Show Notes
In this episode, Jon Teater (Whitetail Landscapes) discusses his upcoming Master Class and how to attend and apply online. Jon gives some examples of what to evaluate as you hire a consultant to work on your property. Jon explains his 2024 consulting schedule and opportunities for future clients.
Jon discusses scent molecules and distribution of scent on the landscape. Jon explains how to managing clothing and body hygiene that will support better
Jon discusses how thermals work and a misnomer that plagues the hunting industry. Jon discusses temperature changes and how that impacts air flow. Jon explains smarter options to increase hunting opportunities when considering thermals and the wind.
Jon explains the importance of barometric pressure and heating cycles. Jon explains how to cheat the wind and which days to pick to hunt. Jon discusses very specific ways to design hunting around wind and thermals. Jon discusses how to manipulate deer movement for wind and thermals and how to be strategic.
Jon discusses what winds to not hunt in and what scenarios where humidity plays into a tough hunting scenario. Jon discusses the problems when hunting in fog. Jon explains wind history and what apps he utilizes to evaluate weather conditions. Jon explains ozone and how to use ozone devices and
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Show Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to maximize your hunt, the podcast dedicated to those who want the most out of their hunting property. This podcast explores land management, habitat improvement, and hunting strategies that will help you maximize your time in the field. Follow along as industry professionals that live and breathe whitetail deer share their secrets to success.
And now the founder of Whitetail Landscapes, your host, John Teeter.
Hi, I'm John Tito, Whitetail Landscapes. This is Maximize Your Home. Welcome back, everybody. I just want to let everyone know that my Masterclass is now available on my website. So I've been getting inquiries already for that Masterclass. The dates, the amounts, everything are on the website. If you go to the menu bar, you search down Masterclass, I'll put something on the homepage when I get a chance.
But please go take [00:01:00] a look. This is going to be a very, I think, beyond rewarding event for folks. I was fortunate enough to get some information from others that have done this. And I can tell you, bar none, this is going to be way more advanced than anything you've probably had a chance to attend. Other classes that have been out there.
We're going to get into the nuts and bolts of designing a hunting property. My own hunting property will go to, the stages of enhancing soil, teaching new ways to make your plants more disease resistant, last longer. be more fruitful, advantage your deer, be more nutrient dense. That's just one part of the course.
We're going to show, hey, show you how to cut timber, put embedding areas. Basically, you'll know how to do my job. And my goal from this is to give folks essentially this is giving back instead of doing the one on one. I wanted to have group opportunities because I learned in those environments.
There's a lot that I take away from the clientele. People are quite experienced and have a lot of different perspectives, and it's good to get some [00:02:00] ideology across from different members of communities that maybe have gone and taken a course from Don Higgins or Tony the Pratt. I think I have a much different take than those guys, and I think it's a it's going to be far more beneficial to some of you, the level of detail I think will be really important for your growth and development as a land steward.
And I think it's important for us to take the next steps in thinking about our properties to bring it to the next level. The other thing I want to say, and something that's come up recently. I've gotten some calls from clients for next year, and obviously everyone's exciting. They don't like to wait, and I'm sorry that you have to wait to be a client, but it takes time.
I have a very pragmatic approach. I do things very systematically with my clients. It's first come, first serve. But I will say this, it's always worth the wait and I always give you homework to do. And by the time I get there, you'll be more educated so we can have a more intelligent conversation. I think that's very important, to bringing out the best in the consulting experience.
The other piece is, I deal with [00:03:00] really difficult properties, low deer densities, and I've done a lot of properties with high deer densities. There's a different shape, way, and form to handle each one of those. So if you have a very poor performing property, I'm able to accomplish a lot of changes for you if you have a high performing property Which a lot of these consultants get these high performing properties and their tweaks and changes I'm dealing with properties that may have not even ever shut a buck off their property.
So there's a big plethora of clients So recognize there's a diversity in my clientele. And so that might be an example of why I don't have 160, 180 inch deer on the wall. Because my clients aren't looking for the same thing a lot of other folks are. And that's okay. It's a lot easier for me having the clients that already have those deer.
That's easy. That's a different game. And I don't mean that in a bad way. I just mean that's reality. I can forecast and I can tell you how to kill those deer. [00:04:00] Some of these unpredictable areas that have low numbers are much different to manage and maintain. And those of you that have worked with me recognize what I'm saying.
Just an important point and topic gives you some concepts and Thoughts from my perspective. All right, so I'm going to go solo. This is my technical conversation and I'm just going to talk about Wind and weather and it's pretty simple, but I'm gonna make it a little more complex than just wind and weather So I put a lot of time into focusing on weather conditions.
I live in a I'll say a depressed area when it comes to weather. We have more gray days than sunny days And you can go and look at, your cloud cover over time and figure out if meet the criteria. But I can tell you, we have a high percentage of days in my particular area in New York or the center part of New York where we do not have sunshine.
So I put a huge emphasis because of my microclimate on days that weather is good. [00:05:00] And so do the animals. So there's a direct correlation to movement cycles, and weather conditions. Don't focus on what anybody else says. Don't even focus on the science piece of this. The reality of it is, animals like good weather.
So do humans. I don't mean to humanize this, but it's very simplistic in that sense. If you have very consistent, regular weather, you're going to have very consistent, regular movement. I tend to have very inconsistent movement or consistent conditions because of the weather conditions that I'm constantly dealing with.
It's ebbing and flowing in a lot of different directions. The temperature fluctuations that a lot of you experience across the U. S. that is a big indicator of change. And change is meaningful when it comes to movement. Movement cycles of animals is something that can be You know, evaluated from telemetry or GPS studies, etc.
But I can tell you, we're talking about small movements. And small movements are big deals when it [00:06:00] comes to making a decision or being able to kill an animal. The other piece of this is wind. We think about wind so much, particularly in a bow hunting scenario, because you have to be so close to the animal.
Wind requires you to be very conscientious of what you're doing and how you approach your environment. We've talked about intrusion on the podcast, but when it comes to hunting, recognize that your compound's off your clothing, your boots, your face, everything disperses. And as the wind travels and is impacted by friction or vegetation, The concentration of that will disperse in different directions.
And the volume of that concentration could affect you 5, 6, 7, 1000 yards out from an animal that you're going after. So to get within 20 yards of an animal, you have to be very conscious of that. So the maintenance and management beyond just understanding the wind is really critical. So wind is not easy to [00:07:00] understand.
I don't, I'm going to try to dumb it down because I think being technical means being smart about the things you can fully understand. And I'm going to give you an example today. So I design properties around the wind. And it's it's something that I don't think a lot of people talk about. And why it is it's hard to understand A lot of what wind does when it deals with friction.
So friction meaning vegetation. And so as wind travels, into a structure, it meets a structure and it slows. Or bounces. Or if there's a lot of structure it's a dense canopy there's a lot of leaf material. Or there's a variation in understory versus overstory. It's gonna affect those areas in different ways and shapes.
So knowing how to cut timber, To benefit your deer or to benefit your hunting is a big deal. So my example today is I carved out a food plot. And I shaped the food plot in a way where the wind is very, once it comes off this hillside, it becomes very directional. [00:08:00] Now, when you're thinking about foliage has a tendency to deflect.
And then openings, a lot of times it'll sit in those openings. If those openings are small, it'll have a tendency to toilet bowl, circle. Multiple axes. Wind, typical direction is horizontal, but wind is obviously never traveling just horizontal. It's traveling in multiple dimensions. And those directions will spread out the scent molecules of you and your body, right?
The concentration is important, but the distribution is also important. At what distance and, what concentration, etc. So you think about this cone shaped distribution, which is a good way to look at it. Then it meets vegetation. But if the vegetation is removed, it creates channels of movement.
Sometimes channels of movement are the way to distribute your scent signal, in a way where you can manage it. So it's managing wind on the landscape and designing your property or designing your hunting locations around that. [00:09:00] I created this food plot. This food plot is shaped in a way where it S curves.
And at the end of that S curve, or small turn it goes straight and I have an open area. It's a direct open area at the end of that point. And that directs my wind down a corridor essentially. And once I wait for a high pressure day, my wind will come, it'll hit my body, and we'll talk about barometric pressure in a little bit.
But my heating molecules off my body, which is eventually cool, but they rise at some point in time, escape, and they're elevated, depending on my location, usually. So picking the right days where barometric pressure is high is meaningful in relationship to wind and wind direction. All right, hopefully that makes sense to you, because I think that's a critical component of understanding, wind in relationship to hunting locations.
There's a little bit more to elevation and we'll talk about that in a little bit. So I want to get into the concept of thermals. Big misnomer, I've made mistakes and [00:10:00] stated this wrong many times over, okay? Thermals essentially is the heating of the air. It's the radiation of the sun on the surface that heats the air.
At that point in time when it starts to heat, it starts to move, right? So typically cold air sinks, warm air rises. That's a basic rule. But when the sun radiates and hits that surface starts to build energy and then energy kind of forms columns and these columns can go straight up. If the wind pushes them, they can go, in direction of the wind.
But the air mass themselves many times, depending on the heating cycle and the temperature at that point, and there's other factors of humidity that all play into this. But that heating cycle creates these, essentially, convection cells. And these convection cells essentially allow some of that heat to travel up a hillside.
Very simple and basic. And sometimes when the wind meets that thermal, that [00:11:00] heating convection cell, what it does is it pushes in a direction creating this kind of mechanical turbulence. And basically think of a surf wave. And simply, wind is going to start to spin and move in different ways. And the cycling of air in that sequence is pretty simple.
It's that heating air expands and rises, less warm air fills behind it, fills the void. That's the whole convection thought and cycle behind it. So if you take a landscape and You know, cut it clean so there's no vegetation at all. Topography is going to typically dictate in relationship to slope and aspect.
Sometimes the speed, the heating cycle matters, the ambient temperature matters. All that matters is how fast air will travel in a location. And let's add vegetation into it. Now, vegetation is going to create warm and cool spots. So as [00:12:00] air heats in these open areas or closed areas, and the concept we introduced like clear cuts, so that being open area, it's going to heat in those areas likely higher depending on the volume of vegetation.
In concert with the moisture or the water that's retained in that area. Certain soils retain more water, that's also a factor. If it's a drier soil, it's going to heat up quicker. These are all going to affect how thermal flow happens. Again, thermal is related to heating. In the evening, it's a completely different cycle.
Now, to mention one other point, and I don't want to forget about this, is on the surface, if you have snow negates any thermals. Thermals are generally not present on snow surfaces. So keep that in mind. Adding vegetation into it, and canopy cover, etc., really changes the game.
Because these leaflets, what are essentially solar panels, reflect and absorb sun. And depending on the [00:13:00] status of that leaf material there's a thing called thermoconductivity. And some materials heat up faster than the others. One little example is, sometimes we wonder why the deer like to bed underneath different types of species.
In fact, I saw somebody on Facebook the other day trying to save a moose. And what did they do? They took hemlock branches, cut them, and put them underneath the animal. It created an air gap space. Those You know, that, that material is hollowed out in some capacity and its thermal conductivity is better than sticking a, a branch of maple leaves underneath that particular animal.
A lot of it has to do with the moisture content. Recognizing that some surfaces canopy surfaces are going to heat at faster rates and the same thing with, soils or low vegetation. A lot of it depends on the type of material that you're dealing with. Okay, so the heating of the surface very important in developing this kind of movement or flow of kind of these convection [00:14:00] cells.
Now let's just get over to the other piece of this, is the cooling effect. Okay, now topography affects both those cycles because when things heat or cool, they're going to hit structure. And around that structure, it's going to reposition or move things. Just think about, so a stream is a good example where you have a stream flowing and we've got water coming down and it's hitting an object and behind that object it creates a void and to the left or right of that rock, the water starts to turn around it and eventually it eddies or curls a wave gives you an example and behind that rock is essentially the calm you.
And the waves or the intensity between those kind of creates this low pressure area. A lot of times this high to low pressure sequence happens quite often. And so we'll talk a little bit more about barometric pressure and weather conditions and that stuff in just a second. We recognize that, there's [00:15:00] ways to look at, wind on the landscape.
And, people use milkweed. It's very common. If you don't have milkweed, buy it from somebody. It's all over my landscape. It's actually a problem for my particular area. I actually try to eradicate it because there's so much of it. And it does a great job of propagating. But what I do is use that milkweed.
And I want milkweed that's really dry. So I'll take all the milkweed from this year. I'll put in a, a tow and I'll let it dry out. And when I take it, I'll take, a capsule of it and essentially take the seed off it. And then I'll have this kind of like cotton like material. And I'll use that as a little tool to show me generally what the wind is doing.
That is a point of reference only because your air molecules are so much lighter than that particular mass. It's not really comparable. But it gives you an indicator of direction. And what you find is, when it hits these surfaces, it slows, it [00:16:00] speeds up, it moves in another direction. There's different heating and cooling air masses in the landscape.
If you ever come out of the woods, and you're walking, down a trail, and you get into a cold spot, and then you're in a warm spot, it's interesting to think about how these masses sit in the landscape. And what you realize is as the sun starts to set these masses, these high and low pressure systems are moving, in different directions.
And sometimes one's propelling the other, sometimes one's replacing the other. So there's these cycles of movement that happen in landscape, and topography has a lot to do with that. So the next piece of it is designing a property. We talked about air distribution. Thinking about how air masses sit and move.
And that's not an easy thing to really recognize. It takes time to learn this, so take the time on your property to realize and go walk down to a valley and, throw some milkweed down and see how it, moves across the landscape. You'll be amazed at, there'll be a warm spot and a cool spot and this cool [00:17:00] spot will sometimes deflect, that milkweed.
And, maybe you have a water system, depending on, it's a degree of temperature, may deflect air. Sometimes it, pushes that warmer air away, depending on the time of day, depends on the temperature. If it's, a stagnant water pool, it'll be very constant.
Essentially, water has pretty low thermal conductivity. It doesn't change drastically. It's higher than, obviously, air. But it's very constant. And the consistency of it is really critical to understanding, in some of those valley areas, how to how air moves. So I'll end there, but I think those are all really important topics.
I want to get to barometric pressure, and I think it's important that we think about barometric pressure in a couple ways. So we typically use a barometer to measure, this pressure system. And pressure systems matter. So you go to tools like Zoom Earth or Weather Underground, and you look at these, these weather maps, and [00:18:00] I've got, zoom earth up all the time.
I'm looking at weather systems, right now there's a high pressure area, across the Midwest. That's, traveling towards a low pressure area, which is, sitting over, one of the areas that I'm currently in. And we look at those masses in different ways and say, okay, what is the weather system going to be like?
And it's this really, yeah. Interesting dynamic where the barometric pressure is going to give you an indicator of storm fronts and weather systems. So what you do is you take the barometric pressure and you overlay, these radar, weather, rain events, etc. And you get to see the relationship there.
And what you'll find is the intensity and they measure them in millibars. You'll see these. lines and ratings, et cetera. The intensity or distance between those is meaningful. I pay attention to weather. It's a big deal because it's not just jet stream that pushes these weather systems. It's which is a factor and it certainly jet streams is a predominant [00:19:00] factor.
Let's say we have a hurricane coming up the coast right in october and that's going to change atmospheric condition, which is going to create, a push and pull. So we'll get a lot of east winds or southeast winds at least on the east coast because of these other weather systems.
So you gotta look at big picture or part of planning. Now, you can dumb it down and just look at the apps and it'll just tell you, the weather conditions, but the important thing is to look at wind speed and change of wind speed. Because those inconsistencies, those gusts and lulls will impact your hunting scenario.
We talked about wind traveling, or pushing your scent molecules over long distances. We need to think about that in the scheme of things. So the concentration of scent over a distance is really critical. The intensity of that wind is meaningful. And how it disrupts or moves, or gusts or lulls, etc.
So the atmospheric pressure is created really by these two different air masses high pressure and low pressure system. And the intensity of those are going to vary. Some are very high and some are very low. And so we have to pay attention, to that,[00:20:00] bits of information.
If you have a a hurricane coming up the coast, the measurement's going to be a very low barometric pressure, indicating stormy weather. And rising barometric pressure, basically increases the air pressure, which essentially puts air pressure, like I said, on the surface, and eventually that allows some of those scent molecules to heat up and rise.
And so essentially you're cheating the wind in those conditions. So those are ideal days to hunt. The other piece of this I'm just going to mention, but plants, and this is definitely a sidebar conversation, I actually have had this already on this podcast, but I've talked about after a storm system comes in, a lot of times there's a lot of moisture in the ground, and plants are trying to release that moisture.
A lot of time it sits in the stem as well as the leaf, and it becomes a great food source. You'll see the volume of consumption increase, and the benefit because of the water content is huge for the animal. [00:21:00] So deer will have a tendency to eat, more or be more active during those time periods to take advantage of, the water content in the plants.
Very, standard. This is a pretty well known fact. Something that isn't really talked about much, but things that I pay attention to. It's a combination of a lot of things that are meaningful. So when we think about, these pressure systems and measurement, which is in inches of mercury.
So we typically think what's the range of good verse bad, right? Very simplistically, but in general. When air is dry and cool, it's usually pleasant and the mercury readings are typically rising, okay? So that would be like a 30. 2, at its peak. I think the past couple days, it's been, close to that.
So when it rises, it also means that you have clear weather, which is really important. When the weather is warm and wet, it means that the barometric pressure is starting to fall. And when the air pressure falls, that indicates, a [00:22:00] storm's coming. For some of us coming up here on a weekend, you might experience a low pressure system.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't hunt. It just means that there's a lot of instability. And instability is going to create this awkwardness of, can I get in an area? Can I hunt an area? And moisture content is extremely meaningful when it comes to deer. Their physiology is built around measurement.
So they're typically being stimulated by the environment around them. And they are, essentially, their olfactory is benefiting from moisture. One of the little tricks to the trade is picking when to hunt. Intense rains can be some of the best times to hunt because you can be bulletproof. High pressure days are also the right days to hunt in many instances because it's hard to be detected.
Picking those in between days are tough, so foggy days are really difficult to hunt because of the volume of moisture. It's important to think about that, and moisture typically [00:23:00] binds with scent molecules, which will create this static environment where, you know, basically, depending if it doesn't have a high intensity of wind, Your molecules, your scent molecules will attach to these, water molecules essentially and they'll stay stagged it in a particular area making it way easier for you to get nailed.
And these deer will pick you off, before you even a chance to draw your bow or shoot your gun or what have you. We like steady days and a duration of steady days specifically in conditions like I live where it's You know, it's weather depressed. So to my first point, pay attention to these things.
If you live in a bad, ugly area like me, you can relate to this. And not that I think my area is so bad, but, the hunting is okay, and the weather conditions aren't great but I grew up here, and I'm sticking around still. So the other measurements anything below 30. 2 and falling, that means again,[00:24:00] the present conditions are changing and be ready because as it gets colder, these moisture level conditions come in, you're going to start to experience that high levels of humidity, etc.
Which make you more detectable of feel, etc. But pay attention to those two factors. It's really important. Air rising and cooling and sinking and, all the things that happen with air is really important. And I did mention earlier the topography thing. And I want to make sure I hit on this point just one more time.
When we talk about and I've used this term improperly, but I call them cold sinks. The... thermal sinks or, thermal sockets called cold sinks. So in the evening, as the sun sets, there's no heating condition that's present. In very few instances does the weather stay static. There's usually a cooling effect that comes into play.
And as those cooling effects occur, your set [00:25:00] molecules are not benefiting from, a lot of times, not just the pressure system, but the heating aspect of it. Because heating is meaningful. I've been saved a couple times when I'm hunting because all of a sudden the sun comes out and heats up an area and all of a sudden my scent molecules start to rise right up.
It creates this thermal column. That doesn't happen in the evening. There's no such thing as thermals. Everyone uses this term improperly and somebody mentioned to me this recently and I want to make sure this is an important point. Thermals are not occurring in the evening. They're not. Cold air sink is what's happening, and that's displacing, moving your molecules in a direction usually of topography, and that's typically downhill.
So creating low spots or areas for your scent molecules to travel is really critical in your design, where you're in place, your tree stands, etc. And not allowing your scent molecules to go to locations that benefit the deer. You can design properties around this where you create multiple low spots and high spots, to [00:26:00] benefit yourself.
And having, incongruent ground can be a good thing when it comes to, air travel, etc. Rough friction creates this disturbance. A lot of times we want to put food plots right on the top of flats. And there's a couple of ways to affect these areas. I, some of the big names in the industry, I watched them do this, and it typically baffles me.
I actually have food plots in different locations for different purposes. And I shape the food plots thermals will travel, or thermals will, eventually benefit to one particular area. And my cold sink... Or my cold air conditions will benefit me in another different condition. So it's really thinking around each one of these elements when you're laying out a property.
Kind of involved now we start to think about it. This is just not an easy equation of, okay, I'm looking at landscape, I'm going to put bedding over here. And it's really how you cut the timber that affects the way the wind flows through those areas. You can make an area become unhuntable. Typically, I build bedding areas that are unhuntable.
I want to create a [00:27:00] landscape that is not huntable because what I find is if we create these areas that are not destined for humans, we typically stay away because we realize that we can't actually get in those areas. I'm not saying in some instances I don't design bedding areas to hunt them, but generally I don't.
I leave them for the deer. And I give them, the deer the advantage, and I give them multiple opportunities to relocate themselves based on wind conditions so they remain in a bedding area. I do not want deer to move long distances. If they do... You're going to lose those deer. Big landowners, you may not have to pay attention to these specifics.
This is the difference between areas that have high pressure hunting versus low pressure hunting. You've got to do every single thing correct. And if you don't, that deer is blown out of there. And the chances of you taking advantage, of a particular deer, I've got a mature buck that I've been focused on here for the past three days.
He has not moved off my property in three days. Has not moved at all and it's amazing to [00:28:00] me when you build the hunting property that you can contain these deer for longer periods of time He may move off the next couple nights in a for a few evenings and but he'll be back He knows where it's safe and he knows that he can advantage himself because of the way the property is set up I have given him an opportunity to remain on my property unencumbered by my pressure And impacted only by my neighbors, who my neighbors will benefit the way that they enter and exit their property and not, it's not just a sanctuary.
He has every advantage from the ability to smell, to see, to hear. They're designing a way where he becomes almost unhuntable. And I have to pick and choose when to go after that deer. That is the conundrum that I am dealing with. To get a deer to that age class, Oh, it's such a difficult thing. And there's only one of him.
There's only one five year old that I have on camera in multiple square miles at [00:29:00] this point. One. And it's impressive that he sticks to a property so well. So you can do it on your own property. I want it to be motivating to people. If I can do it, you can do it. I have 46 acres. And I got off the topic of wind.
But I want to talk a little bit about mountain areas. Really quick, because I deal with very mountainous terrain. And mountains are tricky. Generally, there'll be trends in mountains that you'll be able to see. So pay attention to this if you're a landowner. As wind travels over these, now, you gotta look at jet streams.
So look at the micro, macro climate and then zoom into your local, wind conditions. There'll be pressure systems that are created in these hills and valleys that will deflect and move, the weather systems at different locations. It'll be very consistent. You'll be surprised in the summertime it does this and the wintertime it does that.
With the advent of climate shift, things change a little bit but generally speaking, things are very consistent. The one thing that changes is when foliage changes, this kind of goes out the window. Foliage has a tendency to slow down [00:30:00] things, but if you just took a look at a, bare topography, as these pressure systems travel from high to low, wind is going to increase depending on the intensity.
And so as it hits mountains and valleys, it creates channels. And local direction and deflection of wind happens in these areas. So look at the actual, the magnitude of, these structures as a comparison to your lowland areas. What's the height and elevation? How sheer, the steepness of them?
Are they rock faced? Do they heat up in a certain way? On a certain side, so you've got to think about slope and aspect. And in that slope, if it's a very intense slope, a lot of times, depending on the type of vegetation, and the change in temperature, and the volume of moisture, you may get way more intense thermals.
And then you get, depending on the wind conditions, you'll get that mechanical direction or disturbance that breaks wind and thermal very difficult, particularly in the morning situations. Evenings, usually much easier. Again, depending on the weather conditions, the cooling effect, et [00:31:00] cetera, and that cold drift, et cetera.
It it moves, usually the air in certain directions, and usually it's downhill. And it's, you've got to pick and choose your angle of attack for deer in those conditions. Alright these mechanical effects will vary generally, when blowing across mountain ranges, sometimes they lift, if there's gaps you can play this out.
I've done this with a fog machine, in fact, a place that I took my kids recently. And I did a post on this on Instagram. You could see, how, these air masses travel against, the local topography and you can see how things deflect, et cetera. But basically creating turbulence happens with really sharp edges and changes.
So like in your own household, you go outside and see, you got a barn in a house and you've got open spaces and you've got trees and lines, you're going to have a ton of different mechanical disturbances because of just the surface areas. These structures are not porous like switchgrass or, a [00:32:00] standing set of pines or hardwood stand, they're structure without any transparency.
Without being porous, they're going to hit these structures and move off them. That comes another point of thinking about creating very dense structures. If you create a dense structure, like a travel corridor, why deer travel up and down those is because, Not only is there a benefit because mineral content usually higher in those areas along the edges, which is an interesting, fun fact, is wind travels up and down those.
And it creates this structure of movement, so wind will travel down those corridors and go a singular direction. So the deer want their, physical bodies up against those, not just for the cover aspect of it, but for the air and wind aspect of it. So it's interesting to think about that, and certainly when, wind goes from an opposing direction and perpendicular to that structure, it will eddy or turn and churn, off these kind of harder surfaces.
Yes, it will push through because it's porous, but in some instances it will [00:33:00] slow down. And so it's thinking about how to design layers, and we talked about walls of cover. The other purpose of the walls of cover is to create these layering effects, which slow down wind, which help the deer thermoregulate cool, warm, and we want the deer to stay...
at the right temperature in order for them to maintain their homeostasis state. We do not want them burning calories unnecessarily, trying to stay warm, etc. So think about, using that structure to benefit your deer because there is a thermal regulation element of this for deer. It's built in their physiology and the same would apply to you and I.
Let me see, where else do I want to go with this? Oh, I want to talk about fog real quick. I do not like hunting in the fog. Fog is probably one of the more dangerous things. I talked about the humidity levels earlier and I talked about odor molecules attaching to water molecules and sitting in areas.
Typically we most deal with radiation fog so what happens at night Heating from the day is radiating back into space. [00:34:00] It's essentially, it gets colder near the ground, and, there's usually, a warm air mass above it, and essentially it creates this thermal inversion. And when the temperature reaches dew point, that's the saturation level, condensation occurs at that point, and that creates this fog.
Deer move a lot in fog, and they move because they're advantaged. They're disadvantaged visually, but they're advantaged, with their nose. Depending on deer's physical status, it will use that to its particular benefit. Avection fog is another thing you'll deal with on coastlines. We have that in my area.
We have lake effect fog, so any of those that deal with lake effect, around the Great Lakes, etc., that's a big thing. And then in the mountain ranges, there's another type of fog in that, and... Essentially, condensation in kind of these areas keeps this heating and cooling concentrated.
And, same thing happens for those living in valleys, and you'll see these, fog effect areas and different [00:35:00] elevations and slopes. I deal with that actually in my area because my elevation change is so drastic. We go from zero to 700 feet in a short span. That may seem not like a lot for some of you out west, and I'm talking about west Colorado, but in our area, that's quite a big deal.
Alright, I've got some notes and I didn't pay attention to any of my notes today, I just started talking. Let's see what other important things are important for us. I talked a little bit about fluid dynamics and understanding, the difference between, gas and water, that's another thing.
So we talked about high pressure systems and low pressure systems. Remember, air, which is a gas, it compresses. I look at it. It's different because it has a, typically and water does this too in some capacity, but minimally, it's got these high pressure and low pressure systems. And they're so divergently, in opposition of each other, they don't deal with the exchange and the convection cycles the same way.
Water is [00:36:00] very basic. Water is just an example of, horizontally, how. Material, deals with friction and abutting friction or hitting friction. And so You know, as the stream rises and falls, it's going to hit different obstacles. But, horizontally, when it travels, it's going to hit different surfaces and it's going to react.
And it's your ability to assess how it's going to react in a very dense forest, or an uneven age managed forest, or when there's leaf foliage. There's more understory trees, depending on the density of the shrubbery. Building advantages to your deer in those scenarios is huge. Huge secret to my success huge reason why I have to be specific because I cannot make mistakes on my landscape with the type of deer that I'm going after.
Like I said earlier, it's tough I wish that I had all my clients killing 160 class deer or 180 class deer and I'm a little envious, so that's why I'm bringing that up. But certainly a difference between, my clientele being in the [00:37:00] Northeast. But I think people understand that.
One thing I wanted to just randomly mention is I have seen more people that have been big buck killers going out enjoying themselves and shooting deer that they're just happy to have an opportunity with. Life is short. We spend a lot of our times focusing on sometimes the wrong things. And I've done this for a good percentage of my life, spending more time hunting than I should have been at home.
And then I switched that in the later years, or the more, more recent years. And whether that benefited me or not, it doesn't matter, because your individual situation of how much time you can get away with, and how much time you can't, is very meaningful to you personally, but it has to be meaningful to everybody around you.
And if it's not, that creates a lot of conflict. And I just want to note that particular point, because I hear that quite a bit from people that I visit and clients that I have. Let's see other things. We talked about thermals, mechanical disturbance. We talked about the different types of impact we have when we have different [00:38:00] canopy levels, and different vegetation types, and some have more friction than the other.
The term stem density, which many of you will use, comes into play. And, let's see, we talked about fog. I talked about using different apps. A couple apps that I use. I definitely look at WinRose apps because you can see trends. Trends are really important. Thinking about trends on your property. But again, remind yourself that, I said for the past three years, I've said we've had a lot of south winds, a lot of southwest winds.
Five years before that, we, even in the early season, had a lot of north winds. It's cyclical and it's dependent on many factors, some you cannot judge. So if you're thinking about wind in your setup, have as many setups as possible. Give yourself the latitude to do that or be mobile and set those stands for those wind conditions.
But understand that the day and time is a meaningful thing in that. If it's gust, lulling, the different [00:39:00] variations of wind and the directions and how it deals with the friction on the surface. And if you're cutting timber, how it's impacted by that and these channels that you're creating. That's all meaningful.
Looking at, NOAA weather, that's important. Like I said, Zoom Earth is another tool that, that I use. All good information. Windy is an app that I use. I look at pressure systems. Actually, I think... Deer cast really does have great weather elements to it. I use that every now and again, I think they have the free version of it.
And I certainly look at that every now and again, thinking about your height and elevation is critical. I actually thought about the height of my stand before I hung it because I was looking at the resident, topography and to see if there'd be any deflection off. The vegetation that was locally, depending on when I wanted to hunt this particular stand today what would happen in that condition?
Would I be able to, for example, if I had a lot of vegetation around me, my molecules would come [00:40:00] off, they would hit that vegetation, and they could slow and potentially sink if there was a lull. Low in the wind. So I thought about the type of vegetation that was around that stand at that point in time and the height, so how would my wind deflect at this level, depending on the understory.
So if there's a lot of vegetation at the same elevation of you, that's why I'm not a big advocate of hunting low, even for good shot angles, because it is a detriment to your success in some capacity. It also gives you an opportunity to have, more even surface level molecules sitting on a horizontal plane, giving you a lower probability of success because the deer will easily come in contact.
And these deer that I'm hunting aren't dumb. They've been behaviorally taught to avoid stimuli like that. There isn't many shots that you get. It's a one and done kind of deal for some of the deer. Typically, stay away from bottomlands. I usually hunt the ends. And depending on the slope, I may hunt one end [00:41:00] rather than the other.
That's a very big thing with bottomlands. Setting up bottomlands to hunt are definitely doable. I've done it. It depends on the topography layout, etc. But you can set up bottomlands to hunt. They just have to be a time and place scenario. And you have to do a lot of analyzing and a lot of control of movement for the deer so they don't come in contact, with you and your scent.
Talked about relative humidity. Actually, when I'm planning out my hunt, relative humidity is a huge piece of the puzzle. Obviously humidity levels increase normally in the evenings, but a lot of times, during the day, I'm looking at the humidity levels. In some instances, I've found, depending on the humidity levels, that could be a factor in the way that deer move on the landscape.
And I did mention fog earlier, dual point levels, etc. So that is a huge factor or a large factor in my decision. Saturated days over 70%, definitely days I stay away from. Okay? Just important to consider. Right around the 50 percent level is [00:42:00] usually what I'm looking for. Alright, so let's see. I want to talk a little bit about ozone.
And I think ozone is something that we don't always focus on. I use a ozone machine. I've got a bunch of them. I've got ozone machines for my boots, I've got them for my clothing, I've got the bags, I've built my own ozone closets, essentially. And so ozone is an important molecule. Typically, it shows up when we have, storms.
And atmospheric winds push this molecule, towards... The the ground and you'll be able to smell, that molecule in some capacity, and if you've ever run an ozone machine, the intensity to that O3 is typically a lot greater, and so sometimes when atoms split, eventually they create an O3 molecule.
Sometimes they create a separate nitrogen and oxygen molecule, but an O3 molecule is somewhat volatile and it will actually [00:43:00] attach directly to a scent molecule and what it does, it oxidizes that particular molecule and degrades it. So you're, the concept of killing scent is Not exactly correct, but it reduces the volume of scent and replaces it with maybe even a more odorous molecule that will essentially complex or conflict with the molecule or your molecules that are coming off your body.
So that's the simple way to look at this whole, O3 or ozone scenario. So huge fan of ozone. There's a bunch of other concepts that I do in my clothing and boots that are separate, but definitely use ozone. I definitely recommend it. I'm not going to recommend, this brand versus that brand.
You can buy Ozone machines a lot cheaper. You can build Ozone rooms. I think some of you have probably seen that. I've given examples to my clients and they're right up and why I use it. Other things I want you all to pay attention on is just, again, we talked about having, different [00:44:00] devices to detect wind apps, what have you, using the milkweed, unscented puffers.
You can use bubbles if you want. You can do tests. Some tests that I've seen is, and actually Rocky Burris and I talked about this, is seeing how airtight your box blinds are, setting off smoke bombs in your box blinds. Looking at how smoke travels in and out of that box blind using carbon filters in your box blinds.
I think those are excellent. Knowing when to open and close your windows. How to aerate a box blind using fans. Some people have actually used fans, piping into tubes, sending them into ground, into barrels. See, all sorts of stuff. Filtering out, the scent molecules with county carbon filters.
I think that's an interesting idea. Using trail cameras to detect wind. Very interesting Tacticam, and I'm a Tacticam fan at this point because of the cost element of them and my clients are using them. And I've now become a dealer for them because I want my clients using them because [00:45:00] of the cost.
And you know the reason I like those is now they have really weather conditions in those pictures. They're indicating barometric pressure for your local area. and the wind at that point in time. But wind is relative again. Wind is not one directional. So I would suggest even including they typically have wind ribbons and you can make your own, but attaching a wind ribbon to a tree in the distance so you can see directionally.
A lot of times we face early season, I face a lot of my cell cameras north, and then I switch to south vice versa sometimes, it depends on the location, depends if I'm using a solar panel, so a lot of it depends on what I have for infrastructure, if I'm using a stake or I'm using a tree, but using something to indicate movement is really important, and a lot of times, I focus on the days that are not too calm, because I find that movement over time is a little more limited.
So I'm looking at relative humidity, [00:46:00] barometric pressure. I'm looking at, larger picture weather conditions. What's the stability of the air at that point, gusts and lulls. And there's a lot of factors that go into my decision to go hunt. So it's becomes a science project for me beyond the deer biology and behavior.
And I would caution people to Take it to that level, but recognize there's a bit of insanity and analysis and paralysis that comes with it, and gutturally you have to go after a deer. For example, today, I designed that property, or I designed this setup where a south wind you would think would be completely wrong to go after this deer.
It was exactly the right way. Now the deer was below me, he never came up to my location, so I was in the game. But weather wise and conditionally, I was still in the game tomorrow. The barometric pressure is going to slow a little bit. It's gonna and it depends on the heating cycle. So I'm looking at temperature change in the morning conditions, what my [00:47:00] relative aspect is in that particular location, how long it's going to take for, the heating cycle to start to hit my area and how quickly my You know, compounds are going to rise off my body.
What's the timing of that? There is so much that goes into this piece of it that kind of makes, and this is just the weather piece of it. Designing a hunting property, I think, is just as complex when you start to get to the nuts and bolts. All right, hopefully this gave you some insight into my mind and how I think.
I didn't really have many notes here to go off, or I just wanted to explain to you that it's important to take these topics and dial them in so you know what's going on. I appreciated everybody listening to this podcast. I hope that you, if you want to attend my class, get a hold of me soon. I do not anticipate the class being available.
I'm limiting the size of the class. It will be a game changer for you. If you want to take your hunting to the next level, and your property to the next [00:48:00] level, and be successful, this will do it. And I guarantee it with the paperwork, and the concepts, and the ideology, and I'm very basic. We dumb it down, we make it make sense, and this is much more involved than I think.
We need to make it, but for me and my area, and low deer numbers, and hard to hunt areas, and a lot of hunting pressure, I need to do everything I can to advantage myself. And behaviorally, these deer are taught from a young age to survive. And a two year old is not a dumb deer in my area. If he wins you, he is gone.
You get one shot at a deer even at that age class. So I'm conscious of that and so it's important for my clients to recognize my perspective and that's why, I'm able to do what I'm able to do with my business. All right. So I appreciate the time. I appreciate you listening. Thank you.
Please continue to rate this podcast. I am not doing this for any advertising dollars. I do not get paid to do this. I do not want to get paid [00:49:00] to do this at this point. I don't have any intention of that. I've enjoyed this because it's allowed me to be free. I can speak my mind and I want to keep it that way.
So your reviews and ratings are motivating to me. This will not ever be a paid prescription or a subscription type podcast. I see other people going that route. I will give you more information than that over time. I will teach you some of the things that I'm going to be teaching in this class that I have on my own property.
And there's obviously, a lot of important things. You can, we can baffle each other with baloney and ideology, but I'm a rubber meets the road kind of guy, and if it doesn't work, it's not on my property, it's not in my shop, and it's not being taught to my clients. And I don't deal with junk, I want high quality stuff.
Alright, that's it for me. Good luck hunting season. Hopeful everyone is successful, and if you're not, keep grinding. You'll make it a successful one way or the other. Thanks for following Whitetail Landscapes. See ya. [00:50:00] Maximize Your Hunt is a production of Whitetail Landscapes. For more information on how John Teter and his team of experts can help you maximize your hunt, check out WhitetailLandscapes.
com
