00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire 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, and this is episode number seventy six chain the show. Simply put, Dan and I are going to be divulging everything we can think of about killing October bucks. All right, welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Sita Gear. Now today it's just me and Dan and we're taking a little time to date in October, to take a deep breath and process a few you things. You know. Over the past year and a half, probably we've interviewed dozens and dozens of white tail experts while also between me and Dan hunting literally hundreds of hours over that time too, And the result is that we and hopefully you too, have learned a lot about deer hunting. So that said, today I wanted to spend some time reviewing what we know about killing bucks October, what we've learned, what we've seen work, and what we plan to do the rest of this month to try and fill our tax So in short, we're gonna be discussing everything we can think of that will help you and us kill in October buck. So so that sound like a pretty good planned in. And when you say just me and you, we are like the encyclopedia of white tail knowledge. So I was listening. Feel privileged, says the guy who closed his eyes and accidentally shot while talking to the guy who missed a buck all in the last week. Hey, mine was mother nature. Okay, I could not control what happened on my on my miss buck. I don't know. I told my wife and she thought it sounded pretty pretty sketchy. But your wife also thought that would be a good idea to ship ice cream through the mail. I'm not listening to what she has to say. Fair enough, touche, oh man. But yeah, I think we do at least have some things we've learned, and we definitely have got some experiences we've it's been kind of cool over the last two years. You know, we've we've heard from so many different great people, We've had a lot of our own experiences, and then we've gone out the last two years and hunted and then actually seen a lot of things we've talked about or heard about. We put them into play and seen a lot of these things come, you know, come to life. Um, and I know a lot of our listeners have too, as I've gotten I know you have two. We've heard from a lot of our listeners and readers from Weird Hunt. Two of you know, being able to take some of the things they've learned from this podcast put him into action in the field and have actually killed bucks because of it. Lots and lots and lots of people have been emailing us and letting us know about that stuff. And dude, that's about as cool as it gets. Yeah, it's it's a it's a pretty awesome. When someone sends you a picture, it's pretty cool and they say, hey, I listened to what you and Mark had to say. I put that into play and I'm holding these antlers because of it. So that that's that's that's awesome, you know, absolutely love it. Big big shout out to one of our listeners, Thomas are Not. I believe it's how you say his name. He just killed a big old buck last week. Um, and we saw that on Facebook. That's pretty cool. And there's a number of other people I can't remember their names right now, but I'll try to check out some of these and and give you guys shout outs. We'd love to hear about when you do have success, So keep them coming for sure, so that all you know. I don't think I'm ever not going to say that being said, it's just it's just it's just me, Dan, I can't stop it with that said. Is going to say that said? Yeah, I wonder if anyone's still doing the drinking game. I don't know, they'd be blacked out by now if that's the case. What I'm trying to say. What I'm trying to get to here, Dan, is Uh, I want to recap what we did this past weekend. Right, it's uh, it's October thirte today when we're recording this U. So we were hunting October ninth time eleventh just before record this. So I want to recap what you and we were up to, some of the things we saw, and then from there move on to what we're planning on doing. And then I want to kind of review some of the lessons we learned in early October and then start talking about things that are coming up. So what we're doing in mid October, any ideas and advice we have for that time frame, we can continue to debate some of the things we've always debated um and then finally close things out by talking about the last week, week and a half of October when things start shifting again. So that's kind of my my blueprint for what I want to talk about today but this weekend how to go for you. But hold on real quick, Dan, just one second, because we do need to pause real briefly for a word from our partners at Sick of Gear, who believe in the Wired Hunt podcast and you guys so much that they're willing to help us keep this show afloat, so as we do each week, we're hearing from Sick of product category leader Dennis Zuck, And today I wanted to pick Dennis's brain about basse layers specifically. I was curious, you know, what's the difference between loose base layers and the tighter compression type base layers and which ones are the best choice for white tailners. Yeah, I mean, I think it kind of goes back to, you know, why are they created the way that they are and saying is that is that who I am? And you know a lot of the compression fitting things had to do with circulation, had to do with blood flow. Um. And there's a lot of science around that, you know, um about muscle fatigue, um. But the reality is is that's that's a very athletic view, you know, and my how much of my how much activity am I going? And most white tailers aren't you know, running to the stand ord nor are they doing you know, jumping jack's while they're in the stand you know. So you know, not saying that may not be what you're doing, but you should think about that in your consideration. You know, as you get to the looser fitting ones, they still need to be close enough fitting that they're going to be able to grab and wick things away from your skin. But they still need to be comfortable. They still need to be able to trap air in there. Um, they still need to give you good range emotion, you know, So thinking about you know that you don't have to sacrifice comfort for compression unless compression is what you're trying to accomplish because of the activity. So there you go, some interesting insight to keep in mind next time you're looking to purchase some hunting base layers, and if you're interested in learning specifically about sick as base layers or any of their other products. Visit sick of gear dot com and now Dan for real this time, how'd your weekend go? I'll tell you what, man, it's It has been two years since I have successfully shot and killed a deer. All right, So I didn't shoot any dose in two thousand fourteen, and I didn't shoot any does in two thousand and thirteen. All right. Last year, I didn't shoot any deer. Uh, so I shot two does this week this weekend, Friday night, Um, I got out of work late later than I expected. I ended up going um having to stop at home because I forgot to charge my ozonics battery the previous night, so I had to pick that up. And I packed up, got into my truck and headed down straight to one of my properties. And I was kind of debating because I was a little late. I was kind of debating if I wanted to go what where I wanted to hunt, the place I really wanted to hunt, I would have had to do a running gun set up, fresh set up. You know, I had trim out branches and all that stuff. And at the same time, I had a stand that was already set for a good wind. But I had gotten shoe camera pictures the last time I checked my camera. Of two bucks, one was a teeter totter buck and then one was a buck that I have a long history with, and um so I said, screw it. I got to the farm a little late. I got finished setting up somewhere between five and five thirty on Friday night. And that's that's pretty late. Yeah. So as I'm screwing in my osonics bracket and hanging my osonics, I hear crunching and there is a was it a guy with an acorn crunch was a guy with an acorn cruncher and he shot him. So, okay, good story. No uh So like two uh a button buck and in a small dough came through and I I would have shot her if I was ready, but my I didn't even have an aarroo knocked yet, so I let him walk to walk by and they were up winded me, so they they I'm gonna you know, I don't ever plug any products, but I'm gonna tell you right now, I have seen so much success with nose jammer it's not even funny, man, I'm telling you right now. I walked. They followed my trail in to where I was standing and I I think you're full of crap. I just think you're trying to plug something. They must be giving you slide Monday on the table or something. I'm not joking, man, I cannot it blows my mind. I was walking the cornfield edge to the corner, and then I would walk from this corner down the other side of the field edge and hop hop this little um fence to my tree stand. And then my main focus was this bean field where they were coming out of. And these these two dear and obviously they're young, but that doesn't matter because the rest of my story. They were young, and they followed my scent and kept working on their way down, so they crossed paths with me for a good fifty yards. Yeah, I'm not surprised by that. I mean, we've we've talked about before, but I've seen the same thing after I started trying it last year in November. I uh, yeah, it's crazy. I really do see the same thing, same thing this And I hate to you know, we don't like to do this and we don't try to plug too much stuff. But really, between nose Jammer and that Ozons machine that we talked about, I mean I've I saw it crazy opening weekend, like I just had numerous, numerous does directly down wind of me. And I really do believe that those two things together, man, they I mean, I didn't get I didn't get winded. The night I killed my buck, I had all sorts of deer right behind me, perfectly down wind. Nothing. Then again I went out, well, I don't know, several days after that same thing. It's just it's working for me. And I'm you know, what more can you say? And I think a lot of it has to do with it being a version sit So there was no other scent in the area. I came in, I set up, I trimmed my branches. Um. I was in the middle of trimming my branches when these deer came by. I let them. I let them work their way by uh and then the and then I finally got all set up. Well about ten minutes later, I heard some you can hear when they jump this fence, because there's like this little the fence. There's a main fence, and then it looks like the top barbed piece of barbed wire has fallen down to the side, so when they jump it, it makes a little noise at rackets. So I heard that, and here comes a dough in a yearling and they were munching on the corn for a little bit and they came through and the dough stopped and I drilled her like I got it. I got it on camera, and I I've hit dear hard before, but I must have hit her opposite side, shoulder or something I don't even know. And she just fell straight to the ground like like someone pushed her over. And she got up and ran fifteen yards and then that's where she inspired. So that was that was the first Dear. That's awesome. Um. Then so I'm like, okay, I can do this easy. I can get out of my stand now and I can go cleaner and drew her to the truck in daylight and not have to worry. But with the temperatures that just recently dropped in the barometer on the rise, I felt that I was going to see more than just those deer. And sure enough, about thirty minutes later, maybe a little less, the first set of deer that came through, they hopped the fence into this bean field. They were just mosying around in there, down winded me right in my osonic streme. Yeah, they're young deer, so whatever, but just hanging out there. Then thirty minutes later I see some horns through this timber. And you know how we always talk about wanting to be give put yourself in a position where the deer feel like they have the advantage. One thing I've noticed is that one thing I've noticed is that when a deer is going to a destination like a food source, there are times when they're going to have the wind to their back, especially if they're they're entering a large area that they can that they can see in. So the weather channel said, I was having a northeast wind, right, So I get to my stand location, I get up in the tree and the wind is northwest. So I'm actually about fifty yards from where I wanted to be because I my scent was going to be blowing into the field. I didn't want it blowing into this marsh that I was kind of on the edge of. So the deer, the bucks came with the wind from this section of timber through a horse pasture, jumped a fence and then came out and there was three bucks to two larries are too young. Too young bucks probably both two years two year olds for sure. And then I saw a bigger set of times in the in the timber and it's a big nine pointer. And he came out and he just bullied these deer all over the place, and he was had his ears pinned back and he was pushing around and this is this is broad daylight. Still he made a scrape and then he came out into the field. All three bucks down wind of my osonics and they're just sitting there. And the one, the one that I now, after looking at his pictures, I feel he's a three year old. Okay, he's got he's got a really good antlers. Antler, he has really good antlers. I'm fired up. You're struggling here. He has really good antlers. But his body says three year old to me. So I'm glad that I didn't get the opportunity to shoot him. He was at forty five yards quartering away while he was working that scrape. I had had a quartering away shot pretty decent, but I had some dear right below me, those other two dear that it worked their way in, and I felt this buck was going to come towards me because all the joke camera pictures kind of showed a gradual movement past my tree stand. Well, long story short, they the bucks all started. We're like a single file line coming right towards me, and some coyotes started howling in the back by my truck, and uh, I'm like, oh great, tails up. They ran back into the marsh. And then about thirty minutes later, right at last night, I'm sitting there and a dough comes through and I pop her at like five yards. So she ended up running into the marsh. Okay, and uh, I was kind of I wanted. I watched her lay down on the field edge, and so I'm like, okay, I can go get her. So I go to my truck. I cleaned the first dough dragging in my truck, I go get the second. I go to get the second dear, and she's not in the She's not in on the field edge anymore. And I didn't want to go into that marsh for fear of spooking some of these bucks. I know it was a good shot, and I was just gonna wait and recover in the morning. So the next morning I go to the stand. I didn't see any bucks that come through, and I retrieved the dough cleaned to her, and now I have meat my freezer. Pretty good weekend. Yeah, So the story there is there are times, you know, you're so focused on putting the wind in their favor. Now, right, we've talked about that, we're putting the wind in their favorite We're putting the wind in their favor. Well, this time the wind wasn't in their favor at all. The wind was in my favor. And they approached this marsh with the wind to their backs. Then they of the fence. So these deer, just when you think they're going to be doing one thing, they do something completely different. Yeah, it's it's funny you say, look, I've seen the same thing where you know, I hear about this sometimes. I still don't know if there's any if you can really say there's a rule to it, because like you said, there's they're always doing different things there. I think they're using the wind to their advantage in some way. But maybe it's you know, they maybe they're circling and then when they get to a certain area or search to a certain point, they're ready to enter the field and they can see into the field. So now they can see danger ahead of them now they want to smell anything come behind them maybe I don't know. And and really they're not sent checking for anything. They're not looking for hot dos yet. They know it's not breeding season yet. So I don't feel that they're there, you know, because because during the rut, they're they're skirting field edges to see if there's any hot does in that field, or they're they're dropping down below a betting area or something to to scent check that. Well, now they're really not sent checking anything. They're not necessarily looking for doze. And I think the level of how they use their nose now is not necessarily as high. Yeah, but I do think there's some I think there is some level of security that they are. I mean they're still they're still checking areas I think to some degree for danger. But I couldn't tell you one way that they always do it. It seems like there's there's always going to be different ways they go about it, that's for sure. It's fact interesting stuff though. Glad to see that you had a good encounter and put some meat in the freezer. That's a good way to start the season. It felt so good to to to hit a deer and feel confident about the shot. That is a confidence booster. I shot my first dough, you know, and I was, I don't want to say I was hesitant, but I was. I drew back and I was like, okay, make sure, double check, Okay, there you go. Boom dropped, you know, drill there. The second dough came through, it was like it was like I was on autopilot, Like I had all the confidence in the world. So it's just like getting that under your belt makes you that much more confident for you know, the buck encounter. Oh yeah, no, I think that's so important, especially if you've got, like the past couple of seasons you've had where you haven't been able to kill something. You've had a couple of rough situations with you know, hits and stuff. I think the best way to get over that is get out there and start killing some doughes and just regain that confidence. And I was on a high for like two days straight. You know. It was just a doughe, but I was so jacked about it. Man. I mean nothing, nothing, no such thing as just a dough, right, I mean I was pumped. I was I was pumped. That's good that's good. I'm glad to hear it. Man. We Uh, we were trying to have a weekend like yours, killing a couple of doughs here in Michigan. That was the plan. Um my buddy Josh, my dad was to come down, but he got sick, so just my friend Josh, um and we you know, I was hoping we're gonna be able to lay down several deer um on this property where there's just a huge number of doughs, but we kind of encountered, um, you know that mid October change in dear behavior, and um, I was hoping that they would stick to some of the easy patterns so we could usually get some of these doughs down. But they did not. We had a major change in dear behavior that a lot of people attribute to the quote unquote October lull, which I'm sure we'll talk about later. But um, the deer we're not hitting the green food sources like they had been just a few days beforehand, nearly as much. So instead of there being like ten twelve, fifteen does feeding these food plots, we had to one night and three the second night. Um, we hunted. We even hunted the mornings just because I was trying to get more opportunities at does and just nothing. It was. It was tough on so um we ended up well not we. My buddy Josh did end up shooting a dough the last night, so we had a little success there. Um, but it looks slow. On the other hand, on my buddy Andy, um, one of the guys filming for Wired to Hunt, he did kill a really nice mature buck um Saturday night, so that was pretty cool. We got to go help him recover that and just a huge bodied old buck. We weighed him. He was two under and thirty five pounds. Um. Yeah, so really big body deer was crazy. Look the neck on him just looked like it should have been November ten when we're looking at him this is but instead he looked like that on October t. So that was pretty cool, awesome. Nothing better than just seeing a huge bodied buck coming to the timber. Oh yeah, just man, that's that is really really cool when you get a deer that mature with that kind of body, and um, that's what that's what we're going for, you know, that's right. So that was our weekend. Um. So I ask you a question. You can't nope, nope, we're gonna move on. That's kid. When you were cleaning that dough that he shot, did you and up the stomach to see what the deer was eating. We did not, because we were trying to get it opened up and tucked away to the side real quick so I could get back in the blind and tries shoot a dough. Oh gotcha, got you. But I guess that she was on hitting acorns a lot right now. Right one thing that I noticed with the deer that I were cleaning, even though there was just a little bit of corn in there and not actually, because you can tell if a deer's eating clover a lot, it's stomach has just a ton of clover in it, green chewed up. These deer both had. It was full of brown, which tells me it's acorns, so right now, and I think some of it, you know, the quote unquote lull may have something to do with that, But the they're they're eating acorns. As from my experience anyway, my deer are eating acorns right now. Oh yeah, no doubt about it. If there's good if there's a good hard mass crop around you right now, they are definitely they're definitely on that, and that's why a lot of people are you know, people struggle this time of the year because a lot of times these deer are moving off of some of those green food sources or easier spots where you can see them out in the open like they were in September and maybe the first couple days of October, and now they're back in the timber and like like I saw, it's it's hard to get on those deer unless you want to push in there after him. So acorns it is, that's for sure. So before we get to that October lall topic, though, I want to take a real quick step back for an opportunity here. We just finished kind of the early season phase of our hunting season. Dan, We've talked a lot about things leaving up to it um anything that you really learned from this early October time, from any early October lessons learned this year? For me, you know, to be honest with you, I didn't get a hunt. I haven't been hunting as much because I have kids and responsibilities and my wife has a business, so I'm needed more at home. And that's okay for me, because you know, I want to save the arguments for for November. But with that said, I am one thing I've kind of learned is now is probably not well. I hate I hate to say that because I can contradict myself on so many levels. Now is the time that if you have trail cameras, really start watching the dear movement and if you're not getting if you're not getting deer on trail cameras, don't be afraid to take that trail camera down and move it someplace else to try to, you know, triangulate the position of a deer. Even though even though this time of year they're moving around between different food sources and they're they're probably making bigger laps, so to speak. Don't be afraid to move your trail cameras and try to find different locations that they that some of your some of your deer are moving to, and that will allow you to say, Okay, they're here, they're here, they're also here. It might might give you an opportunity to triangulate their position. And you're saying that more so heading into the middle of the month, are you're saying that that's something that you think is really better for that early period. I'm saying I'm staying for early period, earlier period going into going into the lull because you know, yeah, they're hitting scrapes right now, probably after dark, but they're still you know, they're not hitting as scrapes as often. Because I watched three deer this past weekend. Only the mature one hit one scrape and he was on it for maybe one second. Scrape, scrape p done, and it really it took that long. The other deer didn't hit the scrapes at all that I that I saw. So it's they they're not I feel, they're not using those scrapes. Yes, they they're using them, but not as often as they will in the next two weeks. Yeah, this is definitely the ramping up period that they're just entering now, right. Yeah, Okay, interesting stuff. Yeah, I think UM. For me, from an early season standpoint, this season just reaffirmed things that I've been you know, seeing become more and more true over the years, just the the importance of in the early season taking advantage of if you have the right conditions, strike hard, and strike. You know, if you've got intel and the right conditions, it's a great time to get a kill. UM. And you know, I had I had that situation, and I'm just glad, you know that. Probably the best the thing I did right that made the largest impact for me with my October one kill was the fact that I changed my travel plans because I was originally planning on just going to Ohio for that weekend and that day. But I had that sighting on Monday where I scouted from a long distance and saw these deer out there, and then I saw the conditions were gonna be really good for that night. The wind, the barometer of the moon, the temperature, and I said, these things are lined up for a really good hunt. So I said to my said, Okay, I've got Ohio, which is a great place, or i can hunt in Michigan where it's not usually as great. But I've got these couple cards that are really looking good for me. You know, in my favor, I said to postpone that Ohio trip instead do that hunt, and it paid off. So I think when you do get those things lining up right, you can't pussyfoot around it. You have to take advantage because those special times don't come along that often. Um. And So if I learned anything it was just simply when you've got everything lined up like that, Do not delay, strike hard, strike fast, but make sure you know it's informed. So my question to you is are you going to be in Iowa this weekend? My answer for you is hell, yes, okay, good because we have a major cold front coming through. I'm kind of stoked about it. Yeah, I was. I've been staring at the same screen now just waiting for it to change. But it's not changing. And temperatures are going to be dropping almost twenty degrees from the weekly average to Saturday, the highest supposed to be like fifty six fifty seven degrees. So I'm gonna unfortunately, I have a wedding. Stupid your weddings. Yeah, tell me about it. So Friday night I'll be in the stand. Saturday morning, I'll be in the stand Friday or Saturday night I have I have a wedding. But yeah, well it's gonna be awesome regardless. I'll keep you posted on how the woods look because I in the part of our where I'm gonna be hunting. It's gonna be like seventy three degrees on Thursday high seventy three and Thursday high on Friday is gonna be fifty three so it's gonna drop twenty degrees in one day. So I'm driving Thursday night to get to my camping spot that night. Friday morning, I'm gonna check a couple of trail cameras on these properties, or at least on one of these ones that I'm not playing hunting, check the camera, put a camera out, and then head to the property. I am planning and hunting and get in there early because I have to hang and hunt. You know, this is all all run and gun because I have not had a chance to set anything up on these properties and learning them for the first time. So it's going to be basically trying to observe and learn about these properties over the weekend. Um. But with these great conditions, um, that big coal front hitting and we've got a good moon position to um. These things all, you know, indicate it could be good for dear movements. So I'm hoping to you know, set in some spots where I can observe and learn something, but also maybe get lucky and be in a position to you know, hopefully at least encounter mature buck. You never know, Um, It's probably unlikely, but maybe I'll look into something. So hey man, anything can happen. Anything can happen anytime, especially when these cold fronts coming through. And I believe when you when you say a good moon, is I think that the moon is going to be setting an hour before the sun sets? Is that true? I think so? So any you know, it depends on who you talk to. You some guys are you know, they want that moon straight above them. Some guys want the moon just coming up or just going down as as prime time as far as the sun or the Sun's position in the sky. So the moon is setting somewhere around five on Friday night, I believe, and then setting all the sun setting. The sun is setting at about six thirty. But the moon is going to be setting at you mean rising. No, the moon in the evening is rising. Well what about what about black moon? I mean no, I'm serious. I'm I can pull it up right now if you want me to Weather Channel. Because the moon rises in the evening when the sun setting and the morning the sun is rising. The moon is setting, not every time, not not every time because anyway anyway we can we can talk about it later. But as from from that standpoint, the the the sun is going to be low in the sky and the moon will be low in the sky and that's good for dear movement. Okay, yeah, I mean I agree in the fact that whenever the moon is rising during that final two a couple of hours of daily that's a good thing. And then also if we're looking at the overhead times on Friday, the moon is going to be directly overhead just a little bit before four pm, just a little bit before five pm on Saturday, and just around five thirty on Sunday. So those are all during that you know, final couple hours of daylight too. So overhead times are good, moon rising or setting times could be good. So cold front lots of things looking good for this weekend yea um middle of October. So that's what we're planning on doing. I'm gonna be trying to figure out these couple of properties, moving some cameras around, observing from a couple of stand locations. Sunday, I'm gonna try to hang a couple of stands for the rout trip um so that I have something that will be set um and then all the back two weeks after that to actually start hunting the rut um. That's said during the middle of October. The October lull is much talked about, this time frame where things can go south for some hunters. You posted a blog post a couple of days ago or a week ago or so that's said October low, you're drunk. I think something like that. Go home, October below, you're drunk. There you go, explain why do you say that? Okay, So the deer are moving all right, the scrapes are appearing. Okay, So some of this, some of this uh movement that we're seeing is it could be pressure from hunters, it could be change in food source. But the deer are still moving. Okay. So I think the October lull, in my opinion is people who are field edge hunters, they see the deer several days in a they the dear stop moving to that position, and then they're like, oh, it's that October lull just because I mean, it's it's almost like it's a term with no scientific evidence behind it makes sense. It does. And I think to your point, which you just made, the science like, there is actually studies that clearly show that dear movement simply just movement, is on a steady rise through October. So there's definitely there's definitely no decline in dear movement, but they're most definitely is a change in dear behavior. Would you agree, yes, I believe there is a change in dear behavior. And when I say, I think there's a difference between dear behavior and dear movement. So der behavior to me is, Okay, they stripped their velvet. Now they start scraping and rubbing. Their kind of their behavior is kind of changing, getting ramped up for the rut. There's a huge behavior shift when it's the rut. They they don't like to hang out with other bucks. They're fighting each other. And then after that they go back to another behavior change, which is, you know, they start getting back to a social animal again. Okay, now a deer, a deer movement change is it can be influenced by several things. That can be influenced by hunting pressure. It can be influenced by food source changes, which I think is what a lot of people are thinking. You know what a lot of people are seeing when I when I cut that dose stomach open, it was all acorns. Okay, Yeah, I was hunting a field edge and I think a lot of that has to do with the cold Front that helped come through. But that's just telling me that a lot of their time is spent on acorns in the timber. The deer don't have to come to a field edge to eat. There's so much greens and there's so much mass in the timber right now. They don't have to come out if they don't want to. Yeah, very true. I think at that. You know, we've talked about this before, but I think that they're definitely like the phenomenon of the October lull has truth to it in that it is if you if you, It depends on how define the October lull. If we're talking, does does deer movement decline? No, but does observed dear activity from a hunter from the average under standpoint decline? Maybe if you're not adjusting properly. So the key is you need to make those adjustments if you if you want to avoid the lull, you need to change because, like you just said, food sources are changing. Deer are adjusting to hunting pressure which is ramping up um. Deer are adjusting to changing cover. You know, leaves are starting to fall, that's going to change. Crops are coming out exactly, So as these things changed If you stick to the same things you were doing two weeks ago, you're gonna have a lull, no doubt about it. So you have to change things up at this time, right, And that is why this Friday night, when this cold front is coming through, I will be in one of my best stands. I have hung right, it's gonna be. It's one of my stands I I typically set just for the rut, but I have the perfect wind. It's right next to a h it's right next to a betting area. I don't have to run and gun to set it up. I'm going in climbing up and it's gonna it's one of my best stands. I'm not waiting. I'm not waiting to hunt it. So that's I'm not going to say that said man, it's a usual rut hunt or it's the usual rut stand. But I'm assuming what's what makes us a good stand? Why is this your best stand? Because I know a lot of our rut stands are just like generic funnel stands, maybe between betting areas or something. But I'm thinking that might not be what this is. If it's if you're trying to hunt at this time, you're what makes the stand so good at this time of you? Do you think it is close to a big betting area in between crop fields, and the wind will be skirting that um, skirting that stand location where it will be coming through this natural gap between the thick bedding cover and the um and the field edge. So I'm gonna be in about fifty or sixty yards off the field edge on where two main trails crossed that each go to a different corn field, and and there's oak trees and um, yeah, oak trees all along that little that natural gap, and I'm gonna be butt up next to this creek where they crossed to get into that area. Tons of sign Every year I go in tons of rubs, tons of scrapes. So I just have a feeling that with this northwest wind that I'm supposed to have um Friday night, that I'm going to get something coming in with a gold front and the other rising barometer. That sounds good man. I think that sounds like a great place to be, UM. And I totally agree with your logic that now is a great time to hunt something like that, because this middle of October time period, if you do know where these deer are if you do know historically some of these better spots to be, and if you get conditions like this, the deer are going to be you know, there's a very good chance they could be moving, especially now like in your case, you've kept the pressure off that spot. So you know, that's exactly what happened for me middle of October last year when I had a cold front, I had good conditions. I knew where I thought the buck I was hunting, called Jawbreaker, was betted, and I pushed in their close for those couple of days during the cold front and I got shot him. So I definitely think there's some truth to that. And so my plan this year, while I don't evan Night, I'm not trying to talk here, I know very little about this property that I'm gonna be going and trying to figure out. But still I think I know where probably one of the better areas to bed for a buck would be, and I think I know one of the more likely food sources that he'll be probably hitting this time of year. So my plan, even though I've never hunted before my first set, I'm going to go in there and try to get somewhere in between that best betting area that I can think of and that best food source. And since I don't know it well enough, I'm not going to push him too close. I'll stay a little bit closer to the edge and observe. But I think that general area is where I'll need to be. So hopefully that first night i'll learn something, maybe see him if there's a nice buck in there, um, and maybe I can adjust for the next night. I don't know, but I think, Um, it's the type of night, it's the type of weekend where you can have that kind of action. Ye and I and I will be hunting that same stand the next morning too. Yeah. I just I just feel that if you limit yourself, if you go in and you hunt a stand. And now, let's see, I'm a I'm a believer of hunting, of hunting mornings this time of year. If the if the information from my trail camera says there's a big buck in the area, I'm mature one of my hit list year in the area, all right, But you also need to know what the pattern is for morning movement. So I'm gonna be hunting this stand. I haven't been in there, I don't have a trail camera in there because I moved it since they've been logging. Um logging is done now, that's good. The crops are out now, so that's good. That's good for me. But I need to also see what the morning movement's like. And if there's no morning movement, then it tells me it's not quite ready yet. If there is some morning movement, I'm gonna credit that to this cold front that's coming through. Yeah, that'll be interesting to see what what you which is what comes up on trail cameras and from your settings and stuff. That will be always interesting to see. It's you know, we we've gone around around circles on it. It's high risk. But if you think you've got the right opportunity, and I think you can be high risk if you're not hunting a certain stand all the time. I think you can get aggressive this time of year, pop into a place that maybe conditions won't be you know, let's say it's not the rut, so, but if you're not hunting it, I mean I only hunt the weekends this time of year, so and I'm not hunting that stand. You know, I haven't hunted that stand at all this year. Well, I hunt it the previous weekend. I don't know. I don't know what the wind conditions are going to be. I don't know what the temperature and all that stuff is gonna be, because that will dictate where I'm gonna set. But you know, you've got to use all that information, and that may say I mean I need to I need to jump in there. Yeah. I think a big thing too comes down to, like you said, you don't have to hunt that same stand a lot because you have, you know, so many hundreds of acres of land and multiple opportunities where you can move around and shift or your hunting. And if you do burn out one stand, you know, in a morning hunt and you get spook a deer something, you've got other options. You've got total other places parts of the property where you know those won't be affected. The guy that's hunting twenty acres and that's all he has, that might be another story. But when you have options, when you have you know, three four acres or a couple different properties, um, you can have the luxury of getting a little bit more aggressive, trying different things because if it doesn't work, move on the next spot. That's right. UM. So big takeaways for me from mid October. Is you know understanding that you know there is not necessarily low and activity, it's just having to adjust. So adjust to those patterns and then take advantage when you get those conditions that are going to get a moving like we have this weekend, the cold, the cold weather fronts, rising barometer, the correct moon rising or setting times. And I checked your right, I was wrong about the moon stuff. Misspoke on that um or the overhead underfoot, all that stuff, all those things can move, can get dearer moving maybe a little bit earlier and give you that little ledge. So mid October you can definitely still pull it off. So if you have a smaller piece of property, my suggestion would be, or if you're not so confident in the reason, I'm jumping into my good spot right now because I've been hunting this property for several years. If you haven't been hunting a property, or you you had a smaller piece of property, now would be an excellent time for an observation. Stand yes, yeah, if you don't have this intel, if you don't feel confident you know everything you just said, Dan, I absolutely agree, this is the time to play it safe, um and wait for that time period a little later in the year, late October into the first couple of weeks in November, when you can, you know, things are a little bit more loosey goosey, that's right, And I feel like I've been I drink a whole pot of coffee. I'm like just so pumped to get out in the woods. I feel like I could push a car. Dude. Those when these when these weather fronts come through, it just gets me just like that. Jack. There's there's nothing in my opinion that if I had to, if I had to look at just only one single thing, it's these temperature drops. I can just plan my my sits around that. Everything else helps a little bit, gives me a little bit of an edge. But this, when you see these cold fronts come through, that is just a huge, huge, huge influencer on dear movements. So I'm just constantly checking the ten day forecast, praying for that big cold front, and we finally got one. So so late October, let's real quick move to that that last you know, I kind of I look at October in like kind of three phases. I don't know how you break it up in your head, but I kind of look at October one through like the seventh is kind of that early season time period for me where there's some of that early pattern still going on. They haven't necessarily been impacted by the hunting pressure as much. Really, it's just the in spots like Michigan, it's like the first couple of days. But after that kind of seventh of October, I feel it's kind of that, you know, we'll call it the lull or mid October whatever, where they have they start shifting, the October shift. Maybe we should call it um I kind of for me, I look at that being like October seventh through like the twenty three or somewhere around there is kind of this period where they're they're shifting there, readjusting to changes, and that's that time period where i've you know, like we just talked about, I'm only getting aggressive if I feel like there's a really good reason to do so, otherwise playing it safe. But then when you get to like that tw fourth October, that last six seven days in the month, I feel like you kind of enter that next phase, that pre rut period of October that I think can really be dynamite um, especially if you know there's a buck that's local to your area. Because that time period, these bucks are starting to get a little edgy, they're starting to move a little bit more, starting to take a few more risks, but they're still staying local in their area. They're not ranging as much as some of these bucks might in November. So you have this opportunity if you know where homebody Buck is during those last few days of October, you can catch him before you start straying off the office usual patterns. So that is a time period I get exceptionally excited about, right, That's right. I I I hunt pretty much the same all year. It's just that I'm making more moves towards the end of October because there's more information on my show cameras. Um the you know, like and I but I agree with you. The early season the quote unquote, I'm not going to say it. The shift, the shift and the shift and then the pre rut, and then the pre rut is when I'm I'm hunting scrapes. I'm hunting a lot of scrapes in the in the pre rut. Yeah, and that's for a good reason. Studies have shown that that last like around the I can't remember the exact date rings, but there's a specific date range where a couple of these studies of some of these different universities have got maybe a Penn state or Mississippi state, or there's a number of these universities have got some pretty strong research um programs related to deer and they've shown that is the peak of scraping is that you know, pre rut just before November, deer hitting those scrapes a lot. And if you're ever gonna hunt scrapes, I think that's your your one best opportunity where they there will be that draw to come check them. Right. So, I've got one scrape on one of my Michigan properties here where every single year, especially when they're standing corn, the eiser bucks are hitting this scrape during daylight. I get trout counter pictures of mature bucks on the scrape in daylight. Every single year between like the eighteenth of October and the October there's always someone hitting them. Um, you know, it's not every single day all the time, but they're gonna be there at some point if you're if you're out there enough, you can catch them. So this this time of year towards that pre run area, I think right now they're they're they're doing a lot of nocturnal scraping and they are rubbing. Two they're doing a lot rubbing. So every every time you had a back out in the woods, keep your eyes open because you're gonna see a lot more rubs popping up over the next couple of weeks. Yeah, very true. Now are you doing it? You know, we've talked a lot about sign over the past couple of years. But as you're walking into hunt somewhere, if you see some rubs or scrape, are you ever the type that's gonna pop up your stand right there and hunt that because it looks fresh and used or or no, yes, if it is a new property, So I'm I setting up on sign is great because there has been deer there in the past, so you would think that deer would come through again at some point. That's awesome, But that doesn't mean they're coming there every day at the same time, or especially during daylight hours. So what I do is, if I'm new to a property, I'll set up over signed initially and then use that as an observation to adjust my stand locations based on where I'm seeing movement. Yeah, yeah, I think that that's I think, you know, like you mentioned a little bit ago, most of that activity is happening at night, but it still is indicative of the fact that they are word dear using this area at some point. And so if you're just starting to learn, that's a great place to start. Yep, that's starting to learn a property. Um On. The the other way to look at it is, you know, if you have a property where terrain and topography might funnel deer movement to some degree, Like let's say, you know, when you're king down a new property and we're trying to figure out the basics of that property, right, you're trying to identify, Okay, here's where I think the betting airs are, Here's where I think the food sources are. And then it's okay, how are they traveling between the two? And especially for this newer basically most of October, those are the main things you really have to understand. How are you're getting from betting to feeding, and then how do they move between the two, and then where do I need to set up in between? So if you're looking at things like terrain funnels or topography funnels, ridges, saddles, um whatever, it might be setting up somewhere like they're we're when you're heading into one of those places like that, when you do see sign within an area like that that helps you narrow down. Okay, I thought that this ridgeline would be where they're better, and I thought they'd come down this and they'd feed in these two crop fields. When I'm trying to fare where from my standard between those two though, if you see a line of rubs, or if you see a cluster of scrapes, Okay, now I know from this hundred yard area. Now I know, okay, this forty yard is probably the best yard of that hundred yard. So it's a good way to narrow is down, I think, ye exactly. And then you can, of course then continue to narrow things down by using troil cameras, which we talk about a lot um as you're trying to really figure out how these deer are using a certain spot, and then that in that late October time frame, what you're gonna get I think you're not gonna see necessarily a huge change once you once you figure out how deer of shifted in the middle in the middle of October, they're not going to all of a sudden change things a whole bunch on October twenty six, seventh or something like that. But what you might get is you might get that buck that's feeding in this food source, coming from that betting area. He might do it twenty minutes earlier on than he did on because he's starting to get a little more amped up. He's wanting to check those doughs, maybe just start feeling them out. That's when you can start getting a little bit earlier movement. You might be able to get away with a few more things, and uh, they might step up miss up a little bit. So it's all about I think again at that time frame, as it is all year really, but again watching the weather too. For me, it's when those cold fronts hitting laid October again, that's gonna be a huge trigger. That's really gonna get them going, and you might start seeing some early rut action even at that point, if you get a really solid cold front hitting well. And uh, the prediction is calling for an earlier rut quote unquote earlier this year. So I think they said, you know, there could be a huge increased movement by October this year is when some some of the stuff could start kicking off, which you know, take that for what it's worth. Yeah, And that's that's the moon theory, the rutting moon theory that that, like you said, exactly that twenty four time period. I think Charles L. Scheimer theory about the moon's effect on the time of the run or the intensity of the rut is indicating supposedly that that will be when it's starting to kick off. So something to keep in mind. Um, I hope it's the case, because I will be in Ohio that time frame, so I wouldn't mind seeing some extraction, right. And one thing that I I'm gonna say is now, all, okay, so I saw this. I saw this buck this weekend. He comes into the field, he searches dominance, he puts his head back, he chases some bucks off of the off the field, he makes a scrape. His body was showing me that he was aggressive and he was looking to you know, basically not take crap from anybody. If you see that, now might be a good time to throw a grunt his way. Now, this weekend is the first time I'm gonna I'm gonna take calls into the timber with me rattling antlers and um and a grunt call. Yeah, thanks good. It's a good point to make. This is the it's gonna start ramping up from here. You can. You know, I think every week you've got an opportunity to maybe be a little bit more aggressive every week once you say, yeah, you know, I'm not. I'm not blind calling. I'm waiting to see if I first of all, if I see a buck. If I do see him, I'm gonna say, okay, let me look at his what his body's telling me. Is his body telling me he's you know, he's piste off and he's making scrapes and raking trees. Then I'll call at him. But if he's not doing that this time, this time of year, no, I'm not calling it at him at all. Yeah, it's definitely for me. On the same thing, I'm not doing any blind calling all. I'll only grunt. And at this point I'm still relatively non aggressive with that grunt. If there's a deer that I see that I just needed to come in a little bit more, just try to get him little aggressive, I think. Um. But but yeah, interesting, interesting thing though to note the first three hunts of the season, well maybe it's the first two, and then two months later, my first night hunting, I saw two different sets of bucks sparring. The second night of my season, I saw two bucks sparring, and then this weekend on the ninth, I had two bucks sparring. As I was walking out, I could hear him. So I've never had that Four different times, having bucks barring in the first nine days of October. That was interesting to me and just indicative of the fact that even in the early season, you know, they are nothing aggressive, you know, just kind of tickling the times and kind of just feeling around. But there is something to be said that these deer are starting to just kind of feel their oats and just kind of test their limits at this point. And then as the month goes on, that just gets more and more serious, until you get to November, when all of a sudden things get potentially nasty. I get real, Yeah, yeah, that's the truth. I'll tell you what. Down in Ohio, there's you know, so many nice mature bucks. I swear, one of these days, it hasn't happened for me yet, but one of these days down there, I'm gonna put the decoy out and I'm gonna rattle, and just a toad is gonna come, just piling in, and I just dream of it, and I can't wait. One of these days gonna happen. I can just see it now, this huge five year old puffed up and ears back and drill coming out of his mouth, just like just stiff legging it up and then starts angling in and then I start shaking into my hands, won't stop, and man, it's gonna be cool, and he's gonna pile drive the decoy and run away before and get a shot or the window knock over the decoy. But but it's a good dream until then. That's right. I got a question for you, and maybe I know we're we're coming up on time here pretty soon, but I want to know how you're going to approach your Iowa property. Okay, the only scouting you've really done is what a quick walk through and maybe some maps. That's exactly what I got. And one one thing you said that I was just kind of kind of made me tense was you said you're gonna go check trail cameras, but you know you're not gonna hunt it. How do you know you're not gonna hunt that property. So I have two different farms that I can hunt, and one of them, you know, it's acres acres, that's a lot of lands. So I'm seeing here like, you know, how can I how do I narrow this down? Um? And so my thought process that I've done a lot of scouting, just digital scouting, really paying attention to the maps, um, trying to figure out much that kind about the area. And so my thought process for this weekend was check cameras on both properties, set out more cameras on both properties. Um. And then I was looking at two different ideas. One try to put you know, I only have three I've two days, maybe two and a half days to hunt. So it's do I do one day on one property, one day on the other property, or do I try to double down on one and just learn a lot more about that one and let the cameras just work on the other one and then when the rut comes, Okay, I've got cameras run on both, and I've got you know, a decent sample set of time on the one that I think as the highest potential. That's kind of where my that's kind of where my head's at right now, because there's no way to learn twelve acres of property in two days. You know, I just I can't do that. So it's it's more so do I go really thin across everything or to try to go a little bit deeper on a smaller section. So my thought process at this point is has let the cameras work on the one. Now, if I go to that property Friday morning, I check that camera and that's loaded up with mature deer and the other one isn't, well, then that's going to change this completely. Um. But I'm working on assumptions right now, and my assumptions that this one might be worth a little bit more time. So again we'll see. I'm gonna check that camera, check those cameras. The first night I'm playing Hunting Property, the West Properties what I call it. And you know, we'll see what happens that night. Maybe I see something, maybe I don't, or maybe I find out there's a whole bunch of hunters out there. Um. You know, I'm gonna be adjusting. It's gonna be a lot of trying things and adjusting. Um. So that's my approach to this weekend. Um. Then from then I'm gonna hopefully, you know, learned a handful of things. I'm trying to get a handful of trail cameras. I'm both properties, just so I can learn a little bit while I'm not there. I'm gonna keep on studying those maps, and then when I come back, I'm gonna be coming back and starting to hunt on Halloween and hunting Halloween through like November seven. So at that time, it's just going to be taking everything I learned from that first weekend, checking on the cameras and I get there, and then just trying to, okay, based on what I learned about some deer movement or where other hunters are something, where do I think the absolute best funnels are for the rut? You know those generic rut type sets that you know, even though I don't know much about the property, just based on the terrain, this should be good movement or should be an air of good movement. And then I'm just gonna have to start trying them and seeing what happens. So I think that's gonna be the biggest challenge for me is just figuring out, you know, how do I how do I properly allocate my time between these two spots? Do I do I bounce around all the time, or do I double down on one and really focus on learning that. And I think there's a risk of like trying to try too many things, but then there's the risk of getting tunnel vision and what. I don't know. There's no perfect answer. I think I'm just gonna have to learn as I go. I think you gonna throw out some mock scrapes. Yeah, I'll be putting cameras on mock scrapes for sure. Um. That's one of my favorite things to do at this time of years, just to get the cameras on that, because at least I can learn, okay, what deer in the area, and then you know, I can get an idea of what time of day they're in that general area too, so that'll be helpful. Um. And you know sometime I'm starting to do now is just put mock scrapes in front of as many of my tree stands as I can, not because I think that they're gonna be like the reason why I'm gonna hunt that tree stand, but because I think it's like a tree stand. Um optimizer is what I've been saying. UM. I wrote a blog post about this earlier this week, just you know, if you have a scrape in front of stand, even though that's not necessarily why a deer is going to come through this area. If he's coming through this area for another reason, which is why I put the stand there, if he does happen to come through like I thought he would, you know, there's a chance that maybe that little mock scrape will bring him in the extra ten yards I need to get that shot, or it might get him to pause for three seconds so I can get that shot when if it wasn't there, maybe he would have walked right through that student lane. So for those couple of little reasons, I think it's worth putting something like that out there, just because in many cases, if there is a scrape, you know, if a deer is passing through when he happens to see it, there was a good chance he'll at least stop to briefly check it out. So that's how I'm using them this year. Well, I hope it all pays off for you, buddy man. I hope so too. It's either going to be an awesome story of figuring out these properties and finding a way to have success, or it's going to be a miserable, embarrassing failure. Well wait, wait a second, I'm gonna tell you right now, all this all this talk, You've wroteen articles about it, I've wrote written articles about it about you know, not taking shortcuts and all this stuff. I'm telling you right now, on this pile property, you are going to be tearing down and setting up a lot, especially if this is a brand new This is a brand new property. So although you already know this, I'm going to tell you no short no shortcuts. Mark appreciate the reminder. There's definitely gonna be some days where I'm gonna be sitting there thinking, man, I do not want to move this, but I know I'm gonna have to. So I'm just I'm preparing myself for a lot of I don't want to say miserable moments, but just moments of just saying, uh yeah, just pound to five hour energy and then just do it. Yeah exactly. Man, it's gonna be. It's gonna be a grind, it's gonna be it's gonna be a challenge. I know it's gonna be. But I think there's, you know, definitely potential to to have some fun too. So I'm pumped sometimes even knowing our property really, really well can keep you from making the adjustments that you need to right you get too comfortable exactly. So I think you mean we'll definitely have plenty of talk about in the coming weeks because we're gonna be testing a bunch of our theories and our assumptions and seeing if some of these things can come together for us. So I'm excited to see what does happen. Good luck to you, and good luck to all of our listeners. Thank you, sir, and I agree, good luck to everyone out there. And on that note, I think we should wrap up the show. Um. As we ask every week, if you've been enjoying the show, it would be awesome if you could leave us a rating or review on iTunes. I think we have fifty reviews right now, UM, of which they're here in forty seven or five star reviews. So thank you so much to everyone out there who has been reviewing the podcast. That is the biggest influencer on us getting new listeners, So thanks so much for helping us achieve that goal. UM. Also make sure check out the White Tail Q and A podcast, which is uh my second podcast where I'm answering quick listeners submitted questions that definitely think will be of interest. Um. I think other than that, we just need to thank our partners who do make this podcast possible. And you know, we are very appreciative of that. These guys have stepped out on a limb and helped us keep the lights on. It takes time, energy, money, all those things to make a podcast like this, so big thank you to sick Gear, Trophy, Ridge, Bear Archery, Redneck Blinds, on Terror Maps, Ozonics, Carbon Express, Lacrosse Boots, and the White Tail Institute of North America. Thank you to all those companies. One more thing, Dan, you know what where you're saying the harness, that's that's a great piece of advice. After your safety harness, say it again? What was that? Dan? Where are your safety It's not hard? I mean, I'm already seeing guys slip out of the tree. I had I, um, not this weekend, but last weekend I slipped my boots. My boots had some mud on it. I slipped while I was climbing into my stand from the top step, and I you know, I had to catch myself on my safety harness. You know, luckily, my safety harness was on and it was really tight, So I didn't fall hardly at all, But where are your safety harness? Yeah? That's scary. How fast something like that can happen? Yeah, So one other update, and probably everyone's already signed off by now, but if you're still listening, you get a little sneak peek. I am checking my Iowa trail cameras, like I just mentioned. And so what that means, Dan, is that we are going to have our final results in for the trail camera contest. That's right. So here's what I want to know. We have two bucks on right now that are really similar in size. Okay, so how are we going to do this? You know, I can't say my bucks bigger and you can't say your bucks bigger. Or is it going to be up to the viewers to have a vote to see whose buck is actually the biggest? Yeah? I think what we have to do is we have to you know, like I think we talked a month or two ago about this one idea where maybe we try to get a couple of like expert guesses on score. But then you know, if we can get that, great, we'll add that as like some context. But otherwise we get whatever pictures we have with that buck, of each buck, put them out there and then just let them vote which one do you think has the highest gross score? And I think and to even add it add to the to it, I think we need to because I think we have more than each have a buck. I have two bucks that are probably close to the same size, and I think you have two bucks that are close to the same size. Uh well, I do have one that I've got two that are pretty big, um, but I think one definitely scores better. But I can we can put them both out there. I say, I say we bring our top two the table and then and then let the listeners decide, because I think Mark Kenyon is just as big as Gordon Bombay. They're studs from an inches standpoint, Yeah, there's studs. And then when I win, see call up my buddy Rick Flair, and that'll be an interesting episode if it ever happens, but unfortunately probably won't. I'm sorry, man, because Junkyard is a stud. Yeah he's a slave. But they're they're all big deer. And I think we're actually really stupid lucky that we both have a couple of deer like that run around our farms. That's that's pretty crazy, very very blest. Well, hopefully maybe we'll maybe both of us wind up killing one of these deer and we'll have the best year ever. Ye and then uh yeah, if I kill Mark Kenyon or Tupac or Gordon Bombay or any of my other hitlisters, you'll hear me scream like a little school girl. From wherever you're at, You'll be like, did I just hear a girl scream? Dallas? Much of the shot about, well, I hope I could to hear that. Well, with all that said, take a drink. Thanks for Johnny, thanks for joining us, have a great week, good luck hunting, and stay wired to hunt. H