Ep. 840: Whitetail Rut Game Plans and 39 Actionable Rut Hunting Tactics

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
the whitetail woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile
hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light
Go Farther, stay Longer, and now your host Mark Kenyon.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
the show, Tony Peterson and I are breaking down our
twenty twenty four rut hunting plans and sharing thirty nine
specific actionable tactics for the white tail Rut. Hey, guys,
real quick here before we get to the show. It

(00:40):
is that most wonderful time of the year, the whitetail
Rut is about to kick off, and as you might
know from past years, we like to celebrate the month
of November with a few special deer hunting tunes. Two
years ago we came out with our first white tail

(01:00):
rout parody song of sorts, I guess you could call it.
We called that the most Wonderful Time to Kill deer
riff on a Christmas tune of course, and then last
year we had a second one that one's called Big
White Tails, going along with the tune of jingle bells.
So we are going to bring those back for you
to listen to this month. On each episode of the podcast.

(01:22):
Here so real quick, we're gonna play you our two
rout hunting theme songs of the year. Enjoy them, and
then we will get to our big old rut Hunting
Extravaganza podcast shortly.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
Enjoy boys.

Speaker 4 (01:35):
Good to see you, Hayden. It's been a while. Hey, sorry,
I'm late. I crashed my Pontiac casteck into a light
pull and had to walk the rest of the way.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
But I'm here now. That's what matters.

Speaker 4 (01:44):
Give me a glass of scotch please, Hey, just two
rocks in there. I don't my guys, we're starting already.
This is happening. Okay, just give me the give me
the glass, thank you. Okay, here we go. It's the
most wonderful time to kill deer. With the run now
just starting and dashing and dotting and veins cutting clean.

(02:07):
It's the most wonderful time.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
To kill deer.

Speaker 4 (02:12):
There's far too much, is inus class. It's the half
happy seedson of all. There's gotta be at least twelve
cues with grunting and bleeding and call fronts and sleeting.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
The last weeks of fun. It's the half happy.

Speaker 4 (02:31):
Seedsson of all, There'll be pictures for posting and bragging
and boasting and truck beds with big Bucks in toe.
There'll be narrow miss stories and tales of new glories.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
Of booner bucks missed with our bulls.

Speaker 4 (02:52):
It's the most wonderful time to kill deer, not just
one baby two. There'll be no dose of blowing and
looming knocks blowing and blood trails so clean. It's the
most wonderful time to kill deer.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
Excuse me? Can I have a napkin? Please? I just
spilled some scotch on my loafers. I can't have dirty
loafers in the studio.

Speaker 4 (03:20):
Thank you tailgate beers for drinking, and Big Bucks is
slinking and chasing and sent jacking does They'll be fighting
and scraping and no more escaping and arrow shot true hitting.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
Oh key change. But no one told me that it's
the most wonderful time to kill deer. I was very
unprepared for this.

Speaker 4 (03:47):
There will be much morning sitting in cold fronts, are
hitting the dawn crispin clean. It's the most wonderful time, Oh,
the most dimple time.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Yes, the mold swum dipple.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Time to kilty.

Speaker 3 (04:15):
There's too much ice in the glass. Two rocks.

Speaker 4 (04:20):
It's that time of the year again. I'm back, Marcus Kenyon.
How are you your son of a gadwall? You look terrible.
I'm just kidding her. Am I I'm sorry. I'm late.
I crashed my recumbent bicycle into the side of a
quiz nose. And I know what you're thinking. I am
as sober as a newborn blue crab. I swear to
you this is just kombucha. I'm watching the gut health.

(04:41):
You gotta do it as you get older. And also,
I'm wearing this ankle bracelet that makes a beep beep
sound if I have a drop of the stuff. Also
alerts the authorities, who in turn alert my parole officer.
So there'll be none of that in the studio today,
I promise you.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
Let's get go. Oh you're queueing it up all ready. Okay.
I thought we'd learned a lesson this year, but I
guess nothing. Here we go.

Speaker 5 (05:05):
I love those beagy big big white tails, those deep
run beagy big big wide tails. I love those beachy
big yeah eight chats eat tails. I love those beachy
b you wide tails.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
Big white tails.

Speaker 4 (05:30):
Big white tails, big white tails are great? Hold what
fun it is to sit in the freezing cold tree
all day? Big white tails, big white tails, big white
tails are great? Hold What fun it is to sit
in the freezing cold tree all day?

Speaker 3 (05:50):
Dashing through the woods for the morning.

Speaker 4 (05:54):
Light turns great across the fields and draws, creep in
all way.

Speaker 3 (06:01):
Climb into the tree. Big bucks are on the wave?

Speaker 4 (06:06):
What fun he is to sit and wait for my gosh,
don deer all day?

Speaker 3 (06:12):
Oh big, I'm sorry? What is this? Piscato strings? Who
do you think? I am ya? Get this out here.
I don't want to hear it. Thank you, Big.

Speaker 4 (06:23):
White tails, big white tails, big white tails are great.
Hold fun it is to sit in the freezing cold
tree all day?

Speaker 3 (06:34):
I hope sand dreams are high the rut.

Speaker 4 (06:37):
He's finally here, Mark said, it's the most wonderful time
to kill o whitetail deer bingch points and pettings. Where
you'll find me hanging twenty feet in a tree, grunt
tubes my bowl inspector, Cambo. This really campy be he
or two ago I thought that this was fun, but

(07:01):
now I'm frozen to my seat, and the good times
they are gone, I've ate up all my snacks, my
hands and toes unnumb and we're gonna climb down from
my stand.

Speaker 3 (07:14):
That son of a but decided to come out.

Speaker 5 (07:18):
Those Beagy big white takes. Those you run bag big
big white tapes.

Speaker 4 (07:28):
I love those Beeg big up yall eight shot gie
eat tails. I love those big white tails all day.
I don't know why this is happening. I swear to God, Officer,
what seems to be the problem here?

Speaker 3 (07:49):
Oh this?

Speaker 4 (07:50):
I don't know why this is happening. It must be
a malfunction, you know. Sometimes it happens when the batteries
run low.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
You don't know.

Speaker 3 (07:55):
You don't need to smell that. That's just komboocha. I okay, yes,
you got me. It's ever clear and pacific cooler. Caprice Son.

Speaker 4 (08:02):
I am so so sorry. I don't know why my
life has brought me here. Mark Marcus, I'm so sorry.
Enjoy the rut or whatever, good luck.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you
by First Light and their new Whitetail line and their
Camel for Conservation initiative. All great stuff that we are
excited about. But we are also very excited because Today
is our twenty twenty four Whitetail Rut Extravaganza Galore Big

(08:41):
buck Fest podcast with me and Tony Peterson, And as
I just teased in the intro, we've got thirty nine
very specific, actionable, mind blowing, revolutionary whitetail rut hunting stratu Geez,
there we're going to share with you today. So I

(09:03):
hope you're ready for that. Tony are you? Are you
ready for that?

Speaker 1 (09:05):
I am?

Speaker 6 (09:05):
And I misunderstood the assignment because I have thirty nine
on my own, like one un guarantee dead mature buck
during the rut thirty perfect.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
Well, then we came to the right place and the
right person, because you know, in all seriousness, everyone at
this time of year wants at least one more good idea, right.
I think people will be listening to this podcast as
they're heading to their hunting camp or to public land,
or to their back forty or whatever it is for
the thing like this is that time of the year

(09:37):
we've all been dreaming of, we've all been waiting for
when this podcast airs. Let me confirm the date when
this podcast airs. It will be Halloween, October thirty first.
I mean that's the kickoff, right.

Speaker 6 (09:52):
Yeah, and there's a good coming through then through much
of the it's.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
It could be really good. So yeah, man, I want
to I jokingly said thirty nine, but I do have
an idea for something I want to do at the end.
Here my idea here. Well I'll wait, I guess I'll
wait until we get to that point. But I do
want to share some real actionable ideas. But before that,
I did think it would be useful to kind of
lay out our own plans, what we've been doing, what

(10:21):
we're planning on doing over the next couple weeks. We
haven't had a big touch base since before the season.
So I do know you just got back from a
hunt and you're about to leave for another hunt, So
can you give us like the quick rundown of North
Dakota and if there was anything from that? I know
that was like a mid October hunt, but is there
anything coming out of that that you're going to be

(10:42):
keeping in mind as you lead into the rut stuff?

Speaker 6 (10:46):
Dude, that was maybe the most enjoyable hunt I've ever filmed.
I had and I missed a giant and had to
let him go a different time because camera guy couldn't
get on him because the way we were set up,
so I had I missed a legit one fifty eight
pointer that I snort weezed in who put on it.

(11:06):
It's probably the best big buck encounter I've ever filmed. Wow,
total like so freaking rad. And then caught up to
that buck two miles away, and a couple days later
had him raking a tree in front of me at
twenty one yards, perfect opening to his lungs and just

(11:26):
the way we were in separate trees and there was
one cedar tree between us, and so I'm looking at it.
I'm like, this is a dead buck. And the camera
guy's like, I don't have him. But the way he's
going to leave there, I'm like, the odds are pretty high.
He's going to give me a shot. And he just
took a route where I couldn't find an opening. And
so but I'll tell you what, I don't know what's

(11:47):
happening to me, but I was I have never been
I've never been more okay screwing up on a giant
and just letting one walk. And I ended up, you know,
I ended up, you know, finding a little success later.
But it was like just the whole hunt was so
fun and you just felt like you were in it.
And I'll tell you what. So I got out there

(12:08):
on I think October thirteenth, I saw a really good
buck chase hard. On October fourteenth, I saw another really
cool six pointer that was like out to his ears.
He just didn't have much for times I saw him chase.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
So in that week.

Speaker 6 (12:29):
I already was seeing like big deer kind of just
bumping and doing their thing. And I don't I've only
been a little bit because I've only been home just
a little bit. But I had a morning the other
morning here where I had a two year old seven
pointer come in and he ran dose in this little
patch of woods. I was in for like two and
a half hours, and it was just like it has

(12:51):
me so excited. Like if you're listening to this, you're like, oh,
it's not kicking in yet or whatever. I'm like, you know,
you and I have talked about this this last week October,
those first couple of days in November. Man, you know,
everybody wants that like seven through the twelve through whatever,
but this time of year.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
It can just be freaking bonkers. Yeah, I love it.
I do think you have a little bit of that.
I mean, I know that you know, six seven, eight nine,
that's when a lot of does are ready to go,
and so there's a lot of bucks going after him.
But you also have bucks getting locked down at that
time period. Two right, you're starting to get that happening.

(13:27):
But right now October thirty, first November one too, you're
just getting a few dos in, but all the bucks
are ready to go. It's like you've got all the
bucks on their feet and nobody's locked down, or hardly
anyone's locked down. They're all searching. It's just it can
be great. I agree with you. I absolutely love it.
And now I got to ask you a question though,
about your North Kota thing. Legitimately, you found that buck

(13:51):
two miles away within just a few days, so, and
I know this is a river you're hunting, so I
know they travel up and down that but did you
I mean, you must have been shocked when all of
a sudden you're seeing the same buck so far away. Dude,
it was wild.

Speaker 6 (14:05):
I mean, in fact, when I glassed him and filmed
him through my spotter the first night I got there,
and he was with two other bucks that were like
one twenties type like good deer, and he was he
was six hundred yards into private when I saw him.
And where I ran into him, I found this little
crossing on this just like patch of brush in this

(14:28):
meadow and they were just using it. So I had
seen that buck or one of those three go through
there quick. I just got a glimpse of them through
my spotter, and then I picked him up down river
and so anyway, went in there, called him in the
you know, the first morning I had to hunt there,
screwed it up. He's gone shot hair off his back

(14:48):
like time to recoup. And I ended up hunting my
way the other direction down river to this area that
has just some really good bedding cover, you know, like
kind of that cedar scrub oak, you know, river bottom
flat type stuff. And what it was what happened to me,
And this is like a good lesson for anyone who's
not hunting like high deer densities is I had places

(15:10):
where they were just like they were covering a lot
of ground. I mean, we would watch these deer start
in one spot and by the time you were you
couldn't see him anymore. They were like a mile away
you know those those Western your cover ground, and so
I was kind of playing that game at the beginning,
and then I found I walked into this spot that
has this little cattle guzzler in it that I know about,

(15:31):
and it was getting hot, and I jumped like a
one fifty and a two year old bedded right by it,
and then yeah, and then it was yeah, and then
a couple more I actually jumped five deer walking in there,
and so I'm like, okay, I'm on a concentration here
in this.

Speaker 2 (15:50):
Little you know, like this is a little zone. And
that's where that buck went to after he encountered me.

Speaker 6 (15:56):
So he traveled up river. He knew about those little
patches of cover, and he was hold up in there,
and there were mule deer hold up in there, and
he like, I was measuring them on on X you
know where you can do like the area shape thing,
and they're like five acres eight acres and so it's
like not much like you look at it and you're

(16:16):
like it's it's just the best stuff they had. And
there ended up being so many deer in there because
I don't I don't know if it was my pressure
on the river bottom or it was just like the
weather because it got you know, the weather changed a
lot on us. But it was a good lesson because
I was playing that travel game and then that died
on me. And as soon as I moved to where

(16:37):
it was like, we're creeping in right where they should
be bedded, where you're like, I don't know if we're
going to get away with it. Then all of a sudden,
there he is again, and you're like, and other deer too,
Like it was he wasn't the only one, and I
was like, man, so often on pressure deer or like
low density spots, that's the game. It's like it's like
an elk hunt, you know, where you're like, they're mostly

(16:58):
not here, even though great and there might be old sign,
but somewhere that concentration is and it actually reminded me
of a big woods hunt where I can see.

Speaker 2 (17:09):
Yeah, So you come off that and now tonight or
tomorrow you're leaving for Iowa public Land high deer density. Now, yep,
what's the what's the game plan? We talked about this
a little bit this summer when we were going through
our plans of the year. Because you've you've got high

(17:30):
hopes for this trip, But give me the latest. What's
the latest as far as your game plan? What do
you think you're gonna do?

Speaker 6 (17:36):
So I just as a little context, I drew this
tag in twenty twenty, and that was when we filmed
back forty together, so I had to do early October hunts.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
Killed a good buck kill. The dough had had a
great time, like a freaking great time.

Speaker 6 (17:50):
And I've been back down there because I tried a
turkey hunt there every year just to keep scouting it,
and I've actually been down there just to look around.
And I have this dilemma where I know this one
spot has big deer and it's got this really cool
meadow and people it's like a it's a hike to
get there, so people seem to not like concentrate on

(18:12):
it too much. And I know if I go volume
hunt that I'm gonna run into a deer that I
want to shoot, like it's just and I have the
wind for it coming up. The predicted wind is south
for like seven days, so I'm not gonna be playing
that changing wind game. But I also know it's gonna
be pretty hot. It's gonna be like eighty three one
day and so I'm like, should I Should I be

(18:33):
hunting the river bottoms and the little stream spots that
I have and then maybe some of the ponds, which
would make a better show if I'm you know, moving
around and trying to figure stuff out. Or do I
go take that DSD do up into that meadow and
put her twenty yards out.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
And just wait? And I don't.

Speaker 6 (18:52):
I know what I would probably do if I wasn't filming,
and I would just go volume hunt that sucker and
just have a ton of fun, because it's you can
get in there in the morning if you plan it right,
and you can sit all day. But I'm like, should
I be looking around see if I could find a difference.

Speaker 2 (19:07):
You know?

Speaker 6 (19:08):
And I have so many way points. I mean, I
couldn't sleep this morning. I woke up super early because
I'm like, this is so dumb. But I have so
many pins down there, and I had this pond marked
the last time I went down there, and it's like
tucked way in the woods and you could just like
see it if you're like really looking, and I cannot

(19:29):
freaking find that. And I'm like I'm getting to the
point where I'm like, did I imagine this, like what's
going on here? And I know I didn't because I
remember dropping it when I was dropping some turkey pins
and I was like, I gotta just look at that,
like I just got to run in there when I'm
running and gun in for turkeys and find it.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
And I can't find it. So I woke up this morning,
I'm like, I'm gonna find that freaking pond. And I didn't.

Speaker 6 (19:48):
So I don't know what happened, like but I but
I I did find a different one, and I was like, Oh,
that's that's gonna work. So it's gonna be fun. I'm
very excited for this hunt.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
Uh So, if you had, if I put a gun
to your head and had to force you to pick
what you think you're actually gonna do, You're gonna go
the running gun waypoint chase or the value hunt.

Speaker 6 (20:14):
I think I'm gonna think I'm gonna chase those waypoints
for a little bit.

Speaker 2 (20:19):
I think I'm not gun to my head.

Speaker 6 (20:24):
You might as well just blow my brains out on
the wall body, because I don't know. I I'm not
sure yet when I get when I get down there,
i'll have a better feel for it. But it's hard
I mean that meadow is where I hit the biggest
buck I've ever shot at. I sent my buddy in
there last year. He had a giant which might have
been the same deer come into a decoy, and there's
a little bit of part of me that's like, if

(20:46):
that is the same deer, and from his description it
sounded like it and the exact same spot. I'm like,
if that deer made it through, you're talking about a
deer that like, you know, he said he thought it
was one pint eighty. When I hit it, I was
pretty confident in it was just a mainframe twelve that
was pushing one seventy. And so you're like, if that's

(21:06):
if that dear's still out there, it's kind of hard
not to go put some time and see if he
shows up.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
You know. And so if I were you, if I
were you, and I'm not, and I'm not giving you
advice because you don't need my advice, but I would
be sitting my butt right there and doing the thing
that's fun, the thing that you think would be most fun,
and the thing that gives you this possibility. Who cares
if it becomes a show that's not that great. I

(21:32):
think it's almost more interesting of a show when you
do this thing. They're like, man, this could be this
could be brutal just sitting here NonStop, but it also
might be the best thing ever. And the decoy thing
is gonna be so cool. And even if you don't
see that buck, there's gonna be other bucks. They're gonna
get cool interactions.

Speaker 6 (21:51):
I don't know, Yeah, I know, I know when I
hit that buck, I saw six other bucks on that
That was the first day, first morning of the season,
and it was they were They weren't obviously that big,
but there were like one thirty one, twenty five, like
there were bucks, and some of those deer. Because I

(22:12):
hunted there again, I saw them again in there, So
you're like, yeah, so I might. I don't know. It's
gonna be hard not to. Plus it's just a you
know how it is, like it's just a really cool
setup that you can get into in the morning if
you do it right, Like you you gotta climb a
big bluff and you gotta sneak in there a little bit.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
But if you if you do it right, you have
action from the like the get go. Can you can
you help me understand a little better why this spot's

(22:53):
so good for that pre rut rut time period. Like
you said, there's a meadow, you say it's far away
from the road, but but break down a little bit
more for me, like how this sets up why there's
so many bucks moving through here during the rut. So
there's a couple of things, you know how those and
then also sorry, one more edition also I'd love to know,
like how you're gonna set up on this too, accounting

(23:14):
for deer travel wind et cetera.

Speaker 6 (23:16):
Right, So you know how much dear love, especially in
like an egg heavy area. They love CRP type grass.
They love like sumac islands, like that brushy, soft edgy stuff.
This has that, and what it where it has it
is on top of a ridge. It's not that easy
to get to, and it feeds to a private uh

(23:40):
it's usually alfalfa. You can see it just barely, but
a private egg field that I'm sure probably gets hunted
but doesn't get hunted like public land does. And so
those deer they can bet on that ridgetop, they can
they can leave their sign on that that meadow. There's visibility.
They stage there morning and evening, and they can get
to a private field that's totally walled in. On top

(24:04):
of that, you can look at it on on X
and see that like there's nobody's gonna see it from
the road, nobody's gonna mess with it. So I think
they're just very comfortable and it's just far enough where
it's like there's so much good stuff you kind of
got to go by to get there, and like it's
just not a it's just the right setup, man. And
I haven't I haven't explored the whole area because every

(24:26):
time I've been there, I've been hunting. But I have
I've killed some turkeys in there and looked around, and
it has it has probably the best betting cover aside
from that meadow. There's some like pine tree kind of
scrubby hillsides in there, and so it has like if
you were going to put a big buck in that
area and he was going to find a place on

(24:47):
public that was real safe, like just you know, like
escape routes betting cover wise, he can he can move
in daylight and not expose himself. He's probably not gonna
get like overrun with people. I mean, I found cameras
in there, and stands like it's not a total secret,
but it's just the right stuff. And you know how

(25:08):
it is down there, even though there's quite a bit
of woods where I'm hunting, like relative to a lot
of Iowa, it's also that unbelievably beautiful deciduous forest that's
pretty open. And so when you get to like a
river bottom and you have that change and some of
the you know a little more high stem count stuff,
and you're like, okay, this is this is a different thing.

(25:31):
Even though it's a small patch of cover, that's a magnet,
you know. And I think a lot of people walk
in and there's so many good trees to set up
in and it looks like beautiful woods that a lot
of them sort of just like one layer in. I'm
good because look at there's rubs here, there's scrapes. But
when you want that all day sit and you want
those the bigger deer there, you know how it is

(25:51):
like you better get you better get somewhere with that
security cover and it's not there's not a ton.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
Of it on this in this area. So you've got
this CRP issue thick meadowee zone that is then surrounded
by that matured deciduous forest and then it feeds out
down the ridge to this field. Are you then hunting
like the downwind side of that CRP field or how
are you setting up in relationship?

Speaker 6 (26:16):
Yep, yep. So I mean the way that it's sort
of shaped, you can get away with just about anything,
so you can you can set up one side for
a north wind, one side for a south wind, and
if you get some west in there, which you often do.
It's sort of like a wonky shape, so you can
always get into a point or something and your sense

(26:38):
generally gonna fall off because it's really bluffy, and so
you just have and and there's a there's a fair
amount of seedars in there too, so if you just
got to tuck into the ground for whatever reason, it's
it's huntable no matter what winds you get. You know,
it's if it would be different though, if you had
to cross it, you know for a morning sit like
I climb up to the edge, especially with a south

(26:59):
or a wet wind, and I don't have to expose
myself in it. If you if you had to, that
would be a little different story. So you'd have to
you'd have to play that game a little bit. But
it's just just one of those areas, man, And you
know they're visible enough so you can call to them.
They just there's just enough of that like sumac type
brush that they always just gravitate toward. And you know,

(27:21):
like when you see them leave a field at first
light or whenever they they start heading back to bed,
they often hit those spots where they'll kill a couple hours,
you know, just milling around, right, but they're not they're
not visible visible, but they're kind of visible, and they're
just like I think those deer they just sort of

(27:41):
have that moment of dumb where they're like, I kind
of I don't want to go back to bed, yet
I'm feeling it, like I'm making that rub. So when
you call to those deer they catch sight of a decoy,
they're like they're just sort of like more open to working.
And that's like that's the beauty of those spots.

Speaker 2 (27:59):
Man. I like the sound of it a lot, dude.

Speaker 6 (28:02):
I have so many freaking pins drop down there because
it's like, you know, might play the water game because
it's going to be hot, but it's so bluffy, like
real bluffs that you get these pinch points along the
rivers that are like to me, are just so reliable
during the rut where you can look and you're like,

(28:22):
get that one flat where a valley comes in, and
then it's just a wall, like a vertical wall for
six hundred yards, and then there's another valley there and
you're like, you know, those are littered with sign and
deer crossing all over. But to get between them, you know,
they might go halfway up the hill or something, but
most of the time there's that banging trail right along
the bottom, and your wind can blow over the river

(28:43):
and you're like, everybody who's got us, who wants to
see both places, is going to go through there?

Speaker 2 (28:49):
Yeah, no short options. No, I'm excited, dude. Okay, so
that's your first rut trip and then if you or
when you tag out there, you're then start hitting the
Minnesota Wisconsin stuff. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (29:03):
Yeah, I h my one of my daughters has a
buck tag left to fill and then in Wisconsin, and
then both of them have Minnesota tags. So I have
a I have a weird situation here at Minnesota where
it's kind of hard to get them out, Like I
have a place I can take them sometimes. But it's
a long story, but I My plan is get over
Wisconsin with them and get one more good hunt with

(29:27):
them in before you know, I'm gonna go. I gotta
go sit for myself here at some point. But yeah,
I'm excited. I'm gonna be I fully intend to watch
at least a couple of Bucks get shot on a
decoy here in the next I don't know, three weeks.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
I would say. It's exciting. I'm gonna I'm gonna barrage
you with some more questions about the decoy setup in
a little bit, but we'll save that for our little
tactic showdown. Perfect, all right, I guess I'll walk you
through my situation then, and then we can we can

(30:02):
talk some strategy. So since we last talked, you know,
I killed mid October buck and then re examined some
of my main Michigan stuff, did a hunt, did a
kind of scouting day, moving cameras around, shifting some stuff around,
trying to find the deer I have been after down
in southern Michigan, and they've kind of disappeared off the map.

(30:27):
When we talked in August, I had two bucks that
I was after, and they had been really consistent the
two years prior and they were really consistent all summer,
and then one of them disappeared on September third, nothing
and then one of them stayed consistent until October third,
and then he disappeared. That buck has still not shown

(30:51):
up a single time on trail camera or in any
of the times i've been out glass and I haven't
seen that deer. That's this big, tall ten pointer that
we're referring to as bear, he's missing. The other one
was this buck that's missing an eye. I found his
match set the spring. He's a five year old, and he,

(31:13):
you know, was so consistent years past, and he disappeared,
like I said, September third, for six weeks, didn't see
hide or hair of him, and then I got one
trail camera video of him this past weekend and that's it.
So I have one confirmation of life in a seven
week period.

Speaker 6 (31:31):
What do you think has happened?

Speaker 2 (31:32):
Dude? I have zero idea. I mean, he's a five
year old, and usually when they get that old, they're
pretty well settled into their thing, you know. I don't
think I've ever had a buck that was really consistent
at three and four and then just totally changed at five.
And I went back and looked at my pictures and observations,
like my notes from last year, and from October through December,

(31:55):
really through February of last year, almost every single day
I had him on one of the properties I can
hunt and a lot of daylight, a lot of activities
all over the place for the last two years. And
now he's just gone and I haven't. And it's not
because I've been in there. Like I have not gone
into the core of this property and this couple of
properties at all. I've not hunted it yet. So I

(32:18):
have glassed from the road, I've hunted edge stuff and
glass that done. Observation stands. I have a good number
of cameras around in places that historically he's been hitting.

Speaker 6 (32:29):
I don't know, dude, I'm gonna throw a theory out
here just because of something I ran into, and I'm
probably pretty sure it's not your case. But I've had
so this property I'm hunting by my house. The deer
mostly disappeared except for this one little woodlot, and I

(32:49):
actually took one of my daughters in there. We were
mostly trying to call in a turkey, but maybe a
deer is going to come in. And I kept I
called in three flocks of turkeys and it was chaos.
They were scratching the whole time. The amount of like
fresh acorns that we were dealing with in there was
like for this time of year. It really caught me
off guard. And then where I saw that two year
old chase in the other morning, I saw ten deer

(33:12):
off the stand, which is a lot like usually I
don't see any deer on this property. Every one of them,
three bucks, seven dozen fawns all hit like a small
patch of oaks that I know they weren't hitting a
couple weeks ago because I was in there and killed
a deer. Like I'm like, it's crazy when something like

(33:35):
that happens, where you're like, I don't factor acorns into
this time of year ever, But last year in North
Dakota on that film that just dropped, those deer were
on specific trees, you know. I mean it's plain stuff,
so they're not that many trees. But those bucks were
like it was clearly like that was the destination. It's
not like there isn't a whole bunch of egg around there.

(33:57):
There's a ton of it, you know, but they were
like they weren't chasing last year during that blizzard, it
was like they were going to that freaking tree or
another tree to eat. And then I'm seeing it again
now and I'm like, are we kind of like missing
something like that? Where is it?

Speaker 4 (34:11):
Like?

Speaker 2 (34:12):
Did they just move over to bulk up on that
food source, you know, and they go get back?

Speaker 3 (34:18):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (34:19):
I hope that's the case. I hope that they're just
back in there. And you know, I've got one camera
back in a kind of oak flatty area, but that
camera stopped sending pictures recently, so you know, maybe that's
that's the thing, but I should Here's my plan, given
given this mystery. I've been you know, playing it safe

(34:40):
waiting in this case. But it's the end of October.
Now I'm gonna go on discovery mode and I'm going
to go in and just start searching because at this
point there's there's no use hunting the stuff. I have
been hunting where they are not, and they have been
showing the places that I've been able to see to
this point. So now I'm gonna start going and seeing
these places that I have not observed yet. I'm just
gonna I'm gonna explore and try to rEFInd them. So

(35:04):
tonight tomorrow, this whole upcoming like four day, four five days,
I'm gonna go and check out spots that I have
not touched yet this year. Search it out, look for signs,
scout hunt spots where I can see a little ways,
but be back and cover. I'm gonna start hunting mornings now,
tight to the edge of some of these betting areas,
back in some of these oak flats. And you know

(35:27):
that should tell me something, hopefully.

Speaker 6 (35:30):
And aren't you doing an up north hunt too.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
Yes, Ish, I am doing this is like a I'm
not sure you know about this most recent shift, but
I'm doing just a quick two day off north hunt
with my dad. We're gonna try to get back up
to our deer camp here like very beginning of November
and try to get him. We were trying to get

(35:55):
him an archer buck last year up there. We spent
like about a week and had like horrible conditions and
very very slow up movement. But man, the deer are
There's some big deer up there this year and a
lot of I mean relatively for us, a lot of bucks,
and so I just know it's a matter of time
before it's gonna work out, and I'd really love to
be up there with him. So I'm able to get
up there for two days with him at the beginning

(36:15):
of November. So we're gonna do that, hopefully get a
crack for him. Do you do you have a spot
there where you could run that dough decoy? Yeah, but
I mean yeah, we have, Like I just worry'd be
so tight. I'd be worried about. You know, I've got
like the biggest opening I could do it is our

(36:37):
It's like a half acre food plot, maybe maybe three
quarters of an acre, And I just I don't I've
never thought about using decoys up there, just in a
low deer density area. I don't know you've done that
up north in northern Wisconsin. So you tell me, is
that crazy to try that? Would they come out of
that thick stuff and come into this little opening and
be shocked by that? Or do you think that might

(36:57):
be I don't know.

Speaker 6 (36:59):
I mean, I'd have to see it, but a dough
decoy I would consider. And I mean I think that
that was sort of the secret to our success last year,
was the load deer density thing. I mean, you think
about those bucks up there, and you know how it
is like you can hunt a week and see like
three deer, you know, and so they're dealing with that
load deer density too. So if they pop in the

(37:20):
other end of the food plot and they see a
dough over there, you know they're coming. Like if you
get a buck that sees that, he's gonna go check
it out.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
And I guess, like the thing I always worry about
decoys is that does come on it freak out, make
a whole hubbub and spook everything. But there's not that
many doughs in this area, so the chances of that
happening are relatively low. And even if it does happen,
it's a relatively low odds that that's gonna blow up.
You know, the one buck that might be half a

(37:48):
mile away at the moment, who's still cruising our direction,
you know. I mean, it's not like there's twenty deer
all around that are going to get messed up.

Speaker 6 (37:55):
Dude, I don't. I haven't had as many really bad
dough reactions out of that DSD dough as some of
the other ones I've used in the past, But it's
still when you think about that possibility, and then you
think about putting it on a relatively small opening, like
you don't You definitely don't want to surprise dose with
a decoy, you know, like you could get away with

(38:16):
it with some bucks for sure, but does are not
gonna right, They're not gonna treat you very well.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
Yeah, it's an interesting idea though, although now as you
say it, it's it's outside of my possibility set because
I don't have a dough decoy. I've got the buck,
but I don't have the dough. Make that phone call, buddy,
send that email. I guess.

Speaker 6 (38:38):
You're Mark Kenyon.

Speaker 2 (38:40):
That's never worked for me before, Tony, but I'll try.

Speaker 6 (38:42):
You're one of the.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
Top one hundred hunters in that one corner of Michigan
where you live. That might that might be true, that
one little corner. That's that's a bet I'm willing to take.
I got to ask you another question, though, I got
to pose another dilemma for you. So in that Southern Michigan,
back to Southern Michigan, I'm telling you about how I've

(39:04):
lost my two bucks that I know for sure mature,
and my plan is to try to find them and
seek kind of just explore the area. But I have
this other possible situation that I'm torn, and that is
this buck that I sent you pictures and videos of.
He showed up for the first time the day I

(39:25):
killed that really tall browton buck in mid October in
a different area, and I was back scouting in this
area the next I guess it would have been probably
the next day I was glassing and saw this year,
and so that was mid October. And since then, so
the last almost two weeks now, he's been all over
these properties and daylighting and showing up a bunch. He

(39:48):
wants to get shot, but I can't decide what to
do about him because I'm I'm a little worried. He's three,
and I don't like to shoot three year olds in
this area because I know, like, if I don't, there's
a decent chance they can make it to four or five.
And that's usually what I'm the last handful of years,
I've been just chasing five year olds, And so this

(40:09):
deer is like a tweener. I'm like, is he three?
Is he four? Do I want to hold out for
the deer I know armature and the hunt for a while,
or is this is a pretty darn nice buck. I
certainly wouldn't pass this deer if I was like traveling
somewhere on a quick hunt, or on public land, or
like you know, something where I was time limited. But
in this situation where I know the area, I have time,

(40:32):
I don't know what to do. Tony, what are your
thoughts on that buck? In my situation? That son of
a bitch who cares? I knew, I knew that's what
you were to say. First off, shoot.

Speaker 6 (40:42):
Him and send in his teeth, and then come back
to me and tell me how what he ages, because
you might be very surprised. Secondly, shoot that son of
a bitch who cares? He is a nice dear is Mark,
you work in the hunting industry, Shoot him and go
out of state, go somewhere else.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
I know, I know. I also I'm torn, man, I'm
torn because I also I also like, I like the
idea of shooting a nice buck, but then I also
liked the idea of trying to find like the really
old one that I know well, and like, I know
that that doesn't do it for you. But I also
am like as massa masochist, I guess i'd be like

(41:22):
I kind of like the suffering of like waiting to
try to find that deer. So I don't I really
don't know.

Speaker 6 (41:28):
And that's just a different calculus though. I mean, you
can do that because you have a legitimate chance of
letting him go and having him.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
Come back, you know. But I I just shoot him.
I mean like, like, I mean, I recognize like this is.
It would be different if it was a trip where
I knew I didn't have any other time. But this
is like the situation where what I here's what happened.
If I shoot that deer, I'd be happy and it'd
be a great experience and a cool deer. But if

(41:57):
one of those other two bucks all of a sudden
showed up the next week and was like all over
the place, then I'd be kicking myself and I'd be like, oh, man,
I should have waited, because now this buck's back that
I really really was wanting to get after. And then
I'd be getting pictures of him all fall or I'd
go out there two does and I'd be seeing these
bucks and I'd be thinking, Ah, what an idiot. I
should have waited because look at that tank. He's a monster.

(42:21):
And I don't know if that's how I feel or not.
But that's what I'm worried about. So that's how I
don't know. It's all gonna probably come down to if
that deer shows up in front of me, how I
feel and if it gets me freaking out excited or not.
But I do know every time when I've been out
glassing and I've caught him in my bios a couple
of times, and I've been out there and filmed him,
saw him and both times I was like, HOA, whoa

(42:42):
big buck, and the I'm like, oh, it's that one buck.
But at first I'm always like whoa, So that's an
impressive deer. I've been thinking about this a lot. H
I don't think.

Speaker 6 (42:55):
I think that you should step back from looking at
white tail hunting like it's such an academic per suit
and look at it and go, would it be really
fun for you to go, you know what, that's some
bitch is number one on my list and I'm going
to go in and try to kill him? Or would
it not be fun?

Speaker 2 (43:09):
Mm hmm?

Speaker 6 (43:13):
Would you enjoy that?

Speaker 2 (43:15):
I don't know. That's that's That's here's the thing. Tony
is like, if I didn't I was actually talking to
one of our mutual friends about this just yesterday and
how I'm moosette Garrett. Oh and dude, let me tell
you Garrett story quick. He listens to this podcast, so

(43:37):
be warned.

Speaker 6 (43:38):
I know it's great. I talked to him this morning
and he answered the phone and he's like, I'm like, dude,
I catch you in a workout or what.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
He's like, No, I'm just coyote hunting. I just shot
a coyote. I was like, whoa buddy. Anyway, he gets
really into it. Yeah. Yeah. So we were just talking
the other day though about this very thing and how
you and I are actually so different on this. You
as you just described, like the most fun thing for
you would be shooting a buck, you know that you

(44:09):
get the chance at And I was kind of talking
Togair about how I totally get that, but I'm kind
of the opposite, and that I actually might enjoy the
pursuit of the thing that I am, like, actually the
thing I set my sights on originally for whatever reason,
I'd be fine not killing anything but then pursuing that possibility.

(44:31):
So if I didn't feel any kind of pressure to
fill a tag because of what we do and everything,
I might not kill buck for years at a time,
maybe if there wasn't the deer that I was really
excited about in certain situations like this where I can
do that. So I don't know, but I'm I'm, like
I said, I'm very torn on this because sometimes you

(44:51):
like a surpressed surprise is great, and you take a gift,
you know, you don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
And then sometimes I'm like, gosh, I really do love
the you know, try to figure this buck out kind
of deal.

Speaker 6 (45:02):
So let me ask you this about your hunting, because
one of the reasons that I have gone the route
that I go is because it's just, for whatever reason,
my favorite thing is to walk out on public land
and figure it out. Like I just the years that
I don't get to do that enough, I feel like
I'm missing something, you know, and I listen. I like
the private land hunts. I like setting up stands ahead

(45:22):
of time, like I understand it and I like it.
But that's like just the thing that hums for me.
I'm wondering with you, like, do you think at this
point you've got those deer figured out well enough where
you know, like, you know, this buck if he's daylighting
a whole bunch, and he's been there and he's on
all your cameras, there's probably a pretty good chance you're

(45:43):
going to go work that deer and kill him, right,
And so is this one of those things where you're like,
you've you've gotten to know these deer in this area
so well that like there's just a miss, even though
that that buck would look amazing and like definitely would
be a deer almost everybody would shoot, But for you,
because of this specific circumstance and the amount of time

(46:04):
you put in, you're like torn between trying to represent
the person who would shoot that deer because most people would,
but in your very specific situation, it's just not going
to give you what you need out of a hunt
for a deer.

Speaker 5 (46:17):
There.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
Yeah, something like that kind of maybe feels like what
I'm feeling where it almost feels like I don't know,
I'm having a hard time even explain it to myself,
but but yeah, for whatever reason, I kind of feel
like it almost seems too easy to kill that deer
right now, just based on man, he's been everywhere and

(46:42):
I've been seeing him and I've not gone in after
him because I'm waiting and waiting for this other deer
to show back up. And then when I got proof
of life of the five year old, I was like, oh, man,
like that's the buck. I really want to get a
crack app But I don't know if this deer. If
this deer marches in front of me at twenty yards
and just hangs out working a scrape tonight, who knows.

(47:03):
Maybe in the moment, I'm just gonna have to send it.
I don't know, but I mean, so there.

Speaker 6 (47:08):
The real lesson here, though, I think, is if people
are listening to this, they're like, I would go in
there and shoot that deer, Like I would be so
happy to have that setup. But it's like a careful
what you wish for a thing, you know, and people
people like say this to me a lot. Like I
own those two properties in Wisconsin. I almost never hunt them.
I almost always just go hunt the Big Woods public

(47:30):
land because I just like it better. And it's like
you just have to go. We're so focused on like
got to kill whatever size of buck, and this is
like just like across the board with hunters. But you
get enough experience and enough time out there and you go,
what is the thing that really like I want to

(47:51):
go out there today for and you know, it changes.
Like I was thinking about this when I missed that
big one in North Dakota. I was like, that of
wrecked me. I mean when I you know, ten fifteen
years ago, that would have been like a season ruining thing.
And I was like, I don't even really care, like
because I get to keep doing this thing I want

(48:12):
to do so bad in a place I want to
do it in. And so I think that the hard
part that we have is we understand that there's that difference, right,
like you understand what you're saying, like you know in
your heart what you want to do. You don't really
want to kill this deer because you know you're going
to kill him probably, and so it's like whatever, like
I want that next thing. And that's a hard message

(48:32):
to pass on to people because not everybody has that spot.

Speaker 2 (48:46):
Well. And I think I think here's where I settle
on And what for anyone listening to this and thinking
we sound like crazy people, which is probably the case.
I think where I'm at and what I might suggest
people take away from all this is to just do
what's fun for you and to not care about what
other people think. That's what I'm trying to remind myself,

(49:07):
is I think I'm getting I'm feeling this like internal
pressure in my head of like people will think you're
nuts if you don't kill that deer, you're stupid. And
then if I don't kill a buck out here, then
they'll think I'm doubly stupid because I passed on that
super nice buck that anyone who's not a lunatic in
Michigan would shoot. But what might actually be most fun

(49:28):
for me might be passed on that deer. And just
seeing if the possibility of one of these two older
bucks coming back does pan out, that might end up
being what's most fun for me would give me the
most joy. And I think I'm just gonna what I
what I am gonna do is I'm gonna trust my
gut and trust what is most enjoyable for me despite
any outside pressures or outside perspectives that in saying that,

(49:53):
that also might in the moment change and it might
be man, that deer is awesome seeing him up close,
and I got I you want to take a crack
of that deer. Maybe that'll turn out to be the case.
But maybe it'll be the opposite. Maybe I'll watch him
be like, man, that's a beautiful deer. I'd love to
see him next year or late maybe even later this year.
But for now, I want to kind of see how
the next couple of weeks spans out, and maybe one

(50:14):
of these other deer comes back, and and you know what,
I you know, I've got enough meat in the freezer
by the you know, by the two bucks I've killed already,
and the doughs I'm going to kill in the coming
you know, month or two. And if I don't kill
a second Michigan buck, I'll survive, or maybe I do,
And then I'm sitting really pretty But I guess I

(50:34):
kind of want to just get back to just making
sure it's fun, you know, and do it for your
own reason. Every one of us has a different little
thing that we prefer. Like you just describe, You've got
a certain thing that really hums for you. I've got
a certain thing that really hums for me. Everyone's different.
And the more we can remove any outside noise and
not worry about what our friends would think, or what

(50:55):
the neighbors would think, or what anyone on social media
would think. I think we'd be a lot happier hunters
if we did.

Speaker 6 (51:02):
That, right. I mean, I'll give you an example to
frame this up, you know, like I write a lot
about just figure out how to hunt a spot, Like
if you find a spot like that meatow I'm talking about, right,
if you didn't have good trees there, I'd be on
the ground in a heartbeat, you know, ground blind, no groundblind,
natural blind, whatever. And I pushed that partially because it's
just good advice, like if you if you find where

(51:22):
the deer are, you should just figure out how to
hunt them. But also sometimes you just figure out the
stuff that's just more fun. Like with my daughters, we've
been in pop up ground lines their whole hunting career
turkeys and deer up until last year just a little
bit I started taking them out and just having them
sit on the ground and we do a natural groundbline.
And then this year they both killed deer in Wisconsin

(51:47):
from just natural groundblines where you're way more exposed and
you see them coming. And both of my daughters were like,
I don't ever want to get back in to pop up.
This is better. And so we tend to kind of
lean toward what is like what's like the easiest, most
effective way, you know, and so like a like a
box blind is a great example, right, Like I have
a lot of buddies who they almost only hunt rednecks

(52:09):
or whatever, which are super effective. But that's you know,
like you might like that for three four seasons and go,
you know what, I need to get back out there
and do something different. But trying that different stuff is
such an easy way to sort of tap into what
you need out of it. And that stuff changes, you know,
like your priorities changed depending on where you hunt, where

(52:32):
you go, like how much time you have, like you said,
how much meat you have in the freezer already none,
you know, like and so I just think they hunt
with my little girls that way. When they both said
that afterwards, I'm like, that's like a it's like a
key tenant of what we have to pay attention to.
It's like so simple, but it's nice to be reminded
of it.

Speaker 2 (52:50):
Yeah, so true. Especially it's such a good reminder this
time of year two because right for all of us,
when we get to the rut, we're so we've been
building and building building up to this moment. It's so
easy to get obsessed with the actual I gotta kill buck,
I gotta fill the tag, I gotta do the whatever,
the thing you've been preparing for, the thing you've been
working towards, the thing you've been dreaming about. So there's

(53:12):
so much pressure building up to this moment. And for
some of us, I know we've both had moments like this.
You end up being stressed out and not enjoying yourself
during the rut and grinding yourself to a pulp. And
then you know you're chasing this thing you think you
want because you've built up to this moment, and then
you end up not enjoying the process because you're so

(53:33):
stressed out or upset about the things that went wrong
or mistakes you made, or the fact that the deer's
not showing or whatever. And that's such a shame to
have that Like this should be the most fun part
of the year, and if you're doing anything that is
taking the fun out of it, I think you got
to reassess the situation and try to re level reset
where you're at, because, at least as far as I'm concerned,

(53:57):
the rut all season, but especially this time, this should
be like the most joyful celebration of hunting. This should
not be you know, the suffer fast grind of misery,
which which oftentimes it becomes if we are not careful.

Speaker 6 (54:12):
Right well, And you know, one of the things that
really hits home with me every rut is how I
sort of and I'm sure a lot of people do this,
but I sort of go into it with this feeling
of like I just volume hunt this spot, or I
just like it's going to be a dumb down thing,
you know, like we're all just so fatigued by making

(54:33):
decisions about our lives all day long with the kids
and everything, and like we look at this like I
can just go take it easy and sit that stand
and they'll come to me. And so often I still
have to go to them, Like you still have to
play the sign game. And if you see them all
crossing through that one brushy fence or whatever, like you
can try to call them over, you can try to

(54:54):
decoy him over, but your best bet is to get
right on top of them and work them. And the
rut doesn't, like it does, doesn't reallyeve you of those
responsibilities like you still have you still have.

Speaker 2 (55:03):
To work them. Very true, and that is a perfect
segue two. What I think we should call the what
the white tail rut Rumble Last man Standing competition. Wow,
I just came up with that on the fly. Total

(55:24):
it's a little long, just just rolls out the tongue, though.
I think here's what I want to do to wrap
this sucker up. I can't remember if we've done this
in the past and I'm forgetting, or if it's just
an idea I had and we never actually did it.
But I want to just go back and forth with
white tail rot tactics or strategies or ideas, and we'll

(55:47):
go back and forth. Each of us share a quick tip,
and then the next person shares a quick tip, and
we'll go back and forth until until someone runs out
of ideas or we run out of time. All right,
So that's how That's how I'm thinking we're gonna get
to thirty nine specific actionable rut hunting tactics, or maybe
it'll be more. I guess that's a question. Do you
think will we be over under thirty nine?

Speaker 6 (56:11):
Thirty nine is a lot, bud, I'm gonna I'm gonna
say under, but just barely.

Speaker 2 (56:18):
All right, So let's uh, let's let's see where we
get in our I don't know. I've got another meeting
that I've got to run to the tree and uh
so maybe we've got ten to fifteen minutes left ish
and less unless it's really gets milentum. Sorry, you go first, Tony.

Speaker 6 (56:38):
If you're if you don't know what to do during
the rut, hunt water. I'm so reliable. Uh water out
in the open or water deep in the cover, deep
in the cover.

Speaker 2 (56:50):
If you have it, those those dose that are getting
pushed around get thirsty, like and how go ahead? I
was just gonna say, how do you set up on water?

Speaker 6 (57:00):
Depends what kind of water, right, you know, if it's
a creak, it's a different story. I love a little
water hole in the woods. If I can hunt a pond,
I'm gonna get you know. I mean, obviously you got
to read it a little bit. But just if you
tuck ponds, you can look at them and see where
they approach them. Some ponds out like out west are
they'll be ringed with tracks, right, But a lot of

(57:22):
ponds in the Midwest and the East, you'll find that
one part where they just that's where they drop down
to drink.

Speaker 2 (57:27):
For whatever reason.

Speaker 6 (57:27):
They can see better, or it's just easier access. That's
where you want to be because those doors are going
to bring those bucks in there.

Speaker 2 (57:35):
All right, all right, I would say, when trying to
choose best possible stand sides stiring the rut, I like
locations with compounding features. So best case scenario, I don't
want to be just a pinch point. I don't want
to be somewhere that's just a dill betting area. I
don't want something that's just close to a scrape. I

(57:59):
want all of these things compounding and layering. So give
me like a layer cake stand, a stand that is
downwind of a dough betting area where there's a pinch
point and there's a creek crossing so there's like a
double pinch, and there's a big inside the cover scrape
that's within range, or there's a gap in the fence,
or there's a oak tree that's dropping down acorns back

(58:20):
in there too. I want layers for those locations where
I'm going to spend big periods of time. I love
that kind of location in the rut, So I don't
ever want to hunt somewhere just for one reason. I
want to be like three or more things going for
that spot right right. My next one would be.

Speaker 6 (58:40):
Most people don't do all day sits, you know, they
just don't whatever, they don't have the time, patients, whatever.
I would say one of the most important things to
do if you don't want to just go pull all
dayers for several days in a row is look at
your weather app whatever you use, and when you see
a weather change, try to be there. And I'm not
like a huge like we all know the huge cold fronts,

(59:02):
but man, you see sometimes where the wind's been out
of some direction for a long time and it's just
gonna switch. You know, usually that's prefrontal, but it doesn't
have to be or even like a little temperature drop
or for some reason Thursday afternoon, there's gonna be just
like intermittent rain, just a little bit, just gonna blow through.
Like when you get you sort of get those like
fits and starts during the like the chasing and the

(59:25):
like the activity, and it's like it doesn't really matter
what time of day it is when something like that changes,
especially if you've been in a holding pattern for a
couple of days. It doesn't have to be that like
forty degree temperature drop, just something it often gets them
on their feet. I mean even if you know, like
if you sit out there in the rain all day
like we did in one week in November a couple
of years ago, and it just lightens up by like

(59:47):
a few degrees, that puts them on their feet moving again.
And so you can you can sort of be really
targeted around weather and it doesn't have.

Speaker 2 (59:55):
To be that big front.

Speaker 3 (59:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:58):
I like that, And I'll jump in with one that's
kind of a piggyback off that and kind of ties
into a little bit of what we were talking about
a minute, that being, you know, trying to be smart
with how we hunt the rut and how we manage
like our mental and emotional or fun level I guess,
just managing the mental side of things during the rut.

(01:00:20):
And and I say this because I came from like
a history when I first started taking this really serious
where I thought, you know, you kill deer with brute
force in time in the stand, and you hunt every
single minute of every single day. You hunt all day,
every single day, and if you don't, you are not
giving it one hundred and fifty percent, and you suck
because of that. And that's an approach that can work.

(01:00:45):
But if you are not having fun anymore, or if
you've done this for nine straight days and you are
so worn down that not only are you miserable, but
you're also losing focus and you're not with it and
you're not really able to pay and execute well, you
end up losing more opportunities because of that and not

(01:01:05):
have fun along the way. So I would suggest at
least what I have started doing is I have given
myself forgiveness. I'm forgiving myself for occasionally not hunting all
day or occasionally, you know, looking at the weather forecast
like you're saying and seeing like, ma'am, there's an eighty
five degree day, you know, on November first, or October

(01:01:26):
twenty ninth, or whatever it is. And if you're hunting
a whole big week or ten days or something, give
yourself permission to sleep in one morning, or give yourself
permission to come in midday a time or two and
go do the breakfast with your friends, or do lunch
with your friends, and do the things that make the
whole experience fun. And that also kind of refill your
energy tank, because if you don't, if you don't manage that, yeah,

(01:01:50):
more tree or more time the tree. You could say
that's better, but if you're in the tree but miserable,
or in the tree and not actually mentally there, it
might not be worth it. So I have found giving
myself a couple moments to recoup actually makes me a
more effective hunter.

Speaker 6 (01:02:05):
Down the line, I'm gonna piggyback on that. I'm gonna
say I do a fair amount of all day sits.

Speaker 5 (01:02:12):
And.

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
It has to be a sit in the cover.

Speaker 6 (01:02:17):
Where I just believe in my heart of hearts that
whatever pinch point funnel, whatever feature, pond, whatever that I'm
on is going to draw them. Like I think, I
think that people hear the all day advice and they go, well,
I'll go sit that box blind, or I'll go sit that,
you know, my favorite stand on the cut corn, And
it's like that might be great for two and a

(01:02:40):
half hours a day and might be worthless for cruising
bucks for the rest of the time. Like that, if
you're going to do an all day sit, unless you know,
unless you're in the heart of it and I or
something where you just have like a really good property
and they could just be bouncing all over. For most people,
you have to set yourself up for that all day sit.

(01:03:01):
It's not just go sit wherever you like to. It's
like you got to be in that place that's just
vibrating with dear activity, because that's if you if you
don't have that, that second guessing comes in, sun comes up,
you know whatever, Like you're you're gonna talk yourself into leaving.
But if you're like I know, at some point today
a buck is gonna run through this funnel, it's like

(01:03:24):
it's so much easier to stay. Plus, when you're in
the cover, you hear squirrels and like there's just like
there's like a different vibe to the whole thing where
you're like a little bit more paying attention and it
just feels more possible.

Speaker 2 (01:03:35):
So true, Uh So mine will be piggybacking off that
in saying that if you find yourself struggling to hunt
all day but you want to do it and you're
excited to do it, a one little like cheak code
way to get through and all day hunt a little
bit better is to make a move so you're still

(01:03:55):
basically hunting all day, but just get down and shift
to a new spot. You know, I would, personally if
I were to pick a time of day to do
my move, I would typically say it's going to be
after the midday, so it'd be like maybe two o'clock
or three o'clock, because I like, you know, there's a
course your first light movement, and then there seems to
be that late morning cruising that happens somewhere between like

(01:04:18):
ten in one. Maybe if I had to put a window,
that seems to be a window when like a mature
buck's going to get back on his feet and check
dough betting area. So I don't want to be leaving
that if I don't have to. But it seems like
if I had to pick a spot where there's oftentimes
a lull, it'd be that one or two o'clock to
three o'clock maybe somewhere in there. That's when I will typically,

(01:04:38):
if I'm trying to do an all this but want
to shift locations, that's a good time to do it.
And then it also sets you up well because that
morning through the midday can be great back in the cover,
like you're describing, but sometimes those spots slow down for
the last hour of daylight, and so if you want
to make a move at three o'clock, to a more
evening specific location that might set you up for the

(01:04:59):
best of both worlds.

Speaker 6 (01:05:01):
I'm gonna am I gonna piggyback on you, piggybacking on me, piggybacking.
I'm not sure I would say with I do want
to talk about the all day sit thing one, like,
let's let's just push this a little bit more. Anything
you can do so if if you can't sit in

(01:05:23):
a tree stand all day for whatever reason, sit in
a groundb line, like if you can stretch out, or
like the the midday move thing like you said. One
of the things that I did in North Dakota this
year that was like a game changer, which is gonna
sound dumb, is I brought my little elk stove and
I brought some of those peak refuels. So instead of
making sandwiches to eat for seven days in a row,

(01:05:47):
we get out of stand midday to move because we
were out there all day and we go sit on
the river bank, cook up some macaroni and cheese or
whatever we had whatever, dude, and it was like you
got some energy and you're like it was just like
a nice break. We didn't leave where the deer are,
but we just like that was like the way to
make it through. And I think, you know, I remember

(01:06:11):
Eddie Claypoole talks about this a lot, or he used to,
but I remember thinking, like, it would be insane to
bring a book hunting, or it'd be insane to like
have two thermoss of coffee, as if that's what you need.
I'm like, now, I'm like, take whatever you have to
take if reading a book is what's going to keep
you out there or whatever, because, like you said, when

(01:06:31):
you actually get that buck that comes through at eleven
o'clock or one o'clock or two o'clock, that you can
live off of that for a long time, Like that's
a powerful motivator to keep doing those all day sis
and it's mostly not going to happen, but when it does,
it's amazing. And so just figure out how to put
that time.

Speaker 2 (01:06:51):
And if you have the time, Yeah, and you're right,
Snacks food, man, that makes a huge difference. My daughter
just got brace, so she says, snacks and it's great.
My son just lost his second big tooth, so now
he's missing his two front teeth and he's got an
interesting little lisp thing go on too. So you brought

(01:07:13):
up food. So my snack hack is that I bring
enough snacks and then I bring enough snacks to be
able to parse them out on like a schedule. So
of course I do, right, that's the most Mark Kenyon
thing ever. But the way I do it is is
I like a sign, like every hour I'm able to

(01:07:36):
pick something else out of my snack bag, and then
I know, like I have to look forward to all right,
ten o'clock, I get the oreos, and then like, all right,
eleven o'clock, if you can just make it to eleven,
you're gonna get the bag of mang dried mangos or whatever.
And so just throughout the day, you've got these little
one hour celebrations that you get to look forward to
throughout that long day that just give you that tiny

(01:07:56):
little bit of extra something. And that's all helped me
the all days too. Dude.

Speaker 6 (01:08:01):
It's incredible how many people I talk to about all
day sets who will say, I try to not have
my first drink of coffee as long as I can,
so I delay that, you know, because you get colder
and colder and tired, and you're like I just because
you know you're only you know, twenty ounces of coffee
or whatever, like you can drink it. And so you're
like a lot of people I talk to who do

(01:08:22):
all day sits. We'll talk about that, like I try
to save it as late into the morning as I
can because it's like this amazing reward.

Speaker 2 (01:08:30):
So do you drink coffee on all day sets?

Speaker 6 (01:08:32):
Oh? Dude, I would shoot coffee directly into my eyeballs
on all day sits if I could see.

Speaker 2 (01:08:38):
I'm always I'm always worried about possibly incurring the wrath
of the coffee's diuretic effects and having one of those.
So I usually don't drink coffee on all day sits,
although I have toyed with and I occasionally do, but
I'm always a little paranoid. I just go nuts for donuts. Buddy.

Speaker 6 (01:09:00):
That's that Jesus take the wheel moment for me because
I'm drinking that coffee.

Speaker 2 (01:09:06):
Okay, So my snack attack tip was the last one.
You're next. We'll switch gears here.

Speaker 6 (01:09:12):
So I just I just wrote a foundation script and
an article about hunting with decoys, and one of the
things that I kind of focused on, or at least
one aspect of it, is when you put a decoy out,
you are inviting the deer right into something that you've touched,
like right into an area, And so there's like a

(01:09:34):
there's a risk reward thing with these rut tactics, right,
So calling is different. But if you want to put
out a cent wick with some dope on it, what's
the risk that you're going to touch something or leave
scent there or disturb that area that you're inviting deer
in versus the reward like the likely reward of a
buck getting down when turning in on it. Right, So

(01:09:57):
I look at that stuff and I go, I don't
ever do it. Like if I'm good enough to get
a buck to smell that and come in, I'm good
enough to just to get him right where I want
to shoot him anyway. But it decoy is different, and
so I'm like that risk is worth it because I
know I can call a deer in from very far
away with that and in multiple directions. So it's always

(01:10:17):
like I think people look at it, it's like it's
kind of a safe play, right, Like I'm gonna put
out some centwix down by that scrape or whatever. But
it's like, you know, if that little four ky comes
in you don't want to kill and he gets wiggy
about it and blows, or you get a dough that
walks by. It's like was that worth it?

Speaker 4 (01:10:33):
You know?

Speaker 6 (01:10:33):
So like think about that stuff because these we look
at a lot of rut tactics like that as it's
just like I'm just gonna do it, and it's like additive.
It doesn't it doesn't have a negative possibility, but it does.

Speaker 2 (01:10:43):
Yeah, very true. So you bring up another thought for
me when it comes to using decoys and or calls
and my rut calling approach, that I would suggest that
or at least this worked well for me, has been
using like an escalator approach. And so by that I
mean I start at the bottom of my calling escalator

(01:11:05):
and then I will advance up the escalator in aggressiveness
if I have to. But I am reading the deer's
body language before shifting up a notch with each one,
and if I can stop low on the escalator, I will.
So what I mean by that is number one, if
I can, I will start with just like a contact
grunt first, just like a prop and hopefully get a
buck's attention with that. And again this is if I

(01:11:27):
see a buck. I'm not doing that. I don't blind
grunt really ever, this is only if I see a
buck that I'm trying to call in the range, I
will start with something relatively subtle, and if I can
get him to hear that and get a reaction out
of him, then I'll stop there if possible. So you're
watching to see what he does. Does he turn does
he pin his ears back, does he puff up? Does

(01:11:47):
he start to come your way? Then anything like that,
I'm saying, okay, great, I'm done. If he doesn't hear
it at all, well, then I'm going to try to
turn up the notch next. Or if he kind of
perks up hears it, but then just keeps on going
his way, that I might try to escalate to the
next level, which typically for me would be more of
like a buck roar or growl, just like a more

(01:12:08):
aggressive like ra bra something like that, And so that
would be my next step up. And then again I'm
watching body language, trying to see what he's what he's
gonna do, what does he think about this, And if
at any point along this pathway or like up this path,
I see him negatively react, which would be like tucking
his tail and turning and walking away or in any

(01:12:30):
kind of way showing like I don't like this, I
just stop, you know, if you see anything like that.
I've at least I have never once seen a buck
react like that and then me keep pushing it and
then at turn him around. It's never worked for me,
so it's almost always better to bail if he starts
seeing something like that, and then the final thing would

(01:12:51):
be a snort wheeze, So that would be the top
of my escalator. If he just hasn't heard it, or
if he's kind of just like hanging out, or if
he's kind of circling you but not coming in, you know,
maybe then you throw the snort wheeds, which is like
the final flipping him off, you know, challenging him to
a fight, especially if this is like a big, old

(01:13:12):
mature buck that you would think would want to dominate,
like that's the final move. So that is my escalator
approach to calling during the rut. And what I would
do if you see a buck that's out of range,
want to get him in.

Speaker 6 (01:13:24):
Right right, I would.

Speaker 2 (01:13:29):
I would take that. I guess maybe this isn't even
all that related.

Speaker 6 (01:13:33):
One of the things that I noticed during my rut
hunts a lot is I will get married to an idea,
like I have some stuff over in Wisconsin set up.
I set some stuff here in Minnesota for the rut
when I get back from Iowa, and I'm very confident
that they're going to work, but I also know from
history that there's a very good chance they won't work.

(01:13:53):
And so often, you know, like rut hunting isn't in
the moment thing this year. But I've been sitting on
stands my whole life and watch deer do things where
I'm like, why, like why didn't he just cross here
below where this ravine blows out and it's like just
a perfect pinch point, like what's up there one hundred
and twenty five yards uphill that they keep using And

(01:14:16):
you start to figure out like if you even if
you see a four key, even if you see like
just not anywhere near your target classic buck or whatever,
and they do something, they're not lying, like they're using
that wind and they're using that terrain and they're giving
you a glimpse into the future because another buck is
going to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:14:35):
And so often I will sit something where I'm like,
this is it this is the X on the X,
Like I'm done, and I'll see.

Speaker 6 (01:14:43):
Those deer halfway up the hill over and over, or
you know, cutting through that patch of seedars out there
in that no man's land, and you go, there's something
I don't know, like that's better than this, and instead
of like mind grinding on it, it's like just go, like,
just just believe what they're telling you. And if not
this year, you better mark that and have that, you know,

(01:15:05):
winter scout that and get that ready for next year
because it's going to come into play.

Speaker 2 (01:15:10):
Yeah. Yeah, And I've seen the flip side of that though, too,
So my next one would be sometimes the opposite might
be the case in which, or at least I have
been guilty of this in the past, where I would
see a buck, like during the run, I'll see a
buck do something, and so I race over go hunt there.
And then that day I'm sitting there and then I

(01:15:31):
see a buck do something back where I was or
somewhere else, so then I race over to hunt over there,
and then I see a buck do something different, so
then I race over, and the I'm just bouncing around
from place to place to place. Sometimes not always, but
sometimes if you have a spot that you know, like historically,
you know bucks will move through here, or you know
this is the X, or you know there's a really
good reason for them to pass through. Sometimes it pays

(01:15:54):
to volume hunt or to stick to a spot like
that and just give it a little bit of time,
because you know, if you just constantly are chasing, you
never give any one spot enough time to actually produce.
But if you give one of these spots, you know,
twelve hours or two days, two days or whatever, it
is the appropriate amount of time. And if you know
that yes, like this is this is a place where

(01:16:16):
it will happen, sometimes it does pay to give it
time and to not chase one offs, but to to
to allow yourself to trust the process, trust the place.
And it's like the trick is like balancing what you
share it and what I share because there's value in both.
You got to know when to do one and one
to do the other.

Speaker 6 (01:16:33):
There's a there's a clock management aspect of it where
I really think that if you if you believe in
a spot, you should at least give it one full
day with the right win and if it doesn't produce,
you know, like you got to just go is this
worth the next couple of days? And you know, this
is where trail cameras and the rut come in too,
because people use trail cameras all the time to be like, oh,
they're moving at night, or they're not moving at or

(01:16:55):
you know, in the day or whatever, or they're chasing
now and they weren't before, they're not chasing a day
or or something like that. But I look at it
and I go, if I have some pictures of a
good one going through a spot, even if it's nighttime,
even if it was you know, sporadically over the last
three weeks, nothing where you'd be like, I'm gonna haunt
him and kill him.

Speaker 2 (01:17:14):
That's one of his routes.

Speaker 6 (01:17:16):
So how much time? And what if there's three of
them that sporadically use it? Like, now do you go
that's that's not a one day spot. That might be
give it three days if the wind is right for
you and the conditions are right, Like I have that
situation Wisconsin like that where it's not consistent, but I'm
I think on average, maybe one out of every three

(01:17:37):
days during the run, a good one goes through there.
So I'm going to try to give it five or
six days, give myself that cushion and do that. But
if I'm in there and on day three I've seen
all of them go through somewhere else, it's time, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:17:50):
Yeah, yeah, especially in those low deer density areas like
that that you're describing, those spots really need that time.
So here's one where I would suggest make it an
immediate move, or at least most scenarios like this. If
you see a buck locked down with a dough and

(01:18:11):
they go into some patch of cover. And I know
this might be different in certain areas of the country
where the habitat is different, but at least in the
places where I've seen this happen the most, like mixed
timber ag kind of stuff like that I have oftentimes
seen if you spot a buck that is actively locked
on a dough, tending that dough, standing with the dough,
they will oftentimes stick to a pretty small area of

(01:18:34):
cover for a long time, you know, for a day
or two, a couple of days. And so if I
see that, I will whenever the next opportunity is for
me to move, I'm going to move as tight as
I can into that zone where I saw them with
a strong belief that they will be back the next
day or the next that afternoon or that morning or
whatever the situation is. I want to get as close

(01:18:55):
and into that zone as possible, and then I will
grind it out in that spot for you know, forty
eight hours maybe, because that oftentimes can be a great
way to get one of these deer. They do not
not most of the time. You're not gonna have a buck.
That's again like not chasing it though. I'm saying like
when you see them standing for four hours together in

(01:19:16):
a thicket, you know that's going to be a spot
They're probably gonna be back into that zone again. So
so move on that. For sure. I've seen that, I've
been I've had very I've had a lot of close
calls on that, and a couple of times have killed
deer because of that.

Speaker 6 (01:19:38):
I'm gonna I'm gonna talk about that a little bit.
So we break this down to like pre ru you know,
testing each other out, laying down sign chasing a little bit,
and then you got to just bonkers chase phase and
then you have the lockdown. And we talk about this
like it like it's like a hard and fast rule
for x amount of days, then X amount of days,
then x amount of days. It doesn't work that way

(01:20:00):
like it it It changes for sure, Like the activity
does definitely morph over time. But when we say like
I think that patience kills big bucks, like I think,
I think the more time you put in just the better.
But it doesn't have to be dark to dark from
November third to November seventh. Like you start on Halloween

(01:20:20):
or whenever, the last week of October, and you know,
you get a day here and a day there and
a day there, and you can you can go deep
into November, deeper than a lot of people think. You know,
you start getting into middle of November where everybody's like, oh,
it's just not happening anymore because it's lockdown. It's like,
I don't know, man, if you're ever going to kill
that one sixty that lives in the swamp most of
the time, he might be more vulnerable on November fifteenth

(01:20:45):
than he is on November first. And so it's like
you don't have to just concentrate everything on that first
week in November, like take the time that you can
get and use it because you have a three week
window maybe more to catch some level of the rut,
and I think we I think we sort of like
forget that sometimes that it's like it's very possible on

(01:21:08):
November fifteenth, just as it.

Speaker 2 (01:21:10):
Is on the first. Yeah, so true. So this is
something that I have learned the hard way sometimes, and
I think is most applicable to people if you were
hunting public land or or a newer spot there where
maybe you don't have a ton of confidence in anyone
given set up, but you know, I think it's not

(01:21:32):
an infrequent thing for there to be days during the
rut where it is on fire in one spot and
absolutely dead in another. Like especially, I think this tends
to happen a little bit earlier in the rut when
there's like that first hot dough or the first few
hot doughs on like every buck in the area is
on that dough chasing around, right. I mean, how many
days have you had where it is absolutely dead by

(01:21:53):
you and then your buddy who's four hundred yards away
it was like, dude, it was absolutely on fire, amazing,
and the ruts cappen and it's on right. I mean,
it can just be that way. And so if you're
hunting public or a new spot or an area that
you just don't have that rock solid confidence in your zone.
Sometimes you just have to go and find that hot

(01:22:14):
spot and not be afraid to get on your feet
and move around and aggressively push your way around until
you find where that hot spot is. And oftentimes you
can get away with being a little bit more aggressive,
and maybe you do bump a few deer as you
go in there, but that's okay. If you find that
rutfest where there's the hot dough and there's like four

(01:22:37):
satellite bucks all around and stuff, and you bump one
of those bucks, it's probably not the end of the world.
You could probably slip in there, get set up, and
there's gonna be action kind of rotate like a hurricane
around the eye, like there's the eye of the hurricane
that's your hot dough, and then there's gonna be the
spinning vortex of bucks around it for a while. And
so if you're struggling and you've been in the dead
zone for a while, get up find that and that

(01:23:00):
can sometimes get you in the goods that you might
not otherwise have if you were just waiting and wishing
and don't have a really good reason to be waiting
and wishing on that.

Speaker 6 (01:23:11):
I would say too, you know I mentioned before, watch
those weather changes, but also you still have to hunt
the conditions. And so the easiest way to frame this
up is with the hot weather, right Like we're getting
a lot of hot weather during the ruts the last
few years.

Speaker 2 (01:23:27):
It's just happening.

Speaker 6 (01:23:29):
And I remember this is probably eight years ago now,
but driving down in Nebraska to hunt some public land
and it was hot, like seventy five degrees and I
hunted my usual stuff and I couldn't see a deer.
I mean, it was like just brutal or you'd see them,
you know, right at last night start poking out. And
it was like I was like, this is so dumb.
I can get down in the valley, get into some

(01:23:50):
of this shady cover, better get closer to the trout
stream that's down there, and actually be like at least
give myself a chance with these conditions. And I moved
down there and I killed a buck almost instantly, like
five minutes after I got set up. And it's like, yeah,
he's gonna cruise still like he's still looking for doze,

(01:24:12):
but he's gonna go where the deer are gonna be
where there's some relief, and so you have to hunt
those be like you have to hunt to the conditions.
You know, you get super windy or dead calm or whatever.
It's not just go out and sit your favorite stand
and rattle, because they're gonna come to you. Like, they're
still going to react to all these external factors. And
so when you're like, well, the rut's not on because

(01:24:33):
I'm not on them, it's like the rut's absolutely on somewhere,
like you said, But a lot of times it's tied
to them finding some relief, not just from getting away
from hunters, but just whatever the whatever mother nature tosses
their way.

Speaker 2 (01:24:47):
Yeah, And so I would just tag onto that by
saying that, like you said, there's a lot of people
that are looking at the forecast and seeing warm temperatures
and that will scare away some people. And I would
just say that, yes, it certainly does seem to slow
things down some, but to your point, you can hunt.
You can use that to your advantage and hunt the

(01:25:08):
places where they should be. And also remember like the morning,
like the bucks are still running, like the deer are
still running. The thing is happening. It's not like warm
weather stops the rut. It just it suppresses the daylight activity,
especially the midday or after doing activity when it's warmest.
Right because they're wearing a it's like they're wearing a
warm winter jacket. It's just not as comfortable to be
out hiking around when you're wearing that. In it's eighty degrees.

(01:25:31):
So still the mornings when they're cool, they're still gonna
be getting after it. They're still getting after it all night,
probably the edges of the evening. So don't mail it in.
Don't assume like because it's seventy five on November two,
that that you shouldn't hunt. You absolutely still can have
success and see running activity. It just might be a
little slower in those warm parts of the day. But

(01:25:52):
certainly take advantage of the cool mornings the end of
the evening, and don't be surprised if something crazy still
does happen, because it is the rut, and stuff can surprising.
We got time for one more tony, then we gotta
wrap it up, everybody.

Speaker 6 (01:26:09):
I would say my least just personally, my least important
piece of deer sign for the rut. Rut, not pre rut,
but rut is a scrape. I'm just I move on
from them. I like rubs better. But honestly, when i'm
I'm in the thick of it and I'm trying to
figure out someplace to be or like there's whatever my
plan is. Changing tracks are so important to me during

(01:26:33):
the rut, like fresh, big running tracks, or a big
concentration of fresh tracks is like that to me, when
I see that is a huge clue, Like if you
can tell it's been made within the last day or so,
or you can just see that track over track over track,
trail whatever. That's so important because you want that concentration

(01:26:55):
a deer, or you want that big one that crossed
the fence right there. You're like, you have to see him.
You can look and see that he left, he left
everything you need to notice to show you that he
at least went through there at some point recently.

Speaker 2 (01:27:07):
I like that a lot. Yeah, And if you're not
super comfortable with identifying tracks or reading tracks, you should
check out the white Tail Edu video that Tony and
I did. That's over on the meat Eater clips YouTube channel.
You can find that, and we do deep dives in
the tracks. There's videos on calling uh, mature buck travel

(01:27:29):
all sorts of stuff. So if you're if you're needing
some last minute brush ups on some tactics, that's another
idea for you. It's the white Tail Edu series.

Speaker 6 (01:27:37):
Plus, there is a video of you eating deer pool,
which has made you the most famous uh deer hunter
in the country apparently.

Speaker 2 (01:27:44):
Uh for some reason, that's the one that everyone sees
and comments on. And it was a raisin that people
it was not.

Speaker 6 (01:27:52):
Actually Mark cemented legacy with that video, and that's how
he'll be remembered forever.

Speaker 2 (01:27:56):
Yes, that'll be on my tombstone. So so my last
piece of advice leading into the rut here for all
of you is where we started when we began this
little period, which is just keep it fun, Like, keep
it fun. If you're torn on what to do, or
if you're struggling and you're stressed out or whatever, my

(01:28:17):
suggestion is to make the choice that would bring you
the most joy, and oftentimes that leads to you being
more successful because it gets your mindset right, gets your
attitude right, keeps your energy high. And it's funny every
time that I found myself leaning in that direction, going
towards the choices or the trips to the destinations, or
whatever it is that's actually going to make this thing fun.

(01:28:39):
I ended up actually doing better too. So enjoy this thing.
It's the super Bowl of the white tail season. It's
Christmas and Thanksgiving and Easter and every damn holiday I
all rolled into one. Enjoy it, Celebrate it, spend time
with your buddies while you're doing it. Go help your
friends track a deer, even if it means you're gonna
miss a little bit of hunting time. That's the stuff

(01:29:00):
that actually leaves a memory forever. Just soaking all the
good stuff. That's my greatest suggestion. And I'm going to
try to live by that same advice. And I tell
you all this because I have been guilty of doing
the opposite too often. So that's going to do it
for us. Say Tony, thank you for making time here
before you take off. Good luck in Iowa, good luck

(01:29:23):
up north. Can't wait to hear how it goes. And
for all you listening, this is it. Have a great time,
Be safe, hunt smart. Until next time, stay wired to hunt.

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Host

Mark Kenyon

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