Ep. 843: Peak Rut Recipe for Success with John Eberhart and Greg Godfrey

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
the whitetail woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile
hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light,
Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon,
Welcome to the.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Wired to Hunt podcast.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
This week on the show, John Eberhart and Greg Godfrey
are detailing for us their recipe for success for hunting
pressured white tails during the peak of the run. All right,
welcome back to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to

(00:43):
you by First Light and their Camo for Conservation Initiative,
and we will still be providing you our hunting songs
of sorts, big white tails and the most Wonderful Time
to Kill Deer, but we're to put them at the
end of the episode because my buddy further aka Josh

(01:05):
doesn't know how to fast forward through parts of the
podcast he doesn't want to listen to, so to make
it easier for him, we're going to put at the
very end of the show. So if you enjoy those songs,
you can still catch it after our show here today.
But we do have a great podcast for you. We're
talking the rut, the peak of the rut the super
Bowl of our season. It is here, it's going on

(01:27):
right now, and our guests today are going to help
us explore a number of different ways to have success
this time of year, especially if you hunt in places
where there's a lot of hunting pressure. My guests have
been on the show before. John Eberhardt is a legend.
It's likely that you know him. He's the author of
many books. He's been on this podcast five or six

(01:48):
times over the years. A absolute og when it comes
to killing mature bucks in places like Michigan or other
heavily pressured states. He's also proven these techniques they'll work
in other states too. He goes to Indiana, Ohio, Kansas, Illinois, etc.
And then our second guest today is Greg Godford. He's

(02:10):
one of the co founders of Tethered and another guy
who's proven to be successful in many different parts of
the country, especially with this mobile hunting strategy that he's
really perfected with his saddle system there at Tethered. So
that's what we have in store for you today. And
we have had John on the show a number of
times and we've touched a little bit on some of

(02:31):
his rut techniques. But today we are getting into a
level of detail that we've never before. The entire show
today is just getting into the nitty gritty of how
he and Greg think about hunting the rut. So we
cover everything from the various types of locations you'll want
to focus on during this time period of the year.

Speaker 4 (02:51):
We get into a lot of.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
The philosophy around deciding how long you should stay put
in a location versus moving and you know, being mobile,
get into a number of other techniques, decoys, calling, all
sorts of good stuff. This one will be very actionable,
very useful for you in the upcoming days, whether you
hunt in Michigan or Pennsylvania or Georgia or Wio. Whatever

(03:15):
it is, we got you covered here. It's gonna be
a good one. John and Greg co authored a book
that just came out recently. It's called The Ultimate Guide
to DIY Books. Here it is right here for those
of you watching. There's actually three books. It's a three
volume set, so we cover a lot that's mentioned in
that book as well, So check out those after the
podcast if you want more from Greg and John. And

(03:38):
I think that is it. I think we can get
right into our show today. I will mention that there's
a new film from myself over on the media or
YouTube channel, so you can check out my Nebraska whitetail
hunt from last year. It was a really exciting hunt.
Things got turned upside down from what I thought they
were going to be. I had to kind of create
a brand new plan on the spot found to get

(04:00):
on some deer on the ground without trees. It's an
interesting one. You can find it. You can watch it
at the Meat Eater YouTube channel. I appreciate that, and
that is it. I think we should get into our show.
If you are out there hunting right now in mid
November or that second week, whatever it is, I'm wishing
you the best of luck. Stuff should be great out there.

(04:21):
This is what we have waited all year for, so
enjoy it. Putting the time, stay optimistic. Just remember anything
is possible this time of year, so I'll be pulling
for you. That said, let's get to my chat with
John and Greg. All right here with me back on

(04:47):
the line. Both of these gentlemen are returning guests. I've
got Greg Godfrey and John Eberhart. Gentlemen, thank you for
making time to do this right in the heat of
the rut and all the excite and that's about to hit.

Speaker 5 (05:01):
Thanks for the opportunity. Always appreciate being on your show.

Speaker 6 (05:05):
Yeah, it's always fun to talk to Mark, one of
the uh what I call the ogs of white Tail
podcasting content. I think Mark, you kind of started it
way back in the day, back in the in the
early Wired to Hunt days, So it's uh, I'm always
well've been on the show once, but it's really cool

(05:27):
to be invited back. It means a lot to me personally.
Well right back at you guys, I appreciate it. And
and Greg, your product and ideas around that product have
changed my hunting in a big way. And John, you
know I've said this to you a thousand times, but
your your early books and everything were instrumental in my

(05:48):
journey too. So all the way around this is this
is good stuff. It's exciting stuff.

Speaker 3 (05:52):
And as we just said, you both have been on
the podcast before, but we have never done a podcast
that was strict all things. Let's dive deep into the
rut and that's what I want to do here today
because when this podcast drops, it will be November seventh,
so for a lot of people that's going to be

(06:13):
like peak rut. This is their rut cation, this is
when they're taking their time off. There's a lot of
people over the next couple weeks that are looking at
this as their super Bowl. And I know you guys
put some extensive time and effort into discussing this timeframe
in your latest book series, and so I wanted to
take this opportunity to kind of dig into the nitty

(06:35):
gritty of that, and maybe the place to start would
be in breaking down how you guys look at the
rut and how dear behavior changes through that, because within
your book or books, I should say, rather you kind
of separate it out into three different phases. Everyone's got
different ways they like to define the rut and how

(06:56):
they break it down. But you guys kind of broke
it down by pre rut, peak rut, post rut. Before
we get into the actually how you set up and
hunt each one of those different things, maybe John, would
you kick us off by just walking me through how
you think about dear behavior changing through those three periods
of the rut and what the timeframe is that you

(07:18):
are kind of breaking those three chunks into.

Speaker 5 (07:21):
Yes, pre rut is probably my favorite time of the
season and the rut in general is like the playoffs.
You know, it's like, you know, making the playoffs in
a sport activity, because that's where you want to focus
your most attention. If you're gonna get any vacation time,
that's when you want to spend it in the woods.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
But during pre.

Speaker 5 (07:42):
Rut, the mature bucks, which if primarily if you're in
a pressure area of any semblance, it primarily been pretty
nocturnal outside the security cover of their betting areas. So
as testosterone rises throughout the early season and through the
October lull, it kind of reaches its peak during pre

(08:02):
rod and those mature bucks actually start searching for early
estras doves. If you're in an area that's got quite
a few deer, there's always going to be a dough
or two here and there to come into estras early,
and those the testosterone has risen to the point and
they haven't bred since last year and they want to
get out there and breed.

Speaker 7 (08:23):
So the cool thing about the pre.

Speaker 5 (08:25):
Rod is not all the not a majority of the
dos are coming into heat at the same time, where
during pre rod or i mean peak rut, mature bucks
typically going to be doughed up most of the time
he's going.

Speaker 7 (08:36):
To typically be with breeding estras does.

Speaker 5 (08:43):
Because there's so many dogs in the area, usually in
a pressured area, that probably the three and a half
year old and older.

Speaker 7 (08:50):
Bucks two other deer.

Speaker 5 (08:53):
You know, be doze bawns, a year and a half
and two and a half year old bucks. The ratio
is probably forty or fifty to one. So once an
extra cycle of the dough he's breeding is over, it
doesn't take him long to pick up the next estra's dough.
If he crosses her sentence she's with another buck, he
just follows her and takes her dakes her away. So
peak rut to me because the mature bucks are doped

(09:17):
up so much it's hard to get on one. And
then also the routines are totally out the window because
they're with doughs, so they're following dough roads or they're
in where doors are betting, so pre rut they're following
set routines. All those scrapes that you find in the woods,
you know, that's what they're visiting. Because the scrapes that

(09:37):
they make are always near some sort of area where
there's a lot of heavy dough activity. An influx of
DO activity. Usually it's by oaks, apple trees, whatever the
mast or fruit trees you might have on your property
are going to be or if you have property and
you have food plots, there's going to be.

Speaker 7 (09:58):
DO activity at the food plots.

Speaker 5 (10:00):
So that's typically where you're gonna find scrapes along field edges,
crop field edges, So they follow a routine during pre
run because they're not breeding.

Speaker 7 (10:11):
They're not breeding those all the time, and so it's.

Speaker 5 (10:14):
Much easier to kill a buck during pre rug, which
I termed the pre rock running about October twenty five
to November five up here in the Midwest, and it's
just easier to get on a pattern if you hunt
those active scrapes and they have the adequate security cover
for mature buck activity during daylight hours, you know they got,

(10:37):
you know, from a betting area to transition out of
a betting area to these scrape areas. As long as
there's adequate security cover, they're going to visit those during
daylight hours. A lot of times it's during midday, so
pre run's my favorite time. I think a lot of
hunters mess up their rut phase locations by by hunting

(10:58):
their rut phase locations too early and they alter the
dot traffic.

Speaker 7 (11:01):
And therefore, once you alter the dough traffic that you're hunting.

Speaker 5 (11:04):
Location during the October low by hunting it too much,
that altered dot traffic is also going to alter the
mature buck activity at that location when they start pursuing
ester shows. As far as the post rut, post ruts
really kind of interesting because there's only a few states
in the country where you can go and hunt bow hunt, and.

Speaker 7 (11:27):
We're ball hunters primarily.

Speaker 5 (11:29):
There's only a few states in the country where you
can go and physically bow hunt bucks before the gun
season because if you're in a heavily pressured state and
gun season opens up like Michigan's October fifteenth, I think
Missouri is the second Saturday in November, so it's Nebraska,
so you know, their gun seasons are during the peak ruts.

(11:51):
So by post rut, those mature bucks are pretty nocturnal.

Speaker 7 (11:55):
Not moving much during daylight hours.

Speaker 5 (11:56):
So the only states really that you can do some
good post ruck bull hunting would be Iowa, Kansas with
your draw states, what other draw states or what other states.

Speaker 8 (12:09):
Ohio also has a late dune season, so those those
are the three primary big buck states where you can
hunt hunt mature bucks during polst rut and still have
a good gence.

Speaker 3 (12:21):
So that's that's helpful, John. I guess what I what
I'm curious about, and maybe maybe this is the best
place to start. Actually, let me take a time out
and step one step back, because I forgot one thing
I did want to ask you, Greg related to what
John just said, which was, I know you have experienced
down in the South where rut timing and rut stuff

(12:43):
is just a little bit different.

Speaker 4 (12:45):
Have you seen anything in your time in.

Speaker 3 (12:47):
Georgia or anywhere else down there where that dear behavior
is different from pre to peak to post from what
John's described, or is it basically the same but just
different calendar dates because of the weird stuff across different
states down there.

Speaker 6 (13:02):
I think it's option B. I think the deer still
respond in the South pretty similarly to what John described,
but the calendar dates are all wonky. For instance, in
Georgia where I live. In South Georgia and Savannah where
I live, our rut starts in middle of October and

(13:25):
it goes through the end of October. It's much more
aligned with more of a southern deer who, like the
deer in Florida, can rut as early as August, July
and August, and in the southeast corner of Georgia they
rut in October. Well, if you move more towards the
middle of the state, where a lot of the deer
were imported in the seventies, sixties and seventies from the

(13:47):
northern states like Wisconsin, those deer have more of a
traditional November rut. And then the further west you go
in the state closer to Alabama, you get a later
rut where they rut in January. So in Georgia you
can hunt running deer from October all the way through
the new year.

Speaker 3 (14:07):
That's crazy. I can't imagine that. So okay, So that's
that's good to know. So everyone wherever you're listening, you should,
you know, take this and adjust date specific based.

Speaker 4 (14:21):
On your region.

Speaker 3 (14:22):
But in your in your guys's books, the way you
broke it down was kind of the standard Midwest and
upper two thirds of the country timing, which is kind
of that pre rut being late October through maybe the
first week of November. And then I think you guys
defined peak rut is somewhere in that middle of November
week or two period, and then post route was kind
of like maybe Thanksgiving ish on for a little ways.

(14:45):
So with that in mind, the next thing I wanted
to kind of steer us towards was some of the
specific focus areas you guys detailed as far as rut
hunting locations, and something I'd be curious each as we
go through each one of the would be you guys
to share with me how you would hunt these kinds
of spots, but then also how that might shift through

(15:08):
those three phases of the rut. So for example, something
I know, John, you've talked about a ton in the past,
and you guys wrote about in the books where you're
focusing on scrape areas, So maybe let's start there.

Speaker 4 (15:19):
Could you talk about.

Speaker 3 (15:20):
Hunting around primary scrapes scrape areas and detail for us,
you know, how that shifts throughout the various phases of
the rut, and specifically like how you find these and
identify these but then also actually set up on them.
Because I think people generally understand, you know, hey, if
I find some great scrapes back and cover, I should

(15:42):
hunt that, but fewer people know the right way to
do that. So I'd love to start with this and
then we'll have a similar conversation around several other rut hotspots.
You guys detail, But John, can you kick us off
with your thoughts here on scrapes since that's so key
for you.

Speaker 7 (15:56):
I'm old and that's hard to remember all that stuff.

Speaker 4 (16:01):
Give me the loadout on primary scrapes.

Speaker 5 (16:03):
Well, yeah, scouting is a huge issue to me. To me,
scouting is eighty ninety percent of the game, you know,
And I do the majority of the vast majority of
my scouting during postseason because after deer season's over, you
can scout places the foliages down the scrapes are still
very obvious looking branches, rubs or everything is really obvious,

(16:26):
you know, before greenup. So I'm looking for scrape areas
of scrapes and mass trees, cruit trees, whatever the case
may be. And when I find scrapes in there in
you know, if you're walking through a woods like on
public land, and you're out in relatively open timber and
you might find a couple of white oaks or something

(16:47):
with some scrapes there, you know that that is meaningless
to me because for scrape activity that I find to
be worth hunting, it has to have adequate security cover
around that kill zone where those scrapes are, and it
has to have adequate security cover to a known betting area.

(17:10):
So a lot of times those scrapes I find will
be around perimeters of betting areas. It's very common to
find active scrapes around a crop field during post season
pick cornfield, and those scrapes were made during you know,
if you were going to hunt that those scrapes, you'd
have to hunt them prior to the corn being picked. Okay,

(17:30):
so once the corn's picked, with those scrapes being on
the edge of an open field with pitcorn, the buffer
mature butck's going to feel too vulnerable to visit during
day late hours. You're and a half and two and
a half's yes, if that's what you're after, you know
you could hunt those, But when you're hunting mature bucks,
scrapes have to have some semblance of security cover around them,

(17:53):
an adequate security cover to a known betting area, or
be around the perimeter of the betting area or in
a betting area for me personally to hunt them, whether
it be fre rut, peak rut, or puls drive.

Speaker 7 (18:06):
So the security cover aspect of scrapes is a big deal.

Speaker 5 (18:12):
And at least a very minimum of fifty percent of
the bucks I've killed over the last i'd say forty
years have been scrape oriented, so it you know, typically
it's it may be at a mass tree that has
some scrapes and apple tree that when it was dropping apples,
you know, the doors were feeding there, so that's why
the bucks made the scrapes there, or a chestnut tree

(18:34):
or some white oaks along the edge, you know, and
as long as it has the adequate security cover for
daytime mature bucket activity and movement, you know, that's what
I'm going to hunt.

Speaker 3 (18:45):
Does that change at all once we get into that
peak rut time when it's November seven or ten or
thirteen and we're right in the heat of it, Are
you still king in on primary scrape areas or does
that shift as November plots along.

Speaker 5 (19:01):
As the rot phase plots along. I don't hunt the
peripheral scrapes that I would have hunted during pre rud
When the root phase comes, I'm in betting areas a lot,
you know, because bucks, the mature bucks are going to
push those estra stows into security cover. That's where they

(19:21):
want to breed them where they feel safe, you know,
every twenty minutes or half hour, forty minutes getting up
and breeding, you go and you know, pushing her around.
They want to feel safe and secure. So I love
hunting betting areas during the physical rut phases or just
inside the perimeter edge of the betting area. But during
pre rod you know, I'll hunt scrape areas along edges

(19:42):
of cornfield as long as there's security cover butting up
to the cornfield in the timber or swamp bordering the cornfield.
Or I'll hunt an apple tree or white oak tree
that's got adequate security cover around the area and adqut
security cover to a known betting area. But your question
was during peak ruts. During peak rut, those peripheral scrapes

(20:06):
outside the betting areas, they lose the majority of their
activity because the mature bucks are with doughs most of
the time because the buck to dope mature buck to
dough ratios are so skewed it doesn't take them long
to pick up another dough and they're with them a
lot time. So obviously there's no requirement for them to
make strapes or visits rates. So that's why I like

(20:26):
to be within the betting run.

Speaker 4 (20:36):
Am I right though?

Speaker 3 (20:37):
In thinking that things shift again once you get to
the post rut because the post rut's kind of similar
to the pre rup. There's fewer doughs ready to breed,
so bucks kind of return to that same seeking type behavior.

Speaker 5 (20:49):
You're one correct, but again, if you're in a pressured state,
that post rut activity is almost totally not ternal. So
you know in those states I mentioned before, Ohio, Kansas,
and Iowa, Yeah, post ruts exactly like hunting pre rod.

(21:09):
In fact, when I we did drawn for Kansas this year,
we got drawn for Kansas, and we like it going
during post ruck. We prefer post rut because the mature bucks,
they've been breeding for two weeks solid, you know, at
least two weeks solid, they're worn down, their eyes are glassy,

(21:31):
they've somewhat lost a lot of their security cover or
I don't know what the word is of their cautiousness,
I guess, and now the majority of the dose are bread.
So now they have to do exactly what they did
during pre rod and go out and physically leave those
betting area haunts, and now they'll start working their strapes

(21:55):
again wherever there's no activity, and they'll have a routine
just like they did during free right.

Speaker 6 (22:01):
Yeah, it's it's kind of like they get they're so preoccupied, uh,
for the past two weeks of breeding doz that they
they they lose a little bit of that safety concern
that they've had for the rest of the year, and
so oftentimes you see those big mature bucks making a

(22:23):
mistake at exactly the time period when you've talked about John,
when they're they've been screwing around with does for two weeks,
they're tired, they've been in a whole bunch of fights.
They've been kicking their buddies' butts, fighting back and forth
up and down every ridge, and they kind of lose
a little bit of their safety concern and it's a
great time to find those big mature bucks that don't

(22:43):
make mistakes, uh throughout the rest of the year.

Speaker 5 (22:48):
Yeah. Great. Can I throw a stat in there real quick, Mark?

Speaker 9 (22:52):
Yeah?

Speaker 7 (22:52):
Please do them.

Speaker 5 (22:54):
Get to give people an idea of runt face hunting.
Midday is a big part of my broad face hunting
because when you're hunting in security cover areas, whether it
be pre rock or during the peak rut, I just
lost my train of thought.

Speaker 7 (23:10):
That's what sucks about getting old.

Speaker 5 (23:14):
Mid midday, midday big part of my kill strategy. I'm
getting to the point where I can't hunt all day
like I used to as many all day sits. But
to give you a stat of my twenty Michigan bucks
that I've taken the made book that I took between
November one and November fourteen with a bowl, seven of

(23:38):
them were shot between eleven and three o'clock in the afternoon,
while statistically less than eight percent of my time spent
on stand was between eleven and three.

Speaker 7 (23:48):
O'clock in the afternoon.

Speaker 5 (23:49):
So that's thirty five percent kill rate with less than
eight percent of on time stand. But it's got it
has to be. People will just go out there and
hunter in midday and they're just hunting, you know, in
open timber or whatever.

Speaker 7 (24:00):
That's a total waste of time.

Speaker 5 (24:02):
It has to be in security, government, a betting area,
or transitions one between a.

Speaker 7 (24:06):
Betting area and another betting area.

Speaker 3 (24:08):
Yeah, that's pretty eye opening. I was gonna I want
to continue down that line, John, when it comes to
your midday hunting strategy. But before we leave scrapes really quick,
I got to ask you, Greg, John has been like
the profit of scrapes for thirty years now, been preaching

(24:29):
the benefits of primary scrape areas and everything like that.

Speaker 4 (24:33):
Are you as.

Speaker 3 (24:33):
Bought into hunting primary scrape areas and deepen the cover
scrapes during the rut as he is, or do you
have a different take?

Speaker 6 (24:42):
I would say the answer to both of those are yes.
When John says it about deer hunting, you can pretty
much believe it that he knows what he's talking about
and that he's killed seven book bucks in the most
popular or most heavily pressured states and he's figured out
a way to get done. So that's the first part. Yes,
listen to John before you listen to me. Listen to John.

(25:04):
John knows what he's talking about. But I do have
a little different take on it. I agree with everything
that John said, and he's right. I like to focus
more on those transition areas me personally, John likes to
get deep into a bedding area and the most the
hardest place for a hunter to get one of the

(25:26):
One of the analogies that John uses in his books,
as he says that I've read in the past bow
Hunting Pressured white tails is he says, I like to
pretend like I'm a deer and all the hunters are
trying to kill me, and where would I go?

Speaker 2 (25:41):
And that's a useful exercise.

Speaker 6 (25:43):
And that's how John he A lot of his a
lot of his tactics and strategies revolve around that, which
makes perfect sense. I tend to like to hunt those
little transition spots that are oftentimes terrain related, a saddle
in a hilltop, a pinch point because of a river.
I tend to like to focus on areas like that

(26:06):
that give me a very decided advantage that also contained
the things that John talks about. So my ideal rut
spot would be a big betting area here, a big
betting area here with a big ridge that separated them
in a low spot for a buck to cross easily.

(26:27):
And in that low spot there's security cover and.

Speaker 7 (26:31):
Scrapes.

Speaker 6 (26:33):
That's like my number one spot to find. I like
spots that I can get into with bulletproof entry and exit.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
Bill Wink wrote an article many, many.

Speaker 6 (26:44):
Many years ago in Bowhunter magazine, probably twenty five years
ago and the whole article was about access, and he
talked about how there are tons and tons of good
spots out there that hunters screw up because they aren't
concerned learn with their access. So I love a spot
that I can get into and out of without being detected,

(27:06):
and it is going to be more of a transition
spot than a destination spot. That's the only thing that
I would say I rank higher on my on my
hunt now factor is that it's which is basically the
same as John, but it's just a little nuanced.

Speaker 3 (27:23):
Yeah, that's interesting. I I wanna I want to touch
on transitions that you just described there. But another scrape
relay question came to mind that if I don't ask now,
I will forget to do it. John, you had you
had talked about and maybe this is in the book
that you guys were talking about this, but when hunting

(27:45):
scrape areas or primary scrape areas, really this this actually
could apply to many different types of locations. But but
there had been discussion around the volume of hunts that
you should give a given scrape or a given betting area,
and oftentimes we want to hunt new spots all the time.
That's one of the benefits of the mobile style of

(28:06):
hunting that all three of us use. But it seems
like sometimes you have to give a location time to
actually produce. Can you discuss that a little bit, John,
as far as how many hunts you would throw at
a good looking primary scrape area or a good looking
betting area before you'd say, Okay, I need to move
on because I've educated too much here, or I need

(28:27):
to seek out greener pastures.

Speaker 5 (28:30):
Well, first off, when I'm hunting betting areas during the
pre or rut or the rut phase, I'm I'm in
the past.

Speaker 7 (28:38):
Anyway, I don't do it as much now.

Speaker 5 (28:39):
I always like to do all days sits where I'm
in the tree an hour and a half before daylight,
so to make sure I'm not spooking anything with my entries.

Speaker 7 (28:47):
They're not in there yet, and I.

Speaker 5 (28:49):
Usually like to leave about a half hour after dark
so I'm not spooking them with my exit. Usually with
an half hour after dark, they've left the betting area.
So and also I'm a big, huge sunt lock fan.
You know, I have used sunt lock since nineteen ninety six,
and I pay zero attention to the wind.

Speaker 7 (29:06):
I don't get winded.

Speaker 5 (29:08):
Deer can cross my trail whatever, So I'm not altering
dough traffic by being in a location. And when I
get in the tree and get down out of the tree, I'm.

Speaker 7 (29:18):
Still leaving residual odor at the spot.

Speaker 5 (29:20):
So if you come in later or pass by later,
they still smell human odor and then they will avoid
that spot. So I think the second control for me
makes a huge difference in what I can get away
with now during the rut phases.

Speaker 7 (29:33):
If I have a scrape area.

Speaker 5 (29:36):
And it's it, you know, it might have been active
during pre rut, but it's not active during peak rut,
and it's along the edge for betting area or in
transitions on between two betting areas, that's something.

Speaker 7 (29:49):
I will hunt multiple times.

Speaker 5 (29:51):
I may hunt that force sits in a row because
during peak rud the buck that I'm after may be
with the dough.

Speaker 7 (29:59):
He may be with a lockdown in lockdown with a
hot dough.

Speaker 5 (30:02):
So you know that's going to run twenty eight to
thirty some hours, and so if I hunt it multiple times,
there's a good chance once he's finished with that does cycle,
there's a chance that he's gonna, you know, go visit
those scrapes to find his next dell. He usually doesn't
take him very long. But you know that's where the

(30:23):
percentages lie is. You know that's that's a spot he's
going to go look because that's a spot where there's
heavy dot traffic is where that scrapes at. So Pope,
during peak rout, I'll hunt a spot easily four times
in a row as long as I know I'm not
altering any dough traffic at that location. During pre ROD,

(30:43):
I move around a lot. I'll go into season with
almost fifty trees ready to hunt on public or I've
got two private parcels that I hunt, So I move
around a lot. I don't like to burn any of
my locations out during pre roud, So usually during pre
rod five hundred.

Speaker 7 (30:58):
The morning in an evening, that's going to be it.

Speaker 4 (31:02):
Okay, Greg, how do you? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (31:05):
Greg, how do you think about that? Because especially, I
mean John, you're the same way because you use the saddle.
But but Greg, with you guys having saddle setups and
you hang out with a bunch of saddle hunters and
all of you guys are mobile first guys that want
to get around, want to hunt. A bunch of different places.
We are all steeped in the gospel of running gun

(31:26):
freelance hunting. Go make a move based on what you
see when you get into the rut, the peak rut,
when it's really on. How do you think about this?
How do you balance that urge or the benefits of
hunting new places versus the possible downside of of missing
out on the action in a given place because you

(31:46):
just didn't give it enough time.

Speaker 4 (31:48):
How do you handle that?

Speaker 6 (31:49):
It's a great question, and I constantly I've heard you
talk about this before, Mark in your in your podcast,
about how you're an adventure heart and you're always wondering
what's over the next ridge. And you know, I have
a little bit of that same disease, where there's always
a booner around.

Speaker 2 (32:08):
The next bend in the river.

Speaker 6 (32:10):
And while that can be beneficial, it can also it
can also hamstring you. And so I make concerted efforts
to try not to limit myself into only being a
hop around hunter, I guess, for lack of a better term,
a mobile hunter.

Speaker 5 (32:31):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (32:32):
For instance, I was just hunting in the suburbs of
Atlanta this past week, and I hunted the same tree
every single hunt. I didn't bounce around at all because
of the spot. So this particular spot, the access was bulletproof.
Now I'm not I believe in sintlalk. I used scenttwalk.

(32:55):
Matter of fact, one of John's suits that he designed
called the wind brace from cent. I don't even think
they make it anymore, but John got me turned onto
that scentlock suit and I still use it to this day.
So I believe in in that, but I don't use
it religiously like John does. I still do pay attention
to the wind Anyway. The point of this spot was
I could get in and out of this tree with

(33:17):
zero interactions with deer. It was basically bulletproof because I
was able to access through a waterway and a swamp
where there were no deer living pop out and I
was in a bulletproof setup and it was a transition zone.
There wasn't a whole lot to keep deer in this
particular area, but there were on either sides and it
was a perfect little transition spot. So I hunted it

(33:39):
every day since. Since the deer and Georgia right now
are starting to get in their pre rup phase, they're
getting a little bit cruisy. We had one of the
guys I was hunting with shot a deer that came
in trailing a dough on full grunt mode, just grunting
with every step he took.

Speaker 2 (33:56):
So that tells me that the deer there were starting
to get a little fired up up.

Speaker 6 (34:00):
And I thought that if I, if I sat in
this one spot is perfect transition zone, that I could
catch a big one moving through there.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
I didn't, but that's okay.

Speaker 6 (34:11):
So you I think, I think Mark, you're right, you
have to be cautious of moving too much. But you also,
you know, if you're not seeing deer, you got to move,
so you you you gotta you gotta find that fine
line of of being mobile but also being patient. And

(34:31):
I'm not always good at it because I tend to
want to be more mobile, so I have to self regulate.
And I think that's good advice for for hunters to
hear both perspectives. And in that John saying you know, hey,
it's okay to hunt these spots over and over again,
I would add to the caveat of that it's okay

(34:52):
to hunt them over and over again as long as
you're as long as your access is bulletproof and you're
not spooking deer.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
Like John said the on the in and out.

Speaker 6 (35:01):
I'm totally okay with hunting the same spot over and
over again as long as those other conditions are true.

Speaker 7 (35:07):
Yeah, but you also have to be you also have
to be proactive.

Speaker 5 (35:11):
I mean, the biggest buck I've ever shot in my life,
one hundred and eighty inchure. I was on an all
days sit and by ten o'clock I was seeing a
lot of deer activity a.

Speaker 7 (35:22):
Couple hundred yards away. Because it was during the rut
of foliage was.

Speaker 5 (35:25):
Done, I had a long viewing distance, and so I
got down at ten o'clock. I pulled my steps. When
I came down and I moved, I had a decoy out.
I left that there for my exit. When I was leaving,
and I went back in and I found a scrape
area from hell. There was three monster scrapes, you know,
fifteen yards zone. I set up in it. I was

(35:47):
in that tree set up by noon. I would say
someone around noon, and I had deer funneling by me
all the time, And at four o'clock I shot that
big buck. And then when I early in my hunting
career in nineteen seventy six. I still scouted during postseason
back then, and I prepped the tree and it was

(36:10):
a red oak, And when I went back to hunt it,
I didn't go do a speed tour to see if
it was had masked and was dropping masks. I didn't
do any of that. So when I went into the
hunt it, it wasn't didn't have any acorns, so there
wasn't a deer activity, and so I just freelanced back
into the woods farther where I'd never been before. I
found a white oak that actually was dropping acorns and

(36:32):
had a lot of droppings underneath it, and I set
up in that tree. I actually climbed the climbed the
tree physically. They didn't have steps and stuff they have nowadays.
And I shot at ten points. So you know, freelancing
when when something's not happening and you know their seed
better activity, or you go back to a tree and

(36:53):
it doesn't have it doesn't look good. You know, you've
got to be proactive as long as you've got the
gear there to make that move. So I agree with
everything you said, Greg, But yeah, and you always that's
the cool thing about postseason scouting and post season scouting.
You can cover every inch of everything you want to
hunt on public land because spooking deer is irrelevant. But

(37:14):
during the season, spooking deer is not irrelevant, so you
have to be very cautious on how you do that.

Speaker 6 (37:20):
I think there's another little clarification. I would say to
my previous comments, you got macro moves and you got
micro moves, So macro move is going to a completely
different area, completely different ridge system, go around the next bend, whatever.
But I also think I can illustrate what John is

(37:42):
talking about with my very my first first time I
went to Missouri, out of state hunt for me in
the pre run public land in Missouri, and I would
say I did a micro set of moves. So day one,
hunting the tree, see movement like John just described, in

(38:02):
a different different area, but still within you know, I
call it my macro area where I was well, I
moved fifty yards closer and it wasn't quite there. I
wasn't quite in the right spot. So I made another
micro move, probably another forty yards into this one little
tiny zone and that ended up being the spot where

(38:23):
I tagged out. So John's point is is absolutely right.
Sometimes you don't have to go a long way, but
sometimes you have to refine your positioning with a micro
move inside the betting area, the transition area, the if
it's a it's a crop field, whatever it is that
you're key and n on. Sometimes those micro moves can

(38:44):
really pay off in a big way.

Speaker 4 (38:48):
Yeah, that's a great point.

Speaker 3 (38:49):
So so if I were to summarize when someone should
volume hunt a location, So coming out of this little
bit of our conversation, you're someone still thinking to themselves, well,
how do I know when I should be bouncing around?
Versus how do I know when I should hold tight?
I would say to summarize what you guys have all said.
Number one, listen to the deer. So if the deer

(39:11):
are telling you, hey, it's actually you're a little bit
off the X most of the actions fifty yards over
that way, then then yes, make the move if you
have to make that micro move, because listen what the
deer are telling you.

Speaker 4 (39:21):
But vice versa.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
If you're sitting in the place and then you feel
the urge to move just because you feel like you're
supposed to bounce, but the deer are still telling you, hey,
we're here. If you are still seeing steady movement. If
you are still seeing young bucks coming through, or you know,
if it's happening, don't assume you have to leave if
you have that good access and exit, YadA YadA, and
the deer On'm figuring it out.

Speaker 4 (39:43):
So there's number one.

Speaker 3 (39:44):
Number two, if you are in the peak of the
rut activity time period as you describe, John, if it's
that time when bucks might be locked down, you if
you leave too soon, you might not have given that
buck an opportunity to circle through because he didn't get
off his dough yet. So that's number two. And then
the third situation where I think it might make sense
to volume hunt, and I believe you guys wrote about

(40:05):
in your book, would be in low deer density areas
right where there's not a lot of deer. If you
sit a spot for a day and you don't see
anything come through and then leave already, that just simply
might be because these bucks travel long distances in low
deer density areas, and he might be a mile away
right now, but if you gave it two or three days,
he would eventually cycle through.

Speaker 4 (40:25):
Am I right on that, John? Did I describe that quickly?

Speaker 5 (40:28):
When you go to hill country or areas with low
low deer densities. Yeah, the bucks, the mature bucks have
a lot bigger core areas, especially during the run. They
may cover a five mile core area. An excellent example,
and I'll be briefed. One of the guys that manages
Jay's Sporting goods, Chad sterns, he was up in the
up gun hunting and when he went up on top

(40:51):
of this oak ridge, he bumped a big ten point
on the other side of the ridge and it just
he just watched his big antlers and body go over
the ridge.

Speaker 7 (41:00):
So he hunted it the next day that saying because
there was a scrape there. There was a big scrape.

Speaker 5 (41:06):
Where he was at, and he called me and he said, John,
I saw this big buck on this in the scrape
on this ridge. And I said, Chad, he said, what
should I do? I said, Chad, you know what, that's
an active scrape. There's no activity because he said he
was seeing does. I said that buck will be back eventually,
I said, just I know, you hate to sit in

(41:27):
one spot for day long. But he was a big
sentline guy too, so he wasn't worried about his scent.
He sat in that spot and on the seventh day,
Sunday morning, the last day of his hunt, that buck
came back and he shot it was one hundred and
forty two inch ten points. It took him that long
to circle back to that spot because he had such
a big horror area.

Speaker 4 (41:47):
Yeah, it's hard in those situations.

Speaker 6 (41:50):
Well, and I think trail camera, my experience with trail
camera trail camera data would it supports that right in
my experience. Maybe it's different for other people, but in
my experience, it's pretty common to see a buck for
a couple three days and you get a picture of them,
you know, morning, evening wherever, and then he seems like

(42:13):
he disappears for three to five days, ever week or
whatever it is, and then a lot of times they
come back. It feels like these deer they work on
little circuits. And I think all of the deer studies
that I've read, either from MSU or for the deer
studies that have happened that I've seen in Pennsylvania, seems

(42:34):
to kind of correlate with that. That is specifically in
the rut that these these bucks they kind of like
they have the little circuit and they're here for a
few days, and then they kind of move to the
next place, and they're here for two days, and then
they move and they kind of just make a little
circuit around their core area. And I think that's a
real thing, and patience, you know, can sometimes be the

(42:56):
better part of valor.

Speaker 5 (42:59):
Yeah, that's especially the case during peak rut. During pre
rut they tend to stay in tighter core areas. They're
not branching out as far. But during pre rout they're
much more routine. You're much more apt to catch them
on camera more routinely, maybe every three days.

Speaker 7 (43:18):
You'll get a picture for four four days coming.

Speaker 5 (43:20):
Through with regularity, there's some consistency to it, whereas during
peak rut it's a crap shoot.

Speaker 3 (43:35):
So, Greg, a second ago, you had mentioned that one
way you vary from John a little bit is that
you might prefer those transition zones a little bit more.
And if I might kind of broaden this idea of
transition zones, I think the way you were kind of
referring to it would be not just like a transition area,
but more like transitions from place to place, that being
like travel corridors or pinch points, funnels. You said the

(43:58):
description of like a saddle between two betting areas, So funnels,
pinch points, travel corridors, that is like bread and butter
rut hunting location. Anyone who's studied deer or been deer hunting,
or listened to a few podcasts know that hunting a
pinch point or a funnel during the rut is a
solid game plan. But the details of how to do

(44:19):
that well, or the specifics of setting up on one
in a smart way, there's a little bit more nuance there.
Could you share with me a little bit more of
how you approach those types of setups? What makes a
really really good travel corridor or rout funnel set up
for you? Any examples would be really helpful. Basically looking

(44:40):
for that next level of depth on something that generically
everybody gets, but maybe we don't understand the details as well.

Speaker 6 (44:47):
That's a great question. I would say a lot of
it revolves around pressure, a lot of these transition. Maybe
we're using the wrong terms, but these pinch points, these funnels,
these corridors that link different travel patterns. A lot of times,
they're really easy to spot on a map if you

(45:08):
understand satellite imagery. Not every hunter does, but if you don't,
you should learn. You should learn how to read a
topo map. If you're a hunter and you don't know
how to read a topo map, you are wrong. You
need to learn how to read a topo map. Watch
a YouTube video. You'll get it and it will open
up your eyes to how deer use an area. See,

(45:30):
deer are creatures of habit. They want to use the
path of least resistance, and it's oftentimes not that difficult
to pinpoint those on a map. A saddle, a bench
that follows a ridgeline. Those are the places that deer
are going to use with regularity. The trick is finding

(45:51):
ones that other hunters aren't king in on, okay, because
they're oftentimes very easy to find.

Speaker 2 (45:58):
So what I have.

Speaker 6 (46:00):
Found to be useful for me is finding ones that
make sense, yet they're hard to access, either because you
got to go over water, or it's a long walk,
or it's really close to a parking lot somewhere that
hunters are overlooking for whatever reason could be hard to find.

(46:22):
It could be so simple that nobody thinks that it
could actually work.

Speaker 8 (46:26):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (46:27):
That happened to me in Missouri as well.

Speaker 6 (46:33):
I used a bridge to access a really obvious funnel.
It was super obvious. Any hunter with any experience could
have picked this out. It was really really simple. But
most hunters were they were parking in a different spot,
and they were coming in from a direction, which was
really obvious that a mature buck would he would situate

(46:55):
himself in a bedding scenario to where he could watch that, right,
because I sure deer knows where the hunting pressure come from.
That's that's the reason they're four or five years old.
They've been through these hunting seasons. They know where hunters
come from, so they will oftentimes bed in a location
that will allow them to see that pressure coming and
then they'll pop smoke and they'll take their exit route. Well,

(47:17):
I think the reason that I was successful in this
particular hunt was I came in from a weird way
and I climbed out from underneath the bridge and crossed
the road where not anybody else was doing that. So
a lot of times it's about creatively accessing those spots
and or finding ones that they're just not They're just

(47:43):
not as no brainers on a map, you know, It's
it's really obvious to identify a lot of these places
and if it's a really obvious pinch point and it's
seventy five yards off a trail, like it's gonna get pounded,
mark it off, don't hunt it. It's not gonna work
for the most part. But look for those little pinch

(48:03):
points that maybe are harder to find on a map
or oftentimes what I what I find to be true
is if I'm going to a pinch point, a funnel, whatever,
I'll oftentimes find little micro pinch points and funnels in
that area. And a great example of that is you
might get into a into a pitch point called a

(48:25):
saddle on a ridge system that's an easy spot to cross,
but maybe there's a down tree that would funnel a
deer into a really specific spot. Little stuff like that,
little micro terrain features can often make a big difference.
It's really about putting boots on the ground and going
in and and really understanding the terrain. Uh, That's that's

(48:50):
kind of what I focus on.

Speaker 3 (48:53):
Okay, John, would you add anything when it comes to funnels,
pinch points, and kind of the next level of depth
than just the generic.

Speaker 7 (49:02):
Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 5 (49:03):
You know, a lot of hunters follow what they watch
on TV, and in my personal opinion, most TV guys
that they had to puntulic land wouldn't have a clue
what to do. You know, I think fifty percent of
the bowl owners in the country could probably killed deer
the same deer that TV guys are hunting, if they
were hunting the same property, because it's all ultra managed.
So when you follow what TV guys do, you know,

(49:26):
TV guys can they can look at aerial maps and
topo maps, and they can pick out spots on their properties,
and you know, they can go to them and they
know nobody else has ever been there. So it's very
likely that they can go to a pinch point between
two areas of timber where there's some adequate cover from

(49:46):
point A to point B, and set up there and
kill something. A normal hunter hunting public land or heavily
pressured areas where there's twenty homesteads in a six hundred
and forty acre section and every homestead's got hunters on it,
that's a pressured areas.

Speaker 7 (50:00):
Well, you can't do that.

Speaker 5 (50:02):
That's why scouting is such a big part of being
a successful mature buck hunter. Scouting when you're out there
postseason scouting or even preseason scouting. I hate scouting during
pre season, but I do once in a blue move.
You can see what kind of hunter activities there. You
can see marks on trees from stands or climbers or

(50:24):
whatever the case may be. Or if it's super easy
to access, you can be guaranteed.

Speaker 7 (50:29):
Other hunters are going to mess it up.

Speaker 5 (50:31):
So when I'm looking at pinch points, I'm looking at
a lot of times river funnels. I've mentioned this on
your podcast before. River funnels don't People don't pay attention
to that kind of stuff. But when you walk a
river way, a lot of times the river will make bends,
and every time it makes a bend, there's going to
be a cliff, you know, where the water washes the

(50:52):
way the dirt under the bend. And then you may
go a quarter of a mile or half a mile,
whatever the case may be, and there'll be a one
hundred yard or a fifty yard flat area. Well, when
you get to those flat areas, the river's usually wider
and it's shallower, and that's where the deer are going
to cross, and they don't have to worry about the
cliffs on all the bends.

Speaker 7 (51:12):
So you know, it's just like a trout fisherman.

Speaker 5 (51:15):
If you're a trout fisherman, you know exactly if you
fish it spot a while where you can cross the
river the easiest, and deer know the exact same thing
where they live, where they reside, So I look for that,
and then any any funnel or transition zone has to
have I can't say this enough security cover.

Speaker 7 (51:35):
Security covered, security cover.

Speaker 5 (51:36):
If you're after mature bucks and there's any semblance of
pressure in the area you're hunting, a mature buck is
very rarely going to make himself vulnerable in an open area,
even if it's in a transition zone like the river
funnel and they have to cross through fifty yards of
open timbered across the river there and then go into
some security cover.

Speaker 7 (51:55):
They're not going to make that fifty.

Speaker 5 (51:56):
Yard vulnerable movement during daylight hours, so it'll be that'll
be an after dark spot. So no matter the transition
zone you're in, if you're after mature bucks in it's
somewhat pressured area, it has they have adequate security cover
from mature buck to transition, either through the security govern
or along the edge of the security govern They always
like they have a quick two or three second exit

(52:18):
where they're out of a kill range.

Speaker 6 (52:23):
Which is why it's so great to focus on the
ret phase because that is when they start letting their
guard down right, and and that's when they will That's
when these bucks. Because John is one thousand percent right,
I could not agree more. They just don't make many mistakes.
That's how they get to be five four or five
six years old and last through several seasons. But once

(52:48):
they get in breed mode, they will sometimes make those
stupid mistakes, and that's how you can capitalize on it.

Speaker 7 (52:55):
Yeah, if they're with a hot dough, they might follow
her into Walmart.

Speaker 2 (52:58):
They would.

Speaker 3 (53:00):
So with these funnels, with these pinch points, I can
imagine someone being out there in the woods, maybe public land,
maybe a permission farm, whatever it might be, and he's
out maybe he's going out to hunt that day in
a new area, and he's kind of scouting his way
into a hunting location. Maybe, let's hypothetically say, and he
comes across some spots they thinks maybe could be good

(53:21):
pinch points or funnels. They look like they could be
one of these micro funnels you mentioned, Greg, and they're
trying to confirm, like, man, is this the kind of
spot that a mature buck would move through, and maybe
he's looking for security cover like you mentioned, John, But
I gotta believe some people will be thinking, hey, I
need to see sign that will confirm that, yes, this
is a good place, Like the terrain looks right or

(53:42):
the cover looks right, but what is the ruts? What's
the sign that matters to you during this time of
the year November seven through twenty or somewhere in November.
What sign do you need to see. We'll start with you, John,
when you're trying to say yes, this sign tells me

(54:02):
that mature bucks will use this funnel.

Speaker 5 (54:06):
To security cover if it's a funnel and it has
security cover, and it's between two betting areas, which typically
during the rod. If a mature buck's moving during daylight hours,
he's looking. If he's not with a dough, he's looking
for a dough. So he's going to be checking a
betting area within his core area, and then he's going
to take the best available transition security cover to the

(54:28):
next betting area that may possibly within his be within
his core area, so you know, and also in a
betting area, to me, when you are physically in a
betting area during the road phases. That's where bucks, mature
bucks push the doughs into to do their breeding. So
if you go set up in a betting area, those

(54:49):
bucks are going to breed those doughs every twenty minutes
to forty minutes, and they're going to get up and
you know they're going to bed maybe fifteen or twenty
yards downwindo the dough after a breeding, after the breed,
and then maybe twenty minutes and whatever the case may be,
he'll get up and he'll go and nudge er and
they'll play a little thirty to one hundred yard chase game.
And it's all within security government. So if you're in

(55:10):
a betting area, you know, as long as you're in
an area where there's runways going by, there's always the
chance at any time of day to get an opportunity
in the mature buck. The only downside for most hunters
when they're hunting within within a betting area is the wind.
You know, if you don't have a set control regiment,

(55:33):
typically on average, fifty percent of the deer you see
are going to be downwind w because there's no rhyme
or reason in a betting area Obviously, if you're in
a betting area and you have the option of being
in an oak tree that's possibly dropping acorns, or at
a scrape area that's within a betting area, you know
that's where you'd want to set up as long as
there was signed there from the you know, there's deer signed.

Speaker 7 (55:55):
There and droppings in the area.

Speaker 5 (55:57):
But the set control things is a pretty big b
because you're going to have deer down wind of you.
But death in betting areas to me people that leaves
betting areas as sanctuary areas.

Speaker 7 (56:09):
If you own your own property and you own a
lot of property.

Speaker 5 (56:12):
And you've got a ten anchor betting area, yeah you
can leave it as a sanctuary area because you don't
have to worry about anybody else.

Speaker 7 (56:18):
Killing the deer. You know, on your property, they're staying there.

Speaker 5 (56:22):
So if you're not in that, if you don't have
that opportunity to own land and you're on public land,
you've got to be back in the junk where the
bucks are going to be breeding the dogs during the
rut phases and so you know, and they and when
they're pushing those doughs in those betting areas, a lot
of times as you guys well know it's on uncharted rows.
You know those those aren't always following runways, they're just

(56:44):
running through the swamp or.

Speaker 7 (56:46):
Whatever the case may be. So jawning about the ruck.

Speaker 5 (56:50):
The run is something that anybody during the long spot
could kill something just by accident.

Speaker 6 (56:57):
Yeah, question right, which you define a betting area as
as how you're describing it? Would you would you just
talk about all that. I'd like to hear your your
explanation of what a betting area is.

Speaker 5 (57:13):
I get that question so much, you know, security government
betting areas because betting.

Speaker 6 (57:18):
Areas already already answered, but I want to I want
to hear you say it for all the listeners because I.

Speaker 2 (57:25):
Think it will be useful.

Speaker 5 (57:27):
Yeah, betting areas can change from area to area, Like
if you're in if you're in hill country, they don't
have swamps like Michigan does and Lake Ohio does and
some of the other Midwestern states, uh, you know, Southern Ohio,
Southern Indiana, southern you know that's all hill country or
West Virginia.

Speaker 7 (57:44):
You know, and bucks there will bed up on the
tops of the hills.

Speaker 5 (57:48):
You know, they'll bed where the if the wind's coming
over the hill, they'll bed where they can smell anything
coming up the other side, and then they'll have a
visual down down the side they're betted on it on
the other side of the So that type of a
betting or is different than where I live, which is,
you know, betting areas are very identifiable. It's the thickest area,

(58:10):
the densest area in the area. You know, that's where
the bucks are going to be. I mean, I'm not
talking about like a blueberry marsh where you have to
crawl over the brush.

Speaker 7 (58:19):
I'm talking about just areas where.

Speaker 5 (58:21):
There's autumnolives or red brush or briar bushes, sparse stuff,
you know, marsh grasses, some cat tails spotted here and there, hemlocks.

Speaker 7 (58:32):
You know.

Speaker 5 (58:33):
Betting areas are basically, if you were the deer and
everybody was trying to kill you, where are the heaviest
places of security cover on the property, where you think
you could go in and feel safe.

Speaker 7 (58:47):
Moving during daylight hours. That's the betting area.

Speaker 5 (58:50):
So in that with that scenario, betting areas are different
from area to area depending on the topography, but you
always want to look at it as that's the dnsest area.
In the safest place where I would feel comfortable moving
during daylight hours, within this mile section or within this
public land, and that's where I would I would set up.

Speaker 3 (59:12):
So okay, here's another one we here we already talk
We talked about pinch points funnels. That's another one that
everyone knows. Betting areas. Everyone knows you should hunt betting
areas during the run, especially spots where there's lots of
does betting. Right, that's we know, go where the does
are betting. There's gonna be bucks checking them. But it's
harder to pick the right spot.

Speaker 4 (59:33):
In a betting area.

Speaker 3 (59:34):
Can you discuss how both of you guys like to
do that? So how do you find the X within
a betting ear or around a betting ear, however.

Speaker 4 (59:43):
You each like to do it.

Speaker 3 (59:45):
Because there might be a two acre zone where there's
a whole bunch of deer betted, and when you're bow hunting,
that's a large area. It might be ten acres, there
might be a court aker. Obviously they're all different. But
how do you think about choosing the right spot like
this spot within the spot.

Speaker 4 (59:59):
Of a doll betting area during the rut?

Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
Because this is really really important for people to have
success this time of year or one of the best places. John,
you want to want to kick it off, continue your
thoughts there, I'm started.

Speaker 7 (01:00:12):
All the only ones you go for it? You don't.

Speaker 6 (01:00:15):
Great, So what what I would do. Let's let's say
there's a big marsh and big cattail marsh and you
it's obvious that there are dos.

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
And bucks betting in there. Uh.

Speaker 6 (01:00:27):
You Sometimes you don't have to make it more complicated
than it needs to be. I'm bad about that. I'm
bad about making things over complicated. But what I would
do and what I have done in states, uh, where
I would encounter a situation like that, So I would
scout the edges and I would look for the heaviest
trails runways coming in and out of those spots that

(01:00:48):
are marked with sign.

Speaker 2 (01:00:51):
You're talking abo.

Speaker 5 (01:00:53):
You're talking scouting in season, not post in season scouting.

Speaker 2 (01:00:57):
Which is that's right?

Speaker 6 (01:00:59):
Which is which is a little different than the way
John typically hunts. Typically, not always, but typically John has
his spots scouted and prepped in the preseason or what
John says postseason January February March, whenever snow goes away
and before green up a lot of times when I'm

(01:01:19):
hunting the rut, I'm in a different state that I've
never been before, and that's a little different than the
way John does it, which is fine. But what I
do typically is scout the edges and I'm looking for
sign that's telling me when or where a buck is
choosing to enter and exit that and then typically I

(01:01:41):
would set up on that not real super complicated, find
the betting area, take your best guess at how that
deer that buck is entering and leaving, and then set
up on it and then adjust fire. Other people would
call that like an observation hunt, like Dan Infult, he
kind of popular rise that term on the Hunting Beast forum,

(01:02:02):
and so he would say, you know, you would make
an observation sit where you might hang back a little
bit further than you typically might, see how the deer
using that area, and then move in. I've seen my
buddies from the hunting public do that all over the country,
and they will go to a new state, they will
hang back, they'll see how the deer are using this

(01:02:25):
particular area, and then they'll move in on the next
hunt for the kill.

Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
It's very effective.

Speaker 6 (01:02:30):
You have to be aggressive you have to be willing
to blow out the area, and when you're going in
for a kill like that.

Speaker 5 (01:02:37):
For freelancing, you almost have to do that, because for
free lancing, you can't go in in the afternoon into
physically into the interior of a betting area and scout
it for signed because obviously.

Speaker 7 (01:02:50):
You're going to blow the deer out of it.

Speaker 5 (01:02:52):
So when you're free lancing, you almost are tied to
doing the perimeter stuff or doing it from a distance
one day, that's right, readjusting the next. But when when
I'm postseason scouting and I'm physically going in betting areas
and I'm covering every inch of it, I can blow
every deer out of there. I could care less. I'm

(01:03:12):
I'm six months from deer season. Those are all going
to be back in there. Everything's going to be cope
SETI back to normal by deer season, so I can
scrutinize every inch of that betting area and every inch
of the property I want to look at without concern
about spooking deer like like you'd have to be, you.

Speaker 7 (01:03:29):
Know, during season.

Speaker 5 (01:03:30):
So when I'm going into a betting area, I'm looking
for master trees, a lot of times when I cross
river with waiters or go across a lake, you know,
in a boat or a canoe or whatever the case
may be, I've lost a lot of hunters right there.
By using waitershi boots and boats. You've lost probably at
least ninety to ninety.

Speaker 7 (01:03:48):
Five percent of your competition.

Speaker 5 (01:03:50):
When we were in Indiana last year, I saw in
that complete, huge area, I saw one other hunter.

Speaker 7 (01:03:55):
In a boat, right, do you remember that where we
were last year?

Speaker 5 (01:04:00):
Just nobody else does that because it's more work. So
once you get back into those areas, a lot of
times they open up. You know, they'll have brush along
the edge of the river when you cross it, but
a lot of times you get back into there and
they open up into a little bit more open, sparse,
sparse brush and stuff. And you know, I look for oaks.

(01:04:22):
I look for the same sign I would look for
for hunting early season. I'm looking for mass if it's there,
and if there is, I'll look at to see what
kind of sign was.

Speaker 7 (01:04:31):
There from the previous runt. You know, is there rubs
around that area.

Speaker 5 (01:04:35):
Is there possibly a couple of old scrapes by these oaks,
or maybe there's a little opening in a betting area
and it's got a multiple runways.

Speaker 7 (01:04:43):
Converging through it.

Speaker 5 (01:04:44):
I kill the Bucking two thousand and four this way
in an automolive patch with a twenty yard opening in
the center of it. So I'm just looking for congested
sign rubs, you know, I'm looking for taller rubs, possible scrapes.
But usually when you're in betting areas, you don't see
a lot of scrapes. It's pretty rare actually to see
to see scrapes in a swamp.

Speaker 7 (01:05:06):
So I'm just looking for the most.

Speaker 5 (01:05:08):
Congested sign because i know if I'm hunting there during
the run the bucks are the mature bucks are going
to be pushing the dose around, so they're going to
be those dos and.

Speaker 7 (01:05:16):
Bucks are going to be moving around during the course
of the day.

Speaker 5 (01:05:20):
And wherever if I'm in the most congested sign and runways,
I can find odds are And I'm a percentage guys.
I hunt according to percentages. The percentages are higher that
something's going to go through that more congested runway area
that I'm at than someplace else.

Speaker 3 (01:05:37):
Now, John, I know you don't. You don't factor wind
direction into your strategy when it comes to avoiding deer
winding you because of your sink control. But does the
wind Does the wind direction impact where you want to
hunt in a betting area at all? Because many times
folks talk about bucks preferring to check a betting area
on the downwind side so they can more efficiently do

(01:05:59):
travel and check places. Does that is that something you
can in.

Speaker 4 (01:06:02):
It at all?

Speaker 5 (01:06:03):
I actually will set up places where I assume deer
her coming in from the down wind side because I
know I'm not going to get winded, and I'll beat
that opportunity. So in Michigan, I've killed two one hundred
and fifty inch bucks because I was hunting at a
scrape area. And I set when i'm when i'm hunting

(01:06:26):
in a scrape at a scrape area, if it's in
a bedding area and a transition zone that's relatively wide,
that has adequate security government if there's a tree on
the south side or southeast side, because winds typically out
of the north or northwest in the predominantly in the fall,
I will set a tree up about twenty to twenty
five yards on the down wind side of the scrapes

(01:06:47):
where I have a twenty five yard shot to the
physical scrapes, and I have the twenty five yard because
I'm only shooting forty pounds, so I only have twenty
five yard distance. And I also make a shooting lane
twenty five yards to the south or southeast of the tree.
So if a deer circles and comes in from down
wind because he doesn't want to be strape areas are

(01:07:07):
always in a little open area, and a lot of
times when sure bucks don't want to be in that
open zone during daylight hours.

Speaker 7 (01:07:14):
So I'll set that up.

Speaker 5 (01:07:15):
And I've on two different occasions I've had monster bucks
come in and circle down wind and I've shot them
on the down wind side.

Speaker 7 (01:07:25):
That's the cool thing about sun control.

Speaker 5 (01:07:27):
Also, if you can set up on the down wind
side and you can use bucks coming in from the
down wind side to your advantage because you're not worried
about getting there.

Speaker 3 (01:07:35):
Greg, what about with you when it comes to wind
direction and that helping your your kind of scout the
edge find the sign approach. But I'm assuming wind direction
factors into that as well though too.

Speaker 2 (01:07:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:07:50):
John pretty much outlined it very succinctly there. But the bucks,
even if you're John and you don't pay attention to wind.
The bucks are one hundred percent They live in die
by their noses, so to.

Speaker 2 (01:08:02):
Ignore that is not smart.

Speaker 6 (01:08:05):
I have seen way too many times, and buddies in
camp that I've been hunting with have seen way too
many times these bucks cruising the down wind side of
a betting area. They check the whole thing literally just
by kind of slowly walking down the edge, sniffing the trails,
and they know everything that is in that betting area,

(01:08:27):
so they don't even necessarily have to go in there.
So using that to your advantage and setting up on
the down wind side in a place that it's a
little easier for John since he doesn't worry as much
about the wind, so his placement is a little bit easier.
But for those of us that do pay attention to
our wind direction and getting busted, it's a little harder

(01:08:51):
to set up on that route because you have to
really pay attention to where you're at and where your
wind's going. Understanding thermals, understanding how wind currents work is important.
It's it's a bit of an advanced kind of strategy
or tactic that hunters need to learn, kind of like
reading a topo map. I would say, if you don't
understand thermals how they rise and how they fall, and

(01:09:14):
how it impacts how the deer use the area, then
you need you need to spruce up your game there, hunter,
because you need to understand that because bucks do and
they always use the wind of their advantage, so you
got to find a way to use that against them.
And if you know that there's a betting area in
a bottom like a lot of times the does will
bed congregate in bottoms, especially in like hill country, right,

(01:09:38):
they'll they'll that's usually the thickest part of the area
down in the bottom. It's where all the briers are,
It's where all the brush is, all that stuff is
typically in the bottoms, and that's typically where a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:09:48):
Of does bed.

Speaker 6 (01:09:49):
The bucks typically don't want to go in there just
for fun. They would rather skirt the edge, smell everything
that's in there by coming on the down wind side,
and then if there's nothing in there that it's excitesome,
they just move on to the next spot. So I
definitely factor wind in into every hunt, both how I
can use it to my advantage and how a buck

(01:10:10):
in the area would use it to his advantage.

Speaker 4 (01:10:21):
You mentioned the thermals.

Speaker 3 (01:10:23):
Greg, One of the rut locations you guys discuss in
the book are thermal hubs or thermal draft hubs, key
thing like you mentioned in hill Country. Can you talk
a little bit about why the first? What does that mean?
What for folks that aren't familiar, can you describe a
thermal hub? How do identify it? And then how to
hunt it? Because as you mentioned, the wind can be

(01:10:45):
tricky in these types of locations, and as you describe,
you need to understand the thermals. But also even with
an understanding of the thermals, it's still kind of tough
because there's certain parts of the day when the thermals
are going to hurt you in these locations, certain parts
of the day when the thermals will help you. Navigetting
that timing and where to set up your stand or
saddle within that location is not simple.

Speaker 4 (01:11:06):
Can you can you touch on all that?

Speaker 7 (01:11:08):
So?

Speaker 6 (01:11:09):
Yeah, and yes, it's a great question. So first of all,
let's define a thermal hub and it's different for everybody. John,
why don't you define a thermal hub as as we
talk about it in the book, And then I'll talk
about my experience hunting around it has that work for you.

Speaker 7 (01:11:25):
That'll be fine.

Speaker 5 (01:11:26):
Thermals in the morning are going up, there's the temperatures rising,
thermals are rising, your order is rising. In the evening
is once the temperatures start cooling, your thermals are going down.
So if you're hunting hill country and let's say you're
on the you're on a side hell and you've got
a runway up above you, and you've got a runway
down below you. No matter whether you're hunting morning or evening,

(01:11:49):
one of those runways, there's an excellent possibility of getting
winded because either way, something's going to be downwind of
you or thermally downwind of you.

Speaker 7 (01:11:59):
So a hub is let's say, let's say in the evening,
when thermals are falling, a buck can actually come down
in the lower side of in a saddle on the
bottom side of a hill, and because all the thermals
are going down, they can actually smell if there has
been any dough activity up on the side of that

(01:12:21):
ridge when they're because all that wind is coming down
into that saddle, and that's a thermal hub. That's a
collection area basically for all the thermals coming down the
side of that hill. I did want to say one
thing about the cell lock, and I've got a very
interesting statistic, and I'm not tied in the world of

(01:12:41):
cell lock home, but it's the only clothing company because
they own the pad. I'm using the activated carbon, and
in my opinion, activated carbon is the only thing.

Speaker 5 (01:12:49):
That works it controlling your human odor. From nineteen sixty
five through nineteen ninety six, I killed ten record book
Bucks when I started using sunt lock correctly, because I
used sunt lock in ninety six, but I wasn't using
it properly and taking care of it properly when I
was in ninety seven. From nineteen ninety seven up until

(01:13:12):
last Sunday, I killed.

Speaker 7 (01:13:14):
Forty six book Bucks. So I've killed forty six.

Speaker 5 (01:13:18):
Book Bucks while using sunt lock from ninety seven through
twenty twenty four so far, and ten from sixty.

Speaker 7 (01:13:24):
Five through ninety six. You do the math. That's a
pretty healthy difference.

Speaker 4 (01:13:31):
True.

Speaker 2 (01:13:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:13:36):
What I was going to say about thermal hubs is
maybe to define it a little bit more clearly. So
if you think about like some you think about where
multiple mainly in hill country, where multiple ridge systems kind
of dump into one Like if you can imagine satellite image,
you typically would have a bottom and it kind of
meanders and you got ridges on both sides. And then

(01:13:58):
typically that bottom will terminate at a kind of a
bowl where there will be multiple ridge systems that kind
of dump into one main bottom. And and that that
confluence of multiple ridge systems dumping into one location is

(01:14:20):
what is typically referred to as a thermal hub. And
if you think about the math of it, right or
the physics of it, when the wind, when the when
the wind is the thermals are kind of falling everything,
it's gonna follow those low those low points. So it's
gonna the wind is gonna is gonna drop into those
ridges of the cuts, ravines, whatever you how, whatever you
call them in your region, and the wind the thermals

(01:14:42):
are gonna fall into those low points, and it's gonna
follow the ridge system all the way down, and it's
gonna all congregate right there in that bowl. And what
a buck can do is he can he can skirt
that thermal hub. A lot of times he'll do it.
Uh in the mornings, he'll be low. It's skirting that
because in the mornings, before the sun comes out, before

(01:15:03):
it starts heating up the air, your thermals are falling, right,
they fall in their cold and they rise when they're hot.
That's it's it's it's thermal activity. So in the morning,
before the sun comes up, your thermals are falling and
they're going down into that into that little thermal hub.
As soon as the sun comes up and starts warming

(01:15:24):
up the air, your thermals start to rise. So a
rule of thumb that I've kind of learned through the
years and watching a lot of people have success, is to.

Speaker 2 (01:15:34):
Hunt low early.

Speaker 6 (01:15:37):
And then move as the sun warms up. Move because
once the wind switches and those thermals start rising, anything
that comes above you, any buck that comes above you, you're busted.

Speaker 2 (01:15:48):
You're not gonna get away.

Speaker 6 (01:15:49):
Unless you know you have a full scent locked routine
and you are confident in it, then that's a different story.
But for for folks that don't have that system, as
soon as that wind is, as soon as the thermals
start rising, you gotta move. And I can illustrate this perfectly,
my good buddy Carl. Last year, John, you were there,
you saw this happen we're hunting Indiana on public land.

(01:16:11):
And he did that strategy to eight. So Carl found
a thermal hub, uh so, a ridge system that all
dumped down into one spot and it was shredded with
sign all around the thermal hub. Call it the bottom
third of the hillside. So you know you got a
two hundred foot hill. The bottom third of that is

(01:16:34):
where all the sign was in this particular thermal hub.

Speaker 2 (01:16:37):
Carl figured that out.

Speaker 6 (01:16:39):
He found it by scouting, and he realized that he
had this opportunity to hunt low in the morning in
case that buck came through there in the morning. He
had a plan. He called his shot. He said, look,
the wind, the thermals are gonna switch at like eight
thirty in the morning. That's when you know the forecast
is to change. And he said, I'm gonna move up

(01:17:00):
the hill as soon as my wind shifts, and I
found another spot that I think a bench that I
think that buck is going to walk once it warms up.
That's what he did. He went in the morning in
the dark, and he set up low. About two hours later,
when the wind started to switch and the thermal started
to rise, got down, he moved up and he shot

(01:17:21):
that buck on the exact trail that he called about
ten minutes after he got in that tree. So it's
a general rule of thumb you can hunt low in
the mornings, but then you have to move. You have
to get out of there before your thermal switching. Then
everything above you screwed.

Speaker 3 (01:17:36):
So okay, well I want to take that one step further.
So if you were going to hunt during the rut,
and you're hunting a thermal hub location as you just
defined it, where you've got like a bowl and a
bunch of ridges dropping down to the bottom. Usually at
the bottom there there's oftentimes a big hub scrape too,
or a primary scrape. You know, that's also a concentration
of sense. So a lot of deer like to hit

(01:17:57):
those scrapes and ends up being created there. So you've
got all these things happened there in the early morning,
So you're recommending hunt low in the early morning. I
imagine where the best convergence of those trails is, or
where that big scrape is or whatever it is, and
you're hoping that the thermals that are dropping will keep
your scent pooled down low with you and you can
kill a deer before he gets down there. When you

(01:18:19):
were to move later in the morning for the rest
of the day. Now you've got a lot of options.
It's simple when you're trying to hunt down at the
bottom where that big scrape is or where that convergence
of all the trails is. But in the afternoon, now
you've got maybe four different points that are all dropping down.
You've got ridges on either side all around you. You
could pick any one of those and you will out
have an entire hillside to pick from and or a

(01:18:41):
ridgetop to pick from. How do you pick the spot
for your afternoon with the rising thermals when you have
so many more options, what are you thinking about that?

Speaker 6 (01:18:52):
It's way harder to pin it down. And that's why
the phase of.

Speaker 2 (01:18:57):
The rut is so important for this.

Speaker 6 (01:18:59):
When you want to when if you're gonna move up
and hunt, you're exactly right mark where the deer have
way more options to go. What you really want to
be is in the say, in the seek phase of
the rut, the pre rut, where the deer are really
covering ground, because your chances of a deer walking through
there are much better as opposed to the peak rut

(01:19:22):
where they are traveling less.

Speaker 2 (01:19:23):
As we learned about earlier the way John.

Speaker 6 (01:19:25):
Described the peak rut, the deer start moving less, and
then the post rut when they start traveling again. To
seek out those that haven't been bred. That is your
best opportunity to hunt higher on and I would find
uh what, let's just use Carl's example is what he
did and it worked. What he did is he found

(01:19:48):
a small little bench that gave the deer. It was
at the top third of the hillside. So on the
top third he set up on a bench that would
give a buck and.

Speaker 2 (01:19:59):
Advantag for travel. Because they're lazy, just like us.

Speaker 6 (01:20:02):
They don't want to walk on the steepest terrain as
possible if they can avoid it, they're going to find
a little bench or something like that that's going to
give them an advantage. And if you think about, a
buck could walk that ridge system on the top third,
and when the wind is blowing towards him, where the thermals
are rising, he can smell the entire valley below him,

(01:20:26):
the whole thing just by slowly walking down the ridge.
So what it takes is a little bit of experience
to understand where bucks like to do that and they
typically like to do that on the top third of
the ridge. And this isn't my idea. I didn't come
up with this. Lots of people preach this. You can
read books about this. Hunters have known this for decades.

(01:20:48):
Right that top third of the ridge where the thermals
are rising. That is, if you can find a little
bench or some sort of little pinch point in that zone,
that can be gold for a rut phase.

Speaker 5 (01:20:59):
Look, yeah, you can mind the does don't have to
physically be there. If they pass through within an hour
or two earlier, their sen's going to still rise up,
you know, in the morning, up the side of those hills.
One one really cool way of trying to explain thermals
is if you're sitting around a campfire after dark. Okay,

(01:21:21):
the temperatures are dropping, so that means your thermals or
thermals are coming down. So you've got your fire which
is hot, so it's hot, so the thermals are going
up because of the fire, and the thermals environmental thermals are
coming down, so they're clashing with each other.

Speaker 7 (01:21:42):
And that's why.

Speaker 5 (01:21:43):
When you're sitting around a fire, even if there's no wind,
the smoke from the fire tends to move around the area,
and you're always getting up and moving if you want
to stay out of the smoke. It's because the thermals
are clashing with the environmental temperatures dropping against the thermals
from the fire heat going up, and they clash, and

(01:22:07):
then the wind's just going different direction. Even if there's
no wind, you know, zero wind on your cell phone
when you look.

Speaker 7 (01:22:13):
At aci weather or whatever it may be.

Speaker 6 (01:22:15):
Yeah, and I know that that that's a very it's
a pretty basic concept. But I talk to hunters all
over the country who don't know what thermals are. They
they has never heard of it, or you know, whatever
the reason might be. But as a general rule, your
thermals are they're a slave to the temperature. If the

(01:22:36):
temperature is falling, thermals are falling. If the temperature is rising,
thermals are rising. It's just a general rule. It's an
easy way to think about it, uh for a hunter.
If you're if you're not, if you if you've never
understood wind currents and stuff like that. I'm not a meteorologist,
but I do know that when temperatures fall, thermals fall,

(01:22:58):
and when temperatures rise thermal it's an easy way to
think about it.

Speaker 5 (01:23:01):
In no country, you better to know how to hunt
thermals in flat land. It's not yeah, white as as bad,
but still in the it's if there's no wind and
you're in flat country.

Speaker 7 (01:23:14):
You know, in the.

Speaker 5 (01:23:15):
Evening, you got to be cautious, you know, because your
thermals are falling and if something comes close to your tree, uh,
they could very well win you because of the thermals
coming down.

Speaker 3 (01:23:27):
Yeah, tricky. Thing isn't like a hill country set up
like you just described, Greg. You have two shifts that
happened during the day. So you've got like you want
to have a want to have a low spot early
in the morning, but then part way through the morning
warms up, so now you want to move high. And
then that works pretty good until primetime in the evening,
and then again they're falling again, so then you want
to move low again. So it can be tricky if

(01:23:47):
you're trying to chase that. But it could be tricky. Yeah,
you're not just chasing the thermals.

Speaker 5 (01:23:53):
You're chasing how the bucks use the thermalsh You're not
right and they're gonna Yeah, they're going to definitely they're
going to definitely move according your thermals in the yellow country.

Speaker 3 (01:24:04):
Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm heading to hunt some Kentucky public
land next week, hill country, just like we're describing.

Speaker 4 (01:24:12):
And this is not my bread and butter.

Speaker 3 (01:24:13):
So I'm asking a lot of questions about this because
I'm trying to get spruce stuff and ready for it making.

Speaker 7 (01:24:21):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:24:21):
Yes, Okay, So we have a bunch of things that
we have not gotten to cover yet that I wanted to,
but we are using up a lot of your time,
So I want to kind of shift into like a
rapid fire type mode here, guys, where I'm going to
ask you guys for your quick thoughts on a topic
and in your mind, try to do like the one
minute summary, like the fast here's the most important thing

(01:24:43):
you got to know about this one thing, and we're
going to try to rapid fire roll through a few
more important rut things just to make sure someone listening
on November seventh, twenty twenty four has a little bit
of everything they can use over this next week.

Speaker 4 (01:24:56):
Okay, So.

Speaker 3 (01:24:59):
Rapid fire greg really quick calling during the rut. What
are your few couple quick most important thoughts for calling
during peak rut.

Speaker 2 (01:25:10):
I love it.

Speaker 6 (01:25:11):
I love rattling. I'm not afraid to rattle. I don't
typically get real super aggressive with it. I typically like
to do a little bit more of like a sparring
type session that I actually learned from John. He describes
it in some of his other books, and we talk
about rattling in this book. But yeah, I love rattling.
I am a fan.

Speaker 2 (01:25:31):
I do it.

Speaker 3 (01:25:32):
Frequently, John, same question to you. Quick thoughts on calling
during the rut.

Speaker 5 (01:25:36):
Okay, we have a complete chapter on using fake tactics
in the book. But I exactly like Greg described I
it's pretty rare if I'm hunting in the interior of
the vetting area during the rut that I don't do
a couple of sparring sequences early in the morning, maybe
forty five minutes after daylight, you know, sometime around eight o'clock,

(01:25:57):
and do two sequences on an evening sin about an
hour before dark. So I'm not a big grunt called guy.
I've had a lot more success doing spiring sequences. When
I'm out of state, I will do more aggressive rattle
sequences because there's a lot more mature bucks. They're used
to hearing that aggressiveness like you see on TV. But

(01:26:20):
when I'm hunting in Michigan, it's almost always subtle sparring sequences.
I think that arouses their attention and.

Speaker 6 (01:26:26):
One one other, one other thing before we go to that,
before we go Uh, don't rattle. If you're in an
open area where the deer can see, where a buck
can see you from.

Speaker 2 (01:26:36):
A long way away, it won't work.

Speaker 6 (01:26:39):
What that buck will do is he will come to
the point just close enough to where he can see
where the where the rattling came from, and if he
does not confirm it with his eyes, he will not
come in. So do not rattle in a big open woods.
It won't work at least for a mature deer maybe
a one year older two year old to come in,
But a big deer isn't coming in. You have got

(01:27:00):
to be obscure. Your location has to be obscure. So
a thick betting area's thick something. If you're going to
rattle for that buck to come in in bowl range,
he can't see the source of the noise.

Speaker 2 (01:27:11):
That is important because you.

Speaker 6 (01:27:13):
Will screw it up like I have done many times
by rattling 're deer.

Speaker 3 (01:27:17):
Conceiving now maybe though maybe there is an asterisk next
to that, which is unless you are using a decoy possibly,
And that was okay, fair, That's the next question I
had because I grew up by living by the Gospel
of Precision Bow Hunting by John and Chris Eberhart, and
within that book early on, one of the major themes

(01:27:40):
in that book is to not use a lot of
things that draw attention to you in places like Michigan,
so decoys being a perfect example of that. So I
grew up for a long time being terrified by the
idea of using decoys because I thought it would spook
every deer in the world in a heavily pressured place
like Michigan. But I see in one of the chapters

(01:28:01):
in your new book, John, you're talking about using dough decoys.
So I'm curious, real quick, fast summary, what's your evolved
view on decoys these days?

Speaker 5 (01:28:10):
Not really, it's not really evolved. I still very, very
rarely use a decoy in Michigan. I use decoys a lot.

Speaker 7 (01:28:18):
When I go out of state.

Speaker 5 (01:28:18):
I would never go out of state without taking a
decoy with me, a hard body three D decoy. They're
they're paying to carry around. But I'll tell you what,
if you're doing a rattle sequence and you're in a
more open area, and I've done multiple times in i
Went Kansas, if you put a decoy out and a
deer is coming and it's one hundred yards away and

(01:28:40):
he sees it, he'll come right in.

Speaker 7 (01:28:43):
If he's not with a dough, he'll come right in.

Speaker 5 (01:28:45):
I've actually put a decoy out on the corner of
a big cornfield in Iowa where you know there's like
here's here's a corner, and I had the decoy up
here so you can see it from either direction, and
I had to come out.

Speaker 7 (01:28:57):
I bet it was. I'm here half a mile probably
three eighths of a mile down the field edge. He
saw that decoy and he came right to it.

Speaker 5 (01:29:05):
But in Michigan, because we've got so many dos and
we've got just got so many deer, the odds of
a doe coming in and spooking from the decoy, coming
in within three to five yards and doing the peekaboo
deal and then blowing and then running off is really
really high. So I don't do it in Michigan very

(01:29:26):
very often, because unless I'm in an area where I know.

Speaker 7 (01:29:32):
I'm only gonna see a couple of deer, then I
may use it.

Speaker 5 (01:29:35):
Bit if I'm in an area where the chances of
seeing multiple dos and bonds and some ordnan bucks where
they might come in and hit it with their antler
and then spook and blow.

Speaker 7 (01:29:46):
I just rarely use them in Michigan anymore. I've killed
a couple bucks.

Speaker 5 (01:29:49):
With him in the you know, in the eighties, but
they were two and a half year olds, so on
three and a half.

Speaker 7 (01:29:55):
Older bucks in Michigan, I don't use the bit out
of state. I use them a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:29:58):
Greg, and a decoy I don't have with decoys, So.

Speaker 6 (01:30:05):
I'm sure John is one hundred percent right in that
they can be very effective. But I'm a minimalist at
heart with gear, so I don't. I don't carry stuff
like that ever, so I can't speak to that. I
can say that without a decoy, if you're in an
open area and you need a big buck to come
in mature into bowl range and he can see your

(01:30:28):
area from one hundred yards away, he ain't coming in.

Speaker 2 (01:30:31):
Yeah without a decoy.

Speaker 3 (01:30:33):
Okay, another one for you, then, Greg advice for making
all day sits more comfortable or enjoyable, especially especially if
you're doing what we do. Let's just hunt in a saddle.
Any any advice on saddle hunting, comfort tips for all
day or or any other part of the all day piece.

Speaker 6 (01:30:54):
Quick thoughts here, It's just hard, you know, an all
day sit. I I used to love listening to your
live the early days of Wired to Hunt, when like
the Holy Field days, when you would you would start
talking about, okay, it's like time for all days since
to start, and there was always this little trepidation with

(01:31:15):
you because you're like, you know, It's like it's like,
I know I need to sit all day, but it sucks.
It's hard, and it feels like grinding. I've yet to
figure out a way around that. Maybe a box line
would do that with maybe a fridge in there, find
maybe some Wi Fi. Yeah, maybe that would make an

(01:31:37):
all days sit easier. But man, they're just hard. So
I find myself almost never sitting all day. I haven't
sat in the in a tree from daylight to dark
in several years. Now, I will hunt all day, meaning
I won't leave the woods.

Speaker 2 (01:31:56):
I'll come down.

Speaker 6 (01:31:57):
I'll maybe move to a different air, yeah, maybe move
one hundred yards away, or do a little mid day
scouting and slowly kind of slip through an area and
then find another spot for the last four or five
hours of the day. But man hunting all day in
the same tree without getting down, it's just hard. It's

(01:32:18):
more discipline in mind and willpower.

Speaker 2 (01:32:20):
Than it is anything else.

Speaker 6 (01:32:21):
Because I don't care what saddle you're in, what tree
stand you're in, you are gonna get uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 (01:32:27):
I don't care who it is.

Speaker 6 (01:32:28):
You are gonna get uncomfortable, and you just have to
grit your teeth and go through it. And I'm soft.
I don't like to be uncomfortable, so I I find
myself not doing much of that anymore.

Speaker 4 (01:32:40):
All right, John, what would you say on that one?

Speaker 5 (01:32:43):
Well, as you do, Mark, I've done a ton of
all day sets, and I've killed a lot of bucks
during the middle of the day. Hunting all day is
very grueling, especially if it's sunny out, because it gets
so hot in the middle of the day and you
don't see a lot of deer in the middle of
the day, and so many hunters will give all day
sits maybe one or two shots, and because they don't
see much, they give up on it. Well, if you

(01:33:06):
went out as a hunter, an avid hunter, and you
hunted two evenings in a row and you didn't see
much for deer activity, would you quit hunting evenings?

Speaker 7 (01:33:14):
Of course you wouldn't.

Speaker 5 (01:33:16):
But you know, I'm a percentage guy, and like I said,
I've killed seven out of my twenty book bucks in
Michigan that were shot between November one and fourteen. We're
during eleven to three o'clock, so I know the advantage
of hunting midday an all day sit, you know, if
it's in the right type of area, and it's during
the rut phases.

Speaker 7 (01:33:36):
So I don't have any issues with this comfort.

Speaker 5 (01:33:40):
I can go to the bathroom one or two in
my saddle, either way, it doesn't matter without getting out
of my tree.

Speaker 7 (01:33:46):
I always take food.

Speaker 5 (01:33:47):
I on an all day sit will I will literally
change my clothes four times on an all day sit
because I will walk in really light clothed. You know,
we're very light, slight on overheat. Once I it up
in the tree, my body cools off. I'll take off
my salte jacket, put on some undergarments, put my sun
lot jacket back on, and then when it gets like

(01:34:09):
ten or eleven o'clock that starts heating up, I'll do
the same. I'll take off my salat jacket, take off
my undergarments, put them in my backpack.

Speaker 7 (01:34:17):
So I'm lighter, so I'm not overheating. In the middle
of the.

Speaker 5 (01:34:19):
Day, two three o'clock, as it starts to cool, I'll
rechange and put my layers back on.

Speaker 7 (01:34:25):
This is only on my top, now my bottom. It's
top the top.

Speaker 5 (01:34:29):
And then before I get out of the tree, because
I'm gonna have a long walk out, I will again
take off my jacket and take off my undergarments so
I don't overheat and sweat on my ass.

Speaker 6 (01:34:39):
You're insane that you are insane, Jo man, you are insaney.

Speaker 7 (01:34:44):
Comfortable.

Speaker 4 (01:34:47):
I just can't.

Speaker 3 (01:34:48):
I'm over here having a hard time not breaking down
laughing here you're doing it. I just I just want
to make sure I heard right. Did you say that
you're going number two while staying in your cell?

Speaker 7 (01:35:02):
Absolutely? Yeah? You want to have them?

Speaker 10 (01:35:07):
You know.

Speaker 7 (01:35:09):
You don't want to. I don't know. It's so easy.

Speaker 2 (01:35:12):
Oh no, don't don't do it.

Speaker 11 (01:35:15):
Don't do it.

Speaker 4 (01:35:16):
Just don't do it.

Speaker 7 (01:35:17):
Yeah, blog bagg and you take the saddle.

Speaker 12 (01:35:19):
You either pull it up under your shoulders, under your armpits,
or you slide the saddle down above your knees and
you just under your pants and go in the bag
and then wipe and put the bag back in your
back back and pull your pants off and pull a
saddle back up card.

Speaker 7 (01:35:36):
It's literally easy.

Speaker 4 (01:35:37):
So remember it's amazing.

Speaker 6 (01:35:39):
So the first time I heard this story, Mark John
told us at hunting camp that that he likes to
take craps in gallon ziploc bags.

Speaker 4 (01:35:49):
And then I had the part that got us.

Speaker 2 (01:35:52):
It broke us down.

Speaker 6 (01:35:53):
While he said, but he squeezes all the air out,
you know, to like zip it up, so there's I
through them in all that all the ship smell is just.

Speaker 4 (01:36:04):
And then he puts it in his bag.

Speaker 11 (01:36:09):
This is this is one of the this is one
of the all time, all time best Wired Hunt moments
in all the decade plus years who've done these episodes,
that right there, that's one of the best.

Speaker 3 (01:36:20):
Thank you for that, John, welcome, I'm sure multiple times.

Speaker 6 (01:36:27):
So there's it. Whenever we do an update on the
books for version two, we'll make sure that John details
that process with illustrations in detail to show you how
to get maximum crap air out of your ziploc bag
to take up the less room in your past.

Speaker 2 (01:36:46):
Greg Donald's.

Speaker 7 (01:36:50):
That's in the book.

Speaker 2 (01:36:51):
Yeah, I was talking about it.

Speaker 6 (01:36:54):
The detailed, the detailed process about it with illustrations and everything.

Speaker 7 (01:37:00):
That's amazing. It's really easy to do, to be honest with.

Speaker 3 (01:37:04):
Absolutely amazing, And I think maybe that might be the
best place to end the whole episode right there. There's
there's so much in these books. Because you guys are crazy.
You don't just write one book and release it. You
launched three at a time, so there's.

Speaker 4 (01:37:23):
Three of these.

Speaker 3 (01:37:25):
Can you give me a quick rundown other than what
we've talked about. We've covered a lot of the rut
side of things, and there's still more that we haven't
got to cover, and then so so much more outside
of the rut could could one of you or both
of you give me a quick take on what folks
can expect to see in the book and then where
they can.

Speaker 2 (01:37:42):
Buy it there is, Greg, I would love it if
you would go jo.

Speaker 5 (01:37:50):
Everything to do with deer hunting and whether you're a
ball hunter, a gun hunter, crossbow, muzzleoder, everything to do
with hunting deer. I don't care what type of property.
If you're un managed property, public land, you know, heavily
pressured rural areas.

Speaker 7 (01:38:06):
The information is in this book.

Speaker 5 (01:38:09):
Uh Now, the book's key on hunting pressured areas because
once you become successful at hunting any semblance of pressured
areas for mature bucks, you can go any place else
in the country and be relatively successful and be a
threat to the mature bucks you're hunting because when you
go to a less pressured area, it's just easier, and

(01:38:30):
you've got all the foundation for running pressured areas, so
it's that much easier.

Speaker 7 (01:38:34):
There's twenty seven chapters in this book.

Speaker 5 (01:38:38):
We actually mark you contribute you to a couple of
short kill stories to this book.

Speaker 7 (01:38:43):
So did Andy may So?

Speaker 5 (01:38:44):
Did Garret crawl from di yt Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:38:51):
And then sports Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:38:52):
Ernie has a couple of kill out. There's eighty four
in Greg and myself.

Speaker 5 (01:38:56):
There's eighty four short condensed three to five paragraph killed
stories within this book.

Speaker 7 (01:39:01):
There's photos of the kills.

Speaker 5 (01:39:04):
There are in locations within the book that lend credibility
to what you're reading at the time. But again, there's
twenty seven chapters in When we wrote this it was
like going to be eight hundred and some pages, and
we just couldn't put it out in a single book.
So you know, each one of these, each one of
these books is basically the same length as all three.

Speaker 7 (01:39:27):
Of the other books I wrote. So we had to
do it in three volumes. It's the only way we
could do it. And it's it's available on Tethered's websites.
So if you.

Speaker 5 (01:39:36):
Google www dot tether that's t E t h R
D dot com, slash.

Speaker 7 (01:39:45):
Di y bucks, it'll take your right to the right
to the page and that there's no stone on turned
in these books. This covers everything, would.

Speaker 6 (01:39:57):
You I'd like to describe it a little bit differently, Mark, Yes.
Every single topic that you is even remotely related to
bow hunting is in this book. Preseason, postseason, scouting, the rut, scrapes, rubs, everything,
how to hunt corn, how not to hunt corn, how
to rattle. Everything is in this book. When John came

(01:40:20):
to me a year and a half ago and said
he was thinking about writing his final book, of which
he's written many and they have influenced me in a
great number of hunters a great deal. And John came
to me and he said, Greg, I want to distill
down my fifty plus years of bow hunting experience into
one book. And I was like, holy crap, that's that's

(01:40:44):
got potential to be like the most inclusive book on
hunting that's ever been written, and so I was really
excited about it. And that's what John did. He distilled
fifty years of successful big buck hunting in pressured areas
any he distilled it all down into three volumes. So

(01:41:05):
it's a lot of information, but everything you could hope
to know about bow hunting is in there. And John
put all of his experience in there, and a bunch
of us helped him, right like Mark, you helped, I helped,
and Andy and all these people helped John do this.
But ultimately, what this book is is John's incredible record
of success in three volumes. And I promise you every

(01:41:29):
single hunter on the planet will learn something. It might
not change your life, it might not revolutionize how you
hunt if you're an experienced hunter, but I guarantee you're
going to learn things from this book that you didn't
know before you read it.

Speaker 5 (01:41:42):
Ye will make you think about the way you're hunting,
and it'll probably make you want to change a lot
of the ways that you are hunting it, and it
was written and written in such detail that any novice
or experienced hunter can easily understand what we're talking about.

Speaker 4 (01:42:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:42:02):
Well, I know there's a lot of folks who listen
to our podcast that we did earlier this year, John,
who have been waiting for the books because we kind
of tease the books of them, but they weren't available yet.
So I know, if folks haven't already seen the news
online or somewhere, definitely take note. They're available now over
there at the Tethered website.

Speaker 4 (01:42:19):
They're great. I haven't got to read every part of every.

Speaker 3 (01:42:22):
One of them yet, but I've been looking in various
locations for relevant things as I'm thinking through ideas and
as I was preparing for this, and as I knew
it would be lots of lots of great stuff. And
then this wonderful surprise number two tip as well that
everyone will have to search for in the book, and
and we will will have this moment, this podcast moment

(01:42:44):
will live on forever. I still I still having a
hard time processing it. So with that in mind, gentlemen,
thank you so much for taking the time to do
this for sharing maybe the best story we've ever had
in the podcast, and for helping me as a hunter
so much over the years. Both of you have been
great friends, great teachers, and I appreciate you both.

Speaker 7 (01:43:06):
Thanks for the opportunity.

Speaker 4 (01:43:07):
Mark all right, and that's it for us today.

Speaker 3 (01:43:16):
Again, I'll plug John and Greg's book here, the Ultimate
Guide to DIY Books. And without further ado, let's get
you out into the woods, into a tree or a
blind or whatever you're doing. Get out there, have a
great time hunting. Good luck, and until next time, stay
wired to hunt.

Speaker 9 (01:43:43):
It's that time of the year again. I'm back. Marcus Kenyon.
How are you, your son of a gadwall.

Speaker 10 (01:43:48):
You look terrible. I'm just kidding a remma. I'm sorry,
I'm late. I crashed my recumbent bicycle into the side
of a quiz nose and I know what you're thinking.
I am as sober as a newborn blue crab. I
swear to you, this is just kombucha. I'm watching the
gut health. You gotta do it as you get older.
And also I'm wearing this ankle bracelet that makes a

(01:44:08):
beep beep sound if I have a drop of the stuff. Also,
alerts the authorities, who in turn alert my parole officer.
So there'll be none of that in the studio today,
I promise you.

Speaker 9 (01:44:19):
Let's get go. Oh you're queueing it up already. Okay.
I thought we'd learned a lesson this year, but I
guess not. Here we go.

Speaker 13 (01:44:28):
I love those beagy big big white tages, those bee
agie bi big wad tails. I love those be achie
b doya eight chats eat eat tales. I love those
be achie b wat.

Speaker 14 (01:44:48):
Tails, big white tails, big white tails, big white tails
are great.

Speaker 10 (01:44:57):
Oh, what fun it is to sit in the freezing
cold tree all day?

Speaker 14 (01:45:02):
Big white tails, big white tails, big white tails are great.

Speaker 10 (01:45:07):
Hold, what fun it is to sit in the freezing
cold tree all day? Dashing through the woods for the
morning light, turns grave across the fields and draws, creep
in all the way, climb into the tree. Big bucks
are on the wave? What fun it is to sit

(01:45:31):
and wait for my gosh.

Speaker 9 (01:45:33):
Dan deer all day?

Speaker 4 (01:45:34):
Oh?

Speaker 9 (01:45:35):
Big, I'm sorry? What is this? Pisocado strings? Who do
you think? I am ya? Get this out here. I
don't want to hear it. Thank you, Big.

Speaker 10 (01:45:46):
White tails, big white tails, big white tails are great,
hold fun it is to sit in the freezing cold
tree all day. I hope sand dreams are high.

Speaker 9 (01:46:00):
He's finally here.

Speaker 10 (01:46:02):
Mark said, it's the most wonderful time to kill o
whitetail deer bingch points and pettings. Where you'll find me
hanging twenty feet in a tree, grunt tubes, my bowel
inspector camos really campy be.

Speaker 9 (01:46:19):
He or two ago.

Speaker 10 (01:46:21):
I thought that this was fun, But now I'm frozen
to my seat, and the good times they are gone.

Speaker 9 (01:46:29):
I've ate up all my.

Speaker 10 (01:46:31):
Snacks, my hands and toes unnumb and we're gonna climb
down from my stand. That son of a but decided
to come.

Speaker 13 (01:46:40):
I love those beeg beeg white takes, those big bee
big white takes.

Speaker 10 (01:46:50):
I love those be ig big dug Yeah, eight shot
ge eat tails. I love those big white tails all
dam I don't know why this is happening, I swear
to God, Oh, officer, what seems to be the problem here?

Speaker 9 (01:47:12):
Oh?

Speaker 12 (01:47:12):
This?

Speaker 10 (01:47:12):
I don't know why this is happening. It must be
a malfunction, you know. Sometimes it happens when the batteries
running low. You don't know, you don't need to smell
that that's just kombucha. I okay, yes, you've got me.
It's ever clear and Pacific cooler. Caprice Son. I am
so so sorry. I don't know why my life has
brought me here. Mark Marcus, I'm so sorry. Enjoy the

(01:47:34):
rut or whatever.

Speaker 9 (01:47:36):
Good luck boys, Good to see you. Hayden. It's been
a while. Hey, sorry, I'm late.

Speaker 10 (01:47:43):
I crashed my pontiacastec into a light pull and had
to walk through rest of the way.

Speaker 9 (01:47:46):
But I'm here now. That's what matters.

Speaker 10 (01:47:48):
Give me a glass of scotch, please, Hayden, just two
rocks in there.

Speaker 9 (01:47:50):
I don't like ice.

Speaker 10 (01:47:52):
We're starting already, this is happening. Okay, just give me
the give me the glass, thank you. Okay, here we go.
It's the most wonderful time to kill deer. With the
run now, just starting and dashing and totting and veins
cutting clean. It's the most wonderful time to kill deer.

(01:48:16):
There's far too much isonus glass. It's the half happy
seeds of all. There's gotta be at least twelve cues
with grunting and bleeding and cold fronts and sleeping.

Speaker 9 (01:48:29):
The last weeks of fun.

Speaker 10 (01:48:33):
It's the half happy seedssin of ame. There'll be pictures
for posting and bragging and boasting and truck beds with
big Bucks in toe.

Speaker 9 (01:48:47):
There'll be narrow miss.

Speaker 10 (01:48:48):
Stories and tales of your glories of booner bucks missed
with our bulls. It's the most wonderful time to kill dear,
not just one baby two. There'll be no dose of
blowing and looming knocks glowing and blood trails so clean.

(01:49:10):
It's the most wonderful time to kill deer.

Speaker 9 (01:49:17):
Excuse me? Can I have a napkin? Please? I just
spilled some scotch on my loafers. I can't have dirty
loafers in the studio.

Speaker 10 (01:49:24):
Thank you tailgate beers for drinking, and Big Bucks is
slinking and chasing and s jacking does They'll be fighting
and scraping and no more escaping and arrowshot true hitting.
Oh key change. But no one told me that it's

(01:49:44):
the most wonderful.

Speaker 9 (01:49:46):
Time to kill deer. I was very unprepared for this.

Speaker 10 (01:49:51):
There will be much morning sitting in cold fronts of
hitting the down Kristen clean. It's the most swonderful time, Oh,
the most swonderful time, Yes, the most swonderful time to kilty.

Speaker 9 (01:50:19):
There's too much ice in the glass. Two rocks,

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Host

Mark Kenyon

Popular Podcasts

40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season

Dateline NBC

The Bobby Bones Show

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 843: Peak Rut Recipe for Success with John Eberhart and Greg Godfrey