Ep. 857: Rut Fresh Radio - Late, But Not Too Late

Welcome to Wired to Hunt's rut Fresh Radio, bringing you the latest reports from 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 hosts, Casey Smith and Tyler Jones.

It's December that chases on the chase to find the rut action.

This is rut Fresh. Let's go. What's going on? Everyone?

Welcome were rut Fresh Radio. I'm your host k Cy Smith. Tyler Jones is here as well. We're brought to you by First Lag Year. It is cold this time of year, and it's good time to bundle up and maximize they'll warmth man. I mean, one of the things that we're hearing from people around the country is that there is some cold fronts that have been rolling through and that cold weather is good for deer hunting, as we all know. Tyler, do you actually like hunting cold fronts?

I do?

Yeah, I love it. You when's when's the time to be there? Do you like to like feel the front roll in or do you like like it personally?

Yeah? I do, but I don't know that. I don't know that I can like correlate.

Uh, I don't know that like off hand, I can correlate any success with that necessarily, But I like to be there when it's rolling in and things get hype.

Yeah, for sure.

I just noticed.

I've always this is something that may or may not make sense to people. But when at the first day that it kind of got cold, if it ever did that in a Texas football season for US, people went nuts on the field, like people were losing their mind. Everybody was ready to chop their feet and do all the stuff and be ready to you know, they were just moving around, and I feel like deer kind of the same way. It's like that first day of the

I feel like the cold front gets the young bucks up and moving, and that in turn like just kind of mixes a lot of stuff up.

At least that's kind of what I observe, you know.

I think then those get up and eat man.

Yeah, that's probably true too, especially this time of year, because that's what we're really doing. It's not as much depending on where you're at right And that's one of the things we're going to discuss in today's ret Fresh episodes, because you know, a lot of the southern states are really starting to come into their own for the rut

Got to overcast day.

But the bluebird days are good to you know, quite honestly, any reason is a good reason to kind of get optimistic about going deer hunting. And I can make any day sound like a good deer hunting day. You know, Oh, it's a hundred degrees, they're gonna be drinking water. Better go hunt that water, you know. So there's always something and a good reason to try to go out there and hit it.

You can either be optimistic and go hunting, or you can be pessimistic and probably not go.

Hunting, you know, yeah, how do you feel about that? How do you feel about the guys? I shouldn't say it that way. How do you feel about the concept of hunt less and kill more?

I think it depends on what you got to hunt.

Yeah, I think it's kind of property specific.

Huh, Yeah, I do. But I definitely like to hunt more, which is why I do this.

It's good travel around. Yeah, you know, you travel around, you can hunt more.

But I'm all about if it don't work on a property, go somewhere else and hunt. I mean, find some public or whatever and go hunt that day if you got the day to hunt, you know, I mean, I just I mean, in all transparency and honesty. When I first you know, from the time I was young, all I ever wanted to do was hunting fish. I mean, that is what I wanted to be doing at all times. So I just tried to find a way to do

If you have Let's give something scenario specific here, and this works really well for this time of year because deer are definitely shifting to more of a bed to food type pattern. There's still some red action going on depending on where you're in the country and just depending on the deer you have, because I guarantee you is somewhere in Saskatchewan right now there's a deer thinking about chasing a doe. But in general things are different in December.

Carsel.

Is it worth having a couple different sets for a couple different winds on that thing, or should you just set it up for like the the wind that you know is the best killing wind. I mean, I think if you can make it work, be great. I've got a hunted up. I don't know exactly what it is, but anyway, it's less than thirty acres and I was hunting it like jumping all around. And really I mean I say all around. I wasn't hunting all over the property, but I was hunting all over an area that the deer.

A move helps you to get in boat range, and I think that's where you know, maybe you learn you learned and you know enough about it, or maybe the pinch is good enough, or maybe you know, whatever it is, you've set it up so that you can have shots and you got one place. But I think, like overall, I think be being willing to have some sets, especially on sixty acres, would be pretty good.

Yeah, yeah, I think so too.

I think that it's going to depend on what time of year it is, how hard you want to push that just off wind right where you don't want to mess it up early October by hunting something it's a little bit risky, but for a lot of guys just kind of do your die time because Christmas is coming up and you kind of need to get your buck keeled if you're going to do it. So it's a good time of year to take some risks, especially when

You know.

We're gonna talk to some guys today that are just all up in the rut action right now.

Right who were talking to today talk.

Well, we got a bunch of guys, a lot of them from the South, because that's where a lot of the stuff's going on right now. In fact, many of the guys that we know and follow on social media platforms from the north are having some trouble right now and they're just hunting some cold weather and not see a whole lot of deer. So people we know that are getting after it and doing stuff right now and

Matt is just kind of one of them dudes. You just you don't.

You don't hear it from him all the time, but he's out there doing it, you know what I mean. And then Troy Waldron killed an absolute slammer in Texas this past week, and he's going to give us a report from the home state while we're not even there.

That's awesome. Let's get the reports on the phone.

I have got my brother, Parker mc donald was Southern Collective and he normally has the voice of an angel, but today he sounds like a dog that fell out the back of the truck.

Parker, what was happening, man.

Man, I bized to anybody. Yes, so listen to a voice.

Now.

You sound like you've been you've been hunting, but also like mouth calling turkeys all week where your voice is finally scratchy. Have you been like hollering at them deer or what made your voice do that?

That? That is actually not far from the truth. I'm being honest with you. It's been really really cold.

It's been super cold, and I've been kind of a little bit, a little bit under the weather.

But it's the freaking rut, you know.

Yeah, I gotta go. Alabama is rocking and rolling right now.

Huh it is, man, And.

Oh I thought you remember the football team.

Sorry no, no, not.

Now.

No.

Luckily for me, I'm I'm not an Alabama fan.

So what's the it's going. It's going like the deer just running wild through the woods right now?

Or is that not the case?

Yeah, it is. It is the case. And it's funny that.

You brought it up turkey hunting, like I feel like I've been turky in because that's been a huge part of my week this week, is calling and grunning the deer, and it's been unreal how well it's worked.

So what's the scenario on that then? Are you calling it deer that you see or are you blind grunting?

Usually it's blind grunning, but sometimes it's not.

Sometimes I see a deer and I grunt, And there's just such a high percentage if you do it at the right time of the year, there's such a highest percentage that I've seen of deer coming like coming to investigate it. Now, they may try to get down the wind and screw you up or whatever.

Yeah, what phase is Alabama in right now? Then?

Well, over the last over the last two days, every camera that I've got out, every buck that I have been watching since October has daylighted in the last two days. In this seeking I believe it's the seeking phase, which in that seeking phase, you find a lot of bucks are really aggressive. They've got so much testosterone and it does it just doesn't take much to piss them off. But every camera I've got I've been seeing the last I guess three days now, it's been just just lights out.

Yeah.

Well, I'll be honest with you, it's good news for everybody in a state like Alabama or like East Texas where you guys are at. We all know there's just some there's just the those days where it just feels like it's magic in the air, and you don't feel like you did anything different than you do before. But it's just like, wow, I saw eight bucks today or whatever.

So so with that, you know, going forward to the next week, are you going to use a grunt call or rattling antlers more often?

I think I think here at home, I think I would say grunt like the.

Way that I typically do. I'll tell you guys what happened. I mean, two days ago.

I was I was set up on a deer that I had come out in the daylight the morning before, and it was I mean, I was as deep as I've.

Ever been on public land.

Like to give you guys an example, I got I got to the boat ramp at three o'clock and I didn't get set up until like after six thirty.

Oh wow, okay, yeah yeah, yeah yeah dude.

And it was just like it was just it's those kind of days that those are the one am days, you know, And I knew I needed to be where I needed to be at like and and so I got up there and uh, right after daylight, a buck chases a dough in the holler back behind me, real deep, thick collar, and I could hear him grunting a lot.

Like when I say a lot.

I mean have you ever have you guys ever heard those woodpeckers or whatever they are that almost sound like a grunt, and they can fool you every once in a while.

It was like that sound. But he was.

Changing the tone of his voice, and I could hear them running around, and I'd already seen them one time. I'd got glimpses up, so I knew it was deer, and I knew it was a grunt. And he was probably grunting thirty times a minute, you know, like it was just back and forth. So later in the morning, they had worked their way all the way, like directly behind me, and they weren't very far, and I was like, you know what, I'm about to turkey hunt this pool, and so I.

Grabbed my I grabbed my grunt too, and I just started grunting.

I'd grunt, then he'd grunt, then I'd grunt, then than I'd grunt. Then I changed my tone a little bit, you know, and he did the same thing.

And I could hear them.

I could hear their footsteps back behind me, chasing and stuff, and it was like it was so thinking cool.

Well, as I'm.

Turning around trying to figure out how can get a shot, I start hearing the footsteps get closer and closer and closer and closer.

And I realized, that's not that book. There's another year behind me.

So I turned back around in my saddle and I see this nice buck walking straight towards me. And that was all from He was absolutely one hundred percent coming to He probably heard fifty plus grunts in the last five minutes right there, and he was coming to it. And that's what I mean by like it almost feels.

It felt like a turkey hunt. That really felt like a turkey hunt. It was freaking awesome.

It sounds sick, man.

So looking forward to this week, you have kind of more of the same, good rout dates, good temperatures. Are you you still thinking it's gonna be on fire for the next seven days?

I think it'll be. I think it'll be really good for about the next three days.

This rain that we got today, I think it's gonna kill the action for the day.

I really do, because it's hot and rainy.

But it's supposed to get back down into like the twenties in the later part of the week, I believe if that's still in the forecast, and I think in that time, but I also think there's gonna be a little bit of a shift and it's gonna be a lot more like that, just a hardcore chasing and without much rhyme or reason on where they're at. So sitting a funnel is gonna be, Man, I think if sitting a funnel in the next week is probably gonna be lights out, way to kill a hill country.

Dear, if you're sitting in a funnel in the next week, and on scale of one to ten, what's the buck movement gonna be?

Like?

If I'm going by what it's been with the what the buck movement's been the last two days, I would say in the last two days it's.

Been a ten.

Let's go oh wow, yeah, I have.

I genuinely felt like in the last two days, if you just set up in the woods, you're probably gonna see a buck.

And I'm beat now, Alabama, Parker, I mean, get here quick because it's not gonna last long. Well, thanks, man, I appreciate the report.

The good thing about Alabama is, man, we got ruts until the end of freaking February.

Sure, you chased this.

Around somewhere to go every every time of the late season now in Alabama. I appreciate the report, Parker, and hopefully we'll catch up with you again soon.

Hey, guys, I appreciate you having me on.

I apologize anybody listening to this voice, this annoying voice that I got right.

Now on the phone.

A very familiar guy, justin Henry, and he's been in Georgia. Seems like there's been some success. Maybe there's a deer down. How's everything going, dude.

It's going good, man, coming off a pretty good weekend. It was a first so it was a good one.

Yeah.

So, first of what, first you were my seven year old daughter being out in the woods with me. I got three daughters and my oldest has been hunting and we've had success, but my seven year old has never been out.

And she sat in the blind for the first time, and.

Not too long after we had a nice mature dough come out and she looked at me and I looked at her.

I said, you want me to shoot? The smile on her face was the greatest thing in the world.

Bad man.

Yeah, yeah, so yeah, we were successful.

We got ourselves a nice dough.

That's cool.

So what are the deer doing in Georgia right now where you're hunting?

Well, that weekend was extremely cold, bitterly cold. I feel like was like twenty eight twenty seven. That's South Georgia. I think I said it last week, you know, I think in the South that cold cold weather than first day or two, it kind of freaks them out.

This movement in the evening.

Was real early is at four o' hawk, so quite quite a few hours before evening time.

A couple of dough came out for food.

So we're still kind of pre rut there in South Georgia, right.

Are we looking at or where are we at?

Cauch?

We're post post run, okay, so.

See, and that's that weird part of like the eastern southern part of Georgia.

And same thing with Florida.

Now, once you get over into that panhandle of Florida and get up underneath you know, Louisiana and Alabama, that's where you get the later December pre run.

Gotcha. So what are the bucks doing there right now?

Uh?

And in my area just doing their normal normal bed of food kind of I've seen them bachelor back up.

So back to the bed to food type deal.

Gotcha? So, uh you got are you running cameras? And what are that? What's that stuff on?

Uh?

Yeah, right now, I got it's on a lease that I was honeying up in Georgia. So I got a couple of cameras on feeders, and I got a couple of cameras on natural natural movement. The kind of natural movement cameras have been a little on the slow side, and.

Really the cameras even on the feeders have.

Been a little on the slow side. A lot of nighttime. I did have I had one buck come through on that and from moving in.

Daytime, but that was a couple of days, two days prior to that cold front.

Moving in, Okay. Got you. So if you're.

If you're seeing all that nocturnal stuff, are you then trying to hold off and just not pressure them or are you trying to seek out where those bucks are spending their days?

No, I am, I'm trying to hold off and I'm trying to just plant it right.

Get some daytime movement, try to slide up in there, especially this time of the year with.

It being so are not late, but just much later in the season.

Yeah, got you.

So you still you're thinking that another cold front will push through and kind of give you some daylight.

I do.

I think that now that we've got a couple of cold fronts back to back, it seems to be staying in these cooler temperatures. I think now is when you, Mike, might catch them in that almost like that early season pattern, you know, catch them a little bit heading back to bed earlier, or maybe getting a bite to eat mid mid morning.

Gotcha.

So do you expect the next week to be better than the last one or about the same or what are you thinking?

I would have to say, I want to go with a little bit of optimism.

I think it might be a submit you better gotcha?

Gotcha.

So in the next week on a scale of one to ten, what would you rank buck movement?

I'm going to give it a solid five, all right, right in the middle, right in the middle.

So it's worth going out. I'm trying to shoot a buck there in South Georgia this time of year. If you haven't got it done yet, there's there. I appreciate you, man, thank you for doing this.

Just and we'll talk to you.

I'm sure, you know, like next week or something like that.

Good soil.

I've got my brother Matt die with landing a legacy on the phone while hunting no less.

He is like in the field right now. What are you doing? Man?

This is about as live as you can get.

Yeah, from the field in Missouri, hun just giving us the direct report live.

What are you seeing?

Yes?

Oh man?

What's cool about this little audience?

For me, it's doing a little bit of marking to timber, but also it's antlerless season. Formaseras are trying to do a little bit of management and work at the same time. But honestly, from overall deer standpoint, this is can be one of my favorite times of the year. This post rut shift back into food and deer get on really good patterns.

So hopefully.

Hopefully the deer, the target deer right have made it through the gun season. For us, we were very fortunate this year, whether it's just weather outings not that many deer got harvested in our area. I don't know if we lost a target deer two like during rifle seasons. So we are now just readjusting cameras, getting them set up over that shift of you know, betting closer to south facing slopes, but also that transition back into food.

Them so in those scrapes. Are those bucks actually daylighting on those.

Scrapes, Yeah, for sure.

And it's been I think that we're seeing the shift of food quite a bit quicker than we when we do post rut post gun season this year more than others because we've had so many like just quick cold spells. This coming week, we've got temperatures in the low thirties as highs and some just cool, cool nights, and so there's there's some evenings where dear in the field at two two thirty and then bucks are pidding and checking scrapes.

Is when you talk about food sources, you're talking about assuming food plots or ag that may be left. And is there a type of wild food right now available in there in Missouri that you feel like or is it going to be pretty much what's been planted?

Great question for me right now, because I have the ability to manage some places my own or leases is food plots. But if you don't have that ability, you're hunting public or you don't have the ability to manage and have that. Don't forget about clover and pastures that can green up with some warmer days. I mean, it's almost gonna be sixty here today, but then we get that cold snap, so like clover can come in and out even in December.

But also the biggest, the main one is going to be red oaks.

Red Oaks late season December are going to still be on the ground, still very viable and dear if they don't have those other more preferred resources, they're going to be hitting those pretty much primarily.

Yeah, we see the same thing here in Texas this time of year, December and January, we see red oaks being a big time drawl for hogs and deer both.

Absolutely, There's been many years ago now don't generally hunt mornings at this time of the year. But there was a deer on a good pattern. Oh gosh, it's probably ten years ago now, but it is morning of December eighteenth. I remember it, but headed back feeding back off of a food plot early morning, but on a ridge with a ton of black oaks, which is a red oak family, and he was there just about every single morning. We

So when you do get those real frigid temperatures, though, do you feel like green is the way to go?

I do, unless you have grain.

If you have grain, it's just for for me in southern Missouri, it's few and far between.

Do you even have grain as an option?

But getting you know, wheat fields cr rye, tricker koe or your leftover turn up field from your fall food plot, like those are definitely keen right now in this December time frame from a planted resource.

I love green during this window.

Yeah, cool dude.

All right, So as we look forward to the next week with those really cold temperatures and you know, just kind of that post ud stuff that you're talking about, are you going to really emphasize hunting in that week? Is that going to Does it mean were looking at good stuff here?

Yeah?

Well that's what I see according to my weather down here.

But really I.

Get excited from now. We've run till January fifteenth for Missouri. So I don't try and just come out of the gates screaming. I want to pick the right days, the best days. It doesn't have to be the coldest day either. It could be a day that is average or even slightly above average. If you're having cold nights, but it gets up warm and it's clear, bluebird sky days. I love the clear, bluebird sky days. Deer seem to feed early in those fields and soak up as much warmth

But yeah, if.

Time allows this week, I probably will slide out and put eyes on the field.

That's cool, all right.

So on a scale of one to ten in Missouri over the next week, what are you gonna rank Buck movement at.

Buck Movement Evenings. I'm gonna go with the six seven.

Pretty good, man, That is really good, especially pop post Rode. I like it.

If you've got yeah, unpressured stuff deer, there's no reason for deer to not move and feed in daylight this week.

Awesome, dude, appreciate the report. Man, Hey, you bet guys. I've got Troy Waldron on the phone.

He's a dedicated Texas hunter and quite honestly, he has just killed one of the biggest bucks I've ever seen come from Texas.

Troy, what's happening, dude?

Oh, not much, man, just trying to catch up on some work after being out hunted for a little while.

I understand that for sure, man, So congrats on the big buck.

I want to know what the deer are doing and what you figured out to be able to kill a deer like that.

What the deer doing in Texas right now?

Yeah? Sure, so I think they're still looking for dose.

So you know, you got a lot of the breeding is over, but you still have some of those that haven't been bred. The fawns from the spring are going to be coming in soon, and I think those bucks are still definitely searching.

I mean they this weekend and just this beer came into rattling.

I was doing a lot of rattling and grunning sequences, So I think they're still chasing some of those.

Gotcha. That's that's kind of interesting.

You know, it almost seems like everybody gets depressed because November is over, but in Texas it seems like, especially a large portion of state, there's kind of like a trickle rut. Do you see that action to last throughout December one hundred percent?

So I actually struggle more in November in certain respects Now, I missed the big one early November this year, just clean miss and I actually hit two other bucks and didn't find them. So that's a whole nother story. Maybe my shooting was off, but so I had encounters in November. Don't get me wrong, but I in the last three or four years as.

Far as bucks on the wall, I'm having a lot of success in December, and it's red activity.

I mean, it would be different than what you would in your mind think you're supposed to be seeing in November?

What have you?

So, is there any strategy to like your rattling sequence?

You know, are you are you trying to just break the antlers or is there something like any rhyme or reason to the way you you do take them together?

Yeah?

So usually I don't rattle. I'm more of a grunt suit guy.

Even when I do that, I try to mimic what I hear them do in the woods, which is like, you know, yeah, why not too aggressive, nothing real long and exaggerated. But on this trip, because I don't hunt this area, you know, very often, I wasn't sure if they would or they wouldn't respond to rattling, So I brought the ones out.

There and just light you know.

Again, I watched a thousand videos of hunting, right, so I'm just trying to mimic what I see if a deer, you know, is on video, you know, fighting and so nothing too crazy loud, but nothing too long. But I also try to break it up a little bit because they're not just like constantly for a minute straight, you know, tickle and tickle and tickling, like there's breaks and stuff in there. So I just tried to kind of mimic that a little bit.

And all of those thousand videos, would you say, probably five hundred of them or element videos or I mean absolutely.

Doubt so.

Were you in like a in like what you consider a rut funnel hunting this deer or what were you doing exactly?

Yeah?

So probably but mostly edge right, So this area before the haunt, I actually got boosted on the ground twice, but obviously did a kind of scouting on.

Google before I got in there.

First thing keen on was the creek creek systems. Any time there's a creek runningto timber, that's going to be a go to. It's going to be creating funnels naturally.

Or is it brush?

Is it you know, switch grass? What is it? And it ended up just being a bunch of like just a big.

Ticket like saplings, really really thick.

So I said, well, either going to you can.

Use it as betting, or it's just going to at least create travel. So all in all, though you came to your question, it was it was a funnel area, but just.

Those lines all met in this one spot, and I knew.

If I got in there and there was a spot to set up, my entry and exit was going to be really good too, based on the wind. So it was an east wind Friday and then pretty much the south the rest of the weekend, and I was coming in from the northwest.

Gotcha, So I've given up that side, but everything else was good.

Uh huh.

So do you think that in the next week or so you would you would stay with that same general idea of you know, hunting scrapes where a lot of different lines are intersecting, transition lines are intersecting, and also with the idea that you're going to be seeing running movement in the next week.

Yeah, I mean the scrapes were there, and that was good.

I wasn't expecting to shoot something coming through the scrape, but having those scrapes there usually tells me it's a.

Deer movement area, like there's going to be deer here. And really, I guess my mindset was more like, even if.

This is the means there's a bunch of doze in here, that's where I want to be because there's those here, Those bucks are going to be here. So if I were going to keep hunting this week, I wouldn't so much key on scrapes per se and the fact that you're going to shoot one of the scrape, but I'd be near the dos.

Can't hardly beat that. Man, It's hell. That is definitely an understatement.

You gotta be with it. Where the doose are, you're gonna find the buck.

So on a scale of one to ten, if you're gonna rank buck movement in Texas for the next week, what would you call it?

Seven?

Seven? That's pretty good hunting, not.

Too unoptimistic, not too over optimistic, just right there.

I like it. Brother, appreciate the report, dude, have a good rest of your season.

Yeah, you guys, see, I appreciate it as you hear.

There are still some good places to get in the woods of the prairies or wherever you might be, even the swamps half deering them out there, right, and so it can be particular, but December is still a great time to kill a really big buck, maybe even one

Yeah.

So there's also another really cool video that we put out this week.

We have been on the road like crazy. We are running.

Everybody is either filming or editing a little bit or hunting, and so it's been crazy. We haven't been able to get a ton of editing done actually, but we did get a video out because I thought there would be some people that would be interested in seeing this big old giant mondo buck that I ran into when I was stalking a different big old giant mondo buck that might actually be the one you killed.

Oh man.

I think it just where we might be, which is crazy. We were juking and jiving out there on the planes after these deers. So we're gonna link to both of those and the description below if you need a little inspirational, little motivation, a little.

Bit of just uh, you know.

Yeah, I'm trying to think about more rhymes than I can't even do right now because I'm so excited to go. Dearhune after listen to all these good reports, this has been rough. Fresh, Keep it fresh,