Smoke Is The Best Scent Control

On this episode of The Nomadic Outdoorsman Dan talks once again with Tom Lalond and Nick Queen about tips and tactics for getting big bucks on the ground.

Tom and Nick join Dan and Sam at The Nomadic Outdoorsman booth for a follow up episode where they talk all about strategy for chasing big whitetails.Nick and Tom are both part of the XOP crew and became great friends, and soon to be hunting buddies with Dan. Nick shares a story about a drive-by that he was involved in and they all look forward to the upcoming season. This episode is full of jokes, laughter and most importantly techniques for targeting big deer.

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[00:00:00] All right, guys, welcome to today's show. And back with us again is Tom Lalonde and Nick Queen joining my wife, Samantha and I at BowFest. Now, I understand we did a lot of episodes at BowFest. This is one of the last two. So we've got one more and you don't want to miss the next episode coming out. That is with Nate Hosey and Michael Waddell.

It was a ton of fun to sit down with them as well. But we dive into a ton of different topics and you got to stick around for the end of this show because they tell us about... A drive by that they were involved in and I'm like, dude, I've never been in a position like that in my life. I can't imagine what that's but on hunting related news, I have partnered up with XOP.

You guys got to go check out their products and use code nomadic because you'll get a 10 percent discount on any purchases storewide. Also, I'm rocking all the XOP stuff this year. I just got saddles in for me and my wife, stands in for me and my wife, and I [00:01:00] am fully ready to go for this upcoming season.

Not to mention, I'm going to go hunt with these guys in Wisconsin at the beginning of October. I haven't archery hunted in Wisconsin for years. I'm talking, it's probably been a solid 10 years, maybe more than that, that I've got to archery hunt Wisconsin. And I'm really excited. We're going to go on public land.

There's going to be a huge group of guys. You better believe I'm bringing all my podcast equipment and we're going to do some more live podcast stuff as well. Nick is going to be getting a ton of video content. I'm bringing my cameras up, my tactic cams up. It's going to be a ton of fun. And hopefully we get a couple of big bucks on the ground during that hunt.

So stay tuned. That's coming up in less than a month, but I've got season coming up here in Missouri. Tomorrow. If you're listening to this Thursday, the 14th, the day that it airs, that means I'm gearing up for tomorrow's opener. And I've got a ton of daytime bucks that have been showing up now. [00:02:00] There was a dry spell.

I don't know what was going on. Obviously it was a legitimate dry spell weather wise. But all of my biggest bucks that I've been tracking that have been coming in in front of the cameras almost every day Disappeared for 10 days and they all recently showed back up without any velvet And a whole lot more bucks than just them showed up.

In fact, I was at the property doing some work what was it two days ago and I had a 10 point Less than 300 yards away from me in front of my trail camera. While I was out there doing work, I was pretty pumped about that. Hopefully I can make it happen quick because as you may already know, we are selling that 25 acres.

Also, if you're interested in buying 25 acres in Missouri, it's got water, sewer, electric, already hooked up a totally redone shop. I think it's a 24 by 40 shop with concrete floors, water, and electrical inside. We're selling it. And. If you're somebody who's looking [00:03:00] to build, it's a great spot. If you're looking to hunt, it's an even better spot.

I'm going to be posting the listing on my pages, and I'm going to be posting some of the big buck activity that I've had out there this year for being a small spot, I think it's going to be a killer property to get a big white tail on the ground. So enough about all that. Let's jump into today's episode with Tom and Nick.

He was doing some things that were just badass. That was one of the coolest moments of my life. I was really scared, but knowing that Dan had the gun, I did have the rifle we would be okay.

Alright guys, welcome back to the show. Now, we are doing... A follow up slash second episode with Tom and Nick because yesterday we got hosed. Yeah, we did. It was just like, everyone's frantically running around, dropping tents, putting gear away. Oh, they [00:04:00] heard it. They heard it. The band's going nuts.

We got side by sides. The only thing we didn't have is a helicopter laying in the parking lot next to us. But we didn't get to any hunting or gear or tactics or anything just started getting into it And that's it. I remember I was sitting back at the hotel after I was like We didn't even, we didn't even yeah, what we talked about, I, we all feel like has value, but it's yeah, but if you don't give tactics, all these single guys are like, I am not listening, which is a bad idea.

Cause you could learn how to do it the right way before you even get married, do it early, get it in the habit, but Hey, I get it. It's it's like where you were at when, so same thing. Yeah. I have ladies message me on social media and they're like, Oh, I'm the one that hunts in my family.

And they're like, my husband stays home and he deals with all this stuff. And I was like, I'm pretty sure you are the husband and he is the wife. It's like that. I don't say that because I'd probably get cancelled. And [00:05:00] wish him a happy Mother's Day for me. It's like that one what's that song?

Can't Bait a Hooker. Yeah. By who? Justin Moore. Justin Moore. Yeah. We listened to that on the way up. That's awesome. Yeah. Here with those guys. And we've now dubbed my wife Snow Cone Sam. Just cause she has a snow cone. She was on that too right away. She was like... Oh yeah, Snow Cone? I knew it. Oh, that was Dan.

Don't even let him fool you. He handed me. He's hey, you wanna go get something? He needs snacks for the podcast. You're letting him throw me under the bus. Sam, this is going to sound so bad initially and then I'm going to explain it. Sam is like a pack mule. She has to have a job. I kid you not.

She has to have a job. If I'm walking, if we're walking, going anywhere, she has to have a backpack on or be carrying something. She just doesn't do well not having something. So you say, Hey, could you do this? She's no. Yes, I'm gonna do this better than anyone's ever been. I'm gonna get you the best snow cone in the whole world as fast as I [00:06:00] can.

So you're married for the right reasons. Oh yeah, no, she's great. Oh girl, you a pack mule, come on girl! She's A sexy secretary. Do you want me to hop off this one? I think it's even better because she's got her OnlyFans TurkeyFans shirt on. Is anybody else commenting on that yet? Probably. They just don't want to say nothing.

They're scared of you. They watch you run up that wall real fast. Now they're scared of you. That'll be that video will be coming out here soon. Yeah, we're working on that. Yeah, where are they gonna find it? Probably on xlp's tik tok and then we'll tag Yeah, we'll put in Dan's YouTube episode too. So there you go.

Yeah, I'll send you the whole clip you can have it first YouTube video I'm like six months

I'd be like just don't tag me

This guy from a totally [00:07:00] different podcast, what a loser. No, I'm excited. We're going to, we're going to talk hunting. We're going to talk gear. We're going to talk tactics. And I feel like there's so many people. We talked about this right before the show. Like you can go in depth with tactics. There's not a lot of entry level stuff.

Yeah. Even the lingo that we use as hunters. I can only imagine it sounds like a foreign language to people. Oh my gosh, easily. You're like, alright, hey listen. If this is your first year hunting, you need to go find a funnel. And people are like that you put oil in your truck. What are you talking about?

We just use things as common knowledge. And it's really to have information out there from the very get go. Do you need a 6. 5 Creedmoor? Do you need a 300 Win Mag? Do you need, what rifle can you get away with hunting with? How can you go to a bow shop and buy a bow on a decent budget, like what do you actually have to have?

Because everyone wants you to buy the nicest, the newest, the biggest. They want you to have this much land, use this food [00:08:00] source, food plot, whatever. And I just feel like we overcomplicate it when there's a million and one ways to kill a whitetail. Oh my gosh, yes. And what'd you say earlier, it's simple, not easy?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's simple. But it's definitely not easy. Agreed. I think the first thing to understand is trying to identify your priorities. Yeah. And who you are as a hunter, right? It's always been said, and it's always been known too by the industry that hunting mature bucks... is totally different than hunting deer.

It's a, no matter what people say, yeah, you get the guys who go out on their 5 gallon bucket and shoot a, 170 inch deer opening morning or whatever, a rifle, but yeah, there's anomalies, but I think if you to do it consistently, you have to understand, it's two different styles of hunting or two different approaches.

And then once you identify what camp you want to be in, as [00:09:00] far as that goes, I think you can apply your scouting to that, in that way, what you were saying is managing your expectations. Especially when you first start, like the guys that you see on YouTube have probably been doing it for a long time.

On TV, they got it dialed. They, even just being intimate with the property that you're hunting and knowing what the deer do, what times of years and stuff like that. Like, when you first start, a lot of the times I feel like your first couple of years is learning the properties that you're able and have access to hunt, whether that's public or private.

Yeah. Because if you don't know what the deer do, there's... You can't really apply any of these tactics, or any tactic, you just got to learn the deer first. I think, so I, so when we started talking about what we were going to talk about, I thought, I started thinking back to, okay, what did I do as a 13 year old new bow hunter?

And I just, I would, I was, we were blessed to have 25 acres and, northern ish Minnesota. And I had, we had the kind of a rolling hill and it looked out into the neighbor's field [00:10:00] and so I would just go up there and just literally just watch deer. Yeah. And just for, and just learn and you could sit, I sat back below the crest of the hill and just sat there for hours to, you know to your point of learning the property learning what deer do, where they use if they, if there's any like consistent habits that they have movements. I think that is so big because, learning Hey, a lot of times they're going to come out in the lowest spot of the field. Okay. If you know that, then you can go apply that to what you're looking for and everything. And I think that's, if we're talking about, okay, starting out, basic high level view what's the best thing I can start doing?

Glass and go glass go just drive around into bean fields. If you can get up on a point and look a long ways get you a good set of glass, if you can get a spotting scope, even, there's a ton of really great spotting scopes, compact spotting scopes with window mounts, that you can get and use, I think doing that [00:11:00] is, is gonna set you so much further ahead because you can see what they're doing in un intruded environment.

Take that as just like in the summer during velvet and stuff like that. And one thing I learned from my dad is we drove fields and drove around and, just had some music playing and binos on. Especially as a kid, like that's the funnest thing that you can do as a kid. Oh yeah. and stuff. Can I use your binos?

Yeah. And, but I apply that all, like that is how I hunt all year. Like especially on public, I just drive around. Cause the likelihood of, I don't run a lot of cameras. I use cameras, don't get me wrong. I'm just not. I'm horrible at being able to find patterns with cameras, but I can watch a buck do a contemptim, two or three times and fit, or a buck or bucks or deer, like you were saying.

And I get that not from being in a tree stand trying to kill, but from being on the road or being, like you said, up on top of a hill somewhere or looking over a clear cut or wherever kind of habitat. And [00:12:00] I literally do that from October 1st to January 20th. If I'm not on something immediate, on a certain pattern for that time frame, I'm looking for it.

That's scout. And then when you hunt... That hunt will be way more successful because of all this time put in. It's just it's like practice for a football player. The reason the NFL guys are so good, or NBA, or any professional sport, is because they're not asking their body to do something it doesn't do on the week.

They practice the way that they're, and that's how I look at scouting. That's your practice of learning the deer, and then the tactics, your gear, how you want to hunt, or what you're, your tools that you're using can be applied after the, this is, I know the deer here, okay, now where can I get, or be, look for funnels, or, okay, I can't kill them there because the wind's never going to work for me, and that's stuff that you learn through failure.

Yeah, I think scouting is the number one tactic. Absolutely. For every, and this isn't just deer hunting, this is literally everything. Yep. [00:13:00] If you can observe animals in their natural environment. You will understand them more. You just will. Without boogering them. Yeah. Yep. And you can do that from 700 yards away.

You can do it from 50 yards away. Yep. Just depends on where you're at. Maybe you don't have a giant field, but maybe you've seen deer crossing this area a bunch. Yep. Get in there. Make sure the wind's not blowing straight at where the deer are gonna be. But just get in there, stay still, and watch.

Don't get me wrong, I love trail cameras, I run a lot of trail cameras, I get good intel from them. They're great tools. But, when you can see an entire 40 acre field, instead of 50 feet of it, you can actually go, Okay, I see this deer coming into frame all the time, but this is actually where he's coming from.

He didn't even come out of the woods, he came from a different field. Yep. And you can just sit and watch, and I've started doing that, and it's one of my favorite things. Oh yeah. Like with a spotter, with binos, with whatever tools you have. Even just your naked eye, like just go stand out [00:14:00] there, find a spot, get comfortable and watch and see what the deer do.

And it, things get over complicated in a hurry. And I also think so I was like everybody else, you want to hunt, you want to hunt, you want to hunt. And I did that for years and I think there's good lessons to be obviously learned in all that. Cause you do learn, you get some of your mistakes out of the way, that kind of stuff.

And I think everybody's, done that, right? But now, the way that I hunt and I do so much scouting I've, beforehand I'd get in a tree and then I'm questioning myself. Okay, should I be here? Am I in the right spot? What if he comes out of here? What if he moves over there? And now that I do all this scouting, that's not, I know, without a doubt this is my killing tree.

Now it might not be, it might not happen, but there's no second guessing in my mind when I get up in that tree. That this is, it's gonna happen because I've watched it, and the deer do deer things. So it doesn't always happen, otherwise it'd be really easy like we talked about yesterday.

Yes. It'd be killing, not hunting. Exactly. But, the confidence that I have, I'm not fidgety, I'm not paying attention, I'm not second guessing myself, I'm focused, I [00:15:00] know it's gonna happen, so I'm on, I got my camera ready, I got my bow in my hand, and I don't care if it takes three hours to hold my bow, I'm holding my bow, because I know he's gonna come down this trail somewhere.

Yep. I think that's... If you break down, so if you break down a, like an out of state hunt, like a week long thing, if you, in, in my head, if you spend, if you just go into it, be like, I'm going to spend five days scouting and two days hunting, and you just, that's your mindset. If it happens earlier.

But I think if you can mentally prepare yourself to understand that the value of just strictly observing. As much, with the least amount of intrusion as possible, I think that will really set you up to also be there. And I had, so I had a thought, I think we, observation and scouting is huge.

Now that you've done, obviously you guys have all done that for a while, What are some of the [00:16:00] Consistencies or nuances, I'm blanking on the exact word that I'm looking for, that you've noticed year do For, and I'll give an example, that are That basic entry thing, hey look for this kind of stuff And from what you've seen, and so what I mean, so for me and where we're at in Wisconsin On the road thing, like crossing the road, a lot of what I look for is okay, where Is the shortest distance from woodlot to woodlot.

And I say woodlot, but that, any, point to point or fingers, like what, Where's the closest point from good cover to good cover is I think one of The biggest things that I found that really is as a starting point, right? To go and look and be like, cause you can look from a really high, if you got on X or any other mapping you can pull that up.

And look from, few thousand feet up and be like, Oh, okay, things pinched down here, to your point, the terminology, so everything is gonna wants to be in cover. Do [00:17:00] you want to be in cover as much as close to it? So they can take two or three bounds and be out of eyesight.

So so that so like a finger to finger woodlot to woodlot As close as it can be, that's where I'm going to, I want to start looking and then going out from there or whatever, and backtracking from there. So where I start, and I think anyone can relate to having a creek system or water, I go to creek crossings.

And the biggest reason that I do that is because the creeks normally, always wet, you're going to find tracks. And on the side of the road it can dry up, or off a field edge, like you have old tracks, you're not really sure when they were there. But if I go to that, if I find a piece of property, I'm like, okay, I've seen a buck maybe hit a field or something.

And there's a creek running through there. I'm walking through that creek. And a lot of the times, if it's not super deep, I'm walking in the creek. It keeps my scent out of it. And I can walk through that oh, look at that. Waddell. What's up, Waddy? Anyways, that the, that creek to me, I find so many big buck tracks and I'm like, now, [00:18:00] like to me, a track is, you can't mistake a big buck track.

It's a big buck track. Now, that doesn't always equate to antler size, but I know a mature buck is in here. A large animal is walking around. Or if you're on the other end of it. You can't kill a big buck if there's not a big buck around. Absolutely. But even on the other side of that of deer, if you find a creek crossing and there's nothing there, and it looks like a creek crossing, just a little ditch.

And you keep walking, you'll find the one where it's like, Jeez, this is hammered. And there's all kinds of deer. There's so many deer tracks in here, I can't tell what's a buck and what's a doe. There's a great starting point. And then from there, I do exactly what you're saying. Backtrack. Okay, where's bedding?

Where's food? How are they getting here? Can I hunt this creek because of thermals or wind? That's when all of the, I guess you would call it, more advanced stuff start ticking off in my head. But a lot of my starting points is, like I said, from the road I'm glassing, I find a deer, or a buck or whatever in a field, and if I don't know the area, then I'm jumping into creeks, because I'll find a buck track somewhere.

Yeah, that's a good point, I like that.

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I think both those are killer. I, my strategy is looking at cover, like you said, because one, not only do I think, okay, a deer is going to feel more safe here. They're going to feel secure. I also have to have some more that I'm going to hunt. Yep. I have to be, I have to be hidden, like I'm not going to go stand out in.

a 40 acre mowed pasture and think that I'm going to have a buck walk up to me. Like I have to have a spot to hunt from and I have to know where the deer are moving. And [00:22:00] on most of the properties that I hunt, it's actually, it just somehow worked out this way. I have a big body of woods on the South side of the road and a small finger of woods on the North side.

Now I know. This is the last spot that they can cross and that's the funnel that we're talking about, right? It's just a concentrated Travel corridor for an animal where they might be in 80 acres and they have to neck down to a hundred acre yard Or a hundred yard wide Strip of woods. Yep, and it's like that right there.

That's a funnel. And so I look for those points And then I go, okay, from there, where are they going to go? And it's almost always food, right? So yeah, we need food, water and cover. That's what a deer needs. Yeah. That's really, you can break it down on a basic level to that. And I I really like that and that's how I take any kind of.

I don't want to say out of state, but out of your normal area of hunting. [00:23:00] Even if you're learning this is your first time. Meaning you're learning your property that you've maybe been in your family for years but no one's hunted. Yeah. Or that you just got into it and you got the public land that's, 30 minutes down the road.

That's a great start. What I do is I'll take the, cause we've got our October XO, Team XOP Hunt coming up. Check that out. In the coming coming months. On the YouTube, it'll be there. On the old YouTuber. Anyway, so obviously we're scouting for that now, right? We're using Onyx. In the, exactly to your point of cover, I love to look at Onyx and zoom way up.

When I'm, like, my first time I'm looking Hey, I know I want to hunt this general area. For whatever reason. Look at Onyx high level. Okay, here's a piece of public. Here's a piece of public. This looks big. And I'll start with the biggest chunks and go as high and then look for that cover like swamp It's obviously swamp habitat is relatively easy to see tree cover Yeah, because if you got a cattail marsh It's pretty easy to pick out lone oaks and or strip of oaks and stuff like that and you [00:24:00] get that a lot With the oak islands.

So I think if that's the air type of area or even if it's ridges like using Looking at it at a high level, and then thinking, Okay, where's those travel routes? So they want to stay in cover. And the other thing to keep in mind, Deer live from zero to three feet. They don't live any, they don't live any higher than that.

they also, they're,

they're not giraffes. So you have to remember that. So they can't. If you have high cover doesn't help a deer and they're not comfortable so they might move through oak flats and stuff like that But they're not gonna be their travel routes are gonna be in those areas of thick cover Or right on the edge or right on the edge, so I think starting There and then dropping a pin here because you see there's like to your point.

There's a finger coming here a finger and when we say a finger just a long narrow [00:25:00] chunk of whatever it's a ridge or if it's a hopefully it's cover ideally, right? Coming together and then a third one, man, you got three, three things coming together. Yeah. Drop a pin there and then expand from there and look for benches and look for that kind of stuff.

Do you guys look for odd features on the terrain or like in your area? Something that, random that catches your eye? Cause this is something that I do. If I'm looking out at a field, and there's just some weird thing, whether it's A small hill, or a single bush on a fence row. I'm like, it just catches your eye.

And I'll find a spot like that and put a trail camera up. And I'll get deer activity at it. Like crazy, I don't know what it is. But like you see something that's just different than everything around. And there's almost a curiosity with it. With animals and people alike. Where it's like for some reason, they just have to go there.

I think it's, you think about navigating in the woods too. [00:26:00] Going back to the swamp example, or, and it really applies to anything, to your point and fields, edges and stuff. If you've got a lone oak out in the middle of Cat's Hill Marsh, even if it's they want to get in a straight line, it'd be go just straight line, but it's off a little bit.

Like my guess is they're going to use that and usually can see deer tracks, deer trails on onX through that kind of stuff. I just, I think it's like, to your point, it's just man let's start there because they're going to be able to see that kind of like a lighthouse type of a tactic.

And I think that's such a money place to start. And then, cause then from there, you can, once you dive in and be like, this is a general place I want to go start circling and moving around. Yeah. One thing too, that I look for like when scouting like that, and like I said, I've found my Creek crossing or whatever.

I'm thinking of the most creative access that I can come up with that keeps me concealed quiet and that on public ground, private may be a little bit easier because they're maybe not so used to humans and you can sneak up on them a [00:27:00] little bit easier but these public land deer from what I, from around me and what I've noticed is they really do set themselves up to watch traffic come in and out.

It's amazing and so I always think of okay if this is where the majority of the people are coming into this property and that's private or public away. Everybody parks their truck here, and they walk the gravel road, they hit the four wheeler trail, they walk 20 yards down the them deer know that.

I'm private too, they do. And, so where can I come in and sneak in? Is there a ditch somewhere that I can, it might be hellacious, or a mile walk to get 200 yards off the road, but, them deer aren't expecting me to do what I did. So when they get up, they didn't see anybody walking the normal trail.

So they think they're free. When I was parked at the other entrance for a different piece of public and I walked down the road, I actually, this is goofy, but you know those little like hoverboards? You know how many times I looked like a goon bag at night, rolling down the street with my bow and tree stand on the little hoverboard to get up?

That's brilliant. And I'll go down there and I'll just throw my little hoverboard in the [00:28:00] woods and I've definitely fallen a few times, but. Are you guys sneak in the woods type of people? Or sneak into your stand type of people? Because I've recently, and there, I'm gonna get a lot of hate for this. Oh.

I've taken the approach where I book it. I get in there fast. Like I'm talking borderline jogging. To my spot, and I don't do what you're saying as far as entry and exit. And it worked last year. I've only had one real year of testing on this, but I'm like, I just book it. Cause I watch, I've seen too many times coyotes, especially come out into a field with deer.

If that coyotes just trotting across the field, I'll watch the deer just sit there and look at it. They just watch it. It gets across the field, they go right back to eating. If I see a coyote sneaking across the field, every head goes up, you hear, pshhh, gone. [00:29:00] And they're just out. They're like, nope, not interested.

I think about it the same as Say you're at home. You live in the city. You're in a subdivision. Some dude comes jogging by. Looks normal. Think about this. Some dude is just walking real slow, looking at everything. Lurking. Peeking into things. It just, there's some natural predatory features that you have when you do that.

Sure. And so I heard someone talk about it, and I wish I could give him credit. I heard someone talk about it. They're like, dude. I borderline run to my tree stand, and I'm, it doesn't matter how much noise I make, it's a quick disturbance, the deer might bump a little bit, and then all of a sudden the disturbance is done and they come back, whereas if you creep in, they have that feeling that there's a predator nearby, and they're just gonna leave completely.

That sixth sense that they have. Exactly, and so I was like, man. This is really interesting to me. See, I Oh, go ahead. So I like that, but I So I'm Something that I took a long time ago. I was a big Dan Infault guy, right? And I If you're not, and you're not tuned [00:30:00] into him, like you He's very smart.

But, for a long time, everything that Dan Infault said And I just I'm not picking on him. Anybody that I listen to podcast wide, whatever. What they said was law. And I realized really quickly, and this was something maybe 2 3 years ago, that I was like, Man, the deer just aren't doing that here.

Not saying that Dan Infelt's wrong, cause he probably, he spends just as much, way more time than I have in the woods, but, that tactic or that scenario just doesn't live here, and I thought it does, and I would be setting up and not seeing deer. It wasn't until... It's like what I was playing off is what you're saying is like that's a good tactic to have in your bag for a Situation and then it's also just keep your mind open if that's not working for you Even though you heard it or someone said something.

Okay, it's not working for me. I need to sneak or today. It's super windy These deer ain't even gonna notice. I'm here. I'm gone. Yeah, and I'd be curious to that. So I can see that, I can see the logic behind that for sure, but I've also, like the inverse of it, I've also, and [00:31:00] they weren't shooters, but I've had the chance to sneak up on deer, or, the rut, is my first thought, is okay, the rut deer bucks are cruising, usually, all day, and they're moving around I'm not worried about being seen, like the movement of it, because because does, and does are just, Sick of getting chased and so everything's in as far as deer go.

They're used to movement that time of year yeah, so my concern would be missing deer because you are moving fast But if I mean if you can be observant enough in a way, but I'm really curious about that now. And I like that for the rut, because I don't and that's you, okay, this is maybe my spot that I'm gonna hunt, but if you come in cruising and you bump a bunch of bucks, there's obviously doe somewhere for the rut.

Now, I would say on the speeding into your stand, I wouldn't want to do that, let's say, early season or late season. Especially late season, because now maybe in a certain area if I have to walk across a wide open something, and I know deer are probably going to see me if they're bedded close.[00:32:00]

Cause you're, that late season bedding gets shorter and smaller as, leaves get out and, they only have so much of the woods now that they feel comfortable in bedding or, whatever. But, those time of years where deer are a little more, you would say, docile, they're chillin they're just takin a nap or eatin or whatever.

You probably have a higher percentage of bumpin them off if you're not trying to sneak around them. If that makes sense. That totally makes sense. And one, I feel like one reason I adopted that strategy is because I have I don't have the option of using cover to get to my sanctuary.

There is, there's a 20 acre wood lot that's basically surrounded by bean field, right? And those bean fields aren't getting 6 feet tall and I'm definitely not crawling on my hands and knees 400 yards. Every time. And I just don't have an option. I have nowhere else that I can stay in cover.

Yeah. And my thought was okay, that it makes sense for that. If I walk there, I go, if I walk there and there's a deer like walking out, [00:33:00] I'm, it's gonna take me five minutes to get to my stand. Or I could jog there and get there in two minutes, a minute or two minutes. Now that's 50%. of the time that I would be spending, that means there's less of a chance that a deer's gonna step out or see me from cover.

If I can just hurry and jog that deer might have his head down feeding the entire time that I'm booking it. Yeah. Whereas, if I'm just slow poking all the way in like you're saying, you're going in fast, they pop their head up Oh, shit, what's that? And then, they watch you for a minute, and they're like, Oh he's going that way.

You know what I mean? They watch you walk in the woodlot, And it's not like a turkey, I mean I've done, I've walked into my stand and walked out of my stand when there have been deer in the field. And if they're far enough away, and if I'm not moving like a predator towards them, they just almost don't care.

I've ridden my e bike out before, just checking trail cameras, and the deer have been, they're not 10 yards from me, but they've been 250 yards across an open bean field before it grows up that high. [00:34:00] And I just ripped through on my e bike. Yep. And then I go out I get back to my vehicle load the bike up Load all my stuff up start heading back home and i'll pass that field.

The deer are still hanging out there Oh, yeah, and even if you bump them for a short time Your speediness of that and they didn't have that lingering feeling. Yep Guaranteed they're gonna step out run maybe 50 60 yards into some cover like we were talking about Watch you from that cover, then when you disappear, they're gonna give it five minutes, lay back down, and then in an hour or so, they didn't see you come back out they're not smelling you, then they're gonna pop right back out into that field.

People use that bump and dump strategy. Yeah, I do that a lot. I haven't done it yet. That's my, I love it. But, I've seen people do it where it's dude, I just blow them out they'll be back. Yep. They'll be like, oh, we gotta leave for a minute, and then we'll come back. It'll be over.

And I think it's, that, that tactic brings so much value. Bump and dump? Yeah, because it's. Because, okay, you find out where the deer are, you find out the size of the deer. In a guarantee that, you're not guessing, I think the deer's bedding here. Nah, I kicked him. I watched him take off.

I think this time of year [00:35:00] he's bedding here. No, it's this old boy is here now. And I, and then with that, okay, so he's here, my wind's doing, going this way across. Yep. Can I swing around to the other side? Because they always... The other thing to remember is, especially Bucks, I think, any age.

Actually, I would say Bucks probably like three and a half and older. Mature, yeah. Yeah, getting to mature Bucks are gonna have multiple escape routes. Yeah. And multiple areas for different wins. And so I think to keep that in mind okay, if he got bumped out quick, had no idea what was going on, look at Onyx, if you haven't already, and be like, okay, where's the...

His potential escape routes, but then also where's the next security cover? Yeah, and then circle around that or however, you got it, you know straight to it or whatever Set up on that. Yeah, and so I have any I have it I have a my bump and dump tactic that you're talking about and this is how I work this So let's say I see a buck in a field or opening or whatever.[00:36:00]

I've done the creek I've figured out what he's doing, right? From there, so how I take like on let's just say like a three day hunt or a two day hunt or something like That first morning, I'm scouting which is looking for fields. Maybe I'm already on this deer So I know he's living in this woodlot or whatever that first morning I'm going in and I want to be there at daylight somewhere.

I'm not in its tree 90 percent of time. I'm not in a tree I got my stand on my back And I'm going in and what I'm looking for is I'm looking to hang my set For that next morning. So if it's a Saturday morning, I'm trying to kill whatever I'm about to find that day. I'm trying to kill him Sunday morning, or maybe even Monday morning.

I'm trying to find a place to hang that set. So I'd say I bumped that deer. Okay. I know he's betting here in the morning. Now I'll take that little bit of a wider approach. Where do I think he's at? That he's getting to here in the morning and where's the easiest place that I can kill him, whether it's in that bedding area or I know they take this Creek crossing to get to this side of it.

There's no other way to get to this Ridge, but they're going to use these two spots. This is what the [00:37:00] wind's going to do. The wind's going to be the same tomorrow. So I'm hanging that set to kill the next morning. And let's, I've kicked that deer now. So he's at a different part of the woodlot or whatever.

And that's where I'm looking at. Okay. In the evenings, he's hitting this field, but I just kicked him out of his normal spot. So he's at bedding area, he's probably going to bedding area B with this wind. Where can I kill him? Cause that's where he's going for the rest of the day. He's gonna go bed down at his other bedding spot, and he's gonna get up in the evening, usual movement or whatever, and come into this field this way now.

So that, so then that evening, I'm sneaking around to maybe two, three hundred yards away from where I hung that first set, and I'm taking my mobile set. In, and I'm hunting that night to try to kill what I just bumped. Yeah. And then, if it doesn't happen, or let's say I see him, like now I know for Sunday night, I need to be 200 yards this way.

And I'll get, sometimes get down that night and go in and set that stand for the next evening, so then I don't have to walk in with my stand. And then that next morning, I'm hunting that stand that I hung. And I've had, now I've only gotten [00:38:00] close and killed, I didn't kill I... We never found the deer, but I've had the tactic work and I've had it work with smaller bucks And maybe that he's was in that bedding area and a smaller buck came in the next morning But it's always really like that.

That's my version of a bump and dump, but I'll also use that tactic as in Okay, this is a tree that I need to be in for this kind of weather condition, and I'm not getting that weather condition until two weeks from now. But I know, I have the tree picked out, I know how far, how high I need to be to shoot in here, what time I need to be in here.

And then, let's say that next, I have the luxury of being able to hunt whenever I want. After farming, of course. And then I'm, okay, next Monday I'm going to have the same exact weather pattern. So I need to be here, because he's probably going to be here. Now the rut, you can throw a lot of that out.

But, for the most part, he's probably going to be here on the same wind, same weather, same conditions. So if I know I bumped him on this weather condition, but I'm not getting it for a few days. I saved that in my head, and I still consider that what I would call a bump and I bumped him, figured him out, okay, I just gotta wait for the [00:39:00] right wind or whatever.

Now I'm coming back in here. And using wind, and you even mentioned scent earlier. I'm curious what your guys scent control regimens are. Don't ask me that. I I feel like lately I've just had a super out of the box approach to a lot of hunting. Because I feel like from early on, everybody's had the same.

Idea, right? This is how you need to hunt. This is the product you need to buy. They're pushing this, they're pushing that. And I started just going, man, I don't know. Like I want to figure, I want to learn this for myself. Instead of just take somebody's word for it. And then try and apply it to your situation.

And so I completely abandoned scent control. Yeah literally a hundred percent. Just got done with it. And I've even gone so far as to pick up almost like a scent masking strategy. Yeah. Of smoke. Yeah. Smoke. And it's funny because this lady, I was probably a sophomore in high school. I hunted her property.

She had a 23 point buck, a confirmed 23 point buck living on her [00:40:00] property. She'd see it every day, cross her driveway from marsh to marsh. And we went there and I'm like, dude, I want to shoot this deer so bad. We're talking to her. I'd be concerned if you didn't. Oh my gosh. I was so excited about it. And then, right away, I was like, man, this lady's kinda kooky, something's off.

Yeah. And she's I get a fire smoldering underneath my tree stand every day when I go out there. And I'm like... What are you talking about, ? Who is this? And even my dad's looking at me like, this lady's wacko. We're gonna get killed out. This is back when we were clipping on scent wafers, sent to our hat, to our jagged stuff in our pockets.

In your bouquet. Smelling like dirt. Dirt using, yeah, dirt deodorant, and she's over here saying oh yeah, the deer are curious. They're cur. She was probably in her sixties, maybe the deer are just curious. They come over the hill and they come to investigate and I'm like, whatever. The more I talk to people, I talk to people, even my brother he used to smoke a lot.

He's dude, I smoke from the tree stand. And I was like, [00:41:00] yeah, good luck with that, dude. You gotta have Ozonics, you gotta have Dead Down Wind, you gotta have all this stuff. And he's dude, I smoke from the tree stand. I will watch my smoke blow straight to a deer and that deer still comes in.

And I'm like, nah, I don't know about that. So I start researching this, diving into it more and more. And I start talking to western hunters, and a guy that I really respect who, he's pretty diehard, he goes out by himself for a month after he sells his cattle, every year, goes out west, and elk hunts.

He said, the first thing that I do, is, I get a fire going, and I put green boughs on it, and then I just hang my clothes over it. Yeah, and he's like dude, I, he's I crawl. into herds of elk. He's I've almost been stepped on by multiple elk. And he's they just don't, they need to know, they need to know if the smoke is danger, or if it's not.

So I'm like sharing that with another guy that I know that elk hunts, [00:42:00] and he's dude, I've seen it multiple times where we get out and set up camp, like a spike camp in the backcountry, and we're not intentionally smoking our stuff, but we want to fire. And we've had elk. Come over the ridgeline to look at it.

Yep. And I'm like, this is, there were just too many people talking about this to where I'm like, I need to figure this out. And so honestly, every time I go elk hunting, if I go to a camp somewhere, if there's a fire pit or a fireplace in the house, I will stand right in front of it, cover my whole body.

And think about that. Think about your worst day. You're out there sweating, your sweat dries, you resweat, your sweat dries, you resweat and you just reek. Yep. If you go and stand next to a fire for 30 minutes, you will never smell your BO. Yep. Yeah you're 100 percent right. Alright, if you're not using TactCam's reveal cell cameras on your hunting property for scouting or monitoring the wildlife...

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And I think biologically, about elk, out west, there's fires all the time. All the time. So they, to your point, they've got, they're curious about it because they're like, okay, am I in, like you said, am I in trouble? Oh, that is, that's something, old boy. Huh. So I think you need to take that to the bank.

My... Oh, go ahead, you're good. I was just going to say, on all this stuff, one thing that's been huge is... Get you one of those right in the rain books and write just everything [00:45:00] you see when you're out. So that's, so I, again, going back to okay, what's 13 year old Tom doing as he's getting into hunting and he's got all this time to do it, so shooting bow, I shot every day. I set up a awesome range at our house and I shot bow every single day, multiple times a day. And I would just, I just loved shooting my bow. Now, what that's translated to is, it's because I put thousands upon thousands of arrows downrange, now that proficiency has stayed, but the, I don't want to say I don't need to practice, but you just, you know the little things to be able to learn the next step.

Exactly. So you can, So you still need to practice, you still need to practice, but you, it's, it comes quicker if you will, so I think that same thing with hunting, if you, the more and more you can be out there and just study these animals, experience them, go out in the [00:46:00] woods, try the smoke thing, try the run into your stand thing, try these different things and see how the deer react, and learn, and if you can go all over the country, go in different areas, I think that is, Irreplaceable and then taking good notes on that is yeah, and don't be afraid to fail.

Oh my gosh, like now I will say don't go and experiment with all of these strategies on the biggest buck you've ever seen, right? I'm not saying just go out there willy nilly like I wonder what happens if I play music from my phone the whole time I'm gonna stand like no still be smart about it.

But like I, there was a company, a sister company of one that I worked for, and they had a motto, fail forward. Yes. Yeah. And it was, listen, if you're going to fail, do it to where you learn and you grow from it. Yep. Because honestly, that's the number one thing I've heard. I've heard NFL players talk about it.

The Super Bowls that they remember the most are the ones they lost. Oh, yeah. They learned more from it when they lost. We talked about that yesterday. If you [00:47:00] walked out and shot a booner from your backyard every year it wouldn't really be that fun to hunt. You wouldn't learn anything.

And if, when it came time to go out, let's, your buddies invite you on a killer. Yeah. And then you get out there and you're like, no, I'm not, no, I'm not. You, the experiences, the failures are, I can sit back and tell you exactly why some of these bucks are still living or you know I mean because of mistakes that I've made I learned very quickly and I even told Sam this because Her first shot Sam snow cone Sam her first shot out of her bow.

She caught her forearm I saw that post first shot and I said, you know what I tried to warn her I was like, hey, you know get that elbow out like she was Hyper extending or whatever sure and I was like get that elbow bumped out And she did a little bit and then I was like correcting some other stuff and then boom, she lets it go and just smokes it.

I said, guess what? You're going to be very aware of that from now on. Oh, yeah. I said, if you hadn't done that the first time, it's probably going to happen a different time. [00:48:00] And my son burned himself on a hot pan. I said, dude, that's the, I could tell him a thousand times that thing's hot. He's going to know, he's going to remember now.

And the same thing happened with me. I got a single pin adjustable sight. First day shooting it. I get the tape all dialed in, right? I'm shooting at 20 all the way out to 60. I find the corresponding tape. So excited I take it to my buddy's house for shop night. And we're all hanging out and set the target up.

I'm bragging about my new bow and my new sight and how it's shooting. And, thump, launch. I'm talking launch an arrow into the woods. Way above the target. I didn't adjust it. I didn't adjust it back because I'm so used to it. I was so pumped to show them, draw back, settle it. And I think the farthest shot I had that day was like 98 yards.

And I, I was just hoping to hit the target. But I was just like, I've never shot a bow this far. This is fun. Lobbing arrows, and then I go to shoot this block target at [00:49:00] 20 yards with a 100 yard set pin. And they're like, yeah, that's a pretty sweet bow, Dan. I'm like, yeah, you're dialed, bud. Yeah, I was like, but ever since then I have forgot to adjust it, but I've never lobbed an arrow like that.

You still catch it. I typically catch it where I've been shooting that night at 40 yards and here he comes 25. And yeet. There it goes. See, I'm worried about that. And that's why I think I'm going to switch. I think I'm going to switch from a single pair. I'm going to plug. Hang on. Pause. Oh, let's hear it.

A little plug for my boys. HHA, the RISE site, with the double pin, but it's a single pin. So it's roughly, if you sight in 20, you're about 40 ish. Mine's about 37. With the second dot. With the second dot. Okay. And I, those guys are great. So I don't know if you got any other affiliation, but... So what I do is I'm lucky that my bow actually is really good with this.

I sight my single pin, for deer season now, outside of target shooting, you're shooting 60, 70, so you gotta have it dialed past 10. I take my [00:50:00] sight and I sight it at 25, and I know how far I need to go up or down to hit 30, to hit 20, to hit 15. And, honestly, my bow is great with it. I have the tri axe but it, there's not much movement.

And if I'm shaking in my boots and he's 30 and I put that 25 yard pin on him, I might be, what, an inch low? Yeah. Which is not, it's still a good shot. You know what I mean? Still punching vitals, yeah. That's something that I've done with my single pin. But, for us to not get track on the scent control thing, This is, I wanted to say, three conversations ago, what are you you went on this boat tangent with, fine, But I believe in two things with scent control, You can't beat a beer's nose, or, beer, You can't beat a deer's nose, But I think there's guys that, I think it definitely gives you a percentage, Maybe that deer smells you and didn't think it, You were as close as you were, or, you gotta add time of year.

If he's got a doe underneath him, he probably really doesn't care that he smells you. He's nervous now, but he's still, he smells her more, so it's whatever. I've always... You mean like guys? Like dudes. Kinda like dudes, yeah. [00:51:00] Yeah, we have that. You're hanging out with a really attractive lady, and there could be like a python curled up next to your foot, and you wouldn't even notice it.

Yeah, you're like, hey girl. It's pretty close, but... She's pretty hot. I gotta act cool around her. I'm not scared. I love pythons. I hang out with them all the time. Exactly. What I found myself doing early on is the sync control thing. That's what I was, I wanted to watch everything and do all this and so much focus was on that.

That like the hunting tactics and the what are the deer doing? Where do I need to be the scouting part? Like I was spending more time trying to make sure my prepping Yeah, prepping the my scent that I you know, and I didn't learn about wind You mean you can feel bulletproof because you buy certain products.

Yes, so many people man I'm like you just threw every tactic out the window Because you think that this one product shields you from failure. Exactly. But if you add that product, maybe to give you a little bit better of, you're still following, you're still following this [00:52:00] is in case the deer happens to get downwind, but I've done the work to make sure that I'm set up where he won't get, or when he does get downwind, he can't smell me or whatever it is.

And so now I the only scent control that I really do During deer season is I just don't wash myself or my clothes in any kind of like real scented stuff Yeah, so as long as I don't smell like axe deodorant when I go out there like that's just You're gonna smell you're gonna stink. You know what I mean?

Like you can't really mask that the fire does To your point like yeah, i'm gonna try that. When you will think of how bad you're yeah I'm gonna start using axe in the woods. Listen. The only time the axe works to help Is When you dump bait, just spray Axe all around the corn, and then you can start wearing Axe out there, and they're just gonna associate you with corn.

you. That's a really good idea. Conditioning the deer. Yeah, and you can also spray your night vision scope with Axe, and that, that will help. I can't tell if you're serious or not. Oh, 100%. He's 100. I'm, I never joke. Yeah. Never, [00:53:00] babe. I don't have fun. So that's my... Look at it, really. Try to, obviously, maintain you don't smell like Axe.

The smoke is great, because, if you go to a fire or a bonfire, that shirt smells your whole closet for the next week and if you don't wash it right away, that's a great tactic to just, even just them to second guess. You get a hesitation out of that deer when he did smell you, and then he's questioning, I smell fire, is it, is the guy in the tree, is he next to me, is he, was he here, is he, that, getting that pause instead of, I mean we've all had it when, a deer hits your scent and gone, like it takes seconds. I mean think about it right now we've got the wind actually blowing, probably making a lot of noise in the mics, but if somebody was up in that tree line having a fire right now, we would smell the smoke, it'd be blowing straight towards us.

And there might be times where it smells like it's 10 yards from us. Yep. And times where we just catch a slight whiff of it. And it's if you can trick a deer's nose like that. Yeah. Where it's just I smell it, but it's a smell I smell all the time. And smoke is, I'm sure there's some [00:54:00] type of study.

It's gotta be one of the strongest smells. On the planet. That and peanut butter. Peanut butter and skunk. Yeah. Skunk. But, I just think that would be... I don't know. That's the route that I've taken and it's worked. I've had a lot of deer recently and even I, so maybe it's partly the property.

I've had deer come in if my wind is blowing at zero degrees straight in front of me, these deer come in at four degrees. And they don't even stop. And I'm thinking like, dude, my wind has to be spreading right there. They're far enough out right now. It's gotta be spreading. They've gotta catch me.

Not even a second look. Until I give him the old meh, meh, and buh bye. Meh. Dead. I know, I did a gunshot. That was weird. You got a rifle. Yeah, I know. I said you could probably... You do it in reverse order, right? Meh. That reminds me of Despicable Me. You should [00:55:00] name the... Say the weapon after you use it.

Lipstick Taser!

You're a child. I, 100%, 100%. This is one of my bosses, guys. That's gonna be the name of this podcast episode, Lipstick Taser. People are gonna be like, what is this episode about? Hunting Tactics 101. How to keep yourself safe in dangerous situations. Lipstick Taser! SEO is not gonna work in your favor.

No, it's not. A bunch of kids, , a bunch of like elementary school kids are gonna listen to this podcast, I think. Yeah, I think going What's your sink control regimen, Tom? Sink control is just, I use Oh, that's what I was gonna say. Thank you. Yeah, I was, I had that thought and then I got distracted clearly.

I've started you and we just started using it at our house and then I was like, Hey, this is, so I use just. I buy laundry detergent that just says free and clear. So it's just it doesn't smell like anything. I'm like, Hey, [00:56:00] this is enough. And then I will say like nose jammer has been an interesting product.

I think that's one of those things where we were like the masking, right? The masking. So I'm not worried. Like I hunt the wind. I don't do a bunch of products, but I will say like nose jammer is an interesting thing. And, I just basically use it because I have it, because I've had it from the past, and you obviously don't use, I mean you don't use a whole bottle usually in a hunting season.

But I wouldn't say it's anything religious in that way. Say you live and die by it. No I just, to me you need to understand, if you, The other thing you learn, I think, that you should try to learn while you're out observing is what wind and thermals do out there. Because I think... On your property you're hunting specifically.

Exactly. Because it's way different. I'm talking, you can be in the same bottoms and one end of the bottoms be completely different than the other end. Or up on the ridge could be... Andy, you know how it is. You get in the stand at 5 a. m. By 8 a. m.. Everything's shifted. Yeah, and it's different than the weather app.

Yeah, you know [00:57:00] wait a minute The weather said it was gonna be 15 miles an hour out of the south southeast and it's southeast at 16 What is wrong right? You know right, but like it changes. Yes, like it really changes things Well in the way in contour of the property and where the cover where the openings are at your field edges And like you get I know like we have a I hunt off of one of the public pieces that we hunt is off of a lake and there is there's one of the giants that I was talking about that we first started hunting on public.

He lived there and he's invincible. He lives in a cove. That's the only part of the public that he uses is his cove and he doesn't hit that cove unless the thermals are piling up. So like in the evenings when that when the thermal start to drop and it fills that cove up, he'll move through. He could smell three.

I've had I had him at 17 yards in thicket and he wouldn't walk out of the thicket into the opening of The thing, until the thermals hit, and as soon as, we had 16 mile an hour wind, he couldn't smell me, your day winds died, thermals took over, and he busted me, and he would not break that cover, until that thermals hit, [00:58:00] and I'm watching him, not even and as soon as that thermals hit, he said, yeet, and crashed out of there, but look at what you just learned, and to, to everybody who's been, circle it all back look at what you learned from that sit, yeah, it's a quote unquote failure, I didn't see it that way.

I had a giant at 17 yards. Yeah, he's not on my wall. Your tactic work. Yep. Your thought process, like the deer is going to be here. You learn, holy buckets, these thermals, like how smart is that? And this is the thing that I really learned about that situation is... Sometimes, in those invincible spots to deer, if you what I, the only reason I was in there is because we had a crazy, and what I was saying is, the way this cove sits on the lake, there is, it might say south wind, or north wind, or east wind, it is a west wind always, because, just the way that the wind pushes the lake, it will push it down that cove, so you can set up with that west wind, but once the thermals hit, it's over with, so my idea was, if the wind is just howling, how is it that, sometimes it dies off.

A lot of the times when it's super windy like that, you don't get that day [00:59:00] wind die, and it stays maybe an hour or two after night or whatever. That was my thought process. If he's in here... And he normally was on that wind because he could smell the whole thing. If I can come in on this side, blow my wind out the back, and it's super windy, that wind might stay all night.

It just happened that the wind wasn't going to stay all night. Now, that's also to say, if he wasn't comfortable in daylight with the wind moving, he could have just stood there for an hour. 30 40 minutes of light. Yeah, he would have just stayed there in the thicket and not moved. You should have brought the lipstick taser.

Yeah, then you could have reached him. I could have zapped it. He's probably in water and thick brush, you could have zapped it. I could have had a hole to shoot through. Oh, that's what I thought. I had the thought, lost it. We got sidetracked and then it came back. So hell yeah, ADHD.

Thank you Jesus for that. So I when I, like my rifle buck this year, rifle buck, a hundred of them, like I would set up for a boat and he came within 30 yards. Hey, mission accomplished on, on, and that felt great for me. But [01:00:00] what I did, and I think it's a great tactic because it's a couple fold, right?

So I looked at the property, looked at the pressure. And observed it over several seasons and understood through conversations and setting up stands and everything where pressure is coming, where the activity, where the movement of people pre daylight is set up in the only like area that would, the most logical escape route from that had so much.

Traffic. Coming into it. Yeah. And they could be 30 yards this way or 30 yards this way. I've got them. Bang, bang. Yep. And, so that, I think that's a huge piece is when you're driving around or when you're walking around on whatever property, learn people and to, I think you talked about it too. Learn how they're approaching that hunting.

Yep. Or that property. Yeah. I've got another property public piece. The parking [01:01:00] lot is, so there's a, right on the edge of the southern property line there's a a power line right away that goes through east west, and then it drops down to this river bottom, and then it drops down to the parking lot too, and if power line right away there's always edge, great edge right there. And so there were some potholes right up there. So parking lot trail goes straight through the property and then power line up top. I was like, man, I would think that there would be some dadgum and deer.

Oh, and I'm thinking it's a buck because I'm like, who's most concerned about, what the heck people are doing trying to come after me. They go usually bucks. So I went. And just belly crawled through that right away edge that was all popple and super thick. And sure enough, wouldn't you know, there's a just bed, big bed, in some thick nasty popplers everywhere with three different escape routes.

One across the [01:02:00] road, one back into the... Piece and then one down actually towards the parking lot and then rubs all over along that popple. And I think that, to your point, you talked about it, it's man, he can sit up there and watch everybody park, walk down the trail, and he can go out that way, go out that way and never be seen, so they're, hey, park on the road and walk.

And it's literally probably 40 yards. As the crow flies from the parking lot. I want so badly to use other bad hunters as a strategy. to hunt a deer, and I've heard people talk about I feel like every public, I feel like every bad hunter just learn, there you go, learning hunters. No, but there's people who just do the same thing dude, it doesn't matter, they're on public land, they hunt in the same exact tree every single time they go out, and I feel like every public land area has an old mid 90s dodge that's primer, red, [01:03:00] and rust colored.

And they parked. Why is he talking right now? I'm, yeah. Bondo. Bondo, they, JB welded that door shut. You know where I hunt, sir? ? Yeah. But I'm like, man, I feel like every place has a guy that goes out there. Yeah. And I'm like, you know that the deer have him pattern more than he has the deer pattern.

Absolutely. And it's if you can figure out where they're betting in comparison to where he goes in, You could almost just use him to drive the deer to you, and I know that escape route. Yeah, exactly. You find that escape route. I know we started going like high level on some of this.

Yeah, but it's I don't even think that's really high level. I think it's just out of the box. Yeah, so like for example, I killed a deer in 2019 or 18 And, there's real no good way to get in this, unless you're already in the property, then you can branch yourself out, right? There's one, two entrances in, and that's it.

And everybody goes to the easier entrance. So what I did, is I went in and scouted, and through the snow, I found a, like you said, an escape route that they were using [01:04:00] that no one else was hunting. And it was really hard to hunt because you were in tiny trees, I was only like six, seven foot off the ground, and that, you had two shooting wings because it was thick brush, and then it turned into thick woods.

So you had, you, basically what it was, is the trailer coming down from my tree, you could see them, they disappear in the thick, and then they, there's your shot. You had ten seconds to figure it out, right? What I did is, there's no real way to get to that without just walking straight to it, and the deer would see you if you walked from that thing.

So what I did... wind blowing to him and everything. I walked down the normal path like I like I was going into the woodlot. I got into a creek and I walked that creek back to the road in the woods, came up and then circled into that spot and so that deer seen me go into the woods thinking I went to the furthest part of the property and so and I'm talking, I was in the stand an hour and he got up, he knows I'm in there he got up and come to go out of the property cause he seen me go in there and got shot.

Dang. And that was just like an eye opener to me like [01:05:00] these deer watch you. Oh yeah. Like they, he was getting up and he was going across the road to private because he watched somebody walking there with a bow. And he knew what that meant. My, my mom and her husband are hanging out right outside the tent right now.

She had a bear that had her patterned. And he would drop her off in the side by side at her tree stand. Yep. And she would go in to shoot this bear. And she would get pictures of it every day, 15 minutes after she would leave the tree stand. He knew. And I told her, and unfortunately something came up, like an event or a funeral or something came up towards the end of season.

And I told her, I said, this is what you do. Go out there and sit. And then, have him come in 30 minutes before the end of shooting that day, on the side by side. Stop for a minute, as long as, it would normally take you to go over and get in. Have him leave and see if that bear comes in. And unfortunately she wasn't able to implement it, but in this year she didn't draw her bear tag, but I'm like, I'm telling you, I would [01:06:00] love to.

To condition a deer, to think it knows my pattern, and then just tweak it a little bit and make it convinced that I did the same thing as I always do. If you know who, ever heard of Cameron Deerfield? Yeah. He's a buddy of mine, and he does that with his cameras. So he's like a lot of guys, they don't check their cameras very often.

And he's mine's not crazy. It's every couple of weeks or whatever. And don't quote me on the exact time, but that's what he would do. He's I conditioned these deer to think I'm coming in. I'm going, they hear me. I'm loud. I checked the Crayo camera. They know my scent, they're used to it. And then I do that all summer during the season.

And when I finally got a deer pattern, or maybe they got me a little bit patterned. He's I sneak in a different way. And I come and set up on that stand. And he's a lot of times what I do, I go in. I've set my, his, he'll set his trail camera, act like he checks it, leave, go get in the truck, get dressed, and then come in the back way and sneak in, and he's hunting that camera, and then deer heard him come in and leave, so they're like, oh, we're good.

We're good. He guards down. Yeah. You that's a real fun, that's what kind of got me into the whole public land because I think the deer,[01:07:00] if you can pattern people and figure out how they pattern you and then that's what I was saying, like access wise, get creative with how you access because them deer are watching.

I use kayaks a lot. We have a lot of lake that we hunt and a lot of guys roll up on a john boat. They hear that. When I come strolling, I'm real quiet with the, they don't hear that they don't recognize it and they see people out on there I'll be paddling away and they'll just watch me paddle by yeah, and they don't care.

I think that's huge access getting thoughtful and being okay with Not doing what you're seeing everyone else doing to your point, that's what you're like Hey, I want to figure out my way my style the way

I like to your knowledge because then it's It's earned, and it's, and you're very self aware of what you're looking for, and I think if you can learn the deer, learn the people, and learn what you need to adjust in terms of access, it will set you [01:08:00] years ahead in terms of, where we're at right now.

You know what I mean? And I think, going all the way to the beginning, like setting your expectations, like for new hunters, like they have to understand, this isn't going to be something you're going to figure out in a season. Sometimes you get lucky and you've got a pattern that they're going to do every year and you figure it out.

But a lot of times even some of the properties that I hunt now, we've been hunting for three or four years. And I have aha moments at those properties, every year. I'm like, Oh, I didn't ever thought that they would do that. And they sure as hell, I just watched them do it. And now I know for this coming year okay, I'm going to adjust a little bit this timeframe because they're doing.

They're not moving through this creek crossing like I thought they were. Maybe they're coming down that ridge over there and popping out the corner. And that's where I think the note taking is huge, right? I think they know to remember. Because stuff happens, memory gets lost, and For me it's film.

I got a lot of film of it. Yeah, so you can do that, and But if you don't always catch the deer and that kind of stuff, I think having a good set of notes, Yep. Year out. Handwriting like a two year old. What was I trying [01:09:00] to say here? Me and, yeah, me and my daughter about have the same handwriting.

So I'd be like, Just do caveman paintings. Yeah probably be better. Deer crossing goat. Yeah, deer crossing goat. Goat path. Yeah, no, for real. I'd be like, what is is that a the? Is that a key? What? For most, most... Is that my name? Most, voice memo, dude. Just voice memo. That's true, I never thought about that.

I do use a camera. There's times that if I'm hunting a spot, and that I haven't hunted in a while, and I know we've had... Speaking of the camera? I... About what happened, or what? That, but I'll have... film of a deer doing something and I've remembered, I'll be going through film maybe for a project or something and I'll find that, and I'm like, oh shit, I forgot, I've seen that, or, especially scouting, I do that a lot when I scout here, this is, and I'll do it for my own self I'm here, in this property, in this creek crossing to the east, this is, giant buck tracks here, I got giant buck tracks over there this is the kind of the triangle that I think he's moving in, or, but it's the same as.

Taking notes. And Onyx, too. I'm just teasing you. No, Onyx, too, can do that if you guys are Onyx [01:10:00] guys. And when you place your little marker down, take some notes. There's even places you can put pictures. So if this is the tree you want to get in, take notes. It's the oak tree with the limb that's left of it that's fallen over.

And it's got this tree hanging to the side of it. Here's a picture, and then when you walk in there in the dark, or gray light, or whatever you do, you're like, Oh I don't really know, exact tree maybe, but I'm in within 20 yards, and you can look at those notes, look at the picture, and be like, That's it, that's the tree that I remember.

Yeah, I think that the other thing, going back to High level stuff, basic stuff, I think understanding their food, And deer are browsers, so they're eating 70 percent of their diet. I think that's And there's lots of people who really break down their What they're eating and the type of food they eat, but I think finding, oak flats if you're in a lot of woods.

But then also, learning what types of under, understory

the deer are going to That side of it and what they're gonna be eating along the way to the oak flat because it might be you know If there's not the right cover where's [01:11:00] the right food? You know what? And once basically once you okay This is the general area then you get in and then start Breaking it down even more and really fine tuning especially as a bow hunter.

That's what you need to do is get into I gotta be within, 20 yards of this trail and that trail, how can I, where's that point? We're looking, apparently when I podcast I just get notes dropped off to me. Old snow cone just dropped off. Old snow cone. Just been out here getting. How long have we been going?

for a minute. Hour and seven minutes. Fuck. It's about what we did yesterday. We haven't even gotten to the The gear side. We do this to ourselves. I think we just need to do a daily podcast, the three of us. We're here. Let's just do one every day. Tomorrow we'll knock out gear. Part 3, coming to you live from Boat Fest.

And that'll be good for Jake.

What if we all came back tomorrow and we just talked about all the scent control stuff that you have to have? Listen guys, if you're not using Dead [01:12:00] Down Wind and scent wafers... Oh gosh, now they're gonna come after you and be like... I have no problem with Dead Down Wind. I don't either. I don't have a problem with any of those companies or anything.

You wanna know, Dead Down Wind saved us. Dead Down Winds saved us this year and we didn't need any scent control for our shed hunt, but what did happen is my buddy had some in his truck because he's a hunter and it was just like in the back door of his truck and his dog can't catch him Had explosive diarrhea in the backseat of his truck.

Shut The truck that we had to drive from New Mexico back to Missouri in. Oh no. And we cleaned it out as much as we could. But then we sprayed the whole thing down with Dead Down Vina. And it was incredible. I kid you not. This shit works boys. It was amazing. Big plug to Dead Down to get into the pet care line of stuff.

I don't care, but compete with a breeze. Yeah. That's hilarious. Yeah. I was like, dude, [01:13:00] I was like, man, I wish we had some type of scent killer. And he's you know what? And I look over and I see that, the classic orange bottle with the white top and he pulls that thing out. Just we're rocking now, I think.

I think doing another one would be sweet on gear and get your take on what you've used and what works and then we can share what's, what we've got out now and what we're looking to that saddle yesterday and that platform. Woo! Yeah. We're very proud of it. We've, and not to go off track now, but we've, our heart has always been to try and give as much access.

To good quality, lightweight gear to as many people as possible. Yeah. And that's, and keep it affordable too, right? That's what I'm saying. So the access and the affordability, I think that's a great way to just keep the hunting industry healthy. Yeah. For as far as the participation side of it.

Yeah. And so to have what we have is really pretty special. And I'm excited to And I feel blessed to just be a part of a company that's doing that. [01:14:00] And that really is part of a tool that I have to tell people all the time Yeah, I'm sponsored by XOP and all that, and they've done a lot for me.

But if they drop me tomorrow I really couldn't tell you where I would be. Like I would probably, even if it wasn't on the content side for XOP and stuff, like I still feel like that would be the tree stand that I would want. If I was a kid and I wasn't in this position, that's still what I would.

Want to use especially the set that we came out this year. Yeah, dude. I'm excited. Yeah, let's dude same time tomorrow Same time same place sounds good right before all the music starts right before the helicopters start landing the train start going by Yeah, we're gonna get out Shoot in the morning.

That's what you told me yesterday. You're gonna technically I said either Tomorrow Friday or Saturday, I think or did I commit? I think you committed. Did I? I also took your number down wrong. So I texted you twice. And I got that message back that said this is a landline you can't text this number basically hey dummy.[01:15:00]

And so I drove the golf cart down to our tent this morning, found the notebook that you wrote it in, and immediately realized that I had the wrong number, we were both off, basically this morning, last night yeah, I felt very cool. Whether we leave the old man at home because he can't get up early or what.

And if we don't get rain today, then hopefully those backcourses dry out. I heard they were swampy. Really? I'll bet. Yeah, that'd be fun. So we'll do that and we'll video that. Yeah, that'd be a lot of fun. Get you get you a cameraman. Woo! We'll see how the, we'll see how the BowFest video turns out, yeah.

It's going to be the Nick Queen interview with the Nomadic Outdoorsman interview for Nick Queen. This is my what is it? This is your audition. Audition, my interview. Yeah. I like it. I just want to keep talking. You always want to keep talking. I got a message from my wife, new recording at 145 with a vendor.

There we go. So apparently she's just booking people. She's booking it now, [01:16:00] and I had no idea. You got a bookie! She's my bookie. Sam Snowcone! Get it! We're yelling at here. It's probably horrible for the audios. I'm going to think of all of the nicknames we've come up. She's Wifeager, Snowcone Sam, Sexcretary.

That one got me. I was like, oh, I don't know if you can keep that on the cast here. She's a good sport. Sport, that's the new one. Come here, sport! We're gonna have a list of nicknames for you. That's what you should do, is you should have a whiteboard. That that just grows throughout each show.

Yeah. Our event, when you're at the event starts, Sam's Nixon. And then just as you... Snow Cone Sam. You know how people have all those prefixes before their name? Doctor, Reverend. And it's just all... A. K. A's. Yeah, A. K. A's. Snow Cone. I just can't wait till she fills out like a rent... Oh, you mean sexetarian.

Sexetarian. Was that before you hit record or after? It was before, I think. [01:17:00] Was it? So now it's on. Shoot, now it's actually officially on. There you go. Everyone's what kind of perv... Pervy old man Dan. Yeah. And the thing that's got me, I think, all weekend is... I don't... I want to say stupid orange glasses, but they're also really cool.

You wanna know what I've officially dubbed these glasses? What? My power line glasses. From the Goofy movie, right? Yup. I'm with you. I saw him and I was like, okay, this guy's either, either A, he doesn't A total tool. No, he doesn't care what people think. He's one of those That's mostly it, yeah.

Two, he's absolutely goofy as all get out. Yeah, that's true. Or three the tool bag. Yeah. And and we voted tool bag, which is why you keep coming and No we voted the funny, cool guy who doesn't care, which is people we like. What it really comes down to is I go to Walmart, and each time I go there, I buy [01:18:00] five pairs of 12 glasses.

Yeah. Okay. Because I break them all the time, and my kids break them, and when my son wrestles me, the first thing to go is hat and glasses, even though that's the only rule of wrestling. Don't touch having glasses. First thing, boom, checks him. Somebody steps on them, they break. And so the last time we went to Florida, I bought five pair or four pairs of glasses.

This is the only one made that made it after one week. This look at it. It's like a tank, dude. Those are full frame glasses right there. I'm the same way. I used to buy spy glasses. My uncle raced pro motocross. So I got them at a discount, but they were still expensive. And I broke them all the time.

I'm like, why am I spending money on this? So it's Casey's sunglasses it is, boys. Yup, just gas station. Actually, I, dude, speaking of glasses, I picked one up from Hunt brand. Yeah, he's right here. Is it? Oh, you got your... They, they got left. I literally grabbed some yesterday when I went over there and I don't even have them.

Oh, those are mine. They were, yeah, they were left. [01:19:00] Ours were, they were left on our table. And I forgot mine today. I saw these. So that's what happened. Is you suckered me into trying out your saddle. And then you're like, alright, hey, when he sets his stuff from his pockets on the table, just hide it real quick.

You know the worst part? Yeah, you know what not to do at the XOP booth. The real winners in this situation. Is the Hunt brand because I felt bad. I was like, Hey, do you mind if I I'm just going to wear these. Don't know how they got left here. She's yeah, you can just have them. I'm like, so I gave her a little roll of our hush tape.

Yeah. You know what I mean? So now we owe it to you. Yeah. Yeah. Good luck. You got to get better content. You got to produce a little more. Wasn't this the same guy you were voting for? Climbing up the thing, and now you're not even giving him less tape for winning? This is how you motivate. You're gonna have to call me the Mountain Master from now on.

I can't wait for that. The NG, the National Guard Mountain Master. We still gotta get your... Is that National Guard or straight up Army? No, they're Army National Guard. Oh, okay. [01:20:00] We got to get your player stance for the video. So we got to, I need to jump. And you do the still frame as I spin player one.

And I'm like, just levitating

and that would be cool. Vine

used to do that where you, like the people would jump up and they just take a shot of it, like all the way through their house. Funny story about Vine, I got shot over, or got shot at, over Vine. What? So my buddy used to drive, we He lives by Chicago. It's Decatur, but there's a lot of hood around.

Yeah. And we would go through the hood, and my, he had a pretty famous TikTok, or not TikTok, but Vine over it. And he'd go around to people just out in the hood. Not just the hood, but we were, it was funnier in the hood. And he'd roll down the window and be like, Do it for the vine! And they would yell at us or do something goofy, right?

I'm talking like a 14 year old kid pilled out a Mac and wa Shut up! Yeah, we're on our way to church. I'm not going to see Jesus, not meet Jesus, [01:21:00] I need to go like pray to Jesus. We were in a reverse drive by doing a Vine on the way to church. There's probably only one person in the world that can say that.

Yeah, he has a video so I'll have to get it from him because we have proof of it. Oh my gosh. We may need to post that on your page. Let me get you banned. Yeah, I don't know how that works. Blur their faces off. This was, dude, We were teenagers. I did it for the vine. What do you want me to do, bro?

Yeah, this is the best content you've ever got. Let's just say his dad was not very happy, because we were in his vehicle and it has a few bolt holes in it. Not the fake sticker one. No, we're talking like we had to explain to our parents. All of our, I was in a Jeep, or my family was in a Jeep club.

He's like, how cool they were. Are they not cool? I should take mine off. No, we have real ones, bud. Get real ones. We used to have them in our Jeeps. Yeah. For the club. Anyways. That's awesome. Good ol Vine. We better stop. We gotta get back to work. Richard's gonna be mad at us. We just have to make sure to post [01:22:00] this way after the, and say that we...

You took an hour? Oh, that's what we'll have to say. No, you just have to sell a lot more. We'll just say it was after hours. We'll tell Richard it was after hours. Now he listens to this episode. You have to make sure to get that in there. Richard, I'm just letting you know, Tom's the boss. It was all Tom's idea.

He's holding me at my will. He's gonna look it up, what time was the storm rolling? Three days in a row? You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to know that you did this while you were supposed to

be at your booth. It's marketing. It's a media weekend. We're having a meeting. This is a meeting. I'm going to expense out everything. I should have ordered food, man. Here's my receipt reimbursement. You guys are using Nick, right? You guys want his time? Huh. Yeah. And then we'll just expense that, we'll track that back.

This was my interview. Tomorrow's the audition. You're hired. Interview, then audition. Oh yeah, you missed it. He's auditioning. For a cameraman at the, when we go shoot. And then we're going to do a whole Which is funnier because I'm shooting [01:23:00] a bow and Jack's my apprentice to run the camera. So this works out.

We're going to do a whole season of actual auditions though from the field. And then I'll let you know when you figure it out. It is better to hire a hunter as a cameraman. Yeah. And obviously, you don't have to teach him. They know perspective angles. What's the goal of being out there shooting?

And I'm not in your way. And they're snarky. And he's really small, too. So he's fits in your pocket. He's fits in your pocket. Dang, I work out, guy. I work out. Sweet. Thanks again, guys. Why does it have to end? That's what I just feel like to get fired if you don't go back to your booth.

Now we need a third one every day. We'll just do a daily one. This is our lunch break that's turned into a two hour lunch break. It was 30 minutes. What are you talking about? I'm just going to speed this up to two times in the editing. We were only there for 36 minutes, man. That's hilarious. I like it.

More to come. Stay tuned. Good cliffhanger. Stay [01:24:00] tuned.

And that is going to wrap it up for today's show. Man, I had a ton of fun hanging out at BowFest with Nick and Tom. Speaking of which, if you guys want to come up to BowFest next year, come hang out, shoot the courses, hang out at the concerts, maybe even sit down and do a live podcast in the booth with me.

Go online and register now. It's code Nomad24, and you will get those ticket prices down from 89. 99 to 79. 99. And I will let you know, there will be price increases as we get closer to next year's event, so hurry and go do that. Register, let me know you did, and we'll plan a meetup. When I'm up in Wisconsin for that.

Also, I can't wait to get up to Wisconsin. Every trip to Wisconsin is awesome, but beginning of October, I'm going to be hanging out with the XOP crew. And if you're looking for a new stand, a new saddle, they've got all kinds of stuff. They've got climbers, hang on, stands, saddles, harnesses, a ton of awesome accessories to help you [01:25:00] get your gear back into the woods.

They've even got Turkey best in seats. So go check out XOP and use code nomadic. For 10 percent off site wide, you'll be glad you did good luck this season. Hopefully as you're listening to this, maybe you're listening a day late and I'm already drawn back on one of my target bucks, who knows, stay tuned for next week's episode to find out.

And until next time, always choose adventure and God bless.

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