#449 Exclusive Food Plot Techniques – John O’Brion

WTR JoBrion | Food Plot Techniques

 

There’s more to food plots than simply throwing down your crops and hoping for the best. In this episode, John O’Brion discusses tried and tested techniques that will make your food plot the best it can be. He puts emphasis on getting your soil tested in order to check the pH balance for your food plots. He insists that not enough importance is being put on learning when and where food plots should be placed. John has dedicated his life to educating fellow hunters to have more successful hunts.

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Exclusive Food Plot Techniques – John O’Brion

Next up is John O’Brion from Grandpa Ray Outdoors. John’s been an agronomist for many years and with the rage and the explosion of food plots. He’s helping people throughout the country learning how to plant, when to plant, why the plant, how to plant. How to take care of the soil to grow whitetail deer to give them the nutrition they need not only during the summer times but in the spring when they’re lactating or buck’s horns are starting to grow. It’s a year-round business into the year-round endeavor for each one of you. Sit back, relax, and enjoy John O’Brion from Grandpa Ray Outdoors.

We’re heading out to the Madison, Wisconsin area, which I’ll be there and we’re going to talk to John O’Brion. He’s been a guest on my show for over a number of times. He is the Owner of Grandpa Ray Outdoors. John, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me, Bruce.

John, I’m excited to have you here and I’m excited to see you in our Meetup coming up. John, let’s kick it right off and give an overview. What’s up with Grandpa Ray?

Grandpa Ray, I started it a few years ago to try to educate the public and also raised money for other worthy causes. Basically, trying to get people to do a little better and think a little bit different with their food plots and their wildlife management program.

Let’s start off with section one, setting your food plot. What does that mean?

Many people wait right before the rate of the plant to take their soil test. Now is a great time and it didn’t help they’re taking that soil test. Find out what you’re at now and what you’re going to need to do. One of the main things people are aware of is your lawn pH, you need the lime. A standard ag lime takes up to 6 months to effectively work. If you’re going to plant some food plots in the spring specials perennial full results and things that require a little higher pH, you need to consider putting your lime down. Case in point but the landscape in the farming community. You see these big trucks out there spreading ag lime. You don’t see them spreading ag lime right in the spring, but a couple of days before these farmers are planning. Get a soil test now if you haven’t had a recent test. Let’s get all lime out there, this fall or right after hunting season.

Another thing that I want to add as part of the equation is that I strive to educate people on, you might have a great looking perennial plot over off of all your plot out there now that you’re looking over as you’re hunting. You need to winterize it like with your lawn. You need to winterize those food plots. What I mean by winterizing is one of the biggest things you need to do is get potassium out there and that generic standard little rule of thumb. I usually tell my clients is about 200 pounds of straight potassium in the fall to help your perennial clovers persist in the winter. Who wants to have to replant your clovers? Those are a couple of tips that I do. We all get the soil tested and get ag lime if need be, winterize your food plots. There is one last little thing I should probably bring up. When you’re out there in that stand, you’re looking over these plots. Do you see problem areas? You might have some great areas in the field, maybe some areas don’t look as good. Maybe they look yellow whatever. Maybe flake them off and put stakes out there. If you do have the soil sample, focus on those and don’t eliminate those areas. Who has a field that is completely even? You rarely see it. Focus on scouting your field to help yourself in the future.

Do something better, something different with your food plots. Share on X

We got the rut coming up and guys go, “I’m too busy. I’m hunting. I’ve got to get my stand.” Ergo like you are, “How do I do this? How do I carve out the time? I know that buck is going to come past my stand if I’m not sitting in it. How do I carve that out?”

There’s so much technology out there that you can do. For example, I’ll be sitting in a tree. When you’re out in that area, you don’t want to be overhunting that area. When you’re out in that tree, your eyes will tell you a lot, the deer will tell you a lot if you’re continually focused on eating forage in one area. It’s probably because your soil helps you there, your forages are doing better and they’re more palatable. Beyond that too, there’s also technology. I’m not telling you to do this as you’re focusing on the hunting. There are apps like FarmLogs.com, when you get back in after the hunt, you can look back and see your problem spots in your field from satellite imagery. That’s something you can do. Maybe it’s a rainy day. You can’t go out and hunt. You’re like, “I should be hunting.” Use technology. You can see what’s happening out there in your field. I’m going to pull it up there, it’s a site I use and a great little tool.

The other thing that some of my friends have used is they take pictures of where they see does and fawns the majority time on their field. They go, “A-ha.” Exactly as you said, but once you figure that out you go, “When everything is settled down, I’m going to go in there and do X, Y and Z to find out is there a lot of water? Is the pH balance spot-on that? Did I oversee or undersee what’s going on? If you take pictures of where you see most of the deer activity and deer feeding, that’s going to give you some insight on exactly what John is saying. What are your thoughts?

There’s also a little tool too. I have a refractometer. For those of you guys who don’t know what a refractometer is, it’s a tool that you can use even in the wine industry and in the food plot community. You’ll take a little sample of forage, you’re going to measure its sugar content. What tends to be healthier is going to be sweeter. You’ve got to strip one mix and you’re like, “The deer don’t seem to be eating it.” You get another area like know these deer are concentrating on this area. Do you want to learn? It’s not an expensive tool and you can find out for yourself. There’s a little bit of science behind why are the deer eating what they are when they are. That’s another tool in it for me.

You brought up taking pictures. I take up a lot of pictures when I’m in the stand and the naked eye, you see what you see. When you go back and look at some of these pictures you take, you get a different perspective with the different colorings and shadings that you didn’t notice instantly from a visual perspective in your treestand. There are a lot of tools that you can use. They don’t cost much money or no money. To sum it up, in the fall, look at what your eyes and the deer are telling you. The deer do not lie. Think ahead. Don’t only think about now. What you need to do to have success in the future, soil test and get the potassium out there in the fall. If you need to lime, let’s get it out there yet this fall. If you don’t want to be in some of these fields during hunting season, it’s not a big deal. You can get them out there. You could be the middle of December or early January, but get your lime out as much in advance as you can before you plan next spring. These are things that many overlook.

The refractometer and then the FarmLogs.

The refractometer, go ahead and google it. It’s a nice little tool that will cost you about $40, $45 and measure the sugar content of anything you plant. FarmLogs.com is a great site. You could spend a little money or you could also use the free edition. The basic gives you digital satellite imagery that shows your good spots in your field or your weak spots out there. It helps you sculpt that field from using technology.

Thanks for that, John. We’re going to move it right into the most critical time of the year to put your food plot to work and that’s the springtime. The does are lactating and the bucks are starting to grow their horns and you know the cycle begins again. Let’s talk about that. Let’s weigh-in and give us some thoughts of how best we can all look to the spring and make sure we get the right food in the ground.

WTR JoBrion | Food Plot Techniques

The industry and so many people focus on food plotting is like an attractant focusing on the fall that killed that nice deer. For those that want to do better and for those that are trying to grow healthier doe, bigger fawn and putting extra inches on that buck again, it starts in the fall with working on your soil. It starts by having healthier forage that is more nutritious in protein-energy and mineral content when does are dropping the fawns and bucks are growing their antlers. In the industry, there are so many people that focus on winter wheat and winter rye. I’m in a place for it. It grows fast in the spring, but is it truly top in nutrition or is it ground cover? The one thing I bring up to people is, “It might be great for a week and within a week or two. Ten days if the weather is warm with a lot of moisture, the proteins and the mineral contents will plunge, you’ll get a lot of growth, but are you offering nutrition?” If you pay attention, these deer will shut down on that once it doesn’t become desirable. What do you want to do? You could be perennial frosting plots. You could be overseeding and thickening your existing clover plot by having perennials planted early.

Another little thing that I talk about with people is you might be a new food plotter. You might have a new area. Let’s plant a fast-growing blend of annual clovers that are high in protein, fast-growing and nutritious. One other thing that I have a lot of clients planning things is a soil builder mix that is not just great for nutrition, but it also will grow fast, suppress weed, six to eight nitrogen. If your buddy runs a local fertilizer, plant a gallon. You’re not going to have to spend so much money for your fall fertilization, if you are, fixing nitrogen naturally. Focusing on the spring, getting the ground covered with great nutrition and also great agronomics. It will help you not in the now but in the future. That’s what nutrition is. It all starts in the spring. In my opinion, not enough emphasis in the industry is focused on those essential areas and times.

You looked at does and fawns first to feed them up and to make sure that those have good food as soon as they drop their fawns. Are you looking at bucks?

A topic that I’m going to be talking more about at seminars moving forward is for those guys that are trying to do quality deer management their own type of habitat management. Who doesn’t want to see a nice buck? How do you get from point A to point B, that bond that nice buck that you might harvest in 3.5, 4.5, 5.5 years? Its growth curve is affected by what happened to the bed doe. As in the other animal industry, dairy farms, the most important time for poultry, swine or whatever. People overlook that most critical time is once you know that doe drops that fawn, if that doe lactates heavier. How does that affect the growth of the fawn? If that fawn goes into the winter in better condition and if there’s great nutrition in 65 days on that property. How does that affect this year one? How does it affect year two and moving forward? The most important thing is that doe, which indirectly affects the fawn which indirectly has a factor. You don’t grow a big buck in 30 or 60 days. I don’t I get why there isn’t more emphasis on having top nutrition. They’ll help a doe lactate every year at that point in time.

Thanks for that, John. One thing I’m interested in and I don’t know a heck lot about it. That’s one reason you’re on a show, but let’s talk about using plantains and Egyptian wheat for screening. This is something that you need to understand because it can make a huge difference between you hunting in your food plots.

You hear talk about screening and Egyptian wheat is one of the most common species that is discussed with the screen because it grows tall and does not lodge if you fertilize it right. Here are a couple of tips I want to throw out there. We’ve noticed different areas across the United States where we had a little below the normal temperature for an extended period of time early. Most of these screening products are warm-season forages. They need heat. They don’t germ or grow well when your soils are only 55 to 60 degrees. If you happen to get a late frost, it will kill them off. You want to wait until the ground is about 65 degrees to plant them and fertilizing correctly to keep them standing. Many people focus on nitrogen, but you also want to keep hearing me bring up potassium a lot.

We also want to be using more potassium than the people typically do on their screening product. Generic recommendation, I tend to use about 100. It goes back to the disclaimer. Taking a soil test will give you recommendations based on your situation. I like using a lot of 18-18-18 fertilizer to be 100 pounds per acre being enough, in some cases it’s 250 pounds an acre. We want to fertilize the screening so they don’t grow tall, which is a big benefit of using the nitrogen, but they also stand, they don’t lodge and they don’t tip over. Another part I want to talk about is many people use Egyptian wheat. What I use is a blend of Egyptian wheat, another forage sorghum that doesn’t lodge along with pearl millet, which grows 7 feet tall and tends not to tip over as well as grain sorghum, which only grows 3 to 4 feet tall. I tell people to look at it as a building. If you build a house, do you use 10-feet beams that run straight up and down 10-feet tall with the cross pieces and that? The answer is no because a big wind will blow it down.

We want to build your screening like you’re building a house. That’s what I tend to do by using four different species for the screen. Some of you guys may have been on social media. I post different videos live for my deer stand showing people how I set up my property. Another little thing besides screening, a lot of people use a screen to help get in and out of your deer stand. What a lot of people don’t consider screening is the way for nice big bucks not to glass a whole field. You don’t want a deer to look over a big area and not see does out there. Otherwise, it might head down the road to your neighbors. Maybe it would go to a different area where you don’t want that buck to go. You want to create a deer highway. You want to keep these bucks moving around your property so you have more buck sightings and a screen can also help you with doing that exact thing.

You rarely see a field that is completely even. Focus on scouting your field to help yourself in the future. Share on X

John, I probably misspoke when I said plantain. It popped in my mind. If it’s not a screening tool, I apologize. John, what is plantain?

I don’t use plantain. I use plantain in a lot of different areas of recline. We don’t have it as part of the regular lineup, but we do sell plantain. For some of you that have used it, you are going to be probably smiling because not many people talk about it. It has a high mineral and protein content. It’s desirable. You spoke about the spring for does. Here’s what I’ve observed here in the last few years of plantain and there are other forms that are similar that have benefits that people aren’t as aware of. Plantain in the spring is the first thing that tends to green up.

Out on the farm, we’ll see both bucks and does heavily consuming plantain first before moving on to picking out the different clovers, alfalfas and so on and so forth. In the fall, if the does are out breeding and your brassica plots, your scrape lines and your clover up are off of the land. The areas where I have a higher concentration of plantain, the old bucks in there are heavier than even the does. Why is that? The testosterone levels are ramping up for these bucks. They’ve got a lot of work coming ahead. It’s great nutrition and depending on how you fertilize your soil, it’s a desirable forage for about a three or four-week period of time in the fall, especially before we get into November. They will tend to move off the plantain as things get a little later and move into your chicory and some of your other forage species. As people deserve, now is prime time for bucks hammering the plantain out there on those fields.

If somebody wants to get your monthly newsletter. What do they need to do?

I made a couple of changes that even you probably aren’t aware of, Bruce. We’ve had a yearly membership for Grandpa Ray where we charge $20 a year. You also get access to private O’Brion education series of videos and seminars. You get a monthly newsletter that comes out at the 15th of the month. You get access to a private forum area, but we are going towards the streamline things a little bit. We want to educate as many people. Maybe not everybody is willing to pay the $20 to get the elite and next level of nutrition. People are going to be able to get my newsletter for free. You’ve got to email me at [email protected] or you could call me at (603) 335-0628.

We’re going to be giving everybody an opportunity to get the newsletter for free. We’re going to continue the Grandpa Ray membership where you’ll pay $20 a year. There’s going to be a silver membership and a gold membership. You’ll get a bunch of additional benefits beyond the ones I’ve mentioned. Beyond the newsletter, 10% off any of your orders throughout the year. There are a lot of programs that people get and a lot of other benefits. Basically, we want to touch as many people as we can. Whether you’re willing to pay a little bit of service or you want some basic tips to follow every month. We’re willing to help everybody in our own little ways. There is another way for you to sign up for the program. On our website www.GrandpaRayOutdoors.com, there’s a cart area there that has all of our different products that you could buy online if you don’t have a dealer nearby. There’s also an area where you can sign up for the newsletter there as well.

Thank you for that. John has helped me on the farm that I hunt. We’ve got 40 acres now that we own within the farm which is exciting and so we’re making a lot of habitat improvement. We put in some logging trail mix and it was going good until we had some floods. We’ve had a lot of rain in Wisconsin. We couldn’t even timber it because it couldn’t get in the skidder. It didn’t work well, but I still got plenty for the next one. I’m going to be looking forward to getting that back down. One trail that worked into that was on the farm. It wasn’t on a ridge and it got washed out, but the farm connection that Joe came up, I expected the deer to hammer it. We don’t have trail cameras over there, but it’s going to be interesting to see how much they’ve been pounded it when I get on there. To let you know, I used and paid for John’s product. There you go, John.

We have numerous mixes and logging trail mixes for areas where there are extreme shade and poor soil or may be you’re going to drive over quite a bit with that four-wheeler to go up there when you shot that nice buck. There are some other mixes that are better nutrition even and more desirable to hunt over. Logging trail mix does have some good genetics. There are things there that the deer will eat but it’s unaccounted. If you can’t set the grill, you’re going to have a hard time getting in the grill and it’s a dual-purpose product, it’s not just nutrition. It’s to keep things growing in those areas that are typically hard to get anything to grow.

WTR JoBrion | Food Plot Techniques

High shade, climax canopy and it blocks out the sun and it’s always wet or moist. That’s why John said, “Try this. See how it works,” and so far, so good.

That’s one thing about Grandpa Ray, we’re at maybe sixteen different food plot blends. There’s a time and a place for everything. The little thing I bring up to people is no matter how fresh, no matter how good our seed is, it’s still up to you to do better to know how to do the basic step to have success with whatever you plant. There’s no silver bullet in the industry. You can have a great mix and turn it into a poor situation. You can have a cheaper mix and be a great food plotter and do everything right and still make it turn out to look nice. There’s a difference between nutrition and the traction and also ground cover.

You can have a food plot that looks nice but if the deer don’t eat it, what good is it? That’s why you haven’t heard me talk about soil much, but that’s where it all starts. Everybody focuses on what they see above the ground, but the most important thing with any of your seed planning is what you plan it into. Mother Nature always comes into play and it’s not magic. It might sound boring to some people, but learn more about the soil and do a better job with your fertilization. That’s my advice of the day.

If you’re not going to your local ag co-op or extension and getting materials and talking to people. Take somebody who is running the ag extension or the co-op to breakfast or lunch, it doesn’t matter. Spend time with these guys because they see everything, they’re working with farmers. Like our farm, the third generation is now running the farms. They know but here we are 3, 4, 5 years into this food plot explosion. Some might say a little longer but where we come from about five years is an explosion. You’re accountable for your own land. John said it’s not a silver bullet. He’ll tell you but you’re going to put all the labor in, you’re going to put the work in and if you screwed up, you blew $100 or more money. If you say, “This is good enough,” it isn’t.

Spend some time in winter talking to the co-op guy, the ag extension guy and say, “This didn’t work out so well.” He’s going to say, “What’s your soil test?” “On this field, it was this, but I didn’t do the other field.” “What was the difference?” You’re going to say, “I got lazy.” I’m not saying any of you guys or gals are lazy, but you’ve got to pay attention to it. You’ve got to know the seasons like the farmers. They know when they’ve got to fertilize, they know when they’ve got to do all this stuff. Harvesting is easy, getting a tractor and harvest. Sometimes the hardest part of the whole thing would be food plots are waiting. What are your thoughts, John?

There are so many people that want to see the success but one thing that I do bring up a lot is the farming community. Most people that they buy deep from our agronomist specialist and they recommend the best thing for your own situation. The wildlife industry typically says, “Here’s our bag of seeds. Buy it. It worked for your neighbor or celebrity. It worked for Joel Smith.” My point is you could get lucky, you could have success but you’re gambling. How about work with somebody? I can’t work with everybody, but there are a lot of smart people out there. There are people that they have done this for a living. They do it for a living 24/7, 365 days a year. Find these guys. Whether it be a crop advisor and whatever wildlife consultant, there are a lot of companies that guys do this for a living.

You don’t have much agronomy background. They put together a seed blend and they sell it to you. If you have a problem, you call them. Will they give you an honest answer based on science? That’s my challenge for people. If things go right, great, but if things go wrong, work for somebody that can help you get them going back in the right direction. That’s what farmers do nowadays. Mother Nature will come into play, you had plotting. You could have drought, heat, or whatever happens. Let’s get answers. Let’s get things going the right way when things go wrong because things will happen. It’s inevitable as we’ve seen across the United States.

One thing I’d like to say, you can go to the big box stores and buy X, Y, Z and there is a personality in front of the bag. I get that’s marketing but you’re buying 25 pounds of seed not because you get coded and you’ve got fillers. If you go down, you may be getting someplace south of 20 pounds of seed, but you’re paying the full $25 price. You have to understand what the heck you’re buying. You don’t go to a big box store unless you’ve done all your homework, you look at the tag and say, “I want this protein content and all these other things.” It’s all on the tag. You’ve already gone and done your homework and said, “I’ll go to the big box store and this is what I’m looking for.”

Nutrition starts in the spring. The hunting industry should focus on those essential areas and times. Share on X

I’ve got it written down around my smartphone. I go, “If it doesn’t have this and this, I’m not going to buy it.” Plus cost compare. If you put five of those bags, four of those, that’s 100 pounds times X, that’s a couple of bucks. We can go to somebody like John and Robbie Johnson, he’s out in Nebraska. I’ve spent time with him in hunt camp. He’s a good guy and he, like John, understands the process and he’s the one that taught me about the coating. Why do you have a coating? Because you drill it. Farmers are drilling the seeds and so it helps it slip through the nozzle where it drills it in.

That’s why they have a coating but it takes away from the way. Coating, how much is that? When you do 100-pound bags, it might be a couple of percentage points and then the fillers. All we’re saying is I didn’t know anything about this until I saddled up with John a couple of years ago and he’s teaching me every single month about it. I have different people on the show that are in the business. What happens is you start to learn and learning makes you better. If you get better, guess what happens to your deer herd? They get better.

That’s the thing that I say to people is get educated. Know what you buy. There’s something out there for everybody. Whether it be a big box, whether it’d be a co-op, whether it be a private company like myself or a more nationally well-known celebrity-endorsed company, there’s nothing wrong with any of those companies. Find a good fit for you. What I at Grandpa Ray have been striving to do is what I’ve been doing my whole career is consulting versus selling. If you want to buy a product and not worry about any other expertise behind it, not a big deal. Those are the companies you want to buy it from. For those that want to get another level of free expertise, there are companies that do offer that as well. There are companies that are willing to take time to answer the phone to talk about whatever you need and that in my brain is called trying to do better. Why not get educated? Why not know how to read a seed bag? Why not challenge yourself to do a little better every month, every year?

I pontificate a little bit there, but that’s important and I’m learning and so every one of you out there can learn. Nobody knows it all. John doesn’t know it all. If you sit with John and have a cup of coffee, he’ll go, “What about this? I didn’t think about that.” That’s who John is. He’s an educator and he’s got many years as an agronomist or for cattle. He’s been in the business for a long time. I count him as a friend but he’s also a professional. Are there other guys and gals out there who know the business? Heck yeah. They just haven’t been on my show. If you’re one of those people, come on my show. It’s that easy.

I strongly recommended to go to Bruce. The great little thing you said is it’s great to have different opinions. That’s why I surround myself with a lot of other experts in the industry. That’s why I also do my education plots and their test plots run the ag bases. If you think you know it all and you think you have all the answers, that’s a disservice to your client page. Even though I’ve been in this for a long time, I don’t know what I don’t know. I’m sure that I’m going to find out and that’s why I love every day I step into my education plot. I’m always learning something new that I can help convey to my client base.

The joy he is getting from the first-time hunter when he gets the picture of the grip and grin of a young man or woman that is sitting on one of his food plots as they put their first doe down. They put the first buck down because, at that age, it doesn’t matter if it’s got horns or not. A deer down is a deer down. They’ve accomplished something that a lot of people will never accomplish. Let’s weigh into that, John.

I did a post again. A client from Pennsylvania’s daughter is nine-year-old and shot a nice deer. They’re also a first-time food plotter. He’s like, “I planted this to match other products. My daughter shot this buck in this plot. I get pictures and testimonials all the time. My heading there was this is my dear old celebrity endorsement. To me, that’s what true celebrities are. Whether it’s a doe, whether it’s a four-point buck or whatever it is, especially that first year that youth is shot. We’re all on there. We remember how many of us our first year was this monster buck. The industry is infatuated with that picture seeing these huge deer but that’s not where we started it. Think back the amount of satisfaction you’ve gotten with shooting that doe or that spiked buck. Those are my brain, those are my clients that I’m able to post those pictures. I consider those my celebrity endorsements and that’s what I voiced to Bruce and what I posted. I love it. I can’t get enough seeing it. That’s what drives me.

John is going to give us his one big thing when he goes hunting. What is that John?

I’m sitting here ready to go in the house and take a ScentLok shower. I also will be gargling with baking soda and water because your breath produces a lot of potential harmful scents that the deer could smell. Everybody talks about scent block but the complete scent block takes it beyond the show or putting your clothes and whatever system they’re using. Please consider your breath. That’s what I’ll be doing. Why take chances? One last little thing is as I slowly walk to my stand, I don’t want to get all sweaty. I don’t want to if through there it sounds like a herd of elephants or walking to my stand, take the time to look at nature. Maybe you’ll spot some things on your food plots as you’re trying to get into your stand. Be patient. It’s not a race. Don’t cut corners.

WTR JoBrion | Food Plot Techniques

 

One thing that I read an article a long time ago by Chuck Adams, I was questioning why he has that beanie on all the time. What he did, I don’t know if it’s part of his logo and his brand. I don’t know if he still does it but he would take baking soda, put it in his beanie, put his beanie on his head and he would never take it off. How many hustles did it take because they’re running late? They notice it’s going to be the prime day and a buck went through in there hustling. They get up in the stand and they’re unbuttoning stuff and then they take off their hats, beanies or their headwear or whatever.

You dumped a bunch of scent in the air. I know most of you understand that but over 50% of all the heat in your body goes right off the top of your heads. It’s a little higher than that, but I didn’t want to misquote myself. Think about those things. How can I minimize it? Ozonics helps and there are plenty of products on the market that help take our scent out but it’s the little things. If you’re hunting mature bucks, it’s the little things they’re going to kick in the butt. Not the big things because we all know the big thing that’s little things. What John said, your mouth and the other thing I learned about is how much scent comes out of your nose. Think about that. What are your thoughts, John?

You spoke effectively. I don’t think I can add anything to it, Bruce. Focus on the little things. Don’t overlook a lot of these things that you brought up, the bits that you have been. That can make a difference between seeing that trophy buck or not. If you bust a big buck one time, it might be the last time you see him. Be patient, be smart and good luck to everybody else.

Good luck to you.

When you’re done with me, Bruce, I’m going to be taking my ScentLok shower. We’re going to be doing everything we talked about. We’re going to patiently get into a stand because if you look at the chart, it might not be a bad day.

That opens a whole other can of worms, but we’re not going to answer that one. On behalf of thousands of readers, were running close to 200,000 downloads. 200,000 fills up Lambeau Field almost three different times. If your packer backers like I am, that’s a lot of people have read my blog and I want to say thank you, but it’s people like John O’Brion that makes you show what it is. John, thank you so much.

Have a great day.

We’re heading out to Utah and we’re going to talk to Chelsie Wilkey. Chelsie is a good friend of mine. She’s also being sponsored these days by Vanguard and Skeleton Optics and she’s on the team of Reel Camo Girl. What do all those mean? Chelsie is one fine huntress. She’s a lady of the outdoors and she loves to hunt with her husband over in Central, Utah. In fact, she went up in the mountains and hunted elk and got one. Her husband sure got a nice mule deer buck with his muzzleloader. She’s going to hunt up a fine mule deer for herself. Chelsie brings a lot to the game, a lot to the table and you’re going to enjoy it.

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