December 10, 2025 • 48 mins
This week on Rut Fresh, we’re looking at how early-December’s ugly weather is shaking things loose across the whitetail world. Mark Kenyon starts us off with a big-picture take on what these cold snaps are doing to mature buck movement and why this stretch can still surprise you. Justin Hollandsworth checks in from Ohio, sharing how the rough conditions are pushing deer hard toward food and tightening up patterns as the season winds down. And over in Illinois, Grant Putnam walks through what he’s seeing as snow and cold temps kick big bucks into gear- making this one of those windows where toughing it out can really pay off.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
All right, folks, welcome back to another episode of Rotfresh.
This is Jake Hooefer. We have a late season update
across the country. We have Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan, and
we have cold temperatures. We have some more cold temperatures
coming in here. So as you can imagine here in
the Midwest, food is going to be a very large priority.
But what happens when things aren't perfect? The buck isn't
(00:21):
quite showing up on time, or maybe your access isn't perfect.
We're going to talk about some of the more intricate
details of what you can do if you have a
potential opportunity at a great fleet season food source. I
hope you guys enjoyed this episode with Mark Kenyon, Justin Hollinsworth,
and Grant Putnam from Illinois. As you know, Roughfresh is
brought to you by land dot com, the leading online
real estate marketplace to find your perfect rural, recreational, agricultural,
(00:44):
or hunting properties here in the US. We're going to
kick things off here with Mark Kenyon to get a
quick season update from Michigan.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Here we go.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
All right, We're kicking things off with none other than Mark.
It's been a minute since you've been out here on
Rough Fresh. We're in December, we're inching deeper and deeper
into the year. How's it going.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
It's great, it's been a fun season. It's been, uh,
you know, as they always do. They always seem to
go so fast. You dream of it all year long,
and it seems like it's forever away, and then you blink,
and then the seasons like almost here, and then you're
panicking about I'm not ready for this or what do
I need to do, and then you blink again, and
then the season's almost done. It seems like every year
that's the story, and it was true once again this year.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
But it's been it's been really good. And December so
far off to good start, you know, for a lot
of different reasons.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yeah, well we've and I feel like this and I've
talked about it here on Rough Fresh, but this is
one of the colder first parts of December we've had
in a really long time where the food sources and
everything else comes into a major play way sooner than
what it has in the past.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
So has that.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Equals more sightings and potentially more opportunity here so far
in December for you?
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, this is the late season that
you dream of, I think for a lot of us,
and for the last decade, we have not had a
whole lot of Decembers that started this well, at least
that I can remember. I'm sure there's some pockets in
there that I'm forgetting of, But if I were to
just overgeneralize, like you said, it has seemed like for
(02:20):
quite a while now we've had relatively warm Decembers, or
at least long periods of relative warmth on a lot
of these late seasons. I just kept on finding myself
many years being like, oh, geez, are we ever going
to get the cold front we need? Are we ever
going to get that snow you always dream of? We
ever had those single digits at least that's you know,
the story in Southern Michigan for a whole lot of years.
(02:41):
But this year, you know, we've largely had it. We've
had below average temperatures, We've had a bunch of snow
that came. You know, I guess it was around Thanksgiving
maybe that we got our snow and we haven't lost
it yet. And that's not common for at least southern Michigan.
The last fifteen, sixteen years, whatever it's been that I've
(03:01):
been here. This is probably the most consistent snow we've
had in the first part of the winter. So yeah,
that has all led to you. As soon as we
got that consistent snow in the temps dropped, and also
actually on a couple of the properties I've permission on
had standing corn get picked just before that. So kind
of that best situation where we've got a lot of
(03:22):
food on the ground, the cold temperatures, the snow, everything
you dream of, which has led to a lot of sightings.
The only downside for me personally is that the only
mature bucks that I was interested in taking a crack
at all these properties were all killed prior to all that,
because for all.
Speaker 5 (03:39):
Sorts of reasons.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
So all that said, about a week ago ish a
new buck showed up that I think is mature, and
that got me really excited to go out there.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Not a huge, you.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
Know buck antler wise, but an old buck I think,
and a cool deer. It's a big six ports to
tight tall I say, bodied six pointer. He's got a
broken end of his main beam, so again, you know,
not a deer that anyone's going to be too excited
about but I'm excited about him, and because of that,
I've also made kind of a point to try to
take my son out while hunting for him, because he's,
(04:16):
you know, really excited, would love to get our first
buck together. So I decided, as much as I possibly can,
I'm going to take him out while we try to
get one of these deer and really make it more
about that than anything else. So that's a long winded
answer to your question, which is so far, so good.
I can give you more details on like the specific
you know, conditions that led to some of the sightings
(04:37):
and what we've seen so far, but good stuff in general.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yeah, with most of your signings in the freshly picked
cornfield here, I assume that's been where most of the
activity has kind of consolidated to. I feel just in
my general sidings too, like the deer are somewhat yarding
up already, where if you're in the prime food source,
you're going to see the bulk of the deer herd.
Is that similar to what you've seen?
Speaker 4 (05:02):
Yeah, I think there's two things really congregating deer in
my neck of the woods, at least what I'm seeing
is One is that you know, key food source, which
one hundred percent in our case was that just recently pitcorn.
But the second thing is the pressure impact. Our gun
season opened about three weeks ago. These deer have been
pounded all around us. There's a few little pockets where
(05:24):
they've been left relatively safe, and that includes a couple
of these properties that I have permission on. I've I've
hunted very lightly, very sparingly for that specific reason, just
hoping I knew I didn't have a mature buck around.
There was a live that I knew of. So my
plan was, I'm going to leave this stuff pretty much
untouched until something shows up or until you know, later
(05:45):
into the late season. Hopefully if there was anything alive
in the square mile or two square miles, hopefully it's
going to kind of suck into this safe spot, this
little sanctuary that I was trying to create.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
And that might be what happened here.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
That might be why this new buck showed up, because
all of a sudden, there's good food and there's a
lot of deer here that feel safe because I've been
in there just a couple of times, very careful situations.
I've scouted from Afar I've been watching and decided to
finally take a couple of swings, to take a couple
of cracks, and I think that's what's concentrated.
Speaker 5 (06:15):
A lot of deer. And there's a lot of deer.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
I mean, we hunted, My son and I hunted Friday
night and Saturday night, and both times, you know, twenty
plus deer, probably closer to thirty one of the nights.
And you know, it's so snowy, and it was a
big moon out Friday night, very very clear skies.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Bright moon.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
So when we were coming out in the evening, we
got back out towards the road and you could just
see some of these fields after dark.
Speaker 5 (06:46):
Just full a deer. I mean, even more deer than that.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
So everything was piling out as that, you know, night
came to a close and it feel safe. There's good food,
it was cold, high pressure, a lot of snow, kind
of everything that you hoped for to get deer on
their feet and moving. So that's you know, the hope
for the next week, right is hopefully we'll have another
front like that with that higher pressure moving through, with
snow staying on the ground, and you know, best case
(07:11):
scenario would be even colder, more fridgid temperatures, which I'm
probably getting ahead of things now, but there's something that's
getting closer towards that next weekend, which is great.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yeah, well we can jump right into that.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
I mean, I feel we have some really cold, frigid
temperatures coming in, and every guest here has brought it
up that this is going to be a really fun
and exciting time where it just feels like typically it's
taken un till January to get to some of these
conditions and having the snow on the ground.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Are you pretty not excited for next weekend?
Speaker 5 (07:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (07:41):
I mean it's if I again, if I had like
a slam dunk deer, I would be really really excited.
I have a deer that's like, this would be a
fun deer to kill my son. It's a cool deer.
If it happens, it'd be awesome. So yes, I'm excited.
We have that front kitting like Friday Saturday. It looks
like in general.
Speaker 5 (07:59):
The whole week is good.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
I mean, the whole week is pretty darn good compared
to many mid Decembers that we've had. I just checked
for our next seven days, the average high is below
average every single day for the next seven days, and
then it gets really below average come like Friday and Saturday.
So I think I think Saturday morning it's gonna be
single digits. You're gonna have maybe low teens for us here,
(08:23):
Saturday evening very high barometric pressure, so all those things
would make you know, Friday, Saturday, Sunday pretty darn good
days to hunt. So yeah, we're gonna hopefully get out
there again taking my son or suns maybe both of
them will go out and you know, yeah, I don't
have the target buck I was after originally, but if
(08:44):
I were to kill, you know, any half decent buck
with one of the boys, that would be a really
great memory. So looking forward to that, I think that,
you know, conditions are just wildly lucky that they line
up for weekends for so many people. That just makes
it really, you know, just great for people to actually
have good hunting on the days that they have off,
so very very fortunate for that.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Yeah, and then I real quick, I mean the rough
fresh I texted this episode of Justin hollins Worth. I
had texted him. I said, hey, do you want to
hop on? And as I texted him, he disc was
recovering his big dear and then we had this scheduled
the night and I was like, hey, it's gonna be
a little bit later. I just shot a buck. And
so it was very similar to cold snow. It like
(09:27):
we've had this standing plot for many years and always
felt like it just hit the weekend after our archery
season closed here in Illinois, and we have the conditions
and the last four nights have been everything you expect
for a late season hunting, and finally the big mature
buck that we wanted to see rolled in and it
came together. So late season is a totally different This
(09:50):
vibe is probably a lame way to describe it, but
a different vibe than what it was just a couple
of weeks ago, where you're just out grinding your face
off and hoping for the best. And now it's like, okay,
this is a much more controlled environment. Uh, the opportunity
is much longer. You have time to glass confirm its
to deer, and Uh. I've never I've been not a
huge fan of late season, but after today I have
(10:10):
been a little bit more uh acclimated, Tom enjoying it.
Speaker 5 (10:13):
Well.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
It's one of those things that the late season is
it's it's very much a have and have not type
of type of year, right, Like, if you have the
sanctuary or the food, it can be amazing. But if
you don't have those two things, this can be a
really frustrating, difficult time to hunt. So it comes down to, like,
there's there's folks. If you're if you're fortunate enough to
have a place where you can create those two circumstances,
(10:37):
this is amazing. If you don't, if you're not in
that camp, then this becomes a you gotta find it.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
You got to search it out.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
You've got to, you know, check out all these different
public land pieces and find those little holes that nobody
for some reason hunted or you know, this is a
sneaky time of year to get permission. You know you
might be able to find someone super late season who
doesn't have somebody who hunts the lake gun seasons or
doesn't hunt late archery. And if you sneak in there,
(11:03):
not sneak in, if you go in there now and
knock on a door and get permission. And when I
say sneak in, I mean like kind of like people
wouldn't be thinking of this time of year to be
asking permission. There might be people are like, oh yeah,
the guys are all done hunting here, they just hunt opening.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Weekend or whatever.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
Goat, take a crack, whatever, and you might be able
to get that late you know, last weekend or last
week permission and have success in a situation that maybe
you never would have thought of having that opportunity.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
So don't give up.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
If you're having fun, if there's some opportunity with this
weather out there, anything's possible.
Speaker 5 (11:35):
Good things can still be had.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Yeah, with all that being said, scale one to ten,
where do you put the next week at ten being
the best ever, one being one of the worst.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
Yeah, I mean I'm not going to say like ten
or nine. I mean I feel like you got to you.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
Got to reserve those for.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (11:55):
This cold cold was pretty great.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
The only knock on this weekend, if I were to overanalyze,
would be like like for me to give a ten
in the late season would have to be us having
like a significant change, so like mild, warm temperatures and
then this huge frigid front hitting. So if it was
like in the forties or fifty and then all of
a sudden it was gonna drop down to you know,
(12:19):
ten degrees and a bunch of snow. That'd be like
such a shock to the system. I think that would
really knock the socks off a deer. And you see
something very different. I think it's been pretty cold and
snowy and great now for a long period of time
by the time you get to this weekend. So I
still think it's gonna be really good, but maybe not
a ten. And it's also not the rut. Now, all
(12:40):
that said, what is this this will be? You know
that the next seven days we're talking, you know, maybe
you'll catch one of those very late fawns that rolls
into heat, but I wouldn't count on that.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
So it's gonna be good. It's gonna be fun. Seven.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
You know, late season seven is pretty darn good. Seven
or eight and me and eight I'm in that ballpark.
Probably you can't ask for a whole lot more from
a late season sid.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Now, I would agree with that, And well, good luck
to you, good to hear your update. Hopefully that six
pointer cooth raise for you and your sons, and we'll
keep on rocking.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Well, then I got to show you this picture real quick,
since we're doing video. We're out there hunting and the
spot where wanted to hunt, me and my son, there's
no blind, there's no where to hunt. So we just
did spot and stock hunts both nights. Actually just on
the ground, hiding behind trees in bushes, so very fun.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
But he brought with him a little notebook, and so we're.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
Hiding basically underneath the bush in the snow, on the ground,
and he brought his a little sketch pad, and so
he drew he drew a picture of the big six
where after and wrote a note and he said, right now,
me and my dad are hunting under a brush, as
he said, a bush pile, and we want to kill
a big bodied buck and he is a six pointer.
And here's the picture of the six pointer and his
big neck. I don't know if you can see this
(13:56):
or if it's the glare there see it.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
It looks like yes, it does look like Bullwinkle.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
And hopefully we'll have a picture of me and my
son with Bullwinkle by next episode.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Awesome, Well, good luck to you guys.
Speaker 5 (14:12):
Thanks buddy.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
All right, we got Justin hollins Worth from Ohio, and
this is funny. I asked, Hey, do you want to
hop on refresh and do a quick season update. And
as I like, within the moment of when I sent
that you you just were walking up to your deer.
So the timing is impeccable. Congratulations, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
It was.
Speaker 6 (14:33):
It was super funny because Steve and I were pulling
that buck out. You guys had just recently done a podcast, yeah,
and he was talking about me chasing a buck, and
then right at that moment of time, him and I
were together. We were going to recover my buck that
I've been chasing for the last for the last couple
(14:55):
of months.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
It was pretty cool.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
So we sent you over the We sent you over
the selfie with the buck on the.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Ground, hot off the press. Now, I was super Jackuarry Man.
That was That was awesome, awesome timing. So December bucks
are tough, man and uh and it came together, obviously
a two and a half month marathon of hunting a
particular buck. We're not going to get into the whole event,
but I guess for that specific con or even just
(15:23):
the last couple of unths leading up to that, what
what were you keen in on specifically here in December?
Speaker 6 (15:30):
You know that last you know, I kind of start
with the tail end of November, you know, because that
can be dynamite. I don't think you're going to see
a lot of deer, but typically the ones that you
do see are going to be you're gonna I've seen
some of the biggest white ties I think I've ever
(15:52):
seen the the.
Speaker 5 (15:54):
You know, those last seven days in November. But then
as you get into you know, you get into December,
things drastically change.
Speaker 6 (16:06):
I still do think I've still just even recently seen
a little bit of running activity. But I think it,
you know, I mean, these bucks are wore out. I
mean the buck that I just shot to look at him,
(16:28):
the way that he looked in late October versus the
way that he looked when I when I I finally
walked up on him. Man, he lost a lot of
body weight. It was I would say twenty five percent.
Like it was drastic. I mean, his spine was showing.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
That's the challenge of trying to age a new buck
or a deal like you almost don't recognize some of
the deer if they didn't have antlers, like you wouldn't
guess because they lose so much weight. And they look
completely different than maybe what to your point in October.
And so with that being said, with him being run down,
when you connected with him, was it more of a
(17:08):
feed pattern or just where he was hanging out or
what kind.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Of how did it come together?
Speaker 6 (17:15):
Yeah, so a lot of that has to do with
so that the areas that I was hunting him in
before there was there was some standing beans over in
those areas, and there was a fair amount of acorns.
But as the season kind of trickled along, the farmer
(17:37):
went in there, he had winter weed in there. They
drilled beans in there late. The beans didn't do very
well and were super short, and they went through and
they picked kind of what they could out of those
out of those fields, we were pretty excited because they
left a fair amount of beans.
Speaker 5 (17:55):
So we're like, oh sweet, this is going to be awesome.
Speaker 6 (17:58):
Well, that lasted for about a week and a half
and then they started going and then they went in
there and started disking.
Speaker 5 (18:05):
Those fields, so that drastically changed.
Speaker 6 (18:09):
I was really I was really concerned about where he
was going to end up because I knew that, you know,
they were going to transition from the rut into more
you know, recovery mode, and he went He actually ended
up going north where there was some cut beam fields.
(18:34):
But I went in there and I built a I
built a water hole like three or four years ago
in there with my my tractor bucket, because there's no.
Speaker 5 (18:45):
There's no water in that section. Really, there's no creeks
or anything like that.
Speaker 6 (18:50):
And I just noticed that every time that there was
runoff from that field back into that little spot in
the woods there, that when it pulled up, the deer
just would ham. I mean just there'd be just loaded
with tracks. So I had that in there and just
hadn't had anything in there to hunt in the last
several years. And then but that field, what what else
(19:15):
I did is I went in there and over the
in the beans and I spread whinter we rye, turnips
and radishes over over the beans.
Speaker 5 (19:25):
And it came in good.
Speaker 6 (19:28):
And so when those fields got disks, everything started to
shift that way, just kind of naturally. And and I
got a picture of him on a camera north of there,
which i've and I've never gotten a picture of him
there ever, not once. And it just had to be
about the food and you know, just kind of pushing
(19:51):
those deer that way, but I think they're so run
down by the end of that November time frame and
then going into December.
Speaker 5 (20:04):
I just I think it's all about food at that point.
Speaker 6 (20:09):
But they're touchy because I can personally say, like that
dear that I that I just shot.
Speaker 5 (20:17):
I mean, I mean, I pressured that deer, like I'm supplied.
Speaker 6 (20:22):
I'm surprised even in the county anymore, because I was,
I was all over. I was either gonna blow him
up or I was gonna kill him.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Yeah, well it worked out. And I feel that's the
touch and go of late season two. Now, like we're
here in the Midwest ward in late season mode where
the deer had been pressured, like for your example, we
had multiple encounters and you know, the whole gambit, and
so it is still boiled down to food and him
finding a place where he was comfortable and then moving in.
Speaker 6 (20:53):
Yeah, that's what I think. I think too. You get
you'll get some you know, if you had if you
I don't know, this is just my thought, my theory
on it. I could be completely wrong, but I think that.
I mean, there's some does that come into heat every
year in October, and and I've heard of I've heard
(21:18):
of some those coming in all the way, you know,
as early as October twentieth before, if they got bred
then and they had fawns, and I'm not sure, I
mean by the time they get to this point of
the year, I mean, could I'm not sure. Maybe they
have the first you know cycle where they go into heat,
(21:40):
because i know later in the year there's you know,
supposed to be you know, some.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
Of those younger deer that that do that.
Speaker 6 (21:47):
So maybe you know, maybe this you know, this first
week of December or whatever, maybe you get some of
those those little those little fonts.
Speaker 5 (21:56):
Because the buck that I just shot, he was fallen.
Speaker 6 (22:01):
A he was following a uh a do on m
hm buyers and she wasn't with any other deer.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
It's just those two.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (22:13):
So I don't know, I don't know if there's you know,
I'm not I'm not a deer biologist or anything.
Speaker 5 (22:20):
I'm just you know, just observation over the years. You know,
I've seen some stuff like that. But I've killed.
Speaker 6 (22:31):
I've killed three I've killed three bucks in that you
know first part of December, you know, with my dough.
You know, two of them was with a dough my
biggest I ever killed. He was with a dough and
then this one was with a doe the other night
when he came in, and the other one was just
(22:54):
he was by hisself and just run down and just
just odd food.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
So looking here in the next seven days, it seems
like there's two options. Hope you find the lucky young
do or be on a good food source. I think
one thing I want to bring up with hunting food sources,
how careful are you. Let's say let's say you get
a picture of a deer in the middle of the night,
(23:28):
a deer you knew from November, he didn't connect with him,
and he shows up on food middle of the night,
one o'clock in the morning, two o'clock in the morning
somewhere in that timeframe. Is that enough for you to
go and to start hunting that food source in the
evenings or are you more apprehensive to go in there
and hope that as temperatures get colder, as we get
more snow, if that happens, they'll end up getting there
(23:50):
in daylight.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Or what have you been able to pick up over
the years.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
I feel like someone out there is in that exact
scenario right now.
Speaker 6 (23:58):
This is uh, this is my thought on it. So
because we we pay so much attention to cameras a
lot of times, which can be a mistake.
Speaker 5 (24:12):
I still think that.
Speaker 6 (24:14):
I think we needed if you have the opportunity to
be able to to to glass them from a long
distance and just stay back and kind of get it
feel for because they might be right there in that
field or whatever, feeding and you just never got a
picture because they I mean, they got to walk in
(24:34):
front of the camera.
Speaker 5 (24:35):
And it's just not always the case.
Speaker 6 (24:37):
I mean, There's been numerous times over the years where
I've went in and just off a gut feel and
thought I should just go set that just to see
what's going on. Yeah, he hasn't been on camera in daylight,
but I'm just gonna go set it and then he
just and then I see.
Speaker 5 (24:51):
Him in daylight.
Speaker 6 (24:55):
I I mean because at the end of at the
end of the day, we're always we're all trying to
predict something that hasn't happened yet, and I think.
Speaker 5 (25:07):
That you need to go.
Speaker 6 (25:10):
If you can glass and pick up that information is
one thing, but or or maybe you just set an
observation stand and set back with that, you know, like
that you're safe getting in and out, but you could
get an opportunity as well. I think I think that
(25:31):
that can come into play big time. But to me,
I gotta take I gotta take a shot at it
every once in a while, like I can't just like
I see, I've seen a lot of just friends, even
my end myself over the years, just like waiting to
get a daylight pitcher. I mean, by the time you
(25:56):
get a daylight picture, that was your chance and you
just weren't there. And now now you went and hunted it.
And if it's a food source this time of year, man,
there you're gonna deal with.
Speaker 5 (26:07):
A lot of other eyes.
Speaker 6 (26:09):
And noses and and getting out is going to be
it's that's a nightmare sometimes.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
What what is one or two strategies to get out?
What are your thoughts on having someone pick you up?
What's your thoughts on because it's cold by then, like
when that sun goes down and you're like, dude, it's cold,
Oh is it to ride it out till it's pitch black?
I mean, what how do you get out without without
messing it up? Because you're if you're on a good
(26:40):
food sources, probably going to be ten to twenty twenty
deer in there, and it's like the last thing you
want to do is bust them all out.
Speaker 6 (26:47):
If you can get somebody to pick you up, I
think that's huge. That's not always the case for me.
You know, I use you know, I use a and
uh you know one of Steve's hardcore e bikes. I
think you got one as well, And that's been huge
(27:10):
for me because sometimes if I can get down the
tree and my bike's close and on it, if I'm
riding away from them, they don't seem to run. They
do more of a watch unless I have to like
ride through where they're whatever they're they're at or whatever.
(27:31):
It's it's not ideal, but I mean, I don't know.
I think that you got to move deer around to
kill deer, and that's just that's just unfortunately part of it.
Speaker 5 (27:46):
But I think you're you're really trying to stack.
Speaker 6 (27:51):
Say you're watching the book, all you're getting is say
nighttime photos. Now now you can you see a weather
front coming, you know, and a lot of people like
the front end. You know, my buddy Heath Cisco has
(28:14):
proven this over and over again. The back half is
much better and then that's actually and that's how I
killed my buck just recently.
Speaker 5 (28:22):
It was on the back half of that.
Speaker 6 (28:25):
You know, the front was past us and the pressure
was rising. I think you need to take and you
stack some you know, attempts in your favor. Maybe a
front in your favor, maybe with the you know, maybe
maybe it's a certain moon phase that favors an evening.
Speaker 5 (28:47):
Movement pattern.
Speaker 6 (28:48):
Just try to stack a couple things in your favor.
And because again to go back to like you're trying
to predict something that's going to happen, not that it's
already happened.
Speaker 5 (29:02):
I that is I've.
Speaker 6 (29:05):
Done that so many times over the years, with those
stupid cameras where I'm like, oh, I got to go
a daylight picture, I'm going in a hunt.
Speaker 5 (29:11):
I never see the deer. Yeah, And it's just and
it's just ridiculous.
Speaker 6 (29:15):
I just think it's got to be stats and things
in your favor, whether being the number one thing of
everything with white tails, and and then that part of
the season, I mean, it's going to be about food,
and it's going to be they're going to be recovering.
I can tell you that just a couple of years ago,
(29:37):
I had a buck that kind of similar situation, and
I was hunting him this time of year, and the
other thing. This is where this is something I This
is where I made a mistake on this deer. It
was a nice ten why probably one hundred and sixty
inch deer didn't have any.
Speaker 5 (29:57):
History with a deer or whatever. He moved in during
November and just was in there.
Speaker 6 (30:04):
And what I he was.
Speaker 5 (30:11):
Back there, and what I did? I set back too far.
Speaker 6 (30:20):
And I didn't go exactly where I you know, like
I didn't want to press too hard and go exactly
where I knew that I really needed to be. And
I went in hunted the deer, seeing the deer that
night and didn't even when I left that night, I
(30:41):
didn't blow any deer up leaving or anything. And and
then I wanted, then, I want to try to make
my move the next time around.
Speaker 5 (30:49):
And he just he just wasn't showing up in daylight anymore.
Speaker 6 (30:54):
And I mean if I would have, if I would
have done what my gut told me to do that
first time in there, I would.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
Have killed that buck.
Speaker 6 (31:03):
Yeah, But I tried to play it too safe. And
I think I think we all try to play it
too safe. Sometimes I think that's good.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Well, real quick, imagine you didn't shoot this buck from
the tenth to the seventeenth of December in Ohio. Ten
being the best week of the year, one being one
of the worst weeks of the year. Where do you
rank it?
Speaker 5 (31:26):
Tenth to seven? I would give it it's tough.
Speaker 6 (31:32):
I would give it a three, Okay, I would give it, yeah,
like a three or four because personally me, like the
first you know, October is I love October like it's
my favorite favorite white tail month, no questions about it.
(31:53):
November frustrating, very frustrating. This year was very frustrating, just
because the big dogs are gonna have does and if
you are in areas in most of the state of Ohio,
there's just a lot of dose because people don't shoot dose,
and it's a problem. And to me, you know, October
(32:17):
is great, November could be frustrating. December it's I believe
December is the toughest month out of our entire year.
Speaker 5 (32:28):
And then you go into January. January can be it
can be just awesome. Yeah, but you gotta have food.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, gotta have food.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
If you don't have food, go find some places where
there might be some food if people want to fall
along with some past once you've done and and everything
else is white Tail Addictions one of the best places
to do that.
Speaker 5 (32:49):
Yep, yep, white Tail Addictions.
Speaker 6 (32:51):
And that's where all of our it's on the Lone
Wolf custom gear YouTube page.
Speaker 5 (32:57):
But that's just where we put all the white tail addictions.
So this is all right there.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Awesome, Well, justin, congratulations once again, appreciate you hopping on here,
and uh yeah it was awesome, perfect timing. So if
I text someone else for reughresh, that probably means they're
going to kill a buck or they just killed one.
So this might be a good trend, a good kind
of Murphy's Law in a positive way.
Speaker 6 (33:20):
Here.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Yeah, that was awesome, thanks Justin. Yep, all right.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Next up online we have grand Putnam who just shot
a big old buck in Illinois, Grant and that's your
number two of the year too. So how does it
feel to be officially bucked out? It's December seventh, you're
relishing in the moment you got to chop up the
deer here today?
Speaker 2 (33:38):
How's it feel?
Speaker 7 (33:40):
It feels good. It's actually I was just busy talking
to one of my buddies who just came up here
to help me butcher them. Shout out to Jesse. And
this deer that I shot last night was actually the
first deer match set that I found when we got
this farm, and I actually found him on the road
(34:00):
driving in there like it. That was first experience on
match set. And so he's obviously significantly bigger than this now,
but pretty awesome experience. And so it feels really good.
That's so cool, I told, I told I think it
was one of my buddies the other day. I think
over the course, because you and I are about the
same age, and the way I set up my like
(34:22):
roster for the year, I tend to bracket deer basically, uh,
you know, what are my top six deer on the
properties I've had, have access to, what's so on and
so forth. And I had it in my mind locked
in this year. I knew that this was going to
be the number one dear, and I was like, come
hell or high water, I will eat the second tag
to kill that dear. So lo and behold, he stepped
(34:42):
out last night. And we can get into that a
little bit more. With your questions you're gonna ask me
so it feels great. It feels great, So yeah, I'm
going to go try to get another one to know.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
I bet that's awesome. Man. So uh, it's Illinois.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
We're wrapping up the second leg or I guess the
fire a leg of shotgun rifle season here in Illinois.
Just anadotally looking at Facebook, it honestly seems like second
season has been better than first season. And that's just
my gut reaction in looking on Facebook. And we have snow,
we have cold weather, and it's been a long time
(35:18):
since we've had that for this season, and so I
have to imagine the cold weather and snow played into
some part of your strategy for last night.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Is that true or accurate? What was your setup? Yeah?
Speaker 7 (35:29):
Absolutely so, I pretty fanatically. I'm a big believer in
electrical fencing food plots. If you're hunting a small food plot,
I tend to do that in the summertime and spend
almost as much effort as I do electrically fencing off.
Like if I want a late season grain field, a
late season Braska plot that I don't want touched until
(35:50):
really late. Adjacent to one of those grain fields, I
spend a lot of time in the summers electrically fencing
them off to keep them out of it, to keep
the pressure low. So we have a good crop and
the deer don't just you know, mull it down to
it to nothing. And so last night, actually the deer
that I shot, which I call the six by five,
I've been watching him for about I've known about him
(36:10):
for three or four years now. Like I said, I
believe this is a two year old match set right
here in my hand. And so this year in particular,
and kind of my strategy last night was just sitting
over food. Last night, I finally had the right wind.
If you recall on Thursday and Friday night. Thursday was
(36:33):
very cold, but we had a southerly wind because of
the warm up on Friday, and it wasn't right on Thursday.
It wasn't right on Friday, and I was actually waffling
back and forth between like, uh, should I take the
afternoon off and go after him? And it wasn't the
right wind. And finally one of my friends was like,
you know what, I think You're gonna have another crack
at him. So I'm just just lay out of there,
and that's what I ended up doing. And so last
(36:55):
night I guess what I saw in a nutshell and
what I've seen over the last couple of week's hunting,
because we had snow here for about ten days in Illinois,
a good snowfall, not just like a dusting like I think.
There's probably eight to ten on the ground right now
where I live. And we got another couple last night.
And so what this deer did, the behavior that I
observed him last night, was he came out. I ended
(37:17):
up seeing about forty five ish year in total. He
came out, and it was very early. It was three
point thirty when he came out yesterday, so probably about
an hour and a half of legal time remaining on
the timer. And he was actually bumping yearling does so
depending on you know, the listener that you have, I
(37:38):
tend to call a yearling a year a deer that
is a year old, not a fawn, not a dough fond,
but a yearling doe. And he was bumping her around
the field like last night, pretty substantially, and he actually
bumped her right into one of my food plots where
he then was getting ready to eat. I didn't give
him a whole lot of time to eat. I'm gonna
be honest, he came in and.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
I shot, So you got you gotta you gotta capitalize
the opportunity because you never know what could happen. Crazy
things always happen. It's fun to sit there and watch them,
but you gotta you gotta make it happen. So, kind
of reverting back to waiting for the right wind, was
he pretty consistent hitting that food source once the temperatures
have dropped in the snow has hit the ground, or
(38:21):
is somewhat was it still somewhat random?
Speaker 2 (38:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (38:24):
So I I frankly would have shot this year. Last
year at five and I saw him a couple of
times on the hoof very nice deer. This year I
tried rattling them in and actually end up rattling a
subordinate buck in which is a nice one as well,
different deer on the same day that.
Speaker 5 (38:39):
I saw him.
Speaker 7 (38:40):
You know, it was just one of those magical rut
days where the right hot do came by the stand
and I saw the buck parade. And so this year,
after the post rut, I would I typically tend to
say that the rut is post rut after Thanksgiving, and
post rut I would say that I was getting this
deer on camera every day or every other day on
(39:02):
this particular food source. So I have like a three
stage food plot. I've got Braska's clover and the beans
all stacked up in here, and they filter out and
they just transition back and forth, you know, that greens
the grain type of strategy that you've probably heard a
bunch of different people say. I just want to be
able to satiate the appetite of the deer and whatever
they are interested in eating and hold them there regardless
(39:22):
of the time of the year. So I tend to
plan a lot of my food plots kind of following
that rhythm. And so he was on camera bright, I mean,
very early as well on Wednesday. Wednesday, I just couldn't
get out of work. On Thursday, we had the big
temperature drop, so about a twenty degree temperature swing from
the mid thirties to like about fifteen tennish degrees here
(39:46):
on Thursday. But we had that southernly win on Thursday
because we had a warm up on Friday, and on
Friday he was out there as well, and that was
about thirty five on Friday, he was out there as well.
So I figured that over the weekend with the north
we win swinging through on Saturday Sunday, I would have
an opportunity at him, and that's pretty much exactly what happened.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
I love it Like Lacy's and food is an insurance policy,
and when you don't have insurance, you wish you do,
and when something goes wrong and you have insurance, right,
gosh dang, And I'm glad I have this policy. And
you know, with the weather cooperating, obviously, it came out
together really nicely. Now kind of looking here over the
next seven days, so like the tenth of the seventeenth
of December, it looks like we're gonna have some pretty
(40:32):
frigid bit or cold weather again this upcoming weekend. I
assume the strategy remains pretty similar to food. I mean
food and still hunting, hunting.
Speaker 7 (40:44):
Smart down inside of food, wait for the wind to
be right. It looks like we're going to get a
massive cold front on Thursday through Sunday next week that's
going to push temperatures into the single digits come evening time.
So I believe that deer is going to be just
absolutely clobbering food next weekend. During muzzloder season, if you're
an Illinois resident, I think that would be an awesome
opportunity to kill what I call the deer. I think
(41:07):
that late season food plot hunting tends to be one
of the best and most predictable opportunities in times to
kill the air quote number one buck they have that
you're aware of, has made it through the rut, has
avated a lot of arrows, and has made it through
the first gun season in Ali and which happens at
(41:27):
the tail end of the rut. So I think, my opinion,
if deer are making it past Thanksgiving in Illinois and
you have food, I think you have a very very
good crack at them, as long as you're patient and
the wind is right, your approach is pretty good and
you're not walking through bedding areas banging everything out of
there on your way to and from. So yep, that's
what I'll be what.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
Let me run this scenario.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Let me let me run this scenario past you your
next weekend. Pretend Okay, you're hunting with your wife, she
has Muslim attack, and there's fifteen deer twenty deer in
your food plot. The buck that you guys were after
did not show up, So you have twenty deer in
your food plot, You're like, oh crap, how do we
get the heck out of here? How much does that
make you nervous? Knowing each time the plan doesn't come together,
(42:13):
your odds could easily be diminishing with each quote unquote
unsuccessful hunt. What is your exit strategy? Do you guys
just hang out in the blind until you know it
gets really really dark? The moon's been really bright this weekend,
so it's like it's like you could sit there all
night and it's still gonna be pretty bright out with
the snow and the moon. But what do you do
in that scenario? Do you just hope for the best
and start to zip out of there as quietly as possible.
Speaker 7 (42:36):
I think that I think that by far the most
underrated aspect of deer hunting outside of like weapon proficiency.
To me, I think a lot of deer live because
they're missed or they're wounded or whatever. So I think
weapon proficiency is like a sneaky, sneaky killer of deer
hunting and destroyer of mental health of deer hunters. But
(42:56):
I think the second one is really and I've really
tried to clean up my access over the last few
years and ensure like it is pitch dark. So I
tend to sit in my blind until five forty five
six o'clock before I even open the door, because I
don't want dear to even have an inkling of seeing
me in regards of like the moonlight shining off the
(43:18):
snow and the reflection and how visible you are out there.
All of the blinds that I have set up for
late season hunting minus one, you're down the stairs out
the back of the blind and you're into pretty substantial
cover quickly. And so I've kind of finagled my entry
exit routes to make sure I'm minimizing that amount, so
(43:38):
I don't put too much stock into it. And also
I'm a big believer of like we we eat a
lot of vedison. I would not call my wife and
I trophy hunters by anybody's standard. And so lots of
the time, whether whether we're taking like a friend or
maybe my dad or maybe my friend from work, will
clear the field with a gun and that's how we
(43:59):
will will exit. If it comes to last light, and
you know there's just that stereotypical big old pot of
does out there feeding we'll pick the biggest one, and
that's how we'll clear the field in a I don't know,
a more semi natural way. I know that that's probably
a debatable tactic and a debatable strategy, but I like
that strategy a lot, just because we eat a lot
(44:20):
of medison. We tend to eat like five to ten
of them a year, and we also manage the property
properties pretty heavily for dose so that they don't become overrun.
So that's that's kind of my question. In a nutshell,
I brushed brushed shoulders with your question, which was how
much is like the diminishing or turn of scaring off
the number one buck day after day? And to me,
(44:43):
I think at this point, like if if you were
a person with a large standing grain field or maybe
the only food in like that mile, to me, I
and I know that, like you know, people have their
opinions on the juries. I really like watching like shows
like The Druries the Little Coski's because I think it
(45:04):
showcases what deer do completely unpressured in their natural environment,
how they act, how they behave, and so for that reason,
I really like the mantra that they kind of do,
Like you know, your stereotypical late season box blind in
the middle of a field, and they're getting in and
out of there each night. I have had my wife
pick me up before and a four wheeler to clear
(45:24):
the field. I think that's a pretty natural way of
doing it. But if you're hunting someplace where you can't
have that option, I like clearing the field with a
gun if you're a big venice and eater, and then
just cleaning up your access to make sure that you're
minimizing that damage. And I stay in the blind pretty
well after legal time. I'm not hopping out of there.
Like today, legal time is five oh one, five oh two.
(45:44):
I think I won't be getting out of there at five.
They'll be waiting till like five forty five six, and
hopefully it'll the cover of darkness will really take care
of that for me.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
No, that's that's great advice. Now looking here over the
next seven days, ten being the best week of the
year to kill big old buck, one being one of
the worst weeks of the entire year. And I'm gonna
I'm gonna add some more contacts for you, just giving
the time of year and your personal strategy. You have
standing food scale one to ten. Where do you put
this upcoming week?
Speaker 7 (46:19):
This upcoming week, I there are a couple of days
that I'm looking at, So I'm looking at my ten
day right now. Monday's looks okay high twenty five, Friday
looks awesome high of nineteen. Saturday and Sunday are both
of high of about ten. So Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday,
if you have if you have standing food or anything,
which I want to circle back around that that year
(46:41):
that I shot last night, he was actually pawing up
Brassica's before he came in to beans and so that
was that's what he was doing last night. So the
majority of my dear last night on December what was
last night the seventh, December sixth, December sixth hit Brassica's
(47:03):
first before they hit it. And so my score would
be if you have that late season food over the
course of the next week, with those dates that I mentioned,
basically Friday through Monday, Friday the twelfth through Monday the fifteenth,
I think that my number would be a ten for
your or how much I like it for Big Old Buck,
I think I think if you have that, I think
(47:25):
if you can write it out in your blind stay
a little chilly for four days, and your entrance and
exit isn't terrible. You're getting in nice and earlier, staying
kind of late. I think there is a very good
chance during Muzzle at a weekend, if you're an Illinois resident,
that you could bag a giant here.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
Yeah, I love it, question, I love it. Awesome.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Well, congratulations Grant once again, appreciate you hopping on here,
and good luck to your wife here this evening.
Speaker 7 (47:50):
All right, I'll let you know. I'll shoot you a
text if we whack them.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
All right, folks there, you guys have it. I hope
you guys enjoyed this week's episode of Rough Fresh. Bundle up,
make the most of this cold weather, and I hope
that you have a good food source or a good
opportunity here. As we get deeper and deeper into December,
the holiday season is right around the corner.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
The Rough Fresh.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
Season is quickly coming to a close here as well.
So hope you guys have the best week here. We
had some high scores, we had some lower scores, and
I hope everyone gets to experience a ten out of
ten week with the great late season cold weather.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
We'll see you next time, See y
All right, folks, welcome back to another episode of Rotfresh.
This is Jake Hooefer. We have a late season update
across the country. We have Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan, and
we have cold temperatures. We have some more cold temperatures
coming in here. So as you can imagine here in
the Midwest, food is going to be a very large priority.
But what happens when things aren't perfect? The buck isn't
(00:21):
quite showing up on time, or maybe your access isn't perfect.
We're going to talk about some of the more intricate
details of what you can do if you have a
potential opportunity at a great fleet season food source. I
hope you guys enjoyed this episode with Mark Kenyon, Justin Hollinsworth,
and Grant Putnam from Illinois. As you know, Roughfresh is
brought to you by land dot com, the leading online
real estate marketplace to find your perfect rural, recreational, agricultural,
(00:44):
or hunting properties here in the US. We're going to
kick things off here with Mark Kenyon to get a
quick season update from Michigan.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Here we go.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
All right, We're kicking things off with none other than Mark.
It's been a minute since you've been out here on
Rough Fresh. We're in December, we're inching deeper and deeper
into the year. How's it going.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
It's great, it's been a fun season. It's been, uh,
you know, as they always do. They always seem to
go so fast. You dream of it all year long,
and it seems like it's forever away, and then you blink,
and then the seasons like almost here, and then you're
panicking about I'm not ready for this or what do
I need to do, and then you blink again, and
then the season's almost done. It seems like every year
that's the story, and it was true once again this year.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
But it's been it's been really good. And December so
far off to good start, you know, for a lot
of different reasons.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yeah, well we've and I feel like this and I've
talked about it here on Rough Fresh, but this is
one of the colder first parts of December we've had
in a really long time where the food sources and
everything else comes into a major play way sooner than
what it has in the past.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
So has that.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Equals more sightings and potentially more opportunity here so far
in December for you?
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, this is the late season that
you dream of, I think for a lot of us,
and for the last decade, we have not had a
whole lot of Decembers that started this well, at least
that I can remember. I'm sure there's some pockets in
there that I'm forgetting of, But if I were to
just overgeneralize, like you said, it has seemed like for
(02:20):
quite a while now we've had relatively warm Decembers, or
at least long periods of relative warmth on a lot
of these late seasons. I just kept on finding myself
many years being like, oh, geez, are we ever going
to get the cold front we need? Are we ever
going to get that snow you always dream of? We
ever had those single digits at least that's you know,
the story in Southern Michigan for a whole lot of years.
(02:41):
But this year, you know, we've largely had it. We've
had below average temperatures, We've had a bunch of snow
that came. You know, I guess it was around Thanksgiving
maybe that we got our snow and we haven't lost
it yet. And that's not common for at least southern Michigan.
The last fifteen, sixteen years, whatever it's been that I've
(03:01):
been here. This is probably the most consistent snow we've
had in the first part of the winter. So yeah,
that has all led to you. As soon as we
got that consistent snow in the temps dropped, and also
actually on a couple of the properties I've permission on
had standing corn get picked just before that. So kind
of that best situation where we've got a lot of
(03:22):
food on the ground, the cold temperatures, the snow, everything
you dream of, which has led to a lot of sightings.
The only downside for me personally is that the only
mature bucks that I was interested in taking a crack
at all these properties were all killed prior to all that,
because for all.
Speaker 5 (03:39):
Sorts of reasons.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
So all that said, about a week ago ish a
new buck showed up that I think is mature, and
that got me really excited to go out there.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Not a huge, you.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
Know buck antler wise, but an old buck I think,
and a cool deer. It's a big six ports to
tight tall I say, bodied six pointer. He's got a
broken end of his main beam, so again, you know,
not a deer that anyone's going to be too excited
about but I'm excited about him, and because of that,
I've also made kind of a point to try to
take my son out while hunting for him, because he's,
(04:16):
you know, really excited, would love to get our first
buck together. So I decided, as much as I possibly can,
I'm going to take him out while we try to
get one of these deer and really make it more
about that than anything else. So that's a long winded
answer to your question, which is so far, so good.
I can give you more details on like the specific
you know, conditions that led to some of the sightings
(04:37):
and what we've seen so far, but good stuff in general.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yeah, with most of your signings in the freshly picked
cornfield here, I assume that's been where most of the
activity has kind of consolidated to. I feel just in
my general sidings too, like the deer are somewhat yarding
up already, where if you're in the prime food source,
you're going to see the bulk of the deer herd.
Is that similar to what you've seen?
Speaker 4 (05:02):
Yeah, I think there's two things really congregating deer in
my neck of the woods, at least what I'm seeing
is One is that you know, key food source, which
one hundred percent in our case was that just recently pitcorn.
But the second thing is the pressure impact. Our gun
season opened about three weeks ago. These deer have been
pounded all around us. There's a few little pockets where
(05:24):
they've been left relatively safe, and that includes a couple
of these properties that I have permission on. I've I've
hunted very lightly, very sparingly for that specific reason, just
hoping I knew I didn't have a mature buck around.
There was a live that I knew of. So my
plan was, I'm going to leave this stuff pretty much
untouched until something shows up or until you know, later
(05:45):
into the late season. Hopefully if there was anything alive
in the square mile or two square miles, hopefully it's
going to kind of suck into this safe spot, this
little sanctuary that I was trying to create.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
And that might be what happened here.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
That might be why this new buck showed up, because
all of a sudden, there's good food and there's a
lot of deer here that feel safe because I've been
in there just a couple of times, very careful situations.
I've scouted from Afar I've been watching and decided to
finally take a couple of swings, to take a couple
of cracks, and I think that's what's concentrated.
Speaker 5 (06:15):
A lot of deer. And there's a lot of deer.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
I mean, we hunted, My son and I hunted Friday
night and Saturday night, and both times, you know, twenty
plus deer, probably closer to thirty one of the nights.
And you know, it's so snowy, and it was a
big moon out Friday night, very very clear skies.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Bright moon.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
So when we were coming out in the evening, we
got back out towards the road and you could just
see some of these fields after dark.
Speaker 5 (06:46):
Just full a deer. I mean, even more deer than that.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
So everything was piling out as that, you know, night
came to a close and it feel safe. There's good food,
it was cold, high pressure, a lot of snow, kind
of everything that you hoped for to get deer on
their feet and moving. So that's you know, the hope
for the next week, right is hopefully we'll have another
front like that with that higher pressure moving through, with
snow staying on the ground, and you know, best case
(07:11):
scenario would be even colder, more fridgid temperatures, which I'm
probably getting ahead of things now, but there's something that's
getting closer towards that next weekend, which is great.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yeah, well we can jump right into that.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
I mean, I feel we have some really cold, frigid
temperatures coming in, and every guest here has brought it
up that this is going to be a really fun
and exciting time where it just feels like typically it's
taken un till January to get to some of these
conditions and having the snow on the ground.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Are you pretty not excited for next weekend?
Speaker 5 (07:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (07:41):
I mean it's if I again, if I had like
a slam dunk deer, I would be really really excited.
I have a deer that's like, this would be a
fun deer to kill my son. It's a cool deer.
If it happens, it'd be awesome. So yes, I'm excited.
We have that front kitting like Friday Saturday. It looks
like in general.
Speaker 5 (07:59):
The whole week is good.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
I mean, the whole week is pretty darn good compared
to many mid Decembers that we've had. I just checked
for our next seven days, the average high is below
average every single day for the next seven days, and
then it gets really below average come like Friday and Saturday.
So I think I think Saturday morning it's gonna be
single digits. You're gonna have maybe low teens for us here,
(08:23):
Saturday evening very high barometric pressure, so all those things
would make you know, Friday, Saturday, Sunday pretty darn good
days to hunt. So yeah, we're gonna hopefully get out
there again taking my son or suns maybe both of
them will go out and you know, yeah, I don't
have the target buck I was after originally, but if
(08:44):
I were to kill, you know, any half decent buck
with one of the boys, that would be a really
great memory. So looking forward to that, I think that,
you know, conditions are just wildly lucky that they line
up for weekends for so many people. That just makes
it really, you know, just great for people to actually
have good hunting on the days that they have off,
so very very fortunate for that.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Yeah, and then I real quick, I mean the rough
fresh I texted this episode of Justin hollins Worth. I
had texted him. I said, hey, do you want to
hop on? And as I texted him, he disc was
recovering his big dear and then we had this scheduled
the night and I was like, hey, it's gonna be
a little bit later. I just shot a buck. And
so it was very similar to cold snow. It like
(09:27):
we've had this standing plot for many years and always
felt like it just hit the weekend after our archery
season closed here in Illinois, and we have the conditions
and the last four nights have been everything you expect
for a late season hunting, and finally the big mature
buck that we wanted to see rolled in and it
came together. So late season is a totally different This
(09:50):
vibe is probably a lame way to describe it, but
a different vibe than what it was just a couple
of weeks ago, where you're just out grinding your face
off and hoping for the best. And now it's like, okay,
this is a much more controlled environment. Uh, the opportunity
is much longer. You have time to glass confirm its
to deer, and Uh. I've never I've been not a
huge fan of late season, but after today I have
(10:10):
been a little bit more uh acclimated, Tom enjoying it.
Speaker 5 (10:13):
Well.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
It's one of those things that the late season is
it's it's very much a have and have not type
of type of year, right, Like, if you have the
sanctuary or the food, it can be amazing. But if
you don't have those two things, this can be a
really frustrating, difficult time to hunt. So it comes down to, like,
there's there's folks. If you're if you're fortunate enough to
have a place where you can create those two circumstances,
(10:37):
this is amazing. If you don't, if you're not in
that camp, then this becomes a you gotta find it.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
You got to search it out.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
You've got to, you know, check out all these different
public land pieces and find those little holes that nobody
for some reason hunted or you know, this is a
sneaky time of year to get permission. You know you
might be able to find someone super late season who
doesn't have somebody who hunts the lake gun seasons or
doesn't hunt late archery. And if you sneak in there,
(11:03):
not sneak in, if you go in there now and
knock on a door and get permission. And when I
say sneak in, I mean like kind of like people
wouldn't be thinking of this time of year to be
asking permission. There might be people are like, oh yeah,
the guys are all done hunting here, they just hunt opening.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Weekend or whatever.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
Goat, take a crack, whatever, and you might be able
to get that late you know, last weekend or last
week permission and have success in a situation that maybe
you never would have thought of having that opportunity.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
So don't give up.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
If you're having fun, if there's some opportunity with this
weather out there, anything's possible.
Speaker 5 (11:35):
Good things can still be had.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Yeah, with all that being said, scale one to ten,
where do you put the next week at ten being
the best ever, one being one of the worst.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
Yeah, I mean I'm not going to say like ten
or nine. I mean I feel like you got to you.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
Got to reserve those for.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (11:55):
This cold cold was pretty great.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
The only knock on this weekend, if I were to overanalyze,
would be like like for me to give a ten
in the late season would have to be us having
like a significant change, so like mild, warm temperatures and
then this huge frigid front hitting. So if it was
like in the forties or fifty and then all of
a sudden it was gonna drop down to you know,
(12:19):
ten degrees and a bunch of snow. That'd be like
such a shock to the system. I think that would
really knock the socks off a deer. And you see
something very different. I think it's been pretty cold and
snowy and great now for a long period of time
by the time you get to this weekend. So I
still think it's gonna be really good, but maybe not
a ten. And it's also not the rut. Now, all
(12:40):
that said, what is this this will be? You know
that the next seven days we're talking, you know, maybe
you'll catch one of those very late fawns that rolls
into heat, but I wouldn't count on that.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
So it's gonna be good. It's gonna be fun. Seven.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
You know, late season seven is pretty darn good. Seven
or eight and me and eight I'm in that ballpark.
Probably you can't ask for a whole lot more from
a late season sid.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Now, I would agree with that, And well, good luck
to you, good to hear your update. Hopefully that six
pointer cooth raise for you and your sons, and we'll
keep on rocking.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Well, then I got to show you this picture real quick,
since we're doing video. We're out there hunting and the
spot where wanted to hunt, me and my son, there's
no blind, there's no where to hunt. So we just
did spot and stock hunts both nights. Actually just on
the ground, hiding behind trees in bushes, so very fun.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
But he brought with him a little notebook, and so we're.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
Hiding basically underneath the bush in the snow, on the ground,
and he brought his a little sketch pad, and so
he drew he drew a picture of the big six
where after and wrote a note and he said, right now,
me and my dad are hunting under a brush, as
he said, a bush pile, and we want to kill
a big bodied buck and he is a six pointer.
And here's the picture of the six pointer and his
big neck. I don't know if you can see this
(13:56):
or if it's the glare there see it.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
It looks like yes, it does look like Bullwinkle.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
And hopefully we'll have a picture of me and my
son with Bullwinkle by next episode.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Awesome, Well, good luck to you guys.
Speaker 5 (14:12):
Thanks buddy.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
All right, we got Justin hollins Worth from Ohio, and
this is funny. I asked, Hey, do you want to
hop on refresh and do a quick season update. And
as I like, within the moment of when I sent
that you you just were walking up to your deer.
So the timing is impeccable. Congratulations, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
It was.
Speaker 6 (14:33):
It was super funny because Steve and I were pulling
that buck out. You guys had just recently done a podcast, yeah,
and he was talking about me chasing a buck, and
then right at that moment of time, him and I
were together. We were going to recover my buck that
I've been chasing for the last for the last couple
(14:55):
of months.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
It was pretty cool.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
So we sent you over the We sent you over
the selfie with the buck on the.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Ground, hot off the press. Now, I was super Jackuarry Man.
That was That was awesome, awesome timing. So December bucks
are tough, man and uh and it came together, obviously
a two and a half month marathon of hunting a
particular buck. We're not going to get into the whole event,
but I guess for that specific con or even just
(15:23):
the last couple of unths leading up to that, what
what were you keen in on specifically here in December?
Speaker 6 (15:30):
You know that last you know, I kind of start
with the tail end of November, you know, because that
can be dynamite. I don't think you're going to see
a lot of deer, but typically the ones that you
do see are going to be you're gonna I've seen
some of the biggest white ties I think I've ever
(15:52):
seen the the.
Speaker 5 (15:54):
You know, those last seven days in November. But then
as you get into you know, you get into December,
things drastically change.
Speaker 6 (16:06):
I still do think I've still just even recently seen
a little bit of running activity. But I think it,
you know, I mean, these bucks are wore out. I
mean the buck that I just shot to look at him,
(16:28):
the way that he looked in late October versus the
way that he looked when I when I I finally
walked up on him. Man, he lost a lot of
body weight. It was I would say twenty five percent.
Like it was drastic. I mean, his spine was showing.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
That's the challenge of trying to age a new buck
or a deal like you almost don't recognize some of
the deer if they didn't have antlers, like you wouldn't
guess because they lose so much weight. And they look
completely different than maybe what to your point in October.
And so with that being said, with him being run down,
when you connected with him, was it more of a
(17:08):
feed pattern or just where he was hanging out or
what kind.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Of how did it come together?
Speaker 6 (17:15):
Yeah, so a lot of that has to do with
so that the areas that I was hunting him in
before there was there was some standing beans over in
those areas, and there was a fair amount of acorns.
But as the season kind of trickled along, the farmer
(17:37):
went in there, he had winter weed in there. They
drilled beans in there late. The beans didn't do very
well and were super short, and they went through and
they picked kind of what they could out of those
out of those fields, we were pretty excited because they
left a fair amount of beans.
Speaker 5 (17:55):
So we're like, oh sweet, this is going to be awesome.
Speaker 6 (17:58):
Well, that lasted for about a week and a half
and then they started going and then they went in
there and started disking.
Speaker 5 (18:05):
Those fields, so that drastically changed.
Speaker 6 (18:09):
I was really I was really concerned about where he
was going to end up because I knew that, you know,
they were going to transition from the rut into more
you know, recovery mode, and he went He actually ended
up going north where there was some cut beam fields.
(18:34):
But I went in there and I built a I
built a water hole like three or four years ago
in there with my my tractor bucket, because there's no.
Speaker 5 (18:45):
There's no water in that section. Really, there's no creeks
or anything like that.
Speaker 6 (18:50):
And I just noticed that every time that there was
runoff from that field back into that little spot in
the woods there, that when it pulled up, the deer
just would ham. I mean just there'd be just loaded
with tracks. So I had that in there and just
hadn't had anything in there to hunt in the last
several years. And then but that field, what what else
(19:15):
I did is I went in there and over the
in the beans and I spread whinter we rye, turnips
and radishes over over the beans.
Speaker 5 (19:25):
And it came in good.
Speaker 6 (19:28):
And so when those fields got disks, everything started to
shift that way, just kind of naturally. And and I
got a picture of him on a camera north of there,
which i've and I've never gotten a picture of him
there ever, not once. And it just had to be
about the food and you know, just kind of pushing
(19:51):
those deer that way, but I think they're so run
down by the end of that November time frame and
then going into December.
Speaker 5 (20:04):
I just I think it's all about food at that point.
Speaker 6 (20:09):
But they're touchy because I can personally say, like that
dear that I that I just shot.
Speaker 5 (20:17):
I mean, I mean, I pressured that deer, like I'm supplied.
Speaker 6 (20:22):
I'm surprised even in the county anymore, because I was,
I was all over. I was either gonna blow him
up or I was gonna kill him.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Yeah, well it worked out. And I feel that's the
touch and go of late season two. Now, like we're
here in the Midwest ward in late season mode where
the deer had been pressured, like for your example, we
had multiple encounters and you know, the whole gambit, and
so it is still boiled down to food and him
finding a place where he was comfortable and then moving in.
Speaker 6 (20:53):
Yeah, that's what I think. I think too. You get
you'll get some you know, if you had if you
I don't know, this is just my thought, my theory
on it. I could be completely wrong, but I think that.
I mean, there's some does that come into heat every
year in October, and and I've heard of I've heard
(21:18):
of some those coming in all the way, you know,
as early as October twentieth before, if they got bred
then and they had fawns, and I'm not sure, I
mean by the time they get to this point of
the year, I mean, could I'm not sure. Maybe they
have the first you know cycle where they go into heat,
(21:40):
because i know later in the year there's you know,
supposed to be you know, some.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
Of those younger deer that that do that.
Speaker 6 (21:47):
So maybe you know, maybe this you know, this first
week of December or whatever, maybe you get some of
those those little those little fonts.
Speaker 5 (21:56):
Because the buck that I just shot, he was fallen.
Speaker 6 (22:01):
A he was following a uh a do on m
hm buyers and she wasn't with any other deer.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
It's just those two.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (22:13):
So I don't know, I don't know if there's you know,
I'm not I'm not a deer biologist or anything.
Speaker 5 (22:20):
I'm just you know, just observation over the years. You know,
I've seen some stuff like that. But I've killed.
Speaker 6 (22:31):
I've killed three I've killed three bucks in that you
know first part of December, you know, with my dough.
You know, two of them was with a dough my
biggest I ever killed. He was with a dough and
then this one was with a doe the other night
when he came in, and the other one was just
(22:54):
he was by hisself and just run down and just
just odd food.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
So looking here in the next seven days, it seems
like there's two options. Hope you find the lucky young
do or be on a good food source. I think
one thing I want to bring up with hunting food sources,
how careful are you. Let's say let's say you get
a picture of a deer in the middle of the night,
(23:28):
a deer you knew from November, he didn't connect with him,
and he shows up on food middle of the night,
one o'clock in the morning, two o'clock in the morning
somewhere in that timeframe. Is that enough for you to
go and to start hunting that food source in the
evenings or are you more apprehensive to go in there
and hope that as temperatures get colder, as we get
more snow, if that happens, they'll end up getting there
(23:50):
in daylight.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Or what have you been able to pick up over
the years.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
I feel like someone out there is in that exact
scenario right now.
Speaker 6 (23:58):
This is uh, this is my thought on it. So
because we we pay so much attention to cameras a
lot of times, which can be a mistake.
Speaker 5 (24:12):
I still think that.
Speaker 6 (24:14):
I think we needed if you have the opportunity to
be able to to to glass them from a long
distance and just stay back and kind of get it
feel for because they might be right there in that
field or whatever, feeding and you just never got a
picture because they I mean, they got to walk in
(24:34):
front of the camera.
Speaker 5 (24:35):
And it's just not always the case.
Speaker 6 (24:37):
I mean, There's been numerous times over the years where
I've went in and just off a gut feel and
thought I should just go set that just to see
what's going on. Yeah, he hasn't been on camera in daylight,
but I'm just gonna go set it and then he
just and then I see.
Speaker 5 (24:51):
Him in daylight.
Speaker 6 (24:55):
I I mean because at the end of at the
end of the day, we're always we're all trying to
predict something that hasn't happened yet, and I think.
Speaker 5 (25:07):
That you need to go.
Speaker 6 (25:10):
If you can glass and pick up that information is
one thing, but or or maybe you just set an
observation stand and set back with that, you know, like
that you're safe getting in and out, but you could
get an opportunity as well. I think I think that
(25:31):
that can come into play big time. But to me,
I gotta take I gotta take a shot at it
every once in a while, like I can't just like
I see, I've seen a lot of just friends, even
my end myself over the years, just like waiting to
get a daylight pitcher. I mean, by the time you
(25:56):
get a daylight picture, that was your chance and you
just weren't there. And now now you went and hunted it.
And if it's a food source this time of year, man,
there you're gonna deal with.
Speaker 5 (26:07):
A lot of other eyes.
Speaker 6 (26:09):
And noses and and getting out is going to be
it's that's a nightmare sometimes.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
What what is one or two strategies to get out?
What are your thoughts on having someone pick you up?
What's your thoughts on because it's cold by then, like
when that sun goes down and you're like, dude, it's cold,
Oh is it to ride it out till it's pitch black?
I mean, what how do you get out without without
messing it up? Because you're if you're on a good
(26:40):
food sources, probably going to be ten to twenty twenty
deer in there, and it's like the last thing you
want to do is bust them all out.
Speaker 6 (26:47):
If you can get somebody to pick you up, I
think that's huge. That's not always the case for me.
You know, I use you know, I use a and
uh you know one of Steve's hardcore e bikes. I
think you got one as well, And that's been huge
(27:10):
for me because sometimes if I can get down the
tree and my bike's close and on it, if I'm
riding away from them, they don't seem to run. They
do more of a watch unless I have to like
ride through where they're whatever they're they're at or whatever.
(27:31):
It's it's not ideal, but I mean, I don't know.
I think that you got to move deer around to
kill deer, and that's just that's just unfortunately part of it.
Speaker 5 (27:46):
But I think you're you're really trying to stack.
Speaker 6 (27:51):
Say you're watching the book, all you're getting is say
nighttime photos. Now now you can you see a weather
front coming, you know, and a lot of people like
the front end. You know, my buddy Heath Cisco has
(28:14):
proven this over and over again. The back half is
much better and then that's actually and that's how I
killed my buck just recently.
Speaker 5 (28:22):
It was on the back half of that.
Speaker 6 (28:25):
You know, the front was past us and the pressure
was rising. I think you need to take and you
stack some you know, attempts in your favor. Maybe a
front in your favor, maybe with the you know, maybe
maybe it's a certain moon phase that favors an evening.
Speaker 5 (28:47):
Movement pattern.
Speaker 6 (28:48):
Just try to stack a couple things in your favor.
And because again to go back to like you're trying
to predict something that's going to happen, not that it's
already happened.
Speaker 5 (29:02):
I that is I've.
Speaker 6 (29:05):
Done that so many times over the years, with those
stupid cameras where I'm like, oh, I got to go
a daylight picture, I'm going in a hunt.
Speaker 5 (29:11):
I never see the deer. Yeah, And it's just and
it's just ridiculous.
Speaker 6 (29:15):
I just think it's got to be stats and things
in your favor, whether being the number one thing of
everything with white tails, and and then that part of
the season, I mean, it's going to be about food,
and it's going to be they're going to be recovering.
I can tell you that just a couple of years ago,
(29:37):
I had a buck that kind of similar situation, and
I was hunting him this time of year, and the
other thing. This is where this is something I This
is where I made a mistake on this deer. It
was a nice ten why probably one hundred and sixty
inch deer didn't have any.
Speaker 5 (29:57):
History with a deer or whatever. He moved in during
November and just was in there.
Speaker 6 (30:04):
And what I he was.
Speaker 5 (30:11):
Back there, and what I did? I set back too far.
Speaker 6 (30:20):
And I didn't go exactly where I you know, like
I didn't want to press too hard and go exactly
where I knew that I really needed to be. And
I went in hunted the deer, seeing the deer that
night and didn't even when I left that night, I
(30:41):
didn't blow any deer up leaving or anything. And and
then I wanted, then, I want to try to make
my move the next time around.
Speaker 5 (30:49):
And he just he just wasn't showing up in daylight anymore.
Speaker 6 (30:54):
And I mean if I would have, if I would
have done what my gut told me to do that
first time in there, I would.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
Have killed that buck.
Speaker 6 (31:03):
Yeah, But I tried to play it too safe. And
I think I think we all try to play it
too safe. Sometimes I think that's good.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Well, real quick, imagine you didn't shoot this buck from
the tenth to the seventeenth of December in Ohio. Ten
being the best week of the year, one being one
of the worst weeks of the year. Where do you
rank it?
Speaker 5 (31:26):
Tenth to seven? I would give it it's tough.
Speaker 6 (31:32):
I would give it a three, Okay, I would give it, yeah,
like a three or four because personally me, like the
first you know, October is I love October like it's
my favorite favorite white tail month, no questions about it.
(31:53):
November frustrating, very frustrating. This year was very frustrating, just
because the big dogs are gonna have does and if
you are in areas in most of the state of Ohio,
there's just a lot of dose because people don't shoot dose,
and it's a problem. And to me, you know, October
(32:17):
is great, November could be frustrating. December it's I believe
December is the toughest month out of our entire year.
Speaker 5 (32:28):
And then you go into January. January can be it
can be just awesome. Yeah, but you gotta have food.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, gotta have food.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
If you don't have food, go find some places where
there might be some food if people want to fall
along with some past once you've done and and everything
else is white Tail Addictions one of the best places
to do that.
Speaker 5 (32:49):
Yep, yep, white Tail Addictions.
Speaker 6 (32:51):
And that's where all of our it's on the Lone
Wolf custom gear YouTube page.
Speaker 5 (32:57):
But that's just where we put all the white tail addictions.
So this is all right there.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Awesome, Well, justin, congratulations once again, appreciate you hopping on here,
and uh yeah it was awesome, perfect timing. So if
I text someone else for reughresh, that probably means they're
going to kill a buck or they just killed one.
So this might be a good trend, a good kind
of Murphy's Law in a positive way.
Speaker 6 (33:20):
Here.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Yeah, that was awesome, thanks Justin. Yep, all right.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Next up online we have grand Putnam who just shot
a big old buck in Illinois, Grant and that's your
number two of the year too. So how does it
feel to be officially bucked out? It's December seventh, you're
relishing in the moment you got to chop up the
deer here today?
Speaker 2 (33:38):
How's it feel?
Speaker 7 (33:40):
It feels good. It's actually I was just busy talking
to one of my buddies who just came up here
to help me butcher them. Shout out to Jesse. And
this deer that I shot last night was actually the
first deer match set that I found when we got
this farm, and I actually found him on the road
(34:00):
driving in there like it. That was first experience on
match set. And so he's obviously significantly bigger than this now,
but pretty awesome experience. And so it feels really good.
That's so cool, I told, I told I think it
was one of my buddies the other day. I think
over the course, because you and I are about the
same age, and the way I set up my like
(34:22):
roster for the year, I tend to bracket deer basically, uh,
you know, what are my top six deer on the
properties I've had, have access to, what's so on and
so forth. And I had it in my mind locked
in this year. I knew that this was going to
be the number one dear, and I was like, come
hell or high water, I will eat the second tag
to kill that dear. So lo and behold, he stepped
(34:42):
out last night. And we can get into that a
little bit more. With your questions you're gonna ask me
so it feels great. It feels great, So yeah, I'm
going to go try to get another one to know.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
I bet that's awesome. Man. So uh, it's Illinois.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
We're wrapping up the second leg or I guess the
fire a leg of shotgun rifle season here in Illinois.
Just anadotally looking at Facebook, it honestly seems like second
season has been better than first season. And that's just
my gut reaction in looking on Facebook. And we have snow,
we have cold weather, and it's been a long time
(35:18):
since we've had that for this season, and so I
have to imagine the cold weather and snow played into
some part of your strategy for last night.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Is that true or accurate? What was your setup? Yeah?
Speaker 7 (35:29):
Absolutely so, I pretty fanatically. I'm a big believer in
electrical fencing food plots. If you're hunting a small food plot,
I tend to do that in the summertime and spend
almost as much effort as I do electrically fencing off.
Like if I want a late season grain field, a
late season Braska plot that I don't want touched until
(35:50):
really late. Adjacent to one of those grain fields, I
spend a lot of time in the summers electrically fencing
them off to keep them out of it, to keep
the pressure low. So we have a good crop and
the deer don't just you know, mull it down to
it to nothing. And so last night, actually the deer
that I shot, which I call the six by five,
I've been watching him for about I've known about him
(36:10):
for three or four years now. Like I said, I
believe this is a two year old match set right
here in my hand. And so this year in particular,
and kind of my strategy last night was just sitting
over food. Last night, I finally had the right wind.
If you recall on Thursday and Friday night. Thursday was
(36:33):
very cold, but we had a southerly wind because of
the warm up on Friday, and it wasn't right on Thursday.
It wasn't right on Friday, and I was actually waffling
back and forth between like, uh, should I take the
afternoon off and go after him? And it wasn't the
right wind. And finally one of my friends was like,
you know what, I think You're gonna have another crack
at him. So I'm just just lay out of there,
and that's what I ended up doing. And so last
(36:55):
night I guess what I saw in a nutshell and
what I've seen over the last couple of week's hunting,
because we had snow here for about ten days in Illinois,
a good snowfall, not just like a dusting like I think.
There's probably eight to ten on the ground right now
where I live. And we got another couple last night.
And so what this deer did, the behavior that I
observed him last night, was he came out. I ended
(37:17):
up seeing about forty five ish year in total. He
came out, and it was very early. It was three
point thirty when he came out yesterday, so probably about
an hour and a half of legal time remaining on
the timer. And he was actually bumping yearling does so
depending on you know, the listener that you have, I
(37:38):
tend to call a yearling a year a deer that
is a year old, not a fawn, not a dough fond,
but a yearling doe. And he was bumping her around
the field like last night, pretty substantially, and he actually
bumped her right into one of my food plots where
he then was getting ready to eat. I didn't give
him a whole lot of time to eat. I'm gonna
be honest, he came in and.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
I shot, So you got you gotta you gotta capitalize
the opportunity because you never know what could happen. Crazy
things always happen. It's fun to sit there and watch them,
but you gotta you gotta make it happen. So, kind
of reverting back to waiting for the right wind, was
he pretty consistent hitting that food source once the temperatures
have dropped in the snow has hit the ground, or
(38:21):
is somewhat was it still somewhat random?
Speaker 2 (38:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (38:24):
So I I frankly would have shot this year. Last
year at five and I saw him a couple of
times on the hoof very nice deer. This year I
tried rattling them in and actually end up rattling a
subordinate buck in which is a nice one as well,
different deer on the same day that.
Speaker 5 (38:39):
I saw him.
Speaker 7 (38:40):
You know, it was just one of those magical rut
days where the right hot do came by the stand
and I saw the buck parade. And so this year,
after the post rut, I would I typically tend to
say that the rut is post rut after Thanksgiving, and
post rut I would say that I was getting this
deer on camera every day or every other day on
(39:02):
this particular food source. So I have like a three
stage food plot. I've got Braska's clover and the beans
all stacked up in here, and they filter out and
they just transition back and forth, you know, that greens
the grain type of strategy that you've probably heard a
bunch of different people say. I just want to be
able to satiate the appetite of the deer and whatever
they are interested in eating and hold them there regardless
(39:22):
of the time of the year. So I tend to
plan a lot of my food plots kind of following
that rhythm. And so he was on camera bright, I mean,
very early as well on Wednesday. Wednesday, I just couldn't
get out of work. On Thursday, we had the big
temperature drop, so about a twenty degree temperature swing from
the mid thirties to like about fifteen tennish degrees here
(39:46):
on Thursday. But we had that southernly win on Thursday
because we had a warm up on Friday, and on
Friday he was out there as well, and that was
about thirty five on Friday, he was out there as well.
So I figured that over the weekend with the north
we win swinging through on Saturday Sunday, I would have
an opportunity at him, and that's pretty much exactly what happened.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
I love it Like Lacy's and food is an insurance policy,
and when you don't have insurance, you wish you do,
and when something goes wrong and you have insurance, right,
gosh dang, And I'm glad I have this policy. And
you know, with the weather cooperating, obviously, it came out
together really nicely. Now kind of looking here over the
next seven days, so like the tenth of the seventeenth
of December, it looks like we're gonna have some pretty
(40:32):
frigid bit or cold weather again this upcoming weekend. I
assume the strategy remains pretty similar to food. I mean
food and still hunting, hunting.
Speaker 7 (40:44):
Smart down inside of food, wait for the wind to
be right. It looks like we're going to get a
massive cold front on Thursday through Sunday next week that's
going to push temperatures into the single digits come evening time.
So I believe that deer is going to be just
absolutely clobbering food next weekend. During muzzloder season, if you're
an Illinois resident, I think that would be an awesome
opportunity to kill what I call the deer. I think
(41:07):
that late season food plot hunting tends to be one
of the best and most predictable opportunities in times to
kill the air quote number one buck they have that
you're aware of, has made it through the rut, has
avated a lot of arrows, and has made it through
the first gun season in Ali and which happens at
(41:27):
the tail end of the rut. So I think, my opinion,
if deer are making it past Thanksgiving in Illinois and
you have food, I think you have a very very
good crack at them, as long as you're patient and
the wind is right, your approach is pretty good and
you're not walking through bedding areas banging everything out of
there on your way to and from. So yep, that's
what I'll be what.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
Let me run this scenario.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Let me let me run this scenario past you your
next weekend. Pretend Okay, you're hunting with your wife, she
has Muslim attack, and there's fifteen deer twenty deer in
your food plot. The buck that you guys were after
did not show up, So you have twenty deer in
your food plot, You're like, oh crap, how do we
get the heck out of here? How much does that
make you nervous? Knowing each time the plan doesn't come together,
(42:13):
your odds could easily be diminishing with each quote unquote
unsuccessful hunt. What is your exit strategy? Do you guys
just hang out in the blind until you know it
gets really really dark? The moon's been really bright this weekend,
so it's like it's like you could sit there all
night and it's still gonna be pretty bright out with
the snow and the moon. But what do you do
in that scenario? Do you just hope for the best
and start to zip out of there as quietly as possible.
Speaker 7 (42:36):
I think that I think that by far the most
underrated aspect of deer hunting outside of like weapon proficiency.
To me, I think a lot of deer live because
they're missed or they're wounded or whatever. So I think
weapon proficiency is like a sneaky, sneaky killer of deer
hunting and destroyer of mental health of deer hunters. But
(42:56):
I think the second one is really and I've really
tried to clean up my access over the last few
years and ensure like it is pitch dark. So I
tend to sit in my blind until five forty five
six o'clock before I even open the door, because I
don't want dear to even have an inkling of seeing
me in regards of like the moonlight shining off the
(43:18):
snow and the reflection and how visible you are out there.
All of the blinds that I have set up for
late season hunting minus one, you're down the stairs out
the back of the blind and you're into pretty substantial
cover quickly. And so I've kind of finagled my entry
exit routes to make sure I'm minimizing that amount, so
(43:38):
I don't put too much stock into it. And also
I'm a big believer of like we we eat a
lot of vedison. I would not call my wife and
I trophy hunters by anybody's standard. And so lots of
the time, whether whether we're taking like a friend or
maybe my dad or maybe my friend from work, will
clear the field with a gun and that's how we
(43:59):
will will exit. If it comes to last light, and
you know there's just that stereotypical big old pot of
does out there feeding we'll pick the biggest one, and
that's how we'll clear the field in a I don't know,
a more semi natural way. I know that that's probably
a debatable tactic and a debatable strategy, but I like
that strategy a lot, just because we eat a lot
(44:20):
of medison. We tend to eat like five to ten
of them a year, and we also manage the property
properties pretty heavily for dose so that they don't become overrun.
So that's that's kind of my question. In a nutshell,
I brushed brushed shoulders with your question, which was how
much is like the diminishing or turn of scaring off
the number one buck day after day? And to me,
(44:43):
I think at this point, like if if you were
a person with a large standing grain field or maybe
the only food in like that mile, to me, I
and I know that, like you know, people have their
opinions on the juries. I really like watching like shows
like The Druries the Little Coski's because I think it
(45:04):
showcases what deer do completely unpressured in their natural environment,
how they act, how they behave, and so for that reason,
I really like the mantra that they kind of do,
Like you know, your stereotypical late season box blind in
the middle of a field, and they're getting in and
out of there each night. I have had my wife
pick me up before and a four wheeler to clear
(45:24):
the field. I think that's a pretty natural way of
doing it. But if you're hunting someplace where you can't
have that option, I like clearing the field with a
gun if you're a big venice and eater, and then
just cleaning up your access to make sure that you're
minimizing that damage. And I stay in the blind pretty
well after legal time. I'm not hopping out of there.
Like today, legal time is five oh one, five oh two.
(45:44):
I think I won't be getting out of there at five.
They'll be waiting till like five forty five six, and
hopefully it'll the cover of darkness will really take care
of that for me.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
No, that's that's great advice. Now looking here over the
next seven days, ten being the best week of the
year to kill big old buck, one being one of
the worst weeks of the entire year. And I'm gonna
I'm gonna add some more contacts for you, just giving
the time of year and your personal strategy. You have
standing food scale one to ten. Where do you put
this upcoming week?
Speaker 7 (46:19):
This upcoming week, I there are a couple of days
that I'm looking at, So I'm looking at my ten
day right now. Monday's looks okay high twenty five, Friday
looks awesome high of nineteen. Saturday and Sunday are both
of high of about ten. So Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday,
if you have if you have standing food or anything,
which I want to circle back around that that year
(46:41):
that I shot last night, he was actually pawing up
Brassica's before he came in to beans and so that
was that's what he was doing last night. So the
majority of my dear last night on December what was
last night the seventh, December sixth, December sixth hit Brassica's
(47:03):
first before they hit it. And so my score would
be if you have that late season food over the
course of the next week, with those dates that I mentioned,
basically Friday through Monday, Friday the twelfth through Monday the fifteenth,
I think that my number would be a ten for
your or how much I like it for Big Old Buck,
I think I think if you have that, I think
(47:25):
if you can write it out in your blind stay
a little chilly for four days, and your entrance and
exit isn't terrible. You're getting in nice and earlier, staying
kind of late. I think there is a very good
chance during Muzzle at a weekend, if you're an Illinois resident,
that you could bag a giant here.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
Yeah, I love it, question, I love it. Awesome.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Well, congratulations Grant once again, appreciate you hopping on here,
and good luck to your wife here this evening.
Speaker 7 (47:50):
All right, I'll let you know. I'll shoot you a
text if we whack them.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
All right, folks there, you guys have it. I hope
you guys enjoyed this week's episode of Rough Fresh. Bundle up,
make the most of this cold weather, and I hope
that you have a good food source or a good
opportunity here. As we get deeper and deeper into December,
the holiday season is right around the corner.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
The Rough Fresh.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
Season is quickly coming to a close here as well.
So hope you guys have the best week here. We
had some high scores, we had some lower scores, and
I hope everyone gets to experience a ten out of
ten week with the great late season cold weather.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
We'll see you next time, See y
Host
Mark Kenyon
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