Deer Hunting Gear | Texas Whitetail Hunting MUST HAVES (2020)

Cable Smith with the Lone Star Outdoor Show breaks down the best gear for successful whitetail deer hunts in Texas. Cable is a professional hunter that shares with us what rifle he uses, what optics he pairs with his rifle, the blind he uses to hunt alone and with his family, he gives his view of scent control, and he explains how hogs impact deer hunting in Texas.

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Gear Mentioned:
Mossberg Patriot 270  
Vortex Viper HS Long-Range 30mm Riflescope 
Vortex Fury HD 5000 Laser Rangefinder Binoculars
Vortex Ranger 1300 Rangefinder With HCD 
Dead Down Wind Laundry Bombs Detergent 
Tink's #69 Doe-In-Rut Estrous Fogger Deer Attractant 
All seasons 600 Pound Stand and Fill Feeder
All Seasons Big Chingon
All Seasons Little Chingon

Transcription:

Brad: Scrapes buck beds grunts snorts wheezes and that sweet sweet smell of estrus to a lot of people I would be speaking a foreign language right now to some though this is the language of fall it's deer season y'all a buddy Cable Smith has one of the most popular shows in Texas I mean really the outdoors the lone star outdoors show it's one of the biggest podcasts in hunting and being a texan you know cable is talking about whitetail on this episode cable is going to talk about his rifle and bose setup he's going to talk about what type of concealment he's using for him and his family it's a pretty cool insight he's going to talk through his scent control we'll talk about how the hog hunting problem has had an impact on Texas whitetail as well if you speak deer or you want to subscribe this show is all about helping people find the best gear for the job from people in the outdoor industry cable will also be back in a few weeks to chat about hog hunting so you don't want to miss that so go ahead just subscribe right now if you know a friend who would want to learn about this topic just go ahead and text them the show too okay it's time for less chatting and more grunting this is Gearbox Talk with Cable Smith. 

Cable Smith welcome to Gearbox Talk and thanks for taking a little bit of break out of your hunting season how you doing man 

Cable: Hey it's great to be here 

Brad: I am excited to hear about your setups today we're going to dive right into some whitetail questions you ready 

Cable: Let's do it 

Brad: All right man tell me a little bit about your preferred setup for for hunting whitetail I know you're a bow and a rifle guy I'm interested to kind of hear what you prefer and then to see what you're using for each 

Cable: Oh so I prefer whatever's in season 

Brad: I like it 

Cable: I will bow hunt until I can pick up a gun I'm not too proud to say I have there's so many things I want to hunt so hey I want to go duck hunting too right so I mean I will definitely pick up a rifle when both season ends October I love chasing them with the boat 

Brad: I am the same way like I need the advantages because I'm not that good with a bow so as soon as I can carry my modern gun I'm carrying my modern gun 

Cable: Right on 

Brad: What's your gun set up I can see it sitting back there what's your rifle set up and cable's hunting or cable's hunting in Texas so let's talk about what you're you're doing there 

Cable: So that's that's actually the the that's a thermal we're going to talk about that later okay this is a 270 which I think is when it comes to Texas like the classic Texas deer rifle because most of our shots are within 200 yards there's exceptions you go way out west or something you know west Texas or something like that but generally speaking we're hunting out of when we're rifle hunting blinds whether that's a box blind or a tree stand or you know whatever some some kind of fixed structure and our shots are designed to be within 200 yards so I like the 270 for that packs a wall up I think these are 160 grain bullets and I have I've never lost a deer with a 270. so 

Brad: What's the manufacturer did you say 

Cable: I'm sorry 

Brad: The manufacturer 

Cable: This is a Mossberg Patriot wooden stock 

Brad: Yeah it's pretty 

Cable: Yeah patriot lineup is I mean they have every caliber just actually it's got a 375 Ruger even of the patriot to take to Africa for cape buffalo so everything from as small as like a 22 250 up to a 375 Ruger and they have them in laminate they have them in they have a beautiful walnut edition too which I've got a 300 bag in that and they're very affordable like I think the higher end one is like maybe 750 

Brad: Oh that's not bad 

Cable: Like and that's for the walnut like the other ones get into this gun for five 600 bucks probably 

Brad: Yeah what's your glass you're rocking there 

Cable: So this is a Vortex viper six to 24 by 50. so yeah big fan of of all things Vortex it's got obviously turrets and this one's moa that's just I don't I don't know just what I've always used is moa I don't think there's where you go moa or what is that what imrad I don't think it really matters reference but yeah 

Brad: What rangefinder are you using I'm kind of curious and do you use the same one for your bow and rifle 

Cable: Yeah I do use the same one now if I go out west I will throw in the the Vortex gosh what is it 

Brad: The rangefinding binos yeah why draw a blank I can't either I want to say is it 

Cable: Fury the fury fury 

Brad: I was going to say Crossfire but that's the the other binos 

Cable: Fury HD's those are great for I mean let's be honest I'm kind of a minimalist I don't want to carry extra crap so if there's situations where I can have the rangefinder and bino together that's great it's not it's it's kind of difficult for bow hunting I've found it's not because you got to kind of have two so not really good for bow hunting but I use the the razer what's the newest one they have 

Brad: The ranger is it a new ranger is it the ranger there's a razer and a ranger that's right you're talking about the binos or the the rangefinder 

Cable: Give me one sec sorry I'm just gonna grab it it's right here yeah no the rangefinder now 

Brad: Okay yeah I use the now I'm doubting myself but I think I used the ranger 1300 which has maybe been out for a few years but it's been highly reliable 

Cable: Yeah I think that's what I use actually it's it's not in here but yeah 

Brad: Yeah awesome so you kind of talked about this a little bit but let's let's dig into exactly what you're doing you know for Texas I've hunted in Texas once with Jeremiah I'm kind of curious on you mentioned shooting houses but and and there's a lot of different ways for

Cable: Shooting houses is not quite as fancy as some of my blinds I mean I'm not gonna lie to you they're they have carpet they have like window seals you can put your drink over here yeah enough room some of them and I have a blind sponsor so it works out great and a feeder sponsor same company yeah let me tell you why it's so cool is because my kids they're five five and seven they never get cold and they can accept carpet and they're not making a bunch of noise and so I've found that while it's nice it's a luxury for me right I don't need that I could sit in a wooden shooting house that I built myself just right but to introduce kids man these blinds that we have today oh it's

Brad: What brand of blind 

Cable: Oh it's called All Seasons okay it's called the I have a big Chingon and I have a little Chingon and my whole family of five can sit in the big Chingon no kidding I have three kids little Chingon a little crowded I can get two of the kids in there but it's I mean they can do it they can eat snacks it's just to get kids outdoors it's been awesome yeah but I also last year I shot my buck on my deer lease I had him patterned coming to a wheat field and I didn't have a blind there so I just set up this tripod on the fence line and I just sat in a chair there and just waited for him oh yeah far enough yeah so whatever the deer are telling you to do 

Brad: Yeah right right right I'm kind of curious I know you know we're talking about blinds you may not be as much of a concern normally but you hunt all kinds of different stuff what's your approach to scent control

Cable: So I had a company I worked with for a long time and I basically have found that I just play the wind I mean I don't I i think you can be as cautious as possible you don't want to like smoke cigarettes in in your truck or even drink a coffee I mean that can give you your breath give it very profound snow yeah especially if you're in a ground blind on the ground but generally speaking dude I think they're they're making a bunch of money on stuff that at the end of the day if you are a good hunter and you play the wind they're not going to smell you yeah so you can take the other precautions and it's good you know if you wash with scent free soap I do I do do that yeah right there's like some system I'm gonna put on my body and think that a deer isn't gonna smell me if they're downwind of me I just don't buy it 

Brad: Somebody the best anybody ever explained this to me or or like maybe maybe said it and it's kind of resonated with me it if you think about it of really instead of trying to hide your scent and really just lessen it that makes a lot more sense for what's actually happening you walk outside and you smell a skunk like oh my god it's right here you're gonna be like I gotta get out of here right now yeah but if you walked outside and it's like oh the faint smell of skunk in the air like you're not freaking out right it smells like a a beer college right but the but you know there's like that's kind of helped me kind of think through how a whitetail when when it hits them like you don't want your home smell and like all the kids laundry detergent all that stuff like you don't want that all of your clothes but you also can take it to a level towards like okay this is probably counterproductive at this point 

Cable: All my clothes go in the same bag before I go to the deer lease now last year I had a bow only lease a few minutes from the house and it was very expensive dude I gotta send you a picture when we get off there this buck that got shot literally a few miles from there and I was a little more cautious because it was like 25 acres I would spray doe urine on my boots walking in and out or estrus you know trying to cover that I didn't want to put a bunch of extra scent on the ground on such a small property so like I said kind of if you could let this situation dictate to you but I'm not putting all my stuff in a scent free bag and I'm not yeah I'm just I don't think that stuff I'm not saying that it doesn't affect it a little bit but then you just play the wind hunt a stand on a day that you know you're gonna have a good wind and you're gonna have more success 

Brad: Dude I'm a big believer in the deer drag I've I think I've killed more deer from a drag or like some type of lure like that during rut than than anything else yeah and and I haven't I'll I'll throw it out there I'm no like pro whitetail guy like I have not even probably killed the you know a big mature whitetail as a lot of people I've been doing it for eight years but I'll say the I've had so many deer even deer I've passed on that will follow right to the t on the drag I will walk when I walk into my current property it's about a mile to get to my stand and about halfway out I'll start you know I'll throw a drag down and I last year I think I had probably more of the deer that came in were following the drag then weren't as they came through 

Cable: I think those things definitely work last year was the first time I ever had success with a mock scrape and I even peed in it yeah 175 inch buck that I never ended up getting a shot at him he was very smart there's a reason why he was that big yeah last year was the first one yeah yeah 

Brad: If you can keep those things active that like I had a good stretch last year I had a pretty good amount from for me like normally I i don't know I got out like 25 different days I think in deer season yeah half days like full days but I mean I was pretty happy with that and the there I was able to refresh a scrape pretty good and if you if you have scent and you're coming back and keeping it like you can definitely do some damage on it if you're in a good spot to start with like you find a natural area I think in the past I've tried to do it and I wasn't in a good spot it wasn't this place where they would normally set up but yeah I had one of the biggest deer i'd ever had on trail cameras ever coming to that spot last year and I think I i think he survived and I have him on camera right now he looks like he's about five minutes I know man I he's he's like at my tree stand yeah I've got to get out it's killing me my I had run out of space on my cell camera and it just renewed so I hadn't seen anything in like a few weeks because I ran out of space and all of a sudden I'm like oh my god he's there he's still there so 

Cable: I was talking to a bill winky of midwest whitetail yeah recently and he said he hasn't had a lot of luck with actually drawing deer to a mock scrape but he says if you put him which I noticed this last year with that buck if you just put them on like a pinch point where two trails come together or you or on this place it was an oil pipeline that they had cut clear-cut they're gonna check them and they're gonna it'd be a great point a place to stop a deer for a kill shot yeah they're not going to go out of their way on their normal travel corridor to go check a mock scrape that's off here in the woods right put it where they're going to be passing through they are going to check it out because deer are curious by nature so yeah 

Brad: That's where that's what I found I found a spot where they were coming through heavily I was kind of a t and there was the licking branch and I had never really paid attention to that until last year my buddy mike told me he's like just look I guarantee if you think that that's that that's what they're doing there look for a low-hanging branch and it there it was like five feet off the ground or four and a half feet off the ground and they were stopping right there and checking each other out yep yeah that's pretty cool last question for you here man cable and I are going to do a couple shows together by the way this is our whitetail show we're going to do a show entirely on hog hunting but this last one my I wanted to ask you how hogs have interfered with your whitetail hunting property in the past so not maybe not as much of a gear a deer maybe not as much of a gear question but just in general advice for anybody what you've seen and advice for anybody to handle that 

Cable: Well it's pretty obvious when you've got you know a 600 pound feeder here and you check your your cell phone out and it's like oh no there's hogs yeah the deer they're on your property but they're not coming there yeah I mean they will run deer off feeders if deer are at the feeder and hogs come by deer they don't want to have anything to do with that 

Brad: How long do you again I haven't hunted hogs and we don't have them here how long does it take for a deer to come back to that feeder 

Cable: Well I mean if the feeder goes off and the hogs aren't there they'll come back okay so 

Brad: They don't get scared off for like oh we're done with that area for a day or two 

Cable: No I have lots of pictures of like a big buck and a big boar looking at each other or videos yeah look always is the one that gives way yeah you're just they're just more assertive and and especially a lot of times the boards travel by themselves but there's like a sounder will come in of 15 or 20 hogs and dear just you know how skittish they are yeah right I don't have anything to do with that right so yeah I mean I've seen them I i actually believe if you have a lot of hogs on your property there's a chance you will push the deer off your property 

Brad: All the more reason to hunt the hogs 

Cable: That's all the deer right but you're going to have less activity yeah than you would have otherwise so that's why we try to bang away on the hogs with the thermals and I mean I've never done the helicopter but a lot of landowners of course looks like fun right but it's I mean it's a viable service that people offer to like hey 

Brad: Yeah yeah what what feeder are you using on your properties 

Cable: It's an all-seasons 600-pound stand and fill feeders of man the evolution of feeders is so great like you just have to just back your truck up or you have a ladder in your truck to get in there because it used to be like yeah seven feet high now the technology most of them you just stand and fill hence the name stand and fill but it's I mean it's awesome yeah absolutely so awesome yep 

Brad: Awesome man I appreciate you coming on here and talking a little bit about whitetail we're gonna do another another shock another show for hog hunting but this was awesome I think people that are kind of getting into whitetail especially in your area will get a lot from it 

Cable: Awesome man thanks for having me 

Brad: Yep take care all right thank you Cable Smith for coming on the show make sure you follow cable on go out he's just Cable Smith on there and then everywhere else on all of his other social media it's lone star outdoor show subscribe to the Gearbox Talk youtube or the podcast to make sure you see the next time cable comes back around he's gonna be talking hog hunting and it's really insightful show especially for someone like me who hasn't really hog hunted before if you want to buy any of the gear cable mentioned remember those links are in the show notes and I want to thank everybody who's buying the gear and doing it through those links because we're getting a commission out of that and not only are you helping support GoWild™ helping support Gearbox Talk you're also helping support raise them outdoors we're going to donate a portion of our proceeds back into that camp which helps teach kids to shoot to hunt fish camp it's awesome and you get to be a part of that so thank you to everyone that's supporting the show and buying through the links remember if you have whitetail questions something we didn't talk about drop those in the comments and the next time I have somebody come on to talk about whitetail I'll ask your question that's it for me today though I'm out