Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 966: What Science Tells Us About Hunting the Whitetail Rut with Duane Diefenbach and Matt Ross

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Ep. 966: What Science Tells Us About Hunting the Whitetail Rut with Duane Diefenbach and Matt Ross · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: the whitetail woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: the show, we are reviewing what science and in the
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: field research studies can tell us about the whitetail rut
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: and how to hunt it. All right, welcome back to
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: the Wired Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: and their Camera for Conservation Initiative, and today we are
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: getting ready for the super bowl of the white tail season,
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: the rut. We are just about their, folks. If you're
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: listening to this right when this episode drops, we are
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: in that la third of October. The pre rut is
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: ramping up across most parts of the country and the
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: rut is just ahead of us. We're all very excited
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: about it. We are all amped up about it. Our
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: rut cations are about to start, and over the next
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: two weeks we are going out more than that. Really,
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: the next three four weeks probably we're going to be
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: discussing all things rut. But today I want to start
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: with a scientific perspective. Next week a little teaser here,
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: I'm going to be reviewing and doing a November kind
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: of decoding November breakdown, similar to what I did a
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: few weeks ago for October. So we're going to hear
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: from a number of different experts on how they approach
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: hunting during the rut. Today, I want to take a
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: step back and not just talk tactics and actually talk science.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: So what do the studies show. What does the research
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: show about the breeding phase of the year for whitetail deer,
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: About behavior during this phase of the year, About how
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: deer utilize their territories, how do they move, how do
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: they interact? What does all of this mean for us
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: as hunters? How do you time the rut? How do
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: you predict the rut? Can you predict the rut? All
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: of this and much much more will be discussed today.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: I have two different guests joining me. The first guest
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: is Dwayne Diefenbach. He is a affiliate professor of Wildlife
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Ecology at Penn State University and the lead on a
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: more than ten year study now through Penn State University
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: called the Deer Forest Study, in which they have been
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: radio coloring GPS, coloring bucks and does in several different
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: sites across Pennsylvania and studying their movements and impacts on
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: the landscape and much much more. But for the purposes
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: of our discussion today, Dwayne and his team have analyzed,
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: looked at, and parsed out a ton of data related
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: to how deer moved during the rut, how they behave
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: during the rut, how their movements change, you know, day
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: by day, week by week. They have a really interesting
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: rut tracker on their website which you can go back
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: and look at more than ten years of data and
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: the averages of that data to see you know, cumulative
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: distance traveled and you know when those you know, movements
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: start changing and ramping up and all that kind of stuff.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: So today, the first portion of this podcast is my
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: conversation with Dwayne about what he's learned about the Whitetail rut,
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: what their studies have shown, you know, comparing and contrasting
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: some conventional wisdom about the rut with what his studies
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: have shown as well. Very interesting stuff. That's part one
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: of this episode. Part two of this episode is actually
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: a little bit of a time machine. We're going to
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: go back more than ten years ago to a previous
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: episode that I recorded on this very same topic. We
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: did a similar take a science of the whitetail rut
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: type of episode, but this was way back in twenty fourteen,
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: back before most of you were probably listening, and it
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: was a pretty darn great episode. I really enjoyed it.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: My guest for that one was my pal Matt Ross,
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: who is now the Senior Director of Conservation for the
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: National Deer Association. Back then, it was the QTMA he
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: worked for, and I don't know what his title was
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: back then, but he's smarter, older, and more senior in
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: the organization now, so we'll give him the title of
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: senior director today in twenty twenty five. But what he
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: shared then is still really interesting today. So I went
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: back and listened to that episode, and I pulled out
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: several excerpts from that conversation that I thought would be
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: relevant to our conversation up today. So part one Dwayne,
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: Part two, Matt Ross. Both conversations are about the science
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: of the white tail rut, what the research shows, and
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: how we as hunters can kind of take what that
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: research tells us and overlay it on top of our
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: own personal lived hunting experience, and you're gonna hear a
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: lot about this, a lot of this discussion around well,
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: the research says this, but as a hunter, I see that.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: How do you make sense of that? How do you
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: take those two data sets, you know, your anecdotal experience
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: and what the research says, and how do you bring
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: those two things together to put together a plan that
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: makes sense. Especially in part two of this where we
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: are talking with Matt, you're gonna hear us kind of
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: wrestling with that challenge. I think it is a valuable
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: wrestling match of sorts to think through all of this
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: to say, how do I use this data but then
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: also my intuitions as a hunter to make sure I
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: make the best of the white tail rut. That's what
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: I'm hoping we can do here today with this conversation.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: That's why I'm excited to bring it to you today.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: So one more heads up for the second portion of
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: this conversation with Matt, we don't have video, so I
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: apologize to those of you watching this on YouTube. Back
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: in twenty fourteen, we were not recording video. Also, back
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: in twenty fourteen, I was a lot younger, maybe less articulate,
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: So forgive me if my questions aren't so good, if
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: the quality of the interviewing isn't quite so good. But
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: I will say we got a little humor in this
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: excerpt because my buddy Dan Johnson was co hosting with
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: me back then, so you will see a little Dan
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: Johnson cameo in the Matt Ross excerpt as well. So,
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: without any further ado, I've been rambling too long as
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: I do, Let's get to my chat with Dwayne Diefenbach
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: from Penn State University, and then an excerpt from my
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: chat with Matt Ross from way back in twenty fourteen,
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: all about the science of the whitetail rut. All right
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: with me now on the line is Dwayne Diefenbach. Dwayne,
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: thank you so much for joining me.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: Oh, it's a pleasure to be here.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: We chatted. I don't know if you remember this, but
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: we chatted on this podcast. It did not seem this
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: long ago, but I went back and checked. It was
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: twenty seventeen, so about eight years ago we last had
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: a conversation about your work and the Deer Force study,
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: and I know you guys have been hard at it
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: ever since. Uncovering many other secrets and mysteries and discoveries
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: when it comes to the world of interactions between deer
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: and the ecosystem around them. But I wonder this, I'm
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: just gonna rip off the band aid. There's gonna be
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: no niceties here. There's gonna be no beating around the bush.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: If you were to look back over the course of
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: this study. If I'm right, I think you guys started
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: the deer for study in twenty thirteen, right, yeah, okay,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: And then you just mentioned to me that you've been
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: studying whitetail deer for even longer than that, for twenty
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: five or so years. What would you say, since beginning
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: this set of studies, what would you say is the
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: single most fascinating discovery or insight that you've uncovered about
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: the whitetail rut since beginning this inquiry.
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: Well, I guess it would be the work that we
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: did in the early two thousands where Pennsylvania implemented Antler
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: point restrictions. So we greatly increase the number of males
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: in the population, and we also, because of high deer densities,
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: reduce the population overall by about twenty three percent. So
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: we had fewer deer, fewer females, more older males, and
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: nothing changed in recruitment in the population.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: What do you make of that?
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: Well, I make it. What do I make of it?
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  Speaker 3: It's I think what it is is white tail deer
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: are so productive, especially in Pennsylvania, we're kind of at
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: the sweet spot. We don't have severe winners. We've got
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: fairly product high productivity in our forests and food resources,
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: so fairly high recruitment that that you can that white
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  Speaker 3: tail deer populations can sustain real changes to their sex
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: and age structure and it has little effect on recruitment.
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  Speaker 2: So one of the pieces of conventional knowledge that I
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: that I've picked up over the years, and that's been
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: discussed much throughout the world of deer management, is this
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: idea that a unbalanced, aid structured deer herd with a
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: disproportionate number of young bucks and many more bucks than
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: dough So maybe this is what Pennsylvania used to be
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: like that in that type of scenario, the belief was
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: that you might have a more spread out rut and
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: a rut that's less frenzied and less uh, you know,
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: there's not as much competition for breeding rights, And so
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  Speaker 2: the idea was, if you have a deer herd like that,
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: the rut is going to be less concentrated, less exciting
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: for a hunter. The alternative was, if you had a
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: better managed deer herd with a more balanced a structure,
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: a more balanced sex structure, that you would have a
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: more intense run. Did you look at anything like that?
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: Is has there been any change when it? Is it
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: a little bit more concentrated? Is it a little bit
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: more intense from a visible perspective? Or or truly is
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: there zero difference?
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: We failed to detect a different So, and I'll let
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: me explain a little bit.
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: Uh.
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: Pennsylvania before and after implementing Antler point restrictions would check
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: roadkilled females to look at the number of embryos. So
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: when you do that, you can measure the size of
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: the embryo and you can then calculate when that female
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: became pregnant, and you can look at that by the
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: age structure of the of the females. You know, we
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: would expect older females to probably breed earlier because they're
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: in better physical condition. We would also expect them to
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: have more offspring, you know, year and a half old,
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: or excuse me, females that got pregnant as a fawn
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: and we're giving birth as a one year old. You
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: would expect that to be a fairly low percentage, and
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: it varies widely in Pennsylvania because in our northern tier
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: we have lower quality habitat and very few of those
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: fawns get pregnant, whereas in the southern tier it can
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: be up to fifty percent of them. So you would yeah,
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: so this is kind of complicated, but hopefully I can
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: make a story that makes sense here. So, so we've
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: we tracked deer before and after we reduce the population,
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: so and there were more older bucks, so you could
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: make we could make some predictions.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: First of all, we could predict that if what you
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: were saying is true, the conventional wisdom that we would
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: see less variants in the in when females got pregnant,
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: so you would expect that to read to decline over
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: time as we reduce the population, had more older bucks
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: in the population.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: A smushed in bell curve, right, yes, exactly.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: And then and then the other thing you might predict, well,
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: maybe it's a little bit earlier because they're getting bread, right, away, right,
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: And and also you might expect more young animals eventually
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: if you reduce the population and there's more food out there.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: So what limits you know fawns is they have to
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: hit a certain weight before they will go into estros.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: And so if there's more food out there because you
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: have fewer deer, you might expect the percentage of funds
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: to increase that get pregnant. And so we were able
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: to test that and it nothing, right, The variability didn't change,
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: The timing didn't change. Nothing. It's November thirteenth every year.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: You can just set your calendar to it.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: Okay, So let's cover our bases, kind of working backwards
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: from what you just stated, which is that the peak
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: of breeding that you found in Pennsylvania is November thirteenth,
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: year after year. Despite that, everyone loves to theorize about
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: all the different other things that might impact the rut.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: So you have been studying and tracking collar deer specifically
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: in the Deer study for I guess twelve years now,
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: thirteen years now, let's just walk through a few of
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: the things that folks typically like to say might impact
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: the rut. I know what your answer will be, but
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: let's just dive into it and see if there's any
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: maybe small discrepancies. The moon is popularly pointed to as
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: an influence on the rut. I believe you've done pretty
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: extensive work comparing and contrasting all of your data to
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: possible moon phases. Can you tell me what you saw there?
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that it doesn't affect it at all. I mean,
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: there's no relationship. It's a flat line. It doesn't matter
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: what the day is of the peak. The half the
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: females are bred by November thirteenth every year. So but
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: let me back up a little bit because I know
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: you're going to ask what the next question is going
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: to be, probably, but we have.
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: To do it.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: I think we have to talk a little bit about
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: the ecology of wait tail deer, so please so and
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: actually an evolutionary ecology standpoint. So why why do deer
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: get pregnant in the fall?
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: Why?
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: Is that date? Well, female gets pregnant and that that
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: fawn is going to be in gestation for about two
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: hundred and ten days. So that means that if you
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: add two hundred and ten days to November thirteen, that's
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: basically Memorial Day. So what's the advantage of being born
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: in Memorial Day versus April first or July second. Well,
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: the advantage is from a long term perspective, is that
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: fawns that are born on that date are born as
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: early as they possibly can to be as big as
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: they can going into winter, and they're born as late
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: as they possibly can while minimizing the risk of being
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: dying from exposure to harsh weather conditions. And so really,
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: fawns funds or wait tail deer have evolved to give
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: that peak birth in the spring to maximize the survival
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: of fawns in surviving the next winter. Well, what's the
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: best thing that's going to tell you? What can you
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: rely on in November every year to tell you that
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: you should get pregnant now in order to give birth
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: at the optimal time in the spring.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: And I believe the answer is the answer the the
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: number of pumpkin pies sold at Costco and how that
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: rises out.
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: It would be if that's if that's related to day
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: length and that people buy more pumpkin pies. So so
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: there's day length is the trigger and people have proven
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: it so as days get shorter, that triggers hormonal changes
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: in wait till deer. And and because that's the best
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: predictor of when the best time is to get pregnant,
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: to give birth at the best time of year. So yeah,
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: because otherwise I don't know of any other predictor that's
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: going to tell you when's the best time to give
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: put that phone on on the ground.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: So so follow up question to this because yes, yes,
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: so so photo period as you described has been well
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: proven to be that consistent factor. That lead is too consistent. Uh,
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: you know, bonder up. Some people would say, and I
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: just simply don't understand the physiology enough myself to dispute it.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: But some people would say that why couldn't the moon,
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: the light from the moon somehow influence deer, just as
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: light from the sun influences deer. Why why is that
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: not the case? And I simply just don't understand the
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: biology enough to answer that myself.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: Well, a couple of things. I mean, you know, it's
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: a reasonable hypothesis because there's lots of things that are
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: affected by the moon, especially if you relate live in
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: the ocean. But but I'd say two things that complicate that.
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: One is moonlight. Despite the fact that you can read
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: a newspaper in the in the middle on a bright,
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: you know, full moon. I do not believe that that
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: is enough light energy to trigger hormonal changes in deer.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: You really need that day length is what's going to
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: cause it. Second of all, weather could screw that all up, right.
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: You can have a week of rainy weather and it
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: might be the full moon.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: And so.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: Why would you rely on something that or actually they're
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: not relyingt you're saying it could change it, but it
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: could you know, be messed up by just random weather.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: Well, and it must be deeply programmed in a deer
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: because because the same thing could hypothetically happen with weather,
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, sorry, with with photo period. Right, So what
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: you just described, we might have ten days of cloudiness
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: where it feels very dark and they are not actually
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: feeling the typical effects of changing sunlight, right, But it
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: must be this circadium rhythm, this internal clock that is
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: built into them over years and years and years in
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: which their body has adapted to what the typical daylight
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: changes would be, so that even if they do have
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: a ten day stretch where it's not what it should
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: be in late October or early November, the body is
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: programmed to still have that is that is that?
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: And I think you know that day length is acting
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: over months, it's not for weeks, so yeah, it's acting
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: at a different timescale, so there's less variability that can
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: be introduced into it.
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: It's kind of a subtle point and in when you
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: think about deer, and it's easy to talk about decisions
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: that they make, but it's really you know, we it's
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: a tough concept. I don't know if we want to
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: get into it here, but we talk about approximate and
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: ultimate reasons for doing things. And the ultimate reason and
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: that the deer get pregnant in November is because of
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: that fawn survival. But there are the approximate queue is
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: that day length, right, that's what's causing it. But the
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: evolutionary advantage of giving birth in May is the ultimate
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: reason why that behavior or physiological response shifts. And I
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: would say that, you know, to point out I'm sure
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: you're going to talk about predators or I don't know
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: when you want to get into that, but it could
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: be another thing. The reason why they all give birth
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: at the same time that's been hypothesized is that if
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: you dump all these fawns out at the same time,
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: there's too much food out there and some of them
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: the predators can't eat them all before before the deer
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: get big enough, the fawns get big enough to evade predators,
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: And so that's another hypothesis, but that really and I've
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: published research with colleagues where you can show that, yes,
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: there is some evidence that fawns that are born out
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: at the tails, the ones that are born really early
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: and really late, are more likely to die. But if
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: that was truly driving that behavior, the peak and birth
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: would exist in other parts of the white tailed deer's range.
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: And when you go down to South America, when you
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: get close to the equator and the day is almost
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: twelve hours every day of the year, deer give birth.
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: Other things drive when deer give birth, like rainfall. Even
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: in Texas, rainfall drives the timing of birth more than predators.
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: So you know, that's another hypothesis that yes, it has
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: some effect, but we can look at other parts of
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: the deer's range and see that no, that can't explain
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: that pattern and not reproduction.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: So, as you mentioned, it's it's well established that the
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: timing of breeding is consistent, relatively consistent, but on a
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: bell curve. So there's a peak where most give you know,
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: most most conceived, and then of course there's tails on
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: either side. But as you mentioned and as every hunter knows,
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: every single year, we as individuals experience a different kind
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: of activity during the run, right, And so you have
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: two different things we have here. We're measuring the date
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: of conception, the date of peak breeding versus running activity,
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: which would be you know, as hunters, we're thinking deer chasing,
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: running around, looking for does fighting, doing all that kind
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: of stuff that's typically what many of us hope to
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: see during the rut. I'm curious in your tracking, whether
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: it be through the things you guys have documented through
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: the RUT tracker, where you're tracking you know, average distance
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: or absolute distance traveled or any other metric. What about
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: what some people have talked about with maybe the moon
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: doesn't impact breeding, but might the moon, or might a
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: cold front, or might some other factor uncover running activity
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: or enhance running activity. So some theorize if you have
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: a certain moon, you will see more of this daylight activity,
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: while if you have a certain other moon, more of
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: the running activity just happens after dark because they're moving
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: less in daylight or let's insert cold front in there.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: Some folks say, well, if you you know, all things
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: being equal and November first, sure there's going to be
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: a lot of running activity. But if it's eighty degrees,
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: a lot of that running activity is probably happening after dark.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: But if it's forty degrees, a lot of that running
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: activity is happening in the daylight. And that makes a
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: big difference on a hunter's experience. Has your data or
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: observations validated any of that?
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: Maybe sort of? I don't know. How's that.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: Love it?
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: So it's it's kind of tough, right, I agree. So
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: a lot of my data is big picture, like the
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: study that I said where we monitored you know, timing
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: of births or pregnancy was over six years data statewide.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: You know, we found no changes, no variation across the
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: state or anything. And so so I'm looking at the
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: big picture in the average, and the average is oftentimes
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: or it's misleading, right, So there's it doesn't capture the
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: variability it's out there, and I really think that it's
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: it's low, like there could be lots of variation locally.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: So for example, one of the things you talked about
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: that bell curve. Well, yeah, it's a bell curve with
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: a tail out to the right. So the breeding picks
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: up really quick in early October, but it dribbles on
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: into December. But what you find in December is that
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: many of those deer there to getting bred in December
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: are fawns that are just getting big enough to come
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: into estrus. And and so you part of the reason
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: people so much, very see much, so much variability and
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: might claim that there's a second runt right there's that
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: all these females got missed and now thirty days later
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: they're coming back into right into estra's again that that
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: isn't really happening. I think you know, some of that
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: variability is like, yeah, all the adult females are bred,
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: and then suddenly you've got a few fawns that hit
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: that body mass and they're in estra. So there's lots
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: of local variability that you know, hunting on your same
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: property year after year, you're going to see different levels
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: of rut activity in the bucks. And the reason I
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: say I sort of don't have data is that if
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: you really could track, what you would need to know
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: is if you could put a collar on a buck
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: and know, okay, this buck is now tending a dough
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: and this buck is not tending a dough. And what
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: we found is that you can't tell you have to
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: have the female. So we've had situations where we had
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: both a buck and a dough rate collared and we
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: could see that twenty four hour twelve to twenty four
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: hour tending period because they would just be lockstep together
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: that whole time. And but if all you have is
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: tracking the buck, you cannot detect those types of movements.
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: So so what I'm saying is that I don't really
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: have the data to look at what causes the variability
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: in a buck's behavior. All I can do is look
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: at this buck and say, all right, here's he's going
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: one mile per day in early October and it and
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: by you know, the first week in November, he's doing
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: three to five miles a day. So that's my caveat.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: A quick aside here, you just intrigued me. In these
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: cases where you have been able to document a buck
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: and doll pair together and actually have both of them collared.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: What have you seen a lot of us hypothesize. A
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: lot of people tell you what a buck and to
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: do a buck and a doe do when they are
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: tending and together. But were you guys able to pull
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: out any specific insights as far as you know, how
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: far they traveled on average, how much time they spent
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: together on average, anything anything else that might be of interest,
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: because I think there's there's a lot of theories. I'm
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: not sure how much is it.
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: So nothing nothing jumps out in terms of movement, because,
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: like I said, we followed this buck and the movements
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: while he's tending a dough aren't any different than when
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: he's just walking around, or we couldn't distinguish We couldn't
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: distinguish that, Oh, it's very particular what happens while he's
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: tending the dough. So nothing there that you know that
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: I could point to to say it's what's unique about it.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: So so what about that variability you mentioned? How like
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: there is some variability? And for example, I went back
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: and looked through some of the data you guys have
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: collected and shared, and something I noticed is that you
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: guys have been tracking average cumulative distance traveled by bucks
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: during the rut for a number of years, and there
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: have been some years where it's dramatically different. For example,
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: in twenty fifteen and correct me if I got these wrong,
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: but I believe these are the correct numbers pulled from
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: your website. In twenty fifteen, the average cumulative distance traveled
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: by Bucks in November was eighty eight miles. In twenty
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: twenty three, same month, average cumulative distance traveled it was
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty miles, so nearly double the amount
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: of travel during the November of twenty three versus the
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: November of twenty fifteen. Can you speak to anything that
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: might help us understand why twenty fifteen and it's so
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: little travel, twenty twenty three had so much. And I
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: gotta believe there's other years that have been you know,
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: bouncing here and there and everywhere. As you have collared
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: and studied all these deer, that makes me think there's
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: something happening.
• 31:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: Part of it is you know the sample, right, they're
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: different deer every year, and so we know that there's
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: huge variability among deer. Like some guys, some of these
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: Bucks will have home ranges of five square miles and
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: some might only have two and a half square miles.
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: And we don't have huge sample sizes, right. We try
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: to collar across our four study areas about oh ten
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: bucks or so, so it's not a huge sample size.
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: So part of that variability from year to year is
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: just the sample of deer that we have to capture.
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: I do think there must be uh. I would think
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: that there are some other factors that could influence that movement,
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: like food availability. In fact, this year is gonna is
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: already looking to be an extreme year for white tail
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: dough doughs in that they're for the first two weeks
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: in October they are averaging movements of about half a
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: mile a day, and and and the long term average
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: is about a mile and even like all of the
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: deer are below average. Yeah, and now the perfect thing
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: is like, this is what's so difficult about studying deers.
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: We have no control on a lot of things. So
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: you've had a drought, and we also have a bumper
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: acorn crop. So is the fact that there's lots of
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: acorns or is it because it's a drought? Right, I
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: have no idea. If I had to put money on it,
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: I would say acorns because you know, some of the
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: reports and I'm sure people reading our blog will write
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: in you know, people have already commented that you know,
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: it's like walking on marbles out there in places. And
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: if that's the case, then your does aren't going to move,
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: They're going to move very little. So the question is
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: does a buck have to move more to find more
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: dough or does he not have to go as far
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: to find dough because they're easier to find because they
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: don't move as much. You know, because I've always you
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: can you can see either no change in dough movements
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: during the rut or actually a slight reduction. And you know,
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: that could be like I say, if you're lost in
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: the woods, would you're supposed to do You're supposed to
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: not move because you're more likely to be rescued, and
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: so that could be the behavior of white tailed deer.
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: So anyway, there's the short The short answer is I
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: don't really know, but I know there are things that
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: are influencing their movements, and I can't really parse out
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: the difference between my different samples because I have different
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: bucks every year, or you know, or what factor is
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: actually driving because because I don't even well, there are
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: some measures of acorns, but acorns can also be very
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: spotty and you know, spatially distribute on the landscape. So yeah,
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: it's it's the challenge of studying creatures in the wild
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: is is we have You know, radio callers give us
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: great insights that we wouldn't others see. But until we
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: have cameras on those collars and see what they see,
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: there's a lot that we're missing.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: What do you think would surprise people? You guys have
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: shared these videos on occasion on your blog where you
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: show the actual path, the travel path that some of
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: these deer taking. If the general public were to sit
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: down and watch the travel of every one of these
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: bucks that you have collared over the years during the rut,
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: is there anything that you think would surprise people?
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: Well, I think the interesting thing is when you watch
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: our movies, it looks like they suddenly speed up because
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: and in a sense they do, but it's they're not.
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: It's just that they're probably walking in more of a
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: straight line distance between locations. Because so our radio callers
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: for the readers, if you don't know, the way they
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: work is we program them and tell them, Okay, get
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: me a location once an hour, or get me a
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: location once every thirty minutes. Whatever you want, you can do.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: It just depends on how good your battery life is,
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: and so it looks like these deer are just cuttsing
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: around and then suddenly they go boom boom boom, like
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: a you know, a paddle ball, you know, a ball
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: on us on a rubber band. But those bucks really
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: most of the time they are walking under half a
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: mile an hour, So they aren't walking faster, They're just
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: they're just walking twenty four to seven. And and so
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: that to me was I mean, I guess from my perspective,
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: that's what I found the most interesting was, you know,
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: slow and steady wins the race, and those guys are
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: just plodding along. But they're just going twenty four to
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: seven if you look at their activity patterns. Yeah, maybe
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: it dips down in the you know, four o'clock in
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: the morning or something, but basically they are just going
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: twenty four to seven.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: So so are you are you saying that your data
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: validates the idea that many popularized that at least during
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: the rut you should be hunting even during the middle
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: of the day, because those bucks will still be on
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: their feet and moving quite a bit.
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: I think so, although they still show up on my
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: game cameras only at night, So I have no idea.
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: I have no idea why I don't see them. But
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: but again, you know where I live, it's a mixture
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: of forests and field, right, so they could be sticking
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: to the woods. And my game cameras are always on
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: the edges of a field, you know, on a scrape
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: or you know that sort of thing. But you know,
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: we we study, you know, the deer for studies in
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: what we call the Big Woods of Pennsylvania. So these
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: are just contiguous tracks. They're ninety five percent forested over
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty five square miles. So in that context, we
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: just basically see these bucks walking around twenty four to
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: seven And you know, so you know, one time, I think,
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: I you know, tried to figure the calculations and this
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: one buck he started and ended up in the same
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: place within twelve hours. And over those twelve hours he
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: went up and over three ridges, like almost a mile
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: in elevation change and did I don't know how many
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: two or three miles in that loop. And that was
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: just you know, just walking. I mean, you know, so
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: in a month time they're ended up walking most most
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: of them are doing over one hundred miles. Some are
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: over one hundred and fifty miles. So yeah, it's it's
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: amazing that we have the technology now to document that,
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: and it explains so many things like why does this
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: buck show up that I've never seen all summer long? Yeah,
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: because their home ranges are, you know, tripling.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: You guys have a really interesting page of Elbow on
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: your website, your rut tracker that shows both this year's
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: average movement I believe it's cumulative distance or average distance,
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: and then you show what this year's data is compared
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: to the average from the previous ten years. Could you
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: walk folks through what generally that timeline of movement looks
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: like when you see it really picking up, when it
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: kind of exponentially hockey curves up, and then what that
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: bell curve looks like just from a date I think
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of folks have a general idea
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: of when these time periods are, but I think it'll
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: be interesting just to hear from you on exactly what
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: that date range that you've document it is.
• 40:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 40:01
  Speaker 6: Yeah, So what I've been doing is just calculating the
• 40:08
  Speaker 6: distance that each deer travels every day, and then we
• 40:12
  Speaker 6: can average that to show the average distance that a
• 40:15
  Speaker 6: deer moved and I think our locations are hourly at
• 40:20
  Speaker 6: this point, and.
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: So the bucks and doze in the first half of
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: October and moving about a mile per day, and it's
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: not until the third week in October that that actually
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: starts to increase. It gets going in the fourth week,
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: and by the first week in November, it's that hockey
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: curve has almost got you up to the peak. And yeah,
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: and so that goes through into the middle of November,
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: and then you know the rut our hunting seasons in
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: Pennsylvania are start the Saturday after Thanksgiving and the rifle
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: season where most of the deer harvested, so we still
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: have a lot of or actually not a lot, but
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: so most of the deer. Half the deer bred by
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: November thirteenth, but a week later, you know it's going
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: to be eighty percent of the deer are bred. And
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: by the time that rifle season opens, you know, there's
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: one out of five dough that could get pregnant. Is
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: you know in estris so and the rifle season, because
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: there's so many hunters out there, just changes deer behavior
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: and so if you're just looking at those averages, it
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: just kind of all falls apart. And even the females
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: start moving a lot because of all the hunter activity
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: in the woods. But yeah, from you know, starting this
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: coming week and by the end of October, things those
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: bucks are really moving. And then for the next two
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: weeks in November, lots of movement, and then it quickly
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: falls off.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: So there is a commonly discussed phase of the rut
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: that a lot of folks refer to as lockdown, which
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: would be when we hit peak breeding. The idea being
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: that when the most does are available to breed, you're
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: gonna have a reduction in deer movement because there's gonna
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: be a lot of bucks locked down, a lot of dos,
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: and those pairings will not move as much, and then
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: there won't be as many solo bucks cruising around searching.
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: And so the idea being that, man, when lockdown hits,
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: which for a lot of people is the middle of November,
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: you're gonna have some slower hunts. When I look at
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: your data, when I look at this rut tracker, it
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: kind of does show that because it peaks, you know,
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: as you just described, you see movement on average peaking
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: around that first couple weeks of November, but then right
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: around you know, November seventeenth, sixteenth, right around that ballpark,
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: it does start to kind of precipitously decline and then
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: a plateaus again for that like third week of November,
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: and then as you mentioned, continues to trickle down from there.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: Does that, in your view, validate the theory that I
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: just described or how would you interpret that?
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: I I don't think so, because from from that first
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: week in November, that's when the bulk of females are
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: being bred. So if it's because there's so many females
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: available to be bred, is reducing movements, why don't you
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: see that during the first two weeks in November. And
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: the other thing is, like I said, when we've had
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: males and females where we've had both of them and
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: can see that that male is tending that female, there's
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: no evidence that they don't move. He's just following her around.
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: And you know, they're not like elk where they have
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: a harem that they're trying to keep in one place
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: and all together. He's just trying to follow that female
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: and breed with her, you know, at the best opportunity
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: and fend off other competitors. So when we know that
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: a buck is with a female. We have no evidence
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: that they don't move as much.
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: Okay, so here here's another one, another theory. I guess
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: I'm throwing a lot of theories. That you were throwing
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: a lot of spaghetti at the wall, not a lot
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: sticking on the wall. Dwayne, I'll tell you that, but
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: you can't deny the science. Here's another one, and I'll
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: see what you have to say. And then, actually, this
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: one's not necessarily a theory. This is actually a study.
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: There used to be an idea that you could not
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: pattern bucks during the rut, that they are completely random
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: and completely unpredictable. A study relatively recently came out that
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: described bucks using certain focal areas a disproportionate amount of
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: time during the rut. That there were, for many bucks,
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: certain places that they spent more time than others during
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: their rut. Have you seen anything like that in your data.
• 45:53
  Speaker 7: No.
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: In fact, we tried to replicate that. So you would
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: expect that those focal areas might occur because they're coming
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: back to check on a female to see if she's
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: in heat or not. And when we had known females
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: and males, we could find no relationship between focal areas
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: by just looking at where the buck went and whether
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: they actually had a mating event. So I mean, they
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: may have focal areas, but I think those could be
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: explained by environmental factors too. I mean, is there something
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: about that site that they go back to for food
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: or shade or who knows what. So I would say
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: that the there's a lot to be learned. I'm not
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: going to discount it, but we tried to to, you know, say, okay,
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: if this is what's going on, does that match up
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: in situations where we know this buck is following this
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: female and we couldn't We couldn't get that to match up.
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: But you know, with better technology we might be able
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: to answer those questions. Because I was just at the
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: at a meeting and talking to some of the reps
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: for some of these companies, and they're coming out with
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: radio callers now that they can get a GPS location
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: like every thirty minutes, but then the onboard caller has
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: an accelerometer and a and a magnetometer, so they can
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: they can actually predict the movements that a deer spends
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: in between those two locations that you get, and that
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: could be a game changer because now we kind of
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: have to interpolate what that deer is doing between location
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: and location x plus one, and this time they could
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: potentially draw an exact path where that deer goes. So
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: I'm not gonna discount it, but I'm gonna say right now,
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: I don't have any evidence that would support that.
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: So one other kind of local variable, then one idea
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: be here. There might be actual environmental you know, focus areas.
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: I think you kind of alluded to this earlier, but
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: I want to ask more specifically, what about localized variations
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: and timing a little bit. So I know, in general,
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: we have this you know, pretty hard evolutionary biological queue
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: for when the peak of breeding should happen, but we
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: frequently hear about how there might be localized situations where
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: it might be a little bit over here, a little
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: bit over there, Like for example, you hear the hear
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: the story like, well, there's a Doe family group that
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: always to come in early in my neck of the woods.
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: And honestly, I can say that anecdotally, I do have
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: a place that I hunt that it sure seems like
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: every single year for fifteen years now, it sure seems
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: like the last week of October is like when everything
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: breaks loose, But everywhere else I go, it's it's, you know,
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: the typical first two weeks of November, but it feels
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: like November seventh for me on October twenty fifth in
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: this little zone. Has your data shown that that might be?
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: Is that a possible thing. Do you have one of
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: your study sites where it's a couple of days earlier
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: on average some years or most years or anything like that.
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: Well, I guess two things to say. One from my data,
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: so northern Pennsylvania spring green up is like might be
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: a week or so later than southern Pennsylvania. But we
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: really see no spatial variation in the timing of birth.
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: And in fact, you know, if you look at maps
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: of the timing of breeding across for the white tail
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: deer across most of North Americas until you get like
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: south of the Carolinas, it's all November. And I'm sure
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: it varies a little bit, but it's basically it's November
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: sometime in November. But with your respect to like local variation, well,
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: you know, when a female goes into estrus is really
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: strongly related to her physical condition, and there's research to
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: show that a female that's in good condition is going
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: to give birth to offspring in better condition, so you
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: could have some and they're also right, in better condition,
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: they're going to produce more offspring. And so I could
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: see in an area that you have, you know, some
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: females that have are in better condition come into heat
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: and there's right, variation is a good thing when it
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: comes to evolution because you never know when the future
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: is going to change, and if it does change, certain
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: individuals are going to be you know, they didn't know
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: about know it, but they are preadapted. So I could
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: say that there could be physiological there could be genetic reasons.
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: There potentially could be local food resource reasons, but I mean,
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: I don't think I could ever collect enough data to
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: actually parse that out, and it would have to involve
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: some sort of experimentation. I mean, our genetic tools are
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: getting better these days. So and I think that deer
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: research should be focusing on stress level deer, which is
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: an indicator of physiological condition, because some of our research
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: has shown that that stress is a better predictor of
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: fond survival than how many predators are on the landscape.
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: So yes, I could envision local variation in the related
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: to you know, either intrinsic characteristics of the white tailed
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: deer in that area or external factors that are influencing it.
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I haven't been able to collect enough data
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: yet to tackle that. Interesting.
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: Okay, so let's let's tie a bow on this, Dwayne.
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: Let's imagine that I were to set one relatively new hunter,
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: Let's say, someone who's been deer hunting for a handful
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: of years, but they're not a salty old fifty years
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: in kind of guy. And this person is trying to
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: have more hunting success during the rut. And they came
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: to you and said, Dwayne, what would be the three
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: most useful insights from your study of the white tail
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: rut that could help me as a hunter this year?
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: What would those three things be? So, the three most
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: useful observations or insights from your studies that could be
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: applied for hunters during the rut?
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: Well, first of all, you're supposed to ask me that
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: question beforehand, so I have time to prepare. So ah,
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: so uh, what would you do?
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: I guess?
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: So one thing I would say is so, game cameras
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: are awesome, right, we know so much more about what's
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: in the woods out there. I would say, if you
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: see a buck in September and early October on your
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: game camera, odds are you're in the core area of
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: that buck. And what you could do is and I know,
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: you know people that have harvestered our bucks and talk
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: to them. They got lucky and they had a bunch
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: of cameras out that basically encompassed his core area, so
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: they knew that that's where I need to focus my time.
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: That's probably the biggest thing that I know. Otherwise, I mean,
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: I've stared at and made lots of movies of bucks,
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: and you know, I'm not as smart as Ai. I guess,
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: but I cannot find a pattern too, you know interview
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: Does does he go up this draw? Does he go
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: up and down this draw instead of this one? No,
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: I've never been able to to pattern a buck when
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: I've had these bucks, you know, radio.
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: College, even with radio Calordetta.
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: So yeah, so I don't think I can come up
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: with three because you didn't give me enough advance warning.
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: But one, Yeah, go ahead.
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: I was just going to say, as I listened to you,
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: and as I have gone back and read through the
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: many different articles that you guys have published and the
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: data you've shared with the public in a certain way.
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: One of the main takeaways I'm getting from this is
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: keep it simple, stupid, you know, as a hunter, because
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: what you're telling me, and what this data seems to show,
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: is that deer are deer, and they're going to do
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: basically the same thing every single year, with a little
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: bit of regional variability, a little bit of localized variability,
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: but in general, the data seems to show that the
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: rut is consistent every year, that movement's going to generally
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: increase at the same time of year that it's generally
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: difficult to pattern them. That generally, all these weather factors
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: that vary from day to day today don't have a
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: net statistically significant impact on any of that. So rather
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: than all of us racking our brains every day all
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: day trying to discover some silver bullet that's going to
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: tell us that, oh, you should hunt this day and
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: not that day, maybe we just simply need to know
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: that during the rut, which there's a very simple calendar
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: which can show you when those periods of the rut
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: are as you describe late October into the first couple
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: weeks of November and slowly tailing down from there. During
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: that time period, be in the woods as much as
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: you possibly can. Is it just that simple? Thank you?
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: Thank you for my number two reason. Yes, explaining my
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: number two reason. Yes, you just got to be out
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: there in the woods. And if you need to plan
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: your vacation a year ahead of time, easy, pasy right,
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: it's going to be the first two weeks in November.
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: Well in Pennsylvania, you know, the real excitement is the
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: first two weeks in November.
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Dwyane. Is there anything else that you wish folks
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: knew about your study that's been ongoing for so many
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: years now or where it's head. Is there any final
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: thought you want to leave folks with.
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: Well, the project is actually wrapping up. It'll be done
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: June of twenty twenty six, and so this will be
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: the last year that we'll be collecting factor telemetry data
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: will be ending in February. So we have, you know,
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: the twenty twenty five RUT tracker, so you can go
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: and see the averages, will show you some of the variation.
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: And I think what we're going to do this year is,
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: I guess kind of like the Big Fat Bear week
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: I can't. I can't show you the actual movements of
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: deer this year just because you know the ethical issues
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: of you know, this deer is radio collared, it's available
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: to be harvested. I don't want to share you know,
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: current location information, but we're going to go back through
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: our archives and find deer that have really interesting movements
• 58:09
  Speaker 3: and share that on the blog for folks if they
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: want to come see that. So I think I think
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: that'll be fun and we'll, you know, update on how
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: things go this year and then kind of share what
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: some of these bucks that we're not following them anymore
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: and I don't even know if they're alive or not,
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: but you can see what they actually did during the rut.
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: Very interesting. Well, I have been following the blog for
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: a long time now. I've found it to be really
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: fascinating over the years. I appreciate all the work that
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: you guys have been putting into it and certainly would
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: encourage anyone listening to go check it out. Am I
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: right that the URL that'll take you to the main
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: homepage at lease is that deer dot p SU dot edu.
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: Correct.
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: Perfect, All right, Well, Dwyane, thanks for all your work
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: and thanks for this chat.
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: Oh, you're welcome, it's fine.
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: And now are excerpts from my twenty fourteen conversation with
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: Matt Ross about the science of the white tail run.
• 59:16
  Speaker 4: Well hunters want to know about the rut is how
• 59:18
  Speaker 4: can it kill something?
• 59:18
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: When should I be out there? Yes, for the most part,
• 59:23
  Speaker 4: it's consistent year to year. You can pick the first
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: or second and in some cases third week in November
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: and take time off and go out there and hunt,
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: and you're going to see some activity. It's a bomber
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: when you're out there and you're not seeing much, and
• 59:37
  Speaker 4: that is impacted by other things. There are other influences
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: that can change that. And again this goes back to
• 59:43
  Speaker 4: the research where you know, I can tell you, you know,
• 59:47
  Speaker 4: in terms of weather and things, what the research says.
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: You know, my gut tells me some of that stuff
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: is not you know, there's something that we haven't found
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: out yet. And I'll just tell you for the most part,
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: there hasn't been any research that says weather and I'm
• 59:59
  Speaker 4: talking everything from barometric pressure to rain events, to temperature
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: drops to all this stuff. As we're talking about collar deer,
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 4: hundreds of collar deer in some cases in some of
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: these studies and have not seen a correlation to a
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: weather change almost every variable you can think of with
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: weather and see any difference in deer activity. Again, we
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: don't know. We don't have cameras on these deer. We
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: don't know if they're actually breeding, but we can actually
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 4: monitor activity, how much they're moving in a day or
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 4: a twenty four hour period, or how long those distances are,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 4: and there hasn't been any. My gut tells me there's
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: something weather related out there, and I still want to
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 4: plan when I'm hunting based on some of that. But
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: the neat thing is I can go out there and
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 4: sit out there and see a frenzy of activity. I
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 4: get of a buddy two counties over that I'm texting
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 4: that's seeing completely something different, and that's property specific. It's
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: even the deer herd specific to that property. Based on
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 4: those deer. I mean, maybe the the doze on the
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: property I'm on are all synchronized and they're all coming
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 4: into estress around the same time or just before, or
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 4: maybe there's those handful of early breeding events that are
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 4: happening that are making all bucks so crazy. I mean,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 4: it's so site specific and one of the cool things
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 4: that we've done at QTMA is partnered with some other
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 4: organizations Sitka, Cabelas and others with powder Hook and developed
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 4: an app to track some of that stuff, to create
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 4: a heat map of daytime activity where you can just
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: log in your observations of what you're seeing or the
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: deer you're killing, and they take all that into account
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 4: and create that. It's a really, really neat thing. So
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 4: when it comes down to the rut, I mean, why
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: do people want to talk about it. I want to
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 4: talk about it because they want to figure out how
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 4: they can best be successful to go out there and
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 4: show it a deer specifically a buck. One of the
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 4: best things that I can offer to you is take
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: this science and use it to the best of your ability.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: I mean, but at the same time, a lot of
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 4: it has to be site specific, and some of the
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 4: stuff that you get to talk about on your show
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: is you as a hunter, you as a lease or
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 4: a landowner, just keeping tabs on that deer herd, either
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 4: through trail cameras or individual box and tracking them throughout
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 4: the year and getting a sense of when stuff is
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 4: happening and trying to be ready for when it happens
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: within the window of when the bigger science says, you
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 4: know what, there's about a two to two and a
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 4: half week window when I should be out there, and
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 4: then just try to target when you need to be out.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, and I think it's,
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: you know, right in line with what you said is
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: looking at this the high level scientific data, but then
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: to your point, understanding the site specific uniqueness of your
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: property and the situation at hand. And that brings me
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: to something that I that I am equally fascinated by
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: that I know you looked into, which is actual buck
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: behavior during the rut. I know there's been a number
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: of GPS studies that have looked into this. Two things
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: specifically that I have found interesting about behavior that these
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: studies have shown are the phenomena of how they relate
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: to focal points and then also this other phenomena of
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: taking these excursions. Could you share with us a little
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: bit about what these studies have found about buck behavior
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: during the rut related to those two things.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no problem. Let me talk about the focal points first.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 4: Aaron Foley, who's a research at Texas A and M,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: and a lot of his co authors looked at this.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: There's a multiple year study looking at a bunch of
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 4: different things related to bucks and their use of space,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: and again out of Texas and for people that aren't
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 4: qtm A members. This was actually a feature article and
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 4: Quality White Tails that's our publication that comes out every
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 4: other month with the last issue. Really really interesting stuff
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 4: in terms of how bucks, you again, their home range
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: or their core areas over during the rut and how
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: that changes. And for the most part, we've always and
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 4: the research does point to bucks meeting individuals. You know,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 4: some are up on their feet a lot and they
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 4: move a lot, you know, day or night. Some don't
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 4: move that very much. Some have large home ranges, some
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 4: have very small home ranges, and there's combinations of all
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 4: four of those, and it really varies based on the
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 4: individual buck. When it comes to the focal points. What
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 4: Mark is asking about is this was one of the
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 4: first studies that actually showed spatial memory, meaning a buck remembering,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 4: if you will, where dough groups are and returning to
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 4: those places on a fairly consistent basis. What the researchers
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 4: found there was about every twenty to twenty eight hours
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: they had both Bucks and does collared and they were
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: able to document multiple bocks visiting what the research is
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 4: called focal areas. There would be somewhere between one to
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 4: three focal areas within that BUX home range. So if
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 4: a buck was traveling, you know, one thousand acres, that's
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 4: what their home range is. I'm just that's a just
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 4: a random number I'm coming up with. They might have
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 4: a core area throughout most of the year of five
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 4: to ten percent of that and that's basically what the
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 4: research shows. You know, between five to ten percent of
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 4: a bus home range will be its core area, and
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 4: it might not be one spot, it might be one
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 4: or two. During the run, their home range expands, sometimes
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 4: excessively three four times of size, and they are using
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 4: more of that space. So the home range I defined
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: it earlier as the space a buck is ninety to
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 4: ninety five percent of the time the core area has
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 4: many hunters call them, it's like their bedroom. They're there
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 4: fifty time. Half the time you'll find the buck there.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 4: During the rut bucks, he's less of their core area
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 4: less often, they're not in that fifty percent space as much,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 4: and they're they're using way more of that ninety ninety
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 4: five percent of their home range. They're out there a
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 4: lot more than the user, so they're shifting where they
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 4: are in their home range. The really interesting thing though,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 4: is these researchers found that these bucks are not doing
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 4: it randomly. They are picking these focal areas. They're you know,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 4: a handful of them, usually three or four of them
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 4: within the buck, within that buck's home range, where he's
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 4: concentrating on it, spending some time there, leaving it, going
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 4: to another one, leaving it, going to another one, leaving
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 4: it going to another one, and returning to the original one.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 4: Every twenty twenty eight hours, that buck is returning to
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 4: one of those spots. And with multiple bucks collared, they
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 4: were able to see this on the landscape where there
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 4: was and they also had those collared that there were
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 4: spatial memory where bucks were returning to these spots, saying,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 4: you know, there's a dough group there and you'd have
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 4: one or two or three bucks returning to that spot
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 4: at different periods to find them. So that gives a
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 4: lot of confirmation to you know, the whole adage. You know,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 4: if you hunt where the dos are, you'll see bucks
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 4: or along those lines. Yeah, that is true. I mean
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 4: during the rut, bucks are trying to find these does
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 4: they're checking the receptiveness possibly and returning and that research
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 4: is ongoing, but that that is something that's really interesting.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 4: The other thing that Mark asked about was about excursions,
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 4: and that's something else I've been able to look in
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 4: depth at. And one of the things that we found
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: with excursions is that they happened year round. By far,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: they're more rut related fall time excursions in there are spring,
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: but there has been documented cases from Pennsylvania all the
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 4: way down to Louisiana and everywhere in between, from agricultural
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 4: environments like Iowa and Maryland to heavily forested environments. But
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 4: bucks are making these excursions, and what they are is
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 4: within that home range where a buck is ninety to
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 4: ninety five percent of time, they might spend take sometimes one,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 4: sometimes multiple events where they leave that space. They're gone
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 4: for a very short period of time, usually a day
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 4: for thirty six hours, and they return quickly. There's by
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 4: far more rut related excursions that are happening, almost probably
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 4: a three to one, and it's generally about half of
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 4: bucks make them and all the ones that do go
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: the majority do it multiple times. It's almost going back
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 4: to that individuality where you know, if a buck's got
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 4: the propensity to do that, he might do that. So
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 4: it lends a lot of credibility to the hunter that
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 4: he's a buck show up on his trail camera, or
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 4: you're sitting there and his deer comes cruising through that
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 4: you've never seen before, and you know you miss your
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 4: chance at it and you never see that deer again.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 4: That could be a buck that was on an excursion.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 4: Or likewise, if you've been following a deer and you
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 4: have great documentation of that buck even out of the
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 4: summer getting into pre ra or even getting into you know,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 4: in the next couple of weeks, you're seeing this deer
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 4: on camera and then all of a sudden, poof, that
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 4: deer's gone. He may have actually made one of those
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 4: excursions and the ones that this isn't confirmed, but the
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 4: ones that are revelated or assumed obviously to be in
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 4: search of does there might not be enough receptive dos
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 4: in his home range, she's checked all his focal areas
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 4: and he's going elsewhere, or you know, very likely the
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 4: case he's on a dough that's not quite receptive and
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 4: she takes him outside of his home range. There's actually
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 4: been one documented case of a booty calling deer where
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 4: there was a doll that was collared and she left
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 4: her home range and he left his where they were
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 4: both ninety nine, and they overlapped a little bit and
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 4: they rendezvous and they were together for a day or so,
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 4: and that was in Tennessee, and they went back to
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 4: their respective home ranges.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 5: Yeah for a college bar.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah yeah. So there's all this interesting stuff going out there.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 4: And that's probably also you know, when one of those
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 4: guys that you know, you see a social media post
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 4: or somebody shoots a buck that looks a lot like
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 4: the buck you've been following, and it's a couple of
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 4: miles away, I mean, it could very well be the
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 4: same deer and Bill travel anywhere between one to five miles.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 4: That's the average distance in these excursions.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 7: So the question, I'm sorry in regards to the annual patterning, then,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 7: me and Mark have been talking a lot about annual
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 7: patterning patterning the past couple of weeks and trying to,
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 7: you know, maybe hunt where we got a trail camera
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 7: picture of a deer the previous year.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 5: Are these excursions or.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 7: Focal points like annual, like on the second week of October,
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 7: you can expect the deer to do the same thing.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 4: Now, there's not a lot of there's not a lot
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 4: of reasons to say that they are continuous in the
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 4: same place or direction. Some of the research does show
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 4: some weird stuff where they might have a lot of
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 4: the collar deer going in the same way, and I
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 4: think some of that has to do with the terrain
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 4: and the landscape in those cases, I don't know of
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 4: anything dan that has said that, you know, you can
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 4: count that on that deer leaving and then coming back.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't be surprised if something like that was the case.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 4: But again, going down to the individuality of a deer,
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 4: you know, you might have some that are likely to
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 4: do that and other ones that are way more random.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 4: They just pick up and leave because their brain told
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 4: them to. The reason I wouldn't be surprised if that
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 4: happened was, you know, there's a lot of there's a
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 4: lot of habitual behavior with deer. That's how they survive. Obviously,
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 4: they know how to how to do something, and even
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 4: coming down to like when they drop their antlers, you know,
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 4: you've seen before in some of the research. You know,
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 4: bucks can drop antlers within a day or two of
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 4: when they did in the last year. So it wouldn't
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 4: shock me if somebody had had a collar buck and
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 4: they showed that these deer were doing the same thing
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 4: year and then you you're out around the same time.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 4: I just don't remember or recall any of the research
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 4: showing that, and that's probably because the bucks would have
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 4: to be collared for multiple years, and a lot of
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 4: these collars don't have the longevity of that. I mean,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 4: they're very expensive, but they usually only last year. Sometimes
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 4: they only last a couple of months, believe or not.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 4: But so that hasn't been documented to my knowledge. But
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 4: I'm I'm a huge fan of what you're asking. Yeah,
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 4: I mean, I'm I'm kind of in a little bit
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 4: different stage. I was talking to a friend the other
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 4: day about the stages of hunting. You know, you're supposed
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 4: to go through the shooter stage, and then the limiting
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 4: out stage, and then the trophy stage, and then it
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 4: goes on to I think the fourth one is the
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 4: type of tactic you use, and then finally sportsman stage
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 4: where you're just enjoying the experience. I'm somewhere in the
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 4: middle of that.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 3: I don't think.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 4: I think there's something missing for the young father who's
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 4: got a toddler and a preschooler and flies around the
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 4: country a lot, and I don't know what I'm doing
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 4: this year, but I'm a big fan of patterning based
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 4: on everything from finding sheds to trail camera images in
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 4: the same part of the property year and you're out
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 4: and learning a deer and actually going deeper than that,
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 4: finding a buck early in his life that's patternable that
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 4: has daylight behaviors, that seems to be up and out
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 4: at daytime, a lot, that's got above average anler growth,
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 4: and trying to protect that buck and see him through
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 4: an older age. That's kind of the niche that I
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 4: like is just finding a deer that's one or two
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 4: or even three that's just showing extreme potential, that is
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 4: up and at him a lot at daytime, and just
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 4: trying to keep him safe to the point where you
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 4: might get a shot.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 2: And that's pretty fascinating when you can learn a single
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 2: deer like that over course of several years, and then
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 2: you know, if you're fortunate enough to put all the
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 2: pieces together by the time he is fully mature and
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 2: then actually you know, harvests that deer that's abouzz cools
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 2: it gets. Yeah, so here here's kind of related to
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: this point. All the ideas here about when you're trying
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 2: to pattern a deer and understand a deer. And I
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: have two takeaways from the study that you just mentioned
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 2: that tracked mature buck movement during the rut, and the
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 2: two big takeaways obviously mentions that yes, deer are taking
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: these excursions, which I think is something that popular common
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 2: knowledge when it comes to deer behavior during the rut
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: has always been, you know, during the rut, bucks are
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: going everywhere, They're going different places that they're changing the
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 2: changing the usual routine, and you can't pattern a buck.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 2: So part of this I'm seeing in the data here
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: shows that yes, there is some of that excursion behavior.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: But you know, from what you said and from the
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: stuff I've read, it sounds like that's a little bit
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 2: less than maybe some have made it out to be.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of people think it's happening every
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 2: single day all the time. These bucks are NonStop moving
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 2: all over to new places, But it sounds like they're
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: actually the majority of time, Yes, they might take a
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: couple of these excursions, but the majority of the time
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: they're focusing still in their home range on a couple
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: consistent places. So my big takeaway from this, and you
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 2: tell me, Matt, if this is correct for me to
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: take this, but my big takeaway is that during the rut,
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: while there is going to be some randomness, there actually
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: is still some type of consistency that we can dial
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 2: in on and potentially pattern to a degree to take
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 2: advantage of during the rut and while you're hunting. Is
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 2: that accurate?
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 4: Absolutely, because you're talking about the law of averages there.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 4: And although I'm telling you about every other buck will
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 4: go on an excursion and when they leave, they're gone
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 4: for a short period of time. I mean it's a
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 4: day or two, you're talking about multiple weeks. That the
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 4: rot can last two weeks. Even in terms of all
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 4: the craziness of all that randomness, it is small percentages
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 4: of when those things are occurring. It helps explain some
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 4: of the head scratchers. But for the most part, if
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 4: you can be in tune with your property and you
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 4: can locate where deer are, they like to be during
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 4: that frenzy, because certainly, and you can build your property
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 4: that way too. You can manage it so that your
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 4: property has specific locations where you know deer will hold
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 4: up where they like to be, you know, it's got
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 4: better cover in it, or things like that. That adds
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 4: a lot of predictability to it. I mean, being within
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 4: bull range or gun range and actually making the shot count. Well,
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 4: that comes down to skill and practice and being proficient
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 4: and being able to perform under pressure. But you can
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 4: absolutely change the trajectory of your success by practicing QTM and
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 4: managing the property and letting dear go and watching all
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 4: those things unfold, and practicing the low patients. I mean,
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 4: there's tens of thousands of QTM A members and other
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 4: QTUM practitioners across the country that have extremely high success
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 4: rates above the average hunter. And all and all due respects,
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 4: we're all for the millions of hunters out there, but
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 4: guys that are like you two and the listeners that
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 4: are on this, that are listening to this, you can
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 4: change your fate by that predictability. So I absolutely agree
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 4: with that.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: So then here's the next question. Then, because if we're
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 2: if we're learning trying to learn, these bucks and if
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: we know that, hey, there is some ability to still
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 2: learn and to some degree pattern and hunt these bucks
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 2: during the rut, even as we understand the does do
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: control the rut though, right, because everything a buck is
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 2: doing during the rut during these next couple of weeks
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 2: is revolved around trying to find that dough that's ready
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: to breed. So when it comes to hunting the rut,
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 2: then I think a big portion of, you know, what
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 2: we're trying to do here is understanding where those dos
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 2: are what they're doing, because that's where the buck wants
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 2: to be. So is there anything out there that you've
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 2: learned or that you know? I guess what is a
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 2: dough doing during the rut? Because we talk a lot
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 2: about what bucks are doing, but I guess the first
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 2: thing we need to understand is what are the does doing?
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 2: So how does dough behavior change during the rut?
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 4: That's a great question. So a lot of it's similar,
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 4: but there's some key differences. Obviously, It's just like you know,
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 4: men are from Mars and all that dose do not
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 4: have obviously influence of the immensity of what bucks do
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 4: during the rut. There actually is some evidence like that
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 4: Booty call example I gave you a few minutes ago,
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 4: and some other research that actually show dose going out
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 4: and speaking bucks. I mean that has been documented. It's
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 4: again it's a proportion and it's a small proportion of
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 4: the research that I've seen, but it's not like one
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 4: hundred percent of time the buck is the pursuer. I mean,
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 4: there is some of that happening, but for the most part,
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 4: what those are doing is going through that same diet change,
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 4: the physiological change. The bucks are that we talked to
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 4: the beginning of the show. They're getting ready for winter,
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 4: that they're they're bulking up. They need to be ready
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 4: to survive. They need to make sure that their offspring
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 4: are in the best condition because they're good mothers and
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 4: they're trying to get to that point. They're also at
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 4: the beginning, like right now, really, I mean there's still
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 4: the majority of those are not quite ready to breed,
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 4: so that's not going on in their you know, what
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 4: they're focusing on. They're still trying to bulk up and
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 4: eat and stay safe. And probably the number one thing
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 4: that you can do in terms of tracking does is
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 4: managing your hunting pressure, because they will key in on
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 4: hunting pressure at a much finer level than bucks will
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 4: because bucks are rut crazy, testosterone filled and they're not
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 4: paying attention to what they're doing. Every hunter knows that,
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 4: and that's why guys like to hunt, and guys like
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 4: to hunt the rut because it's a time when you
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 4: had the best chance at a buck, because he's going
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 4: to make a mistake, he'll be out in daylight, he's
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 4: going to come by you and not be looking up.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 4: All of those things are happening, those aren't under the
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 4: same influence of testosterone. I mean, clearly, it's a pretty
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 4: obvious thing. So the thing you need to really be
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 4: cautious of is hunting pressure where you don't too heavily
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 4: hunt the property. The really fine balance, but where you
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 4: don't too heavily hunt the property, where you're alerting those
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 4: to hunting pressure, elevating, you know, being on the property,
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 4: all of those things that might make a dough change
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 4: her behavior. But at the same time be able to
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 4: manage all the things that we talk about in QDM,
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 4: taking the right number dos and balancing the deer herd
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 4: and the sex ratio and all those things. And there's
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 4: some research out there behind it. I mean, for the
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 4: most part, I can give you some basic numbers, but
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 4: a lot of the concurrent research out there that and
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 4: they agree with each other. Things out of Oklahoma and
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 4: South Carolina and some other places show that it really
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 4: only takes a few days of heavy pressure to alert
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 4: a deer herd and they start changing the way they behave.
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 4: And this includes dozen bucks, but they'll change when they're
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 4: out during day versus night. How they get across the property.
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 4: They still might do that bed to feed movement, but
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 4: instead of going in a direct line, their path becomes
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 4: much more complex. The observations of those animals go down.
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 4: All of this stuff happened after about really three or
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 4: plus days of pressure. So that's where kind of strategy
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 4: changes how you do that. So I guess what I
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 4: would recommend to somebody that wants to focus on that
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 4: side of it is, first figure out how many dos
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 4: you need to take, because that's the lowest hole in
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 4: the bucket. If you have too many deer on the
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 4: property and not enough food, or some combination of those
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 4: two things depending on Again, if you're Dan and you
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 4: live in Iowa, you know, if you have abundant food,
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 4: you can hold a lot more deer. But if you're
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 4: if you're limited by food, bacon does is the thing
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 4: you need to worry about beyond tracking a big deer,
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 4: because that buck's only going to be as big as
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 4: he possibly can be if he's fed as well as
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 4: he possibly can be. It's all antlers take a big
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 4: gang from nutrition.
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 2: Can you dive into the science of signposting? So rubs
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 2: and scrapes are something that you know, we hunters associate
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 2: with the rut, but can you go into both of
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 2: those and you know, why are bucks making those? What
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 2: are they doing with them? And when are they doing them?
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 2: I guess this is what I'm first curious about from you.
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 4: Okay, Yeah, there's actually very predictable times when both of
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 4: those behaviors peak in the woods. Scraping, let's talk about
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 4: that one. First, bucks we'll start making scrapes really after
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 4: velvet appeal. They'll start doing a little bit, but by
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 4: far it ramps up going through early fall. You know,
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 4: let's just called the rot. The second week in November,
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 4: you'll see scraping activity peak about a week and a
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 4: half to fourteen days prior to that. That's when it peaks,
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 4: and it will maintain that peak up until when breeding
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 4: starts occurring. So right now, late October is the time
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 4: when you see scrape more scrapes than any other time
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 4: of the year. It'll continue for a couple of weeks
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 4: and actually in the probably second week in November, when
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 4: most breeding is occurring, it starts to drop off. There's
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 4: usually a little bit of peak after that when you
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 4: see second rod occurring or things like that, but there
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 4: should be the most scrapes on your properties right now.
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 4: Rubbing actually increases and peaks with the peak of breeding,
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 4: so that usually will peak a little bit later in
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 4: the fall. About when bucks are and dose are actually
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 4: starting to breathe.
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: And why, what's the science say about why they're doing
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: those two things.
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 4: Well, the science behind it is what they're doing is
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 4: they're leaving sign for other deer. I mean, deer are
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 4: very social animals. They speak to each other through vocalizations.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 4: That's while we buy grunt calls and dough bleats and
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 4: cans and all those things because we know that, you know,
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 4: deer are very vocal with each other. They have a
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 4: lot of scent production. They will leave sent through seven
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 4: different glands on their body with bucks seven those six
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 4: they leave scent on scrapes they leave by urinating and
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 4: or and or rub urinating in that spot. They will
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 4: leave scent on a rub by once they make the
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 4: rub their forehead gland, that's that dark spot between the antlers.
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 4: All that hair gets really dark because there's a very
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 4: oily substance. Basically like you know, if you don't shower
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 4: for a couple of days, your hair gets really greasy.
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 4: Every single hair follicle on our body has a spacious plant.
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 4: It produces a little bit of oil to it. Deer
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 4: mammals they have the same thing, but these areas of
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 4: high glandular activity, like the forehead or the tarsal gland.
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 4: You know, these areas will actually produce an abundance of
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 4: those oils, and they're depositing scent through that. So what
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 4: they're doing is they're basically leaving their calling card. So
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 4: any deer bond dell back can go to those places,
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 4: those signpost locations and smell it and pick up the
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 4: pheromones of other individuals, and it's basically like going to
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 4: the deli and leaven your business card to you know,
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 4: win a free sandwich or free hogi. They're leaving their
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 4: their business card. They're saying I was here again. It
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 4: kind of blends into that territoriality of your territorial They're
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 4: not they're just they're just leaving their sign out there.
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 4: And it also alerts and also cues a little bit
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 4: to the rut, you know, when those are priming and
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 4: getting ready to come into estress. There's some suggestions out
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 4: there through well known researchers. I haven't seen research that
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 4: says it it's unfounded, but there's a lot of good
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 4: research out there that talks about the number of chemical
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 4: receptors and pheromones in box and immature box versus mature
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 4: box that that that's irresputable that mature bucks do leave
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 4: different sense, different types of sense, different types of compounds
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 4: and young bucks do you know. So the theory there,
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 4: and that's the theory, is that they're leaving their sign
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 4: or they're sent for others to smell as a marking
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 4: of we're here or I'm ready and uh. There's also
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 4: some suggested evidence that those can be queued quicker into
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 4: reading or being ready to breed with some of that
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 4: out there, with more mature bucks and those those right compounds.
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 4: So it's very interconnected. There's a lot we don't know
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 4: about deer, but there's a lot of very interesting things
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 4: going on, and they certainly are are tied together to
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 4: each other through communication like that.
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 2: So is there any takeaway for hunters in regards to signposts,
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 2: because there's lots of different ideas and theories and it's
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 2: it's changed over the years about hunting over or near
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 2: rubs or scrapes, But is there any definitive takeaway that
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 2: we that we have now regards to if it's worth
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 2: hunting over those two different types of sign well.
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 4: Scrapes three search shows and I didn't actually say this
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 4: and then ago these scrapes have been shown the majority
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 4: of them do happen at night, and rubs I don't
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 4: actually remember what the research says windows occur, but I
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 4: do know that that'll increase, you know, the more you
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 4: have of well balanced bear heard. But just like any
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 4: hunter that's listening, you know, I go into a woodlaw
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 4: and I see a bunch of rubs scraps, I get excited.
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 4: It looks like there's a buck using that property. That's
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 4: part of the property. Now you can set up over
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 4: that scrape and hope that you see that deer, but
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 4: know that he's probably checking those at night. It's about
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 4: eighty five percent of the research says that scrapes are
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 4: made and checked at night. You could be a fifteen percenter.
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 4: I have great daytime pictures of bucks using scrapes, you know,
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 4: and I could have been sitting there in that stand
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 4: during that time. Again, if you want to play the
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 4: law of averages and listen to the research, you can say, well,
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 4: I'll okay, there's a scrape line going through this part
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 4: of the property, and there's really no true scrape line.
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 4: A lot of the research has shown and disputed. You
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 4: might find us several scrapes on a ridge, you could
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 4: have a completely different set of bucks using. It's not
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 4: made by one deer walking in a line. This is
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 4: just a concentration of activity where bucks are leaving their
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 4: sign and it's probably because there's doze near there, so
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 4: they're leaving their sign for dose. You know. So I
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 4: can go in there with my climber and say, wow,
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 4: there's a bunch of scrapes right here. I'm going to
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 4: set up right here and have the expectation of seeing
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 4: a buck. I know, as a researcher, you know, and
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 4: a deer biologist that you know what, these are probably
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 4: being made at night. Eighty five percent of these are
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 4: being made at night, and there's probably a chance I'm
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 4: not going to see the buck, but I might still
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 4: set up there saying, you know what, it could be
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 4: one of those fifteen percent times at a buck coming through.
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 4: I've gotten. I've seen a lot of different, you know,
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 4: responses on our website and social media posts and other
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 4: things when this research gets put out there in articles
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 4: or posts or things like that. Is somebody that put
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 4: a picture of a buck making a scrape, Well, of course, yes,
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 4: that does. I mean, you can't say absolutely anything. And
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 4: that's one of the things I mentioned about science is
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 4: what peer reviewed research gives us is a moment in
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 4: time the researchers collared bucks or they did this or
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 4: did that on a property in Iowa to Maryland, to
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 4: Texas to New York, and you can say, well, that's
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 4: the case in New York. That the true test of
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 4: science is repeatability, being able to try it again. And
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 4: some of his research has been repeated in different parts
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 4: of the country and they've done the same test and
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 4: they've shown the same results. That's the real true, part
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 4: of science is learning what the majority of the time
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 4: things happen. But as a hunter you need to take
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 4: that and synthesize and say, how do I apply that
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 4: to my situation? Shoot, Mark and Dan, I'm still going
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 4: to go out and set up a stand and be
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 4: near scrapes because that means there's bucks area. Yeah, I'm
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 4: not going to think, as you know, as a hunter,
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 4: that's what I'm going to do. I know my expectations
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 4: might be that Bock might not be here during daylight,
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 4: but I also know that there's a lot of activity
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 4: in that area, so it might be a shot. So
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 4: you have to just kind of balance all that.
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So true, it's the it's six to one way
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 2: half does in the other, but finding, you know, taking
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 2: what you can learn from that, and then you say, okay,
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 2: well exactly like what you said. The way I think
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 2: about it is, Okay, I understand that you know eighty
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: percent of this might be happening during dark. But the
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 2: same time, if you look at that point where there's
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 2: a scrape, where I could say, okay, I know that
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 2: there's a twenty percent chance he's touching that he's coming
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 2: to this place potentially or I could go to some
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 2: other random place one hundred yards away where there's no
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 2: scrapes at all, and you know, okay, do I have
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 2: a twenty percent chance of a buck coming here? Maybe
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 2: it's even less there because there's you know, no particular reasons.
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 2: So it's one more little piece of the puzzle you
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 2: can put potentially in your favor if you apply it.
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 2: But maybe maybe it's not something to rest your entire
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 2: strategy on. So yeah, Dan, are you? Are you okay?
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 2: Over there? You live?
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 5: We're sucking it in. I'm sponging it up.
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 7: I want to know one thing based off of yeah,
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 7: just well, I mean there's literally another episode worth of
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 7: questions that we could ask you, yeah, and go detail to,
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 7: you know, to all get out.
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 5: But you know a lot of people.
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 7: Use I guess, hunting information that's not scientific to learn
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 7: how to hunt, Like, oh man, when when the rooster crows,
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 7: you better be in the timber, or you know, when
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 7: the cows are standing with their whin their back to
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 7: the east, you better be in the timber. You know,
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 7: those kind of things or even myths that are even
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 7: things that are on like the outdoor channel or on
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 7: the you know, these celebrities are telling you how to
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 7: do these things. Are there any myths that science has
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 7: disproven that's basically just like, hey, that's that's you.
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 5: You're wrong.
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 4: That's a great question. There's probably a pile of them, uh,
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 4: you know, one of the things. And again getting back
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 4: to the you know what, peer reviewed research says the
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 4: biggest is probably the moon phase. I mean that that
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 4: is the one smack dab in the elephant in the
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 4: room when it comes to the rot as far as
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 4: I know, you know, I've looked at a lot of
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 4: different projects where they've looked at moon phase in comparison
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 4: to bock activity. Again, you don't necessarily know when deer
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 4: are breeding when they have a collar on, but you
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 4: can just see when they're on their feet, and that
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 4: hasn't shown any evidence of, you know, being correlated. When
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 4: moon phase changes that it's going to impact dear's behavior.
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 4: It has to do with everything else. I do think
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 4: the one thing that along those lines is the weather
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 4: I mentioned earlier. You know, something tells me that weather
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 4: must impact when deer are moving, but that also has
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 4: been shown to not be correlated, which that's a head
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 4: scratcher for me. So you know, I wouldn't be surprised
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 4: if either of those cases, some some researcher finds evidence that,
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 4: you know, moon phase in a certain situation. Now I'm
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 4: talking about five six different projects that have looked at that,
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 4: and in some cases, you know, half a million data
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 4: points off of hundreds of bucks that are collared haven't
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 4: found it. You got to feel like, okay, well, you
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 4: know there's got to be some truth to that. It
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 4: wouldn't be some surprise if somebody found one project that said, yeah,
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 4: it does on the flip side. So somebody could do
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 4: the same with weather and be as a hunter and
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 4: wants to say I knew it, But I also know
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 4: there's half a dozen projects out there that have tied
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 4: all those data points the weather events, you know, barometric
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 4: pressure and cold fronts and rain and all those things
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 4: and haven't found or anything. So you know, I gotta
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 4: be a hunter in some cases, and I got to
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 4: be a researcher in others.
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 7: So as someone like myself who likes to follow the science,
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 7: I'm going to say something. I'm going to say this
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 7: out loud just so people hear it. Based Yeah, based
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 7: on the research that has been done, moon the moon
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 7: phase does not influence deer movement, has been shown not
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 7: to influence deer movement.
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 3: Is that an accurate statement?
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 4: Okay, very accurate.
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 5: Based on research.
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 7: Weather patterns do have been shown to not change deer
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 7: movement or like influence deer movement. That's another accurate statement.
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 4: Correct, That is also another accurate statement.
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 7: So everything that we have as hunters have you know,
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 7: thought over the years, science is showing that, ye guess what,
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 7: it's really not so so then that just brings up
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 7: these questions again, what is influencing deer movement?
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 4: Here?
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 2: Here's something I'd like to add on to that, Dan,
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 2: because I like mash my brain together trying to figure
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 2: this out too, because just like what you said, Matt,
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 2: you said the research that these certain research scenarios have
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 2: said this, But as a hunter, so many of us
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 2: have anecdotally seen evidence that maybe there's something different. I
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 2: wonder as I try to think through this, could we
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 2: be comparing apples to oranges here, and that the study
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 2: is looking at a certain criteria you're saying, you know,
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 2: you know, deer movement or dear activity as they are
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 2: measuring it might be very different from quote unquote dear
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 2: movement or dear activity that we hunters are looking for.
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 2: So hypothetically, could this be a scenario where the researcher
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 2: is studying actual you know, number of feet traveled throughout
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 2: a twenty four hour period something like that, you know,
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 2: the actual movement of this year in twenty four hours,
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 2: and they're saying, regardless of temperature or moon phase, the
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 2: amount of actual distance traveled is not any different. While
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 2: from a hunters standpoint, I might be curious in how
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 2: much movement in the open is happening during daylight, that
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 2: kind of thing, you know, that's the activity that I'm
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 2: interested in. So could a cold front increase the amount
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 2: of movement out of their bedding area during daylight?
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 4: Is that?
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 2: You know? Maybe that's what I'm interested in from a
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 2: hunter standpoint, and maybe the cold front does trigger increased
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 2: activity there, but it doesn't necessarily change the absolute distance
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 2: of total travel in twenty four hours. That's my hypothesis.
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 2: There might be some difference in the actual measurement criteria, Matt,
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 2: Is there any possible Does that make any sense at all?
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 4: It does? And not every one of those projects has
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 4: looked in that, but some of them have. They've looked
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 4: at vulnerability to harvest from daylight to night versus and
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 4: also things like distance from tree stands, having like tree
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 4: stands GPS on some of these properties and looking at
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 4: how vulnerable they were within one hundred meters or one
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 4: hundred yard distance if it was gun season or you know,
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 4: thirty yard distance from those stands during bow. And again
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 4: none of that stuff has shown any correlation. Is a
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 4: lot of stuff, Yeah, a lot of stuff with the
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 4: moon phase that was initially done looked at conceptions and
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 4: that was a little based on fetal measurements. They looked
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 4: at when the bulk of the deer those were being
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 4: bred and correlated that to moon. No, no correlation. But
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 4: a lot of this GPS research is also looking at
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 4: breeding dates, but they're also looking at movements over a
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 4: twenty four period and some of them would disagree that
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 4: Mark is saying, you know, daytime versus night and other things.
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 4: So and again, you know, I said this before it
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 4: comes down to the property. I mean it really does.
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 4: I mean, you can talk about this big umbrella of
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 4: what research is saying if you want to believe, I
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 4: mean I will. I'm glad Dan said that that is
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 4: the take on message. There's no research to support any
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 4: of those theories. It doesn't it doesn't come out. However,
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 4: you know, when it comes down to it, don't don't
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 4: throw that away. Don't throw it in the trash paper
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 4: basket when you get off listen to this and say
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 4: that guy doesn't know what he's talking about, or well,
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 4: I know because I saw this. That's not good enough
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 4: because you're not talking about hundreds of deers with collars,
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 4: or you know, thousands or ten thousands of data points
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 4: that are collared. That's very different. But I would still
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 4: suggest to the hunter that wants to micro manage the
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 4: property and understand this. Research might say all this. It
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 4: might show that these things aren't correlated. But I can
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 4: tell you might be the day that you go out
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 4: there and say, you know what the moon phase is
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 4: telling me this, or there's a cold front. And again
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 4: I'm telling you, as a hunter, I feel like weather
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 4: must do more than what the researchers said. But it
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 4: hasn't shown up. It just has to be something related
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 4: to it. But again, I'm a deer hunter too. You
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 4: could be in a stand and have a buck make
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 4: a decision that changes his fate and you kill him,
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 4: and you might tie that to one of those multiple
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 4: things we're talking about, but that's still anecdotal. But who
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 4: cares You still kill that deer he changes behavior, or
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 4: even at a property level, you might be on a
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 4: property where things are in a frenzy. It has nothing
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 4: to do with moon or weather. It's just because deer
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 4: is so social. You know, something impacted them. You know
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 4: a couple of those that went into estras early or
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 4: a buck just that felt so you know, Randy, he
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 4: was getting those up and moving them around, and that
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 4: just triggered other deer to get up and move. I mean,
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 4: I know you guys have seen this where you're in
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 4: a in a stand and you see deer almost playing
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 4: another deer react to it by playing, or deer running
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 4: away from beer from a kyle or a hunter or
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 4: a buck chasing, and other deer do that. I mean,
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 4: there's no way to measure that randomness. All you can
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 4: do as a hunter is know when your best chance
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 4: of shooting a buck is or your best chance of
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 4: getting that deer within range, and spend as much time
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 4: as you possibly can in the stand because it's going
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 4: to increase that percentage of Yes, you're going to get
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 4: a shot. And I talked about earlier, your proficiency and
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 4: your ability to pick a good stand location is going
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 4: to be a big part of that success. So your
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 4: skill level as a hunter certainly will play a part
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 4: of it, and luck, of course obviously comes into it too.
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 4: But if I was a betting man, I would you know,
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 4: we know that deer are most active at dawn in
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 4: dusk or around those hours. Deer killed all the time
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 4: in the middle of the day, but you know, the
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 4: bulk of the research says their most active at dawn
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 4: and dusk. There going to be most vulnerable during the rot.
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 4: You know, those first couple of weeks in November, they're
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 4: going to be most vulnerable. Uh. What I feel like
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 4: is when a weather event is happening. Although the research
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 4: doesn't say that, I'm going to spend time in a
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 4: stand when that stuff is happening, and just the fact
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 4: that I'm spending time out there is going to increase
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 4: my chances. Now, I might believe a magic rock will
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 4: increase my chances, and I might keep it in my
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 4: pocket and I might kill a buck and I'm gonna say,
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 4: you know what, that rock made, that that happen. That
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 4: doesn't necessarily it's not a cause and effect thing, but
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 4: it doesn't matter because you know, through science, when it's
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 4: telling you to spend the most time and just be
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 4: out there, be present and be one, you know, mentally
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 4: recording all of this stuff or just physically recording it
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 4: like through that bear tracker app I mentioned earlier, to
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 4: you know, allow for a better uh documentation of what's
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 4: happening on the property across the country, as well as
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 4: just being there to be able to make some of
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 4: those choices and react to them. If you see there's
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 4: a lot of activity in one corner of the property,
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 4: be adapted to move your stand that day, get down,
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 4: move it, and uh you might be more successful because
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 4: of it.
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I uh, this is one of those topics that
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 2: is it's.
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 5: Bullet Yeah, it's just for me.
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 7: It's one of those things where it's like, man, you
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 7: talk to so many people and they and they say, man,
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 7: I'm telling you what you get in the stand when
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 7: the moon is right here and there's high pressure, or
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 7: when there's a coal front coming through and you're gonna
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 7: kill a buck. And then here's research, actual factual research
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 7: that shows that they're not one hundred percent correct.
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 2: But then to Matt's point two, nothing is nothing is solid,
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 2: nothing solid to his point about to your point Matt
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 2: about weather, I mean, you talk to any serious deer
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 2: hunter and they're gonna say, yes, we are seeing different
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 2: and dear behavior when a weather front comes through, but
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 2: the research doesn't support it. So that I mean that
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 2: that raises similar questions about some other things too. There
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 2: might be you know, I'm not I find this very interesting.
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 2: I take it into account, I put it in the
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 2: tool chest, but I'm not necessarily throwing out some of
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 2: these other theories too that are intriguing because I you know,
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 2: because I think here's one interesting thing that kind of
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 2: my final thought on this is that you take a guy, hypothetically,
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 2: let's say one of these one of these hunters that
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 2: really strongly believes in the position of the moon and
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 2: that influencing you know, a little bit of increased to
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 2: your activity. And that's something that both you and me, Dan,
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 2: We've been listening to a lot of guys talk about
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 2: and it's really interesting and intriguing, and I've been trying
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 2: to pay more attention to it too. But let's take
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 2: a guy who's a diehard believer in it. When that person,
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 2: let's hypothetically call him Ben, When Ben goes into the
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 2: woods with this very strong belief in this theory that
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 2: when the moon's overhead or whatever, that he's gonna have
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 2: a great chance. When you go into a tree stand
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 2: with a piece of data like that or a belief
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 2: like that, you're believe in it so strongly. I believe
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 2: your confidence level can be an influencer of the success
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 2: you have merely because when you are very confident in
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 2: your standsite and in the conditions on that day and
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 2: on why you're hunting there. When your confidence is that high,
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 2: I believe that you operate at a different level of
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 2: efficiency and effectiveness as a hunter. So when you're super confident,
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 2: you're paying attention to everything around you, you notice every
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 2: flicker of movement, You're super quiet, you're super detailed, You're
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 2: crossing all your t's and dotting all of your eyes.
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 2: And I think maybe there's almost a self fulfilling prophecy
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 2: happening here, or when you have such a strong belief
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 2: in something happening, you just hunt better, and because of that,
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 2: you have more success. I'm curious if maybe there's something
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 2: to that.
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 4: I'll comment, and I think there is and I think
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 4: not only that mark is that not only they might
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 4: be more confident, more efficient, but that type of hunter,
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 4: that type of deer hunter that cares to look deeper
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 4: and ask questions and try to improve their own ability,
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 4: is the type of hunter that's going to improve anyway,
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 4: you know what I mean, instead of just haphazardly going
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 4: in the woods or hunting as a as a means
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 4: of tradition, you know, going to the stand that Grandpapy
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 4: talked me to, you know, opening day and that's the
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 4: only day that he goes out or she goes out.
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 4: The person that's saying how can I be better? Some
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 4: of that is going to be self fulfilling. It has
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 4: to be because they're trying to up their bed. I
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 4: also think that there's probably as many, if not more
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 4: people out there that are the hardcore you know, in
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 4: his example, moon theory believers that are not killing a
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 4: buck that day and the moon is the cause of it.
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 4: You know, something happened that was wrong, And again, when
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 4: it comes down to science is really hard to argue
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 4: with and there's always going to be a you know,
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 4: well that didn't work for me because our project was
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 4: from Texas or you know, I live in New York
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 4: and that research was from Florida. But yeah, of course,
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 4: I mean, there's no way you can test at all,
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 4: but if you can repeat results, you get a better
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 4: sense of what's going on. But we're never going to
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 4: have all the answers, and that's the case. So yeah,
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 4: I do think, yeah, there's some truth to that, But
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 4: I think it's also the type of hunter that you're
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 4: talking about. You're categorizing. Out of the eleven to thirteen
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 4: million deer hunters out there, I guarantee you not all
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 4: of them are paying attention to moon phase. The ones
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 4: that are are trying to make their situation better.
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 2: All right, And that's a wrap. I hope you've enjoyed
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 2: this two part conversation on all things research in science
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 2: around the white tail rut. It's a beautiful time of year,
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 2: the best stuff is ahead. It's going to be a
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 2: great couple of weeks. I wish you all the luck
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 2: in the world. I hope this helps, and until next time,
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 2: stay Wired to Hunt.