Premier Introduction Of Whitetail Phenomenon With Brodie Megill And Taylor Kesler

 

There is always a learning curve that you have to overcome when it comes to learning how to hunt. It can be especially difficult when you don’t have the guidance you need. Creators of Whitetail Phenomenon on Instagram, Brodie Megill and Taylor Kesler, are new hunters who are living the whitetail lifestyle 365 days a year. They hunt both public and private and have learned enough to harvest a buck or two successfully. In this episode, Taylor and Brodie talk about documenting their passion while giving out tips on hunting in a Tethered Saddle and hunting public land successfully. They then go further into discussing why the future of hunting is recruitment and what their Whitetail Phenomenon Instagram is about.

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Listen to the podcast here:

Premier Introduction Of Whitetail Phenomenon With Brodie Megill And Taylor Kesler

This the fall of 2019. It’s going to be the biggest cold front coming through the Midwest. It’s going to go from 75 degrees down to 40 degrees. That’s huge. It’s going to be rain and snow. If you didn’t take off of work, you made a huge mistake. If you live in any place near where that cold front’s going to be, you should have called in sick on February 9th and 10th. That’s all I’m going to say. With us are Brodie Megill and Taylor Kesler. They are a couple of Michigan boys who simply love to hunt whitetails and we’re going to talk about that. Gentlemen, welcome to the show.

Thanks a lot, Bruce. Thank you for having us. We appreciate you for bringing us on.

You’re welcome. Taylor, what’s this Whitetail Phenomenon? Why do you have an Instagram page?

We started this Instagram page to try and show a little bit of what we’re doing here in Michigan, display some of the success that we’ve had and some of the journeys that we’re taking. It’s being able to show the people what we’re up doing.

Brodie?

We’re here to learn. The Instagram page is a mere reflection of that and the things that we’re doing. Maybe not an everyday basis because we’re not on every day. We’re regular guys. We have two jobs. Hunting is not the only part of our lives, but it is definitely the most passionate part for both of us. We felt that documenting the things that we do has given us a reason to take a picture or two and we enjoy doing it. We like having the page and checking out what other people are doing on social media and it’s important to have one.

Are you up on Facebook or YouTube? Do you have any other channels?

No Facebook page for me. We only got a camera and we’re fixing to start doing some recording. We’re dealing with some old, ancient equipment and nothing worth posting on the internet so far. With this new camera, we’re hoping to throw in a YouTube page here soon and start recording the onset that we do on a regular basis.

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That’s important. Especially if you want to share and help other people learn, they’ve got to see the good, the bad and the ugly. It’s not all grips and grins and, “Look at me and look at me.” It’s, “We were on this hunt and it wasn’t a successful hunt because of X, Y and Z.” Taylor, when you think about hunting, you said that you came from a hunting family, but you started getting into it in the last few years. Why is that?

I’ve had a little bit more time to sit in the woods and see what’s going on, but it seems to be more to it than going out there and waiting for a deer to walk by. There was a reason why this deer was here and why he came from this spot. I took it upon me to start reading a few books and wanting to learn a little bit more about the whitetail deer in general. How they function on a day-to-day basis and the reasons that they do some of the things that they do.

What are some reasons that you have learned? Who has taught you those tips?

I did come from the hunting family, but I didn’t necessarily go out with my dad and sit in the blind. He’d still point me in the right direction, but he sent me out on my own to learn the woods. As the years went on and I’ve learned some of the properties a little bit better and learned where the deer started to come from. I became a lot more interested in it and I wanted to learn. That’s what it was, it’s trying to gain as much information as I can and go from there.

Is there anybody that you listened to on podcasts or on Sportsman Channel, Pursuit Channel or YouTube channels?

I follow Dan Infalt at a decent amount, The Hunting Public, Jeff Sturgis I’ve watched a lot of his videos on YouTube. He’s got a lot of helpful information. He’s a guy who has been around deer for a long time and he’s got tons of different strategies and different videos that seem knowledgeable.

What’s the one thing that sticks out that helped you to be successful as a deer hunter? Only one technique.

I would say it’s during the rut. It was learning certain areas where it started to click after I saw a few deer. After thinking about it a little bit, learning and reading about some of these different scenarios, it was trying to position myself in the right spot and get into an area. The wind is always a constant battle and I’m trying to be in the right spot. Over time, things start to click and lines start to connect. You realize why deer are doing what they’re doing out there.

It’s the same question for you, Brodie. Who do you listen to and what have they taught you?

I’m a big follower of Wired to Hunt. I like what Mark Kenyon is doing. He puts out a solid message. He’s not afraid to show you what happened and why. It seems like he’s a real guy and I’ve read his book. That’s also something that everybody should pick up. It’s a public land book. If you’re not a public land hunter, it reaches out to you as well. It’s an outdoor book. Other guys we listen to are Dan Infalt, we know John Eberhart’s got a lot of content out there. We’ve read his books. Anybody that puts deer hunting content out, I’ve at least dabbled with their podcast or their dot-com. It’s anything out there, I’ll at least take a look at.

What’s the one tip do you want to share on the show?

I’ve been more focused on the beast style of hunting. I haven’t been hunting long, so I never got a bad habit. Growing up, most of the people I knew hunting hunt in a spot. They go sit on a treestand. In Michigan, before a few years ago, they would sit over a bait pile. That’s how my dad, grandfather, uncle and everybody that I knew hunted in that style, field edge sitting. In my opinion and limited knowledge, that’s not hunting. You are out there and you are hoping to kill a deer, but it’s tough to be successful on a regular basis that way. Following Dan Infalt in the beast style of hunting, looking for bunk beds, studying terrain features and swamps and all of those things are at a point that I would stress to anybody who’s picking up hunting that it’s not sitting over a pile of bait waiting for your buck to walk in. It’s a lot deeper than that.

Thousands, if not millions of people, that’s how they hunt. I’ve been to places that they’ve ruined their hunting territory because they said, “We’ll put bait out here. We’ll put it out here,” and they guarantee their clients that they’ll see deer, does and small buck. If you’re after a mature buck, not so much. Will it happen? Yes. Especially during the rut, all bets are off. I would simply share this message. If you want to hunt mature deer, you’ve got to hunt mature deer and they’ve got to be on your property.

I still get schooled every single year and I spent a lot of time in the woods. It’s humbling because you go, “He got me.” That’s the way it is. It is because that’s the fun of it. If we went out every time and shot up a 150-plus deer, 4.5-year-old deer, it’d be, “Go home. I think I’ll take up golf.” It wouldn’t be the challenge. Needless to say, you guys are the future of hunting. Let’s segue into that. Why do you think a lot of people don’t give a rip about hunting? You have personal friends that you shared with me that don’t give a rip about hunting.

It’s tough to say why. A lot of people are uninformed. People get a bad view of what they think hunting is because of a lot of different things and a lot of avenues that people will pick up. You get on a whitetail, deer hunting show and it’s all killing shots, tracking and blood tracking. It’s misunderstood a little bit. A lot of people don’t know how good the food is afterward. That’s an important part. That’s another thing, in the future, it will be more important to people. It’s a trend that a lot of people care about where their food comes from. Factory farms and all that stuff is no good. There are not a lot of better feelings than killing an animal yourself, cleaning it, cooking it and eating it all within a 24-hour period. It’s a powerful feeling. A lot of people should give it a try.

I’ll add to that. Michigan has a lot of hunters, but some people never got the opportunity to go out in the woods, whether it be when they were a youth hunter or even some people my own age. They’ve never been given the opportunity. They may not have had the land to go out on. Up until these last years, we’ve got a couple of thousand acres of public land in our backyard. I didn’t start exploring it until a year later and some people don’t know about it.

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Both of you said that you’re doing the tethered sling harness. I have not done that so help my readers to understand what it is, what it isn’t and why it’s catching a lot of people’s interests?

First, it’s easy for a beginner to pick up and do. The saddle is an alternative to what a treestand would be or hunting on the ground. It gives you an elevated platform to hunt deer from. There are a million different ways to skin the cat. There are all kinds of different gear modifications and climbing methods. There are a million different ways that you can about using the saddle. It’s the best way to go if you’re looking to be mobile. To do that, you have to pack it into a backpack with your climbing method and you hike in. If you get a Lone Wolf platform-style stand, Dan Infalt’s coming out with his beast style gear, I’m sure that stuff is as good, but this is an alternative. It’s light, it’s easy to move around in, and it gives you an opportunity to hunt in a lot of different areas in different trees. It’s multipurpose hunting.

It’s something that even you can wear into the woods. Work your way slowly through an area, try to find some good sign, and then you hang and hunt. It’s simple. We have little experience with it in the field because this is our first time using it, but it can maybe even help conceal you from deer. You’re keeping the tree in between you and the deer instead of a treestand where you’re on the other side of the tree right in front of the deer. You might be able to get your bow to pull back a little bit easier and get that shot that we’re all looking for.

The example that he’s saying with using the tree as cover, we were in hunting in a private property we have access on and it was a V style tree. It was split and we were on the same limb, on the right side of the tree. If you would’ve been in a typical treestand, you’d have had to be on the front side of that tree. We were on the backside and the tree was between the deer and us. At that point, it provides you with opportunities to do all kinds of stuff. We harvested doe that night. With a regular style treestand, we would’ve been less likely to harvest that exact same doe.

How does it work? I know when a hammock is. I think that it’s a mini hammock that you tethered to a tree but you need climbing sticks. Back in the day, I would climb up a tree, but it’s got to be a killing tree. I talked to Infalt about killing trees or any successful hunters, the first time they go in an area, they’re looking for a killing tree. They find a tree and they see if there’s any deer sign around it. They don’t look for deer first. They find the killing tree first and decide.

Isn’t that something you should know, Bruce? Isn’t that a feeling you’re supposed to have as a big buck killer is the killing tree? You know which ones those are.

Yeah and then you go ninja mode. In my opinion and everything I’ve learned from a lot of people and some from myself, I have killing trees and I only hunt on them at certain times. I only hunt on them so many times a year but it’s a killing tree because I know everything else being equal. I hang there for three sits, and that’s the most I’ll sit a stand. That’s it. We have on our farm, we got a lot of stands, but I only hunt one stand three times. That’s it. Afternoon, morning and afternoon and I’m done with that stand. I have all the places that are funnels and pinch points for the rut where I sit up all day. Now I sit on the ground. In the past, I sat in the stand all day. I got in at dark and left at dark and see what happens. Killing stands are important. I found my tree, now what the heck do I do? How high do I go? What do I do?

You asked what it is, it’s most similar to a rock climbing harness. Anything that you can think of that rock climbers would wear. You get a strap around both of your legs.

Is it a harness?

Yes.

I’ve rock climbed.

It’s like that. In terms of climbing methods, there are a million different ways you could use your regular climbing sticks that everybody uses. If you’re on private land, you can use screw-in steps. I personally use the Wild Edge Stepp. It’s a little difficult to describe, but it’s pretty simple. They’re small light steps. They’re maybe 8 to 10 inches wide. It’s a simple knot that you put on one side and it cams over and locks into the tree. I carry eight of those steps into the woods and I can usually get between 18 and 20 feet with those steps. That’s all the higher that you need to be in it. Where I hunt, 18 to 20 feet is plenty.

What about your safety harness? Is your harness your safety harness?

Your saddle is technically your safety harness. You tie a tether to the tree and you use a carabiner and it clips into the harness that you’re sitting in. You can look on YouTube. There are hundreds of people that I’m sure who have put videos up on it, but Greg Godfrey puts out videos. He is the Tethrd saddle man. He puts out all kinds of videos and he thinks that it’s safer than what your regular treestand harness would be. It’s moderately debatable. They’re probably as safe as one another. Your harness is your stand in this particular case using a saddle.

If I fall asleep and I’m in my harness, I’m not going anyplace.

I haven’t pulled a full nap in my saddle yet but I’ve been close and I feel comfortable with it. I know plenty of guys that have slept in the saddle and it’s doable for sure.

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I get the part that it’s my climbing harness which I still have. How do we get a tether though? Is that part of the harness?

Yeah. That is all part of the package. When you order the saddle you get lineman’s belt and the tether. The lineman’s belt, you wrap around the tree as you start going up the tree. That keeps you connected at all times while going up the tree. You placed your platform down and at that point, you’d put your tether around the tree, hook your bridge into it, get onto your platform, whatever it may be, and you’re ready to hunt.

I do have a platform for my feet, is that correct?

If you want. There’s a ring of steps option as well, that are like pegs in a ring around the tree. That’s what some people go with. The Predator Platform is the one that Tethrd, the company makes that go with the saddle that we bought. There are multiple companies that are making different small style platforms. It’s what you would think of on the bottom of a treestand but only smaller that you put your feet on.

I’m hanging out at whatever angle I want.

Pretty much, there’s a sitting technique or a leaning technique. Sitting would be most of your weight is in your butt and you put your knees up against the tree. That’s a sitting technique and I do that about 50% of the time. The other technique would be leaning where most of your weight is on your feet and you’re more at a 45-degree angle off of the tree and most of your weight is on your feet.

How do I draw my shoot? How do I draw my bow?

It’s difficult to explain in a podcast. If you want, you see it and you tried it, the shots are almost exactly the same as what you would be doing in a bow in a traditional treestand. You’ve got to be comfortable making shots. It would be like a standing shot in a treestand.

 

I can get that. I’m sitting down and all the weight is on my butt and then my knees are against the tree. We got pressure on the tree and my butt. I draw and I shoot right-handed. Coming in from the left is good, but coming from the right, it’s almost impossible, right or wrong?

You can make the shot to the left. Your weak side shot is what you’re saying in particular that it would be more difficult. It is more difficult like it would be more difficult in the treestand, but you pivot, you move your weight and you’d have to lift your bow over your tether.

Taylor, you wanted to say something?

Shooting from a saddle compared to a treestand at certain shots seem almost easier because you do have your knees or some weight against the tree. It can hold into the position that you need to shoot well. I haven’t tried this a whole lot, but I have seen a couple of guys standing on a platform to shoot a weak side shot. It’s a lot of movement. They basically rotate all the way around the platform to where you don’t lift your bow up over your tether, but you rotate 180 degrees around. Your tether would be a seatbelt on you and then you can shoot. I’ve done it a little but I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing it on a deer. With more practice, it could be another easier way to shoot a weak side shot.

I see the flexibility. You have to be flexible, pun intended. No, it’s not a pun. If you’re flexible enough, the tether, if you’ve got it set upright and you don’t have a blocking limb doing it, so you can’t pivot, but the pivot is the whole thing. I could pivot and put my tether over my head and now it’s a regular shot. The weak side shot went away and I’m drilling it from my strength on the left side. Not that I’m going to try it because I probably won’t but you got me thinking. I could do this off the ground.

That’s how they recommend it to start.

I don’t even have to do anything except, I would be a couple of feet off the ground. I’d take my Spider Harness, take my tether off that and I’d take my climbing belt. I’d show that up, I clip it in and since I shoot a crossbow, I can pivot. If the buck comes in the right way and at the right time, I can pivot because I’d say, “He’s going to cross left to right. He’s going to crush right to left,” and I smoke him. I’m glad you guys are on the show.

We’re glad to be here.

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Not that I’m going to try it soon.

You should. You should try it and put it up against the tree. I’m sure if you got ahold of those Tethrd guys, they would let you demo their model. It’s cool.

I’ll only use my climbing harness and clip in my tether for my Spider safety vest and take that.

I see what you’re talking about.

My brain is flipping because I know plenty of places that I don’t have to get it far off the ground at all, especially with a dead tree that’s fallen over. It’s already fallen over. I’d call that, I’m hunting from a dead tree, a root ball type of thing. I’m already four feet off the ground. I throw that thing in and now I’ve got a lot more flexibility.

You might be on to something there, Bruce.

You learned it first on Whitetail Rendezvous. You guys are fun. We talked about guys and gals that you know who aren’t hunting, organic food, and being tethered. Let’s talk about advice to new hunters. You’ve got a new hunter that you met in a bar, you’re working with them, you’re having coffee, you bumped into somebody that says, “I’m interested in hunting.” What would you tell them, a guy or gal?

I would offer to take them with me. Come on along with an unknown adventure and see what you think about it. Maybe take them on a little public land trip and see if the woods is something that they’re interested in. I would almost guarantee that if you get most people out there, they would probably be enjoying themselves. There are plenty of people, but anybody who’s tuning to your podcast would know, that being outside is something special that you can’t take for granted. Taking them along is a great start for anybody who has never been out there before.

 

To someone who is new to hunting and starting out, I would say, “Don’t get down on yourself.” There is a learning curve to this. It’s going to take time to figure out how deer operate and also don’t wait for the right buck. You do have to start out by shooting some deer. You don’t have to wait for the 170-inch Boone & Crockett deer that everyone talks about with the QDM. I’m all for it but you’ve got to learn. You have to get a few kills under your belt before you can go start chasing a mature deer. You’ve got to start a little lower on the pole before you raise your bar all the way to the top.

It’s realistic expectations. The only way to practice killing deer is killing deer. I am by no means a big buck killer. I’ve killed a few deer in my life, but the only way to practice killing deer that I know of is to kill deer.

I’m going to add on that. Folks, it’s your hunt. Brenda Valentine told me this years ago, “Bruce, it’s your hunt. It’s your tag, kill whatever you want to kill, eat it, be proud of it and enjoy it.” If somebody jumped on you on social media and said, “Why did you kill that little deer?” Unfriend them and block them. They’re not your friends. We’ve got to stop that. John Utah and I talked about that at length on his podcast. We’re all in this together. If you want to kill 5 or 10 does and you shoot them for good management, go ahead and shoot them because people eat that. They eat great.

If the first buck you see is a spike buck and it’s legal in your state and you haven’t killed many deer, shoot it. You’ll need to calm down, pick a spot, aim small, miss small and do all the things you need to do. There’s only one way to learn to do that, and that’s to kill the deer. You can’t do it to a target, 3D or at any place. You have to get in the woods, you have to have a deer come by your stand and you have to go, “I’m going to kill the deer.” You go through your routine and muscle memory. Let it take over, hit the deer, follow up the deer, get to deer, carry the deer out, process the deer and eat the deer. You’re going, “That was fun.”

It’s a great feeling, Bruce. If a lot of people would try it and give it a chance, a lot more people would think we do.

Taylor, what are your thoughts?

I’m right there. You’ve got the tag and you want to fill the tag and then that is your right. There’s no room for criticism. We’re all on the same team. There’s no reason to belittle someone for shooting the deer that they can be proud of. It could be their first year for all. I’m right there with you on that page and agreeing on that.

Bruce, what you’re saying that we’re all in this together is important. This is not something that’s guaranteed to all of us. Anybody who’s read your blogs that’s interested in hunting has to understand that this is not something that is definitely guaranteed forever. There are small cuts being made out of hunting and land access and all those things on a daily basis. If it’s something that everybody wants to do and you want your kids and grandkids to do in the future, we do all need to be on the same page and in all march to the same beat.

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As a new hunter, Brodie, you had no hunting tradition at all. Why do you even start?

I was looking for a competitive outlet. It’s being a sports player in high school. That’s something that is in your blood. I’m competitive. I like challenges and I like trying to get better every day. Being in Michigan, I’m aware of hunting. Growing up, my dad was a deer hunter, but I wouldn’t say he was passionate about it. My grandfather is similar, most of his stories are more drinking stories than they were hunting stories. It’s a competitive outlet and you start getting more interested and I love learning. I started picking up more materials on reading materials, listening to podcasts and whatnot. Once you understand the depth of it, it’s a challenging sport. It’s not something that you can go out. I was saying to Taylor when we were in the stand, “Killing deer should be a lot easier than it is.” It’s not as easy as what you see on TV.

Wait until you start elk hunting. You can be ten feet from an elk or fifteen yards from an elk and you won’t get them because of the cover.

It’s humbling.

All the time so I feel your pain, but go ahead.

That’s pretty much it. Now I am willing and able to do it on my own and afford it with a job. Beforehand, you had to worry about our parents paying for things, but now that I can spend whatever money I want. Most of it goes towards hunting, buying new equipment and all kinds of stuff. It’s a way of life. It’s not only a weekend thing. It’s something that consumes my thought process on a daily basis. Me, Taylor and another one of our buddies who hunt with us regularly, we’re constantly in a group chat talking about deer and sending trail cam pictures. It’s definitely more than a hobby. It’s trending towards an obsession at this point.

From this guy, it’s not a bad obsession to have. That’s for sure. Once you get focused and you want to have the adventures, you meet so many neat people, you travel and you do all those things. After a while it becomes, “Did I shoot that mountain goat or that wolf?” Yeah, I did but it’s the people I met along the way and the incredible experiences that I can look back on. The kill is part of the memory, there’s no question about it but you go to the sunrises, sunsets, campfires and stuff like that, you go, “My goodness.”

I’ve been able to be some places where probably not 100 people who’ve ever been in North America. That’s cool and that’s what keeps me going. That’s what keeps me young. All my buddies said, “Why do you hunt so much?” I’d say, “It keeps me out of the couch or watching TV all the time and I can’t play golf anymore. It keeps me young and it keeps me going places.” I got invited by the governor’s office to go up to the Minnesota Gun Opener in Fergus Falls. I have no idea of the people I’m going to meet up there. They know of the show and stuff and said, “Would you like to come?” I said, “Sure.” I’ll go meet hundreds of people that I would never meet any other way, but through deer hunting. How cool is that?

Hunters are a passionate bunch of people. They’ve got a bad rep. The mainstream way of thinking is, we’re a bunch of barbarians who love killing stuff. It’s so much more than killing animals. It’s a lot deeper. If a lot of people gave it more of a chance, they would see a lot more benefit from it.

Taylor, what are your thoughts?

I’m right there with you. The kills are great but it’s the journey along the way. The people you meet, the time you spend sitting around a campfire talking about how you almost have that buck and you needed one more step and you could’ve had a shot. Along the way, it’s making those memories. Watching the sun come up, getting to see nature, and hopefully, see a deer come running along as well.

What do you guys think about the future of hunting? We got to at least 40 years if not more years between us. I’ve seen whitetail hunting go from traditional Wisconsin nine-day gun season to archers. I could be wrong but they’re killing a lot of deer in Wisconsin. It’s all changing because public land versus private land, all those issues, it never was an issue when I started hunting in ‘66. We did deer drives and we’d go from farm to farm and we’d stopped to knock on the door to say, “We’re going to make a deer drive. Do you want to join us? Do you want to stand? Do you want to push? What do you want to do?” He said, “No. You guys go,” or, “Yes. Let me grab my gun.” We’ve had 20 to 30 people doing deer drives and it was incredible. It all worked out and everybody had meat. We’d have a big feast at the end of the day and we do that for three days.

It was completely different because we didn’t sit and we only did deer drives. You might sit for an hour in the morning. You might and things will change. Now, public land hunting gets crowded and more and more guys get together and say, “Let’s buy this 40.” Illinois is known, Pike County and Buffalo County up in Wisconsin. Guys spent a bloody fortune to have the right to hunt deer for 45 days. It’s like, “Oh my gosh.” I’m happy for the farmer. That’s money. He doesn’t need to do anything except some guys pull their trailer and go hunting. That’s okay. From your standpoint, what do you see? What do you hear? I want your thoughts. Taylor, why don’t you start us off?

I was pretty fortunate growing up that my family does have a lot of private lands. I didn’t even go onto the public lands because I had other places to hunt. I’m trying to explore and expand my hunting areas and the different terrains that I hunt, trying to look at different out-of-state leases. Even in Michigan, looking at some of the prices, you get a group of guys that spend a couple of thousand dollars to go hunt through bow season and into the gun season. I personally haven’t experienced a ton of that, but it does seem it is becoming a lot more difficult to get out and get permission. There are a few guys out there that talk about going door to door knocking, never paying for leases and gained permission to hunt. Personally, I haven’t had to do a lot of that, but it does seem it is something that has become a lot more difficult. There are more guys willing to go and pay that money. Whereas, as a regular working guy, it’s something that I can’t necessarily afford right now. It might be difficult.

Brodie?

Access is important and I don’t disagree with that. Having the land to hunt is also important. The future of hunting comes down to hunter recruitment. Getting younger people out there and doing it. Everybody knows that as technology advances, people get more reliant upon it. That flies in the face of the outdoors and in hunting in general. People get away from going outside and they’d rather sit at home and play Fortnite for a few hours instead of going out and tried to kill a deer.

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Access is important. If you get people out there who are willing to do it and recruit people to get out there and hunt with people who are passionate about it, it’s something that’s easy to get passionate about. That’s the most important step we need to go in the future. It’s getting more people out there to do it. If you get more people out there, they’ll find spots to hunt there. The land is not disappearing. It may be more difficult to get on the public land and it might be a little bit more crowded, but the number of hunters is something that needs to be focused in the future.

Do you have any final thoughts?

It’s a learning experience. Everything we’re doing nowadays is learning. Even hunting on a daily basis is learning new things every day and being on this show is learning. I appreciate having you on. I enjoyed talking to you and you never know, maybe we’ll get on again in the future.

Taylor?

I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. I enjoyed it. I learned a few new things. We’d like to put a couple of other things towards going out west. Maybe making an elk hunting trip sometime in the near future. It’s a little different than whitetail hunting, but I can always find new love. Never love too many things.

That’s for sure. On behalf of hundreds of thousands of followers of Whitetail Rendezvous, thank you, Brodie and Taylor, for being guests. Folks, we can talk to them @WhitetailPhenomenon on Instagram. If you have any questions at all you can reach out to me at WhitetailRendezvous@Gmail.com. We always will answer your questions. It’s hunting season. If you do have questions, I can get you ahold of Brodie and Taylor. On behalf of you guys, have a great time hunting. Send pictures and I wish you both well.

Thanks, Bruce. Happy hunting.

Thanks, Bruce. Good luck.

Important Links:

• Whitetail Phenomenon – Instagram
• Dan Infalt – YouTube channel
• The Hunting Public
• Jeff Sturgis
• Wired to Hunt
• John Eberhart
• Greg Godfrey
• Lone Wolf
• Wild Edge Stepp
• Predator Platform
• WhitetailRendezvous@Gmail.com
• https://www.Instagram.com/whitetailphenomenon/

About Brodie Megill

My name is Brodie Megill. I am 27 years old I grew up in Clinton county Michigan. I hunted deer as a kid with my Dad. It has always been something I wanted to do more, but life was in the way. I didn’t become passionate about it until after college.

I consume all the material I can about whitetail deer and hunting them. Books, magazines, websites and podcasts. I love learning and Whitetails have many lessons to teach.

In 2018, I killed my first buck with a bow.

I moved to Detroit this winter for work, taking me away from all of my hunting access. I am adapting a new strategy for public land. Combining many of the ideas promoted by The Hunting Beast with a Tethered Saddle and Wild edge climbing system, I hope to kill a public land buck this season.

To better my chances, I send out permission letters, similar to the one MeatEater has discussed. I have sent around 70 letters, with little success.

About Taylor Kesler

My name is Taylor Kesler and I work with Brodie Megill running the Whitetail Phenomenon Instagram page. The reason that we started the page is our love for the outdoors and specifically whitetail deer.

A little background about myself is I grew up in the Lansing Michigan area hunting different properties that my family owns. My main focus in my younger years was the 40 acres right behind my grandparents’ house. As I’ve started to become a more serious hunter, I have started to venture out on several small properties we own ranging from 20 acres to 200 acres.

This year is my first year hunting out of a saddle as I purchased a Tethered mantis this past summer. I think this is going to be of the big keys to helping my move from one property to another with relative ease.

I don’t consider myself to be a big buck killer or someone who is out to only harvest mature animals yet. I have been hunting for around 10 years, but I never would’ve considered myself a serious hunter until these past few seasons. During this time, I have made it a mission to try and expand my knowledge on whitetail deer and an outdoorsman in general.

I have harvested 3 bucks during my hunting tenure all being 2 1/2-year old’s scoring right around 100 inches each. Attached is a picture of the 7 point I took last year with my bushmaster 450 the third day of gun season here in Michigan. You will also see the two turkeys Brodie and I took last spring turkey season as well.