Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the
Speaker 1: modern whitetail hunter, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan,
Speaker 1: and this week on the show, I'm joined by Tony
Speaker 1: Peterson to answer your questions. All right, welcome to the
Speaker 1: Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light.
Speaker 1: Today we are talking the rut. As this one drops,
Speaker 1: it will be kind of smack dab in the middle
Speaker 1: of November, So we're gonna be talking about what has
Speaker 1: just happened and what we still have to look forward
Speaker 1: to over the coming weeks, and then we're gonna big
Speaker 1: picture here answer a whole bunch of questions. We had
Speaker 1: a whole slew of questions submitted from folks in the
Speaker 1: wire hunt community about hunting during the rut, about the
Speaker 1: second half of the rout, about how to find dear
Speaker 1: the rest of the season, all kinds of stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So we're tackling your questions and joining me is the
Speaker 1: one and only space near Tony Peterson. How you doing, buddy,
Speaker 1: I'm doing great, buddy. How are you good. I'm getting
Speaker 1: a little more rested after that marathon we had there
Speaker 1: in early November. So yeah, feeling good. Are you recovered yet?
Speaker 1: I feel pretty good now, man, But I was. I
Speaker 1: was pretty tired after that whole run too. It was
Speaker 1: it was a good run. So last week on the podcast,
Speaker 1: I recapped my first week in November hunt. Uh you
Speaker 1: want to give me like your high level synopsis of
Speaker 1: your seven days there in Minnesota Wisconsin? What was like
Speaker 1: your big a what happened? B? What was your big takeaway? Uh? Man?
Speaker 1: You know, the first three days of the hunt, I
Speaker 1: spent and in public land in western Minnesota trying to
Speaker 1: figure something out and just got my butt kicked. I
Speaker 1: got around some deer, but man, I could not overcome
Speaker 1: the seventy degrees forty mile prour wins. It just had weird,
Speaker 1: weird bad luck. And then I went to Wisconsin thinking
Speaker 1: it was going to be sort of a vacation being
Speaker 1: on good private land there and had two days and
Speaker 1: just pouring crazy rain, and then finally two days to
Speaker 1: hunt where the weather didn't suck, and even then it
Speaker 1: got better, but it wasn't It wasn't great, and I
Speaker 1: had I had one eight pointer kind of saved my
Speaker 1: week on the last the last morning, so that was
Speaker 1: very much appreciated, But I don't know. I'm sure I'm
Speaker 1: just not remembering it very well. But I don't know
Speaker 1: if I've ever had a rut that quite kicked my
Speaker 1: butt like that. I mean, I just could not get
Speaker 1: on them and then just got really lucky towards the
Speaker 1: end and figured something out. And so my takeaway, I
Speaker 1: guess is it's so easy to go into the rut
Speaker 1: thinking it's gonna be just you were fun and a
Speaker 1: crazy chase best and all that stuff, and most of
Speaker 1: the time it ends up being a true grind that's,
Speaker 1: you know, influenced by other hunters and the weather and
Speaker 1: the whims of the deer, and it's still it still
Speaker 1: requires you to really get after it, dude. That's exactly
Speaker 1: my big takeaway too. And the biggest thing that kind
Speaker 1: of hit me as I was traveling out to start
Speaker 1: that hunt and then especially when I was traveling home
Speaker 1: from it. Maybe the biggest thing, like the biggest problem
Speaker 1: a lot of us have with the rut is our expectations,
Speaker 1: Like we all go into this thing thinking it's going
Speaker 1: to be we hype it up so much. You and
Speaker 1: I are as as much to play about this as anyone,
Speaker 1: But we all hype it up so much in our
Speaker 1: own minds and we celebrate it, and we're like, that's
Speaker 1: the super Bowl, It's gonna be amazing. This is what
Speaker 1: we wait all year for. So we all go into
Speaker 1: this thing thinking that November is gonna be rainbows and
Speaker 1: butterflies and big bucks running everywhere when the rail they
Speaker 1: is what you experienced isn't too far off from you know,
Speaker 1: probably the usual experience for most people, a whole lot
Speaker 1: of tough hunts sprinkled in with a couple really exciting moments.
Speaker 1: But if you I think if we were to go
Speaker 1: into these hunts kind of better accepting that and and
Speaker 1: just knowing like, all right, this is this is not
Speaker 1: going to be like a great big hunting show highlight reel.
Speaker 1: This is gonna be a grind, like you said. And maybe, maybe,
Speaker 1: just maybe I'll get lucky and have that awesome moment.
Speaker 1: I think that might help some of us enjoy it more,
Speaker 1: because I I always find myself out there pissing a
Speaker 1: moment in my own head about this sucks. This isn't
Speaker 1: what you dream of during the run. This isn't like
Speaker 1: what you're supposed to get. This isn't what I was
Speaker 1: hoping for when really it's just the real world, oh man,
Speaker 1: big time. And you know, I mean the saving grace
Speaker 1: of all of it. And this is something that you know,
Speaker 1: it has happened to me just about every time I've had,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe five six, seven days to hunting a
Speaker 1: road during the rut. You're gonna get your chance if
Speaker 1: you if you're putting in the time, it's probably gonna happen.
Speaker 1: You're gonna get your encounter. But it can be really,
Speaker 1: really mentally tough to just to write it out and
Speaker 1: put in the time to where that's going to happen.
Speaker 1: And I think I think we do kind of build
Speaker 1: this up in a way that's just reality doesn't match it.
Speaker 1: And then you get out there and you just like
Speaker 1: smacked over the head. It's kind of like, you know,
Speaker 1: when you prep for an elk hunt and you just think, like,
Speaker 1: I cannot wait to get in the mountains. I'm in
Speaker 1: good shape, I got my gear ready to go. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's gonna happen. And then you get out there
Speaker 1: and you start climbing elevation, You're like, oh, yeah, like
Speaker 1: this this is never easy. It's you know I could
Speaker 1: get my chance, but I'm gonna have to work for it,
Speaker 1: and it's just never. They're never gonna come easy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that is the truth. Um. But hey, we've managed
Speaker 1: to pull it out in our first week in November.
Speaker 1: We both killed despite tough circumstances. Me at the end,
Speaker 1: you're in the beginning. So kudos do us, handshakes, backslaps,
Speaker 1: that good stuff. We managed. Well, you know, we got
Speaker 1: to carry the weight for you know, guys like Janice
Speaker 1: and Clay. If they're not going to contribute, we gotta
Speaker 1: we gotta step it up. I guess even with extra days. Yeah,
Speaker 1: even with their golden boy pie on the totem pole,
Speaker 1: throw a little bit, get a couple of extra days
Speaker 1: thrown in there, they still couldn't make it happen. God
Speaker 1: bless him. Next time. We'll get it next time. Hey,
Speaker 1: speaking of well, not speaking of anything, but just popped
Speaker 1: in my head. Have you heard the most wonderful time
Speaker 1: to Kill Deer song? Yet? Uh? Oh dude? All right,
Speaker 1: Hayden Cill the music boys. Good to see you, Hayden.
Speaker 1: It's been a while. Hey, sorry I'm late. I crashed
Speaker 1: my ponty at gast I can do a light pool
Speaker 1: and how to walk the rest of the way. But
Speaker 1: I'm here now, that's what matters. Give me a glass
Speaker 1: of scotch please, Hey, just two rocks in there. I
Speaker 1: don't like guys. We're starting already. This is happening. Okay,
Speaker 1: just give me the give me the glass, thank you. Okay,
Speaker 1: here we go. It's the most wonderful time to kill deer.
Speaker 1: With the rut now just starting and dashing and totting
Speaker 1: and thanks cutting clean. It's the most wonderful time to
Speaker 1: kill deer. There's far too much ice in this class.
Speaker 1: It's the half happiest seasing of all. There's gotta be
Speaker 1: at least twelve cues with grunting and bleeding and called
Speaker 1: fronts and seating the last weeks of far. It's the
Speaker 1: half happiest seasing of all. There'll be pictures for posting
Speaker 1: and bragging and boasting and drunk beds with big bucks
Speaker 1: and tow. There will be narrow miss stories and tales
Speaker 1: of your glories of booner bucks missed with our bows.
Speaker 1: It's the most wonderful time to kill deer, not just
Speaker 1: one baby two. There will be no dose of blowing
Speaker 1: and loom and knocks blowing and blood trails so clean.
Speaker 1: It's the most wonderful time to kill dean. Excuse me?
Speaker 1: Can I have a napkin? Please? I just spilt some
Speaker 1: scotch on my loafers. I can't have dirty loafers in
Speaker 1: the studio. Thank you tailgate beers for drinking and big
Speaker 1: boxes thinking and chasing and sent checking dose. They will
Speaker 1: be fighting and scraping and no more escaping and arrow
Speaker 1: shot true hitting home key change. But no one told
Speaker 1: me that it's the most wonderful time to kill deer.
Speaker 1: I was very unprepared for this. There will be much
Speaker 1: morning sitting in coldfronts, hitting the dawn crispin clean. It's
Speaker 1: the most swonderful time, Oh, the most swonderful time. It's
Speaker 1: the most swonderful time to kill Dan. There's too much
Speaker 1: ice in the glass. Two rocks, all right, So Tony,
Speaker 1: you you didn't actually get to hear. Everybody else got
Speaker 1: to hear, but you didn't. So I'm gonna make you
Speaker 1: listen to this later. But our podcast editors Hayden and
Speaker 1: Phil rewrote the song the Christmas Carol the most Wonderful
Speaker 1: Time of the Year, and they rewrote it and recorded
Speaker 1: it as the most wonderful time to kill deer, and
Speaker 1: it is amazing. Everybody just got to listen to it
Speaker 1: for the third podcast in a row. I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna make this happen every episode in November. We're gonna
Speaker 1: listen to it because I like it so much. Uh,
Speaker 1: But that celebratory tune out of the way, now, Tony,
Speaker 1: I think we should turn to the main thing I
Speaker 1: wanted to do here, which is rapid fire Q and A. Um,
Speaker 1: I got half a million questions from folks. I asked
Speaker 1: folks in the Wired community if they had any questions
Speaker 1: for this time of the year, you know, what to
Speaker 1: do during the middle of the rut, what to do
Speaker 1: as we get to the tail end of it, How
Speaker 1: should they be repositioning as we move into the second
Speaker 1: half of the season. Um, and I got just tons
Speaker 1: and tons and tons of questions. So I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: we haven't done something like this in a while, so
Speaker 1: it seemed like a good time to just address specific concerns,
Speaker 1: specific circumstances and uh, you know, hopefully give some give
Speaker 1: some health to folks that are trying to uh trying
Speaker 1: to make it happen. Right now. So are you down
Speaker 1: for a dude? I'm I'm down. Do you remember the
Speaker 1: last time we did a Q and A? No, I
Speaker 1: feel like it's been a while. So this is how
Speaker 1: dumb my brain is. So we did We did that
Speaker 1: Q and A out in Bozeman when we were a
Speaker 1: spense in Hayden, remember, and we got a question from
Speaker 1: the dude's who who's handled? Was Chollopa Batman? And I
Speaker 1: still I think about that once a day. I don't
Speaker 1: remember anything about that podcast other than given Hayden's girlfriend
Speaker 1: that nicknamed the rodeo clown and a guy named Cholupa
Speaker 1: Batman asked us a question. That's it, oh man, that
Speaker 1: is a legendary I didn't I would not have remembered that.
Speaker 1: That was like two years ago. That was a while ago.
Speaker 1: That's a very strange memory. It's all I got, buddy,
Speaker 1: I do appreciate. Well, let's do this thing, man all right?
Speaker 1: Question number one comes from Tommy and he's wandering, are
Speaker 1: all day? Sits still good? Late in the run? What
Speaker 1: do you think I would say they might be better?
Speaker 1: Why is that? Because I think you get into, you know,
Speaker 1: the stage where they're locking down they've had tons of pressure,
Speaker 1: a lot of guns seasons are open, and I don't
Speaker 1: think there's a better time to do something a little
Speaker 1: bit different than your competition. And when we start to
Speaker 1: get into the back half of November, and I don't
Speaker 1: know about you, Mark, but when I run cameras through
Speaker 1: the whole rut and I check them, I get a
Speaker 1: lot of mature buck movement, like sporadic mature buck movement
Speaker 1: in the back half of November, and a lot of
Speaker 1: it's daylight movement. And I just think it's because people
Speaker 1: are kind of giving up and going it's not worth
Speaker 1: it anymore. And you know, I get it, it's cold
Speaker 1: and you're not going to have you know, probably an
Speaker 1: all day long chase best to keep you awake. But man,
Speaker 1: the chance, the chance to kill one at noon is
Speaker 1: real high skill. Yeah, I've seen it myself a few
Speaker 1: times now. It's it's a little bit different for me
Speaker 1: in Michigan where our guns season opens and so everything
Speaker 1: really changes after that. Um. But when you go to
Speaker 1: a state like Ohio, where I've hunted quite a bit
Speaker 1: in the past, in that latter part of the month,
Speaker 1: like you said, the big boys know that the game
Speaker 1: is still on and they're still after it. And I've
Speaker 1: had numerous, at least multiple four or five year old
Speaker 1: plus bucks that I've been hunting all day and seeing
Speaker 1: them at noon or one, um so one at two thirty.
Speaker 1: So so yes, I'd say they are not a bad
Speaker 1: idea at all. They can definitely pan out, but there
Speaker 1: they're hard after doing it for for days on end,
Speaker 1: for weeks on end. If that's what you're doing early November, Um,
Speaker 1: they are. But you know, on that note of the
Speaker 1: gun season thing, if any listeners are sitting there going, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be sitting out there with a rifle, get
Speaker 1: in someplace tight and said all day, because if you
Speaker 1: have that gun season open, you know what most of
Speaker 1: your competition is gonna do. You know, they're gonna they're
Speaker 1: gonna go hunt the mornings, they're gonna go hunt the evenings.
Speaker 1: Maybe they'll put on some drives in the middle of
Speaker 1: the day, but most of your competition isn't loading up
Speaker 1: for an all day sit in one spot with some
Speaker 1: good cover. So let's talk about that more because we
Speaker 1: do have another question, UM from a guy named Mike
Speaker 1: who was asking about what you would recommend what we
Speaker 1: would recommend doing, you know, on opening day of guns
Speaker 1: season or those first few days in the gun season.
Speaker 1: And I think you bring up a good point. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, his question was like should I hunt the
Speaker 1: best food source or a travel corridor. Um, but so
Speaker 1: many people you've actually done. I think some Foundations episodes
Speaker 1: about this at one point. Um, so many people want
Speaker 1: to set up for guns season in these spots where
Speaker 1: they can see two three hundred yards. Um. You and
Speaker 1: I have also seen a different approach, probably being better.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you want to walk us through your your thoughts
Speaker 1: on the better way to be situated for those guns
Speaker 1: season days. Yeah, you know, I mean I'm not, I'm
Speaker 1: far from a gun hunting expert, but you know my
Speaker 1: experience doing that is go big on your first sit
Speaker 1: you know, opening days, sit where you really want to be.
Speaker 1: If that's the best food source, or the the power
Speaker 1: line or the clear cut or wherever you can reach
Speaker 1: out and stretch and shoot him a long ways away.
Speaker 1: Go nuts. But when that's over, you know, in my
Speaker 1: experience anyway, it's always been time to get into where
Speaker 1: you're almost hunting at bow hunting ranges and hunt the
Speaker 1: cover and you don't so many gun hunters they just go, well,
Speaker 1: I have my spot, it's my ladder, standard, my box blind,
Speaker 1: and that's where I sit. And it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: these tier they figure this stuff out so fast, and
Speaker 1: the ruts still happen, and they're still gonna chase and cruise,
Speaker 1: but they're not gonna they're not gonna engage in a
Speaker 1: bunch of risky behavior across and open stuff. And so
Speaker 1: it's I think the best strategy for a lot of
Speaker 1: gun hunters would just be to have one dreamy location
Speaker 1: that's that's pretty standard, and then one thick, gnarly you know,
Speaker 1: I might shoot forty yards fifty yards tops type of
Speaker 1: spot and make that switch as long as the winds
Speaker 1: right for it, and and get in there where they're
Speaker 1: going to go to those little sanctuaries. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: like especially if you hunt, this might be different in
Speaker 1: a low pressure area, but in a heavily hunted area
Speaker 1: like here in Michigan. The only reason there's a buck
Speaker 1: in the places that I hunt that makes it to
Speaker 1: four or five years old is because he has a
Speaker 1: little hole that he buries himself in during gun season.
Speaker 1: If you can find that hell hole and get there
Speaker 1: before that old buck comes in to his one little
Speaker 1: place he can stay safe. You can kill him, but
Speaker 1: you're not going to kill that big deer in most
Speaker 1: places with a lot of pressure. You know, on that
Speaker 1: field edge, he's gonna be in that thick cover because
Speaker 1: the only reason he made it to four or five
Speaker 1: years old is because he was one of those bucks
Speaker 1: that found a spot like that. So you know, I
Speaker 1: think Andy, our buddy Andy May had a situation exactly
Speaker 1: like this, like two years ago. Maybe. Um. I was
Speaker 1: just listening to tell the story the other day where
Speaker 1: he he did this exact thing. Everyone on opening day
Speaker 1: gun season wants to be in this field edge spots.
Speaker 1: As buddies were in field edge spots. He knew of
Speaker 1: one nasty thick patch of cover on this piece of
Speaker 1: property he had permission on and just got in there
Speaker 1: like two hours before daylight, got right in the hell hole,
Speaker 1: and waited in like an hour and a half after daylight.
Speaker 1: This buck was right there and he shot him at
Speaker 1: like forty yards I think with a gun. Um. So, uh,
Speaker 1: it's a good way to go about it. If you're
Speaker 1: in a low pressure place is different if you are
Speaker 1: you know, when I'm up in northern Michigan where there's
Speaker 1: not a lot of deer and everything is a sanctuary.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit different. But um, but I think
Speaker 1: that's it's it's worth, it's worth going against the grain
Speaker 1: when it comes to gun season if you hunt that
Speaker 1: kind of area, um, and the all day thing, like
Speaker 1: you're like, you're saying the all day things another against
Speaker 1: the grain because everybody else wants to go out and
Speaker 1: do the lunch thing. You can take advantage of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, I mean that that Northern Michigan example
Speaker 1: is a good one because you know, people listen to
Speaker 1: this and go, well, I don't have you have this
Speaker 1: mono habitat right, Like I have thousands of acres of
Speaker 1: timber company land or whatever I hunt, But I look
Speaker 1: at that that kind of deer hunting just like I
Speaker 1: look at and over the counter elk hunt. Like, Okay,
Speaker 1: so you have thousands and thousands of acres to work with,
Speaker 1: where are the access points? Where the trails? You know,
Speaker 1: up in northern Michigan, I'm sure you're dealing with logging
Speaker 1: roads and two tracks and specific access points and those deer,
Speaker 1: you know, even if they have tons of different swamps
Speaker 1: to bed in and hide out in. They're still going
Speaker 1: to adjust themselves according to where the pressure is coming
Speaker 1: in and where the pressure is sitting. And so you know,
Speaker 1: I mean you can find those places where there's going
Speaker 1: to be that concentration. And yeah, it might not be
Speaker 1: the same concentration you'd find in you know, Iowa, Missouri
Speaker 1: or something like that where the deer population super high,
Speaker 1: but those deer are still reacting to that pressure. They're
Speaker 1: still ending up somewhere, and those bucks know where the
Speaker 1: doors are hiding out, they know where they're going to
Speaker 1: be going to search, And to me, it's just like
Speaker 1: figuring that stuff out, and especially getting out right after
Speaker 1: the gun seasons over and going and walking through that
Speaker 1: through some of that stuff is like a crazy eye
Speaker 1: opener and how deer avoid us. So, speaking of the
Speaker 1: all day sit then, um Flint asked about how we
Speaker 1: keep our head in the game after you do like
Speaker 1: multiple all day sits, you know, and that that grind
Speaker 1: really it's wearing on you. Um, what do you learn
Speaker 1: this year after doing almost seven of those or whatever
Speaker 1: it was, how do you how do you fight back
Speaker 1: the mid day? Um, the mid day woes man to me,
Speaker 1: it's just sitting in a place that I have confidence.
Speaker 1: If if I'm in a place where I'm like, it
Speaker 1: could just happen here, that's a big deal for me.
Speaker 1: I mean it just it really is. If I'm in
Speaker 1: a place where I'm like, I don't think so. Like
Speaker 1: I had to do almost two full uh all days
Speaker 1: sits in box blind this year because of that rain
Speaker 1: and you know, the camera gear considerations and all that bs,
Speaker 1: and man, I'm sitting there and I'm just like, I
Speaker 1: hate this because I don't have confidence in killing a
Speaker 1: big one out of one of those. And so if
Speaker 1: you if you're doing your homework and you're like, this
Speaker 1: is this funnel or this pinch point should be banging,
Speaker 1: or I'm downwinded, this really really thick stuff. Even when
Speaker 1: the action slow, Like I mean, the action for me
Speaker 1: this whole first week in November slow, but getting into
Speaker 1: those spots was good enough to keep me there all
Speaker 1: day and just get me to believe that it was
Speaker 1: probably gonna happen. And that's it's a huge component of it. Okay,
Speaker 1: So Devil's advocate on this a little bit, though I
Speaker 1: have been and and this comes down to partially my
Speaker 1: my shift in trying to have more fun with hunting
Speaker 1: this year and partially with a practical thing. So I
Speaker 1: have decided to give my permission to take a few
Speaker 1: days off from all day hunts because they're miserable, but
Speaker 1: also because, um, you know, if you get so burnt
Speaker 1: out doing six or seven of those that you're not
Speaker 1: focused on day eight, then maybe you miss out an
Speaker 1: opportunity entirely because it's five o'clock in the afternoon and
Speaker 1: you're so burned out and sick and tired of doing
Speaker 1: this seven days in a row that then you're not
Speaker 1: fully with it. And so I've told myself, well, you
Speaker 1: know what, if you have to do a couple of
Speaker 1: things a to keep this fun and be to keep
Speaker 1: you fresh, maybe that's worth it actually in the long run.
Speaker 1: When at all and that nets out? Um, is that
Speaker 1: me just being a lazy pos? Or is that a
Speaker 1: reasonable thing to consider too? No, that's you being a
Speaker 1: lazy ps. That's just that's just no discipline there, um
Speaker 1: and no real desire to actually be a hunter. I
Speaker 1: guess um No, no, No, I would say there's two
Speaker 1: ways to look at it, right, Like the all days
Speaker 1: sit and it's like most basic form, as you go
Speaker 1: out to your standard, you go saddle up and you're
Speaker 1: there dark to dark. Um. I do that a lot,
Speaker 1: but I also will structure some of my days so
Speaker 1: it's like, I know, I'm gonna sit this spot until
Speaker 1: noon and then I'm gonna pull up and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: move somewhere else. So even though you're really kind of
Speaker 1: almost hunting all day, now you've got that little break
Speaker 1: up in the middle, and maybe you walk to the
Speaker 1: other end of the farm or something like that. But
Speaker 1: to me, you know, if you're if you're like I
Speaker 1: really want to enjoy this rout, you've gotta you've gotta
Speaker 1: be there in the woods, you know. And I mean
Speaker 1: if you're if you're fading bad and you can't handle
Speaker 1: it and you need to sleep in and go ahead,
Speaker 1: and who cares, it's just a deer. But I always
Speaker 1: just look at it and I go, like, try to
Speaker 1: figure out a way to stay out there, Like bring
Speaker 1: enough coffee, bring a book, whatever you gotta do. Try
Speaker 1: to figure out a way to just be there, because
Speaker 1: you know, this is a short window thing, man, and
Speaker 1: every all day that you have to be out there,
Speaker 1: you really only have like eleven hours to be there,
Speaker 1: you know. So it's it's not like a crazy big
Speaker 1: ask of us. I mean, some people really have a
Speaker 1: hard time with it. But you go out and you
Speaker 1: kill one at noon or one o'clock one time, and
Speaker 1: it's sure changes your perspective on it, you know. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: it's it's a it's an interesting thing. I've been thinking
Speaker 1: about it more and more for for the last fifteen years.
Speaker 1: I basically looked at all day sits as mandatory unless
Speaker 1: you want to be a lazy pos and so I did.
Speaker 1: I'm like every single day. Um. And then I looked
Speaker 1: and I have yet to kill midday buck ever, And
Speaker 1: I've hunted a lot of what should have been good betting,
Speaker 1: you know, should be good midday spots, thick nasty cover,
Speaker 1: funnels back in the cover, doe betting, all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. I had one that I absolutely should have killed,
Speaker 1: but I was looking at a book instead as the
Speaker 1: buck came up behind me. Um. And then I've had
Speaker 1: I've had a handful of like seeing good bucks movement there,
Speaker 1: just couldn't get a shot. So it's possible, but it's
Speaker 1: yet to pay off for me myself. But I know
Speaker 1: plenty of people who have. Have you had a lot
Speaker 1: of those mid days? I know you killed one last
Speaker 1: year midday? No, I haven't. I've killed a few, you know.
Speaker 1: I killed one last year at one o'clock and that
Speaker 1: was just that was November six, and it was going
Speaker 1: to happen. And I honestly think if I hadn't killed
Speaker 1: my buck last week, I think I killed him at
Speaker 1: like nine thirty or something in the morning. But I
Speaker 1: honestly think if I hadn't killed that buck, another one
Speaker 1: would have come through between like ten and two. I mean,
Speaker 1: who knows, right, But even even so, I think there's
Speaker 1: a difference of going in all day, you know, like
Speaker 1: your mentality is different, and you're not like second guessing,
Speaker 1: and you're not like I gotta leave or I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go or should I was gonna leave at noon anyway,
Speaker 1: so I'll leave at eleven. You're just like I'm just there,
Speaker 1: and there's less of an impact on the woods. And
Speaker 1: so I think overall, it's just you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: we had such an interesting experiment with one week in
Speaker 1: November because we had you honest this year, and man,
Speaker 1: your honest checks into that group chat and he's moving,
Speaker 1: and he's moving, and he's moving and he's moving, and
Speaker 1: you're like, dude, you gotta maybe maybe pump the brakes
Speaker 1: on this a little bit. But it's so easy for
Speaker 1: people to talk themselves into going. The ruts not happening here,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna move, And it's like you're not probably
Speaker 1: gonna move and find like a magical difference, like you
Speaker 1: might get into a better spot. But if you're sitting
Speaker 1: there and you're in a spot that you're pretty confident
Speaker 1: in and it's a pinch point or something like that,
Speaker 1: and it's just it's really not going that great yet.
Speaker 1: The odds of just like discovering the place where it's
Speaker 1: blowing up, especially on a smaller property, it's not that likely.
Speaker 1: So it's like, Okay, do you sit tight and let
Speaker 1: the rut come to you or do you keep going
Speaker 1: and going and going to find it? Like I honestly
Speaker 1: don't know what's a better strategy, but I know what
Speaker 1: I pick. It's I feel like it is the question
Speaker 1: for the rut, at least for me, Like every single
Speaker 1: year during the rut, that is the debate I'm having NonStop.
Speaker 1: If it's if it's slow, I'm constantly debating, and I
Speaker 1: was doing this all last week. I was debating, do
Speaker 1: I search it out or do I trust this place
Speaker 1: I'm in? Do I trust this feature? Do I trust
Speaker 1: this habitat edge? Do I trust this betting year? And
Speaker 1: And basically on my hunt last last week, I had
Speaker 1: two spots that I just really believe should work. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was a great wind situation downwind of an epic
Speaker 1: dough betting area. I had a really cool thing going
Speaker 1: on there in these two locations. And I end up
Speaker 1: giving one spot a day and a half and the
Speaker 1: next day, with the wind shift, I switched to the
Speaker 1: other side of it and didn't see a single buck
Speaker 1: in those three days that I was hunting in this
Speaker 1: this spot, the two sides of this betting air that
Speaker 1: I thought should be amazed. And so I'm having this
Speaker 1: debate back and forth myself, and I'm thinking, Man, at
Speaker 1: the end of the hunt, I was like, am I
Speaker 1: an idiot? I spend too much time in this little zone.
Speaker 1: Now again, it's a thirty two acre property. I really
Speaker 1: didn't have any other great options. Um, but I checked
Speaker 1: my trail cameras the next day. So the day we left,
Speaker 1: so the morning after I was there, there was a
Speaker 1: shooter buck in front of my tree stand in that
Speaker 1: spot that I had spent the last day and a half.
Speaker 1: So it was one of those cases like if I
Speaker 1: you know, if I didn't have to leave and I
Speaker 1: had stuck it out there the next morning, I could
Speaker 1: have got a shot at one of the big bucks.
Speaker 1: He didn't come through the previous day and a half,
Speaker 1: but you know eventually they will if we're in a
Speaker 1: place that you have experience or confidence in. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's well, it's a tough one. There's two ways to
Speaker 1: look at that though. I mean, that's that's the easiest
Speaker 1: conclusion to draw. But the other thing that I would
Speaker 1: question is did that buck not come through when you
Speaker 1: were there? Because you were there? Yeah, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like I always I always wrestle with this
Speaker 1: when you when you do when you have trail camera
Speaker 1: intel and you're like, oh man, he was there this
Speaker 1: time whatever, it's like, well you weren't. And there's always
Speaker 1: like that little nagging thought like maybe he wouldn't have
Speaker 1: come through there if you were there, and I just
Speaker 1: you know, like there's no way annoying, but I always
Speaker 1: think about that because we beat ourselves up and go, jeez,
Speaker 1: I should have been there, and it's like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: it would have been better to be there than not.
Speaker 1: But it's not a foregone conclusion that you all of
Speaker 1: a sudden got that twenty yard broadside at him. You know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think, like you said, we'll ever have the
Speaker 1: perfect answer to this questions. It's just a thing that
Speaker 1: with your own personal experience and the information at hand,
Speaker 1: you've got to, you know, make the best judgment. Call
Speaker 1: Galen asks, how do you manage a hunt with corn
Speaker 1: still standing in your area? So standing corn rut A
Speaker 1: lot of times people worry this is gonna have all
Speaker 1: the all the deer are gonna be chasing and doing
Speaker 1: their things in the standing corn. You'll never see it.
Speaker 1: You'll never get a chance of this. Bucks. What's been
Speaker 1: your take, Tony? You know, I've I've dealt with that
Speaker 1: quite a bit in Minnesota because we have such an
Speaker 1: early gun season that I hit it so hard. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the the last couple of days of October,
Speaker 1: the first couple of days in November, and I've just
Speaker 1: dealt with a lot of standing corn, and I kind
Speaker 1: of look at it like that really thick patch of
Speaker 1: cover that I have to set up down window. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's dumb, but you know, if there's if you're in
Speaker 1: a place with some pressure, those deer are gonna bed
Speaker 1: in there a lot of times. They're gonna use it
Speaker 1: for food, of course, and it's just a sanctuary like
Speaker 1: it just is. But you can find places down wind
Speaker 1: of of a corn field where those bucks are going
Speaker 1: to cruise it. And if you can get into one
Speaker 1: of those spots where there's like a little grassy waterway
Speaker 1: or something man like, that's kind of the ticket. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, it kind of sucks because you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: they picked this corn, these deer would be in the woods. Well,
Speaker 1: that's not the hand you were dealt. The next best
Speaker 1: thing is just to use it to your advantage as
Speaker 1: much as possible. And you know it's I don't know,
Speaker 1: I've killed a lot of deer on the on the
Speaker 1: edge of the standing corn. Let me put it that way.
Speaker 1: I think you get down when and you play it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree, and I think that you you alluded to
Speaker 1: one example, but anywhere you can find diversity in that
Speaker 1: corn So by that, I mean, like you said, like
Speaker 1: the waterway or any point of timber that sticks out
Speaker 1: into a corn field, or if there's a little strip
Speaker 1: of timber that intersects too corn fields or something like that.
Speaker 1: Anywhere you have that difference and habitat type where you
Speaker 1: create edge or any kind of opening. Like some side
Speaker 1: there's a spot he used to have where there's a
Speaker 1: big oak tree that stood out in the edge of
Speaker 1: two properties, and it was usually there'd be standing corn
Speaker 1: on either side of it, and then there was this
Speaker 1: big opening underneath this oak tree and every deer that
Speaker 1: was in that corn would check out that oak tree.
Speaker 1: There was you know, always feeding sun underneath it. They
Speaker 1: were dear betted underneath it sometimes, So those kinds of
Speaker 1: spots can be you know, worth focusing on when you've
Speaker 1: got that standing corn situation. But like you said, I
Speaker 1: would look at standing corn as you know, great betting
Speaker 1: get on the edge of it. Those bucks make scrapes
Speaker 1: all along those edges. They cruise those edges. Um, They're not,
Speaker 1: despite what you think, gonna live their entire life in
Speaker 1: that corn. They're still gonna come out. They need diversity
Speaker 1: in their diet. A deer that ain't nothing but corn
Speaker 1: all day every day would not be a healthy deer.
Speaker 1: They're still gonna come out and explore these other places.
Speaker 1: So it's it's not the end of the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it can be. It can actually be kind of
Speaker 1: a benefit to you if you if you have the
Speaker 1: right way to use it. Yeah. Um J t asks
Speaker 1: how long should you wait to hunt a spot on
Speaker 1: public land? Again? If a buck bust you in that
Speaker 1: bob so public land hunt, you get busted in the tree,
Speaker 1: how long would you wait before coming back to that zone?
Speaker 1: Seven seconds? Seven seconds? Well, if he's there, somebody else
Speaker 1: is going to be there, right, I mean, man, there
Speaker 1: aren't any accidents out there in nature, right, Like I
Speaker 1: mean there are, but there aren't. Like nature doesn't do
Speaker 1: random very well. So if you've if you've done your
Speaker 1: homework and you got into a spot and you know,
Speaker 1: maybe your target buck or a good buck spots you,
Speaker 1: that sucks. But you did a lot right to get
Speaker 1: to that point. And it's not like you you blow
Speaker 1: that deer. O. It's not like there he's the only one.
Speaker 1: You know. My my bigger concern with something like that
Speaker 1: is why did he bust me? That's exactly what I
Speaker 1: was gonna say. Yeah, yeah, you know, I mean, if
Speaker 1: he's and and that stuff happens, you know, I mean
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this this year. I mean, you're
Speaker 1: at when you're doing these hanging hunts on public land,
Speaker 1: you're at such a disadvantage for that stuff because you
Speaker 1: don't own Like you go in there and you've got
Speaker 1: to set up where you can set up, and it
Speaker 1: might not be the most ideal tree that you can
Speaker 1: trim all the way up or do whatever, and you
Speaker 1: get picked off and it happened, So it's like, is
Speaker 1: the spot good enough and was it just a did
Speaker 1: it just break bad for you? Or are you in
Speaker 1: a situation where you're gonna get busted by whoever comes
Speaker 1: in and it's time to rethink that set up and
Speaker 1: rework that spot. And I think that's my take in
Speaker 1: a lot of situations, whether it's public or private. If
Speaker 1: you get busted from a tree, um, you know a
Speaker 1: figure out why, and you might want to make a
Speaker 1: small adjustment and a move just because of that. But
Speaker 1: then if you are after one specific buck, even like
Speaker 1: I had this happened a few years ago, and then
Speaker 1: this actually happened to a friend of me of mine yesterday.
Speaker 1: He had this exact scenario, but on private and he
Speaker 1: texts our little group and he said, I just had
Speaker 1: this big giant buck come in circled down windo me
Speaker 1: busted me. He's out. I'm thinking I should just pull
Speaker 1: the plug on the whole thing, probably, And I said, well,
Speaker 1: are there any other do you want to kill in there?
Speaker 1: He's like, well yeah, um, And I'm like, well, you
Speaker 1: know you kind of are in the spot. Is there
Speaker 1: another tree where you have a better situation for wind um?
Speaker 1: Because that zone just proved it's a winner like your
Speaker 1: your general spot proved itself as a winner. Um, But
Speaker 1: that specific buck. I don't know about you, but I've
Speaker 1: had during the rut, I've had a mature buck win
Speaker 1: me in a spot like that and then still come
Speaker 1: back within sight of me later in the day because
Speaker 1: of DOES. I think does can make bucks do dumber
Speaker 1: stuff than usual, as we all know this time of year.
Speaker 1: So I had in one case, I had this shooter
Speaker 1: buck come down wind of me just before shooting lights,
Speaker 1: so I couldn't get a shot at him. He wins
Speaker 1: me bus out of there, and then like an hour
Speaker 1: later he's chasing does and gets almost within shooting range
Speaker 1: of me again. Because of that, And I think in
Speaker 1: that scenario, just even you know, readjusting a little bit
Speaker 1: for the next day. I mean, hey, the same tree
Speaker 1: might work, but b if you just shift over forty
Speaker 1: yards or something like that, I think you're probably right
Speaker 1: back in the game still, and you can still take
Speaker 1: advantage of whatever the feature is that got him there
Speaker 1: in the first place, and then give yourself a little
Speaker 1: piece of mind that he's not going to be staring
Speaker 1: up in that same tree if he does slip back
Speaker 1: through in the next day or whatever it is. Um. So,
Speaker 1: so yeah, I wouldn't worry about too much if you
Speaker 1: have like fifteen does win you every you know, dough
Speaker 1: wins you every hour, every two hours, you've got another
Speaker 1: thing like that, maybe you've got a bigger problem and
Speaker 1: you need to shift to a new zone because of that.
Speaker 1: But one single buck, um, I wouldn't worry about too much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it really depends on why he got
Speaker 1: you too. I mean, if he was just traveling down
Speaker 1: Win and he got you, then the setups probably not
Speaker 1: great for that those conditions. But you know, if you
Speaker 1: saw him a hundred yards out and you called to
Speaker 1: him and he swung down win like you were talking
Speaker 1: about with your buddy or whatever, like different thing, you know.
Speaker 1: And I think that's one thing people kind of forget
Speaker 1: during the rut because they go out there with all
Speaker 1: their call their calls and everything, and they're like, man,
Speaker 1: if I see when I'm gonna grunt him in, And
Speaker 1: there's situations where that's us a bad idea because how
Speaker 1: they're gonna approach you. So you've called attention to yourself,
Speaker 1: and now you've set up an encounter that's less likely
Speaker 1: to break your way, you know. And we so I'll
Speaker 1: just give you a quick example that when I was
Speaker 1: in South Dakota in the beginning of October um, I
Speaker 1: was sitting on some public and finally found what I
Speaker 1: thought was a concentration a good buck sign and had
Speaker 1: like a one thirty come out just on the wrong trail.
Speaker 1: And the way he was headed, he could he could
Speaker 1: get away and not win me, probably possibly, but if
Speaker 1: I called to him, it was almost a guarantee that
Speaker 1: he was going to swing down wind and I had
Speaker 1: no chance, and so I just let the situation unfold.
Speaker 1: I didn't kill him. And then the camera guy I
Speaker 1: was with, he's like, why didn't you grunt to that, dear,
Speaker 1: And I was like, because there's there's no way where
Speaker 1: he was in the way our wind was blowing, that
Speaker 1: he was going to just turn and march right in
Speaker 1: and not use that wind. And so that's that's something
Speaker 1: you always have to think about when you're making contact
Speaker 1: with him, is like how easy to use it for
Speaker 1: them to use their nose because they're gonna And is
Speaker 1: it better to not draw attention to yourself, let the
Speaker 1: whole thing play out naturally and figure out what to
Speaker 1: do next time? Very true. I've got another question that
Speaker 1: kind of naturally fits into this discussion, Um, Chad asks,
Speaker 1: are you concerned about over hunting stand locations in the rut?
Speaker 1: I think that's that's kind of related to some of
Speaker 1: the stuff we're talking about here. Um, what do you think? Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I think you're always worried about over hunting
Speaker 1: locations and you just gotta let the deer tell you
Speaker 1: whether you are or you aren't, you know. And the
Speaker 1: other thing to that, A component to that is it
Speaker 1: is really hard to not go into a place you
Speaker 1: want to hunt bad during the rut and sand beg
Speaker 1: it wait for better opportunities. But man, that happens to
Speaker 1: me the last two years, the two bucks I've killed
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin, I've had to sand begat and and basically
Speaker 1: kind of waste Sits waiting on the right conditions ago
Speaker 1: where I wanted to and that is a hard thing
Speaker 1: to do, but sometimes you've got to do it. Has
Speaker 1: that ever bit you in the ass? Probably dozens of times?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's hard to know because you
Speaker 1: either go in or you don't, and you don't know
Speaker 1: how it would shake out if you took the other option.
Speaker 1: But for me now I find myself just planning, like
Speaker 1: what what is my next what do my next two
Speaker 1: days look like? Right? Like? What what do I need
Speaker 1: to do? And where do I have the most faith
Speaker 1: in a spot? And what do the conditions say about it?
Speaker 1: And sometimes you're just like I can't rationalize going in
Speaker 1: there today when tomorrow is going to set up real well,
Speaker 1: and so it's like I gotta I'm gonna leave that
Speaker 1: whole thing alone. And you know, it gets different when
Speaker 1: you're on public and somebody might go in there, or
Speaker 1: you know you're on private that has a bunch of
Speaker 1: people on it. It's they're so situationally variable. But being
Speaker 1: a little bit cautious with your best set ups is
Speaker 1: usually a good idea. Yeah. You Another consideration here is
Speaker 1: how to define over hunting. Right and you you said
Speaker 1: listen to what the deer tell you, which I think
Speaker 1: is a good thing, But you need to know based
Speaker 1: on the context of where you're hunting and what you
Speaker 1: know about the area. You have to have like a
Speaker 1: sliding scale of how you interpret what the deer tell you.
Speaker 1: And a big part of that is, like deer density
Speaker 1: is a big thing right there. Right, So if you
Speaker 1: are hunting a stand three days in a row in
Speaker 1: southern Michigan where you know you could easily see twenty
Speaker 1: or more deer in a day, and there's deer everywhere, Um,
Speaker 1: you could very easily burn out a spot if you're
Speaker 1: getting winded by dough after dough and a buck and
Speaker 1: a dough and a buck and a buck and two
Speaker 1: dolls and five dolls and all that kind of stuff
Speaker 1: that could hit fast. Um, if you were to take
Speaker 1: those same three days and hunt up in northern Michigan,
Speaker 1: where I might see one or two deer day, three
Speaker 1: days might be you know, not even enough time to
Speaker 1: sit in the right spot because it might take four
Speaker 1: days for one mature buck to pass through this little
Speaker 1: terrain feature whatever is I'm hunting like, they just it
Speaker 1: won't he won't come through it because they're traveling miles
Speaker 1: and there's only be one day in five that buck
Speaker 1: comes through. So in that kind of spot or the
Speaker 1: big woods up in Pennsylvania or somewhere, you might need
Speaker 1: to spend days in a saddle, I mean like a
Speaker 1: terrain saddle, or days on that pinch or whatever it
Speaker 1: is for a deer to pass through. So you need
Speaker 1: to look at your situations there, right, how much pressure
Speaker 1: can this spot handle and how much time is necessary
Speaker 1: for me to even have a chance at one of
Speaker 1: these deer working through this area. I think that's a
Speaker 1: key consideration. Well, and not only that, but also just
Speaker 1: what kind of impact are you putting on it with
Speaker 1: every sit you know, I mean some places. I killed
Speaker 1: a buck in North Dakota in public a few years ago.
Speaker 1: In the spot I found, I think I could have
Speaker 1: hunted that every day. The way I accessed it through
Speaker 1: it was through like a pasture. I mean there were
Speaker 1: no cows in there at that point, but that federal
Speaker 1: land had been grazed there weren't a a deer in there.
Speaker 1: I wasn't blowing deer going out in there, and I
Speaker 1: had this great big river bluff beside me that the
Speaker 1: wind could blow like most directions, and the cruising bucks
Speaker 1: weren't gonna get you. It was like it was almost perfect.
Speaker 1: And then you get to other spots where you're like, man,
Speaker 1: I gotta you know where I killed my buck last
Speaker 1: week in Wisconsin. If you get the right wind, it's amazing.
Speaker 1: If you get wind that's not right, and I mean
Speaker 1: real right, then you're gonna just you're gonna put that
Speaker 1: whole valley down. And so it's really kind of dependent
Speaker 1: on that too, very very true. All right, Adam asks,
Speaker 1: I have a beard. Do you think that switching to
Speaker 1: a mustache would change my rut hunting luck? And I'll
Speaker 1: just come right out and say, absolutely, Adam, I believe
Speaker 1: that will be the case. Make the switch, Tony, Do
Speaker 1: you have any kind of opinion this? I think Adam
Speaker 1: absolutely would look amazing in a mustache, and he should
Speaker 1: definitely do it, alright. You should even maybe diet like
Speaker 1: red or something, really really go strong with it. Just
Speaker 1: own it at them. There you go? Uh, Greeny asks,
Speaker 1: what actually triggers the rut? Does the cold weather have
Speaker 1: anything to do with it or start it? Uh? Tony,
Speaker 1: you and I have both talked about this many times,
Speaker 1: but you want to take a stab at tackle on
Speaker 1: this one for people that aren't familiar. Yep, Uh. Photo periodism,
Speaker 1: what's that? That is the amount of daylight that those
Speaker 1: deer getting every day and how much of it's reaching
Speaker 1: their brain and those little fonds have to be born
Speaker 1: at a very specific window every spring, and we need
Speaker 1: we need this natural phenomenon called pray saturation to hit
Speaker 1: where as many fonds as possible hit in the same
Speaker 1: small period of time so that the predators just can't
Speaker 1: clean them out, just like when you have billion tab
Speaker 1: holes and little frogs in your backyard, if you have
Speaker 1: a pond, there's a reason for that because it ensures
Speaker 1: the survival of enough of them. Now, I can't remember
Speaker 1: who said it, You've probably said it on here a
Speaker 1: billion times, but some wildlife biologists or some famous dear
Speaker 1: person said that photo period is m cocks the gun,
Speaker 1: but weather pulls the trigger. And so for us, in
Speaker 1: the interest of daylight movement and those dreamy just banging
Speaker 1: rut days, then Yeah, the weather is huge for those
Speaker 1: because you'll get that really special day if it gets
Speaker 1: cold and it's just the right conditions. But that rut's
Speaker 1: gonna happen either way. Yeah, I think that, like you said,
Speaker 1: like another way I've heard it put is that the weather,
Speaker 1: like the photo period, daylight that impacts you know, the
Speaker 1: rut actual the breeding actually happening. The weather will reveal
Speaker 1: it in daylight. So if you have the right weather,
Speaker 1: you will simply get to see more of it and
Speaker 1: more intense daylight activity during the day when we are
Speaker 1: out there as hunters. UM. So yeah, it's it's happening,
Speaker 1: you know right now across most states in the northern
Speaker 1: half of the country. You know, peak breeding is usually
Speaker 1: somewhere around the middle of November. UM, But it's a
Speaker 1: bell curve, so you gotta remember, like there's peak breeding
Speaker 1: in the middle, but they're still breeding, gonna be happening
Speaker 1: earlier than that. They're still gonna be breeding happening after that,
Speaker 1: and so you know, when this podcast drops, this is
Speaker 1: kind of what most people would refer to as maybe
Speaker 1: in that lockdown period when the most dose of all
Speaker 1: year are ready to be bred and are being bred
Speaker 1: with a buck. So there was a question from someone
Speaker 1: basically just asking what are key ideas were for the
Speaker 1: lockdown stage and what to do during it and what
Speaker 1: to do just after it. Uh So, Tony, if somebody's
Speaker 1: listening today on November or eighteenth or nineteen, and they've
Speaker 1: noticed that, man, the activity has really slowed down, not
Speaker 1: getting a lot of deer on camera. I'm not seeing much.
Speaker 1: What do you do in that situation? Man? For me,
Speaker 1: it's just getting tight to the thickest stuff and stay
Speaker 1: down wind because that those open woods, those open fields,
Speaker 1: it's just not It never happens for me in the
Speaker 1: back half of November. It's always tight cover thick stuff
Speaker 1: in faith, lots of faith. I feel like that's a
Speaker 1: big one during the lockdown because no matter, no matter
Speaker 1: if every single dough is in heat in a particular
Speaker 1: on a particular day, there's always going to be a
Speaker 1: buck that breaks off at some point. Like it's going
Speaker 1: to happen. It's not happening super often. Maybe it's not
Speaker 1: happening as much as is happening ten days earlier. Um,
Speaker 1: that crap, did I lose you there? You did? Just
Speaker 1: for a second, all right, I'll jump right back in. Um.
Speaker 1: You know you were hold on Mark. You were saying,
Speaker 1: there's always gonna be a buck, and then I lost you. Okay,
Speaker 1: there's always gonna be a buck that's breaking off of
Speaker 1: a dough at some point, right there will be bucks
Speaker 1: breaking off and searching out new ones. So you'll have
Speaker 1: these short windows of opportunity where there's a year again
Speaker 1: seeking out a new dough. You just have to be
Speaker 1: out there, staying focused and with faith that it can
Speaker 1: actually happen. Um. You know, it brings up though another situation,
Speaker 1: which is what about seeing a buck locked on a dough? Um.
Speaker 1: This is something I've had happened a number of times now,
Speaker 1: and I've seen it work in my favor and I've
Speaker 1: seen it work against me. Um. And there's a lot
Speaker 1: of different thoughts on what to do. Some people see
Speaker 1: a buck better with the dough or standing with the
Speaker 1: dough and think to themselves, Man, that buck's not going anywhere.
Speaker 1: I can make a move and stalk in and try
Speaker 1: to kill them. There's other people that would never consider
Speaker 1: doing that. Um. There's other people that will tell you
Speaker 1: that you can zoom in on that spot maybe the
Speaker 1: next morning or something, because they usually don't don't travel
Speaker 1: a whole lot when a buck's locked on the dough.
Speaker 1: Lots of times that buck will kind of push a
Speaker 1: dough into a little tiny patch of cover away from
Speaker 1: all the other deer, and they just kind of hang
Speaker 1: out in that zone or kind of close to it
Speaker 1: for that you know, forty hours or whatever. It ends
Speaker 1: up being what's been your approach or what are the
Speaker 1: different variables that will impact how you would deal with
Speaker 1: that snarratory? You know, just you got to look at
Speaker 1: what mother nature has given you. You know, if if
Speaker 1: if you have a twenty five mile prior winds and
Speaker 1: they're they're in a approachable spot, it's time to get
Speaker 1: down and go. You know, I mean, if you have
Speaker 1: some rain and they're in a stalkable situation, it's time
Speaker 1: to get down and go. You know, if it's two
Speaker 1: mile prior winds and it's really really dry, and you
Speaker 1: know you'd have to belly crawl across three yards of
Speaker 1: you know, pasture to get there, it's probably not time
Speaker 1: to go. It's probably time to figure out what how
Speaker 1: do I get there tomorrow morning? You know, But that's
Speaker 1: a you know, seeing that is like such a gift
Speaker 1: you know, like, yeah, it might not work your way,
Speaker 1: but seeing a buck locked on a doll like that
Speaker 1: where he's not going anywhere, and there's a lot of
Speaker 1: ways to use that to your advantage. And so it's
Speaker 1: I look at that, go that's a that's a huge
Speaker 1: gift if you can see it, even if it doesn't
Speaker 1: go your way. Well, so many people talk about how
Speaker 1: you can't pattern a buck during the rut, right because
Speaker 1: they're so unpredictable, But this is one of those scenarios
Speaker 1: where they kind of do get predictable in most cases,
Speaker 1: at least from what I've seen. You know, when you
Speaker 1: see a buck on a doll, you know a couple
Speaker 1: of things. You know, Number one, he's not going anywhere else,
Speaker 1: he's staying close to that dough. Number Two, you know,
Speaker 1: unless it's like chase. Like I'm not talking chasing, I'm
Speaker 1: talking like a buck standing with the dough and they're
Speaker 1: just like there. Um, I've never seen a deer like
Speaker 1: that move a ton. I've seen them kind of travel
Speaker 1: maybe from a betting ear to a food source and back,
Speaker 1: but I've never seen him cover major distance. And I've
Speaker 1: seen a pattern developed there. I killed a buck in
Speaker 1: this exact way. I saw a buck locked on a
Speaker 1: dough follow that dough into this edge of this bedding cover,
Speaker 1: and I thought, man, that dough is gonna be right
Speaker 1: back on that edge of the food this evening. I
Speaker 1: watched this happened in the morning, and I just know
Speaker 1: that this is the foods. If a deer bed's there,
Speaker 1: that do is gonna pop back on feet to here again,
Speaker 1: you know, at four o'clock or five o'clock or whatever,
Speaker 1: and I know that buck will be with her. Sure enough.
Speaker 1: That's what happened. Um So I think you can you
Speaker 1: can look at this as a hey, how do I
Speaker 1: move in on this pattern? And no, it's not gonna
Speaker 1: last very long, right, you've got a twenty four ort
Speaker 1: window something like that, because you don't know when they
Speaker 1: came together. Um but I I would get aggressive with
Speaker 1: that kind of thing if I see that I'm swinging
Speaker 1: for the fences because I've got more information than almost
Speaker 1: any other time when you're hunting. Um So I would
Speaker 1: push in that kind of situation. Do you agree with that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: big time. I mean that that's really kind of the
Speaker 1: time to go for broke because that's just a that's
Speaker 1: a gift of an opportunity that's going to go away
Speaker 1: from you. You know, I mean it, and you're right,
Speaker 1: they don't really seem to go anywhere. And the other
Speaker 1: thing that occasionally happens in that situation is every other
Speaker 1: buck in the woodlot swings through down wind to see
Speaker 1: if you can take a poke at her, you know,
Speaker 1: like there's I don't that. That's that's the cool part
Speaker 1: about the lockdown. And and here's one other thing all
Speaker 1: that's going for you. You also have the perfect um distraction,
Speaker 1: so that buck is as unfocused as he will ever
Speaker 1: be on a predator, So you might be able to
Speaker 1: get away with more than you otherwise could, because there's
Speaker 1: all sorts of other deer running around circling him. Like
Speaker 1: you said, there's the whole satellite thing going on. He's
Speaker 1: used to pushing off other bucks. He's very very focused
Speaker 1: on protecting his his dough right there. So this is
Speaker 1: a time when you might be all sneaking close and
Speaker 1: spook some does maybe, or spook a younger buck, and
Speaker 1: he might completely ignore it, or he might not care
Speaker 1: because he's used to that running around, or he's used
Speaker 1: to other stuff going on. So don't be afraid to
Speaker 1: get a little aggressive, whether it be sneaking into stock
Speaker 1: or you know, slipping in and trying to set up
Speaker 1: a stand where you think they're not move back through
Speaker 1: in the afternoon, or whatever it is. I think you
Speaker 1: have a number of things going for you, assuming you
Speaker 1: know conditions are right right doing that kind of aggressive
Speaker 1: move as you mentioned, if it's zero wind and super
Speaker 1: crunchy leaves, that might be a lot harder to pull
Speaker 1: pull off. UM, but you've got some things going for you, definitely.
Speaker 1: Here's another question from Joe, and it's about the same
Speaker 1: question we've got. We've got a few things around this,
Speaker 1: um lockdown doll. I don't know about this. I'd be
Speaker 1: curious your opinion on this. Joe asks, have you seen
Speaker 1: a buck typically lockdown does again and again in the
Speaker 1: same area or is it location? Is the location dependent
Speaker 1: on the dough? So do you think that where a
Speaker 1: buck will lock down with the dough is that the
Speaker 1: buck's decision, like that's a buck thing, or is this like, well,
Speaker 1: each dough he hooks up with is going to pull
Speaker 1: him to some different place. Have you noticed this before?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna go on a limb and say
Speaker 1: Joe is not married. Um, because I think the dough chooses.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think this is the buck's choice
Speaker 1: at all. I think that dough is like, this is
Speaker 1: where I'm going, and you come along for the ride
Speaker 1: if you want, bro, and he's like, yes, please, I will.
Speaker 1: But I think it. I don't. I don't think. I
Speaker 1: just don't think a buck could really push a dough
Speaker 1: consistently where she didn't want to go. Yeah, now here's
Speaker 1: a not a Devil's advocate kind of position, but yes,
Speaker 1: but kind of thought. I have seen a single buck,
Speaker 1: a specific buck, lockdown with different does throughout the rut
Speaker 1: in the same general pocket, and I wonder if that's
Speaker 1: not necessarily him being in control of the situation, but
Speaker 1: rather that he finds a pocket of does and he
Speaker 1: returns to them throughout the month of November or early December,
Speaker 1: and as he returns to them, they suck him into
Speaker 1: the same general zone for that locked in because that's
Speaker 1: where this Doe family group or two Doll family groups is.
Speaker 1: So it might kind of look like this is his
Speaker 1: zone he likes to push does, but it's more so, Hey,
Speaker 1: I found a good spot for females, and I'm returning
Speaker 1: to it multiple times. I think maybe that's what's happening
Speaker 1: big time. And you know, I mean, I'm sure so
Speaker 1: much of that is just tied to you know, a
Speaker 1: layer of thicker cover on a property. Yeah, and they're
Speaker 1: just ending up where they end up because that's where
Speaker 1: the dough is bed and the bucks know it. Here's
Speaker 1: one that people had to deal with earlier in this month.
Speaker 1: Hopefully people aren't dealing with this in the second half
Speaker 1: of the month, but I'm sure there's gonna be people
Speaker 1: in the South Britain asks about our favorite tactics when
Speaker 1: the movement is slow and the weather is warm during
Speaker 1: what should be their rut. We already talked about how
Speaker 1: weather can kind of reveal more daylight activity. Um My
Speaker 1: take on this is I'm not doing much different when
Speaker 1: it's warm. I'm simply knowing that I gotta push through
Speaker 1: the harder times. This kind of goes back to what
Speaker 1: you do in lockdown. You just gotta have faith, you
Speaker 1: gotta stick with your rut plan and you just know
Speaker 1: that it will happen eventually. Maybe not the middle of
Speaker 1: the day like I was hoping, but it will still
Speaker 1: happen in the morning, it will still happen in the evening.
Speaker 1: You know. I killed my buck on a eighty degree
Speaker 1: day November one, eighty degrees. They didn't start moving ntil
Speaker 1: forty five minutes before dark, so zero movement from you know,
Speaker 1: thirty until forty five minutes before dark. But they moved
Speaker 1: at the end. Um So I don't get fancy during
Speaker 1: the warm weather. I just tough it out and kind
Speaker 1: of know in my head and this is gonna suck
Speaker 1: a little bit, but we'll make the best of it.
Speaker 1: Anything different for you, not really. I mean, unless you
Speaker 1: have a limited water source, then yeah, you know, I'll
Speaker 1: get on that because I've seen deer that are chasing
Speaker 1: hard that will they will hit that water, you know.
Speaker 1: But otherwise, to me, you know, there's a difference between
Speaker 1: being way on top of a ridge and you know,
Speaker 1: it's eighty degrees there, or being way down in the
Speaker 1: bottom by a little creek where it might be seventy
Speaker 1: degrees and there's water, you know. I mean, little things
Speaker 1: like that, those microclimates. But really to me, it's just
Speaker 1: like I look at it, go okay, they're not going
Speaker 1: to be probably cruising out in the wide open in
Speaker 1: the sunlight all day long when it's eighty degrees, but
Speaker 1: they're going to be looking somewhere, and again that brings
Speaker 1: you back into the cover, you know, and and and
Speaker 1: will it be subdued compared to what it would be
Speaker 1: if it was degrees shut. But they're still there, They're
Speaker 1: still going to do their thing, and so it's a
Speaker 1: matter of just staying out there and having faith in
Speaker 1: your spots. Again, here's the flip side of that question.
Speaker 1: Crundle asks, Um, I hope that's his real name. I
Speaker 1: hope its first name is Crundle, because that would be
Speaker 1: a hell of a name. Um, you get the perfect
Speaker 1: weather event of temperatures dropping thirty five degrees overnight, but
Speaker 1: the wind direction is bad. Do you still hunt? Well?
Speaker 1: The wind direction is bad for everything. That's what I
Speaker 1: would ask Crundle, Like, I mean, that's why, that's why
Speaker 1: you don't just pin your hopes on you know, like
Speaker 1: this is my spot, because I don't know, Like I
Speaker 1: could never imagine a situation where I wouldn't even on small,
Speaker 1: small properties like twenty acres, where you probably couldn't swung
Speaker 1: a different setup and use that weather to your advantage
Speaker 1: and just find something new where the wind works. You
Speaker 1: always have to give up something, and maybe you have
Speaker 1: to give up a little bit more, but especially during
Speaker 1: the rut, if you're going to push it a little bit, Man,
Speaker 1: now is the time during the rut with a thirty
Speaker 1: five degree temperature drop, like sign me up, I'm out there.
Speaker 1: Find the best possible scenario, um and go with it.
Speaker 1: Yea well, and and not only that, but like, okay,
Speaker 1: so you think, man, I have this set up and
Speaker 1: the wind sucks for it, It's like that that's a bummer.
Speaker 1: But you also have a situation where all of the
Speaker 1: bucks are going to be looking and they're gonna be
Speaker 1: using their nose. So that wind, even if it's not
Speaker 1: right for where you want to sit, is really going
Speaker 1: to position those deer and you can count on that.
Speaker 1: So in a way, even a crappy wind gives you
Speaker 1: an advantage when the conditions are just perfect cruise. So
Speaker 1: this kind of ties into a question from a guy
Speaker 1: named Elliott Um and he basically just says, does wind
Speaker 1: directions still play a big role during the rut or
Speaker 1: is it more just if you have the dos dot
Speaker 1: dot dot uh? And so I'm not exactly sure what
Speaker 1: he means by this, But I think I'll kind of
Speaker 1: extrapolate out to it, which is a can you get
Speaker 1: away with more stuff during the rut with wind because
Speaker 1: of the fact that they're just focused on doughs, Like,
Speaker 1: that's a question, I guess, And so my answer to
Speaker 1: that is, yeah, wind still matters. Yeah, you're still gonna
Speaker 1: get busted if you're not set up smart. So you
Speaker 1: do need to play the win. You do need this,
Speaker 1: barn about it, etcetera, etcetera. Um, but be kind of
Speaker 1: back to what I said a minute ago. If you're
Speaker 1: ever going to try something a little bit more risky,
Speaker 1: or if you're ever going to give up a little
Speaker 1: bit more, if you're ever going to take a swinging
Speaker 1: for the fences, and um, you know, play all your
Speaker 1: cards at the house. This is not a bad time
Speaker 1: to do it. Um, So just know that you're not
Speaker 1: gonna beat their nose, So you better have a darn
Speaker 1: good chance of avoiding their nose, or you better have
Speaker 1: something that's gonna play, you know, into the strategy you want.
Speaker 1: So don't set up in the spot where there's no
Speaker 1: chance that you can be on the up wind side
Speaker 1: of things. But if you have to maybe hunt a
Speaker 1: cutting wind, or if you have to spot, or if
Speaker 1: you have to hunt a place where, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: to kill the buck the way I think a buck
Speaker 1: is going to use this. I'm great, but I know
Speaker 1: probably some doughs are gonna get down winding me at
Speaker 1: some point. Um So most times I would never hunt here. Well,
Speaker 1: if you get that cold front and this is a
Speaker 1: spot the bucks always cruised through in November or whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, I might be willing to hunt this spot
Speaker 1: on that great day, even though I know there will
Speaker 1: be some does a bust me. I'll know there's a
Speaker 1: chance the bucking cruising up wind and I can kill him.
Speaker 1: Um So that's how I interpret his question. Tony Gimny,
Speaker 1: I have thoughts on that. No, I mean, I would
Speaker 1: just say again, you know, we if you look at
Speaker 1: this like purely academically, we always think about it like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have I need a west wind that's gonna
Speaker 1: be perfect for this spot, and then you go in
Speaker 1: and it's just never really what you think sometimes, like
Speaker 1: the wind swirling or the winds doing something a little different,
Speaker 1: and so you you always go I've got you know,
Speaker 1: I've got the potential to get caught in this zone.
Speaker 1: But I'm banking that they're going to come through here.
Speaker 1: And you know, like my my first set up in
Speaker 1: Minnesota last week on that public there was like a
Speaker 1: little ridge above a kind of cattail slew, and where
Speaker 1: I expected the deer to come from, I had like
Speaker 1: maybe fifteen degrees from the where the wind was blowing
Speaker 1: to where it would kill me. And it was just like, Okay,
Speaker 1: if they go this way, I'm in trouble. But if
Speaker 1: they do what I expect him to do here, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be okay by a small margin. But it don't matter,
Speaker 1: you know, even if it's two degrees. As long as
Speaker 1: they don't get me, it doesn't matter. And so you
Speaker 1: always look at that and go, well, no, spots probably
Speaker 1: gonna be super perfect, and yeah, you're gonna have to
Speaker 1: like there's there's gonna be a downside to every one
Speaker 1: of them as far as win, but like whatever, like
Speaker 1: that's just hunting, Like I don't, I don't. You don't
Speaker 1: get around that. Yeah, you have to. I was talking
Speaker 1: about this the other day. Um, if you if you
Speaker 1: never are willing to swing, you know, for the fences,
Speaker 1: if you're never willing to hunt a great spot or
Speaker 1: push in and get aggressive with something because you're always
Speaker 1: so worried about, you know, something bad happening. You know,
Speaker 1: you're never gonna hit a home run if you're constantly
Speaker 1: just playing it safe and hitting singles over and over
Speaker 1: and again. That's great, but you're not going to be
Speaker 1: the home run champion. Um. And when it comes to
Speaker 1: deer hunting, right, we're trying to hit a home run,
Speaker 1: It's gonna happen once, maybe twice if we're really lucky
Speaker 1: over the course of a whole hunting season. Um. Never.
Speaker 1: If you never swing for it though, So yeah, you
Speaker 1: gotta give up something. You gotta go for it when
Speaker 1: the time's right, when situations right, when the setup is right. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: and you know, and you do get a little bit
Speaker 1: of a little bit of grace from the deer during
Speaker 1: the rut to. I mean, like that buck that I
Speaker 1: killed in Wisconsin. He came in from a direction I
Speaker 1: would have told you it was not going to happen,
Speaker 1: and he spotted my cameraman getting into position and got
Speaker 1: a little bit wiggy, but had to go by us
Speaker 1: to get to where he wanted to go, and gave
Speaker 1: me a shot, and so we made mistakes that you
Speaker 1: might not get away with any other time of the season,
Speaker 1: and then we still you know, he still gave me
Speaker 1: a chance. It was a fleeting, lucky to go my
Speaker 1: way opportunity. But you know, like that, in a lot
Speaker 1: of situations that does not happen, but during the rut,
Speaker 1: you could get it. Yeah, Okay, here's a question that
Speaker 1: um I talked a little bit about last week when
Speaker 1: I was discussing my kill. Um, but I'm curious about
Speaker 1: your take on this. Tony Mitchell asks during this rut
Speaker 1: time period, so this could be November or maybe even
Speaker 1: early December when you get that second rout, or you know,
Speaker 1: different parts of the country we've got later ruts in
Speaker 1: that during this rout period, I'm struggling to get bucks
Speaker 1: to stop for a shot. They're always chasing or locked
Speaker 1: on a door and moving. Any ideas just murp them
Speaker 1: a little louder and a little more persistently. I mean,
Speaker 1: sometimes they don't stop, but most of the time you
Speaker 1: can get them to stop. So, so, yes, what's your
Speaker 1: I had this situation last week where I had like
Speaker 1: a buck that was moving, stopping, moving, stopping, moving, stopping, moving, stopping,
Speaker 1: And I made the impulse of the impulse decision of
Speaker 1: mrping when I probably didn't have to murp, and that
Speaker 1: caused him to jump the string in a big way.
Speaker 1: So what's been your experience with that when it's not
Speaker 1: necessarily a chasing buck, but a buck that's you know,
Speaker 1: been on the move, stopping, starting, stopping, starting. I think
Speaker 1: in the moment I was so paranoid about him taking
Speaker 1: another step and hitting him back that I I aired
Speaker 1: towards man. I just want him stopped for sure. Um.
Speaker 1: And then that that led to him moving down instead
Speaker 1: of forward. Um. How have you dealt with that situation?
Speaker 1: It's so no intellectually what to do, but it's so
Speaker 1: hard to do it in the moment when you've got
Speaker 1: a thousand things happening. Yeah. Well, and the enemy of
Speaker 1: most of us being closers is our paranoia that they're
Speaker 1: going to get away, right, and so it is really
Speaker 1: easy to default to murping them even when you don't
Speaker 1: need to. And so it's just you kind of kind
Speaker 1: of just read it. I mean that the buck that
Speaker 1: I shot last week, I had two shooting holes that
Speaker 1: he was going to go through this trail and there's
Speaker 1: really thick stuff, and I murped him on the first
Speaker 1: one and he didn't stop, and imurped him louder on
Speaker 1: the second one and he stopped. But that was it.
Speaker 1: If he if he'd got through there another foot, it's over.
Speaker 1: And so in that situation, you're looking at like, I
Speaker 1: don't have a choice that situation, and you're talking about, Yeah,
Speaker 1: in hindsight, you probably should have just shot him, but
Speaker 1: it's so hard to just let that go without like
Speaker 1: I need to make this happen this way now. And
Speaker 1: so I think it's I mean, this is a really
Speaker 1: tough thing to talk about because even with lots of experience,
Speaker 1: you get it wrong a lot. But my thing that
Speaker 1: you know, with the original question, if you've got a
Speaker 1: buck that's trucking through there, and you know, it's like
Speaker 1: do or die time, Now, I'm gonna make that dude
Speaker 1: stop or I'm gonna scare him, because what do you
Speaker 1: have to lose? You know? And sometimes you know, like
Speaker 1: the buck I shot last year and the beginning of
Speaker 1: one week in November, that dude was he was cruising.
Speaker 1: I murped him like five times before he stopped, and
Speaker 1: he was fifteen yards away, you know, but it's like
Speaker 1: I just gotta ramp up the frequency across your fingers,
Speaker 1: you know, So in that case, you make a bunch
Speaker 1: of noise to finally get this buck to stop. Do
Speaker 1: you aim low? Would you always say aim low in
Speaker 1: that kind of situation because you're assuming jump string scenario
Speaker 1: or what? Yeah, I would tell everybody that, I promise
Speaker 1: you I've never done that once. Like I don't have
Speaker 1: enough brain power. When I've got one right there, I
Speaker 1: tend to just get that pin where I think it
Speaker 1: needs to be, and I don't. I don't think like,
Speaker 1: well three inches lower because he's gonna drop, you know.
Speaker 1: And you know, sometimes like on that buck you shot,
Speaker 1: if you watch that versus the buck that I shot,
Speaker 1: and I think yours was like maybe five yards farther
Speaker 1: than mine. But when I watched the footage of the
Speaker 1: buck that I shot, he didn't get out of the
Speaker 1: way hardly at all. Yeah, And so you know it's
Speaker 1: kind of like, gosh, you know, which deer is it,
Speaker 1: and what specific conditions and what mood did you catch
Speaker 1: them in? And what are they thinking about? And so
Speaker 1: it's it's a crapshoot, man. Yeah, it really is. There's
Speaker 1: no perfect answer for every scenario because they're all different.
Speaker 1: Yep Uh. Arrows North asks a question that I think
Speaker 1: we all, I think most of us dealt with something
Speaker 1: like this over the last week, which is, how do
Speaker 1: you morning hunt a new location. Do you prefer to
Speaker 1: hang in the pitch dark well before daylight or do
Speaker 1: you wait for pink light so you can see stuff?
Speaker 1: What do you do? I hate hanging stands in the dark.
Speaker 1: Um I did it to you know, our setups, whether
Speaker 1: I was using stands or I was using saddles. Um.
Speaker 1: If I have a tree scouted out, which is what
Speaker 1: I usually try to do, then and and this is
Speaker 1: a lesson that I learn a lot is don't say
Speaker 1: you scouted out a tree until you stood there and
Speaker 1: you thought about it for like twenty minutes. Like I'm
Speaker 1: going up this side and I'm hanging off this side,
Speaker 1: and my shots are here, or you know, my sticks,
Speaker 1: like I'm setting them up this way, like because it's
Speaker 1: so easy to walk into a spot and be like,
Speaker 1: there's my tree, and then walk out and come back.
Speaker 1: And then you get there and it is way more
Speaker 1: crooked or way more gnarly than you think, and so
Speaker 1: I try to make it so I can set up
Speaker 1: in the darkest quietly as possible and be there way
Speaker 1: before first light and up. But if you're not that confident,
Speaker 1: you know, if you don't have a bunch of experience
Speaker 1: doing that, you know, right right at first light might
Speaker 1: be the way to go. Yeah, you know, especially in
Speaker 1: the rut when a lot of times the best activity
Speaker 1: is actually late in the morning. Anyways, when you're getting
Speaker 1: those bucks that start cruising, you know, nine o'clock, ten o'clock,
Speaker 1: ten thirty or whatever it is. Um, you might be
Speaker 1: a get away with that first light kind of scenario
Speaker 1: if you're back in a betting your ar something. UM.
Speaker 1: I like to be set up before dark as well.
Speaker 1: I get in there like two hours ahead of time,
Speaker 1: just because I'm I'm worried about noise. I'm worried about
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. So I get in there
Speaker 1: super early. I set up. I always my approach is slow,
Speaker 1: slow and smooth and quiet, so I don't worry about
Speaker 1: rushing it. I try to take my time, do it right,
Speaker 1: do it quiet, um, and then I can sit and
Speaker 1: be there for fourty or five minutes before daylight and
Speaker 1: just feel like everything's calmed down around me. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not fun. It's not easy. It's always disappointing when
Speaker 1: it gets daylight out and you see, I know there's
Speaker 1: a branch there, and there's a branch there, and you
Speaker 1: know I've had this past week for example, I was
Speaker 1: fortunately we had a lot of windy days, so you know,
Speaker 1: there was one day where I got down midday and
Speaker 1: did a bunch of limb trimming because I got set
Speaker 1: up in the spot and dark, that looked like it
Speaker 1: would work. And then when I got daylight, I realized,
Speaker 1: holy smokes, there's almost nowhere I can shoot um because
Speaker 1: of how thick the cover wasn't there. So I used
Speaker 1: that wind to open up a couple of lanes. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what the air towards. But it's it's not foolproof
Speaker 1: doing it that way, no, I mean, it's so much
Speaker 1: better to have a stand up and just walk out
Speaker 1: to it and follow your nice tag trail and climb
Speaker 1: in quietly. Yeah, man, that's for sure what I thought
Speaker 1: about that this year. How even though I mostly saddle
Speaker 1: hunt on like my local stuff that I hunt year
Speaker 1: after year after year, at a minimum, I think I'm
Speaker 1: gonna like put ladders or tree steps up more trees
Speaker 1: just to make just to take that step out of
Speaker 1: least of um of extra spots, you know, because it
Speaker 1: does get tiring setting up a mobile, set up up
Speaker 1: and down, up and down, you know, seven days in
Speaker 1: a row. Well, and it honestly, it doesn't make that
Speaker 1: much sense if you could set up ahead of time.
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, you're gonna do the work. Why not
Speaker 1: do it ahead of time so that it's easier while
Speaker 1: you're hunting. It's quieter while you're hunting. Putt in that
Speaker 1: work earlier in the year when it won't hurt you. Yep.
Speaker 1: Um Rick asks, if I'm honeting all day, that means
Speaker 1: I have to pee. Just go from the stand, take
Speaker 1: a bottle. What do you do? This is one that
Speaker 1: people always ask, um Tony, what do you do? Let
Speaker 1: her fly? Buddy? Yeah? Same here, Yeah, it doesn't matter,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. Okay, what about number two? Let her fly?
Speaker 1: Life that stand? Our buddy Dan Johnson does that? My uh,
Speaker 1: I was joking with my camera man a lot about
Speaker 1: that this year, that he liked to do that while
Speaker 1: he made eye contact with me the whole time. No,
Speaker 1: I mean I think number two, you know, maybe get
Speaker 1: down and save yourself some embarrassment. I guess I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure there's situations where you could just
Speaker 1: drop a bomb off there and okay, But in all seriousness,
Speaker 1: do you think that if you had to do that,
Speaker 1: that a deer would be get freaked out by that
Speaker 1: smell or be like attracted to it, Like what is this?
Speaker 1: I have a hard time believing they'd be attracted to it. Uh,
Speaker 1: but I don't think they'd be spooked by it. See,
Speaker 1: I've wondered. I've never had this happen, so I've never
Speaker 1: seen it, but I wonder, like it would it be
Speaker 1: like a curiosity thing like holy ship? What is that?
Speaker 1: And um kind of just like swing further down wind
Speaker 1: of it and be you know, curious, like what is this? Um?
Speaker 1: Because it'd be like an overwhelming smell that's different than
Speaker 1: the usual UM. I've worried about that. Like, so I've
Speaker 1: positioned if I have to do it, like, I won't
Speaker 1: poop up wind, I'll go I'll go down win where
Speaker 1: a deer would win me. Anyways, So you gotta be
Speaker 1: gotta be tactical of all decisions, don't it Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, I guess you just have to
Speaker 1: experiment and drop a growler in different spots and see
Speaker 1: how they react. I don't know. We'll cut. We'll report
Speaker 1: back on this in a few years once we have
Speaker 1: more experience. Okay, how about one more and then we'll
Speaker 1: wrap this up so that folks can get out to
Speaker 1: the woods. Um, my rutcation is coming to the end.
Speaker 1: What is one auto the box idea I should consider
Speaker 1: for mid to late November on my next chance. Mm hmm,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, I guess you would say maybe
Speaker 1: try to still hunt or something like that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that that person is looking for you know,
Speaker 1: use a decoy or you know, get out there and rattle.
Speaker 1: But I wouldn't. I mean, maybe I'm too boring for this.
Speaker 1: But my my shake it up strategy is always just
Speaker 1: to ask myself a question like where where's a wild spot?
Speaker 1: I never hunt that they could just be there, Like
Speaker 1: where where have I written off? Or where am I
Speaker 1: just like that's not the place? And is it now?
Speaker 1: Like is it worth? Like? Is there is there enough
Speaker 1: curiosity there to just take a flyer on a day
Speaker 1: and be like I'm gonna go someplace that I just
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, hasn't drawn me in before. But I'm
Speaker 1: not seeing him here. I'm not seeing him here, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go, I'm just gonna take a leap on
Speaker 1: one of these and go find it. And I say
Speaker 1: that because I've done that a lot. Like my dad
Speaker 1: was like that with his hunting. He would do stupid
Speaker 1: ship all the time, and you're like, why are why
Speaker 1: are you doing this? And he's like, I was just
Speaker 1: curious to see if they'd come in there. And it's
Speaker 1: sometimes works because it's not typical white tail hunting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree with that. Um. The one other thing I
Speaker 1: would add would be to kind of do the opposite
Speaker 1: in order to find that place. And so what I
Speaker 1: mean by that is once you get to you know,
Speaker 1: the second or the last third of never November, let's
Speaker 1: say there's been a lot of hunting pressure in most places,
Speaker 1: and in many states there's already been a gun season
Speaker 1: that's kicked into gear. So now deer have really changed
Speaker 1: their patterns. Um, stuff is different in late November than
Speaker 1: it was two weeks ago, significantly different than it was
Speaker 1: six weeks ago, and since the rut hit let's say
Speaker 1: late October, the first couple weeks of November, most of
Speaker 1: us have been like diving into our honey hooles. We've
Speaker 1: been hunting our best stuff. We're in the thick cover,
Speaker 1: we're hunting deal betting areas, we're hunting pinch points, back
Speaker 1: and cover. Whatever it is. We're in the stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: the end of November might be a time to go
Speaker 1: to an observation stand, go to somewhere where you can
Speaker 1: glass or see some new country or just maybe not
Speaker 1: see far, but just observe something different and try to learn. Like,
Speaker 1: if you're not in them, now, get out and find
Speaker 1: where they are. So either like you said, plunge into
Speaker 1: that off the wall place that you never go to,
Speaker 1: or get to a place where you can watch several
Speaker 1: spots like that. Maybe you are just driving the back
Speaker 1: roads and glassing different spots, but just figure out, you know,
Speaker 1: if you don't know this already, I would recommend trying
Speaker 1: to take a day off from your rut grind maybe
Speaker 1: and on November twenty three or whatever, seek out where
Speaker 1: is that new hotspot of activity, Where is that little spot,
Speaker 1: Where is the sink that all the deer have pushed into?
Speaker 1: Because of pressure everywhere else that maybe you weren't expecting. Um.
Speaker 1: So that's one more idea that you know. I don't
Speaker 1: think many people would do observation sits in November, but
Speaker 1: if you don't know where they're at at this point,
Speaker 1: you might need to rEFInd and figure out what these
Speaker 1: deer are doing to adjust to that pressure. So that's
Speaker 1: that's an idea. You could also, you know, have an
Speaker 1: enormous meal at Taco Bell and then drink some espressos
Speaker 1: and then go out there and just blow mud all
Speaker 1: the way around your standard wait for the curiosity to
Speaker 1: kick in. You know that that's a really good way
Speaker 1: to come three sixty on this wrap wrap, put a
Speaker 1: bow on it, and uh give you some real original
Speaker 1: content here and wired to hunt folks. So we are
Speaker 1: really breaking some boundaries here, buddy. I think we've we've
Speaker 1: really set the stage for the end of our careers.
Speaker 1: But so it goes uh any final thoughts tony four,
Speaker 1: we send folks on their way. Just keep going. Figure
Speaker 1: out a way to stay warm, you know, handwarmers, whatever.
Speaker 1: You gotta do, the right food, the right entertainment. However,
Speaker 1: you got to do it and keep after it because
Speaker 1: there's still some time loft. Yeah, it's possible. Um, know
Speaker 1: that there will be slow days, Know that there are
Speaker 1: going to be some moments of suck, but enjoy it
Speaker 1: for what it is, stick it out, have fun and
Speaker 1: uh good things are still ahead big time. Thanks Tony,
Speaker 1: thank you, and that's a wrap. Thank you all for
Speaker 1: tuning in. Appreciate it. Hope your November has been great
Speaker 1: so far. I hope the second half of the month
Speaker 1: is even better if you're still after it. Wishing you
Speaker 1: all the luck in the world. Appreciate you being a
Speaker 1: part of this community. Make sure you were following all
Speaker 1: the stuff we've got going on over at wired Hunt
Speaker 1: and the media, your website, and until next time, thank you.
Speaker 1: Get out there and stay wired to