Brady Miller: So I've had tags in the past where I feel like I've absolutely crushed it on the hunt. And then I've had some tags where not so much. And seems to me the difference in that was almost always what I did right after I drew the tag and the work leading up to the hunt. So this episode is gonna be basically all about you drew a tag. Now what? All that work that happens between the day you drew the tag sort of leading up to the hunt. I'll cover that sort of a little bit later. ⁓ but yeah, hope everyone's doing well. Back here with another Miller Tines podcast. I think this is episode 15 right now. And ⁓ yeah, this one's gonna be a little solo show here. Not sure how long it's gonna go. It's gonna ramble on for a while. Got a bunch of notes kind of written down. Keep little organized. But yeah, we're talking about DrewTag now what. So if you've seen on Go Hunt, I've kind of started this little series of, you know, covering a few states, Drew Tag. Here's kind of what I would do basically if I had your tag in my hand, how I would start researching for it. yeah, it's an exciting time. You know, everyone pictures that one moment where you're constantly sitting there on the state website refreshing and refreshing. I'm one of those people when I know the you know, draw results coming out. I am refreshing it constantly. It's like the best day ever when results are coming out. Christmas morning. You know, you're so excited. You just can't wait to hopefully see some good results. ⁓ and then, you know, hopefully you have a lot of good things happen. You know, the tag you've been building points towards the one you've been dreaming about for years. Bam, you draw it. Okay. That ⁓ rush of emotion and excitement hits and then reality hits afterwards. Okay, drew the tag. Now what do I actually need to do to prepare myself for this upcoming hunt? It could be any hunt too. Could have finally picked up an OTC tag. Like once you add that tag to your cart and check out, that's that same sort of excitement I'm kind of talking about right now. Sure, it might be a little bit different if you've had like, you know, 15 points, been trying to draw a hunt for a while, and you finally draw it, but can be the same thing an OTC OTC type tag. So this whole episode is basically about what I just described. The exact prep sequence that I try to go through the second I draw a tag. And ⁓ here's just one thing I want you to take away before we even get going on this podcast is you need to understand drawing the tag isn't the finish line. Okay, I know you did a bunch of research. Hopefully you did a lot of research before you applied for a tag, and you kind of know what you're gonna get yourself into. And I feel like today's day and age, you know, we hate to say it, but everyone's seems busier than they'd ever have been. ⁓ we have so many things that can distract us ⁓ throughout everything. Social media, silly shows on, you know, streaming apps, all sorts of stuff that can distract us from what we need to be doing. But we're hunters. We want to go out and have the best hunt possible. And I think a lot of people, once they draw that tag, they're like, you know, you're excited for a little bit and then you kind of just go into a mode where you're not putting all your effort into planning and preparing for that tag. ⁓ and so hopefully this will, you know, spark a motivation to start the day you have a tag. I know still some draw results that haven't been released yet in ⁓ you know, Wyoming and Arizona and ⁓ two big states. but if you already have a tag in your hand, hopefully this motivates you to start doing some work right now because all the work you do right now Going to determine success later. ⁓ drawing that tag again. It's only step one. What you do between right now in the season opener, I truly believe is what separates a great hunt from a actual, truly memorable one. And ⁓ the Hunter successily punch tags on Bucks and Bulls, they aren't just lucky. There's a lot of luck to it. ⁓ but those hunters are really prepared, they've they've done the work. You've studied the maps, you've dug into data, biology reports, ⁓ trained your body and you're showing up ready to execute. So like I said, this is just the start. It starts today. If you have a tag in your pocket and you're listening to this, the work starts right now. And ⁓ we're gonna kinda keep this one a little general, if you could call it that, but this is gonna work for any tag. If you know Mule Dear Guy. And so most of these things might seem like they correlate with Mueller, but you can definitely use this for elk, antelope, sheep, whatever you have. ⁓ and yeah, any state. ⁓ and then also a quick note up front. I am specifically gonna leave out e scouting out this podcast on purpose. That deserves its own episode, which is gonna be most likely the follow up to this one. So if you saw, ⁓ I don't know, the other week on Instagram, we released something on Gohan. I was asking some just general Yeah, if you have e scouting questions, drop them in there. And I kind of grabbed a bunch of those questions, trying to work on some answers for it. I kinda wanna do a podcast about that and then kind of outline my exact strategy of how I go about e scouting a unit that I've maybe never been into into before, or kind of like how I hone in a unit a little bit further if I've already been there before, but through e scouting. So today's not gonna be about e scouting. So we're gonna go everything but e scouting. But all this foundation right now is gonna make your tag, you know, hopefully that much better. ⁓ so let's just dive into it right now. First step I always like to do is go back to the very beginning. And by very beginning I mean go back to the very beginning, because this is probably a step a lot of people skip, and I feel like you should just get it out of the way right away and learn about the actual tag. So you drew the tag, you called your buddies. You know, you're super excited, you're, you know, already thinking about gear you need to buy. that sort of thing. And I get it. But you gotta step back here for a bit. Before you do anything else, before you look at it single map, before you like, you know, buy a single piece of gear, you really need to sit down and actually understand that tag you drew. ⁓ we're gonna talk about reading the regulations cover to cover. I know. Reading a regulation book is not exactly a sexy part of this planning process by any means. But I do believe this is kind of your foundation that everything else will get built on top of. And I want to explain, you know, that going forward. I'm not saying read a bunch of stuff that doesn't pertain to your hunt. I'm talking about learning, you know, about the unit, the tag you drew. ⁓ obviously you should already know season dates. But if you don't learn your season dates right now by going to the regulation, figure out what tag you do. Okay, is it a whole month? Is it a week? What time time of year it is? And I don't mean just like, ⁓ yeah, it's sometime in, you know, October or it's early part of November. You need to go in and look out the exact opening date, closing date, write them on a calendar that very day, because your season dates really drive everything downstream. You know, they tell you Where those animals are gonna where they're gonna be doing when show up. They tell you what gear you're gonna need based on what the season is. ⁓ they tell you how strategy is gonna look like an early season hunt and a late season hunt for mule deer in the exact same unit. Might as well be two completely, completely different hunts. So step one is just basically going back through and reviewing those dates. And if you need to too, this is also a great time to be like, all right, but my hunt's only a week, that's a whole season. Might want to go in and lock those you know, vacation days in right now. No sense in waiting till the end, asking for time off, that sort of thing. If you have a season where, you know, you have thirty days or whatever to hunt, yeah, it might not be that time right now, day of when you draw that tag to actually go in and request vacation days, 'cause you know, you might wanna, I don't know, analyze a bunch of different things about when the optimum time might be to go for your hunt. second part of this too, when I'm talking about, you know, reading regulations is just Getting out all those small details that you just don't want to have to catch up with you. Do you have to buy another you know, you know, conservation stamp? Do you have to buy an archery license? Like any of these other little pre I guess they're post requisites of your tag. Like dial that all in. Do you need Hunter Orange? You to carry your hunter safety card in the field with you. Like just start getting refreshed and refreshed. Look at all the ⁓ even, you know, how you tag an animal could pay off. now, like just understanding what you have to do once you get in a field. That's why I I say read the regulations now and then you know do a refresher right before your hunt. The second part, or this is the third part now. Sorry, getting off off track here a bit. Is ⁓ hopefully you already know what weapon you're gonna use. But a lot of times you maybe drew a tag that you didn't expect to draw. So do you have a bow for this hunt? Do you need to buy a new muzzle litter because you just drew an epic muzzle litter hunt in a certain state that requires an open site muzzleader? Do you need to buy a new rifle? Do you have to update your rifle scope? ⁓ and then also just diving into some of the restrictions inside those, a lot of times there's quite a bit of, you know, weapon details you probably should look at. you know, ammo, powder, whatever it could be. ⁓ even, you know like like magnification, not magnification, ⁓ illumination on a rifle rifle scope. Just research all this stuff right now when you're going through that. That way you can get ahead of it because you don't want to be like, hey, I need a new muzzle loader in my hunts in two weeks and I don't have a muzzle litter. Like that's the worst thing you should do. So just figure out w what you actually need right now before you get into it. And ⁓ the third one, again fourth one, sorry, is going to be Just figured out where in the state you had the tag for. So you knew you you might have applied for whatever X unit. Start looking at those boundaries. You kinda wanna know right now exactly where your unit is in the state. And ⁓ I don't want it like just a random rough idea. I this might pull up maps. Again, I decided I'm not gonna talk about e scouting. But you just want to pull up and just look at those really quickly right now, trying to get an idea of where they're gonna be in that unit. But again, this step is pretty quick. Again, not sexy, but I think diving into the regulation portion is very essential when you're starting to do your ⁓ initial hunt planning. Now the big one, step two of this overall Drew tag now what is you're gonna start want you're gonna need to research the unit the right way. Okay, so now you know what you drew, you know what you're hunting, you know where the boundaries are, now the real work starts. And this is, like I said, researching the unit as best you can. This is a stage, in my opinion, where, you know, the hunt, the scout e scouting, the boots on the ground, all that is either won or lost. And the cool thing is about researching your unit, for the most part, you can do this on the couch in the off season. You can research twenty four seven every single day leading up to your first, you know, scouting trip or your hunt. And like I said, sit in the couch, have a cup of coffee in your hand. And ⁓ you don't really need to be in the unit to start building a really clear picture of that unit. So where do I start in this first part is gonna be I start with the data. So I'm gonna give a shameless plug here to ⁓ know where I work at Go Hunt. So ⁓ this part's gonna all be about diving into you know uniprofile. There's so much information packed inside of Uniprofile and Hopefully you've already, you know, looked through that unit profile before you applied for that hunt. but this is now time to get a little refresher on that unit profile. I want to know historical harvest information and the success rates for my unit. And the reason I want to lean so hard right now out of the gate is that kind of sets like, you know, some honest expectations about the hunt. It tells me what kind of hunt I'm actually gonna walk into. Is it, you know, for instance, a hunt with a lower success rate. Even though you should have known that going in, is not a really bad thing. It might just mean it takes a little bit more effort. Might have to, you know, cover a lot more country, maybe more days to actually be successful. ⁓ but I'd rather know that going in so I can plan for that instead of showing up think it's gonna be an easy slam dunk, you know, and getting humbled on the hunt. So the harvestate harvest data also kind of to me tells a a story about. what the country's gonna be like. So high success, you know, in one of those more roadless, rugged, wilderness type units tells me something totally different than a high success rate in a unit you can road hunt. Kind of start to read between the lines there and be like, okay, why are these two things vastly different? Why is there a high success rate in, you know, certain units that you might have drawn, or even if it can break it out the harbor success in multiple different units where you've attacked, you hunt a lot different places you can start to figure out okay, why is the harp of success like that in certain units? And again, you can find all this excuse me, sorry about that. ⁓ and go on unit profile, it's basically breaks down everything you know about that unit. You got your you know herd information, season structure, again, say look in the regulations, you can look at you know the unit profile for all this information. So instead of having like, you know, ten browser tabs open trying to go back and forth across the internet. It's all right there in one spot, and that's where I'm spending a lot of my time. ⁓ next thing I want to understand a little bit about the unit is kind of diving into some of the pressure stuff. I'm gonna pull up a unit profile right now. Unfortunately, you're not gonna be able see it. So when I talk about like pressure, I'm just kind of looking at how many tags are allocated in the season that I have a tag for, but I'm also looking at okay, what other hunts are going on at the same time as ⁓ my hunt is. So for example, what say you have a Colorado second or third season, deer tag, ⁓ I'm gonna be taking note of a lot of the other hunts that are going on. So if there's an elk hunt going at the same time, I wanna go in and look at how many, you know, elk hunters are surveyed to be have hunted that unit before. That's gonna give me give me a decent idea at understanding the pressure, how many other people are gonna be in the field, what am I gonna be dealing with, how many people are I competing with. Again, just taking general inventory of notes here. not really diving into again maps at this point, not really looking at any sort of trailheads. I'm just like, how many people are hunting this unit? How many tags from Yul Deer, for example? How many people are, you know, OTCL cunning at the same time. And I might even look at, you know, some of those other seasons earlier too, like just to kind of get a feel for what the pressure might have been like before ⁓ my hunt starts. ⁓ this point in time, again, so I'm not gonna talk about e scouting, but let's talk about a little bit about it. I will pull up a go hunt map during this phase as well. 'Cause I just kinda wanna see you wanna see the unit. So e scouting definitely goes into play right now. ⁓ just kinda mainly though for starters when I when I draw a tag is I'm just kinda like cruising around. I don't know what What you want to call it. I'm just basically flying over the unit with the in in three D looking at everything, checking out satellite imagery, seeing where the public land is. I'm just trying to gather, you know, general information about that unit. but again, that deserves an episode. So right now I'm just kinda gathering raw intel, data, harvest stats, access layout, so that when I do e scout later, I'm kind of doing it with a loaded deck and just sort of staring at a map blind. ⁓ One more piece of intel on the research front. I'll talk about right now, but I don't want people to go and probably utilize this strategy right away. I think you should utilize this strategy we'll talk about, which is basically the community aspect of you know learning more about your unit. Is I would do this step after you have, you know, given this several different days of learning the unit. Like the back of your hand. ⁓ so this is basically, you know, I got you know I got a lot of guys draw tags and something like, ⁓ I need to call a biologist, I need to call a game warrant, I need to call the state, try to get information on my unit. You know, I might want to call buddies who I think might have hunted the tag before, or you know, reach out to people on Go Hunt through the unit profile, drop comments down below, you know, send direct messages to people who I see have hunted that unit before. That's all great. And you should do all that stuff. ⁓ but I feel like you're doing yourself a dis service if you're trying to, you know, reach out to those people ahead of time when you talk to a biologist on the phone and then they say, like, ⁓ what have you learned about the unit so far? And you let them know, I don't know anything about the unit. You're probably not going to get the best information from a biologist or a game warden or any person for that matter if you don't know about the unit. And not saying you have to know everything about the unit, every single road, every single drainage, but like you kind of want to have some idea about what the unit looks like what the areas are, what the roads are, that sort of thing. So that's gonna be a big thing that you should do, like I said, maybe after a full week of e scouting and diving into this data side before you try to call a biologist. But those are gonna be great things that we're gonna probably dive into a little bit later on this podcast. But don't be afraid to ask people. I think that's one of the things I fail at the most is I'm kind of I don't know what the guys call it in this office. They have some phrase or word for me, but I'm very stubborn. when it comes to this, I don't like asking for help ever. I kinda just like grinding it out myself and I really don't lean on a lot of friends, connections, or, you know, even utilizing some of these tools on Go Hunt like unopile comments or direct messaging people. kinda a little better at that. I just need to get, you know, a little bit more I don't know what the word is comfortable asking for information 'cause I do help a of people out quite a bit and people are asking me stuff and probably fine for me to ask as well, but I do kind of like doing it myself. So I understand if you're very similar to me on that and don't like to ask for help. ⁓ so yeah, we're just basically trying to front load right now all this information. So like I said, learn everything is on the unit profile. Check out the terrain photos. ⁓ check out, you know, that's another cool feature too about unit profiles is people can actually drop photos on top of the comments. Yeah she can kind of like see what it is. And yeah, these people are not going to be dropping like, you know, big glassing waypoints. I showed you exactly what the unit looks like. Might be dropping the, you know, blowdowns, just a general rough idea of what that terrain will look like when you're in field. But I will say you should definitely utilize ⁓ those unit profiles. They have so much good information in it. And you can access those on the web, you can access on Go Hunt Mobile app. ⁓ there's plenty of different ways to get into unit profile, but I would say definitely definitely dive in. I do pay attention to buckdo ratio buckdo ratios on those unit profiles. Again, we talked about the hunter surveyed. ⁓ that's great information. You can kind of extrapolate some of those hunter surveyed numbers to know how many hunters per square mile there's gonna be in your unit. You know, if you have a hundred tags in your unit and the unit is X, you know, square miles, you can kind of figure out That sort of ⁓ competition, if you will. so yeah, find a rough idea of how many deer and elk hunters we come talked about that. And then ⁓ next part, ⁓ which I briefed on or talked about earlier, is gonna be like the big step three in this is actually tapping into the community. So now is the time, which I mentioned before. ⁓ this is the time when you want to lean on your resources. So this is where. Again, I I think a lot of people sleep on the step, me included. And it's probably one of my, I don't know, favorite tips that I'll probably go through. So like Go Hunt Insider isn't just a research tool anymore. It's fully ⁓ community. And I believe that. And I and like I said, it's one of my most under utilized advantages that I feel like we have nowadays. And There's several different ways to go about this. Like I said, you can call up a biologist, which is great. Like we have, you know, several articles on Go Honey you can check out about tips to call a biologist, what questions you want to ask, what research you want to do ahead of time. So definitely check out those articles ⁓ to learn more about that that part of it. ⁓ but the first part too is just like I said, reading those uniprofile comment comments. Understand, you know, you've got access to a network of tons of serious hunters from all over the country and a lot of them have real boots on the ground experience in that exact unit you drew. And a of times, you know, some people are gonna be more willing to give information than others if it's a super hard tag to get, you're probably gonna have a lot more people willing to ⁓ give you that intel. And the great thing is too, this is all, you know, locked behind a paywall at ⁓ on insider. So it's not like, you know, people go into a forum be like, hey, new here in the forum, just drew this unit. Not looking for your honey holes. Can you tell me about it? This is a little bit different. ⁓ just because, you know, it's not that public of information because it is locked behind a paywall. But I'd probably, you know, drop down there and start reading a bunch of those uniprofile comments. Because the intel you can get there is basically stuff you can't find on a harvest report or a topographical map or satellite imagery. You might find some information about which drainage hell. Animal during a certain year, what roads are accessible, passable, do you need an ATV? Can a truck get up these roads? Like all that sort of information is going to be very valuable once you lead up to your hunt. ⁓ this is that ground level knowledge that is kind of priceless, and that's what's really cool about the commenting feature on our unit profiles. But also you have to give to get. And so if you're just gonna utilize it to gain information from everyone else, but you're not gonna be an active member of the community. I would suggest you, you know, start being active member and start to help people out too because, you know, comes around, goes around. Good karma is good is good to ⁓ help other people out and then get help from other people. So yeah, like I said, the hunting community can be pretty generous with information if you definitely come at it the right way. ask questions, you know, maybe general insights, ⁓ but you probably be surprised at how often folks are willing to help out. And especially too with the you know the ⁓ DM feature we have. So now you can send, you know, private messages to people. So you don't have to post, you know, your most whatever questions you have. And you can just like see someone's comment on your profile, you actually send them a direct message. To take that offline is completely private, only between you two and no one can see ⁓ So it's a great great ⁓ additional way to go about that if you're not someone who's comfortable, you know, commenting on your profiles all the time. But I will suggest to you to ⁓ again, help out other people. All right. This is the big section as well. I think I said that way too many times now. This is the most important section, but this is probably one of my most favorite fun areas is studying the animal, not just the map. So this next part, like I said, is gonna be exciting. And if you've ever listened to me for any length of time. You know, this is the real stuff that I obsess over because everything we just talked about, the data, the maps, the access, ⁓ all this is about all that is about like the country, like the unit, the historical data. ⁓ this segment is all dedicated to the animal. So my biggest question always i that runs through my brain during this time of phase is what is that animal actually doing on that exact day, that exact week, that exact season? That's what I'm trying to figure out. ⁓ 'cause here's the thing I think a lot of hunters miss when they work through this strategy. You know, we drew the tag, we did the research on draw odds, we did unit profile research, you shoot your weapon all the time, you work out. I don't know if I mentioned e scouting yet, do a bunch of e scouting, boots on the ground scouting, that sort of thing. All that is great. You need all those things. but I think a lot of people miss out on the biology itself of the animal. I think a lot of hunters miss that point. ⁓ a mule deer in again, I said mule deer, mule deer or elk for that matter, but this one's about mule deer. A mule deer in early September and a mule deer in mid November behaviorally are two totally different animals. The same could be said for a buck in September versus a buck a couple weeks later in October. Same species, same unit, totally different game. And if you prep for the wrong one, you're pretty much gonna show up and be lost. Like if you expect to go on a third season hunt and you know you're scouting at thirteen thousand feet 'cause you're expecting, you know, bucks be up in the alpine, you're probably gonna ⁓ not find anything for the most part. And I do love going high. I love going as far up in the mountain as I can, but there's a time and place for it. And so just understanding the biology of the animal is gonna be key here. And hopefully you've heard Me talk about one of my favorite ways to do this. Again, this probably needs a standalone episode. I've done a few of these before with ⁓ my good buddy Mark Livese. ⁓ we were talking about some e scouting stuff, but Google Scholar should be your best friend. So I have an article again. I'm gonna put up on my screen. You can't see it because I just don't know how to share ⁓ this on this ⁓ podcast recording. But ⁓ I have an article titled on Go Hunt, Research Your Way to Big Bucks with Google Scholar, a tool you're probably not using. Jump into your normal Google search, jump into Go Hunt search, whatever you want to do, pull up this article. I really do feel like this article is going to help you immensely when you're trying to expand on your hunting toolkit, toolbox, whatever you want to call it. And it's absol absolutely a hidden gem. ⁓ talking about here is basically everyone knows. you know, Google, for example, any sort of search engine out there for that matter. You just like type, hey, you know, mule deer hunting, if you're gonna get a bunch of stuff. ⁓ but Google actually has a separate website, I believe it would be called. ⁓ it's basically called Google Scholar. It's how to look up articles, you can look up case laws. The cool thing is too, you can actually build a profile on here and start saving sort of things you want to, ⁓ saving articles. I have a bunch of articles in my library. So they call it on Google Scholar, where I've actually saved a bunch of biology-based documents, ⁓ peer-reviewed journal articles, that sort of thing. So it's basically a free academic web search engine that pulls all this scholarly literature all across the web. ⁓ so it's not like your standard Google search. It's more of a Google search for research-based things. So you can search for different keywords, you can search for different phrases, hone in on areas of research that like kind of interest you. ⁓ yeah, basically when it comes to mule deer, for example, ⁓ I use the following search terms all the time. I'll search for like ⁓ you know, mule deer migration. So if I have, you know, Wyoming tag, for example, mule deer migration in Wyoming, ⁓ mule deer like migration, Montana, whatever it can be, you can kind of narrow it down. A lot of times you're not gonna be able to find like Hey, mule deer migration in this certain unit, but you can start to just, you know, gather general information about the biology of mule deer. So that's what's really cool about this. Again, probably gonna find out exactly unit by unit basis. Sometimes you might. Most of the time though, you're just kind of looking for those hidden little nuggets about like, hey, in this part, northwest corner of a certain state, you know, deer start migrating at this time. This is what triggers it. ⁓ These are the kind of areas they move to. This is the the why behind it. Is it weather based? Is it you know temperature based, seasonality? ⁓ you can also search for a lot of different things like telemetry, you know, mule deer habitat use, buck movement, predation, mule deer feet like basically what do mule deer eat, ⁓ mule deer vegetation, you know, all sorts of things, winter range, breeding. ⁓ there the options are are basically endless. ⁓ to try to find those out. And there's actually actually a lot of different ways too, once you're on Google Scholar to figure out if you can actually access this article for free. There's a lot of ones that you have to pay for, which sometimes I have gone in and actually paid for some of these articles because I just feel like, you know, I really want to read it and I don't have access to it. So I will pay for it. But a lot of times that on the right side on Google Scholar, if it says like PDF with a little shortened URL thing, you could probably click on that and it'll actually open it up the whole PDF for you. And I would highly suggest start saving a bunch of these like articles to your computer. So that's gonna be a big one, is just utilizing Google Scholar. And again, that article is available on Go Hunt. You should check it out. And I'll definitely just dive in a little bit later on exact ways to utilize that. But I've always said it knowledge is power. And that's why I feel like this biology section is absolutely great to learn everything you can about that animal you're hunting. There's tons of information about their elk, about elk hunting. About not about elk hunting, about elk biology, tons of information out there about antelope. There's really, really good bear hunting studies as well that I've read a lot. And, you know, just understand that the animal is different during certain times of the year. This might seem very basic and I'm sorry if it does, but I'm just trying to cover everything there is to know about trying to, you know, research and prepare for your hunt. So you know, like right here we can break it up by timing. Early season animals are what are they? Food driven, very patternable, ⁓ very predictable, still bunched up in the summer patterns. ⁓ you know, early season whole world revol revolves around finding food. ⁓ dictating, you know, how they live. All they're doing is trying to find the groceries and for the most part you'll find the animals. That's why hunting velvet bucks with the bow is so fun. They're out in the open. They're not, you know, trying to get into the timber yet. Really easy to spot, really easy to yeah, just great time to glass. ⁓ but then again, if you're gonna have a mid or late season hunt, like I you're a rut tag, the rut basically flips everything on its head. Now the animals that are patternable a long time ago, you know are now throwing all that stuff to the wind. ⁓ they're chasing does, they're doing all sorts of crazy things. They're more vulnerable. They make mistakes in the rut that they would probably never make any time of the year. So if you drew a rut tag, your strategy would totally be opposite of that early season time frame. I'm gonna skipped over October, but that adds its own challenges as well. So you like that's why this biology section I feel like is a very, very long in depth section that you need to utilize to ⁓ Just learn about it. I mean, I feel maybe it's because I have a biology background, but feel like learning about the animal makes you a better hunter. ⁓ might sound like a broken record, but you can read about hunt stories over and over and over again. And sure, you can pick out some little golden nuggets from there. And I'd love hearing really good hunt stories because I find no value in that. But like I find more value in some of these biology reports, picking up mule dear books. I think I talked about on the first podcast that like my goal this year was to read every single mule deer book that I have. I think I it's it's June twelfth right now when I'm recording this. I think I've already read five or six books right now that I have. And I'm just trying to pick up things that pick up tips and bits bits of information from those as well. Like, sure, I might already know, you know, about certain things in that, but like trying maybe reinforce things I've forgotten over the years too. Like I've kind of gone on this dry spell for a little bit of not been able to ⁓ you know kill a really big deer and you know hopefully by reading more of these biology reports, reading more of these actual mule deer hunting books. And I got a lot of mule deer biology books that I have at home that I'm reading. Maybe I'll pick up some little nugget, some little bit of information that reinforces how I'm going to e scout, ⁓ how I'm going to do boots on the ground scouting. how I'm gonna approach my hunt. And that's why I feel like, you know, everything kind of starts with biology. We need know about the animal we're hunting. So I could probably go on for this for another hour about biology, but again I'm gonna save it for a standard Google Scholar article at some point. yeah, this is again I love this part. When you understand biology, you understand animals doing and I think if I like I said at the beginning of this, I feel like it's our job to understand what that animal is doing on that specific day, that specific week, that specific season. ⁓ 'cause that'll help you shrink everything down and try to think like, okay, why is that deer there? What is it doing on that day? That's the puzzle that we have to try to crack as ⁓ as deer hunters or elk hunters. And that's what gets me fired up about the whole like biology side of the research. So go deep. Put the time in and I think it's gonna be valuable be very valuable for you. So again, before you ever drop a pin on a map, understand that animal. That's gonna help you. That's why I wanted to leave out some of this e-scouting stuff, because I feel like if you again learn more of that biology side, you're gonna understand how to approach a map. there's a certain things that I can look at a map and I can be like, hey, there probably can be deer there or there probably is going to be deer there based on just, you know, maybe just because all the hunts I've had throughout the years. Or, you know, a lot of that I think is due to mule deer biology. I understand w kind of what they need. I'm not gonna, you know, be able to look at a a map and be like, Hey, there's gonna be a two hundred inch deer there, but I will be able to look at a map and be Hey, there probably will be deer there. But then it's up to me to get in the field and actually do boots on the ground and ⁓ I should try to find that animal. All right. Next s section here, section five. So I want to talk a quick little bit on mapping. I know I said I wasn't going to cover it. ⁓ keep hinting at mapping all the time, but again, we're not gonna cover mapping today. And I guess I've already repeated this section a couple times, but you need to get all this foundation first. You need to know the season, you know the unit, you need to know the data, access, understand what the animals are doing. That's when you'll take it to the map and start breaking down specific terrain. So this would be the section that if I had three hours, I would probably go ham on e scouting and what I do for e scouting. So after all that, learning the biology, the next step would be e scouting, but we're gonna skip it. I'm just briefing on it again. ⁓ it's its own skill set and I really want to cover e scouting in a really in depth podcast. I've done articles before, I've done videos, I've done lots of different things talking e scouting. ⁓ but I kinda wanna go just crazy on it. So that one's coming soon. ⁓ but yeah, e scouting without all the groundwork is just kind of staring at a screen and guessing. The map does become more powerful once you bring all this quote unquote knowledge to it. So everything we talked about today, that's not separate from e scouting. They all go together. It's the fuel that makes your e-scouting actual pay actually pay off. So I want to make sure you guys get this part right. go through those first steps I laid out and then dive into e scouting. Cause I I mean I'm gonna say it, I don't get a chance to, you know, put boots on the ground in every single unit I've ever drawn before. Like ⁓ I just don't have the time to. ⁓ you know work's always super busy. A lot of these units are really far away, just like a lot of you guys. Like some of you might be from the Midwest, the East Coast, or you know, way up in the northwest corner in, you know, Oregon, Washington, and maybe you drew a tag in New Mexico for that reason. It's a long travel it's a long ways to drive out to put boots on the ground. Obviously that's always the the best option if you can. but there's so many things you can do when you dive into e scouting. So that's why wanna cover that one later. Again, you solo podcast. I just get off on random tang tangents 'cause I don't have anyone to pass off. ⁓ comments and questions too. So I'm going back and forth now. Apologies. ⁓ next section here is going to be getting your body and your gear ready. So we're gonna switch gears because as we discussed, we've been living in the research biology, and if I had the time talking about the e-scouting. ⁓ now we need to talk about the gear side and the physical side. ⁓ because we have a deadline. We know we need to get our gear ready. and get in shape by X date. Need to build a timeline. So you want to work backwards Med opening day. Map it out month by one month, month by month. Research happens right now. That's why we're starting it right when we draw a tag. Scouting trips if you can swing ⁓ in the summer. ⁓ gear breakdowns happen, you know, around the same time as well. You need to start p prepping our gear, get our travel logistics locked in and start actually, you know, getting in shape if you need to get in shape. ⁓ you don't want to be scrambling the last week of a hunt trying to do everything at once. ⁓ so that physical preparation side, I know a lot of people hammer this all the time and I'm not an expert by any means on it. But if you drew a tag that requires you to get a little physical, backcountry, you know, elk tag, backcountry mule dear tag, ⁓ planning on backpacking in, gonna give it to you straight, the mountain does not care what brand of optics you have. Doesn't care you know how many times you've been shooting your rifle or your bow. ⁓ it doesn't care how much r research you did before you went on this hunt. If you can't get into the country where the animals are, none of that matters. You don't have to be in the best shape ever. ⁓ you just have to be in shape enough to have the mental strength to keep pushing every single day. So do whatever you need to do to get in shape. I'm not gonna hammer home some, you know, thirty minute plan for six pack abs, like wherever those things are on the internet. ⁓ but just start now. Like literally start now, whether it's running, lifting, whatever it may be, not the month before your tag starts. So if you have an archery elk hunt September fifteenth, don't start getting in shape August fifteenth. That's not gonna work. ⁓ start doing a bunch of, you know, way the pack hikes, whatever it is, just start now and ⁓ he'll be in a way better shape for yeah, I guess that's a well you'll be in way better shape for your ⁓ actual hunt you got coming up. Then the gear side. start your gear list right now. I know we do a lot of gear list videos. Sometimes those are like I don't know, three weeks before some of the times we're leaving on a hunt. We're trying to fix that and do gear lists a lot sooner. But I put out so many articles over the years on actual gear lists and I have a you know downloadable Excel sheet. I'm trying re rework that right now to make it a lot easier for people to access. I don't know if they actually download the Excel sheet. You can actually just, you know, maybe use a Google Sheet. Google, yeah, Google Sheet to actually ⁓ start putting your gear down. But go through your gear. Figure out right now what gear you know works, what didn't, what you have to change, what you need to upgrade. ⁓ start making that checklist. Literally take one of those Excel sheets that I have floating on the internet. Go through, mark all your gear, mark all your camping gear, all your rifle gear, your optic section, ⁓ sleeping gear, your food. Start getting that ready now. Like if you're like me, a lot of times I do that stuff last minute and it just adds so much more stress to it. And I really wish I could just ⁓ you know, take the time now. I I'm I'm saying it mainly to myself. Get my gear ready right now before I have a you know big mule beer hunt coming up. So you Figure out again what you need to buy, what you need to repair, ⁓ test everything. Hopefully before you go on a hunt, on some scouting trip or hiking trip, or even if you live in the East Coast, go out and you know, test your tripod, test your optics, figure out the amount on your tripod, that sort of thing. Just literally test your gear. Don't if you're gonna buy boots also, again we ha harp on this all the time. Break them in early, put miles on ⁓ find the hot spots now rather than ⁓ on a hunt. Because that's the worst feeling in the world. optics. I had to touch on this. I'm not gonna dive into a rabbit hole again today on optics. ⁓ but the short version, you know, get optics that are specific for the hunt you're going on. You know, if you have a hunt that's big open country hunting, you might need some bigger glass, wanna do some heavy lifting. ⁓ good optics, turn hours of hiking into basically hours of finding. I'd rather find animals than just hike around and you know, try to stumble into something. ⁓ So don't treat your optics as an afterthought. ⁓ figure out what you need right now. Last part of this too, this ⁓ get your body and your gear ready, logistics. We need to talk about logistics. Start to figure out too right now, how you get in there. Are you flying, you driving? Mentioned this beginning, do you have your time off of work already squared away? ⁓ these are boring details that I don't know, might seem like why are you talking about, you know, time off of work and flying and driving? But like you need to figure that out right now before again. three weeks before your hunt, a month before your hunt, like start figuring out how you're gonna get there right now. These are gonna hunt's gonna come up really quickly and you're gonna wanna be really prepared. And so start lining that out. Okay, you have a vehicle, what do you need in your vehicles? You need, you know, tire change, you need snow shovel, you need, you know, all this extra stuff that doesn't pertain to stuff on your backpack, in your backpack, but just start getting all this stuff, start planning all these things right now while you have the time because like this whole podcast has been about. You try to do all stuff two weeks beforehand, you're gonna miss something. So get everything dialed. Everything you can. yeah, one of these other parts too. Mindset and expectations. So I had that big podcast, the first one I think it was. ⁓ the whole like mental toughness and getting your mind right, that sort of thing. ⁓ mindset though is is everything. You know, great tag is an opportunity, it's not a guarantee. ⁓ definitely think It's always important to say that out loud because it's so easy to put so much pressure on yourself if you do a special tag ⁓ that you forgot to enjoy it. ⁓ so here's what I learned over the years. Hunters who are consistently successful, ⁓ just importantly are the ones who actually enjoy it. Enjoy the process. Fall in love with the process of getting ready for a hunt. Again, this everything I'm talking about right now starts the day you have a tag in your hand. The day you drew, the day you bought an OTC tag, whatever it may be, fall in love with every sort of thing you're talking about right now. It's gonna make it so much easier. You're gonna learn to love that deep dive research into harvest stats and, you know, honors per square mile and reaching out to biologists. You're gonna start to love the biology side of it. You're gonna, you know, love even more the physical, ⁓ physical side of getting in shape, the research, biology, all that stuff. You're just gonna Can start to consume you. You're gonna want to get better and better at it and sharpen all those tools in the toolkit. ⁓ that's that preparation. Those early, early mornings when you know you wake up and you don't want to hit go to the gym, you don't want to lace on those shoes and go for a run. ⁓ if you only love the moment you pull trigger, you're gonna literally spend 99% of this experience just waiting around. But if you love the work, if you truly love the work. you you'll be successful. Like put the time in now. Do everything you can to plan, prep, and prepare for this hunt and just embrace it. The grind is the fun part. It's literally the best. Like all those hours e scouting, all those hours you're gonna spend, you know, getting into some country when you're doing boots on the ground, running tro cameras, whatever it may be, ⁓ it's gonna be worth it. Alright, and a little summary on some of the stuff, I want to talk about some of the biggest post draw mistakes. So post draw mistakes. Here's I think six or seven of ⁓ and draw it down. Biggest one. Again, we've covered a lot of these already. Waiting a month to get in shape. Don't do that. Another post draw mistake is only building out your plan A spot. Again, we're not covering e scouting, but let's say you e scout a bunch, found a great spot that looks like just absolutely perfect. It looks money. And ⁓ but you don't plan. any other backup spot in the unit at all. So you're only building a plan A, don't do that. ⁓ treating like you drew the tag, the work is done. The work starts again now. ⁓ just 'cause you drew the tag just because you maybe drew the best tag in the state does not mean you can be like, hey, I'm gonna shoot a giant deer without putting in the work. ⁓ another poster on mistake, ignoring that ⁓ community intel. So that was all that, you know, contacting biologists, contacting game awardens, you know. Direct messaging people on, you know, the Go Hunt ecosystem, ⁓ utilizing unit profile comments, that sort of thing. Do not ignore that section. ⁓ another approach draw mistake, not building a gear list. We hammered on the gear list for a little bit, but it's important to build the gear list now. That way you don't, you know, forget something. I had a couple guys that that I talked to today, who randomly came in the office, spent a little time talking and they're asking a bunch of gear questions and just went, you know. It was good they were they're they're planning their gear now for a hunt they have starting in September. So things sell out. You have to you know, get food ahead of time. The tent you want might not be available, like plan your gear right now, build a gear list, ⁓ and yeah, just organize it as best you can. Not e scouting enough, another post-draw mistake, and then not trying to physically get in the unit to scout, and I know that's a pretty difficult one depending on where you live. But try to make you know, make a family vacation out of it, make a you know, post fourth of July time frame when you're just like, Hey, I have to, you know, fly out this date, rent a vehicle, go drive around, just learn learn just learn the road system. Or, you know, drive fifteen hours in the night to scout for two days and drive fifteen hours back home and be absolutely exhausted on a Monday morning. Like that's fine to do if you have that ability to do it, but get in the unit to actually scalp. if you can. All right, let's bring them back all home here. So hopefully, I know I kind of went all over the place on this podcast, but if you drew drew a great deer, or again, I gotta stop saying deer tag. If you drew a great tag this year, ⁓ basically here's your game plan in one breath. Know exactly what you drew. Research the unit the right way, study what those animals are doing in your exact season, then take it to the map, do all your E scouting. Hopefully if you can, put boots on the ground in the unit. Once you get done with that, go back to the maps, take all that stuff you you learned while you were out, put boots on the ground, enhance your e scouting. If you can again go back out, do more boots on the ground, get your body ready, get your gear dialed. You do all that work up front, show up opening day, you'll already be ahead of the game. And I feel like this sort of plan, if I could have you know, dialed it in way more concise would have been doing those things. ⁓ and like I said, the mapping piece, that is, I feel like very, very important. ⁓ so the next next episode, I really want to dive into EScouting, the why, the how, what you need to be thinking about, all those little nuanced little things about it. So if you made it this far, kudos to you. ⁓ lot of rambling here. But ⁓ stay tuned for the next one, which should be e scouting, which probably one of my favorite topics of all time. ⁓ and again, everything I leaned on today, uniprofiles, harvest data, mapping tools, it all lives in Go On Insider. ⁓ yeah, if you're not a Go On Insider member, definitely join today. There's so many different things you can learn and ⁓ utilize on there. So many, you know, tag opportunities still Available, turn back tag, leftover tag, second draw, you know, go hunt maps. And obviously, like we talked about uniprofiles, commenting, all that sort of thing. So you guys can use promo code Brady when you sign up for an insider account, get you fifty bucks back to the Go Hunt Gear Shop. ⁓ yeah, appreciate everyone's support on podcasts, whether it's Big Hunt Guys, Trails Game Trail, or my Miller Tines podcast here. ⁓ Definitely leave some reviews for us. We love reading them. I know there's a lot of funny ones out there. You guys always crack me up when you have a pretty funny review. ⁓ but again, summarize this beauty of the all this stuff we just talked about is very simple. You've already done the hard part by breaking the odds and drawing a tag. Now though, the second hard part becomes is actually putting in the work, which I think a lot of people struggle with, is they get so excited about drawing that tag. And they don't put the required work in to have a successful one. You don't have to be a frickin' psycho and ignore everything else in your life. But would being a psycho actually benefit you on something you really care about? Leave that to you. So appreciate you guys. Thanks for ⁓ listening to this podcast and I'll be hopefully back at you next week.