Ep. 826: Rut Fresh Radio - Whitetail Week Around the Country

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.

The crops are coming out, the acorns are falling in. Big bucks have started hitting the ground around the country. This is rot Fresh.

Let's go. What's going on, y'all.

This is ret Fresh Radio, brought to you by first Lot Gear and it is Whitetail Week over at FirstLight dot Com. So head over there and assess all of your whitetail needs. And I tell you, I've got Mark Kenyan on the phone right now and we are we are not in need too much at the moment. We are riding high on some wattail high because it's opening day in Michigan, which is like a state holiday.

From what I understand, right man, it doesn't get any better.

It's a glorious day.

We were listening this morning. Do you know the album The Bone Collector? Oh, oh yeah, for sure.

I don't listen to it often, but you know it's like you whip it out every once in a while when you really need it.

You know, well, this is that.

Time of year. One of the songs on that album's Opening Day, and so we were jamming to Opening Day on the.

Radio this morning. When I was taking my son to school.

We listened to some Fred Baher, we listened to some thirty point Buck.

We bust out all the hits.

That's what I was wondering if you did a thirty point buck. You know, that's not a thing here at all, but I appreciate it from afar.

You know, it's not that far. It's like a Northern version of a Texas.

Bill billy kind of song.

I feel like it's right up right up your guys.

Yeah, but but yeah, we're uh, we're all excited here. One of my.

Best buddies, his son killed his first buck with a bow all on his zone this morning. So super exciting to see that. I'm getting ready to head out here in a couple of hours. So I'm excited. And it's just, you know, it's the beginning of the season. You're just so full of hope and optimism and excitement. There's nothing but good stuff ahead as far as I can think. Of at the moment right, none of the none of the tough realities have shown their ugly faces yet. So yeah,

I would say I.

Do have a Mark kenyan Worthy playing You're a planned out guy, That's that's That's what I'm you know, kind of referencing here.

I feel as if you are in the Deerwoods.

You're conservative by nature, and so I think, you know, knowing you in your past, if you didn't have a good plan or a good win, you would you would very well glass or observation sit for the evening.

But do you feel like you're going to be in the chips?

Yeah, I've got I've got a pretty decent shot tonight. I'm not going in with like the Shike's level of confidence. Like there's sometimes when you go in and like just walking in and you're like, oh my goodness, this is gonna be the night. But it's still pretty darn good. So I'll try not to bore you with too much of this. But the short version of the story is that one of my two main target bucks in southern Michigan has been pretty active the last seven to ten days.

Eight nine days something like that, in that window, three different.

Times I've seen him on his feet in daylight on a similar basic track of movement. And what these deer are doing right now in my area at least, is that they are shifting off of the green soybean fields that have just recently defoliated and are mostly all dried down now, and they've shifted to different food sources. There's some hitting acorns, but there's not a huge mass crop at least in my zone from what I've seen, nothing

So that's been pulling a lot of deer.

So this particular buck that I'm gonna be hunting to night has shifted off of the beans and I think is keying on mostly that cover crop, and I've got a couple spots I can intercept him from one of his main bedding zones heading towards that cover crop.

One of those spots is a.

Little kind of Heidi whole food plot that I was able to plant, and that is similar to what's in the cover crop.

But just a little bit more hidden away and a little closer to betting. And so one of those.

Nights that I caught him moving like five six days ago, he hit the food plot, first made a scrape, and then headed off towards the big destination. So with the wind we've got tonight, that's the only spy I can safely hunt and be in a pretty good spot. So I'm hunting that little Heidi hole plot tight to one of his bedrooms.

It's kind of on the way to the bigger destination.

So it's got all the markings of a standard high quality early season hunt.

I can get in there without anything.

Knowing I'm going to be there and get out pretty safely without anything knowing I was there. There's a scrape tree within range of this spot.

There's a actually the tree.

Stand I'm in is in a white oak that does have some acorns, so there will be some acorns right next to me. So there's a bunch of good looking things in decent weather. It's not super hot, it's not super cool. It's kind of right around average. But there's a cool front hitting tonight, and temperatures tomorrow morning will be like fifteen degrees cooler than they were this morning, So you know, there's a little bit of that environmental thing that might get a move just a tiny bit more.

So all I has to say, I'm excited. I feel pretty decent. I think there's a pretty decent chance that he could come through there. Yeah that's cool, man.

Do you feel how much let me ask this differently, how much emphasis do you put on moon phases?

Mark? Almost none? Yeah, almost none. I would say I would say close to zero.

The only time I'll look at it, you know, And I've got somebodies who are red moon obsessed, and so they're always saying, oh, it's red Moon's red moon.

So if ever, like a red moon, or if.

Ever the rising and setting moon times coincide with the first hour or last hour of daylight, which is supposed to be a good trigger. Whenever that happens, and I'm hunting, I'm always thinking, well, hey, the moon's good, maybe that'll.

Mean today's the day.

It's only a factor for optimism, right exactly, Yeah, exactly.

But I don't take it into account anyone.

Yeah, well, it would it be in a new moon right now, I'm like you, I don't actually think about the red moon stuff too much, but I'll like new moons and it's never going to keep me from hunting. But if there's no moon at not, it's just like what you were saying, where it's like, oh, well, there's a chance they get on their feet a little bit earlier because they know that, you know, they're their patterns are such that they don't have as much light at

A great question, and that is a very important thing to think about, especially early in the year, because you know, every time you hunt your roll in the dice and you've got the possible chances of a reward, it's like how likely it is that you're gonna kill something? And you have to balance that or compare that to what's your chance of risk? Like what's the downside? What are

There's still a little bit on the summer pattern.

But if I had a wind direction that was pressing into these betting areas that I'm hunting, you just can't do it because you're just not going to have any deer come out, or at least not the deer you're after if they're winding you, and so tonight, if the wind switched on me, that would be a major issue. But as of right now, I have almost as good of a wind as I could ask for hunt this spot, a very safe wind that blows back into an area where almost there's never deer, almost.

Never coming from that area.

They're not deer bedded there, so it's a pretty safe wind. But that if it changed, that would be a liability. And then the second thing is my exit. My entry is rock solid.

I don't need to go through anything that will have deer.

I shouldn't spook any deer unless I get there super late and there's already deer in the food, but that won't be the case. The exit is the situation that can be tricky, and I'm lucky enough that I have this particular place I'm hunting tonight is close enough to where I live that I can get my wife on some evenings to drive out and clear any deer that might be out in the neighboring fields and kind.

Of make sure it's safe.

So she can drive out in the truck if the fields are if the fields are picked dirty, or she can hop in the canam and drive that down and sometimes pick me up in that. And so tonight is actually a night where I'm going to use use my uh, use my brownie points and get her to drive all the way on the can m so that basically I can get out of there without any deer being busted by me climbing out of the tree and walking out of there.

So it's a luxury to have a spot this close enough and a.

Wife who's who's kind enough and understanding enough to sacrifice some over evening to do me that doing that solid.

Yeah, that's nice man.

You know. Early on in the Element podcast catalog, we had an episode called burning Brownie points, and we assessed that you have so many and they, uh, they're kind of like some you know, like savings accounts or or stuff like that, where like they they don't roll over all the time.

So like you gotta use them wisely.

But also you can't like accumulate too many and then uh, some days you burn more than others for the same tasks. So you know, I can assume you've assessed that as well. With this brownie burning, you're about to do not and it's going to be totally worth it. And I think it's.

Funny, you know, like back before I used to hunt the same general area, remember the first like five to seven, I don't know how many years, a decent number of years I hunted this area and I would just walk in and out to the road on foot, and it was always hard to get out of there without spooking deer. And then when I finally realized, oh, you know what, if I could just get like a friend who's.

In the area, or Kylie.

Or if I can convince someone to come out here and how to pick me up or clear the field of the vehicle or something, that would probably be a significantly less you know, damaging exit. And since we started doing that, my success in my settings of mature bucks in that area.

Have gone up dramatically.

Like that was one thing that made a huge difference over the last I don't know, seven to ten years probably.

That's cool.

It's good to see things like that, like you used to see the return on that you know, and be able to make a actual deduction.

Oh, this has a direct impact.

Yeah, I just really feel like they're much more forgiving of a vehicle than a person. And so in spots where there's not a great way to walk out without.

Something seeing you.

In this particular area, that's very tricky to get out because there's so much open croft field and where I have to access from the road is on the opposite side of those open fields.

If stuff's picked or open, you're very exposed.

So on the nights when I have to go on there for an evening hunt in one of these places, it's it's it's very.

Helpful when I can get that ride. Yeah, very nice, dude.

Well, it sounds like you've got the pieces in place to at least having good hunt, and I hope you find success.

Man.

I think you kind of have a little bit of a tradition of at least coming close early. It was it last year or the year before you killed a deer pretty early on. I can't remember, for.

I almost always see a good one one and yet two years ago I killed one of my targets opening nights last night. I saw actually the last night, the Buckham after tonight. I had an encounter with him last year on the second day of the season. So so yeah, there's definitely there's been a lot of good sightings, close calls, a couple of kills. So I always feel very good those first couple of days of the season here in Michigan.

So I said, awesome, man, Well, I hope you find some good success. It sounds like around the country that optimism is high as well. I got a lot of states opening up right now, so everybody's kind of like, hey, it's gonna be an awesome week.

Like I said, optimism is high the first day of the season.

Hey, dude, optimism kills deer. Absolutely. You know, if you're feeling pessimistic and you this is for lots of things in life, right, But take a page out of Tony's book here, But like, if you're pessimistic in the weight room, or you're pessimistic, know with your job or with deer hunting, or in your marriage, it's not going to produce good fruit, right, But not saying that optimism is going to result in success, but you're you're taking steps in the right direction.

I one a grief makes makes a big difference. Man.

Well, let's uh, let's get the reports from the guys around the countries.

That sound good, that sounds great. I'm excited to hear them.

On the phone. Now, I've got a local guy here from Texas. Colton Roberts had him some opening day success. Dude, congrats on the big buck.

Thank you, Casey.

Yeah, man, for sure, that's a big deal because, in my opinion, October in Texas is tough, and so you probably had to have something figured out. What was like your major tactic on trying to get this deer down.

Well, I had an account encounter with him last year.

I think I did. I'm pretty sure.

And I kind of just went in blind having an idea. That afternoon, me and my dad and I didn't like what I see in and I was about to.

Head out and saw a.

Little patch of white oaks and had some caps popped off the acorns, and I thought, just thick enough, and there was a bunch of beauty berry there and we just.

Hung up right there and he come out about six o'clock.

Man, that's early too. You must have been pretty close to his bed. I'd imagine I had to have been. Yeah, did he come in and browse or was he just walking the trail?

The first thing I heard was him browsing on a beauty berry and I glanced over and I thought it was a dough. And then whenever he moved his head, the whole beautyberry tree moved and.

I went home.

Not a dough.

Things are getting a little more interested real quick.

Right, And I mean he hit a dead load to that acre tree, Like I'm a loaw.

How about that? I bet you.

I've been in a little scouting too, and maybe you can confirm this, but there's not many trees dropping yet, so you probably found the few tree.

Yes.

I've always heard feed trees and I have had trouble finding them anywhere.

Like it's just aprons here, aprons there.

And when I saw those green white oaks on the ground with the caps popped.

Off of them, I was like, well, they're hitting them.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's interesting that you could recognize the detail of the caps popped off.

You know, that's pretty cool.

So when you found that tree, did you set up for the wind to be perfect for you? Do you set up on a just off or how did you you know, negotiate situation.

It was the wind was coming north, I think, and.

It was a cut that went down into a little creek and these weren't a flat.

Right before you dropping the cree.

And the wind was out of the north, so it was in my face coming away from that cut. But I knew when it got dark, it would start dropping down in that cut if that wind died any and it when dark started rolling around in the shade started coming it, it did start dropping and I was just dropping milkweed every five minutes, but it was it would drop down in there, but then it would float to the creek, and I, for some reason I had a.

Feeling they might come off the top.

And as long as I could get a shot before he got to it.

And he did. He was in a dead run and.

Then coming to that tree and he hit that thermal and just locked up, and I already had my pen on him.

Too late, huh. It was yeah, that's awesome, man, So he said earlier. The historical dad, you know, played a little bit of a factor into this.

Did you look at the moon at all thinking about this? You know?

He came in early on an evening and it just so happens a week in a new moon period. Do you feel like that correlated?

Well, I'm sure it probably did. I've never I always.

Think about looking at the moon, and then when it comes time to go, I just got I mean, it don't really matter what the moon's.

Doing, and I have time off, I'm gonna go.

Yep, though, that's how you kill big deer man. That's I think that you could talk yourself out of hunting a whole lot. But it doesn't take too much taught me into it, you know what I mean?

No, not really Like if I get home from work and I got two hours of the daylight, I'm going to try.

To go, Yes, sir, I can understand that completely. So looking forward here, we got cooler tempts than some years, but it's a real stagnant period. There's no weather systems at least on the ten day forecast. Do you think that we're going to have kind of similar buck moving over the next week or do you feel like it's gonna kind of peter out after this initial kind of cool spell we had in early October.

I think it'll be all right.

I mean, I think temperature is gonna be the low nineties, mid eighties coming up, and to me, eighties in Texas is pretty mild.

Yeah, for this part, I would think for sure we can see eighties in December, right right.

I just don't think it bothers them much down here. Yeah, they're just gonna keep doing what they've been doing.

I agree.

So if you had to look at the next week and ranking on a scale of one to ten, what would you give it?

Five?

That's pretty good for early season. I'd say I would give it five.

Like the only thing I've seen influence so much, like the Weather's not a big deals pressure around where I'm at.

So it's uh, you know, honestly, looking at it being opening weekend that just happened, there's a chance that it might even get a little bit better. Guys kind of get that Russ knocked off and then they say, Okay, it's not November yet, you know, So you could be looking even at the mid Octobers is the time when the pressure lets up?

Oh they do. I guarantee it. There won't be shoot next weekend.

There might not be four cars on that whole seventeen thousand acres.

Yep, YEP makes a difference, man, for sure. Well, hey, do you can grats on me? Was that opening day or or opening weekend?

Opening?

Yeah?

Way to go, man, Well, I hope you uh uh can kind of regroup each of some backstraps and figure out another deer to shoot somewhere.

And I'm gonna try to.

This is my good buddy Reed struggle.

He is in the tri state area of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. But you're pumped about your Indiana season about to open, right man.

Yes, sir Todaymber one. Yeah, that's awesome.

I didn't I'd go work a little bit this morning.

So, uh, I mean the wife, My wife is hunting for her first year season ever, So her and I are going to be hunting this evening, and uh it should be should be good. We finally have a good solid wind for where we're gonna be set up tonight.

We have east winds for like a week and a half.

It's really weird with you know, Hurricane Helen, and uh but yeah, we're we're really excited for time. Got a north northwest wind and should should set up really good.

Gotcha.

So earlier off air, we were talking about food plots a little bit is that are you kind of manicuring food plots and getting ready to go or kind of what does what your setup look like for a preparation?

Absolutely?

Absolutely, yeah.

So I like you said, I'm Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana. My private properties are Ohio and Indiana, and I've got food plots at both.

I planted some oats land we had that heleen.

Hit and from within two or three days, my oats have grown five inches.

It is the craziest thing in the world.

Turnip's blowing up, right, is blowing up because we had that drought and all that and everything. Yeah, but yeah, so tonight we're actually going to be setting up. We did did a little deal with our farmer that they left some corn standing for us, nice and which is great cover. So we're actually going to be doing a little bit of We're going to be in the standing corn.

The videos of my dude, Dan the Man.

Yeah, it could be, it could be really cool.

I'd love to shoot one in the in the corn stalks like that, you know, early October.

So you got off the camera data there or just knowing that's a good spot.

Or what it looks like. It's a it's a historical spot. My little brother.

Actually just killed a buck out of there on Saturday.

And the youth opener a nice, nice.

Eight point good mass uh, you know, around one twenty, so we have a lot of deer down in there. They saw twenty deer that morning in the first ten minutes. He killed his bucks seven minutes in an open day. It's we call it the Cethro Special. It's just kind of what he does. But anyways, Yeah, so I've been running cameras all summer and I run mock scrapes all summer long, and I have doze and bucks hitting these mock scrapes from June to now.

So that's what I've been monitoring.

The there's a couple really nice there's a really nice a point that we're kind of trying to key in on him.

I got him up on the top of my folks, up on top.

Of the ridges and then it's kind of a valley down on the bottom where the where the ag is and you've got a nice river right there, and uh, we're hoping to catch them this evening coming to feed.

And that's right now. It is so interesting. They've been pulling ag early, really early this year. It's like two three weeks early.

So they're gonna be in those ag fields right now specifically because they just pulled the ag and then once they're going to start transitioning out of that into your acorns and leaves dropping and and you know, but there's just there's a lot of germination going on right now from the amount of rain we've had, so just that that's kind of the pattern we're on, you know, with with having an ag and stant literally standing corn.

So you feel like the new moon plays a factor in deer movement. You know, there's no moon at night at all.

Sudden, do you feel like you're going to see more uh, you know, evening daylight activity.

Absolutely, which we've noticed lately with that heleen when it hit. You know, there's some alfalfa fields around me and we're seeing deer in the field around five o'clock, you know, it's getting dark at seven thirty, and then it's pretty early. I saw a couple of mature bucks out in that alfalfa at five o'clock.

I mean, you know, that could have played a little role with with Helene hitting and whatnot, but definitely.

And then so we also right now we have that really really low parametric pressure for about a week with you know, and like I said, that wind switching, it's starting to phase out. So I'm really expecting some better hunting later in this week. The you know, we have a cold front coming in. It's gonna be forties at not and barometric pressure.

Is gonna get right, and I.

Really think later this week's gonna do good for us. And then, like you said, the.

Moon phase, it just seems like a lot of things are lining up kind of the they're switching, they're getting out of their bachelor groups.

You know, these bucks fins start breaking off, they're.

Gonna be looking at their buddies like, dude, you've been cool all summer.

I don't really like you anymore. Man, you know, you get gone out of here, that's cool.

So, you know, you kind of mentioned over the next week and high anticipations of that if you had to rank buck movement on a scale of one to ten for the state of Indiana for the upcoming week.

What would you give it. I'm not going to do a Midwest six.

And we're gonna.

So you know, like like we said, the pressure, the very much pressure lining up that Helen getting kind of moved out of here. I mean I would say an eight.

Man. I really think I'm giving it.

An eight because of the cold front two and them phasing out from just there that rut phase is like really good. They're gonna be hitting scrapes. I mean that that's gonna be, you know, be hunting on my own. I'm gonna be sitting.

Over scrapes the next week. N dude and eates enough to get me in the woods. Ate, I'm pumped now, appreciate you.

Yeah, you know it's oping day two.

Like maybe I'm a little extraly fired up, and I really think.

I really think, man, I mean it's could be really good.

Enthusiasm kills deer, dude, and you gotta get after man.

Thank you. Absolutely, Yeah, that's right.

Enthusiasm.

This is Ben shup Trone. He has been hunting in Tennessee.

Killed him a big giant, massive ten point congrats man, First of all, thank you man.

It's a it's been a ride it uh. You know, it's something that I like to do every day. I like to you know, we like to chase white Tail every day. But yeah, when something like this happens, it is, uh, it's super special.

Yeah, man, for sure. You sent me a picture of him ago. He's awesome, and it sounds like you got some history with him. The historical data come into play.

Yeah.

Yeah, So it's actually funny you say that. So you know, before this happened, you know, last summer, I had been seeing this property that I've been managing forever three years now, and every time I drove by, it's like I almost was going to hit a deer acrossing the road from the property, and it was like somebody was saying, Hey, there's the launch.

Wh aren't you hunting here?

You know?

And you know, I ended up bushogging that place and putting out a camera and this buck was actually the first.

Picture I ever got at twenty twenty five. Oh, I take that camera.

I take my cameras up every year. And uh, I was laying in bed one one the evening, actually two hours after a bush hoogg.

And uh, he just happened to be there.

Man, he was curious, he's checking things out, and man was he he was way beyond the game every he was killing everybody in Bellot season.

So that's cool, man.

So did you kind of put the pieces together and look at data and like have a strike mission on this deer or so a kind conservative seit and he happened to be there.

Yeah, So it's it's weird.

So I usually, you know, I've all the people that I've kind of looked up to, you know, they just say the hunt right, just get them in a tree and see what things happened. And with this deer is a little different for the past, I'd say since I got a picture of him, which was I guess was.

In May or June.

I was trying to figure out a way to find out his exact path or his morning path or feeding ground every morning. And you know, I walked on the park property about I guess three, three or four times just looking for something.

And I ended up finding this tree.

And it was a four foot diameter tree as a white oak, which is a giant oak here in Tennessee. And I got my binoes, and I looked up and man, this thing was absolutely loaded of acorns. And it was pretty early for that to happen too around here, I guess. And but anyways, I put up a camera there and I figured out that in the morning, I got him a picture right where he crossed the fence line and then right when he was going towards.

The acorns, and he was eating them every single morning.

So I knew just in and there I needed to that's where I wanted to kill this deer. And I guess, uh, from there on, I guess he only came in our north wind, because north wind was the wind that blew

That's awesome, man, you know, I think that conservative appro and being there at the exact right time is huge for killing big deer.

Especially outside of the rut. And you know you said acorns played a big part of it. That were you scouting and finding the feed trees or you know you said you kind of went in there trying to figure that out, right, Did you already have all the trees exactly kind of plotted out?

You know?

It was?

It's so it was so thick in there, and that's why I bush howked it and it was so thick in the past two seasons.

You know, I never hunted it.

I just kind of let it at that area be a you know, a zone where they are, you know, completely safe.

But I did see a.

Pattern with his deer where they would go from point A to point B all the way to that oak tree almost every single day. And sure enough he was one of the deer that just I guess he designated this tree as his feeding tree, so you could the amount of rubs around the tree were kind of crazy too, So it.

Was definitely his territory or his betting around. I got you.

So from around the country, it seems like crops are kind of coming out a little bit early this year. First off, you live in crop country, and then did that play a role in kind of what's going on where you're at.

Yeah, yes, so we we live in Bradley County, Tennessee. He was killed on the outside of Bradley County, Tennessee, and Bradley is very well known for crops and I guess growing corn, soybeans, things like that. But the cool part about this property is that it's bordered by not only soybean field, but an edge of corn corn line.

Let me hunt.

But but man, I am so glad that I killed him when he was hard for me.

That's cool.

He's so pretty. So the funny part is, and all my friends are giving me absolute crap about the shout out to Toby Dean in twenty one South but because he's great at that, but uh, I was. It was on video, and I got him coming in and I got him actually fighting this buck, which is actually part of that story.

But that's cool.

He actually fought a buck for about probably about ten minutes before he came in, and which.

Is kind of really weird. I mean that really weird. But I guess they get territorial, yeah, pret past.

But I had it out and it was an absolute torrential down poor from the hurricane that came in, Hurricane Heleen, and man, I was out there for I guess from five to seven. I saw him at seven, and then he started fighting this buck and those were blowing and I thought this, you know, I thought everything was history. And sure enough, that younger buck that came down was the one he was fighting, and he went right past me, and then Macho he followed right behind him, and probably

That's cool.

Man, Well, you have a channel called bear Level and I look forward to I want to see the experience on videos.

That that's cool, dude.

So if you were looking forward here for the next week, you know, I know you don't have a tag in your pocket, but I bet you got some buddies that are thinking about it. You're still scheming on deer, right, If you had to think about the next week and rank buck movement on a scale of one to ten, what would you rank it?

And why?

You know, it's funny you say that because I was just talking to you, you know, a couple of minutes ago, and my buddy, we're on a deer at one of our places, and you know, he hadn't moved it all since June and just kind of sticking around getting the velvet pictures, you know, and.

Just today he started coming into our main food plot and he's been hammering every single day. So tomorrow we're actually targeting him. And I've actually seen i'd say over fifteen different deer hit this food plot.

And it's I think it's because it's just.

Right after this huge storm that you know, Center Country, and they you know, I mean, I've seen them in the crazy winds and crazy rain before, just kind of like I was hind Macho Saturday.

But I think after this.

Storm, they're ready to eat and they're ready to get back in there and start moving around and figuring out their patterns a little bit.

Yeah, So on a scale of one to ten, What are you going to call it? Oh, scale of one to ten.

I'd say, I'd say I'd say high sevens man.

Who, that's pretty encouraging.

I know, I know it's pretty encouraging. But you know, we've had south winds all all week long here in southeast Tennessee and it's finally switching to the north and it's finally cooling down really.

Quick in the evening.

So yeah, I think evening hunts is probably a high seven.

Man, Man, that sounds pretty good. We'll appreciate the report, dude, Thank you so much. Casey.

My man Tony Peterson of Media of course, is on the phone now, and uh, as always, Tony is a wealth of knowledge. I've spent a lot of time already on the phone with him before we got to this because we had a lot to discuss. But it's deer hunting time right now, Tony, it definitely is, buddy, Thanks for having me on. Man, You're welcome.

Dude. How is Minnesota right now? Is it dry? Is it wet? What's going on?

Uh?

Well, you know, you Southerner's always you guys from down South and oak West always asked me what our water situation is lake. I'm like, brother, we got fourteen thousand lakes here, man, We.

We literally we don't dry out too often.

But yeah, it's we actually have pretty crazy conditions here. Our woods are thicker than I think I've ever seen because we got so much rain in June that it's like there's a noticeable difference, you know, especially coming out of last winter when we had really mild winter and then we got just tons of rain and good growing conditions this summer. It's like the animals are big and the woods are like a jungle. It's kind of cool out there.

Yeah, man, that sounds fun.

Are you out there bushwhacking and getting deep in the timber or are you hunting crops?

Or like what's the move right now?

You know, I've been doing a little of all of the above, you know, with my daughters, had them over in Wisconsin and we did some stuff and they ended up they ended up killing a spike buck and a doe on the edge of a field on a private chunk.

I've got over there.

But I killed a dough just a couple of days ago here in Minnesota on this place I just got permission to hunt. And that was in the woods, kind of on an acorn, kind of on a pond, and right in the middle.

Of the thick stuff. So kind I've kind of been all over man.

Yeah, have y'all had your first frost yet?

No?

Okay, So that's always the thing that I kind of think about when you think about whitetails shifting their patterns and all. You know, that first frost really has a big effect on browse, right, and so right now you just mentioned acorns or acorns excuse me, since we're talking about Minnesota, and I'm sure that all that herbaceous growth is still around as that first frost approaches. I mean, y'all's first frost has to be in the next week or two. Is that going to change what the deer are doing?

Dude?

You would think so. But we've been in We've been in the eighties every day. It's been wild. We actually have a cold front moved in last night. I'm going hunting here right after this because I think there's going to be some deer on the move. But even now, it's still in the sixties. So it's pretty crazy, man.

There's still plenty.

Out there, but I saw seven dos the other night, seven dos and fawns off that stand where I killed that one, and they all came in on an It was eighty three degrees when I got out there.

Not a single one of them went to this little pond.

They all just ate acorns around it, And I'm like, I kind of think it's a little bit of a clue that they've been you know, they've had so much good browse and so much greenery and now we kind of have this limited mass thing happening and they're really keyed in on it, and so it's just it's cool to see because that's it's not going to last that long for us here, because it doesn't feel like there's nearly as many out there.

So it's sort of like a you know, like a typical mass.

Thing, right, like you better get in and get on it, figure it out, and then you know, expected to die on you because it's certainly going to.

So you just mentioned there that you feel really good about to not in like the next upcoming days.

What's the main factor on that.

So a couple of things.

You know, we had a cold front come in, so it's you know, we're twenty degrees colder today than we've been for two weeks, so you know when you have that going for you. But also we were like in this weather holding pattern that was just calm.

It was perfect fishing.

Weather, like calm, sunny, just you know, eighty degrees, t short weather, T shirt weather, shorts weather, whatever. And now last night it was real windy, and today it's just more windy as this front pushes through. So I know

And keep moving.

So it seems like around the country, the word is that crop for getting harvested early. Are you seeing that there too?

You know, I haven't seen that around my house, but I'm not I'm not hunting in a place with a ton of egg. But I did see it when I was with my daughters in Wisconsin, which was.

I guess, you know, eight nine days ago.

Now they were starting to cut corn for silage, and you were starting to see some crops come out, and I think that I actually think that factored into a little bit on how we ended up getting on the deer we did. So it's it's definitely happening.

Mm hm, gotcha.

Yeah, I just didn't know if that would play into your strategy or it seems as if, you know, you're kind of removed from that bed to food crop pattern there, so you kind of looking at somewhat of a main food source hunt to not huh.

Well, you know, I'm I'm hunting here in the suburbs and there are no fields around me there. Yeah, there's a farm next to this property that has it's a sod farm, so there's no food in there. It's just you know, yard grass essentially, and so these deer, they live on a pretty heavy you know, brows and masked pattern. You know, like a lot of the other places I hunted or I hunt, I would still be on some kind of bed to food thing. This is this is just a different deal here. It's just kind of a

Eat or not.

And so you know, you kind of it's a small property thing. You kind of cross your fingers and hope they show up tonight.

You know, Yeah, are you using camera data to make decisions on stuff like this?

So no, And the reason why I'm not is the landowner's wife doesn't want anybody to have cameras out there.

She goes and hikes around behind her house.

Yeah, so I go into this place blind and I kind of love it. I mean, I wish I could use cameras there, but I'm you know, I know, there's a couple of big deer in there that swing through. Sometimes there's a couple of really nice bucks. But I'm mostly I'm mostly looking for a dough and kind of getting ready for to take my daughters in there, and it's kind of using it as a it's sort of a release valve for me because it's right next to my house and it's just a little hunt with like

It was just a it was like a blast.

I mean, it was one of those sits when it broke loose and those deer started showing up. I had deer around me on every side of me for forty five minutes and I ended up killing one and it was just like, you know, just one of those fun deals.

Yeah, man, that's cool, especially whenever it's you know, I don't mean this in a bad way, but it's kind of low pressure because it's right next to the house and you know, you you're everything is on the menu, per se, you know, dose bucks, whatever. It's just like, let's go have a good time and do some hunting and and I'm thankful you get to do that.

Man.

For sure, if you look forward to the next week, I don't know what your weather patterns like that are like there, but here it's very consistent, and uh, you know, it seems like around the country that's that is kind of the case. Do you feel like you're going to see good movement throughout the next week?

I think next week's gonna be really good. Just by looking at the forecast, Yeah, yeah, I.

Think I think we're sliding into the right time where it's gonna be, you know, pretty soon we're gonna be hunting scrapes and the weather is going to be just generally a little cooler, and it's it's starting to break in the right direction. I don't I guess I should. I don't know if this is unfortunate or not. But I'm gonna be down at Louisiana fishing next week, so I'm not going to get the ground truth this stuff. But just by looking at the forecast, I feel like it's gonna be pretty good.

That's cool, all right, right it on a scale of one to ten for buck movement, then for the next week.

I'm gonna give her a seven point five.

Buddy at said point five, dude, that's pretty optimistic, and from a guy like you, I believe it, so it's time to get in the woods to Minnesota.

We'll see, We'll see buddy.

Hey Man, I hope you have a great hunt tonight.

Awesome, thanks man.

Mark Kenyon actually went back to the back recently on a hunt with a couple of guys. You should go check out that down below at the YouTube link to a list here, And if you want to see what's going on with the Element, we have just put out an awesome epic hype session of our best season ever over on here our YouTube channel. Go check that out down below. Guys, I want to say something here that's