Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 969: How the Experts Kill Mature Bucks in November

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Ep. 969: How the Experts Kill Mature Bucks in November · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
0:04
Speaker 1: the White Tail Woods presented by First Light, creating proven
0:08
Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First
0:13
Speaker 1: Light Go farther, stay Longer, and now your host Mark Kenyon.
0:19
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast.
0:21
Speaker 3: This week on the show, we're conducting a comprehensive review
0:25
Speaker 3: of the tactics for hunting mature bucks during the month
0:29
Speaker 3: of November and the many different ways experts have shared
0:32
Speaker 3: how to do that over the course of Wired to
0:35
Speaker 3: Hunt's seventeen year history.
0:38
Speaker 4: A really all right.
0:40
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to
0:43
Speaker 3: you by First Light, and today we are looking forward
0:47
Speaker 3: into the month of November and we're going to do
0:49
Speaker 3: something very similar to what I did almost exactly one
0:53
Speaker 3: month ago when I conducted my first major review of
0:57
Speaker 3: a month. I talked about this being like a meta
0:59
Speaker 3: analysis or a literature review, as some kind of call
1:02
Speaker 3: it in other worlds. But basically the idea here is
1:05
Speaker 3: to review the many different approaches or the many different
1:10
Speaker 3: examples or ideas around one particular topic and really try
1:15
Speaker 3: to give a thorough kind of kind of many different
1:20
Speaker 3: perspective provided type analysis of the topic at hand, and
1:25
Speaker 3: the topic at hand today is the month of November.
1:27
Speaker 3: How to hunt white tails in November, specifically, how to
1:31
Speaker 3: hunt mature bucks. It's the rut. You know, when people
1:34
Speaker 3: think November, they think the rut. This is the most
1:36
Speaker 3: exciting time of year. This is what we've all been
1:38
Speaker 3: looking forward to all you know, the previous ten to
1:41
Speaker 3: eleven months up to this point.
1:43
Speaker 2: It has been for this moment. It's here. So what
1:45
Speaker 2: I want to.
1:46
Speaker 3: Do is review this wide swath of different ideas, the
1:50
Speaker 3: core pillars of rut hunting, and then some specific ideas
1:55
Speaker 3: from different individuals from different angles of how to approach
1:59
Speaker 3: this kind of thing. So I'm going to share with
2:01
Speaker 3: you kind of my synthesis of this, so like my
2:03
Speaker 3: summary of the major things that you need to know
2:06
Speaker 3: about hunting during this month, and then I'm going to
2:09
Speaker 3: read some excerpts from different books from expert whitetail hunters.
2:12
Speaker 3: And then I'm also going to play for you excerpts
2:15
Speaker 3: from some of our older podcasts. So those things that
2:18
Speaker 3: you know we're aired on here years and years and
2:20
Speaker 3: years ago, that probably a lot of you missed, we
2:22
Speaker 3: are going to cut up and feature a few short excerpts.
2:25
Speaker 3: So you're going to get examples from people like Andy May.
2:28
Speaker 3: Five minutes from Andy May, five minutes from Aaron Warburton,
2:32
Speaker 3: a couple of minutes from Will Primost. We've got excerpts
2:34
Speaker 3: and perspectives here from Jared Mills and John Dudley and
2:38
Speaker 3: many other experienced, well rounded successful deer hunters. They're going
2:44
Speaker 3: to be able to provide you, hopefully by the end
2:46
Speaker 3: of this episode, a very very far reaching, well rounded
2:52
Speaker 3: set of ideas for how to have success over the
2:55
Speaker 3: next few weeks. So, without any further ado, we should
2:59
Speaker 3: just get right into it. Let's start talking about the
3:01
Speaker 3: month of November, and when you think about the month
3:04
Speaker 3: of November, you are thinking about the rut. Last week
3:08
Speaker 3: on the podcast, if you didn't listen to this one,
3:10
Speaker 3: go back and listen to last week's episode, because we
3:13
Speaker 3: clearly define some very important parameters around the timing of
3:17
Speaker 3: the rut. There's a lot of theories around, you know,
3:19
Speaker 3: can the moon impact the timing of the rut?
3:21
Speaker 2: Or you know, if your.
3:22
Speaker 3: Cousin doesn't like you know, such and such class and
3:25
Speaker 3: the sun shines you know, for two minutes longer on
3:28
Speaker 3: a given day, and you happen to roll Triple Seven's
3:30
Speaker 3: will that impact the timing of the rut? Or a
3:32
Speaker 3: world coal front impact the timing of the rut? YadA, YadA, YadA.
3:36
Speaker 2: None of it.
3:38
Speaker 3: The science has shown impacts the timing of breeding for
3:42
Speaker 3: whitetail deer across the vast majority of the nation. So
3:46
Speaker 3: right out the gate, we need to make sure that
3:48
Speaker 3: everybody's clear on that. For much of the country, the
3:51
Speaker 3: white tail rut is defined by when does you know breed?
3:57
Speaker 3: When conception dates are, And there's a whole slew of
4:00
Speaker 3: different studies that can actually back that can actually measure
4:03
Speaker 3: a fetus, so measure a baby deer and be able
4:08
Speaker 3: to backdate to determine exactly when that deer was conceived,
4:12
Speaker 3: and so they can then map exactly when all those
4:14
Speaker 3: conception dates were, and year after year, if you look
4:17
Speaker 3: at any given region, the basic spread of those conception
4:22
Speaker 3: dates is always the same. For my part of the
4:25
Speaker 3: country here around Michigan, it's almost always the peak of
4:28
Speaker 3: that breeding is right around the middle of November, and
4:31
Speaker 3: then it looks like a belk or if you were
4:33
Speaker 3: to chart all this on a graph, you would see
4:35
Speaker 3: that breeding begins sometime in October. Most of the time
4:40
Speaker 3: it rises up and then really escalates into November. The
4:45
Speaker 3: peak of that breeding typically happens November thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth,
4:49
Speaker 3: somewhere around there, and then it slowly tails off on
4:52
Speaker 3: the other end. So any theory that tries to tell
4:55
Speaker 3: you that breeding dates will change, you know, from year
4:59
Speaker 3: to year, is not backed up by science. So that's
5:02
Speaker 3: the first thing we need to think about now. All
5:05
Speaker 3: that said, the activity that we see as hunters that
5:08
Speaker 3: can be different, that can be influenced by many different factors.
5:12
Speaker 3: It seems like the actual running activity, the peak of
5:14
Speaker 3: running activity, the things that we dream about, the chasing,
5:17
Speaker 3: the seeking, the fighting, all that kind of stuff, you
5:21
Speaker 3: know that's on this huge scale. You know, that kind
5:23
Speaker 3: of thing could happen in October. That thing could happen
5:25
Speaker 3: in late October, late November, anywhere in between, but the
5:28
Speaker 3: month of November typically is that time of year we're
5:31
Speaker 3: expecting it to happen. I want to read for you
5:35
Speaker 3: a little bit about some confusion about this. There's a
5:39
Speaker 3: lot of labels around different stages of the RUP, about
5:42
Speaker 3: definitions of how the rut is supposed to progress and
5:45
Speaker 3: what you should expect in each different phase as you
5:48
Speaker 3: go through November. And I thought there was a really
5:51
Speaker 3: great excerpt here from this book White Tails from Ground
5:55
Speaker 3: to Gun by Kneel and Craig Doherty that I think
5:58
Speaker 3: explains this and sets the stage very well for how
6:01
Speaker 3: we should think about the month and in the whitetail rut.
6:04
Speaker 3: And then I'm going to read to you a little
6:06
Speaker 3: bit more about how they define the difference between the
6:09
Speaker 3: hunter's rut and the biological rut, and that difference is
6:13
Speaker 3: very important as we go forward here, all right, So,
6:17
Speaker 3: numerous outdoor writers and white tail deer authorities have advanced
6:20
Speaker 3: the notion of stages of the rut. According to the models,
6:23
Speaker 3: the rut progresses through a series of three to five
6:26
Speaker 3: or six phases or stages, which unfold in a more
6:29
Speaker 3: or less orderly fashion over a two month period of time.
6:33
Speaker 3: These models tend to label the stages with one word
6:36
Speaker 3: descriptors of behavior, which are easily grasped by the hunting public.
6:40
Speaker 3: The models have been widely accepted by the outdoor community
6:43
Speaker 3: as they provide a useful construct for understanding rut related behavior.
6:47
Speaker 3: Depending on who you read, all kinds of labels are
6:49
Speaker 3: attached to the phages the phases such as trolling, scraping, chasing, courting,
6:54
Speaker 3: pre rut, pre be reading, breeding, sparring, peak, etc.
6:58
Speaker 5: Etc.
7:00
Speaker 3: Fortunately, most models have become oversimplified with time and are
7:03
Speaker 3: often misunderstood by the hunting public. Most hunters believe the
7:07
Speaker 3: rut progresses through a series of preordained, well ordered, and
7:11
Speaker 3: discrete behavioral stages. As one stage ends, the next one begins.
7:17
Speaker 3: They tend to interpret the models literally and wind up
7:20
Speaker 3: believing buck behavior progresses in a lockstep manner through the
7:24
Speaker 3: various stages of the rut. To hear some hunters talk,
7:27
Speaker 3: every buck is chasing during the chase phase, and every
7:30
Speaker 3: buck is trolling during the trolling phase. Every buck is
7:33
Speaker 3: right there breeding when the breeding phase arrives. Even though
7:36
Speaker 3: most rut models discuss how the phases overlap and how
7:39
Speaker 3: individual deer exhibit unique characteristics, many hunters still view the
7:43
Speaker 3: rut as a series of stages which are being played
7:46
Speaker 3: out among all white tails in a given location at
7:49
Speaker 3: the same time. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
7:54
Speaker 3: So key takeaway there is that while many people, communications, writers, podcasters,
8:01
Speaker 3: video TV hosts have tried to break down the rut
8:04
Speaker 3: into easily understood. You know, sections or periods or phases.
8:09
Speaker 3: Nothing is simple on the rut, and there's going to
8:11
Speaker 3: be stuff happening at you know, all sorts of different times.
8:14
Speaker 3: You're gonna see chasing in early November, and then you
8:17
Speaker 3: might see it again in late November, and then you
8:18
Speaker 3: might see in the middle of November, where you might
8:20
Speaker 3: see none of it at all. Breeding, like I just
8:23
Speaker 3: told you, typically for most parts of the country peaks
8:26
Speaker 3: in the middle of November, but it doesn't always happen then. Like,
8:29
Speaker 3: there's also going to be breeding happening in late October
8:32
Speaker 3: and ever once in a while, right, there's a low
8:34
Speaker 3: part of that bell curve, maybe even early October or
8:37
Speaker 3: late November or early December. So don't get too hung
8:41
Speaker 3: up on how things are supposed to be or you know,
8:44
Speaker 3: like they said that, you know, seeking has to happen
8:47
Speaker 3: in early November. This this thing is fluid. You need
8:50
Speaker 3: to be able to adapt and adjust based on that.
8:54
Speaker 3: Excuse me, now, the next thing that's very important is
8:58
Speaker 3: to remember this difference between the peak of the rut.
9:01
Speaker 3: You'll hear that phrase used a lot and what that
9:03
Speaker 3: actually means and kneel and Craig break it down, is
9:06
Speaker 3: to the hunter's rut, which is the peak of rutting activity.
9:10
Speaker 3: That's what a lot of hunters think about when we
9:12
Speaker 3: think about the peak of the rut. And then there's
9:14
Speaker 3: the peak of the rut from a biological standpoint, which
9:17
Speaker 3: is when actually the most doze are being bred. And
9:20
Speaker 3: that's a whole other thing entirely, and you're going to
9:22
Speaker 3: have different behaviors and different sets of hunting ideas even
9:26
Speaker 3: for both of those. So I want to read you
9:28
Speaker 3: what they say about that as well. So the hunter's
9:31
Speaker 3: rut rut behavior at this time is at a fever
9:35
Speaker 3: pitch just prior to the breeding as buck testosterone peaks
9:39
Speaker 3: and most doughs are still unreceptive. Bucks cover greater distances
9:43
Speaker 3: and recklessly chased dos. Dos avoid food plots and social
9:46
Speaker 3: gathering areas. Family units break up due to buck harassment
9:50
Speaker 3: of dos. Receptive or near receptive dos attracts multiple bucks
9:54
Speaker 3: and bucks battle for breeding privileges. This is what is
9:57
Speaker 3: happening leading up to the actual peak of breeding. So
10:01
Speaker 3: for me and Michigan and most folks across the Midwest
10:04
Speaker 3: and the East, and honestly almost all of the country,
10:07
Speaker 3: with a few exceptions that being in the South. The
10:09
Speaker 3: South has this unique set of different breeding dates and
10:15
Speaker 3: they're very localized in certain areas. So unfortunately, I can't
10:18
Speaker 3: speak to you with those exact dates in mind. Like
10:21
Speaker 3: I know, in like the Mississippi delta, that's going to be,
10:23
Speaker 3: you know, past Thanksgiving in early December when this might be.
10:27
Speaker 3: But for most of us, the very end of October
10:30
Speaker 3: and then the first two weeks of November is when
10:32
Speaker 3: we are typically going to be experiencing what the dorties
10:34
Speaker 3: here are describing as the hunter's rut. This is the
10:37
Speaker 3: ramp up to peak breeding. But this is peak activity,
10:42
Speaker 3: all right. So here are some markers what to look
10:45
Speaker 3: for to help you identify that this is actually happening
10:48
Speaker 3: at this moment in your area. Mature bucks are necked
10:51
Speaker 3: out or muscled up and no longer nocturnal doughs, pull
10:55
Speaker 3: away from food plots, bonds, feeding without does or single doughs,
10:59
Speaker 3: nervous or scarce, and often seen in strange areas. You'll
11:02
Speaker 3: be seeing bucks pursuing doughs, buck sightings outnumbering doughs on
11:06
Speaker 3: deer cameras, and in real life, abnormally high level of
11:09
Speaker 3: buck activity and a dramatic increase in deer auto collisions
11:13
Speaker 3: and tarsal glands stained almost black, as well as lower
11:17
Speaker 3: rear legs. So all of those things might be signs
11:20
Speaker 3: that this is happening in your neck of the wods.
11:22
Speaker 3: At this moment, it's for hunting strategy. The hunter's rut
11:26
Speaker 3: is on, but will only last a couple of days.
11:29
Speaker 3: This is prime hunting time, as is generally the time
11:31
Speaker 3: buck activity peaks and one of the few times when
11:34
Speaker 3: a mature whitetail might actually be vulnerable. It's time to
11:37
Speaker 3: get in the woods and stay there. Anything can happen,
11:40
Speaker 3: and often does. Hunt travel areas like ridges, saddles, tween ridges,
11:45
Speaker 3: and natural neck downs. Food sources are generally less productive
11:49
Speaker 3: as doughs have been driven from them. Temperatures fifteen degrees
11:52
Speaker 3: or more above average can suppress dailight activity and hunting success.
11:56
Speaker 4: Now they add that.
11:57
Speaker 2: As a little qualifier.
11:58
Speaker 3: So that's some high level thoughts on the hunter's rut
12:01
Speaker 3: that first portion of November, and I'm kind of previewing
12:04
Speaker 3: a lot of what we're going to discuss here in
12:06
Speaker 3: a little bit that next period. The biological rut, the
12:11
Speaker 3: true rut. The true peak of breeding, as I mentioned,
12:14
Speaker 3: is typically more the middle of the month, but there's
12:16
Speaker 3: a sliding scale there, and here's what the Doerties have
12:18
Speaker 3: to say about that. The most noteworthy thing about the
12:21
Speaker 3: biological rut is the marked decline in deer activity. This
12:26
Speaker 3: is principally caused by a sudden increase in estraus does,
12:29
Speaker 3: who are now receptive and no longer avoiding bucks. An
12:32
Speaker 3: abundance of receptive dos means fewer bucks searching and moving
12:35
Speaker 3: about looking for dos. Bucks locked down with dos in
12:39
Speaker 3: heavy cover or out of the way places for two
12:41
Speaker 3: to three days before relocating does move very little Biologically.
12:46
Speaker 3: This is the peak of the breeding rut, or the
12:48
Speaker 3: time when most does conceive. This period generally lasts approximately
12:52
Speaker 3: three weeks. Markers of this would be a marked decrease
12:56
Speaker 3: in deer sightings, fewer deer on food sources other than fawns,
13:00
Speaker 3: dominant bucks, tending dos with satellite bucks sometimes present does
13:04
Speaker 3: being receptive, and buck behavior can vary between really all
13:08
Speaker 3: the other breeding type behaviors chasing, traveling, relocating, betting, fighting, breeding, etc.
13:14
Speaker 3: As for hunt strategy, the Doughties say that this is
13:16
Speaker 3: the period of the rut, when many hunters erroneously.
13:19
Speaker 2: Call the rut over and pull out of the woods.
13:22
Speaker 3: Accustomed to seeing great buck action during the hunter's peak,
13:25
Speaker 3: they get discouraged with the downtterm and occasional absence of activity.
13:29
Speaker 3: Successful hunters know that breeding lasts a good two to
13:33
Speaker 3: three weeks, and they put in their time during the
13:35
Speaker 3: biological rut. Hunting near or in heavy cover where bucks
13:39
Speaker 3: and doughs are locked down often pays dividends during this
13:41
Speaker 3: time period. Neck downs and other funneling travel routes can
13:45
Speaker 3: also be good or get food sources. They are mainly
13:49
Speaker 3: mainly occupied by fawns and doughs that have already been bred.
13:52
Speaker 2: But whatever you.
13:53
Speaker 3: Do, put in the time, and eventually that buck will
13:56
Speaker 3: show up. All right, So there is a high level
14:01
Speaker 3: overview of really what the month of November entails.
14:06
Speaker 2: It's those two things.
14:07
Speaker 3: There's the hunter's rut and the biological rut. If we
14:10
Speaker 3: had to oversimplify, rather than doing what you know they
14:14
Speaker 3: mentioned at the beginning, which is, try to break this
14:16
Speaker 3: thing down to the trolling and the chasing and the
14:18
Speaker 3: seeking and the breeding and the YadA YadA YadA. Let's
14:21
Speaker 3: just consider these two kind of overlapping sets of behaviors.
14:26
Speaker 3: And with that mind, we're going to walk through a
14:29
Speaker 3: bunch of different ideas about how to hunt during those
14:32
Speaker 3: periods of time. All right, So the hunter's rut, this
14:37
Speaker 3: is that time, as I mentioned, where testosterone levels are
14:41
Speaker 3: basically at the peak for Bucks.
14:43
Speaker 2: Bucks are ready to.
14:44
Speaker 3: Breed, and now dos are starting to come into heat.
14:47
Speaker 3: So you're gonna start seeing an increasing number of dos
14:50
Speaker 3: coming into heat every day, more and more and more
14:52
Speaker 3: and more as those first two weeks of November progress,
14:55
Speaker 3: So you're going to get you know, more and more
14:57
Speaker 3: Buck activity. As those first does start to pop, Bucks
15:01
Speaker 3: start getting very excited, they start chasing them all around,
15:04
Speaker 3: and you have a several different sets of behaviors happening,
15:07
Speaker 3: but everything is revolving around the dose because at this point,
15:10
Speaker 3: you know, we talked in October, how dear are slaves
15:12
Speaker 3: to their stomachs, how a Bucks world revolves around going
15:16
Speaker 3: from bed to feed, bed to feed. That is no
15:18
Speaker 3: longer the case. You know, when November hits for almost
15:21
Speaker 3: all Bucks, bed defeed is almost not even on their
15:24
Speaker 3: mind at all. It is now does does does all
15:28
Speaker 3: day every day. That's what they're thinking. About and so
15:31
Speaker 3: as a hunter you have to be thinking about that
15:33
Speaker 3: as well. So very simply what a buck's life typically
15:37
Speaker 3: looks like at this time of year.
15:39
Speaker 2: We'll start, you know, in the middle of the night.
15:41
Speaker 3: In the middle of the night, he's out searching for
15:43
Speaker 3: does dose are on their feet, off feeding somewhere likely,
15:46
Speaker 3: so the bucks are going to be.
15:47
Speaker 2: Where those doughs are. As those doughs.
15:49
Speaker 3: Come back to bed in the morning, the bucks are
15:52
Speaker 3: following them. The bucks are then doing one of two things.
15:55
Speaker 3: They are either actually on a dough that's ready to
15:58
Speaker 3: breed or chasing her, or if they don't already have
16:01
Speaker 3: a dough found, they're going to be searching for a
16:04
Speaker 3: dough to breed, trying to find a dough that is
16:06
Speaker 3: coming into heat. So they're going to do that by
16:10
Speaker 3: hitting dough betting areas. They're going to do this by
16:12
Speaker 3: crossing trails, scent checking betting areas, you know, doing anything
16:16
Speaker 3: they can do to cover ground find a dough that
16:19
Speaker 3: is ready to breed. Very simply, that's what happens from
16:24
Speaker 3: now through the end of November, with slight tweaks here
16:27
Speaker 3: and there, based on whether or not you know there
16:31
Speaker 3: is a dough in heat or there's not, or there's
16:33
Speaker 3: a ton of dos in heat and everything is ready
16:36
Speaker 3: to breed, right, that can change things. But at a
16:38
Speaker 3: high level, that's what the hunter's you know, rut looks like,
16:41
Speaker 3: is when there's a bunch of does that are getting
16:43
Speaker 3: to heat, but not so many that all the bucks
16:45
Speaker 3: are locked down with them. All that said, there are
16:50
Speaker 3: two three maybe pillars of hunting the rut that I
16:54
Speaker 3: think come up over and over and over and over again.
16:57
Speaker 3: I've heard these same basic things from you know, everyone,
17:01
Speaker 3: from like a Bill Winkie on the kind of your
17:04
Speaker 3: more conservative approach to to deer hunting on private lands,
17:07
Speaker 3: to you know, someone like Andre Toquisto who's maybe more
17:11
Speaker 3: aggressive on public lands too. Then you know someone like
17:15
Speaker 3: you know, Aaron Warburton, who's going to be aggressive but
17:17
Speaker 3: on public land in general. They're thinking about things from
17:21
Speaker 3: a high level in the same kind of way, looking
17:23
Speaker 3: for the does, looking for where these bucks are finding does,
17:27
Speaker 3: and then considering two general approaches to how to do that.
17:32
Speaker 3: One would be keying in on dough betting areas or
17:35
Speaker 3: other hot spots of dough activity. So those are like
17:38
Speaker 3: the destinations the bucks are looking for or number two
17:43
Speaker 3: travel corridors, funnels, pinch points, any area that concentrates deer
17:49
Speaker 3: movement in a small zone, a small corridor that connects
17:54
Speaker 3: those destinations that bucks are trying to get to. Because again,
17:57
Speaker 3: like imagine, oh jeez, I just just imagined like a
18:02
Speaker 3: bunch of basketballs thrown out across the floor of a
18:05
Speaker 3: basketball court, and each one of those basketballs is a
18:08
Speaker 3: dough betting of interest, and then there's going to be
18:10
Speaker 3: a point that gets you from point A to point B,
18:13
Speaker 3: to basketball A to basketball B, and basketball B to
18:15
Speaker 3: basketball seat. Never one of those lines that connects one
18:19
Speaker 3: of these different balls to the next ball is a
18:22
Speaker 3: possible deer path. But then along the way, there's also
18:25
Speaker 3: going to be if you can imagine my basketball court
18:29
Speaker 3: and analogy is falling apart. Now, there's going to be
18:31
Speaker 3: certain places where more of those lines connect. And maybe
18:35
Speaker 3: that's because there's a river that pushes all of these
18:38
Speaker 3: lines together, these lines of movement, or maybe that's because
18:41
Speaker 3: there's differences in cover where all of a sudden, there's
18:43
Speaker 3: fields and a bunch of places that are blocking the easiest,
18:47
Speaker 3: the shortest distance between one point to the other, and
18:49
Speaker 3: so to stay in the safety of cover, deer have
18:52
Speaker 3: to kind of swing down through that funnel or pinch
18:55
Speaker 3: point that is all over the map. You're going to
18:58
Speaker 3: have these different paths that are forced into concentrations of
19:03
Speaker 3: paths because of what is available from cover, from terrain,
19:09
Speaker 3: whatever it might be. And so those two sets of
19:12
Speaker 3: ideas are where most deer hunters fall when it comes
19:15
Speaker 3: to hunting during the run, finding the dough hotspots, finding
19:18
Speaker 3: the dough betting areas and hunting those, or finding the
19:22
Speaker 3: funnels and pinch points those travel corridors and hunting those. Finally,
19:27
Speaker 3: the third thing that's layered over top of all of
19:29
Speaker 3: that is time spending time in the woods. This is
19:32
Speaker 3: not necessarily the time to pattern deer. This is not
19:35
Speaker 3: necessarily the time to, you know, take everything you've learned
19:38
Speaker 3: during the month of October about you know where this
19:41
Speaker 3: bucks preferred bedding area is and how he likes to
19:43
Speaker 3: get from there to his preferred oak feed tree.
19:47
Speaker 2: This is the time.
19:48
Speaker 3: Of year when a lot of that starts to fall apart,
19:50
Speaker 3: and instead it's simply bucks are covering a lot of
19:53
Speaker 3: ground trying to find a dough doing those two things
19:56
Speaker 3: I said, and you, as a hunter simply need to
19:59
Speaker 3: be in one of those two spots, spending it a
20:01
Speaker 3: lot of time until finally that bucks pot path crosses
20:04
Speaker 3: with yours. So that is an oversimplified quick rundown of
20:09
Speaker 3: the basis of rut hunting success.
20:11
Speaker 2: Right.
20:11
Speaker 3: What I want to do for you is read to
20:13
Speaker 3: you a couple different takes on that gets you a
20:15
Speaker 3: couple different perspectives with specifics on those sets of ideas.
20:20
Speaker 3: So first let's talk about hunting dough betting areas hunting
20:24
Speaker 3: dough hotspots, and the first take I want to share
20:27
Speaker 3: with you is that from Steve Bartilla.
20:30
Speaker 2: He's outdoor writer, longtime podcast.
20:32
Speaker 3: Guest over the years, and a very successful deer hunter
20:35
Speaker 3: from He's spent a lot of time in Wisconsin and
20:38
Speaker 3: Illinois and some of that Upper Midwest. So here's one
20:41
Speaker 3: of his takes on hunting dough betting areas. My philosophy
20:46
Speaker 3: on hunting the chase phase, so this is like the
20:48
Speaker 3: hunter's run. My philosophy on hunting the chase phase consists
20:52
Speaker 3: of finding the thickest betting cover in the area and
20:54
Speaker 3: pulling all day sits. And I firmly believe that the
20:58
Speaker 3: chase phase the week or two before serious breeding activity
21:01
Speaker 3: occurs is the most productive time of all to sit
21:04
Speaker 3: the entire day. During the run, a buck searches for
21:07
Speaker 3: a receptive dough until he finds one. When that happens,
21:10
Speaker 3: he holds her up for around forty eight hours before
21:13
Speaker 3: moving on to find the next. In areas with good nutrition,
21:16
Speaker 3: so many doughs come into heat at once during the
21:18
Speaker 3: peak breeding phase that finding one isn't nearly as hard
21:21
Speaker 3: for the buck as it was during.
21:22
Speaker 2: The chase phase. Because there were so few doughs in
21:25
Speaker 2: heat early, the buck had to work much harder to
21:27
Speaker 2: find one.
21:28
Speaker 3: Then, in turn, that resulted in far fewer bucks spending
21:32
Speaker 3: the mid eight hours betted with their prize. Combine that
21:35
Speaker 3: with the mature buck's desperation to score early, and you
21:38
Speaker 3: have the best daylight buck movement of the entire hunting season. Furthermore,
21:43
Speaker 3: I believe the most productive locations for intercepting that buck
21:46
Speaker 3: are the thickest, nastiest bedding areas used by family groups
21:49
Speaker 3: of does and fawns up to this point in the season.
21:52
Speaker 3: Mature bucks tend not to overly harass does that aren't
21:55
Speaker 3: ready for breeding, although young bucks might chase does at random.
21:59
Speaker 3: The big boys ten to give them a quick sniff
22:01
Speaker 3: and then leave them alone. That changes dramatically during the
22:04
Speaker 3: chase phase, because so many doughs are on the cusp
22:07
Speaker 3: of being ready just when bucks tremendous desire to breed
22:11
Speaker 3: and testosterone levels are peaking, Even mature bucks get whipped
22:14
Speaker 3: up into a frenzy. The result is a mad chasing
22:17
Speaker 3: of almost every female deer. While this is going on
22:31
Speaker 3: with the bucks, the majority of the doughs still aren't
22:33
Speaker 3: quite ready. In a handful of days, many will gladly
22:37
Speaker 3: accept the advances of bucks, but not yet. In an
22:40
Speaker 3: attempt to avoid their suitors, the does typically head for
22:42
Speaker 3: the thickest bedding cover they can and lie low. When
22:46
Speaker 3: the bucks come crashing in, the does lead them in
22:48
Speaker 3: zigzag circles, doing their best to lose them. If and
22:51
Speaker 3: when a dough is finally driven out, the bucks often
22:54
Speaker 3: make a mad dash to the next thicket and repeat
22:56
Speaker 3: the process. On the other hand, the bucks are chasing
22:59
Speaker 3: them until they're finally are thrown off the trail or
23:01
Speaker 3: come to the realization that it isn't happening yet. When
23:04
Speaker 3: that occurs, they simply pack up shop and move to
23:07
Speaker 3: the next bedding area, hoping for better luck.
23:10
Speaker 2: So what Steve was describing.
23:12
Speaker 3: There is is really what you could expect in those
23:15
Speaker 3: early stages of the hunter's rut, as he's described at
23:18
Speaker 3: the chase phase earlier in November. But as you edge
23:21
Speaker 3: towards mid November, we are edging towards breeding, where there's
23:24
Speaker 3: peak breeding, and once breeding is actually occurring, his thoughts
23:28
Speaker 3: change a little bit. So Steve goes on to say,
23:31
Speaker 3: as opposed to the fashion which many mature bucks plunge
23:34
Speaker 3: headfirst into sanctuaries during the chase phase during breeding, most
23:39
Speaker 3: now skirt the downwind edges. For all that's written about
23:42
Speaker 3: rut crazed bucks, I believe they now employ a more sensible,
23:45
Speaker 3: safety oriented approach than is the case during the chase phase.
23:49
Speaker 3: The way I see it, the chase phase's relative lack
23:52
Speaker 3: of hot dose, combined with an instinctive knowledge of the
23:55
Speaker 3: approaching feast, creates an almost uncontrollable frenzy in a buck's brain. However,
24:01
Speaker 3: much like the seasoned veteran pitcher during the World Series,
24:04
Speaker 3: the mature buck knows when it's crunch time during the rut,
24:08
Speaker 3: an older buck understands that skirting the downwind side of
24:11
Speaker 3: a family group betting area allows him to scent check
24:14
Speaker 3: every occupant in almost no time, allowing him to continue
24:18
Speaker 3: on if none is ready to breed. Therefore, it only
24:21
Speaker 3: stands to reason that betting areas inhabited by family groups
24:25
Speaker 3: of does and fawns are good locations in which to
24:27
Speaker 3: ambush mature rutting bucks. When selecting these stand sites for
24:31
Speaker 3: the rut, I focus on covering the most heavily used
24:34
Speaker 3: trails on the downwind side of the family group betting
24:37
Speaker 3: area to narrow it down even farther. The best placement
24:41
Speaker 3: is typically about twenty yards from the edge. Doing this
24:44
Speaker 3: allows for catching bucks scent checking from as much as
24:46
Speaker 3: fifty yards downwind of the dos, along with the possibility
24:50
Speaker 3: of a buck using the cover trail alone or having
24:52
Speaker 3: a dough lead him to it. This same systematic approach
24:56
Speaker 3: to finding receptive does applies to cruising food, soorce by
25:00
Speaker 3: doing nothing more than circling the food source, a buck
25:03
Speaker 3: can sent check every dough that is visited as much
25:05
Speaker 3: as forty eight hours prior. When the buck stumbles across
25:09
Speaker 3: the track of a dough that's ready, all he must
25:11
Speaker 3: do is follow her scent. This is perhaps the most
25:13
Speaker 3: effective way for a buck to check the largest number
25:16
Speaker 3: of doughs in the least amount of time. Keep in
25:19
Speaker 3: mind that although running bucks sometimes seem to have lost
25:22
Speaker 3: all regard for personal safety, that isn't entirely true. To
25:26
Speaker 3: help conceal themselves, they rarely make this loop through the
25:29
Speaker 3: open crop field. Instead, they must often skirt it five
25:33
Speaker 3: to forty yards inside the woods. Staying close retains the
25:37
Speaker 3: concentration of dough activity that the source provides and allows
25:40
Speaker 3: them to visually check for both does and danger while
25:43
Speaker 3: remaining hidden. To fully capitalize on this, stands should be
25:48
Speaker 3: placed fifteen to twenty yards inside the woods.
25:51
Speaker 2: Not only does this.
25:51
Speaker 3: Provide shot opportunities of bucks that are skirting the food source,
25:55
Speaker 3: it also affords a view of the field as muck.
25:58
Speaker 3: As much as most bucks cherish safety, weird things do
26:01
Speaker 3: happen during the rut. If a monarch saunters across the
26:05
Speaker 3: middle of the field, this stand placement will allow the
26:07
Speaker 3: hunter to see him. If the hunter's using a firearm,
26:10
Speaker 3: the deer might already be within range. If the hunter's
26:12
Speaker 3: using a bow, he might be able to give a
26:14
Speaker 3: sexy enough dough call to lure the buck close taking
26:18
Speaker 3: stand placement a bit further, it's a good idea to
26:21
Speaker 3: also cover a heavily used family group trail. As with
26:25
Speaker 3: the betting air setup, this allows for intercepting bucks that
26:28
Speaker 3: are using the trail alone as well as those that
26:30
Speaker 3: might be following a dough to the food. Luckily, for us,
26:34
Speaker 3: the best trails often are on inside corners of a field,
26:37
Speaker 3: providing the further benefit of funneling traveling bucks that aren't
26:41
Speaker 3: checking the field. Bucks wanting to get from one side
26:44
Speaker 3: of the field to the other without going through the
26:45
Speaker 3: open food source will cut the corners. When all of
26:48
Speaker 3: these factors are combined, this setup takes a lot of
26:51
Speaker 3: the blind luck out of harvesting a running buck. There's
26:55
Speaker 3: a lot there when it comes to Steve's approach to
26:59
Speaker 3: hunting running bucks in and around betting years or other
27:04
Speaker 3: dough hot spots like feeding ears as he discussed just
27:07
Speaker 3: there now. I also want to share with you another
27:10
Speaker 3: take on this from Andy May. Andy is one of
27:14
Speaker 3: the best DIY deer hunters I know, a good friend
27:17
Speaker 3: and someone who's joined me in the podcast many times
27:19
Speaker 3: over the years as well. We did one a couple
27:22
Speaker 3: of years ago where he answered fourteen different different listener
27:25
Speaker 3: questions about the rut, and one of those we tackled,
27:28
Speaker 3: you know, how he would specifically set up on or
27:30
Speaker 3: around a doe betting ear.
27:32
Speaker 2: So let's listen to that here.
27:33
Speaker 6: Now. Yeah, that's a that's a tough one because it
27:38
Speaker 6: you know, it could vary, you know, location, a location.
27:43
Speaker 4: You know, I.
27:44
Speaker 6: Picture like like a creek bottom that has you know,
27:50
Speaker 6: redbrush and kind of marsh marshy habitat like on each
27:54
Speaker 6: side of the creek, and you know, essentially the whole
27:57
Speaker 6: creek serves as you know, like really good dough betting,
28:02
Speaker 6: you know, on all the creek bends and and all
28:04
Speaker 6: the little thickets and stuff. And I will I'll get
28:07
Speaker 6: on the interior of that, I'll find obviously, I'll find
28:10
Speaker 6: a good treat. And I try to get where I
28:13
Speaker 6: can kind of shoot into where I think a lot
28:15
Speaker 6: of the travel is.
28:16
Speaker 4: Going to be.
28:17
Speaker 6: But I don't want I don't want my wind necessarily
28:20
Speaker 6: blowing out a lot of travel opportunities behind me. It's
28:26
Speaker 6: not like dough betting isn't always like a like a
28:29
Speaker 6: hard edge, you know what I mean. It's a lot
28:31
Speaker 6: of times you just know you're you're kind of working
28:35
Speaker 6: in there, and things get a little thicker, and there
28:36
Speaker 6: might be a pocket of doze here, and then some
28:38
Speaker 6: more you know, one hundred yards back or so. It's
28:43
Speaker 6: not as always like as a well defined abrupt edge
28:46
Speaker 6: as it might sound like when we say that. So
28:50
Speaker 6: a lot of it is a feel thing, but I
28:53
Speaker 6: try to I try to get where I can cover.
28:58
Speaker 4: Travel, and a.
28:59
Speaker 6: Lot of times, a lot of times there will be
29:01
Speaker 6: you know, some sort of sign or some sort of you.
29:04
Speaker 4: Know, perpendicular trail.
29:06
Speaker 6: It may not be beat to the ground, it may
29:08
Speaker 6: not be it may be be able to pick up
29:11
Speaker 6: on it, and sometimes you can't because it's just used
29:14
Speaker 6: a few times a year, you know, during that short window.
29:17
Speaker 6: But I don't like to give up too much travel
29:20
Speaker 6: behind me, if that makes sense. So I will get
29:24
Speaker 6: into usually where it starts to kind of thicken up,
29:27
Speaker 6: you know. I feel like I'm getting into that interior,
29:30
Speaker 6: and if I start getting into any further, I'm gonna
29:32
Speaker 6: start bumping deer around.
29:33
Speaker 4: That usually tells me to hold up.
29:35
Speaker 6: And kind of get get right on there, right on
29:37
Speaker 6: that edge. Sometimes it's a feel thing, sometimes it's a
29:41
Speaker 6: visual thing, but that that kind of I let my
29:46
Speaker 6: instincts gauge a little bit there if there's not like
29:49
Speaker 6: a clear indication of sign that tells me, you know,
29:53
Speaker 6: this is probably where I need to be.
29:54
Speaker 4: But one thing I'll mention real quick.
29:57
Speaker 6: The downwind side of doll betting is an area that
30:00
Speaker 6: Bucks will gravitate to during the run, no doubt about it.
30:04
Speaker 6: But I've seen more and more over the years that
30:08
Speaker 6: the side where does tend to travel from food to
30:15
Speaker 6: bed there's you know a lot of times if there's
30:18
Speaker 6: a distinct you know, food source and the general travels
30:22
Speaker 6: from here to through the bedding, that spot, that edge
30:27
Speaker 6: there where they travel in and out where a lot
30:30
Speaker 6: of those trails might be coming in from, you know,
30:32
Speaker 6: various spots, various uh directions. That spot gets a lot more,
30:39
Speaker 6: It gets a lot of activity from Bucks, maybe even
30:41
Speaker 6: more so than.
30:42
Speaker 4: The down wind side.
30:44
Speaker 6: They can they can take a one trail perpendicular and
30:48
Speaker 6: they can cover you know, two, three, six, twelve different
30:52
Speaker 6: entrance trails and know exactly what's in that do betting,
30:55
Speaker 6: and they can do the same thing traveling from down wind.
30:57
Speaker 6: But I've seen it more and more over the years.
30:59
Speaker 6: I'm almost change my opinion a little bit that that
31:02
Speaker 6: might even be the better spot, the spot where they
31:05
Speaker 6: can go perpendicular and cover a lot of trails. So
31:10
Speaker 6: if you have a good betting area and a good
31:11
Speaker 6: food source over here, and in that betting area, maybe
31:14
Speaker 6: it's one hundred yard two hundred yard stretch and there
31:19
Speaker 6: are multiple trails kind of going in.
31:21
Speaker 4: You see. You know, this one's well beat down.
31:23
Speaker 6: This one's a little more faint, another beatdown one there
31:25
Speaker 6: another one in the corner that inside that timber, you know,
31:30
Speaker 6: or inside that cover there there there's going to be
31:32
Speaker 6: a some sort of route perpendicular trail. You may it
31:36
Speaker 6: may be visible, it may not be, But that spot
31:38
Speaker 6: right there is a great spot to be.
31:42
Speaker 4: That.
31:42
Speaker 6: I've seen that over and over the last few years.
31:45
Speaker 6: I've really started to key in more on that than
31:47
Speaker 6: necessarily the down one side.
31:49
Speaker 4: All right.
31:50
Speaker 3: So those are a couple different takes on the betting
31:53
Speaker 3: side of this equation. Now there's of course the connections.
31:57
Speaker 3: So how do you get between point A and point B.
31:59
Speaker 3: How do they get from dough hot spot to dough
32:01
Speaker 3: hot spot. That's where we get into funnels. I want
32:05
Speaker 3: to read to you two different takes on funnels. There's
32:08
Speaker 3: many different forms funnels can can come in. You can
32:12
Speaker 3: have a cover funnel where you know security cover, so trees, vegetation, grass,
32:17
Speaker 3: that kind of stuff is pinched down between two open areas.
32:20
Speaker 3: Anytime you find that deer are going to want to
32:23
Speaker 3: stay in that security cover. That can be a great
32:25
Speaker 3: place to hunt during the rut. And there's also terrain funnels.
32:29
Speaker 3: You know, anywhere where topography you know high points and
32:33
Speaker 3: low points and changes in that forces deer through an
32:36
Speaker 3: area or makes it more convenient for deer to travel
32:39
Speaker 3: through an area. So those can be saddles in a
32:41
Speaker 3: ridge that can be you know, a hub where a
32:44
Speaker 3: bunch of different points all come together. Anything that's going
32:48
Speaker 3: to have a higher concentration of deer activity because of that.
32:51
Speaker 3: Terrain is the kind of pinch point funnel or aggregator
32:56
Speaker 3: of deer travel that can be worth hitting during the rut.
32:59
Speaker 3: So well back to Steve Bartilla here, he's got a
33:01
Speaker 3: quick take that I want to share with you on
33:04
Speaker 3: hunting funnels. Assuming bucks aren't already with does it's no
33:09
Speaker 3: great secret that the majority of bucks greatly expand their
33:12
Speaker 3: home range and travel more in daylight during the rut
33:15
Speaker 3: as much as they focus their efforts on locating receptive doughs.
33:18
Speaker 3: Putting on miles is usually still a pre wreck. Their
33:21
Speaker 3: travels take them from one dough group to the next,
33:24
Speaker 3: pushing on until they run out of gas or find
33:26
Speaker 3: what they seek. Obviously, hunting funnels can be highly productive
33:30
Speaker 3: during this phase of the season. By nature, funnels are
33:33
Speaker 3: nothing more than habitat man made.
33:35
Speaker 2: Or topographical features.
33:36
Speaker 3: The focused deer activity through a relatively narrow passageway, a
33:40
Speaker 3: finger of wood that connects two woodlots, a brush choked
33:43
Speaker 3: stream meandering through an open pasture, a brushy fence rope
33:47
Speaker 3: separating two fields, an inside corner of a field are
33:50
Speaker 3: all examples of habitat funnels. A man made funnel might
33:54
Speaker 3: be where a road pinches the woods closer to a lake,
33:57
Speaker 3: a low spot in an otherwise well maintained fence, or
34:00
Speaker 3: mature slice of woods left between two clear cuts. Some
34:04
Speaker 3: common examples of topographic funnels are a low spot in
34:07
Speaker 3: a ridge, a flat section that runs along the midpoint
34:10
Speaker 3: of a steep side hill on a bench or ridge,
34:13
Speaker 3: the upper and lower ends of steep cuts that slice
34:16
Speaker 3: up the side of a ridge, a strip of dry
34:19
Speaker 3: land separating two wetlands, or a relatively flat spot in
34:22
Speaker 3: an otherwise steep riverbank.
34:24
Speaker 2: The lay of the.
34:25
Speaker 3: Land makes each of these funnels the path of least
34:27
Speaker 3: resistance for traveling deer. In most cases, these funnels can
34:32
Speaker 3: be avoided if a deer wishes to do so. However,
34:35
Speaker 3: the cost is that the deer must expend more energy
34:38
Speaker 3: and or expose itself to greater danger to avoid the area.
34:42
Speaker 3: Because bucks have no desire to waste energy or expose
34:45
Speaker 3: themselves to unneeded dangers, the funnels are their best option.
34:49
Speaker 3: Superior rut funnels are those that separate areas used by
34:52
Speaker 3: two or more clans of does and fawns. So put
34:56
Speaker 3: in another way, if you can find a funnel between.
35:00
Speaker 2: Dough hotspots, that's the best of the best.
35:02
Speaker 3: You find two great dough betting areas, or multiple different
35:06
Speaker 3: dough betting airs that are all connected by one travel quarter,
35:09
Speaker 3: that's going to be the best possible funnel. I'll also
35:13
Speaker 3: say if you can combine these two things, So if
35:15
Speaker 3: you can have a spot where you can be hunting
35:18
Speaker 3: and you are downwind of a dough betting era while
35:21
Speaker 3: also being at a funneling location, that is even better.
35:25
Speaker 3: That's the sweet spot that we're always looking to find
35:28
Speaker 3: if you can layer over top all these things and
35:30
Speaker 3: then add on top of that situation where your wind
35:34
Speaker 3: is not going to be picked up by deer, that's ideal.
35:37
Speaker 3: I mean a scenario this might be. Let's imagine you've
35:40
Speaker 3: got a great, big block of dough betting here, and
35:43
Speaker 3: then you've got a little corridor. This is a very
35:46
Speaker 3: simple example, but imagine then there's like a thin strip
35:49
Speaker 3: of timber that is running alongside of a lake. And
35:52
Speaker 3: so north of that thin strip of timber and lake
35:55
Speaker 3: is a big old open field. On the other side
35:58
Speaker 3: of that lake is another block of thick, nasty, brushy marshland.
36:02
Speaker 3: Let's say if you could hunt that strip of timber
36:05
Speaker 3: that runs along the edge of the lake, you've got
36:07
Speaker 3: the one area of cover that deer can travel to
36:10
Speaker 3: get from this marsh to this other piece of dough betting.
36:13
Speaker 3: So you have a dough betting era. If you put
36:15
Speaker 3: your stand right there at the bottom of that right
36:17
Speaker 3: where that funnel where that strip comes in, you now
36:20
Speaker 3: have a funnel that's leading into a dough betting air.
36:23
Speaker 3: And then oh, by the way, you have a lake
36:25
Speaker 3: behind you, or a pond behind you, or whatever that
36:27
Speaker 3: you can blow your wind into. That is like the mecca.
36:30
Speaker 3: That's what we're all dreaming of finding somehow, someway. Here's
36:35
Speaker 3: one more perspective on funnels I want to read to you,
36:38
Speaker 3: and excerpt from John Eberhart in his book Precision Bow
36:42
Speaker 3: Hunting and his take on hunting funnels. Funnels between betting
36:47
Speaker 3: areas thick cover that allows bucks security of movement during
36:50
Speaker 3: daylight are super spots to hunt during the pre rut
36:53
Speaker 3: and rut, but sure bucks almost always take the route
36:56
Speaker 3: with the most cover in the daytime. These travel routes
36:59
Speaker 3: are used extensively in a bucks scent checking routine, often
37:03
Speaker 3: during the middle of the day. Your setup should be
37:05
Speaker 3: in a position in the funnel from which you can
37:08
Speaker 3: shoot the funnel's entire width. This is not possible. Choose
37:11
Speaker 3: a spot that provides the most shot opportunities to the
37:13
Speaker 3: best sign. Bucks passing through such funnels have a destination
37:17
Speaker 3: in mind and are usually moving quite expediently. If the
37:20
Speaker 3: funnel is too wide to cover, tighten it by stacking brush,
37:23
Speaker 3: which deer will rarely walk through. When your primary scrape
37:27
Speaker 3: and rut staging areas begin to heat up, it's time
37:30
Speaker 3: to include funnels between betting areas in your hunting rotation.
37:33
Speaker 3: These funnels are also great all day spots, which brings
37:38
Speaker 3: us to the third of the major considerations when hunting
37:42
Speaker 3: during the rut, which is putting in time. Time on
37:46
Speaker 3: stand is simply the most important thing, maybe of all,
37:50
Speaker 3: for this time of season, and there are many different
37:54
Speaker 3: perspectives on why and how and when to do that,
37:57
Speaker 3: but at the highest of levels, the more time available
38:01
Speaker 3: at this time of year, the more time you have
38:03
Speaker 3: a chance of taking advantage of the somewhat more random,
38:07
Speaker 3: somewhat more unpredictable nature of this increased buck movement. During
38:11
Speaker 3: the month of November, Eberhart goes on to tell us
38:14
Speaker 3: a little bit more about his take on all day
38:17
Speaker 3: sits and spending time, especially in that late morning to
38:20
Speaker 3: mid day time period. And I think he's got a
38:23
Speaker 3: good suggestion here about what to do even if you
38:26
Speaker 3: don't have time to do an entire day or the
38:30
Speaker 3: interest in doing an entire day.
38:32
Speaker 2: So here's what he has to say.
38:33
Speaker 3: There, stick to your best spots if the activity warrants it,
38:37
Speaker 3: and spend as much time on stand as you can.
38:40
Speaker 3: All day hunting is advised whenever possible during the rut phases.
38:44
Speaker 3: The more time you spend in the woods, the better
38:46
Speaker 3: your chances will be, as long as you avoid spooking
38:48
Speaker 3: the deer and practice diligence sund control during the rut.
38:52
Speaker 3: A mature bucks natural routine, when not with an estrastough,
38:56
Speaker 3: likely has him scent checking during midday between ten am
38:59
Speaker 3: and two If you cannot hunt all day. A possibility
39:03
Speaker 3: during the rut is what we call second shift hunting.
39:07
Speaker 3: Heading to your stand at about nine am. Hunting this
39:10
Speaker 3: timeframe allows you to get extra sleep and still puts
39:13
Speaker 3: you in position to take advantage of that midday mature
39:16
Speaker 3: buck activity. Remain on stand until dark whenever possible, so
39:21
Speaker 3: I think that's an interesting thing to consider. There you'd
39:24
Speaker 3: miss the first hour or two of daylight, but maybe
39:28
Speaker 3: there's places where that's for the best. You're not spooking
39:31
Speaker 3: deer out of open fields when you go in, but
39:33
Speaker 3: then you hunt that late morning right on through to
39:35
Speaker 3: the end of the day. Another person who we've already
39:38
Speaker 3: heard from once but who has oftentimes talked about the
39:41
Speaker 3: importance of getting your tree or getting your butt in
39:44
Speaker 3: the tree and spending a lot of time is Andy
39:46
Speaker 3: May and Andy, as we alluded to earlier, he's a
39:49
Speaker 3: DIY guy. He's not somebody who does this for his living.
39:52
Speaker 3: He has limited time to actually hunt, so in the
39:55
Speaker 3: days he can hunt, he really wants to maximize that time,
39:58
Speaker 3: especially during the rut. So I asked Andy about, you know,
40:02
Speaker 3: his take on hunting all day, and then also if
40:05
Speaker 3: and how you should relocate your positions during the rut
40:09
Speaker 3: throughout the day, So like, should you hunt one kind
40:11
Speaker 3: of spot in the morning and then change for the afternoon,
40:14
Speaker 3: or what kinds of spots are best to hunt all
40:17
Speaker 3: day during the rut. All of that is covered in
40:19
Speaker 3: this excerpt with Andy. Next, I think it depends on
40:23
Speaker 3: the location. If you're sitting, you know, if you're if
40:30
Speaker 3: you're kind of targeting, say like.
40:33
Speaker 6: A betting area, I think that it can be good.
40:36
Speaker 4: Most of the day. Say you're say you're.
40:39
Speaker 6: Trying to get in tight to a dull betting area.
40:41
Speaker 6: You're getting into that interior a little bit with the
40:43
Speaker 6: wind advantage, and you're like, you know, this is a
40:45
Speaker 6: really sensitive spot. I'm going to get in real early
40:48
Speaker 6: before light, you know, an hour and a half before light.
40:50
Speaker 6: I'm gonna get settled and let all these deer filter
40:53
Speaker 6: back in, and it's very common behavior for mature box
40:58
Speaker 6: to let the does filter back into their bedding area
41:04
Speaker 6: and then they'll they'll kind of stay low key, stay bedded,
41:07
Speaker 6: and then they'll get up late morning, mid to late morning,
41:11
Speaker 6: and then they'll make the rounds and they'll be cross
41:14
Speaker 6: sectioning those trails going in and out of bedding. They'll
41:17
Speaker 6: be going working the downwind sides. They'll be checking like
41:21
Speaker 6: you know, thermal hubs where a lot of a lot
41:23
Speaker 6: of scent pools and comes together. So it's very common
41:29
Speaker 6: for the bigger, older mature bucks to move later in
41:32
Speaker 6: that morning.
41:33
Speaker 4: So a spot like that I think can be good most.
41:35
Speaker 2: Of the day.
41:38
Speaker 6: Yeah, So when you're in a spot like that, you know,
41:40
Speaker 6: if first light comes, there's not a whole lot going on.
41:43
Speaker 6: But what you're trying to do is catch all those
41:45
Speaker 6: does kind of slowly filtering back into the bedding area
41:48
Speaker 6: and then catch that buck movement, you know, those bucks
41:51
Speaker 6: checking those areas kind of late morning and you're in there.
41:55
Speaker 6: You know, you're not trying to sneak in in the
41:57
Speaker 6: afternoon and you're bumping dose around.
41:59
Speaker 4: You're in there before light, you're in there before the.
42:01
Speaker 6: Deer theoretically should be back in and you can catch
42:04
Speaker 6: some great you know morning, late morning, and midday movement
42:11
Speaker 6: in there where. I think those areas tend to to
42:14
Speaker 6: kind of taper off as in those evening sits, yeah,
42:17
Speaker 6: or are those that evening timeframe.
42:19
Speaker 4: I think that dose start to kind.
42:20
Speaker 6: Of work their way out the bucks know that the
42:23
Speaker 6: bucks are going to be relating to where they're traveling
42:26
Speaker 6: and where they're heading to. So that's one of those
42:29
Speaker 6: spots where I will probably sit it out unless I
42:33
Speaker 6: have like a quick exit where I can go maybe
42:35
Speaker 6: capitalize a little bit closer to a food source or
42:39
Speaker 6: on a travel you know, between like.
42:41
Speaker 4: Bed and food something like that.
42:44
Speaker 6: I like, uh, you know, funnels between bedding areas. I
42:50
Speaker 6: really like those spots for all day and again, you know,
42:54
Speaker 6: I think they they tend to they tend to be
43:00
Speaker 6: the best. Like if I had to pick a window,
43:03
Speaker 6: I would say like nine am to like three pm
43:08
Speaker 6: is like when it's optimal. It doesn't mean you couldn't
43:10
Speaker 6: have a buck strolling through, because I mean bucks are
43:13
Speaker 6: on the move. It's not like they're all bedded in
43:15
Speaker 6: the morning, but some are some aren't. You know, some
43:19
Speaker 6: are at the food sources, some are following those back in.
43:21
Speaker 4: I mean, there's there's.
43:22
Speaker 6: Lots of activity going on, but that's probably your optimal window.
43:26
Speaker 6: But I have had some great sits and some kills
43:29
Speaker 6: first thing in the morning and even last thing at night.
43:33
Speaker 6: I don't I don't know. I don't move stands a
43:40
Speaker 6: whole lot unless I really think that the evening portion
43:44
Speaker 6: is going to be dead.
43:46
Speaker 4: If I think the evening portion is going to be.
43:48
Speaker 6: Dead, then yes, I will relocate. When you ask about
43:53
Speaker 6: a time to do that, I would say maybe two
43:59
Speaker 6: o'clock because I've had so many really good encounters, kills,
44:05
Speaker 6: sightings in that eleven to two time frame. Another thing
44:11
Speaker 6: that you want to keep in mind during the run
44:13
Speaker 6: is most guys don't have the mental capacity, the strength,
44:17
Speaker 6: and the endurance to sit dark to dark. So ninety
44:22
Speaker 6: five percent of your hunters out there are going to
44:25
Speaker 6: be coming in at nine, ten or eleven.
44:28
Speaker 4: It seems like, you know those time strips, guys have
44:31
Speaker 4: it in.
44:31
Speaker 6: Their head, I'm gonna sit till nine, I'm gonna sit
44:32
Speaker 6: till ten, I'm gonna sit till eleven, and then all
44:35
Speaker 6: these guys come in. You know, there's never been more
44:37
Speaker 6: people in the woods other than.
44:39
Speaker 4: Opening day a gun. It's November, it's the rut.
44:41
Speaker 6: Everybody's leaving their stands and they're bumping deer around. They
44:45
Speaker 6: get deer up, stirred up. But those are running that
44:48
Speaker 6: gets bucks on their feet. So you can capitalize on
44:52
Speaker 6: just the pressure of people moving around at those those
44:56
Speaker 6: time frames just by planting your butt in the stand.
45:00
Speaker 6: But there's there's no way I would leave at like
45:02
Speaker 6: eleven or twelve. I think your chances of seeing deer
45:08
Speaker 6: and bulk activity go down as you get to that
45:11
Speaker 6: eleven twelve one, but your chances of seeing mature bucks
45:15
Speaker 6: actually increase when you hit that kind of like nine
45:18
Speaker 6: thirty ten, eleven twelve, you know, one two. Now, that time,
45:25
Speaker 6: that window right there has been very good to me,
45:27
Speaker 6: and I've i comparatively, I haven't hunted it a whole
45:30
Speaker 6: lot compared to morning and evening.
45:43
Speaker 3: Okay, one more set of ideas that I want you
45:48
Speaker 3: to consider as we go into this next phase of
45:51
Speaker 3: the rut. If we're considering the hunter's rut and really
45:54
Speaker 3: what can take place over the course of the entire
45:57
Speaker 3: month of November. As we just discussed, there's this one
46:00
Speaker 3: main way, which is betting areas and funnels. But there
46:04
Speaker 3: is another approach, and that is more of the go
46:07
Speaker 3: and find it approach that is epitomized by the guys
46:11
Speaker 3: with the hunting public. We've got a great expert here
46:14
Speaker 3: from Aaron Warburton from a podcast I did with him
46:17
Speaker 3: several years ago about the THHP aggressive take on hunting
46:21
Speaker 3: the rut. Let's get to their unique view on how
46:26
Speaker 3: to do this. Ways to go and find deer during
46:29
Speaker 3: the rut that are different than the usual.
46:32
Speaker 7: I think there's kind of two different tactics that work
46:35
Speaker 7: extremely well in the rut. One is sitting long hours
46:40
Speaker 7: in a specific spot you know, a funnel or a
46:44
Speaker 7: transition whatever, and basically waiting for a buck to walk by.
46:50
Speaker 7: That is proven over time to be extremely effective. If
46:53
Speaker 7: you have the time and you can spend it as
46:57
Speaker 7: many full days in the woods as possible, you can
47:00
Speaker 7: killed bucks doing that. But what we've done more of
47:04
Speaker 7: in the last probably six seven years is we've actually
47:09
Speaker 7: started to move to find the action in the rut,
47:12
Speaker 7: literally walking or driving until we either see or spook
47:19
Speaker 7: run into whatever the action. What I mean by the
47:22
Speaker 7: action is a hot dough, a group of bucks in
47:26
Speaker 7: a certain location, because that's what I believe is going
47:30
Speaker 7: on a lot of the time. Most of the bucks
47:33
Speaker 7: are in one specific location for most of the rut,
47:38
Speaker 7: or well, sorry, I.
47:39
Speaker 4: Should back up.
47:40
Speaker 7: Most of the bucks on a given day are in
47:43
Speaker 7: a spot on a property wherever that dough is at
47:47
Speaker 7: that is coming into heat, most of the bucks in
47:50
Speaker 7: that area are going to be right there. And obviously
47:52
Speaker 7: we know that all that can get flipped upside down
47:55
Speaker 7: and can change in a matter of seconds if they
47:57
Speaker 7: push you out of there or whatever. But I feel
48:00
Speaker 7: like that's something that has worked tremendously well for us.
48:03
Speaker 4: Is just is being especially on limited time.
48:09
Speaker 7: And I should preface by saying that if you don't
48:12
Speaker 7: have a lot of time in the run, if you
48:13
Speaker 7: don't have the luxury of sitting in a funnel area
48:17
Speaker 7: all day long, or day after day after day after day,
48:20
Speaker 7: I would recommend trying to literally walk around until you
48:24
Speaker 7: run into the deer, even if that means spooking the deer,
48:30
Speaker 7: because if a doe is in heat and there's multiple
48:32
Speaker 7: bucks in that area, more times than not we don't
48:35
Speaker 7: see them react the same way to pressure as we
48:38
Speaker 7: would other times of the year because their main focus is,
48:41
Speaker 7: you know, obviously breeding during that time. And I feel
48:45
Speaker 7: like if you just have a weekend, for example, or
48:48
Speaker 7: maybe you just have a couple days of vacation and
48:50
Speaker 7: you're not in that action. Maybe you're sitting in a
48:52
Speaker 7: pile of sign, you're sitting in an excellent funnel area.
48:54
Speaker 7: But if the hot dough is on the other side
48:57
Speaker 7: of the property, for that two or three days, you're
49:00
Speaker 7: probably gonna, you know, watch a lot of squirrels and
49:03
Speaker 7: leaves blown. But if you get down and you actually
49:07
Speaker 7: go and find the deer, you can have success a
49:09
Speaker 7: lot faster in the rut.
49:11
Speaker 4: Does that make sense, Yeah, it does.
49:14
Speaker 2: How do you know when you found it? Though?
49:16
Speaker 3: I mean, I I realized there's a few obvious things,
49:18
Speaker 3: but I gotta believe there's a little bit of it.
49:23
Speaker 3: Probably has taken some experience to figure out the nu
49:25
Speaker 3: once of oh this is it, I need to stop
49:27
Speaker 3: right now, versus Okay, I just bumped a deer, but.
49:30
Speaker 2: You know, maybe I should keep going.
49:32
Speaker 3: How do you know when you're in the spot where Okay,
49:34
Speaker 3: we're here, it's time.
49:38
Speaker 4: A variety of different things.
49:40
Speaker 7: It's all situational, but I'll give you a couple of examples.
49:46
Speaker 4: One is scrapes. And I know you've.
49:50
Speaker 7: Heard it over and over again, don't pay attention to
49:52
Speaker 7: scrapes during the rut. But a lot of times scrapes
49:54
Speaker 7: are positioned in locations where numerous trails intersect, or even
49:58
Speaker 7: on the edges of betting areas, or in transitions in
50:01
Speaker 7: between betting areas.
50:04
Speaker 4: So if and I'll just bring up.
50:07
Speaker 7: A specific example, because that's the best way I can
50:09
Speaker 7: explain this.
50:10
Speaker 4: We were headed in on November ninth.
50:12
Speaker 7: A couple of years ago, into a big block of woods,
50:16
Speaker 7: and we covered probably three quarters of a mile down
50:18
Speaker 7: this ridge. There's lots of rubs in there, a decent
50:21
Speaker 7: amount of sign but nothing like super super fresh. We
50:24
Speaker 7: dove off of a point of the ridge, got on
50:27
Speaker 7: a long secondary ridge that fall off into a creek
50:30
Speaker 7: bottom that's pretty thick, and as we got down there,
50:32
Speaker 7: we started noticing like, here's a really really fresh scrape that.
50:36
Speaker 4: Was just worked.
50:37
Speaker 7: And then boom, here's another really really fresh scrape that
50:40
Speaker 7: was just where I mean I'm talking in the last
50:42
Speaker 7: twenty four hours. So we popped up in a tree,
50:45
Speaker 7: set up over it, and as we were hanging the
50:48
Speaker 7: stand a mature buck pushed a dough by us at
50:50
Speaker 7: ten yards and we weren't ever able to kill it
50:53
Speaker 7: because we had the camera and the bow at the
50:54
Speaker 7: bottom of the tree and whatever.
50:56
Speaker 4: But what ensued after that was.
51:00
Speaker 7: I think there was four or five different bucks on
51:03
Speaker 7: that ridge and in that immediate area, all vying for
51:07
Speaker 7: that dough, and a lot of those satellite bucks, you know,
51:11
Speaker 7: the younger bucks that didn't have the dough. They were rubbing, scraping, sparring,
51:16
Speaker 7: doing all sorts of aggressive behavior in and around where
51:19
Speaker 7: that buck had the dough. And I think that's where
51:22
Speaker 7: a lot of that is that fresh scraping activity had
51:24
Speaker 7: come from. But that's the sign that we set up
51:27
Speaker 7: on in that particular instance to get on that that scenario.
51:31
Speaker 7: We've also just been gombing through the woods and literally
51:36
Speaker 7: just ran into a dough in a buck and jumped
51:40
Speaker 7: them and literally had the buck that was with the
51:45
Speaker 7: dough at like separate him. The buck that was with
51:47
Speaker 7: the dough come back through there within fifteen minutes looking
51:50
Speaker 7: for her blowing. I mean, he was alert, he knew
51:53
Speaker 7: we were in there, but he lost her when we
51:55
Speaker 7: bumped into him, and he was bound and determined to
51:58
Speaker 7: find her again next day in that same spot, just
52:02
Speaker 7: a little bit deeper. It was just total chaos because
52:05
Speaker 7: you know, we bumped them and she went probably two
52:07
Speaker 7: three hundred yards stopped, settled down and didn't leave the
52:09
Speaker 7: area completely.
52:11
Speaker 4: And that's not always the case. I mean, it can
52:14
Speaker 4: it can change, like I said, very very quickly.
52:18
Speaker 7: But if you're just moving around with your eyes up
52:22
Speaker 7: and you're looking for that out in front of you
52:25
Speaker 7: and then reacting to it as you as you run into.
52:29
Speaker 4: Deer like that, like heading in.
52:30
Speaker 7: Deeper after them, I think you're going to get onto
52:33
Speaker 7: more action, especially in short timeframe.
52:36
Speaker 3: Okay, so hunting funnels, hunting dough betting areas, maybe getting
52:42
Speaker 3: out there and aggressively trying to find where that little
52:44
Speaker 3: pocket of running activity is. Right now, three different considerations,
52:49
Speaker 3: all useful, all something you can put into play during
52:52
Speaker 3: the hunter's rut during that first part of November, and honestly,
52:56
Speaker 3: and something you want to point out as we go
52:58
Speaker 3: on here, all of this stuff can work all throughout
53:01
Speaker 3: the month of November. There's just a few maybe specific
53:03
Speaker 3: differences that we will address here in a little bit,
53:06
Speaker 3: but everything we've talked about that you know, we're really
53:09
Speaker 3: focusing it on those first two weeks of the month.
53:12
Speaker 3: Still apply the third week and the fourth week. All
53:15
Speaker 3: that said, the same is true for the next two
53:17
Speaker 3: things I want to mention, which are kind of the
53:20
Speaker 3: audibles you can call this time of year the little flyers.
53:24
Speaker 3: The bonus type of tactics that work better now than
53:27
Speaker 3: any other time, and that's calling and decoy. This is
53:32
Speaker 3: when bucks are the most call happy, as they're going
53:37
Speaker 3: to find them.
53:38
Speaker 2: They are more willing to come.
53:40
Speaker 3: In and check something out, try to find where that
53:42
Speaker 3: running activity is trying to, you know, push off that
53:45
Speaker 3: approaching buck who maybe is getting in on his game
53:48
Speaker 3: whatever it is he's doing. So in the October episode,
53:53
Speaker 3: I reviewed my kind of ladder of calling throughout the month.
53:57
Speaker 3: I'll review for you my basic take, which is not
54:00
Speaker 3: too different now, but in November it starts higher on
54:03
Speaker 3: that ladder. So if I see a buck out of range,
54:07
Speaker 3: I'm going to try to get his attention with a
54:09
Speaker 3: louder establishing kind of contact drum, just a good ra
54:14
Speaker 3: and then if that doesn't get his attention, I'll try
54:16
Speaker 3: a louder bra and then again if I need to
54:19
Speaker 3: go farther or louder.
54:21
Speaker 2: It's just gonna make a buck roar that it bra
54:24
Speaker 2: same thing goes.
54:24
Speaker 3: If I get that buck's attention, he stops and looks
54:27
Speaker 3: at me and acts curious, maybe takes a step forward,
54:29
Speaker 3: and then you know, maybe starts making the scrape or
54:32
Speaker 3: rubbing a tree. He doesn't leave, he doesn't get skittish,
54:35
Speaker 3: but he's not committed to me yet. That's when I
54:37
Speaker 3: will start to get more aggressive, so I'll take the
54:39
Speaker 3: next step up the ladder, which at this point, if
54:42
Speaker 3: it's not the buck roar that I just described, it
54:45
Speaker 3: would be the snort wheeze, which is a sound that's
54:50
Speaker 3: the punching a guy at the bar type of attack
54:54
Speaker 3: on that deer. Verbally, that's what I'm doing. If a
54:57
Speaker 3: buck is showing me that you know, he wasn't bothered
55:00
Speaker 3: my first call, but he's not ready to come in yet.
55:03
Speaker 3: You try that and it doesn't work, that means he's
55:06
Speaker 3: like getting you know, concern, he's getting spooky. He turns around,
55:09
Speaker 3: starts walking the other way. That's when you lay it
55:12
Speaker 3: off and say, all right, you know it's done. On
55:15
Speaker 3: the flip side. If that buck then like gets even
55:18
Speaker 3: more excited and pins back his ears and starts slowly
55:20
Speaker 3: coming your way. Again, that's when you stop calling and
55:23
Speaker 3: just let that scenario play out.
55:26
Speaker 2: That is my high level general take on calling during
55:30
Speaker 2: the run.
55:30
Speaker 3: I personally don't like the blind call, which would be,
55:33
Speaker 3: you know, calling without seeing a deer at all and
55:35
Speaker 3: just hoping something's going to come in, because that can
55:38
Speaker 3: lead to you know, unexpected deer showing up down wind
55:40
Speaker 3: a view that can lead to bad things. So I
55:43
Speaker 3: like to wait until I see a buck and then
55:45
Speaker 3: call to him. I will occasionally blind rattle, not often,
55:51
Speaker 3: but occasionally. The targeted rattling I will do is if
55:55
Speaker 3: I see a mature buck way out of grunting range
55:57
Speaker 3: where he won't hear me, but I need to get
55:59
Speaker 3: get his attention and try to pull them in, that's
56:01
Speaker 3: when I might try rattling. All that said, I might
56:05
Speaker 3: be a little bit on the conservative side. I do
56:07
Speaker 3: a lot of my hunting in Michigan, where there's not
56:10
Speaker 3: as many mature bucks and there's a lot of hunting
56:12
Speaker 3: pressure when compared to some of the other Midwestern states
56:15
Speaker 3: like Iowa or Kansas or whatever. In those states, more
56:21
Speaker 3: aggressive calling can work really well, and I want to
56:24
Speaker 3: share with you a perspective from Jared Mills, longtime contributor
56:29
Speaker 3: to Midwest Whitetail and now is on YouTube channel, well
56:32
Speaker 3: known whitetail expert, and he has a more aggressive approach
56:36
Speaker 3: to calling running white tails. Let's hear it what he
56:39
Speaker 3: has to say here.
56:41
Speaker 8: You usually don't like to call the deer when I
56:43
Speaker 8: can see them and go based off of how they react,
56:49
Speaker 8: or I will blind call if I have a really
56:51
Speaker 8: good way of vantage, like a creek or river behind me.
56:54
Speaker 3: Okay, So walk me through then what the calling or
56:58
Speaker 3: rattling sequence would be. Let's say you spot a big
57:01
Speaker 3: buck somewhere. Do you always grunt first? Do you always
57:05
Speaker 3: rattle first? Do you does something help you determine what
57:08
Speaker 3: you're going to use? Kind of walk me through your
57:10
Speaker 3: whole thought price when it comes to choosing what you're
57:12
Speaker 3: gonna do, and then what you actually do in that scenario.
57:16
Speaker 5: Yep.
57:18
Speaker 8: Typically the conditions dictate that, and usually that's based on
57:24
Speaker 8: wind speed. So if it's really windy and I don't
57:27
Speaker 8: think he'll hear they grunt or snort waves, I will
57:31
Speaker 8: rattle at the deer. Typically, though, if I know what
57:37
Speaker 8: deer can hear me, I will start out with just
57:39
Speaker 8: a grunt. I think that's the least intrusive sound or
57:44
Speaker 8: least challenging sound to a bus. I wanted to see
57:47
Speaker 8: how he'll react to that. You don't typically or I
57:52
Speaker 8: haven't typically seen deer really negatively react to a grunt call.
57:56
Speaker 8: It's just something that I think they hear more often,
58:00
Speaker 8: and they snort, weeze or two bucks fighting. So I'll
58:04
Speaker 8: start with that if I know a buck can hear
58:06
Speaker 8: the grunt call, and then if he doesn't respond to that,
58:10
Speaker 8: I will snort weez.
58:11
Speaker 4: I love the start wee call.
58:13
Speaker 8: Especially i'mture deer I don't have I should say I
58:19
Speaker 8: don't have too many that just completely ignore it or
58:24
Speaker 8: get spooped by it. They usually will somehow react to it.
58:30
Speaker 8: Whether they come all the way in or not, that's
58:32
Speaker 8: a different question, but usually they that call means something
58:36
Speaker 8: to them, So I use snort we've a lot. Rattling
58:42
Speaker 8: is kind of a third option. If if the deer
58:44
Speaker 8: doesn't respond to either one of those, I will rattle
58:48
Speaker 8: or I will start off rattling if it's really windy.
58:50
Speaker 3: Like I said, how what's the rattle sequence?
58:54
Speaker 4: Like? Is it long?
58:56
Speaker 3: Do you just do fifteen twenty seconds and stop. What's
58:59
Speaker 3: your rattling sequence? Typically live, like, if.
59:03
Speaker 8: I can see the deer and see his reaction, I'll
59:05
Speaker 8: just I'll rattle and'll make sure that I'm hidden. Whether
59:08
Speaker 8: it's I'm rattling on the backside of free or something
59:11
Speaker 8: like that, I will just watch his reaction. I will
59:14
Speaker 8: keep rattling until he makes a move, whether that's going
59:17
Speaker 8: away from me or coming towards to me. I need
59:21
Speaker 8: him to be convinced that it is a really good fight,
59:25
Speaker 8: like an actual brawl, that he needs to come in
59:28
Speaker 8: and check out. Once he starts coming, I'll put him
59:31
Speaker 8: away and get ready, or if he obviously goes away,
59:35
Speaker 8: I'll put him away.
59:36
Speaker 5: Too, just because obviously they don't like it.
59:38
Speaker 8: But sometimes you'll see a deer go away and he'll
59:41
Speaker 8: come back around and check it out later, so you're
59:44
Speaker 8: not always completely out of the game. If I'm blind calling,
59:50
Speaker 8: it's probably I would say thirty seconds of a pretty
59:55
Speaker 8: hard hitting I have seen a couple of really good fights,
1:00:00
Speaker 8: and it's hard to rattle as loud as two mature
1:00:06
Speaker 8: bucks are fighting, so I like to hit them almost
1:00:10
Speaker 8: as hard as I can. For a good toy to
1:00:12
Speaker 8: thirty seconds obviously, just making sure your eyes are peeled
1:00:15
Speaker 8: and your head's on a swivel, because you don't want
1:00:18
Speaker 8: to be hitting those things when the deer's thirty yards
1:00:22
Speaker 8: away and clearly see you know what's going on to you.
1:00:25
Speaker 8: Just have the constantly be looking around. But that's one
1:00:29
Speaker 8: thing I'll tell guys is not to be afraid to
1:00:32
Speaker 8: hit them really hard. Most most often, I think guys
1:00:35
Speaker 8: aren't rattling loud enough.
1:00:37
Speaker 3: All right, now, that's calling my ideas on that that
1:00:41
Speaker 3: I've kind of accumulated over the years from everybody, And
1:00:44
Speaker 3: Jared's Another kind of aggressive move you can try at
1:00:48
Speaker 3: this time of year is using a decoy. And the
1:00:51
Speaker 3: best explanation I have heard from someone on how to
1:00:54
Speaker 3: use a buck decoy or really any kind of decoy
1:00:57
Speaker 3: when hunting during the rut is from John Dudley. John Dudley,
1:01:01
Speaker 3: you know, has done amazing work across many different platforms,
1:01:05
Speaker 3: well known, does great work when it comes to archery,
1:01:08
Speaker 3: but also incredibly successful whitetail hunter and a big proponent
1:01:12
Speaker 3: of using decoys.
1:01:14
Speaker 2: Here is what he says. This is his.
1:01:17
Speaker 3: Strategy for using a decoy during the rut, and basically
1:01:21
Speaker 3: the same way that I have approached using a decoy
1:01:23
Speaker 3: is is just like what he describes here.
1:01:26
Speaker 5: What I really look for is I look for an
1:01:29
Speaker 5: area that allows me to be in cover and also
1:01:35
Speaker 5: allows the decoy to be in a high visibility area
1:01:41
Speaker 5: that is also a high traffic area during the rut.
1:01:47
Speaker 5: Like for example, one one situation that I'm thinking of
1:01:52
Speaker 5: is I've actually got this food plot that is, you know,
1:01:59
Speaker 5: it's just a regular food plot. It's kind of a
1:02:01
Speaker 5: rectangular shape, two acres on the one long end, and
1:02:07
Speaker 5: I actually have a decoy set up for both ends
1:02:10
Speaker 5: of this field. So what I'll wait for is a
1:02:14
Speaker 5: wind that would put the wind directly into my face,
1:02:18
Speaker 5: which for this particular field, and east wind, which is
1:02:22
Speaker 5: fairly uncommon.
1:02:23
Speaker 2: But.
1:02:25
Speaker 5: For this particular if I do have an east wind
1:02:27
Speaker 5: when the timing's right, this has been notoriously my best
1:02:31
Speaker 5: spot because this food plot is built up on a crown,
1:02:36
Speaker 5: and there's on one side of the crown there's a
1:02:41
Speaker 5: deep draw that goes into a big ceedar thicket, and
1:02:44
Speaker 5: then on the other side of the crown there's also
1:02:47
Speaker 5: another draw that feeds all the way through like a
1:02:50
Speaker 5: timber system that runs way off through my neighbors and
1:02:53
Speaker 5: everything like that. So really what's happening is these bucks
1:02:59
Speaker 5: when they start cuting ground, they're coming up out of
1:03:02
Speaker 5: these draws and they're just like they just kind of
1:03:05
Speaker 5: appear into a food plot. They look around a lot
1:03:08
Speaker 5: of times. They're not eating, you know, they're not eating.
1:03:10
Speaker 5: They're just they'll crossover and they'll go into the next theory.
1:03:13
Speaker 5: You know, you have those spots where you always see
1:03:16
Speaker 5: bucks just crossing. They're never staying there, but they're crossing.
1:03:20
Speaker 5: These are really good areas for decoys because you know
1:03:23
Speaker 5: that there's going to be traffic and you know you
1:03:26
Speaker 5: have the ability to put it in an area where
1:03:28
Speaker 5: you're able to see or you know, the deer able
1:03:33
Speaker 5: to see. And from there, what I do is I
1:03:35
Speaker 5: really focus on putting the decoys about thirty yards in
1:03:41
Speaker 5: front of me with their wind blowing directly towards me,
1:03:46
Speaker 5: and I'll face them facing directly towards me and my tree.
1:03:52
Speaker 5: So what that does is when these bucks will come
1:03:56
Speaker 5: up and they'll pop into these these open pocket, it's
1:04:01
Speaker 5: they'll see that deer and then what they'll do is
1:04:04
Speaker 5: they're going to try to get downwind of that decoy.
1:04:07
Speaker 5: I mean, they're always going to try to get down
1:04:10
Speaker 5: wind first, and they also really like to approach a
1:04:14
Speaker 5: decoy at the direction that they're facing. So a lot
1:04:18
Speaker 5: of times when they come up and they'll see that
1:04:20
Speaker 5: decoy and it'll be like kind of facing you know,
1:04:25
Speaker 5: it'll be like looking directly under my stand into the
1:04:29
Speaker 5: timber line or the field that's behind me. A lot
1:04:32
Speaker 5: of times the deer just going to assume that that
1:04:35
Speaker 5: decoy has the attention of maybe a betted dough or
1:04:39
Speaker 5: something in that fence line, or maybe even a dough
1:04:42
Speaker 5: that's betted in you know, the field behind me. And
1:04:45
Speaker 5: what they'll do is the bucks just always just go
1:04:49
Speaker 5: right to the edge of the food plot and they'll
1:04:51
Speaker 5: follow that hall or grass along the edge of the
1:04:54
Speaker 5: food plot, and then they'll button hook right around and
1:04:58
Speaker 5: they'll really utilize the edge of that cover and try
1:05:05
Speaker 5: to split the difference kind of between me and the
1:05:08
Speaker 5: tree and that decoy. They'll kind of come in right
1:05:12
Speaker 5: on the outer edge of that that cover. They feel safe,
1:05:15
Speaker 5: like they can jump in there and be gone if
1:05:18
Speaker 5: they don't like something about it. And as they button
1:05:22
Speaker 5: hook around you the entire time they're going to be
1:05:25
Speaker 5: looking right at that decoy. They're looking at it, and
1:05:28
Speaker 5: until they hit the wind of that decoy, you have
1:05:32
Speaker 5: a great opportunity to be able to to make a
1:05:36
Speaker 5: shot as long as you know that that wind is
1:05:39
Speaker 5: blowing directly to you, So as long as that that
1:05:43
Speaker 5: buck is button hooking around, you've pretty much got until
1:05:47
Speaker 5: that that deer gets directly downwind of your decoy for
1:05:52
Speaker 5: you to make your shot. And it's it's worked incredible.
1:05:56
Speaker 5: You know, I really like to focus on the time
1:06:00
Speaker 5: times of year when the like when the first part
1:06:03
Speaker 5: of the rut gets going, like where you have one,
1:06:06
Speaker 5: maybe one or two does that have come into heat,
1:06:10
Speaker 5: and you know it seems like, you know, you maybe
1:06:13
Speaker 5: see that first dough get red and every buck in
1:06:15
Speaker 5: the country's honor. Normally, right after that things kind of
1:06:19
Speaker 5: break loose and these bucks are really going to be
1:06:23
Speaker 5: looking for does. And you also find out that during
1:06:29
Speaker 5: that first part of the rut, most food plots are
1:06:32
Speaker 5: like vacant, like dose aren't going to come out and
1:06:37
Speaker 5: show themselves because they know they're going to get harassed.
1:06:40
Speaker 5: So when a buck comes out and sees a dough
1:06:43
Speaker 5: and it's standing there, they're going to do that same thing.
1:06:48
Speaker 5: So during the first part of the rut, I'll decoy
1:06:51
Speaker 5: with the dough. But then once you get into the
1:06:55
Speaker 5: middle of the rut, or then towards the tail end
1:06:58
Speaker 5: of the rut, I really like having a buck decoy,
1:07:02
Speaker 5: or I like having a buck decoy during the pre rut.
1:07:05
Speaker 5: You know, there's a time where that velvet comes off,
1:07:08
Speaker 5: and right before the screep start getting made, a lot
1:07:11
Speaker 5: of you know, a lot of bucks will start to
1:07:14
Speaker 5: kind of they'll start to fight a little bit, and
1:07:17
Speaker 5: you know, you might be in the woods and start
1:07:19
Speaker 5: to hear your hearst fight of the of the of
1:07:22
Speaker 5: the year, and that's a good time to try a
1:07:25
Speaker 5: buck decoy as well. But really the recipe is always
1:07:30
Speaker 5: get it about thirty yards in front of you, with
1:07:34
Speaker 5: it facing you, wind blowing right directly towards you. You
1:07:38
Speaker 5: want to be in some cover, you know, it's nice
1:07:42
Speaker 5: to have. You know, a lot of times I like
1:07:44
Speaker 5: to be towards one end of a food plot or another.
1:07:47
Speaker 5: That way, if deer come in the food plot, you
1:07:51
Speaker 5: know they can even if that thing's down there on
1:07:53
Speaker 5: the end. A lot of times if it's facing out
1:07:57
Speaker 5: of the food plot, the other animals won't get all
1:08:01
Speaker 5: freaked out by it. If it's just staying there, you know,
1:08:04
Speaker 5: they don't pay attention. Now, if it's if you're facing
1:08:06
Speaker 5: away from you and it's looking in the middle of
1:08:08
Speaker 5: the food plot and stuff comes out, well, everything's just
1:08:11
Speaker 5: going to start looking right at it, and when it
1:08:13
Speaker 5: doesn't move, they're going to have a problem with it.
1:08:16
Speaker 5: So that's kind of why I like to keep it
1:08:20
Speaker 5: off to the side. And you know, it might not
1:08:24
Speaker 5: be as noticeable, but if you have a grunt tube,
1:08:26
Speaker 5: you can always seem to at least get something to
1:08:28
Speaker 5: look that way, and and and then once they're looking
1:08:31
Speaker 5: that way, they're gonna they're gonna take notice.
1:08:45
Speaker 2: All right.
1:08:45
Speaker 3: So those are kind of the wild cards for this
1:08:49
Speaker 3: time of year. Grunting, rattling, decoying, all of these things
1:08:56
Speaker 3: we've talked about, like I said, have been kind of
1:08:58
Speaker 3: focused on the first two weeks of November, the peak
1:09:00
Speaker 3: of running activity. Let's briefly talk about what happens next,
1:09:04
Speaker 3: which is the peak of breeding activity. That is, when
1:09:07
Speaker 3: the highest number of doughs are receptive to being bred.
1:09:11
Speaker 3: This is what many people call the lockdown face. So
1:09:15
Speaker 3: what happens here is when a dough is ready to breed,
1:09:18
Speaker 3: that buck locks on her. They typically stay together for
1:09:22
Speaker 3: twenty four to forty eight hours, give or take. Sometimes
1:09:25
Speaker 3: a little bit longer, and they will stay close together.
1:09:29
Speaker 3: They generally don't move a whole lot. What I have
1:09:31
Speaker 3: seen in my experience, and what I've heard from many
1:09:34
Speaker 3: other hunters on the show, is that when a buck
1:09:37
Speaker 3: gets paired up with a dough, he pushes her into
1:09:40
Speaker 3: some kind of like off the wall place and tries
1:09:42
Speaker 3: to keep her there for as much time as possible,
1:09:45
Speaker 3: basically to maximize his time with that dough to breed
1:09:49
Speaker 3: and to keep away any competition. So my angle has
1:09:53
Speaker 3: always been that if you see a buck locked down
1:09:55
Speaker 3: a dough like that, you know that this small area
1:09:58
Speaker 3: maybe a couple acres or ten acres or whatever the
1:10:00
Speaker 3: cover is around there, that's going to be a place
1:10:03
Speaker 3: to focus for the next day or two. Especially Now
1:10:06
Speaker 3: that said, if you're hunting and you can't find that,
1:10:09
Speaker 3: if you're not seeing a buck locked on doughs, you
1:10:11
Speaker 3: might see what Neil and Craig Doherty explained earlier, which
1:10:14
Speaker 3: is a decline in overall activity because you have, you know,
1:10:17
Speaker 3: so many of those pairs locked down somewhere. But a
1:10:21
Speaker 3: key thing to remember this time of year is that
1:10:23
Speaker 3: there's never going to be a period of time when
1:10:26
Speaker 3: everyone is locked down at the same time. Right There's
1:10:28
Speaker 3: always still going to be some buck that's coming off
1:10:30
Speaker 3: of a dough and searching for another dough, and then
1:10:33
Speaker 3: you know, as soon as that buck locks up on
1:10:34
Speaker 3: someone else, well then there's probably another buck that's coming
1:10:37
Speaker 3: off and searching again. So for that reason, generally, even
1:10:41
Speaker 3: during the breeding phase, even during the middle of November,
1:10:44
Speaker 3: you still want to take the same approach. You still
1:10:46
Speaker 3: want to do the same stuff you were doing earlier
1:10:48
Speaker 3: in the month. Just do it knowing that you're probably
1:10:51
Speaker 3: not going to see as much of that crazy chasing
1:10:54
Speaker 3: and seeking. You'll see some of it. It's still going
1:10:56
Speaker 3: to happen, but it's a smaller number of bucks doing
1:10:59
Speaker 3: it at any one given time. So this is when
1:11:02
Speaker 3: just having faith and believing in your approach and waiting
1:11:05
Speaker 3: out those long days is worth it. Or on the
1:11:08
Speaker 3: flip side, this is when the what Aaron described the
1:11:11
Speaker 3: TCHP approach maybe is the way to go, because this
1:11:14
Speaker 3: is when you just got to go out there and
1:11:15
Speaker 3: find it. You got to go find out where that
1:11:17
Speaker 3: hot dough is and those those four bucks are all
1:11:19
Speaker 3: circling around or where they're locked down. You might just
1:11:22
Speaker 3: need to get out there and search to find these
1:11:25
Speaker 3: hot spots because a very common thing I've experienced during
1:11:29
Speaker 3: the rut, and so many other people have as well.
1:11:32
Speaker 3: And Andrea to Cuisto was talking to us about this
1:11:34
Speaker 3: during a podcast. There's going to be places whereas you know,
1:11:39
Speaker 3: absolutely on fire, and then the next ridge over, or
1:11:42
Speaker 3: the next basin over, the next farm field over, the
1:11:44
Speaker 3: next swamp over, it will be a complete ghost town.
1:11:47
Speaker 3: It's like all here and not there at all. And
1:11:50
Speaker 3: so you need to either be determined to stay in
1:11:53
Speaker 3: the spot you believe in until it becomes the right spot,
1:11:56
Speaker 3: or go find where those hot spots are and constantly
1:11:59
Speaker 3: adjust based on what you're seeing. Here is another example,
1:12:04
Speaker 3: though on some thoughts of how to consider this. This
1:12:07
Speaker 3: is from an excerpt from a book by Tom Indribou,
1:12:09
Speaker 3: who is an outfitter in the Bluff Country of Wisconsin.
1:12:13
Speaker 3: He's one of the ogs of growing and hunting mature
1:12:16
Speaker 3: white tails, and in his book, which is called Growing
1:12:21
Speaker 3: and Hunting Quality Bucks, he writes about this. When an
1:12:25
Speaker 3: estrous dough is finally ready to breed, she stops fleeing.
1:12:28
Speaker 3: The bucks advances and stands still for him. That's why
1:12:31
Speaker 3: when widespread breeding starts occurring, it's almost as if a
1:12:34
Speaker 3: sense of calm has returned to the deer woods. In fact,
1:12:38
Speaker 3: if one dough is tying up her main suitor and
1:12:40
Speaker 3: two or three spectators, and you're sitting somewhere other than
1:12:43
Speaker 3: where she led her group, the woods do seem more calm.
1:12:46
Speaker 3: They appear dead, but don't despair. One good thing about
1:12:50
Speaker 3: the breeding period is that you can go from boredom
1:12:52
Speaker 3: to a full fledged adrenaline overload with one turn of
1:12:56
Speaker 3: your head. Once breeding has been underway for a few days,
1:13:00
Speaker 3: a different pattern emerges among the bucks as they finish
1:13:03
Speaker 3: up with one dough and start searching for their next opportunity.
1:13:06
Speaker 3: A mature buck starts looking for his new mate by
1:13:09
Speaker 3: checking food sources in the woods, agricultural fields, and anywhere
1:13:12
Speaker 3: else he can find family groups that might include an
1:13:15
Speaker 3: estrous dough. For whatever reason, these bucks are now more
1:13:18
Speaker 3: deliberate in their search, backing off a bit from their
1:13:21
Speaker 3: fast paced, relentless romps of ten days before. Maybe they're
1:13:25
Speaker 3: wearing down a bit physically or maybe they've just learned
1:13:28
Speaker 3: to work more efficiently. But more than ever, their focus
1:13:31
Speaker 3: is the dough herself, not signposts created mostly with other bucks.
1:13:36
Speaker 3: Bucks might still follow one of their favorite routes or
1:13:38
Speaker 3: swing through a heavily signposted hotspot, but those are often
1:13:42
Speaker 3: coincidental or short lived visits. Some bowhunters also think bucks
1:13:46
Speaker 3: return to their home bedding area to rest up for
1:13:48
Speaker 3: a day or so before taking off again. Either way,
1:13:52
Speaker 3: those sites aren't good bets for bow hunting during the
1:13:54
Speaker 3: breeding phase. After leaving the dough he has been with
1:13:57
Speaker 3: for a couple days, the buck is more interested in
1:14:00
Speaker 3: target rich hangouts. That's why he cruises the edges of
1:14:03
Speaker 3: good food sources often at about eight or nine am.
1:14:07
Speaker 3: The buck doesn't expect to find does and fawns feeding
1:14:09
Speaker 3: in the fields, but he knows the family groups were
1:14:12
Speaker 3: probably there the previous night and left only a short
1:14:15
Speaker 3: time before his arrival. The buck moves along that field boundary,
1:14:19
Speaker 3: sniffing the tracks of every dough that left the field
1:14:21
Speaker 3: earlier that morning. He doesn't need to sniff individual rumps
1:14:24
Speaker 3: to know which dough to follow. Her tracks leave all
1:14:27
Speaker 3: the clues he requires, Nor does a buck have to
1:14:30
Speaker 3: run up and down the length of each trail entering
1:14:33
Speaker 3: or leaving the field, before making a decision on a
1:14:35
Speaker 3: doe's status. An experienced buck crosses and sent checks every
1:14:40
Speaker 3: trail intersecting that field, requiring only one quick pass around
1:14:44
Speaker 3: his perimeter. If he finds a dough that interests him,
1:14:47
Speaker 3: he doesn't hesitate to jump into the woods and get
1:14:49
Speaker 3: after her. Any sense of physical fatigue or burnout evaporates
1:14:53
Speaker 3: once a buck's nose pinpoints a dough that's getting ready
1:14:56
Speaker 3: to breed. However, if the buck completes his perimeter inspection
1:15:00
Speaker 3: and finds nothing hot, he moves along to the next
1:15:03
Speaker 3: field and makes another circuit of the perimeter. He performs
1:15:06
Speaker 3: this task not only around fields, but across ridge lines,
1:15:10
Speaker 3: oak flats, and other sites where dough family groups congregame. However, briefly,
1:15:15
Speaker 3: if his search takes him through primary scrape areas, he
1:15:18
Speaker 3: merely checks them from downwind and blows on through. There's
1:15:22
Speaker 3: little wasted effort in the buck's tasks. He hits as
1:15:25
Speaker 3: many edge lines as possible, going from one hot spot
1:15:27
Speaker 3: to the next, his eyes forever on the prize. His
1:15:30
Speaker 3: steady gate covers ground quickly, and within an hour of sunrise,
1:15:34
Speaker 3: he can be three ridges over from where he was
1:15:36
Speaker 3: at dawn. As a buck moves between potential hotspots to
1:15:40
Speaker 3: inspect family groups, he uses his nose and eyes to
1:15:43
Speaker 3: locate his next mate.
1:15:45
Speaker 2: I will point out.
1:15:46
Speaker 3: Another thing that Tom references here in his book and
1:15:50
Speaker 3: that many others have picked up on since, has been
1:15:54
Speaker 3: the effectiveness of hunting water holes or ponds in the
1:15:59
Speaker 3: woods during the rut. What his take is that these bucks,
1:16:04
Speaker 3: you know, they'll ignore food for days and days on
1:16:06
Speaker 3: end during the rut, but they can't ignore water.
1:16:08
Speaker 2: They have to get that.
1:16:10
Speaker 3: And after they've been chasing and searching and cruising hour
1:16:12
Speaker 3: after hour after hour after hour, anytime that they can
1:16:15
Speaker 3: pass by and hit a little water source, they're going
1:16:18
Speaker 3: to do so. So I actually got to hunt Tom
1:16:20
Speaker 3: and Jerbo's farm for a project I worked on called
1:16:24
Speaker 3: Deer Country.
1:16:24
Speaker 2: I got to see this.
1:16:26
Speaker 3: And what he's done is back in doe betting areas,
1:16:29
Speaker 3: back on any of these like ridges or saddles where
1:16:32
Speaker 3: they connect into other dough betting areas. He has created
1:16:35
Speaker 3: these back in the timber ponds that are tucked by betting,
1:16:38
Speaker 3: so he can be hunting a dough hot spot and
1:16:41
Speaker 3: have a water source right back there in cover so
1:16:43
Speaker 3: you can catch that late morning or midday movement that
1:16:46
Speaker 3: we've talked about. And then he has this little focus point,
1:16:49
Speaker 3: this little watering area that brings that buck into shooting
1:16:52
Speaker 3: range and gets them to stop in place. So a
1:16:54
Speaker 3: really interesting idea there to add to your mix as
1:16:57
Speaker 3: you're considering where and how to set up over the
1:16:59
Speaker 3: coming weeks. So lockdown can be slower, but don't sleep
1:17:06
Speaker 3: on it. It can certainly still have those moments and
1:17:08
Speaker 3: those flurries of great activity. Another thing to be thinking
1:17:12
Speaker 3: about though, in mid November and as the month progresses,
1:17:15
Speaker 3: is the fact that across many states, gun seasons open,
1:17:19
Speaker 3: and when gun season opens, all of your typical rut
1:17:22
Speaker 3: behavior starts to go out the window. Things change, All
1:17:25
Speaker 3: of that hunting pressure comes in and just flips the
1:17:28
Speaker 3: flips the game table upside down. Someone again who we've
1:17:32
Speaker 3: heard from several times today and has a lot of
1:17:35
Speaker 3: thoughts on this, as John Eberhart. I want to read
1:17:38
Speaker 3: one last quick excerpt from him on how they think
1:17:41
Speaker 3: about gun season and its impact on the rut and
1:17:44
Speaker 3: hunting the month of November in Michigan. What we have
1:17:47
Speaker 3: is a November fifteenth opener, so it's smack dab right
1:17:51
Speaker 3: at peak breeding is when the gun season opens and
1:17:56
Speaker 3: everything changes. In pressured areas, gun season has a huge
1:18:00
Speaker 3: impact on deer movement and the herd itself. In states
1:18:04
Speaker 3: like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New York, to name a few,
1:18:06
Speaker 3: with well over half a million gun hunters, the gun
1:18:09
Speaker 3: opener changes the hunting dramatically In a single day. In
1:18:12
Speaker 3: some areas of pressured states, up to eighty percent of
1:18:15
Speaker 3: the annual buck harvest is taken. Most parts of these
1:18:18
Speaker 3: pressured states have more than twenty hunters per square mile.
1:18:22
Speaker 2: YadA YadA, YadA, YadA, yadda.
1:18:24
Speaker 3: The top it off gun season takes place during the
1:18:26
Speaker 3: middle of the rut. With most of the bucks gone,
1:18:29
Speaker 3: the few survivors have more does to breed, some of
1:18:32
Speaker 3: which will not be bred during their first extra cycle,
1:18:34
Speaker 3: contributing to a more intense second rut than in non
1:18:37
Speaker 3: pressured areas. Daytime running activity, though seemingly disappears, with almost
1:18:42
Speaker 3: all chasing taking place well after dark. If there's one
1:18:46
Speaker 3: single event that causes most deer to become nocturnal, its
1:18:49
Speaker 3: opening day of gun season.
1:18:50
Speaker 2: Bow hunting.
1:18:51
Speaker 3: After this point can be very frustrating with planning. There
1:18:54
Speaker 3: are ways you can react successfully if you're hunting during
1:18:58
Speaker 3: the gun season opener or I think afterwards as well.
1:19:01
Speaker 3: Look for escape routes. The tighter the better. In pressured
1:19:05
Speaker 3: areas on opening morning, normal deer movement can be forgotten.
1:19:09
Speaker 3: The deer are just looking to get out of harm's way.
1:19:12
Speaker 3: A thick funnel leading to the thickest bedding area available
1:19:14
Speaker 3: should be your stand side of choice. Remaining on stand
1:19:17
Speaker 3: the entire day is recommended. A high percentage of mature
1:19:21
Speaker 3: box are taken in midday during gun season. This is
1:19:25
Speaker 3: really a big part of what Andy was talking about
1:19:27
Speaker 3: too earlier when he was mentioning that you know, late
1:19:30
Speaker 3: morning midday hunting pressure impact on deer activity as all
1:19:34
Speaker 3: the hunters leave the woods, that shakes things up again. Well,
1:19:37
Speaker 3: that is doubly more true when it comes to gun season.
1:19:40
Speaker 3: So if you can avoid the typical coming in for
1:19:45
Speaker 3: lunch and missing that window, maybe stay a little bit
1:19:48
Speaker 3: later and just wait for everybody else to go in
1:19:50
Speaker 3: and at least see what happens and then go, Because
1:19:53
Speaker 3: if you're going to be hunting at this time of
1:19:54
Speaker 3: the year, there's going to be less of the typical
1:19:58
Speaker 3: rutting daylight activity when it's just flooded with other hunters
1:20:01
Speaker 3: and things have been reshuffled so much so getting that
1:20:04
Speaker 3: hunting pressure boost from the spooks and the pushes that
1:20:08
Speaker 3: can actually be something to keona. On the flip side,
1:20:10
Speaker 3: the other approach is to do the exact opposite, which
1:20:13
Speaker 3: is go to the place where it's just so hard
1:20:16
Speaker 3: for anybody else to go and for somebody else to impact.
1:20:19
Speaker 3: So this is where the thickest, nastiest, most out of
1:20:22
Speaker 3: the way hell hole is where some of these bucks
1:20:25
Speaker 3: will be turning up and where they'll be hanging out
1:20:28
Speaker 3: during the daylight. And still like the rut is still happening, right,
1:20:32
Speaker 3: so opening to have gun season happened on November fifteenth,
1:20:36
Speaker 3: there's certainly still going to be chasing and seeking and
1:20:38
Speaker 3: breeding and all of that stuff still happening. It's just
1:20:41
Speaker 3: going to be happening after dark and or in these
1:20:44
Speaker 3: places that the deer still feels safe where they can
1:20:47
Speaker 3: still get away from people. So if you can find
1:20:49
Speaker 3: that away spot, if you can keep your property a
1:20:53
Speaker 3: sanctuary and not have a bunch of pressure all around it,
1:20:55
Speaker 3: they'll still feel safe there and you'll still get to
1:20:57
Speaker 3: see that great running activity. Key thing, though, is like
1:21:00
Speaker 3: that pressure just makes this massive, this massive shift to
1:21:05
Speaker 3: deer behavior, and so you need to be able to
1:21:07
Speaker 3: count for that. And so now much more of the
1:21:09
Speaker 3: hunting strategy has to be about how do I adjust
1:21:13
Speaker 3: to pressure just as the deer have, and less so
1:21:16
Speaker 3: about you know, what's this bucking to do when he
1:21:19
Speaker 3: moves from point A to point B. Because this is
1:21:21
Speaker 3: the best dough betting area and that's the next best
1:21:23
Speaker 3: dough betting era. Youve got to consider this new implication
1:21:27
Speaker 3: as we continue that really maintains truth all through the
1:21:31
Speaker 3: month of November. One other consideration to think about, as
1:21:35
Speaker 3: I mentioned earlier, the breeding dates.
1:21:38
Speaker 2: It looks like a bell curve.
1:21:39
Speaker 3: So again, like low on the graph, you've got October,
1:21:43
Speaker 3: more and more does come into heat as you go
1:21:45
Speaker 3: into mid November. You know, November fifteenth, give or take,
1:21:49
Speaker 3: is where the most does are ready to breed. And
1:21:51
Speaker 3: then that continues down. So there's still breeding dos in
1:21:54
Speaker 3: the third week of November, and they're still breeding doughs
1:21:57
Speaker 3: in the last week of November, but there's fewer and
1:22:00
Speaker 3: were and fewer that said bucks still want to breed
1:22:05
Speaker 3: and what some people have seen and something that I
1:22:08
Speaker 3: picked up on from Don Higgins. What some folks have
1:22:10
Speaker 3: shown is that those oldest, biggest bucks tend to be
1:22:14
Speaker 3: the ones that still have the stick toativeness and the
1:22:17
Speaker 3: persistence to keep on searching for those last couple doughs.
1:22:21
Speaker 3: I want to read to you an excerpt from Don's
1:22:23
Speaker 3: book Real World Whitetails as he explains this very thing.
1:22:27
Speaker 3: As November winds down, the whitetail rut does as well.
1:22:31
Speaker 3: By the last week of November, there will not be
1:22:33
Speaker 3: nearly as many receptive doughs for the mature bucks to
1:22:36
Speaker 3: hook up with. Around Thanksgiving, mature bucks will be on
1:22:38
Speaker 3: the move looking for hot doughs, which they are now
1:22:41
Speaker 3: finding harder to come by. I firmly believe that the
1:22:44
Speaker 3: very best time to catch the biggest bucks on the
1:22:46
Speaker 3: move is the one week period beginning around Thanksgiving Day.
1:22:50
Speaker 3: Earlier in the month, a hunter is likely to see
1:22:52
Speaker 3: more bucks, but for the true monsters, I'll put my
1:22:55
Speaker 3: money on Thanksgiving weekend. Every year, this period doesn't last long,
1:23:00
Speaker 3: and when it's over, the toughest period to kill mature
1:23:02
Speaker 3: buck follows hunting these late November monsters means going right
1:23:06
Speaker 3: back to the same stands that you had success from
1:23:09
Speaker 3: in early November. Bucks will be back searching for does,
1:23:12
Speaker 3: and the stand located in near betting areas in the
1:23:14
Speaker 3: morning or feeding areas in the evening are good bat
1:23:17
Speaker 3: This is not a time to get discouraged, but a
1:23:20
Speaker 3: time to be determined. Stay in your stands as long
1:23:23
Speaker 3: as possible each day, but sure bucks on the prowl
1:23:26
Speaker 3: are likely to show up at any time. If you
1:23:28
Speaker 3: were lucky enough to figure out where a good buck
1:23:30
Speaker 3: was staying right before the rut really heated up, there's
1:23:33
Speaker 3: a good chance that he'll be back in the same location.
1:23:35
Speaker 3: Remember what you saw earlier, and be there to cash
1:23:38
Speaker 3: in when it happens. Now key point here Don is
1:23:42
Speaker 3: speaking about, you know, hunting in places that are not
1:23:46
Speaker 3: as pressured and and don't have the great big gun
1:23:48
Speaker 3: season like we do in Michigan. You know, he's hunting
1:23:50
Speaker 3: in Illinois, and I do think there is a short
1:23:53
Speaker 3: weekend gun hunt in late November in Illinois, but it's
1:23:56
Speaker 3: not like the two weeks of non stop gun hunting
1:23:58
Speaker 3: that we have here in Michigan or Pennsylvania or other places.
1:24:02
Speaker 3: So just think about that, but if you have a
1:24:04
Speaker 3: place where the pressure is relatively low still in late November, this,
1:24:10
Speaker 3: you know, last couple days of November can be a
1:24:12
Speaker 3: sweet spot worth King and on. I mentioned this a
1:24:15
Speaker 3: couple of weeks ago when we had Don on the podcast,
1:24:18
Speaker 3: but I read this from him, and then I went
1:24:20
Speaker 3: out and started hunting that time period more often and
1:24:23
Speaker 3: actually saw, you know, one time in Ohio the big
1:24:26
Speaker 3: five year old buckouse chasing cruising in the very middle
1:24:29
Speaker 3: of the day on November twenty fifth or twenty sixth,
1:24:32
Speaker 3: something like that, just after I read this. So that
1:24:34
Speaker 3: was a great reminder that there's truth to this, and
1:24:38
Speaker 3: I've gone on to have some some pretty strong success
1:24:40
Speaker 3: in that late November or first couple days of December
1:24:43
Speaker 3: time period. As those bucks are still trying to find
1:24:46
Speaker 3: that last dough. You can keep him feeling safe, you
1:24:49
Speaker 3: can take advantage of that. So that's November. If you're
1:24:54
Speaker 3: thinking about the month, it is in some ways wildly
1:24:58
Speaker 3: different week after week after week, but in some ways
1:25:01
Speaker 3: exactly the same.
1:25:02
Speaker 2: The name of the game.
1:25:03
Speaker 3: Is focus on the dose, focus on the places and
1:25:07
Speaker 3: ways the bucks get between dos, and then just spend
1:25:11
Speaker 3: a lot of time. That's all easier said than done, though,
1:25:15
Speaker 3: and I think maybe that's the most important thing to
1:25:19
Speaker 3: remember is that all of this is simple in theory
1:25:25
Speaker 3: but difficult in execution, because being out there day after day,
1:25:30
Speaker 3: hour after hour, is physically exhausting, It is mentally draining.
1:25:37
Speaker 3: You know, there can be incredible moments of excitement out there,
1:25:41
Speaker 3: but if we're being honest with ourselves, it's typically, you know,
1:25:45
Speaker 3: hours and hours and hours of monotony punctuated by just
1:25:48
Speaker 3: a couple brief highs of excitement. And so maybe more
1:25:53
Speaker 3: than anything, more important than having good funnels to hunt,
1:25:57
Speaker 3: more important than knowing how to set up on a
1:25:59
Speaker 3: dome area, more important than having a lot of vacation time,
1:26:03
Speaker 3: more important than having a good decoy or strong calling
1:26:07
Speaker 3: strategy or anything like that. The most important thing for
1:26:10
Speaker 3: hunting the month of November might simply be your mind,
1:26:15
Speaker 3: your mindset, your sense of belief and optimism, confidence, grit,
1:26:24
Speaker 3: just being able to stick it out there, stay positive,
1:26:28
Speaker 3: stay focused. That is so critical to filling a tag
1:26:34
Speaker 3: at this time of the year. On the flip side, though,
1:26:39
Speaker 3: that stuff can sometimes push you to go too far,
1:26:41
Speaker 3: and this is something that you know, everyone has different
1:26:43
Speaker 3: goals I'll just share with you that for me, for
1:26:46
Speaker 3: a long period of time, I used to approach the
1:26:49
Speaker 3: month of November like a military campaign, as if the
1:26:52
Speaker 3: only thing that mattered that life or death would be
1:26:55
Speaker 3: determined by whether or not I kill the mature buck.
1:26:57
Speaker 3: And so because of that, I would start November first,
1:27:01
Speaker 3: and every single possible day that I had available, I
1:27:04
Speaker 3: would be up at three in the morning. I'd be
1:27:05
Speaker 3: out to my tree stand an hour and a half
1:27:07
Speaker 3: before daylight and set up and quiet. I would sit
1:27:09
Speaker 3: there for fourteen straight hours. I'd come in after dark.
1:27:13
Speaker 3: Sometimes you have to wait, you know, thirty minutes after
1:27:15
Speaker 3: dark because there's deer in the area or whatever. I
1:27:17
Speaker 3: hike out it, get to the house or the camp.
1:27:19
Speaker 2: Or wherever I was. I'd get a little.
1:27:21
Speaker 3: Work done and go to sleep and wake up four
1:27:23
Speaker 3: hours later and do the whole thing over again. And
1:27:26
Speaker 3: there were some years I did that fourteen straight days
1:27:28
Speaker 3: or twenty straight days. You know, I'm very unique and
1:27:31
Speaker 3: lucky that I had that time. But I know lots
1:27:34
Speaker 3: of people that'll take a week of vacation and do
1:27:36
Speaker 3: two weekends. So there's you know, you know, ten to
1:27:39
Speaker 3: eleven days straight of that kind of thing and that
1:27:44
Speaker 3: can burn you out in a way that can suck
1:27:48
Speaker 3: the fun out of hunting. Sometimes in a way that
1:27:51
Speaker 3: at least for me, I think I found maybe isn't
1:27:54
Speaker 3: worth it, because yeah, I want to fill a tag,
1:27:57
Speaker 3: I want to kill a deer in November, but I
1:27:59
Speaker 3: also want to really enjoy the experience along the way.
1:28:02
Speaker 3: And so what I try to do now is try
1:28:05
Speaker 3: to balance that, try to balance the need to put
1:28:08
Speaker 3: in the time and the hard work and the grit
1:28:10
Speaker 3: balance with also the fact that this hunting thing, and
1:28:13
Speaker 3: that especially the month of November, just as much as
1:28:15
Speaker 3: it's about, you know, chasing deer, it's also about the
1:28:18
Speaker 3: people that you're chasing deer with, and the deer camps
1:28:20
Speaker 3: that you share, and the meals that you get afterwards,
1:28:24
Speaker 3: or the cutting out early on a hunt to go
1:28:26
Speaker 3: help your buddy track a deer and then celebrate with him,
1:28:29
Speaker 3: or taking your kids out and hunting you know, with
1:28:31
Speaker 3: you too. All that stuff matters just as much, if
1:28:35
Speaker 3: not more so than actually you know.
1:28:37
Speaker 2: How to execute a terrific deer hunt.
1:28:40
Speaker 3: So, for whatever it's worth, just my two cents, make
1:28:44
Speaker 3: sure that you're considering that kind of older side to
1:28:48
Speaker 3: November because this whole thing we obsess over, we get
1:28:51
Speaker 3: excited about it, we celebrate it. November is here, like.
1:28:54
Speaker 2: This is it. We should enjoy it.
1:28:57
Speaker 3: We should we should like suck marrow out of the
1:29:00
Speaker 3: bone of November. And that doesn't just mean killing a
1:29:04
Speaker 3: bunch of deer. That also means good stories, good laughs,
1:29:09
Speaker 3: good times, and having fun. So I think that's where
1:29:13
Speaker 3: I want to leave it for you here with this
1:29:16
Speaker 3: decoding November, this review of how the experts and how
1:29:20
Speaker 3: folks of all types hunt the white tail rut, how
1:29:22
Speaker 3: folks hunt November.
1:29:24
Speaker 2: I hope this has been useful.
1:29:25
Speaker 3: I hope this has you a little bit more geared
1:29:27
Speaker 3: up and ready for the coming weeks. And I'm wishing
1:29:31
Speaker 3: you all the best of luck, have an amazing November,
1:29:34
Speaker 3: have a safe November. Thanks for tuning in, and until
1:29:38
Speaker 3: next time, stay wired to Hunt.