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 one Tay in the show, we're joined by longtime outdoor writer and renowned big buck hunter Don Haggin's and we're talking all about how he hunts the various phases of the rut in pursuit of mature bucks. All right, welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Sitka Gear. And today on the show, we are joined again by one of our past podcast guests, Don Higgins. And Don is a widely respected and experienced outdoor writer and deer hunter. He's one of the guys I've personally learned the most from about deer hunting too. So that said, he was an easy choice for us to bring back on the show. And the first time we talked with Don was back in two thousand and fourteen and we discussed late season hunting. Last year we had him on again and we discussed traild cameras. And today we're going to have him on a third time to talk about the Super Bowl of the deer hunting year, the pre rut and rut time frames. So it's gonna be good stuff and applicable to your hunts in the coming days and weeks. That said, though, before we get into that, I want to give you a quick update on something that's kind of cool. We just launched a brand new Wire to Hunt T shirt design this week. Have you seen that, Dan, I have seen it. I haven't got it in the mail yet, but but I've seen it. Looks pretty cool. I will have my wife's son one out today for you. So this, this, this T shirt design is pretty cool. I'm excited about. It features a bunch of our favorite hunting words and phrases and the last stuff we stay here on the podcast, and he uses those words to form the Wired Hunt logo. And I don't know if you saw, Dan, but it even says that being said on there. I know, I know, I saw that. So yeah, pretty pretty cool. And actually what's interesting is the shirt was actually the logo design was created by a Wired Hunt listener, so perfect. Yeah, very cool. So if you want to check out those shirts and pick one up, you can go to Wired two hunt dot com slash shop and also we are going to be offering a ten percent off discount for all the rest of our merchandise through the end of November and celebration of the RUT. And you can get that tempercent off by using the promo code RUT so our u T that's the promo code so wired hunt dot com slash shop pick up your shirts. And that is it for my little infomercial. I got a quick question, Yeah, uh, will they if I wear that out in the woods? Will Will you guarantee me opportunity at a big Buck? I can guarantee you and opportunity. I cannot guarantee you'll make the shot count, Okay, alright, alright, as long as I get the opportunity, that's all I care about. I'll do the rest, all right. I'm gonna count on you for that one, Dan, Okay. So speaking of that, then, the last thing we have to do before we get done on here is share our updates from the field. And we both have some stuff to share. Do you want to kick that off? No? I don't. I'm interested on hearing what you have to say about this whole holy field, because I'll be honest, I've been freaking really busy not only with work, but with family. And I didn't get a chance to read your blog updates, so feed me. Yes, Well it's been exciting past couple of days, dude, it's been as exciting as it gets. Um. So you know, this past weekend I was up north and our northern Michigan property, and um, that was actually pretty cool. We put our first food plot in this year and it did pretty darn well considering the conditions up there, really a citic soil and we got two awesome bucks. On trail camera. I saw a bunch of deer compared to what we usually do, so that was great. Um. But I got back Sunday night really late, and I wasn't planning hunting Monday, just because I got home like one thirty. I had a bunch of stuff to do. But I don't know. I was sitting here working Monday morning and I was looking at the weather you know how we do, um, and I'm like, man, we got really high and rising barometric pressure. There was a great little cold front that came through here. Temperatures or fifteen degrees lower than they were the other day. I haven't hunted its main property in ten days. Uh. Long story, short, I convinced myself I should go out there and try to hunt for holy Field again, and I did, and it was awesome night. I saw five different mature bucks, including two Well, I've decided to go to this theme of naming the bucks on this property after boxers, since since holy Field kind of started off because of his ear. Well, there's a three and a half year old nine pointer I think I've mentioned before that starts showing up. Um. Actually the summer he showed up, and I'm calling him Fraser because it'd be pretty cool someday I shot him and I can say down goes for a sure, um, and that's the only reason you would shoot him, so exactly, that's the only reason. And then there's another three or four year old who really does not have a very impressive set of antlers, but he looks a pretty big body deer. Um, he's just a wide like seven pointer. Um, so I'm calling him Mayweather. And then there's so I saw all these bucks. I saw Frasier, I saw Mayweather. I saw a new wide eight pointer that I've never seen before. I don't think i've seen before. Um, I don't have a name for that buck. And then I saw holy field. Um, So, to keep this from getting too long, what happened basically happened is I was watching Frasier and his two and a half year old buck. They'd emerged out of the cover and they were actually sparring out in the field, and all of a sudden, here crashing in front of me, and I look out and from the neighbors kind of brushy betting year, it comes a dough and then the big buck right in her trail, running sprinting out in the middle of the bean field. Then they turn around and the dough runs right back from the way she came, and he goes tearing up hinder and I'm like, frantically grabbing a grunt. Call I just got out a big grunt, and he stops right at the edge of the field. He looks at me, takes a couple of steps forward, and then walks to the edge of the field, starts making a big scrape, just ripping up the ground, ripping up the tree, rubs up on a tree, and I'm like, oh, he's he's getting kind of feisty here. And they turned again and looked at me, and then he starts walking right down the edge of the field towards him, like, holy crap, this is gonna happen. The issue, though, is it's like just before the end of shooting leg. I mean, I'm thinking, okay, if he gets to me, like now I can get a shot. But you know, we're running out of time fast, like it's metter just a couple of minutes or something like that. Um, So he keeps coming down the field and then a couple of Does step out and start heading in towards the food plot where I'm sitting over and so now he starts jagging towards me. My bow is ready rains. Friend is already The Does cross the creek coming to the food plot, and then he stalls up on the other side of the creek, starts looking around, and he turns to head back into the of it looks like and I'm like, well, i gotta try something. He's the big boy on the block. I'm gonna try to challenge him. So a loud snort. Wise, he stops, turns, looks at me, and then puffs up and hops the creek and walks right into the food plot, right at me. So yeah, so I'm pretty fired up. But it's like, now it's a minute later or whatever it is, and I'm thinking, Okay, basically, if he comes right into like twenty yards, I think I'll be able to see well enough to get a good shot. But any further than that, you know, it's just not worth the risk. So basically what happens. He came in and then those doors were in here, and one of those doughs took off running, and he started chasing that dough. So he ran across the close or the first shooting lane that I have in this tree. He ran right through it, stopped, and then when he came out the other side back into an opening, he was at like forty yards or something, and I drew back on him. So when he when he came across the first shool, and I drew back. And then when he finally came out into the opening again, it was just too far. I couldn't see it was it was not there was not in the flight. So he went rare off. And were your pins too bright and then it was kind of messing up the darkness in the background or was it because your pins were dark too and it was just way too dark all around? Yeah, it was probably the latter. The pins were dark and everything was too dark. And I actually don't have lighted sight pins right now, um because the battery died in it and I just forgot to replace it. But I don't even if I had the lip pins it would have helped in this case. UM. So I watched him chase is still back out in the field, and then like Frasier and holy Field and some other random buck were like sparring and circling out in the field. And then holy Field came and chased the doll back into the food plot and came underneath me. But it was like way after shooting right now, and I could just look at him with my binoculars. He came to like twenty five yards or something. Um. And then after a while later I had my wife come over and picked me up on the a TV so I could get out of there without spooking these deer, at least with them known its me. So fast forward to tomorrow, well, sorry, the next day, which was last night. Given everything I saw that morning, I couldn't hunt, but I scouted from the road for a couple of minutes and I saw holy Field and Fraser chasing does again out in this being fields right next to the food plot. So I went in last night and saw a bunch of deer again. Holy Field showed up again, like forty five minutes before daylight, but he popped out, and the being feeling the same place he did, kind of looked around the work and he doze out. Yet excuse me the hiccups. So he then though heard some rustling over by me, because it was a two and a half year old buck in the food plot in front of me. So we heard that, and he started running right towards me. Again. I'm like, yes, now it's gonna happen. So I got the bow already, I got my range friend er handy. He was coming right into the edge of the food plot, towards it the least, and then something over by the road caused attention, and he stopped. He looked out towards the road, and because this is all you know, not that far off the road. Um, he stopped and looked that way, and then I just didn't like what he saw or something. He just turned and kind of jogged back into the cover. I watched him go off the way. This other younger buck had gone, and him and two other bucks kind of circled around back along this creek. I could see about a hundred yards away, and I tried a couple of grunts and he just was not feeling it, and um, he turned and went the other direction. And that was basically it. He did show up again after dark, just like you did the night before, came back out into that being field after shooting. Like I saw him maybe two hundred yards away, and he just kind of fed out and was heading towards some does. And he's just he's very active right now. And there are bucks chasing does all over the place, and it seems like something is coming to heat early because they're really getting after it, even the three and four year old bucks, which usually you know, you don't see happening at least here until it really are some doughes and estress. Um. So it's been exciting. It's been nerve racking, but exciting. Well man, Uh, good luck. Hopefully he doesn't connect with the dough in the next couple of days and you get another opportunity at him. Uh what I really want? You have rattled yet, have you know? Okay, are you afraid to? Yeah? You know, rattling just does not work here at least in my experience, I've never I've never ever ever had any luck rattling in Michigan. Um, and a lot of guys like Johnny Everhart and a lot of other guys I talked to here usually do not rattle. Maybe just a little. I mean, I've done some light time tickling, but we just don't have knocked down, drag out buck fights as often as you do an io or something like that. Like it happens sometimes, and there are bucks, of course, but the number of mature boxes minuscule compared to most other you know, far out Midwestern states. And then there's just half a billion hunters who are cracking antlers together all the time. So more often than not, when I used to try to rattle more, it would just spooked. Here. I'd be seeing a buck and he go run the other way, because nine times at ten that's just another hunter for him. Um. So I just I don't even It's not even part of my repertoire out here anymore. I've just seen too many negative reactions. So okay, so that's my situation. I'm gonna go back out tonight as soon as we get done of this, I'm gonna try to sneak out there. It's really cool again. It's like ten or twelve or thirteen degrees colder than it was yesterday and the only issue is raining a lot. So hopefully the rain dies down a little bit maybe, And um, I am going to try a new spot, my back kind of secluded honey hole that I haven't hunted once yet this year. I think I think tonight's the night to get a shot. So that's the game plan. Alright, man, Well, good luck and hopefully it all it all works out. Yeah, man, what about you? What's what is new with you? Well? As of right now, UM, I'll just I'm gonna only talk about one hunt so far because it was last Friday night, and uh, because Saturday night was nothing. I checked my trail cameras and decided to lay off the mornings as of right now because they weren't showing any activity. There was there's been a lot of activity on the farm with actually farming, so um, I think that's kind of jostled the deer up for the time being. However, I went down to a stand, an observation stand along it's in a fence row that is that splits a marsh. Uh, the horse pasture, a cattle pasture and uh in a bean field. And I sat right on the intersection of that, and so I get up there. I set up, and I pulled my bow up and I hang it on the tree, and I start hearing something running towards me, and it's three doughs. They hop the fence out of the horse pasture and they start they make their way right by me. They did exactly what I was hoping they were going to do, going into the bean field and working their way down this fence line um north of this marsh. The dough stops and all three of the doors are looking behind her, and they're looking behind her, and they're looking behind her, and yeah, and it's it's only four o'clock, right, so it's it's a little early. And I'm like, man, I you know something coming here. And I I heard some noise back there, but I really, you know, you know, it could have been a squirrel. You never know. So this dough walks over to a scrape that's on the bean field and works at like a buck would work it, right, Uh, Paul, yep. She paused it the dirt, she peed in it, and she did the licking branch and yeah, and so from what I've seen over the past, uh she this means that they're in heat or coming to you know, coming to get into heat. And this was a big old mature dough and I was gonna shoot a dough that night, but with all this happening so early, and I saw deer clear across the bean field. Uh from where I was at, I'm just like, Okay, something, something has got these deer up on their feet, and I kind of want to know what it is. And they're not spooked, right, So these deer, these three doughs are heading and they worked there along this fence line. They worked their way out of my view and then I from behind me, I hear breber two big loud, which sounds like a mature buck grunt, and I'm like, oh boy, it's gonna it's gonna happen. It's gonna happen tonight, you know. And so I put my I put my seat up, and I'm I'm facing the tree. I'm I'm got my shooting lane ready. And this is a complete running gun set up. I did everything right before I got there. And I start hearing steps coming towards this fence line. And then behind me, I hear another bra bra, It's another buck, two big deep grunts, and I'm like, oh boy, it's you know, it's October, right This isn't supposed to really be happening like this right now. And then I heard this buck in there. He was murdering a tree. He was just raking it up and down and up and down. And and then this other buck. And at this time I can't see him right this other buck he's in the grass out of my view, and he's pawing at grass. It sounds like he's either thrashing it with his antlers or he's making a scrape in this tall grass. And so I'm getting jacked up right, and everything is slow. He's starting to work its way towards me, and I think I can see the butt end of a buck through my binoculars into the timber. And then I hear and the farmer of the cattle pasture starts to trim trees that have fallen over his fence line so he can fix the fence. Pull the top section of the barbed wire up and and address and fix the fence so he can put his cattle in there. And I'm going no, like in my head, I'm like, you son of a bitch, and he uh, and so he he worked. He just continues to work his way, you know, by me. And obviously that grunning stopped. I didn't see any deer close to me, but on a working farm like that. And by the way, this guy got within yards of me and didn't see me, which is kind of cool. But um, I'm I'm watching deer still move across the field on the north end. So that just kind of tells you a little bit about some of these working farms and how comfortable some of these deer feel. Now, granted, none of them were mature bucks. But I saw a handful of doze and a whole bunch of I shouldn't say a whole bunch, but three young bucks um, you know, one two year old bucks um on the opposite side, and they were just feeding in this in this bean field while the guy's cutting trees. Um. They couldn't see him, but you know, when he started getting closer to mine, all they did was slowly walk right back into the timber. And then when he stopped. Um, I it was all happened at primetime, right, so nothing was going to happen after that, and uh then you know, I went out Saturday night and uh nothing, nothing showed up, not one deer somber. Yeah, I've had a go ahead. I was gonna say, what is the latest on trail camera? Do you have any of your big boys showing back up? Nope, I got kind of I kind of got a freeze right now. However, I have I have two trail cameras that I haven't checked since the first week in October, and I won't check them until I go hunt those stands. So I don't want to go in this in this area to hunt the stands. It's one of those trail camera locations where I'm not gonna check them until I actually hunt the area, just because I don't want to put any additional pressure on the property. Um. However, I did have a giant three. The body looks gigantic. He's I think he's three pounds, she huge neck, his antlers maybe or one thirty you know maybe maybe not even that I sent you the picture. And yeah, and he's blind in one eye, just like a true warrior. He's been on my buddies property for two three years now or two years now, and uh, he is definitely a shooter. He's is his body just screams like maybe a five year old, uh, with just a like a scrub rack. But he's he's mature and he's so that makes my hit list. Yeah, I love that buck is a scrub buck for you, and well my best buck in Michigan wanting to me. But I know what you mean relative to what else is running around over there. Yeah, So then I went and I checked my other farm to the north west, you know where I had the buck that I shot last year running around and uh, the only thing I got on traill camera was muzzleloader pictures and one picture of one of the shooter bucks in that area at like three in the morning working a way through. So muzzleoader pictures, guy pictures of guys muzzleloading hunting. When was that, Uh this was October, I think ten through. I forgot you guys have that weird mid October season and which this is your main farm? No, this is my uh, this is my uh farm close to my house. Oh the one where the booner was, Yeah, exactly, I don't know. We let other guys hunt it. Oh yeah, he lets uh from the looks of it. He lets more guys than he knows on it. So I talked to the guy and then they really don't care. Um however, all they do is care that you know everybody's safe. But yeah, it's one of those things where you know, it's muzzleloader season that's over and now the only person who's out there right now is me and uh, I have it until shotgun season starts, and then it will get beat ship and then I probably ever see a deer on it. Well, get it done before then, okay, right, But I it happened to do some scouting on the south end of of that property and I found some of and I say this because I don't say it often, but some of the best betting areas that I have ever seen. They logged this property in about two and it's got like six five or six years of growth where it's those bushes that are about six ft tall and almost impassable, but there's little trails cut through there. Oh man, I cannot wait for the first north wind. I think that might either be that might be tomorrow night or Saturday here, and I'm gonna go sit on the down wind side of that and just kind of see what happens, another running gun type of scenario. So, so which days are you hunting? Moving forward? Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. No, I'm gonna try to get to see today's I'm gonna try to get out. Um, I am going to try to get out tonight, which is tomorrow night. Friday is a very warm like it jumps twenty degrees warm and windy day. I kind of talked to my wife. I said, all right, you let me hunt tonight tomorrow. I'll trade those nights for Friday night and we'll go on a date, uh play, you know, pull some brownie points out, and then I'll hunt Saturday and Sunday. And because the temperature drops back down again on Saturday and Sunday and uh you know, and then i work Monday, the thirty one, and then I'm off from the first to the sixteenth. So you're off the first, the first through. Yep, that's a new development, isn't it. That is a new development. Wow? So well, I knew I was going to take that time off. It's still debatable on where I will be hunting, if it's gonna be on my main arm or close to here. So yeah, about that I don't know I'll be able to hunt. I just don't know if I'm going to be able to, you know, be away from the family for that entire sixteen days. Right. Well, hey, either way though, that's that's gonna increase your odds dramatically because I feel like we we record an episode last week or something where you were talking about just having like one week of vacation, right right, and uh, it was It's just one of those things where I really don't know what is going to happen until the day of, and a lot of it, to be honest with you, and I hate to say it is on my wife's attitude. So you know, I'm gonna I'm only going to talk about it when she's happy, and if she's not happy, then you know, it may just but you know, I just you just don't mention it. Uh. And I'll tell you what. For all the guys out there who have wives and you have kids, bow hunting this time of year is kind of a very selfish sport, right, I mean, you're you're not part You're not involving your wife in this except for maybe dropping you off and on the four wheeler. You know, I'm sure, she appreciate appreciates that mark. But but you know, it's one of those things where let them know how much this means to you and how much you know, you understand that you're walking away for a while and if you're if your guys as kids are like my kids. Uh, she is going to hate being a single parent for you know, sixteen days or um, however many days there are. And I really appreciate her. I love her very much for for doing that. Um. It's a battle at times, but she she gets it, she understands, and I understand the frustration that she has to go through too. So make sure you guys tell your wives or ship it's two thousand sixteen, you tell your husband, uh, if that you appreciate them. Oh Dan, I uh, I really want to keep this on track here, all right? What I It's funny man mentioned this because I literally just before we started recording this podcast, stop my wife and I was just like, hey, you know, keep it, keep it together, keep it together. Damn. I told my wife. I'm like, hey, I just want you to know how much I appreciate you being cool with this. You know, from this point on, you it's probably gonna be crazy hunting every day and working late at night, and I'm gonna be a bad husband for the next couple of weeks. And you know, just like you mentioned with your wife, she's she gets it and supportive, and it's it's we're very luckily, very lucky to have supportive wives. So so that's said, my wife's to the point now where some of the pressure on me. She puts a little pressure on me, like, yeah, go out and kill that buck. Why did why did you do that? Why? Like she's asking me questions that you know sometimes need to be asked. Why didn't you move that stand close to the buck? Um, that's a that's a pretty good question, Kylie. I wish that thing. Yeah, why don't you Why don't you shoot one tonight? Uh? Well, um, yeah, I tried. Well, just hurry up and go shoot one. Like okay, I have I have a like a white board next to my desk that I sometimes put, like to do list items on there, and then sometimes when there's like honey dew stuff, Kylie will put some things on there. And right now, in big red letters, she wrote killing old buck exclamation point. So so she she's trying to keep me on keep me on task. Yeah, oh you know, life life, but life life is exciting right now for us as deer hunters. So dude, it is it is pre rut right now. I've talked to so many guys around here right now who are seeing heavy chasing right now, um, and they are. You know, it's it's that time where I think, like what I saw from the stand on Friday, these first does are coming into Estrus. You know, we talked about that bell curve all the time, that that beginning of the bell curve is starting right now. And what's what's special about that is when there's just a few of those doughs coming in, all the bucks are going to be starting to try to find that early dough. So if you happen to be in the spot where that dough is hit it hard, right That's that's what seems to be happening by me. Like like I said, I've had mature bucks chasing doughs around already out in broad daylight. So I've hunted two days in a row. I'm back in today and hunting in tomorrow and just try to be there one that getting is good man, maybe we'll get lucky. So I guess though, we should wrap up our intro here and get done on because maybe he'll hell the advice that you and me need to finally kill a deer. Oh, I need like more than just advice. I need like someone driving my body in my brain. I don't think you can do that for it, but we can ask. I suppose all right? Well, with that said that, gosh, I said that said even more than usual today, I feel like it's on the T shirt. On the T shirt, buy that T shirt. You're subconsciously trying to get people to buy stuff from you, aren't you. I think that might be it. So I don't even know how to transition anymore. Moving on, let's take a break for a word from our sponsors at Sick of Gear, and then we will give Don Higgins a call. So, as we do every week, we need to thank our partners at Sick of Gear for their ongoing support of the Wired to Hunt podcast, and today, rather than another Sick of story, today, I want to remind you about si Cause Diverge photo contest that's going on right now. As we mentioned earlier this year, Sick is running this contest through December fift in which they're looking for unique and creative photos from your hunting adventures. As they put it, we've come together to share the very real things we've seen, the grit, the beauty, the truth of hunting, the rawness. Prizes for the contest include sick hats and hunting apparel, go pros, the chance that we published in print, and even in all expenses paid trip to Bozeman, Montana. So if you think you have an eye for authentic hunting photography, be sure to submit your pictures by using the hashtag diverge five the number five on Instagram or visit sitka gear dot com slash diverge. You need to. Even if you don't plan on submitting a photo into the contest, you really should still visit that site because on that site, sick of gear dot com slash diverge, you can take a look at all of the current entries into the contest and there are just some really awesome photos in there. So check it out. Enter the contest at sick of gear dot com slash diverge. And now let's get back to the show and give Don Higgins a call. All right, will us on the line? Now? Is Don Higgins? Welcome back to the show down. Well, thanks for having me mark towas a pleasure. Yeah, ditto on our end, We're we're excited chat with you and like we're just saying, you're our first three time guest on the show, so pressure is high on you today because we're expecting great things. Well, you guys must be getting pretty desperate. Yeah, that could be it. That could be a um. But but that said, you know we've already introduced you in the past. I think people know who you are and what you do. UM. So what I'm most interested in right now because me and Dan have just spent the previous twenty minutes talking about how our hunting seasons are going so far, I'm curious for you. How are things going for you so far? Well, you know the older I guess it seems like the last hunting I do in October for the really big box. I know every year you get on social media and you see something really big when it's killed in October. But for a guy, that one guy to go out and consistently do it stuff And I've just found that I'm a little better off to put less pressure on my stands and hunting areas in October and then hit it hard in November. So that's pretty much what I've done. Have you gone at all? Yeah, I've gone, I don't know, maybe five or six times all evenings. I don't known a single October morning. I probably not hunted a single October morning in over twenty years. Now. Um, the older I get, the more I put things together, I start playing the odds, and the odds are so slim on October morning for one guy to do it consistently that I just don't even go out and put the pressure on my stands or my hunt areas. So uh, I will hunts October evenings because in the right condition, you know, you get a cool front coming there or something like that, and you can have success in October. But I like to play the odds. Like I said, in November is much better time. Yeah. So I've seen a little bit on social media and your blog where you've been talking about your number one buck for this year, you call him Trump. Can you tell us about that buck that he's he's an absolute stud. Yeah, He's a buck that I have pictures of every summer since two thousand twelve. That was the first years that I could identify him. Going back through old pictures. Um, he really has never been I mean, he's always been a nice buck. Last year he was probably maybe in the h he might have hit one sixty. He was definitely over one fifty. Um, he's good. But I'm always looking for those really top end bucks and he just wasn't wanted I put any attention to at all. But in this summer when I got his picture, he had exploded and I'm certain he's over one eighty now uh sixteen points, and he may even be over one try to be conservative. But the bad thing is is that every year he's summers in an area where I get his picture consistently throughout the summer, and then he disappears in early October and he's not to be seen against the entire season in that area. And since he was never one that I really focused on, or buck that really showed potential to be something huge in the future, I just never spent any time trying to learn worry Wind or anything. Well, I got my last picture of the October seventh, and ironically I went in that that afternoon to hunt a stand, and I had a new cellular camera that I put up on a scrape about twenty yards from my stand, and that night, about ten o'clock, I get my first picture from that camera and it's Trump. He's at the scrape work, so I think he was kind of rubbing my nose in a little bit. But in the past, he's six years old. This year I figured from from trail camera history, and in the past, you know, he was about like any other buck. I get day pictures and night pictures. But this year I probably got over two pictures pretty easy over the course of the summer and early fall, and I have yet to get a single daylight photo of the buck. And during the summer when he was in Fell that there was two three year old bucks that's part of his bachelor group, and I would get those those bucks. But every time I get Trump's picture in the summer at night, those bucks would be with him. But I would also get those bucks during the day, but Trump would never go with him and step out with him during the day. So you know, he's truly nocturnal. Um, so it's gonna make it tough that the fact that he's nocturnal, in the fact that he shifts his range in the fall, is making it really tough. Yeah, you've got You've got two really common issues. I feel like I hear stone people with this issue, like, Hey, I've got this. He's here in the summer, but he switches to a new spot when the fall comes around. So I guess I'm curious about the two parts of this issue. So let's tackle the first part. When you have a buck that typically does not spend time or as much time when you're farm during the fall, how do you go about, I mean, how do you go about trying to deal with that? Are you trying to get permission on new properties around there or do you just hope he shows back up or what do you do? Yeah, and this this funk is not on my property. He's just on a property that I have permission to hunt. And it's not much cover at all, really, it's kind of out and open. Agg area was like corn and soybean fields, just some little draws and such here and there. And there's always a bachelor group that stays in this area. So that is why I've always got a camera out there in the summer. Um. But during hunting season, there's very few deer once the crops come out and the ground gets killed. Yeah, there's very very little hunting pressure in that area or deer activity. There's there's plenty of hunting pressure. But so when when he shifts his range, what I've been doing is shifting cameras in the direction I believe he goes, and I've now got his picture in four different locations. The extreme from one extreme camera to the other is over three quarters of a mile away. I was pretty confident two directions he did not go, because I hunt properties in those directions and I felt that if that buck was alive in the past five years in on those areas, I would have got his pictures at some time. And since I did, and I figured he was going one of the other two directions. So I've been shifting my focus that direction, moving cameras that direction, getting permission on new hunting properties and such. But so far I haven't haven't got a crack at him, and things aren't really looking good. I actually figure if I can just lay eyes on that buck one time this season, that I'll be lucky. And well I'm really doing is setting the groundwork for to kill him next year or two. If he survives, if I can learn some things through the trail cameras and such, and and nowhere to be in the future. I'm kind of playing catchup all the time. Now I'm on his tail, and instead of chasing the deer's tail, I'd rather be in front of him waiting on him to show up. I'm just trying to I'm laying the groundwork now to make that happen in future. So are you are you currently hunting any their bucks or is this kind of an all or nothing scenario for Trump? Well, it's not all or nothing. I've got a couple of other bucks, uh that I would shoot. One of them is uh actually in Trump's area. He's a five by four with split brows and split G two, so he's got thirteen total points. He's a five year old buck that I don't know if he'll hit one seven he's he's easily over one sixty. But that's a buck that I would shoot in my quest for Trump if that one comes along, and I'm definitely gonna take a shot at him. So and he's another one that it's the same scenario. He summers out in that same area where Trump does, although this summer they didn't. I never got their picture at the same time, so it's almost like there was two different groups of bucks. Trump was there all summer, and then then the other buck would pass through from time to time. And so he's gonna be another tough customer that I don't know they'll ever get a crack at at. Now. I'll give it a shot. And then I've got another farm it's good probably oh forty five minutes from there, that there's a real good buck there that I've seen in development this summer that I'll be after him. So how it goes? Yeah, Yeah, And I've got a pretty good buck on another property that he's five years old and knows over one seventy. I got his sheds from last year, and I've got one video. I don't know two or three years, but I'd like to put one more year on that buck and let him get to at least six and hopefully he's got a big grossberg. Anyone you get up close to two, Wow, I will tell that would be that would be pretty incredible. So I want to go back to the sort of the Trump issue or any of these things that you mentioned. In addition to him relocating, he's also completely nocturnal, at least as far as pictures go. What do you usually do in that kind of situation, when you've got a buck the year after he's mostly nocturnal, what's how do you deal with that? Well, I believe in that case there's really only two times when you have a legitimate chance to kill that buck with a bow and now with again, if you're on drive or something like that, it can always happen. If you step on a buck's tail, he's not gonna be nocturnal any longer. He's gonna get help and run from you and maybe run into danger. But the two times are he's either with the hot though, um, he'll be on his feet then. But but even that is somewhat you know, to be in the location where that hot doese out when she's there and everything, it's a pretty slim odds proposition. So but I'll be out there. I mean, if the odds are one percent, I'm still going to back there trying. And that's that's a key time. The other is in the late winter, for the late season, when you get a really cold snap and the deer on on the food. If you can find a good food source bearing a really bitter cold spell in the late season, that's when the nocturnal bucks are on their feet in the daylight. I mean that even Trumps. The rut so about the thing about Trump is he's not hunting on any property that I manage in any way whatsoever. It's just it's just knocking on doors for permission, and um, the food sources are gonna be what's there, you know, if a farmer happens to you know, not harvest corner of his field or something like that. And that's the only the only food sources that that I know of, or I've discovered yet where where Trump may be feeding. This winner kind of have to hope to get lucky and have a spout with decent food. That's that's a tough situation. I think so many of us, I mean, being able to plant food plots and all that kind of stuff. It's it's even though us in the media probably talked about a lot, I don't know if the majority of I think probably the majority of hunters out there don't have that ability. And I think that's a challenge because there's definitely some inherent advantages of being able to put in the specific type of food you want in the right place that you want it. I mean, that's a huge, huge benefit it's been helping me this season so far and every year really on my main Michigan property. So that's tricky. What. Yeah, And I mean I've got properties that I'm my own or release or manage in some degree where I'm allowed to plant food plots, and it makes it several times easier on these bucks. But I also I'm got a lot of the bucks I own are not on properties that I managed, just like Trump. But it's just it's as real world as it gets you out there competing with other hunters. For example, I mean, I was about a week or so ago, I put a stand up on a new property where I can hunt Trump, or where I suspect he may be running. And I got another cellular camera and I said, I'd better put that up on that property. And I went in and a week after I put my stand up to put this camera up, and uh, in that week's time, someone put a stand twenty yards from the stand out hunt for Trump. So if I get him, it's gonna be right in the heat of the competition. It's not gonna be an easy buck by any means. Yeah, that's the worst. I don't know if I had mentioned this earlier on an earlier podcast, Dan tell me if I did. But I've got a buddy who set a tree stand a few weeks ago, and then he came back to hunt it, and somebody used his ladder, climbed up into his tree stand and set a tree stand eighteen inches away on the neighboring tree. So this guy, he potentially could be sitting right next to another guy if they actually wanted to say, I guess they can shake hands and talk about the hunt. Well, they're sitting there. Yeah, what happens if they both both shoot the buck at the same time. I don't think it'd be good. Well, that'll probably make social media whatever happens, Oh yeah, that's for sure. My my buddy was like, Man, if I didn't like deer hunting so much, and if I didn't actually want to shoot a deer, I would just sit that stand every single day until he showed up to try to hunt it. So I could like telling like, what are you doing? But the back on topic down. So here's what I'm curious about. It's late October. There's you know, five days left this month or something like that. So I think a lot of people approach this and they kind of lumping into this category of pre run For most people, that seems to be that pre rut time period. What is your approach during these last days of October? You know, actually this time of the year, I'm getting projects done around the house, because when November rolls around, I want to be hitting it hard. I don't want to do anything else except h I try to hunt every single morning, every single evening, and a lot of times all day during November. Okay, so, and I say, I just wrote an article about this. Actually it's not even come out yet. I think too many guys jumped again with the rud hunting. They don't want to start, you know, and the last week October and ghat it hard. By the time mid November rolled around, or especially late November, um, they're burned out and they're not hunting near as hard as they were. And I feel a much better approach is to uh, I don't even hunt hard the first few days of November usually, but when Thanksgiving rolls around, I'm still hitting hard. That that's when you can kill a really big bucks. There's two times during the rug when the big boys are really on their feet, and one is the seventh and eighthan November, And I know there's a lot of other guys promoted their scene dates as well, Bill Winky for one, that's route about November seven many times. My friend Tim Walmsley, who's the official scorer for Boone and Crockett, tells me that there's more booners killed on November seventh and eighth and any other dates year after year, that that's the dates when the big boys are on the move, but that those aren't quite in heat yet. Once you get past the eighth and the does are coming in and the bucks are tied up with the doughs. But the seventh and eighth or two days that I will sit in and stand all day long. Um, so that's a prime time. And then Thanksgiving weekend, uh a few days following Thanksgiving. There at the end November, the does are starting to hot dose becoming fewer and farther between, so those mature bucks have to spend more time looking for him. So and I feel by that time of the season a lot of bill hunters have burnt themselves out or they're not hitting the air is hard. Um, They're starting to sleep in more mornings and they don't sit in there stand quite as long as they were in early November. So this time of the year, I'm really I'm fighting the air because I want to be out there as bad as anybody, but I know that I need to keep them stands fresh. You can keep my hunting areas fresh. And so I back off a little bit. And I was just looking at the weather forecast for this year in our area, and Friday the fourth, we're supposed to have a cold front come through. So I'm guessing Friday the fourth will be the first morning hunt that I have of the year. But from that point I'll be out there every single morning. So how do you how do you factor the weather into your rut hunting, because I know some guys are like, you know, really planning all their hunts around the rut or all the year really around the weather. Some guys say, I don't care what the weather is during the rut, I'm hunting the entire time. How much does that go into your strategy? Well, I hunt every day no matter what the weather is. But when those cold fronts come through, then I'm I'm staying longer in the stand. Those will be the days that I hunt all day. You know, if we get seven in three days, or if we get days where the wind's holing forty miles an hour or something like that, I'll still hunt. But it's basically about three hours in the morning and a couple of hours in the evening. And again, I'm just doing it. I don't want to burn myself out, but studing every day all day and to stand I'm kind of picking the days. I do that based on the weather and the timing that I just described. So the weather was a big, big factor, but I don't let it keep me from the woods. Okay, what about We ask everybody about this, but I don't think we've ever asked you about it. What about the moon? Does that? Does that mean anything to you? Do you pay attention to anything related to the moon and how it may or may not impact your movement? You know, not a whole lot. I remember when Jeff Murray came out with the Mood Moon Guide way back probably twenty five years ago, maybe more than that, and the first year that it was out, I started paying attention to it from the opening day of the season, and what I found was that it was dictating when I hunted too much. I was I was using that Moon Guide as an excuse not to go home, and I just kind of quit using at that point, I mean, before the first month was over. That way back then, I was no longer using the moon Guy because of that reason. And it just so happened that this falls. I was given a one of the current moon guides for this year, and it was the same thing. Right off the bat. In October, I started looking at at that moon guide and planning a few hunts. My evening ounced a few I do in October. I was trying to plant them around those red moon days. And to be honest, I'm probably not the best guy to be asking about how much the moon plays into it, because I believe whether Trump's the moon every time. Now, what I am doing this year is if I'm not working or whatever, driving down the road in the prime uh movement hours, you know, of dusk and dawn, and if there's one of those days where I'm seeing all kinds of deer activity for no explainable reason, and I'll look at my moon guide and see how it how it correlates. But to this point that hasn't really been the case much, so I can probably tell you a lot more in a couple of years from now. Yeah, yeah, it's funny you mentioned the moon guide. We you know, we've talked to Adam hay Is about it a lot and a couple of those guys. And so I'm kind of in the same boat where I'm intrigued by it and you know, pay attention to it, but don't really have any of my own firm you know, beliefs or data to sip to put behind it. But for whatever it's worth, there were red moon days these past well Yesterday, Monday, Sunday, etcetera. And whatever means, you know, Monday and Tuesday. So yesterday and the day before I've seen great, great dear activity for mature bucks. Um, So, I don't know. It could just be coincidence. You know, lots of times you can fool yourself into believing something is correlated and maybe not but interesting if nothing else right. So here's something I'm wondering down. Does do your typical decisions on where to hunt during the run during the month of November if we just say this whole month, does it change throughout the month, Like at the beginning of the month you tend to focus on X. Then at the middle of the month you tend to focus on and then it changes for the end or are you kind of is it different all throughout the month based on conditions or something else. It does change, and it's based more than anything on hunting pressure. I've got some properties I hunt where I know there's not gonna be hunting pressure, and particularly gun hunting pressure, which in the Illinois ramad is right in the middle of the month. So those properties where I know there's not gonna be hunting pressure during guns season, I'll kind of save them till after gun season, and but the hunting pressure pushed some bucks into them the But the properties I started out with in early November are ones that I know we're gonna see the pressure from other hunters. I figure I might as well get in there before they get ruined and that they're getting pushed out and see what I can do. But but the hunting pressure to dictates it as much as anything, because I know that's going to dictate whether there's deer staying. Um, they'll be on those properties early where there's hunting pressure, but once it picks up a little bit, they'll stay on the neighboring properties. They're not gonna just totally abandon their range, but they'll shift where they're staying to get away from that pressure. Yeah, that makes sense. So then early November, how what's your game plan for early November? What kind of stuff are you focusing on that first week or so? It sounds like you said your first morning will probably you're gonna wait for that first coal front. But where do you think you're gonna start sitting at that time? Those properties where I expect some hunting pressure, and there's a lot of bow hunters that don't do a lot of hunting in October. They kind of wait for the rut and the first two weeks of Novembers when at the hunting pressure is probably the hardest in my part of this country anyway. And I'll get out there and try to beat the the competition to some of those properties at the beginning of November. Um, but I see the month of November, you know, as a I don't know what you would call it. It's not a sprint, but it's more like a long distance race where you pace yourself. You know, you don't run to the finish line on the first day of November. Uh, I'm only playing on her my hopes are to get one buck within range, one shooter buck within range. It's during the month of November, so I know that my odds are doing it today is not good, but my odds over that thirty day period or so are pretty good if I play it right. So I don't want to go into my best spot and burn it out right off the bat. I want to, you know, kind of have a game plan of the entire season. Start out with those properties that are going to have some other pressure and see if I can get a good hunter two in on them before the pressure is too great and pushes the box off, and then just kind of build from there, saving my very best properties for last. It's almost like hunting a property on the outside end. A lot has been written about that where you start. You don't go to the heart of your property to start with you. You stay out on the edge, just let the deer have the heart of the property, and then as a season wears on, you work your way in to get closer and closer to close deer up your odds. And it's the same way with me. During the month of November, I start on those properties that are going to have the most pressure and then I move on to the ones that are going to have the least at the end of November. No, No, what about actual stand locations like you just mentioned. You know, lots of people will work their way from the outside and throughout the season. But for you in your situation, since for a lot of your spots, that sounds like you haven't really hunted very much at all till November or not planning to, do you approach a property during that month the same way? So you do you start hunting in early November, still on the edges a little bit to see what's going on, or since you know it's the rut, you dive into your best stands. Well, A lot of it depends on the property, how they lay out. If it's um one of these real world properties I call it, we're compete with other hunters. A lot of times I've got one good stand on the entire property, and it might be in the very best location on that property, and there's no looking from the outside in. On those, you go right to the good spot to start with. But if it's a property you've got total control over, well, then you do the outside in approach and slowly put your pressure on that property. Okay, So I mean there's just a lot of variables. So do you have any stand locations that are are just money no matter what when it comes to the rut. I mean, it's like a pinch point that you can hunt as many times as you want and maybe not burn it out because you have good access to that that stand location. Yeah. And in fact, I try to build those locations on the property where I've got some control. Um, you know, you figure out where the best stand side is for you for your access, for you to sit there and remain undetected with certain wind direction or whatever. And then once you've found that stand side and you've got your stand there, and then you do everything you can on that property to push more dear activity that way, whether it be uh, you know, maybe blocking trails that are out of range, or if it's a there's an old fence on the property, maybe cutting a hole in that fence. Player stand but you just find that best location and make it even better. So, and I answer your question, Yeah, I've got several of those on various properties where depending on the wind direction, I mean, for instance, I've got some of my own property where if we get an east wind in early November. I've got a couple of stands and I know I can go to and without a doubt, I will see a minimum of five bucks some of the November mornings with an east wind, and I might see as many as ten or twelve or fifteen. But you've got to have that rare east wind for it to happen, and it's got to be in early November when the bucks are on that cruising and seeking face. So during that phase of November, can you describe what your best types of stand locations are like? I'd love to know in detailing, are you focusing just on pinch points or just on betting ears or what makes your dynamite early November stand site? The two factors. One is the pinch point, as you just mentioned, and the other is dough betting areas. A pinch point near a doe betting area, those blocks are going to cruise down the wind edges of those dough betting areas and if there's a pinch point along that down wind edge and then you got him, what what do those like? What kind of can you depressed some examples of what that might look like? Because we always talk about pinch points funnel as we say those words, but sometimes it's it's especially for newer hunters, they might not know what that might actually look like in the real world, in the real world. Can you provide some examples? Yeah, too long my own property, there's one where there's within the thick bedding area, there's a creek that comes through, and that creek makes a big band that comes up and pushes close to the to a field edge, so it really narrows down. Between the creek and the field edge is a narrow corridor probably I want to guess fifty yards wide, and to either side of it, the creek bends away and the covers a whole lot wider between that edge of the creek. So as the deer traveler the box travel that down wind edge that creek and the field edge kind of pushes them through a narrow travel corridor. Well, with the wind direction, they're always going to be on the down the wind edge of that. So that smell it it's really absolutely deadly because anybody that comes through is gonna be within twenty yards and most of the time within fifteen or ten yards. Uh. And then another one is an inside corner the same just right down the same field edge a few hundred yards, the woods makes a ninety degree turn and forms an inside corner in a field. At the same time, that same creek comes up and pinches right there at that inside corner, And uh so it kind of funnels those deer right through there. So what wind directions describing the way? It makes sense, But what wind direction are are you trying to hunt those on? Because I have I have a scenario almost similar to that where I have an I'm I'm accessing through the field on a south wind, so my wind is actually blowing to the stand location because I can't access it from the north side. My stand in that narrow strip of timber between the creek in the field edge, and there's a ton of heavy trails and that's where all the all the deer crews during the rut. But I have to access it through a south wind, and my wind is blowing to the stand location. But once I'm in the stand location, it's it's money. But how how are you accessing what you've what you've just explained the inside corner, I'm coming right across that open field, right into the corner where my stand is located, and my sense right, my face is blowing right back from my stand right out into that open field. And with that situation, the deer, the bucks can run either edge, and they've got either a wind quartering into their nose or they've got a wind quartering at their tail, and most of the time they want it quartering into their nose. But they run those edges with the wind quartering into their nose and they can smell everything. It's the head of them in the cover, and they can use their eyes to see everything out in that open field, right, I mean, it's absolutely deadly. And the other situation where the creek comes up and makes the big band and pushes are narrows down the the wooded cover between the creek and the field edge, I use a across. Well, basically I'm coming across the field to that one with the wind straight in my face. Again, but those bucks are traveling that edge with a cross wind, and the same thing. They can smell everything in the cover that way, and they can use their eyes to see everything out in the field, and so they kind of hug that field edge to do that. So there you're planning on a shot in the timber right. Most of the time it is, but a lot of uh, I don't know what the percentage would be, but there's also a lot of those bucks that are right on the field edge too. Okay, how much do you this is a this is a dilemma I often have. You know, when you're hunting the rut and you've got you know, it might be a little different for you because you're able to hunt us a little bit longer time period. But for example, I go down to Ohile for a week to ten day every year and basically, you know, I've got that time period to try to really try to get done. So there's a I think a lot of people have that too. So there's this tendency to you know, be willing or want or need to take more risks because hey, this is the super Bowl of deer hunting. If you don't get done now, well you're out of luck. So my question, the reason I set this all up, is how much risk do you take when it comes to wind when you're hunting during the rut? Do you ever go into a spot where you usually wouldn't because you know your wind is going to knock out your chances for one of the directions, But you know there's still two more that could be good or something like that. No, I never give up the wind. I think the wind is so important for a mature bug. Now, if you're happy to shoot two and three year old, you can probably do that and be successful. But the six year olds, when they can't do they're going to have a wind advantager. They're going to think the winds to their advantage. So I mean, once you can get away with something three year old bucks, you can't with six year olds. So I never ever give up the wind ever. So can you elaborate on that last point? You know how a buck wants to use the wind in his favor. How do you believe they're typically trying to use that wind during the run. They want they want to be able to smell hot those in danger, um, basically in the direction that they want to go. Like a lot of times when a buck's going to bed, you know he wants to check that for check the area he's gonna bed for danger before he goes in to do it, so he'll pass with a cross wind on the down wind side they hook back into it. Um. Everything they do is based on their nose telling them it's it's okay, and if they can't, you know, there's one company that's got the slogan forget to win, just hunt. Well, it sounds good in theory, but even if you even if a guy could be totally sent free, sent free, no doubt about it, and he could just drop out of the sky into his stand, never leaving groundson or anything, if he doesn't factor what that buck is going to do in relation to the wind, and he's still not going to be consistently successful because you've gotta to kill the big ones consistently. You gotta know what they're gonna do on purpose. I mean, you can't expect him to commit suicide. You've got to know a bucket is moving point A to point B, whether it be in the evening, from betting to food or whatever. And then you've got to give him the wind direction that makes him comfortable doing so. I mean, you can't expect him to move from from his betting area out to feed with the wind right at his back, so he has no idea what's up front. He needs that wind too in his advantage, or he needs to think it's in his advantage for you to have a success to kill him. Yeah, yeah, it's hard to argue with that. It definitely seems like these older deer they get old for a reason, right. I think a big part of that is probably because they learned to use that to their advantage. Absolutely, So, speaking of risk taking, a second question I have related to that during the rut is with the pressure you put on a specific stand site. So do you I think that it's okay to hunt a stand site more often than usual during the rut because it's the rut or I don't know what are your thoughts on that whole deal. Is there a certain number of maximum number of times instead of stand during this time period or anything like that. Well, a lot of that goes into two entrance and exit to the stand. If you can get to that standard out of that stand without spooking deer, then you can kind of a hold up more often because of the winds. Right when you're sitting there, you shouldn't be spooking very many deer at all. I mean, occasionally you're gonna have one get down does unexpected, but access, entrance and exit is everything if you've got the right standing, Yeah, I'll huntest and two or three days in a row. If if there's a box that I know, I want to shoot that area, and I'll do that during the route when I witness other times of the year. Okay, Yeah, it's funny you mentioned the access and entry thing. This year more than ever before I've been I've convinced my wife to drive a four wheeler down to one of the properties that hunt and pick me up in the evenings so I don't spook deer off this field. And um, it has made a huge difference in the number of deer I'm still seeing. I've been able to hunt one specific little food plot area um way more than I ever would UM. And I'm still seeing good activity and mature bucks. UM. So that's made a big difference because they don't seem to at least from what I've seen, they don't seem to be a spooked by a vehicle coming in as they would a person coming out of a tree and walking. You know, right, that's absolutely correct. Ah, back to the specific types of stand sites you'd you've given us some detail on your funnel locations. Can you give us the same kind of detail or examples of some of your dope betting area locations that you focus on during the run. Basically, they're just thicker areas that have not seen a lot of hunting pressure. I mean, those are gonna are not gonna put up with hunting pressure, just like bucks won't and especially those older dose that you bump them out of the bed and they're gonna bed somewhere else. So six areas with undisturbed cover, UM key in on those, um you know what the experience you'd learned with a deer bed on particular property and just get on the down the wind edge of of where that is, and that's where the bucks are going to be cruising as they check those those areas for hot dose. How close do you typically try to be to you know, if you could draw hypothetical circle around where you think that doughe betting areas? Are you trying to be right on the edge, like within ten yards of it? Or is it more like I don't know, Like how close do you typically try to be? And how do you choose that? I mean, how you determine the right spot downwind of that doe betting air? A lot of times that's the right spot. There's nothing more than the right tree or an area where deer activity is already funneled down anyway, but as I'd like to get as close as possible, you know, right on the edge. I mean, it's even better if you can shoot into that betting cover. Right So you are you? So this is well? As you say this, I'm starting to wonder though, right you're we're setting up on this kind of location because we're assuming a buck is going to be walking the downwind edge of that betting area to try to smell it. So do you you how far do you usually see those bucks away from a dough betting And I know this is different, and most you know it's it's always different, but I don't know. I'm just kind of curious if you've if you've seen anything in your experience that on average they are right in the betting air cover, or on average they tend to stay outside so they can, I don't know, see a little more as they come down wind of it. Have you seen any consistencies there at all? Or is it just kind of ran them? They want to walk right on the edge of it. And I'm so close that sometimes the bucks are actually on my down wind side, but I'm high enough and my sense going right over the top of their back, So that's how close I get. I want to be pushing the envelope, but at the same time, I don't want him to smell me. So there's a lot of variables. But I want to be right there on the edge. Okay, speaking of your tree stand, Um, how high do you usually like to get up in there? Are you? Are you kind of guy that is like super super high in the tree or is it more based on tree cover and stuff like that. Well, you know, I was just talking the other day with a friend of mine. Years ago. I used to think anybody that used the ladder stand was as ciss secret. The older I get, the more I like them. So it's all about the cover. I mean, I want a comfortable stand. If I won't be there all day or for several hours, I want one that's big and comfortable. And I need to get as high as I only go as high as I need to get to stay hid. And then I like to be at least fifteen feet, But fifteen feet fine with me, and sometimes I have to I would prefer the fifteen foot range with a lot of cover around me. Okay, and um, and what about well, shoot, I totally lost my I lost my train thought, Dan, help me out here. Do you have a question for time? I had something lined up and now I don't know what it's at now on on these these betting areas, let's say you don't have a shooter necessarily on camera, but you you know it's a historically good spot that throughout the years you've had good interactions with mature box. Is that when you're when you start to sit all day or is it or is it like a travel corridor or a pinch point not necessarily a betting area when you're making your all day sets. Well, I'm on and all day, said, I want being cover. I don't want to be sitting out on you know, open timber travel route between two thickets. I want to be in the thick of it, um, because during midday, let's face it, the deer's a bus going to spend the majority of his hours in that thick cover. If I want a chance, a real chance to kill him, I need to be in the same place he's at. So, yeah, there's a lot of bucks killed every year out on those open travel corridors of fans row connecting two woods or just open timber or whatever. But I would much prefer to be in the thick stuff with the deer introduction, I remember my question, So thank you for the filler there, Dan, speaking of excuse me now, I can't talk speaking of all day sits. Do you have any advice for pulling those off? Because that's a struggle for a lot of people. Anything that helps you get through a full day or I am one of those people, right, this is for you, Dan, Yeah, and I'll tell you I don't do a lot of those. It's uh, if you know there's a shooter buck on the property and that's that will really help. I mean, your confidence has to be there if you're not cough in your area. I mean, it's about impossible to sit there all day. Um past success if you if you do it a few times and you see some bucks moving in the middle day, it makes it a whole lot easier to do it again. So you know no one you've got a shooter buck on the property, seeing it a little bit of success helps you do it again. You need to be comfortable. I just older. I get I can't stand them a little bit of tree stands anymore. I want a big, roomy stand for the comfortable seat. Um. Take enough food to make sure you're never hungry. Uh, just make yourself as comfortable as can be and has a confidence. Yeah, very true. Well, quickly, before we move on to our next question for don we need to pause to think. Our sponsors of this episode may even optics, and one of the very cool things about Maven is that they sell only direct to us the consumers, through their website, and this allows them to produce super high end optics at prices lower than the other high end brands and also the ability to completely customize your binaculars or spotting scille. So here's Maven co founder Brendan Weaver explaining exactly what kind of customization options are available. Yep, so we have. We We just launched our most recent model RB four here a little bit over a month ago. So we've got four for bin ocular frames, one spotting scope and you you can go in through our builder and you pick the frame size that you like, and we've got a forty two thirty fifty six and then like I said of spotting scope, pick the frame size that you like. Um corresponding magnifications. Each of those has at least two different magnifications. A couple of them have three m in then after that it's it's it's you're you're making the outside of that glass look however you want. We've got two different rubber armors and then five different cameras you can pick from, got eight different analyzing options, UM. And then you can engrave your name, the phone number, um whatever. You get a million things engraged on them. But UM, you can you can take this this this glass that competes with the best in the world, and then you can make it look like something that is unique to you. And you know a lot of people don't care the customization. To some people that they just they just look they're just like I s want performance. We give them that. And so you can go and you can buy a stock. We have three different UM color setups that you can buy stock. Those are shipped the next day. Um, the customs take two to three weeks. But but you can make that thing look look uh, just kind of unique to you. And you know, we we sell probably se of the of the products that we sell our custom versus stock performance. Why is there exactly the same? So you're not it's it's you're not you're not choosing the quality of the glass. We only use the highest quality glass. Um, you're just you're just customizing the outside of the outside of the optic. I gotta say the customization options are pretty darn cool. My my buddies are always pretty impressed when they see wired hunt engraved on my own customs set of Maven's. So that said, if you'd like to learn more about Maven Optics, you can visit maven built dot com. And now back to the show. Is there any particular part of November that you tend to try to hunt those full days more than more than another. Yeah, absolutely, November seven the Night. I've had a lot of success in November seven the Night, and as I mentioned, that's more booners are killed on those day any other day. Yeah, that's definitely a time when it's hard to It's hard to beat that time frame. For me, I've seen the same thing like that. If you could spand if you expand it a little bit, like the fifth through the twelfth, like that week for me always tends to be pretty darn good too. Um. I read an article from you earlier this year and it was talking about the idea of how small properties aren't so bad. You know, how you'd rather, I think you had said something on the lines of the fact that you'd rather have a bunch of different small properties than maybe just one big property. Um, can you can you expand on that a little bit? Why do you say that? And how does that factor into the rut? How do you approach small properties during the rut, if at all differently than a big managed property. Yeah, it's ironic you mentioned that. Just before we started this interview, I got a text with a with a photo of a young man, uh justin Repkis with Team Radical Outdoors. You may have heard of them, but he's just shot a six by six blocks and he mentioned the same article and was saying, how spot on it is that having multiple small properties is has proven itself to be better than one larger property. And the reason for it is, you know, you go and you've got a four hundred acre property, you might only have one shooter buck on it. You have a forty acre property, you might have one shooter buck on it too. Well, he's a if he's staying on forty acres versus four hundred. You know, every time you go into honey and he's gonna be a whole lot closer to your stands if he's betting on that property from the other big advantages. If you've got multiple small properties, you're hunting multiple deer hairs and you just increase your odds of having a shooter buck on one of them or multiples. So you know, it's it's something that a lot of people don't buy. You. You get these rich guys that go out and buy hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of acres contiguous that that they managed for deer and and they're successful. Don't take nothing away from they're very sick accessful. But for the average guy, I think you're better off having a lot of small properties, even if they're only you know, five or ten acres. I hunted some really small properties that were situated in such a way that I mat you're bucked with bet on him and has bet on them, So you know, and if you've got multiple small property, you burn one out, well, if you got others to go to, it's not there as a big a deal. Burn out your only hunting property, no matter how big it is, you kind of shut yourself in the foot and your ads that went way down. Yeah, I had a scenario like that last year That's an interesting point. So does that mean do you hunt if you have a situation like that, we have multiple small properties, Um, do you hunt those more gressively during the run, then just because you know you've got all these other spots you can fall back on. All Right, A lot of it all depends on the hunting pressure. If I'm the only guy that I know can hunt, and I'm pretty positive nobody's trespassing or nobody else is slipping in there putting some kind of pressure. And even if it's not hunters, you know, pressure doesn't have to be from hunters, just human activity. Um, how hard I will hunt them property and push it depends on that the other pressure on it. If if I know it's one getting very little pressure, then I put very little pressure on because I want to keep it to secure in the deer's eyes so that when I do go on it, my odds are really high to see it. Right right, Speaking of pressure, UM, I know you're a big proponent of sanctuaries, preserving some kind of sanctuary and your property. What what are your thoughts on sanctuaries during the rut? Do you ever go into them or how do you hunt in or around them at this time. I consider a sanctuary of sanctuary only as long as it's free of human intrusion. It's because the first time someone goes in and hunts, it's no longer a sanctuary. So I'd never go into the sanctuaries during hunting season unless I've shot a deer. Okay, So you're hunting the fringes of that sanctuary right exactly, with my sense always flowing away from it. How close is too close? When you see the edge? I mean, can you literally can you like, let's just hypothetically say there's a swamp and you're saying, this swamp is your is your sanctuary? Will you hunt you know, right within that ten yards within the swamp or something like that? Is that safe enough to keep it still sanctuary? In there? I mean they might be able see you. You could hypothetically spook a deer in there. Is that still a hontable spot where you off it? Yeah? I hunt right on the edge of the sanctuary where and if there's a deer, you know, and fairly close to the edge, you could see me slipping into my stand. But my sense never gonna be in there. My ground sense never gonna be in there, He's never gonna see me in there, although they may see me on the edge. Okay, is there is there a minimum size that you like or is there something like, Yeah, if it's if it's an acre, it's not really a sanctuary. But if it's up to five acres, well, now it's a sanctuary. Is there any kind of quantification that you applied to an area that you try to protect as a safe spot for deer? Well and yeah, but not really. It's not really limited by acre each but terrain. For example, I like my sanctuaries to have some kind of physical difference around the edge. In other words, a buck crosses this creek, he knows that on this side of the creek he never smells or encounters a human, or if he jumps this fence, once he's on the other side of the fence, he never smells or encounters a human. Or this road, and once he's on this side of the road, he never smells or encounters a human. You need some kind of a physical obstacle or some kind of physical feature that that deer can recognize that once I crossed this, then I never encounter humans. And it can be a one acre, it can be well, I like him bigger the better. Um, you know, I like sanctuaries that are at least ten or twenty acres. You know, it just depends on the properly. The bigger the better though, right, So are you I'm making some assumptions here, but let's just say you have a sanctuary. I'm assuming there's gonna be a lot of does betting in there because it's a safe place. So then are you typically hunting a sanctuary in the rut basically as if it's a giant dough betting here? So you're hunting the down wind edge of it and hoping to catch something cruising. Yeah, that's exactly right, hut on the down the wind edge, and that's where the bucks are going to be. Okay, all right, So now let's let's say we're hunting that kind of situation. I'm tight to some kind of sanctuary or cover. Um and hypothetical situation that I can see coming up is spotting a big buck back there in the swamp or back in the cover but it's too far away. What kind of calls or any kind of calling technique do you typically like to use during the rut to try to get that buck to coming closer. Is there do you try it all or is there a specific go to that you really liked? Keyan On. You know, I'm not a big and calling uh for them simply because I had an area where there's a lot of hunters and I'm sure you guys do as well. By the time a buck gets to be six years old, Uh, he's pretty educated to those kind of things. Yeah, so I hardly ever call now in a situation like you described, I may or I may not. It just depends on the situation. If it's a buck that I feel that I'm going to get a crack at eventually, I'm probably not gonna tippy offs to my stand location by calling in any manner. But if it's like the Trump buck, you know it's a bucket, I feel if I can lay eyes on him one time, I'm gonna be lucky. So if I see that buck one time on his feet in daylight and he's not gonna come past me, well then I'm gonna throw everything I got at him and I will try to call him that situation. But yeah, we started talking about six years and older, and they know the tricks and and calling whether me rattling, grunt calls, whatever. It's not really that effective. It's more effective at educating them than anything. You're out of those naantlers and you're telling that buck here's my stand, don't never come over here. Yeah, so what about this um nightmare scenario? During your hunt, you spook your target buck either he wins you or sees you or your rattle and it sounds bad and he runs away. Um, how how down does that gets you during the rut? Do you feel like you get a few, you know, get out jail free cards during the run? Or is a game over if it's a mature buck? And when I say matureal, I'm talking at least four years old, and I'm really targeting bucks or five or six and older. Yeah, when the bucks discovers me and a tree standard or he gets down when it smells me but never sees me, or maybe he sees me but never smells me, or whatever the situation. Once a buck has me take to a tree, I know it's over for that buck from that tree. So I'm looking for a new place for stands. And I don't think you're gonna spookhim totally off the property. When that happens. But when he does jump past that that area, he's going to be looking for you in that tree again, whether it's being down when trying to smell your or visually seeing you. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's a tough situation, no doubt about it. Um, that's that's one of those things that dealing with the whole trick of pressure and the risk of putting pressure on deer and how much can you get away with. I feel like I'm constantly fighting myself on this, like trying to balance how do I balance aggression and going here when the time is right to the right places versus screwing it up for the future. And I think that's such a big I think that's one of the big cruxes of hunting mature bucks is figuring out the right balance between those two things. Um, I don't know. I mean, how do you how do you make those decisions when you know, Okay, I need to just back off out of here versus I need to go in there. Is it solely based on whether or do you take an other scouting intel or observations or something like that? Yeah, weather trail camera pictures. If I if I see a bucks, all his feet in daylight. Uh, you know, fairly consistently. Then you know, I know it's a buck that can be killed, So you know, why wait, we'll get it done. Me if I know that certain property I have permission to hunt is going to have some gun hunting freshure on it when gun season opens, and I get in there right before gun season and go for it, because I know that my chances after gun season are about zero. So you just gotta factor in a lot of different things and and decide when it when your time to move in and go for what. Yeah, you mentioned trail cameras, and we did a whole episode back I think it was episode sixty seven or sixty eight somewhere around there talking about trail cameras. But for for us right now, can you just tell us how you're using them during the rut time period. I mean, you know, Dan, Dan focuses in krim if I'm wrong, Dan, but I feel like from everything I understand about your strategy during the rut, a lot of what you do is based on checking cameras and adjusting throughout your two weeks of rut hunting based on what you're seeing on those cameras. UM and you're moving them around and changing stand sites all this time based on that. Are you paying attention to cameras as much as that, or do you kind of know Okay, these are my core rut spots and I'm just gonna hunt these no matter what the cameras tell me. Well a little bit of both. You know, I know where the bucks are gonna be during the ret from past experience, But at the same time, my main reason for checking cameras more than anything is I'm looking for target box and I don't believe that. I believe bucks are are fairly homebodies, maybe not to the point that those are. It's very very rare that I see a buck from a tree stand that I don't have his picture, So I don't buy this that during the rut these strange bucks are moving through properties, although it does happen on rare occasions, so you know, I'm checking the cameras for those rare occasions. But basically, by the time the rut comes around, I know what's on the property. I know if there's a buck I want to target, but you know, at the same time, you never know, so I want to be up to date as much as possible. So just stay in tune that way through the trail cameras. How often do you check them during the rut? Do you check more often than you would some other time of year? Yeah, I actually do probably, you know, during the summer, I won't check cameras without once a month maybe, but um, during the rut, it's more like about once every week to ten days. I want to go in and I'll check those cameras, like in early November, say the first from from November one through the say about the fourth or fifth, I'll check every trail camera I got, and I've got him in five count he scattered all over the place. So I mean, you just don't go out and check them on one day, but right before the rut heats up, I want to get out and check every single one of them to see if there's a bucket's moved in. And because this shift there range, you know, in the early fall, and you can have bucks move in that weren't there and say August or early September. I just want to make sure I'm on top of things. But then again, you know, I'll check them then I'll hunt through that period of the seventh eight to you about the twelve, and then I want to check them again as the rut really heats up and those are coming in to eat. You know, if if you've got a family group of dose and a mature buck comes along and breae one of them, well that bucks gona and he's gonna be there to breathe the rest of them too. So you know, I want to check from early November, mid November, and then again towards the end of the Wember and Thanksgiving time period, so about three times, but every ten days in November. Okay, speaking of that middle of November breeding period, Um, do you change how you hunt it all during the quote unquote lockdown period that a lot of people refer to m M I actually do. I'll I've got a number of stands and like out of the way places, maybe a lone tree, a famil of a corn field that's you know, a half a mile from many woods, and occasionally I'll sit places like that. I'll slip out there in the dark an hour before daylight, and places where I've seen mature bucks pushed those in the past during the rut. When a buck gets a hot dog, a lot of times you'll push her out in the places he typically wouldn't be. Drainage ditches is another good one. I've seen a lot of mature bucks push a hot dog put into a draining ditch in the field. They'll stay down in that dish. And if there's a tree or two along such a ditch, I'm just going to out of the way places nobody else would think to go. And where I've seen mature bucks in the past push hot doughs. So on average, where do you usually see is that usually where you're seeing these bucks take their doughs? Is these out you know, far away type spots or you also seen them go and just like thick nasty cover. I mean, what other places I guess could we expect to find a buck with a dough at that time period. Well, the area of the Midwestern arm hunting is pretty much open country with some scattered woodlots and such cover along creeks and ditches and things like that, so that we got a lot of open country, a lot more open country than we do cover. Of course, the deer relate to that cover and that's where they congregate. But I want to buck finds a hot dough, he wants to get her away from the other box. And I've seen them out in the middle of wide open soybeans stubble fields where you know, the soybean stubble is not four inches at tall and there's not a tree on the entire section, and there will be a bucket with a hot dough out in the middle of it. So and I've seen that many many times in the same way with corn fields or or whatever. But it throws out of the way places that away from the rest of the herd, that that those uh, mature bucks seem to want to push those doughs. And sometimes there'll be a dough out there and and the mature buck hasn't got her away from the other bucks yet and there may be a hot dog out there was five bucks with her. So I've seen that multiple times as well. Yeah, that's pretty crazy when that happens. I've seen some stuff like that a couple of times, and it's it's pretty wild and that's kind of funny too. Also, sometimes I don't know if you've probably seen this and I've identified this, but I feel like when a buck is with a dough in some piece of cover, you know it based on other bucks in the area, Like I've seen so many times. There's a little patch cover and you can just see these other bucks come up to this area and just with their body demeanor, their body language, you know that he's looking like it's like there's some kind of barrier around this area that he knows he can't go into without the big boy, and they're getting pissed at him, and he's just kind of circling around, like checking out. He's like he wants to go on there so bad, but he just knows he shouldn't. Like I saw a buck last night doing this and I was like, wow, Like, there's there's no question like that behavior right there is has got to be looking at a buck with a dough in there because of the way he was acting. And it's, um, it's always kind of exciting when you know that something like that's in your area. It's almost like, well, that's almost like the satellite bulls. Yeah, almost like a satellite bowl as far as elks concerned. I want and I had the same thing happened to me two or three years ago where um, me and my buddy were sitting in a tree stand and we were watching this this it was actually no show Jones from a couple of years ago. Uh, and we watched him fight off. And I don't mean he didn't fight every one of them, but he stood up and he would like do a charge at him, or put his head down and wave his antlers and let the other know the other dear. No, Hey, I got a dough right here. If you hum and try, you're gonna get your ass beat. Yep. I've seen that myself. Yeah, that's pretty awesome. Well, Dan, uh, do you have any final questions for done? No? Man, Uh, not really Again, thanks for coming on the show man. Every time I talked to you, I learned a little bit more and and not necessarily just about how to hunt deer, but being patient. And that's one thing I think that I'm still in that running gun you know, blow into the timber stomping and go into your best hands right away type of scenario. But I'm learning as I get older. Yeah, well I remember what that's like, Dan, I'll tell you what. Starting to get more than just a few gray hairs. As hard as I used to, but I have a whole lot smarter, and nothing smarter. I see more deer than I did when I was like a madman, when I was younger. A right, I got I got gray hairs in my beard now. Oh I think, uh, I think all these kids are probably making that happend. Yeah, that's the fact. That's a fact. Oh, don Do you have any final item related to the rut that we haven't covered that you want to make sure people know about when it comes to try to have success during these next few weeks. Well, the thing about the rut is that your whole season can turn and about five seconds, you can be having the worst season in your life, and in five seconds you're having the best season in your life. Because at that time of the year, you can mature. Buck can be shot from about any tree in the woods if you're there on the right day. The key during the rud, they're spending time in the woods. You need to spend every possible minute in a tree. Stand um, but don't sit there and and burn a stand out. I mean, you still gotta hunt smart, but you gotta be out there. And if there's ever a time to get out of bed early day after day after day, it's the rut. So I just encourage everybody you know to don't give up. Try to keep a positive attitude even when it seems like a your odds of success are very slam because your whole season can change in about five seconds. Yeah, so true. That's some of the absolute best advice for hunting. The rut that that I'm always trying to remind myself of two it's it's sometimes easy to get down when you've hunted seven, eight, nine, ten days in a row and it hasn't happened, and it's tough waking up early. But just like, just like I said, it all can change and just a snap of the fingers. So awesome, awesome stuff done. Is there? Um? Is there anywhere that our listeners can go online to learn more about your books or anything you've got going on. Yeah, you can go to my website, Higgins Outdoors dot com. I've got two books on the market that they can be purchased right there on the website. And uh, anybody's into land management. Um. Real World Wildlife Products is the company that I'm a co owner of. We specialize in land management to products, food, plot seed, things like that. So just visit those websites if you're interested, and send me an email if you've got questions. I tried to sometimes I'm really slow about it, but I try to answer any question it comes my way. Yeah, I can relate to that. I am eternally slow unfortunately sometimes. But we'll make sure to include links to those sites done, so if anybody wants to check out what you've got going on, they can do that. And uh, and thank you so much. We appreciate the time and wish you all luck in the world on getting an arrow in one of those big Illinois bucks. Well, thanks a lot, Mark and Dan. I appreciate you guys having me on and anytime you want to talk, just let me know and I'll be glad to do it. Absolutely. We might have to have number four coming up here soon again because these you never failed to give us some good insight. Well, I'm always ready to do it, so just let me know. Sounds good. Thank you done, and with that we will wrap this one up. But a couple of quick updates before we go. If you haven't listened to our new bonus miniseries yet Wired Hunts Radio, be sure to download that and give it a listen. Each week. You know, if you're already subscribed to Wire to Hunt, you're going to see these new radio episodes popping up in your podcast player each week, and what the show is is it features a handful of interviews every seven days with hunters from all across the country getting the scoop on what the rutting activity currently is and what tactics are working at this very moment. It's an awesome resource for staying on top of the progress of the rut all across the country, so be sure to listen. We've got two episodes out so far and more to come through November, so be sure to take a listen to Wire to Hunt's rut Radio. Moving on, we need to give a big thank you to our partners who helped make this podcast possible. So thank you to Sick Gear, Redneck Blinds, huntera Maps, Yetie Cooler's Ozonics, Carbon Express, Maven Optics, and the White Tailed Institute of North America. And finally, thank you all for tuning in. I hope you learned something today that can help you on your own rut hunts in the coming days. So get out there being a tree as much as you can grind it out. Good luck, and stay a Wired to Hunt h