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Bruce: . . . two, one. Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. This is your host, Bruce Hutcheon. We’re gonna head up to Wisconsin today and talk to Loren Hamilton, the owner and chief guide at Public Land Guiding. Loren, welcome to the show.
Loren: Thank you. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
Bruce: In the warm-up, in your bio, it says, “We chase the dream.” Expand on that and share with the listeners what you mean by chasing the dream.
Loren: Well, everybody dreams different. You know? We go out. We chase big whitetails. Everybody wants to shoot the next world record. That’s what we all strive to do and try to do. We just chase the dream of shooting a big whitetail. With me, my dream is just . . . I go out. I have a dream every day. Every time I’m in the woods is a dream. You see anything you want to see out there. We have a good time. We just chase the dream of shooting a big whitetail.
Bruce: So you hunt public land, DIY, do-it-yourself, or, in your case, with your outfitting company.
Loren: Right.
Bruce: Let’s share with the listeners the size of each class of deer and the size of the deer that you know roam the public land of Wisconsin.
Loren: There’s every size you want. Everybody’s chasing the trophy. The trophy is in the eye of the beholder. Average deer, you’ll see a lot of 120s, 130s. We’ve got monsters. I’ve got pictures and video of deer that’ll go probably 160, 170, still got a couple months to grow. Average deer, what you want to see . . . You’ll see 120s, 130s. Possibilities of seeing 200-inchers are definitely out there. They’re shot every year. We had a 208 shot, 40 yards from a tree stand. State record in 2013 was shot five miles outside of town.
The chances of shooting a giant deer are everywhere you go on public, if you’re ready to do the work and get in and find them. That’s what we do. We go out, and we find them. Hopefully . . . There’s always luck involved. You can do all the scouting and trail cameras you want, but there’s still . . . Lady luck plays a big part in shooting the giant. Everybody knows they go nocturnal, and they come out certain times, and you just got to be lucky to be in the right place at the right time sometimes. I do everything I can to try to help your odds of getting there, but you still need a little bit of luck.
Bruce: You just mentioned “do the work.” Let’s talk about doing the work. Step us right through the process of you getting set up on a deer that’s on your hit list or a deer you want to make darn sure you get on or one of your clients get on.
Loren: Well, it starts from the end of last season that started. We’re already . . . I’m already in the woods during the winter, when everything is frozen, walking trails, all the way up to looking for sheds, finding sheds hopefully, finding the trails and markings from last year, just putting [inaudible:00:03:34] ground. You just got to spend . . . You got to get out and . . . Guys that go to a parking lot and go in 100 yards and expect to kill a deer, they might get lucky, but you need to take your time, get out and scout it, and look for the signs. It takes time. You got to put boots to ground. I spend four or five nights a week or four or five days a week out in the woods, scouting, looking, sitting up on hills, scouting, [inaudible:00:04:04] and a lot of driving. We spend a lot of time. Most of it, I spend in the woods.
Bruce: It sounds like . . . When you said a lot of driving, do you scout from afar during this time of year and through July and August?
Loren: Yeah, I get the sliding scope in the truck, and I got places on the public. You can go in and walk them. Here, outside of town here, we got [inaudible:00:04:32]. You can’t go in and actually walk the woods. So we have to scout it from a distance with spotting scopes or binoculars or just eyes on. A lot of times, you pull in the parking lot, and you’ll see deer working the CRP or working the field edges. Usually it’s done with spotting scopes and binoculars.
Bruce: Now when you’re tattering out deer or creating a hit list . . . I should ask this question. Do you create a hit list for every fall?
Loren: I get a good idea of what deer are working what woods. A hit list? Like I said, trophy is in the eye of the beholder. Some people . . . I’ve got people coming in that have never shot a buck, have bow-hunted for 30 years and never shot a buck. He’s willing to shoot whatever he . . . I don’t have no trophy fees, and I don’t judge people on what they consider a trophy. I bow-hunted for 43 years. So I try to shoot bigger deer, as far as bucks. I got dough tags I throw in my freezer. I ask people. I’d rather them shoot at least a three-and-a-half-year dough, four and a half is better. But like I say, trophy is in the eye of the beholder.
But as far as hit list, we know . . . We have certain deer that we know are there, that we see. We’ll tell the clients that this here is a picture of this deer. We know it’s in the area. This is when we’ve been seeing him going through. Hopefully luck is on their side, and they’ll come through when they’re there. You know?
Bruce: Let’s talk about the archery or the rifle gear, muzzler [SP] gear, that you use and have been using for the last 40-some years.
Loren: I gave up gun hunting 30 years ago. I did bow-hunting since I was 12, and it’s just my passion. To me, I lost the thrill with gun hunting. There wasn’t no real skill involved, other than being a good marksman. That’s just my thought. So I like getting them up close and personal. I know if I get a good buck within 20, 30, 40 yards, then I’ve done all my job right and with a little luck, but it’s just more of a thrill that way. It’s more exciting that way. I shot just about every company out there, as far as bows. I’m shooting the Bow Tech Carbon Overdrive this season. Carbon arrows. I shoot the big arrows. I’m a speed freak. I like a fast bow, just because I don’t pull the [inaudible:00:07:17] I used to be able to pull at my age. I’m getting older. So I can still pull it. But why beat myself if I can’t, if I don’t need to? I stress people have good solid equipment because we hunt hard, and we beat them up in the woods.
Bruce: How about scent control? The boots you wear? The clothing? Do you use any cover sprays?
Loren: Yeah, I use different scent controllers, scent shield. That’s the one I use most of the time. I’ve tried different brands. I’m willing to try different brands to see what works. Most of them work. Scent killer I’ve been using a lot. As far as boots, the only thing that I, myself, personally, don’t like is an all-leather boot, because I just think it holds scents from getting out of your truck to go grab a soda at the gas station. It’ll pick up scents, and it’ll hold it. Where [inaudible:00:08:20] rubber boots are the way to go. Rubber boots are the best, as far as scent control. People, when you’re walking in, stay off of the deer trail. They’re easier to walk on to get in, but you’re spooking deer.
Bruce: How big an area do you hunt on?
Loren: We’ve got thousands of acres, thousands of acres of public land here in Wisconsin. Most of the wood lots . . . There’s a lot of marshes up here, and we hunt the wood lots around the marshes, anywhere from 10 acres to 800 acres [inaudible:00:08:59] woods. It’ll be thousands of acres of cattails around it, and there’ll be another chunk of woods, and that’s how we hunt.
Bruce: Okay. So this is a public land hunt. How do you, one, use trail cameras on public land? Two, how do you set your stand so you’re not setting up stands every morning, which might make hunting tough?
Loren: Well, in Wisconsin, you’re not allowed to leave your stands overnight. We’re trying to get that changed, but even if they did change it, I still carry in and carry out. My clients . . . They’re, by law, required to carry in and carry out every day. That’s one of the . . . People call it a downfall of public land. I’ve done it for so long. It doesn’t bother me. Go in early. Set up. Be quiet setting up. I’ve never had issues with it. Occasionally you jump a deer or bust a deer walking in, but everybody does that. You just got to make sure your stand and everything when you’re walking in is quiet. You don’t want to make a bunch of racket when you’re setting up. That’s the law up here. You have to carry in and carry out. So I recommend . . . Excuse me?
Bruce: Go ahead. Yeah, I was gonna say. Do you use hang-ons? Ladder stands? Pop-up ground blinds?
Loren: Ground blinds are all right, but I personally . . . The way we have to hunt, going in and out each day, it’s just not real conducive to hunting public land and hunting big bucks anyway, because they spot them right off the bat. They need to be left out there for a week or two or more. We use . . . Myself, personally, I use a strap-on stand. Climbers are good, but you just got more options with a strap-on because you can put them in pretty much any tree, where a climber, you have to have a pretty straight tree with no limbs on it, and you’re not allowed to cut limbs on public land. So strap-ons and ladder stands are the best.
Bruce: Now, what kind of assistance do you get, climbing up a tree? Do you have screw-ins? Or you use those sections?
Loren: No, no. Yeah, we’re not allowed to screw anything into the tree. That’s the way most public land is most states. I, myself, I use Lone Wolf stands. I use climbing sticks. All of my stands, I got five sticks that’ll get you . . . I’m an old guy and not as flexible as I used to be, but the five sticks will get me up 25 feet, easily.
Bruce: Let’s talk about safety 25 feet up in the air. Do you require everybody to bring their own safety harness? Or do you provide them?
Loren: Yes, I require them to be . . . I’m not a babysitter. I’m not their mom. But in the contract, I got to sign and initial that I require everybody to wear a safety harness in the tree. That’s my requirement. Now I’m not gonna come out there and check on you. What you do in the tree is your business. But if you fall out of the tree because you ain’t got one, it’s all on you. I hunted for 40-plus years without one, just started wearing one three years ago, and now I wouldn’t go in a tree without one. It’s foolish to do it, especially if you got family and whatever at home. If you fall out of a tree and break your neck, then you’ve put obligation and hurt and pain on your loved ones, that shouldn’t have been there if you just spent $100 and got a safety harness.
Bruce: Let’s talk about trail cameras on public land. Do you utilize them?
Loren: I have in the past, and I want to do it again this year. They’ll be starting to go out here in the next week or two. To me, it just don’t pay to run them that early because they’re just starting to sprout, but now they’re starting to show what they got. The issue with public land, tree stands and everything, there are, unfortunately, people out there that do nothing other than walk through the woods and look for trail cameras and stands to steal. I’ve had a lot of trail cameras stolen. I said I’m gonna try them again this year. If they get stolen again this year, then I’ll just go with my [inaudible:00:13:11] scouting and slice open and whatever. That way, I get pictures that way on my video camera. You can use them. You got to have your name and everything on them, Pick the right spot to put them. Hopefully you’re back in far enough where nobody goes back in and messes with them.
Bruce: Let’s talk about a couple lessons you’ve learned over the last couple of seasons, that you’re gonna make sure that you implement this year.
Loren: I learn stuff every year. Mine is . . . There’s a couple of places that I thought were really good, that weren’t. I’ve learned that instead of just sitting on the road, scouting, you need to get further back in, which I’ve been doing all season, all this summer or spring. That and . . . With my business life, don’t take people at their word, because you find contracts out there, and you hold hunts for people and hold hunts for people, and then they don’t show up, and you end up with nothing. So unfortunately that happens. But as far as the hunting, it’s mostly just learning to be more patient with people and more patient with myself, as far as getting out in the woods and spending more time going deeper into the woods. You can go in a half a mile and find a really good sign. But if you go in two miles, you’ll find awesome signs. So that’s my big thing, what I’ve learned. I just need to go deeper and further in, where nobody else is willing to go.
Bruce: Out west, where I live, there’s a lot of trails in the mountains. If you get a mile away . . . Yes, it is the mountains . . . a mile away from the mountain, you’re gonna see 50% to 75% more game. It sounds like you’re gonna have to get two miles away from the parking area or county road. How do you do that in the Midwest?
Loren: We walk, because we’re not . . . On public, we’re not allowed any kind of . . . not even bicycles on public lands. So everything we do, we walk. There’s a couple places where I can canoe back in to get to woods. That’s pretty handy. Mostly we walk. We pull up to the parking lot. I do a lot of scouting on my maps from the air, Google Maps and stuff. I got a couple other programs I’m still trying to figure out, but I do a lot of overhead mapping for funnels. Then once I see someplace I like, I go in and put boot to ground. That’s how we got to do it. To me, that’s the best way.
Bruce: Okay. Walk me through it. So we’re hunting together. You got camp and say, “Bruce, we’re gonna walk about two miles. If you can hang in there all day, you get a really good opportunity for a nice spot.” So what time do I have to leave camp? And how do I walk through the woods without, one, making noise, lighting up the whole woods? Talk to me about that experience.
Loren: Well, it depends on where we’re gonna send you that day. A lot of times, if you’re not familiar [inaudible:00:16:28], I always try to get guys in a day early, and I can drive them around and go, “This is the section I’m gonna have you hunting, and this is how you get here. This is where I think you should fit, but you got 1000 acres. Sit wherever you want.” Other people that are not real woods-wise and not real handy, real good in the woods and not much experience, all walk right through the trees. Normally it’s a semi-guided hunt. But as far as that, we get out of the truck.
Normally I like . . . Myself, personally, I like to be sitting on my stand and ready to hunt and holler at least before legal shooting. That’s just me, and that’s what I recommend my clients to do, but I do . . . I’m there to facilitate whatever they want to do, as far as how they hunt. I don’t try to change how they hunt. Everybody has their own style, but I normally try to get to the parking lot, depending on how far we got to go, a half hour or hour and a half to two hours before daylight. Get up, unload the truck, get everything on your back, be real quiet, walk in, set up real quiet, and then sit.
Usually in camp, I’ll have . . . For breakfast, most guys, serious hunters don’t want a huge greasy breakfast before they go sit the woods. So I’ll have [inaudible:00:17:46] fruit, bananas, apples, granola bars, whatever, juice and stuff like that, cereal if you want it. Then lunches, I’ll have all the stuff there for sandwiches. So I’ll whip up some sandwiches, chips, whatever you want to take out in the woods, and then make supper when we get back. But a lot of guys these days, they want to sit in the morning, come back in for lunch, go back out in the afternoon. Me, personally, I like to sit all day, but I’m out there. So I do it however the people want to hunt. However, they hunt, that’s what I facilitate to.
Bruce: What’s the best hunting advice you ever got? And who gave it to you?
Loren: Probably from the guy that got me into fishing and hunting, my best friend growing up, Roger Harmon [SP]. [inaudible:00:18:38] Harmon, his dad, always taught us to just don’t get so serious. Enjoy it. Let things happen the way nature is gonna happen. Don’t try to push it. Just take your time and enjoy your time out in the woods. It isn’t always about the kill. People need to just open their eyes and enjoy what’s going on around them. To me, if you get a kill, that’s a bonus. So much happens out in the woods that if you’re willing to turn your phone off and just open your eyes and pay attention, there’s a lot of things that happen in the woods besides the deer or turkey or elk or whatever you’re pursuing, the game you’re pursuing. There’s a lot of other things that happen. Just slow down and enjoy nature as it is.
Bruce: I hope everybody heard that, because hunting should be fun, and it’s your hunt. Nobody else really should enter in the equation, not your buddy. Hey. If you’re in a big buck pool, then you’re in a big buck pool, but only one person is gonna win that.
Loren: Exactly.
Bruce: Any season . . . My opinion, and I’m sure Loren will echo this, it’s about being out there, enjoying something that . . . A lot of people will never get that opportunity. So kick back. Relax. Listen. Be patient. If Mr. Wonderful walks underneath the tree, that’s just, as they say, icing on the cake. Would you agree with that?
Loren: I 100% agree with that. On top of that, you hear a lot of people, “Oh, I never get a chance to do that.” Well, instead of spending the day at the mall, take time to go out, even if you don’t know your way in the woods. Just go out to public land, to a parking lot, and go for a walk. Go in. If you’re comfortable enough, go in as far as you’re comfortable with and find your way back out. Just sit down. I recommend that to everybody. Just go out in the woods and sit down for a bit, and you’ll be hooked. There’s no turning back from there.
Bruce: Let’s talk about the youth of today. How do we recruit them into the hunting community?
Loren: That’s kind of a soft spot with me or a hard spot or whatever. I’m all for it. I think what a lot of the industry has gotten geared towards the almighty dollar, and I think more emphasis should be . . . Instead of putting a gun or a bow or crossbow in a 10-year-old, 12-year-old kid’s hand and, “Here, go kill that,” I think the kids need to be taught the consequences of what they’re doing. They’re gonna be taking a life. You know? They need to learn . . . I think they should be taught to trail, to sign, all the ins and outs of it, before they get thrown out there and go kill something. I think they need to learn more about what they’re doing, before they do it.
Right now, a lot of the shows that I see are putting emphasis on getting their kid out and getting them to kill something or whatever. That’s not what it’s about, to me. It shouldn’t be about that. I just think kids need to be more educated about what they’re doing, before they do it.
Bruce: What about women in the outdoors? That’s the fastest-growing segment in the hunting community. What advice do you have to women about coming to your place or just getting out on public land and bow-hunting or [inaudible:00:22:12] hunting?
Loren: Go for it. There is nothing out in the woods that hunting . . . that men or anybody . . . Women are just as good, if not better, bow-shooters than men. Their patience is better than most men. I’m all for it. The more women in the woods, the better. You know? As far as women in my camp, they got to understand that this ain’t a bed and breakfast, room service type thing. We sleep in tents with wood-burners, I mean nice tents, wood-burners in the tents. I got a shower tent, where you get a hot shower. I got a hot-house type tent where . . . It’s comfortable, but we’re still roughing it. I have a generator for electricity, but it’s not gonna be running for somebody sitting to blow-dry their hair and flat-iron it and all that. If you’re into all that, then this ain’t your kind of hunt, what I put out.
Bruce: So why did you decide to start guiding whitetail hunters?
Loren: I guess I talked with you. I’ve been doing it all my life for friends, friends of friends, family, helping them find deer. I just always had a knack for finding deer. It isn’t really a knack. I always spend a lot of time in the woods. So I find a deer. What was the question again? I’m playing here with my dog and everything else, trying to take care of him, and I lost you on that one.
Bruce: Okay. Okay. You good with the dog?
Loren: Yep, everything’s good.
Bruce: Yeah. So how did you get into being a guide on public land?
Loren: Oh, guiding all my friends and family and all that, and I’ve done it all my life. It just . . . I am semi-retired now, and I talked to a few friends. Why not make a business out of it? You know? I’m doing it not to really get rich, by any means, but I just . . . Mostly my passion is just getting people out and teaching them how to hunt public land and enjoy the outdoors and have a good out-west, out-camp type deal, hunting whitetails.
Bruce: Talk to me about the difference between four-and-a-half, five-and-a-half, six-and-a-half-year-old deer, than a two-and-a-half or three-and-a-half.
Loren: Buck-wise and does, look at the body. Look at the head. A lot of it depends on mother nature, the food that they’ve got, and genetics plays a part in it. It’s just all body size. Bigger bucks . . . The older the buck . . . You look at their head. The bigger the head, wider the head, the nose, calves a little bit bowed out, a little bit dragging back, that’s what you look at for mature deer. It may not be the biggest rack in the world, but if it’s a mature deer, to me, that’s a trophy. The same with a doe. I frown on shooting young ones. It happens. We’ve all done it. Anybody, if they’ve been bow-hunting long enough and they say they haven’t shot a fawn, then [inaudible:00:25:23], and they’re probably lying.
A big doe, to me, is just as hard to hunt. A mature doe is just as hard to hunt and to get a kill on as a mature buck. Their whole life is spent protecting their fawns and all that. So they play double-duty. To me, they’re just as hard. I’ve been busted by more does than I’ve ever been busted by a buck.
Bruce: Let’s talk about . . . You and I just bought 100 acres within 20 miles, 30 miles of where you live. What are we gonna do between now and the time archery season opens up?
Loren: In this instance, we just bought a chunk of land right now.
Bruce: Yep. Yep.
Loren: I would get out. First thing I would do is I would lock it, scout it, find the trails coming in, trails coming out, and see what you have on the land that attracts deer. Depending on what’s on there, if you got a couple apple trees, awesome. I would definitely . . . If you’re setting it up for bow-hunting, I would set up some kill plots and get some kill plots in quick. Wisconsin-wise, I would put in a couple plots, at least one good kill plot for something [inaudible:00:26:39] or something like that for the late season, because they get it pretty hard up here sometimes. It’s hard with food plots in Wisconsin because they’ve got food everywhere. We’ve got alfalfa, corn, soy beans. You name it. It’s everywhere up here, because we have so much dairy up here. There’s so much food that the farmers are planting for the cattle feed. Also, planting food plots is . . . You just got to get something sweet.
I recommend mineral blocks, mineral sites. I think that does more for the deer than anything up here, because they have such a variety of food. That plays in to trying to pattern them. It isn’t like down in Kansas, where you get so hot, where you can pattern them. They got to go to water. So you pattern them to water or out to food. It’s not as plentiful as it is up here. Where up here, it’s hard to pattern the deer. They don’t have specific patterns, normally, because they’ve got food everywhere. They’ve got water everywhere.
So just on 100 acres, I would want to put something on there that’s gonna attract and hold the deer and have probably 10 acres of it just a sanctuary, where you don’t go in it. Nobody hunts it. You don’t go in it. You don’t mess with it. You just plant it in tall CRP or something like that, so the deer can go in and bed, and that’s a sanctuary for them. Over a year or two, they’ll learn that, “Okay. There’s no sign of humans in here. This is where we need to be.”
Bruce: We’re at the time in the show, Loren, where you’re gonna have a minute or two to just give shout-outs about public land guiding and companies that support you, guys that have helped you, gals that have helped you. So here you go. The open mic is yours.
Loren: All right. Well, I appreciate the time. I’d like everybody to go onto my webpage, Publiclandguiding.com. It’s a work in progress. Don’t judge me on it, but you have all the contact information. There’s some pictures on there of camps and some of the deer we’ve killed. I just want people to come up and have a good time and not have to pay an arm and a leg for it. We hunt hard and have fun to eat good. I got my sponsor, my main sponsor and good friend, Cliff Walter [SP], with Buck Age [SP] Mountain High Outdoors [inaudible:00:29:01] page. Then I got Kevin Van Camp [SP] with Silent Retriever, and then House Morris [SP] makes my knife for me. I’d like to thank all them people. They’re good people. People, look them up and take care of it. Buck Age is the best scent dispersal on the market. He’s a good sponsor and a good guy.
Everybody, come up and get a hold of me. I got a few openings for this season still. Just get a hold of me, and we’ll make a deal. In groups of four, I do . . . Right now, I got a two-for-one price. You bring four guys up. I’ll charge you what it costs for two hunters. Four hunters will hunt for the price of two.
Bruce: Loren Hamilton, owner of Public Land Guiding in central Wisconsin. Thank you so much for being part of Whitetail Rendezvous Nation. On behalf of all our listeners . . . Loren, you shared some big buck nuggets. I took a few notes, and I hope our listeners did too.
Loren: All right. Well, I appreciate it. Thanks a lot for having me. Everybody, get out and kill a big one.
Bruce: Listeners, keep the sun at your back, the wind in your face, and go out and make it a great hunt. Thank you.
Loren: Thank you.