The Blacktail Coach Podcast
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The Blacktail Coach Podcast
Adapting to Hunting Season Setbacks: Strategies for When Your Plans Fall Apart
What happens when your meticulously planned hunting season suddenly falls apart? When that trophy buck you've been patterning all summer becomes inaccessible because someone dumped garbage on the access road? Or when predators take over your carefully cultivated mineral site?
Dave shares his fresh wound—losing access to "The Locker Room," a honey hole with three Pope and Young qualifiers, including two that would have been his biggest bucks ever. After months of trail camera work, mineral placement, and pattern identification, it all vanished with a closed gate. His painful experience launches us into a candid conversation about resilience in hunting.
We explore the full spectrum of season-ruining calamities: land closures from fire danger or logging operations, predator takeovers (one hunter had 19 different bears on his cameras!), roadkill disasters, stolen gear, and perhaps worst of all—loose lips revealing your hard-earned spots to others. Each challenge requires different mitigation strategies, but they all demand the same core response: mental toughness and adaptability.
The secret to surviving when your hunt unravels isn't just having backup spots—though we strongly advocate for this approach. It's developing the mindset that allows you to work through frustration and disappointment. As Dave reflects on hunting a buck named Clooney through countless sits until "the last 15 minutes of the last day," he reveals the perspective that separates successful hunters from those who give up.
Remember, before there was Hightower or Hank the Tank, there was Clooney, Deuce and a Half, and Goliath. Big bucks are everywhere if you know how to find them. Let's help you develop that skill set so when—not if—your season goes south, you're prepared not just with backup plans, but with the resilience to keep pursuing your passion.
Welcome back to the Blacktail Coach. I'm Aaron.
Speaker 2:And I'm Dave.
Speaker 1:So this week's episode, when it All Goes South, when the things come up that ruin your hunt or greatly alter the ability to hunt that year or your outcomes for that year. So we'll cover a few different topics that are related to when it goes south. But what prompted this? Dave, I know the wound is fresh but, why don't you share with us what prompted this episode?
Speaker 2:So what started us down this road was the fact that I had a set called the Locker Room and on this particular set, I had three shooters, three bucks that would go Pope and Young, two of which would be the biggest bucks I've ever killed, and the third one would make Pope and Young, but I would probably let him go one, maybe two more years.
Speaker 1:Well, you would have to, because you can only kill one a year. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I was probably going to let him walk and focus more on the other two, and the other two were Hightower and Hank the Tank and long story short. I worked this set all summer so I found them in the spring, found the habitat, went in there within 30 minutes. I had a four point shed and another three point shed that I had found and was really you know I mean of course that just makes you really optimistic and excited and everything. And I spent all summer putting out minerals and doing protein and getting these bucks patterned and everything. Then they shed the velvet and I'm heading out there watching, you know, the five factors. I watched the five factors. I had three out of the five factors. I watched the five factors. I had three out of the five, five factors being moon phase, 20 degree swing and temperature, barometric pressure. Those are the three that I had. What I didn't have was obviously a storm front, in front of or behind, or a rut phase, yeah, which was, which is, you know, something that I wasn't even anticipating in September.
Speaker 2:So I took and I was watching all of that and then one evening I had three out of the five and I thought this is the night I'm going to kill Hightower because he's number one on my list, on my hit list, and I went out there this early season and I got there and access was denied to everybody because somebody had gone up and dumped garbage and so I had worked all summer, or I have worked all summer, so you were on.
Speaker 1:just to clarify, you were on public land, because we always hunt public land.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But you were crossing through private property. An easement, an easement through a private property which accessed the which everybody was doing, which everybody was doing. So you weren't sneaking on property, it just that was the way that you accessed that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and somebody had gone up there and dumped and so they just pretty much shut down that entire access point and I was left kind of standing there, you know, holding my bow going. Okay, what do I do now? And I get home and I still got a camera up there and and I looked at my camera and 40 minutes before dark high tower daylights and I knew he was gonna and all I could do is sit there and watch him on my camera.
Speaker 1:In season.
Speaker 2:In season. Yeah, and and yeah, it was a night I was going out there to hunt him and it was also the same night that that our pro staff, chris, killed Bambino. So I'm rejoicing with him and then I'm crying in my coffee over mine. But, like I said, the black tail coach, if it's anything, it's locating big black tail bucks, so mature black tail bucks, and so typically in a normal season I usually don't start till the day after extended buck. It's not that I'm not worried, it's obviously a downer. It's obviously a downer, it's a huge downer. I put in a lot of work. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And looking at the two biggest bucks I would have ever harvested.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and monitoring your set with minerals making sure those were fresh.
Speaker 2:I got thousands of pictures too of both of those, not just those two bucks, but I mean there's probably eight bucks on that set.
Speaker 1:It was the honey hole.
Speaker 2:It really was. And yeah, that's a hard pill to swallow, but I mean, that's the way seasons go, you know last year the season was just, it was unseasonably warm and we had very little deer activity. So I mean, every season has a hurdle, and so we decided to do an episode on just that, when it all goes south, because every season has hurdles, every season has has obstacles that you have to overcome, and some seasons are obviously easier than others, and some seasons it feels like a grind all the way to the end yeah you know, and so we thought we'd just talk about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so one of the things about this system which is, I would say, really great is you had your honey hole, but Chris's buck, that was another set, another honey hole. Yeah, great bucks in there, yeah, so it's not like there's only one.
Speaker 2:No, no, no or two.
Speaker 2:There are a lot of these spots out in the woods, it's just you have to know how to access them Right. And you got to remind yourself that too, because that's the hard part, you know so I was. It just was kind of a snowball effect. That same week my dog died and you know so I was really upset over that. That was a really hard blow to take, and then on top of that I lose this spot, you know, and so you start crying in your coffee a little bit. But the reality is is before there was Hightower, before there was Hank the Tank, there was Clooney, and then there was Deuce and a Half, and then there was Goliath, you know, and the list of names goes on and on and on and lucky.
Speaker 2:And I mean, yeah, so there's big bucks everywhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just how to find them Right and then going after them, and it's a big reason why we also encourage guys to have more than one set. Absolutely you know I've got, and you still have, a couple sets left over from last year, two or three.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Or for your whole family. Actually it's several. You know I've got my three from last year, but it's just. It's one of those where you get in the habit where, even if you don't work a set, you always are looking for that next set, yeah, and it's addictive, isn't it yeah?
Speaker 1:As you're driving along the freeway or driving along along a road and you're looking out into the oh well, there's some habitat that I should probably check out. Oh, that looks good. And just to pass the time, onyx is open on our phones and just scrolling through.
Speaker 2:Hmm, that might be a good spot to go check out at some point, and it's funny because at bootcamp I tell the guys by the time it's over, because you drive out to bootcamp, to the facility that we have it at, and you're passing all this great blacktail country but you don't recognize it as great blacktail country because you've been raised to hunt clear cuts yeah but when we go over the locating and the habitat that we're looking for, you find yourself, like you're saying, as you're driving, you're looking constantly yeah you know and you realize wow, there was so much more great blacktail habitat that I just didn't even recognize.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:So ways to mitigate season going south, but it does happen and so we're going to cover a few. There's a couple, because we're hunting public lands, we can lose access because they put in a gate or they close the gate and it just becomes untenable to maybe walk that far back in or it's closed for logging. So for a couple of months one of my sets the main line that went back there and granted, it was only half a mile in but it was closed to all public access because of a logging operation that was happening. So you couldn't go past the gate Right, otherwise you're looking at a fine. So fortunately that didn't go into season, but there's always they close the. You know a lot of the timber companies will close their lands because of fire danger, so you can't access anything during the summer. Typically that doesn't spill over. It can spill over if you do early archery.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I've seen it go to well into October. Yeah. You know we've we have that those El Nino years. Some of them get pretty dry and warm, and it can carry on quite a ways, yeah.
Speaker 1:I believe the Sierra Pacific land which is what we hunt, reopened mid-September last year. So if you wanted to do early archery those first two, two and a half weeks, they were close to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and that's always a threat that archery hunters especially archery hunters have to deal with on this side and stuff. But, it goes back to what we've said before Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
Speaker 1:Because, if you do, eventually you're going to end up getting frustrated and it's going to come back to bite you and you can also lose it because, as in your case, while the land that you might be on is public land, your access might be private property, so you might lose just the access aspect of it and there's no way to get around that Right right, or the easement that they do have is really untraveled.
Speaker 2:You can't travel it. Yeah, it's just too dangerous. It's either too steep or it's too overgrown, so there's a multitude of things that could happen there.
Speaker 1:Another thing that can be pretty common up until the start of November when we start having those frosts and the bears go down. So basically, predators in general, but the bears especially. This year, in fact, one of our guys, the coach was talking about he had 19 bears on all of his sets.
Speaker 2:I was wondering if you were going to bring that up. Yeah, 19 bears, I don't sets.
Speaker 3:I was wondering if you were going to bring that up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 19 bears. I don't know how many sets he had, but he had 19 bears total and, honestly, how do you not get frustrated when you're dealing with? I mean, if that's not a testament to how just out of balance this whole thing is here in Washington, I don't know what is 19 bears.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had at least five. No, that's crazy One, two, three, four, five, six. I had six bears that I caught on camera.
Speaker 2:That's crazy With one cub.
Speaker 2:And now, granted, that's early on and it might not be an issue come season, especially that late modern, when I when I go out hunting right and modern, but early modern it probably will be yeah I know it was last year and throughout the summer if you're trying to do minerals with protein yeah you're really going to struggle because they're going to come in and they're going to you know anything big and jay or or evolved harvest anything that has any I don't care if it's a tablespoon of sugar in it and they're going to, you know, anything big in J or Evolve Harvest anything that has any. I don't care if it has a tablespoon of sugar in it.
Speaker 1:They will come in.
Speaker 2:They're going to find it, you know, and it makes it frustrating. It makes it hard to really try and catalog what you've got in your range. You know, as far as the drainage maybe you're hunting, or the jack for patch you're hunting, whatever it may be. It makes it really difficult to catalog those deer and even elk, for that matter. You know the bears and I'm no, I got nothing against bears. I think they taste great.
Speaker 1:They're delicious.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it's like there has to be a balance and and it's just it's way out of whack yeah, but it's one of those things that can absolutely if anything, it can just be very discouraging.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and when you're walking and I had bears on all my sits last year as well, but come season it, it didn't become an issue right, it can.
Speaker 2:It can derail you. Yeah, it can. It doesn't always, but it can.
Speaker 1:But if you're using any, like you said, any type of attractants, anything that smells good and that's a lot of the attractants that we use Big and Jay products they just bring in the bears.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're hoping to bring in the does, but it brings in the bears. Yeah, and one of mine.
Speaker 1:It brought in everything basically, but I must have had 100 pictures of bears. I had a cub who just 80 pictures of this cub. He just hung out for half hour at a time, multiple times on my set, and all I had down it was some Big N' J and some minerals. Right so salts, which generally don't bring them in. But yeah, the protein.
Speaker 2:I've had them on the Hodag scent rope. Yeah. And it's just like are you serious? I can't do anything, you know.
Speaker 1:Yep, and cougars too. They'll just drive everything out of there, right, but they're not necessarily.
Speaker 2:They're not as prevalent, but they're a lot more prevalent than they used to be oh yeah it used to be a rarity where you would get a picture of a cat on your trail camera, and now it's a rarity if you don't. I mean, everybody gets pictures.
Speaker 1:I got a great picture of a cat on one of mine yeah, you did which was kind of amazing because you know, I had lots of deer pictures, one with a doe with two fawns, and then next day the cat comes walking by and then the next day the doe's back with her fawns. So they're, they're just kind of all hanging out in the same area, but not, my point being they're not quite as much of an issue as the bears, because the bears are just getting out of hand.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, last year my son was targeting a nice four by four buck. Yes.
Speaker 1:Forgot about that one.
Speaker 2:And it showed up on camera one day with the bottom jaw almost ripped completely off. It was actually hanging there. Yeah. And Cougar, when they go for deer they either go for the throat or they go for the snout, and I think the cat got that buck because my wife was over, I won't say in the same area, but she was over in that location as far as this particular she was at the other end. How? Can I?
Speaker 2:say that About a mile away, and she had a set there and we had plenty of deer coming in on that and all of a sudden we got a cat picture, which I'm sure it's the same cat, and that was it for deer activity for this, for the season.
Speaker 1:On that for the season.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that one just died yeah, it did not produce anything after that yeah it didn't matter how much of the scents and pheromones we put out. We couldn't pull anything in on that and it was a shame that was.
Speaker 1:That was a really nice buck that dj had on, yeah, oh yeah and he was. He was being so optimistic great kid just being optimistic that, oh well, he might make it to season. Yeah, he can't eat. Yeah, he's doomed yeah, but one of those things and his season. One of those things his season could have gone south, could have thrown up his hands and just said forget it, Double down. He had another set and he still got a three by three.
Speaker 2:So he got a nice little buck, got a great buck and, like you said, he could have thrown his and had plenty of opportunities to give up. Yeah. Kudos to him. He grinded it out and he actually got a nice buck at the end, yeah.
Speaker 1:So another thing that I kind of mentioned was the logging. So earlier this summer on one of my sets I couldn't access for a couple of months and it's not a big deal because I just knew, well, I'll come back in a month and check it out and it was fine, I could get back in after that. But one of them they came in and cleared what I thought was one of the core areas, the core bedding areas, and they thinned it. Now it probably pushed them over some. But when I'm set up my areas that I find and I find really good areas set up right outside of that bedding area to wait for them. Well, if they're not going to hang out necessarily in there this coming hunting season, okay, well, that negates that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not worth your time to sit there. Yeah, and, and you know, the bigger, the better bedding area, the better off you are, just for the simple fact that something like that can happen. They came in and they thinned it. They didn't thin everything, they just thinned a portion of it, so you still had a little bit of bedding area left yeah now whether that's enough to make a big buck feel safe, we'll have to wait and see.
Speaker 2:But if it's a really big bedding area and they and they come in and they thin just a portion of it, well then you're still fine, yeah and I.
Speaker 1:My area is a corridor, old skidder road in between a couple bedding areas, so they probably just shifted to the other one. But the nice thing about it was if they're traveling between those, and that's what I was picking up on camera. But even after they thinned it, I still got the does on camera, so they're still using it. But I think it's one of those where let it set for a year and come back and see what happens. Hey, I got a joke for you why did the deer cross the road?
Speaker 2:I have no idea. To ruin your new truck and your hunt, there you go.
Speaker 1:So you know two things If you buy a brand new truck, you're probably going to hit a deer. I think that's just Murphy's Law. Given We've been talking about this all summer, we've never seen as many big bucks on the side of the road that have been hit as this year Wow. A lot of deer.
Speaker 2:Wow, and my wife's was one of them.
Speaker 2:Her target buck got hit. And it's not like we're talking urban deer or anything like that, we're talking out in the country. It's just like everywhere we went, there was deer on the side of the road that had just been hit. And it's like everywhere we went, there was deer on the side of the road that had just been hit. You know, and it's like you gotta be kidding me, there's gotta be a lot. I mean, I need to start opening a body shop or something. I'm in the. I missed my calling, I guess. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it was one of those years where there just was a great survival rate from last winter, probably because it was so warm and we just saw a lot of deer, but we saw a lot of big bucks crossing roads, getting hit and it was. It was really kind of strange that way, but yeah, that's something that we experienced.
Speaker 2:So asha, you know again, is is like well, regroup and start over yeah I mean, you can sit there and get upset and cry in your coffee and all that, but it ain't helping you find another buck. You know, and and the? The reality is like I said before there's a lot of big bucks out there. There are.
Speaker 1:There just is. You know, well, we had around here, around your house, there was a really big one that I saw one day last year, but then there's three mauler bucks, which two of them were still fairly nice. Right.
Speaker 1:One was really nice, but again all three of them out in the yard one day that I saw. But, yeah, multiple bucks out there. So we saw one that got hit and unfortunately it was Cliff. That was his name, but there's still a couple more out there. Hopefully, unless they got hit further up the road, they still haven't made a reappearance.
Speaker 2:Explain Cliff.
Speaker 1:Cliff. Oh well, hit further up the road they still haven't made a reappearance explain cliff, cliff. Oh well, he's a regular, so cheers, yeah, cliff clavin, cliff clavin, so and kind of clueless. So we I remember last year was the fourth of july party and cliff is out in the yard because you do a mineral set kind of in the middle of the yard just for picture purposes only.
Speaker 2:And testing product.
Speaker 1:And testing product, and so Cliff came in. The whole party's going on. He's what, 100 feet away from all of us.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And just licking the protein block and everything else. Then your son lights off $1,000 worth of fireworks, mortars, bo booms, everything going off, and then the the show ends and 15 minutes later cliff comes walking back out of the woods and starts licking the uh, the protein block again so in light of all of that, you kind of know why cliff got hit by.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he wasn't the brightest bulb.
Speaker 1:But that's all part of naming, making it personal.
Speaker 2:There you go, there you go.
Speaker 1:It all ties together somehow. Yep. The last one is I just put loose lips, so this is, and this is, an unfortunate one.
Speaker 2:This one here and I'm glad we included it, you know, because it is unfortunate. Glad we included it, you know, because it is unfortunate Everybody that and for example our pro staffer, chris, just killed Bambino, which is is a buck.
Speaker 2:He's got the CSI guy scoring it and he says it's going to go over 140. And I told Chris that it definitely is, and it's just a beautiful, beautiful buck. And you know, you put it on social media, whether it's Facebook or Instagram and all that stuff, and immediately you start getting people saying, hey, way to go, great job, and that's awesome, but there's always that one guy that's going to come back with well, it was all luck and all this stuff, and we're going to do an episode on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was luck.
Speaker 2:But I'm saying all this to say that you really got to be careful who you tell. And I warn Chris, be careful about who you tell. And Aaron, you know that I've experienced this, my wife knows I've experienced this. When you start killing big bucks, guys start following you. Guys start trying to figure out where you're hunting. So lips is is not just somebody else talking about where you're hunting, as much as it's, sometimes it's your loose lips letting it slip where you're hunting yeah and it's sad that you have to be secretive.
Speaker 2:But if you're not, guys are gonna I mean people that you thought were friends are gonna slip in there and they're gonna cork you yeah, and then it's. I don't. I. I'm sorry that I say it like that. I'm sorry that it is that way. I wish it wasn't, and I think it's the rarity of the fact that it's a trophy black tail buck. Yeah. You know that there are so few guys that get the record book bucks.
Speaker 2:And they don't know how to consistently get them Right, and so just try to catch the tailings, so they think if they're just in the same area as you they can get it done and sometimes they do, sometimes they do you know, but, like you said, consistently well, it's not where we're hunting, necessarily, it's how we're hunting. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, it's a whole system.
Speaker 2:Exactly. It's more than just one piece of the puzzle, and so you know, all it takes to ruin a honey hole is one guy. Yeah. You know what I mean One guy that wants to, you know, sound important or come across as a better hunter or a much more successful hunter to impress somebody else. Hey, I know a spot, hey, you know, and he may not hunt it. It may be your spot, but he's going to take other people in, but he'll take.
Speaker 1:They'll take other people in, yeah, and then you're done and it's it's over. And yeah, they hunted out. And then you have to wait multiple years and hope that the genetics of the big buck that you got and pulled out of there stayed in there Right out of there stayed in there Right, because it can ruin the genetics in the area too. If you're pulling out that dominant buck before he's really either had the chance or you get his lineage and pull it out of there.
Speaker 2:Right, Right and honestly. That's why the Blacktail Coach exists we want to help guys get bucks. Yeah. I want to teach guys how to get big, mature blacktail bucks. You take the course. I got no secrets.
Speaker 1:I'm laying it all out there. I'm showing you everything.
Speaker 2:I'm answering every question you want, so there's no reason to try and sneak in. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:And it's a big part of our coaching. It's a big part of our coaching because we ask that people share their onX, the screenshots and their pictures and everything else Right, but we have the hard and fast rule If you steal someone's spot, you're gone.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because we don't—.
Speaker 2:There is no refund, you're just done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we don't want that as part of this community.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Of you know that we're trying to put together and, plus, we're helping you find more spots. You know it gets to the point. I don't feel like I need to go take anybody's spot Right. In fact there's and there it's a different type and I think most guys are appreciate the fact that they've done the work and they appreciate that it was them who found the spot Right. It's like I could go swipe your spot, but then it's not all me, it's that level of dishonesty kind of taints your success.
Speaker 2:Well, any hunter that has any kind of character would feel that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, there are those out there that don't have that kind of character.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there are a few and if, if you're new to the hunting community, you know it's one of those, you got to use more caution and as you get to know more guys in the hunting community, you find out who they are right, there are givers and takers, and some of the takers will always be takers yeah they'll never be givers, unfortunately, but, like, like I said, it just takes one guy to to ruin a honey hole, you know, and the thing is, is is what, since we're talking about it is, is that skill set of locating another one is the one that we're trying to teach you know,
Speaker 2:that's one that the guys that get into the coaching or or the seminars we're trying to teach you that skill set. I'm showing you the habitat I'm going to, you know, show you exactly what you need to look for, and so you're going to walk away with that skill set. So there's no reason that you need to depend on anyone else. You know what I mean. You have that skill set and you're able to do it for yourself every year.
Speaker 1:Every year, and so another one, and I put it under the loose lips category, but it fits into that stolen gear, and you've had cameras stolen.
Speaker 2:I've had cameras stolen. I've had tree stands stolen.
Speaker 1:I had a dripper stolen last year and it's funny, I've had a lot of my dripper. Wasn't too far away from my camera, but people didn't, didn't see the camera. But yeah, for some reason they had to grab that five dollar scrape bomb. It's like, okay, well, if that's all I lost, I'll count it as a as a win there.
Speaker 2:I've had four cameras, two tree stands and hopefully that's it, you know. Yeah, knock on wood.
Speaker 1:And hopefully now and granted, some areas like my areas are all non-cell, there's no cell signal Right. So my cameras, even though they're all cell cameras, I can't activate that. So there are times where you can get the picture and have it sent to your phone and you're catching pictures. And we had one of our pro staff last year. He actually got pictures of the guy coming in, but he would come in and turn off his camera every time just to kind of mess with him, but he put a little note in there.
Speaker 1:You know, if you're reading this, I've got pictures of you already and they've already been sent to my phone and I will come and get you.
Speaker 2:I know exactly who you're talking about.
Speaker 1:Which was hilarious. Yeah, there's always the risk of your gear getting stolen, and if you're hunting on a limited budget, you know you're working towards building up a gear. If you have two or three cameras and two of them get stolen, yeah, that sucks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and it's hard to have any kind of remorse for somebody that steals. Yeah.
Speaker 2:At least that's how I feel about it. You know it's like everybody out there we work jobs, we pay our bills, we work hard, we save to buy these there's. You know this equipment that we can use to help us. You know figure out location, figure out timing, figure out. You know this equipment that we can use to to help us. You know figure out location, figure out timing, figure out. You know cataloging what's out there and stuff like tree stands and climbing sticks and all that. And then you got some guy coming along that thinks that he deserves to benefit from somebody being trusting that. That just it really drives me crazy. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It ought not to be that way, but unfortunately we don't live in a perfect world. It is what it is and and if guys want that stuff, they'll do what they have to. Yeah, you know. I've had them cut cable, I've had them just about everything to get my equipment out of there, and maybe I'm foolish, but I still leave it out there. Yeah, you know. I don't see because of where we're hunting. I don't see near the amount of people. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That I used to when I first started archery hunting back when I was 18. But because of the location of where I'm at, and when I say that I mean Habitat, I don't see a lot of guys.
Speaker 1:I had last year two on my set. Each set I had a mushroom picker or something like I think. I just assumed it was a mushroom picker, but you could tell by the equipment that they were carrying that it was something like that. And then I got another guy who I caught him a couple times on camera during elk, right before late season.
Speaker 1:Right and just walking by not really noticing. You know what was going on. And actually I got him on this spring on camera as well, going into one of the areas. But yeah, don't notice the cameras, which is thankful. Yeah. Thankful for that, because they might help themselves. But yep yeah, I get a few guys, but we hunt those areas that it's not necessarily.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we just don't see guys coming in yeah, where it's not the traditional spot that that you would, that most guys would, would go to yeah you know, for whatever.
Speaker 1:If you're doing spot and stock or if you're glassing clear cuts, things like that. So I didn't actually have it here on the script, but I think we should probably talk about mindset, because we talked about we have backup, but not necessarily just mindset. But how do you work through these things happening? You a plan helps that backup. It's going to be discouraging when one of these happens somebody steals your spot, you lose your access.
Speaker 2:Right, right. So when I do my seminars and the online classes and everything I do a whole section on mindset, and that mindset is typically geared toward what are you going to do when you have a record book mature black tail buck standing at less than 20 yards in front of you? Because that's with my system it's usually inside of 15 yards. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's just how I've been able to tailor this and make it so that when you do have that opportunity, it's in your lap. But last year was a great example of just the grind. Guys were frustrated and everything, and so mindset goes beyond just having the buck in front of you. It is what is going to keep you in the game after that buck. To get it in front of you, you know, to get to that opportunity, to get to that moment where, here he is, he's actually stepped into my shooting lane, he's at my kill spot. Now I can take him. So, like I said, there's a lot of hurdles for every season. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so there are those seasons. I experienced one last year. I went out first day of late season. I had COVID finally got through that was able to get up and go do an evening hunt. My son came and filmed for me and I killed Lucky. Yeah. So that season, that archery season, that archery late season, which is what I saved my tag for lasted probably five hours, okay, from the time that I got there to the time I shot him. Not every season's like that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, sometimes I'll put in 18 sits in a tree stand before I finally get that opportunity. I'll pass up a number of bucks to get to that one buck, clooney. I hunted from the opener of late season to and I had picture after picture after picture of that buck, but that cat and mouse game, he kept outsmarting me. He did not show up until the last 15 minutes of the last day that that unit was open and I finally arrowed him. Now, I sat through a lot of rainstorms, I sat through some snow flurries, I sat through a lot of cold weather and whatnot. My daughter got in a car accident, my wife and my son were in India at a wedding, and you know so it was like there was a lot of things that were going on that I don't want to say they were distractions. You know, obviously the health and safety of my family is number one, but I still had to stay in the game. I still had to find motivation to get up and keep going and keep myself there.
Speaker 2:Well, it could happen today. It could happen today. It could happen, you know, because it was a lot of sits. Yeah. You know, I put in a lot of time and at the end there I was getting a little discouraged, you know. I mean I've gotten pictures of this buck daylighting and he just got my number. For some reason he just is not there when I'm there. And that's the way it is with every season. You know, whatever that hurdle is, you've got to convince yourself to you. You know you you can't let it win.
Speaker 2:You can't let that buck win yeah you know I got a guy that I elk hunt with. That, you know, tells me all the time in the mornings I hate morning hunts just for the fact that I got to get up at four o'clock every single day and he just looks over me and he goes Elk, don't care how tired you are. And that's part of making it personal.
Speaker 1:So also thinking about, especially with things that could make your season go south, is everything we mentioned. There's workarounds, so a job I used to have years ago, so a job I used to have years ago and I bring this up in interviews in jobs that I'm interviewing for about struggles. And I said well, at this other job, so I had to staff multiple people at multiple locations in the evenings and I said two nights a year, half my staff would call in sick. And then what two nights were those? And I said I had no idea. But two nights a year I would have half my staff call in sick. And then what two nights were those? And I said I had no idea. But two nights a year I would have half my staff calling sick.
Speaker 1:So I had to be ready at a moment's notice to have things go south, and so I planned ahead for things going south and I always had a contingency plan. And that's the same way with this. We have backup sets, we have backup cameras. You start building up the gear and you're prepared for the worst, but you're making things work out for the best.
Speaker 2:Right, right, plan for the worst and everything else is easy. Yeah. I went to a guy. I went to school with a guy in high school that was a catcher for a baseball team and he would say that all the time that the coach would be like how come, what are you doing? I'm planning for the worst, and everything else is easy. Yeah, you know, I'm planning for that bad pitch in the dirt over my head, behind the batter, you know, and everything else. It's going to be a cakewalk.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you don't have to dwell on it being negative. It's just you've made a plan and that's why we really push creating a hunting plan with our guys. This is your plan. You know things go south. Just look at your plan, work your plan, work your plan. So hopefully that helps keep you focused and with a positive attitude this coming season, in case things go south. We're hoping that they don't for you, because we want to see your buck picks.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:So if you are listening to this podcast and you get a buck, pick blacktailcoach at gmailcom. We'd love to see your picture, hear your story, whether you've taken our class or not, but we'd love to share that picture for you on all of our social media. We want to celebrate with you.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:So anyway, we'll see you next week, and thanks for joining us. Thank you.
