Advanced Blacktail Locating For Core Areas

You can find great blacktail habitat and still never see the buck you actually want. That gap is what we call advanced locating: going beyond “thick stuff over there” and learning to identify the bedroom door, the specific access point and travel route that tells you where a mature buck spends most of his time and how he moves without getting exposed.

We talk through why the classic “52-acre range” idea helps and also hurts when you turn it into a neat square on a map. A buck’s real world range is made of usable acres: the cover, feed, and protection he will actually choose, plus the skinny green belts that connect safe pockets. We share a real example of a specific buck that only shows for a couple weeks a year, then use that story to explain why ridges are not hard walls, why hunters project their limits onto deer, and how tools like OnX LiDAR make benches and subtle terrain features easier to spot.

From there we zoom out to seasonal movement. Summer pattern is not hunting-season pattern, and everything a deer does is purposeful: water, nutrients, safety, and breeding all change the map. We finish with field-ready sign reading, including what to look for in tracks, dewclaws, solo travel, scat, and the difference between dominance rubs and annual rub lines, plus how habitat age can shift rub activity over time.

If you want to stop guessing and start making decisions that hold up in the woods, subscribe, share this with a hunting buddy, and leave a review telling us what part of locating you want to master next.

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Transcript

Welcome Back And Class Updates

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Welcome back to the Blacktail Coach Podcast. I'm Aaron. And I'm Dave. Hey, we're both back this week. So that's good. A lot of other things we've been people we've been recording with and going back and forth and everything.

SPEAKER_05 0:20

And a lot of classes.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Different schedules, classes. I was out of town this last weekend at the Northwest Outdoor Writers Association. So thank you to everybody for your support. I was able to get a membership with that. Press credentials. Dave will be joining here soon, and we will both have press credentials. And hopefully that means we can go to Shot Show and do some other things.

Why Advanced Locating Matters

SPEAKER_06 0:43

That would be awesome.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

So this week we are talking about because we just did a pilot with a select for you guys, a new class we were thinking about, advanced locating. So finding the bedroom door. So we do the locating class, and everybody has really just raved about that one.

SPEAKER_06 1:01

They really enjoy the locating class because I don't think we've had a negative response from anybody on the locating class.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Yeah. But that spending the whole day going over again the uh aspect of locating, e-scouting, and how you do that, and we reteach the locating. That's why it can be a standalone class. But then it's we're going out in the uh the field and talking about this is up and coming habitat, this is perfect, this is a few years primed out or you got a few years left in it, whatnot. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:35

And I think that having the visual, not just pictures on a monitor or up on a screen of some sorts, but being able to be out there in the woods and get the visual of what I look for, what my definition of thick is, yeah. And kind of going over why February and March are so much better to scout versus spring time, like right now.

SPEAKER_03 1:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:58

And yeah, I think when we're out there and the guys start putting those puzzle pieces together, it really makes a difference for them. We hear a lot of guys say, Man, the class was awesome. I really enjoyed the class and I learned a lot. But then they go home and they're still like, okay, so I think this is what he was talking about. And this, I think this is the age, or I think this is the habitat.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

And they still have even with video, like you said, even with video.

SPEAKER_06 2:22

They still have doubts and some, and it's like they need that confidence to find uh again. The locating is not the most, how can I say, exciting part of the hunt. You know what I mean? It's the most important part of the hunt.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Yeah, because as you say, you can't kill what you can't find.

SPEAKER_06 2:39

But it it's not exciting like the shot or the shot buildup or the recovery.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:44

And so guys are like the locating, they could take it or leave it, I guess. But it really is the most important part of the hunt. You if you can't find it, if you can't locate the habitat, then you won't locate the big mature bucks.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

And that's that is the idea behind that because does small bucks they could be kind of anywhere. Right. They have a not a bigger range, but they are more likely to come out in the open.

SPEAKER_06 3:10

Yeah, they're more visual.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

And so with the locating class, it was it starts hitting on that nuance as well. Because we talk about some of the stuff that Bud hunts in, and some of the stuff that I hunt in is it's a little bit different than what you do. It's that what you described is almost primed out, right? But that I've had success in that. Yeah, Bud's had success in that, and it works, but it is still in the under that umbrella of habitat. Yeah, good habitat.

Bedroom Doors And Mature Buck Mindset

SPEAKER_06 3:40

It's the same habitat, it's just a different age. You're it's just a little bit farther along, and that's great. And I think it's great as far as the locating class. I don't know that we'll ever stop doing it. We've actually been people have been insisting that we have more of those classes. But as far as taking it a step further with this new class, advanced locating, it's taking it from just not only locating the habitat, but understanding that there might be two or three bedrooms in his range, but there's one bedroom that he's gonna desire the most, where he's gonna spend a majority of his time and locating that bedroom door. That's different than just the locating. And there's gonna be a bedroom door that Buck uses, and then there's gonna be a bedroom door that the does and the small bucks use. And that just comes from those bucks maturing and reaching a certain age, and they just they switch. Yeah, their mindset just switches in the sense that they don't want to be around the does, they want to stick tighter to the cover. All the trails that they use are trails that are very they're they're almost non existent, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 4:47

It's not like a doe trail where it's just beat down, tattered with tracks, and I don't necessarily want to anthropomorphize animals, but it's almost as if they get wiser, and even does are the same way. Some of the research I'd done about older does do a better job with finding good the right habitat for dropping their fawns, right? Where they don't have to move around as much to find water, food, and cover for their fawns, and younger does tend to have fawns that are more likely to be eaten because they're they just don't know that this is the safer spot to be having these.

SPEAKER_06 5:26

Right. There's a certain level of survival knowledge that ungolants attain as they get older.

SPEAKER_03 5:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 5:33

And like anything else, there are different stages in life. You and I go through the same thing as well, you know, when I was a kid, I thought as a kid, I acted like a kid, but when I became a man, I put down childish things.

SPEAKER_03 5:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 5:45

The same happens in the animal world. We look at spikes and young fork it horns and that kind of stuff, and you'll see them playing every now and then, chasing and stuff. You don't see big bucks doing that as far as in a playful sense. That plays all preparate preparation for when they get older and it's time to chase a doe, or it's time to to express dominance and maybe even get into a battle with another buck.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

Or get away and not be prey. There you go. If they're being chased, yeah. I remember that one time looking out the back door, and Buck came full speed running into the yard with another little and little bucks, like a spike with a little fork it horn chasing him into the yard. And I saw the first one and thought, uh-oh, something's chasing him. He's moving. And it was just another one. And then a small three-point, right like 10 seconds later, came running in, and they were chasing each other in the yard through the yard for two, three minutes. Got a little bit of video of it, but yeah, it was fun to watch and stuff, but just playful.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

At first, I and first I thought the threat was there, and it just turned into playful. But we did the advanced locating, and I think it was from a lot of feedback during the season. This is when I came up with this idea. I think it was during the season. We had a lot of guys reach out and they're like, I know I'm in the right habitat. It's they they were at the field days, they understood, but they weren't a hundred percent sure of the bedroom door. Right. Am I in the right spot for the bedroom door that we talk about? Or the core, have I found the actual core area? And I thought we need to do a class, and we don't have time during the in the first, and those who have tended the first locating class that we talk about the habitat, it's a full-day class, right? There's not enough time to really get into the nuance of this one because I think we were out there for about five.

SPEAKER_06 7:44

We were out in the woods for a good four hours, four or five hours, and then it's it's going and it's seeing stuff that isn't primed that's up and coming.

SPEAKER_03 7:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 7:51

And then we go to another spot that is prime. This is the best habitat. You're gonna find a lot of activity here, and then from there we go to stuff that's primed out that still looks good, but then we start going over why the box don't want to be there and stuff. But this, like you're saying, it's going a step farther. Yeah, it's and it was another four or five hours just doing this, yeah. And we didn't, there was no class time.

The Two Weeks A Year Buck

SPEAKER_01 8:15

No, there was no class time. This was all 100% out in the field doing this, and so we walked out and we talk about how we're usually pretty close to gates. And this is a spot I had found I think three years ago, and it was a I have my riverside spot, and one day I went up there, and I think I went up to just look at cameras. It's when I was doing cameras kind of year-round, and never really catch anything. A few does, a few, actually, I think just does during the summer come cruising through there, but during season and specifically for two weeks during modern, I would have a buck show up, a very nice buck. And there was actually two of them. One I've mentioned before two times.

SPEAKER_05 9:02

A specific buck. A specific buck, not just a buck, but a specific buck.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Yes. So two years in a row, he showed up the same two weeks. First time he showed up two times, which is how he got his name. Second year, he that we could still bait, so I was dropping apples. I hadn't done cinch yet, but I was dropping apples up there, and so he stopped by four or five times, four or five different nights, but same still two-week pattern or two-week time period, like mid-October through the end of October, and then disappears by November 1st. He's gone, and I do not see him again. And I've had cameras up year-round in this spot. He only comes by there two weeks a year. And I thought, where is this guy's bedroom? Because I'm looking around for that thick, heavy cover. Right. And my first year of doing this, being like a lot of the guys in our class, this isn't making any sense to me. So I'm at the bottom of the ridge line. If you go over the back of it, that's where I'd walked around the back of that ridgeline. There was a skitter road back there, logging road, and another skitter road off that it no longer used. Oh, this is a real thick area. So I was like, I need to keep this in the back of my mind. Well, as I've part of it is that nuance, and I think it's that you've got the nuance down because you've just been doing it for so long. And so it was and I'm asking you about this, but one of the things was I was thinking that ridgeline was a hard wall, they wouldn't walk over that, right? And the bedding area wouldn't have been behind there.

SPEAKER_06 10:49

What was the reasoning behind thinking that a ridge was because of how steep the backside was.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 10:56

And it but it wasn't that far to the bottom, though. You know what I mean? The ridge went up, and where it went back down to the road on the backside, I think it was about 120, 160 foot elevation.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

I think 120 feet elevation.

SPEAKER_06 11:08

Yeah, and I think that it's human tendency to see that obstacle. And because we're not out there every day, we just assume that's a boundary or a barrier that they're not going to cross. But for them to climb a ridge, they do it so much quicker and easier than we do.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 11:23

You know what I mean? So it's nothing at all.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

And then side hill.

SPEAKER_06 11:26

Yeah, and then the steep factor. We unless it's just a flat out cliff face, I've seen deer and elk just scale that stuff like it's no problem. Yeah, I mean, and they're just right up it. You and I, it takes two hours, 10 pounds of sweat and borderline heart attacks, and but yeah, but that's pretty common though. You know what I mean? We start putting our limitations on the animals, yeah. And the reality is that you, and you hear me say this all the time, we do this for recreation. So recreationally, I don't want to climb that hill. No, no, but when it comes to survival, which is what they're thinking all the time, it's not a problem. It's anything to stay alive.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

And it being, I would say the my first year of hunting was when I walked out there. It might have been the summer after my first year of hunting. I had hunted a different spot and wanting to kind of learn the area. Now, that first time I walked out there, I don't remember seeing sign, mostly being game trails coming down off that hill. Now, we went back out there when you and I went out to kind of scout that area a little bit before because I had a couple spots in mind to go check out to do this class. I was like, oh, well, there's a game trail. Oh, there's a game trail. I don't remember seeing game trails the first time I went out, but I'm still new to all of this. And so this is picking up on all of that sign. And I think that's the advanced location is really picking up on that sign. And this had, I thought this was a really great spot because it had up and coming, it had several years away up and coming spot. It had old growth, different topography, perfect habitat. It kind of had it all in this area, and so that's why we went out there. But with this, I was it just kind of got me as I figured this out over this last, I'd say, hunting season, as I'm figuring things out, it's causing me to think, oh, this is probably because I come back and I ask you.

SPEAKER_02 13:28

Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

And while we tell everybody, hey, just shoot us an email and all that, I can ask you in person, I could show you pictures.

SPEAKER_02 13:36

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

I have closer access. But it's like, how can we? There's that next step of learning that I thought would be beneficial to everybody. So I thought, let's just try this out. We invited some of the guys who are on Patreon, they got to come out to the class. Two of our new pro staff, Ryan Huberger and Cully Scrogins. They came out, their new pro staff with us, and a couple of our older pro staff that have been with us for a while, but we all went out there, and this was about looking at this area and trying to figure out is this the bedroom? And one of the things I've I started doing, I think I started last year was going on onyx, and I don't think this something you do, but now I because you can put boundaries up and you can circle an area basically, and it'll give you it'll tell you how much acreage is in that. And and here's the problem with when you're younger, and you can give me feedback about this. Is at first when I go into an area now, I'm kind of okay, what's the range? 50 acres. Okay, so I create a 50, 52 acre, maybe 55. 51 is the average, so some will be bigger, some will be smaller, but I draw up some boundaries. Uh-huh. I go off a topography. Where's the top of the ridge line? Where are edges? And I create a 50-acre circle. I was like, okay, this is my initial what you think the range would possibly be. My initial core area.

SPEAKER_06 15:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Problem with that is, and is there might not be, and this is one of the things I want to talk to you about, is sometimes it's more complex than that. So why don't you talk about when the topography is more complex than just a 50-acre square? How are you going about trying to figure that out?

Stop Drawing Square Core Areas

SPEAKER_06 15:28

Okay, so and I think that's a big mistake a lot of guys make, Aaron, is that they start thinking it's a 50, 52-acre square. Yeah. It's not going to be a square, guys. And I and lately I've been saying this in my seminars, and it really is a great way of thinking about it. Is imagining, imagine that you have five acres. Okay, you own five acres, and then of the five acres, only three acres of it is usable land. The other two acres is either it's swamp or it's such a steep grade that you can't build on it, you can't do anything, you can't maintain it, you can't landscape it because it's just too steep, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 16:09

So do you own five acres?

SPEAKER_01 16:11

Technically, yes.

SPEAKER_06 16:12

Technically, you do, but you only have three acres that are usable. So with that in mind, think of it like that when you're referring to this buck that you're after. He has a 51 to 52 acre range. Now that range, in some of it, is going to be brand new clear-cut. Well, brand new clear cut is not usable for him. So he's not going to be out in the middle of a clear cut that has no cover. So that's not usable. So is that part of his range? No, because he doesn't use it. He may use the green belt that connects one stand of timber to another stand of timber on the other side of that clear cut, but the clear cut itself, and it may be 80 acres of clear cut.

SPEAKER_03 16:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 16:53

But if it doesn't have enough cover and he doesn't use it, he won't count it as part of his range.

SPEAKER_03 16:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 16:58

So that that range being topography dependent is just that. It depends on what the topography allows as far as cover, feed, and protection, that he will count as his range, so to speak. So and I think that we misunderstand when we say, well, 52 acres, it's going to be a square 52. We do ourselves a disservice in the sense that now we have set up these expectations that he's got to be inside this square. And if he's not inside this square, well, then Dave's an idiot. Yeah. He doesn't know what he's talking about.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

Or a bubble or something like that.

SPEAKER_06 17:29

Right. And the reality is going back to what I said, it's about survival. So he's not going to be far from cover ever.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

Yeah. Ever. You know what really the light bulb for me was when we went out with Ben that one time and he had pictures of a buck. He'd taken the coaching previously and the class. And he had this buck on camera in one spot and then had the buck on camera a mile away. And you think, okay, well, that just shoots that 52 acres theory. You know, that shoots that down. But when we went out there, we realized he was taking one trail in this slim, thick stuff.

SPEAKER_06 18:10

Right. A green belt, a green belt between all this farmland that was wide open.

SPEAKER_03 18:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 18:16

That he had no business being out in the middle of because he was never going to be out there.

SPEAKER_03 18:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 18:20

There was just too much traffic. It was too open, not enough cover. And yeah. And so here it is a mile away, and that buck's showing up.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

But if you added up a 10-foot wide trail, right, and that might be generous, it might be a five-foot wide trail that's a mile long. What's that, like two acres? Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. So that you start learning that nuance and that it can be real narrow and go out into a bubble that's a half mile off to the east.

SPEAKER_06 18:51

Yeah. We have to retrain ourselves as far as our thinking in the sense that it's like food plots. When guys think of food plots, they think of this big, huge field that has been planted with some kind of egg, whether it be corn or soybean or turnips or whatever. And the reality is Heath Rayfield, who's also part of a pro staffer for Buck Ventures, I sat down and talked to him last year at the pro staff meeting, and he's a food plot guru. Yeah he said the big mistake a lot of guys make is they think they got to have this big chunk of land. He says, I got food plots that are 10 feet wide and 40 yards long. And he says, All I got to do is divide it in half, put a deer fence around part of it, around all of it, let it grow up to a certain point, then take the deer fence down around part of it. So only half of it's around the deer fence, and the other half is exposed. The deer come in and they eat the half that's exposed while the other half continues to grow. But those deer get a sense that, okay, this is food, and they keep coming back.

SPEAKER_03 19:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 19:47

When they get that down to a certain point, which he usually times it around hunting season, he'll pull that food, that fence off of the side that's been untouched, put it around the side that they've been eating, and now all of a sudden the deer are going to the other side and they're right in front of him.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

There's a fresh spot, and it gives a chance that it's kind of like regenerative farming.

SPEAKER_06 20:05

Stuff will recede after it gets so high. But point being is that when we start thinking, we're we put ourselves in so much of a box and we give ourselves such hard boundaries on the way we think.

SPEAKER_03 20:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 20:18

Thinking that food plot's got to be huge, thinking that the 52 acres has got to be square. And reality is it doesn't have to be any of that.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

Yeah. So when we went out, and this was interesting, I started playing around with that shape of my area. And when we went out, as we're walking in, it's uh there's a little, it might be one acre, a little mound with some real small jackfer that are maybe six to eight feet tall now, but not close together at all. This might not ever be good habitat, thick per se. Yeah, and it's surrounded by pretty swampy area. Well, coming out of that swamp, we were on the main skitter road, and we found a buck had come out of there and was walking. And you could tell just by the imprint of the tracks, yeah. The tracks, the dew claws and dew claws, the size of it, split, and the weight of it, because that's uh it's the main line. Uh-huh. So it's able to press in there. Although it was funny, a week of rain and all of those footprints were those hoof prints were gone the following week. I was hoping we could see him and show those guys, but I know he's in that area that was 300 yards from where I had a camera up and I'd spotted him. So I'm like, okay, there's this. It's an amphitheater-shaped bowl with the ridge behind it, and then it goes up over, and then we were back behind that through a drainage and up another ridge line. And so, yeah, I just started, I did my little line thing and started tracing out okay, if I count all this area because I know he's over here, I've got him on camera. Even if it's just for a couple of weeks, I've got him on camera and I've got hoof prints. So I know at some point him or some other big buck are over. Of all in this area, so I counted that, but I counted that area back there, and I did the strip over that ridge down into there, and it worked out to about 56 acres. Okay, that's interesting. So, my option being, and a guy had brought up a very good point when we were out there. Well, how do you know that could be his core area? You tell us, find that thickest, nastiest stuff, and that's the core area.

SPEAKER_06 22:34

It's going to be a bedroom. Yeah, it may not be the bedroom for the buck that you're after, but it will be a bedroom that holds a dominant buck.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

So the space I'm in really, as far as core areas, because it's all that whole ridgeline is old growth, and there's no undergrowth. There's it's a real strong canopy, so there's some clover, a little bit of clover, might be a few ferns, but it's real easy to walk through there. The blowdown is the only thing that makes it difficult walking through there. It's all there's no brush, you're not pushing through brush at all. And so the only thick areas are there, and then about a half mile in another direction. So I'm like, I'm logically picking, it seems like one of the two areas that it could his bedroom could get.

SPEAKER_06 23:19

It's the start of the process of elimination, yeah. Yeah, well, you got to start somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

So that's and I was like, the other one's gonna be a lot more difficult to find my way back in there. So I'm gonna check this one out first. Yeah, and so we we walked in there, and but one of the things I wanted to ask for the advanced locating, what are you doing when you know that there's a big buck in the area? Because say you saw it, you were out driving in the summer and you saw a big buck, you a mature buck. Let's just say a mature buck, four and a half, he's got some smarts to him, but the habitat just doesn't make sense. How are you figuring that out? So I I think it's not the habitat doesn't make sense unless you go aways.

SPEAKER_06 24:06

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

And I'd say just one of the thoughts.

SPEAKER_06 24:09

Yeah, I'm thinking of try uh how to answer this in the sense that there are times when things just don't seem to make sense. You logically you're looking at it, you're going, wow, this doesn't but when you stop and you start you stop overthinking it and you just go to back to what we were just saying, there's regardless, if that area it may not hold a lot of deer because there's not a lot of cover, but somewhere there's gonna be enough cover where that deer feels safe. Okay, and so it may not ever get to what I call prime habitat, but it may be the spot that it's closest to what prime habitat is in that area. Yeah, and typically those areas don't hold a lot of deer that don't have a lot of cover unless you get into urban deer, which is fine, backyard deer, that kind of stuff. Even though even those, I can think of several guys that come up and they start showing pictures, and their backyards bleed into some kind of thick cover where these deer are coming out of. That's the key right there. It's always going to be the key for blacktail, the thickest cover. And the best example I can use as far as how that differs from spot to spot is very simple in the sense that we're different than what's up in British Columbia.

SPEAKER_03 25:17

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_06 25:18

British Columbia, we're both in a rainforest, but British Columbians get the different kind of winters. They get a little bit harsher winters, they get more rain than we do down here. So things grow a little bit thicker and it's a stronger deer. It just has to be to make it through those winters.

SPEAKER_03 25:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 25:34

Versus what we see down in southern California, Southern Oregon and Northern California. It's more open, it's a different kind of habitat. It's more scrub oak, more manita, madrona, that kind of stuff. And so, regardless of what your habitat is, black tail are going to stick to edges. Your bucks are going to want to stick to the thickest, ugliest, nastiest stuff they can find. And if it isn't as ugly as where it's at your place, that does not mean. So if I'm hunting thick, nasty, ugly stuff up here, we got a lot more blackberries and whatnot, versus down in Northern California. Up here, we got blackberries that will cover a house in no time. Yeah. If left for two years, you know what I mean? They'll just engulf a house. Down there, they don't have the blackberries like we do up here.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

Yeah, there's some, but not nearly.

SPEAKER_06 26:20

Not near what it is, you know, and you get into some of the lower valley bucks, and there's a lot more fields and whatnot, but those bucks will still hang close to the cover. Yeah. It's always about cover with black tail.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

And yeah, it just it might just be a smaller option. Right, right. So because you talk about, and that was the study is that approximately 30%, they'll spend 90%, 95% of their life in 30% of that area. And which is interesting because that area that, like I said, I did a my little bubble encompassing all of that, and it was 56 acres. So the area that we went to, we took the guys to for that advanced locating. I drew a circle around that, I a perimeter around that, and it was about 30% of that whole potential range. Right. And so let me run this scenario because this was my theorizing for all of this. So, as we know, the big bucks, when they come out of that thick area, it's because they're gonna breed, they're trying to lock down a doe, or they're searching, they're in the searching phase, right? Which is how I'm seeing two times is he's searching phase, and that's the time of year he goes looking in that neighborhood.

SPEAKER_02 27:35

Right.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Or when their antlers are in velvet and they're getting out past their ears. So you start getting into July.

SPEAKER_05 27:42

Okay.

Seasons Change Movement And Cameras

SPEAKER_01 27:43

And June, July, August, and then as soon as that drops, or like within a week or so, you say they're back in their core area.

SPEAKER_05 27:53

Oh yeah, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

So one of the things, and this was something new, that new feature that I got, and it's on the Onex Elite, the LiDAR. Oh, yeah, that completely changed how I was looking at the ground, how I was looking at because it shows the contours of the ground.

SPEAKER_04 28:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:13

And so when I'm talking about how because you show with all the trees, and it's hard to talk about how there's a shelf here.

SPEAKER_06 28:20

Yeah, benches and shelves and that kind of stuff really are a lot easier to locate.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

When you have the lidar, you can see all that. And then so I started seeing up, and we know that one of the spots that you see where they feel safe. Uh-huh. Well, they don't want to be in the thick stuff during the summer. And this is all again, me kind of creating my own little theory here about where this buck. I'm trying to pattern this buck. I'm trying to figure him out. And I realized that in this area up on this ridgeline, that the main kind of bowl that he's in, that have got pictures of him, about three-quarters of the way up, or maybe 80% of the way up, there are benches before you get to the top of the bridge line. Pretty solid bench areas. And with the wind, and we've talked about this where it creates that wind tunnel where the thermal's coming up and the wind, any prevailing winds over the top, but it creates that wind tunnel effect where they smell everything below them, smell everything above them, so they still feel safe. And that's the idea, right? That it's about feeling safe, so that even if the cover tells you that, oh, they wouldn't feel safe here, but if their nose is what's keeping them safe, then what a lot of guys fail to grasp is it's the time of year plays a huge role in that as well.

SPEAKER_06 29:42

Yeah. Because there is a summer pattern, there is a winter pattern, there is a breeding pattern that these deer will fall into as the seasons come upon them. Where that summer pattern is, like guys will want to put out, and I get the question all the time, when do you start putting out cameras? And I tell guys, I don't start putting out cameras till two weeks before I start hunting.

SPEAKER_03 30:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 30:02

And they're like stunned, and they're how come you don't have them out all summer and stuff. And the reason is because where I'm going to hunt him during hunting season, that's gonna be his winter and his breeding pattern. That is not gonna be his summer pattern. Yeah, he is gonna be somebody else somewhere else entirely. And so that being said, I could put a camera in where it's thick, but I'm not gonna get pictures of that. And you said so yourself. You got pictures, a couple pictures of some does or whatnot in real open area, yeah, for two times. And we just have to remember that there's a reason. Man, it's it's funny because we have this idea that deer just aimlessly wander through the woods, just it's at random and they just show up in certain spots. But the reality is everything they do has a purpose, they move with a purpose, they're not simply aimlessly meandering throughout the woods. Everything they do, again, is about survival. So it's done with a purpose. They're heading somewhere for something, whether it's safety, whether it's food, whether it's breeding, they're going there for something.

SPEAKER_03 31:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 31:04

And when they leave, they're leaving for something. And so when you stop and think about the seasons and how that affects the deer that you're after, where are they gonna be during this season versus where are they going to be during the hunting season? You start thinking about the range differently because some areas he's gonna need during that that summer pattern, he's gonna look for that more than he will say what he would look for during the winter pattern.

SPEAKER_03 31:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 31:34

You know what I mean? Whether it's water, whether it's fresh green shoots, whether it's in the winter, they're gonna get to areas where there's a lot more cover. They may be looking for, especially into the late winter pattern, more food sources, lichen off of the big trees and whatnot. They're gonna be close to that. They're gonna they're gonna cross through that to pick that. It's very high in nutrition, helps them to burn more calories, to stay warm, that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 31:59

But that was my thinking. As I'm and all of this, we always talk about collect the data and act off the data. Well, or I'm in data collection. I have a theory and I'm testing a hypothesis, I suppose would be the correct scientific term. But either way, I'm testing that.

SPEAKER_02 32:17

Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

And so I think he's his summer pattern, if he's going to not want to be in thick stuff, he'll be in a little more open, but open where he still feels safe. And a bench, 80% uh its way up a ridgeline, that's from what I pieced together, is a safe spot because his number one defense is his nose. Right, right. So if up there he's got everything from above him and below him that he can smell, he's going to be okay there.

SPEAKER_02 32:50

Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

And so part of it is like, okay, I want to put a camera up there and just see if I can catch him during the summer moving around.

SPEAKER_04 33:00

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 33:00

So I wanted to put cameras, I forgot them that day. I wanted to put cameras in the thick area, forgot them. But I'm thinking if I go back out there, I'll put cameras up in that other spot because that's probably where I'm more likely in my mind to catch him. And if I see him up there, maybe I'm catching him and I see the area that he might be walking back down towards that other area, because there's some more open stuff back by that real thick area that we that potential bedding area back there. Who knows? But it's that what do I work off of?

SPEAKER_02 33:37

Right.

SPEAKER_01 33:37

But it also makes me think, boy, I kind of do wish I bow hunted because I could if I knew he was there, I know what quality of buck he is, but I could set up there right at the start of season and hopefully get him before he returns back there. But that is the whole kind of plan figuring all that out.

SPEAKER_06 33:56

Right. And and like for early season, when guys are trying to get a big mature buck during early season and or trying to get your buck on camera throughout the summer, what's going on in that buck's life that's gonna really influence what he does? It's the growing season for him. You know what I mean? So he's gonna be hanging really close. Water is gonna be important because we're gonna go into the hottest part of our summer, number one. Number two, he's in his growing season. So he's gonna be eating stuff that is very high in nutrients because he needs that for bone growth and for antler growth. So he is gonna seek out those food sources first, yeah. And so wherever you can find that, whether down south, get down to southern Oregon and Northern California, scrub oaks is really big down there. Well, man, when they start start dropping acorns and that kind of stuff, those bucks are gonna be on it like crazy. Yeah, those are very high in nutrition. And you see it in the whitetail world uh a lot more because of the ag that they're in. But you're looking at corn, you're looking at a lot of the soybean and all this other stuff that they plant, and they have early crops, they have late summer crops, then they have late winter crops. And those deer seek that out for different phases of their lives for what they're going through.

SPEAKER_03 35:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 35:13

And so you when you stop and you start thinking about it's kind of like Heather Aldrich with the way she breaks down bear hunting. I know where he's going to be.

SPEAKER_03 35:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 35:22

Okay. And he's going to be there because of this. But where is he coming from and why is he coming from there? When you start piecing all of these numbers or puzzle pieces into the equation, you start understanding how these deer think, how they move, and it makes it a lot easier to interpret it, interpret where he's going to be at what time.

SPEAKER_03 35:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 35:43

You know what I mean? And it and you just become a better hunter that way. And it I think it goes back to what you were saying about interpreting data and all that.

SPEAKER_01 35:50

And a lot of it, yeah, I really want to be able to get to the point where I can pinpoint where he's going to be, when he's going to be there.

SPEAKER_02 35:58

Right.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

And even to an extent, like that's a in my mind, a trophy of I got him figured out. This the cat and mouse game, like you always talk about. I figured this out. And the again, the confidence, it builds the confidence. And that's the whole point about what we did throughout this day. We kept talking about different things about to to get guys to understand things differently so that they could build their confidence. They could put that puzzle together. You know what? I know he's going to be over here probably during the summer because he's because of this reason is going to push him over there. I know this is his total range, and I know this is his bedroom, and I know this is the trail he's coming out of the bedroom. And I know this, and I know this, and you just have all of those pieces, and that's why you can say, I'm going to set up here, I'm going to do this and this, and I'm going to get this buck this year.

SPEAKER_02 36:57

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

But I can understand now why you've said that, and through things you've read, your research, that it can take three years to get a buck. Right. Because of thinking, and I think I took two years of really not thinking about this spot, but I'm gonna get a little closer this year, but it's at three years of really three years to get your dominant buck. Your dominant buck.

SPEAKER_06 37:22

When you single out a buck and say that's the buck I'm going after, the average guy takes three years to figure him out. And in a lot of that, 90% of that is is interpreting data. That buck is showing you, and I tell guys this all the time, that buck is telling you, he is showing you how to kill him. You just have to be able to interpret what he is showing you.

SPEAKER_03 37:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 37:44

And most guys don't. Most guys take we get discouraged too easy. We start thinking on the negative, and it's easy to do because of past frustrations and that kind of stuff. But when you stop and you really start to break it down and realize everything has to make sense, it can't just be random, not with these animals. It has to make sense. He's doing it for a purpose, and you start breaking it down like that, it becomes for me, it's funner. Yeah, you know what I mean?

Reading Sign Tracks Scat Trails

SPEAKER_01 38:09

Yeah, putting that all together. So this we uh one of the thing that, and we'll wrap up with talking about this, but what we're looking for, the signs and how they're different. So thinking about if you're looking for tracks, uh-huh, and you're looking, okay, I know that's a deer track, but how do you know that's a small buck, a doe, versus a big buck? What are you gonna see differently if it's a big buck?

SPEAKER_06 38:33

Well, big buck, and most of your, I would say small fork it horns on up, some heavy spikes will, but most of your bucks are gonna have split toes. They're not gonna be together uh-huh like a half moon shape, like a doe will be.

SPEAKER_01 38:45

Where the fronts come to a point.

SPEAKER_06 38:47

Where the fronts come to a point, most bucks will split. And because they're heavier than does, you'll see the ducals. Now, that's not to say that you won't see that track with an old dominant doe.

SPEAKER_03 38:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 38:58

I've seen that plenty of times too. They get big and they get heavy, and because of the, it's that extra weight on their legs that pushes and causes their feet to lay. It's kind of like how we get older, we start losing the arch on our in our feet and everything. As they get heavier, their foot, more of their foot lays down and the dewclaws become close to the ground.

SPEAKER_03 39:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 39:18

As a buck gets bigger, especially as he gets to the six and a half, seven and a half year old age, he starts to get what we call potbellied or a sway back. And basically, it's like you and I, as we get older, the belt doesn't want to hold in as much, and our stomach comes and kind of what do they call it? The dunlop, it dunlops over your belt. Yeah, it's the same scenario. Our back muscles get a little weaker, our belly bellies get bigger, we put on weight. Yeah. It's the same with a deer as far as a butt goes, and they get heavier and that extra weight still causes the fronts to splay, but the dough, the dew claws will be depressed into the ground. And typically, a good mature buck will have about uh well, I'd say six to eight inch track. Okay, as far as the length.

SPEAKER_01 40:04

But one of the things, and this just occurred to me, and you can say yes or no to this, but does younger bucks will use the same trails. The mature bucks kind of use their own trails. So if you see a lot of tracks and you see that big imprint in there, that might be a sign of an older doe. But if you're seeing that big print and it's solo and you don't see any other tracks, if you're in a that's definitely a mature buck. And that could tell you where that that game trail that he's using as opposed to all the other deer are using.

SPEAKER_06 40:39

Right. And the thing is, so when I say I'm looking for the bedroom door, yeah, I want the bedroom door that the does are using. I don't care about the bedroom door that Buck is using. Uh I'm hunting him late season. He is looking for the does. I am putting myself in the area where the does are spending the most time.

SPEAKER_03 40:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 40:58

So that's the bedroom door I want. And that trail will be obvious. It will be totally beat down to the dirt. It'll be tattered with tracks, and it'll be something that's unmistakably. Oh, there's a game trail. Man, that thing's a highway, it's going right in there. That's where I'm gonna set up my kill spot. As far as the trail that mature buck is using, chances of me finding it are very slim because they they don't, it's not traveled on by the smaller bucks and the does. So there's very little activity going in on that. It's not beating anything down, and so it may just be a little, well, that could be a trail going in there. It looks like I can see something there.

SPEAKER_01 41:35

I was just thinking if it's soft dirt, right? Right, like you might catch that at the end of a trail or something like that.

SPEAKER_06 41:42

But that's not the one I'm looking for. The one I'm looking for is the one the does are using. That's the one I'm focusing on.

SPEAKER_01 41:48

Okay. One of the things that this was earlier discussion, I was thinking of bringing oh, when you were talking about that, they're not wandering around without a purpose. The as I I started doing some research on this of the interdigital gland, uh that is a gland and it's a waxy substance, but that marks their trail. Right. So they can tell where and they can also tell what other deer are using that same trail. That's how they're getting around. I take this trail. This is the trail I've taken before. This will get me where I want to go.

SPEAKER_06 42:22

Another reason why they walk with their nose down, yeah. So they can smell that. And also out of that interdigital gland, they secrete a warning.

SPEAKER_01 42:30

See, now, okay, not to disagree, but I was I tried to research that and that there was no stress hormone released from that gland. It because they will stomp as the warning or as a warning, right?

SPEAKER_06 42:47

I was I was I've always believed that it was as they were running, as they took off, but yeah, they do stomp to warn.

SPEAKER_01 42:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 42:53

Don't get me wrong, but yeah, when they're bounding away, yeah, that they're secreting out of that interdigital.

SPEAKER_01 43:00

Now that might be create a stronger scent, but everything I saw, everything I read and researched, uh-huh, that is not a stress hormone. That is it's a glandular secretion, it's not a hormonal secretion. So it is not, it doesn't show stress. Now it might, if they're bounding away, it might press more into the ground. There might be a stronger smell, but that's everything I saw said that it's just to mark trails, it's not to, it's not, it doesn't serve as a warning.

SPEAKER_06 43:37

Okay. So let that be a lesson, guys. You can always learn something. Yeah, I don't know everything, and I and I'm not afraid to say it.

SPEAKER_01 43:45

And out of curiosity, because I was looking this up, and I'm like, heard that's it.

SPEAKER_06 43:49

But you know, again, going back to what I've said during seminars, we just believe because that's what we've been told.

SPEAKER_01 43:55

Yeah. And I was talking to someone and they mentioned that. And so I was like, they didn't say that in anything that I read, and I was reading some articles that were somewhat scientific or referred to scientific. Scientific papers with this because I was looking at the chemical compounds even because I was trying to figure out how do they figure out how to make these synthetics, and it's they break down the chemical compounds anyway. Don't want to dive out into that too deeply, but because I wanted to see if is there a synthetic interdigital scent right out there, and I found some and I'm gonna try it out just to see if using that in a combination with the Done Estris this year, synthetic donestris. Oh, not only is there I smell this donest, but I can smell this deer, new deer walking through here. So I'm gonna follow this so uh double whammy to anyway. That's part of my plan of experimenting some stuff this year.

SPEAKER_06 44:56

Create an illusion.

SPEAKER_01 44:57

But big buck scat looks different because it's more of a butt looks like a bunch of junior mints melted together, melted together, and it's a bigger clump.

SPEAKER_06 45:05

Yeah, it's one of those, it's like bear, the bigger the poop, the bigger the bear.

SPEAKER_01 45:09

Yeah, so that's another way. Rubs, and this was great because we walked by a bunch of dominance rubs, and then we found annual rubs in that area, right? And knowing the difference. So, real quick, explain the difference between the dominance rub and an annual rub.

Dominance Rubs Versus Annual Rubs

SPEAKER_06 45:25

And I know we've done this before on the show, but so uh a dominant rub is simply it's just that it's a display of dominance that the buck is doing in response to another buck being in the area. So if he's at night, and you'll see a lot of this down in in clear cuts, guys will say, Well, I went down there and there was like nine, twelve rubs in this one little area, so there's gotta be a buck in here when it's again out in a clear cut, whatnot. And typically you gotta think about when that rub is made. It was probably made at night. It was probably made because a buck had a doe that was out there feeding in the clear cut at night, which is the time that most bucks will go out in a clear cut, and he's found one that's in standing estrus, and he's laying claim to her. He's trying to keep all the other bucks away. So out throughout the night, as he looks around and he sees another buck, say it's within 30, 40 yards of that doe because she's in standing estrus, other bucks are smelling her too. And his way of showing a display of dominance is and it's typically on a small fir tree, something that's three foot, four foot high. And he'll rip up four or five of them as a display of dominant dominance to that other buck that's in the area, basically telling him, hey, look, I'm with her, she's mine, you stay over there, we're not gonna have any problems. I'm laying claim to her. And in response, that other buck will do the same thing, basically saying back, listen, I got a safe face here. I can't let you just sit there and do that. I'm not gonna come over there and do anything, but hey, I'm not a pushover either. Yeah, and so you'll that'll happen three, four times throughout the night. It could happen seven, eight times if she's in standing estrus, which is typically the case when they lay claim to that, when they lock them down. And so those rubs are never returned to. They're not a breeding rub, it's not a rub line, it's simply a one-time shot where they hit that tree to show dominance, to express dominance toward another buck that was in the area that was possibly coming over to take it's a warning before things really get nasty. You better stay over there. Well, she's mine. So that's kind of how that works out. Whereas a breeding rub line is something that's come back to every year.

SPEAKER_01 47:32

So an annual.

SPEAKER_06 47:34

Yeah, an annual rub line or a breeding rub line. And it's the it's not just the bucks going through making the rubs, it's the doughs going through and urinating on some of the scent, you know, leaving her scent next to because she's smelled that dominant buck. She wants to be bred by that dominant buck, and or the one underneath. So she'll find his scent on one of those rubs, and she'll leave her scent, and eventually that's how that buck, as he travels back through, smelling for her, or for the dough that's in standing estrus, that's how he picks up on her and trails her down, or one of the ways.

SPEAKER_01 48:05

And that's with the annual rub line. I think it was Dylan last year. He got some really good footage of a couple of bucks doing a rub, and they're getting that forehead gland. It's it's rubbing that in there, but the doe coming along later and licking it and rubbing her head on it too, to like, oh hello fella, yeah. I'm here too.

SPEAKER_06 48:30

And typically that's there's more than one buck using that rub line. It's never just one buck.

SPEAKER_01 48:36

Yeah. So I have an I have a spot that where we've gone in where there's there was a really good rub line, but I found that they actually moved it and they're rubbing in a different spot along that skitter road, and they're not making rubs where they have been the last two, three years. Yeah. So they moved over a little bit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 48:59

And they'll do that as as things grow up, die off, logging, thinning, the thinning, a lot of that stuff. It all affects how they do their data. Again, the everything's done with a purpose, and safety, survival is key one right off the bat.

SPEAKER_01 49:15

Yeah. And I have which pretty rare, but scrapes. I know that they do, they can do those. I've had I've only seen one.

SPEAKER_06 49:23

Yeah, black tail do a lot of guys think they don't, but black tail do scrapes, they don't do them as often as white tail. Uh-huh. But yeah, I've come across scrapes and whatnot and visually watched them do it. And it's not very often. Did you see that? It's like the snort wheeze. I've had, man, I had one buck that every time he came and set, if there was another buck in the air, he would just snort wheeze like crazy. And I've only heard it twice in the woods outside of that particular buck.

SPEAKER_03 49:50

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_06 49:50

But when I go to Kansas, that's one of the main calls I use if I see a buck by himself. All snort weeds, nine out of ten times that buck is coming in.

SPEAKER_01 49:59

Yeah, I've heard it once myself, scared the crud out of me.

SPEAKER_06 50:02

Yeah. It's very, it's a very aggressive.

SPEAKER_01 50:04

I was wearing my game ears, and so they were amplified. Sounded like it happened right behind me, and it was probably about 40 yards away. And I could only see his legs, and he was behind a doe and a yearling. He was on her. Yeah. Woke me up. Yeah. That was definitely a shocker. Oh, yeah. All of it that year, because I could hear with those game ears the grunts, like quite often in this one spot, which yeah, putting putting that whole piece together. But last thing, and we'll wrap up with this, is and was still kind of on with the rubs, is there was also old rubs up there. So there was some fresh stuff that we know happened last year, and then there was some two, three years old. So how are you adjusting, thinking about for advanced locating, for finding the bedroom door, for all of this, for just buck behavior, when you're really trying to nail this down? When you see older rubs, it's what's going to be your response as far as are you keeping that in mind but kind of dismissing it because, hey, it's been a few years versus and or does that cause you to go look for some fresher ones? And does that key you in on maybe this is the spot over here?

When Old Rubs Still Matter

SPEAKER_06 51:23

Right. Yeah, it goes back to what age is the habitat. If it's getting close to being primed out, uh that rub line's gonna move. It's gonna move as they move to thicker cover. And it may be a rub line that they only use at night because it is so open, except for the smaller bucks. So, yeah, and I don't want to discourage guys from hunting rub lines, it's really good, but it's not a guarantee as far as a dominant buck. You're gonna get bucks running that rub line. If that's what you're after, you just want a buck, my goodness, sit on that rub line, keep the wind in your favor, and you'll you put enough time in, you'll see a buck there and you'll get an opportunity. But if it isn't close to close to thick cover, chances of that big dominant buck being there, it's gonna be probably after night or after dark, rather.

SPEAKER_05 52:09

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_06 52:10

And so I don't see a lot of daylighting on something like that. Now, if I find a willow that's absolutely ripped up, yeah, yeah, that I will sit on. And anybody, Tom Riley, I was talking with him, and he was like, Yeah, I always look for those and I key on those. And this, yeah, you really should, because they absolutely, I mean, they tear them up like they owe them money. It is absolutely the most insane thing that you see, and they will hit it year after year after year.

SPEAKER_01 52:38

And they shred them, they do.

SPEAKER_06 52:40

It's some of the most impressive blacktail rubs you've ever seen. And I know Tom hunts them quite a bit, and it's a great spot. It's a great spot. If I find one of those, I'm usually within 40 yards of that.

SPEAKER_01 52:52

Yeah, and it might be like you say, they might come out and do that at night, but boy, 40 yards off that they could be, or even 20 yards, they could be staging there for a few hours. So yeah, you might not have to go far to get them during daylight.

SPEAKER_06 53:09

Yeah, it may be the last few seconds of daylight, but that may be all you need to put the kill shot on them.

Advanced Locating Class And Next Steps

SPEAKER_01 53:14

Yeah. Okay, that wraps up us talking about advanced locating and finding that bedroom door. So, like I said, we do have a class and it is on the website, and we're gonna get in more about the classes and everything, but the advanced locating for next year is on the website. You can register now if you want to. If the prerequisite is that you've had you have to have taken the regular locating class or gone to boot camp or some form. If you haven't taken the class, we've got whole package deal with all three of the field days and the low the trophy tactics course. But check that on the website. But in a few weeks, we are going to do our Blacktail Coach 2027, talk about the classes and the Hunters Gathering coming up.

SPEAKER_06 54:04

Big news.

SPEAKER_01 54:05

Yeah, that's there's gonna be a lot of information in that news, a lot of exciting stuff. That episode. So tune in. I believe that will be the June 1st episode. So between now and then, we've got a couple more here that we'll be working on. But thanks for listening, and we will talk to you all next week.