Ep. 578: Rut Fresh Radio 9/28/2022 - Paying It Forward For Late Season Success

the country. We've talked a lot about it. Our good friend Mark Kenyon is joining us this week. Mark, how are you feeling, man? Hey, Casey, I am, I'm good. I just uh. I just got home a few days ago from my first wait til hunt of the year, which is, you know, great to kind of kick off the rust to get that in the books. And then my next hunt the year kicks off in Michigan in just a few days on October one, so it's like Christmas, the best time of years here, buddy, how's all Rookie

Rookie is dead? No? Is he really? I didn't know that. Yeah, at least I'm I'm nine sure. He disappeared at the end of October last year and I have not seen hide or hair of Rookie, so he's not on the radar. And how does it make you feel? Are you excited to start with a clean template or do you kind

of miss having that talking about? You know, what's been what's been nice about that area where Rookie was living is you know, I've been hunting that area for I don't know, twelve years now or something, and there's been like a dramatic improvement in the number of bucks that

make it to older age classes. So, you know, when I first started hunting there, like there would be one three year old and that would be the only buck, Like that would be the best buck in the whole area, you know, like in the sixty acre block that I could hunt that other people hunted, Like that'd be the one deer we're seeing. And in the years since then, I've worked with some neighbors, I've passed a ton of deer.

I've been working on trying to prove some things. I've gotten permission and other properties in the general area, and along started short more and more folks are kind of letting younger deer go. And what that's led to is that you know, now ten eleven twelve thirteen years later,

when I used to have one three year old. Now this year, I've got like multiple four year olds and a five year old and several three year olds, So if one of them gets whacked, I'm not too bummed out because there's several other deer that you know, I know of and that I've been kind of following and

keeping tabs on over the years too. So so like this year, I've got one buck that's a five year old that I I'm really interested in, and then and I've seen a ton, and then another four year old that I saw a ton and passed a bunch, So those are my top two. And then there's another four year old that I saw some last year that I would take a crack at. And then a fourth buck

that I'm like on the fence about. So that's awesome, you know, for Michigan to have a bunch of deer like that to get me excited and waking up in the morning. So I'm not I'm not mourning the passing of Rookie too much because there's more food on the on the buffet. Well, you better not podcast about this stuff too much because people are gonna start you know,

giving you Michigan guys the side. I when you say it's tough up there, it sounds like, man, yeah, man, it's uh, it's it's all relative, right, yea, absolutely, it's uh it's not too bad, it's not too good. It's it's just right. I guess it's hunting. That's what it is. Man, It's it's cool and uh, well, you're doing the opposite of target deer hunting. We're hunting any of your hunting at the moment. Uh, you know, been chasing some deer around in public actually, been just chasing the yellow line

for most of the last forty eight hour. I've slept about three hours last forty eight so probably taking a nap after we get done with this. But you know, we're running high on the Adrillain of Big Bucks had some encounters this morning in Nebraska on public ground. Um Tyler, Uh did some scout in Today's Good day, Good day A long way least for sure. That's cool. And you know it seems like here that food is keen right now and it's just the thing that you're hunting or

actually food and water uh is Michigan. I mean, do y'all have droughts? There is that a thing that happens in Michigan or is it kind of going back to everything being relative, Like you do have droughts where there's long stretches about rain and that can impact the crops, but we don't have droughts at the same scale as like something like you might have down in Texas folks out west half where there's just no water. Like our baseline water level is so high, there's water sources like everywhere,

at least in most parts of Michigan. There's ponds of her the strings of the swamps everywhere. So even in the driest years, it's really hard for water to become like a major limiting factor. So it's not I'm not gonna say it's never something a key on, but it's it's definitely not as high on my list as it might be in a place like Nebraska. Yeah, it's probably

more for you just food pop production. I would think, like you need the rains at the right time to make sure that the plots come up, otherwise just end up with a bare field. Yeah here right now, man, it's um the cattle tanks are where it's at. I watched fifteen deer drink out of a cattle tank this year, I mean this morning, and uh, definitely making some patterns

off of that. And it feels good. Man, just to be out in the woods making moves on deer is such a huge thing, you know, like you can get down in the dumps, like we were actually talking about,

you know, off the air. Will I go and and not celebrate those small victories, And like the thing that I like to celebrate is learning something, Like it really means something to get out there and to learn something about the way white tail act and behave and be able to use that in your hunting repertoid now and for forever more, you know, like I kind of throw this actually back to I killed a deer um in Oklahoma late late season last year, but in a drought,

and he was on a water pattern in the evening and actually that video is gonna come out here about a week or so, but it was without actually uh, listen to your boy Tony talk about it and read some of his stuff and talk to him a lot about water hunting, and I was like, I give a shot, and sure enough, you know, public land bucked down, So like you just kind of for and it took me a long time to recognize water as a legitimate source

of of a thing to hunt. And then now we'll show up in Nebraska and it's like the first thing I'm looking at, you know, because I have that experience, and I don't know, uh, Like you were saying about being positive, you if you just get negative because you spook deer, you have a bad hunt or whatever, um, it can get in the way of your learning and actually focusing on the details that can help you. Yeah. Man.

And you know you mentioned how you saw some good bucks this morning, and I was thinking about, you know, the same kind of things happened to me on my hunt. I was just dawn. And what a great feeling it is when you do get eyes on a deer you want to take a crack at, or you get that little bit of intel that all of a sudden switches you from being down in the dumps to all of a sudden feeling like you're in the game. Like that

feeling of all, man, I'm in the game. Like that is such a great feeling, Like that's a win right there. That that is so much. It's it's so exciting in the moment, and sometimes I let myself gloss over it, and I'm trying to get better at just being like, man, this is it. It's those little things along the way that make cunning so awesome and uh so, man, soak it in you. You're in the game, buddy, Yeah, that's

being in the game, is uh. I I struggle man to too, uh have fun sometimes when I'm not in the game, like or when I don't have that feeling that you're talking about, really I have, like I feel like I have three levels almost where there's uh, this level of, um, I can't figure out what the heck to do and it's four PM, early season, I gotta

just go do something glass or whatever. And then there's like a level of like, well this could work, but um, this has been a tough hunt, and I don't really expect Dear to do what I'm assuming they might do

in this spot. And then there's the level of like feeling real good about it and almost calling the shot, you know, And that's that is just it is like a special feeling, man, And even if it doesn't come together, usually those those end up being pretty good hunts because uh, you see a lot of deer or something like that,

because you felt good about it, you know. So I don't know, I but I do struggle, like I almost feel like I struggle early season mentally more than um, like you know, November and later because uh, for one, obviously November anything can happen. Um. And then later in the season, you know, if I have a couple of bucks under my belt, I'm feeling uh pretty satiated, you know. And early season, I just have this like, you know, I don't know, it's just like almost like a stress

you know what I'm talking about. And some people may not quite understand, but like I just feel like I'm spending a lot of money to go out of state and uh chase deer for a long time, and it's a difficult time to kill deer sometimes depending on where you are and what kind of access you have and everything. And I just like I just almost have this thing that where it's not even like prove, it's it's something to prove, but it's not really anything to prove to

anybody else. It's it's to prove to myself that I'm not wasting money in time, you know what I mean. So, um, it's stressful. Two thousand. Yeah. So, how how has your Idaho hunt been going. Man. It's so I don't want to give too much away because tomorrow's episode, like the main show, I'm gonna dive into the details of it. Um,

But I'll give you if you want it. I'll give you like one through ten um as far as like what activity was like okay, and then I can I can give you a little bit more of you know, just like a deer report and save my personal details. I'll give you the generic details, okay, and I would. We don't want to hear what you and Josh had to do, you know, extracurricular wise. You know, I know, I also know you're a lumper. So these deer. This deer report isn't it doesn't include trout or anything, does it?

Or you know, I can. I can give you a trout report too, because we deviled there. Sometimes you pick me up. That's what I told Josh. Did you see me a picture of the trouns? Like, dude, sometimes you gotta go just catch a trout. There's no want to have the haller Bro's head on for sure. You know me too well. Um, So, so I don't scale one to ten. I put you know, overall deer activity like

a like a five um there was deer activity. And what was very interesting is that where there was heavy deer hunting pressure, and this is the should be no surprise. Where there was heavy hunting pressure, the activity was much much lower and much much later. But we had an interesting location where we're at, where we could be hunting on this public land that was getting pounded, I mean

just like pillaged. And then right across the road was some private land where there was obviously no hunting pressure. And so on the public land that we were hunting, you know, we weren't seeing deer until the last five three minutes of daylight, I mean the very end, and we had two at times. Finally, as I throughout the course of the week, I was pushing further and further and deeper and deeper and more and more aggressive, and

finally was you know finding deer. You know, way way back, like on the edge of the river, and the farthest back reaches a possible bedding cover, and those deer were still not getting out of their beds still three minutes

before daylight, before dark. Sorry. So so that was the activity level in the public But right across the road, you know, five yards away, there were shooter bucks, mature bucks feeding in the middle of alfalfa fields at noon, So there would be like twenty deer out in the middle of alfalfa field within range, within sight of the public land. And I could see these deer on the other side of the road out there living their living

their best life. So you know, the deer on the feeding patterns, if they're comfortable and not being chased around all of the place where they were being chased around, they're moving very very late. There's deer still feeding on alfalfa. There were also some deer feeding on corn and actually living in corn fields right now adjacent to public land. We started realizing that a lot of these deer had been pushed onto the public or started off the public

into the private corn fields as like the sanctuary. Um. So those are some things we noticed. Well, Josh sent me a picture of a buck that is no longer moving too, so uh not even in the last few minutes of daylight. So we found some We found some dead ones, the folks that hit and not recovered. Really. Yeah, man, before I think the last time we talked to you, we talked about how y'all were going to head out a little bit later in September to try to avoid

the opening pressure and stuff. Do you feel as if you would do that again or is that something that you think kind of is kind of on the out now now. So our theory was wrong in this case, um because you know it maybe it would still work if we pushed later, but we didn't push late enough pibly because because what ended up happening was that there was still hunting pressure even in the third week of September. So we didn't we didn't get away from the hunting pressure.

But the extra downside was that now we were not enjoying those first few days of the season when deer we're still acting dumb. So in the past two years we'd have two, three or four days with these deer, you know, even though there was pressure. Now, they were still living a good life and they weren't you know, changing things up dramatically, so we were seeing them. Now we arrived twenty days, you know, into hunting pressure for these deer and they had already gone back to their

bunkers and like it's a war zone for them. So we we had none of the you know, easy daylight bucks floating around thinking that's safe and free anymore. So it was it was an interesting hunt that'll get into you the full scoop on tomorrow. But there was not nothing easy Like in previous years. We were seeing big bucks, like not too far from the food sources forty five minutes before daylight. Um, you know, even on public land. Now we were going back two miles to get to that.

But now we had to go further back, deeper and like in the freaking trenches to find anything. Well, so it goes public sometimes, but um, I'm glad you guys got to hang out, do the do the hunt again. You know, you never know when Josh is just gonna ditch out on you, so you never know. And uh man, we uh we had some good some good discoveries, some

good lessons learned. And I'm not gonna tell you what happened how it ended, but there there might be a little twist at the end tomorrow to find what happened. I hope it's not like a grizzly attack or something. But I hope you guys all right, I'm still kicking, Yeah you are. We don't know about Josh. Might be

a hologram that's over there on Instagram, right now. Um, Well, so I'm glad that you guys had a good hunt Man together, and uh it sounds like we're gonna get to hear more of that on the main show here shortly, so I'm looking forward to that. Um. This week, we actually have on the retfresh we have Tony Peterson and Wisconsin. We all know him pretty well. Uh. One of our friends, Nick Gonzale is killing a nice public lan buck in Arkansas. Jesse Richard uh with a report from Iowa. And our

good friend Matt I from Landing Legacy in Missouri. He was a part of a big buck kill there. So we're looking forward to hearing from these guys. Let's go ahead and get to the interviews, all right on the phone, now, Tony Peterson from Meat Eater. You guys are familiar with this guy. Uh, Tony, you've had success in Wisconsin recently. Yeah.

I took my daughter over, one of my twin daughters over, i should say, on opening weekend and we we fought the the mosquitoes and the spiders and stupid humidity and the heat and ended up killing a spike. So it worked out pretty well. It's good man. That spike is about as clean of a spike as I've seen it looks like, yeah, he's uh, he's a clean one. And now my my other twin daughter, she's I'm taking her this weekend, and she said, we gotta we gotta get

one with at least three points. I was wondering if there's like a jealousy factor there at all? Man, big time. And you know, she killed, she killed forky last year. So this this daughter that killed this weekend, she that was a first box. So she's stoked, and now her sisters like, I need to do just a little bit better.

So even I showed her a picture of a little four pointer that we have coming into that same plot, and she she said, Dad, to those those little ones in front of those counters points, So yeah, that one will beat your sisters if you kill them. Awesome, Dad, Well so you got you were fine Mosquitoes. Was is it above like normal temperatures or has it been? Is

it pretty warm? Oh? Man, it was way above our our normal seasonal temperatures, And it was you know, we get we get such humidity up here that you know, it's just it's weird when you go out in the morning and you know it had rained the night before the opener, so everything was wet anyway, but just the humidity was like a hundred percent, and you know, you kind of expect to go out and have it be kind of chilly and maybe see your breath in the morning,

even if it's gonna get pretty warm in the day. But it was like sixty five degrees in the dark, I mean, which is a pretty unusual for us this time of year. So has that did that? Do you think that's been affecting the deer much or are they pretty much still just in normal early season patterns? Man, I don't. I don't think it affected the deer that much. Really.

I think what it did was kept a lot of people at home because I don't know if I've ever had an opener, you know in my home state of Minnesota or over in Wisconsin where I've seen fewer trucks and field drives and stuff where you're like, that's definitely a hunter. I didn't. I didn't hardly see that last weekend. Yeah. So, Tony Peterson, the mobile hunting aficionado, how do you manage to slow it down and make a hunt fun for for your girls? Man? Uh? Man, it is like so

hard for me to just go. You know, basically we're turkey hunting right Like, we're sitting in blinds and it's like get on a good spot and ride out as many hours as you can. And it's rough. But you know, with with the girls, they just they can't. They can't do the mobile thing yet, it just wouldn't work, and so I just I'm like, this is just what I'm doing.

But what does help with that is we are hunting any deer, So you know, it's not like you're sitting there and you're going, you know, it's one four year bust or whatever. It's like, if a deer walks by here, we're gonna shoot at it. And that makes it a little more tolerable because you're like, it's you know, you're probably not gonna have to put in tons and tons

of time before that happens. But you know, we hunted eight hours on Saturday, never saw a deer, and Sunday we got out there in an hour into it that spike came in. So we saw a deer and killed it. Well, well that's efficiency and it's finest man, So congrats on that. Across the country, it seems that mast fall is starting to happen, and I know different areas of the country is gonna be a little bit different. But uh, you know, acorns as we call them, are falling here and falling

across the South. I know for sure from some other buddies. Does that effect some of the patterns that you've kind of been setting up on for a hunt like this, I would say that that played a pretty big role. Uh. You know, I didn't expect to see a lot of deer anyway, because I just wouldn't in those setups. But you know, we've we had a we've got a pretty good hard mass thing going on right now, and the apples and the soft mask over there where I was

hunting in Wisconsin are definitely playing into it. And I know just from checking cameras before the opener, my sightings went way down, And you know, I just there could be other reasons, you know, there you might have a pack of wolves or something come through that kind of kills it for a little while, But I suspect what

was happening was a mass situation. Yeah. Yeah, So going forward, you in Wisconsin, do you feel like that um that's going to continue to change things up or is it gonna actually get consistent, uh for guys that move their cameras and react to that kind of stuff. Um, you know, it's so variable, but the mass thing, it comes and

goes usually pretty quick. And I see this happen so much because I hunt a lot of early season stuff where it's a pretty big factor in the first couple of weeks and then you you kind of attack on the the you know, initial hunting pressure. And so I look at the forecast going forward, and I look at the reality that the mass is gonna get get eaten up a little bit, and I just think it's gonna

get really, really good. And I actually, like, you know, where we're hunting over in Wisconsin and some of my places in Minnesota, I like, you know, about two weeks into the season, when the acorns aren't really affecting it as much and the apples aren't and the people are kind of giving up until the rut, there's a good time there, especially on public land, to get out and figure one out when you know most people just aren't

doing it. Yeah, I know that you love to get out there and capitalize on some of that lower pressure time of year like this. So as you look forward to the next year with you know, kind of fall continue to progress and and maybe something's changing, you know, deer starting to slowly push more into that more testosterone top mentality. What do you predict dear movement to be, like, especially buck movement on scale from one to ten, I'll give it a seven. It's a good number. Yeah, I

think I think it's gonna get good, man. And I think that a lot of people in their head they think it's just not it's not going to get there yet. But you know that in that situation where we're hunt over in Wisconsin, when when those really localized food sources dry up, they kind of gotta work. There's a lot of browsing going on in a lot of big wood stuff, so they cover ground. And you know how it is when when bucks start covering ground, they start leaving you

some sign to work with. And I actually I think it gets almost a little bit easier right at the beginning of October and to September to to figure out what they're doing right now. Yeah, man, well that's really cool. That's exciting, such an exciting time of year for all of us. Anyways, and then guy like telling me starts throwing out some big numbers as far as like a hot fist. Man, it's a that time to roll, you

know what I'm saying. Listen, here's the deal, guys. And you know this, even if I said I think it's gonna be a one, you still should go hunting. Yeah, buddy, you know, I mean honestly that if you would have asked me on Friday night before the open or what the deer movement's gonna be like and what the buck movement's gonna be like, I would have maybe set a one or two just to give it a little bit

of grace for the opening weekend. You know, they haven't been hunted yet, but it would have been a low number, and it's still worth going. Yeah. Absolutely, they have to exist somewhere, man, And I think a lot of guys forget that and they try to time it out right. And for sure, you have to balance your time off versus you know, time with family and then time in the woods. So put all those numbers together and you can come up with a real good reason to not

go to the woods. But I'll tell you what, man, there's never a better time than now to go ahead and capitalize. So Tony, we appreciate the update, dude, and I hope you have a great risk the season. Awesome, thank you fellas. Okay on the phone now, Gonzales, you're actually from Texas. You're a friend of ours, local to us, but you have been up in Arkansas doing some deer hunting. How's everything going right now? Man? Um on Cloud nine

right now? Successful weekend hunt. So that's awesome, dude. So um, you're just kind of breaking down what you what you got going on from from that hunt basically right, and you've got some meat and you've got a bunch of

trash everywhere. It sounds like, yeah, like I was saying earlier, it's uh, it's crazy how much trash you can accumulate in the truck in just two days of hunting and camping with one yea, So you have you have done what seems about near impossible to me at this point, but you've shot a public land buck in Arkansas and it's a toad in Sceptember, incept. How do you do that? Man? Well? Uh, we actually my buddy and I went up there um in January, did some scouting, We did a little bit

of hunting to have a late season there. Um, actually came and talked to you guys and looked at the on X maps and just kind of pick out some locations. So um, obviously with on X you can see you know, the topography and everything else, but it's good to just get boots on the ground out there. So that's what we did. We went out there and did scouting. UM. Like the location that we were at, I didn't see

a whole lot, just late season and everything. UM, but I saw that they had a September opener there in in Arkansas, so I wanted to give it a shot. UM. I did not expect to get a buck, I can tell you that much, but anything would have been great for me, um, just to get a September deer. So definitely definitely started with on X and then just getting some boots on the ground. So yeah, that's cool man. So when you went up there in September this time, we got boots on the ground. Uh in that you know,

early season stuff. What did you see it made you decide to hunt where you did? Um? So I found a pretty clean looking creek. It was close to private UM and they had a feeder set up over there. I don't know that it was being used or not, but it was just a really good water source for the deer there. Um. It's kind of a a good little funnel point just because it was real tall pasture on one side, uh, and then some good um oak

flats in the bottom. But this particular area was real green, had some good grass, and then it had a pretty hard edge of trees beside it where you could tell that that was probably where they were betting. So they're definitely cruising through this little um funnel area by the creek, you know, to get some get some food. Um. And so that was kind of the game plan was you know, hopefully they would come out of their beds to come

get some food, and ultimately that's what what happened. Did you feel like that deer eating acrons while you were there? The guy, the buck that I shot was eating acorns as the shot him. Were they just would you could you tell what kind of oaks they were? I'm not a I'm not a tree guy like you guys. I really don't know what kind of oak it was. As long as there's a tasty acren on the ground, I said, I it's a good place set up. Yeah. Now you know too that they liked them. Acron's right there, and

it's a good spot to till it. Man, that's cool. So was he was? He was? He? He was basically just cruising to eat. He wasn't when you say cruising, he wasn't like rut cruising by any means. Or was he? No, he was not. He came in with another buck. Um. He came in with a probably a little three point who I saw first. You don't want I mean, if he was, if he was so low, I would have shot him just because he was the only one I saw it first. But then I saw the antlers on

the other one turn. I said, I'm not worried about that. How fast was your heartbeating? Man? It was? It was. It was pounding pretty good, I can say that much. That's your first buck with a bow. That's my first buck with a bow. Yeah, yeah, it's Uh. I had hadn't done a ton of archery hunting really mostly recently. Is when I've when I've done archery hunting. Um, first time, I gotta congrats on that dude. So awesome. How far was the shot? Uh? He was about twenty five, So

he came in. He came in pretty close Yeah, I was up in the Yeah, I was up in that cruiser saddle. And I gotta say, if anybody does any public land hunting, that is absolutely the way to go, just to just saddle hunting in general. M because he came in at a good angle and you can just you can move all around that tree without making any noise. Neither one of them had any idea that I was there. Um, so it worked out perfectly. Man. That's that's too cool.

So that's awesome story, dude, And I'm super pumped for you. Uh, just you know, knowing you as a as a friend and knowing kind of your journey as a hunter, that's just so cool to see you go up there and do that. If other guys kind of like you trying to go up there be weekend warriors. Right now, we have a you know, kind of a cool front through

the country, a little bit of weather in the Gulf. Um. But looking forward to the weekend here, what do you predict dear movement being like specifically buck movement on a scale of one to ten kind of for this upcoming week Um, it's kind of hard to say, just um, you know, we're still early season, but with this with this cool front coming in, I think it's upper forties possibly going to be over there. It could be. I mean, I'm definitely gonna be hunting, and it would be I

would definitely recommend getting out there. Probably maybe around seven seven or so. Oh that's pretty good. Sevens. That gets me pump. It's biblical number. Yeah. So do you think that acorns or acorns however people want to say it is, is kind of the key right now as far as uh, you know, bed defeed goes. It seems like, I mean, they're they're just now really starting to produce. Um, we saw quite a bit on the ground just in different various spots, and uh, that's definitely what what this guy

with both of these deer we're targeting. So uh yeah, I would I would hone in on the akrons for sure. Well that's awesome, dude. I'm if I don't kill tonight, I'm gonna be honing in on some acrons too. So uh, I appreciate you hopping on dude, Appreciate your friendship and and I'm really uh just proud of your accomplishment. Accomplishment, man, it's a it's an awesome thing. I know, it's a great feeling. I've felt it before and it's uh it's

hard to beat. So congrats on everything, man, way to go, Nick, appreciate it all. Right. Now we've got Jesse Richard from Outdoor X Media. Jesse, how are you doing this morning? Man? Oh, not too bad. It's uh good temperature for this time of year. I'm okay with it. Yeah, it's different down here in Texas. For some reason, everybody in the world is getting cold fronts and Texas is it in here ninety something degrees every day, so we're we're burning up.

But uh, it's good that you guys are getting some weather. I'm sure that's helping the deer movement. Um, now you're trying to stay in white tail shape right now? Right? This isn't mountain shape or elk shape or anything, is it. Yeah? No, this is uh it's It's also college football season, so if you have to kinda you know, you go to the gym a couple of days of the week so you can tailgate and have a few and eat some horrible food during the weekend. So it's a never ending battle.

So are you a cyclone guy or a Hawkeye guy. I'm a hawkye guy. Uh hasn't been too awesome this year, but uh, you know, you gotta stay loyal little it'll turn back around, That's right. I really like you guys logo. Man, you'll have a cool logo. Um yeah, I would totally wear a shape like what's that the tiger hawk? Yeah yeah, dude, so cool. But so we're with the weather with football season. One of the things that makes Hall just the best time of year is that also you start getting cold fronts,

things start changing and the deer start moving. And you actually experienced this recently. You guys have been out I think quite a bit lately, um hunting and your daughter shot a really nice what is an eight point? It's it's a it's a ten pointer. He's got short short G four's um. But yeah, are full season. Our archery season opens up October one, but youth season has been open for oh about a week now. So and for those who are listening, this is Iowa. This is like,

this is where people dream of going. You guys lived there. Um, so I've been kind of falling what you've been doing. And you've you've been posting some trail camera pictures and stuff like that. Now lately have you is there a

reason that you feel like you guys were successful. Was there a was there a weather pattern or a moon phase or anything that helped you out there too, uh find success or you know, was it something in the trail cameras that you're able to see that led you to, you know, kind of find out this is a pattern we should key in on. Yeah. This, So this particular farm is owned by one of my buddies. It's a

it's a forty acre chunk. It's mostly agged but has one pretty decent draw and we have standing beans and I put in probably a three quarter acre Braska plot and this farm actually got rained. We've been in a horrible drought up here. One of my other farms that's less than five miles away until recently had had two inches of rain in three months, so trying to get food plots to grow, we're horrible. But this particular farm just caught all the little ones that the other one missed.

So the food on it's been really good. Uh. We run a bunch of cell cameras. I think I have forty fifty myself on multiple different farms. And this is one of the deer that was pretty regular on the cameras, so we knew that he was around and in the area, and he's a maturity or I don't know exactly how old he is. Um these these five plus based off of all the characteristics, but um we my other daughter

hunted the same blind a week ago. So it was last Sunday and we didn't see him, but when we were walking out, he was in the food plot by the time we got out of the blind that we're walking out, so he was ten minutes late. So I knew that it was it was a weather issue because it was uh, probably degrees when we got into the blind last week, and it was sixty four degrees on Thursday when she shot the deer. So that's a good

code from man. That's that. That's the kind of set that makes you excited for Yeah, we've had this short little burst come through. We had a had that hiccup of nineties plus degrees and then it's slowly dropped off. Uh, Friday was good. Also today looks really good. But it's gonna warm back up for a couple of days here in Iowa, not to upper eighties, mid eighties something like that. So it's it's September. It's a weird time of year where you get those highs and lows. Yeah, for sure.

So congrats to you all again on that great buck and the opportunity to get out in the stand with your daughter and put around an ear. That's really awesome. Man. As we look forward to, uh, you know that October one opener that you reference there, Uh, do you feel like food and water are going to be some of the key things that people need to be thinking about there across the central Midwest. So I don't know about everywhere else, but we have had an absolute amazing mass

crop this year. The acorns are I've I've bow hunted for over twenty years and I've I can't remember a mass crop like this. I mean, there are there are eight corns on trees that haven't had eight corns and they're dropping and it's it's something else. So it's my personal cameras on a couple of farms have been pretty dry recently. Um, it's between the deer shedding their velvet. I I've always called it the September scramble. When they're

shedding their velvet the acorns are dropping. You know, you get these weird weather patterns. I lose a bunch of bucks. I gained bucks, but I know they're still in the area. So if I don't have anything to go after, you know, consistently, you know it's close to daylight movement or something like that. I'm a big dough hunter. I'll go I'll go out whenever I can and start filling the freezer. That's cool,

that's exciting, man. So uh, you know, does are good for freezers and bucks or are also good for freezers and for having even more fun when you get to show off to your buddies. Right, So, as we think about maybe some buck hunting as well early this season, what do you protict the deer movement between a scale of one to ten to be specifically the buck movement as a season opens there, I think you're gonna have your pockets of of your home body deer that are

going to consistently do the same thing. I I've looked ahead to kind of the forecast, and we don't have a huge weather front coming through. We just kind of have a gradual fall weather, you know, in the seventies for highs, forties, fifties for lows, just kind of stagnant for almost the next two weeks. So it's it's kind of waiting to really go into your spot until you do get some sort of a weather weather front. You know, a little even even a ten degree temperature drop is

is huge to deer. It can get get those deer on their feet, you know, ten fifteen, twenty minutes earlier well, and get them to the food or into a transition point going to the food. It just really depends. And that's why we rely on trail cameras. I mean, the cell cameras are invaluable. Um, it's they're a game changer. Awesome. Man. Well, so if you're gonna show somebody this picture on social media, where would you send them just to let him see the picture of this big old buck that was shot. Um,

I've had it on my on my my social media pages. Um. We posted probably the best one on the Outdoor x Media facebook page. And I'm gonna probably edit the hunt this week and have it up next week. Uh, it's I got everything on video. I've I've been filming for fifteen sixteen years consistently, and it's it's fun. She my oldest daughter, loved it. I don't think she's killed the deer turkey off film. Uh, since she's been hunting. She's eleven, so she's got half a dozen deer and three or

four turkeys underneath her belt already. So that's awesome, man, Well cool, So congrats on that. Tell her congrats and we appreciate chopping on the phone with us. Yeah, not a problem on the phone. Now, I've got Matt Dye with Landing Legacy and he has been hunting and filming in Missouri and filming some big old bucks. I think, man, Man,

I can't I can't be more happy than been. Honestly, the way the season kind of kicked off for us here in south central southwest Missouri, it's been awesome encounters with some really mature deer and then some really good up and comers and uh, a lot of deer activities. So we had a great start to the opener. That's cool, dude.

So Missouri kind of has a would I think is a unique opener in the country where it's like kind of mid to late September and so you're not really hunting a true summer pattern, but it's not like fall pre rut stuff. I wouldn't say, but why don't you explain to me a little bit more kind of what you had been seeing pattern wise. Absolutely, Yeah, it's September fift Every single year is opener, doesn't matter what day

it falls on. September fifteenth rolls around and bow hunters take to the hoods and it is that cool mix of um, still some summer pattern. We've got some transitions, some food sources that happened pretty frequently during this time frame, so um, you're kind of catching that tail end of

summer activity. But things are due to change really a matter of a couple of days as season opens up every single year, and just depending on temperatures, depending on um, you know, whether you've got a mass production or not that year kind of determines if those bucks are gonna

stay on that summer pattern for longer or not. And um, this year, we have a really big white oak acorn crop through much of the much of the state, and we got kind of lucky that not a lot had fallen prior to that September fift date, and they're hanging the tree a little bit longer, and so we don't have all that food source being available and on the ground, so most of the deer activity that we were hunting was definitely revolving around in alfalfa food source and then

a brassica blend food source just right next to each other, probably about two and a half three acres um. Deer were absolutely piling into both of those food sources. Yeah, so you sound like you kind of have it pretty dialed. And I've known you for a while, man, you actually make you live in property management and you know, uh, I guess evaluating wildlife properties as a whole. So the place she'll we're hunting, is that a place that you've

put a lot of work into. So this is a place that are good buddy, Seth Harker, who UM hunt a lot with and it's part of kind of our our team UM from a filming and content standpoint. He has leased this place for ten, twelve, maybe fifteen years now, and he's a little limited on the amount of habitat manipulation that as an individual he can do. However, the land donor is very much into UM intense timber management, So sets kind of role as a least on this

place is very much UM food plot oriented. But then there is a component of clear cuts, there's a component of thin timber of edge feathering, of prescribed fire, of

pine plantations on this given five acre place. And so although not everything is revolved around um wildlife habitat manipulation like I do for our clients, it's still really good and it's above it's above um average, let's say, from the habitat that does offer and then sets done a great job of supplementing that habitat with really successful of food plot kind of regime. So every year it's it's

pretty much lights out. Got a great age structure. And that's the thing too, if you're if you're out there and you're listening, you don't have property to be that hands on and manage, you can still have a lot of influence on the age structure, on the deer herd itself by what you're shooting, what you're not. So he's done a good job of that. And in every year there's you know, four or five six target deer um on this place that are better. That's enough to make

me get the shivers for sure, dude. That's cool. So y'all actually uh capitalized on some of that uh you know kind of mid September action, I believe, and we're able to uh shoot really really nice. Speaking of age structure, buck right, can you tell us a little bit about that hunt? Absolutely. So the hunt took place over the

course of four days. Um, we weren't able to get out um the first day of season work schedule, and then we didn't want to push it because the wind wasn't just dynamite, and we said, you know what, let's just wait, Um, the next day is gonna be better. We're a little bit more free. So we didn't push the envelope one, but we hunted the um next two days consecutively. That was a Friday Saturday, and we saw thirty thirty five deer each night. And night number one

we had the book that he ended up shooting. A seven and a half year old tin pointer comes strolling out six thirty. We had an hour of daylight, UM left and he's at basically seventy eighty yards and the field is just full of deer. But the deer never comes within range during that night, and UM, We're like, well, I'm not terribly upset. I mean, shoot, we saw we saw a mature deer, We saw the target deer really

that we're hunting. Um, let's just get back in here and so same when the next night get in there, we ended up seeing another mature buck, and the one that we had hunted the night before came out in a different portion of the field, but a hundred and fifty yards away, kind of went to a different food source. Um, and we're kind of left with their head scratched a little bit like man, as as many deal deer piled

in here, Uh, why didn't he come right back? But nonetheless, we saw a four and a half year old buck um right close to hundred fifty here, and and he didn't come within range either, So we kind of made a little bit of a judgment. Call Um, the wind. The wind was gonna switch from southeast the first two days.

For the next two days is gonna be southwest and hunting out of a saddle the first two nights kind of on the west side of the plot, we've got a blind situated for a southwest wind on the other side. Made that gameplay. He took his son. The next day, Um saw the original seven a half year old tin pointer and then that four and a half year old They came into range rate at last shooting light and they're like, man, such another close encounter they're pounding this

food source. We got a good clean entry and exit, and we're like, we're gonna hunt it four nights in a row. Although temperatures yeah, right, pretty pretty pretty daring, but we weren't getting busted getting in and getting out and while we were in the tree, so we're like, we're not really educating anything. So there's not a lot of harm and and we're playing the win right um and and normally don't tend to be that aggressive in

early season. But at the same time frame, we're kind of we're kind of trying to run the race with the acorn crop, knowing that hey, it's a bumper crop this year. We don't want to push the envelope um and and try and wait out and try to give this field a little bit of rest. If they're still showing up during daylight, it's just a matter of time before they step within range during daylight hours two. So if they're coming, we're coming. And we got the right wind.

So the fourth night we hunted, it was ninety three degrees that day. It was the hottest day of them all, and we're like, man, this is this is warm. We're facing last as we're in this blind but um, just like clockwork, here comes that one four and a half

year old dyer. He comes out, starts feeding our direction um, and then about thirty minutes before darker last shooting light, whereas the sun was setting just to our left, about sixty five yards away, here comes that seven and a half year old tin pointer strolls out of the timber and directly into the plot, puts his head down, starts feeding, and fortunately for us, unlike the other nights, he made his way into the plot kind of fed to the center of the plot um much faster than other days,

and close the distance to forty yards um about ten minutes fifteen minutes of light left and Seth made an excellent shot. But those deer were just kind of jockeying back and forth between the fall annual blend of uh radishes, turn ups and uh sugar beets and that alfalfa. So he came within range and he made a great shot. Deer went about eight yards and pile it up. Man,

you just gotta love when they do that. Dude, that's just a true testament of hard work, determination and just you know, being committed to shooting true bucks and things like that. Payoff and that that is awesome. So as you look forward to uh, you know, the next week here as um, maybe those acrons do you start dropping? What do you predict buck movement to be like maybe

on a scale from one to ten. Well, I'm gonna say, really, looking at the weather that we've got, we've got load amid seventies and cool nights down into the forties uh for for the next week. Um, and that that temperature swing data, he's gonna be pretty good. And so I anticipate the deer, specifically mature box they're gonna be moving.

But I want to throw caution out there too, is they're probably going to be moving um as these acorns are falling in different locations than what they have for the last couple of months, going from shifting from that kind of green field soybean crop field food plot clover deal into more of a timber situation. So um, although it may not feel like they're moving great on your cameras, you got to make sure that those cameras are in the right locations. They're over um your white oaks that

are dropping and producing, and you'll catch them there. They'll be there, um. And and it's not that hey deer went nocturnal, It's just they've shifted patterns because we've got a different food source here. I'm driving driving back from Kansas right now from consulting and the other kind of thing to consider for a lot of guys if you're not in timber country with a lot of mass production.

As crops are changing. We got beans that are uh dropping leaves, We've got corn that's coming out of the field, and so those are some considerations that you should have to as again, food sources are really changing, uh this time of the year. Yeah. Absolutely, man, that's all good stuff to consider. You're always a wealth of knowledge, dude. And I know you film that hunt as well, so real quick, tell everybody where they had find maybe some of that footage and then also some other uh that

knowledge that you boys at Landing the Legacy have. Yeah. Um, if they want to see some of those harvest photos, UM, definitely go check out Instagram and Facebook Landing Legacy. Um that that hunt is actually gonna be on YouTube and potentially television um next year, So um kind of got a new thing happening there, so we'll we'll have some

more announcements on that. UM. But do encourage people if they like the habitat um talk they like manipulating their landscape um for the betterment of whitetail hunting or turkey hunting. Definitely check out podcast Uh we do to podcasts a week here at Lanta Legacy and were habits at nerds and plant nerves, but we love chasing big deer and kind of combined it all together. Yeah, dude, that's awesome stuff. Thanks so much, brother. I really appreciate your time today. Absolutely, man,

take care and you'd be safe out there. Guys. Be sure and check the description below to see more about what we have going on. What Mark has going on in some really helpful links that might help you as season gets started. Here in particular, Mark has a pretty good article about making things fun because it is important to have fun while you're out there. It keeps you rocking and rolling and having a good time and staying sharp on these deer. This is ret fresh, Keep it fresh.