The deer hunting properties on which you hunt will determine your best chance at a trophy buck. Joe Pacconi runs a free-roaming trophy whitetail and wild turkey hunting outfitter called Pacconi’s Trophy Whitetails, hunting exclusively on private properties located in Southern Ohio. Joe believes in harvesting mature Whitetail bucks in the most leisurely way possible. When it comes to big bucks, Joe has followed the record book kills for the past six years, recognizing Athens and Meigs Counties as great counties for producing free-roaming Pope and young bucks. His hunting business is built from a family tradition that goes back many generations. Take a listen for more secrets on harvesting your first trophy whitetail.
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Trophy Whitetail Secrets Joe Pacconi
Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. We’re heading off to Ohio and we’re going to connect with Pacconi’s Trophy Whitetails of Southern Ohio. Joe, welcome to the show.
Thank you, Bruce. It’s a pleasure to be on the show and to talk about deer hunting with you.
It’s always a pleasure. Let’s start right out and tell us something about your hunting tradition. You’ve really delved in hard for hunting mature bucks. How did you get started in that?
It started when I was a kid in Pennsylvania. My entire family were hunters in PA; my dad and my grandfathers. In Pennsylvania, hunting deer, we even have the first day of deer season off of school. It’s a pretty big thing there. It started there with me always seeing deer because we lived in an area where deer were heavily populated and some decent bucks. Nothing like what we hunt in Ohio now but that’s where it all started for me. I just developed a love for always seeing whitetail deer in the wild and being out in the woods with my family members, my grandfathers, my dad, my uncles and all the traditions that we developed, going to the store at lunch time for pie when they’re doing deer drives. Things like that are just memories that will be with me forever. Hunting deer with my family, it’s just continued on into now that I’m an outfitter.
What are some of the early lessons that you learned that you’re passing along to your kids, your family members or your guests at your outfit there?
Normally, first of all, we go through the basics: how to set a stand, how to scout for the deer and looking for rubs and scrapes. Trying to figure out if we’re going to hunt on food plots early season. Late season, we hunt where the does are, obviously when they’re rutting. In January, when it gets cold and the bucks run down looking for food, we’d try to hunt on the food sources and bring them in whenever they’re run down and they let their guard down a little bit. That’s the kind of stuff we teach everybody, even my kids. Why we harness a specific area at certain times a year as opposed to later in the year where we might be in a different spot, the little clues that bucks leave in the woods to where we can maybe pinpoint and get a line on them to set a stand.
Did you learn that from your uncles and early days in PA or is that something that you just matured into yourself?
They weren’t quite as serious as that because they were more gun hunters in PA but that’s where it all started for me, the love of the outdoors with those guys. It developed for me into more trophy deer hunting instead of just getting a buck. It developed into learning how to kill these pook deer. That’s basically where it’s gotten to for me right now.
I think it’s interesting that you talked about pook deer and I like to talk about mature deer. In your mind, let’s take a look at both things. I think what you’re saying is when you look at pook deer whitetail, that’s 180, right?
We figure Pope and Young 125 and that’s what we consider a pook deer because 90% of our hunters that come archery hunting, 90% of them have never taken a Pope and Young deer in their lifetime. It’s a great opportunity coming to Ohio for us to provide them a chance to take an animal that they’ve been waiting for all their life.
In my hunting, a lot of people post big deer. In the farm that we hunt, we took the first 180 deer the first weekend of the archery season this year. A young man took it, one of the cousins on the farm for the people who own it. I think about that and I think he was five and a half years old. I think over the years how many Pope and Young deer we haven’t taken on that same farm. It’s a farm that I’ve been hunting for 50 years and they ingrafted into the family so I could hunt it. Having said that, a mature deer now, is a Pope and Young buck three and a half years old at best case or sometimes younger?
Usually, it’s three and a half years. His second rack, if he has good genetics, he’ll be in the 125 range. Normally, a deer that’s a basket rack eight point with ten to fifteen spread his first year, he’ll usually develop into something that’s over 125 his second set of antlers.
125 deer’s got a solid spread. How do you tell your guests when they come, “We’re really looking for maturity, three and a half years old, 125 or better?” How do you help them realize that deer? Sometimes in Ohio, you get big-bodied deer, don’t you?
What helps, Bruce, is that I’m a trail camera fanatic. I have trail cameras all over our properties which gives me thousands of pictures to sit down with clients on a computer screen and show them exactly the type of rack that we’re looking to take on a deer.
I’m looking at your bio and there’s pretty nice buck here. He’s got nice brow tines, it looks like he’s got pretty good mass, but it looks like it’s a young deer. Do you remember that photo that you sent me?
We have several deer like that, Bruce, and the reason is we have unbelievable genetics in that area and younger deer develop these giant racks on hem at our place. If that deer can get another two or three years on them, you can imagine what he would look like. He’d easily be over 160 in the in the Boone and Crockett range.
He looks three and a half years old. I might even say he might be two and a half years old just from the side of his head and his neck. His legs make his body look small. Again, the smaller neck. It’s not the rutting season but I’d look at that and say that’s a great rack for a young deer. Do you do quality deer management? How did the genes get there?
It’s just a natural gene pool in that area. That area just has a lot of mass on the horns, great tine height, good spread. We’re hunting a very rural area in Southern Ohio with lots of big wooded areas and the deer can get the age on them and they already have the genetics. We try to pound the food into where they’re at and that’s what’s given us such great racks on our bucks in that area.
Can you bait or supplement feed or is it all food plot? How do you keep the deer around? They like food, cover, and water. How do you keep the bucks on your properties?
In the private properties in Ohio, you are allowed to bait. We use shelled corn and apples a lot. We do have food plots. I like to use red and white with clover and turnips and buck forages, but usually, where we are is very rural and very wooded so we don’t have the agricultural competition for us to bait the deer. Whenever we put the shelled corn and apples and our mineral blocks out for the deer, they really tend to come to them because we’re not competing with a 1000-acre cornfield beside a wood plot. We’re the only game in town for him to come eat.
That helps a lot. Where I hunt in Iowa and Wisconsin and other states, I am competing against huge corn fields, not small ones. We’re re talking 100-acre cornfields, 50-acre cornfields, or larger. The deer can slip in there. In the archery season, we know they’re in there, we can’t get them out. Gun season, if we do a drive, we’ll pop them out of there if the corn is still standing.
In archery season on that big field, he may come out in one spot one night, and then you go hunt that spot where you’ve seen him; but the fields are vast, he may come out 300 yards below that or above that the next night. It helps us pinpoint the deer and let us set our stands and blinds to where the deer are congregating a lot.
You mentioned you had thousands of trail cameras. Let’s talk about your trail camera process. When you set them up, when you check them, do you check them during the season? Do you ever shut them off? Let’s have that discussion right now.
I like to put the trail cameras out around the first week of July when the bucks are almost fully-developed, but I start feeding the deer in June. Whenever I feed the deer, I do not use feeders. What we found is these bigger bucks do not like to seem to come into the feeders. It seems too unnatural for them. One of the biggest keys for me is dropping the shelled corn on the ground, which takes a lot of work and time, but I’m willing to put that effort out every single week for my clients. Every seven days, I go down in eighteen different spots. It takes me two full days to drop 200 pounds of corn at every one of my camera sets. I usually put 200 pounds on that last seven days and it’s pretty much gone after the seven days.
Do you have an ATV or a Gator? How do you get that done?
I use an ATV. I put 100 pounds on each side of her and unload it off the cart and head in and I dump it right on the ground and that’s where we have our camera sets. If you start baiting early like that as opposed to a guy that starts baiting in September and hunting the first week of October, we’re putting the corn out in June and getting these groups of does coming into our food. By the time hunting season comes, it’s a natural thing for them to always come to that area. It really helps us to harvest some nice bucks because if you have does, you have bucks. We’re drawing ten to fifteen does into where we’re baiting and then the bucks come into those areas because they know that’s where that food always is and the does are hanging out.
How do you set your tree stand? Does the bait pile decide where you’re going to set your tree stand? Are you in natural crossing pinch points? Funnels?
In the area we hunt, we like to bait high like on a ridge top or a flat. That way, we can decide whether to hunt out stand or not. We can tell which direction the wind’s going to blow. It’s a little different in other areas. There is no specific bedding area there because the woods are so big, the deer can come from anywhere. We’ve literally tracked deer in the winter time down there and they just go until they’re tired and you’ll see their beds in the snow. It’s not like a lot of places in the country where there’s the fixed spot, there’s the crab apples, there’s the switch grass or the pasture field, it’s growed up, that’s the bedding area. It’s a little bit different than that. It all plays a role in where we set the stands and blinds, but usually we try to look at the wind mostly and set the stand so that they’re upwind of the way the deer would come in.
You just mentioned blinds. Do you use a ground blind?
Yes, we use ground blinds. We have a lot of areas that are pasture field and the ground blinds work well there. We have growed our pasture field where we’ve mowed and put food plots in the middle of these growed up areas and the grass around the mowed areas are five feet high. It looks like something out of like Wyoming or Nebraska is what I’m trying to say. Right at dark, it just comes alive. These bucks will pop up out of this high grass where they’re bedded. People will see these huge rack bucks and they just roll right out into one of our clover plots where we have the corn laid out and get an opportunity to harvest one.
They hang out in CRP type of ground. Everybody can relate to that. Heavy cover, and then when the dinner bell goes off, they get up and start moving to where your stands are. That’s pretty much it?
Right, and then in a rut, they like to be in that grass especially on the CRP as you’re saying. On windy days, it’s really good because the bucks don’t like to be in the big timber where the limbs on the trees and stuff are rattling around and they can’t hear their predators. They like to be out where they can see the does and they will literally just run back and forth in these growed up areas, chasing these does right in front of our hunters. It’s an awesome sight to see.
If you see a doe coming, you better get ready. Share on XChasing, I’ve been fortunate enough to see this a couple of times. I had one of my buddies with me one time. I just saw them go. They’re just going round and round in this little wood lot. It wasn’t ten acres off one of the fields. I go, “They’re chasing, they’re chasing.” He said, “What are you talking about?” I said, “You’d never seen this?” He goes, “No.” I said, “There’s two or three bucks and there’s one large buck and two small bucks and there’s one doe and her tongue’s hanging out. Just watch that food plot and they’ll pop in.” They did and then they came out in the field, rested, and then went back in, chasing and chasing. When the largest one came up, we shot him. It’s amazing when you see them doing it, because sometimes, you see a buck trail and his nose is down and he’s going, but when they get chasing those competition, it’s a riot. It’s just absolutely a riot.
We have a great buck-doe race here. It’s probably only three does to one buck. I have seen four to seven Pope and Young size buck chasing one doe in heat on our properties before. That makes the hunting so good in the rut because if you see a doe coming, you better get ready. It’s not like PA or West Virginia or New Jersey where you got 30 does and three bucks. They want that doe that’s in heat. When she comes in heat, all the big bucks in that area are going to be coming in and competing for her.
If somebody wants to get a hold of you after listening to the show, how’s the best way to do that? Tell me how they would get in touch with you to find out more about what you have going on and if they want to follow you on social media. Just share with us how people can find you.
We’re on Facebook. I like to use Facebook because it’s not expensive. It’s under Pacconi’s Trophy Whitetails of Southern Ohio. You can search us there. I also use Joseph Pacconi, Washington, PA, because that’s where I live in the summer. They can follow the entire season with us on these Facebook pages from June all the way through February. I update the pages with trail cam pictures, hunter kills, and hunter reviews and reports of their experience with us. We also have a website, Pacconi’s Trophy Whitetails of Southern Ohio under hunting top ten outfitters. If someone would just Google that, it’ll come right up in front of you and you’ll see several other links and stuff that we use to put our pictures and reviews on.
In the warm up, you mentioned how you’ve had a number of ladies come down to the farms and hunt. Let’s talk about women in the outdoors. That’s the fastest growing segment in the outdoor industry right now. Let’s tell some of the ladies you have come down, what type of hunters there are, how you help them become better hunters, and that type of questions.
I’ve had the fortunate experience to hunt with Brittney Glaze from Destination Whitetail. She’s the host of Destination Whitetail. I had a great time hunting with her. We made a show last year on archery hunt in September at my place. I also dropped the hunt with Nicole McClain from NBC. She came down for a couple days or three hunt last year also. We had great hunt. They both saw shooter bucks. We didn’t get a chance to harvest them but they saw bucks every day. I’d put any of those girls up against any guy in the country. They stuck it out. They hunted in the cold weather. It was raining and Brittney sat pretty much all day in the rain. Anybody that knocks girls for hunting, I didn’t see it because these ladies could hunt with any man in the country and give them a game.
Why do you think women are growing so fast in the outdoor sports?
When I was a kid, I don’t think it was socially the thing to do for a woman to hunt. Maybe twenty years ago, but thank goodness things have developed and progressed to where it’s more acceptable for women to hunt. Dads are taking their girls out whenever there six, seven years old and introduce them to the woods and hunting. It’s just a great thing. The girls seem to be actually enjoying their experience and carrying on and developing family memories and experiences that will last them a lifetime with their dad.
It’s just unique. I had a couple of ladies that she shared with me how once they get out into the woods and everything, it becomes empowering especially after they get their first harvest, their first kill. All of a sudden they realize that they can be a provider. They can go out and bring some meat home to the family. It’s very interesting. I always ask my guests, “What are you doing to help promote women in the field?” It’s interesting some the answers I get at that. In your case, I know you’re supporting them. I’m going to ask you a question now. Why are you in the outfitting business? We know you like to hunt deer. We know there’s probably some money into it, but why are you into that business? It’s not an easy business.
Number one: I’ve killed enough big deer and deer in my lifetime that the selfishness of me trying to harvest the deer over someone else is gone. I’m into that stage where I like to take someone else out and basically try to make a dream come true for them. It’s a beautiful thing. I had a guy from Michigan come down and we were on our way to a hunting spot in the morning and he was telling me how he had some horrid luck this year. His buddy decided to take his like about two months before and he was pretty depressed about it and everything. I was just thinking how nice it would be if something really good would happen to him and he would have a good encounter here with us.
That morning, he didn’t see anything. In the evening, I put him in this spot where we were getting some great pictures of a beautiful sticker tine buck that had two back scratches off the main beams. He’s about 150. As an outfitter, I know the area they’re in. I know the routine they have but there’s still no guarantee that this deer is going to come out and go right to the hunter. It was God’s will that night. I put him in that spot. Stickers came out and walked the whole length of the field and he said his heart was absolutely pounding. Coming toward him, he said he stood pretty as a picture, broadsided, about 40 yards and he got a chance to harvest him. When the deer ran 30 feet and his horns just hit the ground and dirt flew everywhere, he said the just looked up to the heavens and all he could think about was his buddy. He’s telling me this story about how it emotionally connected him with his buddy and the deer he harvested with me. How can you get a better experience than that? If I would’ve shot it, I never would’ve felt as good as him shooting it because it was something good that happened in his life this year and he’s going to take that with him back to Michigan and remember that forever. That’s what I love about my job. That’s why I do it.
There’s nothing to say about why we hunt. There are just a lot of situations especially working with the military and some of the people that I have as guests. I’ve talked to a lot of soldiers that have had situations and they said when they’re in the woods and the quietness and they’re anticipating the hunt, all those things, it brings them peace.
Yes, it does. There’s nothing better than sitting in the woods, whether it’s hot or cold. Whatever the weather condition is, like everyone says, it’s better than any a good day at work.
It’s a pleasure to touch all bases in North America and we had a great visit with Joe Pacconi from Pacconi’s Trophy Whitetail of Southern Ohio. Joe, on behalf of the thousands of listeners throughout North America, thank you for being a guest on Whitetail Rendezvous.
Thank you, Bruce. It was a pleasure talking to you.