Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
Speaker 1: the whitetail woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile
Speaker 1: hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light
Speaker 1: Go Farther, stay Longer, and now your host Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
Speaker 2: the show, Tony Peterson and I are breaking down our
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four rut hunting plans and sharing thirty nine
Speaker 2: specific actionable tactics for the white tail Rut. Hey, guys,
Speaker 2: real quick here before we get to the show. It
Speaker 2: is that most wonderful time of the year, the whitetail
Speaker 2: Rut is about to kick off, and as you might
Speaker 2: know from past years, we like to celebrate the month
Speaker 2: of November with a few special deer hunting tunes. Two
Speaker 2: years ago we came out with our first white tail
Speaker 2: rout parody song of sorts, I guess you could call it.
Speaker 2: We called that the most Wonderful Time to Kill deer
Speaker 2: riff on a Christmas tune of course, and then last
Speaker 2: year we had a second one that one's called Big
Speaker 2: White Tails, going along with the tune of jingle bells.
Speaker 2: So we are going to bring those back for you
Speaker 2: to listen to this month. On each episode of the podcast.
Speaker 2: Here so real quick, we're gonna play you our two
Speaker 2: rout hunting theme songs of the year. Enjoy them, and
Speaker 2: then we will get to our big old rut Hunting
Speaker 2: Extravaganza podcast shortly.
Speaker 3: Enjoy boys.
Speaker 4: Good to see you, Hayden. It's been a while. Hey, sorry,
Speaker 4: I'm late. I crashed my Pontiac casteck into a light
Speaker 4: pull and had to walk the rest of the way.
Speaker 3: But I'm here now. That's what matters.
Speaker 4: Give me a glass of scotch please, Hey, just two
Speaker 4: rocks in there. I don't my guys, we're starting already.
Speaker 4: This is happening. Okay, just give me the give me
Speaker 4: the glass, thank you. Okay, here we go. It's the
Speaker 4: most wonderful time to kill deer. With the run now
Speaker 4: just starting and dashing and dotting and veins cutting clean.
Speaker 4: It's the most wonderful time.
Speaker 3: To kill deer.
Speaker 4: There's far too much, is inus class. It's the half
Speaker 4: happy seedson of all. There's gotta be at least twelve
Speaker 4: cues with grunting and bleeding and call fronts and sleeting.
Speaker 3: The last weeks of fun. It's the half happy.
Speaker 4: Seedsson of all, There'll be pictures for posting and bragging
Speaker 4: and boasting and truck beds with big Bucks in toe.
Speaker 4: There'll be narrow miss stories and tales of new glories.
Speaker 3: Of booner bucks missed with our bulls.
Speaker 4: It's the most wonderful time to kill deer, not just
Speaker 4: one baby two. There'll be no dose of blowing and
Speaker 4: looming knocks blowing and blood trails so clean. It's the
Speaker 4: most wonderful time to kill deer.
Speaker 3: Excuse me? Can I have a napkin? Please? I just
Speaker 3: spilled some scotch on my loafers. I can't have dirty
Speaker 3: loafers in the studio.
Speaker 4: Thank you tailgate beers for drinking, and Big Bucks is
Speaker 4: slinking and chasing and sent jacking does They'll be fighting
Speaker 4: and scraping and no more escaping and arrow shot true hitting.
Speaker 3: Oh key change. But no one told me that it's
Speaker 3: the most wonderful time to kill deer. I was very
Speaker 3: unprepared for this.
Speaker 4: There will be much morning sitting in cold fronts, are
Speaker 4: hitting the dawn crispin clean. It's the most wonderful time, Oh,
Speaker 4: the most dimple time.
Speaker 3: Yes, the mold swum dipple.
Speaker 2: Time to kilty.
Speaker 3: There's too much ice in the glass. Two rocks.
Speaker 4: It's that time of the year again. I'm back, Marcus Kenyon.
Speaker 4: How are you your son of a gadwall? You look terrible.
Speaker 4: I'm just kidding her. Am I I'm sorry. I'm late.
Speaker 4: I crashed my recumbent bicycle into the side of a
Speaker 4: quiz nose. And I know what you're thinking. I am
Speaker 4: as sober as a newborn blue crab. I swear to
Speaker 4: you this is just kombucha. I'm watching the gut health.
Speaker 4: You gotta do it as you get older. And also,
Speaker 4: I'm wearing this ankle bracelet that makes a beep beep
Speaker 4: sound if I have a drop of the stuff. Also
Speaker 4: alerts the authorities, who in turn alert my parole officer.
Speaker 4: So there'll be none of that in the studio today,
Speaker 4: I promise you.
Speaker 3: Let's get go. Oh you're queueing it up all ready. Okay.
Speaker 3: I thought we'd learned a lesson this year, but I
Speaker 3: guess nothing. Here we go.
Speaker 5: I love those beagy big big white tails, those deep
Speaker 5: run beagy big big wide tails. I love those beachy
Speaker 5: big yeah eight chats eat tails. I love those beachy
Speaker 5: b you wide tails.
Speaker 3: Big white tails.
Speaker 4: Big white tails, big white tails are great? Hold what
Speaker 4: fun it is to sit in the freezing cold tree
Speaker 4: all day? Big white tails, big white tails, big white
Speaker 4: tails are great? Hold What fun it is to sit
Speaker 4: in the freezing cold tree all day?
Speaker 3: Dashing through the woods for the morning.
Speaker 4: Light turns great across the fields and draws, creep in
Speaker 4: all way.
Speaker 3: Climb into the tree. Big bucks are on the wave?
Speaker 4: What fun he is to sit and wait for my gosh,
Speaker 4: don deer all day?
Speaker 3: Oh big, I'm sorry? What is this? Piscato strings? Who
Speaker 3: do you think? I am ya? Get this out here.
Speaker 3: I don't want to hear it. Thank you, Big.
Speaker 4: White tails, big white tails, big white tails are great.
Speaker 4: Hold fun it is to sit in the freezing cold
Speaker 4: tree all day?
Speaker 3: I hope sand dreams are high the rut.
Speaker 4: He's finally here, Mark said, it's the most wonderful time
Speaker 4: to kill o whitetail deer bingch points and pettings. Where
Speaker 4: you'll find me hanging twenty feet in a tree, grunt
Speaker 4: tubes my bowl inspector, Cambo. This really campy be he
Speaker 4: or two ago I thought that this was fun, but
Speaker 4: now I'm frozen to my seat, and the good times
Speaker 4: they are gone, I've ate up all my snacks, my
Speaker 4: hands and toes unnumb and we're gonna climb down from
Speaker 4: my stand.
Speaker 3: That son of a but decided to come out.
Speaker 5: Those Beagy big white takes. Those you run bag big
Speaker 5: big white tapes.
Speaker 4: I love those Beeg big up yall eight shot gie
Speaker 4: eat tails. I love those big white tails all day.
Speaker 4: I don't know why this is happening. I swear to God, Officer,
Speaker 4: what seems to be the problem here?
Speaker 3: Oh this?
Speaker 4: I don't know why this is happening. It must be
Speaker 4: a malfunction, you know. Sometimes it happens when the batteries
Speaker 4: run low.
Speaker 2: You don't know.
Speaker 3: You don't need to smell that. That's just komboocha. I okay, yes,
Speaker 3: you got me. It's ever clear and pacific cooler. Caprice Son.
Speaker 4: I am so so sorry. I don't know why my
Speaker 4: life has brought me here. Mark Marcus, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 4: Enjoy the rut or whatever, good luck.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you
Speaker 2: by First Light and their new Whitetail line and their
Speaker 2: Camel for Conservation initiative. All great stuff that we are
Speaker 2: excited about. But we are also very excited because Today
Speaker 2: is our twenty twenty four Whitetail Rut Extravaganza Galore Big
Speaker 2: buck Fest podcast with me and Tony Peterson, And as
Speaker 2: I just teased in the intro, we've got thirty nine
Speaker 2: very specific, actionable, mind blowing, revolutionary whitetail rut hunting stratu Geez,
Speaker 2: there we're going to share with you today. So I
Speaker 2: hope you're ready for that. Tony are you? Are you
Speaker 2: ready for that?
Speaker 1: I am?
Speaker 6: And I misunderstood the assignment because I have thirty nine
Speaker 6: on my own, like one un guarantee dead mature buck
Speaker 6: during the rut thirty perfect.
Speaker 2: Well, then we came to the right place and the
Speaker 2: right person, because you know, in all seriousness, everyone at
Speaker 2: this time of year wants at least one more good idea, right.
Speaker 2: I think people will be listening to this podcast as
Speaker 2: they're heading to their hunting camp or to public land,
Speaker 2: or to their back forty or whatever it is for
Speaker 2: the thing like this is that time of the year
Speaker 2: we've all been dreaming of, we've all been waiting for
Speaker 2: when this podcast airs. Let me confirm the date when
Speaker 2: this podcast airs. It will be Halloween, October thirty first.
Speaker 2: I mean that's the kickoff, right.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and there's a good coming through then through much
Speaker 6: of the it's.
Speaker 2: It could be really good. So yeah, man, I want
Speaker 2: to I jokingly said thirty nine, but I do have
Speaker 2: an idea for something I want to do at the end.
Speaker 2: Here my idea here. Well I'll wait, I guess I'll
Speaker 2: wait until we get to that point. But I do
Speaker 2: want to share some real actionable ideas. But before that,
Speaker 2: I did think it would be useful to kind of
Speaker 2: lay out our own plans, what we've been doing, what
Speaker 2: we're planning on doing over the next couple weeks. We
Speaker 2: haven't had a big touch base since before the season.
Speaker 2: So I do know you just got back from a
Speaker 2: hunt and you're about to leave for another hunt, So
Speaker 2: can you give us like the quick rundown of North
Speaker 2: Dakota and if there was anything from that? I know
Speaker 2: that was like a mid October hunt, but is there
Speaker 2: anything coming out of that that you're going to be
Speaker 2: keeping in mind as you lead into the rut stuff?
Speaker 6: Dude, that was maybe the most enjoyable hunt I've ever filmed.
Speaker 6: I had and I missed a giant and had to
Speaker 6: let him go a different time because camera guy couldn't
Speaker 6: get on him because the way we were set up,
Speaker 6: so I had I missed a legit one fifty eight
Speaker 6: pointer that I snort weezed in who put on it.
Speaker 6: It's probably the best big buck encounter I've ever filmed. Wow,
Speaker 6: total like so freaking rad. And then caught up to
Speaker 6: that buck two miles away, and a couple days later
Speaker 6: had him raking a tree in front of me at
Speaker 6: twenty one yards, perfect opening to his lungs and just
Speaker 6: the way we were in separate trees and there was
Speaker 6: one cedar tree between us, and so I'm looking at it.
Speaker 6: I'm like, this is a dead buck. And the camera
Speaker 6: guy's like, I don't have him. But the way he's
Speaker 6: going to leave there, I'm like, the odds are pretty high.
Speaker 6: He's going to give me a shot. And he just
Speaker 6: took a route where I couldn't find an opening. And
Speaker 6: so but I'll tell you what, I don't know what's
Speaker 6: happening to me, but I was I have never been
Speaker 6: I've never been more okay screwing up on a giant
Speaker 6: and just letting one walk. And I ended up, you know,
Speaker 6: I ended up, you know, finding a little success later.
Speaker 6: But it was like just the whole hunt was so
Speaker 6: fun and you just felt like you were in it.
Speaker 6: And I'll tell you what. So I got out there
Speaker 6: on I think October thirteenth, I saw a really good
Speaker 6: buck chase hard. On October fourteenth, I saw another really
Speaker 6: cool six pointer that was like out to his ears.
Speaker 6: He just didn't have much for times I saw him chase.
Speaker 2: So in that week.
Speaker 6: I already was seeing like big deer kind of just
Speaker 6: bumping and doing their thing. And I don't I've only
Speaker 6: been a little bit because I've only been home just
Speaker 6: a little bit. But I had a morning the other
Speaker 6: morning here where I had a two year old seven
Speaker 6: pointer come in and he ran dose in this little
Speaker 6: patch of woods. I was in for like two and
Speaker 6: a half hours, and it was just like it has
Speaker 6: me so excited. Like if you're listening to this, you're like, oh,
Speaker 6: it's not kicking in yet or whatever. I'm like, you know,
Speaker 6: you and I have talked about this this last week October,
Speaker 6: those first couple of days in November. Man, you know,
Speaker 6: everybody wants that like seven through the twelve through whatever,
Speaker 6: but this time of year.
Speaker 2: It can just be freaking bonkers. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2: I do think you have a little bit of that.
Speaker 2: I mean, I know that you know, six seven, eight nine,
Speaker 2: that's when a lot of does are ready to go,
Speaker 2: and so there's a lot of bucks going after him.
Speaker 2: But you also have bucks getting locked down at that
Speaker 2: time period. Two right, you're starting to get that happening.
Speaker 2: But right now October thirty, first November one too, you're
Speaker 2: just getting a few dos in, but all the bucks
Speaker 2: are ready to go. It's like you've got all the
Speaker 2: bucks on their feet and nobody's locked down, or hardly
Speaker 2: anyone's locked down. They're all searching. It's just it can
Speaker 2: be great. I agree with you. I absolutely love it.
Speaker 2: And now I got to ask you a question though,
Speaker 2: about your North Kota thing. Legitimately, you found that buck
Speaker 2: two miles away within just a few days, so, and
Speaker 2: I know this is a river you're hunting, so I
Speaker 2: know they travel up and down that but did you
Speaker 2: I mean, you must have been shocked when all of
Speaker 2: a sudden you're seeing the same buck so far away. Dude,
Speaker 2: it was wild.
Speaker 6: I mean, in fact, when I glassed him and filmed
Speaker 6: him through my spotter the first night I got there,
Speaker 6: and he was with two other bucks that were like
Speaker 6: one twenties type like good deer, and he was he
Speaker 6: was six hundred yards into private when I saw him.
Speaker 6: And where I ran into him, I found this little
Speaker 6: crossing on this just like patch of brush in this
Speaker 6: meadow and they were just using it. So I had
Speaker 6: seen that buck or one of those three go through
Speaker 6: there quick. I just got a glimpse of them through
Speaker 6: my spotter, and then I picked him up down river
Speaker 6: and so anyway, went in there, called him in the
Speaker 6: you know, the first morning I had to hunt there,
Speaker 6: screwed it up. He's gone shot hair off his back
Speaker 6: like time to recoup. And I ended up hunting my
Speaker 6: way the other direction down river to this area that
Speaker 6: has just some really good bedding cover, you know, like
Speaker 6: kind of that cedar scrub oak, you know, river bottom
Speaker 6: flat type stuff. And what it was what happened to me,
Speaker 6: And this is like a good lesson for anyone who's
Speaker 6: not hunting like high deer densities is I had places
Speaker 6: where they were just like they were covering a lot
Speaker 6: of ground. I mean, we would watch these deer start
Speaker 6: in one spot and by the time you were you
Speaker 6: couldn't see him anymore. They were like a mile away
Speaker 6: you know those those Western your cover ground, and so
Speaker 6: I was kind of playing that game at the beginning,
Speaker 6: and then I found I walked into this spot that
Speaker 6: has this little cattle guzzler in it that I know about,
Speaker 6: and it was getting hot, and I jumped like a
Speaker 6: one fifty and a two year old bedded right by it,
Speaker 6: and then yeah, and then it was yeah, and then
Speaker 6: a couple more I actually jumped five deer walking in there,
Speaker 6: and so I'm like, okay, I'm on a concentration here
Speaker 6: in this.
Speaker 2: Little you know, like this is a little zone. And
Speaker 2: that's where that buck went to after he encountered me.
Speaker 6: So he traveled up river. He knew about those little
Speaker 6: patches of cover, and he was hold up in there,
Speaker 6: and there were mule deer hold up in there, and
Speaker 6: he like, I was measuring them on on X you
Speaker 6: know where you can do like the area shape thing,
Speaker 6: and they're like five acres eight acres and so it's
Speaker 6: like not much like you look at it and you're
Speaker 6: like it's it's just the best stuff they had. And
Speaker 6: there ended up being so many deer in there because
Speaker 6: I don't I don't know if it was my pressure
Speaker 6: on the river bottom or it was just like the
Speaker 6: weather because it got you know, the weather changed a
Speaker 6: lot on us. But it was a good lesson because
Speaker 6: I was playing that travel game and then that died
Speaker 6: on me. And as soon as I moved to where
Speaker 6: it was like, we're creeping in right where they should
Speaker 6: be bedded, where you're like, I don't know if we're
Speaker 6: going to get away with it. Then all of a sudden,
Speaker 6: there he is again, and you're like, and other deer too,
Speaker 6: Like it was he wasn't the only one, and I
Speaker 6: was like, man, so often on pressure deer or like
Speaker 6: low density spots, that's the game. It's like it's like
Speaker 6: an elk hunt, you know, where you're like, they're mostly
Speaker 6: not here, even though great and there might be old sign,
Speaker 6: but somewhere that concentration is and it actually reminded me
Speaker 6: of a big woods hunt where I can see.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So you come off that and now tonight or
Speaker 2: tomorrow you're leaving for Iowa public Land high deer density. Now, yep,
Speaker 2: what's the what's the game plan? We talked about this
Speaker 2: a little bit this summer when we were going through
Speaker 2: our plans of the year. Because you've you've got high
Speaker 2: hopes for this trip, But give me the latest. What's
Speaker 2: the latest as far as your game plan? What do
Speaker 2: you think you're gonna do?
Speaker 6: So I just as a little context, I drew this
Speaker 6: tag in twenty twenty, and that was when we filmed
Speaker 6: back forty together, so I had to do early October hunts.
Speaker 2: Killed a good buck kill. The dough had had a
Speaker 2: great time, like a freaking great time.
Speaker 6: And I've been back down there because I tried a
Speaker 6: turkey hunt there every year just to keep scouting it,
Speaker 6: and I've actually been down there just to look around.
Speaker 6: And I have this dilemma where I know this one
Speaker 6: spot has big deer and it's got this really cool
Speaker 6: meadow and people it's like a it's a hike to
Speaker 6: get there, so people seem to not like concentrate on
Speaker 6: it too much. And I know if I go volume
Speaker 6: hunt that I'm gonna run into a deer that I
Speaker 6: want to shoot, like it's just and I have the
Speaker 6: wind for it coming up. The predicted wind is south
Speaker 6: for like seven days, so I'm not gonna be playing
Speaker 6: that changing wind game. But I also know it's gonna
Speaker 6: be pretty hot. It's gonna be like eighty three one
Speaker 6: day and so I'm like, should I Should I be
Speaker 6: hunting the river bottoms and the little stream spots that
Speaker 6: I have and then maybe some of the ponds, which
Speaker 6: would make a better show if I'm you know, moving
Speaker 6: around and trying to figure stuff out. Or do I
Speaker 6: go take that DSD do up into that meadow and
Speaker 6: put her twenty yards out.
Speaker 2: And just wait? And I don't.
Speaker 6: I know what I would probably do if I wasn't filming,
Speaker 6: and I would just go volume hunt that sucker and
Speaker 6: just have a ton of fun, because it's you can
Speaker 6: get in there in the morning if you plan it right,
Speaker 6: and you can sit all day. But I'm like, should
Speaker 6: I be looking around see if I could find a difference.
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 6: And I have so many way points. I mean, I
Speaker 6: couldn't sleep this morning. I woke up super early because
Speaker 6: I'm like, this is so dumb. But I have so
Speaker 6: many pins down there, and I had this pond marked
Speaker 6: the last time I went down there, and it's like
Speaker 6: tucked way in the woods and you could just like
Speaker 6: see it if you're like really looking, and I cannot
Speaker 6: freaking find that. And I'm like I'm getting to the
Speaker 6: point where I'm like, did I imagine this, like what's
Speaker 6: going on here? And I know I didn't because I
Speaker 6: remember dropping it when I was dropping some turkey pins
Speaker 6: and I was like, I gotta just look at that,
Speaker 6: like I just got to run in there when I'm
Speaker 6: running and gun in for turkeys and find it.
Speaker 2: And I can't find it. So I woke up this morning,
Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm gonna find that freaking pond. And I didn't.
Speaker 6: So I don't know what happened, like but I but
Speaker 6: I I did find a different one, and I was like, Oh,
Speaker 6: that's that's gonna work. So it's gonna be fun. I'm
Speaker 6: very excited for this hunt.
Speaker 2: Uh So, if you had, if I put a gun
Speaker 2: to your head and had to force you to pick
Speaker 2: what you think you're actually gonna do, You're gonna go
Speaker 2: the running gun waypoint chase or the value hunt.
Speaker 6: I think I'm gonna think I'm gonna chase those waypoints
Speaker 6: for a little bit.
Speaker 2: I think I'm not gun to my head.
Speaker 6: You might as well just blow my brains out on
Speaker 6: the wall body, because I don't know. I I'm not
Speaker 6: sure yet when I get when I get down there,
Speaker 6: i'll have a better feel for it. But it's hard
Speaker 6: I mean that meadow is where I hit the biggest
Speaker 6: buck I've ever shot at. I sent my buddy in
Speaker 6: there last year. He had a giant which might have
Speaker 6: been the same deer come into a decoy, and there's
Speaker 6: a little bit of part of me that's like, if
Speaker 6: that is the same deer, and from his description it
Speaker 6: sounded like it and the exact same spot. I'm like,
Speaker 6: if that deer made it through, you're talking about a
Speaker 6: deer that like, you know, he said he thought it
Speaker 6: was one pint eighty. When I hit it, I was
Speaker 6: pretty confident in it was just a mainframe twelve that
Speaker 6: was pushing one seventy. And so you're like, if that's
Speaker 6: if that dear's still out there, it's kind of hard
Speaker 6: not to go put some time and see if he
Speaker 6: shows up.
Speaker 2: You know. And so if I were you, if I
Speaker 2: were you, and I'm not, and I'm not giving you
Speaker 2: advice because you don't need my advice, but I would
Speaker 2: be sitting my butt right there and doing the thing
Speaker 2: that's fun, the thing that you think would be most fun,
Speaker 2: and the thing that gives you this possibility. Who cares
Speaker 2: if it becomes a show that's not that great. I
Speaker 2: think it's almost more interesting of a show when you
Speaker 2: do this thing. They're like, man, this could be this
Speaker 2: could be brutal just sitting here NonStop, but it also
Speaker 2: might be the best thing ever. And the decoy thing
Speaker 2: is gonna be so cool. And even if you don't
Speaker 2: see that buck, there's gonna be other bucks. They're gonna
Speaker 2: get cool interactions.
Speaker 6: I don't know, Yeah, I know, I know when I
Speaker 6: hit that buck, I saw six other bucks on that
Speaker 6: That was the first day, first morning of the season,
Speaker 6: and it was they were They weren't obviously that big,
Speaker 6: but there were like one thirty one, twenty five, like
Speaker 6: there were bucks, and some of those deer. Because I
Speaker 6: hunted there again, I saw them again in there, So
Speaker 6: you're like, yeah, so I might. I don't know. It's
Speaker 6: gonna be hard not to. Plus it's just a you
Speaker 6: know how it is, like it's just a really cool
Speaker 6: setup that you can get into in the morning if
Speaker 6: you do it right, Like you you gotta climb a
Speaker 6: big bluff and you gotta sneak in there a little bit.
Speaker 2: But if you if you do it right, you have
Speaker 2: action from the like the get go. Can you can
Speaker 2: you help me understand a little better why this spot's
Speaker 2: so good for that pre rut rut time period. Like
Speaker 2: you said, there's a meadow, you say it's far away
Speaker 2: from the road, but but break down a little bit
Speaker 2: more for me, like how this sets up why there's
Speaker 2: so many bucks moving through here during the rut. So
Speaker 2: there's a couple of things, you know how those and
Speaker 2: then also sorry, one more edition also I'd love to know,
Speaker 2: like how you're gonna set up on this too, accounting
Speaker 2: for deer travel wind et cetera.
Speaker 6: Right, So you know how much dear love, especially in
Speaker 6: like an egg heavy area. They love CRP type grass.
Speaker 6: They love like sumac islands, like that brushy, soft edgy stuff.
Speaker 6: This has that, and what it where it has it
Speaker 6: is on top of a ridge. It's not that easy
Speaker 6: to get to, and it feeds to a private uh
Speaker 6: it's usually alfalfa. You can see it just barely, but
Speaker 6: a private egg field that I'm sure probably gets hunted
Speaker 6: but doesn't get hunted like public land does. And so
Speaker 6: those deer they can bet on that ridgetop, they can
Speaker 6: they can leave their sign on that that meadow. There's visibility.
Speaker 6: They stage there morning and evening, and they can get
Speaker 6: to a private field that's totally walled in. On top
Speaker 6: of that, you can look at it on on X
Speaker 6: and see that like there's nobody's gonna see it from
Speaker 6: the road, nobody's gonna mess with it. So I think
Speaker 6: they're just very comfortable and it's just far enough where
Speaker 6: it's like there's so much good stuff you kind of
Speaker 6: got to go by to get there, and like it's
Speaker 6: just not a it's just the right setup, man. And
Speaker 6: I haven't I haven't explored the whole area because every
Speaker 6: time I've been there, I've been hunting. But I have
Speaker 6: I've killed some turkeys in there and looked around, and
Speaker 6: it has it has probably the best betting cover aside
Speaker 6: from that meadow. There's some like pine tree kind of
Speaker 6: scrubby hillsides in there, and so it has like if
Speaker 6: you were going to put a big buck in that
Speaker 6: area and he was going to find a place on
Speaker 6: public that was real safe, like just you know, like
Speaker 6: escape routes betting cover wise, he can he can move
Speaker 6: in daylight and not expose himself. He's probably not gonna
Speaker 6: get like overrun with people. I mean, I found cameras
Speaker 6: in there, and stands like it's not a total secret,
Speaker 6: but it's just the right stuff. And you know how
Speaker 6: it is down there, even though there's quite a bit
Speaker 6: of woods where I'm hunting, like relative to a lot
Speaker 6: of Iowa, it's also that unbelievably beautiful deciduous forest that's
Speaker 6: pretty open. And so when you get to like a
Speaker 6: river bottom and you have that change and some of
Speaker 6: the you know a little more high stem count stuff,
Speaker 6: and you're like, okay, this is this is a different thing.
Speaker 6: Even though it's a small patch of cover, that's a magnet,
Speaker 6: you know. And I think a lot of people walk
Speaker 6: in and there's so many good trees to set up
Speaker 6: in and it looks like beautiful woods that a lot
Speaker 6: of them sort of just like one layer in. I'm
Speaker 6: good because look at there's rubs here, there's scrapes. But
Speaker 6: when you want that all day sit and you want
Speaker 6: those the bigger deer there, you know how it is
Speaker 6: like you better get you better get somewhere with that
Speaker 6: security cover and it's not there's not a ton.
Speaker 2: Of it on this in this area. So you've got
Speaker 2: this CRP issue thick meadowee zone that is then surrounded
Speaker 2: by that matured deciduous forest and then it feeds out
Speaker 2: down the ridge to this field. Are you then hunting
Speaker 2: like the downwind side of that CRP field or how
Speaker 2: are you setting up in relationship?
Speaker 6: Yep, yep. So I mean the way that it's sort
Speaker 6: of shaped, you can get away with just about anything,
Speaker 6: so you can you can set up one side for
Speaker 6: a north wind, one side for a south wind, and
Speaker 6: if you get some west in there, which you often do.
Speaker 6: It's sort of like a wonky shape, so you can
Speaker 6: always get into a point or something and your sense
Speaker 6: generally gonna fall off because it's really bluffy, and so
Speaker 6: you just have and and there's a there's a fair
Speaker 6: amount of seedars in there too, so if you just
Speaker 6: got to tuck into the ground for whatever reason, it's
Speaker 6: it's huntable no matter what winds you get. You know,
Speaker 6: it's if it would be different though, if you had
Speaker 6: to cross it, you know for a morning sit like
Speaker 6: I climb up to the edge, especially with a south
Speaker 6: or a wet wind, and I don't have to expose
Speaker 6: myself in it. If you if you had to, that
Speaker 6: would be a little different story. So you'd have to
Speaker 6: you'd have to play that game a little bit. But
Speaker 6: it's just just one of those areas, man, And you
Speaker 6: know they're visible enough so you can call to them.
Speaker 6: They just there's just enough of that like sumac type
Speaker 6: brush that they always just gravitate toward. And you know,
Speaker 6: like when you see them leave a field at first
Speaker 6: light or whenever they they start heading back to bed,
Speaker 6: they often hit those spots where they'll kill a couple hours,
Speaker 6: you know, just milling around, right, but they're not they're
Speaker 6: not visible visible, but they're kind of visible, and they're
Speaker 6: just like I think those deer they just sort of
Speaker 6: have that moment of dumb where they're like, I kind
Speaker 6: of I don't want to go back to bed, yet
Speaker 6: I'm feeling it, like I'm making that rub. So when
Speaker 6: you call to those deer they catch sight of a decoy,
Speaker 6: they're like they're just sort of like more open to working.
Speaker 6: And that's like that's the beauty of those spots.
Speaker 2: Man. I like the sound of it a lot, dude.
Speaker 6: I have so many freaking pins drop down there because
Speaker 6: it's like, you know, might play the water game because
Speaker 6: it's going to be hot, but it's so bluffy, like
Speaker 6: real bluffs that you get these pinch points along the
Speaker 6: rivers that are like to me, are just so reliable
Speaker 6: during the rut where you can look and you're like,
Speaker 6: get that one flat where a valley comes in, and
Speaker 6: then it's just a wall, like a vertical wall for
Speaker 6: six hundred yards, and then there's another valley there and
Speaker 6: you're like, you know, those are littered with sign and
Speaker 6: deer crossing all over. But to get between them, you know,
Speaker 6: they might go halfway up the hill or something, but
Speaker 6: most of the time there's that banging trail right along
Speaker 6: the bottom, and your wind can blow over the river
Speaker 6: and you're like, everybody who's got us, who wants to
Speaker 6: see both places, is going to go through there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, no short options. No, I'm excited, dude. Okay, so
Speaker 2: that's your first rut trip and then if you or
Speaker 2: when you tag out there, you're then start hitting the
Speaker 2: Minnesota Wisconsin stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I h my one of my daughters has a
Speaker 6: buck tag left to fill and then in Wisconsin, and
Speaker 6: then both of them have Minnesota tags. So I have
Speaker 6: a I have a weird situation here at Minnesota where
Speaker 6: it's kind of hard to get them out, Like I
Speaker 6: have a place I can take them sometimes. But it's
Speaker 6: a long story, but I My plan is get over
Speaker 6: Wisconsin with them and get one more good hunt with
Speaker 6: them in before you know, I'm gonna go. I gotta
Speaker 6: go sit for myself here at some point. But yeah,
Speaker 6: I'm excited. I'm gonna be I fully intend to watch
Speaker 6: at least a couple of Bucks get shot on a
Speaker 6: decoy here in the next I don't know, three weeks.
Speaker 2: I would say. It's exciting. I'm gonna I'm gonna barrage
Speaker 2: you with some more questions about the decoy setup in
Speaker 2: a little bit, but we'll save that for our little
Speaker 2: tactic showdown. Perfect, all right, I guess I'll walk you
Speaker 2: through my situation then, and then we can we can
Speaker 2: talk some strategy. So since we last talked, you know,
Speaker 2: I killed mid October buck and then re examined some
Speaker 2: of my main Michigan stuff, did a hunt, did a
Speaker 2: kind of scouting day, moving cameras around, shifting some stuff around,
Speaker 2: trying to find the deer I have been after down
Speaker 2: in southern Michigan, and they've kind of disappeared off the map.
Speaker 2: When we talked in August, I had two bucks that
Speaker 2: I was after, and they had been really consistent the
Speaker 2: two years prior and they were really consistent all summer,
Speaker 2: and then one of them disappeared on September third, nothing
Speaker 2: and then one of them stayed consistent until October third,
Speaker 2: and then he disappeared. That buck has still not shown
Speaker 2: up a single time on trail camera or in any
Speaker 2: of the times i've been out glass and I haven't
Speaker 2: seen that deer. That's this big, tall ten pointer that
Speaker 2: we're referring to as bear, he's missing. The other one
Speaker 2: was this buck that's missing an eye. I found his
Speaker 2: match set the spring. He's a five year old, and he,
Speaker 2: you know, was so consistent years past, and he disappeared,
Speaker 2: like I said, September third, for six weeks, didn't see
Speaker 2: hide or hair of him, and then I got one
Speaker 2: trail camera video of him this past weekend and that's it.
Speaker 2: So I have one confirmation of life in a seven
Speaker 2: week period.
Speaker 6: What do you think has happened?
Speaker 2: Dude? I have zero idea. I mean, he's a five
Speaker 2: year old, and usually when they get that old, they're
Speaker 2: pretty well settled into their thing, you know. I don't
Speaker 2: think I've ever had a buck that was really consistent
Speaker 2: at three and four and then just totally changed at five.
Speaker 2: And I went back and looked at my pictures and observations,
Speaker 2: like my notes from last year, and from October through December,
Speaker 2: really through February of last year, almost every single day
Speaker 2: I had him on one of the properties I can
Speaker 2: hunt and a lot of daylight, a lot of activities
Speaker 2: all over the place for the last two years. And
Speaker 2: now he's just gone and I haven't. And it's not
Speaker 2: because I've been in there. Like I have not gone
Speaker 2: into the core of this property and this couple of
Speaker 2: properties at all. I've not hunted it yet. So I
Speaker 2: have glassed from the road, I've hunted edge stuff and
Speaker 2: glass that done. Observation stands. I have a good number
Speaker 2: of cameras around in places that historically he's been hitting.
Speaker 6: I don't know, dude, I'm gonna throw a theory out
Speaker 6: here just because of something I ran into, and I'm
Speaker 6: probably pretty sure it's not your case. But I've had
Speaker 6: so this property I'm hunting by my house. The deer
Speaker 6: mostly disappeared except for this one little woodlot, and I
Speaker 6: actually took one of my daughters in there. We were
Speaker 6: mostly trying to call in a turkey, but maybe a
Speaker 6: deer is going to come in. And I kept I
Speaker 6: called in three flocks of turkeys and it was chaos.
Speaker 6: They were scratching the whole time. The amount of like
Speaker 6: fresh acorns that we were dealing with in there was
Speaker 6: like for this time of year. It really caught me
Speaker 6: off guard. And then where I saw that two year
Speaker 6: old chase in the other morning, I saw ten deer
Speaker 6: off the stand, which is a lot like usually I
Speaker 6: don't see any deer on this property. Every one of them,
Speaker 6: three bucks, seven dozen fawns all hit like a small
Speaker 6: patch of oaks that I know they weren't hitting a
Speaker 6: couple weeks ago because I was in there and killed
Speaker 6: a deer. Like I'm like, it's crazy when something like
Speaker 6: that happens, where you're like, I don't factor acorns into
Speaker 6: this time of year ever, But last year in North
Speaker 6: Dakota on that film that just dropped, those deer were
Speaker 6: on specific trees, you know. I mean it's plain stuff,
Speaker 6: so they're not that many trees. But those bucks were
Speaker 6: like it was clearly like that was the destination. It's
Speaker 6: not like there isn't a whole bunch of egg around there.
Speaker 6: There's a ton of it, you know, but they were
Speaker 6: like they weren't chasing last year during that blizzard, it
Speaker 6: was like they were going to that freaking tree or
Speaker 6: another tree to eat. And then I'm seeing it again
Speaker 6: now and I'm like, are we kind of like missing
Speaker 6: something like that? Where is it?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: Did they just move over to bulk up on that
Speaker 2: food source, you know, and they go get back?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I hope that's the case. I hope that they're just
Speaker 2: back in there. And you know, I've got one camera
Speaker 2: back in a kind of oak flatty area, but that
Speaker 2: camera stopped sending pictures recently, so you know, maybe that's
Speaker 2: that's the thing, but I should Here's my plan, given
Speaker 2: given this mystery. I've been you know, playing it safe
Speaker 2: waiting in this case. But it's the end of October.
Speaker 2: Now I'm gonna go on discovery mode and I'm going
Speaker 2: to go in and just start searching because at this
Speaker 2: point there's there's no use hunting the stuff. I have
Speaker 2: been hunting where they are not, and they have been
Speaker 2: showing the places that I've been able to see to
Speaker 2: this point. So now I'm gonna start going and seeing
Speaker 2: these places that I have not observed yet. I'm just
Speaker 2: gonna I'm gonna explore and try to rEFInd them. So
Speaker 2: tonight tomorrow, this whole upcoming like four day, four five days,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go and check out spots that I have
Speaker 2: not touched yet this year. Search it out, look for signs,
Speaker 2: scout hunt spots where I can see a little ways,
Speaker 2: but be back and cover. I'm gonna start hunting mornings now,
Speaker 2: tight to the edge of some of these betting areas,
Speaker 2: back in some of these oak flats. And you know
Speaker 2: that should tell me something, hopefully.
Speaker 6: And aren't you doing an up north hunt too.
Speaker 2: Yes, Ish, I am doing this is like a I'm
Speaker 2: not sure you know about this most recent shift, but
Speaker 2: I'm doing just a quick two day off north hunt
Speaker 2: with my dad. We're gonna try to get back up
Speaker 2: to our deer camp here like very beginning of November
Speaker 2: and try to get him. We were trying to get
Speaker 2: him an archer buck last year up there. We spent
Speaker 2: like about a week and had like horrible conditions and
Speaker 2: very very slow up movement. But man, the deer are
Speaker 2: There's some big deer up there this year and a
Speaker 2: lot of I mean relatively for us, a lot of bucks,
Speaker 2: and so I just know it's a matter of time
Speaker 2: before it's gonna work out, and I'd really love to
Speaker 2: be up there with him. So I'm able to get
Speaker 2: up there for two days with him at the beginning
Speaker 2: of November. So we're gonna do that, hopefully get a
Speaker 2: crack for him. Do you do you have a spot
Speaker 2: there where you could run that dough decoy? Yeah, but
Speaker 2: I mean yeah, we have, Like I just worry'd be
Speaker 2: so tight. I'd be worried about. You know, I've got
Speaker 2: like the biggest opening I could do it is our
Speaker 2: It's like a half acre food plot, maybe maybe three
Speaker 2: quarters of an acre, And I just I don't I've
Speaker 2: never thought about using decoys up there, just in a
Speaker 2: low deer density area. I don't know you've done that
Speaker 2: up north in northern Wisconsin. So you tell me, is
Speaker 2: that crazy to try that? Would they come out of
Speaker 2: that thick stuff and come into this little opening and
Speaker 2: be shocked by that? Or do you think that might
Speaker 2: be I don't know.
Speaker 6: I mean, I'd have to see it, but a dough
Speaker 6: decoy I would consider. And I mean I think that
Speaker 6: that was sort of the secret to our success last year,
Speaker 6: was the load deer density thing. I mean, you think
Speaker 6: about those bucks up there, and you know how it
Speaker 6: is like you can hunt a week and see like
Speaker 6: three deer, you know, and so they're dealing with that
Speaker 6: load deer density too. So if they pop in the
Speaker 6: other end of the food plot and they see a
Speaker 6: dough over there, you know they're coming. Like if you
Speaker 6: get a buck that sees that, he's gonna go check
Speaker 6: it out.
Speaker 2: And I guess, like the thing I always worry about
Speaker 2: decoys is that does come on it freak out, make
Speaker 2: a whole hubbub and spook everything. But there's not that
Speaker 2: many doughs in this area, so the chances of that
Speaker 2: happening are relatively low. And even if it does happen,
Speaker 2: it's a relatively low odds that that's gonna blow up.
Speaker 2: You know, the one buck that might be half a
Speaker 2: mile away at the moment, who's still cruising our direction,
Speaker 2: you know. I mean, it's not like there's twenty deer
Speaker 2: all around that are going to get messed up.
Speaker 6: Dude, I don't. I haven't had as many really bad
Speaker 6: dough reactions out of that DSD dough as some of
Speaker 6: the other ones I've used in the past, But it's
Speaker 6: still when you think about that possibility, and then you
Speaker 6: think about putting it on a relatively small opening, like
Speaker 6: you don't You definitely don't want to surprise dose with
Speaker 6: a decoy, you know, like you could get away with
Speaker 6: it with some bucks for sure, but does are not
Speaker 6: gonna right, They're not gonna treat you very well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an interesting idea though, although now as you
Speaker 2: say it, it's it's outside of my possibility set because
Speaker 2: I don't have a dough decoy. I've got the buck,
Speaker 2: but I don't have the dough. Make that phone call, buddy,
Speaker 2: send that email. I guess.
Speaker 6: You're Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 2: That's never worked for me before, Tony, but I'll try.
Speaker 6: You're one of the.
Speaker 2: Top one hundred hunters in that one corner of Michigan
Speaker 2: where you live. That might that might be true, that
Speaker 2: one little corner. That's that's a bet I'm willing to take.
Speaker 2: I got to ask you another question, though, I got
Speaker 2: to pose another dilemma for you. So in that Southern Michigan,
Speaker 2: back to Southern Michigan, I'm telling you about how I've
Speaker 2: lost my two bucks that I know for sure mature,
Speaker 2: and my plan is to try to find them and
Speaker 2: seek kind of just explore the area. But I have
Speaker 2: this other possible situation that I'm torn, and that is
Speaker 2: this buck that I sent you pictures and videos of.
Speaker 2: He showed up for the first time the day I
Speaker 2: killed that really tall browton buck in mid October in
Speaker 2: a different area, and I was back scouting in this
Speaker 2: area the next I guess it would have been probably
Speaker 2: the next day I was glassing and saw this year,
Speaker 2: and so that was mid October. And since then, so
Speaker 2: the last almost two weeks now, he's been all over
Speaker 2: these properties and daylighting and showing up a bunch. He
Speaker 2: wants to get shot, but I can't decide what to
Speaker 2: do about him because I'm I'm a little worried. He's three,
Speaker 2: and I don't like to shoot three year olds in
Speaker 2: this area because I know, like, if I don't, there's
Speaker 2: a decent chance they can make it to four or five.
Speaker 2: And that's usually what I'm the last handful of years,
Speaker 2: I've been just chasing five year olds, And so this
Speaker 2: deer is like a tweener. I'm like, is he three?
Speaker 2: Is he four? Do I want to hold out for
Speaker 2: the deer I know armature and the hunt for a while,
Speaker 2: or is this is a pretty darn nice buck. I
Speaker 2: certainly wouldn't pass this deer if I was like traveling
Speaker 2: somewhere on a quick hunt, or on public land, or
Speaker 2: like you know, something where I was time limited. But
Speaker 2: in this situation where I know the area, I have time,
Speaker 2: I don't know what to do. Tony, what are your
Speaker 2: thoughts on that buck? In my situation? That son of
Speaker 2: a bitch who cares? I knew, I knew that's what
Speaker 2: you were to say. First off, shoot.
Speaker 6: Him and send in his teeth, and then come back
Speaker 6: to me and tell me how what he ages, because
Speaker 6: you might be very surprised. Secondly, shoot that son of
Speaker 6: a bitch who cares? He is a nice dear is Mark,
Speaker 6: you work in the hunting industry, Shoot him and go
Speaker 6: out of state, go somewhere else.
Speaker 2: I know, I know. I also I'm torn, man, I'm
Speaker 2: torn because I also I also like, I like the
Speaker 2: idea of shooting a nice buck, but then I also
Speaker 2: liked the idea of trying to find like the really
Speaker 2: old one that I know well, and like, I know
Speaker 2: that that doesn't do it for you. But I also
Speaker 2: am like as massa masochist, I guess i'd be like
Speaker 2: I kind of like the suffering of like waiting to
Speaker 2: try to find that deer. So I don't I really
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 6: And that's just a different calculus though. I mean, you
Speaker 6: can do that because you have a legitimate chance of
Speaker 6: letting him go and having him.
Speaker 2: Come back, you know. But I I just shoot him.
Speaker 2: I mean like, like, I mean, I recognize like this is.
Speaker 2: It would be different if it was a trip where
Speaker 2: I knew I didn't have any other time. But this
Speaker 2: is like the situation where what I here's what happened.
Speaker 2: If I shoot that deer, I'd be happy and it'd
Speaker 2: be a great experience and a cool deer. But if
Speaker 2: one of those other two bucks all of a sudden
Speaker 2: showed up the next week and was like all over
Speaker 2: the place, then I'd be kicking myself and I'd be like, oh, man,
Speaker 2: I should have waited, because now this buck's back that
Speaker 2: I really really was wanting to get after. And then
Speaker 2: I'd be getting pictures of him all fall or I'd
Speaker 2: go out there two does and I'd be seeing these
Speaker 2: bucks and I'd be thinking, Ah, what an idiot. I
Speaker 2: should have waited because look at that tank. He's a monster.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if that's how I feel or not.
Speaker 2: But that's what I'm worried about. So that's how I
Speaker 2: don't know. It's all gonna probably come down to if
Speaker 2: that deer shows up in front of me, how I
Speaker 2: feel and if it gets me freaking out excited or not.
Speaker 2: But I do know every time when I've been out
Speaker 2: glassing and I've caught him in my bios a couple
Speaker 2: of times, and I've been out there and filmed him,
Speaker 2: saw him and both times I was like, HOA, whoa
Speaker 2: big buck, and the I'm like, oh, it's that one buck.
Speaker 2: But at first I'm always like whoa, So that's an
Speaker 2: impressive deer. I've been thinking about this a lot. H
Speaker 2: I don't think.
Speaker 6: I think that you should step back from looking at
Speaker 6: white tail hunting like it's such an academic per suit
Speaker 6: and look at it and go, would it be really
Speaker 6: fun for you to go, you know what, that's some
Speaker 6: bitch is number one on my list and I'm going
Speaker 6: to go in and try to kill him? Or would
Speaker 6: it not be fun?
Speaker 2: Mm hmm?
Speaker 6: Would you enjoy that?
Speaker 2: I don't know. That's that's That's here's the thing. Tony
Speaker 2: is like, if I didn't I was actually talking to
Speaker 2: one of our mutual friends about this just yesterday and
Speaker 2: how I'm moosette Garrett. Oh and dude, let me tell
Speaker 2: you Garrett story quick. He listens to this podcast, so
Speaker 2: be warned.
Speaker 6: I know it's great. I talked to him this morning
Speaker 6: and he answered the phone and he's like, I'm like, dude,
Speaker 6: I catch you in a workout or what.
Speaker 2: He's like, No, I'm just coyote hunting. I just shot
Speaker 2: a coyote. I was like, whoa buddy. Anyway, he gets
Speaker 2: really into it. Yeah. Yeah. So we were just talking
Speaker 2: the other day though about this very thing and how
Speaker 2: you and I are actually so different on this. You
Speaker 2: as you just described, like the most fun thing for
Speaker 2: you would be shooting a buck, you know that you
Speaker 2: get the chance at And I was kind of talking
Speaker 2: Togair about how I totally get that, but I'm kind
Speaker 2: of the opposite, and that I actually might enjoy the
Speaker 2: pursuit of the thing that I am, like, actually the
Speaker 2: thing I set my sights on originally for whatever reason,
Speaker 2: I'd be fine not killing anything but then pursuing that possibility.
Speaker 2: So if I didn't feel any kind of pressure to
Speaker 2: fill a tag because of what we do and everything,
Speaker 2: I might not kill buck for years at a time,
Speaker 2: maybe if there wasn't the deer that I was really
Speaker 2: excited about in certain situations like this where I can
Speaker 2: do that. So I don't know, but I'm I'm, like
Speaker 2: I said, I'm very torn on this because sometimes you
Speaker 2: like a surpressed surprise is great, and you take a gift,
Speaker 2: you know, you don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
Speaker 2: And then sometimes I'm like, gosh, I really do love
Speaker 2: the you know, try to figure this buck out kind
Speaker 2: of deal.
Speaker 6: So let me ask you this about your hunting, because
Speaker 6: one of the reasons that I have gone the route
Speaker 6: that I go is because it's just, for whatever reason,
Speaker 6: my favorite thing is to walk out on public land
Speaker 6: and figure it out. Like I just the years that
Speaker 6: I don't get to do that enough, I feel like
Speaker 6: I'm missing something, you know, and I listen. I like
Speaker 6: the private land hunts. I like setting up stands ahead
Speaker 6: of time, like I understand it and I like it.
Speaker 6: But that's like just the thing that hums for me.
Speaker 6: I'm wondering with you, like, do you think at this
Speaker 6: point you've got those deer figured out well enough where
Speaker 6: you know, like, you know, this buck if he's daylighting
Speaker 6: a whole bunch, and he's been there and he's on
Speaker 6: all your cameras, there's probably a pretty good chance you're
Speaker 6: going to go work that deer and kill him, right,
Speaker 6: And so is this one of those things where you're like,
Speaker 6: you've you've gotten to know these deer in this area
Speaker 6: so well that like there's just a miss, even though
Speaker 6: that that buck would look amazing and like definitely would
Speaker 6: be a deer almost everybody would shoot, But for you,
Speaker 6: because of this specific circumstance and the amount of time
Speaker 6: you put in, you're like torn between trying to represent
Speaker 6: the person who would shoot that deer because most people would,
Speaker 6: but in your very specific situation, it's just not going
Speaker 6: to give you what you need out of a hunt
Speaker 6: for a deer.
Speaker 5: There.
Speaker 2: Yeah, something like that kind of maybe feels like what
Speaker 2: I'm feeling where it almost feels like I don't know,
Speaker 2: I'm having a hard time even explain it to myself,
Speaker 2: but but yeah, for whatever reason, I kind of feel
Speaker 2: like it almost seems too easy to kill that deer
Speaker 2: right now, just based on man, he's been everywhere and
Speaker 2: I've been seeing him and I've not gone in after
Speaker 2: him because I'm waiting and waiting for this other deer
Speaker 2: to show back up. And then when I got proof
Speaker 2: of life of the five year old, I was like, oh, man,
Speaker 2: like that's the buck. I really want to get a
Speaker 2: crack app But I don't know if this deer. If
Speaker 2: this deer marches in front of me at twenty yards
Speaker 2: and just hangs out working a scrape tonight, who knows.
Speaker 2: Maybe in the moment, I'm just gonna have to send it.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but I mean, so there.
Speaker 6: The real lesson here, though, I think, is if people
Speaker 6: are listening to this, they're like, I would go in
Speaker 6: there and shoot that deer, Like I would be so
Speaker 6: happy to have that setup. But it's like a careful
Speaker 6: what you wish for a thing, you know, and people
Speaker 6: people like say this to me a lot. Like I
Speaker 6: own those two properties in Wisconsin. I almost never hunt them.
Speaker 6: I almost always just go hunt the Big Woods public
Speaker 6: land because I just like it better. And it's like
Speaker 6: you just have to go. We're so focused on like
Speaker 6: got to kill whatever size of buck, and this is
Speaker 6: like just like across the board with hunters. But you
Speaker 6: get enough experience and enough time out there and you go,
Speaker 6: what is the thing that really like I want to
Speaker 6: go out there today for and you know, it changes.
Speaker 6: Like I was thinking about this when I missed that
Speaker 6: big one in North Dakota. I was like, that of
Speaker 6: wrecked me. I mean when I you know, ten fifteen
Speaker 6: years ago, that would have been like a season ruining thing.
Speaker 6: And I was like, I don't even really care, like
Speaker 6: because I get to keep doing this thing I want
Speaker 6: to do so bad in a place I want to
Speaker 6: do it in. And so I think that the hard
Speaker 6: part that we have is we understand that there's that difference, right,
Speaker 6: like you understand what you're saying, like you know in
Speaker 6: your heart what you want to do. You don't really
Speaker 6: want to kill this deer because you know you're going
Speaker 6: to kill him probably, and so it's like whatever, like
Speaker 6: I want that next thing. And that's a hard message
Speaker 6: to pass on to people because not everybody has that spot.
Speaker 2: Well. And I think I think here's where I settle
Speaker 2: on And what for anyone listening to this and thinking
Speaker 2: we sound like crazy people, which is probably the case.
Speaker 2: I think where I'm at and what I might suggest
Speaker 2: people take away from all this is to just do
Speaker 2: what's fun for you and to not care about what
Speaker 2: other people think. That's what I'm trying to remind myself,
Speaker 2: is I think I'm getting I'm feeling this like internal
Speaker 2: pressure in my head of like people will think you're
Speaker 2: nuts if you don't kill that deer, you're stupid. And
Speaker 2: then if I don't kill a buck out here, then
Speaker 2: they'll think I'm doubly stupid because I passed on that
Speaker 2: super nice buck that anyone who's not a lunatic in
Speaker 2: Michigan would shoot. But what might actually be most fun
Speaker 2: for me might be passed on that deer. And just
Speaker 2: seeing if the possibility of one of these two older
Speaker 2: bucks coming back does pan out, that might end up
Speaker 2: being what's most fun for me would give me the
Speaker 2: most joy. And I think I'm just gonna what I
Speaker 2: what I am gonna do is I'm gonna trust my
Speaker 2: gut and trust what is most enjoyable for me despite
Speaker 2: any outside pressures or outside perspectives that in saying that,
Speaker 2: that also might in the moment change and it might
Speaker 2: be man, that deer is awesome seeing him up close,
Speaker 2: and I got I you want to take a crack
Speaker 2: of that deer. Maybe that'll turn out to be the case.
Speaker 2: But maybe it'll be the opposite. Maybe I'll watch him
Speaker 2: be like, man, that's a beautiful deer. I'd love to
Speaker 2: see him next year or late maybe even later this year.
Speaker 2: But for now, I want to kind of see how
Speaker 2: the next couple of weeks spans out, and maybe one
Speaker 2: of these other deer comes back, and and you know what,
Speaker 2: I you know, I've got enough meat in the freezer
Speaker 2: by the you know, by the two bucks I've killed already,
Speaker 2: and the doughs I'm going to kill in the coming
Speaker 2: you know, month or two. And if I don't kill
Speaker 2: a second Michigan buck, I'll survive, or maybe I do,
Speaker 2: And then I'm sitting really pretty But I guess I
Speaker 2: kind of want to just get back to just making
Speaker 2: sure it's fun, you know, and do it for your
Speaker 2: own reason. Every one of us has a different little
Speaker 2: thing that we prefer. Like you just describe, You've got
Speaker 2: a certain thing that really hums for you. I've got
Speaker 2: a certain thing that really hums for me. Everyone's different.
Speaker 2: And the more we can remove any outside noise and
Speaker 2: not worry about what our friends would think, or what
Speaker 2: the neighbors would think, or what anyone on social media
Speaker 2: would think. I think we'd be a lot happier hunters
Speaker 2: if we did.
Speaker 6: That, right. I mean, I'll give you an example to
Speaker 6: frame this up, you know, like I write a lot
Speaker 6: about just figure out how to hunt a spot, Like
Speaker 6: if you find a spot like that meatow I'm talking about, right,
Speaker 6: if you didn't have good trees there, I'd be on
Speaker 6: the ground in a heartbeat, you know, ground blind, no groundblind,
Speaker 6: natural blind, whatever. And I pushed that partially because it's
Speaker 6: just good advice, like if you if you find where
Speaker 6: the deer are, you should just figure out how to
Speaker 6: hunt them. But also sometimes you just figure out the
Speaker 6: stuff that's just more fun. Like with my daughters, we've
Speaker 6: been in pop up ground lines their whole hunting career
Speaker 6: turkeys and deer up until last year just a little
Speaker 6: bit I started taking them out and just having them
Speaker 6: sit on the ground and we do a natural groundbline.
Speaker 6: And then this year they both killed deer in Wisconsin
Speaker 6: from just natural groundblines where you're way more exposed and
Speaker 6: you see them coming. And both of my daughters were like,
Speaker 6: I don't ever want to get back in to pop up.
Speaker 6: This is better. And so we tend to kind of
Speaker 6: lean toward what is like what's like the easiest, most
Speaker 6: effective way, you know, and so like a like a
Speaker 6: box blind is a great example, right, Like I have
Speaker 6: a lot of buddies who they almost only hunt rednecks
Speaker 6: or whatever, which are super effective. But that's you know,
Speaker 6: like you might like that for three four seasons and go,
Speaker 6: you know what, I need to get back out there
Speaker 6: and do something different. But trying that different stuff is
Speaker 6: such an easy way to sort of tap into what
Speaker 6: you need out of it. And that stuff changes, you know,
Speaker 6: like your priorities changed depending on where you hunt, where
Speaker 6: you go, like how much time you have, like you said,
Speaker 6: how much meat you have in the freezer already none,
Speaker 6: you know, like and so I just think they hunt
Speaker 6: with my little girls that way. When they both said
Speaker 6: that afterwards, I'm like, that's like a it's like a
Speaker 6: key tenant of what we have to pay attention to.
Speaker 6: It's like so simple, but it's nice to be reminded
Speaker 6: of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so true. Especially it's such a good reminder this
Speaker 2: time of year two because right for all of us,
Speaker 2: when we get to the rut, we're so we've been
Speaker 2: building and building building up to this moment. It's so
Speaker 2: easy to get obsessed with the actual I gotta kill buck,
Speaker 2: I gotta fill the tag, I gotta do the whatever,
Speaker 2: the thing you've been preparing for, the thing you've been
Speaker 2: working towards, the thing you've been dreaming about. So there's
Speaker 2: so much pressure building up to this moment. And for
Speaker 2: some of us, I know we've both had moments like this.
Speaker 2: You end up being stressed out and not enjoying yourself
Speaker 2: during the rut and grinding yourself to a pulp. And
Speaker 2: then you know you're chasing this thing you think you
Speaker 2: want because you've built up to this moment, and then
Speaker 2: you end up not enjoying the process because you're so
Speaker 2: stressed out or upset about the things that went wrong
Speaker 2: or mistakes you made, or the fact that the deer's
Speaker 2: not showing or whatever. And that's such a shame to
Speaker 2: have that Like this should be the most fun part
Speaker 2: of the year, and if you're doing anything that is
Speaker 2: taking the fun out of it, I think you got
Speaker 2: to reassess the situation and try to re level reset
Speaker 2: where you're at, because, at least as far as I'm concerned,
Speaker 2: the rut all season, but especially this time, this should
Speaker 2: be like the most joyful celebration of hunting. This should
Speaker 2: not be you know, the suffer fast grind of misery,
Speaker 2: which which oftentimes it becomes if we are not careful.
Speaker 6: Right well, And you know, one of the things that
Speaker 6: really hits home with me every rut is how I
Speaker 6: sort of and I'm sure a lot of people do this,
Speaker 6: but I sort of go into it with this feeling
Speaker 6: of like I just volume hunt this spot, or I
Speaker 6: just like it's going to be a dumb down thing,
Speaker 6: you know, like we're all just so fatigued by making
Speaker 6: decisions about our lives all day long with the kids
Speaker 6: and everything, and like we look at this like I
Speaker 6: can just go take it easy and sit that stand
Speaker 6: and they'll come to me. And so often I still
Speaker 6: have to go to them, Like you still have to
Speaker 6: play the sign game. And if you see them all
Speaker 6: crossing through that one brushy fence or whatever, like you
Speaker 6: can try to call them over, you can try to
Speaker 6: decoy him over, but your best bet is to get
Speaker 6: right on top of them and work them. And the
Speaker 6: rut doesn't, like it does, doesn't reallyeve you of those
Speaker 6: responsibilities like you still have you still have.
Speaker 2: To work them. Very true, and that is a perfect
Speaker 2: segue two. What I think we should call the what
Speaker 2: the white tail rut Rumble Last man Standing competition. Wow,
Speaker 2: I just came up with that on the fly. Total
Speaker 2: it's a little long, just just rolls out the tongue, though.
Speaker 2: I think here's what I want to do to wrap
Speaker 2: this sucker up. I can't remember if we've done this
Speaker 2: in the past and I'm forgetting, or if it's just
Speaker 2: an idea I had and we never actually did it.
Speaker 2: But I want to just go back and forth with
Speaker 2: white tail rot tactics or strategies or ideas, and we'll
Speaker 2: go back and forth. Each of us share a quick tip,
Speaker 2: and then the next person shares a quick tip, and
Speaker 2: we'll go back and forth until until someone runs out
Speaker 2: of ideas or we run out of time. All right,
Speaker 2: So that's how That's how I'm thinking we're gonna get
Speaker 2: to thirty nine specific actionable rut hunting tactics, or maybe
Speaker 2: it'll be more. I guess that's a question. Do you
Speaker 2: think will we be over under thirty nine?
Speaker 6: Thirty nine is a lot, bud, I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 6: say under, but just barely.
Speaker 2: All right, So let's uh, let's let's see where we
Speaker 2: get in our I don't know. I've got another meeting
Speaker 2: that I've got to run to the tree and uh
Speaker 2: so maybe we've got ten to fifteen minutes left ish
Speaker 2: and less unless it's really gets milentum. Sorry, you go first, Tony.
Speaker 6: If you're if you don't know what to do during
Speaker 6: the rut, hunt water. I'm so reliable. Uh water out
Speaker 6: in the open or water deep in the cover, deep
Speaker 6: in the cover.
Speaker 2: If you have it, those those dose that are getting
Speaker 2: pushed around get thirsty, like and how go ahead? I
Speaker 2: was just gonna say, how do you set up on water?
Speaker 6: Depends what kind of water, right, you know, if it's
Speaker 6: a creak, it's a different story. I love a little
Speaker 6: water hole in the woods. If I can hunt a pond,
Speaker 6: I'm gonna get you know. I mean, obviously you got
Speaker 6: to read it a little bit. But just if you
Speaker 6: tuck ponds, you can look at them and see where
Speaker 6: they approach them. Some ponds out like out west are
Speaker 6: they'll be ringed with tracks, right, But a lot of
Speaker 6: ponds in the Midwest and the East, you'll find that
Speaker 6: one part where they just that's where they drop down
Speaker 6: to drink.
Speaker 2: For whatever reason.
Speaker 6: They can see better, or it's just easier access. That's
Speaker 6: where you want to be because those doors are going
Speaker 6: to bring those bucks in there.
Speaker 2: All right, all right, I would say, when trying to
Speaker 2: choose best possible stand sides stiring the rut, I like
Speaker 2: locations with compounding features. So best case scenario, I don't
Speaker 2: want to be just a pinch point. I don't want
Speaker 2: to be somewhere that's just a dill betting area. I
Speaker 2: don't want something that's just close to a scrape. I
Speaker 2: want all of these things compounding and layering. So give
Speaker 2: me like a layer cake stand, a stand that is
Speaker 2: downwind of a dough betting area where there's a pinch
Speaker 2: point and there's a creek crossing so there's like a
Speaker 2: double pinch, and there's a big inside the cover scrape
Speaker 2: that's within range, or there's a gap in the fence,
Speaker 2: or there's a oak tree that's dropping down acorns back
Speaker 2: in there too. I want layers for those locations where
Speaker 2: I'm going to spend big periods of time. I love
Speaker 2: that kind of location in the rut, So I don't
Speaker 2: ever want to hunt somewhere just for one reason. I
Speaker 2: want to be like three or more things going for
Speaker 2: that spot right right. My next one would be.
Speaker 6: Most people don't do all day sits, you know, they
Speaker 6: just don't whatever, they don't have the time, patients, whatever.
Speaker 6: I would say one of the most important things to
Speaker 6: do if you don't want to just go pull all
Speaker 6: dayers for several days in a row is look at
Speaker 6: your weather app whatever you use, and when you see
Speaker 6: a weather change, try to be there. And I'm not
Speaker 6: like a huge like we all know the huge cold fronts,
Speaker 6: but man, you see sometimes where the wind's been out
Speaker 6: of some direction for a long time and it's just
Speaker 6: gonna switch. You know, usually that's prefrontal, but it doesn't
Speaker 6: have to be or even like a little temperature drop
Speaker 6: or for some reason Thursday afternoon, there's gonna be just
Speaker 6: like intermittent rain, just a little bit, just gonna blow through.
Speaker 6: Like when you get you sort of get those like
Speaker 6: fits and starts during the like the chasing and the
Speaker 6: like the activity, and it's like it doesn't really matter
Speaker 6: what time of day it is when something like that changes,
Speaker 6: especially if you've been in a holding pattern for a
Speaker 6: couple of days. It doesn't have to be that like
Speaker 6: forty degree temperature drop, just something it often gets them
Speaker 6: on their feet. I mean even if you know, like
Speaker 6: if you sit out there in the rain all day
Speaker 6: like we did in one week in November a couple
Speaker 6: of years ago, and it just lightens up by like
Speaker 6: a few degrees, that puts them on their feet moving again.
Speaker 6: And so you can you can sort of be really
Speaker 6: targeted around weather and it doesn't have.
Speaker 2: To be that big front.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I like that, And I'll jump in with one that's
Speaker 2: kind of a piggyback off that and kind of ties
Speaker 2: into a little bit of what we were talking about
Speaker 2: a minute, that being, you know, trying to be smart
Speaker 2: with how we hunt the rut and how we manage
Speaker 2: like our mental and emotional or fun level I guess,
Speaker 2: just managing the mental side of things during the rut.
Speaker 2: And and I say this because I came from like
Speaker 2: a history when I first started taking this really serious
Speaker 2: where I thought, you know, you kill deer with brute
Speaker 2: force in time in the stand, and you hunt every
Speaker 2: single minute of every single day. You hunt all day,
Speaker 2: every single day, and if you don't, you are not
Speaker 2: giving it one hundred and fifty percent, and you suck
Speaker 2: because of that. And that's an approach that can work.
Speaker 2: But if you are not having fun anymore, or if
Speaker 2: you've done this for nine straight days and you are
Speaker 2: so worn down that not only are you miserable, but
Speaker 2: you're also losing focus and you're not with it and
Speaker 2: you're not really able to pay and execute well, you
Speaker 2: end up losing more opportunities because of that and not
Speaker 2: have fun along the way. So I would suggest at
Speaker 2: least what I have started doing is I have given
Speaker 2: myself forgiveness. I'm forgiving myself for occasionally not hunting all
Speaker 2: day or occasionally, you know, looking at the weather forecast
Speaker 2: like you're saying and seeing like, ma'am, there's an eighty
Speaker 2: five degree day, you know, on November first, or October
Speaker 2: twenty ninth, or whatever it is. And if you're hunting
Speaker 2: a whole big week or ten days or something, give
Speaker 2: yourself permission to sleep in one morning, or give yourself
Speaker 2: permission to come in midday a time or two and
Speaker 2: go do the breakfast with your friends, or do lunch
Speaker 2: with your friends, and do the things that make the
Speaker 2: whole experience fun. And that also kind of refill your
Speaker 2: energy tank, because if you don't, if you don't manage that, yeah,
Speaker 2: more tree or more time the tree. You could say
Speaker 2: that's better, but if you're in the tree but miserable,
Speaker 2: or in the tree and not actually mentally there, it
Speaker 2: might not be worth it. So I have found giving
Speaker 2: myself a couple moments to recoup actually makes me a
Speaker 2: more effective hunter.
Speaker 6: Down the line, I'm gonna piggyback on that. I'm gonna
Speaker 6: say I do a fair amount of all day sits.
Speaker 5: And.
Speaker 2: It has to be a sit in the cover.
Speaker 6: Where I just believe in my heart of hearts that
Speaker 6: whatever pinch point funnel, whatever feature, pond, whatever that I'm
Speaker 6: on is going to draw them. Like I think, I
Speaker 6: think that people hear the all day advice and they go, well,
Speaker 6: I'll go sit that box blind, or I'll go sit that,
Speaker 6: you know, my favorite stand on the cut corn, And
Speaker 6: it's like that might be great for two and a
Speaker 6: half hours a day and might be worthless for cruising
Speaker 6: bucks for the rest of the time. Like that, if
Speaker 6: you're going to do an all day sit, unless you know,
Speaker 6: unless you're in the heart of it and I or
Speaker 6: something where you just have like a really good property
Speaker 6: and they could just be bouncing all over. For most people,
Speaker 6: you have to set yourself up for that all day sit.
Speaker 6: It's not just go sit wherever you like to. It's
Speaker 6: like you got to be in that place that's just
Speaker 6: vibrating with dear activity, because that's if you if you
Speaker 6: don't have that, that second guessing comes in, sun comes up,
Speaker 6: you know whatever, Like you're you're gonna talk yourself into leaving.
Speaker 6: But if you're like I know, at some point today
Speaker 6: a buck is gonna run through this funnel, it's like
Speaker 6: it's so much easier to stay. Plus, when you're in
Speaker 6: the cover, you hear squirrels and like there's just like
Speaker 6: there's like a different vibe to the whole thing where
Speaker 6: you're like a little bit more paying attention and it
Speaker 6: just feels more possible.
Speaker 2: So true, Uh So mine will be piggybacking off that
Speaker 2: in saying that if you find yourself struggling to hunt
Speaker 2: all day but you want to do it and you're
Speaker 2: excited to do it, a one little like cheak code
Speaker 2: way to get through and all day hunt a little
Speaker 2: bit better is to make a move so you're still
Speaker 2: basically hunting all day, but just get down and shift
Speaker 2: to a new spot. You know, I would, personally if
Speaker 2: I were to pick a time of day to do
Speaker 2: my move, I would typically say it's going to be
Speaker 2: after the midday, so it'd be like maybe two o'clock
Speaker 2: or three o'clock, because I like, you know, there's a
Speaker 2: course your first light movement, and then there seems to
Speaker 2: be that late morning cruising that happens somewhere between like
Speaker 2: ten in one. Maybe if I had to put a window,
Speaker 2: that seems to be a window when like a mature
Speaker 2: buck's going to get back on his feet and check
Speaker 2: dough betting area. So I don't want to be leaving
Speaker 2: that if I don't have to. But it seems like
Speaker 2: if I had to pick a spot where there's oftentimes
Speaker 2: a lull, it'd be that one or two o'clock to
Speaker 2: three o'clock maybe somewhere in there. That's when I will typically,
Speaker 2: if I'm trying to do an all this but want
Speaker 2: to shift locations, that's a good time to do it.
Speaker 2: And then it also sets you up well because that
Speaker 2: morning through the midday can be great back in the cover,
Speaker 2: like you're describing, but sometimes those spots slow down for
Speaker 2: the last hour of daylight, and so if you want
Speaker 2: to make a move at three o'clock, to a more
Speaker 2: evening specific location that might set you up for the
Speaker 2: best of both worlds.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna am I gonna piggyback on you, piggybacking on me, piggybacking.
Speaker 6: I'm not sure I would say with I do want
Speaker 6: to talk about the all day sit thing one, like,
Speaker 6: let's let's just push this a little bit more. Anything
Speaker 6: you can do so if if you can't sit in
Speaker 6: a tree stand all day for whatever reason, sit in
Speaker 6: a groundb line, like if you can stretch out, or
Speaker 6: like the the midday move thing like you said. One
Speaker 6: of the things that I did in North Dakota this
Speaker 6: year that was like a game changer, which is gonna
Speaker 6: sound dumb, is I brought my little elk stove and
Speaker 6: I brought some of those peak refuels. So instead of
Speaker 6: making sandwiches to eat for seven days in a row,
Speaker 6: we get out of stand midday to move because we
Speaker 6: were out there all day and we go sit on
Speaker 6: the river bank, cook up some macaroni and cheese or
Speaker 6: whatever we had whatever, dude, and it was like you
Speaker 6: got some energy and you're like it was just like
Speaker 6: a nice break. We didn't leave where the deer are,
Speaker 6: but we just like that was like the way to
Speaker 6: make it through. And I think, you know, I remember
Speaker 6: Eddie Claypoole talks about this a lot, or he used to,
Speaker 6: but I remember thinking, like, it would be insane to
Speaker 6: bring a book hunting, or it'd be insane to like
Speaker 6: have two thermoss of coffee, as if that's what you need.
Speaker 6: I'm like, now, I'm like, take whatever you have to
Speaker 6: take if reading a book is what's going to keep
Speaker 6: you out there or whatever, because, like you said, when
Speaker 6: you actually get that buck that comes through at eleven
Speaker 6: o'clock or one o'clock or two o'clock, that you can
Speaker 6: live off of that for a long time, Like that's
Speaker 6: a powerful motivator to keep doing those all day sis
Speaker 6: and it's mostly not going to happen, but when it does,
Speaker 6: it's amazing. And so just figure out how to put
Speaker 6: that time.
Speaker 2: And if you have the time, Yeah, and you're right,
Speaker 2: Snacks food, man, that makes a huge difference. My daughter
Speaker 2: just got brace, so she says, snacks and it's great.
Speaker 2: My son just lost his second big tooth, so now
Speaker 2: he's missing his two front teeth and he's got an
Speaker 2: interesting little lisp thing go on too. So you brought
Speaker 2: up food. So my snack hack is that I bring
Speaker 2: enough snacks and then I bring enough snacks to be
Speaker 2: able to parse them out on like a schedule. So
Speaker 2: of course I do, right, that's the most Mark Kenyon
Speaker 2: thing ever. But the way I do it is is
Speaker 2: I like a sign, like every hour I'm able to
Speaker 2: pick something else out of my snack bag, and then
Speaker 2: I know, like I have to look forward to all right,
Speaker 2: ten o'clock, I get the oreos, and then like, all right,
Speaker 2: eleven o'clock, if you can just make it to eleven,
Speaker 2: you're gonna get the bag of mang dried mangos or whatever.
Speaker 2: And so just throughout the day, you've got these little
Speaker 2: one hour celebrations that you get to look forward to
Speaker 2: throughout that long day that just give you that tiny
Speaker 2: little bit of extra something. And that's all helped me
Speaker 2: the all days too. Dude.
Speaker 6: It's incredible how many people I talk to about all
Speaker 6: day sets who will say, I try to not have
Speaker 6: my first drink of coffee as long as I can,
Speaker 6: so I delay that, you know, because you get colder
Speaker 6: and colder and tired, and you're like I just because
Speaker 6: you know you're only you know, twenty ounces of coffee
Speaker 6: or whatever, like you can drink it. And so you're
Speaker 6: like a lot of people I talk to who do
Speaker 6: all day sits. We'll talk about that, like I try
Speaker 6: to save it as late into the morning as I
Speaker 6: can because it's like this amazing reward.
Speaker 2: So do you drink coffee on all day sets?
Speaker 6: Oh? Dude, I would shoot coffee directly into my eyeballs
Speaker 6: on all day sits if I could see.
Speaker 2: I'm always I'm always worried about possibly incurring the wrath
Speaker 2: of the coffee's diuretic effects and having one of those.
Speaker 2: So I usually don't drink coffee on all day sits,
Speaker 2: although I have toyed with and I occasionally do, but
Speaker 2: I'm always a little paranoid. I just go nuts for donuts. Buddy.
Speaker 6: That's that Jesus take the wheel moment for me because
Speaker 6: I'm drinking that coffee.
Speaker 2: Okay, So my snack attack tip was the last one.
Speaker 2: You're next. We'll switch gears here.
Speaker 6: So I just I just wrote a foundation script and
Speaker 6: an article about hunting with decoys, and one of the
Speaker 6: things that I kind of focused on, or at least
Speaker 6: one aspect of it, is when you put a decoy out,
Speaker 6: you are inviting the deer right into something that you've touched,
Speaker 6: like right into an area, And so there's like a
Speaker 6: there's a risk reward thing with these rut tactics, right,
Speaker 6: So calling is different. But if you want to put
Speaker 6: out a cent wick with some dope on it, what's
Speaker 6: the risk that you're going to touch something or leave
Speaker 6: scent there or disturb that area that you're inviting deer
Speaker 6: in versus the reward like the likely reward of a
Speaker 6: buck getting down when turning in on it. Right, So
Speaker 6: I look at that stuff and I go, I don't
Speaker 6: ever do it. Like if I'm good enough to get
Speaker 6: a buck to smell that and come in, I'm good
Speaker 6: enough to just to get him right where I want
Speaker 6: to shoot him anyway. But it decoy is different, and
Speaker 6: so I'm like that risk is worth it because I
Speaker 6: know I can call a deer in from very far
Speaker 6: away with that and in multiple directions. So it's always
Speaker 6: like I think people look at it, it's like it's
Speaker 6: kind of a safe play, right, Like I'm gonna put
Speaker 6: out some centwix down by that scrape or whatever. But
Speaker 6: it's like, you know, if that little four ky comes
Speaker 6: in you don't want to kill and he gets wiggy
Speaker 6: about it and blows, or you get a dough that
Speaker 6: walks by. It's like was that worth it?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 6: So like think about that stuff because these we look
Speaker 6: at a lot of rut tactics like that as it's
Speaker 6: just like I'm just gonna do it, and it's like additive.
Speaker 6: It doesn't it doesn't have a negative possibility, but it does.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very true. So you bring up another thought for
Speaker 2: me when it comes to using decoys and or calls
Speaker 2: and my rut calling approach, that I would suggest that
Speaker 2: or at least this worked well for me, has been
Speaker 2: using like an escalator approach. And so by that I
Speaker 2: mean I start at the bottom of my calling escalator
Speaker 2: and then I will advance up the escalator in aggressiveness
Speaker 2: if I have to. But I am reading the deer's
Speaker 2: body language before shifting up a notch with each one,
Speaker 2: and if I can stop low on the escalator, I will.
Speaker 2: So what I mean by that is number one, if
Speaker 2: I can, I will start with just like a contact
Speaker 2: grunt first, just like a prop and hopefully get a
Speaker 2: buck's attention with that. And again this is if I
Speaker 2: see a buck. I'm not doing that. I don't blind
Speaker 2: grunt really ever, this is only if I see a
Speaker 2: buck that I'm trying to call in the range, I
Speaker 2: will start with something relatively subtle, and if I can
Speaker 2: get him to hear that and get a reaction out
Speaker 2: of him, then I'll stop there if possible. So you're
Speaker 2: watching to see what he does. Does he turn does
Speaker 2: he pin his ears back, does he puff up? Does
Speaker 2: he start to come your way? Then anything like that,
Speaker 2: I'm saying, okay, great, I'm done. If he doesn't hear
Speaker 2: it at all, well, then I'm going to try to
Speaker 2: turn up the notch next. Or if he kind of
Speaker 2: perks up hears it, but then just keeps on going
Speaker 2: his way, that I might try to escalate to the
Speaker 2: next level, which typically for me would be more of
Speaker 2: like a buck roar or growl, just like a more
Speaker 2: aggressive like ra bra something like that, And so that
Speaker 2: would be my next step up. And then again I'm
Speaker 2: watching body language, trying to see what he's what he's
Speaker 2: gonna do, what does he think about this, And if
Speaker 2: at any point along this pathway or like up this path,
Speaker 2: I see him negatively react, which would be like tucking
Speaker 2: his tail and turning and walking away or in any
Speaker 2: kind of way showing like I don't like this, I
Speaker 2: just stop, you know, if you see anything like that.
Speaker 2: I've at least I have never once seen a buck
Speaker 2: react like that and then me keep pushing it and
Speaker 2: then at turn him around. It's never worked for me,
Speaker 2: so it's almost always better to bail if he starts
Speaker 2: seeing something like that, and then the final thing would
Speaker 2: be a snort wheeze, So that would be the top
Speaker 2: of my escalator. If he just hasn't heard it, or
Speaker 2: if he's kind of just like hanging out, or if
Speaker 2: he's kind of circling you but not coming in, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe then you throw the snort wheeds, which is like
Speaker 2: the final flipping him off, you know, challenging him to
Speaker 2: a fight, especially if this is like a big, old
Speaker 2: mature buck that you would think would want to dominate,
Speaker 2: like that's the final move. So that is my escalator
Speaker 2: approach to calling during the rut. And what I would
Speaker 2: do if you see a buck that's out of range,
Speaker 2: want to get him in.
Speaker 6: Right right, I would.
Speaker 2: I would take that. I guess maybe this isn't even
Speaker 2: all that related.
Speaker 6: One of the things that I noticed during my rut
Speaker 6: hunts a lot is I will get married to an idea,
Speaker 6: like I have some stuff over in Wisconsin set up.
Speaker 6: I set some stuff here in Minnesota for the rut
Speaker 6: when I get back from Iowa, and I'm very confident
Speaker 6: that they're going to work, but I also know from
Speaker 6: history that there's a very good chance they won't work.
Speaker 6: And so often, you know, like rut hunting isn't in
Speaker 6: the moment thing this year. But I've been sitting on
Speaker 6: stands my whole life and watch deer do things where
Speaker 6: I'm like, why, like why didn't he just cross here
Speaker 6: below where this ravine blows out and it's like just
Speaker 6: a perfect pinch point, like what's up there one hundred
Speaker 6: and twenty five yards uphill that they keep using And
Speaker 6: you start to figure out like if you even if
Speaker 6: you see a four key, even if you see like
Speaker 6: just not anywhere near your target classic buck or whatever,
Speaker 6: and they do something, they're not lying, like they're using
Speaker 6: that wind and they're using that terrain and they're giving
Speaker 6: you a glimpse into the future because another buck is
Speaker 6: going to do that.
Speaker 2: And so often I will sit something where I'm like,
Speaker 2: this is it this is the X on the X,
Speaker 2: Like I'm done, and I'll see.
Speaker 6: Those deer halfway up the hill over and over, or
Speaker 6: you know, cutting through that patch of seedars out there
Speaker 6: in that no man's land, and you go, there's something
Speaker 6: I don't know, like that's better than this, and instead
Speaker 6: of like mind grinding on it, it's like just go, like,
Speaker 6: just just believe what they're telling you. And if not
Speaker 6: this year, you better mark that and have that, you know,
Speaker 6: winter scout that and get that ready for next year
Speaker 6: because it's going to come into play.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And I've seen the flip side of that though, too,
Speaker 2: So my next one would be sometimes the opposite might
Speaker 2: be the case in which, or at least I have
Speaker 2: been guilty of this in the past, where I would
Speaker 2: see a buck, like during the run, I'll see a
Speaker 2: buck do something, and so I race over go hunt there.
Speaker 2: And then that day I'm sitting there and then I
Speaker 2: see a buck do something back where I was or
Speaker 2: somewhere else, so then I race over to hunt over there,
Speaker 2: and then I see a buck do something different, so
Speaker 2: then I race over, and the I'm just bouncing around
Speaker 2: from place to place to place. Sometimes not always, but
Speaker 2: sometimes if you have a spot that you know, like historically,
Speaker 2: you know bucks will move through here, or you know
Speaker 2: this is the X, or you know there's a really
Speaker 2: good reason for them to pass through. Sometimes it pays
Speaker 2: to volume hunt or to stick to a spot like
Speaker 2: that and just give it a little bit of time,
Speaker 2: because you know, if you just constantly are chasing, you
Speaker 2: never give any one spot enough time to actually produce.
Speaker 2: But if you give one of these spots, you know,
Speaker 2: twelve hours or two days, two days or whatever, it
Speaker 2: is the appropriate amount of time. And if you know
Speaker 2: that yes, like this is this is a place where
Speaker 2: it will happen, sometimes it does pay to give it
Speaker 2: time and to not chase one offs, but to to
Speaker 2: to allow yourself to trust the process, trust the place.
Speaker 2: And it's like the trick is like balancing what you
Speaker 2: share it and what I share because there's value in both.
Speaker 2: You got to know when to do one and one
Speaker 2: to do the other.
Speaker 6: There's a there's a clock management aspect of it where
Speaker 6: I really think that if you if you believe in
Speaker 6: a spot, you should at least give it one full
Speaker 6: day with the right win and if it doesn't produce,
Speaker 6: you know, like you got to just go is this
Speaker 6: worth the next couple of days? And you know, this
Speaker 6: is where trail cameras and the rut come in too,
Speaker 6: because people use trail cameras all the time to be like, oh,
Speaker 6: they're moving at night, or they're not moving at or
Speaker 6: you know, in the day or whatever, or they're chasing
Speaker 6: now and they weren't before, they're not chasing a day
Speaker 6: or or something like that. But I look at it
Speaker 6: and I go, if I have some pictures of a
Speaker 6: good one going through a spot, even if it's nighttime,
Speaker 6: even if it was you know, sporadically over the last
Speaker 6: three weeks, nothing where you'd be like, I'm gonna haunt
Speaker 6: him and kill him.
Speaker 2: That's one of his routes.
Speaker 6: So how much time? And what if there's three of
Speaker 6: them that sporadically use it? Like, now do you go
Speaker 6: that's that's not a one day spot. That might be
Speaker 6: give it three days if the wind is right for
Speaker 6: you and the conditions are right, Like I have that
Speaker 6: situation Wisconsin like that where it's not consistent, but I'm
Speaker 6: I think on average, maybe one out of every three
Speaker 6: days during the run, a good one goes through there.
Speaker 6: So I'm going to try to give it five or
Speaker 6: six days, give myself that cushion and do that. But
Speaker 6: if I'm in there and on day three I've seen
Speaker 6: all of them go through somewhere else, it's time, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, especially in those low deer density areas like
Speaker 2: that that you're describing, those spots really need that time.
Speaker 2: So here's one where I would suggest make it an
Speaker 2: immediate move, or at least most scenarios like this. If
Speaker 2: you see a buck locked down with a dough and
Speaker 2: they go into some patch of cover. And I know
Speaker 2: this might be different in certain areas of the country
Speaker 2: where the habitat is different, but at least in the
Speaker 2: places where I've seen this happen the most, like mixed
Speaker 2: timber ag kind of stuff like that I have oftentimes
Speaker 2: seen if you spot a buck that is actively locked
Speaker 2: on a dough, tending that dough, standing with the dough,
Speaker 2: they will oftentimes stick to a pretty small area of
Speaker 2: cover for a long time, you know, for a day
Speaker 2: or two, a couple of days. And so if I
Speaker 2: see that, I will whenever the next opportunity is for
Speaker 2: me to move, I'm going to move as tight as
Speaker 2: I can into that zone where I saw them with
Speaker 2: a strong belief that they will be back the next
Speaker 2: day or the next that afternoon or that morning or
Speaker 2: whatever the situation is. I want to get as close
Speaker 2: and into that zone as possible, and then I will
Speaker 2: grind it out in that spot for you know, forty
Speaker 2: eight hours maybe, because that oftentimes can be a great
Speaker 2: way to get one of these deer. They do not
Speaker 2: not most of the time. You're not gonna have a buck.
Speaker 2: That's again like not chasing it though. I'm saying like
Speaker 2: when you see them standing for four hours together in
Speaker 2: a thicket, you know that's going to be a spot
Speaker 2: They're probably gonna be back into that zone again. So
Speaker 2: so move on that. For sure. I've seen that, I've
Speaker 2: been I've had very I've had a lot of close
Speaker 2: calls on that, and a couple of times have killed
Speaker 2: deer because of that.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna I'm gonna talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 6: So we break this down to like pre ru you know,
Speaker 6: testing each other out, laying down sign chasing a little bit,
Speaker 6: and then you got to just bonkers chase phase and
Speaker 6: then you have the lockdown. And we talk about this
Speaker 6: like it like it's like a hard and fast rule
Speaker 6: for x amount of days, then X amount of days,
Speaker 6: then x amount of days. It doesn't work that way
Speaker 6: like it it It changes for sure, Like the activity
Speaker 6: does definitely morph over time. But when we say like
Speaker 6: I think that patience kills big bucks, like I think,
Speaker 6: I think the more time you put in just the better.
Speaker 6: But it doesn't have to be dark to dark from
Speaker 6: November third to November seventh. Like you start on Halloween
Speaker 6: or whenever, the last week of October, and you know,
Speaker 6: you get a day here and a day there and
Speaker 6: a day there, and you can you can go deep
Speaker 6: into November, deeper than a lot of people think. You know,
Speaker 6: you start getting into middle of November where everybody's like, oh,
Speaker 6: it's just not happening anymore because it's lockdown. It's like,
Speaker 6: I don't know, man, if you're ever going to kill
Speaker 6: that one sixty that lives in the swamp most of
Speaker 6: the time, he might be more vulnerable on November fifteenth
Speaker 6: than he is on November first. And so it's like
Speaker 6: you don't have to just concentrate everything on that first
Speaker 6: week in November, like take the time that you can
Speaker 6: get and use it because you have a three week
Speaker 6: window maybe more to catch some level of the rut,
Speaker 6: and I think we I think we sort of like
Speaker 6: forget that sometimes that it's like it's very possible on
Speaker 6: November fifteenth, just as it.
Speaker 2: Is on the first. Yeah, so true. So this is
Speaker 2: something that I have learned the hard way sometimes, and
Speaker 2: I think is most applicable to people if you were
Speaker 2: hunting public land or or a newer spot there where
Speaker 2: maybe you don't have a ton of confidence in anyone
Speaker 2: given set up, but you know, I think it's not
Speaker 2: an infrequent thing for there to be days during the
Speaker 2: rut where it is on fire in one spot and
Speaker 2: absolutely dead in another. Like especially, I think this tends
Speaker 2: to happen a little bit earlier in the rut when
Speaker 2: there's like that first hot dough or the first few
Speaker 2: hot doughs on like every buck in the area is
Speaker 2: on that dough chasing around, right. I mean, how many
Speaker 2: days have you had where it is absolutely dead by
Speaker 2: you and then your buddy who's four hundred yards away
Speaker 2: it was like, dude, it was absolutely on fire, amazing,
Speaker 2: and the ruts cappen and it's on right. I mean,
Speaker 2: it can just be that way. And so if you're
Speaker 2: hunting public or a new spot or an area that
Speaker 2: you just don't have that rock solid confidence in your zone.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you just have to go and find that hot
Speaker 2: spot and not be afraid to get on your feet
Speaker 2: and move around and aggressively push your way around until
Speaker 2: you find where that hot spot is. And oftentimes you
Speaker 2: can get away with being a little bit more aggressive,
Speaker 2: and maybe you do bump a few deer as you
Speaker 2: go in there, but that's okay. If you find that
Speaker 2: rutfest where there's the hot dough and there's like four
Speaker 2: satellite bucks all around and stuff, and you bump one
Speaker 2: of those bucks, it's probably not the end of the world.
Speaker 2: You could probably slip in there, get set up, and
Speaker 2: there's gonna be action kind of rotate like a hurricane
Speaker 2: around the eye, like there's the eye of the hurricane
Speaker 2: that's your hot dough, and then there's gonna be the
Speaker 2: spinning vortex of bucks around it for a while. And
Speaker 2: so if you're struggling and you've been in the dead
Speaker 2: zone for a while, get up find that and that
Speaker 2: can sometimes get you in the goods that you might
Speaker 2: not otherwise have if you were just waiting and wishing
Speaker 2: and don't have a really good reason to be waiting
Speaker 2: and wishing on that.
Speaker 6: I would say too, you know I mentioned before, watch
Speaker 6: those weather changes, but also you still have to hunt
Speaker 6: the conditions. And so the easiest way to frame this
Speaker 6: up is with the hot weather, right Like we're getting
Speaker 6: a lot of hot weather during the ruts the last
Speaker 6: few years.
Speaker 2: It's just happening.
Speaker 6: And I remember this is probably eight years ago now,
Speaker 6: but driving down in Nebraska to hunt some public land
Speaker 6: and it was hot, like seventy five degrees and I
Speaker 6: hunted my usual stuff and I couldn't see a deer.
Speaker 6: I mean, it was like just brutal or you'd see them,
Speaker 6: you know, right at last night start poking out. And
Speaker 6: it was like I was like, this is so dumb.
Speaker 6: I can get down in the valley, get into some
Speaker 6: of this shady cover, better get closer to the trout
Speaker 6: stream that's down there, and actually be like at least
Speaker 6: give myself a chance with these conditions. And I moved
Speaker 6: down there and I killed a buck almost instantly, like
Speaker 6: five minutes after I got set up. And it's like, yeah,
Speaker 6: he's gonna cruise still like he's still looking for doze,
Speaker 6: but he's gonna go where the deer are gonna be
Speaker 6: where there's some relief, and so you have to hunt
Speaker 6: those be like you have to hunt to the conditions.
Speaker 6: You know, you get super windy or dead calm or whatever.
Speaker 6: It's not just go out and sit your favorite stand
Speaker 6: and rattle, because they're gonna come to you. Like, they're
Speaker 6: still going to react to all these external factors. And
Speaker 6: so when you're like, well, the rut's not on because
Speaker 6: I'm not on them, it's like the rut's absolutely on somewhere,
Speaker 6: like you said, But a lot of times it's tied
Speaker 6: to them finding some relief, not just from getting away
Speaker 6: from hunters, but just whatever the whatever mother nature tosses
Speaker 6: their way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so I would just tag onto that by
Speaker 2: saying that, like you said, there's a lot of people
Speaker 2: that are looking at the forecast and seeing warm temperatures
Speaker 2: and that will scare away some people. And I would
Speaker 2: just say that, yes, it certainly does seem to slow
Speaker 2: things down some, but to your point, you can hunt.
Speaker 2: You can use that to your advantage and hunt the
Speaker 2: places where they should be. And also remember like the morning,
Speaker 2: like the bucks are still running, like the deer are
Speaker 2: still running. The thing is happening. It's not like warm
Speaker 2: weather stops the rut. It just it suppresses the daylight activity,
Speaker 2: especially the midday or after doing activity when it's warmest.
Speaker 2: Right because they're wearing a it's like they're wearing a
Speaker 2: warm winter jacket. It's just not as comfortable to be
Speaker 2: out hiking around when you're wearing that. In it's eighty degrees.
Speaker 2: So still the mornings when they're cool, they're still gonna
Speaker 2: be getting after it. They're still getting after it all night,
Speaker 2: probably the edges of the evening. So don't mail it in.
Speaker 2: Don't assume like because it's seventy five on November two,
Speaker 2: that that you shouldn't hunt. You absolutely still can have
Speaker 2: success and see running activity. It just might be a
Speaker 2: little slower in those warm parts of the day. But
Speaker 2: certainly take advantage of the cool mornings the end of
Speaker 2: the evening, and don't be surprised if something crazy still
Speaker 2: does happen, because it is the rut, and stuff can surprising.
Speaker 2: We got time for one more tony, then we gotta
Speaker 2: wrap it up, everybody.
Speaker 6: I would say my least just personally, my least important
Speaker 6: piece of deer sign for the rut. Rut, not pre rut,
Speaker 6: but rut is a scrape. I'm just I move on
Speaker 6: from them. I like rubs better. But honestly, when i'm
Speaker 6: I'm in the thick of it and I'm trying to
Speaker 6: figure out someplace to be or like there's whatever my
Speaker 6: plan is. Changing tracks are so important to me during
Speaker 6: the rut, like fresh, big running tracks, or a big
Speaker 6: concentration of fresh tracks is like that to me, when
Speaker 6: I see that is a huge clue, Like if you
Speaker 6: can tell it's been made within the last day or so,
Speaker 6: or you can just see that track over track over track,
Speaker 6: trail whatever. That's so important because you want that concentration
Speaker 6: a deer, or you want that big one that crossed
Speaker 6: the fence right there. You're like, you have to see him.
Speaker 6: You can look and see that he left, he left
Speaker 6: everything you need to notice to show you that he
Speaker 6: at least went through there at some point recently.
Speaker 2: I like that a lot. Yeah, And if you're not
Speaker 2: super comfortable with identifying tracks or reading tracks, you should
Speaker 2: check out the white Tail Edu video that Tony and
Speaker 2: I did. That's over on the meat Eater clips YouTube channel.
Speaker 2: You can find that, and we do deep dives in
Speaker 2: the tracks. There's videos on calling uh, mature buck travel
Speaker 2: all sorts of stuff. So if you're if you're needing
Speaker 2: some last minute brush ups on some tactics, that's another
Speaker 2: idea for you. It's the white Tail Edu series.
Speaker 6: Plus, there is a video of you eating deer pool,
Speaker 6: which has made you the most famous uh deer hunter
Speaker 6: in the country apparently.
Speaker 2: Uh for some reason, that's the one that everyone sees
Speaker 2: and comments on. And it was a raisin that people
Speaker 2: it was not.
Speaker 6: Actually Mark cemented legacy with that video, and that's how
Speaker 6: he'll be remembered forever.
Speaker 2: Yes, that'll be on my tombstone. So so my last
Speaker 2: piece of advice leading into the rut here for all
Speaker 2: of you is where we started when we began this
Speaker 2: little period, which is just keep it fun, Like, keep
Speaker 2: it fun. If you're torn on what to do, or
Speaker 2: if you're struggling and you're stressed out or whatever, my
Speaker 2: suggestion is to make the choice that would bring you
Speaker 2: the most joy, and oftentimes that leads to you being
Speaker 2: more successful because it gets your mindset right, gets your
Speaker 2: attitude right, keeps your energy high. And it's funny every
Speaker 2: time that I found myself leaning in that direction, going
Speaker 2: towards the choices or the trips to the destinations, or
Speaker 2: whatever it is that's actually going to make this thing fun.
Speaker 2: I ended up actually doing better too. So enjoy this thing.
Speaker 2: It's the super Bowl of the white tail season. It's
Speaker 2: Christmas and Thanksgiving and Easter and every damn holiday I
Speaker 2: all rolled into one. Enjoy it, Celebrate it, spend time
Speaker 2: with your buddies while you're doing it. Go help your
Speaker 2: friends track a deer, even if it means you're gonna
Speaker 2: miss a little bit of hunting time. That's the stuff
Speaker 2: that actually leaves a memory forever. Just soaking all the
Speaker 2: good stuff. That's my greatest suggestion. And I'm going to
Speaker 2: try to live by that same advice. And I tell
Speaker 2: you all this because I have been guilty of doing
Speaker 2: the opposite too often. So that's going to do it
Speaker 2: for us. Say Tony, thank you for making time here
Speaker 2: before you take off. Good luck in Iowa, good luck
Speaker 2: up north. Can't wait to hear how it goes. And
Speaker 2: for all you listening, this is it. Have a great time,
Speaker 2: Be safe, hunt smart. Until next time, stay wired to hunt.