00:00:01 Speaker 1: What is going on, everyone? This is Jake Hofer and welcome to another fresh episode. This is we're getting into the October 1st range. So if you've been sitting on the sidelines and waiting for opening day, this is your episode. This is your week. And before we get into the whitetail weather forecast this week, some pretty exciting news. It is whitetail week at Meat Eater and First Light. Get ready to take your hunting season to the next level with the ultimate whitetail giveaway featuring over 23,000 in prizes, including an incredible whitetail hunt package. The more you spend at firstlight.com, the more entries you earn for a chance to win this incredible prize package. We've teamed up with the top brands to build the ultimate whitetail hunting setup. This exclusive giveaway is packed with premium gear and accessories designed to keep you comfortable, hunt efficiently, and make the most out of your time in the field. And that's not all. One lucky winner will be going on a fully guided muzzleloader whitetail hunt at Run and Water Hunting, hosted by outfitter Jordan Budd and hunting alongside Mark Kenyon. So if you want to get entered, visit First Light contest page at firstlight.com and fill out the entry form to get started. You'll be automatically entered for a chance to win the gear and hunt package, plus earn additional entries with every purchase you make at firstlight.com. Don't wait. The giveaway ends Monday, October 12, 2026 at 1159 p.m. Mountain Time. So be sure to take advantage of Whitetail Week. And jumping into the Whitetail weather report, this week, September 30th to October 7th, the main weather story this week is a system moving through the Midwest and Great Lakes as we head into October. Ahead of the system, winds will turn more southerly across portions of the Midwest on Wednesday, bringing warmer air and increasing moisture north. Rain chances begin increasing Wednesday afternoon and evening with widespread rain expected across portions of the Midwest today. and Great Lakes Wednesday night into Thursday. As the front moves through, winds will shift and cooler, drier air will begin filtering into the region. By Friday and into the weekend, temperatures across portions of the Midwest are forecast to fall back into the 60s during the day, with overnight lows reaching the 40s and 50s. Barometric pressure will generally fall as the system approaches before beginning to rise again behind the frontal passage. Further east, rain chances increase across the Ohio Valley late Thursday into Friday as that same system progresses east. So a lot of potential movements and weather fronts coming in here to make the most out of the first week of October. That is your Whitetail Weather Report for this week. Picking off our guests this week, we have Josh Telker from Before the Echo in Indiana giving us his opening day forecast and game plan. And then we move over to Minnesota with Alex Comstock. And lastly, with Josh Proffitt out of Kentucky. So I hope you guys enjoy this week's episode of Rut Fresh presented by Moultrie. Let's get into it. All right, kicking off the show, we have Josh Telker from Before the Echo. Picking off this week's episode in Indiana. How are we doing, Josh? Good, man. 00:03:00 Speaker 2: It's opening week, so things are looking up, man. 00:03:05 Speaker 1: It's here. It's officially here. Sound the alarm, and you're in Indiana, and we were just talking about the weather and everything else, but how excited are you even before we flip the calendar to October 1? What are you feeling going into this season? Expectations, you know, is it going to be a tough year, a bad year? Cause I think you guys got hit by EHD last year. Is that right? 00:03:27 Speaker 2: We did. 00:03:28 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:03:28 Speaker 2: Pretty bad last year. Um, talking to, uh, I talked to game warden this summer and he was, you know, he kind of confirmed, confirmed that this was one of the far County in Indiana here. Uh, it's the worst year on record for EHD that he's, he's been a part of. So the rough year on the deer herd. 00:03:47 Speaker 1: And so inversely this year, like, is there any sort of rebound or does it, still feel like there's skeletons in the closet. 00:03:55 Speaker 2: No, yeah, it's definitely, you know, it's going to take a couple years to get kind of back to par, I guess, if you want to say. Definitely not as many deer running around as there had been. I mean, you guys know the silver lining of EHD is you reduce the deer herd, there's more resources for the. 00:04:16 Speaker 1: Deer that do make it. 00:04:17 Speaker 2: So I'm kind of hopeful that there is some some good ones running around. And if there is some good ones, then, uh, we'll definitely be chasing after them. Uh, but yeah, we'll see. 00:04:28 Speaker 1: Did you, did you recognize, like some people always say that, you know, the year after EHC there's, you know, with the lack of pressure, uh, on the resource, you know, some deer just make it absolute giant jump. Have you recognized that at all to any degree of, of a survivor from last year that made a really impressive jump? 00:04:44 Speaker 2: No, not particularly this year. I have not recognized it. Um, but, there's people that way smarter than me that, that say that. So I'm sure it does happen. It makes logical sense that it, that it would. I mean, I think one of the, as far as deer management goes, one of the things that hurt your herd the most is overcrowding, you know, too many does too many small bucks and all that stuff. So, um, it can't, it can't hurt as far as the deer that do make it. I'm sure they're less stressed from those natural stresses that deer deal with outside of us chasing them around and predators and whatnot. 00:05:17 Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, so, October 1. 00:05:20 Speaker 2: Yep. 00:05:21 Speaker 1: It's, it's, you know, the first, the first set, is your first set going to be October 1? Are you going to wait to, to watch the weather? I don't know, man. 00:05:29 Speaker 2: So here, this year I've been in, I've been in the weirdest funk this summer. Like I'm usually like all about it and I, I am for, you know, an extent, but it has been so miserably hot down here in Southern Indiana this summer. And so it was just really hard to get in the mood to go out in the woods and, you know, and mingle with the ticks and the, Chickers and everything else this summer. Um, but the last week we had a, a extreme cool off and it really got me in the mood. Now, unfortunately come Thursday, which is October 1st, um, we're back up in the nineties here in Southern Indiana, but, um, so what we will see, we will see TBD. 00:06:09 Speaker 1: Yeah. So looking, you know, through the rest of the week, let's say the, the first to the seventh, um, yeah. What is jumping out at you right now, like a must-sit evening in your neck of the woods based off the weather conditions? Because obviously it can't be hot forever. Usually there's a rain front that comes in. What has you excited looking at the calendar for this first week of Indiana archery season? 00:06:33 Speaker 2: Yeah, for me, Monday looks– I mean, we're going from 90s and then rain all weekend to Monday we got the high– um uh you know in the in the mid 60s in you know lows in the low 40s which is a significant switch from 90s you know um so that's the day i'm really looking looking forward to something else is like we got pretty significant showers friday saturday sunday morning and then we're quitting sunday uh morning sometime i don't know exactly the hour but Um, man, I could see Sunday evening being a decent time to be in the woods too. Maybe getting over, getting over a scrape or something that is opened up. 00:07:16 Speaker 1: What's, um, as far as food sources go in your, your neighborhood too. So like, let's say, let's say you go hunt Sunday evening. Are you going to set up on a scrape that you, that you have some history on or, or are you going to scout in the rain at all over the weekend to try to find some sign? Like, what does that look like for, you know, that Sunday, Monday game plan and how, how different is Sunday evening to Monday strategy? 00:07:38 Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm probably going to get out and check some... I got some regular SD card cameras on public land around here. Probably going to go and kind of flip some of those and just get some intel. And then based on what I find there, that's probably where I'm going to... I have a few spots in my head right now that I've been running cameras on since this winter that are historically pretty good early season for a couple of reasons. 00:08:06 Speaker 1: One is. 00:08:09 Speaker 2: The crop rotations. For October 1 openers, I forget about beans and I love cornfields. Provides a lot of cover for deer. And I've had some pretty good luck setting pretty close to some cornfield edges, whether that be stuff that butts up on public or uh, or private. I just, I think that's a, a. 00:08:34 Speaker 4: Really good tactic. 00:08:35 Speaker 2: And, you know, and right now we're, we, uh, harvest kind of started fairly early this year. So, um, we are getting corn out, you know, pretty heavily right now. So it's, there's not as many, uh, available as cornfield edges as there was two weeks ago here in Indiana, at least. Um, so I got a couple spots in mind there. Um, and then you're obvious, you know, I know everybody talks about acorns this time of year, but, it still can be good. 00:09:02 Speaker 1: So if you can find a spot along a cornfield edge with a wide oak drop in acorns, that would be a spot that you really want to focus on. 00:09:09 Speaker 5: Yeah. 00:09:09 Speaker 2: Particularly like if you've got a big wide oak overhang in a cornfield edge or something. 00:09:13 Speaker 5: Yeah. 00:09:14 Speaker 1: On the inside corner. Yeah. That's where you want to try to sit. Yep. Yep. Yeah. 00:09:20 Speaker 2: Deer, there's no question they'll live in that corn until they get pushed out of there. And luckily, I mean, this year, you know, sometimes there can be a problem Um, in big ag areas where there's too much corn in, right. And it's kind of hard to hunt them. Um, but with harvest kind of starting early this year, it seems to maybe some of those, these sanctuaries that they have will push them off into some of the public or wherever you're, you're hunting at, you know? 00:09:44 Speaker 1: What about for someone, um, that didn't, let's say they, they were just as busy and not as excited to go fight with ticks all summer too, but they didn't, they didn't lay cameras out in spring or the winter. And they're listening to this and with this weather that came in last week, they're like, oh my God. i'm ready to go deer hunting i did not do the groundwork uh life was busy what what advice do you give those folks to to still proceed in a positive fashion but not be scrambled or feel like they're like i don't know anything i gotta go do this i gotta do that like Where, what, what would you say to them? And maybe it is like, dude, just carve out an afternoon and go, go crazy and hang cameras. 00:10:25 Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I think some of that anxiety we have for not being prepared is probably, uh, you know, in, in your head, like there's still something to be said about, even if you're prepared for a spot, like you still got to have your eyes open, uh, and, and be looking for sign as you're walking through the woods. Even if you got a spot in your head, you know, like, you could walk through some great sign or the deer have changed since last winter. And, um, if you're not paying attention or, or you're kind of have a one track mind, you get to your spot that you think is good and you've walked over the good spot, you know? So, um, I think if you, if you aren't prepared or you didn't do any scouting this year, not the end of the world, like get a, get a, get a good spot on a map, or maybe you think folks won't be, or, um, you've historically known have been good for early season and just go in there and, and scout your way in and throw sits at places. Um, it's kind of, that's kind of an exciting way to hunt anyway, you know? 00:11:23 Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think if we're being honest, most people fall in that category of, I mean, I, I feel like I laid a pretty good framework for this season, but I still feel underprepared. I'll be honest. Like there's stuff I wish I would've got done and, uh, different, you know, leaves I wish I would've flipped over, but it's also a very long season, but it's a delicate balance of it's a long season, but also not striking when the opportunity is here. Cause I do think, um, there's some really good weather coming in like for this first week. 00:11:49 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, for sure. And that's what I think maybe just not getting over, you know, overexcited this first couple of days when it's going to be kind of nasty and, you know, maybe it's best not to screw around in the spots that you want to hunt until that Sunday night, Monday, you know what I mean? Um, instead of going and getting a bunch of scent in my best spot that I want to hunt opening week on, on Thursday, whenever, you know, the, not that the deer couldn't walk through there, but they may not walk until right before, right after dark, since it's so hot, um, might be best just to kind of put those spots on a back burner and go hit those when it's a little more, uh, weather conducive, you know? 00:12:28 Speaker 1: Yeah. Anything else that jumps out to you for this first week? Any advice, anything for people to key in on floors yours? Hmm. 00:12:40 Speaker 2: I think, I think this first week is one of your best opportunities to kill a buck throughout the season. Minus maybe catching one during that rut time frame, obviously. But to have it calculated, this is a buck that I know about and he's on some type of a patternable pattern right now. This is your opportunity. 00:13:08 Speaker 1: I think. 00:13:11 Speaker 2: The biggest thing is, is like be calculated this time of year, like figure out what they're, what they're, you know, the deer aren't overly complicated. They're betting somewhere and they want to get up and go somewhere, you know, typically food right now. So, um, this time of year, like slow down, don't go into your, um, you know, if you're, if you've got a good rut spot, don't be setting it this time of year, uh, set by even, even this, this first couple of days, it might be, um, I don't know if you could, if you can shine it, you know, the, some states you can go and shine and, and get your eyes on a deer, um, or go in glass in the couple of days when it's kind of nasty weather, um, might be a good opportunity to do that, to, to catch them, um, on this cold front we're going to have after this, this hot, uh, weather and the, and the rain come through and then. 00:14:00 Speaker 4: Make a move on them. 00:14:01 Speaker 2: But the pressure is coming there. The deer hunters are going to be in the woods and things are going to change after this, this week. So, get out there and make a move on one of them is what I would tell people. 00:14:11 Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with that. There's going to be a lot of change every single week, and that's why we do Rough Fresh every week because things change so quickly from here on out. And one thing that– do you have any– do you agree or disagree with this philosophy? So, like, if Sunday or Monday evening potentially is, like, a pretty high-odd sit if you know of a deer in an area, do you dare go to a burner spot Thursday or Friday as a dry run– Cause I know every year when I go out for the first time, I forget, I forget this or like, I forgot my pull up rope or I forgot my range finders. Like maybe I'm projecting here, but it's like, you almost need one like dry run walkthrough practice to really be ready when the time comes. 00:14:50 Speaker 2: That's funny. 00:14:51 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:14:51 Speaker 2: I mean, if you got the time and stuff, then yeah, sure. Go, go for it. You know, or if you want to go shoot a doe somewhere, you know, something like that, a hundred percent, you can go do that. I mean, you could do that in your backyard. 00:15:02 Speaker 1: That's true. 00:15:03 Speaker 2: That's true. So, I mean, in my former life before kids and two jobs and everything, I would have no question. I'd be hunting somewhere, but now it's like, okay, I could probably spend my time this weekend, uh, a little more, uh, for family man wise, um, than just going to sit to sit, you know? Um, but yeah, man, if you got the time and never going to tell you not to go hunting, you know? 00:15:27 Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I appreciate it. Josh scale one to 10, 10 being the best week of the year. One being one of the worst weeks of the year. Where do you put the next seven days? On a scale of 1 to 10. 00:15:38 Speaker 2: So, like, probably for me, opening week would be like maybe an 8. Okay. 00:15:44 Speaker 1: For a couple reasons. 00:15:45 Speaker 2: Like, the reasons I just kind of rattled off about, you know, being a good time to catch a deer off guard. But also, like, you haven't hunted for all year, and you're just excited, and it's just a fun time of the year because deer season has started, you know. So, yeah, 8 out of 10 for me. 00:16:04 Speaker 1: 8 out of 10. I like it. And then incredible podcast, new episodes every week. Where can people find that? 00:16:11 Speaker 2: Over on Before the Echo on YouTube. And then we're on Apple and Spotify as well if you want to listen to. 00:16:17 Speaker 4: Them while you're driving down the road or anything. 00:16:20 Speaker 1: Yeah, I encourage everyone to go check it out. It's a great show. I thoroughly enjoy it. Thank you so much, Josh. Good luck this season. And you'll have to text me Sunday or Monday evening on how your first set goes. 00:16:31 Speaker 2: Will do, man. 00:16:32 Speaker 1: Good luck. All right, next up, we have Alex Comstock from Minnesota. How's it going? Doing good. 00:16:37 Speaker 4: How are you doing, Jake? 00:16:39 Speaker 1: I'm doing really solid here. You guys have been open here for a little bit, so this is more of a, for a lot of folks, it's the first week of the year, and people are just getting the cobwebs off and maybe making a big swing, but you guys have been going at it here for a little bit. What has been cooking in Minnesota here in the last week or so? 00:16:58 Speaker 2: Not much. 00:16:58 Speaker 4: How about that? We had. 00:17:02 Speaker 5: Um you know we've got a couple different bucks we're kind of targeting we've got one in particular that our team member jeremy lopez has been after and i've been uh following them around with the camera um playing cat and mouse with the buck but we had a buck that was daylighting dang near every day up and it's like they know deer season starts and then they stop and so they're trying to figure that out and weather hasn't been the best but yeah it's pretty much what we've been dealing with. 00:17:26 Speaker 1: Yeah so um here recently hunting with jeremy what has been like describe the setup as you guys go in is it over a green food source is it I mean kind of paint us a picture of where you have been taking a few stabs at so far early this season. 00:17:40 Speaker 5: Yeah so we're hunting this deer in a suburban area so you know pretty much in town and we've got Jeremy's got a really cool private piece that we've found a spot in the summer it's a pretty much two trees next to each other we got an apple tree and an oak tree and they're dropping apples and acorns and we figured we literally had a tree with one camera point at the apple tree, other camera pointed at the Oak tree. Um, but the, I think what happened is we ran out of food pretty much as season acorns were dropping early apples were dropping. And now they're like, it's weird. It's like super small crab apples. I like the big apples. And, um, I mean, literally the day before season, that buck was in there at five 30. Um, and then Jeremy couldn't hunt opening day, but the second day we hunted and we're, you know, on pins and needles and that deer just became, we've got quite a few cameras in a, it's like a little 12 acre piece. Um, and I think we have like now 11 cameras in the 12 acres. Like it's, we're putting a lot of resources and he's like hitting camera every day now, but it's very sporadic middle of the night. Um, you know, here and there in daylight, but nothing consistent. And I feel like if season had opened a week earlier, it would have been a different story, but that's just pretty much. 00:18:57 Speaker 1: How it goes. 00:18:57 Speaker 4: I feel like a lot of time. 00:19:07 Speaker 1: Now that there's a lot of truth that it does seem like things always make a quick switch, right? When you're ready to take a swing and that is early season hunting in a nutshell. So Um, beyond that here looking, you know, September 30th to October 7th. Um, what's kind of your strategy, you know, weather considered food sources considered what, what, you know, for anyone that's undecisive and maybe in the Minnesota area, Wisconsin, maybe parts of North Dakota, what, what has you excited or not excited here for the next seven days? 00:19:38 Speaker 5: Um, what, I don't love is the stagnant warm weather. It's not like hot, but it's going to be up where I'm in very northern Minnesota. It's going to be low 70s, high 60s, which I don't love. And just looking at the forecast here, peeking at it, the temps look pretty much the same every day. What I'm looking for this year is that little shift in temperature, even if it's like, call it 71 to 54. 00:20:02 Speaker 4: I mean, I guess that's a pretty big swing when you think of it. 00:20:04 Speaker 5: But like looking for those shifts and we still think, I mean, We know of a couple of spots where like this deer in particular, he's on, you know, like legit big apple trees where he's mowing apples down. So if you've got a good food source and have that slight shift of temperature is kind of what we're looking for because you get through this first seven days of October and you don't have that good weather shift, then everything for us shifts from the food sources to scrapes as you get. 00:20:29 Speaker 4: In past, you know, that October 7th timeframe. 00:20:32 Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm glad you bring that up. I think now is an excellent time for that predictable food source, which, um, there's so much happening, you know, maybe you're in the Midwest and maybe they're getting ready to pick, pick a cornfield or a bean field or whatever the case may be. Maybe there's a lot of shifting or maybe the farmers get one last cut of alfalfa and that changes things. So, you know, the window is pretty tight, uh, based off of your experience there. It's like you're in it or you're not, uh, for this next seven days. 00:20:58 Speaker 4: Yeah, I totally agree. 00:20:59 Speaker 5: I mean, if you've got, I think the best time to start is if you've got a deer that, you know, or a food source that you know is hot, you know, and you can just get that. And even if it's like, you know, you go from, you know, even if you get like an 8 to 10 degree drop in your first north wind in four days or something, that's when I would look at, you know, if you've got, you know, in the next seven days, if you've got, you know, maybe a day you can leave work early or something, you know, look for that slight shift in weather, I think is just like your best time to make that calculated strike if that's. 00:21:30 Speaker 4: What's going to happen. 00:21:31 Speaker 1: Yeah. So for someone that's like, man, this sounds great. You know, if you have a buck to hunt right now, but maybe they've been busy, maybe they don't have anything on camera right now. What would you say to them? Like starting from scratch and trying to still make the seven days productive for setting up success for the rest of the season, but they don't, you know, they kind of feel behind the eight ball right now. What would be your, you know, maybe one or two or three step process of getting pointed in the right direction, you know, for the remainder of the month? 00:21:56 Speaker 5: Yeah, depending on what your situation is. If you can sit somewhere you can see a lot, like if I were out in North Dakota right now, I'd sit where I could see the maximum distance and hopefully you can catch a buck leaving what you would presume to be a bedding area at the last minutes or something and then make a move from there. Or if you're more in the northern Minnesota hardwoods, I wouldn't be opposed to scouting my way into a piece and like you know hopefully you've got areas where you think maybe deer are bedded and then if you can find even right now as we're still in the september the first few days of october find a fresh scrape you know i think they're just really starting to we've had on camera scrapes getting opened up and if you can find that spot and i think you just got to get as tight as you can or however comfortable you are depending on your style of hunting you know to those bedrooms is going to be your best. 00:22:45 Speaker 1: Bet Yeah, I think that's great advice. And there's scrape activity here in Illinois. Weather's been actually pretty unseasonably cool lately, and scrape activity has been picking up pretty drastically. Obviously, we don't open until October 1, so it's been watching from the sidelines right now. But I think that's a great way to utilize that time and shift resources. As far as for the next seven days, do you think you're going to be able to start tracking down your own deer, or are you pretty much focused on helping Jeremy pull this together on a more sporadic buck that was once, you know, felt very predictable. 00:23:22 Speaker 5: I think we, you know, have enough cameras in the woods and I'm not going to say that I fully rely on them because they can definitely be a crush, but like, I only need to get a picture of a deer. I don't care if it's middle of the night before I like go after them and stuff like that. And I've just got absolutely nothing right now to go after. So as long as that stays the case, I'm going to keep helping Jeremy just because for what we do, I'd love to, to get that on camera and the highest way possible opposed to sending himself filming. So, you know, I've got a deer that I was hoping I had them all summer and he disappeared mid August and hasn't shown back up. And, um, I've got enough Intel on that deer from other people that you set pictures of them too, that haven't that I'm starting to get worried he's dead. But other than that, yeah, it's kind of follow Jeremy around. And, uh, until we get into, you know, more of this October and like, middle of October, cold fronts, I might buzz out to North Dakota here and there and see what happens. 00:24:20 Speaker 1: I like it. All right. So all things considered, weather, time of year, everything else, scale one to 10, 10 being the best possible week of the entire year, one being one of the worst. Where do you put the next seven days, September 30th to October 7th? 00:24:34 Speaker 5: You know, I feel like every time I've done these in the past, I try to be optimistic, but I'm going, I'm going to go with like a three over the next seven days. 00:24:41 Speaker 1: I don't, I don't love it. 00:24:42 Speaker 4: I don't love how the weather looks. 00:24:44 Speaker 5: And it's probably one of my, you know, I like September, but that like this time to the first few days of October, if you don't have. 00:24:53 Speaker 4: The right weather, I don't love it. So I'm going to give it a three. 00:24:56 Speaker 1: All right. I respect the honesty, Alex. We got to make it a reality. If that's what it is, that's what it is. 00:25:04 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:25:05 Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, well, so if, if people want to follow along with the rest of your season and everything else that you guys have going on, what is the best place to do that? 00:25:15 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:25:15 Speaker 5: If you just type in whitetail DNA to YouTube, that's where we're releasing hunt videos, um, and educational videos on Instagram, whitetail underscore DNA between those two platforms. 00:25:26 Speaker 4: You know, that's pretty much where you're going to find all the best stuff. 00:25:29 Speaker 1: Awesome. Thank you so much, Alex. Good luck this season. Tell Jeremy, good luck. 00:25:32 Speaker 2: All right. 00:25:33 Speaker 1: Will do. 00:25:33 Speaker 4: Appreciate it, Jake. Good luck to you too. 00:25:35 Speaker 1: All right, we got Josh Proffitt from Kentucky. Josh, how's it going? 00:25:39 Speaker 4: It's good, man. 00:25:40 Speaker 3: It is great, man. God's good. 00:25:42 Speaker 4: How are you? 00:25:43 Speaker 1: I'm doing good. We're getting into the second week of Rough Fresh here for the year. And last week, the theme was pretty heavily about acorns. And there was a variety. Ohio opened this past weekend. Much of the rest of the country is going to be opening October 1st. So we're in it. And Kentucky's been open. And I know you haven't had a chance to hit it extremely hard yet, but kind of looking at the weather and conditions and everything else, like what are we looking at here for the next seven days, September 30th to the 7th? What has you excited? 00:26:15 Speaker 3: Man, so like today, we're on a warming trend today. High is 80. By Wednesday, we got 91. And then somewhere, I don't know what date Saturday falls in, but– We got rain coming in for three days is what the weather's showing. And then early next week, like the 5th and 6th, it's dropping 25, 20, 25 degrees. You know, sunny, hot pressure days, everything that you would dream of as an opening week of bow hunting. 00:26:48 Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's going to be a lot of really great hunts for a lot of people across the country. I mean, looking here in Illinois, somewhat of a similar weather pattern on the first here. It looks like we're supposed to get an inch of rain and then a cool off. And man, I can remember a lot of first of October's where it might as well be 95 degrees. Cause it felt like that. So this is a nice change of pace. 00:27:10 Speaker 3: What, um, that's the recipe, dude. 00:27:13 Speaker 1: That is the recipe. The weather is key here. What, um, what have you been, what do you think the deer are feeding on and your neck of the woods in Kentucky? Do you think they were switched over to acorns? Is there still some green soybean fields? Are they still in alfalfa? Um, or are they deep in the timber? 00:27:28 Speaker 3: Man, uh, I really think it's all about the acorns, no matter where you're at right now. They say that's their number one food source, and I believe it. It was so weird. We had such a wet summer here, but towards the very end of it, we had no rain. So they're getting the crops out like crazy. Corn, beans. The bean fields have turned, I don't know, probably a month ago, every one that I've seen. So that's kind of out of the game here. But we do have some cut cornfields, I mean, literally popping up everywhere every day. But, man, you just can't beat that mass crop and the timber from those white oaks. 00:28:12 Speaker 1: Last week it was kind of all over the place in terms of the production of the mass crop. We had Maryland, we had Wisconsin, we had Ohio, and we had one other state that I'm– and I think North Carolina. And there was quite a variety of what the mass crop scout was. Have you paid any attention to see if this is going to be a bumper crop, average crop? Hard to tell. 00:28:39 Speaker 3: No, I really haven't, other than around my yard. I've got about five acres of timber right there at my house, and it is white oaks, nothing but white oaks, and they all are good. They're all in my yard right now and all over my driveway. So I'm assuming... it's going to be a good year. 00:28:57 Speaker 1: Yeah. Have you had deer eating, eating in your yard? 00:29:01 Speaker 3: Man, every day. I've got food plots in my yard. 00:29:06 Speaker 1: Okay. So that's, this is a good, good, uh, in the evening. Are you seeing them stand underneath the Oak trees? Are you seeing them hit your food plots or both? 00:29:14 Speaker 3: Man, it's, I'm going to say it's more than that and more than the Oak trees. Yeah, for sure. Um, I know it's probably what everybody's talking about right now because that's, you've been deer, deer hunting very long. That's, Really what they're going after. And I'm not saying they won't change it up here on some of these ag fields, especially like the cornfields. I do think that you could catch one slipping out to an ag field. It's just such a toss-up, man, because I know how it is when the acorns start falling. Yeah. 00:29:46 Speaker 1: Let's say for someone that is newer to hunting and they're hearing this now and they're like, oh my gosh, I've paid attention to the row crops, I've found thick bedding areas, I've done all these other things, but I haven't identified... white oak trees to where i don't know if there's acorns i think there's some acorns potentially or white oaks on on this particular piece of public or property that i hunt but i don't know that for sure would you encourage them to go out on maybe one of those rainy days or really hot days and and do a speed scout to try to figure out where they may or may not be feeding i would. 00:30:17 Speaker 3: Probably choose a hot day in the middle of the day you know try to stay out of there when it's real wet just you know you're gonna leave a lot less scent when it's dry and um But you can slip in there and just look around, and it's real easy to find where they're eating at, if they are eating it. It makes it real hard when all the trees are raining down. It really does. But, I mean, they will literally turn the leaves up. And from my experience, the most I can tell, they spit like that whole of the acorn out. Like you can physically find where they've chewed them and spit them out. 00:30:53 Speaker 1: Yeah. I've never paid close enough attention to that. 00:30:56 Speaker 3: A lot of times, you know, you got the perfect recipe. You'll find some fresh rubs or scrapes right there, you know, the droppings. But for me, like I've found some over the years that were really close to bedding, like where the deer had advantages for whatever reason, and they really would just be tore up. It'd look like, you know, turkeys were in there scratching around, if that makes sense. 00:31:19 Speaker 1: Yeah. So that's probably the biggest thing for someone to do this upcoming week for folks that are having an opening day season. I know you had success early last year in Kentucky. I feel like there's two philosophies when it comes to early season. It's swing for the fences or play a little defensively. Where do you fall on that? 00:31:42 Speaker 3: I've always swung for the fences. I'll always go down swinging. If I strike out, I'm going to go down swinging. I'm not going to let the ball come, but I've always hunted, so, you know, been on the public ground. I've always had thousands and thousands and thousands of acres. And if I bumped a deer, I would just move on to the next one because I always had an A plan, a B plan, or, you know, a C plan. And, you know, even though I'm grateful and I have a couple thousand acres of private ground to hunt now, I definitely can, I'm being way more cautious. Way more cautious. 00:32:21 Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's a good example of those two different almost hunting styles, too, of when you have plan A to Z. You can afford to swing really hard every time or if you need to be a little bit more methodical. Based off the weather and everything else, on a scale of 1 to 10, how are things shaping up for the 30th to the 7th with that front that rolls in, the rain's going to stop, temperature's going to drop, pressure's going to increase? Sounds like a pretty good recipe here. Scale of 1 to 10, where do you put it? 00:32:51 Speaker 3: And I put it, I put it up there. I really do just because like right now, you know, it's today probably wouldn't be a bad day, but you know, come Wednesday when it's 90 at right at the 1st of October, I think the 1st is Thursday. Dude, it's just no good. Um, then you put a little rain in there and five days later it drops 20 or 25 degrees. And you know, the parameters, uh, you know, I really do think the sunny high pressure days are the best. That's just me. But, um, Man, I don't see how for an evening set, or even if you were set up in the morning in the right position, I don't even see how it could be any better this time of year. I really do think there'll be some big deer die, especially in Southern Illinois, places that are close to me that have real similar weather, because deer just haven't had any pressure yet. 00:33:39 Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. So, great opportunity to capitalize on that, depending on what state you're in. It's exciting, man. This is like the October 1 episode, so that means... We're all really excited and giddy and a lot of opportunity, and I think it's going to be a great year for people to learn, get better, and ultimately just enjoy this time that we've been waiting for all year because it goes by fast. We were just talking before, and the year flew by, and now the rest of the year is going to go even faster because things get crazy busy. 00:34:12 Speaker 3: You know, life, it goes fast. When I was a coal miner, I used to wish my life away, you know, like can't wait for the weekend or can't wait for– November, can't wait for vacation. And, you know, now that I'm in here in this barbershop, you know, my kids are pretty much grown up and the weekend's here. And, you know, I wish things could slow down a little bit. I guess it shows you how precious life is. But, man, for everybody that's listening, like if they could take advantage of this time frame around in here, like today, for an example, if you could get out and glass like some of these ag fields, that have been harvested or maybe even an observation set and spend a couple of days doing that. And then maybe take advantage of a day that you can slip in there and maybe look for some white oaks. That might even give you a little better idea, you know, and where to be because over the years, it's weird how I've changed and how my, my views have changed. And like, I look at it now, like, I'm not sure there's a wrong way to deer hunt. I mean, I think there's better ways. Sure. You know, I do think there's better ways. So, man, if I was going to tell anybody, I would get out glass and fields a couple days, and then if you could get in there before the rain, you know, that way you're sensing all over the ground, I would get in there and I would check some white oaks. I really would look for whether they chew those holes out because they really do. They'll spit them out, and there'll be droppings in there. And, you know, this time of year, man, if there's some bucks in there, There's going to be some sign. 00:35:50 Speaker 1: Yeah, perfect. Well, Josh, if people want to swing in and get a fresh cut for deer season, where do they do that? 00:35:59 Speaker 3: The big buck cuts are at Seabree Barbershop here in western Kentucky. 00:36:03 Speaker 2: Awesome. 00:36:04 Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much, Josh. Good luck this season. Yes, sir. all right folks there you guys have i hope you guys enjoyed this week's episode of rut fresh the season goes fast so get out there enjoy this opening week if you're in one of the lucky states opening october 1st and if you've already been open hopefully you're building up a case to strike and have an opportunity at whatever type of deer you're after so we'll see you next week on rut fresh once again if you guys want to be featured on rut fresh shoot me a message at jake hofer on instagram and we're going to try to get as many different states as we can get on here this season so we'll see you 00:36:42 Speaker 5: Thank you.

Save this episode