Ep. 969: How the Experts Kill Mature Bucks in November

00:00:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to the White Tail 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.

00:00:19
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast.

00:00:21
Speaker 3: This week on the show, we’re conducting a comprehensive review of the tactics for hunting mature bucks during the month of November and the many different ways experts have shared how to do that over the course of Wired to Hunt’s seventeen year history.

00:00:38
Speaker 4: A really all right.

00:00:40
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light, and today we are looking forward into the month of November and we’re going to do something very similar to what I did almost exactly one month ago when I conducted my first major review of a month. I talked about this being like a meta analysis or a literature review, as some kind of call it in other worlds. But basically the idea here is to review the many different approaches or the many different examples or ideas around one particular topic and really try to give a thorough kind of kind of many different perspective provided type analysis of the topic at hand, and the topic at hand today is the month of November. How to hunt white tails in November, specifically, how to hunt mature bucks. It’s the rut. You know, when people think November, they think the rut. This is the most exciting time of year. This is what we’ve all been looking forward to all you know, the previous ten to eleven months up to this point.

00:01:43
Speaker 2: It has been for this moment. It’s here. So what I want to.

00:01:46
Speaker 3: Do is review this wide swath of different ideas, the core pillars of rut hunting, and then some specific ideas from different individuals from different angles of how to approach this kind of thing. So I’m going to share with you kind of my synthesis of this, so like my summary of the major things that you need to know about hunting during this month, and then I’m going to read some excerpts from different books from expert whitetail hunters. And then I’m also going to play for you excerpts from some of our older podcasts. So those things that you know we’re aired on here years and years and years ago, that probably a lot of you missed, we are going to cut up and feature a few short excerpts. So you’re going to get examples from people like Andy May. Five minutes from Andy May, five minutes from Aaron Warburton, a couple of minutes from Will Primost. We’ve got excerpts and perspectives here from Jared Mills and John Dudley and many other experienced, well rounded successful deer hunters. They’re going to be able to provide you, hopefully by the end of this episode, a very very far reaching, well rounded set of ideas for how to have success over the next few weeks. So, without any further ado, we should just get right into it. Let’s start talking about the month of November, and when you think about the month of November, you are thinking about the rut. Last week on the podcast, if you didn’t listen to this one, go back and listen to last week’s episode, because we clearly define some very important parameters around the timing of the rut. There’s a lot of theories around, you know, can the moon impact the timing of the rut?

00:03:21
Speaker 2: Or you know, if your.

00:03:22
Speaker 3: Cousin doesn’t like you know, such and such class and the sun shines you know, for two minutes longer on a given day, and you happen to roll Triple Seven’s will that impact the timing of the rut? Or a world coal front impact the timing of the rut? YadA, YadA, YadA.

00:03:36
Speaker 2: None of it.

00:03:38
Speaker 3: The science has shown impacts the timing of breeding for whitetail deer across the vast majority of the nation. So right out the gate, we need to make sure that everybody’s clear on that. For much of the country, the white tail rut is defined by when does you know breed? When conception dates are, And there’s a whole slew of different studies that can actually back that can actually measure a fetus, so measure a baby deer and be able to backdate to determine exactly when that deer was conceived, and so they can then map exactly when all those conception dates were, and year after year, if you look at any given region, the basic spread of those conception dates is always the same. For my part of the country here around Michigan, it’s almost always the peak of that breeding is right around the middle of November, and then it looks like a belk or if you were to chart all this on a graph, you would see that breeding begins sometime in October. Most of the time it rises up and then really escalates into November. The peak of that breeding typically happens November thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, somewhere around there, and then it slowly tails off on the other end. So any theory that tries to tell you that breeding dates will change, you know, from year to year, is not backed up by science. So that’s the first thing we need to think about now. All that said, the activity that we see as hunters that can be different, that can be influenced by many different factors. It seems like the actual running activity, the peak of running activity, the things that we dream about, the chasing, the seeking, the fighting, all that kind of stuff, you know that’s on this huge scale. You know, that kind of thing could happen in October. That thing could happen in late October, late November, anywhere in between, but the month of November typically is that time of year we’re expecting it to happen. I want to read for you a little bit about some confusion about this. There’s a lot of labels around different stages of the RUP, about definitions of how the rut is supposed to progress and what you should expect in each different phase as you go through November. And I thought there was a really great excerpt here from this book White Tails from Ground to Gun by Kneel and Craig Doherty that I think explains this and sets the stage very well for how we should think about the month and in the whitetail rut. And then I’m going to read to you a little bit more about how they define the difference between the hunter’s rut and the biological rut, and that difference is very important as we go forward here, all right, So, numerous outdoor writers and white tail deer authorities have advanced the notion of stages of the rut. According to the models, the rut progresses through a series of three to five or six phases or stages, which unfold in a more or less orderly fashion over a two month period of time. These models tend to label the stages with one word descriptors of behavior, which are easily grasped by the hunting public. The models have been widely accepted by the outdoor community as they provide a useful construct for understanding rut related behavior. Depending on who you read, all kinds of labels are attached to the phages the phases such as trolling, scraping, chasing, courting, pre rut, pre be reading, breeding, sparring, peak, etc.

00:06:58
Speaker 5: Etc.

00:07:00
Speaker 3: Fortunately, most models have become oversimplified with time and are often misunderstood by the hunting public. Most hunters believe the rut progresses through a series of preordained, well ordered, and discrete behavioral stages. As one stage ends, the next one begins. They tend to interpret the models literally and wind up believing buck behavior progresses in a lockstep manner through the various stages of the rut. To hear some hunters talk, every buck is chasing during the chase phase, and every buck is trolling during the trolling phase. Every buck is right there breeding when the breeding phase arrives. Even though most rut models discuss how the phases overlap and how individual deer exhibit unique characteristics, many hunters still view the rut as a series of stages which are being played out among all white tails in a given location at the same time. Nothing could be farther from the truth. So key takeaway there is that while many people, communications, writers, podcasters, video TV hosts have tried to break down the rut into easily understood. You know, sections or periods or phases. Nothing is simple on the rut, and there’s going to be stuff happening at you know, all sorts of different times. You’re gonna see chasing in early November, and then you might see it again in late November, and then you might see in the middle of November, where you might see none of it at all. Breeding, like I just told you, typically for most parts of the country peaks in the middle of November, but it doesn’t always happen then. Like, there’s also going to be breeding happening in late October and ever once in a while, right, there’s a low part of that bell curve, maybe even early October or late November or early December. So don’t get too hung up on how things are supposed to be or you know, like they said that, you know, seeking has to happen in early November. This this thing is fluid. You need to be able to adapt and adjust based on that. Excuse me, now, the next thing that’s very important is to remember this difference between the peak of the rut. You’ll hear that phrase used a lot and what that actually means and kneel and Craig break it down, is to the hunter’s rut, which is the peak of rutting activity. That’s what a lot of hunters think about when we think about the peak of the rut. And then there’s the peak of the rut from a biological standpoint, which is when actually the most doze are being bred. And that’s a whole other thing entirely, and you’re going to have different behaviors and different sets of hunting ideas even for both of those. So I want to read you what they say about that as well. So the hunter’s rut rut behavior at this time is at a fever pitch just prior to the breeding as buck testosterone peaks and most doughs are still unreceptive. Bucks cover greater distances and recklessly chased dos. Dos avoid food plots and social gathering areas. Family units break up due to buck harassment of dos. Receptive or near receptive dos attracts multiple bucks and bucks battle for breeding privileges. This is what is happening leading up to the actual peak of breeding. So for me and Michigan and most folks across the Midwest and the East, and honestly almost all of the country, with a few exceptions that being in the South. The South has this unique set of different breeding dates and they’re very localized in certain areas. So unfortunately, I can’t speak to you with those exact dates in mind. Like I know, in like the Mississippi delta, that’s going to be, you know, past Thanksgiving in early December when this might be. But for most of us, the very end of October and then the first two weeks of November is when we are typically going to be experiencing what the dorties here are describing as the hunter’s rut. This is the ramp up to peak breeding. But this is peak activity, all right. So here are some markers what to look for to help you identify that this is actually happening at this moment in your area. Mature bucks are necked out or muscled up and no longer nocturnal doughs, pull away from food plots, bonds, feeding without does or single doughs, nervous or scarce, and often seen in strange areas. You’ll be seeing bucks pursuing doughs, buck sightings outnumbering doughs on deer cameras, and in real life, abnormally high level of buck activity and a dramatic increase in deer auto collisions and tarsal glands stained almost black, as well as lower rear legs. So all of those things might be signs that this is happening in your neck of the wods. At this moment, it’s for hunting strategy. The hunter’s rut is on, but will only last a couple of days. This is prime hunting time, as is generally the time buck activity peaks and one of the few times when a mature whitetail might actually be vulnerable. It’s time to get in the woods and stay there. Anything can happen, and often does. Hunt travel areas like ridges, saddles, tween ridges, and natural neck downs. Food sources are generally less productive as doughs have been driven from them. Temperatures fifteen degrees or more above average can suppress dailight activity and hunting success.

00:11:56
Speaker 4: Now they add that.

00:11:57
Speaker 2: As a little qualifier.

00:11:58
Speaker 3: So that’s some high level thoughts on the hunter’s rut that first portion of November, and I’m kind of previewing a lot of what we’re going to discuss here in a little bit that next period. The biological rut, the true rut. The true peak of breeding, as I mentioned, is typically more the middle of the month, but there’s a sliding scale there, and here’s what the Doerties have to say about that. The most noteworthy thing about the biological rut is the marked decline in deer activity. This is principally caused by a sudden increase in estraus does, who are now receptive and no longer avoiding bucks. An abundance of receptive dos means fewer bucks searching and moving about looking for dos. Bucks locked down with dos in heavy cover or out of the way places for two to three days before relocating does move very little Biologically. This is the peak of the breeding rut, or the time when most does conceive. This period generally lasts approximately three weeks. Markers of this would be a marked decrease in deer sightings, fewer deer on food sources other than fawns, dominant bucks, tending dos with satellite bucks sometimes present does being receptive, and buck behavior can vary between really all the other breeding type behaviors chasing, traveling, relocating, betting, fighting, breeding, etc. As for hunt strategy, the Doughties say that this is the period of the rut, when many hunters erroneously.

00:13:19
Speaker 2: Call the rut over and pull out of the woods.

00:13:22
Speaker 3: Accustomed to seeing great buck action during the hunter’s peak, they get discouraged with the downtterm and occasional absence of activity. Successful hunters know that breeding lasts a good two to three weeks, and they put in their time during the biological rut. Hunting near or in heavy cover where bucks and doughs are locked down often pays dividends during this time period. Neck downs and other funneling travel routes can also be good or get food sources. They are mainly mainly occupied by fawns and doughs that have already been bred.

00:13:52
Speaker 2: But whatever you.

00:13:53
Speaker 3: Do, put in the time, and eventually that buck will show up. All right, So there is a high level overview of really what the month of November entails.

00:14:06
Speaker 2: It’s those two things.

00:14:07
Speaker 3: There’s the hunter’s rut and the biological rut. If we had to oversimplify, rather than doing what you know they mentioned at the beginning, which is, try to break this thing down to the trolling and the chasing and the seeking and the breeding and the YadA YadA YadA. Let’s just consider these two kind of overlapping sets of behaviors. And with that mind, we’re going to walk through a bunch of different ideas about how to hunt during those periods of time. All right, So the hunter’s rut, this is that time, as I mentioned, where testosterone levels are basically at the peak for Bucks.

00:14:43
Speaker 2: Bucks are ready to.

00:14:44
Speaker 3: Breed, and now dos are starting to come into heat. So you’re gonna start seeing an increasing number of dos coming into heat every day, more and more and more and more as those first two weeks of November progress, So you’re going to get you know, more and more Buck activity. As those first does start to pop, Bucks start getting very excited, they start chasing them all around, and you have a several different sets of behaviors happening, but everything is revolving around the dose because at this point, you know, we talked in October, how dear are slaves to their stomachs, how a Bucks world revolves around going from bed to feed, bed to feed. That is no longer the case. You know, when November hits for almost all Bucks, bed defeed is almost not even on their mind at all. It is now does does does all day every day. That’s what they’re thinking. About and so as a hunter you have to be thinking about that as well. So very simply what a buck’s life typically looks like at this time of year.

00:15:39
Speaker 2: We’ll start, you know, in the middle of the night.

00:15:41
Speaker 3: In the middle of the night, he’s out searching for does dose are on their feet, off feeding somewhere likely, so the bucks are going to be.

00:15:47
Speaker 2: Where those doughs are. As those doughs.

00:15:49
Speaker 3: Come back to bed in the morning, the bucks are following them. The bucks are then doing one of two things. They are either actually on a dough that’s ready to breed or chasing her, or if they don’t already have a dough found, they’re going to be searching for a dough to breed, trying to find a dough that is coming into heat. So they’re going to do that by hitting dough betting areas. They’re going to do this by crossing trails, scent checking betting areas, you know, doing anything they can do to cover ground find a dough that is ready to breed. Very simply, that’s what happens from now through the end of November, with slight tweaks here and there, based on whether or not you know there is a dough in heat or there’s not, or there’s a ton of dos in heat and everything is ready to breed, right, that can change things. But at a high level, that’s what the hunter’s you know, rut looks like, is when there’s a bunch of does that are getting to heat, but not so many that all the bucks are locked down with them. All that said, there are two three maybe pillars of hunting the rut that I think come up over and over and over and over again. I’ve heard these same basic things from you know, everyone, from like a Bill Winkie on the kind of your more conservative approach to to deer hunting on private lands, to you know, someone like Andre Toquisto who’s maybe more aggressive on public lands too. Then you know someone like you know, Aaron Warburton, who’s going to be aggressive but on public land in general. They’re thinking about things from a high level in the same kind of way, looking for the does, looking for where these bucks are finding does, and then considering two general approaches to how to do that. One would be keying in on dough betting areas or other hot spots of dough activity. So those are like the destinations the bucks are looking for or number two travel corridors, funnels, pinch points, any area that concentrates deer movement in a small zone, a small corridor that connects those destinations that bucks are trying to get to. Because again, like imagine, oh jeez, I just just imagined like a bunch of basketballs thrown out across the floor of a basketball court, and each one of those basketballs is a dough betting of interest, and then there’s going to be a point that gets you from point A to point B, to basketball A to basketball B, and basketball B to basketball seat. Never one of those lines that connects one of these different balls to the next ball is a possible deer path. But then along the way, there’s also going to be if you can imagine my basketball court and analogy is falling apart. Now, there’s going to be certain places where more of those lines connect. And maybe that’s because there’s a river that pushes all of these lines together, these lines of movement, or maybe that’s because there’s differences in cover where all of a sudden, there’s fields and a bunch of places that are blocking the easiest, the shortest distance between one point to the other, and so to stay in the safety of cover, deer have to kind of swing down through that funnel or pinch point that is all over the map. You’re going to have these different paths that are forced into concentrations of paths because of what is available from cover, from terrain, whatever it might be. And so those two sets of ideas are where most deer hunters fall when it comes to hunting during the run, finding the dough hotspots, finding the dough betting areas and hunting those, or finding the funnels and pinch points those travel corridors and hunting those. Finally, the third thing that’s layered over top of all of that is time spending time in the woods. This is not necessarily the time to pattern deer. This is not necessarily the time to, you know, take everything you’ve learned during the month of October about you know where this bucks preferred bedding area is and how he likes to get from there to his preferred oak feed tree.

00:19:47
Speaker 2: This is the time.

00:19:48
Speaker 3: Of year when a lot of that starts to fall apart, and instead it’s simply bucks are covering a lot of ground trying to find a dough doing those two things I said, and you, as a hunter simply need to be in one of those two spots, spending it a lot of time until finally that bucks pot path crosses with yours. So that is an oversimplified quick rundown of the basis of rut hunting success.

00:20:11
Speaker 2: Right.

00:20:11
Speaker 3: What I want to do for you is read to you a couple different takes on that gets you a couple different perspectives with specifics on those sets of ideas. So first let’s talk about hunting dough betting areas hunting dough hotspots, and the first take I want to share with you is that from Steve Bartilla.

00:20:30
Speaker 2: He’s outdoor writer, longtime podcast.

00:20:32
Speaker 3: Guest over the years, and a very successful deer hunter from He’s spent a lot of time in Wisconsin and Illinois and some of that Upper Midwest. So here’s one of his takes on hunting dough betting areas. My philosophy on hunting the chase phase, so this is like the hunter’s run. My philosophy on hunting the chase phase consists of finding the thickest betting cover in the area and pulling all day sits. And I firmly believe that the chase phase the week or two before serious breeding activity occurs is the most productive time of all to sit the entire day. During the run, a buck searches for a receptive dough until he finds one. When that happens, he holds her up for around forty eight hours before moving on to find the next. In areas with good nutrition, so many doughs come into heat at once during the peak breeding phase that finding one isn’t nearly as hard for the buck as it was during.

00:21:22
Speaker 2: The chase phase. Because there were so few doughs in heat early, the buck had to work much harder to find one.

00:21:28
Speaker 3: Then, in turn, that resulted in far fewer bucks spending the mid eight hours betted with their prize. Combine that with the mature buck’s desperation to score early, and you have the best daylight buck movement of the entire hunting season. Furthermore, I believe the most productive locations for intercepting that buck are the thickest, nastiest bedding areas used by family groups of does and fawns up to this point in the season. Mature bucks tend not to overly harass does that aren’t ready for breeding, although young bucks might chase does at random. The big boys ten to give them a quick sniff and then leave them alone. That changes dramatically during the chase phase, because so many doughs are on the cusp of being ready just when bucks tremendous desire to breed and testosterone levels are peaking, Even mature bucks get whipped up into a frenzy. The result is a mad chasing of almost every female deer. While this is going on with the bucks, the majority of the doughs still aren’t quite ready. In a handful of days, many will gladly accept the advances of bucks, but not yet. In an attempt to avoid their suitors, the does typically head for the thickest bedding cover they can and lie low. When the bucks come crashing in, the does lead them in zigzag circles, doing their best to lose them. If and when a dough is finally driven out, the bucks often make a mad dash to the next thicket and repeat the process. On the other hand, the bucks are chasing them until they’re finally are thrown off the trail or come to the realization that it isn’t happening yet. When that occurs, they simply pack up shop and move to the next bedding area, hoping for better luck.

00:23:10
Speaker 2: So what Steve was describing.

00:23:12
Speaker 3: There is is really what you could expect in those early stages of the hunter’s rut, as he’s described at the chase phase earlier in November. But as you edge towards mid November, we are edging towards breeding, where there’s peak breeding, and once breeding is actually occurring, his thoughts change a little bit. So Steve goes on to say, as opposed to the fashion which many mature bucks plunge headfirst into sanctuaries during the chase phase during breeding, most now skirt the downwind edges. For all that’s written about rut crazed bucks, I believe they now employ a more sensible, safety oriented approach than is the case during the chase phase. The way I see it, the chase phase’s relative lack of hot dose, combined with an instinctive knowledge of the approaching feast, creates an almost uncontrollable frenzy in a buck’s brain. However, much like the seasoned veteran pitcher during the World Series, the mature buck knows when it’s crunch time during the rut, an older buck understands that skirting the downwind side of a family group betting area allows him to scent check every occupant in almost no time, allowing him to continue on if none is ready to breed. Therefore, it only stands to reason that betting areas inhabited by family groups of does and fawns are good locations in which to ambush mature rutting bucks. When selecting these stand sites for the rut, I focus on covering the most heavily used trails on the downwind side of the family group betting area to narrow it down even farther. The best placement is typically about twenty yards from the edge. Doing this allows for catching bucks scent checking from as much as fifty yards downwind of the dos, along with the possibility of a buck using the cover trail alone or having a dough lead him to it. This same systematic approach to finding receptive does applies to cruising food, soorce by doing nothing more than circling the food source, a buck can sent check every dough that is visited as much as forty eight hours prior. When the buck stumbles across the track of a dough that’s ready, all he must do is follow her scent. This is perhaps the most effective way for a buck to check the largest number of doughs in the least amount of time. Keep in mind that although running bucks sometimes seem to have lost all regard for personal safety, that isn’t entirely true. To help conceal themselves, they rarely make this loop through the open crop field. Instead, they must often skirt it five to forty yards inside the woods. Staying close retains the concentration of dough activity that the source provides and allows them to visually check for both does and danger while remaining hidden. To fully capitalize on this, stands should be placed fifteen to twenty yards inside the woods.

00:25:51
Speaker 2: Not only does this.

00:25:51
Speaker 3: Provide shot opportunities of bucks that are skirting the food source, it also affords a view of the field as muck. As much as most bucks cherish safety, weird things do happen during the rut. If a monarch saunters across the middle of the field, this stand placement will allow the hunter to see him. If the hunter’s using a firearm, the deer might already be within range. If the hunter’s using a bow, he might be able to give a sexy enough dough call to lure the buck close taking stand placement a bit further, it’s a good idea to also cover a heavily used family group trail. As with the betting air setup, this allows for intercepting bucks that are using the trail alone as well as those that might be following a dough to the food. Luckily, for us, the best trails often are on inside corners of a field, providing the further benefit of funneling traveling bucks that aren’t checking the field. Bucks wanting to get from one side of the field to the other without going through the open food source will cut the corners. When all of these factors are combined, this setup takes a lot of the blind luck out of harvesting a running buck. There’s a lot there when it comes to Steve’s approach to hunting running bucks in and around betting years or other dough hot spots like feeding ears as he discussed just there now. I also want to share with you another take on this from Andy May. Andy is one of the best DIY deer hunters I know, a good friend and someone who’s joined me in the podcast many times over the years as well. We did one a couple of years ago where he answered fourteen different different listener questions about the rut, and one of those we tackled, you know, how he would specifically set up on or around a doe betting ear.

00:27:32
Speaker 2: So let’s listen to that here.

00:27:33
Speaker 6: Now. Yeah, that’s a that’s a tough one because it you know, it could vary, you know, location, a location.

00:27:43
Speaker 4: You know, I.

00:27:44
Speaker 6: Picture like like a creek bottom that has you know, redbrush and kind of marsh marshy habitat like on each side of the creek, and you know, essentially the whole creek serves as you know, like really good dough betting, you know, on all the creek bends and and all the little thickets and stuff. And I will I’ll get on the interior of that, I’ll find obviously, I’ll find a good treat. And I try to get where I can kind of shoot into where I think a lot of the travel is.

00:28:16
Speaker 4: Going to be.

00:28:17
Speaker 6: But I don’t want I don’t want my wind necessarily blowing out a lot of travel opportunities behind me. It’s not like dough betting isn’t always like a like a hard edge, you know what I mean. It’s a lot of times you just know you’re you’re kind of working in there, and things get a little thicker, and there might be a pocket of doze here, and then some more you know, one hundred yards back or so. It’s not as always like as a well defined abrupt edge as it might sound like when we say that. So a lot of it is a feel thing, but I try to I try to get where I can cover.

00:28:58
Speaker 4: Travel, and a.

00:28:59
Speaker 6: Lot of times, a lot of times there will be you know, some sort of sign or some sort of you.

00:29:04
Speaker 4: Know, perpendicular trail.

00:29:06
Speaker 6: It may not be beat to the ground, it may not be it may be be able to pick up on it, and sometimes you can’t because it’s just used a few times a year, you know, during that short window. But I don’t like to give up too much travel behind me, if that makes sense. So I will get into usually where it starts to kind of thicken up, you know. I feel like I’m getting into that interior, and if I start getting into any further, I’m gonna start bumping deer around.

00:29:33
Speaker 4: That usually tells me to hold up.

00:29:35
Speaker 6: And kind of get get right on there, right on that edge. Sometimes it’s a feel thing, sometimes it’s a visual thing, but that that kind of I let my instincts gauge a little bit there if there’s not like a clear indication of sign that tells me, you know, this is probably where I need to be.

00:29:54
Speaker 4: But one thing I’ll mention real quick.

00:29:57
Speaker 6: The downwind side of doll betting is an area that Bucks will gravitate to during the run, no doubt about it. But I’ve seen more and more over the years that the side where does tend to travel from food to bed there’s you know a lot of times if there’s a distinct you know, food source and the general travels from here to through the bedding, that spot, that edge there where they travel in and out where a lot of those trails might be coming in from, you know, various spots, various uh directions. That spot gets a lot more, It gets a lot of activity from Bucks, maybe even more so than.

00:30:42
Speaker 4: The down wind side.

00:30:44
Speaker 6: They can they can take a one trail perpendicular and they can cover you know, two, three, six, twelve different entrance trails and know exactly what’s in that do betting, and they can do the same thing traveling from down wind. But I’ve seen it more and more over the years. I’m almost change my opinion a little bit that that might even be the better spot, the spot where they can go perpendicular and cover a lot of trails. So if you have a good betting area and a good food source over here, and in that betting area, maybe it’s one hundred yard two hundred yard stretch and there are multiple trails kind of going in.

00:31:21
Speaker 4: You see. You know, this one’s well beat down.

00:31:23
Speaker 6: This one’s a little more faint, another beatdown one there another one in the corner that inside that timber, you know, or inside that cover there there there’s going to be a some sort of route perpendicular trail. You may it may be visible, it may not be, But that spot right there is a great spot to be.

00:31:42
Speaker 4: That.

00:31:42
Speaker 6: I’ve seen that over and over the last few years. I’ve really started to key in more on that than necessarily the down one side.

00:31:49
Speaker 4: All right.

00:31:50
Speaker 3: So those are a couple different takes on the betting side of this equation. Now there’s of course the connections. So how do you get between point A and point B. How do they get from dough hot spot to dough hot spot. That’s where we get into funnels. I want to read to you two different takes on funnels. There’s many different forms funnels can can come in. You can have a cover funnel where you know security cover, so trees, vegetation, grass, that kind of stuff is pinched down between two open areas. Anytime you find that deer are going to want to stay in that security cover. That can be a great place to hunt during the rut. And there’s also terrain funnels. You know, anywhere where topography you know high points and low points and changes in that forces deer through an area or makes it more convenient for deer to travel through an area. So those can be saddles in a ridge that can be you know, a hub where a bunch of different points all come together. Anything that’s going to have a higher concentration of deer activity because of that. Terrain is the kind of pinch point funnel or aggregator of deer travel that can be worth hitting during the rut. So well back to Steve Bartilla here, he’s got a quick take that I want to share with you on hunting funnels. Assuming bucks aren’t already with does it’s no great secret that the majority of bucks greatly expand their home range and travel more in daylight during the rut as much as they focus their efforts on locating receptive doughs. Putting on miles is usually still a pre wreck. Their travels take them from one dough group to the next, pushing on until they run out of gas or find what they seek. Obviously, hunting funnels can be highly productive during this phase of the season. By nature, funnels are nothing more than habitat man made.

00:33:35
Speaker 2: Or topographical features.

00:33:36
Speaker 3: The focused deer activity through a relatively narrow passageway, a finger of wood that connects two woodlots, a brush choked stream meandering through an open pasture, a brushy fence rope separating two fields, an inside corner of a field are all examples of habitat funnels. A man made funnel might be where a road pinches the woods closer to a lake, a low spot in an otherwise well maintained fence, or mature slice of woods left between two clear cuts. Some common examples of topographic funnels are a low spot in a ridge, a flat section that runs along the midpoint of a steep side hill on a bench or ridge, the upper and lower ends of steep cuts that slice up the side of a ridge, a strip of dry land separating two wetlands, or a relatively flat spot in an otherwise steep riverbank.

00:34:24
Speaker 2: The lay of the.

00:34:25
Speaker 3: Land makes each of these funnels the path of least resistance for traveling deer. In most cases, these funnels can be avoided if a deer wishes to do so. However, the cost is that the deer must expend more energy and or expose itself to greater danger to avoid the area. Because bucks have no desire to waste energy or expose themselves to unneeded dangers, the funnels are their best option. Superior rut funnels are those that separate areas used by two or more clans of does and fawns. So put in another way, if you can find a funnel between.

00:35:00
Speaker 2: Dough hotspots, that’s the best of the best.

00:35:02
Speaker 3: You find two great dough betting areas, or multiple different dough betting airs that are all connected by one travel quarter, that’s going to be the best possible funnel. I’ll also say if you can combine these two things, So if you can have a spot where you can be hunting and you are downwind of a dough betting era while also being at a funneling location, that is even better. That’s the sweet spot that we’re always looking to find if you can layer over top all these things and then add on top of that situation where your wind is not going to be picked up by deer, that’s ideal. I mean a scenario this might be. Let’s imagine you’ve got a great, big block of dough betting here, and then you’ve got a little corridor. This is a very simple example, but imagine then there’s like a thin strip of timber that is running alongside of a lake. And so north of that thin strip of timber and lake is a big old open field. On the other side of that lake is another block of thick, nasty, brushy marshland. Let’s say if you could hunt that strip of timber that runs along the edge of the lake, you’ve got the one area of cover that deer can travel to get from this marsh to this other piece of dough betting. So you have a dough betting era. If you put your stand right there at the bottom of that right where that funnel where that strip comes in, you now have a funnel that’s leading into a dough betting air. And then oh, by the way, you have a lake behind you, or a pond behind you, or whatever that you can blow your wind into. That is like the mecca. That’s what we’re all dreaming of finding somehow, someway. Here’s one more perspective on funnels I want to read to you, and excerpt from John Eberhart in his book Precision Bow Hunting and his take on hunting funnels. Funnels between betting areas thick cover that allows bucks security of movement during daylight are super spots to hunt during the pre rut and rut, but sure bucks almost always take the route with the most cover in the daytime. These travel routes are used extensively in a bucks scent checking routine, often during the middle of the day. Your setup should be in a position in the funnel from which you can shoot the funnel’s entire width. This is not possible. Choose a spot that provides the most shot opportunities to the best sign. Bucks passing through such funnels have a destination in mind and are usually moving quite expediently. If the funnel is too wide to cover, tighten it by stacking brush, which deer will rarely walk through. When your primary scrape and rut staging areas begin to heat up, it’s time to include funnels between betting areas in your hunting rotation. These funnels are also great all day spots, which brings us to the third of the major considerations when hunting during the rut, which is putting in time. Time on stand is simply the most important thing, maybe of all, for this time of season, and there are many different perspectives on why and how and when to do that, but at the highest of levels, the more time available at this time of year, the more time you have a chance of taking advantage of the somewhat more random, somewhat more unpredictable nature of this increased buck movement. During the month of November, Eberhart goes on to tell us a little bit more about his take on all day sits and spending time, especially in that late morning to mid day time period. And I think he’s got a good suggestion here about what to do even if you don’t have time to do an entire day or the interest in doing an entire day.

00:38:32
Speaker 2: So here’s what he has to say.

00:38:33
Speaker 3: There, stick to your best spots if the activity warrants it, and spend as much time on stand as you can. All day hunting is advised whenever possible during the rut phases. The more time you spend in the woods, the better your chances will be, as long as you avoid spooking the deer and practice diligence sund control during the rut. A mature bucks natural routine, when not with an estrastough, likely has him scent checking during midday between ten am and two If you cannot hunt all day. A possibility during the rut is what we call second shift hunting. Heading to your stand at about nine am. Hunting this timeframe allows you to get extra sleep and still puts you in position to take advantage of that midday mature buck activity. Remain on stand until dark whenever possible, so I think that’s an interesting thing to consider. There you’d miss the first hour or two of daylight, but maybe there’s places where that’s for the best. You’re not spooking deer out of open fields when you go in, but then you hunt that late morning right on through to the end of the day. Another person who we’ve already heard from once but who has oftentimes talked about the importance of getting your tree or getting your butt in the tree and spending a lot of time is Andy May and Andy, as we alluded to earlier, he’s a DIY guy. He’s not somebody who does this for his living. He has limited time to actually hunt, so in the days he can hunt, he really wants to maximize that time, especially during the rut. So I asked Andy about, you know, his take on hunting all day, and then also if and how you should relocate your positions during the rut throughout the day, So like, should you hunt one kind of spot in the morning and then change for the afternoon, or what kinds of spots are best to hunt all day during the rut. All of that is covered in this excerpt with Andy. Next, I think it depends on the location. If you’re sitting, you know, if you’re if you’re kind of targeting, say like.

00:40:33
Speaker 6: A betting area, I think that it can be good.

00:40:36
Speaker 4: Most of the day. Say you’re say you’re.

00:40:39
Speaker 6: Trying to get in tight to a dull betting area. You’re getting into that interior a little bit with the wind advantage, and you’re like, you know, this is a really sensitive spot. I’m going to get in real early before light, you know, an hour and a half before light. I’m gonna get settled and let all these deer filter back in, and it’s very common behavior for mature box to let the does filter back into their bedding area and then they’ll they’ll kind of stay low key, stay bedded, and then they’ll get up late morning, mid to late morning, and then they’ll make the rounds and they’ll be cross sectioning those trails going in and out of bedding. They’ll be going working the downwind sides. They’ll be checking like you know, thermal hubs where a lot of a lot of scent pools and comes together. So it’s very common for the bigger, older mature bucks to move later in that morning.

00:41:33
Speaker 4: So a spot like that I think can be good most.

00:41:35
Speaker 2: Of the day.

00:41:38
Speaker 6: Yeah, So when you’re in a spot like that, you know, if first light comes, there’s not a whole lot going on. But what you’re trying to do is catch all those does kind of slowly filtering back into the bedding area and then catch that buck movement, you know, those bucks checking those areas kind of late morning and you’re in there. You know, you’re not trying to sneak in in the afternoon and you’re bumping dose around.

00:41:59
Speaker 4: You’re in there before light, you’re in there before the.

00:42:01
Speaker 6: Deer theoretically should be back in and you can catch some great you know morning, late morning, and midday movement in there where. I think those areas tend to to kind of taper off as in those evening sits, yeah, or are those that evening timeframe.

00:42:19
Speaker 4: I think that dose start to kind.

00:42:20
Speaker 6: Of work their way out the bucks know that the bucks are going to be relating to where they’re traveling and where they’re heading to. So that’s one of those spots where I will probably sit it out unless I have like a quick exit where I can go maybe capitalize a little bit closer to a food source or on a travel you know, between like.

00:42:41
Speaker 4: Bed and food something like that.

00:42:44
Speaker 6: I like, uh, you know, funnels between bedding areas. I really like those spots for all day and again, you know, I think they they tend to they tend to be the best. Like if I had to pick a window, I would say like nine am to like three pm is like when it’s optimal. It doesn’t mean you couldn’t have a buck strolling through, because I mean bucks are on the move. It’s not like they’re all bedded in the morning, but some are some aren’t. You know, some are at the food sources, some are following those back in.

00:43:21
Speaker 4: I mean, there’s there’s.

00:43:22
Speaker 6: Lots of activity going on, but that’s probably your optimal window. But I have had some great sits and some kills first thing in the morning and even last thing at night. I don’t I don’t know. I don’t move stands a whole lot unless I really think that the evening portion is going to be dead.

00:43:46
Speaker 4: If I think the evening portion is going to be.

00:43:48
Speaker 6: Dead, then yes, I will relocate. When you ask about a time to do that, I would say maybe two o’clock because I’ve had so many really good encounters, kills, sightings in that eleven to two time frame. Another thing that you want to keep in mind during the run is most guys don’t have the mental capacity, the strength, and the endurance to sit dark to dark. So ninety five percent of your hunters out there are going to be coming in at nine, ten or eleven.

00:44:28
Speaker 4: It seems like, you know those time strips, guys have it in.

00:44:31
Speaker 6: Their head, I’m gonna sit till nine, I’m gonna sit till ten, I’m gonna sit till eleven, and then all these guys come in. You know, there’s never been more people in the woods other than.

00:44:39
Speaker 4: Opening day a gun. It’s November, it’s the rut.

00:44:41
Speaker 6: Everybody’s leaving their stands and they’re bumping deer around. They get deer up, stirred up. But those are running that gets bucks on their feet. So you can capitalize on just the pressure of people moving around at those those time frames just by planting your butt in the stand. But there’s there’s no way I would leave at like eleven or twelve. I think your chances of seeing deer and bulk activity go down as you get to that eleven twelve one, but your chances of seeing mature bucks actually increase when you hit that kind of like nine thirty ten, eleven twelve, you know, one two. Now, that time, that window right there has been very good to me, and I’ve i comparatively, I haven’t hunted it a whole lot compared to morning and evening.

00:45:43
Speaker 3: Okay, one more set of ideas that I want you to consider as we go into this next phase of the rut. If we’re considering the hunter’s rut and really what can take place over the course of the entire month of November. As we just discussed, there’s this one main way, which is betting areas and funnels. But there is another approach, and that is more of the go and find it approach that is epitomized by the guys with the hunting public. We’ve got a great expert here from Aaron Warburton from a podcast I did with him several years ago about the THHP aggressive take on hunting the rut. Let’s get to their unique view on how to do this. Ways to go and find deer during the rut that are different than the usual.

00:46:32
Speaker 7: I think there’s kind of two different tactics that work extremely well in the rut. One is sitting long hours in a specific spot you know, a funnel or a transition whatever, and basically waiting for a buck to walk by. That is proven over time to be extremely effective. If you have the time and you can spend it as many full days in the woods as possible, you can killed bucks doing that. But what we’ve done more of in the last probably six seven years is we’ve actually started to move to find the action in the rut, literally walking or driving until we either see or spook run into whatever the action. What I mean by the action is a hot dough, a group of bucks in a certain location, because that’s what I believe is going on a lot of the time. Most of the bucks are in one specific location for most of the rut, or well, sorry, I.

00:47:39
Speaker 4: Should back up.

00:47:40
Speaker 7: Most of the bucks on a given day are in a spot on a property wherever that dough is at that is coming into heat, most of the bucks in that area are going to be right there. And obviously we know that all that can get flipped upside down and can change in a matter of seconds if they push you out of there or whatever. But I feel like that’s something that has worked tremendously well for us.

00:48:03
Speaker 4: Is just is being especially on limited time.

00:48:09
Speaker 7: And I should preface by saying that if you don’t have a lot of time in the run, if you don’t have the luxury of sitting in a funnel area all day long, or day after day after day after day, I would recommend trying to literally walk around until you run into the deer, even if that means spooking the deer, because if a doe is in heat and there’s multiple bucks in that area, more times than not we don’t see them react the same way to pressure as we would other times of the year because their main focus is, you know, obviously breeding during that time. And I feel like if you just have a weekend, for example, or maybe you just have a couple days of vacation and you’re not in that action. Maybe you’re sitting in a pile of sign, you’re sitting in an excellent funnel area. But if the hot dough is on the other side of the property, for that two or three days, you’re probably gonna, you know, watch a lot of squirrels and leaves blown. But if you get down and you actually go and find the deer, you can have success a lot faster in the rut.

00:49:11
Speaker 4: Does that make sense, Yeah, it does.

00:49:14
Speaker 2: How do you know when you found it? Though?

00:49:16
Speaker 3: I mean, I I realized there’s a few obvious things, but I gotta believe there’s a little bit of it. Probably has taken some experience to figure out the nu once of oh this is it, I need to stop right now, versus Okay, I just bumped a deer, but.

00:49:30
Speaker 2: You know, maybe I should keep going.

00:49:32
Speaker 3: How do you know when you’re in the spot where Okay, we’re here, it’s time.

00:49:38
Speaker 4: A variety of different things.

00:49:40
Speaker 7: It’s all situational, but I’ll give you a couple of examples.

00:49:46
Speaker 4: One is scrapes. And I know you’ve.

00:49:50
Speaker 7: Heard it over and over again, don’t pay attention to scrapes during the rut. But a lot of times scrapes are positioned in locations where numerous trails intersect, or even on the edges of betting areas, or in transitions in between betting areas.

00:50:04
Speaker 4: So if and I’ll just bring up.

00:50:07
Speaker 7: A specific example, because that’s the best way I can explain this.

00:50:10
Speaker 4: We were headed in on November ninth.

00:50:12
Speaker 7: A couple of years ago, into a big block of woods, and we covered probably three quarters of a mile down this ridge. There’s lots of rubs in there, a decent amount of sign but nothing like super super fresh. We dove off of a point of the ridge, got on a long secondary ridge that fall off into a creek bottom that’s pretty thick, and as we got down there, we started noticing like, here’s a really really fresh scrape that.

00:50:36
Speaker 4: Was just worked.

00:50:37
Speaker 7: And then boom, here’s another really really fresh scrape that was just where I mean I’m talking in the last twenty four hours. So we popped up in a tree, set up over it, and as we were hanging the stand a mature buck pushed a dough by us at ten yards and we weren’t ever able to kill it because we had the camera and the bow at the bottom of the tree and whatever.

00:50:56
Speaker 4: But what ensued after that was.

00:51:00
Speaker 7: I think there was four or five different bucks on that ridge and in that immediate area, all vying for that dough, and a lot of those satellite bucks, you know, the younger bucks that didn’t have the dough. They were rubbing, scraping, sparring, doing all sorts of aggressive behavior in and around where that buck had the dough. And I think that’s where a lot of that is that fresh scraping activity had come from. But that’s the sign that we set up on in that particular instance to get on that that scenario. We’ve also just been gombing through the woods and literally just ran into a dough in a buck and jumped them and literally had the buck that was with the dough at like separate him. The buck that was with the dough come back through there within fifteen minutes looking for her blowing. I mean, he was alert, he knew we were in there, but he lost her when we bumped into him, and he was bound and determined to find her again next day in that same spot, just a little bit deeper. It was just total chaos because you know, we bumped them and she went probably two three hundred yards stopped, settled down and didn’t leave the area completely.

00:52:11
Speaker 4: And that’s not always the case. I mean, it can it can change, like I said, very very quickly.

00:52:18
Speaker 7: But if you’re just moving around with your eyes up and you’re looking for that out in front of you and then reacting to it as you as you run into.

00:52:29
Speaker 4: Deer like that, like heading in.

00:52:30
Speaker 7: Deeper after them, I think you’re going to get onto more action, especially in short timeframe.

00:52:36
Speaker 3: Okay, so hunting funnels, hunting dough betting areas, maybe getting out there and aggressively trying to find where that little pocket of running activity is. Right now, three different considerations, all useful, all something you can put into play during the hunter’s rut during that first part of November, and honestly, and something you want to point out as we go on here, all of this stuff can work all throughout the month of November. There’s just a few maybe specific differences that we will address here in a little bit, but everything we’ve talked about that you know, we’re really focusing it on those first two weeks of the month. Still apply the third week and the fourth week. All that said, the same is true for the next two things I want to mention, which are kind of the audibles you can call this time of year the little flyers. The bonus type of tactics that work better now than any other time, and that’s calling and decoy. This is when bucks are the most call happy, as they’re going to find them.

00:53:38
Speaker 2: They are more willing to come.

00:53:40
Speaker 3: In and check something out, try to find where that running activity is trying to, you know, push off that approaching buck who maybe is getting in on his game whatever it is he’s doing. So in the October episode, I reviewed my kind of ladder of calling throughout the month. I’ll review for you my basic take, which is not too different now, but in November it starts higher on that ladder. So if I see a buck out of range, I’m going to try to get his attention with a louder establishing kind of contact drum, just a good ra and then if that doesn’t get his attention, I’ll try a louder bra and then again if I need to go farther or louder.

00:54:21
Speaker 2: It’s just gonna make a buck roar that it bra same thing goes.

00:54:24
Speaker 3: If I get that buck’s attention, he stops and looks at me and acts curious, maybe takes a step forward, and then you know, maybe starts making the scrape or rubbing a tree. He doesn’t leave, he doesn’t get skittish, but he’s not committed to me yet. That’s when I will start to get more aggressive, so I’ll take the next step up the ladder, which at this point, if it’s not the buck roar that I just described, it would be the snort wheeze, which is a sound that’s the punching a guy at the bar type of attack on that deer. Verbally, that’s what I’m doing. If a buck is showing me that you know, he wasn’t bothered my first call, but he’s not ready to come in yet. You try that and it doesn’t work, that means he’s like getting you know, concern, he’s getting spooky. He turns around, starts walking the other way. That’s when you lay it off and say, all right, you know it’s done. On the flip side. If that buck then like gets even more excited and pins back his ears and starts slowly coming your way. Again, that’s when you stop calling and just let that scenario play out.

00:55:26
Speaker 2: That is my high level general take on calling during the run.

00:55:30
Speaker 3: I personally don’t like the blind call, which would be, you know, calling without seeing a deer at all and just hoping something’s going to come in, because that can lead to you know, unexpected deer showing up down wind a view that can lead to bad things. So I like to wait until I see a buck and then call to him. I will occasionally blind rattle, not often, but occasionally. The targeted rattling I will do is if I see a mature buck way out of grunting range where he won’t hear me, but I need to get get his attention and try to pull them in, that’s when I might try rattling. All that said, I might be a little bit on the conservative side. I do a lot of my hunting in Michigan, where there’s not as many mature bucks and there’s a lot of hunting pressure when compared to some of the other Midwestern states like Iowa or Kansas or whatever. In those states, more aggressive calling can work really well, and I want to share with you a perspective from Jared Mills, longtime contributor to Midwest Whitetail and now is on YouTube channel, well known whitetail expert, and he has a more aggressive approach to calling running white tails. Let’s hear it what he has to say here.

00:56:41
Speaker 8: You usually don’t like to call the deer when I can see them and go based off of how they react, or I will blind call if I have a really good way of vantage, like a creek or river behind me.

00:56:54
Speaker 3: Okay, So walk me through then what the calling or rattling sequence would be. Let’s say you spot a big buck somewhere. Do you always grunt first? Do you always rattle first? Do you does something help you determine what you’re going to use? Kind of walk me through your whole thought price when it comes to choosing what you’re gonna do, and then what you actually do in that scenario.

00:57:16
Speaker 5: Yep.

00:57:18
Speaker 8: Typically the conditions dictate that, and usually that’s based on wind speed. So if it’s really windy and I don’t think he’ll hear they grunt or snort waves, I will rattle at the deer. Typically, though, if I know what deer can hear me, I will start out with just a grunt. I think that’s the least intrusive sound or least challenging sound to a bus. I wanted to see how he’ll react to that. You don’t typically or I haven’t typically seen deer really negatively react to a grunt call. It’s just something that I think they hear more often, and they snort, weeze or two bucks fighting. So I’ll start with that if I know a buck can hear the grunt call, and then if he doesn’t respond to that, I will snort weez.

00:58:11
Speaker 4: I love the start wee call.

00:58:13
Speaker 8: Especially i’mture deer I don’t have I should say I don’t have too many that just completely ignore it or get spooped by it. They usually will somehow react to it. Whether they come all the way in or not, that’s a different question, but usually they that call means something to them, So I use snort we’ve a lot. Rattling is kind of a third option. If if the deer doesn’t respond to either one of those, I will rattle or I will start off rattling if it’s really windy.

00:58:50
Speaker 3: Like I said, how what’s the rattle sequence?

00:58:54
Speaker 4: Like? Is it long?

00:58:56
Speaker 3: Do you just do fifteen twenty seconds and stop. What’s your rattling sequence? Typically live, like, if.

00:59:03
Speaker 8: I can see the deer and see his reaction, I’ll just I’ll rattle and’ll make sure that I’m hidden. Whether it’s I’m rattling on the backside of free or something like that, I will just watch his reaction. I will keep rattling until he makes a move, whether that’s going away from me or coming towards to me. I need him to be convinced that it is a really good fight, like an actual brawl, that he needs to come in and check out. Once he starts coming, I’ll put him away and get ready, or if he obviously goes away, I’ll put him away.

00:59:36
Speaker 5: Too, just because obviously they don’t like it.

00:59:38
Speaker 8: But sometimes you’ll see a deer go away and he’ll come back around and check it out later, so you’re not always completely out of the game. If I’m blind calling, it’s probably I would say thirty seconds of a pretty hard hitting I have seen a couple of really good fights, and it’s hard to rattle as loud as two mature bucks are fighting, so I like to hit them almost as hard as I can. For a good toy to thirty seconds obviously, just making sure your eyes are peeled and your head’s on a swivel, because you don’t want to be hitting those things when the deer’s thirty yards away and clearly see you know what’s going on to you. Just have the constantly be looking around. But that’s one thing I’ll tell guys is not to be afraid to hit them really hard. Most most often, I think guys aren’t rattling loud enough.

01:00:37
Speaker 3: All right, now, that’s calling my ideas on that that I’ve kind of accumulated over the years from everybody, And Jared’s Another kind of aggressive move you can try at this time of year is using a decoy. And the best explanation I have heard from someone on how to use a buck decoy or really any kind of decoy when hunting during the rut is from John Dudley. John Dudley, you know, has done amazing work across many different platforms, well known, does great work when it comes to archery, but also incredibly successful whitetail hunter and a big proponent of using decoys.

01:01:14
Speaker 2: Here is what he says. This is his.

01:01:17
Speaker 3: Strategy for using a decoy during the rut, and basically the same way that I have approached using a decoy is is just like what he describes here.

01:01:26
Speaker 5: What I really look for is I look for an area that allows me to be in cover and also allows the decoy to be in a high visibility area that is also a high traffic area during the rut. Like for example, one one situation that I’m thinking of is I’ve actually got this food plot that is, you know, it’s just a regular food plot. It’s kind of a rectangular shape, two acres on the one long end, and I actually have a decoy set up for both ends of this field. So what I’ll wait for is a wind that would put the wind directly into my face, which for this particular field, and east wind, which is fairly uncommon.

01:02:23
Speaker 2: But.

01:02:25
Speaker 5: For this particular if I do have an east wind when the timing’s right, this has been notoriously my best spot because this food plot is built up on a crown, and there’s on one side of the crown there’s a deep draw that goes into a big ceedar thicket, and then on the other side of the crown there’s also another draw that feeds all the way through like a timber system that runs way off through my neighbors and everything like that. So really what’s happening is these bucks when they start cuting ground, they’re coming up out of these draws and they’re just like they just kind of appear into a food plot. They look around a lot of times. They’re not eating, you know, they’re not eating. They’re just they’ll crossover and they’ll go into the next theory. You know, you have those spots where you always see bucks just crossing. They’re never staying there, but they’re crossing. These are really good areas for decoys because you know that there’s going to be traffic and you know you have the ability to put it in an area where you’re able to see or you know, the deer able to see. And from there, what I do is I really focus on putting the decoys about thirty yards in front of me with their wind blowing directly towards me, and I’ll face them facing directly towards me and my tree. So what that does is when these bucks will come up and they’ll pop into these these open pocket, it’s they’ll see that deer and then what they’ll do is they’re going to try to get downwind of that decoy. I mean, they’re always going to try to get down wind first, and they also really like to approach a decoy at the direction that they’re facing. So a lot of times when they come up and they’ll see that decoy and it’ll be like kind of facing you know, it’ll be like looking directly under my stand into the timber line or the field that’s behind me. A lot of times the deer just going to assume that that decoy has the attention of maybe a betted dough or something in that fence line, or maybe even a dough that’s betted in you know, the field behind me. And what they’ll do is the bucks just always just go right to the edge of the food plot and they’ll follow that hall or grass along the edge of the food plot, and then they’ll button hook right around and they’ll really utilize the edge of that cover and try to split the difference kind of between me and the tree and that decoy. They’ll kind of come in right on the outer edge of that that cover. They feel safe, like they can jump in there and be gone if they don’t like something about it. And as they button hook around you the entire time they’re going to be looking right at that decoy. They’re looking at it, and until they hit the wind of that decoy, you have a great opportunity to be able to to make a shot as long as you know that that wind is blowing directly to you, So as long as that that buck is button hooking around, you’ve pretty much got until that that deer gets directly downwind of your decoy for you to make your shot. And it’s it’s worked incredible. You know, I really like to focus on the time times of year when the like when the first part of the rut gets going, like where you have one, maybe one or two does that have come into heat, and you know it seems like, you know, you maybe see that first dough get red and every buck in the country’s honor. Normally, right after that things kind of break loose and these bucks are really going to be looking for does. And you also find out that during that first part of the rut, most food plots are like vacant, like dose aren’t going to come out and show themselves because they know they’re going to get harassed. So when a buck comes out and sees a dough and it’s standing there, they’re going to do that same thing. So during the first part of the rut, I’ll decoy with the dough. But then once you get into the middle of the rut, or then towards the tail end of the rut, I really like having a buck decoy, or I like having a buck decoy during the pre rut. You know, there’s a time where that velvet comes off, and right before the screep start getting made, a lot of you know, a lot of bucks will start to kind of they’ll start to fight a little bit, and you know, you might be in the woods and start to hear your hearst fight of the of the of the year, and that’s a good time to try a buck decoy as well. But really the recipe is always get it about thirty yards in front of you, with it facing you, wind blowing right directly towards you. You want to be in some cover, you know, it’s nice to have. You know, a lot of times I like to be towards one end of a food plot or another. That way, if deer come in the food plot, you know they can even if that thing’s down there on the end. A lot of times if it’s facing out of the food plot, the other animals won’t get all freaked out by it. If it’s just staying there, you know, they don’t pay attention. Now, if it’s if you’re facing away from you and it’s looking in the middle of the food plot and stuff comes out, well, everything’s just going to start looking right at it, and when it doesn’t move, they’re going to have a problem with it. So that’s kind of why I like to keep it off to the side. And you know, it might not be as noticeable, but if you have a grunt tube, you can always seem to at least get something to look that way, and and and then once they’re looking that way, they’re gonna they’re gonna take notice.

01:08:45
Speaker 2: All right.

01:08:45
Speaker 3: So those are kind of the wild cards for this time of year. Grunting, rattling, decoying, all of these things we’ve talked about, like I said, have been kind of focused on the first two weeks of November, the peak of running activity. Let’s briefly talk about what happens next, which is the peak of breeding activity. That is, when the highest number of doughs are receptive to being bred. This is what many people call the lockdown face. So what happens here is when a dough is ready to breed, that buck locks on her. They typically stay together for twenty four to forty eight hours, give or take. Sometimes a little bit longer, and they will stay close together. They generally don’t move a whole lot. What I have seen in my experience, and what I’ve heard from many other hunters on the show, is that when a buck gets paired up with a dough, he pushes her into some kind of like off the wall place and tries to keep her there for as much time as possible, basically to maximize his time with that dough to breed and to keep away any competition. So my angle has always been that if you see a buck locked down a dough like that, you know that this small area maybe a couple acres or ten acres or whatever the cover is around there, that’s going to be a place to focus for the next day or two. Especially Now that said, if you’re hunting and you can’t find that, if you’re not seeing a buck locked on doughs, you might see what Neil and Craig Doherty explained earlier, which is a decline in overall activity because you have, you know, so many of those pairs locked down somewhere. But a key thing to remember this time of year is that there’s never going to be a period of time when everyone is locked down at the same time. Right There’s always still going to be some buck that’s coming off of a dough and searching for another dough, and then you know, as soon as that buck locks up on someone else, well then there’s probably another buck that’s coming off and searching again. So for that reason, generally, even during the breeding phase, even during the middle of November, you still want to take the same approach. You still want to do the same stuff you were doing earlier in the month. Just do it knowing that you’re probably not going to see as much of that crazy chasing and seeking. You’ll see some of it. It’s still going to happen, but it’s a smaller number of bucks doing it at any one given time. So this is when just having faith and believing in your approach and waiting out those long days is worth it. Or on the flip side, this is when the what Aaron described the TCHP approach maybe is the way to go, because this is when you just got to go out there and find it. You got to go find out where that hot dough is and those those four bucks are all circling around or where they’re locked down. You might just need to get out there and search to find these hot spots because a very common thing I’ve experienced during the rut, and so many other people have as well. And Andrea to Cuisto was talking to us about this during a podcast. There’s going to be places whereas you know, absolutely on fire, and then the next ridge over, or the next basin over, the next farm field over, the next swamp over, it will be a complete ghost town. It’s like all here and not there at all. And so you need to either be determined to stay in the spot you believe in until it becomes the right spot, or go find where those hot spots are and constantly adjust based on what you’re seeing. Here is another example, though on some thoughts of how to consider this. This is from an excerpt from a book by Tom Indribou, who is an outfitter in the Bluff Country of Wisconsin. He’s one of the ogs of growing and hunting mature white tails, and in his book, which is called Growing and Hunting Quality Bucks, he writes about this. When an estrous dough is finally ready to breed, she stops fleeing. The bucks advances and stands still for him. That’s why when widespread breeding starts occurring, it’s almost as if a sense of calm has returned to the deer woods. In fact, if one dough is tying up her main suitor and two or three spectators, and you’re sitting somewhere other than where she led her group, the woods do seem more calm. They appear dead, but don’t despair. One good thing about the breeding period is that you can go from boredom to a full fledged adrenaline overload with one turn of your head. Once breeding has been underway for a few days, a different pattern emerges among the bucks as they finish up with one dough and start searching for their next opportunity. A mature buck starts looking for his new mate by checking food sources in the woods, agricultural fields, and anywhere else he can find family groups that might include an estrous dough. For whatever reason, these bucks are now more deliberate in their search, backing off a bit from their fast paced, relentless romps of ten days before. Maybe they’re wearing down a bit physically or maybe they’ve just learned to work more efficiently. But more than ever, their focus is the dough herself, not signposts created mostly with other bucks. Bucks might still follow one of their favorite routes or swing through a heavily signposted hotspot, but those are often coincidental or short lived visits. Some bowhunters also think bucks return to their home bedding area to rest up for a day or so before taking off again. Either way, those sites aren’t good bets for bow hunting during the breeding phase. After leaving the dough he has been with for a couple days, the buck is more interested in target rich hangouts. That’s why he cruises the edges of good food sources often at about eight or nine am. The buck doesn’t expect to find does and fawns feeding in the fields, but he knows the family groups were probably there the previous night and left only a short time before his arrival. The buck moves along that field boundary, sniffing the tracks of every dough that left the field earlier that morning. He doesn’t need to sniff individual rumps to know which dough to follow. Her tracks leave all the clues he requires, Nor does a buck have to run up and down the length of each trail entering or leaving the field, before making a decision on a doe’s status. An experienced buck crosses and sent checks every trail intersecting that field, requiring only one quick pass around his perimeter. If he finds a dough that interests him, he doesn’t hesitate to jump into the woods and get after her. Any sense of physical fatigue or burnout evaporates once a buck’s nose pinpoints a dough that’s getting ready to breed. However, if the buck completes his perimeter inspection and finds nothing hot, he moves along to the next field and makes another circuit of the perimeter. He performs this task not only around fields, but across ridge lines, oak flats, and other sites where dough family groups congregame. However, briefly, if his search takes him through primary scrape areas, he merely checks them from downwind and blows on through. There’s little wasted effort in the buck’s tasks. He hits as many edge lines as possible, going from one hot spot to the next, his eyes forever on the prize. His steady gate covers ground quickly, and within an hour of sunrise, he can be three ridges over from where he was at dawn. As a buck moves between potential hotspots to inspect family groups, he uses his nose and eyes to locate his next mate.

01:15:45
Speaker 2: I will point out.

01:15:46
Speaker 3: Another thing that Tom references here in his book and that many others have picked up on since, has been the effectiveness of hunting water holes or ponds in the woods during the rut. What his take is that these bucks, you know, they’ll ignore food for days and days on end during the rut, but they can’t ignore water.

01:16:08
Speaker 2: They have to get that.

01:16:10
Speaker 3: And after they’ve been chasing and searching and cruising hour after hour after hour after hour, anytime that they can pass by and hit a little water source, they’re going to do so. So I actually got to hunt Tom and Jerbo’s farm for a project I worked on called Deer Country.

01:16:24
Speaker 2: I got to see this.

01:16:26
Speaker 3: And what he’s done is back in doe betting areas, back on any of these like ridges or saddles where they connect into other dough betting areas. He has created these back in the timber ponds that are tucked by betting, so he can be hunting a dough hot spot and have a water source right back there in cover so you can catch that late morning or midday movement that we’ve talked about. And then he has this little focus point, this little watering area that brings that buck into shooting range and gets them to stop in place. So a really interesting idea there to add to your mix as you’re considering where and how to set up over the coming weeks. So lockdown can be slower, but don’t sleep on it. It can certainly still have those moments and those flurries of great activity. Another thing to be thinking about though, in mid November and as the month progresses, is the fact that across many states, gun seasons open, and when gun season opens, all of your typical rut behavior starts to go out the window. Things change, All of that hunting pressure comes in and just flips the flips the game table upside down. Someone again who we’ve heard from several times today and has a lot of thoughts on this, as John Eberhart. I want to read one last quick excerpt from him on how they think about gun season and its impact on the rut and hunting the month of November in Michigan. What we have is a November fifteenth opener, so it’s smack dab right at peak breeding is when the gun season opens and everything changes. In pressured areas, gun season has a huge impact on deer movement and the herd itself. In states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New York, to name a few, with well over half a million gun hunters, the gun opener changes the hunting dramatically In a single day. In some areas of pressured states, up to eighty percent of the annual buck harvest is taken. Most parts of these pressured states have more than twenty hunters per square mile.

01:18:22
Speaker 2: YadA YadA, YadA, YadA, yadda.

01:18:24
Speaker 3: The top it off gun season takes place during the middle of the rut. With most of the bucks gone, the few survivors have more does to breed, some of which will not be bred during their first extra cycle, contributing to a more intense second rut than in non pressured areas. Daytime running activity, though seemingly disappears, with almost all chasing taking place well after dark. If there’s one single event that causes most deer to become nocturnal, its opening day of gun season.

01:18:50
Speaker 2: Bow hunting.

01:18:51
Speaker 3: After this point can be very frustrating with planning. There are ways you can react successfully if you’re hunting during the gun season opener or I think afterwards as well. Look for escape routes. The tighter the better. In pressured areas on opening morning, normal deer movement can be forgotten. The deer are just looking to get out of harm’s way. A thick funnel leading to the thickest bedding area available should be your stand side of choice. Remaining on stand the entire day is recommended. A high percentage of mature box are taken in midday during gun season. This is really a big part of what Andy was talking about too earlier when he was mentioning that you know, late morning midday hunting pressure impact on deer activity as all the hunters leave the woods, that shakes things up again. Well, that is doubly more true when it comes to gun season. So if you can avoid the typical coming in for lunch and missing that window, maybe stay a little bit later and just wait for everybody else to go in and at least see what happens and then go, Because if you’re going to be hunting at this time of the year, there’s going to be less of the typical rutting daylight activity when it’s just flooded with other hunters and things have been reshuffled so much so getting that hunting pressure boost from the spooks and the pushes that can actually be something to keona. On the flip side, the other approach is to do the exact opposite, which is go to the place where it’s just so hard for anybody else to go and for somebody else to impact. So this is where the thickest, nastiest, most out of the way hell hole is where some of these bucks will be turning up and where they’ll be hanging out during the daylight. And still like the rut is still happening, right, so opening to have gun season happened on November fifteenth, there’s certainly still going to be chasing and seeking and breeding and all of that stuff still happening. It’s just going to be happening after dark and or in these places that the deer still feels safe where they can still get away from people. So if you can find that away spot, if you can keep your property a sanctuary and not have a bunch of pressure all around it, they’ll still feel safe there and you’ll still get to see that great running activity. Key thing, though, is like that pressure just makes this massive, this massive shift to deer behavior, and so you need to be able to count for that. And so now much more of the hunting strategy has to be about how do I adjust to pressure just as the deer have, and less so about you know, what’s this bucking to do when he moves from point A to point B. Because this is the best dough betting area and that’s the next best dough betting era. Youve got to consider this new implication as we continue that really maintains truth all through the month of November. One other consideration to think about, as I mentioned earlier, the breeding dates.

01:21:38
Speaker 2: It looks like a bell curve.

01:21:39
Speaker 3: So again, like low on the graph, you’ve got October, more and more does come into heat as you go into mid November. You know, November fifteenth, give or take, is where the most does are ready to breed. And then that continues down. So there’s still breeding dos in the third week of November, and they’re still breeding doughs in the last week of November, but there’s fewer and were and fewer that said bucks still want to breed and what some people have seen and something that I picked up on from Don Higgins. What some folks have shown is that those oldest, biggest bucks tend to be the ones that still have the stick toativeness and the persistence to keep on searching for those last couple doughs. I want to read to you an excerpt from Don’s book Real World Whitetails as he explains this very thing. As November winds down, the whitetail rut does as well. By the last week of November, there will not be nearly as many receptive doughs for the mature bucks to hook up with. Around Thanksgiving, mature bucks will be on the move looking for hot doughs, which they are now finding harder to come by. I firmly believe that the very best time to catch the biggest bucks on the move is the one week period beginning around Thanksgiving Day. Earlier in the month, a hunter is likely to see more bucks, but for the true monsters, I’ll put my money on Thanksgiving weekend. Every year, this period doesn’t last long, and when it’s over, the toughest period to kill mature buck follows hunting these late November monsters means going right back to the same stands that you had success from in early November. Bucks will be back searching for does, and the stand located in near betting areas in the morning or feeding areas in the evening are good bat This is not a time to get discouraged, but a time to be determined. Stay in your stands as long as possible each day, but sure bucks on the prowl are likely to show up at any time. If you were lucky enough to figure out where a good buck was staying right before the rut really heated up, there’s a good chance that he’ll be back in the same location. Remember what you saw earlier, and be there to cash in when it happens. Now key point here Don is speaking about, you know, hunting in places that are not as pressured and and don’t have the great big gun season like we do in Michigan. You know, he’s hunting in Illinois, and I do think there is a short weekend gun hunt in late November in Illinois, but it’s not like the two weeks of non stop gun hunting that we have here in Michigan or Pennsylvania or other places. So just think about that, but if you have a place where the pressure is relatively low still in late November, this, you know, last couple days of November can be a sweet spot worth King and on. I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago when we had Don on the podcast, but I read this from him, and then I went out and started hunting that time period more often and actually saw, you know, one time in Ohio the big five year old buckouse chasing cruising in the very middle of the day on November twenty fifth or twenty sixth, something like that, just after I read this. So that was a great reminder that there’s truth to this, and I’ve gone on to have some some pretty strong success in that late November or first couple days of December time period. As those bucks are still trying to find that last dough. You can keep him feeling safe, you can take advantage of that. So that’s November. If you’re thinking about the month, it is in some ways wildly different week after week after week, but in some ways exactly the same.

01:25:02
Speaker 2: The name of the game.

01:25:03
Speaker 3: Is focus on the dose, focus on the places and ways the bucks get between dos, and then just spend a lot of time. That’s all easier said than done, though, and I think maybe that’s the most important thing to remember is that all of this is simple in theory but difficult in execution, because being out there day after day, hour after hour, is physically exhausting, It is mentally draining. You know, there can be incredible moments of excitement out there, but if we’re being honest with ourselves, it’s typically, you know, hours and hours and hours of monotony punctuated by just a couple brief highs of excitement. And so maybe more than anything, more important than having good funnels to hunt, more important than knowing how to set up on a dome area, more important than having a lot of vacation time, more important than having a good decoy or strong calling strategy or anything like that. The most important thing for hunting the month of November might simply be your mind, your mindset, your sense of belief and optimism, confidence, grit, just being able to stick it out there, stay positive, stay focused. That is so critical to filling a tag at this time of the year. On the flip side, though, that stuff can sometimes push you to go too far, and this is something that you know, everyone has different goals I’ll just share with you that for me, for a long period of time, I used to approach the month of November like a military campaign, as if the only thing that mattered that life or death would be determined by whether or not I kill the mature buck. And so because of that, I would start November first, and every single possible day that I had available, I would be up at three in the morning. I’d be out to my tree stand an hour and a half before daylight and set up and quiet. I would sit there for fourteen straight hours. I’d come in after dark. Sometimes you have to wait, you know, thirty minutes after dark because there’s deer in the area or whatever. I hike out it, get to the house or the camp.

01:27:19
Speaker 2: Or wherever I was. I’d get a little.

01:27:21
Speaker 3: Work done and go to sleep and wake up four hours later and do the whole thing over again. And there were some years I did that fourteen straight days or twenty straight days. You know, I’m very unique and lucky that I had that time. But I know lots of people that’ll take a week of vacation and do two weekends. So there’s you know, you know, ten to eleven days straight of that kind of thing and that can burn you out in a way that can suck the fun out of hunting. Sometimes in a way that at least for me, I think I found maybe isn’t worth it, because yeah, I want to fill a tag, I want to kill a deer in November, but I also want to really enjoy the experience along the way. And so what I try to do now is try to balance that, try to balance the need to put in the time and the hard work and the grit balance with also the fact that this hunting thing, and that especially the month of November, just as much as it’s about, you know, chasing deer, it’s also about the people that you’re chasing deer with, and the deer camps that you share, and the meals that you get afterwards, or the cutting out early on a hunt to go help your buddy track a deer and then celebrate with him, or taking your kids out and hunting you know, with you too. All that stuff matters just as much, if not more so than actually you know.

01:28:37
Speaker 2: How to execute a terrific deer hunt.

01:28:40
Speaker 3: So, for whatever it’s worth, just my two cents, make sure that you’re considering that kind of older side to November because this whole thing we obsess over, we get excited about it, we celebrate it. November is here, like.

01:28:54
Speaker 2: This is it. We should enjoy it.

01:28:57
Speaker 3: We should we should like suck marrow out of the bone of November. And that doesn’t just mean killing a bunch of deer. That also means good stories, good laughs, good times, and having fun. So I think that’s where I want to leave it for you here with this decoding November, this review of how the experts and how folks of all types hunt the white tail rut, how folks hunt November.

01:29:24
Speaker 2: I hope this has been useful.

01:29:25
Speaker 3: I hope this has you a little bit more geared up and ready for the coming weeks. And I’m wishing you all the best of luck, have an amazing November, have a safe November. Thanks for tuning in, and until next time, stay wired to Hunt.