Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 471: Foundations - Rut Timing Realities

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Ep. 471: Foundations - Rut Timing Realities · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better dear hunting, and now your host,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Tony Peterson. Hey, everybody, welcome to Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: brought to you by First Light. Today's episode is about
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: how easy it is to make poor decisions as the
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: rut starts to ramp up. Last week's episode was a
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: cautionary one about how easy it is to get your
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: rut timing wrong, and if you didn't listen to it,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: go back and do that before you listen to this show.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: I'm going to dive deeper into the day by day
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: progression of a rut. This episode is also going to
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: be about calling decoin and some of the strategies that
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: we all believe will help us bridge the gap from
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: being gear watchers to being dear killers. Yeah, if there
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: was a week in the white tail hunters world that
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: maybe needed a hype music type of soundtrack, it's this one.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: In fact, since Mark is so into E d M,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: maybe he's got the perfect playlist for you. If not,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: it's okay. You can still get excited without the backdrop
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: of glow sticks, bass drops and industrial drugs. The reason
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: for the excitement is obvious since we're in the sweet
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: late October early November window, and that means the freaking
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: rut is here. But is it? Is it really? I mean,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: if you're getting out there in October with the idea
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: that it's going to be on fire, you're most likely wrong.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Even the first few days of November can be a
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: snooze fest, or they can be unbelievable. The difference usually
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: hinges on weather. Yet let me throw another qualifier in there.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: You can have the most perfect rut conditions ever and
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: still be around so much hunting pressure that the daylight
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: movement is almost non existent. Like so much of deer hunting,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: sometimes the private land heavily managed rules don't apply to
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: the public land hunter. That's life, my friends. But it's
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: gonna be okay. Let's take a step back and think
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: about weather means this week. First, the bucks should be
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: on their feet more no the window in which to
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: encounter them in the morning, and then the evening grows
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: a little bigger by the day and can open up
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: fully if a super cold front comes in. That cold
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: front can also bring in the other hunters. Because I'm
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: not saying anything new here, everyone knows that pre rot
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: plus cold fronts equals good hunting, but it isn't equal
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: good hunting everywhere. Unless your dad owns four thousand acres
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: of prime southern Iowa ground, You're probably not going to
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: see a crazy amount of chasing out in the wide
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: open all day long. You should be able to count
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: on some cruising in the woods and a little more
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: carelessness around daytime track level. In general. That's good, but
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: it doesn't alleviate you of your responsibility to hunt smart
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: during this week, which is full of so much promise.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: I personally do a couple of things, hunt every chance
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: I can, and I make sure I have enough spots
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: to make that happen without sacrificing my future odds. This
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: means that if it's a little warmer than it should
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: be or the wind isn't right for the spots, I
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: really want to hunt and dig into the backups. As
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: cautious as I'm telling you to be about hunting right now,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: I don't want to dissuade anyone from going. This is
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: a great time to be in the woods period. You
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: just might not want to go sit your best rut
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: funnel for three days in a row yet, burning out
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: a spot like that before it's really happening. It just
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: doesn't do you any good. And sure, you can sit
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: that one stand for two weeks in a row and
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: eventually kill one, but can you really Maybe, but it
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: gets a hell of a lot harder if you spooked
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: every dough group in the neighborhood last week. Also, ask yourself,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: do you have the resolve to sit a dead spot
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: for days on end believing that a buck will eventually
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: come by? That's a tough one. I've volume hunted spots
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: I truly believed in during the pre rut and the rut,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: and it has sometimes worked. Other times I have left
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: the woods after days and days of trying, tired, frustrated,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: and totally be fuddled. There are no guarantees they're going
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: to come by, or at least the buck you want
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: is going to come by. The more options you have
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: for the diverse conditions you're likely to face, the better
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: off you'll be. Have you noticed this in what I've
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: been telling you for weeks and weeks and weeks since
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: this Foundation podcast dropped. Options are important. Mobility is important.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Now this is tricky here, my friends, because you've got
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: to decide on pushing a dead program, maybe on a
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: killer funnel, or bailing on it. Confidence is one of
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: those great intangibles that makes people good at stuff. You
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: see it in sports, you see it in schooling with kids,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: and you see it in bow hunting. You've got to
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: gauge your conviction on whether you should ride a rut,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: spot out or move. Why are you confident? What is
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: the woods showing you? And don't forget. While it might
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: feel like the rut is going to give you a
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of mulligans, if you get busted by doors
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: or scrappers or big bucks, the pre rut won't and
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: neither will adhere even if the rut should be banging,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: But it's just limping along in either case. If you
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: slip into a box comfort zone and he catches a
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: big whiff of you or sees you up in the
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: tree trying to take sunset picks or selfies for the Graham,
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: you probably won't kill that buck there, no matter how
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: out of his mind with lust he gets during the rut.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: This is maybe the biggest point I'd like to make
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: with this whole episode. Even though it feels awesome to
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: be in the woods right now, because the rut advantages
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: are growing bigger by the day. The pre rut, even
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: the last few days of it, will still feature cautious bucks.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: They won't tolerate mistakes, at least the ones that live
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: with any kind a real hunting pressure. Pay attention to
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: that because it leads me to something I firmly believe in,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: and that is that most of us would be better
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: off not calling, or decoying or using sense right now.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: I know that's counterintuitive and probably disappointing, but let me
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: make my case. I know for a fact you can
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: kill dear by calling them in, or by decoin them in,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: or if they catch a whiff of the good stuff
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: that you've put out for them. I've done all of that,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: and I've done it on public land and it's worked.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: But every time has been with bucks that were in
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: their comfort zone and seemed very confident in their travel.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: They were the right dear for the right trick, and
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: it worked, but it also didn't work a lot. It
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: works even less the further you are from the heart
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: of the rut. So right now you might be thinking
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: it's prime time to rattle, after all, if freaking should be.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: But rattling in general is low odds proposition, and it's
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: guaranteed to draw attention to your location. If you're not
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: seeing bucks acting tough and not really getting the real
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: woods vibe that things are about to pop off, should
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: you be slamming the horns together? Probably not. This also
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: goes for throwing out some chasing or tending grunts every
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: ten minutes. While you might think it's a no harm,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: no foul type of situation, it probably isn't. You're probably
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: harming your chances, especially if the timing just isn't right.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: The same goes for putting out a full body decoy
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: into a meadow on your favorite tract of public land.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: A buck might see it and he might come in
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: to fight it, or the dough group living there might
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: see it and turn absolutely inside out while snorting their
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: way towards the horizon. What's the risk reward for your plans?
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Would it be better to wait a few days until
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: the calendar and the conditions fall into lockstep and offer
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: you a better chance. This might not seem like it's
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: means a whole lot, but for most of these tactics,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: a lot of us would be better off waiting a week,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: we're just not using them at all. I know that sucks,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: but after three decades of bow hunting pressure deer, I'm
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: a firm believer in figuring out where dear like to
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: walk and then getting there and then shooting them. The
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: success rates I've seen on calling, on decoy and on
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: using sense are scary low, scary low. My friends, worse yet,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: they often feel damaging and occasionally show me flat out
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: that I'm causing damage by letting me watch dear spook
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: away right out of my life. This is important, so
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: I'll reiterate it once again. Using any tactic to attempt
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: to draw a deer into bow range might seem like
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: a low risk deal, but it's probably not the deer
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: that slipped down whet your calling session. The ones that
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: see you moving are the ones that just booger at
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: the sight of a wonky deer decoy, our dear that
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: you've just educated. On the flip side, You're out there
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: to have some fun, right. If the promise of a
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: blind rattling session makes you all warm and fuzzy, then
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: by all means, clang those bitches together in might work,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: and if it keeps you hunting, it on stand longer,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: then that's not all a bad thing. Just think about
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: why you're doing what you're doing and whether you want
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: to take the risk. The same goes for calling to
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: deer that you actually see. I have snortweezed in bucks
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: during the rut and killed them, and have blown good
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: bucks completely out of the county by snort wheezing at them.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: The same goes for running head bucks running on public
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: land after running at them during the rut. But we
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: are in the rut this week, are we We're in
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: the pre rut, and the likelihood of a mindless response
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: is lower now than it will be in just a
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: few days or a week. Consider also what your competition
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: is doing. If you're a public land hunter, or maybe
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: you hunt out east, you're hunt in the Midwest, hunt
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: down south on smaller tracts of land private ground. Even
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: you've got lots and lots of people hunting the same
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: tracks around you, you can bet your ask that your
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: competition is out there calling away. You can bet that
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: every hunter you meet at the very lea just carrying
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: a grunt tube, probably a bottle of dope, and likely
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: a set of rattling antlers or rattling bag. You know
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: they are blind calling. How many deer are they going
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: to educate to these tactics? How effective is your calling
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: session going to be when it's the sixth rattling sequence
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: a buck is heard in three days. All of this
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: is about cumulative negative association. This is why a two
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: and a half year old on public land will bust
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: you bigger than ship and run away without hesitation, even
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: if he spots you from a hundred yards away, while
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: a buck that has been raised in a tightly managed
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: property with little pressure will often become less nocturnal at
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: five years old. I think I'm joking. One of the
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: most prominent white tailed experts out there told me that
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: this is exactly what happens on his farm. He casually
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: said to me one day that his bucks get much
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: easier to kill when they're fully mature. I guess that's
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: probably because they've never had a negative interaction, and every
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: each single time they've spotted or smelled or herd a hunter,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: they just got to walk away scott free. That's not
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: the case with those pressure deer you're chasing. You're not
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: hunting deer like that, are you. I mean, if you
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: are digging your bag tricks have a blast. If not
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: be careful, you can't control the other hunters on your leaves,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: or you're chosen chunk of public land, and you know
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: a good percentage of them are going to throw everything
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: they can at the deer. This doesn't stop the rut,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: and it doesn't stop the advantages the pre rut gives you,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: but it does dull them, and it certainly begs of
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: the good hunter, a realistic strategy that takes into account
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: mostly where the deer like to be and how to
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: get in there ninja style to stay as undetected as possible.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: I've mentioned this in past episodes, but it does bear repeating.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: I'm not anti calling or anti decoin or anti using sense.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: I'm an advocate for careful usage. If you've got a
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: good bucket fifty yards in the brush and he's fat
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: and happy and making a rub but definitely doesn't look
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: like he'll come your way, give him a grunt, provided
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: you think he won't bust you. If there are a
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: couple of bucks locking times across the river from you
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: and the sun is set, give your own antler as
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: a tickle to see if they can get them across.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: There are situations. Even with pressure deer we're making a
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: little contact is the right choice. It's all dependent on
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: the moment and your personal read on the body language
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: of the deer. This is something I should probably expand on,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: So let me talk about puppies. I love training dogs,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: and there is nothing more satisfying than working with a
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: good little lab pub and showing it something that I
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: wanted to do better yet is getting a positive response,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: and then daisy chaining multiple behaviors together to really start
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: to craft an awesome dog. This is satisfying stuff, but
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: also can be tremendously frustrating. Because a puppy has the
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: same attention span as my two year old child or
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: your average outdoor television host. One distraction for a puppy
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: in a training session can tank, which means you've got
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: to be reading the dog in every interaction, every moment
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: of your interaction, really really reading the dog. If it's
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: ready to work, you'll see it in the eye contact,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: the crispness of its actions. You'll just know. With bucks.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Weirdly enough, the same rules kind of apply. A buck
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: that is slinking around and just looks nervous is a
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: deer You should not call to ever. A buck that
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: is slowly walking through and just has some swagger to
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: his step, that's a different story. If he's confident he's collable.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: If he isn't, he might not be collable and might
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: be worse than that. Scarable. That's not a word I
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: don't think, but I'm gonna use it anyway. This is
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: one of the things that you can learn through experience only,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: and one of the reasons why I begged you way
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: back in the summer to go out and spend some
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: time glassing deer, glassing those bachelor bucks. You don't learn
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: to read buck body language with trail camera photos, but
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: you do by watching them through a spotting scope. You
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: also do by watching them interact with their environment through
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: your binos when you're saddled up on November first. To
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: pay attention to their demeanor and use that to inform
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: your decisions to call. Also pay attention closely to your
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: response rates. Where you hunt, there is a specific buck
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: to do ratio, There is a specific amount of hunting pressure,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: There is a specific age structure. All of this is
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: individualized to your hunting spots. If the deer in your
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: woods love a good rattling session, keep at it, but
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: be honest about the responses and the reactions to your tactics.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: This will tell you an awful lot about whether you
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: should just keep trying them, try them only in highly
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: specific conditions, or force yourself to go old school and
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: wait for natural movement to bring the dear past you.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: I know that doesn't sound as much fun, but planting
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: your butt in a good spot waiting for the here
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: to come to you is about as rock solid of
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: a deer hunting plan as there is, regardless of your
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: individual hunting situation. That's the real key in the pre
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: rut time in the woods. This might seem too early
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: for all days, sis, but it's not. It's not the
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: time when I'd burn all my PTO to sit dark
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: to dark. But if you've got a day or two
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: or three to work with, you're a hell of a
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: lot better sitting seventeen feet up in a good spot
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: than sitting at homeless and your kids fight over who
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: has to go downstairs to get the laundry. It's also
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: a good time to shut off your social media and
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: forget about what others are saying. You'll hear about an
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: earlier rut or the rut isn't gonna happen until such
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: and such date. You'll see gripping grins of giants and
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: read about the hot dough that had six pop and
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: young bucks on her tail. None of that matters. The
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: rut has been happening at the same time for thousands
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: of years. It will happen at the same time for
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: thousands more. You know that the last week October is good,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: and that the first couple of days in November or
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: even better unless your way down south, then you gotta
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: bump this stuff back a little bit to coincide with
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: the rut in your area. You someone three states away
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: bragging about a great rod hunt on October does nothing
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: for you. It doesn't matter one way or the other.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Work with what you actually know about dear behavior. Now,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: operate under the correct assumption that the hunting is only
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: going to get better by the day, and then a
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: safe strategy is the right one. For now. There will
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: be time very very very very soon to go nuts
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: and lay it all on the line. For now, it's
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: a matter of being more patient and more discipline than
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: most hunters in the woods. If you do, you'll have
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: a better chance of having prolonged, exciting hunts and you
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: keep yourself in the game better. You'll be able to
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: sand beg it when the conditions say so, or dive
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: in when they dictate. You'll also have the option for
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: when the ruts should be firing on all cylinders but
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: seems to be sputtering along, and what you thought were
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: your best spots. Options Options, options hunt now enjoy it.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Just understand that every move you make today might affect
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: your chances tomorrow if you still got a tag left,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: and if you do, please keep listening because next week's
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: episode is all about the single best seven days of
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: the year for all deer hunters. That's it for this week,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: my dear obsessed brothers and sisters. I'm Tony Peterson and
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: this has been the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast. Check
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: in next week for more deer hunting advice, and be
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: sure to go to the mediator dot com slash wired
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: to see the full host of articles, podcasts, and videos
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: we put up weekly to answer all of your deer
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: hunting questions.