October Update

First solo episode. Mason gives his season update thus far through October.

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What's up, everybody? This is Mason with Whitetail Realm. Uh it's gonna be a first for us. We're doing a solo episode. Lane's a little swamped, like we talked in the last episode, with uh his twin girls on the way, and we're getting pretty close to that. So uh please keep him and your thoughts and prayers, him and Avery, and we're excited for uh to meet the two little girls here coming soon. But uh between doctor's appointments, him and I's work schedule. We haven't been able to get together, do as many podcasts as we normally do, so I excited to get on here and do a solo one. I don't know if you guys listen to the fall podcast, but uh um Aaron does a bunch of those on there, and I listen to he's one of my favorite podcasts. We're gonna we're gonna give it a try. Probably not gonna be your guys' favorite episode, but wanted to get one out to you guys and so you can hear from us and get a little season update. Uh, but man, this week we're recording this on the 22nd, and we've seen a lot of bucks fall this week across the country with some of our good friends, and uh thought it was time we get on here and kind of tell you what we're seeing out there and uh kind of some uh things we're looking forward to doing in the next couple of weeks. But uh, like we said, a lot of bucks falling from good friends, and we're getting ready to get some of those recorded once Lane gets uh a minute, some of those kill episodes from some of our good friends across the country. But uh man, we'll just uh start at the first week of the season. I definitely one of the hottest ones we've had the last couple of years, but uh I still had a lot of action going on my way. Like people say, they got it, deer still gotta eat. And uh that first week is when uh the corn came off the property I hunt, so sat over a lot of cornfields for probably the first 10 days of the season while they're still coming and hitting there, and uh saw a lot of deer. Not uh any of the Giants were chasing this year, but uh still saw a lot of good young bucks and I'm excited to get some footage of them for maybe some future stories uh coming up in the near future. But uh that first week was I mean screaming hot. Uh we were wearing western sweat gear, is what I call it, where it felt like you're chasing elk in September somewhere, but uh it was in it was October here in Indiana. But uh that second week uh did a lot more acorn and ridge pattern kind of things, uh set a lot of stands on top of the ridges, and we really had to move around a lot that that week it was uh we had winds every direction, and especially this year. I I've never seen as many different wind directions as we've had this year, and I've never hunted this different this many either. And I'm definitely glad we do more hang and hunt kind of style hunting because we moved a lot of stands around. I mean, even next this weekend, I think there's a southeast wind, and I couldn't tell you the last time I've ever seen one of them hunting. So a lot of different variables into it, but I've definitely stayed on the edges more. Getting in on the ridges, we there's a nice road that runs through the middle of the property, so I can get to a nice ridge pretty easily without bumping too many things, just getting off a road pretty quick, but haven't dived into much this buck. Uh, I I think I talked about him on the last episode, but he definitely got a new new name in the last couple of weeks. And the buck we're chasing this year, names Elusive, because man, that thing hates trail cameras, but he lives on the property. You get one picture of him a week, maybe, and he'll be on the north and the south and the east and the west side. He doesn't know where he wants to live, but he's always on the property, and he's all over it. Uh, I have no pattern. I like I've I've told a couple buddies, this is as far away from killing a deer I've felt ever in my life. I have no plan. We're still hunting a lot of edges, so we're not boogering up anything, but uh we're excited. The weather finally feels like fall out here, and like I said, recording this the 22nd. Weather's really dropped. We had a lot of wind this week, but uh Sunday was uh the first story I finally get to see elusive. That that Saturday it rained most of the day and well into the night, and even into Sunday morning, if I my memory serves me right. So I was excited to get out there. Anytime after it rain and it cools down, I mean from Friday to Sunday, it did dang near drop 20 degrees, so excited to get out there and really didn't have a plan, but with the weather and I had the right wind, I wanted to get in a little deeper and maybe play it a little uh ballsier than I have been so far this year. And I went to the stand, I actually killed the big eight out of last year. It's uh it's deeper into the woods than I've been on a big flat ridge, and uh it's not I don't feel like that stand, there's no pinch, you're not necessarily there's nothing there that makes a deer have to walk by you. It's more by chance and luck, but man, it's it's a great lookout stand. You can see a away, probably 150, 200 yards still while you're hunting in the woods. Lots of acorns and oaks um on that ridgeline that uh deer are frequenting. And it's kind of in between cameras. The two cameras I've had him on the most. He's kind of that stand sits pretty close to the middle of those two, so I kind of just wanted to sit there and observe. And man, that night was it was a good night. It started off slow. I didn't see the first deer till 6.45, six, six o'clock, and it probably got shooting light, probably ended at 7.45 that night. But man, when I saw the first one, it started flooding after that. I mean, I had 10 does within bow range, and finally that's when the buck we're calling elusive now, stepped out, and he was about 75-80 yards the whole time. I saw him just walking back and forth, and never got closer than probably 65 yards. But I got a good half hour of footage on him. And anytime you you can get a deer where he doesn't know you're there and can film him in his natural state, is cool. I I got a lot of velvet footage of that deer from this summer, but uh he could see you from the truck, knew you were there. He wasn't doing what he would be doing in a state he felt comfortable comfortable in and knew that no one was present, and it was cool to finally film him and uh and get to watch him do what he's doing every single day and not have to worry about not thinking somebody was there watching him. But uh I actually got to see his running buddy that I got a lot of film with this this summer too. He's probably uh three-year-old, 130-inch tinpointer, a nice deer, super wide. Tines are not fully there yet to make him a mega, but man, he's he's an awesome deer, and we're excited to watch him the next couple years and got some footage for him, and it's gonna be cool to maybe have that footage for years to come in a future story. But uh yeah, I watched Elusive for probably 30 minutes, never got close. He wasn't chasing these does, but he came up, he checked a few of them, and I I've starting to see a lot more trail cam uh photos of bucks, you know, taking the antlers, testing their dominance out, see who's the boss. So we're getting closer. I've seen uh what was that Tuesday night I got out after woods or after work and uh saw the first buck chasing, probably a 120-inch basket rack 10-pointers chasing a dough out in the field. So we're definitely getting closer to the heat of it. But we you see this every year, and people get on Facebook and always say, Oh, the ruts early this year, but it's just the young bucks being teenagers out there chasing, and maybe don't get your hopes up too much and think you gotta go do an all-day rut sit next week. But definitely the cooler weather, the bucks are starting to feel it, and um things are getting excited. Yesterday was the first really daytime photos I've had of a big deer in a while. Um, it's Lane's favorite deer on the property, this real stout old 10-pointer. Yeah, I had probably 12 photos of him on four or five different cameras checking scrapes yesterday from 9 a.m. to I had a picture of him almost at 2 o'clock. So they're definitely starting to feel this weather change, and uh this weekend looks awesome. Um, we're definitely gonna get after him this week, and I think getting closer to the end of October, one of my favorite times of the year. Uh, we're recording this on Wednesday. Tomorrow after work, I'm actually gonna get out. It looks like the best chance all week if you guys follow the deer cast stuff. We're gonna go sit probably that same stand I saw him in on Sunday. I haven't gotten a picture of them since Sunday, so I don't want to play it too risky and get in after them and maybe bump them, but we're probably gonna get in there and see if we can get eyes on them again. We got an awesome wind. There's a four-wheeler trail right to that uh stand, so you're not going to uh bust up anything walking through sticks or anything. It's pretty quiet to get in and out of there. Uh got decent wind coming tomorrow. It's this week's been windy, man. I hunt Tuesday after work, and hell, I was hugging the tree the whole time, worried about falling out of it. And Elaine always makes fun of me because I hunt really skinny trees normally. And man, that thing was whipping in the wind like it was a corn stalk. It was not a good night to be sitting in the tree. I drew back on a dough that night, but man, I couldn't get my pen to settle because of the wind felt like I was gonna fall out of it. So uh we I've been waiting the rest of this week not to get out, but I I think Thursday we're gonna make it out, make a sit after work there. I can get in there pretty quick, so excited to maybe see eyes on him again. But man, anytime you get a the deer you're chasing in uh on film and close by where you don't even need binoculars to tell who he is, it gets your blood boiling, gets you excited for the rest of the year. Um probably this weekend's gonna be my first morning sit we make of the year. It's the morning's been hot on my cameras. Uh elusive hasn't been on there, but the rest of the bucks on the farm, what was that Wednesday morning? I got, yeah, this morning, I got a lot of early morning photos of them, you know, 8 to 9 a.m. I got I'm getting photos all day long of does and little bucks, so we might go make a a sit this this week and come in the morning, but maybe we're not gonna get in there too much. I don't want to bump anything. So we're gonna be pretty cautious with our set, but deer are moving, so we're gonna make a a sit and a play at them in the morning one week or one day this week, I think. Just uh give your up your odds maybe a little bit by sitting out there and getting another hunt in. But we're excited to get another podcast out to you. I know we're haven't been as uh regular as we normally are, but like I said, Lane's a little preoccupied, and I'm I'm sure he he's excited to get back on here. He uh he actually broke the ice. He's got the first blood on the crew. He knocked down a doe two weeks ago now, maybe a week ago, with his new bow. So excited for him to get on the story and talk about that. And uh I know he's been sitting at least one or two days a week. It seems like every day he works a weird schedule. Two, two, threes is what he works, and the days he has off are usually not the days that uh make are the best days to sit out during the weeks. So I bet you he sat probably four or five times this year, and uh I know he's etching to get out there and see a big one. So, like we said, we got a lot of episodes coming out. A lot of good friends have been um knocking down some stud deer the last week, and uh we got some western episodes coming too. Uh Jason Hall Tide, who you guys talked or heard from before the season, he just got back from a Nebraska mule deer hunt, and uh I know Lane's got a buddy that's been out there on elk hunt a lot for two weeks in September. So we're gonna get some Western hunt episodes on here, and hopefully we start knocking down some big deer here in the next couple of weeks. So you're gonna hear from us a lot more often now. Now that we're in season, we can get some more episodes and uh stories out to you. But be sure to follow us on Instagram anytime Lane or I are out. We usually try to get a post on there. Um, I know we we put a couple bucks of fighting on there that I filmed the other night. And uh yeah, there's lots of good things to come. Be sure to follow us on there, the whitetail underscore realm, I'm pretty sure is it. I probably should know that by now, but uh not the best memory on this guy. So but be sure to follow back weekly. We're gonna get posted more regular now that we're here in the middle of the season. But I appreciate everybody listening, appreciate your sport, and hopefully you guys get out there and knock a big one. Thanks for listening.