November 5, 2025 • 52 mins
This week on Rut Fresh, Jake is joined by Grant Watson of Iowa, Jared Van Hees of the Habitat Podcast, Chris Wiest of Pennsylvania, and Tom Alexander of Texas and Land Magazine/Land.com to break down why this might be the best week of the year for whitetail hunting across most of the country.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
All right, everyone, welcome back to Retfresh. This is this
is the peak excitement for this whole entire season for
Rough Fresh. In my opinion, this is the November fifth
through November twelfth episode. This is the week when everyone
schedules their vacation. This is when people are doing all
days since this is when some potential chaos that can
bounce in your favor or in the other direction. And
(00:21):
so my challenge for you guys this week is to
go back and reflect on last year and maybe you
made a mistake, Maybe you didn't grind through this time
period enough, maybe you gave up a little early, maybe
you came up with the excuses, or maybe everything came
back together perfectly and you didn't overthink it. And so
I think this week the challenge is to realize the
only thing you need to beat is yourself and your
(00:43):
own thought process to have success this week. And that
might be different for everyone. Maybe you're waiting on a
specific deer to show up, or maybe you have some
family or friends that are in from the area and
you want to make sure you are a good host
or a good friend or a good family member and
encourage people and have a great time this is the
week we've been waiting for all year. Once this week
is gone, we're gonna be waiting for it next year.
We're gonna be waiting for fifty one weeks later from today.
(01:06):
So we have a lot of really great guests this week.
We have Grant Watson, who shot a really big deer
in Iowa. We have Chris West from Pennsylvania who's headed
to Ohio who's been bounced around from both of those states.
We have Jared Vanheast who tagged a Michigan buck. We
have Tom Alexander all the way down from Texas. So
that's what we have this week. As you know, Roughresh
(01:26):
is brought to you by land dot com, the leading
online real estate marketplace to find your perfect rule recreational, agricultural,
or hunting properties here in the US. Let's kick things
off with Grant Watson. Here we go. Good luck this week,
have fun, and enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
All right.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
First up on the line, we have Grant Watson. Man,
you just killed hammer in Iowa. How does it feel?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Well, it's a town bittersweet because part of me is
glad to be done and I don't have the anxiety
of a tag in my pocket and watching everyone else
shoot deer. But then the other part of me is like, well,
I don't really want to be done yet. I do
have a landowner's tag, but I don't have a deer
that I would consider a trophy out there, just a
couple of call bucks. So I'm kind of out of
the game, but not totally. Well, it's pretty exciting.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
You're out of the game for good reason, because you
just you just smoked in upper seventies and that's that
is awesome. So I've been torturing all of our guests
with a quick trivia question. So I've already had an
Iowall guess previously, so your question might be a little
bit harder, and I doubt anyone would get this right.
But according to recent data, what is the population of
deer white tailed deer in the state of Iowa?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Really hard? Just take a guess? Do that?
Speaker 4 (02:44):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
I wouldn't even have a guess. You got a guess,
like the entire state? How many deer here? Yeah, it's
got to be over it's got to be over like
a million, two hundred and ninety thousand. That was way
off two and ninety thousand. While I figured there would
be close to a million, but I don't know. Well
(03:07):
that's not that that's less than I thought.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
That is that Well in the craziest thing is the
highest gun harvest ever was two thousand and five with
one hundred and seventy seven thousand. Oh so, like there's
obviously some ebb and flow of deer population in the
state of Iowa. But anyways, tell me about your setup
on how you can when, when did you kill this
deer and how did it come together?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
So, uh went out been kind of hunting on the
fringes of this area. It wasn't my main target. I
have another deer there that I have, you know, four
sheds too. He's a smaller deer, but the history is
a big important to me. But there was this other
deer that I call Spud. So there's Stickers, the one
that was mainly after the Spud, and I knew that
(03:48):
if Spud walked by, I was going to shoot him
because just being in his power. There's two big shooter bucks.
So last week stuff was kind of ramping up. I
kind of started buck hunting around the twenty fifth. It
seems like every year I always have like a giant
on camera the twenty fifth through like the twenty ninth.
It seems like every big deer I'm following, they'll be
(04:10):
on their feet during that time period. So Monday I
went out there. I hit a south wind and I
don't have a stand set up for a south wind,
so I actually sat on the ground and I had
this deer going back to bed and so I was like, okay,
I have a fifty to fifty shot of where I
have to be. And I went to go slip up
and I was gonna sit on a like a this
(04:30):
farmer aisle, a row of dirt, and I was gonna
sit on this dirt pile. Well, there was a dough
font feeding in the stubble. So I just stayed back,
and I stayed in the cedar tree. I just stood
against a cedar tree and cut a little hole into it.
And this year ended up standing up at one hundred
yards away. And then he went straight into the bedding
area where I have a stand in there. But I
(04:51):
couldn't hunt that, and I was waiting for the right
time to go in there. So I filmed him Monday night.
Thursday night, I went out. I actually saw stickers or
I went out Thursday morning, saw stickers would have shot him,
but a dough was just barely on the edge of
my wind, and my wind was cutting, you know, my
thermals could have been sucking towards the river, and she
(05:14):
was just right on that line. And if she wouldn't
boogered me, I would have shot him. But it was
fast forward. Saturday. I ended up going out Sat all
day kind of was raining, but the sun was supposed
to come out in the afternoon, and I figured once
that happened, you know, my odds of seeing either one
of those deer would go up. And at five point
(05:35):
twenty I looked over and I passed a nice buck
in the day earlier twice and I had a forecorn
chasing this dough around, like well, she might be in
like estrus. And so the bigger buck came around and
I passed him. And then at five twenty I saw
Spud and he was by this watering hole in the
bedding area and he did a big old snort wheeze,
(05:56):
And I'm just down wind this betting area on a
tight pinch, so like less likely for stuff to get
behind me. And he was at fifty yards and I
was like, well, I'm not gonna I'm not a believer
in shooting the deer of fifty yards because I get excited.
So he snore, Whez ran this other buck off, and
I said, it's meant to be. You know, he'll he'll
(06:17):
hook back around. And I texted my dad. You know,
my dad had a bad stroke last year, so that's
really the the highlight of the whole thing is to
have him in town. So he flew into town. So anyways,
I text my dad said, man, I just saw Spud.
You know, I think he's going to loop back around.
And at six to twenty, here he comes. He looked
back around and he took a sharp turn north and
I was just about to hit him with my grunt
(06:37):
tube and it was the extinguisher, but I did it.
I had it to my mouth and I just wanted to.
I wanted to see what he was going to do.
Five more steps and he hooked back hard. He came
and he worked a pinoak scrape right in front of
my tree. And I'm standing and facing the tree. At
this point, I said, Okay, if he goes right, he's
den If he goes left, he's dead. And he comes
(06:58):
in he hooks right around the tree. I drew back
and stopped him at fifteen yards and I smoked him,
and then from there, I you know, I hadn't tracked
a deer with my dad since twenty sixteen. So I
went and I left. I slipped back from my waiters
and walked out through the river, so I had really
good access and I waited for my dad to arrive
(07:19):
and we were able to recover him. So it was
my second best buck to date. My biggest buck is
actually the second buck on the wall back there. He's
one eighty two spud went. I taped him out one
seventy seven and seven eight, So I was pretty excited.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
But yeah, dude, that that's amazing. I think there's a
lot of key lessons in there. Patience is a really
big one. Another one too, where it's like people, you know,
their brain short circuits and they're like, oh, he's fifty
yards is my only chance?
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Is my only chance?
Speaker 1 (07:46):
I just got to try to squeeze it through or
try to make this long shot that I'm probably not
fully capable of like most people, and your patient trusted
the plan, and dude, that is that is awesome. Man,
that's that's what we all dream about. That is awesome.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Yeah. Yeah, I've hung the stands back in July, you know,
specifically for stickers, but I didn't know that this year
was going to blow up the way he did, and
so I kind of played down the fringe. And yeah,
I mean it's it was November first, Like, I don't
need to be launching an arrow at a deer. And
you know how it is, just as well as probably
(08:21):
any other listener on this podcast. If you get a
deer to you know, four or five six years old,
and you shoot him, you make a marginal shot. You
might not kill them initially, but then infection kills him. Well,
it takes three four more years to get a deer
like that to fill that shoes, especially the genetics you know,
that is going to break that bit and Crockett score.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
So yeah, no, I think that's that's very timely, very
timely advice for everyone to not force it. And a
lot of times, you know this pretend you're watching a
two year old or a three year old, and it's
like a lot of times they come back, you know,
an hour later, forty minutes later, they loop back around,
and it's like, okay, well, I'm really glad I didn't
take a really crappy because you know, you end up
getting the opportunity.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
So I think that's very timely.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Advice for everyone because we all want it to happen
so bad, right, That's why we're that's why we're out there,
That's why you set up in July. So now that
is that is awesome and what an incredible experience. Now
looking from the fifth of the twelfth, this is this
is going to this is like big buck carnage.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Man.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
The amount of big gear that hit the dirt during
this week is in the Midwest and probably most of
the country, Like, this is the week we all have
been waiting for. What's what what is top of mind
for you right now to like, for anyone listening that
you know didn't kill one on November. First of what
would you be focusing on? And what are you focusing on?
Because you have Landlanders tag still.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Yeah, so if I if I had my state wide
tag in the pocket, I would still be kind of
close to the betting areas are at pinch it seems like.
And I'm not trying to be an expert because I'm
I'm just learning, so sure, but like this a pointer
behind me right here. I've shot him on November seven
into twenty twenty one, and he was locked on a
(10:02):
dough on November fourth, And right now I think my
bigger deer locked on a dough because I haven't seen them,
and typically it seems like they're moving on their feet
a little bit more, but this year seems like maybe
they found that first dough already. So right now i'd
be kind of, you know, I wouldn't give up about
your target deer, like it's probably not dead. I'd be
(10:23):
in tight to the betting. I'd be willing to kind
of risk the wind a little bit more. And all
day sits. I mean, if you can get off work,
and if you can't get off work, like just you
got to get out there as soon as you can.
It can still happen in last thirty minutes of daylight.
But once he breaks from that dough, he's going to
be on his feet looking for another one, and you
should probably try to be there something. So I just
(10:46):
kind of play that. I don't have a lot of
luck past the eighth, like the eighth through the the eleventh,
but come the eleventh through the eighteenth, I have way
more luck because it seems like they're running a lot more. Yeah,
I just kind of play down the down wind of
dough betting or really big pinch points in the cover
I hunt. I mean, I'm just hunting a pinch because
(11:09):
the deer can kind of bed just about anywhere and
end up. But I gotta try to be in that
one spot and using historical data. The biggest thing I
think where guys make mistakes is I have a deer
over here that I would shoot, and I have a
deer over here I would shoot. And you might want
to shoot deer A more than B, but B might
be daylighting and deer A might not be killable on
(11:32):
the farm that you're hunting. So I used to catch
myself and I still do bouncing back and forth between farms.
Now is the time to just kind of pick one
and go with it. But if you have a cell
camera showing you, hey, this year is daylight right now,
I would not be afraid to get out of my tree,
go to that farm and get in that tree and
(11:52):
just give it a shot. Yeah, because if there's a
hot dough under your tree, you're probably gonna whack her
in at night time. I mean, if you have rgular cameras,
you can go check regular cameras, like the time sensitive
information is right now.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Yeah, no, I think it's easy to get scatter brain.
It's it's uh. The only time I wish there was
two of me is this week right now, where it's like, dude,
I wish I could be in due spots at once.
So that's really good advice. Now, all day sits they're
a grind. Anyone that says they're not a grind is line.
What advice do you have for someone that's like, Okay,
(12:28):
I've heard this all day sits. Everyone says, you just
got to be in a tree. I have work off.
How do you how do you make the day go
by without pitting your head against the tree?
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Go I'm bored?
Speaker 3 (12:39):
Yeah, well it's funny because Saturday was really boring. But
I knew that I knew that I was so close
to the betting area, like something because could happen, like
you never know it could it could happen to get
the moment you used to tell yourself that I always packed,
you know, my lunch, and usually I like took a
roll of Star Wars with me, like eat a Starbust
(13:01):
or something I watch the like the White Tailed Cribs.
Speaker 5 (13:04):
I throw in my ear pods.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
If I'm like really bored. But you gotta stay alert
because if a those come running by, yeah, well you
better be ready and not messing around. But I don't know,
I mean I think all day sits are grind for sure,
but you got to kind of remove the pressures. Hey,
there's no pressure to actually fill my tag like I mean, yeah,
(13:28):
we all want to fill our tag, but really just
being out there and enjoying nature. I mean, it's got
to stay mentally tough through it. Don't get discouraged when
other people are shooting deer or thinking, hey, the rut's
not going on, because it could switch in a blink
of eye and you just have to be there to
capitalize on it.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Yeah, you can go from having the worst season ever
to the best season ever in a matter of ten seconds.
I mean that's the magic of this time of year.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yeah awesome.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah, on a scale one to ten, ten being this
might be the best week of the entire year, one
being it's gonna be the worst. Where does this fall
November fifth to the twelfth.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
I don't know. On my spots I hunt out West.
I actually like about the the eleventh through the eighteenth,
but I would say it's probably got to be as
close to a nine. I mean, my cameras are rolling.
It also helps this year I have a lot more
shooter deer on trail camera. So yeah, I mean, if
(14:24):
I if I had another state wide tag, I'd be
locked into a tree all day right now, because I
think it's gonna happen, especially about this weekend. I mean,
we have cooler temperatures this year, at least in Iowa
then years past where some years I've been hunting and
it's like seventy degrees November fifth, and that sucks. So
I think I think this is going to be a
(14:45):
big week. A lot of big deer are going to
hit the ground between now and Sunday, and then I
think there will be another way of them.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Love it, love it well.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Congratulations once again, Grant, good luck the rest of the season.
Really appreciate it. Awesome that your dad is able to
be there with the recovery. I know that's really special
for you and him and so Di congratulations once again.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Awesome, Thank you, Jake.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
All Right, we have shared with the Habitat podcast who
recently shot a Michigan buck.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
How's it feel, man, Oh.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
Buddy, it feels great.
Speaker 6 (15:15):
It feels great to have a tag notched and you know,
shake the rust off if you will, So thank you.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
It's awesome.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yeah, man, No, that's super exciting.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
And so in Michigan, was this off of I know
you hunt kind of the full spectrum of the state.
Was this way up north or was this more further south?
Speaker 6 (15:33):
It's closer to home. Okay, Yeah, so southeast part of
the state.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Wonderful, wonderful. And so I know you were using a decoy.
I've never been I've never been brave enough to use one.
So go ahead and convince me and everyone else while
we need to use a decoy, and how it worked.
Speaker 6 (15:49):
Well, I haven't been brave enough either until this time.
I might have used one once in Iowa for the
heck of it, six years ago. But I've been hunting
this this farm, a really nice eight point out there,
and Thursday Friday last week, I.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
Believe it was. I had him at.
Speaker 6 (16:09):
Forty fifty yards twice. Super aggressive deer, he's running off
other deer. He's a man in the area.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
Put it that way.
Speaker 6 (16:17):
So knowing that I grun him in, he come in
and he wouldn't see any deer. It's very mature timber.
It's not my farm. If it was my farm, the
timber it I'll be cut right. So it's very mature timber.
And he can see so he's Caesar's no deer. And
he does this to me twice. So then we had
a Halloween camping weekend with the kids, and so I
(16:39):
get back in there Sunday night and I was talking
to my buddy and I'm like, God, I got.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
To think, I have to use a decoy. Can I
borrow your decoy?
Speaker 6 (16:45):
Because if he if he if I grunt at him
and he comes in and there's no deer there. He's
he's wise to this. So I thought a decoy in
the timber. That sounds insane, you know. And plus I
have all my saddle gear on my back and picking
a new tree and going in deeper than I was before,
kind of trying to get just downwind of where he
(17:06):
walks out of the swamp. I set up, I get
up a tree and it's just quiet. There's no wind,
it's a little warmer, nothing's going on, even the doors
weren't moving very well, and so I tickle the horns
a little bit again Michigan. I don't do this a lot,
but this guy's aggressive and I've seen him be aggressive,
(17:28):
so I'm going to be aggressive.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
And then I tickle the horns.
Speaker 6 (17:41):
About fifteen minutes later, I look off to my right,
which is my weak side in the settle, right handed,
and this buck steps out. They said, it's a nice
nine point. He's coming kind of above me on this
ridge and starting to get downwind. Well, I had the
deco aut and find of me, like you're supposed to
do apparently, and I have him circle down wind, which
(18:03):
would be in front of me. He's going down win
behind me too, so I had you know that the
time is ticking. But what was so cool about it
all he was doing. He's just locked on that decoy,
I mean, stopped and stared for you know, probably five minutes.
I'm getting twisted around in the saddle with my weak side,
starting to choke myself on the on the.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
Teather, you know.
Speaker 6 (18:27):
And then he starts coming in down wind. But as
he's doing that, he's coming closer and closer and closer
to the decoy.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
He's pulling it to this decoy, and again.
Speaker 6 (18:36):
He just stop and stare, stop and stare. So every
time he stop, I would turn a little more get ready,
and I ended up being a point to where I
couldn't turn anymore with my my teather, and he was
at twenty one yards and I drew back right when
he crossed behind this tree and again just staring at
the decoy, and I'm like, oh my gosh, like I'm
(18:57):
between him and my tree at this point so he
can look up. And yeah, and he had no interest
in what I was doing anything about it. Laser focus,
laser focus, which is kind of the message I'm trying
to get across here. And yeah, I ended up shooting
him at twenty yards, I think because he was on
alert for that decoy. He I know, he dropped yea,
(19:17):
and my bow was fairly quiet, but he dropped me,
and I hit him in the spine, put him down,
threw another one in him, cut myself on the broad head,
reloading blood all over the place.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
That was awesome, and he didn't go anywhere.
Speaker 6 (19:30):
But I just I couldn't believe hauling in that decoy
like six hundred yards setting it up in the timber.
It sucked this deer in for sure. When he first
left the swamp, he was going off the property in
a different direction.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
It's one of those deals where I like your neighbor.
Let's say you guys had a shared lane, and they're like,
what the heck is Jared doing.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
He's bringing a decoy in.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
He's out of his saddle and he's bringing that thing
in the timber and it'll work for you. So I mean,
that's that's the funny thing of it, really interesting. So
I mean understanding you had multiple encounters to understand kind
of like the behavior of that deer, and like, hey man,
I think this is actually going to work. It wasn't
necessarily like a blind shot in the dark, but dude,
it worked.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
That's congratulations.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
That's a thank you, thank you.
Speaker 6 (20:14):
I ended up buying a decoy when I got home
that night, and it's on my you know, it's in
my truck ready for Iowa tomorrow.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
And I dropped my buddy's back off.
Speaker 6 (20:22):
But I guess, I mean, the open chimber in my
brain is kind of like a field, right right, They
can see forever, there's no cover. That's where you normally
would use a decoy, at least what I've seen, so
in my brain it made sense to try. Now, it's
a long hike and you got to haul this thing
all the way in on your back and everything else,
but uh, it ended up working, man and one exactly.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
I love that man.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Congratulations, So thank you. You know we talked here. You're
you're packing your bags and going from Michigan Iowa. That's
pretty darn awesome looking here in the future. And based
off of the activity you've been seeing, what is top
of mind? What is your strategy because obviously you're traveling there,
so you have a limited time to hopefully connect with
(21:08):
the buck. What is top of mind to make the
most out of your trip to Iowa. And this could
be relatable for anyone that's going from Pennsylvania to Ohio
or Alabama to Illinois.
Speaker 6 (21:20):
Yeah, great, great question. I've been thinking about that quite
a bit. You know, here in Michigan, things have been
hit or miss over the last couple of days. Yesterday
morning was great. Other than that, it's been a little
bit hit or miss. I think I know some of
the bucks are lockedown doors already. I've seen videos from
my buddies in Iowa Andy's out there right now and
(21:41):
he's not seeing a ton of movement.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
It's pretty slow.
Speaker 6 (21:45):
Our buddy Aaron's out there, so it's just about to
kick off.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
I believe out.
Speaker 6 (21:49):
There, and I'm sure different farms are different stuff going on,
right But my strategy is to get out there, cover
a ton of ground day one, day two, and really
find beat down scrapes, hot sign areas. I know this
is all typical stuff, but when you have a lot
of ground to cover and and there's no set stands,
(22:11):
there's no you know, real food plot.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
So I'm gonna go there and I'm gonna burn rubber
on the boots and the.
Speaker 6 (22:15):
Bike and get four or five spots set up, get
some cameras out, and then the weather looks to be
pretty good, so I'm gonna just can't see what happens.
You'll probably hunt long into the afternoon, if not all day,
and then obviously be out there for the eating.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Okay, So when you're when you're burning burning boot leather here,
are you going into thicker areas or is it more
edge exterior type? And I'm just kind of picturing what
the farm may look like in Iowa, but picturing there's
probably some thick draws or some thicker parts of the timber.
Are you going in there and looking around and poking around?
Is that your plan?
Speaker 4 (22:53):
Yeah, I'm going full aggressive.
Speaker 6 (22:54):
Yeah, Okay, I think if it was Michigan, i'd hold back,
but different pressure set up out there with a deer.
I'm going till I bump deer, till I see what
I want to see, and you know, hoping that the
mindset of that buck this time of year, I'll be
easily forgettable or at least partly forgettable for a little while,
so I can get back in there once I see
(23:15):
what I want to see.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Yes, some of those bucks are starting to have that
crazy look in their eye. I like, I've gotten some
videos and I'm like, oh, that dude is he's feeling it.
He's not as careful as maybe as what it would
have been two weeks ago. And so I think that's
a really great piece of advice for someone that doesn't
have an inventory or intel and don't really know where
to necessarily start, and you don't want to burn those days,
(23:38):
these like most precious days of the entire season. If
you're four hundred yards out of the game and you
just never know what's going to happen. So as far
as you know, looking for scrapes, looking for hot sign
looking for rubs, what's going to get you most excited
to be like, Okay, I have four sets on this
huge farm. I'm going to hang us at here. What
what's kind of your mental checklist?
Speaker 6 (23:58):
I think if I find a draw that is thick
at the top of the draw, like real thick, and
there's food maybe up top on a field, some crops
or something like that, and then I'll have, you know,
some scrapes around it or some real heavy trails I
go into it or come out of it, that's gonna
be what I'm looking for.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
That's gonna be excitement.
Speaker 6 (24:18):
I want to see dose and I want to see
their betting area, and it has to be thick, you know.
And I don't care where you are these these deer
like thick cover in daylight.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
So that's that's what I'm looking for.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
So you're are you ringing rattling Antler's decoys and grunk call?
Are you going the full trifecta hat trick bag of tricks?
Speaker 4 (24:39):
Yes, yes, sir, I'm begging the decoy. I'm a decoy guy.
Now I'm gonna try it.
Speaker 6 (24:45):
I don't know if I'll try it like first night
or anything, or don't know if i'll hunt first night,
but I'm gonna definitely bring that the antlers, the grunt tube.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
I haven't had a lot of luck with a can call,
but that's gonna be in.
Speaker 6 (24:55):
The pack, you know, and then obviously some snacks so
I can hang out for a while.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Yeah, that's I've been asking folks, because this is the
time when people are logging me most hours in a
tree stand. Do you have any tips of advice to
say mentally sharp or to pass the time, because realistically,
you got to be in the stand this time of
year to have a chance. But people can start making excuses.
I gotta get this done, and maybe you do or
maybe you don't, or my win, my wins. This not
(25:21):
quite right. I need to get down, and I think
a lot of times it's just like I want to
move because I'm bored and maybe I'm projecting here.
Speaker 6 (25:27):
No, I mean I love hearing this because I got
to get this out of my brain right like you can't.
You can't have that in your brain this time of year.
I'm going to have a thermost of coffee. I always
have a little thermost that I covered in you know,
camo tape.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
I always have that.
Speaker 6 (25:43):
I'm gonna have some crustable sandwiches, that's kind of my goal,
and some just simple stuff, right, and then yeah, that's
that's really Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
I'm playing on.
Speaker 6 (25:53):
H sitting long and just knowing that it's hours of
boredom interrupted by what thirty seconds, the whole reason you're there.
So yeah, I don't care if it's if it's raining,
I have a tree standing umbrella, you know whatever, and
rain gear, whatever it takes. I'm going solo. So it's
just me and the woods, and I'm gonna make it
(26:13):
happen and give it my all. So you take six
years to get this tag. Yeah, I sleep in, I'm
gonna feel whenever I sleep in, I feel really guilty.
So yeah, I'm not hopefully I won't do that.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
No, well, you're yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
I think the weather as far as for this period
of time, as of right now, the weather actually looks
probably the best it's been in the last few years.
Like we've had really hot spells or or mega wind
like it actually looks maybe like it's this might be
the best fifth through the twelfth we've had in probably
three or four years, and maybe maybe longer than that.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (26:46):
Yeah, I mean I'm looking at you know, lows in
the high thirties and forties in the morning, and then
highs of you know, mid fifties. A couple of days
it reaches like sixty one sixty two. I mean, I'm
I can't ask for more than that. I'm not going
to freeze and I'm not going to bake, so like
that's perfect.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
I remember in twenty three when I shot my eyewa deer,
it was like during this time period, it was like
seventy eight degrees when I left my truck. And so
for anyone that don't don't complain about the weather actually
having really awesome weather.
Speaker 6 (27:17):
Like you said, if it was hot and windy or
super rainy, I mean, that's the worst man, Like, it's
it's I'm just hopefully that doesn't change and I'll be
blessed if it stays how it is.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Well, so I we're going to close this out with
two different things here. First, one is a quick trivia question.
I've been torturing most guests. My question for you is
what year was there the most amount of deer shot
in the state of Michigan, highest total number A hargust
(27:52):
what year?
Speaker 6 (27:53):
I did not know the answer to that, but I'm
going to go back to I'm gonna go back to
like nineteen fifty.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
I got my little sheet.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Actually it's not nineteen fifty, it's actually nineteen ninety nine.
Oh wow, wow, it was five hundred and forty ninety
five deer that were shot. And then the highest gun
harvest was four hundred and twelve thousand, and the year
two thousand and then ninety nine was actually the highest
four archery. So little fun fact for everyone here. And
(28:24):
then my last question, is this on a scale one
to ten, ten being this is going to be the
best entire week all of twenty twenty five twenty twenty
six deer season is the ten one, It is the worst. Obviously,
we are probably in the week where there will be
the most amount of giant deer shot statistically.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
So where do you think this falls?
Speaker 6 (28:45):
After sting me on the last question, thanks for the layup,
I'm going I think I think you if you're not
this week, you have something that must be very important
to be doing. So that's that's it's a great week.
I mean the sixth, the seventh. Last time I was
in Iowa. I think I shot my buck on the seventh,
So yeah, I love it. Coming up, I know there's
(29:07):
some good stuff and later November two, but I'm normally
back in Michigan doing our traditional rifle camp thing with
the other ten million people you just mentioned.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
So yeah, it should be should be a great week.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Awesome, Jared, Well, congrat congratulations on your Michigan buck, and
good luck in Iowa. You're gonna be where everyone wants.
Everyone who's not in Iowa this week is going to
wish they were where you're at.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
So enjoy it. I know you're gonna have fun and
really appreciate it.
Speaker 6 (29:34):
Hey, I appreciate it, man. I'll take all the good
luck I can get. Thank you, and good luck yourself.
I know you're out there hitting at art, so put
one down and send me a picture.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
You got it, Jared, We'll see you.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
Thanks Jack.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
All right, Next up on the line, we have Chris.
How's it. How's it going right now?
Speaker 7 (29:49):
Feeling good man? Glad to be here, talk some white
tails and get the same rolling.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Absolutely, So what have you been seeing as far as activity.
I know, you just got back from all Ohio. What
was kind of the road activity here for the last
week of October.
Speaker 7 (30:07):
In Pennsylvania, it's been fairly slow, just because I think
of the a corn crop.
Speaker 8 (30:12):
There's a lot of food this year.
Speaker 7 (30:13):
So the late teens of October have been Uh, it
was real slow just because there was so much food
on the ground. Betting was sort of random, So movement
was real sporadic. To Ohio. It was starting to pick
up a little bit. I was seeing some bucks and
bucks were really picking up on scrapes. That was around
(30:35):
the twenty fifth.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
M And so you're back from Ohio. Are you primarily
hunting Ohio for the next you know, November.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Fifth through the twelfth.
Speaker 7 (30:46):
I actually for my next Ohio trip on the seventh.
So yeah, so okay, seventh through the eleventh, I will
be in Ohio.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
All right.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
So with with that in mind, you know, you have
some intel from your most recent trip in Ohio.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
You're going out there on the seventh.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
I think that's probably relatable to a lot of people
that are, you know, traveling for the next seven days
to try to make a move somewhat rapidly. What is
on your mental checklist when you get back to Ohio
to hunt, you know, the seventh through the twelfth for example.
Speaker 7 (31:20):
A lot of it's going to do with historical information
that I have and realizing that scrapes are starting.
Speaker 8 (31:26):
To lose their jujus.
Speaker 7 (31:28):
So we're going to be mainly focusing on dough groups
and terrain features connecting dough betting areas that I have
had success with in the past. So I mean those
those and terrain features are going to be your best friend.
I feel like in that section of the run.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
When you're going out there, I'm assuming it's big woods.
I'm also guessing it's public. Are you sitting in one
spot dark to dark? Are you, you know, having a
morning set kind of up high on the hill and
moving down lower in the evening or tbd?
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Or what?
Speaker 1 (32:01):
What advice do you have for someone that might be
in a similar boat.
Speaker 7 (32:04):
So I don't know if I have a preference as
far as elevation high or low. It's all a spot
dependent for me and what maybe I know about that area.
It's a lot of it's gonna be come back to
some first that I'm park gonna start low because it's
all going to revolve around days if I'm just being
short with it, so I don't I don't care if
the doors are betting higher, if the doors are betting low.
(32:25):
I just need to be in correlation with where the
doors are in that area. What was the second happier question?
Speaker 2 (32:35):
H and are you parking in one tree for the
entire day or are you moving? You know, bait, are you.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Moving kind of midday or moving around one o'clock to
go get to more of an evening spot. And you
know that's probably more prevalent in different parts of the country,
But don't big woods.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 7 (32:49):
Since I don't live there, I'm not as in the
moment as I am at home. So when I get there,
I'll have a game plan to start and then I'm
gonna move as needed. If I'm seeing dose now, even
if I haven't seen the buck yet and i'm seeing
those for sit or two, I might hang out because
I know the doors are there. There's always that chance.
But if I'm not seeing what I want to see it,
then I'm gonna keep moving. I'm going to try to
(33:11):
put myself in the action.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
And for someone you mentioned different train features, describe one
that's coming to mind here for this next week that
you're going to be hunting in Ohio.
Speaker 7 (33:24):
Secondary points, mom, ditches. I really like those. A lot
of the stuff that I like to look for is
like a low spots, secondary bridges and ditches that maybe
dip into private or that has you know, part of
that has ag maybe catch catching the dough groups coming
(33:46):
up from the private that bet on these points and stuff,
and then obviously the bucks are going to parallel those.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
M Yeah. Well, I mean you're right, listen.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
I think we could try to overcomplicate this time period,
but in reality, man, you got to the dos in
a tight pinch. It's kind of the magic sauce of this.
Let me let me run this scenario by you. It's
in the morning and you have a setup where you
get winded by some doughs at like eight o'clock in
the morning.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
What are you doing next?
Speaker 8 (34:15):
Oh, I don't care if they wouldn't be.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Okay.
Speaker 7 (34:19):
Yeah, you're just confident that where I'm sitting at, like,
even if my wind's bad, if I know I can
kill that buck before he hits my wind, I'm good
in my opinion. And a lot of times I've seen
where if a dough blows, a buck will come running
because that dough just to give up her position, because
a lot of times these does are actually trying to
hide from the bucks because they're getting pestered by you know, everything.
Speaker 8 (34:42):
So you can make you can make a wrong that's
and have a buck run.
Speaker 7 (34:47):
And I've done that where right before daylight, I'm walking
to the tree and I have a buck running at
me because he heard me from the ridge over.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Yeah, I mean, it's an exciting time of year.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
There was a one hundred earlier this week, and there
was it was a dough that was not ready to
be bred, and she was just running. She would run
in a real big thicket and the bucks would get
down whenever flush her back out, and then she would
run over to another thicket. And for people that, I
feel that you just got to be you got to
be present to win this time of year. You got
to find a good spot and ride it out. How
do you how do you mentally under or I guess
(35:28):
how do you mentally? Way you're in there, it's November
eighth and you're not seeing much activity.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
How much time are you going to give that spot
before you might move?
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Move?
Speaker 2 (35:36):
On to something else.
Speaker 7 (35:39):
Like I said, I think it's just going to depend
on the spot and like what I know about it.
Speaker 8 (35:43):
If it was a brand new spot.
Speaker 7 (35:46):
I might be more ought to be like, Okay, I'm
going to get down and at least look around.
Speaker 8 (35:51):
Maybe there's something.
Speaker 7 (35:52):
Here that I don't know that's here that I haven't
seen yet, and it would make me more up to
get back in the tree, you know, or just get
down scout find a new spot. Now, if I'm in
a spot where I'm like, yeah, I've had cameras here
for a couple of years and I know like this
is the pocket and I just need to be patient,
then I'll stay in the churney.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Mm hmm. And real quick.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
For people that want to know more about historical data,
what exactly is that? Is that based off of specific deer?
Is that based off of just general activity in that
area throughout this time period?
Speaker 8 (36:22):
Both, yeah, a lot of it. I try to just
pick apart just the daylight pictures of bucks.
Speaker 7 (36:29):
If I if I'm pulling cards and I got a
spot where there's a lot of a lot of nighttime activity,
that doesn't mean it's a bad spot, because eventually there's
bucks will slip through there in the daylight. But if
I find a spot where it's like, man, there was
five bucks in here in two days in daylight, Like
that's what I'm trying to find.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Yeah, yeah, do you have cameras in your backpack on
this trip where you're gonna go soak some more on
the fly?
Speaker 8 (36:56):
I think it's reverse.
Speaker 7 (36:58):
I've had the cameras out since February soaking, so it's
more like going there.
Speaker 8 (37:05):
If I can, you know.
Speaker 7 (37:06):
Past the camera before I get to my tree, I'll
pull the card and give me out.
Speaker 8 (37:10):
Give me something. Look at why I'm in the tree too?
In past time?
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Right?
Speaker 8 (37:16):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Do you have any tips for passing time in the
tree sinking? Cause a lot of people are logging the
most amount of hours in a tree for the next
seven days, and anyone that says it doesn't get a
little boring is lyne.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
So what what tips do you have to pass the time.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
While you're buying You're buying time for your buck to
show up, and you're like, man, I'm getting a little bored.
I'm getting a little sick of watching squirrels.
Speaker 7 (37:36):
I can't sit here and tell you I'm the most
patient person in the World magazine.
Speaker 8 (37:39):
I'm opposite. I'm so impatient to even funny, but I haven't.
Speaker 7 (37:44):
I mean, having food helps, I've been I haven't done
it yet, but I've been telling myself. I'm like, man,
I need to bring a book or like a magazine
or something for that like midday, cause it does get
kind of like blinding to stay at your phone too
long too and that drains your battery and then you're
frustrated later in the day. And so I would say,
just food, bring a book, you know, something like that.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Yeah, No, I would be lying if I said I've
never brought a book before for those like this time
period where you can at least listen and hear and
you know, maybe learn something too along the way, as
far as you know, like I feel like everyone's trying
to pull out the back of tricks right now. Are
you gonna have your grund call right only antlers?
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Are you going to use them? Tbd?
Speaker 7 (38:27):
Once again, I don't carry horns very often, but I'll
always have a ground call with me, and I try
to use this sparingly and for really certain situations like
if I'm in a dire you know, situation where a
buck is acting like he would come into one, but
he's getting away from me, then I'm probably gonna use it.
(38:48):
But other than that, I pretty much try to just
be a silent be a silent killer.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
I like it so looking here, you know, kind of
guessing on the weather a little bit scale one to ten,
ten being, this is going to be the best week
of the entire year, one being is going to be
the worst week of the year. Where do you put
your prediction for big Buck activity from November fifth to
November twelfth, the grand event.
Speaker 7 (39:12):
Here, I'll tell you what, man, I have had some
of the best hits I've ever had on November ten
And that's a year to year to hear, that's three years,
three years back to back to back for me, I've
had the best hits of the entire year on November.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Tenth, real quick, and then we'll let you go. What
did for last year? What was your setup for November tenth?
Like just to describe if some people can envision and
try to try to find something similar.
Speaker 7 (39:40):
I was the head of a ditch in between three
different but dobetting areas.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Yep, I love it. I love it. Well, Chris, good
luck in Ohio.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Good luck in Pennsylvania as well, and I really appreciate
it hopping on here today.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
This is the week we've been waiting for. Good luck.
Speaker 8 (39:55):
Yep, appreciate it, man, all right.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Next up on the line, we have Tom Alexander at
Land Magazine with Land dot Com.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Tom, how is it going down in Texas?
Speaker 5 (40:06):
Fantastic, especially in our area. So I'm really in southern Texas,
I would say, kind of what we consider to be
the Gulf Coast region. And oddly enough we hit our
hard rut down here through October. So it's been great
for the last four weeks.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Wonderful.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
Yeah, that's one of those things. Texas is huge and
people don't realize how big that state is. And you
have a couple different hunting areas throughout the state of Texas,
which I want to kind of get an.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Update throughout the region.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
But as I mentioned to you here a little bit ago,
I like torture the guests with a trivia question. And
so Texas, Texas is not a state that I at
least think of when it comes to the sheer amount
of white tails being shot. So out of the last
twenty five years for all time single season whitetail harvest
out of the top twenty five.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
How many times has it been Texas, I'd say every time.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
You're really close, it's twenty three out of the twenty five. Wow,
and two thousand. Wisconsin is ranked number thirteen, and then
at twenty five Michigan is five hundred and forty four thousand.
But the all time record in the entire country nine
hundred and eighteen thousand deer harvested in the state of
Texas in twenty seventeen. So there's a lot of hunters
(41:19):
and a lot of deer down there.
Speaker 8 (41:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (41:21):
I think we'll vary each year in between seven hundred
and fifty and a million.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
It's crazy and mule deer.
Speaker 5 (41:28):
Twenty three, twenty four thousand.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
Wow yeah wow.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
So we set the stage here. There's a lot of
deer that are gonna shot in the state of Texas
this fall. The rut is moving right along here in
the southern part of Texas. What's going on kind of
the general neck of the woods and for Texas from
the fifth to the twelfth, this is the time period
where a lot of people in the Midwest are, you know,
at peak excitement.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
What's your level of excitement here in Texas.
Speaker 5 (41:56):
It's always good because, like I said, we have so
many different regions, and it's a kind of a staggered event.
So you would say what I consider to be the
Gulf Coast region, so Gulf of America from the shoreline,
Galveston area, whatever, along that stretch of the coast inland,
say ninety or one hundred miles, and then going from
(42:17):
East Texas all the way down to South Texas, with
the exception of the far southern tip.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
But that is all October.
Speaker 5 (42:24):
So you know, if you plant an outright, you can
be during bow season. You can be in the rut
right there through that area. It's kind of odd we
actually manage to place south of Houston here in October.
The rut was just as hard as it could go,
and it's ninety five degrees outside, so we were out
shooting colder. My son shot two bucks one evening and
(42:47):
I remember field dressing them and it was ninety five degrees.
So they're just kind of strange, and they're out the
middle of the day hot as can be in their
running dos.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
Wait a while.
Speaker 5 (42:56):
So that's October, and then when you go into November
you start hitting what we consider to be far East
Texas and central Texas. So in reality, if you drew
a line, you know, halfway up the state of Texas
from east to west right, so just right through the middle.
(43:17):
Everything from that line north is November. And so if
you're in the hill country, which is where a lot
of people have recreational properties and they're hunting, it really
kind of it ties in the peak of the rut,
i'd say.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Is right before Thanksgiving.
Speaker 5 (43:32):
So it's always a great time if you have property
up there, you're enjoying it, you might be spending Thanksgiving,
and it's a great time to hunt. And then we
roll into what we consider to be South Texas, the
brush country, and you know, that's just all I guess
you'd say everything south of that line, with the exception
of what's on the coast, and that's where the biggest
deer in Texas are killed. That's the majority of the
(43:55):
high fence places, and the peak of the rut there
is seems to be always right around Christmas. So I
know I have several friends that literally on Christmas Day,
after they celebrate Christmas, they have Christmas dinner, right and
as soon as that's over, everybody gets in the truck
and goes down to the deer leaser to the ranch,
(44:15):
and then they'll hunt through the end of January I'm sorry,
through the holiday season January second or third man.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
That's a lot of that's a lot of opportunity to
chase rinting bucks a huge, huge window. That's that's actually
really incredible. I didn't realize. I didn't realize that that's
really neat.
Speaker 5 (44:33):
Yeah, you time it right, you know, you can get
the rut through each one of those through all three months.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Yeah, it's like following the waterfowl migration. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
So for folks that are maybe in Texas or maybe Oklahoma,
and I understand that's just a ginormous region what I
just described. But for the next five days or next
seven days, what are some things that you're personally keen
in on if you're going to be out in the standar,
out in the blind, chasing deer when the majority of
large bucks are shot, you know, over the next seven days.
Speaker 5 (45:05):
You know, we're running cameras right now, and we do
a lot of feeding, so we try to stay off
for where we are down here, we try to stay
off of hunting the actual feeders and we're running protein,
so we'll corn the roads and just based and we
have certain stands set up for wind, and we just
corn the roads and if we can get some good
deer coming in. You know, it seems like most of
(45:27):
the big mature bucks there, you know, they've already kind
of gone through their cycle. They've had their dose pinned
down whatever it is, and done that first cycle. So
now they're out cruising, so you'll catch them just kind
of checking the wind and running up and down the
roads and just looking there. They probably lost I don't know,
(45:47):
fifteen percent of their body weight, so they've gone from
these big, just lumbering, older bucks and now they're they're
looking pretty fit, looking good, So kind of makes it
difficult when you're trying to judge an age class. But
now is the time to be killing what we consider
the five and a half six and six and a
half year old deer.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Mm hmm. Yeah, that's that's super exciting.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
And it is crazy how how much the white tail
buck changes, you know, from summer to the end of
the rut. It actually is sometimes it can be unrecognizable
by the end of the season.
Speaker 5 (46:19):
Yeah, Yeah, it's it's really neat to watch and when
you see like you know, we're after certain management bucks
and we might wait a little while for we're going
to shoot them, but you see him at one minute
or at the beginning of October, and like I said,
they're twenty percent heavier, and they just look like these
big lumbering almost like you know, a cow. They're just
they're they're they're ready, you know. And then now they're
(46:42):
just worn down and and very fit looking.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
So it's fun, good time.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
What is your your favorite part over the next seven
days for this time of year. Is it the anticipation
of anything that could happen? Is it bringing out the
rat on alers and smashing them? I mean, what has
you most excited over the next seven days.
Speaker 6 (47:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (47:02):
Absolutely, you know, so get in an area where you
know some good deer coming in, you know, hopefully a
lot of dose. One of the problems we have here
is with hogs, because there are thousands of pigs I
think so far this year this year we probably killed
two hundred in havn't even put a dent in them.
So if you're corning a road, a lot of times
you'll have the deer come out and they start getting
(47:22):
nervous and then a pack of thirty hogs will come out,
so you try to shoot those and get them spooked
out of that area, and then the deer will start
coming back in. But right now, yeah, it's you know,
we've got an MLD permit, so we can shoot with
the gun in October. But me and my buddy we
both shoot traditional archery, so recurves long bows, and so
(47:44):
a lot of our shots are ten or fifteen yards
and that's the way we've got all of our stands
set up right now, so we're after some target bucks.
He was in a stand last night and actually tested me,
texted me, I'm sitting here at my desk and I
hear this, you know, crap, crap, crap. He had two
dos that came in and the butt circle around down
(48:04):
one of him, and it was a nice big six
and a half year old eight point that he was
after and bound it off. You know, but that would
have been a good season kill for him.
Speaker 1 (48:14):
So you hunt with traditional archery equipment, which takes more preparation,
more focus than any other form of archery hunting, and
the moment of truth. A lot of people this week
are going to be full draw on a deer they've
been dreaming of for the last eleven and a half
months and the moment of truth. What do people need
(48:35):
to be thinking about? Is this deer's coming in to
execute a great shot. And with traditional archery equipment, I
think it's even more even more focus.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
Yeah, well do what I say. Not what I do.
Speaker 5 (48:46):
Is with traditional archery, you know, there's target paintings. So
if you're watching that deer, naturally you're going to pull back,
and it's something about a longbow or a recurve that
you're holding that full tension, and everything in your brain
just starts screaming at you. Let go, let go, because
you're looking at that deer. And if you do aim,
it's you know, if you're shooting at a three D target,
(49:08):
you will naturally aim low and it's okay to put
that tip down low below the arrow. But if that
deer is there at ten yards and you've been practicing
at twenty yards and holding just under the deer, it
just seems like every time that deer walks out at
ten yards and you put the tip of the arrow
right on him and you shoot over him or he ducks,
you know. So I think the most important thing is
(49:33):
just wait for a minute. When that deer comes in.
You always want to take that first best shot, but
usually you're going to have time, especially if you've got
corn out, So make sure you pick your spot, take
your time, draw back anchor get completely ready, and then
you know, like Joel Turner teaches, go through your process
(49:55):
and make that decision once you're on and your aim
make that decision of My next job is to release
this exactly the way that I practice. So if you
can go through that, then you're gonna do fine. I'm
really good at doing that. On hogs, terrible on.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
Deer A half is the very best of us. That's
what I break it up. That's what it's fun.
Speaker 8 (50:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:20):
Absolutely, So you have to speak for the whole state
of Texas, second largest land mass in the United States,
over the next seven days on a scale one to ten,
ten being this might be the best week of the
year in the state of Texas for this season, and
number one being this might be one of the worst
weeks of the entire year. On a scale one to ten,
Where do you put this upcoming seven days for the
(50:40):
state of Texas for your report, I'd.
Speaker 5 (50:46):
Say really good, we've had a coal front come through,
so it really makes a difference here. Last night, after
going I went out, went to the gym, then went
to the grocery store and it's sixty five degrees outside,
and there's people walking around and down jackets and their
nit caps on with a little ball on top. And
that's normal at sixty five degrees here, So we just
don't get that cold. So this front is blown through,
(51:08):
it's been really pleasant outside. So right now in our area,
it should be outstanding over the next week and then
it's just going to roll as the weather goes and
the moon face and all that, depending upon the area
that you're in. But for here, right now, in our
area hunting the rut, the tail end of the rut,
this next week should be really good, wonderful.
Speaker 2 (51:30):
Well, Tom, good luck. I hope you have a great
rest of your season.
Speaker 1 (51:33):
I appreciate you hopping on here and educating everyone about
the state of Texas because there's a lot to learn here.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
Right all right, thanks Jake, All.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
Right, there, you guys have it. I hope you guys
enjoy this week. This is the week we've been waiting
for all year. It's the week we're gonna be waiting
for fifty one weeks again, So get out there, enjoy it,
Enjoy all the moments. Remind yourself of some of the
advice here that the guests have provided, and get out
there and enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (51:57):
That is it. We will see you next week on
rough fresh good luck.
All right, everyone, welcome back to Retfresh. This is this
is the peak excitement for this whole entire season for
Rough Fresh. In my opinion, this is the November fifth
through November twelfth episode. This is the week when everyone
schedules their vacation. This is when people are doing all
days since this is when some potential chaos that can
bounce in your favor or in the other direction. And
(00:21):
so my challenge for you guys this week is to
go back and reflect on last year and maybe you
made a mistake, Maybe you didn't grind through this time
period enough, maybe you gave up a little early, maybe
you came up with the excuses, or maybe everything came
back together perfectly and you didn't overthink it. And so
I think this week the challenge is to realize the
only thing you need to beat is yourself and your
(00:43):
own thought process to have success this week. And that
might be different for everyone. Maybe you're waiting on a
specific deer to show up, or maybe you have some
family or friends that are in from the area and
you want to make sure you are a good host
or a good friend or a good family member and
encourage people and have a great time this is the
week we've been waiting for all year. Once this week
is gone, we're gonna be waiting for it next year.
We're gonna be waiting for fifty one weeks later from today.
(01:06):
So we have a lot of really great guests this week.
We have Grant Watson, who shot a really big deer
in Iowa. We have Chris West from Pennsylvania who's headed
to Ohio who's been bounced around from both of those states.
We have Jared Vanheast who tagged a Michigan buck. We
have Tom Alexander all the way down from Texas. So
that's what we have this week. As you know, Roughresh
(01:26):
is brought to you by land dot com, the leading
online real estate marketplace to find your perfect rule recreational, agricultural,
or hunting properties here in the US. Let's kick things
off with Grant Watson. Here we go. Good luck this week,
have fun, and enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
All right.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
First up on the line, we have Grant Watson. Man,
you just killed hammer in Iowa. How does it feel?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Well, it's a town bittersweet because part of me is
glad to be done and I don't have the anxiety
of a tag in my pocket and watching everyone else
shoot deer. But then the other part of me is like, well,
I don't really want to be done yet. I do
have a landowner's tag, but I don't have a deer
that I would consider a trophy out there, just a
couple of call bucks. So I'm kind of out of
the game, but not totally. Well, it's pretty exciting.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
You're out of the game for good reason, because you
just you just smoked in upper seventies and that's that
is awesome. So I've been torturing all of our guests
with a quick trivia question. So I've already had an
Iowall guess previously, so your question might be a little
bit harder, and I doubt anyone would get this right.
But according to recent data, what is the population of
deer white tailed deer in the state of Iowa?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Really hard? Just take a guess? Do that?
Speaker 4 (02:44):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
I wouldn't even have a guess. You got a guess,
like the entire state? How many deer here? Yeah, it's
got to be over it's got to be over like
a million, two hundred and ninety thousand. That was way
off two and ninety thousand. While I figured there would
be close to a million, but I don't know. Well
(03:07):
that's not that that's less than I thought.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
That is that Well in the craziest thing is the
highest gun harvest ever was two thousand and five with
one hundred and seventy seven thousand. Oh so, like there's
obviously some ebb and flow of deer population in the
state of Iowa. But anyways, tell me about your setup
on how you can when, when did you kill this
deer and how did it come together?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
So, uh went out been kind of hunting on the
fringes of this area. It wasn't my main target. I
have another deer there that I have, you know, four
sheds too. He's a smaller deer, but the history is
a big important to me. But there was this other
deer that I call Spud. So there's Stickers, the one
that was mainly after the Spud, and I knew that
(03:48):
if Spud walked by, I was going to shoot him
because just being in his power. There's two big shooter bucks.
So last week stuff was kind of ramping up. I
kind of started buck hunting around the twenty fifth. It
seems like every year I always have like a giant
on camera the twenty fifth through like the twenty ninth.
It seems like every big deer I'm following, they'll be
(04:10):
on their feet during that time period. So Monday I
went out there. I hit a south wind and I
don't have a stand set up for a south wind,
so I actually sat on the ground and I had
this deer going back to bed and so I was like, okay,
I have a fifty to fifty shot of where I
have to be. And I went to go slip up
and I was gonna sit on a like a this
(04:30):
farmer aisle, a row of dirt, and I was gonna
sit on this dirt pile. Well, there was a dough
font feeding in the stubble. So I just stayed back,
and I stayed in the cedar tree. I just stood
against a cedar tree and cut a little hole into it.
And this year ended up standing up at one hundred
yards away. And then he went straight into the bedding
area where I have a stand in there. But I
(04:51):
couldn't hunt that, and I was waiting for the right
time to go in there. So I filmed him Monday night.
Thursday night, I went out. I actually saw stickers or
I went out Thursday morning, saw stickers would have shot him,
but a dough was just barely on the edge of
my wind, and my wind was cutting, you know, my
thermals could have been sucking towards the river, and she
(05:14):
was just right on that line. And if she wouldn't
boogered me, I would have shot him. But it was
fast forward. Saturday. I ended up going out Sat all
day kind of was raining, but the sun was supposed
to come out in the afternoon, and I figured once
that happened, you know, my odds of seeing either one
of those deer would go up. And at five point
(05:35):
twenty I looked over and I passed a nice buck
in the day earlier twice and I had a forecorn
chasing this dough around, like well, she might be in
like estrus. And so the bigger buck came around and
I passed him. And then at five twenty I saw
Spud and he was by this watering hole in the
bedding area and he did a big old snort wheeze,
(05:56):
And I'm just down wind this betting area on a
tight pinch, so like less likely for stuff to get
behind me. And he was at fifty yards and I
was like, well, I'm not gonna I'm not a believer
in shooting the deer of fifty yards because I get excited.
So he snore, Whez ran this other buck off, and
I said, it's meant to be. You know, he'll he'll
(06:17):
hook back around. And I texted my dad. You know,
my dad had a bad stroke last year, so that's
really the the highlight of the whole thing is to
have him in town. So he flew into town. So anyways,
I text my dad said, man, I just saw Spud.
You know, I think he's going to loop back around.
And at six to twenty, here he comes. He looked
back around and he took a sharp turn north and
I was just about to hit him with my grunt
(06:37):
tube and it was the extinguisher, but I did it.
I had it to my mouth and I just wanted to.
I wanted to see what he was going to do.
Five more steps and he hooked back hard. He came
and he worked a pinoak scrape right in front of
my tree. And I'm standing and facing the tree. At
this point, I said, Okay, if he goes right, he's
den If he goes left, he's dead. And he comes
(06:58):
in he hooks right around the tree. I drew back
and stopped him at fifteen yards and I smoked him,
and then from there, I you know, I hadn't tracked
a deer with my dad since twenty sixteen. So I
went and I left. I slipped back from my waiters
and walked out through the river, so I had really
good access and I waited for my dad to arrive
(07:19):
and we were able to recover him. So it was
my second best buck to date. My biggest buck is
actually the second buck on the wall back there. He's
one eighty two spud went. I taped him out one
seventy seven and seven eight, So I was pretty excited.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
But yeah, dude, that that's amazing. I think there's a
lot of key lessons in there. Patience is a really
big one. Another one too, where it's like people, you know,
their brain short circuits and they're like, oh, he's fifty
yards is my only chance?
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Is my only chance?
Speaker 1 (07:46):
I just got to try to squeeze it through or
try to make this long shot that I'm probably not
fully capable of like most people, and your patient trusted
the plan, and dude, that is that is awesome. Man,
that's that's what we all dream about. That is awesome.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Yeah. Yeah, I've hung the stands back in July, you know,
specifically for stickers, but I didn't know that this year
was going to blow up the way he did, and
so I kind of played down the fringe. And yeah,
I mean it's it was November first, Like, I don't
need to be launching an arrow at a deer. And
you know how it is, just as well as probably
(08:21):
any other listener on this podcast. If you get a
deer to you know, four or five six years old,
and you shoot him, you make a marginal shot. You
might not kill them initially, but then infection kills him. Well,
it takes three four more years to get a deer
like that to fill that shoes, especially the genetics you know,
that is going to break that bit and Crockett score.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
So yeah, no, I think that's that's very timely, very
timely advice for everyone to not force it. And a
lot of times, you know this pretend you're watching a
two year old or a three year old, and it's
like a lot of times they come back, you know,
an hour later, forty minutes later, they loop back around,
and it's like, okay, well, I'm really glad I didn't
take a really crappy because you know, you end up
getting the opportunity.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
So I think that's very timely.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Advice for everyone because we all want it to happen
so bad, right, That's why we're that's why we're out there,
That's why you set up in July. So now that
is that is awesome and what an incredible experience. Now
looking from the fifth of the twelfth, this is this
is going to this is like big buck carnage.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Man.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
The amount of big gear that hit the dirt during
this week is in the Midwest and probably most of
the country, Like, this is the week we all have
been waiting for. What's what what is top of mind
for you right now to like, for anyone listening that
you know didn't kill one on November. First of what
would you be focusing on? And what are you focusing on?
Because you have Landlanders tag still.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Yeah, so if I if I had my state wide
tag in the pocket, I would still be kind of
close to the betting areas are at pinch it seems like.
And I'm not trying to be an expert because I'm
I'm just learning, so sure, but like this a pointer
behind me right here. I've shot him on November seven
into twenty twenty one, and he was locked on a
(10:02):
dough on November fourth, And right now I think my
bigger deer locked on a dough because I haven't seen them,
and typically it seems like they're moving on their feet
a little bit more, but this year seems like maybe
they found that first dough already. So right now i'd
be kind of, you know, I wouldn't give up about
your target deer, like it's probably not dead. I'd be
(10:23):
in tight to the betting. I'd be willing to kind
of risk the wind a little bit more. And all
day sits. I mean, if you can get off work,
and if you can't get off work, like just you
got to get out there as soon as you can.
It can still happen in last thirty minutes of daylight.
But once he breaks from that dough, he's going to
be on his feet looking for another one, and you
should probably try to be there something. So I just
(10:46):
kind of play that. I don't have a lot of
luck past the eighth, like the eighth through the the eleventh,
but come the eleventh through the eighteenth, I have way
more luck because it seems like they're running a lot more. Yeah,
I just kind of play down the down wind of
dough betting or really big pinch points in the cover
I hunt. I mean, I'm just hunting a pinch because
(11:09):
the deer can kind of bed just about anywhere and
end up. But I gotta try to be in that
one spot and using historical data. The biggest thing I
think where guys make mistakes is I have a deer
over here that I would shoot, and I have a
deer over here I would shoot. And you might want
to shoot deer A more than B, but B might
be daylighting and deer A might not be killable on
(11:32):
the farm that you're hunting. So I used to catch
myself and I still do bouncing back and forth between farms.
Now is the time to just kind of pick one
and go with it. But if you have a cell
camera showing you, hey, this year is daylight right now,
I would not be afraid to get out of my tree,
go to that farm and get in that tree and
(11:52):
just give it a shot. Yeah, because if there's a
hot dough under your tree, you're probably gonna whack her
in at night time. I mean, if you have rgular cameras,
you can go check regular cameras, like the time sensitive
information is right now.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Yeah, no, I think it's easy to get scatter brain.
It's it's uh. The only time I wish there was
two of me is this week right now, where it's like, dude,
I wish I could be in due spots at once.
So that's really good advice. Now, all day sits they're
a grind. Anyone that says they're not a grind is line.
What advice do you have for someone that's like, Okay,
(12:28):
I've heard this all day sits. Everyone says, you just
got to be in a tree. I have work off.
How do you how do you make the day go
by without pitting your head against the tree?
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Go I'm bored?
Speaker 3 (12:39):
Yeah, well it's funny because Saturday was really boring. But
I knew that I knew that I was so close
to the betting area, like something because could happen, like
you never know it could it could happen to get
the moment you used to tell yourself that I always packed,
you know, my lunch, and usually I like took a
roll of Star Wars with me, like eat a Starbust
(13:01):
or something I watch the like the White Tailed Cribs.
Speaker 5 (13:04):
I throw in my ear pods.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
If I'm like really bored. But you gotta stay alert
because if a those come running by, yeah, well you
better be ready and not messing around. But I don't know,
I mean I think all day sits are grind for sure,
but you got to kind of remove the pressures. Hey,
there's no pressure to actually fill my tag like I mean, yeah,
(13:28):
we all want to fill our tag, but really just
being out there and enjoying nature. I mean, it's got
to stay mentally tough through it. Don't get discouraged when
other people are shooting deer or thinking, hey, the rut's
not going on, because it could switch in a blink
of eye and you just have to be there to
capitalize on it.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Yeah, you can go from having the worst season ever
to the best season ever in a matter of ten seconds.
I mean that's the magic of this time of year.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yeah awesome.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah, on a scale one to ten, ten being this
might be the best week of the entire year, one
being it's gonna be the worst. Where does this fall
November fifth to the twelfth.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
I don't know. On my spots I hunt out West.
I actually like about the the eleventh through the eighteenth,
but I would say it's probably got to be as
close to a nine. I mean, my cameras are rolling.
It also helps this year I have a lot more
shooter deer on trail camera. So yeah, I mean, if
(14:24):
I if I had another state wide tag, I'd be
locked into a tree all day right now, because I
think it's gonna happen, especially about this weekend. I mean,
we have cooler temperatures this year, at least in Iowa
then years past where some years I've been hunting and
it's like seventy degrees November fifth, and that sucks. So
I think I think this is going to be a
(14:45):
big week. A lot of big deer are going to
hit the ground between now and Sunday, and then I
think there will be another way of them.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Love it, love it well.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Congratulations once again, Grant, good luck the rest of the season.
Really appreciate it. Awesome that your dad is able to
be there with the recovery. I know that's really special
for you and him and so Di congratulations once again.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Awesome, Thank you, Jake.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
All Right, we have shared with the Habitat podcast who
recently shot a Michigan buck.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
How's it feel, man, Oh.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
Buddy, it feels great.
Speaker 6 (15:15):
It feels great to have a tag notched and you know,
shake the rust off if you will, So thank you.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
It's awesome.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yeah, man, No, that's super exciting.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
And so in Michigan, was this off of I know
you hunt kind of the full spectrum of the state.
Was this way up north or was this more further south?
Speaker 6 (15:33):
It's closer to home. Okay, Yeah, so southeast part of
the state.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Wonderful, wonderful. And so I know you were using a decoy.
I've never been I've never been brave enough to use one.
So go ahead and convince me and everyone else while
we need to use a decoy, and how it worked.
Speaker 6 (15:49):
Well, I haven't been brave enough either until this time.
I might have used one once in Iowa for the
heck of it, six years ago. But I've been hunting
this this farm, a really nice eight point out there,
and Thursday Friday last week, I.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
Believe it was. I had him at.
Speaker 6 (16:09):
Forty fifty yards twice. Super aggressive deer, he's running off
other deer. He's a man in the area.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
Put it that way.
Speaker 6 (16:17):
So knowing that I grun him in, he come in
and he wouldn't see any deer. It's very mature timber.
It's not my farm. If it was my farm, the
timber it I'll be cut right. So it's very mature timber.
And he can see so he's Caesar's no deer. And
he does this to me twice. So then we had
a Halloween camping weekend with the kids, and so I
(16:39):
get back in there Sunday night and I was talking
to my buddy and I'm like, God, I got.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
To think, I have to use a decoy. Can I
borrow your decoy?
Speaker 6 (16:45):
Because if he if he if I grunt at him
and he comes in and there's no deer there. He's
he's wise to this. So I thought a decoy in
the timber. That sounds insane, you know. And plus I
have all my saddle gear on my back and picking
a new tree and going in deeper than I was before,
kind of trying to get just downwind of where he
(17:06):
walks out of the swamp. I set up, I get
up a tree and it's just quiet. There's no wind,
it's a little warmer, nothing's going on, even the doors
weren't moving very well, and so I tickle the horns
a little bit again Michigan. I don't do this a lot,
but this guy's aggressive and I've seen him be aggressive,
(17:28):
so I'm going to be aggressive.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
And then I tickle the horns.
Speaker 6 (17:41):
About fifteen minutes later, I look off to my right,
which is my weak side in the settle, right handed,
and this buck steps out. They said, it's a nice
nine point. He's coming kind of above me on this
ridge and starting to get downwind. Well, I had the
deco aut and find of me, like you're supposed to
do apparently, and I have him circle down wind, which
(18:03):
would be in front of me. He's going down win
behind me too, so I had you know that the
time is ticking. But what was so cool about it
all he was doing. He's just locked on that decoy,
I mean, stopped and stared for you know, probably five minutes.
I'm getting twisted around in the saddle with my weak side,
starting to choke myself on the on the.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
Teather, you know.
Speaker 6 (18:27):
And then he starts coming in down wind. But as
he's doing that, he's coming closer and closer and closer
to the decoy.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
He's pulling it to this decoy, and again.
Speaker 6 (18:36):
He just stop and stare, stop and stare. So every
time he stop, I would turn a little more get ready,
and I ended up being a point to where I
couldn't turn anymore with my my teather, and he was
at twenty one yards and I drew back right when
he crossed behind this tree and again just staring at
the decoy, and I'm like, oh my gosh, like I'm
(18:57):
between him and my tree at this point so he
can look up. And yeah, and he had no interest
in what I was doing anything about it. Laser focus,
laser focus, which is kind of the message I'm trying
to get across here. And yeah, I ended up shooting
him at twenty yards, I think because he was on
alert for that decoy. He I know, he dropped yea,
(19:17):
and my bow was fairly quiet, but he dropped me,
and I hit him in the spine, put him down,
threw another one in him, cut myself on the broad head,
reloading blood all over the place.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
That was awesome, and he didn't go anywhere.
Speaker 6 (19:30):
But I just I couldn't believe hauling in that decoy
like six hundred yards setting it up in the timber.
It sucked this deer in for sure. When he first
left the swamp, he was going off the property in
a different direction.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
It's one of those deals where I like your neighbor.
Let's say you guys had a shared lane, and they're like,
what the heck is Jared doing.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
He's bringing a decoy in.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
He's out of his saddle and he's bringing that thing
in the timber and it'll work for you. So I mean,
that's that's the funny thing of it, really interesting. So
I mean understanding you had multiple encounters to understand kind
of like the behavior of that deer, and like, hey man,
I think this is actually going to work. It wasn't
necessarily like a blind shot in the dark, but dude,
it worked.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
That's congratulations.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
That's a thank you, thank you.
Speaker 6 (20:14):
I ended up buying a decoy when I got home
that night, and it's on my you know, it's in
my truck ready for Iowa tomorrow.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
And I dropped my buddy's back off.
Speaker 6 (20:22):
But I guess, I mean, the open chimber in my
brain is kind of like a field, right right, They
can see forever, there's no cover. That's where you normally
would use a decoy, at least what I've seen, so
in my brain it made sense to try. Now, it's
a long hike and you got to haul this thing
all the way in on your back and everything else,
but uh, it ended up working, man and one exactly.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
I love that man.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Congratulations, So thank you. You know we talked here. You're
you're packing your bags and going from Michigan Iowa. That's
pretty darn awesome looking here in the future. And based
off of the activity you've been seeing, what is top
of mind? What is your strategy because obviously you're traveling there,
so you have a limited time to hopefully connect with
(21:08):
the buck. What is top of mind to make the
most out of your trip to Iowa. And this could
be relatable for anyone that's going from Pennsylvania to Ohio
or Alabama to Illinois.
Speaker 6 (21:20):
Yeah, great, great question. I've been thinking about that quite
a bit. You know, here in Michigan, things have been
hit or miss over the last couple of days. Yesterday
morning was great. Other than that, it's been a little
bit hit or miss. I think I know some of
the bucks are lockedown doors already. I've seen videos from
my buddies in Iowa Andy's out there right now and
(21:41):
he's not seeing a ton of movement.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
It's pretty slow.
Speaker 6 (21:45):
Our buddy Aaron's out there, so it's just about to
kick off.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
I believe out.
Speaker 6 (21:49):
There, and I'm sure different farms are different stuff going on,
right But my strategy is to get out there, cover
a ton of ground day one, day two, and really
find beat down scrapes, hot sign areas. I know this
is all typical stuff, but when you have a lot
of ground to cover and and there's no set stands,
(22:11):
there's no you know, real food plot.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
So I'm gonna go there and I'm gonna burn rubber
on the boots and the.
Speaker 6 (22:15):
Bike and get four or five spots set up, get
some cameras out, and then the weather looks to be
pretty good, so I'm gonna just can't see what happens.
You'll probably hunt long into the afternoon, if not all day,
and then obviously be out there for the eating.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Okay, So when you're when you're burning burning boot leather here,
are you going into thicker areas or is it more
edge exterior type? And I'm just kind of picturing what
the farm may look like in Iowa, but picturing there's
probably some thick draws or some thicker parts of the timber.
Are you going in there and looking around and poking around?
Is that your plan?
Speaker 4 (22:53):
Yeah, I'm going full aggressive.
Speaker 6 (22:54):
Yeah, Okay, I think if it was Michigan, i'd hold back,
but different pressure set up out there with a deer.
I'm going till I bump deer, till I see what
I want to see, and you know, hoping that the
mindset of that buck this time of year, I'll be
easily forgettable or at least partly forgettable for a little while,
so I can get back in there once I see
(23:15):
what I want to see.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Yes, some of those bucks are starting to have that
crazy look in their eye. I like, I've gotten some
videos and I'm like, oh, that dude is he's feeling it.
He's not as careful as maybe as what it would
have been two weeks ago. And so I think that's
a really great piece of advice for someone that doesn't
have an inventory or intel and don't really know where
to necessarily start, and you don't want to burn those days,
(23:38):
these like most precious days of the entire season. If
you're four hundred yards out of the game and you
just never know what's going to happen. So as far
as you know, looking for scrapes, looking for hot sign
looking for rubs, what's going to get you most excited
to be like, Okay, I have four sets on this
huge farm. I'm going to hang us at here. What
what's kind of your mental checklist?
Speaker 6 (23:58):
I think if I find a draw that is thick
at the top of the draw, like real thick, and
there's food maybe up top on a field, some crops
or something like that, and then I'll have, you know,
some scrapes around it or some real heavy trails I
go into it or come out of it, that's gonna
be what I'm looking for.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
That's gonna be excitement.
Speaker 6 (24:18):
I want to see dose and I want to see
their betting area, and it has to be thick, you know.
And I don't care where you are these these deer
like thick cover in daylight.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
So that's that's what I'm looking for.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
So you're are you ringing rattling Antler's decoys and grunk call?
Are you going the full trifecta hat trick bag of tricks?
Speaker 4 (24:39):
Yes, yes, sir, I'm begging the decoy. I'm a decoy guy.
Now I'm gonna try it.
Speaker 6 (24:45):
I don't know if I'll try it like first night
or anything, or don't know if i'll hunt first night,
but I'm gonna definitely bring that the antlers, the grunt tube.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
I haven't had a lot of luck with a can call,
but that's gonna be in.
Speaker 6 (24:55):
The pack, you know, and then obviously some snacks so
I can hang out for a while.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Yeah, that's I've been asking folks, because this is the
time when people are logging me most hours in a
tree stand. Do you have any tips of advice to
say mentally sharp or to pass the time, because realistically,
you got to be in the stand this time of
year to have a chance. But people can start making excuses.
I gotta get this done, and maybe you do or
maybe you don't, or my win, my wins. This not
(25:21):
quite right. I need to get down, and I think
a lot of times it's just like I want to
move because I'm bored and maybe I'm projecting here.
Speaker 6 (25:27):
No, I mean I love hearing this because I got
to get this out of my brain right like you can't.
You can't have that in your brain this time of year.
I'm going to have a thermost of coffee. I always
have a little thermost that I covered in you know,
camo tape.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
I always have that.
Speaker 6 (25:43):
I'm gonna have some crustable sandwiches, that's kind of my goal,
and some just simple stuff, right, and then yeah, that's
that's really Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
I'm playing on.
Speaker 6 (25:53):
H sitting long and just knowing that it's hours of
boredom interrupted by what thirty seconds, the whole reason you're there.
So yeah, I don't care if it's if it's raining,
I have a tree standing umbrella, you know whatever, and
rain gear, whatever it takes. I'm going solo. So it's
just me and the woods, and I'm gonna make it
(26:13):
happen and give it my all. So you take six
years to get this tag. Yeah, I sleep in, I'm
gonna feel whenever I sleep in, I feel really guilty.
So yeah, I'm not hopefully I won't do that.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
No, well, you're yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
I think the weather as far as for this period
of time, as of right now, the weather actually looks
probably the best it's been in the last few years.
Like we've had really hot spells or or mega wind
like it actually looks maybe like it's this might be
the best fifth through the twelfth we've had in probably
three or four years, and maybe maybe longer than that.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (26:46):
Yeah, I mean I'm looking at you know, lows in
the high thirties and forties in the morning, and then
highs of you know, mid fifties. A couple of days
it reaches like sixty one sixty two. I mean, I'm
I can't ask for more than that. I'm not going
to freeze and I'm not going to bake, so like
that's perfect.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
I remember in twenty three when I shot my eyewa deer,
it was like during this time period, it was like
seventy eight degrees when I left my truck. And so
for anyone that don't don't complain about the weather actually
having really awesome weather.
Speaker 6 (27:17):
Like you said, if it was hot and windy or
super rainy, I mean, that's the worst man, Like, it's
it's I'm just hopefully that doesn't change and I'll be
blessed if it stays how it is.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Well, so I we're going to close this out with
two different things here. First, one is a quick trivia question.
I've been torturing most guests. My question for you is
what year was there the most amount of deer shot
in the state of Michigan, highest total number A hargust
(27:52):
what year?
Speaker 6 (27:53):
I did not know the answer to that, but I'm
going to go back to I'm gonna go back to
like nineteen fifty.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
I got my little sheet.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Actually it's not nineteen fifty, it's actually nineteen ninety nine.
Oh wow, wow, it was five hundred and forty ninety
five deer that were shot. And then the highest gun
harvest was four hundred and twelve thousand, and the year
two thousand and then ninety nine was actually the highest
four archery. So little fun fact for everyone here. And
(28:24):
then my last question, is this on a scale one
to ten, ten being this is going to be the
best entire week all of twenty twenty five twenty twenty
six deer season is the ten one, It is the worst. Obviously,
we are probably in the week where there will be
the most amount of giant deer shot statistically.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
So where do you think this falls?
Speaker 6 (28:45):
After sting me on the last question, thanks for the layup,
I'm going I think I think you if you're not
this week, you have something that must be very important
to be doing. So that's that's it's a great week.
I mean the sixth, the seventh. Last time I was
in Iowa. I think I shot my buck on the seventh,
So yeah, I love it. Coming up, I know there's
(29:07):
some good stuff and later November two, but I'm normally
back in Michigan doing our traditional rifle camp thing with
the other ten million people you just mentioned.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
So yeah, it should be should be a great week.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Awesome, Jared, Well, congrat congratulations on your Michigan buck, and
good luck in Iowa. You're gonna be where everyone wants.
Everyone who's not in Iowa this week is going to
wish they were where you're at.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
So enjoy it. I know you're gonna have fun and
really appreciate it.
Speaker 6 (29:34):
Hey, I appreciate it, man. I'll take all the good
luck I can get. Thank you, and good luck yourself.
I know you're out there hitting at art, so put
one down and send me a picture.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
You got it, Jared, We'll see you.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
Thanks Jack.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
All right, Next up on the line, we have Chris.
How's it. How's it going right now?
Speaker 7 (29:49):
Feeling good man? Glad to be here, talk some white
tails and get the same rolling.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Absolutely, So what have you been seeing as far as activity.
I know, you just got back from all Ohio. What
was kind of the road activity here for the last
week of October.
Speaker 7 (30:07):
In Pennsylvania, it's been fairly slow, just because I think
of the a corn crop.
Speaker 8 (30:12):
There's a lot of food this year.
Speaker 7 (30:13):
So the late teens of October have been Uh, it
was real slow just because there was so much food
on the ground. Betting was sort of random, So movement
was real sporadic. To Ohio. It was starting to pick
up a little bit. I was seeing some bucks and
bucks were really picking up on scrapes. That was around
(30:35):
the twenty fifth.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
M And so you're back from Ohio. Are you primarily
hunting Ohio for the next you know, November.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Fifth through the twelfth.
Speaker 7 (30:46):
I actually for my next Ohio trip on the seventh.
So yeah, so okay, seventh through the eleventh, I will
be in Ohio.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
All right.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
So with with that in mind, you know, you have
some intel from your most recent trip in Ohio.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
You're going out there on the seventh.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
I think that's probably relatable to a lot of people
that are, you know, traveling for the next seven days
to try to make a move somewhat rapidly. What is
on your mental checklist when you get back to Ohio
to hunt, you know, the seventh through the twelfth for example.
Speaker 7 (31:20):
A lot of it's going to do with historical information
that I have and realizing that scrapes are starting.
Speaker 8 (31:26):
To lose their jujus.
Speaker 7 (31:28):
So we're going to be mainly focusing on dough groups
and terrain features connecting dough betting areas that I have
had success with in the past. So I mean those
those and terrain features are going to be your best friend.
I feel like in that section of the run.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
When you're going out there, I'm assuming it's big woods.
I'm also guessing it's public. Are you sitting in one
spot dark to dark? Are you, you know, having a
morning set kind of up high on the hill and
moving down lower in the evening or tbd?
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Or what?
Speaker 1 (32:01):
What advice do you have for someone that might be
in a similar boat.
Speaker 7 (32:04):
So I don't know if I have a preference as
far as elevation high or low. It's all a spot
dependent for me and what maybe I know about that area.
It's a lot of it's gonna be come back to
some first that I'm park gonna start low because it's
all going to revolve around days if I'm just being
short with it, so I don't I don't care if
the doors are betting higher, if the doors are betting low.
(32:25):
I just need to be in correlation with where the
doors are in that area. What was the second happier question?
Speaker 2 (32:35):
H and are you parking in one tree for the
entire day or are you moving? You know, bait, are you.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Moving kind of midday or moving around one o'clock to
go get to more of an evening spot. And you
know that's probably more prevalent in different parts of the country,
But don't big woods.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 7 (32:49):
Since I don't live there, I'm not as in the
moment as I am at home. So when I get there,
I'll have a game plan to start and then I'm
gonna move as needed. If I'm seeing dose now, even
if I haven't seen the buck yet and i'm seeing
those for sit or two, I might hang out because
I know the doors are there. There's always that chance.
But if I'm not seeing what I want to see it,
then I'm gonna keep moving. I'm going to try to
(33:11):
put myself in the action.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
And for someone you mentioned different train features, describe one
that's coming to mind here for this next week that
you're going to be hunting in Ohio.
Speaker 7 (33:24):
Secondary points, mom, ditches. I really like those. A lot
of the stuff that I like to look for is
like a low spots, secondary bridges and ditches that maybe
dip into private or that has you know, part of
that has ag maybe catch catching the dough groups coming
(33:46):
up from the private that bet on these points and stuff,
and then obviously the bucks are going to parallel those.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
M Yeah. Well, I mean you're right, listen.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
I think we could try to overcomplicate this time period,
but in reality, man, you got to the dos in
a tight pinch. It's kind of the magic sauce of this.
Let me let me run this scenario by you. It's
in the morning and you have a setup where you
get winded by some doughs at like eight o'clock in
the morning.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
What are you doing next?
Speaker 8 (34:15):
Oh, I don't care if they wouldn't be.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Okay.
Speaker 7 (34:19):
Yeah, you're just confident that where I'm sitting at, like,
even if my wind's bad, if I know I can
kill that buck before he hits my wind, I'm good
in my opinion. And a lot of times I've seen
where if a dough blows, a buck will come running
because that dough just to give up her position, because
a lot of times these does are actually trying to
hide from the bucks because they're getting pestered by you know, everything.
Speaker 8 (34:42):
So you can make you can make a wrong that's
and have a buck run.
Speaker 7 (34:47):
And I've done that where right before daylight, I'm walking
to the tree and I have a buck running at
me because he heard me from the ridge over.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Yeah, I mean, it's an exciting time of year.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
There was a one hundred earlier this week, and there
was it was a dough that was not ready to
be bred, and she was just running. She would run
in a real big thicket and the bucks would get
down whenever flush her back out, and then she would
run over to another thicket. And for people that, I
feel that you just got to be you got to
be present to win this time of year. You got
to find a good spot and ride it out. How
do you how do you mentally under or I guess
(35:28):
how do you mentally? Way you're in there, it's November
eighth and you're not seeing much activity.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
How much time are you going to give that spot
before you might move?
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Move?
Speaker 2 (35:36):
On to something else.
Speaker 7 (35:39):
Like I said, I think it's just going to depend
on the spot and like what I know about it.
Speaker 8 (35:43):
If it was a brand new spot.
Speaker 7 (35:46):
I might be more ought to be like, Okay, I'm
going to get down and at least look around.
Speaker 8 (35:51):
Maybe there's something.
Speaker 7 (35:52):
Here that I don't know that's here that I haven't
seen yet, and it would make me more up to
get back in the tree, you know, or just get
down scout find a new spot. Now, if I'm in
a spot where I'm like, yeah, I've had cameras here
for a couple of years and I know like this
is the pocket and I just need to be patient,
then I'll stay in the churney.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Mm hmm. And real quick.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
For people that want to know more about historical data,
what exactly is that? Is that based off of specific deer?
Is that based off of just general activity in that
area throughout this time period?
Speaker 8 (36:22):
Both, yeah, a lot of it. I try to just
pick apart just the daylight pictures of bucks.
Speaker 7 (36:29):
If I if I'm pulling cards and I got a
spot where there's a lot of a lot of nighttime activity,
that doesn't mean it's a bad spot, because eventually there's
bucks will slip through there in the daylight. But if
I find a spot where it's like, man, there was
five bucks in here in two days in daylight, Like
that's what I'm trying to find.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Yeah, yeah, do you have cameras in your backpack on
this trip where you're gonna go soak some more on
the fly?
Speaker 8 (36:56):
I think it's reverse.
Speaker 7 (36:58):
I've had the cameras out since February soaking, so it's
more like going there.
Speaker 8 (37:05):
If I can, you know.
Speaker 7 (37:06):
Past the camera before I get to my tree, I'll
pull the card and give me out.
Speaker 8 (37:10):
Give me something. Look at why I'm in the tree too?
In past time?
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Right?
Speaker 8 (37:16):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Do you have any tips for passing time in the
tree sinking? Cause a lot of people are logging the
most amount of hours in a tree for the next
seven days, and anyone that says it doesn't get a
little boring is lyne.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
So what what tips do you have to pass the time.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
While you're buying You're buying time for your buck to
show up, and you're like, man, I'm getting a little bored.
I'm getting a little sick of watching squirrels.
Speaker 7 (37:36):
I can't sit here and tell you I'm the most
patient person in the World magazine.
Speaker 8 (37:39):
I'm opposite. I'm so impatient to even funny, but I haven't.
Speaker 7 (37:44):
I mean, having food helps, I've been I haven't done
it yet, but I've been telling myself. I'm like, man,
I need to bring a book or like a magazine
or something for that like midday, cause it does get
kind of like blinding to stay at your phone too
long too and that drains your battery and then you're
frustrated later in the day. And so I would say,
just food, bring a book, you know, something like that.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Yeah, No, I would be lying if I said I've
never brought a book before for those like this time
period where you can at least listen and hear and
you know, maybe learn something too along the way, as
far as you know, like I feel like everyone's trying
to pull out the back of tricks right now. Are
you gonna have your grund call right only antlers?
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Are you going to use them? Tbd?
Speaker 7 (38:27):
Once again, I don't carry horns very often, but I'll
always have a ground call with me, and I try
to use this sparingly and for really certain situations like
if I'm in a dire you know, situation where a
buck is acting like he would come into one, but
he's getting away from me, then I'm probably gonna use it.
(38:48):
But other than that, I pretty much try to just
be a silent be a silent killer.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
I like it so looking here, you know, kind of
guessing on the weather a little bit scale one to ten,
ten being, this is going to be the best week
of the entire year, one being is going to be
the worst week of the year. Where do you put
your prediction for big Buck activity from November fifth to
November twelfth, the grand event.
Speaker 7 (39:12):
Here, I'll tell you what, man, I have had some
of the best hits I've ever had on November ten
And that's a year to year to hear, that's three years,
three years back to back to back for me, I've
had the best hits of the entire year on November.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Tenth, real quick, and then we'll let you go. What
did for last year? What was your setup for November tenth?
Like just to describe if some people can envision and
try to try to find something similar.
Speaker 7 (39:40):
I was the head of a ditch in between three
different but dobetting areas.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Yep, I love it. I love it. Well, Chris, good
luck in Ohio.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Good luck in Pennsylvania as well, and I really appreciate
it hopping on here today.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
This is the week we've been waiting for. Good luck.
Speaker 8 (39:55):
Yep, appreciate it, man, all right.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Next up on the line, we have Tom Alexander at
Land Magazine with Land dot Com.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Tom, how is it going down in Texas?
Speaker 5 (40:06):
Fantastic, especially in our area. So I'm really in southern Texas,
I would say, kind of what we consider to be
the Gulf Coast region. And oddly enough we hit our
hard rut down here through October. So it's been great
for the last four weeks.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Wonderful.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
Yeah, that's one of those things. Texas is huge and
people don't realize how big that state is. And you
have a couple different hunting areas throughout the state of Texas,
which I want to kind of get an.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Update throughout the region.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
But as I mentioned to you here a little bit ago,
I like torture the guests with a trivia question. And
so Texas, Texas is not a state that I at
least think of when it comes to the sheer amount
of white tails being shot. So out of the last
twenty five years for all time single season whitetail harvest
out of the top twenty five.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
How many times has it been Texas, I'd say every time.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
You're really close, it's twenty three out of the twenty five. Wow,
and two thousand. Wisconsin is ranked number thirteen, and then
at twenty five Michigan is five hundred and forty four thousand.
But the all time record in the entire country nine
hundred and eighteen thousand deer harvested in the state of
Texas in twenty seventeen. So there's a lot of hunters
(41:19):
and a lot of deer down there.
Speaker 8 (41:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (41:21):
I think we'll vary each year in between seven hundred
and fifty and a million.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
It's crazy and mule deer.
Speaker 5 (41:28):
Twenty three, twenty four thousand.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
Wow yeah wow.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
So we set the stage here. There's a lot of
deer that are gonna shot in the state of Texas
this fall. The rut is moving right along here in
the southern part of Texas. What's going on kind of
the general neck of the woods and for Texas from
the fifth to the twelfth, this is the time period
where a lot of people in the Midwest are, you know,
at peak excitement.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
What's your level of excitement here in Texas.
Speaker 5 (41:56):
It's always good because, like I said, we have so
many different regions, and it's a kind of a staggered event.
So you would say what I consider to be the
Gulf Coast region, so Gulf of America from the shoreline,
Galveston area, whatever, along that stretch of the coast inland,
say ninety or one hundred miles, and then going from
(42:17):
East Texas all the way down to South Texas, with
the exception of the far southern tip.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
But that is all October.
Speaker 5 (42:24):
So you know, if you plant an outright, you can
be during bow season. You can be in the rut
right there through that area. It's kind of odd we
actually manage to place south of Houston here in October.
The rut was just as hard as it could go,
and it's ninety five degrees outside, so we were out
shooting colder. My son shot two bucks one evening and
(42:47):
I remember field dressing them and it was ninety five degrees.
So they're just kind of strange, and they're out the
middle of the day hot as can be in their
running dos.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
Wait a while.
Speaker 5 (42:56):
So that's October, and then when you go into November
you start hitting what we consider to be far East
Texas and central Texas. So in reality, if you drew
a line, you know, halfway up the state of Texas
from east to west right, so just right through the middle.
(43:17):
Everything from that line north is November. And so if
you're in the hill country, which is where a lot
of people have recreational properties and they're hunting, it really
kind of it ties in the peak of the rut,
i'd say.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Is right before Thanksgiving.
Speaker 5 (43:32):
So it's always a great time if you have property
up there, you're enjoying it, you might be spending Thanksgiving,
and it's a great time to hunt. And then we
roll into what we consider to be South Texas, the
brush country, and you know, that's just all I guess
you'd say everything south of that line, with the exception
of what's on the coast, and that's where the biggest
deer in Texas are killed. That's the majority of the
(43:55):
high fence places, and the peak of the rut there
is seems to be always right around Christmas. So I
know I have several friends that literally on Christmas Day,
after they celebrate Christmas, they have Christmas dinner, right and
as soon as that's over, everybody gets in the truck
and goes down to the deer leaser to the ranch,
(44:15):
and then they'll hunt through the end of January I'm sorry,
through the holiday season January second or third man.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
That's a lot of that's a lot of opportunity to
chase rinting bucks a huge, huge window. That's that's actually
really incredible. I didn't realize. I didn't realize that that's
really neat.
Speaker 5 (44:33):
Yeah, you time it right, you know, you can get
the rut through each one of those through all three months.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Yeah, it's like following the waterfowl migration. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
So for folks that are maybe in Texas or maybe Oklahoma,
and I understand that's just a ginormous region what I
just described. But for the next five days or next
seven days, what are some things that you're personally keen
in on if you're going to be out in the standar,
out in the blind, chasing deer when the majority of
large bucks are shot, you know, over the next seven days.
Speaker 5 (45:05):
You know, we're running cameras right now, and we do
a lot of feeding, so we try to stay off
for where we are down here, we try to stay
off of hunting the actual feeders and we're running protein,
so we'll corn the roads and just based and we
have certain stands set up for wind, and we just
corn the roads and if we can get some good
deer coming in. You know, it seems like most of
(45:27):
the big mature bucks there, you know, they've already kind
of gone through their cycle. They've had their dose pinned
down whatever it is, and done that first cycle. So
now they're out cruising, so you'll catch them just kind
of checking the wind and running up and down the
roads and just looking there. They probably lost I don't know,
(45:47):
fifteen percent of their body weight, so they've gone from
these big, just lumbering, older bucks and now they're they're
looking pretty fit, looking good, So kind of makes it
difficult when you're trying to judge an age class. But
now is the time to be killing what we consider
the five and a half six and six and a
half year old deer.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Mm hmm. Yeah, that's that's super exciting.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
And it is crazy how how much the white tail
buck changes, you know, from summer to the end of
the rut. It actually is sometimes it can be unrecognizable
by the end of the season.
Speaker 5 (46:19):
Yeah, Yeah, it's it's really neat to watch and when
you see like you know, we're after certain management bucks
and we might wait a little while for we're going
to shoot them, but you see him at one minute
or at the beginning of October, and like I said,
they're twenty percent heavier, and they just look like these
big lumbering almost like you know, a cow. They're just
they're they're they're ready, you know. And then now they're
(46:42):
just worn down and and very fit looking.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
So it's fun, good time.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
What is your your favorite part over the next seven
days for this time of year. Is it the anticipation
of anything that could happen? Is it bringing out the
rat on alers and smashing them? I mean, what has
you most excited over the next seven days.
Speaker 6 (47:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (47:02):
Absolutely, you know, so get in an area where you
know some good deer coming in, you know, hopefully a
lot of dose. One of the problems we have here
is with hogs, because there are thousands of pigs I
think so far this year this year we probably killed
two hundred in havn't even put a dent in them.
So if you're corning a road, a lot of times
you'll have the deer come out and they start getting
(47:22):
nervous and then a pack of thirty hogs will come out,
so you try to shoot those and get them spooked
out of that area, and then the deer will start
coming back in. But right now, yeah, it's you know,
we've got an MLD permit, so we can shoot with
the gun in October. But me and my buddy we
both shoot traditional archery, so recurves long bows, and so
(47:44):
a lot of our shots are ten or fifteen yards
and that's the way we've got all of our stands
set up right now, so we're after some target bucks.
He was in a stand last night and actually tested me,
texted me, I'm sitting here at my desk and I
hear this, you know, crap, crap, crap. He had two
dos that came in and the butt circle around down
(48:04):
one of him, and it was a nice big six
and a half year old eight point that he was
after and bound it off. You know, but that would
have been a good season kill for him.
Speaker 1 (48:14):
So you hunt with traditional archery equipment, which takes more preparation,
more focus than any other form of archery hunting, and
the moment of truth. A lot of people this week
are going to be full draw on a deer they've
been dreaming of for the last eleven and a half
months and the moment of truth. What do people need
(48:35):
to be thinking about? Is this deer's coming in to
execute a great shot. And with traditional archery equipment, I
think it's even more even more focus.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
Yeah, well do what I say. Not what I do.
Speaker 5 (48:46):
Is with traditional archery, you know, there's target paintings. So
if you're watching that deer, naturally you're going to pull back,
and it's something about a longbow or a recurve that
you're holding that full tension, and everything in your brain
just starts screaming at you. Let go, let go, because
you're looking at that deer. And if you do aim,
it's you know, if you're shooting at a three D target,
(49:08):
you will naturally aim low and it's okay to put
that tip down low below the arrow. But if that
deer is there at ten yards and you've been practicing
at twenty yards and holding just under the deer, it
just seems like every time that deer walks out at
ten yards and you put the tip of the arrow
right on him and you shoot over him or he ducks,
you know. So I think the most important thing is
(49:33):
just wait for a minute. When that deer comes in.
You always want to take that first best shot, but
usually you're going to have time, especially if you've got
corn out, So make sure you pick your spot, take
your time, draw back anchor get completely ready, and then
you know, like Joel Turner teaches, go through your process
(49:55):
and make that decision once you're on and your aim
make that decision of My next job is to release
this exactly the way that I practice. So if you
can go through that, then you're gonna do fine. I'm
really good at doing that. On hogs, terrible on.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
Deer A half is the very best of us. That's
what I break it up. That's what it's fun.
Speaker 8 (50:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:20):
Absolutely, So you have to speak for the whole state
of Texas, second largest land mass in the United States,
over the next seven days on a scale one to ten,
ten being this might be the best week of the
year in the state of Texas for this season, and
number one being this might be one of the worst
weeks of the entire year. On a scale one to ten,
Where do you put this upcoming seven days for the
(50:40):
state of Texas for your report, I'd.
Speaker 5 (50:46):
Say really good, we've had a coal front come through,
so it really makes a difference here. Last night, after
going I went out, went to the gym, then went
to the grocery store and it's sixty five degrees outside,
and there's people walking around and down jackets and their
nit caps on with a little ball on top. And
that's normal at sixty five degrees here, So we just
don't get that cold. So this front is blown through,
(51:08):
it's been really pleasant outside. So right now in our area,
it should be outstanding over the next week and then
it's just going to roll as the weather goes and
the moon face and all that, depending upon the area
that you're in. But for here, right now, in our
area hunting the rut, the tail end of the rut,
this next week should be really good, wonderful.
Speaker 2 (51:30):
Well, Tom, good luck. I hope you have a great
rest of your season.
Speaker 1 (51:33):
I appreciate you hopping on here and educating everyone about
the state of Texas because there's a lot to learn here.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
Right all right, thanks Jake, All.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
Right, there, you guys have it. I hope you guys
enjoy this week. This is the week we've been waiting
for all year. It's the week we're gonna be waiting
for fifty one weeks again, So get out there, enjoy it,
Enjoy all the moments. Remind yourself of some of the
advice here that the guests have provided, and get out
there and enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (51:57):
That is it. We will see you next week on
rough fresh good luck.
Host
Mark Kenyon
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