The Blacktail Coach Podcast
We're here to share tips, strategies, and stories of hunting the Pacific Northwest.
Whether you're a seasoned hunter or just getting started, we'll help you turn preparation into achievement and passion into results.
So gear up and get ready, because SUCCESS IS NO ACCIDENT!
The Blacktail Coach Podcast
Becoming a Better Hunter: The Growth Mindset in Hunting
Have you ever wondered what separates consistently successful hunters from those who struggle to fill tags year after year? In this illuminating episode, Aaron and Dave dive into the mindset and systematic approach needed to grow as a hunter throughout your lifetime.
The conversation centers around the transformative power of structured goal-setting using the SMART methodology (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely) and how this approach creates focus and clarity in your hunting preparation. The hosts introduce their proven PIE framework—Prep, Implement, Evaluate—which provides a systematic way to develop specific hunting skills from weapon proficiency to scouting and animal behavior knowledge.
What truly separates this episode from typical hunting advice is the emphasis on developing "mental muscle memory" for evaluation. Top-tier hunters naturally analyze every aspect of their hunts, considering what worked, what didn't, and why. Rather than blaming bad luck, they ask pointed questions about their approach, equipment choices, stand placement, and countless other variables.
Dave shares powerful insights about the value of mentorship through his relationship with an experienced hunter nicknamed "Smokey," whose advice to "understand why animals do what they do" became a guiding principle in Dave's hunting philosophy. Whether you're a seasoned veteran or just starting out, you'll find practical strategies to elevate your hunting skills and increase your success rates in the field.
Ready to transform your approach to hunting? Subscribe now and join us for more insights that will help you become the hunter you've always wanted to be!
Nilch'i wind checks nilchi.com
Welcome back to the Blacktail Coach Podcast. I'm Aaron and I'm Dave. This week we're going to talk about growing in your hunt, so the process of just becoming a better hunter year after year. I know we've done building one year off the next. That's specifically related to your sets, but this is more. Just how do you become a better overall hunter is what we're going to be looking at here.
Speaker 1:So one of the things that we do with and this is more of an kind of an in-season thing is we create goals with the coaching and SMART goals simple, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely. And basically that's just. If you want to write out your goal, the more specific you are, the more likely you are to actually achieve your goal. And so it's just who, what, when, where and how. We write those out and answer those questions who I will, what harvest day, whatever my particular trophy is that year, whether I want a specific buck or I just it's just. I want a mature buck, when during you know, say, muzzle loader or archery, or whenever season, where one of my sets and how, using my black tail coach skills from the classes. And then we break down the goals in different areas, the development areas, into something we call PI prep, implement and evaluate. So prep is basically what do I need to if I'm going to implement something? What do I need to do to? What do I need to buy or research to work towards this goal?
Speaker 1:Implement is what you're actually doing, so and then evaluate is evaluation. So, for instance, you're locating We'll use that as an example. So prep I need to buy a subscription to Onyx or HuntStand. Implement spend an hour looking over my hunting area, looking for where I think potential, good habitat, good edges are places. I want to put boots on the ground. You know, second part of that would be go, put boots on the ground and then you evaluate. You know, did what I see on the app match what I saw on the ground? And is what I saw on the ground going to work for my season? And if not, we start that process all over again. We do a little more e-scouting, a little more boots on the ground. We evaluate Four, locating, and it can be, you know, and it's kind of a skill development plan. So it's about specific skills or specific areas of the hunt when you're prepping for next year.
Speaker 1:So, with your weapon, locating, scouting, you know just equipment, maybe learning how to use a new piece of equipment, like you wouldn't buy a tree stand and just walk out in the woods the day before you're going to go hunting and put it up. You'd practice shooting from that and going up into it, you know, during the summer, ideally, yes.
Speaker 3:Ideally, ideally, yes, and going up into it, you know, during the summer. Ideally, yes, yes, ideally yes.
Speaker 1:So that's just something that we that is a very integral part of our coaching and that is to help guys be focused on what they need to do to get ready for their season and it helps grow you in managing your year, Because hunting is kind of a year-round sport?
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely, absolutely, at least, if you want to be successful at it year after year. Yes, you'll find that the guys that are are thinking about hunting at least 11 months out of the year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they'll take Christmas off. Yeah, because their spouses and families demanded it.
Speaker 3:Exactly, yeah, because our spouses and families demanded it Exactly exactly. But you know, it's funny that you're bringing this up in this way because, fresh off of boot camp and doing our one-day-in-person classes and our online courses and all that stuff, we try and implement this into part of the program in the sense that when we get to this portion of the class and or boot camp or whatever, you can just see the guys look at it like what. This is kind of odd. Trying to.
Speaker 3:it feels like school you know what I mean. But inevitably we'll get guys coming up afterwards going doing it this way, adding that structure with the goal setting and all that stuff, it makes it so much easier for guys to achieve their goals. And I mean it's something that you do on a daily basis. You just don't write it down.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know when you get up and what do you want to achieve. You know when I go on a job site. What do I need to get done today? What is my overall goal for the week? What is my overall goal for the month? As far as this project goes, the difference is is that it is either being written down and given to you, or you're writing it down and trying to accomplish it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean. And so when you add structure to this, you will find that several things will happen. Number one you just instinctively start evaluating every hunt and your season, because you've already placed this goal down on paper and that's always going to be in the back of your mind going okay, that's going to be one of the drivers to this season. What do I need to achieve? Why? How am I going to achieve it? You know what are like. You're saying action, steps that I'm going to take, and all this and at the same time, you know you start evaluating not just your season or your hunt, but you find yourself evaluating everything. So why didn't I get that? Was it my weapon? Do I need to upgrade this? Is it my camo? Is it you know? Do I not have a piece of equipment that I gear, that I think I need, or is it that?
Speaker 1:I have too much gear should have. Should I have gone five feet higher on with the ladder stand? Am I trying to?
Speaker 3:take too much in. You know I'm getting all hot and sweaty. Can I consolidate? Can I be more mobile? You know I mean yeah, just things that that a lot of professional hunters take the time to do all the time yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:So the part that helps you grow as a hunter, because it starts training you to where that's like the muscle memory version of that, yeah, of just it's reflexive to consider everything.
Speaker 3:Yeah, mental muscle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, after you've done something, you just consider it Okay and you go over it in your mind and it's not going over tossing it over and over and and over again to micromanage or to overthink things. Right, right, and that can be an issue to overthink things.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of guys that do that, yep.
Speaker 1:And that does not help, because you start making mistakes, because you're not sure when to settle on something. So, this, implement, that is what you're going to do. You don't need to overthink it. You just do that thing Right. Then you evaluate it. So then, if you need to change it, you do, but if you don't, you got that one thing down and you don't need to. Well, maybe I should do, well, maybe I should. Okay, was that successful? Yeah, you don't need to do anything else. Just do that again, right.
Speaker 1:You know, if possible and a lot of this came because my background I've always mentioned this that I come from a professional development and coaching background in education, and so this was in Asha as well. This was our, what we brought to the table. Asha did more of the curriculum. I've done more of the coaching, because that's what I previous job was professional coaching, and that's a lot of what I brought to the table with this, this. And so, before all of that, before you started doing this, you know how did you create your goals, what was your process? So this is something that we've kind of, I would say, forced on you as we've started all this. Now, you probably did it. You just didn't do it.
Speaker 1:In my verbiage I would say oh, yeah, oh yeah, and, but what did that look like before we started the whole Blacktail Coach?
Speaker 3:So I've always kind of the alpha male I, you know I grew up in the Longview Kelso area and I always tell people when I was growing up and you know you'd run into somebody that you knew hunted or whatnot, your first question wasn't how you doing or how's the family, it was did you get your elk?
Speaker 3:And that's just kind of the atmosphere that I grew up in. So there was always that drive being, you know, kind of the alpha that you know well, I want to be successful, I want to be, and success on many levels, success filling tags, success being able to, and you know, I think a little, a little bit well, a lot of it's got to do with ego, you know, being able to say that no, I got, I got it two years in a row, or three years in a row, or eight years in a row, whatever it is you know and a book buck or a record.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know and you know, as I've gotten older I realized that that's a for me. I'm a little embarrassed about that, you know. Just because you know myself, I felt like it was prideful and I don't want to be that guy. But you know, part of that just wanting to be successful, part of it is wanting to beat. That I make it personal when I find a buck and everything. It's like no, I want to beat and that's why I name him, that's why we, because I want to make it personal. I want to beat Clooney in his own home. I want to go out there, I want to put in the effort, I want to play this chess match with him and I want to beat him in his own home.
Speaker 1:So, and going into season, you will have the goal of I so, and going into season, you will have the goal of I want to harvest Clooney, or I want to harvest Hightower, or, and that's kind of it, and then there's all of the other things to get ready for that, Right so, which has become almost second nature to you. You know you're out almost every night shooting your bow. You know you're out doing the scouting now, and gosh, we were so busy.
Speaker 3:You're just out doing the scouting now, yeah, I know, and that's usually February when I'm getting into it.
Speaker 1:February when we're trying to look around and stuff Right. So how did you like early on? And again, I've known you for 30 years now and I've seen your progression and growth as a hunter, and not necessarily that we didn't, not that we had in-depth talks about hunting and we have you know over all those years because it's just an interest of yours. You know I might ask you something like that, or you know you're telling stories, different things like that. But how did you assess, like where you'd tell in stories different things like that. But how did you assess where you were as a hunter, like thinking, hey, I suck at this.
Speaker 1:Or I hate you, I'm pretty good, but did you have a lot of those real honest conversations with yourself?
Speaker 3:That's a great question, and and I would have to say that the biggest influence for me was not meme, you know, it wasn't myself. It was me looking at other people who were successful and and seeing you know the animals they were getting, whether it be bulls, bucks, bears, whatever and and saying that's where I want to be in my hunting career. So a lot of guys will listen to somebody who talks a lot. Well, he seems like he knows what he's talking about because he's got all these stories and he seems to know all these places and everything like that. But I don't see a lot of tags filled or I don't. You know, and you know the measure of success is different with everybody, but for me it was okay. I wanted to get. I'd reached a point where I wanted to get big animals, record book animals, and so it was like, well, I know somebody who does all the time and just about everything they hunt. Well, I thought, well, that's who I need to go talk to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you've talked about the mentorship aspect of this. What part I mean. How did you go about? You identified somebody Smokey.
Speaker 3:Smokey, Cruz Smokey and Annette Cruz. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And you saw them. But how did you go about kind of developing that friendship and that where you were able to be mentored by him?
Speaker 3:so kind of springboarding off what I was just saying uh-huh there, there are some people who talk, you know, and they say it's gonna rain and I won't pick up an umbrella yeah I won't even bother looking up, you know, oh, it's probably not cloudy. Or even if it was cloudy, it's like well, he said it was gonna rain. Bother looking up, you know, oh, it's probably not cloudy. Or even if it was cloudy, it's like, well, he said it was gonna rain.
Speaker 3:Well, probably not, you know he says that kind of stuff all the time and and that kind of thing, yeah, yeah and then like but when smoky, if smoky said it was gonna rain, well, I'm gonna take an umbrella with me. I don't even have to look at the sky. You know what I mean I'm? It's like when he said something I'm gonna listen. Why? Because he's got the animals to back up what he's saying uh-huh and for me, you know, it was like putting myself.
Speaker 3:I was like, hey, do you need something done? You know he's an elderly gentleman now and everything, and still I don't think that I he's forgotten more about hunting than I know yeah, you know. And guys, you know they don't realize the resources that they have around them from, from guys that have put in the time, made the mistakes and learn from them, you know enough to that, and and these guys, they want to teach you.
Speaker 3:You just need to develop a friendship. Guys, they want to teach you. You just need to develop a friendship. And for me it was like you need a lawn mowed, you want your tree, you know apple tree, you need those apples picked, you need that thing pruned. You want your car washed, you know what can I?
Speaker 1:do for you. You need some electrical work done. You need some electrical work done.
Speaker 3:By the way, I never did that under the that, that it was always above board. I did it with my license. But you know it was just stuff like that. Let me do favors for you and just let me spend time with you, and just you know to the point where, like I said, it's almost interviewing when it comes to hunting and stuff. Just listening to his hunting stories was entertaining. Yeah. You know. But he would tell me stuff that I would say, okay, that's what I need to do, For instance, watching hunting shows. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I don't watch them just for entertainment. Entertainment's the last thing on the list. I watch them to glean something off of every hunt. There's always something you can learn. I don't care what they're hunting. There's something you can learn from every hunt. Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know. And something else he told me is magazines. You know you get a magazine, you read it from cover to cover. Doesn't matter if they're hunting africa, doesn't matter if they're hunting new zealand, you know red stag or or what they're. Whatever they're going after doesn't matter. What matters is that you look at how they hunted and you glean something off of that hunt yeah. And so now that's what I do. I mean, you can attest to that. I've got a stack of bowhunter magazines and hunt magazines and I went through them recently.
Speaker 1:I was trying to get actually ideas for the podcast, for episodes, and it was oh well, that's really interesting and I want to look further into that. You know, a lot of it was the, the wind, looking at the wind and learning so much about that and I think we've done a couple of episodes just based off of me reading one article, which turned into a dozen articles. But yeah it.
Speaker 1:it kind of grows. And you know one point where you can learn something from about one type of hunting. For something else I remember Alex talking about he used a ground blind once to go turkey hunting. But he just put up a ground blind and the turkey walked in I think up to 60 yards, looked at it and turned around and took off. And then he went through your course and saw how you brushed one in and a light bulb went off. And then he went through your course and saw how you brushed one in and a light bulb went off. He's like, oh, that turkey, I didn't brush it in, so that's why he didn't come in. Well, it's turkey hunting and you did it for deer hunting. So yeah, there's a lot of stuff that it just crosses over.
Speaker 3:Right, right. And there's just so much information in those magazines, not just the stories, but I mean, guys, you know well, how do you know so much about CWD, how much do you know, how come you know so much about EHD? And I mean, all of that is just from reading it's just from reading these studies that are in those magazines that go overlooked, you know, overlooked, you know, and you know Smokey always told me you know, if you're going to hunt something, you need to know why it does what it does.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So if you want to be good at it and Smokey, smokey is just, he's the top 3%, he he's the cream that floats to the top, I don't care where you could drop them anywhere, and that guy is going to, he's going to be just fine, Even at his age. He'll kill something and eat, but it's because he understands the basic things that drive animals and he understands animal behavior and why they do what they do and the purpose behind it, and he exploits that. And if you're going to be good at any kind of hunting, that's what you need to do. You need to understand what you're hunting. You need to know why they do what they do, when they do it, the purpose behind it, what drives them, and you're going to be able to interpret where you need to be and when.
Speaker 1:And it's funny because it can also cause you and I did this talking to Alex it can cause you to ask more questions that you might not have thought about asking before the right questions. When we were talking about the turkey hunting episodes, I was asking them about, okay, so we know their sight's incredible and their hearing's incredible and I was like, well, what about their sense of smell? Oh yeah, they don't really have one, okay, but see, I knew, because deer could ask that question.
Speaker 3:It's totally a different animal kingdom. But yet this one uses smell. It's its number one line of defense. This one here doesn't even play a role in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean again going back to what I said know your animal what, and then ask the right questions yeah, and but then it's understanding.
Speaker 1:For me it was like okay, deer, elk, it's the nose you're beating. You're trying to beat the nose, well, for turkey, then you're trying to beat the eyes, or the eyes and the ears, and those play a factor with deer and elk and everything else. But it's primarily so trying to understand what's the primary thing right of you know how should I be going about this? So again, new to hunting and all I've done is the deer hunting and I've doneouse hunting. But you don't need to know anything about hunting to go grouse hunting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Grouse are like the village idiot of the animal kingdom. You just walk up behind them and you can most of them. You just club with a stick and kill them. Yeah, they are some dumb birds. So one of the things I wanted to ask you and now that I'm going into my third year, this has kind of made me wonder, because it's also something that's kind of, I would say, come up for bud is how do you work through? The thought of what you want to do contradicts what you've learned, because it's more of a gray area, and I'm asking it because of this. So we have the guys who go through the class and they think that they have to do things exactly this way. Where's the nuance? And so something might kind of contradict or feels like it contradicts what you've said, and I think Bud, because Bud hunts a little bit different habitat than you Now he's still looking for the thick, nasty stuff and outside of there.
Speaker 3:He hunts a little bit more open.
Speaker 1:A little bit more open. When I got to talking to him I realized my spot is kind of closer to his. But now, being in my third year and this is one of the things when you go through something like teaching classes or going through so I would teach parenting classes and I did these curriculum-based therapy groups for kids as one of my years ago, one of my jobs the first two times going through the curriculum it was you stuck to the script, just verbatim, and you didn't wander off that. But by the third time you were so comfortable with it you realized where you could maybe add something in Right or maybe tweak something just a little bit. Now you didn't go off script, but you tweaked it because you were starting to learn the nuance of something.
Speaker 1:And I've noticed that going into this third year I'm comfortable with the specifics of the system and now it's understand okay. Well, I can kind of tweak this. Or realizing that the place I'm hunting is really getting to the point when you talk about habitat. It's aged out, and mine isn't quite aged out but it's really close, but it produced some monster bucks, right, right, and so, going back, it's okay, it's aged out technically, I would say, in that specific spot, which contradicts what you've taught, right, but I'm comfortable with contradicting that to an extent, because I know that I'm still surrounded by that real thick stuff.
Speaker 1:I'm just in maybe a one acre patch. That's a little thinner than you might like.
Speaker 3:Right, right and, in all honesty, that doesn't bother me at all. I start off every one-day seminar or boot camp with telling the guys this is my way of doing it. It's not the way. There's always going to be different ways to accomplish certain goals and I don't have a problem with that. Bud is very good and I give him credit. He is probably better at locating that I am, and well, he's no problem about it, he is, you know yeah, he's taking it to another level.
Speaker 3:That's just unbelievable. And that's fine, that's fine, you know, and and he's gonna do what he thinks is right. You know, but I kind of so. If you've been you, you, to any of my classes, you've heard me use that fishing lure analogy. You know all the confidence you have in your favorite lure. Yeah. Well, my favorite lure isn't your favorite lure, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:There are times when we do have the same favorite lure, but a lot of times it's like you know, I can show you a spot and you can use the same lure. It's this color they're hitting on, and all this, you know. And then you come back and you fish it, or you take that lure and you go to your spot. Well, dave says this is what they like, and you start using that lure. And then you, well, maybe, instead of doing black with yellow polka dots, maybe they want black with chartreuse polka dots.
Speaker 1:And so you switch to that, and so you find that.
Speaker 3:okay, that works really good. Or maybe just one size bigger. As far as whatever lure you're using, something like that, there's always certain nuances that are going to be variables. Yeah, you know what I mean. There's going to be some leeway in them.
Speaker 1:There's a human element to it and I remember, because we've gone on fishing trips up in Canada and for some reason we were halibut fishing and I was they would just hit mine, right, and I was just we were all using the exact same worms and everything. I was just jigging it, maybe a little different, right, and it was, and that's it. It's a human element that you bring to your hunt.
Speaker 3:So it might be something where, yeah, and and who's to say bud bud's tapped into something that, that, and I don't know at all, you know yeah, yeah, yeah he's just tapped. Maybe he he's tapped into the ideal travel corridors, he's been able. They just stand out to him and and and that's where he's on and you know, because I'm more toward the bedding area, he's more toward travel, travel corridors and and destination hunts. But that's what he enjoys, and so who am I to to tell him it works?
Speaker 1:yeah, and I think I've fallen into travel corridors, because when he was describing his habitat and what he's looking for, I'm like, oh, I have all that stuff Right At my set and yeah.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, there's that nuance. But thinking about Smokey told you something, or the way he did something, Uh-huh, and at first you might have taken that as gospel. This is the way I have to do it. Oh, absolutely yeah, but there's a certain point of like have you hit that? And I'm sure you have where you hit, no, no, I don't have to do it exactly that way. Right, Like he'll tree stand. You said six, eight feet, yeah, and I mean even when he was younger. He's older now, but when he was younger he didn't go up much higher than that, did he? No, he was like 15. Yeah, but you go up 25.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I feel comfortable at 25.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, that's where I feel like. No, this is where I need to be. But Smoke, I mean my gosh. He's 70 some years old, he's got a tree stand at six, eight feet off the ground and he's killing deer. Yeah, you know and it's like well, there are no hard set fast rules. I guess you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:There's always going to be a little bit of variation and whatnot, but initially, like I said the first couple times, through it, it's good to have that base where you feel really comfortable with that base?
Speaker 3:Yeah, good base you can build on, bad base you can't build on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a good base and actually that's a perfect way to say it good base to build off of. So last thing I wanted to cover, and it's kind of a couple of questions here, and it comes from the idea of I had a friend, former co-worker, who had gotten his MBA, and there's a concept that's called fail fast, fail cheap, that if you're going to try a new idea, try it in a way where you figure out if it's not going to work. You figure that out fast before you have a lot of resources invested, whether it's time or money. So how do you mitigate wasting resources and resources being time and money when you're maybe trying out something new?
Speaker 3:Boy, I don't know that I'm very good at that, to be honest with you. I mean, I'm the kind of guy yeah, I don't quit on things easy, you know. Uh-huh.
Speaker 3:And I think that that's kind of my obsessive, compulsive. I've got to see things to the finish. That's just how I am. And if I'm going to go a whole season where I'm doing something and it's just it's hurting me more than it's helping me, I mean if it's glaringly obvious, that's easy to quit. But if I go a whole season and and at the end of the season I'm doing my season reflection and I realized, man, that that particular you know, whatever it is, trait, item, whatever really was a detriment to my hunt more than it was a help, then it then then that's probably the time that I drop it. So I don't know that I'm really good at failing fast and recognizing it.
Speaker 1:So it's kind of also recognizing the point where you stop pivoting and that's a big part of this is oh, I got to pivot, I got to pivot. Oh. We can't bait anymore. Got to pivot, Got to pivot Right. So when you stop pivoting and you just throw in the towel, it's like okay, this is just a bad idea. Right. And to walk away, and I imagine in season that would be hard.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But, maybe giving up on a spot or like not forcing the issue.
Speaker 3:For me, not so much giving up on a spot as stop jumping around. You know, and it's funny because I talked about this week and I talked about allowing you know, if we sit there and jump around, if we have multiple sets on one herd of deer, then that deer is manipulating our behavior. I think you know, and that's the common thing that I see a lot of guys doing, and I used to do the same thing and I just stopped and realized that I'm hurting myself. I've got to focus, I've got to narrow it down, I've got to make myself pick one area and stick with that, because I think the common thing is it's like your kid when you take them fishing for the first time and they're casting out the. You got bobber and worm and they're casting out the bobber and worm and they're more out there for the casting than they are the catching.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Because they're not into the sitting and waiting for the bite. You know, cast it out, hey dad. I think I need to reel it in and recast it. Son, we just threw it out there. It's 20 yards out there, it's way out there. Oh dad, it's moving in. I probably should recast. Yeah, I think my bait fell off they're looking for any excuse to do some, yeah, have some kind of action and whatnot, and I think that that the society and culture that we live in is always on the go and so for us to stop and force ourselves to.
Speaker 3:This is where it needs to happen. I need to stop. If it's going to happen, yeah, and just grind it you know, and and I think that's a lost art is is the grind, and so I I'm not necessarily the best guy to ask, I guess, this question because I tend to lean toward the side that you know I'm not giving enough time, I'm just quitting on it too early and and it's good and it's bad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think we've seen both extremes a lot and people have gone through the class that we've kept in contact with and we see those guys who jump from spot to spot to spot to spot and it's like okay, just try this out. And it's like okay, just try this out Because, honestly, until you start doing the cents drags consistently for a while, you really just don't know in a season Right so to jump before. That's really the switch has flipped. As we say yeah, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Speaker 3:Now, that's a great analogy because, every year we do the same thing. Yeah, I get a ton of phone calls. I get a ton of text message. What am I doing wrong? I'm not seeing anything should I move?
Speaker 1:should I do this?
Speaker 3:I need to do this, and the whole time I'm like just relax, stay in your spot, keep doing what you're doing. When this, when the switch flips, you'll know. Well, you know, and it's just again. It's continuous text and phone calls. I must be doing something wrong or there's no deer in this area. And, and you know, just negativity after negativity, after negativity, and then all of a sudden, I get a text oh my gosh yeah I got eight bucks on my set and it was like I don't even know where they came from and it.
Speaker 1:It actually worked for alex this year because he put up a camera in a different spot. Hey, they're daylighting over you know, over this other spot. We'll kill your one spot. Go ahead and move over, and he didn't. Two days later, he has you know, curry on the ground, on the ground but overall that's not necessarily a great strategy, but being the first year and very well first year in a new spot, you can get skunked just because you're learning the new spot.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:Oh, they'll daylight in this spot, but if you go a quarter mile over here or a tenth of a mile, they won't daylight. And that was the same thing. When Bud got Charlie, he had moved like 50 yards down the trail 40 yards closer to the bedding area and it made a four-hour difference.
Speaker 1:Of him daylighting Correct. Yeah, it got him to daylight when he wouldn't daylight, right. So yeah, there are times where you know those little tweaks, I mean, and I did one in between. Now I didn't do it like one day I was in one spot and the next day I was in another.
Speaker 3:I kind of moved in between modern and late modern, because I had a two-week window where I could get in and make some changes and whatnot.
Speaker 3:But see the difference is that with Charlie, bud had a full season prior to that, so he was a full season of Charlie coming in just after dark, just after dark, just after dark, and the next season was starting. He's like I can't get him to do that. So the next season is when we moved it. And then with Alex, I mean he was going through the coaching, and so it was every day to every other day phone calls, text messages. Should I do this? What do you? Should I do this? What do you think of this, what do you think of that?
Speaker 1:and that's what it's for, I mean that's what we do the coaching for that's why they have our numbers yep, and so it was.
Speaker 3:It was a lot of okay, this, this and this, all right, you know, and it and it paid off you know, getting dialed into his area and and what the deer were doing. And you know, I mean, and to his, his credit, I mean he was the one out there doing all of the work. Yeah, you know, we just say, try this, try that.
Speaker 1:Well, I would go over here and the reason I would do that and the reason we want to do this, is this, this and this but I have to say two out of my two out of my three sets I had to abandon where I originally set up because I realized that was just not the right spot. I think my halfway is the only one nailed it right from the start. This is the spot I need to be in, this spot I'm going to stay. The other two Riverside Riverside is a big move to go find the bedding area and stuff, so it's a big pivot. Now not giving up on that area, that particular set, but completely, I know, throwing the towel on the one place I was at. But I've gone two years.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was just going to say that's two seasons of figuring it out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and realizing, and it takes time. Yeah, sometimes it takes time they come in at night for a week and a half and that's it. Right.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, I don't have that, you know, spotlight tag as you say so now it's like okay, now I, I know I need to make a more of a drastic move right, which the the area lends itself to being able to do that, and but yeah, there's a certain point where and I think a lot of it has to do with are you learning, you know? Are you pivoting because you're learning?
Speaker 3:or You're pivoting because you're impatient.
Speaker 1:You're pivoting because you're impatient yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so you know. I read a statistic here a while back that they said that the average hunter puts in three years for every three years on every record book buck or mature buck. I believe is what they said. So that's not just that's if you see a buck and that's the buck you're hunting, that's not anything legal, that's narrowing it down your hunt down to a specific buck. You enter the season saying that's the buck I'm going after, that's the buck I want to hang my tag on and I'm not going to settle for anything less. Yeah.
Speaker 3:If you go into it with that mentality, which you know a lot of people do, the average hunter has three years learning that buck. Well, in the process of learning that buck, you learn that herd, you learn what trails they like and and where the bedding areas are and that kind of stuff that'll be my third year on two times.
Speaker 1:Maybe I should move and this will be the year I get him. But I have a couple others that are a little more enticing, I would say, and because, like I said, that area is priming out, so I want to take advantage, because where they could potentially move, I think in that area is not easily accessible and so I'd hate for them to move two ridgelines over that I just can't get to because it's just not accessible, and lose out on a couple of really nice bucks where I think two times is.
Speaker 1:Yeah it's actually the same distance going in and stuff, but I do know that, yeah, it's time to pivot and feel cheap. I mean it didn't cost me anything, I had cameras up. Last year it was a few apples, it was five bucks worth of apples, because what we spent on those bins, you know it's five bucks worth of apples, because what we, you know what we spent on those bins. So and I did drags once, I think, for those Right.
Speaker 1:I brought in another buck. But okay, I learned and now it's yeah time to move on. So I don't know if we fail fast, but we can fail cheap yeah.
Speaker 3:And I mean you know, I don't know that I want to fail fast. You know what I mean. You know I don't know that I want to fail fast. You know what? I mean there's the history that makes that hunt even more special when I do harvest that buck, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the idea spending four years going after or keeping an eye on luck Right, right. But that'll be the same way for me when I get Anakin in a couple of years.
Speaker 3:Right right.
Speaker 1:He's still got two more years, I think, before I'm going to consider going in for him Right on, but it'll be rewarding.
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:Everything involved with that. So, anyway, we hope we gave you some ideas for growing in your hunt and if you need a mentor, send us an email. We'll tell you what we know sort of as best we can. All right, We'll see you all next week.
