Episode # 214 Part 2 Matt Dye shares Growing Deer TV

October 30, 2017

WR 214 | Growing Deer TV

When hunting bucks we tend to shoot the younger ones. Guilty as charged – I’m like anybody else, a buck’s a buck and down. As time goes on however, and you get older, you want to zero in on mature bucks. It’s good for the herd and certainly good for growing big deer. If you want to control the hunting pressure on your land, approach, your hunt, and your exit all has to be done undetected. Matt Dye of Growing Deer TV continues the conversation that might just change the way hunters choose their bucks. Field Producer and Wildlife Manager at Growing Deer TV, Matt Dye discusses wildlife management, deer hunting, and food plot strategy. Matt is especially proud of his deer harvest during the recently closed turkey season.

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Part 2 – Growing Deer TV With Matt Dye

This is part two of Matt Dye of Growing Deer TV. We’re going to talk about age class of bucks and why we don’t see more of them. One reason is because we shoot the younger ones. I’m like anybody else, a buck’s a buck and down. As time’s gone on and I’ve gotten older, you want to zero on mature bucks. It’s good for the herd. It’s certainly good for growing big deer. If we do it right, we’re going to control the hunting pressure on your land. Your approach, your hunt, and your exit all has to be done undetected.

I’ll give them an offer. Like they say on our website, we have different channels or types of episodes. Some of it is just strictly food plot but if they have any more questions about these food product techniques, they can go right there and there will be videos of exactly what I’m talking about right there on it for them to see and watch and hopefully, take to their proving grounds and do.

Matt, let’s go through social media. Let’s go through the website. How do we get in touch with you guys and saying, “I want to talk to these guys because they know something that maybe I never thought about?” Tell us how to get in touch with you guys.

We do have an online website, www.GrowingDeer.tv. We produce a weekly episode, 52 weeks out of the year. We don’t repeat any and we’ve been doing that for six years now. Each week, every Monday, we put up a new episode on that website. If you want to get in touch with us through Facebook, research Grant Woods. Our Twitter name is @GrowingDeerTV and that’s the same as our Instagram name. We’re putting up stuff daily, whether it’s iconic photos or videos or stuff we’re doing out in the field, whether it is working on these food plots or sentence stands. We’re updated all the time and hopefully providing some excellent information that you guys can use for your proving grounds.

If somebody says, “I want some private consulting. Can we set up a time? We can have a conference call,” do you want to give out your phone number or just have them go to your website?

If you are interested in private consulting, it’s simple. It’s just [email protected]. That’s an email address. One of it’s going to reach out to you. Just give us your information, whether it is if you prefer email or telephone information, we’ll get back with you and hopefully answer any questions you got and talk to you.

Let’s stay with the other aspects of Growing Deer TV. You mentioned private land consulting. Who’s your client? Who are the people that should reach out to you that you find it most beneficial?

The people who have objectives and just want to get there. If they have a passion for deer, a passion for sharing creation with others, whether it’s their family, whether it’s their children, if they have goals that they want to reach, and they may not know exactly how to get there, I like to say we’re the guys to be able to help them reach those goals. We do private land consulting all across the whitetail range. Grant has been to New Zealand, Canada. Adam does some consulting. He’s been Iowa, Alabama. I’ve got a trip scheduled for Mississippi. I was in Ohio. These are all clients who have land in varying sizes and land tracks. I’ve been on a trip that was 60 acres here in Missouri. I’ve also been on trips that were 1,500, 2,000 acres. They want to experience outdoors. They want to have successful deer season.

The 60-acre property, it sticks out to me because it’s 60 acres in and many people can relate to that. They might have twenty acres to hunt or they might have 100 acres. You don’t have to have an enormous piece of property to have successful hunting on. It has to be the right piece of property and managing it and what you offer to the local deer herd, how you hunt the properly, whether you’re putting a lot of pressure on what time of the year we think that deer are most frequent in your property, but it’s a smaller property. We are to key into those times, saves an early season. We’re going to enhance those. Maybe it’s white oak tree stands or maybe we’re going to put some eagle seed beans in there and there to be hammering early September.

WR 214 | Growing Deer TV
Growing Deer TV: One of the things that we are continuing to evolve is our approach and our hunt in our exit.

We know that from the basis of how the other properties around your work. Your spot’s going to be dynamite in September, so let’s enhance it for that portion and hopefully get you successful in killing, whether it’s a lot of deer or big, 160-inch deer. Hopefully it will get you to that. That 60-acre property was a dynamite. It was a bright 60 acres. I was with Adam when he was there working the property and we were both looking at each other. “This is an awesome piece of property.” I wanted to know if the guy was interested in selling. It was the right 60 acres and we left there with a smile on our face. He was very happy with the plan that we had come up with to be able to access these hunting spots.

A lot of the consulting work we do is not only setting up bedding areas or sanctuaries or destination food plots of these hidey hole food plots. It’s that plus setting up, so you can harvest these deer. You can attract deer, you can have deer use your property, but that’s all fun and games from seeing them. A lot of people want to harvest them, so we’re going to give suggestions on tree stand locations, where to cut these deer off, how to access the property, whether you need another entrance from the east instead of the west, because you’re predominantly a west wind, you need to sneak in the back door. We’re going to help set that up and make that property work as a successful hunting property, not only just to have deer there, but to harvest them as well.

Let’s just stay right on the thought of harvesting deer and the different tricks that are necessary when a deer turns four and a half years old and upwards. Why is it so hard for us to see older deer in our woodlots and on our food plots?

Most deer don’t get to that age. There’s been a lot of education since QDMA and that started that. A lot of people are passing the younger age class buck. Now, they’re getting to that age. In parts of the country, some deer population don’t have that many of them so that that makes it tough to see them and tough to hunt them. If they’re not present, then it’s near impossible. That’s helping. A lot of people are starting to pass those younger deer and you’re getting more older age class bucks. One of the biggest things is controlling your hunting pressure. One of the things that we are continuing to evolve is our approach and our hunt in our exit. We have to approach our stands undetected, we have to hunt undetected, and we have to exit our stands undetected.

If we do that throughout the entire season, it’s almost like we’re not hunting the property, so that all entails having a good road system to each one of our sets. We have 55 different tree stands set across the property. Every summer we go in and we either weed them and blow out the leaves on a trail system to those trees that the stands are located in and we take it to that measure. We’re walking in the dog park on a blown out path that has no leaves on it. It’s just bare ground, pretty much rocks because the ground is so tough, but we’re walking it in, quiet as a mouse hopefully and get into our stance undetected with the wind in our face. Then we hunt with the wind in our face. If it switches a thermal switch or something like that because we’re in elevation changes of 400 to 500 feet very quickly, you’re working around benches or they’re using swales and saddle and stuff to work the terrain.

We had to really watch our thermal, so get that thermal switch. If the wind switches and hits from a different portion of the hillside, we’re out of there. We don’t do nothing with it because we’re going to end up doing more damage than we do good. I’d rather not spook the deer because it smelled us and maybe see a big buck. I’d rather shoot him the next time I go in there when the conditions are right. Then the other portion, we have food plots we hunt over, but we typically try to focus on hunting deer and transition. That helps with the last portion of our approach, the exiting of our stands.

You’re set up in a food plot at night or in the afternoon, you’re hunting, deer come into the field, we got lots of does around there, 60, 70 yards, and then it’s a mature buck you’re looking for. He steps out and it gets dark and he just doesn’t close the distance. You’re in your stand, you’re in an open field, how do you get out of there? How do you leave your stand from hunting on the edge without spooking the field, clearing the fields? What we like to do is try and hunt those deer in transition, so as they make their way to a food plot or make their way to a feeding destination, whether it’s a wider to stand where we know they’re going to be feeding late evening, we want to try and harvest up there. That way, once they’re already to the location, we slip out the door undetected. It’s like we weren’t ever there until we hopefully harvest the deer.

Transition zones and staging zones, do you have those in two separate places?

When I refer to a transition zone, transition zone in our head is an area where we can get in and hunt, usually on a ridge top because it’s the most consistent wind, because in between a food source and a bedding, those deer are in transition. They’re not bedding, they’re not feeding, they’re just moving through the timber. Any deer like a ridge top because it’s the consistent wind for them as well. It’s safe for them. They know which way that wind is blowing so they can detect predators and it helps us because we want to stay undetected. We get the wind in our favor and hopefully they would walk a ridge top or whether it’s a little venture saddle, that could be another pinch point or transition area.

We’re going to set up on those locations. That’s a transition area, a staging area or what we like to call them as a hidey hole food plot. These are small, maybe 10th of an acre clearings in the timber. This is usually planted with a lot of clover, just a broad cast of clover in there. It’s a small clearing that’s going to attract them. Sometimes we might put whether a fruit tree or something to bring in more attraction to that area. That’s our hidey hole or staging area that we like to hunt, and they work similar to a transition area, but there are some distinct differences.

I’m thinking staging area because I’m a long-distance scout. I’m a believer in long distance scouting living out west. I don’t climb the mountain until I see the game. My days of burning calories and gaining and losing elevation are way gone, but I’ve become a better hunter by putting my butt down, taking out my glasses, taking out my spotting scope, and finding the game. If they’re not heading to that bedding or coming home or going into a feeding area that I know elk like or even mule deer, I don’t spend the energy going up there. I just go find another place to spot the next morning, next night. I spot in the morning and hunt in the afternoon because typically, unmolested or undisturbed elk, they’ll come back to the same park.

You invest more time in glassing. I’ve transferred that to a white tail hunting when I can. Some places, I’m on somebody else’s farm. I can’t get every place I want to get to. They say, “Go here and do that.” I say, “Yes sir. It’s your farm,” and have a great hunt. When I can, I’ve found that if I watch a field a full day from dawn and just sit there the whole day until dark and then slip out, they’d never know I’m there because I’m a half a mile away. They never know I’m there. Then I can tell you, “Here’s entry and exit point. How can I do it? Can I get a ground blind in there or do I have to go into noontime, put up a stand? How do I have to do it to hunt that buck?”

Hunting bring all walks of life together. Share on X

I’m looking for one buck. I’m not looking for a deer. I’m looking for just one buck, the best possible buck or mature, older buck on the land. That’s where I’ve gravitated to. That’s going back to the staging area. I’d been able to watch bucks, there are does and other bucks on the field, feeding and having a great time and all of a sudden, Mr. Wonderful is back in the timber and he’s got everything, he’s just waiting. Then he walks out and if I can figure that out right, I can slip in there and do what I need to do or dive and hunt them in that place, but know where he’s coming from. Then I back up into your transitioners. Does that make sense?

That does make sense. Your approach of scouting is very similar to ours. It’s doing it all undetected. When you know you can get into some area, then you make the decision, “There’s my approach. That’s how I can get to this transition area undetected.” I had to hunt that transition area on a west wind because whether it’s a trail, he’s walking right to left, whatever it is, that west wind is going to hit you in the face, so you’re going to hunt undetected. Once those deer leave, you might have to loop up and around a complete circle around the way you originally came from, just get out of there undetected. Whatever it is, it’s your approach.

Scouting undetected, entry, hunting, and exit undetected. Whether you have a 60-acre piece or 120-acre piece or 4,000-acre piece, that’s how you make your hunting season almost grow because you’re not over hunting an area. You can’t burn out an early season set. Deer are of avoiding that because they know there’s some danger around there late season. If you’re hunting in the area then you burn out, it can be done. It can just flat out be done, but if you hunted undetected, you hunt in an early season, it becomes a hot spot during the rut. I can get back in there. I haven’t really done any damage, so you get back in there during the rut. It’s actually really close to some standing grain, so come late season when it gets cold, I’m going to be back there at that same location and it’s like I did before.

If you think you know everything about white tails, you do, but you’ll never grow into being the hunter you can, and you’ll never see the mature deer that’re around 40 or 60 or 80, whatever you have. You’ll never see those older deer. Matt, your comments on that?

There’s going to be those times when the rut is going on, deer do make mistakes. They’re focused on a hot doe, and they’re going to run somewhere that they probably shouldn’t have. Let’s say nine times out of ten, you’re probably not going to harvest that deer if you’re walking in across the open field first thing in the morning and spook the deer out. Who wants to come back to a field that a predator was just in that’s got a 270 in his hands? They’re not going to want to do that. You got to be able to learn to enter and exit and hunt undetected. There are those places that deer will go and walk by every single day. We have them on the property. They’re thorns in our side because we know deer walk there, but just the way the terrain is and the way the wind and the thermals are going to blow in that area, we can’t hunt them.

Based on past history on deer. We know where they’re at, but we cannot get to him. It’s not worth bumping them or spooking them on their transition to food plots, whatever it is. We just can’t get into those areas, so we’re going to wait. We’re going to hunt a transition area or hunt a different portion of the farm where another buck might be using a different area. Whatever it might be, we’re not going to get them to an area where we know, “We’re going to bump a deer, but hopefully it’ll just happen.” We don’t touch those areas, stay out of them, and let things progress naturally and hope some buck make some mistake later on and crosses paths in the areas that we can get to undetected.

A lot of people that have invested in him as mentors, as coaches, as his friends along his young journey. Matt, will you talk a little about all levels of your career that people have helped you out and what that means to you?

It all really starts back with family. As a kid, I was always told to work hard, and hard work eventually pays off. That was an option. I guess there really wasn’t another option for me. I had perfect examples of that like my grandfather and my dad. They worked hard and they were successful. Why would I try anything else? I just put my life to working hard and that got me started on a great foundation and from there, took that on. My whole wildlife career got started because of a farming background my family came from and our hunting heritage. That’s what I love to do. That’s what, as a family, we did, and I combined the two of them and really found a niche in wildlife management. After being raised hardworking and knowing that was my passion, I wanted to make that an advocation, a hobby to a vocation. If anyone’s out there and they’re looking for wildlife, they’re looking because they’re really hard to find, so it takes hard work to do that.

I was very blessed along the way to have a good foundation, a good base to start with. Then as I started going to college, I had a couple good advisors in college that they were very willing to work with me. I went to a small school, Bridgewater College in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. When I say small school, 1,800 kids as a college program. I had gotten into Virginia Tech, gotten into their wildlife science program and I was like, “That’s what I want to do. It’s such a prestigious school. That’s exactly the focus I want to do.” I knew that when I was going into school. For some reason, I look back and I thank God for the discernment to choose Bridgewater, that small school, because I was able to work with my professors and work with my advisors to tailor my education. I did twelve credits of internship, two independent studies, one research paper, one research course, special topics course, so most of my electives in my college career were not offered in the general curriculum.

I worked with my professors to devote myself to something along the lines of deer management or something along the lines of mammals and this and that. They were willing to work with me because of that small class size and small size. They knew that I had a passion for it and they saw that and appreciate that and worked with me. From there, that transitioned me into doing other internships. Grant and Adam here at Growing Deer have been awesome mentors for me and helped me through my college career and just advice on not only wildlife management but at deer hunting, but just in life in general. They’re just great people. They just helped me along the way and then keeping that relationship and that foundation is really important. After my internship here, I spent five months out here in Missouri when I was nineteen and went back home. Next summer, I worked at Quantico Marine Corps base. I spent two summers working there at the Marine Corps base. We were putting in food plots, doing deer research, monitoring fawn survival studies, so we were taking them when they’re dying of starvation or roadkill unfortunately sometimes.

I did that for two summers and those folks helped me to see a relationship that was pretty common in the wildlife whole side of things. It’s the federal side of wildlife management and they worked hand-in-hand with the state as well. I got exposure to state and federal laws and regulations, how those entities work together. That was some great knowledge. With Grant, I worked in the private sector, so I was blessed to have a wide background and realm of wildlife and how they all work and how those entities work together. That certainly helps out as you get more involved with wildlife and just understanding those relationships. Over time, it all developed. Mentors are very important part of the process along the way.

I loved how you said you get into a small school, but you know where you wanted to go, and people just said, “We’re going to help you go there.” I just loved that because you create your own curriculum and said, “Here’s my goals, how are we going to get there. Here’s my idea.” They’ll throw in their ideas and work together as a team to achieve what you wanted out of it. You manage and have managed your career since you saw your first deer in the woods.

I haven’t made that connection in my head, but it all started there. It’s just a domino effect with the first deer, the first squirrel I killed. The passion and the education just started from there and just continued. One of the other neat things I didn’t bring up was since I worked with Quantico during my college career and I had mentioned that the professors worked hand-in-hand, Quantico had research from harvest records for 30 years that they had kept. They knew me as an individual, knew my education and my drive and what I was going to do.

They allow me to use that research, that harvest information, and I ended up doing a large research paper with my college and presented at Southeastern Biologists Meeting in South Carolina in my senior year. I had college professors and an outside internship that they had no dealing with, but they came together and allowed me to use research and help me to analyze that information and to produce a research product. That’s another illustration of how people along the way have not only helped me but helped one another to produce more research and be a part of the wildlife community. It is an awesome field because there are a lot of people who do help. They reach out a hand and help each other.

What I’d like you to do is talk about how hunting brings people together.

Hunting bring all walks of life together. Whitetail hunting dominates the hunting community, but it doesn’t just stop there. I have a passion for waterfowl hunting. I don’t get to do it nearly as much anymore, but those same people you can just relate to in sharing the outdoors and sharing what we call here at Growing Deer enjoying creation. That’s just an appreciation for whether you have a successful morning in the deer stand or the goose blind, whatever it is, to see a sunrise and enjoying that with other folks. It just brings together that sense of community when you share that with other people. It doesn’t have to be all just whitetail hunters, it doesn’t have to be just waterfowl hunters or just turkey hunters.

You send them down on a table and you just say, “Do you hunt?” and the conversation has started and it’s probably not going to stop for the rest of the night just because there is that bond. It’s tough to explain and I don’t know it 100%, but there is a bond among hunters and outdoorsmen and outdoorswomen. Women are getting into the hunting industry and it is good for us. It’s not just a man’s sport or it’s not just adult sports. Kids are getting into it and we really need to bring them into it even more because everyone says they are the future and that’s not a lot. They are the future. It’s hunting species by species. Everyone just comes together.

One of the favorite things I’ve had the ability to over the years, whether it’s wounded warriors or just service men and women out. That’s just a great way to introduce new people, just showing appreciation for them and the sacrifices that they make. They just share a bond with someone and show gratitude in the outdoors. There’s an outdoors youth mentoring program out here in Missouri, Cross Trail Outfitters. I was speaking with one of the leaders there in the group. One of their big things is getting the kids outdoors and spending time with them and just talking with them and how they’re a big Christian organization. If anyone watches the growing deer, we are as well.

The reason why hunting is so attractive to people is that you look in the Bible, many stories, God talks to people in the outdoors or in creation or in the wilderness. That’s a common theme there in the Bible. In my head and in my heart, I feel that when I’m outside hunting, when I’m outside enjoying creation, whether it’s a hike or I’m fishing, you have peace that comes over you. Everyone can experience that and that helps to bridge the gaps between different hunters and just bring everyone together.

Whitetail hunting dominates the hunting community, but it doesn't just stop there. Share on X

Bruce, thank you very much and everyone for Growing Deer. If you have any questions on what we talked about or you need some video proof, I learned a lot better with visual so all the information that was shared, you can find on our videos at GrowingDeer.tv. That’s all online. Just go and search a topic. You’ll have some relevant videos come up and we’re all about sharing education and hopefully that this was a good opportunity to learn and hopefully Bruce, I will be back on and talk with one another. I appreciate the invite and hopefully we can do it again.

Our headline sponsor is Bass Pro Shops and we’ve worked with them for years. Winchester Ammunition, Caldwell, Dead Down Wind, Prime Bows, Redneck Hunting Blinds, Eagle Seed. They’re all on the website and you guys can check them out. We appreciate all of them and the products that they have. There’s some good stuff out there.

Matt Dye from Growing Deer TV, thank you so much. On behalf of all our audience across North America, and I’ve got a couple people in Europe and some military people, so shout out to you guys and gals serving across in the desert, wherever you’re at. Matt, this was awesome. Thank you for being on the show.

Thank you, Bruce. Take care.

On the next episode, we’re going to head to the low country. We’re going to go back and have a visit with Chris Grassi. Chris was on the show months ago and he graciously said he’d love to get on and talk to us about what happened last year during hunting his season and the lessons learned. One thing he learned was patience. Tune in, Chris has got some really exciting information to share with us.

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