from Chicago, over here at airport, this is like the least snowiest in 81 years.

And it's just hard to fathom that, you know, I mean, because I mean, the last, you know, I plowed snow for 22 or 23 years. And so for several years, it was really good money. You know, you could you could continue continually plan on at least once or twice a week. You were going to go out and plow snow. But I mean, these last few years, I'm honestly glad I don't do it anymore.

Dan Johnson (01:51.263)
Yeah, yeah, man, that's crazy. I I think our local news said that our area is 22 inches of snow under the normal snow intake for the year up to this date. So. I don't know, man. All I know is that when we have these mild winters and there's two things that are going to happen as far as weather is concerned, we have a mild winter. It means we're not going to find that many sheds because they're all spread out. It means that.

If this dryness continues into the spring, if it continues into the spring, then we're going to have a smaller antlers, antler size. but if it starts, but the spring can make up for it if we have consistent rain. What we don't want is just massive amounts like eight and like 10 inches in a month or something like that. Then it just gets real nasty, especially in April when all the farmers are.

Jason Thibodeau (02:32.801)
Yep.

Dan Johnson (02:51.028)
are starting to plant, guys like you are trying to get food plots in and stuff like that.

Jason Thibodeau (02:55.009)
Yeah. So last Thursday I went to our big piece of property and I think it's around four, 435 acres and it's all a bunch of narrow fingers and draws and stuff. And I put in about eight miles of hiking, just zigzag and through and everything. And I literally found one probably year and a half old shed. a nice, nice, nice deer, you know, but it's going to be another couple of years before he's, know, something worthy, but, yeah,

Dan Johnson (03:17.738)
Yeah.

Jason Thibodeau (03:25.023)
and not a whole lot of sign. I think I jumped one or two deer. It's kind of dismal, but if we get that snow, now you'll be able to see where they're coming out feeding and it might actually isolate them a little bit more. So if they haven't dropped, it might help to, know, to have them in the bedding areas and stuff or along trails would be a little bit easier to find too. So.

Dan Johnson (03:46.581)
Yeah, yeah, there's still plenty of time to get out there and go look for sheds. Actually not this weekend, but next weekend. I think I'm going to try to find some time to go shed hunting with my kids. I don't know where yet. Maybe it's just a quick walk around public, but yeah, we'll see. Now, did you watch the Super Bowl last night?

Jason Thibodeau (04:06.093)
Yeah, was so I spent probably the first quarter Finishing cooking stuff because I was we were making you know bacon wrapped weenies. We had nachos we had we did steak fondue we just all five kids and And her and I we just kind of sat and watched the game. But yeah for the first quarter I was in the kitchen most of it so

Dan Johnson (04:27.7)
Yeah, that's the same here. were, let's see, I made chicken wings on the smoker. I made a venison queso dip. Holy shit, it turned out great. And then I made it and then I put it on the smoker to get some of that smoke flavor into it. And that turned out just, you know, ground deer meat mixed with some queso dip and then put it on the smoker. It turned out really good. And I just sat there and was like, la la la. There's like a slob eating it all up.

Jason Thibodeau (04:50.797)
Cool. Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Johnson (04:55.134)
And then we made sweet potatoes. Now else did we make? That's sweet potatoes, chicken wings. and then I made deer meat tacos for the boys because they don't like chicken wings. So that'll hopefully change. That'll hopefully change someday. But outside of that, man, my boy, Cooper Dejean from Iowa, dude, that was awesome. Like I don't really care about NFL sports.

Jason Thibodeau (05:08.863)
Okay. Yeah. Sure.

Jason Thibodeau (05:17.813)
Yeah, yeah, that was awesome. Yeah.

Dan Johnson (05:23.988)
tend to watch the teams that have the old Iowa Hawkeye football players on them. And so when I saw him have that pick six, was fired up. That was pretty cool, especially on his birthday. And he's the second youngest person of all time to score a touchdown in the Super Bowl.

Jason Thibodeau (05:27.51)
Sure.

Jason Thibodeau (05:32.801)
Yeah.

Yup.

Jason Thibodeau (05:40.3)
Yeah, yeah, no, that was pretty amazing. It was it was a good game. I mean, as far as, you know, if you want to get into the whole chief's thing and everything like that, it was a good game as far as that goes.

What, so we had a discussion yesterday morning. I learned at church. always do. We have like an adult, like Sunday school. And so every year for Superbowl, we have a trivia. And I did not realize like the amount of intelligence that Kendrick Lamar has. And had like in grade school and stuff. And, and his teacher, you know, came to him and said, he was very poetic and everything. And he used big words as a young kid. but what were your thoughts on the half?

Like I don't want to go into it too much, but what are your thoughts on it?

Dan Johnson (06:25.492)
Did I just it is what it is, man. I mean, it is what it is. And this is my my wife was bitching about it last night. She's like, God, this is horrible. This sucks. This sucks. And I go, do you do realize that there's probably 50 percent of the people out there who are really enjoying this right now? And then whatever other band you like comes on, there's 50 percent of people that hate it. So I just was like. OK, I'll tell you what I did like about that.

Jason Thibodeau (06:27.55)
Yeah.

Jason Thibodeau (06:35.831)
Y-y-y-y-y-

Jason Thibodeau (06:44.172)
Right.

Jason Thibodeau (06:50.167)
So.

Dan Johnson (06:55.858)
I like the fact that he used his own voice. It wasn't voiceovers, right? He wasn't lip syncing like a lot of these, some of these people do. It was his own voice. I mean, it is what it is. Is it bumping in my car? No, it's not. I don't play that music in my car. Or him particularly. I do listen to rap music, believe it or not. But I don't like.

Jason Thibodeau (06:59.777)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Thibodeau (07:13.641)
Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Johnson (07:22.388)
I don't know, man. It is what it is. It wasn't my cup of tea, but I also don't really give a shit. I watched, I was watching for Cooper Dejean on defense. And other than that, I was just kind of hoping that the Chiefs kind of lost. It would have been cool to see them do like a three-peat, but I also like seeing two-time Super Bowl champs get dethroned. And so, in a major way, like the Eagles defensive line,

Jason Thibodeau (07:38.405)
It

Jason Thibodeau (07:45.77)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (07:52.021)
They had their way with the Chief's offensive line and they didn't even blitz. It was crazy. It was beautiful.

Jason Thibodeau (07:57.39)
No, Yeah, no, if you if you're a defensive fan, I mean, that was an awesome game to watch six sex, the interceptions. It was just an amazing game. But yeah, so that's what we did. I let the kids stay up a little bit later to watch the ending of it. You know, they they wanted to see that. So but it was was a good night.

Dan Johnson (08:03.956)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep.

Dan Johnson (08:16.052)
Yeah. Is your boy, one of your boys in wrestling or not? Okay. Football, okay.

Jason Thibodeau (08:20.821)
No, so he plays football. The school they go to doesn't have wrestling at the school, so he'd have to travel. It's about 30, 40 minutes away to do wrestling. So it's kind of a pick and choose thing.

Dan Johnson (08:33.28)
Yeah, I gotcha. Yeah, I, so I let all my kids stay up late. Actually, the news featured my daughter and our neighbor girl. They they came in. They did a news story about the program that my daughter is a part of. And we have nine wrestlers on our street. And when I mean on our street, we have nine wrestlers that are within a hundred yards of each other.

There's all these kids wrestle on the same block. And so it's pretty cool that they did a story about it and tied it into girls athletics and basically the explosion of girls wrestling, especially in the state of Iowa, which is cool because there are now basketball programs that are struggling in small town Iowa.

Jason Thibodeau (09:01.783)
wow.

Uh-huh.

Dan Johnson (09:26.676)
because so many girls are going out for wrestling. Some of these guys don't even have, believe it or not, they have like maybe five or six girls on a basketball team.

Jason Thibodeau (09:36.556)
Yeah, we're seeing the same thing. mean, my daughter's basketball team is the same way. She's in fifth grade, so the sixth grade, they always do back to back games. And the sixth grade team only has like three kids on it. So they actually pull up all the fifth graders to play in the sixth grade level. so we're doing the same thing, but yeah, it was a busy weekend. My son started winter workouts for football. That was Friday night, Sunday, my daughter and then my two soon to be stepdaughters had a tumbling competition and watching the

Dan Johnson (09:56.929)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (10:05.535)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Thibodeau (10:06.479)
the oldest one, but oldest soon to be stepdaughter. She is a three time national champion Tumbler. And it's, she is absolutely amazing. And you can, she's so good that watching her, you can see when she's off. And so she's like, she was starting to catch a cold, must've been Saturday and then into Sunday, you can tell. And when you, you hear her flip down, like the tumble track, you'd never hear it. It's like a whisper, but like halfway through, she like hit a thud, you know, so she hit her heel or whatever.

Dan Johnson (10:14.058)
Holy shit.

Jason Thibodeau (10:36.399)
It's amazing watching these girls. Last year they went to Texas. The year before we went to Florida. The year before that was Phoenix. It's hundreds, thousands of kids. That's pretty cool. Oh my gosh. We don't have to talk about that. No, don't get me depressed. This is my daughter's first year doing it.

Dan Johnson (10:50.912)
and thousands of dollars. Let's not talk about it. Let's not talk. I don't want to get you depressed.

Jason Thibodeau (11:05.993)
oldest daughter has done this for I believe six or seven years and then her youngest daughter who's six she just started her first year. Dan I can tell you that just my daughter doing two nights a month is enough.

Dan Johnson (11:25.76)
Yeah, yeah, my daughter does three nights a week and I'm not going to tell you what we pay for that. And then she wants to do she was wanting to do the next step up. I talked. I talked to a family that spends $1600 a month doing dance and also that does not include outfits. That does not include travel to all these destinations and hotel stays and food and all that stuff. It.

Jason Thibodeau (11:31.98)
Yeah.

Jason Thibodeau (11:48.716)
right?

Dan Johnson (11:55.221)
Like I just, told her straight up, go, I cannot afford to put you in the All Stars dance team. Straight up, I just, I'm not gonna do it. I'm not paying more for dance than I am for my own house. And so, I don't know, it is what it is. All right. Let's cut it. Let's cut the BS. Let's get into this episode, which is the second installment of the How to Hunt Small Property series.

Jason Thibodeau (12:01.407)
Absolutely.

Jason Thibodeau (12:07.243)
Right, right. Yeah.

Jason Thibodeau (12:14.387)
Okay. Alright.

Dan Johnson (12:23.87)
And before we get into the next step, let's take a really quick, very quick recap, Jason, of what we talked about last week.

Jason Thibodeau (12:34.635)
Yeah, I think the biggest thing is, you know...

obtaining permission on these small properties is the first thing first and foremost. And then just kind of identifying everything, all the outliers from there, whether it's neighboring properties and then kind of start to figure out what kind of access you actually have as far as can I gun hunt, bow hunt? Can I use cameras? Are there food sources? Can I plant food plots? And then like the longevity of it, you know, how long am I going to have this property for? Is this just a one once and done?

Can I turkey hunt? Can I shed hunt? You know, so it's pretty much in a nutshell. That's what we kind of broke down last week.

Dan Johnson (13:15.456)
Yeah, okay. All right, cool. All right, let's see here. Week two, the title of this one, so last week you titled Identifying Possibilities. You're right, we talked about access or how to gain access to small properties. A lot of the stuff we talked about can translate over into big properties too. What are we talking about in week two?

Jason Thibodeau (13:38.891)
So titled this one, Accessing and Pressure. I kind of just labeled it starting with what kind of access do you have? And so you've already got your permission and now it's what kind of access do I have to get onto the property? Where am I parking in relations to that?

Dan Johnson (13:56.705)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. All right, and all these are great this episode probably won't take near as long as last week's episode, but It is still very important. All right. So the first question that we need to ask is What kind of access do we have what how do you like elaborate on that?

Jason Thibodeau (14:17.74)
So...

I guess I, when I go back to the identifying, you know, is this a fence line property? Is this a small track of timber? You know, is there a water source? And then where, where does the landowner want me to park my vehicle? Is this something that they want to be able to see from their house, from the road? Do I have to pull, pull in a little ways and get out of the farmer's field entrance? You know, so identifying that is going to be huge as far as how far of a walk do I have into these places?

What kind of effect does the wind have on my accessing into my stands? Checking trail cameras, you know, if you're not using a cell camera. How many, what's your frequency? You know, are you planning on being there multiple times throughout the week? And is that going to change where you can access this piece of property? If it's a long, narrow fence line that you're hunting, maybe you can park out on multiple ends of it or sides of it. And you can walk kitty corner across the field.

Dan Johnson (15:08.426)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Thibodeau (15:18.407)
If it's a block of timber, maybe you're only limited to one entrance on, say it's on the east side, but the wind's always perfect, you know, because the wind's out of the west predominantly. And so I think that's huge as far as once you get that permission and getting to know where and how far your walks are and everything too.

Dan Johnson (15:38.763)
Yeah, I will say this, knowing where to park actually has a pretty big impact on small properties. I had a small property several years ago before it was sold and I was like, I was wondering when I got in there and I was having problems, it seemed like the deer were always spooked. And so I pulled into the driveway, it was like a CRP field and I just pulled off into the entrance.

all CRP, there's no farming operation, the only thing that they do is they mow the CRP once a year and they bale it. And so I parked at this entrance, dropped right in, and then I would walk, I could only access this property from the north, and I walked down into this draw and I usually hunted it on a south wind or a southeast or southwest wind. Very rarely could I get away really with anything out of the northwest except on a very small

portion of it where it would blow into a neighboring field. And I usually only hunted that in the mornings. With that said, was, I kind of was curious why these deer seemed to be spooked all the time. Well, I think I figured it out. I thought I did anyway. And it was, would, they were crossing the CRP field in a low spot where they were able to see my truck, but I was not able to see them crossing the CRP field.

So then instead of their natural movement, they saw my truck and then they were headed back. They were kind of headed back into this big chunk of timber that was on the neighboring property. And so I started, I hunted on a weekday once and there was a business, a company that's manufactured log splitting machines. And so I went, I knocked on their door and I said, hey, listen, I hunt the farm across the street.

would it be okay if I park in your little parking area here outside of your shop? And he's like, yeah dude, as long as you don't, as long as you don't, you're not in the way of our operations, you can park, yeah, you can park here. And on the weekends, you can park wherever you want, because we're not here. And I was like, cool. The second I did that, that next hunt, this deer movement was out of control. And so was awesome seeing that, how...

Dan Johnson (18:04.264)
Something that small had such a big impact on the deer movement. Simple as a truck in a parking lot, or moving my truck across the road into a parking lot.

Jason Thibodeau (18:10.464)
Yeah.

Absolutely and I think that can go back to you know the

first week we talked about this. When you obtain that permission on a small piece of property, it does not hurt to go next door. You know, once you've kind of broke down your piece, go next door and see if you can at least just park there, you know, and find out what, you know, what regulations there are as far as can you park on certain roadways versus can you not, you know, can you park in a ditch? And I think that's huge as far as, know, getting onto these small properties with, because we have

Dan Johnson (18:23.84)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (18:29.024)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Thibodeau (18:43.725)
Two, that I would say for sure, that if similar situation to like what you have with the CRP, if we parked at the top of the field entrance, the deer movement changed and they would literally cut to the southwest, which would put them on the west side of the farm on the one. If we parked on the lane of the one, basically a lot of the east and west movement is there. So we actually park across the road and we're able to get in there a lot easier. it changes everything.

Dan Johnson (19:12.724)
Yeah, yeah, access for sure. And that's just a starting point. And so a lot of people don't realize the impact their access route has on the rest of the hunt, right? If you're doing something wrong and you don't figure it out, you're going to either be blowing everything out, especially on a small property, right? Imagine walking into a property.

Sitting there and going well, maybe this farm isn't as good as I thought it was Meanwhile, every time you walk in your bumping deer or you're driving too far in I think especially on a small smaller property the smaller the property the more you should be able to walk in Given the activity level on the on that farm or the surrounding properties I know guys who park 50 yards from their stand at the top of the hill go just drop down a ridge and that's where they

It's real easy, but they're used to that activity on the farm. So you got it like that's another thing you kind of have to be aware of.

Jason Thibodeau (20:12.501)
Yeah, I definitely agree with that. It's I've struggled with it time and time again of, know, we get into half bad habits sometimes of getting lazy where we park and where we access and everything. But I can tell you firsthand that, you know, a lot of times when you take that lazy route, that you're not going to see the movement you would have seen if you would have maybe put in the little extra time knocking on a door or parking down the road a little ways. If you can, it makes a huge difference in how you access, especially on flat

terrain when you're coming in.

every every single hunt, whether it's morning, night or both. And you're walking the same path day in and day out. If it if a small property is not big enough to hold deer on it or doesn't have something desirable to hold deer on it. If there was one deer bedded there, that might have been the only deer that you saw. So then basically your small property becomes basically a travel route at that point. And if you're parked in a spot where these deer are not going to travel, odds of seeing it or having any sort of success aren't

there and you're going to get very disappointed in having small property to hunt.

Dan Johnson (21:22.08)
Fact, All right.

Do you plan to hunt mornings, evenings, or both? Why is this important?

Jason Thibodeau (21:32.224)
I think it's important for, I mean, kind of just what we were just talking about as far as where you park, because a lot of times with these small properties, it'll be an open field if it's safe, it's a fence line property, it'd be an open field.

And then you'll be shining lights on it when you pull into to park, you know, so this makes a big difference as far as what deer spook off that field right away at night. It's a little bit different or evening hunts. It's a little bit different because, you know, you're not going to necessarily spook them with that. And if deer are bedded on the property now, you just have to worry about more so of where you're accessing, where you're walking and using that wind and stuff. So that's why I tend to when I dissect the small property, I want to know where I'm parked.

I want to know what the wind's doing and I want to know is this a destination food source that they constantly feed in at night? You know and overnight and into the early mornings am I gonna bump deer off of them because there are multiple farms that I go to if I go in the mornings I know that I'm gonna spook probably five to six deer off of it and that might have been the only five or six deer that I would have seen all morning if I go in the afternoon Odds are those five or six deer are going to be bedded on that property so now it's a matter of like how am I?

accessing to my stand and do I have an idea of like where they like to lay? Because when we talked about small properties, we were talking anywhere from around that 40 acre and smaller range. So if it's an open field that you're primarily hunting with a fence line.

The odds of them bedding next to your stand are pretty high at that point. You know, if you're hunting a small block of timber that's 20 to 40 acres, now it's a little bit different. They could be bedded closer to, you know, maybe a corner. But once you realize that they're bedding areas, maybe back in the back corner and you can access from.

Jason Thibodeau (23:19.137)
different side, then maybe you have that figured out as far as the wind goes. I would say from what I've seen with the blocks of timber, it's a little bit easier once you have the wind figured out. And if there's any terrain features to access that, then a fence line, just my opinion.

Dan Johnson (23:37.057)
Yeah. And so for me, yes, you can get away without running trail cameras, but man, the stories a trail camera can tell you, right? A trail camera can show you deer movement. And if you're smart enough, you can walk a, I don't know, you can find where the deer are moving and how they're moving through the property. And if you are hunting a property like which you described, a fence row property, most of it's ag, big open field.

If you're walking in there in a morning hunt and you don't know what's going on, you're going to bump deer and your morning hunts are to be very difficult, especially if that property has limited access from one direction. mean, if you can, like I have a property, the only way that I can access this property is through one gate. I can only go through one gate.

and I can't come, I can't jayhook into the property on another property, I just can't do it. And it's difficult. And I bump deer all the time. I bump deer mornings and nights, but I know that in the mornings, I have to come in really early, because if I come in right at sunrise, it's the deer are already on their feet coming back through the area. But if I get in there an hour early, and I'm in my stand an hour early, then I'm gonna have a little bit more.

leeway on my morning hunts, I'll get in the stand, things will settle down, and then the deer will naturally come back through. But outside of that, man, it gets real difficult.

Jason Thibodeau (25:06.285)
Yeah

Yeah, I would definitely agree on that our early tactic as far as if you know that there's deer out in a field feeding that the odds of them chilling back out and settling down and stuff by the time daylight breaks there, I think I think you just stack the odds in your favor the earlier you can get in there. I will say, though, use caution with, you know, like what your wind is doing in that that hour time frame, you know, because the earlier you're in there, that's the longer your scent has to carry over an area to.

Dan Johnson (25:37.748)
Yep, because your wind's got to go somewhere.

Jason Thibodeau (25:38.592)
So, yep.

Yep, so it's going to go somewhere and we know what it's doing when it's dark out versus what we're, you know, what's doing when the sun's coming up on sun's coming up, it's starting to rise. So it's pulling your thermals up. But I would say so going back to if it's a morning or evening, you know, if you know, going back to the accessing the per having permission to hunt this property, if it's going to be more than a year that you're going to have on this property, maybe you've kind of locked that portion of it in. Maybe it doesn't hurt for that first month or

so to get to know your property to hunt both of them morning and evening because the only way you're going to know that these deer are traveling through is if you're actually there.

Dan Johnson (26:21.44)
Exactly. And a trail camera doesn't tell the whole story, right? Just a little bit of it. Yeah, I would definitely agree. I think, I really do think that there is an opportunity for, and scouting too, mean, trail cameras and scouting and spending time in the tree stand and knowing the path on this property. I feel like,

Jason Thibodeau (26:25.697)
All right.

Jason Thibodeau (26:38.444)
Mm-hmm.

Dan Johnson (26:49.426)
Unless you have a destination food source on that farm, like for mornings, right? A destination, if you have to go through a destination food source, like an ag field to get to your tree stand, you're gonna, you're gonna bump deer and it's gonna suck. Morning hunts are gonna suck. But if you can get in there, sneak in there on an, a, and it's, the bedding isn't too close and you, can play around with the wind a little bit, then you're gonna have the ability to get creative on your afternoon hunts, I think.

Jason Thibodeau (26:55.597)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Thibodeau (27:19.138)
Yeah.

Yeah, and I think some of that with a small property, it's going to depend on your terrain and how the property lays out, too, because if it is just a narrow, skinny piece, a fence line or anything like that, it might not hurt to hunt those mornings because maybe deer are still using that to travel to their bedding areas, too. So if you're in there early, you might be able to get in your stand, there for an hour or whatever deer have relaxed and then they're just back in their natural travel corridors. But if you throw all that out the window and you're getting lazy about it,

it you're there 10 minutes before daylight, you might have bumped all those deer off. know, so there's the big there's a big, big difference in it as far as like once you've known this property for a little while versus like I have it just for this year. You know, if you have it just for this year, maybe maybe a dabble with both, you know, maybe try both, but definitely use as much as you can as far as using cameras or anything. And it all goes back to also what we talked about last time with how far is this property from you? You know, if you're

drive in an hour every time to hunt this property, you might not be able to get out of it as much. So you may consider I'm going to go there. I'm a hunt the morning. I'm going take a break, go have lunch, and I'm a hunt the afternoon. You know, so there's, there's both in that.

Dan Johnson (28:33.598)
Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Are there neighbors that hunt? Why is this important?

Jason Thibodeau (28:39.925)
I think it's definitely important as far as what kind of pressure can you put on this piece of property and what kind of pressure is put on the surrounding properties. And also, we just as we've talked about in the past, too, with recovering a deer on a small property sometimes gets to be difficult. So you want to know who is around the property borders and you want to get to know them if you can and at least be able to obtain permission to go get an animal that you shot.

Jason Thibodeau (29:11.573)
Outside of that, on a small property, I don't know that it's one of those things where you can sit there and talk about any sort of management strategy. So I don't think that's even really an option. small properties, mean, basically you're kind of taking what you can get.

Dan Johnson (29:24.756)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (29:30.739)
Yeah, it is. Unless you have an entire neighborhood of people on your team and you're really good at communicating, it's going to be, I think, smaller properties and especially in the areas where I hunt. If you are going to be waiting for a four year old.

you're gonna be waiting for a long time. And so I would just go in there with low expectations and go in there to have fun and realize that depending on, now I will say this, I do have to say this. I know a guy who he hunts a little bit of the rut, but not a lot. He goes in there on like really surgical strikes. He's got a 40 acre piece. A lot of it is ag. It's got a active farm on it as well.

and then it's just like a rectangle that goes back. There's cattle or excuse me, there's hog. There's a hog confinement on the front end, right on the road. And then the back portion of this farm is an ag field that the farmer farms. Okay.

but he does not shotgun hunt. So neither does the guy who hunts. So he lays off of it during shotgun season and he uses pressure to his strategy. Meanwhile, all the farms around are shotgun driving, doing this and that. And what does it do? It pushes the deer onto this.

little 40 acres, I would say 10, 15 acres worth of timber. The rest is being farmed or has livestock on it. Then he goes in late season and destroys deer every year. Like, I mean, in his, this specific instance, it's nothing gigantic, but what he's done is he's played the I'm also pressure to type deal. I'm not going to go in and I'm not going to be pushing deer out of the sanctuary.

Jason Thibodeau (31:12.203)
Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Johnson (31:27.976)
shotgun sanctuary, I'm gonna let him come in and then I'm gonna make my strike when the time is right. So he's figured out a way to do that and it's led to his success.

Jason Thibodeau (31:39.798)
Yeah. And I think that's, mean, going back to the conversations we've had before to getting to know your neighbor is huge because just like one of these properties I hunt, I found out this guy had a 40 acre sanctuary that he never even goes into. And then he rents a bunch of other ground that, you know, deer are not pressured at all. So now there you go from literally across the road where deer are never pressured. And then if I'm hunting this property once a week or once every two weeks, I'm putting a lot more pressure on my property.

Then where they could feel safe right across the road so I think that's we're kind of getting to know your neighbors and you know Do they hunt and what kind of? Strategies in are they gun hunters or are they bow hunters? I also got on here. So what wind do you need to access and or well when do you need to hunt?

Dan Johnson (32:31.328)
Yeah, very important. Go ahead and talk about this, but I'm gonna say that almost the wind to access the farms is almost more important than a small piece than wind to hunt it.

Jason Thibodeau (32:33.869)
It's so, go ahead.

Jason Thibodeau (32:49.761)
Yeah, I would definitely agree with that as far as if it was a fence line property or a small finger property. I've noticed a lot of properties you can get away with different winds, swirling winds when you're hunting a...

a certain specific fence row or a certain stand and but accessing if my wind's blowing right into a potential bedding spot. I mean, that's just going to blow deer out. So right away, I try to identify how this property lays out. Is it a square and where predominant winds come from, where I plan on setting stands up? And because you know you can get away with one, but you're not going to get away with the other or both. So picking and choosing your battle with the wind is a big thing with small.

property.

Dan Johnson (33:38.773)
Yeah, yeah, I can't tell you how many times, like I used to be that guy that I used to not care what the wind was walking into my stand. The only time I thought about wind was when I was in the tree or in, you know, wherever my destination was. But that's so wrong because you're, you know, if you're taking an access route and the wind's gonna be good when you're in your tree, at some point,

You have to you're going to have wind blow into where deer are coming and going and so I almost had to re-evaluate and I got to give credit where credit is due I learned I was listening to Bill Winky talk about how he basically reverse engineers all of the good stand locations that he has and he's like, okay, I found this good location now, how do I get to it and he's like sometimes

Jason Thibodeau (34:32.738)
Mm-hmm.

Dan Johnson (34:35.082)
there's good locations that if you don't have the right access route to get to it, it's not gonna be a good hunting spot. Maybe during the rut, it might turn out to be, but if you're trying to hunt precision like a small property, it would be very difficult. So you have to know the access routes, the wind direction on your access routes.

how like if you're gonna skyline yourself, especially in a big field, these deer aren't dumb, man. They've lived in this environment longer than you have and they know like, man, I can't tell you how many times I've been busted or like I've had a trail camera picture sending me a picture of a deer or I'd go and check it and a deer would be coming through a particular area every single day all the time and I come in and I hunt it and I don't see him. Why?

Jason Thibodeau (35:04.62)
Yeah.

Jason Thibodeau (35:25.837)
Hmm.

Dan Johnson (35:29.066)
probably because he watched me in some way, or form get out of my truck or walk into the timber and he just slipped very quietly out. And that's because my access route to that stand location was dog shit and I needed to start to reevaluate some of those things.

Jason Thibodeau (35:45.079)
Right.

Well, and too, you had mentioned being skylined. think that's another thing with the small property is your,

selections on trees are minimal. You so I mean, you only have so many to work with. So then you got to get a little bit creative, too. mean, multiple guys have talked about how you don't need to be 15 to 20 feet and you could sit at 10 feet, eight feet, you know, off the ground or use a ground blind or make a natural ground blind. You know, so I think those those are big things as far as, know, what wind and where is it going? Because we've talked in the past, too, with a deer's nose at 50 yards versus 200 yards.

Dan Johnson (35:58.261)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Thibodeau (36:24.643)
is completely different thing. But it's also completely different if a deer is walking past a trail versus your wind is blowing to where they're betting it. So there's a big difference on that. And I think there is definitely something you can get away with when you're in the stand as far as your wind. But getting to the stand is probably more important.

Dan Johnson (36:45.962)
Right, right. That's a fact. That's a fact. So this is something that we all need to keep in mind. Now, the next one is kind of a continuation of last week's episode. Can you hunt this property anytime? What do you mean by that?

Jason Thibodeau (37:01.963)
Well, so I'm going to tie this more so into the question below that also. So when I say, can you hunt this property anytime? I'm also going to say, is this property a property that you'll overhunt? And we've kind of put this all in a nutshell with small property can be over. You could pressure it real quick, right? You can kick deer out of there constantly. And I would say that would probably more so happen on like a smaller track of timber. Now, I think you can probably hunt a

fence line more than you can that little block of timber just because if you're using the terrain and the wind in your favor and you're treating that fence line or that small narrow pinch or whatever it is that you're hunting, if you're using that as a travel corridor, you're not anticipating deer are going to necessarily be bedded on that travel corridor or in that travel corridor. That's basically just taking them from one destination to the next. So that's where I say you could probably potentially

hunt these smaller pieces more so than a block of timber.

Dan Johnson (38:05.504)
Right, Yeah. And the reason is, because you're not like deer just, yes, sometimes I guess they bet in fence lines, but more than likely not. And so at that point, it kind of goes back to where are deer coming out at into this destination type deal. How does that then change if it is a small block of timber? And let's even shorten it down to like,

Jason Thibodeau (38:15.074)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (38:34.784)
20 acres of just a block of timber.

Jason Thibodeau (38:38.497)
Well, to me, it's a big difference. mean, because I have one property that sticks out in my head that is basically a small block of timber and it's not any bigger than 10 acres. And so for me, I know as far as like accessing that property is very tricky because deer always bed within that 10 acres. They always are. And picking where they're bedded at today versus tomorrow, it's a big game changer as far as, do I park to the south end? Do I park to the north end? You know, how that wind is blowing.

into the woods versus where the wind's blowing like once I'm sitting there. You know, so that's where I think playing that wind game in a block of timber versus playing the wind game on a, you know, fence line crossing or something like that is completely different.

Dan Johnson (39:13.344)
Right. Right.

Dan Johnson (39:23.604)
Yeah, yeah, that's, I mean, it's pretty self-explanatory at that point. I am a firm believer that if you go low, you go low and then cut in to wherever you're going. So if that means you have to walk a crick, if that means you have to walk the lowest part of a draw to get in there, some of the best tree stands that I have ever hunted or locations that I've ever hunted,

I took a crick or a water system in or a ditch, like an irrigation ditch or a flood ditch or just the lowest part of a draw or anything low. And then I walked straight uphill. Man, that little piece of advice would be worth something if you wanna call that advice.

Jason Thibodeau (40:15.853)
Oh, it's definitely advice. mean, I think it's definitely advice we've used when we go out West, you know, you don't want to get skylined. So you definitely want to at least get down on the military crest or something of that sort, or get down in the creek bottom or, you know, a natural finger draw that you can hug in. wouldn't, you know, on a fence line property, I'm not necessarily going to walk out in the middle of a field unless that middle of that field is lower. You know, I might actually try to hug that fence line and walk that fence line tight all the way in.

Dan Johnson (40:31.498)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Thibodeau (40:45.827)
depends on how it lays and if there is any terrain features.

Dan Johnson (40:46.133)
Right.

Dan Johnson (40:49.566)
Yep, absolutely, Okay, as far as overhunting it is concerned, think you're gonna figure that, you know, I think this is self-explanatory. I think guys are gonna figure that out really quickly.

Jason Thibodeau (41:02.347)
Yeah, and I think that's kind of where I was, you know, asking that question. Do you hunt at mornings, evenings or both? And I think that's what you're just going to have to figure that out by being there. You know, you can you can use cameras all you want, but you might have to face the wrong way and they literally just walk behind it, you know, in in the different direction, travel different times a day than what you think. So I think being there for the first little while, getting to know your property is pretty huge. And then you'll figure out the wind and what it does, because every every property has a different wind that swirls

in a different direction. There's thermal hubs and all sorts of things that we haven't discussed much about yet.

Dan Johnson (41:39.54)
Yep, 100%, 100%. And we'll get into some of that next week. Is there anything else we need to talk about this week?

Jason Thibodeau (41:48.066)
I don't think so. mean, I think in a nutshell, we pretty much, you know, we've got our permission for this small piece of property and we've dissected it in the first week. you know, now we're just kind of breaking it down how we can actually access it once we're there, where we have to park. And then what kind of, what kind of pressure are we seeing from neighbors and what kind of pressure can or are we putting on it?

Dan Johnson (42:11.392)
100 % perfect. Well man, I really appreciate you taking time and setting this this all up for us. This was a great Follow-up to the first episode. We have one more episode left that will launch next week. So everybody needs to keep an eye out for that and Good luck to everybody who is out there either finishing up a season or if you are gonna be out Scouting and trying to figure out this wind. I want to leave you everybody with one last step

When you're scouting, slow down. It doesn't need to be a speed scout. Slow down. Just even sit down on a bump or a log and just kind of watch what the wind is doing. Throw some grass up in the air. Maybe bring a cigar. I don't know. Bring a cigar and smoke a cigar and watch what that wind is doing. Dude, I know a guy, this is gonna sound crazy. He used to set a tree stand and then he used to light fires in his tree stands.

Jason Thibodeau (42:43.981)
Hmm.

Jason Thibodeau (42:57.751)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (43:10.452)
to watch what the smoke would do from the tree stand. Believe that or not.

Jason Thibodeau (43:14.828)
I sit.

Yeah, no, I think was it the Wenzel brothers? They used to take smoke bombs out to their tree stands in like a bucket and let them go. So yeah, no, it's definitely a great thing to do. Kind of piggyback or tie into what we were talking about earlier when I was shed hunting last week, I kind of went into an area I don't go into much and there's not a whole lot of options for trees or anything. But I literally slowed down to look at the way the creek was moving through on the west side.

Dan Johnson (43:22.248)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Johnson (43:34.4)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Thibodeau (43:45.6)
And then on the north side of this, this little area is like a swamp, a slew. And then I started looking around and I started seeing all these rubs. No, major, but just tons of rubs. And so then I start to creep back up the top of the hill and I'm looking out into this little narrow finger of a pick corn. And that's when I stopped and I slowed down and I looked at it. And then I looked down the trail and there's that antler, you know, I took that little bit of extra time and now I've dissected an area where I will find a way to get to tree stand in there.

Dan Johnson (44:16.256)
Absolutely. Well, man, everybody have a good one. If you're going to be in a tree, wear your safety harness or wear your saddle or whatever it is you do. Good vibes in, good vibes out. And we will talk to you next week.

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