Today on the show Phil and I are sharing  the good, the bad, and the ugly from our recent rut hunts. The rut can be a grind, and with it bring the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. We discuss both along with everything in between during today’s show.

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What To Expect From Podcast #12 :

—Clint explains the rut hangover

—Sleeping in a tree stand?

—Clint and Phil’s plans for the Pennsylvania rifle season

—Looking forward to late season

—Phil’s Pennsylvania rut experience

—Clint’s Ohio rut experience

Show Notes And Links:

—Check out our partner, Exodus Trail Cameras, at Exodusoutdoorgear.com…and be sure to follow them on their social media pages ( Facebook ,  Twitter,  and, Instagram )

—As mentioned, for Clint’s full rut story, you can read about it here at Wired To Hunt

—Don’t forget to leave us a comment, or submit a question you’d like us to answer during a podcast in the form below

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I’m typically not much of a New Year’s resolution guy. Most resolutions are ill-fated and rarely last beyond the end of January. However, resolutions related to hunting that get me outdoors more  and thinking of whitetails…now those are the type of resolutions I can commit to. It’s easy to fall victim to hunting the same places and the same way year after year, making for a stale hunting season.This year I’m committing myself to explore more. Whether it’s exploring new states and land to hunt or learning and utilizing new tactics, the goal is to push beyond my comfort zone. With that, here are a few resolutions to consider for your 2016 season to help you avoid the whitetail rut (pun intended).

1. Become A Better Shot

 

As archery hunters, our shot placement is critical and is often the difference between retrieving a kill and not. It’s our responsibility as archers to insure we’ve done everything possible to make a clean and ethical kill. My typical practice regiment in the offseason is a combination of range time and shooting from elevation–either from a stand or elevated deck at a range of 30 to 40 yards. This year I’m challenging myself to move my distance out to become comfortable at 40 to 50 yards consistently. Not that I’m looking to take a 50 yard shot in the timber, but the idea is to build consistency at 50 yards, making anything closer seem like a chip shot. Time on the range or practicing in your backyard will turn into success in the stand.

2. Get Into Shape

I know, this feels like a non hunting related resolution, but not so. As hunters we know the kind of toll those early mornings and long hikes up and down ridges can take on our bodies. The type of animals being hunted and terrain type will dictate what level of shape needed to hunt successfully. Increasing your level of fitness will also increase your overall shooting accuracy, which is a nice incentive and ties into becoming a better shot. No need to train like an Olympic athlete, just commit to being in a little better shape next season than you were this season and you’ll be on the right path.

3. Find New Land To Hunt

 If you’re hunting the same land year after year and not seeing the types of bucks you’d like to hunt, consider looking for new hunting locations. Doing the same thing over and over expecting different results is widely touted as the definition of insanity. You may only need to change your stand location on the current property you hunt. Or you may want to look for land that supports the kind of opportunity you’re looking for. Take it one step further and look at hunting in different states to gain those experiences you’d like to have. 2016 for me represents the year I begin to look for access in additional states. Don’t let the land you hunt dictate your experiences–get out there and knock on doors. You can never have too much land hunt to chase those mature bucks.

4. Scout More

This resolution perfectly compliments the resolution of finding new land, as scouting your current hunting location for additional spots may allow you to find that hotbed of deer activity that has been overlooked. Archery hunting is one of those pursuits where one’s level of success is a direct result of effort put in. For many, the offseason is just that–time to put the bow away until next fall. If you’re like me, hunting whitetails is a 365 day a year obsession. Scouting for next year actually begins during the present season, but be sure to take the time once late season ends to look for sign that can be used as intel for next season. Are there new trail systems popping up? Are there new bedding areas developing as the timber changes year after year. Be sure to utilize game cameras year round to keep tabs on the ebb and flow of your herd and to see what bucks made it through the season. Shed hunting is a great way to get out to do some scouting in the late/early spring. This is also a great way to spend time in the outdoors and stay connected to your passion year round.

5. Try A New Tactic

Maybe you want a new experience, but you don’t have time to find new land or travel to a new state. Try changing up how you hunt to add some excitement to next season. If you typically sit on field edges, maybe try setting up on a travel corridor or near a known bedding area in the timber. If you only do morning and evening sits, try sitting all day. Or break out a new call or try rattling antlers for the first time. There are no shortage of tactics to use adding some excitement to next season.

 Here’s to an exciting 2016 season! And who knows, maybe one of your resolutions will be the reason for your moment of truth from the stand.

It’s official. My 2015 deer season has finally come to a close. The post season blues will no doubt begin to set in. All year I look forward to archery season, but once it arrives I’d like to be able slow down time and make those days and weeks last just a little longer. Whether it’s watching the forest unfold as the sun rises on a cold, brisk morning or returning to camp in the evening to share stories of the day’s events over a good glass of bourbon, I embrace every aspect of the season. With the end of my season, I’ll quickly turn my attention to the off season and making shed traps, shed hunting and developing habitat enhancements needed at the farm.

As it is now officially 2016, I’ve begun to reflect on this past season. The hope is to find a few things to improve upon next season, helping me continue growing as a hunter.

The Good

Let’s face it; even if the season was awful, I was still able to spend time in the outdoors, which alone is cause for celebration. This year I was able to spend a total of 21 days on stand. This is a lot of time for me, considering I have to travel a few hours to get to our farm. This summer I also set a goal for myself to try patterning a target buck for the first time. I did pattern a nice 8 point. He was bumped by another hunter on the day I was planning to hunt his bedding area; however, I was successful in locating this particular buck’s bedding area and identifying the wind he’d use to access this bedding on the correct day. I just didn’t seal the deal by allowing a friend to hunt the area instead (hoping for deer god points for this). I was able to fill my doe tag though and put some meat in the freezer.

The Bad

This past spring a new clover food plot was planted on the farm, which would provide the only consistent food source in the area through October and November. Typically the corn comes off on our farm in late September and those fields that have been harvested are sewn with winter wheat and clover for a spring harvest and hay cut. Under normal circumstances these fields lay dormant until the spring thaw. However, this was not the case this year. With a warmer and more wet fall than usual, all fields sewn for the spring sprouted by late October providing the deer herd an abundance of food in three additional locations. The distinct trails leading to the planned clover food plot, along with well defined staging areas, were now seeing much less activity than usual. The additional food sources impacted the overall deer herd’s fall travel patterns we had grown accustom to historically. This resulted in significantly less deer movement than in years past as food was overly abundant in multiple locations around the farm throughout the season.

 The Ugly

Simply put, the weather was ugly this season. I’m ok with wet weather or windy weather, but the heat during the beginning of November was less than ideal. Unfortunately I took a week’s vacation during the first week of November where temperatures here in Pennsylvania reached the 70’s. Needless to say, deer movement came to a screeching halt and buck sightings were few until the weather broke the last week of the season. This made for some long hours in the stand without any deer sightings and at one point I went three days without seeing a single deer.

Conclusion

With this season clearly in the rearview mirror, my hope is that I’m a better hunter because of this season’s experiences. Most of my negative experiences this year were weather related and I certainly can’t control the weather. On bad weather days, I simply should have stayed out of the stand. I know quality hunts are better than the quantity of hunts, and I need to do a better job of following this rule in the future. I’d be lying if I said I kept my cool through all of this season’s challenges. At moments I did allow the combination of slow days on stand and the warm temperatures get the better of my emotions. In many cases, success in the whitetail woods is a matter of a positive outlook, especially on those long sets with no action. Your fortunes can change in a matter of seconds during the season and a lapse in focus can be what stands between you and your moment of truth from the stand.

Rut-cation is over. No more 4 am alarms, no more long hikes with heavy gear in the morning darkness, and no more long sits with no deer movement. By most people’s standards this is the description of a miserable vacation. To us whitetail addicts, it’s simply the cost of doing business and we love it.

My official rut-cation began the first week of November and I had 10 days in the timber in early November to take one of the target bucks on our property.  I was also looking to take a doe helping to reduce our overall doe population—and put meat in the freezer. I identified four bucks as my targets during the course of the summer, fall and earlier season hunts. Below are a few pictures of the identified.

Target Bucks

The two on the right were our shooters and were identified during the summer months. Both of these guys stuck around our property throughout the season. The one in the middle is Jeff Reed, named after the fiery former Steelers kicker, due to the kicker on his left G2 making him an 11-point. The buck on the right was just simply named 8. They both are younger than I had hoped, but are certainly nice deer for this area of Pennsylvania, particularly Jeff Reed. Unless he presented a “can’t resist” shot, he would get a pass this year. I aged him at 2.5, and he could be a really nice buck if he could make it one more year.

Below are a few pictures of Jeff Reed throughout the fall. He disappeared for a while, but we did have an “on the hoof” sighting the first week of November and one additional camera image of him that month. Our live sighting was on the opposite side of the property from where we had been seeing him during the summer and early fall.

 I had only one additional picture of my targeted 8 point in the image above. He was also sighted “on the hoof” on 2 occasions during the season. These sightings and this additional image, gave me a pretty good idea of where he may be living. The time on the photo below is incorrect, it should be 7:15 am.

 Later in the season I had a late addition 8 point added to my target list. I had multiple daylight pictures of this guy running this same trail between two micro food plots.

 And finally, Dirty Harry. This guy’s rack may not be all that impressive, as he’s a big 6, but his body is huge for a Pennsylvania deer. He is the oldest deer I had on camera, I’m thinking he’s about 3.5 years old, but the latest picture I had of him made me think he may be a 4.5. We had no pictures or sightings of him until he showed up tending a mock-scrape I made in late October.

The Hunt

I typically take the same period of time off from work each year as my rut-cation at the beginning of November. This year was no different. After work on Friday October 30th, I quickly packed my car and headed west on the Pennsylvania turnpike for my 3 hour drive to our farm. A lot of work had been done at the farm this year to enhance the habitat. I had done more preparation this year than any other season before, and was hoping this work would pay off. As I pulled into the cabin, I could see there was a deer hanging beneath the deck. My father-in-law had taken a doe that evening. It seemed like a good start to the next two weeks.

Saturday’s weather looked good, not as cold as I’d like, but in comparison to what was coming later in the week, it seemed like one of the better days to try to fill my buck tag. I had a camera image of the one 8 point I had targeted and live sightings that told me he was cruising a hollow between a doe bedding area and a clover field. I climbed a tree in this hollow Saturday morning and was shut out on the day–nothing. Not a single doe. This was unusual as this hollow has historically been a heavily used travel corridor. There is no hunting allowed in Pennsylvania on Sundays, so I used this as an opportunity to check game cams, freshen up some mock scrapes, and do some scouting since it had been a few weeks since I had last been to the farm. Based on the the camera image of the 8 point above (10/8 image) and some live sightings, I had an idea where he may be living. I found a few scrapes, and then his rub line that ran the length of a ridge into a pine thicket. Along the mid-point of the ridge and and again 300 yards further to the point, I found 2 classic buck beds. I studied the camera data, and looked back at the dates of the live sightings and realized every time he’s been sighted and traveling this particular area was on a west wind. I looked at the upcoming weather and like most of the deer hunting country, we were set to have some unseasonably warm weather during the next few days. Monday’s wind wasn’t right for me to hunt the point of this ridge, but Tuesday had a west wind coming in, and it was the last morning of “cooler” weather before the temps jumped.

Before I set out on Tuesday, I learned a friend was coming to camp to turkey hunt Tuesday morning. I had a west wind on Wednesday as well, and decided to head to the creek bottom of the property Tuesday morning instead of the ridge point. Hunting the creek bottom as an observation set was an attempt at keeping the pressure to a minimum on the point I had determined was likely my 8 points’ bedroom. Unfortunately, during the turkey hunt that took place, my target buck was jumped from his bed on the ridge point, and was never seen again during the next two weeks. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed in the outcome of that morning. I had spent hours, beginning in the summer, checking trail cameras, planting food plots, moving cameras, making mock scrapes, and scouting, with the hope that I’d have enough information line up to make a good attempt on a nice buck I had specifically targeted. Even with this misfortune, there were still hunts to be had.

 The next few days were warm and deer movement came to a screeching halt. I know anecdotally, warmer temperatures typically will reduce deer movement—even though QDMA studies say temperature has no impact on movement (good podcast discussing this and more rut info here). With that being said, I’ve never been shutout on so many hunts as I had this year. Historical hotspots we’re completely dead. And then it dawned on us what we might be experiencing. We have a 5 acre clover plot that is the green food source on our property, and is really the only source of consistent food once the corn comes off in late September. These cut cornfields are then sewn with winter wheat, and typically never sprout due to the cooler fall weather. This year the winter wheat was put in slightly earlier than usual and the rainy and warmer weather this fall allowed the wheat to actually come up to the point that it provided an additional food source—the deer didn’t need to travel for food and were bedding in brush right off the edges of these fields. Once we adjusted, we began to see deer and my father-in law had two encounters with Jeff Reed—but no shot.

As my rut-cation was coming to an end, I had gotten over the disappointment of my target 8-point being bumped. I hadn’t had any encounters with shooters, and was at this point looking to take a doe just to put meat in the freezer. I set out Saturday morning (my last day) to hunt a brushy hollow near the clover field. There were consistently a few deer feeding at the top of the clover field in the late morning and I had hypothesized that they were using this hollow to get there. It was really a Hail Mary, but this hollow would allow deer to remain under cover as they came off the mountain. I picked out a poplar tree and climbed to about 25 feet. At 7:30 am I heard something approaching from behind me and to my left. I thought it was a couple squirrels but looked over my shoulder to see two deer approaching me. I didn’t have time to turn on my camera as they were close and waited until the lead doe’s head was behind a tree to grab my bow from the hanger. She cleared that tree and gave me a 25 yard broadside shot. I didn’t have time to stand, so I gave her a quick mouth bleat and released the arrow. She made it 40 yards before she expired. It’s pretty amazing how quickly one’s fortune can change in the timber. In 30 seconds I went from thinking I was going home empty to getting a kill.

 This was one of the toughest, and most mentally challenging archery seasons I’ve had. I’m thankful for the doe, as she saved my rut-cation. And looking back, my hunt was more successful than I probably realized at the time. I had never patterned a buck before  and all my work leading up to the season did pay off. I was correct about my 8 points’ bedding location, and the wind he’d travel on. And the doe is helping me to continue to build confidence in my shot for when I put all the pieces together for my future moment of truth from the stand.