The Spirit Of The Chase

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hunter has a moment when the woods go fire, the air shifts and time flows down, and in that stillness you realize you're not chasing. You're chasing something. Welcome to the chase young changes. Where we go beyond the sound, show cameras, and deep into the stories that fuel the fires. The show is for the ones who sleep over the rust, to hike miles into the public land, for just the chance, and we live for that silence before the show, from the back country to the back rows, to sit down to the hunters and trappers, with relentless stories, who live for the thrill, embrace the unknown, return for the stories we're telling. This is more than a podcast. This is the start of something real. Let's chase it. Welcome back to another episode of Chase the Unknown, brought to you by Boondocks Hunting. Today we're diving deep into one of the most fascinating strategies in modern white tail hunting, the 70 rule. Joining me is Brandon Barlow, a longtime guest friend and everything of our shows. To unlock the man behind it all. Brandon, we are so excited to get you on your official first time on the Chase the Unknown, an OG of the Garden State, an OG of all the lives that we used to do back in the day. It is a pleasure to get you on.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks, Mike. I appreciate you having me back. And uh it's good to see you again, dude. And it was good chatting in the green room.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Oh, yeah, definitely. Um, for all those who who may not know who you are, why don't you give them a quick rundown, real quick, of a little backstory on yourself?

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Yeah, Brandon Barlow, uh, I've got the page the 70 rule. Um, I live on the East Coast, I hunt North Carolina, pretty much uh been out here my whole life. I did start up in the Adirondacks and uh moved down south when I was in my 20s, but uh that's me in a nutshell, man. I like to chase monster catfish, and when I get lucky, a couple of these big bucks every now and then.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Yeah, no, that that's great. And you know, we've we've seen the catfish, we've seen the monster bucks. I mean, last year, what what what what when uh how many points was that that buck you killed last year?

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Yeah, the Magnolia buck. He was uh here they got to be an inch to count as a point. So he was 17 legal points because he had three broke off, so he was a 20 point. If I had killed him, you know, oh before he shredded us. I don't know if remember if I sent you the video of the cedar tree he shredded, but uh it was all in his bases and stuff. But before he probably broke three of them off in that cedar tree, I think he was a 20.

The Magnolia Buck Four Year Plan

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Um but now off of everything that you do, and I I want to start with that buck, you know, and and getting into it like how many what was the history with that deer and kind of going the game plan going into that season with kind of like with the 70 roll, your your your core areas that you know you know you need to be in there in that specific day. So kind of give us like kind of that the history with the deer and kind of how that looked like building up to you going out for that sit and killing that deer.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Yeah, okay. So that buck was um on public land in North Carolina spot I've been hunting for a while. Um, that's the fourth mature buck I killed over what I call the island or the land bridge. Depends on how high the creek is. It's more of a you can walk out there and keep your feet dry if the creeks are low, but it's the Carolinas and it's Hurricane Alley, right? So it's always freaking needing waiters to get out there. So I call it an island or the land bridge, but uh, it's on public land, and uh it's the fourth mature buck I killed out there. So um that spot pops off early, late September, as a lot of people know that follow the channel, my channel. Um usually the last week of September that spot pops off. Uh I've got some mid-April fawns out there, and um that kind of plays into to what I'm pushing on the 70 rule channel, which is using fawns to backdate and identify the rut. And while it may not be um a really important rule to people like, say, run dogs or people that live in Maine um or northern Saskatchewan where they have really tight ruts. Um, but if you live anywhere, you know, Indiana, Kentucky, the Midwest, and the lower Midwest, um the southeast, like we are, Alabama, um, you really need to know when your deer are coming hot because it's not all in one tight window like it is in those northern places. And so with that being said, um, and not going down a rabbit hole, we have fawns born all over the place. And so it's important uh one of the things I push is how to backdate your rut and your breeding windows using fawning, right? Because um, obviously if you can figure out when your fawns are born, you can figure out when your does were impregnated. That's when they were hot, that's when standing estrus was. So, pretty common sense. The missing ingredient has always been for hunters being able to figure out when their fawns were born, and so that's where the 70 rule comes in. And so uh without going down that rabbit hole, basically um I had determined that I was having April fawns out there, and so um started getting some cameras in there, started collecting some historical data, and my third year in that place, I killed a nice eight-pointer the last week of September. Um, and that was the first year I'd seen the magnolia buck. He was three. Um, he was probably 115, 20 inches. Uh, here he was probably four. Um, the next year I went in and uh I killed a big seven-pointer and I seen the magnolia buck, but I didn't get an opportunity at him. So uh that was 929. Um then two years ago, I went in there last week, September. I always get in there by 9.25. Um, you know, that's when my does are hot there. And so that's when the much the majority of my big buck pictures happened on on camera, and so that's why I was focusing there, right? Like just common sense stuff. So um went in there two years ago and uh was hunting the magnolia buck. He I was expecting him to be six, and uh he he came out five or six, and he came out behind another deer, and the other deer happened to be a big 10-pointer, like a 150-inch 10-pointer. So um I shot the 10-pointer like anybody else would. Um, and he was a wider, like the magnolia, even though he was 20 points and he was a 167, he actually fits inside the 10-pointer because he's a nice wide, big, you know. I think he's 19 inside or something. So the magnolia fits right inside him. So um killed the big 10-pointer, the magnolia buck got a pass. I went back hunted one more time, um, because I get two buck tags in North Carolina, and uh went back and hunted one more time, but the window in that spot closes um around after the 5th of October, it sucks. By the 10th, it's a ghost town. It's getting to the time of year where the white oaks are dried up. You can see through the island, the foliage is dropping, my does are pregnant, um, the deer are moving, everything's moving. So it's just kind of this one window where it's really hot in there, and then it's not. So I gave him one more sit, the magnolia buck two years ago, didn't even see him. Uh, and then uh went on to other places. I have other places like that that I have to be at certain times, like 10.5, 1010, 1020, whatever it is. I'm chasing my rut around and I'm making sure I'm hunting when it's hot at those places. So um just kind of repeating that in other locations, and so that's how that year ended. Um, I forget, killed seven or eight deer that year, only the one big buck, though. Um, and then uh last year I went back in there at the same time. This was year four hunting the Magnolia buck, and I had gone in the year before in the postseason, and I had a sneaking suspicion on where his daylight bed was. Um, where his actual rem bed was, what I call a rem bed. It was burnt to the dirt when I found it. It had hair all nested up around it. Um, and he had some other what I call primary beds around it, 10 yards over there, 30 yards over there. And you never really knew where he was gonna be, but he had this one in this hole. Like if the weather was really, really bad, that's where my camera would get a picture of him. So um, that's I could shoot 21 yards to that bed. So I found that bed. So I went in this year, and I thought I was hunting more towards the scrape in past years, and I could shoot the scrape, in fact. And so um I don't like that. I was I never knew where he was bedded. So, what I would do coming in from my clean access, I would come in as far as my scrape. Then uh I had a couple blowdowns, I would skirt to get around my scrape, and then I pressed towards where their daylight area was, but I only could press so far, so I was only like 20 yards past my scrape and a tree. That's where I hunted for three years. But when I found that bed, I moved my set another 45 yards to where I could shoot that bed. He was like 60 yards from the scrape in that hole. So um moved my set there and uh got screwed over by work last year. My whole September was burnt. I came back from out of state and it was like uh, I think it was 10.6, and I was like, man, I'm screwed. Like this 10.6. I just told you, like after 10.5, I mean, it's it's no longer what I call a high odd sit. It was a high odd sit before 10.5 in that spot. Bucks come through there, other bucks come through there. It was a high odd sit on my dear, but it was a high odd sit in general at that time frame. But after 10.5, you know, you start losing odds rapidly per day. So it's 10.6, so I'm like, you know, I come home and I get all my stuff out of the truck, and I look and I have a trail camera picture. And I'm like, man, I'll just check it. And I click it, and dude, it's him and his front theater in that bed. And so I'm like, oh my god. So I'm like, that's it. He's dead tomorrow morning. He's dead. So I get in there like 4:30 in the morning when he's out at AG. Um, I do my full hang and bang and everything. I'm in my tree like early, like an hour and a half before daylight. There's enough time for like all my scent to dissipate out of the woods. It was sprinkling, my ground set almost. I mean, it was perfect, right? Sat there until 30 minutes after dark. And it was early season, so the days are long. And uh it was horrible, dude. So I'm like, there's no way I cannot hunt here tomorrow. He was just in that bed. So I sat there three days, 22 hours and three days in that tree, and finally on the ninth, I think it was the ninth, I have to check. I think it was the ninth, um, he came out at like 8 12 in the morning, just eyes rolled back in his head, browsing on everything, and he was headed right for that bed. And I shot him like six yards from that bed. Um, and he only went like 30. Uh what was crazy was when I shot him, if you look at the trail camera picture, I think I might have sent it to a couple of them, but the one where he's in his bed, you look at it, and he really looks like a 130 inch a pointer. And when I shot him, I thought that's what he was. I said, It's a magnolia buck, you can't deny the long brows and everything. And I said, He just never got big. And so it was I had that moment you always see on the internet where like you grab him by the horns and you pull him out, and you're like, Oh my god! Like yeah, but I never got a picture showing he had all those points. Every picture was blurry or just out of range, like from big bug fashion, they're so hard to get.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

It's like you know, um no, I I I completely like it.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

It's what the seven-year-old got me on that buck, it killed four in that spot.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

And which which I I know that's you know, with the times that we had on that. I so I know the island that you're talking about. It's something that we talked about a lot, yeah. Um, on the Garnestate and and everything like that.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

So the other way to think of it is it's it's my mid-April spot, my mid-April island. I mean, you can time where to hunt based on when your fawns are born, and that's a mid-April spot, that's when the fawns are dropping. I mean, by 5-1, they're in tote with mom, they're not being stashed around, like they're yeah, already losing their spots now. Um go, you know, by September 1st, uh, I would say about 70% of their spots are there still. Yeah, but by September 1st, September 15th, 70% of the spots will be gone as they hit that 100 day mark, 110 day mark. And so um, yeah, that that's a just an early spot, you know. So when you get out of those really extreme cold places that go below zero, um, it's important to know when to hunt, yeah.

How The 70 Rule Works

SPEAKER_01 13:55

Yeah, yeah. And for you know, for the listeners uh, you know, out there who are not so familiar with the with the 70 rule, you know, can you just give a quick, you know, um, you know, just an explanation of what that really means and how you came up with that.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Yeah, so um the story of how I came up with it is is a longer story, but to make it quick, basically I got my start in the Adirondacks. Um, and up there, I started out hunting agriculture with my family and then got into tracking deer. Um, and to make a long story short, I basically started realizing that certain swamps, certain thickets, certain, you know, hemlocks, whatever it may be, certain pieces of wood, daytime areas where deer were. First of all, I distinguished nighttime and daytime deer. I I quickly learned that if you want to kill a deer in the daytime, you need to hunt where deer are in the daytime. I mean, when you're tracking deer and you're on your feet on deer, you're hunting deer where they live in the daytime. You're not like out in the middle of a cornfield at noon hunting, right? Like you're in the cedar swamp hunting, like creeping through, right? So you're hunting where deer are during the day. So that was like my first number one rule that I took away back then. Number two was I started realizing that following tracks that fawns, even in the Adirondacks, some fawns were born a little bit early. Um, it's not like in the south where you're gonna have March and April fawns and you know September breeding. But um, what I did find was I did have some like late May fawns, mid-May fawns when everything else was June 1st. And what I did notice after a couple of years was those places that had those uh early May fawns, guess what? They had pre-Halloween shooters. And after some years of that, I realized that that's not a coincidence. Uh, those places that have those early doughs have the early shooters. I mean, that is they go, they're all about summertime, they're all about bed to food, food to bed, they want beans, and then they peel their velvet, they get a little testosterone, and those first doughs start to come hot. And when that happens, their priorities change. And um that's where you'll find your first shooters on those early deer. And so the further you get away from that, the more random and chaotic it gets as more deer are coming hot in a smaller window of time, right? And so you get in November, it's a mayhem. Um, but if you can find those early, those first breeders in those areas like the Adirondack's, the PA Mountains, Ohio, Michigan. I guarantee you, in those areas, there's deer, there's does coming hot before Halloween. Those are going to be your May, early May fawns, most likely. The ones that can run, jump, and play by June when none of the other ones can. Um, that's where you'll get the majority of your big buck pitchers early. So I started piecing that together. Where the 70 rule comes in is more mathematical. Um, it's just how my brain works. I'm an engineer by trade, and I think of everything, and it's nerdy, but I think of everything in that sense. And so um it's not as cut and dry. You know, the 70 rule is a catchy name, and that's really the point of it. And I preface with that because I was telling you about my fawns that are at the spot where I killed the Magnolia and four bucks in late September, early October, and those fawns are gonna already start to lose their spots. Well, part of the 70 rule is around that September timeframe, if you're looking for an early bow spot, you're looking for fawns that have lost 70% of their spots. That's gonna indicate October one hunting. If you find a fawn that has only lost 30% of its spots, but they're fading, and that he has 70 of them intact, that's more like a pre-Halloween 1020 spot. 70, 70, depending on how you look at it. But then track being a tracker, what I started realizing was those really big funds, the ones that have no spots, come 915. Those really big funds that um are already fading their spots now. Um, they have a track that's um 60 to 75 percent the size of their moms. Um, just depends. Uh, your 1020, 1025 breeders, their fawns probably have a track around 55, 60 percent that time of year. They're a little younger, but older fawn, bigger foot, younger fawn, smaller foot. It's it's common sense, and so you can use that to figure out when they were born. You can age deer with that, and so the 70 rule isn't an exact thing like that hoof has to be 70, you know, um percent the size. It could be 60 or 59 or whatever the math works out to be, but it's not gonna be 40 the size. That font's not gonna have all of its spots. If that's the case, that's a typical rut spot. Those does came hot in November. Yeah, that's why his track is, you know what I mean. So that's where the 70 rule came up. I came up with was it's a way for you to one time your rut in general. I mean, if you're seeing uh 30 pound, 40-pound fonts right now that are seven weeks old, you probably have a rut that's closer to post-Thanksgiving, closer to 12.1. But right now, if you're seeing fonts with faded spots, you know, maybe you should bow hunt there, hang a camera, you'll get your big buck pictures there. And so it's my way of determining when the rut is because you can't trust online resources and applications, and they'll just say, Oh, you're in Alabama, this is when to hunt. But that's not true, as I've proven with thousands and thousands of videos, that's not true. So um uh the 70 rule is just that it's visual, it's measuring tracks, and there is a third aspect, which is body weight. It's not one we get to measure in the field, but uh from my time in my 20s when I was interning on a on a breeding farm, what I did realize is when those fawns, if those fawns hit that 70 pound mark around 9-1, they will actually estress themselves the same year, believe it or not. Yeah, and so um second, second rut, essentially, and that's and I've shared a lot of videos where I get those like you know, 1230, 1-1, 110 hammers rolling in, our season's closed, and it's like shooter after shooter after shooter after those hot fawns. Yeah, those fawns will come hot themselves. So the third part of the 70 rule, just to wrap it up quick, is body weight, so 70 spots gone or there, depending 70 track size approximately, and then 70 pounds. They're gonna asterisk themselves if they're that size. Um, and though that when you know that, and then you run cameras, everything else will click together. Yeah, and then you'll start to see you'll start to see May 1st fawns, 1020 shooters, and then why would you hunt there 1115? That's stupid. You need to be there 1020. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 21:13

With which makes so much sense. So now I remembered last year and you commented on it. I had a trail camera, I was actually a buck breeding a dome. And you literally you comment back, you know where you need to be at this time next next year. Oh, because you showed me a fawn picture, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

You showed me a fawn picture, and I was like, dude, if all your fawns look like this, you need to hunt there at this X date. And you were like, dude, I literally had standing estrus. Yeah, it's funny because I actually do that a lot. I have a lot of I haven't shared any testimonials on the website yet because I've been busy. 7.com. If anybody hasn't been there, check it out. There's actually a we've got a really cool not to plug my own stuff, but we've got a really cool one. Um it will help you determine the age of your fawn based on what you're visually seeing. Looking at the stupid thing like, hey, okay, it's it's got uh an arched back or it it's not as wobbly legged or whatever it may be. It's not act, it's not day accurate to the day, but it is accurate within a week or so. Um so if you can visually get a feel for your fawns and when they were approximately born, you can plug that into our rot calculator and it'll spit out a one-to-two week window. And and that is it took a long time to set that up, but that is all the data points that I use to determine that. When I guessed when your rot was, um that generator on my website has like I forget how many data points in it, but that will calculate it accurately.

Hunt Less By Using Data

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Yeah, no, and it it's it's phenomenal because I'm I'm actually on the website right now. Um it it is actually just it is a phenomenal website, beautiful website, but that is something that where you know I've been you know using more and more, and a bunch of the guys that we you know we've been using and everything like that, and as we continue to you know get into this more historical stuff and and everything like that. So last year I hunted, majority of my hunting was in a I've never stepped footed. That was my first year there, so it's all brand new to me. So collecting data just on everything, and I'm a big data guy too, maybe not as nearly, of course, as much as as you are, you know what I mean, but like I'm a big like I love getting just every little bit of information that that I can out of my hunt, out of my scouts.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

Well, I started like you did, and then I started like, oh, I did this at this one spot, and I was like, Oh wow, that's a pre-Halloween spot based on the fonts. I went there, I killed a shooter, like 1015, 1020, and then I'm like, okay, I need to repeat this. And then all of a sudden I became a data guy. I didn't mean to, it was just because once something works, you're like, all right, I'm gonna start writing this down.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

And for everyone, you know, that a big part of this, and this is a huge rule for me, especially now moving forward, and you know, it was actually Halloween, and it was 80, it was like 80 something degrees, it was hot. I don't know if I I I told you uh this yet, Brandon, but I was debating on where to hunt. One of those times where it's like I actually had no idea where to hunt. I was chasing, I was hunting a specific buck. Yet again, first year hunting hunting in this area, knew nothing. And I set up and I was like, I it's hot, I'm gonna go set up on a water hole. That buck came later in that in my hunt. That buck came cruising through looking for must a hot dough, or just came cruising through a scrape on Halloween. Um, and this is something for everyone. When you start collecting this history and you know the data and everything like that, this takes the whole guess out of everything. It's like, oh, like where where do I go sit? Like, hmm, you know, a lot of a lot of us, and that's been the thing that that a lot of us do. And what we kind of were were taught to do was to, you know, your your to kind of guess, oh, the weather here, this is what it looks like. This is uh, you know what? I got three or four spots. Which one am I gonna hunt? How many times, everyone sitting there listening? How many times have you picked the wrong stand or saddle or whatever ground blind this is all an effort to do less sits.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

Exactly. That's what the point is, and so anybody listening to this is like, oh, you know, I got my own thing. Keep doing your own thing. I'm just saying that this is a way to do less sits. I don't do a lot of sits, man. I feel a lot of tags and a few sits have for decades. Not to do my own horn, but if you're not hunting the right places at the right, so I guess we're on the east coast, and that makes a difference. And I don't mean to sound like you know, but the further you get away from the east coast, the less you care about like the 70 rule. Um you know, it's I guess there's a few, like for example, I was saying earlier, like guys who run dogs for deer, they don't care about the 70 rule. Guys who live in Saskatchewan and all their doughs come hot in three days, yeah. Right? Like, um or if you live far enough west from from us that like you can run a mock scrape and flip-flops and get a booner on it, you don't care about you don't care about the 70 rule, dude. Like, if you are getting shooters hitting mock scrapes on the edge of a field, you probably don't care about it because you live in a place that's a good deer hunt, right? And you just know in those areas where you can wear a pair of Nikes, run a scrape with your black labs, and you get a shooter hits it, right? You just sit at the base of a beaver dam for three days and you're gonna get a crack at one. Um, but we're kind of slumming it out here on the East Coast, and so it's important if someone's listening to this and they and I'm not and I know hunting's hard everywhere, but I'm saying if someone's listening to this and they're in Arkansas, Idaho, South Dakota, it's probably not gonna really apply to them because dude, they got deer, you know, they can run their mock scrapes with their beagle and still get bucks, but that's not how it is out here when we hunt, it's tough, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

And and another thing, too, is also for you know the people that are family men or don't have the time to do it as well. This is something where this is something that like I want to start to understand now, especially once I have kids. You I don't know what the time to hunt is going to look like, you know what I mean. So now instead of just taking just random, like I'm just gonna take the rut off, you know. I'm just gonna if I didn't have the rut, you you know what I mean? It's but everyone thinks it's just everybody thinks it's in a right, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

But that's not how it is. I mean, if you're even in West Virginia, where I used to hunt a lot, I mean, to find the rut, because I've got you know April fawns on one side of the highway and July 4th fawns on the other side of the highway, same public land. So you're coming to hunt the rut. Well, when I mean, are you gonna come hunt like uh October 10th on this side, or are you gonna come hunt 12 1 on this side? Because when you hang your cameras, I'm getting shooters in October and I'm getting shooters in December, and I'm getting fawns in April, I'm getting fawns in July. But my point is, is that lines up, and so I think you're right. Like a lot of guys are saying, I'm just gonna hunt the raw. And if it's Kentucky or if it's Indiana or Illinois, fine, go out in November and you're gonna shoot a buck, probably, right? My buddy, I've got a buddy who goes, they go to uh South Dakota every year and they kill a monster in a week, you know.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

And if it if you're looking at that too, as so like a as a say you're a hunter that that has the time, you want to your home state, especially your home state where your public land, like if you can get that where you can knock a buck out early during those times, now you have more time to go to Indiana, to go out to Iowa or something like that, and use your your vacation or whatever to go through the the prime time and and those areas because it's true. I mean, I've talked to plenty of people and I've seen it. Hunting Jersey and uh maybe some other people have the rut is just it's always been unpredictable. It's you have here running around from yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

So and if you can dial in that timing, you can fill tags like I do in just a few sits. And when I was young and aggressive, the best year I had was I killed seven mature bucks in a single season. And it was uh when I was I think 27 or 28. And basically, if you no, no, I was in my 30s. I was probably 34, 30, 33, 34. Um, but if uh if you can figure it out on each place you hunt, then essentially you can do just that. You could come down here, find that late September spot, 10-1, get on a shooter. Then you could maybe um, you know, I I hunt South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia. I could run up to Virginia or maybe that was in South Carolina. I could come back to North Carolina or Virginia and I could get on a 10-1, 10.5, 1010 buck. Then I actually had a spot up in New York where I'm from that had pre-Halloween bucks, and I went up there that year and I shot a big seven-pointer, um, big seven-pointer on like 1020, came back down here, filled my second North Carolina tag before Halloween, and then went down to South Carolina, and I think I killed another one in December. And so if you're just hunting where it's hot, you can move around your spots. Um, and when you start to track it, you're you're fawning. And again, if you're in a place like the Adirondacks, you know, it might you might have to look at 200 does to find a doe group that's pre-Halloween. But down here in the south, like one and three deer are early, and so just depends on where you live. And we've talked about Jersey and and in the Northeast. I mean, I've seen I've seen fawning all over the place in the northeast, so it's applicable really anywhere you live. Um, but it's all in the name of the game of doing fewer sits. It's just being in the right place at the right time. The 70 rule only gives you a two-week window. I mean, it's not a magic pill. Um, like your October buck you were talking about. I mean, you can go in there, you can say, Okay, I got some big ass fonts, but they're not that big ass. They still have 70% of their spots. Their track is maybe 60% the size. I'm thinking it's probably like a 1015, 1020 spot. You can get in there, see that pre-Halloween buck, you get your two-week window. Um, same thing goes, maybe you've got some tiny fonts, and you say, Oh, I'm gonna go hunt after after Thanksgiving. And those last two weeks in November, you have a good encounter, you get a trail camera picture. That that's why those bucks are there. So you can use it in that sense. Um, but then to really dial it in, you need year-to-year historical data. Um, that's where you're talking about trail camera pictures, and that and I've got a the a book we could talk about at the end, I guess, but um the book coming out that explains it all. But essentially, the where you do turn the 70 rule into a magic pill is with historical data. So you you get your two-week window, but then you start identifying um what I call repeater bucks, the bucks that come back year to year. Uh, only a percentage of them do. But once you get a repeater buck on a known breeding date that comes back every year, and you know what dates he prefers, now you have a once hit kill chance. Um, and and I've killed a, you know, more than just more than a handful of bucks on the first sit. And that's how I do it. I mean, I'll have a buck like the magnolia. Now I killed the magnolia buck on the third sit, to be fair. Um and he was there. That's just how it goes. Deer are hard to kill, but um uh nothing's guaranteed. But the magnolia buck is about as dialed in as you can get it. With I had four years of historical data, I had his main bed burnt to the dirt in that daylight spot, and known breeding dates, and his known dates across four years. And so, um, and I had visual verification in February when he shed his antlers that he was alive. So when you layer all that together, you really are setting yourself up for a one-sit kill, and it's the only way to do it. And there's a few other things in the book which Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:43

And we'll we'll definitely be getting getting into I'm excited for that thing to come out.

Biggest Mistakes And Repeatable Bucks

SPEAKER_00 33:47

Yeah, um I'm I got a budget, so whoever's watching this right now, I mean, reach out to me and you two mic, I'll send you a copy and I'll send whoever's listening a copy too. Um, I'm setting aside a small budget for free books, so anybody's interested that listens to this podcast and is interested, reach out and I'll make sure you get one. Appreciate it, brother.

SPEAKER_01 34:07

Um what do I think for for hunters that are looking to get into this or that have been doing it, have you had anyone reach out and you know what is something that you could say like one of the biggest mistakes people make when trying to establish the 70 rule in their in their home area or the public or even private lands that that they hunt?

SPEAKER_00 34:30

So there's a few actually. Um so when you're talking about the 70 rule, none of it really matters. So you can apply that and get a two-week window. It doesn't matter how much hunting pressure there is, it doesn't matter if there's a uh category four hurricane, it doesn't matter if it doesn't matter anything because all you're simply doing is using the 70 rule to backdate your fawn's birth dates. I mean, if there was another way to find your fawning birth dates, aside from going like training a black lab to go find fawns, which one of my uh one of my verified killers uh is a lady who actually has a black lab that finds fawns, and she's pretty hardcore. She wants to kill some fucking. Yeah. But uh so uh but unless you're finding fawns like her, which is really extreme. I mean, she's taking the 70 rule even more efficiently than me, right? But um unless you're doing that, you have no recourse. I mean, if guys could figure out when their fawns were born, they'd have been, you know, identifying the rut years ago, right? So the 70 rule, all that does is tell you when your fawns are born, and that tells you when your does were bred, and that tells you when your rut was. Um, especially if you get a lot of data where you can say there's five, ten, fifteen fawns born in this window, then you know for sure you always want to have, and there's even a disclaimer on the fawn calculator. It's like you need multiple fawns because a real phenomenon is a second wave rut in places where maybe it's urban, where you got a lot of does, but you don't have a lot of urban box, or you got a lot of heavy hunting pressure, but it's bucks only. Um, you will get big dog hunting dog presence like down here. Um, you know, you will get occasionally like a doe that's living in the median and never gets bred. Um, and so you got to be careful just aging one fawn. But when you start to get a handful and they're all and you see them late in the summer and they're playing and they're all the same size, the one you aged is the same size as the rest while they're playing. You can tell visually, like, okay, all my deer are hot at this time. 70 rule is just a way to get that two-week window. It works no matter what, even with hunting pressure. Because you would ask me a question, like, what's a couple of mistakes hunters make? Um, and I was trying to answer that when things went haywire. And so essentially, it has nothing to do with the 70 rule because you're just simply using it to see when your does are hot. They're still going to be hot, regardless of a hurricane or hunting or whatever. That's when they come hot, that's when they're gonna be hot, period. So, with that said, you've got your two-week window. When you're talking about the number one mistake people make is trying to take that two-week window and narrow it down. That's where you need historical data, and that's where you need repeatability year to year. And that's a tall ask, especially on a mature buck. It's not that big of a not that heavy of a lift on a doe. You can put out a permanent food source, a year-round feeder, a year-round, you know, food plot with a rotation, and you can get doe's to anchor on just an acre or two. Um, they'll sleep in the full of like they'll sleep in a mineral pile, right? Like um, just to keep anything else from eating it. And so um uh, you know, essentially, you can get the year-to-year repeat data on doughs really, really easily. I have a dough that's probably 15 verified or more, and I keep her in one area, and you can do that with food. Um, bucks are a little bit different, but when you're talking about like the number one mistake people make, it's gonna be dialing that two-week window down, and that's probably using nighttime buck pictures. A lot of guys send me nighttime buck pictures that bucks at like midnight, and they're asking me about like trying to narrow that two-week window down. Um, and you can't do that with night pictures. That's probably the biggest thing. Um, probably the big the number one thing that I would say is a deal buster is if you're trying to get a big buck to repeat year to year, but your picture is after 9:30 at night or before 5 a.m. If it's in that like 10, 11 p.m., 2 to 3 a.m. time frame, that's 99% not going to repeat next year.

SPEAKER_01 39:05

Okay.

Bait Pros Cons And Inventory

SPEAKER_00 39:06

So interesting the daytime daytime buck behavior becomes increasingly repeated, repeatable depending on the scenario. Um, but you know, and we can get into that a little bit if you want to. Essentially, um to repeat year to year. Um, you have to one get him in the daylight, daylight bucks. So if you have four shooters, let's say, let me throw so guys can guys can put a picture to this, a visual. So let's say last year you had four shooters. I had four shooters, what I call day walkers, daytime bucks between 5 a.m. and 9, 9:30 at night, five, or if you had four day walkers last year, 50% of your bucks don't come back. Period. They just don't. There's no reason for it. Bucks are bucks. So this year you have two. I mean, over the course of running more than 100 cameras for more than a decade, what I have found is only half of your bucks are repeatable or able to repeat, like they're willing to repeat. Um, so right out of the gates, if you had four bucks last year, two aren't coming back. Just wrap your mind around it right now. They're gone. They're dead, they've moved, they don't have the repeatability in their nature, whatever it is, they're gone. Two of them. But two of them will repeat. So they're gonna come back. The question is, are they gonna hit your past your camera again? And that's when you start getting into like, well, what's good data versus what's bad data? So if you have a daytime buck doing natural daytime buck things, um, like in a bedding area, he's just passing through a corridor in the daytime at noon and you get a picture of him. If he comes back next year around that same time and does that same thing, he's gonna do it every year, pretty much. That's just they do that. But you got to find the ones that repeat. So, with that being said, how you can start to skew the repeatable data is um, let's say you get a daytime buck, but he comes and he hits a bait pile. Um, as soon as you start to manipulate deer, they become less repeatable. So, like, let me give you another example. Let's say you're standing in your yard, right? And I go walking in the woods and I bust a big buck out of the woods, and and you see him in your yard in the middle of the day. Like, is that repeatable? Probably not. That's not repeatable. I mean, you might see him in your yard again someday, but that's not gonna be repeatable on the same week next year. He's not gonna do that again because I went in there and I forced him out. So if you're talking about dogs, hunting dogs, hunting people, the orange army pushing deer like ping pong balls, it's not gonna be repeatable. You need to find deer that aren't hunted like that, you know, they're not being ping-pong balled around. You need to find a buck that's doing natural buck things because he wants to. Half of those will be repeatable. So where guys do get into trouble as they start using nighttime picks, they're not repeatable. Just forget about nighttime picks. Two, they start using bait, mineral bags, um, like dope on a rope, that sort of thing. And while I don't deny it works, you can lure deer, they work, you can get big buck pictures. The question is, is it going to be repeatable next year? Did you pull that buck 40, 50 yards off his normal routine because he smelled some buck fever on a branch and he wanted to investigate it? Because 50 yards over there where his normal pattern was is highly repeatable. But him coming past that spot 50 yards off his normal route, like you've seen your dog in the yard and take the same path every time. So it's the same thing. And so if you pull that dog or that buck off his path 40 yards and he comes over and he likes your scrape, whatever, what I'm saying is it's repeatable in the here and now. He might be back tomorrow. But if you're talking year to year, you really want to hone in, find a repeater bug, you know, dial that two-week window down to a couple of days, try to get a one-stay kill, then um you need to find daytime bucks doing natural daytime things. If you start luring them with corn or whatever, the repeatability year to year starts to go out the window super fast. Um, and and you know, um in the days when I was testing lures, I mean, they work. I mean, I've pulled a buck across the whole beaver meadow with some like you know, forehead gland. And so um it works in the here now. What I'm saying is if you're wanting to use it in the here now as an attractant because you're out in Kentucky. Sitting on a beaver dam, use it. I mean, this stuff works. I mean, we've all used it and got big buck pictures, but if you're talking about you want to get a daywalker that's gonna come back next year, you just need to find a daywalker, man. You don't need to pull a daywalker, you need to find a daywalker. Bucks you find um are way more repeatable than bucks you pull. And bucks you find are way easier to kill than bucks you pull. Try killing a big buck over a cornpile versus one where you just found his bed. I mean, like the magnolia buck. His eyes were rolled back in his head, he had no care in the world, he didn't know I was there. If he was coming into like a mineral bag, you think he wouldn't have had all six senses just roaring? Like yeah, yeah, 100%. That makes sense. And one's easier to kill than the other. And so you start to get into repeatable, repeatable deer behavior, which allows you to anticipate a buck. You start getting into more comfortable deer that are easier to kill. Um, yeah. When you start hunting deer, you either pulled or lured, or you start hunting like those deer that have been ping-pong balled, where you got hunters here and hunters there, and they're running back forward, deer dogs, whatever it is, bear hunters, and when your deer are getting hammered, then it's tough to start tracking that repeatability. That's why the number one thing I would say is night pictures because it's the most common. But second would be making sure that you're finding daytime deer that are not pressured. Because if if I didn't find daytime deer that were not pressured, I would not kill any bucks. I'm a terrible hunter. Like, I mean, I I am, dude. I killed the magnolia buck last year. I shot under a potential state record, which I don't even know if I've said that on air yet. A typical monster, I'm telling you, six days after the magnolia buck, a monster. And that buck is a repeater, and I'll be on him this October. Um, oh yes, I can't wait to hear about that. Yeah, he's a potential monster, he's a potential monster, it's all I'm gonna say. So uh, but I shot underneath him six days after the magnolia buck last year. Then I went on to wound another buck with my recurve and never recovered him. And then I had my rifle misfire. I finally went out the end of the season. I said, damn, I'm just gonna bag another buck real quick at the buzzer. And I knew where I have a gas line, I could sit there two days with a rifle and fill a buck tag on a nice buck. So I sat there and I had a 130 that my rifle misfired on. Um I'm terrible at hunting, I'm terrible at hunting, and so if I have to hunt deer on high alert coming into a bait pile, like I'm not, I'm never getting my buck off or my bow off a hook. Are you guys a lot of bait in in North Carolina? Yeah, they are, yeah. Yeah, it's the same thing here in Jersey. Bacon's okay for um if bacon's okay, it has its place. Let me say this. Have you ever taken kids fishing? Yep. So if you take a kid muskie fishing, is he gonna have fun? Or if you take that kid like sun fishing, like for Brim, where he can go catch a pailful, he's not gonna want to go muskie fishing. He's gonna hate it, hate the day. Like, so yeah, with bait and and you're talking about youth or maybe disabled veterans and things like that, you know. I'm totally for pour out some corn, let some kids shoe some doughs, some spy corns and six-pointers, right? Like the deer that hit corn, basket racks, whatever. Like, let the kids burn them down, dude. Like, get them into the sport. That's a really good use for baiting. Um, another good use for baiting is um inventory. Like, let's say you wanted to come down and do an out-of-stay hunt. Um, and so you were basically like, Oh, well, I don't know if you can bait or not in your home state. Let's say you can't.

SPEAKER_01 48:06

So we we can. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 48:08

So, but you come down here and you get a brand new door knock piece. One really easy thing to do is to just set up a camera in a nice spot with a lot of deer sign and put out a mineral bag or you know, some forehead gland or pour out a 50-pound bag of corn, and you have a higher odds of getting a good inventory census on the deer in the area, um, without putting too much effort in, right? Like, if you don't do that, you've got to really go in, walk around, try to figure out like, where can I hang a camera? This is a travel corridor, you know, the browse damage is higher. Maybe this is a buck, or you're looking for tracks and droppings, and you got to put a little bit of work in to hang those cameras. You can't just throw them anywhere and get pictures of buck. So the alternative to putting a little bit of work in, maybe it's 110 degrees down here and in the summer, but you've got to figure it out, is to bait, right? In the summer, you can put a mineral lick in and hang a camera, and you probably won't get the really old smart deer, but you'll get some inventory pictures. And um, so baiting has a place, but uh when it comes to uh killing big bucks, I think it's it's not you know, I know guys do it, but man, we um we're a big heavy, heavy bait state.

SPEAKER_01 49:25

Um, yeah, and so everyone does it. Like, I have a track here picture of just in a field of guys coming. And don't get me wrong, like I'll throw out be, especially here, we have to earn our buck. So when we start up on September 13th, you have to kill a doe before you can kill a buck, and that goes for I think like two weeks.

SPEAKER_00 49:47

And you know, dude, like for 25, maybe 30 years, my first arrow has been on a buck. I will not pull my bow off the quiver until it's a shooter. I will go all year and have without killing a single, you know, I kill five or ten does every year. I will go the whole year and not eat venison. My first arrow is a shooter. If I send you a picture of a bloody arrow, it's shooter. And so if I had to earn a buck, that would be completely the opposite of like what? Like, earn a buck? What where do you do that? I guess you go jack up somebody else's spot.

SPEAKER_01 50:23

Like that probably kills for me personally, it kills me for the last couple years. I've consistently had stupid dude, just bucks. I mean, all my shooters, daylighting, all my shooters in their home, in their core, in their in their bed. So boom, that and every time, and I swear, like, I it's a humble brag. It's uh, and I don't want to get too, but like I have a really good knack at finding nice big bucks. I I do every kind of every spot that I go to and I set up a especially the last two years, I'll go like, okay, like I'm trying to just to find, I don't want there's spots I don't even want to find a big buck. I'm like, I need to find does. I need my I need to find does. I know where the bucks are, I need to find those. And it's such a pain in the ass because I'll be sitting in the stand waiting for a dough to pop up, and I'll have like, oh, I would have already been tagged. Like, I would have shot my buck already. Like you you spend all summer patterning and getting ready to to hunt bucks, and then it's like, oh shit, yeah, duh. Opening day, I gotta shoot a duck.

Does Food Sources And First Food

SPEAKER_00 51:34

Once you figure out once you've killed some mature bucks and once you've got a lot of pictures of some big bucks, again, this is an east coast thing. If you're out in a state where you can hang a mock scrape on the edge of a field and get a shooter, or you can install it with Nikes on or with your black lad, like, okay, this doesn't apply to you, right? Like, just go kill deer, dude. Like you live in one of those states. Um, but but if uh you know, um out here on the east coast, dude, like uh you really have to key into certain spots to find big bucks. And once you have killed some, and once you get them on camera out here and you start learning where they like to live, I mean, on the east coast, it's really simple. If there's not shit scraping down both of their sides, they're not happy, like they just want to be in the thickest, gnarliest stuff. So once you start getting used to that, I'm the same way. I go into a spot and I'm like, no, I can see like 80 yards, and I'm like, nah, I can see, you know, ways. And when I get into that, like really like what I say looks bucky, like it's like if you drop your phone, it's gone. Like it's just like like uh um you can just hang cameras and that stuffing and get those beer, but that's not where you're gonna see your doughs. No. Um, and so that's actually a smart point because the does, where the does are is a really major part of my strategy. In fact, um if I had to earn a buck, it wouldn't be that hard. I mean, uh, I I usually double on dough, and I usually double in like four hours. I mean, down here we have a lot of deer, and I run a lot of cameras, and I'm super keyed in on my doughs and where they are, and I hold them into certain areas with with food plots and stuff like that when I can. So uh, or I'm hunting public where those does are just in a 40-acre green briar patch, and that's there, you know. And when you're hunting in those situations, um, dough hunting's pretty easy. So um I I if I had to earn a buck, I could probably do it in an hour. Um, but um uh it's important to actually that's a smart point because how I hunt bucks has a lot to do with doughs. And if you can't figure out where the doughs are gonna be, um you're gonna have a really hard time, one accessing without bumping does. And because if you don't know like what they're eating and where they are, you know, you got you've got um your basic food sources, your destination food source, your primary food source, like the ag that they're headed to at night, whatever it may be. Then you've got your secondary food source. So maybe there's some oaks leading up to that food plot. So that's why they're they're lingering in there on that secondary food coming out to that primary food. But then you have in there's another one that I don't talk about, it's in the book. I'll I'll tell you in this podcast since you're gracious enough to have me on. But then you have embedding food, which is the food that they're smashing in the daylight, the greenbriers, the the browsing. And so um, when you understand the four types of food, and there's a fourth one, which I call the first food. And so what I just as important when you're hunting, like when you're looking at a destination food source, and this is in the book, and I never talked about it online before, but when when you're talking about a destination food source, like a like let's say a cornfield, they just cut it and add dark, there's gonna be a hundred deer in it. Then you're talking secondary food, where maybe there's an oak flat where they're gonna start staging on that oak flat before you know before gray light, so that they can come out to the field at night. It's like a secondary food. Well, there's another food source between the secondary food and their daytime food, which is what I call the first food. So it's really, really, really common when them deer leave their bedding area where they've been browsing all day, they will take the shortest route to the first, what would qualify as like a secondary food source. So maybe a white oak tree. Um, and so while you don't always have to hunt inside that bedding area to kill daytime deer, you can get close enough if you can find that first food, what I call like when they're coming out of that bedding area, maybe before they get three, four hundred yards to that oak flat, maybe there's an apple tree. When they come out of that bedding area, if there is something like persimmons, they will it will define their movement, or if all day they've had shit water, that first food could just be a drink. So um that first destination, you have bedding food, and beds. If you're in that bedding area, you need to either be hunting beds or bedding food. I mean, otherwise, I mean you could just catch a deer milling all around, but you're not gonna really be able to anticipate setup, you know, you're gonna be like, where are they? Um or if you can get away with it and you can pass on your way in past that secondary food and get to that first, what I call the first food, that apple tree, that water hole, whatever it is. Yeah, a lot of times you'll see when they come out of that daytime spot headed to that secondary food, they'll hit like a red oak tree or something on the way. And so um, that first food is a really killed. So guys always talk about um bedding food and secondary food and primary food, but there if if there's a stop when they first leave that bedding area, man, it can be super hot. And where I live is usually an apple tree or a persimmon's tree, right? That time of year, a soft mass like that. Boy, when they haven't had all when they haven't had it all day, they'll detour just to see if any apples fell on their way to the oak flat. And so um, food for does. Um, and if you can figure out where all the food is at, you can pretty much figure out where your does are at, and then you can avoid them on your way in, and then you can um start to figure out a plan to hunt your bucks based on where your does are bedding, knowing that your bucks are gonna bed and layer in behind them for security. So if you can find where the does are betting, you can generally kind of start looking at stem count and guessing where those bucks might be betting. You know, look at the terrain and stem count and and um, but uh well, yeah, that first food or that first stop when they come out of bedding is a pretty pretty big one. So um, ideally, though, like I'll give you an example where the buck I alluded to being like a potential record is at in that bedding area, it's like a hundred and maybe ten acres, and they have everything they need. There's a creek that literally runs through the middle of it. There's like five different nut trees that drop in there. Um there's uh um kudzu, there's greenbrier, like they have literally everything they need. So yeah, that first food or that first stop for me is my scrape. So I have a community scrape that is between uh some red oaks and white oaks where they like to stage headed out to beans, and they're they're prime their daytime where I get deer pictures all day long. There is my my community scrape, is there, and so more often than not, when those deer come out of that bedding area, they'll either skirt my scrape or they'll walk, and the doe's will almost always hit my scrape. And so um, it doesn't have to be an apple tree, it could be a mock scrape or a water hole. But they're the pretty vulnerable when they first leave their bedding for the day, they're desperate, they're hungry sometimes, they're thirsty, they're uh especially does. If you're just trying to fill a dough tag, is what we were talking about. Yeah, if you can find that first stop when they leave that daytime area, usually you can just kill a doe in an hour, you know. Makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 59:40

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_00 59:42

I'll just go to where I know they're bedded in that first stop I just set up and I'll shoot a dough in an hour. Yeah. That first acorn tree or the mock scrape or whatever. Love that.

Two New Books And Writing Reality

SPEAKER_01 59:52

Love that. Um one last thing before we we head off. We you know, obviously, we'll we'll definitely be getting you on throughout the year and everything like that. Um the book. You know, we're yeah, we're really excited. We're hoping that it was gonna be out today, but by the time everyone is listening to this right now, the book is going to be out. Um, you know. How long have you been working on this for?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:17

So uh it's a double book release, believe it or not. I've got two books coming. Um, I've don't know how much I've alluded to that because it has been a long time in the process. So the first book that um there's two books coming out. One's a Whitetail Strategy book, which is the one you're talking about. That's how to one sit kill a mature buck using the 70 rule. Um, that's being published presently, it was due out today and it's not. So uh that's where that sits. Um, that book has been in the work now for seven seasons. Um uh I decided maybe around the time we met, maybe just a little bit before, was kind of when I started ramping up. And uh so you know, 15 years ago, people thought I was crazy talking about fawns being born at different times and being able to use that to hang a camera and get a buck picture. And um, the last maybe even 10 years ago, it was pretty taboo. But the last six, seven years, a lot of like labs and associations and stuff have started coming out and started talking about backdating 200 days, which when you read the book, you'll find out it's actually 196. Um, we dialed in a little bit more than what you hear on the internet, but um labs and associations and stuff started coming out maybe five, six years ago, and they really started pushing some of this stuff. And so um, that was when seven years ago was when um I think the first time I heard someone say something about 200 days, so I said, Oh man, because I had done podcasts for like 10 years, and even back to the next level outdoor days when I was doing podcasts, I was the reaper back in those days, and yeah, yeah, there were still people know me as the reaper and call me the reaper. Well, um uh back in those days I was talking about it, but I always would elude, I never wanted to quite call it the 70 rule, and I would say things like you gotta, you know, timing is just as important as location, and you gotta add when do your, you know, when do you're wearing and things like that. But I didn't get into it too much. If you listen to like the old Southern Way podcast from 10 years ago, I didn't even want to call them REM beds, didn't want to call it the 70 rule. I slipped and called it the 70 rule on his show 10 years ago. So seven years ago, I decided that was when I was gonna write the book. So I did it, took seven years because I'm busy. I manage a utility and by day for the East Coast for a utility by day, and then I've got my business, and my wife has a store, and of course, the channel, and I run 100 cameras. So it took seven years, but that book is out, it's everything we talked about. But dude, it is laid out so well. Like the table of contents is a checklist to carry in the woods, like literally, dude. It's laid out to like when you get to a new piece of land step by step by step, this is when you'll get your buck pictures, you hang a camera, it will work, um, as people like you know, and then it'll take you into the final chapters of using historical data next year and how to set up that one set kill. So that's that book. Um, big anticipation for that one. Um, and and I'm and I'm thankful. I just want to say for the people who've been on the website and have hit me up, um, unbelievable traffic to the website and feedback. So I'm really grateful for that. And and I'll try to give away as many as I can. The second book that's going to be a double release, hopefully the same day, is also being published. Um, that book is The Real History of Whitetail Hunting, a story of respect and survival. That book I wrote technically when I was 15 years old. It was a book report in school. I know it's crazy. Um, and I've added to it over the years. So I only took it so far in school, I took it through, you know, ancient times, arrowheads, into early civilization, into the fur trade, into buckskins, into early Americans, and I took it through European times and really with like the dawn of modern weapons. And that's where I left it in high school. I picked it up when I did the 70 year old seven years ago. I picked it back up and I had added some sections to it. I added um uh history of uh archery because I didn't really get into that previously, so I added the whole modern, you know, from and I'm talking about from Leopold and Fred Bear and um Boone and Crockett and their backstories up through what they did for archery hunting into cam, single case. You know, I I brought the whole full history, and it's not a Bible, it's a short book, but I I did well compacting it in short chapters, good visuals. And so what you have is all that bow hunting history, and I stopped there. Well, last year I broke it out again because I realized I didn't have anything about crossbows, and that's a big thing. So added a chapter on crossbows, and then I added before it went to publish, I added one last chapter, which was the social media revolution and the devaluing of big books, and in the final conclusion chapter, basically get into how you know what a big book that used to make you famous and get you on the cover of a magazine today, um, doesn't even get 10 likes on its social media. And so um, and and how that's the technology revolution and how, you know, um Garmin and Onyx and some of these other technologies provided access to these deer and trail cameras and whatnot. And so I conclude with technology and social media, but I had to add crossbows, and so it's the full picture now. Of hunting history from Arrowheads to modern day. Um, that book also has a pretty big um demand. There's a lot of old people and young people both that like history. And so yeah, I've shared a few stories on my page. I the slaughter train and the books. That was a really good one. Yeah, that's and that's what I was actually bringing to. Literally, that's a page in that book.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:24

So yeah, I was gonna, I was that's actually one of the stories I was thinking thinking about. Um, and like I I think that was a big hit. That that was a such a fascinating read. I'm a big history guy, so that's another book that I I can't wait to get my I've got a third one.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:39

I've got a third one cooking for uh I'm hoping for next year. I hope it doesn't take another 10 years. Um, but I've got a I'm I'm working on a comic book for Hunting, which is gonna be cool. Yeah, it's gonna be.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:51

And you're you're listening for anybody who does not know him personally, this band is absolutely hilarious. So that's another thing that that I will be trying to keep very PG on here, you know. Oh, yeah, okay. See, yeah, yeah, Peach, yeah. Um, you know, but it it's it's it's such a cool thing, you know. I I I've talked to a few um people here who've who've done the books and everything like that. And you know, as you're going through the the the years in your writing, you know, for for you, is it is it was it frustrating? Like, so you how did how does it kind of work? Like, are you writing then do you have to you do you have like a um what's it called? Um, who also helps you write the or this is all strictly just all off of your words.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:41

Yeah, yeah. So let me preface by saying people think that killing big bucks is hard and learning jujitsu is hard, and they think like laying bricks is hard. Dude, the I I I grossly underestimated the um the scope of work for writing a book, let alone two. Um, I told you 10 years. That's not because I worked on it for 10 hours in 10 years. I mean, I'm talking hundreds and hundreds of hours on both. Um, it is a disgusting scope of work. I never knew that getting into it. All I wanted to do was leave a like. I so the history book was a book I wrote as a kid. I have a passion for Whitales, and I wanted to learn the full history and knowing the full history and some of the stories I've shared on my page, and I'll share some more as we get closer to promoting the book. Um, they're amazing, dude. Like it is crazy. Like the Wild West, some of the things that happened, like it is crazy. And so I love those stories. And so that was done out of passion. Then the the uh 70 rule book was done because of my system. I mean, I want to leave that behind for anybody who wants it. Um, I've worked hard at it, I've ran a lot of cameras for a really long time. I've meticulously documented thousands of videos, and um, I'm working really hard at it. So that one is more of like a leaving my my system in a clean, digestible format because it's really hard to do podcasts. And like even guys listening to this right now, they they maybe got 10% of what we talked about. And so when it's delivered to clean, digestible with like a table of contents that's like pop, pop, pop. It's like you know, one one page visuals, three-page chapters, it's like it's easy to digest. And so, um, but it was a lot of work. And so, what I would say is hundreds, if not thousands, of hours to write a book, and then on top of that, correct. So, Don, the the uh invention of AI, right? I have paid for a subscription to every single AI to see if it could proofread either book, and I was not able to proofread either book because there's a token limit on all of your AIs. I guess the new Google one now has a million token limits. So to make a long story short, um, there is no easy way out. And so, yeah, um both books I had to send to an actual editor, publisher editor that that does it. Um, that you know, that he does he's a private publisher, but they offer the service. And so it's also an expense, man. Like um, I think I have uh over five into both. I mean, the history book was$3,200 to have edited and set and put in like a six by nine format. Um, the other book, the 70 book is a little bit shorter, the 70 rule. So it was like$2,800 to have it put edited and put in a format. That's not published, that's upload ready for like Amazon and Kindle. Three grand.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:52

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:53

Okay, well, then it's like, well, you need a book cover. I'm like, okay, so that's not included. Nope. And so um, another 1800 for book covers. Uh so it's like so the scope of work is so immense, and then you're not even there, like you gotta have it proofed and you gotta have it reformatted for this or that, and maybe hardcover, but then you've got to have um your visuals embedded properly, and then you've got to have your book cover made. But if you try doing that stuff yourself, you've seen my post, it looks like a five-year-old made my videos, so I don't want to make my own book cover, you know what I mean? So, like, it's like it's so much work, dude. It's defeating, and that's really why it's taken years, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:42

I I can imagine once it's finally done, like the just the sign of relief, and just like it it must feel like it's been a especially now, especially with just today, the fact that the day that we're recording, it was supposed to be published, and now you're like, it's like I I want it to be done, I want this to to like and also to move to that next step of like you know, getting into people's hands. So because learning it, and like you said, and I love how you said this is learning it. Um people who do listen to the podcast and the website does it, does a phenomenal job. But for me, at least how I learn stuff is I actually have to see stuff visually. Usually I have to see it, like do it in person repetitively. But like when I am learning new stuff about just anything, but let's say hunting with this, like I would like to be able to read it, and then I actually take notes. I'm a big note taker and it helps me just remember everything that I'm doing. So then from there on out, once it's in here though, it's it's done. But the book is going to add to this whole what you said, it's going to help people actually put everything that we've been talking about into here, and not only that, you carry it with you and everything.

Where To Find Brandon And Closing

SPEAKER_00 1:12:56

So back to like, okay, you put all this work in, and then it's still gonna be three grand to set something up. That seems crazy. Like, what are they doing? They're embedding a few, you know, pictures on each chapter and they're reformatting it for you and making sure the page numbers don't look stupid. Okay, okay, yeah, well, that's a real service, but um, actually, what they're doing though, too, is they're bringing some professional insight to it. Like when they came back and they hit me with a table of contents that was like a checklist, I was like, oh, dude, like that that one thing just ties it together. Like, so paying for a professional service is what will make a professional product in the end. And so I'm hopeful for that. Um, I was going to add a blank page at the end of each chapter for notes, but um, instead, um I'm working on an app and a phone, an app for your phone, your smartphone app. So um that will just go hand in hand. You'll be able to take notes on the fly. Um, and while AI isn't at a place where it can help you, you know, edit a book yet, um, it is at a place where it can do coding. And so um, you know, a grand later and wasted on an app that never got published. Um here I am now in a place where um Grock may be able to help me with the coding portion, right? So um you so the app may be quicker to come than I anticipate. I don't want to make any promises on air, but of course that is actually looking pretty optimistic because I have someone working on it who's saying they can pretty much bring it across the finish line with AI, which is a recent development because a year ago that wasn't possible. The coding was just shit on like chat GPT and stuff. So um yeah, sure. But yeah, 70rule.com. Um reach out to me or the 70 rule or uh underscore brandon underscore barlow on Instagram, um or the hashtag the 70 rule, check that out, and uh shoot me a message if anybody wants a book. If you can't afford a book, I'm I'm happy to send you one. I also appreciate pre-orders when they happen, of course. But oh I'll send if you can't afford it.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:06

We are pumped for this. Um, everyone, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Everything, we are gonna put everything in the link below. If you have not already given him a follow or checked out the website, make sure you do below. I imagine now that since this is going to be once the book is published, season is probably gonna be already up and start. If you got any questions, like he said, please reach out to uh Brandon here and he will he'll get back to you right away. The guy is uh he's the man, you know. We love him here. Um, you know, we we we love talking to him all, you know, and everything like that. So we appreciate everything that you've done. Like I said, very, very excited for for both books to to come out.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:48

Um and let's let's regroup, let's regroup after Halloween. We'll both have a slot on the ground. I'll have books in hand. You'll probably have one on your desk. We can circle back and uh I love it. I'll use your platform to push my shit, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:03

I love it. I love it. I appreciate it, brother. We we you know, we we love the support and you know, just everybody that you know we've been running with and you know, talking to, you know, it it's it's we got a big group group here and you know we we enjoy each other. But um, everyone, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. And we'll see you guys next time.