Speaker 1: Welcome to Wired to Hunt's rutfresh Radio, bringing you the
Speaker 1: latest reports from the whitetail Woods, presented by First Light,
Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.
Speaker 1: First Light Go farther, stay longer, and now your hosts
Speaker 1: case Smith and Tyler Jones.
Speaker 2: This is Rotfresh Radio.
Speaker 3: I'm your host, Casey Smith, and man, it is a
Speaker 3: late season, but there is this thing going on where
Speaker 3: the deer is still thinking about it. The rut can
Speaker 3: still happen at any moment in time, and hunters around
Speaker 3: the country seem to think that this is their week.
Speaker 2: This is rough Fresh. Let's go what has happened in y'all?
Speaker 3: This is rot Fresh Radio, brought to you by first
Speaker 3: Light Gear. I'm your host, Casey Smith. Tyler Jones is
Speaker 3: also your host, and he's also here with me. We've
Speaker 3: been doing a ton of deer huntings, so it's been
Speaker 3: kind of hard make this happen. In fact, we're recording
Speaker 3: everything the day after Christmas, which is a wild time, right,
Speaker 3: but there are still people hunting, including us.
Speaker 4: In fact, none of them, none of them, nobody else
Speaker 4: is working though.
Speaker 3: When it's only people working after Christmas, here Yeah, that's right, man.
Speaker 3: I think they're all just still drinking eggnog. But the
Speaker 3: Element YouTube channel is not done putting out deer hunting
Speaker 3: content where we are doing a ton of deer hunting still.
Speaker 3: Actually just got back the day before Christmas from a
Speaker 3: South Texas deer hunting adventure that was pretty sick. That'll
Speaker 3: be up pretty soon, and a lot of more stuff
Speaker 3: going on, maybe even some hog hunting pretty soon as well.
Speaker 3: We never stopped hunting around here, which makes for fun times, man.
Speaker 3: And I'm glad that there's other people that are like
Speaker 3: this as well, because we got some pretty interesting folks
Speaker 3: you interview today. But man, I know that like Christmas
Speaker 3: is a weird thing because a lot of people just
Speaker 3: either switch to waterfowl or just say it just hang
Speaker 3: it up. I guess I think people just push until
Speaker 3: it's timing year. Speaking a first live, that's what they
Speaker 3: said they're doing it. I saw a post the other
Speaker 3: day where they were just hanging up all the everything
Speaker 3: but waterfowl. And the waterfowl now, I guess that's what
Speaker 3: they're saying, Garrett in that post, I don't know who
Speaker 3: I think it was.
Speaker 2: They hit a bunch of you got on your first
Speaker 2: lot waterfowl right now?
Speaker 4: Yeah, just because I'm cold in my house, it's fluffy
Speaker 4: and that is.
Speaker 2: A sick pattern out there. Are you gonna do any
Speaker 2: waterfowl hunting?
Speaker 4: I'd like to, but I think we need to ask
Speaker 4: farmers I'm almanac if it's going to keep telling us
Speaker 4: lies or not Farmer's Almanac. I don't look into it
Speaker 4: every time I say. Every time I say something about
Speaker 4: we just need some cold weather, somebody around me is like, well,
Speaker 4: Farmer's dolmanack says's supposed to be a hard winter, and
Speaker 4: I'm like, he said yesterday, it better hurry up.
Speaker 3: Well, technically, you know, the first day winter was just
Speaker 3: three year or four days ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is weird.
Speaker 3: Always think about winter starting in November. Me too, for sure,
Speaker 3: But I mean we only have two seasons. The point
Speaker 3: is it should have been colder than it has been.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were just discussing this.
Speaker 3: We had our heart first or second hard frost today
Speaker 3: and the first one was almost two months ago, which
Speaker 3: is wild.
Speaker 2: I know that.
Speaker 3: You know, the further north you go in the country,
Speaker 3: the more consistent that stuff gets. But it makes for
Speaker 3: some weird deer hunting we got cameras around the country
Speaker 3: right now, and some cameras are showing like bachelor groups
Speaker 3: of bucks, and some cameras are showing chasing.
Speaker 2: It's real weird.
Speaker 4: It is weird.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 4: One thing about our cameras right now is that they're
Speaker 4: overall have been very slow, man very slow. Like I mean,
Speaker 4: it's talking like mostly dose and that mostly not time,
Speaker 4: which I mean not like we have a few less
Speaker 4: cameras going, so there's because batteries and stuff. But like
Speaker 4: I mean, I think it's just been I don't know
Speaker 4: what it's been like everywhere else, but it's been warm
Speaker 4: here and everywhere we've hunted for the last you know,
Speaker 4: since since that October cold front, you know. So it's
Speaker 4: just I know it's not the same. I know they
Speaker 4: got snow up north in some places and stuff a
Speaker 4: few weeks ago, and you know, but.
Speaker 2: I think it's a weird thing to think about.
Speaker 3: But there is some strategy to some of the the
Speaker 3: feeder type stuff and even food plots where everybody knows
Speaker 3: that on colder days you're gonna have earlier movement. But
Speaker 3: this late in the year too, cover changes and you're
Speaker 3: gonna have situations where maybe like a feeder or a
Speaker 3: food plot had to cover close to it until like
Speaker 3: all the leaves fall, which that just happened here in
Speaker 3: the past week or two pretty much, and then all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, there's not cover for a half mile
Speaker 3: to get to that spot, you know. So like it's
Speaker 3: also you have to think about that. Yeah, it's as
Speaker 3: far as interesting daylight movement and then human activity, which
Speaker 3: is also something we've seen waterfowl stuff really kind of
Speaker 3: starts to interfere with that where we live. We've seen
Speaker 3: that even on camera LA lately, where there'll be people
Speaker 3: doing stuff that has to do with waterfowl and then
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, oh well, no, nothing is there
Speaker 3: because they're feeling the heat, even though those people aren't
Speaker 3: actually interested in the deer.
Speaker 4: You know how like when people are like people talk
Speaker 4: about how when the media starts talking about stock market crash,
Speaker 4: than the stock market crashes, you know, like leads leads
Speaker 4: them into it. If they would just stop talking about it,
Speaker 4: then that would just get back into good motion. Or Uh.
Speaker 4: I wonder if like people are waterfowl hunting because people
Speaker 4: are talking about it on media. Yeah, Like I wonder
Speaker 4: if that's like all of a sudden, It's just like
Speaker 4: somebody in media flips a switch and all of a sudden,
Speaker 4: it's like, oh man, you know, ten thousand people saw
Speaker 4: that thing and they told their buddies they need to
Speaker 4: go hunting. And now all of a sudden, there's thirty
Speaker 4: thousand people thinking about duck hunting. You know, it's crazy
Speaker 4: how that can happen, right, I mean, that's it's a logical,
Speaker 4: plausible thing, you know, that could potentially happen. I don't
Speaker 4: know if it is, if it does or not, but.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, there's there's an aspect that you're talking about
Speaker 3: that's called a social contagion.
Speaker 2: You're familiar with social contagent.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm familiar with those two words, not together though.
Speaker 3: So social contagion. One of the greatest examples is the
Speaker 3: Salem witch Trials. Oh yeah, and so Kaylee went to
Speaker 3: the Salem to Salem out this year this year. Yeah,
Speaker 3: oh wow, they're in deer season. I watched an hour
Speaker 3: long YouTube video about the Crucible, which is an infamous
Speaker 3: piece of literature about all that stuff, and it's and
Speaker 3: so like, there's some real negative aspects to some social contingents,
Speaker 3: but this is a little bit more light hearted where
Speaker 3: it's like it's essentially.
Speaker 2: The new word for social contingents.
Speaker 5: Fomo.
Speaker 2: You got the fomo of you know, oh man, they're
Speaker 2: slaying the ducks. Maybe we should go out there that
Speaker 2: whole way. It's weird.
Speaker 4: Oh, I didn't know. I didn't think about the fact
Speaker 4: there were twelve hundred miles from me, so there were
Speaker 4: actually no ducks were.
Speaker 2: I actually heard shotgun shots from my house this morning.
Speaker 3: So there's some people I've heard at least skyblast and
Speaker 3: some if not maybe getting into them.
Speaker 4: Who knows. There's I've seen ducks there on the lake.
Speaker 2: Oh. I saw a ton of divers yesterday. I mean
Speaker 2: like literally like two hundred.
Speaker 4: There's spoonies and stuff around too.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I saw some gad walls over by. There's a pond
Speaker 4: that sits by the road where my Cody's house always
Speaker 4: has galways. It was pretty loaded.
Speaker 2: I bet actually, I bet.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, there's a ton of grass in those
Speaker 3: places because there hasn't been very many birds eaten.
Speaker 2: So it's like those things are just full of food, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a good thought.
Speaker 3: And you know, this kind of goes back to the
Speaker 3: whitetail stuff that we were talking about, but there's like
Speaker 3: a weird thing going on, like this time in December
Speaker 3: where we're really late in the year and we just
Speaker 3: went through the winter solstice, so like the days are
Speaker 3: starting to get a longer, and so like, I'm sure
Speaker 3: when we have deer that are dependent on the daylight
Speaker 3: photo period, right, thank you, Mark Ken you for the clarification, right,
Speaker 3: that they start doing different things. And one of the
Speaker 3: encouraging things to me is that we have bucks that
Speaker 3: are in bachelor groups on camera this morning, like four
Speaker 3: bucks on camera all together. But even up into February,
Speaker 3: we've gotten some really good rut action that we've seen.
Speaker 3: And there's a lot of different ways to explain how
Speaker 3: that happens. I think mostly it would be just not
Speaker 3: great herd dynamics for places. But if there's a little
Speaker 3: bit of you know, comfort in how terrible that is,
Speaker 3: it's the fact that you can get some wild things
Speaker 3: happen no matter where you live, right, I mean, shoot,
Speaker 3: you killed a deer, well, you killed a deer a
Speaker 3: few years back in late December.
Speaker 2: That was checking scrapes.
Speaker 3: I killed a deer two years ago on December thirtieth,
Speaker 3: that checked a scrape. On the way in, so like
Speaker 3: it's a thing.
Speaker 2: Right. I was in South Texas this past week and
Speaker 2: almost killed a deer that was headed right to a scrape.
Speaker 3: I mean he was going to it. So it's kind
Speaker 3: of like that. It's almost as if we get the
Speaker 3: late October thing happened again this time of year. In fact,
Speaker 3: Chris Brackett, which is an interesting character in the Honey World, right,
Speaker 3: but I like him overall.
Speaker 2: He's done some bad things, but so have I. He
Speaker 2: kind of has this like thing about the full moon
Speaker 2: in late October and he's like, or late December. He's like,
Speaker 2: it is the time for killing a big buck. So
Speaker 2: I thought it was interesting. Yeah, And if nothing else,
Speaker 2: at least.
Speaker 3: He's putting some hype out there to get people excited
Speaker 3: still because a lot of people aren't, and you still
Speaker 3: should be if you using.
Speaker 4: Social contagion, that's right, you know. I was thinking that.
Speaker 4: You know, just one last note on this thing. I
Speaker 4: got into a rutfest the other day you did in
Speaker 4: the bottoms and this deer was actually we don't have
Speaker 4: him on camera, and we've got two feeders running in
Speaker 4: that area. That blows my mind. Dude, he has not
Speaker 4: cared about feeders. He's just running. Yeah, And I think
Speaker 4: it's the thing you see, We saw it. It's funny
Speaker 4: you you don't see it in the planes as much.
Speaker 4: It's like they have to eat up there because they
Speaker 4: have to stay fat.
Speaker 3: But like if you see the feeders dry up all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, it's like it's a good thing.
Speaker 2: You need to be in the woods.
Speaker 3: Maybe not over the feeder, but you need to be
Speaker 3: in the woods around it because they're doing the thing.
Speaker 4: Yes, I need to be in the woods.
Speaker 2: Mighty time.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, let's actually see who we have got today around
Speaker 3: the country to give us more reports, because.
Speaker 2: We kind of know what's going on here in Texas,
Speaker 2: but what else is happening.
Speaker 4: Well, this week we are hearing from Danny Espino, one
Speaker 4: of our buddies who we've known for a few years,
Speaker 4: who really gets after it on Texas Public Land, especially
Speaker 4: Nick Schwartz as opposed to pants. He's going to be
Speaker 4: up in Oklahoma, Colin Marshall out in Maryland. And our
Speaker 4: good buddy Parker macdeazy Donald from the Southern Collective. He's
Speaker 4: out in Alabama giving us report and he has he's
Speaker 4: always on the deer so I'm excited to hear from
Speaker 4: all these guys. Let's get to it.
Speaker 3: I've got my friend in fellow Texas public Land hunter,
Speaker 3: Danny Espino on the line.
Speaker 2: Danny, what's been going on?
Speaker 7: Hey, k S, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Oh, you're welcome.
Speaker 8: Man has been hunting hard, you know here in North
Speaker 8: Texas public land.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I see that on Instagram a lot.
Speaker 7: You.
Speaker 3: Uh you're pretty actually pretty good follow because uh you're
Speaker 3: always finding something cool or whatever and and uh, yeah,
Speaker 3: I appreciate how hard you get after it, man, And
Speaker 3: I know it's been a long season, but it sounds
Speaker 3: like you're still after them. What are the deer doing
Speaker 3: in the woods in North Texas?
Speaker 8: So I feel like they've kind of, uh where where
Speaker 8: we're out in North Texas, we kind of have that
Speaker 8: November mid rut. So I was seeing deer h just
Speaker 8: running hard. But I think they've gone back to normal
Speaker 8: right now. And but they're pretty active on.
Speaker 7: Scrapes right now. That's that's what I feel.
Speaker 8: It's a good time to find a buck just coming
Speaker 8: back to a scrape.
Speaker 2: Are you running cameras and that's how you're kind of
Speaker 2: getting that information.
Speaker 8: I've been running a couple of cameras, but I have
Speaker 8: a couple of my buddies that also run cameras, so
Speaker 8: we both share we all share intel with each other.
Speaker 4: That's been kind of a common theme, uh, on some
Speaker 4: of these interviews so far, that these scrapes are kind
Speaker 4: of like the one thing that's hanging in there as
Speaker 4: far as you know, at least, it's a common theme
Speaker 4: in the rut category. So you know, is that to
Speaker 4: me that that means maybe that deer are still open
Speaker 4: to the idea, right, So I guess that that a
Speaker 4: an immature dough maybe could suddenly come into heat and
Speaker 4: change the ballgame in your area. Have you seen any
Speaker 4: rutting action on camera or heard any of that going
Speaker 4: on at all, just randomly here and there.
Speaker 8: I actually heard about it about two weeks ago, about
Speaker 8: a buck not running hard but just kind of, you know,
Speaker 8: interested in the dough.
Speaker 7: And just like you mentioned it, it could just.
Speaker 8: Take that one hot dough come in, come in kind
Speaker 8: of late into in the heat to get a bug
Speaker 8: just chasing after her.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So, how how would you capitalize this time of
Speaker 4: year on maybe that situation or any other situation you
Speaker 4: feel confident, you know, when you go into the woods
Speaker 4: hunting that spot.
Speaker 8: I definitely capitalize looking for a fresh scrape line, maybe
Speaker 8: not one isolated scrape, but maybe a couple of scrapes,
Speaker 8: you know, in a in a direction, and then put
Speaker 8: a compound compounding feature upon that, maybe some dope betting
Speaker 8: or a food source that you know is is pretty
Speaker 8: consistent for this time of year, and just put some
Speaker 8: features that compound together on top of that scrape, and
Speaker 8: I think you'd be pretty you can capitalize on on
Speaker 8: a good buck.
Speaker 2: Dude, you're speaking our language of this compounding feature stuff.
Speaker 2: You know what's up?
Speaker 4: So the are you seeing anything hitting acron still?
Speaker 7: Uh?
Speaker 8: So where I'm where I'm at, And obviously I don't
Speaker 8: want to get too much info out, but uh, we're.
Speaker 7: Where I'm at.
Speaker 8: We don't really see a good acorn uh production where
Speaker 8: I'm at. So they're kind of hitting forward, uh and
Speaker 8: just whatever whatever resource they can really find.
Speaker 2: M Yeah, yeah, gotcha.
Speaker 3: So are you you're fixing to go out and uh
Speaker 3: target dear pretty hard.
Speaker 2: There here at the end of the season. Do you
Speaker 2: feel like pressure.
Speaker 3: Has eased up in the woods and you're able to
Speaker 3: go into places maybe that the deer were pressured out
Speaker 3: of and still see deer or are you still having
Speaker 3: to just find just you know, nooks.
Speaker 8: Oh, you're definitely having to find nios and crannies, because
Speaker 8: I just think the pressure during the rut was so
Speaker 8: hard that the bucks just it just pushed everything out.
Speaker 8: I mean, I've been at one property, one public land.
Speaker 8: It's been hit so hard that I can't even every
Speaker 8: time I go out, I'm not seeing any.
Speaker 7: Dose, which is really weird.
Speaker 8: So it's been hit so hard that you really have
Speaker 8: to get into the nitty gritty and you have.
Speaker 7: To know where they're.
Speaker 8: Going to cross or where they're going to be at
Speaker 8: to really find a good buck.
Speaker 4: Does that mean like it's pretty much always going to
Speaker 4: be a pretty far high can or are there actually
Speaker 4: still overlook spots?
Speaker 8: Oh, they're definitely overlooks spots. It just depends on where
Speaker 8: you're at. You just really have to know the property.
Speaker 5: Sure.
Speaker 2: Are you still spending time in the mornings right now
Speaker 2: or are you kind of focusing evenings only?
Speaker 8: I would say I'm strictly a morning guy morning to midday.
Speaker 8: I really don't like evenings, So if I'm not working,
Speaker 8: I'm hitting the woods early in the morning. Or if
Speaker 8: I'm working, I'm getting right off midday and.
Speaker 7: Going straight to the woods.
Speaker 3: Okay, so we don't have a lot of time, but
Speaker 3: I want you to expand on the midday thought a
Speaker 3: little bit because I think that's really interesting and probably
Speaker 3: appealing to a lot of people, because if they were
Speaker 3: just like, you know what, I could get a hunt
Speaker 3: in from you know, eleven to three or something, they would,
Speaker 3: of course, just.
Speaker 8: Briefly on that midday thought. You can definitely you know,
Speaker 8: when some people leave the woods in the morning and
Speaker 8: you're coming in midday, you know, those deer are going
Speaker 8: to know something's up and you can find a buck
Speaker 8: just slipping by thinking that everybody's gone, and you come
Speaker 8: in and you kill that buck.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good thought.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, if you're thinking about it based off
Speaker 4: weather or even full moon or whatever else is going on, Yeah,
Speaker 4: in the next week, what do you what do you
Speaker 4: what would you rank buck movement in your opinion on
Speaker 4: a scale of one to ten, What do you think
Speaker 4: it's going to be.
Speaker 7: I'd probably say about a seven.
Speaker 4: Seven that it's.
Speaker 2: Pretty high man. Yeah, yeah, that's exciting.
Speaker 5: Dude.
Speaker 2: Well, if it's a seven, then you are to be
Speaker 2: killing this week, right, hopefully that's good man. Well, hey,
Speaker 2: I appreciate all the good information.
Speaker 3: Stay after it, dude. I know you work real hard
Speaker 3: at it and it's cool to see it pay off.
Speaker 7: Thanks Denny, Thanks Casey, Thanks Tyler.
Speaker 3: Nick Schwartz here has been hunting in Oklahoma some on
Speaker 3: some public ground, chasing the deer around.
Speaker 2: Dude, what's going on right now?
Speaker 6: What's up, fellas? Oh, you know, I'm just hanging out,
Speaker 6: pouring over on X figuring out where I'm going to
Speaker 6: spend the next few days in the woods.
Speaker 3: That's good man, So we're going to get the Oklahoma
Speaker 3: report from you.
Speaker 2: But I'm always interested in people's strategy on this.
Speaker 3: Do you have a bunch of stuff kind of pre
Speaker 3: marked that you think you might want to go check out?
Speaker 2: Or are you kind of starting fresh on that?
Speaker 6: Yeah, so this time of year, maybe around mid December,
Speaker 6: so I treat it as a new season. So I
Speaker 6: keeping back in my mind where I've been, what I've seen,
Speaker 6: but things have definitely changed. So, uh, you know, coming
Speaker 6: out of the rut. Good thing about the South is
Speaker 6: we you know, have a lengthier rut, so there's always
Speaker 6: a chance around a hot dough. But this time of year,
Speaker 6: I'm I'm taking advantage of the time to check out
Speaker 6: some new spots since pause that I have interested in,
Speaker 6: and also revisiting some old spots and seeing what's going
Speaker 6: on there.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, that's cool. So you've been hunting Oklahoma
Speaker 2: some what have you been targeting? Really? Is it food
Speaker 2: sources or are you still trying to find rutting deer.
Speaker 6: It's it's really hard to target rutting gear right now.
Speaker 6: It's a little bit of a wild card. So pretty
Speaker 6: much been hunting food sources, which this year has been difficult.
Speaker 6: Areas I've been hunting for It's been a pretty good
Speaker 6: acorn year, so there's they're spread out, there's a there's
Speaker 6: a lot of clear cuts, so wherever the winter week's
Speaker 6: coming up, they're coming out on that. So that's something
Speaker 6: I've been targeting as well. All the leaves are off
Speaker 6: the trees, so really focusing on the thickest cover, so
Speaker 6: down lower elevation creek beds where all that brush you
Speaker 6: thick stuff grows up. I've revisited a few spots from
Speaker 6: early season where that were really active, and a lot
Speaker 6: of them are fairly open and they've kind of dried
Speaker 6: up since then, so I think the deer are feeling
Speaker 6: the pressure from all the rent action, and then with
Speaker 6: those leaves off the trees, I think they just feel
Speaker 6: more exposed, so they tend to head into you know,
Speaker 6: thicker cover.
Speaker 4: Are they feeding in that thicker cover? Are they just
Speaker 4: mostly betting there? Do you feel like.
Speaker 7: Both?
Speaker 6: I think they're feeding pretty close to bed, and the
Speaker 6: bucks are still doing some some rut tight you know behavior,
Speaker 6: mostly at night. They are making scrapes, and I've had
Speaker 6: some some daylight action on scrapes as well. So it's
Speaker 6: the late season for me, it's it's a little bit
Speaker 6: of a hybrid of you know, rut hunting and then
Speaker 6: early season two.
Speaker 4: Is that scrape action in the morning or evening or
Speaker 4: does it just random?
Speaker 6: That's the tough part is it's been pretty random. I've
Speaker 6: I've had this year has been kind of cool because
Speaker 6: I've had cameras set up in areas that I know
Speaker 6: get pressure, and I also have cameras that that are
Speaker 6: set up in areas that aren't pressured, So I've been
Speaker 6: able to compare, you know, how de're reacting to that
Speaker 6: and in those areas where I know hunters have been
Speaker 6: in and out of quite a bit, myself included. Those
Speaker 6: bucks are pretty much tending those scrapes at night, but
Speaker 6: areas that are not getting pressured. I mean, you'll probably
Speaker 6: know the weather last week was pretty abysmal.
Speaker 7: It was.
Speaker 6: Seventy degrees in the afternoon and I had I don't know,
Speaker 6: maybe a one thirty one forty class buck out at
Speaker 6: one pm checking a scrape.
Speaker 2: They just do weird stuff sometimes, man. Gosh.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So, I mean I think it's tough, but this
Speaker 6: time of year, it's if you can find a scrape
Speaker 6: that's been hit recently and the winds right to set
Speaker 6: up and set all day because you just don't know
Speaker 6: when they're going to show up.
Speaker 3: So that sounds pretty terrible unless you have like seven
Speaker 3: sandwiches in your pack. But I'm gonna kind of wondering
Speaker 3: your strategy on on these late season setups. Are you
Speaker 3: bouncing like every day to something new or do you
Speaker 3: kind of have the I'm gonna sit this spot because
Speaker 3: I know it's good and within five days of year
Speaker 3: is going to come by.
Speaker 6: I think that depends on access how easily I can
Speaker 6: get in and out of a spot. So if I
Speaker 6: feel like I'm not blowing it up real bad, then
Speaker 6: I'll give it multiple sits. But it's also kind of
Speaker 6: the time of year where I can swing for the
Speaker 6: fences and try and get into those areas that it's
Speaker 6: kind of a one and done because I know if
Speaker 6: I get in there, I'm gonna be making noise. Now,
Speaker 6: I might bring a buck in who's feeling territorial, but
Speaker 6: if it doesn't work out, then that may be it
Speaker 6: for a few days, so I might move on to
Speaker 6: another area. So having quite a few spots earmarked to
Speaker 6: know that, okay, once I do a sit here, then
Speaker 6: if I you know, if I feel like I put
Speaker 6: pressure on that area, then I'll hop to another spot
Speaker 6: and let that spot rest. So that's where all the
Speaker 6: early season, preseason and mid season scouting really comes in
Speaker 6: handy if you have a lot of spots that you
Speaker 6: can hop back and forth between.
Speaker 4: Sure, so you know, looking forward next week. People get
Speaker 4: real weird and kind of in their fields this time
Speaker 4: of year because it's the end of the year and
Speaker 4: they got to, you know, set their New Year's resolutions
Speaker 4: and all this stuff. Right, we don't need any fluff here.
Speaker 4: What on a scale of one to ten. Would you
Speaker 4: rank buck movement in the next week.
Speaker 6: If you had asked me last week, I would have
Speaker 6: given you a two or three. But we had that
Speaker 6: nice cold front come through on Christmas Day, and based
Speaker 6: on what I've been seeing, I mean, my my cameras
Speaker 6: are buzzing right now with deer moving on them, so spooky. Yeah,
Speaker 6: I'd give it. Uh, I'd give it a six.
Speaker 2: All right, man, I'll take a six. Last week in
Speaker 2: December for sure.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's a good time to be in the woods because,
Speaker 6: like y'all you know mentioned it, people are either tagged
Speaker 6: out or burnout. So on public land a lot of
Speaker 6: times it's a ghost town in late December. And in
Speaker 6: Oklahoma with an archery tag, I can hunt till January fifteenth.
Speaker 6: So that's what I'm planning on doing.
Speaker 2: All right, man, get after and appreciate the report. Dude,
Speaker 2: it'll be kill a giant.
Speaker 6: All right, guys, we all have a happy New Year
Speaker 6: and enjoy some time off with your family if you
Speaker 6: get it.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: I've got Colin Marshall. He's been deer hunting in Maryland
Speaker 3: over the Christmas holiday and doing all kinds of crazy stuff.
Speaker 2: What's up, man, the Yelemen Boys.
Speaker 7: Tyler Jones, Casey Smith, what's.
Speaker 3: Going on, Hey, dude, just kind of in full recovery mode,
Speaker 3: trying to die. Just a bunch of food because my
Speaker 3: family likes to force feed us. You know, That's kind
Speaker 3: of what happens this time of year. But we're always
Speaker 3: thinking about deer hunting. Man, how are the woods in Maryland?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 9: Man, Well, I still have tags to fill us, So
Speaker 9: in my opinion, they are still wild and wonderful, just
Speaker 9: like the great state of West Virginia, except we're hunting Maryland.
Speaker 7: It ain't the.
Speaker 9: Rut they are running around, for sure, but we are
Speaker 9: not getting a lot of daylight activity, a lot of
Speaker 9: you know, pre sunrise stuff from that, like you know,
Speaker 9: five thirty to seven.
Speaker 7: And then they're back to bed from there.
Speaker 9: And then we caulked them in a good group coming
Speaker 9: up right before sunset, and then you know, they peek
Speaker 9: out of that woodline and then they work that timber
Speaker 9: into the.
Speaker 7: Ag fields from there. But once once shooting.
Speaker 9: Light is over, you know, they kind of have come
Speaker 9: into bow range at that point. So we're really really
Speaker 9: working some strategies of pushing maybe off of the edge
Speaker 9: of those bagg fields and really try.
Speaker 7: To work more of those transition zones inside of the timber.
Speaker 2: Got you what kind of agriculture are they hitting around now?
Speaker 7: Right now on these fields?
Speaker 9: Actually the farmers trying to replenish some nitrogen in the
Speaker 9: soil between the monocropping that they do.
Speaker 7: But we've got turn ups and some winter week that's
Speaker 7: in there.
Speaker 9: So depending on what the temperature is doing, and in
Speaker 9: terms of incipitation, you know, sometimes they're really just hitting
Speaker 9: what's inside the woods, but we can really get them
Speaker 9: munching on on the edges of the fields too, just
Speaker 9: depending on the precipitation of those temperatures.
Speaker 4: When you say transition zones, what do you mean by that?
Speaker 7: Going from bed to feed?
Speaker 4: So what does it look like though.
Speaker 7: In terms of those transition zones?
Speaker 4: Yeah, like is that I mean? Because the transition zone
Speaker 4: could be you know, tall grass or tall timber or
Speaker 4: medium timber, short timber, you know.
Speaker 7: What what is?
Speaker 9: Yeah, I'm talking, Yeah, I'm talking about I mean tall timber.
Speaker 7: I'm talking wooded sections.
Speaker 4: Gotcha.
Speaker 9: So we hunt about one hundred and twenty acres in
Speaker 9: north central Maryland and uh, it's about ninety percent Agfield
Speaker 9: two big fields. It's a real nice drawl strip down
Speaker 9: the middle of it, but it's surrounded by woods, and
Speaker 9: so they're mainly betting down inside of the tall timber woods, uh,
Speaker 9: and then moving through those zones depending on what the
Speaker 9: wind's doing, and then out to those agfields if that's
Speaker 9: really where they're drawn towards that fruits.
Speaker 3: So this time of year, you know, cold fronts help
Speaker 3: a ton in my experience. Now where you're at in
Speaker 3: the country is on a much different weather pattern than
Speaker 3: where we live and operate a lot. So right now
Speaker 3: we're just in a great cold front where we are.
Speaker 3: Is that how it is in Maryland? Or are you
Speaker 3: still waiting on some of that cold weather.
Speaker 9: We just crept out of a cold front actually, probably
Speaker 9: about seven to ten days ago, and I went out
Speaker 9: and sat and the action was pretty hot. It was
Speaker 9: odd though, you know, there was one or two bucks
Speaker 9: on the property that we're chasing, maybe one of those
Speaker 9: fawns that have come into that late heat. But other
Speaker 9: than that, the bucks have grouped up again, and I'm
Speaker 9: kind of waiting for a split out, but I just
Speaker 9: kind of holding out to watch that pattern to see
Speaker 9: what they kind of do in terms of the cold
Speaker 9: front though, I've got one coming in the first week
Speaker 9: of January, and that's when I really look to get
Speaker 9: back out there and watch the wind and see which
Speaker 9: stands are going to be.
Speaker 7: Going to be the best to sit. But but the
Speaker 7: cold fronts in general.
Speaker 9: Or what what really interests me gotch you in terms
Speaker 9: of sitting in the woods is the cold doesn't bother me.
Speaker 2: Man, So say plenty more. Man, that's good. You mentioned
Speaker 2: the you know, not time being being a thing and
Speaker 2: having a nocturnal movement. Uh do you think that since
Speaker 2: we have the full moon right now, as that kind
Speaker 2: of starts to wane, uh, you know in the next
Speaker 2: week or two, is that going to help you with that?
Speaker 7: I think that you're right on the waning side of it.
Speaker 9: I mean, I think that that full moon they you know,
Speaker 9: just being a wild and primal animal, they're they're definitely
Speaker 9: paying attention to it. But I like to hunt the
Speaker 9: front side of those and then right as it's waning out,
Speaker 9: not like dead on in the full like it is today.
Speaker 9: So yeah, and that next week when that cold front
Speaker 9: swings through again and it's barely out of the thirties
Speaker 9: during the day in the twenties at night and uh,
Speaker 9: and that that moon is waning, that's gonna be a
Speaker 9: real interesting time to to start putting down some strategy
Speaker 9: inside of the woods.
Speaker 4: So on a scale of one to ten in the
Speaker 4: next week, what do you predict buck movement to be like.
Speaker 7: Like when I'm sitting in the stand or are.
Speaker 9: You talking about it when I'm watching them one camera
Speaker 9: at night?
Speaker 4: Well, let's just talk about overall twenty four hour period
Speaker 4: buck movement.
Speaker 7: I think it's pretty good on a one to ten. Shoot, man,
Speaker 7: y'all always want the eight. I'm like, I'm gonna get
Speaker 7: a seven and a quarter.
Speaker 4: I actually would appreciate more two and threes, to be honest.
Speaker 7: It's fun we're seeing them. I mean that's the thing.
Speaker 9: Like, you know, I don't want to just you know,
Speaker 9: play to whateverybody wants to hear. But you know, is
Speaker 9: it is it, you know, keeping me up at night? Uh,
Speaker 9: thinking about how much they're moving?
Speaker 7: No? Is it? Is it keeping me up at night
Speaker 7: about how much they're not moving?
Speaker 10: No?
Speaker 7: It's not. So it's you know, let's put it somewhere
Speaker 7: in the middle there.
Speaker 9: Yeah, you know, but I but I think it is
Speaker 9: on the you know, on the higher side of a five.
Speaker 7: So cool, dude.
Speaker 3: All right, man, we really appreciate the report from Maryland,
Speaker 3: and I hope y'all have a great risk of your
Speaker 3: Christmas holiday.
Speaker 7: Thank you. Happy holidays to you guys.
Speaker 4: All right, on the phone, I've got Parker McDonald. He's
Speaker 4: a good buddy of mine from Alabama. He's gonna give
Speaker 4: us a report there. What's been going on.
Speaker 10: Dude, Oh dude, just man, it was a it was
Speaker 10: a very short but very very productive.
Speaker 5: Season for me in Alabama this year.
Speaker 10: And you know, I was I was out a lot,
Speaker 10: like you guys like travel a lot during that November rut.
Speaker 10: Our ruts in Alabama are pretty much all gonna be later,
Speaker 10: and so I was out traveling and doing that kind
Speaker 10: of stuff. And then came back and it was just
Speaker 10: like it was on fire this year. So it's been
Speaker 10: great in Alabama this season.
Speaker 4: So, dude, I can't really trust that it was on
Speaker 4: fire because you're just a good hunter. So you know,
Speaker 4: like I mean, for the average guy, you know, like me,
Speaker 4: it might not be on fire if I was out there. Whatever,
Speaker 4: you got, crap, what's going on, dude?
Speaker 10: It really here, here's the deal. Man, I've been telling
Speaker 10: a lot of people about this, Like, yeah, I try
Speaker 10: to be like studied up and I try to make
Speaker 10: educated decisions every time I walk in the woods of
Speaker 10: what I.
Speaker 5: Think deer are going to do.
Speaker 10: But seriously, this year, I have seen more people just
Speaker 10: like people who are who might be considered like your
Speaker 10: weekend kind of guys, your weekend warriors. Like consistently they
Speaker 10: go on maybe Saturday and Sunday if they got a
Speaker 10: good couple of days in there in the woods. They
Speaker 10: they they've been coming out with deer's It's crazy, dude.
Speaker 10: It's like, I don't remember last year if we talked much,
Speaker 10: uh as far as the ret fresh stuff goes, but
Speaker 10: last year was really weak, rut like it.
Speaker 5: Was just not very good.
Speaker 10: And it seems like maybe, and I'm not a biologist,
Speaker 10: you know, this is just my best guess. It seems
Speaker 10: like a lot of deer, a lot of bucks lived
Speaker 10: last year, just very few people killed them around here
Speaker 10: where I hunt at home. Uh, in Alabama. It was
Speaker 10: just like if you killed something anything decent last year,
Speaker 10: like you did something pretty special because just not very
Speaker 10: many people were doing it. But it does seem like
Speaker 10: a lot of those three and a half year olds
Speaker 10: made it to four and a half, and so you're
Speaker 10: just seeing guys killing four and a half type.
Speaker 5: Year old deer.
Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, it's it's just been that's been unreal. It's
Speaker 10: been a good season.
Speaker 4: Well that's exciting.
Speaker 2: I trust you more than maybe some of the other
Speaker 2: people you're talking about anyway. So I think it's spot
Speaker 2: on the money.
Speaker 3: It's a I haven't thought about it much, but I
Speaker 3: definitely can see that being a pausible thing.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: So do you think that since potentially there was older
Speaker 3: deer on the landscape, that those deer were a little
Speaker 3: easier to kill or do you think that they're that
Speaker 3: four year olds are still four year olds and you
Speaker 3: still have to do the same stuff for him.
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 10: Man, I think yes, and yes, I think I think
Speaker 10: what you end up half happening.
Speaker 5: Like you guys are from Texas, so you'll know, you'll
Speaker 5: know this deal.
Speaker 10: Like, just because deer is mature does not always mean
Speaker 10: that they're just going to be that recluse, you know
Speaker 10: what I mean. Like, you go a deer without much pressure,
Speaker 10: you you're going to see a deer's true, uh true personality.
Speaker 10: Maybe if that's what you want to call it. And
Speaker 10: so I think I can't even remember who it was.
Speaker 10: Somebody a lot smarter than me was talking about this,
Speaker 10: this idea that you know, yeah, sure, most of the
Speaker 10: big public land deer that we that we hunt, the
Speaker 10: big mature deer going to be you know, kind of
Speaker 10: reclusive and like back in their own little little space,
Speaker 10: not really surrounded by the general population of deer. But
Speaker 10: that's just because they live on public land, right, Like,
Speaker 10: that's the ones that survived. The three and a half
Speaker 10: year old social deer he got shot when he was
Speaker 10: three and a half because he was out in the
Speaker 10: green field, you know what I mean. Ye, And so
Speaker 10: I think I think, yeah, they're they're great, They're awesome.
Speaker 10: But I think what happened last year is the rut
Speaker 10: was so lame. The dose just didn't really go into estrith.
Speaker 10: That didn't seem like I saw a lot of loan doughs,
Speaker 10: a lot of dough groups and does with fawns deer
Speaker 10: in the rut last year, and it just seems like,
Speaker 10: you know, there just wasn't anything to get these deer
Speaker 10: up on their feet in the daylight. Like it was
Speaker 10: just kind of like good luck you know, and so
Speaker 10: a lot of these deer. You know, I shot a
Speaker 10: five and a half year old buck my last buck
Speaker 10: in Alabama last week. Five and a half years old
Speaker 10: came out acting like he was three and a half
Speaker 10: or two and a half, you know, just you know,
Speaker 10: he was just I'm not going to say easier to kill,
Speaker 10: but he was kind of easier to kill.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well they did, you know, And there's so many
Speaker 4: variables in what causes them to act a certain way
Speaker 4: for a certain number of hours, and whether that happens
Speaker 4: at night or day and all this and that too.
Speaker 4: So just like sometimes that five and a half year
Speaker 4: old just gets to that point where he just is
Speaker 4: crazy for a second, you know, which is exciting. So
Speaker 4: you know, with that being said, you know, I mean
Speaker 4: what you know, in a nutshell, what has been working
Speaker 4: tactically speaking for you? Oh dude?
Speaker 10: Uh, calling has been pretty pretty efficient this year, Like
Speaker 10: grunting specifically. Man, it just seemed like this year coming
Speaker 10: in at my first hunt in Alabama was November the
Speaker 10: twenty seventh, I believe, and I think I filled my
Speaker 10: last tag on the twelfth, if that we get three
Speaker 10: buck tags on the twelfth of December, so in that
Speaker 10: timeframe is when I killed all three of my bucks,
Speaker 10: and nearly all three of them came into grunts or
Speaker 10: or were Like the last one, that five and a
Speaker 10: half year old that I heard, he was roaring. I've
Speaker 10: never heard an Alabama buck do a buck roar, and
Speaker 10: he did. He was shown enough did and ended up
Speaker 10: like so like that that calling like really subtle grunts,
Speaker 10: you know, nothing too crazy, with a little bit of noise.
Speaker 5: Maybe scraped some trees. Man.
Speaker 10: It just it seems like it worked this year. Yeah,
Speaker 10: it worked several years, but it worked really well this year.
Speaker 3: Are you doing that blind or are you seeing bucks
Speaker 3: and doing that to them?
Speaker 5: Both?
Speaker 2: Really?
Speaker 10: Yeah? I mean yeah, a lot of the times just
Speaker 10: depending on the time of day that it is around
Speaker 10: around that like nine o'clock nine thirty thermal shift, if
Speaker 10: you want to call it that, when the thermals start,
Speaker 10: you know, changing directions and moving up. Just seems like
Speaker 10: that's when those bucks start getting real frisky and they
Speaker 10: start getting on their feet, and so that's when I
Speaker 10: start doing it. Sure, And it's usually like three or
Speaker 10: four just little tending grunts with some scrape some tree limbs,
Speaker 10: you know, that might be hanging up around me and
Speaker 10: that downwind side of that. Like if you can be
Speaker 10: in one of those type of situations where you can
Speaker 10: see the down wind side, man, it's pretty moneys. Yeah,
Speaker 10: especially if you've got a rifle in your hand too.
Speaker 4: I can tell you that for sure. So you know,
Speaker 4: in the next week, I know that there's a lot
Speaker 4: of different ruts there in Alabama. Uh, maybe where you've
Speaker 4: been hunting, or maybe you could tell us like a
Speaker 4: region that would be like probably fix like fixing to
Speaker 4: pop off in the next week or so in the rut.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I mean, here's the deal Alabama.
Speaker 10: I may have talked about this on on this podcast before,
Speaker 10: but Alabama kind of looks like a like a weather map,
Speaker 10: like a hurricane system or storm system map. Eat that
Speaker 10: for the rut When you look up our rut map,
Speaker 10: that's what it looks like. And so literally in every
Speaker 10: part of every region of Alabama, you're gonna have ruts
Speaker 10: coming up.
Speaker 5: In January.
Speaker 10: I would say January is by far when the most
Speaker 10: rutting activity happens in Alabama. But I mean you can
Speaker 10: be in North Alabama, like literally on the on the
Speaker 10: Tennessee line, there's places up there that are gonna be
Speaker 10: rutting up into February. Wow, north northwest Alabama, it's gonna
Speaker 10: be popping off right here, like right now. And so
Speaker 10: you know, it's not like the Midwest for you can
Speaker 10: just give like a general like, yeah, the bucks.
Speaker 5: Will move the last week.
Speaker 10: Yeah, because thirty minutes away there is a dough in
Speaker 10: heat right now for sure that's getting just dogged by
Speaker 10: a bunch of bucks. Yeah. So I think for a
Speaker 10: southern hunter or for a guy that wants to extend
Speaker 10: his season and comes south, like, it's just a little
Speaker 10: bitty tiny bit of research can really get you in
Speaker 10: the in the right direction, headed in the right direction,
Speaker 10: because you're if you go to the wrong spot and
Speaker 10: you ain't find a rut sign, move thirty minutes north,
Speaker 10: thirty minutes south.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know you might find it inspiring stuff.
Speaker 2: Dude, all right, just pop off right here.
Speaker 3: On a scale of one to ten, you're gonna rank
Speaker 3: buck movement for the next week in Alabama.
Speaker 10: What you say, I'm gonna say it's gonna be a Oh,
Speaker 10: it's gonna be a ten somewhere next week.
Speaker 4: That's the first one.
Speaker 2: That's our first ten of the year.
Speaker 4: Parker way to go.
Speaker 2: Wait to go, dude.
Speaker 3: This is the last year for Retfresh of the year
Speaker 3: and you just gave it a ten.
Speaker 4: Gosh, what a way to way to go.
Speaker 2: So we appreciate it, dude, Thanks so much.
Speaker 4: Parker, Hey, thanks for having me. Guys.
Speaker 2: Well, y'all.
Speaker 3: That wraps a year of Retfresh. It's been a lot
Speaker 3: of fun. Got to talk to a lot of new people,
Speaker 3: got to talk to a lot of old friends. Most
Speaker 3: of all, I hope that Retfresh helped you be successful
Speaker 3: this year or at least learn something, because honestly, Retfresh
Speaker 3: doing these ret Fresh interviews helps me. I feel like
Speaker 3: I have a better concept of like how deer hunting
Speaker 3: is done in the US, and it's pretty fun. If
Speaker 3: you're still out grinding, still getting it, we appreciate you, man,
Speaker 3: because dad gum, if it isn't fun to just chase
Speaker 3: deer as much as you possibly can, we appreciate you
Speaker 3: listening as well. And if you do need a little
Speaker 3: inspiration or you need a little bit of I don't know,
Speaker 3: something to ponder. Dylan Trump has an article about how
Speaker 3: to use hunting pressure to your advantage in the late season,
Speaker 3: and it sounds like that's one of the things that
Speaker 3: was a common theme this week. So if that resonated
Speaker 3: with you, go check out that article. We'll link to
Speaker 3: it below.
Speaker 4: Big thanks to mister world famous Mark Kenyon for letting
Speaker 4: us host this thing this fall. It's been fun. We
Speaker 4: appreciate Mark his friendship and just the overall kind guy
Speaker 4: he is to us, and also just a wealth of
Speaker 4: knowledge when it comes to wilde tail hunting and especially
Speaker 4: talking about photo period and those kind of things. Right Mark,
Speaker 4: thank you. Also, there are two things I want you
Speaker 4: guys to do before we get out of here. To first,
Speaker 4: make sure you subscribe to the media channel and our
Speaker 4: YouTube channel. So on YouTube you can subscribe to both
Speaker 4: YouTube channels. One's called The Element one's mediator, because they're
Speaker 4: going to be releasing new videos on those platforms periodically
Speaker 4: pretty often from here until indefinite. And then the last
Speaker 4: thing I want you guys to do is to go
Speaker 4: and subscribe right now to our podcast, the Element Podcast.
Speaker 4: I appreciate it, and you'll be hearing more from us
Speaker 4: when you do that. We come out with a weekly
Speaker 4: podcas guests, so this doesn't have to end. Appreciate all
Speaker 4: the listeners, and remember this is rutfresh keep it fresh, fresh, fresh, fresh, fresh,