Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 843: Peak Rut Recipe for Success with John Eberhart and Greg Godfrey

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Ep. 843: Peak Rut Recipe for Success with John Eberhart and Greg Godfrey · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
0:04
Speaker 1: the whitetail woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile
0:09
Speaker 1: hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light,
0:13
Speaker 1: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon,
0:19
Speaker 1: Welcome to the.
0:20
Speaker 2: Wired to Hunt podcast.
0:22
Speaker 3: This week on the show, John Eberhart and Greg Godfrey
0:26
Speaker 3: are detailing for us their recipe for success for hunting
0:30
Speaker 3: pressured white tails during the peak of the run. 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 their Camo for Conservation Initiative,
0:48
Speaker 3: and we will still be providing you our hunting songs
0:54
Speaker 3: of sorts, big white tails and the most Wonderful Time
0:58
Speaker 3: to Kill Deer, but we're to put them at the
1:00
Speaker 3: end of the episode because my buddy further aka Josh
1:05
Speaker 3: doesn't know how to fast forward through parts of the
1:08
Speaker 3: podcast he doesn't want to listen to, so to make
1:10
Speaker 3: it easier for him, we're going to put at the
1:12
Speaker 3: very end of the show. So if you enjoy those songs,
1:15
Speaker 3: you can still catch it after our show here today.
1:18
Speaker 3: But we do have a great podcast for you. We're
1:21
Speaker 3: talking the rut, the peak of the rut the super
1:24
Speaker 3: Bowl of our season. It is here, it's going on
1:27
Speaker 3: right now, and our guests today are going to help
1:30
Speaker 3: us explore a number of different ways to have success
1:33
Speaker 3: this time of year, especially if you hunt in places
1:36
Speaker 3: where there's a lot of hunting pressure. My guests have
1:39
Speaker 3: been on the show before. John Eberhardt is a legend.
1:42
Speaker 3: It's likely that you know him. He's the author of
1:44
Speaker 3: many books. He's been on this podcast five or six
1:48
Speaker 3: times over the years. A absolute og when it comes
1:54
Speaker 3: to killing mature bucks in places like Michigan or other
1:57
Speaker 3: heavily pressured states. He's also proven these techniques they'll work
2:01
Speaker 3: in other states too. He goes to Indiana, Ohio, Kansas, Illinois, etc.
2:07
Speaker 3: And then our second guest today is Greg Godford. He's
2:10
Speaker 3: one of the co founders of Tethered and another guy
2:12
Speaker 3: who's proven to be successful in many different parts of
2:15
Speaker 3: the country, especially with this mobile hunting strategy that he's
2:19
Speaker 3: really perfected with his saddle system there at Tethered. So
2:24
Speaker 3: that's what we have in store for you today. And
2:26
Speaker 3: we have had John on the show a number of
2:29
Speaker 3: times and we've touched a little bit on some of
2:31
Speaker 3: his rut techniques. But today we are getting into a
2:34
Speaker 3: level of detail that we've never before. The entire show
2:37
Speaker 3: today is just getting into the nitty gritty of how
2:40
Speaker 3: he and Greg think about hunting the rut. So we
2:44
Speaker 3: cover everything from the various types of locations you'll want
2:48
Speaker 3: to focus on during this time period of the year.
2:51
Speaker 4: We get into a lot of.
2:52
Speaker 3: The philosophy around deciding how long you should stay put
2:55
Speaker 3: in a location versus moving and you know, being mobile,
3:00
Speaker 3: get into a number of other techniques, decoys, calling, all
3:04
Speaker 3: sorts of good stuff. This one will be very actionable,
3:07
Speaker 3: very useful for you in the upcoming days, whether you
3:10
Speaker 3: hunt in Michigan or Pennsylvania or Georgia or Wio. Whatever
3:15
Speaker 3: it is, we got you covered here. It's gonna be
3:17
Speaker 3: a good one. John and Greg co authored a book
3:20
Speaker 3: that just came out recently. It's called The Ultimate Guide
3:23
Speaker 3: to DIY Books. Here it is right here for those
3:26
Speaker 3: of you watching. There's actually three books. It's a three
3:28
Speaker 3: volume set, so we cover a lot that's mentioned in
3:32
Speaker 3: that book as well, So check out those after the
3:35
Speaker 3: podcast if you want more from Greg and John. And
3:38
Speaker 3: I think that is it. I think we can get
3:40
Speaker 3: right into our show today. I will mention that there's
3:43
Speaker 3: a new film from myself over on the media or
3:46
Speaker 3: YouTube channel, so you can check out my Nebraska whitetail
3:49
Speaker 3: hunt from last year. It was a really exciting hunt.
3:52
Speaker 3: Things got turned upside down from what I thought they
3:55
Speaker 3: were going to be. I had to kind of create
3:57
Speaker 3: a brand new plan on the spot found to get
4:00
Speaker 3: on some deer on the ground without trees. It's an
4:03
Speaker 3: interesting one. You can find it. You can watch it
4:05
Speaker 3: at the Meat Eater YouTube channel. I appreciate that, and
4:09
Speaker 3: that is it. I think we should get into our show.
4:13
Speaker 3: If you are out there hunting right now in mid
4:15
Speaker 3: November or that second week, whatever it is, I'm wishing
4:19
Speaker 3: you the best of luck. Stuff should be great out there.
4:21
Speaker 3: This is what we have waited all year for, so
4:25
Speaker 3: enjoy it. Putting the time, stay optimistic. Just remember anything
4:30
Speaker 3: is possible this time of year, so I'll be pulling
4:32
Speaker 3: for you. That said, let's get to my chat with
4:35
Speaker 3: John and Greg. All right here with me back on
4:47
Speaker 3: the line. Both of these gentlemen are returning guests. I've
4:50
Speaker 3: got Greg Godfrey and John Eberhart. Gentlemen, thank you for
4:55
Speaker 3: making time to do this right in the heat of
4:58
Speaker 3: the rut and all the excite and that's about to hit.
5:01
Speaker 5: Thanks for the opportunity. Always appreciate being on your show.
5:05
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's always fun to talk to Mark, one of
5:08
Speaker 6: the uh what I call the ogs of white Tail
5:14
Speaker 6: podcasting content. I think Mark, you kind of started it
5:18
Speaker 6: way back in the day, back in the in the
5:20
Speaker 6: early Wired to Hunt days, So it's uh, I'm always
5:24
Speaker 6: well've been on the show once, but it's really cool
5:27
Speaker 6: to be invited back. It means a lot to me personally.
5:32
Speaker 6: Well right back at you guys, I appreciate it. And
5:36
Speaker 6: and Greg, your product and ideas around that product have
5:40
Speaker 6: changed my hunting in a big way. And John, you
5:43
Speaker 6: know I've said this to you a thousand times, but
5:44
Speaker 6: your your early books and everything were instrumental in my
5:48
Speaker 6: journey too. So all the way around this is this
5:50
Speaker 6: is good stuff. It's exciting stuff.
5:52
Speaker 3: And as we just said, you both have been on
5:54
Speaker 3: the podcast before, but we have never done a podcast
5:58
Speaker 3: that was strict all things. Let's dive deep into the
6:03
Speaker 3: rut and that's what I want to do here today
6:06
Speaker 3: because when this podcast drops, it will be November seventh,
6:10
Speaker 3: so for a lot of people that's going to be
6:13
Speaker 3: like peak rut. This is their rut cation, this is
6:16
Speaker 3: when they're taking their time off. There's a lot of
6:18
Speaker 3: people over the next couple weeks that are looking at
6:21
Speaker 3: this as their super Bowl. And I know you guys
6:25
Speaker 3: put some extensive time and effort into discussing this timeframe
6:29
Speaker 3: in your latest book series, and so I wanted to
6:32
Speaker 3: take this opportunity to kind of dig into the nitty
6:35
Speaker 3: gritty of that, and maybe the place to start would
6:40
Speaker 3: be in breaking down how you guys look at the
6:44
Speaker 3: rut and how dear behavior changes through that, because within
6:48
Speaker 3: your book or books, I should say, rather you kind
6:51
Speaker 3: of separate it out into three different phases. Everyone's got
6:54
Speaker 3: different ways they like to define the rut and how
6:56
Speaker 3: they break it down. But you guys kind of broke
6:58
Speaker 3: it down by pre rut, peak rut, post rut. Before
7:04
Speaker 3: we get into the actually how you set up and
7:06
Speaker 3: hunt each one of those different things, maybe John, would
7:09
Speaker 3: you kick us off by just walking me through how
7:11
Speaker 3: you think about dear behavior changing through those three periods
7:16
Speaker 3: of the rut and what the timeframe is that you
7:18
Speaker 3: are kind of breaking those three chunks into.
7:21
Speaker 5: Yes, pre rut is probably my favorite time of the
7:26
Speaker 5: season and the rut in general is like the playoffs.
7:30
Speaker 5: You know, it's like, you know, making the playoffs in
7:33
Speaker 5: a sport activity, because that's where you want to focus
7:35
Speaker 5: your most attention. If you're gonna get any vacation time,
7:38
Speaker 5: that's when you want to spend it in the woods.
7:40
Speaker 2: But during pre.
7:42
Speaker 5: Rut, the mature bucks, which if primarily if you're in
7:47
Speaker 5: a pressure area of any semblance, it primarily been pretty
7:51
Speaker 5: nocturnal outside the security cover of their betting areas. So
7:55
Speaker 5: as testosterone rises throughout the early season and through the
7:58
Speaker 5: October lull, it kind of reaches its peak during pre
8:02
Speaker 5: rod and those mature bucks actually start searching for early
8:09
Speaker 5: estras doves. If you're in an area that's got quite
8:11
Speaker 5: a few deer, there's always going to be a dough
8:13
Speaker 5: or two here and there to come into estras early,
8:17
Speaker 5: and those the testosterone has risen to the point and
8:19
Speaker 5: they haven't bred since last year and they want to
8:22
Speaker 5: get out there and breed.
8:23
Speaker 7: So the cool thing about the pre.
8:25
Speaker 5: Rod is not all the not a majority of the
8:28
Speaker 5: dos are coming into heat at the same time, where
8:31
Speaker 5: during pre rod or i mean peak rut, mature bucks
8:34
Speaker 5: typically going to be doughed up most of the time
8:36
Speaker 5: he's going.
8:36
Speaker 7: To typically be with breeding estras does.
8:43
Speaker 5: Because there's so many dogs in the area, usually in
8:45
Speaker 5: a pressured area, that probably the three and a half
8:48
Speaker 5: year old and older.
8:50
Speaker 7: Bucks two other deer.
8:53
Speaker 5: You know, be doze bawns, a year and a half
8:56
Speaker 5: and two and a half year old bucks. The ratio
8:58
Speaker 5: is probably forty or fifty to one. So once an
9:01
Speaker 5: extra cycle of the dough he's breeding is over, it
9:03
Speaker 5: doesn't take him long to pick up the next estra's dough.
9:06
Speaker 5: If he crosses her sentence she's with another buck, he
9:09
Speaker 5: just follows her and takes her dakes her away. So
9:13
Speaker 5: peak rut to me because the mature bucks are doped
9:17
Speaker 5: up so much it's hard to get on one. And
9:20
Speaker 5: then also the routines are totally out the window because
9:23
Speaker 5: they're with doughs, so they're following dough roads or they're
9:27
Speaker 5: in where doors are betting, so pre rut they're following
9:30
Speaker 5: set routines. All those scrapes that you find in the woods,
9:35
Speaker 5: you know, that's what they're visiting. Because the scrapes that
9:37
Speaker 5: they make are always near some sort of area where
9:42
Speaker 5: there's a lot of heavy dough activity. An influx of
9:45
Speaker 5: DO activity. Usually it's by oaks, apple trees, whatever the
9:50
Speaker 5: mast or fruit trees you might have on your property
9:54
Speaker 5: are going to be or if you have property and
9:57
Speaker 5: you have food plots, there's going to be.
9:58
Speaker 7: DO activity at the food plots.
10:00
Speaker 5: So that's typically where you're gonna find scrapes along field edges,
10:04
Speaker 5: crop field edges, So they follow a routine during pre
10:09
Speaker 5: run because they're not breeding.
10:11
Speaker 7: They're not breeding those all the time, and so it's.
10:14
Speaker 5: Much easier to kill a buck during pre rug, which
10:18
Speaker 5: I termed the pre rock running about October twenty five
10:21
Speaker 5: to November five up here in the Midwest, and it's
10:25
Speaker 5: just easier to get on a pattern if you hunt
10:28
Speaker 5: those active scrapes and they have the adequate security cover
10:32
Speaker 5: for mature buck activity during daylight hours, you know they got,
10:37
Speaker 5: you know, from a betting area to transition out of
10:40
Speaker 5: a betting area to these scrape areas. As long as
10:43
Speaker 5: there's adequate security cover, they're going to visit those during
10:46
Speaker 5: daylight hours. A lot of times it's during midday, so
10:50
Speaker 5: pre run's my favorite time. I think a lot of
10:53
Speaker 5: hunters mess up their rut phase locations by by hunting
10:58
Speaker 5: their rut phase locations too early and they alter the
11:00
Speaker 5: dot traffic.
11:01
Speaker 7: And therefore, once you alter the dough traffic that you're hunting.
11:04
Speaker 5: Location during the October low by hunting it too much,
11:08
Speaker 5: that altered dot traffic is also going to alter the
11:10
Speaker 5: mature buck activity at that location when they start pursuing
11:15
Speaker 5: ester shows. As far as the post rut, post ruts
11:20
Speaker 5: really kind of interesting because there's only a few states
11:23
Speaker 5: in the country where you can go and hunt bow hunt, and.
11:27
Speaker 7: We're ball hunters primarily.
11:29
Speaker 5: There's only a few states in the country where you
11:31
Speaker 5: can go and physically bow hunt bucks before the gun
11:34
Speaker 5: season because if you're in a heavily pressured state and
11:38
Speaker 5: gun season opens up like Michigan's October fifteenth, I think
11:42
Speaker 5: Missouri is the second Saturday in November, so it's Nebraska,
11:47
Speaker 5: so you know, their gun seasons are during the peak ruts.
11:51
Speaker 5: So by post rut, those mature bucks are pretty nocturnal.
11:55
Speaker 7: Not moving much during daylight hours.
11:56
Speaker 5: So the only states really that you can do some
12:00
Speaker 5: good post ruck bull hunting would be Iowa, Kansas with
12:04
Speaker 5: your draw states, what other draw states or what other states.
12:09
Speaker 8: Ohio also has a late dune season, so those those
12:13
Speaker 8: are the three primary big buck states where you can
12:15
Speaker 8: hunt hunt mature bucks during polst rut and still have
12:19
Speaker 8: a good gence.
12:21
Speaker 3: So that's that's helpful, John. I guess what I what
12:26
Speaker 3: I'm curious about, and maybe maybe this is the best
12:29
Speaker 3: place to start. Actually, let me take a time out
12:32
Speaker 3: and step one step back, because I forgot one thing
12:34
Speaker 3: I did want to ask you, Greg related to what
12:37
Speaker 3: John just said, which was, I know you have experienced
12:40
Speaker 3: down in the South where rut timing and rut stuff
12:43
Speaker 3: is just a little bit different.
12:45
Speaker 4: Have you seen anything in your time in.
12:47
Speaker 3: Georgia or anywhere else down there where that dear behavior
12:51
Speaker 3: is different from pre to peak to post from what
12:54
Speaker 3: John's described, or is it basically the same but just
12:57
Speaker 3: different calendar dates because of the weird stuff across different
13:01
Speaker 3: states down there.
13:02
Speaker 6: I think it's option B. I think the deer still
13:06
Speaker 6: respond in the South pretty similarly to what John described,
13:11
Speaker 6: but the calendar dates are all wonky. For instance, in
13:15
Speaker 6: Georgia where I live. In South Georgia and Savannah where
13:19
Speaker 6: I live, our rut starts in middle of October and
13:25
Speaker 6: it goes through the end of October. It's much more
13:28
Speaker 6: aligned with more of a southern deer who, like the
13:32
Speaker 6: deer in Florida, can rut as early as August, July
13:34
Speaker 6: and August, and in the southeast corner of Georgia they
13:38
Speaker 6: rut in October. Well, if you move more towards the
13:40
Speaker 6: middle of the state, where a lot of the deer
13:43
Speaker 6: were imported in the seventies, sixties and seventies from the
13:47
Speaker 6: northern states like Wisconsin, those deer have more of a
13:51
Speaker 6: traditional November rut. And then the further west you go
13:55
Speaker 6: in the state closer to Alabama, you get a later
13:57
Speaker 6: rut where they rut in January. So in Georgia you
14:01
Speaker 6: can hunt running deer from October all the way through
14:05
Speaker 6: the new year.
14:07
Speaker 3: That's crazy. I can't imagine that. So okay, So that's
14:14
Speaker 3: that's good to know. So everyone wherever you're listening, you should,
14:18
Speaker 3: you know, take this and adjust date specific based.
14:21
Speaker 4: On your region.
14:22
Speaker 3: But in your in your guys's books, the way you
14:24
Speaker 3: broke it down was kind of the standard Midwest and
14:27
Speaker 3: upper two thirds of the country timing, which is kind
14:30
Speaker 3: of that pre rut being late October through maybe the
14:33
Speaker 3: first week of November. And then I think you guys
14:35
Speaker 3: defined peak rut is somewhere in that middle of November
14:38
Speaker 3: week or two period, and then post route was kind
14:40
Speaker 3: of like maybe Thanksgiving ish on for a little ways.
14:45
Speaker 3: So with that in mind, the next thing I wanted
14:48
Speaker 3: to kind of steer us towards was some of the
14:51
Speaker 3: specific focus areas you guys detailed as far as rut
14:55
Speaker 3: hunting locations, and something I'd be curious each as we
14:59
Speaker 3: go through each one of the would be you guys
15:02
Speaker 3: to share with me how you would hunt these kinds
15:04
Speaker 3: of spots, but then also how that might shift through
15:08
Speaker 3: those three phases of the rut. So for example, something
15:12
Speaker 3: I know, John, you've talked about a ton in the past,
15:14
Speaker 3: and you guys wrote about in the books where you're
15:16
Speaker 3: focusing on scrape areas, So maybe let's start there.
15:19
Speaker 4: Could you talk about.
15:20
Speaker 3: Hunting around primary scrapes scrape areas and detail for us,
15:26
Speaker 3: you know, how that shifts throughout the various phases of
15:29
Speaker 3: the rut, and specifically like how you find these and
15:33
Speaker 3: identify these but then also actually set up on them.
15:36
Speaker 3: Because I think people generally understand, you know, hey, if
15:39
Speaker 3: I find some great scrapes back and cover, I should
15:42
Speaker 3: hunt that, but fewer people know the right way to
15:45
Speaker 3: do that. So I'd love to start with this and
15:47
Speaker 3: then we'll have a similar conversation around several other rut hotspots.
15:51
Speaker 3: You guys detail, But John, can you kick us off
15:53
Speaker 3: with your thoughts here on scrapes since that's so key
15:55
Speaker 3: for you.
15:56
Speaker 7: I'm old and that's hard to remember all that stuff.
16:01
Speaker 4: Give me the loadout on primary scrapes.
16:03
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, scouting is a huge issue to me. To me,
16:08
Speaker 5: scouting is eighty ninety percent of the game, you know,
16:13
Speaker 5: And I do the majority of the vast majority of
16:15
Speaker 5: my scouting during postseason because after deer season's over, you
16:20
Speaker 5: can scout places the foliages down the scrapes are still
16:22
Speaker 5: very obvious looking branches, rubs or everything is really obvious,
16:26
Speaker 5: you know, before greenup. So I'm looking for scrape areas
16:30
Speaker 5: of scrapes and mass trees, cruit trees, whatever the case
16:34
Speaker 5: may be. And when I find scrapes in there in
16:37
Speaker 5: you know, if you're walking through a woods like on
16:41
Speaker 5: public land, and you're out in relatively open timber and
16:45
Speaker 5: you might find a couple of white oaks or something
16:47
Speaker 5: with some scrapes there, you know that that is meaningless
16:52
Speaker 5: to me because for scrape activity that I find to
16:56
Speaker 5: be worth hunting, it has to have adequate security cover
17:02
Speaker 5: around that kill zone where those scrapes are, and it
17:05
Speaker 5: has to have adequate security cover to a known betting area.
17:10
Speaker 5: So a lot of times those scrapes I find will
17:11
Speaker 5: be around perimeters of betting areas. It's very common to
17:14
Speaker 5: find active scrapes around a crop field during post season
17:20
Speaker 5: pick cornfield, and those scrapes were made during you know,
17:24
Speaker 5: if you were going to hunt that those scrapes, you'd
17:27
Speaker 5: have to hunt them prior to the corn being picked. Okay,
17:30
Speaker 5: so once the corn's picked, with those scrapes being on
17:33
Speaker 5: the edge of an open field with pitcorn, the buffer
17:37
Speaker 5: mature butck's going to feel too vulnerable to visit during
17:40
Speaker 5: day late hours. You're and a half and two and
17:41
Speaker 5: a half's yes, if that's what you're after, you know
17:43
Speaker 5: you could hunt those, But when you're hunting mature bucks,
17:47
Speaker 5: scrapes have to have some semblance of security cover around them,
17:53
Speaker 5: an adequate security cover to a known betting area, or
17:56
Speaker 5: be around the perimeter of the betting area or in
17:59
Speaker 5: a betting area for me personally to hunt them, whether
18:02
Speaker 5: it be fre rut, peak rut, or puls drive.
18:06
Speaker 7: So the security cover aspect of scrapes is a big deal.
18:12
Speaker 5: And at least a very minimum of fifty percent of
18:15
Speaker 5: the bucks I've killed over the last i'd say forty
18:18
Speaker 5: years have been scrape oriented, so it you know, typically
18:24
Speaker 5: it's it may be at a mass tree that has
18:26
Speaker 5: some scrapes and apple tree that when it was dropping apples,
18:29
Speaker 5: you know, the doors were feeding there, so that's why
18:31
Speaker 5: the bucks made the scrapes there, or a chestnut tree
18:34
Speaker 5: or some white oaks along the edge, you know, and
18:36
Speaker 5: as long as it has the adequate security cover for
18:41
Speaker 5: daytime mature bucket activity and movement, you know, that's what
18:44
Speaker 5: I'm going to hunt.
18:45
Speaker 3: Does that change at all once we get into that
18:48
Speaker 3: peak rut time when it's November seven or ten or
18:51
Speaker 3: thirteen and we're right in the heat of it, Are
18:54
Speaker 3: you still king in on primary scrape areas or does
18:57
Speaker 3: that shift as November plots along.
19:01
Speaker 5: As the rot phase plots along. I don't hunt the
19:06
Speaker 5: peripheral scrapes that I would have hunted during pre rud
19:09
Speaker 5: When the root phase comes, I'm in betting areas a lot,
19:14
Speaker 5: you know, because bucks, the mature bucks are going to
19:18
Speaker 5: push those estra stows into security cover. That's where they
19:21
Speaker 5: want to breed them where they feel safe, you know,
19:24
Speaker 5: every twenty minutes or half hour, forty minutes getting up
19:27
Speaker 5: and breeding, you go and you know, pushing her around.
19:30
Speaker 5: They want to feel safe and secure. So I love
19:32
Speaker 5: hunting betting areas during the physical rut phases or just
19:36
Speaker 5: inside the perimeter edge of the betting area. But during
19:39
Speaker 5: pre rod you know, I'll hunt scrape areas along edges
19:42
Speaker 5: of cornfield as long as there's security cover butting up
19:46
Speaker 5: to the cornfield in the timber or swamp bordering the cornfield.
19:50
Speaker 5: Or I'll hunt an apple tree or white oak tree
19:53
Speaker 5: that's got adequate security cover around the area and adqut
19:56
Speaker 5: security cover to a known betting area. But your question
19:59
Speaker 5: was during peak ruts. During peak rut, those peripheral scrapes
20:06
Speaker 5: outside the betting areas, they lose the majority of their
20:09
Speaker 5: activity because the mature bucks are with doughs most of
20:13
Speaker 5: the time because the buck to dope mature buck to
20:16
Speaker 5: dough ratios are so skewed it doesn't take them long
20:18
Speaker 5: to pick up another dough and they're with them a
20:20
Speaker 5: lot time. So obviously there's no requirement for them to
20:23
Speaker 5: make strapes or visits rates. So that's why I like
20:26
Speaker 5: to be within the betting run.
20:36
Speaker 4: Am I right though?
20:37
Speaker 3: In thinking that things shift again once you get to
20:41
Speaker 3: the post rut because the post rut's kind of similar
20:43
Speaker 3: to the pre rup. There's fewer doughs ready to breed,
20:46
Speaker 3: so bucks kind of return to that same seeking type behavior.
20:49
Speaker 5: You're one correct, but again, if you're in a pressured state,
20:55
Speaker 5: that post rut activity is almost totally not ternal. So
21:01
Speaker 5: you know in those states I mentioned before, Ohio, Kansas,
21:05
Speaker 5: and Iowa, Yeah, post ruts exactly like hunting pre rod.
21:09
Speaker 5: In fact, when I we did drawn for Kansas this year,
21:14
Speaker 5: we got drawn for Kansas, and we like it going
21:17
Speaker 5: during post ruck. We prefer post rut because the mature bucks,
21:23
Speaker 5: they've been breeding for two weeks solid, you know, at
21:26
Speaker 5: least two weeks solid, they're worn down, their eyes are glassy,
21:31
Speaker 5: they've somewhat lost a lot of their security cover or
21:38
Speaker 5: I don't know what the word is of their cautiousness,
21:42
Speaker 5: I guess, and now the majority of the dose are bread.
21:46
Speaker 5: So now they have to do exactly what they did
21:48
Speaker 5: during pre rod and go out and physically leave those
21:51
Speaker 5: betting area haunts, and now they'll start working their strapes
21:55
Speaker 5: again wherever there's no activity, and they'll have a routine
21:59
Speaker 5: just like they did during free right.
22:01
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's it's kind of like they get they're so preoccupied, uh,
22:07
Speaker 6: for the past two weeks of breeding doz that they
22:11
Speaker 6: they they lose a little bit of that safety concern
22:14
Speaker 6: that they've had for the rest of the year, and
22:19
Speaker 6: so oftentimes you see those big mature bucks making a
22:23
Speaker 6: mistake at exactly the time period when you've talked about John,
22:26
Speaker 6: when they're they've been screwing around with does for two weeks,
22:30
Speaker 6: they're tired, they've been in a whole bunch of fights.
22:32
Speaker 6: They've been kicking their buddies' butts, fighting back and forth
22:35
Speaker 6: up and down every ridge, and they kind of lose
22:38
Speaker 6: a little bit of their safety concern and it's a
22:40
Speaker 6: great time to find those big mature bucks that don't
22:43
Speaker 6: make mistakes, uh throughout the rest of the year.
22:48
Speaker 5: Yeah. Great. Can I throw a stat in there real quick, Mark?
22:52
Speaker 9: Yeah?
22:52
Speaker 7: Please do them.
22:54
Speaker 5: Get to give people an idea of runt face hunting.
22:59
Speaker 5: Midday is a big part of my broad face hunting
23:02
Speaker 5: because when you're hunting in security cover areas, whether it
23:04
Speaker 5: be pre rock or during the peak rut, I just
23:09
Speaker 5: lost my train of thought.
23:10
Speaker 7: That's what sucks about getting old.
23:14
Speaker 5: Mid midday, midday big part of my kill strategy. I'm
23:21
Speaker 5: getting to the point where I can't hunt all day
23:23
Speaker 5: like I used to as many all day sits. But
23:26
Speaker 5: to give you a stat of my twenty Michigan bucks
23:30
Speaker 5: that I've taken the made book that I took between
23:34
Speaker 5: November one and November fourteen with a bowl, seven of
23:38
Speaker 5: them were shot between eleven and three o'clock in the afternoon,
23:41
Speaker 5: while statistically less than eight percent of my time spent
23:45
Speaker 5: on stand was between eleven and three.
23:48
Speaker 7: O'clock in the afternoon.
23:49
Speaker 5: So that's thirty five percent kill rate with less than
23:52
Speaker 5: eight percent of on time stand. But it's got it
23:55
Speaker 5: has to be. People will just go out there and
23:57
Speaker 5: hunter in midday and they're just hunting, you know, in
23:59
Speaker 5: open timber or whatever.
24:00
Speaker 7: That's a total waste of time.
24:02
Speaker 5: It has to be in security, government, a betting area,
24:04
Speaker 5: or transitions one between a.
24:06
Speaker 7: Betting area and another betting area.
24:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's pretty eye opening. I was gonna I want
24:14
Speaker 3: to continue down that line, John, when it comes to
24:16
Speaker 3: your midday hunting strategy. But before we leave scrapes really quick,
24:20
Speaker 3: I got to ask you, Greg, John has been like
24:24
Speaker 3: the profit of scrapes for thirty years now, been preaching
24:29
Speaker 3: the benefits of primary scrape areas and everything like that.
24:33
Speaker 4: Are you as.
24:33
Speaker 3: Bought into hunting primary scrape areas and deepen the cover
24:37
Speaker 3: scrapes during the rut as he is, or do you
24:39
Speaker 3: have a different take?
24:42
Speaker 6: I would say the answer to both of those are yes.
24:44
Speaker 6: When John says it about deer hunting, you can pretty
24:49
Speaker 6: much believe it that he knows what he's talking about
24:51
Speaker 6: and that he's killed seven book bucks in the most
24:54
Speaker 6: popular or most heavily pressured states and he's figured out
24:57
Speaker 6: a way to get done. So that's the first part. Yes,
25:01
Speaker 6: listen to John before you listen to me. Listen to John.
25:04
Speaker 6: John knows what he's talking about. But I do have
25:08
Speaker 6: a little different take on it. I agree with everything
25:12
Speaker 6: that John said, and he's right. I like to focus
25:15
Speaker 6: more on those transition areas me personally, John likes to
25:19
Speaker 6: get deep into a bedding area and the most the
25:23
Speaker 6: hardest place for a hunter to get one of the
25:26
Speaker 6: One of the analogies that John uses in his books,
25:30
Speaker 6: as he says that I've read in the past bow
25:33
Speaker 6: Hunting Pressured white tails is he says, I like to
25:35
Speaker 6: pretend like I'm a deer and all the hunters are
25:39
Speaker 6: trying to kill me, and where would I go?
25:41
Speaker 2: And that's a useful exercise.
25:43
Speaker 6: And that's how John he A lot of his a
25:46
Speaker 6: lot of his tactics and strategies revolve around that, which
25:49
Speaker 6: makes perfect sense. I tend to like to hunt those
25:52
Speaker 6: little transition spots that are oftentimes terrain related, a saddle
25:58
Speaker 6: in a hilltop, a pinch point because of a river.
26:03
Speaker 6: I tend to like to focus on areas like that
26:06
Speaker 6: that give me a very decided advantage that also contained
26:11
Speaker 6: the things that John talks about. So my ideal rut
26:17
Speaker 6: spot would be a big betting area here, a big
26:21
Speaker 6: betting area here with a big ridge that separated them
26:24
Speaker 6: in a low spot for a buck to cross easily.
26:27
Speaker 6: And in that low spot there's security cover and.
26:31
Speaker 7: Scrapes.
26:33
Speaker 6: That's like my number one spot to find. I like
26:35
Speaker 6: spots that I can get into with bulletproof entry and exit.
26:41
Speaker 2: Bill Wink wrote an article many, many.
26:44
Speaker 6: Many years ago in Bowhunter magazine, probably twenty five years
26:47
Speaker 6: ago and the whole article was about access, and he
26:51
Speaker 6: talked about how there are tons and tons of good
26:54
Speaker 6: spots out there that hunters screw up because they aren't
26:59
Speaker 6: concerned learn with their access. So I love a spot
27:02
Speaker 6: that I can get into and out of without being detected,
27:06
Speaker 6: and it is going to be more of a transition
27:09
Speaker 6: spot than a destination spot. That's the only thing that
27:12
Speaker 6: I would say I rank higher on my on my
27:15
Speaker 6: hunt now factor is that it's which is basically the
27:19
Speaker 6: same as John, but it's just a little nuanced.
27:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's interesting. I I wanna I want to touch
27:28
Speaker 3: on transitions that you just described there. But another scrape
27:33
Speaker 3: relay question came to mind that if I don't ask now,
27:35
Speaker 3: I will forget to do it. John, you had you
27:39
Speaker 3: had talked about and maybe this is in the book
27:41
Speaker 3: that you guys were talking about this, but when hunting
27:45
Speaker 3: scrape areas or primary scrape areas, really this this actually
27:48
Speaker 3: could apply to many different types of locations. But but
27:52
Speaker 3: there had been discussion around the volume of hunts that
27:55
Speaker 3: you should give a given scrape or a given betting area,
28:00
Speaker 3: and oftentimes we want to hunt new spots all the time.
28:04
Speaker 3: That's one of the benefits of the mobile style of
28:06
Speaker 3: hunting that all three of us use. But it seems
28:10
Speaker 3: like sometimes you have to give a location time to
28:14
Speaker 3: actually produce. Can you discuss that a little bit, John,
28:17
Speaker 3: as far as how many hunts you would throw at
28:19
Speaker 3: a good looking primary scrape area or a good looking
28:22
Speaker 3: betting area before you'd say, Okay, I need to move
28:25
Speaker 3: on because I've educated too much here, or I need
28:27
Speaker 3: to seek out greener pastures.
28:30
Speaker 5: Well, first off, when I'm hunting betting areas during the
28:33
Speaker 5: pre or rut or the rut phase, I'm I'm in
28:37
Speaker 5: the past.
28:38
Speaker 7: Anyway, I don't do it as much now.
28:39
Speaker 5: I always like to do all days sits where I'm
28:42
Speaker 5: in the tree an hour and a half before daylight,
28:44
Speaker 5: so to make sure I'm not spooking anything with my entries.
28:47
Speaker 7: They're not in there yet, and I.
28:49
Speaker 5: Usually like to leave about a half hour after dark
28:51
Speaker 5: so I'm not spooking them with my exit. Usually with
28:54
Speaker 5: an half hour after dark, they've left the betting area.
28:57
Speaker 5: So and also I'm a big, huge sunt lock fan.
29:01
Speaker 5: You know, I have used sunt lock since nineteen ninety six,
29:04
Speaker 5: and I pay zero attention to the wind.
29:06
Speaker 7: I don't get winded.
29:08
Speaker 5: Deer can cross my trail whatever, So I'm not altering
29:11
Speaker 5: dough traffic by being in a location. And when I
29:15
Speaker 5: get in the tree and get down out of the tree, I'm.
29:18
Speaker 7: Still leaving residual odor at the spot.
29:20
Speaker 5: So if you come in later or pass by later,
29:22
Speaker 5: they still smell human odor and then they will avoid
29:24
Speaker 5: that spot. So I think the second control for me
29:28
Speaker 5: makes a huge difference in what I can get away
29:31
Speaker 5: with now during the rut phases.
29:33
Speaker 7: If I have a scrape area.
29:36
Speaker 5: And it's it, you know, it might have been active
29:39
Speaker 5: during pre rut, but it's not active during peak rut,
29:43
Speaker 5: and it's along the edge for betting area or in
29:45
Speaker 5: transitions on between two betting areas, that's something.
29:49
Speaker 7: I will hunt multiple times.
29:51
Speaker 5: I may hunt that force sits in a row because
29:54
Speaker 5: during peak rud the buck that I'm after may be
29:58
Speaker 5: with the dough.
29:59
Speaker 7: He may be with a lockdown in lockdown with a
30:01
Speaker 7: hot dough.
30:02
Speaker 5: So you know that's going to run twenty eight to
30:04
Speaker 5: thirty some hours, and so if I hunt it multiple times,
30:09
Speaker 5: there's a good chance once he's finished with that does cycle,
30:12
Speaker 5: there's a chance that he's gonna, you know, go visit
30:17
Speaker 5: those scrapes to find his next dell. He usually doesn't
30:20
Speaker 5: take him very long. But you know that's where the
30:23
Speaker 5: percentages lie is. You know that's that's a spot he's
30:27
Speaker 5: going to go look because that's a spot where there's
30:28
Speaker 5: heavy dot traffic is where that scrapes at. So Pope,
30:31
Speaker 5: during peak rout, I'll hunt a spot easily four times
30:36
Speaker 5: in a row as long as I know I'm not
30:38
Speaker 5: altering any dough traffic at that location. During pre ROD,
30:43
Speaker 5: I move around a lot. I'll go into season with
30:45
Speaker 5: almost fifty trees ready to hunt on public or I've
30:49
Speaker 5: got two private parcels that I hunt, So I move
30:52
Speaker 5: around a lot. I don't like to burn any of
30:54
Speaker 5: my locations out during pre roud, So usually during pre
30:57
Speaker 5: rod five hundred.
30:58
Speaker 7: The morning in an evening, that's going to be it.
31:02
Speaker 4: Okay, Greg, how do you? Yeah?
31:05
Speaker 3: Greg, how do you think about that? Because especially, I
31:08
Speaker 3: mean John, you're the same way because you use the saddle.
31:10
Speaker 3: But but Greg, with you guys having saddle setups and
31:14
Speaker 3: you hang out with a bunch of saddle hunters and
31:16
Speaker 3: all of you guys are mobile first guys that want
31:20
Speaker 3: to get around, want to hunt. A bunch of different places.
31:22
Speaker 3: We are all steeped in the gospel of running gun
31:26
Speaker 3: freelance hunting. Go make a move based on what you
31:29
Speaker 3: see when you get into the rut, the peak rut,
31:32
Speaker 3: when it's really on. How do you think about this?
31:35
Speaker 3: How do you balance that urge or the benefits of
31:39
Speaker 3: hunting new places versus the possible downside of of missing
31:44
Speaker 3: out on the action in a given place because you
31:46
Speaker 3: just didn't give it enough time.
31:48
Speaker 4: How do you handle that?
31:49
Speaker 6: It's a great question, and I constantly I've heard you
31:53
Speaker 6: talk about this before, Mark in your in your podcast,
31:57
Speaker 6: about how you're an adventure heart and you're always wondering
32:01
Speaker 6: what's over the next ridge. And you know, I have
32:04
Speaker 6: a little bit of that same disease, where there's always
32:08
Speaker 6: a booner around.
32:08
Speaker 2: The next bend in the river.
32:10
Speaker 6: And while that can be beneficial, it can also it
32:15
Speaker 6: can also hamstring you. And so I make concerted efforts
32:20
Speaker 6: to try not to limit myself into only being a
32:27
Speaker 6: hop around hunter, I guess, for lack of a better term,
32:30
Speaker 6: a mobile hunter.
32:31
Speaker 5: Uh.
32:32
Speaker 6: For instance, I was just hunting in the suburbs of
32:36
Speaker 6: Atlanta this past week, and I hunted the same tree
32:41
Speaker 6: every single hunt. I didn't bounce around at all because
32:45
Speaker 6: of the spot. So this particular spot, the access was bulletproof.
32:50
Speaker 6: Now I'm not I believe in sintlalk. I used scenttwalk.
32:55
Speaker 6: Matter of fact, one of John's suits that he designed
32:58
Speaker 6: called the wind brace from cent. I don't even think
33:01
Speaker 6: they make it anymore, but John got me turned onto
33:03
Speaker 6: that scentlock suit and I still use it to this day.
33:05
Speaker 6: So I believe in in that, but I don't use
33:08
Speaker 6: it religiously like John does. I still do pay attention
33:11
Speaker 6: to the wind Anyway. The point of this spot was
33:14
Speaker 6: I could get in and out of this tree with
33:17
Speaker 6: zero interactions with deer. It was basically bulletproof because I
33:21
Speaker 6: was able to access through a waterway and a swamp
33:24
Speaker 6: where there were no deer living pop out and I
33:27
Speaker 6: was in a bulletproof setup and it was a transition zone.
33:31
Speaker 6: There wasn't a whole lot to keep deer in this
33:33
Speaker 6: particular area, but there were on either sides and it
33:36
Speaker 6: was a perfect little transition spot. So I hunted it
33:39
Speaker 6: every day since. Since the deer and Georgia right now
33:43
Speaker 6: are starting to get in their pre rup phase, they're
33:46
Speaker 6: getting a little bit cruisy. We had one of the
33:50
Speaker 6: guys I was hunting with shot a deer that came
33:52
Speaker 6: in trailing a dough on full grunt mode, just grunting
33:54
Speaker 6: with every step he took.
33:56
Speaker 2: So that tells me that the deer there were starting
33:59
Speaker 2: to get a little fired up up.
34:00
Speaker 6: And I thought that if I, if I sat in
34:03
Speaker 6: this one spot is perfect transition zone, that I could
34:07
Speaker 6: catch a big one moving through there.
34:08
Speaker 2: I didn't, but that's okay.
34:11
Speaker 6: So you I think, I think Mark, you're right, you
34:14
Speaker 6: have to be cautious of moving too much. But you also,
34:21
Speaker 6: you know, if you're not seeing deer, you got to move,
34:23
Speaker 6: so you you you gotta you gotta find that fine
34:26
Speaker 6: line of of being mobile but also being patient. And
34:31
Speaker 6: I'm not always good at it because I tend to
34:34
Speaker 6: want to be more mobile, so I have to self regulate.
34:38
Speaker 6: And I think that's good advice for for hunters to
34:42
Speaker 6: hear both perspectives. And in that John saying you know, hey,
34:46
Speaker 6: it's okay to hunt these spots over and over again,
34:50
Speaker 6: I would add to the caveat of that it's okay
34:52
Speaker 6: to hunt them over and over again as long as
34:54
Speaker 6: you're as long as your access is bulletproof and you're
34:58
Speaker 6: not spooking deer.
34:59
Speaker 2: Like John said the on the in and out.
35:01
Speaker 6: I'm totally okay with hunting the same spot over and
35:03
Speaker 6: over again as long as those other conditions are true.
35:07
Speaker 7: Yeah, but you also have to be you also have
35:10
Speaker 7: to be proactive.
35:11
Speaker 5: I mean, the biggest buck I've ever shot in my life,
35:14
Speaker 5: one hundred and eighty inchure. I was on an all
35:17
Speaker 5: days sit and by ten o'clock I was seeing a
35:21
Speaker 5: lot of deer activity a.
35:22
Speaker 7: Couple hundred yards away. Because it was during the rut
35:24
Speaker 7: of foliage was.
35:25
Speaker 5: Done, I had a long viewing distance, and so I
35:28
Speaker 5: got down at ten o'clock. I pulled my steps. When
35:32
Speaker 5: I came down and I moved, I had a decoy out.
35:35
Speaker 5: I left that there for my exit. When I was leaving,
35:38
Speaker 5: and I went back in and I found a scrape
35:40
Speaker 5: area from hell. There was three monster scrapes, you know,
35:44
Speaker 5: fifteen yards zone. I set up in it. I was
35:47
Speaker 5: in that tree set up by noon. I would say
35:50
Speaker 5: someone around noon, and I had deer funneling by me
35:53
Speaker 5: all the time, And at four o'clock I shot that
35:58
Speaker 5: big buck. And then when I early in my hunting
36:01
Speaker 5: career in nineteen seventy six. I still scouted during postseason
36:06
Speaker 5: back then, and I prepped the tree and it was
36:10
Speaker 5: a red oak, And when I went back to hunt it,
36:13
Speaker 5: I didn't go do a speed tour to see if
36:14
Speaker 5: it was had masked and was dropping masks. I didn't
36:17
Speaker 5: do any of that. So when I went into the
36:19
Speaker 5: hunt it, it wasn't didn't have any acorns, so there
36:22
Speaker 5: wasn't a deer activity, and so I just freelanced back
36:25
Speaker 5: into the woods farther where I'd never been before. I
36:28
Speaker 5: found a white oak that actually was dropping acorns and
36:32
Speaker 5: had a lot of droppings underneath it, and I set
36:34
Speaker 5: up in that tree. I actually climbed the climbed the
36:37
Speaker 5: tree physically. They didn't have steps and stuff they have nowadays.
36:42
Speaker 5: And I shot at ten points. So you know, freelancing
36:47
Speaker 5: when when something's not happening and you know their seed
36:51
Speaker 5: better activity, or you go back to a tree and
36:53
Speaker 5: it doesn't have it doesn't look good. You know, you've
36:57
Speaker 5: got to be proactive as long as you've got the
36:59
Speaker 5: gear there to make that move. So I agree with
37:02
Speaker 5: everything you said, Greg, But yeah, and you always that's
37:06
Speaker 5: the cool thing about postseason scouting and post season scouting.
37:09
Speaker 5: You can cover every inch of everything you want to
37:11
Speaker 5: hunt on public land because spooking deer is irrelevant. But
37:14
Speaker 5: during the season, spooking deer is not irrelevant, so you
37:17
Speaker 5: have to be very cautious on how you do that.
37:20
Speaker 6: I think there's another little clarification. I would say to
37:26
Speaker 6: my previous comments, you got macro moves and you got
37:31
Speaker 6: micro moves, So macro move is going to a completely
37:34
Speaker 6: different area, completely different ridge system, go around the next bend, whatever.
37:38
Speaker 6: But I also think I can illustrate what John is
37:42
Speaker 6: talking about with my very my first first time I
37:46
Speaker 6: went to Missouri, out of state hunt for me in
37:49
Speaker 6: the pre run public land in Missouri, and I would
37:54
Speaker 6: say I did a micro set of moves. So day one,
37:58
Speaker 6: hunting the tree, see movement like John just described, in
38:02
Speaker 6: a different different area, but still within you know, I
38:06
Speaker 6: call it my macro area where I was well, I
38:09
Speaker 6: moved fifty yards closer and it wasn't quite there. I
38:13
Speaker 6: wasn't quite in the right spot. So I made another
38:16
Speaker 6: micro move, probably another forty yards into this one little
38:20
Speaker 6: tiny zone and that ended up being the spot where
38:23
Speaker 6: I tagged out. So John's point is is absolutely right.
38:28
Speaker 6: Sometimes you don't have to go a long way, but
38:31
Speaker 6: sometimes you have to refine your positioning with a micro
38:34
Speaker 6: move inside the betting area, the transition area, the if
38:39
Speaker 6: it's a it's a crop field, whatever it is that
38:41
Speaker 6: you're key and n on. Sometimes those micro moves can
38:44
Speaker 6: really pay off in a big way.
38:48
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a great point.
38:49
Speaker 3: So so if I were to summarize when someone should
38:56
Speaker 3: volume hunt a location, So coming out of this little
38:59
Speaker 3: bit of our conversation, you're someone still thinking to themselves, well,
39:02
Speaker 3: how do I know when I should be bouncing around?
39:03
Speaker 3: Versus how do I know when I should hold tight?
39:07
Speaker 3: I would say to summarize what you guys have all said.
39:09
Speaker 3: Number one, listen to the deer. So if the deer
39:11
Speaker 3: are telling you, hey, it's actually you're a little bit
39:14
Speaker 3: off the X most of the actions fifty yards over
39:16
Speaker 3: that way, then then yes, make the move if you
39:18
Speaker 3: have to make that micro move, because listen what the
39:20
Speaker 3: deer are telling you.
39:21
Speaker 4: But vice versa.
39:22
Speaker 3: If you're sitting in the place and then you feel
39:25
Speaker 3: the urge to move just because you feel like you're
39:27
Speaker 3: supposed to bounce, but the deer are still telling you, hey,
39:30
Speaker 3: we're here. If you are still seeing steady movement. If
39:33
Speaker 3: you are still seeing young bucks coming through, or you know,
39:36
Speaker 3: if it's happening, don't assume you have to leave if
39:39
Speaker 3: you have that good access and exit, YadA YadA, and
39:42
Speaker 3: the deer On'm figuring it out.
39:43
Speaker 4: So there's number one.
39:44
Speaker 3: Number two, if you are in the peak of the
39:47
Speaker 3: rut activity time period as you describe, John, if it's
39:50
Speaker 3: that time when bucks might be locked down, you if
39:53
Speaker 3: you leave too soon, you might not have given that
39:55
Speaker 3: buck an opportunity to circle through because he didn't get
39:58
Speaker 3: off his dough yet. So that's number two. And then
40:00
Speaker 3: the third situation where I think it might make sense
40:02
Speaker 3: to volume hunt, and I believe you guys wrote about
40:05
Speaker 3: in your book, would be in low deer density areas
40:08
Speaker 3: right where there's not a lot of deer. If you
40:11
Speaker 3: sit a spot for a day and you don't see
40:13
Speaker 3: anything come through and then leave already, that just simply
40:15
Speaker 3: might be because these bucks travel long distances in low
40:19
Speaker 3: deer density areas, and he might be a mile away
40:21
Speaker 3: right now, but if you gave it two or three days,
40:23
Speaker 3: he would eventually cycle through.
40:25
Speaker 4: Am I right on that, John? Did I describe that quickly?
40:28
Speaker 5: When you go to hill country or areas with low
40:31
Speaker 5: low deer densities. Yeah, the bucks, the mature bucks have
40:35
Speaker 5: a lot bigger core areas, especially during the run. They
40:38
Speaker 5: may cover a five mile core area. An excellent example,
40:41
Speaker 5: and I'll be briefed. One of the guys that manages
40:44
Speaker 5: Jay's Sporting goods, Chad sterns, he was up in the
40:47
Speaker 5: up gun hunting and when he went up on top
40:51
Speaker 5: of this oak ridge, he bumped a big ten point
40:55
Speaker 5: on the other side of the ridge and it just
40:57
Speaker 5: he just watched his big antlers and body go over
40:59
Speaker 5: the ridge.
41:00
Speaker 7: So he hunted it the next day that saying because
41:04
Speaker 7: there was a scrape there. There was a big scrape.
41:06
Speaker 5: Where he was at, and he called me and he said, John,
41:10
Speaker 5: I saw this big buck on this in the scrape
41:12
Speaker 5: on this ridge. And I said, Chad, he said, what
41:14
Speaker 5: should I do? I said, Chad, you know what, that's
41:17
Speaker 5: an active scrape. There's no activity because he said he
41:21
Speaker 5: was seeing does. I said that buck will be back eventually,
41:25
Speaker 5: I said, just I know, you hate to sit in
41:27
Speaker 5: one spot for day long. But he was a big
41:29
Speaker 5: sentline guy too, so he wasn't worried about his scent.
41:31
Speaker 5: He sat in that spot and on the seventh day,
41:35
Speaker 5: Sunday morning, the last day of his hunt, that buck
41:39
Speaker 5: came back and he shot it was one hundred and
41:40
Speaker 5: forty two inch ten points. It took him that long
41:43
Speaker 5: to circle back to that spot because he had such
41:45
Speaker 5: a big horror area.
41:47
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's hard in those situations.
41:50
Speaker 6: Well, and I think trail camera, my experience with trail
41:54
Speaker 6: camera trail camera data would it supports that right in
42:00
Speaker 6: my experience. Maybe it's different for other people, but in
42:02
Speaker 6: my experience, it's pretty common to see a buck for
42:07
Speaker 6: a couple three days and you get a picture of them,
42:10
Speaker 6: you know, morning, evening wherever, and then he seems like
42:13
Speaker 6: he disappears for three to five days, ever week or
42:17
Speaker 6: whatever it is, and then a lot of times they
42:19
Speaker 6: come back. It feels like these deer they work on
42:23
Speaker 6: little circuits. And I think all of the deer studies
42:26
Speaker 6: that I've read, either from MSU or for the deer
42:31
Speaker 6: studies that have happened that I've seen in Pennsylvania, seems
42:34
Speaker 6: to kind of correlate with that. That is specifically in
42:37
Speaker 6: the rut that these these bucks they kind of like
42:40
Speaker 6: they have the little circuit and they're here for a
42:42
Speaker 6: few days, and then they kind of move to the
42:44
Speaker 6: next place, and they're here for two days, and then
42:47
Speaker 6: they move and they kind of just make a little
42:48
Speaker 6: circuit around their core area. And I think that's a
42:53
Speaker 6: real thing, and patience, you know, can sometimes be the
42:56
Speaker 6: better part of valor.
42:59
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's especially the case during peak rut. During pre
43:05
Speaker 5: rut they tend to stay in tighter core areas. They're
43:08
Speaker 5: not branching out as far. But during pre rout they're
43:12
Speaker 5: much more routine. You're much more apt to catch them
43:14
Speaker 5: on camera more routinely, maybe every three days.
43:18
Speaker 7: You'll get a picture for four four days coming.
43:20
Speaker 5: Through with regularity, there's some consistency to it, whereas during
43:25
Speaker 5: peak rut it's a crap shoot.
43:35
Speaker 3: So, Greg, a second ago, you had mentioned that one
43:38
Speaker 3: way you vary from John a little bit is that
43:41
Speaker 3: you might prefer those transition zones a little bit more.
43:44
Speaker 3: And if I might kind of broaden this idea of
43:48
Speaker 3: transition zones, I think the way you were kind of
43:50
Speaker 3: referring to it would be not just like a transition area,
43:52
Speaker 3: but more like transitions from place to place, that being
43:54
Speaker 3: like travel corridors or pinch points, funnels. You said the
43:58
Speaker 3: description of like a saddle between two betting areas, So funnels,
44:01
Speaker 3: pinch points, travel corridors, that is like bread and butter
44:05
Speaker 3: rut hunting location. Anyone who's studied deer or been deer hunting,
44:09
Speaker 3: or listened to a few podcasts know that hunting a
44:12
Speaker 3: pinch point or a funnel during the rut is a
44:15
Speaker 3: solid game plan. But the details of how to do
44:19
Speaker 3: that well, or the specifics of setting up on one
44:22
Speaker 3: in a smart way, there's a little bit more nuance there.
44:26
Speaker 3: Could you share with me a little bit more of
44:28
Speaker 3: how you approach those types of setups? What makes a
44:32
Speaker 3: really really good travel corridor or rout funnel set up
44:36
Speaker 3: for you? Any examples would be really helpful. Basically looking
44:40
Speaker 3: for that next level of depth on something that generically
44:42
Speaker 3: everybody gets, but maybe we don't understand the details as well.
44:47
Speaker 6: That's a great question. I would say a lot of
44:50
Speaker 6: it revolves around pressure, a lot of these transition. Maybe
44:55
Speaker 6: we're using the wrong terms, but these pinch points, these funnels,
45:00
Speaker 6: these corridors that link different travel patterns. A lot of times,
45:05
Speaker 6: they're really easy to spot on a map if you
45:08
Speaker 6: understand satellite imagery. Not every hunter does, but if you don't,
45:13
Speaker 6: you should learn. You should learn how to read a
45:15
Speaker 6: topo map. If you're a hunter and you don't know
45:18
Speaker 6: how to read a topo map, you are wrong. You
45:21
Speaker 6: need to learn how to read a topo map. Watch
45:23
Speaker 6: a YouTube video. You'll get it and it will open
45:26
Speaker 6: up your eyes to how deer use an area. See,
45:30
Speaker 6: deer are creatures of habit. They want to use the
45:33
Speaker 6: path of least resistance, and it's oftentimes not that difficult
45:37
Speaker 6: to pinpoint those on a map. A saddle, a bench
45:42
Speaker 6: that follows a ridgeline. Those are the places that deer
45:46
Speaker 6: are going to use with regularity. The trick is finding
45:51
Speaker 6: ones that other hunters aren't king in on, okay, because
45:56
Speaker 6: they're oftentimes very easy to find.
45:58
Speaker 2: So what I have.
46:00
Speaker 6: Found to be useful for me is finding ones that
46:04
Speaker 6: make sense, yet they're hard to access, either because you
46:08
Speaker 6: got to go over water, or it's a long walk,
46:12
Speaker 6: or it's really close to a parking lot somewhere that
46:17
Speaker 6: hunters are overlooking for whatever reason could be hard to find.
46:22
Speaker 6: It could be so simple that nobody thinks that it
46:25
Speaker 6: could actually work.
46:26
Speaker 8: Uh.
46:27
Speaker 2: That happened to me in Missouri as well.
46:33
Speaker 6: I used a bridge to access a really obvious funnel.
46:38
Speaker 6: It was super obvious. Any hunter with any experience could
46:42
Speaker 6: have picked this out. It was really really simple. But
46:45
Speaker 6: most hunters were they were parking in a different spot,
46:48
Speaker 6: and they were coming in from a direction, which was
46:51
Speaker 6: really obvious that a mature buck would he would situate
46:55
Speaker 6: himself in a bedding scenario to where he could watch that, right,
46:59
Speaker 6: because I sure deer knows where the hunting pressure come from.
47:02
Speaker 6: That's that's the reason they're four or five years old.
47:04
Speaker 6: They've been through these hunting seasons. They know where hunters
47:07
Speaker 6: come from, so they will oftentimes bed in a location
47:11
Speaker 6: that will allow them to see that pressure coming and
47:13
Speaker 6: then they'll pop smoke and they'll take their exit route. Well,
47:17
Speaker 6: I think the reason that I was successful in this
47:21
Speaker 6: particular hunt was I came in from a weird way
47:24
Speaker 6: and I climbed out from underneath the bridge and crossed
47:26
Speaker 6: the road where not anybody else was doing that. So
47:30
Speaker 6: a lot of times it's about creatively accessing those spots
47:35
Speaker 6: and or finding ones that they're just not They're just
47:43
Speaker 6: not as no brainers on a map, you know, It's
47:47
Speaker 6: it's really obvious to identify a lot of these places
47:50
Speaker 6: and if it's a really obvious pinch point and it's
47:52
Speaker 6: seventy five yards off a trail, like it's gonna get pounded,
47:56
Speaker 6: mark it off, don't hunt it. It's not gonna work
48:00
Speaker 6: for the most part. But look for those little pinch
48:03
Speaker 6: points that maybe are harder to find on a map
48:06
Speaker 6: or oftentimes what I what I find to be true
48:10
Speaker 6: is if I'm going to a pinch point, a funnel, whatever,
48:16
Speaker 6: I'll oftentimes find little micro pinch points and funnels in
48:20
Speaker 6: that area. And a great example of that is you
48:22
Speaker 6: might get into a into a pitch point called a
48:25
Speaker 6: saddle on a ridge system that's an easy spot to cross,
48:29
Speaker 6: but maybe there's a down tree that would funnel a
48:32
Speaker 6: deer into a really specific spot. Little stuff like that,
48:36
Speaker 6: little micro terrain features can often make a big difference.
48:41
Speaker 6: It's really about putting boots on the ground and going
48:44
Speaker 6: in and and really understanding the terrain. Uh, That's that's
48:50
Speaker 6: kind of what I focus on.
48:53
Speaker 3: Okay, John, would you add anything when it comes to funnels,
48:57
Speaker 3: pinch points, and kind of the next level of depth
49:00
Speaker 3: than just the generic.
49:02
Speaker 7: Yeah, definitely.
49:03
Speaker 5: You know, a lot of hunters follow what they watch
49:05
Speaker 5: on TV, and in my personal opinion, most TV guys
49:09
Speaker 5: that they had to puntulic land wouldn't have a clue
49:11
Speaker 5: what to do. You know, I think fifty percent of
49:13
Speaker 5: the bowl owners in the country could probably killed deer
49:16
Speaker 5: the same deer that TV guys are hunting, if they
49:18
Speaker 5: were hunting the same property, because it's all ultra managed.
49:23
Speaker 5: So when you follow what TV guys do, you know,
49:26
Speaker 5: TV guys can they can look at aerial maps and
49:29
Speaker 5: topo maps, and they can pick out spots on their properties,
49:33
Speaker 5: and you know, they can go to them and they
49:35
Speaker 5: know nobody else has ever been there. So it's very
49:39
Speaker 5: likely that they can go to a pinch point between
49:41
Speaker 5: two areas of timber where there's some adequate cover from
49:46
Speaker 5: point A to point B, and set up there and
49:48
Speaker 5: kill something. A normal hunter hunting public land or heavily
49:52
Speaker 5: pressured areas where there's twenty homesteads in a six hundred
49:56
Speaker 5: and forty acre section and every homestead's got hunters on it,
49:58
Speaker 5: that's a pressured areas.
50:00
Speaker 7: Well, you can't do that.
50:02
Speaker 5: That's why scouting is such a big part of being
50:05
Speaker 5: a successful mature buck hunter. Scouting when you're out there
50:10
Speaker 5: postseason scouting or even preseason scouting. I hate scouting during
50:14
Speaker 5: pre season, but I do once in a blue move.
50:17
Speaker 5: You can see what kind of hunter activities there. You
50:20
Speaker 5: can see marks on trees from stands or climbers or
50:24
Speaker 5: whatever the case may be. Or if it's super easy
50:26
Speaker 5: to access, you can be guaranteed.
50:29
Speaker 7: Other hunters are going to mess it up.
50:31
Speaker 5: So when I'm looking at pinch points, I'm looking at
50:35
Speaker 5: a lot of times river funnels. I've mentioned this on
50:38
Speaker 5: your podcast before. River funnels don't People don't pay attention
50:41
Speaker 5: to that kind of stuff. But when you walk a
50:43
Speaker 5: river way, a lot of times the river will make bends,
50:46
Speaker 5: and every time it makes a bend, there's going to
50:49
Speaker 5: be a cliff, you know, where the water washes the
50:52
Speaker 5: way the dirt under the bend. And then you may
50:56
Speaker 5: go a quarter of a mile or half a mile,
50:58
Speaker 5: whatever the case may be, and there'll be a one
51:00
Speaker 5: hundred yard or a fifty yard flat area. Well, when
51:03
Speaker 5: you get to those flat areas, the river's usually wider
51:06
Speaker 5: and it's shallower, and that's where the deer are going
51:08
Speaker 5: to cross, and they don't have to worry about the
51:10
Speaker 5: cliffs on all the bends.
51:12
Speaker 7: So you know, it's just like a trout fisherman.
51:15
Speaker 5: If you're a trout fisherman, you know exactly if you
51:18
Speaker 5: fish it spot a while where you can cross the
51:20
Speaker 5: river the easiest, and deer know the exact same thing
51:23
Speaker 5: where they live, where they reside, So I look for that,
51:27
Speaker 5: and then any any funnel or transition zone has to
51:32
Speaker 5: have I can't say this enough security cover.
51:35
Speaker 7: Security covered, security cover.
51:36
Speaker 5: If you're after mature bucks and there's any semblance of
51:39
Speaker 5: pressure in the area you're hunting, a mature buck is
51:42
Speaker 5: very rarely going to make himself vulnerable in an open area,
51:45
Speaker 5: even if it's in a transition zone like the river
51:48
Speaker 5: funnel and they have to cross through fifty yards of
51:51
Speaker 5: open timbered across the river there and then go into
51:54
Speaker 5: some security cover.
51:55
Speaker 7: They're not going to make that fifty.
51:56
Speaker 5: Yard vulnerable movement during daylight hours, so it'll be that'll
51:59
Speaker 5: be an after dark spot. So no matter the transition
52:02
Speaker 5: zone you're in, if you're after mature bucks in it's
52:05
Speaker 5: somewhat pressured area, it has they have adequate security cover
52:09
Speaker 5: from mature buck to transition, either through the security govern
52:12
Speaker 5: or along the edge of the security govern They always
52:15
Speaker 5: like they have a quick two or three second exit
52:18
Speaker 5: where they're out of a kill range.
52:23
Speaker 6: Which is why it's so great to focus on the
52:25
Speaker 6: ret phase because that is when they start letting their
52:29
Speaker 6: guard down right, and and that's when they will That's
52:33
Speaker 6: when these bucks. Because John is one thousand percent right,
52:37
Speaker 6: I could not agree more. They just don't make many mistakes.
52:40
Speaker 6: That's how they get to be five four or five
52:43
Speaker 6: six years old and last through several seasons. But once
52:48
Speaker 6: they get in breed mode, they will sometimes make those
52:51
Speaker 6: stupid mistakes, and that's how you can capitalize on it.
52:55
Speaker 7: Yeah, if they're with a hot dough, they might follow
52:57
Speaker 7: her into Walmart.
52:58
Speaker 2: They would.
53:00
Speaker 3: So with these funnels, with these pinch points, I can
53:04
Speaker 3: imagine someone being out there in the woods, maybe public land,
53:07
Speaker 3: maybe a permission farm, whatever it might be, and he's
53:10
Speaker 3: out maybe he's going out to hunt that day in
53:13
Speaker 3: a new area, and he's kind of scouting his way
53:14
Speaker 3: into a hunting location. Maybe, let's hypothetically say, and he
53:17
Speaker 3: comes across some spots they thinks maybe could be good
53:21
Speaker 3: pinch points or funnels. They look like they could be
53:23
Speaker 3: one of these micro funnels you mentioned, Greg, and they're
53:27
Speaker 3: trying to confirm, like, man, is this the kind of
53:29
Speaker 3: spot that a mature buck would move through, and maybe
53:32
Speaker 3: he's looking for security cover like you mentioned, John, But
53:34
Speaker 3: I gotta believe some people will be thinking, hey, I
53:36
Speaker 3: need to see sign that will confirm that, yes, this
53:40
Speaker 3: is a good place, Like the terrain looks right or
53:42
Speaker 3: the cover looks right, but what is the ruts? What's
53:46
Speaker 3: the sign that matters to you during this time of
53:50
Speaker 3: the year November seven through twenty or somewhere in November.
53:54
Speaker 3: What sign do you need to see. We'll start with you, John,
53:59
Speaker 3: when you're trying to say yes, this sign tells me
54:02
Speaker 3: that mature bucks will use this funnel.
54:06
Speaker 5: To security cover if it's a funnel and it has
54:10
Speaker 5: security cover, and it's between two betting areas, which typically
54:14
Speaker 5: during the rod. If a mature buck's moving during daylight hours,
54:16
Speaker 5: he's looking. If he's not with a dough, he's looking
54:19
Speaker 5: for a dough. So he's going to be checking a
54:22
Speaker 5: betting area within his core area, and then he's going
54:25
Speaker 5: to take the best available transition security cover to the
54:28
Speaker 5: next betting area that may possibly within his be within
54:31
Speaker 5: his core area, so you know, and also in a
54:35
Speaker 5: betting area, to me, when you are physically in a
54:37
Speaker 5: betting area during the road phases. That's where bucks, mature
54:40
Speaker 5: bucks push the doughs into to do their breeding. So
54:46
Speaker 5: if you go set up in a betting area, those
54:49
Speaker 5: bucks are going to breed those doughs every twenty minutes
54:52
Speaker 5: to forty minutes, and they're going to get up and
54:55
Speaker 5: you know they're going to bed maybe fifteen or twenty
54:57
Speaker 5: yards downwindo the dough after a breeding, after the breed,
55:00
Speaker 5: and then maybe twenty minutes and whatever the case may be,
55:03
Speaker 5: he'll get up and he'll go and nudge er and
55:05
Speaker 5: they'll play a little thirty to one hundred yard chase game.
55:08
Speaker 5: And it's all within security government. So if you're in
55:10
Speaker 5: a betting area, you know, as long as you're in
55:13
Speaker 5: an area where there's runways going by, there's always the
55:17
Speaker 5: chance at any time of day to get an opportunity
55:21
Speaker 5: in the mature buck. The only downside for most hunters
55:25
Speaker 5: when they're hunting within within a betting area is the wind.
55:30
Speaker 5: You know, if you don't have a set control regiment,
55:33
Speaker 5: typically on average, fifty percent of the deer you see
55:36
Speaker 5: are going to be downwind w because there's no rhyme
55:39
Speaker 5: or reason in a betting area Obviously, if you're in
55:41
Speaker 5: a betting area and you have the option of being
55:43
Speaker 5: in an oak tree that's possibly dropping acorns, or at
55:46
Speaker 5: a scrape area that's within a betting area, you know
55:49
Speaker 5: that's where you'd want to set up as long as
55:51
Speaker 5: there was signed there from the you know, there's deer signed.
55:55
Speaker 7: There and droppings in the area.
55:57
Speaker 5: But the set control things is a pretty big b
56:00
Speaker 5: because you're going to have deer down wind of you.
56:03
Speaker 5: But death in betting areas to me people that leaves
56:07
Speaker 5: betting areas as sanctuary areas.
56:09
Speaker 7: If you own your own property and you own a
56:11
Speaker 7: lot of property.
56:12
Speaker 5: And you've got a ten anchor betting area, yeah you
56:14
Speaker 5: can leave it as a sanctuary area because you don't
56:16
Speaker 5: have to worry about anybody else.
56:18
Speaker 7: Killing the deer. You know, on your property, they're staying there.
56:22
Speaker 5: So if you're not in that, if you don't have
56:26
Speaker 5: that opportunity to own land and you're on public land,
56:28
Speaker 5: you've got to be back in the junk where the
56:30
Speaker 5: bucks are going to be breeding the dogs during the
56:32
Speaker 5: rut phases and so you know, and they and when
56:36
Speaker 5: they're pushing those doughs in those betting areas, a lot
56:39
Speaker 5: of times as you guys well know it's on uncharted rows.
56:42
Speaker 5: You know those those aren't always following runways, they're just
56:44
Speaker 5: running through the swamp or.
56:46
Speaker 7: Whatever the case may be. So jawning about the ruck.
56:50
Speaker 5: The run is something that anybody during the long spot
56:54
Speaker 5: could kill something just by accident.
56:57
Speaker 6: Yeah, question right, which you define a betting area as
57:03
Speaker 6: as how you're describing it? Would you would you just
57:06
Speaker 6: talk about all that. I'd like to hear your your
57:10
Speaker 6: explanation of what a betting area is.
57:13
Speaker 5: I get that question so much, you know, security government
57:17
Speaker 5: betting areas because betting.
57:18
Speaker 6: Areas already already answered, but I want to I want
57:22
Speaker 6: to hear you say it for all the listeners because I.
57:25
Speaker 2: Think it will be useful.
57:27
Speaker 5: Yeah, betting areas can change from area to area, Like
57:30
Speaker 5: if you're in if you're in hill country, they don't
57:32
Speaker 5: have swamps like Michigan does and Lake Ohio does and
57:36
Speaker 5: some of the other Midwestern states, uh, you know, Southern Ohio,
57:39
Speaker 5: Southern Indiana, southern you know that's all hill country or
57:43
Speaker 5: West Virginia.
57:44
Speaker 7: You know, and bucks there will bed up on the
57:46
Speaker 7: tops of the hills.
57:48
Speaker 5: You know, they'll bed where the if the wind's coming
57:50
Speaker 5: over the hill, they'll bed where they can smell anything
57:53
Speaker 5: coming up the other side, and then they'll have a
57:55
Speaker 5: visual down down the side they're betted on it on
57:58
Speaker 5: the other side of the So that type of a
58:02
Speaker 5: betting or is different than where I live, which is,
58:07
Speaker 5: you know, betting areas are very identifiable. It's the thickest area,
58:10
Speaker 5: the densest area in the area. You know, that's where
58:14
Speaker 5: the bucks are going to be. I mean, I'm not
58:15
Speaker 5: talking about like a blueberry marsh where you have to
58:18
Speaker 5: crawl over the brush.
58:19
Speaker 7: I'm talking about just areas where.
58:21
Speaker 5: There's autumnolives or red brush or briar bushes, sparse stuff,
58:27
Speaker 5: you know, marsh grasses, some cat tails spotted here and there, hemlocks.
58:32
Speaker 7: You know.
58:33
Speaker 5: Betting areas are basically, if you were the deer and
58:39
Speaker 5: everybody was trying to kill you, where are the heaviest
58:42
Speaker 5: places of security cover on the property, where you think
58:45
Speaker 5: you could go in and feel safe.
58:47
Speaker 7: Moving during daylight hours. That's the betting area.
58:50
Speaker 5: So in that with that scenario, betting areas are different
58:54
Speaker 5: from area to area depending on the topography, but you
58:58
Speaker 5: always want to look at it as that's the dnsest area.
59:01
Speaker 5: In the safest place where I would feel comfortable moving
59:04
Speaker 5: during daylight hours, within this mile section or within this
59:08
Speaker 5: public land, and that's where I would I would set up.
59:12
Speaker 3: So okay, here's another one we here we already talk
59:16
Speaker 3: We talked about pinch points funnels. That's another one that
59:18
Speaker 3: everyone knows. Betting areas. Everyone knows you should hunt betting
59:22
Speaker 3: areas during the run, especially spots where there's lots of
59:25
Speaker 3: does betting. Right, that's we know, go where the does
59:28
Speaker 3: are betting. There's gonna be bucks checking them. But it's
59:31
Speaker 3: harder to pick the right spot.
59:33
Speaker 4: In a betting area.
59:34
Speaker 3: Can you discuss how both of you guys like to
59:37
Speaker 3: do that? So how do you find the X within
59:40
Speaker 3: a betting ear or around a betting ear, however.
59:43
Speaker 4: You each like to do it.
59:45
Speaker 3: Because there might be a two acre zone where there's
59:47
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of deer betted, and when you're bow hunting,
59:50
Speaker 3: that's a large area. It might be ten acres, there
59:51
Speaker 3: might be a court aker. Obviously they're all different. But
59:55
Speaker 3: how do you think about choosing the right spot like
59:58
Speaker 3: this spot within the spot.
59:59
Speaker 4: Of a doll betting area during the rut?
1:00:02
Speaker 3: Because this is really really important for people to have
1:00:04
Speaker 3: success this time of year or one of the best places. John,
1:00:08
Speaker 3: you want to want to kick it off, continue your
1:00:10
Speaker 3: thoughts there, I'm started.
1:00:12
Speaker 7: All the only ones you go for it? You don't.
1:00:15
Speaker 6: Great, So what what I would do. Let's let's say
1:00:19
Speaker 6: there's a big marsh and big cattail marsh and you
1:00:23
Speaker 6: it's obvious that there are dos.
1:00:24
Speaker 2: And bucks betting in there. Uh.
1:00:27
Speaker 6: You Sometimes you don't have to make it more complicated
1:00:30
Speaker 6: than it needs to be. I'm bad about that. I'm
1:00:32
Speaker 6: bad about making things over complicated. But what I would
1:00:35
Speaker 6: do and what I have done in states, uh, where
1:00:38
Speaker 6: I would encounter a situation like that, So I would
1:00:41
Speaker 6: scout the edges and I would look for the heaviest
1:00:45
Speaker 6: trails runways coming in and out of those spots that
1:00:48
Speaker 6: are marked with sign.
1:00:51
Speaker 2: You're talking abo.
1:00:53
Speaker 5: You're talking scouting in season, not post in season scouting.
1:00:57
Speaker 2: Which is that's right?
1:00:59
Speaker 6: Which is which is a little different than the way
1:01:01
Speaker 6: John typically hunts. Typically, not always, but typically John has
1:01:06
Speaker 6: his spots scouted and prepped in the preseason or what
1:01:11
Speaker 6: John says postseason January February March, whenever snow goes away
1:01:16
Speaker 6: and before green up a lot of times when I'm
1:01:19
Speaker 6: hunting the rut, I'm in a different state that I've
1:01:22
Speaker 6: never been before, and that's a little different than the
1:01:26
Speaker 6: way John does it, which is fine. But what I
1:01:29
Speaker 6: do typically is scout the edges and I'm looking for
1:01:33
Speaker 6: sign that's telling me when or where a buck is
1:01:38
Speaker 6: choosing to enter and exit that and then typically I
1:01:41
Speaker 6: would set up on that not real super complicated, find
1:01:45
Speaker 6: the betting area, take your best guess at how that
1:01:49
Speaker 6: deer that buck is entering and leaving, and then set
1:01:52
Speaker 6: up on it and then adjust fire. Other people would
1:01:55
Speaker 6: call that like an observation hunt, like Dan Infult, he
1:01:59
Speaker 6: kind of popular rise that term on the Hunting Beast forum,
1:02:02
Speaker 6: and so he would say, you know, you would make
1:02:05
Speaker 6: an observation sit where you might hang back a little
1:02:08
Speaker 6: bit further than you typically might, see how the deer
1:02:12
Speaker 6: using that area, and then move in. I've seen my
1:02:15
Speaker 6: buddies from the hunting public do that all over the country,
1:02:20
Speaker 6: and they will go to a new state, they will
1:02:22
Speaker 6: hang back, they'll see how the deer are using this
1:02:25
Speaker 6: particular area, and then they'll move in on the next
1:02:27
Speaker 6: hunt for the kill.
1:02:29
Speaker 2: It's very effective.
1:02:30
Speaker 6: You have to be aggressive you have to be willing
1:02:32
Speaker 6: to blow out the area, and when you're going in
1:02:35
Speaker 6: for a kill like that.
1:02:37
Speaker 5: For freelancing, you almost have to do that, because for
1:02:40
Speaker 5: free lancing, you can't go in in the afternoon into
1:02:44
Speaker 5: physically into the interior of a betting area and scout
1:02:47
Speaker 5: it for signed because obviously.
1:02:50
Speaker 7: You're going to blow the deer out of it.
1:02:52
Speaker 5: So when you're free lancing, you almost are tied to
1:02:55
Speaker 5: doing the perimeter stuff or doing it from a distance
1:02:58
Speaker 5: one day, that's right, readjusting the next. But when when
1:03:03
Speaker 5: I'm postseason scouting and I'm physically going in betting areas
1:03:07
Speaker 5: and I'm covering every inch of it, I can blow
1:03:09
Speaker 5: every deer out of there. I could care less. I'm
1:03:12
Speaker 5: I'm six months from deer season. Those are all going
1:03:14
Speaker 5: to be back in there. Everything's going to be cope
1:03:16
Speaker 5: SETI back to normal by deer season, so I can
1:03:20
Speaker 5: scrutinize every inch of that betting area and every inch
1:03:23
Speaker 5: of the property I want to look at without concern
1:03:26
Speaker 5: about spooking deer like like you'd have to be, you.
1:03:29
Speaker 7: Know, during season.
1:03:30
Speaker 5: So when I'm going into a betting area, I'm looking
1:03:32
Speaker 5: for master trees, a lot of times when I cross
1:03:35
Speaker 5: river with waiters or go across a lake, you know,
1:03:38
Speaker 5: in a boat or a canoe or whatever the case
1:03:40
Speaker 5: may be, I've lost a lot of hunters right there.
1:03:44
Speaker 5: By using waitershi boots and boats. You've lost probably at
1:03:47
Speaker 5: least ninety to ninety.
1:03:48
Speaker 7: Five percent of your competition.
1:03:50
Speaker 5: When we were in Indiana last year, I saw in
1:03:53
Speaker 5: that complete, huge area, I saw one other hunter.
1:03:55
Speaker 7: In a boat, right, do you remember that where we
1:03:59
Speaker 7: were last year?
1:04:00
Speaker 5: Just nobody else does that because it's more work. So
1:04:06
Speaker 5: once you get back into those areas, a lot of
1:04:08
Speaker 5: times they open up. You know, they'll have brush along
1:04:12
Speaker 5: the edge of the river when you cross it, but
1:04:14
Speaker 5: a lot of times you get back into there and
1:04:15
Speaker 5: they open up into a little bit more open, sparse,
1:04:18
Speaker 5: sparse brush and stuff. And you know, I look for oaks.
1:04:22
Speaker 5: I look for the same sign I would look for
1:04:24
Speaker 5: for hunting early season. I'm looking for mass if it's there,
1:04:28
Speaker 5: and if there is, I'll look at to see what
1:04:31
Speaker 5: kind of sign was.
1:04:31
Speaker 7: There from the previous runt. You know, is there rubs
1:04:34
Speaker 7: around that area.
1:04:35
Speaker 5: Is there possibly a couple of old scrapes by these oaks,
1:04:39
Speaker 5: or maybe there's a little opening in a betting area
1:04:42
Speaker 5: and it's got a multiple runways.
1:04:43
Speaker 7: Converging through it.
1:04:44
Speaker 5: I kill the Bucking two thousand and four this way
1:04:47
Speaker 5: in an automolive patch with a twenty yard opening in
1:04:49
Speaker 5: the center of it. So I'm just looking for congested
1:04:53
Speaker 5: sign rubs, you know, I'm looking for taller rubs, possible scrapes.
1:04:58
Speaker 5: But usually when you're in betting areas, you don't see
1:05:00
Speaker 5: a lot of scrapes. It's pretty rare actually to see
1:05:03
Speaker 5: to see scrapes in a swamp.
1:05:06
Speaker 7: So I'm just looking for the most.
1:05:08
Speaker 5: Congested sign because i know if I'm hunting there during
1:05:11
Speaker 5: the run the bucks are the mature bucks are going
1:05:13
Speaker 5: to be pushing the dose around, so they're going to
1:05:15
Speaker 5: be those dos and.
1:05:16
Speaker 7: Bucks are going to be moving around during the course
1:05:18
Speaker 7: of the day.
1:05:20
Speaker 5: And wherever if I'm in the most congested sign and runways,
1:05:24
Speaker 5: I can find odds are And I'm a percentage guys.
1:05:28
Speaker 5: I hunt according to percentages. The percentages are higher that
1:05:31
Speaker 5: something's going to go through that more congested runway area
1:05:34
Speaker 5: that I'm at than someplace else.
1:05:37
Speaker 3: Now, John, I know you don't. You don't factor wind
1:05:40
Speaker 3: direction into your strategy when it comes to avoiding deer
1:05:44
Speaker 3: winding you because of your sink control. But does the
1:05:47
Speaker 3: wind Does the wind direction impact where you want to
1:05:50
Speaker 3: hunt in a betting area at all? Because many times
1:05:53
Speaker 3: folks talk about bucks preferring to check a betting area
1:05:56
Speaker 3: on the downwind side so they can more efficiently do
1:05:59
Speaker 3: travel and check places. Does that is that something you
1:06:02
Speaker 3: can in.
1:06:02
Speaker 4: It at all?
1:06:03
Speaker 5: I actually will set up places where I assume deer
1:06:09
Speaker 5: her coming in from the down wind side because I
1:06:11
Speaker 5: know I'm not going to get winded, and I'll beat
1:06:13
Speaker 5: that opportunity. So in Michigan, I've killed two one hundred
1:06:19
Speaker 5: and fifty inch bucks because I was hunting at a
1:06:22
Speaker 5: scrape area. And I set when i'm when i'm hunting
1:06:26
Speaker 5: in a scrape at a scrape area, if it's in
1:06:28
Speaker 5: a bedding area and a transition zone that's relatively wide,
1:06:34
Speaker 5: that has adequate security government if there's a tree on
1:06:37
Speaker 5: the south side or southeast side, because winds typically out
1:06:40
Speaker 5: of the north or northwest in the predominantly in the fall,
1:06:43
Speaker 5: I will set a tree up about twenty to twenty
1:06:45
Speaker 5: five yards on the down wind side of the scrapes
1:06:47
Speaker 5: where I have a twenty five yard shot to the
1:06:49
Speaker 5: physical scrapes, and I have the twenty five yard because
1:06:52
Speaker 5: I'm only shooting forty pounds, so I only have twenty
1:06:54
Speaker 5: five yard distance. And I also make a shooting lane
1:06:57
Speaker 5: twenty five yards to the south or southeast of the tree.
1:07:02
Speaker 5: So if a deer circles and comes in from down
1:07:05
Speaker 5: wind because he doesn't want to be strape areas are
1:07:07
Speaker 5: always in a little open area, and a lot of
1:07:10
Speaker 5: times when sure bucks don't want to be in that
1:07:11
Speaker 5: open zone during daylight hours.
1:07:14
Speaker 7: So I'll set that up.
1:07:15
Speaker 5: And I've on two different occasions I've had monster bucks
1:07:20
Speaker 5: come in and circle down wind and I've shot them
1:07:23
Speaker 5: on the down wind side.
1:07:25
Speaker 7: That's the cool thing about sun control.
1:07:27
Speaker 5: Also, if you can set up on the down wind
1:07:29
Speaker 5: side and you can use bucks coming in from the
1:07:31
Speaker 5: down wind side to your advantage because you're not worried
1:07:33
Speaker 5: about getting there.
1:07:35
Speaker 3: Greg, what about with you when it comes to wind
1:07:37
Speaker 3: direction and that helping your your kind of scout the
1:07:41
Speaker 3: edge find the sign approach. But I'm assuming wind direction
1:07:45
Speaker 3: factors into that as well though too.
1:07:49
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:07:50
Speaker 6: John pretty much outlined it very succinctly there. But the bucks,
1:07:55
Speaker 6: even if you're John and you don't pay attention to wind.
1:07:57
Speaker 6: The bucks are one hundred percent They live in die
1:08:00
Speaker 6: by their noses, so to.
1:08:02
Speaker 2: Ignore that is not smart.
1:08:05
Speaker 6: I have seen way too many times, and buddies in
1:08:09
Speaker 6: camp that I've been hunting with have seen way too
1:08:12
Speaker 6: many times these bucks cruising the down wind side of
1:08:17
Speaker 6: a betting area. They check the whole thing literally just
1:08:21
Speaker 6: by kind of slowly walking down the edge, sniffing the trails,
1:08:25
Speaker 6: and they know everything that is in that betting area,
1:08:27
Speaker 6: so they don't even necessarily have to go in there.
1:08:30
Speaker 6: So using that to your advantage and setting up on
1:08:33
Speaker 6: the down wind side in a place that it's a
1:08:37
Speaker 6: little easier for John since he doesn't worry as much
1:08:40
Speaker 6: about the wind, so his placement is a little bit easier.
1:08:43
Speaker 6: But for those of us that do pay attention to
1:08:45
Speaker 6: our wind direction and getting busted, it's a little harder
1:08:51
Speaker 6: to set up on that route because you have to
1:08:53
Speaker 6: really pay attention to where you're at and where your
1:08:55
Speaker 6: wind's going. Understanding thermals, understanding how wind currents work is important.
1:09:02
Speaker 6: It's it's a bit of an advanced kind of strategy
1:09:06
Speaker 6: or tactic that hunters need to learn, kind of like
1:09:09
Speaker 6: reading a topo map. I would say, if you don't
1:09:11
Speaker 6: understand thermals how they rise and how they fall, and
1:09:14
Speaker 6: how it impacts how the deer use the area, then
1:09:18
Speaker 6: you need you need to spruce up your game there, hunter,
1:09:21
Speaker 6: because you need to understand that because bucks do and
1:09:23
Speaker 6: they always use the wind of their advantage, so you
1:09:27
Speaker 6: got to find a way to use that against them.
1:09:29
Speaker 6: And if you know that there's a betting area in
1:09:32
Speaker 6: a bottom like a lot of times the does will
1:09:34
Speaker 6: bed congregate in bottoms, especially in like hill country, right,
1:09:38
Speaker 6: they'll they'll that's usually the thickest part of the area
1:09:41
Speaker 6: down in the bottom. It's where all the briers are,
1:09:43
Speaker 6: It's where all the brush is, all that stuff is
1:09:45
Speaker 6: typically in the bottoms, and that's typically where a lot.
1:09:48
Speaker 2: Of does bed.
1:09:49
Speaker 6: The bucks typically don't want to go in there just
1:09:51
Speaker 6: for fun. They would rather skirt the edge, smell everything
1:09:55
Speaker 6: that's in there by coming on the down wind side,
1:09:58
Speaker 6: and then if there's nothing in there that it's excitesome,
1:10:00
Speaker 6: they just move on to the next spot. So I
1:10:03
Speaker 6: definitely factor wind in into every hunt, both how I
1:10:07
Speaker 6: can use it to my advantage and how a buck
1:10:10
Speaker 6: in the area would use it to his advantage.
1:10:21
Speaker 4: You mentioned the thermals.
1:10:23
Speaker 3: Greg, One of the rut locations you guys discuss in
1:10:26
Speaker 3: the book are thermal hubs or thermal draft hubs, key
1:10:31
Speaker 3: thing like you mentioned in hill Country. Can you talk
1:10:33
Speaker 3: a little bit about why the first? What does that mean?
1:10:36
Speaker 3: What for folks that aren't familiar, can you describe a
1:10:39
Speaker 3: thermal hub? How do identify it? And then how to
1:10:41
Speaker 3: hunt it? Because as you mentioned, the wind can be
1:10:45
Speaker 3: tricky in these types of locations, and as you describe,
1:10:48
Speaker 3: you need to understand the thermals. But also even with
1:10:51
Speaker 3: an understanding of the thermals, it's still kind of tough
1:10:53
Speaker 3: because there's certain parts of the day when the thermals
1:10:55
Speaker 3: are going to hurt you in these locations, certain parts
1:10:57
Speaker 3: of the day when the thermals will help you. Navigetting
1:11:00
Speaker 3: that timing and where to set up your stand or
1:11:03
Speaker 3: saddle within that location is not simple.
1:11:06
Speaker 4: Can you can you touch on all that?
1:11:08
Speaker 7: So?
1:11:09
Speaker 6: Yeah, and yes, it's a great question. So first of all,
1:11:13
Speaker 6: let's define a thermal hub and it's different for everybody. John,
1:11:16
Speaker 6: why don't you define a thermal hub as as we
1:11:19
Speaker 6: talk about it in the book, And then I'll talk
1:11:22
Speaker 6: about my experience hunting around it has that work for you.
1:11:25
Speaker 7: That'll be fine.
1:11:26
Speaker 5: Thermals in the morning are going up, there's the temperatures rising,
1:11:30
Speaker 5: thermals are rising, your order is rising. In the evening
1:11:34
Speaker 5: is once the temperatures start cooling, your thermals are going down.
1:11:38
Speaker 5: So if you're hunting hill country and let's say you're
1:11:41
Speaker 5: on the you're on a side hell and you've got
1:11:43
Speaker 5: a runway up above you, and you've got a runway
1:11:45
Speaker 5: down below you. No matter whether you're hunting morning or evening,
1:11:49
Speaker 5: one of those runways, there's an excellent possibility of getting
1:11:52
Speaker 5: winded because either way, something's going to be downwind of
1:11:56
Speaker 5: you or thermally downwind of you.
1:11:59
Speaker 7: So a hub is let's say, let's say in the evening,
1:12:04
Speaker 7: when thermals are falling, a buck can actually come down
1:12:08
Speaker 7: in the lower side of in a saddle on the
1:12:12
Speaker 7: bottom side of a hill, and because all the thermals
1:12:15
Speaker 7: are going down, they can actually smell if there has
1:12:18
Speaker 7: been any dough activity up on the side of that
1:12:21
Speaker 7: ridge when they're because all that wind is coming down
1:12:25
Speaker 7: into that saddle, and that's a thermal hub. That's a
1:12:27
Speaker 7: collection area basically for all the thermals coming down the
1:12:31
Speaker 7: side of that hill. I did want to say one
1:12:35
Speaker 7: thing about the cell lock, and I've got a very
1:12:37
Speaker 7: interesting statistic, and I'm not tied in the world of
1:12:41
Speaker 7: cell lock home, but it's the only clothing company because
1:12:45
Speaker 7: they own the pad. I'm using the activated carbon, and
1:12:47
Speaker 7: in my opinion, activated carbon is the only thing.
1:12:49
Speaker 5: That works it controlling your human odor. From nineteen sixty
1:12:54
Speaker 5: five through nineteen ninety six, I killed ten record book
1:12:58
Speaker 5: Bucks when I started using sunt lock correctly, because I
1:13:03
Speaker 5: used sunt lock in ninety six, but I wasn't using
1:13:05
Speaker 5: it properly and taking care of it properly when I
1:13:08
Speaker 5: was in ninety seven. From nineteen ninety seven up until
1:13:12
Speaker 5: last Sunday, I killed.
1:13:14
Speaker 7: Forty six book Bucks. So I've killed forty six.
1:13:18
Speaker 5: Book Bucks while using sunt lock from ninety seven through
1:13:21
Speaker 5: twenty twenty four so far, and ten from sixty.
1:13:24
Speaker 7: Five through ninety six. You do the math. That's a
1:13:28
Speaker 7: pretty healthy difference.
1:13:31
Speaker 4: True.
1:13:33
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:13:36
Speaker 6: What I was going to say about thermal hubs is
1:13:39
Speaker 6: maybe to define it a little bit more clearly. So
1:13:42
Speaker 6: if you think about like some you think about where
1:13:45
Speaker 6: multiple mainly in hill country, where multiple ridge systems kind
1:13:49
Speaker 6: of dump into one Like if you can imagine satellite image,
1:13:53
Speaker 6: you typically would have a bottom and it kind of
1:13:56
Speaker 6: meanders and you got ridges on both sides. And then
1:13:58
Speaker 6: typically that bottom will terminate at a kind of a
1:14:04
Speaker 6: bowl where there will be multiple ridge systems that kind
1:14:08
Speaker 6: of dump into one main bottom. And and that that
1:14:14
Speaker 6: confluence of multiple ridge systems dumping into one location is
1:14:20
Speaker 6: what is typically referred to as a thermal hub. And
1:14:23
Speaker 6: if you think about the math of it, right or
1:14:26
Speaker 6: the physics of it, when the wind, when the when
1:14:28
Speaker 6: the wind is the thermals are kind of falling everything,
1:14:32
Speaker 6: it's gonna follow those low those low points. So it's
1:14:34
Speaker 6: gonna the wind is gonna is gonna drop into those
1:14:37
Speaker 6: ridges of the cuts, ravines, whatever you how, whatever you
1:14:40
Speaker 6: call them in your region, and the wind the thermals
1:14:42
Speaker 6: are gonna fall into those low points, and it's gonna
1:14:45
Speaker 6: follow the ridge system all the way down, and it's
1:14:47
Speaker 6: gonna all congregate right there in that bowl. And what
1:14:50
Speaker 6: a buck can do is he can he can skirt
1:14:53
Speaker 6: that thermal hub. A lot of times he'll do it.
1:14:56
Speaker 6: Uh in the mornings, he'll be low. It's skirting that
1:15:00
Speaker 6: because in the mornings, before the sun comes out, before
1:15:03
Speaker 6: it starts heating up the air, your thermals are falling, right,
1:15:06
Speaker 6: they fall in their cold and they rise when they're hot.
1:15:10
Speaker 6: That's it's it's it's thermal activity. So in the morning,
1:15:14
Speaker 6: before the sun comes up, your thermals are falling and
1:15:17
Speaker 6: they're going down into that into that little thermal hub.
1:15:21
Speaker 6: As soon as the sun comes up and starts warming
1:15:24
Speaker 6: up the air, your thermals start to rise. So a
1:15:27
Speaker 6: rule of thumb that I've kind of learned through the
1:15:30
Speaker 6: years and watching a lot of people have success, is to.
1:15:34
Speaker 2: Hunt low early.
1:15:37
Speaker 6: And then move as the sun warms up. Move because
1:15:41
Speaker 6: once the wind switches and those thermals start rising, anything
1:15:45
Speaker 6: that comes above you, any buck that comes above you, you're busted.
1:15:48
Speaker 2: You're not gonna get away.
1:15:49
Speaker 6: Unless you know you have a full scent locked routine
1:15:51
Speaker 6: and you are confident in it, then that's a different story.
1:15:54
Speaker 6: But for for folks that don't have that system, as
1:15:58
Speaker 6: soon as that wind is, as soon as the thermals
1:16:00
Speaker 6: start rising, you gotta move. And I can illustrate this perfectly,
1:16:05
Speaker 6: my good buddy Carl. Last year, John, you were there,
1:16:08
Speaker 6: you saw this happen we're hunting Indiana on public land.
1:16:11
Speaker 6: And he did that strategy to eight. So Carl found
1:16:16
Speaker 6: a thermal hub, uh so, a ridge system that all
1:16:20
Speaker 6: dumped down into one spot and it was shredded with
1:16:23
Speaker 6: sign all around the thermal hub. Call it the bottom
1:16:28
Speaker 6: third of the hillside. So you know you got a
1:16:31
Speaker 6: two hundred foot hill. The bottom third of that is
1:16:34
Speaker 6: where all the sign was in this particular thermal hub.
1:16:37
Speaker 2: Carl figured that out.
1:16:39
Speaker 6: He found it by scouting, and he realized that he
1:16:42
Speaker 6: had this opportunity to hunt low in the morning in
1:16:44
Speaker 6: case that buck came through there in the morning. He
1:16:48
Speaker 6: had a plan. He called his shot. He said, look,
1:16:50
Speaker 6: the wind, the thermals are gonna switch at like eight
1:16:54
Speaker 6: thirty in the morning. That's when you know the forecast
1:16:57
Speaker 6: is to change. And he said, I'm gonna move up
1:17:00
Speaker 6: the hill as soon as my wind shifts, and I
1:17:03
Speaker 6: found another spot that I think a bench that I
1:17:06
Speaker 6: think that buck is going to walk once it warms up.
1:17:09
Speaker 6: That's what he did. He went in the morning in
1:17:11
Speaker 6: the dark, and he set up low. About two hours later,
1:17:15
Speaker 6: when the wind started to switch and the thermal started
1:17:18
Speaker 6: to rise, got down, he moved up and he shot
1:17:21
Speaker 6: that buck on the exact trail that he called about
1:17:24
Speaker 6: ten minutes after he got in that tree. So it's
1:17:27
Speaker 6: a general rule of thumb you can hunt low in
1:17:29
Speaker 6: the mornings, but then you have to move. You have
1:17:32
Speaker 6: to get out of there before your thermal switching. Then
1:17:35
Speaker 6: everything above you screwed.
1:17:36
Speaker 3: So okay, well I want to take that one step further.
1:17:39
Speaker 3: So if you were going to hunt during the rut,
1:17:41
Speaker 3: and you're hunting a thermal hub location as you just
1:17:44
Speaker 3: defined it, where you've got like a bowl and a
1:17:46
Speaker 3: bunch of ridges dropping down to the bottom. Usually at
1:17:49
Speaker 3: the bottom there there's oftentimes a big hub scrape too,
1:17:52
Speaker 3: or a primary scrape. You know, that's also a concentration
1:17:54
Speaker 3: of sense. So a lot of deer like to hit
1:17:57
Speaker 3: those scrapes and ends up being created there. So you've
1:17:59
Speaker 3: got all these things happened there in the early morning,
1:18:02
Speaker 3: So you're recommending hunt low in the early morning. I
1:18:05
Speaker 3: imagine where the best convergence of those trails is, or
1:18:08
Speaker 3: where that big scrape is or whatever it is, and
1:18:10
Speaker 3: you're hoping that the thermals that are dropping will keep
1:18:13
Speaker 3: your scent pooled down low with you and you can
1:18:15
Speaker 3: kill a deer before he gets down there. When you
1:18:19
Speaker 3: were to move later in the morning for the rest
1:18:21
Speaker 3: of the day. Now you've got a lot of options.
1:18:23
Speaker 3: It's simple when you're trying to hunt down at the
1:18:25
Speaker 3: bottom where that big scrape is or where that convergence
1:18:28
Speaker 3: of all the trails is. But in the afternoon, now
1:18:30
Speaker 3: you've got maybe four different points that are all dropping down.
1:18:34
Speaker 3: You've got ridges on either side all around you. You
1:18:37
Speaker 3: could pick any one of those and you will out
1:18:39
Speaker 3: have an entire hillside to pick from and or a
1:18:41
Speaker 3: ridgetop to pick from. How do you pick the spot
1:18:44
Speaker 3: for your afternoon with the rising thermals when you have
1:18:48
Speaker 3: so many more options, what are you thinking about that?
1:18:52
Speaker 6: It's way harder to pin it down. And that's why
1:18:56
Speaker 6: the phase of.
1:18:57
Speaker 2: The rut is so important for this.
1:18:59
Speaker 6: When you want to when if you're gonna move up
1:19:01
Speaker 6: and hunt, you're exactly right mark where the deer have
1:19:05
Speaker 6: way more options to go. What you really want to
1:19:08
Speaker 6: be is in the say, in the seek phase of
1:19:10
Speaker 6: the rut, the pre rut, where the deer are really
1:19:13
Speaker 6: covering ground, because your chances of a deer walking through
1:19:17
Speaker 6: there are much better as opposed to the peak rut
1:19:22
Speaker 6: where they are traveling less.
1:19:23
Speaker 2: As we learned about earlier the way John.
1:19:25
Speaker 6: Described the peak rut, the deer start moving less, and
1:19:29
Speaker 6: then the post rut when they start traveling again. To
1:19:33
Speaker 6: seek out those that haven't been bred. That is your
1:19:36
Speaker 6: best opportunity to hunt higher on and I would find
1:19:40
Speaker 6: uh what, let's just use Carl's example is what he
1:19:44
Speaker 6: did and it worked. What he did is he found
1:19:48
Speaker 6: a small little bench that gave the deer. It was
1:19:51
Speaker 6: at the top third of the hillside. So on the
1:19:55
Speaker 6: top third he set up on a bench that would
1:19:58
Speaker 6: give a buck and.
1:19:59
Speaker 2: Advantag for travel. Because they're lazy, just like us.
1:20:02
Speaker 6: They don't want to walk on the steepest terrain as
1:20:04
Speaker 6: possible if they can avoid it, they're going to find
1:20:07
Speaker 6: a little bench or something like that that's going to
1:20:09
Speaker 6: give them an advantage. And if you think about, a
1:20:14
Speaker 6: buck could walk that ridge system on the top third,
1:20:19
Speaker 6: and when the wind is blowing towards him, where the thermals
1:20:22
Speaker 6: are rising, he can smell the entire valley below him,
1:20:26
Speaker 6: the whole thing just by slowly walking down the ridge.
1:20:31
Speaker 6: So what it takes is a little bit of experience
1:20:34
Speaker 6: to understand where bucks like to do that and they
1:20:37
Speaker 6: typically like to do that on the top third of
1:20:40
Speaker 6: the ridge. And this isn't my idea. I didn't come
1:20:43
Speaker 6: up with this. Lots of people preach this. You can
1:20:45
Speaker 6: read books about this. Hunters have known this for decades.
1:20:48
Speaker 6: Right that top third of the ridge where the thermals
1:20:52
Speaker 6: are rising. That is, if you can find a little
1:20:54
Speaker 6: bench or some sort of little pinch point in that zone,
1:20:57
Speaker 6: that can be gold for a rut phase.
1:20:59
Speaker 5: Look, yeah, you can mind the does don't have to
1:21:03
Speaker 5: physically be there. If they pass through within an hour
1:21:07
Speaker 5: or two earlier, their sen's going to still rise up,
1:21:10
Speaker 5: you know, in the morning, up the side of those hills.
1:21:14
Speaker 5: One one really cool way of trying to explain thermals
1:21:18
Speaker 5: is if you're sitting around a campfire after dark. Okay,
1:21:21
Speaker 5: the temperatures are dropping, so that means your thermals or
1:21:25
Speaker 5: thermals are coming down. So you've got your fire which
1:21:29
Speaker 5: is hot, so it's hot, so the thermals are going
1:21:34
Speaker 5: up because of the fire, and the thermals environmental thermals are
1:21:39
Speaker 5: coming down, so they're clashing with each other.
1:21:42
Speaker 7: And that's why.
1:21:43
Speaker 5: When you're sitting around a fire, even if there's no wind,
1:21:47
Speaker 5: the smoke from the fire tends to move around the area,
1:21:50
Speaker 5: and you're always getting up and moving if you want
1:21:52
Speaker 5: to stay out of the smoke. It's because the thermals
1:21:56
Speaker 5: are clashing with the environmental temperatures dropping against the thermals
1:22:03
Speaker 5: from the fire heat going up, and they clash, and
1:22:07
Speaker 5: then the wind's just going different direction. Even if there's
1:22:09
Speaker 5: no wind, you know, zero wind on your cell phone
1:22:13
Speaker 5: when you look.
1:22:13
Speaker 7: At aci weather or whatever it may be.
1:22:15
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I know that that that's a very it's
1:22:19
Speaker 6: a pretty basic concept. But I talk to hunters all
1:22:22
Speaker 6: over the country who don't know what thermals are. They
1:22:25
Speaker 6: they has never heard of it, or you know, whatever
1:22:28
Speaker 6: the reason might be. But as a general rule, your
1:22:32
Speaker 6: thermals are they're a slave to the temperature. If the
1:22:36
Speaker 6: temperature is falling, thermals are falling. If the temperature is rising,
1:22:40
Speaker 6: thermals are rising. It's just a general rule. It's an
1:22:44
Speaker 6: easy way to think about it, uh for a hunter.
1:22:47
Speaker 6: If you're if you're not, if you if you've never
1:22:50
Speaker 6: understood wind currents and stuff like that. I'm not a meteorologist,
1:22:54
Speaker 6: but I do know that when temperatures fall, thermals fall,
1:22:58
Speaker 6: and when temperatures rise thermal it's an easy way to
1:23:01
Speaker 6: think about it.
1:23:01
Speaker 5: In no country, you better to know how to hunt
1:23:03
Speaker 5: thermals in flat land. It's not yeah, white as as bad,
1:23:09
Speaker 5: but still in the it's if there's no wind and
1:23:12
Speaker 5: you're in flat country.
1:23:14
Speaker 7: You know, in the.
1:23:15
Speaker 5: Evening, you got to be cautious, you know, because your
1:23:19
Speaker 5: thermals are falling and if something comes close to your tree, uh,
1:23:23
Speaker 5: they could very well win you because of the thermals
1:23:26
Speaker 5: coming down.
1:23:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, tricky. Thing isn't like a hill country set up
1:23:29
Speaker 3: like you just described, Greg. You have two shifts that
1:23:32
Speaker 3: happened during the day. So you've got like you want
1:23:34
Speaker 3: to have a want to have a low spot early
1:23:36
Speaker 3: in the morning, but then part way through the morning
1:23:38
Speaker 3: warms up, so now you want to move high. And
1:23:40
Speaker 3: then that works pretty good until primetime in the evening,
1:23:42
Speaker 3: and then again they're falling again, so then you want
1:23:44
Speaker 3: to move low again. So it can be tricky if
1:23:47
Speaker 3: you're trying to chase that. But it could be tricky. Yeah,
1:23:51
Speaker 3: you're not just chasing the thermals.
1:23:53
Speaker 5: You're chasing how the bucks use the thermalsh You're not
1:23:57
Speaker 5: right and they're gonna Yeah, they're going to definitely they're
1:24:01
Speaker 5: going to definitely move according your thermals in the yellow country.
1:24:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm heading to hunt some Kentucky public
1:24:08
Speaker 3: land next week, hill country, just like we're describing.
1:24:12
Speaker 4: And this is not my bread and butter.
1:24:13
Speaker 3: So I'm asking a lot of questions about this because
1:24:15
Speaker 3: I'm trying to get spruce stuff and ready for it making.
1:24:21
Speaker 7: Yes.
1:24:21
Speaker 3: Yes, Okay, So we have a bunch of things that
1:24:25
Speaker 3: we have not gotten to cover yet that I wanted to,
1:24:28
Speaker 3: but we are using up a lot of your time,
1:24:30
Speaker 3: So I want to kind of shift into like a
1:24:32
Speaker 3: rapid fire type mode here, guys, where I'm going to
1:24:35
Speaker 3: ask you guys for your quick thoughts on a topic
1:24:38
Speaker 3: and in your mind, try to do like the one
1:24:40
Speaker 3: minute summary, like the fast here's the most important thing
1:24:43
Speaker 3: you got to know about this one thing, and we're
1:24:45
Speaker 3: going to try to rapid fire roll through a few
1:24:47
Speaker 3: more important rut things just to make sure someone listening
1:24:51
Speaker 3: on November seventh, twenty twenty four has a little bit
1:24:54
Speaker 3: of everything they can use over this next week.
1:24:56
Speaker 4: Okay, So.
1:24:59
Speaker 3: Rapid fire greg really quick calling during the rut. What
1:25:03
Speaker 3: are your few couple quick most important thoughts for calling
1:25:06
Speaker 3: during peak rut.
1:25:10
Speaker 2: I love it.
1:25:11
Speaker 6: I love rattling. I'm not afraid to rattle. I don't
1:25:16
Speaker 6: typically get real super aggressive with it. I typically like
1:25:19
Speaker 6: to do a little bit more of like a sparring
1:25:22
Speaker 6: type session that I actually learned from John. He describes
1:25:25
Speaker 6: it in some of his other books, and we talk
1:25:27
Speaker 6: about rattling in this book. But yeah, I love rattling.
1:25:31
Speaker 6: I am a fan.
1:25:31
Speaker 2: I do it.
1:25:32
Speaker 3: Frequently, John, same question to you. Quick thoughts on calling
1:25:36
Speaker 3: during the rut.
1:25:36
Speaker 5: Okay, we have a complete chapter on using fake tactics
1:25:40
Speaker 5: in the book. But I exactly like Greg described I
1:25:45
Speaker 5: it's pretty rare if I'm hunting in the interior of
1:25:48
Speaker 5: the vetting area during the rut that I don't do
1:25:50
Speaker 5: a couple of sparring sequences early in the morning, maybe
1:25:53
Speaker 5: forty five minutes after daylight, you know, sometime around eight o'clock,
1:25:57
Speaker 5: and do two sequences on an evening sin about an
1:26:01
Speaker 5: hour before dark. So I'm not a big grunt called guy.
1:26:05
Speaker 5: I've had a lot more success doing spiring sequences. When
1:26:10
Speaker 5: I'm out of state, I will do more aggressive rattle
1:26:14
Speaker 5: sequences because there's a lot more mature bucks. They're used
1:26:17
Speaker 5: to hearing that aggressiveness like you see on TV. But
1:26:20
Speaker 5: when I'm hunting in Michigan, it's almost always subtle sparring sequences.
1:26:24
Speaker 5: I think that arouses their attention and.
1:26:26
Speaker 6: One one other, one other thing before we go to that,
1:26:29
Speaker 6: before we go Uh, don't rattle. If you're in an
1:26:33
Speaker 6: open area where the deer can see, where a buck
1:26:35
Speaker 6: can see you from.
1:26:36
Speaker 2: A long way away, it won't work.
1:26:39
Speaker 6: What that buck will do is he will come to
1:26:41
Speaker 6: the point just close enough to where he can see
1:26:43
Speaker 6: where the where the rattling came from, and if he
1:26:46
Speaker 6: does not confirm it with his eyes, he will not
1:26:50
Speaker 6: come in. So do not rattle in a big open woods.
1:26:53
Speaker 6: It won't work at least for a mature deer maybe
1:26:56
Speaker 6: a one year older two year old to come in,
1:26:57
Speaker 6: But a big deer isn't coming in. You have got
1:27:00
Speaker 6: to be obscure. Your location has to be obscure. So
1:27:04
Speaker 6: a thick betting area's thick something. If you're going to
1:27:07
Speaker 6: rattle for that buck to come in in bowl range,
1:27:09
Speaker 6: he can't see the source of the noise.
1:27:11
Speaker 2: That is important because you.
1:27:13
Speaker 6: Will screw it up like I have done many times
1:27:16
Speaker 6: by rattling 're deer.
1:27:17
Speaker 3: Conceiving now maybe though maybe there is an asterisk next
1:27:22
Speaker 3: to that, which is unless you are using a decoy possibly,
1:27:27
Speaker 3: And that was okay, fair, That's the next question I
1:27:30
Speaker 3: had because I grew up by living by the Gospel
1:27:34
Speaker 3: of Precision Bow Hunting by John and Chris Eberhart, and
1:27:37
Speaker 3: within that book early on, one of the major themes
1:27:40
Speaker 3: in that book is to not use a lot of
1:27:44
Speaker 3: things that draw attention to you in places like Michigan,
1:27:47
Speaker 3: so decoys being a perfect example of that. So I
1:27:49
Speaker 3: grew up for a long time being terrified by the
1:27:52
Speaker 3: idea of using decoys because I thought it would spook
1:27:56
Speaker 3: every deer in the world in a heavily pressured place
1:27:58
Speaker 3: like Michigan. But I see in one of the chapters
1:28:01
Speaker 3: in your new book, John, you're talking about using dough decoys.
1:28:04
Speaker 3: So I'm curious, real quick, fast summary, what's your evolved
1:28:08
Speaker 3: view on decoys these days?
1:28:10
Speaker 5: Not really, it's not really evolved. I still very, very
1:28:14
Speaker 5: rarely use a decoy in Michigan. I use decoys a lot.
1:28:18
Speaker 7: When I go out of state.
1:28:18
Speaker 5: I would never go out of state without taking a
1:28:21
Speaker 5: decoy with me, a hard body three D decoy. They're
1:28:26
Speaker 5: they're paying to carry around. But I'll tell you what,
1:28:29
Speaker 5: if you're doing a rattle sequence and you're in a
1:28:31
Speaker 5: more open area, and I've done multiple times in i
1:28:34
Speaker 5: Went Kansas, if you put a decoy out and a
1:28:36
Speaker 5: deer is coming and it's one hundred yards away and
1:28:40
Speaker 5: he sees it, he'll come right in.
1:28:43
Speaker 7: If he's not with a dough, he'll come right in.
1:28:45
Speaker 5: I've actually put a decoy out on the corner of
1:28:47
Speaker 5: a big cornfield in Iowa where you know there's like
1:28:51
Speaker 5: here's here's a corner, and I had the decoy up
1:28:53
Speaker 5: here so you can see it from either direction, and
1:28:56
Speaker 5: I had to come out.
1:28:57
Speaker 7: I bet it was. I'm here half a mile probably
1:29:00
Speaker 7: three eighths of a mile down the field edge. He
1:29:03
Speaker 7: saw that decoy and he came right to it.
1:29:05
Speaker 5: But in Michigan, because we've got so many dos and
1:29:09
Speaker 5: we've got just got so many deer, the odds of
1:29:12
Speaker 5: a doe coming in and spooking from the decoy, coming
1:29:15
Speaker 5: in within three to five yards and doing the peekaboo
1:29:18
Speaker 5: deal and then blowing and then running off is really
1:29:21
Speaker 5: really high. So I don't do it in Michigan very
1:29:26
Speaker 5: very often, because unless I'm in an area where I know.
1:29:32
Speaker 7: I'm only gonna see a couple of deer, then I
1:29:35
Speaker 7: may use it.
1:29:35
Speaker 5: Bit if I'm in an area where the chances of
1:29:38
Speaker 5: seeing multiple dos and bonds and some ordnan bucks where
1:29:41
Speaker 5: they might come in and hit it with their antler
1:29:43
Speaker 5: and then spook and blow.
1:29:46
Speaker 7: I just rarely use them in Michigan anymore. I've killed
1:29:48
Speaker 7: a couple bucks.
1:29:49
Speaker 5: With him in the you know, in the eighties, but
1:29:52
Speaker 5: they were two and a half year olds, so on
1:29:54
Speaker 5: three and a half.
1:29:55
Speaker 7: Older bucks in Michigan, I don't use the bit out
1:29:57
Speaker 7: of state. I use them a lot.
1:29:58
Speaker 2: Greg, and a decoy I don't have with decoys, So.
1:30:05
Speaker 6: I'm sure John is one hundred percent right in that
1:30:08
Speaker 6: they can be very effective. But I'm a minimalist at
1:30:11
Speaker 6: heart with gear, so I don't. I don't carry stuff
1:30:15
Speaker 6: like that ever, so I can't speak to that. I
1:30:20
Speaker 6: can say that without a decoy, if you're in an
1:30:23
Speaker 6: open area and you need a big buck to come
1:30:25
Speaker 6: in mature into bowl range and he can see your
1:30:28
Speaker 6: area from one hundred yards away, he ain't coming in.
1:30:31
Speaker 2: Yeah without a decoy.
1:30:33
Speaker 3: Okay, another one for you, then, Greg advice for making
1:30:39
Speaker 3: all day sits more comfortable or enjoyable, especially especially if
1:30:45
Speaker 3: you're doing what we do. Let's just hunt in a saddle.
1:30:48
Speaker 3: Any any advice on saddle hunting, comfort tips for all
1:30:51
Speaker 3: day or or any other part of the all day piece.
1:30:54
Speaker 6: Quick thoughts here, It's just hard, you know, an all
1:30:58
Speaker 6: day sit. I I used to love listening to your
1:31:02
Speaker 6: live the early days of Wired to Hunt, when like
1:31:06
Speaker 6: the Holy Field days, when you would you would start
1:31:08
Speaker 6: talking about, okay, it's like time for all days since
1:31:12
Speaker 6: to start, and there was always this little trepidation with
1:31:15
Speaker 6: you because you're like, you know, It's like it's like,
1:31:19
Speaker 6: I know I need to sit all day, but it sucks.
1:31:22
Speaker 6: It's hard, and it feels like grinding. I've yet to
1:31:27
Speaker 6: figure out a way around that. Maybe a box line
1:31:30
Speaker 6: would do that with maybe a fridge in there, find
1:31:34
Speaker 6: maybe some Wi Fi. Yeah, maybe that would make an
1:31:37
Speaker 6: all days sit easier. But man, they're just hard. So
1:31:42
Speaker 6: I find myself almost never sitting all day. I haven't
1:31:47
Speaker 6: sat in the in a tree from daylight to dark
1:31:51
Speaker 6: in several years. Now, I will hunt all day, meaning
1:31:55
Speaker 6: I won't leave the woods.
1:31:56
Speaker 2: I'll come down.
1:31:57
Speaker 6: I'll maybe move to a different air, yeah, maybe move
1:32:01
Speaker 6: one hundred yards away, or do a little mid day
1:32:03
Speaker 6: scouting and slowly kind of slip through an area and
1:32:07
Speaker 6: then find another spot for the last four or five
1:32:09
Speaker 6: hours of the day. But man hunting all day in
1:32:12
Speaker 6: the same tree without getting down, it's just hard. It's
1:32:18
Speaker 6: more discipline in mind and willpower.
1:32:20
Speaker 2: Than it is anything else.
1:32:21
Speaker 6: Because I don't care what saddle you're in, what tree
1:32:24
Speaker 6: stand you're in, you are gonna get uncomfortable.
1:32:27
Speaker 2: I don't care who it is.
1:32:28
Speaker 6: You are gonna get uncomfortable, and you just have to
1:32:31
Speaker 6: grit your teeth and go through it. And I'm soft.
1:32:34
Speaker 6: I don't like to be uncomfortable, so I I find
1:32:37
Speaker 6: myself not doing much of that anymore.
1:32:40
Speaker 4: All right, John, what would you say on that one?
1:32:43
Speaker 5: Well, as you do, Mark, I've done a ton of
1:32:45
Speaker 5: all day sets, and I've killed a lot of bucks
1:32:48
Speaker 5: during the middle of the day. Hunting all day is
1:32:51
Speaker 5: very grueling, especially if it's sunny out, because it gets
1:32:54
Speaker 5: so hot in the middle of the day and you
1:32:56
Speaker 5: don't see a lot of deer in the middle of
1:32:58
Speaker 5: the day, and so many hunters will give all day
1:33:00
Speaker 5: sits maybe one or two shots, and because they don't
1:33:03
Speaker 5: see much, they give up on it. Well, if you
1:33:06
Speaker 5: went out as a hunter, an avid hunter, and you
1:33:08
Speaker 5: hunted two evenings in a row and you didn't see
1:33:12
Speaker 5: much for deer activity, would you quit hunting evenings?
1:33:14
Speaker 7: Of course you wouldn't.
1:33:16
Speaker 5: But you know, I'm a percentage guy, and like I said,
1:33:19
Speaker 5: I've killed seven out of my twenty book bucks in
1:33:22
Speaker 5: Michigan that were shot between November one and fourteen. We're
1:33:24
Speaker 5: during eleven to three o'clock, so I know the advantage
1:33:28
Speaker 5: of hunting midday an all day sit, you know, if
1:33:32
Speaker 5: it's in the right type of area, and it's during
1:33:35
Speaker 5: the rut phases.
1:33:36
Speaker 7: So I don't have any issues with this comfort.
1:33:40
Speaker 5: I can go to the bathroom one or two in
1:33:42
Speaker 5: my saddle, either way, it doesn't matter without getting out
1:33:45
Speaker 5: of my tree.
1:33:46
Speaker 7: I always take food.
1:33:47
Speaker 5: I on an all day sit will I will literally
1:33:50
Speaker 5: change my clothes four times on an all day sit
1:33:53
Speaker 5: because I will walk in really light clothed. You know,
1:33:57
Speaker 5: we're very light, slight on overheat. Once I it up
1:34:00
Speaker 5: in the tree, my body cools off. I'll take off
1:34:03
Speaker 5: my salte jacket, put on some undergarments, put my sun
1:34:07
Speaker 5: lot jacket back on, and then when it gets like
1:34:09
Speaker 5: ten or eleven o'clock that starts heating up, I'll do
1:34:13
Speaker 5: the same. I'll take off my salat jacket, take off
1:34:15
Speaker 5: my undergarments, put them in my backpack.
1:34:17
Speaker 7: So I'm lighter, so I'm not overheating. In the middle
1:34:19
Speaker 7: of the.
1:34:19
Speaker 5: Day, two three o'clock, as it starts to cool, I'll
1:34:22
Speaker 5: rechange and put my layers back on.
1:34:25
Speaker 7: This is only on my top, now my bottom. It's
1:34:27
Speaker 7: top the top.
1:34:29
Speaker 5: And then before I get out of the tree, because
1:34:31
Speaker 5: I'm gonna have a long walk out, I will again
1:34:34
Speaker 5: take off my jacket and take off my undergarments so
1:34:37
Speaker 5: I don't overheat and sweat on my ass.
1:34:39
Speaker 6: You're insane that you are insane, Jo man, you are insaney.
1:34:44
Speaker 7: Comfortable.
1:34:47
Speaker 4: I just can't.
1:34:48
Speaker 3: I'm over here having a hard time not breaking down
1:34:51
Speaker 3: laughing here you're doing it. I just I just want
1:34:57
Speaker 3: to make sure I heard right. Did you say that
1:34:59
Speaker 3: you're going number two while staying in your cell?
1:35:02
Speaker 7: Absolutely? Yeah? You want to have them?
1:35:07
Speaker 10: You know.
1:35:09
Speaker 7: You don't want to. I don't know. It's so easy.
1:35:12
Speaker 2: Oh no, don't don't do it.
1:35:15
Speaker 11: Don't do it.
1:35:16
Speaker 4: Just don't do it.
1:35:17
Speaker 7: Yeah, blog bagg and you take the saddle.
1:35:19
Speaker 12: You either pull it up under your shoulders, under your armpits,
1:35:23
Speaker 12: or you slide the saddle down above your knees and
1:35:26
Speaker 12: you just under your pants and go in the bag
1:35:28
Speaker 12: and then wipe and put the bag back in your
1:35:31
Speaker 12: back back and pull your pants off and pull a
1:35:33
Speaker 12: saddle back up card.
1:35:36
Speaker 7: It's literally easy.
1:35:37
Speaker 4: So remember it's amazing.
1:35:39
Speaker 6: So the first time I heard this story, Mark John
1:35:43
Speaker 6: told us at hunting camp that that he likes to
1:35:46
Speaker 6: take craps in gallon ziploc bags.
1:35:49
Speaker 4: And then I had the part that got us.
1:35:52
Speaker 2: It broke us down.
1:35:53
Speaker 6: While he said, but he squeezes all the air out,
1:35:57
Speaker 6: you know, to like zip it up, so there's I
1:36:00
Speaker 6: through them in all that all the ship smell is just.
1:36:04
Speaker 4: And then he puts it in his bag.
1:36:09
Speaker 11: This is this is one of the this is one
1:36:12
Speaker 11: of the all time, all time best Wired Hunt moments
1:36:15
Speaker 11: in all the decade plus years who've done these episodes,
1:36:18
Speaker 11: that right there, that's one of the best.
1:36:20
Speaker 3: Thank you for that, John, welcome, I'm sure multiple times.
1:36:27
Speaker 6: So there's it. Whenever we do an update on the
1:36:31
Speaker 6: books for version two, we'll make sure that John details
1:36:35
Speaker 6: that process with illustrations in detail to show you how
1:36:39
Speaker 6: to get maximum crap air out of your ziploc bag
1:36:43
Speaker 6: to take up the less room in your past.
1:36:46
Speaker 2: Greg Donald's.
1:36:50
Speaker 7: That's in the book.
1:36:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was talking about it.
1:36:54
Speaker 6: The detailed, the detailed process about it with illustrations and everything.
1:37:00
Speaker 7: That's amazing. It's really easy to do, to be honest with.
1:37:04
Speaker 3: Absolutely amazing, And I think maybe that might be the
1:37:09
Speaker 3: best place to end the whole episode right there. There's
1:37:15
Speaker 3: there's so much in these books. Because you guys are crazy.
1:37:19
Speaker 3: You don't just write one book and release it. You
1:37:22
Speaker 3: launched three at a time, so there's.
1:37:23
Speaker 4: Three of these.
1:37:25
Speaker 3: Can you give me a quick rundown other than what
1:37:28
Speaker 3: we've talked about. We've covered a lot of the rut
1:37:30
Speaker 3: side of things, and there's still more that we haven't
1:37:32
Speaker 3: got to cover, and then so so much more outside
1:37:34
Speaker 3: of the rut could could one of you or both
1:37:38
Speaker 3: of you give me a quick take on what folks
1:37:40
Speaker 3: can expect to see in the book and then where
1:37:42
Speaker 3: they can.
1:37:42
Speaker 2: Buy it there is, Greg, I would love it if
1:37:49
Speaker 2: you would go jo.
1:37:50
Speaker 5: Everything to do with deer hunting and whether you're a
1:37:53
Speaker 5: ball hunter, a gun hunter, crossbow, muzzleoder, everything to do
1:37:57
Speaker 5: with hunting deer. I don't care what type of property.
1:38:00
Speaker 5: If you're un managed property, public land, you know, heavily
1:38:03
Speaker 5: pressured rural areas.
1:38:06
Speaker 7: The information is in this book.
1:38:09
Speaker 5: Uh Now, the book's key on hunting pressured areas because
1:38:13
Speaker 5: once you become successful at hunting any semblance of pressured
1:38:17
Speaker 5: areas for mature bucks, you can go any place else
1:38:20
Speaker 5: in the country and be relatively successful and be a
1:38:23
Speaker 5: threat to the mature bucks you're hunting because when you
1:38:27
Speaker 5: go to a less pressured area, it's just easier, and
1:38:30
Speaker 5: you've got all the foundation for running pressured areas, so
1:38:33
Speaker 5: it's that much easier.
1:38:34
Speaker 7: There's twenty seven chapters in this book.
1:38:38
Speaker 5: We actually mark you contribute you to a couple of
1:38:41
Speaker 5: short kill stories to this book.
1:38:43
Speaker 7: So did Andy may So?
1:38:44
Speaker 5: Did Garret crawl from di yt Yeah?
1:38:51
Speaker 2: And then sports Yeah.
1:38:52
Speaker 7: Ernie has a couple of kill out. There's eighty four
1:38:55
Speaker 7: in Greg and myself.
1:38:56
Speaker 5: There's eighty four short condensed three to five paragraph killed
1:39:00
Speaker 5: stories within this book.
1:39:01
Speaker 7: There's photos of the kills.
1:39:04
Speaker 5: There are in locations within the book that lend credibility
1:39:08
Speaker 5: to what you're reading at the time. But again, there's
1:39:11
Speaker 5: twenty seven chapters in When we wrote this it was
1:39:14
Speaker 5: like going to be eight hundred and some pages, and
1:39:16
Speaker 5: we just couldn't put it out in a single book.
1:39:19
Speaker 5: So you know, each one of these, each one of
1:39:22
Speaker 5: these books is basically the same length as all three.
1:39:27
Speaker 7: Of the other books I wrote. So we had to
1:39:30
Speaker 7: do it in three volumes. It's the only way we
1:39:32
Speaker 7: could do it. And it's it's available on Tethered's websites.
1:39:36
Speaker 7: So if you.
1:39:36
Speaker 5: Google www dot tether that's t E t h R
1:39:42
Speaker 5: D dot com, slash.
1:39:45
Speaker 7: Di y bucks, it'll take your right to the right
1:39:48
Speaker 7: to the page and that there's no stone on turned
1:39:53
Speaker 7: in these books. This covers everything, would.
1:39:57
Speaker 6: You I'd like to describe it a little bit differently, Mark, Yes.
1:40:03
Speaker 6: Every single topic that you is even remotely related to
1:40:07
Speaker 6: bow hunting is in this book. Preseason, postseason, scouting, the rut, scrapes, rubs, everything,
1:40:15
Speaker 6: how to hunt corn, how not to hunt corn, how
1:40:17
Speaker 6: to rattle. Everything is in this book. When John came
1:40:20
Speaker 6: to me a year and a half ago and said
1:40:22
Speaker 6: he was thinking about writing his final book, of which
1:40:27
Speaker 6: he's written many and they have influenced me in a
1:40:30
Speaker 6: great number of hunters a great deal. And John came
1:40:33
Speaker 6: to me and he said, Greg, I want to distill
1:40:36
Speaker 6: down my fifty plus years of bow hunting experience into
1:40:40
Speaker 6: one book. And I was like, holy crap, that's that's
1:40:44
Speaker 6: got potential to be like the most inclusive book on
1:40:48
Speaker 6: hunting that's ever been written, and so I was really
1:40:51
Speaker 6: excited about it. And that's what John did. He distilled
1:40:55
Speaker 6: fifty years of successful big buck hunting in pressured areas
1:41:01
Speaker 6: any he distilled it all down into three volumes. So
1:41:05
Speaker 6: it's a lot of information, but everything you could hope
1:41:10
Speaker 6: to know about bow hunting is in there. And John
1:41:12
Speaker 6: put all of his experience in there, and a bunch
1:41:14
Speaker 6: of us helped him, right like Mark, you helped, I helped,
1:41:17
Speaker 6: and Andy and all these people helped John do this.
1:41:20
Speaker 6: But ultimately, what this book is is John's incredible record
1:41:25
Speaker 6: of success in three volumes. And I promise you every
1:41:29
Speaker 6: single hunter on the planet will learn something. It might
1:41:33
Speaker 6: not change your life, it might not revolutionize how you
1:41:36
Speaker 6: hunt if you're an experienced hunter, but I guarantee you're
1:41:39
Speaker 6: going to learn things from this book that you didn't
1:41:41
Speaker 6: know before you read it.
1:41:42
Speaker 5: Ye will make you think about the way you're hunting,
1:41:45
Speaker 5: and it'll probably make you want to change a lot
1:41:48
Speaker 5: of the ways that you are hunting it, and it
1:41:51
Speaker 5: was written and written in such detail that any novice
1:41:56
Speaker 5: or experienced hunter can easily understand what we're talking about.
1:42:01
Speaker 4: Yeah.
1:42:02
Speaker 3: Well, I know there's a lot of folks who listen
1:42:04
Speaker 3: to our podcast that we did earlier this year, John,
1:42:07
Speaker 3: who have been waiting for the books because we kind
1:42:09
Speaker 3: of tease the books of them, but they weren't available yet.
1:42:11
Speaker 3: So I know, if folks haven't already seen the news
1:42:13
Speaker 3: online or somewhere, definitely take note. They're available now over
1:42:17
Speaker 3: there at the Tethered website.
1:42:19
Speaker 4: They're great. I haven't got to read every part of every.
1:42:22
Speaker 3: One of them yet, but I've been looking in various
1:42:25
Speaker 3: locations for relevant things as I'm thinking through ideas and
1:42:28
Speaker 3: as I was preparing for this, and as I knew
1:42:30
Speaker 3: it would be lots of lots of great stuff. And
1:42:34
Speaker 3: then this wonderful surprise number two tip as well that
1:42:38
Speaker 3: everyone will have to search for in the book, and
1:42:41
Speaker 3: and we will will have this moment, this podcast moment
1:42:44
Speaker 3: will live on forever. I still I still having a
1:42:49
Speaker 3: hard time processing it. So with that in mind, gentlemen,
1:42:52
Speaker 3: thank you so much for taking the time to do
1:42:54
Speaker 3: this for sharing maybe the best story we've ever had
1:42:56
Speaker 3: in the podcast, and for helping me as a hunter
1:42:58
Speaker 3: so much over the years. Both of you have been
1:43:02
Speaker 3: great friends, great teachers, and I appreciate you both.
1:43:06
Speaker 7: Thanks for the opportunity.
1:43:07
Speaker 4: Mark all right, and that's it for us today.
1:43:16
Speaker 3: Again, I'll plug John and Greg's book here, the Ultimate
1:43:19
Speaker 3: Guide to DIY Books. And without further ado, let's get
1:43:24
Speaker 3: you out into the woods, into a tree or a
1:43:27
Speaker 3: blind or whatever you're doing. Get out there, have a
1:43:30
Speaker 3: great time hunting. Good luck, and until next time, stay
1:43:34
Speaker 3: wired to hunt.
1:43:43
Speaker 9: It's that time of the year again. I'm back. Marcus Kenyon.
1:43:47
Speaker 9: How are you, your son of a gadwall.
1:43:48
Speaker 10: You look terrible. I'm just kidding a remma. I'm sorry,
1:43:52
Speaker 10: I'm late. I crashed my recumbent bicycle into the side
1:43:54
Speaker 10: of a quiz nose and I know what you're thinking.
1:43:57
Speaker 10: I am as sober as a newborn blue crab. I
1:44:00
Speaker 10: swear to you, this is just kombucha. I'm watching the
1:44:03
Speaker 10: gut health. You gotta do it as you get older.
1:44:06
Speaker 10: And also I'm wearing this ankle bracelet that makes a
1:44:08
Speaker 10: beep beep sound if I have a drop of the stuff. Also,
1:44:12
Speaker 10: alerts the authorities, who in turn alert my parole officer.
1:44:15
Speaker 10: So there'll be none of that in the studio today,
1:44:18
Speaker 10: I promise you.
1:44:19
Speaker 9: Let's get go. Oh you're queueing it up already. Okay.
1:44:23
Speaker 9: I thought we'd learned a lesson this year, but I
1:44:25
Speaker 9: guess not. Here we go.
1:44:28
Speaker 13: I love those beagy big big white tages, those bee
1:44:35
Speaker 13: agie bi big wad tails. I love those be achie
1:44:41
Speaker 13: b doya eight chats eat eat tales. I love those
1:44:46
Speaker 13: be achie b wat.
1:44:48
Speaker 14: Tails, big white tails, big white tails, big white tails
1:44:55
Speaker 14: are great.
1:44:57
Speaker 10: Oh, what fun it is to sit in the freezing
1:45:00
Speaker 10: cold tree all day?
1:45:02
Speaker 14: Big white tails, big white tails, big white tails are great.
1:45:07
Speaker 10: Hold, what fun it is to sit in the freezing
1:45:11
Speaker 10: cold tree all day? Dashing through the woods for the
1:45:16
Speaker 10: morning light, turns grave across the fields and draws, creep
1:45:22
Speaker 10: in all the way, climb into the tree. Big bucks
1:45:27
Speaker 10: are on the wave? What fun it is to sit
1:45:31
Speaker 10: and wait for my gosh.
1:45:33
Speaker 9: Dan deer all day?
1:45:34
Speaker 4: Oh?
1:45:35
Speaker 9: Big, I'm sorry? What is this? Pisocado strings? Who do
1:45:41
Speaker 9: you think? I am ya? Get this out here. I
1:45:44
Speaker 9: don't want to hear it. Thank you, Big.
1:45:46
Speaker 10: White tails, big white tails, big white tails are great,
1:45:51
Speaker 10: hold fun it is to sit in the freezing cold
1:45:54
Speaker 10: tree all day. I hope sand dreams are high.
1:46:00
Speaker 9: He's finally here.
1:46:02
Speaker 10: Mark said, it's the most wonderful time to kill o
1:46:05
Speaker 10: whitetail deer bingch points and pettings. Where you'll find me
1:46:10
Speaker 10: hanging twenty feet in a tree, grunt tubes, my bowel
1:46:14
Speaker 10: inspector camos really campy be.
1:46:19
Speaker 9: He or two ago.
1:46:21
Speaker 10: I thought that this was fun, But now I'm frozen
1:46:25
Speaker 10: to my seat, and the good times they are gone.
1:46:29
Speaker 9: I've ate up all my.
1:46:31
Speaker 10: Snacks, my hands and toes unnumb and we're gonna climb
1:46:35
Speaker 10: down from my stand. That son of a but decided
1:46:39
Speaker 10: to come.
1:46:40
Speaker 13: I love those beeg beeg white takes, those big bee
1:46:48
Speaker 13: big white takes.
1:46:50
Speaker 10: I love those be ig big dug Yeah, eight shot
1:46:55
Speaker 10: ge eat tails. I love those big white tails all
1:47:00
Speaker 10: dam I don't know why this is happening, I swear
1:47:08
Speaker 10: to God, Oh, officer, what seems to be the problem here?
1:47:12
Speaker 9: Oh?
1:47:12
Speaker 12: This?
1:47:12
Speaker 10: I don't know why this is happening. It must be
1:47:14
Speaker 10: a malfunction, you know. Sometimes it happens when the batteries
1:47:16
Speaker 10: running low. You don't know, you don't need to smell
1:47:18
Speaker 10: that that's just kombucha. I okay, yes, you've got me.
1:47:22
Speaker 10: It's ever clear and Pacific cooler. Caprice Son. I am
1:47:25
Speaker 10: so so sorry. I don't know why my life has
1:47:29
Speaker 10: brought me here. Mark Marcus, I'm so sorry. Enjoy the
1:47:34
Speaker 10: rut or whatever.
1:47:36
Speaker 9: Good luck boys, Good to see you. Hayden. It's been
1:47:41
Speaker 9: a while. Hey, sorry, I'm late.
1:47:43
Speaker 10: I crashed my pontiacastec into a light pull and had
1:47:45
Speaker 10: to walk through rest of the way.
1:47:46
Speaker 9: But I'm here now. That's what matters.
1:47:48
Speaker 10: Give me a glass of scotch, please, Hayden, just two
1:47:50
Speaker 10: rocks in there.
1:47:50
Speaker 9: I don't like ice.
1:47:52
Speaker 10: We're starting already, this is happening. Okay, just give me
1:47:55
Speaker 10: the give me the glass, thank you. Okay, here we go.
1:47:57
Speaker 10: It's the most wonderful time to kill deer. With the
1:48:05
Speaker 10: run now, just starting and dashing and totting and veins
1:48:09
Speaker 10: cutting clean. It's the most wonderful time to kill deer.
1:48:16
Speaker 10: There's far too much isonus glass. It's the half happy
1:48:21
Speaker 10: seeds of all. There's gotta be at least twelve cues
1:48:26
Speaker 10: with grunting and bleeding and cold fronts and sleeping.
1:48:29
Speaker 9: The last weeks of fun.
1:48:33
Speaker 10: It's the half happy seedssin of ame. There'll be pictures
1:48:41
Speaker 10: for posting and bragging and boasting and truck beds with
1:48:45
Speaker 10: big Bucks in toe.
1:48:47
Speaker 9: There'll be narrow miss.
1:48:48
Speaker 10: Stories and tales of your glories of booner bucks missed
1:48:52
Speaker 10: with our bulls. It's the most wonderful time to kill dear,
1:49:01
Speaker 10: not just one baby two. There'll be no dose of
1:49:04
Speaker 10: blowing and looming knocks glowing and blood trails so clean.
1:49:10
Speaker 10: It's the most wonderful time to kill deer.
1:49:17
Speaker 9: Excuse me? Can I have a napkin? Please? I just
1:49:19
Speaker 9: spilled some scotch on my loafers. I can't have dirty
1:49:22
Speaker 9: loafers in the studio.
1:49:24
Speaker 10: Thank you tailgate beers for drinking, and Big Bucks is
1:49:28
Speaker 10: slinking and chasing and s jacking does They'll be fighting
1:49:33
Speaker 10: and scraping and no more escaping and arrowshot true hitting.
1:49:37
Speaker 10: Oh key change. But no one told me that it's
1:49:44
Speaker 10: the most wonderful.
1:49:46
Speaker 9: Time to kill deer. I was very unprepared for this.
1:49:51
Speaker 10: There will be much morning sitting in cold fronts of
1:49:55
Speaker 10: hitting the down Kristen clean. It's the most swonderful time, Oh,
1:50:02
Speaker 10: the most swonderful time, Yes, the most swonderful time to kilty.
1:50:19
Speaker 9: There's too much ice in the glass. Two rocks,