Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,
Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.
Speaker 1: First Light, Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.
Speaker 2: Hey, everyone, welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
Speaker 2: which has brought to you by first Light. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and this episode is all about all of
Speaker 2: the lulls that might happen every year and how you
Speaker 2: should pay attention so you don't fall into familiar traps
Speaker 2: and familiar thinking around the October life. I've talked about
Speaker 2: the lull before, I'll talk about it again. I'm sure
Speaker 2: it's a perplexing time for hunters, one that comes with
Speaker 2: some resolute opinions on the topic. If you take Mark Kenyan,
Speaker 2: for example, he's all in on the idea of the
Speaker 2: October lull. This is probably because he doesn't have very
Speaker 2: much experience hunting white tails and therefore just doesn't really
Speaker 2: understand what's going on out there. Other hunters, such as myself,
Speaker 2: don't buy it. I don't think the lull is universal
Speaker 2: across deer populations, and I don't think we should treat
Speaker 2: it as such. And now I'm going to tell you
Speaker 2: why people who visit my house and who aren't real
Speaker 2: familiar with the suburbs or what the suburbs can be,
Speaker 2: are often surprised at what they see. We have a
Speaker 2: hell of a lot more woods around than they expect,
Speaker 2: and there are a lot more critters that come with it.
Speaker 2: There are hobby farms and real farms around too. You know,
Speaker 2: not every neighborhood is cookie cutter McMansions with postage stamp
Speaker 2: yards and houses that could hold multi generational families with
Speaker 2: ease instead of the typical four person and a dog
Speaker 2: type family. I went through this very same thing the
Speaker 2: first time I went to New York, the state, not
Speaker 2: the city. In my uneducated mind, I didn't really know
Speaker 2: what to expect. But what I didn't expect was a
Speaker 2: lot of woods and a ton of deer running around
Speaker 2: in people's yards. Anyway, one of the smaller hobby farms
Speaker 2: that is in our neighborhood is kind of one of
Speaker 2: those places that embraces the farm culture around a bunch
Speaker 2: of people who mostly couldn't tell the difference between a
Speaker 2: dairy cow and a donkey. At that little farm, they
Speaker 2: sell pumpkins around Halloween, hay and strall summer long, and
Speaker 2: I can't prove this, but it looks like they're setting
Speaker 2: up some kind of petting zoo. They also have a
Speaker 2: dog that is the most farm dog looking dog I've
Speaker 2: ever seen, complete with the floppiest ears in the business.
Speaker 2: And they also have several pens for various animals that
Speaker 2: butt up nearly to the road. The huge and not
Speaker 2: so huge pigs, you know, one random cow, and the
Speaker 2: goats that are there would be interesting enough for my
Speaker 2: daughters to want to ride their bikes by and take
Speaker 2: a look. But the real draw there is an adorable
Speaker 2: little lady my girl's named Marshmallow. Now. I don't know
Speaker 2: if you've ever seen a baby goat in person, but
Speaker 2: if you have, you know why two eleven year old
Speaker 2: girls would ask their dad almost every night to ride
Speaker 2: bikes over in Marshmallow's direction so we can all ooh
Speaker 2: and ouder. And if I'm being honest, I kind of
Speaker 2: love goats, and I don't really know why. I think
Speaker 2: I like unpredictability in animals, so maybe that's it. Goats
Speaker 2: aren't really into parkore and will happily jump up on
Speaker 2: other animals. They'll kick and spin and generally celebrate this
Speaker 2: behavior too, which for some reason I really appreciate. They
Speaker 2: also often have a hell of a lot of confidence.
Speaker 2: They'll headbut someone who isn't looking just for the sheer
Speaker 2: thrill and knocking the mass over apple cart. What's not
Speaker 2: to love about that free spirits those goats are. In fact,
Speaker 2: they might be my spirit animal, while Kenyan is I
Speaker 2: don't know, definitely like a sloth or a three legged cat,
Speaker 2: maybe a flipperless seal. Perhaps. When we pedal our happy
Speaker 2: asses on over to look at Marshmallow with the hope
Speaker 2: in our hearts that she'll do something adorable, I tend
Speaker 2: to look for a few things. The first is that
Speaker 2: the route takes us past some apple trees in people's yards.
Speaker 2: I kind of just naturally check the daily progress and
Speaker 2: how many are still in the trees and how many
Speaker 2: are littered around on the ground. Then I look under
Speaker 2: some oak trees. This isn't really hard to do, since
Speaker 2: many of them are often real big in our neighborhood,
Speaker 2: and they hang over the road in some spots. The
Speaker 2: amount of acorns crushed on the road gives me a
Speaker 2: good idea what's going on in the woods. And do
Speaker 2: you know what I saw throughout much of August and
Speaker 2: into early September thousands and thousands of pounds of acorns.
Speaker 2: And that's not an exaggeration either. Oak trees, of which
Speaker 2: there are almost ninety species in this country alone, engage
Speaker 2: in a strategy called predator satiation. With their seed drop
Speaker 2: they reckon. If trees can reckon, I guess that the
Speaker 2: squirrels and turkeys and and chipmunks and assorted songbirds and
Speaker 2: deer are going to eat most of their potential offspring.
Speaker 2: That means they need a lot of nuts to hit
Speaker 2: the ground, so that even if a few escape the
Speaker 2: gullets of various woodland creatures, those few might just turn
Speaker 2: into seedlings and eventually saplings. If those saplings make the
Speaker 2: cut for a few decades, they might litter acorns down
Speaker 2: on some other suburb dwellers who are looking at a
Speaker 2: different baby goat in the future. This strategy of dropping
Speaker 2: tons of nuts is not really any different from frogs
Speaker 2: producing hundreds of tadpoles or large mouthed bass producing hundreds
Speaker 2: of fry. The goal is the same. Most are gonna
Speaker 2: get eaten, but a few won't. It's a quantity over
Speaker 2: quality thing. It's also, at least when it comes to
Speaker 2: oak trees, a great time for the deer to stop
Speaker 2: doing their usual stuff and to focus almost solely on
Speaker 2: a high value here today, gone tomorrow food source. When
Speaker 2: those acorns near my house were raining down, they were
Speaker 2: also doing so in southeastern Minnesota, where I hunt. They
Speaker 2: were also doing it in north central Wisconsin where I hunt.
Speaker 2: And you know what, all of my cameras went real
Speaker 2: cold then, and so did my long range scouting. It
Speaker 2: was as if the deer were sucked off the landscape
Speaker 2: by UFOs and not returned for a few weeks. There
Speaker 2: was a very clear, very definitive lull in the back
Speaker 2: half of August and many of the places I hunt.
Speaker 2: But you know what, I didn't care, not really anyway,
Speaker 2: for a couple of reasons. The first is that the
Speaker 2: whole thing happened before I could hunt them, so it
Speaker 2: was mostly just an observation on my part and just
Speaker 2: a touch of a let down when I checked my cameras.
Speaker 2: It was also a reminder that there will be another
Speaker 2: lull when the other acorns start dropping and the leaves
Speaker 2: start really falling, and the other hunters start looking a
Speaker 2: little deeper into the cover. This happens every year in many,
Speaker 2: many different parts of the country. You know what doesn't
Speaker 2: happen though, all the bucks suddenly going nocturnal and not
Speaker 2: moving at all. It doesn't happen. Stop believing it. I
Speaker 2: don't care if your trail cameras go dead or if
Speaker 2: you can't buy a deer sighting on your favorite stand
Speaker 2: that overlooks the beanfield. The deer are out there, and
Speaker 2: if they stopped going somewhere or doing something, they are
Speaker 2: going somewhere else while doing something else. Acorns or other
Speaker 2: hard masts soft masts for that matter, can change deer
Speaker 2: patterns literally overnight. So can the right cold front that
Speaker 2: is coupled with some wind, which has the tendency to
Speaker 2: really usher the changing leaves to the ground and leave
Speaker 2: the woods far more open than they just were. This
Speaker 2: is something that we as hunters inherently understand, but we
Speaker 2: often ignore. We say things like I have a destination
Speaker 2: food source here and a betting area there, and well
Speaker 2: that's the whole puzzle. But it's not a destination food
Speaker 2: source unless food is severely limited in your region. Isn't
Speaker 2: going to be the same draw every day of the season.
Speaker 2: That's obvious, but we don't really think of it that way.
Speaker 2: There are so many reasons for them to not just
Speaker 2: blindly walk into the alfalfa or a corn a cruise
Speaker 2: the edge of a fresh clear cut. Our job as
Speaker 2: good whitetail hunters isn't to adopt beliefs that allow us
Speaker 2: to stop thinking, or worse, think that we know all
Speaker 2: the answers. Our job is to ask questions about the
Speaker 2: here and now and maybe next week, and then try
Speaker 2: to answer them. Anything that you hear that allows you
Speaker 2: to close the book on deer behavior in an absolute
Speaker 2: way is not your friend. It's your sworn enemy, and
Speaker 2: you must vanquish him and then drink a celebratory libation
Speaker 2: from his skull. You don't have to go that far,
Speaker 2: but you should be careful and rethink your early October strategy.
Speaker 2: Instead of assuming it's a lost cause, ask yourself what's
Speaker 2: going on that could cause the deer to shift their patterns.
Speaker 2: I'll give you an example that should be relatable. Have
Speaker 2: you ever hung a stand in July or August that
Speaker 2: you thought was just going to be perfect? For the rut.
Speaker 2: You know, you get up there in that August heat, sweaty,
Speaker 2: and you look around and you think, oh man, they're
Speaker 2: going to cruise that trail or cut up the hill
Speaker 2: right there or whatever, and they are never ever going
Speaker 2: to see me until it's too late. And then you
Speaker 2: fast forward a couple of months and you finally decide
Speaker 2: the timing is right and the conditions are awful favorable
Speaker 2: for you to shoot a solid one sixty five or
Speaker 2: so in there, so you slip in and climb into
Speaker 2: that setup. Then you look around and it feels kind
Speaker 2: of like that hacky sitcom type scenario of being naked
Speaker 2: in front of your coworkers. All it takes is the
Speaker 2: leaves to fall down to change your game as a
Speaker 2: hunter in a major, major way. Now the stand you
Speaker 2: thought that was rock solid is more of a liability,
Speaker 2: but you hunt it anyway. And guess what if your
Speaker 2: deer aren't raised on mama's milk and lead paint chips,
Speaker 2: they probably spot you, or some of them do. Anyway,
Speaker 2: you're just easier to see then than you were in August.
Speaker 2: The same goes for the deer. They are prey animals,
Speaker 2: and I have to imagine the dominant thought in their
Speaker 2: minds pretty much every day is don't get eaten by something,
Speaker 2: don't get caught by something. That's it. The way they
Speaker 2: do this is by hiding well and trusting their senses
Speaker 2: and running fast when they need to. The hiding well
Speaker 2: part is their best defense in much of their life.
Speaker 2: And if you think they aren't aware that the woods
Speaker 2: are suddenly a hell of a lot more open than
Speaker 2: they were just a couple of weeks ago, then I
Speaker 2: have bad news for you. So they shift their patterns.
Speaker 2: They adopt a new strategy for survival that involves mostly
Speaker 2: spending the daylight hours where the cover still gives them
Speaker 2: a solid advantage. They don't stop moving when the sun
Speaker 2: is out, they just do it in more places that
Speaker 2: make them feel safe. Now, what if you don't have
Speaker 2: any cameras in spots? What if your cameras are all
Speaker 2: out on the destination food sources. What if you don't
Speaker 2: hunt deep in the cover but instead post up on
Speaker 2: the edge of the woods where the views are so great, Well,
Speaker 2: you're going to be all in on the lull. After all,
Speaker 2: the deer obviously aren't moving, and it's probably a good
Speaker 2: time to go golfing instead of wasting time in your
Speaker 2: best spots, which could ruin your rut chances. A good hunter,
Speaker 2: you think, gets the hell out of the woods now
Speaker 2: and comes back when it's closer to Halloween. So you
Speaker 2: and just about every other person out there does the
Speaker 2: exact same thing. The deer realize this and they move more.
Speaker 2: After all, the two legged predator level has gone from
Speaker 2: bananas to tolerable, which gives them more confidence to move,
Speaker 2: although they mostly will do it in the cover, at
Speaker 2: least in my experience. So my question is this, do
Speaker 2: you ever make a real note of the times when
Speaker 2: you're scouting in the off season and just don't turn
Speaker 2: up much. I mean with your cameras and your in
Speaker 2: person observation, not just walking around looking for sign. I'll
Speaker 2: bet if you paid more attention this past summer you
Speaker 2: would have noticed there were stretches of a couple weeks
Speaker 2: here or there where the card polls just didn't produce much,
Speaker 2: and the long range glassing was mostly an exercise and futility.
Speaker 2: Did you assume then that all the deer were nocturnal? Maybe,
Speaker 2: but you're probably wrong. Then it was probably tied far
Speaker 2: more closely to some type of food source that had
Speaker 2: the deer all bunched up and using the same spots. Now,
Speaker 2: if you're the kind of hunter who doesn't adapt well
Speaker 2: to changing conditions, you might think that those situations are
Speaker 2: just a good time to get out and wait for
Speaker 2: easier hunting. But think of it this way. If you
Speaker 2: knew there was something out there concentrating deer activity and
Speaker 2: you could find it, wouldn't you want to know the what, where,
Speaker 2: and why the whole thing. Wouldn't you want to take
Speaker 2: a perceived disadvantage, one that is almost universally believed by
Speaker 2: the hunting masses, and turn it into your personal advantage.
Speaker 2: I would I use the lull as a time to
Speaker 2: try to shoot a few doughs, which keeps me in
Speaker 2: the woods. I use it as a chance to start
Speaker 2: going really mobile and looking for fresh sign and doing
Speaker 2: a lot observation sets. I know that on my private farms,
Speaker 2: and definitely on my public land hunts, that my competition
Speaker 2: isn't going to be as serious about hunting as they
Speaker 2: will be in a few weeks. That's a huge advantage
Speaker 2: to anyone willing to stay out there and hunt. And
Speaker 2: I mean that it's a huge, huge, advantage. I also
Speaker 2: know that, over the course of my hunting career, I've
Speaker 2: found deer on a hot acorn pattern randomly, and it
Speaker 2: has almost always produced some of my most exciting hunts.
Speaker 2: There's something so fun about posting up near a white
Speaker 2: oak that is dropping ten in free goodness into the
Speaker 2: leaf litter, when you know eventually you'll hear the sound
Speaker 2: of deer approaching. It's also fun knowing that if you
Speaker 2: get into that situation, you might have visitors all hours
Speaker 2: of the day, or you might have a crazy hunt
Speaker 2: right after a strong wind knocks down a ton or
Speaker 2: so of groceries. The key to all this, and to
Speaker 2: really master the times when the deer seem to have vanished,
Speaker 2: is to end season scout and to observe. There isn't
Speaker 2: a time during any season where I adopted an observation
Speaker 2: strategy more religiously than during the first two weeks of October.
Speaker 2: Because I might not know what tree is the tree,
Speaker 2: but I can set up on a ridge or an
Speaker 2: oak flat and figure it out pretty quickly. This is
Speaker 2: not the time to move a bunch of cameras around
Speaker 2: and cross your fingers, because by the time you get
Speaker 2: enough intel to work with the whole thing's going to
Speaker 2: be over. You have to treat this time of year
Speaker 2: as something that can produce amazing hunts. But there is
Speaker 2: a shelf life to that. You might get a few days,
Speaker 2: you might get a few weeks, but where you find
Speaker 2: your best hunts in early to mid October isn't likely
Speaker 2: to last. So now, before I wrap this up, I
Speaker 2: want to drive this point home. I'm going to swing
Speaker 2: you back to August for a second. When my cameras
Speaker 2: went mostly dry and my glassing session started to get
Speaker 2: real boring, I didn't think there was an August lull.
Speaker 2: I just thought, well, something's going on. There has to
Speaker 2: be a reason why the deer aren't where they were,
Speaker 2: and that reason was simple enough to understand. Those same
Speaker 2: rules apply to October. If the deer stop doing what
Speaker 2: you expect them to do, it's not because there's a
Speaker 2: switch that gets flipped and all the deer suddenly decide
Speaker 2: to go fully nocturnal for three weeks. It doesn't work
Speaker 2: that way, and I don't care how many white tail
Speaker 2: experts say it. The deer is still going to bed
Speaker 2: somewhere and eat somewhere, and walk somewhere and they'll do
Speaker 2: stuff during shooting hours that will give you a chance
Speaker 2: to arrow them. You just need to understand that the
Speaker 2: woods are in a state of constant change, with early
Speaker 2: October being an especially transitional time frame. It just is
Speaker 2: there's a lot going on out there, and that means
Speaker 2: your early season program that you work so hard to
Speaker 2: set up might just be dead as the old dinosaurs.
Speaker 2: Instead of accepting that as a good reason to wait
Speaker 2: for the pre rut, ask yourself where the deer likely went,
Speaker 2: what they are likely doing. Pay attention to your surroundings,
Speaker 2: and maybe you'll notice a ton of acorns smashed on
Speaker 2: the road, acorns that you don't remember being there just
Speaker 2: last week. Maybe you'll notice something else, like a high
Speaker 2: prevalence of combines in the field while you're commuting to work.
Speaker 2: Who knows. The truth is there and there's reasons for
Speaker 2: these changes. It's out there. It's better to view this
Speaker 2: time of year as an opportunity to figure something out
Speaker 2: than an excuse to stay out of the woods. Go
Speaker 2: find them, go hunt them and do what so many
Speaker 2: hunters think you can't, and come back next week because
Speaker 2: I'm going to talk just all about white tails and
Speaker 2: their evolution and how cool they really are. It's just
Speaker 2: going to be a sciencey little breakdown of our favorite
Speaker 2: game animal. That's it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson.
Speaker 2: This has been the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which
Speaker 2: is brought to you by First Light. As always, thank
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