00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host Mark Kenyan. In this episode number two five, Anton the show, Dan and I are preparing for the white tail rut, chatting through our rut hunting plans and sharing our best run hunting advice. Before we get rolling on all that, though, I want to take a quick second to thank our partners at Lacrosse Boots, as I've been mentioning this past a couple of months. Now, I'm wearing the Lacrosse Alpha Burley Pros this year, and I'm actually on the road right now to Nebraska for a white tail hunt. And we're gonna have temperatures all the way from the thirties up into the sixties. We're gonna be hiking up and down hills and bluffs, will be crossing muddy rivers, climbing up into trees, and for all of those things. At least based on my previous experience with these boots, I think the Alpha Burleys will be a great option for each one of those scenarios. So if you're looking for a versatile white tail knee high rubber boot. This is definitely one to consider, and if you want to learn more, you can head on over to Lacrosse Footwear dot com. All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Onyx, and today we are kind of doing our pre rut episode because me and Dan aren't gonna talk again for two weeks, so the next time that Dan and I are here together, it's gonna be kind of the heat of the rut. So I wanted to do an episode where it's just me and Dan, we kind of feel you guys in on what we've been up to lately, and then and then talk through kind of what our game plan is for the rut, what our tactics are gonna be during the rut, what maybe our predictions are going to be for that time frame. So hopefully me and Dan are prepared for the rut, but then also you guys listening, hopefully we can get you some info and some ideas to have you ready for this late October early November time frame that's coming up, which is you know, as as you and I both know Dan and probably everyone listening, we're we're entering kind of the the Holy Land time of the year as a white tail hunter, like the super Bowl is right ahead of us, and I'm chomping at the bit. I'm guessing you are too. Oh yeah, absolutely, man uh, not a lot needs to be said. Really, it's it's that time of year and you just start getting ramped up. Yeah, that's prepare for the grind, you know. Yeah, the grind is coming up, and I gotta tell you, man, um, I'm a little bit concerned about the upcoming rout Marathon the grind because because usually this time frame, right the first two weeks November, it's like it is a absolute grind on you mentally and physically. Like usually I'm ran down, I'm not getting any sleep. Maybe I'll get sick at the end of it. Usually you just if anything's gonna go wrong. That's a tiny year when it might go wrong, just because you're not sleeping much. It run around like crazy. Do you ever experience something like that? Right, but it's already carrots, right, and now you feel better? No, No, okay, hold on before you say anything else. You can't have me laugh too much. So you have to explain to people why yeah, and so right now, people can see my face. I have to do this really weird thing with my face to keep from smiling because and where I was actually getting with why I was bringing up the upcoming grind is because I'm especially concerned about the upcoming grind because the last two weeks I've already had all sorts of health issues. I can't imagine what's going to happen two weeks from now as everything gets worse. Um So, I haven't talked about this in the podcast yet, but about two weeks ago, I got diagnosed with shingles. So I had these horrible, uh I don't know, blistering welts pop up all around my torso, my front of my torso, wrapping around to the back of my torso. Um that were unlike any other kind of rash or anything I had before. So I was really confused by what it was. And then when they started getting like painful, I was waking up in the middle of the night like with this like searing burning pain. Um that's I was like, okay, this this needs to get checked out. So I went to the doctor and yeah, it was shingles. Told me I'm overstressed or something like that. Um So, put me on all sorts of meds and like the super nerve pain deal, because I guess shingles create this nerve related pain kind of like electric shocks all around you, which is which is what I was experiencing. Um, So got on the meds for that and that seemed to help. Now then last week, I'm recovering from the shingles and then I get poison ivy pop up all over my face. So I get poison ivy on my face and then it moves down into my mouth and it's like it's it seems like, okay, this is like a this is a bad case of poison ivy. But I wasn't too concerned about it until like maybe Thursday night, this past Thursday night, um, when it started like blistering and oozing, and then Friday and Saturday, like it was getting worse and worse to like my face and lips and nose were covered with like and this is kind of disgusting, probably too much information for people, um, but like yellow just cakes of puss on everything all over my face and my left side of my mouth was like essentially sealed shut because it all got in poison ivy blistered and then all these pusses and then it started to dry and then so all cracked and cut all on the inside my mouth, so I couldn't open my mouth to eat food. Um, I can't smile. I can't own my mouth to to do any of those basic things. So so whenever you make me laugh or someone doesn't makes me smile, I have to try like purse my mouth together to keep it flat so I don't smile and crack on put my lips. So so then Sunday I'm like, okay, this is not this is not like the normal poison ivy. And so I went to the doctor again, went to urgent care, and they said, oh, yeah, you know you had poison ivy. But then it got infected with this like staff infection kind of thing. That is now what's causing all this crazy stuff showing up all ever your face. I got blisters on my eyeball now or my eyelids. Um, So they said there's something called impatago. So they put me on this pregnancone thing for the poison ivy. They put me on another thing for the patago, and they got me on another topical cream to try and get rid of the lesions. And all this kind of stuff. Um, so That's where I'm at right now. Um. The meds that I got on Sunday have helped substantially, so stuff is definitely coming down. Um. I was able to go out in public today and not feel like I looked like a leper um, although I definitely if you got close enough you'd think that Britain early, but at least from about forty yards, I can um talk to you without disgusting. Uh. Um. So yeah, I'm a little worried if I'm over straighted. My immune system was so overstressed that I'm breaking out with shingles and in patago and all this stuff leading up to the rut. Who knows what's going to happen when I start living off at three hours of sleep. Yeah? Absolutely, man, So don't be funny. I won't. I've I've had poison ivy before, severely. I'm talking like three days in a row to the emergency room, where I was basically begging for them to do something to me, like give me drugs or I mean I had to. I had to take a warm washcloth to rub on my eyes so that my eyes would even open on my mouth, um, on my Yeah, I know where you're going. All the parts in there. I've I've had it multiple times throughout my life, and now I just like, if it's summertime and I need to go in the timber to do something, I am, I am. I had to tell everything. Oh yeah, And you know what's funny is I've had the same thing. I've gotten really bad over the last ten years. I've had a few outbreaks have been horrible. So now, just like you, I'm really paranoid about looking for all the time, never touching it, never setting my stuff in it, and then anytime I think there's a chance that I might have still I had a special like tech new poison ivy wash that I washed down my entire body with and scrubbed down with. Um Man that that stuff it works, it works so um But but in this case, I didn't. I did not realize that I had been in a situation where I would have got it. I think what it must have gotten it was that I had met up with John Eberhardt. Um not last week, but the friday before that, so about I don't know, twelve days ago, maybe you're ten days ago, and we just went into the woods and he wanted to show me how he preps trees and how he uses the saddle and stuff. So I actually wasn't really doing anything but filming him and talking with him. Um. But I must have set my camera down, or my backpack down or something. I must have set it down without realizing that I set it in poison ivy because because I got it good and then rubbed it all over that pack, all over your face. Yeah, whatever I did, I rubbed it all over my face. And I actually did rub it in the other places that you were afore mentioning, and uh I had I had a very mild case in those regions. Um, fortunately did not have the whole the whole craziness happened there. Um. So yeah, I don't we don't need to talk about all this too much more. But that has made the last two weeks of my life a little bit interesting from that standpoint. I haven't hunted all that much, um because partly because of that, partly because I kind of, you know, as we talked about last time, I decided not to do that boundary waters hunt because I wanted this kind of early in mid October time period to be mostly family focused and and I have gotten to do that, so that's been really nice. Um I needed that apparently. So yeah, we're asking about sleep, right, Um, I get more sleep during the grind of the rut, getting up early, going to bed typically late because you know, I got the podcast stuff on my end as well that. But I'm still getting more sleep than if I was at home with my kids. Yeah, absolutely, I mean I get like and it's not like when I'm with the kids. I'm getting up once maybe twice a night still, right, and I may be getting six hours, but it's interrupted. But when I go to the you know, on my rut vacation, I'm getting six hours of sleep, maybe even five hours of sleep solid right through and after these days, if I get five hours of sleep, I'm tap dancing, like I am. I'm a I'm a I'm a happy camper. Yeah, yeah, I'm lucky. I guess Everett sleeps pretty much right to the night almost every night now, so I get, you know, a full night of sleep every night. Um. My ruts are much worse because I end because I'm because usually I'm hunting the entire day I get home. You know, well, I'm waking up usually three in the morning or something, because I like to get up to the tree stands super early. Um, some up really crazy early. Then I'm out there the entire day, and then I get home you know, at six or seven or eight o'clock at night, depending on where I'm at, and then I after you know, then I'm doing all the podcasts and work stuff afterwards. So I usually end up being up late to like eleven o'clock or something, and then back again up at three. So I think I usually average, if I'm thinking back on most ruts, usually average like four hours a night during the rut. So that's not either, that's that's brutal. Um. So the moral of this story is that, um, neither one of us is gonna well, you're gonna sleep better than me, but I'm gonna sleep better than other than the rest of the year. So uh, I haven't we're gonna talk about now, Yeah, yeah, So I want to do some quick updates on what's happened so far before we get into like the rut ideas and tips and tactics and all that kind of stuff. Um, that was my big thing as far as hell stuff going on with me. Um. Two other things worth noting that you might be of interest to hear about Dan on my side. Okay, number one, I did do a quick like day and a half trip up to our northern Michigan deer camp um last week and we did not see any deer me and further went up there, didn't see any deer josh Off you um, no mature bucks on camera, which is disappointing but not unheard of. Usually the last few years, the couple the one or two bucks that we do get tend to be showing up in late October. But what was cool was that on my first night there, I had a big old bear come walking right underneath me. I know, man, Yeah, that's awesome. So let me ask you this question. When you know a bear, you know, if it was a if it was a bobcat, right, I mean that's a predator. But did you and I know it was a black bear, And if you're educated, black bears probably aren't you know that scared of humans? But you you hear stories, right, did you have kind of a a butt pucker moment where you're just like, there's a bear, Like, what do I do? You know? I didn't, And it's not because I'm like trying to say I'm like some tough dude or anything. I think it's just because I've spent so much time in grizzly country now that black bears kind of are at a different level that that don't worries me as much. Now, if this bear had walked right to the base of my tree and like started to climb up it, then I'd be like, Okay, this could be a little sketch. Um. But he walked, you know, within five yards of me, but never looked at me, never knew I was there. So it was just like a really cool close encounter in which he had no clue there was anything going on, and I could just observe his natural behavior. Um. So No, it was just kind of like the first thing I thought was, oh, yes, like this is so cool. And I've been thinking for the last few years, like one of these days, I'm going to see a bear, like we keep getting pictures of him. There's always tracks coming through this area, so I knew eventually had to happen, but never, you know, over the you know, twenty eight years or whatever that can remember going up there, have I've seen one now last year for the first time, someone in our camp did um. One of the guys that was up there during gun season saw a sal in two cubs. So that was the first sighting on the property last year, and then this year now I had this one. So that was it was so cool to see and um, you know, sitting up there in that spot, I was hunting a location that was about seven or yor eight yards away from the spot where I had my first dear related memory of my life. I was sitting My grandpa had taken me up to our camp back when I was like maybe four or five or I don't know, really young, somewhere in that time period, and he had this old ground blend there. This used to be a field and he had a ground blend he built on the edge of it. And it was the summertime. He brought me out there, and I just remember sitting the ground blind and having a whole group of doughs come walking by like five yards away, five or ten yards away, just so close the closest um Like, I guess it's the first time I can really remember seeing deer, and I'm sure it was the closest I've ever seen deer at that point, and I can I can still see like the inside of the blind I can see just I remember the bright orange of their summer coats. And my grandpa had this big old cam quarter, so he had filmed it too. And when I watched that back, I was like whispering, but like basically whisper yelling, like cheepy. Look he's right there, right there, and he keeps on saying it's okay, Mark, whisper whisper um. So that was like such a cool early moment in my deer and hunting related life. And then that was always where my grandpa hunted, you know, for the next ten fifteen years, I was growing older and going up there more and more. Fast forward like fifteen years or so. Now I'm up there and he's hunting that ground line again. But I have a tree stand down maybe two yards away that I was hunting. Was Opening day two thousand, I don't know seven or something like that. Six I'm not somewhere in that time from like ten twelve years ago or something like that. And I shoot a buck and it was the first buck I shot at the camp. We didn't see very many DearS, as we've talked about the past, so this is like one of the like one of the only three bucks I've seen in my entire life up there. So I shot him, dropped him in his tracks. And the first thing I did was I walked back out to the field where my grandpa was and met him there. And this is ten yards away from where I was hunting last week when the baron counter happened. And I remember standing there in my grandpa him was putting his hand on my shoulder and just just I told him what happened, like he was just telling me how proud he was. And you know, he was really big on a quick, clean kill. It was so important to him that you were really careful about the shots he took that you never wanted dear suffer. So it was it was a rule. You never shot at a moving deer. You never shot it unless it was a perfect ethical, no doubt about it, vital shot. Um. So when I dropped that deer in his tracks and I told him that, he was just so proud. He kept saying over and over and over again, and uh, this is a really cool moment. This this person who had been so influential in my life. Um, you know, getting to share. The first person I got to talk to was him right there. So that ten yards away from where I was sitting last Monday, Grandpa's ground blind where we sat when I was three or four, that was about eight yards away. And I'm standing there or I'm sitting there in my tree saddle, and that bear comes walking underneath ten yards away or five yards But all of this happening right in this little special spot, in this special location. And um. I told my dad about this after it all happened, and he asked me, He said, what was the date that that happened? And I told him was October and uh, and he tells me, that's that's pretty interesting mark. That's a that's the six year anniversary of your grandfather's passing. So I saw this, this bear for the first time ever sing a bear showed up in this special spot that I had spared that I had shared this special mode in my grandpa six years to the day that he died. Um. So I don't I don't know what that means or if you want to take anything from that, but it means your grandpa's spirit animal is a bear. You know, whatever it means. It was something something powerful about that moment, especially when I when I realized that um that that was the day he when I remember, that was the day that he passed six years ago. Um. Yeah, so that was a pretty special moment. Um, So I thought it would be worth sharing that. Um. So that was Kenn Rovan. That was the Northern Michigan trip um and the only one thing. I guess it's been going on since then because I haven't really been honting. I've just been observing the Holy Field property, sitting on my little hillside with my spotting scipe, trying to see is Holy Field alive or is there anything around here I want to shoot. I did go to a trailcra poll and what I can tell you is this the last like seven to ten days, seven to eight days, seven ten days has been lights out the most daylight buck activity I've seen this property in most years, um, even compared to the Rut. Most years, it's been like rut type daylight activity and a lot of decent bucks, like more than usual. Um. I want to say decent bucks, I mean like two and three year old bucks here in Michigan. Like that's that's a pretty good buck around here. Tons of daylight activity on the cameras I checked and from my observation post. I've seen a lot of daylight bucks, including survivor. Who's this buck who? Last year I was passing on I thought he was a three year old. Last year, I was thinking he was a four year old. This year. Um. I just looked back on my notes, and I saw him the evening of the fourteenth, the evening of the morning of. My wife saw him the evening of the and I saw him today the morning of, all in daylight, all in the same general spot. So he's being like holy Field was back in sixteen, from the same place, moving like crazy during daylight. Um. But that survivor, no holy Field, still not seeing holy Field. Still don't have confirmed pictures of holy Field. There's one deer I got in camera. It's like a blurry shot. It kind of looks like the frame matches up but smaller, kind of looks like he's got that chip in his ear. But it's blurry. So I can't say a percent certain. Um. So I don't know what to think about the situation, because there's maybe holy Field still out there, but still no confirmation survivors moving like crazy and daylight um. And then another buck that's kind of like sort of like what holy Field looked like from a nailer standpoint last year, like a really nice, big, clean a pointer. Um, but he looks like he's a three year old. He's been moving in daylight too. Um, so that's what's going on, No holy Field. A couple of these younger bucks moving a bunch, which is exciting to see, but you know, I'm not really interested in targeting them, especially now I've after seen Survivor again this morning and yesterday morning. Um, I'm starting to doubt if he is four or not. He does not look as big bodied as I thought he should if he looked for sure three and a half last year, but now he looks three and a half again this year. So now I'm wondering how maybe it was a two and a half last year, just like a really big two an a half year old, and now this year he's an average three year old. I don't know what to think, um, but I'm not gonna push it when I'm still kind of holding on for holy Field. So I went out actually last night and hunted earlier than I was planning on, just because of all this daylight activity I've been seeing. I thought, well, why not try once. I'm sick of sitting on the sidelines. Um, so tried one safe set. Didn't see any of these deer um. So that was kind of That was kind of the extent of it. And I'll tell you what your trail cameras are telling you a lot more than what mine are telling me. Um what happened? Man, dude, I don't know, Like it's almost like have you ever had like a moment throughout your hunting career where you go into a property and you're just like, where's the sign? What's going on here? And obviously this year there's way more coyotes on trail camera, um than there has been in the past. One of the ladies the farmers horses died and she didn't do anything with it. She's just gonna let it sit there and basically melt into the earth. But uh, coyotes got brought in by that and they've been eating that horse for like a week now. There's there's I got trail cameras all over the farm with coyotes, and but I've had them in the past and it doesn't seem to affect the deer herd that much. But we've had a combination of like almost like extremes. This year, we had extreme drought in that part of the state, we've had extreme water, and now recently over the past week and a half, two weeks that waters resided. The bottom is still muddy. And so I hunted Saturday night at my main farm. I went into one of my best stands because I had the fort like a really good north uh northwest wind, and so I go in and I'm I see two doughs. That's it. No sign. Typically that area is just shredded, the walk in, no scrapes. So Sunday morning, I didn't even hunt. I got up early and I went and checked all the trail cameras and or a majority of them, and I put up a couple more. And as I'm walking this like this collective acres right and it's not all in one area, but it's just and I'm not I'm not jumping into betting areas. I'm you know, I'm doing it fairly un invasive. And I think I counted three scrapes on that entire area, and maybe two or three like like significant rubs in that entire area. My trail cameras are showing the does are there. My trail cameras are showing that there is um two and three year olds there, but one within the last week, there's been one mature buck on the on that entire acreage and it's been I don't know, it's it's it's just a little concerning. I'm like, what is going and on? The crops are still in as far as the beans, I would say fifty in the area. The crops are still in. UM And I don't even know what to think anymore, just because you know, I don't know if maybe I'm relying too much on my trail camera data UM and there is you know, obviously, as we all know, deer can walk around trail cameras. Doesn't mean they're not there, But the lack of sign is something that just concerns me. Could it be anything related to your cameras being set later than usual? If I remember right, like, you had to put your cameras into these fall locations later. So maybe just the fact that you were in there messing around more recently. Could that have anything to do with it? You know what, I would say, potentially, But here's the issue with that, not like no other deer are affected by it, you know, I would hate to go into a I mean, if I was to bump a deer on that farm, Let's say it's a mature buck and he was maybe getting close to daylight in the pasted, he would still show up. It just would be maybe nocturnal, you know what I mean. It's not like they just completely disappear. But the September shift for me was huge this year. I mean, it was like mid September as they all started turning hard horn shift like just it was just like the trail cameras shut off. Typically that's a drizzle out right, and then there's a shift of new bucks back into the area. But it's like the new bucks didn't come back into the area this year. And I don't know if it if it's because of maybe some trespassing issues on part of the farm, the crops still being in, the huge acorn harvest, the high water down from the river bottoms. I mean, these are just ideas. I and my trail camera tells me that deer are still there, it's just not there. The mature bucks are gone. Does this is now? Of course, it is like disconcerting. It's not what you want to see. But do you have like serious concerns about the rut or do you or do you feel that, yeah, maybe they're not a camera yet, but being where you're at, you never once sat out there during the rut, and not like they're gonna cruise the runt that even if they're not living in your farm now that they're gonna be there come November, don't I don't. Don't get me wrong, I've had some slow ruts, but I've always seen a mature buck on from the tree stand or have had an encounter with a mature buck on that farm. There's just some years where it's better than others. But what I will tell you is that every single year, somewhere around October is when the sign just blows up on the farm. And this is the first year and seven years that I have not seen that interesting even with high water in the past. I mean I remember hunting some uh the bottoms being covered so much in the fall that they left the crops in because they couldn't get them out the entire until the freeze came and the water resided. But it was the crops were mold, so the deer couldn't eat them. They were all ruined, so basically they just like ran them over and then plowed them back into the ground. But it's it's just weird, like all the sign that typically blows up this time of year is not there right now. Yeah, that's that's definitely weird. So let's talk about the plan moving forward. Then let's talk about what we're gonna do, and then some of like our rut principles um that we're gonna be keeping in mind, and then maybe other folks should too. So given this, given your unique situation this year, talk to me about is this changing your plans at all for the rot vacation coming up? And when's that all? When's that all happening? Right? So this I'm not sure when this particular podcast is going to post this Thursday. So okay, So so Friday night, Saturday morning, Saturday night, in Sunday morning, I will be hunting on the main farm. Right. The first thing I'm gonna do on Friday night is I got a very rare wind kind of out of the east that I'm going to go in and do a running gun on um the back side of that Gnarlie Charlie um supposed betting area, just because I got a rare wind that's gonna allow me some really awesome access. The water is low enough for me to walk through the creek, and then from there Saturday, I'll probably hunt that same set Saturday morning because i'll have another good wind after that. Then after I get out of the stand, it's gonna be go around and check all the trail cameras again and just see, just see what what there is. Hopefully what I'm seeing is an uptick in mature buck activity. Hopefully while I'm checking them, I see a lot more sign. But you know, then then that makes everything easier if it kind of just bounces back and the sign was late. I had a really good conversation with a guy the other day and he was talking about having similar years and a lot of it, and you were you were saying something about on your Michigan property you were having rut like trail camera pictures right right. Well, we've discussed on this podcast before that bell curve of breeding, and there's a potential that maybe on your farm you you have one of those first does to come into heat. And that's why some of these deer on their feet moving because there's one dough who's starting to come into heat and she's seeing a lot. You know that that starts, that starts something right, that gets all the all the bucks on their feet. There's that sweet smell in the timber and they start cruising a little bit. And then for my property, you know, typically there's some action the there's a couple of dos that may go into heat the first week in November, but like that seven nine time frame is when it starts really getting really good on my farm. So maybe what we're getting at this year on my farm is that there's nothing worth getting interested about quite yet and it's just delayed because the does are are not on schedule from previous years. Yeah, and you know, also I gotta imagine on a farmer's and now you haven't had this issue in the past, but with that much ground, I mean, it's it's there's a lot of ground to try to understand what's happening. Right, So there might be a crap ton of action going on in a corner that you just typically aren't at or where your cameras aren't at right now, I mean, what's the acorn crop? Like could that could a lot of these bucks just be focused staining in the timber right now and hammer and acorns or something like that. Yeah, and and that's a good point. However, in previous years, I'm gonna say two thousand and I don't know if it was two thousand and fifteen or sixteen, I can't remember, or fourteen. One of those years was another huge acorn crop, but the sign was still there. And when you have a big acorn crop, all my trail camera pictures in the timber were blowing up right, they would make it to the field edge, but not not during daylight. It would be like the middle of the night. But my pinch points, my travel corridors, my staging area, trail cameras were all active. Yeah. Um. Back to your earlier point about the bell curve related to you know, breeding, sometimes there's gonna be some that pop early. Um, and what's going on on the Holy Field property. I my, it's definitely possible. It's something that that could have happened here. My guess is that it's not the case in this specific instance because this huge bumping activity that I've seen here I think is directly correlated to this cold front that we've had. This cold spell that we've had here, we've had significantly lower than average temperature since oh, I don't know what the date was, like, um through you know, a day ago, it's been way colder than usual. So my guess is that that is part of the reason why so much was going on. I don't know about you, but if you look at just the the internet or like the kind of hunting community out there and the bucks that have been getting killed over the last like seven a ten days, this is the best mid October success, right. I think that I can see anecdote. I can't quantify it, but just based off of like stories and pictures and stuff, I can't remember better mid October than this one. Would you have you seen the same thing? I had a conversation with the guy about this the other day, and yes, I would say by selection, right, we obviously follow more hunters, we follow more uh social media accounts that have to do with hunting. But here's what I want to know is where were these deer killed? Were these killed over food plots, were they killed in the timber? Where they killed on private farms? Like? Does does that direct success, like I guess, relate to the rest of the hunting community, or is that we are only seeing a certain portion of what is actually being harvested and the hunter success because these guys are have the ability to hunt more because they may be quote unquote in the industry, or they have you know, private property with you know, highly managed food plots, and that's the success that we're seeing. Does that make sense? I don't know the point you're getting it though, are you are you? Are you saying that you think that it has been that it hasn't been a better mid October? I'm not saying just like you said, we can't really quantify that because I'll tell you from my experience, even though it's been colder than average temperatures, I have not seen an increase in dear movement because of this cold spell. You personally like your own set and stuff exactly. Yes, yeah, well I from based off what Instagram and social media is telling us, Yeah, I feel it's more people are posting pictures of their of their success, their bigger deer. But I'm curious to know if you were to have a secondary statistic behind it. Are these bucks being harvested on private ground that have access to uh, you know, managed food plots. Are they managed for big deer who? Like? What's that secondary statistic? Because I don't get too excited about, you know, a whole bunch of people posting pictures because there's you know, there's millions of hunters out there right now. And I see, even if you see three hundred success successful pictures a day, that's still a very small percentage of what is actually out there, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, um yeah, um yeah, Okay, dumbass, I'm just trying to figure out. So, so are you insinuating that you think that the higher rate of success has only been happening for people that have managed properties, whereas that like what you're theorizing or wondering. Um, I'm theorizing now. I've seen I've seen some people, you know, I've seen some uh, I know, some people who have harvested some deer in public lane already. That's great, But I feel like a majority of these big deer that are being harvested are on private farms with food plots. Interesting observation. I can't argue it, although I've I've certainly seen, I guess from my I have I have, you know, I can look at Instagram picture. All I know is is a guy if you shot a buck with a muzzleloader or a or a bow. I don't know anything else about the picture, right, So that's just a random thought. Yeah, Well it's an interesting observation. And I can tell you either way, wherever these people are are killing the deer, people have been killing a lot of dear. Um, it's been a pretty good October so far in my hope. Or what I wonder though, is how is this going to impact the rest of the month in November? Um? Are we gonna have Is that going to keep on rolling? Like, are we gonna have a great late October right into the early November time period? Or things going to slow down again? Um? And where I was kind of getting at with all this was that And I'm not saying I believe this. Um, I generally do not believe in this. But there are these moon related rut predictions, um that this year calls for an earlier running peak than usual, at least as far as activity. So if you look at them, the Charles Elsheimer, the late Charles Elsheimer and Wayne Laroche predictions, Um, they follow this this uh what is it the second full moon after the autumn equinox or something like that they called the running moon. Typically they claim that's what kind of starts to cue some of this more intense writting activity. Um, if you follow those predictions, October is the rutting moon, So they were calling for things to start ramping up towards they and then like seeking and chasing kind of starting around and and going through the seven. So basically they're calling for the best writting activity this year to be, you know, that the last week and a half of October into the first couple of days in November, and then you get into that lockdown sooner. While traditionally most of us would say that usually we're seeing things a little bit later than that, that first two weeks of November traditionally being the peak of activity. Um, So, I don't know, I mean, it was kind of just interesting to me that they're calling for a little bit earlier, at least this one theory calling for a little bit earlier rutting action and not saying we're seeing rutting action yet, but we are seeing at least anecdotally a lot of activity the last you know, seven days or so leading up to this time and period. I'm not making any kind of connections to that, and just that was an interesting thing I've been seeing. UM also Mark drewy Um and the Drew is another couple of folks who pay attention to a lot of these things. They always point to the days around the full moon in general being particularly good days, and especially if that sinks up with the general rut time period. UM. Mark always talks about the three evenings leading up to the full moon and the three mornings after the full moon traditionally can be a little bit better. UM. So that full moon is, like I said, which will be, you know, the day before this podcast comes out. So if you're listening to this on, I'd be curious, did you have a couple of good nights up to this and could the next few mornings be especially good? I don't know. Um, I think all this moon stuff is probably overhyped. Um. I'm always more interested in the date of the calendar and the temperatures. UM, but it is. It is always interesting. Just I like to keep tabs on it and just kind of watch what's going on. And UM, I hope though, I hope that the rut moon thing is right this year because I'm actually doing my one or my my one like late October, well not even my one, rut ish out of state trip is coming up during this time period. I'm leaving for Nebraska tomorrow, UM to hunt these last like four or five days of October. So I'm hoping that there's gonna be some running, some early writting activity because I had worked out really nice. Um, I'm not really expecting it, but I would not complain at all. Um, Me and Andy, Me and Andy Mayor heading to uh central Nebraska tomorrow for a really quick hunt. We're gonna leave in the afternoon, drive all night, hopefully get there by the morning. So the morning of this podcast goes out Thursday morning. Hopefully we'll be arriving by then so we have time to glass in the morning, do a little scouting midday, get spots set up to hunt that evening, and then when we all hunt Thursday night, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday more earning and then if turnound and drive right back home. Um, it's gonna be a quick trip. But um, but I'm kind of excited about it. We got um, we got access to us sweet looking the river bottom property that Andy got us permission through kind of a blind phone call just by chance. And um, it's like eight miles of river bottom with lots of good cover. Some irrigated fields could be pretty sweet. Um. So we'll have some stories to come on that next week. But that's what I have come in my immediate future, Dan. Um. So when you're out there trying to figure things in the uh in the Iowa holy land that has gone quiet, I'll be trying to figure out a brand new property that me neither me or and he's ever seen before in person. Um. So we're just looking at maps and taking some of our previous knowledge from hunting kind of similar situations like this out west. You know, there's kind of hills on the outside and these river bottoms with a bunch of cover that the white tails are in. Um. But it's gonna be very much kind of learned as we go, right right, Well, I'll tell you what. And that's one thing, you know, backstepping just a little bit to this, to these averages. Everybody looks at right, everybody wants an exact date that they want to take off vacation. Well, that's the law of averages, right that q d m A puts out all that data about you know, here's peak breeding, here's peak scrapes, here's peak rubs and all this data, right, but that doesn't directly relate on the micro level to your specific farm. Right. So if you don't run trail cameras, if you don't scout, you don't go out looking for sign beforehand, yeah, you're probably better off doing the law of averages and hunting let's say somewhere around you know, leading up to peak breeding. But that doesn't mean that the does on your property are part of that peak, Right. They could be before and they could be after that, and you could miss it, you could nail it, you know what I mean. There's so much variability. I mean, both of us. If you go back and look at our the last five years or whatever that we've been doing this podcast, and you listen to our different rut experiences, you know, every single year, they're different every single time of year when it hits as different. I mean, the rut on any given ear from my experience, is in a little it's can fits and bursts. There'll be a pop of great activity and then it'll die down, and then all of a sudden there's some great activity and then it dies down. And you can never, at least not frequently predict exactly when that's going to happen or exactly where that's going to happen. Um, so much variability, and you could be I could be at one side of the property and you could be on the other side of the property, and we might have a completely different perspective on like how the ruts coming. You might say, oh, there's nothing going on. The ruts gonna be late this year, and I might say, no, it's been intent, it's been insane, it's happening right now, And that could be a quarter mile difference, you know, absolute um. And here's one thing though we all need to remember, all right, we should remember. But it's since I've changed my hunting style, I've seen less, dear and what I would call less of an observed rut. And the reason being is because I'm not hunting in places where I can see along ways. So if you're a field edge hunter or you're hunting over big food plots, then you might walk away going, oh man, they were chasing tonight. But if you're a pinch point hunter, and I'm just saying, if that pinch point you can't see where you're hunting in a thick betting area downwind of a thick betting area and you can't see a long ways, you're probably gonna see less of an observed h rut. But like for me, I'm not interested in seeing chasing unless it's coming right by my stand. I want to be in the right spot and get the right deer to walk by, not see, you know, dear chasing. Um, you know in this corn field a long ways away, because if I do see that, I'm getting down. I'm gonna move my tree stand over there. Yeah, I hear you. Before we go any further though, let's take a quick break to thank our friends over at White Tailed Properties and Spencer new Hearth will take it from here. This week. With White Tailed Properties, we are joined by Ben Harsheine, a land specialist out of Iowa, and Ben is going to be talking to us about strategies for killing a mid october buck. I think there's a number of things. One that you don't have any control over is the weather, but you do have control of when you hunt it. Following these cold weather fronts. Uh certainly get big deer on their feet earlier. Um. I think that you have the key in on food sources still, so if you can plan ahead and get some food sources on your property that you're hunting ahead of time to anticipate um movement here in October. I mean, these deer right now are eating as much as they can to get ramped up for the rut, to get ramped up for the winter. UM. The cold weather gets them on their feet earlier, they're gonna be on their feet heading to food sources, whether that's a food plot you planted, acorns, crop fields. Killing mature buck in October is going to rely on on chasing that weather and then get in front of them in the evening hunts going to food. Uh, sometimes you can get into deeper cover. I think it's a little bit dangerous, but I still would would go for it if if you feel comfortable, scout, use your cameras, try to find where they're staying, and then get deeper into uh, into that cover where you think maybe he's betten. If you'd like to learn more and to see the properties that Ben currently has listed for sale, visit whitetail properties dot com. Backslash hardshine that's h A R S H y n E. Let's take that step further. Let's uh, that's a good kind of rut thought. Let's do like rapid fire rut rules or rut tips here for the last like ten minutes or cell that we have fifteen minutes or cell. Let's just go back and forth with like quick things that we ink that that you and I are gonna be thinking about during the route, that we'd recommend um that are going to be like part of our core mindset in the next you know, three weeks, because the next three weeks are kind of like you know, as I alluded to at the beginning, this is this is it for a lot of us. This is like the shakra alt of the deer hunting season. We've been looking forward to this entire year. Gonna get it done hopefully. All Right, I'm gonna say my first rut piece of advice is to not get too caught up in all like the crazy ideas and tactics and always stay simple when it comes to the right or at least try to come back to the basics. By this, I mean when you're confused or uncertain about what to do during the first couple of weeks in November, the last couple laze of October, always think back to these two principles. Dough betting areas or pinch points. So if you can be thinking about those two things whenever you're trying to choose between this tree standard that or this property or that property, if you can be around one of those two things, you're generally gonna be in the right type of place for the rut. So deal betting areas, of course, are some of the main places that bucks are gonna be checking to try to find a female to breed, So you can either be right in those betting years or maybe just down wind of them, those are always going to be a great place to start when it comes to trying and fare out how to find a buck during the rut. And then number two, a pinch point or funnel. You know, these are some type of habitat or terrain feature that just kind of pinches deer into a smaller area, which just is going to produce a higher rate of activity through there during the rut because these bucks are moving from betting area to betting area or betting to food source. Just again looking for doughes that might be ready to breed. If you can find something that funnels that activity past your stand, that's another great spot. So just keep those two things in mind. It's it's the simplest rut advice out there. It's told that the jillion times like this is no secret. But every year when I start getting like start overthinking things, I just need to remind myself go back to the basics, think about the basics, and and kind of filter all your thoughts through that. So that's my first tip. Sounds good, I would say mine is identify what you're looking for, you know, And I'm just gonna talk specifically about bucks right now. Identify what you're looking for, um for a buck. And if you're sitting in a location I know, I know, and I know there's so many variables that go along to this, because maybe you sit out on property that only has one tree stand in it and you don't you can't hunt anywhere else, or you haven't found anywhere else to hunt. But don't waste your time. That's my my first um piece of advice. If you're not seeing what you want, move and go find something else. If you have trail cameras, like for me, I rely on my trail cameras to tell me a little bit of the story. And if there's something that pops up, move in, take a look, observe, and maybe that's just what you need, right to make another move, to make another move and play that game at chess, to try to put yourself in the best possible position. However, if nothing shows up two days in a row, and I know the rut and I know anything could happen at any moment, and you're not getting trail camera pictures or you're not seeing any fresh sign, it might be time to move. Yeah, especially you know, and I think everything we're saying here, of course as a generalization, they'll be specifics that might different, that might make what we've recommend be different. But like you just said, there, Dan, if you have options, go out and get after him. You know, if you're in a situation where for some reason you're just all you have as a tannic or property or something and you're just kind of stuck there, well, then to what you said a second ago, Dan, maybe if you do stick it out long enough, yes, during the ruts, something can happen, So maybe then it's just stick it out. But if you have options, agree, because you know it just can be here but not there, or they're not here and you're never gonna know that unless you go check it out. UM. So that brings me to my next tip, which is kind of related to the sticking it out part of things that during the rut. Other than a few of the things we already said here, I don't think there's anything more important than tree stand time, right. I mean, this is that time of year when everything else goes out the window because all the all the rules, all the things we're saying could be completely null and void because deer start doing crazy things at this time of year. They might be moving in the middle of the day, they might be moving somewhere they never usually do. UM. You just need to be out there to sometimes be the benefactor of kind of surprise good luck. So hunt as much as you possibly can. If you can get time off work, be out there. If you can hunt all day, be out there, and on the midday thing. I will say, for years and years and years I was told hunt all day, chanal day, chanal day. And I did it, and for quite a while I never really saw anything come from it. UM. And it was really tough to do, and it's not a lot of fun. Sometimes it's very exhausting, sometimes painful. UM. On your back end or your knees, as Dan can attest to. But it can pay off. It's not like it's always gonna pay off, but it definitely can. I've had enough mature bucking counters over the last decade or so that I've been doing this during the middle of the day that it's it's worth it. But only if you are like, really really dedicated trying to kill mature Buck. If you're just out there to have a good time and to have a nice fun trip with your buddies, it might not be worth it. You might have a better trip if you take your mid day and go back to the cabin or back to the trailer, back to the hotel and enjoy your friends company or something. Um. But if you are dead set on killing mature Buck, you should be in the tree. Um. Last year, ever, most of you know, I almost almost had my shot at Holy Feel at eleven o'clock, and um, I'll be sitting all day down this year. Yea, Mark, And I apologize that I'm gonna have to say this, but you might have to edit this next part out because and I think this is a us to the mental game, just kind of piggybacking off what you're what you just said, and that is don't be a bit And I'm sorry, but I fall victim to that as well to where you're you start, you start getting tired, you start you know, all woe is me. I'm not seeing I'm not seeing bucks. But you're not doing anything about it, right, So you have to do something about it, and you have to move. You have to um hunt hard, potentially all day. You have to get up early. You can't. There's no shortcuts. Right. If you want to execute a goal in the woods and kill a big buck or a mature buck or a target buck or whatever, and you're struggling. If you start bitching, it's over and you you have to do whatever it takes and I mean within the law to to to a pumplished that goal. Right. If your goal is, hey, man, I want to kill four year old this year, and there's maybe one or two on in your entire county, well guess what you gotta do. Man. You gotta be mobile, and you got you got grind. And if you if you start going no, this guy spooked me. Or if you're a public land hunter and you're like, oh this guy, this guy ruined my hunt, it screwed. Now I might as well go home. Shut up, dude, move find him again, locate him again, get back to the maps, get back to the scouting, get back to historical data, trow camera pictures, start over and get after him again. Right, you think the mountain lion bitches if he misses the opportunity or a bear or a predator in general. No, they go back, they regroup, and they go after him again. Keep on hunting. Yeah, man, I two thousand percent agree. I think that that maybe, more than anything we've talked about, that might be the very most important thing for hunting. The rut like it is, it is so much a mental thing. Can you can you deal with the diversity? Like guaranteed every rut I can guarantee all of you listening to this, or almost all of me, maybe one of you will go out the very first day and kill the biggest buck of your life and be done and say, oh, this rut was easy and it went great. All the rest of us are going to deal with some kind of adversity over the next three weeks. We're gonna miss a deer, We're gonna wounded deer, We're going to spook a deer. We're going to have guys walk through a property. We have dogs run through a property whenever a trail cameras still. And we're gonna have our tires go flat. We're gonna have the baby gets sick and you have to go home and you miss half your vacation. You're gonna have a wife that's gonna be angry at you, and you have to go home early. You're gonna have something go wrong over the next three weeks, and you're gonna be faced with this decision. Are you gonna push through it? Are you going to embrace that adversity? Said? Okay, yeah, this thing happened. There's nothing I can do about Now. It's water on the bridge. Now, how do I rat to it? How do I take that? Move on from it, learn from it, figure out what the next best option is, Keep going, stay focused. So much of actually sitting in the tree stand is about can you stay in it during the whole day or whenever you're out there? Can you avoid looking at your phone? Can you not make this mistake I made? Can you stay focused out there for six hours at a time or twelve hours at a time. Can you, as you alluded to, Dan, can you wake up at three or four or whatever every morning, even though you're so tired after doing twelve days in a row, can you keep going? Um? And a if? And this all just depends on how dedicated what you want out of this. For some people just want to go out and have a good time. If you just want to go and have a good time and you're not as care you're not as worried about the end result, then then do it. We have a good time, don't stress as much about this stuff. But if but if you're really dedicated to getting that tag wrapped around a mature box antler and getting that meat in the freezer, then this kind of mindset I think is really important. Um. It's that mental strength. Mental strength as I think what the name of the game is over these next few weeks, um, and I know that I will just be coming back to I'm sure over the next few weeks, I'm gonna have moments where I'm like, oh, I do not want to do this, or I'm upset about this, or I'm stressed about this. My shingles are gonna come back. But you just have to. And that's the thing, dude, Like check check the story out, you know, like you're gonna be talking to your kids someday or your grandkids someday, and you're gonna tell the story of the you know, hey, man, I shot this buck I call holy Field, been chasing for several years, and I did it after having the worst case of shingles I've ever had, the worst case of poison ivy I ever had. I mean, come on, kid, I had it on my genital still killing, I still killed this buck, and I grind it out and I did it. That's right. I can't wait to tell that story about it. I hope you get to tell it one of those camp fire things that you do. Yeah, when he when he when he gets to be eighteen years old and he's ready to hear those kinds of stories. Let me tell you a son. Um. Yeah, man, I think that is Um. That's some important stuff right there. Do we have time for another quick tip or do you need to run because I know you've got a quick turn around here. Yeah, dude, I gotta split, all right, So we will wrap this up. This is a quick episode, but hopefully a few ideas and a few updates that can that can help folks. As we head into this most exciting time of year. So good luck. I just want to say to all the listeners, dude, good luck. I there's no one more than me and Mark that want to see all you guys be successful, guys and gals be successful out there and and do it safe. Please yes, in the words of Dan nine fingers Johnson Wair, damn harness, and have a great time. And Dan, you too, good luck, Yes you too. But let's get back throughout this year. We are, but I think that we should. We should come back get on the podcast together in two weeks and both have stories of of knocking down a big bruiser all right, and that is going to do it for this episode. So thanks for sticking around for this quick rut preparation podcast. It's that most exciting time of year. So get out there in the woods. I hope you're gonna have some amazing hunts coming up. My fingers and toes are cross for you. And as I mentioned earlier, I'm in Nebraska, or at least on our way to Nebraska right now. So me and my pale Andy Stefs the stories for you next week, which will hopefully be interesting too. So until then, the best of luck out there, shoots straight, have a great time, and until next time, stay wired to hunt.