Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 714: 14 of Your Whitetail Rut Questions Answered with Andy May
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
- 0:04Speaker 1: the white Tail Woods, presented by first Light, creating proven
- 0:08Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First
- 0:13Speaker 1: Light Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host Mark Kenyon.
- 0:19Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
- 0:23Speaker 2: the show, we are answering fourteen listeners submitted questions about
- 0:27Speaker 2: the white Tail Rut and joining me is one of
- 0:29Speaker 2: the very best bow hunters I know.
- 0:31Speaker 3: Andy May.
- 0:40Speaker 2: All right, now, real quick before we kick off today's episode,
- 0:43Speaker 2: I've got a little treat for you. It is, as
- 0:47Speaker 2: we speak, November. This is our first podcast of November
- 0:52Speaker 2: twenty twenty three. It is an incredible time of year.
- 0:55Speaker 2: Some might say it's the most wonderful time of year,
- 0:58Speaker 2: and others might even say it's the most most wonderful
- 1:00Speaker 2: time of.
- 1:01Speaker 3: Year to kill deer.
- 1:03Speaker 2: And with that said, some of you might recall that
- 1:08Speaker 2: last year when November hit, we released our first rut song.
- 1:14Speaker 2: It was a take on the most wonderful time of
- 1:15Speaker 2: the year that Christmas Carol, but our version was It's
- 1:19Speaker 2: the most wonderful time to kill deer and it was hilarious.
- 1:22Speaker 3: I loved it.
- 1:23Speaker 2: We got lots of comments and questions for folks, not
- 1:25Speaker 2: so much questions, more so just we love it, let's
- 1:28Speaker 2: hear more of it. How can we get this on
- 1:30Speaker 2: Spotify or wherever? So with that said, we wanted to
- 1:34Speaker 2: a run that one back for you. So if you
- 1:36Speaker 2: have not heard The Most Wonderful Time to Kill Deer,
- 1:39Speaker 2: we're going to play that for you here today to
- 1:40Speaker 2: kick off the new month of November.
- 1:43Speaker 3: Right.
- 1:43Speaker 2: But secondly, we have a new song for you as well,
- 1:48Speaker 2: because you know this is that special time of year.
- 1:52Speaker 2: It's kind of like Christmas for whitetail hunters.
- 1:54Speaker 3: Right.
- 1:54Speaker 2: We are in the mood, we are excited. We're expecting
- 1:58Speaker 2: a big old gift underneath the tree. In this case,
- 2:00Speaker 2: it's not something from Santa. We're looking for something from
- 2:03Speaker 2: a deer, hopefully a big old buck within twenty yards. Right,
- 2:07Speaker 2: So we went ahead and adjusted, tweaked spoofed another Christmas
- 2:15Speaker 2: carol of sorts. So first please enjoy the Most Wonderful
- 2:22Speaker 2: Time to Kill Deer, and then secondly enjoy our latest hit,
- 2:27Speaker 2: the one and only Big White Tails.
- 2:31Speaker 4: Enjoy boys. Good to see you, Hayden, it's been a while. Hey,
- 2:37Speaker 4: sorry I'm late.
- 2:37Speaker 5: I crashed my pontiac castec into a light pole and
- 2:39Speaker 5: had to walk the rest of the way. But I'm
- 2:40Speaker 5: here now, that's what matters. Give me a glass of scotch, please, hayen,
- 2:44Speaker 5: just two rocks in there. I don't my guys, we're
- 2:46Speaker 5: starting already. This is happening. Okay, just give me the
- 2:49Speaker 5: give me the glass, thank you.
- 2:50Speaker 4: Okay, here we go.
- 2:52Speaker 5: It's the most wonderful time to kill deer. We're threw
- 2:59Speaker 5: run now, just starting and dashing and dotting and veins
- 3:03Speaker 5: cutting clean. It's the most wonderful time to kill deer.
- 3:11Speaker 4: There's far too much is in this class. It's the half.
- 3:14Speaker 5: Happy seeds of all. There's gotta be at least twelve
- 3:19Speaker 5: cues with grunting and bleeding and cold fronts and sleeping
- 3:24Speaker 5: the last weeks of fun. It's the half happy seedsin
- 3:31Speaker 5: of all. There'll be pictures for posting and bragging and boasting,
- 3:38Speaker 5: and truck beds with big bucks in toe. There'll be
- 3:42Speaker 5: narrow misstories and tales of your glories of booner bucks missed.
- 3:46Speaker 4: With our bulls.
- 3:50Speaker 5: It's the most wonderful time to kill deer.
- 3:55Speaker 4: Not just one baby two. There'll be no dose.
- 3:58Speaker 5: Of blowing and boom and knocks glowing and blood trail
- 4:02Speaker 5: so clean. It's the most wonderful time to kill de.
- 4:12Speaker 4: Excuse me, Can I have a napkin? Please?
- 4:13Speaker 5: I just spilled some scotch on my loafers. I can't
- 4:16Speaker 5: have dirty loafers in the studio.
- 4:18Speaker 4: Thank you Tailgate beers for drinking.
- 4:21Speaker 5: And Big Bucks is slinking and chasing and sent jacking
- 4:25Speaker 5: does They'll be fighting and scraping and no more escaping
- 4:30Speaker 5: and arrowshot true hitting, Oh key change.
- 4:37Speaker 4: But no one told me that it's the most wonderful
- 4:41Speaker 4: time to kill deer. I was very unprepared for this.
- 4:46Speaker 5: There will be much morning sitting in cold fronts of
- 4:49Speaker 5: hitting the dawn kristin clean. It's the most wonderful time, Oh,
- 4:56Speaker 5: the most wonderful time. It's the most swamderful time to kilty.
- 5:13Speaker 4: There's too much ice in the glass. Two rocks.
- 5:20Speaker 5: It's that time of the year again. I'm back, Marcus Kenyon.
- 5:24Speaker 5: How are you your son of a gadwall? You look terrible.
- 5:27Speaker 5: I'm just kidding her, am I I'm sorry.
- 5:29Speaker 4: I'm late.
- 5:29Speaker 5: I crashed my recumbent bicycle into the side of a
- 5:32Speaker 5: quiz nose and I know what you're thinking. I am
- 5:34Speaker 5: as sober as a newborn blue crab. I swear to
- 5:37Speaker 5: you this is just kombucha. I'm watching the gut health.
- 5:41Speaker 5: You gotta do it as you get older. And also,
- 5:43Speaker 5: I'm wearing this ankle bracelet that makes a beep beep
- 5:46Speaker 5: sound if I have a drop of the stuff also
- 5:49Speaker 5: alerts the authorities, who in turn alert my parole officer.
- 5:52Speaker 5: So there'll be none of that in the studio today,
- 5:55Speaker 5: I promise you. Let's get go.
- 5:57Speaker 1: Oh you're queuing it up already.
- 6:00Speaker 4: Okay.
- 6:00Speaker 1: I thought we've learned a lesson this year, but I
- 6:02Speaker 1: guess nothing.
- 6:03Speaker 4: Here we go.
- 6:05Speaker 6: I love those beagy, big big white tails, those sneaky
- 6:11Speaker 6: run beagy big big white tails. I love those beachy
- 6:18Speaker 6: big yeah eight shots eat tails. I love those beachy
- 6:24Speaker 6: big white tails.
- 6:28Speaker 7: Big white tails, big white tails. Big white tails are great.
- 6:34Speaker 5: Hold, what fun it is to sit in the freezing
- 6:37Speaker 5: cold tree all day?
- 6:39Speaker 7: Big white tails, big white tails, big white tails are great?
- 6:44Speaker 5: Hold, what fun it is to sit in the freezing
- 6:48Speaker 5: cold tree all day? Dashing through the woods for the
- 6:53Speaker 5: morning light turns great across the fields and draws creep
- 6:59Speaker 5: in all the way climb into the tree. Big folks
- 7:04Speaker 5: are on the way. What fun he is to sit
- 7:08Speaker 5: and wait for my gosh.
- 7:10Speaker 4: Don deer all day? Oh big, I'm sorry? What is this?
- 7:16Speaker 4: Piscato strings? Who do you think? I am ya? Get
- 7:20Speaker 4: this out here. I don't want to hear it. Thank you?
- 7:23Speaker 7: Big white tails, big white tails, Big white tails are great.
- 7:28Speaker 7: Hold fun it is to sit in the freezing cold
- 7:32Speaker 7: tree all day.
- 7:33Speaker 4: I hope sand dreams are high the rut.
- 7:37Speaker 5: He's finally here, Mark said, it's the most wonderful time
- 7:41Speaker 5: to kill o whitetail deer bingch points and pettings.
- 7:46Speaker 4: Where you'll find me hang it' twenty feet.
- 7:48Speaker 5: In a tree, grunt tubes my bowl, inspector Cambo.
- 7:53Speaker 4: It's really campy.
- 7:54Speaker 5: Bea or two ago, I thought that this was fun,
- 8:01Speaker 5: but now I'm frozen to my seat and the good
- 8:04Speaker 5: times they are gone. I've ate up all my snacks,
- 8:09Speaker 5: my hands and toes un numb, and we're gonna climbed
- 8:12Speaker 5: down from my stand.
- 8:14Speaker 4: That son of a but decided to come on.
- 8:17Speaker 6: Those peag BEI wat takes those sky run beagy be
- 8:25Speaker 6: big what takes? I love those beeg big up yah
- 8:31Speaker 6: eight shot gie eat tails I love those big white
- 8:35Speaker 6: tails all day.
- 8:43Speaker 4: I don't know why this is happening.
- 8:44Speaker 5: I swear to God, Oh officer, what seems to be
- 8:47Speaker 5: the problem here?
- 8:49Speaker 4: Oh this.
- 8:49Speaker 5: I don't know why this is happening. It must be
- 8:51Speaker 5: a malfunction, you know. Sometimes it happens when the batteries
- 8:53Speaker 5: run low.
- 8:54Speaker 4: You don't know.
- 8:54Speaker 5: You don't need to smell that. That's just komboo cha
- 8:56Speaker 5: I okay, yes, you've got me. It's ever clear and pacific.
- 9:01Speaker 5: Kuli capri son. I am so so sorry.
- 9:05Speaker 4: I don't know why my life has brought me here.
- 9:07Speaker 4: Mark Marcus, I'm so sorry. Enjoy the rut or whatever.
- 9:13Speaker 4: Good luck.
- 9:23Speaker 2: All right, Welcome to the wire tunt podcast, brought to
- 9:28Speaker 2: you by First Light and today, my friends, if you
- 9:32Speaker 2: are listening to this when this podcast has just dropped,
- 9:35Speaker 2: it is officially sweet November. The Rut is here for
- 9:40Speaker 2: most of you across much of the country. And as
- 9:43Speaker 2: you can see, I'm recording from the field out in
- 9:46Speaker 2: the middle of somewhere on some kind of hunting trip.
- 9:48Speaker 2: And my guest today is doing the same, not on
- 9:51Speaker 2: a hunting trip, but he's in the field. I'm joined
- 9:54Speaker 2: today by mister Andy May to help us do some
- 9:58Speaker 2: rut Q and a so thank you Andy for making
- 10:01Speaker 2: time for this.
- 10:02Speaker 8: Yeah, man, no problems should be fun.
- 10:05Speaker 2: Yeah, it's uh, it's the greatest time of the year,
- 10:08Speaker 2: right are you? Are you ready for this? Are you
- 10:09Speaker 2: ready for November?
- 10:11Speaker 8: I am?
- 10:12Speaker 9: Man. Yeah, it's uh, it's always so exciting when when
- 10:17Speaker 9: November rolls around, because then you just that, uh, you know,
- 10:22Speaker 9: you always have a chance in November. You know, like
- 10:24Speaker 9: October is a little more, a little more detailed, a
- 10:29Speaker 9: little more You're a little more careful with your moves.
- 10:32Speaker 9: You're trying to make kind of I always call them
- 10:35Speaker 9: like detailed strikes. And then uh, once that rut hits, man,
- 10:39Speaker 9: it's more like a marathon and you're trying to be
- 10:41Speaker 9: out there as much as possible and trying to catch
- 10:44Speaker 9: the magic when it happens.
- 10:46Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 10:47Speaker 2: So do you feel like when when November hits, is
- 10:50Speaker 2: that stressful for you or relief for you? Because I
- 10:54Speaker 2: I've actually been switching a little bit. I used to
- 10:57Speaker 2: be looking forward to November the whole time, and then
- 11:01Speaker 2: when it finally got here, I was like, Okay, now's
- 11:03Speaker 2: my chance. But now I actually feel like if I
- 11:04Speaker 2: don't have a buck killed by the time November arrives,
- 11:08Speaker 2: I'm actually stressed out because now these deer are doing
- 11:10Speaker 2: things that I'm not quite sure about what they're doing,
- 11:12Speaker 2: and everything's kind of up in the air again, and
- 11:15Speaker 2: you're trying to refigure it out. The old patterns from
- 11:19Speaker 2: four weeks ago, you know, aren't going to cut it anymore.
- 11:21Speaker 2: So I have like a I'm excited, but it's a
- 11:24Speaker 2: different thing in my head.
- 11:25Speaker 3: Are you the same, Yeah.
- 11:29Speaker 8: A little bit.
- 11:30Speaker 9: I think if i'm you know, if I'm after like
- 11:32Speaker 9: a specific deer, and i really kind of have my
- 11:35Speaker 9: heart set on that I'm really dedicated to pursuing that
- 11:38Speaker 9: one animal, it can be kind of a stressful time
- 11:42Speaker 9: because I mean, he could he can disappear for a week,
- 11:47Speaker 9: you know, and he's locked up with a dough or
- 11:49Speaker 9: on a neighboring property or something like that, and you
- 11:52Speaker 9: just can't seem to to find him, and that can
- 11:55Speaker 9: be a little stressful. But when I'm after sorry about
- 11:59Speaker 9: that noise, When I'm after when I'm when I'm just
- 12:05Speaker 9: out there and I'm after kind of like any buck,
- 12:08Speaker 9: you know, or any any mature deer, and I'm not
- 12:11Speaker 9: really setting my sights on a specific animal. I really
- 12:15Speaker 9: like the rut, you know, it's it's uh. When I
- 12:20Speaker 9: travel out of state, many times I like to go
- 12:24Speaker 9: during the rut because I don't I don't really have
- 12:27Speaker 9: a specific deer that I'm going after. It's more I
- 12:29Speaker 9: want to see the rut action. I want that excitement.
- 12:34Speaker 9: I want to see bucks chasing, I want to see
- 12:36Speaker 9: bucks that are responding to calls. And it's just more fun.
- 12:39Speaker 9: It's a little more exciting. But yeah, it can certainly
- 12:43Speaker 9: be frustrating. It can be a frustrating time, especially if
- 12:47Speaker 9: you get like a rut where you're just not seeing
- 12:52Speaker 9: you know, you're not seeing any any good deer, So
- 12:56Speaker 9: it could be a tough time. But I tend to
- 12:58Speaker 9: get excited about the Like this year in particular, there's
- 13:01Speaker 9: a handful of deer that I would shoot. There's not
- 13:03Speaker 9: one that is head and shoulders above the rest. I'm
- 13:08Speaker 9: just out there having fun and I'm looking forward to it.
- 13:12Speaker 2: Are you Are you going to do a big rut
- 13:14Speaker 2: trip at any point this November or are you doing
- 13:17Speaker 2: local Michigan Ohio stuff. I think I'm gonna stay local.
- 13:23Speaker 2: I haven't really decided yet.
- 13:24Speaker 9: If I I did some traveling in June for hunting.
- 13:31Speaker 9: I did some traveling in August for hunting, and then
- 13:34Speaker 9: I went on a very short trip in September, and
- 13:37Speaker 9: I knew that would kind of eat into my white
- 13:38Speaker 9: tail stuff a little bit, So I'm totally fine with it.
- 13:43Speaker 9: It's not that I couldn't take a short trip in November,
- 13:46Speaker 9: but there's there's enough decent deer around home between Michigan
- 13:50Speaker 9: and Ohio that you know, I'm I'm I'd be content
- 13:54Speaker 9: just kind of sticking around here and trying to get
- 13:56Speaker 9: one of those deer on the ground.
- 13:58Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, hi uh.
- 14:00Speaker 2: I'm still still after my local buck too, so I
- 14:04Speaker 2: don't I would not mind getting some quality time here
- 14:07Speaker 2: during this period to get it done here as well.
- 14:11Speaker 2: But that said, we got a whole pile of questions
- 14:16Speaker 2: from listeners last week with their specific situations that they
- 14:22Speaker 2: want to run by us, Andy, So I was thinking
- 14:24Speaker 2: for today's episode, we could just go through as many
- 14:27Speaker 2: of these listeners submitted questions as possible and try to
- 14:30Speaker 2: knock out and help folks with the things that they're still,
- 14:32Speaker 2: you know, still have questions about. It's funny you and
- 14:36Speaker 2: me have talked about this in the past, Andy that
- 14:37Speaker 2: we've like kind of lamented, like, ah, man, everyone's already
- 14:41Speaker 2: said all the same stuff about hunting deer or hunting
- 14:44Speaker 2: the rut. You know, every article has been written, every
- 14:47Speaker 2: conversation has been had. There's nothing new to talk about, right,
- 14:51Speaker 2: We've always moved worried about that, like is there anything
- 14:54Speaker 2: Is there anything new we can bring the table?
- 14:55Speaker 3: Is there any value we can still bring?
- 14:57Speaker 2: But then when you ask people for the things they've
- 14:59Speaker 2: got questions on and the things they're still trying to
- 15:01Speaker 2: figure out, man, it's the same thing has come up,
- 15:04Speaker 2: you know, year after year after year after year. So
- 15:07Speaker 2: I guess it gives me hope that there will never
- 15:11Speaker 2: be people that are not still trying to learn about
- 15:14Speaker 2: these things. Right, there's always a new stream of people
- 15:16Speaker 2: trying to either take it up a notch or tweak
- 15:18Speaker 2: their tactics, or there's newer people that are still just
- 15:21Speaker 2: getting into this. Yeah, So I don't think we'll ever
- 15:25Speaker 2: run out of people andy that want to know about
- 15:27Speaker 2: dobetting areas and funnels. So I'll be ready for a
- 15:29Speaker 2: few questions about those. But it's good. It's good because
- 15:35Speaker 2: you know, these are those things that are important to
- 15:38Speaker 2: have a good handle on, but then also to never
- 15:41Speaker 2: settle on you know what I mean. Like, I feel
- 15:43Speaker 2: like I'm always still trying to tweak my approach. I'm
- 15:45Speaker 2: always still trying to learn, like how it can be
- 15:47Speaker 2: just a little bit better in this area or a
- 15:48Speaker 2: little bit different in this kind of thing. I feel
- 15:51Speaker 2: like you're the same way from all of our conversations,
- 15:53Speaker 2: Like you're never stuck in the old ways.
- 15:55Speaker 3: You're always adjusting and evolving.
- 15:57Speaker 9: Right, Oh yeah, yeah, I mean it's funny because I was,
- 16:04Speaker 9: you know, I was doing well. I was a successful
- 16:06Speaker 9: hunter fifteen twenty years ago, you know, very consistent on
- 16:11Speaker 9: multiple you know, multiple good bucks a year. But when
- 16:14Speaker 9: I think back of how I hunted then compared to
- 16:17Speaker 9: how I hunt now or even five years ago, I've
- 16:20Speaker 9: changed things, and I've I've adjusted things, and I've evolved.
- 16:25Speaker 9: And some of that is out of necessity. Some of
- 16:28Speaker 9: that is out of just interests in other tactics. Some
- 16:31Speaker 9: of that is out of what I find more fulfilling
- 16:33Speaker 9: and fun. So yeah, I feel like it's a.
- 16:40Speaker 8: If you have that.
- 16:40Speaker 9: Mindset of of wanting to be a good woodsman, a
- 16:45Speaker 9: good hunter, a versatile hunter, it's never ending. I mean,
- 16:48Speaker 9: you could spend your whole lifetime learning and trying new
- 16:51Speaker 9: things and improving, and you're never gonna there's no end,
- 16:55Speaker 9: you know, there's no end to the possibilities of you know,
- 16:59Speaker 9: how skilled you can become, and what you can experience
- 17:02Speaker 9: and and things to learn from other eyes. So I'm
- 17:06Speaker 9: still learning from other guys, listening to podcasts, having conversations
- 17:10Speaker 9: with different hunters, even guys that are less experienced than me,
- 17:13Speaker 9: learning all the time. I take it all in and uh,
- 17:17Speaker 9: you know, every year I try to up my game
- 17:18Speaker 9: in some fashion and become a more well rounded hunter.
- 17:22Speaker 8: That's just something I care about personally.
- 17:25Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
- 17:27Speaker 2: Well, I'm going to try today with these questions. There's
- 17:31Speaker 2: gonna be some old standbys, like some oldies but goodie
- 17:34Speaker 2: type topics we'll talk about. But I'm going to try
- 17:37Speaker 2: to think of some of the new angles on them
- 17:40Speaker 2: or little tweaks I've been making in recent years when
- 17:43Speaker 2: I can, and try to make sure we add something
- 17:45Speaker 2: new to the conversation on as much of this as
- 17:47Speaker 2: we can too. And so that said, here's here's the
- 17:51Speaker 2: first question, Andy, and and I'll pitch it to you
- 17:53Speaker 2: and then and then once we hear your thoughts. I'll
- 17:55Speaker 2: share whatever additional color I might have. But this one
- 17:59Speaker 2: is about something that I know you have preached about
- 18:02Speaker 2: for a long time. As long as I've known you,
- 18:04Speaker 2: you've been talking about this, which is all day sits.
- 18:08Speaker 2: So the question is, for all day sits, do you
- 18:12Speaker 2: recommend staying in the same place all day or switching
- 18:15Speaker 2: spots at some point in the day, And if so,
- 18:19Speaker 2: when is the best time to make that move?
- 18:21Speaker 3: So what do you think about that any.
- 18:24Speaker 9: Yeah, I think it depends on the location. If you're sitting,
- 18:31Speaker 9: you know, if you're if you're kind of targeting, say
- 18:34Speaker 9: like a betting area, I think that it can be
- 18:37Speaker 9: good most of the day. Say you're say you're trying
- 18:41Speaker 9: to get in tight to a dull betting area. You're
- 18:43Speaker 9: getting into that interior a little bit with the wind advantage,
- 18:46Speaker 9: and you're like, you know, this is a really sensitive spot.
- 18:48Speaker 9: I'm gonna get in real early before light, you know,
- 18:51Speaker 9: an hour and a half before light. I'm gonna get
- 18:53Speaker 9: settled and let all these deer filter back in. And
- 18:57Speaker 9: it's very common behavior for mature bucks to let the
- 19:02Speaker 9: does filter back into their bedding area and then they'll
- 19:07Speaker 9: they'll kind of stay low key, stay betted, and then
- 19:10Speaker 9: they'll get up late morning, mid to late morning, and
- 19:13Speaker 9: then they'll make the rounds and they'll be cross sectioning
- 19:16Speaker 9: those trails going in and out of bedding.
- 19:19Speaker 8: They'll be going working the down wind sides.
- 19:22Speaker 9: They'll be checking like you know, thermal hubs where a
- 19:24Speaker 9: lot of a lot of scent pools and comes together.
- 19:28Speaker 9: So it's very common for the bigger, older mature bucks
- 19:33Speaker 9: to move later in that morning.
- 19:35Speaker 8: So a spot like that I think can be good most.
- 19:38Speaker 9: Of the day and you're in there, you know, you're
- 19:40Speaker 9: not trying to sneak in in the afternoon and you're
- 19:44Speaker 9: bumping dose around. You're in there before light, you're in
- 19:46Speaker 9: there before the deer theoretically should be back in, and
- 19:49Speaker 9: you can catch some great you know morning, late morning
- 19:54Speaker 9: and mid day movement in there. Where I think those
- 19:58Speaker 9: areas tend to to kind of taper off is in
- 20:01Speaker 9: those evening sits, yeah, or are those that evening timeframe
- 20:04Speaker 9: I think the dose start to kind of work their
- 20:06Speaker 9: way out the bucks know that the bucks are going
- 20:09Speaker 9: to be relating to where they're traveling and where they're
- 20:11Speaker 9: heading to. So that's one of those spots where I
- 20:15Speaker 9: will probably sit it out unless I have like a
- 20:19Speaker 9: quick exit where I can go maybe capitalize a little
- 20:22Speaker 9: bit closer to a food source or on a travel
- 20:25Speaker 9: you know, between like bed and food something like that.
- 20:30Speaker 9: I like, uh, you know, funnels between bedding areas. I
- 20:35Speaker 9: really like those spots for all day. And again, you know,
- 20:39Speaker 9: I think they they tend to they tend to be
- 20:45Speaker 9: the best. Like if I had to pick a window,
- 20:49Speaker 9: I would say like nine am to like three pm
- 20:53Speaker 9: is like when it's optimal. It doesn't mean you couldn't
- 20:56Speaker 9: have a buck strolling through, because I mean bucks are
- 20:58Speaker 9: on the move. It's not like they're all in the morning,
- 21:01Speaker 9: but some are. Some aren't, you know, Some are at
- 21:04Speaker 9: the food sources, some are following those back in. I
- 21:07Speaker 9: mean there's there's lots of activity going on. But that's
- 21:10Speaker 9: probably your optimal window. But I have had some great
- 21:13Speaker 9: sits and some kills first thing in the morning and
- 21:15Speaker 9: even last thing at night.
- 21:18Speaker 8: I I don't I I don't know.
- 21:24Speaker 9: I don't move stands a whole lot unless I really
- 21:28Speaker 9: think that the evening portion is going to be dead.
- 21:31Speaker 9: If I think the evening portion is going to be dead,
- 21:34Speaker 9: then yes I will relocate I When you ask about
- 21:38Speaker 9: a time to do that, I would say maybe two
- 21:44Speaker 9: o'clock because I've had so many really good encounters, kills,
- 21:50Speaker 9: sightings in that eleven to two time frame. Another thing
- 21:56Speaker 9: that you want to keep in mind during the run
- 21:58Speaker 9: is most guys don't have the mental capacity, the strength,
- 22:03Speaker 9: and the endurance to sit dark to dark. So ninety
- 22:07Speaker 9: five percent of your hunters out there are gonna be
- 22:11Speaker 9: coming in at nine, ten or eleven. It seems like,
- 22:14Speaker 9: you know those time strips, guys have it in their head,
- 22:16Speaker 9: I'm gonna sit till nine, I'm gonna sit till ten,
- 22:18Speaker 9: I'm gonna sit till eleven, and then all these guys
- 22:20Speaker 9: come in. You know, there's never been more people in
- 22:23Speaker 9: the woods other than opening day a gun.
- 22:25Speaker 8: It's November, it's the rud.
- 22:27Speaker 9: Everybody's leaving their stands and they're bumping deer around. They
- 22:30Speaker 9: get deer up, stirred up. But those are running that
- 22:33Speaker 9: gets bucks on their feet. So you can capitalize on
- 22:38Speaker 9: just the pressure of people moving around at those those
- 22:41Speaker 9: time frames just by planting your butt in the stand.
- 22:45Speaker 9: But there's no way I would leave at like eleven
- 22:48Speaker 9: or twelve. I think your chances of seeing deer and
- 22:54Speaker 9: bulk activity go down as you get to that eleven
- 22:57Speaker 9: twelve one, but your chances of seeing mature bucks actually
- 23:01Speaker 9: increased when you hit that kind of like nine thirty ten,
- 23:05Speaker 9: eleven twelve, you.
- 23:06Speaker 8: Know one two.
- 23:09Speaker 9: No, Well, that time, that window right there has been
- 23:11Speaker 9: very good to me, and i've i comparatively, I haven't
- 23:15Speaker 9: hunted it a whole lot compared to morning and evening.
- 23:18Speaker 2: Right now, what date range, Andy, do you like to
- 23:32Speaker 2: start doing those kinds like what's what's the window on
- 23:35Speaker 2: the calendar when you will sit that midday period, Because
- 23:38Speaker 2: that's a question we got into.
- 23:40Speaker 9: I killed my My earliest midday kill was on Halloween.
- 23:45Speaker 8: I killed him at twelve thirty.
- 23:48Speaker 9: It was a buck down in Illinois. I would say
- 23:52Speaker 9: that that would be for me personally that thirty October
- 23:55Speaker 9: thirtieth thirty first and most most of the areas here
- 23:59Speaker 9: where I hunt, that would be the earliest. And I
- 24:02Speaker 9: would probably only do that if I had some really
- 24:04Speaker 9: good weather, you know, good cool weather, below average, like
- 24:08Speaker 9: just ideal conditions. But you know, if I, if I
- 24:14Speaker 9: was in it for the long haul, if I wasn't
- 24:17Speaker 9: me and actually had unlimited time to hunt, I would
- 24:19Speaker 9: probably postpone that I would probably sit till eleven, get down,
- 24:24Speaker 9: have a break, refresh, get back out there around two
- 24:27Speaker 9: or three. But then once I don't know, maybe November
- 24:31Speaker 9: second third.
- 24:34Speaker 8: Right in there.
- 24:35Speaker 9: I mean every year, my trail cameras, my sightings, they
- 24:38Speaker 9: light up late morning, midday right around that November first,
- 24:42Speaker 9: second third. So I think anytime you can do it
- 24:45Speaker 9: in that window, you know, from that leading up to
- 24:48Speaker 9: site in Michigan here our gun season is November fifteenth.
- 24:51Speaker 9: Anytime you can do that in that window, that's a
- 24:55Speaker 9: good thing. And for guys that are like me, that
- 24:57Speaker 9: have like these little maybe they don't have extended amount
- 25:01Speaker 9: of time to put in your you're hunting.
- 25:02Speaker 8: An evening here, a morning there, or maybe you.
- 25:04Speaker 9: Got a midday here because you have your kids games
- 25:07Speaker 9: or whatever. I would not hesitate to get out there
- 25:10Speaker 9: at nine and getting a stand and sit till one
- 25:14Speaker 9: or two. I've done it many times, you know, just
- 25:17Speaker 9: trying to scratch and flaw for time, and uh it
- 25:22Speaker 9: pays off. Man. The more time you can be in
- 25:24Speaker 9: the tree anytime of day in November, you are going
- 25:27Speaker 9: to increase your chances.
- 25:29Speaker 8: And then use some common sense about where you're located.
- 25:32Speaker 9: You know, you don't want to sit in a food
- 25:33Speaker 9: source necessarily in the morning, maybe just off of it
- 25:36Speaker 9: if you can catch your kind of coming off, But
- 25:39Speaker 9: then that would be a really bad spot to sit
- 25:41Speaker 9: all day, yeah, you know, because you're probably not going
- 25:45Speaker 9: to get a lot of midday action there because all
- 25:47Speaker 9: the dos are back to bed Those are the spots
- 25:50Speaker 9: that are really gonna pay off, as you know, during
- 25:53Speaker 9: a midday sit, like travel between betting on the backside
- 25:57Speaker 9: of bedding, you know, with a wind advantage, getting into
- 25:59Speaker 9: that interior spots where you're you're kind of always afraid
- 26:02Speaker 9: to go in because you're gonna bump deer. But now
- 26:04Speaker 9: it's like it's time, the time to take those stabs,
- 26:07Speaker 9: take those chances, and you know they can pay off.
- 26:10Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I one hundred percent agree. I've found the
- 26:13Speaker 2: same thing. Those are the types of spots that I
- 26:16Speaker 2: would want to do this all day sits. I have
- 26:19Speaker 2: found like just like you said, like that last couple
- 26:22Speaker 2: hours of the day though, those deep back in the
- 26:25Speaker 2: betting air kind of spots can be pretty dead. So
- 26:28Speaker 2: if I can, if I have safe access, I will
- 26:32Speaker 2: try to bump out closer to where those dolls are
- 26:35Speaker 2: going to go feed for those evening sits, and usually
- 26:37Speaker 2: it's between two and three is.
- 26:38Speaker 3: When I would try to do that.
- 26:41Speaker 2: But if you can't get out of there without messing
- 26:43Speaker 2: things up, you know, if for some reason you would
- 26:45Speaker 2: have to be moving through you know, right where those
- 26:48Speaker 2: deer are betted now, or or you know, through the
- 26:51Speaker 2: transition area, and there's no way to safely do that,
- 26:54Speaker 2: then I will sacrifice the last hour or two, you know,
- 26:57Speaker 2: sticking back in the betting ear, just so I don't
- 26:59Speaker 2: blow it up, because you know it's worth it. For
- 27:01Speaker 2: the first seven, eight, nine, ten hours. You've got such
- 27:04Speaker 2: a good chance back in that area that if my
- 27:06Speaker 2: evening SIT's not amazing, that's okay. If I can't get
- 27:10Speaker 2: out there without messing it up for the next day.
- 27:12Speaker 9: I had this real quick story about something that almost
- 27:15Speaker 9: cost me a really big buck because I didn't have
- 27:18Speaker 9: the mental strength to sit all day. So it was
- 27:21Speaker 9: during the run. I can't remember the exact date. It
- 27:24Speaker 9: must have been like November. It was like around the
- 27:26Speaker 9: tenth or the twelfth. This was years ago. But I
- 27:29Speaker 9: was sitting in a stand and I was overlooking a river, bottom,
- 27:31Speaker 9: and I saw a buck with a dough, a hot dough, lockdown,
- 27:35Speaker 9: and they were they were way.
- 27:36Speaker 8: Off on this peninsula.
- 27:38Speaker 9: And I had a stand over there where if they
- 27:42Speaker 9: walk worked down the peninsula, they would walk right by it.
- 27:45Speaker 9: But they were way past that. They were a good
- 27:46Speaker 9: two hundred yards past that. And it was eleven o'clock
- 27:51Speaker 9: and I was like, you know what, I'm gonna get
- 27:52Speaker 9: down at midday and I'm going to make my way
- 27:55Speaker 9: over there and get in that stand and sit the
- 27:57Speaker 9: rest of the day, you know, not what I was
- 27:59Speaker 9: four hundred yards of. Now I'm gonna be inside of
- 28:01Speaker 9: eighty yards or inside of inside of you know, one
- 28:06Speaker 9: hundred yards of where they're at. So I get down
- 28:10Speaker 9: and I just decided like, oh, you know, they're they're
- 28:13Speaker 9: not gonna do much midday. You know, they're locked down.
- 28:16Speaker 9: She's probably betted. He's probably betted. There whe her, they're
- 28:18Speaker 9: not gonna move. So I walk back to my truck,
- 28:21Speaker 9: I have a sandwich, I lay back for a little bit,
- 28:24Speaker 9: I turn on, you know a little music, and I
- 28:27Speaker 9: just kind of shut my eyes for like fifteen minutes,
- 28:30Speaker 9: you know, fifteen twenty minutes, and I was like, ah, man,
- 28:34Speaker 9: I gotta get I gotta get back in there. Probably totally.
- 28:36Speaker 9: It ended up being like forty minutes. So I walk in,
- 28:39Speaker 9: I sneak in, and all of a sudden, I'm I'm
- 28:43Speaker 9: forty yards from the tree, and I hear deer get up,
- 28:46Speaker 9: and I'm thinking these are other deer and I hear
- 28:49Speaker 9: them kind of run off into the swamp.
- 28:52Speaker 8: Well, I make my way to the tree. I start
- 28:54Speaker 8: climbing up the tree and.
- 28:56Speaker 9: I have my lineman's bull down and I get about
- 28:58Speaker 9: halfway up the tree of where I where I'm intending
- 29:02Speaker 9: to get, and I see that buck in the dope.
- 29:04Speaker 9: They they had made their way through, and I bumped
- 29:07Speaker 9: them and they were they were looking around and they
- 29:10Speaker 9: didn't see me. I was just above like the cover.
- 29:14Speaker 9: So I had my bow on a on a rope.
- 29:15Speaker 9: I pulled it up with my lineman belt on, standing
- 29:18Speaker 9: on a limb.
- 29:19Speaker 8: And ended up ended up, Uh, ended up shooting that buck.
- 29:23Speaker 3: Wow.
- 29:23Speaker 9: So I totally got lucky, almost flew it. But you know,
- 29:29Speaker 9: just that little window, that little tiny window where I
- 29:31Speaker 9: hesitated went back to the truck almost cost me. Where
- 29:34Speaker 9: if I would have been in that stand immediately, you know,
- 29:38Speaker 9: I probably would have had a cake shot, you know,
- 29:41Speaker 9: and uh.
- 29:42Speaker 8: Not alerted anything.
- 29:43Speaker 9: But I thought that was a good, good fitting example there.
- 29:46Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a perfect example.
- 29:49Speaker 2: So speaking of tough decisions during the rut, that being
- 29:54Speaker 2: in this case, whether to stay or to go go in.
- 29:57Speaker 2: Another one of those things that we've gotten a number
- 29:59Speaker 2: of questions on and something that I think a lot
- 30:02Speaker 2: of us think about is risk taking during the rut.
- 30:06Speaker 2: And one of the questions that I got here is
- 30:08Speaker 2: are you willing to hunt a risky wind during the rut?
- 30:11Speaker 2: And there was a second question very similar someone else said,
- 30:13Speaker 2: like does wind matter less during the rut? Because on
- 30:16Speaker 2: my twenty acre parcel I never seem to have the
- 30:18Speaker 2: just right wind. So is this the time now when
- 30:20Speaker 2: I can get risky with it and still, you know,
- 30:22Speaker 2: try to make the best of it.
- 30:26Speaker 3: What's your take on that?
- 30:31Speaker 8: Yeah, I think it is a time to risk. I
- 30:35Speaker 8: think you gotta. I think you have to think about
- 30:37Speaker 8: a lot of things.
- 30:38Speaker 9: If you're someone like me, someone like probably most the
- 30:42Speaker 9: listeners out there who work a job, probably have limited
- 30:46Speaker 9: vacation time, probably have some family obligations. You're not going
- 30:49Speaker 9: to be able to sit. You don't get a rut cation.
- 30:52Speaker 9: You know, you don't get a two week window or
- 30:57Speaker 9: three week window where you can hunt whenever you want.
- 31:00Speaker 9: You get your days, you get your windows. Maybe you
- 31:03Speaker 9: have some flexibility. But I gauge all that stuff, and
- 31:07Speaker 9: I I weigh that against you know, my ideas are where.
- 31:12Speaker 8: To sit my decisions and the risk factor.
- 31:16Speaker 9: If I think I'm going to have a limited time,
- 31:17Speaker 9: I'm looking at the forecast, I'm looking at the winds
- 31:20Speaker 9: moving forward, and it's like, oh man, you know this
- 31:22Speaker 9: is risky, but this might be my only shot, or
- 31:25Speaker 9: this might be my best shot.
- 31:26Speaker 8: I will I will risk more if I.
- 31:30Speaker 9: Have the whole rut to to play around with and
- 31:33Speaker 9: be maybe a little more patient.
- 31:36Speaker 8: I might wait.
- 31:37Speaker 9: What I don't want is like what I think is
- 31:39Speaker 9: a dead wrong wind. I don't want dead wrong. But
- 31:45Speaker 9: you know, if you're if you're if you're targeting something
- 31:47Speaker 9: specific like a dough betting area or something, or you're
- 31:50Speaker 9: you kind of know where the majority of the deer
- 31:53Speaker 9: bed during the day.
- 31:54Speaker 8: I don't want my my wind blowing in there all
- 31:56Speaker 8: day long.
- 31:57Speaker 9: You know, now, what I get on an edge and
- 32:00Speaker 9: maybe I'm only clipping. You know, a portion of it
- 32:03Speaker 9: a very small portion or maybe a couple of deer
- 32:05Speaker 9: get me.
- 32:06Speaker 8: Maybe not. Yeah, you know that's.
- 32:08Speaker 9: Something I do that all the time, you know, you know,
- 32:12Speaker 9: just kind of trying to base that with the time
- 32:15Speaker 9: available maybe what I think I can get away with
- 32:18Speaker 9: time of year. You know. Another thing too, like I
- 32:23Speaker 9: always look at like the weather, and if I'm seeing
- 32:26Speaker 9: like a you know, a high pressure day. If I'm
- 32:28Speaker 9: seeing you know, thirty degree temperatures in the morning and
- 32:33Speaker 9: it's gonna warm up to fifty five. With a high
- 32:36Speaker 9: pressure blue bird day, I know that my thermals are
- 32:38Speaker 9: going to be really rising once that sun gets up,
- 32:41Speaker 9: you know that nine ten, nine o'clock.
- 32:45Speaker 8: So I'll be a little more risky on those days.
- 32:48Speaker 9: Then on a low pressure day where it's gonna hold
- 32:50Speaker 9: my my uh my scent kind of down, it's not
- 32:53Speaker 9: gonna rise my sense gonna you know, be more at
- 32:56Speaker 9: ground level, I'll be I'll be a little more picky
- 32:59Speaker 9: on those days. So if I think I'm gonna get
- 33:01Speaker 9: a scent advantage for a rising thermal, you know, especially
- 33:04Speaker 9: like in the hills or something, you get some elevation changes. Yeah,
- 33:09Speaker 9: like a lot of times I almost won't even care
- 33:12Speaker 9: about the wind. I just don't want it going down
- 33:14Speaker 9: to where I think the deer are going first thing
- 33:16Speaker 9: in the morning, and then I'm gonna rely on those thermals,
- 33:19Speaker 9: you know, for the majority of the day, and then
- 33:22Speaker 9: I may adjust, you know, later on in the day
- 33:25Speaker 9: to something that's with more of a dropping thermo or relocate.
- 33:28Speaker 9: But I'm I'm running through all of those things in
- 33:32Speaker 9: my head when I'm trying to make a decision. But
- 33:34Speaker 9: I've I've never done great on just a dead wrong wind.
- 33:39Speaker 9: But on the flip side, it is the rut. There's
- 33:42Speaker 9: many times I was targeting a specific buck during the
- 33:45Speaker 9: rut and I was sure he was gonna come out
- 33:47Speaker 9: of this area, and he ends up coming from a
- 33:49Speaker 9: completely opposite area.
- 33:51Speaker 8: Yeah, So that that stuff can happen.
- 33:54Speaker 9: And then you get those random bucks that are just
- 33:56Speaker 9: passing through and you don't know where they're gonna where
- 33:58Speaker 9: they're coming from. And you always get those those uh,
- 34:01Speaker 9: you know, buck chasing a dole by your stand so
- 34:04Speaker 9: it can pay. You can go there with a dead
- 34:05Speaker 9: wrong wind and get it, get a crack at one,
- 34:07Speaker 9: but you're relying a little more on luck, and I
- 34:10Speaker 9: don't like to rely on luck.
- 34:13Speaker 8: I do want to put myself.
- 34:15Speaker 9: In in likely spots where bucks tend to gravitate towards
- 34:19Speaker 9: and I want a good wind, a good thermal. Most
- 34:23Speaker 9: of the time, I'm not going to be super risky
- 34:25Speaker 9: unless I'm uh, unless I'm just really limited on time.
- 34:32Speaker 9: But it's very rare that I'll I'll go out there
- 34:35Speaker 9: and hit like with just a dead wrong wind.
- 34:38Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I think you know.
- 34:41Speaker 2: The thing to think about with this a lot of
- 34:43Speaker 2: times is yes, like, if you're ever going to be
- 34:46Speaker 2: a little more risky, this is the time to do it.
- 34:48Speaker 2: But you still have to think about, like, what is
- 34:51Speaker 2: the scenario in which this could actually work? Like lots
- 34:53Speaker 2: of times when I'm thinking about where to set up
- 34:55Speaker 2: or what tree to pick out, or you know, where
- 34:57Speaker 2: I want to be, I try to envisionally, Okay, how
- 35:00Speaker 2: would this actually work, Like where could a deer actually
- 35:03Speaker 2: come through? What's the scenario in this actually what is
- 35:06Speaker 2: the scenario that leads to this being successful? And if
- 35:09Speaker 2: I'm in there with a wind that I just can't
- 35:12Speaker 2: even envision a scenario in which this will really work,
- 35:14Speaker 2: even if it's a great place, even if it's man
- 35:17Speaker 2: somewhere I've wanted to hunt all year, and I've waited
- 35:19Speaker 2: and waited and waited, and gosh, I want to get
- 35:22Speaker 2: in this so bad, and it's November seventh, it's the
- 35:24Speaker 2: right day, and it's the end of my trip. But
- 35:25Speaker 2: if I sit there and I think to myself, like,
- 35:27Speaker 2: even though I really want to be in there, if
- 35:30Speaker 2: I look at what the wind's doing, and if I
- 35:31Speaker 2: sit through and walk through, Okay, what's the hypothetical spots
- 35:34Speaker 2: this deer could come from? And man, if there's no
- 35:37Speaker 2: way it could realistically work out, like you can't wish
- 35:40Speaker 2: it to work, so I.
- 35:45Speaker 3: Will.
- 35:45Speaker 2: Still you still have to like put on your real
- 35:50Speaker 2: world glasses. As much as you want to have like
- 35:52Speaker 2: the rut fantasy, you also have to say, okay, like
- 35:55Speaker 2: what's the real chance of this working? And maybe if
- 35:58Speaker 2: you were to get off of that magic spot by
- 36:00Speaker 2: fifty yards, now all of a sudden the wind can
- 36:03Speaker 2: work and you can still be close to the best
- 36:05Speaker 2: of the best places. But at least now there's like
- 36:06Speaker 2: a real set of possible scenarios in which deer can
- 36:10Speaker 2: come through and not wind you. But if the deer,
- 36:11Speaker 2: if every deer that's going to come into that magic
- 36:13Speaker 2: X is gonna get your wind, what's the point of
- 36:15Speaker 2: being there? So I think you know someone has to
- 36:18Speaker 2: think that through too. So yes, this is the time
- 36:21Speaker 2: to be risky, but it's not the time to be thoughtless.
- 36:24Speaker 2: It's not the time to be careless and imagine that
- 36:27Speaker 2: the wind won't still.
- 36:28Speaker 3: Have an effect.
- 36:28Speaker 2: It will still have an effect, but you just might
- 36:31Speaker 2: have You're gonna have more opportunities for forgiveness. You're gonna
- 36:34Speaker 2: have more opportunities where you know, they'll be crazy things
- 36:37Speaker 2: going on, like deer doing things you're not expecting. So
- 36:39Speaker 2: it's it's a balancing act, that's for sure. But you
- 36:42Speaker 2: said something else, andy that I think is worth spending
- 36:45Speaker 2: a little time on, which is, you know, the fact
- 36:49Speaker 2: that some deer are gonna get down wind, like you're
- 36:51Speaker 2: gonna like, we'll haunt a spot where the wind's gonna
- 36:54Speaker 2: clip a part of a betting air or something. So
- 36:55Speaker 2: that's not perfect, but you know it's in the real world.
- 36:58Speaker 2: You have to sometimes do that, right. And you and
- 37:01Speaker 2: I were texting the other day about you know, how
- 37:04Speaker 2: often do deer actually get down wind of us?
- 37:07Speaker 3: You know how often does that happen?
- 37:09Speaker 2: And I think if you were to just watch, you know,
- 37:11Speaker 2: hunting TV shows, especially like the folks have got the
- 37:14Speaker 2: big managed properties and they hunt from their blinds and
- 37:16Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff all the time. You might
- 37:18Speaker 2: think that a deer should never get down wind of
- 37:21Speaker 2: view ever, and that these people never get winded, and
- 37:24Speaker 2: that if you're going to kill a deer, you can
- 37:25Speaker 2: never get winded eat and you can never blow your
- 37:27Speaker 2: scent anywhere there's deer, and if you do, you're doomed.
- 37:31Speaker 2: That might be the impression you could get from watching
- 37:33Speaker 2: some of these TV shows. I think it's important to
- 37:35Speaker 2: note that that is not the case in the real world,
- 37:40Speaker 2: right Andy, I mean, I think I sat down and
- 37:42Speaker 2: I tried to think through like and just my this
- 37:44Speaker 2: this season's hunts, Like, how many times did I have
- 37:46Speaker 2: deer come down wind of me despite the fact that
- 37:49Speaker 2: I'm trying really hard to minimize that. You just can't
- 37:52Speaker 2: hunt many places in the real world unless you have
- 37:54Speaker 2: like a very very very well manicured design property in
- 37:58Speaker 2: which some deer won't get down whin of you. I
- 38:00Speaker 2: think you just have to minimize it. You have to
- 38:03Speaker 2: be smart about it, you have to pick your spots,
- 38:05Speaker 2: but you always have to give up something like, if
- 38:08Speaker 2: I'm going to push into a spot where I think
- 38:09Speaker 2: I can kill something, I'm probably gonna have to give
- 38:11Speaker 2: something else up. And I want it to be as
- 38:13Speaker 2: minimal as possible, and I want to be as smart
- 38:15Speaker 2: as possible. But there are very few perfect deer deserts
- 38:19Speaker 2: in a regular uncontrolled situation where you're hunting by permission,
- 38:23Speaker 2: properties and things like that. I mean, I think what
- 38:26Speaker 2: I told you is that I went through and looked
- 38:28Speaker 2: through like all my hunts this season, and on fifty
- 38:31Speaker 2: percent of my hunts, I could say for sure deer
- 38:33Speaker 2: got downwind to me fifty percent of my hunts. And
- 38:36Speaker 2: that is despite me being as careful as I possibly could,
- 38:39Speaker 2: being smart about it, and actively knowing like, hey, I
- 38:43Speaker 2: know I'm going to have deer downwind to me here,
- 38:44Speaker 2: but this is the very fewest number of deer or
- 38:47Speaker 2: the lowest likelihood type situation that I can get away with.
- 38:51Speaker 3: What would you agree with that?
- 38:53Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean that's what prompted that question when I
- 38:57Speaker 9: sent it to you. Like I swear pretty much, it
- 39:01Speaker 9: feels like every hunt I've been on this year, deer
- 39:03Speaker 9: have gotten down wind to me, and a lot of
- 39:07Speaker 9: that has been.
- 39:08Speaker 8: Due to shifting winds I've had.
- 39:09Speaker 9: It's been a really strange year for me as far
- 39:12Speaker 9: as like the forecasted wind and then you get that
- 39:16Speaker 9: a little bit, but then you're getting some really odd
- 39:18Speaker 9: ball winds in there, like it's supposed to be southwest,
- 39:20Speaker 9: and then I'm getting, you know, the kind of sucked
- 39:23Speaker 9: backs to the east, you know, or it gets down
- 39:25Speaker 9: a prime time that wind really dies down and starts
- 39:27Speaker 9: blowing to the north, you know, the complete opposite. That
- 39:30Speaker 9: stuff has been happening to me, like it seems like
- 39:32Speaker 9: every hunt. But yeah, I mean all the time deer
- 39:36Speaker 9: getting down WINDO me. Is as hard as I try,
- 39:40Speaker 9: it's going to happen. And I think you're right. You know,
- 39:44Speaker 9: a lot of that stuff you see on TV is
- 39:46Speaker 9: it's just not relatable, you know, it's not relatable to
- 39:48Speaker 9: the average guy. It's not real to the average guy.
- 39:52Speaker 9: So we we can only look at that for what
- 39:54Speaker 9: it is, and it's just entertainment, that's all it is.
- 39:56Speaker 9: You know, you can't even really listening to the advice
- 40:00Speaker 9: of a lot of those guys. Maybe some stuff on
- 40:03Speaker 9: deer behavior, but as far as tactic stuff, it anymore,
- 40:07Speaker 9: like I've caught on it goes in one year run
- 40:09Speaker 9: out the other. It's it's not anything I can apply
- 40:12Speaker 9: most times, and it's not anything that's super relatable. I mean,
- 40:17Speaker 9: you might be able to pick out a few nuggets there,
- 40:19Speaker 9: but I think it's important to mention that for the
- 40:22Speaker 9: new guys that are coming out, because that's what they're
- 40:24Speaker 9: seeing on on TV. But yeah, you know, I'm trying
- 40:28Speaker 9: to always trying to minimize disturbance. I have my wind
- 40:33Speaker 9: a lot of times going to where deer shouldn't go,
- 40:36Speaker 9: but they do. You know, here in Michigan, you have
- 40:42Speaker 9: a lot of spots I hunt have a fairly high
- 40:44Speaker 9: deer density, you know. And yes, you're you're maybe targeting
- 40:47Speaker 9: the main the main betting areas you know, and and
- 40:52Speaker 9: the main food sources, and you have your wind in
- 40:55Speaker 9: your favor, But then you got all these satellite deer
- 40:57Speaker 9: that are betting over here and over here, and then
- 41:00Speaker 9: they're traveling a different way, and you can't account for
- 41:02Speaker 9: everyone because there's just too many of them. I get
- 41:04Speaker 9: winded far lest when I hunt Ohio there's less deer.
- 41:09Speaker 9: And then another thing too, once you get into a
- 41:11Speaker 9: pressured setting and you hunt a pressured state, and I
- 41:15Speaker 9: think Dan Johnson experienced this when he came to Michigan,
- 41:19Speaker 9: and he's like, I get it now. He's like, the
- 41:22Speaker 9: deer exit the betting area is looking for people. They look,
- 41:27Speaker 9: they're looking up, they're traveling in ways to scent check
- 41:31Speaker 9: areas where hunters typically are all the spots. I hunt
- 41:36Speaker 9: a very high percentage of them. That's how the does behave.
- 41:40Speaker 9: It's not always just a you know, unless you can
- 41:43Speaker 9: completely have a place to yourself and it's unpressured, which
- 41:46Speaker 9: you can create little pockets like that. These these deer
- 41:50Speaker 9: are moving very cautiously. They are on high alert from
- 41:53Speaker 9: the second they get up. They look like they're ultra
- 41:55Speaker 9: paranoid and they're looking over here and they hear us,
- 41:57Speaker 9: they hear a squirrel and they're looking over there, and
- 41:59Speaker 9: it's like they are so keyed up all the time.
- 42:02Speaker 8: It is really tough. And they get us.
- 42:05Speaker 9: A whiff of where you've been, where you where you are,
- 42:10Speaker 9: and they, especially the older dose, they they really key
- 42:13Speaker 9: in on that and they don't forget that and they
- 42:15Speaker 9: start to avoid it or they come check it out
- 42:17Speaker 9: and investigate.
- 42:18Speaker 8: And once you once they.
- 42:19Speaker 9: Have like a they have a little hint of that
- 42:23Speaker 9: you might be there or that you were there. Those
- 42:25Speaker 9: older doughs they come in and they investigate and they
- 42:27Speaker 9: get you. You know, they're when when they start looking
- 42:30Speaker 9: for you, they're gonna find you, and you know, and
- 42:33Speaker 9: then it makes things really hard.
- 42:34Speaker 8: So you know, it's something.
- 42:36Speaker 9: We're battling all the time. I mean, I've been battling
- 42:39Speaker 9: with it, and you know, I've been getting winded like
- 42:42Speaker 9: every single hunt by by something and it's it's frustrating, man,
- 42:47Speaker 9: it's super frustrating. And you're you're kind of blowing up
- 42:50Speaker 9: the area. I think you can minimize that, Like you
- 42:54Speaker 9: said on the fringes, try to blow into dead areas,
- 42:58Speaker 9: and I probably tend to because I have less time
- 43:02Speaker 9: to hunt. I tend to dive in a little deeper
- 43:04Speaker 9: than most guys. I think some guys would see my
- 43:07Speaker 9: my sits and where I go and they're like, geez,
- 43:09Speaker 9: you know, like he's really getting in there, you know,
- 43:11Speaker 9: And I do because I know I'm not going to
- 43:14Speaker 9: have many stabs throughout the season, so I try to
- 43:16Speaker 9: make those sits count.
- 43:19Speaker 8: That's partially it.
- 43:20Speaker 9: You know, I'm partially taking a little more risk there,
- 43:23Speaker 9: but also I'm choosing to do that because the time
- 43:26Speaker 9: available and what I'm trying to accomplish on that particular hunt.
- 43:31Speaker 8: But yeah, yeah, I'm in.
- 43:32Speaker 4: Agreement with you.
- 43:32Speaker 9: I mean, it's just it's just it happens. You just
- 43:34Speaker 9: try to minimize it.
- 43:35Speaker 2: And you know, I was going to add, I think
- 43:38Speaker 2: I can speak for you. You tell me if I'm getting
- 43:40Speaker 2: this wrong. But from you know everything I've heard and
- 43:43Speaker 2: seen from from the way you hunt, Andy, Yes, you
- 43:46Speaker 2: push into places and make those aggressive pushes because you
- 43:49Speaker 2: have to, given your time and what you're trying to do.
- 43:52Speaker 2: But at the same time, you're not stuck with just
- 43:54Speaker 2: one spot to do that. So it's not like you
- 43:56Speaker 2: aggressively push into the same spot over and over and
- 43:58Speaker 2: over and over again every weekend. And you've got all
- 44:01Speaker 2: sorts of different places, so you can do an aggressive
- 44:03Speaker 2: strike here today, and then you can do an aggressive
- 44:05Speaker 2: strike next week and a different property, and then the
- 44:07Speaker 2: next day you can hunt a piece of public and
- 44:09Speaker 2: then the next weekend you go to.
- 44:10Speaker 3: Some different place.
- 44:11Speaker 2: So it's not like you're destroying places and hunting dead
- 44:15Speaker 2: spots because of all that aggression. You're you're moving on
- 44:18Speaker 2: and hunting different locations smartly. Despite that aggression because you
- 44:23Speaker 2: have that you know, array of locations that you can
- 44:26Speaker 2: do this on, right.
- 44:28Speaker 8: Yeah for sure.
- 44:30Speaker 9: Yeah, and uh, you know, on a spot where you know,
- 44:35Speaker 9: maybe a lease or maybe you own a small chunk,
- 44:39Speaker 9: you know, maybe you can you can rely on when
- 44:43Speaker 9: you're not there, it's not getting blown up by other guys,
- 44:49Speaker 9: and you have that time. Yeah, I would, Uh, I would.
- 44:52Speaker 9: I would hunt it a little different, you know, I
- 44:54Speaker 9: would hunt it. You know, say you did have a
- 44:58Speaker 9: small piece. It doesn't even have to be a highly
- 45:00Speaker 9: managed firm, just you own a small thirty acres or
- 45:03Speaker 9: an eighty acres or at least an eighty acres and
- 45:06Speaker 9: that's your spot.
- 45:07Speaker 3: You know.
- 45:07Speaker 9: Yeah, I'm I'm gonna be playing things a lot more cautious.
- 45:11Speaker 9: I'm gonna be hunting the fringes. My whole goal is
- 45:14Speaker 9: to not let deer see me, smell me, hear me.
- 45:18Speaker 9: But I'm trying to observe. I'm trying to scout. I'm
- 45:20Speaker 9: trying to you know, observe from a distance. Maybe check
- 45:23Speaker 9: some cameras midday here and there. But I'm trying to
- 45:25Speaker 9: let the season kind of materialize and capitalize on the
- 45:29Speaker 9: mistakes of the deer. You know, as they you know,
- 45:32Speaker 9: become more active, they cover more ground. You know, I
- 45:36Speaker 9: would hunt that different, and I do have spots that
- 45:39Speaker 9: have less pressure that I am more of a outside
- 45:44Speaker 9: in type hunter. It again, for me personally, it all
- 45:48Speaker 9: goes back to the time available. If I have the
- 45:50Speaker 9: time available, I'll sit back. I'll sit back, and I'll
- 45:52Speaker 9: wait and try to be a little more less aggressive
- 45:56Speaker 9: and try to maybe prolong that that season a little
- 45:59Speaker 9: bit and just wait for those bucks to make their
- 46:02Speaker 9: their mistake or other situations. It's like more of a
- 46:05Speaker 9: time crunch. I gotta make it happen, you know, in
- 46:07Speaker 9: the next four days. So I'm gonna really push, but
- 46:10Speaker 9: I don't. I'm not reckless by any means. I move
- 46:13Speaker 9: in when I think I can. Like today's seventy degrees,
- 46:17Speaker 9: if you were gonna say, Andy, Ory, could you go
- 46:19Speaker 9: out and get on a good buck today and maybe
- 46:22Speaker 9: get them killed?
- 46:23Speaker 8: Like you know, No, I'm not feeling super confident.
- 46:25Speaker 9: It's dry, it's crunchy, there's not a lot of wind,
- 46:28Speaker 9: it's uh, you know, it's seventy degrees. No, I'm not
- 46:31Speaker 9: gonna I'm not gonna go push and make some aggressive
- 46:34Speaker 9: sit that's very very low percentage. You know, I'd rather
- 46:38Speaker 9: wait till you get a little better conditions for something
- 46:41Speaker 9: like that.
- 46:42Speaker 3: So here's the follow up to that.
- 46:54Speaker 2: Another question someone submitted that's that's relevant to what we're
- 46:56Speaker 2: talking about here. So the question is when hunting small
- 47:00Speaker 2: property during the run. So let's say, like own a
- 47:02Speaker 2: small property thirty acres something like that, is it better
- 47:06Speaker 2: to hunt off freshly scouted sign so look for the
- 47:09Speaker 2: fresh hot stuff and hunt that, move around a bunch,
- 47:12Speaker 2: try to find that, or stick with historically good spots.
- 47:16Speaker 2: So I think this kind of goes to the general
- 47:18Speaker 2: theme of what we're talking here, is like, is do
- 47:21Speaker 2: you play a little bit more conservative and not bust
- 47:24Speaker 2: up your small property and hunt and trust in some
- 47:27Speaker 2: safer but consistently in the past good spots or can
- 47:31Speaker 2: you move around? Can you aggressively try to find what's happening.
- 47:34Speaker 3: Right now and hunt that.
- 47:35Speaker 2: What would you do if you if you were in
- 47:37Speaker 2: that situation Andy and you, let's say you own thirty
- 47:39Speaker 2: you own a thirty acre piece, and these are the
- 47:42Speaker 2: two options you were considering, what would you say?
- 47:44Speaker 9: Yeah, Well, I think I think anytime you're you're really
- 47:49Speaker 9: uh pigeonholed into a small property like that. It pays
- 47:53Speaker 9: off to know that property well, know where the deer bed,
- 47:57Speaker 9: know where they travel, know the if there are some
- 48:00Speaker 9: like rout travel through there, some some doe betting where
- 48:04Speaker 9: you can get in and out and and just rely
- 48:07Speaker 9: on that, you know, kind of hunt, hunt the fringes,
- 48:10Speaker 9: or hunt those spots that were historically good because once
- 48:15Speaker 9: you once you learn that, there can be some changes
- 48:18Speaker 9: year to year, you know, depending on like crop rotation,
- 48:21Speaker 9: acorn crop, you know, food availability, maybe some surrounding pressure.
- 48:26Speaker 9: You got a neighbor hunting a side all of a
- 48:28Speaker 9: sudden that never you know was there. You know, those
- 48:31Speaker 9: things can come up and change, you know, change some things,
- 48:35Speaker 9: change some movement patterns. But if it's a thirty acre
- 48:38Speaker 9: piece or less, you know, and it's maybe it's super sensitive,
- 48:43Speaker 9: maybe there's some actual betting on there. You know, I'm
- 48:47Speaker 9: going to be sticking to those historically good spots during
- 48:50Speaker 9: the rut. That doesn't mean I'm not ready to go
- 48:53Speaker 9: if I observe something, you know, if I observe just
- 48:56Speaker 9: like that example I gave earlier, I'm up in a
- 48:58Speaker 9: spot that was a historically good spot, right there, and
- 49:01Speaker 9: I observe that that buck pin down with that dough
- 49:04Speaker 9: out in the marsh there, and I made the move.
- 49:07Speaker 8: So I'm ready to make the move.
- 49:09Speaker 9: I'm ready to move in on on an opportunity.
- 49:12Speaker 8: But I'm probably gonna I'm probably gonna, you.
- 49:16Speaker 9: Know, stick to those two three four spots on thirty
- 49:20Speaker 9: acres that are typically good during the rut. They're fairly
- 49:23Speaker 9: safe with this wind direction. And this spot's fairly safe
- 49:26Speaker 9: with this wind direction. And uh, you know, just put
- 49:29Speaker 9: in the time. You know, the rut, the rut is it.
- 49:33Speaker 9: You know, Hunting sign and hunting the rut don't always
- 49:39Speaker 9: go hand in hand. So like when I'm hunting early season,
- 49:47Speaker 9: you know, I'm trying to observe or I'm hunting signor
- 49:50Speaker 9: or information off a camera. You know, you go start
- 49:53Speaker 9: going through October, mid October, late October. Sign is really
- 49:56Speaker 9: popping up. Hunting on fresh sign during that though, is
- 50:00Speaker 9: extremely effective. Like right on sign, right on sign that
- 50:04Speaker 9: maybe is close to good betting. You see a big
- 50:08Speaker 9: track in a scrape, you look around, it's a good
- 50:10Speaker 9: security cover. You're like, Okay, I think he's coming from here.
- 50:12Speaker 9: This is a good spot. I got a really good
- 50:14Speaker 9: access here, I got good wind here. You're running this
- 50:17Speaker 9: stuff through your head. But then you start getting into November,
- 50:23Speaker 9: some of that red hot sign really starts to taper off.
- 50:27Speaker 9: Scrapes start to grow colder and colder. As you get
- 50:31Speaker 9: into November. You'll see them all torn up every single day,
- 50:34Speaker 9: you know, in late October, and then you'll see, like
- 50:36Speaker 9: November fifth, sixth, seventh, all of a sudden, there's leaves
- 50:39Speaker 9: in your scrapes, you know, And and that lets you
- 50:42Speaker 9: know that, okay, there. It doesn't mean they're gone, but
- 50:45Speaker 9: you might not find that fresh torn up sign. You
- 50:48Speaker 9: still might and that lets you know that there's there's
- 50:51Speaker 9: probably one in there. They're probably moving through there. You know,
- 50:54Speaker 9: maybe there's some do betting there that they're keying in on.
- 50:57Speaker 9: But in a lot of places I've hun it. I
- 51:01Speaker 9: switched to hunting terrain. But I don't want just any terrain.
- 51:04Speaker 9: I don't want just a saddle. I don't want just
- 51:06Speaker 9: a pinch point. I want a pinch point or a
- 51:09Speaker 9: saddle or a bench or a travel hub that connects
- 51:13Speaker 9: a lot of things that bucks like, Yeah, you know,
- 51:17Speaker 9: dough betting a primary food source, you know, dough betting
- 51:20Speaker 9: over here, a good ridge over here that has a
- 51:23Speaker 9: lot of betting, and all these things can kind of
- 51:25Speaker 9: come together, you know, in one spot, and that's the spot.
- 51:30Speaker 8: Now you might go to that spot. There might not
- 51:31Speaker 8: be any sign.
- 51:32Speaker 9: It might be just a few trails at crisscross, or
- 51:35Speaker 9: or there might be like a hubscrape down there, or
- 51:37Speaker 9: there might be something that indicates us this is a
- 51:40Speaker 9: spot where a lot of things come together. But it
- 51:42Speaker 9: could it literally could just be one scrape. I've seen
- 51:45Speaker 9: that time and time again when I've hunted in Iowa.
- 51:48Speaker 9: I'll find these travel hubs coming off the hills or
- 51:51Speaker 9: all these points dumped down in the same general area,
- 51:54Speaker 9: and you just know, you look at it on a toepone,
- 51:56Speaker 9: You're like, wow.
- 51:57Speaker 8: You know, any buck that's on.
- 51:59Speaker 9: This ridge wants to get to this ridge is gonna
- 52:01Speaker 9: have to come down one of these few points. And
- 52:03Speaker 9: then there's this ridge over here that has a point
- 52:05Speaker 9: dumping down, and all these are traveling and coming down
- 52:08Speaker 9: in the same area crisscrossing, and they can get to
- 52:11Speaker 9: any of these ridges.
- 52:12Speaker 8: That spot right there is the hub. That's the travel hub.
- 52:15Speaker 9: That's where I'm gonna get a lot of deer coming
- 52:18Speaker 9: through that general area and you go down there and
- 52:20Speaker 9: you look and there's a big primary scrape there, very
- 52:23Speaker 9: very common but not always. But you go down there
- 52:26Speaker 9: and it's not It doesn't mean it's littered with sign.
- 52:28Speaker 9: It might just be four or five six trails that
- 52:31Speaker 9: all pass through an eighty acre I'm sorry, an eighty
- 52:34Speaker 9: yard span, you know, and that's where you want to be.
- 52:37Speaker 8: You get on that down in.
- 52:38Speaker 9: Side, you get a good consistent wind pattern, and those
- 52:40Speaker 9: are the spots you sit all day. So I don't
- 52:43Speaker 9: always need red hot sign during the rut, but I
- 52:46Speaker 9: if i'm I might just be in spots that connect
- 52:51Speaker 9: good things. And in those good things there's probably good
- 52:54Speaker 9: sign like good dough, good dough sign, you know, good
- 52:59Speaker 9: feeding sign, lots of you know, deer activity, but you
- 53:04Speaker 9: don't I'm not necessarily always in a spot that has
- 53:08Speaker 9: red hot sign during the rut.
- 53:09Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know, another thing to be to remember
- 53:12Speaker 2: during that time period is that some red hot sign,
- 53:17Speaker 2: you know, laid down at that time of year does
- 53:20Speaker 2: not indicate anything about the future, right, Like, there will
- 53:23Speaker 2: be deer passing through places, like a buck cruising through
- 53:25Speaker 2: his zone, and he might lay down a big scrape
- 53:28Speaker 2: and he might never pass through there again. So so
- 53:31Speaker 2: sometimes you'll see sign you know that that does indicate like, okay,
- 53:35Speaker 2: bucks are doing something here for a reason. But if
- 53:36Speaker 2: you see a random scrape or a random rub in
- 53:39Speaker 2: a place and you can't say why that's happening there,
- 53:43Speaker 2: Like if you if you come to a spot like
- 53:44Speaker 2: you're describing where you've got all these points dropping down
- 53:47Speaker 2: and they all you find this convergence of features and
- 53:50Speaker 2: you see you think to yourself, okay, why why would
- 53:52Speaker 2: deer come through here? Well, it's because of this thing
- 53:54Speaker 2: and this thing, this thing, everything's converging here at this hub.
- 53:56Speaker 3: That makes a lot of sense.
- 53:57Speaker 2: If I see sign there, I can say like, oh, okay,
- 54:00Speaker 2: I understand what's happening and why this sign is here,
- 54:02Speaker 2: and this makes a whole lot of.
- 54:03Speaker 3: Sense to hunt.
- 54:04Speaker 2: But if you find a big rub or a scrape
- 54:07Speaker 2: in i don't know, on a field edge or in
- 54:09Speaker 2: the middle of a big, wide open timber and there's
- 54:11Speaker 2: no terrain feature, there's no topography, there's no edge, there's
- 54:15Speaker 2: nothing that explains to you like why this should make sense.
- 54:19Speaker 2: Don't be fooled by that, because a buck could be
- 54:22Speaker 2: chasing a random dough on November seventh, and then stop
- 54:25Speaker 2: for half a second, rip up a scrape while another
- 54:27Speaker 2: buck comes in, and then off he goes, and then
- 54:29Speaker 2: you're off to the races. So got to remember, like
- 54:32Speaker 2: to your point, sign in October is very different than
- 54:35Speaker 2: sign in November. And so you know, I would agree
- 54:39Speaker 2: with your assessment of the small property situation. I would
- 54:42Speaker 2: probably be more on the conservative side because you can
- 54:44Speaker 2: blow up a small property so quickly, and if you
- 54:47Speaker 2: have those spots that you know produce consistently because of
- 54:50Speaker 2: a terrain feature, a habitat feature, you know, that's the
- 54:53Speaker 2: kind of thing that will work year after year as
- 54:55Speaker 2: long as there hasn't been some big change. But I
- 54:58Speaker 2: would just preface that, or I guess qualify that if
- 55:02Speaker 2: you're hunting in small property and you're new to it, right,
- 55:06Speaker 2: then it doesn't pay to be.
- 55:08Speaker 3: Super conservative all the time.
- 55:09Speaker 2: If you've got a short period of time and you
- 55:12Speaker 2: don't know the property at all, you know, just playing
- 55:14Speaker 2: it super safe your whole vacation because it's small might
- 55:17Speaker 2: not be the right approach, right. You got to know it.
- 55:20Speaker 2: You have to know what you're working with. So if
- 55:21Speaker 2: you've never been able to scout it before. If this
- 55:23Speaker 2: is a piece that you got permission on, let's say,
- 55:26Speaker 2: and you're shown up for a week vacation in the
- 55:28Speaker 2: rut maybe and like this is the property you want
- 55:30Speaker 2: to hunt, you know, don't go tiptoeing around and never
- 55:34Speaker 2: take the time to go learn the thing, because blowing
- 55:37Speaker 2: up for one day even a small proper at least
- 55:39Speaker 2: in my opinion, Maybe I'm wrong on this, but I
- 55:41Speaker 2: would like to learn a property in half a day
- 55:45Speaker 2: or a midday or one day, knowing that I'm going
- 55:48Speaker 2: to put some pressure on it. If that gives me
- 55:50Speaker 2: six days or four days in which.
- 55:52Speaker 3: I actually know what I'm doing. I want to know
- 55:53Speaker 3: what I'm doing. I know, I want to know what's happening.
- 55:56Speaker 2: So if you don't have that already, you got to
- 55:59Speaker 2: figure that out rather than just blindly sitting and hoping
- 56:02Speaker 2: something will happen.
- 56:02Speaker 4: You know.
- 56:03Speaker 9: Yeah, And a lot of times uh not all it
- 56:06Speaker 9: depends on how the property sits up and what's there.
- 56:08Speaker 8: And a lot of times I've hunted.
- 56:10Speaker 9: Many properties where I would go and check for sign
- 56:14Speaker 9: multiple times a week, even small properties, but I'm checking
- 56:18Speaker 9: them in areas that aren't alerting deer maybe it's a
- 56:22Speaker 9: field edge, you know, with a lot of scrapes, and
- 56:24Speaker 9: I can check tracks, and I'll go out there two
- 56:27Speaker 9: three times a week because maybe I'm after a specific
- 56:29Speaker 9: book or I want to know, you know, when the
- 56:31Speaker 9: spot heats up, maybe I wasn't as familiar with that spot.
- 56:36Speaker 8: And I'll go out there and I'll check. I'm abe,
- 56:37Speaker 8: I'll check a camera.
- 56:38Speaker 9: I'm out there, I'm looking and all these All of
- 56:40Speaker 9: a sudden, the scrapes are are are opened up, and
- 56:43Speaker 9: I look and there's some big tracks in there. Okay,
- 56:46Speaker 9: now I'm in a spot where it's not alerting deer.
- 56:49Speaker 9: You know, I'm able to I'm able to walk this
- 56:51Speaker 9: without blowing the whole property out.
- 56:53Speaker 8: But I picked up signed. Now I'm going to relate that.
- 56:56Speaker 9: Back to what I know about the property, where the
- 56:57Speaker 9: betting areas is, where the funnels are, where I can
- 57:00Speaker 9: get in and out, and maybe that tells me it's
- 57:02Speaker 9: time to hunt. Not necessarily hunt on that sign, but
- 57:05Speaker 9: it's telling me like now's the time to go.
- 57:08Speaker 8: Yeah, I've had that happen, and.
- 57:10Speaker 9: I want to make one I want to make one
- 57:11Speaker 9: comment too about the uh you know when I mentioned
- 57:15Speaker 9: you know, hunting red hot sign in the rut doesn't
- 57:18Speaker 9: always go hand in hand, you know, like that spot
- 57:21Speaker 9: that I uh that I mentioned where a lot of
- 57:24Speaker 9: stuff converges, a lot of travel converges into one general
- 57:27Speaker 9: area and there's a scrape down there. I've I've found
- 57:29Speaker 9: spots like this all across the Midwest, and they're always
- 57:32Speaker 9: good spots. You just got to hunt them with the
- 57:33Speaker 9: right wind and you got to have good access. And
- 57:36Speaker 9: sometimes when you get down, depending on what it is,
- 57:39Speaker 9: sometimes you get down in those bottoms and it can
- 57:40Speaker 9: be tough. But a lot of times you can get
- 57:43Speaker 9: the right situation where you can get a consistent wind.
- 57:46Speaker 9: But those there's a there's a lot of times there's
- 57:50Speaker 9: some sort of sign, some sort of primary scrape in
- 57:52Speaker 9: these areas where a lot of things, a lot of
- 57:55Speaker 9: travel comes together, a lot of scent pools together. It's
- 57:59Speaker 9: because those areas draw bucks. Bucks can gather a ton
- 58:03Speaker 9: of information from one spot, and I like to look
- 58:06Speaker 9: for spots like that during the run. I like to
- 58:08Speaker 9: hunt spots that where bucks can gather a lot of
- 58:11Speaker 9: information efficiently without traveling across this field and over here
- 58:16Speaker 9: and through this funnel and checking this. But they can
- 58:18Speaker 9: grab all that information in one spot. And that's something
- 58:23Speaker 9: that mature bucks do a lot, a lot of times.
- 58:25Speaker 9: There is a big primary scrape there beause they get
- 58:28Speaker 9: down there, they get all fired up. They scrape and yes,
- 58:31Speaker 9: that's opened up, you know, the third week of October,
- 58:34Speaker 9: late October, November second, third, fourth, fifth, it's like torn up.
- 58:39Speaker 9: You got a camera on it. You're getting buck after
- 58:41Speaker 9: buck after buck, and then all of a sudden you
- 58:45Speaker 9: go in there to hunt and it's November seventh or eighth,
- 58:48Speaker 9: and there's leaves covering the scrape and you're like, oh, man,
- 58:51Speaker 9: it's dead. It's not dead. They're just not tending the
- 58:55Speaker 9: scrape anymore. That scrape is there for a reason, and
- 58:58Speaker 9: those bucks are still working through there. They're just not
- 59:01Speaker 9: coming and working the scrape. They're covering more, they're covering
- 59:04Speaker 9: more ground, they're scent checking more, they're laying down less
- 59:08Speaker 9: sign So just because it's not red hot, because it's
- 59:10Speaker 9: not open, doesn't mean it's not a good spot. That
- 59:14Speaker 9: big eighteen point I killed in Iowa a few years ago. Man,
- 59:17Speaker 9: I had a camera on that scrape, and I had
- 59:21Speaker 9: I don't know eight nine ten different nice books on
- 59:25Speaker 9: that all through like mid October through like November second
- 59:31Speaker 9: or third, it really started to die off. And when
- 59:33Speaker 9: I pulled that card, I was like it was like
- 59:38Speaker 9: boom boom boom, boom boom. You know, all these days
- 59:40Speaker 9: there's shooter Bucks in there. And then it started dying off,
- 59:45Speaker 9: you know, as he got into November. And then I
- 59:47Speaker 9: went in there and the scrape was like had leaves
- 59:49Speaker 9: all over it. Well, I said, in there because it
- 59:52Speaker 9: had a lot of things. It was a down inside
- 59:53Speaker 9: of bedding. It was three travel routes come, three really
- 59:58Speaker 9: good travel routes coming from bed to feed that all
- 1:00:01Speaker 9: paralleled each other over like a two hundred yard area,
- 1:00:06Speaker 9: and it just you know, bucks like to cross section
- 1:00:08Speaker 9: those and they like to travel down one side of
- 1:00:11Speaker 9: dough betting. And I'm sandwiched between a major betting area
- 1:00:14Speaker 9: and a major food source. So I had a lot
- 1:00:16Speaker 9: of things and it had a good primary scrape there.
- 1:00:18Speaker 9: I sat there, I saw four bucks, uh, four bucks,
- 1:00:23Speaker 9: two shooter Bucks the first morning before I shot my
- 1:00:27Speaker 9: h before I shot my buck, all traveling through there.
- 1:00:29Speaker 9: Not one of them, not one of them came and
- 1:00:32Speaker 9: worked the scrape. Yeah, but they were they were sent
- 1:00:35Speaker 9: checking the scrape. You know, they were sent checking it
- 1:00:37Speaker 9: because dose would still go by the scrape and they'd
- 1:00:40Speaker 9: you know, kind of stand in it or walk by it.
- 1:00:43Speaker 9: But that area had several things that bucks look for
- 1:00:47Speaker 9: during the run. They could gather a lot of information
- 1:00:50Speaker 9: in like a you know, in like a fifty like
- 1:00:53Speaker 9: one hundred yard wide circle, not even that, like an
- 1:00:57Speaker 9: eighty yard wide circle. They could gather a lot of
- 1:01:00Speaker 9: information in that spot. So even though the sign had
- 1:01:03Speaker 9: had tapered down, the buck activity was still off the charts.
- 1:01:06Speaker 9: They're still moving through there, they're just not working the scrape.
- 1:01:09Speaker 9: So you got to keep that in mind.
- 1:01:10Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great it's a great reminder. I want
- 1:01:14Speaker 2: to shift our shift to more of a rapid fire
- 1:01:17Speaker 2: style here and to knock us more questions before we
- 1:01:20Speaker 2: wrap this up. So let's do like we get like
- 1:01:24Speaker 2: thirty seconds to answer or less like quick first thought
- 1:01:27Speaker 2: on each one of these, and we're gonna try and
- 1:01:28Speaker 2: knock out a bunch here to kind of put a
- 1:01:31Speaker 2: bow on this, because there's way more questions that we
- 1:01:34Speaker 2: have time to get through unless we do rapid fire here.
- 1:01:38Speaker 3: So let's try to do that a few of these.
- 1:01:40Speaker 2: So I got a couple questions here about calling, I'll
- 1:01:43Speaker 2: just combine them into what's your go to rut calling approach?
- 1:01:49Speaker 2: And then how often do you do that? So real quick,
- 1:01:52Speaker 2: what's your take on that.
- 1:01:56Speaker 9: I don't mind calling during the rut, I call way less.
- 1:02:00Speaker 9: In Michigan in a pressured area, I think it can
- 1:02:04Speaker 9: work really well on year and a half year old Bucks,
- 1:02:07Speaker 9: two year old Bucks, and three year old Bucks. I
- 1:02:09Speaker 9: have not had the greatest success calling in you know,
- 1:02:13Speaker 9: four year old bucks or older. In Michigan. I think
- 1:02:16Speaker 9: they've seen it way too many times. I think they're
- 1:02:19Speaker 9: super educated. I would probably give that same advice in
- 1:02:22Speaker 9: any high pressure state. However, I've had awesome luck with
- 1:02:26Speaker 9: it in Iowa, in Illinois, Kentucky, you know states like that.
- 1:02:34Speaker 9: Ohio even I've had much better luck with it there.
- 1:02:39Speaker 8: I always carry a grunt tube.
- 1:02:40Speaker 9: I always carry a rattle, and I'm pretty good with
- 1:02:42Speaker 9: a mouth snort, wheeze.
- 1:02:44Speaker 8: I'm not afraid to do it. I'm not a huge
- 1:02:47Speaker 8: blind caller.
- 1:02:49Speaker 9: Unless I'm in a state and I'm just not seeing
- 1:02:53Speaker 9: the activity. Things maybe are a little slow. It's not
- 1:02:57Speaker 9: my favorite thing to do, but I'm not a afraid
- 1:03:00Speaker 9: to do it.
- 1:03:01Speaker 8: It can definitely work.
- 1:03:04Speaker 9: And I'll do it maybe maybe when the action's a
- 1:03:07Speaker 9: little slow, or I see a buck, you know, cruising
- 1:03:10Speaker 9: looks like he's in the mood. I'm in a good
- 1:03:13Speaker 9: situation where I call, you know, a good approach for him,
- 1:03:17Speaker 9: then then I'll throw.
- 1:03:18Speaker 8: It at him.
- 1:03:18Speaker 9: But I don't do a ton of I know a
- 1:03:20Speaker 9: lot of guys will will rattle like every thirty seconds, or.
- 1:03:26Speaker 8: I don't really do the seconds.
- 1:03:29Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say I am very similar. I'd never
- 1:03:34Speaker 2: blind call in Michigan, and I almost I mean, I
- 1:03:39Speaker 2: would basically say I never rattle in Michigan. Either I
- 1:03:41Speaker 2: will grunt or snort wheeze if there's a buck out
- 1:03:44Speaker 2: of range I'm trying to bring in. And then in
- 1:03:48Speaker 2: those unpressured states Iowa, Kansas, whatever out there, I will
- 1:03:53Speaker 2: occasionally do a blind rattling session. But even then, like
- 1:03:57Speaker 2: that'll be like late morning kind of thing. I might
- 1:03:59Speaker 2: try that, and might try that like twice, maybe separated
- 1:04:02Speaker 2: by an hour or something like that.
- 1:04:04Speaker 3: But I don't do a whole lot of that.
- 1:04:07Speaker 2: But I very much will grunt and snort wheeze at
- 1:04:10Speaker 2: deer and or you know, would rattle to deer out
- 1:04:12Speaker 2: of range in those kinds of states too. I have
- 1:04:14Speaker 2: had a lot of luck with grunts and snore wheezes.
- 1:04:16Speaker 2: That's been my most effective calling technique at this time
- 1:04:20Speaker 2: of year. You know, first start with like a contact grunt,
- 1:04:23Speaker 2: Like so if I see a buck one hundred and
- 1:04:24Speaker 2: fifty yards away or something, I'll try up bra and
- 1:04:26Speaker 2: just get louder until I see he's actually heard it.
- 1:04:29Speaker 3: And if I can get a.
- 1:04:30Speaker 2: Visual of him in which he turns and like one
- 1:04:32Speaker 2: percent has heard my thing, then I won't call. I'll
- 1:04:35Speaker 2: I'll stop as soon as I know he heard me,
- 1:04:37Speaker 2: And then I'm assessing his body language, and you know,
- 1:04:39Speaker 2: if he starts coming my way, then I'm done.
- 1:04:41Speaker 3: I'm not going to call anymore. Nothing else.
- 1:04:43Speaker 2: If that buck seems interested, maybe pins his ears back
- 1:04:47Speaker 2: and takes a few steps, makes a scrape, but then
- 1:04:50Speaker 2: kind of starts heading off into the direction again, like
- 1:04:52Speaker 2: he gave me a little bit of an interest, but
- 1:04:53Speaker 2: not all the way. Then that might be when I
- 1:04:55Speaker 2: give him a you know, flipping the bird by giving
- 1:04:58Speaker 2: him that snort wheeze, I'm like, really, I get them
- 1:05:02Speaker 2: fired up, just one not tired, and sometimes that works.
- 1:05:06Speaker 2: So that would be my one other thing to add
- 1:05:08Speaker 2: on the rut calling next question is about snacks andy
- 1:05:13Speaker 2: for all they sits healthy food or junk food.
- 1:05:19Speaker 9: I usually have a water I usually have about fifteen
- 1:05:23Speaker 9: gummy bears.
- 1:05:26Speaker 8: That's very specific, Yes it is.
- 1:05:29Speaker 3: I'll do.
- 1:05:30Speaker 8: I'll do like.
- 1:05:31Speaker 9: I'll do like uh five, you know, like a little
- 1:05:34Speaker 9: handful three times a day, and then I'll do I
- 1:05:37Speaker 9: usually have a big ziplock of trail mix and maybe
- 1:05:42Speaker 9: a like a granola bar or a protein bar. I
- 1:05:45Speaker 9: keep it, I keep it very minimal. I'll if i'm
- 1:05:49Speaker 9: if i feel like I'm gonna be really hungry, I'll
- 1:05:51Speaker 9: stack up more on the trail mix.
- 1:05:55Speaker 8: Occasionally maybe a peanutrey jelly.
- 1:05:56Speaker 9: But I don't.
- 1:05:57Speaker 8: I don't even do that that much. But uh, I don't.
- 1:05:59Speaker 8: I don't.
- 1:06:00Speaker 9: Don't. I try not to eat a ton or have
- 1:06:02Speaker 9: a ton of snacks, and I don't. I don't like
- 1:06:04Speaker 9: to be moving around and making noise and stuff. But
- 1:06:08Speaker 9: I have to eat something, and my blood sugar tends
- 1:06:11Speaker 9: to fall a little low, and that's that's why I
- 1:06:13Speaker 9: do the gummy bears.
- 1:06:15Speaker 8: Yeah, but I don't.
- 1:06:17Speaker 4: I don't.
- 1:06:17Speaker 9: I don't take a bunch of chunk typically, but that
- 1:06:22Speaker 9: doesn't mean I don't eat a bunch of junk food
- 1:06:24Speaker 9: during hunting season, because I definitely do.
- 1:06:27Speaker 2: So I'm a little different than you in that I
- 1:06:29Speaker 2: do bring a lot of stuff because I just know myself,
- 1:06:32Speaker 2: like I need, like I time out my snacks to
- 1:06:35Speaker 2: like every hour. I'll give myself that little thing to
- 1:06:38Speaker 2: be excited about. So I'll usually start snack time like
- 1:06:40Speaker 2: if it's an all day sit, my snack time usually
- 1:06:42Speaker 2: starts like ten am maybe, and then I'll do like
- 1:06:45Speaker 2: every hour from then, I've got some little thing to
- 1:06:47Speaker 2: look forward to. So I know, like, all right, I
- 1:06:49Speaker 2: got the little snickers bar ten and then if I
- 1:06:50Speaker 2: can make it to eleven, I know I can have
- 1:06:52Speaker 2: the you know, the trail mix, And if I can
- 1:06:54Speaker 2: make it to noon, then I get my peanut butter jelly.
- 1:06:56Speaker 2: And if I can make it to one, then I'll
- 1:06:58Speaker 2: get my apple. And if I can make it to two,
- 1:07:00Speaker 2: then I'll let myself have the cheese.
- 1:07:02Speaker 3: Crackers or whatever. So I do bring a bunch of snacks.
- 1:07:06Speaker 2: But what I try to do now is I take
- 1:07:08Speaker 2: everything out of the noisy wrappers ahead of time and
- 1:07:12Speaker 2: package them in reusable ziploc bags and so I like
- 1:07:17Speaker 2: the reusable ziplocks. Not I don't always do this, but
- 1:07:19Speaker 2: when I'm on top of my A game, I.
- 1:07:21Speaker 3: Use those because they're very quiet.
- 1:07:23Speaker 2: They're not like crinkly at all, so they're like very
- 1:07:25Speaker 2: silent and you can have, you know, you can access
- 1:07:28Speaker 2: your snacks in a quiet way, and then you're also
- 1:07:30Speaker 2: not accumulating, you know, a whole bucket full of trash
- 1:07:33Speaker 2: throughout the day, which is nice. And I do a
- 1:07:36Speaker 2: mixture of like healthy and junk. So I used to
- 1:07:39Speaker 2: be heavier on the junk. I've tried to add more
- 1:07:41Speaker 2: like some fruits and something healthy in there, because after
- 1:07:44Speaker 2: you do that for a week or so, you'll start
- 1:07:46Speaker 2: feeling really creddy.
- 1:07:47Speaker 3: If it's nothing but junk.
- 1:07:49Speaker 2: So I'm kind of in between on that one. Here's
- 1:07:52Speaker 2: another location related one, and we've talked a lot about
- 1:07:55Speaker 2: bedding areas. This person asked, when you're hunting downwind of
- 1:08:00Speaker 2: a dough betting are, how close do you actually want
- 1:08:03Speaker 2: to be on it? Like are you inside the dough
- 1:08:06Speaker 2: betting are on the down wind side or are you
- 1:08:08Speaker 2: outside of the dough betting downwind of it? And if so, like,
- 1:08:11Speaker 2: what's the distance to the edge of that cover or
- 1:08:14Speaker 2: the edge of wherever you think the doughs are betted.
- 1:08:17Speaker 3: How do you think about that?
- 1:08:19Speaker 9: Yeah, that's a that's a tough one because it you know,
- 1:08:23Speaker 9: it could vary, you know, location of location. You know,
- 1:08:29Speaker 9: I picture like like a creek bottom that has you know,
- 1:08:34Speaker 9: red brush and and kind of marsh marshy habitat like
- 1:08:38Speaker 9: on each side of the creek, and you know, essentially
- 1:08:41Speaker 9: the whole creek serves as you know, like really good
- 1:08:46Speaker 9: dough betting, you know, on all the creek bends and
- 1:08:48Speaker 9: and all the little thickets and stuff. And I will
- 1:08:51Speaker 9: I'll get on the interior of that, I'll find obviously,
- 1:08:54Speaker 9: I'll find a good tree, and I try to get
- 1:08:57Speaker 9: where I can kind of shoot into where I think
- 1:08:59Speaker 9: i'll out of the travel is.
- 1:09:00Speaker 3: Going to be.
- 1:09:01Speaker 9: But I don't want I don't want my wind necessarily
- 1:09:04Speaker 9: blowing out a lot of travel opportunities behind me. It's
- 1:09:10Speaker 9: not like doe betting isn't always like a like a
- 1:09:13Speaker 9: hard edge, you know what I mean.
- 1:09:14Speaker 8: It's a lot of times you just know.
- 1:09:18Speaker 9: You're you're kind of working in there, and things get
- 1:09:20Speaker 9: a little thicker, and there might be a pocket of
- 1:09:22Speaker 9: doze here and then some more, you know, one hundred
- 1:09:24Speaker 9: yards back or so. It's not as always like as
- 1:09:28Speaker 9: a well defined abrupt edge as it might sound like
- 1:09:32Speaker 9: when we say that. So a lot of it is
- 1:09:35Speaker 9: a feel thing, but I try to I try to
- 1:09:39Speaker 9: get where I can cover travel, and a lot of times,
- 1:09:44Speaker 9: a lot of times there will be you know, some
- 1:09:46Speaker 9: sort of sign or some sort of you know, perpendicular trail.
- 1:09:51Speaker 9: It may not be beat to the ground, it may
- 1:09:53Speaker 9: not be it may be be able to pick up
- 1:09:55Speaker 9: on it, and sometimes you can't because it's just used
- 1:09:58Speaker 9: a few times a year, you know, during that short window.
- 1:10:01Speaker 9: But I don't like to give up too much travel
- 1:10:05Speaker 9: behind me, if that makes sense. So I will get
- 1:10:08Speaker 9: into usually where it starts to kind of thicken up,
- 1:10:12Speaker 9: you know, I feel like I'm getting into that interior,
- 1:10:14Speaker 9: and if I start getting in any further, I'm gonna
- 1:10:16Speaker 9: start bumping deer around. That usually tells me to hold
- 1:10:19Speaker 9: up and kind of get get right on there, right
- 1:10:21Speaker 9: on that edge. Sometimes it's a feel thing, sometimes it's
- 1:10:25Speaker 9: a visual thing, but that that kind of I let
- 1:10:30Speaker 9: my instincts gauge a little bit there. If there's not
- 1:10:33Speaker 9: like a clear indication of sign, that tells me, you know,
- 1:10:37Speaker 9: this is probably where I need to be. But one
- 1:10:39Speaker 9: thing I'll mention real quick. The downwind side of doll
- 1:10:43Speaker 9: betting is an area that Bucks will gravitate to during
- 1:10:46Speaker 9: the run, no doubt about it. But I've seen more
- 1:10:49Speaker 9: and more over the years that the side where does
- 1:10:56Speaker 9: tend to travel from food to bed, there's you know
- 1:11:01Speaker 9: a lot of times if there's a distinct you know,
- 1:11:05Speaker 9: food source and there the general travels from here to
- 1:11:08Speaker 9: through the betting. That spot, that edge there where they
- 1:11:13Speaker 9: travel in and out where a lot of those trails
- 1:11:15Speaker 9: might be coming in from, you know, various spots, various
- 1:11:18Speaker 9: uh directions. That spot gets a lot more, It gets
- 1:11:23Speaker 9: a lot of activity from Bucks, maybe even more so
- 1:11:26Speaker 9: than the down wind side. They can they can take
- 1:11:30Speaker 9: a one trail perpendicular and they can cover you know, two, three, six,
- 1:11:35Speaker 9: twelve different entrance trails and know exactly what's in that
- 1:11:38Speaker 9: no betting, and they can do the same thing traveling
- 1:11:41Speaker 9: from down winning. But I've seen it more and more
- 1:11:43Speaker 9: over the years, I've almost changed my opinion a little
- 1:11:45Speaker 9: bit that that might even be the better spot, the
- 1:11:48Speaker 9: spot where they can go perpendicular and cover a lot
- 1:11:54Speaker 9: of trails. So if you have a good betting area
- 1:11:56Speaker 9: and a good food source over here, and in that
- 1:11:58Speaker 9: betting area, maybe it's a one hundred yard two hundred
- 1:12:01Speaker 9: yard stretch and there are multiple trails kind of going in.
- 1:12:05Speaker 5: You see.
- 1:12:06Speaker 9: You know, this one's well beat down. This one's a
- 1:12:08Speaker 9: little more faint, another beat down one there, another one
- 1:12:10Speaker 9: in the corner that inside that timber you know are
- 1:12:14Speaker 9: inside that cover there there, there's gonna be a some
- 1:12:17Speaker 9: sort of route perpendicular trail. You may it may be visible,
- 1:12:21Speaker 9: it may not be, But that spot right there is
- 1:12:24Speaker 9: a great spot to be that. I've seen that over
- 1:12:28Speaker 9: and over the last few years. I've really started to
- 1:12:30Speaker 9: key in more on that than necessarily the down one side.
- 1:12:33Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's that.
- 1:12:34Speaker 2: I mean it's it's the same kind of like transition
- 1:12:37Speaker 2: type area that a lot of folks would hunt during
- 1:12:40Speaker 2: that bed to feed pattern of October. But now, you know,
- 1:12:43Speaker 2: the Dose are still basically doing the same thing, right,
- 1:12:45Speaker 2: Dose are still basically on that bed to feed pattern,
- 1:12:47Speaker 2: transitioning out to that food source. But now instead of
- 1:12:51Speaker 2: the Bucks doing that same thing, like you said, they're
- 1:12:54Speaker 2: not paralleling that movement anymore. They're perpendicularing it, crossing it
- 1:12:58Speaker 2: to catch.
- 1:12:59Speaker 3: All those So you're spot on.
- 1:13:01Speaker 2: That's a very good point, and that kind of that's
- 1:13:03Speaker 2: a situation where you can get that kind of location
- 1:13:08Speaker 2: is a best of both worlds for an all they
- 1:13:10Speaker 2: sit where we talked about the beginning. How if you're
- 1:13:13Speaker 2: hunting down one of a die betting area, that could
- 1:13:15Speaker 2: be great in the morning, in the afternoon, but then
- 1:13:17Speaker 2: once you get to the evening when they transition out
- 1:13:19Speaker 2: to their food source, that spot can kind of die
- 1:13:21Speaker 2: off in some locations when you're deep back in the bedding. Well,
- 1:13:24Speaker 2: if you find a spot like this where you're adjacent
- 1:13:27Speaker 2: to bedding, but you're also where they are transitioning through
- 1:13:30Speaker 2: as they head to that main food source, that's the
- 1:13:32Speaker 2: kind of place that does stay pretty darn primo right
- 1:13:35Speaker 2: on through. So it's it's finding the right wind for
- 1:13:39Speaker 2: that can be tricky, I think, but.
- 1:13:42Speaker 3: A great spot. Yeah.
- 1:13:45Speaker 2: Last question, or maybe second to last question. Should you
- 1:13:48Speaker 2: still consider trail camera pictures in specific areas during the rut?
- 1:13:52Speaker 2: So when you get new pictures that show you a
- 1:13:55Speaker 2: buck that did something yesterday or a week ago or whatever,
- 1:13:59Speaker 2: but it's November right now, is that something that's really
- 1:14:02Speaker 2: meaning much to you, Andy, No, I.
- 1:14:05Speaker 9: Still I still pay major attention to that, especially like
- 1:14:09Speaker 9: if it's on well, I mean, honestly, I'm probably not
- 1:14:15Speaker 9: diving into too many like betting areas to check trail cameras,
- 1:14:19Speaker 9: you know that time of year. Those might be more
- 1:14:21Speaker 9: of like a soaker camera where I keep it in there,
- 1:14:24Speaker 9: you know, most of the year. But like I'll have
- 1:14:26Speaker 9: them on funnels, especially like really good funnels where they're
- 1:14:30Speaker 9: almost forced to go through there, and I'll definitely check
- 1:14:34Speaker 9: those and and see what's kind of moving through there,
- 1:14:37Speaker 9: because those are spots that it's it could be it
- 1:14:40Speaker 9: could be a random buck that's coming through one time,
- 1:14:44Speaker 9: but if it's if it's a buck that's.
- 1:14:46Speaker 8: In there during the run.
- 1:14:48Speaker 9: There are spots, there are areas, there are trees that
- 1:14:53Speaker 9: these deer go by repetitively, and it may not be
- 1:14:56Speaker 9: every day, but it might be three, four or five
- 1:14:59Speaker 9: times a week.
- 1:15:01Speaker 8: In those spots.
- 1:15:02Speaker 9: It's really it pays to know when those spots are
- 1:15:06Speaker 9: heating up because those are the spots where if you're
- 1:15:09Speaker 9: after a specific buck and if in a lot of
- 1:15:12Speaker 9: times just you know, any good buck, but specifically a
- 1:15:15Speaker 9: specific buck if you can find those areas where they
- 1:15:18Speaker 9: go through more than anywhere else, and you can plant
- 1:15:22Speaker 9: yourself there and just put in the hours. Obviously playing
- 1:15:25Speaker 9: the wind, you know, getting there when the wind is okay,
- 1:15:29Speaker 9: but playing your butt in there and just playing the
- 1:15:31Speaker 9: long game. That's a great way to kill a target
- 1:15:34Speaker 9: buck during the rut. But you gotta kind of establish
- 1:15:37Speaker 9: that spot. Maybe there's a couple of them, maybe you're
- 1:15:39Speaker 9: lucky in the two of them on the property you
- 1:15:41Speaker 9: can hunt or whatever. And another one is is the
- 1:15:45Speaker 9: food source, you know it. I that's still valuable to
- 1:15:50Speaker 9: me to know that, Like, okay, after dark, you know
- 1:15:53Speaker 9: there's some dose. You know, there's some doughs in these
- 1:15:56Speaker 9: food source and then you know, after dark, I got
- 1:15:58Speaker 9: a you know, a buck on trail camp around like
- 1:16:00Speaker 9: bumping dose around or working this straight. I mean that
- 1:16:03Speaker 9: tells me that he's in there, and now I can
- 1:16:06Speaker 9: I can make an educated plan on where I want
- 1:16:11Speaker 9: to hunt this deer. Maybe it's in this funnel coming
- 1:16:13Speaker 9: to the food source. Maybe it's on the backside of
- 1:16:15Speaker 9: this still betting, maybe it's on the food source. Maybe
- 1:16:18Speaker 9: he's in there in daylight a little bit. So I
- 1:16:21Speaker 9: think trail cam I actually checked trail cameras a little
- 1:16:26Speaker 9: more often during the rut. But I'm also doing it
- 1:16:29Speaker 9: smart and I'm also you know, I'm trying to not
- 1:16:34Speaker 9: blow deer out. I'm just trying to get some information
- 1:16:38Speaker 9: on something that I could potentially capitalize on the short term,
- 1:16:42Speaker 9: on a short term pattern. There.
- 1:16:45Speaker 2: Yeah, hypothetical, Well, last question, hypothetical.
- 1:16:51Speaker 3: Dream spot to sit during the rut.
- 1:16:53Speaker 2: So if you could paint the picture of the perfect
- 1:16:58Speaker 2: rut location and Kip tell me the day you would
- 1:17:01Speaker 2: want to hunt this perfect spot, and then give me
- 1:17:04Speaker 2: as much detail as you can about what that setup
- 1:17:06Speaker 2: would look like, everything from access to what kind of tree,
- 1:17:11Speaker 2: to what features or habitat or or sign is there.
- 1:17:15Speaker 2: What's the perfect place you could dream up for a
- 1:17:18Speaker 2: rut sit?
- 1:17:20Speaker 9: Okay, so access would be through a neighboring property that's
- 1:17:25Speaker 9: a cattle pasture, and I could walk through that the
- 1:17:29Speaker 9: majority of the way back there. And this is going
- 1:17:32Speaker 9: to be in like not like real super steep hill country,
- 1:17:35Speaker 9: but hill country, like moderately sized hills, you know, one
- 1:17:39Speaker 9: hundred feet one hundred and fifty feet, you know, somewhere
- 1:17:42Speaker 9: in there kind of rolling hills, but some big hills
- 1:17:46Speaker 9: in some sort of travel hub where there's two three
- 1:17:50Speaker 9: different ridge systems that they all kind of dumped down
- 1:17:52Speaker 9: in the same general area. And in that bottom, it's
- 1:17:56Speaker 9: a wide bottom that's a CRP field, Okay, And I'm
- 1:18:00Speaker 9: actually describing as I've killed, Yeah, I have killed multiple bucks,
- 1:18:05Speaker 9: and my buddy shot a monster in there too. So
- 1:18:11Speaker 9: you got ridges on the sides, you know, kind of
- 1:18:14Speaker 9: surrounding it with multiple points dumping down into the CRP field.
- 1:18:20Speaker 9: And right down there at the bottom is the is
- 1:18:22Speaker 9: the primary scrape, the hub scrape. And because that bottom
- 1:18:27Speaker 9: is a skinny field and it's wider, you can actually
- 1:18:30Speaker 9: get a good consistent wind when you have the wind
- 1:18:33Speaker 9: blowing out the direction of the main drainage. So it's
- 1:18:36Speaker 9: it's kind of when specific. You don't want it coming
- 1:18:38Speaker 9: over a ridge perpendicular. You want it blowing out that
- 1:18:42Speaker 9: main drainage, and you can what you can do is
- 1:18:44Speaker 9: put that wind in your face, get down in that
- 1:18:47Speaker 9: bottom and get right down wind of that scrape, and
- 1:18:50Speaker 9: then you got all these points coming down, and then
- 1:18:52Speaker 9: you got the wind hitting you in the face, blowing
- 1:18:54Speaker 9: you back up towards that cattle pasture. Yes, a couple deer.
- 1:18:58Speaker 9: There's some space to get you know, deer could get
- 1:19:00Speaker 9: behind you, but it's gonna be very minimal, very very
- 1:19:05Speaker 9: minimal disturbance, not real obtrusive.
- 1:19:08Speaker 8: And you just got so.
- 1:19:09Speaker 9: Many things, uh coming together there all in one spot.
- 1:19:14Speaker 9: You got travel hub, multiple multiple points stumping down, so
- 1:19:19Speaker 9: you're gonna have deer coming from all directions. You got
- 1:19:23Speaker 9: that primary scrape there, and you got the thermal activity of.
- 1:19:29Speaker 8: Its falling thermals.
- 1:19:31Speaker 9: You know, first thing in the morning, you know, until
- 1:19:33Speaker 9: that sun gets over those hills, you got falling thermals
- 1:19:36Speaker 9: going right down into that spot. So it's a great
- 1:19:38Speaker 9: spot for bucks to come and check, crossing trails, scent
- 1:19:42Speaker 9: pulling down and the same thing in the evening.
- 1:19:46Speaker 8: That's something like that is a killer spot. Then they're
- 1:19:50Speaker 8: hard to find.
- 1:19:50Speaker 9: But what I look for is multiple features that bucks
- 1:19:54Speaker 9: like all in one area. That's really what it comes
- 1:19:57Speaker 9: down to. That's what makes a great rough spot. Yeah,
- 1:20:00Speaker 9: any one of those things you can get a kill on.
- 1:20:03Speaker 9: Any one of those things can be a great hunt.
- 1:20:05Speaker 9: But when you find a spot like that, that's what
- 1:20:08Speaker 9: makes a spot great for.
- 1:20:13Speaker 8: Decades. You know, it's it's always a good spot.
- 1:20:15Speaker 9: Because it has everything a buck needs, and he can
- 1:20:18Speaker 9: he can figure out a ton of information from a
- 1:20:21Speaker 9: lot of different things in one specific area.
- 1:20:24Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 1:20:24Speaker 8: So, and then as far as a date, I would.
- 1:20:27Speaker 9: Throw, uh, November, I'm gonna make a real short window
- 1:20:37Speaker 9: six through nine.
- 1:20:38Speaker 8: Nice, November six through nine.
- 1:20:41Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 1:20:41Speaker 2: Yeah, I've begin I've begun thinking of place like that
- 1:20:44Speaker 2: is like a stacked I'd been calling like a stacked
- 1:20:46Speaker 2: location because I want to stack up like all these
- 1:20:48Speaker 2: reasons a buck would pass through there. So you make
- 1:20:51Speaker 2: such a good point, which is, any one of those
- 1:20:53Speaker 2: in isolation could be good and it could work. But
- 1:20:57Speaker 2: which like, the best of the best places are when
- 1:20:59Speaker 2: you can find this thing stacked on this thing, stacked
- 1:21:01Speaker 2: on this thing, stacked on this thing, and you have
- 1:21:03Speaker 2: all of these reasons, and then you all of a
- 1:21:05Speaker 2: sudden you have a much higher percentage sit and that's
- 1:21:09Speaker 2: that's what you're really looking for. So I love it, man,
- 1:21:13Speaker 2: I I hope you find a spot or two like
- 1:21:16Speaker 2: that to hunt in this this next couple of weeks,
- 1:21:20Speaker 2: and that should get a big one on the ground.
- 1:21:22Speaker 3: My friend.
- 1:21:22Speaker 2: I appreciate you taking the time to do this and
- 1:21:25Speaker 2: answering some of these questions and helping us all get
- 1:21:27Speaker 2: hyped for this most wonderful time of year.
- 1:21:30Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 1:21:30Speaker 9: Man, it's awesome. I'm excited. Hopefully this helped the listeners.
- 1:21:35Speaker 9: I had fun. These are fun questions. It's fun just
- 1:21:37Speaker 9: to start brainstorming and think about this stuff, because you know,
- 1:21:42Speaker 9: when you don't, when you don't talk about it, sometimes
- 1:21:43Speaker 9: you get a little complacent. You're not really thinking about it.
- 1:21:46Speaker 9: But I'm all jacked up now. I'm ready to get
- 1:21:48Speaker 9: out there.
- 1:21:48Speaker 3: Me too, man.
- 1:21:49Speaker 2: And as in all that note, I should probably slip
- 1:21:52Speaker 2: out of here and head to the woods here myself.
- 1:21:54Speaker 2: So thank you, Andy, and thanks everyone for listening.
- 1:21:58Speaker 3: I appreciate you joining this week.
- 1:22:01Speaker 2: Good luck out there, and until next time, stay wired
- 1:22:05Speaker 2: to hunt.