Ep. 989: Rut Fresh Radio – Late Season Patterns and Tight Mature Buck Movement

00:00:01
Speaker 1: What is going on? Welcome back to Refresh. I’m Jake Hoofer. In this week. We have a great episode as we are inching in on the end of December, and we have some great intel and information for anyone that stills tagging the pocket or wants to know what’s going on across the country. As you know, rough Fresh is brought to you by land dot com, the leading online real estate marketplace to find your perfect rural recreational I have cultural hunting properties here in the US. It’s been cold, it’s been frigid. We’ve had a really really strong winter up to this point. Looks like there’s going to be some warmer temperatures here throughout this week. And what does that mean to you? What can you do? We’re gonna have a variety of different guests here. We’re going to kick things off with Tyler Jones, who’s in Texas and hunts all over, but today he’s in Texas. Here we go, all right, first up on the line, guy that travels a bunch, and so I’m just gonna ask Tyler, where in the world are you right now?

00:01:06
Speaker 2: I’m in Texas right now, been in Arkansas recently, so most of our time has been spent in the South the last week or two, maybe maybe two weeks, three weeks, I don’t know.

00:01:16
Speaker 1: Time flies, Yeah, I mean the for deer hunters, the world kind of resolves revolves around the Midwest. At least that’s just me because I live here and so the South. You guys are down there right now, you’re headed to go check out a property. What have you been hearing and seeing in terms of rud activity, because I know it’s getting more exciting there and more food centric here. So you guys are getting to see what deer’re supposed to do and all the exciting things. Have you been noticing that or seeing anything like that on camera?

00:01:47
Speaker 3: Yeah?

00:01:47
Speaker 2: I mean, so, you know, the Texas is a huge state, so and super geographically diverse. Habitat is you know, crazy different from the coast to the Transpagas region, to the brush country of South Texas to the Panhandle which is the Great Plains, to the you know, Black Lamp Prairie, which is kind of where I live, all the way into the piney Woods, which is like what you’re see in the South. So there’s so many different things going on. There’s a ton of different ruts. The South is full of different ruts all the way through out to Florida, you know, and where I have been recently, what we’re seeing mostly our.

00:02:26
Speaker 3: Mid November rut dates, and.

00:02:28
Speaker 2: So we’re starting to get to where deer getting back onto food sources pretty heavy, probably much like what you’re seeing. In fact, I’ve one of our camera guys, Greg, he said that he’s had in the last like two days, he’s had like three shooter Bucks show up, one that he hasn’t seen since last year on feeders. So you know, they’re getting back into you know, trying to gain a little bit of that that fat reserve back I guess from the rut.

00:02:58
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So they’re they’re licking their jog here looking you know, at this time of the year, and people are still at it and they’re not completely burnt out. Because I think if you did a if you did a survey family feud style of you know, are you burnt out? Ninety nine five one hundred people said they’re burnt out and they’re looking their own chops from deer season. Where are you at in terms of motivation and excitement as we close out the year of twenty twenty five, I know season’s going to twenty six here. But where are you at in terms of excitement or being a little rundown.

00:03:31
Speaker 2: That’s a really good question. I would say if you asked me two days ago, I was a little rundown. I slept pretty good last night, and so I’m like, it’s been four days since I’ve really hunted, which I haven’t had a four day stretch probably since September sometime. So I mean, really I’m kind of itching to get back out and do some hunting for sure. I actually three or four days ago put out a feeder on different property to get my son, you know, some action out in the woods.

00:04:04
Speaker 3: And so I’m actually pretty excited.

00:04:07
Speaker 2: I would say there’s a lot of people, you know, I have a mutual friend out in Alabama that you know, their their ruts are just I mean, this is like, this is the exciting time of year for them. Their ruts are gonna kick off in January, right, So, like in the same way we’ve got in like I was talking about earlier, the brush country South Texas, it’s it’s starting to cook down there. I mean, the rut is picking up. If you are blessed enough to have access to brush country property like now as the Super Bowl from now till through Christmas, you know, is really just good, good stuff. And the thing about the South is that we have huge shoulders on our ruts because the there’s not really a need for those to breed in a certain tight window based off of like cold weather or whatever. The funds don’t necessarily have to be born in a tight window because of weather, so the same way, the rut can be spread out a little bit more and so it makes for like a less intense rut, but it also makes for a potential that any day you go out right now you can see rut in action. And in fact, even at home where we have a mid November you know, I’d say November fourteen or so, it’s been like just the best the best day on trail camera at home for us. We’ve seen a buck that was just dog and doze in late February on trail camera even at home. So you know, it can happen at any time, and especially with those windows, you have these fawns that are born later than normal, which then they come in to heat in December or January sometimes and so you know, it can kick the whole thing back off on any random day. So I guess I would say it’s pretty exciting still to be hunting in the rut. It’s a lot different than the traditional Midwest white tail where Bill Winki was saying after November said you might as well hang it up.

00:06:01
Speaker 3: You know, he wasn’t really saying that.

00:06:02
Speaker 2: But it’s you know, you could tell there was an urgency prior to that date, you know. So it’s a little different, and it’s exciting. I’m excited. And we still, you know, me and k C at the Element, we’ve got quite a bit of hunting left to do. In fact, we’re you know, post Christmas, We’ve got several things lined up and we’ve been booking all this Airbnbs.

00:06:22
Speaker 3: And everything, you know, and we’re we’re excited to go back out.

00:06:27
Speaker 1: So with the with the plan here post Christmas, and you know, people can maybe move those dates around a little bit, maybe they have time during Christmas time. What is kind of your guys’ punch list or strategy, so hopefully you know, connect with connect with the buck here in the South.

00:06:44
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:06:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, I i’d say if you’re if you’re coming up into a rut, I’m probably not supposed to say this, but there’s a there’s a version of a can call that actually we used to laugh about a lot, and I’ve seen work really well in the South the last few years.

00:06:58
Speaker 3: Uh.

00:06:59
Speaker 2: That can call can work, uh for guys that are coming into their ruts, coming up when you get into the heart of the rut. It’s crazy how effective that thing. I’ve seen it be at times. I like that a lot, especially a lot of guys they see it may be from them, it may be from any yeah, yeah, like yeah, that’s the sound. It sounds a lot like a like a pink or a woodcock, you know. But those like I like that, especially for guys because a lot of times people in your neck of the woods they make these big, huge buck roars and these giant grunts that sound like, you know, the deepest burp a human can make, you know, And it’s like, well, a Southern deer, it weighs one hundred and sixty pounds, might not actually sound like that, right, So these guys see it on TV. They go to you know, just making these huge deep roars and stuff. It’s like, ah, that’s there’s not as many deer in the South sounding like that, you know, So if you’re using that that can call. It’s got it’s a little more realistic than what a guy might have seen on TV. And you can’t change the pitch or anything like that to to sound like, you know, Michael Waddell or something like that.

00:08:09
Speaker 3: You know.

00:08:09
Speaker 2: So I think that’s a that’s a good thing for the rut now if you’re if you’re on the back end of the rut here, I think, uh, wheat, wheat is just hard to beat right now. Corn feeders obviously, if you’re in a state that allows that, which a lot of the South does. Uh, the deer going to be carving up, you know, post rut, I think. And so we’re seeing a lot of deer come back to feeders right now. And I just I still think, uh, like we were talking about a piece of public in our home state. I was talking about it with Greg yesterday and I was like, Man, if there’s wheat there.

00:08:42
Speaker 3: This, this would be a good spot.

00:08:44
Speaker 2: And so in other words, we’re looking at deer that we’re trying to pattern to deer moving and you want to be closer to their.

00:08:49
Speaker 3: Betting at this time of the year.

00:08:51
Speaker 2: I think, then you do that food source unless you really get a cold blast, which we just I think it’s a lot nina year, so we haven’t had much cold weather at all.

00:09:01
Speaker 1: Real quick with the with the can call, are you every twenty minutes flipping that thing over or every hour or what you see a deer and you flip it over to see how it reacts? Kind of what what is the calling sequence for that?

00:09:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, we hunt a lot and so you know, for.

00:09:19
Speaker 2: You, you’re pretty good strategist when it comes to like having a target buck and a private property, and sometimes we have some of that, and sometimes we end up just you know, we’re in this state for a week, so let’s hunt and find a hear and be aggressive. So like for me, I would say, it didn’t necessarily work for everybody, but we’re pretty aggressive.

00:09:40
Speaker 3: So I would call like I would.

00:09:42
Speaker 2: Yes, I’d call every fifteen minutes during the rut like I would. I mean, if you’re going to rattle same thing like in the South, you may not make, you know, your rattling sequence sound like two one sixties fight, and you may make it sound a little thinner horned or whatever. You may be a little less aggressive personally, like using especially on still days. It will get this time of year in the evenings when we have south winds or east winds. I like sounding like two little dinkers that are just messing around. And if you’ve ever watched it, or you’ve never watched it, you should try to find a YouTube clip of a couple of one to two year olds just kind of not really fighting, but sparring. And I think that that carries through the woods and doing that every fifteen minutes or whatever for one or two minutes, it’s a good idea. I think it’s a good idea. Same with the can call doing it often. But I do think, yeah, testing it on bucks, even if it’s not a target buck, as long as you don’t want to blow you know, you got to be careful not to call a one year old over and then he blows the entire woods out. You know, once he once, he wins you. So that’s the one, the one thing you got to watch for there. But yeah, I mean seeing it how they react. But I mean I can tell you in the South that that can call works pretty good when the rut’s pretty high.

00:10:56
Speaker 3: I mean, I really do like it, I really do.

00:11:01
Speaker 1: I You’re right, it does seem like those things get made fun of. But if they work. Nothing funny about that.

00:11:08
Speaker 3: Oh, we’ve laughed our heads off and talked about it for years.

00:11:11
Speaker 2: And then you know, we did the buck Truck series for me Eater in twenty twenty two and if you can go watch in the Arkansas episode, I can’t call two bucks, and I mean one of them comes to I think thirty seven or something like that and the other one is like fifty five.

00:11:30
Speaker 3: But I mean it worked really well.

00:11:32
Speaker 2: And that’s on public land, you know, that’s where they hear calling every once in a while.

00:11:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they probably don’t hear that because everyone they say to do something works, I know. Maybe that’s why that does the trick.

00:11:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, you go, you know, go go to the trends that were popular in the nineties and or early two thousands, and people aren’t using anymore and they probably stand a chance of working and nobody else is using them, right.

00:11:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, no, that’s exciting, so real quick. The seventeenth to Christmas Eve scale one to ten in your neck of the woods, ten being the best, one being one of the worst weeks of the year. Where are you gonna put.

00:12:08
Speaker 2: It in my neck of the woods, I’d say.

00:12:14
Speaker 3: Man, I’m not gonna give it the Midwest six.

00:12:17
Speaker 2: What’s called a seven if you have food? I think it’s a seven. Okay, Yeah, I think there’s like I think that you’re going to be coming back to feeders. They’re gonna be on wheat fields. If we can get weather, which I hadn’t looked at the weather. I know we have some kind of stable weather the first part of this week. But if we can get a little bit of weather, I think that it’s a really good time to find a big buck, maybe checking for the last doze, but knowing that the food source is there to really kind of be the destination.

00:12:51
Speaker 1: I like it. Well, Tyler, if people want to fall along with your guys the season and all the hunts that you guys have done literally across it feels like the entire country, and that probably is a pretty fair word to say say it. Where can they go watch all those?

00:13:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, I appreciate you allow me to do this, but uh, the Element Hunting is a good search on YouTube and you’ll you’ll find our channel.

00:13:14
Speaker 3: If you search the Element you might find a skateboard brand.

00:13:16
Speaker 2: So Putting Hunting in there is a pretty good idea and you can just yeah, you can follow along with what we’ve been doing.

00:13:23
Speaker 3: We’re, uh, we’re putting out videos.

00:13:27
Speaker 2: You know, the rut November is pretty tough for us to get videos out sometimes, so but we’re back to putting out videos pretty regularly right now.

00:13:35
Speaker 3: And uh, yeah, we.

00:13:36
Speaker 2: Just travel all over and hunt stuff and you know, sometimes we shoot them, sometimes we don’t. But you can follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, all that stuff.

00:13:47
Speaker 3: Too.

00:13:49
Speaker 1: Awesome. Thank you so much, Tyler. Good luck the rest of the year, and I hope you and your family have an awesome Christmas.

00:13:55
Speaker 3: Thanks you too, Jake.

00:13:56
Speaker 1: All right, next up, I have my good friend David Powell. David a lot of places. He’s been spending a lot of time in Kansas. How’s it going going well, Jake?

00:14:05
Speaker 4: How about yourself?

00:14:06
Speaker 1: It’s going great, It’s it’s going great. It’s actually snowing right here in Illinois right now. We’re supposed to get more snow and more cold weather. So as a deer hunter this time of year, that’s that’s okay with me. What’s been going on here? I know you’re traveling here a little bit for the holidays, but how has the hunting been specifically in Kansas here recently?

00:14:27
Speaker 5: You know big bucks have still been hitting the ground. Rifle season just closed down a week or so ago. I have noticed that it seems like the bucks are getting back to food sources to try to replennge some of that that body weight was lost maybe during the chasing phase. So I’m concentrating my efforts on and around food sources. I think that you know I’ve been chasing a big deer. I confided in you earlier in the season that there’s a big deer while out that’s chase still continues. Oh, but I wasn’t able to catch up with him early in year, like I hope. Typically he makes a journey an excursion to the south right I don’t have access, but usually about this time he comes back home. As a matter of fact, in twenty twenty three, I encountered that deer on the twenty second of December, bumped him from out of a travel corridor.

00:15:20
Speaker 4: And I remembered that.

00:15:21
Speaker 5: And then a few days later I was in the tree and he came down that travel corridor again on his way to food. Unfortunately, I was managed to miss that dear at seventeen yards. But the good news is he’s survived and this year he’s you know, two years later, he’s even more significant than he was that year.

00:15:39
Speaker 1: Wow. And so you mentioned a really interesting thing there. You were hunting a travel corridor to food. I feel like a lot of times people want to hunt over food. With that said, obviously there’s added benefits there, potentially easier to get out of there. Do you want to talk a little bit about the strategy now that you have, you know, a couple of years of history at an encounter, you know, within within the danger zone. Is that still top of mind as we you know, are looking deeper into December, you know that. Do you think history will repeat itself in that same pinch?

00:16:10
Speaker 5: I’m certainly hoping so. So I mentioned to you that the deer takes an excursion. I left Kansas yesterday, flew to central Ohio and back in the east for some some holiday uh get together with the.

00:16:22
Speaker 4: Family and others. But as I was leaving, I did get.

00:16:25
Speaker 5: Some photo overnight and I had hung a new camera uh in in that same corridor. I hung that camera the first series of pictures I got. After I left, I realized that it needed to be lowered just a bit. But the deer is a very distinctive fork on the left side of his on the left side of his rack. And uh, yesterday morning as I was head of the airport, I got a photo of that distinctive left fork.

00:16:52
Speaker 4: I’m sure it’s him. He’s returned.

00:16:54
Speaker 5: History is hopefully you know, he’s back in his traditional winter area. And my hope is that whenever I get back, I’ll be able to get back in that travel corridor and maybe catch up with it.

00:17:06
Speaker 1: That that’s spot where he had an opportunity in the past. How far off of the food source was that it is one hundred yards two hundred yards seventy yards.

00:17:13
Speaker 5: I’m about two two hundred to two hundred and fifty yards off the main food source. The food source I’ll describe for you is an oakmont. It’s about it’s about twenty two acres of pinoaks at the end of about.

00:17:27
Speaker 4: The travel corridor is about one point three miles.

00:17:29
Speaker 5: Betting area is all along that travel corridor, but oftentimes throughout the year it’s it’s towards the lower end of that. So they’re coming somewhere from anywhere from a quarter mile to nearly a mile away.

00:17:41
Speaker 4: And I because that because that Oakmont is so large.

00:17:44
Speaker 5: You know, twenty two acres isn’t overly large, but it’s it’s big when you’re trying.

00:17:48
Speaker 4: To bet an narrow and a deer.

00:17:50
Speaker 5: And so I’d rather focus on I’d rather focus on his travel to that area as to which specific tree I need to be in within that twenty two acres And that’s that’s that worked out well for me previous sleep and let’s hope that that can happen again this year.

00:18:02
Speaker 4: We’ll see.

00:18:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you know, I think a lot of people here are wondering and trying to strategize when is the time to go and apply pressure, right Like these deer have been pressured, you know, in some areas pretty heavily throughout the year. Knowing windows of opportunity are frankly closing for this season. When you’re going to be looking here in the next week when you when you get back to Kansas to do a little bit more hunting, are you watching the weather most specifically or or is the wind more important for the deer to travel with the wind you know, poor into or in favor to like what’s kind of the plan? Like, Okay, I’m going to go in there and I’m going to try and I hope, I hope it comes together, Like what’s the hierarchy of decisions there?

00:18:45
Speaker 4: You know what?

00:18:46
Speaker 5: The window was closing, as you said, And I don’t want to throw I don’t want to throw time in there.

00:18:51
Speaker 4: That would be detrimental to future efforts.

00:18:53
Speaker 5: But at the same time, there’s only so many days left in the season, so wind is going to be a factor. It’s not going to be determining factor if I hunt that day. It’s going to be the determining factor on which side of that travel corridor I.

00:19:04
Speaker 4: Happen to be on it.

00:19:05
Speaker 5: Also, weather, I’d love to have cold weather, so he gets on his feet early and wants to get in.

00:19:10
Speaker 4: There and and and begin to.

00:19:12
Speaker 5: Feed before before it gets too late, or maybe even feed throughout the day. But if if we’ve got eighty degree depatures, I hope that’s not the case. But because I’ve got just a few days left, I will be in there.

00:19:23
Speaker 1: Somch what just jumping around here a little bit. So obviously you grew up in West Virginia. Is that you grew up there, right? So I want you to I want you to jump back to someone that’s listening in West Virginia. They still have a tag in their pocket? What was your what was your back of tricks for this time a year in West Virginia.

00:19:50
Speaker 5: So I’ve got a good friend who’s kind of in a similar situation. He’s been chasing a deer all year long back in West Virginia. It’s a very significant deer. This guy is a big buck killer. Uh at to Jamie. But he is a big buck killer and he knows what he’s doing. This deer has been given him the slip. I think that he is, like, like I am planning to do, is going to start concentrating more on the food sources out of the areas where he has been trying to catch up with the deer chasing chasing does and I would encourage him to put the time in whenever he has opportunity to be in the stand. Make sure he’s cognizant of the wind, but don’t let him keep him from hunting. But really focus on those food sources, and if you’re able to narrow down how they’re accessing those food sources, particularly on days where that might not be ideal and they might not be wanting to get up until right at dark, I encourage Jamie to move off that food source down down the travel way a bit so that he can intercept them before shooting black expires.

00:20:51
Speaker 1: It is often a little fascinating if you’re in a spot where you can see the deer travel. They can cover three, four or five hundred yards pretty quickly when it’s cold, and you know, you see him like you’re watching the clock. Oh man, we only have fifteen twenty more minutes. And you look back up and they’re like, oh, they’re half the distance. You look back up again. Now they’re they’re getting in within a striking zone. So I feel that depending on setups and cover and everything else in between there, But I wouldn’t like, personally, I wouldn’t feel terrible if it’s like, Okay, I think he’s six seven hundred yards away, betted here, the weather’s right, pretty darn good chance. If you have to correct food source, he’ll be there. Would you say that’s a fair way to describe it, because I’m I’m picturing your Kansas set up there miles kind of far. But they can cover that pretty quick.

00:21:33
Speaker 5: Yeah, especially if the weather has them on their feet. You know, cold, cold temperatures will be in our favor. I believe my hope is that it plays out that way, even if we can get a little skiff of snow on the ground where you’ve got to come up there and begin to pall at the ground and look for those acres.

00:21:48
Speaker 4: But we’ll see what happens.

00:21:49
Speaker 5: But I think that that mile, you know, not only that the deer that I’m interested in, but every deer around the area is going to be focusing on food and they’re going to be trying to their way to that oakmoth that I talked about.

00:22:02
Speaker 1: MM, is that pretty much the main food source for that you know general area?

00:22:08
Speaker 6: Is there?

00:22:09
Speaker 1: Like is there like a winter wee field that obviously there’s feeders in Kansas? Like how much is that detrimental to you know, your particular setup.

00:22:18
Speaker 5: So we’ve got we’ve got some ag in the area, but cornfield has been picked, Beanfield has been picked. They do get in there at night and scavenge some of the some of the drop that’s that’s left in the field, but by and large, they seem to be the particular agfields I’m thinking of are somewhat exposed, and I think they’re very hesitant to be out there during daylight hours. There the oak moth that I’m talking about is very secluded. It gets virtually no pressure other than the pressure that I might put on it. And uh, it seems to be an open smortas board form throughout the day.

00:22:52
Speaker 1: Wonderful, wonderful. So looking here ahead of a head of schedule, you know, the holidays, uh sometimes gives people a little bit opportunity to maybe sneak out hunt. You know, the seventeenth to Christmas Eve known the weather, known the conditions, time of year on a scale one to ten, ten being the very best week of the year, one being one of the worst weeks of the year. Where do you throw the next seven days at?

00:23:15
Speaker 5: You know, if we get the right weather, I’m going to say it should be seven to eight. I feel that good about it.

00:23:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, that’s great. So do you think you’ll be in that tree on the twenty second?

00:23:27
Speaker 5: I anticipate being in that tree, maybe the twenty second through the end of the year, if necessary, in and around that tree. I don’t want to overhook one spot, but yes, I and to the point that even though I I’m primarily a saddle hundred these days, my platform is hanging in that tree right now. My saddle platform is hanging in that tree right now with anticipation when I get back, I’ll be in there.

00:23:50
Speaker 1: Here’s this side tangic question, how many saddle platforms do you have? Because I wonder that’s I like, I talked to a lot of guys obviously, and it’s like, I no quite a few that have like two or three saddle platforms to where they can kind of rotate. Is that do you fall in that category?

00:24:06
Speaker 4: I have four. I have three that I use primarily.

00:24:10
Speaker 5: I’ve got one that is a it’s carbon fiber, the large stand that Tether makes in carbon fiber, and that’s the one I leave in the tree if I know that it’s going to be a place and I’m going to revisit. But I really prefer they’re small carbon fiber predator. I carry that with me pretty pretty religiously. And then I’ve got a I’ve got the old car, the old predator, the metal version that when I need something extra, I can fall back on it. But I’m typically packing that small carbon fiber predator. I’ve got one stick that that is available to me, but I don’t use all that often.

00:24:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, it’s it’s funny just the transition of saddle hunting. It’s like it’s almost somewhat reverting back to to having like obviously multiple multiple spots. But I think having multiple platforms makes total and perfect sense instead of having to fully tear up and tear down every single time, especially spot you plan and returning.

00:25:05
Speaker 5: One of the things I’ve been doing is, and I kind of got this from from Eberhart.

00:25:09
Speaker 4: I know that he preps trees in advance.

00:25:12
Speaker 5: So one of the things I’ve been doing I bought a big spool of pair cord and throughout the season, early in the season especially, but throughout the season, if it’s a spot I want to return back to, I’m putting a pair of cord loop in that tree over over a branch ahead, over a branch up ahead, and I will get there that morning time.

00:25:31
Speaker 4: I tether too that.

00:25:33
Speaker 5: I use a full length repair repel rope and I do this, pull it up and over loop it in there, and I can get back up that tree very quietly without having to get in there and cut limbs and make a path through the through the understory to get up to the canopy.

00:25:46
Speaker 4: It works out very very well for me.

00:25:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, that’s pretty interesting. Well, David, I hope you have a great holiday, a great uh travel here, and I hope, like heck, you get to seal you get to seal the final chatter in the story. I’m really rooting for you.

00:26:00
Speaker 5: Thank you, Jake, I appreciate that. Merry Christmas to you and your listeners. Before we run, are you have you had some success this year? Tell me about the one that I know that you’ve been chasing.

00:26:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the one of it chasing he he’s still alive, which, honestly, now at this point of the season, I’m hopeful that he Honestly, it’s kind of sick. You were trying to, like heck to kill him and now you’re like, well, maybe maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing on earth if he lives another year. And then I actually shot a buck last weekend during our firearm season, a mature buck that I was hoping to kill. I basically built my season into two different legs. Leg one is one of two bucks till the end of Thanksgiving. Week of Thanksgiving, if I’m unsuccessful, I’m going mature buck hunting, And frankly, that was a lot easier than trying to kill just darn one deer. So it’s been good.

00:26:49
Speaker 5: You mentioned that it wouldn’t disappoint you if that deer makes it through. That kind of coincides with something that hurt Don. You can say earlier this week on the white Tail Masterclass.

00:26:58
Speaker 1: That I heard, Yeah, yeah, they make it this far. It’s like, well, gosh, maybe they’ll make it the rest of the way. And it is. It’s always fluid, and you can’t be married to an idea. But now it’s been a really fun and exciting season and I hope I get a text message enter around the twenty second that they connect with that deer.

00:27:17
Speaker 5: Thank you, Jake, I really appreciate once again married Christmas. Thanks for having me.

00:27:20
Speaker 1: On all right. Next up on the line, we have Bo Martonic with eats East meets West.

00:27:25
Speaker 6: How’s it going good, Jake, It’s good to catch up with you man.

00:27:29
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, We’re we’re getting deeper and deeper into December, and for people to have a tag in their pocket, they’re probably getting more and more nervous. But we’ve had some good conditions. Pennsylvania’s closed for the next seven days, so I know you still have a tag in West Virginia, but as you know, overall, I know you were just in Ohio. What have you been seeing as far as deer activity, you know, through cameras, observation, friends, buddies, kind of across the board.

00:27:57
Speaker 7: Man, it’s been. It’s actually been pretty dang good across the board. The weather has been. I mean, we have a pretty early winner as when you look at the average over the last you know, five six years. Last year we have some snow, but this year is like snow all of December here, cold weather. Right now it’s six degrees at my house, so it’s like it’s pretty pretty cold weather. And been seeing the deer putting on the feedbags a little bit more and moving even after gun season here in Pennsylvania, just closing still seeing deer on their feet in daylight camera activity for the most part. I haven’t been out here, but yeah, it’s been. It’s been pretty good as far as that goes.

00:28:45
Speaker 1: And so for someone that’s hunting, you know, more eastern easterly, yeah, you know, very little ag just for just for a dummy like me. What is the primary food source in your neck of the woods for this time of year?

00:29:00
Speaker 7: Snow on the ground, So honestly, acorns are are probably top of that where that could get a little bit more difficult here coming probably in the in the coming weeks, is we have a little bit of a thaw coming up towards the end of this week, and then it’s gonna get cold again, so you start getting that freezing layer, it’s harder to dig down for the deer to get to those acorns. So my personal opinion, if I were to be hunting this week, I’d be wanting an area that did have acorns still, but also a ton of brows, you know, green brier, BlackBerry briers, things like that that they’re nipping on and being able to to you to browse on in the area where there’s acorns. In addition, places that have spring seats stuff like that that might stay thought a little bit longer as far as they’re not going to completely freeze up and they can still dig some of those, you know, the acorns and food that’s on the ground.

00:30:00
Speaker 1: And so if you had a rank your favorite acorn for this time of year, do you have one or is it just a matter of finding acorns?

00:30:07
Speaker 7: They’re eating whatever’s there, honestly, but it seems like red oak and chestnut oak seemed to be the ones that are left on the ground.

00:30:18
Speaker 6: Right now.

00:30:20
Speaker 1: And I know you recently shot a deer in Ohio with snow on the ground. How did that come together? It’s non you know out of state hunt. Was that a new area area you’ve hunted in the past, and how did it all come together?

00:30:31
Speaker 7: So I’d hunted the area in October for like two days during bo season, went back to that area. I had three days to hunt with a gun and didn’t the area I was in, the acorns were kind of scooped up already. I’d sat all day the first day gun season. I don’t like walking around and bumping deer to other people. So I sat all day nothing and went back the next morning after some snow, and then I realized, I was like, there’s.

00:30:58
Speaker 6: The acorns are gone.

00:30:59
Speaker 1: You know.

00:31:00
Speaker 7: I kind of went in blind and just set up based on what I saw in October. And so I moved to a completely new area that I hadn’t been before and started finding a ton of acorns. And really, to make a long story short with it, what it came down to is there was digging everywhere. There’s a lot of acorns on these ridges, and I just kept kind of pushing to where it was starting to get thicker. And I think the thing is that makes it difficult, especially when you going out to state hunt this time of year is like when you see snow is such a great teacher. You can learn so much by seeing where they’re feeding at, seeing the tracks, seeing the beds, where you can almost get over excited because you’ll see beds all over in the oak trees and where they’re feeding at, but it’s likely nighttime activity. So and figuring out what that area looks like for quote unquote thickness is also very different. There’s some areas that you can go that’s very thick everyone, and that’s different than an area that’s just mature timber. And then all of a sudden you get a green brier patch and some vines and some other blowdowns that start to create better security habitat as well as brows around that. So where I ended up catching up with this buck was I got into this big bowl system.

00:32:20
Speaker 6: So there’s a.

00:32:21
Speaker 7: Couple of finger ridges that ran off a main ridge in a bowl that had a bunch of like kind of spring seeps running through it and created some more vegetation.

00:32:29
Speaker 6: So there was a ton of green brier in there.

00:32:31
Speaker 7: There was some oak trees acorns that were kind of like funneling down because of the way the terrain that acorns had rolled down into some of those little gullies and created like a concentrated spot for it. And up above was just a nasty thicket that was on top of the ridge. And when i’d snuck in there that day it was about one o’clock, I’d seen three different bucks bedded down actually in the center of that bowl, on this little tiny bump or high spot of greenbrier, and they were actually fighting and doing stuff middle of the day, just you know, a couple of younger bucks in one. It was a pretty decent one that I took a lot of self control for me not to pull the trigger on, and I just ended up still hunting.

00:33:18
Speaker 6: My way through there.

00:33:19
Speaker 7: Came back and I went out, and I thought I’d kind of blown up the area. And this is a lesson that I think is something I’ve learned before and I had to relearn on this hunt. Was I was going through there, and when you get into a bowl, wind swirl, and so I’ve got wind going up to where I think the rest of the deer might be bedded.

00:33:37
Speaker 6: I’ve got it going down I’m like, all right, I blew out that area.

00:33:40
Speaker 7: So I went back out to the point of the ridge and sat for the evening. And I was sitting there and I’m just like, there’s not a deer coming in here. You know, you just get that feeling of like you’re just sitting here just to sit here. And I was like, I need to go back to that bowl. And I’m like, I knew I already kind of blew it up two and a half three hours before that. But I mean, they’re always getting wind of things that are danger It doesn’t mean they’re.

00:34:06
Speaker 6: Gonna run or not do anything.

00:34:08
Speaker 7: I haven’t been there in a while, so I snuck back in there before last night, and uh, the biggest year that I had seen in the area came out of that thicket and walked into fifty yards for me, where I shot them with the with the muzzloader.

00:34:22
Speaker 1: But yeah, there’s a lot of a lot of good lessons in there. You find the spot in the spot, I guess, you know, yeah, no, that’s really.

00:34:31
Speaker 6: It’s right, And I was.

00:34:33
Speaker 7: It was the last day I had to hunt, so I was like kind of trying to push the envelope a little bit and be a little more aggressive with it instead of just you know, sitting there all day. But that would have been the right move once I saw those bucks in there, like all right, I found the concentration of the year where they feel good.

00:34:50
Speaker 6: Maybe I should just sit here the rest of the day.

00:34:52
Speaker 7: But the whole the whole point, and you know, even telling that story is I think when it comes to late season, something that I’ve been hunting of the last four or five years is and when you’re in big Timber, not a lot of ads finding that food, but also that security and browse cover that’s all in that one spot. Being able to decipher the sign between nighttime and daytime, and especially when you don’t have cameras to run or you’re not using cameras in there, it’s it’s kind of feeling it out a little bit.

00:35:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so you know, looking here for the next seven days, you call it seventeenth to Christmas Eve. For someone that is going to be able to hunt this weekend or maybe they have, you know, the work schedule a little bit is a little bit lighter over the next seven days, what would you tell them to focus on kind of no matter where they’re at in the country.

00:35:47
Speaker 7: Yeah, so personally, like it depends. I’m going to say one thing, It depends a little bit. Honestly, No, it doesn’t depend. But I do like the fact that there is a little bit of a warm up coming. It seems like in late season when you have you know, single degree temps depending on where you’re at, Like for us here, that’s not typical this time of year, and you know, we usually have snow on the ground, maybe a little colder.

00:36:10
Speaker 6: But really cold temps.

00:36:12
Speaker 7: It it almost seems like it not locks them down, but they’re conserving their energy a little bit more. But once you get some warm up, you get some mid thirties into that forty degree a little bit, it feels like in some some ways out it feels like a heat wave to it, and it almost seems like those deer get up and are feeding more earlier moving around. So if that’s happening in your area, definitely take advantage of it. But I mean, food, you hear it all the time when it comes to late season, doesn’t matter if you’re an ad country where you’re at, food is definitely king in a lot of that spot. But definitely don’t overlook the cover aspect of it. And covers easier to find now with the leaves being off the trees, it’s a little more concentrated. So that’s that’s what I would look at to find an area to go to.

00:37:01
Speaker 1: No, that’s great now, scale one to ten, one being one of the worst weeks of the year, ten being one of the best weeks of the year over the next seven days December seventeenth of the twenty fourth. Where do you put it for you yourself? If you’re going to be able to get out and go to West Virginia.

00:37:16
Speaker 6: Or something, Yeah, I am not going to be able to. But how I would.

00:37:21
Speaker 7: Put it is I’d probably give it a seven. I would rank it higher, but in most of these states here gun season had just closed, so that does add a little bit more on the pressure aspect of it. So yeah, I would put it at seven.

00:37:40
Speaker 6: All right.

00:37:41
Speaker 1: And if people want to tune into your podcast and follow along for the remainder of the season, or maybe they had a tough season and they want to learn more, where should they go and listen to your podcast?

00:37:51
Speaker 7: Yeah, you can find it a Spotify, Apple East Meats West Hunt, or on YouTube just under my name Bomartnic. You can find podcasting there and all the links to everything that East meets us hun dot com.

00:38:03
Speaker 1: Awesome. We thank you so much.

00:38:04
Speaker 6: Bo Yeah, thanks Jake.

00:38:07
Speaker 1: There, you guys have it. I hope you have a great week. I hope you guys have a great Christmas. I hope you get all your Christmas shopping done and get a chance to sneak out and either bear the elements or enjoy a mini heatwave and hopefully connect with the deer, or just get out there and ultimately enjoy it. We will see you next week. See you