Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 474: Foundations - Mastering the Best Part of the Rut

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Ep. 474: Foundations - Mastering the Best Part of the Rut · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
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Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, and now your host,
0:11
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson. Hey everyone, welcome to the Wire to Hunt
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Speaker 1: Foundations podcast, brought to you by First Light. Today's episode
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Speaker 1: is all about the best week of the season and
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Speaker 1: how you can tag out when the rut is blowing up.
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Speaker 1: Any vacation time you can take where you're in a stand,
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Speaker 1: this first week of November is time that you should take.
0:42
Speaker 1: It's also one of the most challenging weeks of the
0:44
Speaker 1: season because expectations always run really high, and sometimes mother
0:49
Speaker 1: Nature just doesn't deliver, or sometimes we just flake out
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Speaker 1: and give it half effort. These reasons and others that
0:55
Speaker 1: leave you with an unfilled tag or what this episode
0:58
Speaker 1: is all about. Yeah, growing up in Minnesota as a
1:12
Speaker 1: bow hunter who sucked at bow hunting, I actually hated
1:15
Speaker 1: the rut. I knew the early firearms season would come
1:18
Speaker 1: in just when the hunting would get good, and after
1:20
Speaker 1: the first week in November I'd have to relinquish the
1:22
Speaker 1: woods to the Orange Army. I also knew after the
1:26
Speaker 1: season i'd walk the woods find dead bucks tucked into
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Speaker 1: the best rabbit hunting spots and see randomly scarred trees
1:32
Speaker 1: where slugs took the bark off during deer drives. I
1:35
Speaker 1: was bitter, and I didn't want anyone to enjoy the
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Speaker 1: rut because I couldn't. It was stupid. This became clear
1:42
Speaker 1: to me the first few times I traveled out of
1:44
Speaker 1: state to hunt during the first week in November. Other
1:46
Speaker 1: than a few really unproductive rut hunts in northern Wisconsin,
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Speaker 1: where I hunted field edges and easy spots and didn't
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Speaker 1: see anything bigger than button bucks, the first time I
1:54
Speaker 1: really got to experience the rut was when a good
1:56
Speaker 1: friend of mine convinced me to build up some Iowa
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Speaker 1: points and draw a tag down there. He had permission
2:01
Speaker 1: to hunt a relatives farm and said we could hunt
2:03
Speaker 1: it for the week if we needed to. I went
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Speaker 1: down there and some are scouted and it was honestly incredible,
2:09
Speaker 1: so I figured the rut would be too. It wasn't,
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Speaker 1: but every day I saw at least one or two
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Speaker 1: bucks chasing, and halfway through my rut caation, watched a
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Speaker 1: stud of a ten pointer follow a dough out to
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Speaker 1: a pond I was sitting over in my climber two
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Speaker 1: snort wheezes later, he was seven yards away and knocking
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Speaker 1: on Heaven's door. It was an absolute eye opener for me,
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Speaker 1: not from the perspective of all out rut craziness, but
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Speaker 1: just anticipation and promise. I didn't see more than a
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Speaker 1: handful of bucks that week, but every minute that went by,
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Speaker 1: I felt like it would bring a deer my way.
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Speaker 1: I freaking loved it, and it set me on an
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Speaker 1: addiction that I hope to never kick on, like a
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Speaker 1: lot of other addictions I've had that I actually did
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Speaker 1: have to kick anyway. That's what this week is all about.
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Speaker 1: And don't kid yourself. As long as you're not in
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Speaker 1: the southern extreme range of the way tail, it's happening
3:01
Speaker 1: right now, hot, cold, windy, wet tornadoes, sharknadoes. Nothing is
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Speaker 1: going to stop the Bucks from trying to sweet taco
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Speaker 1: dough into twenty four hours of amorous connection. Nothing but
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Speaker 1: And if you listen to early episodes of this podcast,
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Speaker 1: and I hope you did, you know there's always a butt.
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Speaker 1: It's not usually easy. I know that seems weird, but
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Speaker 1: you're still hunting prey animals that are really good at
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Speaker 1: not dying. A pressured buck that is out of his
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Speaker 1: mind will quickly snap to reality if he sees a
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Speaker 1: quivering mass of camel up in a tree trying to
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Speaker 1: draw his bow. Those public landos that you've so carefully
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Speaker 1: left alone, and they'll bust you bigger than ship if
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Speaker 1: they get the chance. You've got to hunt like you
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Speaker 1: mean it this week, and you've got to put in
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Speaker 1: the time. There's no way around that. This seems easy enough,
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Speaker 1: but it's actually not to hunt like you mean it.
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Speaker 1: You might have to stay mobile and go where the
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Speaker 1: dear activity is. Now. This might seem like different advice
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Speaker 1: than most rud hunting strategies where you just find a
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Speaker 1: sweet pinch point and just write it out. But let
4:02
Speaker 1: me make a distinction on this. The volume hunt targeted
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Speaker 1: toward a funnel or pinch point only works if you
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Speaker 1: have the right terrain features and enough deer to fulfill
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Speaker 1: the promise of something big and horny coming down the
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Speaker 1: trail Eventually. If you hunt flat swamp land, big woods,
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Speaker 1: maybe where they're just isn't a lot of elevation changes,
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Speaker 1: you know, more than maybe twenty ft for fifty miles,
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Speaker 1: like some of the flattest stuff out there. You might
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Speaker 1: not have a classic funnel or pinch point to work with. Conversely,
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Speaker 1: if you're hunting along the I don't know the bluffs
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Speaker 1: of the Mississippi or maybe the Missouri River, or you
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Speaker 1: have a nice western river bottom to work with, you
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Speaker 1: might have a dozen quality pinch points in every section
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Speaker 1: or more. You've got to work with what the terrain
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Speaker 1: and the deer give you. If you have faith in
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Speaker 1: your setup, by all means, give it some serious time.
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Speaker 1: I've volume hunted spots for four days before getting a shot,
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Speaker 1: while at other times I've sat five or six different
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Speaker 1: stands in the same amount of time. I should also
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Speaker 1: that the volume hunts on funnels and pinch points, as
5:02
Speaker 1: well as the all days sit talk makes hunters falsely
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Speaker 1: believe that as long as you're in a stand or
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Speaker 1: in a blind for enough hours, you'll get your shot.
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Speaker 1: If that stand is on the edge of a field
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Speaker 1: where you've hunted twenties three times so far this season,
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Speaker 1: or a whole roster of public land hunters have filed
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Speaker 1: through during the season, that's probably not the case. I
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Speaker 1: rarely see the rut take a dead spot and make
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Speaker 1: it unreal when it comes to pressure deer It often
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Speaker 1: takes okay spots and makes them good, and turns the
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Speaker 1: good spots into great places to sit. But rarely will
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Speaker 1: you totally burn an area and see it come back
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Speaker 1: to life during the rut. On private ground, this is
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Speaker 1: possible and part of the reasons so many people go
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Speaker 1: back to the field edge or food plot strategy. Now again,
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Speaker 1: you gotta read the deer. If the does are still
5:48
Speaker 1: coming into the same patch of clover you'd like to
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Speaker 1: sit because it's easy a rut hunt there probably isn't
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Speaker 1: a bad idea. And a side note here, you don't
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Speaker 1: want to be married to the easy food style set up.
6:01
Speaker 1: I did this in northern Wisconsin a few years ago.
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Speaker 1: While I had mostly spent my season on public land,
6:06
Speaker 1: I own a small property over there with one little
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Speaker 1: kill plot on it. I was honestly just kind of
6:10
Speaker 1: burned out and I wanted easy hunting, so I talked
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Speaker 1: myself into sitting in a ground blight on that plot.
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Speaker 1: My standards were low, and I figured eventually the rut
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Speaker 1: gods would send something my way. The first morning, I
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Speaker 1: heard a chase happen in the woods to the north
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Speaker 1: of the plot. I also saw nothing in that plot
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Speaker 1: all day or all day. The next day, it bugged
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Speaker 1: me that the deer had been running around in the
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Speaker 1: thicker cover and I have gotten lazy and didn't move.
6:36
Speaker 1: I did hang a camera in there just before leaving
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Speaker 1: to drive to Oklahoma for a week of public land
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Speaker 1: hunting there. When I pulled that camera in Wisconsin months later,
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Speaker 1: the reality of buck movement in that cover hit me.
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Speaker 1: While I had been wasting my time on a dead
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Speaker 1: food plot two yards away, bucks were cruising through in
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Speaker 1: the mornings, evenings and in the midday. Now it wasn't NonStop,
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Speaker 1: this isn't, this isn't I would hear here, but it
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Speaker 1: was a hundred times better than where I was hunting.
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Speaker 1: If the deer aren't where you want to hunt, you
7:06
Speaker 1: gotta go where they want to be. As a lesson,
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Speaker 1: I've pushed a lot on here, and even when you
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Speaker 1: get to that spot, you've got to be able to
7:12
Speaker 1: stay there. This is a tricky one because we talk
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Speaker 1: all the time about all day sits all the time,
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Speaker 1: but how many folks actually do it, and how many
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Speaker 1: folks will do it when they are in a cushy box,
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Speaker 1: blind or a two man ladder stand. Have you ever
7:30
Speaker 1: spent the dark to dark hours in a saddle or
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Speaker 1: in a small portable tree stand. It's a challenge. It's
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Speaker 1: even more of a challenge if you have a five
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Speaker 1: hour dead period in the middle of the day. That's
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Speaker 1: when the devil hops up on your shoulder and whispers
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Speaker 1: a bunch of sweet nothings into your ear about how
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Speaker 1: good a nap would feel, or how nice it would
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Speaker 1: be to head into town for a greasy cheeseburger at
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Speaker 1: the local cafe, or maybe just how you should really
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Speaker 1: get down and hike over to that camera you got
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Speaker 1: on the ridge, even though you don't really want to
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Speaker 1: go into that specei sic area of the farm until
8:01
Speaker 1: the conditions are perfect for hunting it. There's a line
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Speaker 1: in a tool song with the title that the corner
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Speaker 1: office folks at metiaor won't let me say in a
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Speaker 1: podcast that goes, Boredom is not a burden anyone should bear.
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Speaker 1: It's simple, but makes an interesting point about rut hunting.
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Speaker 1: You will be bored if you have to scroll through Instagram.
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Speaker 1: Go ahead, you're gonna do it anyway. If you have
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Speaker 1: to bring a paperback book to pass the time, do
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Speaker 1: that you're hunting for you, And if you need a
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Speaker 1: little extra help to pass the time and stay in
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Speaker 1: the trees, go nuts, bring coffee like I do, bring
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Speaker 1: candy like I do. Reward yourself for every hour that passes.
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Speaker 1: Do what you have to in order to stay there.
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Speaker 1: Forget what other so called die hard hunters will say
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Speaker 1: about paying attention or why you should really be in
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Speaker 1: a tree, why you're really out there. This is for you.
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Speaker 1: If playing solitaire or words with friends on your phone
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Speaker 1: is the best way to put in the time, do it.
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Speaker 1: No one really cares but you anywhere. But also, don't
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Speaker 1: forget to glass a lot. Take breaks from your distractions
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Speaker 1: to scan the woods, scan the fields, scan the clear cut,
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Speaker 1: don't miss deer, and also pay attention to your confidence level.
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Speaker 1: If you thought for sure, without doubt that pulling a
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Speaker 1: dark to dark sid in a specific spot would produce
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Speaker 1: a buck, but didn't ask yourself why or where more
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Speaker 1: likely you should be. There aren't a lot of secrets
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Speaker 1: to this stuff, and getting on a real terrain feature
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Speaker 1: that is going to force movement is huge. This can
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Speaker 1: be a washout on a hillside that pushes bucks lower
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Speaker 1: or higher, a river crossing a bottleneck of tight timber
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Speaker 1: between two huge woodlots, high spine, in a swamp that
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Speaker 1: tethers together, a gnarly betting area in a three year
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Speaker 1: old clear cut. The bucks you're gonna hunt now, they're
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Speaker 1: gonna be on the move, and that movement is going
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Speaker 1: to draw them to the spots that they have to
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Speaker 1: be in to get from point A to B. If
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Speaker 1: your spot isn't producing the way you think it should be,
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Speaker 1: it might be time to move to a better funnel.
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Speaker 1: As I mentioned earlier, you might really have to think
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Speaker 1: about what a funnel means in your specific woods. And
10:06
Speaker 1: also if you have to blind call to keep the
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Speaker 1: excitement up and keep that all days sit going, go
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Speaker 1: for it. Maybe the coffee isn't enough. If there is
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Speaker 1: a week to just really kind of do what you
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Speaker 1: want in the white tille woods and enjoy it, this
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Speaker 1: is it. Maybe that's a rattling session at first light
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Speaker 1: with some grunning mixed in, which can be productive even
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Speaker 1: on public land. This is the time to try it.
10:30
Speaker 1: If you have to occasionally tip the can, call over
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Speaker 1: and bleat into the woods, do so, but remember this
10:36
Speaker 1: expect a response every time. While calling actually rarely works,
10:42
Speaker 1: it does work sometimes and what it does, it's usually
10:45
Speaker 1: a quick response. A lot of hunters get caught off guard,
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Speaker 1: dragging out the rattling session for three minutes when twenty
10:53
Speaker 1: seconds would have done it. The same goes for running
10:55
Speaker 1: a decoy. You've got to pay attention to who may
10:59
Speaker 1: be eyeing a your fake bucker dough from the edge
11:02
Speaker 1: of the woods, and who might suddenly stiff leg his
11:05
Speaker 1: way into bow range. If you're not ready, that buck
11:08
Speaker 1: might get a whiff of something you touched while you're
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Speaker 1: scrambling to get your bow and get drawn. The unpredictability
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Speaker 1: of action during the rut is what makes it so
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Speaker 1: damn fun. But it's not as fun if you blow
11:20
Speaker 1: an opportunity because you've drifted off into boredom induced Narnia.
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Speaker 1: All I'm saying is stay ready and do what you
11:27
Speaker 1: have to in order to keep yourself out there, because
11:31
Speaker 1: this is the key time time in the woods. It's
11:35
Speaker 1: key right now to your success. While I think we
11:38
Speaker 1: over exaggerate the likelihood of killing mid day bucks, it
11:42
Speaker 1: is always a possibility they are out cruising in the
11:45
Speaker 1: mid day and you won't kill them. If you're snoring
11:47
Speaker 1: in your tent, do what you have to in order
11:51
Speaker 1: to spend full days in the woods. Bring enough food,
11:54
Speaker 1: were the right clothes, keep yourself comfortable. Discomfort is the
12:00
Speaker 1: enemy of all days sits, and it will come from
12:02
Speaker 1: a rumbling stomach, It'll come from frozen toes, it'll come
12:06
Speaker 1: from boredom. But no matter what, it'll come. But if
12:09
Speaker 1: you stave off the worst effects through careful planning and
12:12
Speaker 1: a lot of confidence in your spot, you'll be able
12:15
Speaker 1: to ride out those slow stretches. You'll stave off that hunger.
12:19
Speaker 1: You'll keep hunting in that cold north wind because you know,
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Speaker 1: and you believe in your heart of hearts, that buck
12:25
Speaker 1: is going to come. And speaking of cold north winds,
12:30
Speaker 1: remember something about an all day sit. You should do
12:33
Speaker 1: it until you shouldn't. While November often delivers consistent wind directions,
12:38
Speaker 1: usually from the north or west, there are no guarantees
12:42
Speaker 1: with weather. If you're on stand and the win you
12:44
Speaker 1: were counting on the last all day switches, it becomes
12:47
Speaker 1: decision time. What are the odds of getting busted after
12:50
Speaker 1: directional change? Be honest. If they aren't good, don't go
12:55
Speaker 1: home or back to camp, Go hunt another stand or
12:58
Speaker 1: set up in another spot. If you have to go,
13:01
Speaker 1: build a natural ground, blind twenty yards down wind from
13:03
Speaker 1: a trail, do something to stay in the woods and hunting.
13:07
Speaker 1: The days of November they're really only like eleven or
13:11
Speaker 1: twelve hours long. That's long, sure, but it's not a
13:14
Speaker 1: huge ask to be out there all that time, and honestly,
13:18
Speaker 1: what else would you rather be doing. I always find
13:21
Speaker 1: it weird that we talked about the rut. We dream
13:24
Speaker 1: about the rut all year long, then when it gets here,
13:27
Speaker 1: we find excuses to sleep in or to hunt half
13:30
Speaker 1: days when we could put in a full shift with
13:32
Speaker 1: some overtime to boot and listen. I'm not judging, I've
13:36
Speaker 1: been there. In fact, back in my drinking days, there
13:38
Speaker 1: were many many mornings in November where I slept in,
13:42
Speaker 1: falsely rationalizing my decision by thinking I just go out
13:45
Speaker 1: and hunt from ten until dark. That was stupid, but
13:48
Speaker 1: it was easy to give into. The same goes for
13:51
Speaker 1: day four of a tough rut hunt, getting up to
13:55
Speaker 1: sit dark to dark when your confidence has taken a
13:57
Speaker 1: real hit over the last few days. It's not easy
14:00
Speaker 1: fight through that ship, my friends, because this week is
14:04
Speaker 1: going to be gone in an instant, and you'll regret
14:06
Speaker 1: not making the most of it. Make a plan to
14:09
Speaker 1: be where you want to be every day. If that
14:12
Speaker 1: requires a mobile setup and some extra work, do that.
14:15
Speaker 1: If you hunt where others hunt, make backup plans that
14:18
Speaker 1: work with the predicted conditions. Any of your listeners out
14:22
Speaker 1: there who rut hunt public land know how important that is.
14:26
Speaker 1: This is the week when every bow hunter with an
14:28
Speaker 1: unfilled tag is going to make an appearance at the
14:30
Speaker 1: parking lot of your favorite w m A. Most of
14:33
Speaker 1: them won't work very hard to kill a deer. Most
14:36
Speaker 1: of them will rely on get rich quick products. They'll rattle,
14:39
Speaker 1: they'll cover the woods and deer pists. They'll leave at
14:41
Speaker 1: mid morning. They'll give you a chance to outwork them
14:44
Speaker 1: and out hunt the deer. Do this by having a
14:47
Speaker 1: planet sticking to it. If you know there's a cold
14:50
Speaker 1: front coming in on November nine and that happens to
14:52
Speaker 1: be a Saturday, expect the most hunting pressure you'll see
14:56
Speaker 1: for the entire season. That's a given. So how will
14:59
Speaker 1: you deal with it? If you hunt private ground and
15:01
Speaker 1: the gun season is going to open soon, expect some
15:04
Speaker 1: visitors if you don't have total control over that land,
15:07
Speaker 1: even if you're the only bow hunter on the property.
15:10
Speaker 1: Will the landowner's relatives come in to check their ladder
15:13
Speaker 1: stands a week before the season opens. In my home
15:15
Speaker 1: state of Minnesota, with that early gun opener i mentioned,
15:18
Speaker 1: this always puts extra humans in the woods on the
15:21
Speaker 1: last weekend of October. In other states with later openers,
15:25
Speaker 1: the pressure comes in the week before, usually the weekend
15:29
Speaker 1: before the opener. No matter when that is, you can
15:31
Speaker 1: expect and uptick a human pressure in the woods then
15:34
Speaker 1: and the deer will react to this heightened presence of
15:38
Speaker 1: people in the woods, But they won't stop running. They'll
15:41
Speaker 1: just do it in a place where most folks don't go.
15:44
Speaker 1: Where is that place on your chosen hunting ground? Does
15:46
Speaker 1: that place offer you up a sweet funnel to sit
15:49
Speaker 1: over or are you going to have to grind it
15:51
Speaker 1: out in a glass and move mobile strategy? Are you
15:54
Speaker 1: ready for that kind of week? All of this is cautionary,
15:58
Speaker 1: but I really want you to understand something. As much
16:01
Speaker 1: as I've downplayed the rut, it can also absolutely deliver
16:04
Speaker 1: a gift buck into your lap at any time, even
16:07
Speaker 1: if you've made a mistake or three in your setup.
16:10
Speaker 1: I'll give you one example of this. The biggest buck
16:13
Speaker 1: I ever killed in my life. That big ten pointer
16:16
Speaker 1: with palmated antlers came in grunting on a hot dough
16:20
Speaker 1: with two other bucks that were big. I can't call
16:24
Speaker 1: it a love triangle because there were four of them,
16:26
Speaker 1: so I guess I don't like a love square anyway.
16:29
Speaker 1: The whole party came in fast while I was fourteen
16:32
Speaker 1: feet up in a small pine tree in Nebraska on
16:34
Speaker 1: November seven. As soon as I heard those grunts, I
16:39
Speaker 1: stood straight up because it caught me off guard, and
16:41
Speaker 1: the object of those bucks affection saw me. All I
16:45
Speaker 1: could see was a dough looking straight at me, with
16:48
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of big white racks bobbing around her.
16:52
Speaker 1: I've panicked my fair share of times in the white
16:54
Speaker 1: Tail woods, but at that moment I thought I blew
16:57
Speaker 1: the whole thing. It only got worse when she trotted
17:00
Speaker 1: buy and I missed one of the bucks forty in
17:03
Speaker 1: stud of a buck, mind you. Another buck followed them
17:06
Speaker 1: down the bluff in front of me as I knocked
17:08
Speaker 1: another arrow, and that's when I heard the third buck
17:12
Speaker 1: swinging around to cut them off. This brought him right
17:14
Speaker 1: into my lap and gave me a shot when he
17:16
Speaker 1: piled up that little pine Treo was in was shaking
17:19
Speaker 1: like a dog shitting razor blades. I had done a
17:22
Speaker 1: lot wrong, a lot, and I still managed to kill
17:25
Speaker 1: an absolute toad on public land. Now that's not the
17:30
Speaker 1: only time either, when I felt like I'm barely qualified
17:33
Speaker 1: for amateur hour, yet the dear gods have smiled upon me.
17:36
Speaker 1: That's the beauty of the rut. It can be so
17:38
Speaker 1: forgiving and so exciting. So so get out there and hunt,
17:43
Speaker 1: hunt smart, hunt long hours and enjoy it. Hunt like
17:46
Speaker 1: you mean it, because next week, even though it's still
17:49
Speaker 1: going to be really good, things are going to start
17:51
Speaker 1: to get a little bit more difficult. That's it for
17:56
Speaker 1: this week. Go forth and make the most of your
17:59
Speaker 1: dear time. I'm right now, my friends. I'm Tony Peterson
18:03
Speaker 1: and this has been the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast.
18:06
Speaker 1: As always, thank you so much for listening. H