Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to the whitetail woods, presented by first Light, creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light Go farther, stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on the show, Bill Winkie is breaking down his predictions for the upcoming whitetail Rut, tips for patterning deer in the
pre rut and rut periods, and more. All right to welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light and their Camo for Conservation initiative, in which a portion of every sale of their Spector Camo, which is their whitetail pattern, a portion of all those proceeds goes to support the National Deer Association, which is doing great stuff for deer dear hunters. So I'm pretty
stoked about that. I'm also pretty stoked about our plan for today's episode, because if you were listening to this right about when it comes out, which is the very end of October in twenty twenty three, the whitetail Rut is knocking on your door. It's just about here. You might even already be seeing those early does popping in the heat. There might be some excitement in the woods already, and if not, it is coming soon and we've got a great episode to get you ready for that wherever
you are. And our guest today is mister Bill Winky. Now, Bill, I think probably doesn't need much of an introduction. He's been on the podcast in the past. He's been all over your TV, he's been in your magazines, he's been on your podcast feed. He is an absolute pro when it comes to whitetail hunting. And today what I want to talk to him about was a few things. Number One, what should we be thinking about in these last days of October the pre rut, you know, this ramp up
to the big event. How can you be targeting a specific buck at this time of year. He actually is starting to shift his favorite week of the year from November into this last week of October. So there's some great things we discuss on that front, and then we dive through all things November, all things white tail Rut.
Some of you longtime listeners might recall we did an episode with Bill about two years ago about his evolving approach to the rut and So what I did for this episode is I went back and listened to that one and made sure that I remember what we talked about last time, and then this time tried to ask him everything that I didn't cover with him on that time around. So what I recommend you do is maybe go back and listen to that last one right after
you listen to this. Then you'll get a very full picture of Bill's full approach to the Whitetail Rut, a whole lot of different ideas, and I think that'll give you a pretty comprehensive set of strategies, tactics and tips to consider here in the coming weeks. But before all of that, before we get Bill on the line, I do have my right man, man, right hand man. What
I'm trying to say, Tony with me. Yeah, something for for quick introductory chat here, we got to catch up a little bit on what's going on in our white tail worlds. And then I also, Tony was thinking that you and I could both maybe give a couple last minute rut ideas or or a little bit like a pep talk to folks before November kicks off from our perspective too, So you down.
For that I'm down for that, buddy, all right.
So we got to hear real quick. You just came back from a trip in Oklahoma hunting with mister Ranella. You want to give me the cliff notes on that and any major takeaway as far as a learning opportunity, maybe, Yeah.
I was down in some public land in Oklahoma with Steve, and I guess the biggest takeaway I had was I went down there. The forecast was supposed to be like eighty five and Sonny just about every day. And when I got there at a scout, I spent two days scouting and then we had four days to hunt. So my plan, of course was water because we were hunting
any deer. I'm like, we're we have lots of tags, and we don't have enough time in mid October to be like we're going to we're chasing one hundred and forties or bus right, So my goal was to just to get around deer. And I figured it was going to be kind of a staging area scrape thing, and
it was going to be water. And then I got down there and I the first full day I had, I put on twenty five thousand steps and I found no scrapes, and I found a lot of places where there was water at some point that has evaporated and moved on to somewhere else on earth. And so I did find some limited water. But what it kind of became clear to me was my plan. The two parts of my plan were just wrong, and I needed to be on acorns and per Simmons, so hard and soft mass.
I've never and I've never worked a per Simmon plan in my life, but I started finding them in places and you know, pounded under individual trees, and so I guess the takeaway from it was, you know, you go into going to some kind of hunt. You know, we got the rut coming up here, and people are like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to ride this program out. I'm going to kill one is, give it, give it a good shot, but understand that there might be something going on where you just need a hard pivot.
And you know, if those deers show you something different, you better listen to them. And it took me. I ended up the last place I really scouted ended up being this kind of just killing tree area where there was one person and mixed into a bunch of oaks, and it just happened to be in a place with two kind of pretty good funnels leading in there, and it was just on fire. And so my whole, my entire plan for going down there and what I was going to do scrapped and I found something else.
Well, I think another thing that stands out and we talked about this two weeks ago when we were chatting. But what you did, I think is so important when you're hunting a new place or newer place, when you're showing up for a short hunt, you spent a significant amount of time on the front end scouting.
Yep.
So he didn't jump right in a tree and like tried to start hunting right away because you're worried about not having a lot of times. You want to spend every time, every hour you possibly can in the tree. Instead, you made sure that you really understood what was going on. So, I mean, can you imagine if you just started sitting in trees with the game plan that you assumed would be the case, It could be a disaster.
It would have been it would have been terrible. And you know, I mean we did. You know, that's a good point mark because we weren't doing all days sits so we had time in the midday, and one of the days I went over and met Steve help him pull this one set that I had over just this little pond that had some oaks around it, and we saw some deer on public driving to him, and then when we left, we some so we're like, man, we
better just go take a peek around in there. And the cool thing about the drought down there, it sucks that there's no water, but every creek bed is dry, so you have this amazing access to weave all over through the public. And when we were that's how we took to get into where we saw these deer, and it just led us to this this a few spots where there'd be big oaks hanging over this dry creek bed, and it was like those deer knew that was a safe buffet because they could walk in there and they
didn't have to scroungedra on the leaf litter. It's literally just laying on you know, kind of hard packed mud or sand and like filtering tons of masks down there, and so it was kind of like one of those light bulb moments where you're like, Okay, you can can be because the rest of the country is so dry that all the tracks nothing looks fresh like you're kind of like, all the sign is really hard to read.
But when you got down the creek bottom there was it was wet enough where you're like, those are fresh tracks and there's a billion of them. So then you're like, you know, I thought they might be eating acorns. Now you look at it and you go, without question, this is going on. And the same thing happened with some persymmetries there.
There you go, scout learn, hunt educated versus uh, hunt smarter not harder. Sometimes is the is the ticket, that's for sure.
I felt like I had to do both.
Well yeah, idally, ideally both, but we got to get the smarter part right first. Absolutely, that's good man. I'm glad you guys had a good hunt. Glad you were able to fill some tags there when it was before it was all said and done and uh or we're we're I'm assuming we'll see that on the mediat or YouTube channel someday, right, Yeah.
I don't know where they're going to drop it, but it'll be you know, probably next August, September something like that.
Very cool. Uh, well, I have not had that much excitement. Since we've talked, I have hunted more, but just not successfully I've been I think when we talked last time, I was wrapping up that hunt on the back forty and uh Man. We had some close calls for those
new hunters, but just not quite close enough. Like one guy, one of the guys had a big buck just out of one night, and the other guy had a dough like literally two yards out of range one night and super super super close, just not where he wanted it. So very exciting though. I think they had a great experience. It was fun. I think they learned some things, so that was good. Just no tags filled. And then I have taken a few more swings for the buck I'm after.
You know, we talked last time about how I spotted him up in that tall grass right and I've not seen him since while hunting, but I have seen him two more times on nights that I couldn't hunt but I could glass for the end of the night, and one time he was in that tall grass and another time he was coming out of his usual betting area, And another time I went to hunt him in the oaks next to that betting area and he came out on the other side, feeding into one of my food
plots on the opposite of the betting area. So he continues to be kind of centered most of the time around this zone, this like eight to ten acre betting area. But I've yet to find any kind of consistent pattern to where he'll come out of it. He'll go east, north, southwest, doesn't seem no matter what the wind is, doesn't seem to matter. I've yet to see anything that correlates to
why he goes in any particular direction. So I'm I'm now pulled out for a while, and I'm gonna come back in late October because I'm actually taking off for another hunt here shortly. So I'm gonna give that spot of rest and then hit it hard again late October, and hopefully he'll be still around, still moving, and I'll be able to push in and continue to just kind of work around that betting area and hope to finally intercept him. I don't know, he's keeping me on my toes, that's for sure.
Man, when you have one that's you know, pretty low, even though he seems random, but he's locked into that general area that late October time, Well, that's a that's such a good time to catch him just covering all of that area during daylight.
I think that as long as I, like my thought is he's he's in there, he's pretty daruncomfortable because I've you know, seen or gotten pictures of him move in daylight like a decent number of times, like way more than some day I've hunted. So as long as I don't screw it up in some really stupid way, as long as I hunt smart around that, we've got to
intercept eventually. Now. One thing, and I don't think we talked about this last time, but I have like been thinking about it, is I'm sometimes guilty of sometimes guilty of wanting to get a lot of first sits right because first sits are powerful, they're great. So I'll bounce around a lot. But I've started wondering, and I actually talked to Bill about this later in today's episode two.
But I've started wondering, if I'm bouncing around all the time and he's also randomly bouncing around a lot of time, are we cross like criss crossing and missing each other? Do I need to pick a spot or two and sit them like, you know, several days at a time, like I don't want to say volume hunt, but give a little bit more time in one particular place so that I'll be there eventually when he does cycle through there.
So that's a thought I'm considering if I can find the right place to do that, in the right place that's low impact enough that I can get away with that.
Man that I think that's a bigger struggle than a lot of people give it credit for, especially today with such good mobile options. Is it's so easy to think that you got to keep just like he's killable here, now, he's going to be killable here, he's going to be killable there. And man, Steve and I went through this in Oklahoma because I killed a little buck on that first sit in there, and you know, you're like, how much of an impact does that cause?
You know, and then.
Kill another one in there and it's like are there is there going to be anything left? But it's just sometimes sometimes it's just the right spot, and if if you can get the wind in your favor and you have good access, you can you know, like you said, maybe not volume on it, but you can spend way more time in some of these spots than you think.
Yeah, I think what I'm trying to What I've been saying to myself a lot is is listen to what the deer telling you, Like, don't make a sumptions based on what deer' is supposed to do. See what the deer are actually doing, and then you know, listen to that. But I mean, like, throughout this month of October, I've kept on saying, well, you know, he's probably going to be not moving in daylight anymore. Sea Price keep pushing
it so hard. You know, I usually don't hunt as many times as I have this year in the early part of October, but I keep on seeing him when I'm scouting or I get a picture of him, so he's telling me that He's telling me I haven't screwed it up yet, So it made sense to you know, keep trying. But yeah, we'll see. It'll be interesting. It's fun to try to unravel these stories and figure out each one of these these bucks. That's it's always a
little bit different. So that will be late October for me, and then I'm actually leaving when folks are listening to this, I will be up at my family deer camp trying to help my dad get a buck up there. So I'm very excited about that. That'll be like the biggest chunk of time we've probably ever spent up there, and high hopes for my dad getting his best dear yet. So fingers crossed with that one too. That'll be good, Yeah, buddy.
So that's what's going on in our world. Everyone else's world is going to be kicking off the white Tail rut here any day now, if they already haven't. So, I guess I want to leave folks with a few thoughts from each of us leading into the rut. Maybe a lesson we learned last year, or something that you think we all need to be reminded of before we
take off on our rut cations, anything like that. Does anything come to mind for you, Tony, Like if you were sitting at the coffee shop or the diner with one of your best hunting buddies and they're about to take off for the rut cation, what would you tell them?
I would tell them. I mean, so, I'm kind of planning I'm head to North Dakota for my first kind of rut hunt. I'm gonna go hunt some public land out there, and really my plan is to find maybe two or three pinch points. I think I have six days total and give each enough time to prove to me whether it's worth being there not and then bail. And I think we look at it like, you know, a quantity of sits versus just putting in the hours in one spot, you know, or like giving each sit
more time. I guess I should say it that way. So I know a lot of people go out and they treat rut hunts sort of like they do early season, where they're like, oh, I'm gonna go sit tonight for four hours or whatever. You know, I'm gonna go in the morning and hunt before work. Yeah, anytime you can get into a tree is great, but this time of year, it's just like, figure out a way to put as many hours into a spot you believe in as possible, and then if it shows you it's not good, then
it's time to move. But I think we go, well, I'm going to put three hours in and I didn't see anything, so it's time to move. And it's like, man, you know, the rut is. The rout sucks a lot of times, Like it's not just a NonStop deer fest, Like you have these big blocks of time where nothing happens. But when it busts loose or when you just get that cruiser, it's worth it. And so you can't really treat it like the earlier season sits. If you have the time to be in the tree, go be in
the tree. And I know that's like dumb down, but I keep learning that about myself is like quit second guessing. Like if I have a pinch point or a train trap that I believe in, I just need to give it as much time as possible for at least a couple of days, and if it doesn't produce, then I
know I'm off and it's time to move. But instead of just hopping around from stand to stand to stand, or just being like, well, now now that it's November first, I can just go sit that cut cornfield that I've been sitting for six weeks and it's going to deliver a buck to me, it's like, uh, probably not.
You know, so, is that two day you mentioned two days there in a pinch point? Is that what you would say, like your average amount of time you'd like to put into a travel cord or something like that in the rut before you judge it as boom or bust.
Yeah, and it's not so one of the ways that I look at it, especially in a place like where I'm going, where it's pretty low deer density. There's good bucks there, but there's just not a lot of deer, and so it's kind of like northern Wisconsin, like you're not gonna have a ton of deer come down the trail, but every fifth one could be real nice, you know. So I look at it and go, is my did
I read this spot correctly? Even if even if I spend all day there and two four key's go through, if they if they do what I expect them to do, that's a huge confidence boost to me. It's you know, and I think a lot of people look at it and go, well, I'm not around the big ones. I'm like, man, if the scrapper just showed you that he comes from there and goes through there right twenty yards past your stand, that's huge. And if some does do it or whatever.
So it's like I'm looking for I'm looking for signals from the entire deear hurt because what that little guy does, a big one could do tomorrow. And so I think we kind of and we kind of outdrive our headlights a little bit. We're like, well, I didn't see a big deer do anything, so I'm not around the big deer. It's like, no, I think you just didn't have the big deer come by. You better you better give it more time.
Yeah. Yeah, that's so true in the rut especially. Yeah,
I think that's that's strong advice. Would I would just echo something you kind of led with, which was, you know something you and I both talked a lot about last season, which is just the expectations we bring into the rut, right, And I think we almost always come into the rut thinking it's going to be gangbusters, thinking it's going to be gung ho, NonStop amazing, and then we are always disappointed with it because the reality of the rut for ninety nine percent of people is a
whole lot of monotony punctuated by just a few of those special moments. If we're lucky right, if we did everything right, we'll get a few of those special half days or whatever it might be. So you have to like go into it expecting that and being okay with that, because such a huge part of being able to capitalize when you do got those couple of little moments it's like you have to be in the game at that moment.
You have to still be out there, you have to be paying attention, you have to be like mental there. And it's so easy, Like I mean, I know we're both guilty of this. It's so easy to get like down and out when you've sat in the same spot for two days and it's dead and you don't know what's going on, and your second guessing yourself and you're tired or you're hungry or cold or whatever it is. It's so easy to lose your focus and if you're not with it, when you get that thirty five seconds
of opportunity, there's your week. There's your week, or there's your season, whatever it might be. So it's like I feel like the cheat code for that is like going in assuming it's gonna be rough for a bunch of it and being okay with it and saying, hey, you know what this is gonna be. What's gonna be. There's gonna be a bunch of time that's not gonna be great.
I'm gonna learn to meditate, I'm gonna learn to like accept that, and I'm gonna scan my surroundings and know everything's around me, and I'm okay with the fact that this will not be like an outdoor TV show most of the time, because I know if I put in the time and the work, you know, I'll have a couple of special moments I should hopefully. And then the second thing I would say along that is just like,
remember this isn't life or death. Like you've said this in the past, like nobody cares what you kill, no one but yourself, and like maybe a hunting buttery or two really cares. So don't put so much pressure on yourself. It's this is not gonna make or break your life or your year. This is supposed to be fun, So like, get out there, do the stuff you know you need to do, but make sure you're enjoying it too, because
if you're not enjoying it, what's the point. I think that's that's such a key thing for many of us, The anticipation of the rut ends up being more fun than the rut itself because we end up like beating ourselves up during the rut and making ourselves miserable. So I'm trying to you know, this has been a theme over the last couple of years, but the rut in particular, is like, man, keep that fun too, Like it's gonna be hard work, yes, but like enjoy that process and
good things come when you can have that attitude. Attitude matters so much.
Yeah, and I'll just I'll add some quick there. One of the things I've been thinking about a lot is, you know, it kind of was driven home for me on this Oklahoma hunt, Like how nice it is when deer come in and they're like scuffling around for one percentment under a tree and they offer you twenty seven shots in a row, or they're they're just milling around.
Like where I'm going with this is a lot of people who are going out to hunt the rut who are going to listen to this probably haven't hit that stage where they're like a real closer yet, you know, like they might be able to get around here, but a lot of people struggle with like that the last important part of being a killer, and the rut makes that situation kind of it kind of injects a little adrenalineto the whole situation in a way that those earlier
season sits you have relaxed deer and the vibe is just like slow moving, like you're going to get your
chain during the rut. A lot of times those deer, even if they aren't moving super fast, they kind of have that like nervous energy vibe where they're sniffing here and they're walking here, and they're they just project something to us where we panic like it's gonna be over and you know, of course, sometimes they cruise through fast or they chase through, so it does happen fast too, But most of the time, your encounters are going to give you a little bit more to work with, and
your brain's probably gonna tell you right away, but you have to be ready, like you said, like if you're if you're sitting there on Instagram and your bow's hanging there and you're really not paying attention and that deer comes in, you've missed You've missed a window already that
could cost you. And I know it's hard, but man, it's like you really have to pay attention to those situations and understand if that buck is really going to get in and get out quick, or you're going to read it and go, man, he's he's probably gonna just give me enough to work with here where I don't need to rush this that's a hard thing to get through.
Yeah, though, that extra twenty seconds catching him sixty yards away when he's behind trees and you can like okay, here it is, stand up, get positioned like that little bit of extra time makes a world of difference in keeping your head right in those final moments versus seeing him at thirty when he's in range and coming you're like, holy crap, and you're just racing. I mean that's chaos. Yeahs uh huh, yes it is. Well, yeah, man, I'm
excited about your North Dakota hunt. I'm excited uh to hear how that goes, and to share how my Nebraska hunt will go. That'll be where I'm headed after dear Camp and after Michigan for a few days. So let's get back on here in a couple of weeks and share some success stories. How about that.
I'm jealous, budd. If you need your money to carry your boat down there or anything, let.
Me know, Well, North Cote's not that far away, so you could just slip on south for a few days. Hunh that's true. True? All right, man, Well, best of luck out there, and real quick tease for folks, what should they be looking for? If you can remember off the top of your head, is there anything on this week's Foundations or upcoming Foundations episode that people should keep an eye out for.
You know what, I think I'm well, by the time this comes out, I think I'm going to write one about shot opportunities during the run, because I think that's a topic that needs to get really kind of fleshed out nice.
All right, Well, make sure if anyone listening has not been tuning in to Tony's Foundation episodes every Tuesday on this feed, make sure you're checking that out. And with all that said, let's wrap this intro up and let's get Bill Winky on the phone. All right here with me back on the show. We've got the one and only Bill Winky. Bill, thanks for coming on the show.
Yeah, it's my pleasure. Yeah, thanks for having me Mark.
I always enjoy our chats. Bill. And I was just thinking the other day as I was, you know, preparing for this. I don't know if I've ever told you this story, but you have a really important role in my hunting life. Unbeknownst to you, when I graduated college, I took a job with a tech company and they shipped me out to their headquarters in Silicon Valley out in California, and I'm out there in California in September, in October, and I'm miserable. I'm stuck, you know, in
the big city working at this company. No one around me hunts, nobody knows anything about hunting or deer. I can't get out and do the things I love. And so this time I realized, like this is this was just the time that I decided to start Wired to Hunt and to start this thing so that I could, you know, scratch that whitetail h while I'm far, far
far away from it. And so my life involved, you know, being at the office for eight hours, working all day, and then I'd come home and I would do two things. I would work on Wired Hunt and I would watch every single episode of Midwest White Tail back in two thousand and nine to the fall of two thousand and
nine bills. So this was the early days, and this was like just when all your state by state stuff was getting out there, and you got me through a miserable fall because I could follow along with like all these little videos you're posting along the way, and I was able to feel like I was kind of a part of the season. So so I just thought i'd bring that up and thank you for getting me through that tough time, and then also to make me realize
how fast all that time is gone. I mean that was fourteen years ago now or fifteen years something like that.
Yeah, I mean it's to me, it seems like it was fifty years ago. That was. You know, someday we'll talk about how hard that was. And I know you've been around a lot of media and with the mediator stuff that you do too. I mean there's there's a mass of machine behind the public facing media that people see and they don't realize how much work it is. And I mean I have an interesting story to tell sometime that your jaw would drop when I tell it to you about how I was. I quit in two
thousand and nine. I mean I was like I was sitting in church. I decided during church, I'm quitting. This is just because I was working like ninety hours a week. You know, I was doing the writing, the photography, all the standard stuff to pay the bills, and then doing this because it wasn't making any money. You know, you had to do like four jobs, you know. Well, I was sitting there and I said, I'm done. I mean, I can't do this anymore. I'm selling the farm, you know,
I'm in a bag groceries at Walmart. I don't care. I'm just not living like this anymore, sitting there all dejected. After the church ended, and there was a fella in the church. If there was anybody that, you know, God would appoint as an angel, it'd be this guy.
You know.
He's kind of a simple fellow, you know, not you know, and his name was Bob. And Bob kind of up to me and he said, he said, if you fold it up now, you're not going to be any good to anybody. And he walked off, and I'm like, I guess I can't fold it up because I had decided that was done. I mean, as soon as I got away from church, I'm like, this is over. I'm not doing any more of this. So that was the legacy of Midwest white tail. I mean it was I did it because I had to. Almost It was brutal, but
I mean not to complain. I mean a lot of people go through rough, you know, rough startups, but nine was that was such a hard year. Wow, I mean latly exhausted every single day, you know, and trying to scratch around to find sponsors. Nobody understood what we were doing, you know, and then you know, eventually it took off. Obviously I did it did well, but gosh, it was tough. Yeah.
Those Uh, it's so funny people look at something like that and they think, oh, overnight success, like a yeah, Bill just started this web show and then it blew up and everyone loves it, and few people ever see what happens behind closed doors, and just how how hard so many of these things are when you're trying to start something from scratch.
Oh yeah, because there's so if you skip some of the details, the whole thing implodes. Yeah, you know, and speak that like fifty things at once, and it's yeah, anyway, I'm not, like I said, I'm not going to complain. We got through it. But I think if I had to do it again, I wouldn't do it because I think that's the beauty of ignorance, is bliss because if
you see how high the mountain is, you don't start climbing. Yeah, but you think it's not a mountain, It see a hill, start climbing, and then there's like you know, twelve hills later you realize there's.
A lot of false summits along that route. That's for sure.
Not too off topic. I thought you get a kick out of that.
I did. I'm glad that you were able to push through it and that your friend there at church gave you that little bump because a lot of folks have benefited because of it.
Yeah, it's a cool machine now. I mean, I'm not part of it anymore, but what the guys are doing with it now is still you know, speaks you know, really well to the white tail community.
I think, yeah, no, you're they're carrying on your legacy well. And you sure started a great thing, and it's exciting that you've got something new again. I'm glad that you are, you know, back out there sharing your stories because so many of us have enjoyed following along and learning along
the way. And I guess that that is kind of where I did want to take us Bill today, as we talked about, you know, before we start recording, when this podcast drops, it'll be like October twenty fourth or fifth, right around that ballpark, so folks will be just about to launch into you know what most of us consider that best time of the year, right late October all the way through November. It's it's what we waited, you know,
the previous ten eleven months for. So I want to walk through, you know, as much of the detailed inner sanctum of your mind, bits and pieces of your pre rut and rut strategy that we can, and I want to try to do it in a way that's different than some of the previous conversations we've had, because we did have a good rut conversation a couple of years ago, and so I thought we could start with what you are actually doing right now leading into that time period,
which is, I know you're targeting, you've got a specific buck and I think in one of your videos you mentioned maybe you've got two deer that year after this year, right, is that correct?
There's two that I would like to shoot, and there's one I'd like for my daughter to get a chance at. So there's really three on the farm that we've picked out.
Okay, So one of the videos he posted a few weeks ago, maybe was a month or so ago, you did a really great job of breaking down like how you develop a pattern for a deer, and you talked about the buck you killed last year, and you went kind of site by sight and talked through different camera locations and how you use photos and observations to kind
of zero in on where he lived. Yep. I'm kind of in a situation right now where I'm trying to do something like that with my target deer here in Michigan. So I'm going to selfishly ask you a lot of questions just to help my own personal mission here. Yeah, but could you start by telling us how you're doing that this year for those two bucks a year after. What's that process looked like so far for you?
So that's the that's the fascination of whitetails, I think, because you know, every buck is different, and where the deer I killed last year was unique was he had a really small range and he was a little bit daylight active within that range, so he was kind of easy to nail down because he wasn't hitting a lot of cameras outside of a small area. So that meant that,
you know, I had him pretty well peg. So there was no big urgency as far as trying to scatter stands all over the place and have this complicated strategy.
It was more about picking two or three spots that really worked out well for me, and then just putting my time in and because that's the way to hunt if they've got a small range, you just pick a couple of really good, complimentary spots that work for you, and you don't get too crazy because he's there, you know, the you don't have to run all over the countryside trying to find him. Well, that's the the two time
after this year are the opposite. They're all over the farm and you know, I figured it's going to be a challenge. They're old deer, so they move a lot during daylight, which is which is a unique characteristic of older deer, and that's something we can get off topic on someday, but they are moving a fair amount in daylight.
They're just all over the place. You know, like one night they'll be on this end of the farm, and then the other night, you know, the next night they might be a mile away on the other end on my cameras, So just being able to figure out, you know, where can I put stands somewhere in that massive range that makes any sense, that's the challenge with these two. And then of course I was telling you and before we started last night. I had him. I had him
speed it up, you know. After all of that, you know, and some of it. When you own the land, you can set the farm up a little bit for those deer because you can anticipate from one year to the next, you know which bucks are probably going to be there, roughly where their ranges are going to be. Maybe you make a little Heidi Whole food plot somewhere in that area and you say, Okay, I'm gonna that's where I'm
gonna get him. Well, I had that in mind when I set up this location, and I was hunting there last night, and as I told you, I mean, I was doing something out the window with the GoPro, doing a little pan you know, and pulled the pulled my arm back in and closed the window. Well it clicked, and he was fifty yards away making a scrape, and I saw it just as I clicked the window shut.
And of course he snapped his head up and looked, and you know, I thought, well, maybe I'll get lucky and he won't figure this out, you know, and I can grab my bow, you know. So I might have been moving inside the window and he saw me or whatever body he bounded off. He didn't blow it, he didn't bust out, but he was fifty yards away making
he was coming. He would have been you know, anyway, heartbreak, you know, all of that, all of that thought and effort, and then it came down to, you know, twenty seconds of bad timing, you know, because if I'd had my arm in twenty seconds earlier, you know, we'd probably be talking about the deer I killed last night. But anyway, so the getting back to that, every buck is different and how you hunt them really depends a lot on how much you've learned about those deer, and sometimes it
takes a couple of years to figure them out. And that's I mean, that's the fascination, but a little bit
of the frustration too. So these two I'm having to have spread a really wide net and try to be more i would say generic in the way that I'm hunting them, Like I don't have them pinned down, So I'm hunting within this large range, just spots that make sense when a buck is moving during the But this is where he's probably going to go, Like he's probably going to check this betting year and he's probably going
to go through this funnel. You know, I just have to get lucky that you know, within that massive you know, half a mile plus you know, long range that I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. And I do think they'll move a lot. Like I said, during the rut, they're both old and that's they're not huge, but there they'll be fun to hunt. So anyway, getting back to that is is, uh, depends on how much you know about the deer. That's kind
of the starting point. And you know, so I'll throw it back to you, I guess, and maybe you can ask me specific questions. But that's the challenge. Every deer is different, you know, and you have to approach him very specifically because there's no generic answer.
Yeah, So, so what does your process look like, Bill, for trying to build out like that personality profile for a buck you mentioned, like you can have previous year's history and then is what they're doing this year? How do you one of the I can make. I'm assuming I know what the things are you're looking at, but I'd love for you to talk to me about what the specific things are that you are using to develop that.
We'll call it a profile and then how do you keep track of it or analyze that stuff to figure out what to do with it?
Well, for sure, any sightings that you had the year before are critical. Trail camera pictures from last year and this year. I think in Michigan, can you put bait in front of a trail camera? No, not anymore because it used to be able to write.
Yeah, it got outlawed once for CWD and they got brought back for a little bit, and then again it's gone okay.
So that's the easiest way to get a quick pattern is just to pour it back a corner front of a trail camera and come back in a week do what you got. Well, that's what I do, and then I stop running cameras. I've got cameras scattered around the farm now that are sitting on open gates and trails and stuff like that. But the information I get from those is much less useful, or I shouldn't say useful's
super useful. Just don't get much of it, you know, because when you put it on a just even a small you know, pilot corn, you're going to concentrate the deer in that area, so you know where they live. So all I really want to know is where they live. I don't have to know exactly what they're doing each day. I want to know roughly where where their core is and how big their range is. Those are the keys because inside of that, I don't want to know more because it takes some of the fun out of the
hunt for me, you know, I want to know. I want to be able to rely on some woodsmanship skills, you know, a little you know, experience with deer. I mean, it's it's not about you know, whether I kill every single one or you know, the most or whatever. It's about just enjoying the experience of hunting mature white tails. So anyway, that's my strategies. I'm always trying to figure out where their core is and how big their range is.
And once I know those two things, and you throw a little bit of information in there, how how daylight active they are. That comes from the trail cameras too, and then you can you can figure them out. You don't really need to know more than that. You almost don't need to know even if they're daylight active, because those those opportunities are going to come now, you know, as we get into the tail end of October.
Yeah, So when you're trying to figure out that core area, how you know, is there a certain way that you are setting up your cameras in a certain range or in a certain position to establish, you know, a core area to make that decision, because I think that if you just put a couple of random cameras out, you're not really learning a whole lot other than a single point or two in that random area that you that
you don't know. So how do you cast that net and then you know, determine what this means for a zone on the map.
Well, yeah, once you find one excuse me, that you want to hunt, then you move more cameras around that area. You have to be really careful about how in true if you are with those camera locations, and you know, I always try to stay on trails, not not deer trails, excuse me, on like field lanes, anything that you can drive through with the four wheeler and the beer, don't
care or for a truck. If I have to walk to someplace, I'm always wearing waiters at least you know, waist high waiters, So I don't leave any cent I try to avoid spots that I have to walk to because you know, for one, it just takes longer, and for two, you know, it's more usually more intrusive. So there's lots of lanes and trails and corners and field edges and stuff like that where you can stick cameras where there's scrapes and you know, funnels that you can
drive to. I mean, and granted they may get visited more at night, but they're going to be right at the edge of legal shooting time. That's going to tell you the core. The core is where they're most day lot active. You get a picture of a buck at three in the morning, haven't learned anything really, Maybe you're in his range. You know, you're in his range right now, but that might change in two weeks. To find his core, you've got to get, you know, photos that are closer
to daylight. And I don't want to be right on top of his betting area, but I want to be just outside of it, you know where That's where I want my cameras or just outside of the betting areas, because they're going to get hit, you know, right on twilight or you know, first light in the morning as he's going back into bed. In some some bucks are pretty narrowly, you know, they have a really small range.
I've hunted some really really cool bucks that had you know, twenty or thirty acre ranges pre range, not even core areas, like that's all the ground they covered during the rock side cameras all around those spots, and they never he never picked up on any of them. So anyway that I've had others like gosh, I've hunted a few that seemed like they had a square mile you know that you just couldn't peg him. So I'll throw it back to you.
Well, with those cameras that you're putting up, and that's helping you establish these points within that possible range. And then you'll, I'm sure you look at these camera pictures and then you start seeing where are the most where the most pictures, and where are there are a few pictures, and where there are no pictures, And I imagine that helps you start drawing a circle, maybe on a map or something. But I've also heard you, sorry, go ahead.
The other thing you pay attention to is what direction he's he's approaching from, exactly asked. I'll tell you quite a bit too.
Can you elaborate on that a little bit? How you're thinking about.
That, well, it's best if it's closer to legal shooting time. But he's gonna approach from in the evening there you where ebedded, probably and in the first picture you get of them, whatever direction his back end is pointing is probably pointing toward his betting area. Sometimes they loop around, you know, and you get some weird stuff. But you have to take each situation kind of separately. If there's a lot of ways he could get to the camera, you know, on without wasting a bunch of time, then
it's not as valuable. But if you're like, okay, this, if he's betting here, he's going to come to the camera from this direction, and if he's not, then he's probably not betting there, you know. So some of that's just you know, the woodsmanship again of just kind of anticipating how deer move. But you can a lot of times you can figure out where they bed. You can get within i don't know, maybe ten fifteen acres you know,
of where they're betting. You know. Unfortunately that changes and with some bucks they've got a lot of different areas where they bed. But that's uh again, that's the fascination of hunting them because they're all different.
I've got a buck this year that is one of these small home range bucks. As far as I can tell, I mean, I've drawn a circle and I think his like place where I'm seeing him or getting pictures of him, it's it's maybe like thirty acres something like that, and he's not showing up on the outlier cameras that I've
got pretty far away from that. I actually can glass from a couple different places, like near the road and see into edges of that, and so I've seen him a number of times, so I've got a strong understanding of where he spends a lot of time. This is the fourth year that I've been watching this year, so I've you know, I know he's in this area lot.
What's interesting about him, though, is while I know where that core is and I could tell you, I can draw like a ten acre circle and say, man, I think he's betted in that ten acres, and a lot of the time I've yet to be able to get him to a consistent pattern of what he does leaving that betting year. Because he's got food, he can go to the west. He's got food, he can go to the southeast, he's got fooding goes straight south, so he seems to randomly choose which direction he heads out of
there from. I can't correlate any kind of movement with a wind direction. It's not like, well, with a west wind, he's going to go this way or anything like that. I can't figure out any rhyme or reason to how he's gonna leave that bed.
Yeah, depend it because a lot of people think that they only travel with the wind in their face, but that's not true. Yeah, and you start finding that out, especially on the trail cameras. But even when you're setting up ambush sites, I don't set up ambush sites where the deer has any kind of advantage because at some point, you know, whether that's the rut or whatever it is, you know he's gonna he's gonna travel with the crosswindo
or the wind at his back. But anyway, the only thing you can do there, I think is is, uh, just hunt whatever works best for you and put your time in. I had a buck like that that I hunted, and it took me two years to kill him, but I never spooked him. You know, he lived in a really small area like that, and I never went into it. I only hunted the fringes of it. And people were watching the videos and you know, saying, well, why don't
you just go in and go get him. I'm like, yeah, I mean, if you get him then then it's awesome. But if you don't, you run a really high risk of educating him. And I've got a mature buck on a very narrow core area. Why do I want to
take any risk? So I know, you've got a ticking clock with you know, November fifteenth gun opener, But you've got plenty of time if you've got the days to hunt where you can just be patient and just set up in those spots that work for you, and eventually he's gonna come out of there, and he's he's gonna come your way.
You mentioned in the in a situation like that, whether you've got a buck that's in a small zone that you would just pick a couple perfect spots and hunt
those kind of over and over. Yeah, So how I've thought about doing that, But then I worry about that, you know, the over application of pressure hunting the same spot, you know, multiple days in the row or significant number over the course of the next couple of weeks, like how many like how much volume of hunts would you try in that kind of situation?
And the spot will tell you, you know, if I was standing there with you and I could see your entring eggsit route and how well the wind works for you and where the wind blows, you know, what is the likelihood what is the percentage likelihood that some deer is going to know you were there? That's going to dictate how often you can hunt it because there are key days. Maybe there's five or six days between now and November fifteenth when you need to be there for sure.
You know, do you want to be there all twenty days or whatever? You know, yeah, you want to, but maybe it doesn't work. You know, I've got stands. I've hunted locations you could hunt every day, you know, as long as the wind was out of the west, the southwest or the northwest, you were never going to get busted, you know. But I've also hunted spots that, you know, because of the entring eggsit route, usually you're not going to be able to get away with it very often.
And you know, it's not just the target deer that you've got to you know that eat because if you start educating dose. Then the body language of those deer starts transferring through to their whole herd, you know, and he gets the picture. You know that they're they're sharp. They know if if the deer acts spooky in a certain area, there's a reason, you know, So they watch those doughs. And if the dos are getting antsy because they've had bad experiences in a certain spot, he's he's
going to wait it out. So you can't just say, well, I didn't spook him, so it's all good. No, you can't spook anything. And that's the hard But that's why I was only few, right, That's why even if you've got thirty acres, you might only have two spots, yeah, you know where you can consistently do it without the deer knowing.
Yeah, it's been I've been trying to play this don't mess it up game, like I'm being conservatives. So far, I've I've hunted a little bit more for him than I usually do at this time of year. But it's because we've had this great weather and he keeps moving in daylight.
Yeah yeah, I mean.
He seems to be telling me that he's, you know, still there and doing his thing, and I'm seeing him, you know, on the days I can't hunt, I can glass for the last ten minutes. A day later or something, I'm seeing him moving, or I've gotten a few daylight camera pictures. So it's it's telling me to go for him. At the same time, I don't want to mess it up. So I've been on those edges and it's it's tough though, because you feel like, is this a waste of time? You know, I'm not quite in it, but I'm on
the edges of it. And one of the things I've started thinking about is this randomness of his behavior and the randomness of how I usually hunt. I'm sometimes Bill someone who has fallen prey to the idea of like, I want to bounce around a lot because I want to keep the deer off, you know, I don't want them to pattern me, so I frequently will I'll sit here and if there's nothing going then I'm going to move and adjust and try another spot, try another spot.
I have that like tendency. I guess I've started wondering if you take my random not random, but if I bounce around and he's bouncing around, it becomes very likely that we'll bounce around each other and never actually connect. So I've started done.
You can second guess yourself forever. Your randomness could coincide with his randomness too. So the only thing that matters is you cannot The deer can't know you're hunting him. That's it, you know. So whatever you have to do within that bigger, that bigger issue, whatever that is, you know that then and if you're in his you know, small range, you're eventually gonna get it. He just can't know. And and ideally none of the deer know like that.
One dear I hunted. I think I hunted one hundred a buck one time, I think for three or four years, and he never once knew that I was hunting him. And he would he would show up in Dale. He was a giant deer, and he'd show up in Dale I just about every day on the cameras. You know, it was like so tempting to say, well, why did I just press you know, well, eventually killed him. But and maybe I could have killed him quicker if I depressed, But there was also that risk that he would have
known that I was hunting him. So I think that's the overriding principle involved in this in your situation. I mean, if it's a deer covering a big range, it's like, like, my dear, It's like, you know, how do I know? You know, how do I know if I'm impacting them? Because it could be here, you know, I'm sneaking right past where he's betted and he's never bett it there before. You know, so anyway, in your situation, time is on
your side. You know, it's not on his side. You know, if something changes and he starts, you know, ranging out and and he will but you know, maybe you have to press a little bit more then and maybe we can talk about that. But no, I think you're doing the right thing. You just have to be you have to know that you're sort of in the game. You're not in the middle of the game, because you know, you educate a lot of deer when you're in the middle of the game. And if you don't get it done right away.
Does it ever make sense to stick it out in one location. I've started thinking that maybe I need to pick the spot that has like the best wind and access and exit, and then you do two or three days there in a row, just knowing that eventually he'll cycle through versus me trying here, trying here, trying here. Does that make sense?
Yeah? No, I mean I think it's still that that whole thing. You just got to pick those few spots where you can hunt him without the deer knowing, and that's where you put your time in. If it's really marked all the way around, then you've got to pick and choose your hunts a little bit more. You can't be maybe saturating as much as you'd like. It's not every farm, not every excuse me, not every situation sets up for you know, a lot of hunting pressure though.
Not only do you have to play the deer, but you also have to play the area where you're hunting him. You know, the chessboard. But no, I think you just you figure out, you know, where are the places where I can hunt this year without him knowing, and then whenever the wind is right, you hunt one of those.
Yeah, excuse me. Can you walk me through how you went through this process with that deer you were hunting last year which was kind of similar to you know this year I'm talking about, and then I had that smaller home range. I know you ended up killing him on Halloween. I think I think folks would be interested to hear a little more detail about how you pulled that out during that period too.
He was, Yeah, because I had I think I had four or five cameras out and he was only showing up on a couple of them, and it was kind of easy to predict where he was betting because of the direction he would come to those cameras in the evenings. And there was a bottom field, you know, that was below one of his betting areas, so it was the primary food in that area, you know, and that's where the doughs were going to be going. I mean, it
was kind of a no brainer, you know. Granted, you know, I wasn't hunting on his bedding area, and I wasn't going to, but I was hunting where he would be most likely to go when he left it, and I didn't hunt it a lot, I mean, obviously, you know, I think it was the second time in was when we killed him. We hunted on the October eighteenth, and then we hunted on Halloween, and I got him on Halloween.
But he was out there with seventy degree day. He was out there two and a half hours before the end of legal shooting time on a seventy degree day. He was comfortable. So that's that's the key is he felt like it was his world, you know, and there was nobody else living in it, you know, and you want to do that as much as you can. But I would have put more pressure on him as time went by, you know, I just didn't didn't have the chance to hunt. I had other projects going on and stuff.
I was trying to help my daughter, you know, shoot her first year with the bow and stuff like that, So you know, I probably would have put a little bit more pressure on him, but that it's more time frame specific. But your bucks are moving in the daylight, so you don't you don't quit, you know, you just keep hunting him every time it makes sense, every time you've got a wind that makes sense for a location you think you can get in and out of, and
eventually your paths cross. You know. It's just I tell people, it's like you know, you're dropping, you know, drops of water on sandstone. You know, if you're trying to make a hole in it. You could take the pressure washer and blast away and hope to make a hole, but you might destroy the sandstone. You know while you're at it. My my strategy is just be that drop drop, drop, drop drop, and eventually you got a hole through it
and the sandstone is still there, you know. And a lot of people they get impatient or they're forced, you know, by a lack of time. You know. We have to realize too that some people don't have the luxury have been able to hunt, you know, often then they have to use the pressure washer and hope for the best, you know, and hope they don't you know, blow the sandstone piece to to you know, bits, but you don't
have that that ticking clock yet. They just you're you're the drop of water, drop drop, drop drop, and eventually you get him.
I like that analogy. I heard you talk at one point about the three green I think you call him green flags or green lights to know when you want to go in and kill a deer like this. So so in my case, like he has been showing up in daylight and that's a pretty clear green light to go after him. But could you walk through what those green lights are? Was it flags or lights? I'm not
sure what it was. Tell me whatever it was green, Okay, what were those things for you that typically are the most important before you're going to you know, take those drop drop drop strikes.
Yeah, obviously, like we talked about, if he's on a daylight pattern, Now, if you know that at least some percentage of the time he's coming out in daylight, you gotta hunt him, you know, carefully, but you gotta hunt him because that's what it's all about. I mean, with a bow, you're hunting natural movement. So the deer have to be coming out in daylight, well they are, you got to hunt. So that's that's you know green light
number one. Number two is anytime you've got a coal front, you know, unfortunately we've had a you know, pretty cold October, you know by you know, normal standards, but if you've got a front coming through, that's usually going to be one of those times when he breaks his nocturnal pattern and comes out maybe an hour sooner or half an
hour or fifteen minutes sooner or whatever. So the coal front is critical, and usually it's the day it goes through and then the day after, so you've got that high pressure you know, on the second day of the
cold front that can be really good. And then the third one is just as you get closer to the rut, and you know, I call it, you know October, late October, you just start hunting him even if they're not going daylight because any day that they're going to break that, you know they're going to start, you know, moving more in day. And the biologists say they're moving during the day anyway, they just aren't doing it in the places where they're vulnerable. Yeah, they're back in where they bet.
Yes, what are your thoughts on the situation we've had here where it's it's been cooler than normal, so it's been great, but now it's just kind of stagnant. See, at least from what I've seen a lot of places, it's cool, but there's not these big fronts coming. It's just kind of staying kind of cool. Does that lose its you know, impact after a while because that consistency now or how what are you thinking?
I don't know, it's so rare. I don't have a lot of anecdotal you know, experience related to this. What I'm seeing is, you know, I like the middle of October for a couple of days anyway, because there's sort of like a false rut, you know, there are some does that come into Esther's the middle of October. You know,
people don't realize that. They just kind of flash in and then they you know, kind of flash back out again because you know, there's always those early born fawns, so there's always a few dos getting bred and out October. But anyway, uh, that's going to pass now. You know. I saw that buck last night making a scrape. I think he'd have been there because it was cool, beautiful, high pressure, a little bit of a north wind. I just think he just thought that's pretty nice out. I'm
going to get up and walk around, you know. So I don't know if it changes now, if it stays cool, you know, I think every day is going to be consistently pretty good, you know, right up right up to the rut, I don't think, you know, I think it's going to drop off a little bit past the middle of October because if there was that flurry related to the first few dohs, then that's going to drop off quick.
So if there was something kicking that movement up you know, this past weekend, in past few days, then that influence is going to drop away. But we're rolling up on the timeframe when you know it's it's coming, you know, full full on, you know, I mean I always figure October twenty fifth is the shall start date, you know, of the deer season, you know, and any or that's a bonus. So we're rolling in towards the twenty fifth, So there's no reason now to think that it's going to drop off.
Yeah, I've heard you in recent years talk about the fact that you've started debating what your favorite week of the rut is. Now you're you're starting to consider maybe you like late October, maybe just as much as early November. Where do you stand on that here now? Today?
I think it's still you know, I just did a video for our channel. In fact, I think it's live. Just went live a couple of minutes ago. While we were talking. My daughter was working on the thumbnail for the video. But that's I really picked, you know, looking at the calendar, you know, the twenty ninth is a Sunday. Twenty ninth is one of my favorite days now, So the twenty eighth is a Saturday. That weekend is awesome. Okay,
that's going to be an awesome weekend. If the weather quick up breaks, do you go if you're gonna take a four day weekend. Do you go Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, or do you go Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. I think you go Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. I think there's a really good opportunity coming up because that takes you from the twenty eighth all the way through Halloween, and that should be a killer. And the beauty of that time
is the bucks are starting to feel their oats. Maybe there's a few dos coming in, you know, maybe just a few, you know, just to get them thinking, you know, but they haven't left their core areas very much yet. They're still in that range where you sort of have them pegged. Yeah, you know, once the rot really breaks loose, thumb bucks really range out. Others don't. I mean, some of them still stay in that thirty acres, but some of them will expand their range and you kind of
lose them for a while. They come back, but they're not there all the time. So now they're there all the time, and then you know, it's a great opportunity for us and if we have a deer more or less peg to be just a little bit more aggressive.
I haven't felt like I was aggressive yet. But I do feel like, you know, during that time frame, let's say the twenty eight through the thirty first, you would be a little bit more aggressive and then you can back off again, you know, and kind of let things you know, coick, you know, rebound.
Okay, do I know you've been pretty strong in the past around you know that the fact that the rut is relatively consistent because a photo period changes and all of that, and weather can influence what we see. Yep, has your mind changed at all or been? Go ahead?
I think the moon can influence how much daylight movement there is. It doesn't change the rut dates. Know, all the all the biological data would suggest that the rut dates are locked in based on photo period. But nothing says that the buck has to move during the day, you know, So what is it that causes him to move during the day versus just breeding only at night? Because and I've I've hunted Michigan before, and I've hunted Iowa before. When it was seventy five degrees during the
first week of November, you didn't hardly see anything. Yeah, And they're like, well there was no rut this year, Well yeah, there was. I mean those deer they breed, they just do it at night. Yeah, So anyway, that's that's my whole everybody's got like a magic recipe for the rut. But I think the dates are pretty locked in. You know, north of a certain line, you know, and the bile just know where that line is. You know. South of it, there's all kinds of different rut dates,
but north of it, it's pretty consistent. You know, the peak of breeding is November fifteenth, plus or minus a day, and you know, you back up from that. You don't really want to hunt the peak of breeding because that's when so many dolls are an estrius and the bucks are locked up, and you know, see you want to be on the on the front end of that. And that's why I like November seventh so well. It puts
you about a week ahead of that. There are dose in estris, but not a ton of them, so you've got a lot of movement, a lot of general movement. So anyway, that's that's my thoughts on it. I could be wrong, but I've talked to an awful lot of biologists and and the ones who don't have a chip in the game, you know, financially to say well, I've got this moon guide or I've been doing this or whatever. They all tell me that there's no correlation with the
RUT dates. They also tell me there's no correlation with almost anything they can figure out. Mark Juri is a really strong proponent of the barometric pressure, and I think he's onto something there, you know. I do think that rising pressure at certain times, you know, really is a trigger. But there aren't very many predictable triggers. The other thing that gets really weird too is you know, you can be out there and see nothing and then a hot
dogum comes by. You see fifteen bucks. Yeah, it's the greatest run. And the guy one ridge over says today was terrible. So it gets it gets kind of quirky, you know, once you get past a certain date in the rut. Yeah, it's all there's so much of it that's random, and there are so few certain certainties you know, within this. But again I always come back to the basic ones. If you know where he lives and you don't he doesn't know you're hunting him, you got a
pretty decent chance of killing him eventually. I mean, it just keep it super simple.
You mentioned that you might give a little credence to the moon impacting maybe how much of that rud activity we see during the day. Have you looked at what the Moon's gonna be this these next thing, you know, three four weeks, and have you thought at all how that might impact you know, this.
Period, because I'm gonna hunt those dates regardless, you know. I mean, the moon isn't going to change when I hunt, because I think an over arching force is that is the you know, the hormonal aspect, you know, when the dose are in estris, you know, and that's that's really not dictated by the moon. So you know, I feel like that overweights maybe days when the moon sort of aligns with whatever. You know. I guess maybe I haven't studied it enough, you know, maybe there's more to it
than what I know. I've just used that drip drip, drip, you know mindset for so long that I just hunt right through everything you know, and then you know it eventually it probably works, you know. It's just, uh, there's so few it sounds bad. I mean, I should have some formula, but there are so few things that are totally predictable, you know. It's just kind of hard to tell somebody here's the magic formula. So anyway, I don't know, maybe I didn't help you very much there.
No, No, it's in line with what I with what I imagine would be the case. It makes a lot of sense to me. Okay, that all being said, then, Bill, if we're not too worried about what the moon's doing and we can't see what the weather forecast is going to be, you know, for November, right, I think we can see right now what that last week of October
looks like. I have seen that in the weather forecast, and at least for Michigan and some of the you know, I think probably over by you two, it looks like pretty good right now, is what it's looking so far. If if someone listening can only take one long weekend of vacation, so they could do kind of like what you talked about. They could take like a Friday and a Monday or something like that, and they can only pick one. I'm curious which of these weekends you'd recommend
they take. And I'm gonna give you two scenarios. I'm gonna tell you if the guy is after one specific buck, or if the guy just wants to kill any buck. Okay, So if the guy is after one specific buck, should he take that weekend of the twenty eighth, twenty nine to thirtieth, like you just talked about, or should he take the weekend of the fourth and fifth of November or the eleventh and twelfth of November.
Well, I don't like the eleventh and twelfth as well, unless it's the rest of them are too warm, you know, so you really wish that you didn't have to set your vacation time until you know, a few days in advance, so you can play weather. It's such a big factor in how much daylight activity there is. It's it's really hard weather forecast. Aside, if you're hunting one buck, gosh, I do like that time frame, let's say, from the
twenty eighth to the thirty I really do like. And it does look like it lines up with some cooler temperatures this year, so it's maybe a little bit more of a sure thing. But if you're just hunting any buck and you just you don't really care, you want, you know, a decent buck or a legal buck or whatever, then I think that that weekend of the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, you know, throw two days in at the end and make a four day weekend out of that one. Excuse me,
I think that one's better than the next one. I think the next one. You get too close to that peak of when the most those are estrus. Closer you get to November fifteenth, the less bucks are going to be cruising. They're going to be tied up with dose. And that doesn't mean you can't kill deer. As you get close to that peak. You just have to have a hot dough near your tree stand, you know. And they tend not to travel a lot. They don't like
to get chased, you know. They kind of hide, and then the bucks have to go find them, you know. So it's not like once they've you know, it's not like these hot doughs are running all over the place, you know, dragon bucks here and there. It's a really frustrating time in my experience, from about the twelfth to the seventeenth or eighteenth.
Yeah, I've always felt the same way. But then I have been seeing this trend and I don't know if this will continue, but I've been I've been wanting to go back and look at this and try to actually get the data to back it up. But I'm going to have to deal with anecdotal evidence. For now. It seems like over the last ten to fifteen years, we have had a whole lot of years where that beginning
of November is warm. We've had a lot of warm beginnings in November, and I've started wondering when I'm planning, like my rut vacation, you know, do I want to push it a little bit later so I can get that cooler weather because I'm sick of hunting November second and it's eighty degrees.
I know, And that's what I'm saying. The weather is such a big factor, but it shouldn't be it shouldn't be warm. Then, you know, there's not like you know, global warming doesn't just affect a one week time frame. Let's say, even if warming right, it's not narrow to say, oh it's global warming the first week of November, but not the rest. So it's just a bad coincidence. It's just a bad of luck because I've seen years when that first week of November was cold and it was
just like bedlam. I mean, it was everywhere, making scrapes running and just crazy, awesome, unbelievably good hunting. And then like you say, you'll run into those years when it's seventy degrees or seventy five degrees and it's just you know, dead. So assuming seasonal temperatures, you know that that timeframe is
really good. But you know, if you know the weather is going to be good the tail end of October, you could roll the dice and say, well, I'm gonna I'm gonna go with this, you know, because I know the weather is so important, I'm not going to risk
it being warm past the forecast window. I don't know, it's I wish I had the answer to that, because everybody wants to know what's the magic day, and you can tell them when it should be, but you can't tell them when it's going to be because of the weather.
Yeah, So, speaking of last year, we had that really brutal stretch for most of the country that was so warm there during the windows that we would hope would be great. Where do where do you land these days as far as how to hunt those warm rut days? How do you make the best of that situation. I hope we don't have it this year, but I'm trying to make sure I'm prepared just in case.
Well, you got to hunt morning specifically, because if you think about it, like I'm sitting out here right now outside the building and it was thirty degrees. There was frost on the ground when I got up. It's still pretty chilly. I mean, it's probably thirty six right now. You know, I'm sitting out here with my hands down in my pockets trying to keep them more. But by let's say five o'clock tonight, it might be sixty degrees
and it may not cool down until after sunset. So you have more hours of cool temperature in the morning than what you do in the afternoon. So the mornings tend to be better when it's really hot because they had that benefit of that cooler night in order to bring all the you know, the average temperatures down. So there's going to be more daylight movement on the tail end of the nighttime cooler than there would be on the front end, you know, when it's still warm in
the afternoons. So I mean, hot dough Trump's all of that, you know, because she's going to bring them out no matter what, you know. But you know, without a hot dough dictating the behavior, I believe the mornings are better. And you got to be close to the betting areas because you know, that's uh, they're they're betting down earlier than normal, so you know, hunting mornings close to betting areas. I can't remember what year it was, it was in
the late nineties, I think or early two thousands. There was one year when it was eighty plus degrees excuse me every day during that first week of November, and I ended up filling the buckouts after. But it was a right first light in the morning, right near a betting area is where I finally got him. And that was that was hard, hard hunting, you know, because of that.
Yeah, So we talked about your I'm gonna call it your drip drip drip strategy, Bill, and you should coin that. We should coin it as your Bill Winki's drip drip strategy. We talked about that how you you know, how you use that when you're targeting a specific buck in October. But what about when we get into November and we get to that period where they start shifting around a
little more and start doing some funky things. You know, what does your approach look like now in November when you're still after that one deer that becomes a lot more difficult. I think in the eyes of a lot of people, how are you shifting your approach? Then?
Well, see again, I'm unique, fortunate, blessed. Stay what you will. The state of Iowa, we can hunt the whole month of or November with a bow, you know. So there's there's another phase of the ret that I can wait for. But let's say you're in Michigan and you know the gun seasons coming in on the fifteenth, and so you have the block. I don't live frog here, but you
definitely want to become more aggressive. The closer you get to that, you know, it makes sense to start going maybe into some of those more high risk you know, und of stand locations, and maybe the entry exsit isn't perfect, but you know that there's a ditch crossing where every buck in that whole area crosses it eventually, but you could get caught there, you know, whatever the case may be.
There are spots that probably get more traffic than others, but in the most people will hunt those, unfortunately, but those are high risk, high reward. I don't like the risk side of that, you know. I would rather have low risk, average reward and then just put my time in because if you don't get him on that first or second hunt, you probably ruined that spot and he knows you or enough oh that you've now compromised that
whole part of your property. So I save those in that situation until you know you're you're up against the end of it. So like let's say you've got a rud hunting vacation, as you get closer to the last couple of days, you might as well ramp up the
you know, the aggression. Don't don't be dumb, because it still doesn't do any good to go in there and spoop deer, you know, but you can take those calculated risks a little bit more and again, like for me, we got another period from about the twentieth to the twenty sixth of November when it's really good. Again, not as good as the front end of the peak, but
it's pretty good, you know. So you know, I don't I don't even when I wind down that first you know, I call it buck activity peak right before the does are all in estrus. If I haven't gott him yet, I don't get too too stressed because I know he's going to come back to food in daylight right after the peak.
You know, a lot of folks throw a Bucks pattern out the window once you get to November because they assume, you know, there's off to the races checking out for doughs, and they'll just sit funnels, or they'll sit doll betting areas. Have you found that there is still some value to what you learned about that buck even in November, like in this small core range type buck, would you just be hunting the dough betting air is right tight to that still or would you change that in any way?
No, I think I'd still hunt in your situation unless he starts leaving there, which he may, but let's say he doesn't. Because I'm hunted some that never never left their thirty forty acre range. Then you don't need to ever do anything different.
You know.
Maybe you get a little bit more aggressive right before the fifteenth, but you just got to stay in the game, you know, and just put your time in. The worst thing you can do is let him know you're hunting him, you know. So you know, I think to answer that question is I don't think they get as crazy as what people think they do. You know, I think they move, they move a little bit more until they find that dough and then they hole up with her for you know,
who knows how long. I mean, I've seen some crazy stuff from the tree stand on how much time a buck spends with the dough. I've seen I've seen bucks run up, breed a dough, and run off. I mean, I I'll just talk about this two day courtship ritual. I saw one to one time get bred by two different bucks in a five minute period that just ran up, bred the dough, ran off, another one ran up, and then they finally figured out, you know, through d n
I DNA testing that twins aren't necessarily from the same buck. Well, you know, I saw that. In the real world is chaos, you know. So some of this stuff that we think is how this works is more organized than what everybody what it really is. So you can throw a lot of this is how the ret works out the window because it can be anything. So I would assume that he's not going to go crazy all over the place.
I would assume he's going to stay there until he shows you otherwise, we rarely over the years have killed bucks that we didn't have pictures of during the rut. It's not like they're coming from all over the neighborhood, you know, to our farm. I talked to a big outfitter in southern Iowa, and he covers a lot of ground and I said, how many strange bucks you know, strangers do you guys kill? And he said almost none.
He said, we are almost always killing bucks that we've got, you know, some history with from that season in that area. So I just don't think you have to be You don't have to change your strategy a whole lot. I do think you move in on the dough betting areas, but you can start doing that at the tail end of October a little bit. But I don't like it too much in October. I like it better in November because I just feel like it's a little too early.
In October. You don't have to be there because those bucks are going to be out looking in the food, at the food sources more. You really don't need to press in in October, But in November it makes sense to press into those dough betting areas a little bit more.
What about in your situation this year, You've got these two roaming bucks that are all over what's the rut approach? Going to be for you. Let's let's I hope you kill them soon, but let's just say you don't get killed until November. And you've got these deer, They're spread out over a half mile. What do you do. You have a few spots in mind already, you think, like, man, this is probably where I'm gonna spend a lot of time. What's what do those places look like?
They're they're betting areas. I'll spend almost all my time mornings and evenings in the betting areas and in this area that I hunt. They're very pronounced. If you can see behind me, and you know, the two dimensions doesn't do justice to it. But this country is really vertical, and they bet up on those ridges. I mean there's I could look around me and say, well, I mean,
I can kill him right up there. I mean, I'm just pointing, you know, three hundred yards to a to a bluff top, and there's a betting area up there. You know, if I just spend my time on those ridge tops near those betting areas in the morning and evening all day sits if I really had, if I wasn't hunting with the cameraman, I would sleep you know, at the base of the tree. More. That really does work, because the only way you screw up those bedding areas
is the coming and going part. Right. You know, once you're in there, you know a lot of times you've got it, you know pretty much. You know, it settles in and life's good. And then you climb down and it's you know, still out. You crunch through the leaves and every deer and the whole countryside knows you were there. And then you come crunching in the next morning and it's the dead still out.
Oh.
You know, if you go in at midday when the wind is blowing, they don't notice. You get into your tree, you hunt the afternoon, you get up the next morning, climb back in the tree. You know, it's like it's awesome. That's why I like hunting blinds a little bit more now too, because I'll just sleep in the blind. It's
the it's the coming and going that ruins it. And so anyway, my my point being, if I didn't have to worry about other people like cameramen and my daughter's hunting and stuff like that, I would never leave those betting areas, you know, I would just go in and stay until I killed him, and it would work, you know, but it's not. Unfortunately, once I started doing this video again, I had to give up that style of hunting. But
it works. I mean I've had come back to me and you know, hear me talk about it and say, you know, I use a canoe and I go down the river and you know, I don't leave until I get him. I'm like, yeah, I mean, it really does work, you know, because the coming and going that's where they get you.
Now, these ridge betting area spots that you hunt, I've heard you in the past describe them. And I can't remember if it was when we talked on the podcast or if I heard this somewhere else, but I know you like to set up in places on a ridge where a couple draws meet up towards the top, and so you have like three lines of movement. You've got the up and down the ridge, You've got deer that curl around each of those draws, and then you have
deer that cross the saddle. Is that still your favorite kind of rut set up on a ridge or is there any other tweak on that or more nuanced that I'm missing?
I think that's good. I think the main thing because it's it's kind of general movement where the dose bed. You know, the bucks come in there and they just kind of move, you know, not randomly, but they usually stay on the downwind fringe of the ridge top and you're gonna be there anyway, because you're gonna have your scent blowing off the ridge down down into the valley behind you. But that's a really good pattern, So it's
not if it's a really wide ridge. If you can find those draws that come up, then that does create that pinch you know at the top where they go around the contours, so you get a little bit more activity, you know, across the top of the ridge, and then you get the deer going around you know, those contours, and you do narrow them down in those spots. But you know, I wouldn't I'm looking at the spot right now,
or I think I can kill him. I mean, it's just off to my right, and I would just go straight up and just sit on the downwind fringe and not worry about it and just let the you know, the random buck movement and then the fact that I'm on the down wind fringe of that betting area and that's usually how they circle around those. If I could stay there for four days, five days then not have to come and go, I'd get them. It's not it's not for everybody, and it's kind of a you know,
really strange, maybe almost hardcore a way to hunt. But it's so effective, you know. And I've even thought about this.
We're really getting off topic now, but I've even thought about digging in, you know, like they have these underwater water tanks, you know, or underground water tanks that hold say I don't know how many five hundred gallons or a thousand gallons or something, just digging those into the ground and then you know, just coming down out of the tree and getting in one man, you know, because
it's like a little apartment. Then you know, wow, that's once you start doing it, it's just addictive because you know, think about the coming and going and how many deer. I mean, if you didn't have to leave, how easy would this game be.
So we did talk about this a little bit last time, because you were just you were talking about sleeping at the base of your tree that year. This would have been I think twenty twenty one, when you were still on that permission or lease piece. And I always wondered. I kept thinking about that, and I wondered about the impact. I know that you were avoiding the in and out, but I always worried about like you staying in one place for twelve hours overnight and that scent pool just
kind of slowly just growing around you. You've done it, now, have you not seen? I must assume that's not been an issue for you, right.
Scent pool, not if you do it right, because I would have deer. You find some really really weird and interesting and hair raising things that happened when you're sleeping up on the ridge, you know, and two in the morning, you know, and and stuff comes crunching around. You know, it's like, what is it going to step on me? Because as I had a sleeping pad, a warm bag, and I had a bivy sack and the waterproof you know, so it's not going to be letting your scent out.
You put everything inside that bivvy sack and then you get down inside that bivy sack. So you're laying right on the ground, super low profile. The wind is blowing over you. You know, it's not scent anywhere. There is no scent it's leaving that bag, except maybe your breath if there is you know, human scent in breath, which is debatable. Put all my gear in a rubber canoe bag, you know, for two reasons, to keep the scent, but also to keep any dew or frost, you know, from
getting on your gear. So when you get up in the morning, you stand on that rubber bag, get dressed, and then you sneak over to your tree. Pretty it's a pretty cool system. It's boring. But they didn't they didn't pick me up. I mean they'd come in and
they'd make circles around me. I had a six pointer one one time that he saw me climb down from my tree, and you know, he couldn't get over the fact that I never left, you know, because it was like I went over to a down tree and my camp was already set up, and I just slid right into my bag inside the bivy sack and you know, laid down. Well, he spent hours circleared that down tree trying to figure out where I went. He did not like the fact that I didn't go down the hill.
He never smelled me in there. Yeah, but uh so, I don't think it's quite as much intrusive as what people think, as long as you take some steps to keep your scent bottled up, you know. The I think the snoring probably gets you more than anything. If you're a snorer.
Yeah, you can't bring your seapat machine in, I think on these kind of hunts.
So if you fishing that you snore, and you better not sleep that way because you're gonna have every and and they're waiting for you to wake up.
All right, So that ridge top betting situation, that makes a lot of sense. What about back in the day when you were hunting southern Iowa and you didn't have quite that much topography. I know, there's all sorts of other places that can be great dough betting areas you can set up on. And we all know that being downwind to dough betting areas is a great place to be.
But are there any other little details that have helped you pick like the spot within the spot to make that downwind of dough betting air the best possible location you can get for this time of year.
I think the movement is is just general enough that you don't have to zero in too much. Okay, you know, again, like you've got those draws that create those funnels. There is one other type of stand location that is really really good throughout the whole rut, and that is you know, I don't know, you can call them whatever you want to,
but those little microplots next to betting areas. If you have a blind on one of those, like say it's a quarter of an acre and a half an acre, and you can get in there in midday, the deer are going to move really well through that morning and evening. I mean, you can hunt those things all day every day because you're so close to the betting areas that they become more like I call them staging area plots,
or you know, there's almost like a singles bar. You know, the bucks will come through and they'll hit every scrape, the doughs come out and grab a couple of bites of clover before they do anything else. You know. It's those spots are really really good. But a lot of times you don't have the opportunity to create those. I mean I don't have them on this farm, but I had like ten of them on that farm in southern Iowa.
So I spend lots and lots of my time hunting those kind of locations too, because they're so deadly and they're so easy to hunt.
How close does a plot like that have to be to the betting area to be that effective? Like are we talking like literally right in the edge, or it can be one hundred yards? What are we talking?
I think the closer the better. One hundred yards is probably more than I usually do because you can sneak into them, you know, if you set them up right, you can sneak within thirty yards of a betted deer. You know, if if it's thick in the situations right and there's a little bit of wind, you you just have to be quiet, you have to move slow, and you got a glass ahead, you know, so it's not like you've got to be a long ways away to
make it work. But you'd like to have some kind of a buffer between you and the betting area, whether it's thick cover or something that you know, you don't
want it to be open. If it's an open betting area and you have some control, you need to get the chainsaw out and you know open, you know, open the canopy, make it thicker so the deer can't see you coming and going, But I mean I'm within probably thirty to forty yards maybe of a lot of them, maybe one hundred at the most, because you're getting a little far away there, because they've got a lot of options. Then when they get up, you want it where they
don't have any options. They get up and they come to your little thing, whereas if night are away, they get up and they go this way or that way and they don't have to come right to you.
Okay, that makes sense. So those types of areas work great during that prime rut period. Are you still gonna hunt these standard rut locations once you get to that middle of November lockdown ish period when you know there's a lot of deer that are with a lot of bucks with doughs, although as you talked about, they don't always do that thing. Does anything change during the lockdown ish period?
There are probably people who have a system that know how to hunt that better than me. I always just hunt wherever I think the most dos are going to be, you know, and they're not coming to food anymore, so you might as well throw that out the window. The only ones come into food are the ones that have already been bred. So and they're going to get some attention, but they're not going to get attention from the bucks
that you're interested in. They know, so you're still staying closer to the dough betting areas, maybe funnels between two dough betting areas. Those can be really really good during any phase of the rut, and generally they're easier to
hunt than the bedding area itself. Those are those are always a prime candidate even during that timeframe, but probably when most of the dose are in Estris, you're just trying to be near a spot where a dough is in Estres because there's still little general cruising from the bucks. You know, if the buck to dough ratio is really you know, in the favor of bucks, you'll see more
general movement of bucks during that time. But if there's a three plus does for every buck, you don't see a whole lot of buck movement during that time when most of the dos are in Estrs. So you got to be right where that Estras dough is.
What if you see that Estros dough with the buck you're after locked on or sneak up on it, have you got Yeah, you'll do that?
Yeah, I mean Stan Patzi used to do that quite a bit. And the areas that he under in Illinois, he could glass big areas and there's a lot of cr and he'd see a buck and a doe off in the CRP. He'd sneak after him and he killed
deer like that. And I've had some close calls, but a lot of what I hunt is pretty heavy timber, so I don't have that option maybe of seeing a lot of country, But that would be a good strategy, you know, if all else fails, just get in an observation stand and just watch a bunch of country, and especially in the mornings, just see those bucks kind of following the doughs real slow out into maybe a little thicket out in the middle of the sea. Or yeah,
I go sneak up on him. My friend Jim Hill killed a really nice one eighty plus buck doing that on one of the farms that we hunted. He saw the deer, he saw them go off. What he really saw was the buck chasing other bucks off. He was in a fence line. That's a dead giveaway. You know, when you run away from somewhere there's a hot dough and a dominant buck right in that spot where he ran from. You don't have to see him to know he's there. But anyway, he just snuck in and snuck close.
He did sneak right up to them, but I think you got within about fifty yards and then when the buck stood up, you know, or when she stood up, and you know, he was able to get like a thirty yard shot because they kind of drifted his way. But yeah, that's that's a really good strategy too. I've not employed it because the country that I hunt usually isn't open enough for that, but that would definitely work.
If you see a buck lockdown with a dough, that's a really good chance to sneak up on him because he's not gonna leave even if he sees you. You know, it's weird.
It's really weird, as long as you don't spook her, right, Yeah. Yeah, I found in that situation that at least a few times I've seen this, and I think this is usually what goes on, but a few times I've been able to take advantage of it. Where you see that buck locked on the dough and they don't want to move a whole lot, like over the next day or two,
they're kind of in that same little zone. So I've always thought, like, if I see the buck I'm after locked in with a dough, I'm going to get in as tight as i can and playing on doing the same thing again tomorrow, because they're probably they get pushed. He's probably gonna push her back into that little pocket or something. Have you done something similar.
Yeah, for sure, And I think you need to be more aggressive than that. I think your window every minute that you wait, the likelihood of them going someplace else, you know, increases. So if you see where a buck and and dough or hold up, get down from your tree and do everything you can to sneak close. And then, even if you can't get right onto them where you can get the shot, at least find a place where when they get up and they mill around a little bit,
maybe you can get a shot that way. But yeah, I think you'd be super aggressive then, because it's you got nothing to lose, and by being cautious and saying, well, I'm gonna try to get him out of my stand by moving closer or whatever, a lot of times it's they've moved on, or maybe they're one hundred yards down the line or whatever, it's pretty rare that they'll go to the exact same spot two days in a row. They're gonna move so they're not gonna move far, and
they're not going to move fast. But if you see him, you gotta go right now.
Now, what if that buck and dough is on their feet and they're walking but they're out of range, do you try a hail Mary call? Or is it a waste of time and not worth it?
All is a waste of time. But again, you know, it depends on how good you are at sneaking figure out where they might be headed, and get down and run around and get in front of them. I mean, he's not coming to you, He's going where that dough is going. End of story, you know, and a reason for the doe to come closer to you. You may never see him again, you know. So I've had bucks
like that too. I mean there's one in our one of the farms, one hundred in southern Iowa, just a giant, one ninety plus buck following a dough really slow across the food plot. The other end of it, I thought, oh man, I'm gonna get this buck. I'm gonna sit here all day and I never saw him again, of course, I mean I should have just got got down and what if it got to lose, you know, and sneak in the direction where they went. Just go slow, sneak, sneak,
sneaks neat glass in the head. You got the whole rest of the day. You know, maybe you can spot the dough, maybe you can spot him.
So this this seems to fly in the face though, of so much of your approach to hunting a specific deer, which is no risk, which is like, do not let them send you, do not let them see you.
So so how do you I might not do that on bucks that I'm after and I know they're range and I got him narrowed down, I might wait until, you know, after the peak of the rod. But I'm just saying in general, okay, like maybe you don't do it either. But let's say it's November fourteenth, you know, the gun season in I mean, unless that area just you know, he's not going to get shot during the gun season. He can wait it out. But I would
get down and go after him. Now, for most people, they if they don't have a buck pattern and they see a shooter that's following a dough and they're not like chasing running acting silly. But he's locked on that dough and they're walking slow, and you know that he's not leaving her until he's utter two or three times. You might as well just go after him.
Yeah, does does anything that we've talked about not apply for the late rut you mentioned? Like in Iowa, you guys uniquely can still hunt running white tails with a bow when you get to that Thanksgiving time period or whatever it is, do you do anything different than what we've discussed.
I'm I tend to back off the morning hunts. You know, a lot of guys continue with it. So much of the activity then focuses on food. You know, as soon as the primary rut is over, the bucks are still thinking about does, but they're thinking about eating too, And most of the doze by that time that are coming into esters late excuse me, are going to be around the food also because all the craziness has gone out of it. Now is just business, you know, Like the
young bucks are worn out. They're not chasing anything anymore, you know. Now it's like these older bucks they kind of say, well, it's just you know, I just need to find heer breeder move on, you know, it's not the excitement has gone. That's why the front end of the rut is so much more buck movement. By the tail end, it's just all business. But the business takes place around the food sources, and I'm sure it takes
place around the bedding areas too. I just don't you know, after a month of it, you know, I'm kind of burned out too, so I'll back off the mornings, you know, by by that second peak, you know, I might still hunt set the mornings until say the twenty fourth or something, maybe the twenty fifth of November. But from there until the shotgun season comes in, the food sources is where the actions at. Okay, and that's just that's just states
like ours. I mean, there's so few Ohio, Kansas, Iowa, there's probably a couple others, you know where you can you can hunt with the bow right up until the December time.
Yeah, yes, that's pretty nice to We'll do that. Yeah, there's one aspect of this time of year, this you know peak late October through November, but we haven't discussed and that is the mental side of it. And you've you've hunted almost every day of the rut. For thirty plus years, I've heard you say you know this better than almost anyone. You've had to grind through what is ahead of all of us right now, many many, many times.
Sitting where you sit now on the backside of so much experience, What have you learned about the mental preparation we need to do leading into it and keeping our head right in the game over this six week period or five week period.
And I think depending on how much time you get to hunt. You know, my situation is unique because I don't have a limitation. I mean, I do have to work, you know, So it's not like I can hunt every single day, so I still have to pick the days. But I could hunt maybe a morning and then work in the afternoon. Or I could hunt an afternoon and work in the morning. So I could probably hunt almost every day. You have to appreciate the fact that it's
a marathon and not a sprint. But in some situations it is a sprint, you know, because you've only got you know, four days or a week or whatever. You know. So so for me, it's more I see these young guys that are interning for me, and you know, Ethan is an employee, you know, a part time employee, and they're just like eight up and crazy. Now I'm like, guys, you know, it's a long season.
It relax.
You don't just like burn stuff out just because you've heard a couple of people that have killed big deer. Yeah. I mean I almost killed that buck ouse after last night. But I'm not like eight up thinking, oh, I got to get right back on top of him. You know, time is still into your favorite It's just that patience, you know. And maybe that's the one perspective I've gotten now that I didn't have when I was younger. But again,
it's unique to my situation and somewhat to your. I'm sure that we get to hunt more, you know, so we have the luxury of being patient. Yeah, and and but gosh, you know, if I I hunted seventy five straight days one year, it was a long in my late thirties, I think early thirties, early thirties, yeah, early thirties. So I had all that energy, you know, and and I never got burned out. I mean I loved it.
I mean I went to I remember towards the end of that timeframe, I was at Walmart and I saw the banner, you know, hanging down on the other end of the building. I was trying to figure out, you know, maybe I was looking for something specific, and I thought, I wonder what that banner says, and I reached down to my chest you under, grab my binoculars. So you just get it just gets so like I didn't get out, you know, it just became a part of, you know, my day. It's like I had to be out there.
You know, it's kind of like it became who you are to be in the tree. But now I can't do that. I mean, I'm a lot older now, and I mean it's I'm going to burn out if I'm not careful.
Yeah, any tricks you can.
Probably hunt every day, can you.
You know, I certainly do it, but I still get burnt out too. Plus the you know, the unique thing that I'm encountering now is trying to balance the drive to go NonStop with the you know, young kids, family stuff too. It's like, how do you do that the right way? That's a trick that I'm still figuring out too.
Yeah.
But yeah, it's uh, it's easy to get excited, it's easy to get fully locked in on it. And then find yourself though on day fourteen or if it's a we're at vacation, day seven in the morning, if things aren't going your way. You've woken up at three am every day for seven straight days. It is easy to have a tiny little lapse, and if you have a tiny little lapse at the wrong time, it can cost
you everything. And that's been the hardest thing for me, is like, how do you not have those little lapses or what do you do to give yourself a tiny buffer so that doesn't happen? You know?
Yeah, because as soon as you start hunting sloppy, you have to hunt every day like that's the day, you know, because if you don't, if you start to get a little bit sloppy in your approach, then you're going to screw it up. So I think that that is more just a discipline thing. You have to say, this is the day I have to hunt today, as if I'm going to kill him, as if I know I'm going
to kill him. Otherwise, rather than sneaking in the way that you normally sneak in, you take the path of least resistance, you know, and now you you know, you screw it up. You just don't feel like doing all the little things that you did when the threat vacation started. You get lazy, get sloppy, start to lose hope. But the last minute of the last day can be just
as effective as the first minute of the first day. Yeah, you know what, I long as you keep that mindset, that's that's super important, because I find myself you know I have done that too. You know where you start to get discouraged and you start getting sloppy and you just do like, oh, I don't feel like it. I'm gonna look at my phone. I'm going to watch a football game. Well then you look up and the buck just walk through your shooting lane. You're like, oh gosh, dang it.
You know we better win this game. Yeah. Yeah, It's one of those easier said than done things, but so important. I've been on the bad end of that deal a couple of times, and I've regretted it, that's for sure.
Yeah.
Okay, last or maybe second to last question, but last big question here, Bill. If if you had someone sitting down for coffee with you this morning, and let's say they're a pretty darn good hunter, like they've killed a lot of deer. They've killed a lot of like three year old bucks. Maybe they've killed a few four years. They've killed a lot of three and four year old bucks. But they're trying to take it to that next step and they're going for you know, very mature bucks, maybe
after one specific buck. So it's that kind of hunter. They're gung ho. They've got all the good gear, they've listened to all the podcasts. This is like their lifestyle, all right. That's the person you're talking to. And before they walk away, before they leave that coffee shop, you're going to write down three things on a napkin that you're going to give them to help them take this next step. You get to give them three final pieces
of winki wisdom for the upcoming five weeks. What would you put on that napkin for this person to take that next step.
Well, they've got to know that he's there. You can't hunt a ghost, you know. I mean, there's nothing worse than saying I'm gonna only shoot a big deer and then not have any big deer around. So they've got to know that whatever whatever their goal is, that it's attainable. Because you don't want to make this sport unbearable. You know, it's supposed to be fun, we're supposed to have success, So it has to be a huntable deer. It's not a huntable deer. Cross it off and move on, or
just be satisfied with what's in your area. So first off, you know, he's got to be a huntable deer. And then I think it's that ratcheting up being able to recognize risk versus reward, Like how much risk am I taking? What's the likelihood of the buck that I'm hunting being on his feet today? You know, because when you start taking risk, you're going to you're going to educate deer.
And if the upside isn't high enough, like the likelihood of this buck being on his feet today isn't really high, then the risk versus reward equations bad really good at at understanding risk and reward and not unbalancing that thing, because if you're going to take the risk, you need to know that the chance of him being on his feet that day in that area where you're going is high.
I think being able to understand that because that way, even if you don't have a lot of time, you know, you can ramp up that risk versus reward side of it. So that's just that's a super important skill. And then I still think rule number one. The most important thing any of us can do is spend hour after hour figuring out how to sneak in and out. I mean, it's that's where the game is won and lost. That's
the that's the chess match that we play. It's not really when you're on the stand, because usually we all know how to play the wind. You know, we can find stand locations that are you know that's set up well. But gosh, I've just bumped so many deer coming and going. You know, they don't necessarily, like I said, have to
be your target. They can be any deer, you know, because now that that that body language just kind of works its way through the whole herd, and before you know it, everybody in that area, every deer in that area is more cautious and they're not moving naturally in daylight. Those are those are the keys. I think. You know, if you're going to kill a big deer, I think if you do those three things well and then you have enough time, you know, you're eventually going to get
you more. You're going to have an opportunity. Yeah, and some bucks just don't move much during the day, you know, they just aren't. I mean, some of the four and five year old bucks I've hunted just weren't very daylight active. So you just have to kind of get lucky too sometimes. But that's uh. I've hutted some that were stupid. They were awesome.
Yeah, those are my favorites.
I loved it when the stupid ones big.
They just don't come around often enough.
No, they sure don't.
I do.
Uh Well, I hope that a couple of these deer that year after. I hope they get dumb here soon and give you an opportunity. Where where can folks go to see what you got going on, to see your story, to to get more information from you, because you're putting out a lot of good stuff here. Where should folks find that?
Just the Bill Winkie YouTube channel we try to have. We try to be really current, you know, with what
we're doing and what we're talking about. We started producing an episode every Wednesday now called the White Tail Watch, where maybe we look ahead to the coming weekend and look at the weather forecast because by Wednesday we kind of have an idea we know what the deer in our area have been doing, so maybe we can start to project, you know, some behavior forward and coincide that with the weather and then come up with a forward looking plan. I think that's kind of a cool series
that we're doing. But yeah, the Bill Winki YouTube channel has got pretty much everything that we're doing now perfect.
All right. Well, I certainly will vouch for that one. I've I've enjoyed everything you're putting up there and glad to see you're back in the game because we were missing you there for a while. Though.
Well, I appreciate it, Mark, and I'm looking forward to hearing you know, the story of how you kill this spear that you're after. I mean, it's it sounds like you got it figured out now. It's just a matter of time and getting a little lucky.
It's going to be the drip, drip, drip. So we'll see if it happens here short, short term or a little bit later. But I think as long as the neighbor doesn't get a poke at him before I do, I think his days are probably numbered.
Yeah I do too.
Yeah, thanks exciting, Yeah, it is well, Thank you, Bill. I always enjoy our chats. I appreciate taking time, especially at this busy time of year, So thank you and good luck here in these coming days.
All right, thanks Sam, to you Mark.
All right, and that is going to do it for us today. Hope you guys enjoyed that conversation with mister Bill Winky. I know I did. Me and Tony are hitting the field here shortly. We're gonna be chasing some rutting bucks ourselves, so we'll get back to here soon with some stories and some lessons learned from our hunts, and until then, best to luck out there and stay wired to hunt.