#435 - 30 Years Hunting Public Land: Johnny Stewart's Big Woods Scouting Playbook For Brand-New Public Land Spots

Welcome to the WHTL Podcast, your source for Whitetail Deer Hunting Tactics, Stories & Expert Guests. In this episode, we're back in the studio with Johnny Stewart. We Discuss: * Early October is food-driven, so look for pockets of acorns, not a whole forest of mast. * Probe into a new area a little at a time instead of hiking every inch and burning it out. * Start e-scouting with the historic wind and focus on leeward, east-facing ridges and fingers. * Roughly 300 feet of relief from creek to ridgetop gives a mature buck room to bed safely. * Mature bucks favor cover where they can see 0 to 60 yards, not an impenetrable jungle. * If a spot is hard to get to, that is often exactly where the big buck lives. * How hard you press one spot should depend on how many other options you have. * When you find a new food source, check the downwind side before you hang cameras. * Cameras tell you where a buck isn't, which narrows down where he actually is. * A big track that other deer haven't walked over means a buck was there recently. And So Much More! Follow along on social! IG - @WHTLDEER TikTok - @WHTLDEER YouTube - @WHTLDEER Thanks again for all of the support from our partners—none of this would've been possible without them! - Buck Land Funding: https://www.firstbankers.com/bucklandfunding -Hawke Optics | Use Code WHTL for 15% off: https://bit.ly/hawkeoptics_ -OnX: https://bit.ly/onX_Hunt -Painted Arrow: ⁠⁠[bit.ly/PaintedArrow](http://bit.ly/PaintedArrow) - Latitude Outdoors: https://www.latitudeoutdoors.com/