Knowing When To Stay and When To Move

In this episode, Dan Johnson and Jason Thibodeau discuss hunting strategies and when to stay or move to a new spot. They talk about the importance of knowing when does come into heat and how it can increase your chances of success. They also discuss the use of trail cameras and how to interpret nocturnal activity. They share their experiences with hunting specific spots and how long to give a spot before deciding to move. They also touch on the importance of wind direction and how it can affect your hunting strategy. In this conversation, Jason and Dan discuss various aspects of hunting deer, including wind direction, access routes, hunting strategies, and out-of-state hunts. They emphasize the importance of understanding deer behavior and patterns, as well as adapting to different hunting environments. They also highlight the need to enjoy the hunting experience and not get too caught up in the details. Overall, the conversation provides valuable insights and tips for deer hunters.

Takeaways:

• Knowing when does come into heat can increase your chances of success
• Trail cameras can provide valuable information about deer movement
• Nocturnal activity can be challenging to hunt, but multiple cameras and process of elimination can help
• The length of time to stay in a specific spot depends on the property and the deer movement patterns
• Terrain features can sometimes be hunted in any wind, but access and wind direction are important factors to consider Understanding wind direction and using it to your advantage is crucial in hunting deer.
• Adapting to different hunting environments and adjusting strategies based on deer behavior is important.
• Identifying huntable deer and focusing on their movements can increase hunting success.
• Knowing when to stay and when to move to a different hunting spot is key.
• Enjoying the hunting experience and not getting too caught up in the details is essential.

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Dan Johnson (00:01.277)
All right, everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Nine Finger Chronicles podcast. I'm your host, Dan Johnson. And today we are joined by returning guest, right? You've been on before, right? Jason Thibodeau of Illinois. Jason, man, how we doing today?

Jason Thibodeau (00:11.231)
Yeah. Yep.

Jason Thibodeau (00:17.495)
Good Dan, how are

Dan Johnson (00:19.848)
I'm doing good, man, doing good. You are what? Are you in landscaping or just like your business mows like properties and things like that? What do you do? Remind us what you do for a living.

Jason Thibodeau (00:30.263)
Yeah, so landscaping. Yeah, we landscape half of the week and we mow half of the

Dan Johnson (00:36.869)
Gotcha, gotcha. Man, I'll tell you this. I've done landscaping before, probably not at the same level that you have done, but I will say this. Sitting on a mower, there's times where, dude, it's kind of relaxing for me anyway, or like when I go and mow my yard, I can go mow. Now I'm not doing it eight hours a day, right? But I'm sitting on a mower and I feel like I can think.

Jason Thibodeau (01:00.749)
Right.

Dan Johnson (01:06.515)
I just have to go back and forth and I can like relax a little bit. I don't know what it's like for you, but for me it's a little relaxing.

Jason Thibodeau (01:14.924)
There's, mean, this year has been extremely wet weather for us and we really haven't had a break from the mowing. We only had one week where we slowed up, but yeah, there's days it's relaxing. I try to schedule it that way where I landscape the early part of the week and then I mow towards the weekend and it kind of gives your body a calm down. But I'll be honest, there's times where I wonder what I'm doing. You're sitting there in the sun and you're baking and you're mowing for eight to 10 hours.

But no, it's good, it's good.

Dan Johnson (01:46.585)
Yeah Yeah Well, we're sitting here. I mean August 5th, I believe today is or something like that fourth or fifth. I don't even know anymore, but You get do you got cellcams out right now sending you pictures every

Jason Thibodeau (01:55.797)
Yep, fifth.

Jason Thibodeau (02:02.891)
My cell cameras are slow right now. We've been so hot I feel like I need to move some of my cameras into different spots, but I had some decent decent deer show up and it was pretty regular But now it's kind of slowed

Dan Johnson (02:07.382)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (02:17.622)
Yeah, you know, I think I missed it. I missed the the peak deer movement of July. There's something about July. The antlers aren't fully developed yet, so you may not know what it is, but they're hitting the mineral sites like a ton. Like for me, I can use mineral and I think that's passed now where they're just hammering the mineral sites. However.

I'm getting some deer on camera. Now they're not on camera every single day in the same locations. they're not pegged or anything, but across the farm they are, you know, I'm seeing really like good deer and there's three particular deer.

so far that kind of have the shooter tag that's been put on them. As of right now on the farms that you have in Illinois, do you have like some some bucks that are already on your hit list?

Jason Thibodeau (03:11.333)
You know, there's a couple that we've seen. Obviously there were an early stages of velvet, but they, could tell what their frame was. There's a, there's a couple of deer that, you know, are returning from last year, but then there's a few that, you know, we generally won't see until the crop rotation or until some of the crops come out, you know, because of the crop rotation. Some of the farms lie a little bit differently. Some of them we hunt too. They're just, they're, they're funnels, you know, they're small pieces and.

Dan Johnson (03:31.891)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (03:40.019)
Yeah.

Jason Thibodeau (03:40.167)
A lot of it depends on surrounding pressure.

Dan Johnson (03:44.497)
Yeah, I'll tell you what, like a lot of people get, I don't want to say they turn their nose down at small properties, but I will say this. I got a property in Iowa that I've been hunting now for several years. It's laid out kind of weird. It's like a big Tetris piece. It's just like, I don't know, like a lightning bolt turned on its side. Right. And it

It's like a total of 480 acres, right? You look at that and you're like, lucky duck, you know, here he is. He's going to start bitching about 480 acres in Iowa, but it's not the easiest to hunt. And and so I look at some of these guys who have 10 acres with the best possible funnel in that 10 acres. And hey, man, they don't have to overthink too much. They just know that if I go in there with the right wind at the right time,

you know, some shit could go

Jason Thibodeau (04:43.88)
So I was going to say we have a property that's similar to what you just said, 480 acres, know, and it literally looks like a lightning bolt struck the middle and it's fingers everywhere. And to hunt that versus hunting a 50 acre piece that I have that basically has a horseshoe in it. You know, that horseshoe is just a natural funnel for those deer. And as long as you know, the couple of weeks that those does are in, it's a great spot.

Dan Johnson (04:52.591)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (05:08.834)
Yeah, yeah. How long did it take you to figure out that portion of it as far as like, okay, if you're in there when the doughs are ready, then it's good. like outside of that window, it's not very

Jason Thibodeau (05:20.839)
Well, it's pretty funny because the, when I got permission for the 50 acre piece, got basically there's only six acres until our timber on it. And I set my tree stand up and then the farmer that was combining the corn that year, he called me after I got done hunting and he laughed at me. Why are you sitting there? You know, and I thought it was a perfect spot. He says, no, you need to try over here. You need to try there or whatever the following year. I mean, I just refilled.

all sorts of different travel patterns once I got up onto this little ridge that was there. And I'll be honest, you could pretty much go there every year within a couple week window and you will see deer you've never seen all year and you'll see some of the biggest deer. And it's only because one or two does reside there basically.

Dan Johnson (06:06.869)
Yeah, that's crazy, right? Isn't like this deer, this that property you're talking about probably doesn't hold deer very like. Let me ask you this. Does that property have deer on it like big bucks on it right now living?

Jason Thibodeau (06:09.924)
It is.

Jason Thibodeau (06:23.621)
No, no, at nighttime, one of the cameras I got is facing over a bean field and you will catch them cruising through that bean field, maybe munching out there, but it's very few and far between. What I do see right now is the doe or two does, you know, there's one that has one fawn. There's one that has twins. I see them very regular and I kind of know, you know, exactly where they bed. And as long as I stay out of there, I pretty much know the window of when they're going to come in because it seems

Dan Johnson (06:25.919)
No.

Jason Thibodeau (06:51.447)
I don't know if you've noticed, but certain areas, certain doe families come into estrus about the same time every

Dan Johnson (06:59.933)
That's a fact, man. Like, I don't hear people talk about that a lot. I don't hear maybe maybe it's because I don't consume a lot of hunting type content. Like I don't consume a lot of what I'm putting out, but I don't hear people talk about like how important knowing when does come into heat is, especially on properties where there's not a ton of bucks, because if you can find the right the right dough group.

and you know when they're coming in and you can scout, like, you can be on that property a lot or schedule vacation or whatever it takes to be in that spot during that window, dude, your chances go up dramatically.

Jason Thibodeau (07:42.309)
They do absolutely. this property in particular, I know that there's about five days that that dough will, any dough from that family will come into estrus. And as long as I sit those and rotate my stands or, know, as long as I'm rotating a morning with a night or something, I can almost guarantee I'll either see one of the shooters that I had on camera or a bonus one that shows up. I sat there a few years ago and it surprised me when

Two weeks later, I was still sitting there. Two weeks after I thought the peak of the breeding was going to happen or when she was coming into estrus, and I ended up having bucks just everywhere. And it surprised me because I thought I did my homework wrong, but what it was, it was just an unbread dough that had got pushed in there. I was just learning that. I mean, we have some good properties that early dough will come in maybe middle of October, but we've seen doughs get bread in middle of February

And it's just because of the imbalance of the herd on this particular

Dan Johnson (08:44.14)
Yeah, that's nuts that like that window is Huge mid -october november december january even now and now you're saying into february i've never seen it i've seen a second rut after the iowa second shotgun season during the late season one time where a young doe was

coming out of this bedding area and I was hunting late season on a, it had gotten, it had been a wet fall. And so there were standing corn in this river bottom and they couldn't get to it. And so it hadn't froze yet per se enough to get a combine down in there. But with that said, man, the deer were hammering that corn. And so I found it and I, there was a day in, I think it was late December where I watched three bucks chase a young doe who had not been

and it was pretty sweet. Now that's a rarity because I've only seen that one or two times in the last however many years that I've I've been bow hunting so I don't know man it's it's it's tough.

Jason Thibodeau (09:48.162)
Yeah, I personally, I've seen it in January. It's hard to know if they've all been bred and which ones to look for and whatever, but it's kind of funny because we own a piece of property, my brothers and I do, and it's just a long skinny piece and there's some tillable on it, but basically we can watch deer from, like I say, mid -October start running around like crazy.

And then my brother actually lives kitty corner across the road from this property. And he watched one of those does get bred middle of February, standing in a shop, you know, with his binoculars, just watching out there and it's crazy. But the, there's so many deer there. There's so many does there. And, and it's one of those things where the management's just not

Dan Johnson (10:34.791)
Right, right, that's a fact. So on here's what I want to talk about today, right? And because not only do we both have individual experience with this topic, but we together we have because we went on a hunt in Nebraska one year and we have our own experience hunting together as a group on this. And that is kind

when to go and when to stay, right? And because there's two sides of every coin, right? You can be in a really good pinch point and you're hunting it for a couple of days, nothing shows up. Or the opposite would be you're hunting a spot and you're going over and you're seeing things, but it's not the right deer coming through. There's all these questions of when to go.

when to stay, when to be mobile, when to stay put, when to go visit another property, when to drive four hours to a mosquito infested.

Jason Thibodeau (11:41.802)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (11:44.74)
mosquito infested grassland. And then have another four hour silent ride home with a guy you're hunting with. But and then and then like the other thing that I want to talk about today is. man, I forgot, but we'll get into it, but like we're just there's there's there's like mobile. I just want to start with being mobile. OK, and. So back in the day.

Jason Thibodeau (11:51.872)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (12:13.859)
When I first started hunting, I was a ladder stand guy, right? Ladder stands and bow hunting on field edges and, you know, like not necessarily knowing what to do in those early stages. And so I had a guy that I kind of looked up up to and he was like, dude, you just got to move. And so right around that time is when I got my first lone wolf assault and then four climbing sticks. OK. And that's when I started getting into the timber, seeing more deer, having more interactions, but seeing less deer, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Right, okay, that's the setup. Now for you, especially on the 50 acres, you got it figured out, right? That 50 acre piece, you know where you need to be, like, there's not a lot of options on 50 acres when seven of it's timber, right? Now on that other, yeah, now on this bigger one, this bigger piece, there's plenty of room to move, okay? So I want you to talk to me a little bit

Jason Thibodeau (12:58.918)
No, not at all.

Dan Johnson (13:10.956)
how you know whether that's reading sign, whether that's seeing deer trails, deer movement, food sources, like however you wanna accomplish this next part of this episode. Talk to me a little bit about how you know whether or not you're in the right spot throughout the season.

Jason Thibodeau (13:28.351)
Well, a lot of it, minutes trail camera use, you know, because this property is about 45 minutes away and you know, I, I like low intrusion. I don't like to go in there, check my cards, all this and that. once the cell cameras, you know, started coming out, we started using those and they're just efficient so we can stay out, leave less sent, but we put them on the main travel corridors and stuff. This property's got, you know, a long, creek.

Dan Johnson (13:32.747)
Yeah.

Jason Thibodeau (13:56.549)
Riverbank system that runs through it. It has an old railroad trestle that runs through it. So we picked out a lot of the terrain features within the timber that actually exists. The crop rotation, you can pretty much narrow it down to where the deer will be early and where they will be late based on what's corn and what's beans this year. And they do a good job of rotating that year in and year out. So a lot of our like in season, say scouting

when we decide we were going to move is a lot based on scrapes. The deer population again is good in this area and there's a lot of bucks in this area, a lot of younger bucks. we don't see a whole lot as far as rubs, but any given day, if you were to walk that property, you would probably see two dozen scrapes. some of them the size of a car hood, you know, the hub scrapes that people talk about in a major intersection.

Dan Johnson (14:51.925)
Yep. Yep.

Jason Thibodeau (14:54.905)
So that's a lot of it. And then just access, we can access this farm from basically the north side and the east side, but the south and the west are out. So when we decide we're gonna, we have to have the right wind.

Dan Johnson (15:06.576)
Yeah. Why is that?

Dan Johnson (15:11.47)
Okay. Okay. So that's pretty, that's pretty standard.

Jason Thibodeau (15:13.248)
yeah. And a lot of the deer that are not living on this property, come from the South. so, you know, you talk about putting the wind in your favor and the deer's favor or using that quartering wind. basically we read the sign of the, the, trails what's beat down the sign of the scrapes. I'll go out there. I went

early July end of June and mowed all the trails down. And I'll go back out here probably towards the middle or end of this month and try to get them mowed down for season so that way we're not leaving all sorts of scent on tall grass. don't like my access on properties that I can hunt, permission private properties. I don't like leaving scent on tall grass. believe it's, you're hurting yourself more than anything. So I mow those trails down.

I've really come into like you using these mock scrapes and stuff. well, I haven't seen it work necessarily over there on that piece because I feel like there's so many deer and so many scrapes already existing that you'd almost have to eliminate some of those scrapes and entice them some different way. but now on this 50 acre piece, the scrapes are blowing up making a mock scrape. So

It's a catch 22 and I think it's where where the deer are and if there's enough to if I'm making sense with it enough to fill in and create their own scrapes or they're going to visit yours and I could be way off on that but it's just what I've noticed the difference in properties.

Dan Johnson (16:55.027)
Yeah, I mean, the thing about it is like that's a perfect like I want to mention something real quick. You said I could be way off, but you're not way off because you're explaining what is going on on the properties that you hunt. Right. So you're right on on on your properties. Right. And so that's that's kind of this isn't what you have said, but this is what like the industry feels like. Well, I could be offer like people have to make those statements.

So they stay away from blanket statements. But the thing about it is you are talking about your farm right now and the farms that you have access to. You're not trying to sell someone some bullshit by laying down like, everybody's got to hunt this time of year. anyway, I'm getting off my soap box.

Jason Thibodeau (17:44.087)
Well, no, I understand what you're saying. You know, it's just I haven't messed with the whole rope scrapes a lot. A lot of times we'll use just the natural licking branches and stuff. And, you know, we'll add stuff to that. This year decided the ropes and I just noticed on the big property that I had a few deer come in and then they kind of fizzled out. Now it could be a change in crops. I mean, it could be a change in feeding. It could be that it's too hot right now. But the other

It's on the edge of a bean field and it's just been dynamite, like consistently. had does hit it. I've had bucks come in and, I'm just seeing a difference in it. I don't know if it's herd population. I don't know if it's location, but just something I'm playing with.

Dan Johnson (18:17.723)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (18:30.703)
Yeah, I'll tell you this man. If you got one of those where the deer are at, I got one set up now where does are at. And so there are does in front of it or coming into smell it every single day. Right. There's been one buck so far that's come in since I put it up a couple of weeks ago. But outside of that, it's been all does coming to investigate it. And why do I like that? Because what dictates the rut does. Right. So I like

Jason Thibodeau (18:57.609)
Right. Right. Yep.

Dan Johnson (19:00.164)
All right. So, you know, trail cameras are telling you when things are going down and whether or not a good, you know, there's a there's a opportunity to go after a deer. All right. I want to get your opinion on on something. OK, you got some trail cameras out there feeding you information, but all of the information is nocturnal. How do you use that information?

on a nocturnal

Jason Thibodeau (19:30.632)
I basically... Well, so like on a big piece of property like that, we'll have multiple cameras set up. And if we can catch the deer on multiple cameras, we'll try to do a process of elimination by drawing lines on a map and figuring out if there's an intersection that he's going to daylight or have to daylight himself. Just the way it lays out, not all these fingers connect to timber and stuff. So if you do have the opportunity to glass from afar, or we do

Like a ladder stand up on top of a ridge where we actually will scalp from that early on Just to see if there's any travel patterns that we can you know pick up from there But basically that process of elimination I caught him on you know say this camera and this camera or hey We only have them on one camera and it's overnight there the odds are slim We've had just as you've seen know with the crop when the crops come

It changes and we've had multiple deer. seems like at the end of August, first part of September, they shift and we don't see them unless, you know, hot dough drags them back on. They leave, but we also have a whole nother herd that kind of comes in. And what I noticed like last year with a couple of deer we were hunting is there's a timeframe that you will pick up bucks in early October to mid October.

that you won't see necessarily until the peak of the rut has already finished and then they may come back in. Like they go to their property, they will breed their does and then they will make their way back onto yours and find those does that haven't gotten bred

Dan Johnson (21:09.0)
Yeah, yeah, is that like, why do you think that deer is doing that? Is that a habitat issue? Like, is your neighbor's habitat better than the property that you hunt? Is it because there's easier does over there? Like it's easier for him to get does.

Jason Thibodeau (21:28.476)
personally think that the neighbor like on this one to the south he has you know CRP ground he has grasses he has food plots you know it's all well manicured ground we can't specifically on this property put a food plot in or anything like that so we are literally hunting the vegetation that's on that property in the terrain that's on that property but yeah back to the initial question as far as locating that deer if he's a nocturnal

Dan Johnson (21:49.661)
Right.

Jason Thibodeau (21:58.13)
it's just hard to hunt a nocturnal deer unless you can narrow down a travel pattern. you know, we've seen too, you know, they, they're not always going to make the same mistake every day. You know, it could be a three to five day window that he travels. You know, we've, we've monitored deer go from, cause this property is fairly long being four, I think it's 430 or 465 acres, from north to south. I mean, they could literally travel north and you might not see

Dan Johnson (22:10.112)
Mm -hmm. Yeah

Jason Thibodeau (22:27.035)
travel north again for another four days. and that's if they don't find a dough and leave, you know, leave the

Dan Johnson (22:36.055)
Yeah, yeah, it's so difficult. I've always been under like, and this is this is one of those things where I used to get a nocturnal picture of a shooter deer or a deer that I put on my hit list or whatever the case is. And I used to go, OK, this is where I'm hunting. And I'd be hunting a deer that I couldn't and shouldn't hunt. Right. So I'm wasting time hunting a deer that's only coming through. And maybe I didn't triangulate his position or have enough trail camera data. All I know that

Like once every handful of days, this deer would come through this pinch or on this scrape and I'd get a picture of him, but it was like at three in the morning or it was like 11 o 'clock at night. Right. So he's coming and going from somewhere, but it's not on the property that I have access to. So I had to teach myself that that I that a nocturnal picture like I'm not talking an hour before daylight and an hour after sunset. I'm talking about middle of the night.

this deer can travel multiple miles in a given in a given night and I'm hunting that deer and so I'm wasting I'm wasting time because is that deer huntable? No, he's not because it's it's in the middle of the night. So I have to try to either find out where he's daylighting. My guess it's on another property. So that's two strikes against me. Right. And so I wasted I felt like anyway, a lot of time hunting deer that were

Jason Thibodeau (23:46.413)
No.

Dan Johnson (24:04.139)
killable for

Jason Thibodeau (24:05.36)
Right, right. We've done the same thing. mean, that's why we have multiple properties to hunt because it's, you can get those nighttime pictures and you know as well as I do, it happens. They show up when you're not there in the middle of the day and it happens. And it's a roll of the dice because I mean, they're wild animals, but if you're getting consistent nocturnal pictures of deer, it's better to look into another option. You know, and if it means hunting some public ground or hunting another permission piece,

Dan Johnson (24:31.744)
Mm -hmm.

Jason Thibodeau (24:35.316)
there's better options at that

Dan Johnson (24:38.975)
Yeah, back in the day I used to be a an observation type hunter where I would go in and I would set up a stand and try to see as much as I possibly could. And then that would allow me to go back in. I saw a buck I want to shoot or I saw a deer 200, 300 yards away coming in or out of a field edge or whatever the case may be. And or sitting on top of a big open timber ridge looking for deer and then make a move.

whatever, if I got any information. I don't necessarily do too much of that anymore just because I know the properties that I hunt and I don't need to do that anymore. So, our observation sits a waste of time, probably not. If you can't find or locate a deer or if you only have a couple trail camera pictures of a deer coming in and out of an area, it might be good option. But with the timeframe,

And I don't know about you, but the time frame that I have on how limited of time I can spend hunting these days, I got to make every every hunt like a kill hunt these days.

Jason Thibodeau (25:45.167)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and my time's even shorter now because both the kids are into hunting and stuff. So a lot of the hunts revolve for them, you know? So it's, if I have an opportunity, depending on the work schedule and weather and everything, I might go sit one of those observation sits just for even my kids, you know, Hey, there's a, you know, nice young eight point that's out, you know, or he were picking up on them.

Dan Johnson (25:53.211)
Right.

Jason Thibodeau (26:13.552)
I don't, it's not all about just, for me, it's not all about the kill. I like to actually just go out and sit. And so if I do have a moment, I will go sit a ladder stand or I will go sit a box blind just for low impact. They're in strategic spots that way too. But you know, as soon as season starts to come around and I know when the does are going to come into estrus, you know, then we're going to get more mobile and we're going to get into spots that I'm not going to touch early season. And you know, right now my kids, they're not into,

Climbing or anything like that or sitting in a saddle or anything a lot of their sits are you know in a box blind or ground blind And they're using a crossbow just for for them. They wanted to use a bow They didn't want to use a gun and they can't pull enough weight back yet so I had to I had to go to that level and and that's a different type of hunting for me that I personally don't enjoy the crossbow,

Dan Johnson (27:10.637)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Thibodeau (27:12.076)
They do, they think it's fun. And getting them out there, was the most important thing for me.

Dan Johnson (27:17.163)
Yeah, I gotta do that. I gotta do that. All right. So on some of these properties, you have spots we need to bounce around on. And then you also have spots where the locations are set, right? They're good because they're good, right? How much time are you allocating a certain spot before you decide to move?

Jason Thibodeau (27:43.948)
So let's go to the 50 acre piece I hunt, just say. And now I don't have to do a lot of scouting really. I wouldn't even have to have trail cameras unless, you know, like I wanted to see what's coming back. But on that piece specifically, I can sit in one tree stand and basically I can tell you what five to seven days that I need to be there. And if I don't see it within...

Probably I'm gonna I'm gonna go as short as the three to five day window I'm moving because I mean face it the the rut is short You know, so if you're hunt if you're a rut hunter and that's what you're hunting and you know that window I'm not gonna give it any more than three days on that piece on that one in particular Now if I went to if I went to this big property Now I have a different mindset because I can access the property from two different locations north in the

Dan Johnson (28:29.908)
Okay.

Jason Thibodeau (28:40.623)
I have different access points once I get into the property also and I can be more mobile because there's a lot more fingers and a lot more options as far as that goes. There's not a lot of woods but it's just the way it lays out. So I might hunt that property a week solid if you gave me the rut and said here's your property I might sit there a week solid.

Dan Johnson (29:02.331)
Okay. All right. And on that property, you're going to give it a week within that week. Then let's now break it down to the next level and let's say specific tree stand. All right. You have, you have, let's I'm going to throw a scenario out at you. have historic data that deer use a specific pinch point or a funnel or whatever the case is. Like you got camera pictures. You got, you've seen this buck from the tree stand.

how many days or hunts or what does your rotation look like between tree stands in order to get into a specific spot and how long do you give that specific spot before you bail on

Jason Thibodeau (29:45.826)
If it's one specific tree stand or one specific spot, some of it depends on if I'm hunting one specific buck also. There's times where I've got trapped with that and, you know, I'm after one deer in particular and I feel like I've got a good pattern of them. I'm going to give that tree stand three days and that's it. And I'm going to hunt it. Because to me, from what I've seen and

Dan Johnson (30:08.312)
Okay. Why? Why three days?

Jason Thibodeau (30:16.616)
I'm just going off of like my cameras and the properties I've hunted. I feel like deer will make a rotation within that three day window of they will come back. I've seen it the other way too where it takes them longer. You know, it could be five to seven days and they will venture back. But on a lot of the ones that I hunt, it's like they'll make a three day rotation. So if you don't see him on Monday, you don't see him on Tuesday. You better be ready because Wednesday he's going to show

Dan Johnson (30:27.376)
Yeah.

Jason Thibodeau (30:45.762)
And it's just something I've noticed that they feel like if they if they're doing it early season, they're comfortable there. It might be part of their core area, but we know that their core area also shrinks to at certain times. But when the rut comes on, you might as well put all bets are off because I mean that core area is going to get bigger. So that's why I say, you know, we could be way off when I say three days, you could end up at seven days or he just ends up on a neighboring

Dan Johnson (31:05.835)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (31:16.062)
Right, right. Now.

Dan Johnson (31:22.302)
If that that's great. If the wind is conducive to hunting that spot, right? So. Right. So you got let's say you got three days of the same wind. You go in three days in a row. Easy peasy. Right. You got the access route down, blah, blah. Now, what happens if I throw a curveball in this scenario and I say that the deer is coming through this pinch point on a every other day, three day rotation, like you're saying.

Jason Thibodeau (31:27.463)
Exactly.

Dan Johnson (31:51.69)
But now in this three days, there's multiple wind shifts, north, south, east, west, whatever you need to do. How are you approaching multiple wind shifts to get into the same area?

Jason Thibodeau (32:03.428)
And a lot of it, they're like on these properties, you know, you're hunting a lot of those bottoms, those funnels and stuff. And, you know, the wind gets finicky and swirly. So it does make a big difference. And it might be a difference of, okay, I'm not hunting that ladder stand, but I'm going to go hunt, you know, my saddle or a hang on at the other end of the draw or at the other end of the ridge. just based off of

A lot of the winds that we seem to get like on that property in particular, they seem to be like a crosswind. So you can get by with quite a bit until it gets in that bottom. that's just based off of what I've seen there. I can sit and watch the wind and watch the thermals and everything. And in the morning you're good. And in the evening, depending on which way the deer are coming, you might as well just go sit somewhere else.

Dan Johnson (32:55.333)
Right, I wrote an article, I don't know if it was an article or, well know I wrote an article about it several years ago. I mean like maybe 11, 10, 11 years ago that I posted about being able to hunt, basically being able to hunt a stand location on any wind. If it's good, it's good, right? If it's good, it's good. Now,

take that with an asterisk because access has a lot to do with that, right? If you have a long skinny one and there's a long skinny property that comes off of a road and it is, I don't know, 500 yards back, but it's only 50, 60 yards wide of a property. like, I'm just exaggerating at this point. You can't access it from the east, west or north. Well, then then you got to get really creative in that, in that time frame.

Jason Thibodeau (33:54.228)
Right.

Dan Johnson (33:54.434)
or in that scenario, but like outside of a scenario like that, do you think that specific terrain features can be hunted in any wind? Like are there just places that are good no matter what the wind is?

Jason Thibodeau (34:10.981)
Absolutely. and that's, think that's what one of the things with this 50 acre piece that I hunt, I can almost on it on any wind. And, and I say, you know, wait, I think I mentioned it at the beginning, you know, about putting that windy in either your favor or the deer's favor. A lot of times, you know, I can cheat the wind on that property just because if a buck doesn't like it, he's just going to move out.

In what i've seen he's not gonna put himself out in the middle of a field either so he's just gonna talk around the backside and if the property is not that wide you're still going to see him and he still may come in arm and that's just getting a wind and we know the difference between smelling you at thirty yards versus smelling you at two hundred yards arm i definitely think that there are areas you can you can kinda cheat the wind on and that it really doesn't matter i.

It depends on your elevation though too. How high you like to sit, I think you can get away with a little bit more.

Dan Johnson (35:14.325)
Yeah, man, it's this. This is stupid. How much detail we talk about hunting deer, right? Like while you're talking, I'm thinking of different scenarios in my head, like wind direction thermals. Is it an afternoon hunt? Is it a morning hunt? Are the deer going to feed? Are they coming back to feed? Am I hunting a bedding area? Am I hunting like it's just all these dumbass things that we try to do to make hunting more complicated probably than it needs to be.

But I got a particular, well, let me just say this. I feel like as I get older, I care less about my access routes. Now I am a access route. I believe in access routes, But what I mean by that, what I'm trying to get at is wind. Like I have a theory.

Jason Thibodeau (35:44.196)
Absolutely.

Dan Johnson (36:14.077)
that makes me confident that like you said, if I'm 50 yards away from a deer and they smell me, they're gone, right? But if I'm 200, 300, 400 yards away from a deer, I really believe that the potency of the scent will dictate whether or not the deer is spooked or not. So what I smell like at 50 is not what I smell like

250 yards whatever the case is that allows me to do some pretty creative things with access where I can get upwind of them or and and then I can make a huge loop around and get to where they will come out the back end and I might be able to get a shot at them so and then I also just real quick I'll finish this it is dude there's something about cover sense like

I am a huge believer and this is not a product that I'm sponsored by, but dude, I'm a huge believer of cover scents like what's the nose jammer? nose jammer and the science behind it and then having that same experience happened to me like when you walk in back in the day when they, when you used to be able to smoke in bars and you'd go into a bar and it just smelled like cigarettes, boom, cigarettes and you couldn't smell anything else.

They could have cooked pizza there or whatever the case is. And then it takes you a while to balance that out. And now you can start smelling all the senses again. I truly believe that that is how deer operate too. And you can, you're not standing there, you're just walking through and you spray nose jammer all over your body. They'll smell that and like, okay, that's not a threat. And then by the time their nose balances back out, you're gone. And so they're not smelling you anyway. I don't know. That's just.

Jason Thibodeau (38:11.038)
Yeah. I know. I think that's what was the biggest eye opener for me was, you know, using an ozonics in a tree and then using nose jammer also. And the ozonics, you know, to me, a deer is not going to smell that ozone at 200 yards, but you can definitely tell when they're at 20 and 30 yards, they definitely smell something is different. And then, you know, if you run an ozone thing in your vehicle, you can smell it.

Dan Johnson (38:31.596)
Yep. Yep. Yep.

Jason Thibodeau (38:38.462)
So I think it's just that level, like you're saying, the potency or whatever. If you spray nose jammer on your boots or on your hat, I mean, it's really strong right now. But when you're sitting out in a tree, even 20 to 30 yards at a deer, that's not as strong as if they had their nose on your boot. So I think that makes a big difference being 30 yards or 200 yards or 300 yards. And you can get away with a lot more the further that they are. And so as far as access,

If you know where they're bedding in or where they're feeding in and you can loop that or you can you know head in a different direction and keep your distance with them and just keep moving don't stop and stare at them I think you're just

Dan Johnson (39:21.8)
Yeah, yeah. All right. Access wind, all this other stuff now. We've talked about this this three to five day window, OK? Now, let's say this buck that you have nocturnal trail camera pictures or you have a strong gut feeling. Let's just say you are on the best pinch in the area, but you're seeing him across the fence on a neighbor's farm a

Okay, now we have to start talking about this scenario where if a deer is killable or not, and you can throw this into nocturnal pictures as well, but in the past, excuse me, in the past, I have hunted deer or have what I thought was I was hunting deer, but I was just watching deer, right? I tried to hunt deer that were not killable to me, okay?

And I wasted a lot of time hunting deer that I may have seen or continued to see. So it was like a candy in a store window. They were on the neighbor's property. They were coming in and out of the neighbor's property, but I was hunting it like I could rattle them in or I could grunt them in or just dumb luck. They come through. How do you know whether or not, like how have you over the years known whether you should bail on a buck that's not killable?

Jason Thibodeau (40:46.746)
Well, a lot of these properties too that are private that I hunt, you know, I'll use decoys. And if you can get those things in the right position, basically for as soon as the deer comes out of the edge of the woods there and he's in the open field, if he can make eye contact with something, whether it be a buck with a doe decoy set up or whether it be, you know, a buck with one antler set up, a lot of times you'll get those bucks curious enough to come in.

But I've also seen, like you're saying, where those deer, they're religiously going north and south along that fence line, and they're not coming over there. And it could be food, or it could be because he knows, I have all these does over here. I don't need to go see what that little, know, Primos can is, you know, doing over there. So personally, yeah, I mean, I think that's why you only give it a window.

Dan Johnson (41:29.572)
Mm -hmm.

Jason Thibodeau (41:39.573)
You know, if you know he's nocturnal, if you know that he's walking that thing and you see him two, three days in a row, he's probably not coming

Dan Johnson (41:48.959)
Yeah, yeah, especially during the rut, right? Like. I there's something about the pre -rut and this I talk about this all the time. There's something about the pre -rut that I love where the does are not ready to breed, but the bucks are ready to go. And that's when deer are really callable, right? They are they are you can you can run them in even mature bucks, rattle them in a different, obviously, you know, high pressured public land.

Jason Thibodeau (41:52.333)
Dan Johnson (42:16.197)
is completely different than, you know, low pressure Iowa private, you know, that that I hunt or whatever the case may be. But what I'm getting at is deer do dumb things just like guys do when there is a chance to score, if you know what I mean. And so and so there's there's chances to call them in and maybe not give up on them. Maybe you're and maybe you've done it before where all you need them to do is cross a fence.

Jason Thibodeau (42:34.071)
Right.

Jason Thibodeau (42:44.887)
Mm -hmm.

Dan Johnson (42:45.995)
Crossing that fence is a big ordeal. I don't want to compare it to turkey hunting, but how many times have listeners, you, me, we've seen a strutter on a neighboring farm and all he needs to do is cross a little fence that's between us. it just doesn't happen. It doesn't happen. So you're sitting there, you're ignoring other gobbles so that you can go and like hope,

You're being deceived by your own eyes,

Jason Thibodeau (43:19.145)
Right, right. I've seen it multiple times on all these properties. You know, if there's physically a fence there, there's something about it that some deer will not cross and they don't, they don't want to find access into it. They don't want to find where the fence is down. It doesn't matter if you throw the kitchen sink at him. He's not coming in, you know, but it also depends on the time of year. You know, if you're specifically just hunting the rut, obviously you're hunting a different animal than you are say in late December and January.

You know, that's one of my favorite times to hunt because to me, it's one of the easiest times to pattern these deer. If you have food, you're going to see the deer and there's certain days where you will see every deer on these properties. That's one of my favorite times to hunt. They're not, I mean, they're a little skittish. They're a little harder to hunt. It's cold, you know, there's a lot of elements to it. But that's a different animal to hunt than in the rut.

And it's also a different animal to hunt than what you're hunting, say end of September, first part of October. I feel that, you know, there's still shifting dominance into that middle of October. And that's why you will see, you know, a stray three and a half year old show up and then he'll disappear until the second round of estrus does come in or, yeah. So I think a lot of my strategy as far as like, when to give up on them, depends on the time of year too.

Dan Johnson (44:46.122)
Yeah, yeah, that's a fact. OK, now when to give up on them. Now I want to kind of flip this scenario over a little bit, and now we're starting to talk about a good spot that you you're giving this window that we've talked about three to five days, five to seven days, whatever the case is. And you're seeing the deer, you're you're seeing the deer, you're getting trail camera pictures on them. But now we're getting to the end of that window.

What would it take for you to stay three or five days longer or however, or call the wife and piss her off and just be like, listen, I'm close, I'm really close, I need three more days. Or you call in and you're taking three extra days of vacation or whatever the case is, like what are the signs that are telling you I need to stay and tough it out for a handful more days?

Jason Thibodeau (45:40.997)
Well, for me, honestly, know, on my, on a morning sit, on my walk back out, you know, I'll try to check a couple of scrapes, see if they've been hit. I might freshen them up or something. So if I see revisited sign like that, but I'm probably going to maybe surprise you with the answer is I might not have a picture of that buck. I might not have seen them for say three days or whatever. What I need is a, a, a doe.

You know, I need the right doe to come through. If, my trail camera shows a hot doe and she's rubbing her glands together and she's peeing in the scrape. And, if I see her, you know, in the woods and she's turning her head constantly, there's a lot of signs that I'll read off of that doe. I don't need to see the buck because I know him or something, a bonus buck will show up. And so I might hunt it an extra couple of days. And that's why I say it depends on the time of year in the rut. Yeah. I might hunt it three days in a row.

Dan Johnson (46:10.506)
Mm -hmm.

Jason Thibodeau (46:38.073)
but I might also move to another property that I feel like has a better opportunity at that point. Late season, know, it's to me, it's completely different. I know where I'm going to go and I know what I need the weather to be, the wind to be, and the pressure to be, and I'll see deer. Those are all just the things that I've put together with it that I don't need to hunt a specific buck. I need to hunt the does.

Dan Johnson (46:54.863)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Dan Johnson (47:03.908)
Yeah, yeah. That's that's the thing. Like when I don't see if I see Doze and I don't see a buck, I don't worry. I don't like I've taught myself not to worry about it. But if I'm in a spot and I'm not seeing those. Well, then I then I start to go, OK, what's the deal? Like every I just feel so many people are are focused on the buck that they're not they're missing the point when

comes to what the whole breeding cycle is about and it's about the does, right? So for me, I, I, I got the perfect conditions, I got the perfect pinch point, I sneak in the winds, right? The thermals are right. You know, whether that's a morning or an afternoon, I'm all got to kill day and I don't see does. That's when I get pissed. If I don't have, if I don't have does within shooting range, then I'm like, okay, now I got to start rethinking this, this strategy because

Jason Thibodeau (47:54.178)
Right,

Dan Johnson (48:03.06)
And that's when I'll and when I throw in my three days or however many days, whether I'm mobile, like I'm being too mobile or I'm getting planted to an area for me, it's like, OK, I've given this this a chance. There's three days here. I've seen some does come through, but very minimal. I'm not. Then I got a bail. I got to go find where the does are at. And when I'm seeing does, then I'm happy.

I'm happy.

Jason Thibodeau (48:32.875)
Well, yeah, I was going to say, there, comes a point too, to when you start pressuring it too much. And if you stop seeing does, you know, you've put too much pressure on it. You know, you need to change your strategy, move to another spot. you know, cause you can get away with certain things with does where they, not that they forget it, but they might just move down 10 yards and come out. if you get them stopping and blowing at you and everything like that, you might as well consider moving your spot the next day.

But yeah, to your point, if you're not seeing the deer, the does, I think that's your sign right there. If I saw one this morning and I sat for four hours this morning and saw one where three days ago I saw five to 10, I think something's happened.

Dan Johnson (49:19.56)
Yeah, yeah, you can definitely over hunt properties or certain staying locations or whatever. But I also think that there is certain, especially if your access route is locked tight and.

I use water access a lot for this or a dry creek bed or something like this where you know that the deer aren't down in this creek bed and they're walking this tight little creek bed or they're walking. They're they're usually just crossing a perpendicular with with something like that. But if you can learn how to use water, then I feel especially or a really steep type of terrain feature that

the deer aren't gonna walk straight up and down it. However, if you do, you might be able to hunt some of these locations a lot and get away with it based off of the terrain feature. But if you're noticing like an extreme decrease in the doe movement, like you said, that's a telltale sign that that spot could or is in the process of getting burnt

Jason Thibodeau (50:27.197)
Yes, yep. And that's why I say, I mean, you when I say three days on a property, it looks like I said, it depends on the time of year. It depends on what I'm seeing for sign, what trail cameras are telling me what I'm seeing in the stand. And, you know, then I kind of evaluate it from there. I don't I don't want to waste, you know, what time off I have, just like everybody has a job that, you know, you can only get so much time off. You only have so much time away from family.

Dan Johnson (50:28.926)
And that's why I say it.

Jason Thibodeau (50:55.849)
There's a lot of on -demand decisions real quick, you know, and I think it's just once you start to do it enough, you start to see it. You know, I didn't, I didn't grow up hunting. I was actually self -taught, you know. So when I was 19, 20 years old, I started dabbling with it and getting into it. And you know, it's funny because you were talking about hunting ladder stands. I used to screw two by fours up to a tree, which I know is not what I would recommend for anybody, you know.

Dan Johnson (51:22.362)
hahahahah

Jason Thibodeau (51:24.616)
And I had, I had old pallets that I would screw them together and take old carpet and spray paint them and make like little box blinds, you know, on the ground. And, I didn't know the difference in it. you know, and, as far as one of the other points you had mentioned about your access, I, I hunted the same tree stand as a friend did, he had killed a 10 point on a Sunday. I was in the operators union at the time and I was running a

So I stunk like asphalt, I stunk like diesel, everything. I got to that property that Monday afternoon. I literally took those clothes off through my hunting clothes on and I jogged to that stand and I shot a 15 point buck, which happened to be my first buck I'd ever shot. Not caring about my access, not caring about intrusion or any of those things, just throwing it all out of the equation. And really it came down to dumb

Dan Johnson (52:19.985)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Thibodeau (52:21.959)
and I think some of it is, and some of it's, you know, where are you hunting? mean, everybody ought to kill that one 70, but if your property doesn't have a one 70 and never kill

Dan Johnson (52:33.599)
Right, yep. All right, now we gotta change the environment here. Okay, we gotta step away from the properties that we know through scouting, through years of hunting, and we gotta go to an out -of -state hunt, okay? And we gotta, right, whether you're by yourself or an example of what kind of what we went through when we went to Nebraska that one year, because we...

I know I mentioned it earlier, but we've been on the podcast before. We shared a hunt to Nebraska and it was two different type of styles of hunting that collided. And I think what it did is it ultimately it ultimately the lack of communication between us resulted in spending more time in a truck and less time hunting. Right. And so and so.

What I want to know is, let's just start with an individual hunt. You go out west, you're by yourself, or you go to another state, you're by yourself. What does it mean? This is a quote that came out of your mouth. We shouldn't leave deer to go find deer. Talk to us about that.

Jason Thibodeau (53:51.683)
Well, when I say that, I also say they have to be huntable deer. They have to be on the property that you, you know, you have to physically see them. And you know, what you were saying, like with this buck on a neighboring property on that fence, if he's not coming over, that's not a huntable deer. So me, to me, if I'm going out to a property that's 500 acres or 5 ,000 acres, if I'm seeing deer there every day, I just need to do better at trying to get in on those deer.

I need to figure out a different intersecting point or using the wind differently to make that choice to stay. If these deer become unhuntable or like in that instance, there was people hunting on the south side of the property and I had more knowledge of the south side of that property than where we originally had seen deer on the north side.

Dan Johnson (54:19.786)
Right.

Dan Johnson (54:41.633)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Jason Thibodeau (54:42.941)
Once those people were on the South side, it's hard for us to say, well, I'm going to go ruin their hunt for them because it's just not ethical. But we were still seeing deer and I just feel like that if, if I stop seeing them, that's the time to move. But what's, you know, I guess the word lack of communication is too, you know, what is the ultimate goal? You know, was it was like on that trip, for instance, was it a mule deer buck? Cause you can't shoot a mule deer doe. So that's out. Was

Dan Johnson (54:48.524)
right

Dan Johnson (54:58.728)
Right.

Dan Johnson (55:05.453)
Right.

Dan Johnson (55:11.48)
Right.

Jason Thibodeau (55:12.998)
Any one of the whitetails, a doe or a buck, you know, or was it just a deer period? and I think that could have been, you know, part of lack of communication on both of us. I liked the experience, believe it or not of going to all these different places. cause so for Nebraska, mean, they've changed it to where you can't just go there anymore. Like we did and buy a tag over the counter. last year I ended up with a statewide.

Dan Johnson (55:15.864)
Mm -hmm.

Right.

Dan Johnson (55:39.552)
Yeah.

Jason Thibodeau (55:42.716)
Nebraska tag that I had to go to areas I never even hunted, never, you know, I did my e -scouting and everything. picked, you know, train features and stuff. And I got to a property where this example, I didn't see a single deer on the property, but every private piece surrounding that I was seeing deer that I would have shot all day long. They were not coming through this piece of public. So I packed up and I moved on two,

I think three or four times last year. And I finally got to a spot where I was seeing deer, mule deer, antelope, whitetail. And I was seeing enough to make me happy for the tag that I had, if that makes sense. So yeah, for me, no, don't like to leave deer to go find deer.

Dan Johnson (56:26.168)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Johnson (56:33.043)
Yeah, but the deer, but the deer have to be huntable deer, right? Right. And so that's where OK, so the first year I went to South Dakota, that was a I don't know. I'm going to call it dumb luck, right? Because the guy I went with killed a giant. I shot a buck that that I didn't find. And I was like, my God, this spot in stock shit's easy. Right. my God. Look at all these deer. But then as

Jason Thibodeau (56:37.064)
Right, exactly. Yep.

Dan Johnson (57:02.162)
started getting into it, I would get on these hilltops and I would have a spotting scope and I'd be like, my God, look at all these deer. And I would just sit there and I'd watch them. Look at all these deer. I'd just watch deer all day long, like pop and go. But I was never, I never mastered watching them bed down, right? Cause I was always in the wrong location. So I wasn't moving enough at that point. And so I've had to learn

that, especially on a spot in stock. Now, you the first half of this we're talking about in a tree or ground blind Midwestern whitetail hunting, right? The game changes, especially even even with whitetails when you go to a Western state or even a different state, right? Like public land, the game changes, right? More than likely, you're not going to be able to knock on the neighbor's door and access, you know, get access to loop around.

You just have to play the cards that you're dealt but out, know, like I'm just speaking from mule deer at this point I mean, it's cool to get on get on a knob and just glass and my god Look at all the and you get fired up. But then at some point there's a decision that has to be made Now what I've seen the deer now what and that is the part that I'm still struggling with is is getting into

Position and I'm do I'm doing it. I'm getting I'm getting stock opportunities. I'm getting decent opportunities, but at the end of the day There's something that I'm missing of whether I'm staying too long or I need to go Mike here's what my gut tells

My gut tells me that with my mule deer, I am seeing them, I'm locating them, and then I'm moving in on them. My gut tells me I need to be in where they're at and then wait for them to come. And that may mean, just like when I moved off field edges several years ago, I might see less deer, but then I'll have an opportunity to get in.

Dan Johnson (59:16.706)
closer to some of these deer. So I don't know. That's just me brainstorming out loud at this

Jason Thibodeau (59:22.5)
Well, I, yeah, I was going to say, I think for like me going out this year, I actually drew the unit that we were in, when we hunted out there and also I'm going to go with my knowledge and I'm going to go to the same spots, that, know, I recommended for us. If I'm not seeing them within that first morning and afternoon and maybe even the next morning, I'm probably going to move. but I, to your point, what you said about getting in there, I don't know how many times I've told myself.

get up earlier and go to where you know that they go day in and day out. Because if you watch them, I mean, they're they're habit creatures, basically, you know, they they will go to their food source and they will come back or they will go to their food source at night, you know, from their, you know, bedding acts or whatever. They will do the same things. You might have them shift here or there. But I think it's when you stop seeing that movement, that's when you change, that's when you move.

Dan Johnson (59:57.037)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (01:00:04.343)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (01:00:19.217)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, yeah. I want to get specific for a second. And OK, so we went to this spot. I'm not going to say the name of it, but all the deer were feeding on on private and then right first thing in the morning, they're crossing into the public. Once they cross into that, everything becomes extremely.

more difficult based off of the terrain, the vegetation, so forth and so on, right? So your window to hunt them is very small, because if they come earlier, it's too dark. If they come, they really weren't coming later. If they were coming later, then you have a good window there. But once they get into the shit, then the chances of you killing these deer

Jason Thibodeau (01:01:06.778)
now.

Dan Johnson (01:01:17.775)
in that vegetation and terrain becomes like tremendously harder. Is it possible? Yes, it is. But it's it it just becomes so at that point, how much time are you willing to give on this very short window in order to make it happen when you're you're riding, you're you're really betting against nature at that point?

Jason Thibodeau (01:01:43.58)
So, like in that scenario, I think two days, I mean, because you're going to see two days, you're going to see probably an early, you're going to see a later movement, but if you can get in the right position, you might be able to catch where they're actually going. I honestly feel like what they were doing is they were coming from private, coming through the public and literally exiting shortly thereafter onto another piece of private. And it was all just because of the way the terrain was there.

They followed the bottoms and then they had to basically cross the road, which exposed them at that point to get to the other piece. so I'm probably not going to hunt there much longer than two, maybe three days and try to figure out what I can do with the wind that I have. Cause the wind's going to be the most dictating thing out there for me. you know, in that scenario, I couldn't have had a West wind really, cause it would have been blowing to where they would have been entering from.

Dan Johnson (01:02:33.363)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Dan Johnson (01:02:39.025)
Yep.

Jason Thibodeau (01:02:42.567)
you know, but I, I found out like there that there's two different areas that I can hunt one in the mornings and one in the afternoon. So I might spend more time. if I'm still seeing them, I might, I might go back, you know, it's all situational. I mean, for me at this point, like this year, you know, yes, I want to shoot one, but I've had some great experiences. I've seen some really jaw -dropping deer out there in spots. and I, you know, I've already shot a mule deer,

Dan Johnson (01:02:59.866)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Thibodeau (01:03:12.312)
For me, shooting one with my bow is dicing on the cake. I've taken one with a rifle. you know, that's a whole nother topic too, cause I mean, that was a 7 ,000 acre ranch, a landowner sponsored tag. You know, it's, it's just a different experience. I'm getting the experience as long as I'm seeing the

Dan Johnson (01:03:31.028)
Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's the struggle for me. Right. And I've had to, I've had to do this before where you're hunting corners. Okay. Of yeah, you have all the access you need on public, but they're there. Not only is your time window short from a standpoint of, okay, your time window is short from the standpoint of the morning afternoons. And then you're, they're also crossing a corner of the private public to get from.

private to private. And so then that window is even short. So the struggle for me is hunting that could be even less than an hour. Let's say a 30 minute window every single morning and every single afternoon and then sitting around for 10 hours and doing doing nothing. Now you could go scout if you wanted to, but you already know when these where these deer are at and some of them are good deer, right?

that's a struggle for me because I like to be active in those days, but the, in those scenarios, the best thing to do is to not do

Jason Thibodeau (01:04:42.71)
Yeah, I was going to say, think the other thing just identifying like going out there specifically with mule deer or possibly even elk is identifying what type of animal you want to hunt. Do you want to hunt a deer that is on the move? Do you want to hunt a deer that is bedded or do you want to hunt a deer that is going to feed? You know, a morning movement to bed is one thing and then mule deer will get up and they'll bet again, you know, if the sun gets too hot on them. So do you want to hunt a bedded

Dan Johnson (01:04:55.921)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (01:05:09.607)
Yeah.

Jason Thibodeau (01:05:11.719)
Or do you want to a food source, a destination deer? I think identifying one of those things eliminates some of the headache also. So if you are seeing deer that are religiously coming out into a food plot, I would say I'm going to hunt afternoons and now I just need to find the best way to get to them or intersect them. If I'm going to hunt a better deer, I need to identify where these deer are bedding.

Dan Johnson (01:05:21.611)
Yeah.

Jason Thibodeau (01:05:39.697)
Whether that's dictated by the wind or terrain keeping them close to private or keeping them down secluded away from everything I think that's another animal to identify I think the first you know when they're coming off of food from their night route or whatever if You can identify where their travel pattern is day in and day out. I think you could hunt them multiple days Given the right

Dan Johnson (01:06:03.813)
Yeah. Yeah. shit. It's just one of those things, man, where you you are really. They have the upper hand, and that is why success rates with a bow specifically are so low on all species across the across the US. mean, even even success rates on private land whitetails.

Are not a hundred percent right? They're not I don't even know I don't even know what the tag Especially in Iowa what the archery success rate would be for that, but I don't know man Regardless of all this stuff. I love it I still love doing all these crazy things even going out West where I feel like every hunt is a rookie I'm a rookie when I go out West

on even on private and so I'm gonna look like a fool when I go to Kansas I bet this year. You know never never scouting any of this never never doing any type other than e -scouting right never that's a completely different environment to hunt whitetails in. I'm I know I'm going back to South Dakota again this year and I'm gonna go to we're gonna start off I'm going with a guy who drew a tag.

out there and we're going to start off in a completely different area than I'm used to. then depending on what we see, we'll move or be mobile like what we've talked about. But it's the experience. love I love going out and and quote unquote roughing it for a while, sleeping in my truck. And and so, yeah, man. Now, I got to say this based off of everybody that I that

I and I should say we've talked to especially in Nebraska. It's a it's surprise that there's even any wildlife that live out there that that have has not been eaten by a mountain lion

Jason Thibodeau (01:08:08.24)
Yeah, that's that's always the big fear is is the mountain lion I mean they they pump that into you and you know I've seen pictures and everything and you know I I don't know if I fear the the rattlesnake more than the mountain lion to be honest with you and and I think I've seen one snake and it's in the years of going out there and I've seen cat prints before you know the lion prints but you know I think it just go and enjoy your hunt you know if you see

Dan Johnson (01:08:13.462)
You

Dan Johnson (01:08:36.605)
yeah.

Jason Thibodeau (01:08:37.101)
Just know what to do. You know, don't, don't be a fool about it if you do happen to come across one. but one thing I was thinking while you were talking there, I think a lot of times we get wrapped up in this stuff and we become really methodical and we, dump so much energy and effort into all these hunts and everything. And I think the one thing that if it did, did for me for awhile, don't forget to enjoy

Dan Johnson (01:08:43.861)
Yep.

Dan Johnson (01:09:02.747)
Yeah, that's a fact. That's a fact, man. Because because why are you doing that? Right. Why are you driving? Or I mean, whether it's 30 minutes to your farm, 10 minutes to your farm or out your back door or it's an 11 hour drive. Like you're doing it for a reason, it's because you love it. If you hated it, like I'm not I'm not going to drive eight hours to do my same job like to do.

my same job somewhere else, right? This is a passion, this is supposed to be fun. And that's something that in the past, I have definitely, I needed to remind myself certain seasons like, dude, what are you doing? You're being a douche right now. So.

Jason Thibodeau (01:09:42.189)
Yep. Yep. Well, and that's what I say. I like I've hunted certain deer before, know, and gotten so wrapped it up into it and gotten frustrated to where I literally did wonder why I was doing it, you know, but now since I'm a kids have taken to it, they love every aspect of it, whether it's shooting their bows in the backyard or shed hunting. my daughter, she'll go out and she'll just sit and she, doesn't care if it's deer season. If she sees the Turkey that made her

You know, and sometimes it's those little things that we get, you know, forgetting about until you get to watch it through somebody else's eyes. you know, I'll never forget that when she shot her first buck. mean, she, we were in a box blind. but I mean, you know, she about went through the roof, but I beat her to it. You know, I mean, I was ecstatic. We were, you know, both in tears because it was just amazing. And I think sometimes that we forget that and don't forget to have fun. I think at the end of the

Dan Johnson (01:10:33.625)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (01:10:38.386)
Absolutely. And I think that's a great place to end it. Jason, man, I really appreciate you taking time out of your day to hop on and chat with me a little bit about this, about this topic. And man, going back to Nebraska, Illinois, seems like you, got a pretty good fall lined up and good luck the rest of the season, man.

Jason Thibodeau (01:10:57.814)
Yeah, thanks. You too, Dan. I wish you luck at South Dakota and Kansas and Iowa and, let's keep in touch.

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