00:00:00 Speaker 1: What is going on? Welcome to another episode of Back 40 presented by Moultrie. This is Jake Hofer, and we are back with our panel of experts. And this episode, it's a pretty simple theme. During the rut, during November, oftentimes we say the rut's unpredictable. You just get lucky, whatever the case may be. But other people are in the chips, having more opportunity than others. And so I wanted to bring in our panel that have a lot of experiences, a lot of Novembers under their belt, and ultimately some research too. So This week, we're talking about what is predictable. And to kick things off, we have Dr. Bronson Strickland. From a research perspective, what can he tell us from GPS-collared research and trends that might help you? So here is Dr. Bronson Strickland. All right, Dr. Strickland, welcome back to Back 40. How are you doing? 00:00:54 Speaker 2: I'm doing great. 00:00:55 Speaker 1: Good to be here. Well, it's November 12th and there's some people that just had the best season of their life. And then there's some people that are saying, oh man, you know, we're almost halfway through November. I've been getting my butt kicked. Everything feels extremely unpredictable. The rut is just chaos or it's just a complete bust depending on what you're observing. And the simple question here is what is predictable with the whitetail rut and how can I use this information to hopefully finish strong? Yeah. 00:01:27 Speaker 3: Well, I'm probably not going to win a Nobel prize with what I'm about to say, but, um, what is very predictable, um, it's not even predictable. It's just fact is that during the peak of the rut is that movement rates, buck movement rates are going to increase about 50%. What that means is at least down here with our data, a buck is going to go from moving about, um, 5,000 yards a day to about 7,500 yards a day. So that means he's up more, he's moving more, therefore the odds of catching him moving around goes up. What's interesting to me, though, is what happens the next two weeks. We break up the rut when we analyze it into two-week phases, and so you've got the two weeks where it you have the peak where most of the breeding is occurring. The next two weeks afterwards is when you see movement rate is a little bit less, but their home range for that two weeks expands a lot. 00:02:38 Speaker 1: It literally doubles. 00:02:41 Speaker 3: And I actually have the numbers here that during the peak of the rut, the average home range is about 800 acres. The two weeks following the rut, it's about 1600 acres. 00:02:51 Speaker 1: Wow. 00:02:53 Speaker 3: So what that means is you're going to have deer moving, of course, and during the peak of the rut, they're searching, they're tending, they're chasing. Why, at least this is what we think, why their home range doubles right after the peak is because they are searching for does that have not been bred yet. So a majority of them have been bred during the peak of the rut, but there's going to be that 15, 20, 25% maybe that haven't been bred And those bucks are out searching larger areas now trying to find those few remaining does and estrus. So great opportunity right there. They're still moving a lot and now they're covering a lot of area. So it's just a great time to spend time in the woods and wait. 00:03:43 Speaker 1: So that really goes from a mile and a quarter home range to a two and a half mile home range in that scenario. Um, With some of the collared research that you've done, if someone, let's say, was on the fringe of this double, you know, the extended home range, do you think they would have gotten them on camera at some point leading up to this period of time? Or could it truly be a new, you know, maybe from the year previous, but beyond that, you know, from 2026 this year till whenever the second phase of that rut, is it likely that you probably didn't have them on camera? Until the 2025 season? Does that make sense? I know I didn't say that, phrase it perfectly. 00:04:28 Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess it'd be hard. Yes, I'd say that could absolutely happen. It would just depend on were you kind of on the fringe of his home range. But if where your cameras or your camera grid was was kind of centered on where he shifted to, I think there's a, yeah, very good chance you're going to get photos of him. the next year and see him the next year. 00:04:52 Speaker 1: But it could be a total surprise. Let's say you're on a new property and you're hoping for this opportunity. There's a good chance he could show up, but you did not have him in velvet. You didn't have him in late October. You didn't have him in the first two weeks of November. And boom, he shows up. That's a possibility. 00:05:07 Speaker 4: That can happen. 00:05:08 Speaker 1: Absolutely. You know, there's always hope. There's always hope that he's going to show up. 00:05:13 Speaker 3: And, you know, seriously, one thing we haven't talked about yet is We talked about shifting, and that occurs a great deal. Another thing that occurs just about always for all bucks is what we call an excursion. So when you and I earlier were talking about a shift, we're talking about a shift in their home range and where they are going to spend time for the next two weeks, the next month, the next season, whatever. But an excursion is a trip, an exploratory trip. And so there will also be bucks you'll get photographs or see while you're hunting you've never had a photo of, you'll never get a photo of it, and you may never see it again. It literally may be on your property for one afternoon and you'll never see it again. And that is when you need to be ready. We talked about, you know, doing your inventory, aging them, making sure you shoot the right ones. You also have to be prepared for making some in-game decisions spontaneously. Because that absolutely happens. A mature buck wanders through that you had no knowledge of. 00:06:22 Speaker 1: With the research that you've done, you talked about looking at it from a two-week period. But is there any micro patterns, like where during the rut specifically, where a buck moves into an area and he's there for 48 hours or 24 hours or 36 hours? And I understand every deer is different. But for anyone that's just got a picture of a big buck today that they were hoping to show up, how quickly is that fleeting? As he looks for a new devil. 00:06:50 Speaker 3: You would have a greater probability during the peak of the rut compared. 00:06:57 Speaker 2: To the two weeks after. 00:06:58 Speaker 3: And here's what I mean by that. Despite the great difference that we talked about doubling the home range, the two weeks during the peak and the two weeks after, home range size doubles. 00:07:10 Speaker 4: The daily... the daily. 00:07:13 Speaker 3: Home range is exactly the same. It's 200 acres. So that buck, regardless of the time of year relative to the rut, they're going to cover and spend most of their time in about 200 acres. During the rut, because the home range is smaller, those 200 acre daily home ranges are overlapping. There's more fidelity to a smaller area. And then that expands and after the rut because they are searching, they're expanding their search for estrous does. So greater fidelity, if you got him on the property, more chance to see him, I guess, during the rut. If your neighbor has that buck on their property during the rut, you increase your odds the two weeks after that he's going to meander over to your property. 00:08:06 Speaker 1: As far as in the most basic format, well, Are you setting up, and this is geared towards the Midwest right now since it's November 12th in this scenario, but are you more geared towards just hunting a travel corridor, downwind of doe bedding, hunting a food source in an evening? I'm trying to keep it really generic of different strategies for this time period where some people say, well, don't hunt food sources during the rut because the does are sick of being harassed. Where would you be in the morning and evening or evening? How are you spending your time efficiently throughout this time? 00:08:43 Speaker 3: I think one of the most productive things you could do, most everybody, unless you're on public land or something like that, but most everybody has food plots, right? And I think a very productive thing to do would be to figure out as. 00:08:59 Speaker 1: Best you can. 00:09:00 Speaker 3: And you can manipulate this. That's the thing about habitat management. You can make these scenarios happen. is what is my most likely or what do I have photo evidence for being a travel corridor that links up a couple food plots or a network of food plots? And that is where I'm going to go. So I'm not going to be disturbing the does that are on the food plot. I'm not going to be blowing them off. But what our data show is that pre-rut and rut, bucks are different. visiting food plots just as often as they do during the post-rut, but their visit is a very, very short duration during pre-rut and rut because the purpose is different. During the rut, they're visiting that food plot to find a girlfriend. During the post-rut, they're visiting that food plot to eat, and so they'll spend a lot of time on those food plots. So when you think about it like that, is that bucks are going to be spending very little time on the plot. They're going there, they're doing inventory, they're heat checking, you know, those does, and they're going to be going to another one to do the same. How do I position myself in between those? And I think you really increase your odds to intercept them. 00:10:20 Speaker 2: Okay. 00:10:21 Speaker 1: Super helpful. 00:10:22 Speaker 3: Well, I mean, if you're looking for a girlfriend, you got to go to where the girlfriends are, where the girls are. And that time of year, a lot of that's going to be food plots. 00:10:31 Speaker 5: Yeah. 00:10:32 Speaker 1: And so just to clarify to you, you're not, you're not setting up on the food source. You're maybe downwind. Well, once again, I know they travel not always with the wind, but is the generalization hunting downwind, maybe 150, 200 yards off that food source, depending on the terrain and all the other different factors. Is that a fair generalization? 00:10:49 Speaker 4: Absolutely. 00:10:50 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:10:50 Speaker 6: Yeah. 00:10:51 Speaker 3: Or if you've got two really productive food plots a thousand yards apart, you might want to situate at a good interception point, you know, good tree, good topography, so forth, you know, 500 yards equally in between them. 00:11:07 Speaker 1: Okay. Well, that's predictable. And that's just going to be a different way of hunting. 00:11:11 Speaker 2: You know, it's not going to be on. 00:11:12 Speaker 3: A food plot and watching deer and a lot of deer. It's really getting into intercepting a buck that is using that hub or that circuit on the landscape and catching him individually. 00:11:26 Speaker 1: Short window of opportunity. It could be there and gone very quickly, so you've got to pay attention. 00:11:32 Speaker 5: Exactly. 00:11:33 Speaker 1: Wonderful. Well, Dr. Strickland, where is the best place for people to reach out to you, see what you have going on these days? 00:11:41 Speaker 3: Yeah, they can go to wildlifeinvestments.com. Also on social media, Facebook, Instagram, and we also have a podcast, the Wildlife Investments Podcast. So kind of some of the stuff we're talking about with all this movement, behavior, and so forth. We did a number of podcasts on that topic if that interests you and you want to dig a little bit deeper. If you want to get a little more nerdy about it, we go into great nerdy detail on those podcasts. 00:12:09 Speaker 1: Right up my alley. Well, thank you so much. Moving right along, we have Jason Michael. Jason, if you haven't caught the other Back 40 episodes, is someone that should be very relatable. Bounces around, hunts multiple states, has hunted very long, and has experienced many, many, many Novembers. Here's his perspective, his answer on what is predictable about the whitetail rut. All right, Jason, welcome back to Back 40. And it's November 12th. And I feel like right now people are still listening to this. type of content. They probably have a tag in their pocket. They're still hunting and they might be miffed of, oh my gosh, I just can't get anything right. Everything feels so random. It's November 12th. The last five days, I've just got my butt kicked. So my simple question is, what is predictable about the rut? What is predictable from November 12th for the next two weeks that will be helpful for folks? 00:13:08 Speaker 5: Predictable. 00:13:09 Speaker 1: What is predictable with the most unpredictable period? 00:13:12 Speaker 5: Yes. 00:13:13 Speaker 7: Yes. 00:13:16 Speaker 5: That he's going to be on his feet during daylight hours more than any time of the year. Miserable weather. It's going to happen. Take advantage of it. I love drizzly days, light breezy days, sleet coming and going, maybe a light snow shower, melts off by 10, 11 a.m., sun comes back out, no consistency to weather. That's a given. And it's the season of change. So, We pick on those days, November 12th, who probably, for me, some key days have been that window the 19th through the 23rd or 24th of November. And for a guy who hasn't punched a tag, he's coming into a window where he's just potentially coming off of what we refer to as lockdown. And they aren't locked down November 1st and they aren't locked down December 1st. A buck could be breeding a doe then and locked down with that one particular scenario and But across the board, the mature bucks, let's call them the three and four-year-olds potentially in the real world, they're going to be on their feet more than ever. Coming into like the 20th, 21st, 22nd, they're always going to be searching and seeking. Midday could be as good as midnight. It is probably, again, one of the most unpredictable times of year. But yet, to a guy that has that rut vacation scheduled late potentially, which I'm more of a fan of, You got the woods to yourself, especially in a public land situation, the 20th of November, then you did, say, November 8th, 9th, 10th. And log hours, it's a broken record in funnels on a flat, big country, big, big mountain country in the Northeast United States or in a long, long diversion ditch where the muskrats and mink live out in the middle of the switchgrass and growed up habitat fields. Does are still going to do November 15th through the 25th of November, what they did October 15th through the 25th, they're still going to rise and they're going to go eat in the evenings. In the morning, they're going to descend back to their bedding areas. So you can still queue in on the does for the most part, but now you're in the jam of the jam and he is seeking and food is not at the top of his priority. So logging hours, picking your days if you can, or maybe you're hopefully your own vacation or the weekend, it hits just right. Miserable weather, turning sunny weather, a storm moving in at midnight and not moving out till 9 a.m. I would encourage you to get in the tree stand by 8.30 a.m. with the rain jacket on waiting for it to end. Do not let the storm end and go, I'm going to get dressed. I'm going to go out within the next hour. I'll get in my tree stand. That's when you're getting to your tree and you're looking and you run into each other type of scenario that could happen. So be on your toes, be ready to go, be ready to log hours and keep looking left and right. 00:16:13 Speaker 1: There was a specific hunt last year. I was doing a hanging hunt and the storm finished up a little bit sooner. I was trying to do that exactly. Get out there before it ends. And it was probably right around this timeframe. And I'm in between two different bedding areas, just a little open transition area. And I bet I had five or six different bucks from the time I put my first stick on by the time I hung my stand where, you know, like all the commotion and everything. And, okay, I'm hurrying and scurrying. And so I would have to go back and look at my phone to see what day it was, but it was probably right around then. So that's a key example to where if you're in the spot, man, you feel like you got to go right. 00:16:50 Speaker 5: All's it takes is to have that happen to you personally one time. And you will honor it for the rest of your life as a bowhunter. 00:16:56 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:16:57 Speaker 5: I could sit here and talk about it until the sun comes up tomorrow morning. It's irrelevant. When you go and you experience that for yourself, you'll never forget it. 00:17:05 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:17:06 Speaker 1: I saw five or six bucks when I was hanging my stand. I think I saw one buck the remainder of the evening. 00:17:10 Speaker 5: And what size they were was irrelevant. It was the fact that antler deer were on their feet. Yeah. Year and a half old, two and a half year old, three and a half year old, the buzz was on. 00:17:20 Speaker 1: Yes. Yes. What, uh, what else is predictable about the rut? And this could even be deer behavior or hunter behavior that, um, is going to happen over the next, you know, from November 12th, uh, November 17th, let's say. 00:17:36 Speaker 5: What is predictable? Yeah. 00:17:39 Speaker 1: Like now I feel like we're in the, we're in the pain cave of season for a lot of guys. They've been hunting really hard for two weeks and, uh, someone's like, oh, you know, Go hunt for two weeks and tell me how you're mentally feeling if you strike out multiple times. So what would you say to someone that might be in that position right now or just like right on the cusp of like, man, I need to take a break or man, I'm just ready to hang it up and wait till gun season, whatever the case may be. 00:18:04 Speaker 5: Ultimately, I'm kind of a big fan of that individual that struck out to that point because what they're not maybe realizing and just me picking on the positive side of it. at least they got to go the distance. Cameron's talked about it. I've talked about it on numerous podcasts with you guys. Once in a while, for you to go all of October and all of November, and you hunt every weekend, you maybe have a rut vacation here, a pre-rut vacation, just whatever, you're getting to go the distance. You're learning a lot, and you're finding out a lot about yourself. So for someone that's made it to the 12th, 13th, 14th, and they aren't tugged out yet, my encouragement is this. potentially the best is yet to come. And arguably some of the biggest bucks in your area are going to be on their feet more the 15th through the 30th of November than they were the first of November to the middle of November 15th. So be positive. The best, actually some of the best is yet to come. I'm still a huge fan of November 15th through the 23rd. I really, really am. 00:19:13 Speaker 1: What's your least favorite November date from the 12th to the 17th, if you had to pick? 00:19:20 Speaker 5: Of the actual 12th to the 17th, if I had to pick a day out, that'd be my least favorite? Yeah. The 12th. 00:19:26 Speaker 1: Really? 00:19:26 Speaker 5: Yep. I'm going towards 15, 16, 17. Yeah. I'm logging hours. Yeah. 00:19:32 Speaker 1: 10th and 11th, typically pretty good. 12th, 13th, like, man, what happened? 00:19:35 Speaker 7: Yep. 00:19:36 Speaker 1: That's why we did this one. 00:19:37 Speaker 5: I think you had them, forgive me for their names, they had a fantastic podcast with you The boys that were on like two weeks ago. The two individuals sat there talking to you. I'm not sure where they were from, but they said typically... Oh, Tyler and Casey. 00:19:54 Speaker 1: The ailment. Yeah. 00:19:55 Speaker 5: What is it called? The ailment. 00:19:56 Speaker 4: Yep. 00:19:57 Speaker 1: Yep. 00:19:58 Speaker 5: I think it was them. I hope I'm getting this correct. 00:19:59 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. 00:20:00 Speaker 5: November 10th. We're so charged up. 00:20:02 Speaker 4: Best day of the year. 00:20:03 Speaker 5: He goes, it was the worst day of the year. We couldn't believe it. It just happens sometimes. That's just the way it is. And yeah, you know, we'll talk about that and some other things coming up, but you can predict one month out. And then when you get like a week out and you're like, and then you're starting to look, man, that's like the best day of the year. They're predicting 30 mile an hour sustained winds with gust of 45. I don't know what to tell you. Yeah. 00:20:27 Speaker 1: Well, Jason, where can, where can people follow along with what you have going on? I appreciate the pre pep talk because people are going to need it. 00:20:35 Speaker 5: Yep. JasonMichael803 on Instagram, and that's where I'm at. 00:20:39 Speaker 1: There you have it. Next up, we have Tony LaPrat from Michigan. And so Tony is a little bit different than Jason. Tony has a very well-designed property he's been working on for decades, and he's going to tell us what he's been able to observe during November, during the peak breeding phase lockdown, on how you can predict what may happen during November. All right, it's November 12th. The rut is rocking and rolling, and we might be sneaking into potentially lockdown period, depending on where you're at throughout the country. But I feel the rut, people love it or hate it. There's reasons why you would fall on both ends of the spectrum. But I want to focus on what is, my simple question is, what is predictable with the whitetail rut? 00:21:28 Speaker 6: Well, first of all, there ain't nothing really predictable because it matters what doe came into heat last night, and that changes. 00:21:35 Speaker 4: And then you need to. 00:21:35 Speaker 6: Understand some basic things about the rut. You've got to realize that doe wants to breed. She'll go to the licking branches, and that's why that buck wants to put them all over. Then the other thing is the buck is trying to hide her from other deer, okay, other competition. That's why, and the doe don't want to be around the other does to bed, okay? So what they usually do is go someplace and bed in an odd spot where you've never seen them. 00:22:03 Speaker 1: A ditch. 00:22:03 Speaker 6: A ditch, a waterway out, a little ridge out in the middle of a cornfield. And they're just sitting up there because they can see. But nobody's there. Now, there is things you can do, which I have done to my property. You can make these odd places small, but nobody beds there. But then during the rut, they like to use them for cover to breed. 00:22:25 Speaker 4: And then they also work for great fawning areas. 00:22:28 Speaker 6: But what you really want to try to do on your property, if you don't have all these little things, you need to make sure you have nice social hubs, pinch points where a lot of deer are going to move through. And you got to remember, a lot of times what you want to do is have a little food plot associated with a big food plot. And most of the time, that buck is still an old buck, and he's following the girls. But you want to get them trained to come into that little food plot and slowly move out towards the bigger food plots so. 00:23:00 Speaker 4: You need small, medium, and large. 00:23:02 Speaker 6: And I basically designed my property during the rut that the deer will still use my pinch points because of the style of how I build them. 00:23:11 Speaker 4: Now, you can't make that. 00:23:12 Speaker 6: 100%, yet they're very productive because But the point is that doe may be one of them does just want to go out in the middle of that cornfield and eat and there ain't nothing you can do about it. That's why I go the rut takes all the things you do and kind of throws it out the window and you just need to do the best you can. But I'm going to tell you the properties that have the most unique cover is going to hold that doe better than a property that has nothing. 00:23:36 Speaker 1: So what's a couple examples of unique cover that you've seen over the years? 00:23:40 Speaker 6: Well, it can be the amount of a switchgrass field, but then you got to watch that they ain't too big because you make them too big, then it's another bedding area in there, and then now the doe don't want to go in there. So there's a lot of little things that make good. They love any kind of little pothole or cover that sets out in the middle of a field. 00:23:59 Speaker 4: If you make a little cover. 00:24:00 Speaker 6: Nine times at a time, there ain't nothing ever out there. But during the rut, you'll be amazed that's where they're going to go. But that should be associated with your stand site and how they enter and exit. So them can be designed so they're still in your kill zone, just outer ways. And then the rest of the year, they're using the bedding areas back in your woods. But now they're looking for that little cover where no one goes. They go, that little spot, no one's out there. All of a sudden, you notice the buck standing beside it. It's because his girlfriend lives inside. So these are things you can design. And I go, guys, that's what I do is I design all these little details and And now the deer is always on your property. 00:24:36 Speaker 4: Don't have a reason to leave. 00:24:38 Speaker 6: Most people I'm looking at, like I said, 20 minutes, the deer's leaving their property because of the setup. They got all their answers or stuff is too big and they don't even want to go to it. So now they're going out the other door. 00:24:51 Speaker 1: So you mentioned, you know, bucks changing their kind of mindset, if you will, every 10 days from November 12th to roughly November 22nd. What's shifting over the next 10 days in your opinion when it comes to mature buck behavior? 00:25:05 Speaker 4: From what dates were you looking at? 00:25:06 Speaker 1: November 12th to like the 22nd or whatever, plus or minus a day. 00:25:09 Speaker 6: Well, what they're going to do, they bred the big wave of does coming into estrus, but now there'll be some stragglers. 00:25:17 Speaker 4: But by then, they've lost a lot of weight. 00:25:20 Speaker 6: And they're wore down. And usually by then they have came across a lot of hunter smell because everyone's hunting during the rut. 00:25:27 Speaker 5: Yep. Okay. 00:25:29 Speaker 4: So now he's also smart. 00:25:30 Speaker 6: He knows at night when he's moving around, he's smelling human scent in a lot of areas. And so what he's doing now is he wants to move into some thicker area and he's basically starting to hide already. So what you got to understand is you need that thick cover that that big buck feels safe in. But at the same time, you have does in the area because there will be other does cycling. And you need then to make sure you're hunting these little bitty food plots where a lot of guys late season hunt these big food plots. And you can kill a big buck if you're in Illinois or Iowa or someplace like that. Come in Michigan and they're ghost towns. There ain't no deer go out in the big field. 00:26:10 Speaker 7: Why? 00:26:10 Speaker 4: Because there's 20 guys hunting around that thing. So they learn they don't have to go there. So I go, guys, make little food plots. 00:26:18 Speaker 1: Like what's little? Quarter acre? 00:26:19 Speaker 7: Yeah. 00:26:20 Speaker 4: A half acre, no bigger than that. 00:26:22 Speaker 6: You want small ones and they should be planted with late stuff that the deer wants. So turnips and things that are going to be there that they want to eat in late season. So them are the better places. If you've got to put a fence around them to protect them, a hot wire, keep them for key time and then take it down. And now that buck has cover and now he's got some food source there. 00:26:45 Speaker 1: You brought up an interesting point about everyone hunting. Do you think the most predictable thing about the rut is the amount of hunting pressure? 00:26:51 Speaker 4: Yes. Everything changes. There ain't nobody that don't go out there in the rut. 00:26:55 Speaker 5: Yeah. 00:26:56 Speaker 6: I mean, I don't care what you, everybody hits the rut. They don't have no excuses. Rest of the years, they can come and go, hunters. When the rut's on, you can't go by any section where there ain't people in every parking spot on that block. 00:27:10 Speaker 4: Everybody goes out. 00:27:11 Speaker 6: You got to remember that buck can smell the average hunter for three days any place he walked or touched. Instantly, he goes, I need to get to my thick stuff. And he moves into there. And now, even though the rut before he was moving, and now he shrinks his world. And that's what they call that lockdown because what he does get a doe in, it's really hunting pressure that makes him go in a tighter spot. 00:27:35 Speaker 1: To where they don't want to go and mess with anything. 00:27:38 Speaker 6: But if you already know that that's what they want to do and you make bedding area and little food and make a stand for that and you save it for them right times, they're deadly. 00:27:47 Speaker 4: Most guys are still trying to hunt that big field. I go, them days are gone. 00:27:51 Speaker 6: You had a couple of days that might have worked, and now you're behind that buck. He's here, and you're waiting back here. And then you try to move in, and he's already ahead of you, and you're never going to catch up with him. 00:28:03 Speaker 5: Yeah. 00:28:04 Speaker 4: You're too far behind the eight ball. 00:28:06 Speaker 1: Any other sage advice for this time frame? 00:28:09 Speaker 6: Well, you just need to hunt all day. But that's what people should do from the scrape period on. These bucks move all day. You take all my bucks on the wall from 10.30 to 2.30 in the afternoon, that's when most of them are all killed. 00:28:21 Speaker 1: What percentage do you think? 00:28:24 Speaker 4: Probably over 75%. 00:28:26 Speaker 5: Wow. 00:28:27 Speaker 1: You said 10.30 to 2.30? Yeah. 00:28:29 Speaker 6: Most of my bucks are killed middle of the day. And I always, when I kill them, I go, there ain't another hunter. The day I killed that 12-pointer and 14-pointer, both them bucks were killed immediately. In the middle of the afternoon around 2 o'clock, I go, there ain't even a hunter in the woods yet around on my block that pull in until about 3, 4 o'clock. 00:28:47 Speaker 5: Yeah. 00:28:48 Speaker 6: And mine are on the ground dead. I don't even get out of my blind to track them or go follow them. They're laying over there dead, and I just look at them. 00:28:55 Speaker 4: They ain't going nowhere. 00:28:56 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:28:57 Speaker 4: I get down. 00:28:58 Speaker 6: I'm scaring all the other deer and pushing them to my neighbors. I'm that of a guy. Like me or hate me, you don't want me to be your neighbor because, guys, I'm not going to make a mistake. 00:29:09 Speaker 4: Everything I go, don't go after him. 00:29:11 Speaker 6: You scare one buck over there, he may not get killed today. Tomorrow coming in, he could get shot. 00:29:16 Speaker 4: Starve him out. 00:29:18 Speaker 6: You want to hunt there? I want him to hunt 50 days and hardly see a deer. Because why? You make it easy for the neighbors. They're going to be there all the time. 00:29:28 Speaker 1: I mean, yeah. So we're going to have a, we're going to dive, we're going to have a full length episode on the Whitetail podcast and the Whitetail Cribs that we recorded today. So we'll dive into a lot of this. This is all, quick question and answer here. So once again, if people are inclined to have them call the other episodes, we're going to track you down. 00:29:46 Speaker 6: Basically, the best thing to do is look up TonyLaprat.com. Tony at TonyLaprat.com. And you're going to see I'm Tony Laprat, Ultimate Land Managements and Whitetail Boot Camps. And, guys, we already got our dates, and we're going to be putting that out next week. All our boot camps are already picked for this upcoming season. And then we're going to even start doing land managements. We're going to book them ahead of time. Guys, normally I won't even put the dates of the boot camps until that year. But it makes my wife crazy because we get a million people trying to get a hold of her at one time. So we're going to spread it out and set it up earlier. 00:30:25 Speaker 1: And last but not least, we have Skip Slye. who used to travel to Illinois, Kansas, Iowa, and the Midwest from Michigan originally to tell us what to keep in mind right now that's going to help you throughout the rest of this week, through this weekend, and really through the rest of November. Here we go. All right. November 12th. People are feeling some of the unpredictable things of the rut. There's a lot of things that I think are unpredictable of the rut. What is predictable? 00:30:56 Speaker 7: The people are going to be burned out, especially the people that have to fill their tags are going to be burned out, discouraged. I think I'm going to just wrap up the hunting trip a little early. You know, I've been away from home for three days, and I think I'm just going to hang up early. People get burned out really quick, and they don't understand the mental game that goes into it. Like, you have to know that when you leave, if you're going to hunt hard and you like hunting hard, that it's going to wear on you. And you're not used to doing that. That's the first time you've done that in a whole year. And you're just going to, it's going to hit you hard. It's kind of like you're the dude that sits on the couch all year. And then all of a sudden you have to get forced into the gym and it just shocks your system. Well, that's honestly how hunting the rut is. And a lot of guys can't handle it. And then, and then when it doesn't come together, it's three, four days. And then you get discouraged and they get demoralized. And these grown men start to get all frustrated and have little man tantrums and Uh, I think I'm just going to go back home and then they get the guilt. They try and convince themselves with the guilt trip that, you know, uh, I've been away from home. It's like, dude, it's good to be away from home once in a while. This only comes around once a year and you get very few hunting seasons. 00:32:13 Speaker 2: So enjoy it. Um, that's, what's predictable. 00:32:17 Speaker 4: That'll happen. 00:32:18 Speaker 5: Yeah. 00:32:18 Speaker 1: Most people it'll happen. How do you, do you just knuckle up? You just keep going? 00:32:22 Speaker 7: Yeah, it's, I mean, you got to be mentally prepared for it. When you've done this long enough, you just know that's what's coming. And, you know, part of it's attitude. Part of it's, you know, there's people that you give them a task to do and some people just get demoralized and it doesn't go right. 00:32:37 Speaker 2: And they have failures or it could be planting. 00:32:39 Speaker 7: It could be, hey, I'm going to learn how to farm and something breaks and they get all ticked off and they don't want to do it again. 00:32:45 Speaker 2: I'm going to take my ball and go home. 00:32:47 Speaker 7: And, you know, so a lot of it's just mental and it's attitude and it's, Uh, it's how you look at it and, you know, I mean, fundamentally it is hard. It's difficult, but I think we like this because it's hard and difficult. And if you don't like something that's hard and difficult, this might not be the right thing for you, but that's, but that's why I think most serious hunters love hunting because it's hard and difficult. So just realize you're signing up for hard and difficult. And when hard and difficult comes, this is what you signed up for. You know, it's coming and I'm telling you right now it's coming. So mentally prepare for it. maybe physically prepare for it. Um, you know, learn how to say, you know, I am burned out and tomorrow it's going to be 80 degrees. 00:33:29 Speaker 2: Maybe I'll take a day off. 00:33:31 Speaker 7: Maybe I'll go bird hunting or something, or, you know, just, you know, and, and if, if I could do it, like if, if I was hunting close to home and I had a big stretch, like, Hey, I'm going to hunt for 10 days. 00:33:44 Speaker 2: And that'd be about as long as I'd want to do it. 00:33:47 Speaker 7: And, um, I'm like four days in and all of a sudden it got really hot for three days, like really hot. 00:33:53 Speaker 2: Could I still shoot a deer? 00:33:54 Speaker 1: Sure. 00:33:55 Speaker 7: Uh, it's possible, but I would almost just like, okay, I'll go home. I'll recharge. I'll get, I'll get caught up on things. Uh, get myself back in, you know, to my normal head space. And then I would come back and, and then start back up when it got cold again. So kind of recharge my batteries. If you can do that stuff. And then if you can be like flexible with like, The trip I could take, you know, my trip's going to be 10 days and I could push it back or move it forward based on the weather as well. That's so advantageous if you can do that. 00:34:27 Speaker 1: Do you think the mental headspace of, you mentioned like what's predictable of the rut, people are going to get burnt out. Do you think that is having a good headspace, having a good attitude is the most powerful rut hunting tactic? Because I feel like everyone has the basics of rut hunting. Yeah. Get into a tight pinch, make sure your wind's blowing in a safe spot. Maybe not. Maybe, maybe you have a different opinion. 00:34:48 Speaker 7: Well, like there's the one on one of the right for a skilled, for a skilled hunter who truly is a good hunter. 00:34:55 Speaker 5: Yes. 00:34:56 Speaker 7: And then there's people who, uh, think they're a good hunter that maybe just don't have the skills that need to work on some things too. 00:35:05 Speaker 1: Um, like what? 00:35:06 Speaker 5: Oh gosh. 00:35:08 Speaker 7: Uh, like every farm I go on looking where people put their tree stands and how they set up their blinds and how they, uh, what, you know, hunting the same eight foot tall ladder stand every day. And I'm like, how, uh, who taught you this? How did you come up with this idea? Uh, you know, so I, hunting skills to me, in my opinion, I'm not knocking anybody clearly. Um, but hunting skills is kind of like any, any walk of life where 20% of people are very good at it. or 10% are very good at it. And, you know, those, those 10% or that 20% have probably worked hard and they have skillset and they, and there's some hunters, let's just face it. There's some hunters who just, they get it, they get it. And I know people who are like really intelligent, you know, great at whatever. I'm not talking about any particular, anybody in particular, they run this, this massive company and they do it so extraordinarily well. 00:36:12 Speaker 2: And they're a genius. 00:36:14 Speaker 7: But their hunting skills are just– it's just not– it's not for them. It's just– not that it's not for them, but they just don't have those– their mind doesn't work that way. 00:36:26 Speaker 2: I see that a lot. So I don't know. 00:36:34 Speaker 1: It's a predictable take. If someone is listening to this today on November 12th going, man, that's me. I needed to hear that. 00:36:41 Speaker 7: Predictable is this is going to be hard, difficult, but that's what makes it fun. And someday if you persevere and push through the hard and difficult periods, it is fun doing it. And when it finally comes together, you'll realize that's why I did it. And it makes it far more rewarding when it does. Because if I went out literally and shot a deer and like, you know, I hunted three times this year and two times next year. And every time I got a deer, you start to get bored. And when you're like, dude, I had a whole year where I kind of fell on my face or a month straight. 00:37:15 Speaker 2: It just didn't work out. 00:37:18 Speaker 7: The ups and downs, the ebbs and flows of hunting, when things dip down and it's difficult and you have a difficult month, a difficult week, a difficult season, when it finally does come together, that's what makes us so fun, in my opinion. 00:37:33 Speaker 2: And I think that's what captivates most of the hunters out there. 00:37:36 Speaker 5: Yeah. 00:37:37 Speaker 1: Where can people find you, Skip? 00:37:39 Speaker 2: Iowa Whitetail. 00:37:41 Speaker 7: In the woods, on my farm, not on my phone. 00:37:44 Speaker 1: All right, there you guys have it. I hope you guys enjoyed this week's episode of the Back 40 podcast. Appreciate my panel of guests for sharing their insight. I hope your November is going great. Remember, this is the time of year we've been waiting for. I know it gets a little frustrating, maybe a little tiring. Maybe things don't go as planned, but keep these things in mind. What is predictable? What can you control? And we will see you next time.