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 Kenny. This episode number tennis show, Dan and I are going to be discussing our final preparations for the two thousand fourteen season and our plans for our opening weekend hunts. The season is finally here, so get ready and enjoy. All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. Tod in the show, it's just me and my co host Dan and Dan, how are you doing? Mark? I missed you, man, that was like, what two weeks. Yeah, we've been away for a little while here. Man, it's you're you're kind of like a dog, you know, like you go away on a vacation. You're like, Man, I wonder what my dog's doing. I hope he's not like going to the bathroom on the carpet. Maybe this is maybe that's a bad analogy, but well, you know, it's not too far from what I've been doing. I've had a kind of rough spell here while I've been gone to um as. You know, you know a couple of people probably know I Uh, we had a little bit of a leave of apps's here from the podcast, in part because I was out on my elk cutting trip, which we'll talk about here in a little bit, which was awesome. Um, but then are our episode this week got delayed because I had my wisdom teeth taken out, and um, I thought that was gonna make a one day thing and I'd be back and going by the next day. But it is not. It has not been that way at all. I've been pretty pretty into the weather. Um, I'll dope it up on viking in and all swollen up and stuff. So today was the first day I could really kind to talk and sound halfway normal. Um. So I think I sound decent now, but I'm probably not quite the same cheerful self I am. But if you can forgive me for that, Dan, I'll try and make it through this as best as possible. Yeah, I want to slide this time, But the next time you getting teeth pulled, maybe you should check with me first. I know, I really should. I should have checked with someone about this. It was I've been I've been putting off getting I've been putting off getting these teeth taken out for a while I knew the wisdom teeth had to come out for for quite a bit time now, but it was always, you know, one reason or another I could push it off. And um, finally my wife just kept hammering me home about the fact you just gotta get done, gotta get done. So I finally scheduled it and went in. And so I go in there Tuesday morning, and you know, from everything I've heard, they're gonna knock me out on gonna false sleep during your teeth out, and then I'll be going pretty strong for that. Well, just before the surgery, they bring me into this room and set me down and they put up these X ray pictures of my mouth up on the wall, and the doctor says, okay, see here, here's your teeth. There's your four wisdom teeth. Now do you see this bottom two wisdom teeth. And do you see that line that runs on the bottom, Well, that line is your job and your two bottom wisdom teeth. I think they said, are. I think they call it impacted or something. They're the roots of the wisdom teeth are. So they've been in there for so long they've dugged down into my job room. So like my wisdom teeth roots have gone like halfway through my job on and there's a nerve that runs through that part of your jaw, and so the doctor tells him, He's like, so because of that, when we go in there to remove the teeth, there's like a fifteen chance that when we do that, we could damage that nerve and you'll lose all feeling in your bottom lip and shin for the rest of your life. Yeah, And I'd like, I had this look on my face, like utter shock, and like, how do you tell me this? Two minutes before surgery and there's nothing I can do now. I was just like paralyzed with fear. What did he do? Give me like a flap on the back and then say, oh, you're gonna be just fine. Let's go. Yeah pretty much. He like you're never going to feel your face again. Yeah. He wheels me away, and then just before he's about putting me under, I go to him. I'm like, you know, I'm not particularly excited about this, and then he looks at me and she shakes his head. He's like, they never are they never? And the next thing I remember, you know, they knocked me out, And a little bit later, I remember seeing like I must have been woke up again, because I remember seeing like a bed, and then the next day I remember after that is like a wheelchair. And I guess in between all that, after I got the teeth pulled, I guess I was awaken or awoken enough. I guess I had asked the doctor like seven or eight different times, did my nerve did the nerve get damage? Can I feel my face still? Is my face can be okay? And I guess he kept answering over and over and over again, kept telling me it was fine, but I kept asking him. So whenever he saw my wife, finally he told him. He told her that, hey, he's asked about this repeatedly. I'm not gonna answer him anymore, but he's fine. But I was pretty nervous. And then while I was all drugged up. I don't know how this happened, but I have taken selfies of myself laying on the table with the IVY still hooked up, with like this dazed and confused look in my face, and I'm snapping pictures of myself. They look pretty ridiculous. So I don't know. Did you happen to have a dream like in the movie The Big Lobowski. No, I did not know that would have been cool. It would have but no, no, no crazy dreams. I just man, I've just been a lot of pain, a lot of swelling. Can't really eat anything. I've just been eating soup and jello um. But you know, trying to trying to get by. I'm supposed to leave tomorrow morning for Ohio to start hunting. I'm a little worried about my condition, but we're gonna trying to make it work. So are you a man, Mark? I am? I am. So you're going to deal with it and you're gonna go to Ohio. This is all true. I'm gonna I'm gonna make it work. Well, just as long as I'm not like doped up on Viking and fall out the tree stand at think I'll be all right. So yeah, that's for sure. That's for sure. So that said, the whole Ohio thing, that's really what I want to talk about here today, Dan is talk about our early season hunting plans, um. But before that, I did want to touch on two things. First thing, you know, it's the start hunting season. My season kicks off this weekend. Um. Your season and IOWA starts next week and most everybody else is starting to hunting now, and so we're kind of transitioning to this new portion of the season for the podcast. And because of that, I really want to continue to try to get the word out about the podcast. And from everything we've been hearing from people, you know, it sounds like you guys the listeners have been joined the show, and we really really appreciate that. But we're hoping for a little help now to get that word out. So we're gonna run a little bit of a contest over the course of the next week, and what we're gonna ask you to do is to post a short review, just a couple of sentences, either on your Facebook page or on like a message board forum like Archery Talk or Iowa White Tails or cuta may dot com, any one of those forums, and just mention and a little bit about the Wird Hunt podcast and what you like about it. And if you do that, take a screenshot of that little review you right, and email that to me at Mark at wired hunt dot com. I'm gonna enter you into a drawing and next week I'm gonna draw a winner, and that winner will get a Wired Hunt hat a Trophy Ridge static stabilizer and a three pack of Carbon Express lighted knocks. So cool little price packages there. All we ask you to do is post a little something on Facebook or in a message board mentioning the Wired Hunt podcast and then email me that screenshot. So am I out of the contest? You know, technically you probably are, but I'd still encourage you Dan to go ahead and do it anyways. Okay, yeah, so yeah, if you guys can do that, we would really really appreciate it. Um. We love to get more people listening to the podcast and hopefully help more people as the season goes along. So with that plug out of the way, though, the next thing I wanted to talk about before we dive into white Tails is recapping our big Western hunts. You know, the last time we had a podcast, Dan, you were still in Nebraska hunting meal there and I was just a day away from leaving for Idaho. So I think our listeners are pretty curious about how this hunts went. So Dan, maybe you can kick us off here by starting out with the conclusion of your meal deer hunt out there in Nebraska. Right. Um, I'll just keep this short because I I want to hear your story more than I want to tell my story again. But UM, I had after I talked, after the we recorded that last podcast, I had two more days out there. The first day or the day after UM, I had my opportunity at UM taking a long shot at a couple UM muled your doze. I spent a lot of time around crop circles and UM. You know that that day I really didn't have the opportunity at what I felt as a comfortable shot UM on any mule of your dose. Next day, I started off kind of the same um the same place that I ended that night. I saw probably oh close to twelve to fifteen different mule deer does and uh I played cat and mouse with one, and I got real close and I did this long spot in stock and uh it didn't work out. Then I hiked an additional you know, five miles back into this emptiness basically, and uh, I watched an antelope come from uh probably about three quarters of a mile away through the spotting scope. I didn't think I was going to get an opportunity at him. UM. Long story short, he kept working my way. I jumped off this hill UM and basically glassed him and we we kind of played chess in this grass until finally, UM I came up over this hill. I spotted him, but he kind of spotted me. I draw up down and um I could see him through my binoculars to the grass. He was looking in a different direction. He snorted, which I didn't know. Antelope do just like dear do. And he was trying to make his way around me to see what I would smell me basically, So as he's doing that, I back. I was. I was backing up away from his original position, so when as he's coming around behind me, I would be closer to him. He moved faster than I thought he was moving. I looked behind me. He standing at probably twenty yards yards. As I draw back, he kind of does this thing where he does like two or three bounds he turns around. I uh, I think it was my forty thirty or forty yard pin I put on him. Um I couldn't range him because the grass was in the way and I was getting inaccurate readings, and I felt, you know, if I stand up, he's gone. So I drew back. I got to where I had a clean shot at him, and I missed right under his belly. But I'll tell you right now, it was one of the coolest things I would After I missed him, I sat there and I laughed for probably ten minutes. I don't know why, but I was just so happy that I even had that opportunity. I just I sat there for you know, ten minutes, laughing, and then probably another fifteen minutes just like watching him in the distance, you know, just kind of slowly making his way away. But it was awesome. That's great that he had an opportunity. At least, I know that that was a serious challenge of a hunt and definitely not easy to even get that close to to be within bow range of an antelope is no easy task from everything I've heard, so oh and it. I don't know if I got lucky for I just I made the right moves. I had to win in my favor the entire time. He every time he would disappear, I would make a move and kind of guess to where he was going. Um, I guess eight. But he made he made if I I truly feel that if I would have been able to not get an accurate reading on my range finder, I would have been able to uh um, probably. I mean I was, I was dead eye as far as UM left and right was concerned. Just no distance and in that wide open I'm not used to that, so that wide open distance is hard to judge. Oh yeah, so true. Well Elk Elk elk Elk story, Elkl story, Well I can I can definitely feel in it on the Elk story. Um, it's not nearly as animated as my original tellings of the story. Where now that I can't quite smile or laugh and stuff as I usually can. But um, but yeah, my Elk trip was everything you could ever dream of. Um. It really was unbelievable. Everything we talked about, you know, a couple of days before I left on my trip, all the things I talked about that all happened plus more than I ever could have agen. Really, um, compared to my first trip out there, this was night and day better. Um. And I think it was for two reasons. Number One, we hit it. We hit the rut right on, I mean they were they were rutting hard. And then number two, me and my my buddy, I think we really kind of figure it out how to hunt in this area. And because of that, we were right up. We were right in the elk every day. So um, long story short, if you didn't see on Facebook or anywhere else yet, I did kill an elk. I killed my first elk ever. It was a nice five by five brain chandler bull. Um. And so that was pretty incredible. But the hunt itself was was pretty awesome too. UM. So I'll give kind of the the cliff nose version the whole trip. You know, we hiked in there, you know, several miles back into the wilderness. We backpacked in there, just me and my friend Andy, and um, the first two days we were in the elk pretty good. Um. I think every morning, every evening we were you know, pretty close or within shooting range of branch with branch chandler bulls. Um, there be googling like crazy. I had a lot of close calls in that second day. At one point we actually followed these two big old bulls right nows in this dark timber where they're betted, got within like thirty yards of two mega bowls. But um, neither one of us could get a shot because of branches in the way. Um. But but really an awesome experience is having these elks so close to screaming their heads off, like my whole is like your chest is vibrating because of how loud these bugles are and how close they are. It was just insane. UM. But we had times that we had six, seven, eight different bulls surrounding us, all bugling, and it was just chaos. Really, just the most incredible honey I've ever experienced. But day three, UM, we had moved up in this area. There was a couple of bugling bowls first thing in the morning, and so our plan, what our strategy had been, was in the mornings, try to here where they're bugling, and then high tail as fast as we could to get just ahead of them with the wind still in our favor, but get in between where those elkware and where they were trying to get to. UM. We didn't want to call very much because I think these elk we're getting decently press shoot in the area and they weren't responding to calls too well. So we didn't call unless we were really really close to him. So we moved up as close as we could get to this bowl. I thought we were going to intercept him. We were set up on him for probably a half hour forty minutes, and he kept bugle in his head off, but he's just over the straw and we can never get him to commit. So after wasting most of our morning on that one, we decided to bail on him, turn and start going up this hill towards another bugle. Feeling kind of down because we kind of wasted most of our good morning time on that on that elk. And now we're going to this other hill and we bump an elk, we see one of the standing topless ridge looking right down at him. He starts barking asus We're like, well, shoot, we just really screwed up this morning. So we turned around again start heading the other direction, and we've been Kyle calling a little bit, and as we come over this hill, all of a sudden, we just see antlers over the crest of the hill. We both just freeze and you can see the tops of these antlers and then just like the top of a nose and eyeballs maybe seventy eight yards away staring as and it's obviously a big bull elk and I'm staring at it, he's staring at us, and Andy's right behind me, and we just kind of had a standoff for like five minutes or a couple minutes at least. We was just all we're just staring at show. It didn't move. Finally, he slowly turned and he looked away, and then looked back at us and looked away. I looked back at us. Eventually he got to the point where he thought we weren't anything too dangerous, because he slowly started to walk away. And as he slowly started to walk away, I grabbed an arrow and knocked an arrow, got clipped on, and then I started slowly sneaking towards him. So every time he would go behind a bush or a little pine tree or anything like that, I would start sneaking. And you know, I really realized on this trip, as you can get away with a lot of noise. These elk are just so used to other out being noisy in the woods and out there in the wilderness that your noise is moving to the brush and stuff doesn't really bother them too much. So I wasn't afraid to make noise. So every time he couldn't see me, I started crouching, sneaking in there, sometimes sprinting up to get closer, closing that distance. And this took maybe ten minutes where he kind of parallel me, went into this dark timber. I called to him. He came back out of the timber. He started cutting across um this meadow again. And at this point he finally got to the point where like, okay, I'm probably gonna get a shot here, and I start trying to range him. And just like your situation, when I was trying to range him, I kept getting grass. I kept telling me he's seventeen yards away or twenty two yards away or something, but I knew he was like fifty or sixty um. So I was like, I can't get a good range on him. I'm just gonna have to move up until I'm absolutely sure I'm within shooting range. So there was one more big pine tree. I told myself, as soon as he gets that pine tree, I'm sprinting, like I'm gonna run as fast I can as closely. I kind of closed that distance and get within shooting range. And then once it comes around that tree, I'm gonna have to, you know, make a judgment calling how far away he isn't to take that shot, and that's why I did. He got on pine tree, I high tailed as close as I get to him. He came around the tree and I guessed him at forty yards and put the pin on him and let her rip, and it ended up being right on because I double along to him. He ran about a hundred yards and tipped over. Wow, So that was did you lose your mind? You know? Not not really the way I thought I would. It was kind of more like disbelief. Um. You know, right after I shot him. When I I shot him, I saw him run off, but then he kind of went over a hill, and um, I thought I saw him like stopped next to this tree, and I thought he tipped over, and I saw branches kind of shaking around the tree, so I thought he was down there, but I wasn't sure. Um. So because of that, I was still a little nervous. We went and checked out the shot site. UM couldn't find blood or the error or anything for a while, so I was a little nervous. Um finally we did find the error and I saw it got good penetration and good blood and everything. So I felt better. But it was really just kind of I couldn't believe it happened. I don't know if I never expected this to actually happen or at least not so soon, not in my second year. Um, when we finally got down there to where I thought he had typed over and there it was, I was just kind of like, holy smokes, dead elk, dead elk, and I just kind of stood there just staring at like and how describe it? It was wild? It was it was very cool. It was crazy. Um. But I think the biggest part of the entire experience, more than the hunt itself, was actually the work that happened after the hunt. Um. That was what was really, um what's stuck with me? You know, all the work that goes into getting him gutted, skin quartered, and then packing him back to the vehicle. UM. I shot that elcot around nine am in the morning, and we didn't get back to the vehicle that night with our final load of meat till nine pm. That was with two guys. Yeah, there's two of us and we worked for twelve hours straight. How far How far was the hike from the truck to the kill site, you know, as the crow flies of somewhere around three miles, But it was so there was so many steep ridges and canyons and mountains were going up and down. It had to have been much much more than that if you actually measured the distance walked. Um, because I've done a lot of backpacking in my day, and this is definitely the most physical exhaust I've ever been in my entire life. After that twelve hours of work, it was a serious haul, um, but incredible feeling of accomplished accomplishment when we finally had all done and we're back and I had got the meat back and preserved everything and none of the meat went bad. So I was very proud of that and just really happy to have pulled off a d I y hunt like that. I think I'm going to have to take along next year. I man, I would recommend it. It's unbelievable. I mean it is, like I said last time, they weren't really the right words to describe it, but it's just like turkey hunting because they're you know, so vocal and so interactive, but turkey hunting times two hundred on steroids, um while in the mountains. I mean, it's just it's awesome. So it was an awesome way to start the two fourteen season, and uh, very very um thankful that all worked out, and now excited to uh see if we can't keep that luck going onto the White Tails. Are you gonna get a mounted I'm gonna get him euro mounted, euro mounted. Cool. Ye. So dropped his skull and antlers off at the taxidermis a couple of days ago, and um, hopefully we'll have him back here in a few weeks. Actually what he told me, so, I'm proud of you, Mark, thank you, thank you, appreciate it. I am. It was pretty cool, pretty cop that I hope that all overflows to the White Tails this year, that luck you got going for you. Yeah, yeah, I hope so. And I think that's probably perfect segue for us to move into the real meat and potatoes that we want to talk about today, um, which is White Tails and the start of the new season. Um. I really do hope that luck follows follows me into this next weekend because I'm going to Ohio tomorrow morning, like I mentioned, and uh, me and Josh are gonna be chasing some those big Ohio Ohio bucks. So I don't know, I'm pretty excited about that, but maybe before I dive into my plans for this weekend, then next week's on some curius stand when do you start hunting and uh, what what are your plans for those first couple of hunts. Well, Um, this year, I will be able to hunt October one, opening night on the public land that is by my house. I'm going to give public land hunting a couple of shots this year. Um. I've done a lot of scouting in the area, you know, basically just driving around in my truck. I've done some scouting in some particular spots. But I'm gonna be able to you know, my my goal is just to shoot some doughs on the public property. I'm not although I've seen one what I would call potential shooter. UM, I've got you know, I just want to I want to shoot some shoot some doughs and allows me the opportunity to hunt during the week Now, during the weekends, I'll be going back to um my main farm, the good the good farm that I have UM back near my hometown and UM that's where I'm gonna be doing the early season hunting as far as um, you know, the first weekend of October. The second one. Ryan, the guy that I'm going to be filming for this year, he uh, He'll be coming down the weekend of the eighteen for what we could. I guess you consider an early season hunt. Um, and then I'll be hunting and then um, my vacation starts basically Halloween night, and uh, I'll be hunting November one through. I shouldn't say I'll be hunting, I'll be filming Ryan um and if he kills then, um, then then it will be my turn. So UM, basically, like I said in in other blogs and other um podcast, I'm I'm giving I'm basically giving up my season to film Ryan and help him get his his buck. Yeah, that's pretty awesome now that said though, it sounds like you are going to get to hunt your good spots this first weekend next week, and I guess it would be. Um, you're feeling pretty good about that. Do you have do you have a spot picked out or somebody some ideas of what you might want to do those first couple of hunts there. Yeah. I mean I've been looking at the wind directions and based and you know, trying to figure out if the food is going to be in or if it's gonna be gone, and that kind of makes it, you know, that has to help me make my decision. You know, if the crops are in if the crops are out, um where where I'll be hunting. But I'll be honest with you. This year, Okay, So like the past three years, I've had a mega giant like something you know, deer close to uh for the past um you know, for the past four years on on trail cameras. This year I don't have that, but I like it better because I have probably seven deer that are that um since my asked card pool, are still on trail cameras. Uh. And we're talking five six seven year old bucks. So the age structure is awesome. This year. I've never had anything like that that is awesome. And those are pictures you're getting in September, right, uh right, Um, Everyone that I've gotten so far, um minus one. There's one buck that disappeared. But as far as um trail cameras are concerned, I've captured um all six of them hard horned. As good news as it always seems like to me that if you can catch them in September once are hard horned, there's a really good chance that that's a buck that's sticking around your property for most of the hunting season. Um, that that relocation has happened. Already during that first week in September last week August. So I'm glad to hear you got some big boys still hanging out, right, and the thing that I'm a little weary about, but not at the same time. Okay, so last a huge drought, really dry, not a lot of rain. The the acorn trees barely dropped anything. This year with the wet summer that we had and the huge amount of moisture that we had from the winter, the trees are dropping acorns like crazy. I mean, I've never seen anything like it. Crazy amount of acorns um which. Last year the crops went out, the bucks seemed to disappear, they went to other food sources. They didn't have the acorns, so they were it was hard for me to uh to find them. But this year, the crops, once they go out, oh man, they're gonna have a ton of food still in the timber. Yeah, just gonna't matter. Figuring out where they're which ridge file acorns are hitting and then be there right. Just run those tail cameras, check them every weekend. Now you know, I'm I'm now that a tonning season. I'm gonna be checking these trail cameras every week akend, one time every weekend, and uh, um, if what I find on these trail cameras determines where I'm gonna hunt, and so so that early season strategy for you then is run your trail cameras and then figure out which food source they're closest to and then assume that's where they're gonna be feeding and then start setting up on those types of areas. Is that about right? Yeah, for the most part. For the most part, if I get some kind of activity, Um, I'll pull trail cameras from other areas that I that I are dead, so to speak, and I'll move more trail cameras into the area where I'm getting pictures of these mature box and hopes to basically triangulate their position, and then that's where I'm hunting. I'll find a trail or I'll hopefully have a tree stand already set up in that area from you know historical you know historical data from other seasons. But but yeah, that's work those trail cameras move them in. When you move more into the area. When you have a a shooter that's either making an appearance on another camera or you see him from the road or from a different tree stand and start that cat and mouse game. Yeah, so I'm curious. I've got an opinion on this, but I want to hear yours first and then I'll dive in. Um, But where do you stand when it comes to how aggressive you get in this first part of October mid October? Um? Are you gonna it? Sounds like you're you're willing to start that cat and mouse game and really get after it. Um. Are you being aggressive at this time of year? Or are you gonna be holding off at least on your better spots until later in October or November. Man, that's hard because it just depends on what the trail cameras are saying. Um, if there's a buck in the area or I see him, Let's say, Friday night, I get to my stand and I see a buck in a different in the next area or a different area of making his way, you better believe I'm going to be in that area the next day. But I'm not gonna be blindly jumping into betting areas or um areas that I haven't done any scouting in or there's no sign, Um, you know I've hunted this. You know A couple of these property is long enough now to where I've I've learned the hard way on where to go and how to hunt. But um, but you know, I'm not making any hail Mary's If that makes any sense, Yeah, you know it does. Um. Yeah, I'm not too different from that. Um My, My whole frame of mind around the early season, really the whole season in general, is I take a look at the first few days of the season, I'm willing to go into some of my better spots just because those deer have not been pressured in a long time. They're still sticking to the regular patterns. Um. So, the first couple of nights in Ohio, first couple of nights in Michigan, I'm gonna be heading into better areas. Maybe not necessarily absolute best, but some of my better spots that should be, um, you know, close to a good food source, which should allow for a good evening early season hunt. Um. As soon as that those first couple are done, though, I'm back and way off and I'm not really going to be pushing into any of my good areas until again late October. Um. The only thing that could change that could be what you said that being a daylight setting or daylight trail camera picture that makes me think that there is a mature deer and moving during daylight right now in this area. I'm at the point now where if I do have that kind of sign where that kind of um, you know, indicator, you gotta move in, you gotta hunt that deer right away. But otherwise I'm not gonna be pushing it. Um. So my plan for this weekend in Ohio, We're going down there, Josh and I, and we're not gonna hunt in the mornings. We're gonna hunt just Saturday night and Sunday night. And I don't know if we've talked about this before day or not, but I don't like to hunt Monday or not Monday mornings. I don't like to hunt mornings during October for the most part, um because from what I found, and I actually just started doing this last year, um, is that morning hunts in many cases are pretty low odds. A lot of those mature boxer are moving back to bed before daylight. And so if you're heading in there to go hunt in the morning, even if you're getting to stand an hour and a half before dark or before daylight, there's still a good chance of bumping that deer um and the odds of actually encowering a good buck in the morning after daylight, it's just pretty pretty low odds. And I would rather minimize those potential risks in the mornings, have better hunts in the evenings, and then reduced that overall pressure until later in October when I think those morning hunts can can be better. Um. So that's something that I actually wrote a full article about in the most recent issue of North American Whitetail. Um So I think I much more eloquently describe my my reasons for that in that article. Uh. But that's something that I'm thinking about right now, is avoiding those mornings hunting the evenings and um So this weekend it's gonna be not great conditions though in Ohio it's gonna be pretty warm, um like eighty degrees in the evening. So what I'm looking at is a low impact stand site where I can get to an area where there might be deer transitioning out of their bedding areas to food. Um. But I don't want to be pushing anything close to the bedding areas. So there's a couple different stands sites. So I think we can hunt with the easterly wind that looks like we're gonna have UM, and these are both stands that we can get to our walk in the edge of the cornfield in and then just hunting the edge of these fingers. We've got these two big fingers of timber like come out of a big block of timber out into these cropt fields, and the deer typically transition out and along those heading out to feed. So I think that me and Jashton both get set up in some decent kind of transition areas UM where they'll stage a little bit before heading out to feed in some of the larger fields out past us. And I think it's a situation where we'll be safe with the wind. We won't need to push too close to really um worry about bumping anything. But we'll still have odds of potential season seeing something during daylight, UM, specially since we're in you know, our our main property has got standing corn and I think these deer are feeling pretty comfortable moving all through there during daylight. We have tons of daylight truck camera pictures of big bucks out there because there's just so much cover. So I think there's a decent chance to seeing something, but I'm not necessarily you getna put any money on it. And given how hot it's going to be, we're gonna get out there. We're gonna give it a shot and check o a couple of cameras that are out there, which it give us a little bit more intel. And then after those two hunts, we're gonna bail out of there and then not come back until probably late October. So that's uh, that's the high level plan for this weekend. I'm excited to get out there, excited to see, you know, just be in the woods and um kind of see what things are looking like. Right. I just want to go back to morning hunts a moment, and uh, I I agree with most of what you what you said as far as um uh you know, low impact, not going in and you know, jumping something that is coming back from a food source. And when I say I hunt mornings, I go to stand that are easily accessible. UM, you know they they're they're gonna be right off of a deep ravine or on a um let's see that's one example, or off a two track or um off of a creek where the access routes are very very easy to get to, UM, and you're quiet going in, you have the good wind. I'm not going to be ultra aggressive, um, you know going into a giant you know, stopping through the middle of the timber where I'm not going to be sitting all day, UM, just kind of going in waiting for him to come back to bed. And most of the morning hunts early season, honestly, I'll be looking to get a doll. Yeah. Yeah, I think a lot of that makes sense. I UM. I think something else you you mentioned being your access routes is something super super important at all times of the year, but especially in the early season, because right now you have the opportunity, if you hunt smart, to keep the pressure relatively low on your local deer. UM. But if you start getting careless, if you start tramping around very quickly, you can change the whole dynamic of your property and change the way you're hunting. Can be for the for the next couple of weeks or months. Right. So you know, I really stress, especially in the early season, be really really careful about how you get in and out. UM. And then when it comes to being aggressive, we talked about being aggressive with our stand placement. Another thing I would recommend is UM, you know, not being aggressive. I'd recommend not being aggressive with calling UM. I actually wrote an article about this on Weird Hunt this week. At least in my opinion, I believe that in the early season you really need to be careful with how you're calling UM. For me, aggressive calls or really something that I'm saving for the rut time periods somewhere around late October in November. This time of year, I'm really just trying. If I'm gonna do any calling at all, it's just just gonna be like a curiosity type call. So maybe a light contact grunt UM, maybe a light bleat and something like that, something that might just say, hey, I'm a deer and I'm over here. I'm not gonna be trying anything crazy because this time you're dear just aren't doing those aggressive calls or not having big knockdown fights with you know, rattling sequences and stuff. So that kind of stuff isn't natural. So if you start doing that kind of thing right now, it's going to spookle O deer. So UM, it's important to just be careful when it comes to not getting too aggressive with pushing the betting ears. Not too aggressive with how you're calling, um, and then of course you know with how you're entering and exiting stand sites, you gotta be careful there too. Um. I'm not even bringing I don't even bring my rattling antlers with me until late October. And as far as a grunt call, the only time I'm using a grunt call in the early season is if I see a deer, I see a buck worth calling at. Because um, even though they're not aggressive, there still is a pecking order in the timber. And UM, I've honestly heard dear snort weise the very first week in October, and there's I mean, you can see it from mineral stations all summer long. The big buck comes right in and he takes over whatever is in that whatever whoever is at that mineral station. If he's in the area, he's going write to it, he's going to plan in his butt and he's he's in charge. Yeah, you know that. Like you said, the pecking order, the pecking order is definitely very real. And UM, I'm right there with you in regards to calling. I don't do any calling either unless I see a buck that I want to bring in a little bit closer and only in those circumstances while I do a little bit of a little bit of grunning. UM. So we've talked a little bit about, you know, stand sites, entry and access calling um our plans for the first couple of hunts. I thought it might share a story from last season. UM. I think illustrates a number of different things that I'm thinking about when I'm looking at an early season hunt and kind of how I break that down. UM. So maybe I'll share this story with the dan a couple of lessons that I learned from it, and um, if you have any questions about why I did stuff or how things went, um, feel free to ask. But hopefully this might illustrate some of the things I think should be considered when going into an early season hunt, like many of us will be over the next couple of days or weeks. Um. So this story was last season at the beginning of the two thousand thirteen season, October five or six, I think, Um, it was that first weekend, and I had you know, as I mentioned before, I typically don't want to go into any of my good areas until maybe those first couple of days of the season or wait till October and November. Late October and November, well, I had seen one of the mature bucks on this farm from a distance while scouting from a long ways away with my bnoculars. I'd seen him walking across an opening like three days before the season it opened. And then I went and tracked to camera and I got a daylight trail camera picture of the same buck in the same general area again. And this is all in those couple of days before the season. So I felt confident that hunt into one of these better areas was worth doing because I'd had to daylight you know, sightings um or pictures, which gave me a pretty clear indicator that hey, he's moving in the area, it's worth you know, moving in on him. So I then try to fall you know, where do I want to hunt? And when it comes to an early season hunt, I'm looking for a couple of things. Number One, it's got to be low pressure. So all the low pressure pieces we just talked about they had to fit that bill. So I didn't want my wind affecting, you know anything. I didn't want to have to access through betting cover or do anything that might bumped here, so I was able to find, um one of my stand sites that I really like, I set up particularly or specifically just for an early season hunt like this. I planned a food plot um with oats and some clovers and some different things that were really going to be attractive earlier in the year. And then at she had a box blind of redneck blind set up right off this food plot a little ways and then there's a little betting area not too far off on the other side of that, and so I could catch I could catch deer moving off that betting area and intercept them between the bed and the feed when I was in this redneck blind, and so I had the daylight signings this buck. I had a stand site where I know I could get to it safely, and I could get out of there safely, and I felt pretty good about my chances of not really alerting any other deer in the area. Now, the final thing that kind of all lined up that made me realize I really had to go in there and hunt. Excuse me, was losing my voice hold one second here, Damn well, I think that's better. Um. So another thing that lined up here was the fact that I had a cold front hitting. And this is another big thing that I really like to pay attention to in the early season and really all year, is cold fronts. And I had a front coming in where the temperature was gonna drop about ten to fifteen degrees from the previous day's highs and was gonna bring some precipitation in. So I had all these different things lined up. And when I saw the cold front was hitting on day I think it was Sunday, I knew that that was the day I had to get in there and hunt, and so I moved in, I got everything set up, I decided to hunt that spot. One thing, though, was a bit off. When I actually decided to go in there and hunt, the wind had changed a little bit, and so were previously I thought I was not going to be in danger of getting winded. Now I potentially could. But because the front was hitting, because I had the daylight sightings, because I knew I was on a hot food source, all those things were lined up, I thought I could maybe cut the corner of the on the wind a little bit and get away with a little bit of a risk. And I think sometimes you do need to do that, especially with the wind. Oftentimes when a mature buck is going to move into a feeding area or to a betting or wherever he's headed. He's gonna want that wind in his favor. So sometimes you're gonna have to hunt a stand where the deer thinks he has a win in his in his favor, but you just barely may or may not have working for you. So in this case, I thought I was gonna be great on that edge, and long story short, I got set up, the deer start piling into feed, the rain hit, the temperatures dropped, the deer moving on their feet like crazy, and I ended up having two different mature box moving that night. One of them was six shooter Um who you know many. We've talked about him many times before I ended up killing him later in the year. The other buck was Leaner, who was another dealer we've talked about a lot. He moved in and got to within forty yards of entering a shooting lane where I could have taken him, and everything had paid off, all those risks, all those different conditions that I was looking for in a good early season hunt. Everything had lined up except for the last thing, and that was that tricky wind. And what happened was a dough had moved in just to that kind of downwind angle where my wind was blowing. She winded me, and because of that, she blew out the field and blew out the all the deer and leaner took off running. But if it hadn't been for her, all those different little risks and little pieces of paul where it all came together, and I kind of had a perfect early season set up that just barely didn't work. Um, But it was one of those situations where I think, you know, I look at all those different pieces of the puzzle and that's what I'm looking for in a perfect early season hunt. If I can get those different things to line up, that's you know, the kind of early season hunt that I want to go on. And that's you know what I'm willing to push the limits when I have everything lined up like that, right, stay away from those hail Mary's. That's basically what it comes down to. Use the information that your cameras uh and that your brain is providing you and um, you know, if you fail, you fail, that's hunting. But if you're going in there tromping around making uneducated guesses at what to do. It's your own fault. Yeah, yeah, I have to think. Um. I think maybe the bigger one of the big lessons I learned from this was that, you know, while I am pretty risk averse earlier in the year, sometimes when all the conditions are right, like it wasn't that case, I'm okay taking a risk. I'm willing to take that risk if all those different pieces are there, and sometimes it's not gonna play out right like it did in this situation. But I think the key thing is making sure that if you're gonna do that, if you're gonna take a risk, make sure it's very informed. Make sure you have all the different pieces of the puzzle and the reasons why. You know. Don't, like you said, don't throw a hail Mary just because just because it's the opening day of the season and you want to hunt somewhere, Um good, you know, don't just dive in there. Make sure you've got good reasons why you're going to move in there, because you can do a lot more harm this time of year if you're not being smart than than good. So I think, um, I think, with all that said, my plan in Michigan. So I'm hunting Ohio tomorrow and Sunday and then I'll be back and it opens in Michigan Wednesday night. UM, I could hunt Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, whatever those nights. But it looks like it's gonna be pretty hot. We've got a big cold front hitting though on Saturday and looks like it's gonna drop like fifteen degrees again, So I'm leaning towards probably not hunting. Maybe I'll hunt opening day, but at least not hunt in my good area. I think I'm gonna wait to hunt my good a until that cold front hits on Saturday and Sunday, and moving to one of those early season food sources. UM. I planned a couple really nice little food plots that I think will be pulling some deer into an area that I want to hunt. So tentatively that's what I'm planning on doing um next weekend. But again, it's really gonna come down to what's the wind doing, what's the precipitation, what are the temperatures. UM. I really pay attention to all that a lot this time of year, and so and so we will see. Well, good luck man, thank you, I appreciate it. I think, um, I should have some kind of updates for for everyone by tomorrow night or Sunday if nothing else, will have some trout camera pictures, um, which would be pretty cool. I'm excited to see. You know, we haven't been down in the least since August, so I'm excited to see what deer still hanging out there, um, now that they're heart warned and deer kind of moved to their fall territories. So right, I just want to cover something real quick about a calling, um, and it's I've learned every one of these lessons the hard way. And if you see a deer, or if a deer you know, I think as a hunter, understanding a deer's body, um, how he's acting. You know, if he's alert, don't call at him. You know, if he's caught your wind, don't call at him. All you've done there is educate him and he's gone. And more than likely he's gonna because he's already alert, he's gonna pinpoint you in your location, look up at the tree at you, and then he's gone. The second one is if there's a deer who is above you, be very very careful on your calling because he's going to be able to look down and see that there's no deer there unless it's very thick. You know, if it's wide open and he's a he's above you, that's a no no as well. One trick that I've kind of taught myself is to cover the front of my ground call or turn around to the side to where the exit of the tube is facing away from the deer so it doesn't sound as close. You know, whether whether that will help a person or not, it's something that I do and I've I've seen success with over the past years. Yeah, I think that's great advice. I'm right there with you, especially when it comes to um, you know, not overcalling once a deer. You know, once you already have his attention, the worst thing you can do is keep calling to him when he's already looking at you. Yeah. So I learned that lesson with a hundred and eight twelve pointer. Um. Oh geez, maybe four years ago. Uh, he came in. He caught my trail where we walked in, or my my scent, I don't really know. The wind was kind of squirreling that night. He kind of got alert. I turned around, he turned around, I grunted. He kind of looked back in the area, but it was already in his mind that I've smelled something dangerous and I don't want to go over there. But at the same time, it was the rut, So he kinda wanted to fight, and he kind of wanted to breed. But that that knows in the danger censor, for the most part, trumps all that stuff. If they know for a fact that you're that something dangerous is in that area, you lost. Yeah, and I rattled and snort wheezed, and I thought he was gonna come back, but he didn't. Yeah, they once it. Once he lose the game with the nose, it's it's game over, game over. YEA. Well, I don't know, Dan, I UM, I might have rambled here a little bit. Today I'm still a little bit induced, like an induced rambling here. But is there anything else you think we should cover when it comes to early season hunts or our basic ideas about early season hunting. To make sure we'd the listeners here with some sound helpful advice. Be observant, be keep your eyes open, don't and this is what I've learned. You know, it's like it is, it is the truth. You know that's saying, Um, when the the the young bull says to the old bull, Hey, let's run down there and let's let's breed a couple of those those cows. And the old bull says, well, why don't we walk down and breed them all? Once I've started learning this patience game with a deer, and and not calling all the time, and not grunning all the time, and not making these hardcore moves, you know, stupid moves, and and being patient, being observant and waiting for the right time to hit an area. I've seen more dear from the stand than ever before. So and it I tell you what, it sucks to not hunting area knowing there's a big buck there on the wrong wind. But but it will it will help you in the long run. And you know, I'm not the kind I've I've never shot a giant, giant deer. I haven't shot a ton of bucks, but I do have experience on what I what a person can do wrong, and I've done those things. So take my word for the for that. Yeah, it's it's all. But the timing there really is nothing for me too. There's no bigger paradigm shift for me. And then when I started realizing that there has to be the right timing for everything, and that quality of hunts is more important than quantity, and so making sure that you're timing your hunts right, timing your strategies right, and doing all those things at the right times to ensure quality hunts versus going out there every single time you can and being stupid. Um, it's tough to do. Like you said, sometimes you want to be in there you know there's a deer, or you want to hunt every night off you have, um, but that more often times than not does not lead to success on these big mature deer. So so I think, yeah, if we leave the listeners or anything today, it's be patient, be careful, hunt smart, and um, you know, take some chances you're in the early season if you have reasons to do so, if there's evidence and pieces of the puzzle that lead to the fact that there should be a good chance of a mature deer or whether whatever kind of deer it is you're trying to shoot, going to make that move, but make sure you're very careful and don't get too excited and blow things for the rest of the season, right right, Well, I think with that being said, then Dan, I think we'll wrap things up here. I'm just gonna add one quick thing and uh well to actually one um if you want to read more about my trip out to western Nebraska and take a look at the buck that I'll be chasing myself and Ryan are going to be chasing this fall, you can go to um nine finger chronicles dot com and check out the blog. And the second thing, and the most important thing, is to wear your safety harness. I've already seen Facebook posts of guys fallen out of the tree or being saved because of a faulty tree stand or a wrong step, So don't be an idiot where your safety harness very important reminders. Thank you for that, dan Um, And then I'll close things up here by also again plugging our little contest. If you have been enjoying Wird Hunt, if you could post a little something on Facebook or on forum or message board, just mentioning the podcast, why you like it, and including a link, we would it would be in the world's rest We really appreciate that. And if you want to take a screenshot of that, email it to me at Mark at wired Hunt dot com. I'll get you in that drawing and we will get some pretty sweet prizes out to one of you next week, and as usual then we always do appreciate the reviews on iTunes. Thank you to the seventy three of you so far who have left awesome reviews for us there that helps you to absolutely. Speaking of appreciation, of course, we also need to thank our partners who helped make this show possible. So big thank you to Sick of Gear, Trophy, Ridge Bear Archery, Redneck Blinds, Carbon Express Arrows, Hunts, Soft Lacrosse, Boots, Big and J long Range Attractants, and the White Tail Institute of North America. I'll tell you what, this is a mouthful too. I can't really talk too well and that's a lot of words to say. We better thank our wives too, because it's coming up on fall Widow season, So honey, I know you're not going to ever listen to this, but uh, sorry for my absence the next two months. Yeah, yeah, make sure all of us we should be making sure to thank our significant others big time because this is that time of year, isn't it. Yeah, definitely so true. And um of course, visit wid dot com slash episode to view some of the different links from some of the things we talked about today, I'll make sure to link to your blog, Dan, and some of the different things I've written about recently that are relevant to our conversation. So all that said, thank you so much for being here with us today. Thanks for dealing with UM you know, our slight delaying getting the podcast out here recently, for dealing with my um questionable talking tactics today to talk with a swell mouth, and as always for for supporting word hunt and being here with us. And until next week, good luck hunting, Let's stay weird Hunt.