Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by First Light,
Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.
Speaker 1: First Light Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.
Speaker 2: Hey everyone, welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, which
Speaker 2: is brought to you by First Light. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about what people
Speaker 2: often get wrong about hunting the pre rut. Now, I
Speaker 2: can't say this totally for certain but I can say
Speaker 2: it with some certainty that this might be my favorite
Speaker 2: week of the deer season. Now. I know November is
Speaker 2: where it's at for a lot of folks, but I
Speaker 2: find myself enjoying the last week of October a lot
Speaker 2: as I get older. I think it's because the hunting
Speaker 2: is really really good if you know what to do.
Speaker 2: That's what I plan to talk about right now, So
Speaker 2: buckle up, my little deer hunting buttercups. When I first
Speaker 2: got into the hunting industry, I didn't really even understand
Speaker 2: how some small town dude from southern Minnesota could suddenly
Speaker 2: get invited to go hunt crazy places while someone else
Speaker 2: paid for the whole thing. My first trip, which was
Speaker 2: part disaster and part like trying Heroin for the first time,
Speaker 2: brought me to the high country in Colorado to chase
Speaker 2: velvet meal deer. I didn't kill one, but it left
Speaker 2: a mark on me that made me realize that every
Speaker 2: chance I get to go into the mountains with a
Speaker 2: bow in my hand, I better do it. I got
Speaker 2: to go to Africa, too, which was pretty crazy and
Speaker 2: something I'll put into a book someday, but not today.
Speaker 2: I pretty much said yes to whatever offer came my way,
Speaker 2: but not to whitetail hunts. I just didn't want to
Speaker 2: spend my time going on outfitted whitetail hunts when I
Speaker 2: could do it myself at home. And it went pretty
Speaker 2: good for me until I was told that I needed
Speaker 2: to go on a specific white toil hunt with one
Speaker 2: of our advertisers. The trip wasn't a total guided deal,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't DIY either. It was one of those
Speaker 2: situations where they say, hey, we have these stands in
Speaker 2: these farms, do whatever you want with either. So I
Speaker 2: figured I'd head down to Kansas and see what I
Speaker 2: could do. It was a rod hunt too, which sounded
Speaker 2: pretty sweet since I was about to give up the
Speaker 2: woods in my home state to half a million gun hunters. Now.
Speaker 2: I was a very nervous traveler then, because I had
Speaker 2: traveled very little, and I had traveled very very little
Speaker 2: for any hunting trips, so I triple check the emails
Speaker 2: about my flights. I packed up my stuff and drove
Speaker 2: from my office in north central Minnesota on down to
Speaker 2: the Minneapolis airport. When I went to check in my luggage,
Speaker 2: the woman working there said, Honey, you are way way
Speaker 2: too early to check in for this flight. It turns
Speaker 2: out that the eight am flight I thought I had
Speaker 2: was actually for eight PM, and the woman who had
Speaker 2: booked my trip had emailed me the wrong times. The
Speaker 2: worst part about it, or one of the worst parts,
Speaker 2: was that I could have spent half the day hunting
Speaker 2: for a big nine pointer I'd been after the whole
Speaker 2: bow season, but instead I was about to kill a
Speaker 2: day in the cities before flying in super late that night.
Speaker 2: You know, it was the right day, but my timing
Speaker 2: was way wrong. I'm sure she felt a little like
Speaker 2: I did when in a past life I was a
Speaker 2: floating manager for a company that owns a bunch of
Speaker 2: big liquor stores. That job was as soul sucking as
Speaker 2: they come, and not a great fit for someone who,
Speaker 2: every time he drank, did it in such a way
Speaker 2: that might convince others around him that we were about
Speaker 2: to run out of alcohol for good. About once a
Speaker 2: week during that job, some customer would come in and
Speaker 2: throw a small fit about how a case, a CoP's
Speaker 2: light or a bottle of wine was supposed to be
Speaker 2: on sale and it wasn't. This was back when people
Speaker 2: actually cut coupons out of the paper, and so they'd
Speaker 2: present it in a way that I would best describe
Speaker 2: as super cocky, kind of like a what do you
Speaker 2: think about this shit kind of way. Inevitably it would
Speaker 2: be a coupon for a different store owned by a
Speaker 2: different company. Those customers had the right idea. They just
Speaker 2: got their wires crossed a bit. It happens when you're flying,
Speaker 2: it happens when you need to restock the liquor cabinet,
Speaker 2: and it happens in hunting. In fact, it happens a
Speaker 2: lot in the pre rut. I think this is the
Speaker 2: most misunderstood time of the deer season. To be honest,
Speaker 2: maybe it's second to the lull, but if it is,
Speaker 2: it's a close second. I think the pre rut, at
Speaker 2: least in the North Country, starts to kick in far
Speaker 2: earlier than we give it credit for. I feel like
Speaker 2: by the time you were into mid October, you were
Speaker 2: definitely into the pre rut. By this week, there's just
Speaker 2: no question. Even though we all kind of know this,
Speaker 2: I think we still tend to approach it wrong. For starters,
Speaker 2: we place a lot of weight in what we see
Speaker 2: on our trail cameras and what we hear amongst our
Speaker 2: deer hunting circles. The first chase always seems to happen
Speaker 2: this week, and it's rarely anything but a scraper getting
Speaker 2: after it. Now. We used to say things like, oh
Speaker 2: it's close, now, it's almost here, and on and on.
Speaker 2: But the pre rut isn't just an appetizer for the rut.
Speaker 2: It is its own thing, and it's really good if
Speaker 2: you know how to approach it. So for starters, just
Speaker 2: forget about that four ky that chase the dough past
Speaker 2: your trail camera doesn't matter. The rut happens the same
Speaker 2: time every year, and that's not an anomaly. It's just
Speaker 2: what young bucks do they start off a little early
Speaker 2: before the whole thing gets going. Now, instead of looking
Speaker 2: at the pre rut like you can hunt it like
Speaker 2: the rut, but with less action, look at it like
Speaker 2: a totally different phase. The easiest way to think about
Speaker 2: this is to look at your field edge stands and
Speaker 2: any stands that you've been hunting all season now. During
Speaker 2: the first few weeks of the season, these stands are
Speaker 2: usually pretty good because the deer are on summer ish
Speaker 2: patterns and they haven't really been hunted for nine months.
Speaker 2: Enough sits and those spots I write down along, you know,
Speaker 2: with the reality that the deer tend to back up
Speaker 2: in the cover and pay more attention to their daylight
Speaker 2: movement as the season progresses. The pre rut might put
Speaker 2: a big buck in front of your burned out field
Speaker 2: edge stand, but it usually takes a cold front and
Speaker 2: just gift conditions. Mostly Mother nature is not going to
Speaker 2: be that generous. Mostly most hunters won't care. They'll go
Speaker 2: hunt those stands anyway, thinking that if the rut is
Speaker 2: about to pop off, they might get lucky and catch
Speaker 2: an early mover. They mostly just won't. They will only
Speaker 2: get more unlucky if they try to use some rut tactics.
Speaker 2: Now again, I'm not saying you can't rattle in a
Speaker 2: buck or grown him in the last ten days of October.
Speaker 2: You certainly can. You probably just won't. It's not really
Speaker 2: prime time yet, and if the conditions don't make it
Speaker 2: extra prime for a bit, a lot of rattling isn't
Speaker 2: going to make up for a poor stand choice. It
Speaker 2: just won't. This is the thing about the pre rut.
Speaker 2: It is not the rut. It's not the magic time
Speaker 2: when just about anything can work, or you can just
Speaker 2: ride out the hours on a pinch point. It's a
Speaker 2: time where the advantage is real, but you have to
Speaker 2: understand how to use it. I think about it this way.
Speaker 2: At this point in the season, especially if you hunt
Speaker 2: where there is some pressure, the deer are going to
Speaker 2: be located in pockets of advantageous cover. They are going
Speaker 2: to be where you aren't, and usually they won't be alone.
Speaker 2: They'll give this away with sign, which means if you
Speaker 2: do some scouting you can usually figure some of this
Speaker 2: stuff out. This is where a lot of folks get
Speaker 2: things wrong too. They reason that it doesn't make any
Speaker 2: sense to wade into the best cover to find some
Speaker 2: rubs and scrapes now, while risking bumping all the deer
Speaker 2: out when they can just play it safe and wait
Speaker 2: another week or a week and a half to hit
Speaker 2: the rut as it starts burning super hot. I go
Speaker 2: the opposite way with this. I know that if I'm
Speaker 2: in the cover now and I'm around a lot of
Speaker 2: fresh bucks, sign I'm around a lot of bucks. Probably
Speaker 2: it's that simple. The wind is right, and even if
Speaker 2: the conditions aren't great, I know my best chance of
Speaker 2: running into a good one now is to go where
Speaker 2: he is likely to be and then see if he'll
Speaker 2: slip up. This is a key tenant here, so pay attention.
Speaker 2: The bucks will move in daylight this week, and they'll
Speaker 2: be susceptible to a little grunting or some soft rattling,
Speaker 2: but only if you are where they feel comfortable moving.
Speaker 2: I've talked about this a lot, and I believe it.
Speaker 2: Blind calling from the field edge three hundred yards away
Speaker 2: will do nothing but spook the deer. Most likely during
Speaker 2: the pre rut, you want to be in as tight
Speaker 2: as you can get to the security cover that they
Speaker 2: use to avoid you. This is not the time where
Speaker 2: they're going to run across the landscape all day long
Speaker 2: looking for doze. This is the time when they might
Speaker 2: get out of their bed an hour early and go
Speaker 2: lay down more sign or maybe spar with a buddy,
Speaker 2: and just give you a limited opportunity to encounter them.
Speaker 2: That's better than what they usually give you. Honestly, a
Speaker 2: lot of people treat this like a free play where
Speaker 2: they can just hunt like they usually do and maybe
Speaker 2: the seasonal timing will put one in their lap. I don't,
Speaker 2: and if you hunt pressured ground, you shouldn't either. If
Speaker 2: you follow the traditional advice of staying out of there
Speaker 2: or hunting safe, at least you'll be doing exactly what
Speaker 2: everyone else is doing. And then you'll share the rut
Speaker 2: woods with the masses when you could have made some
Speaker 2: calculated strikes the week before where your odds were higher.
Speaker 2: So you know you should use the pre rut to
Speaker 2: your advantage. And I've started to explain how, but let's
Speaker 2: go deeper. When you're out there on say October twenty fifth,
Speaker 2: and the woods feels electric, pay attention. This is a
Speaker 2: time when every deer sighting matters a lot to me.
Speaker 2: I like seeing the dose because I might need them
Speaker 2: real soon if they use a specific stream crossing or
Speaker 2: hop a fence in a specific spot. I make note
Speaker 2: of that. When I see a buck, anybuck, I pay
Speaker 2: more attention. You've heard me say this a lot, but
Speaker 2: I believe it so much. Just to frame this up,
Speaker 2: about eight years ago, I found an interesting creek bottom
Speaker 2: in the Big Woods in northern Wisconsin. I killed a
Speaker 2: decent buck in there mid October and figured it would
Speaker 2: only be better if I came back during the pre
Speaker 2: rut the following season. So I did, and when I
Speaker 2: walked in the first day, there was just a little
Speaker 2: tiny bit of snow on the ground and I jumped
Speaker 2: a good buck bedded with a dough. I saw him
Speaker 2: sneak back through later and almost killed him except for
Speaker 2: the wind. I hunted that spot, moving from one tree
Speaker 2: to another over the course of a few days, and
Speaker 2: never killed a deer, But mann did I see a
Speaker 2: lot of them for that area, and it gave me
Speaker 2: a way bigger glimpse into how the bucks used that
Speaker 2: area all through October. I also hunted it during the
Speaker 2: rut several times, and it was just a ghost town.
Speaker 2: I think the deer still used it some, but the
Speaker 2: amount of people in there just changed the whole thing.
Speaker 2: It literally is a pre rut spot, and that's that.
Speaker 2: I'm still figuring that property out, but a lot of
Speaker 2: what I've learned has come from watching bucks during the
Speaker 2: back half October. When you see a buck, even if
Speaker 2: it's a dank six pointer, watch him. Don't just glass
Speaker 2: him quick write him off as a non shooter and
Speaker 2: then go back to doom scrolling. Watch him. He will
Speaker 2: give you a crash course in how the deer travel
Speaker 2: and what they do when they want to lay down
Speaker 2: sign he might hear another deer and go check it out,
Speaker 2: or he might bed down in a specific spot. What
Speaker 2: he's doing, no matter what he's doing, is showing you
Speaker 2: dear behavior and possibly convincing you to go set up
Speaker 2: where he is the first chance you can. Because deer
Speaker 2: do what other deer do, and this idea that big
Speaker 2: bucks are so different from other deer that they are
Speaker 2: another species is mostly bullshit. They are rare and often
Speaker 2: pretty cautious, but they're not reinventing the wheel out there,
Speaker 2: so to speak. They have the same needs as other
Speaker 2: deer and the same tools of a to them to
Speaker 2: help them meet those needs. They can't fly, they don't
Speaker 2: have a sixth sense. They're just deer. Now, I have
Speaker 2: to say this again because I think most folks approach
Speaker 2: us wrong. If you're out there and you're not on
Speaker 2: the X and a deer you'd like to shoot is
Speaker 2: making a scrape two hundred yards away, think long and
Speaker 2: hard before you try to talk him into your setup.
Speaker 2: I think calling to bucks that don't look like they
Speaker 2: are going to come in is almost a certainty for
Speaker 2: most hunters, but you should read the situation closely. If
Speaker 2: I'm on and over the road hunting, that situation lands
Speaker 2: in my lap, I'm probably gonna call when time is
Speaker 2: limited and I'll never see that deer again. Most likely
Speaker 2: I'm going to go for it. But if I have
Speaker 2: even a couple more opportunities in the next few days
Speaker 2: to hunt there, I think really long and hard about
Speaker 2: my calling. If you see a relax deer doing what
Speaker 2: relax deer do? You want to be there soon. That's
Speaker 2: the winning lottery ticket right there. That's better than any
Speaker 2: trail camera image or anything you can find scouting. You
Speaker 2: call to that deer, it's like you have a lighter
Speaker 2: in your hand and can't help. But move it closer
Speaker 2: to that lottery ticket might just burn the whole thing up. Now,
Speaker 2: you might call him in. It might work, but it's
Speaker 2: also likely that it'll draw negative attention and sour the
Speaker 2: whole encounter. If you can fight the urge, you might
Speaker 2: want to do that, especially if you have the chance
Speaker 2: to move a setup closer to where the buck is.
Speaker 2: This is why it's so important to pay attention. Seeing
Speaker 2: a buck is great. Seeing where he came from to
Speaker 2: get there is even better. Being able to watch how
Speaker 2: he interacts with the landscape, where he kills time, and
Speaker 2: what he does when he leaves total gift. You can
Speaker 2: glass the trees he walks by to try to pick
Speaker 2: out a stand site, or look at the brush on
Speaker 2: the fence road to see if you could tuck in
Speaker 2: for a natural ground blind set. This is the advantage
Speaker 2: that the pre reut really gives you. It's a better
Speaker 2: opportunity to see decent bucks doing what they do when
Speaker 2: most of the season you just don't get to see them.
Speaker 2: And better, yeah, yet you can see them doing what
Speaker 2: they do in a way that very well might lead
Speaker 2: to you being there tomorrow when they do it again.
Speaker 2: Not even the rut gives you that chance, because what
Speaker 2: they do today they might not do again for a week,
Speaker 2: or if they are chasing a dough, they might never
Speaker 2: do it again. But the pre rut is a weird
Speaker 2: pattern fest. Even if the patterns only last for a
Speaker 2: couple of days, that's still better than what you mostly
Speaker 2: have to work with, and it's a powerful motivator to
Speaker 2: get out there. Now. It's also true, and I have
Speaker 2: to say this, that this style of hunting puts you
Speaker 2: in a position where you might just have a giant
Speaker 2: show himself. I never see this in the open. I
Speaker 2: never watch him do this in the open, But once
Speaker 2: every couple of years I'll see like a one fifty
Speaker 2: or a one sixty, often on public land, mind you,
Speaker 2: that just decides to move in the cover in late October.
Speaker 2: That is not a deer that is taking a lot
Speaker 2: of risks, but he's risking more than he usually does.
Speaker 2: That aspect makes the whole thing a hell of a
Speaker 2: lot more exciting. Now that property I mentioned with the
Speaker 2: Creek Bottom Big Woods Bucks, I've seen two deer that
Speaker 2: are all of one point sixty in there in late October.
Speaker 2: And it's public land in a not very good region.
Speaker 2: Of the state. That's the magic of the pre rut.
Speaker 2: But it won't feel like that if you don't get
Speaker 2: in there with the deer and hunt the spots that
Speaker 2: most folks are either not aware of or are leaving
Speaker 2: alone so they can come in there for their rut
Speaker 2: caation and hunt the crap out of it. Think about
Speaker 2: this this week. Are you playing it safe right now?
Speaker 2: Ask yourself? Why?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: If you have a banging farm to hunt and no
Speaker 2: one is going to go in there, I could let
Speaker 2: that slide. It's not a bad choice, although you could
Speaker 2: probably go out and find some action this week either way.
Speaker 2: But what if you're holding out or just phoning it
Speaker 2: in with some field edge sits, and you know the
Speaker 2: property you're on is destined to be crawling with people
Speaker 2: in another week or so. You're playing the deer game,
Speaker 2: but not the people game, and that is the one
Speaker 2: that crushes most deer hunts. Think about that as we
Speaker 2: slide into November here and think about coming back next week,
Speaker 2: because I'm going to talk about why I think doe
Speaker 2: decoys are a better choice than buck decoys, especially if
Speaker 2: you know how to use them. That's it for this week.
Speaker 2: I'm Tony Peterson. This has been the Wired to Hunt
Speaker 2: Foundation's podcast, which is brought to you by First Light.
Speaker 2: As always, thank you so much for listening for all
Speaker 2: your support. Honestly, truly straight from the heart, we absolutely
Speaker 2: love that you guys come and show your support in
Speaker 2: a multitude of different ways. We would be nothing without you,
Speaker 2: so thank you for that. If you want some more
Speaker 2: deer hunting content, maybe you want to listen to an
Speaker 2: episode of Bear Grease, whatever, watch a film, head on
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Speaker 2: to get your fixed when you can't actually get out
Speaker 2: there in the woods. It's right there at the medeater
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