#419 - Hunting Less = More Bucks? The Biggest Lesson 40 Years Of Bowhunting Taught Dan Perez

In this episode of the Y-tailed Podcast, we're talking to Dan Perez, co-founder of Y-tailed Properties. If you hunt and your only goal is to kill that giant animal, and the second he hits the ground you've got a tape measure out, you'll be disappointed very often, and you won't hunt your entire life.

This week we are discussing what decades of hunting mature bucks has taught him about pressure, excess land management, and why less is often more. Philosophy that less is more is important to me, harvesting a particular animal that you've gotten to know pretty well and he is and you hope that he doesn't get to know

you pretty well. This is far better than hunting and hunting and hunting and hunting. If you're serious about becoming a better dear hunter, this episode is packed full of wisdom. Dan has been in Blue Aquire over decades of experience. Let's get into it. Dan, welcome to the White Tail podcast. How's it going?

It's going well. How you doing, Jake? It's going great. We just finished recording an episode for the Land Podcast where we talk about all the wisdom you've gathered over the years from your walk of life with land and real estate and your insights. And I really appreciate that.

And hopefully everyone tunes into that. But this is about whitetail hunting. And we were just saying, you're like, man, I'm fired up. Talk about whitetail hunting.

So it's June. And people are getting more and more excited every single day as season approaches. You're down in Florida.

Do you ever have the hankering to like, man, I need to get back to Illinois and just feel the Midwest and feel the whitetail Midwest air? Yeah, you know what's funny about that is I am in the Midwest.

I go back to the office, the corporate office, every second month, I'll probably there almost, yeah, almost every month once, you know? But I'll spend, we'll spend a week there every two months,

meetings, orientations and all that kind of stuff. And I get out in the woods every time I do, I'll set cameras, I'll do everything just like I was still there.

You know, that's what us conversation and discussion and my wife and I had at length when we were moving to Florida was I'm gonna be away from some of the hunting. But I mentioned this before,

we're only a plane ticket away from anywhere in the world. But as far as living, like all year, I'd rather live here than about anywhere just because I like to be outside.

I don't like any reason why I can't go outside. I don't want it to be snowing. I don't want it to have to shovel the driveway. I don't want all those things

are wonderful during hunting season, But during the rest of my life, I'd rather be in Florida. Yeah, when season wraps up in Illinois, third week of January, and then it's cold and miserable,

it's like, oh man, I was hoping for this a week ago, but now I'm over it. Can't chase any critters, I mean, what am I doing? Yeah, so you, I didn't really realize this,

but you worked with PSE, you traveled all across the Midwest for, how long did you do that? 18 years. I didn't realize it was that long, wow.

18 years I, Midwest Regional Sales Manager, primarily I was more in the area of Iowa, Illinois and Missouri. And I ended up in Pike County, Illinois, which was pretty close to the center of my territory, pretty close. But the primary reason I ended up there, because that was the whitetail capital of the world at that time. So I was on the Missouri side is where we

We lived because the taxes were lower, but I crossed that bridge right there in Louisiana, Missouri, and I had some of the best bottom ground hillground hunting in the world. What was the catalyst that made Pike County the white tail capital of the world in the 90s?

You know, I don't know what triggered it. I think it was sleeping for a long time until the outfitter started promoting it. I think it was sleeping out there. But one of the things that makes it, in my mind, makes it so good.

Like if you're coming from Chicago or anywhere from the East, for example, it's primarily flat ground, much, much, much more tillable than any kind of cover.

It's all that beautiful crop ground, just like they would call them in Canada, the bush. They don't have contiguous timber all over like we do along the river.

You know, that particular part of Illinois along the Mississippi River has some of the deepest hollows, highest ridges, it's rough country, but still it has really nourishing black crop ground that, you know, the more, the better the soil, the bigger the deer,

the better everything, bigger every animal that feeds on corn. The coons are giant. But that allows a deer, I mean there's some deer in there if it wasn't for the rut, you'd never even see them, you know, ever. So it's just prime habitat. I think that's the reason it was so good.

It went through a period where it was a little overhunted in a little bit, a couple years there, or a period where it was kind of abused. The farmers were complaining heavily about overpopulation of deer. And there were a lot, a lot of deer. We made for a nice, a date in Pike County would be take your pickup and a couple lawn chairs,

put them on the back of your pickup park and wait till the deer comes out, you know. It was pretty cool. The number of deer, that was one of the few places where you had a lot of deer and still had big bucks, you know.

They weren't, the food source was not so weak that they were competing and they could not nourish themselves. They were all thriving and that made it very special. But going back to the number of deer,

they were issuing nuisance tags like there were popcorn. They're just giving it a way. I mean, so making the farmers happy. And there was a lot of shooting

that didn't need to be shot, you know. And there wasn't restricted to those. It was restricted to those, but I don't think the, I was finding deer, the hoop that were gut shot

in the middle of the summer that were bucks. They shouldn't have been shot, but any of that. Yeah, no, that's, I've drove through that country. I live in Illinois.

And what I love about that general area