#478 Affiliated Outdoors Brings Hunters Together

Are you looking to learn more about the outdoor lifestyle? Chris Campanelli discusses how the lifestyle of the outdoors have evolved and how it has had a great impact in bringing hunters together. Chris shares his new show, Affiliated Outdoors, and how he and his friends decided to come together and take their hunting and outdoor passions to another level. Chris and his team are big advocates of passing on the torch of hunting to the younger generation and that hunters need to come together to stop knocking each other down.

—

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE:

Affiliated Outdoors Brings Hunters Together – Chris Campanelli

We’re going to head to Ohio. It’s actually pretty close to Canton, Ohio. The Football Hall of Fame shrine is someplace there. We’re going to visit with Chris Campanelli. Chris owns Affiliated Outdoors and he’s a Contributor Writer to Mass Pursuit TV. Chris, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Bruce. I appreciate you having me on. I’m happy to be here. I’m pumped up to talk some deer hunting and some outdoors.

We got together because you just launched your podcast, Affiliated Outdoors. Thousands of people are going to read the blog. Tell them about your show.

We, as an entire brand, launched Affiliated Outdoors on December 2017, just before Christmas. Myself and a good buddy of mine, Alex Thomson, who’s out of Sandusky, Ohio, put our heads together and decided to take our hunting and outdoor passions to another level. I’ve got some media background. That’s actually my initial college major. I was going for broadcast journalism. I thought I was going to be a sports radio host or a sports journalist. I burned out on that. My real passion has always been outdoors and deer hunting. I said, “We’ve got to do something so we can try and take that passion to another level, maybe eventually make it into a career.” All of us hoped to make our career doing what we love. In the outdoors, that would be producing some content to follow along with outdoor adventures. We said, “Let’s do some articles. Let’s do a podcast, a little visual element with some YouTube work.” We launched our podcast around January 1st, 2019. It’s similar to Bruce’s show here on Whitetail Rendezvous. We have people on, industry professionals and guests, that we think are going to bring interesting content to the table. We throw some questions back and forth, talk some casual deer hunting and other outdoor topics, have a good time and try to enlighten people a little bit, further our sport and our passions.

When you talk about Affiliated Outdoors, it’s a little different. I’m interested in finding out how did you come up with that name.

The credit goes to my buddy, Alex Thomson, my partner. We are putting our heads together, trying to figure out some names. We’re a little disgusted with a lot of the cliched names. Obviously, you guys know all the big, bad, tough outdoor names that you find on a lot of these shows that are trying to be cool. We said, “Let’s try something a little different and focus on the fellowship and the connection between the outdoors.” Any media, whether it’s sports media or news media, they’re connecting you to some bit of information, to some bit of content. Our connection is to the outdoors. What we wanted to do is to act as a liaison between the outdoors and the outdoorsmen and women who might be stuck at work, stuck at home, or stuck inside doing whatever when it’s not deer season. We try and give you a little bit of a slice of what you love to do outdoors and bring it to you on a computer, phone, tablet, wherever it may be. Our big thing is connection. That’s where we try and focus our connection to the outdoors.

If you’ve never checked out or defined rendezvous, that’s the coming together. Whitetail Rendezvous is a place where whitetail hunters come together. It’s pretty simple what ours is, but it’s interesting that more and more people want to build that relationship. We’re going to talk Ford, Chevy, Mathews, Hoyt, all that good stuff. Don’t get into broadheads, because then, everybody gets wigged out. Having said that, it’s all about doing something we love. At this time in history, we need to come together.

I’m going to soapbox it a little bit, but if we don’t come together as guys and gals, old and young and make our sport exceptional, we’re going to keep losing people. We’ve got to attract people. That’s one thing that podcast is doing as a member of POMA, Professional Outdoor Media Association. We’re trying to put a front out there that the outdoors is a great place to hang out with people. The articles you read are great articles. They’re going to make you better. The podcasts are up in the whole United States. I don’t know how many thousand outdoor podcasters there are now, but we’re all trying to do one thing, entertain, share information and then be approachable. What are your thoughts, Chris?

Hunters should be coming together because there’s too many people out there who would love to put an end to hunting. Share on X

Bruce, you echoed exactly what our mission statement at Affiliated Outdoors is. I know the same thing with a lot of the companies, our buddies, the team that I work with at Mass Pursuit TV, everyone in the outdoor industry have come into their senses now. For a long time, we had a lot of outdoor shows, especially the big ones that are on the large network shows. We’re not knocking those guys. We love those guys. A lot of them are some of my heroes growing up in the outdoor industry. I feel a lot of the content out there for the last couple handful of years in the modern era was a self-serving, product-pushing type of an atmosphere where people abandoned your average Joe outdoorsmen. They got up onto a soapbox and tried to project from the mountaintops, “We’re the biggest. We’re the baddest. We’ve got this cool sponsor.” I think they’ve alienated a lot of people. I believe it was Michael Waddell from Bone Collector who had a good Facebook video rant. You’ve probably seen it.

It’s worthwhile to see it. He says it’s from his heart. He’s basically saying, “We’re all in this thing together. It doesn’t matter if you kill a 200 bull, a 200 buck or a spike buck. It doesn’t matter. It’s hunting.”

It went on and on from there, but Michael Waddell’s an outdoor hero of mine, a real role model of mine growing up. He’s probably one of my favorites. That’s a great video. I’m glad you’ve seen it. It was a point where Alex and I looked at each other and said, “This guy is making a lot of sense.” We’re feeling it because all of us are consumers of outdoor media. We’re consumers of outdoor products. It’s our lifestyle. Personally, it’s my lifestyle. It’s what I live and do more than anything else. When you’re part of that community, you can see the faults in it. A lot of it has been condescending from the big names in the industry, not all of them. Obviously, most of them are great people, but I feel like a lot of the average hunters and outdoorsmen feel like, “You’re supposed to be serving us, connecting us and grow in the sport. What are we doing when we’re competing with each other and trying to knock each other down for this, that and the other thing? We’re supposed to be coming together because there are too many people out there who would love to put an end to hunting if they could with a stroke of a pen. Why are we competing with each other when we’re supposed to be connecting with each other?” I’m glad you mentioned that because that’s the basis of what we’re doing at Affiliated Outdoors and what we’re going to try and do along this entire journey.

We are going to get to tips and techniques and what makes us a successful whitetail hunter. Sometimes, when you have the right people together, we’re going to talk about these issues because if we’re not talking about them and you’re not talking about them, then things might not go the way you’d like it and then you’re going to turn around and go, “What happened there?” I tell people all the time, “If you just sit and complain and you don’t have a seat at the table, then shame on you. Here’s my email address, [email protected]. Let me know what you think.” I believe in that. If you’re not involved with a conservation group, if you’re not with Whitetails Unlimited, if you’re not connected with Quality Deer Management, if you’re not going to the local Ducks Unlimited, whatever committee, they need somebody to show up and move boxes. Get involved in conservation in your area.

You don’t have to give them $10,000. You don’t have to give them $100. You might have to pay $50 to get in, but other than that, go to work because your voice is important, your efforts are important. That’s what I feel. I’ve been around here long enough. I’ve got enough life memberships to buy a new Ford truck, and I mean that seriously. My wife isn’t happy about that. That’s just the way it rolls. I was able to do it and I did it. I don’t regret it at all. That’s no big deal because your $5 is worth as much as whatever dollars mine were back in the day, but we got to get involved in our local communities and whatever conservation group you’re thinking of and do it. What are your thoughts on that, Chris?

Hunters are the ultimate conservationists and a lot of people are taken back by that comment. If you listen to one of my other outdoor heroes, Ted Nugent, he always talks about hunters being the ultimate conservationist. If we sit idly by and let that go by the wayside and let the older generation fade away in this younger generation, then I see some issues with trying to carry on the torch here for the outdoorsmen and women. I’m a part of that younger generation. It’s an important thing that we band together and we keep passing the tradition down. It doesn’t have to be a $10,000 donation or even a life membership to your favorite conservation brand or organization.

It could be something as simple as taking that neighbor kid who you see is struggling and just playing video games all day and say, “Johnny, come shoot a bow with me over here.” Show them how to shoot a bow. Show them how to handle a gun safely. The next thing you know, you might turn a little outdoorsman or woman in for the future and that’s what it’s all about, is passing it down. If we don’t pass it down, it will eventually fade away because we can already see and it’s been a prevalent thing for a while now. There are people who would love to see hunting go away. They would love to see our firearms rights go away. You’re nailing it all on the head for me there, Bruce. I appreciate you bringing this up because it’s something people do need to hear. It’s something we’re going to try and promote at Affiliated Outdoors. We’ve done it a little bit in a lot of our written content thus far. We’re on the exact same page. You’ve got to pay it forward and keep growing the outdoor sports or we’re going to sit by and one day, they might not be here.

Another interesting thing is there’s a generation between myself and Chris, but we have the same heart, we have the same thought about what we’re passionate about in the outdoors. That’s cool. I don’t know if that’s the correct word, but it is for this guy. It’s way cool because we’re of like mind and we can come together and share our thoughts and hope to steer some thoughts out there in my audience.

Every one of us has an outdoor role model that we’ve looked up to. It might be your granddad who’s passed down his old deer rifle to you, taken you out in the field and had those precious moments that we all remember. It could be your neighbor who’s a hunter. Maybe no one in your family has ever hunted before and that guy sparked that passion. We’ve all got that person that sparked that passion within us and that’s the thing. It’s a generational tradition and it’s something that we need to keep passing down, at this point in history more than ever, because there’s so much that can sidetrack a young person to keep them out of the outdoors, keep them inside, doing things like video games and computer games, and all of this different garbage that we’ve got in our world. It’s important that we keep getting on that soapbox and preaching to these people. We need to strengthen the brotherhood and pass it all down. That’s we’re all about.

Let’s switch it up and let’s talk about your land management skills. Share with my readers what they should be looking at from step one. I know everybody knows about food plots. Some people can hinge cut correctly, but you’ve got food, shelter and water. That’s what whitetails need. Let’s talk about that and share some of your thoughts, Chris.

That’s my passion. I’m not a Dr. Grant Woods or anybody like that. My degree is not even in wildlife biology or anything. Take my opinions for what they are, but it is my passion. It’s what I love to do. It’s what I’ve spent most of my year doing. I do some whitetail management or just overall wildlife management at least every month out of the year for the couple of months where I’m hunting hard, maybe in October or November. It’s a passion of mine. Bruce, you nailed it on the head once again. It’s food, cover and water. A lot of us have heard all of the principles and the pillars of land management. Something I’d like to touch on a little bit more is the underutilization of land management, the failure to recognize land management with a lot of whitetail hunters.

Obviously, not everybody has a chance to put their hands on a piece of property and manage it. A lot of guys are roughing it on public land. I have a ton of respect for everyone who does that. I just feel like land management could be a lot more simple than what it’s portrayed as a lot of times. I love to engage in passive land management like letting younger deer walk. That’s something that every one of us can do, whether you hunt public, private, or a 30,000-acre ranch somewhere. We can all let young deer walk and selectively harvest our game animals. That goes for elk, deer, turkey, whatever you’re going after. There are ways to do it without spending thousands of dollars and having three tractors and a ton of land.

You can do this anywhere. What I try to put out on our publications at TheAffiliatedOutdoors.com is that land management, every outdoorsman can practice it and probably most importantly, it can benefit all of us and the future generation. It’s because our renewable resources are only going to flourish if we continue to practice good, sound conservation. Definitely, it’s a passion of mine, food plotting, hinge cutting, trying to architect property the way that we deer hunters need it to be. It’s such a rewarding passion to have 365 days a year.

I had a guy on, Kasey Thren, from Michigan. He calls it landscaping whitetail. He was a landscaper. He sold his landscape business and went full-time in the whitetail business. He calls it landscaping for whitetails. You mentioned the word architect. The reason I’m saying this is it isn’t just about going out, grabbing the chainsaw, cutting some trees down and hope it works. You have a real plan. There are guys like Chris, Kasey, and my friends Adam Keith and Matt Dye at Land & Legacy. There are hundreds of others like John O’Brion, a good friend of mine, of Grandpa Ray Outdoors. When you think about having people to put some eyes on your thing, don’t have them come out and spend $1,000, $1,500 or $2,500.

Have them say, “Can we have a phone call and grab Google Earth and look at things?” You’d be surprised what somebody with eyes that have done these a whole bunch can help you very quickly. In half an hour, they can say, “I’d recommend these three things.” They’re going to charge you maybe $100. I think it’s sure as heck worthwhile to have somebody take a look at that land that’s been in your family for 50 years and you got Bob’s stand and Johnny’s stand, and you haven’t moved the stands in 50 years.

Hunters are the ultimate conservationists. Share on X

They produce bucks, but why do they produce bucks? Where do those bucks come from? Where are they going to? Are there other bucks you’re never seeing? All those types of questions are the questions that guys like Chris can help you understand. Find somebody in your neighborhood that understands that and they are growing deer. Dr. Grant Woods, start reading his stuff. There are plenty of people out there, but you’ve got to want to figure out, “Why is that the only time I see a mature buck? I see him every five years and he’s over here. Why is that? Where are the rest of them?” Obviously, it’s going to be multiple bucks, but if you’re growing one mature buck, there’s probably some other good bucks there. Chris, what are your thoughts?

You made a good point at the beginning about getting someone else’s eyes and it’s something that I utilize myself. I’m not a wildlife biologist by trade, by schooling, or anything like that. I’ve grown up watching Grant Woods and other people like Mark Drury, who is a big-time role model of mine. These guys are like an encyclopedia and they share their stuff with us now generally for free online. You can go access their information, their articles, their shows and bring yourself up-to-date and teach yourself. That’s just my experience too. That’s how I’ve done it. It’s by watching these guys and being an admirer of their work and then put my hands on land and get my hands dirty. You made a great point about using other people and it doesn’t have to be a so-called land management expert who wants to charge you over $1,000 to come out.

There’s something that’s cool that we do here in my county that I hunt, which is Carroll County, Ohio. If you’re familiar with this state, it’s not really the southeast portion. We’ve got our Soil and Water Conservation District who will actually come out to your property. I’m sure this is the case in a lot of counties across America. Don’t forget that your DNR is a public service. They have wildlife biologists that can come out and assess your property. Our Soil and Water Conservation guys here in Carroll County have come out to the property that I hunt and given me tips and drawn up a game plan for us. We had a bad disease with some of our pine trees that killed all the pine trees off. I had them come out for totally free. They come out and give you a map and give you everything. They’ll assess the situation.

I try and tell as many people as I can that, “Land management can be for everybody. You don’t have to become Mark Drury who’s got all these properties and big tractors.” That’s obviously a lot of our goals, to someday be at that high level, but you can do this. It might just be with a chainsaw. It might be with a rake and some of the throw-and-grow products that are out on the market. It could be with as simple as getting somebody else’s eyes out there and they’ll say, “There’s a pinch or a funnel right here that you’re not hunting. Look at all this buck sign around that area. You need to get a stand there.” That could be the dealmaker for you next fall.

It’s not an overnight thing. It’s not instant gratification. It may take you three years of working your land before you see your first Mr. Wonderful. I’m going to say 130, 140, or Pope and Young. There’s nothing wrong with a Pope and Young buck. One hundred twenty-five is the basis of Pope and Young. Look it up. You can google how many millions of deer there are and how many make Pope and Young. Forget about Boone and Crockett, just stay with Pope and Young. Sometimes, we get so wound up. Michael Waddell talked about this. We got so wound up about the bone. “If I don’t get a 180 or plus Boone and Crockett buck, then I failed.” That’s wrong in my opinion. Truly, you take a kid out and they shoot their first buck. It doesn’t matter if it’s a doe, spike or forked horn. They could care less.

That’s the joy of the hunt. That’s my thought. You see that kid light up, girl or boy. The funny thing is that happens to adults who have never hunted. You take him along and help him along and say, “Here’s the deal. We’re going to get it from this double-set stand. Here’s what’s going to happen. The deer are going to come through and you’ve got to shoot him.” Sometimes, it happens that way. That person shoots their first doe or buck and they light up, and they’re 40 years old. Nobody ever showed them the excitement of that. What are your thoughts, Chris?

You’re hitting all the points, Bruce. You’re on fire. I couldn’t agree any more. You see some far too many guys, especially with social media, we’ve got so many keyboard warriors that self-proclaimed themselves as big-buck killers. They get on those social media posts and they’re cutting other hunters down and saying, “That 140-inch buck is so small. Look at mine.” That’s fine. We can all strive and compete. We’re all competitive people. We’re sportsmen. A lot of us have grown up playing team sports and we’re all competitive, but at the end of the day, the trophy is in the eye of the beholder.

Ted Nugent always talks about trophy sport. Anything is a trophy to Ted Nugent. If you watch his shows, you’ll see him with a doe, he’s just as happy as he would be with a 180-inch buck, maybe not quite as happy, but you see what I’m going with that. The trophy is in the eye of the beholder and it’s also in your circumstances. For instance, around here, we’re blessed with some pretty big deer, but if I hold out for a 180-inch, 170-inch, 200-inch buck, I might wait a lifetime to harvest that class animal. Whereas out in Iowa, if you’re in the good part of Iowa, you might have several of those harvested every year.

You’ve got to sit back and get away from all the outdoor media and assess your own situation. If you’re hunting public land and you’re looking to fill the freezer, a doe could be the trophy of a lifetime for someone. It could be the difference between having clean protein in your freezer and not having to go get McDonald’s for dinner one night. For some people, that’s what hunting is about. It’s harvesting that clean protein. When it comes to the inches and Pope and Young or Boone and Crockett, whatever your scoring preferences are, I always try to track the situation and look at age. Age is the number-one thing. I obviously don’t condone where I hunt on the property that we manage. I don’t want to shoot a two-and-a-half-year-old eight-pointer.

I’m looking to let that deer mature. If that eight-pointer is 140 inches and he’s five-and-a-half years old, that’s going to be the buck that I’d like to harvest. We all have to assess our own personal situations and just put the competition aside for a little while and try and make sure that you’re trying to suit your needs. Not trying to project yourself into what somebody else believes because they’re shooting a 200-inch class deer in one of these big-buck belt states in the Midwest. You’ve got to detract from all the hype, get your own situation and harvest what’s best for you.

Let’s talk about where you hunt. Are you a DIY public land or private land guy? Share with us how your hunting goes.

I’ll probably lose a lot of cool points or a lot of my hunting credentials here, but I have never hunted public land in my life. I’ve always stuck to private land and I’ve got my reasons for that. Obviously, a lot of guys have their reasons for being public land hunters. I’ve seen some guys that can produce results. I respect the heck out of them for doing it. Here in Ohio, we don’t have a ton of public land. I don’t know of any bow-only areas. I’m never comfortable going in with other firearm hunters or anything like that. I don’t want to hedge my bets on a public piece of ground. I’ve always stuck to private ground.

Particularly, my little slice of heaven that I love is a family farm that’s been in my uncle’s family for over 100 years here in Carroll County, Ohio. If you’re familiar with the Atwood Lake region, that’s where we do most of our stuff. It’s not a big place. It’s not a thousand acres in Iowa, but it’s my own slice of heaven and I just love to be down there every weekend in the summer, every weekend for shed season, whatever it may be. I love to be down there and that’s where I focus all my efforts. I don’t travel around to hunt. At least at this point, I’d love to someday maybe, but I focus all my attention here and try and make sure that little piece of property is as good as I can possibly get it. We’ve got some good neighbors who have the same goals and have some larger tracts of property. We’ve got a nice little spot down there and that’s basically where I focus 99% of my time.

Do you reset your stands every year or has the stand been there for several years?

Yes, and no. I’m always game-planning for the future. If you’ve read a lot of our content over at TheAffiliatedOutdoors.com, you’ll see that right away. In a lot of our early articles, you’ll see that I’m writing about planning for next year, looking at snow, tracks in the snow, trying to scout for next year. I think you can always learn more and let the whitetails teach you more. I move stands almost every year in accordance with my food plot planning strategy and my land management strategy too. Those things go hand-in-hand for me. I do move stands. I erect blinds that are permanent blinds. We have good friends of ours down at Oak Ridge Hunting Blinds. I don’t know if you guys are familiar with them out there. They’re a local company here in Ohio, but they build blinds across the country. I have some of their blinds set up.

Those are permanent structures where I know I can plant my food plots every year. Those are my best pieces of soil where I can plant to my position. That’s something that you’ll hear a lot from high-end whitetail hunters, talking about planning to your position. That’s what I try to do but then I also try to move stands and go to where the deer are active at. I do have some spots that stay the same year in, year out, but a lot of times, I’m trying to move and find that next best spot especially trying to hunt mature bucks. They can throw you some curveballs every year. It’s an ongoing process.

There’s so much that can sidetrack a young person to keep them out of the outdoors. Share on X

I’ve been told by a number of different people that mature bucks are different. I call them ghosts. How are they different? Because they’ll loop the main trail. They won’t come along the main trail. They’ll just loop it. They can scent check it. That’s why I think the wintertime is one of the best times to scout if you have snow. If you don’t have snow, then you’re back to square one. If you have snow, if you see an odd set of tracks doing something a little different than the other ones, that’s the buck in my opinion that you want to zero in on. Chris, what are your thoughts?

I couldn’t agree more. I look at a mature whitetail on two phases. This is something that most people might not realize. I look at a velvet-racked whitetail and a hard-horned whitetail almost as two different species. I am a trail camera fanatic. On our 100 acres, I’ve got about a dozen cameras which are way overkill, but I try and monitor my deer movement year-round as much as I can. I try and study the pictures. I have several files on my computer where I break them down and try and learn more about the deer. If you watch a velvet-racked buck, he will let you get away with almost anything. I’ve got two chocolate Labs. I can let them run through the fields in the middle of June. I can be out there on the tractor. I can be out there on my four-wheeler. I can be on my gun range shooting my pistol, my rifle or whatever. That buck is still out in the soybean field in the middle of the night. He’s eating soybeans.

I guarantee you if you so much goof up a little on your scent control on a hunt in the middle of November or October right before the pre-rut. In the late season after that deer has put a pattern on you, if you so much has misstepped a little on scent control on your entry or your exit, a mature buck in hard horns can be the most elusive creature in North America once he sheds his velvet. I’m talking from September on. They are so different once they shed that velvet from their rack and I’ve got proof of it on my trail cameras. I know a lot of guys that are big-time hunters, they’ll tell you the exact same thing. They’re very different creatures when you’re coming in, especially mature bucks. They’re totally different once those bucks eclipsed two-and-a-half, three-and-a-half-years old and get into a more mature range now.

If you guys are in on a mature buck story or crazy mature buck story, you definitely want to check out the one that I’ve done on. Look on our website and search The Hunt for Midnight Rider. It’s a deer that I have been tussling with for years and it is quintessential big-buck patterning, big-buck movement techniques. It shows you how elusive they can be, all while being patternable at the same time. They can throw you some curveballs and go nocturnal which is what this particular buck did. It’s a crazy deer that I fell in love with over the last couple of years. They’re totally different once they get to four-and-a-half, five-and-a-half, and beyond.

One thing I’d like what you said is the bucks pattern us, you, me, everybody else. Some people look at that and go, “Really?” That’s true because when you shut your door, even click your door, not slamming It, just clicking your door at the barn where I park and I have to walk a quarter-mile or so, those deer know that I’m there. I have no idea how they know it. They can hear well. They hear the door click. That’s why they had those ears. If you ever watch a whitetail’s ears, they are like radar dishes. They hear well the frequencies that we can’t hear. The deer will pattern you. You’ve got to have to say, “On this wind, I can hunt the stand, but I’m coming in this way.” That’s why the wintertime I believe is a great time to cut new approach lights because you’re going to approach your stand completely different every time if you can, depending on the wind.

You do that consecutively, all of a sudden, it’s going to make the deer ponder. He might still know you’re there, but he’s going to think. The other thing is how you walk to stand. Observe a whitetail buck, observe a whitetail doe and see how they walk. Sure as heck it isn’t how we walk. They got four legs, we only got two. It’s how they lift their feet, slip their feet under the leaves and they walk ten feet, stop, check out, munch and then they walk again because they’re not going to Starbucks. They could care less about what’s on TV. They’re just living. This is their house. They’re not in a rush. They don’t have to go to work. They’re going to go eat, drink and sleep. That’s it. What are your thoughts?

I don’t know who this quote is attributed to, but I’ve heard Mark Drury say it. I’ve heard several people say it. “We’re part-time hunters hunting full-time deer.” That’s the truth of the matter. You’re in their living room. Imagine if you walked into your living room or your bedroom which is a mistake that so many guys make, thinking they’ve got to go get into the thickest cover available and they go jump right into a big buck’s bedroom. Imagine what would happen if you walked in your door and there was a big guy sitting on your bed or your couch and chilling in your house. It would be the same thing for a whitetail when he comes in and sees, in my case, a six-foot-two hillbilly sitting in a treestand. It’s common sense if you spend time around whitetails. You’ll see we’re part-time hunters hunting full-time deer. While that next hunt might not be life and death to you, it might just be a pastime, it might be recreation, but it is life and death to a whitetail on a daily basis. The risk of death might be a coyote, might be a wolf, a bear or whatever it is.

The deer have so many predators out there. When you’re a part-time predator hunting full-time deer, you’ve got to realize that every little minute detail can hurt you. That’s what they do. Whitetails are the ultimate survivalist I think out of any game animal. You look at them, they go, they stretch from the northern extents of Canada all the way down through Mexico. What other animal is so keen at adapting and overcoming the various predators? Look at the predators that you’ve got in that range alone, from Canada to Mexico, here in North America. It’s incredible the number of predators, the human intrusion factor that these whitetails overcome. It could be something as small as you leave your stinky boots hanging out wherever they might be sitting in the back of your truck and collecting all kinds of scent, that one little scent trail could be the difference between you harvesting nothing and you harvesting a 150-inch class deer. It’s a fickle thing and we are most definitely part-time hunters hunting full-time deer.

Chris, do you keep a journal?

I do. On my cell phone, I keep a rough daily journal. I almost go another step and I try to keep a journal of trail camera pictures. I chart my hunts on my phone and in the little message part on my iPhone. When I get in the stand, I’m probably a total freak. I’m trying to be too quiet. I try to not have anything, any other scent profiles that could be out there. Once I get to the truck, maybe I’ll write down that I hunted, say it’s November 7th. From the twelve different cameras that I’ve got on the property, I’ll try and get a conglomeration of photos in and around that date, maybe not exactly say for instance on November 7th, but in and around that date. I’ll observe what’s the movement that I saw and then what’s the movement maybe on the south side of the farm that the camera got while I was on the north side. It’s an ongoing thing. I think a journal is something that everyone should try and keep in some shape or form even if it’s just through trail cameras or if you’ve got a good enough memory. There’s definitely information to be had there that can make you a much better deer hunter.

My memory sucks. I keep a book post-hunt and do it that way. I found that there are trends from year to year, similar type of things. You’ve got moon phases, you get barometric pressure, the wind directions, temperatures, all these factors and then if you look at that data, all of a sudden it’s going to click. You go, “In those three days, I saw five bucks and three of them were shooters.” Why did that happen? Because you sit at stand and that never happens any other time of the year. That’s the beauty of keeping a journal and keeping it for your place. You go to your phone and say, “It’s 42 degrees out. The wind is out of the north.” It might not be yours because of ridges. The topography changes up the wind. You’ve got to think about that. Everybody gets up, “What way is the wind coming?” I used to duck hunt and goose hunt all the time. “Which way is the wind coming?” You mentioned pine trees. All of these change how the wind reacts and that changes how the deer are going to react to you, the hunter. They know we’re here or there. What are your thoughts?

I’ve got a spot on the farm that I’ve hunted and this has been a farm that I’ve hunted my entire hunting career since I’ve started hunting. I have a spot that sits off of an incredibly high ridge for our area. It’s probably one of the highest peaks in the area. It goes down into a bow and it’s the quintessential Midwest bow funnel that you would think is a knockout, knock-dead, perfect spot. You could definitely kill a Booner in there. I’ve had pictures of a big deer in there. I chased one a couple of years ago. We called it the kicker eight. It was a huge buck. We chased him for a couple of years and we kept going to that stand. I would see the wind was out of the north. I would walk into the field right above this pinch. I would check the wind. It would be fine. It would be perfect for that stand. You get down into that stand.

Two different times, I had this particular buck come. In February or March when you’re a long way off from deer season, get yourself a smoke bomb at the firework store. Try and find a day where the wind is going to be out of that direction that you think is ideal. Go sit in the stand and have your smoke bomb somewhere nearby. Don’t catch the woods on fire if you can. You would be shocked at how the wind can change due to topographical features. It’s incredible how the wind can change off of a high peak. With big tall trees, if it’s early season and when you’ve got leaves on the trees, the wind might totally deflect a different direction than it does when the leaves are off the trees. There are many elements that obviously as human beings, we are prone to make mistakes. We can’t cross all the T’s and dot all the I’s. The extra effort is what makes the exceptional whitetail hunters. That’s the guys that wind-checks stands religiously. They are crazy about their entry and exit. That’s the small details that can put bigger deer in the back of your truck.

We were talking about Trent Cole and Blitz TV. He’s got some land out there in Ohio. He was on my show. He was telling the story like you were. He was getting flat busted by a very nice deer, a mature buck. He’d seen him coming and just left him. He’s going, “This isn’t right.” What he did in the wintertime is he got up some leaves and everything and then he lit them on fire. He watched the smoke go up. That was wintertime, so there were no leaves. He did the same thing when there are leaves on the tree. He took all the precautions he needed to do so he didn’t start the woods on fire. He said it was amazing because the smoke would go up and then it would go horizontal. It goes completely horizontal. It was like, “Are you kidding me?” You wouldn’t think it to happen, but he used the visual and then he realized, “I’m going to move my stand here on that one and I’m going to put it completely over here on that wind.” That’ll work, but if you haven’t done that, taking the extra steps, being ADD about it, then he would never have figured out that little secret spot. I don’t know how that worked out for him, but I bet it worked out for him real well.

I know in our situation, it didn’t work out to where we were able to kill that deer but it let me know that I don’t need to be spending more time at the spot because, with Trent’s situation, our wind was going opposite of what we thought it was going. It was drifting right up the side of this ridge where there was a big doe bedding area. Another important thing that people don’t realize a lot of times is you’re trying to dodge the incredible senses of a mature buck, but how often is a mature buck the first deer that you’re going to see on a sit? 9.9 times out of ten, the first you’re going to see is going to be a button buck or a spike and then there’s going to be five or six does behind that. You’ve got five, six, seven, eight or more, however many deer you’re going to see. Before you see that shooter, you’re going to have to dodge all those eyes, all those ears, all those noses. That’s the thing. I found out from going that extra mile, that the does were being spooked first and that was putting this deer on alert and helping him to skirt us every time. That’s what big whitetails do. They also are experts and observant at what might spook the more nondominant, the younger deer, the does. They’re experts at figuring out and learning from those deer’s mistakes.

Whitetails are smart. Don’t feel bad when you have to eat tag soup, because it’s okay.

While that next hunt might not be life and death to you, it is life and death to a whitetail on a daily basis. Share on X

I’m in the same situation. I didn’t kill my target, the whitetail here. That’s The Midnight Rider that I mentioned that I did the story on with the drop-tine deer. The neighbor across the street ended up harvesting it the first week of Ohio gun season. I can tell you, there are a ton of ups and downs in this game when you’re managing versus specific deer. When you’re managing for more mature deer, you’re going to go home with failures nine times out of ten. A lot of people play baseball. I play baseball for a long time. Baseball’s a sport of failure. Hunting is the ultimate sport of failure. You are going to fail 9.9 times out of 10, but we live for that 0.1% of the time where we get that elusive crack and that’s what creates those lifetime memories. That’s what gets you fired up to go back to the stand and what fuels our passion. Definitely, we’ve all been there and done that. That goes for everyone, even those guys you see on TV that are gripping and grinning behind every you-know-what record book whitetail did you think there ever was. Those guys also ate plenty of tag soup. We’re all in the same boat.

Let’s talk about tips and techniques in what you do. We already talked about the journal. Let’s talk about the biggest misconception of and about scent control.

There are so many about scent control. I’m a fanatic with scent control. I probably go over the top. I think a lot of misconceptions arise from people who either don’t respect scent control at all. They think, “It’s no big deal. Grandpappy told me years ago, ‘If you cover your clothes in smoke and get the wind in your face, you’re good.’” There are a lot of those old misnomers and what-have-you and then there are a lot of guys that think, “I can’t even chew a piece of gum that day that I go hunting. I’ve got to be perfect. I can’t let any scent profile happen at all.” It’s probably something more like in the middle with scent control and it never hurts to go that extra mile but stay consistent in the pillars of hunting. Have the wind in your face, know the wind for your stand too. There are thermals that can trick you. There are topographical features that can throw you a curveball, but know where your wind is going, know where the deer are coming from, the old basics.

There are some steps that you can take something I’ve loved. In the last years, I’ve gone to using a lot of the Scent Crusher products and the ozone stuff, which I found some solid results from. The sprays, there’s a million. Go pick your favorite. They all do the same thing. They hold your scent tight to your body and try and keep it from spilling off and leaving a big scent profile. Everyone can benefit from using that extra effort and making sure that you’ve got some scent control regimen. It’s important that you have some scent control regimen stored in your clothes. That’s a big part of it. I see a lot of guys who will toss their clothes into the back of the truck, put them back on when they get to the field. You might have success with that, but nine times out of ten, you’re going to start to collect some pretty nasty odors if you don’t regularly wash your clothes in some scent-free detergent. That’s another big thing that I’m big on. You don’t want to be going out there smelling like a flowery meadow. You want to try and keep as lowest scent profile as possible.

There are plenty of misnomers, plenty of misconceptions out there, but I think we’re somewhere in the middle for ideal scent control. Once again, it comes down a little bit to just being lucky. Hard work and luck meet in the middle once you have that regimen in place and you follow those simple pillars of having the wind in your face and doing the right thing. Scent control is a huge part. I’m probably a little bit anal about it, but I’d rather be a little bit too safe and cautious rather than be negligent and get picked off after you work all those hours hanging stands with food plots. You’ve spent the money on your tag, your bow, your gas, and all the things that we hunters pour dollars into. Why go out there smelling like a bag of McDonald’s or something and sitting in your treestand with the wind blowing at your back, defeating the purpose? You’ve got to have some form of scent control out there.

When you walk in your stand, do you ever use a drag or use a buck or doe scent on the bottom of your boots?

My dad is actually a big scent control guy with the drags. Me, not so much but I will, in the rut. I almost give the mature whitetail buck too much credit. If you’re dragging doe estrous behind you in late September for the opener of a bow season or if you’re dragging it behind you in late December or January, I might be totally wrong, but I feel like a mature buck might alert on that like, “Why am I smelling doe estrous?” There are cover scents that are good and there are cover scents that might be a little overkill or that are used out of season a little bit. If you’re in the middle of the rut, by all means, drag an estrous wick behind you. That’s always something that can help.

I think any time you can replace a scent that’s natural to a deer as opposed to a man-made scent, you’re going to be better off obviously. Even if you’re using it a little out of the proper context and time, you can’t go wrong with a drag. Something else that I’ve tried before, and I’ve had mixed results with, is the Nose Jammer products. Those are actually pretty good. It’s like a vanilla scent and a lot of guys spray the bottom of their boots with it. The deer will sniff it and they keep on moving with it. You can use a lot of different cover scents. Drag is something that I have utilized from time to time, but I’m not as religious about it as some people.

I learned from my trapper. I never trapped, but he told me some secrets. He used to use felt pads and he said, “At the right point in time, you have to figure out what the right point time is, but just put those pads in and then walk in. You don’t even have to do a drag. You can walk into your stand and then hang them fifteen yards away or twenty yards away. The deer will come up and they’ll pick up that scent.” There are a lot of tricks and nobody has all the answers. The other thing I want to close up here is that nobody has all the answers. Chris, what’s your go-to thing when you’re hunting that farm down in Ohio as far as trying to close a deal on Mr. Wonderful?

My go-to is always a trail camera. That is my big tool. I utilize about a dozen of them. You can’t imagine the information once you look and try and figure out patterns, times, certain deer. You can’t even imagine the things that you can learn. If you guys aren’t utilizing a trail camera, everyone can afford them now pretty much. They make them down to $40 or $50, a camera that will get you eight megapixels and get you clear pictures with a timestamp and everything. You can gain that information whether you’re hunting a big farm, small farm. I wouldn’t recommend it on public ground obviously unless you got a lockbox. A big portion of what I do is trail cameras and then food plots. We mentioned it a little bit when we talked about plan management.

The biggest thing for sure when it comes to tactics is planning my position and trying to alter that terrain to make sure that the deer are in my arena rather than the opposite way around. That could mean something as simple as putting a clover plot on a little inside corner of some timber and having your stands set up there and having the deer come to you rather than barging into a bedroom or something. Some people have success with that. The two biggest things that I’ve utilized are definitely trail cameras and food plots. For the Midwest situation, that can totally differ across the whitetails’ range. For me personally, trail cameras, I will live and die by them.

Chris, it’s been fun. We talked a lot about a lot of different things in the outdoor world, obviously whitetail being one of them. On behalf of thousands of readers across North America, thank you for being a guest on Whitetail Rendezvous.

Bruce, I want to thank you. You are great. I can’t tell you how much we appreciate you having us on. I know we’re a new company here in the outdoor industry, producing a little bit of that new-style media. We want to make sure that we reach out with good veterans like you that know what they’re doing and talk some deer hunting and spread the good words. It’s been my absolute pleasure to be on the show with you. I can’t thank you enough.

Posts

#478 Affiliated Outdoors Brings Hunters Together – Chris Campanelli

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE:

Affiliated Outdoors Brings Hunters Together – Chris Campanelli

Important Links: