#388 Discover Suburban Bucks with Tyler Mieden

November 24, 2017

WTR 388 | Suburban Bucks

Hunting on a small parcel such as a 20-acre piece of property can build up a lot of pressure since your options are limited to suburban bucks. That means putting a lot of time in which you’ve got to have the right setup. You might only get one opportunity, and it can be tough. Tyler Mieden of Timber Valley Outdoors says that a lot of the bucks that they have on camera are mostly nocturnal, except during the rut period. That being said, Tyler shares some tips for hunting suburban whitetails. Learn how to improve your hunting prowess with expert advice on scent control, organizing gear, and staying persistent even during long hours.

Timber Valley Outdoors is a lifestyle brand company that Tyler Mieden co-founded with his partners in order to share outdoor experiences – both hunting and fishing – and promote the great outdoors to people of various backgrounds. Now with Tyler’s expert advice, hunting small acreage bucks has never been easier!

Listen to the podcast here:

Discover Suburban Bucks With Tyler Mieden

We’re going to connect with Tyler Mieden. Tyler is a Pro-Staff for ALPS OutdoorZ, Dark Energy Field Staff, and he is the Founder of Timber Valley Outdoors. Tyler, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me.

You’re welcome. I wanted to start off with Timber Valley Outdoors. What’s that about? What are you trying to accomplish, and who else is involved with you?

I have three business partners with me, my brother, my brother-in-law, and then a good friend of mine. We came up with the idea they wanted to jump on board and created Timber Valley Outdoors. The whole purpose is really just to promote the outdoors and find what gets you outside. Is it whitetail hunting? Is it fishing? Even hiking for whoever it might be. We want to promote that. Today’s world is filled with technology, filled with distractions. We want to hopefully motivate people to get outside breath in the fresh air, take in the sights and smells of nature and all that God has created. It’s a beautiful place. You just got to go out and explore it. That’s what we’re all about.

We’re using social media to really share our ventures. We have a large focus on whitetail deer hunting obviously. There are other stuff in there, if you like upland bird hunting, there’s plenty of fishing stuff over the summer here in Wisconsin. If you’re curious, go ahead and check out the Facebook page, check out the Instagram page, @TimberValleyOutdoors. You can get a hold of us at [email protected] is the best way to do it. We have a lot of things in the works. We’re really excited with where we’re at so far. Hopefully, people will go ahead and check us out and give us a follow.

Something new, something different and we all have passions. Some years ago, Whitetail Rendezvous doesn’t exist, and now it does. We surpassed 130,000 downloads, so to every single guest and every single listener of Whitetail Rendezvous, thank you. When you talk about getting people outdoors, why do you think the digital world has taken over our lives? I’m on the phone, I’m on the social media all the time. I’m looking at your website right now. Is that a good thing, a bad thing? How do we deal with it?

Why has it taken over? Social media and technology, it’s easy, it’s quick, it doesn’t require a lot of effort, it’s instant gratification. You see a lot people now dialed into their phones 24/7. Like you, I’m on Instagram, I’m on Facebook. I’m on it all time. Hopefully, if we can get people outside we can separate them a little bit and hopefully get some balance. Beyond social media, I think it’s okay to be up to date on technology. I want to listen to your podcast, I need technology to do that. You got to have balance in your life and hopefully, we can inspire people to find some balance when they get outside.

What do you tell kids? You run into somebody, a friend of yours, family member and say, “Why don’t you come catch some bullhead, catch some bass, throw some plug for muskies,” or, “Let’s go see if we can get some ruffed grouse.”How do you do that so it makes sense and they want to come and play?

You got to make it fun. You have to have a passion. You got to be excited about it. If they’re excited about it, usually I can get up to people around me to be excited about it. Fishing usually is the easiest thing to jump on. Hunting’s a little bit more difficult, a little bit more gear. Generally, I have enough gear if someone wants to tag along for the first time hunting or fishing, but it’s got to be the right situation. You got to know the people and know a little bit about them. I’m always looking to help people get inspired to be outdoors and help introduce them to the hunting or fishing or whatever it might be, if I can.

WTR 388 | Suburban Bucks
Suburban Bucks: We want to hopefully motivate people to get outside breath in the fresh air, take in the sights and smells of nature and all that God has created.

When you meet somebody and they ask you, “Why do you hunt? Why do you like the outdoors so much?” What do you tell him?

Hunting whitetails is one of my go-to places, but just being out in nature, it allows me to decompress. It’s a huge stress reliever. It does allow me to disconnect from technology. I love the thrill of the chase. I’m not about the kill. It’s all about the thrill of the chase. All the time you put in, deer hunting and all the preparation that goes into it. The persistence when that pays off, it’s just a great, great feeling knowing that you put all this time, all this hard work, and this is your reward. You’re getting something to be proud of. Hopefully that passion shines through that I have when I am describing that to others.

I might be putting you on the spot, but I think it’s important that we have our ten-second elevator pitch, to say, “This is why I do what I do, and I really love it because of X.” How would you finish that sentence?

My elevator pitch would be, “I love being outdoors. I love hunting and fishing because I love to be outside, and to be active and to breathe in fresh air and to take in all that the earth has to offer.”

Let’s talk about small acreage deer hunting. Share with the folks how you do it because you said small parcel hunting is your go-to technique.

I’m on a twenty-acre piece of property in an area that does have quite a bit of hunting pressure. A lot of it is right time, right place. That means putting a lot of time in the stand. You got to have the right setup. You got to know your stuff because you might only get one opportunity. It can be tough. A lot of the buck that we have on camera there are mostly nocturnal except when you get around that magical period known as the rut, and then they show themselves during the day.

If you’re not there, you might miss that one opportunity where they’re passing through fifteen yards away, broadside at your go-to stands. I put in the time in the off season making sure my bow is tuned up. I’m making sure I know all my yardage markers at the various stands we have set up. We’re putting in a little food plot the last couple of years. It’s not much, but it’s something that keep drawing the deer back onto the property and they do cross it rather frequently. A lot of time having the right preparation and being organized and staying persistent.

Where is this property located? What part of Wisconsin is it in?

We describe it as the southeastern part of the state. If you’re a golf fan, the US Open this year is going to be at Erin Hills Golf Course and it’s within probably ten miles back.

Family land that has just been around the family? Do you lease it?

I’m lucky enough to have married a woman whose parents own nineteen acres of land and were gracious enough to let me hunt it on yearly basis. I lucked out with that for sure.

The physical, is it a pinch point? Is it funnel? Is it between a factory or houses? Tell me the setup.

There are some houses that are close by to it. It’s generally a travel corridor. There are a couple areas that the deer bedbound but it’s generally a travel corridor for the deer.

There’s some ag around it because they got to eat right?

Yes. There’s ag not directly that bumps up to it, but within a half mile. There’s water close by to it as well. It’s kind of a pinch points but yet you still find a way to sneak around from time to time too.

How many stands do you have on that parcel?

Five.

You have that many because?

There are certain areas that they’ll move through and it seems to change on a year to year basis. I just want to have all the options out there depending on where they’re moving and what time of year it is. We have a couple of them that are real good for seeing deer early in the season and then as the leaves start to fall, they’ll tend to move through different parts of the land.

Have you done any hinge cutting or timber falling to change the deer’s path or pattern so they’ll come by your stands?

We have not done any hinge cutting or anything like that. We have cleared some paths so we may encourage the deer to use these open areas that are cutting through the thickest brush possible. It isn’t my land and my father-in-law is a big proponent on having a healthy woods. I’m at his mercy as far as what we can do with hinge cutting or any type of those techniques.

Food plots.

That’s something that we are definitely putting in a couple of years ago, and we’re definitely doing this year as well. We’re going to put some plots inhere in the spring and then in the fall we’ll plant something that’s a little bit heartier and that should last until it gets to about ten degrees and hopefully keep the deer coming back as consistently and as much as possible.

Do you bait on the property?

We do not bait.

Is it legal down in that county?

No, it’s not.

Some places in Wisconsin, it is and in some places, it’s not.

We’ve had a CWD certainly had a big impact on deer hunting in Wisconsin. For most of the southern part of the state, you can’t bait.

You got to make it fun. You have to have a passion. You got to be excited about it. Share on X

When you think about your twenty-in, how many people also hunt that?

It’s just myself and my brother-in-law that hunt it. Generally, we usually alternate on who’s hunting when. We don’t overlap with space. We want to give the other person their space and their opportunity. We don’t want another potentially smelly human out in the woods for the deer to smell and avoid the area.

The wind plays a big factor of what stand you’re going to use. The time of year determines what stand you’re going to use. How do you get to your stand as quiet as possible in the morning? How do you get out and not bump a deer?

That’s the tricky part especially the getting out. Getting in, we know the stand set up where we have them really well. Getting in as quietly as possible, we know the paths. The paths are pretty well worn down so it’s easy to take your time, especially if you’re on time. I’m on time in showing up. I get myself lots of time to get off my stand so I can be as quiet as possible to get up there. Getting out can be trickier just for the simple fact that that’s the prime time for deer movement. I’m trying to get out as quickly as possible and sometimes the deer will sneak up on you as you’re trying to crawl out of the woods. Having a knowledge, being prepared, knowing where you’re at, and what path you’re going to take is really the key for us.

What age class of bucks are you seeing most of the time?

Three and a half and four and a half. I still see a lot of two and a half and one and a half year old. If a deer gets to four and a half, I’m really excited about that. We’re very selective with the deer that we decided to target. We’re looking for something that’s hopefully four and a half, sometimes three and a half.

I read something from QDMA that our state, Wisconsin, which I hunt extensively, is seeing an increase in immature bucks by one and a half, two and a half. They’re not going to kill this much. Now we’re taking out three and a half, four and a half year old deer.150, four and a half year old deer is hard to let walk.

I hunt on a high pressure area and I don’t know how many deer we have on camera that have made it past four and a half years old. I can’t think of any in the last couple of years.

Why? Because they’re probably pretty healthy deer. Body wise, they’re big deer and they’re well-fed. Winters, they can get around them. It’s not like being up north and getting chased by wolves through snow and stuff like that and get stressed. Some of the places I’ve been, I see them in people’s yards eating the pansies or whatever. Yes or no?

Yes, I would agree. They are definitely big and they’re healthy.

We’ve talked about the three things about whitetail hunting. Let’s go through those and we’ll see where we get to. Let’s talk about preparation. Why did you say preparation is important to you?

I will preface this with preparation has become a really important part of a hundred reasons I’ve taken up bowhunting. I took up bow hunting within the last five years. What I’ve learned is that you have to be prepared. You need to have all your necessary gear, have your scent control ready to go. If you’re not prepared, you’re just doomed to fail. If you don’t have your clothes, whatever your technique is, if you don’t have them outside your area, if you don’t have them in your Scent-Lok bag, you’re in trouble. The deer’s nose is extremely strong and you’re going to need all the help you can get to avoid it. That’s why preparation is huge. It’s so vitally important on being successful when you’re out in the woods.

Take one thing of preparation and expand that and talk on that. The one thing that you want to make sure you’re prepared to do before you go afield.

It’s scent control for me, that’s the big thing. I’m a big proponent of letting clothes air out and then have them in the Scent-Lok bag. I have to air them out. If that’s not done, I feel like I’m wasting my time out in the woods. Because even with that, the deer can still get a hint from time to time. When you have to get so close to the deer when you’re bow hunting you, that is the most crucial thing from my experiences.

Let’s move onto the persistence. What does that mean to you?

If you’re a hunter, you need to be prepared to put long hours in the woods. You need to put a lot of time and effort in. You need to keep coming back because sometimes even when everything lines up, you can just be unlucky. You got to be resilient. You got to keep coming back for more. I can share my first year of bow hunting, I had everything set up correctly. I had a very large eight-point buck approaching me. The wind was in my face. He was coming directly at me. I had a couple of does off my right chomping on acorns at about twenty yards. I was set up perfectly. I was ready to go. He got to 30 yards and it’s like his sixth sense kicked in. He just knew something was up. He didn’t know what it was. He looked around. He needed to take three more steps to step into my 25-yard shooting lane that I had set up. He put his head down, took one step, puts his head back up, looked around and just turned around and trotted away.

I don’t know what it was. The wind was still on my face, the does stayed off my right for twenty or 25 more minutes and the wind didn’t change directions. I don’t know what it was and that still mystifies me. It’s still something I think about to this day about what exactly happened there. I was demoralized. I was beaten down from that experience. I thought I had everything set up just right and it didn’t work out. I had to get up the next day and keep coming back out. Then the next year, or the year after that and just keep coming back until I was finally able to put down my first buck with a bow. That’s persistence. You’ve got to keep coming back at it and keep putting in those long hours in the stands. Go out there all day if you can, and it will pay off for you.

Let’s talk about that buck way hung up. Did you look him in the eye?

I did not know.

You never looked at his eyes at all? He never could catch veteran prey.

He didn’t spot me, if that’s where you’re going at.

No, not that he spotted you, but that you looked in his eyes. You looked right at his eyes and his eyes saw you. Not in the sense of the word because you’re in camo, the wind is in your face, but it’s just that trends for predator and prey.

WTR 388 | Suburban Bucks
Suburban Bucks: You got to have balance in your life and hopefully, we can inspire people to find some balance when they get outside.

Maybe that’s what it was. I know that my eyes were glued on him.

Were you drilling him with your eyes?

Yes, I was.

The wind is in your face, you get scent on, there are does at rest eating acorns within how many yards?

15 to 25 yards.

Lesson learned. Watch him come in, just lock on and they’ll turn around and walk away because they flat out know it’s predator and prey. That’s how they stay alive because they knew something was wrong because they felt it. They didn’t see you but they knew you were looking at him. He knew that. When you see them coming in 30 to 40 yards, get up, set up, and get ready to go. Just pick a spot behind his shoulder and just watch and then figure it out.

Folks, if you get a suggestions, you can reach me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn or just send me an email to [email protected].If anybody out there that’s got some empirical specific detailed scientific information, I’d love to hear it. Organization, what does that mean? That I got my stuff together?

Organization is definitely preparation in my mind. Organization is about having your stuff organized so that it’s quick and easy. When I drive to the land and when I hunt, my bag needs to be set up where the first piece of clothing that I’m putting on is on top. Then as I layer up, depending on how cold it is outside, those other layers are toward the bottom there. It’s having things quick and easy, ready to access., making sure that my hunting pack is full and packed the way that I needed to or the way that I wanted that when I get into my stand, I can get that set up. My rangefinder is right there on top. My antlers are there and easy to access readily.

Whatever other tools that you have and you use for your hunting, making sure that that is set up and easy to access and organized in a way so it’s easy for you to grab what you need when you need to. Some people probably are way more successful than I am. They may not be as meticulous, but for me that’s something that I need to be. It makes me efficient and it makes things a lot less stressful when you’re trying to get out to the stand 30 to 45 minutes before shooting hours. You can sneak in quietly and take your time and not spook anything in your way in.

You said preparation, organization, persistent. I take all that, wrap it up and put it into it gives you confidence that you’re ready to go. A lot of things just happen in the woods. You’ve done everything that you can up to this point in time with all your knowledge base and everything that you’ve got everything ready to go. At that point in time, that’s as good as you get it until you’re confident. I like how that comes together because we all need confidence. A lot of people will say, “I’ve been hunting forever. It is what it is. I’m going, “Okay, but if you’re confident, that gives you an edge.” Your thoughts?

I would agree. I think that’s a great way to put a ball on it. Being prepared, being organized, being persistent. If I have those things, then I am competent in the woods. I’m ready to handle whatever is going to happen that day.

Five things you’re going to do differently to close the door on this coming fall?

We’re working on improving our food plots. I’m going to spend more time honing my bows so I’m even more confident with it. I have a new rangefinder that is going to enable me to make sure that I’m fine in the woods, and I know the exact distances of all of my shooting lanes, where the deer are and how far they’re going to be. I can feel confident when I’m taking the shots. The last two things, I’m going to get a new camo. I don’t know exactly what I’m going to get yet. If you have any suggestions though, feel free to let me know, Bruce.

Treezyn.com. A personal friend of mine owns it Tina Kane, Mike Pearce, Mike Murphy, a whole crew of guys. I like it because it’s different. That’s why I like Treezyn camo. It’s warm. It’s functional. I wore cheap hunting, it wasn’t quite the correct outline. It didn’t matter. I wanted to see how it would stand the rigors of the mountains and it did really well. I also wear a ScentBlocker. I’ve got bins of scent blocker. I just like their stuff. Those are my two shout-outs. Good people, great companies, those two. There are a lot of good companies out there, but those are the two of my favorites. Do you ever go hunt out west?

Potentially.

Go to GoHunt.com/Insider and they get the best research, the best data of anybody burned on for hunting the west. That’s a shout-out to you, Chris Porter and Brandon Evans and Brady and Lorenzo and the whole crew. They’re great guys and I did a lot of writing for them. Talking about shout-outs, give some shout.

Having a knowledge, being prepared, knowing where you're at, and what path you're going to take is really the key for us. Share on X

I want to give a shout out to my two business partners, Derick, Jimmy, and Zach with Timber Valley Outdoors for helping me get this off the ground. I want to also give a shout out to ALPS OutdoorZ and Coby Smith who have taken a chance and partnered with us despite the fact that we’re such a new company. I’m really looking forward to work with them. They’re a great company with great paths. If you’re looking for a new pack in your Western hunts, Bruce, I certainly recommend checking them out. That’s all I have for shout-outs. I do want to thank you though for having me on. I very much enjoyed our conversation. You have a new follower to listen to your podcasts.

I appreciate that. 130,000 people decided that Whitetail Rendezvous is worthwhile to listen to. If you listen to this first time, subscribe, rate and review. Hopefully I can have you on the show or whoever in the coming months. Tyler Mieden with Timber Valley Outdoors, thank you for being a great guest. I love what you brought about a small parcel hunting. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Bruce.

Next episode, we’re going to meet up with Garrett Roe. Garrett is the owner of Heads Up Decoy. He had a lot of Turkey decoys out there. You’ve seen it on Instagram and Snapchat and Twitter and Facebook. His decoys perform. He’s also got something for deer, for elk, for prong hunts. He’d be a good guy to get a hold of. What’s this all about? It’s not an infomercial. It’s about Garrett Roe and his techniques using these decoys that sets him apart from anybody. Take a listen. I’m sure you’ve got to be surprised and go, “I can do that.”

 

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