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 die
Speaker 1: hard bow hunter Skip Sly to discuss his top tactics
Speaker 1: for hunting the rut from Michigan to Iowa and points
Speaker 1: in between. Al Right, welcome to the Wired Hunt podcast,
Speaker 1: brought to you by First Light, and today we're talking
Speaker 1: the rut. My friends. It is sweet sweet, oh sweet
Speaker 1: sweet sweet November. It's here, guys. We are in the
Speaker 1: month of November. We've been waiting on it, dreaming of it,
Speaker 1: now happening. Joining me today, we have got a guest
Speaker 1: who's gonna help us learn how to kill that November buck,
Speaker 1: how to master the white tail rut. We're talking to
Speaker 1: Skip Slide and Skips kind of like, uh, he's kind
Speaker 1: of like an under the radar big buck o g.
Speaker 1: He's this guy that a lot of super serious bow
Speaker 1: hunters all seemed to know or have some connection to
Speaker 1: or they admire from afar, but he doesn't show up
Speaker 1: much on the on the TV shows that the podcast
Speaker 1: circuit and whatnot. He just kills big deer year after
Speaker 1: year after year. And what's what's particularly cool about Skip?
Speaker 1: I think I might be biased here, but he started
Speaker 1: out in Michigan, just like me, just like a bunch
Speaker 1: of my pals you've heard from over the years. And
Speaker 1: he started traveling to other states. He went all over
Speaker 1: the place, learned how to kill deer in different kind
Speaker 1: of habitats, different kinds of regions. Chase that big buck
Speaker 1: passion all the way to Iowa and ended up moving
Speaker 1: there where he is to this day. And now he
Speaker 1: hunts and manages a number of farms. Um, he does
Speaker 1: it very very well. You might have seen one of
Speaker 1: the deer that I believe he had a hand in producing,
Speaker 1: a two hundred and forty one in buck that his
Speaker 1: brother and he called angry. His brother Aaron, ended up
Speaker 1: shooting that deer. Last year. It was featured in a
Speaker 1: film uh Over on the on X YouTube channel. I
Speaker 1: think it got a lot of airtime there. This buck
Speaker 1: was on the cover of North American White Tail. It
Speaker 1: was all over the internet. Um, so that's the kind
Speaker 1: of deer these guys are chasing. Um. Skip also owns
Speaker 1: the website Iowa White tail dot com, which is a
Speaker 1: terrific online message board and community for die hard deer hunters.
Speaker 1: I actually has spent a lot of time reading threads
Speaker 1: over there, even though I live in Michigan, I only
Speaker 1: hunt Iowa every few years. But there's just a lot
Speaker 1: of great deer hunting ideas and stories over there for anyone.
Speaker 1: So that's what skips up to. He has a tremendous
Speaker 1: pile of experience from his time hunting all over the place,
Speaker 1: both you know, growing up and hunting in Michigan as
Speaker 1: a young adult, and then traveling to you know, Kansas, Illinois, Iowa,
Speaker 1: all these different spots. And today we cover a little
Speaker 1: bit of everything. We do some background in the beginning,
Speaker 1: get to know his story and kind of how he
Speaker 1: came up as a deer hunter, and then dive dive
Speaker 1: really deep into the rut, covering you know, everything from
Speaker 1: recommended stands sites to his calling strategies, scouting UH dialing in,
Speaker 1: plans for hunting specific bucks during the rut, and a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of stuff like that. But before we get
Speaker 1: skipped on the line, it seemed like, you know, kicking
Speaker 1: off November, we needed to have a throwback kind of
Speaker 1: feel to this episode two. We have to get back
Speaker 1: to the Wired Hunt roots. We gotta kind of get
Speaker 1: a little bit of that energy that Wired Hunt is
Speaker 1: known for over the years when the O g Speaking ogs,
Speaker 1: When the O g Old co host comes back on
Speaker 1: the show, Mr Dan Johnson is going to make a
Speaker 1: surprise appearance here, folks. Me and my buddy Dan are
Speaker 1: going to take a little time here to do an
Speaker 1: intro o for the show, talking a little bit about
Speaker 1: our plans for the upcoming ruck, sharing a little bit
Speaker 1: of our insights and ideas leading into this most blessed
Speaker 1: month of the year. And fair warning for everyone, there's
Speaker 1: gonna be some of that typical Dan Johnson banter about family,
Speaker 1: about hunt life balance. Uh. You know, if you're a
Speaker 1: longtime listener, you know what I'm talking about. This is uh,
Speaker 1: this is some classic Mark and Dan discussion that we're
Speaker 1: about to have here. So if you're new to the show,
Speaker 1: be warned, it's gonna get a little weird here for
Speaker 1: about thirty minutes, and then we will get to the
Speaker 1: main guest, which is skips Lie, where we have nothing
Speaker 1: but great deer hunting conversation. So I hope you enjoy
Speaker 1: this kickoff to November. I'm excited for this episode, I
Speaker 1: am excited for this month, and I am excited for you.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a great season. I hope by the
Speaker 1: time you're listening to this shoot it's November three when
Speaker 1: this sucker drops. So maybe you've already got your buck
Speaker 1: on the ground. If oh this bump, handshake, high five,
Speaker 1: whatever your style is, and if you haven't yet, keep grinding.
Speaker 1: Stuff's gonna come together. So let's get to my surprise guest,
Speaker 1: Mr Dan Johnson. So, my surprise special guest here to
Speaker 1: kick off the rut is none other than the Man
Speaker 1: from down Under, Dan Johnson. I don't know how you're
Speaker 1: than the Man from down Under, but it sounded good. Dan,
Speaker 1: good night Might How are you buddy? I'm doing good.
Speaker 1: How are you? I'm awesome. I figured there's no better
Speaker 1: way to kick off November than for you and me
Speaker 1: to be back together again, celebrating our favorite time of year.
Speaker 1: Are you feeling it? Are you excited? Are you amped?
Speaker 1: Where's the like the Dan Johnson woo? Who? Yeah? So man,
Speaker 1: it has just been a crazy week here right, So,
Speaker 1: like I'm not quiet, don't bring down, don't bring us down. No,
Speaker 1: I know, but here, here's where I'm at. Here's where
Speaker 1: I'm at. I am, I'm fired up, but I'm looking
Speaker 1: out the window fired up because there's a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of things that have to happen before I can get
Speaker 1: in the woods. Unfortunately, and so sick kids, right. Horrible
Speaker 1: timing activities, Yeah, horrible timing activities. Um, I still have
Speaker 1: tree stands and trail cameras I need to take down
Speaker 1: on a on a permission piece by me that I
Speaker 1: that I lost the farm on so I can use
Speaker 1: those tree stands on the new farm that I gained
Speaker 1: access to. I have to check trail cameras on my
Speaker 1: main farm that I've been hunting for fourteen years. And
Speaker 1: so I see a list of you know, I'm excited,
Speaker 1: but I see a list of things that I have
Speaker 1: to do before I can start the process of the grind.
Speaker 1: If that makes sense. It does, And I guess I
Speaker 1: can see how that chorelist might be a little bit
Speaker 1: of a downer. Uh So, yeah, So am I am?
Speaker 1: I am I Rick Flair right now? Not quite, but
Speaker 1: I'm about to be okay, So I'm glad that that's
Speaker 1: still in the future, Like that that will happen. Still
Speaker 1: it will. So so when did when did you lose
Speaker 1: this property and gain the new one? Has that happens
Speaker 1: in between s as we talked last, Is that just
Speaker 1: something we hadn't talked about. It's probably something we haven't
Speaker 1: talked about. I found out that this I found out
Speaker 1: this summer that the landowner passed away. He was in
Speaker 1: his nineties, so it wasn't any big shocker. Um. But
Speaker 1: right away after the funeral and everything, the family decided
Speaker 1: to sell the farm. And so they're in the process
Speaker 1: of selling it right now. And so I still have
Speaker 1: access to get my stuff out and I can even
Speaker 1: hunt it for a little bit if I want. But
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get all my stuff out for they,
Speaker 1: you know, shut the book on this property. And my
Speaker 1: tree stands are left out there. So I have three
Speaker 1: tree stands and two trail cameras that I need to
Speaker 1: get off. And uh it's it's sucks because it's the
Speaker 1: property that is ten minutes from my house. Yeah that's
Speaker 1: a bummer. Uh So, so real real quick, I want
Speaker 1: to like lay out real fast what my rut plans are,
Speaker 1: what your rut plans are. So how does this change
Speaker 1: your plans. Are you still just gonna spend your rucation
Speaker 1: down in your your main spot down south or or what?
Speaker 1: How's that new farm factor? Yeah, the new farm factory
Speaker 1: factors in big time now. And it is in an
Speaker 1: additional hour and a half away from or roughly two
Speaker 1: hours away from my main farm that i've you know,
Speaker 1: down by where by where I live. And so once
Speaker 1: we start talking about the mecca of Iowa, this arm
Speaker 1: is in this three county area that dreams are made
Speaker 1: of type. So I got lucky with getting access to
Speaker 1: this farm. And believe it or not, it's not a lease.
Speaker 1: I'm not going through an outfitter. I have permission on
Speaker 1: this farm, um and I and and I got it
Speaker 1: by blind luck, to be honest with you, and so
Speaker 1: I appreciate that, you know, appreciate this farm. But even
Speaker 1: this morning I had to one shooter for sure, one
Speaker 1: borderline shooter on cell camp fighting each other in front
Speaker 1: of the in front of the compraman. So yeah, so, uh,
Speaker 1: my internal hypeness is at an all time high level.
Speaker 1: But so I lost this farm, which is convenient, but
Speaker 1: I gained a farm that has the potential to get
Speaker 1: into that one seventy category that you know everybody dreams about,
Speaker 1: and so I'm I'm excited. Wow, yeah that exciting. So
Speaker 1: so hold on the main farm that you've been on
Speaker 1: for fourteen years. That's already pretty mecca. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: like in the neighborhood of some of the best of
Speaker 1: the best out there, right, Is this Is this actually
Speaker 1: noticeably better than that? Yes? Wow? Like like like undoubtedly, yes, dude,
Speaker 1: Like like there's mature deer on it. It's hard. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be hard to access because I can only access
Speaker 1: it through like a sixteen a sixteen foot gap in
Speaker 1: offense that like tractors and stuff can drive through, and
Speaker 1: then then it's surrounded by other private that I have
Speaker 1: not I have no access in, so I can only
Speaker 1: access it through one way. But let's I'll put it
Speaker 1: to you this way. There are three year old deer
Speaker 1: that are on this property that are gigantic, and if
Speaker 1: I was a land manager, I would be passing passing
Speaker 1: these deer. If he shows up, I'll probably shoot him
Speaker 1: just because of the sheer size of his antlers. But
Speaker 1: I hope he doesn't show up and makes it through
Speaker 1: the year. So he's a four year old next year,
Speaker 1: you know, like that that type of scenario. And I'm
Speaker 1: not saying this to like Bragg. I'm just trying to
Speaker 1: tell you, like, that's how lucky I got with gaining
Speaker 1: access to this farm. So it's like you went from
Speaker 1: being married to uh, I don't know who's like the
Speaker 1: top notch thing right now. I'm struggling. I pay so
Speaker 1: much attention to deer, I the pay attention to pop culture.
Speaker 1: This this metaphor isn't gonna work. I guess you went
Speaker 1: from living in a mansion. Yeah, you went from living
Speaker 1: in a mansion in Uh. This one's not gonna work either,
Speaker 1: and you found the best place in the world of sounding.
Speaker 1: So here I have it here, Here's here's what Here's
Speaker 1: what happened. I went to hunting a really good farm
Speaker 1: in Iowa, uh, to hunting any even better farm in Iowa.
Speaker 1: I mean that's that's exactly what it is. So so.
Speaker 1: But but with that said, I still don't have UM.
Speaker 1: I still don't have any intel because I haven't checked
Speaker 1: any trail cameras on my main farm yet. UH. Cell
Speaker 1: cams are dead and so I haven't. Man, it's been
Speaker 1: like two months since the cell cams. I haven't been
Speaker 1: there in two months, and so I have to I
Speaker 1: want to make sure that before I go all cards
Speaker 1: in on this new farm that there's not a really
Speaker 1: good deer on the main farm that is already set up. Basically, right,
Speaker 1: I know everything about the main farm and and how
Speaker 1: to access it and and where to go. I need
Speaker 1: to check some cameras to make sure basically to commit
Speaker 1: on where I want to start out at at least.
Speaker 1: So this is nuts, hate you, but um, what's your
Speaker 1: what's your what's your rutcation? Like? What how much time
Speaker 1: do you have when you get to start? And and
Speaker 1: so is your start day gonna be his first day?
Speaker 1: You drive down the main farm, poul cameras, see inventory,
Speaker 1: see what's going on, and then you're gonna make a
Speaker 1: game time decision. Right then? Is that? Is that what's
Speaker 1: gonna happen this afternoon? I'm gonna be able to go
Speaker 1: take the tree stands and trail cameras down on the
Speaker 1: on the farm that I lost. Tomorrow is gonna be
Speaker 1: a day trip down to the main farm for one
Speaker 1: thing only, and that is to replace batteries and check
Speaker 1: SD cards and then come back home do the Halloween thing,
Speaker 1: do the activities thing, and then starting actually on I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get the kids on the bus on November three,
Speaker 1: which is a Thursday, and that is going to kick
Speaker 1: off my rutcation. What's your You're like plan a plan
Speaker 1: of attack this season when it comes to the run.
Speaker 1: If you had to be like, this is my number
Speaker 1: one thing I'm planning on doing. Whether this is on
Speaker 1: your main farm or the new taj Mahal, do you
Speaker 1: have something in mind like, Man, I really think I'm
Speaker 1: gonna stick to what's been working these last few years
Speaker 1: and hunt these dough betting areas or do you have
Speaker 1: some different approach that you want to try this year,
Speaker 1: like what's what's plan A? No, the the approach is
Speaker 1: to do the same exact thing that I do have
Speaker 1: have done every year. Right, So I'm I'm on a
Speaker 1: I'm on a streak of seven years in a row,
Speaker 1: connecting on a on what I am going to call
Speaker 1: a shoot like what I justify as a sheoter caliber
Speaker 1: deer found success by rotating tree stands, by getting in
Speaker 1: good terrain features, by hunting dough groups and having impeccable
Speaker 1: access routes to those locations, and once I get in
Speaker 1: the tree, then that's when I roll the dice with
Speaker 1: wind action and and uh, that's what that is where
Speaker 1: I get aggressive, not necessarily with access routes, and so
Speaker 1: I just I put in my time. I make a
Speaker 1: judgment call on if this area is good or do
Speaker 1: I need to bounce and go to a different area
Speaker 1: on the same farm or now I have Now another
Speaker 1: thing I have to think about is is the new
Speaker 1: farm gonna trump the old farm? Or because of this
Speaker 1: how small it is? I mean, it's it's like a
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty acres, but it is tall and narrow
Speaker 1: and all of the all of the I would say
Speaker 1: action is on the west side of the farm, and
Speaker 1: the east side of the farm is just like a
Speaker 1: mode grass field. All right, And so now I have
Speaker 1: to say, all right, am I gonna am I gonna
Speaker 1: have to bounce back and forth between these two farms?
Speaker 1: Am I gonna have to you know, drive two and
Speaker 1: a half hours to to the to the main farm
Speaker 1: and then wait for the wind to change and then
Speaker 1: head back to the other farm. Because if there's any
Speaker 1: east in in any forecast, which I'm gonna be getting
Speaker 1: the first handful of days in November that the new
Speaker 1: farm isn't gonna be an option Like anything east, I
Speaker 1: don't feel I'll be able to get away with. So
Speaker 1: once it kids out of the west, a straight north
Speaker 1: or a straight south, yes, but anything out of the
Speaker 1: east is just really going to be dangerous. So a
Speaker 1: lot of it depends on wind direction and a lot
Speaker 1: of it depends on what the trail cameras on the
Speaker 1: main farm the old farm tell me right off the
Speaker 1: bat of where I'm going to kick things off. H Okay,
Speaker 1: it's a lot up in the air, like very very
Speaker 1: much game time decision kind of plan you've got here
Speaker 1: going on the roccasion. Yeah, And that's the thing like
Speaker 1: I have. I've always told myself, I make all these
Speaker 1: plans right and say, Okay, the first week, I'm doing this,
Speaker 1: the second week, the rut, the pre rut, I'm doing this,
Speaker 1: I'm doing this. But every every year I get to
Speaker 1: this point and there's no plan. It's just once you
Speaker 1: get the opportunity to get in the woods, make the
Speaker 1: best possible decisions with the conditions that you have, and
Speaker 1: and just cycle through that and there there you go.
Speaker 1: You know, you just you keep you just make the
Speaker 1: best judgment call with the best conditions, and that usually
Speaker 1: leads me to a spot where there's there's deer movement. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, our our our guest today actually has kind
Speaker 1: of a similar take on how he hunts the rut.
Speaker 1: For specifically, he's usually after like a specific supermature buck
Speaker 1: and he's found a lot of times, like he just
Speaker 1: needs to know he's in the zone, like if he
Speaker 1: can get a picture or a couple of pictures that
Speaker 1: tell him like, all right, the bucks in this basic zone.
Speaker 1: And then he has like four or five six different
Speaker 1: spots and he'll just kind of rotate around that little
Speaker 1: core are that ten acres or whatever? You just keep
Speaker 1: cycling and he doesn't overcomplicated, he doesn't try to obsess
Speaker 1: over well as it is it going to be in
Speaker 1: this specific spot today or this specific spot because of
Speaker 1: the wind. He's just gonna slowly cycle through this core
Speaker 1: area because he knows the bucks in there now, and
Speaker 1: he'll eventually chip away at it and then eventually he
Speaker 1: gets his opportunity. Kind of sounds like you're not too
Speaker 1: far off that, right, I Mean, it's the exact same thing.
Speaker 1: Last year's buck was the exact same thing. I had
Speaker 1: H one two three trail camp yeah, three trail camera
Speaker 1: pictures of the deer I eventually shot. And I've talked
Speaker 1: about this on this podcast before with you Mark where
Speaker 1: I you know, I I put dots on a map
Speaker 1: that I draw the line in those Johnson dots on
Speaker 1: a map with lines connected them as circles. Approach. Yes, yes, exactly,
Speaker 1: and so that yep, that should be on a T shirt.
Speaker 1: So you did that again, right? So I did it again,
Speaker 1: and sure enough I put myself right in a really
Speaker 1: good terrain feature and he showed up, and luckily he
Speaker 1: showed up like for me, luckily he showed up on
Speaker 1: the first time into that into that stand. But that's
Speaker 1: kind of how I do it. I don't necessarily say
Speaker 1: I'm going after a specific deer. I will locate a
Speaker 1: specific deer and go after him, but if another one
Speaker 1: shows up, you know, I'll I'll you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna not shoot a a shooter caliber deer. And so
Speaker 1: that's really the approach. Man. It just it's it's it's
Speaker 1: not it's not bullet pointed. It's more fluid. Yeah, hey,
Speaker 1: if it works, don't you know, don't fix if it
Speaker 1: ain't broke, So I, uh, that's right. What about you, man? Like,
Speaker 1: are you're done in Michigan right, because you're not shooting
Speaker 1: a second buck at home? Well, so what's your rut?
Speaker 1: I take off this weekend and we'll be heading to
Speaker 1: Nebraska and then Ohio. So then the Braska hunt, uh
Speaker 1: will be kind of the same general area as I've
Speaker 1: hunted the last few years. Well, I hunted their last year,
Speaker 1: and then like three or four years before that hunted there. Um,
Speaker 1: So there's some public land I can hunt, and then
Speaker 1: I also got permission on some private that's kind of
Speaker 1: down down from that public So plan or starting points Nebraska,
Speaker 1: this is like river bottom stuff with grassy hills and
Speaker 1: plains and the outside and then a little bit of
Speaker 1: cover along the river. So it sets up like really
Speaker 1: cool for the rut because there's not a lot of cover,
Speaker 1: and these deer, if they're gonna cruise, they're they're mostly
Speaker 1: gonna be staying along that cover like the doughe betting
Speaker 1: is in these thin little strips along that water. So
Speaker 1: you know, you couldn't get much more simple of a
Speaker 1: setup for the rut. They're gonna be cruising the river,
Speaker 1: you've gotta be along the river and then they're gonna
Speaker 1: cruise by. So it sets up nicely for that. It
Speaker 1: sets up nicely for decoying and calling because it's a
Speaker 1: lot of open visible space, which I really enjoy um
Speaker 1: And so I'm gonna bring my full decoy. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: bring the rattling horns, gonna bring the grunt tube hopefully
Speaker 1: get eyes on something and make some noise. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: bring the handheld decoy, which I tried for the first
Speaker 1: time last year. And if I see a situation that
Speaker 1: you know that really works well for and and the
Speaker 1: situation that supposedly this works the best with is when
Speaker 1: you have a buck locked on a doll and like
Speaker 1: you can spot them like lockdown somewhere, betted somewhere, then
Speaker 1: you can stalk in close and pop up that decoy.
Speaker 1: If I see that, I'll try that. Um, but I'm
Speaker 1: not going to force the issue like last year I
Speaker 1: forced that, like that was the only thing I did
Speaker 1: the whole trip. This year, I'm going to start in
Speaker 1: a tree, so I'm gonna bring the saddle set up.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna sit these little pinch points along the river.
Speaker 1: Um by that dough betting and hopefully catch something cruising.
Speaker 1: But you know, we'll have options, and uh, there's some
Speaker 1: there's some good deal out there, there's not. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not counting on a giant, but you know, I
Speaker 1: think I've got a good chance of that, just like
Speaker 1: a nice decent mature buck, um which i'd be I'd
Speaker 1: be stoked about up there and uh and then whenever
Speaker 1: I finished up there, I'm gonna drive straight to Ohio.
Speaker 1: And uh had like a long roundabout way of getting
Speaker 1: a piece in Ohio. This year. It all came together
Speaker 1: a really last minute. Um, like in October, after the
Speaker 1: season had already started. Um, me and a buddy I
Speaker 1: thought we were gonna get on a piece down in
Speaker 1: one part of the state. And then for a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of weird reasons, that fell through like a week
Speaker 1: into October, and so like the second week got October,
Speaker 1: then I had another opportunity to kind of pop up,
Speaker 1: and that end up working out. So what that led
Speaker 1: me to was like mid October basically picking up this
Speaker 1: new it's like two little parcels down right by where
Speaker 1: I used to hunt back in the glory days down
Speaker 1: there in Ohio. Um, literally like just a couple of
Speaker 1: properties down the road from me and for result spot.
Speaker 1: So that's exciting because I know that neighborhood was like
Speaker 1: really good, like there's always really good deer in the area. Um,
Speaker 1: like there were some giants in the area that we'd
Speaker 1: see in the summer and that we some pictures of.
Speaker 1: So so I'm back in that neighborhood, which I'm really
Speaker 1: excited about. Um. The properties are kind of like like
Speaker 1: they're okay, neither one of them. There's like I said,
Speaker 1: two parcels um totaling a hundred and seventeen acres between
Speaker 1: the two of them, but of like huntable stuff. It's
Speaker 1: really more like I don't know, like thirty five acres
Speaker 1: maybe of actually hountable stuff just so minimal trees stand locations. Yeah,
Speaker 1: minimal tree stand locations. Um. Like one of the like
Speaker 1: the there's like a thirty five acre piece and that
Speaker 1: piece is like two thirds open field, like not really
Speaker 1: huntable at all, but there's like thirteen fourteen acres a
Speaker 1: timber in one corner and it's like really good. Like
Speaker 1: I went and scouted one day to go scout and
Speaker 1: it's like epic betting in there. So like that's a
Speaker 1: really good spot in there, um with with good multiple
Speaker 1: tree stand locations in that little thirteen acre block of
Speaker 1: stuff that connects into bigger things. So that's a good
Speaker 1: little piece. Um. The other chunk is is a bigger chunk.
Speaker 1: It's like seventy four rakers or something like that. UM.
Speaker 1: But it's about half of it is fenced with cattle
Speaker 1: in it. And you know, I've had mixed success hunting
Speaker 1: around cattle. UM. It's yeah, it can be tough. The
Speaker 1: fence is like a brand new fence that's like five
Speaker 1: ft high. It's like not your usual barbed wire fence
Speaker 1: that's like waist high. It's like that little bit higher one.
Speaker 1: And it's like five strands barbed wire super tight. Um.
Speaker 1: So you yeah, it's definitely not across the bole fence easily.
Speaker 1: And it's it's more like you know when you have
Speaker 1: those short bar old barbed wire fences out there, like
Speaker 1: you can see where there's low spots and the deer
Speaker 1: always crossing and stuff. This is one of those fences
Speaker 1: where you're like, I don't know, like a buck has
Speaker 1: to really have a good reason to cross this fence. UM.
Speaker 1: And so I'm a little worried, like they might not
Speaker 1: ever cross the fence, and uh, unfortunately, like all the
Speaker 1: cover in that section is outside of the property, and
Speaker 1: like the fences, like all the fences inside the trees
Speaker 1: of the field, so it's like basically a cow pasture
Speaker 1: and all that. I could see a bunch of deer,
Speaker 1: I'm sure, But am I ever gonna be able call
Speaker 1: something over a five ft and a half foot fence
Speaker 1: or whatever it is? I don't know, So that that
Speaker 1: chunk there, I'm much less confident and after walking it
Speaker 1: um compared to what it looked like on the map.
Speaker 1: But the bottom half of the property does have like
Speaker 1: a small chunk of timber like six seven acres down
Speaker 1: the bottom that attaches to a piece that's like a
Speaker 1: sanctuary like sanctuary. So that the redeeming quality of this
Speaker 1: whole thing is that I'm tucked in really close to
Speaker 1: this sanctuary that I know has big deer that don't
Speaker 1: get touched. So I just need, you know, some of
Speaker 1: that stuff to trickle over into my little corner, and
Speaker 1: that's that's what I'm going to be banking on with that.
Speaker 1: So that's like a big wild card. I don't, I don't,
Speaker 1: I know, I've got the potential for something really cool
Speaker 1: to happen. But I also could see these two little
Speaker 1: spots being you know, really really hit or this. Um.
Speaker 1: But it was a last minute pick up, and I'm
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to, you know, throw up, throw a
Speaker 1: dart and see what happens. Yeah. Well, at least you
Speaker 1: have the yeah, at least you have the layout, right,
Speaker 1: I mean it sounds to me like and you and
Speaker 1: I both know just from hunting enough years that being
Speaker 1: next to a really good spot can make your spot
Speaker 1: really good. Yeah. Yeah, and especially during the rut, I
Speaker 1: mean right, you know, any anything is possible during the ruts.
Speaker 1: So so you know, I told him, I plan Nebraska.
Speaker 1: My plan Ohio is going to be, you know, depending
Speaker 1: what cameras are telling me. If if if that little
Speaker 1: betting chunk on the small property is on fire, um
Speaker 1: and there's a good buck in there, I'll spend some
Speaker 1: time over there. If not, I'll try the pieces next
Speaker 1: to the sanctuary and just you know, be down as
Speaker 1: close as I can be that sanctuary and have my
Speaker 1: glass up and hopefully catch a big buck curse and
Speaker 1: somewhere and right all or grun them in and get
Speaker 1: into my side and just hope for some of that
Speaker 1: RUT magic because I don't have like the primo premo
Speaker 1: habitat and the stuff I can hunt, but I'm I'm
Speaker 1: really close to it. So um, you know, it's hard
Speaker 1: these days to get a really great spot unless you've
Speaker 1: got a ton of money you can throw at it,
Speaker 1: or you know, get awesomely lucky like you did in
Speaker 1: that case. So I'm making the best of what I've
Speaker 1: got and uh, and hoping the rut can can make
Speaker 1: it happen. But betting areas and I don't really have funnels,
Speaker 1: but i't me hunting betting areas and close to betting
Speaker 1: areas and trying to call them my ways is basically
Speaker 1: going to be the plan I can I can use
Speaker 1: for my route this year. Yeah, well you can always
Speaker 1: fall back, you can you can always fall back on
Speaker 1: that uh, that fall and distress call that I saw
Speaker 1: you use online the other day. You've probably got a
Speaker 1: chuckle out of that. I got the biggest chuckle out
Speaker 1: of that. And as a matter of fact, um, I
Speaker 1: have been pure pressured into making fun of you because
Speaker 1: of it, because there's and like there's there was one
Speaker 1: guy who reached out and he said, Dan, if you
Speaker 1: do not make fun of Mark for this, I'm going
Speaker 1: to stop listening to both the Wired to Hunt and
Speaker 1: the Nine Finger Chronicles podcast. I know that's awesome. I
Speaker 1: know one I record, I'm like this, I'm gonna look
Speaker 1: like an idiot. But people wanted to like to hear
Speaker 1: what it sounds like, like like, how do I how do
Speaker 1: I demonstrate this and not look like I don't know
Speaker 1: an idiot? But you know what, you know what, as
Speaker 1: long as you're not doing it in front of like
Speaker 1: thousands of people online, as long as you're doing it
Speaker 1: in the privacy of your own dear stand, it works
Speaker 1: really well. So so don't do it. They have a
Speaker 1: turkey and duck. They have turkey and duck calling competitions.
Speaker 1: I wonder if they're if you're going to kick off
Speaker 1: something and have like competitive fall and distress call competitions.
Speaker 1: I'd owned that ship. I would absolutely own it. You
Speaker 1: would dominate five time world champion Mark Kenyan. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: if this whole podcasting doesn't work out for me, that
Speaker 1: might be the next angle I take. Yeah, you're like
Speaker 1: that guy from the movies. I don't know if you've
Speaker 1: ever seen these movies. Because they came out before your
Speaker 1: parents were born, probably, But Police Academy, there was that one.
Speaker 1: There was one guy who could make all those different
Speaker 1: noises with his mouth. Yeah, I haven't seen it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought you were gonna I thought you're gonna bring
Speaker 1: up point break. But oh no, No, I can't reflect
Speaker 1: on point break right now. But I'm sure if you
Speaker 1: give me enough time, I can make some kind of killing.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you'll get there. All right, we gotta shut
Speaker 1: this down because folks do want to hear from Skip Slide.
Speaker 1: You ever talked to Skip Slide before? You know who
Speaker 1: he is? Yeah, dude, I know Skip. He's from Iowa.
Speaker 1: I no, he's He's one of those guys down in
Speaker 1: your neck of the woods who hunts an amazing Iowa farm. Um, well,
Speaker 1: he's coming on the show next, so we should probably
Speaker 1: wrap this up so people can hear from someone who
Speaker 1: who really knows what they're doing more than you and me. Um,
Speaker 1: what tell me this now? After about thirty minutes of
Speaker 1: you and me talking about our rut plans, talking about
Speaker 1: the best time of the deer hunting season, do you
Speaker 1: have that Rick Flair energy? Now? Whoa there we go alright,
Speaker 1: baby is the rus here. It's sweet November, dude, this
Speaker 1: is it. Let's have some fun. Good luck Mark, good
Speaker 1: luck to all the listeners, and uh god, I hope
Speaker 1: everybody connects me too. Man. Let's let's circle back here
Speaker 1: in a week or two share our success stories. Huh
Speaker 1: sounds good. All right, now without other way, let's get
Speaker 1: to Skip all right here with me on the show.
Speaker 1: We have got Skip Sly. Welcome to the show, Skip, well,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. I I appreciate making the time here.
Speaker 1: We're recording just at the end of October, so I
Speaker 1: know stuff is about to get crazy for you. I'm
Speaker 1: sure it's about to get crazy for me to um.
Speaker 1: But you're a guy who you know, We've we've not
Speaker 1: been able to talk before, but I've I've keep on
Speaker 1: hearing your name. I keep on seeing your name pop
Speaker 1: up kind of in under the radar stuff. You're not
Speaker 1: like you're not on the Mark Jury like TV show
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. But like all the serious deer hunters
Speaker 1: know whose Skips Sly is. I keep on getting people say, hey,
Speaker 1: you gotta talk to Skip, you gotta talk to Skip.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I'm kind of under the radar by design. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm you know, I'm a little bit more of
Speaker 1: a private person and my public persona, if you will,
Speaker 1: is more like I like helping younger hunters. Um. A
Speaker 1: lot of people helped me because I started from scratch.
Speaker 1: My parents didn't my family didn't hunt, uh, and I
Speaker 1: had a lot of mentors along the way. So that's
Speaker 1: kind of where I dive into the public sphere is
Speaker 1: how can I help people with hunting habitat stuff like that?
Speaker 1: So that doesn't you know, it doesn't put me in
Speaker 1: the public light, and I really don't want to be
Speaker 1: in the public lights so much, so I live a
Speaker 1: pretty private life. Um. But when when there's an opportunity
Speaker 1: to help people, uh, you know, especially younger hunters who
Speaker 1: are you know, just craving good information and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: that's that's where I like my focus to be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I'm thinking this is going to be one
Speaker 1: of those chances. There's me a lot of people listening
Speaker 1: today wanting wanting some quick tips and some some ideas
Speaker 1: and some advice on how to how to make it
Speaker 1: happen during the RUP. But I gotta ask you one
Speaker 1: thing before we get into the nuts and bolts of stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: you were just telling me a second ago that we
Speaker 1: have a shared mutual friend, Andy May, who's one of
Speaker 1: the best bow hunters I know. He's the guy who's
Speaker 1: been on this podcast a lot. Um, you both were
Speaker 1: kind of coming up in Michigan at the same time
Speaker 1: as younger hunters, figuring this stuff out, and you were
Speaker 1: just telling me off air how the two of you
Speaker 1: started traveling out of state and comparing notes and talking
Speaker 1: about what I'm going here, I'm going here. Um. I
Speaker 1: thought that was very interesting that both of you kind
Speaker 1: of starting in a tough state like Michigan and then
Speaker 1: branching out and you, of course ended up moving to
Speaker 1: Iowa and he ended up staying here in Michigan. He's
Speaker 1: still doing the traveling on the weekends, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of weekend warrior kind of stuff. Can you give me
Speaker 1: like a five minute kind of background of of what
Speaker 1: that journey looked like for you and how you ended
Speaker 1: up discovering what was outside of Michigan and what drove
Speaker 1: you to Iowa eventually. Yeah, it was Um, it really
Speaker 1: did have a lot to do with mutual connections Like Andy.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think most people find guys and you know,
Speaker 1: similar ages or in similar kind of journeys in their
Speaker 1: in their hunting journey, if you will, UM that are
Speaker 1: trying to see other things, trying to find better hunting,
Speaker 1: trying to have new experiences, and UM that helped me
Speaker 1: a lot to be able to bounce things off of people.
Speaker 1: And even to this day, when you know, I'll talk
Speaker 1: to a hunter from was kind On Center in Minnesota
Speaker 1: or something, I'll you know, I'll just ask them about
Speaker 1: where they're at, what's the hunting, like, how's it changed
Speaker 1: in the last decade? Um? But to UM, to go
Speaker 1: back to the beginning there, I grew up in UM
Speaker 1: in a county in Michigan that had very little timber,
Speaker 1: a lot of people, and very few deers. So UM,
Speaker 1: I started hunting a little bit late in life. It
Speaker 1: was maybe fourteen years old when I got into it,
Speaker 1: and UM, nobody taught me how to hunt. My parents
Speaker 1: didn't hunt. I had to have my mom dropped me
Speaker 1: off at places and UM, so I got into it
Speaker 1: really late, and I, by definition had to have won
Speaker 1: the award for the worst hunter on Earth. I mean
Speaker 1: I was. I was absolutely terrible. Like I would just
Speaker 1: show up there because I had no idea what I
Speaker 1: was doing. I would show up there with my bone arrow,
Speaker 1: and I would just take a nature walk. I didn't
Speaker 1: sit in tree stands, I didn't sit in blinds. I
Speaker 1: just walk around. And and after one season of h
Speaker 1: or the first part of the season of just seeing,
Speaker 1: I saw some tales, I saw some deer running away.
Speaker 1: I thought that was just cool. And then very quickly,
Speaker 1: you know, the education started. And it didn't take long
Speaker 1: until I until, you know, I got I got to know.
Speaker 1: Some folks are like, you gotta get up in a
Speaker 1: tree stand. I mean, this stuff was I'm talking really
Speaker 1: basic things was new to me. So, um, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm fourteen years old and finally learning how to climb
Speaker 1: up in a tree stand. Uh. And I did get Um,
Speaker 1: I did get a buck the first year I hunted
Speaker 1: by pretty much by miracle. And then and then it
Speaker 1: just went from being the worst hunter on Earth two
Speaker 1: going deeper in that rabbit hole, and and getting into
Speaker 1: better hunting and improving my skills, getting into new areas,
Speaker 1: getting on a new farms, and just trying to experience everything.
Speaker 1: So uh, I got to hunt later in life when
Speaker 1: I was about nineteen, when I was in college, I
Speaker 1: hunted down in southern Michigan, and then I lived in
Speaker 1: Traverse City for a little while. Really tough hunting up there.
Speaker 1: And then my uncle had a place up in the
Speaker 1: up which I visited a few times, mainly just because
Speaker 1: it was the middle of nowhere. It was just cool
Speaker 1: to be out there. But um, that was a situation
Speaker 1: where you really could go a week without even seeing
Speaker 1: a deer um, which was probably the worst scenario of
Speaker 1: all of them. And where I grew up in West
Speaker 1: Michigan wasn't far off though. I mean, when you saw three,
Speaker 1: four or five bucks in a whole season and they
Speaker 1: were a year and a half old, that was that
Speaker 1: was a good season, or that was a typical season.
Speaker 1: And then when I got down into the farm belt,
Speaker 1: I mean that was the first time I saw two
Speaker 1: and a half year old deer, you know, getting down
Speaker 1: in Van Buren County, Chelmasoo County, Alsodden, I saw two
Speaker 1: and a half year old deer, and then all of a
Speaker 1: a sudden, I saw three and a half year deer,
Speaker 1: and then we shot one. And then my brother, like
Speaker 1: I was telling you earlier, um, a few years later,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden he shot a hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: eight point in southern Michigan, and our eyes were just opened,
Speaker 1: and that kind of, you know, that that event kind
Speaker 1: of started the floodgates of Wow, what else is out there?
Speaker 1: There's a hundred and seventy two in eight point in Michigan,
Speaker 1: which was incredibly rare, I mean, just a freak thing. Um,
Speaker 1: But where else can we go? Where else is it
Speaker 1: considerably better? Because all I had knew up until that point,
Speaker 1: just before hunting and Van Buren and Kalmazoo was you know,
Speaker 1: Ottawa County where you shot a year and a half old,
Speaker 1: maybe got a two and a half year old. So
Speaker 1: it just it just made me go, let's find better places.
Speaker 1: Let's go let's go where it's managed better, or where
Speaker 1: there's where they're actually is big deer. You know, all
Speaker 1: I knew was seeing some big deer and magazine covers
Speaker 1: and on. There really wasn't much for hunting shows back
Speaker 1: then there. So that kind of started my journey. And
Speaker 1: and so you start exploring what was out there. You
Speaker 1: then started traveling. Where all did you travel to? What
Speaker 1: were the different states you tested in those years? As
Speaker 1: you were exploring the different regions and kind of chasing
Speaker 1: that white tailed passion. So I started out my first
Speaker 1: year was we went to Illinois, and this was back
Speaker 1: in the late nineties early two thousand's. Um buddy mine said, hey,
Speaker 1: there's this place called Pike Pike County, Illinois, and there's
Speaker 1: Giant Bucks there. So I started doing as much research
Speaker 1: as I could. I mean, I remember that when I
Speaker 1: was just starting to like get on the Internet and stuff,
Speaker 1: and UM, so I would look Pike County up and
Speaker 1: I would start talking to people and and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's really good. And a lot of people from
Speaker 1: Michigan started going there, and clearly, you know, it's never
Speaker 1: stopped and it's it's became one of the most publicized
Speaker 1: counties in the country and probably had some problems because
Speaker 1: of it. UM. But I said, well, since Pike and
Speaker 1: I did figure this out way back then, I said,
Speaker 1: if Pike's that publicized, let's maybe start out at um
Speaker 1: some counties around there. So I just did some research
Speaker 1: which had low populations of people, which had a lot
Speaker 1: of timber, and which had a good composition of egg
Speaker 1: two timber, and I came up with with Fulton and
Speaker 1: Skyler County just by doing research. So once we had
Speaker 1: those two counties down where I said, I think this
Speaker 1: is where we should start them. We loaded our car up,
Speaker 1: my friend Ross and my brother went and we just
Speaker 1: started knocking on doors in in the springtime. And everywhere
Speaker 1: we knocked we got permission right out of the gate.
Speaker 1: It was the weirdest thing, um. And then we we
Speaker 1: kept knocking on doors and eventually we had a bunch
Speaker 1: of people that are like, well, you know, I let
Speaker 1: people hump, but you gotta pay me, you know, hundred
Speaker 1: dollars a day or a hundred fifty dollars a day.
Speaker 1: So I mean I didn't have it. We didn't have it.
Speaker 1: So so we finally got permission on two different from
Speaker 1: two different farmers, and they each had um kind of
Speaker 1: farms spread out all over like, hey, there's an eighty
Speaker 1: over here you can hunt. There's one sixty over here.
Speaker 1: We got two hundred over there, and you know, some
Speaker 1: of it was pasted or some of it was timber,
Speaker 1: a lot of it was wide open fields, but there
Speaker 1: was enough big timber around there. And I said, okay,
Speaker 1: now we got you know, possibly ten, ten or twelve
Speaker 1: different little farms we can hunt. So let's get to work.
Speaker 1: And you know, we scouted it all spring and hunted
Speaker 1: it for the first time that fall, and that was
Speaker 1: that was my first experience being in a new state
Speaker 1: and and learning what what a lot of different level
Speaker 1: of management was like. Yeah, and uh, from there just
Speaker 1: went crazy. Huh you yeah, kept doing it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: I know, I didn't really like Illinois so much. I
Speaker 1: mean everywhere we went, UM, it shuffled really quick, Like
Speaker 1: every place we got permission on, you know, the next
Speaker 1: year it was leased up. I mean it changed rapidly,
Speaker 1: I mean rapidly within five years, and we'd go to
Speaker 1: the next place, and then eventually I knew what was coming.
Speaker 1: So I chowed up. There was some money because that
Speaker 1: was my only option because I wanted to go there. Um,
Speaker 1: but there was just it was really intensely pressured from
Speaker 1: honest state folks. UM. I saw it change really quickly.
Speaker 1: So we started going to uh, Kansas, Nebraska, and then Iowa,
Speaker 1: uh in a few other states, Missouri. UM. So we
Speaker 1: we bounced around to a lot of different places, and
Speaker 1: you know, for me, I didn't I didn't know which
Speaker 1: one would be good. I didn't know. Um, I didn't
Speaker 1: have a lot of expectations. I just knew there was
Speaker 1: a lot of potential. So um, you know, fast forward
Speaker 1: in I uh low twenties, actually is when we started
Speaker 1: going to all these other places. I went to Northeast
Speaker 1: Kansas and we ended up shooting phenomenal bucks in Northeast Kansas.
Speaker 1: It was just fantastic. Uh. And clearly I fell in
Speaker 1: love with Iowa. Um. You know the first the very
Speaker 1: first time I hunted Iowa. The first morning. I mean
Speaker 1: this maybe it's why I wound up here, I don't know,
Speaker 1: but the first morning I shot a um like a
Speaker 1: half hour in the stand. I shot a hundred hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy seven inch here, and you know it just
Speaker 1: points all over. I mean it was it spoiled. Man.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my goodness, I hunt the state for
Speaker 1: a half hour and I shot at one seventy seven.
Speaker 1: This this is the greatest place on earth. Clearly, clearly
Speaker 1: that was a fluke. But um, yeah, I fell in
Speaker 1: love with Iowa right out of the gate, and I
Speaker 1: still I still will go out to Kansas. I love Kansas. Um.
Speaker 1: It'd be my my next next place of passion and
Speaker 1: where I'd go if I couldn't hunt Iowa. Um, I
Speaker 1: don't think, uh personally, I don't think somebody could pay
Speaker 1: me enough to go back and hunt Michigan. I just
Speaker 1: couldn't do it. Uh. But I mean I love it.
Speaker 1: I love it out here. And now I live in Iowa,
Speaker 1: raised my family in Iowa, and I have farms in Iowa.
Speaker 1: But um so I'm in a really good spot now.
Speaker 1: But you know, that's the progression of over twenty years,
Speaker 1: I mean twenty five years of going from the absolute
Speaker 1: worst hunting scenario I can imagine um to one of
Speaker 1: the better ones. Um. And there still is I mean
Speaker 1: in several states. I mean there's some amazing pockets to
Speaker 1: be found out there. Uh, it just takes some motivation
Speaker 1: and time to seek them out and to learn them
Speaker 1: and and to put the years into um to figure
Speaker 1: mountain hunt him. Well, I love this, this background you
Speaker 1: bring to the table, And the reason why I kind
Speaker 1: of wanted to start there is that there's a lot
Speaker 1: of folks who share deer hunting advice on TV shows
Speaker 1: or podcasts or who write articles, and they have only
Speaker 1: ever hunted in Iowa, or only ever hunted in Illinois,
Speaker 1: or they grew up in Kansas and that's where all
Speaker 1: their experiences, it's all of their advice, all of their
Speaker 1: you know, everything they're bringing to the table is just
Speaker 1: on that kind of deer. And as you know, it's
Speaker 1: a different situation in Michigan or Pennsylvania or Georgia or
Speaker 1: New York State, whatever it is. So I love that,
Speaker 1: I love that you have this experience in both. And
Speaker 1: I guess the people in Iowa there is a lot
Speaker 1: of people or Kansas or Ohio. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: people from Michigan actually, or Wisconsin or Minnesota, Pennsylvania that
Speaker 1: have moved to these areas from those really hard to
Speaker 1: hunt states. And and I'm not necessarily I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about myself, but those people who have had to grind
Speaker 1: it out in those really hard states to hunt, who
Speaker 1: are successful there. When they come to a place like
Speaker 1: Iowa or Kansas, or Ohio or um parts Illinois yet uh,
Speaker 1: and they hunt there, they usually flourish because they've they've
Speaker 1: had to grind it out in the toughest environment known.
Speaker 1: And then when you put them in an environment that's
Speaker 1: I mean has a lot of potential, they do really
Speaker 1: really well, and they oftentimes do better than the folks
Speaker 1: who have lived here forever. Yeah, Yeah, I've always thought
Speaker 1: that these are great training grounds, really really good place
Speaker 1: to train up. Absolutely. So let's let's then explore a
Speaker 1: couple of things that you've found over the years. We're
Speaker 1: talking the rut. This is coming out like right smack
Speaker 1: dab at the beginning of the best time of year
Speaker 1: for folks across the country hunting during the rut. First
Speaker 1: thing I'm curious about is how would someone be hunting
Speaker 1: the rut differently in a state like Michigan versus a
Speaker 1: state like Iowa. Let's let's talk about if you had
Speaker 1: to I know you would, you wouldn't do it even
Speaker 1: if somebody paid you. But if you had to go
Speaker 1: back to Michigan, knowing what you know about it back there,
Speaker 1: what you learned, what did work for you in those years,
Speaker 1: what would be some of the things that you'd be
Speaker 1: doing there that might be different than all the guys
Speaker 1: on TV are saying about Honey Aisle or Illinois. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and you know what what I and I listened
Speaker 1: occasionally to what a lot of the guys say on TV,
Speaker 1: and there's some good advice out there, But I would
Speaker 1: say you'd have to sift through it um, and it
Speaker 1: is usually I wouldn't pay attention to a lot of it. UM.
Speaker 1: So that's that's really tough to sift through things when
Speaker 1: you're just hearing on TV, or if you're just hearing
Speaker 1: it from someone who just wants to sell you something.
Speaker 1: That's tough. But um, you know, going going to Michigan,
Speaker 1: if I had to start out back there, um, I
Speaker 1: mean clearly, if if I had to do it, I
Speaker 1: clearly would target areas that have the best white tail habitat,
Speaker 1: have the best age structure, and the best potential. This
Speaker 1: is if you're going for a mature Buck or a
Speaker 1: better scoring Bucks, stuff like that. Um. And clearly I
Speaker 1: think most people would know, hey, let's target the southern
Speaker 1: tier of the state. So so we've got our geographical target,
Speaker 1: and you know that's that southern tier is considerably better
Speaker 1: in my opinion than the rest of the state. UM.
Speaker 1: So with that, I think generally our approach, especially when
Speaker 1: I was younger, UM, was kind of the shotgun approach
Speaker 1: where we didn't we didn't just bank on one farm.
Speaker 1: I mean, we had to play a numbers game. We had.
Speaker 1: It was a numbers game for us. It was you know,
Speaker 1: being out in the springtime and you know, putting in
Speaker 1: the work to say, hey, you know it was just
Speaker 1: me and my one brother at the time, but hey,
Speaker 1: we got forty spots picked out. That took a lot
Speaker 1: of time. I mean, it took a lot of knocking
Speaker 1: on doors, and we went to a lot of places
Speaker 1: that were crowded and well we already got five guys
Speaker 1: hunting in there. And at the time we said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, we're we're okay with that. And so we'd
Speaker 1: find all these different places anywhere we could get in.
Speaker 1: I mean it wasn't uh necessarily really well managed farms.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just by permission. So after that,
Speaker 1: I think the game for us in Michigan just became
Speaker 1: one a numbers game. Like I said, just having a
Speaker 1: lot of setups, um that we're done right, uh deepen
Speaker 1: deep into the timber would be an example. And and
Speaker 1: one thing I think that that helped us be successful
Speaker 1: in Michigan that we don't have to do necessarily in
Speaker 1: Iowa as much. Um it was we had to hunt
Speaker 1: around the people, so where the people were, we avoided that.
Speaker 1: You know, you go out to like a um lake
Speaker 1: and you don't know what you're doing fishing and people
Speaker 1: see other boats and they go towards those boats. Well
Speaker 1: that's where the fish are. Well with hunting, when we
Speaker 1: saw people in certain areas, we were trying and avoid that,
Speaker 1: and we just try and go, Okay, how far back
Speaker 1: can we get and where can we find these spots
Speaker 1: that are killer? And I can define what killer is,
Speaker 1: and I mean there's a lot of variables there, but
Speaker 1: how can we find these killer spots? And how can
Speaker 1: we find twenty of them? Mean, it's a lot of work.
Speaker 1: Anybody can do it. Anywhere you can, you can do this.
Speaker 1: It was a lot of work. So how can we
Speaker 1: find twenty different killer spots that don't have five tree
Speaker 1: stands hung around them already? And that was a really
Speaker 1: hard task in Michigan, really hard, but it can be done.
Speaker 1: It can be replicated over and over and over. So
Speaker 1: I would say my brother and I probably had twenty,
Speaker 1: maybe even thirty spots picked out across as many farms
Speaker 1: as we could, ten farms in southern Michigan. And you
Speaker 1: know that would be year one. So hey, we've got
Speaker 1: twenty spots, I'd say thirty, um, and then the next
Speaker 1: year we'd whittle it down to hey, the you know,
Speaker 1: we we take ten of those spots and we those
Speaker 1: aren't good. Those were not well thought out spots, a
Speaker 1: lot of problems or just didn't have luck, and we
Speaker 1: tweak them. We tried to add five and ten more
Speaker 1: good spots, but we generally would go back to extremely
Speaker 1: thick cover um terrain changes within the timber, you know,
Speaker 1: massive sign if you could find scrape lines, rub linds, whatever,
Speaker 1: it was just differences way back in there. Um. And
Speaker 1: that could be so many different scenarios way back in
Speaker 1: the timber. Uh. But the obvious spots we personally kind
Speaker 1: of avoided them, like, hey, this timber right here gets
Speaker 1: narrow going into a um, into a couple of fingers,
Speaker 1: it's a natural funnel. We didn't really hunt that because
Speaker 1: usually there was three, four or five tree stands are
Speaker 1: already they either screwed the spot up or the deer
Speaker 1: that was in there it was already dead. So so
Speaker 1: I would say, um, you know, long story made short.
Speaker 1: Hunting around the hunters was critical, and just getting back
Speaker 1: into those um those beaten up areas as deep and
Speaker 1: overlooked as possible with h with the best sign was
Speaker 1: was our model for success back in Michigan. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's interesting. Now, those obvious kinds of funnels and things
Speaker 1: like that, when you're hunting in a lower pressure state
Speaker 1: like in Iowa, you can still hunt those in your
Speaker 1: neck of the woods now though, right, it's absolutely and
Speaker 1: we had to retrain ourselves when we got out here,
Speaker 1: and um, and there's even different different tiers between you know,
Speaker 1: when we came to Iowa. Hey, yeah, it was the
Speaker 1: same thing to some extent. Yeah, you can hunt this
Speaker 1: eighty acres. There is two other guys hunting there. There's
Speaker 1: three other guys hunting there. Um, But there was generally
Speaker 1: more more box, more a better age class of box,
Speaker 1: and you could just get away with a little bit
Speaker 1: more just do to the fact that they're they're simply
Speaker 1: was just more older bucks. So if one guy tagged out,
Speaker 1: there was still probably another mature buck in there, an
Speaker 1: older buck in there. So yeah, I mean, we we
Speaker 1: did the same thing in Iowa right when we got here.
Speaker 1: We just we'd hike way back in there. Um. And
Speaker 1: sometimes it was on public land, sometimes it was on permission,
Speaker 1: but we just we were so so wired to hike
Speaker 1: way the heck back in there and we had great
Speaker 1: success doing it, but then we realized, hey, we don't
Speaker 1: necessarily always have to do that. And you know, from
Speaker 1: there that was you know, twenty years ago, um to now.
Speaker 1: It's it's still an evolution of how how we do things.
Speaker 1: And I'm changing things even now, and five years from now,
Speaker 1: all hunt differently than I hunt now, and I'll learn
Speaker 1: new things. I mean, this learning on this never ends.
Speaker 1: And there's like I was talking to earlier, there's no
Speaker 1: magic answer. If you do this, if you use this product,
Speaker 1: if you hunt this spot, this type of spot, you're
Speaker 1: gonna shoot a mature here. It isn't It isn't that
Speaker 1: simple at all. Yeah. You know, one of the things
Speaker 1: when folks talk about the rut you hear a lot
Speaker 1: about is you know, generically high level people will say, well,
Speaker 1: you gotta hunt funnels or you gotta hunt dough betting areas,
Speaker 1: and you gotta put in a lot of time. And
Speaker 1: that's true, all true, and I say the same thing
Speaker 1: that the basic principle of it. But it's a lot
Speaker 1: harder for especially newer hunters to hear that and then
Speaker 1: find something like that on the ground that actually matches up.
Speaker 1: And they're like Oh yeah, this is the thing. Um.
Speaker 1: And while you were just talking, you're mentioned like you're
Speaker 1: looking for these killer spots, and you'd have twenty or
Speaker 1: thirty these killer spots. It got me thinking that it
Speaker 1: could be it might be really interesting and helpful for
Speaker 1: you to just describe, like in detail a few of
Speaker 1: your killer rut spots now and like why, like specifically,
Speaker 1: why this spot works so well for the rut? What
Speaker 1: kind of situation would you hunt this kind of set
Speaker 1: up in? Um? Because getting these like clear examples sometimes
Speaker 1: can illustrate a concept so much better than just generically
Speaker 1: being like, well, hunt type pinches of timber, YadA, YadA.
Speaker 1: Are the setups that specifically come to mind when you
Speaker 1: think of your best rut setups that you know have
Speaker 1: worked for you time and time again, that we could
Speaker 1: talk through. Yeah, I've got tree stands that I've had
Speaker 1: up for a decade now. Um. Starting out, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of times we were just moving around,
Speaker 1: we rarely hunted the same farm more than a year
Speaker 1: or two. So now I've had the luxury of hunting
Speaker 1: the same farms for decades and and a lot of
Speaker 1: my sets I gotta go change the straps puts a
Speaker 1: chain on them because I don't know when I'm going
Speaker 1: to get back there, and I don't want the tree
Speaker 1: stand to grow into the tree. But it's just a
Speaker 1: proven spot over and over and over and over. And
Speaker 1: you know, when I visualize all these spots, um, I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily want folks to get caught up on trying
Speaker 1: to understand exactly what I'm describing, because there's so many
Speaker 1: diverse types of killer spots I have. I mean, I've
Speaker 1: got this spot where the river just bends the right
Speaker 1: way and it just it fun these deer um towards
Speaker 1: this end of the timber. And then there's this this
Speaker 1: natural um kind of wash out of the creek bank
Speaker 1: where every deer will cross. And then you go you
Speaker 1: go down the river from that crossing, and it's just
Speaker 1: a wall on the on the river. It's just a
Speaker 1: wall where the deer can't get up it. So so
Speaker 1: you found you know, two, it's probably two hundred yards
Speaker 1: of wall. And then this major spot where the river
Speaker 1: bends that naturally funnels them around and they're naturally coming
Speaker 1: up this river bank and I mean it's just the
Speaker 1: highway there and then it intersects another trail within there.
Speaker 1: So you get there and you go look at this
Speaker 1: massive trail, which is very basic. I mean, there's a
Speaker 1: massive trail, doesn't mean there's a giant deer there. Doesn't mean, um,
Speaker 1: you're gonna kill a deer there if you sit there.
Speaker 1: But there is a lot of traffic. And then you
Speaker 1: found this intersecting trail. Uh, and then beyond that you
Speaker 1: follow it back in and there's just you know, rubs
Speaker 1: and scrapes, and then and then it it goes into
Speaker 1: a um into a really thick betting area or kind
Speaker 1: of swampy type of area. So there's all these cover changes. Well, um,
Speaker 1: it's just so torn up and I can access it
Speaker 1: reasonably well that during the rut, if you sit on
Speaker 1: a spot with that much traffic, you're gonna see a
Speaker 1: lot of deer. So that just puts kind of the
Speaker 1: odds in your favor. And I've got another spot like
Speaker 1: that where it's kind of in the bottom um off
Speaker 1: of a ridge. And my my worry there at the
Speaker 1: time a decade ago, was that my winds were gonna
Speaker 1: swirl and every time I went in there with like
Speaker 1: a little um milk weed or or whatever, a little
Speaker 1: thing to check the wind. I would notice for whatever
Speaker 1: reason this spot, my thermals would just get sucked up.
Speaker 1: And I can still hunt there any day during the
Speaker 1: rut I want, and I don't hunt it very often,
Speaker 1: but um, I never get ended there and for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: my thermals go up. Just how the how the wind
Speaker 1: moves through that spot. But it's got like three ridges
Speaker 1: that all just kind of come down, and all these
Speaker 1: paths off these three ridges just intersect by this tree
Speaker 1: stand and then there's a big betting area to the north.
Speaker 1: So they're all kind of you know, those types of
Speaker 1: spots I would say, are kind of deeper into the timber. Um.
Speaker 1: It's just an intersection of trails. It's a it's a
Speaker 1: terrain change where you just you just look at it
Speaker 1: and you just say, look at look at the cover,
Speaker 1: or look at the trails here, look at the deer
Speaker 1: sign here. It's just every year it's the same. It's
Speaker 1: it will it will be a great spot twenty years
Speaker 1: from now, it'll be it'll be a great spot this year,
Speaker 1: it will be a great spot forever. Um. So we've
Speaker 1: got a lot of those spots. And then the key
Speaker 1: and where I think a lot of people maybe make
Speaker 1: some mistakes, is hey, I got I got two spots
Speaker 1: like that, and they just hunt them over and over
Speaker 1: and over. A lot of guys do what the common
Speaker 1: hunter does, um, And the key is is to have
Speaker 1: twenty spots like that, and you know, now, um, I've
Speaker 1: got I've got a lot of other spots that are
Speaker 1: quite quite a bit easier to hunt. But I guess
Speaker 1: my general rule of thumb, now uh, without getting into like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm hunting a specific buck or you know, hunting um
Speaker 1: specific farm for reason is you know, I probably have
Speaker 1: maybe five for just myself, maybe five tree stands that
Speaker 1: I can hunt on any given wind. So if there's
Speaker 1: a west wind, I got five different stands I cannot
Speaker 1: if there's an east wind, I have five different stands
Speaker 1: I can hunt north wind, etcetera, etcetera. So I just
Speaker 1: have a lot of options. And I'm very very careful
Speaker 1: now not to not to over pressure anything. Even in Iowa.
Speaker 1: Even in Iowa it still has done. There's a ton
Speaker 1: of mistakes done in Iowa. What about during the rut,
Speaker 1: that idea of over pressuring your spot, would you say
Speaker 1: you can get away with more of that during this
Speaker 1: time of year than you know, early in October. I
Speaker 1: mean to three hunts has got it? Would you say
Speaker 1: that's less of a big deal than to three days
Speaker 1: in a row on October one? Three? Yes, if it's
Speaker 1: if it's just yourself, if if if it's just you
Speaker 1: in this secluded spot, maybe it's the way the heck
Speaker 1: buck back in public, which does exist here. I mean
Speaker 1: there's there's some two mile hikes out on some big
Speaker 1: public tracks out here, um where you can you can
Speaker 1: occasionally find the spot where it really isn't a lot
Speaker 1: of other hunting pressure. So if it's just you, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean two, three, maybe even four hunts um in
Speaker 1: a really ideal spot. And if you're you're kind of going, hey,
Speaker 1: I want to hunt this spot because just because I
Speaker 1: know it's a good spot I know there's generally as
Speaker 1: mature box on this farm or amature buck on this
Speaker 1: farm that may use it. Um, you know, three, four
Speaker 1: or five hunts I think is probably fine. And then
Speaker 1: you know, if if you want to be more aggressive
Speaker 1: about it and probably smarter about it, you know, those
Speaker 1: those spots like that, you probably a vantageous to get
Speaker 1: in there early in the morning and stay till the
Speaker 1: whole day. I man, it really is not benefiting you
Speaker 1: at all if you can And I did this a
Speaker 1: lot more when I was younger, and I do a
Speaker 1: lot less now just because different reasons. But if you
Speaker 1: can stay there all day, it's very very worthwhile, especially
Speaker 1: in in states like um I or or even Michigan
Speaker 1: when when the deer are really running. I mean there's
Speaker 1: been a lot of instances where it's ten thirty and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you know, I'm bored out of
Speaker 1: my mind, I think, And also nicee the deer I
Speaker 1: want to shoot or one o'clock. I mean, so yeah,
Speaker 1: three or four or five times on an ideal spot,
Speaker 1: if somebody else isn't isn't goofing it up, I think
Speaker 1: it's very viable. So there's that. There's there's kind of
Speaker 1: two schools of thought on that kind of scenario during
Speaker 1: the run. There's there's one school that's say, all right,
Speaker 1: if you've got this spot that you have really really
Speaker 1: high confidence in, if you hunt it three days in
Speaker 1: a row all day, event, sure leave that buck will
Speaker 1: come through. While the other school will say, no, you
Speaker 1: should be constantly bouncing from hot sign to hot sign.
Speaker 1: If you have a bad day, don't sit there anymore,
Speaker 1: because you know the rut the rut fest might be
Speaker 1: a half mile away down on the other side. You
Speaker 1: gotta be bouncing around until you find the hot action.
Speaker 1: If you had to choose between those two choices, either
Speaker 1: volume hunting a spot you have really high confidence in
Speaker 1: for that three or four day window, or bounce bounce bounce,
Speaker 1: which would you say is the better chance for consistent
Speaker 1: rut success? Um? I would say, if you go in
Speaker 1: there the first day and you see your target buck
Speaker 1: and you just aren't able to get him an arrange
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, I'd go back to that spot. If
Speaker 1: you're in there the first day in your hot spot
Speaker 1: and you're seeing just a lot of activity and you
Speaker 1: don't feel like you screwed anything up, I would go back.
Speaker 1: If you go into your target spot and it's extremely slow, um,
Speaker 1: or you know you feel like, man, I just bumped
Speaker 1: a whole lot of deer getting in and out of here,
Speaker 1: or a lot of deer winded me, and you know
Speaker 1: I would I would move. So clearly there's not a
Speaker 1: writer or a wrong answer here. I mean, the guy
Speaker 1: that says you should move if he you know he
Speaker 1: could get proved wrong by the guy that stays because
Speaker 1: there's no perfect answer here. But UM, I think by
Speaker 1: the end of day one, I would adjust based on
Speaker 1: what I see. If I'm seeing a lot of maketure, dear,
Speaker 1: if I'm seeing a lot of deer period and I'm
Speaker 1: like this, this spot is on fire, stay put. If
Speaker 1: it's if he um or problematic at all, I'd get
Speaker 1: out of there and try something different. Okay, what about
Speaker 1: if you're after a specific deer you know, I know
Speaker 1: that's something that that you it sounds like, have done
Speaker 1: over the years plenty of times. How does your approach
Speaker 1: to all of this picking a killer spot, determining whether
Speaker 1: or not you're gonna bounce around from location local location,
Speaker 1: or stick it out. When you're shifting from just oh
Speaker 1: I want a good buck too, I want that buck,
Speaker 1: how does your rut strategy change drastically? So, UM, I
Speaker 1: would say I've been hunting thirty years, and I would
Speaker 1: say it's the last ten years when I transition from
Speaker 1: almost exclusively hunting for a good buck that I didn't
Speaker 1: know what he was. I had no idea what this
Speaker 1: buck looked like. I just knew I had to go
Speaker 1: in aga buck, look at him and go yep, I
Speaker 1: want to shoot that deer, you know, And clearly a
Speaker 1: lot of that time was before trail cameras were around,
Speaker 1: um to the last ten years, going hey, these are
Speaker 1: the bucks I want to go after. And when I
Speaker 1: find a buck I want to go after, or a
Speaker 1: handful of bucks I go after. Um, you know my
Speaker 1: approach of hey had permission on five six seven farms.
Speaker 1: You know, there's probably a handful of those farms. I
Speaker 1: really won't even hunt unless I'm just kind of like
Speaker 1: I want to burn a day, or you know, I
Speaker 1: just want to sit or or do an observation stand
Speaker 1: at at a farm that I don't think has my
Speaker 1: target buck. So um, I'll just focus on that farm
Speaker 1: or farms where that mature buck lives, and then I
Speaker 1: kill a lot, probably half of the maturity right now.
Speaker 1: I do now in October UM, which somewhat can be
Speaker 1: related to the rut. I mean, these these deer are
Speaker 1: getting a little more aggressive, They're not tolerating other bucks.
Speaker 1: So I killed probably half of them in October, and
Speaker 1: then when it gets in November, my U strategy changes drastically.
Speaker 1: I go clearly from the deer that is traveling, you know,
Speaker 1: three hundred yards from bedding to food and he's kind
Speaker 1: of in that that scrape, rub and food pattern. You know,
Speaker 1: just a small travel area. Now it's just expanding and
Speaker 1: it's just getting larger and larger every day, which is
Speaker 1: good and bad. So if I have a radius of
Speaker 1: where I say, hey, this deer lives, I want to
Speaker 1: have you know, maybe five stands in that area for
Speaker 1: different winds. And for me, it's a little bit of
Speaker 1: a crapshoot, but it's a little bit going, Okay, these
Speaker 1: are the best trails. Um, this is the best uh
Speaker 1: you know, maybe maybe it's a spot where this this
Speaker 1: buck is cruising the edge of a field fifty yards
Speaker 1: in there, checking all the um the trails in and
Speaker 1: out of there for those you know, just sending the
Speaker 1: whole line, you know, obvious spots like okay, I know
Speaker 1: I can hit a buck on this wind cruising this
Speaker 1: timbered edge, and then there's a spot over on the
Speaker 1: other side of his range where you know, there's a
Speaker 1: major crossing there, and then there's another spot that's kind
Speaker 1: of a funnel. And I'll just pick maybe five or
Speaker 1: six of the best spots I can come up with
Speaker 1: which that's a variety of different types of spots that
Speaker 1: are in his core range. And let's just call it, like,
Speaker 1: you know, an eight core range of where that deer is.
Speaker 1: And I'll just try and rotate it unless unless I know, hey,
Speaker 1: I I saw him here, and then I'll probably you know,
Speaker 1: change it as needed or hanging to stand as needed.
Speaker 1: But um, I'll just kind of rotate in his core area.
Speaker 1: And and usually you know, you put in the time,
Speaker 1: you do things correctly, you button you, you cross your tees,
Speaker 1: dot your eyes, and do thing and hunt hard. Usually
Speaker 1: you're gonna get a glimpse of that deer. Um, unless
Speaker 1: it gets too late into the rut where a lot
Speaker 1: of these deer who knows where they go? Sometimes, I
Speaker 1: mean there's deer that I I've you know, on my
Speaker 1: home farm that I'm like, I know this dear's personality,
Speaker 1: I know uh a lot about where this deer lives.
Speaker 1: And there's certain periods where it's like, man, you caught
Speaker 1: that window where you just don't know where he is.
Speaker 1: I mean, he could be locked down in a weird
Speaker 1: spot with the dough that you're gonna have no chance
Speaker 1: in getting them really, Um, he could be a half
Speaker 1: mile away, two miles away, whatever. But that that's when
Speaker 1: I think it gets the most difficult, is when it
Speaker 1: gets deep into the rut um on on hunting a
Speaker 1: specific box. So so to circle back and make my long,
Speaker 1: long winded answer shorter um earlier in the rut early November,
Speaker 1: late October up until maybe November seven or eight, when
Speaker 1: they really are with does I would say, finding an
Speaker 1: eight to acre core area and just kind of having
Speaker 1: that that area around that box geography pinned down with
Speaker 1: at least five or six different spots that you're like,
Speaker 1: I think there's a good chance he'll travel through here.
Speaker 1: I think there's a good chance I can see him here,
Speaker 1: or you know, this is the type of scenario where
Speaker 1: he's going to be cruising in here looking for dose.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Now what about that next phase once he
Speaker 1: gets to that with a dough phase November and you're
Speaker 1: saying he might be gone, he might be locked on
Speaker 1: a dough You just don't know. Uh, you still want
Speaker 1: to hunt him though, possibly What would you do in
Speaker 1: that situation? Then? How do you make the best of
Speaker 1: that tougher situation? So I got a dear um maybe
Speaker 1: five years ago. Um I been. I actually went back
Speaker 1: to hunting closer to food, and a lot of times
Speaker 1: those bucks will take a dough and you know, try
Speaker 1: and just put bringer into a weird spot for a reason.
Speaker 1: Weird spot as in other deer don't usually go there
Speaker 1: because he wants to just keep her out of sight. Well,
Speaker 1: there's sometimes there's those scenarios where you can't do anything
Speaker 1: about that. But I said, you know what, I want
Speaker 1: to try and find this buck. So I went back
Speaker 1: to hunting near food. And sure enough, this dough came
Speaker 1: from a totally different direction as all the other does
Speaker 1: and small bucks that I saw, Like, that's kind of
Speaker 1: odd that does coming from over there. It was like
Speaker 1: coming from like right by the road. And this dough
Speaker 1: comes into the bed or into the into um into
Speaker 1: this egg type area where a lot of the deer feeding,
Speaker 1: and right behind her was the buck. I was after him,
Speaker 1: like what in the world they were bettered by the road? Well,
Speaker 1: she has to eat, she wanted to eat. And he
Speaker 1: I could tell that this buck did not want to
Speaker 1: be there. He did not want to be by these
Speaker 1: all the other deer, and he didn't want to be
Speaker 1: by the other bucks. And sure enough, the other bucks
Speaker 1: um started coming in there and harass in the dough.
Speaker 1: He'd run them off, and you could tell he didn't
Speaker 1: want to be there. Um. And he came about fifty
Speaker 1: yards away and just was on that dough. There was
Speaker 1: nothing I was gonna do to call that buck off.
Speaker 1: I mean, I could, you know, potentially try and do
Speaker 1: like a a little buck ground to where it ticked
Speaker 1: him off, but I mean it didn't work. And and
Speaker 1: if if I even did it, and he ended up
Speaker 1: just kind of getting her out of there, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: dang it, I missed my my opportunity. Well, ten minutes later,
Speaker 1: she said, hey, I want food, and she came back
Speaker 1: to that egg field um, and he was. It was
Speaker 1: just a lucky thing. I mean he was right on
Speaker 1: right behind her and boom, fift in front of my
Speaker 1: stand is where she walked, and I knew because she
Speaker 1: walked there he was following. There's nothing he's going to
Speaker 1: do different. I mean, he is locked on this dough.
Speaker 1: When I shot that deer at fifteen yards, I mean
Speaker 1: it was a a six or seven year old buck um.
Speaker 1: And part of that that's just luck. Uh. Part of
Speaker 1: that is just changing my strategy a little bit um
Speaker 1: and realizing that there's just going to be an odd
Speaker 1: areas a lot of times during that time. And that's
Speaker 1: what a lot of people will probably call the lockdown phase.
Speaker 1: And the lockdown phase means that buck is probably uh
Speaker 1: out with that dough in an odd spot. And the
Speaker 1: last thing I'd add to that, you know when you're
Speaker 1: in the lockdown phase, Um, it's kind of saying like
Speaker 1: most of the bucks are lockdown, doesn't mean all of them.
Speaker 1: And I also understand, like you know, that lockdown phase
Speaker 1: is gonna last for two or three days and there
Speaker 1: will be a light switch that happens where it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: he's done with that dough. Now he's looking for the
Speaker 1: next one. So I'm always kind of ready for that
Speaker 1: phase to change. And it is a very real thing
Speaker 1: that I see every year. You don't know when it's
Speaker 1: gonna hit, but I definitely see that lockdown phase where
Speaker 1: it's very difficult hunting. My buddies are frustrated, you know,
Speaker 1: I get the text message I'm not seeing anything. It's
Speaker 1: just like stick with it, stick with it, um, give
Speaker 1: it a few days, try a few new things, try
Speaker 1: some new areas. You can't give up. So it gets
Speaker 1: to be a little bit of a mental game and
Speaker 1: a little bit of understanding that. You know, any mature
Speaker 1: buck that's locked down with the dough, it's still a
Speaker 1: matter of two or three days and he's going to
Speaker 1: come off that dough and he's gonna become visible again.
Speaker 1: So so speaking of this whole buck locked on a
Speaker 1: dough situation, um, you know, I've found I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people have seen where when a buck does
Speaker 1: have a dough like that, they'll they'll stick to a
Speaker 1: kind of tight spot. He'll he'll get her in some
Speaker 1: little patch of cover and he'll want to keep her
Speaker 1: there as much as possible. She might go to feed
Speaker 1: here and there, but it seems like for that twenty
Speaker 1: four or forty eight hours or whatever it is, they'll
Speaker 1: they'll be in a in a zone. And some guys
Speaker 1: like to get really aggressive with that. And then if
Speaker 1: they see the buck like better with the dough, some
Speaker 1: guys will actually try to stalk in there, or other
Speaker 1: folks might say, Okay, he was in that cover or
Speaker 1: he left that cover tonight, I'm gonna be in that
Speaker 1: little one acre of of cover, you know, tomorrow morning.
Speaker 1: An hour before daylight and they're gonna come back to it.
Speaker 1: Do you ever do something like that or what do
Speaker 1: you do when you see a buck with a dough
Speaker 1: and you know, like, all right, he's on or now,
Speaker 1: um they're gonna be back there or do nothing? So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's clearly um, clearly no right or wrong
Speaker 1: answer here. I mean, if it's a situation where I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: they are right on, you know, there's a little hump
Speaker 1: before uh, Like if I was driving down the road
Speaker 1: by my farm and I noticed the giant buck was
Speaker 1: like in this little plum thicket. It's kind of out
Speaker 1: in the middle of nowhere, Like what in the world,
Speaker 1: which is what we see? I mean that when people
Speaker 1: notice this type of stuff, like why is there a
Speaker 1: buck out always with the dough and there's these weird
Speaker 1: possible if I knew, like, hey, you know, there was
Speaker 1: a way to stalk up really close and there was
Speaker 1: some kind of visual obstacle where I could get close,
Speaker 1: absolutely I give it a shot. How often does that happen?
Speaker 1: I mean rarely. I maybe have done it one maybe
Speaker 1: two times in my whole life. I'm just me personally.
Speaker 1: I'm just not super effective at that. Now, other guys
Speaker 1: might be just ridiculously talented at at um stalking on
Speaker 1: a deer. And if you're if you're talented at at
Speaker 1: stalking a deer, um, I would say go for it,
Speaker 1: of course, and it certainly is worth a shot. Uh.
Speaker 1: Now on the flip side of that, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: if I saw it like at noon, I might I
Speaker 1: might try and hunt hang a stand somewhere close to
Speaker 1: there where I think you know, they're probably they're probably
Speaker 1: not gonna sit there the whole day, they're gonna get
Speaker 1: up and go. Is there is there some kind of
Speaker 1: spot I can hang close by where I might be
Speaker 1: able to get them where I think they might go
Speaker 1: by um? Or yes, uh, you know, if there was
Speaker 1: a way to get in there, you know, super early
Speaker 1: the next morning in the dark and hanging stand and
Speaker 1: be close in there absolutely is worth a shot. I mean,
Speaker 1: when you've got that kind of intelligence, like I just
Speaker 1: saw a giant buck, I mean, you gotta you gotta
Speaker 1: just try anything possible, um, whether it's stalking, whether it's
Speaker 1: setting up close by, whether it's setting up immediately. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's for sure a case of getting
Speaker 1: aggressive when you have a target buck that you know
Speaker 1: of and you know exactly where he is. That's that's rare,
Speaker 1: great information. It's not easy, but it's all awesome information
Speaker 1: to have. Yeah, So speaking of intel, and you know,
Speaker 1: getting that information you can make make a decision, figure
Speaker 1: out to hunt from. How do traill cameras factor into
Speaker 1: your rut hunting if at all? Are they less important
Speaker 1: at that time of year? Are you religiously still studying
Speaker 1: them that kind of you know, in that first week
Speaker 1: or two of November, or what's your data kind of analysis? Look? Sure,
Speaker 1: Um my personal approach which is different than everybody else's.
Speaker 1: Everybody's got a different view on this. Um, I just
Speaker 1: want to know a box in the area. That's it.
Speaker 1: And if he's at an exact spot at such and
Speaker 1: such time, I mean, okay, especially during the rut, the
Speaker 1: very next day, he's probably going to be in a
Speaker 1: slightly different spot. He might be in the exact same spot,
Speaker 1: but I just want to know he's in the area
Speaker 1: and what works for me, which is different than everybody else,
Speaker 1: but what works for me if he's in that area,
Speaker 1: then I any any given area, I've got five six
Speaker 1: seven spots pit around that area, and and like, hey,
Speaker 1: it alluded to before, Like you know, I've got to
Speaker 1: I've got to stand for a west wind. I'm not
Speaker 1: I'm not going to go to that spot where I
Speaker 1: think he's in the general area and hunt a spot
Speaker 1: that's blowing right into into the bedding area or something
Speaker 1: like that. I'm still gonna play the wind. Um. It's
Speaker 1: probably not going to be an absolutely perfect wind, but
Speaker 1: I'm still thinking of the wind. I'm still cognisant of
Speaker 1: the wind. I'm never gonna beat the wind completely unless
Speaker 1: you get a situation where your thermals are going up
Speaker 1: in the air. Um. So I'm thinking about the wind,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about my entrance and exits, and I'm just
Speaker 1: probably spending my time rotating around that that current intel
Speaker 1: that I know this book is in this area. Let's
Speaker 1: say it's forty acres, and then just rotate my spots
Speaker 1: is close to where I think he is as possible,
Speaker 1: hunting smart spots, hunting correctly, um, and not making a
Speaker 1: host of mistakes that I personally think a lot of
Speaker 1: people make every year. What are those what are those
Speaker 1: worst mistakes that folks make during the run. What are
Speaker 1: some of those things that come to mind. So I
Speaker 1: would say, uh, you know, I'll get a low cliche here,
Speaker 1: but you know, your entrances and exits. We hear this
Speaker 1: all the time. But uh, you know guys that just
Speaker 1: do not think about their entrances and exits and they're
Speaker 1: walking through a pick cornfield in the morning when you
Speaker 1: know that there's all the deer are probably out there
Speaker 1: when it's dark and you're blowing the whole field up
Speaker 1: or walking out through, um, you know, when there's a
Speaker 1: when there's a whole lot of deer out there. I mean,
Speaker 1: just just pressuring the deer in general, even during the rut,
Speaker 1: I think it's detrimental, and hunting the same stand over
Speaker 1: and over and over is clearly detrimental. And these these
Speaker 1: are kind of elementary things, but at the same time
Speaker 1: they're not because they see them done so much. And
Speaker 1: then you know, you'll know this. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: I'm preaching the choir here, but guys probably know the
Speaker 1: guys were you know, Hey, I hear the guy across
Speaker 1: the fence. You know it's uh, it's nine o'clock in
Speaker 1: the morning and he's rattled eight times already. I mean,
Speaker 1: everybody knows that guy well, we know that at least
Speaker 1: I know you don't do that. Um, I don't do it.
Speaker 1: But yet every farm I've ever been on there's that guy.
Speaker 1: So you know, I would avoid that type of thing. Um,
Speaker 1: hey man, But when I rattle, it seems like bucks
Speaker 1: come in. Sure. Sure, you know, usually it's a three
Speaker 1: year old, but uh or a younger deer. Occasionally it works.
Speaker 1: I mean I do rattle, but I would say, limit
Speaker 1: your calling, limit your rattling. Um. And then you know
Speaker 1: your tree stands setups. I mean, when I get into
Speaker 1: a farm and you know there's eight foot tall ladder stands.
Speaker 1: I look at a lot of these spots. I mean
Speaker 1: I see them often eight and ten foot tall ladders,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, how in the world you draw your
Speaker 1: boat on a mature buck. It's crazy. So you know,
Speaker 1: I would say, I hunt on the on the higher
Speaker 1: end of the spectrum. And I know there's a few
Speaker 1: buddies of mine out here maybe that will hear this
Speaker 1: like that. I've seen my stands, and in the is
Speaker 1: kind of a Michigan thing. But in Michigan, man, we
Speaker 1: got up there. We got up there because everybody, a
Speaker 1: lot of guys hunted low and I'm like, I don't
Speaker 1: want to be seen. I want to get any advantage
Speaker 1: I can with the scent. And I mean, we were
Speaker 1: in the clouds up in Michigan and I've had to
Speaker 1: dial that back now that it came to Iowa. But
Speaker 1: um hunt, high limit your calling, watch your entrances and exits,
Speaker 1: Rotate your spots, especially if you're if you're putting pressure
Speaker 1: on those deer um. You know, your scent control. If
Speaker 1: you don't think scent control works at all, fine, I
Speaker 1: don't care, but you know, don't be sloppy with your
Speaker 1: scent going out there with this figurette smill gas moll.
Speaker 1: I mean common sense stuff that a lot of guys
Speaker 1: can't avoid or it's tough for them to avoid. So
Speaker 1: you know, if I go out there smelling like a
Speaker 1: slob uh and I'm walking to my stand and I
Speaker 1: don't and I'm touching everything and crossing all these trails
Speaker 1: and I smell awful, I'm gonna burn that stuff out quickly.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's kind of that checklist of ten
Speaker 1: not not too It's ten important things like don't do this,
Speaker 1: don't go out there and do these obvious things. But
Speaker 1: a lot of guys. You know, we'll fall into like
Speaker 1: oh I'm I'm I did eight of those correctly, but
Speaker 1: I screwed up on two. You can if you want
Speaker 1: to do this consistently, if you want to get on
Speaker 1: mature bucks consistently, you can't make those two mistakes. You've
Speaker 1: got ten mistakes you can make, and you can't make
Speaker 1: any of them. I mean we're going to I mean,
Speaker 1: nothing's perfect, but you're trying to minimize those mistakes and
Speaker 1: minimize those kind of obvious things like well everybody says this,
Speaker 1: Well there isn't two things. There's ten things, and don't
Speaker 1: make those ten mistakes and just keep doing it and
Speaker 1: doing it and doing it. You know, effective good spots
Speaker 1: without making the mistakes. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Do not get
Speaker 1: burned out. This is a mental game. You understand that
Speaker 1: you may be kind of exhausted six seven days into this,
Speaker 1: especially if you're hunting all day. It's it's very hard
Speaker 1: on your body. In your mind. Um, it's exhausting. I
Speaker 1: mean I wind up kind of tired. Um come November
Speaker 1: if I've hunted really hard, especially all days, and it's like,
Speaker 1: well I'm sitting why is it? Well, it's it's just
Speaker 1: really tough on you. So just understanding all that and
Speaker 1: pounding through it. And you know, the guys that are
Speaker 1: mentally tough, that can go hunt those ideal spots over
Speaker 1: and over and over, that don't get frustrated and throwing
Speaker 1: the towel or stop their trip early, are generally going
Speaker 1: to be vastly more successful. I mean, it's common sense,
Speaker 1: but it's still worth repeating, very true. Have you found well,
Speaker 1: how do you handle the mental grind of that? I
Speaker 1: mean you brought it up. It takes a lot of
Speaker 1: mental toughness and perseverance and even physical uh, perseverance and
Speaker 1: toughness to make it through, you know, a week or two,
Speaker 1: grinding it during the rut, day after day, all day
Speaker 1: many times. Um, how do you handle that? What are
Speaker 1: the things you do when you find yourself really burnt out?
Speaker 1: How do you push through that? How do you how
Speaker 1: do you make it through that? Um? So I've definitely evolved,
Speaker 1: and I would imagine that a lot of guys who
Speaker 1: are twenty I would suggest doing what I did it
Speaker 1: when I was in I was twenty and I'm forty
Speaker 1: four now. UM, and a lot of guys, if you're
Speaker 1: listening in your your twenties, you'll probably be more like
Speaker 1: me at forty four. I mean I've changed how I
Speaker 1: do things and change how much I hunt. Um, I
Speaker 1: change how I just try and be a lot more
Speaker 1: efficient now. So um now, and I'm in a position
Speaker 1: now where you know, I live right here, you know
Speaker 1: I live. I'm on my farm all years, so I
Speaker 1: can do a few things that other people can. And
Speaker 1: I'll just list to things that maybe somebody can't, but
Speaker 1: maybe a few people like yeah, that does kind of
Speaker 1: make sense and it sounds easy, but you know, um,
Speaker 1: I just try to be more efficient. Like if I notice, um,
Speaker 1: the temperature is going to go up into the seventies
Speaker 1: in November, can you still kill a mature buck? Then?
Speaker 1: Apps rebolutely. But those are the days where I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm probably gonna take a few days off.
Speaker 1: It's in the seventies. It's a deer walking around and
Speaker 1: running around like like us with a winter coat on
Speaker 1: in the summer. It's not comfortable. So the deer movement
Speaker 1: is going to be very suppressed. So I just say,
Speaker 1: you know, all those those days that are not ideal,
Speaker 1: I just I take them off, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: I I kind of picked my days a little bit
Speaker 1: more on the weather and the barometer. Like the temperature
Speaker 1: and the barometer. I mean, I don't need an app
Speaker 1: I just look at Hey, the temperature is going down.
Speaker 1: Even if it was seventy and now it's it's fifty.
Speaker 1: Still touch form. Okay, that's fine. But the temperature went down,
Speaker 1: the barometer went up. I go up, temperature goes up,
Speaker 1: barometer goes down. I don't go out usually. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're in a situation where hey, man, I took vacation,
Speaker 1: I took November three through ten off, I have to go. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I would hunt every single day unless it's just a catastrophe.
Speaker 1: And I we used to go out when it was
Speaker 1: thunderstorming out and it's forty winds. We still went out.
Speaker 1: It was yeah, exactly, And we were just so intense
Speaker 1: back then. And now I'll be honest, now you know
Speaker 1: twenty years later, I don't do that. I just oh great,
Speaker 1: I'm sleeping in, I'm making a big breakfast. I'm gonna relax. Um.
Speaker 1: So you know, I would say, what's changes. I'm a
Speaker 1: little more efficient. I picked my days more carefully. Uh,
Speaker 1: the days off, Um, I try and enjoy them. I
Speaker 1: try and do something a little bit active. I think
Speaker 1: it's a little bit tough maybe mentally for hunters when
Speaker 1: you're like, hey, I'm sitting all day, I'm inactive. Well,
Speaker 1: especially if you're a guy that's used to being fairly active.
Speaker 1: That's you know, it's it's maybe good to have a
Speaker 1: day to relax and move around. And um, I'm making
Speaker 1: this up, and this isn't what people are gonna do,
Speaker 1: but hypothetically, if I could take a day off that's
Speaker 1: like really warm and go pheasant hunting and like walk
Speaker 1: around a field and get get my blood going, um,
Speaker 1: get some exercise in, it's actually really good. I think
Speaker 1: it's really good for like the long game of hunting
Speaker 1: on enduring it to just you know, get yourself reinvigorated.
Speaker 1: I mean, technically, if you if you hunted hard for
Speaker 1: ten days and we're sitting there, if you went back
Speaker 1: home and got a day in of a couple of
Speaker 1: days in of exercise and going to the gym or
Speaker 1: whatever and just getting back into the routine, you'll probably
Speaker 1: be right ready to go back at it again. Um,
Speaker 1: which is why I you know, I don't think we
Speaker 1: usually ever had trips past about ten days, because I
Speaker 1: knew we would just we were so burnt out after
Speaker 1: about day ten that now I've just kind of adapted
Speaker 1: and said, all right, I'm gonna hunt in five, six,
Speaker 1: seven day segments and go really hard, but but try
Speaker 1: and have a little variety. And and man, if you
Speaker 1: can pick your vacation, like with any flexibility, like oh
Speaker 1: it's getting cold during this time, this is in, you know,
Speaker 1: a week out, pick your vacation, that is so advantageous. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. Another another take on that I've heard is
Speaker 1: I remember John and Chris Eberhart used to talk about
Speaker 1: this a lot. They would, uh, you know, pick a
Speaker 1: morning or two during that rut where they would allow
Speaker 1: themselves to sleep in, and you know, they'd still get
Speaker 1: out in the woods by nine or ten, but they
Speaker 1: would hunt the whole day from that point on. And
Speaker 1: they you know, they've seen so much of that great
Speaker 1: activity on those rut mornings happening mid morning anyways, that
Speaker 1: they could you know, reduce their burnout a little bit
Speaker 1: and still probably hunt the best parts of the day
Speaker 1: in their mind, and um still felt like they got
Speaker 1: a good day in that way. So I thought that
Speaker 1: was an interesting kind of similar to what you're saying there.
Speaker 1: I used to feel guilty about taking any time off
Speaker 1: during the rut, but I think if you can, you know,
Speaker 1: ten straight days where you are not at your best
Speaker 1: might not be as good as nine days at your
Speaker 1: best with one day arrest. It allows you to be
Speaker 1: really at your top mental fitness level. Yeah, pick your battles.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, don't take the day off when um,
Speaker 1: the temperature dips down fifteen degrees and it's you know,
Speaker 1: five mile win and it's crispy, and you know, um,
Speaker 1: you know the bucks are moving. I mean, clearly, don't
Speaker 1: take that day off. But uh, when you know, maybe
Speaker 1: it's during lockdown, maybe you're like, dang it, I have
Speaker 1: had a day where I hardly saw a deer. It's
Speaker 1: like the lights which went off. Yeah, that'd be a
Speaker 1: great day to change it up. Um, And you know
Speaker 1: there is maybe the occasional guy that can be I
Speaker 1: don't care, I'm just gonna push through. And that was
Speaker 1: kind of us when we're in our twenties. And now,
Speaker 1: I mean I could do it, but it wouldn't it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be probably the most effective thing. So yeah, I think, um,
Speaker 1: balance is really important, and and picking the right times
Speaker 1: to say, yeah, let's let's take a paul us, let's regroup, um,
Speaker 1: and let's um reinvigorate ourselves and be ready to go out,
Speaker 1: you know, in a day, you know, the next day
Speaker 1: and hit it hard. 're very smart to have that balance.
Speaker 1: You were talking a second ago about the mistakes folks
Speaker 1: often make, and one of those things you mentioned was overcalling,
Speaker 1: too too much rattling, that kind of thing. Um, I'd
Speaker 1: love to hear about what you think is the right
Speaker 1: way to do those two things, because this is that
Speaker 1: time of year everybody wants to be making noise out there. Um,
Speaker 1: how do you go about grunting? When do you do it?
Speaker 1: What's the right way to do it? And then same
Speaker 1: thing for rattling, I'd be curious about both. Sure, what
Speaker 1: works for me, um, and what works for me is
Speaker 1: different than what what somebody else might think or their experiences.
Speaker 1: But UM, kind of my recipe for rattling and for grounding,
Speaker 1: I always have them in my pack. And UM, I
Speaker 1: do not do much blind rattling. When I do blind
Speaker 1: rattling or blind calling, it's maybe maybe twice a day,
Speaker 1: and it's maybe up till November seven or yeah, probably
Speaker 1: six or seven is probably the end of that. UM.
Speaker 1: And I sometimes I don't rattle at all. But if
Speaker 1: I'm rattling, uh, seven times ten times in a day, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I I personally think you're doing yourself a major disadvantage.
Speaker 1: So I would say blind rattling very limited. Even in Iowa, Kansas,
Speaker 1: say there's lots of mature books, it works better. I mean,
Speaker 1: did we have a lot of a lot of luck
Speaker 1: rattling in Michigan? No, not a lot, A little though,
Speaker 1: a little. Actually, that's how my my brother shot that
Speaker 1: hundred and seventies eight point. That was a mature, old
Speaker 1: old deer in Michigan. I mean, just a rare animal. Um,
Speaker 1: He's at fifty or sixty yards, and he saw the
Speaker 1: buck and he did some light rattling and pulled him in.
Speaker 1: So that's when calling and rattling, I think are the
Speaker 1: most beneficial is when you actually see the animal. So
Speaker 1: if I'm hunting a new area or an area I picked,
Speaker 1: I'm like, hey, this spot night might not be perfect,
Speaker 1: but I can see a long ways. I can see
Speaker 1: over this giant's rap field, or you know, I can
Speaker 1: see up this hillside or across this egg field. I
Speaker 1: just I only do it basically. When I see that buck,
Speaker 1: I want to call in. And when I see that
Speaker 1: buck I want to call in, I will if it's
Speaker 1: real far away, I probably will start with rattling if
Speaker 1: it's if it's a distance, because I want to make
Speaker 1: sure he hears it, and i'll know right away if
Speaker 1: this deer is usually i'll know if he's interested or not,
Speaker 1: and i'll hit the horns together where he clearly can't
Speaker 1: see it. He's not gonna pick me off. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's obvious. But you know I do it in
Speaker 1: a way where this tears are not watching me rattle,
Speaker 1: and I just watch this year extremely close, and I'll
Speaker 1: know how he reacts. And he's either going to react
Speaker 1: three one of three ways. He's going to either react
Speaker 1: and go I don't care, I'm not interested at all
Speaker 1: and keep on his business, or he's going to react
Speaker 1: and probably start coming right into me, which is clearly
Speaker 1: the most ideal. The third way he's going to react
Speaker 1: is he's gonna go I'm interested, and he's gonna try,
Speaker 1: and he's clearly going to try and swoop around or
Speaker 1: start kind of doing a moon shape towards my direction,
Speaker 1: and and I'm okay with that too. And if he's interested,
Speaker 1: if I lose sight of him, I might rattle one
Speaker 1: more time. Um, and then I might grab the grunt too.
Speaker 1: And then I if I still see him, if he's
Speaker 1: if he's interested in the horns, and you know, he's
Speaker 1: slowly coming in, I might grunt and see how he
Speaker 1: reacts that. And sometimes that just like it's the last
Speaker 1: little perk, the last little nugget that they're yep, I'm
Speaker 1: coming in. And then and then it's just a matter
Speaker 1: of do I ground again? Just what's it gonna take
Speaker 1: to get him into range? Usually if I've called twice
Speaker 1: and he's coming right at me, he's gonna get to me. Um.
Speaker 1: So then I'm just you know, slow myself down. Uh. Now,
Speaker 1: it's all about the shot, calming myself down, the metal game,
Speaker 1: making the right shot. Do not release heat arrow until
Speaker 1: you're ready, slow slow slow, um. But if he's kind
Speaker 1: of iffy or you know, he's not, cann't come in range.
Speaker 1: Now it's you know, what else do I do to call?
Speaker 1: Do I grunt again? Um? Do I lightly rattle? You know?
Speaker 1: And and that's just getting slightly more risky the more
Speaker 1: you rattle. But um, I'll just call until I can
Speaker 1: get him to come in. So uh that's how I've
Speaker 1: I've killed a lot of boxes is just visually seeing them,
Speaker 1: um and watching their attitude on how they react extremely
Speaker 1: carefully rattling or grunning, um, and and then basing the
Speaker 1: next move on how they react. And some bucks react
Speaker 1: uh great and come in. And some bucks are like,
Speaker 1: I want nothing to do with that. Not interested, signora,
Speaker 1: You're never gonna see me again. So um. But I
Speaker 1: mean we've killed a lot of tier um doing that.
Speaker 1: And I mean the buck my brother killed last year, uh,
Speaker 1: the giant, I mean it was two hundred and seven
Speaker 1: years old. Uh, seven year old. Um. You know that
Speaker 1: buck was at I think sixty or seventy yards in
Speaker 1: in mid October. Uh, and my my brother was just
Speaker 1: able to really lightly. He wasn't he wasn't creating a
Speaker 1: fight or like an aggressive situation. He was just saying,
Speaker 1: there's another buck in your turf. That's it, there's another
Speaker 1: buck in your turf. And that pulled that buck into
Speaker 1: fifteen yards in October and in November. It's a little
Speaker 1: bit different. It's not just hey, there's a buck in
Speaker 1: your turf. Now it's a tuck that I hear a
Speaker 1: buck and he's getting ready to breathe a dough. So
Speaker 1: they're just more aggressive. So just understanding there's differences between
Speaker 1: October and November. And then the last thing I would
Speaker 1: say about rattling and grunting is like, you know your
Speaker 1: next phase or maybe certain hunts where you're like, hey,
Speaker 1: it's late November. I think late November site calling and
Speaker 1: rattling when you see a box effective very effective to
Speaker 1: UM because they're usually cruising for a dough. But if
Speaker 1: I'm kind of finishing up my hunt for the morning,
Speaker 1: you know, hey, I'm gonna go back in. It's ten o'clock.
Speaker 1: That's a time when I'll do a blind rattle. I
Speaker 1: really don't have much to lose, UM, and we've had
Speaker 1: a handful of cases. It's not like it's like, man,
Speaker 1: this works every year, but you know every five years
Speaker 1: where I'm like I'm just about to pack up, I'm
Speaker 1: on a rattle or grant one more time, just kind
Speaker 1: of the fun of it. I'm a little bit bored,
Speaker 1: and sometimes we just pull a buck out of its
Speaker 1: bed it's bedded down for the day, or you know
Speaker 1: it's just over the hill and boom, we pull it
Speaker 1: in and either see it or occasionally you know it's
Speaker 1: the buck you want to shoot and we've shot them
Speaker 1: that way. So, UM, I would just say, don't overdo it.
Speaker 1: But my my method that works for me is site
Speaker 1: rattling and calling would be eight of how I use
Speaker 1: calls and rattles specifically, when I see that deer I
Speaker 1: want to shoot or pull in. Now, what about this?
Speaker 1: Is there any difference between your calling strategy when it's
Speaker 1: like one of these six or seven year old bucks
Speaker 1: that you're typically targeting now versus if you were trying
Speaker 1: to call in a three or four year old buck
Speaker 1: you know, you know twenty years ago when you were
Speaker 1: targeting those deer. Is it is it different one way
Speaker 1: or the other at all? I don't notice much difference.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're either interested or they're not the six
Speaker 1: or seven year old buck. Um, just because I have
Speaker 1: the luxury now, just because I'm older, I have I
Speaker 1: have my farms. Um, I know the deer, and you know,
Speaker 1: I get to know. It's not like I'm with them
Speaker 1: every day, clearly, but I get to know a little bit, like, hey,
Speaker 1: I saw this deer when he's two, three, four and
Speaker 1: so on. I get to know their personalities. And some
Speaker 1: deer are like people. They want to fight, they're aggressive, um,
Speaker 1: their maniacs uh. And certain deer are just very timid.
Speaker 1: So I think it's more of a dear personality thing. Um,
Speaker 1: certain three year olds are going to be very timid.
Speaker 1: Certain three year olds are going to just be extremely aggressive.
Speaker 1: Um for a mature bock, you know. I would say
Speaker 1: over the majority of the time, they are filled with
Speaker 1: testosterone and they at least are willing to investigate or hey,
Speaker 1: I'm willing to fight. I mean, they're almost all willing
Speaker 1: to fight. There's a few that are like, they're just timid,
Speaker 1: timid deer, and I would say that's the exception. But um,
Speaker 1: I would say it's more related to personality. And I
Speaker 1: think you're gonna know. I think you're gonna know when
Speaker 1: you rattle or grunt to that dear, you're gonna see
Speaker 1: how he reacts. And it might be different how he
Speaker 1: reacts in October November, late November. Sometimes he might and
Speaker 1: clearly if he's with the dough, he's not interested at all.
Speaker 1: But um, I think you're gonna know within you know,
Speaker 1: less than thirty seconds, if he's like, yep, I'm not
Speaker 1: putting up with that. I'm gonna check it out. I'm aggressive.
Speaker 1: I want to find out. Uh. And you'll notice those personalities.
Speaker 1: And I've definitely seen the bucks that are like, no
Speaker 1: matter when I've called to him, I have no interest
Speaker 1: in getting into a fight. I'm just not that type
Speaker 1: of deer. And I'm just a timid deer. And then
Speaker 1: that makes it, you know, definitely more challenging. What about decoys?
Speaker 1: Is that something something you're pulling out this time of
Speaker 1: year at all? Mm hmm. I never have had luck
Speaker 1: with decoys my buddies, Man, I love decoys. I I
Speaker 1: I've had a lot of luck. I pull him, I
Speaker 1: pull him in with decoys. I don't, um. I I
Speaker 1: would much rather just call to a deer that I see. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't you know. Part of it's just preference though
Speaker 1: it's not a right or wrong answer, it's just you know,
Speaker 1: hauling a decoy out painting the butt for me. I
Speaker 1: don't want to mess with it. I usually don't. I'll
Speaker 1: be honest. I just don't need them. Um. I'm usually
Speaker 1: trying to hunt spots where I can eat. I know
Speaker 1: that I'm in an area that you're going to naturally
Speaker 1: travel past me UM, or I'm in an area that
Speaker 1: I have a good chance of calling it deer in.
Speaker 1: So I feel far more confident for myself. Doesn't mean
Speaker 1: this is right answer at all, but I feel more
Speaker 1: confident for myself that I can have better luck calling
Speaker 1: a deer in than them seeing a visual reason to
Speaker 1: come in. And so I've never I'm when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, I tried it a few times. I take
Speaker 1: that back, So, yeah, I have tried it a few times,
Speaker 1: and it's just it's just not my thing. I don't
Speaker 1: need it UM And I just feel like I'm I'm
Speaker 1: more successful with without it and just hunting the types
Speaker 1: of spots I do. Yeah, makes sense, uh, speaking of
Speaker 1: the types of spots you hunt, you were talking earlier about,
Speaker 1: you know, you you walk on the property and see
Speaker 1: these ten foot tall ladder stands and you're wondering, how
Speaker 1: could somebody ever get get away with that? Um? That
Speaker 1: got me thinking about a dilemma. I often faced with it.
Speaker 1: I'm sure lots of hunters are faced with And I
Speaker 1: always sit there and debate this back and forth in
Speaker 1: my head, and I want to run it past you
Speaker 1: and see what your take is. Imagine this scenario. Imagine
Speaker 1: you are sneaking into a spot and you don't have
Speaker 1: a tree stand already set. Maybe this is a new
Speaker 1: spot you just picked up access to, and for some
Speaker 1: reason you think, man, it's the rut. I gotta get
Speaker 1: in and hunt this new area. It looks really good.
Speaker 1: And let's hypothetically say maybe you're you're coming up and
Speaker 1: you're realizing all this looks like an awesome betting area
Speaker 1: and you want to be, you know, on the downward
Speaker 1: side of it, and you're trying to pick the tree
Speaker 1: to hunt, and you have a couple options. You've got
Speaker 1: one tree that is, you know, easily in rain of
Speaker 1: those best crossings. Let's say there's a major trail paralleling
Speaker 1: in the downwind edges betting area, and maybe there's two
Speaker 1: trails coming out of the bedding aar and they intersect
Speaker 1: with that parallel trail, all of them within about fifteen
Speaker 1: or twenty yards of this one tree. And let's say
Speaker 1: there's a big old hub scrape right there at the
Speaker 1: intersection to a couple of rubs coming down the lanes,
Speaker 1: and this tree, though that's within range of that is
Speaker 1: like a bean pole. It's a lousy tree for cover.
Speaker 1: And there's actually also a second trail that's gonna be
Speaker 1: downwind of that tree as well, so it's it's not
Speaker 1: great cover, and there might be deer that get down
Speaker 1: with you, or there's another tree. But this tree is
Speaker 1: gonna be like forty one yards away from that scrape
Speaker 1: and those trails and that great shot opportunity, but it
Speaker 1: is downwind of everything, and it's a nice oak with
Speaker 1: like six different limbs coming out at two, so you
Speaker 1: can get up in there. You'll be perfectly hidden, nothing
Speaker 1: will get downwind of view. Which of those two trees
Speaker 1: would you pick the one that's easy range, the best spot,
Speaker 1: but you might get picked off, you might get winded
Speaker 1: by a deer. Or do you take the long shot
Speaker 1: and the super safe bet and hope to call something
Speaker 1: in or hope you can get that longer shot and
Speaker 1: make that work. Um So I think that would be
Speaker 1: a little subjective on uh, you know, if I'm going
Speaker 1: for like, hey man, I got two days to do this,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go for the bean pole. The bean pole
Speaker 1: scenario just because I'm gonna get up there and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna understand that I'm sitting in a bean pole and
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna sit incredibly still. And you know, if
Speaker 1: I've got time in advance. Um, if I found this
Speaker 1: in the spring or late winter, and I scouted and
Speaker 1: found the spot, I might put a spot in both
Speaker 1: both trees and try both scenarios. Um. You know, hey,
Speaker 1: I got my safe bet and then I got my
Speaker 1: other one. But if I'm in that bean pole, you know,
Speaker 1: if I find that spot early, I'm probably gonna go
Speaker 1: up there, uh in trying to add some cover. Like
Speaker 1: sometimes I'll hang like cedar branches and stuff up there
Speaker 1: just way above me or you know, things to break
Speaker 1: up my cover. Sometimes I put cedar branches like in
Speaker 1: the um in the front of my tree stand just
Speaker 1: to try and camouflage myself in. And then I'm I'm
Speaker 1: pretty darn good when I know I'm in that situation
Speaker 1: of just sitting incredibly still, just incredibly still, UM and
Speaker 1: just doing these just conscious slow movements, slow movements in
Speaker 1: my head for scanning. And I usually don't get picked
Speaker 1: off if I do that. UM, But if if I'm skylined,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, if I know, if I know
Speaker 1: there's no possibility, if I have the feeling there's no
Speaker 1: possibility I'm going to draw my bow without this book
Speaker 1: see me, then I won't hunt it. But if there's
Speaker 1: any chance that, if there's any confidence in me, that's like, yes,
Speaker 1: there is a situation where I can do this, this
Speaker 1: and this and hunt carefully and draw my bow on
Speaker 1: that mature buck, I'll try it. Um, So I would say,
Speaker 1: probably I will try and make that beam pole tree work. Now,
Speaker 1: the the extra answer to is if I'm hunting that
Speaker 1: area year after year, I mean, hopefully I find the
Speaker 1: third option, which is, you know, a better tree. But uh,
Speaker 1: in this um, in this situation, you know, maybe I'll um,
Speaker 1: maybe I'll manipulate the trail. I'll go in there with
Speaker 1: my chainsaw, uh and try and manipulate their movement or
Speaker 1: create a trail closer to that more ideal tree. There's
Speaker 1: a third option, and I do that often, Like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, this tree over here is ten inches in diameter,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be really hard to sit in it, and
Speaker 1: this one is further. And then then during the off
Speaker 1: season I'm doing things to get them to move closer
Speaker 1: to that ideal tree, which is habits at manipulation, which
Speaker 1: is um. You know, you can do that with chainsaws,
Speaker 1: with um weed, whippers, with you know, dumping different trees
Speaker 1: down to direct the movement. So there's a whole host
Speaker 1: theory of answers there. Um. But on the fly, with
Speaker 1: two days to hunt, I'm up against the gun. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna hunt the bean tree, the bean poultry. Uh, and
Speaker 1: be very very careful and just realize, you know, I
Speaker 1: got two days. If a gear gets down winding me
Speaker 1: on that one trail, it's okay. Hopefully I got them
Speaker 1: dead by that point, and hopefully I'm not getting busted much.
Speaker 1: And then I know, if that buck is on that
Speaker 1: predominant trail, I just gotta be super careful so I
Speaker 1: can draw back and draw back at the right time
Speaker 1: so I can make that shot. Yeah, that that makes
Speaker 1: a lot of sense. Alright, Skip, I've got just a
Speaker 1: couple more questions for it, and then we're gonna wrap
Speaker 1: this up. I'm curious if there is anything within your
Speaker 1: repertoire of hunting tactics things you do during the rut
Speaker 1: that your buddies or if other hunters heard about it.
Speaker 1: I would think, is weird. Is there anything you do
Speaker 1: during the rut that is off the wall different than
Speaker 1: the conventional wisdom? Yeah, most most of my friends make
Speaker 1: fun of me hardcore hunter. They make fun of me
Speaker 1: for how high my tree stands are. Uh, like my
Speaker 1: buddies like, I'm I would I won't hunt that spot.
Speaker 1: I would never hunt that spot. You're you're insane that
Speaker 1: Uh that's so high, it's scary. How are we talking? Uh,
Speaker 1: there's this is crazy. And I understand the debate about
Speaker 1: the shot angle and stuff. The highest I pry I
Speaker 1: have ever hunted, and well, that's that shot angles insane?
Speaker 1: It is, it is. But there's been situations where I
Speaker 1: have hunted forties low forties. Yeah, it's up there. When
Speaker 1: I buy those safety lines, um, and I do have
Speaker 1: safety lines because I fell out of a tree stand
Speaker 1: and it was thirty some thirty some feet up, chattered
Speaker 1: my arm, broke my back. But this is in the
Speaker 1: summer while I was hanging it, and you know, just stupid,
Speaker 1: just stupid. You know. Now I have safety lines and
Speaker 1: every stand, but a lot of my stands I have
Speaker 1: to start the bottom of my safety line where I
Speaker 1: click in is usually oh, maybe five eight ft off
Speaker 1: the ground. So I would say most of my stands
Speaker 1: are probably when I say forties that there's like a
Speaker 1: couple I can think of that's usually in Michigan. Um,
Speaker 1: because you're just trying to do everything to hide yourself
Speaker 1: from these gear that are scared out of their mind
Speaker 1: because everyone's trying to kill them, literally everyone. But now
Speaker 1: I would say my stands are twenty five to maybe
Speaker 1: thirty five ft, which is a little off the wall. Um.
Speaker 1: I would say the other thing I do that's a
Speaker 1: little off the wall. Uh. You know, I probably have
Speaker 1: now sixty seventy different tree stands. I mean, and there'll
Speaker 1: be years where I don't hunt certain tree stands, um,
Speaker 1: and there's farms like wall he is, sixty seventies tree
Speaker 1: stands must be nice. I mean, it's anybody can do this.
Speaker 1: It's just I took the time to get permission here.
Speaker 1: Or you know, there's this little farm over here. I
Speaker 1: can pop three in here, and if there's a deer there,
Speaker 1: I'm ready to go. So um. You know, I just
Speaker 1: have so many backup plans. I have so many in
Speaker 1: and when I hunted by permission, I would have so
Speaker 1: many extra farms, and I would sit there and just
Speaker 1: spend weekend after weekend after weekend knocking on doors finding
Speaker 1: more places to go, find an extra state land to hunt.
Speaker 1: That if I had six farms to hunt and three
Speaker 1: of them got ruined because all of a sudden this
Speaker 1: group of hunter showed up and just blew the farm up, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm okay with writing off the whole farm like it
Speaker 1: got ruined. I just I just always have had so
Speaker 1: many different backup plans, and maybe that's unique, maybe that's weird.
Speaker 1: It's it's intense. I mean, it's a lot of work. Um,
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily fun. I mean to just you know,
Speaker 1: constantly ask people for permission and knocking on doors all
Speaker 1: the time. But you know, it was fun for me
Speaker 1: because it was worth it. So, you know, being able
Speaker 1: to say, hey, I have three farms here that I'm
Speaker 1: gonna hunt and all them got ruined, all their trashed.
Speaker 1: There's you know, if fifty guys show up and I go,
Speaker 1: I'm not hunting there, or if I lose it right
Speaker 1: before season, hey, you know we decided nobody's hunting there.
Speaker 1: We're gonna lease it out where we sold it. If
Speaker 1: I lose those farms. I'm okay, and I think that's
Speaker 1: where everybody has to be. Like, if your best spots
Speaker 1: get ruined, you need to have five other best spots.
Speaker 1: And I think that's different maybe than most people. And
Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong. I'm not I'm clearly not knocking anybody.
Speaker 1: You're telling anybody how to hunt. You hunt however you
Speaker 1: want to, whatever makes you happy. Great. But you know
Speaker 1: the guy that's like, hey man, I got my eighty
Speaker 1: acres and that's all I hunt, You're just you're not
Speaker 1: going to be extremely successful, consistently successful. You just have
Speaker 1: to have so many different options. And that's if you
Speaker 1: enjoy that. I don't care what I kill. I don't
Speaker 1: care if I kill mature buck. I just want to
Speaker 1: hunt my own eighty acres. Great, It's just not what
Speaker 1: I do. It's not what I want to do. You know.
Speaker 1: I want to chase mature mature dear, and to do that,
Speaker 1: I just have to have so many different options and
Speaker 1: so many different backup plans. Yeah. Yeah, and that's hard
Speaker 1: to do. It takes a lot of work. But you're right.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you were to look at any of
Speaker 1: those folks that are consistently always successful. They have a
Speaker 1: lot it's a numbers game. They have a lot of options.
Speaker 1: They have a lot of spots, and they know them well.
Speaker 1: And they're never dependent on one thing working. They've always
Speaker 1: got backup, to the backup, to the backup. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: we've gone to Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, and at the
Speaker 1: end of the season, I usually got you know, when
Speaker 1: I was younger, especially, I usually got a few mature
Speaker 1: bucks and oh my gosh, look at that, you know guy,
Speaker 1: I would consistently shoot a few mature bucks ball there
Speaker 1: was another Between every one of those mature bucks. There
Speaker 1: was probably ten or twenty hunts. There were total flops
Speaker 1: or you know, even I don't care if you watch
Speaker 1: the guy on TV. I don't care if you you
Speaker 1: talk to a guy that you like, he consistently hit
Speaker 1: kills mature bucks. Um, they have plenty, plenty of sits
Speaker 1: worth to complete flop. It's slow, they don't see anything.
Speaker 1: They're discouraged. It's boring. I mean, this is how it works.
Speaker 1: You get, you know, that that chance to shoot the
Speaker 1: mature buck. You know, it's a few minutes um out
Speaker 1: of generally, you know, maybe a week or two. So
Speaker 1: I think you know, people who have their expectations set
Speaker 1: there that you know there's gonna be a lot of
Speaker 1: difficult hunting and a lot of work beforehand that goes
Speaker 1: into this, and a lot of failed hunts before I
Speaker 1: have one successful hunt. I think when you have those expectations,
Speaker 1: it puts you, um, you know, it puts you in
Speaker 1: a place where you can you can weather it out
Speaker 1: and keep pushing and and and then you don't get
Speaker 1: discouraged either because I know I'm gonna have poor hunts.
Speaker 1: I know I'm gonna make mistakes, and and when it
Speaker 1: does work out, then it's more rewarding because I honestly wouldn't.
Speaker 1: I don't want to go out. Honestly, I'm being dead seriously.
Speaker 1: I don't want to go out and shoot them mature
Speaker 1: buck the very first time I go out. I mean
Speaker 1: maybe maybe in one case I do, like, yeah, that'd
Speaker 1: be awesome. But I think I enjoy it more because
Speaker 1: I went out seven times and I wasn't successful. And
Speaker 1: then when you do get the opportunity to the mature buck,
Speaker 1: it's just like, it's why we do this. It's amazing.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's rewarding. You're just like, man, it finally
Speaker 1: worked out. And that's what's so um that's why I
Speaker 1: love this because it's like, man, I went through I
Speaker 1: went through all these tough ons, all this all this work,
Speaker 1: and it finally paid off, and you know, this worked out,
Speaker 1: and you know, and if I don't get a mature buck,
Speaker 1: if I eat my tag, I'm okay with that now too.
Speaker 1: But um, yeah, that's that's just kind of my philosophy
Speaker 1: or my thought process right wrong or in different that's
Speaker 1: just wore my head's at. Yeah, I'm right there with you.
Speaker 1: Skip one last scenario I want you to imagine, and
Speaker 1: it's not it's not a great scenario, so bear with
Speaker 1: me here. But let's say for some reason, I've taken
Speaker 1: away your entire hunting season except for two days during
Speaker 1: the rut. You get two days to hunt during the rut,
Speaker 1: and that's all for the entire season this year, all right.
Speaker 1: What I would like you to do is tell me
Speaker 1: what two days you'll pick during the route, Like, what
Speaker 1: date would you want for this two day window? They
Speaker 1: could either be right next to each other, they could
Speaker 1: be separate days. And then I would like you to
Speaker 1: tell me what your setup would be like, specifically as
Speaker 1: best as you can describe. This could either be like
Speaker 1: a hypothetical imaginary scenario, or you could even describe for
Speaker 1: me a stand you actually have that you think would
Speaker 1: give you your best chance on that date. Could you
Speaker 1: do that for these two days for me? Yep, I
Speaker 1: would say, it's just gonna be a date range. So
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, I've had my best luck in October
Speaker 1: and then for whatever reason, this is maybe a superstition,
Speaker 1: I don't know, November one through three or four when
Speaker 1: my buddies like that's when I have my best Like
Speaker 1: I never shoot big deer November one through four, so
Speaker 1: I'd axce those right out, um, just because maybe I'm
Speaker 1: cursed with those dates. I don't know. So it's gonna
Speaker 1: be between uh, November four and ten, and each year
Speaker 1: shifts a little bit different sometimes like, man, it was
Speaker 1: a little better earlier. But I'm gonna say, uh, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna whittle that down even a little bit further. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say between I'm gonna say seven seven to eleven,
Speaker 1: and within seven to eleven, I'm just gonna pick the
Speaker 1: days where the temperature goes down and the barometer is up,
Speaker 1: and if it's the eighth, they'll hunted on the eighth.
Speaker 1: If it's the ninth, the hunted on the ninth. If
Speaker 1: it's warm on the eighth, I'm not hunting the eight.
Speaker 1: So whichever day is going to be cold, those are
Speaker 1: the two days I pick cold cold end um, so
Speaker 1: a decrease in temperature and the rise in the brometer.
Speaker 1: Where I'm going to hunt is I can visualize these
Speaker 1: spots in my mind with that um with that limited
Speaker 1: of time, I want to hunt the spots that are
Speaker 1: just the deep spots I have in the timber, and
Speaker 1: I have two of them that come to mind that
Speaker 1: it's just like it is just like the the hornets nest,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just like there's not two trails in
Speaker 1: intersect or two trails I can see from my stand,
Speaker 1: there's like ten and they're just coming from every which direction.
Speaker 1: And it's just one of these magic spots that just
Speaker 1: it just they exist all over. It's just hard to
Speaker 1: find them. But it's a spot where you know, I've
Speaker 1: got I've got a spot where I've killed three or
Speaker 1: four mature bucks, and every time I hunt there, I
Speaker 1: could shoot just a pile of box a pile and
Speaker 1: the not necessarily old. But you know there's ten trails
Speaker 1: that come through there, and for whatever reason, they all
Speaker 1: kind of intersect around this tree stand, so I really
Speaker 1: don't even need to call. And they're coming from every
Speaker 1: which direction, and that's the spot I was talking about
Speaker 1: where my thermals rise. But even if my thermals didn't rise,
Speaker 1: I don't mind being back in the timber. And I say,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm not even gonna check the wind
Speaker 1: direction if I if I have trails coming from my
Speaker 1: every which direction, I'm gonna give up something. There is
Speaker 1: gonna be a spot from my tree stand where they're
Speaker 1: gonna get down when where I'm gonna it's gonna cause
Speaker 1: his shoes, but I'm gonna be as cent free as possible. Um,
Speaker 1: And just say, you know, that's a lost area. If
Speaker 1: they get to this spot, so be so be it. Um.
Speaker 1: But when you have those spots where you know there's
Speaker 1: so many different trails intersecting there, and then on top
Speaker 1: of that, you just look at every one of these
Speaker 1: trails and there's scrapes, there's rubs, um, And you just
Speaker 1: know any deer in that area that's traveling has a
Speaker 1: pretty darn good likely hand likelihood of going through this area.
Speaker 1: And I also can see, you know, from this stand
Speaker 1: and from the other one I'm visualizing, uh, I can
Speaker 1: see about maybe three hundred yards in every direction. So
Speaker 1: if they weren't to come by my stand, now I
Speaker 1: have you know, you know, six d yards radius of
Speaker 1: what I can see. And and then I'm just on
Speaker 1: pins and needles, scanning the whole morning, the whole afternoon,
Speaker 1: the whole day, and I'd sit there the whole day, um,
Speaker 1: and if I see something I can't call or that's
Speaker 1: not coming in, I try and call them in, uh
Speaker 1: in those days in November, and you know, it would
Speaker 1: be my very very best spots deep in the timber
Speaker 1: um where you know, I call it a hornet's nest,
Speaker 1: I call it a whatever, just just kind of like
Speaker 1: a it's just kind of that perfect spot. I think
Speaker 1: folks could probably visualize, visualize in their mind where you know, man,
Speaker 1: every time I go there, I just see a lot
Speaker 1: of bucks. And you know, I think a lot of
Speaker 1: folks get into the habit of I gotta hunt that
Speaker 1: stand over and over and over and they ruin it um,
Speaker 1: which I don't. But here in this scenario, I can
Speaker 1: just hunt it two days, and that's where I'm gonna be,
Speaker 1: and I probably and I got two spots in my
Speaker 1: mind like that, I probably would just take the better one,
Speaker 1: which is the very first one. It's probably the best
Speaker 1: spot I've ever had, and hopefully everybody out there can
Speaker 1: eventually be like, man, this is the coolest spot I've
Speaker 1: ever found. Doesn't mean you know, I mean I've killed
Speaker 1: mature bucks, you know, every year, just about but and
Speaker 1: only killed three or four out of the spot. But
Speaker 1: it's still, um, probably one of those spots that sticks
Speaker 1: out into my mind like this can't be beat. This
Speaker 1: is just one of the coolest spots. And I know
Speaker 1: every time I sit there, I'm gonna see I'm going
Speaker 1: to see a vast amount of mature Bucks. So it's
Speaker 1: just one of those high probability spots where the traffics there,
Speaker 1: the signs there, it's all there, and I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: go all in, all my cards, all my chips, and
Speaker 1: uh sit there all day, probably do it both of
Speaker 1: those days. It sounds like a good plan to skip by. Uh.
Speaker 1: I hope you do find either that spot or some
Speaker 1: spot for in these coming weeks for the Big Boy
Speaker 1: rolls through for you. I'm I'm very appreciate you took
Speaker 1: the time to share all this stuff this today. I
Speaker 1: hope everybody else does too. And you know, uh, at
Speaker 1: forty four after doing this for a while, UM, you know,
Speaker 1: if if it works out, it's fantastic. I Uh, I
Speaker 1: had a long farm season and this is actually the
Speaker 1: time I get to take a break. Um, but I've
Speaker 1: got family and friends, I want to get on some
Speaker 1: big deer and um, if I need a tag this year,
Speaker 1: I needed a tag, that's just my expectations. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just super super looking forward to get
Speaker 1: out being being in the timber and I hope, um,
Speaker 1: all right, I know your listeners are too. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's the magic time of years. This is what we've
Speaker 1: waited for and it's here, and I wish everybody the
Speaker 1: best of love. Absolutely well, Thank you, Skip, really appreciate
Speaker 1: your time. Thanks for having me all right, and that
Speaker 1: is a rap. Thanks for tuning in, Thanks for being
Speaker 1: part of this show here today. I hope you enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: I hope you'll learned a thing or two. Hopefully you
Speaker 1: laughed a little bit there at the beginning. And I'm
Speaker 1: hoping you have got some great rout hunting plans ahead
Speaker 1: of you. Maybe you're listening to this on the way
Speaker 1: to the stand. Maybe you're listening to this on the
Speaker 1: drive home with a big buck in the back of
Speaker 1: your truck, fingers crossed, hoping that's the case, and I'm
Speaker 1: hoping until next time you will stay wired to Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: this Hayden Sam Mac engineer for Wired to Hunt. If
Speaker 1: you were listening to rut Fresh Radio the other day,
Speaker 1: you might remember a conversation about November being the most
Speaker 1: wonderful time of the year and how somebody should write
Speaker 1: the song the most wonderful time of the year in
Speaker 1: relation to uh, in relation to the rut well mark
Speaker 1: is in the field, and because you can't do anything
Speaker 1: about it, I took it upon myself to record just
Speaker 1: that song with our very own phil of the engineer
Speaker 1: on what can only be described as a sultry lead vocal,
Speaker 1: and with that I give you the most wonderful time
Speaker 1: to kill dear boys. Good to see you, Hayden. It's
Speaker 1: been a while. Hey, sorry, I'm late. I crashed my
Speaker 1: ponty at gast. I can do a light pool and
Speaker 1: how to walk the rest of the way. But I'm
Speaker 1: here now, and that's what matters. Give me a glass
Speaker 1: of scotch, please, Hayden, just two rocks in there. I
Speaker 1: don't like ice. 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 run now just starting and dashing and dotting
Speaker 1: and vanes cutting clean, It's the most wonderful time to
Speaker 1: kill deer. There's far too much ice in this glass.
Speaker 1: It's the half happyest season of all. There's gotta be
Speaker 1: at least twelve cues with grunting and bleeding and called
Speaker 1: fronts and fleading the last weeks of fun. It's the
Speaker 1: have puppies seasing of all. There'll be pictures for posting
Speaker 1: and bragging and boasting and truck beds with big bucks
Speaker 1: and tow. There will be narrow missed 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 dear, not just
Speaker 1: one baby two. There will be no dose of blowing
Speaker 1: and loomen Knox glowing and blood trails so clean it's
Speaker 1: the most wonderful time to kill dean. Excuse me? Can
Speaker 1: I have a napkin? Please? I just spilt some scotch
Speaker 1: on my loafers. I can't have dirty loafers in the studio.
Speaker 1: Thank you tailgate beers for drinking and big boxes slinking
Speaker 1: and chasing and sent checking does They will be fighting
Speaker 1: and scraping and no more escaping and arrow shot true
Speaker 1: hitting home key change. But no one told me that
Speaker 1: it's the most wonderful time to kill deer. I was
Speaker 1: very unprepared for this. There will be much morning sitting
Speaker 1: in cold FRONTSA, hitting the dawn crispin clean. It's the
Speaker 1: most s wonderful time, Oh, the most s wonderful time. Yes,
Speaker 1: the most wonderful time to kill Dean. There's too much
Speaker 1: ice in the glass. Two rocks