Ep. 968: Rut Fresh Radio - Prime Time Whitetails! How Hunters Are Capitalizing Right Now

Welcome back to Rut Fresh! This week we have Erik Barber recounting his public land buck, Thomas Mlsna of Unatmed Ambition's morning move on a Wisconsin big buck, Brett Smith of Whitetail Land Management Services gives us a report of activity and scouting strategy moving forward, and Jeff Thomas from NY gives us a deer activity report from New York!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
What is going on. Welcome back to another week of rutfresh.
My name is Jakoefer and we have four great guests.
We have a lot of coverage from Wisconsin this week,
so if you're from Wisconsin, you should be excited. If
you're in the area, that'd be all right too. But
we also have Jeff Thomas from New York to give
us his rough fresh report. And so it is getting

(00:22):
to be the time. This is the main event. This
is the time we have officially been waiting for sound
the alarm. We have some quick tips and strategies to
hopefully help you maximize any time you're able to sneak
out in the woods or whether you have a vacation scheduled.
This episode should help you maximize whatever time you have
in the woods, whether it's scouting or hunting. And I'm

(00:42):
going to kick it off with a little bit of
a challenge, my challenge to you. So this every week
we're gonna be doing a little challenge. My challenge is
for you to text your hunting buddy. Maybe you haven't
talked to him here for a little bit, but you
know he's been hunting. You know he's been trying his
best to set a text of encouragement and say, hey, man,
I know you're getting after it. It's a matter keep
at it. Games small, miss small, whatever variation of that,

(01:03):
send it to him. Send a little word of encouragement,
because we do put too much pressure on ourselves throughout
this time period and just a little words of encouragement
may go a long way. And as you know, Rofresh
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. We're going to

(01:23):
kick things off with Eric Barber with a public land
buck from Wisconsin. Here is Eric, all right, first up
on the line, we have Eric Barber, who recently tagged
a big buck and the kind of a crazy story.
I read through the story and you had to spend

(01:44):
more time looking for the deer or less time looking
for the deer than you did a time that broke off,
So I think that's kind of funny. But Eric, how
you doing today?

Speaker 2 (01:51):
I'm good man, I'm pumped to be here, Jake, thanks
for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Absolutely so. I've been asking folks a tribute question at
the beginning of each interview, and I had someone already
on Wisconsin. So now you get a question about a
state that you don't live in because you're you're headed
to Kansas next. So this this one will actually be
kind of fun. What year or county or score? You

(02:17):
can answer any three of these any variation. I'll give
you a right answer on any of those. Was the
state typical record? Buckshot in Kansas? And I'll give you
a hint. This has recently been resurfaced and officially submitted
actually earlier this year. So I'm putting you on the
spot because I think.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Oh boy, man, my knowledge at Kansas is limited. I'm
going to guess the year is. I'm gonna go with
nineteen ninety four.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
You're one year off nineteen ninety five, No kidding, yes
I could.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
I couldn't tell you the county because I don't actually
know a Kansas county.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
Fair enough, Yeah, I was shot in nineteen ninety five
and Franklin County with an exact score of two hundred
and zero eight eight inches. And then uh, mister Daniel
shot that year. And then actually we did. I did
a podcast from earlier this year and kind of like
chronicling and how the deer kind of didn't get officially
entered until very recently, so little little white to history
for you. But enough crazy, let's stop living in the past.

(03:20):
Let's live right now. Let's do it. Tell me about
your most recent successful hunt Man in October. Yeah, it was.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
It was a kind of one of those hunts where
you don't expect to punch a tag but ended up
doing it. So the day of the hunt was October nineteenth.
It was just this past Sunday for me. My I've
got kind of a unique hunting situation where my wife
and I have a small thirty two acre lease that
we do some of our hunting on, but I would

(03:50):
say ninety percent of my hunting is done on public,
and I've got cameras all over, you know, a bunch
of different public pieces obviously on that thirty two acres
of private, but everything has been dead, just like deader
than dead. I have been kind of out of the game.
That's definitely switched here in the last couple of days.
But going into Sunday, my only rule was I'm going

(04:11):
to hunt nowhere near where I had a camera because
I just was feeling totally out of the game. And
then my other rule was I just need to find
fresh sign. Kind of go in blind, and if I
can find the sign, I'm gonna set up on it.
If I didn't find sign, I wasn't going to get
in a treat. And so it's Sunday, around three o'clock.
I hit the first piece that I wanted to go

(04:33):
to and there were three vehicles in the parking lot,
so I kind of scrapped that plan went to a
different lot. There were more vehicles in that lot, so
I just kind of kept, you know, bouncing around until
I finally found a place that didn't have vehicles in it.
And it's a place that I'd turkey hunted a little bit,
but never deer hunted, never scouted during the fall, anything
like that, so I had a little bit of familiarization

(04:55):
with it. But I just went in blind. And the
setup was, you know, as the crow fly, not super
far off the road, maybe within you know, four or
five hundred yards from the road, but as you the
access was really tricky. You got to kind of jog
around some private so you know, on foot distance is
probably just over a mile, and you got to cross
some pretty rugged terrain and once I crossed this big ditch,

(05:17):
I'm hunting in the driftless region of Wisconsin. Get up
on this big ridge top and there's a CRP field
up on the top. That CRP field then turns into
corn on the adjacent private land, and that corn was
still standing. And then that ridge falls off to the
west and goes into a big chunk of private land.

(05:39):
So I was kind of hunting near some some private
public boundaries. But when I was cruising that ridge, found
a pretty like a couple of fresh scrapes and there's
this old like abandoned, overgrown logging road. It just looked
like you you don't picture a deer kind of cruising that,
especially this time of year. So everything looked good. Got

(05:59):
set up in the tree, and at about five o'clock
had two young bucks, you know, a year and a
half old bucks, just a little basket. You know, four
pointers come by, but nonetheless early movement, you know, five
o'clock on public deer on their feet is always an
encouraging sign. And at about six o'clock, you know, a
hour later, had a real heavy wind, like.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
Out of the west.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
It was gusting up to eighteen miles an hour, so
your you know, ability to hear was was greatly decreased.
And I was with a buddy co worker of mine,
Cole Booth, and he was on the other side of
the tree. He was actually filming, and he's like, oh,
there's a buck coming down that road, and he reached
to go grab for the camera. I reached for my

(06:43):
bow and I had to kind of go up and
around my saddle to shoot on the weak side. It
was kind of a goofy set up there and caught
that buck creeping into the crp. I was gonna throw
a grunt at him, but I couldn't tell if he
had actually stopped or if he just kept going. My
assumption was that he just stopped right there, because I
just immediately lost visibility on him. So I decided against

(07:04):
the grunt, you know, because I didn't want to grunt
with him still right there at sixty yards. And eventually,
after two minutes of just kind of glassing up into
that thicket, I caught a little flicker of movement and
it was him just browsing. He came down hit that
old logging road. It was going to come right down
the pipe at about twenty yards, but he picked up
our grounds and just kind of bird dogged around a

(07:26):
little bit and ended up kind of skirting further to
the north, and I had to thread the needle through
a couple of trees that kind of formed a little
v and got lucky, made a great shot, and you know,
he went tearing off this ridge, and I knew he
was headed towards some like pretty rugged steep country. You know,
big Boulder Field probably drops about one hundred and fifty

(07:49):
feet in elevation pretty quick. I mean, it's it's definitely
a big time bluff country. And you know, it was
so windy that I didn't hear crash or anything, so
I'm like, hopefully he didn't make it to that, and
I was wrong. Get down look at the arrow. Great
Blood felt really confident in the shot, was able to
watch the footage back, so it felt good enough to

(08:11):
just like pick up the trail right away. And he
only went about forty yards. But as we're you know,
getting to this this bowler field, you could see where
he started to stumble.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
He actually blew through like a rock bog.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
They were just like rotten wooden and blood kind of
like just scattered everywhere. And sure enough that he was
like tucked in between two like rock bowlers. And we
actually even had to tie pair cord to him to like,
you know, make sure he didn't slide down the hill.
But as soon as I picked up his rack, like, man,
where's this G two? Like he sure looked like a

(08:45):
ten pointer when I was looking at him, And sure enough,
he had clean broke that G two off right at
the base. I mean just like even took out part
of the beam. And we probably spent an hour and
a half two hours. We killed flashlight batteries, did the
whole thing, and finally were able to recover that time.
Like literally on the last pass, I was just coming

(09:07):
to terms with, well, he's now a nine pointer.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
But uh, it was cool man. It was a super
fun hunt. So yeah, that is awesome. Yeah, Sunday Sunday
seemed like there was pretty good activity. Uh here in Illinois.
The wind died, you know, within that last little call
a thirty minutes or so, but it was it was
Hollan and I was thinking the same thing. I was like,
I can't I'm not going to hear him at all. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, No,

(09:31):
that's that's super cool man. Congratulations and I that's that's
a really fun and exciting time and probably a good
lesson if you're feeling discouraged, just go out and hunt.
So you went and looked for the hot sign, you
set up on it and uh and it worked with
great success. You didn't have a bunch of intel to
say this is where I needed to be other than
your gut. I mean that's a that's a good word
of encouragement, especially as we get deeper into this time

(09:52):
of year. So looking looking here out the next week
or so, you already filled you know, archery tag in Wisconsin.
What would you you tell someone to pay really close
attention to over the over the next seven days, whether
it's specific sign, food, source, train, feature, tactic, what kind
of jumps out to you for the next seven days.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah, man, I mean look it into like October twenty
nine through those first couple days in November's that's like
my favorite time to hunt, especially as a public land guy.
Like that twenty nine thirty thirty, first those last few
days of October right before November, you can kind of
beat the public land craze of everyone that saved their
vacation for you know, the first few days in November.

(10:32):
So I always look like index on that, and I'll
kind of, you know, build my strategy around hunting pressure.
That way, I'm going to be in the woods for
those days, you know, pretty much regardless of weather conditions.
Unless it's just crazy rainy, that'd be about the only
thing that would keep me out. But even with that,
I did look and there it looks like there is
some rain in the forecast. I would definitely be keen

(10:54):
off that rain ending and getting out there right after.
I always like hitting scrapes that those last couple of
days of October and even into November, you know, those
first few days I feel like of November are still
pretty good scrape hunting days too.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
Yeah, yeah, that's great advice. Are you you know you
had your grunk call with you on the nineteenth. Is
that something that you're not leaving home without? Or are
you bringing rattling antlers or where do you stand all
that for this time of year. Yeah, I'll bring them both.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
I'll definitely have my drunk call, Definitely bring my rattling
antlers on public. I'm not above the blind rattling sequence
on my private pieces. I'm a little bit more conservative
with my calling tactics. But the way that I look
at You know, my public land strategy is I'm a
lot more vocal, I'm a lot more aggressive because I
feel like if I burned that spot out, there's nothing

(11:46):
telling that, Like the guy can't come in behind me
and do the same thing. So I'd rather kind of
take control of that situation and at least try it.
I've had some good luck doing that, and I just
think it's fun. It's always so well man. When you
get a buck coming into like either a grunt caller
or rattling sequence, it's like my favorite time.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
Of year to do it. Yeah, that's super cool. Now
you mentioned something I think that's want to I want
your reasoning behind this, because I think this is a
mistake that a lot of people could do. You mentioned,
you know he was sixty yards away and you thought
he was standing still and you didn't want to grunt.
Why is that? And I guess what's a hard rule
for you? When it comes to grunting. When you see it,

(12:26):
people get excited, right, They're like, I need anything to
get him to come another thirty year yards closer. What
can I do? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (12:32):
I much prefer to grunt to a dear that I
can tell that he's moving because it's just like, you know,
picture yourself walking through the woods. If you're walking, you're
hearing your footfalls and like the crunch of the leaves
and all that stuff, and you hear that first sound
and it's enough to stop you and you're kind of
like trying to pinpoint that exact location Versus if he's

(12:52):
sitting there stationary at sixty yards just browsing, he's still
kind of.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
In that buffer. You know.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
I'd almost prefer to be like, you know, seventy to
one hundred. It seems to be like a sweet spot
of grunt thing. Get too close, I feel like they
can pinpoint it a little bit better. But I do
like when they're moving for that initial contact run because
it kind of like you'll you'll stop them in their
tracks and they're kind of like, what was that, And
then I'll just gauge their body language. In an ideal scenario,

(13:19):
they'll start coming without having that location pinpointed. There are
times where you'll have to do that follow up grunt
when they are actually stationary, and that is when they
do pinpoint you, and that's when they can come in
downwind or you know, do something a little bit funky
but you just got to be prepared for that. You
also got to kind of vision envision your shooting lanes
and assume that that year is going to come in
downwind and uh and kind of plan accordingly there.

Speaker 1 (13:43):
I like that. I like it well so in the
next seven days many people's favorite seven day stretch here
that we're getting to on a scale one to ten,
ten being this might be the very best week of
the year for activity and opportunity, one being the worst
week of the year.

Speaker 2 (13:58):
Where do you put it from one to ten? Man,
I am the eternal optimist. I'm actually going to go ten.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
It is you know, you're you're looking.

Speaker 2 (14:08):
It's it's like this is the week we've all been
waiting for, right you know, it's late October, early November.
I just did a quick look at the forecast. It
looks like Camp's here and Wisconsin are going to be
in the fifties. There is some pre sip kind of
in the mix a little bit. But man, I would
be thinking about that only to my advantage getting out
hitting those scrapes after that raining blows out, you know,

(14:29):
hunting mornings, hunting at evenings. I wouldn't really be worried
about you know, getting in there in the in the
dark in the morning.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
I think that's something that people should be thinking about.
Time on stand.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
You just got to do it right now, so I
would be going into it with eyes wide open.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
I love it, man. Well, good luck in Kansas. Congratulations
once again, what a sweet start the season, and I'm
wishing you the best.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
Thanks man, I appreciate it all right.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
Next up on the line, we have Thomas Milsna with
Untamed Ambition and you just shot a buck.

Speaker 3 (14:59):
How's the fa feels pretty good? You know those emotions
that come with filling your tag. Especially me, this is
kind of the end of my hunting season when I
fill my home state Wisconsin tag. You know, I do
my Western hunts early in the fall and then I
I dedicate the rest of my time. However long it
takes two hunting white tails here in Wisconsin, so you know,

(15:21):
it's a little surreal but also kind of sad.

Speaker 4 (15:24):
Like we were talking about, you know, I look at
my cell.

Speaker 3 (15:27):
Cam pictures in the morning, and I only run a
few cell cams as like a sample or like temp
check what's going on in the property. But I you know,
every morning I open it up and I look and
scroll through and see what happened, and I'm like, you know,
I no longer get that excitement of this deer showing
up on camera.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:45):
So, but at the same time, I'm sitting here looking
at him, so I have my hands on him. So
you know, it's that emotional rollercoaster of hunting that you know,
just kind of does this the whole time.

Speaker 4 (15:54):
Yeah, but no, it feels good. It feels really good.

Speaker 1 (15:57):
Yeah. No, that's awesome. So we you were on the
back forty mini series earlier this year, so hopefully people
are familiar with some of your ideologies as we you know,
burned through eight different burning questions lad enough in the season.
But what was your strategy and how did this come together?
Because I know it was a morning hunt you sent me.
When you sent me the video of the of his

(16:17):
breath coming out, I was like, that's one hundred percent
of the morning And so tell me, tell me about
how you were able to put this together. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:24):
So this year, you know, we're coming into the pre
rut time right now, right or like that early seeking
chasing phase, and this year was quite a home body
throughout the year. Early in the season, I was after
a different buck at a different number one target book.
This was my number two Plan B. Like, man, I
don't know if I want to see him get another
year because he's got so much going on.

Speaker 4 (16:45):
But at the same time.

Speaker 3 (16:47):
Everybody in the entire area wants to kill him, and
I can't hold that against them. But I had some
really good encounters with my target book early in the
year and made a big mistake on him, and then
I kind of shifted. And the reason I shifted early
I talked about how I usually shift to my Plan
B buck if I don't think I can kill Plan
A by Halloween. This is a week ahead of schedule

(17:09):
because this particular buck was spending a lot of time
in the most huntable area I thought was right next
to our hunting cabin on our property, and all my
cousins that come and hunt the property are going to
be showing up here really soon.

Speaker 4 (17:20):
And then you know that added.

Speaker 3 (17:22):
Pressure in that area is absolutely going to alter the
deer behavior. And then I just don't know if my
intel is going to be accurate. Right anytime you had pressure,
you know these theories that come up with on what
de you're doing or why they're doing it.

Speaker 4 (17:36):
It's all subject to change.

Speaker 3 (17:38):
So the main thing that I was looking at with
this buck in particular, this area is right next to
a really good betting area. It's a really good layered
betting area. Where I'm hunting specifically is the doe betting area.
The buck's bed in the general vicinity, but a little
bit deeper in this pocket. And this pocket is actually

(18:00):
backed right up against our farm, a really active dairy farm,
and it offers these bucks super secure cover even though
it's close to the farm. You know, I always talk
about how topography is the greatest form of cover. This
actually backs right up to a giant earthen built manure pit,
right so it's like a man made damn. Essentially, it's

(18:21):
a forty foot mound of dirt from their perspective, and
that's that snuffles out and covers up a lot of
the noise from the farm. It can be kind of
deceiving because when you hunting that area at an elevation,
you're looking at more of the farm, But when you're
down at the deer's elevation, then a lot of that
stuff is mitigated. So these bucks bed in this tight

(18:41):
little pocket. The dose bed on both sides of it.

Speaker 4 (18:44):
There's food. I've got a couple of food plots.

Speaker 3 (18:46):
In the valley, and then there's obviously egg fields and
stuff in the area that they kind of flow to
and from. And my strategy in the spot. I've actually
kind of started hunting the spot a little bit more
a couple of years ago, and we went in and
did some habitat improvements, did some select cutting, and then
TSI and thinned it out to create more forage value
and more cover with it. But I went in there

(19:08):
about I don't know, probably fifteen days ago or so,
basically right after I screwed up on my initial target book,
because I was really confident that I was going to
take out earlier in the season, which I should have
if I didn't fail to execute. But I went in
there that same day that I screwed up, or actually
it was the next day after I confirmed one hundred

(19:29):
percent that the deer was alive and I was trying
to get ahead of him, and this is an area
that I anticipated him shifting into from previous years of data,
and I also knew that this buck was in the
area and figured I would cross paths with them at
some point. But I went into the fringe of this
dough betting area and looked around. There's always a primary
scrape in there. You know, those bucks transition into the

(19:50):
betting area, they checked that scrape or they come out
and they're checking what the does are doing, what does
are in the area, and whatnot. So I went in
looked for a scrape, found one, a couple of them actually,
But the problem is there's not a lot of good
spots to set up in there to hunt.

Speaker 4 (20:05):
There's not a lot of cover.

Speaker 3 (20:06):
The trees that are standing in there are you know,
for so long it was a close canopy that they're
all telephone poles, right, So finding the right spot to hunt,
the right wind direction, all those things come into play.
And ultimately the tree that I selected based on the
wind direction to hunt that didn't put me in a
good position to make any shot without clearing some massive
shooting lanes. And I did not want to do that

(20:28):
that close to betting and go in there and alter it.
So what I did was I went, I broke the
licking branches off of these other two scrapes, and I
added a mock scrape in a previous shooting lane that
I had maintained there through a cell camera up over
it and got out of there, and a couple days
later this buck showed up, and then basically every four
or five days he's been in there, and I go

(20:50):
back and look at the data. You know, I like
to talk about those four key elements wind, pressure, food,
and timing. Wind is king, wind is always king, at
least for me, where I hunt high pressure dear. Everything
has to do the wind, how they move, where they
bed all this stuff, and the higher the pressure is,
the more they use the wind. So when I looked
at the trail cameray or the weather history and reference

(21:10):
the trail camera data, every time that buck was there,
there was either no wind or there was an east wind,
which plays right into the theories I also put together
without bucks, you know, they like that wind coming from
a potential threat. That's why they like to bed with
their wind at their back, and then they get the
thermals rising up in their face and the east wind
would have been pushing from the farm into this betting area.

(21:32):
And the theory behind that, or at least what makes
sense to me, is that those bucks are there on
that wind because then they they can surveil what's coming
from the farm. They hear all that noise all the time,
but how do they know if that noise is just noise,
or if it's noise associated with a threat that's coming
towards them or whatnot. Right when they have that wind,
then they can smell all the things that are going

(21:53):
on and decipher that. And you know, the way that
their nose and their brain works is way different from ours, right,
So however they figure that out, I don't know. But
and it wasn't like he was there every single time
there was an east wind, but he was only ever
there on an east wind or no win.

Speaker 4 (22:20):
So I went back to the farm.

Speaker 3 (22:22):
This last Thursday night or Thursday afternoon, checked a handful
of cameras on the fringes of this area, trying to
get a game plan put together, knowing that we had
this cold front and things we're going to be picking
up here. And I always try to scout from the
outside D hunt from the outside D. I don't want
to go any deeper than I have to, even though
I knew a couple of spots. I'm like, I think
I can get in there and kill this deer, but

(22:44):
it's high risk, and I didn't know if it was
worth the risk that early in the season, because if
you don't have the encountery need, or he gets by
you and busts you, he's not going to be back
there again.

Speaker 4 (22:54):
Just too much pressure. It's one and done. This time
you're with these bucks.

Speaker 3 (22:58):
So I went back on third scouted from the outside,
checked these cameras, and then I slipped down and did
an observation sit scanned food plot, saw some bucks, not
the buck I was looking for, but the whole time
I could hear a buck grunting, and obviously I don't
know if it was him, but he was making this
like really aggressive like huffing, almost like a gorilla noise,
like if you can envision that noise that the gorillas make,

(23:21):
like the huffing.

Speaker 4 (23:22):
He would drunt and he would make that noise.

Speaker 3 (23:24):
I heard it three or four different times throughout the evening,
and I slipped back out of that valley and drove
all the way home. Had smaller stuff going on, had
to get all wrapped up, got up at two thirty
in the morning, got some stuff ready, drove all the
way back down, and I was a little bit late
getting down there, but I got in and I hung

(23:44):
the stand the day I hung the cell camera, so
I was already set up for it, which saved me
a little bit.

Speaker 4 (23:48):
It's easy access.

Speaker 3 (23:49):
Slipped in there, got in the stand, and sure enough,
right away in the morning start seeing movement down the valley.
Mostly I can look down behind me and there's some
deer moving around. And then I had three doughs work
up into this betting area. And that's what makes me
really nervous. Well, there's two issues with that. Is One,
usually when I hunt this close to betting, I commit

(24:09):
to an all day sit because if these deer come
in and bed down close to me, I don't want
to bump them because if I bump them, I burn
a pressure credit. In that area, you can only bump
them a couple times. And then that betting area is
not nearly as secure to them. They're not there, the
bucks aren't there. So I was really nervous. But I
had prior obligations that afternoon, so I couldn't commit to
an all day sit, so I was really kind of

(24:30):
going for it in the spot right And then on
top of it, it's very close to our cabin, so
these guys are showing up to hunt, So it's going
to change the dynamic in that valley anyway. But these
dos come in. There's three generations. There was a dough faon,
last year's dough faon, and the old nanny dough, and
you know, just the experience that comes with age was

(24:50):
very apparent. The little dough comes in and instantly like
beds down like five feet from the base of my
tree behind me. The other dough comes in and she's
kind of checking things out a little bit more apprehensive,
doesn't really catch on. The big dough comes in and
she is just like scanning every single nooking cranny, every tree,
and she picked me out immediately.

Speaker 4 (25:07):
Something's different. Okay, it's not moving. I think we're okay.

Speaker 3 (25:11):
You know, that's after a fifteen minute stare down and
I strategically normally I hang my pack low so I
can reach it when I'm sitting, but in this situation,
I hung it off my bow hanger so that I
broke up my background a little bit more up in
the tree and kind of gave me some cover. So ultimately,
these dos they're hanging out in there, and the little
one's bedded. The next one up in age was just

(25:35):
betted down, and then the nanny was still kind of
milling around browsing, and I hear this like gorilla huffing again,
you know, and then the scrunt, and I'm like, oh,
you know, in my brain, I already painted the picture.

Speaker 4 (25:48):
That that's got to be this buck, right, So I'm like, okay.

Speaker 3 (25:51):
I'm looking, looking, looking, And I'd seen a couple other
bucks milling around, so I knew they were on their feet.
But I had to make the decision at that point,
do I pull up my bino's and risk bumping these
do or do I sit still longer? And you know,
that internal debate lasted about thirty seconds, and I was like, well,
if I'm gonna if these doughs are gonna bust me,
which inevitably they're going to as soon as I reached

(26:11):
for my bow, it's easy to make a move on
one single deer, just washing what they're doing, moving when
they move stuff like that. But I knew I was
gonna get busted, so I had to do it sooner
rather than later.

Speaker 4 (26:21):
The wind was good.

Speaker 3 (26:22):
These doughs weren't gonna smell me unless they circled up
around me. And where this buck was coming from. He
wasn't gonnamell me until he circled down.

Speaker 4 (26:28):
So I brought up my.

Speaker 3 (26:31):
Bios in just that subtle movement, you know, I went
like this, but I wasn't looking through my binos. I'm
looking at this dough and right away she's just on me.
So I actually what I did is I just put
my hand down behind the tree and I just started
flagging my hand to make her nervous. And they kind
of spooked, like really fast, and they ran about halfway
down the hill and blew a couple.

Speaker 4 (26:50):
Of times, and then they left. And the buck then
I had my.

Speaker 3 (26:53):
Binyls on and I'm watching him and he's, you know,
he's ears up on alert, just looking trying to figure
it out. But he can't smell me. And these deer
are so switched on on this farm. They're you know,
when I was watching that observation plot the night before,
I had two or three different times deer would blow
out of the plot and blow and they were spooked
by other deer coming from like the creek bottom and stuff,

(27:13):
so on edge.

Speaker 4 (27:13):
They're always on edge. And anyway, so this buck, you know,
it didn't.

Speaker 3 (27:17):
Deter him, It just put him on high alert, and
you know, from the time I saw him to the
time he got into bow range was probably eight or
ten minutes. You know, mature bucks do that, right, they stand,
They just surveil the situation for a long time, licking
their nose, smelling the air, all that stuff. So he
kind of worked his way in and I didn't even
grab my bow. It was one of the few times
I'm a I'm a shoot first, video second kind of guy.

Speaker 4 (27:40):
M but I and I had really only video for.

Speaker 3 (27:44):
My own personal you know, like challenge and the satisfaction
of like showing that. I mean, I sent you the video,
and that's really all I do is show it to
like close friends most of the time, and and use
it for educational purposes for my clients. I was like, Okay,
I'm just gonna let him come in. I'm in a
really good situation. He's going to commit to that. It
was like a dialed in, fine tuned situation, Like it's
not like the panic, where do I think he's going

(28:06):
to be.

Speaker 4 (28:06):
So I videoed and then you know, grab my bow.

Speaker 3 (28:09):
When I was ready to take the shot, and twenty
five yards perfect shot. He didn't know what hit him.
I didn't have to stop him. He wasn't on alert.
He ran thirty yards and kind of settled in a
little bit and just tipped over and.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
Like, okay, that's awesome. Okay, it's over right.

Speaker 3 (28:24):
H And then you know that's when the flood of
emotions really hit. And for me, I don't really get
buck fever until after. You know, it's like you just
try to Okay, it's that deer.

Speaker 4 (28:33):
I know that's a deer.

Speaker 3 (28:34):
I want to shoot now, and focused on watching his
eyes and moving when he's not looking at me, doing
all the things I need to and I double checked
my range, you know. I was just like kind of
working through everything like I've got time, take my time.

Speaker 4 (28:45):
All this stuff came and you just just played out perfectly.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
So man, that is awesome. If the footage is really
sick and so real quick. So October twenty ninth to
November fifth, what is the most important thing for people
to pay attention to if they are maybe they're hunting
this upcoming weekend, maybe they're starting their vocation, there was
one thing for these people to focus in on. Whether

(29:10):
it's a speed scout, whether it's an observation sit, whether
it's a food source, a terrain feature. What is the
single most important thing right now as things start to
ramp up even more.

Speaker 3 (29:20):
There's two strategies I would employ the same, which is
what I was in the process of doing. You know,
this buck and my other main target book their territories
overlap quite a bit, so I was still pursuing my
number one buck, but number two just happened to kind
of fall right on top of there, which worked out
really well for me. But that main strategy, I'm really

(29:42):
looking at those primary scrapes. Scrapes next to doe betting
areas are going to be your best friend, and you
have to get out in scout. You absolutely have to
get out in scout. You know, if your camera is
in the right spot, then you know do because you're
getting the activity on it right. But if you're not
getting the activity you want, case in point what I
did where I destroyed a couple of those scrapes and

(30:03):
hunt a camera over one scrape in this area. All
the bucks coming and going from this one spot, we're
checking that scrape. You know, are they checking it every
time they walk through the area. Absolutely not, but they
are occasionally checking it, and that gives you that temp check.
But if you don't go out and scout, you're gonna
have a problem. And actually, after I killed this buck,
the next morning, I went out and I checked a
couple of other cameras a little bit deeper that I
wouldn't have checked. And you know, if I didn't see

(30:24):
him on Friday morning, then I would have went and
slipped into these spots at the timing I thought would
be the least, you know, invasive, like when deer aren't
going to be there. Maybe it's in the middle of
the night, maybe it's in the middle of the day,
you know, just certain wind direction, whatever it might be.
But I really want to make sure I'm getting the
intel off these scrapes because they're all these communication hubs,
and these bucks right now are moving all over the place,
and they're they're leaving their signature, they're communicating, they're doing

(30:47):
all these things with these other other deer in mind.
But ultimately it's you know, what other bucks are in
the area and what does are coming into heat. So
that's the first thing I make sure I'm getting my
intel from those communication hubs. And then the second thing
is I'm looking at my historic data, like you know,
or do that first? Essentially, right, like, where do you

(31:08):
anticipate these bucks being this time of year?

Speaker 4 (31:11):
And it's so is so consistent every time.

Speaker 3 (31:16):
If if you had a lot of mature buck activity
and a certain pinch point on your property last year
and it's not there this year, it's because something changed
on the landscape, right, pressure went up, food quality went down.

Speaker 4 (31:28):
You know, something's changed.

Speaker 3 (31:30):
But if those things remain the same, expect that consistent
activity and on our farm, I've got to dialed into
where I know, like this specific betting area is really good.
From the twenty third until about the thirtieth, those bucks
are checking hard in there and at that point most
of those dos, you know, they've already been bred and
then they're kind of moving on. So if you missed
that window of opportunity, then you're looking for the next

(31:51):
betting area, you know, and is that I also understand
that a lot of people don't have acreage where they're
bouncing here and bouncing there right where you Really that
analogy I use all the time is it's like duck
outing now the chimney of your cabin, right, Like, if
the pressure and the food aren't controlled, you've got a
really narrow window opportunity. The same goal is like, if
you don't have you know, a lot of diversity and

(32:12):
food sources, which comes with having a smaller property.

Speaker 4 (32:15):
It's a very narrow window. Do you really want to
dial that in?

Speaker 3 (32:18):
But you can see on our farm like it's this
week here, it's that week there, you know, and you're
kind of bouncing around and I'll follow the same bucks
from different areas a lot of times.

Speaker 1 (32:26):
So for someone that does not, maybe they're hunting a
brand new spot. Maybe they're just struggling and like, man,
something changed my area and this should be good, but
it has not been good. You would say, go in
and strategically, guilt free do some scouting.

Speaker 3 (32:42):
I always, you know again, I always encourage scout from
the outside in. So if I'm going out and scouting
mid season, it's not just with reckless abandonment.

Speaker 1 (32:51):
Right.

Speaker 3 (32:51):
And this is the big thing I see guys make
that mistake is I'm not getting pictures on my trail camera.

Speaker 1 (32:56):
Screw it.

Speaker 3 (32:56):
I'm just gonna jump on the ATV and go buzz
out there quick. Well, you just screwed up the whole picture, right.
One of these other trail cameras that I just checked
for this buck. When I went in there, there was
another scrape that had opened up a tree.

Speaker 4 (33:07):
Broken branch fell off of a tree.

Speaker 3 (33:08):
And got snagged down a branch on the way down
and it basically made another liking branch. So there was
two scrapes ten feet apart, so the same thing. I
just broke off that branch and then they you know,
they were using bolt scrapes still, but you just don't
know if the licking branch gets broken off of that
one and the new one opens up. So if you
don't go out and scout, you don't know. So if
you're not getting the intel, go a little bit deeper.

Speaker 1 (33:29):
But what I would.

Speaker 3 (33:30):
Strongly strongly recommend, you know, and looking at the forecast
at least here southwestern Wisconsin, well, by the time this
comes out, it's gonna be a day after the rain
that's in the forecast, and then after that it looks
pretty consistent. But you know, I'm looking for a rainy
day or a high wind day to do my most
aggressive scouting. And I would take the windy days over

(33:50):
anything because you can really get away with a lot
when the winds moved.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
Yeah, most of the time, Yeah, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:55):
A mutual friend of ours actually just sent me a
text the other day where he was trying to scout
in an area and walked up on a bedded three
year old buck. Right, it was a windier day. They
bed pretty tight, and I see that too. Look for
those windy days, look for those rainy days. If you
don't find those days, then I'm carrying a tree stand
on my back. I'm going out there. I'm scouting my
way in, or if it's a morning, i'm looking at

(34:16):
a map. I'm scouting with what I know, the best
theory I can come up with. I'm gonna start here.
I'm gonna get in this tree before daybreak, and then
I can observe an area. And now I know that
you know that deer went into there, That deer went
into there. I'm gonna move a little bit deeper once
I get down from my stand. And now i'm gonna
you know, I've got a cell cam in my backpack
or regular cam my backpack.

Speaker 4 (34:35):
I'm moving in.

Speaker 3 (34:36):
I'm scouting fresh sign, Fresh sign, fresh sign. Okay, here's
a primary scrape that cover there. I watch those dos
go into it. I watched that buck push that dough
into it. Here's a scrape on the outside. Boom dropping
that camera and I'm trying to figure out where's in
the best spot to hunt right here, but are with
wind directions to hunt it? And I'm getting out of there,
and I'm looking for that you know, those conditions the

(34:56):
next three to five days, and then I'm you know,
I'm looking for that next and while you're there, move
that stand like this.

Speaker 4 (35:02):
It's a big thing.

Speaker 3 (35:03):
A lot of it's just the details and the ambition involved, right,
Like I've been there before, Like, ah, I'll just wait,
I'll get confirmation that I get pictures on that camera
before I hang the stand. Well, you're already there, you're
already making a commotion. Or maybe it is one of
those windy days. Pull that stand down, move it to
that tree where you can shoot that scrape so that
when you get that picture.

Speaker 4 (35:20):
Of that book, all you have to worry about is
getting there before he gets there the next time around.

Speaker 1 (35:25):
Yeah, So this is the reminder, don't be lazy, get
out there and make it happen, but still be calculated,
like to boil it down. That's kind of what I hear.

Speaker 3 (35:33):
Absolutely, because we are reaching the climax of the season
very quickly. Right, things are going to peek here and
then we're going to all go into deer depression the
dark short days of winter. So you're either going to
be there and sitting and looking at you know, how
your season panned out, yep, or or you're going to

(35:53):
be wondering what could have been if you would have
made that move?

Speaker 1 (35:56):
Right?

Speaker 3 (35:56):
How many days you know the stories I've told you,
how many times I've stood at the bottom of that hill,
the tree stand on my back and just went, Man.

Speaker 4 (36:01):
It's been a long season. I'm tired.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
I should be at home getting stuff done. I should
be spending time with my family. We've already wasted that
much time, and it is. It is a waste if
you don't push a little bit more, right, Yeah, Or
you just don't know.

Speaker 4 (36:14):
Because anything can happen at any minute this time of year.

Speaker 3 (36:17):
Put yourself in the best situation possible and don't let
any form of laziness.

Speaker 5 (36:23):
Hold you back.

Speaker 4 (36:24):
You know, it's easy to say that, right, I mean, yeah,
everyone on the.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
Yeah, Yeah, I still got to go out there trying
to kill Yeah.

Speaker 3 (36:33):
I slept in today, man, I got up and then
I went back to bed.

Speaker 1 (36:36):
I was like, I'm good, well, Thomas, congratulations once again.
I appreciate you hopping on here and I think those
are some great words of encouragement and I will have
to stay in touch here and yeah, thank you, sir,
congratulations once again.

Speaker 4 (36:51):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
Take care all right. Next up on the line, we
have Brett Smith from wild Life Whitetail Land Management Services
calling in from Wisconsin. Sir, I've been torturing every guest
with the trivia question, so we're just gonna rip the
banded off right now. What year was there the record
amount of deer harvested in the state of Wisconsin. I

(37:14):
feel like Wisconsin's kind of a unique state too, because
of what they had done shortly after this time period.
So because there was a pretty big decline in deer
populations based off of a state management practice.

Speaker 6 (37:30):
I remember reading this, but like, there's no date that's
even coming remotely close to close to mind, I want
to say it was semi recently, but given what you
just said, maybe I'm wrong. I'm just going to throw
a number out there, but the way off, I'm gonna
say two thousand and fifteen.

Speaker 1 (37:51):
Your way off, You're fifteen years off. Two thousand the
year two thousand was the record amount of deer harvested.

Speaker 5 (37:57):
Given it away, Okay, yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:59):
Yeah, thousand. There was six hundred and eighteen thousand deer
harvested in the state of Wisconsin and the lowest lowest
total on recorded history, which is Wisconsin. That's probably the
richest hunting heritage out of all the states, in my opinion,
was twenty five hundred in the year eighteen ninety seven.

Speaker 5 (38:18):
That's insane, dude.

Speaker 1 (38:19):
Yeah, So, how's what's the deer? What's been? Like, it's
it's it's getting to fever pitch status here. You know
when this is going live. It's October twenty ninth, and
so this report, here's the twenty ninth to the fifth, Like,
this is arguably one of the weeks everyone has earmarked
for since last year. So where are you at, where's
your head at? What have you been seeing? What's the

(38:40):
game plan?

Speaker 6 (38:40):
Yeah, I'll pick that late October over November any day
if I had to be honestly, But you know, if
I had to be honest, like trail cameras you know,
are slow, but we know, like we know these bucks exist.

Speaker 5 (38:51):
I had them early season.

Speaker 6 (38:52):
It's just time to get out there, so Kentucky farm
I got a real one of my Kentucky farmers. I
got a real, real and solid, like five year old
I'm after. I bought some ground over in like where
I used to live in Kentucky. Got some dang good
deer over there. Got some nighttime photos of some good
bucks in southwest Wisconsin and around home.

Speaker 5 (39:11):
You know, we just got some some average bucks around here.

Speaker 6 (39:13):
They're around, but like nothing that's gotten me super jacked yet.
But that doesn't mean they're not there. We know from
trail cameras, like you're just not catching everything. So they're there.
They exist.

Speaker 5 (39:21):
That's all that really matters to me.

Speaker 1 (39:23):
Yeah, so what have you seen an influx of activity
on scrapes? Have you? I mean, what, where's the white
tail psyche right now? Or I guess the buck psyche
in your opinion.

Speaker 6 (39:35):
Yeah, the cameras that are still going off for me,
like consistently are those ones in the bedroom, and I'm
monitoring scrapes closest to the bedroom, Like I have mox
scrapes that I've made in food plot scrapes and stuff
like that, exterior.

Speaker 5 (39:47):
Ones outside of that bedroom.

Speaker 6 (39:49):
But I always talk about that first scrape outside the bedroom,
like that's generally the not the most huntable, but the
one you should probably hunt. Like that's what I'm monitoring
right now. And also in those bedrooms, like it's still
a lot of bedroom activity, at least for me me.

Speaker 5 (40:00):
Not a lot of food plot daylight stuff going on.
Not yet.

Speaker 1 (40:05):
What if you had to tell someone said, hey, Brett,
I've never shot a wallhanger yet, whatever that is, whatever
that is to whoever is listening to this, no matter
where they're from. And I have October twenty nine to
November fifth, what is the one tactic? What is the
one strategy that is going to have me have legitimate
opportunity versus throwing a dark Do.

Speaker 5 (40:26):
You remember the strategy we've talked about in the past.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
I remember, I've pretty good memory. But go ahead and
tell everyone.

Speaker 5 (40:31):
Guard at your areas of congregation.

Speaker 6 (40:33):
That might be a clear cut in your neck of
the woods, and it might be a crop field, it
might be a food plot.

Speaker 5 (40:37):
Find the sign.

Speaker 6 (40:37):
Along the along the exterior of that food plot or
wherever that area of congregation is. It might take you
two or three tries, but try and follow that back
to your to the betting area that like you're picturing
in your head, and maybe you've never been to this
area before, and maybe you have, but like try and
look at a map even prior and say, I think
the dear, you know, educated guests are probably better here.
So we started the area of congregation, We're gonna find

(40:57):
a little bit of sign and we're start following it
back to the areas that we want to go or
towards that direction of love. Betting, we're gonna start running
within about one hundred hundred and fifty less yards or less,
we're gonna start running into generally double sided rubs. When

(41:19):
I see double sided rubs, like to me, that means
a buck's coming and going. Like he's on the tree
trunk trail, that tree will branch out. We're on that
last trail that heads into the bedroom. Generally I'm paying
attention as I'm walking down that trail. I'm looking for
licking branches, and this time of year, I'm looking for
the scrape closest to his bedroom.

Speaker 5 (41:37):
And how do you know where his bedroom is?

Speaker 6 (41:38):
One of two ways, it's either condensed rubs of you know,
condensed sign of ten fifteen twelve rubs, or you see
the buck and this time, you're I don't mind bumping
him like, I'll go in there like I'd rather be
sure that he's there. He probably comes back tomorrow, if
not later that day. And I'm setting up on that
first scrape outside the bed off wind when I access
that spot, I'm doing I'm doing it so I'm even

(42:00):
I sent off that trail on parallel paralleling that trail on.

Speaker 5 (42:03):
The way in.

Speaker 6 (42:04):
That's that's the most like step by step plan that
I that I follow when finding a lot of these books.

Speaker 5 (42:10):
Public, private, doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 (42:11):
Yeah, I think that's a really good starting point for
someone just to dive in and key in on that,
because there's so much anticipation for this time of year,
and then you know, there's a lot of people that say, hey,
it's it's just luck, right, But there's people that find
success most years. Obviously there's luck involved, but I feel
like that's an awesome foundation for someone to break that
down whatever that is to them, no matter where they're at,

(42:32):
and you.

Speaker 6 (42:33):
Might kill them in those areas of congregation this time
year like that, you might not have to go far,
but at least now you have that intel for future
years if you want to go make an early season play,
a late season play.

Speaker 5 (42:41):
You understand the pattern, you know where to go.

Speaker 1 (42:43):
So as if you can name maybe two food sources
for October twenty nine to the fifth, I don't think
for a lot of the country we'll probably have a
hard frost yet. So with that in mind, what two
food sources. Maybe think of a big Woods food source
and then think of a more country food source that
you favor throughout this period of time.

Speaker 5 (43:03):
If I'm hunting the egg country, I'm hunting alfelfa.

Speaker 6 (43:05):
And if you plant in food plots maybe clover, chickory,
alfalfa like perennial plots. Man, that's that's the king, and
we all like to get fancy that now that you
need to have that. But if you can find a
good hayfield freshly cut corn this time of year, people
are combining. So if you're in an egg country monitoring that,
I mean, you're gonna see a lot of deer in
either one of those fields. If I'm in if I'm
in the big Woods, this is starting to start.

Speaker 7 (43:27):
You know.

Speaker 6 (43:27):
If I'm in the big Woods, I'm picturing maybe I'm
a little bit farther north.

Speaker 5 (43:30):
Maybe not.

Speaker 6 (43:30):
But if I can get on red Oaks and red
okay coins. I'm a big fan of those. As the
season progresses, and I've seen some insane like almost food
plotting activity digging up in the snow as the season
progresses on red oaks. But otherwise you're clearcuts and your
white oaks. Man, let's not overthink it, like you just
got to be out there at the end of the day.
But big woods. I throw the red oaks out there,

(43:50):
the clear cuts and the white oaks, and then you
know elfelfa and corn. If you're the private land or
egg country guy.

Speaker 3 (43:57):
M h.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
What As far as this time period, I'm trying to
because I want to give as much value to people
because this is like a lot of people there's season
rides over the next three weeks, whether they're successful or not.
And that's the reality for many people, myself included. It's
like I could start to get nervous over these next
three weeks I don't connect with something, so there's a
lot of self pressure here. Do you have any mental

(44:19):
things that have for people to have in the back
of their mind. Obviously I mind is don't get pinched up, like, remember,
this is what you enjoy. But do you have any
other mental mental things that they need to keep in mind.
As you know, there's level of excitement and then a
level of frustration if you have don't have success throughout
some of this time period.

Speaker 5 (44:37):
First of all, just breathe, man, this is what we
love to do.

Speaker 6 (44:40):
The media side of things makes us all feel like
we got to live up to somebody's else's standard.

Speaker 5 (44:45):
Go have fun. Go have fun, like more than anything, man.

Speaker 6 (44:48):
But if I had to be honest with you, if
I had to get on the tactical side of it,
like remember that mentally, like you do this because you
have fun, Like you feel like you have to go hunting,
you have to go hunting, and half to hunting like
maybe chill maybe not this time yere, but like yeah,
think about it that way. But from a tactical perspective,
use trail cameras as a tool, but do not do

(45:08):
not like bank on them. Be out there, and I'll
tell you right now, I hunt the wrong wind even
a lot of times being out there, because those aren't
consistently coming from the areas that they were early season
when you expected them to come from X y Z area,
So you hunted it on this win. I've hunted my
best spots on the exact wrong win. Guess what the
bucks coming like, they come in from a different direction.
So here you are, you're sitting on the coach because

(45:30):
the wind wasn't Now this is the time of year, guys,
go because I gang out there ain't gonna kill them.

Speaker 5 (45:35):
Bottom up.

Speaker 1 (45:35):
Must be present to win this time of year, and.

Speaker 6 (45:38):
I have to, and it's ingrained in our head. Play
the wind, play the wind, Play the wind, and pay
attention to the wind. Try and be strategic as possible.
Don't go out there willy nilly. Pay attention to your
thermals and stuff, but don't be afraid to hunt on
the wrong wind.

Speaker 1 (45:49):
Yeah yeah. As far as vocalizations, grunting, snartweeze, rattling, where
does that fall within your your bag of tricks this
time of year.

Speaker 6 (45:58):
I'm keeping them all in the pocket until that bucket
unless that like, if that buck isn't naturally coming my way,
then I'm busting them out.

Speaker 1 (46:04):
Now.

Speaker 5 (46:04):
It depends on the state. Like in a state like Wisconsin,
I don't even carry rattling antlers.

Speaker 6 (46:09):
Maybe I'll bust out some rattling antlers in the In
the big buck states, you know occasionally if I'm bored
or things are slow, unless it be realistic, But otherwise, like,
I'm not probably busting out blind calls because those big
bucks are smart to a certain extent and they're gonna
get down and win. If you're going to catch them
off guard, it's to be this time of year. You know,
you get away with it. Maybe they don't come in
down win, but keep the calls in your pockets. Unless

(46:31):
you feel like you're not going to get that opportunity,
do your best to bring that deer in and if
you're in a big buck stake, crack them together from
time to time and see what happens.

Speaker 5 (46:38):
It's always fun.

Speaker 1 (46:39):
Let me rune in a really quick scenario. Pass you
October twenty fifth. You got a picture of a buck
you've never got before, showed up on a scrape middle
of the night. What are the odds are you riding
that one piece of breadcrumb throughout this next week or
is in the back of your mind are you abandoning it?

(47:00):
And this think of the guy that is w killed
good buck too.

Speaker 6 (47:04):
Yeah, I mean I don't care when I get the pictures.
I'm that guy. Like everybody waits for daylight pictures. You
know how many times they walk find these things. You
know he exists, get out there and hunt, and that's
what I'll say. So you know, it's one photo, but
he might have been there for three four days. Hell,
I got a deer that just showed back up a
neighbor sent me a picture of them, or five, six,
seven days ago.

Speaker 5 (47:23):
He's been there.

Speaker 6 (47:24):
So yeah, it might be a breadcrumb, but in reality,
like the whole puzzle might be taking place on your
property and just steps around around those trail cameras. So
lean into it. If you know he's there, that's all
you need to know. This is the time you got
to be out there. He exists, Go hunt, go kill him.

Speaker 1 (47:40):
I like it. Any other party words of advice, have.

Speaker 6 (47:43):
Fun, have fun, shoot straight, breathe, don't black out, and
don't trust in those trail cameras and uh yeah, man,
just have fun.

Speaker 1 (47:54):
Go get them. I love it. Good luck, Brett, Appreciate it.

Speaker 5 (47:56):
Appreciate it, man. All right.

Speaker 1 (47:58):
Next up on line, we have F. Thomas from New York.
How's everything going in the Empire State. It's going great, man,
it's going good. Have you been out much here? Legly?
What have you been seeing.

Speaker 7 (48:10):
So I mean getting out as much as I can.

Speaker 8 (48:13):
You know, I got a two year old and a
three year old at home, so I'm trying to pick
my spots and make sure that when I when I
do hit the woods, that you know, things are right
and I'm going to a good spot with the right conditions.
But I've been able to see, uh, you know firsthand
some of the behavior uh changing over the last couple
of weeks.

Speaker 7 (48:33):
You know, last week, Friday.

Speaker 8 (48:35):
Morning was gonna be the coldest morning in kind of
a ten day span, and I wanted to hit the
woods and you know, I've been looking forward to it
the whole work week, and then something came up last
minute and I had to cancel that because of work,
and so it was it was Thursday afternoon or nothing.
And uh, I said to my wife, and you know,

(48:55):
you're gonna be okay without me, And she just sent
me the the meme of Independence Day with the president
talking to Augy one said we will survive, and uh
so that's all I needed. And you know, work ended
and I was in the back of the truck getting
geared up, and uh, I said to my buddy Dan,
I go, oh, the only thing I don't have is
my black rack.

Speaker 7 (49:15):
And he went in the shop and pulled out just
a little set of of.

Speaker 8 (49:19):
Antlers off a tiny little basket six point I said.

Speaker 1 (49:22):
You want to take these?

Speaker 8 (49:23):
And I said, day, it's better than nothing, And that
ended up coming in handy.

Speaker 7 (49:28):
I was hunting the edge of a little winter wheat field.

Speaker 8 (49:31):
It was just a little panhandle of the bigger field
that has woods on three sides. And a button buck
came out, and then a spike came out, and I.

Speaker 7 (49:38):
Said, all right, well we're moving in the right direction here, uh.
And then a dole and a yearling, and then.

Speaker 8 (49:43):
A shooter came out. And this was, you know, a
solid half hour before sunset. And I just let him
go and he fed in the winter wheat. You know,
that was the only thing that he cared about. And
after a while I said, all right, it's not gonna
happen naturally. I got to go to the bag of
tricks and I under at him. A little bit could
not have carried less, and I pulled out those two

(50:05):
little sheds and up tight against the tree, and I'm
looking over at him, you know, with looking over my
shoulder at him, watching him and I'm just tickling those
antlers together. As soon as he heard him, he lifted
his head right up, started right in my direction, and
then went back to feeding. And I did that two
or three times until I really really gave it to
the antlers as loud as I can make those things go.

(50:27):
And he dropped what he was doing. He started coming
across the field, and if he had come right for me,
it would have worked out perfect.

Speaker 7 (50:35):
You know, he covered the distance he needed to cover.

Speaker 8 (50:38):
But you know, these these bucks are smart, and he
caught a little bit of an angle just enough to
get down winded me, and you know he he froze
up about twenty yards off the edge of the woods,
about forty yards away from me, and I didn't have
a shot, and you know, he took off.

Speaker 7 (50:54):
But that was a cool encounter to see.

Speaker 8 (50:56):
You know, he didn't really care about the dough in
the field, you know, he did, don't really care about
the grounds. But you heard a couple other bucks that
were we're playing around, and that got him interested.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
Yeah, that's that's exciting, man. That's a that you're rattling
antlers for everyone listening. Are hilarious. That's awesome.

Speaker 7 (51:16):
Actually, I use them to train my dog for his headhuntings.

Speaker 8 (51:19):
So they're they're chewed up, they got keieth marks all
over them, but you know they did what.

Speaker 7 (51:23):
They needed to do that day, that's for sure.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
Yeah. No, that's that's super awesome. So what I've been
doing here with each guest, I've been uh making up
trivia question each each step of the way. And you're
gonna get a hard one. So I'm sorry, what year,
what year, or any information that you can tell me
about the typical state record for New York. You can
either say the county, the year, or the score. Because

(51:46):
this is it's a it's a hard one. I think
people will find maybe a little bit interesting. So this
is a typical state record.

Speaker 8 (51:53):
Yes, sir, So I'm gonna go down in the southern
part of the state.

Speaker 7 (51:56):
I'm gonna go stupin county the year.

Speaker 8 (52:02):
Why do I want to I want to think that
this is like a legendary buck of classic bucks. I'm
gonna go like seventy three and the score, you know,
I mean it might surprise uh, it might surprise even me.
I'm gonna go like one eight five.

Speaker 1 (52:18):
Okay, So it was in a hopefully I pronounce this correctly,
Alleghany a lll e Okay, that's right down there. And
it was a nineteen thirty nine. Okay, this is a
very very old record and it scored one ninety eight
and three eights inch just uh not typical, which I
don't I'd have to google this year because I don't
know what dear it is off the top of my head.

(52:38):
But what a uh that's And what's interesting too is
the non typical record was the same year, nineteen thirty nine,
and it was a two forty four non typical. So
Alleghany in nineteen thirty nine was the place to be.

Speaker 2 (52:51):
Yeah, I guess.

Speaker 1 (52:52):
So, yeah, that's a long time ago. So right now. Obviously,
you know you had a really good hunt and you
were able to you know, call in a buck to
the bubble, like really really close to having it come together. Obviously,
it's a very exciting time of year. It's October twenty ninth.
It's like peak anticipation. People are still super fresh for
the next week. What are you keen in on when

(53:15):
you get an opportunity to go? How are you prioritizing sits?
Because it's only seven days and once the seven days
are gone, it's like maximizing each day in opportunities. What
top of mind for everyone's how are you going to
do that?

Speaker 8 (53:26):
So I have you know, I have about three hundred
acres of private land that I have access of permission
to hunt, and those are spread out over you know,
a two hour drive across the state. Some of them
are as small as seventeen that are just door knocking permission,
and some of them, you know, my folks farm out
in Wayne County. You know, that's like one hundred and

(53:48):
forty acres. So I kind of get to you know,
there's like five spots I get to pick. Okay, where
can I go? What's the wind doing? And sometimes that's
a game time decision. If I'm going to hunt the afternoon,
I'm not making a final call between a few of
the spots closer to home until you know that afternoon.

Speaker 7 (54:06):
But you know, I'm I'm just trying to play the wind.

Speaker 1 (54:10):
I'm trying to make.

Speaker 8 (54:11):
Sure that that the set is right, and if the
set is right, then anything can happen.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
What what how do you know the set is right?
So what are what are some check checkboxes for that
click off?

Speaker 8 (54:23):
So that that winter wheat field and that small little
panhandle inside of a forty acre parcel has been as
productive for me over the past four or five years
as any spot I've ever hunted. And so because it
has three sections awards around it, i'm I can set
up on what side of it that I want and

(54:44):
I can kind of even get myself where that we're
you know, if the wind is not perfect this time
of year, I will I will push it a little bit,
but it's you know, it's at this time of year
has been seared into my memory.

Speaker 7 (55:00):
The end of October began November.

Speaker 8 (55:03):
A few years ago, there was a buck out of
my dad's that was, you know, once in a lifetime
buck and.

Speaker 7 (55:09):
The end of October I was supposed to be out hunting.

Speaker 8 (55:12):
The guys that were replacing our furnace asked if they
could come on a Saturday morning to finish the job,
and I stayed at home.

Speaker 1 (55:18):
And when I.

Speaker 8 (55:19):
Pulled the cards for that camera, that buck was on
its feet October twenty ninth, at eight twenty in the morning,
walking down a logging road checking sign. So you know,
monsters will be on their feet at the end of
October looking for deer. And when I did get out
there November second, that buck was on a dough The
doe was coming across the field in broad daylight at

(55:40):
nine o'clock in the morning, and it was six yards
behind her.

Speaker 1 (55:44):
You know.

Speaker 8 (55:45):
So I am still a proponent of if you have
dose that are doing things in the morning, you know
where they're going to be, you know where they're going
to be passing through.

Speaker 7 (55:54):
You know, you have to just hope to.

Speaker 8 (55:56):
Be lucky enough that one of those dozs is hot
and that there's a shooter with it, and that's you know,
I'm just hutting the best I know how to do,
and I like to hunt tight.

Speaker 7 (56:05):
I'm not a big you know, I.

Speaker 8 (56:07):
Don't care if I can see ninety yards or one
hundred yards. A lot of my sets, especially out of
my dad's, are on the edge of thick cover.

Speaker 1 (56:16):
You know.

Speaker 8 (56:16):
There's a chunk of land out there that was plowed
and planted in the early nineties and it has never
been touched since then, and that is so thick that,
you know, me and my buddy Carlo joked that the deer,
like the Vietcong, they tunnel through this stuff, you know,
and a three year old could walk down these trails
and not scratch her hair on his head and a
grown man would have to get on his hands and knees.

Speaker 7 (56:38):
So I hunt the edges of that, and I'm not
opposed to.

Speaker 8 (56:43):
You know, I'll go to a set that I can
have early access, easy access to, and I'll hunt it
until eight or eight thirty, and then if I can
climb down and I can move quietly one hundred yards
further back in and get in another hang on that
I have, I've done that, and I've come to full
draw on shooter bucks that I had. You know, I
saw at nine thirty in the morning, and I moved
stands that morning, so I try to see mobile. You know,

(57:06):
I'm hung with a saddle, and I'm trying to not
hunt the same place twice this time of year if
I can help it. Unless it's unless I think it's
you know, a make or break opportunity. And you know
they say that luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity,
and this time of the year, you just got to
give yourself the opportunity to get lucky.

Speaker 7 (57:28):
And that's all I can do.

Speaker 1 (57:31):
Yeah, No, it's a it's a very exciting time. So
on a scale one to ten, how aggressive would you
say your style of hunting is for this next week,
because obviously, once we get into deeper in November, it's
basically the gloves are off and people are doing whatever
they feel like they need to do and have really
no remorse. So it's just kind of chaos the deer chaos,
and people's approaches tend to get a little less disciplined,
which sometimes works really well. You know, we're not We're

(57:53):
not quite there. So where do you fall on one
to ten? Ten being is I will do anything, go
anywhere because I think that's where I need to be.
And one being is like, pretend it's the first day
of the season and it's one hundred and twenty degrees.

Speaker 8 (58:06):
So I think that the I think the actual on
the ground activity is going to be an eight eight
pointy five, but I'm going to hunt it like it's
an eleven. You know, I'm going to go that the
end of October beginning in November is what I had
been waiting for for the last eleven and a half months,

(58:26):
you know, because gunk season rolls around in New York,
especially about my dad's you know, I have stands that
are two hundred yards from state land and bucks just
typically don't last. And you know, I in the years past,
I've said, oh, this is my target buck, and I'm
not shooting anything but this buck. And that can make
for some boring sits, especially when you passed on a

(58:46):
really nice eight you know, and I have I have
a hard time, especially during both season where you know,
if it if it looks like a shooter, then it's
a shooter. And I like that for the last couple
of years where you know, some of the some of
the nicest bucks I've got in the last five years
have been deer that I shot that I you know,

(59:08):
brought home, put in the tree and then I checked
the card so that I swapped out from that property
and the first time I saw it on camera was
after I already killed it, you know. And it's I know,
a shooter when I see it type of hunting. And
if it makes you shake in the tree, and it
gets your blood flowing, and it's a mature deer, you know,
three and a.

Speaker 1 (59:27):
Half year old.

Speaker 7 (59:28):
You know, textbook definition. You look it up in the
dictionary and.

Speaker 8 (59:32):
There's a picture of a beautiful eight point white tail
that's good enough for me, I would take those and
happily full my tag on those all year, especially here
in upstate New York.

Speaker 1 (59:41):
I love it man. That's yeah, it's a super exciting
time of year. And I think you're exactly right in
terms of the amount of big deer in the landscape.
This week, right now is probably when there will be
the most amount of big deer in the landscape that
are alive. Because deer get big bucks gets shot, you know,
progressively more moving forward. So if you we were just
trying to say, hey, I want to kill big buck,

(01:00:02):
this might be arguably the best week of the entire
year in terms of odds and the amount of good
bucks running rounds. That's super exciting. Man. Is there in
New York and kind of where you're hunting is there?
Are you gonna are you plinting to hunt food sources
or are you pretty much shifting your strategy to downwind
of thick, nasty betting cover.

Speaker 8 (01:00:21):
So out out of my folks place, it's standing in
corner right now and right and you know every year
that it's corn, it's the corn bean rotation, And every
year that it's corn. When the combine shows up, my
dad calls me, and I look at the guys I
work with and I say, I'll see you later, and.

Speaker 7 (01:00:38):
I am in the wind. I'm gone.

Speaker 8 (01:00:41):
And that's that year that that big buck was that
was there. I know all about it because they end
up getting killed in December with the crossbow about, you know,
three quarters of a mile away.

Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
It was six and a half years old.

Speaker 8 (01:00:54):
That year was the largest buck killed at the crossbow
in New York State. It scored like a one to
seventy seven and change. And that deer was in that
cut corn. I'm not kidding. Twenty minutes after the combine
was gone and he was on his feet chasing doze
all over the place. So I'm I'm you know, I'm

(01:01:15):
just with staring at my phone every hour, going, man,
I hope my pop calls. Hope my pop calls, because
once that happens, that's where I'm gonna go. But until then,
you know, I'm I'm just I'm hunting. I'm hunting as
if every haunt is the most important hunt.

Speaker 7 (01:01:30):
And uh, I just got a chunk this past weekend.

Speaker 8 (01:01:34):
I took my son with me kind of the secret
weapon of door knocking. A cute a cute three year
old boy and UH and picked up seventeen acres. And
you know when I went on that for the first
time with my saddle and UH and the cell cam,
you know, I treated it like there was a big
deer on it, you know.

Speaker 7 (01:01:51):
And and that's all I can hope to do, you know.
And if you treat every.

Speaker 8 (01:01:55):
Haunt like it's the best hunt and the next tount
is the best hunt, I think you're setting yourself up
for for success.

Speaker 1 (01:02:01):
I love it. Man, Well, good luck it's gonna be
you're hunting like eleven. You think activity is gonna be
an eight and a half. That's really great and I
tend to agree, So good luck the rest of the season.
Maybe you might need to upgrade your rata Houain analysts,
or maybe not. Maybe you're onto something. So good luck
to you. Jeff, Thank you very much, Jake.

Speaker 7 (01:02:20):
Appreciate you having me on there.

Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
You guys have it. I hope you guys enjoyed this
week's episode of ret Fresh. Be sure to text your
hunting buddy, send some words of encouragement, and get out
there and enjoy it. This is going to be an exciting,
awesome week, So we will see you next week on
the rough fresh report and if you find success, send
a message in We'd love to have you on here.
We will see you next time. See you