November 19, 2025 • 55 mins
This week on Rut Fresh, Jake is joined by Anthony Warren fresh off his biggest Kansas buck yet, Lane Housner of In the Presence breaking down what he’s been across the country, and Shane Albert of Illinois with a boots-on-the-ground report from farm country. Together they dive into current deer movement, what patterns are emerging, and the key intel you need to stay confident heading into the coming week.
Connect with Jake Hofer and MeatEater
MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips
MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube
Shop MeatEater Merch
Thanks to our sponsor Land.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
All right, welcome back to another episode of Rough Fresh.
I'm Jake Koefer, and we have three Big Buck stories
and updates from Kansas, Illinois, and Pennsylvania, and we're getting
deeper into the month of November. Thanksgiving is just right
around the corner, and I think this is one thing
for everyone to consider when the calendars, which is two December,
(00:21):
we're going to be wishing it was November again. So
a lot of the advice and updates here throughout this
episode is to remember it's November. Remember this is the
time we've been waiting for, and to keep at it
and keep just plugging away, Just keep plugging away, and
I hope there's some great intel here for you folks
in this episode. As you know, Roughresh is brought to
you by land dot com, the leading online real estate
(00:44):
marketplace to find your perfect rural, recreational, agricultural, or hunting
properties here in the US. My challenge for you guys
this week is just to keep positive mindset, keep out there,
working hard, keep scouting, don't be afraid to call an
audible on your game plan, and just give November everything
you got on what you can do. I know, for
myself personally, it's getting to the point of the year
(01:05):
where I'm starting to feel little guilty for hunting really
hard responsibilities are falling on the wayside.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
But we're gonna be missing this time period. So do
what you can.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
If you can walk, walk, if you can crawl, crawl,
And let's kick this off with Anthony Warren and Kansas,
who just shy his personal best.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Buck.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Here we go, all right, first up on the line,
we have Anthony Warren who just shot a personal best
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yes, sir, pretty pretty close.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
I don't score a ton of my dear, but he's
definitely gonna be in contention, and I'm super stoked about it.
And he was a real, real nice basically main framemate.
So just a giant, giant body of a deer and.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
And just really great rack for an eight point anywhere?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Really yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:53):
No, and so and that was in Kansas, right, Yes, yeah,
it was Okay, So Kansas, big Buck has hit the dirt.
Talk a little bit about I know you had previous
encounters with that deer in the past, but how did
it come together here recently?
Speaker 4 (02:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
You know, this this season has been probably a little
slower and I don't know what you know, everybody else
is talking about their experiences, but so far.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
It's just seemed like everything's been pretty late.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
And the week leading up to that, I was actually
in Illinois and it was almost dead there. You know,
cameras were telling me that deer on my farm in
Kansas were starting to move. And you know, there's not
really a whole lot of secret sauces that goes into
this one. You know, a little bit of a little
bit of strategy on my part when it comes to,
(02:45):
you know, the deer moving and kind of what I
thought was going to happen, you know, mixed with some
good fortune of some really cold days, you know, last week.
But you know, really it just has seemed overall to
me that the rut has been like a slow start
off this year, like they just haven't really they haven't
really been after it like they had in the past
(03:07):
years this early. But I think I think we're kind
of getting into that. But for this buck in particular
last year, I actually I actually shot this deer on
November the eighth, and I rattled the deer in and
he came and came in super pad and heated and
just rubbing up against every SAT plane on the way
in and uh, you know, nerves kind of got the
(03:30):
best of me. He circled in kind of whide trying
to get down the end and I ended up skimming,
skimming at the top of his back. And so I
just tried to stay on them all all season, and uh,
just never materialized.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
But this year, fortunately, I think he came back.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
A little bit bigger, a little bit bigger frame, and
I had him at a couple of locations where I
was trying to feed and really for me, you know,
if you hold those and you and you can, you know,
have food for you're gonna have bucks around. And historically
this year has hung out on me from the months
of October all the way through February. So, you know,
(04:09):
I think the night before I saw the year on
a on a trail camera, probably one hundred yards from
where I shot him and where i'd hunted the evening before,
and it was after dark, and I said, well, tomorrow
is going to be the coldest morning so far of
the month, and I'm just going to be between where
he was last night and where he could be going.
(04:30):
And it kind of was a strategy that that proved
to be, you know, beneficial with that being said that,
you know, kind of leading up the night before I
shot him, I had a really great encounter with a
three and a half three and a half year old
ten point, just real pretty, and he was dog in
a group of doughs that was I don't know, there
(04:50):
were probably eight to ten dos in this group. And
one thing that I banked on the next morning going
back to this spot is that previous hunt before I
killed him, I saw all these dos and they were
just peeing all over the place, and I was like, man,
what a what a better place to be than you know,
(05:11):
where a bunch of does a feed? Now a buck
is bound to be over in this area. Wanting to
sin check that. And so sure enough, the next morning
that I ended up shooting him, I watched him come
all the way across the field towards some does and
some feed that I had, and he would stop at
every single location that I had kind of mentally bookmarked
(05:33):
that a doe had stopped and urinated, and he was
just nose down and he'd run to the next next spot,
and then he'd he nosed down and then you know,
he just came full sprint and just grunning and it
was pretty gnarly to see such a big frame buck
doing that, especially for that first daylight.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
So but yeah, that that was kind of how that unfolded.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
But you know, really just the history of knowing, you know,
where this buck liked to be, and then kind of
putting myself between two points of interest where I thought
he would be, and then kind of being.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
Around where I knew does wanted to be was kind
of the name of the game.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
And I'd actually never hunted this particular part of the
farm before. It just doesn't really lend itself to being
a great killing spot. But I was obviously pleasantly surprised
I was able to intercept him between two major points,
so it all worked out.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Yeah, man, no, that's that's what we all hope for.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
And uh, you know, I think paying attention to the
dose right, like a lot of this stuff, the advice
necessarily doesn't change year to year, but you still have
to key in on that, like, Okay, there was a
bunch of dozen here, and you know, it's that simple.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Sometimes.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Obviously there's a little bit of luck, a little bit
of mental for two to be set up and be
ready to rock and roll. But man, what a what
an incredible buck and congratulations. Now for guys that have
been struggling, maybe maybe they're in the part of the
season where it's like, Okay, I've been hunting a deer
and now I need to call an audible or I
don't want to lower my standards necessarily, but I do
(07:04):
want to potentially shift around. And so now it's November
nineteenth and all the really exciting dates that are. You know,
everyone has a favorite day. There's not too many people
that say, my favorite day is November nineteenth. So with
all that being said, we're leading up to Thanksgiving. Now,
what's on the top of your mind for any of
the tags on your pocket? In your pocket here as
(07:25):
we you know, get deeper into November.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Yeah, well, I'm kind of adding on to what I
said earlier. I truly feel like we're probably seven to
nine days behind a typical runt schedule.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
I've talked to guys that.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
I met when I was hunting in Illinois and they
felt kind of the same way. I'm still talking to
buddies who are still trying to get it done in Kansas.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
They kind of feel the same way.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Based on what I know right now at the time
of us sitting down for this. Bucks are chasing, and
I had seen, you know, even two days ago before
I left Kansas, that bucks were starting to chase, but
I had not been seeing really much more than three
and a half to four and a half year old dear.
So I know that I had a buddy that had
(08:11):
a one seventy that was locked on a dough a
couple of days ago. So I definitely think we are
and everybody's kind of like, you know, mentally their favorite days,
but we're just a little behind. You know, it's not
November the seventh or November the fifth. I feel like
we're kind of a week late. With that being said,
my true gut feeling on this doesn't really change. I
(08:34):
think you just need to be where those are going
to be, so that that can be betting, that can
be food, that can be you know, a betting to
food pattern. You know, if you can be somewhere between
those two things, you know, and depending on where you're
going to be at in the country, obviously out in Kansas,
it never hurts the being a pinch point between two
(08:55):
betting areas or close to a food source.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Again, my gut tells.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Me that we are kind of in what I would
consider like peak moving, you know, right into the lockdown
stage of the rut in a lot of places across
the country. But I do have I do have a
couple of gun tags coming up for the next few weekends,
and really my strategy is just to be in tight
(09:21):
corridors and between bedding, and if you can be in
that situation, you know, it's it's probably gonna be the
best place to be until you know, i'd say mid December,
where you're going to start shifting back toward food. But
I still think if you're a guy and you're discouraged
and you haven't seen, you know, a shooter buck yet,
(09:44):
like it's just about logging hours right now, because at
this point in time, you can't just rely on like
the pre run or you know, those kind of tactics.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Like what you really need is you just need to
be in.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
A place where a dough is going to walk by
and lead a big buck and that. And that's frustrating
and it makes for long hours and and I've been
there where you just hate it and you feel like
such a bum sitting up in the tree.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
And you're like, man, what am I doing here?
Speaker 3 (10:11):
I'm driving myself crazy, and then at eleven ten am,
you know, everything changes because the doe walks by with
a you know, mature buck right behind her. So those
things have a proclivity of happening this time of year.
It's just going to be about, like you can you
last through the grind. You know, I don't always love
(10:32):
in all day sit, but if you were going to
do an all day sit, you know, now it might
be the time to do that, and then moving in
toward the next week or so. I still feel really
strongly about that. You know, time on stand is time
towards success.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
I like that. I like that. Yeah, No, I think
it's it's easy to get discouraged.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Because I've logged a bunch of all day sits hunting
a specific deer, and man, it's it's starting to I've
actually enjoyed the process a bunch. But I feel we
had a guest last week that said, right when you're
about to give up is usually when you find success.
So I think I think that advice rings true, you know,
for the whole season, just don't give up. Yeah, absolutely,
(11:13):
and and honestly, hopefully as we get closer to the
Thanksgiving weekend. I still really like those dates a lot.
You know, I still see a lot of a lot
of really good movement, and depending on where you're at
in the country, like I didn't see a lot of
a lot of breeding still happening in the first two
weeks of December.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
I mean it begins to taper down, but you know,
like really, really, until you start talking about around Christmas time,
I think you're really in the game as long as you.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Are willing to stick it out.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
So hopefully, you know, as the holidays are coming up,
guys can get more time off work and just love
more more hours. And that's really I just think this
time of year, unless you have one just absolutely pinned down,
which I don't think anybody does us, the amount of time.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
You know that you can be in the woods is
going to make the determining factor.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
And another thing I do like about really this upcoming
week that I didn't say earlier, is there there's gonna
be a chance that guys see really big deer that
they have absolutely no history with, because all of a sudden,
you know that buck may have bread does and in
his home range or summer range or and and like
you hear a lot of guys talk about summer ranges
(12:28):
versus ball ranges, and I'm a firm believer that, you know,
whether you have a deer that lives on one particular
property or not, like there is going to be some
crossover where some bucks come in and they start looking
for new dough, so you know, another gut filling. Is
that really over the next week or so, you know
you're going to start to see a buck just show
(12:49):
up at random and and that's really where it's going
to pay off just to be in the stand, because
it's it's gonna be one of the most frustrating things
to see that deer on camera and then you you
missed him, you know, because you weren't there, and you'll
never see that year again. And that happens every single
year where I see giant bucks and I'm like.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
Like, dude, where did that deer even come from? I've
never seen him, And then you never see him again.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
It's just because he's frantic looking for you know, the
last available dough and and then he's probably going to
go back to where wherever his home range was and
then kind of settle down for the year, maybe try
to bread a few year ling dows that come in
late and then really.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
Just focus on food at that point.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
But that's kind of you know, the last week point
I think I make is over the next week. You know,
you just don't know what's going to happen. You could
you could end up having a chance at that one
that you've looked at all the year, or you could
have you know, the neighbors one sixty Uh, run you know,
run over, you know, from a couple of miles away
and be in your lap.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
It's just a matter of if you're if you're there
or not.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Yeah, I love it. That's great advice, wonderful advice. So
looking here in the next week leading up to Thanksgiving,
scale one to ten, ten being the best week of
the year, one being one of the worst weeks the year,
what do you put the potential big buck activity?
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Yeah, you know, I couldn't give it a ten because
I just think that deer are gonna be locked down
those right now, but it will be tapering off. So
I'm still gonna be pretty optimistic and say probably somewhere around.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
An eight and a half to nine.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
You know, it's with the deer being locked on, you're
just you've got to be committed to long hours in
the stand because you just never know when something's gonna change.
But you know, with that being said, I still think
there's a really good chance that you know, we are
in the best week right now, and then over the
next seven to ten days, it's still going to remain high.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
You know, you're gonna be somewhere.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Around at eight and it's gonna feel like a ten
for some guys, and some guys it's gonna feel like
a five.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
But that's just kind of the nature of this year.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
You just have to you just kind of have to
be where there were they want to be and where
they are.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
At that particular moment to make it happen.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Well, congratulations once again, man, that was an awesome buck.
Congratulations and hopefully good luck to everyone else out here
that's got to tag in their pocket and you have
some words of encouragement and advice for to help them.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Yeah, absolutely, Well, good luck to everybody this season. And
I know I've got a couple of tags remaining. My
boat season kind of got cut short. I just located
my shoulder, so I actually I'm picking up. I just
bought a crossbow last night, so I got to become
a crossbow hunder the rest of the year.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
So well you oasher out.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
There and uh sh hopefully your shoulder heels up to
because I know you probably not enjoyed that.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
It was.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
It was a bummer. I've been through the ringer on it.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
But but yeah, I mean, good luck to everybody, and uh,
you know, just lock those hours if you if you can, and.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
You know, callin sick, do interview you got to do to.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Get out in the woods. But good good luck to everybody.
I think we're we're about in the thick of it
right now.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Wonderful man. Well, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Yeah, all right, Next up we have Lane within the
presence Hunt Lane.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
How's it going?
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Oh, good buddy, how you doing?
Speaker 2 (16:12):
It's doing great? I know you You shot a giant
Pennsylvania buck. How was that?
Speaker 4 (16:17):
Oh it was wild man, Yeah, it just an absolute unit.
Speaker 5 (16:20):
Man.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
It was insane. I found him in the summer and
then he shifted on me like once Velvit came off
and I was able to pick him back up and
pretty much just wait till the conditions right slid in
killed him.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Yeah, well, how many times when you say waiting for
the conditions we're right, and slid in there and killed them.
Was that like a multiple count cat and mouse game?
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Or was it like? Nah, it just it just worked.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
It just worked, to be honest with you, Like when
I said I picked him back up, Like I didn't
even have any trail cams up there. I never got
another picture of him, like once velvit came off. You know,
I just kind of had a feeling he was in
this clear cut that I found where he was like
living close by in the summer. So I kind of
flipped to the other side of it and found a
whole lot of rut sign, like old, old historical rut sign,
(17:05):
and I knew I just had to be in there,
like when the conditioners were right. So, like I said,
I found that spot probably October or like went in
and scouted it and found it exactly where I needed
to be, like early October. And then I tried it
one more time right before the day I killed him.
But I just tried it like further on down a
little bit, and then I mean it just set up perfect.
The morning I killed them northwest wind, it was cold,
(17:27):
it was later on in October. You know, it just
set up perfect. I was actually supposed to leave for
Illinois that day, but I really wanted to try to
hunt this buck and kill him, and yeah I did it.
So it was freaking awesome. Man, I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
That's super cool.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
What have you been seeing for RUT activity here in
the last couple of days? I mean, do you feel
like we're starting to maybe break through lockdown or I mean,
and I hate to categorize it because I know every
area and everything's a little bit different. But for people listening,
you know, what have you been seeing here for activity
here the last couple of days?
Speaker 4 (17:59):
Yeah, I definitely. I think they're a little bit more
on lockdown right now. Like I drove past my grandma's
house just probably three or four days ago, and I
mean it's there's two roads on each side of it,
you know, and there's a just pretty much a field
with like a little fentro and I've seen a buck
and a dough out there, you know, and he was
a good buck. So I definitely lockdown right now. And
then he still catch bucks moving, you know, once they've
(18:19):
done bring their dough. But I'm just you just got
to get tight to betting, is my best advice. To
anyone who's hunting right.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Now, get tight your bidding and then as far as
you know, the nineteenth leading up to Thanksgiving, I feel
like this one people are digging deep and like, more
(18:46):
than likely people have been hunting pretty hard. And what
advice do you have for those folks that are still
trying their darnest and they feel like maybe the best
has already been behind them and it's like still good.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
Yeah, but the the.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Fatigue And I feel like that's such a cheesy way
to say it, but like the fatigue of the season
is definitely setting in for people right now.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
Oh yeah, one hundred percent. I'd just say keep going, man,
Like all it takes is a split second of your
whole season to change, you know, Like I just I
know it sounds a cliche, but just keep grinding. In
my experience, I find a lot of the bigger books
are moving in like daylight, and a lot more towards
the end of November. You know, it kind of seems
like there's waves of it, but it seems like the
majority historically, what I found is a lot of the
(19:29):
bigger deer. You know, I get a lot of showking
pictures of them running doughs and stuff later on November.
So it's never over, you know what I mean, till
fat ladies singing and you're done for the season. So
just keep grinding the minute it could all change and
split second.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Absolutely, And as far as you know tight to betting,
you feel that like, obviously downwind of predominant betting areas,
are you concerned, Like deer have probably been kind of
messed with, pestered by humans and pestured by little bucks
and it seems like, you know, dose are a little
bit of no, as far as you know the increased
pressure in the woods, and having that in mind, how
(20:05):
concerned are you to get tight to betting? Or how
much longer does it take the set up? Or are
you bounced around from betting area to betting area? Like
what does that look like?
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (20:14):
I mean it kind of just depends, to be honest
with you. Uh yeah, I meant like, just like I
find I'm finding deer right now and just the thickest,
nastiest stuff ever and as far away from human pressure
as possible, Like I kayaked in a river to day
and it was probably I don't know, two miles from
the access all the deer I bumped. We're pretty much
(20:34):
right next to that river bedded down, you know. And
then there was a little betting pocket right in there,
and I got on the backside of it and bumped
a couple more, you know. So just thick, nastiest spots
you can find as far away from human pressure as possible.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
M do you do you get discourage when you're bumping
deer when you're going in to set up on something new, Like,
you know, you throw in the kayak two miles and
you're like, man, I gave all the way back here
and I parked my kayak, I walked ten feet and
I busted one right away.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
I wasn't even off the kayak and I'm blowing deer.
I was so pissed. But yeah, it's one of them
things where it's it's hard not to get pissed. But
you just got to think, like you're already seeing deer.
You're in where deer want to be, you know, don't
don't hang your head. It's not like, you know, it's
not like the deer are just gonna run forever and
just be tear like tear off out of the state,
you know, out of the country, like they're still in there.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
M yeah, No, I think that's good advice as far
as food sources or or even you know, I feel
like there's you categorize a few strategies. People are going
to be deployed here for the next couple, you know,
the next week, depending on whether potentially food sources may
have some pull and attraction, and obviously it's dependent on
where you're at in the country. Another one to be
(21:40):
travel corridors in between betting areas. And then you know,
tight to betting, and you think tight to betting is
probably the one of your best approach for this time
period leading up to Thanksgiving.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
Yeah, for right now, and then once late season comes
and I kind of shift to food, you know what
I mean. But as of right now, do tight to
betting is my best advice, Like you know, down winside
of betting, let bucks either crew is to your come
in the betting area and check it out, you know,
or maybe even they're found a doe in there and
they'll squirret out, you know. It just it just really
just depends. But tight to betting always have seemed to
be the key for me.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
So mm hmm, do you think do you think it
even carries more merit this time of year than earlier,
or like, how would you rank that in terms of,
you know, specifically this upcoming week.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
What tight to betting? I would say, I mean, it
just really depends. Like early season, you know, morning sits,
I'm tight to betting too, you know, the October, you know,
early October, late October, I'm tight to betting. Like I'd
say the majority of the things tight to bedding right now,
you know, Like it's stupid to say it sounds like
I'm just saying like a bunch of rubbish, But like, dude,
(22:43):
that's that's where I'm flying. I'm just just tight to betting, man,
Like it's they're just out and about in the betting areas,
you know.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Yeah, and you've had an incredible year. How many bucks
have you knocked down this year?
Speaker 4 (22:53):
I killed six?
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Yeah, so that's a crazy season, dude.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
Yeah, wild dude, I can't belie that. The biggest one
was that PA one and then I killed like one
hundred and forty inch out in Illinois. I killed like
one hundred and thirty velvet and uh Delaware, and then
I killed it a decent Kansas bug. He was probably
like right about one hundred and fifteen hundred and twenty
inches and then uh, I killed like two Maryland bugs.
(23:18):
I mean, they weren't the biggest bucks in the world,
but they're still good to hear, pump me up.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
So that's that's an unreal season.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
And the follow up question I was, were they all
type to betty?
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Where they all types of betting?
Speaker 4 (23:33):
No, well, the one was not too were okay, all right,
three but all right, so pretty much five of them were.
I'd say like the last the last ones were that
the one I killed early season, like I killed him September.
Second that wasn't tight to betting. I was still probably
three hundred yards from betting, but I was pretty much
sitting right next to a sway beanfield and they came
(23:54):
right down the buffer zone. You know. I shot him
in the woods, but I was still probably three hundred
yards from betting. It's more betted.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
So yeah, And for people listening to when you say
tight to betting, and I'm picturing I'm picturing more Eastern
hunting in my own head right now. But when you
say tight, is that I understand it's situational based off
train and how close can you really get without you know,
getting busted. But as a rule of thumb, is tight
to betting to you one hundred yards, one hundred and
fifty yards, sixty yards.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
Just to get someone to rule with them, Yeah, I'd
say under one hundred for sure. You know, the closer
the better, closer the better if you can get right
on top of them. You know, if you have a
bed picked out, you know you're bed hunting it, like,
you know, getting tight as possible. But yeah, if you're
just hunting a general bet betting area like a dough
betting area, I'd say within you know, seventy five hundred yards,
I'd say if you can get closer by all means,
(24:45):
do it. You know, a lot of times you'll find
edges right on the edge of the betting area, and
a lot of times I can get right into there.
That's the ticket for me one d percent.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
So looking here, the next week's scale one to ten,
ten being the best week of the year, one being
the worst week of the year. November nineteenth to blackout Wednesday.
What do you what do you rank this week coming
up for run activity for big Bucks?
Speaker 4 (25:10):
I'd probably say seven. I mean they're still they're ad
meant they're definitely on lockdown, you know, but like they're
still out and about and like I said, like the
majority of the big Bucks I find do you know,
pulling troil cramps and stuff like, I get a lot
in that timeframe just moving. We see them out with
those two, you know a lot of midday stuff too.
So i'd say i'd say seven, depending on how the
(25:31):
weather is. You know, if you can get a cold snap,
it's on fire man, I'll guarantee. If it's seventy degrees,
I'm sure it's going to shut things down a little bit,
you know, but they'll still be running at night. But
I like it.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Where can people follow along with some of the hunts
here that you had this year?
Speaker 4 (25:45):
Yeah, if every hunt and I've talked about so far,
you can go on our channel just in the presence
hunt pop right up for you. We're also on social media.
If you type you know, Instagram, you type that in,
will pop right up. Facebook type pop right back, pop
up for you.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
So aw, Yeah, Well, dude, what an incredible season, and
good luck the rest of the year. I don't know
if there's any more Bucks safe with the tear you've
been on, but congratulations.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
And good luck the rest of the season.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
Hey, thanks by I appreciate so much. Thanks shoving me
on all right.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Next up we have Shane Albert who just tagged this
personal best buck in the state of Illinois.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Shane, how does it feel.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
It's a huge relief.
Speaker 6 (26:23):
I mean, getting a deer down before for the Illinois
gun season is seems like always the goal. So to
do it and to do it do it with the
bow on my personal best is Yeah. Man, it's been
a big weight off the shoulders the last few days.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
That's awesome man. Congratulations.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
So before we get into the story and how it
went down and what the activity has been here recently,
I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you a tough trivia question
in the state of Illinois.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
What is the.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Surveyed your population in the state of Illinois, and it's
hundreds of thousands.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
I'm going to give you a little bit of a
hit here.
Speaker 5 (27:00):
Yeah, well, I think I know it.
Speaker 6 (27:03):
Once upon a time, I think we used to shoot
about one hundred thousand deer, just under a one hundred
thousand deer. I think those numbers are down and I'm
going off of memory there.
Speaker 5 (27:14):
I'm gonna go with I'm gonna do a round number.
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna.
Speaker 6 (27:21):
Get the prices right here. I'm gonna guess seven hundred thousand.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
It's actually two hundred and ninety thousand, which seems really
that is I think that's too low personally.
Speaker 6 (27:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, just drive a drive at night during November.
Speaker 5 (27:41):
I see feel like I see that man serious.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Yeah, So.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Tell us a little bit about the breakdown here. I
know you kind of hunt throughout the state of Illinois,
and you had packed up your bags and went to
a different part of the state.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Break it.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Break it down because I think showing up and hunting
on the fly is maybe a benefit in November or
maybe a detriment obviously worked out for you.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (28:04):
Yeah, It's chaotic, for sure, but it is. It is
nice to have the options. So yeah, I live in
northwest Illinois. I've got to I own a small farm
up here and been hunting that pretty hard. Got a
good deer on it and have had a couple encounters
with him. But the middle of November I usually just
(28:27):
take a mini ructation and then I'll take the gun season.
So I had the days off to kind of just
bounce around and do what the encounters and the cameras
told me.
Speaker 5 (28:39):
So I hunted hard at home.
Speaker 6 (28:42):
I had some good encounters with several bucks, and it
just wasn't it just wasn't there yet. I wasn't seeing
the activity. The mature bucks that I was seeing were
not doing what I thought I needed them to do
to kill them. And we we have a I've got
an uncle who owns a good farm down in south
(29:04):
central Annoy It's about four and a half hours south
of me and my cousin and I hunt that pretty
hard and we manage that one as best as we can.
And it's tough for me to get down there as
much as I want to, but we spend a lot
of time on the food plots and the trail cameras
and the box lilnes and all that fun stuff.
Speaker 5 (29:20):
And we did we did have some good deer on camera.
Speaker 6 (29:23):
So about that time that my farm was kind of
slowing down a little bit, I did decide to pack
the bags and head down there.
Speaker 5 (29:32):
And uh yeah, So I headed down.
Speaker 6 (29:34):
If you want to just straight into the that few
days that I had. So I left here on Monday morning,
took a morning hunt off and dropped my kids off
at school, and I was like, okay, doing the math
and stop for lunch and fuel up. And by the
time I get there, I'm like, it'll be about about
time to hop straight into into a stand. So the
whole drive down there, of course, I'm looking at wind
(29:55):
directions and talking to my cousin about where to go, and.
Speaker 5 (29:58):
He's like, I just go to food.
Speaker 6 (29:59):
We had a big cold snap, heavy winds, a thirty
degree temperature drop. He's like, I bet you there's gonna
be deer on food and Bucks will swing by and
see what they can find for doze.
Speaker 5 (30:10):
Right, It's just that time of year. And he nailed it.
Speaker 6 (30:14):
Give him, Give him that credit. I want his head
to get any bigger than his doorways are. But he
called it, and I raced all the way down there,
and I'm kidding, I kid you not, Jake. I was
pulled up to the parking spot, walked up, walked out
to the blind. I didn't have the door shut on
the blind and I looked up and are number one
(30:35):
or number two, depending on if you talk to me
or My cousin was walking across, walking into the food
plot from the corner right in front of the blind
and I had my backpack on. I did an arrow
still in the quiver, no release nothing. I mean, I
literally was didn't even have the door shut.
Speaker 5 (30:52):
So I'm in panic mode getting arrow knocked.
Speaker 6 (30:55):
The deer ends up angling towards the blind and cutting
out about fifty yards.
Speaker 5 (31:00):
The wind was so heavy and he was through.
Speaker 6 (31:03):
A pretty good amount of weeds in the food plot
that I was worried about a deflection if I were
to were to shoot one, but not getting a good
range on him and the wind and the panic that
I had, I was like, I'm not going to shoot
this year unless he happens to come into, you know,
making make a move and angle into about thirty yards
or less. So he comes in just got to fifty
(31:25):
was about the closest that I was able to get
a range on him, and he was able to basically
check the whole food plot, didn't see a single dough
and walked out. So that was at one thirty on
Monday afternoon. So I was not expecting that obviously. Yeah, yeah,
very early and by himself just doing what big bucks
do on you know, that was November tenth.
Speaker 5 (31:47):
You know, he was just cruising.
Speaker 6 (31:48):
He was my guess, he was between doughs, and he
was he was looking for his second, second or third one.
By that time of year, it could have been the third.
Even so a bunch of come out. He never comes
back to check the plot. Had a great hunt, saw
twenty to thirty deer, but no mature bucks ever ended
(32:08):
up stepping out a hunt of the next morning in
a big timber ridge in a saddle, saw another pile
of deer, saw a good three year old chasing doze
right underneath me. Small bucks cruising and I and I
had an encounter with again.
Speaker 5 (32:24):
He now looking looking. Now we've got one, dear down.
Speaker 6 (32:26):
I would say that this is our the one that
I saw Saturday, or I'm sorryday Tuesday, Tuesday morning, Tuesday morning,
the one that I saw Tuesday morning. He's probably our
number one now that I've got what and I think
our number two is on the ground. But he shows
up straight behind me in a saddle came in straight
down win.
Speaker 5 (32:46):
I don't know if he ever got my win. He
never spooked, but.
Speaker 6 (32:49):
The closest he got was about eighty yards. So I
got a really good look at him. Saw a big
split on one side. Thought it was my dear at first,
because that was the most distinct thing about him.
Speaker 5 (32:59):
He's got double split g Tues.
Speaker 6 (33:01):
And so when I saw him on Monday afternoon, I
thought this year on Tuesday morning, same year, I'm like,
I saw a big split running through the woods.
Speaker 5 (33:10):
So I'm like, there he is again.
Speaker 6 (33:12):
Well, I got some video of him and we can
actually tell he's only got one split on one side,
so we're like, that's a different deer. So we kind
of have a beat on two different bucks on the
same side of the farm.
Speaker 4 (33:23):
Now.
Speaker 6 (33:23):
So my cousin comes down on Tuesday afternoon and I
actually send him a pin. I'm like, I'm thinking about
going right here in my saddle or a or a
hanging hunt situation. And he's like, man's that's about where
I was gonna go. And I'm like, all right, no
big deal. I'm like, you go there. I was actually
thinking about going back to that food plot and doing
a hanging hunt.
Speaker 5 (33:44):
So the big thing.
Speaker 6 (33:45):
On Tuesday afternoon was that we had a wind shift
from from northwest to southwest, and it was still a
very strong wind. So with the south wind, I knew
here's my big takeaway is that.
Speaker 5 (34:00):
I knew there was a good deer in the area.
Speaker 6 (34:02):
The odds he was going to do the exact same
thing twice, we're slim, and even if he did and
I was in the same spot, he's gonna skirt me
at fifty yards again, right, So I had to make
a move and do something different. So with the south wind,
I was able to get on the northwest side of
this food plot in the woods, just a little bit
to where all the deer that entered the food plot
(34:23):
come in straight up wind. So if everything happened at
the same I had great wind for it.
Speaker 5 (34:30):
So that's exactly what I did.
Speaker 6 (34:31):
So my cousin went to my initial spot I was
looking to go. I jumped back over in that food
plot that I saw that big deer the night before.
And this is where it got chaotic, is I got
out of the woods from my morning hunt. I went
and grabbed a tree stand that I'd hung somewhere else
for my hanging bang set up. And I was back
(34:53):
at the truck and I got my bow out. I
shot a couple of arrows just to pass some time
and make sure my bow's good after the you know
hunting and all the drive and everything. Set my bow
on the table I get all my game playing together.
Speaker 5 (35:06):
Get my tree stand packed up.
Speaker 6 (35:08):
I head to the woods and I throw my stand
and my pack on and I'm like, all I just
got to grab my bow and pull my open my
back door my truck, pull my bow out, and it's
not there, and I'm like, oh my gosh, left my.
Speaker 5 (35:23):
Bow at the cabin.
Speaker 6 (35:24):
I knew I was sitting right on the table where
I left it after I got done shooting.
Speaker 5 (35:27):
So I'm like, all right, mind you.
Speaker 6 (35:29):
I wanted to be in the woods by one o'clock
since I saw the deer by one thirty the day before,
and so at this point it's about twelve forty five,
I run back to get my bow. Come back now,
I got everything right, So hike in about four hundred yards,
get the tree stand hung. Takes I'm not super efficient
at doing a hanging hunt yet, but I hang.
Speaker 5 (35:51):
About twenty minutes or so.
Speaker 6 (35:53):
I get set up, and I'm not super happy with
myself for forgetting my bow.
Speaker 5 (36:00):
I'm sweaty. It was warmer that day.
Speaker 6 (36:03):
I was I was like, I just didn't feel super
confident just all things considered, I was rushed, you know,
the feeling, and you're covered in sweat. You just hung
a stand, you know, straps in the way, and I'm
all frustrated. And about that time I was like, all right,
we're here, We're good, We're set up. It was about
one thirty at that point, so of course I'm looking
for deer and I'm like, all right, I got to
(36:24):
get my binos out, start glass and see if this
buck's going to come through. And that was about the
time that I went in my backpack realized that my
binos are not in my backpack. So I'm beyond frustrated now,
(36:45):
and I think I even texted you that you know,
this is going to be the day that you know,
I think I called it. I said, I if this
is as this as cluster, as clustered as I was,
as this day was.
Speaker 5 (36:57):
I was like, this is the day that I'm going
to randomly shoot a big deer. Right.
Speaker 6 (37:01):
Ended up standing there for ten minutes trying to look
through the woods and see everything that moved that wasn't
a deer, and I could not do it. I could
not go ten minutes without binos. And I was like,
you know what, the other than that big deer, the
other deer that came out was at three h nine
it is it is a one. I think it was
(37:21):
one forty five. I said, I got plenty of time.
Let's just go ahead and go get those binos. So
I got down, went and got the bino's and the
range finder.
Speaker 5 (37:31):
Min knew the rangefinders also in there.
Speaker 6 (37:34):
And I get back in the woods and I had
a I remember time stamping this because I had sent
a buddy a text message about forgetting my binoculars at
two oh four, and I turned around to get some
water out of my backpack because I was sweat like
crazy just a walk. I went to grab a water.
(37:54):
So I turned around and I see a deer walking
through the woods and I was like, that's a big
body deer. I got the binos that I just had
to have. I got those vinys up and I realized
I saw the double splits, and I was like, there
he is.
Speaker 5 (38:05):
He's he's he's he's doing it. And so he comes
and angles through the woods. And this is.
Speaker 6 (38:14):
Another part of it that I've reflected a lot on
that I've I've evolved as a hunter and I've and
I've gotten better, is that when I realized that I
was in the game, I really focused on how things
went from there up into the shot and post shot
instead of just overwhelming, like getting overwhelmed with a big
(38:36):
buck and the rack, and in the moment, I really
harnessed everything and I and I executed as best as
I could. And by that, I mean he was angled
towards me. But I didn't just watch the deer. I
really looked at the route he was taking and all
the possibilities that he could go. And I remember thinking
vividly like, he's gonna come check this food plot. But
(38:58):
looking at the edge of this food plot, it is
full of multi flour rows and it is it is thick.
Speaker 5 (39:05):
So that limits them.
Speaker 6 (39:07):
It kind of funnels them to the corners of the
food plot. And he's angled to the corner that I'm
sitting on. So I start ranging shooting lanes and I realized,
I'm like, Okay, there's gonna be one at forty one,
there's gonna be one at thirty three, and if he.
Speaker 5 (39:21):
Takes this way, I'll have a chip shot.
Speaker 6 (39:23):
So I'm doing all that stuff as he's coming in
about seventy yards and he's angled to me. So instead
of just watching the deer walk through the woods while
I had.
Speaker 5 (39:30):
Time I start planning what's going to happen.
Speaker 6 (39:33):
I try to predict multiple scenarios, and sure enough he
comes to it, comes to the right angle, and he
comes to forty one, and I start to realize. I'm like, sure,
I could shoot him at forty one, but the multiple
rows is going to funnel him even closer. So five
years ago, I might have just just said I got
(39:54):
a shot, take it. But he was upwind. I put
this stand in the perfect spot for this wind. He
had no idea I was there. I mean, zero clue.
He was just doing butt. He was just doing buck
things in November, just checking out. He wasn't moving fast,
he was just checking out, nose to the ground, see
when he could smell and.
Speaker 5 (40:13):
See right, comes up to thirty five yards straight at me.
Rubs on a seater.
Speaker 6 (40:18):
Gives me even more time to play out different scenarios.
Speaker 5 (40:21):
I ranged everything that I could.
Speaker 6 (40:23):
Of course, bos in hand releases is hooked, and I'm
ranging everything I can. And I said, ninety percent chance
he's gonna take this angle and he's gonna go right
between those two trees at thirty three yards, And that's
exactly what he did. So everything was played out perfect.
The deer walks into the shooting lane. I draw as
he gets to the first tree. The deer did not
(40:46):
stop naturally in the shooting lanes, so I gave him
the map. And the mistake that I made, this is
the one mistake that I made, and it was a
big mistake, is I did not let that deer stop.
I predicted he was going to stop, so it was
so windy, I don't think he heard the map, so
I went map shot rather than map wait for them
(41:10):
to stop.
Speaker 5 (41:11):
Shoot.
Speaker 6 (41:12):
So when he when he was when he hit my pin,
I expected him to stop, so I shot. He didn't stop.
He took another step, so I hit him about ten
inches back. Not a good shot right off the bat.
Speaker 5 (41:27):
You know.
Speaker 6 (41:28):
Wasn't happy. But the second thought into my mind was
dead deer. For sure, a dead deer. The next thing
that he did was he sprinted into the food plot
and I could see a big entry, a big entry hole.
Speaker 5 (41:43):
So that was good.
Speaker 6 (41:43):
I was happy with that, trying to get another arrow
in just in case I could get another shot out
of me, even if it was a long one. He
didn't get in a good shooting window for me, so
I just watched him. He cut into a draw and
I was able to watch him for about one hundred yards.
I saw the entrance again and it was it had
it had blood coming out of that a big entrance hole.
(42:04):
So I felt confident that this was a fatal hit
at that point. It was just a matter of how
much time to give him. So that was at two
twenty so mind you, I got back in the tree
at two o'clock with my bino's and I had an
arrow in that deer at two twenty, so again really
early first year out. I made a phone call my
(42:28):
cousin who's hunting on that that other spot on the
farm not too far away, and told him what happened.
You know, we kind of we kind of had some
predictions on where he's gonna go.
Speaker 5 (42:37):
A lot of deer have died in that draw that
he went to.
Speaker 6 (42:40):
It's just a real thick draw between two food plots
that they like to bed in and and and.
Speaker 5 (42:45):
They'll they'll hang out there quite a bit.
Speaker 6 (42:47):
Uh, there's a good chance that he could have died
right in there in his first or second bed and
then there's another bedding area about it's a it's a
big long tree planning that's about fifty ten years old.
So it's a bunch of small saplings. It's really thick.
There's a creek on one side. It's just a heavy
betting area that we we tend to find a lot
(43:09):
of dead deer in from either obviously deer that we've
hit or the neighbors. This was this was one of
those scenarios where we knew we just had to wait
and if we played our cards right, we're going to
find this year.
Speaker 5 (43:22):
Never had the doubt in my mind that it wasn't fatal.
Speaker 6 (43:26):
And you even, you know, said start the twenty four
hour clock, you know, after I told you that I
got to hit in one and where it was, and
so that's what we did. We called a couple of
dog trackers in the area. Obviously this time of year
they are swamped, so just getting them on the phone
is tough to do. But I give a shout out
to those guys because they save a lot of hunters
(43:48):
this time of year. But I talked to a couple
of them just out of you know, it's like, hey,
even if you can't help me, I'd really like to
just get your opinion on the time stamp that we
need to be here, that we need to be waiting here, right,
And that gave me the confidence to do exactly that,
which is wait twenty four hours. So we waited twenty
four hours. We had a we had a dog tracker
(44:09):
on the way we went. We ended up going back
down to the cabin while you know, we beat him
down there by about an hour or so, and we
decided to just kind of drive down there just see,
just check the area out.
Speaker 5 (44:25):
There's a lot of hunters around the area.
Speaker 6 (44:27):
We just want to check and see if we check
some fields, see if we see any big bucks running.
Speaker 5 (44:31):
And of course we weren't hunting.
Speaker 6 (44:32):
My cousin worked that day, and I was just in
weight mode, right, so I wasn't I wasn't really interested
in getting back out in the woods for even even
though I have a second buck tag.
Speaker 5 (44:42):
Right, just I was focused on this, dear.
Speaker 6 (44:45):
And as we're driving down there, we drive past that
second betting area that I mentioned earlier, and two buzzards
popped out of there and we and it was right
along a creek that that borders that betting area, and
so we talked about it and we said, you know,
if we go in there, the main track where we
(45:06):
think this deer is is not boogered up. It's good
for a dog. If we go in here and this
year is not there, then I don't think we messed
anything up. So we literally just wanted to go in
and just we glassed a lot, and we were able
to cover a lot of this bedding area with the
glass instead of instead of tracking across the whole thing.
(45:28):
So I went in one side, my cousin went in
the other, and we like I dropped him off on
one side, and he walked towards the truck, and I
walked away from the truck, and we just this is
one hundred yards wide and maybe five hundred yards long,
so we were able to cover it pretty quick with
the two of us. I walked down one side, he
walks down the other. Neither one of us had any luck,
no blood, no nothing. And so I'm like, all right, well,
(45:52):
I'm just gonna make my way back your way, And
I just took a little bit different route that's a
little bit closer to where he was. And he was
walking the edge of the creek, looking into the creek,
expecting a deer to be down in the in the
water in the creek. Bed and then he's glassing up
into this bedding area. At the same time, I came
back through more in the bedding area and I was
(46:15):
about sixty yards away and I called him. I said,
all right, I didn't have any luck. I'm gonna make
my way back to the truck. We'll just wait for
the dog come in and go to the hit. And
I hang up the phone, and thirty seconds later I
look over and I'm like, that really looks like a
tye with the naked eye no binoculars.
Speaker 5 (46:30):
And then I was like, no, that is a tie.
Speaker 6 (46:32):
And I put the binos up and I'm like that
that's a pretty big time. And I could just see
two points sticking up out of a bunch of brush
and weeds, and so I angle back to where I
can see a little bit better.
Speaker 5 (46:45):
I get my arrow I had an arrow knocked.
Speaker 6 (46:47):
I get my release on, not knowing if this is
a dead deer, alive deer, if it's my deer, and
I kind of take an angle over and I could
see I could see a body that's laying down sure enough,
is dead or in a door nail.
Speaker 5 (46:59):
And then I was like, I don't know what deer
it is.
Speaker 6 (47:01):
And then I could see the exit hole in the
in the stomach, so it was it was at that
point I knew it was my deer. And then I
was able to knew it was dead. Took another step
and I could see those big split g two's awesome, man.
Speaker 5 (47:15):
And and then it was I mean a million pounds.
Speaker 6 (47:19):
Off my shoulders, right, So a lot of a lot
of thought after after the shot went into how are
we going to recover this deer? So we were able
to do it very uneventfully without you know, wild goose chase.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
Yeah, well you gave it time.
Speaker 5 (47:31):
It was awesome. We get a lot of time.
Speaker 1 (47:33):
Yeah, yeah, well, no, man, congratulations And I think there's
a lot of really key lessons in that for everyone on.
You know, you just got to be out there. You
got to trust your gut and then if something does
not go right, you got to give the deer time,
especially when you know where you hit them and you
did everything right there.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
So congratulations.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
So looking here, you know, Illinois is a two bucks state,
so you still have a buck tag here in your pocket.
Looking from the nineteenth to the day before Thanksgiving, what
what is top of mine?
Speaker 2 (48:04):
Here?
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Obviously are gun season kicks off this upcoming weekend. What
what on a scale one to ten, what do you
think the activity is going to be? And if you're
a guy in Illinois with a tag in your pocket,
what what?
Speaker 2 (48:17):
What do you tell that guy?
Speaker 5 (48:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (48:20):
I think, uh, I think I like it, probably more
than most Illinois hunters. I'm pretty partial to the second
third week of November as opposed to the first. And
I know, trust me, we all love when that calendar
turns over and and the statistics on the sixth, seventh, eighth,
(48:40):
the ninth, And I've killed on those days more so
I should say I've killed on the ninth. I historically
on multiple farms that I've hunted, have seen more activity
from the tenth through the twentieth, and then then you'll
you'll get into that gun season period. And we've had
(49:02):
some really good gun seasons down there. Even if we
don't we don't harvest everything we have in mind, visual
sightings just happened to uptick in that in that timeframe.
My personal opinion is, and there's a lot of opinions
on it, but I really think a buck is most
visible when he's between dose as opposed to looking for
that first one I think my opinion is that in
(49:25):
the first week of November we see a ton of
running activity, but me personally, it's mostly small bucks that
that I've that I have encounters with the mature bucks.
Speaker 5 (49:36):
I think they snag those dose without much effort.
Speaker 6 (49:39):
I think they snag those first doze without effort, so
they don't have to travel very far to get them,
whereas the small bucks got to work for it in
that first week and then the the second and third doze. Whenever,
whenever those bucks are coming off of the first one,
I think that's when they're most vulnerable. And that's whenever
I've seen and or killed more of my dear I've got.
I was actually just talking to a buddy about it
(49:59):
the other the thirteenth, the fifteenth, the eighteenth, now the eleventh.
Obviously I killed on the eleventh. Those are the days
of my four biggest bucks, so we're heading into the
backside of that period that I really like. That being said,
I think that you're with the if the weather's playing,
(50:21):
the weather plays a big factor into it. I think
that's gonna matter if they rut during or if they
move during the day or at night.
Speaker 5 (50:27):
They're gonna rut.
Speaker 6 (50:28):
Either way, I think coming into this gun season, I
think it's gonna be pretty good. I think most of
our activity has been about a week or so behind
where we would normally see it. I didn't see any
mature bucks start to do much running activity until I
think the seventh I saw one mature buck bumping a
(50:51):
dough not even not even.
Speaker 5 (50:52):
Like super interested, like hot on her tail.
Speaker 6 (50:56):
I'm starting to see that now, both both in the
last couple of days of hunting and on my cameras too.
Speaker 5 (51:02):
So I think it's I'd be pretty.
Speaker 6 (51:05):
Optimistic, and I'm naturally a pretty optimistic person, but I
think that depending on what the weather's going to do
in different pockets. So hunting two different areas in Illinois,
it's pretty crazy. It'll be a twenty degree difference from
where I live to the farm down south.
Speaker 5 (51:23):
So that was one reason I went down there, is.
Speaker 6 (51:26):
Because it got to seventy degrees, Like it's seventy degrees
down there now, and I was like, I'm gonna hunt
it while it's in the forties and up here it's
going to be in the fifties, so.
Speaker 5 (51:36):
I've got much better weather.
Speaker 6 (51:38):
Better weather hunting up here whenever it's seventy down there.
So if that weather's doing what it's, you know, what
you need it to do where you're hunting, I think
there's a good chance if you're out there, if you
can catch that buck between does, they're pretty vulnerable.
Speaker 5 (51:55):
I think that this.
Speaker 6 (51:55):
Buck was between dose and I saw him twice in
about twenty five hours. And I saw another mature buck
doing the exact same thing, did not have a dough
with him, was was cruising the woods, and and I
think I think there's a good chance that that this
this gun season could be pretty good for for a
lot of guys in Illinois.
Speaker 1 (52:14):
Yeah, food or betting if you had, you know, just
for someone that's like, okay, I still have a tag.
I'm gonna be able to hunt, maybe a boat hunt
a couple of days here before gun season, whether it's
you know, Wednesday or Thursday, and then for the gun season.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
Betting, food, right place, right time, throw a doll.
Speaker 5 (52:34):
Yeah, well everything situation right, yeah, both right. I like
to hunt the doze right now. And I'm and and
I'm not.
Speaker 6 (52:45):
Like like hardcore got to be on the dose, but
that's what he's looking for. And I like to be
one big lesson that I've learned this year, and I
kind of reflect and try to get better every year.
Speaker 5 (52:57):
I think we probably all do.
Speaker 6 (52:59):
And what I've realized this year is that if I
have an encounter with a buck, I've got to do
something similar to what he did, because he's gonna do.
Speaker 5 (53:06):
Something similar to.
Speaker 6 (53:09):
If we both do the same thing, that that deer
is not gonna do the same thing two days in
a row, I mean, the exact same thing.
Speaker 5 (53:16):
I think he's gonna do something similar. He's gonna be
in the area.
Speaker 6 (53:20):
But if if if I just go do the exact
same thing, I don't I don't think I'm gonna be
in the chips. And what I've decided this year is
be more mobile. So I've got a saddle set up,
I've got a hang and bang, I've got lock ons,
I've got ground blinds, I've got box blinds, I've I've
got I've got all the tools that I can think
of to put me in the in the right spot
(53:42):
wherever that is. I've got hang ons that are that
I just think I'm gonna I want to get a
visual on him and then I can make a move
from there. That's That's one of my big takeaways this
year is mature bucks are are not on a pattern
this time of year, but they are in an area
and they do kind of tend to stick to that
area if they've had if they found a dough there
(54:06):
and they've been in the area, they're gonna look in
for another dough in that same area. So I like
to just move around with what the wind allows me
to do and what the thermals allowed me to do.
And that's exactly what I did on that buck the
other day. I again, I knew he was going to
be in the same area. I knew we had a
I knew he had a really good I knew he
(54:27):
had a really good chance to see him again. So
my job was to get in the right spot, per
the wind and hope that he makes the right move
and you know, all the stars aligned perfect.
Speaker 1 (54:41):
Well man, congratulations once again, and and good luck everyone
out there with the tag still here in Illinois firearm season,
it is an exciting time to be on the woods
and it's just one of the its opening days is
truly one of those days of the year where you
just truly don't know.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
What could happen.
Speaker 4 (55:00):
Go to a bath, anything, anything awesome.
Speaker 2 (55:05):
Well, congratulations once again, Shane.
Speaker 5 (55:07):
Yeah, thanks, Jake, appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (55:09):
There you guys have I hope you enjoyed this week's
episode of Rough Fresh. I hope you have a great Thanksgiving.
I hope you get a chance to sneak out and
do a little bit more dear hunting. If it is
a firearm season for you, like it is here in
Illinois this upcoming weekend, Be safe, be a good neighbor,
be a good friend, and we'll see you next time.
All right, welcome back to another episode of Rough Fresh.
I'm Jake Koefer, and we have three Big Buck stories
and updates from Kansas, Illinois, and Pennsylvania, and we're getting
deeper into the month of November. Thanksgiving is just right
around the corner, and I think this is one thing
for everyone to consider when the calendars, which is two December,
(00:21):
we're going to be wishing it was November again. So
a lot of the advice and updates here throughout this
episode is to remember it's November. Remember this is the
time we've been waiting for, and to keep at it
and keep just plugging away, Just keep plugging away, and
I hope there's some great intel here for you folks
in this episode. As you know, Roughresh is brought to
you by land dot com, the leading online real estate
(00:44):
marketplace to find your perfect rural, recreational, agricultural, or hunting
properties here in the US. My challenge for you guys
this week is just to keep positive mindset, keep out there,
working hard, keep scouting, don't be afraid to call an
audible on your game plan, and just give November everything
you got on what you can do. I know, for
myself personally, it's getting to the point of the year
(01:05):
where I'm starting to feel little guilty for hunting really
hard responsibilities are falling on the wayside.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
But we're gonna be missing this time period. So do
what you can.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
If you can walk, walk, if you can crawl, crawl,
And let's kick this off with Anthony Warren and Kansas,
who just shy his personal best.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Buck.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Here we go, all right, first up on the line,
we have Anthony Warren who just shot a personal best
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yes, sir, pretty pretty close.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
I don't score a ton of my dear, but he's
definitely gonna be in contention, and I'm super stoked about it.
And he was a real, real nice basically main framemate.
So just a giant, giant body of a deer and.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
And just really great rack for an eight point anywhere?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Really yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:53):
No, and so and that was in Kansas, right, Yes, yeah,
it was Okay, So Kansas, big Buck has hit the dirt.
Talk a little bit about I know you had previous
encounters with that deer in the past, but how did
it come together here recently?
Speaker 4 (02:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
You know, this this season has been probably a little
slower and I don't know what you know, everybody else
is talking about their experiences, but so far.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
It's just seemed like everything's been pretty late.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
And the week leading up to that, I was actually
in Illinois and it was almost dead there. You know,
cameras were telling me that deer on my farm in
Kansas were starting to move. And you know, there's not
really a whole lot of secret sauces that goes into
this one. You know, a little bit of a little
bit of strategy on my part when it comes to,
(02:45):
you know, the deer moving and kind of what I
thought was going to happen, you know, mixed with some
good fortune of some really cold days, you know, last week.
But you know, really it just has seemed overall to
me that the rut has been like a slow start
off this year, like they just haven't really they haven't
really been after it like they had in the past
(03:07):
years this early. But I think I think we're kind
of getting into that. But for this buck in particular
last year, I actually I actually shot this deer on
November the eighth, and I rattled the deer in and
he came and came in super pad and heated and
just rubbing up against every SAT plane on the way
in and uh, you know, nerves kind of got the
(03:30):
best of me. He circled in kind of whide trying
to get down the end and I ended up skimming,
skimming at the top of his back. And so I
just tried to stay on them all all season, and uh,
just never materialized.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
But this year, fortunately, I think he came back.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
A little bit bigger, a little bit bigger frame, and
I had him at a couple of locations where I
was trying to feed and really for me, you know,
if you hold those and you and you can, you know,
have food for you're gonna have bucks around. And historically
this year has hung out on me from the months
of October all the way through February. So, you know,
(04:09):
I think the night before I saw the year on
a on a trail camera, probably one hundred yards from
where I shot him and where i'd hunted the evening before,
and it was after dark, and I said, well, tomorrow
is going to be the coldest morning so far of
the month, and I'm just going to be between where
he was last night and where he could be going.
(04:30):
And it kind of was a strategy that that proved
to be, you know, beneficial with that being said that,
you know, kind of leading up the night before I
shot him, I had a really great encounter with a
three and a half three and a half year old
ten point, just real pretty, and he was dog in
a group of doughs that was I don't know, there
(04:50):
were probably eight to ten dos in this group. And
one thing that I banked on the next morning going
back to this spot is that previous hunt before I
killed him, I saw all these dos and they were
just peeing all over the place, and I was like, man,
what a what a better place to be than you know,
(05:11):
where a bunch of does a feed? Now a buck
is bound to be over in this area. Wanting to
sin check that. And so sure enough, the next morning
that I ended up shooting him, I watched him come
all the way across the field towards some does and
some feed that I had, and he would stop at
every single location that I had kind of mentally bookmarked
(05:33):
that a doe had stopped and urinated, and he was
just nose down and he'd run to the next next spot,
and then he'd he nosed down and then you know,
he just came full sprint and just grunning and it
was pretty gnarly to see such a big frame buck
doing that, especially for that first daylight.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
So but yeah, that that was kind of how that unfolded.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
But you know, really just the history of knowing, you know,
where this buck liked to be, and then kind of
putting myself between two points of interest where I thought
he would be, and then kind of being.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
Around where I knew does wanted to be was kind
of the name of the game.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
And I'd actually never hunted this particular part of the
farm before. It just doesn't really lend itself to being
a great killing spot. But I was obviously pleasantly surprised
I was able to intercept him between two major points,
so it all worked out.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Yeah, man, no, that's that's what we all hope for.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
And uh, you know, I think paying attention to the
dose right, like a lot of this stuff, the advice
necessarily doesn't change year to year, but you still have
to key in on that, like, Okay, there was a
bunch of dozen here, and you know, it's that simple.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Sometimes.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Obviously there's a little bit of luck, a little bit
of mental for two to be set up and be
ready to rock and roll. But man, what a what
an incredible buck and congratulations. Now for guys that have
been struggling, maybe maybe they're in the part of the
season where it's like, Okay, I've been hunting a deer
and now I need to call an audible or I
don't want to lower my standards necessarily, but I do
(07:04):
want to potentially shift around. And so now it's November
nineteenth and all the really exciting dates that are. You know,
everyone has a favorite day. There's not too many people
that say, my favorite day is November nineteenth. So with
all that being said, we're leading up to Thanksgiving. Now,
what's on the top of your mind for any of
the tags on your pocket? In your pocket here as
(07:25):
we you know, get deeper into November.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Yeah, well, I'm kind of adding on to what I
said earlier. I truly feel like we're probably seven to
nine days behind a typical runt schedule.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
I've talked to guys that.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
I met when I was hunting in Illinois and they
felt kind of the same way. I'm still talking to
buddies who are still trying to get it done in Kansas.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
They kind of feel the same way.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Based on what I know right now at the time
of us sitting down for this. Bucks are chasing, and
I had seen, you know, even two days ago before
I left Kansas, that bucks were starting to chase, but
I had not been seeing really much more than three
and a half to four and a half year old dear.
So I know that I had a buddy that had
(08:11):
a one seventy that was locked on a dough a
couple of days ago. So I definitely think we are
and everybody's kind of like, you know, mentally their favorite days,
but we're just a little behind. You know, it's not
November the seventh or November the fifth. I feel like
we're kind of a week late. With that being said,
my true gut feeling on this doesn't really change. I
(08:34):
think you just need to be where those are going
to be, so that that can be betting, that can
be food, that can be you know, a betting to
food pattern. You know, if you can be somewhere between
those two things, you know, and depending on where you're
going to be at in the country, obviously out in Kansas,
it never hurts the being a pinch point between two
(08:55):
betting areas or close to a food source.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Again, my gut tells.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Me that we are kind of in what I would
consider like peak moving, you know, right into the lockdown
stage of the rut in a lot of places across
the country. But I do have I do have a
couple of gun tags coming up for the next few weekends,
and really my strategy is just to be in tight
(09:21):
corridors and between bedding, and if you can be in
that situation, you know, it's it's probably gonna be the
best place to be until you know, i'd say mid December,
where you're going to start shifting back toward food. But
I still think if you're a guy and you're discouraged
and you haven't seen, you know, a shooter buck yet,
(09:44):
like it's just about logging hours right now, because at
this point in time, you can't just rely on like
the pre run or you know, those kind of tactics.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Like what you really need is you just need to
be in.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
A place where a dough is going to walk by
and lead a big buck and that. And that's frustrating
and it makes for long hours and and I've been
there where you just hate it and you feel like
such a bum sitting up in the tree.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
And you're like, man, what am I doing here?
Speaker 3 (10:11):
I'm driving myself crazy, and then at eleven ten am,
you know, everything changes because the doe walks by with
a you know, mature buck right behind her. So those
things have a proclivity of happening this time of year.
It's just going to be about, like you can you
last through the grind. You know, I don't always love
(10:32):
in all day sit, but if you were going to
do an all day sit, you know, now it might
be the time to do that, and then moving in
toward the next week or so. I still feel really
strongly about that. You know, time on stand is time
towards success.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
I like that. I like that. Yeah, No, I think
it's it's easy to get discouraged.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Because I've logged a bunch of all day sits hunting
a specific deer, and man, it's it's starting to I've
actually enjoyed the process a bunch. But I feel we
had a guest last week that said, right when you're
about to give up is usually when you find success.
So I think I think that advice rings true, you know,
for the whole season, just don't give up. Yeah, absolutely,
(11:13):
and and honestly, hopefully as we get closer to the
Thanksgiving weekend. I still really like those dates a lot.
You know, I still see a lot of a lot
of really good movement, and depending on where you're at
in the country, like I didn't see a lot of
a lot of breeding still happening in the first two
weeks of December.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
I mean it begins to taper down, but you know,
like really, really, until you start talking about around Christmas time,
I think you're really in the game as long as you.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Are willing to stick it out.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
So hopefully, you know, as the holidays are coming up,
guys can get more time off work and just love
more more hours. And that's really I just think this
time of year, unless you have one just absolutely pinned down,
which I don't think anybody does us, the amount of time.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
You know that you can be in the woods is
going to make the determining factor.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
And another thing I do like about really this upcoming
week that I didn't say earlier, is there there's gonna
be a chance that guys see really big deer that
they have absolutely no history with, because all of a sudden,
you know that buck may have bread does and in
his home range or summer range or and and like
you hear a lot of guys talk about summer ranges
(12:28):
versus ball ranges, and I'm a firm believer that, you know,
whether you have a deer that lives on one particular
property or not, like there is going to be some
crossover where some bucks come in and they start looking
for new dough, so you know, another gut filling. Is
that really over the next week or so, you know
you're going to start to see a buck just show
(12:49):
up at random and and that's really where it's going
to pay off just to be in the stand, because
it's it's gonna be one of the most frustrating things
to see that deer on camera and then you you
missed him, you know, because you weren't there, and you'll
never see that year again. And that happens every single
year where I see giant bucks and I'm like.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
Like, dude, where did that deer even come from? I've
never seen him, And then you never see him again.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
It's just because he's frantic looking for you know, the
last available dough and and then he's probably going to
go back to where wherever his home range was and
then kind of settle down for the year, maybe try
to bread a few year ling dows that come in
late and then really.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
Just focus on food at that point.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
But that's kind of you know, the last week point
I think I make is over the next week. You know,
you just don't know what's going to happen. You could
you could end up having a chance at that one
that you've looked at all the year, or you could
have you know, the neighbors one sixty Uh, run you know,
run over, you know, from a couple of miles away
and be in your lap.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
It's just a matter of if you're if you're there
or not.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Yeah, I love it. That's great advice, wonderful advice. So
looking here in the next week leading up to Thanksgiving,
scale one to ten, ten being the best week of
the year, one being one of the worst weeks the year,
what do you put the potential big buck activity?
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Yeah, you know, I couldn't give it a ten because
I just think that deer are gonna be locked down
those right now, but it will be tapering off. So
I'm still gonna be pretty optimistic and say probably somewhere around.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
An eight and a half to nine.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
You know, it's with the deer being locked on, you're
just you've got to be committed to long hours in
the stand because you just never know when something's gonna change.
But you know, with that being said, I still think
there's a really good chance that you know, we are
in the best week right now, and then over the
next seven to ten days, it's still going to remain high.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
You know, you're gonna be somewhere.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Around at eight and it's gonna feel like a ten
for some guys, and some guys it's gonna feel like
a five.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
But that's just kind of the nature of this year.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
You just have to you just kind of have to
be where there were they want to be and where
they are.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
At that particular moment to make it happen.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Well, congratulations once again, man, that was an awesome buck.
Congratulations and hopefully good luck to everyone else out here
that's got to tag in their pocket and you have
some words of encouragement and advice for to help them.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Yeah, absolutely, Well, good luck to everybody this season. And
I know I've got a couple of tags remaining. My
boat season kind of got cut short. I just located
my shoulder, so I actually I'm picking up. I just
bought a crossbow last night, so I got to become
a crossbow hunder the rest of the year.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
So well you oasher out.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
There and uh sh hopefully your shoulder heels up to
because I know you probably not enjoyed that.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
It was.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
It was a bummer. I've been through the ringer on it.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
But but yeah, I mean, good luck to everybody, and uh,
you know, just lock those hours if you if you can, and.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
You know, callin sick, do interview you got to do to.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Get out in the woods. But good good luck to everybody.
I think we're we're about in the thick of it
right now.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Wonderful man. Well, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Yeah, all right, Next up we have Lane within the
presence Hunt Lane.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
How's it going?
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Oh, good buddy, how you doing?
Speaker 2 (16:12):
It's doing great? I know you You shot a giant
Pennsylvania buck. How was that?
Speaker 4 (16:17):
Oh it was wild man, Yeah, it just an absolute unit.
Speaker 5 (16:20):
Man.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
It was insane. I found him in the summer and
then he shifted on me like once Velvit came off
and I was able to pick him back up and
pretty much just wait till the conditions right slid in
killed him.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Yeah, well, how many times when you say waiting for
the conditions we're right, and slid in there and killed them.
Was that like a multiple count cat and mouse game?
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Or was it like? Nah, it just it just worked.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
It just worked, to be honest with you, Like when
I said I picked him back up, Like I didn't
even have any trail cams up there. I never got
another picture of him, like once velvit came off. You know,
I just kind of had a feeling he was in
this clear cut that I found where he was like
living close by in the summer. So I kind of
flipped to the other side of it and found a
whole lot of rut sign, like old, old historical rut sign,
(17:05):
and I knew I just had to be in there,
like when the conditioners were right. So, like I said,
I found that spot probably October or like went in
and scouted it and found it exactly where I needed
to be, like early October. And then I tried it
one more time right before the day I killed him.
But I just tried it like further on down a
little bit, and then I mean it just set up perfect.
The morning I killed them northwest wind, it was cold,
(17:27):
it was later on in October. You know, it just
set up perfect. I was actually supposed to leave for
Illinois that day, but I really wanted to try to
hunt this buck and kill him, and yeah I did it.
So it was freaking awesome. Man, I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
That's super cool.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
What have you been seeing for RUT activity here in
the last couple of days? I mean, do you feel
like we're starting to maybe break through lockdown or I mean,
and I hate to categorize it because I know every
area and everything's a little bit different. But for people listening,
you know, what have you been seeing here for activity
here the last couple of days?
Speaker 4 (17:59):
Yeah, I definitely. I think they're a little bit more
on lockdown right now. Like I drove past my grandma's
house just probably three or four days ago, and I
mean it's there's two roads on each side of it,
you know, and there's a just pretty much a field
with like a little fentro and I've seen a buck
and a dough out there, you know, and he was
a good buck. So I definitely lockdown right now. And
then he still catch bucks moving, you know, once they've
(18:19):
done bring their dough. But I'm just you just got
to get tight to betting, is my best advice. To
anyone who's hunting right.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Now, get tight your bidding and then as far as
you know, the nineteenth leading up to Thanksgiving, I feel
like this one people are digging deep and like, more
(18:46):
than likely people have been hunting pretty hard. And what
advice do you have for those folks that are still
trying their darnest and they feel like maybe the best
has already been behind them and it's like still good.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
Yeah, but the the.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Fatigue And I feel like that's such a cheesy way
to say it, but like the fatigue of the season
is definitely setting in for people right now.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
Oh yeah, one hundred percent. I'd just say keep going, man,
Like all it takes is a split second of your
whole season to change, you know, Like I just I
know it sounds a cliche, but just keep grinding. In
my experience, I find a lot of the bigger books
are moving in like daylight, and a lot more towards
the end of November. You know, it kind of seems
like there's waves of it, but it seems like the
majority historically, what I found is a lot of the
(19:29):
bigger deer. You know, I get a lot of showking
pictures of them running doughs and stuff later on November.
So it's never over, you know what I mean, till
fat ladies singing and you're done for the season. So
just keep grinding the minute it could all change and
split second.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Absolutely, And as far as you know tight to betting,
you feel that like, obviously downwind of predominant betting areas,
are you concerned, Like deer have probably been kind of
messed with, pestered by humans and pestured by little bucks
and it seems like, you know, dose are a little
bit of no, as far as you know the increased
pressure in the woods, and having that in mind, how
(20:05):
concerned are you to get tight to betting? Or how
much longer does it take the set up? Or are
you bounced around from betting area to betting area? Like
what does that look like?
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (20:14):
I mean it kind of just depends, to be honest
with you. Uh yeah, I meant like, just like I
find I'm finding deer right now and just the thickest,
nastiest stuff ever and as far away from human pressure
as possible, Like I kayaked in a river to day
and it was probably I don't know, two miles from
the access all the deer I bumped. We're pretty much
(20:34):
right next to that river bedded down, you know. And
then there was a little betting pocket right in there,
and I got on the backside of it and bumped
a couple more, you know. So just thick, nastiest spots
you can find as far away from human pressure as possible.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
M do you do you get discourage when you're bumping
deer when you're going in to set up on something new, Like,
you know, you throw in the kayak two miles and
you're like, man, I gave all the way back here
and I parked my kayak, I walked ten feet and
I busted one right away.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
I wasn't even off the kayak and I'm blowing deer.
I was so pissed. But yeah, it's one of them
things where it's it's hard not to get pissed. But
you just got to think, like you're already seeing deer.
You're in where deer want to be, you know, don't
don't hang your head. It's not like, you know, it's
not like the deer are just gonna run forever and
just be tear like tear off out of the state,
you know, out of the country, like they're still in there.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
M yeah, No, I think that's good advice as far
as food sources or or even you know, I feel
like there's you categorize a few strategies. People are going
to be deployed here for the next couple, you know,
the next week, depending on whether potentially food sources may
have some pull and attraction, and obviously it's dependent on
where you're at in the country. Another one to be
(21:40):
travel corridors in between betting areas. And then you know,
tight to betting, and you think tight to betting is
probably the one of your best approach for this time
period leading up to Thanksgiving.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
Yeah, for right now, and then once late season comes
and I kind of shift to food, you know what
I mean. But as of right now, do tight to
betting is my best advice, Like you know, down winside
of betting, let bucks either crew is to your come
in the betting area and check it out, you know,
or maybe even they're found a doe in there and
they'll squirret out, you know. It just it just really
just depends. But tight to betting always have seemed to
be the key for me.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
So mm hmm, do you think do you think it
even carries more merit this time of year than earlier,
or like, how would you rank that in terms of,
you know, specifically this upcoming week.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
What tight to betting? I would say, I mean, it
just really depends. Like early season, you know, morning sits,
I'm tight to betting too, you know, the October, you know,
early October, late October, I'm tight to betting. Like I'd
say the majority of the things tight to bedding right now,
you know, Like it's stupid to say it sounds like
I'm just saying like a bunch of rubbish, But like, dude,
(22:43):
that's that's where I'm flying. I'm just just tight to betting, man,
Like it's they're just out and about in the betting areas,
you know.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Yeah, and you've had an incredible year. How many bucks
have you knocked down this year?
Speaker 4 (22:53):
I killed six?
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Yeah, so that's a crazy season, dude.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
Yeah, wild dude, I can't belie that. The biggest one
was that PA one and then I killed like one
hundred and forty inch out in Illinois. I killed like
one hundred and thirty velvet and uh Delaware, and then
I killed it a decent Kansas bug. He was probably
like right about one hundred and fifteen hundred and twenty
inches and then uh, I killed like two Maryland bugs.
(23:18):
I mean, they weren't the biggest bucks in the world,
but they're still good to hear, pump me up.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
So that's that's an unreal season.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
And the follow up question I was, were they all
type to betty?
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Where they all types of betting?
Speaker 4 (23:33):
No, well, the one was not too were okay, all right,
three but all right, so pretty much five of them were.
I'd say like the last the last ones were that
the one I killed early season, like I killed him September.
Second that wasn't tight to betting. I was still probably
three hundred yards from betting, but I was pretty much
sitting right next to a sway beanfield and they came
(23:54):
right down the buffer zone. You know. I shot him
in the woods, but I was still probably three hundred
yards from betting. It's more betted.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
So yeah, And for people listening to when you say
tight to betting, and I'm picturing I'm picturing more Eastern
hunting in my own head right now. But when you
say tight, is that I understand it's situational based off
train and how close can you really get without you know,
getting busted. But as a rule of thumb, is tight
to betting to you one hundred yards, one hundred and
fifty yards, sixty yards.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
Just to get someone to rule with them, Yeah, I'd
say under one hundred for sure. You know, the closer
the better, closer the better if you can get right
on top of them. You know, if you have a
bed picked out, you know you're bed hunting it, like,
you know, getting tight as possible. But yeah, if you're
just hunting a general bet betting area like a dough
betting area, I'd say within you know, seventy five hundred yards,
I'd say if you can get closer by all means,
(24:45):
do it. You know, a lot of times you'll find
edges right on the edge of the betting area, and
a lot of times I can get right into there.
That's the ticket for me one d percent.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
So looking here, the next week's scale one to ten,
ten being the best week of the year, one being
the worst week of the year. November nineteenth to blackout Wednesday.
What do you what do you rank this week coming
up for run activity for big Bucks?
Speaker 4 (25:10):
I'd probably say seven. I mean they're still they're ad
meant they're definitely on lockdown, you know, but like they're
still out and about and like I said, like the
majority of the big Bucks I find do you know,
pulling troil cramps and stuff like, I get a lot
in that timeframe just moving. We see them out with
those two, you know a lot of midday stuff too.
So i'd say i'd say seven, depending on how the
(25:31):
weather is. You know, if you can get a cold snap,
it's on fire man, I'll guarantee. If it's seventy degrees,
I'm sure it's going to shut things down a little bit,
you know, but they'll still be running at night. But
I like it.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Where can people follow along with some of the hunts
here that you had this year?
Speaker 4 (25:45):
Yeah, if every hunt and I've talked about so far,
you can go on our channel just in the presence
hunt pop right up for you. We're also on social media.
If you type you know, Instagram, you type that in,
will pop right up. Facebook type pop right back, pop
up for you.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
So aw, Yeah, Well, dude, what an incredible season, and
good luck the rest of the year. I don't know
if there's any more Bucks safe with the tear you've
been on, but congratulations.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
And good luck the rest of the season.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
Hey, thanks by I appreciate so much. Thanks shoving me
on all right.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Next up we have Shane Albert who just tagged this
personal best buck in the state of Illinois.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Shane, how does it feel.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
It's a huge relief.
Speaker 6 (26:23):
I mean, getting a deer down before for the Illinois
gun season is seems like always the goal. So to
do it and to do it do it with the
bow on my personal best is Yeah. Man, it's been
a big weight off the shoulders the last few days.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
That's awesome man. Congratulations.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
So before we get into the story and how it
went down and what the activity has been here recently,
I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you a tough trivia question
in the state of Illinois.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
What is the.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Surveyed your population in the state of Illinois, and it's
hundreds of thousands.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
I'm going to give you a little bit of a
hit here.
Speaker 5 (27:00):
Yeah, well, I think I know it.
Speaker 6 (27:03):
Once upon a time, I think we used to shoot
about one hundred thousand deer, just under a one hundred
thousand deer. I think those numbers are down and I'm
going off of memory there.
Speaker 5 (27:14):
I'm gonna go with I'm gonna do a round number.
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna.
Speaker 6 (27:21):
Get the prices right here. I'm gonna guess seven hundred thousand.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
It's actually two hundred and ninety thousand, which seems really
that is I think that's too low personally.
Speaker 6 (27:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, just drive a drive at night during November.
Speaker 5 (27:41):
I see feel like I see that man serious.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Yeah, So.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Tell us a little bit about the breakdown here. I
know you kind of hunt throughout the state of Illinois,
and you had packed up your bags and went to
a different part of the state.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Break it.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Break it down because I think showing up and hunting
on the fly is maybe a benefit in November or
maybe a detriment obviously worked out for you.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (28:04):
Yeah, It's chaotic, for sure, but it is. It is
nice to have the options. So yeah, I live in
northwest Illinois. I've got to I own a small farm
up here and been hunting that pretty hard. Got a
good deer on it and have had a couple encounters
with him. But the middle of November I usually just
(28:27):
take a mini ructation and then I'll take the gun season.
So I had the days off to kind of just
bounce around and do what the encounters and the cameras
told me.
Speaker 5 (28:39):
So I hunted hard at home.
Speaker 6 (28:42):
I had some good encounters with several bucks, and it
just wasn't it just wasn't there yet. I wasn't seeing
the activity. The mature bucks that I was seeing were
not doing what I thought I needed them to do
to kill them. And we we have a I've got
an uncle who owns a good farm down in south
(29:04):
central Annoy It's about four and a half hours south
of me and my cousin and I hunt that pretty
hard and we manage that one as best as we can.
And it's tough for me to get down there as
much as I want to, but we spend a lot
of time on the food plots and the trail cameras
and the box lilnes and all that fun stuff.
Speaker 5 (29:20):
And we did we did have some good deer on camera.
Speaker 6 (29:23):
So about that time that my farm was kind of
slowing down a little bit, I did decide to pack
the bags and head down there.
Speaker 5 (29:32):
And uh yeah, So I headed down.
Speaker 6 (29:34):
If you want to just straight into the that few
days that I had. So I left here on Monday morning,
took a morning hunt off and dropped my kids off
at school, and I was like, okay, doing the math
and stop for lunch and fuel up. And by the
time I get there, I'm like, it'll be about about
time to hop straight into into a stand. So the
whole drive down there, of course, I'm looking at wind
(29:55):
directions and talking to my cousin about where to go, and.
Speaker 5 (29:58):
He's like, I just go to food.
Speaker 6 (29:59):
We had a big cold snap, heavy winds, a thirty
degree temperature drop. He's like, I bet you there's gonna
be deer on food and Bucks will swing by and
see what they can find for doze.
Speaker 5 (30:10):
Right, It's just that time of year. And he nailed it.
Speaker 6 (30:14):
Give him, Give him that credit. I want his head
to get any bigger than his doorways are. But he
called it, and I raced all the way down there,
and I'm kidding, I kid you not, Jake. I was
pulled up to the parking spot, walked up, walked out
to the blind. I didn't have the door shut on
the blind and I looked up and are number one
(30:35):
or number two, depending on if you talk to me
or My cousin was walking across, walking into the food
plot from the corner right in front of the blind
and I had my backpack on. I did an arrow
still in the quiver, no release nothing. I mean, I
literally was didn't even have the door shut.
Speaker 5 (30:52):
So I'm in panic mode getting arrow knocked.
Speaker 6 (30:55):
The deer ends up angling towards the blind and cutting
out about fifty yards.
Speaker 5 (31:00):
The wind was so heavy and he was through.
Speaker 6 (31:03):
A pretty good amount of weeds in the food plot
that I was worried about a deflection if I were
to were to shoot one, but not getting a good
range on him and the wind and the panic that
I had, I was like, I'm not going to shoot
this year unless he happens to come into, you know,
making make a move and angle into about thirty yards
or less. So he comes in just got to fifty
(31:25):
was about the closest that I was able to get
a range on him, and he was able to basically
check the whole food plot, didn't see a single dough
and walked out. So that was at one thirty on
Monday afternoon. So I was not expecting that obviously. Yeah, yeah,
very early and by himself just doing what big bucks
do on you know, that was November tenth.
Speaker 5 (31:47):
You know, he was just cruising.
Speaker 6 (31:48):
He was my guess, he was between doughs, and he
was he was looking for his second, second or third one.
By that time of year, it could have been the third.
Even so a bunch of come out. He never comes
back to check the plot. Had a great hunt, saw
twenty to thirty deer, but no mature bucks ever ended
(32:08):
up stepping out a hunt of the next morning in
a big timber ridge in a saddle, saw another pile
of deer, saw a good three year old chasing doze
right underneath me. Small bucks cruising and I and I
had an encounter with again.
Speaker 5 (32:24):
He now looking looking. Now we've got one, dear down.
Speaker 6 (32:26):
I would say that this is our the one that
I saw Saturday, or I'm sorryday Tuesday, Tuesday morning, Tuesday morning,
the one that I saw Tuesday morning. He's probably our
number one now that I've got what and I think
our number two is on the ground. But he shows
up straight behind me in a saddle came in straight
down win.
Speaker 5 (32:46):
I don't know if he ever got my win. He
never spooked, but.
Speaker 6 (32:49):
The closest he got was about eighty yards. So I
got a really good look at him. Saw a big
split on one side. Thought it was my dear at first,
because that was the most distinct thing about him.
Speaker 5 (32:59):
He's got double split g Tues.
Speaker 6 (33:01):
And so when I saw him on Monday afternoon, I
thought this year on Tuesday morning, same year, I'm like,
I saw a big split running through the woods.
Speaker 5 (33:10):
So I'm like, there he is again.
Speaker 6 (33:12):
Well, I got some video of him and we can
actually tell he's only got one split on one side,
so we're like, that's a different deer. So we kind
of have a beat on two different bucks on the
same side of the farm.
Speaker 4 (33:23):
Now.
Speaker 6 (33:23):
So my cousin comes down on Tuesday afternoon and I
actually send him a pin. I'm like, I'm thinking about
going right here in my saddle or a or a
hanging hunt situation. And he's like, man's that's about where
I was gonna go. And I'm like, all right, no
big deal. I'm like, you go there. I was actually
thinking about going back to that food plot and doing
a hanging hunt.
Speaker 5 (33:44):
So the big thing.
Speaker 6 (33:45):
On Tuesday afternoon was that we had a wind shift
from from northwest to southwest, and it was still a
very strong wind. So with the south wind, I knew
here's my big takeaway is that.
Speaker 5 (34:00):
I knew there was a good deer in the area.
Speaker 6 (34:02):
The odds he was going to do the exact same
thing twice, we're slim, and even if he did and
I was in the same spot, he's gonna skirt me
at fifty yards again, right, So I had to make
a move and do something different. So with the south wind,
I was able to get on the northwest side of
this food plot in the woods, just a little bit
to where all the deer that entered the food plot
(34:23):
come in straight up wind. So if everything happened at
the same I had great wind for it.
Speaker 5 (34:30):
So that's exactly what I did.
Speaker 6 (34:31):
So my cousin went to my initial spot I was
looking to go. I jumped back over in that food
plot that I saw that big deer the night before.
And this is where it got chaotic, is I got
out of the woods from my morning hunt. I went
and grabbed a tree stand that I'd hung somewhere else
for my hanging bang set up. And I was back
(34:53):
at the truck and I got my bow out. I
shot a couple of arrows just to pass some time
and make sure my bow's good after the you know
hunting and all the drive and everything. Set my bow
on the table I get all my game playing together.
Speaker 5 (35:06):
Get my tree stand packed up.
Speaker 6 (35:08):
I head to the woods and I throw my stand
and my pack on and I'm like, all I just
got to grab my bow and pull my open my
back door my truck, pull my bow out, and it's
not there, and I'm like, oh my gosh, left my.
Speaker 5 (35:23):
Bow at the cabin.
Speaker 6 (35:24):
I knew I was sitting right on the table where
I left it after I got done shooting.
Speaker 5 (35:27):
So I'm like, all right, mind you.
Speaker 6 (35:29):
I wanted to be in the woods by one o'clock
since I saw the deer by one thirty the day before,
and so at this point it's about twelve forty five,
I run back to get my bow. Come back now,
I got everything right, So hike in about four hundred yards,
get the tree stand hung. Takes I'm not super efficient
at doing a hanging hunt yet, but I hang.
Speaker 5 (35:51):
About twenty minutes or so.
Speaker 6 (35:53):
I get set up, and I'm not super happy with
myself for forgetting my bow.
Speaker 5 (36:00):
I'm sweaty. It was warmer that day.
Speaker 6 (36:03):
I was I was like, I just didn't feel super
confident just all things considered, I was rushed, you know,
the feeling, and you're covered in sweat. You just hung
a stand, you know, straps in the way, and I'm
all frustrated. And about that time I was like, all right,
we're here, We're good, We're set up. It was about
one thirty at that point, so of course I'm looking
for deer and I'm like, all right, I got to
(36:24):
get my binos out, start glass and see if this
buck's going to come through. And that was about the
time that I went in my backpack realized that my
binos are not in my backpack. So I'm beyond frustrated now,
(36:45):
and I think I even texted you that you know,
this is going to be the day that you know,
I think I called it. I said, I if this
is as this as cluster, as clustered as I was,
as this day was.
Speaker 5 (36:57):
I was like, this is the day that I'm going
to randomly shoot a big deer. Right.
Speaker 6 (37:01):
Ended up standing there for ten minutes trying to look
through the woods and see everything that moved that wasn't
a deer, and I could not do it. I could
not go ten minutes without binos. And I was like,
you know what, the other than that big deer, the
other deer that came out was at three h nine
it is it is a one. I think it was
(37:21):
one forty five. I said, I got plenty of time.
Let's just go ahead and go get those binos. So
I got down, went and got the bino's and the
range finder.
Speaker 5 (37:31):
Min knew the rangefinders also in there.
Speaker 6 (37:34):
And I get back in the woods and I had
a I remember time stamping this because I had sent
a buddy a text message about forgetting my binoculars at
two oh four, and I turned around to get some
water out of my backpack because I was sweat like
crazy just a walk. I went to grab a water.
(37:54):
So I turned around and I see a deer walking
through the woods and I was like, that's a big
body deer. I got the binos that I just had
to have. I got those vinys up and I realized
I saw the double splits, and I was like, there
he is.
Speaker 5 (38:05):
He's he's he's he's doing it. And so he comes
and angles through the woods. And this is.
Speaker 6 (38:14):
Another part of it that I've reflected a lot on
that I've I've evolved as a hunter and I've and
I've gotten better, is that when I realized that I
was in the game, I really focused on how things
went from there up into the shot and post shot
instead of just overwhelming, like getting overwhelmed with a big
(38:36):
buck and the rack, and in the moment, I really
harnessed everything and I and I executed as best as
I could. And by that, I mean he was angled
towards me. But I didn't just watch the deer. I
really looked at the route he was taking and all
the possibilities that he could go. And I remember thinking
vividly like, he's gonna come check this food plot. But
(38:58):
looking at the edge of this food plot, it is
full of multi flour rows and it is it is thick.
Speaker 5 (39:05):
So that limits them.
Speaker 6 (39:07):
It kind of funnels them to the corners of the
food plot. And he's angled to the corner that I'm
sitting on. So I start ranging shooting lanes and I realized,
I'm like, Okay, there's gonna be one at forty one,
there's gonna be one at thirty three, and if he.
Speaker 5 (39:21):
Takes this way, I'll have a chip shot.
Speaker 6 (39:23):
So I'm doing all that stuff as he's coming in
about seventy yards and he's angled to me. So instead
of just watching the deer walk through the woods while
I had.
Speaker 5 (39:30):
Time I start planning what's going to happen.
Speaker 6 (39:33):
I try to predict multiple scenarios, and sure enough he
comes to it, comes to the right angle, and he
comes to forty one, and I start to realize. I'm like, sure,
I could shoot him at forty one, but the multiple
rows is going to funnel him even closer. So five
years ago, I might have just just said I got
(39:54):
a shot, take it. But he was upwind. I put
this stand in the perfect spot for this wind. He
had no idea I was there. I mean, zero clue.
He was just doing butt. He was just doing buck
things in November, just checking out. He wasn't moving fast,
he was just checking out, nose to the ground, see
when he could smell and.
Speaker 5 (40:13):
See right, comes up to thirty five yards straight at me.
Rubs on a seater.
Speaker 6 (40:18):
Gives me even more time to play out different scenarios.
Speaker 5 (40:21):
I ranged everything that I could.
Speaker 6 (40:23):
Of course, bos in hand releases is hooked, and I'm
ranging everything I can. And I said, ninety percent chance
he's gonna take this angle and he's gonna go right
between those two trees at thirty three yards, And that's
exactly what he did. So everything was played out perfect.
The deer walks into the shooting lane. I draw as
he gets to the first tree. The deer did not
(40:46):
stop naturally in the shooting lanes, so I gave him
the map. And the mistake that I made, this is
the one mistake that I made, and it was a
big mistake, is I did not let that deer stop.
I predicted he was going to stop, so it was
so windy, I don't think he heard the map, so
I went map shot rather than map wait for them
(41:10):
to stop.
Speaker 5 (41:11):
Shoot.
Speaker 6 (41:12):
So when he when he was when he hit my pin,
I expected him to stop, so I shot. He didn't stop.
He took another step, so I hit him about ten
inches back. Not a good shot right off the bat.
Speaker 5 (41:27):
You know.
Speaker 6 (41:28):
Wasn't happy. But the second thought into my mind was
dead deer. For sure, a dead deer. The next thing
that he did was he sprinted into the food plot
and I could see a big entry, a big entry hole.
Speaker 5 (41:43):
So that was good.
Speaker 6 (41:43):
I was happy with that, trying to get another arrow
in just in case I could get another shot out
of me, even if it was a long one. He
didn't get in a good shooting window for me, so
I just watched him. He cut into a draw and
I was able to watch him for about one hundred yards.
I saw the entrance again and it was it had
it had blood coming out of that a big entrance hole.
(42:04):
So I felt confident that this was a fatal hit
at that point. It was just a matter of how
much time to give him. So that was at two
twenty so mind you, I got back in the tree
at two o'clock with my bino's and I had an
arrow in that deer at two twenty, so again really
early first year out. I made a phone call my
(42:28):
cousin who's hunting on that that other spot on the
farm not too far away, and told him what happened.
You know, we kind of we kind of had some
predictions on where he's gonna go.
Speaker 5 (42:37):
A lot of deer have died in that draw that
he went to.
Speaker 6 (42:40):
It's just a real thick draw between two food plots
that they like to bed in and and and.
Speaker 5 (42:45):
They'll they'll hang out there quite a bit.
Speaker 6 (42:47):
Uh, there's a good chance that he could have died
right in there in his first or second bed and
then there's another bedding area about it's a it's a
big long tree planning that's about fifty ten years old.
So it's a bunch of small saplings. It's really thick.
There's a creek on one side. It's just a heavy
betting area that we we tend to find a lot
(43:09):
of dead deer in from either obviously deer that we've
hit or the neighbors. This was this was one of
those scenarios where we knew we just had to wait
and if we played our cards right, we're going to
find this year.
Speaker 5 (43:22):
Never had the doubt in my mind that it wasn't fatal.
Speaker 6 (43:26):
And you even, you know, said start the twenty four
hour clock, you know, after I told you that I
got to hit in one and where it was, and
so that's what we did. We called a couple of
dog trackers in the area. Obviously this time of year
they are swamped, so just getting them on the phone
is tough to do. But I give a shout out
to those guys because they save a lot of hunters
(43:48):
this time of year. But I talked to a couple
of them just out of you know, it's like, hey,
even if you can't help me, I'd really like to
just get your opinion on the time stamp that we
need to be here, that we need to be waiting here, right,
And that gave me the confidence to do exactly that,
which is wait twenty four hours. So we waited twenty
four hours. We had a we had a dog tracker
(44:09):
on the way we went. We ended up going back
down to the cabin while you know, we beat him
down there by about an hour or so, and we
decided to just kind of drive down there just see,
just check the area out.
Speaker 5 (44:25):
There's a lot of hunters around the area.
Speaker 6 (44:27):
We just want to check and see if we check
some fields, see if we see any big bucks running.
Speaker 5 (44:31):
And of course we weren't hunting.
Speaker 6 (44:32):
My cousin worked that day, and I was just in
weight mode, right, so I wasn't I wasn't really interested
in getting back out in the woods for even even
though I have a second buck tag.
Speaker 5 (44:42):
Right, just I was focused on this, dear.
Speaker 6 (44:45):
And as we're driving down there, we drive past that
second betting area that I mentioned earlier, and two buzzards
popped out of there and we and it was right
along a creek that that borders that betting area, and
so we talked about it and we said, you know,
if we go in there, the main track where we
(45:06):
think this deer is is not boogered up. It's good
for a dog. If we go in here and this
year is not there, then I don't think we messed
anything up. So we literally just wanted to go in
and just we glassed a lot, and we were able
to cover a lot of this bedding area with the
glass instead of instead of tracking across the whole thing.
(45:28):
So I went in one side, my cousin went in
the other, and we like I dropped him off on
one side, and he walked towards the truck, and I
walked away from the truck, and we just this is
one hundred yards wide and maybe five hundred yards long,
so we were able to cover it pretty quick with
the two of us. I walked down one side, he
walks down the other. Neither one of us had any luck,
no blood, no nothing. And so I'm like, all right, well,
(45:52):
I'm just gonna make my way back your way, And
I just took a little bit different route that's a
little bit closer to where he was. And he was
walking the edge of the creek, looking into the creek,
expecting a deer to be down in the in the
water in the creek. Bed and then he's glassing up
into this bedding area. At the same time, I came
back through more in the bedding area and I was
(46:15):
about sixty yards away and I called him. I said,
all right, I didn't have any luck. I'm gonna make
my way back to the truck. We'll just wait for
the dog come in and go to the hit. And
I hang up the phone, and thirty seconds later I
look over and I'm like, that really looks like a
tye with the naked eye no binoculars.
Speaker 5 (46:30):
And then I was like, no, that is a tie.
Speaker 6 (46:32):
And I put the binos up and I'm like that
that's a pretty big time. And I could just see
two points sticking up out of a bunch of brush
and weeds, and so I angle back to where I
can see a little bit better.
Speaker 5 (46:45):
I get my arrow I had an arrow knocked.
Speaker 6 (46:47):
I get my release on, not knowing if this is
a dead deer, alive deer, if it's my deer, and
I kind of take an angle over and I could
see I could see a body that's laying down sure enough,
is dead or in a door nail.
Speaker 5 (46:59):
And then I was like, I don't know what deer
it is.
Speaker 6 (47:01):
And then I could see the exit hole in the
in the stomach, so it was it was at that
point I knew it was my deer. And then I
was able to knew it was dead. Took another step
and I could see those big split g two's awesome, man.
Speaker 5 (47:15):
And and then it was I mean a million pounds.
Speaker 6 (47:19):
Off my shoulders, right, So a lot of a lot
of thought after after the shot went into how are
we going to recover this deer? So we were able
to do it very uneventfully without you know, wild goose chase.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
Yeah, well you gave it time.
Speaker 5 (47:31):
It was awesome. We get a lot of time.
Speaker 1 (47:33):
Yeah, yeah, well, no, man, congratulations And I think there's
a lot of really key lessons in that for everyone on.
You know, you just got to be out there. You
got to trust your gut and then if something does
not go right, you got to give the deer time,
especially when you know where you hit them and you
did everything right there.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
So congratulations.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
So looking here, you know, Illinois is a two bucks state,
so you still have a buck tag here in your pocket.
Looking from the nineteenth to the day before Thanksgiving, what
what is top of mine?
Speaker 2 (48:04):
Here?
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Obviously are gun season kicks off this upcoming weekend. What
what on a scale one to ten, what do you
think the activity is going to be? And if you're
a guy in Illinois with a tag in your pocket,
what what?
Speaker 2 (48:17):
What do you tell that guy?
Speaker 5 (48:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (48:20):
I think, uh, I think I like it, probably more
than most Illinois hunters. I'm pretty partial to the second
third week of November as opposed to the first. And
I know, trust me, we all love when that calendar
turns over and and the statistics on the sixth, seventh, eighth,
(48:40):
the ninth, And I've killed on those days more so
I should say I've killed on the ninth. I historically
on multiple farms that I've hunted, have seen more activity
from the tenth through the twentieth, and then then you'll
you'll get into that gun season period. And we've had
(49:02):
some really good gun seasons down there. Even if we
don't we don't harvest everything we have in mind, visual
sightings just happened to uptick in that in that timeframe.
My personal opinion is, and there's a lot of opinions
on it, but I really think a buck is most
visible when he's between dose as opposed to looking for
that first one I think my opinion is that in
(49:25):
the first week of November we see a ton of
running activity, but me personally, it's mostly small bucks that
that I've that I have encounters with the mature bucks.
Speaker 5 (49:36):
I think they snag those dose without much effort.
Speaker 6 (49:39):
I think they snag those first doze without effort, so
they don't have to travel very far to get them,
whereas the small bucks got to work for it in
that first week and then the the second and third doze. Whenever,
whenever those bucks are coming off of the first one,
I think that's when they're most vulnerable. And that's whenever
I've seen and or killed more of my dear I've got.
I was actually just talking to a buddy about it
(49:59):
the other the thirteenth, the fifteenth, the eighteenth, now the eleventh.
Obviously I killed on the eleventh. Those are the days
of my four biggest bucks, so we're heading into the
backside of that period that I really like. That being said,
I think that you're with the if the weather's playing,
(50:21):
the weather plays a big factor into it. I think
that's gonna matter if they rut during or if they
move during the day or at night.
Speaker 5 (50:27):
They're gonna rut.
Speaker 6 (50:28):
Either way, I think coming into this gun season, I
think it's gonna be pretty good. I think most of
our activity has been about a week or so behind
where we would normally see it. I didn't see any
mature bucks start to do much running activity until I
think the seventh I saw one mature buck bumping a
(50:51):
dough not even not even.
Speaker 5 (50:52):
Like super interested, like hot on her tail.
Speaker 6 (50:56):
I'm starting to see that now, both both in the
last couple of days of hunting and on my cameras too.
Speaker 5 (51:02):
So I think it's I'd be pretty.
Speaker 6 (51:05):
Optimistic, and I'm naturally a pretty optimistic person, but I
think that depending on what the weather's going to do
in different pockets. So hunting two different areas in Illinois,
it's pretty crazy. It'll be a twenty degree difference from
where I live to the farm down south.
Speaker 5 (51:23):
So that was one reason I went down there, is.
Speaker 6 (51:26):
Because it got to seventy degrees, Like it's seventy degrees
down there now, and I was like, I'm gonna hunt
it while it's in the forties and up here it's
going to be in the fifties, so.
Speaker 5 (51:36):
I've got much better weather.
Speaker 6 (51:38):
Better weather hunting up here whenever it's seventy down there.
So if that weather's doing what it's, you know, what
you need it to do where you're hunting, I think
there's a good chance if you're out there, if you
can catch that buck between does, they're pretty vulnerable.
Speaker 5 (51:55):
I think that this.
Speaker 6 (51:55):
Buck was between dose and I saw him twice in
about twenty five hours. And I saw another mature buck
doing the exact same thing, did not have a dough
with him, was was cruising the woods, and and I
think I think there's a good chance that that this
this gun season could be pretty good for for a
lot of guys in Illinois.
Speaker 1 (52:14):
Yeah, food or betting if you had, you know, just
for someone that's like, okay, I still have a tag.
I'm gonna be able to hunt, maybe a boat hunt
a couple of days here before gun season, whether it's
you know, Wednesday or Thursday, and then for the gun season.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
Betting, food, right place, right time, throw a doll.
Speaker 5 (52:34):
Yeah, well everything situation right, yeah, both right. I like
to hunt the doze right now. And I'm and and
I'm not.
Speaker 6 (52:45):
Like like hardcore got to be on the dose, but
that's what he's looking for. And I like to be
one big lesson that I've learned this year, and I
kind of reflect and try to get better every year.
Speaker 5 (52:57):
I think we probably all do.
Speaker 6 (52:59):
And what I've realized this year is that if I
have an encounter with a buck, I've got to do
something similar to what he did, because he's gonna do.
Speaker 5 (53:06):
Something similar to.
Speaker 6 (53:09):
If we both do the same thing, that that deer
is not gonna do the same thing two days in
a row, I mean, the exact same thing.
Speaker 5 (53:16):
I think he's gonna do something similar. He's gonna be
in the area.
Speaker 6 (53:20):
But if if if I just go do the exact
same thing, I don't I don't think I'm gonna be
in the chips. And what I've decided this year is
be more mobile. So I've got a saddle set up,
I've got a hang and bang, I've got lock ons,
I've got ground blinds, I've got box blinds, I've I've
got I've got all the tools that I can think
of to put me in the in the right spot
(53:42):
wherever that is. I've got hang ons that are that
I just think I'm gonna I want to get a
visual on him and then I can make a move
from there. That's That's one of my big takeaways this
year is mature bucks are are not on a pattern
this time of year, but they are in an area
and they do kind of tend to stick to that
area if they've had if they found a dough there
(54:06):
and they've been in the area, they're gonna look in
for another dough in that same area. So I like
to just move around with what the wind allows me
to do and what the thermals allowed me to do.
And that's exactly what I did on that buck the
other day. I again, I knew he was going to
be in the same area. I knew we had a
I knew he had a really good I knew he
(54:27):
had a really good chance to see him again. So
my job was to get in the right spot, per
the wind and hope that he makes the right move
and you know, all the stars aligned perfect.
Speaker 1 (54:41):
Well man, congratulations once again, and and good luck everyone
out there with the tag still here in Illinois firearm season,
it is an exciting time to be on the woods
and it's just one of the its opening days is
truly one of those days of the year where you
just truly don't know.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
What could happen.
Speaker 4 (55:00):
Go to a bath, anything, anything awesome.
Speaker 2 (55:05):
Well, congratulations once again, Shane.
Speaker 5 (55:07):
Yeah, thanks, Jake, appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (55:09):
There you guys have I hope you enjoyed this week's
episode of Rough Fresh. I hope you have a great Thanksgiving.
I hope you get a chance to sneak out and
do a little bit more dear hunting. If it is
a firearm season for you, like it is here in
Illinois this upcoming weekend, Be safe, be a good neighbor,
be a good friend, and we'll see you next time.
Host
Mark Kenyon
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Two Guys, Five Rings: Matt, Bowen & The Olympics
Two Guys (Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers). Five Rings (you know, from the Olympics logo). One essential podcast for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. Bowen Yang (SNL, Wicked) and Matt Rogers (Palm Royale, No Good Deed) of Las Culturistas are back for a second season of Two Guys, Five Rings, a collaboration with NBC Sports and iHeartRadio. In this 15-episode event, Bowen and Matt discuss the top storylines, obsess over Italian culture, and find out what really goes on in the Olympic Village.