Ep. 594: Mastering the Whitetail Rut with Skip Sligh

sweet sweet November. It's here, guys. We are in the month of November. We've been waiting on it, dreaming of it, now happening. Joining me today, we have got a guest who's gonna help us learn how to kill that November buck,

how to master the white tail rut. We're talking to Skip Slide and Skips kind of like, uh, he's kind of like an under the radar big buck o g. He's this guy that a lot of super serious bow hunters all seemed to know or have some connection to or they admire from afar, but he doesn't show up much on the on the TV shows that the podcast circuit and whatnot. He just kills big deer year after year after year. And what's what's particularly cool about Skip?

I think I might be biased here, but he started out in Michigan, just like me, just like a bunch of my pals you've heard from over the years. And he started traveling to other states. He went all over the place, learned how to kill deer in different kind of habitats, different kinds of regions. Chase that big buck passion all the way to Iowa and ended up moving there where he is to this day. And now he hunts and manages a number of farms. Um, he does

it very very well. You might have seen one of the deer that I believe he had a hand in producing, a two hundred and forty one in buck that his brother and he called angry. His brother Aaron, ended up shooting that deer. Last year. It was featured in a film uh Over on the on X YouTube channel. I think it got a lot of airtime there. This buck was on the cover of North American White Tail. It was all over the internet. Um, so that's the kind

of deer these guys are chasing. Um. Skip also owns the website Iowa White tail dot com, which is a terrific online message board and community for die hard deer hunters. I actually has spent a lot of time reading threads over there, even though I live in Michigan, I only hunt Iowa every few years. But there's just a lot of great deer hunting ideas and stories over there for anyone.

So that's what skips up to. He has a tremendous pile of experience from his time hunting all over the place, both you know, growing up and hunting in Michigan as a young adult, and then traveling to you know, Kansas, Illinois, Iowa, all these different spots. And today we cover a little

bit of everything. We do some background in the beginning, get to know his story and kind of how he came up as a deer hunter, and then dive dive really deep into the rut, covering you know, everything from recommended stands sites to his calling strategies, scouting UH dialing in, plans for hunting specific bucks during the rut, and a whole bunch of stuff like that. But before we get skipped on the line, it seemed like, you know, kicking off November, we needed to have a throwback kind of

feel to this episode two. We have to get back to the Wired Hunt roots. We gotta kind of get a little bit of that energy that Wired Hunt is known for over the years when the O g Speaking ogs, When the O g Old co host comes back on the show, Mr Dan Johnson is going to make a

surprise appearance here, folks. Me and my buddy Dan are going to take a little time here to do an intro o for the show, talking a little bit about our plans for the upcoming ruck, sharing a little bit of our insights and ideas leading into this most blessed month of the year. And fair warning for everyone, there's gonna be some of that typical Dan Johnson banter about family, about hunt life balance. Uh. You know, if you're a

longtime listener, you know what I'm talking about. This is uh, this is some classic Mark and Dan discussion that we're about to have here. So if you're new to the show, be warned, it's gonna get a little weird here for about thirty minutes, and then we will get to the main guest, which is skips Lie, where we have nothing but great deer hunting conversation. So I hope you enjoy this kickoff to November. I'm excited for this episode, I am excited for this month, and I am excited for you.

It's gonna be a great season. I hope by the time you're listening to this shoot it's November three when this sucker drops. So maybe you've already got your buck on the ground. If oh this bump, handshake, high five, whatever your style is, and if you haven't yet, keep grinding. Stuff's gonna come together. So let's get to my surprise guest, Mr Dan Johnson. So, my surprise special guest here to kick off the rut is none other than the Man from down Under, Dan Johnson. I don't know how you're

than the Man from down Under, but it sounded good. Dan, good night Might How are you buddy? I'm doing good. How are you? I'm awesome. I figured there's no better way to kick off November than for you and me to be back together again, celebrating our favorite time of year. Are you feeling it? Are you excited? Are you amped? Where's the like the Dan Johnson woo? Who? Yeah? So man, it has just been a crazy week here right, So, like I'm not quiet, don't bring down, don't bring us down. No,

I know, but here, here's where I'm at. Here's where I'm at. I am, I'm fired up, but I'm looking out the window fired up because there's a whole bunch of things that have to happen before I can get in the woods. Unfortunately, and so sick kids, right. Horrible

timing activities, Yeah, horrible timing activities. Um, I still have tree stands and trail cameras I need to take down on a on a permission piece by me that I that I lost the farm on so I can use those tree stands on the new farm that I gained access to. I have to check trail cameras on my main farm that I've been hunting for fourteen years. And so I see a list of you know, I'm excited, but I see a list of things that I have to do before I can start the process of the grind.

If that makes sense. It does, And I guess I can see how that chorelist might be a little bit of a downer. Uh So, yeah, So am I am? I am I Rick Flair right now? Not quite, but I'm about to be okay, So I'm glad that that's still in the future, Like that that will happen. Still it will. So so when did when did you lose this property and gain the new one? Has that happens in between s as we talked last, Is that just something we hadn't talked about. It's probably something we haven't

talked about. I found out that this I found out this summer that the landowner passed away. He was in his nineties, so it wasn't any big shocker. Um. But right away after the funeral and everything, the family decided to sell the farm. And so they're in the process of selling it right now. And so I still have access to get my stuff out and I can even hunt it for a little bit if I want. But I'm trying to get all my stuff out for they, you know, shut the book on this property. And my

tree stands are left out there. So I have three tree stands and two trail cameras that I need to get off. And uh it's it's sucks because it's the property that is ten minutes from my house. Yeah that's a bummer. Uh So, so real real quick, I want to like lay out real fast what my rut plans are, what your rut plans are. So how does this change your plans. Are you still just gonna spend your rucation down in your your main spot down south or or what?

How's that new farm factor? Yeah, the new farm factory factors in big time now. And it is in an additional hour and a half away from or roughly two hours away from my main farm that i've you know, down by where by where I live. And so once we start talking about the mecca of Iowa, this arm is in this three county area that dreams are made of type. So I got lucky with getting access to this farm. And believe it or not, it's not a lease.

I'm not going through an outfitter. I have permission on this farm, um and I and and I got it by blind luck, to be honest with you, and so I appreciate that, you know, appreciate this farm. But even this morning I had to one shooter for sure, one borderline shooter on cell camp fighting each other in front of the in front of the compraman. So yeah, so, uh, my internal hypeness is at an all time high level.

But so I lost this farm, which is convenient, but I gained a farm that has the potential to get into that one seventy category that you know everybody dreams about, and so I'm I'm excited. Wow, yeah that exciting. So so hold on the main farm that you've been on for fourteen years. That's already pretty mecca. I mean, that's like in the neighborhood of some of the best of the best out there, right, Is this Is this actually

noticeably better than that? Yes? Wow? Like like like undoubtedly, yes, dude, Like like there's mature deer on it. It's hard. It's gonna be hard to access because I can only access it through like a sixteen a sixteen foot gap in offense that like tractors and stuff can drive through, and then then it's surrounded by other private that I have not I have no access in, so I can only access it through one way. But let's I'll put it

to you this way. There are three year old deer that are on this property that are gigantic, and if I was a land manager, I would be passing passing these deer. If he shows up, I'll probably shoot him just because of the sheer size of his antlers. But I hope he doesn't show up and makes it through the year. So he's a four year old next year, you know, like that that type of scenario. And I'm not saying this to like Bragg. I'm just trying to tell you, like, that's how lucky I got with gaining

access to this farm. So it's like you went from being married to uh, I don't know who's like the top notch thing right now. I'm struggling. I pay so much attention to deer, I the pay attention to pop culture. This this metaphor isn't gonna work. I guess you went from living in a mansion. Yeah, you went from living in a mansion in Uh. This one's not gonna work either, and you found the best place in the world of sounding. So here I have it here, Here's here's what Here's

what happened. I went to hunting a really good farm in Iowa, uh, to hunting any even better farm in Iowa. I mean that's that's exactly what it is. So so. But but with that said, I still don't have UM. I still don't have any intel because I haven't checked any trail cameras on my main farm yet. UH. Cell cams are dead and so I haven't. Man, it's been

like two months since the cell cams. I haven't been there in two months, and so I have to I want to make sure that before I go all cards in on this new farm that there's not a really good deer on the main farm that is already set up. Basically, right, I know everything about the main farm and and how to access it and and where to go. I need to check some cameras to make sure basically to commit on where I want to start out at at least. So this is nuts, hate you, but um, what's your

what's your what's your rutcation? Like? What how much time do you have when you get to start? And and so is your start day gonna be his first day? You drive down the main farm, poul cameras, see inventory, see what's going on, and then you're gonna make a game time decision. Right then? Is that? Is that what's gonna happen this afternoon? I'm gonna be able to go take the tree stands and trail cameras down on the

on the farm that I lost. Tomorrow is gonna be a day trip down to the main farm for one thing only, and that is to replace batteries and check SD cards and then come back home do the Halloween thing, do the activities thing, and then starting actually on I'm gonna get the kids on the bus on November three, which is a Thursday, and that is going to kick off my rutcation. What's your You're like plan a plan of attack this season when it comes to the run. If you had to be like, this is my number

one thing I'm planning on doing. Whether this is on your main farm or the new taj Mahal, do you have something in mind like, Man, I really think I'm gonna stick to what's been working these last few years and hunt these dough betting areas or do you have some different approach that you want to try this year, like what's what's plan A? No, the the approach is to do the same exact thing that I do have

have done every year. Right, So I'm I'm on a I'm on a streak of seven years in a row, connecting on a on what I am going to call a shoot like what I justify as a sheoter caliber deer found success by rotating tree stands, by getting in good terrain features, by hunting dough groups and having impeccable access routes to those locations, and once I get in the tree, then that's when I roll the dice with wind action and and uh, that's what that is where

I get aggressive, not necessarily with access routes, and so I just I put in my time. I make a judgment call on if this area is good or do I need to bounce and go to a different area on the same farm or now I have Now another thing I have to think about is is the new farm gonna trump the old farm? Or because of this

how small it is? I mean, it's it's like a hundred and sixty acres, but it is tall and narrow and all of the all of the I would say action is on the west side of the farm, and the east side of the farm is just like a mode grass field. All right, And so now I have to say, all right, am I gonna am I gonna have to bounce back and forth between these two farms? Am I gonna have to you know, drive two and a half hours to to the to the main farm and then wait for the wind to change and then

head back to the other farm. Because if there's any east in in any forecast, which I'm gonna be getting the first handful of days in November that the new farm isn't gonna be an option Like anything east, I don't feel I'll be able to get away with. So once it kids out of the west, a straight north or a straight south, yes, but anything out of the

east is just really going to be dangerous. So a lot of it depends on wind direction and a lot of it depends on what the trail cameras on the main farm the old farm tell me right off the bat of where I'm going to kick things off. H Okay, it's a lot up in the air, like very very much game time decision kind of plan you've got here going on the roccasion. Yeah, And that's the thing like

I have. I've always told myself, I make all these plans right and say, Okay, the first week, I'm doing this, the second week, the rut, the pre rut, I'm doing this, I'm doing this. But every every year I get to this point and there's no plan. It's just once you get the opportunity to get in the woods, make the best possible decisions with the conditions that you have, and and just cycle through that and there there you go.

You know, you just you keep you just make the best judgment call with the best conditions, and that usually leads me to a spot where there's there's deer movement. Well, you know, our our our guest today actually has kind of a similar take on how he hunts the rut.

For specifically, he's usually after like a specific supermature buck and he's found a lot of times, like he just needs to know he's in the zone, like if he can get a picture or a couple of pictures that tell him like, all right, the bucks in this basic zone. And then he has like four or five six different spots and he'll just kind of rotate around that little

core are that ten acres or whatever? You just keep cycling and he doesn't overcomplicated, he doesn't try to obsess over well as it is it going to be in this specific spot today or this specific spot because of the wind. He's just gonna slowly cycle through this core area because he knows the bucks in there now, and he'll eventually chip away at it and then eventually he gets his opportunity. Kind of sounds like you're not too far off that, right, I Mean, it's the exact same thing.

Last year's buck was the exact same thing. I had H one two three trail camp yeah, three trail camera pictures of the deer I eventually shot. And I've talked about this on this podcast before with you Mark where I you know, I I put dots on a map that I draw the line in those Johnson dots on a map with lines connected them as circles. Approach. Yes, yes, exactly, and so that yep, that should be on a T shirt.

So you did that again, right? So I did it again, and sure enough I put myself right in a really good terrain feature and he showed up, and luckily he showed up like for me, luckily he showed up on the first time into that into that stand. But that's kind of how I do it. I don't necessarily say I'm going after a specific deer. I will locate a specific deer and go after him, but if another one shows up, you know, I'll I'll you know, I'm not gonna not shoot a a shooter caliber deer. And so

that's really the approach. Man. It just it's it's it's not it's not bullet pointed. It's more fluid. Yeah, hey, if it works, don't you know, don't fix if it ain't broke, So I, uh, that's right. What about you, man? Like, are you're done in Michigan right, because you're not shooting a second buck at home? Well, so what's your rut? I take off this weekend and we'll be heading to Nebraska and then Ohio. So then the Braska hunt, uh will be kind of the same general area as I've

hunted the last few years. Well, I hunted their last year, and then like three or four years before that hunted there. Um, So there's some public land I can hunt, and then I also got permission on some private that's kind of down down from that public So plan or starting points Nebraska, this is like river bottom stuff with grassy hills and plains and the outside and then a little bit of

cover along the river. So it sets up like really cool for the rut because there's not a lot of cover, and these deer, if they're gonna cruise, they're they're mostly gonna be staying along that cover like the doughe betting is in these thin little strips along that water. So you know, you couldn't get much more simple of a setup for the rut. They're gonna be cruising the river, you've gotta be along the river and then they're gonna

cruise by. So it sets up nicely for that. It sets up nicely for decoying and calling because it's a lot of open visible space, which I really enjoy um And so I'm gonna bring my full decoy. I'm gonna bring the rattling horns, gonna bring the grunt tube hopefully get eyes on something and make some noise. I'm gonna bring the handheld decoy, which I tried for the first

time last year. And if I see a situation that you know that really works well for and and the situation that supposedly this works the best with is when you have a buck locked on a doll and like you can spot them like lockdown somewhere, betted somewhere, then you can stalk in close and pop up that decoy. If I see that, I'll try that. Um, but I'm not going to force the issue like last year I forced that, like that was the only thing I did

the whole trip. This year, I'm going to start in a tree, so I'm gonna bring the saddle set up. I'm gonna sit these little pinch points along the river. Um by that dough betting and hopefully catch something cruising. But you know, we'll have options, and uh, there's some

there's some good deal out there, there's not. You know, I'm not counting on a giant, but you know, I think I've got a good chance of that, just like a nice decent mature buck, um which i'd be I'd be stoked about up there and uh and then whenever I finished up there, I'm gonna drive straight to Ohio. And uh had like a long roundabout way of getting a piece in Ohio. This year. It all came together a really last minute. Um, like in October, after the

season had already started. Um, me and a buddy I thought we were gonna get on a piece down in one part of the state. And then for a whole bunch of weird reasons, that fell through like a week into October, and so like the second week got October, then I had another opportunity to kind of pop up, and that end up working out. So what that led me to was like mid October basically picking up this new it's like two little parcels down right by where I used to hunt back in the glory days down

there in Ohio. Um, literally like just a couple of properties down the road from me and for result spot. So that's exciting because I know that neighborhood was like really good, like there's always really good deer in the area. Um, like there were some giants in the area that we'd see in the summer and that we some pictures of. So so I'm back in that neighborhood, which I'm really excited about. Um. The properties are kind of like like

they're okay, neither one of them. There's like I said, two parcels um totaling a hundred and seventeen acres between the two of them, but of like huntable stuff. It's really more like I don't know, like thirty five acres maybe of actually hountable stuff just so minimal trees stand locations. Yeah,

minimal tree stand locations. Um. Like one of the like the there's like a thirty five acre piece and that piece is like two thirds open field, like not really huntable at all, but there's like thirteen fourteen acres a timber in one corner and it's like really good. Like I went and scouted one day to go scout and it's like epic betting in there. So like that's a really good spot in there, um with with good multiple tree stand locations in that little thirteen acre block of

stuff that connects into bigger things. So that's a good little piece. Um. The other chunk is is a bigger chunk. It's like seventy four rakers or something like that. UM. But it's about half of it is fenced with cattle in it. And you know, I've had mixed success hunting around cattle. UM. It's yeah, it can be tough. The fence is like a brand new fence that's like five ft high. It's like not your usual barbed wire fence that's like waist high. It's like that little bit higher one.

And it's like five strands barbed wire super tight. Um. So you yeah, it's definitely not across the bole fence easily. And it's it's more like you know when you have those short bar old barbed wire fences out there, like you can see where there's low spots and the deer always crossing and stuff. This is one of those fences where you're like, I don't know, like a buck has

to really have a good reason to cross this fence. UM. And so I'm a little worried, like they might not ever cross the fence, and uh, unfortunately, like all the cover in that section is outside of the property, and like the fences, like all the fences inside the trees of the field, so it's like basically a cow pasture and all that. I could see a bunch of deer, I'm sure, But am I ever gonna be able call something over a five ft and a half foot fence

or whatever it is? I don't know, So that that chunk there, I'm much less confident and after walking it um compared to what it looked like on the map. But the bottom half of the property does have like a small chunk of timber like six seven acres down the bottom that attaches to a piece that's like a sanctuary like sanctuary. So that the redeeming quality of this whole thing is that I'm tucked in really close to this sanctuary that I know has big deer that don't

get touched. So I just need, you know, some of that stuff to trickle over into my little corner, and that's that's what I'm going to be banking on with that. So that's like a big wild card. I don't, I don't, I know, I've got the potential for something really cool to happen. But I also could see these two little spots being you know, really really hit or this. Um. But it was a last minute pick up, and I'm I'm gonna try to, you know, throw up, throw a

dart and see what happens. Yeah. Well, at least you have the yeah, at least you have the layout, right, I mean it sounds to me like and you and I both know just from hunting enough years that being next to a really good spot can make your spot really good. Yeah. Yeah, and especially during the rut, I mean right, you know, any anything is possible during the ruts. So so you know, I told him, I plan Nebraska. My plan Ohio is going to be, you know, depending

what cameras are telling me. If if if that little betting chunk on the small property is on fire, um and there's a good buck in there, I'll spend some

time over there. If not, I'll try the pieces next to the sanctuary and just you know, be down as close as I can be that sanctuary and have my glass up and hopefully catch a big buck curse and somewhere and right all or grun them in and get into my side and just hope for some of that RUT magic because I don't have like the primo premo habitat and the stuff I can hunt, but I'm I'm

really close to it. So um, you know, it's hard these days to get a really great spot unless you've got a ton of money you can throw at it, or you know, get awesomely lucky like you did in that case. So I'm making the best of what I've got and uh, and hoping the rut can can make it happen. But betting areas and I don't really have funnels, but i't me hunting betting areas and close to betting areas and trying to call them my ways is basically going to be the plan I can I can use

for my route this year. Yeah, well you can always fall back, you can you can always fall back on that uh, that fall and distress call that I saw you use online the other day. You've probably got a chuckle out of that. I got the biggest chuckle out

of that. And as a matter of fact, um, I have been pure pressured into making fun of you because of it, because there's and like there's there was one guy who reached out and he said, Dan, if you do not make fun of Mark for this, I'm going to stop listening to both the Wired to Hunt and the Nine Finger Chronicles podcast. I know that's awesome. I know one I record, I'm like this, I'm gonna look

like an idiot. But people wanted to like to hear what it sounds like, like like, how do I how do I demonstrate this and not look like I don't know an idiot? But you know what, you know what, as long as you're not doing it in front of like thousands of people online, as long as you're doing it in the privacy of your own dear stand, it works really well. So so don't do it. They have a turkey and duck. They have turkey and duck calling competitions.

I wonder if they're if you're going to kick off something and have like competitive fall and distress call competitions. I'd owned that ship. I would absolutely own it. You would dominate five time world champion Mark Kenyan. Yeah, man, if this whole podcasting doesn't work out for me, that might be the next angle I take. Yeah, you're like that guy from the movies. I don't know if you've

ever seen these movies. Because they came out before your parents were born, probably, But Police Academy, there was that one. There was one guy who could make all those different noises with his mouth. Yeah, I haven't seen it. Yeah, I thought you were gonna I thought you're gonna bring up point break. But oh no, No, I can't reflect on point break right now. But I'm sure if you give me enough time, I can make some kind of killing.

I'm sure you'll get there. All right, we gotta shut this down because folks do want to hear from Skip Slide. You ever talked to Skip Slide before? You know who he is? Yeah, dude, I know Skip. He's from Iowa. I no, he's He's one of those guys down in your neck of the woods who hunts an amazing Iowa farm. Um, well, he's coming on the show next, so we should probably wrap this up so people can hear from someone who who really knows what they're doing more than you and me. Um,

what tell me this now? After about thirty minutes of you and me talking about our rut plans, talking about the best time of the deer hunting season, do you have that Rick Flair energy? Now? Whoa there we go alright, baby is the rus here. It's sweet November, dude, this is it. Let's have some fun. Good luck Mark, good luck to all the listeners, and uh god, I hope everybody connects me too. Man. Let's let's circle back here in a week or two share our success stories. Huh

sounds good. All right, now without other way, let's get to Skip all right here with me on the show. We have got Skip Sly. Welcome to the show, Skip, well, thanks for having me. I I appreciate making the time here. We're recording just at the end of October, so I know stuff is about to get crazy for you. I'm sure it's about to get crazy for me to um. But you're a guy who you know, We've we've not been able to talk before, but I've I've keep on hearing your name. I keep on seeing your name pop

up kind of in under the radar stuff. You're not like you're not on the Mark Jury like TV show kind of stuff. But like all the serious deer hunters know whose Skips Sly is. I keep on getting people say, hey, you gotta talk to Skip, you gotta talk to Skip. So yeah, I'm kind of under the radar by design. Um, I'm I'm you know, I'm a little bit more of a private person and my public persona, if you will,

is more like I like helping younger hunters. Um. A lot of people helped me because I started from scratch. My parents didn't my family didn't hunt, uh, and I had a lot of mentors along the way. So that's kind of where I dive into the public sphere is how can I help people with hunting habitat stuff like that? So that doesn't you know, it doesn't put me in the public light, and I really don't want to be in the public lights so much, so I live a

pretty private life. Um. But when when there's an opportunity to help people, uh, you know, especially younger hunters who are you know, just craving good information and stuff like that, that's that's where I like my focus to be. Yeah, I think I'm thinking this is going to be one of those chances. There's me a lot of people listening today wanting wanting some quick tips and some some ideas and some advice on how to how to make it happen during the RUP. But I gotta ask you one

thing before we get into the nuts and bolts of stuff. Um, you were just telling me a second ago that we have a shared mutual friend, Andy May, who's one of the best bow hunters I know. He's the guy who's been on this podcast a lot. Um, you both were kind of coming up in Michigan at the same time as younger hunters, figuring this stuff out, and you were just telling me off air how the two of you started traveling out of state and comparing notes and talking

about what I'm going here, I'm going here. Um. I thought that was very interesting that both of you kind of starting in a tough state like Michigan and then branching out and you, of course ended up moving to Iowa and he ended up staying here in Michigan. He's still doing the traveling on the weekends, you know, kind

of weekend warrior kind of stuff. Can you give me like a five minute kind of background of of what that journey looked like for you and how you ended up discovering what was outside of Michigan and what drove you to Iowa eventually. Yeah, it was Um, it really did have a lot to do with mutual connections Like Andy.

I mean, I think most people find guys and you know, similar ages or in similar kind of journeys in their in their hunting journey, if you will, UM that are trying to see other things, trying to find better hunting, trying to have new experiences, and UM that helped me a lot to be able to bounce things off of people.

And even to this day, when you know, I'll talk to a hunter from was kind On Center in Minnesota or something, I'll you know, I'll just ask them about where they're at, what's the hunting, like, how's it changed in the last decade? Um? But to UM, to go back to the beginning there, I grew up in UM in a county in Michigan that had very little timber, a lot of people, and very few deers. So UM, I started hunting a little bit late in life. It was maybe fourteen years old when I got into it,

and UM, nobody taught me how to hunt. My parents didn't hunt. I had to have my mom dropped me off at places and UM, so I got into it really late, and I, by definition had to have won the award for the worst hunter on Earth. I mean I was. I was absolutely terrible. Like I would just show up there because I had no idea what I was doing. I would show up there with my bone arrow, and I would just take a nature walk. I didn't sit in tree stands, I didn't sit in blinds. I

just walk around. And and after one season of h or the first part of the season of just seeing, I saw some tales, I saw some deer running away. I thought that was just cool. And then very quickly, you know, the education started. And it didn't take long until I until, you know, I got I got to know. Some folks are like, you gotta get up in a tree stand. I mean, this stuff was I'm talking really basic things was new to me. So, um, you know, I'm fourteen years old and finally learning how to climb

up in a tree stand. Uh. And I did get Um, I did get a buck the first year I hunted by pretty much by miracle. And then and then it just went from being the worst hunter on Earth two going deeper in that rabbit hole, and and getting into better hunting and improving my skills, getting into new areas, getting on a new farms, and just trying to experience everything.

So uh, I got to hunt later in life when I was about nineteen, when I was in college, I hunted down in southern Michigan, and then I lived in Traverse City for a little while. Really tough hunting up there. And then my uncle had a place up in the up which I visited a few times, mainly just because it was the middle of nowhere. It was just cool to be out there. But um, that was a situation where you really could go a week without even seeing a deer um, which was probably the worst scenario of

all of them. And where I grew up in West Michigan wasn't far off though. I mean, when you saw three, four or five bucks in a whole season and they were a year and a half old, that was that was a good season, or that was a typical season.

And then when I got down into the farm belt, I mean that was the first time I saw two and a half year old deer, you know, getting down in Van Buren County, Chelmasoo County, Alsodden, I saw two and a half year old deer, and then all of a a sudden, I saw three and a half year deer,

and then we shot one. And then my brother, like I was telling you earlier, um, a few years later, all of a sudden he shot a hundred and seventy eight point in southern Michigan, and our eyes were just opened, and that kind of, you know, that that event kind of started the floodgates of Wow, what else is out there? There's a hundred and seventy two in eight point in Michigan, which was incredibly rare, I mean, just a freak thing. Um, But where else can we go? Where else is it

considerably better? Because all I had knew up until that point, just before hunting and Van Buren and Kalmazoo was you know, Ottawa County where you shot a year and a half old, maybe got a two and a half year old. So it just it just made me go, let's find better places. Let's go let's go where it's managed better, or where there's where they're actually is big deer. You know, all I knew was seeing some big deer and magazine covers and on. There really wasn't much for hunting shows back

then there. So that kind of started my journey. And and so you start exploring what was out there. You then started traveling. Where all did you travel to? What were the different states you tested in those years? As you were exploring the different regions and kind of chasing that white tailed passion. So I started out my first year was we went to Illinois, and this was back

in the late nineties early two thousand's. Um buddy mine said, hey, there's this place called Pike Pike County, Illinois, and there's Giant Bucks there. So I started doing as much research as I could. I mean, I remember that when I was just starting to like get on the Internet and stuff, and UM, so I would look Pike County up and I would start talking to people and and they're like, yeah,

it's it's really good. And a lot of people from Michigan started going there, and clearly, you know, it's never stopped and it's it's became one of the most publicized counties in the country and probably had some problems because of it. UM. But I said, well, since Pike and I did figure this out way back then, I said, if Pike's that publicized, let's maybe start out at um

some counties around there. So I just did some research which had low populations of people, which had a lot of timber, and which had a good composition of egg two timber, and I came up with with Fulton and Skyler County just by doing research. So once we had those two counties down where I said, I think this is where we should start them. We loaded our car up, my friend Ross and my brother went and we just

started knocking on doors in in the springtime. And everywhere we knocked we got permission right out of the gate. It was the weirdest thing, um. And then we we kept knocking on doors and eventually we had a bunch of people that are like, well, you know, I let people hump, but you gotta pay me, you know, hundred dollars a day or a hundred fifty dollars a day. So I mean I didn't have it. We didn't have it.

So so we finally got permission on two different from two different farmers, and they each had um kind of farms spread out all over like, hey, there's an eighty over here you can hunt. There's one sixty over here. We got two hundred over there, and you know, some of it was pasted or some of it was timber, a lot of it was wide open fields, but there was enough big timber around there. And I said, okay, now we got you know, possibly ten, ten or twelve

different little farms we can hunt. So let's get to work. And you know, we scouted it all spring and hunted it for the first time that fall, and that was that was my first experience being in a new state and and learning what what a lot of different level of management was like. Yeah, and uh, from there just went crazy. Huh you yeah, kept doing it. Yeah, I

I know, I didn't really like Illinois so much. I mean everywhere we went, UM, it shuffled really quick, Like every place we got permission on, you know, the next year it was leased up. I mean it changed rapidly, I mean rapidly within five years, and we'd go to the next place, and then eventually I knew what was coming. So I chowed up. There was some money because that was my only option because I wanted to go there. Um, but there was just it was really intensely pressured from

honest state folks. UM. I saw it change really quickly. So we started going to uh, Kansas, Nebraska, and then Iowa, uh in a few other states, Missouri. UM. So we we bounced around to a lot of different places, and you know, for me, I didn't I didn't know which one would be good. I didn't know. Um, I didn't have a lot of expectations. I just knew there was a lot of potential. So um, you know, fast forward in I uh low twenties, actually is when we started

going to all these other places. I went to Northeast Kansas and we ended up shooting phenomenal bucks in Northeast Kansas. It was just fantastic. Uh. And clearly I fell in love with Iowa. Um. You know the first the very first time I hunted Iowa. The first morning. I mean this maybe it's why I wound up here, I don't know, but the first morning I shot a um like a half hour in the stand. I shot a hundred hundred and seventy seven inch here, and you know it just

points all over. I mean it was it spoiled. Man. I'm like, oh my goodness, I hunt the state for a half hour and I shot at one seventy seven. This this is the greatest place on earth. Clearly, clearly that was a fluke. But um, yeah, I fell in love with Iowa right out of the gate, and I still I still will go out to Kansas. I love Kansas. Um. It'd be my my next next place of passion and where I'd go if I couldn't hunt Iowa. Um, I don't think, uh personally, I don't think somebody could pay

me enough to go back and hunt Michigan. I just couldn't do it. Uh. But I mean I love it. I love it out here. And now I live in Iowa, raised my family in Iowa, and I have farms in Iowa. But um so I'm in a really good spot now. But you know, that's the progression of over twenty years, I mean twenty five years of going from the absolute worst hunting scenario I can imagine um to one of the better ones. Um. And there still is I mean in several states. I mean there's some amazing pockets to

be found out there. Uh, it just takes some motivation and time to seek them out and to learn them and and to put the years into um to figure

mountain hunt him. Well, I love this, this background you bring to the table, And the reason why I kind of wanted to start there is that there's a lot of folks who share deer hunting advice on TV shows or podcasts or who write articles, and they have only ever hunted in Iowa, or only ever hunted in Illinois, or they grew up in Kansas and that's where all their experiences, it's all of their advice, all of their you know, everything they're bringing to the table is just

on that kind of deer. And as you know, it's a different situation in Michigan or Pennsylvania or Georgia or New York State, whatever it is. So I love that, I love that you have this experience in both. And I guess the people in Iowa there is a lot of people or Kansas or Ohio. There's a lot of people from Michigan actually, or Wisconsin or Minnesota, Pennsylvania that have moved to these areas from those really hard to

hunt states. And and I'm not necessarily I'm not talking about myself, but those people who have had to grind it out in those really hard states to hunt, who are successful there. When they come to a place like Iowa or Kansas, or Ohio or um parts Illinois yet uh, and they hunt there, they usually flourish because they've they've had to grind it out in the toughest environment known.

And then when you put them in an environment that's I mean has a lot of potential, they do really really well, and they oftentimes do better than the folks who have lived here forever. Yeah, Yeah, I've always thought that these are great training grounds, really really good place to train up. Absolutely. So let's let's then explore a couple of things that you've found over the years. We're talking the rut. This is coming out like right smack dab at the beginning of the best time of year

for folks across the country hunting during the rut. First thing I'm curious about is how would someone be hunting the rut differently in a state like Michigan versus a state like Iowa. Let's let's talk about if you had to I know you would, you wouldn't do it even

if somebody paid you. But if you had to go back to Michigan, knowing what you know about it back there, what you learned, what did work for you in those years, what would be some of the things that you'd be doing there that might be different than all the guys

on TV are saying about Honey Aisle or Illinois. Yeah, and and you know what what I and I listened occasionally to what a lot of the guys say on TV, and there's some good advice out there, But I would say you'd have to sift through it um, and it is usually I wouldn't pay attention to a lot of it. UM. So that's that's really tough to sift through things when you're just hearing on TV, or if you're just hearing it from someone who just wants to sell you something.

That's tough. But um, you know, going going to Michigan, if I had to start out back there, um, I mean clearly, if if I had to do it, I clearly would target areas that have the best white tail habitat, have the best age structure, and the best potential. This is if you're going for a mature Buck or a better scoring Bucks, stuff like that. Um. And clearly I think most people would know, hey, let's target the southern

tier of the state. So so we've got our geographical target, and you know that's that southern tier is considerably better in my opinion than the rest of the state. UM. So with that, I think generally our approach, especially when I was younger, UM, was kind of the shotgun approach where we didn't we didn't just bank on one farm. I mean, we had to play a numbers game. We had.

It was a numbers game for us. It was you know, being out in the springtime and you know, putting in the work to say, hey, you know it was just me and my one brother at the time, but hey, we got forty spots picked out. That took a lot of time. I mean, it took a lot of knocking on doors, and we went to a lot of places that were crowded and well we already got five guys hunting in there. And at the time we said, well,

you know, we're we're okay with that. And so we'd find all these different places anywhere we could get in. I mean it wasn't uh necessarily really well managed farms. I mean, it was just by permission. So after that, I think the game for us in Michigan just became one a numbers game. Like I said, just having a lot of setups, um that we're done right, uh deepen

deep into the timber would be an example. And and one thing I think that that helped us be successful in Michigan that we don't have to do necessarily in Iowa as much. Um it was we had to hunt around the people, so where the people were, we avoided that. You know, you go out to like a um lake and you don't know what you're doing fishing and people see other boats and they go towards those boats. Well

that's where the fish are. Well with hunting, when we saw people in certain areas, we were trying and avoid that, and we just try and go, Okay, how far back can we get and where can we find these spots that are killer? And I can define what killer is, and I mean there's a lot of variables there, but how can we find these killer spots? And how can we find twenty of them? Mean, it's a lot of work. Anybody can do it. Anywhere you can, you can do this.

It was a lot of work. So how can we find twenty different killer spots that don't have five tree stands hung around them already? And that was a really hard task in Michigan, really hard, but it can be done. It can be replicated over and over and over. So I would say my brother and I probably had twenty, maybe even thirty spots picked out across as many farms as we could, ten farms in southern Michigan. And you

know that would be year one. So hey, we've got twenty spots, I'd say thirty, um, and then the next year we'd whittle it down to hey, the you know, we we take ten of those spots and we those aren't good. Those were not well thought out spots, a lot of problems or just didn't have luck, and we

tweak them. We tried to add five and ten more good spots, but we generally would go back to extremely thick cover um terrain changes within the timber, you know, massive sign if you could find scrape lines, rub linds, whatever, it was just differences way back in there. Um. And that could be so many different scenarios way back in the timber. Uh. But the obvious spots we personally kind of avoided them, like, hey, this timber right here gets narrow going into a um, into a couple of fingers,

it's a natural funnel. We didn't really hunt that because usually there was three, four or five tree stands are already they either screwed the spot up or the deer that was in there it was already dead. So so I would say, um, you know, long story made short. Hunting around the hunters was critical, and just getting back into those um those beaten up areas as deep and overlooked as possible with h with the best sign was was our model for success back in Michigan. Yeah, that's

that's interesting. Now, those obvious kinds of funnels and things like that, when you're hunting in a lower pressure state like in Iowa, you can still hunt those in your neck of the woods now though, right, it's absolutely and we had to retrain ourselves when we got out here, and um, and there's even different different tiers between you know, when we came to Iowa. Hey, yeah, it was the same thing to some extent. Yeah, you can hunt this

eighty acres. There is two other guys hunting there. There's three other guys hunting there. Um, But there was generally more more box, more a better age class of box, and you could just get away with a little bit more just do to the fact that they're they're simply was just more older bucks. So if one guy tagged out, there was still probably another mature buck in there, an older buck in there. So yeah, I mean, we we did the same thing in Iowa right when we got here.

We just we'd hike way back in there. Um. And sometimes it was on public land, sometimes it was on permission, but we just we were so so wired to hike way the heck back in there and we had great success doing it, but then we realized, hey, we don't necessarily always have to do that. And you know, from there that was you know, twenty years ago, um to now. It's it's still an evolution of how how we do things.

And I'm changing things even now, and five years from now, all hunt differently than I hunt now, and I'll learn new things. I mean, this learning on this never ends. And there's like I was talking to earlier, there's no magic answer. If you do this, if you use this product, if you hunt this spot, this type of spot, you're gonna shoot a mature here. It isn't It isn't that

simple at all. Yeah. You know, one of the things when folks talk about the rut you hear a lot about is you know, generically high level people will say, well, you gotta hunt funnels or you gotta hunt dough betting areas, and you gotta put in a lot of time. And that's true, all true, and I say the same thing that the basic principle of it. But it's a lot harder for especially newer hunters to hear that and then find something like that on the ground that actually matches up.

And they're like Oh yeah, this is the thing. Um. And while you were just talking, you're mentioned like you're looking for these killer spots, and you'd have twenty or thirty these killer spots. It got me thinking that it could be it might be really interesting and helpful for you to just describe, like in detail a few of your killer rut spots now and like why, like specifically, why this spot works so well for the rut? What kind of situation would you hunt this kind of set

up in? Um? Because getting these like clear examples sometimes can illustrate a concept so much better than just generically being like, well, hunt type pinches of timber, YadA, YadA. Are the setups that specifically come to mind when you think of your best rut setups that you know have worked for you time and time again, that we could talk through. Yeah, I've got tree stands that I've had

up for a decade now. Um. Starting out, I mean, you know a lot of times we were just moving around, we rarely hunted the same farm more than a year or two. So now I've had the luxury of hunting the same farms for decades and and a lot of my sets I gotta go change the straps puts a chain on them because I don't know when I'm going to get back there, and I don't want the tree stand to grow into the tree. But it's just a

proven spot over and over and over and over. And you know, when I visualize all these spots, um, I don't necessarily want folks to get caught up on trying to understand exactly what I'm describing, because there's so many diverse types of killer spots I have. I mean, I've got this spot where the river just bends the right way and it just it fun these deer um towards this end of the timber. And then there's this this natural um kind of wash out of the creek bank

where every deer will cross. And then you go you go down the river from that crossing, and it's just a wall on the on the river. It's just a wall where the deer can't get up it. So so you found you know, two, it's probably two hundred yards of wall. And then this major spot where the river bends that naturally funnels them around and they're naturally coming up this river bank and I mean it's just the highway there and then it intersects another trail within there.

So you get there and you go look at this massive trail, which is very basic. I mean, there's a massive trail, doesn't mean there's a giant deer there. Doesn't mean, um, you're gonna kill a deer there if you sit there. But there is a lot of traffic. And then you found this intersecting trail. Uh, and then beyond that you follow it back in and there's just you know, rubs and scrapes, and then and then it it goes into a um into a really thick betting area or kind

of swampy type of area. So there's all these cover changes. Well, um, it's just so torn up and I can access it reasonably well that during the rut, if you sit on a spot with that much traffic, you're gonna see a lot of deer. So that just puts kind of the odds in your favor. And I've got another spot like that where it's kind of in the bottom um off

of a ridge. And my my worry there at the time a decade ago, was that my winds were gonna swirl and every time I went in there with like a little um milk weed or or whatever, a little thing to check the wind. I would notice for whatever reason this spot, my thermals would just get sucked up. And I can still hunt there any day during the rut I want, and I don't hunt it very often, but um, I never get ended there and for whatever reason, my thermals go up. Just how the how the wind

moves through that spot. But it's got like three ridges that all just kind of come down, and all these paths off these three ridges just intersect by this tree stand and then there's a big betting area to the north. So they're all kind of you know, those types of spots I would say, are kind of deeper into the timber. Um.

It's just an intersection of trails. It's a it's a terrain change where you just you just look at it and you just say, look at look at the cover, or look at the trails here, look at the deer sign here. It's just every year it's the same. It's it will it will be a great spot twenty years from now, it'll be it'll be a great spot this year, it will be a great spot forever. Um. So we've

got a lot of those spots. And then the key and where I think a lot of people maybe make some mistakes, is hey, I got I got two spots like that, and they just hunt them over and over and over. A lot of guys do what the common hunter does, um, And the key is is to have twenty spots like that, and you know, now, um, I've got I've got a lot of other spots that are

quite quite a bit easier to hunt. But I guess my general rule of thumb, now uh, without getting into like, hey, I'm hunting a specific buck or you know, hunting um specific farm for reason is you know, I probably have maybe five for just myself, maybe five tree stands that I can hunt on any given wind. So if there's a west wind, I got five different stands I cannot if there's an east wind, I have five different stands I can hunt north wind, etcetera, etcetera. So I just

have a lot of options. And I'm very very careful now not to not to over pressure anything. Even in Iowa. Even in Iowa it still has done. There's a ton of mistakes done in Iowa. What about during the rut, that idea of over pressuring your spot, would you say you can get away with more of that during this time of year than you know, early in October. I mean to three hunts has got it? Would you say that's less of a big deal than to three days

in a row on October one? Three? Yes, if it's if it's just yourself, if if if it's just you in this secluded spot, maybe it's the way the heck buck back in public, which does exist here. I mean there's there's some two mile hikes out on some big public tracks out here, um where you can you can occasionally find the spot where it really isn't a lot of other hunting pressure. So if it's just you, yeah, I mean two, three, maybe even four hunts um in

a really ideal spot. And if you're you're kind of going, hey, I want to hunt this spot because just because I know it's a good spot I know there's generally as mature box on this farm or amature buck on this farm that may use it. Um, you know, three, four

or five hunts I think is probably fine. And then you know, if if you want to be more aggressive about it and probably smarter about it, you know, those those spots like that, you probably a vantageous to get in there early in the morning and stay till the whole day. I man, it really is not benefiting you at all if you can And I did this a lot more when I was younger, and I do a

lot less now just because different reasons. But if you can stay there all day, it's very very worthwhile, especially in in states like um I or or even Michigan when when the deer are really running. I mean there's been a lot of instances where it's ten thirty and all of a sudden, you know, I'm bored out of my mind, I think, And also nicee the deer I want to shoot or one o'clock. I mean, so yeah, three or four or five times on an ideal spot, if somebody else isn't isn't goofing it up, I think

it's very viable. So there's that. There's there's kind of two schools of thought on that kind of scenario during the run. There's there's one school that's say, all right, if you've got this spot that you have really really high confidence in, if you hunt it three days in a row all day, event, sure leave that buck will come through. While the other school will say, no, you should be constantly bouncing from hot sign to hot sign.

If you have a bad day, don't sit there anymore, because you know the rut the rut fest might be a half mile away down on the other side. You gotta be bouncing around until you find the hot action. If you had to choose between those two choices, either volume hunting a spot you have really high confidence in for that three or four day window, or bounce bounce bounce, which would you say is the better chance for consistent

rut success? Um? I would say, if you go in there the first day and you see your target buck and you just aren't able to get him an arrange for whatever reason, I'd go back to that spot. If you're in there the first day in your hot spot and you're seeing just a lot of activity and you don't feel like you screwed anything up, I would go back.

If you go into your target spot and it's extremely slow, um, or you know you feel like, man, I just bumped a whole lot of deer getting in and out of here, or a lot of deer winded me, and you know I would I would move. So clearly there's not a writer or a wrong answer here. I mean, the guy that says you should move if he you know he could get proved wrong by the guy that stays because there's no perfect answer here. But UM, I think by the end of day one, I would adjust based on

what I see. If I'm seeing a lot of maketure, dear, if I'm seeing a lot of deer period and I'm like this, this spot is on fire, stay put. If it's if he um or problematic at all, I'd get out of there and try something different. Okay, what about if you're after a specific deer you know, I know that's something that that you it sounds like, have done

over the years plenty of times. How does your approach to all of this picking a killer spot, determining whether or not you're gonna bounce around from location local location, or stick it out. When you're shifting from just oh I want a good buck too, I want that buck, how does your rut strategy change drastically? So, UM, I would say I've been hunting thirty years, and I would say it's the last ten years when I transition from almost exclusively hunting for a good buck that I didn't

know what he was. I had no idea what this buck looked like. I just knew I had to go in aga buck, look at him and go yep, I want to shoot that deer, you know, And clearly a lot of that time was before trail cameras were around, um to the last ten years, going hey, these are the bucks I want to go after. And when I find a buck I want to go after, or a handful of bucks I go after. Um, you know my approach of hey had permission on five six seven farms.

You know, there's probably a handful of those farms. I really won't even hunt unless I'm just kind of like I want to burn a day, or you know, I just want to sit or or do an observation stand at at a farm that I don't think has my target buck. So um, I'll just focus on that farm or farms where that mature buck lives, and then I kill a lot, probably half of the maturity right now. I do now in October UM, which somewhat can be

related to the rut. I mean, these these deer are getting a little more aggressive, They're not tolerating other bucks. So I killed probably half of them in October, and then when it gets in November, my U strategy changes drastically. I go clearly from the deer that is traveling, you know, three hundred yards from bedding to food and he's kind of in that that scrape, rub and food pattern. You know,

just a small travel area. Now it's just expanding and it's just getting larger and larger every day, which is good and bad. So if I have a radius of where I say, hey, this deer lives, I want to have you know, maybe five stands in that area for different winds. And for me, it's a little bit of a crapshoot, but it's a little bit going, Okay, these

are the best trails. Um, this is the best uh you know, maybe maybe it's a spot where this this buck is cruising the edge of a field fifty yards in there, checking all the um the trails in and out of there for those you know, just sending the whole line, you know, obvious spots like okay, I know I can hit a buck on this wind cruising this timbered edge, and then there's a spot over on the other side of his range where you know, there's a

major crossing there, and then there's another spot that's kind of a funnel. And I'll just pick maybe five or six of the best spots I can come up with which that's a variety of different types of spots that are in his core range. And let's just call it, like, you know, an eight core range of where that deer is. And I'll just try and rotate it unless unless I know, hey, I I saw him here, and then I'll probably you know, change it as needed or hanging to stand as needed.

But um, I'll just kind of rotate in his core area. And and usually you know, you put in the time, you do things correctly, you button you, you cross your tees, dot your eyes, and do thing and hunt hard. Usually you're gonna get a glimpse of that deer. Um, unless it gets too late into the rut where a lot

of these deer who knows where they go? Sometimes, I mean there's deer that I I've you know, on my home farm that I'm like, I know this dear's personality, I know uh a lot about where this deer lives. And there's certain periods where it's like, man, you caught that window where you just don't know where he is. I mean, he could be locked down in a weird spot with the dough that you're gonna have no chance in getting them really, Um, he could be a half

mile away, two miles away, whatever. But that that's when I think it gets the most difficult, is when it gets deep into the rut um on on hunting a

specific box. So so to circle back and make my long, long winded answer shorter um earlier in the rut early November, late October up until maybe November seven or eight, when they really are with does I would say, finding an eight to acre core area and just kind of having that that area around that box geography pinned down with at least five or six different spots that you're like, I think there's a good chance he'll travel through here.

I think there's a good chance I can see him here, or you know, this is the type of scenario where he's going to be cruising in here looking for dose. Mm hmm. Now what about that next phase once he gets to that with a dough phase November and you're saying he might be gone, he might be locked on a dough You just don't know. Uh, you still want to hunt him though, possibly What would you do in that situation? Then? How do you make the best of that tougher situation? So I got a dear um maybe

five years ago. Um I been. I actually went back to hunting closer to food, and a lot of times those bucks will take a dough and you know, try and just put bringer into a weird spot for a reason. Weird spot as in other deer don't usually go there because he wants to just keep her out of sight. Well, there's sometimes there's those scenarios where you can't do anything about that. But I said, you know what, I want to try and find this buck. So I went back

to hunting near food. And sure enough, this dough came from a totally different direction as all the other does and small bucks that I saw, Like, that's kind of odd that does coming from over there. It was like coming from like right by the road. And this dough comes into the bed or into the into um into this egg type area where a lot of the deer feeding, and right behind her was the buck. I was after him, like what in the world they were bettered by the road? Well,

she has to eat, she wanted to eat. And he I could tell that this buck did not want to be there. He did not want to be by these all the other deer, and he didn't want to be by the other bucks. And sure enough, the other bucks um started coming in there and harass in the dough. He'd run them off, and you could tell he didn't want to be there. Um. And he came about fifty yards away and just was on that dough. There was nothing I was gonna do to call that buck off.

I mean, I could, you know, potentially try and do like a a little buck ground to where it ticked him off, but I mean it didn't work. And and if if I even did it, and he ended up just kind of getting her out of there, and I'm like, dang it, I missed my my opportunity. Well, ten minutes later, she said, hey, I want food, and she came back to that egg field um, and he was. It was

just a lucky thing. I mean he was right on right behind her and boom, fift in front of my stand is where she walked, and I knew because she walked there he was following. There's nothing he's going to do different. I mean, he is locked on this dough. When I shot that deer at fifteen yards, I mean it was a a six or seven year old buck um. And part of that that's just luck. Uh. Part of that is just changing my strategy a little bit um and realizing that there's just going to be an odd

areas a lot of times during that time. And that's what a lot of people will probably call the lockdown phase. And the lockdown phase means that buck is probably uh out with that dough in an odd spot. And the last thing I'd add to that, you know when you're in the lockdown phase, Um, it's kind of saying like most of the bucks are lockdown, doesn't mean all of them.

And I also understand, like you know, that lockdown phase is gonna last for two or three days and there will be a light switch that happens where it's like, hey, he's done with that dough. Now he's looking for the next one. So I'm always kind of ready for that phase to change. And it is a very real thing that I see every year. You don't know when it's gonna hit, but I definitely see that lockdown phase where it's very difficult hunting. My buddies are frustrated, you know,

I get the text message I'm not seeing anything. It's just like stick with it, stick with it, um, give it a few days, try a few new things, try some new areas. You can't give up. So it gets to be a little bit of a mental game and a little bit of understanding that. You know, any mature buck that's locked down with the dough, it's still a matter of two or three days and he's going to come off that dough and he's gonna become visible again.

So so speaking of this whole buck locked on a dough situation, um, you know, I've found I think a lot of people have seen where when a buck does have a dough like that, they'll they'll stick to a kind of tight spot. He'll he'll get her in some little patch of cover and he'll want to keep her there as much as possible. She might go to feed here and there, but it seems like for that twenty four or forty eight hours or whatever it is, they'll they'll be in a in a zone. And some guys

like to get really aggressive with that. And then if they see the buck like better with the dough, some guys will actually try to stalk in there, or other folks might say, Okay, he was in that cover or he left that cover tonight, I'm gonna be in that little one acre of of cover, you know, tomorrow morning. An hour before daylight and they're gonna come back to it. Do you ever do something like that or what do you do when you see a buck with a dough and you know, like, all right, he's on or now,

um they're gonna be back there or do nothing? So yeah, I mean that's clearly um, clearly no right or wrong answer here. I mean, if it's a situation where I'm like, man, they are right on, you know, there's a little hump before uh, Like if I was driving down the road by my farm and I noticed the giant buck was like in this little plum thicket. It's kind of out in the middle of nowhere, Like what in the world,

which is what we see? I mean that when people notice this type of stuff, like why is there a buck out always with the dough and there's these weird possible if I knew, like, hey, you know, there was a way to stalk up really close and there was some kind of visual obstacle where I could get close, absolutely I give it a shot. How often does that happen? I mean rarely. I maybe have done it one maybe two times in my whole life. I'm just me personally.

I'm just not super effective at that. Now, other guys might be just ridiculously talented at at um stalking on a deer. And if you're if you're talented at at stalking a deer, um, I would say go for it,

of course, and it certainly is worth a shot. Uh. Now on the flip side of that, you know, I mean, if I saw it like at noon, I might I might try and hunt hang a stand somewhere close to there where I think you know, they're probably they're probably not gonna sit there the whole day, they're gonna get up and go. Is there is there some kind of spot I can hang close by where I might be able to get them where I think they might go

by um? Or yes, uh, you know, if there was a way to get in there, you know, super early the next morning in the dark and hanging stand and be close in there absolutely is worth a shot. I mean, when you've got that kind of intelligence, like I just saw a giant buck, I mean, you gotta you gotta just try anything possible, um, whether it's stalking, whether it's

setting up close by, whether it's setting up immediately. Um. I mean, that's that's for sure a case of getting aggressive when you have a target buck that you know of and you know exactly where he is. That's that's rare, great information. It's not easy, but it's all awesome information to have. Yeah, So speaking of intel, and you know, getting that information you can make make a decision, figure out to hunt from. How do traill cameras factor into

your rut hunting if at all? Are they less important at that time of year? Are you religiously still studying them that kind of you know, in that first week or two of November, or what's your data kind of analysis? Look? Sure, Um my personal approach which is different than everybody else's. Everybody's got a different view on this. Um, I just want to know a box in the area. That's it.

And if he's at an exact spot at such and such time, I mean, okay, especially during the rut, the very next day, he's probably going to be in a slightly different spot. He might be in the exact same spot, but I just want to know he's in the area and what works for me, which is different than everybody else, but what works for me if he's in that area, then I any any given area, I've got five six seven spots pit around that area, and and like, hey, it alluded to before, Like you know, I've got to

I've got to stand for a west wind. I'm not I'm not going to go to that spot where I think he's in the general area and hunt a spot that's blowing right into into the bedding area or something like that. I'm still gonna play the wind. Um. It's probably not going to be an absolutely perfect wind, but I'm still thinking of the wind. I'm still cognisant of the wind. I'm never gonna beat the wind completely unless you get a situation where your thermals are going up

in the air. Um. So I'm thinking about the wind, I'm thinking about my entrance and exits, and I'm just probably spending my time rotating around that that current intel that I know this book is in this area. Let's say it's forty acres, and then just rotate my spots is close to where I think he is as possible, hunting smart spots, hunting correctly, um, and not making a host of mistakes that I personally think a lot of people make every year. What are those what are those

worst mistakes that folks make during the run. What are some of those things that come to mind. So I would say, uh, you know, I'll get a low cliche here, but you know, your entrances and exits. We hear this

all the time. But uh, you know guys that just do not think about their entrances and exits and they're walking through a pick cornfield in the morning when you know that there's all the deer are probably out there when it's dark and you're blowing the whole field up or walking out through, um, you know, when there's a when there's a whole lot of deer out there. I mean, just just pressuring the deer in general, even during the rut, I think it's detrimental, and hunting the same stand over

and over and over is clearly detrimental. And these these are kind of elementary things, but at the same time they're not because they see them done so much. And then you know, you'll know this. I mean, I know I'm preaching the choir here, but guys probably know the guys were you know, Hey, I hear the guy across the fence. You know it's uh, it's nine o'clock in the morning and he's rattled eight times already. I mean, everybody knows that guy well, we know that at least

I know you don't do that. Um, I don't do it. But yet every farm I've ever been on there's that guy. So you know, I would avoid that type of thing. Um, hey man, But when I rattle, it seems like bucks come in. Sure. Sure, you know, usually it's a three year old, but uh or a younger deer. Occasionally it works. I mean I do rattle, but I would say, limit your calling, limit your rattling. Um. And then you know

your tree stands setups. I mean, when I get into a farm and you know there's eight foot tall ladder stands. I look at a lot of these spots. I mean I see them often eight and ten foot tall ladders, and I'm like, how in the world you draw your boat on a mature buck. It's crazy. So you know, I would say, I hunt on the on the higher end of the spectrum. And I know there's a few buddies of mine out here maybe that will hear this like that. I've seen my stands, and in the is

kind of a Michigan thing. But in Michigan, man, we got up there. We got up there because everybody, a lot of guys hunted low and I'm like, I don't want to be seen. I want to get any advantage I can with the scent. And I mean, we were in the clouds up in Michigan and I've had to dial that back now that it came to Iowa. But um hunt, high limit your calling, watch your entrances and exits, Rotate your spots, especially if you're if you're putting pressure

on those deer um. You know, your scent control. If you don't think scent control works at all, fine, I don't care, but you know, don't be sloppy with your scent going out there with this figurette smill gas moll. I mean common sense stuff that a lot of guys

can't avoid or it's tough for them to avoid. So you know, if I go out there smelling like a slob uh and I'm walking to my stand and I don't and I'm touching everything and crossing all these trails and I smell awful, I'm gonna burn that stuff out quickly. So you know, it's kind of that checklist of ten not not too It's ten important things like don't do this, don't go out there and do these obvious things. But

a lot of guys. You know, we'll fall into like oh I'm I'm I did eight of those correctly, but I screwed up on two. You can if you want to do this consistently, if you want to get on mature bucks consistently, you can't make those two mistakes. You've got ten mistakes you can make, and you can't make any of them. I mean we're going to I mean, nothing's perfect, but you're trying to minimize those mistakes and minimize those kind of obvious things like well everybody says this,

Well there isn't two things. There's ten things, and don't make those ten mistakes and just keep doing it and doing it and doing it. You know, effective good spots without making the mistakes. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Do not get burned out. This is a mental game. You understand that you may be kind of exhausted six seven days into this, especially if you're hunting all day. It's it's very hard on your body. In your mind. Um, it's exhausting. I

mean I wind up kind of tired. Um come November if I've hunted really hard, especially all days, and it's like, well I'm sitting why is it? Well, it's it's just really tough on you. So just understanding all that and pounding through it. And you know, the guys that are mentally tough, that can go hunt those ideal spots over and over and over, that don't get frustrated and throwing the towel or stop their trip early, are generally going to be vastly more successful. I mean, it's common sense,

but it's still worth repeating, very true. Have you found well, how do you handle the mental grind of that? I mean you brought it up. It takes a lot of mental toughness and perseverance and even physical uh, perseverance and toughness to make it through, you know, a week or two, grinding it during the rut, day after day, all day many times. Um, how do you handle that? What are the things you do when you find yourself really burnt out? How do you push through that? How do you how

do you make it through that? Um? So I've definitely evolved, and I would imagine that a lot of guys who are twenty I would suggest doing what I did it when I was in I was twenty and I'm forty four now. UM, and a lot of guys, if you're listening in your your twenties, you'll probably be more like me at forty four. I mean I've changed how I do things and change how much I hunt. Um, I change how I just try and be a lot more

efficient now. So um now, and I'm in a position now where you know, I live right here, you know I live. I'm on my farm all years, so I can do a few things that other people can. And I'll just list to things that maybe somebody can't, but maybe a few people like yeah, that does kind of make sense and it sounds easy, but you know, um, I just try to be more efficient. Like if I notice, um, the temperature is going to go up into the seventies in November, can you still kill a mature buck? Then?

Apps rebolutely. But those are the days where I'm like, you know what, I'm probably gonna take a few days off. It's in the seventies. It's a deer walking around and running around like like us with a winter coat on in the summer. It's not comfortable. So the deer movement is going to be very suppressed. So I just say, you know, all those those days that are not ideal, I just I take them off, and um, you know, I I kind of picked my days a little bit

more on the weather and the barometer. Like the temperature and the barometer. I mean, I don't need an app I just look at Hey, the temperature is going down. Even if it was seventy and now it's it's fifty. Still touch form. Okay, that's fine. But the temperature went down, the barometer went up. I go up, temperature goes up, barometer goes down. I don't go out usually. Um. Now, if you're in a situation where hey, man, I took vacation, I took November three through ten off, I have to go. Yeah.

I would hunt every single day unless it's just a catastrophe. And I we used to go out when it was thunderstorming out and it's forty winds. We still went out. It was yeah, exactly, And we were just so intense back then. And now I'll be honest, now you know twenty years later, I don't do that. I just oh great, I'm sleeping in, I'm making a big breakfast. I'm gonna relax. Um. So you know, I would say, what's changes. I'm a little more efficient. I picked my days more carefully. Uh,

the days off, Um, I try and enjoy them. I try and do something a little bit active. I think it's a little bit tough maybe mentally for hunters when you're like, hey, I'm sitting all day, I'm inactive. Well, especially if you're a guy that's used to being fairly active. That's you know, it's it's maybe good to have a

day to relax and move around. And um, I'm making this up, and this isn't what people are gonna do, but hypothetically, if I could take a day off that's like really warm and go pheasant hunting and like walk around a field and get get my blood going, um, get some exercise in, it's actually really good. I think it's really good for like the long game of hunting on enduring it to just you know, get yourself reinvigorated.

I mean, technically, if you if you hunted hard for ten days and we're sitting there, if you went back home and got a day in of a couple of days in of exercise and going to the gym or whatever and just getting back into the routine, you'll probably

be right ready to go back at it again. Um, which is why I you know, I don't think we usually ever had trips past about ten days, because I knew we would just we were so burnt out after about day ten that now I've just kind of adapted and said, all right, I'm gonna hunt in five, six, seven day segments and go really hard, but but try and have a little variety. And and man, if you can pick your vacation, like with any flexibility, like oh it's getting cold during this time, this is in, you know,

a week out, pick your vacation, that is so advantageous. Yeah, yeah, you know. Another another take on that I've heard is I remember John and Chris Eberhart used to talk about this a lot. They would, uh, you know, pick a morning or two during that rut where they would allow themselves to sleep in, and you know, they'd still get out in the woods by nine or ten, but they

would hunt the whole day from that point on. And they you know, they've seen so much of that great activity on those rut mornings happening mid morning anyways, that they could you know, reduce their burnout a little bit and still probably hunt the best parts of the day in their mind, and um still felt like they got a good day in that way. So I thought that was an interesting kind of similar to what you're saying there.

I used to feel guilty about taking any time off during the rut, but I think if you can, you know, ten straight days where you are not at your best might not be as good as nine days at your best with one day arrest. It allows you to be really at your top mental fitness level. Yeah, pick your battles. I mean, you know, don't take the day off when um, the temperature dips down fifteen degrees and it's you know, five mile win and it's crispy, and you know, um,

you know the bucks are moving. I mean, clearly, don't take that day off. But uh, when you know, maybe it's during lockdown, maybe you're like, dang it, I have had a day where I hardly saw a deer. It's like the lights which went off. Yeah, that'd be a great day to change it up. Um, And you know there is maybe the occasional guy that can be I don't care, I'm just gonna push through. And that was kind of us when we're in our twenties. And now, I mean I could do it, but it wouldn't it

wouldn't be probably the most effective thing. So yeah, I think, um, balance is really important, and and picking the right times to say, yeah, let's let's take a paul us, let's regroup, um, and let's um reinvigorate ourselves and be ready to go out, you know, in a day, you know, the next day and hit it hard. 're very smart to have that balance. You were talking a second ago about the mistakes folks often make, and one of those things you mentioned was overcalling,

too too much rattling, that kind of thing. Um, I'd love to hear about what you think is the right way to do those two things, because this is that time of year everybody wants to be making noise out there. Um, how do you go about grunting? When do you do it? What's the right way to do it? And then same thing for rattling, I'd be curious about both. Sure, what works for me, um, and what works for me is different than what what somebody else might think or their experiences.

But UM, kind of my recipe for rattling and for grounding, I always have them in my pack. And UM, I do not do much blind rattling. When I do blind rattling or blind calling, it's maybe maybe twice a day, and it's maybe up till November seven or yeah, probably six or seven is probably the end of that. UM. And I sometimes I don't rattle at all. But if I'm rattling, uh, seven times ten times in a day, no, no, no, no, no, I I personally think you're doing yourself a major disadvantage.

So I would say blind rattling very limited. Even in Iowa, Kansas, say there's lots of mature books, it works better. I mean, did we have a lot of a lot of luck rattling in Michigan? No, not a lot, A little though, a little. Actually, that's how my my brother shot that hundred and seventies eight point. That was a mature, old old deer in Michigan. I mean, just a rare animal. Um, He's at fifty or sixty yards, and he saw the buck and he did some light rattling and pulled him in.

So that's when calling and rattling, I think are the most beneficial is when you actually see the animal. So if I'm hunting a new area or an area I picked, I'm like, hey, this spot night might not be perfect, but I can see a long ways. I can see over this giant's rap field, or you know, I can see up this hillside or across this egg field. I just I only do it basically. When I see that buck,

I want to call in. And when I see that buck I want to call in, I will if it's real far away, I probably will start with rattling if it's if it's a distance, because I want to make sure he hears it, and i'll know right away if this deer is usually i'll know if he's interested or not, and i'll hit the horns together where he clearly can't see it. He's not gonna pick me off. I mean,

that's that's obvious. But you know I do it in a way where this tears are not watching me rattle, and I just watch this year extremely close, and I'll know how he reacts. And he's either going to react three one of three ways. He's going to either react and go I don't care, I'm not interested at all and keep on his business, or he's going to react and probably start coming right into me, which is clearly

the most ideal. The third way he's going to react is he's gonna go I'm interested, and he's gonna try, and he's clearly going to try and swoop around or start kind of doing a moon shape towards my direction, and and I'm okay with that too. And if he's interested, if I lose sight of him, I might rattle one more time. Um, and then I might grab the grunt too. And then I if I still see him, if he's if he's interested in the horns, and you know, he's slowly coming in, I might grunt and see how he

reacts that. And sometimes that just like it's the last little perk, the last little nugget that they're yep, I'm coming in. And then and then it's just a matter of do I ground again? Just what's it gonna take to get him into range? Usually if I've called twice and he's coming right at me, he's gonna get to me. Um. So then I'm just you know, slow myself down. Uh. Now, it's all about the shot, calming myself down, the metal game, making the right shot. Do not release heat arrow until

you're ready, slow slow slow, um. But if he's kind of iffy or you know, he's not, cann't come in range. Now it's you know, what else do I do to call? Do I grunt again? Um? Do I lightly rattle? You know? And and that's just getting slightly more risky the more you rattle. But um, I'll just call until I can

get him to come in. So uh that's how I've I've killed a lot of boxes is just visually seeing them, um and watching their attitude on how they react extremely carefully rattling or grunning, um, and and then basing the next move on how they react. And some bucks react uh great and come in. And some bucks are like, I want nothing to do with that. Not interested, signora, You're never gonna see me again. So um. But I mean we've killed a lot of tier um doing that.

And I mean the buck my brother killed last year, uh, the giant, I mean it was two hundred and seven years old. Uh, seven year old. Um. You know that buck was at I think sixty or seventy yards in in mid October. Uh, and my my brother was just able to really lightly. He wasn't he wasn't creating a fight or like an aggressive situation. He was just saying, there's another buck in your turf. That's it, there's another buck in your turf. And that pulled that buck into

fifteen yards in October and in November. It's a little bit different. It's not just hey, there's a buck in your turf. Now it's a tuck that I hear a buck and he's getting ready to breathe a dough. So they're just more aggressive. So just understanding there's differences between October and November. And then the last thing I would say about rattling and grunting is like, you know your next phase or maybe certain hunts where you're like, hey,

it's late November. I think late November site calling and rattling when you see a box effective very effective to UM because they're usually cruising for a dough. But if I'm kind of finishing up my hunt for the morning, you know, hey, I'm gonna go back in. It's ten o'clock. That's a time when I'll do a blind rattle. I really don't have much to lose, UM, and we've had

a handful of cases. It's not like it's like, man, this works every year, but you know every five years where I'm like I'm just about to pack up, I'm on a rattle or grant one more time, just kind of the fun of it. I'm a little bit bored, and sometimes we just pull a buck out of its bed it's bedded down for the day, or you know it's just over the hill and boom, we pull it in and either see it or occasionally you know it's the buck you want to shoot and we've shot them

that way. So, UM, I would just say, don't overdo it. But my my method that works for me is site rattling and calling would be eight of how I use calls and rattles specifically, when I see that deer I want to shoot or pull in. Now, what about this?

Is there any difference between your calling strategy when it's like one of these six or seven year old bucks that you're typically targeting now versus if you were trying to call in a three or four year old buck you know, you know twenty years ago when you were targeting those deer. Is it is it different one way or the other at all? I don't notice much difference. I mean, they're either interested or they're not the six

or seven year old buck. Um, just because I have the luxury now, just because I'm older, I have I have my farms. Um, I know the deer, and you know, I get to know. It's not like I'm with them every day, clearly, but I get to know a little bit, like, hey, I saw this deer when he's two, three, four and so on. I get to know their personalities. And some deer are like people. They want to fight, they're aggressive, um, their maniacs uh. And certain deer are just very timid.

So I think it's more of a dear personality thing. Um, certain three year olds are going to be very timid. Certain three year olds are going to just be extremely aggressive. Um for a mature bock, you know. I would say over the majority of the time, they are filled with testosterone and they at least are willing to investigate or hey, I'm willing to fight. I mean, they're almost all willing to fight. There's a few that are like, they're just timid,

timid deer, and I would say that's the exception. But um, I would say it's more related to personality. And I think you're gonna know. I think you're gonna know when you rattle or grunt to that dear, you're gonna see how he reacts. And it might be different how he reacts in October November, late November. Sometimes he might and clearly if he's with the dough, he's not interested at all. But um, I think you're gonna know within you know, less than thirty seconds, if he's like, yep, I'm not

putting up with that. I'm gonna check it out. I'm aggressive. I want to find out. Uh. And you'll notice those personalities. And I've definitely seen the bucks that are like, no matter when I've called to him, I have no interest in getting into a fight. I'm just not that type of deer. And I'm just a timid deer. And then that makes it, you know, definitely more challenging. What about decoys? Is that something something you're pulling out this time of year at all? Mm hmm. I never have had luck

with decoys my buddies, Man, I love decoys. I I I've had a lot of luck. I pull him, I pull him in with decoys. I don't, um. I I would much rather just call to a deer that I see. Um, I don't you know. Part of it's just preference though it's not a right or wrong answer, it's just you know, hauling a decoy out painting the butt for me. I don't want to mess with it. I usually don't. I'll be honest. I just don't need them. Um. I'm usually

trying to hunt spots where I can eat. I know that I'm in an area that you're going to naturally travel past me UM, or I'm in an area that I have a good chance of calling it deer in. So I feel far more confident for myself. Doesn't mean this is right answer at all, but I feel more confident for myself that I can have better luck calling a deer in than them seeing a visual reason to come in. And so I've never I'm when I was

a kid, I tried it a few times. I take that back, So, yeah, I have tried it a few times, and it's just it's just not my thing. I don't need it UM And I just feel like I'm I'm more successful with without it and just hunting the types of spots I do. Yeah, makes sense, uh, speaking of the types of spots you hunt, you were talking earlier about, you know, you you walk on the property and see these ten foot tall ladder stands and you're wondering, how

could somebody ever get get away with that? Um? That got me thinking about a dilemma. I often faced with it. I'm sure lots of hunters are faced with And I always sit there and debate this back and forth in my head, and I want to run it past you and see what your take is. Imagine this scenario. Imagine you are sneaking into a spot and you don't have a tree stand already set. Maybe this is a new spot you just picked up access to, and for some reason you think, man, it's the rut. I gotta get

in and hunt this new area. It looks really good. And let's hypothetically say maybe you're you're coming up and you're realizing all this looks like an awesome betting area and you want to be, you know, on the downward side of it, and you're trying to pick the tree to hunt, and you have a couple options. You've got one tree that is, you know, easily in rain of

those best crossings. Let's say there's a major trail paralleling in the downwind edges betting area, and maybe there's two trails coming out of the bedding aar and they intersect with that parallel trail, all of them within about fifteen or twenty yards of this one tree. And let's say there's a big old hub scrape right there at the intersection to a couple of rubs coming down the lanes, and this tree, though that's within range of that is like a bean pole. It's a lousy tree for cover.

And there's actually also a second trail that's gonna be downwind of that tree as well, so it's it's not great cover, and there might be deer that get down with you, or there's another tree. But this tree is gonna be like forty one yards away from that scrape and those trails and that great shot opportunity, but it is downwind of everything, and it's a nice oak with like six different limbs coming out at two, so you can get up in there. You'll be perfectly hidden, nothing

will get downwind of view. Which of those two trees would you pick the one that's easy range, the best spot, but you might get picked off, you might get winded by a deer. Or do you take the long shot and the super safe bet and hope to call something in or hope you can get that longer shot and make that work. Um So I think that would be a little subjective on uh, you know, if I'm going for like, hey man, I got two days to do this,

I'm gonna go for the bean pole. The bean pole scenario just because I'm gonna get up there and I'm gonna understand that I'm sitting in a bean pole and I'm just gonna sit incredibly still. And you know, if I've got time in advance. Um, if I found this in the spring or late winter, and I scouted and found the spot, I might put a spot in both both trees and try both scenarios. Um. You know, hey, I got my safe bet and then I got my

other one. But if I'm in that bean pole, you know, if I find that spot early, I'm probably gonna go up there, uh in trying to add some cover. Like sometimes I'll hang like cedar branches and stuff up there just way above me or you know, things to break up my cover. Sometimes I put cedar branches like in the um in the front of my tree stand just

to try and camouflage myself in. And then I'm I'm pretty darn good when I know I'm in that situation of just sitting incredibly still, just incredibly still, UM and just doing these just conscious slow movements, slow movements in my head for scanning. And I usually don't get picked off if I do that. UM, But if if I'm skylined, I mean, you know, if I know, if I know there's no possibility, if I have the feeling there's no possibility I'm going to draw my bow without this book

see me, then I won't hunt it. But if there's any chance that, if there's any confidence in me, that's like, yes, there is a situation where I can do this, this and this and hunt carefully and draw my bow on that mature buck, I'll try it. Um, So I would say, probably I will try and make that beam pole tree work. Now, the the extra answer to is if I'm hunting that area year after year, I mean, hopefully I find the

third option, which is, you know, a better tree. But uh, in this um, in this situation, you know, maybe I'll um, maybe I'll manipulate the trail. I'll go in there with my chainsaw, uh and try and manipulate their movement or create a trail closer to that more ideal tree. There's a third option, and I do that often, Like, hey, you know, this tree over here is ten inches in diameter, it's gonna be really hard to sit in it, and

this one is further. And then then during the off season I'm doing things to get them to move closer to that ideal tree, which is habits at manipulation, which is um. You know, you can do that with chainsaws, with um weed, whippers, with you know, dumping different trees down to direct the movement. So there's a whole host theory of answers there. Um. But on the fly, with two days to hunt, I'm up against the gun. I'm

gonna hunt the bean tree, the bean poultry. Uh, and be very very careful and just realize, you know, I got two days. If a gear gets down winding me on that one trail, it's okay. Hopefully I got them dead by that point, and hopefully I'm not getting busted much. And then I know, if that buck is on that predominant trail, I just gotta be super careful so I can draw back and draw back at the right time so I can make that shot. Yeah, that that makes

a lot of sense. Alright, Skip, I've got just a couple more questions for it, and then we're gonna wrap this up. I'm curious if there is anything within your repertoire of hunting tactics things you do during the rut that your buddies or if other hunters heard about it. I would think, is weird. Is there anything you do during the rut that is off the wall different than the conventional wisdom? Yeah, most most of my friends make fun of me hardcore hunter. They make fun of me

for how high my tree stands are. Uh, like my buddies like, I'm I would I won't hunt that spot. I would never hunt that spot. You're you're insane that Uh that's so high, it's scary. How are we talking? Uh, there's this is crazy. And I understand the debate about the shot angle and stuff. The highest I pry I have ever hunted, and well, that's that shot angles insane? It is, it is. But there's been situations where I

have hunted forties low forties. Yeah, it's up there. When I buy those safety lines, um, and I do have safety lines because I fell out of a tree stand and it was thirty some thirty some feet up, chattered my arm, broke my back. But this is in the summer while I was hanging it, and you know, just stupid, just stupid. You know. Now I have safety lines and every stand, but a lot of my stands I have to start the bottom of my safety line where I click in is usually oh, maybe five eight ft off

the ground. So I would say most of my stands are probably when I say forties that there's like a couple I can think of that's usually in Michigan. Um, because you're just trying to do everything to hide yourself from these gear that are scared out of their mind because everyone's trying to kill them, literally everyone. But now I would say my stands are twenty five to maybe thirty five ft, which is a little off the wall. Um. I would say the other thing I do that's a

little off the wall. Uh. You know, I probably have now sixty seventy different tree stands. I mean, and there'll be years where I don't hunt certain tree stands, um, and there's farms like wall he is, sixty seventies tree stands must be nice. I mean, it's anybody can do this. It's just I took the time to get permission here. Or you know, there's this little farm over here. I can pop three in here, and if there's a deer there, I'm ready to go. So um. You know, I just

have so many backup plans. I have so many in and when I hunted by permission, I would have so many extra farms, and I would sit there and just spend weekend after weekend after weekend knocking on doors finding more places to go, find an extra state land to hunt. That if I had six farms to hunt and three of them got ruined because all of a sudden this group of hunter showed up and just blew the farm up, Okay, I'm okay with writing off the whole farm like it

got ruined. I just I just always have had so many different backup plans, and maybe that's unique, maybe that's weird. It's it's intense. I mean, it's a lot of work. Um, it's not necessarily fun. I mean to just you know, constantly ask people for permission and knocking on doors all the time. But you know, it was fun for me because it was worth it. So, you know, being able to say, hey, I have three farms here that I'm gonna hunt and all them got ruined, all their trashed.

There's you know, if fifty guys show up and I go, I'm not hunting there, or if I lose it right before season, hey, you know we decided nobody's hunting there. We're gonna lease it out where we sold it. If I lose those farms. I'm okay, and I think that's where everybody has to be. Like, if your best spots get ruined, you need to have five other best spots. And I think that's different maybe than most people. And there's nothing wrong. I'm not I'm clearly not knocking anybody.

You're telling anybody how to hunt. You hunt however you want to, whatever makes you happy. Great. But you know the guy that's like, hey man, I got my eighty acres and that's all I hunt, You're just you're not going to be extremely successful, consistently successful. You just have to have so many different options. And that's if you enjoy that. I don't care what I kill. I don't care if I kill mature buck. I just want to hunt my own eighty acres. Great, It's just not what

I do. It's not what I want to do. You know. I want to chase mature mature dear, and to do that, I just have to have so many different options and so many different backup plans. Yeah. Yeah, and that's hard to do. It takes a lot of work. But you're right. I mean, if you were to look at any of those folks that are consistently always successful. They have a lot it's a numbers game. They have a lot of options. They have a lot of spots, and they know them well.

And they're never dependent on one thing working. They've always got backup, to the backup, to the backup. Yeah. And we've gone to Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, and at the end of the season, I usually got you know, when I was younger, especially, I usually got a few mature bucks and oh my gosh, look at that, you know guy, I would consistently shoot a few mature bucks ball there was another Between every one of those mature bucks. There

was probably ten or twenty hunts. There were total flops or you know, even I don't care if you watch the guy on TV. I don't care if you you talk to a guy that you like, he consistently hit kills mature bucks. Um, they have plenty, plenty of sits worth to complete flop. It's slow, they don't see anything. They're discouraged. It's boring. I mean, this is how it works. You get, you know, that that chance to shoot the mature buck. You know, it's a few minutes um out

of generally, you know, maybe a week or two. So I think you know, people who have their expectations set there that you know there's gonna be a lot of difficult hunting and a lot of work beforehand that goes into this, and a lot of failed hunts before I

have one successful hunt. I think when you have those expectations, it puts you, um, you know, it puts you in a place where you can you can weather it out and keep pushing and and and then you don't get discouraged either because I know I'm gonna have poor hunts. I know I'm gonna make mistakes, and and when it does work out, then it's more rewarding because I honestly wouldn't. I don't want to go out. Honestly, I'm being dead seriously. I don't want to go out and shoot them mature

buck the very first time I go out. I mean maybe maybe in one case I do, like, yeah, that'd be awesome. But I think I enjoy it more because I went out seven times and I wasn't successful. And then when you do get the opportunity to the mature buck, it's just like, it's why we do this. It's amazing. I mean, it's rewarding. You're just like, man, it finally

worked out. And that's what's so um that's why I love this because it's like, man, I went through I went through all these tough ons, all this all this work, and it finally paid off, and you know, this worked out, and you know, and if I don't get a mature buck, if I eat my tag, I'm okay with that now too. But um, yeah, that's that's just kind of my philosophy or my thought process right wrong or in different that's just wore my head's at. Yeah, I'm right there with you.

Skip one last scenario I want you to imagine, and it's not it's not a great scenario, so bear with me here. But let's say for some reason, I've taken away your entire hunting season except for two days during the rut. You get two days to hunt during the rut, and that's all for the entire season this year, all right. What I would like you to do is tell me what two days you'll pick during the route, Like, what

date would you want for this two day window? They could either be right next to each other, they could be separate days. And then I would like you to tell me what your setup would be like, specifically as best as you can describe. This could either be like a hypothetical imaginary scenario, or you could even describe for me a stand you actually have that you think would give you your best chance on that date. Could you do that for these two days for me? Yep, I

would say, it's just gonna be a date range. So for whatever reason, I've had my best luck in October and then for whatever reason, this is maybe a superstition, I don't know, November one through three or four when my buddies like that's when I have my best Like I never shoot big deer November one through four, so I'd axce those right out, um, just because maybe I'm

cursed with those dates. I don't know. So it's gonna be between uh, November four and ten, and each year shifts a little bit different sometimes like, man, it was a little better earlier. But I'm gonna say, uh, I'm gonna whittle that down even a little bit further. I'm gonna say between I'm gonna say seven seven to eleven, and within seven to eleven, I'm just gonna pick the days where the temperature goes down and the barometer is up, and if it's the eighth, they'll hunted on the eighth.

If it's the ninth, the hunted on the ninth. If it's warm on the eighth, I'm not hunting the eight. So whichever day is going to be cold, those are the two days I pick cold cold end um, so a decrease in temperature and the rise in the brometer.

Where I'm going to hunt is I can visualize these spots in my mind with that um with that limited of time, I want to hunt the spots that are just the deep spots I have in the timber, and I have two of them that come to mind that it's just like it is just like the the hornets nest, you know, it's just like there's not two trails in intersect or two trails I can see from my stand, there's like ten and they're just coming from every which direction. And it's just one of these magic spots that just

it just they exist all over. It's just hard to find them. But it's a spot where you know, I've got I've got a spot where I've killed three or four mature bucks, and every time I hunt there, I could shoot just a pile of box a pile and the not necessarily old. But you know there's ten trails that come through there, and for whatever reason, they all kind of intersect around this tree stand, so I really

don't even need to call. And they're coming from every which direction, and that's the spot I was talking about where my thermals rise. But even if my thermals didn't rise, I don't mind being back in the timber. And I say, you know what, I'm not even gonna check the wind direction if I if I have trails coming from my every which direction, I'm gonna give up something. There is gonna be a spot from my tree stand where they're gonna get down when where I'm gonna it's gonna cause

his shoes, but I'm gonna be as cent free as possible. Um, And just say, you know, that's a lost area. If they get to this spot, so be so be it. Um. But when you have those spots where you know there's so many different trails intersecting there, and then on top of that, you just look at every one of these trails and there's scrapes, there's rubs, um, And you just know any deer in that area that's traveling has a pretty darn good likely hand likelihood of going through this area.

And I also can see, you know, from this stand and from the other one I'm visualizing, uh, I can see about maybe three hundred yards in every direction. So if they weren't to come by my stand, now I have you know, you know, six d yards radius of

what I can see. And and then I'm just on pins and needles, scanning the whole morning, the whole afternoon, the whole day, and I'd sit there the whole day, um, and if I see something I can't call or that's not coming in, I try and call them in, uh in those days in November, and you know, it would be my very very best spots deep in the timber um where you know, I call it a hornet's nest, I call it a whatever, just just kind of like

a it's just kind of that perfect spot. I think folks could probably visualize, visualize in their mind where you know, man, every time I go there, I just see a lot of bucks. And you know, I think a lot of folks get into the habit of I gotta hunt that stand over and over and over and they ruin it um,

which I don't. But here in this scenario, I can just hunt it two days, and that's where I'm gonna be, and I probably and I got two spots in my mind like that, I probably would just take the better one, which is the very first one. It's probably the best spot I've ever had, and hopefully everybody out there can eventually be like, man, this is the coolest spot I've ever found. Doesn't mean you know, I mean I've killed mature bucks, you know, every year, just about but and

only killed three or four out of the spot. But it's still, um, probably one of those spots that sticks out into my mind like this can't be beat. This is just one of the coolest spots. And I know every time I sit there, I'm gonna see I'm going to see a vast amount of mature Bucks. So it's just one of those high probability spots where the traffics there, the signs there, it's all there, and I'm just gonna go all in, all my cards, all my chips, and uh sit there all day, probably do it both of

those days. It sounds like a good plan to skip by. Uh. I hope you do find either that spot or some spot for in these coming weeks for the Big Boy rolls through for you. I'm I'm very appreciate you took the time to share all this stuff this today. I hope everybody else does too. And you know, uh, at forty four after doing this for a while, UM, you know, if if it works out, it's fantastic. I Uh, I had a long farm season and this is actually the

time I get to take a break. Um, but I've got family and friends, I want to get on some big deer and um, if I need a tag this year, I needed a tag, that's just my expectations. But yeah, I'm just I'm just super super looking forward to get out being being in the timber and I hope, um, all right, I know your listeners are too. I mean, it's the magic time of years. This is what we've waited for and it's here, and I wish everybody the best of love. Absolutely well, Thank you, Skip, really appreciate

your time. Thanks for having me all right, and that is a rap. Thanks for tuning in, Thanks for being part of this show here today. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you'll learned a thing or two. Hopefully you laughed a little bit there at the beginning. And I'm hoping you have got some great rout hunting plans ahead of you. Maybe you're listening to this on the way

to the stand. Maybe you're listening to this on the drive home with a big buck in the back of your truck, fingers crossed, hoping that's the case, and I'm hoping until next time you will stay wired to Hey, guys,

this Hayden Sam Mac engineer for Wired to Hunt. If you were listening to rut Fresh Radio the other day, you might remember a conversation about November being the most wonderful time of the year and how somebody should write the song the most wonderful time of the year in relation to uh, in relation to the rut well mark is in the field, and because you can't do anything about it, I took it upon myself to record just that song with our very own phil of the engineer

on what can only be described as a sultry lead vocal, and with that I give you the most wonderful time to kill dear boys. Good to see you, Hayden. It's been a while. Hey, sorry, I'm late. I crashed my ponty at gast. I can do a light pool and how to walk the rest of the way. But I'm here now, and that's what matters. Give me a glass of scotch, please, Hayden, just two rocks in there. I don't like ice. We're starting already. This is happening. Okay,

just give me the give me the glass, thank you. Okay, here we go. It's the most wonderful time to kill deer. With the run now just starting and dashing and dotting and vanes cutting clean, It's the most wonderful time to kill deer. There's far too much ice in this glass. It's the half happyest season of all. There's gotta be at least twelve cues with grunting and bleeding and called fronts and fleading the last weeks of fun. It's the

have puppies seasing of all. There'll be pictures for posting and bragging and boasting and truck beds with big bucks and tow. There will be narrow missed stories and tales of your glories of booner bucks missed with our bows. It's the most wonderful time to kill dear, not just one baby two. There will be no dose of blowing and loomen Knox glowing and blood trails so clean it's the most wonderful time to kill dean. Excuse me? Can I have a napkin? Please? I just spilt some scotch

on my loafers. I can't have dirty loafers in the studio. Thank you tailgate beers for drinking and big boxes slinking and chasing and sent checking does They will be fighting and scraping and no more escaping and arrow shot true hitting home key change. But no one told me that it's the most wonderful time to kill deer. I was very unprepared for this. There will be much morning sitting in cold FRONTSA, hitting the dawn crispin clean. It's the

most s wonderful time, Oh, the most s wonderful time. Yes, the most wonderful time to kill Dean. There's too much ice in the glass. Two rocks