Ep. 608: Rut Fresh Radio 12/7/2022 - The LATE Season!

I'm Tyler Jones, one of your hosts. The other host, Casey Smith, that you've already heard from, is hanging out with me. We're in the upstairs. We're looking out the window or trying to find a late season buck. How do we do that better? Ask your camera guys, because they know way better than us. And they had a good week and didn't they day? Man, we had a

great day on Texas Public recently. Um. Actually, we will be talking about this on our podcast in the very near future, maybe out and depending on when you listen to this, and we'll be releasing videos from that day. We had an epic epic day on Texas Public and uh, all the camera guys got to shoot at some bucks they did. Man, it uh it was kind of wild uh and humbling in a way. Not that these guys aren't good hunters, but um, you and I kind of the brain children the o g s of the Elements

didn't really have good hunts. But the other guys out their heads some pretty memorable hunts. I would say, one dare I say one person shot their first buck? Ever, how cool is that? That is pretty cool. I'm pretty stoked about that. Man, Go ahead and chocoling up to hunter recruitment for the Element. You know, dude, let's go. Yeah, this is field to table what its finest? You know what I mean, Like, we're just make things happen. So, dude, let me tell you something. Along with your first buck

comes your first field dressing experience. That's something that I wish the tubes of you would let us explain a little bit better. I know, man, if y'all don't know this, um YouTube is pretty hard on butchery, especially of wild game. You can take a hog like I mean, like a pink pig. But you start cutting up a wild hog in the field or a deer, and it's gonna get flagged for sure and taken down. So there's like it's a really it's impeding to um, you know, new hunters

because you can't get the media out. It's weird though, it's it depends on who you are and when you put it out and everything else. Because I believe Mr Steve has a video on field dressing a deer or something that does pretty well on the Mediator channel. If you are a new hunter and you're interested in that, you can check that out on their YouTube. I believe it is there. Don't quote me, but I'm like ninety

percent sure that's there. Yeah. So, but yes, there was some learning, some fun verbiage that we got to use during that field dressing experience for Eric to help him to understand what he should cut and what he shouldn't cut, where he should poke and all that. And what was awesome is that he didn't have a sharp knife. We had a sharp n actually, so uh it was it made things tougher. Make sure you have a sharp knife,

just be careful with it. I uh. I tried to give you one of those replaceable blade knoves earlier in the in the year, and he turned it down. You remember that everybody likes the thought of sharpening a knife. That you realize you can't really sharpen a knife that will. Yeah, and then oh this makes like um okay, I just kinda go ahead and use this replaceably. He uh. He re upped on that offer the other day when we're at my house, you in the skin and yeah, I

was like, hey, I still got that. I was there was like, oh, yeah, where's it at. Sure enough, I'll give it a try. This is the way he got. So we've had we had a we had a good time. You know. One one thing that's fun about hunting the South is that your rut tends to extend, extend quite a bit, and so like you have this opportunity to get in on some rut action um outside of that

normal early November rut window. And so these these Midwestern states that we've been interviewing a lot this year that have gotten a lot of airplay almost Rout Fresh podcast, a lot of them are really like they they almost have like bleak outlook on this late season stuff sometimes because it's so just shut down the deer. That's such a hard, intense rut. The antlers are broken, the bucks are you know, dying in the cold from being run down, the indoor shot during the rut, there's no rut action.

You know, if it's not brutal cold, you can't get them out in the in the daylight sometimes. And so the thing about the South is that you know, not only is the rutt not in a super intense window, you know, quite as bad. But you've got um deer that were born, like you know, the cycle happens where like we've seen deer with spat it's in October. And I mean, like like the Legit funds, Greg and I saw one from the tree that I could still barely see the outline of spot. This thing might a way

thirty pounds. It was the tiniest. And if we have if we have another big snow, this thing's toast you know, like it's too small to make it. And guess what that deer is six months old and like February, and guess what's gonna happen. It's coming to astress. Yeah. And so like we have trailcaring pictures of giant deer on public in Texas, uh, chasing those rounds. Oh and in February their hawks will be dark as coffee grounds. Yeah. And so it's it's cool, it's it's not like something

you can go out and just bank on. You also can't kill him that time of year either. Well yeah, so I'm saying outside of the normal rut, you can't go and just bank on like the fact you're gonna find the rut fest. But we have, in fact found some rut fests recently on Texas pub And when you find that it's time to get you and your buddies in that area and set up the wall like they do on a kick off. It's kind of weird, but

it does seem to work. I mean the other day we had some success and nobody killed, but we were all on them. I mean, if we want to shoot some running shots, you might could. I could shot the biggest year we've probably seen on Texas public, um, if I want to shoot a twenty five yard running shot, which I don't want to do. So it was wild man and a good time, and but we really saw it like just in a matter of days kind of

dwindled down. But the interesting thing about the Southern you know, trickle rut at the back end like it does, like I don't think that there's many does coming in. We talked about the Bell Curve I don't think it's um perfectly parabolic, you know what I mean. I think that's blow down a little bit more, you know what I mean. I don't think that October sixteenth has near as many

does coming in as like say December one. You know, I think that the throughout from about in the south throughout about the second week of November until the new year, you're gonna have does coming in. And I think that um, that keeps bucks at least there's some stuff. But just in general, if you get out of the standardized upper Midwest rut cycle, you know, um, you'll have even pretty

far north, you still see some of the stuff. But what I'm getting at is that you'll have deer that um, since they aren't at the highest level of height when it comes to routtness, it's word um, they still have to do the bodily functions. When you add the word nest to things, it's good. Um. The so they'll eat, they'll drink, they're bad to do all the stuff, but they're always still kind of in the mode. So like

when you see those, it gets you excited. Whenever you're hunting around scrapes or other deer sign, it gets you kind of excited because I mean, they'll be deer in the south hitting scrapes until all the deer seasons are over from here on out. It's never a bad time to be around one. It's also not a bad time to be around foods horses because there's less acrons in the woods. Acorns um for y'all out there. And um,

also that means the US. Uh. That means that those deer either on an egg or if UNI feed state, they're on the feed. And we actually in this episode a couple of guys make use of feed and it's interesting to hear, but um, it's not the uh, huge pile of bait um type thing. A lot of these guys who are having success using feed are doing it sparingly, but in just the right amounts to kind of hold deer or just slow them down or make them stage in certain spots. I think there is a pretty good

tactic behind hunting bait. It's not just shooting pinned deer, you know, Like, it's a lot different than that. I don't even care, Like to me, it's just so it's such a dumb thing to fight over. It's warning, there's there's just there's laws, and there's bag limits that take care of this thing. And if they need to be a just because people are so effective, than adjust them. You know, let it don't let us kill two deer two bucks in one season, which we can't in our

county anyway. So you know that's it's like, it's just not a deal to me. It's like they're good and bad things that come with everything. Man, the world's a little bit uh on the way down, if you know what I mean. So, um, you know, you could you could say that uh uh human water tower is a good thing because we can all have clean fresh water, but then are they putting chlorine and all kinds of stuff in this Yeah, so look yeah, I mean, and so you know that's like a human bait pile. You know,

it's like a human uh water water feature property. You know, I'm just saying, you know, like we can we could fight over things all day. Um, but whether you have whether you leaves standing corn in the back of a cornfield or you just go ahead and put you a bunch of standing corn uh falling calling corn on the ground back in there, then you know it's whatever. Just don't alphabe as we hear and here. You know, there's a lot of different ways to sure to cut this.

But since I mean there's all kinds of human interaction, like what if you I mean, do you get to say that rattling is okay? If you're introducing this fake rattling horns, you're deceiving the deer and the deer. Yeah, hey, we're out there to shoot some deer and eat them. That's what that's what it's about to my wife. My wife has text me right now which meat to get out of the freezer. Yeah, you can't find the elk though,

can't you? Down too long ago? So? Uh, speaking of success, we talked to some guys who have been having some success on the podcast today Tyler, who are we talking to this week? Man? We got uh, we got some new New States involved here and like we said earlier, their Midwest guys. Uh. When we reached out to them and they're just so sad that the rud is over. We had to talk to some different They gave us some zeros, so we had to you know, you can't

be having zeros on the book, that's right. So we we got Gary Greenwall on the on the phone, and he's an old friend ours from Washington State killed a nice buck up there. Um Grant Forney, who you guys have heard from already the season Pennsylvania, which is a cool state man, lots of different very habitat there. Grants is talking about mountain country. Um. Another Mountain countryman, Chris b was in Oklahoma and killing mountain bucks in Oklahoma.

So we're pretty uh, pretty pretty cool report from there. And it also our friend Justin Henry from Florida gets to talk about them swampy Everglades nasties down there in Florida and there they're just that. You call them swamp monsters in some parts of the country, but they're not monsters in Florida. They're just swamp something. Well, I think it's monsters more of like the UHC, you know, the connotation of the word. So like it's like, yeah, they're

like scary. What's what's the term for a monster? I'm thinking I'm blanking on it. Um. We had a guy on our podcast one time that talked about like a big foots and stuff. Oh encrypted, yes, crypt yeah or whatever it is. Yeah, crypto zoology, cryptid as well, So that's that's what they're talking about. Cryptids are yeah, kind of supposed fake animals, which, um, funny enough, m Florida and Texas monster deer might be cryptids, but there's some good ones man. And I don't know, I like talking

to people who hunt in unique areas. Um, you know, Justin has some pretty good hunts down there in Florida, which you know, you can't even look at Florida on the map and be like, oh, I want to go hunt there. But you know, people make it work and it's all relative, right, if you're getting out and deer hunting and having fun doing what you're doing, Um, doesn't matter if it's zero degrees or seventy in human you know, you're still hunting white and there s makes some neat man.

It is, man, it really is. They're so diverse, right, and it's it's it's kind of one of those things where like I when we were out hunting on Texas Public this weekend, both of us had this weird thing where like we have struggled so much on some of these properties around kind of around home or whatever, and it was but it was like while we're out there, we're like, man, this is this is like I've missed this a little bit it's weird, like there's no place

like home, like they say, you know, and that's kind of one of those things, is like you you you hunt in Florida because you live in Florida, and that's just what you make the best out of what you got, you know. And like I said earlier, we're out there to eat these things, you know what I mean in the end. So it's fun to go hunting them elsewhere, whether big sometimes too, but like, yeah, you know that. Uh. We talked to a guy who State touches the Pacific Ocean.

We talked to a guy who State touches the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, and they're all hunting white till Yeah. Next time, we gotta get some many touches the Panama Canal one of these days. Yeah, well, let's hear from these guys and get the report. All right, all right, I've got Gary Greenwalt here. He hunts up in the Washington State. Uh, one place that we have not had on the fresh stuff yet. So we're excited

to get the report. Gary. You've had some success recently, right, I did, yep, scoring on I think it was the second So the second okay, okay, come down from Alaska since I moved up there first time in four years and things just kind of panned out right with conditions, So it's awesome. So yeah, you you have a very methodical approach to it, and it has to do with weather, weather conditions, right, Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah, well,

what what weather? In time of year? It's like, you know, everybody wants to hunt the rut. But I'll take the first week in December and some nice cold weather and snow, um anytime from about December one December seven, and if I get the weather conditions right, I can pretty much guarantee I'll kill it here. And that's been I've got a wall fold show for it. Yeah, I know you do. And that's a that's based off of like a heavy feed pattern, right, Yeah, it's it's post rout feed is

what you're really really banking on. And then there's some second rud activities. Well, so though those two things wrapped up, you know, those bucks are coming around to feed, they're coming around checking for those last few does coming back into heat. Okay, so so you are seeing a little bit of cruising steel I guess, or yeah, the buck that I actually killed. I had actually done a little bleat and grunt sequence about five minutes before, and he

came in looking, wow, man, that's cool. So well that well that hang around for a while or is that something that uh, the second rut stuff will taper off pretty quick, but the feed patern will stick now through January? Really does it get does the does the feed pattern get more intense going forward? Like is it is it something that with more and more snow it gets more intense or is it just like pretty much like constant.

Yeah it will, Yeah, I definitely will. So, I mean it'll be largely weather dependent than you know, the more snow we get, the colder it gets, the more intense that feeding will get. Those those deer it almost seems like, I don't know if I want to call it, they compete for the food, but but it gets to a point where the day movement on a lot of the older bucks almost come in first to get to the feed before for the dose young. So we're talking about

feed here. I'm not familiar with the legalities in Washington. You're talking about baiting stations or is it an agricultural food source? Well, so we we use. I use bait um that they changed our laws quite a bit where we're limited on the amount you can use. So really now about half bail Health South is about as much as we can use. But gender that's all it takes. And I generally set these things up in transition zones where they're moving out the tag fields UM where they'll

get the rest of their feeds. So they're there areas you had hunt anyways, and the bait just kind of sweetens this pot up a little bit. Yeah, it makes sense. That's kind of like that Canada top hunting where you just put out a hay bale in the snow and the big bucks coming. Yeah, that's cool. So what's the major egg feed source that those two are moving to UM right now? Probably winter weets the biggest one UM.

And then there there's stubble fields and stuff and volunteer wheat that will come up underneath an old spill green piles they can find every once in a while UM. And then there's just a lot of natural brows too. At this time of year, are you doing any morning hunts? Are you shifting in specifically? I don't that that's one thing kind of baffles guys and even my outfit guys like why we're going out first things that you're spook all the dyer. It's like I generally get in the

stand about nine o'clock. Yeah, well it's also freezing cold, you know what I mean. It's a good one good time to sit there and drinks off here. It's it's hard. The all day sits are hard, and in tests you when you start off be in the dark. But I mean I've done that before. Um, I just never really seen it pan pan out that much. So but I

just kind of went away from it. And you know, I've shot here at ten in the morning and right to the last light, but I've never shot one I think much earlier and ten in the morning when I'm bow hunt. So so you are getting there in the morning, just not at day yeah, just not just not you know, before light. Yeah, what's the strategy as far as uh sticking it out throughout the day? You're bringing hot food with you or how do you make yourself staying there?

I actually don't. I don't eat or drink on stand because I generally don't want to make the noise. Um. I generally have heat packs underneath the good gear, um, and that that's in good boots. Just write it out. So man, a lot of pizza when you get home. Yeah, I believe me. I eat a lot and get back. That's awesome. So uh one last question about this whole process, like, how are you what are you assuming is betting in that area? How do you find betting? And to make

that assumption that here's betting, here's the destination. So I'm gonna put alfalfa in between. Um, basically, thirty thirty plus years of hunting out here, I know what what for where they're at generally speaking this time of year, in this type of train, I'd be looking for brushy south slopes, places where they can get some sunlight and find some

thermal cover if they need it when the weather hits. Um. So it's like I said, a lot of it's just experience out here, but I could replicate the results in other areas knowing what I'm perfect cool. So uh, I hear that you guys got some fresh snow. With that in mind and whatever else you got coming up, how do you feel in the next next week about you know, buck movement. If you were to rate it on a scale of one to ten. What would you rank man?

Yesterday it was at ten when I was l hunting. Um, I think it's probably gonna keep on about like that. It's gonna get I don't really see it tapering off with this weather. Um. So the guys here in Washington, I think they got till the fifteenth kill a deer. It should be good the rest of the way through season.

And I think Idaho opens up on the tenth and those guys, you know, they can't do the feeding that we can do, but you know, if they got a good food source, that should be good for him to just stick with it and and see decent movement that this weather is a huge help for that. So okay, well cool man, Well thanks for giving us a report and we appreciate it. And uh, well we'll be talking to you seeing man. You know what, actually you never

gave us a number. Oh, I'd rate it to nine, all right, dude, yeah, ten yesterday, nine today or next week. I think people should get out there and get after if they're in Washington state. So again, thanks for doing this thing, man, and we'll be talking to he's saying, I'm sure say man, all right, now I've got Cris be on the line here. We're talking about Oklahoma. You had some success there recently. What's going on, Chris? What's up, guys?

Thanks for having me on. Yeah, dude, for sure, man, I mean, pretty reliable guy, you know, so you can rely on you to be hunting deer, you know, at least. So Yeah, it seems like it's slowing down, is slowing down. But yeah, this last week in Oklahoma early December, never really done it before, actually jumped on a lease with a couple of buddies from Unguided Outdoors and it was

it was pretty weird. It really high deer numbers. We're kind of in the hill country southeast Oklahoma, and there is an incredible amount of doughs, like a very unhealthy amount of dough was. Um. So, with that said, like the buck that I shot, he was actually still out like searching, like he I saw him like two yards just running like just looking, you know, and I just grunted at him and he whipped his head and just

came right in. Um So, they I really think that they were still running that hard that late because the amount of doze, you know, they're trying to breed all of them. Um And That's why it's like a big effort for like our crew to just try to get those dough numbers down because it's making the bucks really unhealthy just running and competing for food and all that. But yeah, they were still they were still chasing for sure,

was wasting some of that down in this area. To um, how big was the body size that buck you shot? Not very big? I mean we were guessing him at four UM and he was drawning, i mean, bony and just really run down. And one of the other guys actually saw him in October and then you know, I showed him the video and totally he's like, wow, he's

like that deude got small. Yeah, those mountain bucks, like they're they're just the southeast Oklahoma mountain bucks are just kind of like it's crazy how small they actually are sometimes you you know, they just southern climate and running and running up and down those hills, they just get rangy, you know. So it's pretty cool. They that's like Postoke country, right, there's a bunch of Postoke achorns on the ground or not,

I think. So, Yeah, I'm not super familiar with with Oklahoma in general, but yeah, they're like super short, maybe thirty ft tall tall. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So are you running cameras in a place like that, you know, like at least like that and kind of turning Target Bucks and doing that or was this kind of a surprise deal for you? This was kind of a surprise deal for me just because this is my first year. But the other guys, I mean, we're trying this place. We're

really trying to make something. You know, we're all kind of new on it. But yeah, we'd love to be running cameras and do more of a management and it's a big enough piece to do that. Um And either the biggest thing for us right now and that make it better is shooting a lot of toes. I mean, it's it's it's it's ridiculous. How many does are I've never seen a place like it. Is there a tactic to what time of year it's good to shoot those?

In your opinion? I've heard it both ways, you know, like shoot him early so that, um, you you are getting rid of the competition for food and for rut um like before the rut And then I've heard, you know, shoot them late so that you're not messing up you're hunting and everything during the right. So I like to play a place like this. It's definitely easier to shoot

them later, I think, just as a conveniencing. But we've been all the guys we've been shooting, like obviously, I've only been down there once and I actually shot four like in one morning, Like it was ridiculous, And but all the guys have been shooting them all year long. But that tagged out bro. Yeah. No, I was in the tree for an hour, a nice shop five year. Oh what's the buck? The fifth? Dear? You shot four? Four? Yeah? Shot?

I shot him, and then another dog came and I'm like, oh my gosh, I need to get how many quivers does your bo hold? Man? It was five arrel quiver? Yeah, I was done. There're another buck box watching them. Oh dude, that's wild man, that's fun. Well, so you know, I guess you guys are still hunting kind of the rut

up there. Uh now when we look forward to next week, are you still would you still be kind of like which I don't know you may uh, you know, you're obviously not gonna be there with the shooting five arrows on one one uh sitting but like can't like if you were going to be there, would you still be focusing on rut action funnels, pinch points those kind of things maybe like saddles on in that mountain country or

are you looking at food sources coming up? Yeah, so they're definitely gonna be switching the food this next week. And I think I hit like the last little bit of running, you know, running around, and and Bucks were still being um, those are the few days if they're really switching over. I think you know, Bucks were on food. Bucks were still mingling with those and not having to bump them, um, you know, being more cordial and stuff. So yeah, I definitely think switching the food. Corn is

king in that country too. I know, it's like Texas. That's a thing man, for sure. Cattle. If you look forward, the cattle were driving me nuts. We'd we'd have to like just broadcast a little bit out. And it's like the thing that's down there too. We're still hunting in good areas, good normal movement deer areas, and then we just kind of like throw a little bit out because you can, um and then to keep some those around

or whatever. But yeah, yeah, well if you look forward to the next week here, if you had to rate it on a scale of winded tea and what would you rate buck movement going forward? If you've got a good cold front, it's gonna be really good. It's it switches again. I think the weather dependency. Yeah, yeah, cool man. Well, sounds like some fun times there to be had still with the with some cold frinds coming through and the I'm switching to food. I think that's kind of the

game of late season. So, um, congrats on all the success, man. I wish you, uh, you know, things well in the in the future with your travels and everything else. Dude, and we'll be talking. I appreciate you hopping on with us on the phone. We've got Grant Forney from the Everyday Outdoors when he's been up in p A doing some hunting. Grant, what's happening due, I'm much just uh staying busy here with hunting season. Awesome time of the year, so looking forward to the next time I can get

out here. Thanks for having me. You're welcome, dude. How much hunting do you get to do? I know you you uh, you work hard and you hunt hard, so how does that work out for you? Yeah? It's um, I get out a pretty good amount. UM. Usually try to get out at least one week night plus the weekends and plus about two weeks of vacation time a

year for hunting. So you know, the past couple of years, I probably average probably average around like forty forty days a year I'm making out, which is, you know, pretty good for my situation. So yeah, that's awesome. Man. Now the long season helps with that too. I can I can hunt um all the way through the end of January, so that a little bit. So when you're when you're thinking about p A, when what time of year is

your favorite? Are we coming up like you locked this late season stuff that we're looking at here, it can be good. Um. Ideally i'd like to have my buck tag build by now and p A since we're one buck eight, But it wasn't fortunate enough to UH to get a buck this year during our first archery season. So we're halfway through gun season now and I've still got my buck tag, which is a bad thing either because I do like hunting this time of year. Yeah, PA gets a lot of pressure on the public land

during gun season, but it still can be good hunting. UH. One of the biggest things this time of year is like this is this is the best time of year for hunting the overlooked spots, if you're hunting public land. I mean, this is when pressure it's at its highest. And if you if you have a spot on public land that's overlooked, whether it's a spot that nobody thinks of close to parking or if it's just so deep that nobody wants to go to it, like, this is the time a year where you can do well at

those spots. What's the weather like this time of year? Typically it's uh, you know, it varies a lot, honestly right now. Um, like this week we have some days with highs in the fifties, which is pretty warm, but a lot of times it'll be like lows will be in the twenties, highs will be like mid thirties, high thirties. Uh, those are kind of temperatures we look for right now. So like this morning was perfect. I wish I could have been out this morning. So yeah, you help. What's

that Does snow help you or in this time of year? Yeah, yeah, snow can definitely help. Like when I'm hunting up in up in the mountains in northern p A. We got some snow that's good for for tracking and being able to locate deer this time of year for sure, So I definitely look for that, you know, look for still look for those those cold mornings, those cold temps, and uh trying to find those overlooked spots or just just areas in general that haven't had pressure during gun season.

You know, if you can combine those two things, you can still have some really good hunting here during gun season. How do you what's your best tip or two for finding if a soft spot. Essentially, if we're a place where pressure is non existent this time of year, I would look for places that are just hard to access, even if they're not far so, like a place where you might have to cross the creek or you might have to uh get through some really nasty stuff to

get to the backside of maybe a public peace. Uh look for really steep terrain. A lot of our mountain bucks in this state this time of year will well really head to that steep stuff and people I don't really want to walk that stuff either, So these are definitely the things I look for, uh this time of year. How are you hunting steep terrain. Are you hunting a trail that's uh, you know, kind of run in parallel to the to the ridge or or how does that look? Yeah?

Sometimes that sometimes a trail on the top of the ridge that's running parallel with the ridge or Uh. A big thing too is looking for benches in that steep terrain, even it's just a very subtle bench, you know, just just a very narrow flat spot where those you're gonna

gonna gonna run the side of a steep mountain. Uh. We key in on those and and have done well on those, and uh, you know, even even like for still hunting, like if you're gonna, um have a windy day or a rainy day where the leaves are wet and you're gonna cover some ground, try to try to find a buck if you just walk, you know, the top of a ridge looking down over the side, Um sneak along there and uh and try to find a buck that's bedded down on the side of the hill

before he sees you, you know, or wins you. That's a good way to to you know, especially during gun season when when you've got the advantage to be able to reach out there a little bit more with some more range. Yeah, man, that's actually pretty exciting. It sounds like a fun hunt. So as you look forward to this mid December time period, what do you expect the bug movement to be? Like, I would say, coming up,

I would give it like a six. Uh with the opening week of gun season pressure maybe dying off a little bit. I think it can can almost get better here. Uh later the gun season. Uh, you know, six still doesn't sound great, but maybe compared to uh, after after the first three days a gun season, I would probably rate the buck movement at only like maybe a two

or three when they're feeling all that pressure. So, you know, compared to that a six, A six is pretty good compared to what we were seeing, you know, just a little bit ago. So I think absolutely, you know, if anybody it works every time, six, I mean that's awesome. Grant well, dude, I hope you are able to capitalize on that still available buck tag. Did you have their

in p A man? I know that. Uh it's kind of a little bit uh maybe disheartening to still have a tag this time of year, but that means you get to hunt, dude, and that's exciting. So I hope you hope you can find a good one. Yeah. Well, I really appreciate it, guys. Yeah, I hope so too. But like you said, hey, it's never a bad thing to still be able to be out there hunting. So gonna give it my best try here. Uh this last

week a gun season and then in the late archery season. Awesome, man, Well, thanks, I appreciate the the info. Dude. Yeah, hey, thanks a lot. Guys, really appreciate it. I have got Justin Henry here. He is a hunter in Florida. Man, you've been uh taking some uh some liberty and going do a little hunting there in Florida, I believe, right, sir. Yeah, yeah, the weather has been a little on the warm side, but still gotta get out when you can. Okay. So that's

relative across the country. Tell me what warm weather is where you're at there in Florida for deer hunting. Uh, you know, normally this time of the year, December mornings usually high fifties, and you know, the highs are usually about seventy to seventy five, and that's generally what it's been. And we've had the humidity has been kind of dissipating, y'all. In Texas. You all know all about that wonderful humidity. Oh yeah, so, uh we're actually looking forward to, um

maybe some cooler weather this week. Possibly, not sure, good man. So, um, what time of the years, y'alls? Rut where you're at? Uh, Central Florida where I'm at is typically during our muzzle d season. So we'll call it mid October. Okay, got you? So you are on a post rut pattern down there where you at right now? So what are the what are the deer doing? Um? Really kind of think with the with the with the weather. I mean, I know they're always used to being hot, but it's it's it trickles,

it's spotty. Um. You know, I say our rudd is is mid October, but it really I mean you could go across the street and there's pockets that could be three weeks later or so on and so forth. But UM, seen a lot of dose on camera. Talked to a few buddies, UM seem some smaller bucks nothing but sure has been poking and um A couple of guys did say the past two days though, that their cameras have been lighting up with some more mature deer on it. So I was thinking maybe they might start be start

to daylighting a little more. Mm hm. So I got two questions here they're in the same vein. One is what kind of agriculture could these deer be using to feed on? When I think of post rut, I think of I think of food, right, And then the second one would be, well, you know, is there other native food sources as well that they're they would be keen on it and post post rout situation right now? So I went out Monday to hang some cameras and all I could hear was acorns draining still back into swamp.

I'm still finding acorns all over the ground. Uh. You know, we had some hurricanes that we were flooded out pretty bad and a lot of our low lying areas, but um acorns. I feel like right now we're still keen if they're if they're in their area and they're dropping, I feel like acorns are still um okay, is there?

I mean, do think is there any planting that goes on in the agricultural space that of you know, it's a food source for deer or is it like sugarcane or what do you what do you got that that would be more South Florida. Okay, yeah, the more agg field type. I wouldn't even call him agg fields, but uh, the switch grass fields and the salt grass and things like that. That's kind of what we have patches of them in central Florida, but that's more South Florida. It's

pretty much just woods or food plots. God, just so hurricane season pretty much lines up with deer season. How bad does that affect what you have going on? Do you think that since y'all did have a storm, they're kind of late October, does that mean that there's those that didn't get bread so the rut could be weird this year? You know, I haven't thought about that, but

I do believe that possibly could be a possibility. I mean, you're talking to three day a three day occurrence where we had twenty of water in a twenty four hour period. So I mean, I'm sure that disturbed. Yeah, I'm sure it disturbed. Um moved into high ground quick leek um. So we had that much train last year. That was the first that was that was that was quite crazy. Actually, that was one of the worst hurricanes I've been through. Well, glad you made it. They are I mean, so as

going forward. You know you're looking uh at kind of this mid December time period. What do you expect the deer to be doing right now? Um? I would have to say should start to pick up just a little bit, just looking at the weather forecast for the future. You know, the further we creep into December, usually the weather gets a little bit better. Um, so hopefully they'll uh maybe creeping in and out, you know, thirty minutes after daylight thirty minutes before y uh yeah, so that makes sense

for late season pattern. Man, you just gotta try to find a place where there on their feet in shooting light. Right. It's kind of hard. So uh last question here. If you had to rank buck movement for the next week on a scale of one to team, what would you think the Bucks will be doing? I might have to give it a six. Okay, all right, that's a pretty positive number. I like it six absolute absolutely yeah cool man. Well,

thanks for doing this, dude. Good luck down there, and since for Florida that's a that's a unique place you get to hunt, man, So I hope y'all can fight them skeeters off and find a good big buck down go black nights, right, I appreciate you. As you can see, the winter can bring some success. December can be a great month. So I would highly suggest getting out there

and hunting a little bit. And I would also suggest, like I mentioned earlier, um, if you don't really know a lot about field dressing and or butchering your deer, there are a couple of videos that we will link to below that show you how Steve Mr Steve Ronella shows you how to do that. And also if you need a little encouragement as to why to see December

deer hunting can be amazing and you're missing out. If you're not going, you should go check out Tony Peterson's at this article and then also check out the Element podcast because you'll hear the story of how to public land mature deer in Texas go down in one day from the Element crew. It's gonna be an awesome podcast. Then Boys is Fresh, y'all, remember to keep it fresh. This has been rough. Fresh