Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
Speaker 1: the white Tail Woods, presented by first Light, creating proven
Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First
Speaker 1: Light Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
Speaker 2: the show, we are answering fourteen listeners submitted questions about
Speaker 2: the white Tail Rut and joining me is one of
Speaker 2: the very best bow hunters I know.
Speaker 3: Andy May.
Speaker 2: All right, now, real quick before we kick off today's episode,
Speaker 2: I've got a little treat for you. It is, as
Speaker 2: we speak, November. This is our first podcast of November
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three. It is an incredible time of year.
Speaker 2: Some might say it's the most wonderful time of year,
Speaker 2: and others might even say it's the most most wonderful
Speaker 2: time of.
Speaker 3: Year to kill deer.
Speaker 2: And with that said, some of you might recall that
Speaker 2: last year when November hit, we released our first rut song.
Speaker 2: It was a take on the most wonderful time of
Speaker 2: the year that Christmas Carol, but our version was It's
Speaker 2: the most wonderful time to kill deer and it was hilarious.
Speaker 3: I loved it.
Speaker 2: We got lots of comments and questions for folks, not
Speaker 2: so much questions, more so just we love it, let's
Speaker 2: hear more of it. How can we get this on
Speaker 2: Spotify or wherever? So with that said, we wanted to
Speaker 2: a run that one back for you. So if you
Speaker 2: have not heard The Most Wonderful Time to Kill Deer,
Speaker 2: we're going to play that for you here today to
Speaker 2: kick off the new month of November.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: But secondly, we have a new song for you as well,
Speaker 2: because you know this is that special time of year.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like Christmas for whitetail hunters.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: We are in the mood, we are excited. We're expecting
Speaker 2: a big old gift underneath the tree. In this case,
Speaker 2: it's not something from Santa. We're looking for something from
Speaker 2: a deer, hopefully a big old buck within twenty yards. Right,
Speaker 2: So we went ahead and adjusted, tweaked spoofed another Christmas
Speaker 2: carol of sorts. So first please enjoy the Most Wonderful
Speaker 2: Time to Kill Deer, and then secondly enjoy our latest hit,
Speaker 2: the one and only Big White Tails.
Speaker 4: Enjoy boys. Good to see you, Hayden, it's been a while. Hey,
Speaker 4: sorry I'm late.
Speaker 5: I crashed my pontiac castec into a light pole and
Speaker 5: had to walk the rest of the way. But I'm
Speaker 5: here now, that's what matters. Give me a glass of scotch, please, hayen,
Speaker 5: just two rocks in there. I don't my guys, we're
Speaker 5: starting already. This is happening. Okay, just give me the
Speaker 5: give me the glass, thank you.
Speaker 4: Okay, here we go.
Speaker 5: It's the most wonderful time to kill deer. We're threw
Speaker 5: run now, just starting and dashing and dotting and veins
Speaker 5: cutting clean. It's the most wonderful time to kill deer.
Speaker 4: There's far too much is in this class. It's the half.
Speaker 5: Happy seeds of all. There's gotta be at least twelve
Speaker 5: cues with grunting and bleeding and cold fronts and sleeping
Speaker 5: the last weeks of fun. It's the half happy seedsin
Speaker 5: of all. There'll be pictures for posting and bragging and boasting,
Speaker 5: and truck beds with big bucks in toe. There'll be
Speaker 5: narrow misstories and tales of your glories of booner bucks missed.
Speaker 4: With our bulls.
Speaker 5: It's the most wonderful time to kill deer.
Speaker 4: Not just one baby two. There'll be no dose.
Speaker 5: Of blowing and boom and knocks glowing and blood trail
Speaker 5: so clean. It's the most wonderful time to kill de.
Speaker 4: Excuse me, Can I have a napkin? Please?
Speaker 5: I just spilled some scotch on my loafers. I can't
Speaker 5: have dirty loafers in the studio.
Speaker 4: Thank you Tailgate beers for drinking.
Speaker 5: And Big Bucks is slinking and chasing and sent jacking
Speaker 5: does They'll be fighting and scraping and no more escaping
Speaker 5: and arrowshot true hitting, Oh key change.
Speaker 4: But no one told me that it's the most wonderful
Speaker 4: time to kill deer. I was very unprepared for this.
Speaker 5: There will be much morning sitting in cold fronts of
Speaker 5: hitting the dawn kristin clean. It's the most wonderful time, Oh,
Speaker 5: the most wonderful time. It's the most swamderful time to kilty.
Speaker 4: There's too much ice in the glass. Two rocks.
Speaker 5: It's that time of the year again. I'm back, Marcus Kenyon.
Speaker 5: How are you your son of a gadwall? You look terrible.
Speaker 5: I'm just kidding her, am I I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: I'm late.
Speaker 5: I crashed my recumbent bicycle into the side of a
Speaker 5: quiz nose and I know what you're thinking. I am
Speaker 5: as sober as a newborn blue crab. I swear to
Speaker 5: you this is just kombucha. I'm watching the gut health.
Speaker 5: You gotta do it as you get older. And also,
Speaker 5: I'm wearing this ankle bracelet that makes a beep beep
Speaker 5: sound if I have a drop of the stuff also
Speaker 5: alerts the authorities, who in turn alert my parole officer.
Speaker 5: So there'll be none of that in the studio today,
Speaker 5: I promise you. Let's get go.
Speaker 1: Oh you're queuing it up already.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 1: I thought we've learned a lesson this year, but I
Speaker 1: guess nothing.
Speaker 4: Here we go.
Speaker 6: I love those beagy, big big white tails, those sneaky
Speaker 6: run beagy big big white tails. I love those beachy
Speaker 6: big yeah eight shots eat tails. I love those beachy
Speaker 6: big white tails.
Speaker 7: Big white tails, big white tails. Big white tails are great.
Speaker 5: Hold, what fun it is to sit in the freezing
Speaker 5: cold tree all day?
Speaker 7: Big white tails, big white tails, big white tails are great?
Speaker 5: Hold, what fun it is to sit in the freezing
Speaker 5: cold tree all day? Dashing through the woods for the
Speaker 5: morning light turns great across the fields and draws creep
Speaker 5: in all the way climb into the tree. Big folks
Speaker 5: are on the way. What fun he is to sit
Speaker 5: and wait for my gosh.
Speaker 4: Don deer all day? Oh big, I'm sorry? What is this?
Speaker 4: Piscato strings? Who do you think? I am ya? Get
Speaker 4: this out here. I don't want to hear it. Thank you?
Speaker 7: Big white tails, big white tails, Big white tails are great.
Speaker 7: Hold fun it is to sit in the freezing cold
Speaker 7: tree all day.
Speaker 4: I hope sand dreams are high the rut.
Speaker 5: He's finally here, Mark said, it's the most wonderful time
Speaker 5: to kill o whitetail deer bingch points and pettings.
Speaker 4: Where you'll find me hang it' twenty feet.
Speaker 5: In a tree, grunt tubes my bowl, inspector Cambo.
Speaker 4: It's really campy.
Speaker 5: Bea or two ago, I thought that this was fun,
Speaker 5: but now I'm frozen to my seat and the good
Speaker 5: times they are gone. I've ate up all my snacks,
Speaker 5: my hands and toes un numb, and we're gonna climbed
Speaker 5: down from my stand.
Speaker 4: That son of a but decided to come on.
Speaker 6: Those peag BEI wat takes those sky run beagy be
Speaker 6: big what takes? I love those beeg big up yah
Speaker 6: eight shot gie eat tails I love those big white
Speaker 6: tails all day.
Speaker 4: I don't know why this is happening.
Speaker 5: I swear to God, Oh officer, what seems to be
Speaker 5: the problem here?
Speaker 4: Oh this.
Speaker 5: I don't know why this is happening. It must be
Speaker 5: a malfunction, you know. Sometimes it happens when the batteries
Speaker 5: run low.
Speaker 4: You don't know.
Speaker 5: You don't need to smell that. That's just komboo cha
Speaker 5: I okay, yes, you've got me. It's ever clear and pacific.
Speaker 5: Kuli capri son. I am so so sorry.
Speaker 4: I don't know why my life has brought me here.
Speaker 4: Mark Marcus, I'm so sorry. Enjoy the rut or whatever.
Speaker 4: Good luck.
Speaker 2: All right, Welcome to the wire tunt podcast, brought to
Speaker 2: you by First Light and today, my friends, if you
Speaker 2: are listening to this when this podcast has just dropped,
Speaker 2: it is officially sweet November. The Rut is here for
Speaker 2: most of you across much of the country. And as
Speaker 2: you can see, I'm recording from the field out in
Speaker 2: the middle of somewhere on some kind of hunting trip.
Speaker 2: And my guest today is doing the same, not on
Speaker 2: a hunting trip, but he's in the field. I'm joined
Speaker 2: today by mister Andy May to help us do some
Speaker 2: rut Q and a so thank you Andy for making
Speaker 2: time for this.
Speaker 8: Yeah, man, no problems should be fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's uh, it's the greatest time of the year,
Speaker 2: right are you? Are you ready for this? Are you
Speaker 2: ready for November?
Speaker 8: I am?
Speaker 9: Man. Yeah, it's uh, it's always so exciting when when
Speaker 9: November rolls around, because then you just that, uh, you know,
Speaker 9: you always have a chance in November. You know, like
Speaker 9: October is a little more, a little more detailed, a
Speaker 9: little more You're a little more careful with your moves.
Speaker 9: You're trying to make kind of I always call them
Speaker 9: like detailed strikes. And then uh, once that rut hits, man,
Speaker 9: it's more like a marathon and you're trying to be
Speaker 9: out there as much as possible and trying to catch
Speaker 9: the magic when it happens.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So do you feel like when when November hits, is
Speaker 2: that stressful for you or relief for you? Because I
Speaker 2: I've actually been switching a little bit. I used to
Speaker 2: be looking forward to November the whole time, and then
Speaker 2: when it finally got here, I was like, Okay, now's
Speaker 2: my chance. But now I actually feel like if I
Speaker 2: don't have a buck killed by the time November arrives,
Speaker 2: I'm actually stressed out because now these deer are doing
Speaker 2: things that I'm not quite sure about what they're doing,
Speaker 2: and everything's kind of up in the air again, and
Speaker 2: you're trying to refigure it out. The old patterns from
Speaker 2: four weeks ago, you know, aren't going to cut it anymore.
Speaker 2: So I have like a I'm excited, but it's a
Speaker 2: different thing in my head.
Speaker 3: Are you the same, Yeah.
Speaker 8: A little bit.
Speaker 9: I think if i'm you know, if I'm after like
Speaker 9: a specific deer, and i really kind of have my
Speaker 9: heart set on that I'm really dedicated to pursuing that
Speaker 9: one animal, it can be kind of a stressful time
Speaker 9: because I mean, he could he can disappear for a week,
Speaker 9: you know, and he's locked up with a dough or
Speaker 9: on a neighboring property or something like that, and you
Speaker 9: just can't seem to to find him, and that can
Speaker 9: be a little stressful. But when I'm after sorry about
Speaker 9: that noise, When I'm after when I'm when I'm just
Speaker 9: out there and I'm after kind of like any buck,
Speaker 9: you know, or any any mature deer, and I'm not
Speaker 9: really setting my sights on a specific animal. I really
Speaker 9: like the rut, you know, it's it's uh. When I
Speaker 9: travel out of state, many times I like to go
Speaker 9: during the rut because I don't I don't really have
Speaker 9: a specific deer that I'm going after. It's more I
Speaker 9: want to see the rut action. I want that excitement.
Speaker 9: I want to see bucks chasing, I want to see
Speaker 9: bucks that are responding to calls. And it's just more fun.
Speaker 9: It's a little more exciting. But yeah, it can certainly
Speaker 9: be frustrating. It can be a frustrating time, especially if
Speaker 9: you get like a rut where you're just not seeing
Speaker 9: you know, you're not seeing any any good deer, So
Speaker 9: it could be a tough time. But I tend to
Speaker 9: get excited about the Like this year in particular, there's
Speaker 9: a handful of deer that I would shoot. There's not
Speaker 9: one that is head and shoulders above the rest. I'm
Speaker 9: just out there having fun and I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 2: Are you Are you going to do a big rut
Speaker 2: trip at any point this November or are you doing
Speaker 2: local Michigan Ohio stuff. I think I'm gonna stay local.
Speaker 2: I haven't really decided yet.
Speaker 9: If I I did some traveling in June for hunting.
Speaker 9: I did some traveling in August for hunting, and then
Speaker 9: I went on a very short trip in September, and
Speaker 9: I knew that would kind of eat into my white
Speaker 9: tail stuff a little bit, So I'm totally fine with it.
Speaker 9: It's not that I couldn't take a short trip in November,
Speaker 9: but there's there's enough decent deer around home between Michigan
Speaker 9: and Ohio that you know, I'm I'm I'd be content
Speaker 9: just kind of sticking around here and trying to get
Speaker 9: one of those deer on the ground.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, hi uh.
Speaker 2: I'm still still after my local buck too, so I
Speaker 2: don't I would not mind getting some quality time here
Speaker 2: during this period to get it done here as well.
Speaker 2: But that said, we got a whole pile of questions
Speaker 2: from listeners last week with their specific situations that they
Speaker 2: want to run by us, Andy, So I was thinking
Speaker 2: for today's episode, we could just go through as many
Speaker 2: of these listeners submitted questions as possible and try to
Speaker 2: knock out and help folks with the things that they're still,
Speaker 2: you know, still have questions about. It's funny you and
Speaker 2: me have talked about this in the past, Andy that
Speaker 2: we've like kind of lamented, like, ah, man, everyone's already
Speaker 2: said all the same stuff about hunting deer or hunting
Speaker 2: the rut. You know, every article has been written, every
Speaker 2: conversation has been had. There's nothing new to talk about, right,
Speaker 2: We've always moved worried about that, like is there anything
Speaker 2: Is there anything new we can bring the table?
Speaker 3: Is there any value we can still bring?
Speaker 2: But then when you ask people for the things they've
Speaker 2: got questions on and the things they're still trying to
Speaker 2: figure out, man, it's the same thing has come up,
Speaker 2: you know, year after year after year after year. So
Speaker 2: I guess it gives me hope that there will never
Speaker 2: be people that are not still trying to learn about
Speaker 2: these things. Right, there's always a new stream of people
Speaker 2: trying to either take it up a notch or tweak
Speaker 2: their tactics, or there's newer people that are still just
Speaker 2: getting into this. Yeah, So I don't think we'll ever
Speaker 2: run out of people andy that want to know about
Speaker 2: dobetting areas and funnels. So I'll be ready for a
Speaker 2: few questions about those. But it's good. It's good because
Speaker 2: you know, these are those things that are important to
Speaker 2: have a good handle on, but then also to never
Speaker 2: settle on you know what I mean. Like, I feel
Speaker 2: like I'm always still trying to tweak my approach. I'm
Speaker 2: always still trying to learn, like how it can be
Speaker 2: just a little bit better in this area or a
Speaker 2: little bit different in this kind of thing. I feel
Speaker 2: like you're the same way from all of our conversations,
Speaker 2: Like you're never stuck in the old ways.
Speaker 3: You're always adjusting and evolving.
Speaker 9: Right, Oh yeah, yeah, I mean it's funny because I was,
Speaker 9: you know, I was doing well. I was a successful
Speaker 9: hunter fifteen twenty years ago, you know, very consistent on
Speaker 9: multiple you know, multiple good bucks a year. But when
Speaker 9: I think back of how I hunted then compared to
Speaker 9: how I hunt now or even five years ago, I've
Speaker 9: changed things, and I've I've adjusted things, and I've evolved.
Speaker 9: And some of that is out of necessity. Some of
Speaker 9: that is out of just interests in other tactics. Some
Speaker 9: of that is out of what I find more fulfilling
Speaker 9: and fun. So yeah, I feel like it's a.
Speaker 8: If you have that.
Speaker 9: Mindset of of wanting to be a good woodsman, a
Speaker 9: good hunter, a versatile hunter, it's never ending. I mean,
Speaker 9: you could spend your whole lifetime learning and trying new
Speaker 9: things and improving, and you're never gonna there's no end,
Speaker 9: you know, there's no end to the possibilities of you know,
Speaker 9: how skilled you can become, and what you can experience
Speaker 9: and and things to learn from other eyes. So I'm
Speaker 9: still learning from other guys, listening to podcasts, having conversations
Speaker 9: with different hunters, even guys that are less experienced than me,
Speaker 9: learning all the time. I take it all in and uh,
Speaker 9: you know, every year I try to up my game
Speaker 9: in some fashion and become a more well rounded hunter.
Speaker 8: That's just something I care about personally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm going to try today with these questions. There's
Speaker 2: gonna be some old standbys, like some oldies but goodie
Speaker 2: type topics we'll talk about. But I'm going to try
Speaker 2: to think of some of the new angles on them
Speaker 2: or little tweaks I've been making in recent years when
Speaker 2: I can, and try to make sure we add something
Speaker 2: new to the conversation on as much of this as
Speaker 2: we can too. And so that said, here's here's the
Speaker 2: first question, Andy, and and I'll pitch it to you
Speaker 2: and then and then once we hear your thoughts. I'll
Speaker 2: share whatever additional color I might have. But this one
Speaker 2: is about something that I know you have preached about
Speaker 2: for a long time. As long as I've known you,
Speaker 2: you've been talking about this, which is all day sits.
Speaker 2: So the question is, for all day sits, do you
Speaker 2: recommend staying in the same place all day or switching
Speaker 2: spots at some point in the day, And if so,
Speaker 2: when is the best time to make that move?
Speaker 3: So what do you think about that any.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think it depends on the location. If you're sitting,
Speaker 9: you know, if you're if you're kind of targeting, say
Speaker 9: like a betting area, I think that it can be
Speaker 9: good most of the day. Say you're say you're trying
Speaker 9: to get in tight to a dull betting area. You're
Speaker 9: getting into that interior a little bit with the wind advantage,
Speaker 9: and you're like, you know, this is a really sensitive spot.
Speaker 9: I'm gonna get in real early before light, you know,
Speaker 9: an hour and a half before light. I'm gonna get
Speaker 9: settled and let all these deer filter back in. And
Speaker 9: it's very common behavior for mature bucks to let the
Speaker 9: does filter back into their bedding area and then they'll
Speaker 9: they'll kind of stay low key, stay betted, and then
Speaker 9: they'll get up late morning, mid to late morning, and
Speaker 9: then they'll make the rounds and they'll be cross sectioning
Speaker 9: those trails going in and out of bedding.
Speaker 8: They'll be going working the down wind sides.
Speaker 9: They'll be checking like you know, thermal hubs where a
Speaker 9: lot of a lot of scent pools and comes together.
Speaker 9: So it's very common for the bigger, older mature bucks
Speaker 9: to move later in that morning.
Speaker 8: So a spot like that I think can be good most.
Speaker 9: Of the day and you're in there, you know, you're
Speaker 9: not trying to sneak in in the afternoon and you're
Speaker 9: bumping dose around. You're in there before light, you're in
Speaker 9: there before the deer theoretically should be back in, and
Speaker 9: you can catch some great you know morning, late morning
Speaker 9: and mid day movement in there. Where I think those
Speaker 9: areas tend to to kind of taper off is in
Speaker 9: those evening sits, yeah, or are those that evening timeframe
Speaker 9: I think the dose start to kind of work their
Speaker 9: way out the bucks know that the bucks are going
Speaker 9: to be relating to where they're traveling and where they're
Speaker 9: heading to. So that's one of those spots where I
Speaker 9: will probably sit it out unless I have like a
Speaker 9: quick exit where I can go maybe capitalize a little
Speaker 9: bit closer to a food source or on a travel
Speaker 9: you know, between like bed and food something like that.
Speaker 9: I like, uh, you know, funnels between bedding areas. I
Speaker 9: really like those spots for all day. And again, you know,
Speaker 9: I think they they tend to they tend to be
Speaker 9: the best. Like if I had to pick a window,
Speaker 9: I would say like nine am to like three pm
Speaker 9: is like when it's optimal. It doesn't mean you couldn't
Speaker 9: have a buck strolling through, because I mean bucks are
Speaker 9: on the move. It's not like they're all in the morning,
Speaker 9: but some are. Some aren't, you know, Some are at
Speaker 9: the food sources, some are following those back in. I
Speaker 9: mean there's there's lots of activity going on. But that's
Speaker 9: probably your optimal window. But I have had some great
Speaker 9: sits and some kills first thing in the morning and
Speaker 9: even last thing at night.
Speaker 8: I I don't I I don't know.
Speaker 9: I don't move stands a whole lot unless I really
Speaker 9: think that the evening portion is going to be dead.
Speaker 9: If I think the evening portion is going to be dead,
Speaker 9: then yes I will relocate I When you ask about
Speaker 9: a time to do that, I would say maybe two
Speaker 9: o'clock because I've had so many really good encounters, kills,
Speaker 9: sightings in that eleven to two time frame. Another thing
Speaker 9: that you want to keep in mind during the run
Speaker 9: is most guys don't have the mental capacity, the strength,
Speaker 9: and the endurance to sit dark to dark. So ninety
Speaker 9: five percent of your hunters out there are gonna be
Speaker 9: coming in at nine, ten or eleven. It seems like,
Speaker 9: you know those time strips, guys have it in their head,
Speaker 9: I'm gonna sit till nine, I'm gonna sit till ten,
Speaker 9: I'm gonna sit till eleven, and then all these guys
Speaker 9: come in. You know, there's never been more people in
Speaker 9: the woods other than opening day a gun.
Speaker 8: It's November, it's the rud.
Speaker 9: Everybody's leaving their stands and they're bumping deer around. They
Speaker 9: get deer up, stirred up. But those are running that
Speaker 9: gets bucks on their feet. So you can capitalize on
Speaker 9: just the pressure of people moving around at those those
Speaker 9: time frames just by planting your butt in the stand.
Speaker 9: But there's no way I would leave at like eleven
Speaker 9: or twelve. I think your chances of seeing deer and
Speaker 9: bulk activity go down as you get to that eleven
Speaker 9: twelve one, but your chances of seeing mature bucks actually
Speaker 9: increased when you hit that kind of like nine thirty ten,
Speaker 9: eleven twelve, you.
Speaker 8: Know one two.
Speaker 9: No, Well, that time, that window right there has been
Speaker 9: very good to me, and i've i comparatively, I haven't
Speaker 9: hunted it a whole lot compared to morning and evening.
Speaker 2: Right now, what date range, Andy, do you like to
Speaker 2: start doing those kinds like what's what's the window on
Speaker 2: the calendar when you will sit that midday period, Because
Speaker 2: that's a question we got into.
Speaker 9: I killed my My earliest midday kill was on Halloween.
Speaker 8: I killed him at twelve thirty.
Speaker 9: It was a buck down in Illinois. I would say
Speaker 9: that that would be for me personally that thirty October
Speaker 9: thirtieth thirty first and most most of the areas here
Speaker 9: where I hunt, that would be the earliest. And I
Speaker 9: would probably only do that if I had some really
Speaker 9: good weather, you know, good cool weather, below average, like
Speaker 9: just ideal conditions. But you know, if I, if I
Speaker 9: was in it for the long haul, if I wasn't
Speaker 9: me and actually had unlimited time to hunt, I would
Speaker 9: probably postpone that I would probably sit till eleven, get down,
Speaker 9: have a break, refresh, get back out there around two
Speaker 9: or three. But then once I don't know, maybe November
Speaker 9: second third.
Speaker 8: Right in there.
Speaker 9: I mean every year, my trail cameras, my sightings, they
Speaker 9: light up late morning, midday right around that November first,
Speaker 9: second third. So I think anytime you can do it
Speaker 9: in that window, you know, from that leading up to
Speaker 9: site in Michigan here our gun season is November fifteenth.
Speaker 9: Anytime you can do that in that window, that's a
Speaker 9: good thing. And for guys that are like me, that
Speaker 9: have like these little maybe they don't have extended amount
Speaker 9: of time to put in your you're hunting.
Speaker 8: An evening here, a morning there, or maybe you.
Speaker 9: Got a midday here because you have your kids games
Speaker 9: or whatever. I would not hesitate to get out there
Speaker 9: at nine and getting a stand and sit till one
Speaker 9: or two. I've done it many times, you know, just
Speaker 9: trying to scratch and flaw for time, and uh it
Speaker 9: pays off. Man. The more time you can be in
Speaker 9: the tree anytime of day in November, you are going
Speaker 9: to increase your chances.
Speaker 8: And then use some common sense about where you're located.
Speaker 9: You know, you don't want to sit in a food
Speaker 9: source necessarily in the morning, maybe just off of it
Speaker 9: if you can catch your kind of coming off, But
Speaker 9: then that would be a really bad spot to sit
Speaker 9: all day, yeah, you know, because you're probably not going
Speaker 9: to get a lot of midday action there because all
Speaker 9: the dos are back to bed Those are the spots
Speaker 9: that are really gonna pay off, as you know, during
Speaker 9: a midday sit, like travel between betting on the backside
Speaker 9: of bedding, you know, with a wind advantage, getting into
Speaker 9: that interior spots where you're you're kind of always afraid
Speaker 9: to go in because you're gonna bump deer. But now
Speaker 9: it's like it's time, the time to take those stabs,
Speaker 9: take those chances, and you know they can pay off.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I one hundred percent agree. I've found the
Speaker 2: same thing. Those are the types of spots that I
Speaker 2: would want to do this all day sits. I have
Speaker 2: found like just like you said, like that last couple
Speaker 2: hours of the day though, those deep back in the
Speaker 2: betting air kind of spots can be pretty dead. So
Speaker 2: if I can, if I have safe access, I will
Speaker 2: try to bump out closer to where those dolls are
Speaker 2: going to go feed for those evening sits, and usually
Speaker 2: it's between two and three is.
Speaker 3: When I would try to do that.
Speaker 2: But if you can't get out of there without messing
Speaker 2: things up, you know, if for some reason you would
Speaker 2: have to be moving through you know, right where those
Speaker 2: deer are betted now, or or you know, through the
Speaker 2: transition area, and there's no way to safely do that,
Speaker 2: then I will sacrifice the last hour or two, you know,
Speaker 2: sticking back in the betting ear, just so I don't
Speaker 2: blow it up, because you know it's worth it. For
Speaker 2: the first seven, eight, nine, ten hours. You've got such
Speaker 2: a good chance back in that area that if my
Speaker 2: evening SIT's not amazing, that's okay. If I can't get
Speaker 2: out there without messing it up for the next day.
Speaker 9: I had this real quick story about something that almost
Speaker 9: cost me a really big buck because I didn't have
Speaker 9: the mental strength to sit all day. So it was
Speaker 9: during the run. I can't remember the exact date. It
Speaker 9: must have been like November. It was like around the
Speaker 9: tenth or the twelfth. This was years ago. But I
Speaker 9: was sitting in a stand and I was overlooking a river, bottom,
Speaker 9: and I saw a buck with a dough, a hot dough, lockdown,
Speaker 9: and they were they were way.
Speaker 8: Off on this peninsula.
Speaker 9: And I had a stand over there where if they
Speaker 9: walk worked down the peninsula, they would walk right by it.
Speaker 9: But they were way past that. They were a good
Speaker 9: two hundred yards past that. And it was eleven o'clock
Speaker 9: and I was like, you know what, I'm gonna get
Speaker 9: down at midday and I'm going to make my way
Speaker 9: over there and get in that stand and sit the
Speaker 9: rest of the day, you know, not what I was
Speaker 9: four hundred yards of. Now I'm gonna be inside of
Speaker 9: eighty yards or inside of inside of you know, one
Speaker 9: hundred yards of where they're at. So I get down
Speaker 9: and I just decided like, oh, you know, they're they're
Speaker 9: not gonna do much midday. You know, they're locked down.
Speaker 9: She's probably betted. He's probably betted. There whe her, they're
Speaker 9: not gonna move. So I walk back to my truck,
Speaker 9: I have a sandwich, I lay back for a little bit,
Speaker 9: I turn on, you know a little music, and I
Speaker 9: just kind of shut my eyes for like fifteen minutes,
Speaker 9: you know, fifteen twenty minutes, and I was like, ah, man,
Speaker 9: I gotta get I gotta get back in there. Probably totally.
Speaker 9: It ended up being like forty minutes. So I walk in,
Speaker 9: I sneak in, and all of a sudden, I'm I'm
Speaker 9: forty yards from the tree, and I hear deer get up,
Speaker 9: and I'm thinking these are other deer and I hear
Speaker 9: them kind of run off into the swamp.
Speaker 8: Well, I make my way to the tree. I start
Speaker 8: climbing up the tree and.
Speaker 9: I have my lineman's bull down and I get about
Speaker 9: halfway up the tree of where I where I'm intending
Speaker 9: to get, and I see that buck in the dope.
Speaker 9: They they had made their way through, and I bumped
Speaker 9: them and they were they were looking around and they
Speaker 9: didn't see me. I was just above like the cover.
Speaker 9: So I had my bow on a on a rope.
Speaker 9: I pulled it up with my lineman belt on, standing
Speaker 9: on a limb.
Speaker 8: And ended up ended up, Uh, ended up shooting that buck.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 9: So I totally got lucky, almost flew it. But you know,
Speaker 9: just that little window, that little tiny window where I
Speaker 9: hesitated went back to the truck almost cost me. Where
Speaker 9: if I would have been in that stand immediately, you know,
Speaker 9: I probably would have had a cake shot, you know,
Speaker 9: and uh.
Speaker 8: Not alerted anything.
Speaker 9: But I thought that was a good, good fitting example there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a perfect example.
Speaker 2: So speaking of tough decisions during the rut, that being
Speaker 2: in this case, whether to stay or to go go in.
Speaker 2: Another one of those things that we've gotten a number
Speaker 2: of questions on and something that I think a lot
Speaker 2: of us think about is risk taking during the rut.
Speaker 2: And one of the questions that I got here is
Speaker 2: are you willing to hunt a risky wind during the rut?
Speaker 2: And there was a second question very similar someone else said,
Speaker 2: like does wind matter less during the rut? Because on
Speaker 2: my twenty acre parcel I never seem to have the
Speaker 2: just right wind. So is this the time now when
Speaker 2: I can get risky with it and still, you know,
Speaker 2: try to make the best of it.
Speaker 3: What's your take on that?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think it is a time to risk. I
Speaker 8: think you gotta. I think you have to think about
Speaker 8: a lot of things.
Speaker 9: If you're someone like me, someone like probably most the
Speaker 9: listeners out there who work a job, probably have limited
Speaker 9: vacation time, probably have some family obligations. You're not going
Speaker 9: to be able to sit. You don't get a rut cation.
Speaker 9: You know, you don't get a two week window or
Speaker 9: three week window where you can hunt whenever you want.
Speaker 9: You get your days, you get your windows. Maybe you
Speaker 9: have some flexibility. But I gauge all that stuff, and
Speaker 9: I I weigh that against you know, my ideas are where.
Speaker 8: To sit my decisions and the risk factor.
Speaker 9: If I think I'm going to have a limited time,
Speaker 9: I'm looking at the forecast, I'm looking at the winds
Speaker 9: moving forward, and it's like, oh man, you know this
Speaker 9: is risky, but this might be my only shot, or
Speaker 9: this might be my best shot.
Speaker 8: I will I will risk more if I.
Speaker 9: Have the whole rut to to play around with and
Speaker 9: be maybe a little more patient.
Speaker 8: I might wait.
Speaker 9: What I don't want is like what I think is
Speaker 9: a dead wrong wind. I don't want dead wrong. But
Speaker 9: you know, if you're if you're if you're targeting something
Speaker 9: specific like a dough betting area or something, or you're
Speaker 9: you kind of know where the majority of the deer
Speaker 9: bed during the day.
Speaker 8: I don't want my my wind blowing in there all
Speaker 8: day long.
Speaker 9: You know, now, what I get on an edge and
Speaker 9: maybe I'm only clipping. You know, a portion of it
Speaker 9: a very small portion or maybe a couple of deer
Speaker 9: get me.
Speaker 8: Maybe not. Yeah, you know that's.
Speaker 9: Something I do that all the time, you know, you know,
Speaker 9: just kind of trying to base that with the time
Speaker 9: available maybe what I think I can get away with
Speaker 9: time of year. You know. Another thing too, like I
Speaker 9: always look at like the weather, and if I'm seeing
Speaker 9: like a you know, a high pressure day. If I'm
Speaker 9: seeing you know, thirty degree temperatures in the morning and
Speaker 9: it's gonna warm up to fifty five. With a high
Speaker 9: pressure blue bird day, I know that my thermals are
Speaker 9: going to be really rising once that sun gets up,
Speaker 9: you know that nine ten, nine o'clock.
Speaker 8: So I'll be a little more risky on those days.
Speaker 9: Then on a low pressure day where it's gonna hold
Speaker 9: my my uh my scent kind of down, it's not
Speaker 9: gonna rise my sense gonna you know, be more at
Speaker 9: ground level, I'll be I'll be a little more picky
Speaker 9: on those days. So if I think I'm gonna get
Speaker 9: a scent advantage for a rising thermal, you know, especially
Speaker 9: like in the hills or something, you get some elevation changes. Yeah,
Speaker 9: like a lot of times I almost won't even care
Speaker 9: about the wind. I just don't want it going down
Speaker 9: to where I think the deer are going first thing
Speaker 9: in the morning, and then I'm gonna rely on those thermals,
Speaker 9: you know, for the majority of the day, and then
Speaker 9: I may adjust, you know, later on in the day
Speaker 9: to something that's with more of a dropping thermo or relocate.
Speaker 9: But I'm I'm running through all of those things in
Speaker 9: my head when I'm trying to make a decision. But
Speaker 9: I've I've never done great on just a dead wrong wind.
Speaker 9: But on the flip side, it is the rut. There's
Speaker 9: many times I was targeting a specific buck during the
Speaker 9: rut and I was sure he was gonna come out
Speaker 9: of this area, and he ends up coming from a
Speaker 9: completely opposite area.
Speaker 8: Yeah, So that that stuff can happen.
Speaker 9: And then you get those random bucks that are just
Speaker 9: passing through and you don't know where they're gonna where
Speaker 9: they're coming from. And you always get those those uh,
Speaker 9: you know, buck chasing a dole by your stand so
Speaker 9: it can pay. You can go there with a dead
Speaker 9: wrong wind and get it, get a crack at one,
Speaker 9: but you're relying a little more on luck, and I
Speaker 9: don't like to rely on luck.
Speaker 8: I do want to put myself.
Speaker 9: In in likely spots where bucks tend to gravitate towards
Speaker 9: and I want a good wind, a good thermal. Most
Speaker 9: of the time, I'm not going to be super risky
Speaker 9: unless I'm uh, unless I'm just really limited on time.
Speaker 9: But it's very rare that I'll I'll go out there
Speaker 9: and hit like with just a dead wrong wind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I think you know.
Speaker 2: The thing to think about with this a lot of
Speaker 2: times is yes, like, if you're ever going to be
Speaker 2: a little more risky, this is the time to do it.
Speaker 2: But you still have to think about, like, what is
Speaker 2: the scenario in which this could actually work? Like lots
Speaker 2: of times when I'm thinking about where to set up
Speaker 2: or what tree to pick out, or you know, where
Speaker 2: I want to be, I try to envisionally, Okay, how
Speaker 2: would this actually work, Like where could a deer actually
Speaker 2: come through? What's the scenario in this actually what is
Speaker 2: the scenario that leads to this being successful? And if
Speaker 2: I'm in there with a wind that I just can't
Speaker 2: even envision a scenario in which this will really work,
Speaker 2: even if it's a great place, even if it's man
Speaker 2: somewhere I've wanted to hunt all year, and I've waited
Speaker 2: and waited and waited, and gosh, I want to get
Speaker 2: in this so bad, and it's November seventh, it's the
Speaker 2: right day, and it's the end of my trip. But
Speaker 2: if I sit there and I think to myself, like,
Speaker 2: even though I really want to be in there, if
Speaker 2: I look at what the wind's doing, and if I
Speaker 2: sit through and walk through, Okay, what's the hypothetical spots
Speaker 2: this deer could come from? And man, if there's no
Speaker 2: way it could realistically work out, like you can't wish
Speaker 2: it to work, so I.
Speaker 3: Will.
Speaker 2: Still you still have to like put on your real
Speaker 2: world glasses. As much as you want to have like
Speaker 2: the rut fantasy, you also have to say, okay, like
Speaker 2: what's the real chance of this working? And maybe if
Speaker 2: you were to get off of that magic spot by
Speaker 2: fifty yards, now all of a sudden the wind can
Speaker 2: work and you can still be close to the best
Speaker 2: of the best places. But at least now there's like
Speaker 2: a real set of possible scenarios in which deer can
Speaker 2: come through and not wind you. But if the deer,
Speaker 2: if every deer that's going to come into that magic
Speaker 2: X is gonna get your wind, what's the point of
Speaker 2: being there? So I think you know someone has to
Speaker 2: think that through too. So yes, this is the time
Speaker 2: to be risky, but it's not the time to be thoughtless.
Speaker 2: It's not the time to be careless and imagine that
Speaker 2: the wind won't still.
Speaker 3: Have an effect.
Speaker 2: It will still have an effect, but you just might
Speaker 2: have You're gonna have more opportunities for forgiveness. You're gonna
Speaker 2: have more opportunities where you know, they'll be crazy things
Speaker 2: going on, like deer doing things you're not expecting. So
Speaker 2: it's it's a balancing act, that's for sure. But you
Speaker 2: said something else, andy that I think is worth spending
Speaker 2: a little time on, which is, you know, the fact
Speaker 2: that some deer are gonna get down wind, like you're
Speaker 2: gonna like, we'll haunt a spot where the wind's gonna
Speaker 2: clip a part of a betting air or something. So
Speaker 2: that's not perfect, but you know it's in the real world.
Speaker 2: You have to sometimes do that, right. And you and
Speaker 2: I were texting the other day about you know, how
Speaker 2: often do deer actually get down wind of us?
Speaker 3: You know how often does that happen?
Speaker 2: And I think if you were to just watch, you know,
Speaker 2: hunting TV shows, especially like the folks have got the
Speaker 2: big managed properties and they hunt from their blinds and
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff all the time. You might
Speaker 2: think that a deer should never get down wind of
Speaker 2: view ever, and that these people never get winded, and
Speaker 2: that if you're going to kill a deer, you can
Speaker 2: never get winded eat and you can never blow your
Speaker 2: scent anywhere there's deer, and if you do, you're doomed.
Speaker 2: That might be the impression you could get from watching
Speaker 2: some of these TV shows. I think it's important to
Speaker 2: note that that is not the case in the real world,
Speaker 2: right Andy, I mean, I think I sat down and
Speaker 2: I tried to think through like and just my this
Speaker 2: this season's hunts, Like, how many times did I have
Speaker 2: deer come down wind of me despite the fact that
Speaker 2: I'm trying really hard to minimize that. You just can't
Speaker 2: hunt many places in the real world unless you have
Speaker 2: like a very very very well manicured design property in
Speaker 2: which some deer won't get down whin of you. I
Speaker 2: think you just have to minimize it. You have to
Speaker 2: be smart about it, you have to pick your spots,
Speaker 2: but you always have to give up something like, if
Speaker 2: I'm going to push into a spot where I think
Speaker 2: I can kill something, I'm probably gonna have to give
Speaker 2: something else up. And I want it to be as
Speaker 2: minimal as possible, and I want to be as smart
Speaker 2: as possible. But there are very few perfect deer deserts
Speaker 2: in a regular uncontrolled situation where you're hunting by permission,
Speaker 2: properties and things like that. I mean, I think what
Speaker 2: I told you is that I went through and looked
Speaker 2: through like all my hunts this season, and on fifty
Speaker 2: percent of my hunts, I could say for sure deer
Speaker 2: got downwind to me fifty percent of my hunts. And
Speaker 2: that is despite me being as careful as I possibly could,
Speaker 2: being smart about it, and actively knowing like, hey, I
Speaker 2: know I'm going to have deer downwind to me here,
Speaker 2: but this is the very fewest number of deer or
Speaker 2: the lowest likelihood type situation that I can get away with.
Speaker 3: What would you agree with that?
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean that's what prompted that question when I
Speaker 9: sent it to you. Like I swear pretty much, it
Speaker 9: feels like every hunt I've been on this year, deer
Speaker 9: have gotten down wind to me, and a lot of
Speaker 9: that has been.
Speaker 8: Due to shifting winds I've had.
Speaker 9: It's been a really strange year for me as far
Speaker 9: as like the forecasted wind and then you get that
Speaker 9: a little bit, but then you're getting some really odd
Speaker 9: ball winds in there, like it's supposed to be southwest,
Speaker 9: and then I'm getting, you know, the kind of sucked
Speaker 9: backs to the east, you know, or it gets down
Speaker 9: a prime time that wind really dies down and starts
Speaker 9: blowing to the north, you know, the complete opposite. That
Speaker 9: stuff has been happening to me, like it seems like
Speaker 9: every hunt. But yeah, I mean all the time deer
Speaker 9: getting down WINDO me. Is as hard as I try,
Speaker 9: it's going to happen. And I think you're right. You know,
Speaker 9: a lot of that stuff you see on TV is
Speaker 9: it's just not relatable, you know, it's not relatable to
Speaker 9: the average guy. It's not real to the average guy.
Speaker 9: So we we can only look at that for what
Speaker 9: it is, and it's just entertainment, that's all it is.
Speaker 9: You know, you can't even really listening to the advice
Speaker 9: of a lot of those guys. Maybe some stuff on
Speaker 9: deer behavior, but as far as tactic stuff, it anymore,
Speaker 9: like I've caught on it goes in one year run
Speaker 9: out the other. It's it's not anything I can apply
Speaker 9: most times, and it's not anything that's super relatable. I mean,
Speaker 9: you might be able to pick out a few nuggets there,
Speaker 9: but I think it's important to mention that for the
Speaker 9: new guys that are coming out, because that's what they're
Speaker 9: seeing on on TV. But yeah, you know, I'm trying
Speaker 9: to always trying to minimize disturbance. I have my wind
Speaker 9: a lot of times going to where deer shouldn't go,
Speaker 9: but they do. You know, here in Michigan, you have
Speaker 9: a lot of spots I hunt have a fairly high
Speaker 9: deer density, you know. And yes, you're you're maybe targeting
Speaker 9: the main the main betting areas you know, and and
Speaker 9: the main food sources, and you have your wind in
Speaker 9: your favor, But then you got all these satellite deer
Speaker 9: that are betting over here and over here, and then
Speaker 9: they're traveling a different way, and you can't account for
Speaker 9: everyone because there's just too many of them. I get
Speaker 9: winded far lest when I hunt Ohio there's less deer.
Speaker 9: And then another thing too, once you get into a
Speaker 9: pressured setting and you hunt a pressured state, and I
Speaker 9: think Dan Johnson experienced this when he came to Michigan,
Speaker 9: and he's like, I get it now. He's like, the
Speaker 9: deer exit the betting area is looking for people. They look,
Speaker 9: they're looking up, they're traveling in ways to scent check
Speaker 9: areas where hunters typically are all the spots. I hunt
Speaker 9: a very high percentage of them. That's how the does behave.
Speaker 9: It's not always just a you know, unless you can
Speaker 9: completely have a place to yourself and it's unpressured, which
Speaker 9: you can create little pockets like that. These these deer
Speaker 9: are moving very cautiously. They are on high alert from
Speaker 9: the second they get up. They look like they're ultra
Speaker 9: paranoid and they're looking over here and they hear us,
Speaker 9: they hear a squirrel and they're looking over there, and
Speaker 9: it's like they are so keyed up all the time.
Speaker 8: It is really tough. And they get us.
Speaker 9: A whiff of where you've been, where you where you are,
Speaker 9: and they, especially the older dose, they they really key
Speaker 9: in on that and they don't forget that and they
Speaker 9: start to avoid it or they come check it out
Speaker 9: and investigate.
Speaker 8: And once you once they.
Speaker 9: Have like a they have a little hint of that
Speaker 9: you might be there or that you were there. Those
Speaker 9: older doughs they come in and they investigate and they
Speaker 9: get you. You know, they're when when they start looking
Speaker 9: for you, they're gonna find you, and you know, and
Speaker 9: then it makes things really hard.
Speaker 8: So you know, it's something.
Speaker 9: We're battling all the time. I mean, I've been battling
Speaker 9: with it, and you know, I've been getting winded like
Speaker 9: every single hunt by by something and it's it's frustrating, man,
Speaker 9: it's super frustrating. And you're you're kind of blowing up
Speaker 9: the area. I think you can minimize that, Like you
Speaker 9: said on the fringes, try to blow into dead areas,
Speaker 9: and I probably tend to because I have less time
Speaker 9: to hunt. I tend to dive in a little deeper
Speaker 9: than most guys. I think some guys would see my
Speaker 9: my sits and where I go and they're like, geez,
Speaker 9: you know, like he's really getting in there, you know,
Speaker 9: And I do because I know I'm not going to
Speaker 9: have many stabs throughout the season, so I try to
Speaker 9: make those sits count.
Speaker 8: That's partially it.
Speaker 9: You know, I'm partially taking a little more risk there,
Speaker 9: but also I'm choosing to do that because the time
Speaker 9: available and what I'm trying to accomplish on that particular hunt.
Speaker 8: But yeah, yeah, I'm in.
Speaker 4: Agreement with you.
Speaker 9: I mean, it's just it's just it happens. You just
Speaker 9: try to minimize it.
Speaker 2: And you know, I was going to add, I think
Speaker 2: I can speak for you. You tell me if I'm getting
Speaker 2: this wrong. But from you know everything I've heard and
Speaker 2: seen from from the way you hunt, Andy, Yes, you
Speaker 2: push into places and make those aggressive pushes because you
Speaker 2: have to, given your time and what you're trying to do.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, you're not stuck with just
Speaker 2: one spot to do that. So it's not like you
Speaker 2: aggressively push into the same spot over and over and
Speaker 2: over and over again every weekend. And you've got all
Speaker 2: sorts of different places, so you can do an aggressive
Speaker 2: strike here today, and then you can do an aggressive
Speaker 2: strike next week and a different property, and then the
Speaker 2: next day you can hunt a piece of public and
Speaker 2: then the next weekend you go to.
Speaker 3: Some different place.
Speaker 2: So it's not like you're destroying places and hunting dead
Speaker 2: spots because of all that aggression. You're you're moving on
Speaker 2: and hunting different locations smartly. Despite that aggression because you
Speaker 2: have that you know, array of locations that you can
Speaker 2: do this on, right.
Speaker 8: Yeah for sure.
Speaker 9: Yeah, and uh, you know, on a spot where you know,
Speaker 9: maybe a lease or maybe you own a small chunk,
Speaker 9: you know, maybe you can you can rely on when
Speaker 9: you're not there, it's not getting blown up by other guys,
Speaker 9: and you have that time. Yeah, I would, Uh, I would.
Speaker 9: I would hunt it a little different, you know, I
Speaker 9: would hunt it. You know, say you did have a
Speaker 9: small piece. It doesn't even have to be a highly
Speaker 9: managed firm, just you own a small thirty acres or
Speaker 9: an eighty acres or at least an eighty acres and
Speaker 9: that's your spot.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I'm I'm gonna be playing things a lot more cautious.
Speaker 9: I'm gonna be hunting the fringes. My whole goal is
Speaker 9: to not let deer see me, smell me, hear me.
Speaker 9: But I'm trying to observe. I'm trying to scout. I'm
Speaker 9: trying to you know, observe from a distance. Maybe check
Speaker 9: some cameras midday here and there. But I'm trying to
Speaker 9: let the season kind of materialize and capitalize on the
Speaker 9: mistakes of the deer. You know, as they you know,
Speaker 9: become more active, they cover more ground. You know, I
Speaker 9: would hunt that different, and I do have spots that
Speaker 9: have less pressure that I am more of a outside
Speaker 9: in type hunter. It again, for me personally, it all
Speaker 9: goes back to the time available. If I have the
Speaker 9: time available, I'll sit back. I'll sit back, and I'll
Speaker 9: wait and try to be a little more less aggressive
Speaker 9: and try to maybe prolong that that season a little
Speaker 9: bit and just wait for those bucks to make their
Speaker 9: their mistake or other situations. It's like more of a
Speaker 9: time crunch. I gotta make it happen, you know, in
Speaker 9: the next four days. So I'm gonna really push, but
Speaker 9: I don't. I'm not reckless by any means. I move
Speaker 9: in when I think I can. Like today's seventy degrees,
Speaker 9: if you were gonna say, Andy, Ory, could you go
Speaker 9: out and get on a good buck today and maybe
Speaker 9: get them killed?
Speaker 8: Like you know, No, I'm not feeling super confident.
Speaker 9: It's dry, it's crunchy, there's not a lot of wind,
Speaker 9: it's uh, you know, it's seventy degrees. No, I'm not
Speaker 9: gonna I'm not gonna go push and make some aggressive
Speaker 9: sit that's very very low percentage. You know, I'd rather
Speaker 9: wait till you get a little better conditions for something
Speaker 9: like that.
Speaker 3: So here's the follow up to that.
Speaker 2: Another question someone submitted that's that's relevant to what we're
Speaker 2: talking about here. So the question is when hunting small
Speaker 2: property during the run. So let's say, like own a
Speaker 2: small property thirty acres something like that, is it better
Speaker 2: to hunt off freshly scouted sign so look for the
Speaker 2: fresh hot stuff and hunt that, move around a bunch,
Speaker 2: try to find that, or stick with historically good spots.
Speaker 2: So I think this kind of goes to the general
Speaker 2: theme of what we're talking here, is like, is do
Speaker 2: you play a little bit more conservative and not bust
Speaker 2: up your small property and hunt and trust in some
Speaker 2: safer but consistently in the past good spots or can
Speaker 2: you move around? Can you aggressively try to find what's happening.
Speaker 3: Right now and hunt that.
Speaker 2: What would you do if you if you were in
Speaker 2: that situation Andy and you, let's say you own thirty
Speaker 2: you own a thirty acre piece, and these are the
Speaker 2: two options you were considering, what would you say?
Speaker 9: Yeah, Well, I think I think anytime you're you're really
Speaker 9: uh pigeonholed into a small property like that. It pays
Speaker 9: off to know that property well, know where the deer bed,
Speaker 9: know where they travel, know the if there are some
Speaker 9: like rout travel through there, some some doe betting where
Speaker 9: you can get in and out and and just rely
Speaker 9: on that, you know, kind of hunt, hunt the fringes,
Speaker 9: or hunt those spots that were historically good because once
Speaker 9: you once you learn that, there can be some changes
Speaker 9: year to year, you know, depending on like crop rotation,
Speaker 9: acorn crop, you know, food availability, maybe some surrounding pressure.
Speaker 9: You got a neighbor hunting a side all of a
Speaker 9: sudden that never you know was there. You know, those
Speaker 9: things can come up and change, you know, change some things,
Speaker 9: change some movement patterns. But if it's a thirty acre
Speaker 9: piece or less, you know, and it's maybe it's super sensitive,
Speaker 9: maybe there's some actual betting on there. You know, I'm
Speaker 9: going to be sticking to those historically good spots during
Speaker 9: the rut. That doesn't mean I'm not ready to go
Speaker 9: if I observe something, you know, if I observe just
Speaker 9: like that example I gave earlier, I'm up in a
Speaker 9: spot that was a historically good spot, right there, and
Speaker 9: I observe that that buck pin down with that dough
Speaker 9: out in the marsh there, and I made the move.
Speaker 8: So I'm ready to make the move.
Speaker 9: I'm ready to move in on on an opportunity.
Speaker 8: But I'm probably gonna I'm probably gonna, you.
Speaker 9: Know, stick to those two three four spots on thirty
Speaker 9: acres that are typically good during the rut. They're fairly
Speaker 9: safe with this wind direction. And this spot's fairly safe
Speaker 9: with this wind direction. And uh, you know, just put
Speaker 9: in the time. You know, the rut, the rut is it.
Speaker 9: You know, Hunting sign and hunting the rut don't always
Speaker 9: go hand in hand. So like when I'm hunting early season,
Speaker 9: you know, I'm trying to observe or I'm hunting signor
Speaker 9: or information off a camera. You know, you go start
Speaker 9: going through October, mid October, late October. Sign is really
Speaker 9: popping up. Hunting on fresh sign during that though, is
Speaker 9: extremely effective. Like right on sign, right on sign that
Speaker 9: maybe is close to good betting. You see a big
Speaker 9: track in a scrape, you look around, it's a good
Speaker 9: security cover. You're like, Okay, I think he's coming from here.
Speaker 9: This is a good spot. I got a really good
Speaker 9: access here, I got good wind here. You're running this
Speaker 9: stuff through your head. But then you start getting into November,
Speaker 9: some of that red hot sign really starts to taper off.
Speaker 9: Scrapes start to grow colder and colder. As you get
Speaker 9: into November. You'll see them all torn up every single day,
Speaker 9: you know, in late October, and then you'll see, like
Speaker 9: November fifth, sixth, seventh, all of a sudden, there's leaves
Speaker 9: in your scrapes, you know, And and that lets you
Speaker 9: know that, okay, there. It doesn't mean they're gone, but
Speaker 9: you might not find that fresh torn up sign. You
Speaker 9: still might and that lets you know that there's there's
Speaker 9: probably one in there. They're probably moving through there. You know,
Speaker 9: maybe there's some do betting there that they're keying in on.
Speaker 9: But in a lot of places I've hun it. I
Speaker 9: switched to hunting terrain. But I don't want just any terrain.
Speaker 9: I don't want just a saddle. I don't want just
Speaker 9: a pinch point. I want a pinch point or a
Speaker 9: saddle or a bench or a travel hub that connects
Speaker 9: a lot of things that bucks like, Yeah, you know,
Speaker 9: dough betting a primary food source, you know, dough betting
Speaker 9: over here, a good ridge over here that has a
Speaker 9: lot of betting, and all these things can kind of
Speaker 9: come together, you know, in one spot, and that's the spot.
Speaker 8: Now you might go to that spot. There might not
Speaker 8: be any sign.
Speaker 9: It might be just a few trails at crisscross, or
Speaker 9: or there might be like a hubscrape down there, or
Speaker 9: there might be something that indicates us this is a
Speaker 9: spot where a lot of things come together. But it
Speaker 9: could it literally could just be one scrape. I've seen
Speaker 9: that time and time again when I've hunted in Iowa.
Speaker 9: I'll find these travel hubs coming off the hills or
Speaker 9: all these points dumped down in the same general area,
Speaker 9: and you just know, you look at it on a toepone,
Speaker 9: You're like, wow.
Speaker 8: You know, any buck that's on.
Speaker 9: This ridge wants to get to this ridge is gonna
Speaker 9: have to come down one of these few points. And
Speaker 9: then there's this ridge over here that has a point
Speaker 9: dumping down, and all these are traveling and coming down
Speaker 9: in the same area crisscrossing, and they can get to
Speaker 9: any of these ridges.
Speaker 8: That spot right there is the hub. That's the travel hub.
Speaker 9: That's where I'm gonna get a lot of deer coming
Speaker 9: through that general area and you go down there and
Speaker 9: you look and there's a big primary scrape there, very
Speaker 9: very common but not always. But you go down there
Speaker 9: and it's not It doesn't mean it's littered with sign.
Speaker 9: It might just be four or five six trails that
Speaker 9: all pass through an eighty acre I'm sorry, an eighty
Speaker 9: yard span, you know, and that's where you want to be.
Speaker 8: You get on that down in.
Speaker 9: Side, you get a good consistent wind pattern, and those
Speaker 9: are the spots you sit all day. So I don't
Speaker 9: always need red hot sign during the rut, but I
Speaker 9: if i'm I might just be in spots that connect
Speaker 9: good things. And in those good things there's probably good
Speaker 9: sign like good dough, good dough sign, you know, good
Speaker 9: feeding sign, lots of you know, deer activity, but you
Speaker 9: don't I'm not necessarily always in a spot that has
Speaker 9: red hot sign during the rut.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know, another thing to be to remember
Speaker 2: during that time period is that some red hot sign,
Speaker 2: you know, laid down at that time of year does
Speaker 2: not indicate anything about the future, right, Like, there will
Speaker 2: be deer passing through places, like a buck cruising through
Speaker 2: his zone, and he might lay down a big scrape
Speaker 2: and he might never pass through there again. So so
Speaker 2: sometimes you'll see sign you know that that does indicate like, okay,
Speaker 2: bucks are doing something here for a reason. But if
Speaker 2: you see a random scrape or a random rub in
Speaker 2: a place and you can't say why that's happening there,
Speaker 2: Like if you if you come to a spot like
Speaker 2: you're describing where you've got all these points dropping down
Speaker 2: and they all you find this convergence of features and
Speaker 2: you see you think to yourself, okay, why why would
Speaker 2: deer come through here? Well, it's because of this thing
Speaker 2: and this thing, this thing, everything's converging here at this hub.
Speaker 3: That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2: If I see sign there, I can say like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: I understand what's happening and why this sign is here,
Speaker 2: and this makes a whole lot of.
Speaker 3: Sense to hunt.
Speaker 2: But if you find a big rub or a scrape
Speaker 2: in i don't know, on a field edge or in
Speaker 2: the middle of a big, wide open timber and there's
Speaker 2: no terrain feature, there's no topography, there's no edge, there's
Speaker 2: nothing that explains to you like why this should make sense.
Speaker 2: Don't be fooled by that, because a buck could be
Speaker 2: chasing a random dough on November seventh, and then stop
Speaker 2: for half a second, rip up a scrape while another
Speaker 2: buck comes in, and then off he goes, and then
Speaker 2: you're off to the races. So got to remember, like
Speaker 2: to your point, sign in October is very different than
Speaker 2: sign in November. And so you know, I would agree
Speaker 2: with your assessment of the small property situation. I would
Speaker 2: probably be more on the conservative side because you can
Speaker 2: blow up a small property so quickly, and if you
Speaker 2: have those spots that you know produce consistently because of
Speaker 2: a terrain feature, a habitat feature, you know, that's the
Speaker 2: kind of thing that will work year after year as
Speaker 2: long as there hasn't been some big change. But I
Speaker 2: would just preface that, or I guess qualify that if
Speaker 2: you're hunting in small property and you're new to it, right,
Speaker 2: then it doesn't pay to be.
Speaker 3: Super conservative all the time.
Speaker 2: If you've got a short period of time and you
Speaker 2: don't know the property at all, you know, just playing
Speaker 2: it super safe your whole vacation because it's small might
Speaker 2: not be the right approach, right. You got to know it.
Speaker 2: You have to know what you're working with. So if
Speaker 2: you've never been able to scout it before. If this
Speaker 2: is a piece that you got permission on, let's say,
Speaker 2: and you're shown up for a week vacation in the
Speaker 2: rut maybe and like this is the property you want
Speaker 2: to hunt, you know, don't go tiptoeing around and never
Speaker 2: take the time to go learn the thing, because blowing
Speaker 2: up for one day even a small proper at least
Speaker 2: in my opinion, Maybe I'm wrong on this, but I
Speaker 2: would like to learn a property in half a day
Speaker 2: or a midday or one day, knowing that I'm going
Speaker 2: to put some pressure on it. If that gives me
Speaker 2: six days or four days in which.
Speaker 3: I actually know what I'm doing. I want to know
Speaker 3: what I'm doing. I know, I want to know what's happening.
Speaker 2: So if you don't have that already, you got to
Speaker 2: figure that out rather than just blindly sitting and hoping
Speaker 2: something will happen.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 9: Yeah, And a lot of times uh not all it
Speaker 9: depends on how the property sits up and what's there.
Speaker 8: And a lot of times I've hunted.
Speaker 9: Many properties where I would go and check for sign
Speaker 9: multiple times a week, even small properties, but I'm checking
Speaker 9: them in areas that aren't alerting deer maybe it's a
Speaker 9: field edge, you know, with a lot of scrapes, and
Speaker 9: I can check tracks, and I'll go out there two
Speaker 9: three times a week because maybe I'm after a specific
Speaker 9: book or I want to know, you know, when the
Speaker 9: spot heats up, maybe I wasn't as familiar with that spot.
Speaker 8: And I'll go out there and I'll check. I'm abe,
Speaker 8: I'll check a camera.
Speaker 9: I'm out there, I'm looking and all these All of
Speaker 9: a sudden, the scrapes are are are opened up, and
Speaker 9: I look and there's some big tracks in there. Okay,
Speaker 9: now I'm in a spot where it's not alerting deer.
Speaker 9: You know, I'm able to I'm able to walk this
Speaker 9: without blowing the whole property out.
Speaker 8: But I picked up signed. Now I'm going to relate that.
Speaker 9: Back to what I know about the property, where the
Speaker 9: betting areas is, where the funnels are, where I can
Speaker 9: get in and out, and maybe that tells me it's
Speaker 9: time to hunt. Not necessarily hunt on that sign, but
Speaker 9: it's telling me like now's the time to go.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I've had that happen, and.
Speaker 9: I want to make one I want to make one
Speaker 9: comment too about the uh you know when I mentioned
Speaker 9: you know, hunting red hot sign in the rut doesn't
Speaker 9: always go hand in hand, you know, like that spot
Speaker 9: that I uh that I mentioned where a lot of
Speaker 9: stuff converges, a lot of travel converges into one general
Speaker 9: area and there's a scrape down there. I've I've found
Speaker 9: spots like this all across the Midwest, and they're always
Speaker 9: good spots. You just got to hunt them with the
Speaker 9: right wind and you got to have good access. And
Speaker 9: sometimes when you get down, depending on what it is,
Speaker 9: sometimes you get down in those bottoms and it can
Speaker 9: be tough. But a lot of times you can get
Speaker 9: the right situation where you can get a consistent wind.
Speaker 9: But those there's a there's a lot of times there's
Speaker 9: some sort of sign, some sort of primary scrape in
Speaker 9: these areas where a lot of things, a lot of
Speaker 9: travel comes together, a lot of scent pools together. It's
Speaker 9: because those areas draw bucks. Bucks can gather a ton
Speaker 9: of information from one spot, and I like to look
Speaker 9: for spots like that during the run. I like to
Speaker 9: hunt spots that where bucks can gather a lot of
Speaker 9: information efficiently without traveling across this field and over here
Speaker 9: and through this funnel and checking this. But they can
Speaker 9: grab all that information in one spot. And that's something
Speaker 9: that mature bucks do a lot, a lot of times.
Speaker 9: There is a big primary scrape there beause they get
Speaker 9: down there, they get all fired up. They scrape and yes,
Speaker 9: that's opened up, you know, the third week of October,
Speaker 9: late October, November second, third, fourth, fifth, it's like torn up.
Speaker 9: You got a camera on it. You're getting buck after
Speaker 9: buck after buck, and then all of a sudden you
Speaker 9: go in there to hunt and it's November seventh or eighth,
Speaker 9: and there's leaves covering the scrape and you're like, oh, man,
Speaker 9: it's dead. It's not dead. They're just not tending the
Speaker 9: scrape anymore. That scrape is there for a reason, and
Speaker 9: those bucks are still working through there. They're just not
Speaker 9: coming and working the scrape. They're covering more, they're covering
Speaker 9: more ground, they're scent checking more, they're laying down less
Speaker 9: sign So just because it's not red hot, because it's
Speaker 9: not open, doesn't mean it's not a good spot. That
Speaker 9: big eighteen point I killed in Iowa a few years ago. Man,
Speaker 9: I had a camera on that scrape, and I had
Speaker 9: I don't know eight nine ten different nice books on
Speaker 9: that all through like mid October through like November second
Speaker 9: or third, it really started to die off. And when
Speaker 9: I pulled that card, I was like it was like
Speaker 9: boom boom boom, boom boom. You know, all these days
Speaker 9: there's shooter Bucks in there. And then it started dying off,
Speaker 9: you know, as he got into November. And then I
Speaker 9: went in there and the scrape was like had leaves
Speaker 9: all over it. Well, I said, in there because it
Speaker 9: had a lot of things. It was a down inside
Speaker 9: of bedding. It was three travel routes come, three really
Speaker 9: good travel routes coming from bed to feed that all
Speaker 9: paralleled each other over like a two hundred yard area,
Speaker 9: and it just you know, bucks like to cross section
Speaker 9: those and they like to travel down one side of
Speaker 9: dough betting. And I'm sandwiched between a major betting area
Speaker 9: and a major food source. So I had a lot
Speaker 9: of things and it had a good primary scrape there.
Speaker 9: I sat there, I saw four bucks, uh, four bucks,
Speaker 9: two shooter Bucks the first morning before I shot my
Speaker 9: h before I shot my buck, all traveling through there.
Speaker 9: Not one of them, not one of them came and
Speaker 9: worked the scrape. Yeah, but they were they were sent
Speaker 9: checking the scrape. You know, they were sent checking it
Speaker 9: because dose would still go by the scrape and they'd
Speaker 9: you know, kind of stand in it or walk by it.
Speaker 9: But that area had several things that bucks look for
Speaker 9: during the run. They could gather a lot of information
Speaker 9: in like a you know, in like a fifty like
Speaker 9: one hundred yard wide circle, not even that, like an
Speaker 9: eighty yard wide circle. They could gather a lot of
Speaker 9: information in that spot. So even though the sign had
Speaker 9: had tapered down, the buck activity was still off the charts.
Speaker 9: They're still moving through there, they're just not working the scrape.
Speaker 9: So you got to keep that in mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great it's a great reminder. I want
Speaker 2: to shift our shift to more of a rapid fire
Speaker 2: style here and to knock us more questions before we
Speaker 2: wrap this up. So let's do like we get like
Speaker 2: thirty seconds to answer or less like quick first thought
Speaker 2: on each one of these, and we're gonna try and
Speaker 2: knock out a bunch here to kind of put a
Speaker 2: bow on this, because there's way more questions that we
Speaker 2: have time to get through unless we do rapid fire here.
Speaker 3: So let's try to do that a few of these.
Speaker 2: So I got a couple questions here about calling, I'll
Speaker 2: just combine them into what's your go to rut calling approach?
Speaker 2: And then how often do you do that? So real quick,
Speaker 2: what's your take on that.
Speaker 9: I don't mind calling during the rut, I call way less.
Speaker 9: In Michigan in a pressured area, I think it can
Speaker 9: work really well on year and a half year old Bucks,
Speaker 9: two year old Bucks, and three year old Bucks. I
Speaker 9: have not had the greatest success calling in you know,
Speaker 9: four year old bucks or older. In Michigan. I think
Speaker 9: they've seen it way too many times. I think they're
Speaker 9: super educated. I would probably give that same advice in
Speaker 9: any high pressure state. However, I've had awesome luck with
Speaker 9: it in Iowa, in Illinois, Kentucky, you know states like that.
Speaker 9: Ohio even I've had much better luck with it there.
Speaker 8: I always carry a grunt tube.
Speaker 9: I always carry a rattle, and I'm pretty good with
Speaker 9: a mouth snort, wheeze.
Speaker 8: I'm not afraid to do it. I'm not a huge
Speaker 8: blind caller.
Speaker 9: Unless I'm in a state and I'm just not seeing
Speaker 9: the activity. Things maybe are a little slow. It's not
Speaker 9: my favorite thing to do, but I'm not a afraid
Speaker 9: to do it.
Speaker 8: It can definitely work.
Speaker 9: And I'll do it maybe maybe when the action's a
Speaker 9: little slow, or I see a buck, you know, cruising
Speaker 9: looks like he's in the mood. I'm in a good
Speaker 9: situation where I call, you know, a good approach for him,
Speaker 9: then then I'll throw.
Speaker 8: It at him.
Speaker 9: But I don't do a ton of I know a
Speaker 9: lot of guys will will rattle like every thirty seconds, or.
Speaker 8: I don't really do the seconds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say I am very similar. I'd never
Speaker 2: blind call in Michigan, and I almost I mean, I
Speaker 2: would basically say I never rattle in Michigan. Either I
Speaker 2: will grunt or snort wheeze if there's a buck out
Speaker 2: of range I'm trying to bring in. And then in
Speaker 2: those unpressured states Iowa, Kansas, whatever out there, I will
Speaker 2: occasionally do a blind rattling session. But even then, like
Speaker 2: that'll be like late morning kind of thing. I might
Speaker 2: try that, and might try that like twice, maybe separated
Speaker 2: by an hour or something like that.
Speaker 3: But I don't do a whole lot of that.
Speaker 2: But I very much will grunt and snort wheeze at
Speaker 2: deer and or you know, would rattle to deer out
Speaker 2: of range in those kinds of states too. I have
Speaker 2: had a lot of luck with grunts and snore wheezes.
Speaker 2: That's been my most effective calling technique at this time
Speaker 2: of year. You know, first start with like a contact grunt,
Speaker 2: Like so if I see a buck one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty yards away or something, I'll try up bra and
Speaker 2: just get louder until I see he's actually heard it.
Speaker 3: And if I can get a.
Speaker 2: Visual of him in which he turns and like one
Speaker 2: percent has heard my thing, then I won't call. I'll
Speaker 2: I'll stop as soon as I know he heard me,
Speaker 2: And then I'm assessing his body language, and you know,
Speaker 2: if he starts coming my way, then I'm done.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to call anymore. Nothing else.
Speaker 2: If that buck seems interested, maybe pins his ears back
Speaker 2: and takes a few steps, makes a scrape, but then
Speaker 2: kind of starts heading off into the direction again, like
Speaker 2: he gave me a little bit of an interest, but
Speaker 2: not all the way. Then that might be when I
Speaker 2: give him a you know, flipping the bird by giving
Speaker 2: him that snort wheeze, I'm like, really, I get them
Speaker 2: fired up, just one not tired, and sometimes that works.
Speaker 2: So that would be my one other thing to add
Speaker 2: on the rut calling next question is about snacks andy
Speaker 2: for all they sits healthy food or junk food.
Speaker 9: I usually have a water I usually have about fifteen
Speaker 9: gummy bears.
Speaker 8: That's very specific, Yes it is.
Speaker 3: I'll do.
Speaker 8: I'll do like.
Speaker 9: I'll do like uh five, you know, like a little
Speaker 9: handful three times a day, and then I'll do I
Speaker 9: usually have a big ziplock of trail mix and maybe
Speaker 9: a like a granola bar or a protein bar. I
Speaker 9: keep it, I keep it very minimal. I'll if i'm
Speaker 9: if i feel like I'm gonna be really hungry, I'll
Speaker 9: stack up more on the trail mix.
Speaker 8: Occasionally maybe a peanutrey jelly.
Speaker 9: But I don't.
Speaker 8: I don't even do that that much. But uh, I don't.
Speaker 8: I don't.
Speaker 9: Don't. I try not to eat a ton or have
Speaker 9: a ton of snacks, and I don't. I don't like
Speaker 9: to be moving around and making noise and stuff. But
Speaker 9: I have to eat something, and my blood sugar tends
Speaker 9: to fall a little low, and that's that's why I
Speaker 9: do the gummy bears.
Speaker 8: Yeah, but I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 9: I don't take a bunch of chunk typically, but that
Speaker 9: doesn't mean I don't eat a bunch of junk food
Speaker 9: during hunting season, because I definitely do.
Speaker 2: So I'm a little different than you in that I
Speaker 2: do bring a lot of stuff because I just know myself,
Speaker 2: like I need, like I time out my snacks to
Speaker 2: like every hour. I'll give myself that little thing to
Speaker 2: be excited about. So I'll usually start snack time like
Speaker 2: if it's an all day sit, my snack time usually
Speaker 2: starts like ten am maybe, and then I'll do like
Speaker 2: every hour from then, I've got some little thing to
Speaker 2: look forward to. So I know, like, all right, I
Speaker 2: got the little snickers bar ten and then if I
Speaker 2: can make it to eleven, I know I can have
Speaker 2: the you know, the trail mix, And if I can
Speaker 2: make it to noon, then I get my peanut butter jelly.
Speaker 2: And if I can make it to one, then I'll
Speaker 2: get my apple. And if I can make it to two,
Speaker 2: then I'll let myself have the cheese.
Speaker 3: Crackers or whatever. So I do bring a bunch of snacks.
Speaker 2: But what I try to do now is I take
Speaker 2: everything out of the noisy wrappers ahead of time and
Speaker 2: package them in reusable ziploc bags and so I like
Speaker 2: the reusable ziplocks. Not I don't always do this, but
Speaker 2: when I'm on top of my A game, I.
Speaker 3: Use those because they're very quiet.
Speaker 2: They're not like crinkly at all, so they're like very
Speaker 2: silent and you can have, you know, you can access
Speaker 2: your snacks in a quiet way, and then you're also
Speaker 2: not accumulating, you know, a whole bucket full of trash
Speaker 2: throughout the day, which is nice. And I do a
Speaker 2: mixture of like healthy and junk. So I used to
Speaker 2: be heavier on the junk. I've tried to add more
Speaker 2: like some fruits and something healthy in there, because after
Speaker 2: you do that for a week or so, you'll start
Speaker 2: feeling really creddy.
Speaker 3: If it's nothing but junk.
Speaker 2: So I'm kind of in between on that one. Here's
Speaker 2: another location related one, and we've talked a lot about
Speaker 2: bedding areas. This person asked, when you're hunting downwind of
Speaker 2: a dough betting are, how close do you actually want
Speaker 2: to be on it? Like are you inside the dough
Speaker 2: betting are on the down wind side or are you
Speaker 2: outside of the dough betting downwind of it? And if so, like,
Speaker 2: what's the distance to the edge of that cover or
Speaker 2: the edge of wherever you think the doughs are betted.
Speaker 3: How do you think about that?
Speaker 9: Yeah, that's a that's a tough one because it you know,
Speaker 9: it could vary, you know, location of location. You know,
Speaker 9: I picture like like a creek bottom that has you know,
Speaker 9: red brush and and kind of marsh marshy habitat like
Speaker 9: on each side of the creek, and you know, essentially
Speaker 9: the whole creek serves as you know, like really good
Speaker 9: dough betting, you know, on all the creek bends and
Speaker 9: and all the little thickets and stuff. And I will
Speaker 9: I'll get on the interior of that, I'll find obviously,
Speaker 9: I'll find a good tree, and I try to get
Speaker 9: where I can kind of shoot into where I think
Speaker 9: i'll out of the travel is.
Speaker 3: Going to be.
Speaker 9: But I don't want I don't want my wind necessarily
Speaker 9: blowing out a lot of travel opportunities behind me. It's
Speaker 9: not like doe betting isn't always like a like a
Speaker 9: hard edge, you know what I mean.
Speaker 8: It's a lot of times you just know.
Speaker 9: You're you're kind of working in there, and things get
Speaker 9: a little thicker, and there might be a pocket of
Speaker 9: doze here and then some more, you know, one hundred
Speaker 9: yards back or so. It's not as always like as
Speaker 9: a well defined abrupt edge as it might sound like
Speaker 9: when we say that. So a lot of it is
Speaker 9: a feel thing, but I try to I try to
Speaker 9: get where I can cover travel, and a lot of times,
Speaker 9: a lot of times there will be you know, some
Speaker 9: sort of sign or some sort of you know, perpendicular trail.
Speaker 9: It may not be beat to the ground, it may
Speaker 9: not be it may be be able to pick up
Speaker 9: on it, and sometimes you can't because it's just used
Speaker 9: a few times a year, you know, during that short window.
Speaker 9: But I don't like to give up too much travel
Speaker 9: behind me, if that makes sense. So I will get
Speaker 9: into usually where it starts to kind of thicken up,
Speaker 9: you know, I feel like I'm getting into that interior,
Speaker 9: and if I start getting in any further, I'm gonna
Speaker 9: start bumping deer around. That usually tells me to hold
Speaker 9: up and kind of get get right on there, right
Speaker 9: on that edge. Sometimes it's a feel thing, sometimes it's
Speaker 9: a visual thing, but that that kind of I let
Speaker 9: my instincts gauge a little bit there. If there's not
Speaker 9: like a clear indication of sign, that tells me, you know,
Speaker 9: this is probably where I need to be. But one
Speaker 9: thing I'll mention real quick. The downwind side of doll
Speaker 9: betting is an area that Bucks will gravitate to during
Speaker 9: the run, no doubt about it. But I've seen more
Speaker 9: and more over the years that the side where does
Speaker 9: tend to travel from food to bed, there's you know
Speaker 9: a lot of times if there's a distinct you know,
Speaker 9: food source and there the general travels from here to
Speaker 9: through the betting. That spot, that edge there where they
Speaker 9: travel in and out where a lot of those trails
Speaker 9: might be coming in from, you know, various spots, various
Speaker 9: uh directions. That spot gets a lot more, It gets
Speaker 9: a lot of activity from Bucks, maybe even more so
Speaker 9: than the down wind side. They can they can take
Speaker 9: a one trail perpendicular and they can cover you know, two, three, six,
Speaker 9: twelve different entrance trails and know exactly what's in that
Speaker 9: no betting, and they can do the same thing traveling
Speaker 9: from down winning. But I've seen it more and more
Speaker 9: over the years, I've almost changed my opinion a little
Speaker 9: bit that that might even be the better spot, the
Speaker 9: spot where they can go perpendicular and cover a lot
Speaker 9: of trails. So if you have a good betting area
Speaker 9: and a good food source over here, and in that
Speaker 9: betting area, maybe it's a one hundred yard two hundred
Speaker 9: yard stretch and there are multiple trails kind of going in.
Speaker 5: You see.
Speaker 9: You know, this one's well beat down. This one's a
Speaker 9: little more faint, another beat down one there, another one
Speaker 9: in the corner that inside that timber you know are
Speaker 9: inside that cover there there, there's gonna be a some
Speaker 9: sort of route perpendicular trail. You may it may be visible,
Speaker 9: it may not be, But that spot right there is
Speaker 9: a great spot to be that. I've seen that over
Speaker 9: and over the last few years. I've really started to
Speaker 9: key in more on that than necessarily the down one side.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's that.
Speaker 2: I mean it's it's the same kind of like transition
Speaker 2: type area that a lot of folks would hunt during
Speaker 2: that bed to feed pattern of October. But now, you know,
Speaker 2: the Dose are still basically doing the same thing, right,
Speaker 2: Dose are still basically on that bed to feed pattern,
Speaker 2: transitioning out to that food source. But now instead of
Speaker 2: the Bucks doing that same thing, like you said, they're
Speaker 2: not paralleling that movement anymore. They're perpendicularing it, crossing it
Speaker 2: to catch.
Speaker 3: All those So you're spot on.
Speaker 2: That's a very good point, and that kind of that's
Speaker 2: a situation where you can get that kind of location
Speaker 2: is a best of both worlds for an all they
Speaker 2: sit where we talked about the beginning. How if you're
Speaker 2: hunting down one of a die betting area, that could
Speaker 2: be great in the morning, in the afternoon, but then
Speaker 2: once you get to the evening when they transition out
Speaker 2: to their food source, that spot can kind of die
Speaker 2: off in some locations when you're deep back in the bedding. Well,
Speaker 2: if you find a spot like this where you're adjacent
Speaker 2: to bedding, but you're also where they are transitioning through
Speaker 2: as they head to that main food source, that's the
Speaker 2: kind of place that does stay pretty darn primo right
Speaker 2: on through. So it's it's finding the right wind for
Speaker 2: that can be tricky, I think, but.
Speaker 3: A great spot. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Last question, or maybe second to last question. Should you
Speaker 2: still consider trail camera pictures in specific areas during the rut?
Speaker 2: So when you get new pictures that show you a
Speaker 2: buck that did something yesterday or a week ago or whatever,
Speaker 2: but it's November right now, is that something that's really
Speaker 2: meaning much to you, Andy, No, I.
Speaker 9: Still I still pay major attention to that, especially like
Speaker 9: if it's on well, I mean, honestly, I'm probably not
Speaker 9: diving into too many like betting areas to check trail cameras,
Speaker 9: you know that time of year. Those might be more
Speaker 9: of like a soaker camera where I keep it in there,
Speaker 9: you know, most of the year. But like I'll have
Speaker 9: them on funnels, especially like really good funnels where they're
Speaker 9: almost forced to go through there, and I'll definitely check
Speaker 9: those and and see what's kind of moving through there,
Speaker 9: because those are spots that it's it could be it
Speaker 9: could be a random buck that's coming through one time,
Speaker 9: but if it's if it's a buck that's.
Speaker 8: In there during the run.
Speaker 9: There are spots, there are areas, there are trees that
Speaker 9: these deer go by repetitively, and it may not be
Speaker 9: every day, but it might be three, four or five
Speaker 9: times a week.
Speaker 8: In those spots.
Speaker 9: It's really it pays to know when those spots are
Speaker 9: heating up because those are the spots where if you're
Speaker 9: after a specific buck and if in a lot of
Speaker 9: times just you know, any good buck, but specifically a
Speaker 9: specific buck if you can find those areas where they
Speaker 9: go through more than anywhere else, and you can plant
Speaker 9: yourself there and just put in the hours. Obviously playing
Speaker 9: the wind, you know, getting there when the wind is okay,
Speaker 9: but playing your butt in there and just playing the
Speaker 9: long game. That's a great way to kill a target
Speaker 9: buck during the rut. But you gotta kind of establish
Speaker 9: that spot. Maybe there's a couple of them, maybe you're
Speaker 9: lucky in the two of them on the property you
Speaker 9: can hunt or whatever. And another one is is the
Speaker 9: food source, you know it. I that's still valuable to
Speaker 9: me to know that, Like, okay, after dark, you know
Speaker 9: there's some dose. You know, there's some doughs in these
Speaker 9: food source and then you know, after dark, I got
Speaker 9: a you know, a buck on trail camp around like
Speaker 9: bumping dose around or working this straight. I mean that
Speaker 9: tells me that he's in there, and now I can
Speaker 9: I can make an educated plan on where I want
Speaker 9: to hunt this deer. Maybe it's in this funnel coming
Speaker 9: to the food source. Maybe it's on the backside of
Speaker 9: this still betting, maybe it's on the food source. Maybe
Speaker 9: he's in there in daylight a little bit. So I
Speaker 9: think trail cam I actually checked trail cameras a little
Speaker 9: more often during the rut. But I'm also doing it
Speaker 9: smart and I'm also you know, I'm trying to not
Speaker 9: blow deer out. I'm just trying to get some information
Speaker 9: on something that I could potentially capitalize on the short term,
Speaker 9: on a short term pattern. There.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hypothetical, Well, last question, hypothetical.
Speaker 3: Dream spot to sit during the rut.
Speaker 2: So if you could paint the picture of the perfect
Speaker 2: rut location and Kip tell me the day you would
Speaker 2: want to hunt this perfect spot, and then give me
Speaker 2: as much detail as you can about what that setup
Speaker 2: would look like, everything from access to what kind of tree,
Speaker 2: to what features or habitat or or sign is there.
Speaker 2: What's the perfect place you could dream up for a
Speaker 2: rut sit?
Speaker 9: Okay, so access would be through a neighboring property that's
Speaker 9: a cattle pasture, and I could walk through that the
Speaker 9: majority of the way back there. And this is going
Speaker 9: to be in like not like real super steep hill country,
Speaker 9: but hill country, like moderately sized hills, you know, one
Speaker 9: hundred feet one hundred and fifty feet, you know, somewhere
Speaker 9: in there kind of rolling hills, but some big hills
Speaker 9: in some sort of travel hub where there's two three
Speaker 9: different ridge systems that they all kind of dumped down
Speaker 9: in the same general area. And in that bottom, it's
Speaker 9: a wide bottom that's a CRP field, Okay, And I'm
Speaker 9: actually describing as I've killed, Yeah, I have killed multiple bucks,
Speaker 9: and my buddy shot a monster in there too. So
Speaker 9: you got ridges on the sides, you know, kind of
Speaker 9: surrounding it with multiple points dumping down into the CRP field.
Speaker 9: And right down there at the bottom is the is
Speaker 9: the primary scrape, the hub scrape. And because that bottom
Speaker 9: is a skinny field and it's wider, you can actually
Speaker 9: get a good consistent wind when you have the wind
Speaker 9: blowing out the direction of the main drainage. So it's
Speaker 9: it's kind of when specific. You don't want it coming
Speaker 9: over a ridge perpendicular. You want it blowing out that
Speaker 9: main drainage, and you can what you can do is
Speaker 9: put that wind in your face, get down in that
Speaker 9: bottom and get right down wind of that scrape, and
Speaker 9: then you got all these points coming down, and then
Speaker 9: you got the wind hitting you in the face, blowing
Speaker 9: you back up towards that cattle pasture. Yes, a couple deer.
Speaker 9: There's some space to get you know, deer could get
Speaker 9: behind you, but it's gonna be very minimal, very very
Speaker 9: minimal disturbance, not real obtrusive.
Speaker 8: And you just got so.
Speaker 9: Many things, uh coming together there all in one spot.
Speaker 9: You got travel hub, multiple multiple points stumping down, so
Speaker 9: you're gonna have deer coming from all directions. You got
Speaker 9: that primary scrape there, and you got the thermal activity of.
Speaker 8: Its falling thermals.
Speaker 9: You know, first thing in the morning, you know, until
Speaker 9: that sun gets over those hills, you got falling thermals
Speaker 9: going right down into that spot. So it's a great
Speaker 9: spot for bucks to come and check, crossing trails, scent
Speaker 9: pulling down and the same thing in the evening.
Speaker 8: That's something like that is a killer spot. Then they're
Speaker 8: hard to find.
Speaker 9: But what I look for is multiple features that bucks
Speaker 9: like all in one area. That's really what it comes
Speaker 9: down to. That's what makes a great rough spot. Yeah,
Speaker 9: any one of those things you can get a kill on.
Speaker 9: Any one of those things can be a great hunt.
Speaker 9: But when you find a spot like that, that's what
Speaker 9: makes a spot great for.
Speaker 8: Decades. You know, it's it's always a good spot.
Speaker 9: Because it has everything a buck needs, and he can
Speaker 9: he can figure out a ton of information from a
Speaker 9: lot of different things in one specific area.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 8: So, and then as far as a date, I would.
Speaker 9: Throw, uh, November, I'm gonna make a real short window
Speaker 9: six through nine.
Speaker 8: Nice, November six through nine.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've begin I've begun thinking of place like that
Speaker 2: is like a stacked I'd been calling like a stacked
Speaker 2: location because I want to stack up like all these
Speaker 2: reasons a buck would pass through there. So you make
Speaker 2: such a good point, which is, any one of those
Speaker 2: in isolation could be good and it could work. But
Speaker 2: which like, the best of the best places are when
Speaker 2: you can find this thing stacked on this thing, stacked
Speaker 2: on this thing, stacked on this thing, and you have
Speaker 2: all of these reasons, and then you all of a
Speaker 2: sudden you have a much higher percentage sit and that's
Speaker 2: that's what you're really looking for. So I love it, man,
Speaker 2: I I hope you find a spot or two like
Speaker 2: that to hunt in this this next couple of weeks,
Speaker 2: and that should get a big one on the ground.
Speaker 3: My friend.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you taking the time to do this and
Speaker 2: answering some of these questions and helping us all get
Speaker 2: hyped for this most wonderful time of year.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 9: Man, it's awesome. I'm excited. Hopefully this helped the listeners.
Speaker 9: I had fun. These are fun questions. It's fun just
Speaker 9: to start brainstorming and think about this stuff, because you know,
Speaker 9: when you don't, when you don't talk about it, sometimes
Speaker 9: you get a little complacent. You're not really thinking about it.
Speaker 9: But I'm all jacked up now. I'm ready to get
Speaker 9: out there.
Speaker 3: Me too, man.
Speaker 2: And as in all that note, I should probably slip
Speaker 2: out of here and head to the woods here myself.
Speaker 2: So thank you, Andy, and thanks everyone for listening.
Speaker 3: I appreciate you joining this week.
Speaker 2: Good luck out there, and until next time, stay wired
Speaker 2: to hunt.