00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan in this episode number two sixty three, and today's the final part of our two part two thousand eighteen review, And today that means Spencer and I are reviewing trends and observations about the two thousand eighteen deer hunting season from across the country. All right, welcome to another episode of the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Onyx, and today we are kinda relatedly um, but but better late than never. We're kind of wrapping up our radio mini series that we had going throughout the two thousand eighteen hunting season up until mid December. Every week, as you probably remember, we chatted with hunters across the country to find out what was happening out in the woods. Howward, you're reacting to hunting pressure, to different weather conditions, to changing food sources, to all sorts of things like that, and then you know, discussing different ways to take advantage of that. So Spencer is with me and the two of us are kind of thought for today's episode was to kind of look back at the year from a radio perspective and look at this kind of like thirty thousand foot overview of what were some of the trends that we saw Spencer from all the people that he talked to, what were some of the things that that he heard consistently at different times of year, and and are there anything we can learn from that when we try to look back on like the big patterns of two thousand and eighteen that maybe we could apply to future years. Um. So, so that that's kind of the game plan, Spencer. I know that we've done this in the past. Do you do you feel good about that game plan for today? Is there anything you want to do differently or do you just want to hop right into what you thought were some of the major trends this here? Yes, So let's give a little bit more context. This is the third season Now Road Radio, with about a dozen episodes this year, spanning from September to December UM. Last year, we did a recap in January as well, and do you remember what were a few of the main things that we hit on that we thought were kind of the themes for the seen Row. Do you recall what we talked about Denmark? Okay, I feel like I'm back in high school and I'm being quiz and I didn't do my homework. I should have prepared for this. But if I can, if I can go off of the top of my head, I think the things that I remember standing out from two thousand seventeen, Um, I remember we had some really well timed cold friends, right, Yeah, that was the big one for you know. I think we talked about how if you pulled out a calendar at the beginning of fall and you circled the dates that you wanted cold fronts, that's what we got last year. You know. They were hitting on like Fridays and Saturdays when guys were off work and going to be in the woods. They were coming at the end of October to the beginning of November. They were just like the perfectly time cold fronts if you like hunting cold fronts. Seventeen was the year. So that was like the one big takeaway I think from that year. Um, there were a few other things that we touched on, and the other one that I think was important was everybody we talked to, whether it was like Arkansas Illinois, Kentucky, Uh, you know New York. Everyone was talking about the massive acorn crop. Now that's something that can be like super localized. Maybe not always a national theme such as weather patterns can be, but I think in overall, uh, everybody was talking about how the acorns were affecting to your movement. Yeah. Now I wanna I wanna continue establishing context here and and think back a little bit on a prediction that you correct me if I'm wrong, But didn't you make a prediction last year that we're in for like an especially good year as far as big healthy deer? Was that last year that you thought that was gonna be the case based off of kind of coming out of e h D four years prior and a bunch of things like that. So I think I wrote that piece for Wired to Hunt back in like um, if I remember correctly, I titled like We're in the glory days of white tail hunting, and I was talking um kind of specifically about like my part of the country in South Dakota, because we just got hammered with the h D, Like there were some counties that had estimates as high as loss um And so coming out of that, I talked about how then in like four years removed from that that UM in the next few years, I was thinking would be really good for hunters and deer because agencies were getting out ahead of it, so they were cutting back on tag numbers, populations were rebounding pretty quickly in most areas. UM, we were getting like mature bucks that had not experienced very much pressure. And so I thought all of those things were kind of brewing for like some good years to come, you know, with the timing of E H. D hitting. Yeah, And I was thinking the same thing too, because what you what you had in these areas, and it wasn't just in South Dakota, I mean it was it was pretty widespread across a lot of the Midwest back in two thousand twelve and two thousand thirteen. So in a bunch of localized areas you had deer populations, you know, pretty dramatically in some spots being reduced. And and I thought the same thing. I thought, Okay, any deer that survived or the deer that were born that following year, they're all of a sudden entering a world where competition for resources is much less than it used to be. So there's the same level of nutrition, but much lower social stress, much less competition for food, much less competition for the best betting. All these things lead to those bucks that were starting their lives around that time period. All of a sudden, we're like, I don't know, if you and me like got dropped off at like windsor Palace with all the food and resources and servants we could possibly want, Like, we become really fat and happy over the next four years. And so if you took you know that let's say the two thousand thirteen h D was the last really bad one across a lot of the country. So if there was a deer that was born that next year or even that spring, right go four or five years out, now we're to this year. Um So my question then being have you seen her? Do you think? Now? I know this is this is not quantitative in any way at all. This is simply just based off you know, stories, we hear, pictures, we see trying to look trying to guess on a trend, just based off the vibe we're picking up. But you and me we see and talk to a lot of people in the hunting world. UM, I kind of feel like that prediction kind of proved true over the last couple of years. Um, there's been I wish I could have quantified this. I wish we looked into it. UM, But there have been a number of particularly large deer killed. There's been a number of people, if we're just looking at like very visible folks so quote unquote famous deer hunters, and a lot of these people who consistently killed big mature bucks, but the last year or two they're killing their various biggest deer ever. Take for example, Mark Jury last year in the year before it killed his first plus deer this year and I started last year, Lelikowski killed his first tower and then this year killed his largest typical buck ever. Now again, you know, I'm not trying to say this is what it's all about and that's what matters. It's just kind of an interesting thing to see. And I'm just curious if if the e h D rebound had anything to do with some of these deer reaching a genetic potential that maybe in past years they wouldn't. UM, I don't know. Does any of that ring true to you, Spencer? Yeah, I think so. And I think maybe like one of the biggest things that people thinking about the health of herds. UM when that hit in two thousand twelve, I would have been like nineteen years old or something. I feel like I hadn't even heard of e h D up until that point, and then all of a sudden, it was something that everybody was aware of. Um, you know that it was even coming up in some of my like college biology classes that I don't think those professors had either ever talked about it prior to that either. So even if it um you know, physically did not make a difference in two thousand twelve going forward, which I would say that you and I agree it did, at least they got people thinking about these things, maybe inspired somebody to join q d m A, or inspired somebody to uh, you know, go to college to be a wildlife biologists, or put a put an extra watering hole in on their property something like that. So, you know, two thousand twelve was devastating, but there was a lot of silver linings that came out of that. And uh, as we were just talking about this, I pulled up that article that I wrote that was on June two sixteen, and some of the things I talked about were like, um, you know, agencies took notice of deer herds being eliminated and and you know, deer numbers being short. In Nebraska, UH took away eighty seven thousand tags, Missouri cut back and unlimited dough tags. Iowa eliminated forty one permits, South Dakota removed forty percent of its rifle tags. Ohio reduced analyst tags and forty four different counties. UM. So that was one of the big things that uh, you know, I think we get less pressure in the woods and then yeah, like you talked about less competition for resources. Yeah, and and to your point, it definitely did spark some kind of attention within the deer hunting community because for a long time, right, deer populations seem to be super healthy, no big issues. Everyone was going along hunky dory, and then there was this kind of sort of hard reset. It was a combination of things. I mean, there's the big h G that hit um over those couple of years. There were also a lot of changes in habitat. I remember coming out of that that time period talking with Kip Adams from the Quality Deer Management Association. I can't remember the numbers, but he spoke to the fact that over that several year time period, the amount of land that had formerly been in CRP or some kind of cover that had been now changed into full blown just agricultural cop crops. Um was there was a dramatic reduction in c RP acreage, if I remember right. So a bunch of different things were changing, resulting in kind of tougher time for some of these populations. So, yeah, a lot of populations dropped. I remember seeing you know, we were talking about harvest numbers going down for a lot of states. It was just a whole lot of attention during those couple of years. Two thousand fourteen fifteen, I think that was around that time period, and that's when stuff like the National Deer Alliance started, um, the q dum A started, i think readjusting some of their goals. So it's an interesting point you made that um that at the time there was a lot of worry about oh, is this like the beginning of a sharp negative trend within the deer hunting world. And I think we can look at things now in two thousand and eighteen and say, hey, like there was a hiccup there, but it seems like either the hunting population or the management agencies are all of us together kind of course corrected appropriately because at least anecdotally, things sound like things sound that most things are positive outside of you know, some disease issues like c w D concerns and stuff like that. So I don't know, man, this is a we're going really high level now talking about several year trends, UM. But it is interesting to to kind of look at that and then zoom into this past year. So if that's the larger trend over the last couple of years, UM, I would say that I feel like two thousand eighteen continued that trend, like I think over all, UM, would you agree that most people looked at two thousand and eighteen positively. It wasn't like a few years back where people like, oh, this is one of the worst years we've had in a long time, blah blah blah. No, I feel like most folks said, hey, this felt like a good year. Um. There was you know, good decent conditions. I mean, I felt like there was a lot of success being had across the country, right, I mean, super high level. Would you agree with that too, Yeah, So let's get started discussing some of that stuff. And I have you know, like six points from eighteen then I think were the themes of this last fall the first one of those because that can I put a pause on you? Yes, sorry, Spencer. UM, I am curious so well, I'm I'm looking at these these things, and we've talked about these a little bit. Um, I'm curious what like, if we were to put these in order, are you going to one through these in the order of significance you think, or are you gonna go through these as far as um maybe the timelogically chronologically? Okay, So then um, as we go along, I'm curious to see if you and me. The point I'm getting too is I'm curious if you and me feel the same about the significance of some of these. So, um, as we go along, I'll figure out some way to do that. Okay, maybe I'll like crow like a bird over here or something when I get to my number one, you know, and you'll know that's my my top joy. Let's start off your chronologically. And I think one of the biggest factors uh that from from the rut and uh you know, chronologically was that early October cold front that we had. Um, it was something that we talked about on radio. I think all four colors we had that week touched on it, like you gotta get in the woods. We were coming out of a long stretch I think of like some stagnant whether maybe even above average temperatures, and then it was around like October. Do you remember the specific date tomorrow what happened? I know, I think it was it was like the eleventh, third, I feel like the twelve, at least here in Michigan. On the twelfth, we are getting the rain from that front. And then it continued like I think eleventh, even of the eleventh through like the fifteen seemed to be that sweet spot for me here in southern Michigan, so somewhere on that give or take based on where you're in the country, right, And it seemed like the entire country felt it too, like from North Dakota, you know, over to the Caroline As everyone got a bit of that cold front that came through in early October. And we talked to him on the podcast that yeah, you know, get in the woods, Bucks, we're gonna be moving or whatever. And then after that cold front passed, it seemed like social media lit up with Big Bucks hitting the ground. Yeah, I d percent agree. That was definitely something that stood out. Um. And and in retrospect, like that was happening, people were talking about it, everyone was excited. And I remember going out for for one hunt myself, maybe two, Um, but I didn't hit it super hard. And then I went out and checked cameras on the eight or nineteenth or something on one of the properties I guess that I hunt, and I was kicking myself because I checked these cameras and it was like full blown rut type of pictures. I mean, every buck that I knew of in the area in daylight, day after day, like all over the place. It was. It was shocking how impactful that coal front was during that time period, and it was for me. It was one of those things where I didn't practice what I preached a little bit where I was like maybe a little bit too conservative. Like I knew the coal Front was gonna be happening. I knew it was gonna be good, but I didn't take advantage of it, probably as much as I should have. I should have hit it really hard, um in retrospect, because like you said, there were bucks hitting the ground all over the place. Um, didn't. Wasn't it during that time period that you saw Lieutenant Dan once? Wasn't mid October? Writer on there? Yeah, it was right around that call. I think was towards the end of that cold front. Um. That was one of the few sightings that I had of him, uh in the fall. And so that, along with some other good deer movement that I saw plus good trail, came intel from that cold front. Uh. And then our callers who you know, talked about, Hey, it's gonna be great deer movement, and then a lot of them capitalized on it. I don't remember who was on that episode specifically, but I think like two or three out of the four people we talked to went out and killed big Bucks. And then, like I said, just the rest of you know, social media echoing that and and seeing a lot of big Bucks hitting the ground. And for me personally, this kind of gave credence to like hunting around cold fronts. I've always considered myself kind of like a cold front ruther or uh someone Yeah yeah, And so like I liked to, I remind myself and remind other people that, um, you know, there have not been any studies that show a correlation between like cold fronts and buck movement, and there's been a lot of them done, and uh, you know a number of biologists have had tried tracking this, but nobody is seeing like positive influence on deer movement when we experience a cold front. Now that goes against like almost all calming hunting knowledge. And you know what you'll hear like big buck experts talk about. And so I've always leaned more towards the science. But man, seeing that happened, Uh, that was kind of vindicating for those guys who say cold fronts help you kill deer. Now in the same like, if we're going to bring that up, we also need to acknowledge that when those cold fronts come through, Uh, a lot of people are sitting in their better stands, Like they're hunting an area they normally wouldn't be. They're hunting an area that they had maybe been holding off for until we got a good cold front. They're more focused, like they are doing more to control their scent. You know, if if you're if you're more serious about it, you think there's gonna be a deer walking by, You're more folks into your entrance and exit. So I think just in general, there's something to cold fronts making people a better hunter because they're more confident and maybe they're hunting areas that they've been you know, saving for that specific day. So I think there's also still a lot of that involved that hunter sees a cold frontcoming and uh, they're hunting style changes. Yeah. I get your I get it, I get your theory. This it's like a self fulfilling prophecy. If you have that belief in the cold front, if you have that confidence in it, you do things differently. And there's probably some truth to that, um But I just I just don't think you can deny the what we just see year after year after year. And I will say even Matt ross In in Lindsay Thomas Jr. Both from the Quality Deer Management Association, both guys commonly cite those studies that you reference there, even though they are very familiar with studies. They both on this podcast have said, but we know that dear move more than in cold cold friends, that we've all seen it. Um. So it just makes me always wonder, like how I always and I've said so many times, I've never figured out the right way to articulate it. But the how researchers are measuring this delta in deer movement based off cold fronts or or whether or something like that, I feel like what they're measuring as statistically significant or not, it's got to be different than what we as hunters do. So maybe there's there's less than three percent increase in total deer movement throughout the day. This is hypothetical numbers, but maybe the researchers saw there's less than three percent increase or decrease in deer movement based off whether so it's not statistically significant, meaning whether it doesn't impact deer movement. But if that three percent bump in dear movement is actually six percent increase during daylight hours, and if that six percent increase happens to typically be within the last half hour of daylight and during that time period, it's actually a increase a movement Because you're looking at this narrative, like I feel like these different things. When you narrow the scope of what you're specifically looking for, all of a sudden, it might actually lead to something different. So I wish and maybe maybe this has been done. I can't remember every single study, but it would be really interesting to see if if folks could measure this from like a hunter's perspective, like what really matters, Like what's the total distance moved from a betting location to a food location? Does that increase um a few days after a weather system or does the amount of time on foot change the two or three days after a cold front? Like those kinds of things would be very hunter centric and focus. Um, that would be really interesting to me. Um. I don't know if that's done or not. And I'm I'm admittedly a hypocrite on this, Like if I see a cold front coming up, I get excited about it. I'm doing the same thing as everyone else. I'm hunting a better stand. Uh. You know, I am changing my hunting habits. Uh like everyone else does. Who gets excited about a cold front? So I say all that, and I cite the science, but I still feel the same way that there is likely uh you know, better buck movement and your odds are better of killing a mature animal when we get those cold fronts. And you know, what are your thoughts on this? Mark that maybe like the early October cold front like around that tenth, eleventh, twelve, thirteen, fourteenth, whatever it was, that that like makes a bigger difference for buck movement than if we got it at the end of October. After seeing what happened here in do you think that those cold fronts are like better or more preferred than maybe if you go on any other time in the year, Like, how would you now bank the significance of the cold front in early October versus other times of year. Yeah, so I think that your increased value is higher when you get a cold front that's you know, in early to mid part of October or late in the season versus closer to the rut. Because closer to the rut, you're already going to get that increase in dear activity because of rising hormones, stops from love, everything around the rut ramping up as you get into late October into November. That stuff is happening regardless of weather. Whether definitely can accentuate it, they can definitely amplify it, or it can dampen it. But you know, it's not quite as make or break while if you get this kind of coal front on October eleventh, when typically a lot of things are causing deer movement to maybe not be quite as visible because of hunting pressure because of you know, changing food, so all the all the things that people, um kind of see as an October level. Um, when you have this mega cold front hit right at that time, we saw, all of a sudden, what would typically be a slower time of year for most people, or maybe even the slowest time of year for a lot of people, all of a sudden became like one of the top couple day periods of the entire season. I think if we were to if we were to rank by a couple of day periods throughout the year, that's got to be one of the best chunks of time this entire season. Um. So yeah, I think you had a really high impact. And for me, just like you said, this is another great reminder that when you have those fronts hitting, and the big thing for me was that they might be so important when they hit at times like this, that you change your strategy completely um at times. So for me, like I would I uber conservative in the middle of October usually, um, that probably would have been a time to strike. And a friend like like my buddy Andy Andy May had this kind of thing October twelve called front hit it's raining. He struck, He went into one of his best properties and killed an awesome mature buck. Um, I didn't do that and I didn't kill him mature buck. So that was another AHA moment for me. I think is a good reminder that, um, those are days that you know it's worth taking a swing at. And I think, uh, like talking about the October law transitions nicely into our next subject, which is the acorn crop of eighteen. Now, this is maybe more of a theme in because of what it was in seventeen. Like I said before, I think that was like one of the biggest factors of the seventeen rut. Uh And one of the things that came up all the time on Route radio was the massive acorn crop. Nowen it seemed like from people we talked to that it was like an average to below average acorn crop, and so maybe not like super significant when it came to deer movement. But if you were somebody who came out of the fall of Seen and had these ideas about how bucks were moving in mid October and what you know, your property sets up like for mid October, and we're basing that off of like a massive, massive acorn crop, then maybe eighteen was very different for you, and uh, you know, created a bigger learning curve because that huge acorn cropples in there and it seemed like it was an average year for acorns in much of the country. Yeah, I felt I felt similarly both, you know, for my own personal experiences and here mother folks that this year now it's it can be pretty localized. Like there's some people who talk to like, oh, man, acorns, that's where it's at, because there's gonna be some of those little spots where there's mega crops. I actually, um on one of the properties I hunt did have a ton of acorns this year, um, and that maybe could have been part of the reason why I didn't see as much activity on some of the usual food sources. So I think that I think maybe my takeaway from that this year is just a reminder to me and all of us of how important that crop is, whether it's there or not. And what I probably need to do a better job of each year is trying to figure that out. You know, do your do your late summer scouting um of food sources and really figure out, Okay, what is the mass crop like this year, and how does that change things? Uh, it's easy. I'm guilty of lots of times just focusing on the egg and thinking, Okay, I got corn in this field, I've got beans in this one, uh lfalfa and this one, and and think about too much how that impacts the deer and to the exclusion of of hard masks and and and even soft mass. Now, soft masses is obviously something that's usually not as widespread but locally on certain properties apple trees or simmons or whatever. Um, those things could all really change dear behavior. So I think it's probably just another reminder that that's something you don't want to overlook. Um, you probably don't have a ton of mass in South Dakota, by you do not very much. Like I've said before, Um, South Dakota ranks like third in terms of least amount of trees per square miles. So uh, we just don't have a lot of hardwoods the way it is, and specifically where I hunt, there are like where I hunt, there's probably not an acorn for five miles. So it's nothing that has ever been on my radar much. But when it comes to rot radio, that is often like something on imprompted that comes up and is a number one factor for guys like in mid October. Yeah, Now, did you have any um, any trends that you kinda you had your finger on the pulse a little bit more than me. But as far as egg crops um, either of that being the quality of food available this year or the timing of when things came out this year, was there anything like that that you think impact of the deer season. I've got a few things that maybe did, but I'm curious from your perspective, was there any other big, far reaching food related trends outside of the acorn crop if you want to talk about like big egg, then that would go to our next point as far as how I feel that affected things? Was the really that fall that we had um for some areas like September and October were record breaking months for the amount of precipitation that in certain states or certain counties got UM. And that was another thing that came up on tons of episodes of radio was how rain was affecting deer movement, affecting deer patterns, things like that, and then the long term effective that one of those things was creating a late harvest. Because when you constantly have brain um, you know, throughout mid October that was keeping the fields really wet and keep from other fields. And so maybe compared to the last few years, this year was a really late harvest um for for most areas, I think, And so that is something that would affect dear movement when it comes to food sources. And I think the primary factor for that was the amount of rain that we had. Yeah, definitely definitely felt that, heard that saw that. I know there are a lot of people around me here and in Michigan that we're actually still taking out corn here in December, so that that's pretty indicative of that that wet fall theory. And uh, again, I think most people are aware of this, but for new hunters especially, it's something to think about when you have a lot of egg around where you hunt, keeping in mind when those crops are coming out and thinking about how that's going to impact dear not just when the crops are coming out, but also when the crops mature and change, right, being aware of how deer feeding habits change as crops change at a super high level. You know, where I hunt most of the time, it's it's beans and corn most of the area, So you're seeing you know, dear really being in the soybeans in the summer when they're green, and then as those soybeans start to yellow. Now, I know, Spencer, you did a little looking into this and maybe you can offer different thoughts, but usually the attractiveness of those yellowing and drying soybean leaves that goes down and then you see green um summer corn not being all that attractive. But as that dries into the fall, then deer start craving the carbohydrates that corn has and as it gets cold or they start getting pulled to those grains more and more and more. So once you get to that cold weather time period, then all of a sudden, corn and the actual beans from soybeans become very attractive. So that's another one of those things that just to keep in mind as a as a new hunter, you want to understand how deer are transitioning from food source to food source as the year progresses, because that can really change where you want to hunt. Um, I'm sure you you've seen all those same things, right, Yeah. And I looked back to the episode that we had in August when it was me you further and Dan Uh and Dan and I had talked about how like he onto Iwah hunted in South Dakota, that the deck gets reshoffled when harvest happens. Um, just because like you'll have bucks that are literally betting in those fields. If they find a low spot in a you know, a corn field, they'll bed there or you know that kind of thing. So we can change like where they're betting, and it will change where they're feeding. And so that is always, uh, you know, a big change for archery hunters when that harvest happens. And this year, with how wet things were, you probably felt that reshuffling of the deck a little bit later than normal. Yeah. And the one possible benefit of it, I've always thought, I've always been kind of a fan of years when the corn stays in the extra long and that this is selfish, um, But when the corn stays in at least around where I hunt here in Michigan, that becomes a sanctuary for deer. And if the corn is standing after or on November fift on opening day of gunn season, I believe there's a dramatically lower number of young bucks getting killed because a lot of these bucks in general probably um, they know to stay in there, to stay safe. They're not they're not being seen by hunters. So there's a lot of deer that probably would have made it through those first couple of days. Um, that do when you've got standing corn the air, So I'm not staying would be a good thing all the time, because of course, you know, these deer populations have to be haunted and taken, but selfishly in a small term or small time kind of deal. I kind of like it when there's a standing cornfield if I'm hoping that a buck or two might make it through. Um. But of course, then if you're actually trying to kill that deer, you can make it tough for you to So something to think about. Well, let's pause now for a quick second to think. Our partners at white Tail Properties and Spencer will take it from here with a quick chat with a white Tail Properties land specialist. This week with white Tail Properties, we are joined by Tom James, a land specialist out of Central Indiana, and Tom is going to be telling us about what the very first habitat improvements should be for a land manager. Good question. Um. Some of the first key things, the fundamentals if you want to think about, is when you think in terms of what a deer requires, the food, security, covering, water, and the qd m A has a great analogy of the thinking about the lowest hole on the bucket that you need to plug out to keep the water from leaking out. So what could be missing on your property that the surrounding land they have, and so you want to do a quick assessment. Maybe it's food, Maybe it's water, maybe if you can, maybe it's cover. If you can look through your woods and see two dred yards, then you've got an issue with with too much shade, not enough sunlight creating new potential brows and cover for your deer. So maybe it's a timber a timber either stand improvement or a harvest or a combination of two that's gonna allow some more new growth to come in and picking up your property. Maybe it's as simple as you're not leaving an area alone as a sanctuary. If you're trapesing all over forty acres and pushing deer off every time you go, then that's that's obviously an issue. So maybe it's just an adjustment in the way that you move around and hunt the property and approach things. Uh, if food is your lacking ingredient or your lowest hole in the bucket. Then even in timber it takes some work, but you can certainly clear out some openings and plant food. Um and I would suggest considering both perennial food and annual food stuff that you can leave in like clover and chicory as a perennial coming back every year and do some fall planted cereal grains and brassicas for the fall time. So you've got a year round program going on. And typically it's not an issue in the Midwest. But if if water is a lacking ingredient, then maybe you can create a water hole or even some of the new systems like the banks water watering tanks that you can set up that are mobile and fill up and provide water sources for your deer so that they don't have to leave the property to water. Again, that's fairly rare, but that could be a consideration. If you'd like to learn more and to see the properties that Tom currently has listed for sale, visit whitetail properties dot com. Backslash James that's j. A. M. E. S. So let's touch more on like the amount of precipitation that we had in October and September. Um, this question I think you get all the time, mark is how does rain affect dear movement? And what I mean by that is like instantaneously, say you go out for an evening sit and it is pouring rain or sprinkling or whatever. Um, how does that affect a bucks movement? Because that's something that people will probably experiencing and wondering a lot in Yeah, good question, um, And I do get this question a ton. Every time it gets to be October and November and you've got a big rainstorm moving across the country, you'll start to see these tweets show up or Facebook messages. So it is something to address. And my perspective might be a little bit different than some folks, UM. I know, like talking to Dan and other folks in Iowa and some of these other states have a little bit lower hunting pressure. Um, they've kind of pointed to these real rainy, dreary days and say, mah, not that good. Um. I have seen in Michigan that when you've got a rainy day, it is one of the very best days of the season. So I try to prioritize rainy, nasty days just like a cold front hitting them and oftentimes they come together. Right, you got a cold front pushing through and the rain comes through. Um So that might be just the fact that it's it's coinciding with other factors that increased deer movement. But whatever it is, UM, I have found rainy days to be great days to see that mature buck that usually doesn't move in daylight, that rainy, dreary, cooler day might be the one day he does it. I've seen it time and time again with a lot of the bucks I've hunted over the last six to ten years. Probably I can point to numerous examples, especially in Michigan and um And I brought this up in the past, and I don't know if there's any credence to this at all. This is purely um purely spitball in here. But John Eberhart had always talked about the fact that he thought that it might be hunting pressure related and that these mature bucks felt safer on those rainy, crappy days because typically humans aren't encountered on those days. Humans just don't go out in the woods is often in those days, whether it be hunters or anyone. Um So his theory as I remember was that that might be part of the reason why these deer feel more comfortable. Um. I don't know if there's anything to it, but it's certainly seemed to be the case for me. Um. So that said, I do think that drizzly days, steady rain days, um, I'm gonna be out in the tree stand if I can be. If it's absolutely torrential downpour like monsoon, then yeah, I'm seeing those deer hunker down bed and not moving. But oftentimes I will still go out and hunt because if there's a break in that weather, or if there's like an expected break an hour before daylight, hour before dark or something like that, just after the monsoon passes, or whenever that little break in the weather happens, that can be huge trigger and you get a bunch of deer moving then right afterwards. And if you are you know, if you took the whole day off, the whole evening hunt off because it was gonna rain most of the day, you missed out on that twenty minute window that all of a sudden, there's these deer moving all over the place. So I like try to take advantage of as much as possible, even though it's not always fun. If you're getting rained on the whole set um, it's usually worth while. I would just caution. My one thing with rainy day sits is that you do have to think about the implications on tracking. Right, if you shoot a deer, you possibly could lose blood on a rainy day, So I significantly reduced my range. You know, on a rainy day, I wouldn't shoot anything like outside twenty yards, like it has to be like a guaranteed pinwheel, perfect double long shop. And then you know, if that deer runs off and you don't feel confident with where you last saw him, Um, that's the kind of situation where if it's legal in your state, you know, plan on knowing where a tracking dog is someone that has a tracking dog, because tracking dogs can still easily track in rain, so you can find these dear Obviously that's a must. You have to recover that deer. If you don't think you recover that deer, then then you shouldn't be hunting out there. But tracking dogs can can definitely help you do that. And in the case again referencing Andy, um killed that nice buck October twelve, started raining just as like I can't started rain just before you shot the deer just afterwards, um, but he was worried about losing the blood trail. We got another friend out there with a dog and walked right to the buck. Um. So so those are my long and rambling thoughts on rainy day deer. Do you disagree or agree with any of that, Spencer, I, I really don't have strong feelings one way or the other when it comes to rain affecting deer movement. And I think that's probably the case for a lot of guys, you know, whereas you talk about like cold fronts that can inspire some really heated debate. So you talk about acorns, people are really passionate about how that can change to your movement. But I would say for most hunters, uh that there's probably just not enough evidence of our affected some of their hunts. And so I don't put too much stock and way or the other into if rain is going to positively negatively affect dear movement. I'm it's probably not going to a change like what my strategy is for specific cont what stand I'm going to sit in here, anything like that. So let's talk about something else that does cause debate within the hunting community about whether or not it impacts deer movement, and that is the moon and um, this year, I feel like there was a lot of talk around moon moon phase, moon times, red moon, blue moon, green moon, um, running moon. We both noticed this this year, right, there's there's some interesting things around that this year. Uh. Yeah, I think that what you're going to bring up here is probably your number or one factor for the ut But carry on, Yeah I didn't. I didn't crow like a bird, but yes, this was probably this is probably the number one factor as far as a standout time period during the year, something that seemed to have a disproportionate impact on results. Um. And it's a little bit surprising to me because I have always looked at moon related things similarly to you, Spencer, and that the science, the studies have always shown there's not an impact on dear moment. Based off all these different studies I've looked into, at least nothing substantial. I have seen a handful that maybe say, okay, there's a little bit of this, a little bit of that, but nothing um that really would be worth hunters keying in on. But you get all these hunters that claim that it does make it make a difference. So you've got the theories around the moon and the rut. Some people believe that this rutting moon that happens it's the oh gosh, she's it's the first full moon after the automacinox. Is that right? Or the second full moon after automacinox. I'm sounds right. I'm blanking on the on the first or second forgive me for that um. But usually this moon falls somewhere between late October and late November, and the theory is that based on when that moon hits, it will influence the kind of kickoff point of the rut, and studies show that's just simply not true, at least as far as the timing of actual breeding. Study after study after study. When you look and see you measure fetuses, you can back date when these deer were bred. You can see it's every year. It's a pretty darn consistent peak of breeding across most of the country and most places across the country, Somewhere in mid November is your peak breeding date meeting or excuse me, meaning that across most of the country, the couple of weeks leading up to that will be when you see a lot of the chasing, the seeking, the daylight activity that we want to see his deer hunters. So that's always made me think, well, I'm not going to care about when the running moon is too much um or another one. You hear folks like Adam Hayes, even even Dan in fault Erdquisto. Different folks talk about this red moon, which is when the moon is directly overhead or directly under foot. Um. Those happened a few times a year we get these red moon dates. I have a couple of buddies who are really big on the red moon. UM. And again I kind of I've always been intrigued. I watch it, I kind of pay attention to it, but I've never really, you know, been too focused on kiing and on it. Another moon related theory, UM is if the moon is rising or setting during the last part of the day or the beginning of the day. So all these different moon theories out there, the one that's relevant to what we're talking about here, and I probably should just focused on that was the running moon one that I mentioned there. And this this running moon this year was an early one. It occurred October twenty fourth, or fifth, or six or seventh, somewhere around there was when the running moon hit. So the theory being, if the theory held true, Um, supposedly you're supposed to see a pick up in running activity much earlier this year. So supposedly late October, we're gonna see this big burst of daylight activity from bucks starting to get after doughs. There're gonna be some does coming into EST's usually earlier than usual, and it was gonna lead to this this earlier than usual run. I didn't really give him much credit leading to the season. And then I head out to Nebraska on October and I'm hunting on the twenty and I see a big mature buck cruising during daylight at three in the afternoon. And then I see another big mature buck cruising at four thirty or five in the afternoon. This is like three or four hours before dark. Um. And then I get home that night after shooting that buck, not home. I get back to the tent that night and I pull up my phone and I see that this guy killed the big mature buck. And this guy killed the big mature buck. And then the next day the same thing. And over the next three to four days, three to five days, maybe somewhere between that, maybe October to somewhere in that ballpark. It was like it was it was as if we were watching your Instagram feed in November eight. You know, it's just like guy and girl and guy and girl ganger. Everyone was just killing deer and and big mature deer during that time period, way way earlier than you usually see that kind of quantity. Um. That was like the vibe I was picking up and and you kind of saw the same thing too, right, Yeah, I had probably like my best string of sits this year was from I think like November, excuse me, October, Um, I had like I think I had an encounter on every single hunt with a mature buck. Um my trail cameras like a few weeks later when I was able to gather some of that data, that was like a super hot time for them as far as mature bucks being on their feet in daylight. That was even like one of the few times I had Dan on camera was October, I believe, um, like one of a few times I had him on daylight on camera like throughout the fall, even during the rut, and so just from my personal encounters and my trail cameras and talking about a few specific deer and then like you said, the like social media big bucks that you saw hitting the ground. Uh, it seemed like that gave him credence to the early running moon. So now here's the question everything we're picking up on again where we haven't don't quantify this in anyway. I wish there was some way that you could. We need to build an app, or we need to build an algorithm that can measure dear related hashtags something like that, like like b b D or something like that, and measure the quantity of b b D hashtags on Instagram and Facebook and then map that out over the course of the season so you can see how that hashtag rises. I bet you that actually would core relate to harvest. You know, I think that'd be a really interesting thing. If there's anyone out there who knows how to do that, do it and send it to me, because I'm really interested to see what that might look like. And then compare that to several years and look and see like how deer related hashtags like whatever, these whatever hashtags do you think get applied to a a picture of a of a dead deer like your your picture, How that trends throughout the year. I gotta believe it would correlate to something like this, or at least I'm curious to see what it would And uh, I don't know. It just it felt that way at least that this year there was that that earlier than usual upticking. And so so then when when I'm trying to get out of here is does that change your view at all on the impact of the moon on I'm not well, does it? Does it change your view at all? Spencer, I'll give you my thoughts in a second, but does it intrigue you or change your thoughts anyway? So my thoughts before this season have always been that I look at like moon theories like i'd look at sasquatch or aliens like I don't believe. So I don't believe in it, but I am intrigued as hell when it comes to those things, like if you have an alien story that you saw an UFO, I gotta hear about it. Or if I'm flipping through the channels and I come across a Bigfoot documentary, I'm glued to the TV. So like, I love hearing about it and I'm super interested in the subject. But what it boils down to, is I still don't believe in it now after this year, my thoughts on it largely remain the same. Uh. I think that there maybe was an uptick in deer killed, but I guess some of the things we're maybe not considering are a whole bunch of other factors like brahmic pressure and if there was any some something certain with the weather or crop status. Um so, I yes. Another part of it, too, is why I think that's like I'm not so much buying into the rutting moon as I am that early October cold front, is because there are supposed to be a lot of big deer killed at the end of October. We would have seen that either way had that rutting moon not been there. That's the time of year when a lot of guys are killing target bucks because they're making those more reckless walkabouts, but they're still patternable. So that's the time of year we're supposed to see big deer being killed. Whereas you know, in regards to that early October cold front, we're not supposed to see giants that are hitting the ground on like October you know, twelve or thirteenth or whatever. That's the October law. And now I'm not saying like that's that's always the case and uh like that's that that's how the house has to be. But that's why, like I think the cold front was more important this year because that maybe inspired people to kill more big de year than the rutting mood would during a time of year when big dealer would be killed. Anyway. Yeah, it was like the volume on October ten is usually like a one, and this year with that coal front, it got bumped up to like a six or seven or something like that. So that was pretty substantial difference. Now in late October with this cold or not the coal front, but with this moon thing, we're usually gonna have a rating of a seven maybe anyways every year somewhere around that, but all of a sudden, now it was like at ten. So it was it was higher in this late October time period, but it was only a difference from the usual of maybe three. While maybe the volume was a little bit lower early October, but the difference from the usual is more substantial. I think is is kind of what you're saying, and it's kind of what I felt too, Ueah, but it's uh I don't know. It was. It was interesting, and I would say that my thoughts on the moon are largely similar to yours and that I don't put too much into it. Um, I'm still hunt. It really doesn't impact how I hunt. Um, I'm not. I'm not really like choosing to go into a great spot or not because of the moon being one way or another. But it is something that I kind of just watch and I'm intrigued with it. And if I happened, like if I'm going into hunt a good spot because of a weather related thing, cold fronts definitely do impact my hunting. So let's say I'm heading in because of that, and then I see that the bare metric pressure is high, and then I also see that the moon is right for one of these theories. It does give me maybe a tiny bit more hope. Um, I'm like, Hey, this thing's lined up, and this thing's lined up, and this thing's lined up. That should be good. Hopefully it's gonna be good. So so it might be one of those self fulfilling prophecy things to where it just kind of gives you a little bit more excitement and energy and focus because of it. Um. But it was really interesting to see this year, just how dramatic of of a bump it seemed to or something whatever it was, something caused a bump that was a little bit bigger than usual, and it was it was intriguing, I guess is the moral of the story for me, so big kind of eye opener for me at the end of October. That was interesting and I'm definitely gonna keep watching it. I've been watching it for something like ten years now. I still haven't, you know, been um convinced that that it's something kind of some kind of game changer, but it's it's interesting. I guess as someone who's interested in a lot of things with dear, this is definitely one of those interesting moments and uh an example that can continue to keep as curious moving forward, I suppose, and that yes, these two things we just talked about, that early October cold front and the late October possible moon effect were definitely my two biggest um eye openers, I suppose, like very interesting. Um. The rest of the year, things kind of trended normal as far as I'm concerned, but I know there's a couple other things that were maybe worth mentioning as far as trends or patterns, um that you want to touch on. Yeah, so I think the next one would be was the stagnant rutting weather that we had once we got into November. Um, it seemed like much of the country just had stagnant weather and we never got those warm fronts or those cold fronts. So if you were someone, for example, that loves hunting cold fronts and you were looking to burn some vacation days then and you know you were waiting on that cold front and it never came, well, that probably changed how you were hunting because that didn't factor into your decisions. UM. And same thing if you were someone who had the time to hunt, but I was picking and choosing what stands you were hunting. And if you were again like waiting for the cold front to come in for you to get in that betting area stand and stay all day, Uh, that never really came. So then you were more than likely just hunting basing that off of historical data that like, yeah, the best rutting is between November ninth and eleventh, because a bunch of the doughs get bred between life twelfth and fift or whatever that might be. UM, I guess what I'm getting at is that when we got to the best buck movement of the year, that trumped everything. And it's normal because there wasn't much of a weather factor. Yeah, yeah, I agree, and I think it was just a great reminder that when the rut is hitting, you just gotta be out there, regardless of weather. Um. I know I talked at some point this year. I told you the story of that one year we got these warm fronts during early November and it kept me out of the woods for a couple of days, and I had learned that that was a big mistake because like three of my friends all killed mature bucks three days in a row. Um. So, this was a year where was kind of the opposite and that we we just kind of had normal, steady weather in November and nothing really changed. But that didn't mean there wasn't still great hunting. Um So, I think to your point, it would have been a mistake if you were hold nowt for a coal frond. You kind of just gotta say, Okay, I'm going to be out there this chunk of time during November or where whatever I'm a period it is for you in your area, and if we get a great front or something like that passing through. Awesome, that's the day I maybe if I see it coming up on the forecast, that might be the day I hit the very very very best spot or whatever. But know that anything can happen during those couple of weeks of peak running type activity, and uh, you know you're not gonna able to take advantage unless you're out there, regardless of if it's sixty or twenty and with that stagment whether uh like this is something that can be very localized, but I'm sure much of the country felt it was that once we got into early November, because there were like no fronts moving through or any kind of weather patterns, we had some really steady wind directions, and so I had some stands like I was looking to haunt Lieutenant Dan where it only worked to haunt him on a south wind. But I remember looking at the forecast one day, and this is something we talked about on radio, and it had looked like there was like eight of ten days coming up in early November where it was just north winds. There were no south winds. I think two out of the ten days had south wind and so that was something that definitely changed. Uh, you know my rut hunting in November, And it's probably something that other people felt as well, that you really had to like look at that extended forecast and maybe like take out a piece of paper and write down, Okay, we have this win direction, this win direction, this win direction. Because there are like really really limited south winds. I gotta be aggressive and get in there and hunt that south windstand once I get it, because I might not have another chance. Yeah, that's a that's a huge, huge point. I think it's a really good thing to mention, and the fact that you know, in the postseason, think about that ahead of time and make sure that you know if you if you have lots of times, what I do is I'm planning on setting stands in certain regions based off the predominant winds. Somethinging. Okay, well, most of the time here in October or November, we're gonna have like a westerly wind or north west wind. Um, so lots of times I'll just end up setting a bunch of stands for that wind direction. But then what happens if your big rut vacation comes up and you've got seven straight days to hunt, and God forbid. All of a sudden, you have nothing but southeast winds, but all your stands are set up for northwest or west. Um, that's a situation you don't want to be in. So I would say the lesson learned for me. I had a yearly this last year where we had a bunch of southeast and easterly winds when everything else was set up for west, and I found myself in a pinch. What I would say is to try to make sure you account for that and have winds set up or sorry, have some stands. If you're in a situation where you can have stands hung and prepped, make sure you do have some prep work done for those funky winds that you're not really expecting, but you want to make sure you're not hung out to dry if it does show up. Or make sure that you are comfortable enough with a mobile set up, a running guns set up so that it doesn't matter that you don't have stands prepped. You're just gonna go and hang it that day, or just set up in the I add all that day. UM. I think one of those two things needs to be within your little toolkit to make sure that if you're in a snare like that, you're not stuck hunting the one spot over and over or you're stuck only having one stand for this wind. Um, you just got to make sure that you can be able to strike no matter what the conditions you need to have. You need to be ready for whatever variables come your way each season. Um, I think is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, and let's fast forward now from the rut to late season and last year I think we had like the tail of two late seasons. Something we talked about how there was like a stretch of really warm days and then there was a stretch of like really nasty, uh cold days. Now that's not something I think we necessarily had in like this December from much of the country, but there was still something really noticeable for and that was that there were a lot of bucks that have been shedding early, uh where you were seeing like it more of not an individual basis for bucks shedding early, but like a heard by her basis where you were seeing a lot of bucks that were dropping antlers sooner than they normally would. So most of the time bucks are going to be shedding like between January and March, but this year, um something that had shown up in some red fresh reports and then and something that had you know, people have reached out to me after I shot Dan. He she had an antler was that a lot more people were seeing bucks shed early this season. And so I was wondering if that was like a product of social media, just that we're more connected and it, you know, we're more aware when people are finding sheds earlier than normal, or if this was actually a trend. So I put out a call to people on Instagram and said, hey, if this is something you've seen this year where bucks have been shedding early side of my d M s, and a whole bunch of people did um where this seemed like a pattern that you know, people were telling me we've been seeing a lot of buck a lot of bucks shed earlier than normal. So I reached out to Kip Adams from q d M A. So, going into that conversation with Kip um a lot of the reports that I had received were out of like Ohio and New York, Illinois, Arkansas, the Dakotas, but like ground zero for this seemed to be Pennsylvania getting loads of reports of guys like shooting a dough that end up being a buck, or other people having experiences like I did where they shot a buck and he shed one or both antlers when they got him. Um, there were people like Martinic, who we've had on the podcast before to talk about deer movement in Pennsylvania. Um, him and his dad found ten sheds in December. WHOA, which is yeah, that's like unheard of. And so I reached out to Kip Adams to talk to him about this and see if this is, you know, really a thing that you can see like herds that shed rather than just you know, individual bucks shedding. And he said, yeah, that's a thing. And he's also based out of Pennsylvania, and this is something he's been hearing a bunch of in eighteen as well. And so the cause for this can go all the way back to the summer. And largely what you're seeing when you're seeing bucks shed early is that they are stressed or having like a nutritional deficit, and so they didn't get to put on like the fat reserves that they normally would. Him. This is these are from the words of kid when I talked to him a few days ago. UM. And so going into the fall, there's been metabolic studies that show that like adult deer can get half of their nutrition from stored fat, and so going all the way back to like July and August, if those deer didn't have a great food source, and then you know, all the way into October, right before the rut, same thing. If they didn't have great food source for a number of different reasons, that would bring them into the rotten into late season with less fat than normal, which would cause them to shed, you know, sooner than expected. And so keep it pointing to how like deer densities are also higher in the country than they have been in a while. In Pennsylvania, for example, is had like really high deer densities lately because they cut back on some annerless hunts. And so if this is something that you're seeing in your area heard shedding early, it's probably because there were, uh, you know, there was a nutrition to deficit from the summer and fall that is now led into them dropping their actors sooner. And it can also be because deer densities are higher than they've been in a while. Interesting, and that might even tie back to the whole E H D effect that we talked about. So two thirteen you had this significant reduction in dear population in some areas, and then you had all these deer now even more productive in the subsequent years because of that reduced competition. And now three or four or five years later, now you have maybe a higher deer density because you had this huge UM deficit that now flooded back in like the vacuum, all of a sudden flooded back in with um. You know, all these healthy deer that all of a sudden. Now maybe we're seeing the ramifications of that. Now we're getting over over dense, too much, too many deer, too few resources, um, nutritional deficit for bucks shedding early. And you know, like I told you, either last week or the week before, we I found I had a neighbor find a shed and give that to me over here on one of the properties I hunt. Um. I know another friend of ours, Ben Harshein, just saw his number one buck he was after a few days ago had shed. Um. Yeah, I mean it's all over. I saw someone Illinois shot about had the antlers fall off. So to your point, it is interestingly widespread this year. UM. And that's really interesting. Theories that Kip shared. So I asked, Kip, I asked him if this is like, if you can recall another year that he has seen this before, gotten these kinds of reports like he has in ten He said, the last time and it probably wasn't as extreme as this, he said, it was two thousand and twelve. UM two twelve was a drought year. That was when uh, you know, there was absolutely it was pretty obvious why there was anwntritional deficit because there was a poorer quality and crops uh and you know, less natural browns because there was hardly any rain, and so that led to deal with less back going into um going into the ruts. And then he also talked about how bucks shedding earlier that year, uh could have been e h D survivors And he said, in some parts of Pennsylvania had some cases of e h D this year, and those bucks could have been you know, e h D survivors as well as a combination of just not being very healthy to begin with. Very very interesting stuff with the with the early sheds. UM. I'm curious to hear now if more people hear the now that we're talking about it, if some more reports come in, I'd be. I'd be really interested to hear if this is more widespread even that we're than we're seeing right now. Um, you know, pivoting a little bit. The only other thing when it comes to late season I'd mentioned is that it has been, at least around me and in the Upper Midwest where I'm kind of tapped in the most, it has been a pretty mild late season, and I think because of that, late seasons success rates seem to be a little bit lower than usual. Maybe have you felt that to Spencer that we haven't had that big snowstorm cold front yet that we usually get in December that puts a bunch of big deer down. Yeah. I I did a lot more hunting November than I normally would have, and that was something I noticed as well, that we got a pretty good stretch of mild weather where it didn't force those deer to congregate in the obvious places like you know, a cut cornfield or a food plot. It makes sense a lot tougher this time of year. I mean, they're just they're already toun it for months on end. The pressure has been high on them. They're slowing down when you don't get that big coal front of the snowstorm in December January to to get him out there in front of you. This time, you can be pretty tough. So for late season, I think it has been a little bit more challenging for people. So and your So, your most important factor of the route, you would say was the early running moon. Correct, Well, I would say it's tied between that in that early coal front as far as like interesting things that popped for me this year. Those two, I don't know which one, but those are my top two. So I would say that it was the wet fall that we had. Um, I think that just like made such a big difference in short term and long term. Like short term as it can affect buck movement, uh, like you know, all of a sudden, there's a creek that flooded that's now impassable and you can't get to it, or maybe you're someone who haunts like minimal maintenance roads and you can't get too an area. You know, a lot of rain can also affect signmaking. This is something we've talked about before how a lot of people theorize that as you get like more rain, it forces those bucks to go check scrapes more often and then long term effects that it had. UM we like how it all food sources that kept crops in more UM. Something that I've've read about but again and I don't have a ton of experience with acorns, is how like a lot of precipitation can sour acorns. And so this is something I looked into, but I couldn't find any hard data on you know what's true and what's false here. But there's some different theories around that, like if you get a bunch of rain, um, and if there's acorns on the ground that they can make them like essentially go sour and deer are no longer interested in them. So if you were somebody in mid oct October who was focused on acorns and we've got all this rain and these acorns are now sitting in water, they're now sour and it forces those bucks to a different foods or some other theories around like rain and acorns, was that uh rain during that time of year, and like heep is more friendly to insects, I guess, and so you get some of those weevils that burrow into those acorns and that makes them rot out. Again, these aren't things that I know where could find add on just like theories that I found on the subject um. And then I recall an episode back in October when we were talking to Tyler Jones in Texas from the Element podcast where he had said, with all these rainstorms, we had a lot of times with that came wind, and that wind was knocking a lot of these acorns off the tree, uh like sooner, and it was bringing them a bit bault whoop rather than you know, some acorns coming down at certain times and them coming down other times. Um. So, anyway, the precipitation the acorns, I think was was a big thing. And then another long term factor that can be and this is gonna scare people, but uh be e h D. So most think of e h D. They think of a drought year that will kill a bunch of bucks. But what's more important, and this can happen on like super wet years as well. So you get these like isolated water holes and these long mudlines from when you have like a you know, a late wet season, which would be in we had this really wet fall and maybe all that water didn't disappear, and so we go into and uh say, we get some drought conditions, and maybe we don't even need a drought UM, and all of a sudden that creates a bunch of standing water holes that is perfect for those midges, uh, you know, to really thrive. And we could have another e h D breakout in just by looking at the really wet fall that we had in even if we don't necessarily have the drought h that perfect storm is kind of uh you know, that should be on everyone's mind as we go into the summer. What a wonderful way to end this episode. Thanks, thanks for the silver lining for us to all think about here heading into the new year. UM. That is interesting though, and and you're right that is those those muddy banks really do seem to to lead to issues of the midges and and typically it's around droughts. But it's an interesting point you're bringing up here as far as how the year before sometimes might impact things too. So something to keep an eye on UM for next year, no doubt about that. And if you think back to UM for a lot of areas, twenty eleven was a super wet year and so like I think about a lot of my properties, that there are some areas that sometimes have water sometimes don't um eleven areas flooded and then it left all these local spots with standing water or maybe you had a stock damn uh that came way out of its banks and then you go into and that water starts to receive because it was so hot and you had these drought conditions that it leaves these long stretches of of muddy areas and shallow water. And that was you know, created the perfect storm for much of the country to get d h D. And that's something that we could see again in now. Shifting away from e h D, but staying on this exercise that you just share with us, this idea of of looking at past years and using that to help predict the future. What you just did there that I think is my big takeaway from RUT radio this year as far as how RUT radio can be used as a tool, it's it's always it's it's helpful in the short term and that you know, we get to hear people that were out hunting a few days ago and hear what they're seeing and hear what they're thinking, and then use that for our future hunts in the next couple of days. Like that's how a lot of people are using these episodes of the podcast throughout the year. But I think maybe the secret sauce and I want to do this next year. Really do this next year is go back and listen to past years and look at what was predicted by these folks. What do they what was coming to them. So let's let's hypothetically say next year it's October one, I would recommend going back and listening to RUT Radio episodes from last year and the year before. Maybe that we're from the week before October one. So listen to people talking about what's coming for October one. So Joe blow Hunter says, well, this front is happening, or this weather condition is present, or this is how the acorn crops this year or whatever. Hear about what happened that year, and then listen to the following episode to find out what the impact was. So you heard that the acorn crops were pretty rough, maybe leading into October one of two thousand and sixteen, let's say, and Joe blow Hunter thought that was going to influence his hunting and this way, so he was gonna go and hunt in that way. Listen to the next week and you get to hear how people were hunting and what kind of success they ended up having on October one or October two based on those conditions. I think that's a really interesting way you can test theories and see how it ended up going. Um, if you went back and did that each year, So October one, go back and listen to the sixteen episode, go back and listen to the seventeen episode. That can then inform you for your two thou nineteen hunt. You can say, Okay, well, this is what was going on in sixteen, this is what was happening in seventeen, and this is how it all turned out. So what does that mean for me this year? Because now I have these conditions that were just like seventeen. So maybe I should try doing what Joe did in seventeen that worked for him. I think that is like the really unexpected way that RUT radio can help folks that when we started doing the Spencer, I never thought that was gonna be I never thought there was gonna be a long term value to it. Um. I thought it was gonna be just valuable this week. But now I'm starting to real lies like this is this is like the best kept hunting journal in the world now because we can go back and and and look at journal entries from three or four years now from hunters all across the country and and then use that to to to predict things in the future. I think that's that's like really cool. When I start to think about that, I don't know, have you thought about that at all? Uh, not too much. I guess a little more, not that we have the three seasons worth of data, But that's a good point. If you see like a cold front coming in early October next year, go back and listen to those episodes that we had in eighteen, or if you notice it's gonna be a massive acorn crap, go back and listen to some of those episodes from seventeen, because those same things are are definitely good going to apply to what you're going to see that fall. Yeah, we talk a lot about increasingly more of the last couple of years. I've been talking about it because I've been hearing from other guys that are doing this, the idea of like annual trends with buck behavior. You know, so buck a did this in two thousands sixteen, and he did it again in two thousands seventeen. He might do it again to in the eighteen Well, I think the same thing goes for not just buck behavior trends, but also how dear react to different circumstances. So how things go with a great acorn crop, how things going to cold front hits on October twelve, how things go when you have a certain moon and laid October, How things go when you get really warm days November four through seven, um, And now we have this data set we can look back on as a reference. So so I guess I bring all that up to say, this is a great year of Runt Radio Spencer. It was awesome. I've found it really interesting. I appreciate you taking the time to to reach out to folks and collect all of their their inputs and and join me every week to talk about them. It's been fun, it's been interesting, and uh I think now that we've finished three years of it, I'm just more excited than ever for next year because I think we have this, this really cool hunting journal to look back on each year, And uh, I think what I want to do in two as nineteen is start at ofly referencing things and then looking back. So next year on October one, I'm gonna be telling you, well, hey, Spencer, I listened to the two thousand fifteen one and the two thousand seventeen one. There wasn't fifteen, but you know what I mean, um, and see how that might help us in the future. So thank you, Spencer. This is cool, this is fun, and uh, I think and I hope and I'm pretty damn sure that we're helping people with this and that's that's exciting good. I I enjoy it. I legitimately look forward to talking to these people each week because I'm into this stuff, just like I hope the listeners are, so uh, you know, I'm investing in the podcast and I hope it's helping people. Yeah, So with that, I think we sure up this one. So thank you for listening. If you're still hunting, good luck. If you're done hunting, hopefully found this helpful as you look to review the past season and start your preparation for two thousand nineteen. And with that said, until next time, stay wired. T h M.

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