Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 1071: Back 40 - What is the Single Best Week of the Fall to Hunt Whitetails?

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Ep. 1071: Back 40 - What is the Single Best Week of the Fall to Hunt Whitetails? · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Back 40. This is
0:02
Speaker 1: Jake Hofer, and we are here again with our panel
0:05
Speaker 1: of guests, Jeff Sturgis, Bill Wienke, Aaron Warburton, and Adam Keith.
0:10
Speaker 1: And if you still are trying to circle a week
0:13
Speaker 1: on the calendar, you're trying to make the best educated
0:16
Speaker 1: bet that you can of regardless of weather and opportunity,
0:20
Speaker 1: what is the best week to either pack up your
0:22
Speaker 1: bags and travel or go visit the farm in another
0:25
Speaker 1: state or travel move your calendar to where you have
0:27
Speaker 1: the least amount of obligations of life to capitalize on
0:30
Speaker 1: the excitement of fall. And to kick things off, we're
0:33
Speaker 1: going to start with Bill Winkie. Bill has famously talked
0:36
Speaker 1: about a few dates and you're going to have to
0:38
Speaker 1: see if his opinion has wavered or if it's still
0:41
Speaker 1: maybe what you think it is.
0:43
Speaker 2: So here we go. Back 40 is brought to you
0:45
Speaker 2: by Moultrie. All right, Bill.
0:50
Speaker 1: It is September 17th and people still have, there've been
0:54
Speaker 1: They've been debating on when do I take my vacation time?
0:57
Speaker 1: My employer knows I'm going to be gone, and I
0:59
Speaker 1: have a little bit of grace to pick my week.
1:02
Speaker 1: And they're calling you right now. They said, Bill, I
1:05
Speaker 1: can get one week of vacation. Everything rides on this,
1:08
Speaker 1: and I'm going to listen to what you have to say.
1:09
Speaker 2: So what is it?
1:11
Speaker 3: Well, tell me the weather forecast, and I'll tell you
1:16
Speaker 3: which week to take. But let's say that the weather
1:20
Speaker 3: forecast is out of the picture. So you're really focused
1:24
Speaker 3: on say seasonal weather patterns, like the normal, whatever that is,
1:30
Speaker 3: average temperatures. So it's, if you're just hunting bucks, let's
1:37
Speaker 3: say any nice buck, then I'd say the 3rd through
1:41
Speaker 3: the 10th of November, because you're going to see a
1:44
Speaker 3: lot of bucks moving during that time. But if you're
1:46
Speaker 3: hunting a specific buck, you know, like let's say you've
1:50
Speaker 3: got maybe a couple of deer that you hunted last
1:53
Speaker 3: year that got away and you have a pretty good
1:54
Speaker 3: idea where they live because that's where you saw them
1:57
Speaker 3: all the time and you really want to get those deer,
2:00
Speaker 3: you're probably better off the last week of October from
2:02
Speaker 3: the 25th on, roughly. There's a lot of really nice
2:05
Speaker 3: deer that get killed during that week because the bucks
2:10
Speaker 3: are still closer to their normal ranges. They're not distracted
2:16
Speaker 3: by does. They're just moving more in daylight. So I
2:19
Speaker 3: think they're easier to kill. A specific buck is easier
2:23
Speaker 3: to kill the last week of October than maybe at
2:26
Speaker 3: any other time until maybe towards the tail end of November.
2:29
Speaker 3: Then maybe that changes again. If you've got a state
2:33
Speaker 3: where you don't have too much pressure, that takes them
2:37
Speaker 3: out of their patterns or out of their normal behavior.
2:40
Speaker 1: So with what you have set up right now and
2:43
Speaker 1: working on your farm all year and everything else, are
2:45
Speaker 1: you picking late October or are you picking the 3rd
2:47
Speaker 1: through the 10th?
2:48
Speaker 2: Knowing what you know about your own place?
2:51
Speaker 3: Late October.
2:52
Speaker 2: Late October. Yeah.
2:54
Speaker 1: What does that setup look like? The morning, evening, both,
2:57
Speaker 1: food source?
2:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, both. You're hunting... See, they're really not, I wouldn't say,
3:04
Speaker 3: like full-scale searching for does. So you're not necessarily hunting
3:10
Speaker 3: those funnels between two doe bedding areas, for example. Like,
3:15
Speaker 3: you don't have to know... what the buck's patterns are
3:18
Speaker 3: during the rut because you can just sit on a
3:20
Speaker 3: funnel between two concentration areas where the does live and
3:22
Speaker 3: let the bucks, you know, mill through there. So the
3:25
Speaker 3: last week of October, you need to know more about
3:27
Speaker 3: where that deer lives. You know, you need to know,
3:30
Speaker 3: you know, where was he after he left his summer range?
3:34
Speaker 3: Where did he settle into? You don't need to know
3:37
Speaker 3: a whole bunch more about him than that because you're
3:41
Speaker 3: going to hunt. You don't want to hunt where he beds.
3:46
Speaker 3: You want to hunt in some kind of transition areas
3:49
Speaker 3: between where you think he's probably bedding and where he's
3:52
Speaker 3: probably feeding. You could even hunt around the food sources
3:55
Speaker 3: a little bit more because they do show up at
3:58
Speaker 3: those in daylight more often that last week of October
4:01
Speaker 3: than they do really at almost any other time of
4:04
Speaker 3: the year because they know that the does are going
4:07
Speaker 3: to be out. They're just sort of like checking on things.
4:12
Speaker 3: They're not really thinking, okay, I'm going to find that
4:15
Speaker 3: hot doe. They're just keeping tabs on things because they
4:18
Speaker 3: want to be on hand when that first doe comes
4:20
Speaker 3: into estrus. They want to know. So they've got to
4:23
Speaker 3: be out, you know, checking on stuff, milling around, you know,
4:26
Speaker 3: finding out what's going on. So I think you just
4:30
Speaker 3: need to be in logical spots as close to where
4:33
Speaker 3: you think that buck lives as you dare to hunt.
4:37
Speaker 3: And by logical spots, I mean places where you've got
4:39
Speaker 3: maybe a little bit of an advantage from a funneling standpoint.
4:42
Speaker 3: Like maybe there's a ditch. and you know that the
4:44
Speaker 3: buck bed's probably on this ridge not too far away
4:47
Speaker 3: from that ditch, and there's a feeding area on the
4:48
Speaker 3: other side of the ditch, and there's a pretty good
4:51
Speaker 3: chance that he's going to go past there. Maybe you've
4:53
Speaker 3: had a camera there, or maybe not. You don't necessarily
4:56
Speaker 3: have to, but that just makes sense. You can hunt
4:59
Speaker 3: that spot without him knowing. There's some logical reason why
5:02
Speaker 3: he might go through there. Those are the kind of
5:04
Speaker 3: spots that I'd be sitting on. The closer you get
5:08
Speaker 3: to Halloween, the more of that more full-scale experience activity
5:12
Speaker 3: that you're going to get, because then, excuse me, then
5:16
Speaker 3: you are going to get that first hot doe. And
5:19
Speaker 3: that buck in his range, when the first doe comes
5:23
Speaker 3: into estrus, he wants to be there. He's going to
5:26
Speaker 3: be there. He'll do everything in his power to be
5:29
Speaker 3: the buck that breeds that doe. And because there's no other,
5:33
Speaker 3: there's no other game in town. There's only, you know,
5:36
Speaker 3: one opportunity. So he's going to know about it. He's
5:40
Speaker 3: that timeframe, you're going to see a lot of movement.
5:43
Speaker 3: If there's any kind of a hot doe in that area,
5:45
Speaker 3: you're going to see him. He, he might cover the whole,
5:47
Speaker 3: let's say you've got a 40 acre, 60 acre property
5:50
Speaker 3: that you can hunt or even a hundred acre property.
5:53
Speaker 3: He might cover the whole hundred acres in daylight every
5:56
Speaker 3: day for two days, you know, because he's that, uh,
6:00
Speaker 3: focused on finding that first doe.
6:04
Speaker 1: That's a magical time, time of year for sure.
6:06
Speaker 2: It is.
6:07
Speaker 1: And it's, and it's here and gone too. And then
6:09
Speaker 1: it's like, if you miss that window, you're like, All right,
6:11
Speaker 1: buckle up, it's November.
6:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. The first hot doe is like the magic.
6:17
Speaker 3: If you can be in the right place when that happens,
6:20
Speaker 3: you're going to think that deer hunting is easy. But
6:25
Speaker 3: if you're not in the right place, it can be,
6:28
Speaker 3: like you said, a long ride.
6:31
Speaker 1: Has that perspective shifted over the years at all?
6:37
Speaker 3: The time frame? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think as
6:41
Speaker 3: a group we understood the behavior of bucks 15 years
6:49
Speaker 3: ago like we do now. Everybody's got trail cameras now.
6:51
Speaker 3: Everybody sees what's going on. We used to rely on
6:56
Speaker 3: maybe common sense, maybe just hearsay, maybe what a few
6:59
Speaker 3: biologists said. They may have just been relying on partial information.
7:07
Speaker 3: They might have been extrapolating, you know, like some kind
7:11
Speaker 3: of conclusions based on a few studies that they read,
7:13
Speaker 3: you know, so it wasn't complete knowledge. Um, but now
7:17
Speaker 3: we have a lot better understanding of what's going on.
7:19
Speaker 3: And we really see that that late October is the ticket.
7:23
Speaker 3: And I used to preach, you know, in my early
7:25
Speaker 3: days of writing for the magazines that, you know, don't
7:28
Speaker 3: mess up November by over hunting October. Well, you know,
7:33
Speaker 3: there's a lot of truth to that, but I'm going
7:35
Speaker 3: to say the last week of October is the exception
7:37
Speaker 3: to that rule. If you've got a cold front the
7:39
Speaker 3: last week of October, that's the best week of the season.
7:43
Speaker 2: Probably.
7:44
Speaker 3: Probably the best week of the season.
7:46
Speaker 1: Which I feel the traditional wisdom of don't ruin November
7:50
Speaker 1: by hunting October. But that is like, so people need
7:53
Speaker 1: to treat that as a Super Bowl of the season.
7:55
Speaker 1: If the weather is right for that time period, like, okay.
7:58
Speaker 1: Are you taking your hardest swing in late October if
8:00
Speaker 1: the weather's right? You're not holding your punch back at all?
8:04
Speaker 3: No, I'm hunting my best stands the last week of October.
8:08
Speaker 3: If the weather and the conditions are right, yes, for sure.
8:14
Speaker 1: Late October, if your boss has some grace and you
8:17
Speaker 1: can schedule your vacation on late notice, otherwise it sounds
8:21
Speaker 1: like the 3rd through the 10th is your second best
8:23
Speaker 1: bet or highest odds bet.
8:24
Speaker 3: I think the 3rd through the 10th is the best
8:26
Speaker 3: if you just want to see bucks. But if you're
8:28
Speaker 3: hunting specific bucks, then you need to be able to
8:32
Speaker 3: figure out where that deer is at. And the best
8:34
Speaker 3: chance of figuring out where that deer is at is
8:36
Speaker 3: the end of October.
8:38
Speaker 4: Perfect.
8:39
Speaker 1: All right, Bill, once again, where can people follow along
8:41
Speaker 1: with what you have going on?
8:43
Speaker 3: Check it out on the Bill Wienke YouTube channel.
8:45
Speaker 1: All right, next up we have Jeff Sturgis. Jeff has
8:48
Speaker 1: a book called All Weather Whitetails. And when you can't
8:51
Speaker 1: pick the weather out, you know, obviously a month and
8:54
Speaker 1: a half in advance, what is the next best approach?
8:57
Speaker 1: So we're going to get Jeff's opinion today. on picking
9:00
Speaker 1: the time for the working man that has obligations just
9:03
Speaker 1: like we all do to capitalize on stacking the most
9:06
Speaker 1: amount of luck, if you will say, in a specific week.
9:09
Speaker 1: All right, Jeff, I feel like you'll have some relation
9:12
Speaker 1: to this. I know you haven't had your own schedule
9:15
Speaker 1: your whole entire career, working career. And so I think
9:18
Speaker 1: when you worked in appraising and at the bank and
9:21
Speaker 1: everything else, so A lot of people, they've been kicking
9:24
Speaker 1: the can down the road of like, I don't know
9:26
Speaker 1: when I want to schedule my vacation. I'm going to
9:28
Speaker 1: go to the Midwest. I have a farm or I
9:29
Speaker 1: have a friend that's going to come let me hunt.
9:31
Speaker 1: And I want to pick my week for my Midwest
9:36
Speaker 1: whitetail trip.
9:38
Speaker 2: What week are you picking? As of now, you don't
9:42
Speaker 2: know what the weather is going to be.
9:45
Speaker 5: So what I tell people online is to take that
9:47
Speaker 5: week off and divide it into five days that you
9:50
Speaker 5: can use for three different weekends, end of October, early November,
9:54
Speaker 5: and the next weekend in November. So that you have
9:56
Speaker 5: three long weekends and you can hedge your bets a
9:58
Speaker 5: little bit better instead of putting all your eggs in
10:00
Speaker 5: one basket. So is that what you mean by week
10:03
Speaker 5: or does it have to be in a row?
10:04
Speaker 2: It's got to be in a row. That's a great take.
10:10
Speaker 5: So identifying the kind of property I'm hunting, public land,
10:14
Speaker 5: I'm definitely going for middle of the rut. I don't
10:17
Speaker 5: want to be in the pre-rut because usually they're locked
10:20
Speaker 5: into a food source movement kind of rut bedding and
10:25
Speaker 5: they're not moving as much, although they're pretty easy to
10:29
Speaker 5: target if they're on a property you're on. So say,
10:32
Speaker 5: for example, public land, I really want to hit Southern
10:36
Speaker 5: Ohio and November 7th, 10th, 12th, not the end of October.
10:43
Speaker 5: That's almost before the pre-rut. Southwest Wisconsin, public land, central Wisconsin,
10:50
Speaker 5: I'd probably want to hit around November 1st in that
10:54
Speaker 5: time frame. Maybe western Illinois, I'd want to hit that
10:57
Speaker 5: first week of November. If I'm down in Kansas on
11:00
Speaker 5: public land, I might want to hit the second to
11:02
Speaker 5: third week of November on public land because I want
11:05
Speaker 5: to hit those center areas right there. If I had
11:08
Speaker 5: to choose a private land rut hunt, I would probably
11:15
Speaker 5: go with, given the fact that you've probably put food
11:18
Speaker 5: plots in, you're managing the property well, you're managing the
11:22
Speaker 5: hunting pressure on there. I think one of the easiest
11:25
Speaker 5: way to target and be successful on a mature buck
11:28
Speaker 5: is to hit them in the pre-rut, which is around here,
11:32
Speaker 5: Southeast Minnesota, Southwest Wisconsin, even over into Southern Michigan. Southern
11:36
Speaker 5: New York, maybe Northern Pennsylvania. You're really focusing on, and
11:42
Speaker 5: you can add a week if you go down to
11:43
Speaker 5: Southern Illinois, Southern Indiana, that kind of thing. But you're
11:47
Speaker 5: focusing on bucks that are there. I call them core bucks.
11:51
Speaker 5: You're focusing on when they first start being active in
11:53
Speaker 5: the morning. And that would be the end of October
11:57
Speaker 5: through early November, those first cold fronts. And so I
12:01
Speaker 5: would pick like around here, probably October 27th to November
12:05
Speaker 5: 5th or 4th, whatever that would give me. Because I'm assuming, Jake,
12:10
Speaker 5: nine days off means I get two weekend days. So
12:14
Speaker 5: that means four plus five. So I'm getting actually nine
12:16
Speaker 5: days off, even though it's a seven-day vacation. But anyways,
12:20
Speaker 5: I'm picking those two weekends in a row, like end
12:22
Speaker 5: of 25th of October that goes through the 4th of November.
12:27
Speaker 5: And then if I was down in those Southern Ohio, Indiana,
12:30
Speaker 5: Illinois range, then it would be early November through November 10th.
12:36
Speaker 5: And I'd add a week to that if I was
12:38
Speaker 5: on public land, probably in most of those areas. So
12:40
Speaker 5: I hope that kind of makes sense. But, you know,
12:42
Speaker 5: about a week later on public land and a week earlier,
12:45
Speaker 5: if I have a really well-designed property, and if it's
12:47
Speaker 5: a rut property only where I'm not seeing anything early,
12:51
Speaker 5: I'm waiting for those bucks to come through. Then I'm
12:53
Speaker 5: going to pick center of the rut because I want
12:57
Speaker 5: bucks when they're moving the greatest distance. I can't count
13:00
Speaker 5: on them in the early rut because wherever they're at,
13:02
Speaker 5: they're going to find a door to pretty quick. And
13:04
Speaker 5: it's going to take a week for them to get
13:06
Speaker 5: off those does in their own area and start looking
13:08
Speaker 5: around and traveling a little bit more.
13:10
Speaker 2: But I'm joking as I say this, the rut changes
13:13
Speaker 2: every year though, Jeff.
13:15
Speaker 5: Yeah, it does. It depends on the moon and the weather.
13:18
Speaker 5: And sometimes the way the papa leaves, depending if they're
13:21
Speaker 5: yellowish one year, orange the next year, and like the
13:24
Speaker 5: swamp maples, if they're turning three weeks early, then that's
13:29
Speaker 5: the great thing about the rut to me is that
13:31
Speaker 5: it's so defined that if you allow yourself to believe
13:36
Speaker 5: that and you go live it and you go live
13:39
Speaker 5: it for a few years, then what allows you to
13:42
Speaker 5: do is have a lot of freedom in your planning.
13:45
Speaker 5: You can know that, yeah, if I hunt this property
13:48
Speaker 5: at this time, it's during the pre-rut, that means I
13:51
Speaker 5: better have some core bucks that are already there. I'm
13:53
Speaker 5: probably not going to see any. So when you actually
13:56
Speaker 5: do that, it gives you a very high level of
13:58
Speaker 5: strategy that you can employ every single year and be
14:01
Speaker 5: more dependable and just ignore all the other noise.
14:05
Speaker 2: I like it. I like it.
14:07
Speaker 1: Um, over the, over all the years of hunting, uh,
14:09
Speaker 1: whether it's, you know, Wisconsin or Minnesota, what is one
14:13
Speaker 1: date that sticks out to you as the best historically?
14:15
Speaker 1: I understand like the weather does play an impact during
14:18
Speaker 1: this time period, but if you just had to pick
14:21
Speaker 1: like November 10th or like the most rut crazed rut
14:24
Speaker 1: behavior is what a lot of people really look forward
14:26
Speaker 1: to every fall.
14:27
Speaker 2: Like what is that day for you?
14:29
Speaker 5: And again, I think my area, you could like go,
14:31
Speaker 5: like where I've hunted Southern Ohio, that could be a
14:33
Speaker 5: week later, you know, approximately even 10 days, like in
14:38
Speaker 5: Tennessee or West Virginia, Kentucky. But I would look at
14:43
Speaker 5: even Kansas. Typically, there's been a lot of times I've
14:49
Speaker 5: shot both bucks in Minnesota and Wisconsin with a bow
14:54
Speaker 5: before November 1st or 2nd. And so.
14:58
Speaker 5: You get into that October 29th, 31st, 30th, I'm hunting
15:03
Speaker 5: core bucks typically. And they're bucks that I think I
15:06
Speaker 5: can go in and I know where they're bedding. Get
15:08
Speaker 5: to the outside of that bedding area in a waterhole
15:11
Speaker 5: or in an afternoon food source movement, meaning I'm not
15:13
Speaker 5: hunting on that food source. I'm just looking for increased
15:16
Speaker 5: daylight activity and pretty reliable. So, you know, there's usually
15:21
Speaker 5: a cold front happening somewhere in those last five days
15:24
Speaker 5: or one you could take advantage of. And that's when
15:27
Speaker 5: I'm hunting. If I had to pick a date, I'd
15:29
Speaker 5: say October 29th, 30th, right around there. Um, uh, only
15:36
Speaker 5: because I'm hunting core box. If someone wasn't hunting core box,
15:39
Speaker 5: they're waiting for a rut movement. And that would, that
15:41
Speaker 5: would shift or if I was hunting a little bit
15:43
Speaker 5: further South, but some little disclaimers in there, but.
15:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's good.
15:47
Speaker 1: Well, Jeff, where can, uh, where can people follow along
15:49
Speaker 1: with what you have before we kick off October 1st episode?
15:52
Speaker 6: Yeah.
15:53
Speaker 5: Anything Whitetail Habitat Solutions, Instagram, YouTube, Google, if you look
15:58
Speaker 5: up my site, Whitetail Habitat Solutions, lots of articles and videos,
16:01
Speaker 5: over 2,000 pieces of content that you can use for
16:06
Speaker 5: whitetail strategy and find and even just type and search.
16:10
Speaker 5: We have our food plot seed company, Pure Wildlife Blends,
16:13
Speaker 5: and so it kind of all comes together and those
16:16
Speaker 5: are pretty easy to find, so.
16:25
Speaker 2: All right, next up we have Adam Keith.
16:27
Speaker 1: We're going to get right into Adam's perspective on this
16:30
Speaker 1: and picking the best time based off of if things
16:33
Speaker 1: are squared away and dialed or if you are.
16:35
Speaker 2: Waiting to see what shakes out.
16:37
Speaker 1: His answer may change a little bit based on how
16:39
Speaker 1: you have the farm set up.
16:41
Speaker 2: And so here we go. Here's Adam's perspective. All right, Adam.
16:44
Speaker 2: This is.
16:46
Speaker 1: A debate that comes up every single year. And so
16:49
Speaker 1: I wanted to play into this trend and keep that
16:51
Speaker 1: tradition alive. I feel that everyone wants to have the
16:54
Speaker 1: magic week. And you have a lot of experience. You
16:57
Speaker 1: have a lot of data. You can tap into all
16:59
Speaker 1: of your clients that have had success over the years.
17:02
Speaker 1: You can only pick one week for a Midwest trip.
17:05
Speaker 1: And Midwest being, we can expand that. I know some
17:09
Speaker 1: states fight over who's in the Midwest and who's not.
17:10
Speaker 1: But the expansion version of that. Best week, what are
17:15
Speaker 1: we picking? Or to travel?
17:17
Speaker 6: Yeah, I would have two scenarios because if it's a
17:20
Speaker 6: guy who's managed the farm or he's, you know, he's
17:23
Speaker 6: been on here, he's got some food plots. I would
17:26
Speaker 6: much rather go October 24th through the 30th or through Halloween.
17:32
Speaker 6: I would, I would October far and away is more
17:36
Speaker 6: is my favorite month. Sweet November is what you do
17:41
Speaker 6: if you're reliant on the rut to get deer on
17:43
Speaker 6: their feet. And so for me, the approach is let's
17:47
Speaker 6: lay out the habitat. Let's fix the habitat to where
17:50
Speaker 6: I don't have to rely on a hot dough to
17:53
Speaker 6: put them on the feet.
17:54
Speaker 2: Like I've made bedding.
17:56
Speaker 6: I've got good food or I've identified natural food.
18:00
Speaker 2: I've made the bedding. So now I can get in
18:02
Speaker 2: there and capitalize.
18:03
Speaker 6: If that scenario is at play, take October 24th through
18:11
Speaker 6: the end of the month and put all your cards
18:14
Speaker 6: in that. You don't even have to hunt every day.
18:17
Speaker 6: Just look for those weather patterns that the temperature dropped
18:21
Speaker 6: 10 degrees from the day previous and get in there
18:23
Speaker 6: and kill them. I feel like of the clients and
18:27
Speaker 6: of myself hunting, if I can identify a target and
18:31
Speaker 6: I find that weather, I have a really good shot
18:34
Speaker 6: of capitalizing, filling a tag. What does the location look
18:38
Speaker 6: like in your brain when you're thinking of a late
18:41
Speaker 6: October cold front and imagine you're traveling there?
18:45
Speaker 1: You're looking at the extended forecast. Okay, yeah, we have
18:47
Speaker 1: a really good temperature drop. It's coming in October 26th.
18:49
Speaker 1: I have food sources. Maybe I have greens and grains.
18:53
Speaker 1: I have an idea of where they're likely bedded or
18:56
Speaker 1: at least a general region of it. What does that
18:58
Speaker 1: specific stand location look like to really illustrate it?
19:02
Speaker 6: For southern Missouri or any timber country, it's mid to
19:07
Speaker 6: late October. We know that the acorns are on the ground.
19:11
Speaker 6: This is like peak white oak acorn soil. on the
19:14
Speaker 6: ground so we know that's probably a primary food source
19:19
Speaker 6: so i would be looking for a travel corridor from
19:25
Speaker 6: what i've identified as bedding or somewhat of bedding vicinity
19:29
Speaker 6: and i'm on that travel corridor with the appropriate wind
19:32
Speaker 6: trying to catch him leaving his bedding area in the
19:35
Speaker 6: afternoon and going towards that food source or that block
19:38
Speaker 6: of timber if To give one little like cherry on
19:43
Speaker 6: top would be a water source in the timber close
19:45
Speaker 6: to bedding because it probably is still a little warm.
19:49
Speaker 2: Or warmer. And so if I.
19:51
Speaker 6: Have that, oh, I'm like dreaming right now of a
19:55
Speaker 6: perfect scenario. And you mentioned what's the second scenario of this?
20:00
Speaker 6: So the second scenario would be if you don't have
20:06
Speaker 6: that all laid out, you need to take that November
20:10
Speaker 6: 6th through the 12th.
20:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, right.
20:15
Speaker 6: You want to be right before peak breeding. So whatever
20:17
Speaker 6: peak breeding or the lockdown phase is. So like in Missouri,
20:21
Speaker 6: on my farm, peak breeding is like November 11th through
20:26
Speaker 6: the 13th or.
20:27
Speaker 2: 14th, right in there.
20:29
Speaker 6: And so by lockdown, I'm like... Every, I mean, I'm
20:34
Speaker 6: just sitting there chewing my fingernails in the tree stand going,
20:37
Speaker 6: every deer that I'm trying to save is getting slaughtered
20:39
Speaker 6: right now.
20:39
Speaker 2: I know he is, or I know they are.
20:41
Speaker 6: So if you don't really have much in place, you
20:44
Speaker 6: just gained access. November 8th is my favorite for November,
20:49
Speaker 6: but November 6th through the 12th is probably right in
20:53
Speaker 6: that wheelhouse for a lot of guys. This is kind
20:55
Speaker 6: of off topic, but do you feel that breeding windows
20:58
Speaker 6: are changing at all?
20:59
Speaker 2: Like there's some.
21:01
Speaker 1: theories of where that's getting pushed back later or sooner
21:04
Speaker 1: based off of overarching weather patterns?
21:07
Speaker 6: I haven't even really given it a ton of thought.
21:10
Speaker 6: My head's been in so many other little nuanced ideas. Specifically,
21:16
Speaker 6: like for me is.
21:18
Speaker 2: Antler drop.
21:19
Speaker 6: Like we've always historically thought that antlers held longer means
21:23
Speaker 6: a healthier deer. But I feel like in talking to
21:27
Speaker 6: people that if they're dropping them earlier, January, February, then
21:32
Speaker 6: they're going to have a chance of bigger antlers because
21:34
Speaker 6: they're off to the races and growing earlier in the spring.
21:37
Speaker 6: So I haven't really, on the breeding windows, possibly changing.
21:43
Speaker 6: I've had some clients ask me about that, but I
21:47
Speaker 6: work so much in the south that that's just a
21:48
Speaker 6: mess down there anyway. So it's just kind of like, hey,
21:52
Speaker 6: welcome to Mississippi. We got eight different breeding windows here
21:55
Speaker 6: or whatever it ends up being. So, you know, I
21:58
Speaker 6: haven't given it much thought. Is that kind of a
22:00
Speaker 6: pretty common?
22:01
Speaker 1: Conversation no no it's not common okay common at all
22:05
Speaker 1: but it's uh i don't know i feel like there's
22:08
Speaker 1: maybe some merit to that um yeah possibly i mean
22:11
Speaker 1: obviously mother nature has a way of sorting and adjusting
22:13
Speaker 1: this as things change yeah i.
22:16
Speaker 6: I don't know um it would be interesting i think
22:19
Speaker 6: that there's so many things that are probably happening in
22:22
Speaker 6: our deer herd that we're not fully understanding genetics being
22:26
Speaker 6: one of them and in regards to we're shooting Most times,
22:32
Speaker 6: you know, a lot of times guys are shooting the
22:34
Speaker 6: very best up-and-comers at three and thinking they're four, or
22:38
Speaker 6: they're shooting them at four and saying they're five. You know,
22:43
Speaker 6: I'm just basing this off of years of working with
22:46
Speaker 6: clients and seeing it. And it's like, but then the
22:51
Speaker 6: inferior ones are the ones who make it to eight
22:54
Speaker 6: or seven. You're like, they're probably doing a ton of
22:57
Speaker 6: breeding year after year after year. And I don't think
23:01
Speaker 6: we're calculating that very well.
23:05
Speaker 1: I don't disagree with that at all. I mean, I
23:06
Speaker 1: think that's, that's a podcast for a different day. Maybe
23:09
Speaker 1: that's another back 40 episode. What are the, what are
23:13
Speaker 1: the undercurrents of the whitetail deer that we don't realize?
23:16
Speaker 1: But so late October, if you have a tuned in
23:20
Speaker 1: farm and then otherwise you go pull a lottery ticket
23:23
Speaker 1: and park out, you know, the six.
23:25
Speaker 6: Of the 12, God would much rather, you know, Not everybody.
23:29
Speaker 6: I mean, archery is definitely a big thing. But in
23:32
Speaker 6: southern Missouri, there's far and away more gun hunters. So
23:35
Speaker 6: if I can kill that guy in October, you know.
23:39
Speaker 2: Mission accomplished. Mission accomplished.
23:41
Speaker 3: Yes.
23:42
Speaker 2: So late October.
23:44
Speaker 1: Perfect.
23:44
Speaker 5: All right.
23:45
Speaker 2: Where can people find you?
23:46
Speaker 6: You can find us on social media platforms and all
23:50
Speaker 6: the major podcast platforms.
23:52
Speaker 2: Just search Atlanta Legacy.
23:54
Speaker 1: And to close things out, we have Aaron Warburton. I
23:56
Speaker 1: feel like Aaron hunts the whole entire year, kind of regardless,
23:59
Speaker 1: but there's still always the best week where there is
24:01
Speaker 1: the most action, the most opportunity.
24:03
Speaker 2: Let's hear what he has to say.
24:04
Speaker 1: Here we go. This is a topic that comes up
24:07
Speaker 1: every single year, and so I'm going to continue the tradition.
24:10
Speaker 1: You can pick one week here. You can pick one week.
24:12
Speaker 1: You guys travel a bunch, but I'll leave it open
24:15
Speaker 1: to you to where, what is the best week? Aaron,
24:19
Speaker 1: wag your magic wand and tell me the week I
24:20
Speaker 1: need to take off work and just go hunt like
24:23
Speaker 1: a crazy person.
24:25
Speaker 2: Wait a minute. When? Are you hunting on private land
24:28
Speaker 2: or are you hunting on public land?
24:29
Speaker 1: You're hunting on private land in this scenario. You're hunting
24:31
Speaker 1: on private land. You have a permission property. You have
24:34
Speaker 1: a property. It's semi-set up. You've done a lot of
24:37
Speaker 1: the work already beforehand. But it's not the best property. So, like,
24:41
Speaker 1: it's not one where you're like, oh, yeah, I got
24:43
Speaker 1: this figured out. I already filled my tag before season opened.
24:46
Speaker 1: It's somewhere in the middle ground of that.
24:50
Speaker 2: Oh, man. I'd probably... That is... It's a question that
24:55
Speaker 2: I hear all the time as well. That's why I
24:58
Speaker 2: brought it up. I like the last week of October personally.
25:07
Speaker 4: A lot of people would say the first seven days
25:09
Speaker 4: of November, November 5th through the 12th or whatever, but
25:14
Speaker 4: it kind of all depends on how that property is
25:16
Speaker 4: set up and what.
25:19
Speaker 2: The other factors involve there. If you have... Say, I mean,
25:24
Speaker 2: stick on the 40-acre topic.
25:26
Speaker 4: If you've got 40 acres and farmland environment that's mostly
25:31
Speaker 4: ag land with a couple little draws and drainages that
25:33
Speaker 4: run through there that afford you two or three setups, maybe. Well,
25:39
Speaker 4: that particular place might have a deer in it, a
25:43
Speaker 4: buck that you want to hunt at the end of October,
25:45
Speaker 4: but it also might have two or three doe groups
25:47
Speaker 4: that don't have any bucks in it. And those bucks
25:51
Speaker 4: may not show up until one of those does pop.
25:54
Speaker 4: And that might be November 6th. It might be November 12th.
25:57
Speaker 4: So I would probably, I'd probably hunt a spot like
26:01
Speaker 4: that during the peak cruising times, which I think is
26:08
Speaker 4: in the Midwest.
26:08
Speaker 2: Is a little bit earlier than what a lot of
26:10
Speaker 2: people would say.
26:11
Speaker 4: I would say that's the last two or three days
26:14
Speaker 4: of October and the first couple of days in November.
26:17
Speaker 4: Because in a lot of these areas of the Midwest,
26:19
Speaker 4: you've got plenty of does and mature bucks tend to
26:23
Speaker 4: get with the first available does very quickly. So if
26:28
Speaker 4: you're going to catch a big, big one on his
26:30
Speaker 4: feet making mistakes moving long distances, it may not be
26:33
Speaker 4: during the time when you see the most bucks moving,
26:35
Speaker 4: if that makes sense.
26:37
Speaker 2: Perfect sense. I would go right before that.
26:40
Speaker 4: I'd go October 27th through, like, November the 3rd or
26:44
Speaker 4: whatever for that scenario.
26:47
Speaker 2: But you may have a different one.
26:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, let's run through a different scenario where a
26:50
Speaker 1: guy just– He's listening to this right now in September,
26:53
Speaker 1: and he's like, man, you know what?
26:54
Speaker 2: I've been banking my vacation.
26:55
Speaker 1: I need to get it in before the end of
26:57
Speaker 1: October or beginning of October just to go and hunt
27:01
Speaker 1: and have the most eventful week of the year.
27:04
Speaker 2: If you had to pick, what is it? Oh, man.
27:07
Speaker 2: If you wanted to have success, I'd just go during
27:09
Speaker 2: gun season.
27:13
Speaker 4: If you want to have the most eventful week where
27:16
Speaker 4: you see the most deer and stuff, that That could
27:19
Speaker 4: be the first week of November. I would err more
27:22
Speaker 4: towards the 10th than the first. Because in the Midwest,
27:30
Speaker 4: you're playing with fire a little bit the last week
27:33
Speaker 4: of October and the first week of November, especially with
27:36
Speaker 4: the weather. If you're in this gentleman's situation or this
27:38
Speaker 4: person's situation and you're wanting to pick a fixed week,
27:43
Speaker 4: fixed period of time that you have to ask off for,
27:46
Speaker 4: you're going to have to deal with weather no matter what.
27:49
Speaker 2: So if you pick the last week of October and it's.
27:52
Speaker 4: Hot and that subdues a little bit of movement, that's
27:55
Speaker 4: going to be tough. But once you get into the rut,
27:59
Speaker 4: when they start doing their thing closer towards November 10th, 12th, 13th, they're.
28:04
Speaker 2: Rutting no matter what.
28:05
Speaker 4: They're rutting whether it's 20 degrees or whether it's 85
28:08
Speaker 4: out there. Now, their activity level is going to change somewhat,
28:12
Speaker 4: but You can predict that you're going to go and
28:15
Speaker 4: you're going to be hunting the rut, regardless of the
28:17
Speaker 4: temperature and the weather. So that's one factor that you
28:21
Speaker 4: can have a little bit more in your control. The
28:25
Speaker 4: other caveat to that, though, is that it is the
28:29
Speaker 4: peak of the rut, and a lot of things are
28:31
Speaker 4: very unpredictable when it comes to movement.
28:35
Speaker 1: Everything is at that time. The deer are unpredictable. The
28:37
Speaker 1: hunting pressure is unpredictable. I mean, there's just a lot
28:39
Speaker 1: of randomness.
28:42
Speaker 4: We did this a few years ago where we analyzed
28:45
Speaker 4: three different scenarios where we had the weekend warrior who
28:49
Speaker 4: could go every weekend but couldn't hunt at all during
28:51
Speaker 4: the week. We had the vacationer, which is the one
28:53
Speaker 4: you're talking about, where they're taking a week off. It's
28:57
Speaker 4: November 1st through the 7th, whatever dates they pick, you know,
28:59
Speaker 4: but it's fixed.
29:01
Speaker 2: And then they have the flexible worker.
29:03
Speaker 4: They can take off the same, all three of these
29:06
Speaker 4: can take off seven days, you know, or they have
29:09
Speaker 4: seven days to hunt. The weekend warriors just got you know,
29:11
Speaker 4: seven days made up of weekends, vacationers got seven days
29:14
Speaker 4: made up of vacation. The flexible workers got seven days
29:18
Speaker 4: whenever they want, you know, the flexible worker is the
29:23
Speaker 4: one that wins in my mind every time in that,
29:26
Speaker 4: because they can decide based on the conditions in the
29:30
Speaker 4: timeframe of the year when they can hunt so that
29:33
Speaker 4: if you can get in that position where you can
29:36
Speaker 4: have some flexibility with your vacation and you can move
29:39
Speaker 4: it a day or two here, a day or two there,
29:41
Speaker 4: I would highly encourage you to do that instead of
29:44
Speaker 4: just picking a fixed point in time out into the future.
29:48
Speaker 4: Cause man, if you're hunting October 27, in a lot
29:52
Speaker 4: of these situations of the Midwest and you hit it
29:54
Speaker 4: with a cold front, and they're smoking scrapes at that time,
30:00
Speaker 4: you may catch an insane flurry of movement and have
30:03
Speaker 4: a couple of amazing hunts, and that's really all it
30:06
Speaker 4: takes to get, in my mind, your goal is to
30:11
Speaker 4: get one good high-odds opportunity to target an animal with
30:14
Speaker 4: a bow. That's 30 yards and in. You might get
30:19
Speaker 4: that chance if you nail the setup and the conditions
30:24
Speaker 4: during that time frame.
30:26
Speaker 1: So in essence, bank your vacation day, but save some
30:29
Speaker 1: sick days. I get the best of both worlds with that.
30:35
Speaker 2: That's right, or split it up.
30:36
Speaker 4: I'm not necessarily a big fan of the week-long vacation
30:40
Speaker 4: because then you push all your chips in on that week,
30:44
Speaker 4: and if something doesn't go your way the first three
30:47
Speaker 4: or four days, then you're mentally and physically worn out
30:49
Speaker 4: towards the back half, and you're putting more pressure on
30:51
Speaker 4: yourself to get it done because your vacation's running out,
30:55
Speaker 4: you know? The grass is getting longer at home. The
30:58
Speaker 4: to-do list is getting longer. And it's just, I think
31:02
Speaker 4: it's easier if you go in two, three day spurts
31:07
Speaker 4: or two day spurts, even like just cruise over there
31:10
Speaker 4: and hunt for a couple of days and then go
31:12
Speaker 4: home and go back to what you're doing and then
31:14
Speaker 4: go vice versa and, you know, use your days that way.
31:19
Speaker 2: That'll help you. That'll help you.
31:22
Speaker 4: Keep more pressure off the spot a little bit easier.
31:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, spread it out.
31:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, and give you more flexibility on when you can go.
31:29
Speaker 4: And also it's going to make you mentally sharper because
31:32
Speaker 4: you've been well-rested leading up to the time that you're
31:34
Speaker 4: going hunting. Yeah.
31:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, day one of a mini trip, you're excited, you're
31:40
Speaker 1: positive versus day seven of a week-long vacation. You just
31:43
Speaker 1: feel like you're doing your time at that point.
31:45
Speaker 2: I'm here, I got to go.
31:47
Speaker 4: Yep, and that's when mistakes start to happen because you're
31:50
Speaker 4: just not mentally in the right space.
31:52
Speaker 1: All right there you guys have it i hope you
31:53
Speaker 1: guys enjoyed this week's episode of back 40 presented by
31:56
Speaker 1: mulchery there's always this debate every single year and it's
32:00
Speaker 1: always fun and it's fun to look back you know
32:02
Speaker 1: after let's say the end of november this year and
32:05
Speaker 1: and keep this this conversation in mind of how things
32:08
Speaker 1: really transpired and and did the weather really hit during
32:11
Speaker 1: some of those specific time periods or did the weather
32:13
Speaker 1: not cooperate and how did that impact or not impact
32:16
Speaker 1: your hunting so i hope you guys have a great
32:18
Speaker 1: rest of your week we'll see you next time