How To Hunt Public Land Deer In The Mountains #3

what's up guys podcast number three today  we actually have Howie and he's going to talk about some public land hunting and give you  guys some tips this is probably the number one question that I get asked is public land hunting  hunting in the mountains and uh we're going to go over this so what's going on guys how you doing  thanks for having me no problem yeah we're glad to have somebody on this week it's pretty funny we  third weekend we already got a guest why don't you start out and tell

us where at in PA that you  do that hunting at okay so I live in southeast PA but I hunt North Central um Tioga Potter  County area very vast Big Woods lots of game lands and Hill Country so awesome now Hallie um  we we've had some technical issues here but yeah um just watching your Instagram stories tires  me out because you put in some major work I mean I've seen you I you know I follow you all through  the spring and summer and everything and you got backpacks on with you know carrying rocks

up and  down the road it's 100 degrees outside and it just it wears me out so what it it inspires me really  but tell us how you start out your season by you know prepping you're working out you're shooting  your bow the trail cameras are scouting in the mountains and let's just start with that and we'll  we'll Carry On from there so so since I have like a three and a half hour drive I try to um utilize  as much time as possible so uh in the spring when I go up for trout if I see deer I Mark my

self in  my mind if um I'm out turkey hunting I'm still always deer hunting I'm looking for deer sign and  I'm looking for things to come back in maybe in the fall and as I go into these Spa I'm looking  for Oaks different kinds of Oaks mostly um like I look for like a white oak or certain Red Oaks  and then that gives me an idea of I'll put that in the back of my mind and then I could go in there  in like September or late August you know and you could go in there and see if they're dropping if

  they have eight I haven't had luck with glass and guys say they can glass them um I don't have I  haven't picked up on that too good I'll go out like after a storm after we get some high winds go  out hit hit some miles in and uh you know you'll see or you'll see maybe we're a bear climbed the  tree and they'll snap the limbs off and they'll be they'll snap them Limbs and they'll eat the acorns  off them branches they can see that on the ground then that's another thing you marked out in your 

mind and then going into season you know you kind of have an idea where you might want to start  but you know now when you say you mark this in your mind are you using any kind of apps to mark  this so I am using Spartan Forge and I still have Onyx and I go back between the two um because  I still have a lot of waypoints on the Onyx and um I'm kind of familiar with it I'm still learning  the Spartan Forge app um but like I'll mark stuff in my mind I don't don't always use the app um  and then s

ometimes if something really looks good I will I will mark it and I'll make a waypoint  now I'm sorry I wanted to ask you this year how was your Acorn crop we had very very little to  none in my area where I'm at in Jefferson County um so surprisingly there was acorns in a  few areas but it was still bad but I say surprisingly because we had the bad drought  and then we had the Gypsy walls on top of it and I went out one day scouting and I mean  it like you just heard it sound like it was rainin

g and it was just leaves come down  and when you walked the leaves were all shredded up in the ground and when he looked  up through the foliage it was like wide open and those Gypsy models were just hammering  everything like the underbrush so it was like there's this is like a desert  I need to get the heck out of here somehow they some of them spots produced  acorns and there was actually deer in there and I mean I got burnt hard this  year I got my I got my butt kicked bad um I haven't strug

gled this hard since I  pretty much started which was back around oh 09 2009 is when I really that's when I really  dived into hunting um the mountain areas and uh this was almost like uh like I started over  this year I just could not um my timing was off I mean we had bad weather um I really honestly  uh my setups and areas weren't really set up for South Wind and it was like every week you know  South Southwest and then I'd go in and then it'd be Southeast or east it was like swirling it  it

was just a struggle no matter what but uh back I'm getting off topic but like you were  saying how I'm uh preparing everything so when I'm in them spots in the spring and  I'm putting that in the back of my mind um that might be where I come back and then  start setting trail cameras and then I might move those cameras now I made a mistake years ago  uh being too anxious to check those cameras like every week every other week you gotta let them go  for like at least three four weeks sometimes si

x weeks because what we're doing is you're putting  too much uh pressure and presence in that area and if you don't have a decent access and  you're um leaving a lot of scent which you know it's hard because a lot of times it's  summer you're sweating you know bugs are bad um and you gotta hike up a mountain to get  there so you you're dumping sweat and you're leaving scent and then you're you're altering  the course of that um that area I I feel like um so what I kind of I I'm always evolving 

and adapting changing you know every year food sources change pressure from other Hunters  change and you have to kind of figure all that out and sometimes you just don't now are you are  you seeing anybody back in here where you go um surprisingly sometimes I do um now it's not a  lot but sometimes one or two guys might be just depending on how they're doing it might be enough  to um really alter that that movement in that spot what what are some things that people you  know that that's getting

into this mounting hunting hunting what are some things that  some guys can look for some tips to them um for success well it's kind of uh I would say  if you it's kind of hard to find a good hunting buddy that's trustworthy that doesn't you know  you need kind of have tight lips you know you can't be sharing stuff because you've got to  put a lot of work in to find these thoughts if you let the cat out of the bag you  know it's going to be ruined yeah but um what I've like we would park trucks

at each end  of the mountain and access from different areas and if you would go in from one spot and then you  walk to that other truck you know what I mean like so you drop a truck off drive around come in and  then walk it and you you know you have a body you spread out maybe 20 yards 50 yards 100 yards  and walk that Hillside out and go to that next truck it might take a couple hours it might take  all day and then you go back and compare notes and now you kind of break that down then the 

next time you go out you might move and then go from a different area and basically you're  just kind of breaking that area down to learn the different kind of habitats and then you you  find where those edges of those habitats meet and then you'll find where you'll start to learn like  the how the deer are using that terrain and areas they like you know you'll go through something  you'll be like man this looks like it's awesome but they're just in a deer sign here for whatever  reason they're

just not in there and then you'll go into this other area and there'll be a couple  little features in there like it might be some Laurel and some hemlocks it just makes something  that they like and you'll see sign and then you'll start seeing that replicate itself from just  putting your time in different areas that once you start seeing something like that you'll be like  oh there's gonna be deer here because every time I see something like this somewhere else it always  seems that the deer a

re they like this kind of area for whatever reason so you're talking about  entrance and exit and hunting buddy and things are you uh is this a spot in stock deal or are you  or is it depending on what season you're into um so this could range from say maybe it's um  late rifle season and we just spread out maybe we're trying to bump something to each other  or maybe it's February March we're trying to look for turkey scratchings and what turkey are  feeding but we're still looking for like you'

re learning that mountain that area as you're walking  that looking for turkey sign or or whatever else um hold on I'm gonna say here okay  so yeah you're um you're trying to you're basically trying to do as much as you  can with little as you have if that makes sense you know what I mean if that if that makes any  sense at all now what I I got back into public land hunting this year or for 2022 and I did a lot  of scouting did some hunting with Zach and stuff on some public land and he got me i

nto um Lone  Wolf custom gear tree stands and sticks and stuff because they're you know they're pretty light and  all that what is your public land set up are you hunting hang on saddles or what you're saying  this would have been this would have been my third season with a saddle but I kind of go back  and forth I used to have a lone wolf uh climber and that was awesome but I found that there was  some areas where the trees were too big be here and I not get up that tree with that climber so um

  that's when I went into the saddle game but uh to be honest that kind of gets old after a little  while especially when um it gets late you're wearing like um your bibs and stuff you're trying  to wear that saddle and you got all his clothes on it's not always as comfortable for me now some  people they love it um but I bought the Lone Wolf point five setup and I ran B6 and that was pretty  awesome now this last year I ran the 0.5 blown with custom with um the level of custom double 17  inch s

teps upstairs so I just I just ordered that the point I ordered the 0.5 in the  sticks with uh three three cableators Okay so I have two cableators and on the  bottom stick I use a three-step eighter which I I modified it to make it movable um that  kind of burned me at one time because I had it um I had a power cord with a carabiner on my belt so  if I dropped it unlike the second stick I wasn't stuck so I bumped it all the way up to the third  stick because sometimes you have to cheat to win a

nd get High um so I got to the third stick and I  went to climb into my platform and I forgot to on clip it and when I stepped in the  platform it yanked that stick off the tree so this is where actually um a lot of guys like to  use the when you're saddle hunting around your uh your tether they like to use those rope mates  well if you listen to uh the New York saddle Hunter guys they did a video where why they don't  like to use that and they use the prosec knob and I always went with that sin

ce I watched  their video the situation that actually saved my rear end because I was able to pull that knot  down on that prosec and this descend down to set my now it wasn't comfortable at all but I was  able to descend down enough to reset that stick get up back up in the stand now it was kind of a  scratch but at least I was tied in and I was able to get my now if I would have had the Ascender and  you're trying to pull that little cable and those jaws open you're going to go down because yo

u're  you're all your weight is now pulling on that so that was one thing that was like eye-opening like  okay now I've seen it full circle or why they do that um the other thing is like with those  mobile setup you have to silence everything um and I'm not quite there yet I've got a lot of  work I'm going to order a lot of stealth strips this all season and um I got I got a silences then  sticks are awesome they're Compact and the way they stack but if you're not careful they're kind  of like t

hey could be like a tuning fork right but I mean I I love that setup the way  everything works together it's truly awesome now I I do a lot of uh the buck hunting that I  do is on the side of a mountain also and that's why you know Dave and I was talking about having  you on here because you and I have something in common okay I do a lot of real steep Hillside  like I go in I can I can enter the property from a friend's house and it it's a big  triangular narrow piece of property a hundred acres

on top and the sides is All  State and what it is it's a bend in the river and they're slat on top but all sides go down to  the river so it's steep all every angle Steep and I was kidding Dave I said If You're Gonna hunt  with me you got to have ankles and calves I mean because it you got it I mean you're it's deep  descents you know and and you're rolling rocks with your ankles and stuff you got to watch really  you do but but what I'm getting at is anyhow I run the hawk sticks and I made som

e some haters  to you know just help the last two uh sticks that I have that the low ones the first two I put up  have eighters on them and then I can get like 25 feet with those four sticks yeah um what you can  do with this stuff nowadays yeah I mean it's it's nice to be able to go in and do that and move  around if I have to I am not a saddle guy right uh over 50 I just don't trust it anymore I don't  climb trees anymore you know I do everything with sticks or or ladder stands or hangers you'

re  too old well the reason I went into battle is I I never were a harness and um I thought well  this would be safe performance at least now I'm always tied in and even if I even if I wear the  um I'm sorry even if I'm hunting out of the 0.5 I still wear my saddle and then I would just use  my tether and still tile off to the tree so I'm tied in I'm all on our safety system fast and I  just never liked it and with that cable in the back and I'm like I never I'm like well I never  wore so I'm li

ke now I have something to tie in because I'm getting older now too and I'm like  I think about this stuff a lot more I'm like you know yeah how old are you now Howie I just turned  37. okay so that that's another you know thing I'm kind of learning of um accepting my age because  I feel like I the mountains kind of slow you down after a while oh yeah yeah well I mean I I'm  51 and I'll be 52 this year when archery season rolls around and two years ago I climbed a tree  with a climber and I I go

t stuck up there because I hadn't used it in a long time and I got up the  tree and found out that my body does not like to bend like it used to it was one of those stands  that had the rubber bands across and you had to put tuck your toes underneath it and you know  and let y'all let yourself up and down with the well I got up you know when the hunt was done it  got dark and I tried to get my boots underneath those straps and I couldn't turn around and bend  and help myself to get those boots t

ucked under that rubber strap I got stuck up the tree and  that's when I took I come home and I told the wife I said I'm done climbing trees no more  climbers too old can't bend like that right so but yeah I find I find myself though Howie um I  don't know how you feel I try to find like saddles and trans like you were saying transition  zones yep uh I like Ridge tops during the rut but during the season I think I think it's the  Saddles is where it's at you know because all it seems like the do

es are traveling that  and the Bucks are following them around um but rut time Anything could happen but I  like I like using The Ridges what do you think I kind of like to be down a bench or two uh  and all these so it kind of all depends on where that saddle is in accordance to how  people are accessing and like where you're um like parking lots and stuff are because I used  to hunt a lot of saddles but then you would find a tree stand like right in there and then you'd be  like this looks lik

e it'd be dynamite and then you know you go another 100 yards it's like oh well  no wonder this guy is hunting in here in the hen maybe it would be better you know I don't  know I can't talk for everybody but maybe they're not accessing it correctly or maybe  they are but just however they they're doing it kind of changes the patterns and uh I  I've seen some your movement in there but it seems like there's older bucks just kind  of avoid those Saddles now it was because of everybody keys in on

that you know like we  got all these podcasts now which is awesome but I'm starting to listen to podcast and then  what everybody's doing or talking about I do the opposite or I start looking you know like big  thing now is clear Cuts so now you go to a clear cut well guess what you've got a lot of company  on clear Cuts because every podcast talking about targeting clear cause right so you know  those deer are always a doubt they live out there and it just amazing it's like okay  we just gotta

find somewhere else and you you have to kind of always be one step ahead of  the next guy um I'm lucky in the sense that where I'm at it's desolate enough that I  don't usually get company okay so I actually Scout All Summer Long put cameras out mock scrapes  out do a little Intel and then strategically put stands all around that River Bend where I want to  be and I actually leave them out and and lock them but I have the sticks so I just take the sticks  down and I leave the stand and very rare

ly do I ever see anybody usually usually if I see  somebody it's like during bear season because of course there's people pushing around you  know but and most of my Approach is rifle season that's when obviously a lot of people in a  lot of these spots like on cameras and stuff well the reason I pick where I go is because I  don't like to see people so I I go where I know no one else is gonna go and like that buck there  and that bear there was all shot on that property and uh with multiple oth

ers and uh he killed  his brother yeah I I did I got his his air it was either his son or grandson that can be tough  too for me at some points because I've done that I went way back in I'm like I ain't gonna  see anybody back here and I didn't but I was so far away from people like now this is  um say like a rifle hunt strategy where you think you're gonna game is gonna get pushed  back to you eventually and I was just too far away from everybody that nothing even came to  me there was enough I

guess cover and Pockets that they just pushed next instead of cover but I  didn't see anything I'm like well I do that again it the thing of it is with like public it's  tough because it's so situational and like when I'm setting cameras in the summer I've played  the game or you know you set the cameras and you're getting these giant bucks on and they're  oh I can't wait well then they shift always they go nocturnal and then you don't get them  again and then now you gotta start all over um I

I kind of like to my strategy now I like to  cast a net of cameras in areas that I think are good where a good book would be and I kind of let  them soak and it's kind of crap because sometimes like if you're dumb you forget to turn it on or  you do something and there's a twig in the way or sometimes like if you do it too early in the  summer and a little tapping will actually grow a couple inches and it grows in front of that camera  and then it starts blowing the wind thousands but it's like

and then you go there it's dead  right at prime time yeah so you kind of need to find out a way to get and some of these spots  are so far back in like I just I whatever reason I just can't get to them but you'll have  um but my strategy is I try to get these cameras out in areas I think there's going to  be a good buck and I just try to let them soak um that way I'm not altering the deer kind of  seeing the deer on their natural more on their more natural pattern I should say um I'm trying  to

put them in areas where I think they're going to be when I'm going to be hunting them  um and then I I really put a lot more um effort into like in season scouting like  this year um I'm not just going to sit in a tree because I have like of off of a trail cam picture  I got from like a month ago you know like that's not enough information for me to go sit here so  I might spend all day walking and I'm going to scout so I find hot sign or what I think looks  good for that time like this year the

re wasn't much acorns but if I would have found a couple or  where the ground was tore up okay I might say I'm gonna set here because I don't need to go any  further I made that mistake last year whereas um I've seen where they were feeding but  I walked past that sign didn't realize it didn't realize that that was the hot  sign because I was looking for I was like I gotta find better you know  and sometimes you got to realize this is what's good right now and then set up  on that how many camer

as are you roughly running um honestly and is it and is it all in the same  spot or are you scattered throughout multiple different public lands so I'm I'm uh I think I'm  a little over 30. I don't honestly it's under 30. five but I know I'm over 30. um I do have a couple  cell cams mixed in there just because there's some spots that are so far back yeah and I'm gonna sell  cams but I know you're you're at Camp a lot so you just go check them a lot of them though by hand  there's a lot of going

on with them now and I'm like well I'm I'm three and a half hours away so  if I see a picture on there until I get up there I'm basically 24 hours away from that deer anyway  yeah so you know I I mean but um I have them I have most of them this year I kind of had  them on one area one like Mountain Area I thought like like a um a hub system where  all these ridges are dumping down together I have them kind of all around that um and then  I have a couple I'll try to leave like a couple uh what I

call them floater cams where I  I'll try to leave like five or six at the house I'll put one in my bag every time I go  out so if I see something going in something lights up gets hot maybe I'll put a camera we're  on it and then I could come back and check that in a week or so or maybe I'll just if I don't I  could just come back and get that Intel at the end of the year at the end of the season you know  and then I'll if I use that one I'll grab another one put it in my bag I always try to kee

p one  in my bag now because there's so many times going into a spot and like scrapes will just  light up it's like well I should have a camera here you know just to see kind of what your  base for me you're trying to see what is in that area and how they're using it and then  you could kind of like look at the time frame and then you're like reverse engineering back to  where you think they're coming from but it's tough I mean they they don't bet in one single bed all  the time I don't think so

metimes I sometimes flow we me and Dave talk about that all the time  it's like you know when a deer gets tired it lays down right when it gets tired of laying down  it stands up goes to the bathroom takes a couple bites or whatever you know and it uh these guys  making bunk beds and stuff I I kind of disagree with it I don't know what you guys think but like  people are trying to make Buck beds I mean you can make bedding areas and things I understand it but  to literally like make a buck bed b

ehind this log yeah I don't really believe in that I'm sorry well  it's more of I mean I I you know I've seen people do some crazy stuff cut like you just said cut  logs and then they take a rake and they rake out the leaves right there and they try to I actually  seen a guy take a log put it right on the ground rake out the area in front of it take a tree like  a sapling two inch round sapling and bend it down and tie it with a rope to an anchor to the ground  so he can bed there when he's got

a tree right over top of him and it's just it's it's way that's  way too much thinking yeah I mean it's over it's over the top eight all the betting everywhere  else and and then maybe that is the only spot too bad if you if you have that much control  over the terrain um maybe but yeah that's like up there this year um it got so dry and with the  Gypsy Moss even like the underbrush dried up that that cover changed and I think  it shifted their betting because normally I have I want to say like

five  real good Shooters and um maybe I set my standards too high this year but I'm like I  want to try and kill something in the 130s now I had one that was over 130 and one  pushing maybe 130 so I only had two shooters that was basically after but another  thing that I try to do is through these cameras um I try to find where I have the most Buck  activity and then I kind of key in that area and I'll Bounce Around like so I might  narrow it down to say 20 acres right and then um I have six you

know 120 because I used  to be like in the 120s 125 you know that's a shooter to me um if I could get five six in an  area like that I'm gonna hunt somewhere around there and eventually I'll just catch up to  one of them but this year I only had two and none of them were in the same  they were like really spread out so I just kept pounding away at where I knew that  these bucks were and it just it didn't work out for me you know right I mean I had some oh I had  some Whoppers on camera and but

I never caught up with them I never saw them again you know uh so it  doesn't always work but sometimes it does you know it's hunting and yeah well they should this year  I changed up tactics totally because of the acorn situation I was going out and getting blanked  wasn't seeing anything and I was driving home and seeing these big bucks in everybody's yard  eating grass well and hot right I took off that first week of November and I should look to that  forecast and just went right back to wor

k because I was limited on time it was hot and it was oh it  was so warm I mean even at night it was t-shirts and I sat there for three or four days and I  didn't see a deer the first I forget the date um it was right around I want to say  this second or third of November um I took off Monday or no  Thursday Friday Monday Tuesday and that I figured that first Thursday was going  to be the coldest morning I figured well it's kind of that time frame they should be cruising I  should have a good ch

ance well right I got set up and I had to um across this big creek to get in  here so it was a kind of a it's a tough access I thought if I got up along that Riverbank I  let the wind blow my scent over that River um I'm bulletproof well I don't know if it was  because of how it was um overly warm and The Thermals coming off that water but at night you  know the thermal should have been coming down the mountain but they were going up the mountain  and and the wind was supposed to be coming out o

f the Southwest coming off that mountain but it the  thermals or the wind was going completely opposite and I was on this pinch point so I had this  giant it was too dark to shoot I could just barely see the rack and um he got  the 12 yards right in front of me and he whipped out of there and turned and ran I  thought well there's no way of seeing me because I was just kind of reaching from my binoculars to  pull them out look and um did he see me well then he started blowing I thought oh crap w

ell then  after he got out of there I threw the milkweed and it went right to where he was at I'm like  that's completely opposite of what the weather forecasted the wind to be let's talk about let's  talk about scent control on the mountain are you using you using sprays you smoke in your clothes  are you making mock scrapes trying to use deer lure I mean what are you doing for scent you know  I mean I I I kind of try a little bit of it all but I don't get all um wrapped up in it because uh  if

I'm up there for the week hunting the mountains hiking and stuff uh I'll be honest in a couple  days I start to stink and my clothes start to stink because I'm sweating I mean I'll  try and hang them outside and they're out um I don't really get involved with  the spraying down too much I try to let stuff out in the air or um I try  not this might sound crazy or dumb but I try not to eat onions and I'm trying to eat like  garlic during all of our Seasons because I know that comes like I feel li

ke that comes out of your  pores yeah it does for sure yeah I try to watch certain things like that that I'm eating because  I feel like it just makes your body odor kind of you know um I'll do a little bit of  smoking on the clothes a little like um oak leaves or oak bark that's what I have or  whatever I have available but uh I read one time if you take vitamin B1 it helps with the odors  coming out of you I bought a bottle of it and tried it I didn't see any big difference  I I just heard of

using chlorophyll yeah I'll take chlorophyll yeah chlorophyll tiles  because they actually use that back in the Civil War for infections because they would and  if um I guess it would break the capsules open and put it on the infection would make them take  it um orally that they can drink it or take it like a vitamin or whatever and it would help that  infection not to stink so bad so I was like well if it can do that and you kind of burp  and you smell like a plant you know yeah i i a little b

it now I don't know I mean it's hard  to fool deer's nose and the wind is always like swirling or switching it's like this year first  I've had in years though like as far as trying to get a consistent wind it just seemed like it  swirled every single time I was out it was brutal no I mean I don't know I try to play the win I  try and do certain things but sometimes the deer just win all right yeah definitely well Howie  you know we want to thank you for uh coming on here and explaining all this

and make sure you  keep your Instagram stories going because like I said it definitely motivates me seeing you  hiking these mountains and and yeah you're a grinder dude I can't tell Dave at all the time  I'm like how he's out there grinding again man he's out there yep hey you guys follow along you  know it means a lot thanks for having me on you know and keep doing what you're doing you know  you're you pump me up to do stuff too because I'm going to be getting back into the habitat stuff  in

the property I'll I would say coming up here in the next couple months in spring so it's  you know never ending it never ends yeah it's getting to be that time it'll be frost seeding  before you know it yeah yeah but like Rambo said nothing's over that's right that's right the  whole year man it's all year never quits yep all right guys all right we'll see you guys take it  easy thanks for having me on we'll see you Holly