Ep. 679: What Would Bobby Kendall Do?

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
the Whitetail Woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile
hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light
Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
the show, I'm running Bobby Kendall of the Whitetail Group
through a series of very specific deer hunting scenarios to
see exactly how we'd handle them. All right, Welcome to

(00:44):
the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light.
I'm your host, Mark Kenyan. In today, we are kicking
off are what would You Do series, which is something
we've done every August for the last three or four
years now, I believe, And here's the basic gist of it.
We put a great deer hunter through a gauntlet of

(01:06):
very specific hunting challenges and scenarios. I will paint picture
of some kind of set of circumstances and then ask
this hunter how they would think about it, what they
would do, and why they would do it. That is
what we're gonna do today and for the rest of
this month. I'm gonna tell you a little bit about
our guest coming up here in just a moment. But

(01:27):
before we do that, before we get into the meat
and potatoes to today's show, I got to give you
a quick couple quick updates. Number one, we have another
Working for Wildlife tour event coming up here in August.
So that is going to be August twelve in Missouri,
just outside of Saint Louis, Missouri. We've got an event

(01:48):
in collaboration with backcountry hunters and anglers. We're gonna get
out there on some public land near the Mississippi River,
I believe, and do some habitat improvement for wildlife. So, man,
if you do any public land hunting, if you do
any hike and fish and anything out there out on
these places, you know that it's important to help steward

(02:08):
these landscapes, protect these landscapes, make sure that they are
healthy and thriving ecosystems so that the critters that we
want to hunt are there and in healthy populations. And
that's what we're trying to do on this tours, get
out there and give back to these places that man,
they give us so much. So I'm really excited to
get there on August twelfth. Meet a bunch of you, hopefully.
I know we have a lot of listeners in Missouri, Kansas,

(02:31):
that whole region, so we'd love to meet some of you,
share some stories, take some pictures, sign books, whatever it is,
and get out there doing some good work. So August twelfth,
you can learn more about this specific event on the
back Country Hunters and Anglers event web page. You'll find
this event listed there in their event section and you
can register at that link. Then there's going to be

(02:53):
a social storytelling event thing that goes on afterwards, so
looking forward to that. I want to make sure everyone
new that that's coming up. Also, we've got a sale
going on with First Light and all of our brands.
If you happen to be listening to this on the
day that it comes out, just that day, August third,
If you are listening on August third, twenty twenty three,

(03:15):
our season opener sale is still running. So this is
everything on the Mediator store, First Light, Phelps, FHF all
of it up to forty percent off. There's some great swag,
including the white tail rope hat that I've worn a
bunch over the last year. I've gotten lots and lots
and lots of questions about when that hat's going to
be going on sale, Well, it is now available finally,

(03:39):
and it's on sale. I think ten percent off is
what I think I saw. Regardless. Heading over to the
Mediator store or the First Light website or any one
of the brand websites, you will see all the details
about what's on sale. Lots of great options, including the
brand new source of vest or Origin pant from First Light.
I haven't talked about the Origin pant yet, but it
is like a super almost feels like an incredibly comfortable

(04:02):
jogger or sweatpant, but it is built with hunting in mind.
It uses that same fabric from the Origin hoodie, which
I know a lot of us use in love. But
it's designed as like a transitional piece to where when
you're heading out to the stand or even if it's
a piece that you're using, you know, when going from
deer camp to the property or whatever it is. It's
a very versatile piece. I end up wearing it all

(04:22):
the time, just a camp, scouting, hiking around in between hunts.
So check that out and everything else at first Light
dot com or the Mediator's store. And that is my
last plug. Other than the fact that we got to
talk about our guest, and our guest today is Bobby Kendall.
Bobby was on the show earlier this year for the
first time this spring during our Habitat month. He's one

(04:47):
of the founders of the Whitetail Group, which is a
company that is doing a whole bunch of different things,
but they're most known, I think for their recreational properties
that they are developing and showcasing and selling for the
elite whitetail hunter. They're designing properties for the elite hunting experience,
is what they say. And after watching many, many, many

(05:09):
hours of their YouTube videos in which they break down
how they would hunt properties, how they would design properties,
how they would manipulate and change them, I've gotten to
know Bobby's approach to hunting pretty darn well, and I'm
a fan of it. I'm a fan of his detail
oriented approach. I'm a fan of the way he stacks
odds and weighs probabilities and tries to make really smart,

(05:32):
thoughtful decisions. It's very much in line with how I
try to approach to your hunting, and Bobby probably just
does it better. So that's why I wanted to have
him on the show today to really break that side
of things down more because last time we mostly talked
about habitat this time I want to talk primarily about hunting.
And as I mentioned at the top, this is our

(05:54):
what would you Do? Series? So what I'm going to
do here Bobby is present him a specific scenario, a
couple habitat and then the rest hunting, and then we're
gonna have Bobby break down what he would do, how
he would do it, why he would do with the
things he's thinking about everything, so that we can get
a very clear look inside of the brain of a
tremendously successful white tail hunter. Bobby gets done year in,

(06:16):
year out, and he does it in a way that
I think a lot of folks can learn from. So
that is our game plan for today. I'm excited for it.
I hope you are too. Let's get to it all right,
So with me on the show today, We've got Bobby Kendall.

(06:40):
Welcome to the show, Bobby, thanks for having me again. Yeah,
I'm glad to get you back today to talk deer hunting,
not just deer management, not just deer land, but really
dig into the hunting side of things, which I know
you love the property aspect and we had a great
conversation to spring on that topic. But it's almost August
we're talking, and I don't know about you, but like

(07:02):
the itch is very very strong right now to get
out there and get hunted.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
It is real.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yes, So what I've got for you today is this
thing we call the what would you do? Gauntlet? So
basically what that means is, I'm gonna give you a
bunch of tough, specific hypothetical situations, mostly hunting. We'll do
a couple of habitat things kick things off, and basically
what I need you to do is walk me through
how you would handle that situation and what you're thinking.

(07:30):
You can paint, you know, an imaginary picture if you want.
If I don't give you enough details, you can add
your own details to help you make your answer makes
sense and we'll kind of see how you do things.
So is that something you're up for?

Speaker 3 (07:44):
Yes? That sounds good.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
All right, Well, then we're just gonna get right into
it in the interest of time here because the first
one I've got here is related to habitat. Like I mentioned,
in this scenario, I want you to imagine a situation
where you have gotten access to pretty sweet property, but
it's a lease, and let's say this is the only
place you can hunt this year. It is going to

(08:08):
be a situation where you have access as a lease
and they're going to give you a five year term
on it. So you've got some time with it. You've
got time to figure it out. It's it's, you know,
something you want to invest in a little bit. The situation, though,
is that you are not allowed to make major habitat changes.
You can't do major plantings, you can't do major cuttings.
We're talking light touch kind of stuff here. In that situation,

(08:31):
with those stipulations, what would be the two most important
things that you could do to improve your hunting experience
out there in this five year term?

Speaker 3 (08:42):
Okay, now, is this place in the Midwest? Yeah, like
a typical farm with aag and stuff.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
Yep, we'll say this is there in Illinois.

Speaker 3 (08:49):
So you know, in the real world, my last couple
of seasons I have spent on a permission piece that
it was exactly a situation I couldn't do. So you know,
you kind of go back to the basics, right, And
that's even when you can do a bunch of happitat
manipulation it it really you have to go back to
the basics. Really good strategy with nothing done is better

(09:12):
than all kinds of things done with no strategy. So
you know, I guess also in this situation, have I
run cameras yet? Do I know if there's a big
deer there? Or am I completely at the beginning stages
of it.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
Let's stay this at this point, you are in the beginning.
You can do all those things, but this is like
your first this is your first season out there. You've
picked it up maybe in the summer, so you've got
some summer scouty under your belt, and that's it.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
Yeah, okay, So the first thing I'm gonna do is
I'm gonna put cameras out. Hopefully the farm isn't bean
so I can really get the cameras out and start
seeing things. If it's in corn, that can be tough
when it's not under your control because a lot of
edges get grown up and it's really hard to put
cameras out in that situation. I'll wait until scrapes are
popping up, and I'll walk the perimeter or the backpack

(10:00):
of cameras and a hedge hedge trimmer, battery heads trimmer,
and I'll put I'll find the scrapes, and I'll put
a camera on every scrape on the edge, and I'll
clear it with a hedge trimmer, is usually what I do,
because you're kinda it's just kind of your button heads
with nature if you're if you're trying to run cameras
earlier and that a lot of times and core unless

(10:22):
you got some pinches and stuff as far as the
habitat goes, like, one of the first things I'm gonna
do is ask the landowner if if can I plan
any food plots, and would you mind if I talk
to the farmer If you're not out any money or
it doesn't affect you, would you mind if I talk
to your farm tenant and to try and find out

(10:43):
if I can buy back some crops, Because even on
my own farms, I try and work with the farmer
as much as possible because it's just so much easier.
They do a better job. So once they do that,
I'm gonna reach out to the farmer because I'm gonna
want standing crops on the farm and I'm going to
My strategy with that is you know, I'll be like,

(11:05):
I'll pay you whatever it is to make you whole.
And if it's corn, I'll always offer to go in
there after the season and mow that corn down because
that's the one thing they don't want to deal with,
and that'll usually get you in the doors and maybe
even offer a little bit more than what they would
have got from the crop. So that I want to

(11:26):
get my standing crops. I want to find out what
deer are there right off the bat if there is
nowhere to plant food plot, I'll just I'll also ask
the farmer, hey, do you mind if I oversee some
green into that area that you're letting me keep. And
again I will by letting him know you are somewhat competent.

(11:49):
It goes a long way. If I say, hey, can
I oversee some winter rye in here? I know it's
going to come up in the spring. I will come
back in the spring and I'll spray it for you. Usually,
you know, if you're acting that competent, they'll let you.
And then or I'll ask if I can oversee Somebraskas
because Nebraskas really won't come back and make too much

(12:10):
of a mess on them. And a lot of times,
I'd say more often than not, you know, you'll get
something done with a farmer like that. So at that point,
I you know, that address is you know, trying to
figure out what deer are there and then getting some
food going.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
So let's shift to a slightly different situation then if
you were in a situation where you did just buy
a farm, so rather than being on a lease they
don't have a lot of control over, now you do
have full control. You just landed a dream farm. The
problem is you couldn't close until late August, so you're
not able to actually set foot on this farm and

(12:45):
do anything till let's say August twenty fifth, maybe opening
day in this state. Let's say you're in Iowa, opening
day is October first, so you're maybe five weeks out
from opening day. In that situation, do you try to
to make some kind of last minute changes, plant some
food plots, pushing some you know, I don't know, pushing

(13:07):
a creek crossing, do any cuttings anything like that, or
is it too late? And at this point you just
want to play it very very light touch, just hunt
it and wait till the next season to do any
kind of real work.

Speaker 3 (13:22):
So a lot of times, backing up from that, I've
negotiated in in the front side the right for early
access to prep and stuff. So a lot sometimes I
will be at that point, but I'll have I'll have
a little bit more time. But if I don't, I'll
still go to the farmers because that you know that
that that'll work, that whole conversation will work right up
until the harvest. So I'd still do that, you know,

(13:48):
And and both situations as far as like habitat work
and stuff like, I wouldn't worry about that all because
I just hunt the way the farm in a way
I wasn't putting pressure on it, because that's the number
one thing. Nothing works with None of the habitat stuff
works without without a strategy as far as your presence
and pressure. So so yeah, you know, I don't think

(14:12):
i'd be going in and doing crete crossings and that
type of thing, but I'd be getting my cameras out
figuring what's out there. I'd be trying to figure out
the farmers who what they would let me, what I
could do with them. And it just depends, you know,
if you got if you're going in that late and
it's you got some cattle pasture or something that was

(14:34):
prepped and it was mowed down, you know, down pretty good.
You could spray it, no till it or you know,
spray it and work it up in a week or two,
a couple of weeks, and and so it would kind
of depend on the situation, I guess, but you know,
I just I would I think the big things would
be working with the farmer to try and get some
some last minute crops and and finding out what's there quick.

(14:59):
There's a lot of.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
Change that time of year, you know, yep, but nothing major.
You wouldn't be bringing in the dozers. You wouldn't be
uh trying to change the world overnight.

Speaker 3 (15:09):
Well, you know in my situation, because I have like
a business that has all that, and I could go
in and hit it hot, like I may do that
because yeah, you know, I do not think that that
heavy equipment affects deer like you would think it is.
Like I would think going in there and tiptoeing around

(15:31):
and scouting and stuff would have more impact than bringing
a bulldozer there and clearing a one boot bot. The
only reason I say that is because I've seen it
a hundred times when I leave a camera out and
I've got guys walking back and forth with chainsaws and
skitterers going by all day and then boom, here comes
a five plus year old deer in daylight by the
same camera. It's like, the is the craziest thing. And

(15:54):
I've seen that over and over and over again.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
They really get used to that farm equipment kind of pressure.
Doesn't even nearly as concerned of that.

Speaker 3 (16:04):
Yeah, So as far, I guess maybe the root of
your question is do you think it would affect the
deer that you're gonna hunt? And I do not think
that it would, especially if it's a big maturitier, because
a big maturitier spent his whole life there, and it's
it's harder than people think to to run a deer
like that out of their core.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
Right there for a reason.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
Good example, here's a great example. I got a farm
this year that I'm hunting permission with a friend of
mine that bought it, and he was like, you know,
go over there, you know, see what you think needs
done or whatever. And there's there's one spot that I
feel like would greatly bring him to bow range. And
I said, I'll go up there with the skids deer,

(16:47):
and I'll just I'll push out a plot and I
might even plant it the same day I'm in there
with the skids deer. So yeah, I would do that
type of thing. I don't think it would hurt your hunting,
is what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
Is there a cut off date? Would there be any
date that'd be too late to do something like that?
Like if I changed the date to September fifteenth or
something that works shape.

Speaker 3 (17:10):
Now, I probably wouldn't want to do it anymore once
we got like within maybe a week or five days
of the season. And it depends is if it's a
one day going there heavy hit it and do it
all in a day, or if it's a week long,
drawn out thing. That'd be two different things. But what

(17:30):
I wouldn't want to do is do it so close
to the season that I might push him to the
neighbor for a few days and then have him kill him.

Speaker 2 (17:39):
Yep, I fellow, Okay, one last habitat question here in
this one, I'm going to send you to New York.
So right where you are, right now, right upstate New York.
I think, let's say you've got is a food plot question.
And we're going to imagine two different versions of this
food plot question. One of them will be a situation

(17:59):
in which you do own the land and you can
make big changes. One of these is a situation where
you do not own the land and you can't make
major changes. So the CIN scenario is this, You've got
access to this big property, relatively big. We'll say. Let
me take you back the word big. We're gonna say
it's one hundred and twenty acre farm. Some people consider

(18:20):
that big. Some people do not consider that big. It
is mostly timber, swamp timber mixed kind of situation of
which there's one opening on the side of it. So
you've got an eight acre rectangular field that is surrounded
by the rest of this swampy timber. Okay, that eight
acre field, like I mentioned, is planted in some you know,

(18:41):
agricultural food source. The situation is this, there is a big,
giant buck that you have noticed that's coming in and
out of this big chunk of timber. Let's say you
know that from history. The problem here, though, is that
because of how large this food sources, and because of
the kind of terrain features and whatnot, there's no real
rhyme or reason, at least not a consistent rhyme or

(19:03):
reason to how this buck is entering or exiting this field.
What would you do to try to make a large
food source hunt setup like that work better given this scenario,
Option A is first, let's talk about you can't replant it,
you can't change the shape of it, you can't cut
a bunch of trees down around, so you have to

(19:24):
kind of do some light touch things on this. And
then option B would be the full white tail group.
You know, arsenal is at your disposal to re design
this setup. So there's your situation. How big is the
field that's eight acres.

Speaker 3 (19:41):
Rectangle rectangle, and is it what's playing in that?

Speaker 2 (19:47):
Let's yeah, let's say it's let's say it's beans. Because
I want something that's like not providing a lot of cover.
I want to open big open fields. We'll say it's
beans right now as the as it stands right now.
So in the situation where you don't own it, some
farmer plan those beans. In the situation where you do
onw it, you can change it to whatever you want.

Speaker 3 (20:06):
Yeah, So first thing, I look at access and dominant winds,
and I would just really quickly be like, I want
to be in this area of the field, right, and
then I'd go to that area and I'd try and
find an huntable tree, and then I would if I
am I allowed to oversee do I got to talk
to the farmer again.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
You can talk to the farmer, yeah.

Speaker 3 (20:27):
So I would. I would be like, hey, man, would
you mind if I overseeded some braska is in here?
They won't. I mean, most of them understand cover cropping
and understands a good thing. So let's say he lets
me do that, and we do this. Well, that's the
next question of the develop farms. But I'm gonna set
my stand and then I'm gonna overseed within bow range,

(20:49):
ingreen of rye and turn ups, keep it super simple.
And then I'm gonna go around and I'm going to
cut every scrape branch off of that tree three except
for the ones that are in bow range. So I'm
gonna just do everything and I can possibly do to
make that deer, you know, come there to me, depending

(21:13):
on how wide the field is. If it's rectangle, you know.
I mean back in the day, I remember literally taking
dead falls with my golf cart and like leaning over
so I don't touch the ground, and I'm not this
crazy anymore because I don't think that you need to be.
But and like literally like hooking onto a dead ball
and skidding it out in the plot and laying this
like dead stick out there, you know, ten twenty twenty

(21:36):
feet just something that they'll walk around. So like it
can be that primitive because you can manipulate like super
primitively or easily. But those two things there are gonna
if you up your odds, You're gonna up your odds
that a doe is going to be in front of
you because of the green, which ups your odds at

(21:57):
a buck's gonna be there. And if you eliminate scrape branches,
you're gonna up your odds that if it's October and
he's going to go to a scrape, but he's obviously
going to go to you. And at the same time,
you're going to make that scrape more powerful because it's
going to get more set and it's just gonna snowball.

Speaker 4 (22:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:26):
Now, real quick clarifying question. You talked about the overseaing
thing quite a lot. Can you just give a little
bit more detail on when you want to do that?
With beans versus when you'd want to do that with corn.

Speaker 3 (22:39):
Yeah, so beans, you want to do when the leaves
are yellowing. As soon as they start to yellow. You
want to get that seed onto the ground before the
leaves drop, so that a bunch of the seed doesn't
lay on top of the leaves. Some of them will
be covered. But I'll usually double the rate if you
want to really do it right, I'd put two bags
awry per and probably you know, eight or ten pounds

(23:04):
of turnips, pretty heavy. And sometimes I'll literally just whatever
I got left over from food plas sas and oats
and rye and turnips and rash and rape and what.
I'll just put it all out there because some of
it doesn't have as good as seed to soil. But
you've got the leftover seed and some of it's going
to grow. So the heaver you put it on, you know,

(23:27):
the better. You've got to count that some of them
aren't going to germinate because of the because of the
leaves falling on and stuff. But it's awesome if you've
never done it. I mean, you get a carpet of
green again, probability and stuff. All of deer hunting to
me is like probability in math. In order to get
an acre of green and an acre of beans, you
end up with two acres, which says it's just harder

(23:49):
to hunt because it's bigger. But when you put it
in the same spot, your chances are fifty percent better technically,
I mean, there's a lot more to it than that.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
But sure, what about the corn situation, when would you
put on the corn?

Speaker 3 (24:02):
You know, so the corn is kind of the same deal.
You want it to be browning down. Corn works really well,
like if you're planning it yourself, if you can, if
you know you're gonna overseed or at least overseed an area,
if you can run those corn rows north and south,
the sun will get in them better and you'll get
your better germination. So and with a corn you use

(24:24):
a leaf blower, spread spreader. You know, it's kind of
a pain, but it's worth it. And you know the
other thing about corn, and this is kind of getting
away from that situation, but a lot of times I'll
go in in a mow my first quarter acre area,
like September twenty fifth, and then that puts corn on

(24:45):
the ground in front for opening week. But it also
is early enough that same day I'll overseaed it and
then i'll get the carpet of green and the corn there,
and that's like the hub. And then I'll just start
mowing as the season, I'll I'll mow a little more,
a little more, and a big tip on that corn
is when you after I get done mowing it, Let's

(25:06):
say for the first time in the quarter acre, I'll
drive through the corn. I'll lift my mower up. I
don't want to sling corn anymore. I'll drive out of
the corn in a couple of directions where I think
he's gonna come from. But I'll make that road when
it comes into the corn like. I won't make it
come straight at me, because then when he walks in
the field and puts his head down he's eating, he's

(25:28):
gonna be looking straight down, you know, or he's gonna
be not broadside. So even if I got to have
it come in and then loop a little bit or
something and come in from the side, or jay it
at the last second, I'll shape it to where when
he walks in and he's in bow range his broadside
and not mow it, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (25:47):
Yeah, yep, Okay, let's shift more into two hunting stuff here.
From this situation, Let's imagine we're approaching the time frame
now where you've got, you know, let's say we're September
and all your work has done across all your properties,
you know, leading in the hunting season. You're set, Your

(26:08):
plots are planted, your box blinds are up, your tree
stands are hung, cameras are set wherever you want them.
You're just kind of monitoring and waiting for opening day.
Then all of a sudden, a new mega giant shows
up like a It would be your biggest buck ever.
It'll be two hundred and twenty inches in your you know,
eyeball estimation. You're very excited to see this buck pop up.

(26:31):
He's popped up on a smaller one of your properties,
and you have no history with him, random buck, but
he's like showing up. It's not like a one time thing.
He's kind of popping up here and there. You've got
a little time leading to the season now, and all
of a sudden you're realizing, holy smokes, this is the
deer that I want. What do you do in that
type of situation to go from zero to sixty and

(26:53):
trying to put together a plan and kind of tighten
the noose on this deer that is brand new, very exciting.
How you gon lear in the situation quickly.

Speaker 3 (27:02):
I'm gonna go over there with a lot of cell
camps and I'm gonna load that place up. I'm gonna
take one day. I'm gonna go over there in my
tractor preferably if not tractor ranger. I'm gonna bomb around everywhere,
you know, because if I'm gonna anticipate that, I'm gonna
run them out of there. But that's okay. The way

(27:23):
I'm gonna run them out of there is a lot
better than just like slipping around everywhere. And if I
got to slip around, it's fine. You know. Sometimes I'll
even get on the phone or something something like, you know,
just obnoxiously not a threatening something sneaking up on them,
which is what they're wired to defend against. You know,

(27:43):
I'm gonna load it up with cameras. I'm gonna put
cameras in places that I anticipate that. But if it's September,
you know, I'm gonna obviously be trying to put a
camera on every single scrape. If it is, uh, kind
of backing up this in my not be this situation,
but in the whenever. Obviously the best scouting time is

(28:06):
in the winter before green up. Whenever I'm on a
farm that time of year and I find scrapes, I'm
pinning them. It's like I call it like a scrape mat.
I mean, it does not make sense that time of year.
You might not even know the deer, you might not
have history on it. But the following year having those
can like be a complete game changer and all of
a sudden make total sense. So if I know where

(28:28):
any of those scrapes are gonna pop up, I'm gonna
put cameras out there if there's if there's spots that
I anticipate, I wouldn't put a camera necessarily in September,
but I would, you know, in October a little later,
I might put one there. I'm just gonna try and
do everything I can think that I might have to
do in one day in one shot. I'm gonna bring

(28:48):
you know, some stands, you know, I'm gonna hang them
in some obvious spots, and I'm just gonna try and
hit it hard one day and then wait and see
what happens.

Speaker 2 (29:00):
I like it. So, okay, you've laid out the groundwork
for this situation then, and let's let's kind of continue
down this imaginary path. Let's say you did this day
of scouting, this this heavy duty day a laying everything
out there, getting all your cameras, getting your stands out,
all that kind of stuff. Now I want to talk
about picking your shots. And I'll preface this situation by

(29:24):
saying I've got a magic X question for you. So
before answering the question, you know, give folks a reminder
of what your magic X theory is and then walk
me through how you would apply that. So let's let's
imagine this scenario. Let's imagine that you have a different
job than you have now, and so you are in

(29:45):
a nine to five kind of career, so you don't
have a lot of time to get flexible with and
so in this situation, you usually just have a week
of vacation to really use for your hardcore hunt. And
that's usually a rut hunt. It's usually going to be
that first week of November, let's say, So that's when
you took your week of vacation. So you've got this

(30:07):
mega giant you're after, You've got a week of vacation
scheduled to get after him. You're getting closer to that
time period. You're monitoring all these different things, the weather,
your cameras, whatnot. You see in the long term forecast
that your scheduled week is looking like it's going to
be pretty warm. It's not looking ideal. But at the
same time, right now, in late October, let's say like October,

(30:31):
I don't know, twenties, low twenties, You've got a Magic
X day coming up. So in this situation, do you
cancel your vacation and scramble things at work to move
your vacation up a week and a half so you
can hunt the magic X in late October? Or do
you know that you know the rut's the rut, and
I got to make it happen here, you know, with

(30:54):
my planned vacation. What's more important the rut in November
or that Magic X day that's coming up in the
early twenties.

Speaker 3 (31:01):
There's so much to talk about here, So there's two
there's two paths to answer that question. If it's a
guy who is just going hunting, like he's just he's
not fanatic, he's not running camera, he's not doing boo pot.
He doesn't have target deer, he's just going and hunting.

(31:24):
If it's that guy, you want to you want to
be going, probably in the rut, because all that stuff
kind of goes out the window when I say rut.
That's another term that starts in September, and that's what
the whole quarter of the year is. So, but that

(31:47):
time of the rut where you're most likely to see
a deer, it's just that it's the most predictable, that's
the most unpredictable. It's it's the easiest to just go
out and pick a spot and sit there and possibly
shoot a nice dear if you are in tune with it,
and you're paying and you're following a deer and your
and your GOP you know, cameras out and you know

(32:09):
what a deer is doing. Hands down, there's not even
a comparison that you would be better off in October.
And if I haven't gotten my target deer killed by
you know, November first or second, I just man, I
just I got to get mentally strong, because I just
get it's just so frustrating in the rut. I've killed

(32:31):
a lot of big deer in that first ten days,
but it just gets more frustrating. So yeah, in October,
so magic X day. So I use the the Weather Underground.
I'll show you he real quick, maybe on the phone
so people can understand it a little bit better. But

(32:54):
I use the Weather Underground, not the app, but I
use the the website on the phone, and then I
anchor it to my homepage and I'm trying to pull
it up here. But it just shows a really big
display and any app that shows the pressure line will work,
but it just shows it really really nice and big

(33:16):
and clear. But essentially what the magic X is. And
it's more pronounced that time of year than it is
in the summer. But when you have a high pressure
front come in, you'll see the black line on that
app particularly, but that's the high pressure and it'll look
like that. And then at the same time you have

(33:36):
temperatures dropping, so the temperature line is dropping, you know,
humidity is usually dropping, cloud cover is dropping, so it
literally kind of makes an X on the graph and
you can see it instantly. And those days in October
they trump everything. I mean, you know, if you have

(33:58):
a big deer on camera and it's not just late October.
It becomes more powerful in late October. But whenever it
whenever it happens is really good. Like I think two
years ago it was a really good stretch like October
sixteenth to the nineteenth, and then within the last couple
of years there was a really good stretch like the
sixth to the tenth or something like that. It doesn't

(34:19):
really matter. But you know, there's all these different things
that affect deer movement, and when you line them all up,
like their mindset in the end of October, they're just
so much more rambunctious and rammy. So if you get
a magic X day in the end of October, yeah,
it's better. But I would take a magic X day
high pressure front in the beginning of October. I'd be

(34:39):
more excited to go to the woods on that day
than I would on a mediocre day in the end
of October. So those those high pressure fronts are key
in October. If you are watching a deer and you
know what he's doing, I mean it is so I mean,
it's it's it feels like it's the code, you know

(35:00):
what I mean, Like unpressured deer doing what deer should do.
He's going to be out marking territory and hitting scrapes
in October on those nights.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
You know, So what about another weather scenario in which
we get the opposite situation. Let's say it's opening day.
So I don't know how you feel, but I feel
really great on opening day. I'm very excited, the deer
been unpressured. I always feel like that's a really exceptional opportunity.
I like to take big swings on opening day if

(35:32):
it's smart to do so. But let's say Opening Day
coincides with the opposite of a magic X day. Let's
say it's going to be like seventy six and a
low barometer in southeast winds and a dark moon. In
that situation, are you still going to take a big
swing at your target buck on opening day because it's
opening day? Or are you playing it very differently? What

(35:53):
would you do?

Speaker 3 (35:54):
No, I'll probably got to go home because it's opening day.
But I'm definitely not going to do anything too aggressive.
I'm probably not gonna bomb in where he's been at night.
You know, I just you know, I I used to
hunt every single day, no matter what, and now I'm
just those days are so powerful that it's just not worth.

(36:17):
It's you're gonna do more harm than good most of
the time, you know, by bombing in there too early
on the days that aren't good.

Speaker 2 (36:26):
You know, do you hunt even in his area or
do you completely leave that property alone, hunt somewhere else
and just try to kill a dough or something.

Speaker 3 (36:36):
If I was gonnahunt his area, I'd probably hunt somewhere
where I could see a long way and just maybe
maybe see if I could see him. But you know,
it depends that. There can in Illinois, and this changes
everywhere you're at, but there can be, like it seems like,
and this is kind of like a gut feeling, it
does seem like an Illinois there can be like a

(36:56):
one two three day window in the very October first
where they where they can still move on warmer days
because they're more in that summer mindset. But it changes
very quickly, you know. I'd say by the fourth or
fifth or sixth, it's kind of that game's kind of over.
So yeah, you know, if obviously, if my cameras are

(37:17):
still telling me the day before, in the two days
before that that he's out there in daylight and on
warm days, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna go in
there and get after after him. You know. But and
that's a point I like to make, like out of
a friend last year who had this giant deer and
he's like, I'm like, what are you doing. He's like,
he's coming out here and he's crossing the road and
everybody's seeing him, and I'm like, what are you doing.

(37:38):
He's like, well, I'm not going to go in there
until November. What And he's like yeah, He's like, I
just don't want to pressure him. I'm like, dude, here's
here is a tip. When you have a big deer
and he is wanting to die, you have got to
go hunt him because he is not going to be there.
I mean it just when they're giving you opportunity, you

(38:00):
better seize it. You know, you can get aggressive with
a big old deer and not not run him out
like you think, but you know you got to get
after it because before you know what, you're gonna be like, uh,
he's gone.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Yeah, okay, So continue with that. What if you have
that situation where you've got a buck daylighting, maybe you
get them on camera two days out of three leading
up to a day, you can hunt. But the situation
is like we're talking about where it's hot. The conditions
seem lousy, but he showed up a couple times before.

(38:33):
And let's say, like the wind is not bulletproof. It's
kind of one of those days. It's like, well, you know,
I could do it maybe, but it's a little bit risky.
And I've been in a situation like this where like, man,
he's been daylight, he might not ever do it again,
or this might be my one chance, and do you
take the swing? Would you take a swing on that
kind of situation despite the if he conditions, because that

(38:56):
daylight photo is so rare and you got to take
advantage of these moments.

Speaker 3 (39:00):
You know, if I'm if I'm from out of town
and I'm there, I probably would. But if I'm if
I live there earlier, live nearby, like I I do,
I do tend to hunt very conservatively. I call it
like hunting defensively instead of offensively. A lot of people
are like looking for the magic thing to do, and

(39:22):
usually it's things they need just to not do. You
know what I mean, less is so much more, And
I I got this kind of big macro approached the
whole hunting season, and it's it's a tortoise in the
hair game. I treat my farm like glass house, I
you know, because once you once you do ruin it,

(39:43):
you you've you've ruined it, you know, So I don't
I don't get too rammy. I guess if that answer
your question, you know, I don't know. I just I
just try and treat it like a glasshouse and not

(40:06):
make mistakes. You know. It's very methodical and it's slow,
and just the mental side of hunting is like most
of the time, and you kind of as you mature
as a hunter, you are able to just relax and
be okay with it. But I remember man just getting
so wound up. And most of the time that's the
way you're gonna feel, because it's not usually like when

(40:29):
you finally got it, like I'm gonna kill this year.
Usually it's over within a day or two, you know
what I mean. So a lot of times it should
feel kind of like what is going on? You know, what,
where is he He's gone this or that, and it's
just kind of like you just gotta trust the process
and the season and all your philosophies because there's just

(40:52):
light switch moments throughout the season. Every year they happen,
and when you're in one of the lows, I'm just like,
something will happen here minute, Like last year. I mean,
I shot a huge deer last year. I had pictures
of him in the summer. I didn't think he was
I thought he was like a lot smaller than they
ended up being. They weren't good pictures. There was some
other people hunting the farm. I had some equipment go missing.

(41:16):
I was like, you know, whatever, screw this. I left
a camera by accident on the on the piece next door,
and I didn't even have any cameras over there. And
all of a sudden I got a picture of him,
Like and I wasn't even hunting really in October because
I didn't really have anything at shoot, And all of
a sudden, like November fourth, I get a picture of
him right in the camera. I'm like, oh my, I'm like, wow,
I misjudged him by a lot and like and and

(41:39):
then boom, two days later, I shoot a Meggage giant
and it's like it's just a lights. It's just that's
the way deer season goes. And I think everybody can
relate to that. You know, it's never you're on a
high the whole time. You're just going from big deer
to big deer to big deer. It's usually like, you.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
Know, a lot of lows question marks, and then a
couple high points. So you kind of alluded to an
answer to this next question I have. But I'm curious about,
like a little bit about how you're utilizing your cell
cameras and these days, I think there's a temptation to
kind of chase cell picks. I think a lot of

(42:18):
people are kind of chasing pictures. So let's let's imagine
this is like, you know, mid October ish kind of
time period, and you've got this methodical, you know, macerel
strategy like you just talked about for hunting. So let's
let's say later October because things are a little more
exciting then, and so you have a plan in place,

(42:39):
like you've been hunting all October, You've been hunting smart.
You're going into the evening hunt and you're sitting in
a spot that you think is dynamite. You've got solid
reason to be hunting in this area because of history,
because of the wind, because of the terrain set up,
because of your plot, set up, whatever it is. But
just before you, you know, head down the road, you

(43:00):
get your upload from yesterday's cell cameras. Let's say, and
you all of a sudden see a daylight picture of
your target buck or a target buck. Some are completely
different conditions, aren't bad there? But he was there yesterday.
Do you chase that cell cam pick because he was
there daylight yesterday evening, or do you stick to your
original plan that you spend all day thinking through and

(43:21):
you feel really confident about despite this picture.

Speaker 3 (43:24):
How far are you talking?

Speaker 2 (43:27):
How far are these two properties separate? Are these two
places let's say they are different deer, Like these are
different No, let's not say they're different deer. Let's say
this is within the same property. So hypothetically you could
see this same buck in either spot. But let's say
this is like a three hundred acres maybe, and they're

(43:47):
not right next to each other somewhere in that three
hundred acres but not super duper close.

Speaker 3 (43:52):
Yeah, well, it would depend on when that picture was.
If it was like if it was like because I
look at that picture and try and figure out where
he was bedded when I got the like, if it
was earlier, the evening the day before, So it meant
I try and figure out, like, Okay, where was he
coming from or going to in this picture or was

(44:14):
it a random picture at the end at the middle
of the night, Because I mean, they can cover some ground,
and if it's October, they're fairly patternable in my opinion,
except for when you get into like I call it
the boomerang phase, like October twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty nine.
It's like what happens in that date is like you'll

(44:34):
it seems like when a bunch of deer within that
older age class separate in September, you know, seems like
you'll get one whose core is here and one whose
core is here, and one whose core is here, and
they might overlap a little bit in October, but they're
really territorial and they're that's what they're doing. They're in
a territory marking mindset. And so all of a sudden,
in what I call the boomerang phase, you'll see this

(44:56):
deer womb loop up here, and you'll see this deer
loop down here, and you'll see this dear loop up here.
And I mean, if you pay attention, it's it's like
it's every year on the twenty seventh, they'll get a
picture and I'll text it to Toby and be like
boomerang phase. So it just kind of depends on some things.
But I try and I try and stick to the

(45:19):
plan because they can cover a ton of ground in
ten minutes, and if he's been doing something in October,
he's probably gonna your higher odds that he's going to
keep doing that than all of a sudden change. And so,
you know, a lot of these questions. It might help
if I kind of gave my overall picture of deer season,
because I kind of fairly simplified. That might help lock

(45:41):
some of this stuff together. So in so my approach
is there's three things that affect big deer to move,
and there's more things in that, but they all kind
of group into these things. One is date or phase.
And I also call that mindset because that's all that
really is the deer do that they're mine. Set is
wired the same every year to the date because of

(46:05):
the you know, the photo period or whever, So the
date phaser mindset, that's a predictable thing. So like I
can use my my philosophies and stuff and say, Okay,
it's October twenty seven. This is the mindset of these deer.
They're getting gonna be rammier in their territory marketing, so
I can use that to make wise decisions. So date

(46:27):
phaser mindset. And then, and that goes back to your
thing about the cameras, October is different because they're pretty
much in the same mindset the whole month. It's a
ramp up, but it's a territory marking mindset. You'll see
him mess with those, but it's really more of a
territory like they'll come out. People be like, oh, they're

(46:48):
chasing dose, but really what he did was he came out,
he curled his lips, he pushed her, and he's showing dominance.
It's still that mindset. And then, like a light switch
on Halloween, changes to a dough So it's a territory
cruising mindset where on a high pressure magic text thing.
In the end of October, he's cruising, going scrape to

(47:08):
scrape to scrape sometimes every food pot and the whole
on the whole farm. And then like a light switch,
it becomes a dough mindset mindset. Now he's cruising trying
to find a hot dough. So that's like a light
switch event that happens, and now all of a sudden,
he's using his nose to navigate because he has to.

(47:31):
So then your strategy. You know that a lot of
things changed in So there's date phase or mindsets, and
I always try and be in front of the deer.
I don't once, especially once October thirty first rolls around,
the cameras somewhat go out the window. I mean, they
definitely still give you information, but I'm trying to be
ahead of that deer. That big deer I shot last
year was like November fifth or something. I went to

(47:53):
a tree stand I left in case that deer blew up,
which he did, and I shot on my first time
in because I knew he was in that date the
year before, and I knew what he was doing, so
I was ahead of him. I wasn't really worrying that
I got his picture on the neighboring piece. I was.
I was hunting, you know, out in front of the deer,
predicting his next move. So date phase or mindset, that's

(48:15):
one thing that I look at. The other thing is
Moon get everybody fired up about the moon. I am
a huge believer the week leading up to the full
moon is more powerful for evening sets. The week after
is more powerful for morning sets. I just I understand
that there's all kinds of studies. I but I can

(48:38):
feel the difference. And I've run so many cameras, I've
been in the woods so many years, and so many dates,
and so many of those moon phases, and i can
just feel the difference. It gives you a little bit
of an edge. And when you couple it with a
high pressure front in the end of October, so you know,

(48:58):
in the third thing, so you got moon fase, which
is predictable, we got date phase or mindset, which is predictable.
The last thing is the environment, which is not predictable.
And that goes to the magic X day. If you
keep it as simple as a magic X day, that
X represents cold weather, it represents you know, high pressure.
You know, they accompany each other. So whatever people think

(49:21):
is the most powerful part of that day, that day
that starts out gloomy, damp, dreary, humid, and by prime
time is bluebird fifteen degrees cooler, a lot drier air.
That is the best day in the world to do hunt.
I mean, it's just fire. It's just I literally go
to my tree stand like this on that day. And

(49:44):
so when you get all three of those things to
line up, you have a crazy powerful day. If you
don't have if you don't have a good moon phase,
but you have good environment and it's not a good
day it's early October, it's still good because of the environmental.
It just when you take all three of those things
and you wind them up together, those are the best
days in the woods. So those three concepts, the date,

(50:08):
the phase which equals mindset, the moon phase, and the
environmental that's kind of like the premises of everything. So,
you know, but back to that original question about you

(50:29):
know what was the question again?

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Heck, I don't even remember now.

Speaker 3 (50:46):
It was something about like your trail cams, you know.

Speaker 2 (50:49):
Oh yeah it was you know, if you if you
got a self picture of a shooter buck in daylight
the evening before in a different place than your planned location,
as you're about to go to that planned location, would
you stick with the plan or chase that daylight photo
that happened yesterday.

Speaker 3 (51:07):
Yeah, so if it's October, I'm going to go to
where he's been on camera, even if it's at night
working scrapes, because I know his mindset is marking territory.
So I'm going to stick to that plan. I'm not
going to get rammy and bounce around. He shouldn't be
crazy far away in October anyway. If it's in the date,

(51:29):
that again being ahead of him, predicting him date phase
or mindset. If it's end of October and you're in
that that you know, boomerang ish type phase, I could
see him being on the other side of the farm.
But a lot of times that's that is that is
a that is a march that night, and he's right back.
So I would kind of use my philosophies and stay

(51:50):
calm and just be like, I'm going to go in there.
If he comes, he comes, If not, he lives another day,
but sooner or later he's you know, gonna get a
crack at him.

Speaker 2 (52:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (52:04):
That's the other thing. I don't ever get too rammy
to to get like, I literally say, this is a
whole season. I just got to make base hit plays.
In other words, not do something stupid, which isn't inevitable.
You know, things a lot, So that's just part of it.

Speaker 2 (52:22):
What what what does it take to get you Rammy?
Is it? Is it all three of those factors lining up?
Is that the only situation we're be like, Okay, I
gotta get really aggressive because magic acts time of year
and the cold front ran the moon.

Speaker 3 (52:38):
Yeah, so so if it's as October goes, I'll get
more aggressive because he's on that pattern, you know, in
the end of the month. Like if I yeah, if
I get all three of those things, like this year
we have a perfect we got a phone move in
the end of October. So and I'll look at the
exact dates. But and if I'm somebody who's like trying

(52:59):
to plan when I'm coming in October, I'm going to
plan the week before the full moon because in that
week period you're gonna have one high pressure sit and
it's going to be one of the most powerful nights
of the whole season. Is a target deer that you're
on this year, it falls on the twenty eighth, so
the week of like the twenty third to the twenty seventh.

(53:23):
I mean, if you have if you've got a big
deer on camera in October doing something at night, and
that's another whole rabbit hole is like people say, oh,
I got this year, but he's nocturnal. Well, he's nocturnal
because that's what they do. They're wired to do that.
But but then randomly you get a daylight pisser, and
it's because you know, there's a rhyme or reason usually

(53:45):
to it. And so all those things I'm seeing him
do at night, I'm not going to get discouraged that
he's doing at night. I'm just going to pay attention
to where he's entering the field at night because that's
probably where he's going to enter it in the daylight,
which scrapes he's hitting, you know, all those things, you know,
possibly wind directions. Maybe you find that he's entering the

(54:11):
field in a different spot in a different wind direction
or something like that, which might be because he's betting
in a different spot on a different wind direction. Which
I've seen some crazy things happen with all these walls
and stuff we build. When we're doing building projects and farms,
I've had situations where my camera's telling me one hundred percent,

(54:31):
like when he goes bed to feed, he has to
go buy my camera because he can't not. And I've
seen I had this giant deer in Marshall County there
was this bluff and a cornfield and in the summer
I had a couple of these random like some days
he'd be pictured, he'd be betted in the bottom in
the corn and some days he betted on the hilltop
and uh, and I'm like, huh, that's kind of weird.

(54:53):
And then there was a few days like in the
middle of the day in the summer, eleven o'clock, two o'clock,
I get a picture of him randomly walking through the gap.
And then one day I had him go through and
then a few hours later went back through again. And
I went back to weather underground history and every single
one of those was on a wind change. Those midday moves,

(55:16):
it was on a wind change, like to the hour
he got up and left one betting area and went
to the other one base based off the wind. And
the day he moved twice there was two wind changes.
And you know, you don't get that kind of intel
unless you literally have a unless you get one hundred
percent you know, camera intel. So you know, some of

(55:39):
that's been interesting to see, to see when your camera
locations go up crazy. But yeah, that week this year
of the twenty third of the twenty seventh is when
I'd be planning my my hunt out west. Back to
the original original question. If I'm going somewhere and I
and I can, I only got a week to plan
or whatever. I'm going to plan it around the week

(56:01):
leading to the full moon in October. And the reason
is the week leading to the full moon is because
that's the best evening and October is conducive to evening
hunting prank mostly, So that's what I'm gonna pick. And
I'm going to look for that magic X day, and
i mean try it. If you're listening this year, watch

(56:22):
that week leading up to the twenty eighth, you know,
watch for a magic X Day. I've got a video
on my YouTube stuff that will help you get that
set up and figure out exactly you know what that is.
And if you have a target deer and you feel
like you're on a deer and whatever he's doing, go
sit that that night, that magic X night lead in

(56:43):
that week right there, or if you can't hunt, watch
your cameras on that day. It's really powerful. It's probably
the most powerful day of the whole dear season, is
the Magic X day leading up to the full moon
in the month of October.

Speaker 2 (57:01):
All right, well, I'm gone from my home based properties
until the twenty eighth, so and try to get it
done that night. I guess, yeah, I can't, can't be
there for those days leading up to it.

Speaker 3 (57:13):
And here's another thing about the day of the full moon.
Just something I've seen over the years. You don't see
a lot of deer generally, but you'll but I've seen
and I've got pictures of some big ones like right
at last light like more more often than coincidentally interesting,

(57:38):
And I don't know the whole moon conversation. You know,
it's like there's this culture of like gall the moon.
But you know, I can I know for I can
feel it in me. I know for a fact. It
makes a difference with big, mature deer that require very
specific triggers to move in daylight. But when they are triggered,

(58:01):
they're just out there walking around. I mean, it's not
like they're like some type of a like unicorn, the
magnetic pull of the moon is forcing them. It's not
really like that. It's just like, okay, they're up. But
you know, like Lee Lakowski, he is the same way.
I mean, he believed. He believes in the moon. I
had him tell me last year. On a warm day,

(58:23):
he was like he was somebody said, oh, it's a
warm day. He's like, they're like, probably not much going on.
He's like, yeah, unless you have a water hole on
a green source. And we're like really, and he's like yeah.
He goes, what's the moon doing. He goes, I'll have
a big one on camera to thirty today. He sends
this picture, a big one at two thirty five, like
right on, so you got got that, and yeah, guy

(58:44):
like Ben Rising, you got Mark Druriy And all of
them are like they they feel that they like can
they're in there and it can feel the mindsets of
these deer and they're all like, yes, it makes a difference.
So I don't know where the disconnect is between the
science and the guys that are shooting these big deer.

(59:05):
You know, but I don't know if it's because it's
skewed because there's less percentage of mature deer that I
don't know what it is.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
You know, well, and to your point you made earlier,
and I know, like one of your larger kind of
theories of hunting is like you're stacking all these little,
tiny odds, and even if the moon is only like
a two percent thing, maybe that doesn't show up as
statistically significant in a larger study, But a two percent
bump for a specific mature buck to move on a
day stacked with all these other things can be a

(59:36):
huge difference for a hunter.

Speaker 3 (59:38):
So and so now working theory off of those three principles,
one being the moon on a year in the morning.
So on a year that the moon is full at
the end of October, like this year, I'm probably not
going to do too much morning hunting leading up to
that because that's the grand finale and it's in the

(59:59):
end of October, so my hunting chances are just gonna
get higher and higher and higher. If that full moon
is like the eighteenth or the twentieth, I am gonna
plan on morning hunting some that week after, because that
moon does give a slight edge to movement after it
in the mornings in October can be really good. But

(01:00:21):
the thing is, you have the whole month to play
the game of the tortoise and the air in the glasshouse,
so it's not worth potentially going out and ruining it
here when you still got more time. But if the
moon is peaks out here in helping me, and now

(01:00:41):
I've got this window here, I might Now I'll probably
hunt some morning after the high pressure fronts on scrapes
because he's going to be doing the same thing. He's
going to be marking terror mindset. He is going to
be marking territory on that phone because that's what he's
wired to do. And now I've got two things in

(01:01:04):
my favor. I've got a magic X day the morning
after the high pressure front, and I've got that moon phase.
So i have two things helping me and mornings and
the end of October can be really good. There's no
denying that. It's just you have to balance the risk reward,
which is something I'm always thinking about, is the risk
work reward. And at that point, in my eyes, because

(01:01:27):
of that moon, the risk becomes worth the reward because
now you're running out of time before his mindset changes.

Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
Yeah, I follow you, Okay, so new well, not new scenario.
Let's just move forward a week. So let's stick with
what that calendar looks like this year. So full moon
October twenty eighth, you're hunting, though it's now October, sorry,
November first, and your seven day forecast for that period
is a hot rut. So this is what a lot
of us experienced last year. And I don't know where

(01:01:56):
you were at from November one through seven, but it
was hot and kind of miserable in Ohio and Nebraska.
How is that? So let's say you've got that, You've
got seven days of like seventy to eighty degree temperatures
from November one through seven, and this is about a
week following the full moon. What do you do in
that situation? What kind of set ups? What's your plan
given that?

Speaker 3 (01:02:17):
So the first thing that you're going to notice is
everybody's going to be saying the deer are lockdown earlier
this year, which is not true. It's just the perceiving
that because there's going to be a lack of deer movement,
so they're going to be attributing it to lockdown, but
it's really not. You know, lockdown is kind of that
date that everything else pendulates on. So like sometimes I

(01:02:38):
got friends in other areas that trying to you know,
we're trying to figure something out, and we'll try and
figure out when lockdown is. We'll be like well, when
do you see like nothing but button bucks and fauns.
And then we'll try and backdate and correlate it today's
I know from that, So like boomerang phase, you know,
lockdown in Illinois is like the fourteen is epicenter of it.

(01:02:59):
So like if I count days back to the twenty eighth,
I do the same thing for my friend somewhere else
that that his lockdown is the twentieth, you know, so
he'd be a weekly So so, so the first thing
is it's gonna be slow. No, it's going to be slow.
Their mindset is going to still be the same. The

(01:03:20):
light switches changed, and now they're in a dough mindset.
They want to find a girlfriend. So now we're gonna
think like a deer and what their mindset is, what
they're trying to do, and we're gonna try and get
out ahead of them. The cameras kind of go away,
you know, they don't go away. Scrapes are you know,

(01:03:42):
they're stopping to hit scrapes like a light switch because
their mindset has changed. The biggest I mean, and and
and now we're in a time that some of that
stuff can go out the window because if if there's
a hot dough. I mean, now now is the time.
Now comes the grind. Now is like here we go,

(01:04:02):
this is this is the here we go. So the
things that you have in your favor are that is
the best time of the year to hunt when you
have poor conditions like that, So that time of year,

(01:04:22):
I guess I would probably ignore those conditions. Now there
is the mental side of this if you are the
one that gets I know, guys that sit all day
every day, they don't. I mean, they're hardcore. I'm hardcore,
but I can sit all day no problem when I
know it's the right day. When it's not the right day,
it's extremely hard for me to sit all day. Those

(01:04:43):
are I'm probably gonna still hunt those days. I'm not
gonna hunt all day. I'm not going to get two
and I'm not going to go into those stands that
are hung course that I would never go into other
than those few day windows. And I'm going to mentally
conserve until it's right because I'd rather put in five

(01:05:05):
all day sits from November seventh to the you know twelfth,
then burn myself out and then only do half day
sits in those in those days. So there's some, there's some.
There's some mental battles there and stuff I personally would
not get too rammy, yet I would so. And here's,
in my opinion, the biggest key to hunting that part

(01:05:27):
of the rut or you know the rut as people
know it. You know, deer looking for dose that if
you reverse engineer it from a deer's nose. They're using
their nose to find dose. A lot of people say,
you know, buck, deer walk into the wind, you know,

(01:05:47):
quartered into the wind all the time. I don't think
they do that. I've seen them walking in the wind
in their back when their mindset is just food. They're
not using their nose if they're not highly pressured and
they have to walk around like they can't. I mean,
it's almost impossible they're just walking into the wind all
the time. But when that light switch changes and they're

(01:06:09):
looking for a dough, they're using their nose. So I'm
looking to hunt dough betting areas on the downwind side
of those dough betting areas. And that's where some manipulation
can get really good, because when you can create thickets,
not the whole wood lot, but when you can go

(01:06:30):
in and hingecut, you know, places that are engineered around
access a huntable tree, and you put that little puff
quarter acre whatever on a south azing point in the
woods or whatever. When you put it in the right
spot and it's upwind and it becomes thick enough where
they can't see a dough editing it, they have to

(01:06:51):
use their nose. You can create what is essentially like
kill food plots. They're betting areas with strategy. So now
you're sitting on the downwind side of a game of
Connect the dots, and when he gets Rammy and wants
to go find dose, he's liable to hit every single
one of those you know, dough betting areas on your

(01:07:11):
farm in one in one walk, and when he comes
to one that he can't see with his eyes, he's
coming to the downwind side of it. So always in
the ruck, always thinking like a deer, and the way
that they use their nose, you know that, and hunting
food sources obviously where those are going to be at.

(01:07:33):
But you know, I just I've literally committed to try
my hardest when November one rolls around to not get
in a box line anymore. Like I want to be
able to see and hear. They are going to spend
more hours of their daylight time in cover in the woods,

(01:07:56):
navigating looking for does. Then they're going to spend out
there on a food source. Not to say I won't
on it in the evening, but you want your eye
in the October box line is key tool. You got
light and variable winds, you got thermals, they will screw
you more often. I mean, it is so important to
have sanfree blinds in October. If possible November, I will

(01:08:19):
literally have tree stand hung above my line and I'll
be in it because I want my eyes. I want
my ears. I want to feel the like energy of
the woods. I don't call much, you know, but when
I can feel it all of a sudden, that a
light switch. We've all seen it happen, like something is
going on today. There's bucks everywhere just like what I feel.

(01:08:41):
That is when I might you know, call or whatever.
So you know, I don't want to be in a
box line in the in the rut in that time
of the year when they're looking for dose, and I
want to always be where dose are because that's where
they're going and I want to be on the downwind
side of where those doughs are are in the woods.

(01:09:04):
Pinch Points are great, especially when you can engineer one
of those thickets in a pinch point with good access
and a huntble tree.

Speaker 2 (01:09:14):
Yeah, let's expand on some of the setup discussion you've
got going here with the rut. Let's say that's this
time period rut time period first week or two of November.
Let's say it's Illinois somewhere, you know, but it's an
all timber piece. You're hunting zero ad. You're at least
that you can hunt. You just got a big block

(01:09:35):
of timber. Let's call it like a rectangular hundred and
let's say it's got rolling topography, mixed hardwoods and a
small creek that's kind of winding right down the middle.
So it's pretty simple the picture right in that scenario.
Can you walk me through a hypothetical ideal rut stand
setup or two? Given that simple scenario, how you would

(01:09:59):
try to hunt something like that?

Speaker 3 (01:10:00):
So like a farm that I'm going I'm gonna go
scout and hang stuff for like that week or something,
I already know the layout to it, Well.

Speaker 2 (01:10:09):
You can you can do either one. Basically, what I'm
interested is like how would you hunt a proper like
that for someone who's got just timber.

Speaker 3 (01:10:16):
If I already know the farm, you know, I'm I'm
gonna have an idea where the dough betting areas are,
and I'm just gonna hunt those if they're thick. You know,
I'm gonna I'm gonna set up on the downwind side
of that cover. If I've got like, ah, you know,

(01:10:37):
I'm not gonna be low in those bottoms because the
wind is gonna be wonky and stuff. If I got
ridge ridgetops intersect their killer you know, old fences in
the woods. But just always always thinking about the nose. Thing.
Like we've done a lot of consolets for people where

(01:10:59):
they bring as to a spot that we already are
looking at on the map of it's obvious and they
got to stand there and we're like and they're like,
we just don't ever see any big deer out of here.
We get pictures of them, we just don't see many
big ones. And we're like, because your stand is on
the wrong side of the spot, you're hunting the spot
with the wind, good for you, But he's got no

(01:11:21):
reason to be here because he's on the other side
of all all this cover, you know what I mean,
So so always always thinking about the wind in their
nose and as a macro like looking at the farm
like if I got this wind, what what spots is
he going to want to be at? Looking for those
based off the wind, you know? Yeah, I mean that's

(01:11:45):
that That is like powerful ruts, you know, because I
used to as you evolved for as a deer hunter,
it's just like you know, pinch points, funnels, you know,
and that's all great because you're touching them, kind of
be bopping around to those spots. But that's more predictable,
you know what I mean, hunting the downward side of things.

Speaker 2 (01:12:08):
Yeah, here's another one that a lot of people face
during this time period. And you know, within the deer
hunting community these days, there is a there's a lot
of buzz and trendiness around being really mobile, bouncing around
a lot, moving around a lot, and I would say,
from the outside looking in, it seems like you might

(01:12:29):
be more. You know, you've got very well planned out locations.
You have a lot of preset stands, box blinds, You've
manipulated terrain to have you know, things happening in specific
places for specific reasons that you know about. So I'm
going to make the assumption that you might be more
of a hey, i'm sticking it out here kind of guy.
But I want to lay out the scenario and see

(01:12:49):
what you would do. Let's say you're hunting during the
rut you're on, you know, one of these properties you've
hunted in the past, and you see a shooter buck
cruising out side of range during the rut. You see
a mature buck that you want to shoot doing something
outside of range from where you are, and then you
see a younger buck do the same thing later. Let's

(01:13:11):
say this is the morning of a cold November day.
Do you move to chase a buck siding like that
that day or the next day or something, or do
you stick to whatever it is you're doing despite an
observation you know that's confirmed by at least two bucks
doing the same thing.

Speaker 3 (01:13:27):
Yeah, so, believe it or not. A lot of the farms,
like we develop and stuff a lot of them by
the time they're developed, their their soul. So it's either
like a farm that I I own and not much
has been done. So I'm kind of hunting in old
school anyway. So yeah, actually, believe it or not. More

(01:13:49):
of my hunting is pretty mobile. I mean, if if
I have obviously we build stuff for those magical days
in October and are pretty obvious, I mean, because you're
those setups are you were trying to set them up
around you know, the wind direction and the thermals. You know,
so and that's a big thing is setting up your

(01:14:12):
setups so with especially in October, I'm always looking at
this struck the terrain and where the thermals are gonna
go because they will overpower the wind in October almost
every evening. I mean, so it's really important to have
your wind direction lined up with the thermals. But that
being said, in October, yeah, I'm trying to be in
box line because they hedge the wind, they up odds

(01:14:36):
usually they're in those setups. But I got a I
got about ten or a dozen novacs in my and
I make sure they're all back in my house hanging
up on the wall when I go into the season
because more often than not, and actually I've gotten to
the point, especially on like permission pieces and leases and stuff,

(01:14:56):
I don't even pre hang stuff anymore because I just
it feels like, oh ways, I'm you know, run, I'm
running and gunning and moving and I'm in some crazy
little four inch tree and so yeah, I actually believe
or not. I run. I run and gun a lot,
I think partially because a lot of those the fully
developed stuff is already sold or we get people the

(01:15:18):
right to hunt it while they're under contract and stuff
like that. So I love running, gun and I love
all the mobile you know, I'm not a saddle hunter.
I bought one, i haven't used it yet. I love
a lot of the stuff that these guys are doing.
Like I've you know, I've got just utilizing a lot
of the lightweight stuff and the you know, the the

(01:15:39):
am steel or whatever, and the stuff is really cool
and it's all that stuff is all layers a strategy,
you know, being mobile. I think being mobile is being
able to get in crooked trees. And that's so key because,
like I was saying, it's better to be in the
wrong tree in the right spot and the right tree

(01:16:00):
and the wrong spot. And I won't sacrifice that for.

Speaker 2 (01:16:05):
Ten feet.

Speaker 3 (01:16:06):
I mean, I'll get in a four inch tree and
bring cedar branches up in there and be eight feet
off the ground before I'll be in the perfect tree
if it's if I feel like it's off by fifteen
d you know, so being mobiles, it's just.

Speaker 2 (01:16:21):
So would you chase that observation then you see that
shooter buck and a younger buck, you know, fifty yards
out of range? Do you move for that afternoon or
for the next morning.

Speaker 3 (01:16:30):
You know, I would try, and I wouldn't just play
the game of you know, he goes there, I go there,
he goes there, because that you know, that doesn't generally
pan out. I would try and get in the mindset
of what he was doing and why he was there.
You know, if it's the beginning of November especially, and
and he's in there, I'm just pumped he's in the area.

(01:16:51):
I mean, you know that that's half the battle. I mean,
you got to you got to count your blessings when
you have a big deal, because that's the hardest thing
about killing Big Year is having a big deer at hunt.
So when you it's like every time I'm on when
I'm like, I'm so lucky that's gonna be the last one,
you know, because it is it's like it's just so

(01:17:12):
you know, it's like it's just surreal. You know, so
I wouldn't chase him just to chase him. I would
try and figure out why he's there. If it's November,
I would definitely not be chasing him unless there was
a specific strategic reason to be chasing him, because you
know the next day he's bound to be somewhere. I mean,

(01:17:36):
you know, I would. I'd rather sit for five days
in a row and not see him in a spot
that I know he has to eventually go. I don't
even care if he's a mile away. Eventually he's gonna
be there, and I'm gonna I'm gonna use probability to
kill him. When you go bouncing around and you you know,

(01:17:58):
and you you are hunting multiple deer, I'm gonna go
hunt this deer and I'm gonna go this farm, hunt
this dear night that just killed your odds. I when
I get on deer, I focus on that deer, and
I do not. I don't go and start hunting another deer.
I odds and probability will always work in your favor.

Speaker 2 (01:18:17):
Yeah, it makes sense. Certainly has seemed to work pretty
well for you based on that wall in your in
your house or wherever that is, your barn, I've seen
this picture of the beautiful high vaulted ceilings, the wood,
the wood paneling, and a whole little, bigger accent.

Speaker 4 (01:18:32):
There.

Speaker 2 (01:18:34):
Something's working.

Speaker 3 (01:18:35):
Yeah, it's you know, it's still a struggle. There's I
tell people that everything works, all the strategies work. They
just don't work all the time. Everything works. There is
no right or wrong in deer hunting. All there is
is is probability and strategy and and you know, numbers
and stacking.

Speaker 2 (01:18:55):
Off figuring out what works in your circumstances and for
your goals and and all that kind of stuff. So, Bob,
you made it through. You survived though. What would you do? Gauntlet?
But there's one last quick face here. There's a set
of rapid fire questions that I got to run you
through to try to close the sucker out. Okay, so
I'm going to give you a quick question and you

(01:19:16):
can only answer with one ant with one word answer. Okay,
it's gonna be a yes or no or this or that. Okay,
no explanation allowed. All Right, here we go. Would you
take a fifty yard shot at a white tail with
your bow? Yes or no? In my younger years, if
you could only have one of these tools to use

(01:19:39):
for all your hunts for the rest of your life.
You can only pick one. Would you take a set
of radomy antlers or grunt tube gun expandable or fixed
Blaye broadheads?

Speaker 3 (01:19:49):
No doubt?

Speaker 2 (01:19:50):
Should you stop a buck with some kind of sound
before shooting if he's walking?

Speaker 3 (01:19:56):
Situational?

Speaker 2 (01:19:59):
If you could only pick one food plot crop to
use for all your food plots for the rest of
the time, only one seed type, what would you pick?

Speaker 3 (01:20:07):
Porn?

Speaker 2 (01:20:09):
Which state has better hunters? North Carolina, New York or Illinois?
They're all different, true, And here's your last one. This
one you can this one you can expand on just
a little bit. Let's say that I rule the world
and I have control over your hunting rights and privileges,
and I'm going to tell you that I'm going to

(01:20:31):
take away your hunting license for the rest of your
life if you cannot kill a mature buck this year.
So you got to kill mature buck this year in
order to preserve your hunting rights for the rest of
your life. But here's the trick. I'm only giving you
one day to get that mature buck killed. So a
what I need to do is tell me what date

(01:20:52):
on the calendar you're gonna pick this year to kill
your mature buck, and then paint me a picture of
the stand site you would pick for that day that
you think would give you the absolute best chance to
kill mature buck on that date to save the rest
of your hunts for the rest of your life.

Speaker 3 (01:21:09):
Well, if if I could pick the high pressure day
leading up to the full moon, it was a twenty
fifth of October, that's the day, hands down, I would pick,
and I would hunt the scrape on the food source
that the big deer has been going to. Hands down.
If I had to pick a random date, I would

(01:21:31):
pick November eleventh, if I just had to pick a random.

Speaker 2 (01:21:36):
Day, going for that best chance to catch a cruiser.

Speaker 3 (01:21:41):
Just because it's yeah, yeah, yeah, now a maturitier, the
most maturedier in the woods. And I'm going a little
rabbit hole here. My theory and philosophy is that you
have a bell curve of doze that come in and
it peeks out around November fourteen or whatever in Illinois.
The most mature dominant deer in the woods, he's got

(01:22:05):
to search for it when the bell curve is down here.
And then when he loses her and gets another one.
There's more options and more options, so he can be
harder to kill in the time that's the best for
a big buck in general. And then the post lockdown
cruise phase like November sixth, seventeenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, I

(01:22:27):
think can be the best time in the actual dose
seeking rut phase to kill the biggest dear in the woods. No.
Number seventeen twenty.

Speaker 2 (01:22:38):
Well, I like you playing, Bobby. I think you get
it done. I feel confident that you'd be able to
keep on hunting. You get your buck and you keep
your hunting rights.

Speaker 3 (01:22:46):
And then there's early muzzleloader in Kansas, which is probably
the most deadly thing in the country, and or late
season in Iowa that you can bohunt on the late
muzzle or tag and that is also just insanely deadly.
So there's just so much fun to have out.

Speaker 2 (01:23:02):
It's like, sure is, Yeah, you're You're Kansas Ranch. I've
seen the video of that place you guys are working on.
That looks like an insane place for that early Kansas muzzloder.

Speaker 3 (01:23:12):
Someday, yeah, yeah, So I'm actually getting married on on
I think opening day of Kansas early Muzzloder, so I
will not be out there.

Speaker 2 (01:23:23):
So well, congrats on the marriage. Sorry about the bad
luck with the timing.

Speaker 3 (01:23:31):
That's all you.

Speaker 2 (01:23:32):
Uh you pass you pass the test swimmingly, Bobby, So
congrats on that. And uh, you want to give folks
a real quick rundown of where they can learn about
your guys properties, where they can see your videos all
that kind of stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:23:45):
Yep. So we don't do a whole ton of things
on Instagram and and Facebook daily and stuff, but we
have like a really good long format YouTube series where
we document these farms as we develop them and stuff.
So YouTube is a great place. We do have Facebook too,
And then we have a website you know that. You know,
we sell locks Blnes. We do consulting on helping people

(01:24:07):
set their farms up. We have a big logging logging
division and all that information on our website. We got
lots of farms for sale on there. Good luck, awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:24:20):
Yeah, hey, thank you Bobby for doing Let's really enjoyed
it and keep up the work with the videos. I
really enjoy them. The in depth breakdowns the farms and
everything is very it's entertaining and that's very informational too,
so for a white tail nerd, it's some of the best.

Speaker 3 (01:24:36):
We try and do you know, there's no one size
fits all, like to farms, you know, it's like there's
not It's like I try and keep it interesting and
situational and like just always doing something outside the box
and trying things, and there's like I said, there's no
right and wrong answers.

Speaker 2 (01:24:54):
Yep, it's good stuff, all right, Bobby, Well, thanks to this,
good luck this season and looking forward to keeping up
on Hot all goes. Thanks you too, all right, and
that is a wrap. Thanks for tuning in. Appreciate you
being a part of this community in this podcast. Stuff's

(01:25:16):
only going up from here, guys. The ramp up into
the season is coming in hot and heavy. I'm stoked
for it. We've got four more episodes of this what
would You Do series with some great hunters lined up,
so we're gonna get some really good insights here over
the month of August and then when we kick off
the season in September. For a lot of us, it's
just gonna be more and more of these deep dives

(01:25:38):
into strategy with some of the best hunters in the
world breaking down how they do, what they do and
what we can learn from it. I am excited. Hope
you are two, and until next time, stay Wired to Hunt.

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Host

Mark Kenyon

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