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Bruce: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this segment of Whitetail Rendezvous. This afternoon, I have BJ Blau. He’s with Back 4D Community. He can be found on Facebook. He’s also up on LinkedIn for his professional career is. But he, like most of us, is excited about Whitetail. BJ, welcome to Whitetail Rendezvous.
BJ: Well, thanks, Bruce. I do appreciate it.
Bruce: Great. And just to start off the show today, just share with us one of your best hunting tips and the story behind it, and just a little bit about your passion for whitetails.
BJ: Well, I’ll be honest you. One of the greatest tips that I just learned and I have been hunting now for a number of years, but one of the greatest tips that I learned was, “Hunt your stand.” And I never really understood that. My dad used to tell me this all the time as a kid, but I really got a full grasp for this. Last year, I was walking into my stand and not really paying much attention thinking about what happened and transpired during the day versus actually hunting my stand. And I kicked out one of the bucks that we had put on a hit list last year, and he was standing about six yards from underneath my stand. So I’m sure as most of us . . .
Bruce: Oh, my goodness! Oh, my goodness!
BJ: Yeah, right? And really most of us have dealt with things like that before in the past. But you learn a valuable lesson and those are the things you take with you through the rest of the season and obviously through the rest of your hunting career.
Bruce: That’s for sure. So the tip would be basically stalk your stand or hunt your stand when you’re heading to it even though you’ve done it 50 times or 100 times that fall.
BJ: And to be honest, I learned that lesson right there. I’ve applied to just about anything when it comes to hunting. If I’m out scouting, I’m hunting when I’m scouting. The last thing I want to do is kick these deer out. What I want to do is if I’m going to hunt throughout the entire year… So, for instance, when I’m walking to my stand, I’m obviously hunting my stand. When I get out of my stand, I’m coming out. I’m doing the same thing. And the reason being is, one, you don’t want to give any animal the idea that you’re there and that’s obvious. But more specifically is that you just want to be really cognizant of the fact that you’re in their living room. So just be real careful when you’re walking in and out or even when you’re scouting or when you’re out shed hunting in the early spring. I live in Wisconsin, so right now is the best time to shed hunt because we just lost our snow last week. So really hunt even though you’re not hunting.
Bruce: I’d like to share with people when they’re sitting around camp or talking about whitetails, you’re always whitetail hunting and you have to be cognizant of that and your focus has to really be around on your surroundings. Do you agree with that?
BJ: Absolutely. Absolutely, it’s interesting, too. When you put up a new stand, most of the time we’re putting up a stand because we’ve seen deer in an area so we move a stand midseason. And we really are taking advantage of taking a look at all of the surroundings. So for instance if you’re at the edge of a corn field and the corn is still standing from where the trail is to the tree is, it’s an easy shot. But think of the corn field where they’re actually entering in, you’ve got all this obstruction. And most of the time we don’t even notice that until later when we when we have the shot and we can’t take it because of the obstructions.
So, yeah, absolutely. Take advantage of the time when you’re setting that new stand up or when you’re putting a new stand in of the surroundings so you know where your shots are, you know where your shot placements can be, and more specifically what are the possible obstructions because the last thing you want to do is get in the woods, get a chance of harvesting a booner [SP] and something’s in the way.