Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #126: How We Plan To Kill A Rutting Buck

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Wired To Hunt Podcast #126: How We Plan To Kill A Rutting Buck · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wire to Hunt Podcast. I'm
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number one
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Tay in the show, Dan and I are celebrating the
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: white tail rut by examining and discussing exactly how we
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: hope and plan to kill a running buck here in
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: the coming days. Hey guys, quick update before we get
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: things kicked off today. In addition to our main conversation
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: that Dan and I are going to have about the
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: rut today, we're also going to have a special bonus
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: at the end of this episod related to a gear
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: question that we get frequently, and that's about using ozone
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: to reduce scent. And we've gotten so many questions about
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: this technology and we want to cover in a way
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: that's a little more comprehensive than just me and Dan
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: sharing our own experiences. So if you're one of those
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: people interested in ozone or ozonics, stick around after the
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: normal interview for a bonus discussion with Buddy Pyland. That said,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: onto the show, all right, Welcome to the Wired to
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Hunt Podcast. Brought to you by Sick Gear, And today,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: with the White Tail Rut kicking off all across the country,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Dan and I are going to make some predictions, or
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: at least we're gonna try to make some predictions, I guess,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: by way of explaining our plans and strategies and hopes
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: and dreams for the two thousand sixteen rut, and hopefully
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: that will be a prediction, a true prediction when it's
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: all said and done. So today we're diving into how
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: we're planning on killing a buck during this year's run.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: But before we get into that, Dan, in one word,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: how would you describe your feelings about the White Tail Rut? Chaos? Man? Like, yeah,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: in one word, right, Oh, I like it chaos. That's
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: pretty chaos. Chaos, But in a way it's it's not
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: as chaotic as I think we think it is. Right,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: What do you mean by that? I mean, so when
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: we think the rut, we think of deer chase and
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: deer all over the place. But at the same time,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: it's not like these does are leading these bucks miles
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: and miles and miles. I mean, and maybe in some states,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: in some cases, let's say like Kansas, right, where the
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: deer travel is high. But I'm talking about where me
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: and you hunt in Ohio, Michigan, Iowa. You know, we're
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: hunting timber and egg right in a mixture of that stuff.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: So it's chaotic, meaning that a buck could push a
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: dough into a different location and you may not see them.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, these dough groups that are
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: coming in and out, you know they're they're traveling to
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: the best food store source. It's chaotic because anything can
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: really happen. But at the same time, there's there's there's
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: some way to still maybe potentially pattern a big buck
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: if that makes sense, right, You can you can try
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: to put some order to the chaos, right, Yeah, yeah,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: I agree. I agree. It's like, yeah, I'm trying to
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: think of the right word for this. It's um, not staccato,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: but um. But maybe it's like I feel like the
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: rut is this periodic bursts of chaos into or it's
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: long stretches of what I would refer if I had
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: to choose one word for the rut, I would call
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: it a grind. So I'd say long stretches of a grind,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: a marathon of being out on the tree for a
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: long lump period of time, inner bursts, with these bursts
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: of chaos that um that then we try to bring
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: order to with some type of strategy or plan. But man,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: I that the grind is how I think about the
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: r I think about it is this marathon of sorts
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: that just simply can require you to gut it out,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: to grind it out. And it's my favorite time of
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: year and my least favorite time of year in some ways.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but I like when I
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: think about the RUT, I had this like slight sense
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: of for voting right now because I can see it.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: You know, it's it's when this podcast goes, you know,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: when people are actually listening to this podcast. We're recording
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: this in late October, so pre RUT recording this, but
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: when this is actually being listened to you guys, right now,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: we're in the midst of it. And during that time period,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: you know, those are the longest days of the year
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: for me and you most of the time. You know,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: I'm waking up like my typical RUT vacation is, you know,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Daniel waking up like three am in the morning, either
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: in Ohio or Michigan or wherever I'm hunting, driving to
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: a property, getting into a tree stand an hour and
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: a half before daylight, and then I'm sitting in that
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: stupid tree for like thirteen hours, getting down, going back
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: to a dirty, cheap hotel, and then working for a
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: couple of hours at night, and then getting to bed
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: at like midnight and waking up three or four hours
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: later and doing the whole thing over again, day after
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: day after day. And it's the best thing. It's so awesome.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: We live for it. But at the same time, I
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: know my psyche and my soul will slowly be dying
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: to right right. I don't know, do you ever lose
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: weight during the during the rut? So it's interesting. I
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: actually usually put on weight a little bit during the
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: hunting season. I don't know specifically during the rut, but
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: I'm I usually get in pretty good shape in the
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: summer and leading into like an elk hunt or western
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: hunts and stuff like I lost like sixteen or fifteen
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: or sixteen pounds um from this summer up until after
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: my elk hunt. But I then, you know, once we
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: get into the serious white tail hunting time frame, I
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: just don't have a much time to work out, and
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: because you've got these early mornings, late nights, you know,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: especially with my travel, when I'm staying you know, in
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: a random place, I end up eating more junk food
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: and fasterating stuff. So that ends up being bad for me.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: So I probably add a couple of pounds, not a lot,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: but a couple. What about you, Oh, I tend to
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: lose let's say, between five and ten pounds between because
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: for some reason, you know it, if you go to
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: a gas station, let's say, in between a move, right,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: let's say, Okay, I'm gonna get down, I'm gonna go
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: hunt a different place in the evening. Then you go
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: to the gas station and you buy the apple pies
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: and the Snickers bars in the pop right, all that
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: sugar jackson up. But then he just feels after that
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: sugar rush, right, it goes down. And I hate that feeling.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: I hate that feeling of being tired and not focused.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: So I really try to eat like carrots and apples,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: or not bring anything in to the treat with me
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: because except water, and then I'll just you know, force
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: feed myself, you know, stuff my face at night when
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: I get home. But I feel that, you know, like
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: if I eat healthy in the stand, I feel better.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: And yeah, I'm maybe tired at times, but when the
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: moment of truth comes or I see a buck, my
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: focus is on point. Because of my diet. I don't know.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that has anything to do with it.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. I think you're onto something, though,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: And I actually gotta tell you, I have finally begun
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: to feel my age, Dan, I've got a big change happening.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Oh boy, yeah, I I'm starting to feel crappy after
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: eating crappy food. Like you know, forever, I could eat
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: the whole pizza or eat McDonald's or Taco Bell, whatever,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: and I'd be fine. I'd be right as rain. But
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: more recently this past year, I feel like when I
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: start eating a bunch of that stuff, you know, I'm
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: kind of feeling lousy afterwards. So I'm thinking I'm gonna
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: start picking up a better or diet during the rout
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: this year, because I just don't want to feel cruddy
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: and each you can't afford to, really and you don't
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: want to get Facebook shamed by all the listeners, do you.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I remember that, Like, oh, are you
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: really going to eat that. You know how bad that
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: is for you? Yank yank, Like, okay, mom, they're like
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: people just ragging on me because I posted a picture
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: of the junk food I was packing for the rut trip.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Oh man, it was brutal, it was really you know however,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: that was enough sugar in like a one month time
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: to give you diabetes. I mean it was a little
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: bit rough. But but this year a little different. I'm
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: gonna try to try to eat a little better in
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: the day and then also to try to save a
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: little money instead of going out to eat at night
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: for you know this for like my Ohio trip. Um
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: thinking about like packing a bunch of frozen meals, like
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: pre make some food here and then like making the
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: crock pot or something in the or whatever when we
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: get to the hotel. Ums are gonna try to do
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: that this year a little bit, just to make things
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: a little bit easier there, right. So so yeah, that's
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: that's the game plan for food. What's your what's your schedule? Like,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, I mean you're gonna hunt Michigan obviously, and
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: you're gonna hunt Ohio. Um, Yeah, what are you like
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: obviously the bigger deer are down in Ohio, right, and
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: I have a feeling you're going to be spending some
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: time down there as much as possible or what what
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: what are you looking like? Yeah, we haven't really talked
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: about this yet to this point, um in too much detail.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: So UM, you know, my game plan has been to
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: hold off on hunting Ohio as long as I possibly
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: can because like I've kind of found that there just
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: is not a whole lot of activity on this farm
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: um until the rut. There's not like this area doesn't
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: hold a very large population of deer um. So at
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: the very best, there might be like one buck on
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: the farm um from like August until the rut. Like
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: literally they'll be on no pictures. Like for example, since
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: we um, I had a bunch of summer pictures down there.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Since we went there in August mid August, I have
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: only had well, I've had three different shooters pop up
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: on camera. But it's been like three times between the
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: middle of August and now. Um. Let me take that back.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: There was two bucks showed up once each in September,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: and then in October I had one of those bucks
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: show up once more, and then I've had two other
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: bucks show up one time each um, so far from
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: what I've seen on trail camera. But I mean very
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: very spreadic, very rare. It's not like I never ever
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: get pictures during this early part of the season. Um,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: you know, like frequently, there's no bucks that show up
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: on camera every couple of days or once a week
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: or anything that It's just it's a weird farm. It's small,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: there's not a ton of you know, there's not a
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: whole lot to it, um, but it's just positioned well
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: for the Rut. So once, you know, late October early November,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: then you get these bucks that come cruising and because
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: of the position of the property, that come cruising through.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: So all that said, I've held off on hunting really
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: at all on an opening weekend in September, and now
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: my game plan is to go back for a big
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Rut trip. But I'm planning on doing it later this
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: year than I have some other years. And the reason
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: for that excuse me. You know, barring some kind of change,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: if there's like a major major weather thing going on
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: that tells me like I gotta get down there, I
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: might change it up. But my game plan right now
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: is to hunt, you know, the end of October and
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: the beginning of November. So you know that time frame
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: that you know I'm so it's kind of weird a
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: time frame right now. We're talking about the past, but
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: it's it's the future for you and me, but it's
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: the price for the listeners. But that time frame, I'm
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: planning on hunting in Michigan, and I've got several properties
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: here in Michigan and I'm hunting, trying to killing a
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: number of these different bucks that we've talked about. Um,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: But I think I'm probably gonna head down to Ohio
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: sometime between the seventh and somewhere between the sixth and
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: the eighth, probably heading down to Ohio and hunting that
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: second week of November. And the reason why I'm airing
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: towards the later part of that peak rut time period
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: that usually hunt is that the biggest factor for me
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: down there is weather. When we talked about it a lot.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: I want those cold fronts. And because that property is
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: pretty far south, it's in southern Ohio, it's usually a
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: lot warmer down there than Michigan or anywhere else. So
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: the chances of having warm, lousy weather are better down there,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: um than you know when I hunt in Michigan. So
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to have the best possible chance of getting
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: some cold weather by waiting till that second week. And
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: in Ohio their gun season does not open up till December,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: so I could get down there on November ten and
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: hunt that you know, five six, seven, eight days, and
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: if I were in Michigan on the fifteen, gun season
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: opens and all hell breaks loose and basically your chances
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: of killing a good buck, um, you know, disappears unless
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: you're just out there on opening day and catch one runaround.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: So I can hunt in Ohio though, and keep hunting
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: right through that time here, so I can hunt whatever
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: and it'll be just great. So that's what I'm thinking.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Hopefully I can get it done in Michigan earlier and
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: then we'll hunt that second to third week in Ohio
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: and just between weather and trial camera pictures in past
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: years that has always shown me the best activity down there,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: and um, so that's my game plan. I'm gonna hunt,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: you know, like I do just about every year as
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: much as I possibly can on hunt, you know, the
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: full day, all day when I'm down there, and then, um,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: you know, see what happens. Like I said, those hunts
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: are grinds. But but that's from a schedule standpoint, that's
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: the game plan. Um. We talked a little bit a
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: couple episodes ag you and me about your vacation days
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: off during the rut A little bit right, yep. But
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: but talk to me again a little bit more about
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: a how many days and then how you're tentatively planning
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: on splitting those up between your different properties. Right, well,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: it's kind of it's kind of weird. Right. So right
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: now I have three weeks of vacation banked for UH
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: hunting related activities now. UM, I already have scheduled off
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: the seventh, So that second week in November that's off
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: right now, depending on what the weather tells me. UM,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: I have to be home for October thirty one for
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: um Halloween for AVA and take the kids trick or treating. Um.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: This is something that my wife wants and I want
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: to participate in, and so I might be able to
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: get out around here for that, but for sure the
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: second week. Now, I have another week to play around
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: with because I'm trying to save I'm trying to save
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: a week for the A T A show right, go
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: there and do some business. But I have five extra days.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I want to put that on
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: towards the end of the first week and then a
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: little bit towards the beginning of the following week, or
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: take off the entire second and third week of November. Like,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I just it's tough because in the past,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: I'm starting to realize that I don't think that there
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: there is as much movement and on the first week
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: as opposed to the third week. Right, So I think
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: that this year, just the way everything lies, the second
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: and third week are going to be better for me
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: in November. So you're you think that you get better
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: activity that third week versus the first You're saying because
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: because I've always my traditional view has always been the
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: third week, you're starting get into that lockdown period in
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: some areas. Are you are you seeing something different? I
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: think that the lockdown period is happens more than Okay,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: this is this is a term. The lockdown is a
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: term for you know, it's kind of hard because I
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: feel it's a general term. You know, lockdown is it?
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Is it lockdown for? Who? Is it lockdown? For? The
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: does moving? Is it lockdown because your target buck has
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: found a dough? Is it lockdown? All deer have stopped moving?
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Because go ahead, I was gonna say, I guess let
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: me define lockdown for for how I'm defining at least,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: so what I'm referring to is the so right, the rut.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: If we're talking about the rut, let's we'll talk about
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: breeding and so let's think about breeding dates, and so
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: the number of doughs that are being bred starts low,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: and then as we move through November, it gets higher
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: and higher and higher until you reach a peak. And
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: according a lot of things I read, November or somewhere
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: in mid November is like the average most common peak
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: breeding dates, so that's when the most does in the
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: area are being bred, and then it slowly goes down
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: throughout the back end of the month, somewhere give or
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: take around mid November, so it's like a bell curve.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: So the lockdown period, as I'm defining it, would be
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: that period when the highest number of doughs are being bred,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: because at that point, so let's just hypothetically call it
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: like a three or four day period when the highest
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: percentage of dolls are being bread at that time period.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: If a does being bred, that means she is with
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: a buck and that buck has took her into some
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: deep cover and they're just kind of hunkering down, you know,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: when they're actually getting down to breed, the bucklets to
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: keep her in one place as best as possible, back
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: and cover. And so when that happens, when the highest
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: percentage of does are being bred, that means the highest
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: percentage of that pair, the buck on the dough are
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: hunkered down and covered taking care of the thing for
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: twenty four hours or something. So that three or four
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: daytime period or give or take, you know, is when
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: I think the most people would refer to that as
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: that locked up lockdown period because there's more dear breeding
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: than chasing around and looking for something to breed. So
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: that's what I'm talking about. Sorry, continue with what you're
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: going with, No, and you're fine, And it's good that
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: you brought that up, because there is imagine a line
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: with three points on it, right. The point in the
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: center is, let's say the peak breeding, which you're considering lockdown.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: But you're not going to not hunt that just because
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: the deer are are locked down. That's when you're gonna
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: catch a big buck breaking off of a dough. That
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: maybe what let's say, for example, theft is the peak
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: breeding season, and the most deer are getting bread on
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: the fifteen or within twenty four hours, you know, fifteen
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: and six, you're gonna still want to be in the
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: timber at that time. And I still, I still feel
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: that that time is still better than potentially a buck
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: cruising for his very first dough, which you know, it's
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: it's hard because you know, on on this podcast we
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: talked to a lot of experts who say that as
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: soon as um a buck strips his velvet, he can
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: start breeding. And based on that Bell curve today's the
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: nineteen there are deer right now that are being bred
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: somewhere in you know, on this bell curve, there's dear
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: being bred right now. There's does and bucks that are breeding.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: So so it's hard to it's hard to say. I mean,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: you just gotta find where those does are and be
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: in the woods because when that big buck breaks away
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: from a dough, he's already bred. He's still fired, fired
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: up and looking for that next deal. Very true, very true,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: And that's an important point whether it comes to the
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: lockdown phase, you know, quote unquote, or when we start
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: talking about the timing of the rut, you know, there's
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: all the debate about the different theories about what, you know,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: what might influence the time of the rut and if
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: it's a moon thing or photo period thing or whatever.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: We all heard the different theories, we've all talked about them. Um,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: but to this point, no matter what phase of the rut,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: no matter what day of the rut is, if you
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: are hunting, sometime around the rut period, so we'll just
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: say sometime in November hypothetically or late October November, if
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: you're hunting or if you have the opportunity hunt, you
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: just gotta be out there because anything can happen, whether
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: it's you know, whether it's hypothetically supposed to be a
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: great rut day based on the moon chart you look at,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: or if it's allows the warm day in a period
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: of the rut that's supposed to be a lockdown. You know,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: don't get too caught up on what the experts say.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: And this is coming from someone who's trying to tell
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: you maybe what would be a good idea or not
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: a good idea to do, So maybe you shouldnt even
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: listen to me. Um, but you just gotta be a tree,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: you know. Well, let's talk let's talk about that for
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: a second. Let's talk about those guys out there who
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: have the maybe five days that they can dedicate to
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: a hunt. And you know, it sucks for me and
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: you because we don't hunt the South. And I feel
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: like those guys are getting jipped when we talk about this,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: because I really don't. I mean, I know that there's
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: some places in the South where the ruts in January,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: the ruts even in December, um, and then there's places
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: where it's the exact same time as the North. Right.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: So I don't have any experience hunting in the South,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: And maybe we should get a guy on sometime. You
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: can talk about that in a little bit more detail.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: But but for the North and the listeners in the North,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: what do you what do you feel would be the
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: best five day period for this year? You know this year?
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: And as an example, I know a lot of guys
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: want to I want to take a Monday through Friday
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: off because then they get two weeks, right they can
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: or excuse me, they get two weekends to mess around
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: where if they go let's say, for example, Wednesday the
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: ninth to Wednesday, they're taking off, you know, five days,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: but only getting one weekend, right right, Yeah, So interesting question,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: it's the question for a lot of people. Um, this
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: is what I'd say. If I was able to see
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: a weather forecast now for all of November, that would
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: help me make the best decision. But for me, if
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: I had to pick my absolute, like favorite time period
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: on average, if I took a look at all my
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: hunting seasons and had to pick, it's usually somewhere around that,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: you know, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleven, twelfth, somewhere around there.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: One of those days almost always is really good. If
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: you get some decent weather in that time period, you've
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: got a great chance. I feel like, almost always you're
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: gonna be getting some of that chasing or cruising activity.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: There will be some dearer be getting bread, but there's
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: definitely gonna be some does in esters. There's definitely gonna
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: be some action during that time period somewhere in there.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: So if I had to just pick a five day
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: time period to take my vacation days this week, it
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: would be that seventh, th the eleventh, because that would
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: allow you to hunt the fifth th, which like, you
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: can't go wrong with that week. There there's going to
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: be good stuff happening that week. Um. Even if this
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: this has been a big lesson learned for me last year,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: and I want to get back to you what you
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: think about those days too, but really quickly. A big
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: lesson learned from me last year was to not get
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: too worried about the weather during the run because the
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: weather definitely will help you have it better. Like if
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: you get a good coal front in the rut, it
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: can make it awesome, but you still can have success
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: with the warm weather. Because last year when I was
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: in Iowa, I got really down on myself because there
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: was like a four day stretch that was gonna be
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: in like the high seventies or something like that. It
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: was like super hot from November. I can't remember what
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: the dates, or the third through the sixth or something
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: like that. Um, so I kind of got down on myself.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: I didn't hunt a couple of mornings because I was
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: I was dealing with some other stuff. I went home
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: for like half a day. I went home for a
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: day and then came back and just was like, and
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: nothing's gonna happen these couple of days, so I just
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: didn't do some of the things I guess I should have.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: But while I was dicking around, not hunting the rut
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: quite like I should have. During those three days, three
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: days in a row, each of those days was super hot.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Three of my friends killed really great bucks in the morning,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: So it was like Monday morning, Tuesday morning, Wednesday morning,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: each day was a hot day. But they still killed
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: those bucks cruising in the morning, And it was like, Man,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: why was I so down? You can still kill these
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: bucks during this time period. Um, you just gotta be
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: in a tree. Now. Yes, you're probably not gonna see
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: the midday activity like you would. Um, you're probably not
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: gonna see as much d it eas you would, but
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: it's certainly still possible. So just be in a tree.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Whatever time frame you have, stick it out in the
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: tree as much as you possibly can. Don't get too
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: concerned with all the You know, we talked so much
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: about the moon and rising pressure and cold fronts and
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: wind speed and moon phase and blah blah blah, all
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: these different things that can lead to a better or
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: worse hunt. Those things matter, But at this time, you know,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: you don't need to throw it out the window. But
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: do not let that stuff keep you from hunting during
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: the right right. I agree. I think that that's where
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: people start to get over this whole you know, barometric pressure,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: we're we're overthinking it. If our equation doesn't need to
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: have a certain variable in it, two, let us go
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: out and hunt. We don't need to We don't need
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: to take that variable into consideration. Example, like what you
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: just said, pressure, moon phase, temperature. If it's the rut,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: you get out in your best stands and you hunt. Yeah, yeah,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: that stuff is much more applicable. And like the early
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: season or is it going through October, or when you
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: get to the late season and you're just hoping to
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: find that one day that Mr Big is gonna step
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: out during daylight. I think that's when that stuff really matters.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: But when it comes to the rut, it's just be there.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: So But but all that said, I guess what are
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: year five days? What would you take off if you
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: could just choose five? I guess I think I've told us.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I think I'm in the same boat. I'm lucky.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna get some more days to play with. But
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: for sure, the seventh through the eleventh. That's those are
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: the days where historically I've had great encounters anywhere from
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: the five to the you know, I've had great encounters.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Maybe actually my very best day of hunting ever I
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: can remember this was November eleven one year and I
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: saw four mature bucks and I'm talking all four year
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: olds all you know. They were all four or one
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: was a three year old and three or four year
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: old all chasing one dough And that was an awesome day. Um.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: So yeah, the seventh through the eleventh for sure this year.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: If I only had five to work with, what if
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: you had just picked one day, one single day, it's
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: your favorite day of the run. Well maybe not from
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: a hunting standpoint, but my birthday is November five, so
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: I love to get out in my on my birthday. Um,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: that's kind of symbol, you know, symbolic for me. That's
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: the that's the day I shot Shipwreck and never killed him. Um,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: that's the day that I had one one year, two
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: thousand thirteen, I think it was I had an encounter
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: with a bucket called Megatron, a giant eight pointer on
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: my birthday. He just stood at sixty yards just a
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: little too close. Um, but I think thing that a
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: lot of people overlook, and I think even us talking
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: about it, is the tail end of the rut after
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: after that peak breeding of the fourteen, fifteenth and sixteenth.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Let's say I had a day on November one year
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: where I was sitting in the tree stand and a
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: really one of those crisp, cold mornings, and it's where
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: I shot. I rattled in a buck, a four year
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: old uh probably one seventy, shot him, hit him, didn't
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: didn't kill him. And then I saw two other mature
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: bucks that morning cruising for dose. So the rut wasn't
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: over yet, but you know, maybe all the doughs were bred,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: but the scent was still in the air and the
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: bucks were cruising. Yeah. Yeah, I think you're right. There's
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: a lot of people that attest to that, especially the biggest,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: oldest bucks tend to keep on being getting at it
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: that and part of November. I know Don Higgins is
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: a guy that has has praised that time of year
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: consistent le And just like you, I've had some really
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: good days in that time period. Two. Um, I think
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: November too. I saw I rattled and Jobreaker a few
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: years ago on that night. So here's a question for
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: you before we move on. Let's say you had let's
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: say you had two weeks and you didn't have to
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: take those two weeks off or even five days, and statistically,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: let's say there's a lot of deer movement on. You know,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: we're using peak breeding as fourteen, fifteen, and sixteenth. Let's
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: say the ninth, the tenth, and the eleventh, which is
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: a Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. You go back to work on
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: the top breeding days and then come back and hunt
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: and maybe uh and then that that's your five days.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: So you get you get some weekends to play with,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: but you're out of the tree during that lockdown period.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Do you think that would be smart? Ever? So it's
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: an interest inesting idea and it makes sense. But here's
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: one thing that I think about the rut. And I
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: don't know this is like totally I don't know hypothesis here,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: but I feel like with the rut you've got, you're
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: gonna have days where it's dead and your days where
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: it's hot, even in the best times of year, even
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: even if you've got a you know, a great slew
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: of days in the seventh to the twelfth or whatever
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: it is, you know there's going to be some days
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: where it's on. There's gonna be some days where it's off.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Wherever it is that you're hunting, it's like, you know,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: it's at least for me, I've never hunted the rut
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: where it's like just constant rutting action every day for
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: five days in a row or something like that. You know,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: there's always like that day or maybe those two days
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: where it's really on, and then you've had these other
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: couple of days where it's like. Man. So my only
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: fear with hunting a couple of days and then taking
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: a few days off, then hunting a couple of days
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: is that you could hit the wrong days. There is
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: a certain level of safety in hunting a set of
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: consecutive days during the rut. I feel I'm pretty darn
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: confident if I hunt five straight days during the rut,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: at least one, maybe two of those days will be
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: a good day. I can almost guarantee it, like, if
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: I hunt those five days, I'm gonna have some kind
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: of good activity. But if I were to pick two
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: days or three days and then have a break and
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: then pick another two or something like that, you get
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: to this point where there's there's a chance you could
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: pick the wrong two days and then you know, then
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: you're not hunting when those couple of good days might
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: have been, and then you're in the next cud you miss.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: So I don't know. That's if it was me and
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: you had the opportunity to do straight days, I think
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: I think I'd almost rather hunt straight through, even if
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: that meant I was hunting during the hypothetical lockdown, just
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: because just because of that reason, I guess, I don't know,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Maybe I'm crazy, What do you think? I don't know,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: I just it was kind of a random question that
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: I just asked myself just now while we were while
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: we were chit chatting about I don't know what I do.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: I think I'm I'd be in agreeance with you where
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: you know, and and plus the more time you can
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: focus on an area, you can see the movement, you
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: can make your UH decision, because there's only so much
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: a trail camera can tell you. If you're running trail cameras,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: you know, being in the stand and observing an area
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: is we'll give you more information and you'll be able
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: to see the sign if there is any popping up,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: You'll be able to see the scrapes, you'll be able
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: to see the dear movement, which a trail camera isn't
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: going to show all of that, right right, in person
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: observation is so important, right, all right, Well, real quick here,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: we do need to pause briefly to thank our partners
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: at sick Gear for the support of this podcast, and
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: again today I want to remind you all about sick
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: because Diverge photo contest that is going on right now.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: It's because running this contest through December, in which they're
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: looking for unique, raw, creative photos from your hunting adventures.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: Prizes for this contest include sick hats and hunting apparel
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: go pros, the chance to be published in print, and
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: an all expenses paid trip to Bozeman, Montana. So if
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: you think you have a photo worth throwing into the ring,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: be sure to submit your pictures by using the hashtag
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: Diverge five that's the number five on Instagram or visit
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: sitka gear dot com slash diverge. And also, even if
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: you're not going to submit a photo into the contest,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: still go to that website because there you can see
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: all the current entries into the contest so far, and
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: there are some awesome photos, so again visit sitka gear
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: dot com slash diverge to submit your photo or to
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: check out the other great shots that are already on there.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: So with that said, back to the show. All right,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: tell me this, what is your layout, your hypothetical game plan,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: what is your rut hunt strategy and like calendar of
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: strategy going to look like? Walk me through what you
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: think you're gonna be doing here. Well, depending on when
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: this actually launches, I will have already had my trail cameras,
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: Like right now, I have my trail cameras in certain
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: places where I think the does are going to start
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: running through, but not necessarily in where the major all
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: the major pinch points are or the um where the
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: scrapes you're gonna pop up quite yet, because it's right
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: about this time every year where certain scrapes show up
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: on my farm. I want to have trail cameras over that.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: And this weekend when I go hunt, well this weekend,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: it's like I said, or like Mark said, we're recording
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: this earlier, so I'm setting up for the rot previous
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: to that. So when you're listening to this, I will
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: have all my trail cameras over travel corridors, finch crossings,
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: and pinch points, right, so I'm going to be able
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: in my the way I look at it is I'm
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: going to be covering a lot of deer movement through
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: those through those trail cameras. Now, I'm going to do
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: what a lot of guys do, I think, and that's
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: going to my historically good spots first, and then I'm
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: going to check my trail cameras on and off throughout
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: those those days, and then I will see if there,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: you know, a last night, I had a buck, a
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: big buck in this area. I'm going in tonight and
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: I'll check those trail cameras on a regular basis throughout
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: that that period, and that will allow me to, you know,
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: start to in a way pattern where a lot of
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: this movement is. And it may not even be a
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: big buck, but if you see a dough come through
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: and in the next fifteen minutes you see three four
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: smaller bucks, you might want to get into that area
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: because there's a chance that that dough that came in
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: front of those bucks is hot or is about ready
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: to breed or coming into and coming into estrus so
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: I'll probably hunt my good stands first and then have
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: my backup running gun sets to where I'm starting to
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: see a majority of the movement based off either visual
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: from the stand or my trail cameras. So your trail
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: cameras elaborate on this a little bit for me. So
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: you've got them all, you're going to have them all
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: set up on that first day of your rut vacation
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: when you head in there, do you go and check
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: them all like in one afternoon, Like go out there
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: and just hit all of your camera locations to tell
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: you to inform you of what to do once you
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: start hunting, or are you not checking the muntil you
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: actually go out there and start hunting, well the very
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: first day that I So typically for me, I'm not
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: getting there until in the evening, right So I'm not
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: gonna go check all my trail cameras right before I hunt.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna hunt let the morning that then i'll hunt
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: the next morning. As that morning gets you know later,
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: I'll get down, I'll make a trail camera run, go
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: switch some cards out. Um, And I'm not going to
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: do it every day, but I will, uh, I will
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: check them more often you know, those first three weeks
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: in November than I would let's say, the last week
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: of October or the very last week of November, just
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: because you know, for me, it's sad to say, but
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: my season is probably very close to over once my
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: rut vacation is over, because then I've you know, I've
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: put a lot of pressure on the family. I'm not
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: able to get out and hunt as much late season.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: So I'm going I'm going to be very aggressive with
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: checking my trail cameras um and for the most part,
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: my trail cameras are in some very easy to access
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: places minus one or two, and those I won't check
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: until I go over there or actually hunt that spot. Yeah,
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: tell me about your stand locations. You said that you're
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: going to go to. Your best rut location is probably first.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: Do you have a couple that you can layout for
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: us in detail what your best rut sets are going
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: to be for this year? Right? All right? So I
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: have two two stand locations and one area that and
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: I say area because it's not one particular stand location
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: because I literally have to bounce back and forth in
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: this area quite a bit throughout the rut just to
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: get onto what um where these um deer a crossing
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: this fence at and it changes every year. Right, So
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: I have one is your standard halfway down a giant ridge,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: and it is a cruise It is a cruising travel
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: corridor spot where every year I've hunted this this stand.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: It's one of those where I'm not I'm not getting
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: a ton of late you know, like primetime four pm
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: type of activity, but I'm getting a lot of you know,
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: from daylight to eleven o'clock in the morning activity. And
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: uh it's deer coming off the food, uh bucks cruising
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: these ridges back and forth all night looking for doze
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: and uh, it's just a it's a it's your standard
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: south wind blows right over top of me down into
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: a valley below, and I just there are a lot
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: of deer that come through. I can see across the
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: valley to other ridges. That allows me to potentially rattle
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: or call um a buck in. So it's not only
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: in a good travel corridor, but it's a good observation
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: stand as well. If that makes sense. Mm hmm makes sense.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: What's your next one? My next one is it's a
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: standard river bottom set. I'm set up down wind, I'm
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: gonna be set up down wind of a really thick,
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: nasty betting area that remember me talking about last year
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: that they logged it. Yes, they're done logging, right, so
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: that has sent it's grown up and I haven't actually,
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: I haven't been in there since uh the first week
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: of September when I actually got to set my tree
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: stand there, or last weekend in August, so I don't know.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: It was thick and nasty when I went there to
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: set my stand. So as the green stuff starts to die,
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: there's a whole bunch of this tall brown grass and
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: these it's almost like cat tails, but it's not really
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: cat tails. Um, it's tall, it's it's you can break
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: them real easy, and they love the previous years to
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: get in there. And now you have all these tree
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: tops that are down in there as well. It just
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: makes awesome betting. Right. So this is where that Gordon
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: Bombay buck is living and uh in this area somewhere,
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: I have trail camera pictures, no daylight pictures of them
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: even during the rut. So it's a great place to
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: start because I always see good mature bucks there. However,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: I'm not uh it it's a starting point for me.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: I will sit there. It's it can be good. But
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: if I see a deer crossing the river, acrossing the creek,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna move closer to that that area based off
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: of this starting point, So it sounds like that's more
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: of a dope betting area kind of, right, Is that right?
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: Like you're focusing on that because there's deer better there. Yep,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: it's a it's a standard dope betting area. It is.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: There is three different fields that surround this dope betting
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: area in a creek that runs right in between it.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: Have we there? Have I been with you? Shed hutting
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: down there? I think that day that you found Mark
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: Kenyon's side. We remember we we took that walk all
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: the way all the way to the back and uh
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: we uh we walked that and um, didn't I find
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: a dead Didn't I found a dead head down there? Yep?
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: You did, Okay, you didn't exactly in that area and
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: then it's flat and then it goes up into where
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: the it starts to get hilly and it gets into
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: the ridges and and all that stuff. But that over
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: the years has has been where I've seen the highest
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: number And I'm not saying in one day, but the
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: highest number of bucks in one rut vacation. That's where
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: I shot the buck that's hanging on my wall. Um,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: that's where I've seen a giant. I mean, over the
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: years since I've hunted this this piece, that is where
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: a majority of the deer hang out. Last year, I
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: think it was different because they logged it, but this
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: year they did not. There hasn't been any floods, and
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: historically that they cruise up and down this creek bank
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: going from one dough betting area to the next on
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: the next property, and it's just a river system and
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: it it just it's it. It's money when the time's right.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: Can I be honest with you, Yeah, I'm getting excited
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: just hearing talk about that. I know. It's one of
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: those things where you know, like you and anybody that
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: I've ever had come shed hunt with me on the
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: on these pieces, they look at it and they go,
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: oh my god. Have you ever walked into the very
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: first time I ever found out about this property, You
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: walk into a new place and you get this eerie
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: feeling that this could be one of the best hunting
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: spots you've ever hunted into. The spot like, oh this
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: is awesome. Yeah, yeah, tons of trails, like really thick,
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: high traveled trails. Then you have the On top of that,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: you have the oh man, just there's not ever a
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: lot of sign there, but there's not going to be
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: because the bucks don't live there. They are there. There's
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: some scrapes along this this field edge that they travel.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: But the does come in and out of this betting
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: depending on the wind direction, and they will just they're
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: just chilling there and the bucks come, they bump them
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: out and they go chase him. And then oh, anyway,
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: I'm getting shivers. Now here's a question I have for you. Yeah,
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: over the years, you have typically preferred not to hunt
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: all day. Right, what's your thought process on that this year?
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: Are you gonna try it more? Or you're not quite
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: this is why? Right? So last year I tried it twice,
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: and I think I told you at one time the
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: guy started burning leaves, and another the other time was
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: a guy started chainsawing and decided, you know, I'm going
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: to get down and go someplace else, you know. The
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: the other this year, I think I'm gonna get down,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: especially in that betting area that I talked to you
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: about just now, that is an all days set location
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: and even some of those ridge top stuff that I've
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: that I've had, but historically on on my other stands
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: that are staging areas or transition areas between betting and
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: uh food, they typically don't. I mean, my trail cameras
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: tell me they're not traveling that during the middle of
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: the day. They're out in those river bottoms. They're out
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: in that rit on those ridges. And then when they
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: intercept a dog group going from their betting area to
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: the food source that is like coming back. If I
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: can access that on a morning hunt uh or an
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: evening hunt coming in and out, I'm able to you know,
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: cut them off going one way or the other. I'm
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: not hunting a food food source and I'm not hunting
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: the betting area. So it's it's their their standard travel
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: corridor stands. How about you, well, how about me on
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: on which things like the all day said or the
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: stands stands? So like right now your daydream about a
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: couple of stands, right you know, it's every day you're
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: looking at a map. You you're going, man, I this,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: I want to be in this stand right now? What
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: do those stands look like, all right, I got a
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: couple on the outline for you. There is one on
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: my main Michigan farm that is a spot I've I've
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: never hunted during the rut, but it's a spot I've
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: always wanted to hunt during the rut. So I actually
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: hung a stand in there like five years ago and
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: then just never came back to because the one downside
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: to the stand is that it's hard to access. Um
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: You've got to cross fields to get to it, and
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: that's obviously not a good thing to do. But this year,
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: I'm going to do it during the rut. I'm going
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: to ride a bike in to get to it so
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: that I can hopefully, you know, I'm going to ride
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: a bike in like two to two and a half
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: hours before daylight so that I get in there super
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: super early. So yes, there's a chance I might spook
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: a deer off one of these bean fields, but I'm
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: hoping that by going early enough and by riding a
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: bike in that I will hopefully minimize that impact. I think,
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: you know, from what I've seen and heard, I think
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: that deer won't react quite as negatively to a bike
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: as a person walking along, you know, they're not quite
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: easised to that, and it'll be faster and quieter and
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: all those things. So when I get one of those
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: really good rot days, good cold weather, when I'm hunting
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: here in Michigan, take that bike in super early and
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: go on the back edge of this field. And then
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: I have to go and it's a long route back
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: around this swamp. But basically what this stand is is
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: it is on the just inside some timber. On the
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: back side of me is a massive CRP field, a great, big,
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: thick CRP field that nobody is allowed to hunt. On
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: the front side of me is a narrow, a narrow
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: stretch of high ground that separates that big CRP field
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: from a great big swamp. And I've got deer bedded
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: just along the edge of this high ground right in
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: front of me and inside the swamp. And then there's
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: sometimes dear bedded back in that CRP that will be
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: behind me. And what I believe is happening is that
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: there's gonna be bucks cruising along the edge of that
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: swamp on the high ground, trying to win anything that's
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: betted in these betting areas to the west of me.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: So when I've got a west window on the head
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: and there sit this ridge kind of it's not really ridge,
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: just a small era of high ground and just sit
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: that all day. And if I can do that like
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: two days in a row or a couple of days,
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: I'm some of those best rout days. I just have
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: to believe that something's gonna come cruising through there. So
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: that is what I think is one of my top
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: rot spots because this downwind of a really good dough
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: betting area and in a good kind of travel corridor,
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: because it's just basically the only easy way for a
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: buck to get from point A to point B without
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: slashing through the middle of that swamp, which they're not
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: gonna do typically, or being out in the open in
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: some of these fields. So that's one um. Another set
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: I'm excited about, And it's a stand that you can
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: only hunt on the very best wind. But it's in
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: Ohio on my lease down there, and it's in a
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: spot that you would normally not want to hunt because
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: it's low. It's in of creek bottom and you've got
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: a bunch of ridges that all come down and all
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: drop down on this one bottom point and on just
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: about any wind direction. Your wind swirls in there and
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: you get busted. But if you have a southeast wind
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: for whatever reason, there's this creek. The way this creek
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: exits this little bottom, it opens up into a field
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: that goes down to your um, that goes down to
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: your southeast. So let me excuse me. You need a
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: northeast wind, so you need this wind. No, I'm sorry,
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: I'm getting this all wrong. It's I'm trying to picture
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: some my head. It's a northwest wind that would blow
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: your wind down to the southeast out behind you. For
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: whatever reason, you get a consistent wind when you have
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: that direction. So with that wind, I sneak into this bottom.
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: It's down and like it said, a creek bottom. There's
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: a little kind of grassy brushy field down there next
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: to this bottom, and then on either side of you,
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: you've got two big ridge lines which are covered with
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: dough bedding areas. And then there's three different points that
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: come down on off of those ridges and all converge
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: right at a creek crossing right next to this tree stand.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: So it's in a perfect travel corridor. It's back in
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: the cover, so deer moving there all the time, and
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: it's kind of right in between where these three travel
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: routes that connect dough betting years, I'll come together. I've
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: hunted that stand. Um, I've hunted that property four years now,
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: and I've only sat that tree stand three times total. Ever,
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: and on every single one of those except for one.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: The one time I didn't see a shooter. It was
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: because I tried to hunt it on one of those
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: bad win days because I was like thinking, I, well,
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: maybe it'll be okay, and it didn't. It was just swirling,
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: so I left after an hour. But all the other
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: times I hunted it, we saw shooter bucks and then
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: one day my buddy got a shot at one. It's
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: it's a fool proof set almost. If you have that
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: one wind, you can get away with it. It's during
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: the rut, there's going to be activity. It's dining, right.
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: That's one, and then you know the one. Other one
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: is a new property in Michigan. Like I said, of
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: hunting a couple of new spots in Michigan permission on
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: and this one is pounded with other hunters. There's other
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: hunters in this property, but there's big, big swamp land
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: on this piece, and there's a kind of similar to
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: that one property I was mentioned in the beginning, where
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: there's a piece of high ground that cuts between a
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: swamp and some other thick timber. That's kind of what
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: I have here, And it just seems like that perfect
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: bedding and transition area that if you sat in there
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: all day for a couple of days during the ruck,
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: something would happen. I love being in thick cover close
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: to doe bedding. Those are probably my favorite spots during
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: the ruck, at least in these higher pressure hunting pressure
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: spots like there's not as much activity in out and
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: like an open funnel, like where you've got a little
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: strip of timber between two big chunks of timber. That
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: stuff works. But in Michigan, I don't see as much
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: daylight activity and that kind of spot just because these
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: deer getting so much pressure. But if I can get
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: into one of these really nasty cover areas up close
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: to a doe bedding area, usually those are the better
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: spots I find for the rut here in Michigan. So
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: those are a couple of spots that I'm excited about. Um,
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm ready to get in one of
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: those trees. I have not hunted any of those trees.
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: Yet this year, of course, I've been saving all those
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: spots for the rut um and then you know, of
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: course also for evening sits. On my main Michigan farm,
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: those couple of food plots I have in there, they're
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: usually pretty good even during the rut. During the evening
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: you know, you go where the does go. And in
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: the evenings when the doughs do come out, you know,
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: before they get overly harassed, at least what I've seen.
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but usually earlier in the rut,
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: there's still a lot of activity on my food plots.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: And then like once you get to the peak of
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: the rut or you know, maybe ten twelve, thirteen days
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: into it, these doughs have been harassed so much they
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: tend to not be as much on the food plots um.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: But for whatever reason, like November one, Halloween, November one,
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: November two, on this farm, those spots are just a deer,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: I don't know, just chaos like the I remember one
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: day I went out there to the spot at like
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: three o'clock or something. I had to work during the
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: day or something, and I got out and I got
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: out to that tree stand like two or three, And
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: while I'm climbing into the tree standing, big mature eight
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: point come running through the food plot, walk right underneath
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: my tree, stand before you get a shot. And then
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: I had two mature bucks fighting about a hundred yards
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: away within an hour. And then I saw I think
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: a tot of fourteen bucks that night in just a
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: couple of hours. Um, just because there's a lot of
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: doughs hitting that food plot and all these bucks are
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: coming and check it out. Um. So I don't know,
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: it's I'm excited. You go go where the dos go
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: or being a travel corridor, and and stay there as
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: long as you possibly can, all right, And I think
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: it's hard to go wrong, right, And I think that's
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: what for me over the years I have, you know,
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: I put I put some high some high I set
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: some high goals for myself every year, right, try to
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: shoot a four year old or older. And I always
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: have had a season where and granted I don't, I'm
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: kind of blessed. Right. I have some kind of pressure
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: on my property, whether it's from other non hunters like
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: guys working on the farm or other hunters I have.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: I run into those every year. But if I hunt
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: consistently and hard enough throughout that vacation. I have always
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: ran in or had an encounter within And what I
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: mean by encounter, I mean something that's not within shooting distance,
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: but I saw him. It's, you know, within my site.
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: I didn't need binoculars. Every year I've had an encounter
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: with with a mature buck. Yeah, yeah, definitely. It's I
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: think the rut is something that because it's such because
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: it's such an exciting time of year, like we put
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: so much like you, like you right, there's a lot
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: of pressure on you to make it happen during the
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: rut because basically that's your best chance all year, and
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: then once that's done, your chances are you know, nil
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: or going down quickly. So we all put a lot
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: of pressure on ourselves during the rut to kill a buck.
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: So because of that, and because of the high expectations
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: we have for it, I think sometimes we overcomplicate it,
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: you know, we like we put so much pressure into
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: thinking about oh what about this and this and this
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: and that and this, and if I were I've tried
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: to keep telling myself to keep it simple, you know,
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: just be out there as long as you possibly can
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: be in an area if it doesn't, if it doesn't
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: do one of those two things, if it's not you know,
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: somewhere near a dough bedding area, or if it's not
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: in a good travel quarter connecting them, we're're gonna catch
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: a cruising buck. You know, there's no reason to be
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: there if it's not one of those two things, as
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: far as I'm concerned, at least or somewhere around, does
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: um because that's it, right, I mean, deer are either
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: a buck is either trying to get to a dough
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: or checking for a dose. They're doing one of those
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: two things. And if you always try to run your
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: thoughts through that filter, does this tree stand take into
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: account one of these two things? I think if you
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: do that you can kind of rest easy. Is long
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: as you fit one of those two categories, you're gonna
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: be okay. Right right now, I got I got a
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: question for you that kind of just popped up into
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: my head. Do you feel that there are days in
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: the rut where, let's say, maybe it's warm or maybe
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: you know you were you really want to get into
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: um A said stand, you know, a set stand, but
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: the wind direction is wrong in it? Do you do
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: you believe and maybe taking a day like a hunt
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: off and maybe observing from your truck or going and
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: doing trail cameras uh one evening or one morning, or
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: or sleeping in to get or you know, sleeping in
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: to get maybe a little bit of energy back. Because
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know about you, there's been times in the
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: past where you know, you're hunting sixteen days straight or
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: five days all day hunts that can get very tiring, right,
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: So do you believe in and maybe taking a day,
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: you know, a hunt off in either regrouping or you know,
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: going to check trail cameras for some more information. So
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: I definitely I've definitely been in that position, and I
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: have done that. Sometimes we're just you're so burnt out
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: you need a morning or something like that. Because if
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: you're out there but you're not really there. You know,
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: if you're sitting in the tree but you are just
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: not in it mentally, UM, you could blow your opportunities then.
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: So if you are in that spot like that physically
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: or mentally where you just need that break, I don't
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: think you shoul feel bad about doing that, UM. But
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: I will tell you I've become more and more UM
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: a believer in the fact that any day, any condition
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: during that time period of November, it can happen. So
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to get myself to be even more crazy
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: about it and just like just be out there. Yes,
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: there's I think observation stands and that kind of stuff.
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: If that is important, especially if you're handing a new property, um,
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: and especially you know, early season, late sea. But during
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: the rut, I think if it's a property you know,
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: and if you have a pretty good idea what's going on,
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: I'd say be out there being the best spots you
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: can be, be in a position you can kill because
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: if you only have five days or something during the rut,
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: you know, you have to just be out there to
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: have the opportunity. You need to be in a tree
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: to have an opportunity to get that shot. Um. I
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: would say, obviously things will be different if it's a
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: brand new property because you want to kind of learn
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: things and push your way in there. If it's if
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: it's a rut trip to a public peace or something,
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: you know, it might make sense to start in the
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: edges and moving away in or do some intel some
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: stuff like that. But for me this year, I'm going
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: to be in that in that tree stand no matter what,
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: as best as I possibly can be, just because I
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: just keep on being reminded too often that good things
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: can happen during the rut, even with bad conditions, even
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: on the days you don't think it's gonna happen. And
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: I think the biggest challenge of hunting during the run
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: for me is keeping your mental health up. So that's
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: why I would say, if your mental health is not
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: where it needs to be, then take a little time,
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: because I think one of the biggest challenges is just
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: keeping your state of mind in a place where you
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: are ready for that five seconds it's going to determine
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: whether or not you kill that buck this year, you know.
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: I mean during the rough, things happen so so fast,
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: and if you're not paying attention, or you're getting down
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: on yourself, and because of that, you're not really with it,
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: or you're not looking all around you, or you're not
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: listening or whatever it is. I found when I'm tired,
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: or when I'm not feeling very confident, or where I'm
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: getting sick of it or whatever, when those things happened,
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: that's when I'm not attuned to what's happening around me,
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: and that's when mistakes get made. UM, if that happens
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: to happen to you, when you're one chance of the
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: year happens, well you are s o l. So I
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: think you've got to balance those two things. If if
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: you find yourself really losing your mental edge, I guess
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: I think it is okay to get back into it.
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: But if you can keep that mental edge, then just
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: pushed through. Because I mean, you know, last year with Glenn,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: it was a perfect example that I had hunted, you know,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: seven or eight, nine days or something without seeing a shooter.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: It had been kind of lousy weather in Iowa. I
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: bailed out of there, went to Ohio. Um wasn't seeing
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: anything like I was hunting a full fourteen hours and
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: I saw one deer the whole day. Um for like
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: four days. So I was down and my mental edge
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: was was slipping. But it made a switch. Moved to
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: a new stand and you know, out of nowhere, all
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, here's the number one buck I've been
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: after hunting for three years. Here he is at twenty yards.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: And if I hadn't happened to be paying attention, you know,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: he would have spooked. He would have stepped out of
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: the tree. I would have been dicking around on my
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: phone or something or turning or whatever it is, and
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: he spooked and there goes my season. Um So I
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: think that is like this huge you know, not often
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: talked about part about hunting, the rut that can make
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: or break everything. Got you. Yeah, I don't know. I'm
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: I like to grind it like you know that your
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: word man grinded. I've I have had two kids. I
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: know what it's like to be extremely tired but still
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: be able to function. Um, and it's just like hunting
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: is just like having a newborn at at times, and
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: it's it's after It's crazy to say, but after you
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: have kids, hunting for sixteen days straight is easy. Well
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: that's good to know. Hey, I got I got one
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: more question. Do we have time for one more question?
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: We've got plenty of time, Okay, good. I want to
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: talk about I want to ask you about what your
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: thoughts are on access and specifically you know you mentioned
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: you have a stand that is only good for a
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: specific wind. Now, is that because of the access to
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: that stand or is it because of the wind direction
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: while you're in the stand, Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah,
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: I think it does. So in that specific instance, it's
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: not access. It's like just when you're sitting there, because
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: of the fact that you're down in this bottom, there's
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: all this terrain around you. The wind on most wind
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: directions just spins around and around and around, so any
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: deer coming towards you ends up winding you, um, which
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: just does not work. But I will say um different
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: than at other points of the year. I am personally
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: just me personally, I'm willing to get a little bit
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: riskier with my wind direction typically during the rut and
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: I will sacrifice, like if I have to get to
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: a spot if the conditions are right, you know, great
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: cold front, I want to be in my best stand,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: you know whatever. There's all intel that points to that
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: being the right spot to hunt. But my wind is
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: not perfect for access, or my wind is not great,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: not exactly how I'd like it to be. I'm much
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: more willing to push the limits on that during the
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: rut um because I think you're able to get away
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: with more. I think if you spook a buck on
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: one day, there's still a chance. If you're in like
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: a travel quarter something, there's gonna be other deer that
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: come through. Um, so I think you can get away
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: with more at this time of year. I'm not as
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: obsessive about keeping the pressure quite as low as I
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: am at every other time of the year. What about you,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: I always you know, especially that river bottom stand that
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: I talked about, I know it can be good with
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: multiple wind directions, but in the past, I've always accessed
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: it from let's say, one specific direction with the wind
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: in my face because it sits on a property line, right,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: So I need to figure out ways to access my stands,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: and I have done this from different, you know, different directions,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: so I can hunt that stand on multiple winds. Right,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: So I have a stand that I can hunt on
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: a northwest I have and I can hunt I can
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: basically hunt this stand on every every direction except a
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: northeast wind. I can hunt it on a straight east,
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: I can hunt it on a straight north, but I
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: can't hunt it on a northeast wind. So that that
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: gives me a lot, a lot of opportunity. Right. But
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: if I'm accessing and it's always good in the morning,
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: but if I'm accessing it from the east, that stand
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: from the east, I am walking through deer to get
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: to that stand. Yeah, And I think that's something you
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: can get away with, you know, like once or something
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: like that. But if you do it, you're like four
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: or five days in a row. That's that's when I think,
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: even during the rut that you know, if you consistently
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: are blowing all the doors out of the spot when
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: you're trying to access, I think that's when you start
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: seeing that impact, Right, do you think so? I agree?
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: I just think I think I guess what I'm getting
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: at is to to these guys who think that if
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: it's if it's the wrong wind, you shouldn't hunt the stand,
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: look at your access first. And I know that we've
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: talked with um Bill Winkie and he's wrote some articles
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: about almost how he approaches it. Not where's the best
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: stand location, but what's the best access route to get
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: to that? And um, I'm sure you can point out
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: that that episode, but that's one thing that's been an
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: eye opener for me. Right, just because the stand is
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: the stands in a good spot, because there's deer activity there,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: why not try to hunt it in a different wind direction? Yeah, Yeah,
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: that's great point, you know, kind of alluding to kind
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: of along these lines. Another big thing this is, this
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: is probably the biggest mistake I think I've ever met
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: when it comes that I've ever made related to the
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: rut um, is that I have left the hot spot
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: m hm because of prior plans, and I will never
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: do that again if I can, it all help it.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: So a couple of times so for me, right, I
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: traveled to hunt, so lots of times. I'll be hunting
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: here in Michigan a couple of days and then I'll
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: plan on, Okay, November seven, I'm going to Ohio or whatever.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: So I've had a couple of different years where that
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: was the thing where I had like a you know
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: sometime that second we can know member somewhere in there,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: I was gonna go to Ohio. So I was holding
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: a Michigan up until that point, and I had one
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: of those awesome days where there's doze and estress in
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: the area, bucks are after them, I'm having some good
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: encounters and like this is it. And for whatever reason,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: I think one year is because I was going to
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: Iowa and I was like, I gotta get to Iowa's
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: plan and going on this day, so I left. I
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: left the hot moment in Michigan and I went to Iowa.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: I regretted it. I had another time where the same
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: thing with it was. It was on in Michigan, and
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: because of my previous commitments and plans, I decided to
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: switch it up and stick with my original plan and
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: go to Ohio or whatever. And I just think, you know,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: like we talked about earlier, the rut is not this
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: consistent period of great greatness. There's going to be these
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: bursts of great activity. And if you happen to come
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: upon that burst of great activity in this specific location
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: or this specific stand, or this region of your property
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: or whatever, milk it, do not bail on that until
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: you know that that's not going on anymore, because it's
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: not to last and it will not necessarily be layer
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: when you come back. UM. At least in my opinion,
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: I think, stick with that hot hand while it's happening, UM,
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: and don't try to overthink things like I'm I'm not
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: going to be afraid to hunt the same stand multiple
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: days in a row anymore. Sometimes I overthink it. I'm like,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: I don't want to press this too much, but if
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: it's on, stick with it. UM, is my my new
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: kind of motto during the rut, I'm going to push
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: things a little bit more when you've got that special
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: magic happening, because it's just not guaranteed that it's going
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: to stick around. When you've got that hot dough, you've
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: got to take advantage of. So that, I think is
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: one of my biggest changes that or one of my
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: big lessons learned that I'm trying to adjust to. What
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: about you, I guess first, what do you think about that? Well?
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: I think I had to stand one year where I
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: I hunted it morning and night five days in a row,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: and or not, I shouldn't say that stand, but once
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: CRP field, based on the wind direction, I hunted one too.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: Three I had three points in this CRP field where
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: shipwreck was coming out, and it was on that It
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: was on that fifth day that I ended up shooting him.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: So it wasn't the same stand, but it was an
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: area based off wind direction, and I I hunted the
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: ship out of it and and I ultimately got the
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: shot at him. I didn't kill him, but it was
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: it was worth it right. I saw multiple I had
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: had multiple encounters with him in that five day period,
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: and I saw multiple other bucks. I saw bucks chasing
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: does and it was just a matter of time, you know,
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: And you think about it like this, it's a matter
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: of time between point A the deer and point BU
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: until they they pass. Right, you're gonna You're either going
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: to figure it out or it's almost like dumb luck
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: right where you just it just is gonna happen if
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: you if you stay thorough and you you grind it out. Yeah,
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: and it's you know, worst case scenario. You hunt several more,
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: you hunt, you know, in one of those days, the
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: magic stops and then you say, okay, so now I've
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: pushed as far as I can go, and then you
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: can really okay. But but why not keep trying when
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: you are still seeing good activity? Um, you know, you
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: won't know until you hunt that one day ensure. Maybe
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: you have one bad day and then you adjust. But um,
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: it would really suck to not hunt there and then
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: check your camera the next day and there's three shooters
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: that ran by your stand. Um. So I have a
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: folder in my uh, I don't know if I have
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: it anymore, but I used to have it called a
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: daylight file, where it was it was all the bucks
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: that came through this scrape that I used to hunt
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: on a different piece of property after my rut vacation
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: was over. So it was like, uh, you know, hundred
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: sixty Class ten pointer or a hundred and forty Class eight,
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: all these mature bucks coming through using this scrape that
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: day while I that first day back to work, and
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: I'd go check that camera in December or something, and
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: it was like, hey, you should have you should have
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: stayed here one more day. You know, all those reasons
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: to quit your job. Yeah, I know what you mean.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: I uh yeah, blessing and a Chris. I got another
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: question for you while you're in Ohio. Are you gonna
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: have your wife check your trail cameras in Michigan and
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: send them back to you. No, because I do not
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: want to put more miles on my truck than I
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: need to, and that potentially could have that happened. But
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: I will tell you what this new wireless trail camera have.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: It probably will give me some heartburn if I start
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: seeing bucks showing up on that. But lucky, I'm lucky.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: My my wireless camera doesn't doesn't get reception on my
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: main farm. It's too far out in the country. I
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: just man I would be fired from my from my
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: marriage and from my job. Yeah. I have a new
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: morning routine now that I think my wife is already
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: catching onto. The first thing I do is roll over,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: pull out my cell phone and check the pictures. And
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: she's already yelling at me, like during primetime in the evening,
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: like we're watching a TV show and Netflix or something,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: and I'm pulling out my phone and just check in,
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: and she's like, God, you are so annoying. So that's
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: that's one downfall of that. But I don't know, man,
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: I'm excited. It's an amazing time of year. And I think, uh,
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: you know this is this is when this is when
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: dreams come true? Right, And I'll tell you, I'll tell
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: you one more thing when it comes to this time
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: of year at least, And I think it's it's the
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: case for you and me. For me, especially in Michigan
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: when you've got the gun season, nobody on the fifteenth,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: and for you because of other commitments. You know, the
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: rut is kind of like the super Bowl in the
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: fourth quarter. It's like the fourth quarter of the Super
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: Bowl for a lot of right, you've got your best
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: opportunity at achieving all your hopes and dreams of the year.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: And it's also like that time period where it's now
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: or never for a lot of us. So don't be
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: afraid to throw the hell mary when you're getting into
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: that time period, Like you gotta give it everything you have,
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: you gotta leave it all on the field. I mean,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: I don't know how many other sports cliches there are,
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: but basically, think of any good sports cliche and apply
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: it to your week of run, hunting, or whatever it
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: is you have, because this is when, this is when
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: you make it happen. So don't be afraid to swing
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: for the fences. Right yep, I am like my mouth
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: is watering right now. I want to go I want
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: to go out and check some trail cameras or or
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: do something else. But um, you know that that old saying,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: and this is this is what I've learned over the years.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: The you know, the young bull and the old bull.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: They're standing at the top of the hill, and the
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: young bulls like, hey, let's go down there and bang
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: all them cows, and the or bang bang one of
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: them cows, and the old bulls like, how about we
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: walk down and bang them all? So if you can
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: if you can relate that into my hunting season. I
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: think I'm I'm going to you know, I'm I'm walking
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: into this season very you know, lightly, no pressure to
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: my to my best stands, and then when the time's right,
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna bang them all. If that makes sense. Let's
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: let's avoid bestiality for your red vacation. Please, none of that,
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: and just just shoot one good buck, all right. And
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: on that note, on that note, you literally were saying
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: you're gonna bang them all day, but you took it there.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: I know, and I think we need to just shut
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: this thing down. This is it's officially over. Good luck
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: to everybody, Yes, good luck to everybody. Shoot straight, enjoy
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: these next few days or weeks of hunting. This is
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: this is what it's all about. This is what we
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: waited all year for. So enjoy it, and I don't know,
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: get at it, and just remember, I mean, have fun. Yes,
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: this is in a competition. Absolutely enjoy yourself where your
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: safety harnesses. And with that we will shut this down.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: And now, as mentioned earlier, here's our bonus interview with
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: Buddy Pylon regarding ozonics and using ozone to manage human oder.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: All right, buddy, So to kick things off. So many
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: people have questions about ozonics because it's different. It's really
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: different than just about anything else out there. So even
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: though ozonously been around for a number of years, now,
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: can you just kick this off by helping us understand
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: again exactly how does ozonics work? How does ozone help
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: us deal with scent issues? Okay, well that's a that's
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: a great question mark, and uh, you know, I'll work
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: to try to to make that answer as simple as possible.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: But um, basically um ozone for lack of a better term,
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: And actually this is a term that Tim camp from
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: A used to work for a leader archery I give me.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: But ozone is a predatory molecule. That's the best way
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: to think about that. Basically, what what you do is
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: you take an oxygen molecule and we use high voltage
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: electricity to tear that oxygen molecule or fragment that oxygen
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: molecular O two in half. And those two parts want
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: to attach to something or in this case, like I said,
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: like a predator. They want to attack other molecules to
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: get back to the regular state. And when they attached
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: to another oxygen molecule, this fragment it becomes O three
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: and it becomes ozone, which is which is a powerful oxidant.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: And anytime it literally just searches out other things to
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: attach to to get back to a normal state, and
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: wanted attaches to something, and in this case, like you
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: refer to human odor, it literally begins to grab that
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: molecule and and and unravel it. So every time and
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: owes an O three molecule attaches to a portion of
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: that scent molecule, which is bacteria, it begins to destroy
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: and unravel. So in a perfect sense, enough ozone molecules
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: were attached to that single human molecule and literally destroy
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: it and it's gone, or as it unravels it, it
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: alters it to the point that is no longer recognizable
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: as human odor to a big game animal or or
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: any animal for that that um matter. So essentially, it's
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: essentially what the zox is doing is it is grabbing
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: whole of all of our human scent that's going down
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: towards wherever this deer might be, and it just it's
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: changing those scent molecules so that, like you said, it's unrecognizable.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: That that's all that's happening here, right, Well, there's two
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: things happen again. Remember so, So hunting with ozone is
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: about time and concentration. If you have enough concentrated ozone
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: for a long enough time in a perfect world, every
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: bit of your odor is completely destroyed, not just altered.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: But like I said, like a ozone is a predatory molecule,
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: means that it is much smaller than other molecules out there.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: So a human cent owner would be much larger, and
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: it would take more than one ozone molecule to completely
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: destroy it. But that one ozone molecule would begin the
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: process of unraveling at a at a molecular level. That's
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: that what makes up that as as human. And so ideally,
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: if you imagine your hand, take your hand and put
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: five your four fingers in your thumb, and that's human odor,
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: and it leaves you and as it encounters a cloud
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: of ozone, imagine one single ozone molecule attached to your
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: pinkie and at that point that molecule is no longer human.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: So if it gets through your cloud of ozone, but
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: only one ozone molecule attacked it, it gets to an animal,
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: that deer is not going to recognize it as human.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: They may smell something, they may get curious, they may
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: look around, but they don't see that as human. Now,
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: if you have five ozone molecules attached to your four
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: fingers and that thumb, then you can imagine that completely
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: destroys that human molecule and nothing gets through to the animals,
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: so they wouldn't even react at all. That's the perfect world.
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: And on occasion or or so the combination of those two,
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: you're altering human odor and you're destroying human odor. But
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: both of those reduce human odor. So if something because
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: the wind swirls, gets through to that animal, he typically
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: uses his nose to range distance or the intensity of
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: the odor he gets. And and at that point he goes, oh, wait,
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: well that hunter is four dred yards away, when in
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: reality you're twenty two yards away and you've already made
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: the decision to take the animal or pass on the
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: anim Yeah, that can make all the difference in the world. Now,
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: another thing, another thing I understand about his host from
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: my own experiences and from what i've you know, seen
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: and learned over the years, that it's it's important how
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: you set it up in the field, right, I've heard
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: the term chase the wind. Can you elaborate on the
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: right way to set up and use your unit in
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: the field if you actually have one and you're trying
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: it out. Absolutely, In fact, that's the most critical piece.
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: You know. There's still a lot of people that will say, um, hey,
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: if it works, and I would say to that is
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: it's It's kind of like the reference to gravity. You
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: you may argue with the principle of gravity, but if
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: you jump off the roof, if gravity will show you
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: that it works every time. And ozone ozone is the
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: same way it is at a molecular level, human odor
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: in the presence of enough ozone is always destroyed. So
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: what it comes down to the critical pieces hunter application,
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: I can give you mark the best bone in the world,
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: but if you shoot it upside down, you're not going
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: to be very effective. And the honey with those own
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: no difference. So the term you use chase the wind, dear,
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: don't smell you dear smell? Will you release into the air.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: And so when you finally grasp that concept, it's very simple,
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: but it's hard to really think of that because we
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: we we never we always associated deer with busting us.
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: But the fact is they're busting your odor that's been
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: released in the sense stream down wind. So you always
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: want to position your unit in such a way to
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: deliver the maximum amount of ozone and and position in
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: such a way also to keep that ozone in the
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: area as long as possible. So that's the term chase
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: to win. If the wind moves on you, obviously at
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: that point, if you're not, if you're not delivering ozone
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: to the down wind sense dream, then there's a lot
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: there's a much higher chance of your oder getting through.
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: So a critical piece of this is always to assess
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: the wind direction, determine where that's that take your unit
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: in place an eight to twelve inches above you in
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: a in a moderate win, I'm you know, three to
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: three to twelve thirteen miles an hour with an HR
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: two d The HR three because of the more ozone
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: it makes, will give you a higher threshold here. But
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: position your unit, make sure it's pointed down when and
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: about at about a thirty degree angle. As the wind
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: picks up, you're gonna change or steep in that angle
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: of delivery on your unit until finally you're at a
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: ninety degree angle and in and in super high winds
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: where for a two hundred where it would push up
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: over I would literally pull the unit in the entire
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: amounting system and pull it as close to me um
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: as I possibly could without interfering with drawing my bow
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: um in that situation because again time and concentration, I
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: need to keep as much ozone in the down wind
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: stream as close to me to encounter all the odor
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: that's leaving my body and either be altered, reduced and destroyed. Yeah. Well,
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: that that's great advice. And some of that is even
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: new to me a little bit, and it makes a
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: lot of sense to when how that wind might impact
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: the delivery of the ozone two year sense gerhim and
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: wanting to adjust it based on speed and velocity and
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: things like that. It makes a lot of sense. Now
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: I have to ask, and I understand the answer to
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: this question myself, but people always ask me is ozone safe?
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: And so I think we we need to we need to,
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: you know, hear what your thoughts are on that or
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: the explanation understanding, because I think that's something that people
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: are always curious about. So can you help us understand that? Sure?
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: So UM, I would always start off to kind of
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: help people put context to that. So, UM, if I
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: were to take you, unlock you in a closet and
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: pump pure oxygen in that closet, what we breathe every
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: day to stay alive, but I pump it full of
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: pure oxygen, at some point, it would reach a toxic level.
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: UM Ozone is no different. However, our units are designed Again,
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: if used correctly and in the proper application, UM, you
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: would never reach that toxic level. And so but now
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: let's back up and talk about from a pure hunting standpoint.
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: The first thing I would always say when somebody says, oh, man,
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: I is it safe if you're breathing oh zone for
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: a prolonged period of time, the simple answer is that
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: you do not have the unit set up correctly. You're
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: not hunting correctly with it. Just like I talked about
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: earlier with your bow upside. Now you you have your
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: setup wrong. If you catch a width of it intermittently,
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: that may mean the world the wind swirled. But if
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: you're breathing it constantly, that means the winds completely changed
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: and you need to chase the wind. Because where do
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: I need those always down? Wind of me. Whether I'm
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: in a ground blind set up, a hard blind set up,
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: an open air environment, if I'm breathing ozone for a
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: prolonged period time, I have the set up wrong. Now,
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: if you the first thing, you would experience um and
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: so as a as a model checks, say, guys excited
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: and he doesn't even realize he's breathing it. But you
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: would get scratchy eyes and a dry throat and that
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: and dry scratchy throat. Turn the unit off, gets some
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: fresh air. But again I go back to the first part.
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: If you're breathing it for more than a second or
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: two on occasion, that means you haven't set up wrong,
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: and that is an indicator to go okay, what what
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: what's the wind doing here? And same thing again with
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: ground blinds. There's a lot of people that will get
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: into a pump the blind full of ozone, and that's
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: a waste of your ozone and not the most effective
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: application of the technology. In a ground blind situation, you
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: you would take the opportunity to create air flow like
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: a chimney in your house. If if I set my
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: chimney and my flu correctly, no smoke comes into my
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: living room, but it all goes out of the house.
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: Same thing in any type of blind situation, create airflow
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: and hyper osonate the exit because that's where your owner
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: is going, that's where your need der ozone, and you don't.
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: You never breathe ozone at all. So in that situation,
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: you're you're talking about opening one window down wind of me.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: So it I do have air come out the back
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: of my blind, but I've got the ozon the ozonics,
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: like you said, hyper orisnating that I think you had mentioned.
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: I think it's so it takes care of all that sentence.
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: So I open it up to create that flow. Is
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: that right correct? So so if the wind direction is
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: right to left in my ground blind, I'm gonna take
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: and crack a window up high on the right inside.
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: Ideally I would crack a window on the lower left side,
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: and at that point I'm able to adjust or restrict
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: air flow. And then I would position my unit in
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: such a way that where the exit is in that blind,
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: the airflow exit, that's where I pump every bit of
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: my ozone. And so every and every whether you're climbing
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: a tree stand, whether you're climbing in the ground blind.
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: The first thing you should always do is determined wind
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: direction and and then go Okay, where's the downlin direction.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: That's where my odor will be going, That's where the
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: animals will smell me, That's where I need my ozone.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: And with that we will wrap this bonus segment up.
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: If you're someone who's been curious about osonics or ozone,
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: hopefully this was helpful. So in closing a few more updates, First,
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: be sure to listen to our radio episode this week
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: that just came out yesterday, as we have some new
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: RUT reports from states like New York, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Illinois,
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: and more, and we cover a lot of interesting things
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: related to what kind of activity is happening right now,
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: what kind of tactics are working, and what we can
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: be looking forward to in the coming days. Moving on,
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: we also need to thank our partners who helped make
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: this podcast possible, so big thank you too, Sick of Gear,
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: Redneck Blinds On, Terra Maps, Yeddie Coolers, Ozonics, Carbon Express,
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: Maven Optics, and the White Tailed Institute of North America.
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: And finally, thank you all for tuning in today. Get
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: out there in a tree, enjoy the rut good luck hunting,
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: and stay wired to hunt. M