00:00:00
Speaker 1: What is going on? This is Jake Hofer and welcome to another episode of Back 40. This is our last batch with Adam Keith, Aaron Warburton, Bill Wienke, and Jeff Sturgis. We’re going to be bringing in a new panel October 15th, and they’re going to be here until the end of the year. But it’s October 1st, and with October 1st begins many, many decisions throughout the entire season. In fact, I would be scared to tally up how many decisions a hunter makes throughout an entire season? Do I hunt? Do I not hunt? Should I try to swing for the fences? Do you think I can get away with this wind? All these different decisions that go into almost every single hunt. And so for this episode, I’m asking them for decisions hunters make that cost them more deer and opportunities than they realize. So the root of this question is to provide either some liberty on what decisions you might be overthinking. And then the flip side of that is, what decisions you might be making that ultimately is costing you opportunity. And season only comes around once a year, and we want to make the most of it. So I hope you guys really enjoyed this episode with our panel of guests for this week’s episode of Back 40. And before we get into this week’s episode presented by Moultrie, some exciting news. It’s Whitetail Week, and we are going to be doing the ultimate whitetail giveaway. So get ready to take your hunting season to the next level with the ultimate whitetail giveaway featuring over $ 23, 000 in prizes, including… And that’s not all. One lucky winner will be going on a fully guided muzzleloader hunt at Running Water Hunting, hosted by outfitter Jordan Budd. and hunting alongside Mark Kenyon. So how do you get in? Visit First Light contest page at firstlight.com and fill out the entry form to get started. You’ll be automatically entered for a chance to win the gear and hunt package, plus earn additional entries with every purchase you make at firstlight.com. Don’t wait. The giveaway ends Monday, October 12th, 2026 at 1159 p.m.
00:02:15
Speaker 2: Mountain Time.
00:02:20
Speaker 1: So be sure to check it out. Whitetail Week, get loaded up with any first light gear you’ve been putting off and get comfortable, get ready for this upcoming season and have a chance to win a $ 23, 000 prize package and ultimately a hunt with Jordan Budd and Mark Kenyon at Running Water Outfitters. All right, getting right into it. We’re going to kick things off with Aaron Warburton from The Hunting Public and get his opinion on the decisions that could ultimately be costing you more opportunities than you can realize.
00:02:53
Speaker 3: All right.
00:02:53
Speaker 1: The whitetail calendar is full of a bunch of different decisions. Where to go. When do I take my vacation time? Like we talked about last week, how to hang a stand, where to hang the stand, where to set up, where not to set up all these different things. But if you could think of one decision universally that most hunters make that cost them more deer than they realize. So meaning a decision that is costing them more opportunity than maybe what they could even imagine. And they need to hone in on it for this year. And it could be a decision that gets made every day. It could be a decision that gets made every hunt. It could be anything.
00:03:27
Speaker 4: I would go back to what we talked about a couple of episodes back there, wherever we were discussing your time management and basically how to be efficient with your time. So are you making a decision that is very inefficient with it?
00:03:46
Speaker 2: Because.
00:03:47
Speaker 4: Most of us are in the same boat.
00:03:49
Speaker 2: Our time is very valuable.
00:03:52
Speaker 4: If you’re in my situation, mid, late 30s, got a family, got to work, got all this other stuff going on, you need to be very, very strategic with your time. So I’ll kind of go back to what we talked about a little bit on this. I know I’m regurgitating some of the same stuff, but this is really important. If you have a, if you have a couple hours that you can get out and go scout, go do that, you know, and use the conditions of that day to your advantage. If you have only a couple of days to hunt, maybe you don’t send it all the way into the very back of the property on the first day. And you blow that up and you also spend all that time walking through there. It’s like you’re, you’re not being efficient with your time. I mean, we think about that on public all the time. It’s like, you want to get to the very back corner. That back corner is two and a half miles back.
00:04:46
Speaker 2: It takes you three hours to walk there.
00:04:48
Speaker 4: You know, it’s, it’s, it’s the, it’s always, well, it’s greener pastures, you know, it’s, well, that’s where the big ones are going to be. Well, it takes you two and a half hours to get there. You got to wake up at 3 a.m. 2 a.m. to get all the way in there and to be set up correctly. Well, If you try that and it doesn’t work, you just walked your butt off, you exhausted yourself, you didn’t get enough sleep the night before, you kind of pushed in too many chips too early there, and then it doesn’t work out and you can’t easily jump to plan B, C, or D because you’re two and a half miles in. That’s like your whole day. So that’s the opposite of being efficient in my mind. I would much rather… maybe not even go hunting. I’d rather just spend half the day scouting and go boom, boom, boom, boom, scout like four or five different spots. And I like to have scouting locations in mind within those spots where I can kind of jet in, jet out, and understand if the bucks are in there or not.
00:05:53
Speaker 2: Just based off of looking at sign. Like I might just jet out.
00:05:57
Speaker 4: An oak ridge and realize like, oh, red oaks are just started dropping in here.
00:06:01
Speaker 2: There’s some fresh poop. There’s a fresh rub. There’s a fresh scrape there here right now. What do I need to do?
00:06:06
Speaker 4: And then I’ll drop a couple of pins and then jet back out and go check another spot. I mean, it may only be 300 yards in the truck, but I’m wanting to be as efficient as possible with that time. That’s the, I think that’s the main thing that people where they, they get behind the eight ball on is if they don’t gather enough of that information. And, uh, you know, and this even includes what we were discussing last time on the weather. If you got bad weather, and you have the time to go, go, don’t necessarily hunt, but go and figure something out. Use the time wisely. You only have so much of it. So if you have wet, if it’s raining, pouring and windy and you can’t hunt, then go out there and put on a poncho and walk and figure out what the heck’s going on. Cause that’s going to help you when you can go in two days or whatever.
00:07:04
Speaker 1: How, um, how efficient do you feel? How much more efficient do you feel now than maybe even what you were seven years ago, 10 years ago, when it comes to efficiency with time specifically?
00:07:15
Speaker 4: Oh, I’m light years ahead now than what I used to be because I used to just be, you know, living out of my car in a, you know, cheap apartment and I didn’t have nothing else to worry about. So I could just kind of go out whenever I wanted, you know, now I got a family at home. I got a house and there’s property to take care of.
00:07:34
Speaker 2: And, a job.
00:07:36
Speaker 4: I got employees to worry about. Um, I got lots of stuff, other stuff that I got to deal with. So I have to be very intentional and efficient with my time out there in order to be successful.
00:07:49
Speaker 1: Do you feel with, with, um, cause this is, this is a topic that comes up in a lot of different interviews that I’ve done over the years where people, you know, the less I hunted, the more success I found. Uh, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the less I work I put in, you know, like I think that sometimes that’s lost in translation, but Do you feel you can get to that point without that phase? Because when people bring that up, they always say, I used to hunt a bunch, used to hunt a bunch, used to hunt a bunch. And I feel like that almost sets it up to where you become very efficient. For someone that’s newer listening and they hear like, man, you got to be efficient with your time, pick your days, be smart about it. Do you feel they have to go through that awkward stage of being super inefficient to become efficient? Or do you think you can skip that step?
00:08:29
Speaker 2: Oh, I don’t know.
00:08:29
Speaker 4: It depends on the person and, you know, their personality probably. but I think you could probably skip some of those steps. I mean, you don’t, it depends on what you want though. You know, when you’re younger and you’re just getting into this, you want to be hunting as much as possible. Like you want to be out there sitting there with your bow and waiting for something to happen.
00:08:49
Speaker 2: But as you get older, you realize like.
00:08:51
Speaker 4: Oh, this is a low odd setup, or this is a, you know, I have very little confidence that a mature buck is going to come in here. We might see a doe or whatever, and that’d be fine. I’m, I don’t have days to burn like that anymore. Um, so I’m not really telling anybody that’s younger and just getting into this, how to do this. There’s, there’s a bunch of different ways to skin the cat, but if you’re wanting to skip some of those steps, you certainly can. I just would encourage you to scout way, way more than you hunt and get those setups dialed in and that, that plan dialed in so that you’re ready to rock and roll when the time is right. That could mean a variety of different things, but I don’t know. I, The more time that goes on, the more scouting I do.
00:09:36
Speaker 5: Really?
00:09:38
Speaker 6: Yes.
00:09:39
Speaker 4: So overall time in the woods, if you combine scouting and hunting has probably went down.
00:09:45
Speaker 2: I know it’s went down in the last 10 years.
00:09:47
Speaker 4: I don’t spend as much time out there, but my time now is much more intentional than it used to be.
00:09:53
Speaker 2: And I spend, I guess the.
00:09:56
Speaker 4: Proportion of scouting to hunting, I spend way more time scouting now than I do hunting. And back then it used to be kind of an even split. So I might hunt 40 days in a fall, you know, and I might hunt or I might scout 20, 30 days.
00:10:12
Speaker 2: Now I may, I may.
00:10:13
Speaker 4: Scout 30, 40 times in a year. And I may hunt half a dozen times.
00:10:22
Speaker 5: Wow.
00:10:23
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:10:23
Speaker 1: You know. That’s an interesting, yeah, that’s interesting.
00:10:27
Speaker 4: I’m looking at, I’m looking at lots of different setups and positions, but this is all, this is public land hunting, you know, across multiple states.
00:10:34
Speaker 2: Different style.
00:10:35
Speaker 4: So if you’re on one property, that’s, that’s a tough one to crack because if you’re on one relatively small property and you’re really wanting to hunt a lot, You certainly can, but keep your expectations in check. Like that farm that we hunt all the time, my family farm, we have one stand in the middle of that farm in a big white oak tree that, I mean, we really don’t have to do anything but just go there on a cold front day when the northwest wind’s blowing in late October and we’re probably going to see a good buck.
00:11:10
Speaker 6: Yeah.
00:11:10
Speaker 4: I mean, we don’t have to go there to do anything other than maybe show up in July sometime and make sure the straps are still good Yeah.
00:11:17
Speaker 2: We don’t have to, we don’t even set foot in there.
00:11:19
Speaker 4: I mean, other than doing habitat work, we may go in there and do some like growing season burns and stuff like that.
00:11:24
Speaker 2: But as far as.
00:11:26
Speaker 4: Hunting goes, we don’t, we don’t hunt it, but maybe two or three times a year and that’s on a hundred acres.
00:11:34
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:11:36
Speaker 1: Well, it’s October 1st. So, uh, Aaron, I appreciate you walking through this entire buildup to the entire season. And covering all these different questions and dilemmas that I think a lot of people really face if they’re being honest. These thoughts, I feel, come across everyone’s mind at some point. So I really, really appreciate it. One last time, where can people find you? Which I’m sure they already know who you are and what you have going on. But in case they haven’t, where can they do that? Best place would be.
00:12:04
Speaker 4: The Hunting Public on YouTube and then all the social media platforms. We’ve also on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok and whatnot.
00:12:13
Speaker 1: All right, that’s what we have from Aaron. Get ready to hear what Bill Winkie has to say. Same statement, same dilemma. Let’s hear what he has to say. All right, Bill, we’re closing out this mini series of Back 40, so I appreciate you tagging along. It’s October 1st, and I figured what’s a better way to maybe provide more clarity or more confusion for this upcoming season? And the idea is, what’s a decision that most, what’s one decision most hunters make that costs them more deer than they realize? Because I feel like There’s so many decisions that go into a season. So many decisions. If you break it down on a weekly basis or daily basis or afternoon, do I hunt here or do I hunt there? But what’s one, I guess, habit or decision that costs people so many deer that they don’t even realize it?
00:13:01
Speaker 7: Well, in a roundabout way, it’s kind of easy to answer that because in order for them to not realize they’re making the mistake, it has to be something that that they’re not seeing or not picking up on, if they’re not in their stand, they’re not going to know the deer that walked past it. And I think the, that is one mistake that people could make and not even realize it’s a mistake because they get bored or let’s say, you know.
00:13:28
Speaker 6: Some people, they get hungry or whatever it is.
00:13:30
Speaker 7: And at 10 o’clock in the morning, they’ve been sitting there for four and a half hours or whatever, you know, they’re like, ah, I got to get out of here. I’m just, you know, I’m getting, uh, stir crazy. You know, I can’t stand this, you know, sitting any longer. So they climb down and leave. Well, I mean, especially if they’re hunting near a bedding area, that spot can be good all day long. I mean, it can be good right up until like an hour before the end of legal shooting time if you’re back in the timber. You know, the deer are going to be active and moving around. And occasionally, obviously, if it’s warm, they’re going to be bedded for, you know, big parts of the day. But if it’s not a hot day, they’re going to be up, you know, on and off. throughout the whole day. And if you’re not there, you don’t know what you missed. And, you know, and I’m guilty of it too. Part of it is because of the filming that we do. It’s, it’s kind of hard for us, you know, with all the things that we have to do with the video production to stay on stand all day.
00:14:31
Speaker 6: And we do, we do it.
00:14:34
Speaker 7: It’s just a little bit more demanding because there’s a lot of little things that we have to take care of that, that, you know, really it makes it easier if we come out at midday, but I’m getting better about staying all day. I’d say I hunted all day, I bet you a dozen times last season. And, uh, you know, I wouldn’t say that I necessarily got rewarded for it, but you know, some years you do and some years you don’t, but, um, no, the odds have to add up. If you’re not in the tree, you’re not going to kill them. So, um, I’m just going to stick with that answer that that’s an easy mistake for people to make, and they don’t realize they’re doing it.
00:15:15
Speaker 6: It’s a simple decision. Oh, man, I’ve had enough. I’m hungry.
00:15:20
Speaker 7: Or some excuse. Well, I got to get home and check on XYZ. Well, they really don’t. Or Michigan’s playing Ohio State, and you don’t have to watch that. They’re going to be on the Big Ten Network for the next month. You don’t have to go back and watch that. Um, so anyway, that’s, I think that’s the one is we, we find excuses to get out of the tree.
00:15:45
Speaker 1: That’s an excellent, an excellent answer because I feel like everyone has done that. They played the mental gymnastics of, well, exactly. I mean, I’ve, I’ve been guilty of this, like, man, that email I need to get to has just been burning a hole in my pocket since I read it, which I shouldn’t even open up my email because now it’s all I can think about. Like, I feel like everyone falls into whatever category of their life that they have. They feel like they have to address it right now. And has that gotten easier over the years?
00:16:12
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think so.
00:16:13
Speaker 7: I think when you get older, I think your pace slows down. I remember reading a Gene Wentzel book many years back, many years back. And he was saying, I can’t wait till I get older. I’m like, gosh, that doesn’t sound good. And I can wait. But then Gene’s point was, I’ll be more patient. you know, I can sit longer. I’m not going to be as quick to get out of the tree. So I think there’s some truth to that. But you can rewire your central nervous system. It takes a few days. But if you force yourself to sit all day, you know, for a couple of days, you know, I’d say within, after that, you can go two weeks hunting every day, all day. And it’s just like your system gets reprogrammed, but it’s hard at first, you know, because we’re all wired for now we’re wired.
00:17:12
Speaker 6: For instant, you know, action.
00:17:13
Speaker 7: And, you know, I, I guess you could take your phone and you can entertain yourself with that. But, you know, I try not to look at the phone very much because I’ve been caught looking at the phone when I should be looking, looking around.
00:17:25
Speaker 1: How, this is a really dumb question, but how do you, how do you sit all day when it’s slow. Like I’m picturing it’s 1130 and you haven’t seen a deer since eight o’clock and you’re like.
00:17:38
Speaker 7: Well, you have to keep reminding yourself what it’s going to look like when that buck that you’re hunting shows up. Um, I hunted a deer in Kansas one time and my, I’d never saw the deer. My friend, his name is Rod Ponton. He had permission for me on this property. And he said that somebody had seen the deer on the property bordering it the week before I got there. And he said, it’s a honest to goodness, world record white tail giant. He’s, He described it to me.
00:18:05
Speaker 1: Typical or not typical?
00:18:07
Speaker 6: It was a typical. Okay.
00:18:09
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:18:09
Speaker 7: It was like a big six by six, like a 215 or something stupid, you know? And so I sat there every day, all day for like 10 days, never saw the deer. I mean, I only saw maybe two bucks during, you know, all those 10 days because it was a long shot because, you know, that was before trail cameras and I was living off one sighting. on the adjoining property from, you know, several days before I got there. So I could keep myself glued though, because I would continue to visualize or to imagine what that would look like. Cause I think the reason we do this, you know, I’ve kind of narrowed it down after all these years. I don’t do it because I want somebody to pat me on the back because I really don’t care once the deer is dead. It’s the fun’s gone. You know, that’s the quest, but it’s also that adrenaline rush. You know, I think it’s why people jump out of airplanes. It’s why people do, you know, they climb, you know, the stuff at Yosemite when they know they shouldn’t, you know, El Capitan and they fall off there. Well, why are they climbing that stupid rock? You know, it’s the adrenaline rush. And I think that’s what we live for because when that buck shows up, it’s like, oh man, every ounce, every fiber in your whole body is like instantly alive. There’s not too many other things you can do. And I don’t know that I’ve ever done anything in my life that stimulates everything inside of me. Like seeing that buck that you’ve been hunting. It doesn’t have to be a giant. I mean, I’ve had the same thing happen on 130 inch deer as on, you know, way bigger deer.
00:19:56
Speaker 6: It’s just the one that you’re after. It’s like, there he is, there he is, you know.
00:20:00
Speaker 7: So I think that’s what drives me during those slow times is just the knowledge that if I can just stick it out, eventually I’m going to be rewarded by that moment. And I don’t know why that moment is so precious. I don’t know what that does to us, but for some reason, that’s what trips my trigger. You know, like making the quest come to completion. And, you know, without having that buck show up, you’re just sitting in a tree, you know, and, you know, you’re a birdwatcher or you’re a whatever you want to call it. But the fact that you’re hunting that deer, gives purpose to the time. It creates that quest. So I guess that’s what I key on is like, what is it going to look like? When, as soon as I started getting bored or start getting lazy, even lazy in my approach to how I sneak in and out and all that stuff, I keep reminding myself that I’m only one minute away potentially from that, you know, having that experience.
00:21:01
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:21:02
Speaker 1: Well, I think that’s the perfect October 1st motivation everyone wants to hear. And I think the decision not to go is going to be what potentially haunts you. I mean, I feel like everyone’s had some point where it’s like November 13th and you’ve been hunting really hard for like seven days. You’re like, man, I’m just going to sleep in. And then everyone’s like, oh my gosh, it was the best day of the year.
00:21:22
Speaker 6: Well, I had that happen in 2021.
00:21:24
Speaker 7: I was hunting a lease that I had and I was going to go back to the house.
00:21:30
Speaker 6: I’ve had enough.
00:21:30
Speaker 7: I’ve been there for like 12 straight days. And that was back when I was sleeping in the woods every night. You know, I wasn’t even, you know, I didn’t even have a bed. I was either sleeping in my ground blind or I was sleeping in a sleeping bag on the ground at the base of the tree. And, you know, I was really getting burned out. And I thought, oh man, I’m just tired of this. And it was like, like you said, it was like the 12th or 13th. And I said, I’m just going to give it one more day. I’m not going to leave yet. Well, I killed the buck I was after. I mean, I’d, I’d been after that deer the whole time, the whole, you know, two weeks. And then he finally, I got the shot and it was like you said, I mean, I was just, I was burned out.
00:22:07
Speaker 6: I was tired of it.
00:22:08
Speaker 7: I just wanted to take a break, but you know, it worked out. So that’s what you have to remind yourself is that, you know, at any second, any minute, your whole season can pivot and it can only do that if you’re there, you know, it’s not going to happen if you’re, if you found some excuse to sleep in or, uh, some excuse to go home and watch the football game on TV or whatever it is. If you’re not there, that season can’t pivot.
00:22:37
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I like it. Bill, you guys, do you post a video about, is it once a week at least? Is that a fair?
00:22:45
Speaker 6: During the season?
00:22:46
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:22:47
Speaker 6: It’s like every day.
00:22:48
Speaker 1: Every day. All right. It’s October 1st. There’s new videos almost every day.
00:22:51
Speaker 6: Every day.
00:22:52
Speaker 1: If people want to join the fun, they need to see what you’re up to and maybe pick off some tips along the way. What is the channel? I’m sure everyone can punch in your name and find it, but I’m going to make you say it.
00:23:03
Speaker 6: Oh, yeah. It’s the Bill Winkie channel on YouTube.
00:23:07
Speaker 3: All right.
00:23:07
Speaker 1: Jumping into Adam Keith’s take on decisions that are costing you more opportunities than you can ever realize. The whole entire Whitetail calendar is a stacked full of decisions every step of the way. There’s constant decisions that you have to be making. Where do I hang this stand? Do I hang it facing north or south or off, you know, three quarters northeast? What do I plant? Which we talked about earlier in this back 40 series. Um, when do I hunt all these different things? We’re constantly making decisions and they all have either positive or negative benefits, but I want to focus on the negative here right now and ask the question, what’s, what’s the most common one decision most hunters are making that’s costing them more deer than they likely realize. Yeah.
00:23:50
Speaker 3: Yeah. And they’re going to turn it off 10 seconds after I answer this. Um, So sorry about the downloads here, but, um, I would say that in my opinion, so this is my opinion, not yours, uh, or anyone else’s, so it can be wrong, but I think guys hunt too much. I think they hunt too many bad days, too many poor days. They go on the weekend because it is the weekend. And I just feel like guys put too much pressure on their farm that doesn’t have the adequate habitat to give them that grace of you can have a little bit more inconsistent winds or a little bit poor access. But you have the high quality bedding, so they’re going to stay. I feel like so many guys have poor habitats. And they hunt too much, and therefore, the deer are now leaving and going to isolated areas of their home range to avoid the pressure.
00:24:53
Speaker 1: Easier said than done, because it’s like— That phrase. What’s the phrase? You can’t kill him on the couch. That’s what we always tell ourselves. I can’t kill him on the couch.
00:25:02
Speaker 3: Well, you can darn sure scare him over to the neighbor’s property.
00:25:06
Speaker 6: Yeah.
00:25:07
Speaker 3: And I think that if something as a father with a young family and social media has filled my algorithm of things that make me cry because of my kids, I would say I’m pleading more and more each day with dads to not hunt so hard and create that negative connotation with hunting for their kids and their wife. Like I’m pleading for you to find and learn to hunt the best days and spend less time in the tree stand more time with your family and still kill more deer because you picked the right days.
00:25:49
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:25:50
Speaker 1: So this is October 1st in this, this scenario too. So this is when this episode goes live on October 1st. And so I feel like that’s a, maybe the hardest time for someone to hear that. It’s like, what do you mean? It’s October 1st and archery season just opened in Illinois, Iowa, all these other states that opened October 1. What do you mean? What are you talking about? You’re nuts. Yeah, and so, I mean, for someone that you have to convince here a little bit harder of like, yeah, I hear you, but I just, you know, a lot of people feel guilty when they don’t go. Let’s say they have a free day in October and it’s 90 degrees and it’s a Saturday and they’re like, man, I worked all week and I want to go out.
00:26:28
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:26:29
Speaker 1: I mean, what do you say to that guy?
00:26:30
Speaker 3: I would say, do you have a deer identified that’s on the property? If you don’t, then are you going to go shoot does? Because we need to do that too, most likely. So do you have a buck on camera?
00:26:43
Speaker 4: No.
00:26:44
Speaker 1: Okay.
00:26:45
Speaker 3: That’s a strike one. What’s the weather look like? Oh, it’s still hot. There’s very little wind. And you have no idea where he’s betting.
00:26:54
Speaker 2: Strike two.
00:26:55
Speaker 1: Oh, sorry. This isn’t baseball.
00:26:57
Speaker 3: You’re out. Strike three came with that one. I would say if you don’t have an idea of where they’re at and if they’re on the property, then let the property cook. Let it keep getting better. It’s only going to get better the more you stay out. And so I have no problem, too. I’ll speak both sides of my mouth. Riding the hole, hunting more, if we’ve identified… a deer that we’re hunting and we have good access, then I have no problem hunting it multiple times. But so many times I see guys and friends of mine that are, that are hunting.
00:27:32
Speaker 1: It’s like, well, who are you hunting? I don’t, I don’t, I just want to go out there. Okay.
00:27:38
Speaker 3: I understand that, that hunting is a, an escape, but don’t come crying the moan and crying and moaning in late October when there’s nothing there.
00:27:46
Speaker 1: Yeah. That’s the second part of the conversation that, that gets lost because, And it’s even, as a community, I feel like we kind of perpetuate this. Like, October 1st, I’m going to text you and say, have you been out yet? What have you been seeing? You know, it’s like, oh, you haven’t even gone yet? Do you even like hunting?
00:28:02
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:28:03
Speaker 1: Huh? You’re just at home watching football, aren’t you?
00:28:07
Speaker 6: Yes.
00:28:08
Speaker 3: And I would totally say that most of the time in talking to people, especially buddies, is like, it almost like for several years, I generally try to pride myself on Fewer days in the tree stand with more success. Like, I feel like that’s important to me to spend more time with my, you know, my kids love a local amusement park in the fall. They love going. And I’m like, at some point in my life, I’m going to be maybe, maybe not laying in a hospital bed and there won’t be a deer head one around me. It will be my kids and my wife. And I just look at it going, I need to spend time with them. They’re only young one time. And at some point when they’re teenagers and I’m not as cool, then I might hunt more. But for me right now, it’s like I’ll make excuses to not hunt because making the excuses to not hunt means that when I do find the reason to hunt, the property’s probably in better condition. The deer are less pressured. I have a higher probability of getting that deer in bow range. Yeah.
00:29:16
Speaker 1: And I think the other side of this, and I’m projecting a little bit, which might make someone or a couple people mad. But it’s like you spent a lot of days in the field before season two. And I feel like the can’t kill from the couch crowd wasn’t out there scouting in the offseason, wasn’t doing all of the buildup to season to where it’s like, man, I stacked the cards in my favor. I’m gonna strike when i have the best hand versus i didn’t do that and now i feel like i’m trying to play catch up and i know that sounds bad but it’s probably the truth if we’re being honest if you have.
00:29:47
Speaker 3: A bag of chips i use more chips in the off season making the habitat planting the food plots doing all of that to where i have fewer chips but those are really really high dollar chips in the hunting season I drew a Kansas tag this year, probably going to hunt public ground. My bag of chips is in scouting, hunting, all combined. It’s like all in, just throw them on the table. I’m all in because I have to figure this out very quickly. And so for some of the guys listening or a lot of guys listening, they may be in that situation where it’s like, I have permission.
00:30:21
Speaker 1: I have a permission piece. A lot of people. Yeah.
00:30:23
Speaker 3: And so I would say, hey, this fall, you’re kind of in this second scenario where You’re scouting and hunting together. But hey, you know, in the off season, talk to that landowner, do the works of 2027, you can have more success. But as far as hunting more, regardless of have I done any habitat improvement or not, I would say identify the weather that’s increasing the probability that he’s going to be on his feet. And it’s not 85, six mile an hour.
00:30:55
Speaker 1: Wind, In a bottom.
00:30:59
Speaker 6: In a bottom. In a bottom.
00:31:00
Speaker 1: Like, that’s not the scenario.
00:31:02
Speaker 3: So I would always say when people say, you can’t kill him on the couch, because I get that a lot.
00:31:06
Speaker 1: Have you been yet? I’m like, no, I haven’t been yet. The weather sucks. He’s not really, he’s on property. Yeah, are you a fraud, Adam? Yeah, are you a fraud? Yeah.
00:31:16
Speaker 3: And I’d say, no, I mean, the chance is not great. And the more time I go when the chances aren’t great, I think the days that the chances are good, you’re just diminishing that because you’ve overpressured.
00:31:29
Speaker 1: I like it. Well, we’re off to October here, and I appreciate you joining this season of Back 40. Next week, we’ll have a new batch of guests, but I really appreciate you walking us through this off-season and the build-up and then giving a… Let’s use that pressure valve accordingly with the weather for the season. So I really appreciate it. If they haven’t found you yet with all the other episodes we’ve done, where can people hunt you down?
00:31:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can check us out on major social media platforms for Lane of Legacy, as well as the podcast platforms.
00:32:03
Speaker 1: And now we’re going to jump into what Jeff Sturgis, who has seen a lot of farms, a lot of perspective, and has talked to a lot of hunters to hear what mistakes people are maybe unknowingly making. Here we go. All right. Throughout the season, it’s October 1st. There’s already been a lot of decisions leading up to October 1st. But even as we get deeper and deeper in every single hunt and every single decision, there is a bunch of decisions hunters make some that have high stakes, some of them that have low stakes. But overall, what’s one decision most hunters make that costs them more deer and more opportunity than they realize?
00:32:39
Speaker 5: Hunting too often. And so I can preface that by saying, especially on private land, when you have public land, and even in a public land area, if you want to manage the area, like I like hunting remote and deep, getting away from people. So I want to hunt herds that are a little bit more stable because they’re not pressured as much, then you’re in for the long haul. Your private land chunk, you’re in for the long haul, especially on private land because you can’t just go move somewhere else. Even if you have 160 acres, you move a half mile, you’re on someone else’s property. So when you spook that deer herd and they run a quarter mile, you really don’t have any choices. So By hunting too much, you’re spreading your scent around. You’re not increasing your odds. In fact, every time you sit during a bad day, a bad weather day, you spook deer, then you’re lowering your chances each and every set. And so you really can kill more deer from the couch. When you have that public land sit for a week, you’re going in for five to seven days. Even then you can manage where you sit on public land to say, well, this is a good spot for early in the season. This is more invasive. We’ll do it later on day five or six. Sometimes there are those great funnels on public land. You just hunt them every day because your scent can blow in somewhere you don’t know. You might be shooting that buck that comes around every five days and he comes from three miles away. So, you know, that’s a little bit different on public land. It’s almost a race then, you know, opening day, public land, you go get them before someone else does. But typically your manager, your hunt and the places I hunt for the long haul, And that means you have to pick and choose your time. And what I find is when you do that and you hunt smart with a high level of strategy, you have a certain buck you’re after. Over a 10-year period, you’ll shoot them 80% of the time. So that’s what I find is that you’re getting that buck, however many states you’re hunting in, 80% of the time because you’re hunting smart and you’re playing the long game.
00:34:36
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:34:37
Speaker 1: Do you think that is just really hard for people to actually stick through? Like very simple concept.
00:34:41
Speaker 5: Extremely, extremely hard because… You know, I remember as a young hunter, I went every weekend. And now when I went every weekend, I really tried to hunt the wind, play the wind, hunt the stands that I thought were best for morning, afternoon, develop a morning and afternoon structure of hunting, morning in bedding areas, by bedding areas, backside of bedding areas, and then afternoon for a food source movement. Some might even hunt one stand in the morning, one stand, rarely a certain stand all day. But it’s really, really hard because you have to put faith in less.
00:35:12
Speaker 3: And so.
00:35:14
Speaker 5: Sometimes people want that immediate gratification. We always do as humans.
00:35:18
Speaker 6: We want to go in.
00:35:19
Speaker 5: We want to enjoy the hunt. We want to get out there. You want to enjoy. You bought this property. You just bought a new bow, equipment, whatever it might be. It’s like you have to justify it by going out hunting more when you’re really, really hurting your chances. And so it takes a lot of patience. I think when you try it and you hunt smart, hunt by the weather, hunt with reason every time you go into the woods, whether this is a morning stand, this is an afternoon stand, This is a stand I should wait till the rut. And you have a purpose with each set. You blow your scent into a non-deer area. You access through non-deer and it comes to fruition and you have success. Then what I find is that success builds on the next. It builds confidence. And all of a sudden, a system of hunting that you wouldn’t have considered years earlier has now accounted for more bucks and older bucks than you’ve ever shot before in a short period of time. and it’s cemented for life. So I encourage you to try that and, um, and really learn that less is more sitting on the couch does pay off and, uh, it’ll bring you more deer in general. And if you’re on target for mature bucks, does and young bucks are easy. So always manage for the lowest toll in the bucket and all this other stuff is super easy.
00:36:33
Speaker 6: So, yeah.
00:36:35
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:36:35
Speaker 1: I think, it’s a, it’s an easy concept to hear, but then you start getting FOMO and then like, uh, all these different things that come into, come into impact where it’s like, well, there’s still, you know, the deer’s out there at all times. Like there’s still a chance.
00:36:47
Speaker 5: But they’re still, they’re always in the woods. So it’s still a chance.
00:36:50
Speaker 6: That’s what you hear.
00:36:51
Speaker 5: And I think it’s really, really tough because you want to get out. It’s, it’s hard. It’s to me, it’s such a simple, basic structured concept of hunting that it’s almost like, it’s dumbed down too much for people to think it actually works. And you got to try this latest gadget. You got to go right into the middle of bedding area, use this scent to control your scent downwind. They’re always moving. You know, you can, you can, they’re out in the woods so you can shoot them. And you, you have all these things that just lead you astray when really it’s, it’s basic concepts. And there’s a lot of things in life that relate to that, that it’s a lot more basic than anything. then it, then people make it, people make it life sometimes a lot harder than it needs to be. And certainly hunting.
00:37:36
Speaker 6: So, yeah.
00:37:38
Speaker 1: Well, Jeff, I appreciate you. Um, you get everyone prepped for this upcoming season. That’s October 1st. I hope everyone has an incredible, incredible deer season and a lot of what you have shared, uh, will be helpful. And, um, once again, you know, how many, you typically post what two or three videos a week at least.
00:37:56
Speaker 5: Four videos a week and then sometimes short. So I would say an average of five videos a week. So 250 videos for the year, put out maybe 600 articles. I don’t even know how many we have on YouTube now, maybe 17, 1800, 1600 videos. And so there’s a lot of stuff out there. So Instagram, I put a little bit more on Instagram too, but anything under whitetail habitat solutions and Instagram, YouTube, Google.
00:38:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there’ll be more real-time advice and strategy throughout the entire season here. So I appreciate it once again. Thank you so much, Jeff.
00:38:30
Speaker 6: Thanks for having me, Jake.
00:38:31
Speaker 5: I appreciate it. Love always being in here with you.
00:38:33
Speaker 1: All right, there you guys have it. I hope you guys enjoyed this leg of the Back 40 series. A huge thank you to Aaron, Bill, Jeff, and Adam for jumping in here and helping us get a game plan, address some issues that we all face when it comes to whitetail hunting leading up to October 1, which is the opener for many, many people. And like I said, we’re going to be having a new leg starting October 15th to the very end of the year to walk us through in-season dilemmas and some of the things that we’re going to be facing from here all the way until Christmas Eve. eve so i hope you guys enjoyed it we’ll see you next time see ya
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