Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 986: Rut Fresh Radio - The Nastier the Weather, the Bigger the Bucks

Transcript

Ep. 986: Rut Fresh Radio - The Nastier the Weather, the Bigger the Bucks · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: All right, folks, welcome back to another episode of Rotfresh.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: This is Jake Hooefer. We have a late season update
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: across the country. We have Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan, and
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: we have cold temperatures. We have some more cold temperatures
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: coming in here. So as you can imagine here in
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: the Midwest, food is going to be a very large priority.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: But what happens when things aren't perfect? The buck isn't
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: quite showing up on time, or maybe your access isn't perfect.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk about some of the more intricate
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: details of what you can do if you have a
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: potential opportunity at a great fleet season food source. I
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: hope you guys enjoyed this episode with Mark Kenyon, Justin Hollinsworth,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: and Grant Putnam from Illinois. As you know, Roughfresh is
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: brought to you by land dot com, the leading online
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: real estate marketplace to find your perfect rural, recreational, agricultural,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: or hunting properties here in the US. We're going to
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: kick things off here with Mark Kenyon to get a
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: quick season update from Michigan.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Here we go.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: All right, We're kicking things off with none other than Mark.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: It's been a minute since you've been out here on
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Rough Fresh. We're in December, we're inching deeper and deeper
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: into the year. How's it going.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: It's great, it's been a fun season. It's been, uh,
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: you know, as they always do. They always seem to
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: go so fast. You dream of it all year long,
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: and it seems like it's forever away, and then you blink,
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: and then the seasons like almost here, and then you're
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: panicking about I'm not ready for this or what do
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: I need to do, and then you blink again, and
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: then the season's almost done. It seems like every year
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: that's the story, and it was true once again this year.
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: But it's been it's been really good. And December so
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: far off to good start, you know, for a lot
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: of different reasons.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well we've and I feel like this and I've
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: talked about it here on Rough Fresh, but this is
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: one of the colder first parts of December we've had
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: in a really long time where the food sources and
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: everything else comes into a major play way sooner than
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: what it has in the past.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: So has that.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Equals more sightings and potentially more opportunity here so far
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: in December for you?
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean, this is the late season that
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: you dream of, I think for a lot of us,
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: and for the last decade, we have not had a
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: whole lot of Decembers that started this well, at least
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: that I can remember. I'm sure there's some pockets in
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: there that I'm forgetting of, But if I were to
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: just overgeneralize, like you said, it has seemed like for
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: quite a while now we've had relatively warm Decembers, or
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: at least long periods of relative warmth on a lot
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: of these late seasons. I just kept on finding myself
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: many years being like, oh, geez, are we ever going
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: to get the cold front we need? Are we ever
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: going to get that snow you always dream of? We
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: ever had those single digits at least that's you know,
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: the story in Southern Michigan for a whole lot of years.
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: But this year, you know, we've largely had it. We've
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: had below average temperatures, We've had a bunch of snow
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: that came. You know, I guess it was around Thanksgiving
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: maybe that we got our snow and we haven't lost
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: it yet. And that's not common for at least southern Michigan.
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: The last fifteen, sixteen years, whatever it's been that I've
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: been here. This is probably the most consistent snow we've
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: had in the first part of the winter. So yeah,
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: that has all led to you. As soon as we
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: got that consistent snow in the temps dropped, and also
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: actually on a couple of the properties I've permission on
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: had standing corn get picked just before that. So kind
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: of that best situation where we've got a lot of
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: food on the ground, the cold temperatures, the snow, everything
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: you dream of, which has led to a lot of sightings.
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: The only downside for me personally is that the only
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: mature bucks that I was interested in taking a crack
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: at all these properties were all killed prior to all that,
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: because for all.
• 3:39
  Speaker 5: Sorts of reasons.
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: So all that said, about a week ago ish a
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: new buck showed up that I think is mature, and
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: that got me really excited to go out there.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Not a huge, you.
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: Know buck antler wise, but an old buck I think,
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: and a cool deer. It's a big six ports to
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: tight tall I say, bodied six pointer. He's got a
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: broken end of his main beam, so again, you know,
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: not a deer that anyone's going to be too excited
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: about but I'm excited about him, and because of that,
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: I've also made kind of a point to try to
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: take my son out while hunting for him, because he's,
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: you know, really excited, would love to get our first
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: buck together. So I decided, as much as I possibly can,
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: I'm going to take him out while we try to
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: get one of these deer and really make it more
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: about that than anything else. So that's a long winded
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: answer to your question, which is so far, so good.
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: I can give you more details on like the specific
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: you know, conditions that led to some of the sightings
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: and what we've seen so far, but good stuff in general.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, with most of your signings in the freshly picked
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: cornfield here, I assume that's been where most of the
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: activity has kind of consolidated to. I feel just in
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: my general sidings too, like the deer are somewhat yarding
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: up already, where if you're in the prime food source,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: you're going to see the bulk of the deer herd.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Is that similar to what you've seen?
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think there's two things really congregating deer in
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: my neck of the woods, at least what I'm seeing
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: is One is that you know, key food source, which
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: one hundred percent in our case was that just recently pitcorn.
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: But the second thing is the pressure impact. Our gun
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: season opened about three weeks ago. These deer have been
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: pounded all around us. There's a few little pockets where
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: they've been left relatively safe, and that includes a couple
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: of these properties that I have permission on. I've I've
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: hunted very lightly, very sparingly for that specific reason, just
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: hoping I knew I didn't have a mature buck around.
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: There was a live that I knew of. So my
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: plan was, I'm going to leave this stuff pretty much
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: untouched until something shows up or until you know, later
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: into the late season. Hopefully if there was anything alive
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: in the square mile or two square miles, hopefully it's
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: going to kind of suck into this safe spot, this
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: little sanctuary that I was trying to create.
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: And that might be what happened here.
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: That might be why this new buck showed up, because
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: all of a sudden, there's good food and there's a
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: lot of deer here that feel safe because I've been
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: in there just a couple of times, very careful situations.
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: I've scouted from Afar I've been watching and decided to
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: finally take a couple of swings, to take a couple
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: of cracks, and I think that's what's concentrated.
• 6:15
  Speaker 5: A lot of deer. And there's a lot of deer.
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: I mean, we hunted, My son and I hunted Friday
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: night and Saturday night, and both times, you know, twenty
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: plus deer, probably closer to thirty one of the nights.
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: And you know, it's so snowy, and it was a
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: big moon out Friday night, very very clear skies.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: Bright moon.
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: So when we were coming out in the evening, we
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: got back out towards the road and you could just
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: see some of these fields after dark.
• 6:46
  Speaker 5: Just full a deer. I mean, even more deer than that.
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: So everything was piling out as that, you know, night
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: came to a close and it feel safe. There's good food,
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: it was cold, high pressure, a lot of snow, kind
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: of everything that you hoped for to get deer on
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: their feet and moving. So that's you know, the hope
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: for the next week, right is hopefully we'll have another
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: front like that with that higher pressure moving through, with
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: snow staying on the ground, and you know, best case
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: scenario would be even colder, more fridgid temperatures, which I'm
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: probably getting ahead of things now, but there's something that's
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: getting closer towards that next weekend, which is great.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well we can jump right into that.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, I feel we have some really cold, frigid
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: temperatures coming in, and every guest here has brought it
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: up that this is going to be a really fun
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: and exciting time where it just feels like typically it's
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: taken un till January to get to some of these
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: conditions and having the snow on the ground.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: Are you pretty not excited for next weekend?
• 7:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah?
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: I mean it's if I again, if I had like
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: a slam dunk deer, I would be really really excited.
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: I have a deer that's like, this would be a
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: fun deer to kill my son. It's a cool deer.
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: If it happens, it'd be awesome. So yes, I'm excited.
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: We have that front kitting like Friday Saturday. It looks
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: like in general.
• 7:59
  Speaker 5: The whole week is good.
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: I mean, the whole week is pretty darn good compared
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: to many mid Decembers that we've had. I just checked
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: for our next seven days, the average high is below
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: average every single day for the next seven days, and
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: then it gets really below average come like Friday and Saturday.
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: So I think I think Saturday morning it's gonna be
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: single digits. You're gonna have maybe low teens for us here,
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: Saturday evening very high barometric pressure, so all those things
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: would make you know, Friday, Saturday, Sunday pretty darn good
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: days to hunt. So yeah, we're gonna hopefully get out
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: there again taking my son or suns maybe both of
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: them will go out and you know, yeah, I don't
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: have the target buck I was after originally, but if
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: I were to kill, you know, any half decent buck
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: with one of the boys, that would be a really
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: great memory. So looking forward to that, I think that,
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: you know, conditions are just wildly lucky that they line
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: up for weekends for so many people. That just makes
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: it really, you know, just great for people to actually
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: have good hunting on the days that they have off,
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: so very very fortunate for that.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then I real quick, I mean the rough
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: fresh I texted this episode of Justin hollins Worth. I
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: had texted him. I said, hey, do you want to
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: hop on? And as I texted him, he disc was
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: recovering his big dear and then we had this scheduled
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: the night and I was like, hey, it's gonna be
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: a little bit later. I just shot a buck. And
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: so it was very similar to cold snow. It like
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: we've had this standing plot for many years and always
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: felt like it just hit the weekend after our archery
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: season closed here in Illinois, and we have the conditions
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: and the last four nights have been everything you expect
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: for a late season hunting, and finally the big mature
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: buck that we wanted to see rolled in and it
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: came together. So late season is a totally different This
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: vibe is probably a lame way to describe it, but
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: a different vibe than what it was just a couple
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: of weeks ago, where you're just out grinding your face
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: off and hoping for the best. And now it's like, okay,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: this is a much more controlled environment. Uh, the opportunity
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: is much longer. You have time to glass confirm its
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: to deer, and Uh. I've never I've been not a
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: huge fan of late season, but after today I have
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: been a little bit more uh acclimated, Tom enjoying it.
• 10:13
  Speaker 5: Well.
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: It's one of those things that the late season is
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: it's it's very much a have and have not type
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: of type of year, right, Like, if you have the
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: sanctuary or the food, it can be amazing. But if
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: you don't have those two things, this can be a
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: really frustrating, difficult time to hunt. So it comes down to, like,
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: there's there's folks. If you're if you're fortunate enough to
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: have a place where you can create those two circumstances,
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: this is amazing. If you don't, if you're not in
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: that camp, then this becomes a you gotta find it.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: You got to search it out.
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: You've got to, you know, check out all these different
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: public land pieces and find those little holes that nobody
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: for some reason hunted or you know, this is a
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: sneaky time of year to get permission. You know you
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: might be able to find someone super late season who
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: doesn't have somebody who hunts the lake gun seasons or
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: doesn't hunt late archery. And if you sneak in there,
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: not sneak in, if you go in there now and
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: knock on a door and get permission. And when I
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: say sneak in, I mean like kind of like people
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: wouldn't be thinking of this time of year to be
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: asking permission. There might be people are like, oh yeah,
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: the guys are all done hunting here, they just hunt opening.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: Weekend or whatever.
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: Goat, take a crack, whatever, and you might be able
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: to get that late you know, last weekend or last
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: week permission and have success in a situation that maybe
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: you never would have thought of having that opportunity.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: So don't give up.
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: If you're having fun, if there's some opportunity with this
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: weather out there, anything's possible.
• 11:35
  Speaker 5: Good things can still be had.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, with all that being said, scale one to ten,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: where do you put the next week at ten being
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: the best ever, one being one of the worst.
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I'm not going to say like ten
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: or nine. I mean I feel like you got to you.
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: Got to reserve those for.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know.
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: This cold cold was pretty great.
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: The only knock on this weekend, if I were to overanalyze,
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: would be like like for me to give a ten
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: in the late season would have to be us having
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: like a significant change, so like mild, warm temperatures and
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: then this huge frigid front hitting. So if it was
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: like in the forties or fifty and then all of
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: a sudden it was gonna drop down to you know,
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: ten degrees and a bunch of snow. That'd be like
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: such a shock to the system. I think that would
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: really knock the socks off a deer. And you see
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: something very different. I think it's been pretty cold and
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: snowy and great now for a long period of time
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: by the time you get to this weekend. So I
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: still think it's gonna be really good, but maybe not
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: a ten. And it's also not the rut. Now, all
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: that said, what is this this will be? You know
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: that the next seven days we're talking, you know, maybe
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: you'll catch one of those very late fawns that rolls
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: into heat, but I wouldn't count on that.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: So it's gonna be good. It's gonna be fun. Seven.
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: You know, late season seven is pretty darn good. Seven
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: or eight and me and eight I'm in that ballpark.
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: Probably you can't ask for a whole lot more from
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: a late season sid.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Now, I would agree with that, And well, good luck
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: to you, good to hear your update. Hopefully that six
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: pointer cooth raise for you and your sons, and we'll
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: keep on rocking.
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: Well, then I got to show you this picture real quick,
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: since we're doing video. We're out there hunting and the
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: spot where wanted to hunt, me and my son, there's
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: no blind, there's no where to hunt. So we just
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: did spot and stock hunts both nights. Actually just on
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: the ground, hiding behind trees in bushes, so very fun.
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: But he brought with him a little notebook, and so we're.
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: Hiding basically underneath the bush in the snow, on the ground,
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: and he brought his a little sketch pad, and so
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: he drew he drew a picture of the big six
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: where after and wrote a note and he said, right now,
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: me and my dad are hunting under a brush, as
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: he said, a bush pile, and we want to kill
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: a big bodied buck and he is a six pointer.
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: And here's the picture of the six pointer and his
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: big neck. I don't know if you can see this
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: or if it's the glare there see it.
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: It looks like yes, it does look like Bullwinkle.
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: And hopefully we'll have a picture of me and my
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: son with Bullwinkle by next episode.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: Awesome, Well, good luck to you guys.
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: Thanks buddy.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: All right, we got Justin hollins Worth from Ohio, and
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: this is funny. I asked, Hey, do you want to
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: hop on refresh and do a quick season update. And
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: as I like, within the moment of when I sent
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: that you you just were walking up to your deer.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: So the timing is impeccable. Congratulations, thank you, thank you.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: It was.
• 14:33
  Speaker 6: It was super funny because Steve and I were pulling
• 14:36
  Speaker 6: that buck out. You guys had just recently done a podcast, yeah,
• 14:41
  Speaker 6: and he was talking about me chasing a buck, and
• 14:45
  Speaker 6: then right at that moment of time, him and I
• 14:48
  Speaker 6: were together. We were going to recover my buck that
• 14:52
  Speaker 6: I've been chasing for the last for the last couple
• 14:55
  Speaker 6: of months.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: It was pretty cool.
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: So we sent you over the We sent you over
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: the selfie with the buck on the.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Ground, hot off the press. Now, I was super Jackuarry Man.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: That was That was awesome, awesome timing. So December bucks
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: are tough, man and uh and it came together, obviously
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: a two and a half month marathon of hunting a
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: particular buck. We're not going to get into the whole event,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: but I guess for that specific con or even just
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: the last couple of unths leading up to that, what
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: what were you keen in on specifically here in December?
• 15:30
  Speaker 6: You know that last you know, I kind of start
• 15:33
  Speaker 6: with the tail end of November, you know, because that
• 15:38
  Speaker 6: can be dynamite. I don't think you're going to see
• 15:42
  Speaker 6: a lot of deer, but typically the ones that you
• 15:45
  Speaker 6: do see are going to be you're gonna I've seen
• 15:50
  Speaker 6: some of the biggest white ties I think I've ever
• 15:52
  Speaker 6: seen the the.
• 15:54
  Speaker 5: You know, those last seven days in November. But then
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: as you get into you know, you get into December,
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: things drastically change.
• 16:06
  Speaker 6: I still do think I've still just even recently seen
• 16:11
  Speaker 6: a little bit of running activity. But I think it,
• 16:17
  Speaker 6: you know, I mean, these bucks are wore out. I
• 16:21
  Speaker 6: mean the buck that I just shot to look at him,
• 16:28
  Speaker 6: the way that he looked in late October versus the
• 16:30
  Speaker 6: way that he looked when I when I I finally
• 16:35
  Speaker 6: walked up on him. Man, he lost a lot of
• 16:37
  Speaker 6: body weight. It was I would say twenty five percent.
• 16:42
  Speaker 6: Like it was drastic. I mean, his spine was showing.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: That's crazy.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: That's the challenge of trying to age a new buck
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: or a deal like you almost don't recognize some of
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: the deer if they didn't have antlers, like you wouldn't
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: guess because they lose so much weight. And they look
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: completely different than maybe what to your point in October.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: And so with that being said, with him being run down,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: when you connected with him, was it more of a
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: feed pattern or just where he was hanging out or
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: what kind.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: Of how did it come together?
• 17:15
  Speaker 6: Yeah, so a lot of that has to do with
• 17:20
  Speaker 6: so that the areas that I was hunting him in
• 17:23
  Speaker 6: before there was there was some standing beans over in
• 17:31
  Speaker 6: those areas, and there was a fair amount of acorns.
• 17:34
  Speaker 6: But as the season kind of trickled along, the farmer
• 17:37
  Speaker 6: went in there, he had winter weed in there. They
• 17:41
  Speaker 6: drilled beans in there late. The beans didn't do very
• 17:43
  Speaker 6: well and were super short, and they went through and
• 17:46
  Speaker 6: they picked kind of what they could out of those
• 17:49
  Speaker 6: out of those fields, we were pretty excited because they
• 17:53
  Speaker 6: left a fair amount of beans.
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: So we're like, oh sweet, this is going to be awesome.
• 17:58
  Speaker 6: Well, that lasted for about a week and a half
• 18:00
  Speaker 6: and then they started going and then they went in
• 18:02
  Speaker 6: there and started disking.
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: Those fields, so that drastically changed.
• 18:09
  Speaker 6: I was really I was really concerned about where he
• 18:14
  Speaker 6: was going to end up because I knew that, you know,
• 18:17
  Speaker 6: they were going to transition from the rut into more
• 18:21
  Speaker 6: you know, recovery mode, and he went He actually ended
• 18:29
  Speaker 6: up going north where there was some cut beam fields.
• 18:34
  Speaker 6: But I went in there and I built a I
• 18:39
  Speaker 6: built a water hole like three or four years ago
• 18:41
  Speaker 6: in there with my my tractor bucket, because there's no.
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: There's no water in that section. Really, there's no creeks
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: or anything like that.
• 18:50
  Speaker 6: And I just noticed that every time that there was
• 18:52
  Speaker 6: runoff from that field back into that little spot in
• 18:55
  Speaker 6: the woods there, that when it pulled up, the deer
• 18:59
  Speaker 6: just would ham. I mean just there'd be just loaded
• 19:02
  Speaker 6: with tracks. So I had that in there and just
• 19:07
  Speaker 6: hadn't had anything in there to hunt in the last
• 19:09
  Speaker 6: several years. And then but that field, what what else
• 19:15
  Speaker 6: I did is I went in there and over the
• 19:19
  Speaker 6: in the beans and I spread whinter we rye, turnips
• 19:22
  Speaker 6: and radishes over over the beans.
• 19:25
  Speaker 5: And it came in good.
• 19:28
  Speaker 6: And so when those fields got disks, everything started to
• 19:33
  Speaker 6: shift that way, just kind of naturally. And and I
• 19:37
  Speaker 6: got a picture of him on a camera north of there,
• 19:42
  Speaker 6: which i've and I've never gotten a picture of him
• 19:44
  Speaker 6: there ever, not once. And it just had to be
• 19:47
  Speaker 6: about the food and you know, just kind of pushing
• 19:51
  Speaker 6: those deer that way, but I think they're so run
• 19:54
  Speaker 6: down by the end of that November time frame and
• 20:00
  Speaker 6: then going into December.
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: I just I think it's all about food at that point.
• 20:09
  Speaker 6: But they're touchy because I can personally say, like that
• 20:15
  Speaker 6: dear that I that I just shot.
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: I mean, I mean, I pressured that deer, like I'm supplied.
• 20:22
  Speaker 6: I'm surprised even in the county anymore, because I was,
• 20:28
  Speaker 6: I was all over. I was either gonna blow him
• 20:31
  Speaker 6: up or I was gonna kill him.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well it worked out. And I feel that's the
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: touch and go of late season two. Now, like we're
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: here in the Midwest ward in late season mode where
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: the deer had been pressured, like for your example, we
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: had multiple encounters and you know, the whole gambit, and
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: so it is still boiled down to food and him
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: finding a place where he was comfortable and then moving in.
• 20:53
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that's what I think. I think too. You get
• 20:57
  Speaker 6: you'll get some you know, if you had if you
• 21:01
  Speaker 6: I don't know, this is just my thought, my theory
• 21:03
  Speaker 6: on it. I could be completely wrong, but I think that.
• 21:08
  Speaker 6: I mean, there's some does that come into heat every
• 21:10
  Speaker 6: year in October, and and I've heard of I've heard
• 21:18
  Speaker 6: of some those coming in all the way, you know,
• 21:21
  Speaker 6: as early as October twentieth before, if they got bred
• 21:25
  Speaker 6: then and they had fawns, and I'm not sure, I
• 21:30
  Speaker 6: mean by the time they get to this point of
• 21:33
  Speaker 6: the year, I mean, could I'm not sure. Maybe they
• 21:35
  Speaker 6: have the first you know cycle where they go into heat,
• 21:40
  Speaker 6: because i know later in the year there's you know,
• 21:44
  Speaker 6: supposed to be you know, some.
• 21:45
  Speaker 5: Of those younger deer that that do that.
• 21:47
  Speaker 6: So maybe you know, maybe this you know, this first
• 21:51
  Speaker 6: week of December or whatever, maybe you get some of
• 21:53
  Speaker 6: those those little those little fonts.
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: Because the buck that I just shot, he was fallen.
• 22:01
  Speaker 6: A he was following a uh a do on m
• 22:07
  Speaker 6: hm buyers and she wasn't with any other deer.
• 22:09
  Speaker 5: It's just those two.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 22:13
  Speaker 6: So I don't know, I don't know if there's you know,
• 22:17
  Speaker 6: I'm not I'm not a deer biologist or anything.
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: I'm just you know, just observation over the years. You know,
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: I've seen some stuff like that. But I've killed.
• 22:31
  Speaker 6: I've killed three I've killed three bucks in that you
• 22:36
  Speaker 6: know first part of December, you know, with my dough.
• 22:42
  Speaker 6: You know, two of them was with a dough my
• 22:44
  Speaker 6: biggest I ever killed. He was with a dough and
• 22:49
  Speaker 6: then this one was with a doe the other night
• 22:51
  Speaker 6: when he came in, and the other one was just
• 22:54
  Speaker 6: he was by hisself and just run down and just
• 22:57
  Speaker 6: just odd food.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: So looking here in the next seven days, it seems
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: like there's two options. Hope you find the lucky young
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: do or be on a good food source. I think
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: one thing I want to bring up with hunting food sources,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: how careful are you. Let's say let's say you get
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: a picture of a deer in the middle of the night,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: a deer you knew from November, he didn't connect with him,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: and he shows up on food middle of the night,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: one o'clock in the morning, two o'clock in the morning
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: somewhere in that timeframe. Is that enough for you to
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: go and to start hunting that food source in the
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: evenings or are you more apprehensive to go in there
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: and hope that as temperatures get colder, as we get
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: more snow, if that happens, they'll end up getting there
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: in daylight.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Or what have you been able to pick up over
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: the years.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: I feel like someone out there is in that exact
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: scenario right now.
• 23:58
  Speaker 6: This is uh, this is my thought on it. So
• 24:03
  Speaker 6: because we we pay so much attention to cameras a
• 24:08
  Speaker 6: lot of times, which can be a mistake.
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: I still think that.
• 24:14
  Speaker 6: I think we needed if you have the opportunity to
• 24:18
  Speaker 6: be able to to to glass them from a long
• 24:21
  Speaker 6: distance and just stay back and kind of get it
• 24:26
  Speaker 6: feel for because they might be right there in that
• 24:30
  Speaker 6: field or whatever, feeding and you just never got a
• 24:33
  Speaker 6: picture because they I mean, they got to walk in
• 24:34
  Speaker 6: front of the camera.
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: And it's just not always the case.
• 24:37
  Speaker 6: I mean, There's been numerous times over the years where
• 24:39
  Speaker 6: I've went in and just off a gut feel and
• 24:42
  Speaker 6: thought I should just go set that just to see
• 24:45
  Speaker 6: what's going on. Yeah, he hasn't been on camera in daylight,
• 24:48
  Speaker 6: but I'm just gonna go set it and then he
• 24:50
  Speaker 6: just and then I see.
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: Him in daylight.
• 24:55
  Speaker 6: I I mean because at the end of at the
• 24:57
  Speaker 6: end of the day, we're always we're all trying to
• 24:59
  Speaker 6: predict something that hasn't happened yet, and I think.
• 25:07
  Speaker 5: That you need to go.
• 25:10
  Speaker 6: If you can glass and pick up that information is
• 25:13
  Speaker 6: one thing, but or or maybe you just set an
• 25:18
  Speaker 6: observation stand and set back with that, you know, like
• 25:22
  Speaker 6: that you're safe getting in and out, but you could
• 25:26
  Speaker 6: get an opportunity as well. I think I think that
• 25:31
  Speaker 6: that can come into play big time. But to me,
• 25:37
  Speaker 6: I gotta take I gotta take a shot at it
• 25:40
  Speaker 6: every once in a while, like I can't just like
• 25:42
  Speaker 6: I see, I've seen a lot of just friends, even
• 25:46
  Speaker 6: my end myself over the years, just like waiting to
• 25:50
  Speaker 6: get a daylight pitcher. I mean, by the time you
• 25:56
  Speaker 6: get a daylight picture, that was your chance and you
• 25:59
  Speaker 6: just weren't there. And now now you went and hunted it.
• 26:03
  Speaker 6: And if it's a food source this time of year, man,
• 26:06
  Speaker 6: there you're gonna deal with.
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: A lot of other eyes.
• 26:09
  Speaker 6: And noses and and getting out is going to be
• 26:15
  Speaker 6: it's that's a nightmare sometimes.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: What what is one or two strategies to get out?
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on having someone pick you up?
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: What's your thoughts on because it's cold by then, like
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: when that sun goes down and you're like, dude, it's cold,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Oh is it to ride it out till it's pitch black?
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, what how do you get out without without
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: messing it up? Because you're if you're on a good
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: food sources, probably going to be ten to twenty twenty
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: deer in there, and it's like the last thing you
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: want to do is bust them all out.
• 26:47
  Speaker 6: If you can get somebody to pick you up, I
• 26:49
  Speaker 6: think that's huge. That's not always the case for me.
• 26:55
  Speaker 6: You know, I use you know, I use a and
• 27:00
  Speaker 6: uh you know one of Steve's hardcore e bikes. I
• 27:04
  Speaker 6: think you got one as well, And that's been huge
• 27:10
  Speaker 6: for me because sometimes if I can get down the
• 27:14
  Speaker 6: tree and my bike's close and on it, if I'm
• 27:19
  Speaker 6: riding away from them, they don't seem to run. They
• 27:23
  Speaker 6: do more of a watch unless I have to like
• 27:26
  Speaker 6: ride through where they're whatever they're they're at or whatever.
• 27:31
  Speaker 6: It's it's not ideal, but I mean, I don't know.
• 27:36
  Speaker 6: I think that you got to move deer around to
• 27:41
  Speaker 6: kill deer, and that's just that's just unfortunately part of it.
• 27:46
  Speaker 5: But I think you're you're really trying to stack.
• 27:51
  Speaker 6: Say you're watching the book, all you're getting is say
• 27:55
  Speaker 6: nighttime photos. Now now you can you see a weather
• 28:00
  Speaker 6: front coming, you know, and a lot of people like
• 28:06
  Speaker 6: the front end. You know, my buddy Heath Cisco has
• 28:14
  Speaker 6: proven this over and over again. The back half is
• 28:16
  Speaker 6: much better and then that's actually and that's how I
• 28:20
  Speaker 6: killed my buck just recently.
• 28:22
  Speaker 5: It was on the back half of that.
• 28:25
  Speaker 6: You know, the front was past us and the pressure
• 28:28
  Speaker 6: was rising. I think you need to take and you
• 28:31
  Speaker 6: stack some you know, attempts in your favor. Maybe a
• 28:34
  Speaker 6: front in your favor, maybe with the you know, maybe
• 28:38
  Speaker 6: maybe it's a certain moon phase that favors an evening.
• 28:47
  Speaker 5: Movement pattern.
• 28:48
  Speaker 6: Just try to stack a couple things in your favor.
• 28:52
  Speaker 6: And because again to go back to like you're trying
• 28:55
  Speaker 6: to predict something that's going to happen, not that it's
• 29:00
  Speaker 6: already happened.
• 29:02
  Speaker 5: I that is I've.
• 29:05
  Speaker 6: Done that so many times over the years, with those
• 29:07
  Speaker 6: stupid cameras where I'm like, oh, I got to go
• 29:10
  Speaker 6: a daylight picture, I'm going in a hunt.
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: I never see the deer. Yeah, And it's just and
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: it's just ridiculous.
• 29:15
  Speaker 6: I just think it's got to be stats and things
• 29:18
  Speaker 6: in your favor, whether being the number one thing of
• 29:24
  Speaker 6: everything with white tails, and and then that part of
• 29:29
  Speaker 6: the season, I mean, it's going to be about food,
• 29:32
  Speaker 6: and it's going to be they're going to be recovering.
• 29:35
  Speaker 6: I can tell you that just a couple of years ago,
• 29:37
  Speaker 6: I had a buck that kind of similar situation, and
• 29:42
  Speaker 6: I was hunting him this time of year, and the
• 29:46
  Speaker 6: other thing. This is where this is something I This
• 29:49
  Speaker 6: is where I made a mistake on this deer. It
• 29:51
  Speaker 6: was a nice ten why probably one hundred and sixty
• 29:55
  Speaker 6: inch deer didn't have any.
• 29:57
  Speaker 5: History with a deer or whatever. He moved in during
• 30:00
  Speaker 5: November and just was in there.
• 30:04
  Speaker 6: And what I he was.
• 30:11
  Speaker 5: Back there, and what I did? I set back too far.
• 30:20
  Speaker 6: And I didn't go exactly where I you know, like
• 30:25
  Speaker 6: I didn't want to press too hard and go exactly
• 30:28
  Speaker 6: where I knew that I really needed to be. And
• 30:34
  Speaker 6: I went in hunted the deer, seeing the deer that
• 30:37
  Speaker 6: night and didn't even when I left that night, I
• 30:41
  Speaker 6: didn't blow any deer up leaving or anything. And and
• 30:46
  Speaker 6: then I wanted, then, I want to try to make
• 30:48
  Speaker 6: my move the next time around.
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: And he just he just wasn't showing up in daylight anymore.
• 30:54
  Speaker 6: And I mean if I would have, if I would
• 30:56
  Speaker 6: have done what my gut told me to do that
• 31:00
  Speaker 6: first time in there, I would.
• 31:02
  Speaker 5: Have killed that buck.
• 31:03
  Speaker 6: Yeah, But I tried to play it too safe. And
• 31:05
  Speaker 6: I think I think we all try to play it
• 31:07
  Speaker 6: too safe. Sometimes I think that's good.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Well, real quick, imagine you didn't shoot this buck from
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: the tenth to the seventeenth of December in Ohio. Ten
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: being the best week of the year, one being one
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: of the worst weeks of the year. Where do you
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: rank it?
• 31:26
  Speaker 5: Tenth to seven? I would give it it's tough.
• 31:32
  Speaker 6: I would give it a three, Okay, I would give it, yeah,
• 31:37
  Speaker 6: like a three or four because personally me, like the
• 31:41
  Speaker 6: first you know, October is I love October like it's
• 31:48
  Speaker 6: my favorite favorite white tail month, no questions about it.
• 31:53
  Speaker 6: November frustrating, very frustrating. This year was very frustrating, just
• 32:01
  Speaker 6: because the big dogs are gonna have does and if
• 32:03
  Speaker 6: you are in areas in most of the state of Ohio,
• 32:06
  Speaker 6: there's just a lot of dose because people don't shoot dose,
• 32:10
  Speaker 6: and it's a problem. And to me, you know, October
• 32:17
  Speaker 6: is great, November could be frustrating. December it's I believe
• 32:23
  Speaker 6: December is the toughest month out of our entire year.
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: And then you go into January. January can be it
• 32:33
  Speaker 5: can be just awesome. Yeah, but you gotta have food.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, gotta have food.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: If you don't have food, go find some places where
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: there might be some food if people want to fall
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: along with some past once you've done and and everything
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: else is white Tail Addictions one of the best places
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: to do that.
• 32:49
  Speaker 5: Yep, yep, white Tail Addictions.
• 32:51
  Speaker 6: And that's where all of our it's on the Lone
• 32:54
  Speaker 6: Wolf custom gear YouTube page.
• 32:57
  Speaker 5: But that's just where we put all the white tail addictions.
• 33:00
  Speaker 5: So this is all right there.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: Awesome, Well, justin, congratulations once again, appreciate you hopping on here,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: and uh yeah it was awesome, perfect timing. So if
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: I text someone else for reughresh, that probably means they're
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: going to kill a buck or they just killed one.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: So this might be a good trend, a good kind
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: of Murphy's Law in a positive way.
• 33:20
  Speaker 6: Here.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was awesome, thanks Justin. Yep, all right.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Next up online we have grand Putnam who just shot
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: a big old buck in Illinois, Grant and that's your
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: number two of the year too. So how does it
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: feel to be officially bucked out? It's December seventh, you're
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: relishing in the moment you got to chop up the
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: deer here today?
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: How's it feel?
• 33:40
  Speaker 7: It feels good. It's actually I was just busy talking
• 33:43
  Speaker 7: to one of my buddies who just came up here
• 33:46
  Speaker 7: to help me butcher them. Shout out to Jesse. And
• 33:49
  Speaker 7: this deer that I shot last night was actually the
• 33:53
  Speaker 7: first deer match set that I found when we got
• 33:57
  Speaker 7: this farm, and I actually found him on the road
• 34:00
  Speaker 7: driving in there like it. That was first experience on
• 34:04
  Speaker 7: match set. And so he's obviously significantly bigger than this now,
• 34:08
  Speaker 7: but pretty awesome experience. And so it feels really good.
• 34:11
  Speaker 7: That's so cool, I told, I told I think it
• 34:15
  Speaker 7: was one of my buddies the other day. I think
• 34:18
  Speaker 7: over the course, because you and I are about the
• 34:20
  Speaker 7: same age, and the way I set up my like
• 34:22
  Speaker 7: roster for the year, I tend to bracket deer basically, uh,
• 34:26
  Speaker 7: you know, what are my top six deer on the
• 34:28
  Speaker 7: properties I've had, have access to, what's so on and
• 34:31
  Speaker 7: so forth. And I had it in my mind locked
• 34:34
  Speaker 7: in this year. I knew that this was going to
• 34:36
  Speaker 7: be the number one dear, and I was like, come
• 34:37
  Speaker 7: hell or high water, I will eat the second tag
• 34:40
  Speaker 7: to kill that dear. So lo and behold, he stepped
• 34:42
  Speaker 7: out last night. And we can get into that a
• 34:45
  Speaker 7: little bit more. With your questions you're gonna ask me
• 34:48
  Speaker 7: so it feels great. It feels great, So yeah, I'm
• 34:51
  Speaker 7: going to go try to get another one to know.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: I bet that's awesome. Man. So uh, it's Illinois.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: We're wrapping up the second leg or I guess the
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: fire a leg of shotgun rifle season here in Illinois.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: Just anadotally looking at Facebook, it honestly seems like second
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: season has been better than first season. And that's just
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: my gut reaction in looking on Facebook. And we have snow,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: we have cold weather, and it's been a long time
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: since we've had that for this season, and so I
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: have to imagine the cold weather and snow played into
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: some part of your strategy for last night.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: Is that true or accurate? What was your setup? Yeah?
• 35:29
  Speaker 7: Absolutely so, I pretty fanatically. I'm a big believer in
• 35:33
  Speaker 7: electrical fencing food plots. If you're hunting a small food plot,
• 35:37
  Speaker 7: I tend to do that in the summertime and spend
• 35:40
  Speaker 7: almost as much effort as I do electrically fencing off.
• 35:44
  Speaker 7: Like if I want a late season grain field, a
• 35:46
  Speaker 7: late season Braska plot that I don't want touched until
• 35:50
  Speaker 7: really late. Adjacent to one of those grain fields, I
• 35:53
  Speaker 7: spend a lot of time in the summers electrically fencing
• 35:55
  Speaker 7: them off to keep them out of it, to keep
• 35:57
  Speaker 7: the pressure low. So we have a good crop and
• 35:58
  Speaker 7: the deer don't just you know, mull it down to
• 36:01
  Speaker 7: it to nothing. And so last night, actually the deer
• 36:04
  Speaker 7: that I shot, which I call the six by five,
• 36:07
  Speaker 7: I've been watching him for about I've known about him
• 36:10
  Speaker 7: for three or four years now. Like I said, I
• 36:13
  Speaker 7: believe this is a two year old match set right
• 36:16
  Speaker 7: here in my hand. And so this year in particular,
• 36:22
  Speaker 7: and kind of my strategy last night was just sitting
• 36:26
  Speaker 7: over food. Last night, I finally had the right wind.
• 36:29
  Speaker 7: If you recall on Thursday and Friday night. Thursday was
• 36:33
  Speaker 7: very cold, but we had a southerly wind because of
• 36:36
  Speaker 7: the warm up on Friday, and it wasn't right on Thursday.
• 36:39
  Speaker 7: It wasn't right on Friday, and I was actually waffling
• 36:41
  Speaker 7: back and forth between like, uh, should I take the
• 36:43
  Speaker 7: afternoon off and go after him? And it wasn't the
• 36:45
  Speaker 7: right wind. And finally one of my friends was like,
• 36:47
  Speaker 7: you know what, I think You're gonna have another crack
• 36:49
  Speaker 7: at him. So I'm just just lay out of there,
• 36:52
  Speaker 7: and that's what I ended up doing. And so last
• 36:55
  Speaker 7: night I guess what I saw in a nutshell and
• 36:57
  Speaker 7: what I've seen over the last couple of week's hunting,
• 37:00
  Speaker 7: because we had snow here for about ten days in Illinois,
• 37:03
  Speaker 7: a good snowfall, not just like a dusting like I think.
• 37:06
  Speaker 7: There's probably eight to ten on the ground right now
• 37:08
  Speaker 7: where I live. And we got another couple last night.
• 37:12
  Speaker 7: And so what this deer did, the behavior that I
• 37:14
  Speaker 7: observed him last night, was he came out. I ended
• 37:17
  Speaker 7: up seeing about forty five ish year in total. He
• 37:21
  Speaker 7: came out, and it was very early. It was three
• 37:23
  Speaker 7: point thirty when he came out yesterday, so probably about
• 37:26
  Speaker 7: an hour and a half of legal time remaining on
• 37:29
  Speaker 7: the timer. And he was actually bumping yearling does so
• 37:34
  Speaker 7: depending on you know, the listener that you have, I
• 37:38
  Speaker 7: tend to call a yearling a year a deer that
• 37:40
  Speaker 7: is a year old, not a fawn, not a dough fond,
• 37:43
  Speaker 7: but a yearling doe. And he was bumping her around
• 37:46
  Speaker 7: the field like last night, pretty substantially, and he actually
• 37:49
  Speaker 7: bumped her right into one of my food plots where
• 37:52
  Speaker 7: he then was getting ready to eat. I didn't give
• 37:55
  Speaker 7: him a whole lot of time to eat. I'm gonna
• 37:56
  Speaker 7: be honest, he came in and.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: I shot, So you got you gotta you gotta capitalize
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: the opportunity because you never know what could happen. Crazy
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: things always happen. It's fun to sit there and watch them,
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: but you gotta you gotta make it happen. So, kind
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: of reverting back to waiting for the right wind, was
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: he pretty consistent hitting that food source once the temperatures
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: have dropped in the snow has hit the ground, or
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: is somewhat was it still somewhat random?
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 38:24
  Speaker 7: So I I frankly would have shot this year. Last
• 38:27
  Speaker 7: year at five and I saw him a couple of
• 38:29
  Speaker 7: times on the hoof very nice deer. This year I
• 38:31
  Speaker 7: tried rattling them in and actually end up rattling a
• 38:34
  Speaker 7: subordinate buck in which is a nice one as well,
• 38:37
  Speaker 7: different deer on the same day that.
• 38:39
  Speaker 5: I saw him.
• 38:40
  Speaker 7: You know, it was just one of those magical rut
• 38:42
  Speaker 7: days where the right hot do came by the stand
• 38:44
  Speaker 7: and I saw the buck parade. And so this year,
• 38:48
  Speaker 7: after the post rut, I would I typically tend to
• 38:51
  Speaker 7: say that the rut is post rut after Thanksgiving, and
• 38:56
  Speaker 7: post rut I would say that I was getting this
• 38:58
  Speaker 7: deer on camera every day or every other day on
• 39:02
  Speaker 7: this particular food source. So I have like a three
• 39:03
  Speaker 7: stage food plot. I've got Braska's clover and the beans
• 39:07
  Speaker 7: all stacked up in here, and they filter out and
• 39:09
  Speaker 7: they just transition back and forth, you know, that greens
• 39:12
  Speaker 7: the grain type of strategy that you've probably heard a
• 39:15
  Speaker 7: bunch of different people say. I just want to be
• 39:16
  Speaker 7: able to satiate the appetite of the deer and whatever
• 39:19
  Speaker 7: they are interested in eating and hold them there regardless
• 39:22
  Speaker 7: of the time of the year. So I tend to
• 39:24
  Speaker 7: plan a lot of my food plots kind of following
• 39:26
  Speaker 7: that rhythm. And so he was on camera bright, I mean,
• 39:32
  Speaker 7: very early as well on Wednesday. Wednesday, I just couldn't
• 39:35
  Speaker 7: get out of work. On Thursday, we had the big
• 39:38
  Speaker 7: temperature drop, so about a twenty degree temperature swing from
• 39:42
  Speaker 7: the mid thirties to like about fifteen tennish degrees here
• 39:46
  Speaker 7: on Thursday. But we had that southernly win on Thursday
• 39:50
  Speaker 7: because we had a warm up on Friday, and on
• 39:52
  Speaker 7: Friday he was out there as well, and that was
• 39:54
  Speaker 7: about thirty five on Friday, he was out there as well.
• 39:57
  Speaker 7: So I figured that over the weekend with the north
• 40:00
  Speaker 7: we win swinging through on Saturday Sunday, I would have
• 40:02
  Speaker 7: an opportunity at him, and that's pretty much exactly what happened.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: That's awesome.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: I love it Like Lacy's and food is an insurance policy,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: and when you don't have insurance, you wish you do,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: and when something goes wrong and you have insurance, right,
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: gosh dang, And I'm glad I have this policy. And
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: you know, with the weather cooperating, obviously, it came out
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: together really nicely. Now kind of looking here over the
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: next seven days, so like the tenth of the seventeenth
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: of December, it looks like we're gonna have some pretty
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: frigid bit or cold weather again this upcoming weekend. I
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: assume the strategy remains pretty similar to food. I mean
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: food and still hunting, hunting.
• 40:44
  Speaker 7: Smart down inside of food, wait for the wind to
• 40:47
  Speaker 7: be right. It looks like we're going to get a
• 40:48
  Speaker 7: massive cold front on Thursday through Sunday next week that's
• 40:52
  Speaker 7: going to push temperatures into the single digits come evening time.
• 40:56
  Speaker 7: So I believe that deer is going to be just
• 40:58
  Speaker 7: absolutely clobbering food next weekend. During muzzloder season, if you're
• 41:01
  Speaker 7: an Illinois resident, I think that would be an awesome
• 41:04
  Speaker 7: opportunity to kill what I call the deer. I think
• 41:07
  Speaker 7: that late season food plot hunting tends to be one
• 41:12
  Speaker 7: of the best and most predictable opportunities in times to
• 41:15
  Speaker 7: kill the air quote number one buck they have that
• 41:19
  Speaker 7: you're aware of, has made it through the rut, has
• 41:22
  Speaker 7: avated a lot of arrows, and has made it through
• 41:24
  Speaker 7: the first gun season in Ali and which happens at
• 41:27
  Speaker 7: the tail end of the rut. So I think, my opinion,
• 41:31
  Speaker 7: if deer are making it past Thanksgiving in Illinois and
• 41:34
  Speaker 7: you have food, I think you have a very very
• 41:36
  Speaker 7: good crack at them, as long as you're patient and
• 41:39
  Speaker 7: the wind is right, your approach is pretty good and
• 41:41
  Speaker 7: you're not walking through bedding areas banging everything out of
• 41:44
  Speaker 7: there on your way to and from. So yep, that's
• 41:47
  Speaker 7: what I'll be what.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: Let me run this scenario.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: Let me let me run this scenario past you your
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: next weekend. Pretend Okay, you're hunting with your wife, she
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: has Muslim attack, and there's fifteen deer twenty deer in
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: your food plot. The buck that you guys were after
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: did not show up, So you have twenty deer in
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: your food plot, You're like, oh crap, how do we
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: get the heck out of here? How much does that
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: make you nervous? Knowing each time the plan doesn't come together,
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: your odds could easily be diminishing with each quote unquote
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: unsuccessful hunt. What is your exit strategy? Do you guys
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: just hang out in the blind until you know it
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: gets really really dark? The moon's been really bright this weekend,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: so it's like it's like you could sit there all
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: night and it's still gonna be pretty bright out with
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: the snow and the moon. But what do you do
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: in that scenario? Do you just hope for the best
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: and start to zip out of there as quietly as possible.
• 42:36
  Speaker 7: I think that I think that by far the most
• 42:38
  Speaker 7: underrated aspect of deer hunting outside of like weapon proficiency.
• 42:43
  Speaker 7: To me, I think a lot of deer live because
• 42:46
  Speaker 7: they're missed or they're wounded or whatever. So I think
• 42:49
  Speaker 7: weapon proficiency is like a sneaky, sneaky killer of deer
• 42:53
  Speaker 7: hunting and destroyer of mental health of deer hunters. But
• 42:56
  Speaker 7: I think the second one is really and I've really
• 43:00
  Speaker 7: tried to clean up my access over the last few
• 43:02
  Speaker 7: years and ensure like it is pitch dark. So I
• 43:04
  Speaker 7: tend to sit in my blind until five forty five
• 43:09
  Speaker 7: six o'clock before I even open the door, because I
• 43:13
  Speaker 7: don't want dear to even have an inkling of seeing
• 43:15
  Speaker 7: me in regards of like the moonlight shining off the
• 43:18
  Speaker 7: snow and the reflection and how visible you are out there.
• 43:22
  Speaker 7: All of the blinds that I have set up for
• 43:24
  Speaker 7: late season hunting minus one, you're down the stairs out
• 43:28
  Speaker 7: the back of the blind and you're into pretty substantial
• 43:31
  Speaker 7: cover quickly. And so I've kind of finagled my entry
• 43:35
  Speaker 7: exit routes to make sure I'm minimizing that amount, so
• 43:38
  Speaker 7: I don't put too much stock into it. And also
• 43:40
  Speaker 7: I'm a big believer of like we we eat a
• 43:44
  Speaker 7: lot of vedison. I would not call my wife and
• 43:46
  Speaker 7: I trophy hunters by anybody's standard. And so lots of
• 43:50
  Speaker 7: the time, whether whether we're taking like a friend or
• 43:53
  Speaker 7: maybe my dad or maybe my friend from work, will
• 43:57
  Speaker 7: clear the field with a gun and that's how we
• 43:59
  Speaker 7: will will exit. If it comes to last light, and
• 44:03
  Speaker 7: you know there's just that stereotypical big old pot of
• 44:05
  Speaker 7: does out there feeding we'll pick the biggest one, and
• 44:08
  Speaker 7: that's how we'll clear the field in a I don't know,
• 44:10
  Speaker 7: a more semi natural way. I know that that's probably
• 44:13
  Speaker 7: a debatable tactic and a debatable strategy, but I like
• 44:18
  Speaker 7: that strategy a lot, just because we eat a lot
• 44:20
  Speaker 7: of medison. We tend to eat like five to ten
• 44:22
  Speaker 7: of them a year, and we also manage the property
• 44:25
  Speaker 7: properties pretty heavily for dose so that they don't become overrun.
• 44:30
  Speaker 7: So that's that's kind of my question. In a nutshell,
• 44:33
  Speaker 7: I brushed brushed shoulders with your question, which was how
• 44:36
  Speaker 7: much is like the diminishing or turn of scaring off
• 44:39
  Speaker 7: the number one buck day after day? And to me,
• 44:43
  Speaker 7: I think at this point, like if if you were
• 44:47
  Speaker 7: a person with a large standing grain field or maybe
• 44:50
  Speaker 7: the only food in like that mile, to me, I
• 44:56
  Speaker 7: and I know that, like you know, people have their
• 44:59
  Speaker 7: opinions on the juries. I really like watching like shows
• 45:02
  Speaker 7: like The Druries the Little Coski's because I think it
• 45:04
  Speaker 7: showcases what deer do completely unpressured in their natural environment,
• 45:09
  Speaker 7: how they act, how they behave, and so for that reason,
• 45:13
  Speaker 7: I really like the mantra that they kind of do,
• 45:15
  Speaker 7: Like you know, your stereotypical late season box blind in
• 45:18
  Speaker 7: the middle of a field, and they're getting in and
• 45:20
  Speaker 7: out of there each night. I have had my wife
• 45:22
  Speaker 7: pick me up before and a four wheeler to clear
• 45:24
  Speaker 7: the field. I think that's a pretty natural way of
• 45:26
  Speaker 7: doing it. But if you're hunting someplace where you can't
• 45:29
  Speaker 7: have that option, I like clearing the field with a
• 45:31
  Speaker 7: gun if you're a big venice and eater, and then
• 45:33
  Speaker 7: just cleaning up your access to make sure that you're
• 45:36
  Speaker 7: minimizing that damage. And I stay in the blind pretty
• 45:39
  Speaker 7: well after legal time. I'm not hopping out of there.
• 45:42
  Speaker 7: Like today, legal time is five oh one, five oh two.
• 45:44
  Speaker 7: I think I won't be getting out of there at five.
• 45:47
  Speaker 7: They'll be waiting till like five forty five six, and
• 45:50
  Speaker 7: hopefully it'll the cover of darkness will really take care
• 45:53
  Speaker 7: of that for me.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: No, that's that's great advice. Now looking here over the
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: next seven days, ten being the best week of the
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: year to kill big old buck, one being one of
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: the worst weeks of the entire year. And I'm gonna
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna add some more contacts for you, just giving
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: the time of year and your personal strategy. You have
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: standing food scale one to ten. Where do you put
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: this upcoming week?
• 46:19
  Speaker 7: This upcoming week, I there are a couple of days
• 46:23
  Speaker 7: that I'm looking at, So I'm looking at my ten
• 46:25
  Speaker 7: day right now. Monday's looks okay high twenty five, Friday
• 46:28
  Speaker 7: looks awesome high of nineteen. Saturday and Sunday are both
• 46:32
  Speaker 7: of high of about ten. So Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday,
• 46:35
  Speaker 7: if you have if you have standing food or anything,
• 46:39
  Speaker 7: which I want to circle back around that that year
• 46:41
  Speaker 7: that I shot last night, he was actually pawing up
• 46:44
  Speaker 7: Brassica's before he came in to beans and so that
• 46:50
  Speaker 7: was that's what he was doing last night. So the
• 46:52
  Speaker 7: majority of my dear last night on December what was
• 46:56
  Speaker 7: last night the seventh, December sixth, December sixth hit Brassica's
• 47:03
  Speaker 7: first before they hit it. And so my score would
• 47:07
  Speaker 7: be if you have that late season food over the
• 47:09
  Speaker 7: course of the next week, with those dates that I mentioned,
• 47:12
  Speaker 7: basically Friday through Monday, Friday the twelfth through Monday the fifteenth,
• 47:16
  Speaker 7: I think that my number would be a ten for
• 47:19
  Speaker 7: your or how much I like it for Big Old Buck,
• 47:22
  Speaker 7: I think I think if you have that, I think
• 47:25
  Speaker 7: if you can write it out in your blind stay
• 47:27
  Speaker 7: a little chilly for four days, and your entrance and
• 47:29
  Speaker 7: exit isn't terrible. You're getting in nice and earlier, staying
• 47:33
  Speaker 7: kind of late. I think there is a very good
• 47:35
  Speaker 7: chance during Muzzle at a weekend, if you're an Illinois resident,
• 47:38
  Speaker 7: that you could bag a giant here.
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love it, question, I love it. Awesome.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: Well, congratulations Grant once again, appreciate you hopping on here,
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: and good luck to your wife here this evening.
• 47:50
  Speaker 7: All right, I'll let you know. I'll shoot you a
• 47:51
  Speaker 7: text if we whack them.
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: All right, folks there, you guys have it. I hope
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: you guys enjoyed this week's episode of Rough Fresh. Bundle up,
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: make the most of this cold weather, and I hope
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: that you have a good food source or a good
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: opportunity here. As we get deeper and deeper into December,
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: the holiday season is right around the corner.
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: The Rough Fresh.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: Season is quickly coming to a close here as well.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: So hope you guys have the best week here. We
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: had some high scores, we had some lower scores, and
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: I hope everyone gets to experience a ten out of
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: ten week with the great late season cold weather.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: We'll see you next time, See y