Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 1088: Rut Fresh Radio - Warm Weather Won’t Stop What’s Coming

Transcript

Ep. 1088: Rut Fresh Radio - Warm Weather Won’t Stop What’s Coming · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hey, what is going on?
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: This is Jake Hofer and welcome to another week of
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Rut Fresh. It's October 28th and unfortunately the weather conditions
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: aren't what we dreamed of. And so we have guests
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: from Texas, Wisconsin, and another one from Michigan and Northern
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Indiana giving their two cents, their takes here. on above
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: average temperatures and how that coincides with a game plan
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: and strategy. As we get into some more exciting days
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: that we're all, we've been looking forward to October 28th
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: or Halloween or November 1st, second or third, whatever the
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: case may be, but the conditions aren't great. And we're
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: going to give you some insight on how to handle that.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: The real quick weather report this week is it's going
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: to be hot. We're going to have some rain. And
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: I truly believe from now until the next rut fresh episode,
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: some of the most impactful and important trail camera data
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: is you can gather for years to come and for
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: this season. As you know, Rough Rush is brought to
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: you by Moultrie. So make sure your cameras are rocking.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Make sure you have batteries in them because I truly
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: believe the next seven days are some of the most
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: important when it comes to trail camera intel. So to
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: kick things off, we're going to start with Casey Smith
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: from The Element down in Texas. Here we go. All right,
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: we have Casey Smith with The Element sitting in his
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: truck in the rain.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: In Texas.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: How we doing?
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: We're doing well, man.
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: I'm fairly optimistic, which you and I share that often.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: We're both optimistic type people, you know?
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: But, you know, I like to say that around about
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: the 20th of October on, every day just gets better.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: So, like, what do you have to be upset about?
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: You know, it's just every day, every 24 hours makes
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: such a difference right now.
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: So it's good.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it does. I feel we are all spoiled
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: with some pretty good, there's two, I would say, pretty
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: decent fronts in the earlier part of October. Everyone loves
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: late October and the beginning of November, and looking at
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: the extended forecast, the calendar is going to say late
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: October and early November, but the weather is not going
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: to be matching up to probably what we remember over
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: the last five or six, seven years of some good
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: fronts in that timeframe. So What's your advice? What's your
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: take on anyone that is looking at this calendar like, man,
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: I'm jonesing to get out there, and it's pretty hot?
• 2:19
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: My advice would be understand that deer season is long,
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: so wait on good days to do your most risky things.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: But we like to hunt, so go hunting. Have fun.
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: Just don't do something that you're going to regret in
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: two weeks because your deer got shot because he bumped
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: to a different property.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: I mean, that's... And public and private is going to
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: make a big difference on that, right? But there are
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: definitely some things. Me and some other people that I
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: know are having some really good hunts right now doing
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: a couple interesting concepts. I mean, oaks here in Texas
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: are dropping, and if you can find the right ones
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: or the deer that are using the right ones, then
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: it's good.
• 3:05
  Speaker 5: Also.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: hunt mornings. I know people don't hunt mornings in October. Well,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: when you're in the South.
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: Or even Southern Midwest, probably even, I don't know, we've
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: got cameras all over the Midwest and the mornings are
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: where it's at right now.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Cause it's the coolest temperatures.
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: Um, you know, we have a very much a Indian
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: summer that we're entering into right now.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: And I don't know if there's any even.
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: Reprieve for it on the 10 day forecast, but so
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: what's going to happen is the deer are going to
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: do the thing that they do. And if you want
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: to see them on their feet in daylight, uh, morning
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: is a time to do it you just got to
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: be really careful about your access i think this is
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: the big thing on that because they're also out in
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: the middle of the night right now so when you're
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: walking in in the dark be really detrimental to your cause.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: The last couple hunts in the morning let's say how
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: often are you bumping deer going in.
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: Not often actually okay uh i've been hunting a little
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: bit in a unique way, hunting on the ground, glassing
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: quite a bit. Um, so I, I bumped deer walking around,
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: but I'm actually, this plays really well into my hand
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: cause I kind of run late. Uh, I'm actually walking
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: in at the beginning of shooting light. So I can see,
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: I can kind of feel my way around. I'm also,
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: the last stuff I've been hunting, the deer are feeding
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: far from bedding. which is sometimes unique. You know, a
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: lot of times this time of year, the deer are
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: finding the closest proximity bedding, if they can, that is safety.
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: And sorry, my counterpart tried to interrupt me just then.
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: You know, but these deer are specifically spending a lot
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: of time far from where they're feeding.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: So if you're there.
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: At a decent time, you can then capitalize on that.
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: It's around 845 or so, if I'm going to be
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: really specific. You can almost feel it as a hunter.
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: If you're sitting there, the sun's starting to hit you,
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: you still feel good, and then there's like this switch.
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: It's like, oh, I have on a light jacket. I
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: need to take that off. The deer feel the exact
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: same thing. And that's whenever you'll start seeing them really
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: getting back to where they're bedding. So, yeah, to answer
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: your question, I'm not bumping deer a ton in the
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: morning in that scenario. Now, if you were going to
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: go in and hunt... a food source like a persimmon
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: tree or acorns or something like that pretty decent chance
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: that you could bump deer off of that absolutely i
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: mean we have some you know i live in texas
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: it's a feed state and i have some feeders there
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: uh and they're absolutely your deer on those feeders 15
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: minutes before shooting a lot you know so kind of risky.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: What um you guys like to call you guys like
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: to rattle you guys like to hunt pretty aggressive For
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: this next seven days, the 28th to the 4th of November,
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: if you were going to dial the throttle of aggressiveness
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: with some of those tactics, where does that dial fall?
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: Is it maxed out halfway?
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: I tend to like to experiment. So I want to
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: see what those things will do. I don't have as
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: much confidence in them as I would a week from now.
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: But I will say I rattled in a two-year-old four
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: days ago, and he came to 10 yards just drooling. Now,
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: not everyone is trying to shoot a two-year-old. I wasn't
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: at that moment either. But if you want to shoot
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: that deer, some of them are responsive right now. And
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: I also think it would work on older deer. But
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: I was talking to Tyler about this this morning, and
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: I feel like right now, depending on what smells those
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: bucks have encountered or some other factor I don't understand,
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: different bucks are doing different things. I was out scouting
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: this morning and I saw two mature bucks bachelor together still.
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: And I think that 600 yards from there, there was
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: likely a different mature buck who was full on, ready
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: to find a doe, working scrapes, making rubs, doing the
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: whole thing.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: And so I just think we're in a strange period
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: because we don't.
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: Have the weather where deer are doing a lot of
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: different stuff. So, Uh, maybe don't give you a more
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: pointed answer to that question. Um, I'm going to experiment
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: with that stuff. I don't have a ton of confidence
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: in it working, especially rattling and snort wheezing. Grunts are
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: a little different just because deer grunt all year long.
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: So like, I'm not going to blind grunt right now,
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: but if I see a deer, um, I think there's
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: a decent chance that he'll come at least investigate.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: And that's when it's good to make sure you have
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: shots downwind.
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: You know, people are always thinking about when you're sitting
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: up in a tree, having a shot, you know, to
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: your upwind side or to your 90 degree side. But you,
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: if you're going to do some calling, you need a
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: shot to the downwind side as well, because that's where
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: the buck's going to circle into. And sometimes it's 60
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: yards and that's tough. Sometimes he comes into 30 trying
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: to see what's going on, especially when it's not like
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: they're not super fired up right now.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: He's going to, he's going to smell check you. He's
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: not just going to come likely. You're not going to
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: just run right in looking for a fight.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Right. So I don't know if that answers your question
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: great or not, but.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: I think that provides, uh, some direction for folks. What about,
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: you know, with, with these temperatures and each day truly
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: getting a little bit better. Uh, so if you listen
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: to this on Wednesday or Friday, it's going to be
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: a little bit better from Wednesday to Friday, for example. Um,
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: but for someone that is, you know, maybe they're hunting
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: a specific deer or maybe, you know, like how, how
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: productive is it to be cautious over these next seven
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: days versus, um, there's a lot of FOMO in the
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: world of white sharks right now. There's a lot of FOMO.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: I'm not hunting this morning and I have FOMO. Um,
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: and so, you know, that's kind of the root of
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: this question. Like, uh, being calculated for a cold snap
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: when it comes, cause we're going to get a cold snap.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: We're going to get a cold front. It's going to
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: be much better than, you know, what it was before.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: But how do you, how do you thread that needle personally?
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Um, it depends on the nature of my, my week
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: of hunting.
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: So like, A lot of times I am just, I
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: have a section blocked out on the calendar. I'm going
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: hunting and my aggressiveness is going to ramp up throughout
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: that five day stretch.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: And, and I have.
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: To do things, especially start getting to the afternoon of
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: day three on, you got to do some like pretty
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: substantial things to make sure that you can get in
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: the way of one. If you're hunting a specific deer
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: or you have a really good farm and you feel
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: good about your late season opportunities, you have one buck tag,
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: whatever the case may be. I think absolutely anything. there
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: is zero reason to push it this week until you
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: start the, the change of the month. I mean, I
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: have for the past two years, uh, killed deer there's
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: one really good deer not on the cold front uh
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: i think that was on halloween last year uh one
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: of the biggest bucks i've ever killed it was like
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: short sleeve weather but i i blind rattled at this
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: buck because i knew where he was bedded And he
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: got up and started raking a tree, and then I
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: grunted at him, and he just came in like a bulldozer.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: And that was on Halloween. But it was like.
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: 64 degrees, 65 degrees at dusk.
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: So I.
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: Would say there's even such a big difference from the
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: 28th to the 31st, especially when you're looking at the Midwest.
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: But even here in Texas, because we have a lot
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: of deer that do rut earlier in the month. I
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: would say that it would be good to really meter
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: your enthusiasm the first part of this because those good
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: dates are coming, right?
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: And like you just.
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: Said, the best thing you can do right now is
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: stay off of Instagram, honestly, because there's guys that have
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: one pattern on a place that nobody goes into. They've
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: had a cell camera with a solar in there all
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: year on a scrape, and they're going to first time
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: in kill that thing on the 28th. And it's going
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: to be awesome. And you're going to think, I can
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: go do that too. And maybe you can, likely you can't, because.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to do that. I don't have one
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: that's doing that right now.
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: So I would say it's good to be very cautious
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: these last few days of October, because no matter what,
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: November 7th is going to be a good day.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: I like that. Yeah, I think that's great advice. Anything
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: else to put a bow on this, Casey?
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: Um, food sources are a big deal right now, uh,
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: especially because it's been so dry.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Like overall, I don't think we've had a terribly dry year.
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: Um, but the past three weeks have been very dry
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: in a large portion of the country and a large
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: portion of Texas. And so like, if you can find
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: hot food sources and look for unconventional food sources, if
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: you have had a little bit of rain, there's little
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: tiny Forbes that are popping up. it'll look like the
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: deer grazing in open doo-doo pastures, but they will be
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: with their noses touching the ground, picking these little bitty
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: forbs out of there, things like that. Uh, I, I
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: saw there's a tree called, um, gumbo Melia, which is
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: kind of random. I don't even know if they have
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: it in the Midwest. We have it here in Texas.
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: It's kind of in the, uh, in the plum family. Uh,
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: it has, uh, like oblong, uh, oval-shaped leaves and needles
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: on it, and it puts off a little extremely sweet
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: melon-flavored berry about this big. The deer and hogs are
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: tearing that up where you can find it right now,
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: along with persimmons. Acorns, if you can find specific acorn trees,
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: if you've got an acorn flat that is 30 acres, guess.
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: You know how it is.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: But I would say absolutely food sources are a big deal.
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: Even, you know, like, mid-morning food sources. If you can
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: find it close to bedding, I think those deer are
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: getting up mid-morning and hitting that stuff. Maybe you're even
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: bedding in close proximity to that stuff. But again, only
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: do that if you're really wanting to hunt. If you
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: got public land that you want to go hunt and
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: do stuff on, do that. But if you're hunting a
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: specific deer, then if you want to kill him, just
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: pump the brakes.
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: A little bit. Okay.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of people need to hear that.
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The crazy thing is, here where I'm at, typically
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: we've already had a hard frost by now, too. I
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: think we're not going to get our first hard frost
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: until who knows when in November, too. There's a lot
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: of cover that changes throughout that period, too.
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and food sources. Right now, I know there are
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: a ton of deer that are still eating goldenrods. all
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: that kind of stuff, because it's still green. As soon
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: as that hard frost happens, those soft forbs, they go
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: from like the food source to unpalatable.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: And those deer have to do completely different things.
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: And we don't have that hard frost anywhere in the
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: foreseeable future. In fact, a little bit of moisture is
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: going to make it more difficult as opposed to less
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: at this point in time. I will say though, that
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: there's beans already coming out in a large portion of
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: the Midwest, I think, which is probably attributed to the dryness. Uh,
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: and so that's, causing some deer to shift around and
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: do some different things that I've seen. Last year, the
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: corn came out before the beans in the places that
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: I hunted, and this year it seems like the beans
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: are coming out before the corn. You probably have more
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: insight into the reasoning on that kind of stuff, but
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: I would rather the corn come out first, personally, because
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: there's deer out there living in that, and you can't
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: do anything with them.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, they've been picking corn and beans like crazy
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: here where I'm at in the last week, and they
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: keep going. Well, Casey, good luck. the rest of the season.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Good luck this next week. And, uh, uh, for everyone
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: that wants to check out, you guys have been dropping
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: some amazing, amazing videos for anyone that hasn't checked out,
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: you know, your guys' most recent post, uh, encourage them
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: to do that. Where can they find everything that you
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: guys have going on?
• 15:18
  Speaker 5: Thanks, dude.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: I appreciate the opportunity.
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: So the element YouTube channel is a great place to
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: find our content. Uh, the element hunting.com is a notice,
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: but it's our website.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Uh, you know, we'll have, uh, you know, a content
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: feed there as well. And then search us on Instagram or.
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: Facebook, the element, um, on YouTube, I will say search
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: the element hunting, uh, because our name's a little bit ambiguous. Uh,
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: if you search the hunting part, you'll, you'll find us
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: pretty quick.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: You guys need to do a collaboration, Bam Margera. I
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: think that'll help when people type in the element. Hey,
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: that would be sick, dude.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine dropping a high five with Bam? That
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: would be bad to the bone. Dude, skate brand meets
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: hunting brand.
• 15:57
  Speaker 5: I would love it.
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: You do such a good job man thank you very
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: much for for having me on appreciate it.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: All right next up we have dalton dalton you've been
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: enjoying this weather.
• 16:07
  Speaker 6: Uh yeah but not for hunting it's it's been nice
• 16:11
  Speaker 6: to do some other things.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah so you know it's late october and um i
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: think everyone is more excited than the bucks about where
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: where things are at um what um what have you
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: been seeing or not seeing here as of recent?
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, recently it's been a lot of like
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: evening hunts.
• 16:35
  Speaker 6: Um, I did hunt a few mornings there, middle of
• 16:37
  Speaker 6: October when we got the cold front coming through. Um,
• 16:41
  Speaker 6: but recently it's just been evening hunts and kind of
• 16:45
  Speaker 6: what the deer have been doing around here is, you know,
• 16:48
  Speaker 6: last hour or so they're really hitting that, you know,
• 16:51
  Speaker 6: the food and, um, With this warm weather and dry
• 16:56
  Speaker 6: here in Indiana, it's a lot of farmers getting beans out.
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: And so we still got a lot of standing corn
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: around the area. So more like, you know, deer in
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: the bean fields.
• 17:08
  Speaker 6: If you got food plots with this warmer weather, you know,
• 17:11
  Speaker 6: hitting clovers and alfalfas. But just a lot of deer
• 17:15
  Speaker 6: out feeding. A little bit of kind of pre-rut activity.
• 17:19
  Speaker 6: The smaller bucks have been kind of checking does, bumping does.
• 17:25
  Speaker 6: We have been scraping here, but a lot at night
• 17:29
  Speaker 6: or right there in the morning is when I've been
• 17:32
  Speaker 6: seeing the bigger bucks scraping right now.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: Looking at the extended forecast, it's a lot of what
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: we've been already seeing, a lot of southerly winds. What
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: do you say for everyone out there that's chomping at
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: the bit? They see the calendar. They also see the
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: weather and temperature and just not... super favorable conditions. Um, what,
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: what do you say to them that are listening? Man?
• 17:59
  Speaker 6: Yeah, not super favorable conditions at all. Uh, really what
• 18:03
  Speaker 6: I got to say to people is, is be, be patient. Um,
• 18:06
  Speaker 6: because I, I do think, you know, November 1st is,
• 18:11
  Speaker 6: you know, right around the corner, uh, the 7th, 8th,
• 18:14
  Speaker 6: 9th of November, which is, you know, one of my
• 18:16
  Speaker 6: favorite times to hunt is right there. So it's just like,
• 18:20
  Speaker 6: just be patient because, uh, I really think we're that
• 18:24
  Speaker 6: cold front away or the weather changing away from things
• 18:30
  Speaker 6: just being blown wide open.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Do you think, you know, we're about to, you know,
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: there's this perception that once November hits, anything can happen.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: The deer you've had on camera is going to magically disappear.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: I have somewhat of a different opinion of that. I
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: know there's variances for everyone out there, but for someone
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: that's like, man, you know, it's going to be November and, uh,
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: that buck's going to disappear. And I want to kill
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: him before, before that happens. What's your opinion or take regarding,
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: you know, capitalizing before a quote unquote buck disappears and
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: runs 20 miles away.
• 19:04
  Speaker 6: Nah, I mean, that's, that's true to a case. Um,
• 19:09
  Speaker 6: but there's also cases where like, kind of, that's the opposite.
• 19:12
  Speaker 6: I mean, people, uh, only see certain bucks during, you know,
• 19:16
  Speaker 6: the rut time during when November comes around and, Uh,
• 19:19
  Speaker 6: you know, similar case to me, you know, the buck
• 19:22
  Speaker 6: I'm kind of chasing right now is, you know, he's
• 19:26
  Speaker 6: not living on my property, live there all summer. And he, uh,
• 19:30
  Speaker 6: he's kind of been visiting throughout October, like he has
• 19:33
  Speaker 6: in the past. Uh, but last year, once November 1st hit,
• 19:37
  Speaker 6: you know, October 30th, November 1st, uh, I mean, he's, he.
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: Stayed on the property for probably about.
• 19:43
  Speaker 6: 15 days, you know, through, the middle of November. And so,
• 19:50
  Speaker 6: I mean, yeah, October is a great time to kind
• 19:52
  Speaker 6: of hone in on a specific buck and try and
• 19:55
  Speaker 6: get him killed. But you can also have the flip
• 19:58
  Speaker 6: side on November and a buck that you only saw
• 20:01
  Speaker 6: last year or other bucks coming in are going to
• 20:05
  Speaker 6: come in November and you might get your chance then.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Do you, do you have any, uh, concern for
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: someone that's, you know, been tiptoeing, you know, maybe through
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: a couple of hunts throughout those earlier fronts in October
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: and now they're looking at the calendar and like, man,
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: we're not going to get this front on around Halloween
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: or the 28th or 29th. They're like, those are just
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: pretty synonymous dates that a lot of people like October
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: 28th to Halloween. Like a lot of people really like that.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: And the weather's just not going to be awesome. Um,
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: do you, do you have concern for those folks that
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: maybe wait? for this next front whenever it comes as
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: we look at the extended forecast?
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: No, I mean, I don't really have much concerns.
• 20:46
  Speaker 6: I mean, I think if you're getting pictures of bucks
• 20:50
  Speaker 6: and you got, I mean, because we got east winds
• 20:53
  Speaker 6: coming up, south winds, east winds, you know, not very favorable.
• 20:57
  Speaker 6: But if you have stands that you can hunt with
• 21:00
  Speaker 6: those winds, I would definitely still be hunting them. If
• 21:04
  Speaker 6: you can get in and out, to those stands without
• 21:07
  Speaker 6: bumping or educating deer, I would still be hunting those
• 21:12
  Speaker 6: spots in the evenings because deer are, they're just starting
• 21:18
  Speaker 6: to do deer things during this time of the year.
• 21:20
  Speaker 6: And so they're going to do those things. They've got
• 21:23
  Speaker 6: to feed.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: It doesn't, even though the weather is warm and.
• 21:27
  Speaker 6: Not ideal conditions for what we think as hunters, I mean,
• 21:32
  Speaker 6: deer still have to do deer things, and that's kind
• 21:35
  Speaker 6: of what you're going to see, I feel like, until
• 21:38
  Speaker 6: we hit that cold front that we've been waiting for.
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: I would.
• 21:52
  Speaker 6: Say the next.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: Episode, five or six days could be some of the
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: most important trail camera data dates of the entire, entire year.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: I see it time and time again. So don't be, uh,
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: don't be discouraged, but make sure you have batteries.
• 22:11
  Speaker 6: Yeah. Make sure all your, all your cameras got batteries
• 22:14
  Speaker 6: in them. They're all, you know, at a, at a good,
• 22:16
  Speaker 6: good battery life because, because that's the thing. If you,
• 22:19
  Speaker 6: you got a big buck showing up on camera and
• 22:22
  Speaker 6: hitting scrapes, maybe he's close to daylight hours. just because ideal,
• 22:27
  Speaker 6: you know, weather isn't here, that, that doesn't mean don't
• 22:30
  Speaker 6: go in and kill this deer because, you know, he's
• 22:33
  Speaker 6: got to do what he's got to do. He's got
• 22:35
  Speaker 6: to do those deer things. And so you might catch
• 22:38
  Speaker 6: him slipping in these next five days and, you know,
• 22:41
  Speaker 6: you could really capitalize on a couple evening hunts over
• 22:44
  Speaker 6: scrapes and everything.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah. What, so you mentioned hunting evenings and over food sources.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: What are, what are some key food sources you're going
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: to be keying in on over the next seven days?
• 22:54
  Speaker 6: Yeah, right now, again, we got cut soybean fields a
• 22:59
  Speaker 6: lot here. Not as much corn, especially on my farm
• 23:03
  Speaker 6: that I hunt.
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: It's all soybeans around it.
• 23:07
  Speaker 6: And all but the southern part of the property, the
• 23:13
  Speaker 6: beans are off.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: Those beans will stay on until a little later, which
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: is fine.
• 23:19
  Speaker 6: But I got a lot of green food sources on
• 23:21
  Speaker 6: the farm, too, where I went in. broadcasted, uh, you know,
• 23:25
  Speaker 6: brassicas and rise and wheat and stuff into the beans.
• 23:30
  Speaker 6: And so that stuff looks really good right now, especially
• 23:32
  Speaker 6: since the beans are off.
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: And so I'm kind of honing in on those like new.
• 23:37
  Speaker 6: Growth plans, the brassicas, the rise, but still, I mean,
• 23:41
  Speaker 6: you're going to have your soybeans laying around in the
• 23:43
  Speaker 6: field that they're picking through.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: And that the combine left behind.
• 23:47
  Speaker 6: So I'm kind of seeing that the deer are working
• 23:50
  Speaker 6: through those fields, uh, picking those.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: And then kind of ending up in those green food sources.
• 23:56
  Speaker 6: And then also, um, you got a bigger clover plot
• 23:59
  Speaker 6: on the farm that they've kind of been between those two,
• 24:03
  Speaker 6: they either hit the clover, uh, or work through the
• 24:06
  Speaker 6: fields of soybeans into the younger, greener plots.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: This is, um, what if someone right now they're like, man,
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: I don't have the fall food source. There's a chance
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: of rain, pretty good chance of rain coming up later
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: this weekend. I know it's late October and early November.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: Is it too late to throw out some winter rye
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: or some winter wheat or some sort of green food
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: source at this time of the year in the upper
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: half of the United States, in your opinion?
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: No, not at all. Not at all.
• 24:35
  Speaker 6: So I do a lot of run a land management
• 24:37
  Speaker 6: company as well. And so I do a lot of
• 24:40
  Speaker 6: food plotting and land management. And you can plant, I mean,
• 24:44
  Speaker 6: winter rye, winter wheat all the way into, you know,
• 24:47
  Speaker 6: like November. I mean, I've done it into middle of
• 24:50
  Speaker 6: November already. If you're getting warmer spells, you know, in
• 24:55
  Speaker 6: those months, and sometimes all you need is like that
• 24:58
  Speaker 6: morning dew to get some germination.
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: And the biggest thing is, yeah, you know, your rye
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: and wheat.
• 25:03
  Speaker 6: I mean, it's not going to grow inches and inches,
• 25:06
  Speaker 6: but really all you need is just something growing just
• 25:10
  Speaker 6: to give them a green food source to go to.
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: So it's not too late at all. I mean, with
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: the weather we're having.
• 25:17
  Speaker 6: If somebody, especially right now, if you got fields that
• 25:22
  Speaker 6: you are allowed to, you know, broadcast some of that
• 25:24
  Speaker 6: into and crops are off, even if it's standing soybeans,
• 25:29
  Speaker 6: right now with this weather we're having, I would definitely
• 25:32
  Speaker 6: go out and broadcast some rye or wheat because you
• 25:35
  Speaker 6: got warmer temps, you got rain coming in later in
• 25:38
  Speaker 6: the weekend, beginning of next week.
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's just a.
• 25:41
  Speaker 6: Great recipe for a, you're setting the stage for your
• 25:46
  Speaker 6: November hunting.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: So I, I think absolutely.
• 25:49
  Speaker 6: If somebody has got the, the time and the access
• 25:54
  Speaker 6: and can go get the seed, uh, do it.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: I like it. What would be one of the most
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: obscure approaches over the next seven days that you're considering?
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: So against the grain.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: Uh, I, I, a couple of times.
• 26:09
  Speaker 6: My wife probably gets tired of hearing me kind of like,
• 26:12
  Speaker 6: you know, I'm, I'm thinking out loud, talking to her
• 26:15
  Speaker 6: on this kind of stuff. And, Um, you know, considered
• 26:19
  Speaker 6: a couple of times going a little bit deeper into
• 26:22
  Speaker 6: the woods into what I feel like is the best
• 26:24
  Speaker 6: stand on the farm.
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: Uh, it's just the stand I shot my buck out
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: of last year just.
• 26:29
  Speaker 6: Because of, of the winds and where, where I'm seeing
• 26:36
  Speaker 6: deer come out into the field.
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: Um, but I've kind of, I kind of pulled back.
• 26:40
  Speaker 6: I'm like, okay, I'm not ready to jump in there
• 26:42
  Speaker 6: yet and hunt that stand. Um, But it's definitely been
• 26:48
  Speaker 6: a consideration to try and kind of get ahead of
• 26:53
  Speaker 6: this buck I'm chasing.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So on a scale of 1 to 10, 10
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: being the best week of the year, 1 being the
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: worst week of the year, next seven days, October 28th
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: to November 4th, a lot of guys love these dates.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: Where do you rank it? You're going to break some hearts,
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: I have a feeling.
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: I am, but I'm going to give it kind of
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: like a two-part.
• 27:15
  Speaker 6: So like right now through like Sunday, November 1st, I'm
• 27:22
  Speaker 6: probably going to give it like a 6.5 to 7.
• 27:28
  Speaker 6: Evening hunts really are kind of what's going to be
• 27:31
  Speaker 6: your best. But I'm going to say once that rain
• 27:35
  Speaker 6: comes in and that front comes in, at the beginning
• 27:39
  Speaker 6: of next week. So like that second, third, fourth of November.
• 27:42
  Speaker 6: I mean, I'm going to bump it up to maybe
• 27:44
  Speaker 6: an 8.59, depending on if it cools down a little
• 27:49
  Speaker 6: bit more than what they're saying. Because, I mean, we're
• 27:53
  Speaker 6: right there on pre-rut action. Colder temps are just going
• 27:57
  Speaker 6: to blow things open. And I think we're like teetering
• 28:02
  Speaker 6: on that time frame.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: And that's all we need is just the weather to
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: kind of turn for us.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I like it. Well, Dalton, where, where can
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: people follow along with, with everything that you have going on?
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, Instagram's the biggest one.
• 28:14
  Speaker 6: You can get on there and follow me at Dalton
• 28:16
  Speaker 6: C Tunis or, uh, Bone Boss Outdoors.
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: I do have a Facebook page.
• 28:21
  Speaker 6: Uh, I've got a website, bonebossoutdoors.com, but yeah, jump on
• 28:25
  Speaker 6: there and give me a follow on Instagram and, uh,
• 28:28
  Speaker 6: check out what we're doing and follow along on this season, uh, hunting.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: So.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, good luck to you. I hope, um, I
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: hope greener pastures and better weather is ahead of us,
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: but gosh darn it, this is the time of year
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: we've been waiting for, so we've got to make the
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: most of it.
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: Yep.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: Hey, thanks for having me on, Jake. I appreciate it.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: Alright, we've got Thomas, and it's late October, and by
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: the time for this Raw Fresh episode, it will be
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: in November. So, what do you have cooking right now,
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: all things considered?
• 28:59
  Speaker 5: I mean, I'd like to I'd like to say I've
• 29:05
  Speaker 5: got a lot going on. I have a lot that
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: has happened. But as far as what's cooking right now,
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: I'm not even really sure. That's what I'm trying to
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: figure out today. To bring you up to speed, I
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: guess on my season so far, I circled back on
• 29:21
  Speaker 5: my target buck that I had last year. I don't
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: know if you remember that buck that I screwed up
• 29:26
  Speaker 5: on early October, hit him high in the shoulder. And
• 29:30
  Speaker 5: he stuck around. He shifted from his summer range to
• 29:33
  Speaker 5: his fall range last year and He was a homebody.
• 29:36
  Speaker 5: I tagged out and I just crossed my fingers that
• 29:39
  Speaker 5: he would survive. the season because everyone in the area
• 29:41
  Speaker 5: was trying to kill him and he survived. Now this year,
• 29:45
  Speaker 5: I had an encounter with him my first hunt opening
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: weekend here in Wisconsin. It would have been September 14th,
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: I believe. Had him inside 30 yards. Dead, calm, on
• 29:59
  Speaker 5: a food plot and my chair creaked from the ground
• 30:05
  Speaker 5: blind that I was in and it was over. I mean,
• 30:08
  Speaker 5: there's so many reasons that that went wrong, but ultimately
• 30:11
  Speaker 5: it came down to, I always prioritize client projects. And
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: when it came down to putting this blind up on
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: this particular plot where I thought I could kill this deer,
• 30:21
  Speaker 5: it got pushed off till the last minute. I literally
• 30:23
  Speaker 5: went in there seven days before that hunt and just
• 30:27
  Speaker 5: set a box blind on the ground. and kind of
• 30:31
  Speaker 5: brushed it in a little bit is it right tucked
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: it right in the edge of the cornfield but there's
• 30:36
  Speaker 5: a couple mistakes i made there i mean i picked
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: a spot where the corn was bad i shoved it
• 30:41
  Speaker 5: in there if i would have went where i wanted
• 30:43
  Speaker 5: the blind 20 yards to the north of there the
• 30:46
  Speaker 5: there's a little bit of elevation in the edge of
• 30:47
  Speaker 5: this cornfield and i probably would have been sitting high
• 30:50
  Speaker 5: enough where i would have seen him coming in a
• 30:52
  Speaker 5: little bit better but the food plots a mixture of
• 30:55
  Speaker 5: sorghum and brassicas and peas and clover wrapped around the outside.
• 31:01
  Speaker 5: And he was on top of me before I knew it.
• 31:04
  Speaker 5: And I, I mean, we got another excuse, I guess,
• 31:07
  Speaker 5: but I was trying to get it all on film.
• 31:09
  Speaker 5: If I would have just went for the kill, I
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: probably could have gotten him, but I was trying to
• 31:12
  Speaker 5: get good video of it, which I did, but it
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: cost me. And when I leaned, when I leaned to
• 31:18
  Speaker 5: move the camera, the chair just made this little, and
• 31:21
  Speaker 5: it was just enough where he locked into that location
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: and came walking forward, saw this blind or something he
• 31:26
  Speaker 5: didn't like. And then he just kind of lurked backwards
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: and disappeared. But that was potentially strike number three in
• 31:35
  Speaker 5: that location, which I was unaware of. And I say
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: that I always kind of in my head figure I
• 31:40
  Speaker 5: can get three strikes on these bucks or these bucks
• 31:43
  Speaker 5: will take three strikes before they get pressured out of
• 31:46
  Speaker 5: an area. Well, that same day that I went and
• 31:49
  Speaker 5: put that box plant on the ground and this food
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: plots down on this bottom, it's kind of, one level
• 31:54
  Speaker 5: up from the lowest point in the valley, which would
• 31:56
  Speaker 5: be the creek bottom marshy area. When I was down there,
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: I set that blind on the skid steer. I drove
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: the skid steer over to the edge of this plot
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: where I had a camera on a tree. It's been
• 32:06
  Speaker 5: there for almost 10 years. And I stood on top
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: of the skid steer and mounted a cell camera. And
• 32:12
  Speaker 5: I could get cell service. From the ground, you can't
• 32:14
  Speaker 5: get cell service. But from top, I could get cell service.
• 32:17
  Speaker 5: It was basically the same view, but a slightly different
• 32:20
  Speaker 5: vantage point as that camera on the ground. And after
• 32:24
  Speaker 5: I had that encounter with that buck, I went back
• 32:26
  Speaker 5: in there a few days later. Well, there was all
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: sorts of commotion in that Valley. I should back up,
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: you know, on the pressure sides of things, there's a
• 32:33
  Speaker 5: road that goes through that Valley to the back Ridge
• 32:36
  Speaker 5: where there's a 60 acre ag field. And they actually
• 32:40
  Speaker 5: harvested the corn or 50% of the corn off that
• 32:43
  Speaker 5: Ridge three days before I had my encounter with that buck,
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: but they collapsed a culvert, a steel culvert while doing so. So,
• 32:52
  Speaker 5: The week after I had the encounter with that buck,
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: they were down in there with an excavator, ripped out
• 32:56
  Speaker 5: the culvert, put a new one in, dump trucks, hauling
• 32:59
  Speaker 5: in breaker runs, cement trucks, all sorts of commotion over
• 33:02
  Speaker 5: the course of three, four days. And then on top
• 33:04
  Speaker 5: of that, one of the dogs, I won't name names,
• 33:07
  Speaker 5: but someone's dog on the farm has been roaming. And
• 33:11
  Speaker 5: all this pressure just kind of came together. And again,
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: myself included, I played a role in that at some capacity,
• 33:17
  Speaker 5: but all this pressure kind of came together and that
• 33:19
  Speaker 5: buck seemed to just kind of squirt out of this
• 33:21
  Speaker 5: fall range. It was to the point, actually, I went out,
• 33:25
  Speaker 5: when I acknowledged that he was picking out these cell cameras,
• 33:28
  Speaker 5: I went out and I pulled all these cell cameras.
• 33:31
  Speaker 5: I didn't completely remove them all, but I backed them
• 33:33
  Speaker 5: way off of the locations that I had all tailored.
• 33:35
  Speaker 5: You know, if he's avoiding that camera, even just in
• 33:38
  Speaker 5: a small bubble, the last thing I want him to
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: do is avoid the mock scrape or the water hole
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: that's set up for me to shoot at 30 yards, right?
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: Or 25 yards. So I did that. That's actually where
• 33:48
  Speaker 5: I just came from. I went back out to adjust
• 33:51
  Speaker 5: some stands and rotate some cameras and such. And this
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: non-cell that I had over this water hole and mock scrape,
• 33:59
  Speaker 5: literally the day that I swapped it out, got rid
• 34:02
  Speaker 5: of the cell camera and put the non-cell in there,
• 34:04
  Speaker 5: that buck showed up and came over and drank out
• 34:05
  Speaker 5: of the water hole. But a week and a half
• 34:08
  Speaker 5: prior to that, I had a picture and a video
• 34:10
  Speaker 5: of him coming in and that camera went off, that
• 34:12
  Speaker 5: cell camera went off. And when it went into video mode,
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: he was not having it, not at all. So he's
• 34:17
  Speaker 5: very much dialed in. Okay, so that was, that was
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: the end of September, early October, you know, kind of
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: the same thing. I'm just like anticipating where he's going
• 34:27
  Speaker 5: to be. He was pretty active on camera still. I
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: just had to, you know, again, regroup and shuffle some
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: cameras around. And some of these cell cams that I've
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: had out for a few years in the same spot,
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: he doesn't seem to mind. It's just when I put
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: new things in these places, he picks them out, including
• 34:41
  Speaker 5: that one that was 10 feet up.
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: In the air.
• 34:43
  Speaker 5: But, uh, I went in and kind of reshuffled and
• 34:46
  Speaker 5: got him on camera again and just kind of been
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: chasing him with the wind. No, like, slam dunk moves. But, oh,
• 34:52
  Speaker 5: this should be good. You know, my highest odds sit. Well,
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: I was anticipating this week, towards the end of this
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: week here, and I got the phone call that no
• 35:04
  Speaker 5: one ever wants to get on Saturday, which was that
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: the neighbor stuck an arrow in this buck on Friday night. So.
• 35:15
  Speaker 5: Well, actually, it would have been Saturday night he shot him.
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: Sunday morning is when I got the phone call. So
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: as it turns out, they found the deer with a drone. Actually,
• 35:25
  Speaker 5: he hit the deer almost in exactly the same spot
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: I did, high and maybe slightly forward. They found the
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: deer with the drone that night, alive. The next day,
• 35:34
  Speaker 5: still alive. They came back in the following evening, and
• 35:39
  Speaker 5: the buck was already up chasing does. And he's got
• 35:41
  Speaker 5: a two-inch gaping wound right above his shoulder. It looks
• 35:46
  Speaker 5: like it should be high lung shot, but apparently it's not.
• 35:49
  Speaker 5: And he was bumping does. So I came back to
• 35:52
  Speaker 5: the farm that Sunday and shifted a couple cameras around again,
• 35:56
  Speaker 5: just kind of thinking, what's this deer going to do
• 35:59
  Speaker 5: now that he's feeling pressure here and doing these things?
• 36:01
  Speaker 5: And I got about as close as I was comfortable
• 36:04
  Speaker 5: getting to where I think I have my best chance
• 36:07
  Speaker 5: of killing this deer, which is where I'm heading to
• 36:09
  Speaker 5: hang this stand and potentially hunt tonight. I've just got
• 36:12
  Speaker 5: to see how it feels with the wind I have.
• 36:15
  Speaker 5: it's more of a north wind and we've got kind
• 36:17
  Speaker 5: of a northeast wind but i hung a camera and
• 36:20
  Speaker 5: got out of there took my son hunting and sure
• 36:24
  Speaker 5: enough that buck showed up on that camera right after
• 36:27
  Speaker 5: dark but he picked that damn camera out right away
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: right away well he walked by and then the second
• 36:35
  Speaker 5: picture is him turning and face right in the camera
• 36:38
  Speaker 5: and i haven't had a picture of him on there
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: again since now I don't know, you know, that camera actually,
• 36:42
  Speaker 5: I had it set to take just pictures, no video
• 36:44
  Speaker 5: and a 15 second delay. So I'm hoping, I'm hoping,
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: you know, he hears something, he sees something, but it
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: wasn't enough, like, you know, kind of pulsing or anything
• 36:53
  Speaker 5: like that to push him away, but that's where I sit.
• 36:56
  Speaker 5: So this morning I've kind of just went back to
• 37:00
  Speaker 5: my general process or my philosophy of hunting outside in,
• 37:04
  Speaker 5: and I'm trying to look at this from a positive
• 37:06
  Speaker 5: side of things. I think it's, in some way, at
• 37:09
  Speaker 5: least that buck getting shot on the far east side
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: of the farm is a good thing because that seemed
• 37:15
  Speaker 5: like it was kind of the fringe of his range.
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: And the neighbor even admitted, he said it was basically
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: total luck. He'd never seen the deer before. He didn't
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: have him on camera at all this fall. He went
• 37:25
  Speaker 5: out to shoot a doe and that was the only
• 37:28
  Speaker 5: deer he saw. He's never seen the buck, like I said.
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: So it came in and now the last known location
• 37:34
  Speaker 5: of that buck was actually that cell camera picture I had,
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: but when they found him with the drone, every time
• 37:38
  Speaker 5: they found him, he was on our farm in, in
• 37:41
  Speaker 5: the hell hole that I like to refer to as
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: the buck nest out of our farm, which is that
• 37:46
  Speaker 5: spot where I had to stalk that buck that year
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: to kill. Once they get in there, they don't leave.
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: And I, I, my gut tells me he's probably holed
• 37:53
  Speaker 5: up in there right now, licking his wounds.
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: But I'm trying to get positioned on all the sides
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: of that so that when he is up and moving,
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: I can anticipate that. So that's where I sit right now.
• 38:05
  Speaker 5: Like I said, I, A lot going on, but I don't,
• 38:08
  Speaker 5: you know, I don't really actually have that next breadcrumb
• 38:11
  Speaker 5: that I'm looking for that leads me to pursue this deer.
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: But this morning I hunted the far east side of
• 38:15
  Speaker 5: the farm, kind of ruled out that corner. I pulled
• 38:19
  Speaker 5: a couple of trail camera cards from some non-cell cams
• 38:22
  Speaker 5: over there. I did not bring my laptop with me,
• 38:25
  Speaker 5: so I'll check those when I get home tonight, but
• 38:27
  Speaker 5: I'm going to go hang this other stand in kind
• 38:29
  Speaker 5: of an observation location. And like I said, if I
• 38:33
  Speaker 5: could find the spot that makes sense where it's observe
• 38:36
  Speaker 5: and hunt in the coming days, then I'm going to
• 38:38
  Speaker 5: hang there. But I just want to play it safe
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: right now, not putting any pressure on this deer because
• 38:42
  Speaker 5: I know he's obviously feeling the pain and the pressure. So,
• 38:44
  Speaker 5: you know, the next couple of weeks here, this is
• 38:48
  Speaker 5: what I have to remind myself. It seems like a
• 38:50
  Speaker 5: lot has happened early this fall. And I don't know
• 38:54
  Speaker 5: if that's just me, but the few times that I've
• 38:56
  Speaker 5: hunted mornings, I've seen a ton of rut activity and
• 39:00
  Speaker 5: some mature buck's pushing does pushing younger bucks around now
• 39:04
  Speaker 5: i'm not saying that the rut's going to happen early
• 39:07
  Speaker 5: by any means but i don't know if it's the
• 39:08
  Speaker 5: weather i don't really buy into the moon phase a
• 39:11
  Speaker 5: whole lot maybe on daily movement but as far as
• 39:13
  Speaker 5: like rut activity i don't really look into it much
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: but i don't know something just seems off a little
• 39:18
  Speaker 5: bit now we're hitting this warm spell again and you
• 39:21
  Speaker 5: know rain towards the end of the week here i
• 39:25
  Speaker 5: one way or another you know again this is what
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: i was going to say is i always have to
• 39:28
  Speaker 5: remind myself you know it's only today when we're talking,
• 39:31
  Speaker 5: it's only what, October 26th, right? Things are going to get,
• 39:34
  Speaker 5: hopefully get really good in the next couple of weeks.
• 39:38
  Speaker 5: The last two years in a row, this pinch point
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: that I'm going to scout here in a minute, the
• 39:44
  Speaker 5: buck that I'm after has cruised through there in the
• 39:46
  Speaker 5: October 28th, October 29th timeframe. This pinch point, it's an
• 39:53
  Speaker 5: interesting location. If you kind of visualize a north-south running ridge,
• 39:57
  Speaker 5: the top of that ridge is all ag. And at
• 40:00
  Speaker 5: the end of that ridge, it's a pretty wide ridge,
• 40:03
  Speaker 5: probably a quarter mile wide or so. And at the
• 40:06
  Speaker 5: very end of that ridge, it transitions to all timber,
• 40:10
  Speaker 5: and it probably goes out another 150 yards, and then
• 40:13
  Speaker 5: it drops off pretty steep. And the neighbors, that's on
• 40:15
  Speaker 5: the neighboring property, they logged that all a few years ago,
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: so it's real thick on the end of that. On
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: the east side is that buck nest. On the west
• 40:23
  Speaker 5: side is more of this buck's core range where I've
• 40:26
  Speaker 5: been seeing him a lot. And he's been hitting the
• 40:28
  Speaker 5: food plots down that valley quite a bit. Right now,
• 40:31
  Speaker 5: I think he's somewhere in between there, right? He's either
• 40:33
  Speaker 5: in that buck nest or there's another little hidey hole
• 40:35
  Speaker 5: that those bucks like to bed in and then navigate.
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: But this pinch point is, you know, it's basically stuck
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: in between two really good bedding areas and An alfalfa field,
• 40:45
  Speaker 5: so obviously a really good food source, and it's a
• 40:47
  Speaker 5: back corner that drops down, so it's kind of blind
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: from the farm itself. And then at the bottom of
• 40:52
  Speaker 5: the hill are some food plots of mine. So it's
• 40:55
  Speaker 5: a really good spot. The challenge with pinch points on
• 40:58
  Speaker 5: this farm, and I've learned this over time, we look
• 41:03
  Speaker 5: at it and we're like, oh, that's a really awesome
• 41:04
  Speaker 5: pinch point. But these mature bucks don't like these really
• 41:07
  Speaker 5: narrow pinch points. You know, they come into them, they're
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: real apprehensive and real cautious. If they have the wind perfect,
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: then they seem to be fine. But the last pictures
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: I had of this buck going through that pinch point
• 41:18
  Speaker 5: was on a north wind about eight days ago. And
• 41:24
  Speaker 5: he was really, really nervous when he came through there.
• 41:26
  Speaker 5: And I had not been in there in a while,
• 41:28
  Speaker 5: but I did circle like 100 yards upwind of there.
• 41:31
  Speaker 5: So I'm like, I don't know, you know, is he
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: smelling something?
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 41:35
  Speaker 5: But I know that these really narrow pinch points make
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: these bucks a little bit nervous. So it's hard to
• 41:40
  Speaker 5: set up in these, you know, topography and property lines,
• 41:44
  Speaker 5: fence lines and stuff. They all kind of choke together
• 41:46
  Speaker 5: in these spots. So it's hard to get set up
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: in them in a way that these bucks don't, you know,
• 41:52
  Speaker 5: get a leg up on you. You know, they circle
• 41:54
  Speaker 5: down or they drop down on the bottom of the
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: hill and they come back up around. So that's why
• 41:58
  Speaker 5: I'm trying to, again, play it safe because I don't know.
• 42:01
  Speaker 5: I don't know what's going to happen. If this deer
• 42:02
  Speaker 5: gets bumped again or feels any more pressure, I don't
• 42:04
  Speaker 5: know if he's going to come back to his home
• 42:06
  Speaker 5: range or if he's going to squirt off the farm entirely.
• 42:10
  Speaker 5: You know, this is something I think about all the
• 42:11
  Speaker 5: time too, as we've probably talked about this in the past,
• 42:14
  Speaker 5: my advantage that I have, I think, you know, beyond
• 42:19
  Speaker 5: anything else is the, this farm itself, right? If I
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: were only hunting this 80 acre Valley, if I only
• 42:26
  Speaker 5: own this 80, I would have no idea what's going
• 42:28
  Speaker 5: on with that deer when he's off of it.
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 42:30
  Speaker 5: And, And for a long, long time, it was that way.
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: We'd have kind of, you know, a buck over here
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: and he'd be gone and a buck over there and
• 42:37
  Speaker 5: he'd be gone. And now the last couple of years,
• 42:39
  Speaker 5: the habitat's really starting to pull together in so many spots.
• 42:42
  Speaker 5: And it seems like you get these bucks where they
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: just kind of volley back and forth between these valleys
• 42:46
  Speaker 5: or kind of bounce around. So that's a good thing, right?
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: He's still on the farm at some capacity, but you
• 42:52
  Speaker 5: only know what you know. So once he squirts out,
• 42:55
  Speaker 5: who knows where he goes? And, you know, just like
• 42:57
  Speaker 5: this neighbor putting an arrow in him. Who knows how
• 42:59
  Speaker 5: many times he's been over there and that neighbor never
• 43:01
  Speaker 5: really knew, right? How far does he circle to the south?
• 43:04
  Speaker 5: So all sorts of things come together like that.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: So with the next seven days with not really great
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: late October, early November weather, for people listening, what's your
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: elevator pitch on how to approach the next seven days?
• 43:23
  Speaker 5: Well, I'm a big fan of historical information, right? So
• 43:27
  Speaker 5: this time of year, I mean, really, today is kind
• 43:31
  Speaker 5: of the last day that I'm looking at, okay, can
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: I get ahead of some of these bucks? Can I
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: see a pattern? And honestly, I just pulled a bunch
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: of trail camera cards on Sunday that there's pretty good
• 43:43
  Speaker 5: south wind here, so I was trying to take advantage
• 43:44
  Speaker 5: of that, and the farm was all stirred up. Next year,
• 43:48
  Speaker 5: right on the calendar, next year, need to be more
• 43:51
  Speaker 5: proactive in this, like, October 13th through 17th, 18th range.
• 43:57
  Speaker 5: It seems like every little small food source I was
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: monitoring had a pretty good buck consistently hitting it during
• 44:04
  Speaker 5: daylight during that stretch. But I was so focused on
• 44:06
  Speaker 5: this one deer and that's fine because it's the only
• 44:08
  Speaker 5: deer I'm trying to kill. So that's all, you know,
• 44:12
  Speaker 5: it kind of goes in your back pocket for next
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: year with that historical information, like I was saying, but
• 44:16
  Speaker 5: then the same, you know, now they shift off of
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: these tight food to bed patterns and, you know, the
• 44:22
  Speaker 5: quote unquote October lull, which really, again, they're just kind
• 44:24
  Speaker 5: of narrowing down their range of movement because they're food
• 44:28
  Speaker 5: sources have changed and pressure's increasing, but ultimately we get
• 44:32
  Speaker 5: towards the end of the month here and it seems
• 44:33
  Speaker 5: like maybe it's not the specific buck that I'm paying
• 44:36
  Speaker 5: attention to, but very specific pinch points adjacent to very
• 44:39
  Speaker 5: specific doe bedding areas. You know, anywhere you have a
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: good anchor of a food source in some adjacent bedding areas,
• 44:46
  Speaker 5: I mean, we're coming into the rut, right? Or more
• 44:48
  Speaker 5: of the pre-rut phase where those bucks are really just
• 44:50
  Speaker 5: bouncing around and trying to find those does. So my
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: strategy is, is always getting one of those pinch points.
• 44:56
  Speaker 5: And if I have the historical information that proves this
• 44:58
  Speaker 5: area is generally good during this three- to five-day range,
• 45:01
  Speaker 5: that's where I'm going to focus if the wind is
• 45:03
  Speaker 5: good for that location.
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: best week of the year, 1 being the worst week
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: of the year, where do you anticipate buck activity to
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: be over the next seven days, 1 to 10?
• 45:16
  Speaker 5: Based on the weather, I mean... got halloween coming up
• 45:22
  Speaker 5: right halloween in the first week of november i was
• 45:26
  Speaker 5: just on a client property yesterday helping him with some
• 45:30
  Speaker 5: stuff and he was asking me about running a decoy
• 45:33
  Speaker 5: my first ever decoy hunt i killed a buck on
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: halloween day over this decoy and it was 85 degrees
• 45:41
  Speaker 5: out you know it was like 45 50 in the
• 45:44
  Speaker 5: morning it started out cool but it got up to
• 45:46
  Speaker 5: like 85 and i remember i After I got that
• 45:49
  Speaker 5: buck out of the woods, we were up here on
• 45:50
  Speaker 5: the top in the field, taking pictures, talking, celebrating, you know,
• 45:54
  Speaker 5: but it was like middle of the afternoon. Cause I
• 45:55
  Speaker 5: shot him in the morning. And during that time we
• 45:58
  Speaker 5: saw two or three other bucks cutting across the fields,
• 46:01
  Speaker 5: cruising all over. It was 85 degrees. So I say
• 46:03
  Speaker 5: that because you reach a point in the year where
• 46:07
  Speaker 5: the weather really doesn't matter that much. The deer are
• 46:09
  Speaker 5: going to move one way or another. Now they might
• 46:11
  Speaker 5: only move for the first couple hours, you know, last
• 46:13
  Speaker 5: half hour daylight, but hey, at some point they're going
• 46:17
  Speaker 5: to move, you know, with the rainy weather, I think
• 46:19
  Speaker 5: that's going to help. Even if it's a little warmer,
• 46:21
  Speaker 5: you know, it kind of gives the illusion of it
• 46:23
  Speaker 5: being a little bit cooler when it's overcast and rainy.
• 46:25
  Speaker 5: But today, you know, today we've got a 20 degree
• 46:28
  Speaker 5: temp drop from 36 hours ago. And looking at the
• 46:32
  Speaker 5: weather app, it looked like it should have been a
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: pretty good day, but we also have this low pressure
• 46:35
  Speaker 5: system that's coming in and the barometer is just dropping.
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: And those deer just don't seem to want to move
• 46:41
  Speaker 5: much when, when you have that low pressure system in
• 46:43
  Speaker 5: there like that. So, you know, a good cold front,
• 46:46
  Speaker 5: late October, early November, we've got that high pressure system,
• 46:49
  Speaker 5: that kind of bluebird skies, the thermals are all rising today.
• 46:52
  Speaker 5: The thermal has been dropping pretty much steadily the entire day.
• 46:55
  Speaker 5: So as far as a scale of one to 10,
• 46:58
  Speaker 5: I'd say, I mean, you're probably looking at seven to
• 47:02
  Speaker 5: eight is what I would say. I mean, you know, again,
• 47:04
  Speaker 5: it's getting to the rut timeframe. So the deer are
• 47:07
  Speaker 5: going to be moving. You just got to pick the
• 47:09
  Speaker 5: right spot and You know, I've been there before where
• 47:11
  Speaker 5: you're in the wrong spot and all the activity is
• 47:13
  Speaker 5: 200 yards away and maybe you can see it, maybe
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: you can't.
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 47:16
  Speaker 5: But it just is what it is. So you got
• 47:19
  Speaker 5: to get out there. You got to suffer. And eventually
• 47:21
  Speaker 5: it all comes together.
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: I like it. Well, Thomas, where can people follow along
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: with everything you have going on and for the rest
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: of the season?
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: The Untamed Ambition, Instagram, or I guess Facebook's connected to
• 47:35
  Speaker 5: that as well. That's where I'm the most active. You know,
• 47:38
  Speaker 5: I'm a little apprehensive posting too much for pictures because
• 47:41
  Speaker 5: now I know there's at least a handful of people
• 47:43
  Speaker 5: in the area that know about this deer. But I
• 47:45
  Speaker 5: give teasers once in a while. I'm not overly concerned.
• 47:48
  Speaker 5: Most of the people, like I said, the neighbors and everything,
• 47:51
  Speaker 5: we've got a good relationship and good mutual respect for
• 47:54
  Speaker 5: one another. So I'm not worried about that. But I
• 47:57
  Speaker 5: just don't want any more pressure on the farm. That's all.
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: Well, fair enough. Well, good luck the rest of the season.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: And things are going to get better before they get
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: worse here.
• 48:06
  Speaker 5: Absolutely. Absolutely. Hang in there. Thank you.
• 48:09
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: There you guys have it. Hope you guys enjoyed this
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: week's episode of Rough Fresh. Once again, if you'd like
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: to be on Rough Fresh, shoot me a message on
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: Instagram at Jake Hofer, trying to get a wide variety
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: of states. I'm hoping that we'll have a break in
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: weather coming soon. And regardless, this is the time of
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: year we've been waiting for all year. So make the
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: most of it. Be smart and good luck. We'll see
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: you next week.