Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 840: Whitetail Rut Game Plans and 39 Actionable Rut Hunting Tactics

Transcript

Ep. 840: Whitetail Rut Game Plans and 39 Actionable Rut Hunting Tactics · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: the whitetail woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Go Farther, stay Longer, and now your host Mark Kenyon.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: the show, Tony Peterson and I are breaking down our
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty four rut hunting plans and sharing thirty nine
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: specific actionable tactics for the white tail Rut. Hey, guys,
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: real quick here before we get to the show. It
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: is that most wonderful time of the year, the whitetail
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Rut is about to kick off, and as you might
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: know from past years, we like to celebrate the month
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: of November with a few special deer hunting tunes. Two
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: years ago we came out with our first white tail
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: rout parody song of sorts, I guess you could call it.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: We called that the most Wonderful Time to Kill deer
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: riff on a Christmas tune of course, and then last
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: year we had a second one that one's called Big
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: White Tails, going along with the tune of jingle bells.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: So we are going to bring those back for you
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: to listen to this month. On each episode of the podcast.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Here so real quick, we're gonna play you our two
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: rout hunting theme songs of the year. Enjoy them, and
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: then we will get to our big old rut Hunting
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Extravaganza podcast shortly.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: Enjoy boys.
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: Good to see you, Hayden. It's been a while. Hey, sorry,
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: I'm late. I crashed my Pontiac casteck into a light
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: pull and had to walk the rest of the way.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: But I'm here now. That's what matters.
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: Give me a glass of scotch please, Hey, just two
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: rocks in there. I don't my guys, we're starting already.
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: This is happening. Okay, just give me the give me
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: the glass, thank you. Okay, here we go. It's the
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: most wonderful time to kill deer. With the run now
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: just starting and dashing and dotting and veins cutting clean.
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: It's the most wonderful time.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: To kill deer.
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: There's far too much, is inus class. It's the half
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: happy seedson of all. There's gotta be at least twelve
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: cues with grunting and bleeding and call fronts and sleeting.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: The last weeks of fun. It's the half happy.
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: Seedsson of all, There'll be pictures for posting and bragging
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: and boasting and truck beds with big Bucks in toe.
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: There'll be narrow miss stories and tales of new glories.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: Of booner bucks missed with our bulls.
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: It's the most wonderful time to kill deer, not just
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: one baby two. There'll be no dose of blowing and
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: looming knocks blowing and blood trails so clean. It's the
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: most wonderful time to kill deer.
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: Excuse me? Can I have a napkin? Please? I just
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: spilled some scotch on my loafers. I can't have dirty
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: loafers in the studio.
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: Thank you tailgate beers for drinking, and Big Bucks is
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: slinking and chasing and sent jacking does They'll be fighting
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: and scraping and no more escaping and arrow shot true hitting.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: Oh key change. But no one told me that it's
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: the most wonderful time to kill deer. I was very
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: unprepared for this.
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: There will be much morning sitting in cold fronts, are
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: hitting the dawn crispin clean. It's the most wonderful time, Oh,
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: the most dimple time.
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: Yes, the mold swum dipple.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: Time to kilty.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: There's too much ice in the glass. Two rocks.
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: It's that time of the year again. I'm back, Marcus Kenyon.
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: How are you your son of a gadwall? You look terrible.
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: I'm just kidding her. Am I I'm sorry. I'm late.
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: I crashed my recumbent bicycle into the side of a
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: quiz nose. And I know what you're thinking. I am
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: as sober as a newborn blue crab. I swear to
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: you this is just kombucha. I'm watching the gut health.
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: You gotta do it as you get older. And also,
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: I'm wearing this ankle bracelet that makes a beep beep
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: sound if I have a drop of the stuff. Also
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: alerts the authorities, who in turn alert my parole officer.
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: So there'll be none of that in the studio today,
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: I promise you.
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: Let's get go. Oh you're queueing it up all ready. Okay.
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: I thought we'd learned a lesson this year, but I
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: guess nothing. Here we go.
• 5:05
  Speaker 5: I love those beagy big big white tails, those deep
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: run beagy big big wide tails. I love those beachy
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: big yeah eight chats eat tails. I love those beachy
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: b you wide tails.
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: Big white tails.
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: Big white tails, big white tails are great? Hold what
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: fun it is to sit in the freezing cold tree
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: all day? Big white tails, big white tails, big white
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: tails are great? Hold What fun it is to sit
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: in the freezing cold tree all day?
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: Dashing through the woods for the morning.
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: Light turns great across the fields and draws, creep in
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: all way.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: Climb into the tree. Big bucks are on the wave?
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: What fun he is to sit and wait for my gosh,
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: don deer all day?
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: Oh big, I'm sorry? What is this? Piscato strings? Who
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: do you think? I am ya? Get this out here.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: I don't want to hear it. Thank you, Big.
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: White tails, big white tails, big white tails are great.
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: Hold fun it is to sit in the freezing cold
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: tree all day?
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: I hope sand dreams are high the rut.
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: He's finally here, Mark said, it's the most wonderful time
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: to kill o whitetail deer bingch points and pettings. Where
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: you'll find me hanging twenty feet in a tree, grunt
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: tubes my bowl inspector, Cambo. This really campy be he
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: or two ago I thought that this was fun, but
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: now I'm frozen to my seat, and the good times
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: they are gone, I've ate up all my snacks, my
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: hands and toes unnumb and we're gonna climb down from
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: my stand.
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: That son of a but decided to come out.
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: Those Beagy big white takes. Those you run bag big
• 7:25
  Speaker 5: big white tapes.
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: I love those Beeg big up yall eight shot gie
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: eat tails. I love those big white tails all day.
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: I don't know why this is happening. I swear to God, Officer,
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: what seems to be the problem here?
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: Oh this?
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: I don't know why this is happening. It must be
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: a malfunction, you know. Sometimes it happens when the batteries
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: run low.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: You don't know.
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: You don't need to smell that. That's just komboocha. I okay, yes,
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: you got me. It's ever clear and pacific cooler. Caprice Son.
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: I am so so sorry. I don't know why my
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: life has brought me here. Mark Marcus, I'm so sorry.
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: Enjoy the rut or whatever, good luck.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: by First Light and their new Whitetail line and their
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: Camel for Conservation initiative. All great stuff that we are
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: excited about. But we are also very excited because Today
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: is our twenty twenty four Whitetail Rut Extravaganza Galore Big
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: buck Fest podcast with me and Tony Peterson, And as
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: I just teased in the intro, we've got thirty nine
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: very specific, actionable, mind blowing, revolutionary whitetail rut hunting stratu Geez,
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: there we're going to share with you today. So I
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: hope you're ready for that. Tony are you? Are you
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: ready for that?
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: I am?
• 9:05
  Speaker 6: And I misunderstood the assignment because I have thirty nine
• 9:08
  Speaker 6: on my own, like one un guarantee dead mature buck
• 9:14
  Speaker 6: during the rut thirty perfect.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Well, then we came to the right place and the
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: right person, because you know, in all seriousness, everyone at
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: this time of year wants at least one more good idea, right.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: I think people will be listening to this podcast as
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: they're heading to their hunting camp or to public land,
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: or to their back forty or whatever it is for
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: the thing like this is that time of the year
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: we've all been dreaming of, we've all been waiting for
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: when this podcast airs. Let me confirm the date when
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: this podcast airs. It will be Halloween, October thirty first.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: I mean that's the kickoff, right.
• 9:52
  Speaker 6: Yeah, and there's a good coming through then through much
• 9:55
  Speaker 6: of the it's.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: It could be really good. So yeah, man, I want
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: to I jokingly said thirty nine, but I do have
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: an idea for something I want to do at the end.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: Here my idea here. Well I'll wait, I guess I'll
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: wait until we get to that point. But I do
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: want to share some real actionable ideas. But before that,
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: I did think it would be useful to kind of
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: lay out our own plans, what we've been doing, what
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: we're planning on doing over the next couple weeks. We
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: haven't had a big touch base since before the season.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: So I do know you just got back from a
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: hunt and you're about to leave for another hunt, So
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: can you give us like the quick rundown of North
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: Dakota and if there was anything from that? I know
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: that was like a mid October hunt, but is there
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: anything coming out of that that you're going to be
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: keeping in mind as you lead into the rut stuff?
• 10:46
  Speaker 6: Dude, that was maybe the most enjoyable hunt I've ever filmed.
• 10:50
  Speaker 6: I had and I missed a giant and had to
• 10:53
  Speaker 6: let him go a different time because camera guy couldn't
• 10:57
  Speaker 6: get on him because the way we were set up,
• 10:59
  Speaker 6: so I had I missed a legit one fifty eight
• 11:02
  Speaker 6: pointer that I snort weezed in who put on it.
• 11:06
  Speaker 6: It's probably the best big buck encounter I've ever filmed. Wow,
• 11:10
  Speaker 6: total like so freaking rad. And then caught up to
• 11:15
  Speaker 6: that buck two miles away, and a couple days later
• 11:19
  Speaker 6: had him raking a tree in front of me at
• 11:21
  Speaker 6: twenty one yards, perfect opening to his lungs and just
• 11:26
  Speaker 6: the way we were in separate trees and there was
• 11:28
  Speaker 6: one cedar tree between us, and so I'm looking at it.
• 11:31
  Speaker 6: I'm like, this is a dead buck. And the camera
• 11:33
  Speaker 6: guy's like, I don't have him. But the way he's
• 11:36
  Speaker 6: going to leave there, I'm like, the odds are pretty high.
• 11:38
  Speaker 6: He's going to give me a shot. And he just
• 11:40
  Speaker 6: took a route where I couldn't find an opening. And
• 11:43
  Speaker 6: so but I'll tell you what, I don't know what's
• 11:47
  Speaker 6: happening to me, but I was I have never been
• 11:50
  Speaker 6: I've never been more okay screwing up on a giant
• 11:54
  Speaker 6: and just letting one walk. And I ended up, you know,
• 11:57
  Speaker 6: I ended up, you know, finding a little success later.
• 12:00
  Speaker 6: But it was like just the whole hunt was so
• 12:04
  Speaker 6: fun and you just felt like you were in it.
• 12:06
  Speaker 6: And I'll tell you what. So I got out there
• 12:08
  Speaker 6: on I think October thirteenth, I saw a really good
• 12:14
  Speaker 6: buck chase hard. On October fourteenth, I saw another really
• 12:21
  Speaker 6: cool six pointer that was like out to his ears.
• 12:23
  Speaker 6: He just didn't have much for times I saw him chase.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: So in that week.
• 12:29
  Speaker 6: I already was seeing like big deer kind of just
• 12:33
  Speaker 6: bumping and doing their thing. And I don't I've only
• 12:36
  Speaker 6: been a little bit because I've only been home just
• 12:38
  Speaker 6: a little bit. But I had a morning the other
• 12:39
  Speaker 6: morning here where I had a two year old seven
• 12:42
  Speaker 6: pointer come in and he ran dose in this little
• 12:45
  Speaker 6: patch of woods. I was in for like two and
• 12:46
  Speaker 6: a half hours, and it was just like it has
• 12:51
  Speaker 6: me so excited. Like if you're listening to this, you're like, oh,
• 12:54
  Speaker 6: it's not kicking in yet or whatever. I'm like, you know,
• 12:56
  Speaker 6: you and I have talked about this this last week October,
• 13:00
  Speaker 6: those first couple of days in November. Man, you know,
• 13:02
  Speaker 6: everybody wants that like seven through the twelve through whatever,
• 13:05
  Speaker 6: but this time of year.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: It can just be freaking bonkers. Yeah, I love it.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: I do think you have a little bit of that.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, I know that you know, six seven, eight nine,
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: that's when a lot of does are ready to go,
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: and so there's a lot of bucks going after him.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: But you also have bucks getting locked down at that
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: time period. Two right, you're starting to get that happening.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: But right now October thirty, first November one too, you're
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: just getting a few dos in, but all the bucks
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: are ready to go. It's like you've got all the
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: bucks on their feet and nobody's locked down, or hardly
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: anyone's locked down. They're all searching. It's just it can
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: be great. I agree with you. I absolutely love it.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: And now I got to ask you a question though,
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: about your North Kota thing. Legitimately, you found that buck
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: two miles away within just a few days, so, and
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: I know this is a river you're hunting, so I
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: know they travel up and down that but did you
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, you must have been shocked when all of
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: a sudden you're seeing the same buck so far away. Dude,
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: it was wild.
• 14:05
  Speaker 6: I mean, in fact, when I glassed him and filmed
• 14:07
  Speaker 6: him through my spotter the first night I got there,
• 14:10
  Speaker 6: and he was with two other bucks that were like
• 14:13
  Speaker 6: one twenties type like good deer, and he was he
• 14:17
  Speaker 6: was six hundred yards into private when I saw him.
• 14:22
  Speaker 6: And where I ran into him, I found this little
• 14:24
  Speaker 6: crossing on this just like patch of brush in this
• 14:28
  Speaker 6: meadow and they were just using it. So I had
• 14:32
  Speaker 6: seen that buck or one of those three go through
• 14:36
  Speaker 6: there quick. I just got a glimpse of them through
• 14:37
  Speaker 6: my spotter, and then I picked him up down river
• 14:40
  Speaker 6: and so anyway, went in there, called him in the
• 14:42
  Speaker 6: you know, the first morning I had to hunt there,
• 14:45
  Speaker 6: screwed it up. He's gone shot hair off his back
• 14:48
  Speaker 6: like time to recoup. And I ended up hunting my
• 14:52
  Speaker 6: way the other direction down river to this area that
• 14:55
  Speaker 6: has just some really good bedding cover, you know, like
• 14:57
  Speaker 6: kind of that cedar scrub oak, you know, river bottom
• 15:00
  Speaker 6: flat type stuff. And what it was what happened to me,
• 15:04
  Speaker 6: And this is like a good lesson for anyone who's
• 15:06
  Speaker 6: not hunting like high deer densities is I had places
• 15:10
  Speaker 6: where they were just like they were covering a lot
• 15:12
  Speaker 6: of ground. I mean, we would watch these deer start
• 15:15
  Speaker 6: in one spot and by the time you were you
• 15:17
  Speaker 6: couldn't see him anymore. They were like a mile away
• 15:19
  Speaker 6: you know those those Western your cover ground, and so
• 15:23
  Speaker 6: I was kind of playing that game at the beginning,
• 15:25
  Speaker 6: and then I found I walked into this spot that
• 15:28
  Speaker 6: has this little cattle guzzler in it that I know about,
• 15:31
  Speaker 6: and it was getting hot, and I jumped like a
• 15:33
  Speaker 6: one fifty and a two year old bedded right by it,
• 15:37
  Speaker 6: and then yeah, and then it was yeah, and then
• 15:42
  Speaker 6: a couple more I actually jumped five deer walking in there,
• 15:46
  Speaker 6: and so I'm like, okay, I'm on a concentration here
• 15:50
  Speaker 6: in this.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: Little you know, like this is a little zone. And
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: that's where that buck went to after he encountered me.
• 15:56
  Speaker 6: So he traveled up river. He knew about those little
• 15:58
  Speaker 6: patches of cover, and he was hold up in there,
• 16:02
  Speaker 6: and there were mule deer hold up in there, and
• 16:04
  Speaker 6: he like, I was measuring them on on X you
• 16:07
  Speaker 6: know where you can do like the area shape thing,
• 16:09
  Speaker 6: and they're like five acres eight acres and so it's
• 16:13
  Speaker 6: like not much like you look at it and you're
• 16:16
  Speaker 6: like it's it's just the best stuff they had. And
• 16:20
  Speaker 6: there ended up being so many deer in there because
• 16:24
  Speaker 6: I don't I don't know if it was my pressure
• 16:25
  Speaker 6: on the river bottom or it was just like the
• 16:28
  Speaker 6: weather because it got you know, the weather changed a
• 16:30
  Speaker 6: lot on us. But it was a good lesson because
• 16:32
  Speaker 6: I was playing that travel game and then that died
• 16:35
  Speaker 6: on me. And as soon as I moved to where
• 16:37
  Speaker 6: it was like, we're creeping in right where they should
• 16:40
  Speaker 6: be bedded, where you're like, I don't know if we're
• 16:41
  Speaker 6: going to get away with it. Then all of a sudden,
• 16:44
  Speaker 6: there he is again, and you're like, and other deer too,
• 16:47
  Speaker 6: Like it was he wasn't the only one, and I
• 16:49
  Speaker 6: was like, man, so often on pressure deer or like
• 16:52
  Speaker 6: low density spots, that's the game. It's like it's like
• 16:56
  Speaker 6: an elk hunt, you know, where you're like, they're mostly
• 16:58
  Speaker 6: not here, even though great and there might be old sign,
• 17:01
  Speaker 6: but somewhere that concentration is and it actually reminded me
• 17:06
  Speaker 6: of a big woods hunt where I can see.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So you come off that and now tonight or
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: tomorrow you're leaving for Iowa public Land high deer density. Now, yep,
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: what's the what's the game plan? We talked about this
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: a little bit this summer when we were going through
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: our plans of the year. Because you've you've got high
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: hopes for this trip, But give me the latest. What's
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: the latest as far as your game plan? What do
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: you think you're gonna do?
• 17:36
  Speaker 6: So I just as a little context, I drew this
• 17:38
  Speaker 6: tag in twenty twenty, and that was when we filmed
• 17:41
  Speaker 6: back forty together, so I had to do early October hunts.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: Killed a good buck kill. The dough had had a
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: great time, like a freaking great time.
• 17:50
  Speaker 6: And I've been back down there because I tried a
• 17:52
  Speaker 6: turkey hunt there every year just to keep scouting it,
• 17:54
  Speaker 6: and I've actually been down there just to look around.
• 17:57
  Speaker 6: And I have this dilemma where I know this one
• 18:04
  Speaker 6: spot has big deer and it's got this really cool
• 18:07
  Speaker 6: meadow and people it's like a it's a hike to
• 18:09
  Speaker 6: get there, so people seem to not like concentrate on
• 18:12
  Speaker 6: it too much. And I know if I go volume
• 18:15
  Speaker 6: hunt that I'm gonna run into a deer that I
• 18:16
  Speaker 6: want to shoot, like it's just and I have the
• 18:19
  Speaker 6: wind for it coming up. The predicted wind is south
• 18:21
  Speaker 6: for like seven days, so I'm not gonna be playing
• 18:24
  Speaker 6: that changing wind game. But I also know it's gonna
• 18:28
  Speaker 6: be pretty hot. It's gonna be like eighty three one
• 18:30
  Speaker 6: day and so I'm like, should I Should I be
• 18:33
  Speaker 6: hunting the river bottoms and the little stream spots that
• 18:35
  Speaker 6: I have and then maybe some of the ponds, which
• 18:38
  Speaker 6: would make a better show if I'm you know, moving
• 18:41
  Speaker 6: around and trying to figure stuff out. Or do I
• 18:44
  Speaker 6: go take that DSD do up into that meadow and
• 18:47
  Speaker 6: put her twenty yards out.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: And just wait? And I don't.
• 18:52
  Speaker 6: I know what I would probably do if I wasn't filming,
• 18:55
  Speaker 6: and I would just go volume hunt that sucker and
• 18:57
  Speaker 6: just have a ton of fun, because it's you can
• 19:00
  Speaker 6: get in there in the morning if you plan it right,
• 19:01
  Speaker 6: and you can sit all day. But I'm like, should
• 19:05
  Speaker 6: I be looking around see if I could find a difference.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 19:08
  Speaker 6: And I have so many way points. I mean, I
• 19:10
  Speaker 6: couldn't sleep this morning. I woke up super early because
• 19:12
  Speaker 6: I'm like, this is so dumb. But I have so
• 19:17
  Speaker 6: many pins down there, and I had this pond marked
• 19:20
  Speaker 6: the last time I went down there, and it's like
• 19:23
  Speaker 6: tucked way in the woods and you could just like
• 19:25
  Speaker 6: see it if you're like really looking, and I cannot
• 19:29
  Speaker 6: freaking find that. And I'm like I'm getting to the
• 19:31
  Speaker 6: point where I'm like, did I imagine this, like what's
• 19:34
  Speaker 6: going on here? And I know I didn't because I
• 19:36
  Speaker 6: remember dropping it when I was dropping some turkey pins
• 19:40
  Speaker 6: and I was like, I gotta just look at that,
• 19:41
  Speaker 6: like I just got to run in there when I'm
• 19:43
  Speaker 6: running and gun in for turkeys and find it.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: And I can't find it. So I woke up this morning,
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm gonna find that freaking pond. And I didn't.
• 19:48
  Speaker 6: So I don't know what happened, like but I but
• 19:51
  Speaker 6: I I did find a different one, and I was like, Oh,
• 19:54
  Speaker 6: that's that's gonna work. So it's gonna be fun. I'm
• 19:58
  Speaker 6: very excited for this hunt.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: Uh So, if you had, if I put a gun
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: to your head and had to force you to pick
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: what you think you're actually gonna do, You're gonna go
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: the running gun waypoint chase or the value hunt.
• 20:14
  Speaker 6: I think I'm gonna think I'm gonna chase those waypoints
• 20:18
  Speaker 6: for a little bit.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: I think I'm not gun to my head.
• 20:24
  Speaker 6: You might as well just blow my brains out on
• 20:26
  Speaker 6: the wall body, because I don't know. I I'm not
• 20:29
  Speaker 6: sure yet when I get when I get down there,
• 20:31
  Speaker 6: i'll have a better feel for it. But it's hard
• 20:33
  Speaker 6: I mean that meadow is where I hit the biggest
• 20:35
  Speaker 6: buck I've ever shot at. I sent my buddy in
• 20:38
  Speaker 6: there last year. He had a giant which might have
• 20:40
  Speaker 6: been the same deer come into a decoy, and there's
• 20:44
  Speaker 6: a little bit of part of me that's like, if
• 20:46
  Speaker 6: that is the same deer, and from his description it
• 20:48
  Speaker 6: sounded like it and the exact same spot. I'm like,
• 20:53
  Speaker 6: if that deer made it through, you're talking about a
• 20:55
  Speaker 6: deer that like, you know, he said he thought it
• 20:57
  Speaker 6: was one pint eighty. When I hit it, I was
• 21:00
  Speaker 6: pretty confident in it was just a mainframe twelve that
• 21:02
  Speaker 6: was pushing one seventy. And so you're like, if that's
• 21:06
  Speaker 6: if that dear's still out there, it's kind of hard
• 21:09
  Speaker 6: not to go put some time and see if he
• 21:11
  Speaker 6: shows up.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: You know. And so if I were you, if I
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: were you, and I'm not, and I'm not giving you
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: advice because you don't need my advice, but I would
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: be sitting my butt right there and doing the thing
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: that's fun, the thing that you think would be most fun,
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: and the thing that gives you this possibility. Who cares
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: if it becomes a show that's not that great. I
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: think it's almost more interesting of a show when you
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: do this thing. They're like, man, this could be this
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: could be brutal just sitting here NonStop, but it also
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: might be the best thing ever. And the decoy thing
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: is gonna be so cool. And even if you don't
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: see that buck, there's gonna be other bucks. They're gonna
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: get cool interactions.
• 21:51
  Speaker 6: I don't know, Yeah, I know, I know when I
• 21:55
  Speaker 6: hit that buck, I saw six other bucks on that
• 21:58
  Speaker 6: That was the first day, first morning of the season,
• 22:01
  Speaker 6: and it was they were They weren't obviously that big,
• 22:05
  Speaker 6: but there were like one thirty one, twenty five, like
• 22:08
  Speaker 6: there were bucks, and some of those deer. Because I
• 22:12
  Speaker 6: hunted there again, I saw them again in there, So
• 22:15
  Speaker 6: you're like, yeah, so I might. I don't know. It's
• 22:19
  Speaker 6: gonna be hard not to. Plus it's just a you
• 22:21
  Speaker 6: know how it is, like it's just a really cool
• 22:25
  Speaker 6: setup that you can get into in the morning if
• 22:28
  Speaker 6: you do it right, Like you you gotta climb a
• 22:30
  Speaker 6: big bluff and you gotta sneak in there a little bit.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: But if you if you do it right, you have
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: action from the like the get go. Can you can
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: you help me understand a little better why this spot's
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: so good for that pre rut rut time period. Like
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: you said, there's a meadow, you say it's far away
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: from the road, but but break down a little bit
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: more for me, like how this sets up why there's
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: so many bucks moving through here during the rut. So
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: there's a couple of things, you know how those and
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: then also sorry, one more edition also I'd love to know,
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: like how you're gonna set up on this too, accounting
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: for deer travel wind et cetera.
• 23:16
  Speaker 6: Right, So you know how much dear love, especially in
• 23:21
  Speaker 6: like an egg heavy area. They love CRP type grass.
• 23:24
  Speaker 6: They love like sumac islands, like that brushy, soft edgy stuff.
• 23:30
  Speaker 6: This has that, and what it where it has it
• 23:33
  Speaker 6: is on top of a ridge. It's not that easy
• 23:36
  Speaker 6: to get to, and it feeds to a private uh
• 23:40
  Speaker 6: it's usually alfalfa. You can see it just barely, but
• 23:44
  Speaker 6: a private egg field that I'm sure probably gets hunted
• 23:47
  Speaker 6: but doesn't get hunted like public land does. And so
• 23:49
  Speaker 6: those deer they can bet on that ridgetop, they can
• 23:53
  Speaker 6: they can leave their sign on that that meadow. There's visibility.
• 23:57
  Speaker 6: They stage there morning and evening, and they can get
• 24:00
  Speaker 6: to a private field that's totally walled in. On top
• 24:04
  Speaker 6: of that, you can look at it on on X
• 24:06
  Speaker 6: and see that like there's nobody's gonna see it from
• 24:08
  Speaker 6: the road, nobody's gonna mess with it. So I think
• 24:10
  Speaker 6: they're just very comfortable and it's just far enough where
• 24:14
  Speaker 6: it's like there's so much good stuff you kind of
• 24:18
  Speaker 6: got to go by to get there, and like it's
• 24:20
  Speaker 6: just not a it's just the right setup, man. And
• 24:23
  Speaker 6: I haven't I haven't explored the whole area because every
• 24:26
  Speaker 6: time I've been there, I've been hunting. But I have
• 24:28
  Speaker 6: I've killed some turkeys in there and looked around, and
• 24:31
  Speaker 6: it has it has probably the best betting cover aside
• 24:36
  Speaker 6: from that meadow. There's some like pine tree kind of
• 24:38
  Speaker 6: scrubby hillsides in there, and so it has like if
• 24:43
  Speaker 6: you were going to put a big buck in that
• 24:45
  Speaker 6: area and he was going to find a place on
• 24:47
  Speaker 6: public that was real safe, like just you know, like
• 24:51
  Speaker 6: escape routes betting cover wise, he can he can move
• 24:55
  Speaker 6: in daylight and not expose himself. He's probably not gonna
• 24:58
  Speaker 6: get like overrun with people. I mean, I found cameras
• 25:01
  Speaker 6: in there, and stands like it's not a total secret,
• 25:05
  Speaker 6: but it's just the right stuff. And you know how
• 25:08
  Speaker 6: it is down there, even though there's quite a bit
• 25:11
  Speaker 6: of woods where I'm hunting, like relative to a lot
• 25:14
  Speaker 6: of Iowa, it's also that unbelievably beautiful deciduous forest that's
• 25:20
  Speaker 6: pretty open. And so when you get to like a
• 25:22
  Speaker 6: river bottom and you have that change and some of
• 25:25
  Speaker 6: the you know a little more high stem count stuff,
• 25:27
  Speaker 6: and you're like, okay, this is this is a different thing.
• 25:31
  Speaker 6: Even though it's a small patch of cover, that's a magnet,
• 25:34
  Speaker 6: you know. And I think a lot of people walk
• 25:36
  Speaker 6: in and there's so many good trees to set up
• 25:38
  Speaker 6: in and it looks like beautiful woods that a lot
• 25:40
  Speaker 6: of them sort of just like one layer in. I'm
• 25:43
  Speaker 6: good because look at there's rubs here, there's scrapes. But
• 25:46
  Speaker 6: when you want that all day sit and you want
• 25:48
  Speaker 6: those the bigger deer there, you know how it is
• 25:51
  Speaker 6: like you better get you better get somewhere with that
• 25:54
  Speaker 6: security cover and it's not there's not a ton.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: Of it on this in this area. So you've got
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: this CRP issue thick meadowee zone that is then surrounded
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: by that matured deciduous forest and then it feeds out
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: down the ridge to this field. Are you then hunting
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: like the downwind side of that CRP field or how
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: are you setting up in relationship?
• 26:16
  Speaker 6: Yep, yep. So I mean the way that it's sort
• 26:21
  Speaker 6: of shaped, you can get away with just about anything,
• 26:26
  Speaker 6: so you can you can set up one side for
• 26:27
  Speaker 6: a north wind, one side for a south wind, and
• 26:30
  Speaker 6: if you get some west in there, which you often do.
• 26:33
  Speaker 6: It's sort of like a wonky shape, so you can
• 26:35
  Speaker 6: always get into a point or something and your sense
• 26:38
  Speaker 6: generally gonna fall off because it's really bluffy, and so
• 26:42
  Speaker 6: you just have and and there's a there's a fair
• 26:44
  Speaker 6: amount of seedars in there too, so if you just
• 26:46
  Speaker 6: got to tuck into the ground for whatever reason, it's
• 26:49
  Speaker 6: it's huntable no matter what winds you get. You know,
• 26:52
  Speaker 6: it's if it would be different though, if you had
• 26:54
  Speaker 6: to cross it, you know for a morning sit like
• 26:57
  Speaker 6: I climb up to the edge, especially with a south
• 26:59
  Speaker 6: or a wet wind, and I don't have to expose
• 27:02
  Speaker 6: myself in it. If you if you had to, that
• 27:04
  Speaker 6: would be a little different story. So you'd have to
• 27:06
  Speaker 6: you'd have to play that game a little bit. But
• 27:08
  Speaker 6: it's just just one of those areas, man, And you
• 27:11
  Speaker 6: know they're visible enough so you can call to them.
• 27:13
  Speaker 6: They just there's just enough of that like sumac type
• 27:17
  Speaker 6: brush that they always just gravitate toward. And you know,
• 27:21
  Speaker 6: like when you see them leave a field at first
• 27:24
  Speaker 6: light or whenever they they start heading back to bed,
• 27:27
  Speaker 6: they often hit those spots where they'll kill a couple hours,
• 27:31
  Speaker 6: you know, just milling around, right, but they're not they're
• 27:34
  Speaker 6: not visible visible, but they're kind of visible, and they're
• 27:37
  Speaker 6: just like I think those deer they just sort of
• 27:41
  Speaker 6: have that moment of dumb where they're like, I kind
• 27:44
  Speaker 6: of I don't want to go back to bed, yet
• 27:46
  Speaker 6: I'm feeling it, like I'm making that rub. So when
• 27:48
  Speaker 6: you call to those deer they catch sight of a decoy,
• 27:50
  Speaker 6: they're like they're just sort of like more open to working.
• 27:55
  Speaker 6: And that's like that's the beauty of those spots.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: Man. I like the sound of it a lot, dude.
• 28:02
  Speaker 6: I have so many freaking pins drop down there because
• 28:06
  Speaker 6: it's like, you know, might play the water game because
• 28:09
  Speaker 6: it's going to be hot, but it's so bluffy, like
• 28:12
  Speaker 6: real bluffs that you get these pinch points along the
• 28:15
  Speaker 6: rivers that are like to me, are just so reliable
• 28:20
  Speaker 6: during the rut where you can look and you're like,
• 28:22
  Speaker 6: get that one flat where a valley comes in, and
• 28:24
  Speaker 6: then it's just a wall, like a vertical wall for
• 28:28
  Speaker 6: six hundred yards, and then there's another valley there and
• 28:31
  Speaker 6: you're like, you know, those are littered with sign and
• 28:34
  Speaker 6: deer crossing all over. But to get between them, you know,
• 28:36
  Speaker 6: they might go halfway up the hill or something, but
• 28:38
  Speaker 6: most of the time there's that banging trail right along
• 28:41
  Speaker 6: the bottom, and your wind can blow over the river
• 28:43
  Speaker 6: and you're like, everybody who's got us, who wants to
• 28:46
  Speaker 6: see both places, is going to go through there?
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no short options. No, I'm excited, dude. Okay, so
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: that's your first rut trip and then if you or
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: when you tag out there, you're then start hitting the
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: Minnesota Wisconsin stuff. Yeah.
• 29:03
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I h my one of my daughters has a
• 29:06
  Speaker 6: buck tag left to fill and then in Wisconsin, and
• 29:09
  Speaker 6: then both of them have Minnesota tags. So I have
• 29:12
  Speaker 6: a I have a weird situation here at Minnesota where
• 29:14
  Speaker 6: it's kind of hard to get them out, Like I
• 29:16
  Speaker 6: have a place I can take them sometimes. But it's
• 29:19
  Speaker 6: a long story, but I My plan is get over
• 29:23
  Speaker 6: Wisconsin with them and get one more good hunt with
• 29:27
  Speaker 6: them in before you know, I'm gonna go. I gotta
• 29:30
  Speaker 6: go sit for myself here at some point. But yeah,
• 29:33
  Speaker 6: I'm excited. I'm gonna be I fully intend to watch
• 29:37
  Speaker 6: at least a couple of Bucks get shot on a
• 29:39
  Speaker 6: decoy here in the next I don't know, three weeks.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: I would say. It's exciting. I'm gonna I'm gonna barrage
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: you with some more questions about the decoy setup in
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: a little bit, but we'll save that for our little
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: tactic showdown. Perfect, all right, I guess I'll walk you
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: through my situation then, and then we can we can
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: talk some strategy. So since we last talked, you know,
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: I killed mid October buck and then re examined some
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: of my main Michigan stuff, did a hunt, did a
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: kind of scouting day, moving cameras around, shifting some stuff around,
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: trying to find the deer I have been after down
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: in southern Michigan, and they've kind of disappeared off the map.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: When we talked in August, I had two bucks that
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: I was after, and they had been really consistent the
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: two years prior and they were really consistent all summer,
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: and then one of them disappeared on September third, nothing
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: and then one of them stayed consistent until October third,
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: and then he disappeared. That buck has still not shown
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: up a single time on trail camera or in any
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: of the times i've been out glass and I haven't
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: seen that deer. That's this big, tall ten pointer that
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: we're referring to as bear, he's missing. The other one
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: was this buck that's missing an eye. I found his
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: match set the spring. He's a five year old, and he,
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: you know, was so consistent years past, and he disappeared,
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: like I said, September third, for six weeks, didn't see
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: hide or hair of him, and then I got one
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: trail camera video of him this past weekend and that's it.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: So I have one confirmation of life in a seven
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: week period.
• 31:31
  Speaker 6: What do you think has happened?
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: Dude? I have zero idea. I mean, he's a five
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: year old, and usually when they get that old, they're
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: pretty well settled into their thing, you know. I don't
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: think I've ever had a buck that was really consistent
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: at three and four and then just totally changed at five.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: And I went back and looked at my pictures and observations,
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: like my notes from last year, and from October through December,
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: really through February of last year, almost every single day
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: I had him on one of the properties I can
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: hunt and a lot of daylight, a lot of activities
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: all over the place for the last two years. And
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: now he's just gone and I haven't. And it's not
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: because I've been in there. Like I have not gone
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: into the core of this property and this couple of
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: properties at all. I've not hunted it yet. So I
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: have glassed from the road, I've hunted edge stuff and
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: glass that done. Observation stands. I have a good number
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: of cameras around in places that historically he's been hitting.
• 32:29
  Speaker 6: I don't know, dude, I'm gonna throw a theory out
• 32:33
  Speaker 6: here just because of something I ran into, and I'm
• 32:36
  Speaker 6: probably pretty sure it's not your case. But I've had
• 32:41
  Speaker 6: so this property I'm hunting by my house. The deer
• 32:45
  Speaker 6: mostly disappeared except for this one little woodlot, and I
• 32:49
  Speaker 6: actually took one of my daughters in there. We were
• 32:51
  Speaker 6: mostly trying to call in a turkey, but maybe a
• 32:53
  Speaker 6: deer is going to come in. And I kept I
• 32:54
  Speaker 6: called in three flocks of turkeys and it was chaos.
• 32:58
  Speaker 6: They were scratching the whole time. The amount of like
• 33:01
  Speaker 6: fresh acorns that we were dealing with in there was
• 33:04
  Speaker 6: like for this time of year. It really caught me
• 33:07
  Speaker 6: off guard. And then where I saw that two year
• 33:09
  Speaker 6: old chase in the other morning, I saw ten deer
• 33:12
  Speaker 6: off the stand, which is a lot like usually I
• 33:14
  Speaker 6: don't see any deer on this property. Every one of them,
• 33:19
  Speaker 6: three bucks, seven dozen fawns all hit like a small
• 33:24
  Speaker 6: patch of oaks that I know they weren't hitting a
• 33:28
  Speaker 6: couple weeks ago because I was in there and killed
• 33:30
  Speaker 6: a deer. Like I'm like, it's crazy when something like
• 33:35
  Speaker 6: that happens, where you're like, I don't factor acorns into
• 33:39
  Speaker 6: this time of year ever, But last year in North
• 33:42
  Speaker 6: Dakota on that film that just dropped, those deer were
• 33:45
  Speaker 6: on specific trees, you know. I mean it's plain stuff,
• 33:48
  Speaker 6: so they're not that many trees. But those bucks were
• 33:51
  Speaker 6: like it was clearly like that was the destination. It's
• 33:55
  Speaker 6: not like there isn't a whole bunch of egg around there.
• 33:57
  Speaker 6: There's a ton of it, you know, but they were
• 33:59
  Speaker 6: like they weren't chasing last year during that blizzard, it
• 34:02
  Speaker 6: was like they were going to that freaking tree or
• 34:05
  Speaker 6: another tree to eat. And then I'm seeing it again
• 34:08
  Speaker 6: now and I'm like, are we kind of like missing
• 34:10
  Speaker 6: something like that? Where is it?
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: Like?
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: Did they just move over to bulk up on that
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: food source, you know, and they go get back?
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: I hope that's the case. I hope that they're just
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: back in there. And you know, I've got one camera
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: back in a kind of oak flatty area, but that
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: camera stopped sending pictures recently, so you know, maybe that's
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: that's the thing, but I should Here's my plan, given
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: given this mystery. I've been you know, playing it safe
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: waiting in this case. But it's the end of October.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: Now I'm gonna go on discovery mode and I'm going
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: to go in and just start searching because at this
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: point there's there's no use hunting the stuff. I have
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: been hunting where they are not, and they have been
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: showing the places that I've been able to see to
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: this point. So now I'm gonna start going and seeing
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: these places that I have not observed yet. I'm just
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: gonna I'm gonna explore and try to rEFInd them. So
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: tonight tomorrow, this whole upcoming like four day, four five days,
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna go and check out spots that I have
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: not touched yet this year. Search it out, look for signs,
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: scout hunt spots where I can see a little ways,
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: but be back and cover. I'm gonna start hunting mornings now,
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: tight to the edge of some of these betting areas,
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: back in some of these oak flats. And you know
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: that should tell me something, hopefully.
• 35:30
  Speaker 6: And aren't you doing an up north hunt too.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: Yes, Ish, I am doing this is like a I'm
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: not sure you know about this most recent shift, but
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: I'm doing just a quick two day off north hunt
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: with my dad. We're gonna try to get back up
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: to our deer camp here like very beginning of November
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: and try to get him. We were trying to get
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: him an archer buck last year up there. We spent
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: like about a week and had like horrible conditions and
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: very very slow up movement. But man, the deer are
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: There's some big deer up there this year and a
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: lot of I mean relatively for us, a lot of bucks,
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: and so I just know it's a matter of time
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: before it's gonna work out, and I'd really love to
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: be up there with him. So I'm able to get
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: up there for two days with him at the beginning
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: of November. So we're gonna do that, hopefully get a
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: crack for him. Do you do you have a spot
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: there where you could run that dough decoy? Yeah, but
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: I mean yeah, we have, Like I just worry'd be
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: so tight. I'd be worried about. You know, I've got
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: like the biggest opening I could do it is our
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: It's like a half acre food plot, maybe maybe three
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: quarters of an acre, And I just I don't I've
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: never thought about using decoys up there, just in a
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: low deer density area. I don't know you've done that
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: up north in northern Wisconsin. So you tell me, is
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: that crazy to try that? Would they come out of
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: that thick stuff and come into this little opening and
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: be shocked by that? Or do you think that might
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: be I don't know.
• 36:59
  Speaker 6: I mean, I'd have to see it, but a dough
• 37:01
  Speaker 6: decoy I would consider. And I mean I think that
• 37:05
  Speaker 6: that was sort of the secret to our success last year,
• 37:07
  Speaker 6: was the load deer density thing. I mean, you think
• 37:09
  Speaker 6: about those bucks up there, and you know how it
• 37:11
  Speaker 6: is like you can hunt a week and see like
• 37:14
  Speaker 6: three deer, you know, and so they're dealing with that
• 37:18
  Speaker 6: load deer density too. So if they pop in the
• 37:20
  Speaker 6: other end of the food plot and they see a
• 37:22
  Speaker 6: dough over there, you know they're coming. Like if you
• 37:25
  Speaker 6: get a buck that sees that, he's gonna go check
• 37:27
  Speaker 6: it out.
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: And I guess, like the thing I always worry about
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: decoys is that does come on it freak out, make
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: a whole hubbub and spook everything. But there's not that
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: many doughs in this area, so the chances of that
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: happening are relatively low. And even if it does happen,
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: it's a relatively low odds that that's gonna blow up.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: You know, the one buck that might be half a
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: mile away at the moment, who's still cruising our direction,
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: you know. I mean, it's not like there's twenty deer
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: all around that are going to get messed up.
• 37:55
  Speaker 6: Dude, I don't. I haven't had as many really bad
• 37:59
  Speaker 6: dough reactions out of that DSD dough as some of
• 38:01
  Speaker 6: the other ones I've used in the past, But it's
• 38:03
  Speaker 6: still when you think about that possibility, and then you
• 38:07
  Speaker 6: think about putting it on a relatively small opening, like
• 38:11
  Speaker 6: you don't You definitely don't want to surprise dose with
• 38:13
  Speaker 6: a decoy, you know, like you could get away with
• 38:16
  Speaker 6: it with some bucks for sure, but does are not
• 38:19
  Speaker 6: gonna right, They're not gonna treat you very well.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an interesting idea though, although now as you
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: say it, it's it's outside of my possibility set because
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: I don't have a dough decoy. I've got the buck,
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: but I don't have the dough. Make that phone call, buddy,
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: send that email. I guess.
• 38:38
  Speaker 6: You're Mark Kenyon.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: That's never worked for me before, Tony, but I'll try.
• 38:42
  Speaker 6: You're one of the.
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: Top one hundred hunters in that one corner of Michigan
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: where you live. That might that might be true, that
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: one little corner. That's that's a bet I'm willing to take.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: I got to ask you another question, though, I got
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: to pose another dilemma for you. So in that Southern Michigan,
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: back to Southern Michigan, I'm telling you about how I've
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: lost my two bucks that I know for sure mature,
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: and my plan is to try to find them and
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: seek kind of just explore the area. But I have
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: this other possible situation that I'm torn, and that is
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: this buck that I sent you pictures and videos of.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: He showed up for the first time the day I
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: killed that really tall browton buck in mid October in
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: a different area, and I was back scouting in this
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: area the next I guess it would have been probably
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: the next day I was glassing and saw this year,
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: and so that was mid October. And since then, so
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: the last almost two weeks now, he's been all over
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: these properties and daylighting and showing up a bunch. He
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: wants to get shot, but I can't decide what to
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: do about him because I'm I'm a little worried. He's three,
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: and I don't like to shoot three year olds in
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: this area because I know, like, if I don't, there's
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: a decent chance they can make it to four or five.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: And that's usually what I'm the last handful of years,
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: I've been just chasing five year olds, And so this
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: deer is like a tweener. I'm like, is he three?
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: Is he four? Do I want to hold out for
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: the deer I know armature and the hunt for a while,
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: or is this is a pretty darn nice buck. I
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: certainly wouldn't pass this deer if I was like traveling
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: somewhere on a quick hunt, or on public land, or
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: like you know, something where I was time limited. But
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: in this situation where I know the area, I have time,
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: I don't know what to do. Tony, what are your
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: thoughts on that buck? In my situation? That son of
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: a bitch who cares? I knew, I knew that's what
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: you were to say. First off, shoot.
• 40:42
  Speaker 6: Him and send in his teeth, and then come back
• 40:44
  Speaker 6: to me and tell me how what he ages, because
• 40:47
  Speaker 6: you might be very surprised. Secondly, shoot that son of
• 40:50
  Speaker 6: a bitch who cares? He is a nice dear is Mark,
• 40:55
  Speaker 6: you work in the hunting industry, Shoot him and go
• 40:57
  Speaker 6: out of state, go somewhere else.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: I know, I know. I also I'm torn, man, I'm
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: torn because I also I also like, I like the
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: idea of shooting a nice buck, but then I also
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: liked the idea of trying to find like the really
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: old one that I know well, and like, I know
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: that that doesn't do it for you. But I also
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: am like as massa masochist, I guess i'd be like
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: I kind of like the suffering of like waiting to
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: try to find that deer. So I don't I really
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: don't know.
• 41:28
  Speaker 6: And that's just a different calculus though. I mean, you
• 41:31
  Speaker 6: can do that because you have a legitimate chance of
• 41:33
  Speaker 6: letting him go and having him.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: Come back, you know. But I I just shoot him.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: I mean like, like, I mean, I recognize like this is.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: It would be different if it was a trip where
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: I knew I didn't have any other time. But this
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: is like the situation where what I here's what happened.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: If I shoot that deer, I'd be happy and it'd
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: be a great experience and a cool deer. But if
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: one of those other two bucks all of a sudden
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: showed up the next week and was like all over
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: the place, then I'd be kicking myself and I'd be like, oh, man,
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: I should have waited, because now this buck's back that
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: I really really was wanting to get after. And then
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: I'd be getting pictures of him all fall or I'd
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: go out there two does and I'd be seeing these
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: bucks and I'd be thinking, Ah, what an idiot. I
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: should have waited because look at that tank. He's a monster.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: And I don't know if that's how I feel or not.
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: But that's what I'm worried about. So that's how I
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: don't know. It's all gonna probably come down to if
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: that deer shows up in front of me, how I
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: feel and if it gets me freaking out excited or not.
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: But I do know every time when I've been out
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: glassing and I've caught him in my bios a couple
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: of times, and I've been out there and filmed him,
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: saw him and both times I was like, HOA, whoa
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: big buck, and the I'm like, oh, it's that one buck.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: But at first I'm always like whoa, So that's an
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: impressive deer. I've been thinking about this a lot. H
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: I don't think.
• 42:55
  Speaker 6: I think that you should step back from looking at
• 42:57
  Speaker 6: white tail hunting like it's such an academic per suit
• 43:00
  Speaker 6: and look at it and go, would it be really
• 43:03
  Speaker 6: fun for you to go, you know what, that's some
• 43:04
  Speaker 6: bitch is number one on my list and I'm going
• 43:06
  Speaker 6: to go in and try to kill him? Or would
• 43:08
  Speaker 6: it not be fun?
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm?
• 43:13
  Speaker 6: Would you enjoy that?
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: I don't know. That's that's That's here's the thing. Tony
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: is like, if I didn't I was actually talking to
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: one of our mutual friends about this just yesterday and
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: how I'm moosette Garrett. Oh and dude, let me tell
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: you Garrett story quick. He listens to this podcast, so
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: be warned.
• 43:38
  Speaker 6: I know it's great. I talked to him this morning
• 43:41
  Speaker 6: and he answered the phone and he's like, I'm like, dude,
• 43:45
  Speaker 6: I catch you in a workout or what.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: He's like, No, I'm just coyote hunting. I just shot
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: a coyote. I was like, whoa buddy. Anyway, he gets
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: really into it. Yeah. Yeah. So we were just talking
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: the other day though about this very thing and how
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: you and I are actually so different on this. You
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: as you just described, like the most fun thing for
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: you would be shooting a buck, you know that you
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: get the chance at And I was kind of talking
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: Togair about how I totally get that, but I'm kind
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: of the opposite, and that I actually might enjoy the
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: pursuit of the thing that I am, like, actually the
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: thing I set my sights on originally for whatever reason,
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: I'd be fine not killing anything but then pursuing that possibility.
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: So if I didn't feel any kind of pressure to
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: fill a tag because of what we do and everything,
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: I might not kill buck for years at a time,
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: maybe if there wasn't the deer that I was really
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: excited about in certain situations like this where I can
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: do that. So I don't know, but I'm I'm, like
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: I said, I'm very torn on this because sometimes you
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: like a surpressed surprise is great, and you take a gift,
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: you know, you don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: And then sometimes I'm like, gosh, I really do love
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: the you know, try to figure this buck out kind
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: of deal.
• 45:02
  Speaker 6: So let me ask you this about your hunting, because
• 45:05
  Speaker 6: one of the reasons that I have gone the route
• 45:07
  Speaker 6: that I go is because it's just, for whatever reason,
• 45:11
  Speaker 6: my favorite thing is to walk out on public land
• 45:13
  Speaker 6: and figure it out. Like I just the years that
• 45:16
  Speaker 6: I don't get to do that enough, I feel like
• 45:18
  Speaker 6: I'm missing something, you know, and I listen. I like
• 45:20
  Speaker 6: the private land hunts. I like setting up stands ahead
• 45:22
  Speaker 6: of time, like I understand it and I like it.
• 45:25
  Speaker 6: But that's like just the thing that hums for me.
• 45:28
  Speaker 6: I'm wondering with you, like, do you think at this
• 45:33
  Speaker 6: point you've got those deer figured out well enough where
• 45:35
  Speaker 6: you know, like, you know, this buck if he's daylighting
• 45:39
  Speaker 6: a whole bunch, and he's been there and he's on
• 45:40
  Speaker 6: all your cameras, there's probably a pretty good chance you're
• 45:43
  Speaker 6: going to go work that deer and kill him, right,
• 45:46
  Speaker 6: And so is this one of those things where you're like,
• 45:48
  Speaker 6: you've you've gotten to know these deer in this area
• 45:51
  Speaker 6: so well that like there's just a miss, even though
• 45:54
  Speaker 6: that that buck would look amazing and like definitely would
• 45:58
  Speaker 6: be a deer almost everybody would shoot, But for you,
• 46:01
  Speaker 6: because of this specific circumstance and the amount of time
• 46:04
  Speaker 6: you put in, you're like torn between trying to represent
• 46:07
  Speaker 6: the person who would shoot that deer because most people would,
• 46:11
  Speaker 6: but in your very specific situation, it's just not going
• 46:14
  Speaker 6: to give you what you need out of a hunt
• 46:17
  Speaker 6: for a deer.
• 46:17
  Speaker 5: There.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, something like that kind of maybe feels like what
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: I'm feeling where it almost feels like I don't know,
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: I'm having a hard time even explain it to myself,
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: but but yeah, for whatever reason, I kind of feel
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: like it almost seems too easy to kill that deer
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: right now, just based on man, he's been everywhere and
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: I've been seeing him and I've not gone in after
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: him because I'm waiting and waiting for this other deer
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: to show back up. And then when I got proof
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: of life of the five year old, I was like, oh, man,
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: like that's the buck. I really want to get a
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: crack app But I don't know if this deer. If
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: this deer marches in front of me at twenty yards
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: and just hangs out working a scrape tonight, who knows.
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: Maybe in the moment, I'm just gonna have to send it.
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: I don't know, but I mean, so there.
• 47:08
  Speaker 6: The real lesson here, though, I think, is if people
• 47:11
  Speaker 6: are listening to this, they're like, I would go in
• 47:14
  Speaker 6: there and shoot that deer, Like I would be so
• 47:16
  Speaker 6: happy to have that setup. But it's like a careful
• 47:20
  Speaker 6: what you wish for a thing, you know, and people
• 47:22
  Speaker 6: people like say this to me a lot. Like I
• 47:24
  Speaker 6: own those two properties in Wisconsin. I almost never hunt them.
• 47:27
  Speaker 6: I almost always just go hunt the Big Woods public
• 47:30
  Speaker 6: land because I just like it better. And it's like
• 47:33
  Speaker 6: you just have to go. We're so focused on like
• 47:37
  Speaker 6: got to kill whatever size of buck, and this is
• 47:41
  Speaker 6: like just like across the board with hunters. But you
• 47:45
  Speaker 6: get enough experience and enough time out there and you go,
• 47:48
  Speaker 6: what is the thing that really like I want to
• 47:51
  Speaker 6: go out there today for and you know, it changes.
• 47:55
  Speaker 6: Like I was thinking about this when I missed that
• 47:57
  Speaker 6: big one in North Dakota. I was like, that of
• 48:00
  Speaker 6: wrecked me. I mean when I you know, ten fifteen
• 48:03
  Speaker 6: years ago, that would have been like a season ruining thing.
• 48:06
  Speaker 6: And I was like, I don't even really care, like
• 48:09
  Speaker 6: because I get to keep doing this thing I want
• 48:12
  Speaker 6: to do so bad in a place I want to
• 48:13
  Speaker 6: do it in. And so I think that the hard
• 48:15
  Speaker 6: part that we have is we understand that there's that difference, right,
• 48:19
  Speaker 6: like you understand what you're saying, like you know in
• 48:21
  Speaker 6: your heart what you want to do. You don't really
• 48:23
  Speaker 6: want to kill this deer because you know you're going
• 48:25
  Speaker 6: to kill him probably, and so it's like whatever, like
• 48:28
  Speaker 6: I want that next thing. And that's a hard message
• 48:32
  Speaker 6: to pass on to people because not everybody has that spot.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: Well. And I think I think here's where I settle
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: on And what for anyone listening to this and thinking
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: we sound like crazy people, which is probably the case.
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: I think where I'm at and what I might suggest
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: people take away from all this is to just do
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: what's fun for you and to not care about what
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: other people think. That's what I'm trying to remind myself,
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: is I think I'm getting I'm feeling this like internal
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: pressure in my head of like people will think you're
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: nuts if you don't kill that deer, you're stupid. And
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: then if I don't kill a buck out here, then
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: they'll think I'm doubly stupid because I passed on that
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: super nice buck that anyone who's not a lunatic in
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: Michigan would shoot. But what might actually be most fun
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: for me might be passed on that deer. And just
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: seeing if the possibility of one of these two older
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: bucks coming back does pan out, that might end up
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: being what's most fun for me would give me the
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: most joy. And I think I'm just gonna what I
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: what I am gonna do is I'm gonna trust my
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: gut and trust what is most enjoyable for me despite
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: any outside pressures or outside perspectives that in saying that,
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: that also might in the moment change and it might
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: be man, that deer is awesome seeing him up close,
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: and I got I you want to take a crack
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: of that deer. Maybe that'll turn out to be the case.
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: But maybe it'll be the opposite. Maybe I'll watch him
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: be like, man, that's a beautiful deer. I'd love to
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: see him next year or late maybe even later this year.
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: But for now, I want to kind of see how
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: the next couple of weeks spans out, and maybe one
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: of these other deer comes back, and and you know what,
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: I you know, I've got enough meat in the freezer
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: by the you know, by the two bucks I've killed already,
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: and the doughs I'm going to kill in the coming
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: you know, month or two. And if I don't kill
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: a second Michigan buck, I'll survive, or maybe I do,
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: And then I'm sitting really pretty But I guess I
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: kind of want to just get back to just making
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: sure it's fun, you know, and do it for your
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: own reason. Every one of us has a different little
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: thing that we prefer. Like you just describe, You've got
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: a certain thing that really hums for you. I've got
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: a certain thing that really hums for me. Everyone's different.
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: And the more we can remove any outside noise and
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: not worry about what our friends would think, or what
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: the neighbors would think, or what anyone on social media
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: would think. I think we'd be a lot happier hunters
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: if we did.
• 51:02
  Speaker 6: That, right. I mean, I'll give you an example to
• 51:04
  Speaker 6: frame this up, you know, like I write a lot
• 51:06
  Speaker 6: about just figure out how to hunt a spot, Like
• 51:09
  Speaker 6: if you find a spot like that meatow I'm talking about, right,
• 51:11
  Speaker 6: if you didn't have good trees there, I'd be on
• 51:13
  Speaker 6: the ground in a heartbeat, you know, ground blind, no groundblind,
• 51:17
  Speaker 6: natural blind, whatever. And I pushed that partially because it's
• 51:20
  Speaker 6: just good advice, like if you if you find where
• 51:22
  Speaker 6: the deer are, you should just figure out how to
• 51:24
  Speaker 6: hunt them. But also sometimes you just figure out the
• 51:27
  Speaker 6: stuff that's just more fun. Like with my daughters, we've
• 51:30
  Speaker 6: been in pop up ground lines their whole hunting career
• 51:34
  Speaker 6: turkeys and deer up until last year just a little
• 51:38
  Speaker 6: bit I started taking them out and just having them
• 51:40
  Speaker 6: sit on the ground and we do a natural groundbline.
• 51:42
  Speaker 6: And then this year they both killed deer in Wisconsin
• 51:47
  Speaker 6: from just natural groundblines where you're way more exposed and
• 51:50
  Speaker 6: you see them coming. And both of my daughters were like,
• 51:52
  Speaker 6: I don't ever want to get back in to pop up.
• 51:55
  Speaker 6: This is better. And so we tend to kind of
• 51:58
  Speaker 6: lean toward what is like what's like the easiest, most
• 52:02
  Speaker 6: effective way, you know, and so like a like a
• 52:04
  Speaker 6: box blind is a great example, right, Like I have
• 52:06
  Speaker 6: a lot of buddies who they almost only hunt rednecks
• 52:09
  Speaker 6: or whatever, which are super effective. But that's you know,
• 52:14
  Speaker 6: like you might like that for three four seasons and go,
• 52:16
  Speaker 6: you know what, I need to get back out there
• 52:19
  Speaker 6: and do something different. But trying that different stuff is
• 52:22
  Speaker 6: such an easy way to sort of tap into what
• 52:25
  Speaker 6: you need out of it. And that stuff changes, you know,
• 52:28
  Speaker 6: like your priorities changed depending on where you hunt, where
• 52:32
  Speaker 6: you go, like how much time you have, like you said,
• 52:35
  Speaker 6: how much meat you have in the freezer already none,
• 52:37
  Speaker 6: you know, like and so I just think they hunt
• 52:40
  Speaker 6: with my little girls that way. When they both said
• 52:42
  Speaker 6: that afterwards, I'm like, that's like a it's like a
• 52:44
  Speaker 6: key tenant of what we have to pay attention to.
• 52:46
  Speaker 6: It's like so simple, but it's nice to be reminded
• 52:49
  Speaker 6: of it.
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so true. Especially it's such a good reminder this
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: time of year two because right for all of us,
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: when we get to the rut, we're so we've been
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: building and building building up to this moment. It's so
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: easy to get obsessed with the actual I gotta kill buck,
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: I gotta fill the tag, I gotta do the whatever,
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: the thing you've been preparing for, the thing you've been
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: working towards, the thing you've been dreaming about. So there's
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: so much pressure building up to this moment. And for
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: some of us, I know we've both had moments like this.
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: You end up being stressed out and not enjoying yourself
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: during the rut and grinding yourself to a pulp. And
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: then you know you're chasing this thing you think you
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: want because you've built up to this moment, and then
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: you end up not enjoying the process because you're so
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: stressed out or upset about the things that went wrong
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: or mistakes you made, or the fact that the deer's
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: not showing or whatever. And that's such a shame to
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: have that Like this should be the most fun part
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: of the year, and if you're doing anything that is
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: taking the fun out of it, I think you got
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: to reassess the situation and try to re level reset
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: where you're at, because, at least as far as I'm concerned,
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: the rut all season, but especially this time, this should
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: be like the most joyful celebration of hunting. This should
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: not be you know, the suffer fast grind of misery,
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: which which oftentimes it becomes if we are not careful.
• 54:12
  Speaker 6: Right well, And you know, one of the things that
• 54:16
  Speaker 6: really hits home with me every rut is how I
• 54:19
  Speaker 6: sort of and I'm sure a lot of people do this,
• 54:22
  Speaker 6: but I sort of go into it with this feeling
• 54:24
  Speaker 6: of like I just volume hunt this spot, or I
• 54:26
  Speaker 6: just like it's going to be a dumb down thing,
• 54:31
  Speaker 6: you know, like we're all just so fatigued by making
• 54:33
  Speaker 6: decisions about our lives all day long with the kids
• 54:35
  Speaker 6: and everything, and like we look at this like I
• 54:37
  Speaker 6: can just go take it easy and sit that stand
• 54:40
  Speaker 6: and they'll come to me. And so often I still
• 54:44
  Speaker 6: have to go to them, Like you still have to
• 54:47
  Speaker 6: play the sign game. And if you see them all
• 54:49
  Speaker 6: crossing through that one brushy fence or whatever, like you
• 54:52
  Speaker 6: can try to call them over, you can try to
• 54:54
  Speaker 6: decoy him over, but your best bet is to get
• 54:55
  Speaker 6: right on top of them and work them. And the
• 54:58
  Speaker 6: rut doesn't, like it does, doesn't reallyeve you of those
• 55:00
  Speaker 6: responsibilities like you still have you still have.
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: To work them. Very true, and that is a perfect
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: segue two. What I think we should call the what
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: the white tail rut Rumble Last man Standing competition. Wow,
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: I just came up with that on the fly. Total
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: it's a little long, just just rolls out the tongue, though.
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: I think here's what I want to do to wrap
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: this sucker up. I can't remember if we've done this
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: in the past and I'm forgetting, or if it's just
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: an idea I had and we never actually did it.
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: But I want to just go back and forth with
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: white tail rot tactics or strategies or ideas, and we'll
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: go back and forth. Each of us share a quick tip,
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: and then the next person shares a quick tip, and
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: we'll go back and forth until until someone runs out
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: of ideas or we run out of time. All right,
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: So that's how That's how I'm thinking we're gonna get
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: to thirty nine specific actionable rut hunting tactics, or maybe
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: it'll be more. I guess that's a question. Do you
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: think will we be over under thirty nine?
• 56:11
  Speaker 6: Thirty nine is a lot, bud, I'm gonna I'm gonna
• 56:16
  Speaker 6: say under, but just barely.
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: All right, So let's uh, let's let's see where we
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: get in our I don't know. I've got another meeting
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: that I've got to run to the tree and uh
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: so maybe we've got ten to fifteen minutes left ish
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: and less unless it's really gets milentum. Sorry, you go first, Tony.
• 56:38
  Speaker 6: If you're if you don't know what to do during
• 56:40
  Speaker 6: the rut, hunt water. I'm so reliable. Uh water out
• 56:47
  Speaker 6: in the open or water deep in the cover, deep
• 56:49
  Speaker 6: in the cover.
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: If you have it, those those dose that are getting
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: pushed around get thirsty, like and how go ahead? I
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: was just gonna say, how do you set up on water?
• 57:00
  Speaker 6: Depends what kind of water, right, you know, if it's
• 57:02
  Speaker 6: a creak, it's a different story. I love a little
• 57:05
  Speaker 6: water hole in the woods. If I can hunt a pond,
• 57:09
  Speaker 6: I'm gonna get you know. I mean, obviously you got
• 57:12
  Speaker 6: to read it a little bit. But just if you
• 57:13
  Speaker 6: tuck ponds, you can look at them and see where
• 57:16
  Speaker 6: they approach them. Some ponds out like out west are
• 57:19
  Speaker 6: they'll be ringed with tracks, right, But a lot of
• 57:22
  Speaker 6: ponds in the Midwest and the East, you'll find that
• 57:24
  Speaker 6: one part where they just that's where they drop down
• 57:26
  Speaker 6: to drink.
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: For whatever reason.
• 57:27
  Speaker 6: They can see better, or it's just easier access. That's
• 57:31
  Speaker 6: where you want to be because those doors are going
• 57:33
  Speaker 6: to bring those bucks in there.
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: All right, all right, I would say, when trying to
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: choose best possible stand sides stiring the rut, I like
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: locations with compounding features. So best case scenario, I don't
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: want to be just a pinch point. I don't want
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: to be somewhere that's just a dill betting area. I
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: don't want something that's just close to a scrape. I
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: want all of these things compounding and layering. So give
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: me like a layer cake stand, a stand that is
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: downwind of a dough betting area where there's a pinch
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: point and there's a creek crossing so there's like a
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: double pinch, and there's a big inside the cover scrape
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: that's within range, or there's a gap in the fence,
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: or there's a oak tree that's dropping down acorns back
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: in there too. I want layers for those locations where
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: I'm going to spend big periods of time. I love
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: that kind of location in the rut, So I don't
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: ever want to hunt somewhere just for one reason. I
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: want to be like three or more things going for
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: that spot right right. My next one would be.
• 58:40
  Speaker 6: Most people don't do all day sits, you know, they
• 58:43
  Speaker 6: just don't whatever, they don't have the time, patients, whatever.
• 58:46
  Speaker 6: I would say one of the most important things to
• 58:48
  Speaker 6: do if you don't want to just go pull all
• 58:50
  Speaker 6: dayers for several days in a row is look at
• 58:53
  Speaker 6: your weather app whatever you use, and when you see
• 58:56
  Speaker 6: a weather change, try to be there. And I'm not
• 59:00
  Speaker 6: like a huge like we all know the huge cold fronts,
• 59:02
  Speaker 6: but man, you see sometimes where the wind's been out
• 59:06
  Speaker 6: of some direction for a long time and it's just
• 59:08
  Speaker 6: gonna switch. You know, usually that's prefrontal, but it doesn't
• 59:11
  Speaker 6: have to be or even like a little temperature drop
• 59:14
  Speaker 6: or for some reason Thursday afternoon, there's gonna be just
• 59:16
  Speaker 6: like intermittent rain, just a little bit, just gonna blow through.
• 59:20
  Speaker 6: Like when you get you sort of get those like
• 59:22
  Speaker 6: fits and starts during the like the chasing and the
• 59:25
  Speaker 6: like the activity, and it's like it doesn't really matter
• 59:28
  Speaker 6: what time of day it is when something like that changes,
• 59:31
  Speaker 6: especially if you've been in a holding pattern for a
• 59:33
  Speaker 6: couple of days. It doesn't have to be that like
• 59:35
  Speaker 6: forty degree temperature drop, just something it often gets them
• 59:39
  Speaker 6: on their feet. I mean even if you know, like
• 59:41
  Speaker 6: if you sit out there in the rain all day
• 59:42
  Speaker 6: like we did in one week in November a couple
• 59:44
  Speaker 6: of years ago, and it just lightens up by like
• 59:47
  Speaker 6: a few degrees, that puts them on their feet moving again.
• 59:51
  Speaker 6: And so you can you can sort of be really
• 59:53
  Speaker 6: targeted around weather and it doesn't have.
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: To be that big front.
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: I like that, And I'll jump in with one that's
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: kind of a piggyback off that and kind of ties
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: into a little bit of what we were talking about
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: a minute, that being, you know, trying to be smart
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: with how we hunt the rut and how we manage
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: like our mental and emotional or fun level I guess,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: just managing the mental side of things during the rut.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: And and I say this because I came from like
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: a history when I first started taking this really serious
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: where I thought, you know, you kill deer with brute
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: force in time in the stand, and you hunt every
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: single minute of every single day. You hunt all day,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: every single day, and if you don't, you are not
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: giving it one hundred and fifty percent, and you suck
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: because of that. And that's an approach that can work.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: But if you are not having fun anymore, or if
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: you've done this for nine straight days and you are
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: so worn down that not only are you miserable, but
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: you're also losing focus and you're not with it and
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: you're not really able to pay and execute well, you
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: end up losing more opportunities because of that and not
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: have fun along the way. So I would suggest at
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: least what I have started doing is I have given
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: myself forgiveness. I'm forgiving myself for occasionally not hunting all
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: day or occasionally, you know, looking at the weather forecast
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: like you're saying and seeing like, ma'am, there's an eighty
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: five degree day, you know, on November first, or October
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: twenty ninth, or whatever it is. And if you're hunting
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: a whole big week or ten days or something, give
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: yourself permission to sleep in one morning, or give yourself
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: permission to come in midday a time or two and
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: go do the breakfast with your friends, or do lunch
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: with your friends, and do the things that make the
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: whole experience fun. And that also kind of refill your
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: energy tank, because if you don't, if you don't manage that, yeah,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: more tree or more time the tree. You could say
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: that's better, but if you're in the tree but miserable,
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: or in the tree and not actually mentally there, it
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: might not be worth it. So I have found giving
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: myself a couple moments to recoup actually makes me a
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: more effective hunter.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 6: Down the line, I'm gonna piggyback on that. I'm gonna
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 6: say I do a fair amount of all day sits.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 5: And.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: It has to be a sit in the cover.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 6: Where I just believe in my heart of hearts that
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 6: whatever pinch point funnel, whatever feature, pond, whatever that I'm
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 6: on is going to draw them. Like I think, I
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 6: think that people hear the all day advice and they go, well,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 6: I'll go sit that box blind, or I'll go sit that,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 6: you know, my favorite stand on the cut corn, And
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 6: it's like that might be great for two and a
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 6: half hours a day and might be worthless for cruising
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 6: bucks for the rest of the time. Like that, if
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 6: you're going to do an all day sit, unless you know,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 6: unless you're in the heart of it and I or
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 6: something where you just have like a really good property
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 6: and they could just be bouncing all over. For most people,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 6: you have to set yourself up for that all day sit.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 6: It's not just go sit wherever you like to. It's
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 6: like you got to be in that place that's just
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 6: vibrating with dear activity, because that's if you if you
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 6: don't have that, that second guessing comes in, sun comes up,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 6: you know whatever, Like you're you're gonna talk yourself into leaving.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 6: But if you're like I know, at some point today
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 6: a buck is gonna run through this funnel, it's like
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 6: it's so much easier to stay. Plus, when you're in
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 6: the cover, you hear squirrels and like there's just like
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 6: there's like a different vibe to the whole thing where
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 6: you're like a little bit more paying attention and it
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 6: just feels more possible.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: So true, Uh So mine will be piggybacking off that
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: in saying that if you find yourself struggling to hunt
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: all day but you want to do it and you're
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: excited to do it, a one little like cheak code
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: way to get through and all day hunt a little
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: bit better is to make a move so you're still
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: basically hunting all day, but just get down and shift
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: to a new spot. You know, I would, personally if
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: I were to pick a time of day to do
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: my move, I would typically say it's going to be
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: after the midday, so it'd be like maybe two o'clock
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: or three o'clock, because I like, you know, there's a
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: course your first light movement, and then there seems to
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: be that late morning cruising that happens somewhere between like
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: ten in one. Maybe if I had to put a window,
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: that seems to be a window when like a mature
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: buck's going to get back on his feet and check
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: dough betting area. So I don't want to be leaving
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: that if I don't have to. But it seems like
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: if I had to pick a spot where there's oftentimes
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: a lull, it'd be that one or two o'clock to
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: three o'clock maybe somewhere in there. That's when I will typically,
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: if I'm trying to do an all this but want
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: to shift locations, that's a good time to do it.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: And then it also sets you up well because that
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: morning through the midday can be great back in the cover,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: like you're describing, but sometimes those spots slow down for
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: the last hour of daylight, and so if you want
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: to make a move at three o'clock, to a more
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: evening specific location that might set you up for the
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: best of both worlds.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 6: I'm gonna am I gonna piggyback on you, piggybacking on me, piggybacking.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 6: I'm not sure I would say with I do want
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 6: to talk about the all day sit thing one, like,
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 6: let's let's just push this a little bit more. Anything
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 6: you can do so if if you can't sit in
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 6: a tree stand all day for whatever reason, sit in
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 6: a groundb line, like if you can stretch out, or
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 6: like the the midday move thing like you said. One
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 6: of the things that I did in North Dakota this
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 6: year that was like a game changer, which is gonna
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 6: sound dumb, is I brought my little elk stove and
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 6: I brought some of those peak refuels. So instead of
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 6: making sandwiches to eat for seven days in a row,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 6: we get out of stand midday to move because we
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 6: were out there all day and we go sit on
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 6: the river bank, cook up some macaroni and cheese or
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 6: whatever we had whatever, dude, and it was like you
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 6: got some energy and you're like it was just like
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 6: a nice break. We didn't leave where the deer are,
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 6: but we just like that was like the way to
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 6: make it through. And I think, you know, I remember
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 6: Eddie Claypoole talks about this a lot, or he used to,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 6: but I remember thinking, like, it would be insane to
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 6: bring a book hunting, or it'd be insane to like
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 6: have two thermoss of coffee, as if that's what you need.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 6: I'm like, now, I'm like, take whatever you have to
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 6: take if reading a book is what's going to keep
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 6: you out there or whatever, because, like you said, when
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 6: you actually get that buck that comes through at eleven
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 6: o'clock or one o'clock or two o'clock, that you can
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 6: live off of that for a long time, Like that's
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 6: a powerful motivator to keep doing those all day sis
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 6: and it's mostly not going to happen, but when it does,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 6: it's amazing. And so just figure out how to put
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 6: that time.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: And if you have the time, Yeah, and you're right,
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: Snacks food, man, that makes a huge difference. My daughter
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: just got brace, so she says, snacks and it's great.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: My son just lost his second big tooth, so now
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: he's missing his two front teeth and he's got an
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: interesting little lisp thing go on too. So you brought
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: up food. So my snack hack is that I bring
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: enough snacks and then I bring enough snacks to be
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: able to parse them out on like a schedule. So
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: of course I do, right, that's the most Mark Kenyon
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: thing ever. But the way I do it is is
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: I like a sign, like every hour I'm able to
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: pick something else out of my snack bag, and then
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: I know, like I have to look forward to all right,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: ten o'clock, I get the oreos, and then like, all right,
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: eleven o'clock, if you can just make it to eleven,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: you're gonna get the bag of mang dried mangos or whatever.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: And so just throughout the day, you've got these little
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: one hour celebrations that you get to look forward to
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: throughout that long day that just give you that tiny
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: little bit of extra something. And that's all helped me
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: the all days too. Dude.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 6: It's incredible how many people I talk to about all
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 6: day sets who will say, I try to not have
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 6: my first drink of coffee as long as I can,
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 6: so I delay that, you know, because you get colder
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 6: and colder and tired, and you're like I just because
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 6: you know you're only you know, twenty ounces of coffee
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 6: or whatever, like you can drink it. And so you're
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 6: like a lot of people I talk to who do
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 6: all day sits. We'll talk about that, like I try
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 6: to save it as late into the morning as I
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 6: can because it's like this amazing reward.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: So do you drink coffee on all day sets?
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 6: Oh? Dude, I would shoot coffee directly into my eyeballs
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 6: on all day sits if I could see.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: I'm always I'm always worried about possibly incurring the wrath
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: of the coffee's diuretic effects and having one of those.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: So I usually don't drink coffee on all day sits,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: although I have toyed with and I occasionally do, but
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: I'm always a little paranoid. I just go nuts for donuts. Buddy.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 6: That's that Jesus take the wheel moment for me because
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 6: I'm drinking that coffee.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: Okay, So my snack attack tip was the last one.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: You're next. We'll switch gears here.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 6: So I just I just wrote a foundation script and
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 6: an article about hunting with decoys, and one of the
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 6: things that I kind of focused on, or at least
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 6: one aspect of it, is when you put a decoy out,
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 6: you are inviting the deer right into something that you've touched,
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 6: like right into an area, And so there's like a
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 6: there's a risk reward thing with these rut tactics, right,
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 6: So calling is different. But if you want to put
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 6: out a cent wick with some dope on it, what's
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 6: the risk that you're going to touch something or leave
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 6: scent there or disturb that area that you're inviting deer
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 6: in versus the reward like the likely reward of a
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 6: buck getting down when turning in on it. Right, So
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 6: I look at that stuff and I go, I don't
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 6: ever do it. Like if I'm good enough to get
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 6: a buck to smell that and come in, I'm good
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 6: enough to just to get him right where I want
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 6: to shoot him anyway. But it decoy is different, and
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 6: so I'm like that risk is worth it because I
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 6: know I can call a deer in from very far
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 6: away with that and in multiple directions. So it's always
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 6: like I think people look at it, it's like it's
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 6: kind of a safe play, right, Like I'm gonna put
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 6: out some centwix down by that scrape or whatever. But
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 6: it's like, you know, if that little four ky comes
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 6: in you don't want to kill and he gets wiggy
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 6: about it and blows, or you get a dough that
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 6: walks by. It's like was that worth it?
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 4: You know?
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 6: So like think about that stuff because these we look
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 6: at a lot of rut tactics like that as it's
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 6: just like I'm just gonna do it, and it's like additive.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 6: It doesn't it doesn't have a negative possibility, but it does.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, very true. So you bring up another thought for
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: me when it comes to using decoys and or calls
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: and my rut calling approach, that I would suggest that
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: or at least this worked well for me, has been
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: using like an escalator approach. And so by that I
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: mean I start at the bottom of my calling escalator
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: and then I will advance up the escalator in aggressiveness
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: if I have to. But I am reading the deer's
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: body language before shifting up a notch with each one,
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: and if I can stop low on the escalator, I will.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: So what I mean by that is number one, if
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: I can, I will start with just like a contact
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: grunt first, just like a prop and hopefully get a
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: buck's attention with that. And again this is if I
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: see a buck. I'm not doing that. I don't blind
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: grunt really ever, this is only if I see a
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: buck that I'm trying to call in the range, I
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: will start with something relatively subtle, and if I can
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: get him to hear that and get a reaction out
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: of him, then I'll stop there if possible. So you're
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 2: watching to see what he does. Does he turn does
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: he pin his ears back, does he puff up? Does
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: he start to come your way? Then anything like that,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: I'm saying, okay, great, I'm done. If he doesn't hear
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: it at all, well, then I'm going to try to
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 2: turn up the notch next. Or if he kind of
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: perks up hears it, but then just keeps on going
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: his way, that I might try to escalate to the
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: next level, which typically for me would be more of
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: like a buck roar or growl, just like a more
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 2: aggressive like ra bra something like that, And so that
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: would be my next step up. And then again I'm
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: watching body language, trying to see what he's what he's
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: gonna do, what does he think about this, And if
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: at any point along this pathway or like up this path,
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: I see him negatively react, which would be like tucking
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: his tail and turning and walking away or in any
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: kind of way showing like I don't like this, I
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: just stop, you know, if you see anything like that.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: I've at least I have never once seen a buck
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: react like that and then me keep pushing it and
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 2: then at turn him around. It's never worked for me,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: so it's almost always better to bail if he starts
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: seeing something like that, and then the final thing would
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: be a snort wheeze, So that would be the top
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 2: of my escalator. If he just hasn't heard it, or
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: if he's kind of just like hanging out, or if
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 2: he's kind of circling you but not coming in, you know,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: maybe then you throw the snort wheeds, which is like
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: the final flipping him off, you know, challenging him to
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: a fight, especially if this is like a big, old
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: mature buck that you would think would want to dominate,
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 2: like that's the final move. So that is my escalator
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: approach to calling during the rut. And what I would
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: do if you see a buck that's out of range,
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 2: want to get him in.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 6: Right right, I would.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: I would take that. I guess maybe this isn't even
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: all that related.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 6: One of the things that I noticed during my rut
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 6: hunts a lot is I will get married to an idea,
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 6: like I have some stuff over in Wisconsin set up.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 6: I set some stuff here in Minnesota for the rut
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 6: when I get back from Iowa, and I'm very confident
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 6: that they're going to work, but I also know from
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 6: history that there's a very good chance they won't work.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 6: And so often, you know, like rut hunting isn't in
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 6: the moment thing this year. But I've been sitting on
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 6: stands my whole life and watch deer do things where
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 6: I'm like, why, like why didn't he just cross here
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 6: below where this ravine blows out and it's like just
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 6: a perfect pinch point, like what's up there one hundred
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 6: and twenty five yards uphill that they keep using And
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 6: you start to figure out like if you even if
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 6: you see a four key, even if you see like
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 6: just not anywhere near your target classic buck or whatever,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 6: and they do something, they're not lying, like they're using
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 6: that wind and they're using that terrain and they're giving
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 6: you a glimpse into the future because another buck is
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 6: going to do that.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: And so often I will sit something where I'm like,
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: this is it this is the X on the X,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: Like I'm done, and I'll see.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 6: Those deer halfway up the hill over and over, or
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 6: you know, cutting through that patch of seedars out there
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 6: in that no man's land, and you go, there's something
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 6: I don't know, like that's better than this, and instead
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 6: of like mind grinding on it, it's like just go, like,
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 6: just just believe what they're telling you. And if not
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 6: this year, you better mark that and have that, you know,
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 6: winter scout that and get that ready for next year
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 6: because it's going to come into play.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And I've seen the flip side of that though, too,
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: So my next one would be sometimes the opposite might
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: be the case in which, or at least I have
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 2: been guilty of this in the past, where I would
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 2: see a buck, like during the run, I'll see a
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: buck do something, and so I race over go hunt there.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: And then that day I'm sitting there and then I
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 2: see a buck do something back where I was or
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: somewhere else, so then I race over to hunt over there,
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: and then I see a buck do something different, so
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 2: then I race over, and the I'm just bouncing around
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: from place to place to place. Sometimes not always, but
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 2: sometimes if you have a spot that you know, like historically,
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: you know bucks will move through here, or you know
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 2: this is the X, or you know there's a really
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 2: good reason for them to pass through. Sometimes it pays
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 2: to volume hunt or to stick to a spot like
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: that and just give it a little bit of time,
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 2: because you know, if you just constantly are chasing, you
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: never give any one spot enough time to actually produce.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: But if you give one of these spots, you know,
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 2: twelve hours or two days, two days or whatever, it
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 2: is the appropriate amount of time. And if you know
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: that yes, like this is this is a place where
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 2: it will happen, sometimes it does pay to give it
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: time and to not chase one offs, but to to
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: to allow yourself to trust the process, trust the place.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: And it's like the trick is like balancing what you
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 2: share it and what I share because there's value in both.
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: You got to know when to do one and one
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: to do the other.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 6: There's a there's a clock management aspect of it where
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 6: I really think that if you if you believe in
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 6: a spot, you should at least give it one full
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 6: day with the right win and if it doesn't produce,
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 6: you know, like you got to just go is this
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 6: worth the next couple of days? And you know, this
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 6: is where trail cameras and the rut come in too,
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 6: because people use trail cameras all the time to be like, oh,
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 6: they're moving at night, or they're not moving at or
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 6: you know, in the day or whatever, or they're chasing
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 6: now and they weren't before, they're not chasing a day
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 6: or or something like that. But I look at it
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 6: and I go, if I have some pictures of a
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 6: good one going through a spot, even if it's nighttime,
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 6: even if it was you know, sporadically over the last
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 6: three weeks, nothing where you'd be like, I'm gonna haunt
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 6: him and kill him.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 2: That's one of his routes.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 6: So how much time? And what if there's three of
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 6: them that sporadically use it? Like, now do you go
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 6: that's that's not a one day spot. That might be
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 6: give it three days if the wind is right for
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 6: you and the conditions are right, Like I have that
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 6: situation Wisconsin like that where it's not consistent, but I'm
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 6: I think on average, maybe one out of every three
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 6: days during the run, a good one goes through there.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 6: So I'm going to try to give it five or
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 6: six days, give myself that cushion and do that. But
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 6: if I'm in there and on day three I've seen
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 6: all of them go through somewhere else, it's time, you know.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, especially in those low deer density areas like
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 2: that that you're describing, those spots really need that time.
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 2: So here's one where I would suggest make it an
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 2: immediate move, or at least most scenarios like this. If
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 2: you see a buck locked down with a dough and
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 2: they go into some patch of cover. And I know
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 2: this might be different in certain areas of the country
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: where the habitat is different, but at least in the
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 2: places where I've seen this happen the most, like mixed
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 2: timber ag kind of stuff like that I have oftentimes
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 2: seen if you spot a buck that is actively locked
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 2: on a dough, tending that dough, standing with the dough,
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 2: they will oftentimes stick to a pretty small area of
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 2: cover for a long time, you know, for a day
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 2: or two, a couple of days. And so if I
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 2: see that, I will whenever the next opportunity is for
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: me to move, I'm going to move as tight as
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: I can into that zone where I saw them with
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 2: a strong belief that they will be back the next
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 2: day or the next that afternoon or that morning or
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 2: whatever the situation is. I want to get as close
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 2: and into that zone as possible, and then I will
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 2: grind it out in that spot for you know, forty
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 2: eight hours maybe, because that oftentimes can be a great
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 2: way to get one of these deer. They do not
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: not most of the time. You're not gonna have a buck.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 2: That's again like not chasing it though. I'm saying like
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 2: when you see them standing for four hours together in
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 2: a thicket, you know that's going to be a spot
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 2: They're probably gonna be back into that zone again. So
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 2: so move on that. For sure. I've seen that, I've
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 2: been I've had very I've had a lot of close
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 2: calls on that, and a couple of times have killed
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 2: deer because of that.
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 6: I'm gonna I'm gonna talk about that a little bit.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 6: So we break this down to like pre ru you know,
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 6: testing each other out, laying down sign chasing a little bit,
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 6: and then you got to just bonkers chase phase and
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 6: then you have the lockdown. And we talk about this
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 6: like it like it's like a hard and fast rule
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 6: for x amount of days, then X amount of days,
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 6: then x amount of days. It doesn't work that way
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 6: like it it It changes for sure, Like the activity
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 6: does definitely morph over time. But when we say like
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 6: I think that patience kills big bucks, like I think,
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 6: I think the more time you put in just the better.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 6: But it doesn't have to be dark to dark from
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 6: November third to November seventh. Like you start on Halloween
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 6: or whenever, the last week of October, and you know,
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 6: you get a day here and a day there and
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 6: a day there, and you can you can go deep
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 6: into November, deeper than a lot of people think. You know,
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 6: you start getting into middle of November where everybody's like, oh,
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 6: it's just not happening anymore because it's lockdown. It's like,
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 6: I don't know, man, if you're ever going to kill
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 6: that one sixty that lives in the swamp most of
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 6: the time, he might be more vulnerable on November fifteenth
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 6: than he is on November first. And so it's like
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 6: you don't have to just concentrate everything on that first
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 6: week in November, like take the time that you can
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 6: get and use it because you have a three week
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 6: window maybe more to catch some level of the rut,
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 6: and I think we I think we sort of like
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 6: forget that sometimes that it's like it's very possible on
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 6: November fifteenth, just as it.
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 2: Is on the first. Yeah, so true. So this is
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 2: something that I have learned the hard way sometimes, and
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 2: I think is most applicable to people if you were
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 2: hunting public land or or a newer spot there where
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: maybe you don't have a ton of confidence in anyone
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 2: given set up, but you know, I think it's not
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 2: an infrequent thing for there to be days during the
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 2: rut where it is on fire in one spot and
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 2: absolutely dead in another. Like especially, I think this tends
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 2: to happen a little bit earlier in the rut when
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 2: there's like that first hot dough or the first few
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: hot doughs on like every buck in the area is
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 2: on that dough chasing around, right. I mean, how many
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 2: days have you had where it is absolutely dead by
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: you and then your buddy who's four hundred yards away
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: it was like, dude, it was absolutely on fire, amazing,
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 2: and the ruts cappen and it's on right. I mean,
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 2: it can just be that way. And so if you're
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 2: hunting public or a new spot or an area that
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 2: you just don't have that rock solid confidence in your zone.
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: Sometimes you just have to go and find that hot
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 2: spot and not be afraid to get on your feet
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 2: and move around and aggressively push your way around until
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: you find where that hot spot is. And oftentimes you
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 2: can get away with being a little bit more aggressive,
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 2: and maybe you do bump a few deer as you
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 2: go in there, but that's okay. If you find that
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 2: rutfest where there's the hot dough and there's like four
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 2: satellite bucks all around and stuff, and you bump one
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 2: of those bucks, it's probably not the end of the world.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 2: You could probably slip in there, get set up, and
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 2: there's gonna be action kind of rotate like a hurricane
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 2: around the eye, like there's the eye of the hurricane
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 2: that's your hot dough, and then there's gonna be the
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 2: spinning vortex of bucks around it for a while. And
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 2: so if you're struggling and you've been in the dead
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 2: zone for a while, get up find that and that
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 2: can sometimes get you in the goods that you might
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 2: not otherwise have if you were just waiting and wishing
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 2: and don't have a really good reason to be waiting
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 2: and wishing on that.
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 6: I would say too, you know I mentioned before, watch
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 6: those weather changes, but also you still have to hunt
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 6: the conditions. And so the easiest way to frame this
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 6: up is with the hot weather, right Like we're getting
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 6: a lot of hot weather during the ruts the last
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 6: few years.
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 2: It's just happening.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 6: And I remember this is probably eight years ago now,
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 6: but driving down in Nebraska to hunt some public land
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 6: and it was hot, like seventy five degrees and I
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 6: hunted my usual stuff and I couldn't see a deer.
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 6: I mean, it was like just brutal or you'd see them,
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 6: you know, right at last night start poking out. And
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 6: it was like I was like, this is so dumb.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 6: I can get down in the valley, get into some
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 6: of this shady cover, better get closer to the trout
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 6: stream that's down there, and actually be like at least
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 6: give myself a chance with these conditions. And I moved
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 6: down there and I killed a buck almost instantly, like
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 6: five minutes after I got set up. And it's like, yeah,
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 6: he's gonna cruise still like he's still looking for doze,
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 6: but he's gonna go where the deer are gonna be
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 6: where there's some relief, and so you have to hunt
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 6: those be like you have to hunt to the conditions.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 6: You know, you get super windy or dead calm or whatever.
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 6: It's not just go out and sit your favorite stand
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 6: and rattle, because they're gonna come to you. Like, they're
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 6: still going to react to all these external factors. And
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 6: so when you're like, well, the rut's not on because
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 6: I'm not on them, it's like the rut's absolutely on somewhere,
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 6: like you said, But a lot of times it's tied
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 6: to them finding some relief, not just from getting away
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 6: from hunters, but just whatever the whatever mother nature tosses
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 6: their way.
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And so I would just tag onto that by
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 2: saying that, like you said, there's a lot of people
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 2: that are looking at the forecast and seeing warm temperatures
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 2: and that will scare away some people. And I would
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 2: just say that, yes, it certainly does seem to slow
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 2: things down some, but to your point, you can hunt.
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 2: You can use that to your advantage and hunt the
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 2: places where they should be. And also remember like the morning,
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 2: like the bucks are still running, like the deer are
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 2: still running. The thing is happening. It's not like warm
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 2: weather stops the rut. It just it suppresses the daylight activity,
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 2: especially the midday or after doing activity when it's warmest.
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 2: Right because they're wearing a it's like they're wearing a
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 2: warm winter jacket. It's just not as comfortable to be
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 2: out hiking around when you're wearing that. In it's eighty degrees.
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 2: So still the mornings when they're cool, they're still gonna
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 2: be getting after it. They're still getting after it all night,
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 2: probably the edges of the evening. So don't mail it in.
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 2: Don't assume like because it's seventy five on November two,
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 2: that that you shouldn't hunt. You absolutely still can have
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 2: success and see running activity. It just might be a
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 2: little slower in those warm parts of the day. But
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 2: certainly take advantage of the cool mornings the end of
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 2: the evening, and don't be surprised if something crazy still
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 2: does happen, because it is the rut, and stuff can surprising.
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: We got time for one more tony, then we gotta
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 2: wrap it up, everybody.
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 6: I would say my least just personally, my least important
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 6: piece of deer sign for the rut. Rut, not pre rut,
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 6: but rut is a scrape. I'm just I move on
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 6: from them. I like rubs better. But honestly, when i'm
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 6: I'm in the thick of it and I'm trying to
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 6: figure out someplace to be or like there's whatever my
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 6: plan is. Changing tracks are so important to me during
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 6: the rut, like fresh, big running tracks, or a big
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 6: concentration of fresh tracks is like that to me, when
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 6: I see that is a huge clue, Like if you
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 6: can tell it's been made within the last day or so,
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 6: or you can just see that track over track over track,
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 6: trail whatever. That's so important because you want that concentration
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 6: a deer, or you want that big one that crossed
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 6: the fence right there. You're like, you have to see him.
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 6: You can look and see that he left, he left
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 6: everything you need to notice to show you that he
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 6: at least went through there at some point recently.
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 2: I like that a lot. Yeah, And if you're not
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 2: super comfortable with identifying tracks or reading tracks, you should
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 2: check out the white Tail Edu video that Tony and
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 2: I did. That's over on the meat Eater clips YouTube channel.
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 2: You can find that, and we do deep dives in
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 2: the tracks. There's videos on calling uh, mature buck travel
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 2: all sorts of stuff. So if you're if you're needing
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 2: some last minute brush ups on some tactics, that's another
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 2: idea for you. It's the white Tail Edu series.
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 6: Plus, there is a video of you eating deer pool,
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 6: which has made you the most famous uh deer hunter
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 6: in the country apparently.
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 2: Uh for some reason, that's the one that everyone sees
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 2: and comments on. And it was a raisin that people
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 2: it was not.
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 6: Actually Mark cemented legacy with that video, and that's how
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 6: he'll be remembered forever.
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 2: Yes, that'll be on my tombstone. So so my last
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 2: piece of advice leading into the rut here for all
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 2: of you is where we started when we began this
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 2: little period, which is just keep it fun, Like, keep
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 2: it fun. If you're torn on what to do, or
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 2: if you're struggling and you're stressed out or whatever, my
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 2: suggestion is to make the choice that would bring you
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 2: the most joy, and oftentimes that leads to you being
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 2: more successful because it gets your mindset right, gets your
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 2: attitude right, keeps your energy high. And it's funny every
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 2: time that I found myself leaning in that direction, going
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 2: towards the choices or the trips to the destinations, or
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 2: whatever it is that's actually going to make this thing fun.
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 2: I ended up actually doing better too. So enjoy this thing.
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 2: It's the super Bowl of the white tail season. It's
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 2: Christmas and Thanksgiving and Easter and every damn holiday I
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 2: all rolled into one. Enjoy it, Celebrate it, spend time
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 2: with your buddies while you're doing it. Go help your
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 2: friends track a deer, even if it means you're gonna
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 2: miss a little bit of hunting time. That's the stuff
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 2: that actually leaves a memory forever. Just soaking all the
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 2: good stuff. That's my greatest suggestion. And I'm going to
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 2: try to live by that same advice. And I tell
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 2: you all this because I have been guilty of doing
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 2: the opposite too often. So that's going to do it
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 2: for us. Say Tony, thank you for making time here
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 2: before you take off. Good luck in Iowa, good luck
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 2: up north. Can't wait to hear how it goes. And
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 2: for all you listening, this is it. Have a great time,
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 2: Be safe, hunt smart. Until next time, stay wired to hunt.