Speaker 1: Welcome to Wired to Hunt's rut Fresh Radio, bringing you
Speaker 1: the latest reports from the Whitetail Woods, 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 hosts
Speaker 1: case Smith and Tyler Jones.
Speaker 2: This is Rotfresh Radio, brought to you by First Light Gear.
Speaker 2: I'm your host Ksey Smith. And guess what optimism is
Speaker 2: riding high? The bucks are in velvet, They're going everywhere,
Speaker 2: and guys are super optimistic. But you still have to
Speaker 2: hit the right winds, the right weather, and just the
Speaker 2: right moment to capitalize on a big bug. This is Retfresh.
Speaker 2: Let's go. This is rot Fresh Radio. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Casey Smith. I'm here with Tyler Jones as well, and
Speaker 2: we have got Wired to Hunt's own Mark Kenyon on
Speaker 2: the phone for the initial episode of rut Fresh Radio
Speaker 2: this season. Mark, what's happening, man?
Speaker 3: I am just very very excited because I know that
Speaker 3: when rut Fresh Radio is hitting the airwaves, that means
Speaker 3: on the seasons here like the thing we've been looking
Speaker 3: forward to all year.
Speaker 4: Is here finally.
Speaker 3: So I'm just I'm glad that's true. I'm glad that
Speaker 3: this show is still going. This is like season I
Speaker 3: don't know, we've been doing this long time. Now first
Speaker 3: to Spencer. Now you guys on the Helm now for
Speaker 3: your third season of rut Fresh Radio. I think that's great.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I'm just I love it. It's something that
Speaker 4: I have.
Speaker 3: Enjoyed consuming every year since we've started putting this out there,
Speaker 3: which is kind of unique because I don't like to
Speaker 3: listen to you know, the regular why we're done episodes
Speaker 3: with me on there. But I like this show because
Speaker 3: I get to listen to different people you guys, yourselves,
Speaker 3: but then also all these different guests every week. So
Speaker 3: it's good stuff. I'm excited we've got another season going.
Speaker 4: And I don't know about you guys, but I'm just
Speaker 4: to do this thing.
Speaker 5: I guarantee you.
Speaker 2: There's a running joke on our podcast where I say, dear,
Speaker 2: season is getting close, and it's you know, may or something.
Speaker 2: You know, So there's a little truth to it, of course,
Speaker 2: but it is kind of funny, right, But it's like
Speaker 2: a way we approach what we love to do is hunters.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, like, uh, there's this constant building excitement,
Speaker 2: which I know you you very much appreciate as it
Speaker 2: gets closer and closer and closer, and then now here
Speaker 2: we are on the cusp of, you know, dear season
Speaker 2: for everyone, and a lot of people at this point
Speaker 2: in our conversation or that this podcast releases have already
Speaker 2: done some hunting and that's what we're gonna fill people
Speaker 2: in on. But the early season hot for me personally
Speaker 2: is a little lat cluster this year because my wife
Speaker 2: will be having a child very very soon, so I'm
Speaker 2: gonna be sticking close to home.
Speaker 4: Me.
Speaker 5: I have it to congress. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: But you two, on the other hand, I know Tyler's
Speaker 2: guy him a little early season thing going on.
Speaker 5: Mark, are you hitting somewhere early?
Speaker 4: Sort of?
Speaker 3: I am heading somewhere early, but it's different because it's
Speaker 3: not a regular well it's not a white tail hunt
Speaker 3: at all. I'm going to go on a black tail
Speaker 3: hunt up in Alaska. Now we'll be kind of talking
Speaker 3: about white tails and looking for white tails a little bit,
Speaker 3: which which I'll I'll say, I'll just kind of tease
Speaker 3: that and then describe more details on a later podcast.
Speaker 4: But yeah, it's going to be a different kind of
Speaker 4: early season for me.
Speaker 3: I'm excited, but I'm also a little sad because I
Speaker 3: absolutely love early season white tail hunting, Like September early
Speaker 3: September white tail hunting is I honestly have a hard
Speaker 3: time not picking that as my very favorite time of
Speaker 3: white tail hunt. Actually, really not getting to do that
Speaker 3: this year will be disappointing.
Speaker 4: But you know, the Alaska thing is kind of a special.
Speaker 5: Opportunity, so that's awesome. Though.
Speaker 6: Yeah, for me, I love the early season stuff, but
Speaker 6: I think the main thing for me is just getting
Speaker 6: out of the heat. You know, it's just for leaving
Speaker 6: Texas and heading north. You know, it's just a it's
Speaker 6: a nice thing this time of year. It gets really
Speaker 6: stale around here, and it's it's more than anything.
Speaker 5: I would say.
Speaker 6: I still love probably the rut better, but the early
Speaker 6: season stuff is something I look forward to again. The
Speaker 6: anticipation is just something that I used to I used
Speaker 6: to be a crazy about duck hunting when I was
Speaker 6: in high school in college and I always used to say, man,
Speaker 6: that the like when I scouted and found ducks and
Speaker 6: I was like, oh, tomorrow morning, it's going to be money.
Speaker 6: Like that anticipation was almost better than actually hunting, you
Speaker 6: know what I mean, It's just something I really live for.
Speaker 6: I love that the anticipation of the hunt.
Speaker 3: So uh, but you know that anticipation thing. We are
Speaker 3: anticipating this start. But what makes it so exciting is
Speaker 3: the fact that the deer are not anticipating.
Speaker 5: That's true.
Speaker 3: So that's why that's why there's early days of the
Speaker 3: season are so special because they don't know we're coming,
Speaker 3: and you get some extra special opportunities because of that.
Speaker 2: So you feel as if the surprise component to early
Speaker 2: season deer hunting gives you an age and then that's
Speaker 2: the in turn, the thing that makes it so enjoyable
Speaker 2: for you.
Speaker 3: One hundred per one hundred percent, these deer in early
Speaker 3: September or whenever your opener.
Speaker 4: Is, they've yet to feel the full force of hunting.
Speaker 3: Pressure, and they're still on that summer bed to feed pattern,
Speaker 3: so they're pretty consistent, they're pretty comfortable. They're more daylight
Speaker 3: active in many cases, so you can see deer doing
Speaker 3: deer things before they're.
Speaker 4: Doing the oh I'm afraid i'm gonna get.
Speaker 3: Killed things, and it gives you just a fun hunt
Speaker 3: and then you know, a great chance to have success.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Mark, how do you feel about the opportunities of
Speaker 6: early season that seem to be slowly going away?
Speaker 4: What do you mean by that?
Speaker 6: So a lot of states are going to limited tags
Speaker 6: draw systems that kind of thing, and even states like
Speaker 6: out West that have white tails have become much harder
Speaker 6: to draw. It's not an every year draw or every
Speaker 6: other year draw in some states.
Speaker 3: Yeah, man, I mean that's that's a good point, and
Speaker 3: it is a downer, and it's it's probably just a
Speaker 3: function of the fact that more and more people are
Speaker 3: catching onto these opportunities, right.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 3: The popularity of traveling to hunt is on the way up.
Speaker 3: And when there's a lot of supply for something and
Speaker 3: usually some sort of limited or sorry, when there's a
Speaker 3: lot of demand but a limited supply, they're going to
Speaker 3: start putting restrictions on that. And you know, that's a bummer.
Speaker 3: But at the same time, if it's what's needed to
Speaker 3: keep the resource, you know what it is and what
Speaker 3: we've come to enjoy, you know, I guess it's a
Speaker 3: necessary evil.
Speaker 5: Sure.
Speaker 3: My hope is that we don't get to a point
Speaker 3: where these the things are as hard to get as
Speaker 3: a you know, elk hunt.
Speaker 4: New Mexico or something, right.
Speaker 3: I hope we never get to that point, but it's
Speaker 3: just I think is just gonna require a new level
Speaker 3: of planning and thoughtfulness, probably from us. In the past
Speaker 3: you could just kind of plan on going somewhere on
Speaker 3: a whim, and now we're just going to have to
Speaker 3: start approaching it with a certain level of premeditated thought
Speaker 3: that is a little bit more inconvenient but not impossible.
Speaker 7: Gause.
Speaker 2: So, you're a what I would call intelligent individual, and
Speaker 2: in particularly a BookSmart guy. You read a lot, right,
Speaker 2: and and a lot of that I think you enjoy,
Speaker 2: and then a lot of it's you know, has a
Speaker 2: function as well. But you know through your studies is
Speaker 2: do you think that there's any biological reason to not
Speaker 2: have early season, meaning like a September one opener in
Speaker 2: more States.
Speaker 3: No, I can't think of any reason why there would.
Speaker 7: Be, you know, I can think of no biological.
Speaker 3: Argument against starting hunting season at that point. You know,
Speaker 3: you're really not the Only thing I can think of
Speaker 3: is that you know, in many cases, some of the
Speaker 3: original hunting seasons were put in place to protect the
Speaker 3: ability for Dose to raise fawns, right, and to not
Speaker 3: hunt them during those periods of the year. Once you
Speaker 3: get to September, you know those almost every faun is
Speaker 3: going to be pretty darn close to being out of
Speaker 3: spots and have a coat, you know, a solid coat.
Speaker 3: The line I'd always heard is that as soon as
Speaker 3: those fawns lose their spots, that's just a nice obvious
Speaker 3: indicator that they are mature enough now to function on
Speaker 3: their own if need be. So I think that is
Speaker 3: still going to be true for the most case. For
Speaker 3: most deer in September, there's there's really no reason not
Speaker 3: to do it other than addition. And there might be
Speaker 3: some states where they want to limit hunting pressure or
Speaker 3: something just because of again that to supply like deer
Speaker 3: population maybe, But you know, in a lot of states
Speaker 3: it's the opposite problem.
Speaker 4: We have more deer than we can handle, and not
Speaker 4: enough of them are getting killed.
Speaker 3: So, for example, in the state like Michigan, where that
Speaker 3: is the case, in the bottom half of the state,
Speaker 3: probably we are overpopulated with deer, We're not killing enough deer.
Speaker 3: I would love to see an earlier season opened up,
Speaker 3: just to give more opportunity for those of us who
Speaker 3: are willing to get out there and hunt these deer
Speaker 3: and work on that dope population. That wouldn't be a
Speaker 3: bad idea. Yeah, anytime you present that kind of thing,
Speaker 3: you're going to get certain people that don't like seeing
Speaker 3: changes to the way things have always been.
Speaker 6: Sure, Yeah, we don't all get along, you know, some
Speaker 6: people can try, for sure.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: One thing I've I've kind of noticed is, you know,
Speaker 6: some states, like I don't know, for instance, Nebraska or
Speaker 6: some of the more western states, they'll lump in their
Speaker 6: deer tags as as just deer, so it's mule deer
Speaker 6: and white tail. And one thing I would love to
Speaker 6: see is a separation of that. I know it would
Speaker 6: take a few more resources maybe on the in the
Speaker 6: biological or you know, within biologists and and those kind
Speaker 6: of things within the state departments, but it would be
Speaker 6: nice if you know, because mule deer numbers are trending down,
Speaker 6: that doesn't mean that white tails are in said state.
Speaker 2: So usually it's actually in verse function, you know, like
Speaker 2: you would like to impact the waite tail population numbers.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I would.
Speaker 6: I would kind of like to see that in the
Speaker 6: future too, But I don't write budget lines and that
Speaker 6: kind of thing either, so you know, it's not my responsibility.
Speaker 6: But anyway, we uh, you know, we're definitely so Case
Speaker 6: has got kind of lackluster plans for earlier season. You've
Speaker 6: got some good, awesome plans for early season, but it's
Speaker 6: going to be different than anything probably you've ever done.
Speaker 6: And then I'm kind of I'm kind of doing some
Speaker 6: some normal stuff, but I am going to be hunting
Speaker 6: some new states or hopefully two new states, but uh,
Speaker 6: for sure one new state this year in the early season.
Speaker 5: It depends on my efficiency.
Speaker 6: So the road trip could could extend out to two
Speaker 6: states if I was if I was quick enough to
Speaker 6: get one killed. And and I really well, thank you,
Speaker 6: and I really like like the spot that I want
Speaker 6: to go. That I'm getting a cold front which is
Speaker 6: actually potentially adversely affecting my plan because of the north wind,
Speaker 6: but I should have a south wind by the second day,
Speaker 6: so we may have.
Speaker 7: Can you tell us?
Speaker 4: Can you tell us where you're going at least the state?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'll be starting in North Dakota, yep. So that's
Speaker 6: the first time i've I mean, that's it's like Canada
Speaker 6: from here. That's a long ways, but it'd be the
Speaker 6: first time I've ever even it's the only state West
Speaker 6: Mississippi I haven't been to, so not necessarily hunted, but
Speaker 6: you know, actually traveled to so pretty excited.
Speaker 5: It's pretty excited to go do that.
Speaker 4: Man, that's I'm jealous of that. I absolutely love getting
Speaker 4: up there for this time of the year. So you're
Speaker 4: gonna have a blast.
Speaker 5: Thanks man. Tyler, how much does a velvet wattail mean
Speaker 5: to you? Oh, doesn't mean that much.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: It's a motivating factor for a lot of people to
Speaker 2: be able to go hunt early seasoned year.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm not like, in fact, it almost makes it.
Speaker 6: It almost gives me the anxiety to think about because
Speaker 6: if you shoot a velvet buck, then you got to
Speaker 6: kind of take care of that velvet and that is
Speaker 6: a hard thing when you're traveling out of state to do.
Speaker 4: So I'm in the same boat with you, Tyler.
Speaker 3: I actually don't want to shoot a velvet buck because
Speaker 3: kind of the same thing.
Speaker 4: Like I'm like, ah, geez, it's gonna be a hassle
Speaker 4: to deal with. And even though I love.
Speaker 3: Watching summer white tails like velvet white tails, I thoroughly enjoy.
Speaker 4: Watching them in summer for whatever reason, I just love hard.
Speaker 3: Antler, like I just I don't know, I just like
Speaker 3: the look of them better.
Speaker 4: I like the idea that I can.
Speaker 3: Grab a euromount and hold it and feel like this slick,
Speaker 3: hard surface of those antlers, and it's got some kind
Speaker 3: of weird something there.
Speaker 4: I don't know if it's smr like you.
Speaker 6: No, I get what you're saying. Yeah, I get what
Speaker 6: you're saying. I have a I have a little spike
Speaker 6: side that was like I found it in like early March.
Speaker 6: Is a fresh dropped spike side that I found which
Speaker 6: is also, by the way, the hardest shed defined, you know.
Speaker 6: So uh, but it's like a stress reliever I have
Speaker 6: in my truck. I think it's down into my seat
Speaker 6: right now, but like I'll just grab that thing and
Speaker 6: just hold it in my hand, you know. It's just
Speaker 6: something about like the I don't know, it's a weird
Speaker 6: it's a weird thing.
Speaker 2: It's probab the same thing I have an axis nubbing.
Speaker 2: It's like a one inch long, you know, and like
Speaker 2: amazed that I found it right and it's like a
Speaker 2: little fidget thing for me in the truck, you know,
Speaker 2: just kind of messing around with it or whatever. It
Speaker 2: might be like a whole uh thing where it's like, all.
Speaker 5: Right, this is what they feel like.
Speaker 2: I won't more. I want to find some more, maybe
Speaker 2: a double you know that they're still connected to the skull,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. Speaking of watching big velvet bucks,
Speaker 2: Mark you you seem to be cool with letting the
Speaker 2: social media world know what you got going on there, Michigan.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 2: You know, you have got some nice velvet deer that
Speaker 2: you're watching.
Speaker 4: I do, And I think the key thing is they're like,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 3: It's the summer, so none of these things are none
Speaker 3: of these deer guaranteed deer that I'll be able to hunt.
Speaker 4: But I do like to get.
Speaker 3: Around, drive around the road, see bucks in the summer,
Speaker 3: film them if I can.
Speaker 4: I don't mind, you know, sharing pictures and stuff. They're
Speaker 4: all they're all deer anyone could hunt. I'm not going
Speaker 4: to hoard them.
Speaker 3: To myself, I'd say, like the summer is more like
Speaker 3: hype time, right, It's just like a time to celebrate
Speaker 3: getting excited about deer season again and like the possibility
Speaker 3: of deer season.
Speaker 4: So so yeah, I like.
Speaker 3: To I like to get excited with folks on social media,
Speaker 3: with my buddies and everything. But yes, there are some
Speaker 3: good dear in some of the spots I've got to hunt.
Speaker 3: I've got some new permissions I picked up this year
Speaker 3: just asking around, picked up a few other little spots,
Speaker 3: and then some of the spots that have hunted for
Speaker 3: a long time. I've got a couple of good ones
Speaker 3: running around again this year. So, you know, Michigan, I
Speaker 3: feel like I've got a chance it's something decent. And then, uh,
Speaker 3: you know, excited about our our other plans that we.
Speaker 4: Share as well.
Speaker 5: Yes, sir, I was about to roll into that.
Speaker 2: You know, we hunted with Mark Kenyon one time in
Speaker 2: Texas and he passed a bunch of bucks.
Speaker 8: You're never gonna You're never gonna.
Speaker 2: Let me, man, I'm not Maybe maybe you won't pass
Speaker 2: one this year, and then that I can die.
Speaker 6: But I think he's going to from what I understand,
Speaker 6: He's right, he's looking full foot trophy.
Speaker 5: Hunter on this one.
Speaker 4: Right, I'm actually a vegetarian in disguise.
Speaker 5: He's just killed him for fun. I guess.
Speaker 2: We're joking everyone where Joe all this is a joke,
Speaker 2: But Mark, I don't know.
Speaker 5: We got real busy. Well, let me back up.
Speaker 2: We were hanging out together this summer and we're like, hey,
Speaker 2: we haven't hunted together in a few years, let's figure.
Speaker 5: Out a way to hunt together. And you were like,
Speaker 5: I'd love.
Speaker 2: To go to a big buckstay and like do the
Speaker 2: thing on a good property.
Speaker 5: And so we put our heads together.
Speaker 2: I think you took a water break and I started
Speaker 2: calling people, and I UH through.
Speaker 5: A friend of a friend, found a couple of.
Speaker 2: Smaller properties in uh in Illinois that we could get
Speaker 2: permission to hunt on. And it was like an amazing thing,
Speaker 2: like gif from God's like, whoa, this is exactly what
Speaker 2: we wanted, you know. And so we put a plan together,
Speaker 2: like in a minimal amount of time to go do
Speaker 2: a like blazing camera drop where you and I met
Speaker 2: up there and did a little bit of that work
Speaker 2: and got too familiar with the properties. And I don't know,
Speaker 2: we've gotten kind of busy and haven't really communicated about
Speaker 2: the trail camera pictures we have, but we we do
Speaker 2: this thing now in the multie app where we can
Speaker 2: kind of share, even though it's under different accounts, we
Speaker 2: can share certain cameras.
Speaker 5: Have you been keeping up with the elements cameras.
Speaker 3: Mark I have, it's really easy to keep up with
Speaker 3: our cameras a little.
Speaker 5: I guess, yeah, there's like nothing on them.
Speaker 2: Well, uh yeah, nothing on yours.
Speaker 5: We got a pretty good buck.
Speaker 4: Yeah, one buck.
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess I guess I'm sounding uh jaded
Speaker 3: or something, because yes.
Speaker 4: That is that is a real That's a nice buck,
Speaker 4: for sure, a good buck.
Speaker 2: I guess you're just counting out because you know I'm
Speaker 2: gonna kill him, and so we're kunding another one.
Speaker 3: Well, I just know that, like all the properties we
Speaker 3: have permission on, I know that at least like two
Speaker 3: to four of them will get completely burnt out by
Speaker 3: you just sprinting around to doing create.
Speaker 5: That's why you're trying to bling me up there, I
Speaker 5: think you.
Speaker 3: So, I'm gonna approach this hunting season down there in
Speaker 3: Illinois as if I'm hunting public lan like, just assuming
Speaker 3: that most of the stuff is gonna get trashed by Casey.
Speaker 3: A couple of little pockets away that Casey might never
Speaker 3: know about, and that's where I'm gonna get Yeah, that's
Speaker 3: a good idea.
Speaker 6: I like it, But I don't even know where these
Speaker 6: properties are.
Speaker 5: I haven't even given tylering you on xpense.
Speaker 2: He doesn't know it's perfect, man, But I'm excited to
Speaker 2: get to do that with you.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 2: We're gonna try to spend some time in November up there,
Speaker 2: like doing the rut thing sharing camp and just power
Speaker 2: out and having a good time. We talked about how
Speaker 2: we're gonna decide who gets to hunt ware, and it
Speaker 2: was we figured we draw straws.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: The good thing is I am the straw coordinator, so
Speaker 2: that should go well for me.
Speaker 5: Uh man, But I'm pumped. Man, it's gonna be fun.
Speaker 2: Like you said, cameras are a little lackluster, but you
Speaker 2: put them over a lot of mock scrapes and places
Speaker 2: that deer don't go.
Speaker 5: So I think that, Yeah, that was a joke.
Speaker 4: Do you do go eventually?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 2: They do.
Speaker 5: That actually is a good point to bring up.
Speaker 3: Go ahead, but yeah, you know, the place is you
Speaker 3: can't put you can't put any.
Speaker 4: Kind of a tract and out or anything down there.
Speaker 3: And so and we're not able to go down there
Speaker 3: and move cameras around a bunch. So it didn't make
Speaker 3: sense to put everything like on a soybean field or something.
Speaker 3: So at least all the cameras that I set up,
Speaker 3: I set up where there was intersections of travel where
Speaker 3: there will be some kind of eventual traveling deer movement,
Speaker 3: basically any kind of concentration I could find. So for example,
Speaker 3: there's spots where basically you've got terrain or cover converging,
Speaker 3: multiple edges coming together, or in another case, I found
Speaker 3: two different spots, so there's major creek crossings that also
Speaker 3: then intersected within major trails coming in betting areas, and
Speaker 3: then another trail that parallel the down winds.
Speaker 9: Side of the betting aar.
Speaker 4: So these things are.
Speaker 3: There's go these are going to be concentrations of buck
Speaker 3: activity eventually.
Speaker 4: And then I also made sure that there was.
Speaker 3: A scrape or mock scrape at each of those locations too.
Speaker 3: So I'm really confident that eventually going to heat up.
Speaker 4: But you know, right now early summer, if you're not right.
Speaker 3: By like some dynamite soybeing or alf healfa field or something,
Speaker 3: it's gonna be a little bit slower.
Speaker 4: And so that's what we've experienced.
Speaker 3: I still thought we would see more deer activity just
Speaker 3: because like all these spots, if there was a lot
Speaker 3: of deer in the area like these would be. Like
Speaker 3: the place I would pick is to expect to see
Speaker 3: a decent amount of activity, and it hasn't happened yet,
Speaker 3: but I.
Speaker 4: Still think eventually it will.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Yeah, the rut's gonna The rut's gonna help that
Speaker 6: out for sure. So as we get more into October,
Speaker 6: we'll definitely look for those cameras to light up case.
Speaker 6: We've got a few people that we're gonna be talking
Speaker 6: to this week to try to figure out, you know,
Speaker 6: what the early season deer are doing, and maybe it'll
Speaker 6: give us a t up in Illinois as well.
Speaker 5: Who are we talking to this week.
Speaker 2: We're gonna be talking to Alex Compstock in North Dakota,
Speaker 2: Nate Creek in Nebraska, Mark has them all the way
Speaker 2: over in South Carolina, and then finished out with Lane
Speaker 2: Hausner hunting up in Delaware. I know these fellas are
Speaker 2: rip roaring and ready to go, so let's get the
Speaker 2: reports from him on the phone.
Speaker 5: Right now.
Speaker 2: I've got Alex Comstock. He's a good old friend of mine.
Speaker 2: We're from opposite ends of the world, and he is
Speaker 2: in North Dakota. He's a waite tail DNA. It's his brand.
Speaker 2: He's got a lot of cool stuff out there, dude,
Speaker 2: what's happening.
Speaker 3: We're just grinding away in North Dakota and shooting some
Speaker 3: bucks while we're at it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guarantee you man. I've been following along on
Speaker 2: social with a serious fomo. Y'all are killing them.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: We had a pretty good start the first couple of
Speaker 3: days putting. I think we put four bucks down in
Speaker 3: the first two days of the season.
Speaker 5: Oh.
Speaker 2: I didn't even realize it was that many. I got
Speaker 2: so lost in the sauce. I thought, y'all killed two,
Speaker 2: you've killed four?
Speaker 5: Four?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean four in Camp one was not like
Speaker 3: our crew per se, but they were with us.
Speaker 2: So I mean it's four camp Yeah, that's six? Are
Speaker 2: y'all video? And all those are?
Speaker 5: Those all on film?
Speaker 4: Two out of the.
Speaker 3: Four were I'm nice man. Two of the guys were
Speaker 3: on White Tail DNA film and so.
Speaker 5: That's cool, looks like. And so your cousin Caleb was
Speaker 5: one of those guys.
Speaker 3: Right, Caleb did not care? Oh he didn't, okay, so
Speaker 3: he it was close. But we had team member Luke
Speaker 3: Ellison and the team member Jeremy Lopez both shot bucks.
Speaker 2: I've seen the look keel some stuff on your stuff,
Speaker 2: and sure enough, I guess I got the deer kind
Speaker 2: of confused. But I know I saw a couple of
Speaker 2: hammers in there, and they're velvet bucks, which is awesome.
Speaker 5: How many deer?
Speaker 2: I know you're doing a lot of observation and so
Speaker 2: you probably put eyes on a lot of bucks, But
Speaker 2: how many or what's the percentage of deer that you
Speaker 2: feel are still in velvet right now?
Speaker 4: I go about fifty to fifty.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a few shed pretty early, and then there's still,
Speaker 3: like Lukes was perfect pristine velvet, So I'd give it
Speaker 3: right about fifty.
Speaker 5: Fifty, gotcha.
Speaker 2: I know that that's a big motivating factor for a
Speaker 2: lot of guys who hunt the early season, but you know,
Speaker 2: sometimes people don't care about it as much, but it's
Speaker 2: a neat thing for sure. Do you feel like you're
Speaker 2: seeing those bucks still in the bachelor groups or once
Speaker 2: they shed, are they solo or what's the herd dynamic?
Speaker 3: Like I would say, definitely still bachelor groups. Even Jeremy's
Speaker 3: buck that he killed was hardhorned, but he was in
Speaker 3: a bachelor group of five bucks and the other four
Speaker 3: had velvet still, so he was still running with them,
Speaker 3: so I'm they're still pretty bachelored up.
Speaker 5: Gotcha.
Speaker 2: Now are you hunting a lot of bid to food
Speaker 2: and are you just hunting just evenings?
Speaker 5: Are you mixing it up with some mornings in there too.
Speaker 3: We attempted to do a little morning stuff, just mainly
Speaker 3: drive around Glassing and our plan was if we found
Speaker 3: a buck we would make a plan from there, but
Speaker 3: that has proved to be not worth it as we
Speaker 3: have not been seen deer in the morning, so we've
Speaker 3: been just sticking to evenings.
Speaker 5: Gotcha. Gotcha?
Speaker 2: Are those deer hitting ag fields or what are you
Speaker 2: usually keying in on?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think out of the four bucks, I believe three
Speaker 3: of them are killed on meanfield.
Speaker 2: Wow, it's a pretty consistent thing this time of your
Speaker 2: soybeans are where it's at?
Speaker 5: How do you feel exactly?
Speaker 2: You know, you've hunted North Dakota for quite a few
Speaker 2: years and have a lot of experience, particularly in the
Speaker 2: early season. Out there are the crops in good condition
Speaker 2: this year? Or is there just a few really good spots?
Speaker 3: They seem to be generally speaking, in really good condition.
Speaker 3: I know they had a super wet spring, so there
Speaker 3: are some fields that typically would be good that actually
Speaker 3: didn't get planted, that are just like nothing. Other than that,
Speaker 3: the fields that are planted or the craft seem to
Speaker 3: be doing pretty and good.
Speaker 5: Gotcha, that's cool.
Speaker 2: You and I were talking off air for a second
Speaker 2: will Ago, and it sounds like you're doing some run
Speaker 2: and gun hanging hunt or you actually have to go
Speaker 2: pull a set here in a second, right?
Speaker 5: Is that going to be?
Speaker 2: Kind of the key for having success is being versatile
Speaker 2: and being mobile.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, just moving, I mean, just trying to stay
Speaker 3: up on them. I'm going to a spot where I've
Speaker 3: seen from this tree, I've seen bucks the last two nights.
Speaker 3: Last night i had one at forty five yards that
Speaker 3: worked his way to the spot. So I'm determined with
Speaker 3: the wind and where they're going to be, I need
Speaker 3: to be there and I need to pull a set
Speaker 3: and move around and go there. So it's going to
Speaker 3: be it's a lot of mobile, I mean, bounce around,
Speaker 3: you know, kind of going with the flow pretty much.
Speaker 5: So do you feel like buck movement's pretty good right now?
Speaker 3: It has been. I mean we had a really we
Speaker 3: had a stellar cold front. Hit attempts are generally speaking
Speaker 3: lower than they are the time of year, so a
Speaker 3: Buck movement, I mean, with what we've had our success,
Speaker 3: it's been pretty good.
Speaker 5: That's awesome, man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm super stoked to see all the succests that
Speaker 2: y'all have had up there. If someone's trying to think
Speaker 2: about planning a trip within then went next week, or
Speaker 2: trying to decide if it's worth getting out, what would
Speaker 2: you rate the Buck movement your prediction for the next
Speaker 2: week on a scale of one to ten.
Speaker 3: I'm going to just you know, I'm a guy likes
Speaker 3: the base things off, you know, the most recent data
Speaker 3: and we have. It's gonna warm up here for about
Speaker 3: the next couple of days. I think tomorrow it's gonna
Speaker 3: do about ninety, and then it's going.
Speaker 5: To drop off.
Speaker 3: For Thursday, I think the highest like sixty one. Wow,
Speaker 3: and then ranging in the next week it's pretty low.
Speaker 3: So I'm gonna say it's probably gonna be low for
Speaker 3: the next couple of days and probably Thursday on. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna give it a seven.
Speaker 2: Dude, just seven in September. That's some killing ratings right there.
Speaker 2: I like it, man. Well, I appreciate the good information, Alex.
Speaker 2: I know you're out there in the field hustling. I
Speaker 2: appreciate how hard you work, and I hope you find
Speaker 2: success to that.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 4: Appreciate Casey, Thank you a lot.
Speaker 2: I've got Lane Hausner within the presence if you want
Speaker 2: to find him on YouTube, it's in the presence hunt
Speaker 2: search that he is hunting in Delaware, which is pretty
Speaker 2: unique because you think of early season watt Hill states
Speaker 2: and you don't think about the Northeast too much, but
Speaker 2: Delaware does have an early opener.
Speaker 5: Man, what are you seeing out there?
Speaker 7: Oh? Man, I'm seeing a bunch of deer. Man, that's
Speaker 7: cool overfields.
Speaker 5: Man. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So you know, for folks who aren't familiar with the
Speaker 2: concept out there, are you looking at a lot of
Speaker 2: like corn and bean country and Delaware?
Speaker 7: Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 10: And then it's a lot of like just blocks of
Speaker 10: timber two kind of sporadic through out there too, gotcha.
Speaker 8: It's a lot.
Speaker 7: It's a lot of pine and you'll find some oaks too.
Speaker 5: Mm hmm. Okay, So are do you have oaks that
Speaker 5: are dropping so far?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 7: I found so far.
Speaker 10: I found one way tree that's dropping and they're hitting
Speaker 10: pretty heavy.
Speaker 5: Gotcha. And so you're you're kind of in the hills.
Speaker 2: There's not as much of that swamp stuff there in
Speaker 2: Delaware or any of that kind of stuff.
Speaker 7: Oh no, man, it's there. There ain't no hills in Delaware.
Speaker 5: Flat Okay, gotcha, got you? Got you. So I know
Speaker 5: you went out tonight and hunted.
Speaker 2: Are you Are you you seeing bucks in bachelor groups
Speaker 2: still or are they split up or what's the dynamic?
Speaker 10: Like it's it's pretty much still bachelored up. You got
Speaker 10: some some bucks that are soldo right now, but it's
Speaker 10: for the most parts bachelored up.
Speaker 7: I've seen I've seen all dose to night unfortunately. But
Speaker 7: the other night I seen a.
Speaker 10: Bachelor group of bucks and there was two pretty decent
Speaker 10: ones in there.
Speaker 2: That's cool. So in Delaware, do you get multiple buck
Speaker 2: tags or yeah? Okay, so you can shoot a buck
Speaker 2: in early season and still be able to hunt later
Speaker 2: in the year. So are you being super picky and
Speaker 2: trying to find one specific buck or you just trying
Speaker 2: to look for a good encounter.
Speaker 7: I'm just trying to look for a good encounter, man, experience.
Speaker 7: I mean, I'll shoot a doe. I could have shot
Speaker 7: those tonight if I really wanted to, But man, I
Speaker 7: was like a mile and a half of the truggle.
Speaker 7: I don't feel like that.
Speaker 5: You know, that's a long back out, for sure.
Speaker 7: That's a lot for a dough. That's a long back out.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 9: Man.
Speaker 7: As far as buck wise, I'm not picky.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 10: I've never shot a velvet buck before, so honestly, if
Speaker 10: a nice elbow buck presented itself, give me a good opportunity, man,
Speaker 10: I'd slain one.
Speaker 5: That's cool.
Speaker 2: How many how many bucks do you feel like, on
Speaker 2: a percentage wise are still in velvet up there Delaware?
Speaker 10: I'd say majority of them, I'd say, yeah, got you cool?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, uh, you know it kind of makes sense
Speaker 2: because it's so far north. But you know, you have
Speaker 2: a what I would think is a different weather pattern
Speaker 2: then a majority of the country. You know, a lot
Speaker 2: of the country depends on or isn't dependent, but the
Speaker 2: weather is affected by how the air moves down out
Speaker 2: of Canada down through you know, the West and the Midwest.
Speaker 2: But y'all are on that pretty much eastern seaboard, right,
Speaker 2: so you're encountering different weather fronts all together. Like, are
Speaker 2: you looking for cold ference this time of year? Or
Speaker 2: is that even a thing?
Speaker 10: I mean, it's a little bit of a thing, But
Speaker 10: you know, I only got a week to hunt down
Speaker 10: here before I go to Nebraska and Kansas, so I gotcha.
Speaker 7: You know, it's like I'm pretty much just hunting whenever.
Speaker 10: Like it's a last week, and a couple of weeks
Speaker 10: before they were in a huge drought and it was
Speaker 10: real hot, and then right before the opener they had
Speaker 10: a huge storm and it kind of brought the temperatures down,
Speaker 10: so like it's been first day, I think it was
Speaker 10: like low eighties and then it rained, and then today
Speaker 10: it was like high seventies, and pretty much the rest
Speaker 10: of the week it's going to be I think tomorrow
Speaker 10: the corn for like low seventies, and then rest of.
Speaker 5: The week it just gradually climbs.
Speaker 10: And then there's supposed to be another weather system coming
Speaker 10: in Friday and Saturday.
Speaker 2: Okay, cool. Yeah. So do you spend a lot of
Speaker 2: time scouting the summer?
Speaker 5: Yep?
Speaker 2: So are you making moves off of thing that you
Speaker 2: found this summer right now?
Speaker 10: To be honest with you, I haven't really scouted Delaware
Speaker 10: in the summer. Most of my stuff I scouted and
Speaker 10: Delaware was in the winter, So I kind of came
Speaker 10: down here a day early and just checked a couple
Speaker 10: of good.
Speaker 7: Spots that I thought might be cool, you know, I mean,
Speaker 7: might be dropping acorns or whatnot, and not one of them.
Speaker 10: That was so I went in there again and I
Speaker 10: didn't see anything.
Speaker 5: To be honest with you, do you ever still in there?
Speaker 5: You know what I mean?
Speaker 7: Trow cams on public and Delaware, so it may tough.
Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, so you know you'd really it's kind of
Speaker 10: just you gotta hunt it and you gotta, you know,
Speaker 10: try your luck.
Speaker 2: To be honest with you, Yeah, it makes sense, man,
Speaker 2: it sounds it sounds kind of fun, you know. It's
Speaker 2: it's kind of like, guys, you went with a tread
Speaker 2: bow or whatever it may be. You know, some restrictions
Speaker 2: like that, you know, might affect the way you usually hunt,
Speaker 2: but at the same time it can make things a
Speaker 2: little sporting, you know. So if you're if you were
Speaker 2: just kind of gonna guess right now, how do you
Speaker 2: feel like the buck movement is? I mean not guess,
Speaker 2: but you know, like overall compared to other years, Like,
Speaker 2: how do you feel like it is?
Speaker 7: I feel like it's pretty good.
Speaker 10: I mean, my buddy's been like I know, two of
Speaker 10: my buddies down here already killed one another one missed,
Speaker 10: you know what I mean. So I'm dude, there's there's
Speaker 10: bucks moving, and I mean, if you if you're on
Speaker 10: any of like the pages on Facebook, you know people
Speaker 10: are posting bucks pretty much left and right yems like,
Speaker 10: so people are killing them.
Speaker 5: That's cool, man. How many more days you got left
Speaker 5: before you leave?
Speaker 9: Oh?
Speaker 10: I got to probably Friday, and then I'll probably swing
Speaker 10: over to Maryland because Maryland.
Speaker 7: Opens on Friday. And I got self camp.
Speaker 10: I got like a couple of self cams over there,
Speaker 10: and one's just been going off non stop. So I
Speaker 10: want to slide in that spot and try to kill
Speaker 10: one before I got a roll.
Speaker 5: Nice. That's cool. So this next question I'm going to
Speaker 5: ask you is really pertinent to you.
Speaker 2: Uh, if you had superdict buck movement over the next
Speaker 2: week on a scale of one to ten, what do
Speaker 2: you think it's going to be and why?
Speaker 7: I think it would probably get a little better.
Speaker 10: You probably got all the people coming down for the
Speaker 10: first weekend with it being labored and stuff.
Speaker 7: People I've off like today, you know.
Speaker 5: What I mean.
Speaker 10: So you'll probably Sunday Monday tour it up down here
Speaker 10: and then I guarantee you, at least what I'm seeing,
Speaker 10: most of the campers and stuff are pulling out. It
Speaker 10: seems like, so I guarantee you. You know, Bucks will
Speaker 10: kind of feel the pressure is kind of changing a
Speaker 10: little bit, and he's back off, and you know they'll
Speaker 10: be hitting once once all the corn and beans come down.
Speaker 10: You know, they'll be hitting acorns hard once they start
Speaker 10: like actually dropping dropping heavy.
Speaker 7: You know. So I feel like it'll only.
Speaker 5: Get better to be so for in this week, what's
Speaker 5: the what's the number from one to ten?
Speaker 7: I'd say this week probably like six seven.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty optimistic, man, I like it. Well, if
Speaker 2: you're calling six or seven, you better kill one, you
Speaker 2: know better?
Speaker 7: How better put my money around my mouth?
Speaker 5: That's right, dude.
Speaker 2: Well, hey, really appreciate the good report there and look
Speaker 2: forward to talking to you the rest of the season.
Speaker 5: It sounds like you got a lot going on.
Speaker 7: Yeah, man, I appreciate you having me on. Thank you.
Speaker 5: This is Mark Haslam with Southeast Wide Tail.
Speaker 2: He is in the great state of South Carolina most
Speaker 2: of the time.
Speaker 5: At least, Mark, what's happening man.
Speaker 8: Now much?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 8: Case? I just got back from the farm.
Speaker 9: Have the kids up there labor the weekend and it
Speaker 9: was hot, but I'm I'm already ready to get back
Speaker 9: up there.
Speaker 5: I bet dude again. Y'all, y'all get after it real hard.
Speaker 2: It's always fun too to to kind of watch how
Speaker 2: things progress with you on social media because y'all are
Speaker 2: always killing stuff way earlier than anybody else, and you've
Speaker 2: got to beat on them.
Speaker 5: So it's very cool.
Speaker 2: But I have a big question for you, For us
Speaker 2: that don't know, It's might be a little confusing, but
Speaker 2: is the whole state of South Carolina the low Country
Speaker 2: or is that a specific area?
Speaker 5: And are you there?
Speaker 8: So the low Country is a specific region?
Speaker 5: Gotcha?
Speaker 9: It runs It really starts down and Runswick, Georgia, but
Speaker 9: in South Carolina it runs all the way to Charleston,
Speaker 9: South Carolina, from the Georgia side sept from the Savannah River.
Speaker 8: It's about Charleston and it goes inland.
Speaker 9: How far it goes to inland Some people will say
Speaker 9: it's very tight, like in our state ninety five. Other
Speaker 9: people will say it'll go as far as inland is
Speaker 9: like an hour hour and a half. So we are
Speaker 9: we are just across the line in the Midlands Midges.
Speaker 5: Okay, gotcha, Yeah, what did the beer doing in the
Speaker 5: Midlands right now? Man?
Speaker 8: Right now they are.
Speaker 9: We're starting to see them shifts, starting to see them
Speaker 9: shift pretty well. The majority of the state opened up
Speaker 9: August fifteenth.
Speaker 8: The very top part of the state opens September fifteenth.
Speaker 9: But they right now most of these deer low country
Speaker 9: Midlands areas games down three and four. They have been
Speaker 9: hit hard for the past three past you know, over
Speaker 9: over two going three weeks now, with with with folks hunting,
Speaker 9: people putting up trail cameras and food plots and feeders
Speaker 9: and deer stands and trimming, so all of a sudden,
Speaker 9: the woods were kind of sitting idle for the most part,
Speaker 9: except for foresters and farmers.
Speaker 8: And now all of a sudden they've been bombarded.
Speaker 9: So if you have some isolated fields or food plots
Speaker 9: or some airs that you know haven't been touched yet
Speaker 9: with human presence, it's going to be golden.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 8: Some of these deer are still on some summer patterns,
Speaker 8: but for the most.
Speaker 9: Part, bucks in velvet they have been They typically start
Speaker 9: peeling the third week in.
Speaker 8: August, and right now, if you see a buck in velvet.
Speaker 9: It is probably gonna be a one year old, you know,
Speaker 9: a spike or a real small six seven eight point
Speaker 9: got you.
Speaker 8: So they're starting to they're starting to.
Speaker 2: Shift, yeah, sure. So are those deer still eating agriculture?
Speaker 2: Are they kind of moving over to acrons? You'll have
Speaker 2: me acrons dropping.
Speaker 8: No acorns for the most part dropping.
Speaker 9: Yet we'll have the folks that plant saw tooth salt
Speaker 9: sawtooth oaks and start dropping pretty soon for people. We've
Speaker 9: got some of those, But right now they are still
Speaker 9: pounding ag fields and food plots. But if you had
Speaker 9: that human presence out there already hunting them or start
Speaker 9: kind of messing around them, they're gonna shift back a
Speaker 9: little bit.
Speaker 8: And then I'm gonna come.
Speaker 9: Out two hours before last light and in the heat
Speaker 9: of you know, of the sun. They're they're gonna wait
Speaker 9: till that right last light, Yeah, and slip out.
Speaker 2: So I know that in the past, I've talked to
Speaker 2: you and some people that have hunted with you, and
Speaker 2: y'all actually find success in the mornings, oftentimes in early season,
Speaker 2: which is a little different.
Speaker 5: Is that a thing that you're you're still targeting right now?
Speaker 4: Absolutely?
Speaker 8: I haven't done.
Speaker 9: I haven't done much of that because I've been taking
Speaker 9: my kids so far this year. But this weekend I'm
Speaker 9: going solo. We got some cool temps down in the eighties,
Speaker 9: which is cool for us.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I understand this.
Speaker 8: In the mornings, that's right just center seventy.
Speaker 9: So with these bucks, I'm gonna be hanging and climbing
Speaker 9: right outside some betting areas. And so what I found
Speaker 9: is cooler mornings early season. Yeah, these bucks, they're gonna
Speaker 9: be out of the open fields. They're gonna be out,
Speaker 9: you know, of the open areas by great light. But
Speaker 9: they're gonna be drifting back to betting and they're gonna
Speaker 9: take their time because they're gonna eat.
Speaker 8: They're gonna eat.
Speaker 9: All the way there, and so just kind of find
Speaker 9: some good, tight areas where they can feel safe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's cool. So how do you feel like the
Speaker 2: buck movement is right now? I mean, i'd say it's
Speaker 2: about seven. Yeah, it's about seven.
Speaker 9: And the reason why I wouldn't say it's more, it's
Speaker 9: just because if you're hunting those open fields, open areas
Speaker 9: is there have been gunshots everywhere and they are I mean,
Speaker 9: there's just people out about hunting and dear, it's it's
Speaker 9: an initial shot that I see, you know, to where
Speaker 9: they're not leaving your property, but all the sut all
Speaker 9: of a sudden they get hit hard with presents. So
Speaker 9: they're still moving around, but they're but they are now
Speaker 9: shifting around the hunters.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense, man, that's cool, dude.
Speaker 2: Well seven is pretty good, you know, Like that makes
Speaker 2: me optimistic about wanting to get in the woods. So
Speaker 2: I think if anybody's in your general region, then it's
Speaker 2: still the getting time, I would imagine.
Speaker 5: And I know you're gonna be getting after it too.
Speaker 2: Man. I can't wait to see how the rest of
Speaker 2: it your season plays out. I know you all gonna
Speaker 2: lay some down.
Speaker 8: That's the plan.
Speaker 9: That's the plan, and and then the and the real
Speaker 9: fun part starts September fifteenth across the state when we
Speaker 9: can start laying down doors. And that's that's what the
Speaker 9: fun is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, feeling the freezer and everybody he gets to shoot
Speaker 2: some stuff.
Speaker 5: That's that's a good time, man.
Speaker 4: Sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, Mark, we appreciate the report, man, and I'm
Speaker 2: sure I'll be reaching back out to you again.
Speaker 8: Sounds good.
Speaker 2: This is Nate Creek with identical draw. Him and his
Speaker 2: brother get after it a lot of times in some
Speaker 2: of the more Western stuff. But y'all hunt practically all
Speaker 2: over the country. What's up man, Hey, not much.
Speaker 4: It's hunting season.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, man, it's like whatever. You're just general
Speaker 2: temperament was it's like plus two from here until the
Speaker 2: end of December. Yeah, that's right, that's right. Just just
Speaker 2: more smiles in general. So that's great man.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 2: So you've been doing some hunting in Nebraska and that
Speaker 2: Nebraska's home for you?
Speaker 4: Correct, Yes, Yeah, Nebraska's home.
Speaker 3: So it seems like usually start up right here because
Speaker 3: they have an early opener, so it works out pretty well.
Speaker 5: Yeah, man, for sure.
Speaker 2: You actually get to just see a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: out of state hunters, uh, you know, come into your
Speaker 2: state exactly.
Speaker 5: It's perfect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. So in general, how is Nebraska this year?
Speaker 2: We're looking at a wet year, a dry year. What's
Speaker 2: going on?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 3: You know, I feel like there's pockets of dryness, but
Speaker 3: I can't complain. We had a ton of moisture from
Speaker 3: what's typical this summer. Our fall plots are doing well.
Speaker 3: We got those in like we I mean in the
Speaker 3: last couple of weeks, we've had some I mean some
Speaker 3: heavy rains whether we're getting over a couple of inches,
Speaker 3: So yeah.
Speaker 4: I really can't complain. It's that I feel like.
Speaker 3: The summer was I mean, we had our hot, dry stretches,
Speaker 3: but overall it was pretty good on things. So we
Speaker 3: saw some pretty good deer growth. I feel like there's
Speaker 3: a bunch of big ones around this year. So yeah,
Speaker 3: it's the summer went pretty well here, So that's cool.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So you're talking about planting plots and stuff.
Speaker 2: And I can only imagine in a state that is
Speaker 2: defined by agg fields full of beans and corn, that
Speaker 2: you have to be creative with food plots. What are
Speaker 2: you planting and what are you targeting to draw deer
Speaker 2: over from just that general good feed they get from
Speaker 2: the agriculture, right.
Speaker 4: So you know, it kind of depends.
Speaker 3: So like on our family place in Kansas, we do
Speaker 3: a bunch of management stuff and like our prescribed fire
Speaker 3: in the off season is truly the best food plots
Speaker 3: that we have in the whole property. We don't plant anything,
Speaker 3: it's just that new growth. We have cameras on our
Speaker 3: new growth, and we have cameras on our bean plots,
Speaker 3: our new growth with that green like just leafy material,
Speaker 3: like those plants that the deer are in that more
Speaker 3: than our food plots, which is honestly insane.
Speaker 4: And but yeah, we play a ton of like right now,
Speaker 4: our fall plots.
Speaker 7: We just put in a.
Speaker 3: Bunch of clovers and peas and brass cus and things
Speaker 3: that are going to last and stay green throughout the
Speaker 3: winter season. But right now, like what we're focusing on
Speaker 3: is this this early week September.
Speaker 4: I mean it's basically still summer. I mean it is, it's.
Speaker 3: Fall seasons here, but I mean we're still hunting Nebraska.
Speaker 3: We're lucky you can still hunt some of those summer
Speaker 3: bucks on their patterns and so a lot of the
Speaker 3: times we're finding them in those big green bean fields.
Speaker 3: But we hunted Opener this last Sunday, and I watched
Speaker 3: several does get up from their beds brows the field
Speaker 3: edges just on natural brows.
Speaker 4: Just what was coming up.
Speaker 3: There's some poison ities just different natural food sources.
Speaker 4: Didn't even touch the.
Speaker 3: Bean field, just worked around through like the timber that
Speaker 3: there are some sunlight in some green popping up. And
Speaker 3: I thought that was really interesting because I feel like
Speaker 3: right now is just a ton of emphasis on that.
Speaker 3: But man, there are just these niche food sources that
Speaker 3: deer honestly prefer more than our perfectly pristine food plots
Speaker 3: that we try so hard.
Speaker 4: So I think that's.
Speaker 3: Honestly a huge thing scouting this time of the year,
Speaker 3: not really going for that big act, but just finding
Speaker 3: that little pockets of.
Speaker 4: Preferred, dear, dear food that they're going to be hidden.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean, the how visual deer are in
Speaker 2: the early season is always a bit fit. And then
Speaker 2: I think that too, especially living in a more western state.
Speaker 2: You know the benefit of the rolling terrain and being
Speaker 2: able to use your glass and your benefit. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: has to be a huge part of your hunting, right
Speaker 2: for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, Like we we uh, we were hunting
Speaker 3: the spot that this week that I mean we could
Speaker 3: see I mean like pretty much miles.
Speaker 4: I mean in one direction.
Speaker 3: We have tons of good visibility in other directions and
Speaker 3: that and that kind of sit is it's a hunt,
Speaker 3: you got the.
Speaker 4: Bow locked and loaded, but it's it's also just like
Speaker 4: a big time observation.
Speaker 7: Sit just trying to hone things in.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's that's sometimes the best thing you can
Speaker 3: do this time of the year. Obviously you can use
Speaker 3: some some trail cameras depending on your property and things
Speaker 3: like that. But man, if you can get eyes on
Speaker 3: deer kind of doing some similar things a couple of
Speaker 3: days in a row and then be able to go
Speaker 3: in and strike, I feel like that's one way to
Speaker 3: really kill a buck.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I absolutely agree, man, and y'all see to be
Speaker 2: pretty good at it. Dude, how many of the deer
Speaker 2: or what percentage of the deer still have velvet?
Speaker 8: You know?
Speaker 3: I was just talking to a buddy about that today.
Speaker 3: I feel like they are shedding so early. I there's
Speaker 3: only a handful of bucks that I've seen a camera
Speaker 3: in the last week that's still a velvet, most of
Speaker 3: the big ones that we were chasing.
Speaker 5: I just got.
Speaker 3: Pictures last night of a deer just in northeast Kansas
Speaker 3: and he was completely shed, hard worn. Most of the
Speaker 3: deer on Nebraska stuff that we've been hot and have
Speaker 3: been all hard worn, which I feel like some years
Speaker 3: it's like that, But I feel like some years you
Speaker 3: also get the first seven to ten days of September
Speaker 3: where they're going to be holding Velvet's hard pretty so
Speaker 3: it's like, I don't know, it's I think most of
Speaker 3: them have shed which kind of makes things a little
Speaker 3: weird for this opener. I feel like deer kind of
Speaker 3: during this shedding phase they kind of vanish and they
Speaker 3: just kind of like get that stuff off. They kind
Speaker 3: of shake off the summer and are kind of changing mentality.
Speaker 3: Because some of our cameras, some of them have been
Speaker 3: super hot with these deer coming like coming back to
Speaker 3: the properties after shedding, But some of them, some of
Speaker 3: these big bucks are just kind of vanished, and I
Speaker 3: feel like they take like a few days kind of
Speaker 3: like like change mindsets a little bit, kind of go
Speaker 3: test the new waters elsewhere.
Speaker 7: When they're shedding.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, yep, I could see that for sure. Man.
Speaker 5: Well cool if as you look forward to the next week.
Speaker 2: With some weather fronts moving through and other things, you know,
Speaker 2: I know that plays a lot into it. If you
Speaker 2: were going to rate the buck movement on a scale
Speaker 2: of one to ten, what are you predict it to be?
Speaker 4: You know, I think buck movement is going to be
Speaker 4: pretty good for this first week. Yeah, like you said, there's.
Speaker 3: Some weather moving in, I think you could probably see
Speaker 3: six or seven out of ten on the buck movement,
Speaker 3: which for this time of the year, it's pretty good.
Speaker 3: I've hunted most most early season weeks. I mean, I
Speaker 3: feel like you're outing ninety degrees and movement could just
Speaker 3: be the last minute of the day.
Speaker 4: But I mean, we're we're seeing in some low seventies
Speaker 4: this this late this week. Those are highs. So those
Speaker 4: are for high wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, dipping into like upper forties for lows and highs
Speaker 3: in the seventies.
Speaker 4: So I think on those days, i'd be in a treat.
Speaker 3: I think that they're going to be moving early and
Speaker 3: you could have a really good shot.
Speaker 2: Oh man, that gets me pumped. I'm excited for y'all.
Speaker 2: I'm on a little bit of a hiatus here in
Speaker 2: early September, but I know y'allre going to get after it.
Speaker 2: And I'm living vicariously through you, man, So I appreciate
Speaker 2: the good report and I just can't help but wish
Speaker 2: you well this season.
Speaker 9: Man.
Speaker 5: I know it's going to be a lost one.
Speaker 4: Yep, it's gonna be last things dude.
Speaker 2: As you can tell, hunters are riding high on optimism
Speaker 2: and there's good reason for it.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 2: That's early season. The bucks are in velvet, they're moving around.
Speaker 2: It's a ton of fun to get out there, but
Speaker 2: there's some critical things you need to consider. And over
Speaker 2: on the wire to Hunt feed, Tony Peterson has an
Speaker 2: article called how to call in early season Bucks, which
Speaker 2: I think is super intriguing. Oftentimes guys are sitting there
Speaker 2: in ambush waiting on deer, but if you can manipulate
Speaker 2: their move ments, man, that is such an as in
Speaker 2: the hole for you. Also, go over the Element YouTube channel.
Speaker 2: There's a couple of new pieces on wat tail. Over there,
Speaker 2: there's an episode of our hunt in Arkansas last year
Speaker 2: that you don't want to miss. Lots of trials within
Speaker 2: that episode, shall I say, as well as a video
Speaker 2: that I made about how to hunt deer from the
Speaker 2: ground and the things that you're messing up to find success.
Speaker 2: So go check those things out. Really appreciate you, guys.
Speaker 2: This has been Reugh Fresh Radio