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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide

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Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, and now your host,

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Speaker 1: Tony Peterson. Hey everyone, welcome to the Wire to Hunt

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Speaker 1: Foundations podcast, brought to you by First Light. Today's episode

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Speaker 1: is all about the best week of the season and

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Speaker 1: how you can tag out when the rut is blowing up.

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Speaker 1: Any vacation time you can take where you're in a stand,

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Speaker 1: this first week of November is time that you should take.

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Speaker 1: It's also one of the most challenging weeks of the

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Speaker 1: season because expectations always run really high, and sometimes mother

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Speaker 1: Nature just doesn't deliver, or sometimes we just flake out

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Speaker 1: and give it half effort. These reasons and others that

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Speaker 1: leave you with an unfilled tag or what this episode

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Speaker 1: is all about. Yeah, growing up in Minnesota as a

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Speaker 1: bow hunter who sucked at bow hunting, I actually hated

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Speaker 1: the rut. I knew the early firearms season would come

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Speaker 1: in just when the hunting would get good, and after

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Speaker 1: the first week in November I'd have to relinquish the

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Speaker 1: woods to the Orange Army. I also knew after the

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Speaker 1: season i'd walk the woods find dead bucks tucked into

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Speaker 1: the best rabbit hunting spots and see randomly scarred trees

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Speaker 1: where slugs took the bark off during deer drives. I

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Speaker 1: was bitter, and I didn't want anyone to enjoy the

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Speaker 1: rut because I couldn't. It was stupid. This became clear

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Speaker 1: to me the first few times I traveled out of

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Speaker 1: state to hunt during the first week in November. Other

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Speaker 1: than a few really unproductive rut hunts in northern Wisconsin,

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Speaker 1: where I hunted field edges and easy spots and didn't

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Speaker 1: see anything bigger than button bucks, the first time I

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Speaker 1: really got to experience the rut was when a good

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Speaker 1: friend of mine convinced me to build up some Iowa

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Speaker 1: points and draw a tag down there. He had permission

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Speaker 1: to hunt a relatives farm and said we could hunt

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Speaker 1: it for the week if we needed to. I went

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Speaker 1: down there and some are scouted and it was honestly incredible,

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Speaker 1: so I figured the rut would be too. It wasn't,

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Speaker 1: but every day I saw at least one or two

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Speaker 1: bucks chasing, and halfway through my rut caation, watched a

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Speaker 1: stud of a ten pointer follow a dough out to

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Speaker 1: a pond I was sitting over in my climber two

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Speaker 1: snort wheezes later, he was seven yards away and knocking

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Speaker 1: on Heaven's door. It was an absolute eye opener for me,

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Speaker 1: not from the perspective of all out rut craziness, but

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Speaker 1: just anticipation and promise. I didn't see more than a

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Speaker 1: handful of bucks that week, but every minute that went by,

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Speaker 1: I felt like it would bring a deer my way.

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Speaker 1: I freaking loved it, and it set me on an

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Speaker 1: addiction that I hope to never kick on, like a

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Speaker 1: lot of other addictions I've had that I actually did

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Speaker 1: have to kick anyway. That's what this week is all about.

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Speaker 1: And don't kid yourself. As long as you're not in

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Speaker 1: the southern extreme range of the way tail, it's happening

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Speaker 1: right now, hot, cold, windy, wet tornadoes, sharknadoes. Nothing is

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Speaker 1: going to stop the Bucks from trying to sweet taco

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Speaker 1: dough into twenty four hours of amorous connection. Nothing but

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Speaker 1: And if you listen to early episodes of this podcast,

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Speaker 1: and I hope you did, you know there's always a butt.

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Speaker 1: It's not usually easy. I know that seems weird, but

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Speaker 1: you're still hunting prey animals that are really good at

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Speaker 1: not dying. A pressured buck that is out of his

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Speaker 1: mind will quickly snap to reality if he sees a

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Speaker 1: quivering mass of camel up in a tree trying to

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Speaker 1: draw his bow. Those public landos that you've so carefully

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Speaker 1: left alone, and they'll bust you bigger than ship if

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Speaker 1: they get the chance. You've got to hunt like you

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Speaker 1: mean it this week, and you've got to put in

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Speaker 1: the time. There's no way around that. This seems easy enough,

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Speaker 1: but it's actually not to hunt like you mean it.

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Speaker 1: You might have to stay mobile and go where the

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Speaker 1: dear activity is. Now. This might seem like different advice

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Speaker 1: than most rud hunting strategies where you just find a

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Speaker 1: sweet pinch point and just write it out. But let

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Speaker 1: me make a distinction on this. The volume hunt targeted

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Speaker 1: toward a funnel or pinch point only works if you

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Speaker 1: have the right terrain features and enough deer to fulfill

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Speaker 1: the promise of something big and horny coming down the

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Speaker 1: trail Eventually. If you hunt flat swamp land, big woods,

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Speaker 1: maybe where they're just isn't a lot of elevation changes,

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Speaker 1: you know, more than maybe twenty ft for fifty miles,

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Speaker 1: like some of the flattest stuff out there. You might

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Speaker 1: not have a classic funnel or pinch point to work with. Conversely,

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Speaker 1: if you're hunting along the I don't know the bluffs

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Speaker 1: of the Mississippi or maybe the Missouri River, or you

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Speaker 1: have a nice western river bottom to work with, you

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Speaker 1: might have a dozen quality pinch points in every section

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Speaker 1: or more. You've got to work with what the terrain

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Speaker 1: and the deer give you. If you have faith in

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Speaker 1: your setup, by all means, give it some serious time.

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Speaker 1: I've volume hunted spots for four days before getting a shot,

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Speaker 1: while at other times I've sat five or six different

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Speaker 1: stands in the same amount of time. I should also

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Speaker 1: that the volume hunts on funnels and pinch points, as

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Speaker 1: well as the all days sit talk makes hunters falsely

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Speaker 1: believe that as long as you're in a stand or

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Speaker 1: in a blind for enough hours, you'll get your shot.

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Speaker 1: If that stand is on the edge of a field

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Speaker 1: where you've hunted twenties three times so far this season,

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Speaker 1: or a whole roster of public land hunters have filed

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Speaker 1: through during the season, that's probably not the case. I

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Speaker 1: rarely see the rut take a dead spot and make

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Speaker 1: it unreal when it comes to pressure deer It often

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Speaker 1: takes okay spots and makes them good, and turns the

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Speaker 1: good spots into great places to sit. But rarely will

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Speaker 1: you totally burn an area and see it come back

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Speaker 1: to life during the rut. On private ground, this is

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Speaker 1: possible and part of the reasons so many people go

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Speaker 1: back to the field edge or food plot strategy. Now again,

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Speaker 1: you gotta read the deer. If the does are still

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Speaker 1: coming into the same patch of clover you'd like to

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Speaker 1: sit because it's easy a rut hunt there probably isn't

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Speaker 1: a bad idea. And a side note here, you don't

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Speaker 1: want to be married to the easy food style set up.

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Speaker 1: I did this in northern Wisconsin a few years ago.

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Speaker 1: While I had mostly spent my season on public land,

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Speaker 1: I own a small property over there with one little

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Speaker 1: kill plot on it. I was honestly just kind of

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Speaker 1: burned out and I wanted easy hunting, so I talked

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Speaker 1: myself into sitting in a ground blight on that plot.

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Speaker 1: My standards were low, and I figured eventually the rut

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Speaker 1: gods would send something my way. The first morning, I

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Speaker 1: heard a chase happen in the woods to the north

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Speaker 1: of the plot. I also saw nothing in that plot

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Speaker 1: all day or all day. The next day, it bugged

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Speaker 1: me that the deer had been running around in the

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Speaker 1: thicker cover and I have gotten lazy and didn't move.

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Speaker 1: I did hang a camera in there just before leaving

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Speaker 1: to drive to Oklahoma for a week of public land

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Speaker 1: hunting there. When I pulled that camera in Wisconsin months later,

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Speaker 1: the reality of buck movement in that cover hit me.

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Speaker 1: While I had been wasting my time on a dead

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Speaker 1: food plot two yards away, bucks were cruising through in

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Speaker 1: the mornings, evenings and in the midday. Now it wasn't NonStop,

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Speaker 1: this isn't, this isn't I would hear here, but it

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Speaker 1: was a hundred times better than where I was hunting.

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Speaker 1: If the deer aren't where you want to hunt, you

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Speaker 1: gotta go where they want to be. As a lesson,

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Speaker 1: I've pushed a lot on here, and even when you

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Speaker 1: get to that spot, you've got to be able to

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Speaker 1: stay there. This is a tricky one because we talk

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Speaker 1: all the time about all day sits all the time,

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Speaker 1: but how many folks actually do it, and how many

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Speaker 1: folks will do it when they are in a cushy box,

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Speaker 1: blind or a two man ladder stand. Have you ever

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Speaker 1: spent the dark to dark hours in a saddle or

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Speaker 1: in a small portable tree stand. It's a challenge. It's

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Speaker 1: even more of a challenge if you have a five

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Speaker 1: hour dead period in the middle of the day. That's

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Speaker 1: when the devil hops up on your shoulder and whispers

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Speaker 1: a bunch of sweet nothings into your ear about how

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Speaker 1: good a nap would feel, or how nice it would

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Speaker 1: be to head into town for a greasy cheeseburger at

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Speaker 1: the local cafe, or maybe just how you should really

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Speaker 1: get down and hike over to that camera you got

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Speaker 1: on the ridge, even though you don't really want to

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Speaker 1: go into that specei sic area of the farm until

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Speaker 1: the conditions are perfect for hunting it. There's a line

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Speaker 1: in a tool song with the title that the corner

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Speaker 1: office folks at metiaor won't let me say in a

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Speaker 1: podcast that goes, Boredom is not a burden anyone should bear.

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Speaker 1: It's simple, but makes an interesting point about rut hunting.

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Speaker 1: You will be bored if you have to scroll through Instagram.

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Speaker 1: Go ahead, you're gonna do it anyway. If you have

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Speaker 1: to bring a paperback book to pass the time, do

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Speaker 1: that you're hunting for you, And if you need a

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Speaker 1: little extra help to pass the time and stay in

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Speaker 1: the trees, go nuts, bring coffee like I do, bring

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Speaker 1: candy like I do. Reward yourself for every hour that passes.

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Speaker 1: Do what you have to in order to stay there.

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Speaker 1: Forget what other so called die hard hunters will say

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Speaker 1: about paying attention or why you should really be in

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Speaker 1: a tree, why you're really out there. This is for you.

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Speaker 1: If playing solitaire or words with friends on your phone

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Speaker 1: is the best way to put in the time, do it.

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Speaker 1: No one really cares but you anywhere. But also, don't

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Speaker 1: forget to glass a lot. Take breaks from your distractions

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Speaker 1: to scan the woods, scan the fields, scan the clear cut,

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Speaker 1: don't miss deer, and also pay attention to your confidence level.

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Speaker 1: If you thought for sure, without doubt that pulling a

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Speaker 1: dark to dark sid in a specific spot would produce

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Speaker 1: a buck, but didn't ask yourself why or where more

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Speaker 1: likely you should be. There aren't a lot of secrets

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Speaker 1: to this stuff, and getting on a real terrain feature

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Speaker 1: that is going to force movement is huge. This can

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Speaker 1: be a washout on a hillside that pushes bucks lower

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Speaker 1: or higher, a river crossing a bottleneck of tight timber

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Speaker 1: between two huge woodlots, high spine, in a swamp that

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Speaker 1: tethers together, a gnarly betting area in a three year

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Speaker 1: old clear cut. The bucks you're gonna hunt now, they're

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Speaker 1: gonna be on the move, and that movement is going

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Speaker 1: to draw them to the spots that they have to

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Speaker 1: be in to get from point A to B. If

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Speaker 1: your spot isn't producing the way you think it should be,

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Speaker 1: it might be time to move to a better funnel.

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Speaker 1: As I mentioned earlier, you might really have to think

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Speaker 1: about what a funnel means in your specific woods. And

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Speaker 1: also if you have to blind call to keep the

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Speaker 1: excitement up and keep that all days sit going, go

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Speaker 1: for it. Maybe the coffee isn't enough. If there is

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Speaker 1: a week to just really kind of do what you

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Speaker 1: want in the white tille woods and enjoy it, this

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Speaker 1: is it. Maybe that's a rattling session at first light

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Speaker 1: with some grunning mixed in, which can be productive even

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Speaker 1: on public land. This is the time to try it.

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Speaker 1: If you have to occasionally tip the can, call over

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Speaker 1: and bleat into the woods, do so, but remember this

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Speaker 1: expect a response every time. While calling actually rarely works,

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Speaker 1: it does work sometimes and what it does, it's usually

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Speaker 1: a quick response. A lot of hunters get caught off guard,

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Speaker 1: dragging out the rattling session for three minutes when twenty

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Speaker 1: seconds would have done it. The same goes for running

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Speaker 1: a decoy. You've got to pay attention to who may

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Speaker 1: be eyeing a your fake bucker dough from the edge

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Speaker 1: of the woods, and who might suddenly stiff leg his

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Speaker 1: way into bow range. If you're not ready, that buck

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Speaker 1: might get a whiff of something you touched while you're

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Speaker 1: scrambling to get your bow and get drawn. The unpredictability

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Speaker 1: of action during the rut is what makes it so

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Speaker 1: damn fun. But it's not as fun if you blow

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Speaker 1: an opportunity because you've drifted off into boredom induced Narnia.

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Speaker 1: All I'm saying is stay ready and do what you

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Speaker 1: have to in order to keep yourself out there, because

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Speaker 1: this is the key time time in the woods. It's

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Speaker 1: key right now to your success. While I think we

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Speaker 1: over exaggerate the likelihood of killing mid day bucks, it

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Speaker 1: is always a possibility they are out cruising in the

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Speaker 1: mid day and you won't kill them. If you're snoring

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Speaker 1: in your tent, do what you have to in order

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Speaker 1: to spend full days in the woods. Bring enough food,

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Speaker 1: were the right clothes, keep yourself comfortable. Discomfort is the

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Speaker 1: enemy of all days sits, and it will come from

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Speaker 1: a rumbling stomach, It'll come from frozen toes, it'll come

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Speaker 1: from boredom. But no matter what, it'll come. But if

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Speaker 1: you stave off the worst effects through careful planning and

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Speaker 1: a lot of confidence in your spot, you'll be able

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Speaker 1: to ride out those slow stretches. You'll stave off that hunger.

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Speaker 1: You'll keep hunting in that cold north wind because you know,

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Speaker 1: and you believe in your heart of hearts, that buck

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Speaker 1: is going to come. And speaking of cold north winds,

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Speaker 1: remember something about an all day sit. You should do

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Speaker 1: it until you shouldn't. While November often delivers consistent wind directions,

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Speaker 1: usually from the north or west, there are no guarantees

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Speaker 1: with weather. If you're on stand and the win you

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Speaker 1: were counting on the last all day switches, it becomes

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Speaker 1: decision time. What are the odds of getting busted after

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Speaker 1: directional change? Be honest. If they aren't good, don't go

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Speaker 1: home or back to camp, Go hunt another stand or

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Speaker 1: set up in another spot. If you have to go,

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Speaker 1: build a natural ground, blind twenty yards down wind from

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Speaker 1: a trail, do something to stay in the woods and hunting.

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Speaker 1: The days of November they're really only like eleven or

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Speaker 1: twelve hours long. That's long, sure, but it's not a

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Speaker 1: huge ask to be out there all that time, and honestly,

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Speaker 1: what else would you rather be doing. I always find

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Speaker 1: it weird that we talked about the rut. We dream

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Speaker 1: about the rut all year long, then when it gets here,

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Speaker 1: we find excuses to sleep in or to hunt half

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Speaker 1: days when we could put in a full shift with

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Speaker 1: some overtime to boot and listen. I'm not judging, I've

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Speaker 1: been there. In fact, back in my drinking days, there

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Speaker 1: were many many mornings in November where I slept in,

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Speaker 1: falsely rationalizing my decision by thinking I just go out

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Speaker 1: and hunt from ten until dark. That was stupid, but

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Speaker 1: it was easy to give into. The same goes for

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Speaker 1: day four of a tough rut hunt, getting up to

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Speaker 1: sit dark to dark when your confidence has taken a

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Speaker 1: real hit over the last few days. It's not easy

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Speaker 1: fight through that ship, my friends, because this week is

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Speaker 1: going to be gone in an instant, and you'll regret

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Speaker 1: not making the most of it. Make a plan to

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Speaker 1: be where you want to be every day. If that

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Speaker 1: requires a mobile setup and some extra work, do that.

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Speaker 1: If you hunt where others hunt, make backup plans that

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Speaker 1: work with the predicted conditions. Any of your listeners out

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Speaker 1: there who rut hunt public land know how important that is.

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Speaker 1: This is the week when every bow hunter with an

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Speaker 1: unfilled tag is going to make an appearance at the

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Speaker 1: parking lot of your favorite w m A. Most of

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Speaker 1: them won't work very hard to kill a deer. Most

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Speaker 1: of them will rely on get rich quick products. They'll rattle,

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Speaker 1: they'll cover the woods and deer pists. They'll leave at

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Speaker 1: mid morning. They'll give you a chance to outwork them

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Speaker 1: and out hunt the deer. Do this by having a

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Speaker 1: planet sticking to it. If you know there's a cold

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Speaker 1: front coming in on November nine and that happens to

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Speaker 1: be a Saturday, expect the most hunting pressure you'll see

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Speaker 1: for the entire season. That's a given. So how will

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Speaker 1: you deal with it? If you hunt private ground and

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Speaker 1: the gun season is going to open soon, expect some

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Speaker 1: visitors if you don't have total control over that land,

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Speaker 1: even if you're the only bow hunter on the property.

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Speaker 1: Will the landowner's relatives come in to check their ladder

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Speaker 1: stands a week before the season opens. In my home

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Speaker 1: state of Minnesota, with that early gun opener i mentioned,

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Speaker 1: this always puts extra humans in the woods on the

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Speaker 1: last weekend of October. In other states with later openers,

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Speaker 1: the pressure comes in the week before, usually the weekend

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Speaker 1: before the opener. No matter when that is, you can

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Speaker 1: expect and uptick a human pressure in the woods then

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Speaker 1: and the deer will react to this heightened presence of

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Speaker 1: people in the woods, But they won't stop running. They'll

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Speaker 1: just do it in a place where most folks don't go.

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Speaker 1: Where is that place on your chosen hunting ground? Does

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Speaker 1: that place offer you up a sweet funnel to sit

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Speaker 1: over or are you going to have to grind it

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Speaker 1: out in a glass and move mobile strategy? Are you

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Speaker 1: ready for that kind of week? All of this is cautionary,

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Speaker 1: but I really want you to understand something. As much

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Speaker 1: as I've downplayed the rut, it can also absolutely deliver

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Speaker 1: a gift buck into your lap at any time, even

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Speaker 1: if you've made a mistake or three in your setup.

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Speaker 1: I'll give you one example of this. The biggest buck

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Speaker 1: I ever killed in my life. That big ten pointer

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Speaker 1: with palmated antlers came in grunting on a hot dough

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Speaker 1: with two other bucks that were big. I can't call

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Speaker 1: it a love triangle because there were four of them,

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Speaker 1: so I guess I don't like a love square anyway.

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Speaker 1: The whole party came in fast while I was fourteen

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Speaker 1: feet up in a small pine tree in Nebraska on

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Speaker 1: November seven. As soon as I heard those grunts, I

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Speaker 1: stood straight up because it caught me off guard, and

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Speaker 1: the object of those bucks affection saw me. All I

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Speaker 1: could see was a dough looking straight at me, with

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Speaker 1: a whole bunch of big white racks bobbing around her.

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Speaker 1: I've panicked my fair share of times in the white

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Speaker 1: Tail woods, but at that moment I thought I blew

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Speaker 1: the whole thing. It only got worse when she trotted

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Speaker 1: buy and I missed one of the bucks forty in

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Speaker 1: stud of a buck, mind you. Another buck followed them

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Speaker 1: down the bluff in front of me as I knocked

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Speaker 1: another arrow, and that's when I heard the third buck

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Speaker 1: swinging around to cut them off. This brought him right

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Speaker 1: into my lap and gave me a shot when he

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Speaker 1: piled up that little pine Treo was in was shaking

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Speaker 1: like a dog shitting razor blades. I had done a

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Speaker 1: lot wrong, a lot, and I still managed to kill

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Speaker 1: an absolute toad on public land. Now that's not the

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Speaker 1: only time either, when I felt like I'm barely qualified

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Speaker 1: for amateur hour, yet the dear gods have smiled upon me.

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Speaker 1: That's the beauty of the rut. It can be so

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Speaker 1: forgiving and so exciting. So so get out there and hunt,

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Speaker 1: hunt smart, hunt long hours and enjoy it. Hunt like

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Speaker 1: you mean it, because next week, even though it's still

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Speaker 1: going to be really good, things are going to start

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Speaker 1: to get a little bit more difficult. That's it for

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Speaker 1: this week. Go forth and make the most of your

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Speaker 1: dear time. I'm right now, my friends. I'm Tony Peterson

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Speaker 1: and this has been the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast.

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Speaker 1: As always, thank you so much for listening. H