Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 924: Foundations - Summer Scouting for Rut Hunting Success

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Ep. 924: Foundations - Summer Scouting for Rut Hunting Success · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
0:05
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,
0:09
Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.
0:14
Speaker 1: First Light, Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host
0:19
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.
0:20
Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast,
0:24
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by First Light. I'm your host,
0:25
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about putting in
0:28
Speaker 2: the work right now to kill a giant, mega, huge,
0:31
Speaker 2: pretty good buck during the rut. As much as I
0:35
Speaker 2: like to talk about hunting the early season or spending
0:38
Speaker 2: my time in a saddle during the middle of October
0:40
Speaker 2: when everyone else is running out the clock to get
0:42
Speaker 2: to the rut, I know something about us as hunters,
0:45
Speaker 2: well not all of us, but a hell of a
0:47
Speaker 2: lot of us. Anyway, we are going to put in
0:49
Speaker 2: most of our effort, most of our time during the rut.
0:51
Speaker 2: We can't help it. And that's okay. If that sounds
0:54
Speaker 2: like you or you just don't have as much faith
0:56
Speaker 2: in the earlier part of the boast season as I do.
0:58
Speaker 2: Consider this, you can do an awful out of work
1:00
Speaker 2: now to prepare yourself for rut hunting success, which is
1:03
Speaker 2: something I'm going to talk about right now. Sometime last December,
1:11
Speaker 2: I found myself standing in a cattail slew with the
1:14
Speaker 2: wind just whipping across the prairie, and I was thinking
1:18
Speaker 2: that my limit bird was laying out there somewhere, and
1:21
Speaker 2: not only could I not see it, obviously, but I
1:23
Speaker 2: couldn't see my dog and I couldn't hear her. I
1:27
Speaker 2: knew that Sadie was in the ballpark because the rooster
1:29
Speaker 2: had gotten up while cackling his displeasure at being forced
1:32
Speaker 2: to fly, which is almost always something that happens after
1:37
Speaker 2: the dog gives them a really good chase and they
1:40
Speaker 2: finally decide to use their wings instead of their legs,
1:42
Speaker 2: and they honestly just kind of sound like they're pissed
1:44
Speaker 2: off at the whole situation, which is understandable. That bird
1:48
Speaker 2: had crumpled well enough, but anyone who hunts wild roosters
1:52
Speaker 2: knows that it isn't always a sign that the game
1:54
Speaker 2: bag is about to get a little heavier just because
1:56
Speaker 2: you knocked one down. But Sadie did find that bird,
2:00
Speaker 2: which meant it was time to unload the shotgun and
2:02
Speaker 2: do the long hike back to the truck. Sometime during
2:05
Speaker 2: that whole episode, I missed a phone call, which I
2:09
Speaker 2: didn't care about because it was a Sunday afternoon and
2:11
Speaker 2: I figured it was probably a scammer. It wasn't. It
2:14
Speaker 2: was Steve Vanella, which might sound super exciting to you guys.
2:17
Speaker 2: To me, I figured I was about to do some
2:19
Speaker 2: extra work somewhere. When I called him back, he asked
2:22
Speaker 2: me if I wanted to do a rut hunt with him, which,
2:24
Speaker 2: in the interest of keeping my job and making Mark
2:27
Speaker 2: Kenyon a little jealous that he didn't get the call,
2:29
Speaker 2: I said yes. In typical Steve fashion. He'd lucked into
2:33
Speaker 2: a ranch in Nebraska that has been real light on
2:36
Speaker 2: hunting pressure for over a decade and should be real
2:39
Speaker 2: heavy on deer yours truly was brought in to scout
2:42
Speaker 2: it set it up, which is a process that began
2:45
Speaker 2: in the end of June when I put four hundred
2:47
Speaker 2: and some miles behind me to head down there and
2:49
Speaker 2: take a look around. As you can imagine, I had
2:52
Speaker 2: spent quite a bit of time on on X scouting
2:54
Speaker 2: out the ranch as best I could, but I knew
2:55
Speaker 2: a couple of things. You know. The first is that
2:57
Speaker 2: east scouting for deer in the sand Hills cattle pastures
3:00
Speaker 2: of that region is a far different thing than on
3:04
Speaker 2: my home ground. And the other thing was that I
3:06
Speaker 2: would have to constantly remind myself when I was down
3:09
Speaker 2: there that all of the work that I was doing
3:12
Speaker 2: should be designed for a payoff during the rut. This
3:15
Speaker 2: is harder to do than a lot of us like
3:17
Speaker 2: to admit, or maybe even really consider. With boots on
3:20
Speaker 2: the ground, you can make some of those connections that
3:23
Speaker 2: you might miss through east scouting alone. So when I
3:26
Speaker 2: met up with a landowner to take a look around
3:28
Speaker 2: and start dropping some moultries on the place, I expected
3:31
Speaker 2: to be surprised by what I had gotten wrong through
3:33
Speaker 2: looking at satellite imagery from seven hours away while sitting
3:36
Speaker 2: at home. And that's the first disconnect. It's a big
3:39
Speaker 2: one because as valuable as eastcouting is, there is still
3:42
Speaker 2: a disconnect there. You got a ground truth, but then
3:45
Speaker 2: you have to factor in the timing of the year
3:47
Speaker 2: and the disconnect that exists there as well. This last
3:51
Speaker 2: one is a big one, and it keeps a lot
3:53
Speaker 2: of us from doing some of the work now we
3:55
Speaker 2: should do so that when we get to the rut,
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Speaker 2: we aren't scrambling or left with too few options. This
4:00
Speaker 2: was front and center on my brain as we hopped
4:03
Speaker 2: into the side by sides and started cruising around. The
4:06
Speaker 2: temperature felt like it was about one hundred and ten
4:08
Speaker 2: degrees in the shade, but at least the mosquitoes were
4:10
Speaker 2: pretty terrible. We started on an obvious location in the
4:14
Speaker 2: ranch where a good sized but shallow river winds its
4:17
Speaker 2: way through bands of giant cottonwoods and then some kind
4:21
Speaker 2: of weirdly swampy patches of willows and pockets of brush
4:24
Speaker 2: and cedars. In other words, it was the kind of
4:27
Speaker 2: cover that hosts deer activity all year round but can
4:30
Speaker 2: really hum with sign as October gives way to November. Now,
4:34
Speaker 2: if you know anything else about rivers, you also know
4:36
Speaker 2: that they are not surprisingly, or at least I hope
4:39
Speaker 2: this isn't a surprise where river crossings happen, which is
4:43
Speaker 2: a favorite setup of mine. They get even better when
4:45
Speaker 2: you factor in the general pattern of cruising that happens
4:49
Speaker 2: in parallel to flowing water and the pinch points that
4:51
Speaker 2: come with the whole thing. Now, we stepped into a
4:54
Speaker 2: pretty interesting patch of timber along that river, and I
4:57
Speaker 2: instantly felt how much cooler it was than the surround.
5:00
Speaker 2: I also watched a dome in a fond get up
5:02
Speaker 2: out of their beds, and on each side of that
5:05
Speaker 2: patch of timber, I found areas where the topography of
5:07
Speaker 2: the river bank and the timber that framed it up
5:10
Speaker 2: formed perfect funnels. While I figured i'd get some pictures
5:14
Speaker 2: from the cameras, I dropped on both spots. I didn't
5:17
Speaker 2: really care too much, because even if they didn't produce then,
5:20
Speaker 2: I figured they would produce later. But when we loaded
5:23
Speaker 2: up to add to a different part of the ranch,
5:24
Speaker 2: I happened to catch a glimpse of a bucket out
5:26
Speaker 2: of his bed and run away, And he was really,
5:29
Speaker 2: really big, and he showed up on both cameras that
5:32
Speaker 2: first night. That was as exciting as you can imagine,
5:35
Speaker 2: but also the high point of the whole scouting trip.
5:39
Speaker 2: The rest of the time we looked at field edges
5:41
Speaker 2: and random water holes and areas of the ranch with
5:44
Speaker 2: mostly pastured sand hills, but also some scattered patches of
5:48
Speaker 2: light timber. You know, the kind of places that are
5:50
Speaker 2: nearly devoid of here now but should host some activity.
5:54
Speaker 2: In about three or four months. This is where some
5:57
Speaker 2: are scouting for rut hunts. Gets really frustrating. We want
6:00
Speaker 2: to see deer now, whether we are glassing or running cameras.
6:04
Speaker 2: While glassing this time of year is a different thing,
6:07
Speaker 2: because you know you're not glassing areas that you expect
6:09
Speaker 2: to be hopping during the rut. You're looking at places
6:12
Speaker 2: where deer should be now, which often doesn't translate very well.
6:17
Speaker 2: Cameras are a different story. You can use cameras now
6:20
Speaker 2: to figure out your rut plans, but you have to
6:22
Speaker 2: accept something about these setups. They might not be very
6:25
Speaker 2: productive for a couple of months. I'll give you an
6:27
Speaker 2: example here on this ranch in Nebraska, there are a
6:31
Speaker 2: couple of pivots in eggfields. If you know how those work,
6:35
Speaker 2: you know that the field will be a perfect circle
6:36
Speaker 2: that exists inside a square of land, and on each
6:39
Speaker 2: corner of that square there will usually be some kind
6:42
Speaker 2: of brush or trees are covered that isn't grown to
6:44
Speaker 2: feed cows or people. I'm one of those corners on
6:47
Speaker 2: that ranch. We walked up to a small water hole
6:50
Speaker 2: that was absolutely teeming with life. I mean it was
6:53
Speaker 2: covered in frogs and nakes, turtles and generally what you'd
6:56
Speaker 2: expect on a water hole where water is generally pretty limited.
7:00
Speaker 2: There were a handful of deer tracks on the edge, too,
7:02
Speaker 2: but they were old and not all that promising. The
7:05
Speaker 2: water hole looked deep enough to always hold something, and
7:08
Speaker 2: it was about forty yards from a small patch of
7:10
Speaker 2: cottonwoods on the edge of a hayfield. It doesn't look
7:12
Speaker 2: like much and wouldn't draw a second glance if you
7:15
Speaker 2: were hunting in most of the Midwest or East. But
7:18
Speaker 2: on one gnarl pine sized willow tree, I cleared out
7:20
Speaker 2: a section of the trunk to hang a camera, knowing
7:23
Speaker 2: that I might not get a picture of a deer
7:24
Speaker 2: there for quite a while. But I firmly believe that
7:27
Speaker 2: some buck will claim that little corner as part of
7:29
Speaker 2: his fall range. He'll drink from that frog pond, he'll
7:32
Speaker 2: walk by those cottonwoods to head out to eat. If
7:35
Speaker 2: you looked up the definition of a dead unproductive trail
7:38
Speaker 2: camera in the dictionary, you'd see a picture of that
7:41
Speaker 2: exact setup. It's just not right yet, but I believe
7:45
Speaker 2: it's going to get there, and I honestly think that
7:47
Speaker 2: one of us will kill a good buck right in
7:49
Speaker 2: that spot sometime during the rut, although we might have
7:52
Speaker 2: to throw a dough decoy out there to make it happen.
7:54
Speaker 2: Now Here is where this scouting trip in your situation
7:57
Speaker 2: probably varies quite a bit. Since that ranch is seven
8:00
Speaker 2: hours from me, and I only plan to head down
8:02
Speaker 2: there one time in August to hang stands and set blinds.
8:06
Speaker 2: I'm not in a position to adjust my strategy on
8:08
Speaker 2: anything other than an infrequent cadence, or really pretty much
8:12
Speaker 2: not at all. I need cameras in those spots so
8:15
Speaker 2: I can watch the progression of deer visitors as they
8:17
Speaker 2: go hard antlered and start to spread out in the fall.
8:20
Speaker 2: I want to see who shows up and where, and
8:23
Speaker 2: if I can tie in any real patterns to the
8:25
Speaker 2: overall intel. If you're gonna run cameras now for the rut,
8:29
Speaker 2: you're working on your home ground. Probably you can go
8:32
Speaker 2: in and move things around when you feel you need to.
8:35
Speaker 2: But the catch with that is that we often write
8:38
Speaker 2: off spots too early, or don't understand that the buck
8:41
Speaker 2: that walks through once every three weeks now is telling
8:44
Speaker 2: you something really important for your rut setups. Think about
8:58
Speaker 2: it this way. Say you're a hit man and you
9:01
Speaker 2: have an assignment to whack someone. Would you think that
9:04
Speaker 2: monitoring that person's daily routine for a week would put
9:07
Speaker 2: you in a good enough position to pull it off
9:08
Speaker 2: without getting caught. Wouldn't two weeks be better? Or a
9:12
Speaker 2: month or more? Could you have too much information on
9:16
Speaker 2: where they buy their coffee when they go to the gym,
9:18
Speaker 2: and what their favorite restaurants are, and what roads they
9:21
Speaker 2: drive to and from work. Probably not. When it comes
9:24
Speaker 2: to where a buck might travel in his home range,
9:27
Speaker 2: can you have too much information? Probably not, even if
9:31
Speaker 2: you believe that the rut is full of randomness. I'm
9:34
Speaker 2: not one of those people. And the reason I say
9:36
Speaker 2: that is because even the bonkers days, when they are
9:39
Speaker 2: chasing and all hell is finally broken loose, it breaks
9:43
Speaker 2: loose in a controlled manner, they still cruise the routes
9:46
Speaker 2: that keep them safe while increasing the odds of running
9:49
Speaker 2: into a hot dough. They still chase and corral doos
9:52
Speaker 2: and the patches of cover that offer them some type
9:54
Speaker 2: of advantage. When they move, they move through areas that
9:58
Speaker 2: force their travel. When the dose they are running totally
10:03
Speaker 2: ragged give into their thirst, they visit the water that's available.
10:07
Speaker 2: If that's some random frog pond on the edge of
10:10
Speaker 2: a pivot field, so be it. I want to know
10:13
Speaker 2: when they are there, where they approach from, and how
10:16
Speaker 2: often they might get there. While I think trail cameras
10:19
Speaker 2: are really valuable for this type of intel gathering, I
10:22
Speaker 2: also think that getting out and just looking at the
10:24
Speaker 2: land is probably the best way to prep for your
10:27
Speaker 2: rut hunts right now. But before I get into that,
10:29
Speaker 2: I'll say this, I know a lot of hunters don't
10:32
Speaker 2: think they need to do this. When you hunt a
10:34
Speaker 2: property for years, this mindset is easy to adopt, and
10:38
Speaker 2: you might be right too. You might have some kind
10:41
Speaker 2: of pinch point or funnel or dough betting area where
10:44
Speaker 2: they always just go and you know it, so there
10:47
Speaker 2: isn't much of a need to go out and sweat
10:49
Speaker 2: your apple bag off to figure out what you already know.
10:52
Speaker 2: But I also know that things change in the deer
10:55
Speaker 2: woods all of the time, and they happen on a
10:57
Speaker 2: fast scale and so slowly that we often don't realize it.
11:01
Speaker 2: On the fast scale, that might be a tree falling
11:04
Speaker 2: across a fence and a certain spot that affects movement
11:07
Speaker 2: right now, or it might be the difference between the
11:09
Speaker 2: neighboring farmer planting corn this year versus beans last year.
11:14
Speaker 2: On a slow scale. This is stuff we really want
11:16
Speaker 2: to understand. A good example of this is some of
11:19
Speaker 2: the big woods hunting some of us too. If you
11:22
Speaker 2: hunt where there is timber production still, you might focus
11:25
Speaker 2: on this year's clear cut and the fresh growth that follows.
11:29
Speaker 2: But that clear cut in three years is a vastly
11:31
Speaker 2: different thing to hunt in five years. It's different still
11:35
Speaker 2: after ten it might be a deer desert in there.
11:38
Speaker 2: The bang and hunts you had on it in the
11:40
Speaker 2: first few years will create memories that are hard to escape,
11:43
Speaker 2: and that will draw you back to that spot, but
11:46
Speaker 2: the hunt might be forever changed there. Another way to
11:49
Speaker 2: look at this is the pressure on public land. I
11:52
Speaker 2: honestly think other than during peak times when people are
11:55
Speaker 2: just going to hit the woods like the rut, we're
11:58
Speaker 2: seeing a decline in hunting pressure overall. Now. I know
12:01
Speaker 2: that's highly variable and highly situational, but the fever that
12:06
Speaker 2: burned around being a public land hunter seems to have
12:09
Speaker 2: broken a little bit. You know, when a lot of
12:11
Speaker 2: optimistic folks realize how hard it really is. Now, whether
12:14
Speaker 2: that's true or not, the amount of people in the
12:16
Speaker 2: woods over time fluctuates a lot. We don't really have
12:20
Speaker 2: a way to understand this in the moment, but only
12:23
Speaker 2: upon reflection and through a lot of scouting and hunting.
12:26
Speaker 2: We just gather general experience out there. Now. I'm sure
12:30
Speaker 2: it seems like I've veered way off course here and
12:32
Speaker 2: should probably throw back some adderall but my point stands
12:36
Speaker 2: about boots on the ground scouting for the rut right now,
12:39
Speaker 2: in that if you do it, you'll learn something that
12:41
Speaker 2: will factor into your hunts. It's not just about the
12:44
Speaker 2: bucks and what they like to do, but the land
12:47
Speaker 2: and how it changes and how it has changed, and
12:51
Speaker 2: the amount of people crossing that land for whatever reason
12:54
Speaker 2: on any given day or in any given season. So
12:57
Speaker 2: what is the key to all of this? I'd say
13:00
Speaker 2: that it's all about learning what you can now while
13:03
Speaker 2: constantly considering what that means to your rut hunts. You
13:07
Speaker 2: got to look into the crystal ball, my friends, which
13:09
Speaker 2: is hard to do but important. The bachelor group on
13:13
Speaker 2: camera in the woods once every three weeks now is
13:16
Speaker 2: bound to break up long before the rut, and some
13:18
Speaker 2: of those deer will stay and some will vanish into
13:21
Speaker 2: the neighbor's property. So why monitor them? Now? Well, don't
13:25
Speaker 2: you want to know where they cross the old fence
13:27
Speaker 2: in the woods, or whether you're more likely to get
13:30
Speaker 2: picks of them in the morning versus the evening. What
13:33
Speaker 2: about the dos? Dough groups can be highly patternable over
13:36
Speaker 2: a long enough time window. And while you might not
13:39
Speaker 2: care at all about some ladies in their fawns hanging
13:41
Speaker 2: out in some patch of timber, now what if your
13:43
Speaker 2: camera shows them almost daily passing through a certain spot.
13:47
Speaker 2: Will that hold up during the rut? Maybe? And if
13:50
Speaker 2: it does, you know those doughs are going to draw
13:51
Speaker 2: some attention, and you know where they are likely to
13:54
Speaker 2: be and where they are likely to travel. And here's
13:57
Speaker 2: another thing about this stuff. The total answer to your
14:00
Speaker 2: rut hunting problems doesn't exist out there right now. But
14:03
Speaker 2: the information that is necessary to putting the whole thing
14:06
Speaker 2: together is allow me to explain that that spot where
14:10
Speaker 2: I saw that big buck in Nebraska, where I got
14:12
Speaker 2: him on two cameras, is bound to be covered in
14:15
Speaker 2: buck signed by mid October when we show up to hunt.
14:18
Speaker 2: Hopefully I'll have a hell of a lot more pictures
14:20
Speaker 2: of him to work off of. But also what if
14:23
Speaker 2: we had down there to hunt and we stumble across
14:25
Speaker 2: the dished out scrape two hundred yards away from the
14:27
Speaker 2: best pinch point. And what if the wind is out
14:29
Speaker 2: of the south or east, and those pinch points I
14:31
Speaker 2: had scouted so well or just out of play. That
14:34
Speaker 2: scrape might not mean anything, or it might mean I
14:37
Speaker 2: have an amazing plan B to hunt the same deer
14:39
Speaker 2: when the conditions conspire to keep him alive and keep
14:42
Speaker 2: me frustrated. I could walk into the woods and find
14:45
Speaker 2: that scrape without the summertime intel to back it up,
14:48
Speaker 2: but I'll have a better idea of whether I should
14:50
Speaker 2: hunt it and when if I have five months of
14:52
Speaker 2: recon to drop up on. This is the thing that
14:55
Speaker 2: we often miss when it comes to deer hunting advice.
14:58
Speaker 2: The whole thing hinges on a lit of information gathered
15:01
Speaker 2: through as many means as possible, and put into practice
15:04
Speaker 2: only after factoring in about a million variables on any
15:07
Speaker 2: given day. It's an inexact science that gets a little
15:12
Speaker 2: more precise with each data point we can plug in.
15:16
Speaker 2: It's great to know that deer like to drink water,
15:18
Speaker 2: and that you've found a small water hole somewhere, but
15:21
Speaker 2: it's better to get in there and look at the
15:23
Speaker 2: land and the cover and the potential ambush options for
15:25
Speaker 2: different winds, and then to run a camera on it
15:28
Speaker 2: for a few months to see who comes in and
15:29
Speaker 2: from where and when. That way, if you get the
15:32
Speaker 2: perfect conditions to hunt it during the first week of November,
15:35
Speaker 2: it's a pretty simple equation. But if the wind isn't right,
15:38
Speaker 2: or it isn't hot enough to make them too thirsty,
15:41
Speaker 2: or there are three trucks parked there where you didn't
15:43
Speaker 2: expect them, you will have a better backup plan than
15:46
Speaker 2: you could have. And that's probably the biggest reason to
15:48
Speaker 2: scout right now. For the rut, things will change and
15:51
Speaker 2: go wrong, and the dear world we envision will be
15:54
Speaker 2: nothing more than a nice thought when reality actually settles in.
15:58
Speaker 2: And when it does, drying upon months of scouting will
16:01
Speaker 2: be a difference maker, even if it's hard to make
16:03
Speaker 2: that connection right now. So think about that and do
16:06
Speaker 2: that and come back next week because I'm gonna talk
16:09
Speaker 2: about the difference between challenges and problems and how understanding
16:12
Speaker 2: them can help you kill more big bucks. That's it
16:16
Speaker 2: for this episode. I'm Tony Peterson, and this has been
16:19
Speaker 2: the wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which is brought to
16:21
Speaker 2: you by First Light. Thank you so much for your support.
16:24
Speaker 2: I know I say this every week, but I truly
16:26
Speaker 2: mean it. If you need more hunting content, if you
16:28
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16:30
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