Derrick Dixon skipped an entire season to watch mature bucks through a thermal drone. What he learned will change how you hunt the Ozarks.

He tracked 44 mature bucks, documenting over 150 variables per deer per day all with zero hunting pressure. The result? Data that confirms old wisdom, destroys common myths, and reveals huntable patterns.

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This was a fun one.

— Kyle

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What happens when you take a whole year off hunting to just watch deer and learn about their behavior?

And what if you did that using a thermal drone camera?

That's what we got the chance to talk with Derrick Dixon about.

If you haven't heard Derrick's name yet, it probably won't be long until you do. He's the founder of Whitetail Research, and the story behind it is wild.

Derrick took the entire 2024 hunting season off. Not because he wanted a break from hunting, but because he wanted to actually understand what mature bucks do when nobody's hunting them.

Every single morning at 5:30 AM, he'd grab his thermal drone and head to the woods. He tracked 44 different mature bucks across multiple properties throughout the season, collecting over 150 variables per deer per day.

Wind speed. Bedding locations. Movement patterns. How they respond to temperature changes. How they use terrain. How they interact with does. All of it documented from 400 feet in the air with a thermal camera that can see deer through the canopy.

When we sat down with him at the Ozarker Lodge, the first thing that struck us was how matter-of-fact he was about the whole thing. No ego. No sales pitch. Just a guy who spent a year obsessing over whitetail behavior and genuinely wants to share what he learned.

"This will be the first time ever that somebody has been able to watch whitetail deer at this level," he told us. And he's right. GPS collar studies can tell you where a deer went, but they can't tell you why he went there or what he did when he got there. Derrick's watching it happen in real-time.

Some of what he's learned confirms old Ozark wisdom, like how bucks don't actually walk down doe trails, they intersect them. Other findings challenge what we thought we knew, like the idea that mature bucks always bed on the leeward side of ridges. Turns out, thermal hubs matter way more than wind direction.

The most fascinating part of the conversation was watching Derrick wrestle with the ethics of what he's doing. He's not using drones to scout deer and then immediately hunt them. He gave up an entire season to collect data without any hunting pressure.

But the technology exists now, and not everyone's going to use it the way he is.

"I know what I have is powerful," he said. "I just want to make sure I'm using it the right way."

By the end of the interview, we both wanted to go reposition every stand we have. Not because Derrick gave us some magic formula for killing mature bucks, but because he helped us understand how mature bucks actually use the terrain we hunt.

And for guys hunting the steep, nasty Ozark hills where most of his research took place? The insights are immediately applicable.

If you're serious about harvesting mature whitetails in the Ozarks, this is one you'll want to listen to all the way through.

Here are the top five takeaways from our conversation with Derrick.

1. Mature bucks travel more in the mornings than evenings

Across most of the season, mature bucks cover significantly more ground in the mornings than evenings. They're returning from feeding areas or doe groups back to bedding with purpose. Morning setups between bedding and food might be more productive than we've traditionally believed, especially during October when bucks stay tight to core areas.

2. The evening thermal switch is your cue, not the clock

Stop watching the time. Watch your weather app for when the day's high temperature starts to drop. That's when mature bucks stand up from their beds, within a 5-15 minute window of each other across the property. When you're in the stand and everything goes quiet and you get that eerie stillness, every mature buck in the area is on their feet or about to be. That's your window.

3. Set up to see across doe trails, not down them

Your grandpa was probably right about this. Does walk straight, vertical lines between bedding and food. Mature bucks cross these trails at perpendicular angles with their nose to the ground, scent-checking as they go. When they hit a hot scent, they hook off to investigate. Your stand should let you see across multiple doe trails, not down one trail.

4. Hunt the high side of steep drainages where they meet saddles

Find drainages that are essentially impassable with thick brush, deadfall, steep drops. Mature bucks wrap the high side as travel corridors because it's the path of least resistance. Set up at the very top looking downhill with your scent blowing into the drainage below. Whether thermals rise or fall, your scent goes into terrain deer won't travel through. You're undetectable while hunting a high-traffic pinch point.

5. There's an ethics line with technology, and you need to decide where yours is

Thermal drones can see deer through the canopy in real-time. Cell cameras can send instant alerts. The technology exists and it's getting cheaper. Derrick's personal line: using drones for long-term research and education is fine; using them to scout deer the day before you hunt crosses the line. Where's your line? It's a conversation every hunter needs to have, because the technology isn't going away.

Thanks for reading, folks! We’re kicking off our first episode of 2026 on February 18. So keep an eye out on your preferred podcast platform and we’ll notify you here in your inbox next Thursday.

Till then, get outside.
— Kyle Veit