Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 1084: Foundations - Risks, Rewards, and Pre-Rut Hunting Realities
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired2Hunt Foundations Podcast, your guide to the
- 0:05Speaker 1: fundamentals of better deer hunting. Presented by First Light, creating proven,
- 0:10Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle, or blind. First Light,
- 0:15Speaker 1: go farther, stay longer. And now, your host, Tony Peterson.
- 0:19Speaker 2: Hey everyone, welcome to the Wired2Hunt Foundations Podcast, which is
- 0:23Speaker 2: brought to you by First Light. I'm your host, Tony Peterson,
- 0:25Speaker 2: and today's episode is all about pre-rut and how it
- 0:27Speaker 2: can be a great time to kill a big buck
- 0:30Speaker 2: if you know what you're doing. It's kind of interesting now, like,
- 0:36Speaker 2: how often you hear that the last week of October
- 0:38Speaker 2: is the best time to hunt. It wasn't that long
- 0:40Speaker 2: ago that it was the first week of November or
- 0:42Speaker 2: the second week of November. But there's a reason a
- 0:44Speaker 2: lot of the biggest voices in deer hunting are all
- 0:47Speaker 2: kind of shouting the same refrain right now. This can
- 0:49Speaker 2: be a really good part of the season, but you
- 0:51Speaker 2: have to know how to use it correctly. Because it's
- 0:53Speaker 2: not the rut, it's the pre-rut, and that means something.
- 0:56Speaker 2: Something I'm going to talk about right now. My personal
- 1:03Speaker 2: theory on rut hunting and why so many deer hunters
- 1:06Speaker 2: still don't kill big bucks is this. I think most
- 1:09Speaker 2: of us think that the rut is this magical eraser
- 1:12Speaker 2: that undoes the mistakes we've made throughout the season and
- 1:14Speaker 2: gives us a fresh chance at the same sites we've
- 1:17Speaker 2: been hunting since September or early October. Now, I know
- 1:20Speaker 2: that doesn't cover everyone, trust me. And there's a hell
- 1:22Speaker 2: of a lot of nuance left out of the discussion
- 1:25Speaker 2: with that particular take. But I feel like a lot
- 1:27Speaker 2: of us kind of view the pre-rut, the chase phase,
- 1:30Speaker 2: and the lockdown phase sort of just as the general rut,
- 1:33Speaker 2: and we hunt it in such a way. But if
- 1:36Speaker 2: it was just the general rut, we wouldn't need a
- 1:38Speaker 2: different name for it. Think about it this way. You
- 1:41Speaker 2: don't have to talk to too many crossbow hunters before
- 1:43Speaker 2: one of them will tell you that crossbows are really
- 1:45Speaker 2: no different from vertical bows. And often just to prove
- 1:48Speaker 2: how cool they are, they'll say that vertical bows are
- 1:50Speaker 2: actually a more effective long-range weapon. Sure, but if crossbows
- 1:54Speaker 2: were basically the same, then why would we need them
- 1:57Speaker 2: at all in the first place? I mean, if they're
- 1:59Speaker 2: basically a vertical bow, we sure had a lot of
- 2:01Speaker 2: options in that category before, and now we sure have
- 2:04Speaker 2: a lot of people who have left that category to
- 2:06Speaker 2: hunt with crossbows. There must be a reason. And listen,
- 2:10Speaker 2: I'm not throwing shade at crossbow hunters here. My daughters
- 2:12Speaker 2: hunt with them and I love them. I don't care
- 2:14Speaker 2: what weapon you use. I just care about words, I guess,
- 2:17Speaker 2: and how they are used. If there is a distinction
- 2:20Speaker 2: between two things, let's be honest about that. You know,
- 2:23Speaker 2: that's all I'm saying. And in the realm of deer
- 2:25Speaker 2: hunting right now, there is certainly a difference between now and,
- 2:30Speaker 2: I don't know, two weeks from now. Of course, this
- 2:32Speaker 2: applies to mostly folks who don't know what grits are
- 2:35Speaker 2: or ever have them for breakfast. If you live down south,
- 2:38Speaker 2: you're probably still, I don't know, catching crappies and catfish
- 2:41Speaker 2: and not really thinking too hard about deer yet. But
- 2:44Speaker 2: your time will come too, and the deer will rut,
- 2:46Speaker 2: and before that, they'll do some things that make them
- 2:49Speaker 2: more vulnerable. But here's the deal. You can't hunt the
- 2:53Speaker 2: pre-rut the way you'd hunt the rut. Well, you can,
- 2:56Speaker 2: and most folks do, but it's not the right approach.
- 2:58Speaker 2: Most folks use the pre-rut as an excuse to sit
- 3:00Speaker 2: where they want to, often on a field edge or
- 3:02Speaker 2: a food plot if it's available, and then they juice
- 3:05Speaker 2: up those sits with calls and scents and whatever. And
- 3:07Speaker 2: why not? The great eraser has swept across the land,
- 3:10Speaker 2: and those testosterone-filled giants are all about covering ground and
- 3:14Speaker 2: looking for ladies. Except they aren't. They are still sort
- 3:17Speaker 2: of in a condensed movement situation that will loosen up
- 3:20Speaker 2: with the right weather. but they're not cruising all day
- 3:23Speaker 2: long yet. They are antsy, though, and they will move
- 3:26Speaker 2: more in daylight. Both of those things can be used
- 3:29Speaker 2: to your advantage, but might not play into a strategy
- 3:32Speaker 2: where you sit the same spot you hunted a whole
- 3:34Speaker 2: bunch in the early part of the season. Now, I
- 3:37Speaker 2: get the gravity of going to where we all like
- 3:39Speaker 2: to hunt, you know, and just hoping the seasonal timing
- 3:41Speaker 2: will put a buck in our laps. I really do.
- 3:44Speaker 2: But I know that if you hunt pressured deer, the
- 3:46Speaker 2: odds of that aren't as great as if, you know,
- 3:48Speaker 2: you own 1,200 acres in Iowa. This gravity gets harder
- 3:52Speaker 2: to ignore as you start hearing the first stories of
- 3:55Speaker 2: people seeing bucks chasing, or your trail cameras start showing
- 3:58Speaker 2: some bucks moving in daylight. You know, you might even
- 4:01Speaker 2: see a scrapper or two chasing hard in real life yourself.
- 4:05Speaker 2: All that is great evidence to just lean into the
- 4:07Speaker 2: rut and hunt like it's on, but it's not, and
- 4:10Speaker 2: the big deer just generally aren't going bonkers and risking
- 4:12Speaker 2: their lives right now. So to confound things further, we
- 4:17Speaker 2: kind of know that, and we think, Well, I have
- 4:19Speaker 2: airtight access to my food plots, you know, or the
- 4:22Speaker 2: stand in the corner of the pick bean field, and
- 4:24Speaker 2: I really don't want to go in and mess up
- 4:26Speaker 2: my best pinch points and funnel spots. The risk is
- 4:29Speaker 2: too high, you might reason, so you play it safe
- 4:32Speaker 2: and hunt the easy stuff. But I look at it differently.
- 4:35Speaker 2: This isn't a great time to sit pinch points and
- 4:37Speaker 2: funnels yet, but it is a really great time to
- 4:40Speaker 2: catch a buck moving in the cover later in the
- 4:42Speaker 2: morning or earlier in the evening. When I'm looking for
- 4:45Speaker 2: a good pre-rut spot, I almost always have to ignore
- 4:48Speaker 2: the voice in my head that says just sit the
- 4:51Speaker 2: edges of openings. Go where they should be visible. Because
- 4:55Speaker 2: I've done that a lot. And while I've killed bucks
- 4:57Speaker 2: that way and have seen some really good ones, you know,
- 4:59Speaker 2: come out at last light, it's too much of a
- 5:01Speaker 2: gamble for me when I know I can probably do better.
- 5:05Speaker 2: My favorite sits often happen maybe 100 or 200 yards
- 5:08Speaker 2: off those openings. They involve just getting a layer back
- 5:12Speaker 2: off the easy stuff. And they almost always happen in
- 5:15Speaker 2: areas with lots of rubs. You know, staging areas is
- 5:18Speaker 2: kind of what I'm talking about, but not totally. The
- 5:21Speaker 2: bucks I see that are on their feet and killable
- 5:23Speaker 2: this time of year almost always seem to be looking
- 5:25Speaker 2: for something to do. They know where they're going to
- 5:28Speaker 2: end up. They seem to not want to stay bedded
- 5:31Speaker 2: all of the daylight hours, but they also just have
- 5:33Speaker 2: sort of a cautious vibe going on. These bucks are
- 5:36Speaker 2: so killable if you can get into the cover with them,
- 5:39Speaker 2: and they are highly callable too. But the location is
- 5:42Speaker 2: what matters most, like it always does when it comes
- 5:44Speaker 2: to trying to shoot deer. Everything else will come later,
- 5:47Speaker 2: but for now, it's a matter of getting into the
- 5:49Speaker 2: thick stuff with them, which is something I talk about
- 5:52Speaker 2: all the time, but I want to take it a
- 5:53Speaker 2: step further here. Last week, which was a little too
- 5:56Speaker 2: early for the pre-rut stuff, and besides, you know, the
- 5:59Speaker 2: fact that it was 81 degrees, my daughter and I
- 6:01Speaker 2: slipped into a big patch of timber in southeastern Minnesota.
- 6:04Speaker 2: We weren't having any luck with anything else, so we
- 6:07Speaker 2: went to a spot I figured might give us a
- 6:08Speaker 2: chance at a staging buck. We saw many... many rubs
- 6:13Speaker 2: on our way in, and we set up on a
- 6:14Speaker 2: really good ravine crossing that just further proved to me
- 6:18Speaker 2: the value of looking at the land through a LiDAR
- 6:20Speaker 2: layer on your scouting app. Now while we were sitting there,
- 6:23Speaker 2: I turkey called some because it's fall turkey season and
- 6:26Speaker 2: she was pretty geeked to hunt whatever would come our way.
- 6:28Speaker 2: The turkeys played along really well, just not quite well
- 6:32Speaker 2: enough for her to get a shot, and as we
- 6:34Speaker 2: watched them pick their way back to the roost, I
- 6:36Speaker 2: couldn't help but marvel at the difference between the woods
- 6:38Speaker 2: we were sitting in and the woods they were walking through. Now,
- 6:42Speaker 2: mind you, it's the same spot on paper, but when
- 6:45Speaker 2: you're in it, it's not. There's open woods, you know,
- 6:49Speaker 2: easy to glass through old growth type of woods. And
- 6:51Speaker 2: then there's gnarly thicket type stuff. We were right on
- 6:54Speaker 2: this soft transition between the two, and almost everywhere I glassed,
- 6:58Speaker 2: I could pick out a rub. The deer showed up
- 7:01Speaker 2: too late as we were packing up, but that spot
- 7:03Speaker 2: is the kind of spot that pre-rut hunting is all about.
- 7:06Speaker 2: There's a subtle edge between two types of cover. It's
- 7:09Speaker 2: 200 yards off of a picked bean field in two
- 7:11Speaker 2: different directions, and with the right wind, they are very
- 7:15Speaker 2: safe to travel through there. It's ideal. And while I
- 7:18Speaker 2: haven't figured it out yet, the girls might get a
- 7:20Speaker 2: day off of school to go back down there and
- 7:22Speaker 2: sit that area again before it gets too late in October.
- 7:35Speaker 2: I have seen this kind of setup play out in
- 7:37Speaker 2: my travels a lot. Out in North Dakota, I've spent
- 7:40Speaker 2: a lot of time hunting the back half of October,
- 7:43Speaker 2: in places where five acres of timber would be considered
- 7:45Speaker 2: a pretty big woodlot. The same rules apply, and it's
- 7:49Speaker 2: really about realizing that most of the buck movement now
- 7:52Speaker 2: is condensed but loosening up by the day. The extra
- 7:56Speaker 2: half hour they might spend moving in the evening could
- 7:58Speaker 2: put them in front of your stand, but probably won't
- 8:01Speaker 2: if your stand is, well, too far away from the
- 8:03Speaker 2: security cover. I don't know how to put it any
- 8:06Speaker 2: other way. I know you can look at Instagram reels
- 8:09Speaker 2: all day long of 170-inchers walking across pick fields and
- 8:12Speaker 2: food plots right now, but you won't find many of
- 8:14Speaker 2: them that were filmed on public land if you get
- 8:16Speaker 2: my drift. The weather might feel like the rut. The
- 8:19Speaker 2: woods might look like it's the rut. Our hearts might
- 8:23Speaker 2: want it to be the rut, but it's not quite
- 8:25Speaker 2: here yet, and you should hunt accordingly. Now, I've cautioned
- 8:29Speaker 2: you enough, and in the vein of how I've started
- 8:31Speaker 2: to try to look at deer hunting differently, I want
- 8:34Speaker 2: to acknowledge the challenges of pre-rut hunting, but also the advantages.
- 8:38Speaker 2: So yes, they'll move more right now. This only gets
- 8:42Speaker 2: better if you can catch a nice cold front or
- 8:44Speaker 2: a nice rain shower. When the weather breaks in late October,
- 8:48Speaker 2: you just better get your ass out there somewhere. But
- 8:51Speaker 2: there is another advantage that I found, which is important
- 8:53Speaker 2: and doesn't require a 20 degree temperature drop. The bucks
- 8:57Speaker 2: are actually kind of predictable right now. The reason so
- 9:00Speaker 2: many deer hunting personalities have talked about the last week
- 9:03Speaker 2: of October as being the best week is because the
- 9:06Speaker 2: rut is not that predictable, and neither are the individual
- 9:09Speaker 2: bucks during the rut. Right now, though, if you see
- 9:12Speaker 2: them do something today, you can make the right play
- 9:16Speaker 2: tomorrow and have a pretty decent chance. This is probably
- 9:19Speaker 2: the biggest advantage of the pre-rut. When I'm looking for
- 9:22Speaker 2: where the bucks are moving, and I don't have a
- 9:24Speaker 2: good plan to dive in deep and set up on
- 9:26Speaker 2: the X, I just kind of like to play it
- 9:28Speaker 2: safe and set up where I can see where I
- 9:29Speaker 2: think the X might be. If I'm right, I probably
- 9:33Speaker 2: won't kill one that night. but I give myself a
- 9:35Speaker 2: real chance the next night if I can hunt, which
- 9:38Speaker 2: if I have any control over at all, I'm definitely
- 9:41Speaker 2: going to try to hunt that night. This magical window
- 9:44Speaker 2: where they'll show themselves in the cover but aren't going
- 9:46Speaker 2: three counties over to chase does is a good one,
- 9:49Speaker 2: but it involves calculated risk. I guess all hunting really does.
- 9:54Speaker 2: I think it's risky to sit the same field edge
- 9:55Speaker 2: stand over and over, even though it would be easy
- 9:58Speaker 2: to argue that not going into the cover until the
- 10:00Speaker 2: rut is smart i don't think so though because i
- 10:03Speaker 2: think you should just hunt deer where you can when
- 10:06Speaker 2: you can and every part of the season is solvable
- 10:09Speaker 2: if you try enough stuff if you can lay eyes
- 10:12Speaker 2: on one now though you're on to something i'm not
- 10:15Speaker 2: talking just giants either One of the best spots I've
- 10:17Speaker 2: ever found for late October hunting is an oak flat
- 10:20Speaker 2: on a farm I have permission to hunt in southern Minnesota.
- 10:23Speaker 2: If I hunt that spot for a week, with the
- 10:25Speaker 2: right wind, I'll see at least one big deer if
- 10:28Speaker 2: I'm in late October, oftentimes more than one. But most
- 10:31Speaker 2: of the time it's spikes and forkeys and two-year-olds, and
- 10:34Speaker 2: not an overabundance of them. When I'm in there, though,
- 10:38Speaker 2: I see those scrappers doing the same thing that I
- 10:40Speaker 2: see the big ones do. which is laying down sign
- 10:43Speaker 2: and visiting scrapes and browsing here and there and just
- 10:46Speaker 2: kind of not moving with a lot of purpose. When
- 10:49Speaker 2: I'm anywhere hunting right now and I see a buck
- 10:51Speaker 2: in the cover with those vibes, I take it seriously
- 10:55Speaker 2: because there is a reason he's there acting that way.
- 10:58Speaker 2: And in my experience, it's very likely that a different
- 11:00Speaker 2: buck or multiple bucks might do the same thing on
- 11:02Speaker 2: consecutive nights or mornings. It doesn't really matter. What matters
- 11:06Speaker 2: is the location, what the bucks show me with their behavior,
- 11:10Speaker 2: and whether I can get in and hunt them effectively. Now,
- 11:13Speaker 2: there's another advantage to pre-rut hunting that I want to
- 11:15Speaker 2: talk about, calling. You guys know I don't blind call
- 11:19Speaker 2: hardly ever because I have no faith in it, and
- 11:21Speaker 2: I'm going to get into this pretty heavy in a
- 11:23Speaker 2: podcast here in the near future, but I will call
- 11:27Speaker 2: my heart out if I'm on a soft edge in
- 11:29Speaker 2: the timber and I can catch a glimpse of a
- 11:30Speaker 2: rack moving through the brush. Pre-rut bucks that are in
- 11:33Speaker 2: areas where they feel safe are confident, and confident bucks
- 11:36Speaker 2: are callable bucks. They also expect other bucks to be there,
- 11:40Speaker 2: Because when the crops are out and the leaves are falling,
- 11:41Speaker 2: they just don't have as much cover to work with.
- 11:44Speaker 2: So they have less elbow room. A buck that wants
- 11:46Speaker 2: to be on his feet in a place he knows
- 11:48Speaker 2: he's relatively safe and who expects to be in close
- 11:51Speaker 2: proximity to other bucks that are doing the same thing
- 11:54Speaker 2: is a buck that is very callable. The catch here
- 11:57Speaker 2: is that you generally have to understand the terrain and
- 11:59Speaker 2: whether he can assess the situation from a distance or
- 12:01Speaker 2: whether he'll need to swing in close. If you're in
- 12:04Speaker 2: the thick stuff, deer are callable because they can't easily
- 12:07Speaker 2: tell whether there's actually another deer there or not. Now,
- 12:10Speaker 2: if you're out in the wide open or, you know,
- 12:12Speaker 2: in an open wooded pasture, it's a different story. If
- 12:15Speaker 2: you have some elevation to work with that could hide
- 12:17Speaker 2: a deer or maybe funnel a deer into your lap
- 12:20Speaker 2: if he decides he likes your calling, then you have
- 12:22Speaker 2: something going on. This is a totally different game from
- 12:26Speaker 2: sitting in a box blind on a picked cornfield and
- 12:27Speaker 2: grunting at a buck a half a mile away. This
- 12:30Speaker 2: is getting into where they want to be and then
- 12:32Speaker 2: calling to them in a spot they expect bucks to
- 12:34Speaker 2: be and where they would, you know, not necessarily be
- 12:37Speaker 2: super visible Pre-rut bucks are also fairly likely to respond
- 12:41Speaker 2: to a snort wheeze in my experience. In fact, most
- 12:44Speaker 2: of the time I'll do that over a grunt, you know,
- 12:46Speaker 2: in this situation that I'm describing. I think they are
- 12:49Speaker 2: tolerant of one another this time of year, but it's
- 12:51Speaker 2: a tenuous kind of piece that can be broken easily.
- 12:54Speaker 2: I actually love that about this time of year. Now
- 12:57Speaker 2: I want to throw out one more thing that I
- 12:58Speaker 2: do a lot during the pre-rut that I don't really
- 13:01Speaker 2: know if anyone believes me or not, but I always
- 13:03Speaker 2: have a turkey call with me. If I'm walking through
- 13:06Speaker 2: the woods right now, I'm always making noise. If I
- 13:10Speaker 2: yelp my way in and stop to scratch in the leaves,
- 13:13Speaker 2: I feel like I jump fewer deer. I think a
- 13:16Speaker 2: lot of hunters don't really want to walk through 300
- 13:18Speaker 2: yards of crunchy oak leaves to get to a brushy
- 13:21Speaker 2: creek bottom to set up because they feel like they're
- 13:23Speaker 2: going to blow everything out. Well, go listen to a
- 13:26Speaker 2: flock of turkeys this time of year. They make a
- 13:28Speaker 2: ton of noise, and so I just try to sound
- 13:30Speaker 2: like them. I keep that mouth call in while I'm
- 13:33Speaker 2: walking in and while I'm setting up, so if I
- 13:35Speaker 2: make some metallic clunk or something with my stand or
- 13:38Speaker 2: my saddle platform, I can instantly yelp loudly. Look, this
- 13:42Speaker 2: might be over-the-top stuff. I just know that I have
- 13:45Speaker 2: more confidence when I do that, and it helps me
- 13:47Speaker 2: go where I need to go without worrying that I'm
- 13:50Speaker 2: making a huge mistake. Also, as a side note, I
- 13:53Speaker 2: end up calling in a lot of turkeys when I
- 13:54Speaker 2: do this, and I mean a lot. I've never had
- 13:58Speaker 2: a situation where having a flock of birds feeding around
- 14:00Speaker 2: me was bad for deer hunting. They are such a
- 14:03Speaker 2: signal to the other woodland creatures that all is good,
- 14:06Speaker 2: and I believe the deer fully know that. So go
- 14:08Speaker 2: out and sit that field edge stand if you need to,
- 14:10Speaker 2: but if it doesn't pan out, consider diving into the
- 14:13Speaker 2: timber to look around. And if all you have is
- 14:15Speaker 2: timber to hunt, which is a big woods reality, then
- 14:18Speaker 2: it's best to get to where those soft edges are,
- 14:20Speaker 2: especially the soft edges that are all rubbed up. The
- 14:23Speaker 2: same rules apply there, even though the deer density is
- 14:26Speaker 2: probably low enough where you won't find as much sign
- 14:28Speaker 2: or see as many bucks. You just kind of have
- 14:30Speaker 2: to calibrate to that reality around you. But either way,
- 14:32Speaker 2: the pre-rut is a lot of fun and it's obviously
- 14:35Speaker 2: worth hunting. Just remember where they are most likely to be,
- 14:38Speaker 2: what calls they are most likely to respond to, and
- 14:41Speaker 2: how long you have to hunt this phase before all
- 14:43Speaker 2: hell breaks loose. That's it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson.
- 14:47Speaker 2: This has been the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast. Thank
- 14:49Speaker 2: you so much for all of your support. If you
- 14:51Speaker 2: want to see some big old bucks get shot, head
- 14:53Speaker 2: on over to TheMeatEater.com and check out the film that
- 14:55Speaker 2: Steve and I made in Nebraska last year where we
- 14:58Speaker 2: had some really good rut hunting. Of course, while you're
- 15:01Speaker 2: at TheMeatEater.com, you can find tons of articles. tons of podcasts,
- 15:07Speaker 2: other films, whatever you need to stoke that fire this
- 15:10Speaker 2: time of year. Maybe learn something about how to gut
- 15:13Speaker 2: a deer or maybe learn something about conservation. It's all there.
- 15:16Speaker 2: Go check it out. And once again, thank you so
- 15:18Speaker 2: much for all your support.