Ep. 962: Rut Fresh Radio - Cold Front Magic! How Hunters Cashed In and How You Can Too

This week on Rut Fresh, Jake is joined by Hunter Hogan of Missouri, Rob Sand of Iowa, Josh Profit of Kentucky, and Chris Jones of Plot Advisors in Illinois.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
What is going on.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
This is Jakehoefer and welcome back to another week of Roughfresh.
As we all could guess with this most recent cold
front in October, we have three different big Buck stories
here on how they got it done and how they
were able to capitalize on this most recent cold front.
We have folks from Missouri, Kentucky, Iowa, and a update
in Illinois. This is some good intel for the next

(00:25):
cold front on how they were able to make a
process that came together. Looks like temperatures are going to
be a little bit more stagnant here for quite some time,
or at least a period of time, so time.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
To get prepared.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
We're going to kick this off with Hunter Hogan with
a Missouri public lan buck that attacked here recently. And
as you know, Roughfresh is brought to you by land
dot Com, the leading online real estate marketplace to find
your perfect rural, recreational, agricultural, or hunting properties here in
the US.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
To kick things off here, Hunter Hogan in Missouri, here
we go, all right.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Next up on the line, we have Hunter Hogan who
connected with the Missouri Public land Buck. I told you
I was going to put you on the spot, so
here it is how many public land acres are in
the state of Missouri.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
Oh, good lord, this is just going to be a guess,
but I'm gonna guess four hundred thousand.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Your way off. You're way off.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Three point five million public land acres in the state
of Missouri, which has got to be one of the
most in the Midwest. And so in twenty twenty four
there was two hundred and seventy five deer shot, but
only fifty six thousand were shot with the bow. You
were for the twenty twenty five stats. You're going to
be a public land buck with archery equipment. So congratulations

(01:50):
on your recent success.

Speaker 4 (01:51):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
So let's let's kind of dive right into it. How
does some of this come together? I saw on your
most one of your most recent posts. You know you'd
hunted a lot of days here. I know you already
had success in another state earlier in the season, but
your home state of Missouri. What was your game plan
to try to connect with the buck? You know, earlier
in the year, when most people were banking on November,

(02:14):
you'd already made a plan come together.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
Yeah, early season seems to be kind of my thing
so far in the last four or five years since
I started like filming and you know, hunting more than usual.
So like, I really key in on early season, mainly
because I'm hunting public land in all the states. All

(02:38):
all of my kills have been public land so far,
so it's just like, yes, November is a magical time,
but a lot of times there's a lot of people
on public land at that time and the.

Speaker 5 (02:49):
Deer get pushed off the properties.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
So even though it's way more challenging and difficult to
hunt early season, my like percentage chance of getting on
a big mature buck on public land is way higher
during that time. So yeah, I worked really hard over

(03:14):
the summer just scouting a lot of different properties a
lot of different parts of the state this year and
just tried to make a hit list of bucks to
where I had multiple mature, big bucks that I was
willing to go after found. And so that's kind of

(03:38):
what I keyedd on. And it was a tough start
to the season because it was like a new moon
right at the beginning of season. I think we had
like one or two days of underfoot red moon and
then it went straight into a new moon, and that
just made it a tough start. I feel like it
took that October roll and just moved it forward.

Speaker 5 (04:01):
So we we went a long.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
Time before, or I went a long time before seeing
like a mature buck. And I had two or three
buddies that we have like a group chat and stay
really connected with each other, and we all hunt and
hunt a lot and hunt really hard, and nobody was
seeing mature bucks.

Speaker 5 (04:21):
So it was it was pretty tough for the first
two weeks.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
And I ended up hunting twenty days total, and I
ended up connecting with with a good mature buck. He
wasn't even one that was necessarily on the hit list
or one of the giants that I had found, but
hunt for twenty days and he kind of you kind
of you get you want to fill the tag, you know.
So I had a friend come up for the day

(04:47):
and and he was his name's Dean, and he had
already tagged out, so he he came up and filmed
for me for a day and a half and he
was in the tree with me, and we set our
stand sixty five yards from he was betted, and that
buck stand up and I was like, yeah, yeah, it's
time to fill this tag.

Speaker 5 (05:05):
So it was pretty fun.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
So when you set up, did you know he was
bet at sixty five yards awake or did you set
up and you found him once you got set up.

Speaker 5 (05:16):
I knew.

Speaker 3 (05:17):
I was pretty confident that a mature buck was using
that betting area, and I didn't know how far away
he might be because I've had deer I've got in
that area before, and I've had deer like twenty yards
under marine, and I've had deer like one hundred yards
from me. So that specific spot was really good for

(05:38):
like the first week of October, because as these bucks
started to like you know, they get hard worn, they
start like tinkering with each other. I videoed a lot
of bucks fighting. I think I saw probably thirty different
bucks throughout the twenty days of hunting, and they started like,
you know, playing around, but still buddy buddy. Well once that,

(06:00):
you know, first week of October hits the mature bucks, they're.

Speaker 5 (06:03):
Not so buddy buddy anymore.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
And so I watched a couple five year olds a
few days before, like they're still around the little bucks,
but they're like, hey, get out of my way, like hey,
I don't want to I don't want to play anymore.
And So that betting area that I went into, I
knew that there's a lot of mature bucks like northeast,
south and west of there, and I hadn't seen any

(06:27):
like in that betting area specifically over the summer. But
as those bachelor groups were splitting up and the big
bucks were getting territorial and starting to make some big
scrapes and stuff, I knew that that was a betting
area that one of the mature bucks was going to
take over and become dominant on.

Speaker 5 (06:44):
So that was kind of my game plan going into
that spot.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
And I read that you were like thirty feet high.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
That is much higher than what most people set their
stands at or you know, I feel like honey lower
has become more popular. A lot of people still are
that eighteen to twenty two feet, because that's kind of
what we've all been conditioned and trained to think the
appropriate hike to be thirty feet. You might need to
get air traffic control. It's to be that high out there, man,

(07:13):
that's way up there. Why why do you set up
that high?

Speaker 4 (07:17):
Man?

Speaker 5 (07:17):
I I'll try not to go too deep.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
On this, but like, I think that the only way
that a buck is going to reach maturity on public
land is if he goes against the grain or against
the trends.

Speaker 4 (07:34):
So like.

Speaker 3 (07:36):
I have done it before, but I haven't found much
success of going in really deep and hanging a low
set in a thick area of trees, you know. And
it's like both the deer I've killed this year, one
was at you know, thirty one foot high, and the
other one was right at forty foot high, And the
reason for that was I needed to be that high

(07:58):
to shoot down into the bending area. And we just
I just posted a YouTube video and you can see,
like the deer's at twenty five yards and you can
you have to like pick out spots to even see
his body through the weeds. And that was from forty
foot high, you know, So like I need to be
that high in order to one see into it and
to make an ethical shot into it. And then both

(08:21):
of those were less than one hundred and fifty yards
from a parking lot, like to my tree to my
truck was like less than one hundred and fifty yards.
So I just think that like a lot of times
we put these white tail in a box and we
say they're supposed to do this, but they're supposed to
do that, and I think the only way that they

(08:42):
can avoid pressure and get smart on public land is
they either die doing what they're supposed to do, or
they do what they're not supposed to do and they
get around the people. So I see that a lot
with with multiple different states and public lands and high
pressure situations on doing something a little bit different. So
you just got to adapt to what they're doing. And

(09:05):
that's why I kind of rely on my summer scouting
to tell me what that buck likes to do, because
they're way more visible in the summer and they're way
more easy to find before stuff grows up seven eight,
twelve foot tall, you know.

Speaker 5 (09:18):
And so that's.

Speaker 3 (09:19):
Why I go scout over the summer so much and
learn that buck and figure out how he's getting hold
on the public land.

Speaker 2 (09:26):
So yeah, I mean I think that obviously it's it's
working for you, and so I think for anyone that's listening,
they have to maybe think outside of the box here
looking deeper into the season, and how much does that
strategy change when we get a hard frost. You know,
those really tall seven or eight foot tall weeds start
to lay over a little bit, you know, they go
from seven or eight foot tall to maybe five foot tall,

(09:50):
you know, depending on where you're out of the country
and everything else. But does that strategy and betting area,
how much does that potentially change just for someone that
listens to this now and wants to try to implement,
you know, a similar game plan.

Speaker 3 (10:02):
Yeah, my strategy changes a lot when it comes to
like later in the season and hard frosts. And I
don't know, I feel like I feel like ninety percent
of my strategy revolves around people and pressure more than
it does just like your activity and stuff.

Speaker 5 (10:19):
So you know, last week of.

Speaker 3 (10:22):
October, first week in November, that's what everybody's hunting, Like,
everybody's hunting the Midwest at that time. So like in
years past, I would actually take a break from whitetail
and go mulder hunting, and there's very few people meal
deer hunting at that time. Most people go mulder hunting
in like September or something, you know. So I don't know,

(10:46):
I think there's I think there's ways around it. I
think that once that hard frost hits during these next
few weeks, grapes are going to be really key. And
I know that's kind of like a hill country deal,
but I hunt a lot of flat country, and even
in flat country, like straps are super key, like they

(11:06):
are somewhere, and they might be they might not be
in like the most obvious places, or they might be
in some weird places. But like, all the bucks are
making scrapes, all the bucks are using lifting branches, and
just keying in on those is going to be key
to like finding a mature buck. And you might not

(11:29):
see thirty deer like I did in the last twenty days.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
Looking into the future here, you know this this going
live October fifteenth, So someone's listening on October fifteenth or sixteenth,
or you know, seventeenth. Even the temperatures look to be
pretty stagnant. We's here in Illinois, not a ton you know,
not that mid October cold front that we all hope for.
Knowing that, is there anything going on with the moon.

(11:53):
It seems like you're very in tune with the moon.
Is there anything from the October fifteenth to the twenty
second that has you excited minus the weather not cooperating
and you're like, oh man, this we're in this phase
of the moon.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
Or I'm not a moon guy, so I'm.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
Just curious what your perspective is over the next seven
days in regard to the moon.

Speaker 3 (12:10):
Yeah, i'd have to check my calendar. I use the
app Moon Guide by Adam Hayes. I'm not affiliated with them.
It's just what I use, what I love, and what
I found the most success with. The number one best
moon phase is an overhead red moon, which in context

(12:31):
means that the moon position is straight overhead within two
hours of the evening, like of dark in the evening,
So I think in the early I think, like I
want to say, the twenty second or third or something
like that is the start of an overhead red moon.

(12:54):
That's going to be your best like mature buck movement
time in daylight. So that's that's my number one favorite
moon phase. My second favorite is a full moon on
the horizon, so like there's a three day perier and
I've killed on this one the most actually, and I
just killed both of my bucks this year on this
moon phase is that full moon on the horizon when

(13:16):
it like the first three days of a full moon,
it'll break over the horizon before dark. And for some reason,
like when that full moon breaks over the horizon, the
deer get on their feet, and then after those three days,
it keeps rising later and later and later, and the
deer movement seems to be later and after dark. But
those first three days, I don't know what it does.

(13:39):
I don't know why it does it. I just know
I've seen it in multiple different states and a lot
of different years now for four or five years, and
that full moon will get them on their feet. And
there's a lot of controversy over the moon, but I've
sat over bedding areas a lot, and it's like I

(13:59):
literally watch them, you know, go from laying down to
standing up on their feet, and they might mosy around
in the betting area, which if they're betting them like
a seedar thicket, you might not see this, so it
might not the moon might not have as big an
effect for you. But like I'm hunting over their beds
like where they're betting, and when I see them stand

(14:20):
up and get on their feet on certain moons and
not get up at all on other moons, I'm like, Okay,
it's one hundred percent. And I think if you're sitting
on a field edge or a transition zone, you're gonna
be like the whole moon stuff is bs but if
you're sitting over their bed and watching them stand up,
it's one hundred percent, Like has a huge effect on things.

(14:41):
So I think that overhead red moon in in like
the October twenties. It's somewhere in there. You'd have to
look it up on that app but I think that's
going to be your prime time for movement in October.

Speaker 4 (14:56):
I like it.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
So looking here over the next seven days on a
scale one to ten, where do you put it? Knowing
that that phase of the moon should fall within this
time period, I'll skip ten being the best best week
of the year, one being one of the worst.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
Weeks of the year.

Speaker 5 (15:16):
October can be tough, man.

Speaker 3 (15:18):
I think if we had an overhead red moon and
a cold front, or even like a little bit of
a temperature drop, I think that would help a lot.
Or if you compare it with like a barometric pressure
over thirty, it's.

Speaker 5 (15:35):
Going to be fire.

Speaker 3 (15:36):
I'd have to have a cold front to rank it
number one best week of the year, but it might
be I don't know. The end of October can be
pretty magical, so it might be second best right in
there somewhere, it's going to be in the top three
for sure.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
Okay, I like it.

Speaker 2 (15:54):
Well, congratulations once again, Hunter, and good luck the rest
of the season. If people want to catch one of
your hunts here one of your recent huts, and I'm
sure this one will be coming up here too pretty soon.

Speaker 1 (16:03):
Where do they go watch these?

Speaker 3 (16:05):
My YouTube is Hunter Hogan Productions, and then I post
a lot on my Instagram on stories and just posts
and reels and stuff like that to kind.

Speaker 5 (16:14):
Of keep up through the season.

Speaker 3 (16:15):
Not not as like highly produced and it's bow life
Hogan right on.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
Congratulations once again, and thanks for hopping on.

Speaker 5 (16:23):
Thanks man.

Speaker 4 (16:24):
All right.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
Next up on the line, we have Rob sand who
recently tagged a ginormous deer in the state of Iowa
on a des Moines.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
What would be the exact phrase of that hunt opportunity.

Speaker 6 (16:37):
I'd call it an urban hunt. They've got a they've
got an urban hunting program to reduce population. So if
you get three antlerless deer in the first year, you
can you can get into the lottery to get an
incentive buck tag for the following year.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
That's really cool.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
So I've been kicking these off with the tribute question
in regard to the state for the guest So your
question this this week, right now, what county in year
for bonus points was the non typical buck shot in
the state of Iowa. So the county in the year,
and then I'll tell you the score.

Speaker 6 (17:14):
And so so I'm I'm from Decora, Northeast Iowa, and
we have some huge bucks and winn Is chic and
al McKee and Clayton. But but I'm gonna bet southern
central Iowa.

Speaker 7 (17:26):
So I'm gonna I'm gonna go with Appanows.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
You're close, You're close. It was in Monroe County in
two thousand and three. Yeah, and it was shot in
two thousand and three and it scored three hundred and
seven and five eights inches. That's bonkers, well known as
the Albia buck. So okay, that's the that's the trivia
question for you. So let's let's dive into your most
recent hunt.

Speaker 4 (17:49):
Here.

Speaker 2 (17:49):
We had a really good cold front. When did you
find of this, dear this year is a really really
big deer and you have it here with us if
you want to show us real quick and we'll dive
into the story.

Speaker 7 (17:59):
Sure, sure, sure, yeah.

Speaker 6 (18:01):
So I have been in the Urban bow Hunting program
for about thirteen years. Here's here's the rack we're talking about.
He just got scored yesterday green score because this was
a week ago today. But two O nine gross, two
o two net. I mean, just ridiculous. I'm not even

(18:22):
holding it out in front of me. Man, So this
dear a buddy sent a picture of it to me. Uh,
I shouldn't and and uh, I just kinda I've never
seen anything that big, whether statewide or in town in

(18:45):
the city here. Then you know, my my I grew up,
my dad taught me to bowhunt, So I've been behunting
most of my life, just absolutely bonkers. And so I
just started. I went from where he lived, and I
started knocking on doors and made phone calls, and I
cold calling people I never met before, knocking on doors
for people I never met before, just saying, hey, you know,

(19:08):
there's a deer population problem in Des Moines here. And
so they have this program and I'm trying to have
been in it for a long time, and it's very safe.
You have to shoot from an elevation, you have to
pass a marksmanship test every year, just trying to make
people comfortable to.

Speaker 7 (19:24):
Understand that it's, you know, nothing scary. And I had some.

Speaker 6 (19:30):
Success and a lot of people who said no, Probably
a dozen people roughly that said no, probably eight people
that said yes. It was kind of interesting because you'd
have sometimes both both a husband and wife would come
to the door, and one would be okay with it
and one wouldn't. But sometimes it was the husband that
was okay with it, and other times it was a
wife that was okay with it and the husband wasn't.

Speaker 7 (19:51):
So just a real mix.

Speaker 6 (19:54):
But I just I went from where he lived, where
he took that one picture that he sent me an
in velvet, absolutely bonkers.

Speaker 7 (20:01):
And I just I got on on X.

Speaker 6 (20:04):
I looked at topography maps, I looked at natural funnels.
I would take bike rides to this neighborhood and pay
attention to which yards were fenced in, you know, that
kind of thing to really try to figure out, like,
you know, where are.

Speaker 7 (20:18):
They going to be moving?

Speaker 6 (20:19):
And over the course of August and September, like slowly
sort of you know, zero da in on what I
thought would be his home turf. And by the time
the season opened for the urban season, it's a little
earlier than the statewide September twentieth, I had a few
spots where I had pictures of him in the daytime

(20:39):
a couple places, multiple times, and so I was like,
all right, I feel pretty good about this. I got
a couple stands set up, and I actually had two
encounters with him before I tagged him really once once
it was like the second day of the season, and
it's like, I'm in my stand, it's two minutes into
hunting light and it's just not bright enough. I mean,

(21:00):
maybe it would have been if I'm forty three. Maybe
if I was twenty three, I would have been like,
there he is, boom. But it didn't work that way,
you know, I was. I was not certain it was him.
There's actually another one around that doesn't have the two
it doesn't have the two drops over here.

Speaker 7 (21:20):
It's just got one. And so I wasn't sure which
one it was.

Speaker 6 (21:25):
The other guy's substantially smaller, and so I didn't I
didn't want to spend my I didn't want to punch
my ticket if it was the wrong buck.

Speaker 7 (21:33):
Yeah, and so I was I was careful.

Speaker 6 (21:35):
I was like, all right, you know, I know he's around.
I'm not going to do this unless I'm sure it's him.
And I wasn't sure, so I didn't. I didn't fling
an arrow at him. And then another time I was
climbing into my stand and turned around and there he was,

(21:58):
so I froze. There was no fixing anything or even
getting a chance to get a shot there, and he
kind of wandered off. And then I probably had ten
days where I didn't see him or get a picture
of him during the day. And then yeah, this a
week ago, Monday, finally the heat finally broke. Yeah, it

(22:21):
was like less of a cold front and more of
like a comfortable front finally.

Speaker 1 (22:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
Yeah, it's actually more like towards seasonal averages, but it
felt like a cold front because of where it was prior.
So where all three of these encounters were. They all
from the same tree, the same area or where you
bounce around.

Speaker 7 (22:41):
The same area.

Speaker 6 (22:43):
One was in the same property where I same private
property where I actually ended up shooting him, and the
other one was in.

Speaker 7 (22:51):
A different one.

Speaker 6 (22:52):
But it was the two spots where he was on
camera the most during the day, and one was better
for a south wind and one was better for a
north wind. And with all the heat, we've been having
a lot of south winds, or we had been, and
then finally when this front came in, I knew that
that first day of it was going to have to

(23:13):
be my day because the other two days there's I
was going to have to be out of town. So
I went out in the morning, didn't see a thing.
It was rainy, went out again for the evening hunt.
I actually ended up getting down out of my stand
walking the very short, you know, thirty yards back to
my truck parked in the driveway of the people's who's property.

(23:35):
I was hunting in and sitting in there for a
while because it was raining so heavy that I was like,
there's no way he's going to be moving. It got
real heavy for a while, so I just sat in
there and warmed up and try to avoid getting totally
drenched yet. And then it lightened up again five thirty
five forty five, so I went back out, got back

(23:56):
up into my tree, and forty five minutes later I
see a buck behind a tree and pull out my bikox,
tell it's him, get my bow off a hangar, and
at that point is maybe forty yards away, and he

(24:18):
starts coming towards me.

Speaker 7 (24:21):
And I actually I had to move at one point,
and it had.

Speaker 6 (24:28):
Been so wet that I slipped off of my climbing stick.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
Jeez.

Speaker 7 (24:33):
And I started saddle hunting probably three years ago.

Speaker 6 (24:37):
I should see two. Like I said, I've been hunting
for a long time. I actually the last time I
took a buck it was November of twenty twenty two,
and I've passed on decent ones in twenty three and
twenty four because I decided to get serious about my
goal of shooting a booner. I've shot like, I think
eight pop and young bucks, but never anything over one seventy. Actually,

(24:58):
i've shot four between like one fifty, so they're all
packed right in there. Yeah, And I was like, okay,
I gotta quit doing that. And so I slipped off
my climbing stick and my saddle catches me. It was
real tight, but I kind of swung around the tree.
Didn't make any noise or much the rain covered or

(25:21):
whatever noise there was, and I was able to get
back onto it steady myself. And then he stepped up
from behind that tree h twenty five yards and that
was it, quartering away, so just perfect.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
Do you think that the slip was buck fever induced
in conjunction of.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
I love the wetness.

Speaker 6 (25:43):
I will tell you this, I typically don't feel it
at all. The first that that two minutes into hunting
light time when I saw him, and the time that
I saw him getting out of my stand, heart's beating
out of my chest. I mean, I typically am just
was a cucumber. This guy I kind of freaked out.
So it absolutely could have been. The other thing was

(26:06):
I had I kind of soaked through my regular warmer
weather hunting boots in the morning, and so it was
the first time this season wearing my like bigger, thicker
winter boots, and so maybe it was a combination of
wet buck fever and then a boot I hadn't been
hunting in.

Speaker 1 (26:23):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
What what what do you think had that beer hanging
out there? Was there a you know, a bunch of
acorns dropping in that little area or what was he
was in there?

Speaker 6 (26:35):
Okay, tons of olks in there, And then it was
just it was an area that had, for being in
the middle of town, a really big chunk of timber
that didn't really have a road running through it. That's
I mean, there's there's I know there was other folks
who had been hunting in the area, whether In fact,

(26:56):
I know there were two on private property because on
my list of people to call or a couple of homeowners,
and I'd call him up and say, Hey, can I
hunt in your property? And they'd say yes, and I'd
say great, I'll come set up a stand and they'd
say you don't need to. There's already one there because
there's other people that hunt there. So I'd back off.
That to me is like, you know, if somebody else

(27:17):
already called, like that's their spot, I'm not going to
make them trade off and on with me for who
wants to sit on a Saturday morning or something like that. Yeah,
but so people knew know he's around. I was just
in an area where a lot of oak trees, but
there's a ton of oaks in that neighborhood. I would
probably credit that for him how he got so big anyways,

(27:38):
And then it's just kind of like a little sanctuary
area that was probably from his perspective, big enough to
be a real tight home turf without having to travel
much or do much. But truth is, I mean, I
know he had a decent range because I had some
pictures of him spread out around a big area before
I finally narrowed in on a place where I knew
he was going.

Speaker 7 (27:57):
Regularly, and I can't tell you it was his home turf.

Speaker 6 (28:00):
I can just tell you that he was there often
enough that I felt pretty good and didn't think I
had any other options because the park. I know, there's
a big park nearby, and I didn't have access or
permission to be hunting there, and I think some other
guys were hunting there. And then there was a third
guy who said he had people on his property too.

Speaker 5 (28:19):
So.

Speaker 7 (28:20):
It was just a question who had him with a
good opportunity.

Speaker 2 (28:23):
First, when you had gone around and asked, you know,
twenty some people for permission, did any of them say like, oh,
do you know of that giant deer we've been seeing
in the backyard or was that a common occurrence?

Speaker 7 (28:35):
Yes, people knew this, dear A few of them.

Speaker 6 (28:38):
A few of them would share pictures and even if
they didn't give me permission to hunt it, they'd say, oh, yeah,
here he is.

Speaker 7 (28:45):
He's out there. You can't hunt here, but you know,
good luck.

Speaker 1 (28:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
Well, I mean another data point as you're going through
and you know, you know of the payment to get
an opportunity.

Speaker 4 (28:56):
Then there was.

Speaker 6 (28:56):
Another time where I went up to this property that
I really had to is sort of like, oh, I
think this is going to be great. And as I'm
going down the driveway, I look to my left and
into the timber and there's his little brother.

Speaker 7 (29:10):
There's the bachelor group.

Speaker 6 (29:11):
The one with the one the one drop time coming off,
and then and then one younger one and they're bedded
down in there. And so I'm like, bingo score. But
the homeowner was out of town. I had to try
to come back a week later. I ended up getting
permission from her, but it wasn't I hunted at her
property and had a few pictures of him there, but.

Speaker 7 (29:29):
That wasn't the spot. But yeah, it was. I mean,
it was interesting.

Speaker 6 (29:32):
It's just a lot of it's it's and I should
say too for people who haven't done the urban hunt,
deer are exactly the same urban as they are country.
If they're accustomed to a person in a particular place.

Speaker 7 (29:45):
It doesn't bother them.

Speaker 6 (29:46):
And so you'll have deer that you know, they know
they're going to see you in your driveway walking to
and from your car.

Speaker 7 (29:53):
But if they if they figure.

Speaker 6 (29:55):
Out that you're up in a tree, they're going to
freak out, just the same as they would out in
the woods. It's all about what's familiar and what they've
come to accept as being sort of like safe and reliable.
And in the urban program, you have to hunt from
an elevated pitch and a tree because the city wants
if you're if you miss, they want your arrow going

(30:15):
into the ground.

Speaker 7 (30:18):
And so it's not that different.

Speaker 6 (30:19):
You still got to be you still got to play
the wind, you still got to be careful with your
scent because you're you're up there and hoping that they're
going to just not notice you. If they do notice you,
you're busted, just the same as you would be anywhere else.

Speaker 2 (30:33):
Yeah, I mean, I think that's I've never urban hunted,
but there's always a lot of common threads on different
people's perspectives, and I think a lot of times people
that hadn't actually hunted in an urban setting, but still
a really exciting game of cat and mouse on very small,
very very small parcels, which is a huge challenge.

Speaker 6 (30:54):
Yeah, And the best thing to do especially is with
this is was really for me trying to find if
you can two contiguous properties where you can get permission
from both because because of the regulations on you got
to be so far away from buildings and stuff like
that sometimes you'd have to One of the spots that

(31:15):
I had was one where I felt really good about
it because I'd had them on camera. But it was
two folks next to each other, both of whom had
given me permission, And that just gives you a bigger range,
a bigger circle.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 (31:29):
So looking here in the next week, So let's say
October fifteenth to the twenty second, for anyone that's out
there hunting or planning to scout, is there any parting
words of advice now that you already.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
Have one down, and.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
You know, what would you tell someone that's sitting with
the tag in their pocket to focus on for the
next week?

Speaker 7 (31:48):
Yeah, you know, I guess I. Here's here.

Speaker 6 (31:51):
This is what was really interesting about this to me.
I typically have not been big into scouting. I kind
of hit the rut and I sit a lot and
sort of see who shows up, and I might set
up a few cameras to sort of see who's out there.
You know, this is the first time I really went
early season, and normally I don't want to do early

(32:12):
season because I don't want the bugs, and I hate
the heat, and I just I got a couple of
thin pieces of insect treated camo and that was great.
And you know what else is great about it. You
don't have a ton of leaves down but are spoiling
every single step with crunching as you walk around, and
you don't have to you don't have to bundle up.

(32:33):
So I mean, I guess i'd say, if you're if
you haven't tried early season before, give it a shot,
because this is the first time I did it, and
you can really have a chance to pattern a big
buck before they start going crazy with the rut. I
guess i'd say over the next week. I mean, it
looks to me like temperatures are going to be pretty consistent.
I'd just say, you know, you can't shoot them from
the couch. I don't think there's any particular day that's

(32:54):
looking better than any other. But as long as you're
out there, you're going to have a chance.

Speaker 1 (32:58):
I like it.

Speaker 2 (32:59):
Well, thank you so much, Rob. Congratulations once again, you've
achieved your goal and then some and got into two
hundred inch club. So I mean, you went from straight
over one seventy to straight home from two hundred so congratulations.

Speaker 7 (33:12):
Yeah, and it warred me out.

Speaker 6 (33:13):
I mean, this, this cold I've got here is I
was exercising less and sleeping less for two weeks going
after this guy. But I would say I'll recover from
this and this will last for sure.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
We'll congratulations once again.

Speaker 7 (33:26):
Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 4 (33:27):
All right.

Speaker 2 (33:27):
We have Josh Prophet down in Kentucky. Good morning, Josh.
How does it feel to you have a buck tag
field already?

Speaker 4 (33:37):
I never killed one this earlier. Honestly, I'm not sure
that I'll like it.

Speaker 1 (33:43):
I get it.

Speaker 2 (33:44):
Yeah, the season feels early, but but you ended up
connecting with the buck Let's let's hear all about it.
What made it happen this early? And compared to years previously?

Speaker 4 (33:54):
So I'm I don't know the exact day. I'd have
to really sit down, but I'm like two decades twenty
years in on like public land hunting. And when I
opened the shop last year, I mean it just opened
doors for me. And between now and then, man, I've

(34:17):
landed somewhere around two thousand acres of private ground. One
of them is a is A is a good sized
farm for me. It's it's a thousand acres continuous at
least my first farm ever this year, and between all that,
I told myself, I just wasn't hun public this year
is gonna be private only?

Speaker 1 (34:38):
Yeah? So was that? Was that an awkward transition?

Speaker 2 (34:42):
Like when like your DNA has been hunting public for
so long and then you know, you get the opportunity
to hunt some some private and you know, do some
things that you can't do on public.

Speaker 1 (34:50):
Quite ultimately, the.

Speaker 4 (34:54):
I put out some mineral that wasn't no big deal,
but the weirdest thing for me, and I'm I'm not
saying I'm I did it, but I'm not really for it.
I did put out some corn just because it was
legal here after August first. It's it's so different, man.
You know, I've drove my struck everywhere I could drive it.

(35:18):
You know, there were times in my life where I
was walking like a thousand miles from like year to year,
and I don't even it's sad, I don't. I don't
know how far I'll be walking, but it won't be
near as much.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
So you end up getting some private And then so
tell us a little bit about the plan, because I
feel like anytime someone typically connects this early in the season,
they had put a good offseason plan together or at
least had recent intel to make a play.

Speaker 1 (35:50):
I feel like a lot of and I feel like.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
That's a disconnect with a lot of people this time
of year, where someone sees success from someone else where,
it's like, well, you didn't see what they did in
the summer to potentially have the success. You know, this
early in the season, So dial it back to the
summer kind of when did you find this deer? And
then what was the strategy to for it all to
come excuse me, for all of it to come together.

Speaker 4 (36:09):
So it's a we'll go back about We'll go back
a year or at least until last last winner. So
this farm that I have, an outfitter has had this
farm leased for roughly twenty years. During the twenty years
they have switched hands and I'd say the last ten

(36:32):
or twelve years there they're primarily a wing shooting outfitter.
Pezant's quel Doners do from what I'm told, they do
deer hunt, but they live in Florida. They got a
ranch in Colorado. So I'm just trying to paint the
picture for you here that basically that whole roughly twenty

(36:54):
five hundred to three thousand acres there. In my eyes,
it's almost like a deer sanctuary. There's people all over it.
They have eighteen hundreds a day, guides, a lot of shooting,
just you know, just a good camaraderie sport. But I think,
you know, over the years, the deer they just they
figured it out. You know, they don't really get messed with.

(37:16):
They just got to deal with the people. And between
last August in last January in these fields, and I
got to have one of them. Least, I've seen four
bone and crockett deer. And yeah, just from the road

(37:39):
in like January, Man, there would be so many deer
out there, I would I'd lose camp like over one
hundred you know, probably ten bucks that I would shoot.
Maybe not somebody else. But and I got the guy
in the chair in the barber chair, and he's an
older gentleman, lives in Kansas, and I just asked him

(37:59):
about and he told me that they had the property least,
but he said the downfall is my my cousin farms it,
and man, they just destroy the crops, you know. And
he's like, they're snot shooting, No, deer and they just
keep people off. And I was like, I'll shoot the deer.
And a year or fast forward to this spring, he

(38:21):
come in town and was like, hey, you know it's yours.
I'm gonna let you have it. He said, just under
one uh, you know, under one term, like you've got
to promise me number one you'll shoot some dose and
number two you'll give me some deer Meat's the old
school stuff you don't ever hear about.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
Yeah, yeah, I was.

Speaker 4 (38:47):
I was all for it. Man. There's a I got
one other guy on there that's a client. He technically
lives on the property. He rantled on the property. And
that was another stipulation that the owner said, you know,
you can do what you want with it, but it
would make me happy and everybody happy if if Michael
could get in on the leash just because he lives there.

(39:09):
And I let him in and that secured the least
for five years for me. So and it was just
a no brainer.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
Yeah, man, that's cool.

Speaker 4 (39:19):
And so.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
You know, this sounded like a golden opportunity. And now
it's like completely switching gears to have a farm locked
up for that long. But you know, this cold, this
most recent cold fronts when you connected with him, and
did you use a stick bow?

Speaker 4 (39:36):
Yeah, I killed him with a long bow.

Speaker 2 (39:37):
Okay, so you're stick bow hunting with a long you know,
traditional archery. Cold front early October. What was your game
plan going into the hunt?

Speaker 4 (39:48):
You know it was. It was really weird because I
couldn't get on the lease until October first, because their
contract with the outfitter didn't run out to the last
day of September. But I called this piece of property
the homestead, like if you ever look at it, and
it's it's actually the house that my least partner lives in,

(40:09):
and it's tuck back in off the road. And he
was like, man, you should just put some cameras in
my yard, he said, because I see these deer and
they found like one hundred and sixty five inch side
sheds in his yard last year. And so I did,
and I've had my two biggest deer all season in
his yard. The lease is in corn and so October first,

(40:34):
which was I think two wednesdays ago, I took off
and took a handful of cameras out. I already you know,
had some pins dropped and I'm used to you know,
five ten thousand acres and this was two hundred and
fifty acres. Like I, I picked it. I picked the
areas I want. I picked over pretty good, and it

(40:56):
it didn't take long. I mean, the first night I
put my cameras out, I had the deer I would kill.
And everybody knows my standards have never been too awful.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
High, not wrong with that.

Speaker 4 (41:10):
So I had, you know, probably six deer that I
would shoot, and two of them are really good deer,
one of them being fully mature, you know, five plus
probably one hundred and sixty inch deer. But farm lace horrible.
You know, it's primarily an evening spot. I mainly I

(41:31):
got two hundred and fifty acres, but I only got
seventy acres of woods that type of scenario. But man,
I just I was getting pictures of bucks. It was
very it was just very obvious to me what they
were doing. I knew about where they were betting. You know,
I'm I'm real huge on pinpointing exact betting down. I

(41:53):
think it's a lot harder to do than what people say.
But I know a general idea where they were betting,
and I definitely knew they were you know, they were
going to head down to that corn and then they
just shelled the corn about four days started shelling it
about four days before the code front. Mm hm yes.

(42:14):
And I had a little field. It was previously planted
in a food plot and they just they bushedogged it
last year and' pray two or three acres and just
let you know, just littered with scrapes, tattooed with scrapes,
you know, just all kinds of bucks on on it
and lots of white oaks. And I literally just put

(42:39):
a camera on a scrape and I could tell, you know,
just by looking at my phone, you know, the deer
were going to come down the ridge and walk down
the edge of the field and hit this drainage and
go out to the agfield. And then when I put
that camera there, it's just it lit up NonStop from
morning talk all night. And I just needed a code front, man,

(43:06):
just needed a north.

Speaker 2 (43:07):
Wind, north wind in a cold front. So you get
the north wind in the cold front. Did you already
have that set already hung or was it you know
you had to already pinned a tree? What was that
process like going into to make the move?

Speaker 4 (43:20):
Man? I drove my truck back there, and you know,
it's something that I've never really done, but it's common
sense that if you can drive somewhere, it's I would
rather drive past the deer than walk past the deer. Yeah,
I just drove back to the field man and kind
of walked it, and I picked out a couple of
different trees. You could you can only hunt it on

(43:43):
a north wind, just the way it laid. And I
picked out a perfect black walnut tree right on the
edge of the field man, and it was literally right
there where I knew that they would funnel down through
and the colde front end. I accessed it from about
nine hundred yards and come in the backside and did
a hanging hunt, and man, they just they piled in

(44:07):
there on me. I don't know if you've seen the story,
but it was I did look crazy. I think I
seen six poping youngs from one thirty to probably one sixty.
I've seen the biggest year I had on camera, and everybody,
you know, I'm sure everybody's like, man, I can't believe
you didn't wait wait for that. But when you got

(44:29):
a one hundred and thirty five hundred and forty inch
deer in front of you with it with a stick bow,
it's kind of hard to you know, let him walk.

Speaker 1 (44:46):
So how far was the shot?

Speaker 4 (44:49):
I ended up killing him at thirty? They come out
so early, man, that dear come out like an hour
and a half before dark. And you know, they slowly
started making their way and I'd say it was around
six o'clock. He made it almost right to the base
of the tree. He was in yards from me, and

(45:10):
I had a dough. She wasn't blown at me, she
was blowing something a couple hundred yards down towards the field,
you know, and just had all the deer on hyler.
And all I needed him to do was turn broadside.
And he he turned and kind of went to take
a couple of steps, not to leave, just to kind
of meal around. And he was so close to me

(45:31):
that he he could hear he heard me draw my
bow back mm hm, and so he like kind of,
you know, kind of tucked his rear end and trotted
off twenty yards and stopped and looked, looked around and
start feeding.

Speaker 1 (45:44):
You were what were they feeding?

Speaker 4 (45:46):
It? Just grass, just like a grass field with clover
and weeds in it.

Speaker 2 (45:51):
Okay, so you know, and they were there were so
just so people can get a picture in their mind,
they came out of the betting I were assuming they
were betted in the tim based off kind of what okay,
so better than the timber transitioned into you know, like
a general millionairea where there's some clover, some different weezer
munching on. And then your anticipation was that we're going
to head to the big ag field after that or

(46:13):
is that not not quite accurate?

Speaker 4 (46:15):
No, that's exactly accurate. And the way that the ridge
laid with the field on top and the drainage, I
typically always have good luck with deer kind of following
that drainage, you know, And I just just guess, you know,
I just figured that's the direction they would go other
than other ways around the ridge. It just worked perfect.

(46:40):
That's the every deer that was in the field was
coming by me, like in the fifteen yards, and it's
it's a pretty it was a pretty good sized field,
you know, two or three acres. But when that deer spooked,
he didn't, I mean it didn't really spook him. I
guess it's artolding. And then eventually more and more deer

(47:05):
kept feeding past, and it's like he knew, you know,
not to come right to the base of the tree,
so he he kind of come by right. I guess
that's just right around thirty yards, not in any hurry,
and I just smoked him, man, hitting back the lungs,
and he'd done some car wheels in the field and

(47:25):
died right from.

Speaker 2 (47:26):
Man, that's cool, man, congratulations. I think real quick too.
You mentioned you could only hunt on a north wind.
Quickly paint that picture for people who might want to
understand what that looks like. So when they're trying to
identify a similar spot, you know, for this next cold
front to where your scent.

Speaker 1 (47:45):
Was blown, where he had low odds of getting busted.

Speaker 4 (47:48):
So my only access is through the ackfield. And you know,
deer there opposite than us. There there are our afternoons
or there mornings, and our mornings are there afternoons. And
it was very obvious, you know, the deer are not
going to bed in the field. There may be a

(48:09):
couple of ditches that they could probably hide in, but
they were just going to be back up in the timber.
And there it's big timber, probably three to four thousand
acres there, but I only got like a seventy acre
parcel of it, and there's a probably a twenty acre
lake on the northeast side. And so the side that

(48:31):
I was setting on on the ridge, I had the
lake to my right that which created a natural funnel,
but a big funnel. I'm talking from me to the
lake was four hundred yards, but it was still a funnel. Yeah,
But in between me and the lake was a drainage.
So all the deer, you know, it was obvious. They
all come down to tea in the evening and they're
there all night, and then they head back up into

(48:54):
the hills to bed. And I didn't I didn't want
to be real far back up in the heels. I
just don't want to speak, no, dear. I had a couple
of general ideas where I thought they would be bedding,
and I feel like I'm pretty close. I'm not saying
they were bedding right there under that tree, but you know,
back there on that twenty acres or so, some of

(49:15):
the bucks would be bedded, and I just set up
accordingly off of it.

Speaker 2 (49:20):
So looking into the future here pretending you didn't shoot
this buck, So like looking in the future here. October
fifteenth to call out October twenty second, it looks like
temperatures are going to be pretty stable, at least here
in Illinois where I'm looking for someone that is going

(49:40):
to potentially get some time to go hunt. The following
weekend here looks like it's going to be not the
best hunting conditions. What would you tell someone to key
in on and pay attention to if they have the
weekend they want to go hunting, What either food source
or train future should they key in on.

Speaker 4 (49:57):
In your opinion, I've always, always and still I would
rather go down and swinging on it ear than than
you know, than to just sat there to strike out.
But I really feel like, no matter where you're hunting
on private or public land, man, it's all about the

(50:19):
weather fronts, especially this time of year. You know. I
see guys out there. I don't know if they're trying
to prove a point or nothing against them, but they're
just pound in it like right now. But if I
was somebody, I would definitely be waiting for like a
fifteen to twenty degrees cooler temperatures, some kind of front,

(50:46):
and if you're hunting in the morning, I would be
somewhere close to that you think they're bedding, and in
the evening, I would probably be in the same general
area because I don't really think they're going to get
up and you know, will before were you know, dark
and bling around.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
If someone said, okay, yep, I don't I don't want
to necessarily burn some hunts on this, but I'm going
to have some free time.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
I want a speed scalt.

Speaker 2 (51:12):
What what would you say for the fifteenth or the
twenty second, what do they need to specifically be looking
for to prepare for the next cold front.

Speaker 4 (51:21):
I would I'll always start at the food sources, just
because it's the easiest thing to find, you, you know,
and a deer, I think there's over six hundred things
in their digest. They can really eat anything. But if
there's a shield cornfield down there, more than likely that's
going to be their destination, or rather it's a food
plot or a bait pile. I would think that, you know,

(51:45):
that's going to be what you won't want to focus
in on. And I'm not saying I wouldn't hunt the morning,
but right now it really is more of an evening game,
and you know, the closer that we get to the rut.
The way that I've always you know, could tell when
things were starting to shift is like all my my

(52:06):
bigger buck pictures, my more mature deer, like three years
old and up. Most of them, if they're in the daylight,
they're in the evening right now. And I feel like
that's probably how most people are. I'm not saying that
they don't get morning pictures, but when you kind of
see that kind of level out or change, you know,
where you start getting just as many morning pictures as

(52:30):
you do evening, or you start to get a little
bit more. It's probably definitely getting to be a little
better time to start hunting. But I would definitely get
out there and scout, start at the food sources. I
probably wouldn't penetrate too deep, depend on where I was
at versus private or public. But I mean, we got

(52:52):
such a we got pretty much the whole month of
October November, which is you know, the apex of deer hunting, December,
and a little bit of January.

Speaker 1 (53:03):
It's a marathon. It's a marathon.

Speaker 7 (53:05):
I mean, it really never ends.

Speaker 4 (53:07):
But I was just trying to hang out around the
food and you know, and if you're if you were
really good. If you had a lot of confidence, you know,
you might want to try I poke around some betting.
I just the older I get, and you know, like
on this on this private man, I just I don't
want to on the public if I bump the deer,

(53:27):
I could move on to the next one, or I
could fall, or I could follow him around. I've always
done that, but now you know, like my back portal
where one hundred percent of my deer betting is seventy acres,
I don't want to put I don't want to push
them off where they spend half of you know, all
their daytime activity.

Speaker 2 (53:45):
Yeah, well no that I think that's great advice for
anyone here that's trying to develop a game plan. Congratulations
once again. Are you running a big buck fade at
the barber shop or if people need a big buck
fade where they get a haircut, they shoot a where
do they go?

Speaker 4 (54:02):
Yeah, come in here, We'll put BBD in the cyr.
I'll try do that for free.

Speaker 2 (54:08):
First person to get a big buck down fade gets
a free haircut where what is your barbershop's name? So
is case someone's there and they want to get a
big buck haircut.

Speaker 4 (54:17):
It's a Seabury barber shop. It's a Western Kentucky It's
actually in Seabury, Kentucky. And I will have part of
this barber shop by next season. I will have it
ready for like an Airbnb slash hunting camp style. I
got a totally separate room on the other side that

(54:38):
has its own entrance, and I do have a shower
and a toilet in here, so it'll be fully ready
for all the deer hunters. Love it.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
Congratulations again, Josh, Thank you sir.

Speaker 2 (54:53):
All right, Next up on the line, we have Chris
Jones from Illinois, and I told you I was gonna
put you on the spot. What year do you think
the most amount of bucks or excuse me, the most
amount of deer were tagged in the state of Illinois.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
What year? And I can give you a hand if
you need one.

Speaker 2 (55:12):
Oh gosh, it's got to be in the two thousands.

Speaker 1 (55:16):
You're you're head in the right direction.

Speaker 2 (55:18):
Yes, uh, two thousand, I'm going out on a limb here.
Two thousand and three, that's a good guess. It was
actually two thousand and seven. There was one hundred and
ninety nine thousand, seven hundred and five deer shot in
the state of Illinois that year, and then twenty twenty
four it was one hundred and fifty five thousand for reference,
So f fun little fact for everyone out there. How's

(55:40):
the deer wood's been here in the last week. We're
kind of on the back end of that first cold front.
Everyone was, you know, greatly excited about how has the
movement been for you? Yeah, it's definitely picked up the
last two days there. They hit greens yesterday and how
did one of the shooters come in at like ten thirty,
which was kind of you know that deer doesn't normally

(56:02):
daylight until late season or the rut, but we're guessing
he's like eight and he hasn't. He showed up twice
the night before moved in, and then yesterday I'm like, man,
I think that he's just bedded too close and I
didn't feel like risking it, so I didn't go in there.
I went to another farm just to make an observation set.
But deer definitely starting to move there. On acorns, we're

(56:26):
starting to get a lot more scrape activity. I think
we've got like ten or twelve cell cameras we're gonna
put out this weekend. Now that the crops are coming out,
we can get the e bikes and canm around to
find some more scrapes. But definitely better than it had been,
but not great. It's still early October. Had we not
got that cold front, it'd be the same old October lowl.

(56:48):
You know, we're not seeing nothing, you know, But yeah,
that's I feel like it's always a balance of having
realistic expectations when we get an early cold front.

Speaker 1 (56:58):
Like if you're if you're in the fringe of the game, it.

Speaker 2 (57:01):
Could be really good, but if you still kind of
feel you're waiting on deer to shift around, it might
not feel as amazing as is maybe what it should
feel like.

Speaker 1 (57:09):
Or if you go on Instagram and see people killing deer,
you're like, oh.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
Man, it didn't happen for me on this front. What
have you been seeing? As far as you're you're in
farm country in Illinois, are what percentage if you had
a guess of corn and beans that are out? I mean,
I know everyone's working really hard to get beans out.
What would you say as terms of the amount of

(57:31):
crops out right now, I'd say we're probably forty percent
of our corn crop out and eighty percent beans. That's
actually seem As we get off of this, I'm gonna
jump back in the combine. Think we've got about fourteen
hundred acres of beans left, so we should finish up
next three or four days, fingers crossed. A lot of
crop is coming out. You know, we when right before

(57:52):
this cold front we got a little shot of.

Speaker 1 (57:53):
Rain and.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
I don't know half inch of it. Maybe that afternoon
we were back to cutting beans. You know, that's how
dry it is. So a lot of it's coming out
super fast right now. With it being so dry, crops
getting out. You mentioned the hit green last night still acorns.
Has anything shifted from what your plan would have been

(58:20):
if we would have had normal rainfalls throughout August and
September to where it is today because of maybe food
plots are struggling. You know a lot of variables have
maybe changed from what the inititional plan would have been
for a lot of folks. What's your opinion on that.
I would have still focused on the food plots on
a cold front like this. On the greens, some are struggling.

(58:41):
I know, you know me and you talk quite often.
I've got some food plots that are just phenomenal. Right now,
they've caught a couple of rains and then the stuff
that we spray on them. But there's the acorn crop
this year is insane. I mean they are everywhere, just
from all the spring rain that we got. But I
don't know, I don't think that I would have done
anything differently. I'm a field edge hunter, you know. I

(59:04):
like being on the edge, and I like being on
a food plot. You know, we're the tractors running constantly
all year planning food plots and spraying, and I don't know,
I just like looking at them, you know, so maybethetically beautiful.
Look at freaking food plots. Well, they are fun to
look at, they're fun to hunt. You get to see
deer and and it's really special when they do what

(59:25):
they're supposed to. So with your plan coming up here,
so you know, pretending it's October fifteenth right now, then
maybe someone was busy that the weekend we're going into.

Speaker 1 (59:36):
But it would have been the weekend as before.

Speaker 2 (59:38):
As this goes live, For someone that is still struggling
or trying to find some deer or waiting for deer
to shift, what would you say for them if they
have five cameras, ten cameras, three cameras one camera to
go out and scout, like what are you keen in
on here this weekend to get set up for potentially
the next cold front or better days ahead of us.
Every property that I have permission to be on, I'm

(59:59):
checking all those right now to see if the farmer
has gotten the crop out. If so, I'm going in.
I'm juicing up a scrape that's already been started and
hanging a camera on it, and I'm gonna let her
rip till the end of the month, and then after that,
I'm jumping in a fence row whenever we start seeing
some rut activity, I'm jumping in fence row and I'm camping.
As far as what you've seen over the years from

(01:00:20):
running cameras, you know, knowing from the fifteenth to the
twenty second, are you anticipating a deer to show back up?
One to pop up out of nowhere? You know, like
you know, grow out of the ground. I mean, it
can be an exciting time of year to be hanging
cameras and check out absolutely like you know this time
of the year, after they shed their velvet, we'll have
seven eight target bucks that were what we're king in on.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
Typically we get those, we typically harvest those.

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
There's usually probably that many, if not more, that are
giving bucks bonus bucks that we never even knew existed.
Last year, we shot at one to eighty that we
never even knew that where the deer was. And we
got to look and we're like, where is this deer
even living at. He was in the middle of a
five hundred acre cornfield that had a pond in it

(01:01:08):
with a tree line that he could come easy in
and easy out. Nobody detected him. A lot of people
don't look at those farms. You know, this is fence
rowing crick system country. That's where we're hunting. And everybody
overlooks these fence rows during the rut and it's like,
you know, we had one guy a couple of years
ago from Maine, not in the big woods, and I

(01:01:28):
put him in this little five acre fence row and
he's like, you're seriously putting me here. I paid money
to hunt this, and I'm like, just.

Speaker 1 (01:01:37):
Just give me.

Speaker 2 (01:01:37):
Today ends up killing a one sixty biggest deer that
he's ever seen in his life, and saw like twenty
five deer that day, so that's what I'm looking for
right now. But if I was a guy that didn't
have a target buck on camera right now, I would
be finding scrapes and getting.

Speaker 4 (01:01:53):
It on there.

Speaker 2 (01:01:55):
Yeah, I think that's that's exactly what my plans are
this weekend, as well as to go out and look
for sign hang cameras on scrapes. I've poked around here
a little bit this week from getting back from my
trip and dude finding finding some of those first scrapes
that got worked up. That it just it puts me
in the mood because it's like, oh man, they're deer
doing what.

Speaker 1 (01:02:15):
They're supposed to. It's getting exciting.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
Those those scrapes and cameras are such a huge part
of seeing what's going on, especially in farm country and
probably really anywhere across the country. I mean, it's just
a great intel hub to develop a plan. One one
thing that I feel like a lot of people have
an opinion on this and I want to get yours
really quickly, is you get a big buck on a

(01:02:39):
scrape in the middle of the night.

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
Are you encouraged or discouraged.

Speaker 2 (01:02:42):
I'm encouraged because in the next two or three days
he's going to daylight. So if the if the wind's right,
I'll set on it for three days, you know, whil
I've done it four days and we've and we've killed
the deer, you know, but he's closed. If he's there
in the middle night, he's close. And especially if there's
a cold front coming in, you know, you definitely better

(01:03:04):
be on that and you're probably going to kill him.

Speaker 4 (01:03:06):
On that's great.

Speaker 2 (01:03:08):
Yeah, what about So we're looking here in the extended forecast,
it looks like it's going to be not anything special
here for the next seven days. What is your outlook
regarding that? On a scale one to ten, ten being
it's going to be the best week of the year,
one being absolutely terrible. So where where does the fall
between one and ten? Knowing conditions aren't going to be

(01:03:30):
anything exceptional, but it is an exciting time. I'm going
to say one, I'm not too I'm not too excited
about it.

Speaker 5 (01:03:39):
And I don't know if that's because I'm.

Speaker 1 (01:03:40):
Still good beans to cut, you know. I was jacked up,
you know.

Speaker 2 (01:03:45):
My wife last night she's like, Hey, we need to
go do this, and I'm like no, I'm like, it's
the coldest evening of the year. So far I'm hunting.
I was like, call my mom, have her give you
a riodte or something, grab the kids, and I was like,
I got to get back in the combine for the
next you know, five six days or whatever. So I'm
not really too jacked up this week. I just I
want to find some more scrape just get cameras on them.

(01:04:06):
Next weekend looks like we're gonna dip back down in
the low seventies, and then here on out from then,
it looks like we're gonna stay cool, So main focus,
get the beans out. Then we'll focus the rest of
the time on the deer. And uh, I think that
we're going to be surprised what deer show up on
cameras this year, you know, the deer that we didn't

(01:04:26):
know just for the simple fact of this spring was
so wet and all the way up. You know, most
of the summer antler growth was really great. Like you know,
I've sent you a lot of pictures. We've found a
lot of big deer this year. Each d We've not
been hit too hard with that. I'm sure we've found
some dead deer in the fields, but other than that,

(01:04:47):
I've not found any others and and some other farmers
i've spoke to have found a few, but I think
that we're going to be really surprised what's gonna show
up on some of these scrapes. You know what it's
like trying to find deer with the cornst Mu's impossible.

Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
The good Yeah, there's there's a great shift.

Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
So your strategy is more scouting over the next seven
days to get prepared for the next front. Be really
keyed in on what bucks are showing up and what's
sticking around. And uh yeah, I think I was not
expecting to one. So I really appreciate the cancer. I'm
telling us what you think here, I mean this week,
other than getting the cameras on on new scrapes, other

(01:05:26):
than I could care less what the deer are doing
right now, you know, like as many food plots as
we plant.

Speaker 1 (01:05:34):
Dude, I'm a late season hunter.

Speaker 2 (01:05:36):
I want I just want to camp out in a
redneck or whatever and just watch them. I mean, that's
the funnest time of the year for me, especially in
that time you're getting Arctic blasts essentially, and they're just
hammering him and it's awesome to sit in a food
put watch forty deer and wait for a shooter to
come in and then get upset because you can't get

(01:05:56):
a shot off on him because there's so many does looking,
you know, around, so many eyes but I don't know,
scrape buttons a lot of fun too. It can just
it's super frustrating. Yeah, well to find the scrapes, hang
some cameras, maybe throw us it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:08):
Good luck the rest of the season.

Speaker 2 (01:06:10):
Hopefully the rest of Harvest goes really smooth for you guys,
and I really appreciate it, and good luck.

Speaker 5 (01:06:15):
Appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:15):
Dude, there, you guys have I hope you guys enjoyed
this week's episode of Rough Fresh. I want to say
thanks to Hunter, Rob and Josh and Chris forgiving their updates, and.

Speaker 1 (01:06:24):
I hope you guys have a great week.

Speaker 2 (01:06:26):
Hopefully you get an opportunity, opportunity to scout or keep
tabs on what's going on and prepare for this next
cold front, or if you have some time, go out
and hunt based off some of the intel that you
guys received here today. Until next time, We'll see you
next week on Rough Fresh. See you