Welcome to Wired to Hunts Rutt Fresh Radio bringing you the latest reports from the White Tailed Woods and now your hosts, Casey Smith Tyler Jones. Bird. It's cold outside with Christmas fast approaching. I know it's hard to get in the woods, but hunters around the country are finding ways to make it work. Especially with the cold weather. It is time still to get in the woods and feel some of those late season tags. This is Rough
Fresh Radio. I'm your host, Casey Smith. I do my best to sound cool, and I've got a cool guy here with me. His name is Mark Kenyon. Mark. Welcome to Texas. Tyler Jones is here as well, he said, welcome. Just find that time. Thanks man, and thanks for having me in Texas. Here with you're welcome, Welcome, Welcome, welcome. Um. We've done our best to eat Mexican food every meal of the day. You might have just slaved me tonight
like I'm about to slay the dragon. Hunt, you slay the dragon with the with the full They have something here called the full donkey. Yeah, and we ate the full donkey. We did. Everybody except Eric got a full donkey and he's had burrito envy yea. He told us on the way home. So Donkey's just kicking in my belly, right, So I just in there, just he hauling around. Uh. Legitimately, that was a burrito that was more than a foot long.
That might have been like sixteen inches of bridle. That would make Jared jealous for sure, way more than full of Uh. So it was a tasty treat. We've been doing some hunting in Texas which is really exciting. We got some folks today to talk about some hunting around the country. One of the big themes, it seems, is cold weather, and uh, cold weather is controversial. Did y'all realize that I didn't until the day And when it comes to dear movement, cold weather is controversial. Who's does that?
Um me? Um? Well, I would say that some. So there's organizations out there and who we've interviewed some. We actually have a guy from the India on today to talk about hunting in Georgia. Um and their studies out that say that cold weather does not affect deer movement, and deer move the same cold weather, I know. Yeah, And you know what the problem is, Mark, I think is that they are not taking into account what time of day in the twenty four hour period the movement happens,
they're measuring different stuff. So does the total amount of movement change? Probably not, I believe that, But does when that movement happens, or does the you know, the distance traveled over the course of that most important hour for us change? Maybe? Or does the specific or like even what about a study that looked at just bucks over
three years old or something like that. Um, absolutely, there's a there's a lot of data points that are hard to keep up with, and I think they do a pretty good job over there getting some information out and stuff for sure time, But I think that um, as a hunter, I can probably go out there and make a different assessment at than what might be seen. But I don't know, it's kind of interesting to think that. UM, it gives you hope that you always have a chance
even if it's not cold. I guess you know that so and like you don't need cold weather. But I don't think anyone who's spent a lot of time on the woods would deny the fact that, Man, when you get the certain days like that, it's just different. It is special, and we all have seen those days, no doubt. I mean, we're not out there, uh, perceiving deer movement in the night, so it doesn't matter to us. What
matters is daylight movement. I've actually came really close, like throughout my hunting career, to shutting the nine time photos off on show cameras because it means that little to you. But it's it's still something I like to hang onto because you at least if you get a picture of him at two am, you know he's still alive, so that's like a reason to keep him on. But otherwise,
like you know, the nighttime movement just isn't hardly anything. Um. People also like kind of looking back on this rut all right, um, like this this season, so this season, but this rut, I guess you know, Um, this is rut fresh and we start doing rout fresh in September, so it's all the rut. Who's rutting in September? I don't know. But why don't we call it refresh in September? Why don't we call it? Guy? That's right, that's somebody for our time. Uh. But so let's look back at
the deer season. This is the if y'all don't know, this is the final episode of refresh on this on the year. We've had a ton of fun doing this thing. Really appreciate you all listening. Uh, since we got Mark here would be a good time to maybe evaluate some of this because he's hunting some different states than us. What's one of your big takeaways from the season as far as deer hunting goes, Like, what was a theme
of motif for the year for you? My biggest rut Fresh takeaway this year, it's just something I got to illustrate for the listeners real fast. It's going to be a joke before because this is gonna change people's like listening experience because when I listened to the podcast, I kind of envisioned, like you guys sitting in the truck
talking or whatever doing this. But right now now I realize what's really going on when you guys do your Fresh radio Casey is like cross Like it's sitting on top of a table like a Genie or like a big Buddha or something rocking back and far. Think about that next time you listen to Fresh. Um. But as far as big themes for this year, this year's season, man, I don't know. I think one thing that stands out to me, and I actually want to do some research
on this. I'm going to Um, but I feel like this year there was a particularly extended, long hot period during which should have been primoe days of the rut. When you say hot, you mean temperature, yes, yes, and really November right, like everybody experienced everywhere from that like that first like ten days or so was brutally hot for much of the country. Um. I've never had so many days like that where I literally hunted, I think
eight straight days in seventy or hotter in the upper Midwest. Um, we left on We left a place on November nighte with like days left on the hunt, just because we were like, yeah, let's just go home and see our family for a few days. And there was cold weather
on the horizon. Yeah. So I mean when it comes to like the rut itself like that, Like even though people always can like I killed a buck when it was eighty degrees this year November one, So it can happen, but it's never as good as it could have been. It's never as much fun when you have like that much more you know, reduced time periods of the of the movement you're hoping for. So the big takeaway for the rut for me was like, man, that was the big thing. Like that took you know, sevent of my
rut hunts this year. We're kind of like because of that, he's just super super fast. The five. The last thing I was gonna say it was like, I feel like this is a trend, Like there's been a lot of hot ruts over the last decade. It feels like, and I want to see if that's just like me thinking that, or if that's true or not. Then so I'm in the words of or in your vernacular, I'm fixing to do some research and crunch the numbers. You don't say
fixing two, y' don't say fixing two. I thought that's just American thing, and it it was a sudden thing. Went to Coach Rica one time and he was there. People there were kind of like as dound in the
at the idea of fixing two. Yeah, you know, like the rut stuff is also similar to what we're talking about earlier with like perceived hunter perceived movement right where like we we got to hear from hunters across the country throughout this rut fresh thing running this thing this this year and then also we were out a ton in November in different states, you know, different climates, different habitats, all this stuff, And I mean it is undoubtedly, I mean,
it's there's no doubt that there that there were different there was a different perceived rut by hunters this year overall, Like everybody we talked to, the first ten days in November pretty much were uh not even close to the best days of the rut. I mean, like that's that I guess it would be the like after the first ten days to like twenty was really when most everybody's
rut was the best, especially like those dates. And so like this is one of those things where like you see the same research that like says, uh it's based off dinoral period, you know, so it's like uh the photo period or whatever. It's uh, you know, the length of the time of the day, and that's when the extra cycle is based off of. And that never changes, right, But you know, actually some weird theories about that they're pretty cool, but like, overall, uh, there's no doubt that
we perceived it differently across the country this year. So you know, this is something that like, this is a discussion that needs to probably continue at some point, But like, how do we how do we balance these things? Of well, of course the science says this, but I'm just telling you that I've talked to four dudes a week for however many weeks, and there's no doubt that this is
the way everybody has been saying. I wouldn't I wouldn't doubt that, like even a year like this, the peak of breeding might have still been when it usually is. But again, it comes down to what do we experience as hunters. So, all right, does the peak of running activity hunter sea change from year to year? That certainly could be. And so like the visible daylight, chasing, cruising, that kind of stuff, I think that does shift. And how he figure out what that is? Well, what makes
that you can have chasing? I think part of the season could be just non existent, Like chasing in peak, breeding can happen at the same time, you know, in a in a year like it doesn't always we try to put things in a box where it's like, oh, they're gonna chase for a week and then they're actually gonna lock down and breed for a week. Maybe lockdown and breeding and chasing all happened the same time because
the weather was nice. Yeah, I feel like I feel like weather, And I don't know about the moon stuff. A lot of people say the moon stuff maybe impacts it, but I feel weather is the biggest thing for me. Will that will tell you, like how much will we see during daylight versus not? And how like just how intensees it get? Like how comfortable are these deer cruising and run around all over the place like they're gonna
bring no matter what. But maybe they're gonna do it in the dark when it's twenties years cooler and they're gonna be chilled out, you know, in the middle of the day when we want to see them running around what they're just don't want to do. It's my personal anecdotes from this season on that front. Would would be uh, one of the things that I would kind of bring
up kind of what you were talking about. We like to think of our years in our calendar days as fixed points, and I mean we all understand the concept of a leap here um, but because of that, think about it this way. Sometimes Thanksgivings on November, sometimes Thanksgivings on the twenty six of November. The rut also can
deviate that much like November seven is not always November seven. Um, so we could have a weird year this year where it's just swinging as far into the month of November on our calendar as possible, but to the deer, it's the same exact or whatever. Yea. So because and the reason I believe that that possibly was the case is because I was on the ground and multiple states through all this and observed like, uh, I guess it is November two. I stalked the big buck uh, and we
had the weird thing go on. Yeah, but last year or I guess, let me say, one stalk this deer. He was ondo is very hard on November two, just tending doing the thing this year. He was betted by himself with with dry hawks on November two, so he was doing something different. And then I killed a deer on um uh, let's see November five who was cruising but not with those um and kind of it was
just kind of chill cruising. And then I killed on November eight in the Midwest like some subtle bragging, no no, no no. I was kind of feeling that the first of the first time I've ever killed two deer November pretty much so but like that deer on November eight was um in really good shape and hardly been running and and just wasn't beat up. He had broken times, but I think they do that earlier sometimes. And then we left on the night because things were super slow.
And then I we came at like four or five days later and it was same place and it was unreal. I mean it was It's cool and another thing to bring this back to refresh the thing that I noticed this season, and this is our first year doing refresh. This might be the way it goes. Hunters in general are an optimistic bunch. Uh. They might be pessimistic when they're telling stories or whatever, but when they go to give you a number of one m, it's always way higher than it should be. I like how you like
dog on them a little bit. You're like man like like I like your optimism. But then like later, like in an intro like man, I'll tell you what. These guys are super optimistic, but really you know a two or three. So we had this thing we call the Midwest six. We haven't talked about this on that, but if you're from the Midwest and you don't know really what to say, you're gonna say six for sure, that's what it's like. Oh yeah, it's it's gonna be pretty good. Well,
you're in Illinois. Even if it sucks, it's still better than everybody else. It's exactly right, man. So, um, we got a bunch of guys from around to give us some good reports from across the country. Guys are still out there hunting. Uh, Mark Kenyon, You're still out there hunting. So I would like for you to give us the honorary one through tin rating of rut action in Texas at the moment. Yeah. So we're in Texas and I've
only had it one day here so far. But based on what I've seen, man, that donkey is just donkeys churning in my gut. What I have seen is that the rut is going. Um. I wasn't seeing chasing or anything today, but I was seeing cruising Bucks absolutely and I was seeing Bucks locked on dos. Um it was good activity. So I'm gonna give you higher than the Midwest. Yeah, and I feel like that's warranted, Like when you're seeing cruising and Bucks on does and you know I saw
two shooters today. Um, I feel like that's like a word eight categories. I don't hold that against you. Is that fair? Yeah? I think so for sure, And it matches up with what it should be, So I think for sure innate's fair. Now, Todler and I didn't have as good of an evening, but the evenings across the board for our carew was a little bit low. But
the mornings are really nice. And I think that, um this is my personal thought, but places that have well defined food sources and and bed to feed top patterns, I think that evenings are really nice. A place like we're hunting right now in Texas, where it's generally just a roaming browsing tope food, the evenings are kind of tough because they can just stand up and eat where they're at, and it's it was so quiet to say it sure was, man, terrible winds and stuff, which is
a December thing. Man. That's one of the things that's tough about December is that in the evenings it will get the wind will die, and you'll have thermals that are whirling around. But I can't kill him from the coup, So you gotta get out there. Let's hear what the guys have to say from across the country. Sure, we've got Greg Farrell and Mississippi this uh this week. He's uh talking about some rut action that's been happening there. You know what one thing about it is the South
still has ruts to come subtly. It's something to to think about as you go forward, for sure. Uh. We also have let me Lindsay Thomas Jr. And Georgia, Um, Josh Elderton in West Virginia, and our very old Hayden Sammy from Maryland. He's been having some good, some good hunts since some big deer in that state. Man. Yeah, by the blow it up. Everybody should go there. I think that's right, man. For sure, you all should go to Maryland hunt next year. Call they called the Iowa
of the East. They yeah, is that a thing? Yeah? How about that? That's really a thing though you're not just playing, not just kid, how about that? How should go to there? Man? We really are. There are like twenty guys from Maryland right now who hate us for saying that. A we with the ribby in the sky speaking of gnomers, you are, how about that? That's cool? Yeah, they we'll get one of those. We're kind of that country hurt did you heard some earlier. Ye, yeah, some
clucking turkeys. A right, Let's check out these Southern reb boys. See what they have to say on the phone. Now, I've got Hayden Sammick of Meat Eater. He has been hunting in Maryland, of all places. What's up, dude? Hey man, how's it going and how are you guys? Oh we're good, just on the road to another hunt. Man, it sounds like you're doing the same. Uh. Are you from that
area of the country originally? No, No, we're my girlfriend and I are down hunting her her farm here, like they had, like a family farm that doesn't get a hit a bunch. So I'm out visiting her while I'm on the East Coast. My folks are up from Pennsylvania, so yeah close, yeah, close to us. That like the East Coast is all the same place, so you know, I'm like, oh, yeah, that's so. Did you in fact choose your girlfriend according to how much unpressured hunting land
her family had, you know? In my In my dating profile on the internet, it says permissions only. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so you don't have to be you don't have to be only dot com. Yeah. I thought my girlfriend's farmer's only that's it. That's hilarious. So you've been having some pretty good hunting up there, huh. You know what, he's been surprisingly good man, Like, uh, you know, there's one of those spots where I really wanted to come into during our tree, but I'm so busy hunting now west
during the season. And also it's just like inconvenient living out you know, in Montana. But she was trying to get me to hunt the muzzleoader season out here, and I told her I wasn't super sure about. And then her uncle sent me a couple of trail camp pigs and I got real sure, real quick. But but I'll tell you what, I was surprised, and I'm surprised at what I've been seeing lately. Yeah, So what's the what's the dear movement? Like, what are you doing there right now?
So the way that this farm is like spread out, there's a central road that goes through it, and you can see into like the bad gadgetes of a bunch of fuelds. Man, We're just like going down and they're just gear moving everywhere. You know. The first night we got here, I saw, you know, a pretty decent buck, and I couldn't tell if he was just like playing around with like a smaller buck, but he kind of nudged him in the butt with his antler, and I
was like, that's like kind of funny. They're still being like a little a little cheeky, little territorial maybe. And then, uh, yesterday we're in a blind and we're watching these deer and it was funny, man. They filtered out by size. First it was like a button buck, then a spike, than a fork and horrn, then a little six and next thing, you know, over this rise, you know, all the times are coming out. You know, it's a definite, definite shoot deer. And following him was this little like
you know, yearling dough maybe like six months. You must have just come into heat because he saw her and chased off the other three bucks and just made a beeline after I mean, like dose down, full wingspring after it, and we never saw him again. We had a shot for maybe half a second. You know, with with a muzzleloader, it's really hard to take a snapshot like that, and you wouldn't want to. Yeah, yeah, legit, legit chasing activity. I couldn't believe it. It's the second rut that everybody
talks about, Man, the second run. Yeah, so like a normal, normal rut, there is a normal time for the rest of the country kind of early November, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah that unless look I'm missing something. That's how I interpreted, gotcha.
So I mean, how do you how do you Is there a way to even like, are you taking that information and going, Okay, I'm gonna stay in the area because there's some kind of extras thing happening right now, or is there a way to like pair that with like overall dough traffic in certain areas and just assume that you can make that replicate other places. Man, It's it's weird because like they're getting back on there like pattern, you know what I mean, all the doughs are bunched up,
all the bucks even to be bunched up. But then there are these are just little wild cards that goes through. I don't think that you can plan for it, like, you know, I would definitely be trying to just go where they were like the biggest deer concentrations. I wouldn't necessarily be looking through like travel corridors. And the other thing too, is like it's so unpressured that you know, you can almost just hunt the edges of the fields, you know what I mean, as long as you get
into like the right corner of that field. It's not like you're in a bunch of public where they're only going to come out in the fields and dark. So it's it's kind of cool. Man. Very rarely do you get to or very rarely do I get to go see a white tailed population that's just not been hunted to hell. You know, that's cool, sounds like fun. Man. It's always good to be in place where there's a
lot of deers. So, I know, seasons kind of winding down kind of across the country, right, so as we look forward to kind of some of these last weeks of the season here, Uh, if you had to predict what you think buck movement will be like for the next week, what would you say it would be on a scale of one to ten. All right, now, it's kind of warm, It should be getting a little bit colder where I'm at. Um, you know you're gonna see like that wild card, but otherwise I think it's gonna
be pretty average. I would give it like like a six six seven maybe, Um, you know again, it's a right around that time where you get that second cycle or some of those younger fonts are coming in for the first time. So you know, yeah six seven if you get a wild card and you get some late rutting activity, but you know, it's it's kind of the closer cool man. Well, I hope you have some great success out there, man, and uh, thanks for the report.
Oh yeah, you bet, thanks for having me. All right. Now, I've got Josh Ilderton. He's up in West Virginia. He has been spending some time hunting mountain bucks up there and doing some cool stuff video and and all that. Josh, what's the word from your neck of the woods man? My word when Nick Woods and West Virginia is it was a really good movement this past Thursday and Friday. Uh, this kind of secondary like those coming in and if you were near them and then you were getting some movement.
The last two weeks have been deader than I'll get out, but it seems to be picking up and right now with this second rut and these late the late does start to come in to heat. Yeah, yeah, that's good. So you you are seeing a little bit of second rut happening. Then, yeah, we did did on the Thursday and Friday saw a lot of that, actually saw some breathing. Um,
how about that? And then it kind of slowed down and had some we had midday movement yesterday and then nothing in the morning and hardly nothing in the evening and then uh, of course I ain't gonna report back from Zack yet today, but he's seeing some deer early this morning, but really no chasing or or rut movement. So you have any assumptions about that midday movement. Is that a moon based thing or what do you think? Yeah,
that's what I think it is. U. I think this red action is hit or hit or miss, and it will be for the next four or five days. Uh for these lake those and the and the you know, the the late yearlings if they get bred this year. Uh, I think it's the secondary rust is gonna be hit or miss and then hopefully this deers start going into a feeding frenzy within the last two weeks of season. Yeah, is there any pattern to finding those yearlins that might
come into heat late? Like could you ever do anything like that where you're like, oh, that do family group's got like three year lands in it. So I'm gonna hunt over in that area. I know where they're at, and hopefully one of those will be one of those late estrus does. Yeah, we do it sometimes, but it is so big and in the mountains are it's so vas that there's no it's hard to pattern deer here
in southern West Virginia because they because they can. They could be over here today and over there for three days. And it's just really hard to pattern deer unless you're feeding. Yeah you can, you can put a pattern on them if you're feeding, but it's really hard to pattern them. So are y'all are y'all hunting? Uh? Just high traffic areas right now? Or what what in particular are you looking at? Well, we run, we run a lot of game cameras, and when we see action on game cameras,
we go into that area. Gotchata, I know what. We miss a lot of stuff that way. But it uh, we especially this late season where the i mean nick bucks are run down. You know, they look like damn it to hell, and it's just uh, they're having to start re energizing and eating, and so we we've got a lot of cameras on food sources and stuff and hopefully well so in that vast country, I'm assuming you don't have a ton of agricultural food sources. What are
those deer eating right now? Right now, they're browsing, you know, and they're eating they're eating red oaks. Uh they're still on the ground, but you know, all the white oaks and uh, they're all gone and what's left on the ground rotting. So they're eating what. You know, if there are red oaks on the ground, they're eating them. But heck, there ain't a whole lot of them, so they're mainly just browsing. So you're looking for clear cuts and stuff
like that. Well we had, we had old coal mining jobs. So it's it's a bunch of reclaiming, like automolives and like crpas, a lot of a lot of a lot of salt briars and uh, just dick like crpas stuff. Yeah, So are you gonna stay with that in the next week? That kind of pattern is hunting those areas looking for deer they're coming back to to feed heavy. Yeah, and then and then the the grasses, you know, there's a
lot it's it's it's it's pretty good open country. Where we hunt, So we'll go back to UH at some point that we keep on telling ourselves to this, and we keep on grinding. But at some point these deer's got to get back into grass and start feeding, and the you know, the shooter bucks will show up to give us a chance to spot stop. So UH, Zach will keep on having and then I will probably glass and try to find bucks. That way, got you cool? Man? Well,
it sounds like a got good playing going forward. Um. If you're looking at the next week, all things considered, moon weather, um, and just time of year. Um, if you had to put a number on it, one to ten, what would your rate the buck buck movement as being Can I put it? Can I put two two numbers on it? Well? Yeah, I think we could do that. That's a good question. All right, So I'll get I'll put a three on today through Wednesday, and then I'll
put a eight and a half Wednesday through the week. Right, man, that's high. I like that. Give me good confidence. Wants to be changed there? Uh, just kind of going by my moon charts in the movement we've been seeing UH and the weather that's hit down here. I think it's slow here. The next couple of days. All right, yeah, cool man. We are looking for a mooner to get on here, and then you're just the guy, so we
appreciate that solid information. Sir. Let me let me tell you I killed my buck turn the redmon, so they're not activity if you want it, they wi just the moon and wind. Yeah, yeah, yeah, well awesome man. We'll appreciate the information. And uh, I hope that you have good success here at the end of the month. Man. Yeah, man, y'all have a great trip too. All right, we have got Lindsay Thomas Jr. Of the National Deer Association on
the line. This dude's been hunting down the southeast Georgia. Lindsay, what's happening? Man? Oh, it is not a lot. How about you, guys? You're doing alright, We're doing good. We're kind of excited. We're we're in Texas hunting right now and got some cool weather. And I bet you that that cool weather's headed y'all's direction, isn't it it is? We're looking for some deep cold for Georgia coming up soon. Yeah? How about that? So you've been hunting some recently, has
it been warmer and has that affected deer. It was pretty warm throughout most of the early season for us. UM. And this is I'm in southeast Georgia on on the near the coast. We have a pretty early rut there. Um, it's late October early November, so Halloween is kind of right around you know, peak rutt for us. And it definitely was you know, warm earlier in the year. And we're getting some cold weather now. But you know, they're gonna rut regardless of what the temperature is around the
same time every year. So our rutt was when it was supposed to be. Um. But yeah, it's this colder weather. It's obviously nice to get in the woods when it's colder. Yeah. So you're down there in that pine country. I know, y'all. Y'all do pine straw on that kind of stuff, which is really cool. Not traditionally known as like uh great deer forage, though you know, they don't really like the pineheels too much. I don't imagine. So, Um, what is kind of the the key to to finding deer in
that kind of country? Are you looking for uh, thick pockets of bedding or kind of how do you hunt outside those rut windows? Well, it's uh, it's the flats for sure, and then a lot of timber activity, so a lot of cover in all directions. So yeah, it's tough to sort of discern what a bedding area is for for deer in South Georgia or any of the you know sort of uh fabled movement patterns of bed to feed. You know, it's that's tough to find. So you know, it's it's natural foods, it's acres, it is
uh soft masked um. And then food plots if you've got them, but um, usually um, what happens is here a lot of the food plots get hunted early, um and get pressured out and then so you're not seeing as many deer and and that's that's what we've seen here this year. Um. But now if you've got food plots that haven't been pressured late in the season like this right now, that can be really good or at least some plots maybe you hadn't hunted in a few weeks and you can sneak back in there. Um. So
food is always a big part of it for us. UM. And you know, getting in some swamps and areas where you can see a good ways when the when the peak movement is on back, you know, like I said in late October. Yeah, so you know, for those guys that might not have the food plots and talk about a little bit about like native forage maybe you know, for us, like here in in East Texas this time of year, we still have green you know, in areas
pretty much year round. Same for y'all. Imagine, uh, you know, for us, like you see deer starting hit uh and I know it's a non native, but privet we see honeysuckle being browsed pretty heavy. To are there are there things like that that people could key in on if they don't have food plots. There are some, um, but mostly this time of year, what what I see is acrons that are remaining in the red oak family. Usually
for us it's it's water oaks, um. And we do have some live oaks that are holding late this year. Uh So, finding any acres you can that are still around and as as some people know the red oak family, you know, they tend to last longer on the ground and they're viable, you know, on for weeks after they've fallen from a tree, unlike acrons in the white oak family, which get gone fast, but also don't last as long
they go ahead and Germany. So anyhow, if you if you've you know, you might have had um some red oaks, water oaks, any any oak in the red oak family that was dropping earlier this year, but the deer didn't seem to be attracted to it. You need to go back and check those again because now as forage gets scarce, now that we're getting some some good cold, you know, deer will circle back and look for those and you'll find activity under those trees even though the acorns have
been sitting there for weeks. So you mentioned the cold. They're much of the South and really the whole country is going to experience cold, but particularly in the South that's pretty timely because we're still hunting deer. Um. How do you feel like that's going to affect deer movement, that that really sharp cold spell. Uh, the science shows it doesn't really affect deer movement. Deer got to eat
every day of the year, regardless of what the temperature is. Um, So you know, find where the food is and and that's where you need to be. And this time of year, you know, I think I told you all, I'm already seeing bucks getting back together in bachelor groups on my cameras because we're so far out from the rut at
this point. Um, you know, it's been a month and a half basically since the peak, and so you know, bucks are they're trying to wherever you hunt after the rut, bucks are gonna be trying to catch up physically because they've been exerting themselves chasing dose been a lot of time without eating. They need to get caught up, and so they're gonna be, you know, on food. Um. And
it's regardless of the weather. You know, we see that even if in where we continue to have mild weather right on up to Christmas and beyond, I mean, they still got to eat every day. Um. So again it's now the food. The weather may affect food sources if it hasn't been cold yet and it hasn't killed off a lot of the natural forage uh and green forage, and then that's you know, they may still be on that.
But if we get a a deep cold snap and it does sort of convert over uh to uh the deer to winter brows versus you know, green forwards, then you're gonna see them hunting acorns and and hitting food plots and other things that are available, particularly if you've got like a Braska food plot that's still around, still productive, Um that you know that they will really be key on those. Yeah. Yeah, man, that's good info right there.
I appreciate that, dude. So if you had to look forward to the next week and give buck movement a rating from one to ten, what would you call it, I'm gonna say, you know, five to six. It's it's pretty good movement. It's not rut movement. It's just um, you know, bucks are like I said, I'm seeing them coming back to food plots and out there even together in groups, you know, chowing down. Um, they're hungry and uh, they got to get caught up. So that's that's what
they're doing. Now. You may not see them in the daylight, and I'm not seeing daylight moving on my cameras because all my cameras are on food plots and all those camera which I moved him there in in uh you know, over Thanksgiving holiday, I moved my cameras from rut related locations like scrapes to food plots. And all those food plots had been hunted throughout the season. So all the activity I'm seeing on those plots right now is a night and that makes sense. That's from the pressure. It's
not because deer went nocturnal. That's you know, my cameras are in places where deer have been pressured all season, and so they're only coming in there in the dark. Uh, they're still moving in daylight. Uh. You just gotta find where that is. Yeah, awesome, man, appreciate the information, Lindsay, and I hope that you have a very merry Christmas, sir, saying to you guys and good luck in South Texas. All right, we're talking to Greg Farrell. He's with First Slide.
There's a lot of cool things they're designing, awesome gear and uh he's been in Mississippi recently hanging out with old Levi, And Um, I mean, how did you How did Levi get get it done the first night? And you didn't, Man, I don't understand that, you know, I asked myself the same thing. But I guess if you uh, if you're gonna lose to somebody, maybe losing to the greatest guy to ever do it, I guess it's littally
easier to sleep at night. Yeah, you'd hate to lose like me, r K, that's really the bottom of the barrel at that point. Man. So uh was it the
rut down there? Yeah? So I was down there. Um, last week s would have been you know hunting dates like the eleventh to the sixteenth of December, and man, that was like it was right on the tail and um of their rut, which is pretty cool in terms of being able to extend, you know, like a true rut hunt into the month of December versus you know what I'm used to kind of you know, being in the Midwest as much as possible. It's kind of that
November times, right, So it's pretty awesome. So, uh, were you using like typical kind of I guess shoulder rut tactics? Were you doing some calling and stuff like that. Yeah. So the place we were on m you know, pretty heavily managed in terms of age class of beer. So the buck to dote ratio is is really good. Um, there's a lot of you know that older age class year, a lot of deer make it you know three four
plus there. So Um, because of that, I would say we were using you know, some of those shoulder tactics, like they were still they still respond to calls. The bucks are pretty aggressive there because you know, there is a pretty good number of bucks per dough on that place. Um, I would say, however, I think we caught like the very tail end of it. So really what we were seeing is like the first day, first day and a half,
there's still some good chasing and and seeking going on. Um, those bucks were moving around trying to you know, established and maintain their territory and trying to pick up a late hot dough. But really the rest of the week it was tough. It got a little warm, um and the bigger mature deer were definitely locked down. We saw a ton of bucks with those pinned down and they just weren't moving. So that made it a little tough
be at the tail end of that rut. You know, some of the younger ones were still cruising around, um, not really knowing what they're doing, trying to pick up a dough, but those bigger bucks were definitely locked down hard. So, um, was were you hunting near food or near bedding or kind of you try different things there? What was the
what were having the most success? Yeah, so you know, kind of right away at the beginning of the week, just based off of what you know, a few other guys were that were there saw leading up to that, we're in those transition areas hard because those bucks were still cruising and moving. Um. And then as we kind of you know, saw the more mature deers start to lock down and pindos down, we moved in tight to betting.
I mean, our our plan basically the rest of the week was get as close to dough betting as we possibly could, as close to the thick stuff as we possibly could, um, because really, you know, the way they were acting and moving, your best bet was you almost had to get set up within a hundred yards of them because they weren't moving much more than that. So kind of looking forward here, the south is about to experience a pretty good cold front, um. But I know
it's kind of tailing off on the rut there. So do you think that the weather has much effect on that rut movement? Do you think it would still be rocking and rolling down there if it's gonna be cold? Yeah, I mean, based off of of what I saw, and you know, mind you this is we were in Mississippi, you know, basically just south of the Tennessee border, Um, I think what you're gonna see in this next week is you're gonna see a lot of deer move back
to kind of post rout feeding patterns. I think you're gonna have the straggler, you know, dough or two that's still hot and still getting pursued. But I think that cold front is gonna help the movement on all fronts right in both of those scenarios. So, man, if I had another week to be there, what I would be doing is I'd be getting close to food because that's
where the does are going to be. I think, you know, those bucks haven't really eight or laid down much of the last three weeks, so they're gonna start hitting food again and think we um if they are still looking for that you know, that last hot door or two, I think those bucks are gonna start to really congregate around the areas does are spending time. Yeah. Yeah, man,
good stuff there. Um, If you had to guess and or take or take a shot at ranking buck movement from a scale of one to ten in the next week with cold TIMPs coming in based off of what you saw last week to what would you rate that
as being Man, I think it's gonna be good. Um, you know, we had or they had obviously they were on a ton of trail cams and I had the opportunity to see actually a few of the bucks that were taken last week, um, you know, photos from weeks before, and I would say it was pretty obvious a lot of those deer had lost you know, thirty to forty pounds over the course the last three weeks, just running hard.
So I think with that being said, um, you know, the stage of the Rutte's in that cold front, all those things are gonna lead to bucks are gonna be one to eat, and they're gonna want to eat a lot. So I think you're gonna see a lot of daylight movement around food sources. Um, but I think you'd be you know, pretty good. I'd probably have to say, you know, somewhere in that maybe seven to eight range would be my guests in terms of what they're going to be doing. Man,
that's pretty good. That'll uh, that'll fire some Mississippi hunters. Let's go. Man, if I could, i'd be back there right now and sort of sitting back at the computer. I'll tell you that. Well, it's uh, it's weird how we have to work to pay for this thing that we love doing. Man. But um, I understand it, and I appreciate your advice here man, and the thoughts on Mississippi, and um, I hope you have a merry Christmas. Man. Yeah,
you guys as well. I know you guys are still out there grinding, so good luck with the rest of your season. Hope you can notch another notch another tag. You guys have had a heck of a year or so. Um, congrats on that. And if I don't talk to you before, I have a great holidays. Awesome man. Thanks Greg. I want to tell y'all how much we appreciate you tuning
into Refresh Radio this season. It's been a blast and talked hunters from around the country and I hope you've had fun and learned a lot about hunting whitetail all over this place. So a couple of things for you to keep in mind or to check out as we close this thing out. Okay, be sure and subscribe to the Element channel on YouTube and go watch our newest video. Our buddy Eric who does a lot of our videography
and all kinds of stuff for us. He's are hot as we call him, killed his first buck ever with a bow, first buck ever in general on Texas public land, which is a huge achievement for this guy, so we'd really appreciate it if you check that out. Also, check out the Wired to Hunt podcast because we are hunting with old Mark Ken. You're right now is we've been
talking about uh and UM. Y'all should be sure and check out the podcast this week because I do believe you might hear some of us Southerners on the Wire to Hunt podcast, And then as well, be sure you're subscribed to the Meat Eater YouTube channel so that you can see the buck Truck series when it comes out in Again, guys, thank you all so much for listening. This is rough fresh, Keep it freshm