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 Kenyon. This episode number two hundred and thirty two, and we are back today with another one of our radio episodes in which we're getting real time from the field updates on what's happening across the woods as far as deer activity, dear behavior, and the tactics that are working right now. All right, welcome to Wired to Hunt's radio brought to you by on X. This is your host Spencer new Hearth, and on the other end is Mark Kenyon, now returned home from North Dakota, but having some technical difficulties. What's going on, Mark? Yeah, Uh, I forgot my podcast Mike in Montana in my truck. I flew home from Montana because I'm only home for a week and I'm flying back out for ELK Hunt. So I've got an old podcast Mike at home that I thought would work, but it is not working right now. So yeah, I'm calling this from my cell phone. So thanks for for dealing with that and in running the show today, Spencer. But another radio right, Um, what do we have in store for this week's episode? We have four hunters from across the nation. We start off with Lee Ellis from Seek One Productions in Georgia. Then we talked to Mark Knight in Kansas from Midwest White Tail Adventures. And then we go to Maryland and from Sons of Fall. We talked to Paul Lauber, and then we have Trent Siegel from Heartland bow Hunter in Wyoming. Sounds like a good slate. Um, do we have a South Dakota update? Uh? My, my South Dakota update? It is is that it has been really poor for me. Um. The hope of getting a velvet buck is gone. Most of my deer now are polished, including Dan, the deer that I was after. UM. And I haunted like I think it was six or seven out of those first ten days. And it was honestly probably the worst string of haunts I've ever put together. It was really poor, really poor. UM. Not a lot of deer movement for me, a lot of mosquitoes, UM. And the problem was that I was focusing on haunting like the obvious food sources like soybeans, but the deer, we're not having any of it. I was experiencing like what most people consider the law UH in early September, and normally I don't even see the law that much come October, and so I think for the the area that I'm at, it got pushed up to to this early. UM. And there's just so much other food sources available. You take a walk in the woods and you find that there are uh, there's tons of reg weeed available, that the beggar's lice, the wild plums are available, apples are falling. UH is something that's hugely underrated as mushrooms. And we've had some cooler, rainier weather and so there are all kinds of different edible mushrooms available. UM. And so did you just have no use for soybeans? And my time spent watching those soybean fields has not gone well, Yeah, that's disappointing. So South Dakota not real hot right now. UM. Any kind of general consensus from folks who've talked to so far as as as far as what kind of stuff we're seeing across the rest of the country has been good, bad, anything high level you can tell me. Across the runch rest of the country, it has been pretty solid um. You know from the people I talked to you this week, you can still catch them those year at the end of their summer patterns. Um Uh. As far as buck movements, they're starting to break up in those batch the group those are just about gone. And then the deer getting polished handlers as well, And so there's a lot of thoughts that the movement is starting gonna become a little bit more nocturnal uh as more seasons open up. As far as there's some firearms seasons across the nation that are opening, um, some different anner list seasons that are opening. And so with that increased deer pressure and the loss of those summer patterns, um, it sounds like right now is the time in September to get a buck on the ground. Otherwise you know it'll be a steady decrease until we get to October. Interesting, Well, I can I can report from North Dakota a little bit for you if if you want that. We were out there at the end of last week. You know, since I failed my Montana tag and as far as activity, i'd give it probably like a a four out of ten. Probably it's pretty poor. Um. I don't want to give away too much because I'm gonna talk about this on the main show Dan this week. But UM had a pretty tough go at. It didn't see a whole lot of activity. UM. We had one night we went to a new area and found some deer that were feeding on what looked like, um, a cover crop that's been planted in a field. UM that maybe could be something like turn ups, some kind of brassica. It sort of looked like coming out of the ground. UM. That was the one thing we were able to key in on for one hunt where there was some some good daily activity. Otherwise slim pickings, hot weather, not a lot of movement. So now I'm now I'm back in Michigan for a little bit, looking forward to October one for my next white tail hunt and hopefully better conditions. Then. Yeah, And I don't think what I've been seeing in South Dakota's uh, indicative of what's going on in the rest of the state or the rest of the nation for that matter. It's just that how my property set up. It is either very safe haunts on the field that just looking at so soybeans, or it's really aggressive haunts. UM, the kind of stands that I you know, wouldn't be in until we get to the end of October. And so I just, um don't have very many good options for this time of year when there's so much other food available. And one good, uh glimpse that I got into that is, for one of my setups, there are two trails that come by. One is it like twenty three yards and the other ones at like thirty one. And to keep those deer at the twenty three yard trail, I cut off a large branch from the tree that I'm in. I believe it's an ash tree, and I covered up that trail um and some doze and her fonds came by the other night and they actually stood there eating on the leaves from that tree. And so it's just a a you know, a good glimpse of all the different food available to these deer that they don't even need to make it to the soybeans that are a hundred yards away. They could just stay in there and eat all this other green stuff available. Yep, that's uh, that could be a challenge when they're not keenan and the thing that you're keen and us I hear you're there, Well, I I'm interested to hear what you got today. It sounds like we've got a good diverse group of folks. Um. I know there's a lot of people that are kicking off their seasons here soon. There are a lot of September fifteen openers coming up, I think, so I'm sure people will be curious to hear what's happening in the woods now and what to look forward to the next week. So i'd say, Spencer, I'm good to go, unless you've got any other updates you need to share before we get this thing Kickstarter. Nope, you figure out your mic before the next episode and we'll talk to you next week. Mark sounds good, Thanks Spencer. Before we get to our first update, let's pause for a word from our sponsors at white Tail Properties. This week, with white Tail Properties, we are joined by Brad Ferris, a land specialist out of Central Missrs Sippy the Bread is going to be telling us about some Midwest hunting techniques that don't apply to Southern white tails. The biggest difference in in hunting white tails in the South first as the Midwest to me is it has to do more with climate and anything. You still want to be very respectful of the deer where they your sanctuary areas, you're quiet areas. I mean, I mean, I treat that exactly the same. In the South. It is usually not as hilly in most places, so there's not as many natural pinch points as you find and kind of the rolling hills of the of the Midwest have found, and the deer, typically the mature deer don't move. They're not on their feet as much in the South until the rug gets here. I mean, I know that's common in the in the Midwest too, but the many times you won't see a deer in the daylight and tool you know about four or five rough pier and then once that's going, they're they're done. You don't see him a d M. So the one thing we don't have here that Midwest two hunters have is we don't have the bitter cold temperatures that we can really get deer on their feet in a food plot scenario, whether it be standing corn, standing beans, some type of crop that we put out there to leave for the deer in the in the frigid temperatures and they only feed early because it's cold. We don't we don't have that here. You do not have that opportunity in many places they have brows you're around in the South because we just don't get that little temperatures cold stuff, So a lot of techniques for the same. You just have to adjust your thought process because deer do not move as much, so you've got to really focus on trying to get close to them in those type spaces without spoken them, because that's that they hackle move off from them hardly ever in the South. If you'd like to learn more and to see the properties that Bread currently has listed for sale, visit white tail properties dot com. Backslash Ferris that's f A R R I s are enjoining us online. First is Lee Ellis of Seek one Productions in Georgia. Elee in Georgia. What would you say the buck activity is been lately on a scale of one to ten UM, I'd probably say it's it's probably been like a seven. Um. It's been pretty good, but it's also been really hot, and I think it's caused a lot of these deer to kind of lay up during the day and use more night time. But um, if you can get close enough to their bedroom, Um, these deer are still in their summer areas. Um, so it's still been pretty good. There's still been We've been seeing plenty of bucks. Um, there's been some guys around us that have had some success to Lee, give us a little bit of a background on what your setups look like right now, and I tell the audience, Uh, you know the kind of environment that you guys hunt in. Yeah. So, our we're based out of Atlanta. Our environment is constantly changing. Sometimes it's um tighter areas of neighborhoods. Sometimes it's you know, we've got spots acres. But we're constantly looking for these summering areas where these bucks like to spend their summertime growing out their antlers. And it absolutely has to revolve around their food source. Um. We like to look for areas that have a lot of kud zoo and that's a m just a really it's similar lab lab. It's a really viny and it just vinny plant and it grows into a jungle and it's just got these really really big leaves that are high in protein. So these deer came get in these areas with kud zoo and disappear. It's just really really thick cover and they can get up and have an absolute buffet in front of them all day. Um, so we try and key it on areas like that, Uh, where there's cuds do around that always seems to hold bachelor versus bucks this time of year. So um, success finding that cud zoo is that like something right out of someone's backyard A weorre they and kind of yeah, I mean industrial areas along roadways, you'd be very very surprised, uh, just driving down the roads and whatnot where you see big patches of cud do because it's used for erosion and along roadways and stuff like that, but it grows so fast that it ventures on back into the woods and sometimes right off these roads there will be these massive cud doo patches and people drive by them don't even think twice about them. But usually more often times than not, there there's a batchel of group that will grow out and a good cud doo patch in the summer. So really, I mean, we we do a lot of work on you know, Google maps and whatnot, but a lot of times it's just kind of pounding the pavement and actually laying eyes on where the cuts is growing. Now, how are you finding these dear early season. Are you scouting in person out there glassing small properties? Are you just running a lot of trail cameras? We do a mixed at of everything. We're we'll glass these uh cud do patches and it's I mean it's like clockwork. In the evenings when they're growing out, they'll hop up thirty minutes before dark and get up and get feed. And so we do a lot of glassing around different cuds do patches. You can get a pretty good idea of, um, you know, what's in the area doing that. But we also run at any given time probably forty cams. UM. So we're just keeping as many eyes out there as we can. And when we get into an area where we've identified a buck that we want to go after, instead of having our forty or fifty cameras kind of spread all throughout, once we find a deer that we want to hunt, kind of full you know, seven or eight of those cameras and concentrate him in that area and really try and kind of lock down exactly where that year is spending most of his time, where he's most comfortable. UM. So it's it's a lot of trail camera work and I think identify. Suying a buck's bedroom this time of year is super super key because there they're pretty predictable, still in this phase where they're still in their summer areas. They're still getting up and feeding. Um I think you know, in the next week or so they're gonna begin to kind of branch out of those areas. Um So this time, you know, the next week or so, we actually have to go rEFInd a lot of our year because they've left their summering areas. So it's kind of that that first weekend, first week where those bucks are still in that area. But you know, sometimes we'll actually, you know, we'll have a bunch of cameras in one area looking for a certain buck, and he'll be showing up on all of them, but he'll be showing up, you know, closer to daylight on this camera, and we'll kind of use clues and things like that to figure out which direction he's coming from and really locked down his bedroom area. And sometimes you can miss it as little as a hundred yards, and that means that can be the difference of seeing that buck on the hoof and daylight or have him come in you know, fifteen twenty minutes after shooting light. Sometimes it's that small the change that makes all the difference. I know you said that you'll be changing your strategy here in about a week or so. Um. Is that because the cud zoo is no longer relevant or is that something that you'll focus on all season long. No, So they leave the cuds do here. Um basically the first week they'll leave it. They'll come back to it on occasion, but they really start switching to um, you know, your acorns and things like that as they start to fall. Uh. Plus, I just think they get really anty and they're you know, dropping their velvet. Their hormones are starting to get going, their testoscerones starting to pump, and they just I feel like they just have to move around. They're starting to venture more, um, kind of checking out the areas that they may go on the rut and things like that. Um. But they'll sometimes they'll completely abandon these summer areas and will not come back until late late in the year. So UM, we used their summering areas as a clue. But kind of in the next week when they started to leave, we got to go back into the phase of of getting as many areas as we can to put cameras out and kind of refine where the deer went going forward. Then this next week or so, what do you think that buck activity is going to be on a skille of one to ten in Georgia. I think that it's probably gonna drop. I think that people will probably get more tryl camera pictures of new deer and things like that. I don't think it's gonna be a ton of daytime activity. Um So I expect your your daytime activity of Bucks to drop, but I also expect um for people to probably getting more pictures of new bucks that are kind of leaving their summer areas and venturing in the new places. It's kind of a a double edged deal there where. Uh. I think it's gonna be tougher in the next week two get a get a mature buck in daylight. But at the same time, I think that people are gonna be seeing new deer that they can kind of begin to figure out and put the pieces together on we guys can follow along with their hunts at the Seek one Productions Facebook page or check out their show long Carbon TV Suburban Bowlhunter. Lee. Thanks for joining me in good luck this year in Atlanta. Awesome, thanks man alright and joining us on the line next is Mark Knight in Kansas from Midwest White Tail Adventures. Mark on the skill of one to ten. What would you say the buck activity has been lately? I think this week for our youth season here in Kansas is probably we'll give the six out of a ten. Um. I think, you know, so you've got a few things working against us. Uh. Early last week, you know, dear, we're all in velvet, very very patable season starting on Saturday. Uh. You know, some food sources were changing a little bit. The beans and the crops looked really good. Um. I think you know this time of year, you dear, start separating and they start, you know, kind of out who's who's who, and and it gets a little tougher. And I think that's kind of what happened to us since this past week. And how is this season compared to seasons past when it comes to having successful youth hunters. Last year we had um ten uth hunters. We went eight for ten, killed two over one seventy men also killed one. It's like one sixty five. This year our best there is and this you know this a week later, this year, So you know that I changed things for us. I didn't really realize how how it was gonna be being a week later, but you know it definitely we had to make some adjustments and to to get on the deer like, you know, like we did last year. It is September eleventh as we are recording this, and and what percentage of bucks would you say still have velvet. There's some smaller ones that still got it, but the big mature ones are definitely. Um what we're seeing on cameras now that they've all they've all shed their their figure hard hearted now I know in that part of the country. Uh, the rain has been kind of spotty this summer in this fall. How it has been for you guys, and has that affected the food sources at all? Early season, you know, early in the year, um cancels in a in a pretty good drought. But we started getting the rain. We started getting the rain and everything got really good. Um past couple well past couple of months. We've definitely got them, you know, the rains that we needed. The second crop beans are just about as good as the first crops. So everything's looking good. I mean, our our food plots were we're getting ready to put those in now. We we got last week. We intended on putting them in, but we got about nine inches of rain there in our location in about a twenty four hour period, so it kind of stops us on that. Do you guys do any morning set ups then with those use hunters or these all evening setups? About through all evening setups, That's what we plan on doing every year. But sometimes if we can and find you want to check the cameras, we find something we can get in behind you know, those bean fields and slip into a bed area, we will. This morning we did the same thing. Took a guy from Pennsylvania in um get him in real early in a bed area bix c RP field off fourteen bucks came by him and he shot one. It was scored a hundred forty five. So it's a pretty good move for us to make it happen for the guy. Well, how we'll set up change for you guys as we get into mid September. The end of September, you mentioned that it's going to get tough for hunting, So how will you guys adjust then? Well, I think our our muslis season is going to start on Monday. I think that, you know, the deer will definitely start coming back to the feeders. Alex. It's very unusual this week for the you know kind of what happened. But they'll get back on those feeders and uh foods, horses will start changing beings to start turning yellow. So then we'll shift to the milos because those deer the milos getting real red and and and when it turns like that right there, those big bucks a goose milo fields, we just kind of shift. We've been doing it so long, we kind of kind of know what we're doing going forward. Then in the next week or so, what do you think that buck activity will look like on the skill of one to ten in Kansas. One attend in Kansas, if you're in the right location and you've got a little bit of luck on your side, you could kill a giant. It could be an eight. Yeah, I think that. Uh, I think you're gonna you're gonna see some really big deer get killed out there, because you know it's you know, September with a Muslin or anytime you're in Kansas, you stend an opportunity to kill a giant. I mean years past time we've we've harveshed some over two inches. Because you know, like I tell people that try to buckle me, like, you know, what's it gonna be like, you know, afternoon hunts are gonna be good. They're gonna be uh if it's cool, if you get a little bit of a a cool snap, it could be you know, you could start seeing deer two hours for before dark. But if it warms up, um, you know, it could be a little tougher. It could be you know, right toward the end of the hunt. But as I look at the weather before, you know, forecast for the next couple of weeks, it's gonna be warm. This week, there's gonna get down in the you know, seventy two for the highs fifty eight fifty nine, which they're gonna be good. So you know, we'll we'll uh definitely hunter set up ton afternoon, but we'll kind of venture some of these bed and areas and set up and try to see what's coming back to bed. But you know, keep the deer out of the field a little bit longer in the mornings so you can you do have an opportunity to to harvest one in the morning. Art Mark will well done on getting those youth hunters some great deer and good luck the rest of the season. Thanks for joining me, alright, thank you, sir alright in joining us on the line. Next from Maryland is Paul Laver from Sons of Fall TV. Now, Paul in Maryland, what would you say the bucket activity has been lately on a scale of one to ten, I'd say on a scale of one to ten, it's been on the high side and eight to a nine. And the Maryland season opened on September seven, so we're five days into this season, and there's some Facebook feeds that the Maryland hunters upload their their photos too, and it's it's been pretty amazing the number of giant bucks that have been killed the first five days of the season, mainly due to the cold, cold or temperatures. Saturday, Sunday Monday we had temperatures in the in the sixties during the day and high fifties at night, which is completely unseasonable for this area. But in the last couple of days yesterday and today, it's back up in the eighties again, so I expect buck movement to kind of slow down again. Regarding whether there is the hurricane that is currently threatening the coast. How do you think that's going to change, dear movement? Uh, you know, we're we're expecting a pretty large storm surge in the Maryland area, especially the Chesteake Bay and tributary regions. Fact today I just pulled my boat off the lift, and you know, expecting a big storm surge. So I think it's going to keep a lot of hunters out of the woods, which is going to keep the sidings down. And uh, you know, it's gonna be a lot of wind, a lot of rain. So I expect movement to be pretty pretty slow this week. Do you notice any trends before or after a large storm like that as far as buck moment goes, Uh, you know, as always, you know when the wind where when the wind and rain not really so much of the wind, but when the rain stops, you know you're going to see a surplus of deer out soybean fields and we're actually some some fields of corn are already starting to be uh harvested. So I think you're going to see a lot of deer out in these corn fields that have been harvested in the in the coming week or two. Tell me a little bit more about the food sources in that area. Uh, does a large agriculture kind of dominate for deer movement or is there some large Yeah, and you know, list in my area that I focus in is the eastern shore of Maryland. There's a there's some big bucks being shot down in southern Maryland. That's where a lot of these bigger bucks that were reported in the first couple of days. But the Eastern Shorts, you know, it truly just soybeans and corn. That that is the bulk of the food plots that are out there, you know, farming hardwoods and corn and soybeans for those folks that have been successful thus far. Then do you have any idea what they're set ups. It looked like if it's morning or evenings, if they're focusing on food or getting it close to those Yeah, we have a we have a cast member Kyle that uh shot a really nice Maryland deer on the opening day September seven, and it was an evening hunt. Thunderstorm showers were in the area. He was lucky to get the deer coming in before the showers really let loose. So he's got that on film. Uh. You know, we're expecting to have that on the show for everybody in the spring to see. So you know, listen, I don't know everybody's set ups, but you know, most of most of what we do at suns of Fall a lot of climbers, a lot of hanging hunts, and a lot of lock on tree stands that are you know, if it's private property, it's lock on, if it's if it's state land, it's it's climbers. So going forward then next week or so, what do you think that bucket activity is going to be on a scale one to ten in Maryland? I would put it at a four or five this coming week given the doom and gloom of this hurricane that's off the coast. All right, Well, thanks for joining me, Paul. You guys can check out their new series The Huntsman on the Hunt Channel, Amazon Prime, rokup, YouTube, and some other streaming services as well. Good luck this season to you and your other cast members. Yeah, thank you for having us, appreciate it alright and joining us on the line. Last is Trent Siegel from Heartland bow Hunter, currently hunting in Wyoming. Now, Trent in Wyoming, what would you say the buck activities ben lately on scale one to ten, I'd say steven. We've seen puter about every set so far on this trip, just having gotten but uh, activity has been awesome to say the least. Well on that trip, it looks like you've been covered up in deer and you've been hunting some mornings as well as evenings. Tell us a little bit about those setups. Yeah, so in the mornings we've been getting back in the timber. The acorns are falling there out here like crazy inks the wind. You can just hear him hit the crown like a training. So we've been back hunting the oak flats um catch them coming off the off off the fields going back to bed. And then it's super hot here in the afternoon. So the rain intron has some ponds and some stock tanks and the water and they've been hunting those in the afternoons and they've been awesome. Lots of activity on for those morning setups. How aggressive are you guys, like your stand in reference to the beds, how close are you to to where they're trying to get to I would say I mean at least cyrus six hundred yards away there, um, you know, deep in the bedding area. We've we've been trying to get a couple of hundred yards, um you know, probably three hundred yards from fields back in the oaks, just trying to catch them cutting off those fields in the morning because it's like complete often from back home. We had some trail cameras up and I churned today and it's been out for two days and I kid single in red picture on it. They are completely different than it at home. I mean they didn't they don't move here. It's it's unreal. Um. We we found to hear the other day that killed and um, you know, we we were smelling. We saw some buzzers went over there and it was all covered up in your ass and had the bumping out of it and said, I don't know if that had something to do with them. They need to do just they don't move at night. You've been out there for a few days. Now, what have you seen as far as the bachelor groups breaking up? Are they still together? A lot of those bucks flying solo at this point. No, they're definitely, um still bachelored out big time. All the bucks are pretty much running together, and then all the does there's dough groups and then pretty much every day has two fonds with it, it seems like. But yeah, big bachelor groups still, you know, I think tonight we had a group of seven bucks come in at one time later in the night there, which until you still seeing these deer on their summer patterns and are you sometimes having encounters with the same deer night after night? Yeah? Absolutely, absolutely, most most of all the bucks we've seen that have been out of velvet um here within the last week. But they're definitely they still on a summer pattern. They're not walking the same trail, per say, every day, but they're definitely hit in the same fields. I mean going back to the same area going forward. Then next week or so, what do you think that bucket activity will be on a scale of one to ten in Wyoming? I can't imagine it's gonna be any worse. Um, looking at the forecast, I'd say it's still gonna with the bucks still bachelored up, I would assume and guests that they're going to say in those same patterns. Alright, Champ, Well, good luck in Wyoming, and uh look forward to seeing what you guys come up with this season. At heart, Lambo Hunter, thanks for joining me you bet. Thanks a lot man having a good one. And that concludes this week's episode of Wire to Haunt's Radio. Thanks to our guests Lee, Mark, Paul, and Trent, and thank you guys for listening. As always, follow Wire to Haunt on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and follow my new blog rot Fresh on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as well. At rut for I shall find some additional deer reports from states like South Carolina, Kentucky, and North Dakota, as well as some more reports coming out this week from places like Nebraska, New Jersey, and South Dakota. Good luck to everyone out there who was still hunting for a mid September buck, and stay wired to hunt

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