Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to the white Tail 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, we are answering fourteen listeners submitted questions about the white Tail Rut and joining me is one of the very best bow hunters I know.
Andy May.
All right, now, real quick before we kick off today's episode, I've got a little treat for you. It is, as we speak, November. This is our first podcast of November twenty twenty three. It is an incredible time of year. Some might say it's the most wonderful time of year, and others might even say it's the most most wonderful time of.
Year to kill deer.
And with that said, some of you might recall that last year when November hit, we released our first rut song. It was a take on the most wonderful time of the year that Christmas Carol, but our version was It's the most wonderful time to kill deer and it was hilarious.
I loved it.
We got lots of comments and questions for folks, not so much questions, more so just we love it, let's hear more of it. How can we get this on Spotify or wherever? So with that said, we wanted to a run that one back for you. So if you have not heard The Most Wonderful Time to Kill Deer, we're going to play that for you here today to kick off the new month of November.
Right.
But secondly, we have a new song for you as well, because you know this is that special time of year. It's kind of like Christmas for whitetail hunters.
Right.
We are in the mood, we are excited. We're expecting a big old gift underneath the tree. In this case, it's not something from Santa. We're looking for something from a deer, hopefully a big old buck within twenty yards. Right, So we went ahead and adjusted, tweaked spoofed another Christmas carol of sorts. So first please enjoy the Most Wonderful Time to Kill Deer, and then secondly enjoy our latest hit, the one and only Big White Tails.
Enjoy boys. Good to see you, Hayden, it's been a while. Hey, sorry I'm late.
I crashed my pontiac castec into a light pole and had to walk the rest of the way. But I'm here now, that's what matters. Give me a glass of scotch, please, hayen, just two rocks in there. I don't my guys, we're starting already. This is happening. Okay, just give me the give me the glass, thank you.
Okay, here we go.
It's the most wonderful time to kill deer. We're threw run now, just starting and dashing and dotting and veins cutting clean. It's the most wonderful time to kill deer.
There's far too much is in this class. It's the half.
Happy seeds of all. There's gotta be at least twelve cues with grunting and bleeding and cold fronts and sleeping the last weeks of fun. It's the half happy seedsin of all. There'll be pictures for posting and bragging and boasting, and truck beds with big bucks in toe. There'll be narrow misstories and tales of your glories of booner bucks missed.
With our bulls.
It's the most wonderful time to kill deer.
Not just one baby two. There'll be no dose.
Of blowing and boom and knocks glowing and blood trail so clean. It's the most wonderful time to kill de.
Excuse me, Can I have a napkin? Please?
I just spilled some scotch on my loafers. I can't have dirty loafers in the studio.
Thank you Tailgate beers for drinking.
And Big Bucks is slinking and chasing and sent jacking does They'll be fighting and scraping and no more escaping and arrowshot true hitting, Oh key change.
But no one told me that it's the most wonderful time to kill deer. I was very unprepared for this.
There will be much morning sitting in cold fronts of hitting the dawn kristin clean. It's the most wonderful time, Oh, the most wonderful time. It's the most swamderful time to kilty.
There's too much ice in the glass. Two rocks.
It's that time of the year again. I'm back, Marcus Kenyon. How are you your son of a gadwall? You look terrible. I'm just kidding her, am I I'm sorry.
I'm late.
I crashed my recumbent bicycle into the side of a quiz nose and I know what you're thinking. I am as sober as a newborn blue crab. I swear to you this is just kombucha. I'm watching the gut health. You gotta do it as you get older. And also, I'm wearing this ankle bracelet that makes a beep beep sound if I have a drop of the stuff also alerts the authorities, who in turn alert my parole officer. So there'll be none of that in the studio today, I promise you. Let's get go.
Oh you're queuing it up already.
Okay.
I thought we've learned a lesson this year, but I guess nothing.
Here we go.
I love those beagy, big big white tails, those sneaky run beagy big big white tails. I love those beachy big yeah eight shots eat tails. I love those beachy big white tails.
Big white tails, big white tails. Big white tails are great.
Hold, what fun it is to sit in the freezing cold tree all day?
Big white tails, big white tails, big white tails are great?
Hold, what fun it is to sit in the freezing cold tree all day? Dashing through the woods for the morning light turns great across the fields and draws creep in all the way climb into the tree. Big folks are on the way. What fun he is to sit and wait for my gosh.
Don deer all day? Oh big, I'm sorry? What is this? Piscato strings? Who do you think? I am ya? Get this out here. I don't want to hear it. Thank you?
Big white tails, big white tails, Big white tails are great. Hold fun it is to sit in the freezing cold tree all day.
I hope sand dreams are high the rut.
He's finally here, Mark said, it's the most wonderful time to kill o whitetail deer bingch points and pettings.
Where you'll find me hang it' twenty feet.
In a tree, grunt tubes my bowl, inspector Cambo.
It's really campy.
Bea or two ago, I thought that this was fun, but now I'm frozen to my seat and the good times they are gone. I've ate up all my snacks, my hands and toes un numb, and we're gonna climbed down from my stand.
That son of a but decided to come on.
Those peag BEI wat takes those sky run beagy be big what takes? I love those beeg big up yah eight shot gie eat tails I love those big white tails all day.
I don't know why this is happening.
I swear to God, Oh officer, what seems to be the problem here?
Oh this.
I don't know why this is happening. It must be a malfunction, you know. Sometimes it happens when the batteries run low.
You don't know.
You don't need to smell that. That's just komboo cha I okay, yes, you've got me. It's ever clear and pacific. Kuli capri son. I am so so sorry.
I don't know why my life has brought me here. Mark Marcus, I'm so sorry. Enjoy the rut or whatever. Good luck.
All right, Welcome to the wire tunt podcast, brought to you by First Light and today, my friends, if you are listening to this when this podcast has just dropped, it is officially sweet November. The Rut is here for most of you across much of the country. And as you can see, I'm recording from the field out in the middle of somewhere on some kind of hunting trip. And my guest today is doing the same, not on
a hunting trip, but he's in the field. I'm joined today by mister Andy May to help us do some rut Q and a so thank you Andy for making time for this.
Yeah, man, no problems should be fun.
Yeah, it's uh, it's the greatest time of the year, right are you? Are you ready for this? Are you ready for November?
I am?
Man. Yeah, it's uh, it's always so exciting when when November rolls around, because then you just that, uh, you know, you always have a chance in November. You know, like October is a little more, a little more detailed, a little more You're a little more careful with your moves. You're trying to make kind of I always call them
like detailed strikes. And then uh, once that rut hits, man, it's more like a marathon and you're trying to be out there as much as possible and trying to catch the magic when it happens.
Yeah.
So do you feel like when when November hits, is that stressful for you or relief for you? Because I I've actually been switching a little bit. I used to be looking forward to November the whole time, and then when it finally got here, I was like, Okay, now's
my chance. But now I actually feel like if I don't have a buck killed by the time November arrives, I'm actually stressed out because now these deer are doing things that I'm not quite sure about what they're doing, and everything's kind of up in the air again, and you're trying to refigure it out. The old patterns from four weeks ago, you know, aren't going to cut it anymore. So I have like a I'm excited, but it's a different thing in my head.
Are you the same, Yeah.
A little bit.
I think if i'm you know, if I'm after like a specific deer, and i really kind of have my heart set on that I'm really dedicated to pursuing that one animal, it can be kind of a stressful time because I mean, he could he can disappear for a week, you know, and he's locked up with a dough or on a neighboring property or something like that, and you just can't seem to to find him, and that can
be a little stressful. But when I'm after sorry about that noise, When I'm after when I'm when I'm just out there and I'm after kind of like any buck, you know, or any any mature deer, and I'm not really setting my sights on a specific animal. I really like the rut, you know, it's it's uh. When I travel out of state, many times I like to go during the rut because I don't I don't really have a specific deer that I'm going after. It's more I want to see the rut action. I want that excitement.
I want to see bucks chasing, I want to see bucks that are responding to calls. And it's just more fun. It's a little more exciting. But yeah, it can certainly be frustrating. It can be a frustrating time, especially if you get like a rut where you're just not seeing you know, you're not seeing any any good deer, So it could be a tough time. But I tend to get excited about the Like this year in particular, there's a handful of deer that I would shoot. There's not
one that is head and shoulders above the rest. I'm just out there having fun and I'm looking forward to it.
Are you Are you going to do a big rut trip at any point this November or are you doing local Michigan Ohio stuff. I think I'm gonna stay local. I haven't really decided yet.
If I I did some traveling in June for hunting. I did some traveling in August for hunting, and then I went on a very short trip in September, and I knew that would kind of eat into my white tail stuff a little bit, So I'm totally fine with it. It's not that I couldn't take a short trip in November, but there's there's enough decent deer around home between Michigan and Ohio that you know, I'm I'm I'd be content just kind of sticking around here and trying to get one of those deer on the ground.
Yeah, yeah, hi uh.
I'm still still after my local buck too, so I don't I would not mind getting some quality time here during this period to get it done here as well. But that said, we got a whole pile of questions from listeners last week with their specific situations that they want to run by us, Andy, So I was thinking for today's episode, we could just go through as many of these listeners submitted questions as possible and try to knock out and help folks with the things that they're still,
you know, still have questions about. It's funny you and me have talked about this in the past, Andy that we've like kind of lamented, like, ah, man, everyone's already said all the same stuff about hunting deer or hunting the rut. You know, every article has been written, every conversation has been had. There's nothing new to talk about, right, We've always moved worried about that, like is there anything Is there anything new we can bring the table?
Is there any value we can still bring?
But then when you ask people for the things they've got questions on and the things they're still trying to figure out, man, it's the same thing has come up, you know, year after year after year after year. So I guess it gives me hope that there will never be people that are not still trying to learn about these things. Right, there's always a new stream of people trying to either take it up a notch or tweak their tactics, or there's newer people that are still just
getting into this. Yeah, So I don't think we'll ever run out of people andy that want to know about dobetting areas and funnels. So I'll be ready for a few questions about those. But it's good. It's good because you know, these are those things that are important to have a good handle on, but then also to never settle on you know what I mean. Like, I feel
like I'm always still trying to tweak my approach. I'm always still trying to learn, like how it can be just a little bit better in this area or a little bit different in this kind of thing. I feel like you're the same way from all of our conversations, Like you're never stuck in the old ways.
You're always adjusting and evolving.
Right, Oh yeah, yeah, I mean it's funny because I was, you know, I was doing well. I was a successful hunter fifteen twenty years ago, you know, very consistent on multiple you know, multiple good bucks a year. But when I think back of how I hunted then compared to how I hunt now or even five years ago, I've changed things, and I've I've adjusted things, and I've evolved. And some of that is out of necessity. Some of
that is out of just interests in other tactics. Some of that is out of what I find more fulfilling and fun. So yeah, I feel like it's a.
If you have that.
Mindset of of wanting to be a good woodsman, a good hunter, a versatile hunter, it's never ending. I mean, you could spend your whole lifetime learning and trying new things and improving, and you're never gonna there's no end, you know, there's no end to the possibilities of you know, how skilled you can become, and what you can experience
and and things to learn from other eyes. So I'm still learning from other guys, listening to podcasts, having conversations with different hunters, even guys that are less experienced than me, learning all the time. I take it all in and uh, you know, every year I try to up my game in some fashion and become a more well rounded hunter.
That's just something I care about personally.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Well, I'm going to try today with these questions. There's gonna be some old standbys, like some oldies but goodie type topics we'll talk about. But I'm going to try to think of some of the new angles on them or little tweaks I've been making in recent years when I can, and try to make sure we add something new to the conversation on as much of this as we can too. And so that said, here's here's the first question, Andy, and and I'll pitch it to you
and then and then once we hear your thoughts. I'll share whatever additional color I might have. But this one is about something that I know you have preached about for a long time. As long as I've known you, you've been talking about this, which is all day sits. So the question is, for all day sits, do you recommend staying in the same place all day or switching spots at some point in the day, And if so, when is the best time to make that move?
So what do you think about that any.
Yeah, I think it depends on the location. If you're sitting, you know, if you're if you're kind of targeting, say like a betting area, I think that it can be good most of the day. Say you're say you're trying to get in tight to a dull betting area. You're getting into that interior a little bit with the wind advantage, and you're like, you know, this is a really sensitive spot. I'm gonna get in real early before light, you know, an hour and a half before light. I'm gonna get
settled and let all these deer filter back in. And it's very common behavior for mature bucks to let the does filter back into their bedding area and then they'll they'll kind of stay low key, stay betted, and then they'll get up late morning, mid to late morning, and then they'll make the rounds and they'll be cross sectioning those trails going in and out of bedding.
They'll be going working the down wind sides.
They'll be checking like you know, thermal hubs where a lot of a lot of scent pools and comes together. So it's very common for the bigger, older mature bucks to move later in that morning.
So a spot like that I think can be good most.
Of the day and you're in there, you know, you're not trying to sneak in in the afternoon and you're bumping dose around. You're in there before light, you're in there before the deer theoretically should be back in, and you can catch some great you know morning, late morning
and mid day movement in there. Where I think those areas tend to to kind of taper off is in those evening sits, yeah, or are those that evening timeframe I think the dose start to kind of work their way out the bucks know that the bucks are going to be relating to where they're traveling and where they're
heading to. So that's one of those spots where I will probably sit it out unless I have like a quick exit where I can go maybe capitalize a little bit closer to a food source or on a travel you know, between like bed and food something like that. I like, uh, you know, funnels between bedding areas. I really like those spots for all day. And again, you know, I think they they tend to they tend to be the best. Like if I had to pick a window, I would say like nine am to like three pm
is like when it's optimal. It doesn't mean you couldn't have a buck strolling through, because I mean bucks are on the move. It's not like they're all in the morning, but some are. Some aren't, you know, Some are at the food sources, some are following those back in. I mean there's there's lots of activity going on. But that's probably your optimal window. But I have had some great sits and some kills first thing in the morning and even last thing at night.
I I don't I I don't know.
I don't move stands a whole lot unless I really think that the evening portion is going to be dead. If I think the evening portion is going to be dead, then yes I will relocate I When you ask about a time to do that, I would say maybe two o'clock because I've had so many really good encounters, kills, sightings in that eleven to two time frame. Another thing that you want to keep in mind during the run is most guys don't have the mental capacity, the strength,
and the endurance to sit dark to dark. So ninety five percent of your hunters out there are gonna be coming in at nine, ten or eleven. It seems like, you know those time strips, guys have it in their head, I'm gonna sit till nine, I'm gonna sit till ten, I'm gonna sit till eleven, and then all these guys come in. You know, there's never been more people in the woods other than opening day a gun.
It's November, it's the rud.
Everybody's leaving their stands and they're bumping deer around. They get deer up, stirred up. But those are running that gets bucks on their feet. So you can capitalize on just the pressure of people moving around at those those time frames just by planting your butt in the stand. But there's no way I would leave at like eleven
or twelve. I think your chances of seeing deer and bulk activity go down as you get to that eleven twelve one, but your chances of seeing mature bucks actually increased when you hit that kind of like nine thirty ten, eleven twelve, you.
Know one two.
No, Well, that time, that window right there has been very good to me, and i've i comparatively, I haven't hunted it a whole lot compared to morning and evening.
Right now, what date range, Andy, do you like to start doing those kinds like what's what's the window on the calendar when you will sit that midday period, Because that's a question we got into.
I killed my My earliest midday kill was on Halloween.
I killed him at twelve thirty.
It was a buck down in Illinois. I would say that that would be for me personally that thirty October thirtieth thirty first and most most of the areas here where I hunt, that would be the earliest. And I would probably only do that if I had some really good weather, you know, good cool weather, below average, like
just ideal conditions. But you know, if I, if I was in it for the long haul, if I wasn't me and actually had unlimited time to hunt, I would probably postpone that I would probably sit till eleven, get down, have a break, refresh, get back out there around two or three. But then once I don't know, maybe November second third.
Right in there.
I mean every year, my trail cameras, my sightings, they light up late morning, midday right around that November first, second third. So I think anytime you can do it in that window, you know, from that leading up to site in Michigan here our gun season is November fifteenth. Anytime you can do that in that window, that's a good thing. And for guys that are like me, that have like these little maybe they don't have extended amount of time to put in your you're hunting.
An evening here, a morning there, or maybe you.
Got a midday here because you have your kids games or whatever. I would not hesitate to get out there at nine and getting a stand and sit till one or two. I've done it many times, you know, just trying to scratch and flaw for time, and uh it pays off. Man. The more time you can be in the tree anytime of day in November, you are going to increase your chances.
And then use some common sense about where you're located.
You know, you don't want to sit in a food source necessarily in the morning, maybe just off of it if you can catch your kind of coming off, But then that would be a really bad spot to sit all day, yeah, you know, because you're probably not going to get a lot of midday action there because all the dos are back to bed Those are the spots that are really gonna pay off, as you know, during a midday sit, like travel between betting on the backside
of bedding, you know, with a wind advantage, getting into that interior spots where you're you're kind of always afraid to go in because you're gonna bump deer. But now it's like it's time, the time to take those stabs, take those chances, and you know they can pay off.
Yeah, yeah, I one hundred percent agree. I've found the same thing. Those are the types of spots that I would want to do this all day sits. I have found like just like you said, like that last couple hours of the day though, those deep back in the betting air kind of spots can be pretty dead. So if I can, if I have safe access, I will try to bump out closer to where those dolls are going to go feed for those evening sits, and usually it's between two and three is.
When I would try to do that.
But if you can't get out of there without messing things up, you know, if for some reason you would have to be moving through you know, right where those deer are betted now, or or you know, through the transition area, and there's no way to safely do that, then I will sacrifice the last hour or two, you know, sticking back in the betting ear, just so I don't blow it up, because you know it's worth it. For
the first seven, eight, nine, ten hours. You've got such a good chance back in that area that if my evening SIT's not amazing, that's okay. If I can't get out there without messing it up for the next day.
I had this real quick story about something that almost cost me a really big buck because I didn't have the mental strength to sit all day. So it was during the run. I can't remember the exact date. It must have been like November. It was like around the tenth or the twelfth. This was years ago. But I was sitting in a stand and I was overlooking a river, bottom, and I saw a buck with a dough, a hot dough, lockdown, and they were they were way.
Off on this peninsula.
And I had a stand over there where if they walk worked down the peninsula, they would walk right by it. But they were way past that. They were a good two hundred yards past that. And it was eleven o'clock and I was like, you know what, I'm gonna get down at midday and I'm going to make my way over there and get in that stand and sit the rest of the day, you know, not what I was four hundred yards of. Now I'm gonna be inside of eighty yards or inside of inside of you know, one
hundred yards of where they're at. So I get down and I just decided like, oh, you know, they're they're not gonna do much midday. You know, they're locked down. She's probably betted. He's probably betted. There whe her, they're not gonna move. So I walk back to my truck, I have a sandwich, I lay back for a little bit, I turn on, you know a little music, and I just kind of shut my eyes for like fifteen minutes, you know, fifteen twenty minutes, and I was like, ah, man,
I gotta get I gotta get back in there. Probably totally. It ended up being like forty minutes. So I walk in, I sneak in, and all of a sudden, I'm I'm forty yards from the tree, and I hear deer get up, and I'm thinking these are other deer and I hear them kind of run off into the swamp.
Well, I make my way to the tree. I start climbing up the tree and.
I have my lineman's bull down and I get about halfway up the tree of where I where I'm intending to get, and I see that buck in the dope. They they had made their way through, and I bumped them and they were they were looking around and they didn't see me. I was just above like the cover. So I had my bow on a on a rope. I pulled it up with my lineman belt on, standing on a limb.
And ended up ended up, Uh, ended up shooting that buck.
Wow.
So I totally got lucky, almost flew it. But you know, just that little window, that little tiny window where I hesitated went back to the truck almost cost me. Where if I would have been in that stand immediately, you know, I probably would have had a cake shot, you know, and uh.
Not alerted anything.
But I thought that was a good, good fitting example there.
Yeah, it's a perfect example.
So speaking of tough decisions during the rut, that being in this case, whether to stay or to go go in. Another one of those things that we've gotten a number of questions on and something that I think a lot of us think about is risk taking during the rut. And one of the questions that I got here is are you willing to hunt a risky wind during the rut? And there was a second question very similar someone else said,
like does wind matter less during the rut? Because on my twenty acre parcel I never seem to have the just right wind. So is this the time now when I can get risky with it and still, you know, try to make the best of it.
What's your take on that?
Yeah, I think it is a time to risk. I think you gotta. I think you have to think about a lot of things.
If you're someone like me, someone like probably most the listeners out there who work a job, probably have limited vacation time, probably have some family obligations. You're not going to be able to sit. You don't get a rut cation. You know, you don't get a two week window or three week window where you can hunt whenever you want. You get your days, you get your windows. Maybe you have some flexibility. But I gauge all that stuff, and I I weigh that against you know, my ideas are where.
To sit my decisions and the risk factor.
If I think I'm going to have a limited time, I'm looking at the forecast, I'm looking at the winds moving forward, and it's like, oh man, you know this is risky, but this might be my only shot, or this might be my best shot.
I will I will risk more if I.
Have the whole rut to to play around with and be maybe a little more patient.
I might wait.
What I don't want is like what I think is a dead wrong wind. I don't want dead wrong. But you know, if you're if you're if you're targeting something specific like a dough betting area or something, or you're you kind of know where the majority of the deer bed during the day.
I don't want my my wind blowing in there all day long.
You know, now, what I get on an edge and maybe I'm only clipping. You know, a portion of it a very small portion or maybe a couple of deer get me.
Maybe not. Yeah, you know that's.
Something I do that all the time, you know, you know, just kind of trying to base that with the time available maybe what I think I can get away with time of year. You know. Another thing too, like I always look at like the weather, and if I'm seeing like a you know, a high pressure day. If I'm seeing you know, thirty degree temperatures in the morning and
it's gonna warm up to fifty five. With a high pressure blue bird day, I know that my thermals are going to be really rising once that sun gets up, you know that nine ten, nine o'clock.
So I'll be a little more risky on those days.
Then on a low pressure day where it's gonna hold my my uh my scent kind of down, it's not gonna rise my sense gonna you know, be more at ground level, I'll be I'll be a little more picky on those days. So if I think I'm gonna get a scent advantage for a rising thermal, you know, especially like in the hills or something, you get some elevation changes. Yeah, like a lot of times I almost won't even care
about the wind. I just don't want it going down to where I think the deer are going first thing in the morning, and then I'm gonna rely on those thermals, you know, for the majority of the day, and then I may adjust, you know, later on in the day to something that's with more of a dropping thermo or relocate. But I'm I'm running through all of those things in my head when I'm trying to make a decision. But I've I've never done great on just a dead wrong wind.
But on the flip side, it is the rut. There's many times I was targeting a specific buck during the rut and I was sure he was gonna come out of this area, and he ends up coming from a completely opposite area.
Yeah, So that that stuff can happen.
And then you get those random bucks that are just passing through and you don't know where they're gonna where they're coming from. And you always get those those uh, you know, buck chasing a dole by your stand so it can pay. You can go there with a dead wrong wind and get it, get a crack at one, but you're relying a little more on luck, and I don't like to rely on luck.
I do want to put myself.
In in likely spots where bucks tend to gravitate towards and I want a good wind, a good thermal. Most of the time, I'm not going to be super risky unless I'm uh, unless I'm just really limited on time. But it's very rare that I'll I'll go out there and hit like with just a dead wrong wind.
Yeah, I think I think you know.
The thing to think about with this a lot of times is yes, like, if you're ever going to be a little more risky, this is the time to do it. But you still have to think about, like, what is the scenario in which this could actually work? Like lots of times when I'm thinking about where to set up or what tree to pick out, or you know, where I want to be, I try to envisionally, Okay, how would this actually work, Like where could a deer actually
come through? What's the scenario in this actually what is the scenario that leads to this being successful? And if I'm in there with a wind that I just can't even envision a scenario in which this will really work, even if it's a great place, even if it's man somewhere I've wanted to hunt all year, and I've waited and waited and waited, and gosh, I want to get in this so bad, and it's November seventh, it's the
right day, and it's the end of my trip. But if I sit there and I think to myself, like, even though I really want to be in there, if I look at what the wind's doing, and if I sit through and walk through, Okay, what's the hypothetical spots this deer could come from? And man, if there's no way it could realistically work out, like you can't wish it to work, so I.
Will.
Still you still have to like put on your real world glasses. As much as you want to have like the rut fantasy, you also have to say, okay, like what's the real chance of this working? And maybe if you were to get off of that magic spot by fifty yards, now all of a sudden the wind can work and you can still be close to the best of the best places. But at least now there's like a real set of possible scenarios in which deer can
come through and not wind you. But if the deer, if every deer that's going to come into that magic X is gonna get your wind, what's the point of being there? So I think you know someone has to think that through too. So yes, this is the time to be risky, but it's not the time to be thoughtless. It's not the time to be careless and imagine that the wind won't still.
Have an effect.
It will still have an effect, but you just might have You're gonna have more opportunities for forgiveness. You're gonna have more opportunities where you know, they'll be crazy things going on, like deer doing things you're not expecting. So
it's it's a balancing act, that's for sure. But you said something else, andy that I think is worth spending a little time on, which is, you know, the fact that some deer are gonna get down wind, like you're gonna like, we'll haunt a spot where the wind's gonna clip a part of a betting air or something. So that's not perfect, but you know it's in the real world.
You have to sometimes do that, right. And you and I were texting the other day about you know, how often do deer actually get down wind of us?
You know how often does that happen?
And I think if you were to just watch, you know, hunting TV shows, especially like the folks have got the big managed properties and they hunt from their blinds and all that kind of stuff all the time. You might think that a deer should never get down wind of view ever, and that these people never get winded, and that if you're going to kill a deer, you can never get winded eat and you can never blow your scent anywhere there's deer, and if you do, you're doomed.
That might be the impression you could get from watching some of these TV shows. I think it's important to note that that is not the case in the real world, right Andy, I mean, I think I sat down and I tried to think through like and just my this this season's hunts, Like, how many times did I have deer come down wind of me despite the fact that
I'm trying really hard to minimize that. You just can't hunt many places in the real world unless you have like a very very very well manicured design property in which some deer won't get down whin of you. I think you just have to minimize it. You have to be smart about it, you have to pick your spots, but you always have to give up something like, if I'm going to push into a spot where I think I can kill something, I'm probably gonna have to give
something else up. And I want it to be as minimal as possible, and I want to be as smart as possible. But there are very few perfect deer deserts in a regular uncontrolled situation where you're hunting by permission, properties and things like that. I mean, I think what I told you is that I went through and looked through like all my hunts this season, and on fifty percent of my hunts, I could say for sure deer
got downwind to me fifty percent of my hunts. And that is despite me being as careful as I possibly could, being smart about it, and actively knowing like, hey, I know I'm going to have deer downwind to me here, but this is the very fewest number of deer or the lowest likelihood type situation that I can get away with.
What would you agree with that?
Yeah, I mean that's what prompted that question when I sent it to you. Like I swear pretty much, it feels like every hunt I've been on this year, deer have gotten down wind to me, and a lot of that has been.
Due to shifting winds I've had.
It's been a really strange year for me as far as like the forecasted wind and then you get that a little bit, but then you're getting some really odd ball winds in there, like it's supposed to be southwest, and then I'm getting, you know, the kind of sucked backs to the east, you know, or it gets down a prime time that wind really dies down and starts blowing to the north, you know, the complete opposite. That stuff has been happening to me, like it seems like
every hunt. But yeah, I mean all the time deer getting down WINDO me. Is as hard as I try, it's going to happen. And I think you're right. You know, a lot of that stuff you see on TV is it's just not relatable, you know, it's not relatable to the average guy. It's not real to the average guy. So we we can only look at that for what it is, and it's just entertainment, that's all it is. You know, you can't even really listening to the advice
of a lot of those guys. Maybe some stuff on deer behavior, but as far as tactic stuff, it anymore, like I've caught on it goes in one year run out the other. It's it's not anything I can apply most times, and it's not anything that's super relatable. I mean, you might be able to pick out a few nuggets there, but I think it's important to mention that for the new guys that are coming out, because that's what they're seeing on on TV. But yeah, you know, I'm trying
to always trying to minimize disturbance. I have my wind a lot of times going to where deer shouldn't go, but they do. You know, here in Michigan, you have a lot of spots I hunt have a fairly high
deer density, you know. And yes, you're you're maybe targeting the main the main betting areas you know, and and the main food sources, and you have your wind in your favor, But then you got all these satellite deer that are betting over here and over here, and then they're traveling a different way, and you can't account for everyone because there's just too many of them. I get winded far lest when I hunt Ohio there's less deer.
And then another thing too, once you get into a pressured setting and you hunt a pressured state, and I think Dan Johnson experienced this when he came to Michigan, and he's like, I get it now. He's like, the deer exit the betting area is looking for people. They look, they're looking up, they're traveling in ways to scent check areas where hunters typically are all the spots. I hunt a very high percentage of them. That's how the does behave.
It's not always just a you know, unless you can completely have a place to yourself and it's unpressured, which you can create little pockets like that. These these deer are moving very cautiously. They are on high alert from the second they get up. They look like they're ultra paranoid and they're looking over here and they hear us, they hear a squirrel and they're looking over there, and it's like they are so keyed up all the time.
It is really tough. And they get us.
A whiff of where you've been, where you where you are, and they, especially the older dose, they they really key in on that and they don't forget that and they start to avoid it or they come check it out and investigate.
And once you once they.
Have like a they have a little hint of that you might be there or that you were there. Those older doughs they come in and they investigate and they get you. You know, they're when when they start looking for you, they're gonna find you, and you know, and then it makes things really hard.
So you know, it's something.
We're battling all the time. I mean, I've been battling with it, and you know, I've been getting winded like every single hunt by by something and it's it's frustrating, man, it's super frustrating. And you're you're kind of blowing up the area. I think you can minimize that, Like you said on the fringes, try to blow into dead areas, and I probably tend to because I have less time to hunt. I tend to dive in a little deeper
than most guys. I think some guys would see my my sits and where I go and they're like, geez, you know, like he's really getting in there, you know, And I do because I know I'm not going to have many stabs throughout the season, so I try to make those sits count.
That's partially it.
You know, I'm partially taking a little more risk there, but also I'm choosing to do that because the time available and what I'm trying to accomplish on that particular hunt.
But yeah, yeah, I'm in.
Agreement with you.
I mean, it's just it's just it happens. You just try to minimize it.
And you know, I was going to add, I think I can speak for you. You tell me if I'm getting this wrong. But from you know everything I've heard and seen from from the way you hunt, Andy, Yes, you push into places and make those aggressive pushes because you have to, given your time and what you're trying to do. But at the same time, you're not stuck with just one spot to do that. So it's not like you aggressively push into the same spot over and over and
over and over again every weekend. And you've got all sorts of different places, so you can do an aggressive strike here today, and then you can do an aggressive strike next week and a different property, and then the next day you can hunt a piece of public and then the next weekend you go to.
Some different place.
So it's not like you're destroying places and hunting dead spots because of all that aggression. You're you're moving on and hunting different locations smartly. Despite that aggression because you have that you know, array of locations that you can do this on, right.
Yeah for sure.
Yeah, and uh, you know, on a spot where you know, maybe a lease or maybe you own a small chunk, you know, maybe you can you can rely on when you're not there, it's not getting blown up by other guys, and you have that time. Yeah, I would, Uh, I would. I would hunt it a little different, you know, I would hunt it. You know, say you did have a
small piece. It doesn't even have to be a highly managed firm, just you own a small thirty acres or an eighty acres or at least an eighty acres and that's your spot.
You know.
Yeah, I'm I'm gonna be playing things a lot more cautious. I'm gonna be hunting the fringes. My whole goal is to not let deer see me, smell me, hear me. But I'm trying to observe. I'm trying to scout. I'm trying to you know, observe from a distance. Maybe check some cameras midday here and there. But I'm trying to let the season kind of materialize and capitalize on the mistakes of the deer. You know, as they you know,
become more active, they cover more ground. You know, I would hunt that different, and I do have spots that have less pressure that I am more of a outside in type hunter. It again, for me personally, it all goes back to the time available. If I have the time available, I'll sit back. I'll sit back, and I'll wait and try to be a little more less aggressive and try to maybe prolong that that season a little bit and just wait for those bucks to make their
their mistake or other situations. It's like more of a time crunch. I gotta make it happen, you know, in the next four days. So I'm gonna really push, but I don't. I'm not reckless by any means. I move in when I think I can. Like today's seventy degrees, if you were gonna say, Andy, Ory, could you go out and get on a good buck today and maybe get them killed?
Like you know, No, I'm not feeling super confident.
It's dry, it's crunchy, there's not a lot of wind, it's uh, you know, it's seventy degrees. No, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna go push and make some aggressive sit that's very very low percentage. You know, I'd rather wait till you get a little better conditions for something like that.
So here's the follow up to that.
Another question someone submitted that's that's relevant to what we're talking about here. So the question is when hunting small property during the run. So let's say, like own a small property thirty acres something like that, is it better to hunt off freshly scouted sign so look for the fresh hot stuff and hunt that, move around a bunch, try to find that, or stick with historically good spots.
So I think this kind of goes to the general theme of what we're talking here, is like, is do you play a little bit more conservative and not bust up your small property and hunt and trust in some safer but consistently in the past good spots or can you move around? Can you aggressively try to find what's happening.
Right now and hunt that.
What would you do if you if you were in that situation Andy and you, let's say you own thirty you own a thirty acre piece, and these are the two options you were considering, what would you say?
Yeah, Well, I think I think anytime you're you're really
uh pigeonholed into a small property like that. It pays off to know that property well, know where the deer bed, know where they travel, know the if there are some like rout travel through there, some some doe betting where you can get in and out and and just rely on that, you know, kind of hunt, hunt the fringes, or hunt those spots that were historically good because once you once you learn that, there can be some changes year to year, you know, depending on like crop rotation,
acorn crop, you know, food availability, maybe some surrounding pressure. You got a neighbor hunting a side all of a sudden that never you know was there. You know, those things can come up and change, you know, change some things, change some movement patterns. But if it's a thirty acre piece or less, you know, and it's maybe it's super sensitive, maybe there's some actual betting on there. You know, I'm going to be sticking to those historically good spots during
the rut. That doesn't mean I'm not ready to go if I observe something, you know, if I observe just like that example I gave earlier, I'm up in a spot that was a historically good spot, right there, and I observe that that buck pin down with that dough out in the marsh there, and I made the move.
So I'm ready to make the move.
I'm ready to move in on on an opportunity.
But I'm probably gonna I'm probably gonna, you.
Know, stick to those two three four spots on thirty acres that are typically good during the rut. They're fairly safe with this wind direction. And this spot's fairly safe with this wind direction. And uh, you know, just put in the time. You know, the rut, the rut is it. You know, Hunting sign and hunting the rut don't always go hand in hand. So like when I'm hunting early season, you know, I'm trying to observe or I'm hunting signor or information off a camera. You know, you go start
going through October, mid October, late October. Sign is really popping up. Hunting on fresh sign during that though, is extremely effective. Like right on sign, right on sign that maybe is close to good betting. You see a big track in a scrape, you look around, it's a good security cover. You're like, Okay, I think he's coming from here. This is a good spot. I got a really good access here, I got good wind here. You're running this
stuff through your head. But then you start getting into November, some of that red hot sign really starts to taper off. Scrapes start to grow colder and colder. As you get into November. You'll see them all torn up every single day, you know, in late October, and then you'll see, like November fifth, sixth, seventh, all of a sudden, there's leaves in your scrapes, you know, And and that lets you know that, okay, there. It doesn't mean they're gone, but
you might not find that fresh torn up sign. You still might and that lets you know that there's there's probably one in there. They're probably moving through there. You know, maybe there's some do betting there that they're keying in on. But in a lot of places I've hun it. I switched to hunting terrain. But I don't want just any terrain. I don't want just a saddle. I don't want just
a pinch point. I want a pinch point or a saddle or a bench or a travel hub that connects a lot of things that bucks like, Yeah, you know, dough betting a primary food source, you know, dough betting over here, a good ridge over here that has a lot of betting, and all these things can kind of come together, you know, in one spot, and that's the spot.
Now you might go to that spot. There might not be any sign.
It might be just a few trails at crisscross, or or there might be like a hubscrape down there, or there might be something that indicates us this is a spot where a lot of things come together. But it could it literally could just be one scrape. I've seen that time and time again when I've hunted in Iowa. I'll find these travel hubs coming off the hills or all these points dumped down in the same general area, and you just know, you look at it on a toepone, You're like, wow.
You know, any buck that's on.
This ridge wants to get to this ridge is gonna have to come down one of these few points. And then there's this ridge over here that has a point dumping down, and all these are traveling and coming down in the same area crisscrossing, and they can get to any of these ridges.
That spot right there is the hub. That's the travel hub.
That's where I'm gonna get a lot of deer coming through that general area and you go down there and you look and there's a big primary scrape there, very very common but not always. But you go down there and it's not It doesn't mean it's littered with sign. It might just be four or five six trails that all pass through an eighty acre I'm sorry, an eighty yard span, you know, and that's where you want to be.
You get on that down in.
Side, you get a good consistent wind pattern, and those are the spots you sit all day. So I don't always need red hot sign during the rut, but I if i'm I might just be in spots that connect good things. And in those good things there's probably good sign like good dough, good dough sign, you know, good feeding sign, lots of you know, deer activity, but you don't I'm not necessarily always in a spot that has red hot sign during the rut.
Yeah, And you know, another thing to be to remember during that time period is that some red hot sign, you know, laid down at that time of year does not indicate anything about the future, right, Like, there will be deer passing through places, like a buck cruising through his zone, and he might lay down a big scrape and he might never pass through there again. So so sometimes you'll see sign you know that that does indicate like, okay,
bucks are doing something here for a reason. But if you see a random scrape or a random rub in a place and you can't say why that's happening there, Like if you if you come to a spot like you're describing where you've got all these points dropping down and they all you find this convergence of features and you see you think to yourself, okay, why why would deer come through here? Well, it's because of this thing and this thing, this thing, everything's converging here at this hub.
That makes a lot of sense.
If I see sign there, I can say like, oh, okay, I understand what's happening and why this sign is here, and this makes a whole lot of.
Sense to hunt.
But if you find a big rub or a scrape in i don't know, on a field edge or in the middle of a big, wide open timber and there's no terrain feature, there's no topography, there's no edge, there's nothing that explains to you like why this should make sense. Don't be fooled by that, because a buck could be chasing a random dough on November seventh, and then stop for half a second, rip up a scrape while another buck comes in, and then off he goes, and then
you're off to the races. So got to remember, like to your point, sign in October is very different than sign in November. And so you know, I would agree with your assessment of the small property situation. I would probably be more on the conservative side because you can blow up a small property so quickly, and if you have those spots that you know produce consistently because of a terrain feature, a habitat feature, you know, that's the kind of thing that will work year after year as
long as there hasn't been some big change. But I would just preface that, or I guess qualify that if you're hunting in small property and you're new to it, right, then it doesn't pay to be.
Super conservative all the time.
If you've got a short period of time and you don't know the property at all, you know, just playing it super safe your whole vacation because it's small might not be the right approach, right. You got to know it. You have to know what you're working with. So if
you've never been able to scout it before. If this is a piece that you got permission on, let's say, and you're shown up for a week vacation in the rut maybe and like this is the property you want to hunt, you know, don't go tiptoeing around and never take the time to go learn the thing, because blowing up for one day even a small proper at least in my opinion, Maybe I'm wrong on this, but I would like to learn a property in half a day or a midday or one day, knowing that I'm going
to put some pressure on it. If that gives me six days or four days in which.
I actually know what I'm doing. I want to know what I'm doing. I know, I want to know what's happening.
So if you don't have that already, you got to figure that out rather than just blindly sitting and hoping something will happen.
You know.
Yeah, And a lot of times uh not all it depends on how the property sits up and what's there.
And a lot of times I've hunted.
Many properties where I would go and check for sign multiple times a week, even small properties, but I'm checking them in areas that aren't alerting deer maybe it's a field edge, you know, with a lot of scrapes, and I can check tracks, and I'll go out there two three times a week because maybe I'm after a specific book or I want to know, you know, when the spot heats up, maybe I wasn't as familiar with that spot.
And I'll go out there and I'll check. I'm abe, I'll check a camera.
I'm out there, I'm looking and all these All of a sudden, the scrapes are are are opened up, and I look and there's some big tracks in there. Okay, now I'm in a spot where it's not alerting deer. You know, I'm able to I'm able to walk this without blowing the whole property out.
But I picked up signed. Now I'm going to relate that.
Back to what I know about the property, where the betting areas is, where the funnels are, where I can get in and out, and maybe that tells me it's time to hunt. Not necessarily hunt on that sign, but it's telling me like now's the time to go.
Yeah, I've had that happen, and.
I want to make one I want to make one comment too about the uh you know when I mentioned you know, hunting red hot sign in the rut doesn't always go hand in hand, you know, like that spot that I uh that I mentioned where a lot of stuff converges, a lot of travel converges into one general area and there's a scrape down there. I've I've found spots like this all across the Midwest, and they're always good spots. You just got to hunt them with the
right wind and you got to have good access. And sometimes when you get down, depending on what it is, sometimes you get down in those bottoms and it can be tough. But a lot of times you can get the right situation where you can get a consistent wind. But those there's a there's a lot of times there's some sort of sign, some sort of primary scrape in these areas where a lot of things, a lot of travel comes together, a lot of scent pools together. It's
because those areas draw bucks. Bucks can gather a ton of information from one spot, and I like to look for spots like that during the run. I like to hunt spots that where bucks can gather a lot of information efficiently without traveling across this field and over here and through this funnel and checking this. But they can grab all that information in one spot. And that's something that mature bucks do a lot, a lot of times. There is a big primary scrape there beause they get
down there, they get all fired up. They scrape and yes, that's opened up, you know, the third week of October, late October, November second, third, fourth, fifth, it's like torn up. You got a camera on it. You're getting buck after buck after buck, and then all of a sudden you go in there to hunt and it's November seventh or eighth, and there's leaves covering the scrape and you're like, oh, man, it's dead. It's not dead. They're just not tending the
scrape anymore. That scrape is there for a reason, and those bucks are still working through there. They're just not coming and working the scrape. They're covering more, they're covering more ground, they're scent checking more, they're laying down less sign So just because it's not red hot, because it's not open, doesn't mean it's not a good spot. That
big eighteen point I killed in Iowa a few years ago. Man, I had a camera on that scrape, and I had I don't know eight nine ten different nice books on that all through like mid October through like November second or third, it really started to die off. And when I pulled that card, I was like it was like boom boom boom, boom boom. You know, all these days there's shooter Bucks in there. And then it started dying off,
you know, as he got into November. And then I went in there and the scrape was like had leaves all over it. Well, I said, in there because it had a lot of things. It was a down inside of bedding. It was three travel routes come, three really good travel routes coming from bed to feed that all paralleled each other over like a two hundred yard area, and it just you know, bucks like to cross section those and they like to travel down one side of
dough betting. And I'm sandwiched between a major betting area and a major food source. So I had a lot of things and it had a good primary scrape there. I sat there, I saw four bucks, uh, four bucks, two shooter Bucks the first morning before I shot my h before I shot my buck, all traveling through there. Not one of them, not one of them came and worked the scrape. Yeah, but they were they were sent
checking the scrape. You know, they were sent checking it because dose would still go by the scrape and they'd you know, kind of stand in it or walk by it. But that area had several things that bucks look for during the run. They could gather a lot of information in like a you know, in like a fifty like one hundred yard wide circle, not even that, like an eighty yard wide circle. They could gather a lot of
information in that spot. So even though the sign had had tapered down, the buck activity was still off the charts. They're still moving through there, they're just not working the scrape. So you got to keep that in mind.
Yeah, that's a great it's a great reminder. I want to shift our shift to more of a rapid fire style here and to knock us more questions before we wrap this up. So let's do like we get like thirty seconds to answer or less like quick first thought on each one of these, and we're gonna try and knock out a bunch here to kind of put a bow on this, because there's way more questions that we have time to get through unless we do rapid fire here.
So let's try to do that a few of these.
So I got a couple questions here about calling, I'll just combine them into what's your go to rut calling approach? And then how often do you do that? So real quick, what's your take on that.
I don't mind calling during the rut, I call way less. In Michigan in a pressured area, I think it can work really well on year and a half year old Bucks, two year old Bucks, and three year old Bucks. I have not had the greatest success calling in you know, four year old bucks or older. In Michigan. I think they've seen it way too many times. I think they're super educated. I would probably give that same advice in
any high pressure state. However, I've had awesome luck with it in Iowa, in Illinois, Kentucky, you know states like that. Ohio even I've had much better luck with it there.
I always carry a grunt tube.
I always carry a rattle, and I'm pretty good with a mouth snort, wheeze.
I'm not afraid to do it. I'm not a huge blind caller.
Unless I'm in a state and I'm just not seeing the activity. Things maybe are a little slow. It's not my favorite thing to do, but I'm not a afraid to do it.
It can definitely work.
And I'll do it maybe maybe when the action's a little slow, or I see a buck, you know, cruising looks like he's in the mood. I'm in a good situation where I call, you know, a good approach for him, then then I'll throw.
It at him.
But I don't do a ton of I know a lot of guys will will rattle like every thirty seconds, or.
I don't really do the seconds.
Yeah, I would say I am very similar. I'd never blind call in Michigan, and I almost I mean, I would basically say I never rattle in Michigan. Either I will grunt or snort wheeze if there's a buck out of range I'm trying to bring in. And then in those unpressured states Iowa, Kansas, whatever out there, I will occasionally do a blind rattling session. But even then, like
that'll be like late morning kind of thing. I might try that, and might try that like twice, maybe separated by an hour or something like that.
But I don't do a whole lot of that.
But I very much will grunt and snort wheeze at deer and or you know, would rattle to deer out of range in those kinds of states too. I have had a lot of luck with grunts and snore wheezes. That's been my most effective calling technique at this time of year. You know, first start with like a contact grunt, Like so if I see a buck one hundred and fifty yards away or something, I'll try up bra and just get louder until I see he's actually heard it.
And if I can get a.
Visual of him in which he turns and like one percent has heard my thing, then I won't call. I'll I'll stop as soon as I know he heard me, And then I'm assessing his body language, and you know, if he starts coming my way, then I'm done.
I'm not going to call anymore. Nothing else.
If that buck seems interested, maybe pins his ears back and takes a few steps, makes a scrape, but then kind of starts heading off into the direction again, like he gave me a little bit of an interest, but not all the way. Then that might be when I give him a you know, flipping the bird by giving him that snort wheeze, I'm like, really, I get them fired up, just one not tired, and sometimes that works.
So that would be my one other thing to add on the rut calling next question is about snacks andy for all they sits healthy food or junk food.
I usually have a water I usually have about fifteen gummy bears.
That's very specific, Yes it is.
I'll do.
I'll do like.
I'll do like uh five, you know, like a little handful three times a day, and then I'll do I usually have a big ziplock of trail mix and maybe a like a granola bar or a protein bar. I keep it, I keep it very minimal. I'll if i'm if i feel like I'm gonna be really hungry, I'll stack up more on the trail mix.
Occasionally maybe a peanutrey jelly.
But I don't.
I don't even do that that much. But uh, I don't. I don't.
Don't. I try not to eat a ton or have a ton of snacks, and I don't. I don't like to be moving around and making noise and stuff. But I have to eat something, and my blood sugar tends to fall a little low, and that's that's why I do the gummy bears.
Yeah, but I don't.
I don't.
I don't take a bunch of chunk typically, but that doesn't mean I don't eat a bunch of junk food during hunting season, because I definitely do.
So I'm a little different than you in that I do bring a lot of stuff because I just know myself, like I need, like I time out my snacks to like every hour. I'll give myself that little thing to be excited about. So I'll usually start snack time like if it's an all day sit, my snack time usually starts like ten am maybe, and then I'll do like every hour from then, I've got some little thing to
look forward to. So I know, like, all right, I got the little snickers bar ten and then if I can make it to eleven, I know I can have the you know, the trail mix, And if I can make it to noon, then I get my peanut butter jelly. And if I can make it to one, then I'll get my apple. And if I can make it to two, then I'll let myself have the cheese.
Crackers or whatever. So I do bring a bunch of snacks.
But what I try to do now is I take everything out of the noisy wrappers ahead of time and package them in reusable ziploc bags and so I like the reusable ziplocks. Not I don't always do this, but when I'm on top of my A game, I.
Use those because they're very quiet.
They're not like crinkly at all, so they're like very silent and you can have, you know, you can access your snacks in a quiet way, and then you're also not accumulating, you know, a whole bucket full of trash throughout the day, which is nice. And I do a mixture of like healthy and junk. So I used to be heavier on the junk. I've tried to add more like some fruits and something healthy in there, because after you do that for a week or so, you'll start feeling really creddy.
If it's nothing but junk.
So I'm kind of in between on that one. Here's another location related one, and we've talked a lot about bedding areas. This person asked, when you're hunting downwind of a dough betting are, how close do you actually want to be on it? Like are you inside the dough betting are on the down wind side or are you outside of the dough betting downwind of it? And if so, like, what's the distance to the edge of that cover or the edge of wherever you think the doughs are betted.
How do you think about that?
Yeah, that's a that's a tough one because it you know, it could vary, you know, location of location. You know, I picture like like a creek bottom that has you know, red brush and and kind of marsh marshy habitat like on each side of the creek, and you know, essentially the whole creek serves as you know, like really good dough betting, you know, on all the creek bends and
and all the little thickets and stuff. And I will I'll get on the interior of that, I'll find obviously, I'll find a good tree, and I try to get where I can kind of shoot into where I think i'll out of the travel is.
Going to be.
But I don't want I don't want my wind necessarily blowing out a lot of travel opportunities behind me. It's not like doe betting isn't always like a like a hard edge, you know what I mean.
It's a lot of times you just know.
You're you're kind of working in there, and things get a little thicker, and there might be a pocket of doze here and then some more, you know, one hundred yards back or so. It's not as always like as a well defined abrupt edge as it might sound like when we say that. So a lot of it is a feel thing, but I try to I try to get where I can cover travel, and a lot of times, a lot of times there will be you know, some sort of sign or some sort of you know, perpendicular trail.
It may not be beat to the ground, it may not be it may be be able to pick up on it, and sometimes you can't because it's just used a few times a year, you know, during that short window. But I don't like to give up too much travel behind me, if that makes sense. So I will get into usually where it starts to kind of thicken up, you know, I feel like I'm getting into that interior, and if I start getting in any further, I'm gonna
start bumping deer around. That usually tells me to hold up and kind of get get right on there, right on that edge. Sometimes it's a feel thing, sometimes it's a visual thing, but that that kind of I let my instincts gauge a little bit there. If there's not like a clear indication of sign, that tells me, you know, this is probably where I need to be. But one thing I'll mention real quick. The downwind side of doll betting is an area that Bucks will gravitate to during
the run, no doubt about it. But I've seen more and more over the years that the side where does tend to travel from food to bed, there's you know a lot of times if there's a distinct you know, food source and there the general travels from here to through the betting. That spot, that edge there where they travel in and out where a lot of those trails might be coming in from, you know, various spots, various
uh directions. That spot gets a lot more, It gets a lot of activity from Bucks, maybe even more so than the down wind side. They can they can take a one trail perpendicular and they can cover you know, two, three, six, twelve different entrance trails and know exactly what's in that no betting, and they can do the same thing traveling
from down winning. But I've seen it more and more over the years, I've almost changed my opinion a little bit that that might even be the better spot, the spot where they can go perpendicular and cover a lot of trails. So if you have a good betting area and a good food source over here, and in that betting area, maybe it's a one hundred yard two hundred yard stretch and there are multiple trails kind of going in.
You see.
You know, this one's well beat down. This one's a little more faint, another beat down one there, another one in the corner that inside that timber you know are inside that cover there there, there's gonna be a some sort of route perpendicular trail. You may it may be visible, it may not be, But that spot right there is a great spot to be that. I've seen that over and over the last few years. I've really started to key in more on that than necessarily the down one side.
Yeah, I mean it's that.
I mean it's it's the same kind of like transition type area that a lot of folks would hunt during that bed to feed pattern of October. But now, you know, the Dose are still basically doing the same thing, right, Dose are still basically on that bed to feed pattern, transitioning out to that food source. But now instead of the Bucks doing that same thing, like you said, they're not paralleling that movement anymore. They're perpendicularing it, crossing it to catch.
All those So you're spot on.
That's a very good point, and that kind of that's a situation where you can get that kind of location is a best of both worlds for an all they sit where we talked about the beginning. How if you're hunting down one of a die betting area, that could be great in the morning, in the afternoon, but then once you get to the evening when they transition out to their food source, that spot can kind of die
off in some locations when you're deep back in the bedding. Well, if you find a spot like this where you're adjacent to bedding, but you're also where they are transitioning through as they head to that main food source, that's the kind of place that does stay pretty darn primo right on through. So it's it's finding the right wind for that can be tricky, I think, but.
A great spot. Yeah.
Last question, or maybe second to last question. Should you still consider trail camera pictures in specific areas during the rut? So when you get new pictures that show you a buck that did something yesterday or a week ago or whatever, but it's November right now, is that something that's really meaning much to you, Andy, No, I.
Still I still pay major attention to that, especially like if it's on well, I mean, honestly, I'm probably not diving into too many like betting areas to check trail cameras, you know that time of year. Those might be more of like a soaker camera where I keep it in there,
you know, most of the year. But like I'll have them on funnels, especially like really good funnels where they're almost forced to go through there, and I'll definitely check those and and see what's kind of moving through there, because those are spots that it's it could be it could be a random buck that's coming through one time, but if it's if it's a buck that's.
In there during the run.
There are spots, there are areas, there are trees that these deer go by repetitively, and it may not be every day, but it might be three, four or five times a week.
In those spots.
It's really it pays to know when those spots are heating up because those are the spots where if you're after a specific buck and if in a lot of times just you know, any good buck, but specifically a specific buck if you can find those areas where they go through more than anywhere else, and you can plant yourself there and just put in the hours. Obviously playing the wind, you know, getting there when the wind is okay, but playing your butt in there and just playing the
long game. That's a great way to kill a target buck during the rut. But you gotta kind of establish that spot. Maybe there's a couple of them, maybe you're lucky in the two of them on the property you can hunt or whatever. And another one is is the food source, you know it. I that's still valuable to me to know that, Like, okay, after dark, you know
there's some dose. You know, there's some doughs in these food source and then you know, after dark, I got a you know, a buck on trail camp around like bumping dose around or working this straight. I mean that tells me that he's in there, and now I can I can make an educated plan on where I want to hunt this deer. Maybe it's in this funnel coming to the food source. Maybe it's on the backside of this still betting, maybe it's on the food source. Maybe
he's in there in daylight a little bit. So I think trail cam I actually checked trail cameras a little more often during the rut. But I'm also doing it smart and I'm also you know, I'm trying to not blow deer out. I'm just trying to get some information on something that I could potentially capitalize on the short term, on a short term pattern. There.
Yeah, hypothetical, Well, last question, hypothetical.
Dream spot to sit during the rut.
So if you could paint the picture of the perfect rut location and Kip tell me the day you would want to hunt this perfect spot, and then give me as much detail as you can about what that setup would look like, everything from access to what kind of tree, to what features or habitat or or sign is there. What's the perfect place you could dream up for a rut sit?
Okay, so access would be through a neighboring property that's a cattle pasture, and I could walk through that the majority of the way back there. And this is going to be in like not like real super steep hill country, but hill country, like moderately sized hills, you know, one hundred feet one hundred and fifty feet, you know, somewhere in there kind of rolling hills, but some big hills in some sort of travel hub where there's two three different ridge systems that they all kind of dumped down
in the same general area. And in that bottom, it's a wide bottom that's a CRP field, Okay, And I'm actually describing as I've killed, Yeah, I have killed multiple bucks, and my buddy shot a monster in there too. So you got ridges on the sides, you know, kind of surrounding it with multiple points dumping down into the CRP field. And right down there at the bottom is the is
the primary scrape, the hub scrape. And because that bottom is a skinny field and it's wider, you can actually get a good consistent wind when you have the wind blowing out the direction of the main drainage. So it's it's kind of when specific. You don't want it coming
over a ridge perpendicular. You want it blowing out that main drainage, and you can what you can do is put that wind in your face, get down in that bottom and get right down wind of that scrape, and then you got all these points coming down, and then you got the wind hitting you in the face, blowing you back up towards that cattle pasture. Yes, a couple deer.
There's some space to get you know, deer could get behind you, but it's gonna be very minimal, very very minimal disturbance, not real obtrusive.
And you just got so.
Many things, uh coming together there all in one spot. You got travel hub, multiple multiple points stumping down, so you're gonna have deer coming from all directions. You got that primary scrape there, and you got the thermal activity of.
Its falling thermals.
You know, first thing in the morning, you know, until that sun gets over those hills, you got falling thermals going right down into that spot. So it's a great spot for bucks to come and check, crossing trails, scent pulling down and the same thing in the evening.
That's something like that is a killer spot. Then they're hard to find.
But what I look for is multiple features that bucks like all in one area. That's really what it comes down to. That's what makes a great rough spot. Yeah, any one of those things you can get a kill on. Any one of those things can be a great hunt. But when you find a spot like that, that's what makes a spot great for.
Decades. You know, it's it's always a good spot.
Because it has everything a buck needs, and he can he can figure out a ton of information from a lot of different things in one specific area.
Yeah.
So, and then as far as a date, I would.
Throw, uh, November, I'm gonna make a real short window six through nine.
Nice, November six through nine.
Yeah.
Yeah, I've begin I've begun thinking of place like that is like a stacked I'd been calling like a stacked location because I want to stack up like all these reasons a buck would pass through there. So you make such a good point, which is, any one of those
in isolation could be good and it could work. But which like, the best of the best places are when you can find this thing stacked on this thing, stacked on this thing, stacked on this thing, and you have all of these reasons, and then you all of a sudden you have a much higher percentage sit and that's that's what you're really looking for. So I love it, man, I I hope you find a spot or two like that to hunt in this this next couple of weeks, and that should get a big one on the ground.
My friend.
I appreciate you taking the time to do this and answering some of these questions and helping us all get hyped for this most wonderful time of year.
Yeah.
Man, it's awesome. I'm excited. Hopefully this helped the listeners. I had fun. These are fun questions. It's fun just to start brainstorming and think about this stuff, because you know, when you don't, when you don't talk about it, sometimes you get a little complacent. You're not really thinking about it. But I'm all jacked up now. I'm ready to get out there.
Me too, man.
And as in all that note, I should probably slip out of here and head to the woods here myself. So thank you, Andy, and thanks everyone for listening.
I appreciate you joining this week.
Good luck out there, and until next time, stay wired to hunt.