Welcome to Wired to Hunt's rutfresh Radio, bringing you the latest reports from 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 hosts case Smith and Tyler Jones.
This is Rotfresh Radio.
I'm your host, Casey Smith, and man, it is a late season, but there is this thing going on where the deer is still thinking about it. The rut can still happen at any moment in time, and hunters around the country seem to think that this is their week.
This is rough Fresh. Let's go what has happened in y'all?
This is rot Fresh Radio, brought to you by first Light Gear. I'm your host, Casey Smith. Tyler Jones is also your host, and he's also here with me. We've been doing a ton of deer huntings, so it's been kind of hard make this happen. In fact, we're recording everything the day after Christmas, which is a wild time, right, but there are still people hunting, including us.
In fact, none of them, none of them, nobody else is working though.
When it's only people working after Christmas, here Yeah, that's right, man. I think they're all just still drinking eggnog. But the Element YouTube channel is not done putting out deer hunting content where we are doing a ton of deer hunting still. Actually just got back the day before Christmas from a South Texas deer hunting adventure that was pretty sick. That'll be up pretty soon, and a lot of more stuff going on, maybe even some hog hunting pretty soon as well.
We never stopped hunting around here, which makes for fun times, man. And I'm glad that there's other people that are like this as well, because we got some pretty interesting folks you interview today. But man, I know that like Christmas is a weird thing because a lot of people just either switch to waterfowl or just say it just hang it up. I guess I think people just push until it's timing year. Speaking a first live, that's what they
said they're doing it. I saw a post the other day where they were just hanging up all the everything but waterfowl. And the waterfowl now, I guess that's what they're saying, Garrett in that post, I don't know who I think it was.
They hit a bunch of you got on your first lot waterfowl right now?
Yeah, just because I'm cold in my house, it's fluffy and that is.
A sick pattern out there. Are you gonna do any waterfowl hunting?
I'd like to, but I think we need to ask farmers I'm almanac if it's going to keep telling us lies or not Farmer's Almanac. I don't look into it every time I say. Every time I say something about we just need some cold weather, somebody around me is like, well, Farmer's dolmanack says's supposed to be a hard winter, and I'm like, he said yesterday, it better hurry up.
Well, technically, you know, the first day winter was just three year or four days ago.
Yeah, which is weird.
Always think about winter starting in November. Me too, for sure, But I mean we only have two seasons. The point is it should have been colder than it has been.
Yeah, we were just discussing this.
We had our heart first or second hard frost today and the first one was almost two months ago, which is wild.
I know that.
You know, the further north you go in the country, the more consistent that stuff gets. But it makes for some weird deer hunting we got cameras around the country right now, and some cameras are showing like bachelor groups of bucks, and some cameras are showing chasing.
It's real weird.
It is weird.
I know.
One thing about our cameras right now is that they're overall have been very slow, man very slow. Like I mean, it's talking like mostly dose and that mostly not time, which I mean not like we have a few less cameras going, so there's because batteries and stuff. But like I mean, I think it's just been I don't know what it's been like everywhere else, but it's been warm here and everywhere we've hunted for the last you know, since since that October cold front, you know. So it's
just I know it's not the same. I know they got snow up north in some places and stuff a few weeks ago, and you know, but.
I think it's a weird thing to think about.
But there is some strategy to some of the the feeder type stuff and even food plots where everybody knows that on colder days you're gonna have earlier movement. But this late in the year too, cover changes and you're gonna have situations where maybe like a feeder or a food plot had to cover close to it until like all the leaves fall, which that just happened here in the past week or two pretty much, and then all of a sudden, there's not cover for a half mile
to get to that spot, you know. So like it's also you have to think about that. Yeah, it's as far as interesting daylight movement and then human activity, which is also something we've seen waterfowl stuff really kind of
starts to interfere with that where we live. We've seen that even on camera LA lately, where there'll be people doing stuff that has to do with waterfowl and then all of a sudden, oh well, no, nothing is there because they're feeling the heat, even though those people aren't actually interested in the deer.
You know how like when people are like people talk about how when the media starts talking about stock market crash, than the stock market crashes, you know, like leads leads them into it. If they would just stop talking about it, then that would just get back into good motion. Or Uh. I wonder if like people are waterfowl hunting because people
are talking about it on media. Yeah, Like I wonder if that's like all of a sudden, It's just like somebody in media flips a switch and all of a sudden, it's like, oh man, you know, ten thousand people saw that thing and they told their buddies they need to go hunting. And now all of a sudden, there's thirty thousand people thinking about duck hunting. You know, it's crazy how that can happen, right, I mean, that's it's a logical,
plausible thing, you know, that could potentially happen. I don't know if it is, if it does or not, but.
Yeah, no, there's there's an aspect that you're talking about that's called a social contagion.
You're familiar with social contagent.
Well, I'm familiar with those two words, not together though.
So social contagion. One of the greatest examples is the Salem witch Trials. Oh yeah, and so Kaylee went to the Salem to Salem out this year this year. Yeah, oh wow, they're in deer season. I watched an hour long YouTube video about the Crucible, which is an infamous piece of literature about all that stuff, and it's and so like, there's some real negative aspects to some social contingents, but this is a little bit more light hearted where it's like it's essentially.
The new word for social contingents.
Fomo.
You got the fomo of you know, oh man, they're slaying the ducks. Maybe we should go out there that whole way. It's weird.
Oh, I didn't know. I didn't think about the fact there were twelve hundred miles from me, so there were actually no ducks were.
I actually heard shotgun shots from my house this morning.
So there's some people I've heard at least skyblast and some if not maybe getting into them.
Who knows. There's I've seen ducks there on the lake.
Oh. I saw a ton of divers yesterday. I mean like literally like two hundred.
There's spoonies and stuff around too.
Yeah.
I saw some gad walls over by. There's a pond that sits by the road where my Cody's house always has galways. It was pretty loaded.
I bet actually, I bet.
Well, you know, there's a ton of grass in those places because there hasn't been very many birds eaten.
So it's like those things are just full of food, right.
Yeah, it's a good thought.
And you know, this kind of goes back to the whitetail stuff that we were talking about, but there's like a weird thing going on, like this time in December where we're really late in the year and we just went through the winter solstice, so like the days are starting to get a longer, and so like, I'm sure when we have deer that are dependent on the daylight photo period, right, thank you, Mark Ken you for the clarification, right,
that they start doing different things. And one of the encouraging things to me is that we have bucks that are in bachelor groups on camera this morning, like four bucks on camera all together. But even up into February, we've gotten some really good rut action that we've seen. And there's a lot of different ways to explain how that happens. I think mostly it would be just not
great herd dynamics for places. But if there's a little bit of you know, comfort in how terrible that is, it's the fact that you can get some wild things happen no matter where you live, right, I mean, shoot, you killed a deer, well, you killed a deer a few years back in late December.
That was checking scrapes.
I killed a deer two years ago on December thirtieth, that checked a scrape. On the way in, so like it's a thing.
Right. I was in South Texas this past week and almost killed a deer that was headed right to a scrape.
I mean he was going to it. So it's kind of like that. It's almost as if we get the late October thing happened again this time of year. In fact, Chris Brackett, which is an interesting character in the Honey World, right, but I like him overall.
He's done some bad things, but so have I. He kind of has this like thing about the full moon in late October and he's like, or late December. He's like, it is the time for killing a big buck. So I thought it was interesting. Yeah, And if nothing else, at least.
He's putting some hype out there to get people excited still because a lot of people aren't, and you still should be if you using.
Social contagion, that's right, you know. I was thinking that. You know, just one last note on this thing. I got into a rutfest the other day you did in the bottoms and this deer was actually we don't have him on camera, and we've got two feeders running in that area. That blows my mind. Dude, he has not cared about feeders. He's just running. Yeah, And I think it's the thing you see, We saw it. It's funny you you don't see it in the planes as much.
It's like they have to eat up there because they have to stay fat.
But like if you see the feeders dry up all of a sudden, it's like it's a good thing.
You need to be in the woods.
Maybe not over the feeder, but you need to be in the woods around it because they're doing the thing.
Yes, I need to be in the woods.
Mighty time.
Yeah.
Well, let's actually see who we have got today around the country to give us more reports, because.
We kind of know what's going on here in Texas, but what else is happening.
Well, this week we are hearing from Danny Espino, one of our buddies who we've known for a few years, who really gets after it on Texas Public Land, especially Nick Schwartz as opposed to pants. He's going to be up in Oklahoma, Colin Marshall out in Maryland. And our good buddy Parker macdeazy Donald from the Southern Collective. He's out in Alabama giving us report and he has he's always on the deer so I'm excited to hear from all these guys. Let's get to it.
I've got my friend in fellow Texas public Land hunter, Danny Espino on the line.
Danny, what's been going on?
Hey, k S, thanks for having me.
Oh, you're welcome.
Man has been hunting hard, you know here in North Texas public land.
Yeah, I see that on Instagram a lot.
You.
Uh you're pretty actually pretty good follow because uh you're always finding something cool or whatever and and uh, yeah, I appreciate how hard you get after it, man, And I know it's been a long season, but it sounds like you're still after them. What are the deer doing in the woods in North Texas?
So I feel like they've kind of, uh where where we're out in North Texas, we kind of have that November mid rut. So I was seeing deer h just running hard. But I think they've gone back to normal right now. And but they're pretty active on.
Scrapes right now. That's that's what I feel.
It's a good time to find a buck just coming back to a scrape.
Are you running cameras and that's how you're kind of getting that information.
I've been running a couple of cameras, but I have a couple of my buddies that also run cameras, so we both share we all share intel with each other.
That's been kind of a common theme, uh, on some of these interviews so far, that these scrapes are kind of like the one thing that's hanging in there as far as you know, at least, it's a common theme in the rut category. So you know, is that to me that that means maybe that deer are still open to the idea, right, So I guess that that a an immature dough maybe could suddenly come into heat and
change the ballgame in your area. Have you seen any rutting action on camera or heard any of that going on at all, just randomly here and there.
I actually heard about it about two weeks ago, about a buck not running hard but just kind of, you know, interested in the dough.
And just like you mentioned it, it could just.
Take that one hot dough come in, come in kind of late into in the heat to get a bug just chasing after her.
Yeah, So, how how would you capitalize this time of year on maybe that situation or any other situation you feel confident, you know, when you go into the woods hunting that spot.
I definitely capitalize looking for a fresh scrape line, maybe not one isolated scrape, but maybe a couple of scrapes, you know, in a in a direction, and then put a compound compounding feature upon that, maybe some dope betting or a food source that you know is is pretty consistent for this time of year, and just put some features that compound together on top of that scrape, and I think you'd be pretty you can capitalize on on a good buck.
Dude, you're speaking our language of this compounding feature stuff. You know what's up?
So the are you seeing anything hitting acron still?
Uh?
So where I'm where I'm at, And obviously I don't want to get too much info out, but uh, we're.
Where I'm at.
We don't really see a good acorn uh production where I'm at. So they're kind of hitting forward, uh and just whatever whatever resource they can really find.
M Yeah, yeah, gotcha.
So are you you're fixing to go out and uh target dear pretty hard.
There here at the end of the season. Do you feel like pressure.
Has eased up in the woods and you're able to go into places maybe that the deer were pressured out of and still see deer or are you still having to just find just you know, nooks.
Oh, you're definitely having to find nios and crannies, because I just think the pressure during the rut was so hard that the bucks just it just pushed everything out. I mean, I've been at one property, one public land. It's been hit so hard that I can't even every time I go out, I'm not seeing any.
Dose, which is really weird.
So it's been hit so hard that you really have to get into the nitty gritty and you have.
To know where they're.
Going to cross or where they're going to be at to really find a good buck.
Does that mean like it's pretty much always going to be a pretty far high can or are there actually still overlook spots?
Oh, they're definitely overlooks spots. It just depends on where you're at. You just really have to know the property.
Sure.
Are you still spending time in the mornings right now or are you kind of focusing evenings only?
I would say I'm strictly a morning guy morning to midday. I really don't like evenings, So if I'm not working, I'm hitting the woods early in the morning. Or if I'm working, I'm getting right off midday and.
Going straight to the woods.
Okay, so we don't have a lot of time, but I want you to expand on the midday thought a little bit because I think that's really interesting and probably appealing to a lot of people, because if they were just like, you know what, I could get a hunt in from you know, eleven to three or something, they would, of course, just.
Briefly on that midday thought. You can definitely you know, when some people leave the woods in the morning and you're coming in midday, you know, those deer are going to know something's up and you can find a buck just slipping by thinking that everybody's gone, and you come in and you kill that buck.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good thought.
Man.
Well, you know, if you're thinking about it based off weather or even full moon or whatever else is going on, Yeah, in the next week, what do you what do you what would you rank buck movement in your opinion on a scale of one to ten, What do you think it's going to be.
I'd probably say about a seven.
Seven that it's.
Pretty high man. Yeah, yeah, that's exciting.
Dude.
Well, if it's a seven, then you are to be killing this week, right, hopefully that's good man. Well, hey, I appreciate all the good information.
Stay after it, dude. I know you work real hard at it and it's cool to see it pay off.
Thanks Denny, Thanks Casey, Thanks Tyler.
Nick Schwartz here has been hunting in Oklahoma some on some public ground, chasing the deer around.
Dude, what's going on right now?
What's up, fellas? Oh, you know, I'm just hanging out, pouring over on X figuring out where I'm going to spend the next few days in the woods.
That's good man, So we're going to get the Oklahoma report from you.
But I'm always interested in people's strategy on this.
Do you have a bunch of stuff kind of pre marked that you think you might want to go check out?
Or are you kind of starting fresh on that?
Yeah, so this time of year, maybe around mid December, so I treat it as a new season. So I keeping back in my mind where I've been, what I've seen, but things have definitely changed. So, uh, you know, coming out of the rut. Good thing about the South is we you know, have a lengthier rut, so there's always
a chance around a hot dough. But this time of year, I'm I'm taking advantage of the time to check out some new spots since pause that I have interested in, and also revisiting some old spots and seeing what's going on there.
So yeah, yeah, that's cool. So you've been hunting Oklahoma some what have you been targeting? Really? Is it food sources or are you still trying to find rutting deer.
It's it's really hard to target rutting gear right now. It's a little bit of a wild card. So pretty much been hunting food sources, which this year has been difficult. Areas I've been hunting for It's been a pretty good acorn year, so there's they're spread out, there's a there's a lot of clear cuts, so wherever the winter week's coming up, they're coming out on that. So that's something
I've been targeting as well. All the leaves are off the trees, so really focusing on the thickest cover, so down lower elevation creek beds where all that brush you
thick stuff grows up. I've revisited a few spots from early season where that were really active, and a lot of them are fairly open and they've kind of dried up since then, so I think the deer are feeling the pressure from all the rent action, and then with those leaves off the trees, I think they just feel more exposed, so they tend to head into you know, thicker cover.
Are they feeding in that thicker cover? Are they just mostly betting there? Do you feel like.
Both?
I think they're feeding pretty close to bed, and the bucks are still doing some some rut tight you know behavior, mostly at night. They are making scrapes, and I've had some some daylight action on scrapes as well. So it's the late season for me, it's it's a little bit of a hybrid of you know, rut hunting and then early season two.
Is that scrape action in the morning or evening or does it just random?
That's the tough part is it's been pretty random. I've I've had this year has been kind of cool because I've had cameras set up in areas that I know get pressure, and I also have cameras that that are set up in areas that aren't pressured, So I've been able to compare, you know, how de're reacting to that and in those areas where I know hunters have been in and out of quite a bit, myself included. Those bucks are pretty much tending those scrapes at night, but
areas that are not getting pressured. I mean, you'll probably know the weather last week was pretty abysmal.
It was.
Seventy degrees in the afternoon and I had I don't know, maybe a one thirty one forty class buck out at one pm checking a scrape.
They just do weird stuff sometimes, man. Gosh.
Yeah, So, I mean I think it's tough, but this time of year, it's if you can find a scrape that's been hit recently and the winds right to set up and set all day because you just don't know when they're going to show up.
So that sounds pretty terrible unless you have like seven sandwiches in your pack. But I'm gonna kind of wondering your strategy on on these late season setups. Are you bouncing like every day to something new or do you kind of have the I'm gonna sit this spot because I know it's good and within five days of year is going to come by.
I think that depends on access how easily I can get in and out of a spot. So if I feel like I'm not blowing it up real bad, then I'll give it multiple sits. But it's also kind of the time of year where I can swing for the fences and try and get into those areas that it's kind of a one and done because I know if I get in there, I'm gonna be making noise. Now, I might bring a buck in who's feeling territorial, but if it doesn't work out, then that may be it for a few days, so I might move on to
another area. So having quite a few spots earmarked to know that, okay, once I do a sit here, then if I you know, if I feel like I put pressure on that area, then I'll hop to another spot and let that spot rest. So that's where all the early season, preseason and mid season scouting really comes in handy if you have a lot of spots that you can hop back and forth between.
Sure, so you know, looking forward next week. People get real weird and kind of in their fields this time of year because it's the end of the year and they got to, you know, set their New Year's resolutions and all this stuff. Right, we don't need any fluff here. What on a scale of one to ten. Would you rank buck movement in the next week.
If you had asked me last week, I would have given you a two or three. But we had that nice cold front come through on Christmas Day, and based on what I've been seeing, I mean, my my cameras are buzzing right now with deer moving on them, so spooky. Yeah, I'd give it. Uh, I'd give it a six.
All right, man, I'll take a six. Last week in December for sure.
Yeah, it's a good time to be in the woods because, like y'all you know mentioned it, people are either tagged out or burnout. So on public land a lot of times it's a ghost town in late December. And in Oklahoma with an archery tag, I can hunt till January fifteenth. So that's what I'm planning on doing.
All right, man, get after and appreciate the report. Dude, it'll be kill a giant.
All right, guys, we all have a happy New Year and enjoy some time off with your family if you get it.
Now.
I've got Colin Marshall. He's been deer hunting in Maryland over the Christmas holiday and doing all kinds of crazy stuff.
What's up, man, the Yelemen Boys.
Tyler Jones, Casey Smith, what's.
Going on, Hey, dude, just kind of in full recovery mode, trying to die. Just a bunch of food because my family likes to force feed us. You know, That's kind of what happens this time of year. But we're always thinking about deer hunting. Man, how are the woods in Maryland?
Oh?
Man, Well, I still have tags to fill us, So in my opinion, they are still wild and wonderful, just like the great state of West Virginia, except we're hunting Maryland.
It ain't the.
Rut they are running around, for sure, but we are not getting a lot of daylight activity, a lot of you know, pre sunrise stuff from that, like you know, five thirty to seven.
And then they're back to bed from there.
And then we caulked them in a good group coming up right before sunset, and then you know, they peek out of that woodline and then they work that timber into the.
Ag fields from there. But once once shooting.
Light is over, you know, they kind of have come into bow range at that point. So we're really really working some strategies of pushing maybe off of the edge of those bagg fields and really try.
To work more of those transition zones inside of the timber.
Got you what kind of agriculture are they hitting around now?
Right now on these fields?
Actually the farmers trying to replenish some nitrogen in the soil between the monocropping that they do.
But we've got turn ups and some winter week that's in there.
So depending on what the temperature is doing, and in terms of incipitation, you know, sometimes they're really just hitting what's inside the woods, but we can really get them munching on on the edges of the fields too, just depending on the precipitation of those temperatures.
When you say transition zones, what do you mean by that?
Going from bed to feed?
So what does it look like though.
In terms of those transition zones?
Yeah, like is that I mean? Because the transition zone could be you know, tall grass or tall timber or medium timber, short timber, you know.
What what is?
Yeah, I'm talking, Yeah, I'm talking about I mean tall timber.
I'm talking wooded sections.
Gotcha.
So we hunt about one hundred and twenty acres in north central Maryland and uh, it's about ninety percent Agfield two big fields. It's a real nice drawl strip down the middle of it, but it's surrounded by woods, and so they're mainly betting down inside of the tall timber woods, uh, and then moving through those zones depending on what the wind's doing, and then out to those agfields if that's really where they're drawn towards that fruits.
So this time of year, you know, cold fronts help a ton in my experience. Now where you're at in the country is on a much different weather pattern than where we live and operate a lot. So right now we're just in a great cold front where we are. Is that how it is in Maryland? Or are you still waiting on some of that cold weather.
We just crept out of a cold front actually, probably about seven to ten days ago, and I went out and sat and the action was pretty hot. It was odd though, you know, there was one or two bucks on the property that we're chasing, maybe one of those
fawns that have come into that late heat. But other than that, the bucks have grouped up again, and I'm kind of waiting for a split out, but I just kind of holding out to watch that pattern to see what they kind of do in terms of the cold front though, I've got one coming in the first week of January, and that's when I really look to get back out there and watch the wind and see which stands are going to be.
Going to be the best to sit. But but the cold fronts in general.
Or what what really interests me gotch you in terms of sitting in the woods is the cold doesn't bother me.
Man, So say plenty more. Man, that's good. You mentioned the you know, not time being being a thing and having a nocturnal movement. Uh do you think that since we have the full moon right now, as that kind of starts to wane, uh, you know in the next week or two, is that going to help you with that?
I think that you're right on the waning side of it.
I mean, I think that that full moon they you know, just being a wild and primal animal, they're they're definitely paying attention to it. But I like to hunt the front side of those and then right as it's waning out, not like dead on in the full like it is today.
So yeah, and that next week when that cold front swings through again and it's barely out of the thirties during the day in the twenties at night and uh, and that that moon is waning, that's gonna be a real interesting time to to start putting down some strategy inside of the woods.
So on a scale of one to ten in the next week, what do you predict buck movement to be like.
Like when I'm sitting in the stand or are.
You talking about it when I'm watching them one camera at night?
Well, let's just talk about overall twenty four hour period buck movement.
I think it's pretty good on a one to ten. Shoot, man, y'all always want the eight. I'm like, I'm gonna get a seven and a quarter.
I actually would appreciate more two and threes, to be honest.
It's fun we're seeing them. I mean that's the thing.
Like, you know, I don't want to just you know, play to whateverybody wants to hear. But you know, is it is it, you know, keeping me up at night? Uh, thinking about how much they're moving?
No? Is it? Is it keeping me up at night about how much they're not moving?
No?
It's not. So it's you know, let's put it somewhere in the middle there.
Yeah, you know, but I but I think it is on the you know, on the higher side of a five.
So cool, dude.
All right, man, we really appreciate the report from Maryland, and I hope y'all have a great risk of your Christmas holiday.
Thank you. Happy holidays to you guys.
All right, on the phone, I've got Parker McDonald. He's a good buddy of mine from Alabama. He's gonna give us a report there. What's been going on.
Dude, Oh dude, just man, it was a it was a very short but very very productive.
Season for me in Alabama this year.
And you know, I was I was out a lot, like you guys like travel a lot during that November rut. Our ruts in Alabama are pretty much all gonna be later, and so I was out traveling and doing that kind of stuff. And then came back and it was just like it was on fire this year. So it's been great in Alabama this season.
So, dude, I can't really trust that it was on fire because you're just a good hunter. So you know, like I mean, for the average guy, you know, like me, it might not be on fire if I was out there. Whatever, you got, crap, what's going on, dude?
It really here, here's the deal. Man, I've been telling a lot of people about this, Like, yeah, I try to be like studied up and I try to make educated decisions every time I walk in the woods of what I.
Think deer are going to do.
But seriously, this year, I have seen more people just like people who are who might be considered like your weekend kind of guys, your weekend warriors. Like consistently they go on maybe Saturday and Sunday if they got a good couple of days in there in the woods. They they they've been coming out with deer's It's crazy, dude. It's like, I don't remember last year if we talked much, uh as far as the ret fresh stuff goes, but last year was really weak, rut like it.
Was just not very good.
And it seems like maybe, and I'm not a biologist, you know, this is just my best guess. It seems like a lot of deer, a lot of bucks lived last year, just very few people killed them around here where I hunt at home. Uh, in Alabama. It was just like if you killed something anything decent last year, like you did something pretty special because just not very
many people were doing it. But it does seem like a lot of those three and a half year olds made it to four and a half, and so you're just seeing guys killing four and a half type.
Year old deer.
Yeah, yeah, it's it's just been that's been unreal. It's been a good season.
Well that's exciting.
I trust you more than maybe some of the other people you're talking about anyway. So I think it's spot on the money.
It's a I haven't thought about it much, but I definitely can see that being a pausible thing.
You know.
So do you think that since potentially there was older deer on the landscape, that those deer were a little easier to kill or do you think that they're that four year olds are still four year olds and you still have to do the same stuff for him.
Oh?
Man, I think yes, and yes, I think I think what you end up half happening.
Like you guys are from Texas, so you'll know, you'll know this deal.
Like, just because deer is mature does not always mean that they're just going to be that recluse, you know what I mean. Like, you go a deer without much pressure, you you're going to see a deer's true, uh true personality. Maybe if that's what you want to call it. And so I think I can't even remember who it was.
Somebody a lot smarter than me was talking about this, this idea that you know, yeah, sure, most of the big public land deer that we that we hunt, the big mature deer going to be you know, kind of reclusive and like back in their own little little space, not really surrounded by the general population of deer. But that's just because they live on public land, right, Like,
that's the ones that survived. The three and a half year old social deer he got shot when he was three and a half because he was out in the green field, you know what I mean. Ye, And so I think I think, yeah, they're they're great, They're awesome. But I think what happened last year is the rut was so lame. The dose just didn't really go into estrith.
That didn't seem like I saw a lot of loan doughs, a lot of dough groups and does with fawns deer in the rut last year, and it just seems like, you know, there just wasn't anything to get these deer up on their feet in the daylight. Like it was just kind of like good luck you know, and so a lot of these deer. You know, I shot a five and a half year old buck my last buck
in Alabama last week. Five and a half years old came out acting like he was three and a half or two and a half, you know, just you know, he was just I'm not going to say easier to kill, but he was kind of easier to kill.
Yeah, well they did, you know, And there's so many variables in what causes them to act a certain way for a certain number of hours, and whether that happens at night or day and all this and that too. So just like sometimes that five and a half year old just gets to that point where he just is crazy for a second, you know, which is exciting. So you know, with that being said, you know, I mean what you know, in a nutshell, what has been working tactically speaking for you? Oh dude?
Uh, calling has been pretty pretty efficient this year, Like grunting specifically. Man, it just seemed like this year coming in at my first hunt in Alabama was November the twenty seventh, I believe, and I think I filled my last tag on the twelfth, if that we get three buck tags on the twelfth of December, so in that timeframe is when I killed all three of my bucks, and nearly all three of them came into grunts or or were Like the last one, that five and a
half year old that I heard, he was roaring. I've never heard an Alabama buck do a buck roar, and he did. He was shown enough did and ended up like so like that that calling like really subtle grunts, you know, nothing too crazy, with a little bit of noise.
Maybe scraped some trees. Man.
It just it seems like it worked this year. Yeah, it worked several years, but it worked really well this year.
Are you doing that blind or are you seeing bucks and doing that to them?
Both?
Really?
Yeah? I mean yeah, a lot of the times just depending on the time of day that it is around around that like nine o'clock nine thirty thermal shift, if you want to call it that, when the thermals start, you know, changing directions and moving up. Just seems like that's when those bucks start getting real frisky and they start getting on their feet, and so that's when I
start doing it. Sure, And it's usually like three or four just little tending grunts with some scrape some tree limbs, you know, that might be hanging up around me and that downwind side of that. Like if you can be in one of those type of situations where you can see the down wind side, man, it's pretty moneys. Yeah, especially if you've got a rifle in your hand too.
I can tell you that for sure. So you know, in the next week, I know that there's a lot of different ruts there in Alabama. Uh, maybe where you've been hunting, or maybe you could tell us like a region that would be like probably fix like fixing to pop off in the next week or so in the rut.
Yeah. I mean, here's the deal Alabama.
I may have talked about this on on this podcast before, but Alabama kind of looks like a like a weather map, like a hurricane system or storm system map. Eat that for the rut When you look up our rut map, that's what it looks like. And so literally in every part of every region of Alabama, you're gonna have ruts coming up.
In January.
I would say January is by far when the most rutting activity happens in Alabama. But I mean you can be in North Alabama, like literally on the on the Tennessee line, there's places up there that are gonna be rutting up into February. Wow, north northwest Alabama, it's gonna be popping off right here, like right now. And so you know, it's not like the Midwest for you can just give like a general like, yeah, the bucks.
Will move the last week.
Yeah, because thirty minutes away there is a dough in heat right now for sure that's getting just dogged by a bunch of bucks. Yeah. So I think for a southern hunter or for a guy that wants to extend his season and comes south, like, it's just a little bitty tiny bit of research can really get you in the in the right direction, headed in the right direction, because you're if you go to the wrong spot and you ain't find a rut sign, move thirty minutes north, thirty minutes south.
Yeah, you know you might find it inspiring stuff.
Dude, all right, just pop off right here.
On a scale of one to ten, you're gonna rank buck movement for the next week in Alabama.
What you say, I'm gonna say it's gonna be a Oh, it's gonna be a ten somewhere next week.
That's the first one.
That's our first ten of the year.
Parker way to go.
Wait to go, dude.
This is the last year for Retfresh of the year and you just gave it a ten.
Gosh, what a way to way to go.
So we appreciate it, dude, Thanks so much.
Parker, Hey, thanks for having me. Guys.
Well, y'all.
That wraps a year of Retfresh. It's been a lot of fun. Got to talk to a lot of new people, got to talk to a lot of old friends. Most of all, I hope that Retfresh helped you be successful this year or at least learn something, because honestly, Retfresh doing these ret Fresh interviews helps me. I feel like I have a better concept of like how deer hunting
is done in the US, and it's pretty fun. If you're still out grinding, still getting it, we appreciate you, man, because dad gum, if it isn't fun to just chase deer as much as you possibly can, we appreciate you listening as well. And if you do need a little inspiration or you need a little bit of I don't know, something to ponder. Dylan Trump has an article about how to use hunting pressure to your advantage in the late season, and it sounds like that's one of the things that
was a common theme this week. So if that resonated with you, go check out that article. We'll link to it below.
Big thanks to mister world famous Mark Kenyon for letting us host this thing this fall. It's been fun. We appreciate Mark his friendship and just the overall kind guy he is to us, and also just a wealth of knowledge when it comes to wilde tail hunting and especially talking about photo period and those kind of things. Right Mark, thank you. Also, there are two things I want you guys to do before we get out of here. To first, make sure you subscribe to the media channel and our
YouTube channel. So on YouTube you can subscribe to both YouTube channels. One's called The Element one's mediator, because they're going to be releasing new videos on those platforms periodically pretty often from here until indefinite. And then the last thing I want you guys to do is to go and subscribe right now to our podcast, the Element Podcast. I appreciate it, and you'll be hearing more from us when you do that. We come out with a weekly
podcas guests, so this doesn't have to end. Appreciate all the listeners, and remember this is rutfresh keep it fresh, fresh, fresh, fresh, fresh,