Ep. 497: Giant Bucks in Mountain Laurel Nobody Else Will Hunt w/ Pat Burns
About this episode
Beau Martonik interviews Pat Burns about hunting giant bucks in mountain laurel thickets and various hunting strategies.
Beau Martonik sits down with Pat Burns, a big woods hunter from the Northeast who has been hunting mountain laurel thickets for years, killing giant bucks in cover most hunters won’t go near. Pat breaks down how he finds openings and funnels inside a sea of laurel using leaf-off maps, why he considers all those ladder stands on the edges to be the equivalent of hunting a field edge, how he creates access trails to get a quarter mile deep into the thick stuff without making a sound, and the story behind the giant buck he killed last fall. They also get into tracking an 11.5-year-old buck across a five-mile stretch of mountain over several seasons, why November 4th consistently produces for Pat, his approach to reactivating community scrapes with nothing but fresh dirt, camera strategy in remote terrain, and pushing the envelope once you’ve done enough homework to back it. Pat also works for Huntstock, an outdoor festival held in Massachusetts (August 7–9, 2026). Beau will be at the Massachusetts event recording live podcast interviews with Rick Labbe, Lanny Benoit, Jeff Doyle, Jim Massett, and others. 00:00:00 — Intro 00:01:07 — What Makes Huntstock Different From a Trade Show…
More episodes of East Meets West Hunt
- Ep. 500: 50 Years of Big Woods Hunting Lessons w/ My Dad, Joe Martonik
- Ep. 499: The Hardest Deer We've Ever Tried to Bowhunt w/ Collin Heaps
- Ep. 498: What Deer See at Scrapes That You Never Will (New Research)
- Ep. 496: Summer Scouting Mountain Bucks — Trail Cameras, Cuts vs. Mature Timber, and Why Deer Disappear on Opener w/ Johnny Stewart
- Ep. 495: Wild Game Cooking Deep Dive — Bear Fat, Venison Burgers, and Freezer Turkey w/ Allie D'Andrea & Nick Berger
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