Brian Slane hunts mature whitetail bucks in the Ozark Mountains with a system built around the wind and the thermals, and he has a whole wall of mounted Ozark bucks to show for it.

In this episode, recorded at Brian's house, Kyle Veit and Kyle Plunkett get into the tactics: how he reads the forecast, where he sets up on a rub line, why he watches for little spike bucks during the rut, how he handles scent on his approach, and how he still hunts a buck in its bed.

The full episode and transcript are below. Here's what you need to know first.

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For Brian, the forecast is the starting point for everything. Without it, he says he would be in the dark about where to hunt a new area, why a buck passed a certain camera, and when that buck will come back through the same rub line. He looks at wind speed and wind direction, and he watches for wind switches, which he finds more predictable for killing a mature buck than a thermal switch. He picks his spot from the map based on that forecast before he ever leaves the house.

Temperature doesn't factor in much. A wind swap from south to north means a cold front, but Brian says the thermals behave the same either way. Cold mostly means he dresses warmer.

Brian doesn't use them. He has never looked at the moon phase predictions on the deer apps and has no desire to. He isn't saying they don't work, and if other hunters are having success with them, he says they could fold them into their own system. For him, it's the weather.

Brian has noticed a change over the last five or six years on government land. With more hunters out scouting and moving around, he has seen deer respond by hiding more and moving to the back sides of things. That's another reason he picks spots based on the conditions each day.

Brian walked through a morning on a property he has never hunted. With a south wind on a north-face slope, he goes down the winded side of the hill, waits for the thermals to change, then sneaks over the hill. That puts him in place around 9:30 or 10 a.m., about the time he hears the gunshots stop and most hunters are climbing down.

Once he's there, he finds the rub line, uses the wind speed to judge how far down it to go, and gets up above the vortex, in the predicted wind. That leaves airspace between him and the deer. He hunts it the same way with a gun or a bow. Being above the deer lets him pass a lot of bucks while he waits for a mature one.

Usually not, in Brian's case. He loves to rattle, but on the ground, where it's more realistic. Many of the mature bucks he and others have killed on rub lines were traveling alone. His read is that a buck like that is moving position because the thermal switched, not looking for company, so he doesn't rattle in that situation. Kyle Plunkett pointed out it may make more sense over an obvious food source during peak chasing with does around.

Before he heads to a stand during the rut, Brian often watches the edge of a big woods or a field early in the morning, or drives county roads where he knows a setup exists. He's looking for a spike, four-pointer, or six-pointer leaving a spot.

His reasoning: a mature buck wants a doe to himself. He'll push her as far as he can into a spot where she's downwind of everything, whether that's a corner by a four-lane highway or the middle of a big open field. Brian doesn't think the buck is avoiding people. He thinks the buck is avoiding competition. The little buck leaving that spot has usually just been run off.

When he spots one, Brian glasses it and waits to see if it looks back. If it does, nine times out of 10 the other buck is there. He has killed two bucks this way. One was an 11-pointer he killed at age 26, bedded with a doe in a cow pasture that ran up a valley all the way into Arkansas. Brian saw the setup, went to work, came back, and the buck was still there. On another, he walked up a ditch and threw rocks until the doe stood up, then the buck stood up and he killed it.

His takeaway for the rut: every deer matters. Little bucks want to breed too, so don't dismiss one as "just a six-pointer."

Brian thinks this pattern may be what hunters call lockdown. Kyle Plunkett described it the way most hunters see it: around November 9th, the little bucks are running around and the big deer you've been seeing seem to disappear. Brian's answer is that they're somewhere safe with a doe.

It depends on whether he's coming back. If Brian is never going back to a spot, he doesn't use any cover scent and doesn't worry much about it. If he is going back to that tree stand, he gets deliberate:

Brian started making it around 2000. He felt bucks weren't showing up on his cameras in daylight because he kept going in after them, and he believed the problem was mostly his feet. The scents match where you hunt: walnut, cedar, oak, corn, and soybeans. He killed a deer a week before recording using the corn scent in a corn field, at 15 yards, on the ground. He won't say how he makes it.

Brian puts a stand on the north side and the south side of a ridge on the same rub line, so he can hunt the predominant wind either way. Knowing which side of the hill a mature buck is on tells him how to get in. Kyle Plunkett noted that in deep Ozark hills and hollers, "both sides" means opposite mountainsides, not two stands 50 yards apart on a field edge. Hunters who go mobile with climbing sticks and a saddle can use the same idea to pick which side of the hill to set up on.

Brian also called the classic "get the wind in your face" advice almost backwards for his style. He says it may not be a bad idea on a rut hunt, since does can go anywhere. But for him, the side of the hill with the wind in his face is his walking side when still hunting, because he knows the buck won't be there.

Brian still hunts because he enjoys the challenge. He calls it one of the biggest challenges in hunting, and says the hardest part is finding the buck. A few of his rules:

He told one story about taking his son into a spot where he had once had a 10-pointer of about 160 inches at 12 to 15 yards and didn't shoot because it was too thick. They waited on the back side of the hill, and at about nine o'clock they still hadn't started to hunt. Within 10 yards of starting, his son said, "Dad, here he comes." Covering those 10 yards took about 20 minutes, and Brian says that was fast for him.

Brian looks for preferred bedding, usually at the end of a point, just below the vortex, where the wind wraps around the buck. When he kills a buck in one of those spots, he often goes back to still hunt it, because another buck will usually use it. On one hunt, a buck bedded in a fallen walnut treetop let him get within about 90 yards, even after Brian glassed the treetop 15 times without spotting its antlers.

He says bucks are bedded about 90% of the day, though they may move 100 to 200 yards or more. Not every preferred bed holds a big one. On repeated still hunts, he has often found no mature buck there, or a buck around 115 inches.

Kyle Plunkett shared a tip he picked up for knowing where to start: think about where you jump deer in the middle of the day when you're walking out from your stand. That's likely bedding.

Somewhere in the middle. If Brian is too close to bedding, it takes the buck that much longer to reach him after the thermal switches. If he's too close to where the deer feed, such as a bottom or an area with a high horizontal twig count, that's no good either.

He also says not to be scared of a spot where you've never seen a deer. If there's a rub line through it, that may mean you can get in safely. Rubs along a line can be 30 yards apart, and the rubs usually get bigger closer to a buck's bed. Brian marks those, often finding them during turkey season, and plans to come back for that buck.

When asked what they hadn't covered, Brian came back to pressure. Going in time and time again makes it harder than it needs to be, and cell cameras mean you don't have to. His advice is to place them as far from the situation as you can while still keeping the deer on your radar, especially for a target buck, then trust what they show you. A core buck is prone to doing exactly the same thing on the same wind, and Brian has predicted it more than once. For another look at scouting tools, see What place do drones have in deer hunting?.

He also doesn't buddy hunt his own areas. When he takes someone else, he leaves his gun and bow in the truck. He once mapped out a stand location for a young hunter drawn for a bow hunt at School of the Ozarks, using only a map, and the hunter saw a 160-class buck from that stand.

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This transcript is lightly edited for readability. Filler words and crosstalk have been trimmed.

Kyle Veit: Welcome back to the Ozark Podcast. I'm your host, Kyle Veit, joined as always by co-host of the show and my good buddy, Kyle Plunkett.

Kyle Plunkett: Yes, sir. What's going on, man? We're back, week two, of all things, deer hunting. And if you're listening to this one, which I guess you are since you're hearing our voice, we are right in the money when it comes to the time to be in the woods. So we tried to get this one to y'all.

Kyle Veit: We're back with Brian Slane on this episode, and if you joined us last week, you know this guy knows what he's talking about. What we did last week was we touched on how Brian predicted the day that he was gonna kill this 150-inch deer. And not just that one. He's done that a couple times, and he's got a whole wall of big mature Ozark deer to prove he knows what he's doing. So we unpacked his system on the last one. Now, as we pick up this episode, we're gonna be diving into how you capitalize on that system: the fundamentals, the tactics and the strategies that you employ when you're out there in the woods. So let me just ask you this. What is the number one thing that people can do, or should know, to get that mature buck in range to harvest?

Brian Slane: You have to look at the forecast. The weather forecast is key. If I don't know that weather and what it's gonna do that day, I'll just be in the dark. I'm not gonna ever figure out where to even hunt on a new area. And I'm sure not gonna be able to understand why that buck went through that camera, and predict where he's gonna go through the next time he goes through that same site on that same rub line. I have to know the weather. The weather is very key. The forecast is very key. Look for wind switches. They seem to be more predictable on killing a mature buck than a thermal switch, to me. That's what it seems to be when I've killed them, or when I take somebody to kill them.

Kyle Plunkett: So what the weather's doing, that's your starting point.

Brian Slane: The weather is very much the starting point.

Kyle Plunkett: Okay. Can I lob a potentially controversial question at you?

Brian Slane: Yes.

Kyle Plunkett: Here we go. Moon phases. You'll hear people swear by them, with the same degree of "I swear by my system" as you would a wind vortex or a thermal wind switch or something like that. Do you factor that in?

Brian Slane: No.

Kyle Plunkett: Okay. Just that simple.

Brian Slane: I don't. And that's on the apps, that's on the Moultrie apps, that's on the deer predictors. I'm sure they do. I've never looked at one. I have no desire to, and I'm not saying they don't work. People are doing that and they're being successful. There's more than one way to kill a buck. So if they're having success at that, maybe it's something they might use in their system. I want to be open-minded about that for sure and not say that it don't work. Because if it does, it sure does, and maybe this might help them as well. They can say, "Well, my moon phase has already told me that this is when they're gonna move, and this is when it's gonna be a weather switch, and I know where a rub line is." Capitalize, maximize. But for me, it's the weather. That's what I'm looking for. I need to know how to hunt that day. That next day.

Kyle Veit: I'm assuming the answer's gonna be yes, but you'll actually pick spots based on the weather? You're probably not gonna hunt here if you don't have the right weather. You're gonna hunt a different place?

Brian Slane: Yes. I can bounce around. I can look at my map. I set that up before I ever leave the house. Especially on a government hunt, where there's pressure from hunters, especially in gun season. Even sometimes in bow season. What I have noticed more so in the last five, six years when I government hunt is, the closer I get with a bow to gun season, them guys are out there scouting and doing more than what a gun hunter does, almost. They're traveling more than a gun hunter will. And I've seen the deer actually change a little bit and hide more, go on the back sides of things, and sometimes even show up more on certain cameras. So it can help you just as much.

Kyle Veit: So you're looking at the weather. You're looking at wind speed, you're looking at wind direction, you're looking at temperatures. Is temperature a big factor for you? I know in your system you didn't really mention a whole lot about cold fronts or anything like that.

Brian Slane: No. Well, obviously when it swaps around from south to north, that's a cold front. And sometimes that's a flash. It just comes around like that and goes right back. But no, temperature doesn't matter. Thermals still do the same. It doesn't change anything on a thermal switch. I don't guess I've ever really thought about that. It just maybe makes me dress warmer.

Kyle Plunkett: So your system really is: the thermals or the wind are changing, and that's what you're looking for. It keeps it simple, and you figured it out.

Brian Slane: Find that vortex and hunt that vortex.

Kyle Plunkett: Makes sense. Let's talk stand placement then. So you start with the weather. Let's pretend you've woken up. It's a Saturday morning. It's before daylight, because you're not gonna get out there before daylight, apparently.

Brian Slane: No, that is not gonna happen.

Kyle Plunkett: And you're checking the weather on your phone, looking at the weather app, whatever. Walk me through your next, let's call it, seven hours.

Brian Slane: And let's just say I've never been to this place.

Kyle Plunkett: Yeah, I like that. Never been.

Brian Slane: Okay. So I'm going to obviously map it out. Say I know the wind's gonna be a south wind on a north-face slope that day. I'm probably gonna go down that side of the hill, on the winded side, and wait for the thermals to change. I'm gonna sneak over the hill as it goes, and I'm gonna guess it's gonna be 9:30, 10 o'clock before I get to where I'm going.

Kyle Veit: That's so late. I'm like, everybody's going home. What are you doing? That's when most people are thinking about hopping down.

Brian Slane: I know. I get it. I totally understand. I even hear the gunshots stop. It's kind of crazy. That's a fact. So I'm gonna find where I see the rub line is. I know the miles per hour, how far down on the rub line I probably need to go. And let's just say I've got a gun in my hand. I'm gonna probably get where I can see a little bit, and I'm gonna go higher than the wind. I'm still gonna hunt it just like I would with a bow. I'm gonna get up in the predominant wind, the predicted wind that day. Let's just say it's a south wind. So I'm gonna get up in that predicted wind and let that airspace be between me and that deer. That way you can let multiple deer go by. There's more to it than just getting in place for that deer. If you're wanting to shoot a mature buck, or even a big-horned buck, sometimes you have to let a lot of them go. I don't know how many bucks I pass up. So that's what I'm gonna do on a stand placement day. Get up on the wind like that, above the vortex, on a rub line.

Kyle Plunkett: And if you're on government land or public land, a place you're maybe going into for the first time with a gun on a day like that, I might be wrong, but is there a good chance you're bringing your rattling antlers? You're making racket, you're moving around?

Brian Slane: I will move. I will take my rattling horns. But a lot of times when I hunt these rub lines, I do not rattle. I love to rattle on the ground. It's more realistic. I have killed them out of a tree, but that's really not what I do. The reason that I don't is because a lot of these bucks that you're looking at behind me, and other ones that other people have killed, have been alone. He's traveling alone. So I'm wondering if he's actually wanting to be around somebody, or if he's just moving position. The thermal quit, and it's time to move, and he wants to go somewhere else. So that's kind of what I think, but I don't know. I'm not saying don't rattle or do rattle, but I don't know that I would in that situation.

Kyle Plunkett: You might if you're over an obvious food source, there's been a bunch of does around, it's the peak chasing time of the rut, and you're just trying to create something to happen.

Brian Slane: Yes. But here's what's interesting about these hunts. You can go out and watch a field in the morning, and this is what I actually do. You're asking me about when I leave and go to the tree stand, stand placement. Before that, normally I go and watch the edge of a big woods, or open woods, let's say, or a field edge. And what I'm looking for, this is gonna crack you up. That buck right there is one of the ones that came from this method. What I'm trying to find is that little bitty spike, or four-pointer, or six-pointer early in the morning, leaving a spot, a woodlot, something. That's what I'm looking for. He's leaving that because, early in the morning, what happens is the bucks will chase the does around, and what he's trying to do... Can you see this right here? Can everybody on YouTube see this part right here?

Kyle Veit: Yeah, they can see it.

Brian Slane: Perfect. So let me show you exactly what I'm looking for on a rut hunt when you've been going to your tree stand and you've not been seeing any deer. I used to do this. I'd not be seeing anything around that little scrape and them rubs and this and that, yada, yada, yada. This is what I look for today. I am looking for that little buck that's leaving. We're gonna call this a fence row.

Kyle Plunkett: Okay.

Brian Slane: This is a road. And this is gonna be a big, big woods right here.

Kyle Plunkett: Open? Not very thick?

Brian Slane: Right. Kind of. This is a big woods on this side of the fence row. And we're gonna call this a road, and this over here on this side of it is huge. It's a quarter to a half mile of nothing but openness. And the wind is this way. So it's a setup. I do this at night. I do this in the evening time. I'm like, here's the wind, it's gonna be this in the morning. The bucks are sharp, man. They're sharp. They know exactly how to set these does up. He's gonna go down this as far as he can. I don't care if it's a four-lane highway. It doesn't matter to him. What he's trying to do is get her downwind of everything. If anything was coming this way, it would be a miracle for it to find this doe. He don't want no competition. So what I'm doing, and I'm guilty of this, is I drive around. I drive some of these county roads where I know these setups are, and I'm looking for that little spike, that little four-pointer. He's leaving that situation, and he's gonna get where he can see. I've killed two of them like this, exactly like this. I seen him do this setup, and I went to work and came back and killed the deer. I had to go to work. And I remember one time I said, "Well, I just don't think he's gonna get up, 'cause he don't want no other bucks finding her." I kept saying this, and at this time I was 26 years old. I said, "He won't get up. He'll still be there." And he was an 11-point buck, and I killed him. He was in a cow pasture, and it was a valley that ran up the hill like this, and the far end of it went all the way into Arkansas. It was a big field. It just kept going. And that deer, there was no other buck that could have found them. That's what they're doing. Everybody's probably seen a buck take a doe out in the middle of a field and lay her down. I don't think it's got anything to do with people. I think we think it's people that they're scared of and running from. But I think truly he just don't want any competition. He's tired of having to fight these bucks off. He wants her to himself. So what I'm saying is, during the rut, look for these little bucks. They matter. They mean something. They're not there for no reason. Every one of them wants to breed. I don't care if he's a spike. And they actually will breed. So don't dismiss that as being just a six-pointer.

Kyle Plunkett: So if you're sitting there looking at, let's call it big open woods, and a little four-point buck is there in the morning and he starts going away from somewhere, what is happening in your head, and what's your next step?

Brian Slane: What's happening in my head is, typically, I glass that dude. I'm looking him over like everything. And I'm looking to see if he'll ever look back. If he looks back, nine times out of 10, that other buck is standing there. I saw this last year, actually. With that 150, I actually had a nine-pointer with a doe laying right beside me, and he actually saw me belly crawling. This deer had it made. There was probably no other buck ever gonna find this doe. He put her right next to the road, in this little corner. He was as safe as could be, with cars driving by him. When he saw me, he took off running. But that's the scenario I'm looking at.

Kyle Plunkett: So if he's looking back, you're gonna be looking back to where he was looking. There's some wisdom in maybe heading toward the direction the small bucks are coming from during the rut to find the big bucks, because they're keeping those does pinned up.

Brian Slane: And I think that's what everybody calls lockdown. Maybe they don't understand what it is, and maybe I don't either. I'm wondering if that ain't what people are naming lockdown. I've killed two of them like this, and it was all day long. On one of them, I walked up the ditch and sat there throwing rocks until the doe stood up, and then he stood up and I killed him.

Kyle Plunkett: That sounds like what people are calling lockdown. Little bucks are running around. The big bucks are nowhere to be seen. It's November 9th or whatever, and you're like, where did the big deer I've been seeing go? They're somewhere safe with a doe.

Brian Slane: Yep. But know that she's making tracks on the ground, and know that they all want to breed. I think that's very key to know. When it's the rut, every deer matters. Every horned deer matters.

Kyle Veit: Next on the list is the approach. What is this for you? Is this your approach into the spot? Is this how you cover your scent?

Brian Slane: If I'm never going back, I don't use any kind of cover-up scent. Sometimes in a thermal hunt I don't, and sometimes in a vortex hunt or a wind switch, I don't really mess with it as much. If I'm never going back, I'm not worried about it, 'cause nine times out of 10 you're probably safe. But you can do things to prevent it. If I'm going back to that tree stand, my approach is gonna be different. I have my boots in bags. They've never touched a truck a day in their life. They've been in a bag wrapped with leaves and stuff like this. That's gonna be my approach for that day. I'm very deliberate about my scent control on that. I take this stuff that we make, and I definitely cover my tracks.

Kyle Veit: You can tell us what you use. Go for it. What's the name of your stuff?

Brian Slane: It's called Sense of Surroundings.

Kyle Veit: Sense of Surroundings. And what is it, and why did you make it?

Brian Slane: So back in 2000, I was kind of tired of it. You couldn't go in and back out without them knowing, 'cause when the lights go out, bucks go everywhere. I felt like they were not daylighting on my cameras because I was going in there after them. They were scared, so they just wouldn't go near during the daylight. So I wanted everything I could to protect my feet. It seemed like it was my feet, my feet, my feet. I wanted something to try to offset the scent that we pack around as humans. So I make this stuff, and I call it Sense of Surroundings. It's just like what you would think: the scent of your surroundings, or his surroundings. Where are you gonna hunt? We make it for walnut, cedar, oak, corn, soybeans, wherever you want to hunt. I killed a deer just a week ago using corn in a corn field, at 15 yards, on the ground.

Kyle Veit: On the ground. You were on the ground.

Brian Slane: So this is very powerful. It's a process that I do, and it's a product that we make. And I think I told you, you're not gonna get me to tell you how I make it. I told him, I said, "Hey, look, if we were on a spaceship going to Pluto, and Elon Musk paid for the ticket, and it was a one-way ticket, and we got halfway, I still wouldn't tell you."

Kyle Plunkett: So your approach on government land or public land, when you're covering ground and hunting new stuff, no big deal. But if you're going to a stand that you hunt year after year, or a core area, you are trying your best.

Brian Slane: Oh, yes. I'm doing everything I can. I approach totally differently. I get there and I strip off my clothes. You've heard of people doing this. I'm that guy. When it comes to my tree stands, I put a tree stand on each side of the ridge so I can hunt a north or a south wind. I think I got into that a little bit last time, hunting the predominant wind. So I do a north and a south tree stand on the rub line. You've got to know what that does to your approach. On a mature buck, you know he's not over there. He's gonna be on the other side of the hill. So you know how you can get in there. It's kind of strange in my head, 'cause I'm going underneath a tree stand that I may have just shot a deer out of, and I'm looking up thinking, I'm going across this ridge when this thermal gets right. But I'm gonna hunt the other side.

Kyle Plunkett: And that's why your stand placement matters. I used to hear "stands on other sides of a rub line," and I would think those stands might be 50 yards apart because of how the wind might play. And it could be, but it's really about what the wind and thermals are doing on different mountainsides. We hunt deep, deep hills and hollers around here in the Ozarks, so you really need a north side and a south side. That's what they mean by the right wind for the hunt, rather than "I have a field, and I have a stand on this side of the field and that side of the field." It could be that, I'm not saying it couldn't, but I'm glad that's finally clicking in my head. I don't hang stands that live there. I go pretty mobile, with sticks and a saddle. So I don't think about that as much. It's easy just to go to one side of the hill and do it. But that helps me think about where I'm hanging my saddle for my approach on that day, because now I'm educated on the vortex and the windward side.

Brian Slane: You were probably taught almost backwards. You were probably taught, "Go down there and get the wind in your face." And honestly, on a rut hunt, that might not be a bad idea. You don't want to tip off the does, because on a rut hunt, a doe is likely to go who knows where. Chaos happens, and they do some crazy things. So in a sense, sometimes hunting with the wind in your favor might work. But I can't even fathom looking down that side with the wind hitting me in the face. I'd have a hard time with that, because I don't do that. That's my walking safety zone. When I'm still hunting, that's how I'm going to approach, 'cause I know he's not there. He wouldn't want to be on that side of the hill.

Kyle Veit: Let me ask you that. You've mentioned this, and I know we were talking about it before we started recording. How do you know when you should still hunt versus when you should go sit in a tree?

Brian Slane: I just really enjoy still hunting. It's a challenge. It's probably one of the biggest challenges, next to shooting a turkey with no blind. It's a super challenge to go still hunt a buck. In reality, the hardest part of the still hunt, versus the stalk, is finding him. Your hands are free, and it's one step at a time. I like it better when it's totally dry as a bone. I know that sounds really backwards, but I need to hear something walking. I'd rather still hunt when he's on his bed. I don't want him to have to get up. I've actually watched him stand up, lay back down, stand up, lay back down, move 30 feet. That buck right there that I shot, I watched him lay down, I believe, three times. One of the times he was out of my vision, but I got up closer, and he laid back down in front of me again. And I've seen that more than once. Can I tell this little story?

Kyle Veit: Of course. We love stories.

Brian Slane: So I took my son. There's a spot where this buck wants to see out into this big open flat. It's a wall, you know, but I know that they climb up this thing. I'd even show you on a map. I let people hunt wherever I hunt. I don't care. That doesn't mean nothing to me. I'll go somewhere else. I had still hunted a buck there once before. He was about a 160 or so, a really good 10-pointer, and he got 12, 15 yards from me. You'd think I would've killed him. I had a gun in my hand. This deer is 15 yards from me, standing on the other side of these cedars. I just couldn't shoot him. I never felt like I was gonna kill that deer. It was so thick. So I did not shoot. But I took my son in there, and we did this very same thing. We sat there and waited on the backside of this to go over the top. And he's like, "What's it like now?" This was at nine o'clock, and we hadn't even started to hunt. We were still on the backside. I said, "Let's go." And literally within 10 yards, he goes, "Dad, here he comes."

Kyle Veit: No way.

Brian Slane: Yeah. Sure enough. So that's how it is on a still hunt deal. That was getting there too quick. That was at 10, 10:30, and it took us probably 20 minutes or so, maybe a little longer, to move that 10 yards. That's not how I normally do it.

Kyle Plunkett: That slow pace.

Brian Slane: It is slow. Normally it's even slower than that, actually. When I still hunt, it's every step. I usually wiggle my foot into position. I've actually seen the deer sitting there watching, and I'm looking at him and moving my foot into position to see if he can hear me, hoping he thinks that's a squirrel.

Kyle Plunkett: Where are you starting on a still hunt? Because I feel like you normally have to cover ground before you're into them, and then you're hunting. How does that work?

Brian Slane: When I actually do a still hunt, I look for the preferred bedding. It's usually on a point, the preferred buck bed, and he'll be just below the vortex, somewhere right in there at the end of that point. And typically he has the wind rolling to him, a direct wind over the top of his back. He's got it all the way around him when that wind wraps around there and comes up through. So you've got to go in on his vision side, which is usually off to the side like that. I still hunted a buck last year. I killed that 10-pointer over there, the one on the left. I killed him in that spot, and I went back to go still hunt, 'cause usually there'll be another buck there. It's preferred bedding. It's a hundred percent perfect for a buck to be there. And you can't hardly get close unless he can see you. If you do it right, you go in on his vision side. That's what everybody says: he protects his backside with his nose, and he's wanting to see. So you're going in his vision. This time I went over to this walnut treetop. It had fallen out of a tree and was hanging over like this. I glassed this thing 15 times, looking into it, and did not see this buck's horns. Normally I would. Not knowing where this deer was, it would've been different if I knew he was there. But he let me get about 90 yards from him, and he had plenty of time. He probably saw me. I'm approaching this other thing thinking that's where I need to be, and he was hidden in the open part of the woods, in that treetop.

Kyle Veit: He felt safe.

Brian Slane: He felt very safe. He could have smelled some off the side, but it wouldn't have been much. If you looked at it on my maps, I had it dotted out. Where he was actually at was perfectly in line with the vortex from an east wind, not a north wind.

Kyle Plunkett: I'm not a good still hunter. I want to get better at it. I was talking to somebody about it the other day, and I was asking, "How do you even know where to start?" And they were like, "Well, when you're getting out of your tree stand and you're tromping back to the cabin or wherever, where do you jump up deer?" And I automatically started thinking about five or six different spots. And they were like, "Yeah, you'd start about there." Sneak up to those spots, because it's the middle of the day. There were no deer, and then all of a sudden they're standing up and running from you. That's probably where they're gonna be. That seems to be preferred bedding. I just needed somebody to tell me. So simple. I should've thought about that.

Kyle Veit: When you think about preferred bedding, are mature bucks always going to bed in preferred bedding? And will you have immature bucks bedding in other places?

Brian Slane: I think it matters if there's something there. You guys see this on your trail cameras on these rub lines in the morning time, and I see this as well. When I see these bucks go through, one of them is going to the perfect spot. He don't have to look hard. I've done these still hunts two a day, five and six days in a row, and a lot of times I go to it and there's not a mature buck in there. Or if he is, he's not got very big horns, let's just say that. He's more of a 115-inch buck or something of that nature. So I'm not really sure. I don't know if it's that the numbers are not there, or that the caliber of that buck, even though he's older, may not be as big. And a lot of times I stop and just don't shoot, don't do nothing, turn around and walk out. I've actually just kept going straight at them before, so close. But once you start really stomping, they're done.

Kyle Veit: That's one of the things we've pondered and strategized about in our minds: bedding in the Ozarks. It feels really obvious in certain places, but in a lot of the Ozarks, it's so monotonous. It's hardwoods, it's just rolling hills. Everything starts to look the same. Bluff lines and stuff. How would you even start to pick out pieces and parts and say, "This is bedding"? Are you so convinced that this would be bedding? Dialing that in still feels like a challenge for me, just finding those places.

Brian Slane: It's kind of crazy, 'cause that's where he's at 90% of the day, pretty much. I'm not saying all the time, but most of the time they're bedding. They're definitely laying down somewhere. They may move a hundred yards, 200 yards, or even more that day, but they're definitely laying down.

Kyle Plunkett: Brian, let me ask you this, from a tactical standpoint of how you go get that mature, big old Ozark whitetail buck. What have we not covered? What have we missed? We've covered a whole lot.

Brian Slane: What have we missed on killing that big mature buck? Like, with the gun?

Kyle Plunkett: Oh, no, sorry. From a hunter's perspective, what have we not yet covered in conversation? Not if you've missed the deer.

Brian Slane: Oh, yeah. My bad. I think you've got to keep that buck daylighting. If I go out there and I don't take care of my boots, or I keep going out there messing these deer up in the area I'm hunting, I think that's the hardest. You make it harder on yourself than it really is by going there time and time again, and these cell cameras have relieved you from having to do that. Trust what you're seeing on your cell cameras. Use that information, and try to set your cell cams as far away from that situation as you possibly think you can and still have that deer on your radar, especially for a target buck. And sometimes you're not right. You may be wrong. I tried to walk on water the other day, and it didn't work. But use the information you're getting from your cell cam, and trust that he is going to do this again in that wind at some point. Especially a core buck, if you've got a core buck in that area. I drew out some scribbles, and they do it. They're very prone to do exactly the same thing on the same wind. I predicted it. I've done it more than once. Keep the faith. That's what I would say.

Kyle Plunkett: Don't go in there and mess stuff up unnecessarily. Play the system.

Brian Slane: Don't make it harder than what it already is. And if you talk to anybody, in the areas that I personally go to myself, I do not hunt with another person. I don't say, "Hey, you want to go hunt down here?" I don't even like it when somebody else is going into that situation, going in there cutting wood or stuff like that. These things can change the system. So I just don't buddy hunt. If I'm gonna buddy hunt, I'm leaving my bow in the truck. I'm leaving my gun in the truck. Every person that's probably watching this will tell you the very same thing: Brian won't take his gun. Brian won't take his bow. He's gonna take you hunting to kill you a deer. That's how I do it. The youth and stuff like that.

Kyle Veit: That's cool. And I remember you talking about that. Is that why you started dialing this in? You didn't want to just take people on random hunts and hope you kill a deer. You actually wanted to get people into it.

Brian Slane: Yeah. Every person that I've ever taken out there, I show them exactly what I'm doing. I've had other hunters point out, "Hey, I'm gonna hunt this." I remember one kid, his name's Tanner Patton.

Kyle Veit: Okay.

Brian Slane: He wanted me to map out School of the Ozarks for him.

Kyle Veit: This is Cam's cousin?

Brian Slane: Yes. Good kid. Really good kid. Smarter than me. He was at School of the Ozarks and got to do the draw for the bow hunt. And I mapped it all out for him without even going there. He had a tree stand there, and I had him put his tree stand in a certain spot. What I got back from that was he saw a 160 out of that tree stand.

Kyle Plunkett: Just from looking at a map.

Brian Slane: And it was based upon predictability of how a deer is gonna travel with that wind. I could pull that map up and show it to you on my TV, 'cause I don't care if anybody sees anything that I have on my onX. It doesn't matter to me. I made it to where he could see the north lines, the lines of a north wind, just like what I showed you, so he could see where they're gonna travel, and I made it as simple as I can for him. Other hunters have done this very same thing. You'll get to where you can do this. I learned this as I kept finding rubs. It didn't matter if there was a four-wheeler trail there, or a road up to the head of a holler. None of that mattered, because it was the predictability of the wind going over the hill, creating that vortex, that allowed that deer to travel safely. I learned over time that I could hunt that and get up above that vortex with a rub line underneath me and kill big bucks, or see big bucks, or see the mature bucks. And like I said, I'm not perfect. Sometimes I get too far away from the bedding area, and that's not good. The reason I say that is because when that thermal switches over, you've got a little bit of a timeframe there. It takes him a while to travel up that hill and get into the right spot. If you're too close to bedding, that's just that much longer. But if you're too close to where they're feeding, let's say in that bottom, or he's going into a high horizontal twig count area, I think that's not good either. So the middle of the road. And you've heard people say this: "I ain't never seen a buck there, and I killed that thing," or "I ain't never seen a buck there and seen a buck cross." Don't be scared of that, where there's nothing happening ever. You didn't visually see deer going through there. That's okay. Because then you know that you can get into it safely, especially if you know there's rub lines in there. Especially in the woods.

Kyle Plunkett: I think that's what separates a good mountain hunter from just a good deer hunter. Knowing how the thermals work with the hills and hollers. Knowing what the wind's gonna do, where they want to be and where they're not gonna be. Knowing that they're gonna treat big woods like a field, especially a big mature buck. You could be in a big, beautiful canopied forest, and it's gorgeous, but it's gonna be the edges they want to be in. You're watching for the small bucks and where they go. I'm just trying to recap. It's helping put pieces together for me, and hopefully for all the listeners, as to how you hunt deer in the Ozarks and why it's different than South Dakota, where it's just huge and open and you can see for a mile and a half with a spotting scope and sneak up on them. It's kind of an up-tight, in-your-face, anything-can-happen-at-any-moment style of hunting that we have around here. And whether you're doing it intentionally and you're really thoughtful about it, or you've grown up hunting here and just happened into it because you know certain spots work for deer, these are necessary components to becoming a much better deer hunter. There are spots I can think of where, now that we've covered all this in the last two episodes, I'm thinking, "Well, duh. That's why that spot works." That makes so much sense. Before, I would've just told you it's a good buck spot. They just always show up there. There's a spot where the two biggest deer I've ever killed died in the same area, two years apart. One was early October and one was early November. But it makes sense now why that spot is good.

Brian Slane: What I have noticed, and you see me mark it on the grid, is that sometimes the rubs are a long ways apart on these rub lines. They just are. There'll be a gap of 30 yards sometimes, and sometimes not. You look down the hill and there's a little bitty one, and it doesn't matter. I don't care if it's as big as that or as big as that, I'm looking at it. Them bucks are going through, they're smelling each other and they're rubbing. That's just what they're doing. And closer to the bed, you'll usually start seeing a bigger rub. Everybody sees that. When you get near a buck's bed, there's usually a rub right there. And I mark those. A lot of those I find during turkey season. I mark those, and I'm thinking, "I'm gonna go back here and kill that buck out of his bed." That's just what I do. Sometimes it's off a little ways. I don't know if it's ever been right on it. I often wonder if that's got something to do with the leaf cover, the canopy being on, and when gun season gets here, everything's shedding. I don't normally still hunt with my bow. But I took my son one time, and I was like, "Stick your finger in my belt loop. We're gonna go kill a deer." He's like, "Yeah, right, Dad." He had to stay really close to me like this, and I'm glassing. I can show you my glasses. They're really bad. All these little marks on them are from still hunting, from glassing, throwing my binoculars up.

Kyle Veit: You just put some miles on those.

Brian Slane: So we got up there, and I said, "There it is right there, Bubs," and showed him. He's like, "Yeah, now what?" And we had like 70 yards to go. That's a long ways for two people. I was like, "We've gotta get it done." We just kept going and going. And there were some does bedded on the side of the hill. I said, "You ready? She's gonna stand up here in just a second." And I remember drawing my bow back and shooting, killing it and eating it.

Kyle Plunkett: That's great, man. That's awesome.

Brian Slane: It was very rare for me to do one with a bow, though.

Kyle Veit: That's hard to do. Well, Brian, man, I can't thank you enough for opening up the doors of your house, the doors of your brain, the pages of your notebook, as you've pieced all this together over years and years of hunting. Thank you for being generous enough to give away this information to help people get into hunting, learn how to hunt better, and be a more successful Ozark Mountain buck hunter. So we appreciate you, man.

Brian Slane: That's what I want.

Kyle Plunkett: Everybody else, thanks for listening. We hope you're having a successful hunt. We hope you're hunting with some good friends, or maybe getting some really good time solo in the woods, a little mental and heart reset out in the cool weather with a gun or a bow. Send this one to a buddy who needs some help killing a big old deer. And if you're that buddy who needs help killing a big old deer, listen to it again. We covered a lot. Make sure you digest it all, try to take a few key points away, and see what you can do with it. So Brian, really appreciate it.

Brian Slane: Thanks, guys. I appreciate that.

Kyle Plunkett: We'll see you all in the next one.