Jeremy Berlin talks about hunting mature bucks and the factors that come into it. Jeremy says it’s hard passing up a 140, but the delay of satisfaction brings you a 190 or 180-inch buck. He shares that the most important factors in holding bucks in your land is food, bedding, and water. Running year-round nutrition and food plots will appeal to a deer throughout the year. It doesn’t matter how much acreage you have. If you can turn 40 acres into a prime deer establishment, they might not all stay in there but they’re all going to want to be there at one time or another, and that’s the key.
—
This is part two of Jeremy Berlin of Augusta, Wisconsin. Jeremy took out 192 Vernon County buck in Wisconsin and he’s sharing how he did it, how he hunts mature bucks on a farm, lease land, not too much hunting pressure, but you have to figure out where Mr. Wonderful’s going to be and you’ve got to get there before him.
Listen to the podcast:
Target And Hunt One Mature Buck-Learn How So You Can Too- with Jeremy Berlin
We’re going to go back and catch up with Jeremy Berlin of Augusta, Wisconsin. If you listened to a previous episode, he took a beautiful 192 buck on a private land in Vernon County. I’ve got a lot of follow-up questions for him. Jeremy said he would be happy to get back on the show. Jeremy, welcome to the show.
Thank you for inviting me back. It’s a pleasure.
We talked the last time that there’s a lot to hunting mature bucks. That’s where I want to spend the first part of the show and talk about hunting mature bucks and passing on those three-and-a-half-year-old bucks even though it’s hard because they might be pushing the high 140s. To put down the bucks that you’re seeing on the land down there, it takes something special. Let’s talk about what is that something special.
There are a lot of factors that come into it. You’ve got to talk about the land type. It’s a cherry country. There are a lot of places that they can hide. It’s ridgy so them big bucks are hard to get to and that’s one of the reasons why in Southern County, they are so rich with big whitetails. These big mature bucks stand up on these ridges and they can see everything. They are going to pick out the most pristine spot on your property, the biggest buck, and a lot of times he knows who’s coming in, who’s going out without you even knowing. To grow a big deer, you have to pass up them three and a half year olds. It’s hard passing up a 140-inch buck.
Six or seven years ago, I wouldn’t have even thought about passing up a 140, but the fact is, and this is perfect QDM, that if you don’t pass them, you’re not going to have a 190 or 180-inch buck. That’s just the gist of it. You can’t shoot what’s not there. If there’s not 170, 180, 190-inch buck there, you can’t shoot him. The importance of holding deer is another key factor for that as well. You have to have the right type of stuff for a big mature buck to want to be there. There’s no black and white to harvesting a mature buck. You’d have to have them. That’s the number one thing. If you don’t have them, you can’t shoot them.
I’m thinking the different farms that I hunt. I’m fortunate to hunt in Buffalo County and I’m fortunate to hunt in a farm. We took out 180 last year and we’re seeing bigger bucks because they’re there. That’s why we’re seeing them. I can remember years and years where we’re hunting, there weren’t any big bucks. You can’t put them on the ground, you can’t harvest them, you can’t kill them if they’re not there. Think about that folks. How do we get them there? How do we hold them on your land?
The most important factor is food, running year-round nutrition and food plots that appeal to a deer throughout the year. I can think back seven or eight years ago when we were just planting food plots for the rut. We’d have big deer there early, run an opener through the rut, late season, bucks would vanish, and we would never see him again. You’ve got to figure the past four years, we have been providing different types of forage for the whole year. We got bucks that are two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half-years old that are staying to four-and-a-half, five-and-a-half, six-and-a-half years old. We’re keeping the deer there, which is now providing us with better hunting opportunities and better deer quality all around. You’re putting nutrition and the deer are growing bigger than what they should be.
Another thing you have is bedding. If you have a wide open timber, you need to get in there and do some one to two acre hinge cuts in certain areas, maybe there’s a little knob in there that the deer like to bed on, go out there and do a two-acre hinge cut around that knob and you will have a mature buck bedding area right there on that knob, because that is going to be the most pristine spot on your location.
Another thing is water. We’ve found a really good way to put water in that is a cheap way. Kiddie pools and tanks as long as they’re accessible, to refill them, they harbor deer. We put a watering hole into an area where we knew that there were mature bucks, I have hundreds of pictures of bucks using this water hole that we put in early spring. They got used to it throughout the fall and they’re there all fall up until it froze. That keeps them deer in that area. Usually we’d put it close to food if we can and a lot of times, it keeps them deer there. During your hot months like September, August, early October, deer are going to be in that water a lot. The more things that you can add to that property to benefit that buck, the more likely he is going to stay on your property, whether you have 10 acres or 500 acres.
I can remember a couple of places I’ve hunted that they’ve gone in with those black feeders. I call them feeders, that they throw feed in and the cows and the other animals on the farm just come and drink and it doesn’t take all that much. The biggest thing is how do you replenish it. How do you replenish your water sources?
I have two different ways to do it. On one of my locations, I’m able to get a truck back there. I have 250-gallon gas tote that I fill up with water. I’ll back up to it and I’ll fill it up. There’s another location that we have that we can only get to by a four-wheeler. What I did was I got a 55-gallon drum, I went to Menards, made a hold spot for it. I filled it up with water, I strapped it on the four-wheeler, and then I backed up to the water tank and I just opened it up, and let it fill. That’s enough water. You don’t need a lot, only 55 gallons of raw water. You have to do that every couple of weeks. It’s a lot of work, but at the same time, if you want to kill a mature deer, you’ve got to put the work in.
I’m just thinking of one of the ridges that we have on the farm and we’re starting to do hinge cutting. We did some timber harvest on it. We’re going to put some more bedding areas. Our neighbor, he timbered probably ten years ago, so most of the bucks bed towards the north end of our property along that ridge. He’s got a jungle there and it is perfect, and I was thinking where we could put some water sources on our end of the ridge. It is important. You need cover, you need water and you need food. How many acres do you have in food crops? Tell me about your crop rotation.
Our regular farm fields are on a corn-soybean rotation every other year. That leaves us with about five acres along our crop fields to put food plots, which we cleared up some other areas and added a little bit more. We have about five acres which I consider our primary food plot, that’s our destination food plot. Then down in the middle of our property I have to micro plots that I call kill plots where mature bucks like to come up, you get graze, get a drink of water before they come out in the fields, which usually is after dark. These little small micro plots are great ambush zones to kill a mature deer, either early or during the rut when it’s early on. On my one property, I’ve got probably six and a half acres in food plots. We only got twenty acres or so of regular crops for cows and whatever. Our other property, we probably got two acres due to the limited amount of tillable land. It all depends on your land type. There’re some places where it’s hard to get equipment and stuff.
Going back, the two micro plots I have are high spots in a swamp. The pH was garbage when we first tilled them off, but they are doing pretty good right now with lime fertilizer. That’s another thing too. If you can find a spot on your property, even a half-acre foot plot, it’s worth it. It provides some security and some forage to your whitetails.
What kind of cover crops do you have through the winter? Then spring, what are they eating when they’re dropping their horns and you get the heat stress in the summertime, and then you get the fall and then back into the winter. What crops do you have on the ground?
For late season and stuff, obviously everybody’s favorite is rape, turnips and radishes, which is my favorite too. That’s one of the deer’s preferred food sources during that time. I also like to plant a little bit of a cover crop as far as winter rye, some kale, something that’s going to stay green a little bit longer into the winter. Once they eat those turnips up, which is usually depending on the time of year that it gets cold after your first freeze or, etc. During the winter, kale is one of the most outstanding. It stays green longer, it’s high and has crude protein. Going into spring, obviously clover is probably my favorite along. The winter rye is going to keep going until they had developed which is the first thing green in the spring, which overseeding that in the winter is beneficial because that’s going to provide a lot of green as soon as it starts poking or as soon as the frost starts coming out on that stuff, that starts growing.
Going into the summer, there are a lot of different varieties out there. I can’t say that one’s better than the other and never will, but I found that beans and clover are one of the most attractive mixes that we’ve ever used, some mixed forage beans with regular green soy beans, which if you’re going to leave it, work good. There are a lot different varieties out there and I’m not going to say which one you use, what not to use. Do your research. There’s a lot of stuff online that you can research about crude protein, tonnage. You want to put out a mix that’s going produce the best for your whitetails. There’s a lot of literature out there to read, to write down, to do different research on different mixes, and what they have. Everything appeals to a whitetail if you put it there. If put it in front of them, they’re going to eat it.
The most important factor is food, running year-round nutrition and food plots that appeal to a deer throughout the year. Share on XYou mentioned about the pH. Let’s unpack that a little bit. Why is that so important?
If you have a garbage pH, you are not going to produce the amount of tonnage that your seeds are capable. Your food plots are going to grow, but it’s probably going to grow pretty bad. It’s not going to grow to the highest quality that that seed can produce. I’ve heard a lot of people say, “I don’t like this mix because it didn’t grow.” “Did you do a pH?” “No, I never did a pH test.” You can’t go bashing somebody’s food plot mix if you have a garbage pH. Optimum pH is 7.0 which will give you the highest tonnage and best food plots you’ve ever seen. I did a food plot this past spring. I did a pH, so it was 6.5, which I thought was pretty good. I limed it, I fertilized it and I turned a first-year clover plot. We all know first-year clover plots don’t usually turn out that great just because clover is a two, three, or four-year plot. I mowed it three times this summer with a push mower and that’s the best clover plot I’ve ever seen in my life. That is because I did the pH, I applied the proper lime fertilizer and now I have a first-year plot that’s going to look absolutely amazing this year on the second year.
Folks, we put out an eBook that is available, but I’d love to have some shots of that clover plot to share with the people because we’re all looking for mature bucks. Most of my guests, they’ve shot a lot of deer and they’re stepping up the game, “I want to play with the big boys,” and that’s what it is. You can see a lot of deer, one-and-a-half, two-and-a-half, three-and-a-half-year old, but if you want to see a larger deer, you have to do a lot of things right. Jeremy and his crew are doing that on their land. Let’s switch up a little bit and talk about knowing your neighbors. You’re on a private farm. How important is it knowing the type of hunter your neighbors are and what kind of people they are?
I’m fortunate enough down in one of the farms that I hunt that my lease down in Vernon County is a gold mine. I’m not going to lie. I talked to the landowner when he first started leasing it, and he told us that he knew all landowners and all did quality deer management. They all had the same aspirations with us. We all want to shoot big deer. My advice to anybody that’s going to lease property or go to buy a new property, before you buy it or lease it, go knock on some doors. A lot of people are not going to be mad that you go knock on the door and talk to them about hunting and say, “I want to know about the area. You guys shoot big bucks or are you just throwing stones.” Once you get a feel of how your neighbors are as far as what their aspirations are as far as whitetail hunting, you will find a good piece of land that everybody around there wants the same thing. That’s the kind of land that you want to buy or lease.
If you go on two sides of the property you’re going to lease and they said don’t, you probably won’t see the bucks that you’re looking for because the first deer that comes down is going to get blasted, whether it’s a buck, fawn, or spike, they don’t care. There’s nothing wrong with that. I have nothing against anybody that shoots for meat because for some people, that’s what’s more important. That’s their family values and that’s fine by me. I’m talking good people that are looking for trophy.
It does not hurt one bit to go knock on some doors. Nobody’s going to get mad at you. My other property that I have up by where I live, my neighbors all have the same aspirations except for the one on the one side, which doesn’t bother me one bit. We’re still seeing mature deer due to the fact that we do stuff different. They all do the things that we do either and that’s another thing. If your neighbors were like that, you need to improve your habitat, put in food plots, put in watering holes, so that way the biggest buck in the area is going to stay on your property. He might be bedding on your neighbor’s, but he is not going very far because you don’t know what they’re doing, but you know that they don’t want to shoot mature deer, so that mature deer is most likely going to be very keen on where he beds, etc.
I know talking with Kip Adams over at QDMA that neighbor relationships are huge and they’re getting groups together with people and creating more or less a co-op of everybody having similar ideas and the ones that say, “I hunt for food,” then they understand that and everybody understands that and so they fix up their line accordingly just like you have. You provide food, shelter, and clothing, so why wouldn’t the buck shop at your store?
One of my properties up here, it’s a lot of swamp land, so there’s a lot of good bedding coverage. My neighbors, they logged theirs off by almost ten years ago. It is thick and thick, and a lot of deer bed over there because they own quite a bit of acre. They probably got 1,300 acres and a lot of the deer bed over there, but they don’t hunt like I do. They hunt different. They do some of the stuff that I don’t do. I’m not going to go into specifics because I’m not that way, but a lot of the deer are attracted to my property because they don’t plant food plots, they don’t do what I do. That’s another thing too. Just because this guy has got 1,300 acres and you’ve got 80 acres, it doesn’t mean you can’t kill a mature deer every year. We’ve shot a very nice deer out there the last six to seven years due to the fact that we do stuff different. It doesn’t matter how much acreage you have. If you can turn 40 acres into a prime deer establishment, they might not all stay in there but they’re all going to want to be there at one time or another.
That’s a key right there. They’re all going to be there at one time or another. How do you become 365-hunter to know when those big bucks are going to be there?
One of the things that I’m going to say is you need to be in the woods as much as you can. I got off a scouting mission just to go look around the countryside, to see where the deer had gone, I wanted to check my property, see the shape my food plot was in.
Another thing is trail cameras. Trail cameras are God’s grace when you can’t be on that property all times. We all have jobs, we all have families. We all can’t be in the woods every single day, but trail cameras can be. Your trail cameras provide key information about when the deer are there and what times, etc. You pay close attention to when you see a mature buck, let’s say it’s September 21st and you had this giant-twelve on camera, it’s two hours before dark and you’ve never seen this deer before, you need to go back to that day, look at the wind, look at the weather, the moon, write all that down. If you can replicate those same conditions, you need to be in that tree stand at that time because more than likely that deer is going to show back up.
I’ve noticed that certain bucks will only go to certain places during certain wind directions. For example, we had a big nice eight-pointer. We only would get pictures of him on a north wind. We’d only see him on a north wind. He would only come out to that green field on a north wind. Otherwise, we would never see him. He was coming off of the neighbor’s property, but he would only show up in the north wind. If you can write down all those variables, those can help you not be in the woods at all time because you’re at home, you’re dissecting, you’re creating a pattern to kill that deer.
I can’t say that it’s 100%, but if you can put a pattern together, you have a better shot at killing that deer. Obviously that doesn’t count during the rut. We all know that they are just there, going to wander along, etc., but I’m talking early season scouting. You got to stay on that during July or August. Every chance that you get, you need to be at that place, on the observation stand or sitting in your truck with spying scope, taking inventory of the bucks that are out there, watch how they enter the food plot, how they exit the food plot, what deer do you want to shoot, your hit list, etc. You’ve got to put all that in perspective and become the hunter that you want to become.
For people who say, “How do I go back to that date and get the weather report?” How do you do that?
There are a lot of different websites out there where you can go back to see the past weather. A lot of times, I usually write down the weather everyday. The wind was out of the north, there was this count, etc. A lot of times, you’re going to see deer movement during a weather change. We’re talking was it raining outside and cold front moved in? Is it in good condition? That kind of stuff, that’s what triggers a lot of deer movement. There’s a lot of talk about moon. It’s not that I don’t believe in it; I do because I’ve seen it a lot with muskie fishing, that moon plays a lot of big difference in muskie eating habits. I believe that there is some type of lunar activity that spikes deer movement, but I don’t want to make it any more complicated than it already is.
Killing mature deer is a tough process and I don’t want to make it any more confusing than it already is. There are already too many variables going on. There are a lot out there that somebody could read if they think that that’s part of it, but a lot of it is weather changes I’ve noticed. Obviously during September, you’re going to have a buck that’s on a pattern all the time, feeding pattern, coming out to a green field, coming out to a food plot. You just got to pay attention to how he enters and what wind direction. Just because the wind is good for you doesn’t mean it’s good for that deer. You might want a north wind, but he is not going to come out unless there is a south wind. That right there is one of the things that have helped me. Just because it’s right wind there for you to hunt a stand, it doesn’t mean that it’s right for that deer.
There’s a tremendous amount of information on every single aspect that Jeremy shared. It’s up to us to sort that out and then figure it out. When you set your stands, you’ve got to have your stands set the correct way. How do you set your stands on your leases?
Every spot is different. There are some spots that I gamble. There are certain spots that I will gamble during a crosswind or whatever. I’m going against all odds, but you have to take risks as well. You’re not going to kill a buck by being soft all the time, by playing it cautious all the time. If you know he’s in the area and you think that you have above 75% chance of killing him with the wrong wind, you need to go hunt that stand. Everybody says, “No, you can’t hunt it if it’s the wrong wind.” The thing is if you take a good stand regimen and you control your thing, you take the right path to your stand, you have the right in and out exit plan, there’s no reason why you can’t pull that off. A lot of the audience will be like, “What’s this guy thinking?” but you can’t kill a big buck if you’re not in the right spot. If you can’t hang that stand with the proper wind or fit that stand in the proper wind, then you need to gamble. There’s no way around it.
Let’s talk about gambling. You know your land well. You know somebody isn’t going to come in and hang a stand someplace that you wouldn’t hang it. How do you decide what stand to hunt because in Vernon County, is it a northwest wind prevailing?
A lot of times, it’s northwest, southwest, but I have stands for every wind direction. If I have a cold front that just moved in, for example, we’ll go back to this eight-pointer, I got a north wind and I got a stand that’s in the wrong direction and I know that buck is going to come out on that north wind, I’m going to spray it on extra good, I’m going to take my time, I’m going to leave early to get in the stand, take my time so I don’t get sweated off, you have a great chance of killing that deer with the wrong wind direction because you know he’s going to be there. When I’m talking about taking gambles, we’re talking about you got a buck on a pattern.
The best time to kill a buck on a pattern is the first day you sit on that stand. If you’re sitting in the same stand all the time or a couple of stands all the time, I wouldn’t suggest doing what I was talking about. This is more for the guy that’s going to say, “I think I can kill this buck on a different wind because I know he’s going to be out there. I know he is going to come out of this corner somewhere. I think I can get shot at this deer. I got 90% chance that he’s going to be out there.” That’s when you got to take your gamble because if you don’t take that gamble and he comes out, you’re going to be kicking yourself.
How many stands do you have on your leases? How many acres are they and how many stands?
There’s 300 acres down there. We have a dozen stands set up, which this year once the snow goes, I’m going to go down and hang a couple more. On my other property up where I live here, we’ve probably got fifteen. It’s the difference in terrain. There’s a lot more funnels and stuff in swamp country. I like to have a few different stands for a few different times of the year. I like to have a stand set up on food sources, around food sources, for different winds. I know where the bucks are going to come into the food plots. Usually the mature bucks come in the same way every year, so I leave them off year round. I go on and take the seats off, or when I’m going in the spring, I’ll make sure the straps are good, etc., and I leave them. I don’t want to go into that area unless I absolutely have to and that’s to maybe check cameras once a month or going in and fill up the water.
Optimum pH is 7.0 which will give you the highest tonnage and best food plots you've ever seen. Share on XHow about your food plots? You got to be messing around with them in the spring and the summer and possibly the fall. Talk to me how you take care of the forage.
Obviously, I have to mow my clover plot. I’ll go in, I want to get it as tall as I can let it get eight to ten inches, I’ll go and mow it. I always do it during between eleven and two, especially early season, your summer months. It’s the hottest time of the day, but at the same time it’s the least likely to bump a deer off its pattern. August comes around, the deer are pretty used to the tractor going back and forth in the woods. They are usually not too scared of it. I’m talking about going in, hanging stands, leaving your stands all over the place. September is the greatest time of year to kill a mature buck on a feeding pattern. If you can stay out of the woods as much as possible, keep your stands down as much as possible, you have a lot better chance at killing one of those big beer in the first couple days of feeding as long as he feels safe and you’re not in there bebopping around and doing whatever all the time.
If you check cameras every other day, most likely you’re not going to shoot him. I’ve seen this over and over. I’ve seen people, “I’m going to go check the cameras.” It’s only been a week. I leave my cameras out for three to four weeks at a time before I go check. That does not provide me with a lot of information when I go down hunting, but early season I don’t go check them as much as I would. Pre-rut stage, I rely on them. Pre-rut stage tells me the big bucks’ certain movements, so then I’ll start checking them every two weeks.
Let’s talk about the rut. When do you start figuring out patterns are going to change next year, and what are we going to do to make sure I’m in the right place for that mature buck?
I let my camera sit on the food sources for the first two or three weeks of season here in Wisconsin. We’re talking second week of September through about October 1st. The first week of October I start moving my cameras to scrapes that had been there for years, rub lines that occur every year. A lot of times, your rub lines are in the same spot every year. Mature bucks take them over, other mature bucks take them over, etc. Also there are beddings on the trails going in and out on the transition zone, little funnels, etc. That’s why I want my cameras out by the second week of October, because usually by the third week or the fourth week of October, bucks are scraping or rubbing, you want to put your cameras in those areas to tell you when the bucks start moving in the daylight.
We all know that them bucks transition to what they call the October lull, which there is no lull. As much as people can stay there, it’s just the transition between bucks not coming to the food sources as much. They are in the woods, they’re rubbing, they’re establishing territory, they shift their diet from greens to mast crops, acorn, nuts, whatever. If you can transition with those deer, you better put yourself in the right position to shoot a mature buck. If you’re not seeing deer on that food plot in first week of October, that’s why. A lot of people get stuck in this October lull. No, it’s not. I’ve hunted these properties for a year and I have never ever seen a lull, because I keep my properties little pressure and I transition with the deer. Once the deer switch, I go to the acorn. I put my cameras on scrapes, rubs, etc., where these bucks are going to go. If you don’t transition with the deer, you’re not going to kill a mature deer.
How do people get a hold of you, Jeremy, if they want to touch base? Are you on Facebook, Twitter or got an email account?
You can find me on Facebook or you can email me if you want. Make sure you put something in the subject line about hunting or want to talk to me about whitetails. It’s [email protected].
When we think about being a 365-day hunter a lot of guys and gals are, how do you work that out with family and work? It’s two-and-a-half hours from Augusta down to Vernon County. How does all that work?
I work a full-time job like a lot of people. I work twelve hours, so I get a little bit of time off during the week. Usually, I have every other weekend off. Usually on the weekends I spend time with my family and then the time I have during the week, the weeks I have off, I usually spend scouting, working through trail camera photos, trying to put patterns together. That stuff I can do when my fiancée is at work or my daughter is at daycare, etc. It gives me some flexibility to do what I want, to do what I love. If you can work out a schedule where you can go do some of that stuff, when your family is working or in daycare like I do, you can find some success in doing some of that stuff outside, moving tree stands in May or April instead of doing it in August. That’s going to also help your success. The more time that you can put in the woods or studying trail camera photos or aerial photos and bringing stuff to life and bringing it to light will also help you.
What does being a 365-hunter mean to you?
I spend a lot of time in the woods. That’s what it is for me. I enjoy being in the woods and I am lucky enough to have a fiancée that loves to hunt. I hope my daughter grows up to want to hunt. That helps me be a 365-day hunter. If we want to go do something, she wants to go shed hunting or she wants to go walk around in the woods, while I go hang a tree stand or whatever, it’s about family time as well to me. I can enjoy the outdoors with my family, but it also comes down to if you’ve got focus. You can’t lose the focus of what’s most important, but what’s the most important to me is maybe not the most important to somebody else. My most important thing is my family. My second most important thing is hunting. You have to prioritize that which you have to make a happy-go medium. There’s a lot of guys out there that want to hunt all day every day. There’s nothing wrong with that, but at the same time, hunt smarter, not harder. If you can get patterns down that work for you, hunt those patterns, and on the days that are not like that, stay at home with your family, do something with your parents, etc. There is no better thing in life than family.
Priorities are important and everybody has to make their own choice. Make one that works for you and the people around you, and it’ll work out in the end. Let’s talk about how you prepare for the hunting season. We’ve got trail cameras to take care of, we got tree stands to take care of, we got our ATV and our trucks to take care of. We’ve got to practice and then we get all our clothes. Walk us through how you get prepared for the hunting season.
Honestly, the hunting season never ends for me. I try to go out and shoot my bow a couple days a week to keep me fresh, to keep my form good, to keep my muscles up. During what you say is off season, my clothes are in a bag, they’re put away, everything is put together. That way I’m not going on before hunting season looking for it. As far as tree stands and stuff like that, I run a lot of tree stands. so I like to go and take care of that stuff as soon as the snow goes. It offers you the best time to look for deer horns, shed antlers. When you’re going down to some of the spots that you don’t normally go to a lot, let’s say down in the middle of your property, you’ve got a stand and a funnel. Go walk that funnel. In May or April, it’s not going to matter.
Go look and see what kind of buck signs are in there and what kind of trails are in there. If you didn’t hunt it last year, you only spend two days in there and you don’t have a trail camera down there. May, April and June is the best time to scout for the upcoming hunting season because everything on the ground is still fresh. You can still see all the signs from last year, all the rubs, all the scrapes, all the deer trails. You might find a big set of shed and then you know that that buck is staying there. I find that to be the best time to do the stuff I need to do in the woods. Tree stands, moving them around, clearing out food plots, I do all that stuff as early as I can because come August, I don’t want to be there. I want everyone to be ready, so when I go in the woods, I have the best chance of harvesting that deer.
April, May, June, the snow is out and you can get in there because we have to be safe, so the safety straps, your ladders, hang on to whatever you’re using to get up in elevation, every season, you’ve got to check them all out. Let’s talk about your scent control. You said you put your clothes up and you put them in bins or bags and there’re a lot of products out there that help us do that. If you have carbon-impregnated clothes, how do you keep that fresh? If you don’t, what do you do with your other gear?
All my gear goes into either a bin. I have a Scent Crusher closet that I have now that I find awesome. I put all my clothes in there, I seal it up, and I just leave them. They are all hanging in there, air and all, they’re not getting stinky. Another thing too is I wash all my clothes after hunting season just to get all any foreign odors out and then I’ll wash them again before the hunting season before I go out just for the added I want them clean, etc. but all my gear goes into bins. I keep them labeled to know what’s in there, my boots or whatever. Most of my stuff goes into the Scent Crusher closet because it has a lot of room, I put all my stuff in there, my binoculars, my spotting scopes, everything goes in there for storage. I don’t have to run it until I have my clothes in there.
Obviously I don’t want to run it with all my optics and stuff like that, which you can, but I don’t. As far as my bow and stuff like that, every year I have my bow gone through, cleaned up, moved up, I want it in tiptop shape come hunting season. I usually do this early in the year, we’re talking June or July. That way, if I have to change strings and cables or whatever, I got time to break them in, etc. I always try to do that earlier. I see a lot of guys do that a couple of weeks before season. We’re all busy, I understand that, but at the same time, if you’re not shooting that bow until that time, you’re not focused enough to make that shot. You have to put the time and the practice to make that happen.
How long do you shoot every day?
I try to shoot three to four times a week. If I only shoot three or four times a week, I’ll go out and I’ll shoot four or five arrows. If I shoot every day, I go out and shoot one arrow and everyday I’ll make it a different yard. It takes ten minutes to go move your target or if you have multiple targets because it puts you in the mentality that you have one shot, one shot only. I’ll go out and I’ll shoot one shot. If I’m not satisfied with that shot, I come back the next day and I shoot again at that same yardage until I get it right.
That works, folks. I hunt with a crossbow and I spend a lot of time. I get myself, so I shoot out to 60 yards and my 30-yard pin is dead on. There’s no travel. I shoot 30, 40, 50, 60, but right before the season, I go out and take one bow, I shoot at 60 yards, and I either hit or miss. The next day, I go back, 50 yards, 40 yards, 30 yards, and then I go 30, 40, 50, 60. I do that three times in three rotations and that has put me that I’m comfortable up to that yardage. My two cents is you’ve got to be comfortable. You can’t think it’s 60 yards, anchor, breathe, release. Your thoughts?
The further you can shoot to your ability, you can practice at 80 yards, your 20, 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 yard shots become cheap shot, then becomes easy, then becomes second nature, because you’re shooting at further yardages. I’m a firm believer in that one. When I started hunting, I wouldn’t shoot anything over 30 because I wasn’t comfortable, but now I am more than comfortable taking a 60 to 65-yard shot at a deer in the right conditions. We all see it. The way that the compound bow industry or crossbow industry has evolved in the last ten years makes these shots possible. Why not take advantage of it? Go out and shoot 80 yards. If you miss, you miss. The thing is the more you practice that 80 yards, the better you’re going to be at 40; a 40‑yard shot seems like 20. It’s all a mind game, all focus. If you can focus and shoot that target at 80 yards, then I challenge you to go back to 40 and shoot that target. I guarantee you shoot three that are within a quarter.
Hunt smarter, not harder. Share on XRepetition and muscle memory all comes from practice. Repetition is the practice, but your muscle memory and your comfort, there is no doubt. You watch a golfer or Aaron Rodgers throw a football. He’s done that hundreds of times like that throw he had in Dallas to Jared Cook. They did that and practice over and over and over again, so it was no surprise. He knew he could do it, he just did it.
It becomes second nature.
You mentioned you have Scent Crusher. I don’t know who you use for broadheads or your bow, but give some love to the manufacturers and then your friends and then we’re going to call it a show.
I’ll give a shout-out to Hoyt. They are making great bow and I can’t complain with the stuff that they make. It’s proven itself over the years. Carbon Express Arrows, Scent Crusher and Ramcat Broadheads. Also my best friend, Brian Weinberger, my best hunting partner. I’ve got to give him some love too. Also my fiancée and my beautiful daughter, I couldn’t do it without family as well.
Jeremy Berlin, it’s again a pleasure. On behalf of the thousands of audience across North America for Whitetail Rendezvous, Jeremy, thank you so much. I can’t wait to have you on the show again and we’ll drill down into some of the areas like what side of the tree you make you set and those types of specific details. Thank you so much for your time.
Thank you.
Links Mentioned:
- Jeremy Berlin
- previous episode of Whitetail Rendezvous with Jeremy Berlin
- Food Plot 2017 eBook
- Kip Adams
- Jeremy Berlin’s Facebook
- [email protected]
- Scent Crusher
- Hoyt
- Carbon Express Arrows
- Ramcat Broadheads
- Brian Weinberger