Lighting the Fire w/ Hayden Ferrari

Hey everyone, welcome to episode 161 of the Antler Up Podcast!

On this week's episode I was joined by Tennessee native Hayden Ferrari.  This episode was a fun discussion to have with Hayden because I was able to hear the passion and drive that Hayden has to become a more well rounded hunter.  Although growing up in TN, Hayden has a bunch of ties to PA!  

To start this episode off we chat about the relationship between bowhunting and sports and how that has helped the two of us when it comes to doing whatever it takes to be a better hunter, archer and what it takes to tackle adversity.  We follow that up with what are some key attributes that have elevated his skills as a hunter.  From making adjustments from past seasons, becoming more proficient in reading maps, scouting and getting outside his comfort zone.

Hayden had a fun and successful hunting season in 2022.  He breaks down his strategy that led to his success as well as his buck story.  One new thing Hayden tried this past season was going out of state for a whitetail hunt.  He shares his experience of scouting before the season in KS, to not pulling that tag and then ultimately just doing an over the counter MO hunt.  We wrap this episode up talking about some of Haydens favorite gear that he enjoyed using this past season!   Enjoy this fun episode!  

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

Jeremy Dinsmore: What’s up everybody? Welcome back to this week's episode of the Antler Podcast. We're on episode 1 61, and on this week's episode I was joined by Tennessee Native Hayden Ferrari. And this episode was a fun discussion to have with Hayden because I was able to hear the passion and the drive that Hayden has to become a more well-rounded hunter.

And although growing up in Tennessee, Hayden has a bunch of ties to PA from uncles and cousins and all kinds of stuff down in the Lancaster area. And to start this episode off, we chat about the relationships between bow hunting and sports and how that has. The two of us really when it comes to doing whatever it takes to be a better hunter, the be a better archer, and what it takes to tackle adversity.

Kind of being thrown in the, into [00:01:00] the thick of things a little bit. And we follow that up with what our, some key attributes that has helped him elevate his skills as a hunter from making adjustments from past seasons, becoming more proficient in reading maps, scouting and getting outside is really his comfort zone.

Hayden had a fun and successful hunting season for 2022 and he breaks that down from strategy that led to his suc, his success as well as his buck story. And one thing Hayden tried this past season was going out of state for a whitetail hunt, which was a funny kind of interesting story because it was, it's very relatable, he shares his experience from scouting before the season in Kansas, hoping to pull that tag, which he did not end up doing, which ultimately led him to go to Missouri for an over-the-counter whitetail hunt.

And we wrapped this episode up talking about some of Hayden's favorite gear that he enjoyed using this past season. Really fun episode. Check Hayden out what he has going on. And also want to just quickly [00:02:00] say thanks a lot, everybody for stopping by the booth at the tethered booth at the Great American Outdoor Show.

Really awesome to, to meet some of you, some of the guests on the podcast that we've had, and also just individuals. Man, it really hit home and really love what we're doing here at Antler Up. And just want to say thank you for all the continued support and just want to thank the opportunity to see our friends and from Exodus and all over.

So really appreciate it. So check out Antler. On YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and obviously if you like what you

Hear on the podcast, go leave a review over at Apple iTunes as well as Spotify. We really appreciate it and thanks a lot. Everybody enjoy this episode.

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All right, everybody, welcome back for another week's episode. And this week I'm joined by Hayden Ferrari. Hayden Ferrari. Man, pleasure having you on this evening and cool topics like you said that we're could dive down into and rabbit hole and everything like that. And I like the one last part where you're like, you're a gear guy, so you like talking a little bit of gear so we could Yeah, we could do a whole podcast and a half probably just on that, but hey it man, thanks for coming on.

Where are you coming from,

Hayden Ferrari: man? I appreciate you having me. So I'm from Memphis, Tennessee. So little ways from you. I do have some connections too. Pa and my whole parent side, my dad's side of the family's from out there. Oh, that's cool. So I grew up there. Good bit. I'm a played football at the University of Memphis but my other heart and souls with the Nittany Lions, that's my second favorite team, oh, very cool. Little connection there. Absolutely. But yeah, I've just been a pretty lifelong outdoorsman with my grandfather and dad and. [00:05:00] Towards the end of high school, got into bow hunting and through college with just the amount of time that I had not being able to work with football or whatnot.

When I wasn't doing football or school, I was in the woods hunting. Yeah. And over the last I would say six years, it's really blown up and to just the main thing I really care about besides putting a roof over my head. Yeah. Little different down here than up there for sure.

Now then, when

Jeremy Dinsmore: you say little connections back to Pennsylvania with your dad and everything now, where are they? Where were they coming out of? Here in Pennsylvania. I have

Hayden Ferrari: a mass amount of cousins and aunts in Lancaster area. Oh, very cool.

Jeremy Dinsmore: So yeah, the Lancaster Archery just just wrapped up and Very cool.

Yep. Nice. Yeah, they're good hunting too, in that area. And so you said go down, you're living now from born and raised and growing up in, in Tennessee and everything like that, high school. How was the last couple years? Cause I saw you played you were an athlete, like you said in college.

It looked like talk a little bit about how you were able to manage that little aspect of things.

Hayden Ferrari: Oh yeah, absolutely. My [00:06:00] dad was went to high school here in Memphis. He played football in Memphis. So I was raised a Memphis tiger football player. Played high school ball here and ended up getting a preferred walk on awesome opportunity at the University of Memphis.

Luckily it was with my high school grades and whatnot, I was able to get a little bit of the school in-state cutoff. And so I walked on and then ended up earning a scholarship through that for my last year. But I was able to work some odd jobs in the summer , to help, help with that expense until I got put on scholarship and with college football especially these days I played 15 to 18, so four seasons and with online schooling and whatnot, most athletes are gonna do all of their classes online, it seems like nowadays.

, it was really wake up, go to football, and then throughout the day and at nighttime that's when you would do your

Jeremy Dinsmore: schoolwork. Yeah. Now talk, I guess how, cause we've done a podcast, oh man, over a year ago with our good friend bill Harvey from Per Near Outdoors. Cuz we, Dimitri, myself and I, we we played kind [00:07:00] of competitive sports in college and, myself for baseball, our friend Billy from New York with Partner Outdoor podcast, he did baseball and Dimitri played football.

And you doing that, and we talked about some of our hunting failures, right? Like we, I almost feel thank goodness I played organized sports growing up because when I was younger, I, I did bow hunt, however, I had a lot more success with the gun. And it just seemed like year after year, it was just, I don't wanna say easy, but it was like boom.

Like putting 'em down with a gun. And that first time when I failed with the bow, I chalk it up to thank goodness I played organized sports because it taught me, that taste of defeat and to manage through that persevere and the struggle to grind. And I relate that. And I've, obviously I'm not playing at a professional level and nor do I play at a professional level with bow hunting or archery or anything like that, but the pursuit to try to be the best I can in archery, I feel [00:08:00] like translates into what I did growing up to be the best baseball player I possibly could be.

Whether it be weight training and like speed, agility, your swing throwing, just defensive work, all that stuff now goes into arrow building shot, process scouting, just all that. It really relates in into that realm. And it's really cool to see, like we were just saying earlier with Instagram, when you look on there and certain people like, wow, those individuals.

Competed in like yourself, like in at that high collegiate level or in a professional level and how that kind of, you see that world kind of intertwine and seamless transition. Yeah, definitely. It's

Hayden Ferrari: funny you say that. The competitiveness from you from, whether it's just little league sports to high school sports, even collegiate and beyond that it, it never really leaves you you find trying to build on your little failures in learning possibilities there throughout.

And I mean it, yeah it never leaves you and you bring up a good point with missing a deer and starting with gun hunting. I really only rifle [00:09:00] hunted the majority of my life in Tennessee. Rifle season is like as long as a rifle season as you're gonna find. So you could always pretty much rifle hunt or muzzle loader hunt.

And I remember it was when I was in college and, I. , I think I sat 46 with a bow. My sen yeah, my, no, my junior year. And on a piece of property that I had permission on, cuz I didn't have any land in the area. . And I saw three deer. And they were all nowhere near within Bow range.

And then the following year, still dead set on being a, hardcore bow hunter. I got a new piece of property that, that I've been on now for five years and it was a little bit higher caliber gear and a lot more of 'em. And so I would rifle hunting here and there, just seeing if something would come out.

And, what was it, 2020, I had gotten a picture of just an absolute stud on camera. And I told my friend and he kills giants for this area and he hunts whatever the season is. And I [00:10:00] told him, I was like, I'm not. , I'm killing that deer with a bow. Yeah. And I sat all year long for that deer and saw him like five times.

And then the farmer needed us, killed those. So I went out December 28th, like towards the end of the year, like when had a week left of the season at that time. And in area, I didn't think I'd see the deer and lo and behold, he walks out and so I shot him with the gun. Obviously it was 160 inch deer in west Tennessee.

It's hard to pass. Yep. Anywhere , right? It's anywheres . So that it just builds on that. And after that it was like, all right, I'm done with a gun. Like I am not, I haven't touched a gun. I think I rifle haunted twice since then. That's very cool. And I was hardcore bow hunting. I was just about a year into hunting with the saddle.

So it was more learning the maps, mobile hunting just trying to figure out how deer move. I walked that entire farm and it's a 30 or 3000 acre track of land and I walked the entire farm that all season, just [00:11:00] running cameras doing everything I could to get, when I found a deer that I wanted to hunt and, played the wind ride and, November 4th, first big cold, front of the year for us and got in the stand, took off work and he walked out at seven yards and.

I thought I drilled them and that Broadhead never opened up, came out the front sternum and that deer lived. Oh man. So you talk about a bounceback of competitive, that only fed to, to what I'm trying to do and the biggest goal for me for a long time has been get a solid deer with the bow on film.

Yeah. And so keeps building from that and you just don't really

Jeremy Dinsmore: ever stop. Yep. It just, there's something that a point in time during this journey of what we do where a fire gets lit and, it's fun to, to watch and it's fun to watch like other individuals with their goals of how they succeeded it.

It's just so cool because, we've been doing the podcast now Exactly. Three years and it's just really neat to see how a lot of our friends [00:12:00] and people we've met just grow and develop and new people do the same thing. That you learn and meet. Yeah. And it's, that's really neat.

And you talk about. Like all the new properties. And the one thing you mentioned to me is how this past year you were able to go out, get way outside your comfort zone, and go out on, on public land out of state hunt. So before we do that though let's go from, let's maybe rewind a little bit because that big, the big buck that you shot with the gun, was that your 2020 buck?

That yep. Okay. So then let's let's rewind to, from. That I guess do a fast forward from 2020 to the beginning of this season. What are some of the things that you tried to grow as a hunter? Like you said, obviously the bow hunting aspect of things, but then you, in, you talked about the saddle hunting the mobile game, because myself, I've done more private land hunting back in northeastern Pennsylvania.

It's mountain range, it's still, it's private, but it's not like there's no food plots. It's still [00:13:00] trekking up and down the big woods. It's still tough hunting and with a little bit of really little to no pressure. It's really tough to get on these deer. I know that kind of might seem oh, it's easier, but man, that mountain is 40,000 acres all together.

Those deer could live anywhere and everywhere because they're not pressured. So it's a challenge in itself. So I guess like within that two and a half to leading up to this past season, what were some of those key things that you really feel like either things clicked for you, like the good, the bad, the ugly.

I, if that makes

Hayden Ferrari: sense. Yeah, definitely. So I'll start with first, being mobile has something that I've always since bow hunting, you know, for the last six, seven years I've had to, I've never, especially a college kid, high school kid not being able to buy, of all kinds of true stands and lock ons to put up.

It was the running gun lock on with sticks that you saw Zach Farn Ball and Aaron and all those guys when they were at Midwest Whitetail and what they were [00:14:00] doing. So I, that's where it started. But man, it was a pain and it was a struggle. And you ended up leaving that tree stand up in a tree and hunt that a couple times, and then you take it down and move it.

So the saddle for me was what elevated it to being able to move quickly and efficiently. Which led into, okay, so now where do I actually go? , what am I looking for? To get those deer info range. Being mobile even on a private land, it can be a very small private land, or it could be a very large private land and it could be, unpressured area or very highly pressured area.

It doesn't matter. But I have found that, being mobile and being able to, adjust as the deer season goes on and as these deer over each season evolve and maybe shift up their habits a little bit is, has been probably the number one key for me. Definitely.

Jeremy Dinsmore: It's, that has been, you look at listen to podcasts, watch videos.

That has been, I love the connection that you made with getting more mobile, but then allowing yourself [00:15:00] to get in that specific range that you need to be in to kill those deer with the bow. Cuz myself, that's something too that I had to, I went through, like I said, learning to, okay, this is a nice general core area that I know Deere would like to be into, but like instead of making it that easy 50, 60 yard chip shot with the rifle, how do I make that an easy chip shot with the bow?

And I won't forget a couple years ago when I went in scouted, like in the spring and also in the summer. I put up my, like at the time was a lock on, so this is about four or five years ago, and I'm like, this is the area, actually, yeah, it was about six years ago. I was like, this is the area I know it just look at the sign the travel route that it seems like these deer are have been making.

And I put up the camera or my stand and as I was hunting kind of the rut time and it was real windy and I'm watching. These deer 80, 90 yards in front of me. I'm like, they're just walking right up this two track. Why am I in this thick, nasty [00:16:00] brush where there's one trail , like thinking that's the one trail where this buck is going to go into.

And I'm just watching and then I'm on the grunt call, as if I'm playing the saxophone, just trying to get this buck to hear it through the wind. And I'm watching the trees blow. I'm like, man, I need to change something up. I need to be mobile. You know what I mean? And that's where things finally, clicked for me to get down, put in a new stand, put in a new opportunity.

And yeah. So it's, that's like where that clicked for me. And it's interesting to hear that it, that's where it was like for you as well. No,

Hayden Ferrari: yeah, definitely. It it is one thing to be able to say, a couple bucks, but like, where are those bucks? Are they on the other side of the field or are they on the other?

Other ridge? , where we're at. We've, we don't have mountains like you guys, but in west Tennessee we've got some, if you look at it on a map, it doesn't look like a whole lot, but you got some really thick nasty ravines and ditch systems that you work through, and they're really thick.

It's not like the big [00:17:00] woods that are like, pretty open. If you're in the woods, there's, you've gotta be in the right spot to catch those deer. Paying attention to those trails and how those deer move is probably the number one key. Awesome,

Jeremy Dinsmore: man. That's awesome. So then let's lead into getting ready for, from last season to this season.

What kind of things did you have to make adjustments to, even from there then?

Hayden Ferrari: Sure. So this season was by far, like the most different season. For me as a hunter for a few reasons. But we'll start out at our lease in where we're at. The past couple years I've had a lot of really good deer on camera.

And we had a huge drought. Everybody had a huge drought, right? , but it really hit our area pretty hard and all of our food plots which we don't have a lot of smaller food plots, but the property has massive ag. Okay. Hard to bow hunt that. So you really got a key on the food plots.

And they were all dust bowls all summer long, even in the beginning of the season, for the first month or two. Yeah. Until some of the natural [00:18:00] grasses could start to take up. Cuz everything that we planted just wasn't there. So I didn't get any bucks on camera. The. my main target to at least figure out if he was a, what he was the deer that I had shot and did not kill the year prior.

And that deer for, there's a couple of speculations that we have, he was two months behind in growth. And so a lot of the big deer weren't there. So for me it was, alright, I need more cameras than I need to put out and I need to go hunt different areas. Again, we have a huge track of land that we can hunt and I've only really focused on one area because if you try to hunt 3000 plus acres, you're just gonna confuse yourself so it, it's like going blind in on public. You're just not quite sure. Yep. Definitely had to move around and just figure out where the deer are. The acre crop this year was huge for us. And that kept. , the majority of the deer pretty much all year long. Like not on the food plots, not in the field, [00:19:00] not even in the big cut corn that we had.

And we had a ton of it. Okay. So that was summer praying for rain, getting that ready. I really wasn't planning on changing my game plan up a whole lot. I had a good plan for the last two years on good areas on where I know these deer are. But as soon as the velvet season rolled around and we soon realized like, Ooh, we don't have any food plots.

, again that's the best way down here that you're gonna see deer is on these food plots for the most part. So it switched to a, a. in the timber hunting for me for the most part. So that was in of itself a big learning curve. Okay. For me, cuz that's not anything that you're typically gonna do down here right

Jeremy Dinsmore: now, when you talk about like getting the more cameras out, do you give yourself like a more of a short to term or a long-term strategy with your cameras?

Do you say, hey, this area is an area that I'm waiting for, maybe the rut and hoping that when a camera gets hot to get [00:20:00] in there, checking cameras, going around, scouting, if this area allows me to, as I'm walking out, maybe check cameras or anything along those lines. Do you have more of a short-term or long-term plan with your trail cameras?

Yeah, definitely.

Hayden Ferrari: So I had actually a little bit of both and as I was getting more cameras, cameras are not cheap by any means these days. So it's, that has a lot to play into kind of my. Thought process. So I ran a handful of cameras this year, but if it was a camera that I'd set up in some of these smaller food plots or in the woods where I think deer potentially are gonna work or if it's a historical scrape, I put up a lot of non-cell cameras to leave them there.

Whether it was to catch pictures of a whole field, if one deer, was in the range, I could see the whole field, how the deer were moving in that area. How many of them were moving in that area or set it up over a scrap and let it work all year and check it a couple times. And that's how I killed my buck this year, [00:21:00] was that, it's crazy as it is.

I've got a lot of cell cameras too, and those are in my areas where I, the deer are gonna be there. Whether it's like old salt lakes that, we can't, with the C W D regulations, we can't put any corn feed or anything out to even get pictures. So it's really old salt licks and just. areas off these food pots where I've always seen big deer.

Those are where I've typically left to sell cameras. But crazy enough this year, every single really good deer I had on camera, for the most part, I'd say nine out a time, nine nine outta 10 times was on one of these non-cell cameras that I had set up for the long run. Yeah. So plays into a little bit of both and just the area of, if I'm gonna move it, cause I move those cell cameras a lot as the year progresses, but for the most part, not all of 'em.

Yeah. But a lot of them. Yeah.

Jeremy Dinsmore: That's it seems like the philosophy for a lot of hunters where that cell camera is that more so short term, if if it's nearby, for myself, I have more cell [00:22:00] cameras. Home, which is 2 22 hours and 20 minutes away from me.

So I use that just to help, just because I can't get there. My dad can't get to certain spots, just because whatever and so it makes it a little bit easier. Again, the hard part though, about that aspect is, even though this year I said it on my last, that one podcast we did with Cam Enduro from Exodus was, even though I had the most mature deer and as far as quantity and quality, Man, I still only saw a couple in the stand, so he, they could what I was saying, I don't know how many times, like I told my dad there a curse more so for him because he is there, right? He is local to that area. And he, we would come, he, I'd help him come up with a game plan and he would maybe go to one spot and, ting that camera would go off whether a couple hours before, a couple hours after, at a whole different spot, and he would never [00:23:00] get down.

And that's the one thing I know there's that controversy of what the cell camera right now, the last couple weeks, that's been like the hot topic and yeah. And thing, and which I totally get, and I don't know where I stand on it because I see it as a tool. There's certain things where I'm like, yeah, no, I don't like the whole on demand.

Maybe moving, being able to move a camera. Like I don't like that. But it, the cell cameras, at least for myself, like they allow me to. Man, it's so hard because even though they are in the woods two hours away, I still go in there and I put boots on the ground at ti like at the post season, whether even on certain hunts where if it just the woods seem dead that day, I'll go walk around.

That's what I'll do. So I get it, they're a tool, but I'm not totally like against the natural cell camera, if that makes sense. Yeah. I'm all four regular trail cameras, like you said, being able to get, my daughter out in the woods and do things like that.

But that's where I am [00:24:00] on that stance. But for you. I like the idea and I'm excited to, to hear that story later on about killing your buck using that intel. Yeah. With that. So like before you get into more of that, you said about diving into the timber now going after these deer because of how, what the drought led to and okay.

Switching gears a little bit, seeing what the data was saying, how was that kind of getting into and what kind of, maybe like you said looking at the topo, like what were you getting into and finding?

Hayden Ferrari: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's way different than what I've ever been used to, you have to get the data and adjust.

Yeah, I do spend a lot of time just the past couple years just understanding the maps. But unfortunately a lot. , a lot of the YouTube videos and stuff out there that are showing what to be looking for on, on a topo map is more centered in like the Midwest or more open areas where in the southeast, unless it's just a really good piece of property, a lot of it's been like select [00:25:00] cut it's very ravini but flat at the same time.

It's super thick. You definitely want to key on, your saddles and your little benches and benches and flats and everything. But you can pick out the most beautiful looking saddle in the middle of private land and you walk in there and you can't shoot 20 yards in any either direction.

I don't know how great of a bow hunting spot that's gonna be. So that was and has always been the challenge for me this year. But it was, again, just finding. , finding those spots on. I use the Spartan Forge app and just pulling up the app and putting down points over the last year and checking 'em out during the day in the summertime.

Or in midday during the season and kind of making a middle note or putting a note on the app. Really looking for me, I found that these, we have a lot of big benches on the sides of these, ridges and there's a lot of ridges through our system. And that was where I found the most success this year, where I would say that every single sit in [00:26:00] the timber this year, I saw more deer than I would sitting in the field.

Really working those. Benches coming into bedding. I was able to again, hard to point out where dough bedding is on a map because it's all thick. But getting in there where I think it is and there's a good shot. You're probably gonna be right if you can find the right spot.

Yeah. So you can get them come in. Early season I had a group of 10 deer with one of these mature bucks that I would've loved to shoot. He's like a 250 pound four point. Just old gotta go deer that I would have loved to take that old deer and him and two small bucks and four dos all came and bed down on the same bench where I was at.

So it was a really cool experience, but it was really cool to learn and see that. And I feel a lot more confident hunting in the timber here in the southeast than I ever have.

Jeremy Dinsmore: Spartan Forge stands at the nexus of machine learning and whitetail deer hunting to deliver truly intuitive and science space products that saves the hundred times spent scouting, planning and [00:27:00] executing their hunts.

You have deer prediction, journaling, and the best maps on any hunting app platform there is use code antler up to save 20% off your smart and forged membership@spartanforge.ai. Yeah, that's really cool. Why don't we dive into the story of the buck that you killed this year and then we could go down rabbit holes from

Hayden Ferrari: there.

Yeah, definitely. So I had just November was a crazy month for me. I was. Not really here at all, . I think I worked four days at my job that month. So I took the first week off to go to Missouri and I'm sure we'll get into that in a little bit. Yeah. Came back, worked a couple days, hunted a little bit the week before Thanksgiving, which leading up like the week before Thanksgiving to the week after Thanksgiving is typically like prime rut around here.

Jeremy Dinsmore: Okay. That was gonna be my next question before you let into this. Yeah. Okay, great.

Hayden Ferrari: So me taking the first week off of November to go hunt like a Midwestern area for their rut still gives me time to come back here and hunt hard. But my twin sister [00:28:00] decided that she wanted a destination wedding in Florida, the week before Thanksgiving for the full week.

So I burned a week of vacation, not in the woods down there for my sister's. At Sister's wedding, so I was getting pictures blown up on my phone, just you've got to be kidding me, . So that, I came back from that, had go back to the job for a little bit, and then I I'll typically drive out there and stay the weekend at my place.

. It's about an hour and a half from where I'm at now. Okay. I so either stay at a buddy's house out there or camp out in my rooftop tent. And so I was out there all weekend and I was just hunting in the mornings. It was still super hot for even here it was hot, so , . I could only imagine how, a northern guy would come down and be like, good, the Lord, you're the end of November and it's 75 degrees.

Yeah. Yeah. But, it was, that's the time I didn't, we didn't really see as much running as probably in the past or that we're used to, but it was there. . And so I had a bunch of my non-cell cameras out and I was just hunting an area [00:29:00] that I knew was good just from pictures throughout the year.

So I went and pulled this card and there was, it was it was over a scrape and it was like up higher, tilted down. And I just had it on video mode just to see if I could get some cool videos of some deer working this scrape or if something comes in. And there's actually a couple deer on this camera that I hadn't seen since the summertime and that I hadn't seen at all.

And the deer that I had ended up shooting was on that camera and he was on that scrape every day for almost a week straight. Yeah, with a couple other mature bucks that I would've a also shot. But this one in particular, he's five years old, five and a half years old, and he's got a beautiful, five, five side.

If he was matching, it would've been a beautiful, probably 140 inch 10. But on his weak side, he had just a big spike. Yeah. For whatever reason. And I've heard a lot of people say this year that they've seen that a lot in this area, [00:30:00] all the way to Alabama and in between.

And I had, the deer looks familiar, but I don't remember the spike. So I can go all day long about Yeah. Why I think that might be the case, . But anyways, I knew he was older and was definitely like on the hit list for that sit. So I had a really good wind. There's a really pretty, this feels like a small food plot off a really big food plot with.

a little bit of timber in between, and then a big ridge system up top. And I've hunted that ridge a lot this year. So I know there's really good bedding up there. And it comes down to the big ag field with a big bench. And I found an old lock or old ladder stand where I picked out on the maps.

Rule one for me, if I pick somewhere out on the maps and I go in there and there's an old lock on, I'm like, okay, great. Yep. Perfect. Yep. So I, I went in a little bit earlier in the afternoon, like right after I pulled this card and got set up and it, it wasn't I wasn't even fully set up yet.

I was just setting up my [00:31:00] camera and I just pulled my bow up and I was chilling out for a little bit. I didn't even have everything all set up yet. And I was like let me pull out the whole primo. Dough can and dumped it upside down twice, put it back in the bag, and finished setting it up and coming down the big ridge here comes that buck.

And he was looking, wondering where that dough was at. And it's the same route all the way to where the scrape is. Okay. A little further back. And when I came in and picked that spot, I had found a bunch of f fresher rubs, so it was off a rub line. And then there was another scrape.

So my thought was not only is there a ladder stand there, I picked it out on the mat. So you gotta really big, pretty open bench coming down into Big Ag. Also a transition food plot over here. , a lot of dough bedding, the camera is showing a bunch of bucks working. back and forth through the scrape [00:32:00] into pretty much the same lane that I had hung off, probably 80 yards back from there.

Okay. So that was the mindset where I think, okay, they're maybe up here knowing Dough beddings over here. They're gonna work their way down into this food pot. Then maybe back over to the Big Ag and then loop back around. And so when I hit that do Dope call, I mean that Buck pretty much did exactly as I wanted him to do.

Came down, worked, crossed over this way, gave me a 17 yard shot filming. Got it all on film except for the fact that he stepped outta frame as I released Arrow. Very unfortunate for that expect, but it was, there's still the idea of getting it all on film. Heck yeah. The kind of whole process of it all, I was really pumped about, really pumped to lay that buck down.

Made a great shot on him at three 30, like super early. . I got down and I was like, all right. It's a little touchback, but I know that deer's dead and I'm pretty sure I heard him crash. , I'm gonna pull out for a little bit. I'm gonna grab my stuff and just go let my [00:33:00] dog out. And then we'll go back and grab the deer and roll.

So I walked outta the woods, hopped on my e-bike, went back to my truck, and about 45 minutes later it starts raining. I'm like, oh no, I already don't like tracking blood as it is, and now there's gonna be rain. So I had marked off a couple spots where the arrow was and everything. So I go back in there and I like already losing blood from where I'd already found it.

And ended up calling a buddy. And he came over and helped me find it. We didn't find anything. We knew a guy with a dog. He brought the dog. The dog really wasn't getting anywhere, but we were just making big circles. And it is, I couldn't make this up if I tried, but we're, I'm about to call it, I'm like, I don't, I know this deer's dead.

I hate that. I'm not gonna be able to find it. But it's a Sunday night. Everybody's got work in the morning. We've been out here for, I think it's close to 10 o'clock at this point. And I think we're gonna have to call it, maybe I can try to come back tomorrow after work and see if I can't find the [00:34:00] deer.

In some daylight. And so we're on our way out the woods and we see eyes and the guy with the dog's oh, there's eyes at your buck. And I said, there's no way my buck's dead. And it was a dough. And the dough ran off. So we walked up to where the dough was, and that dough was beded down with my dead buck.

What Craziest thing ever even more annoying when we got to the buck and I pulled up my map, see where we exactly where we're at. We are 10 yards. 10 yards down the wood line from where I walked out to get on my bike the first time I walked outta the woods. Oh. The deer didn't end up running, but maybe 85 yards.

Yeah. From where I shot the deer. Yep. But we just tracked and tracked. But, I couldn't tell you why that dough was beded with that buck, but that's the only reason why we found that sucker. So it was a rollercoaster of emotions to like the highest of highs to the lowest of lows and then back.

So it was really cool. I was glad to be able to have a couple friends there to help me out. My best friend the day Pryor had shot [00:35:00] 170 inch Wow. Split g2, split G three buck here. So it was a great weekend to be in the woods down here in, in west Tennessee. Yeah.

Jeremy Dinsmore: And when was that?

Hayden Ferrari: What was it? November? November 28th, I believe. Okay. Very cool. Something like that, like right there towards the end of November. I think that was the date. I'll check it in a second to verify that, but yeah, and that's when we're gonna see a lot of that peak rut activity. For the most part.

Yeah. Is in that timeframe

Jeremy Dinsmore: that end of November time. Yep.

Hayden Ferrari: End of November to shoot. You'll see him rut. The big deer eye shot on December 28th. He was running Yeah. Pretty heavily. Yeah. So it's definitely a lot spread out. More spread out for sure.

Jeremy Dinsmore: Yeah. Now before we get it down like gear rabbit holes and your Missouri thing, like now with that hunt, having that success this year with the bow killing a really cool, like you said, five and a half or older deer.

in Tennessee. What [00:36:00] does next year what are you doing now to get ready for next year already or taking a break a little bit, kind of game map, game planning, a little more checking other pe maybe public pieces out. What's your attack

Hayden Ferrari: here? Yeah. The, my mind never stops from whitetail.

So so to actually, with c, d regulations and whatnot in my area, deer season actually ended yesterday. Okay. In Tennessee. Now starts for at least my track of public or my track of private that I have the all season of kind of leading into Turkey season too. But really for me, this, next two months is gonna be like boots on the ground.

take what I saw during the season where the deer moving the buck beds that I found, the deer that were betting down and just walk it all. And I learned really, or started doing that about two years ago when I was trying to find the big buck that I shot. Okay. How did he get to this field?

Cuz I normally only saw him over here and only had pictures of him [00:37:00] over here. Yeah. So I really get in the woods and walk, try to figure out how these deer are moving and you learn something new every single year, every single time you're out there. And that's the main piece for kind of Tennessee.

We don't really have a lot of public around here in this area. I think my buddy and I may try to go up to land between the lakes area in Paris, Tennessee. , Kentucky Lake and maybe do a boat hunt for a weekend there one day. But for Tennessee, in particular and in my track of land that I have just boots on the ground listening for turkeys and watching for.

Watching for deer trails and beds. And then I just note all that in my Spartan Forge app. And then, it doesn't really ever stop for me. That's where my mind's at, 24 7. Oh man. Amen. All my friends get annoyed with it, but here we are. Yep. Amen

Jeremy Dinsmore: to that. Man. That's it's funny, my wife and my daughter right before she was watching a show on Netflix and it was like the what's it called?

Like the bake shop or something like that, where they're four [00:38:00] wonderful, amazing, incredible bakers. And they get like random people come on for something, oh, we're having a baby, we're gonna surprise my whole family, make a cake and eat these four bakers. Just make the most insane, unbelievable cake.

Tastes good, looks great. And I, at the end, I was like, just said to my wife, what if you were to go on there to talk about my birthday cake, what, what are you telling them? My, my interest? She's hunting, deer whitetail, like bow hunting, like that's it. You love cookies and cream and Oreos,

Yeah. I was like, all right, there you go. There it'd be some type of whitetailed cake with a hunter and a bow, and it'd be cookies and cream. I'm cool with that. Yeah, . I'm the same way though, man. That's awesome, dude. I'm pump free. That's really cool. To see your progression the learning aspect of things clicking for you.

Now talk, very cool year for you this year with obviously killing that buck and coming off of, a buck from two years ago and learning and growing and developing as a hunter. And then you took your first out-of-state hunt this year.[00:39:00] Talk, run us through like why you wanted to do that, what your goal was to do that, and what that all entailed to for those trips.

Hayden Ferrari: Or trips. Yeah, so that trip goes pretty far back, I'm pretty much the only one in my friend group, per se, of like our hunting buddies that are like, want to go out and do all this public land and running gun and mobile hunting and just adventure hunting and just from all the things that I see on YouTube where I'm like, oh my gosh, that looks awesome.

And my buddy put in for Kansas two years ago or for 20 for the season of 21. Okay. And didn't get drawn. So at the end of the year at the end of 21, we're like, okay, yeah, we're all putting in for Kansas. And it's gonna be awesome. So in January, me and my buddy Loaded up and actually one of our other friends came with us just to tag along for a weekend trip, but we went up to Kansas and scouted a bunch of walk-in land and knocked on some doors and got some phone numbers [00:40:00] and had an idea of where we wanted to go hunt.

We know some guys that hunt up in that area that kind of pointed us in the right direction for some land. Or just places to hunt and just figured out, okay, what units do we wanna put in for? Where are some areas that we can go hunt in those units? It was January 7th is when we went, so like right after the season ended there, so really good sign.

Fresh sign still from the season. So just taking that and noting it all. And so that was I took off right then and there. I was like first week in November, check going to Kansas. So I already took the week off, put in April and then June rolled around and no draw. And 33,000 applicant out-of-state applicants or something like that for Kansas.

Typically Kansas is like, yeah, you have to draw for it, but you're gonna get drawn. But it's slowly turning into, an Iowa one. Yeah. So right off the bat I was like, you got kidding me. And I was like, you know what, I'm going, I'm gonna just gonna go to Missouri. I know you can get an over counter tag.

Still [00:41:00] Midwest . It's Midwest, it's right in that area. Yep. And so I immediately went to the maps, like I've been to like St. Louis for some sporting events and whatnot and I played a football game at Mizzou in college. But other than that, like never really been to Missouri. Even though it's relatively close to where I'm at, still have never been especially in this aspect.

So it was like on the Spartan Forage app, like right off the bat, like just trying to find big public pieces. That just look really good. That's got really good terrain. That's got, not only do they have saddles, you look at saddles and then the obvious places and that's okay, that's where everybody's gonna go hunt.

Okay, so where are some other really good terrain features that are past those points? . And that's what I was looking for. I would've loved to have harvested a deer on that trip, and that was obviously the ultimate goal is to go harvest a deer. But realistically looking, I was like, all right, this is just gonna be like a huge learning experience for me.

So I didn't have anybody going with me.[00:42:00] I just was like, let's go, let's just load up and roll. So I have a popup tent on top of my truck and an e-bike. And I, I was gonna leave my dog at one of the puppy daycare things here and, , they filled it up at the last second, so she's coming with me too.

And we're just rolling out. And that was I pretty much going in blind just trying to figure it out as I go and it was definitely way different than you could probably just expect just from not ever doing it, but it was

Jeremy Dinsmore: totally worth it. Yeah. Now when you cause I read like your, you had a cool post recapping that Yeah.

On Instagram and everything. And you talked about you went to one little piece and didn't really see much and you went to another piece and you saw little bit better caliber deer, I believe. Like when you get, when you're looking at the map, right? And you do all that eess scouting and you get to that spot and maybe you could talk about, hopefully, maybe talk about that second spot that you got into a [00:43:00] little bit better deer and everything like that.

When you. E scout, and then when you get boots on the ground, when things look maybe totally different, what was your game plan that you were like, okay, I gotta do a little pivot here.

Hayden Ferrari: Yeah, definitely. I went up on a Sunday morning, drove up and met up with the tag out door guys.

, and I'd been in commutes with them on Instagram and Caden for a while. And I was like, Hey, it'll be really cool if y'all are in Missouri when I'm there. I bet y'all will be . I think we are too. Yeah. But we don't know yet. And so that ended up, hung out with those guys for an hour. And then I had picked out a couple places like, that aren't you don't hear about, big deer in these areas or big hunting, but it was a lot of public and it wasn't it wasn't any like big national force.

It was just like a, public place. There was a campground. I was like, I guess this will work. That is, that wasn't my end goal on the maps. I just, I was in that area and I was like, let's just go try this area out. It looked okay. So yeah I mean it looked pretty good from that maps and I was looking at it.

I [00:44:00] was sitting there talking to them and then driving, trying to figure out, okay, what do I want to do? Yeah. So when I got there I went to sleep and then I woke up and I was like, I'm not gonna, it was rainy and I wasn't gonna bust out onto some public land. And then I've never seen an, a state I've really never hunted without even being able to see.

So I just chilled for the morning, took the bike out, and just rode around. And it was like, I wasn't expecting it to be as hilly as it was . And, but I was super excited to see what the timber looked like. Yeah. Because. In my area, like I dream of like big open timber. Like you just don't really see that here.

And not that you see that, all through Missouri, but in part you will. And then this part was one of 'em. So it was a, it was strange, it was like a big track of land with a gate that you could drive a truck through, but it was locked. But there was one truck, I guess he worked there and he was hunting so he was able to drive.

But I'm riding my bike on this road, just dipping off into the some of the big [00:45:00] timber, just looking for kind of any fresh sign. And I found a couple of like smaller rubs on the side of these , I'm gonna call 'em mountains, but they're not mountains. , but huge hills.

, in the timber and really like open funnels down. Down these mountainside or hillsides into kind of as much open area as I could see. And I found a, what I thought was like a really good spot. It looked like it'd be amazing. So I sat up there a couple times and had a couple doughs work through.

When you hunt an area for two or three sits you can quickly find on a, week long hunt, you can quickly deem an area dead or alive at that point for the amount of time that you're working with. After two D two dos, two or three dos I saw I, I knew it was kind of time to, to go to where I originally had planned to finish out the week.

Yeah. But the terrain was super cool. It was, it's one thing to see it on the maps, it's one thing to know what it looks like, but then when you get there and it's daylighting, you can see and you can see the thick, bigger timber [00:46:00] it's. at this point, it was like October 31st, I think.

. And you've got the leaves falling everywhere, the brown and the forest and whatnot, and like where I'm at, everything's still green, , that was pretty cool. Yeah. Just being able to experience that different topography and different like kind

Jeremy Dinsmore: of landscape. Yeah. Another little notch on the old learning tool belt, just, exactly new terrain features. Obviously, like you said, you didn't kill anything on that hunt, but took a lot of what, home with you basically with that. Oh, a new experience, right? It's never like in the moment you could be like, ah, crap, like that sucks. You failed.

But in the grand scheme of things, it's okay, what did I learn? What's, what am I taking with me to the next hunt? What am I taking to my next out-of-state hunt, but also to my in-state, like where I hunt at home? Those are the key things that I think we as hunters always have to try to. Be more positive about, for certain ones, like for me, my wife's what, you were gone for five days and you didn't kill anything, or whatever.

And, yeah. They don't get it. They get it, but they don't get it. . [00:47:00] But yeah, my friends

Hayden Ferrari: are the same way. Even the hunters, you go do all this stuff. Yeah. Yeah. By yourself.

Jeremy Dinsmore: I love the ones that like, especially for people I, I might work with or whatever, or other family members. You didn't catch one.

I'm like, nah, I didn't put out a nett catch. You didnt catch one . I just was, I love that one. I know. I'm like, shut up. Oh man. No man, dude. That's really cool. And like you said, you were camping out there, you got a chance to meet the tagged out tour guys. They're

Hayden Ferrari: a trip man. Yeah. All four of those guys, they were they were real.

Yeah, we hung out for probably three hours. It wasn't a big showing to this, it was , lunch that they were doing. Yeah. There was a couple other guys that were doing like a buck tour from like Massachusetts. Yeah. And just driving across the country and hunting. So like that was pretty cool to hear their experience on the way.

But then they had to head out and then, so it was just Spoony and Cole and Yeah, Hayden and Grayson. And we were all just hanging out and, I got my dog out and we played, they played together. Yeah. Grayson was missing his dog, so he was able to see my dog Bella and just talk [00:48:00] about, their trip, or season so far and all the cool things that they were doing.

Yeah.

Jeremy Dinsmore: So you've alluded to earlier about shooting your deer on camera, but you walked out of frame. Was this your first year filming your hunt? No. .

Hayden Ferrari: I've done it on and off for a long time. Yeah. And I had have a ton of footage of deer. No deer I ever really shoot. And then when I ever get ready to shoot the deer, I don't have the camera like, Hey, I'm just gonna go.

Last year I shot that buck, which obviously didn't kill him, but then I shot four do and didn't, I didn't really film any of those hunts, same of the prior years. Every time I had a camera, nothing really happens. I filmed my friend like six years ago, miss a doe with a crossbow by a mile, and the crossbo was like dead on

So that was my best studio I had so far. Now I'm pretty like, nerdy about the stuff and know all the ins and outs. But obviously you still try to learn everything you can. And [00:49:00] this year it was more okay, I'm just going to do it. And it's I'm not gonna not film any hunts.

I'm gonna have it all set up with me. And the biggest part for that, for me too, is just like finding your system with. , being efficient, being quiet and being lightweight. And I don't know for, I don't know about you, but for me, if if I don't have something perfect, like I just shut down so if my system doesn't hold everything I need or if it's too big if I just don't feel like I'm gonna be efficient and effective when I get up in the tree, I instantly shut down. I'm like, okay, I gotta refigure this out. I had that kind of dialed in all year long for the most

Jeremy Dinsmore: part.

Yeah. That's cool. What equipment are were you using this past year? So this

Hayden Ferrari: past year I used the fourth Arrow satellite arm. Yep. I had used a talent arm last year. I really liked the base on the fourth euro satellite one. It's just a lot smaller and quieter and, , I was a little concerned on how much weight the arm was gonna be hold, and it was perfectly fine.

I was, I [00:50:00] ran either my I had a Cannon G 50 that I was filming my hunts with GoPros for different angles. And sometimes I even put on my Sony muralist camera to run that instead of the cannon. And the arm held

Jeremy Dinsmore: just fine. Yeah. That's what the same camera arm that I was using.

I didn't film no, a ton this year. This was a year where it just seemed like, it seemed every time I took the camera out, I didn't see shit. , Because, which is, in years past actually happened more, more often. But this year I had a lot of really cool encounters and I saw more deer on stand this year than ever.

And I should have brought my camera. And when I would bring my camera, I didn't see like anything. But it's funny because I had an opportunity the second, technically it would be the second weekend, but it was, our season opens up on one Saturday, so that next Saturday, okay, so it was like that one full weekend.

I went back home, I was in a spot and I was like, screw it. Let's shoot a [00:51:00] dough even if something comes out. And I'll film it, hopefully. So this deer came in, I real young fawn and she winded me a little bit. And when she took off, coming from a whole different direction, was a bigger dough.

And when she worked her way in, I was tossing and turning like, what do I do? And so when that first dough. Came in, I was like, oh, she's only an hour. If this other big dough comes in I'll shoot her and see what happens. Maybe I have still a good amount of time left if she runs the different direction, whatever.

So this dough came in at 30 yards and I was like, screw it. And I just total, this ha has happened now at least four times when I've knew I was going into it to film and like hopefully get it on camera. And as soon as I was get in that kill mode, I say, screw the camera, it stays closer to the tree. I just grab my boat and I do that.

Unfortunately I hit really far forward shall process. Everything went really good. I don't know, I just I don't know really [00:52:00] what happened didn't really get really much penetration at all. She ran like she was, I never seen a deer run as hard and as fast as she did, I really thought I crushed her.

And then I was like, wow. When she turned to run back where she came from, like there was no arrow in her, like at all. It just seemed like I got two inches of penetration. My arrow set up was like four 80 fixed blade, just hard hitting arrow, and it just, something was off. However, obviously I did not recover.

There was like no blood and I didn't see a buck, but more moral of the story. I just get full, like dummy mode and just say, screw the camera every single time, because the one year that I was again, dead red on it, a couple years ago during the rut here in Pennsylvania, a buck was coming up. I was filming him, I was getting ready, and as soon as I like moved it to get right where the, I would've stopped him basically to draw back.

He just went, woo. Looked right at me and I was like, you gotta be kidding me. [00:53:00] When in reality I had probably three opportunities right before that, that I could have killed him, but I was messing around with the camera. Yeah. I don't know, man. It's, I've where as much as we hunt, we don't hunt enough where I could be like hey Hayden, do you wanna film me?

Or tell Dimitri come film me or Jim. Unless they're obviously tagged out, like that'd be in a perfect world, obviously. Yeah. That's what happens. But man, like when it's early season like that, it's tough just cuz like my brain just goes totally squirrel because I just want to focus on kill.

Yeah. You want to do your part of ethically doing that. So Yeah, man it's, I'm with you. It's a love hate relationship. I like doing it when things come together and I tell friends people will message me, are you going to film this year? Are you going to film anymore? And I'm like, man, I don't really see a lot of cool things.

You know what I mean? To make it multiple. I'd be like that, like two episode person, like in a season probably just to put out quality. Yeah. Quote unquote cool content. Like I'm [00:54:00] not individuals where I'm like, we're going to Ohio, we're going to New York, we're going to Maryland. I don't do that much to put out a ton of things.

I'd rather give you a review on the om, Bevi . Yeah, definitely. Because that's what I like to watch too. But yeah, man, it's, it is a love hate relationship. It's tough. I give you kudos, man for at least, not necessarily getting the kill shot, but to get that process up and work through it,

Hayden Ferrari: It's definitely, and it's alerting process.

I think it'll grow with me and it's always just been a hobby and just something I wanted to do. And, going on this out-of-state Missouri Hunt, like that was something where I was like, all right, I'm gonna film every aspect of this because this is cool. Yep. . So even on the road driving, we were filming everything.

And it was a pain to, carry a lot of that gear too. When I, yep. When I tacked up north to, the Iowa, Missouri, Illinois like corner, that was like some crazy country and to the point where I couldn't even really drive my e-bike [00:55:00] back there because it was so hilly.

You spend most of the time walking it up. It's not a lot of weight, but any extra weight you definitely make, you make you think twice about it when you're going on a mile and a half walk. Yep. At four 30 in the morning. Yep. So even, I stuck with it and I filmed and I was able, at the property up there, I saw a pretty 10, I was way back there cuz there was like, this place was like super crowded.

Yeah. So you're talking like mid seventies, like it was colder in Memphis than it was like northeast Missouri. Missouri. Wow. Which was crazy at the same time. And there was like four different guys or groups of people, like at this one track of public land, and they're all from Pennsylvania too. It was like three different groups of guys from Pennsylvania, from the exact same city that didn't even know each other.

Oh my gosh.

Jeremy Dinsmore: Where was it? What city do you know?

Hayden Ferrari: It was like close to Memphis, Missouri. I don't remember the name of the city that this track of public was at, but like right there. Yeah. And yeah, all these guys from Pennsylvania in the same city. So [00:56:00] I had to really track back there and.

With all this camera gear and I was like, I'm, I was just committed to it. Yeah. And I was able to film, up a small 10 and a couple dos at this one area. So I was instantly like seeing a little bit better deer, so made The extra miles with the little extra pounds worth it.

Yep. So that's the

Jeremy Dinsmore: key. It's the commitment. Yeah. That's the key. You have to come out feeling like reward, re reward, there was some sort of reward because man, the worst is when you just because of hiking up certain mountain that I've done and I'm like, oh my gosh I know I'm probably not going to see something today and on that way back.

And you're tr you're lugging it and setting it down and you're like, my gosh. It just sucks. . That's cool, man. You talked about too, earlier you mentioned the C w D thing, and I know that's a, it seemed for what's funny is I could be so wrong and I need to do a better job following more so of Pennsylvania news.

And a couple years ago, man, it was a big thing here in Pennsylvania. Like we still [00:57:00] have our C W D zones and areas, but it's not, it hasn't been. on the front page, if that makes sense. It's not like that leading topic. And you said like right now, like you are in a little bit of a hotbed of it, what, what's that been like for you?

Hayden Ferrari: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, we're, if you look, if you know anybody goes and looks on the T W R A website from like a hunting, let's just call it deer hunting, regulations, like there's gonna be like three units broke up and pretty much all of West Tennessee is like unit L.

A couple years ago, man, you could get so into the weeds, somehow some way C W D was, tested and found in like smack dab where we're at. And there's a lot of, I think there's a testing facility here for like deer research and, there's people that say they brought it in to test it to see if they could cure it and it exploded.

And you could get super in the weeds on how or why just automatically [00:58:00] showed up. But it's, affecting like 13 counties or something like that now. Okay. But it's all this far West Tennessee corner really. And it's tough. I'm gonna take a little bit, I, you've got two different kind of groups of people that are looking at it like, oh no, CBD is just destroying the deer population.

Or it's, oh no, CWD is causing us to maybe over, trying to figure out how to word this correctly, but like over do what CWD is. And I'm not sitting here saying that C w D is like not real, like it's real and you'll see sick deer. But I think the biggest challenge that as a deer hunter I've been faced with CWD is the fact that, these deer are now hunted like eight months rifle hunted eight months outta the year here.

Between here season just ended. You've got, you can file for a permit to rifle hunt all the way through March. [00:59:00] Wow. For deer. And then they're handing out crop tags left and right in the summertime. So you're starting like June, July and August shooting all kinds of deer and, that's warranted.

from a, farmer's perspective, right? That's needed in a lot of these areas because we do have a, such a high deer population in grand scheme of things. That's why we're able to shoot three doughs a day for as long as I can remember, right? And it still doesn't put a dent in the population to the velvet hunt, which is awesome.

I'm so glad Tennessee started that a few years back. But in unit L now, you can rifle hunt the velvet hunt, so a lot easier to, I could shoot, I could sit over a 200 acre soybean field, a sniper rifle, and see a huge bachelor group come out. Like it's super easy. Yeah. So there, there's just hunted, it used to be big bow season, muzz loader season.

Then gun season opened about Thanksgiving and now gun season opens in November and goes all the way till the end of January now. The deer just hunted like a lot now. And we're [01:00:00] promoting, testing and trying to get all the information that is needed for us and in Tennessee, but as a nation and understanding what CW is doing there's a lot of controversy on how it's handled or the goal.

You know what, I'm really glad last week nda, a National Geo Association sent out an email to, I guess the people in Tennessee on behalf or kind of in correspondence with T W R A where Tbr r a is now submitting, a five-year plan that they're actively, about to finalize in the next couple weeks on.

The steps that are needed to take to understand this disease a little bit more. And to, how prevent whatever we can do, I don't, you can't really prevent national diseases, but just as a hunter and as a conservationist, like how we need to handle that disease and, hopefully everybody does their part in it.

Whatever it, turns out to be. There's a lot of interesting stats that come up with it. And since through 21, I think they started this I want to say like the [01:01:00] end of 2018 or No, it was during 2019 season, I believe. Okay. Is when the it was the end of the 20 18, 20, like January, 2019.

That's when it red flagged and and since then, through 2021, they tested, I, I believe I saw on the outline and kind of the information of it, it's like they tested somewhere around something like 60,000 deer, and I think 2000 of them came back positive. I, I've had deer, I've had four deer that I've tested those that I've come back positive.

Wow. And if you pull up like a hot map, like where I'm at is the stats don't lie. Yeah. Like it's hot zone. So it's a big thing. I think it's a lot of, it's, the interstate transportation of deer is, that's changed from a national perspective.

Everybody that's aware of it, I know Pennsylvania's got its fair share of it, but even states that that aren't, Having these C w D positive cases come in or whatnot, everybody's becoming a little bit more aware of it. I'm [01:02:00] interested to see what, the government as a whole, I know there's a big push to have some government funding Yeah.

That I believe was passed to help with the research of CW d so I think Tennessee has a big role to play in that. It's definitely changed hunting. From when I first started, even UN until recently it definitely makes the UNPRESSURED gear, pressured. But and, you can spin it however many ways you want to on, what's right and what's wrong, but at the end of the day, there's, we all have one common goal and that's just to protect the deer population for future generations.

Yep. Yeah,

Jeremy Dinsmore: no doubt. That's like you said I the key is for people to, like you said, just play the role and hopefully we can continue to, make progress and not, regress in things.

Hayden Ferrari: Yeah, definitely. So that's crazy.

Jeremy Dinsmore: It's like you said it come on that, yeah.

It's being in the hotbed, like you said and I haven't honestly to be completely honest, I haven't looked at like a newer, updated map of where a lot of cases are, but you said that it seems like it's, there's a good bit that way. . Oh

Hayden Ferrari: [01:03:00] yeah. I submitted a dough, it was, I got a new bow like January Yeah.

Of 19. First day hunting with it, shot a dough. It was right when, at this point in time, you like had to test your deer. Okay. So I, Dr drove over there, they tested the lymph nodes and I got note back positive CW d and that's that was, a couple weeks into just probably anybody knowing what CWD is, right?

Yeah. Yeah. It's been around for 70 plus years all the way, you could trace it all the way back into Canada, but it hasn't been a vast issue and it wasn't a big thing where a lot of people knew what it was. So you. With a matter of a couple weeks, you go, Hey, there's this really bad disease called C W D and all the deer are gonna die.

Test your deer. You have to, and then you go test your deer and it's positive, and you're like, oh, no, . Oh no. Yeah. So yeah, we're already learning from it and we're already getting a better understanding of what it is and what it's doing in the long term, but still there's a lot more that's gotta play out.

Yeah. Yeah. I'll continue to do my [01:04:00] part for sure. Yeah.

Jeremy Dinsmore: That's awesome, man. Good luck, man. And like you said, it's just crazy. It's one, one thing after another. It seems before we, we wrap up Hayden, big gear guy. What were some of your favorite pieces of gear this year that you used?

Yeah,

Hayden Ferrari: definitely. So the first light transfer pack in conjunction with the mystery ranch tree house. , definitely I think helped elevate my game and I pretty much ran the first light transfer pack from the moment they released it all the way through. That was probably the biggest biggest add-on to my, that I really liked.

It still doesn't fit all of the notches. Okay. From my perspective on a mobile bow hunter, saddle hunter. But it was a really big help. Another phenomenal piece is the Dialed archery site. I love that site. I have two of them now. I have 'em on two of my bows. It's I just, it's from God the biggest thing I've always hated with the single pin, even though I shoot much better, it's okay, let me look outside.

Turn the knob. Like just a, being able to flip that inside was a [01:05:00] huge jump. Yeah. The side end of itself, it's, it'll hold strong. It's durable and it survived a pretty crazy year for me. So that was another big one. And then when te Tethered released a fast pack I was one of the people, scrambling online in a website crash to try to buy this pack in time thinking it would get sold out right off the bat.

And the pack is phenomenal. I could

Jeremy Dinsmore: agree with you on that.

Hayden Ferrari: Yeah, I'm a little broader of a guy.

Jeremy Dinsmore: Yep. So the straps are, so it's, the straps are a little bit more in between yeah, definitely. For a guy like, like yourself and then even though I'm short in stature, I do have a little bit of broad shoulders myself and I talk to Carl about that.

And on your, I have a prototype, even my, it's funny because I told Carl I'm wrapping up a video, and he is oh, you're gonna have that ugly Molly on it, cuz it's, you have a whole different upgraded Molly system of mine. Mine's still fine. Mine works perfectly great. I, I have no issues with mine, but [01:06:00] yeah, for me, I.

There's not a lot I would change. It's pretty on point if you're filming, it has necessary needs. Like it has our pockets and it has the bowling ball pocket that I've I had the our satellite basin and then on the, yeah, the bigger side pocket is where I had my camera arm. And then, yeah, literally there's not a lot I would change, if any.

No.

Hayden Ferrari: If I had to do two things, I would say a little bit bigger, weight for the shoulder straps and then a waist strap. Those are like, yeah. My two biggest things. Yeah. That, but all in all, I still ran it for, yeah, so two months. So

Jeremy Dinsmore: the thing about the waist pack, the reason why there really isn't one is because it's high enough so that you saddle It's high enough.

Yeah. Yep.

Hayden Ferrari: Oh, I know. Or because if you've got the broader shoulders, there's only so high you can pull it up because your shoulder's taking so much space, so you still feel it in the lower back. But the idea of it being up is phenomenal and. , I'm interested to see where that goes.

Cause I think that takes a huge step into the [01:07:00] mobile hunter. Yep. And I'm excited to see how that, how it builds off of that.

Jeremy Dinsmore: What's funny you say that about that pack is when I stop bringing just a camera arm and the basin it's not, a lot of it's not a lot of weight by any means, but, a camera, the, you have your your arm with your fluid head and the base.

Once I removed those three things, oh, that pack like was even so much better. . Just because I was like, yeah money. E Exactly. Ex E Money puts it. It was just, . Like I told Carl originally seeing it, I was like, man, that's the end all, be all like kind of tree stand saddle hunting pack if you know what, depending on like for what we do.

You know what I mean? Yeah. And like I said, other than maybe like you said, a little tweak here and there, that is a phenomenal pack to you can't, couldn't agree more. Yeah. What else? What else do, did you use or did you like? Let's see.

Hayden Ferrari: Spartan Forge is a big help for me. Yeah. And I just picked that up, when they released the app last year.

I used to use OnX and being able to just see [01:08:00] updated maps rel, often time is super, super helpful. Especially when I was going to all these new places. The maps are, were a big help. And something that I keyed on big time. . I would say my favorite piece of like clothing that I wore all year long would be like to source jacket.

It like, yeah. That was a great piece of first, I just knocked it out of the park. Yep. Especially down here dude, I'm telling you, it was hot all season long except for the week of Christmas. Where like I jumped from just like wearing pants and like a WIC one 50, like base layer for the majority of the season and occasion thrown on like the source to skip everything in between and go straight to like the sanctuary. Yeah. Where it was like one degree and then it was back up. So to have that source jacket like just stuffed in a little small portion of your pack was super. It's a versatile piece. Oh God. It's very versatile.

It's such a great piece of, I just don't understand how nobody's ever made something like that

Jeremy Dinsmore: before. Yeah. Yeah. That's, it's a good insulation piece and it's a great outerwear piece when it's Yeah, definitely. When it's [01:09:00] not as cold.

Hayden Ferrari: Yep. Yeah. So those are like my bigger things. And I would say those are probably, pretty much any piece of o on another one, actually, I can't believe I skipped it.

It's nu number one is the one sticks. Okay. Yep. So I have been trying to get the one sticks for two years , and they were sold out. Yep. So I I ordered the Skelet tours like today they were released. Great. And those are great sticks for value. Great sticks. Yep. Love them. . But the one sticks are just like that much better, right?

Yep. And so that, that's I can't believe I didn't even mention that one cuz that's like the number one, I use those every single hunt. Yep. No matter what. That's why

Jeremy Dinsmore: they, you just use 'em. You know what I mean? It's the one Yeah, I know what you mean. They're light.

Hayden Ferrari: Yeah. It's they're quick to put on just like skelet tours attachment's the same.

It's quick and

Jeremy Dinsmore: easy. What, how many sticks were you running this year? So

Hayden Ferrari: I have I'm a big stick geek two. I've got pretty much every single stick you could think of, but I've got, I got two sets of the one sticks. Okay. I don't really, I'm not a huge eighter person. Okay. Mainly because [01:10:00] when I come down, I struggle.

Okay. Going ups, easy. It's coming down. It's a little struggle for me. So I typically ran four one sticks like almost every time. And then there were instances where I would take six. It's not, especially like if I had some layers on where I knew I wasn't gonna be able to get that reach.

Yep. What's two more pounds?

Jeremy Dinsmore: So for me, the way I ran mine this year were three early season with an eater. . And then as it got later in the year when cover obviously dwindles and I need to get a little bit higher, that's when I would go with four with an naer. And sometimes too, it, it would be nice if I didn't have that fourth stick.

I didn't need it, I just would leave it at the base of the tree, whatever. But yeah, that's exactly that's where the, I was using the backwoods mobile this year. I really liked theor. I used that last year. Dimitri used my Skeletals this year and I gave him the alternator to the way that kind of, the sticks are with that.

It works well. Works a little better. Yeah. So I was using the back mobile what is it, GC one I think, I [01:11:00] believe it's called. So that again, lived on the other side of the bowling ball pocket that stretched out. And just when I got to the tree, put my stick up, grabbed that sucker out, it's a three step eighter.

By that point in time, I'm up as high as I could reach. I'm only like five, six and a half. So yeah, I was. As high as I, I wanted to be all year long. And one piece too that I think I did talk about it on one of the podcasts. I did switch to the regular size platform this year and not our Excel.

I've ran the Excel since the last three years since it was released, basically. And I went back to the regular size platform this year and I had plenty of room. I'm only a nine and a half boot, but it did what I needed it to do and I never thought I would have been as comfortable as I was because I was such a believer in the XL that I was like, ah, I don't need the regular, I'm, it's too small.

But it definitely was not, I was able to maneuver, I was able to put my back against the tree when needed. It's a great little

Hayden Ferrari: platform. Yeah, I'd made a, I did the complete opposite [01:12:00] of that , so I bought, I got the XL this year. Yep. And I like it a lot. I'm a little, I get like size 12 and a half.

Yep. I love my regular predator. I ran that for two years before getting that one this year. Yeah. All same. Same. Yeah. It's just a little bit more room. It's, yep. But, either one works great. I did put the Versa links on this year. Okay. That makes, I have found, makes it way easier.

Yeah. To use

Jeremy Dinsmore: for sure. Notice I noticed for myself, this going into the season I wanted to try that U usa yeah. Strap, whatever it's called. I tried to, I tried it prior to the year and I couldn't get it. I like quick enough and I don't know. So going into the year I was like, ah, screw it. I'm just going to continue doing the cams.

and late season when that came about, you know what, I got the bug again to try it out, and I ran it and it took me just the amount of same time as with the can buckle, like I ended up figuring out it out really quick. And I had no issues with it, so I'm like, [01:13:00] sweet. It's nice not having that one little piece of buckle, even just putting that into my predator pack on top of the, on the outside pain.

Yeah. It just so much easier. Just goes pH

Hayden Ferrari: goes right in now. Yeah, no I found that my platform actually got a little bit more snug to the tree and, I was able to hunt with Taylor Yep. Two weeks ago and Yep. He ran pretty much the exact same setup that I ran.

So I feel good knowing that. Yeah. I feel good about my setup knowing that Taylor's got pretty much the exact same setup. So how funny

Jeremy Dinsmore: is Taylor,

Hayden Ferrari: Taylor will be a lifelong friend for sure. Yeah, he is. He's a trip. Yeah. We had, I don't think there was a moment in the stand that we just weren't like laughing.

Yeah. Just the whole time. He's so

funny.

Jeremy Dinsmore: Yeah I said, I've hung out with Taylor a couple times. Met him first really, he was the first individual I met through tethered and I was not even at a tethered booth or anything. It was at a first light one, it was a couple years ago at the Harrisburg Outdoor Show.

Met him there, [01:14:00] we kicked it off, and then held a tethered event in May. Gotta meet him there again. We stayed in contact throughout those times, and this past summer I got a chance to hang out with him in Montana for about a week. And it, oh my gosh. I just, that dude and just knowing that he did comedy back in college and did ATA with him and Oh my gosh, man, that's like you said, a friend forever.

I, if I could pick anyone to do hunting camp with, it's him. Just because, it, the, it just, you could come back from a hunt, be miserable because you missed a buck or you didn't see anything, he's gonna say the funniest shit ever and you the whole

Hayden Ferrari: time and that's it. It was, yeah, we just nonstop last, like Adrian was there too for a little bit.

Yeah. Yep. And so big a, they'll go at it a little bit. It's funny. And yeah, bill at Spartan Forge who you know, obviously for the listeners, it was the Spartan Forge veteran Hunt and it supports, various different veteran institutions to help with veterans after they get back to the States.

And Bill is hilarious. So just see all these guys interact, [01:15:00] morning number one, like I met Taylor there like super early and it was like, we had been talking for I guess a year plus at this point. Yeah. So we know each other. We just never met in person. Yeah. It was like, Hey man, let's roll.

So we went and snuck in on some deer and like a hog, like the only hog anybody saw the entire trip. I'm like walking behind Taylor and Taylor's, out in front we hear something, he turns around give me a look. Was that you? And I'm like, no, . And I turn around and look cuz there's deer in the field that we're trying to like, get up close to, and there's a hog like following us on this trail, like 20 yards away.

Like just huge. Oh my gosh. And kinda freaked us out at the same time. And then like we tried to get a shot off, but as soon as we realized it was a hog, he realized that we were humans. And yeah, the whole trip was hilarious. It was. Taylor's. Taylor's a great guy. There's a lot of good guys on that trip.

The C one guys, Lee and Drew, those were two really good guys as well. And Garrett from the Iy Sportsman was there. And just a couple other Spartan Forge guys and some guys that won [01:16:00] the Hein and Timba Ninjak from Tim. Yep. Jason from Tim Ninja Outdoors was there. I got to hunt with him one night.

So that's, it was a great trip, but great people and yeah, Taylor just left me laughing the

Jeremy Dinsmore: entire time. Yeah. Oh man, that's good stuff, dude. Hayden man I appreciate you coming on and enjoying your company here this evening. So thanks for sharing some cool stories and some strategies and everything over the past couple years and, where could people fall along and

Hayden Ferrari: check you out?

Yeah Instagram right now is HT Ferrari. Pretty simple. That's where I post a lot of my stuff. I have a YouTube and there's really nothing on it right now. , but as I get more into this filming aspect and maybe start doing some gear reviews to, share what my money and now somewhat knowledge with everybody else so they can make informed decisions beforehand.

Yeah. So that'll come here soon. This summer I plan on spitting out some of those, so then I'll link that in the Instagram. But for right now, Instagram, HT Ferrari.

Jeremy Dinsmore: Awesome, man. Will be sweet, dude. Thanks for coming on, man. And any, everybody, listen, hope you enjoyed this one. Go [01:17:00] follow Hayden over on his Instagram handle and thanks again.

We'll see you next week, aunt Laura. I appreciate it.

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