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Whitetail Realm
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Whitetail Realm
September update
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Layne and Mason talk about releasing September plans before season starts. The boys talk scrapes, cameras, and Oct 1st ideas.
Well welcome back everybody. It's the Whitetail Realm. We got Lane and Mason here with another episode. On the road episode.
SPEAKER_01We're both driving. Oh yeah. I'm coming home from work right now and I think Mason's probably doing the same thing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm heading back from Ohio. Are you on 74? Or are you on 70?
SPEAKER_01Uh I'm back. I'm actually on 44. I got about a 45 minute drive home. Okay.
SPEAKER_02So he's heading east.
SPEAKER_01I'm heading west.
SPEAKER_02Figured we get on here and do a little podcast.
SPEAKER_01If you're on the city, what part of Ohio today? Uh Toledo. Toledo, I see. But uh yeah. Figure we need to do a little podcast, because guess what, Lane? Hey, I'm gonna guess that we're not too far away from bow season.
SPEAKER_02I mean a week. A week from this time today, I'll be sitting in a tree.
SPEAKER_01Me too. I'm hoping I think it comes in next Thursday, right? Yeah Thursday or Friday, yep. Yep, Thursday. And then I gotta work Thursday, but I'm hoping to be in a tree on Friday afternoon. Yep. And we've had a some unusual, like cool weather here the last couple days. My uh my cameras went from being dead to on fire. Yeah, mine too, they're starting to really get a hold of scrapes. Yes, I this past week I actually had a pretty big week, and last week I had a couple buddies come out and I moved a couple stands, and then I decided to dig me a cedar post for a rubbing post, and then I got some of the scents that Jared Mills promotes. I uh bought some of them and then sprayed them, and man, them deer have been pretty curious about it.
SPEAKER_02So it is you put a rope on it, or did you put a branch on it?
SPEAKER_01I am putting a branch on it. Right now, the post is just there, but I'm gonna go get a cedar branch, hopefully tomorrow, and put it on there. And but even with just the post, I've noticed that I had a couple does rubbing on it the other day. It was pretty cool. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I'm putting some in tomorrow. Oh, yeah, I'm putting one in tomorrow. I've never done one. We're gonna give it a try. I made uh two sets last night after work for the buck I'm hunting that I'm pretty pretty excited about. I think I sent you snapshots of them. I gotta do a little limb trimming tomorrow, but uh Yeah, he's a solid deer. Yeah, he and he already I got a stand two I on this one bean field, I set up two stands for him, one for north and one for kind of west and a south wind. And I set up two mock scrapes and he hit them both last night. So he knows they're there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, my uh my big my big deer showed up last night too, and he he hit one of the new scrapes I put out, and and I think at the time I'm actually I know you probably already done it, but I'm gonna transition all my cameras over scrapes within the next week.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, mine are except for actually I think all mine are. I got a couple set up just on some of my crossings, but yeah, well, 95% of mine are on scrap. I to be honest, 95% of mine are on box scrapes, because I went around there's one scrape that that's our big communal scrape on the place. I mean, usually it's the size of my car. But they hadn't they hadn't really opened it. I put some out there trying to get it reopened, but they that's the only one that's really dead. The rest of them, I mean, that's the only traditional scrape I've put anything on. The rest are all box scrapes. I can't find the scrape. I know they're out there, I just can't find where the hell they're at.
SPEAKER_01Well, actually, uh, me and a buddy Caleb spent some time in Ohio this past week doing some scouting on some public ground, and uh we found some scrapes over there. So yeah, definitely some fresh fresh scrapes. So were they up on ridges? Yes, they was on uh acorn flats.
SPEAKER_02That's what I was looking for this yesterday. Couldn't find any, but uh who knows? Well my my place is pretty hard. You can you can turn around and get lost pretty quick, so maybe I'm just not seeing them. Yeah, I was yesterday. I went over to that island that you know about, and I had a camera sitting out there from last year, and I went to put batteries in it, and I walked for two hours and never found the camera. Are you serious? I know it's there. Uh it's just I don't know where I put it. Unless it got swept away with all that rain. Uh, I had I had pictures out. I was like walking with it, trying to match up trees to the back of the photo. Couldn't find it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So note to self, make sure you get your cameras out before they die. Well, it was crazy that um when we were over in Ohio, we checked out the first piece we went to was smaller, and I didn't know what I'd think about it on X. And you know, I looked out on X and I thought this this looks okay. Well, I didn't find a whole lot of sign, and we found a whole lot of cameras. Yeah. So uh we drove out a another an hour north of there and found a bigger piece, which was way, way better. There's still a little bit of pressure there from human sign, you could tell, but the deer traffic you could tell was higher, way higher. And we put uh a couple cameras out on that piece, and uh there's deer there. I ain't saying there's anything big yet, but there's definitely deer there. So it's only about an hour from our house, so it ain't too bad of a drive, but it's uh nice just to get out and go kind of see what else is out there. So I've never done the public land thing, so that was uh kind of eye-opener for me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think you're you and I are both gonna try it. I've been scouting some pieces on on X the last week, trying to get our buddy Mason to go lay eyes on a property for me, but he's kind of being a little wussed, but uh it's fine.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm sure he's listening to this too.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, we'll get him to go look at it for me. It's a lot closer drive for him than it is for me, so you'd think he'd be a homie, but yeah.
SPEAKER_01So I got a I'm sitting in my car right now and I got four little persimmon trees sitting next to me. I got a guy I work with, he he has a persimmon tree at his house, yeah, and he got some seeds out of them and went through the process of trying to grow some trees, and now he said he's got like 60 something trees, and he brought me in yeah, he brought me in four and says that he's got plenty more. So I'm gonna go home and put them in five-gallon buckets and see if I can uh get them to grow a little bit bigger. I guess the ideal time to plant them is late winter, early spring, is what it says. So I know most trees you plant when you would think shit doesn't grow.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, yeah. It's kind of strange. I might have to buy some off of them next time I'm over there. We don't Jason and I were talking about that last whenever Jason and I did a podcast with as many trees as we got there, I'm sure we have some, but I don't know of a persimmon tree in the area.
SPEAKER_01Well, I don't know of any on our farm, and I I know it's just another thing, you know, to keep the deer around and another, you know, option to have food-wise. So I was like, heck, it ain't gonna hurt planting a few of them. No, that's a good idea. Yeah, any any any food helps, especially coming at you know, later time in the year there.
SPEAKER_02Do you have any what's your this is really the final weekend we're gonna be doing, you know, big projects.
SPEAKER_01Is there anything you got planned for the weekend? Um, I think my biggest is there's a couple shooting lanes I'm gonna try to get in and clear out, and then there's a couple cameras I want to move, then it's kind of just sit back, wait till the time is right. I'm gonna try to get a dough kill like I did last year pretty early. I'd like to get some meat in the freezer and get that done. And then kind of just waiting on uh on the right cold front and conditions to go in and tackle, tackle the big one.
SPEAKER_02That's what I I've gotten a little aggressive this week, and I I always have stands I can hunt, you know, open a weekend, first two weeks of October, but maybe not necessarily ones that I set up ideally to try to, you know, really get after one. But the I was going back to trail camp photos and all three deer that I would shoot this year, they are all around early season in the daylight, and it looks like I was telling you this week that October 1st there we're actually gonna have a little cold front in the north wind.
SPEAKER_01I've seen that. I did see that. I uh I you know I I'm a real big, like I said, I try to go off last year's intel and you know, and try to do my homework. So I I I've been going back and studying some trail camera pictures and because I don't I don't want to get too aggressive early. I think that could hurt me more than it will do me any good. Yeah, which it looks like I got a couple busy first weeks of October anyway, so that's probably gonna benefit me on the because I'm gonna have an itch to go hunt, especially if we have cool weather. Yeah. You know, if we got cool weather, it's like, oh man, I want to be in a stand. Well, yeah, I want to be in a stand somewhere, but I should probably shouldn't be crashing into my best spots yet.
SPEAKER_02Oh, 100%. I'm I'm hunting on the edges of bean fields. You know, we kind of got the road that goes down the middle of the property, so I can hop on a ridge and you know, just be a hundred yards off the road and get there pretty quick without messing up anything. So the the way our place is set up, I I'm pretty lucky to be able to get in to kind of a middle of the place without buggering up anything.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I I think it's really important too. Like I want to get a couple sits in with my new saddle and try to figure it out, like just you know, get in a groove, find out what's comfortable, what's not. I actually had a couple single man stands that we had, and I'm kind of using them as like ladders to climb up to get in a couple lock ons. So yeah, I we put them up and then I'm going to uh hopefully uh hang them. I got one more I'd like to get moved, and once I get it moved, I should be set and ready to go. I got it. But I also don't want to crash in and try to make a whole lot of noise and ruckus, so you know I I've been do I do it, do I wait? You know, do I just go ahead and knock it out? It's one of them things like I I might just wait. I'm not a hundred percent sure yet.
SPEAKER_02I got two of those ladder stands that they're probably 15 feet off the ground, and then I've hung I I use the old the old seat as a step, and I've hung two more hawk steps on top of it to get to about a 20-foot stand out of it.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's what I like about them sticks is that you know you can climb up a ladder stand and throw a couple sticks up and get you know another four or five feet out of it.
SPEAKER_02Well, I got a couple of those, like what you and I call the old ladder sticks, you know, the ones that put together that are 15, 20 feet high, and then I got a I used to put another two sticks on them as usually my go-to. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Have you been shooting your bow a lot? You got it dialed in?
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah, we are we are ready.
SPEAKER_01Actually, Sunday I'll go shoot the 3D course too. Just uh Yeah, I I got invited to go to one, but I I think on Saturday I got a wedding, and then Sunday um I might do my last golf outing since I picked up that hobby this year. Go golfing one last time before season hits here, because I know once once deer season hits, that's what my main focus is gonna be.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm trying to finish up projects at work this week, getting at the farm to make sure, like you said, once Thursday hits, we're solely focused on the woods.
SPEAKER_01Now I had I had to even put in my deer vacation today, too.
SPEAKER_02I I'm trying to I got quite a bit of vacation saved up, and I'm actually getting more PTO days next year, so I'm trying to use up some of them. So I I'm I'm thoughtfully structuring mine right now.
SPEAKER_01I should be off the way I have it from like November 1st through the like I think 10th. I'll be off. So I'll have a nice little stretch there to try to get one on the ground. If I don't have one on the ground by then.
SPEAKER_02I'm trying to save some too for Orange Army heads. Yeah, I'm trying to save some too to maybe do an Illinois pub clan trip and you know, really dive into a piece and be there for a couple of days.
SPEAKER_01Well, if you know, if I do get one on the ground before that, we might have to do that. That'd be a pretty fun thing. Go out there for a couple days and do that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. You and I were looking.
SPEAKER_01For once, Illinois was actually cheaper than your Ohio license, too, I think. Yeah, I I gotta look at Ohio, but I know it's not cheap by no means.
SPEAKER_02Missouri was cheap. It's like what our turkey tag was in Kentucky.
SPEAKER_01Really? Yeah. Might need to find a piece of Missouri next year. Well, that's uh I actually I have a buddy that uh he's got family in Kansas I work with, and he was talking about how he thinks he's got some lead on some Kansas ground if we can get drawed out for Kansas. So that'd be a fun one. Like that's one of my bucket lists is to make it out there and try to get on a whitetail.
SPEAKER_02Do you have a sorry I'm gonna you got any point yet for Kansas?
SPEAKER_01No, I do you have to have points for Kansas? I thought in Iowa you had to have points, but I thought in Kansas you just put in for a draw.
SPEAKER_02Kansas you put in for a draw, but I think it I'll have to luck again. I think I think if you don't get drawn, you get a point, but you don't like buy points like other points.
SPEAKER_01I think it's how I see. Yeah, I'm not I'm not completely sure how all that works. I'm gonna have to look into it. I don't want to say it then mislead anybody on it. Yeah, I have a whole notes app page opened up for just stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02You know, what points I have and what states and you know, states I'm thinking about what what you have to do and the deadlines and all that.
SPEAKER_01We'll have to get Tyler on. He's actually heading to British Columbia this week.
SPEAKER_02Bear hunting?
SPEAKER_01Elk hunt. Oh, that's cool. Elk Mule Deer. So that's sweet. Yeah, we'll have to once he gets back from that, we'll have to get him on and see how that went.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, hopefully, uh hopefully it works out for him. It it looks it sounds pretty cool, so yeah.
SPEAKER_02That is awesome. There's something else I know that's outcoming right now. I can't remember. Really? Oh well. I can't think, yeah. I've been, you know, watching everyone posting their YouTube's about season so far, and stuff with something we gotta get doing one year.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm uh I'm jealous here. Which I don't know. Right now they're they pretty much started harvest around us. Yeah, so the cornfields and the bean fields are getting out, and we're getting pretty busy at work, but also once the cork and corn comes out around me, man, things change a lot.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there's a lot of stuff coming out here. I know our the farm we hunt is all the beans are losing their leaves, so here in about another week those should be gone and things will be really really changed up for what they're doing. We got quite a bit of acorns down, so definitely definitely moving to the tops of ridges and things like that. But I definitely have seen you know, I was talking to some buddies in Illinois and they started having some bucks show up this year or sorry, this week, so you know the the the fall shift is definitely starting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean you know, as time goes on, you know, I feel like things just fly by and the more I think about it, you know, two weeks will be here before we know it, and it'll be the middle October. Yeah, then you know, then you were in the middle of October, you got a five or six day law and you transition into the pre-rit, then November's knocking real quick right there. And so, you know, it the big thing is is you know, we're not really, I mean, yeah, we're away from it, but it's gonna happen fast. It y'all always does. So that's my my biggest thing is is I hope we get everything moved and set and then sit here and wait. So it's gonna be a waiting game, and when time's gonna be right to crash, crash in, whether whether it's October 16th or the 26th, who knows?
SPEAKER_02You're a lot better at waiting than I am. I like I have to get in there. Not in there, but I I have to be sitting at a tree or I'll go crazy.
SPEAKER_01I I've come to notice I don't like getting too antsy till I get that first uh daylight picture. And then or close, anyways. Like, you know, that's my biggest thing is hopefully the cold front will hit at the right time and then things will be money.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's what I was I was looking at last year, these three bucks. The one's the stout one that I've had for I think four years now. And last year he he daylighted quite a bit that first week of October when it was cool. There's a two or three day period that got cool there, and he daylighted quite a bit. So we'll see. I know another one for while last year.
SPEAKER_01Go ahead. Are you are you there? Yep. I said or last year was weird because I remember October 1st of last year, I had three shooters daylight. And I didn't have I didn't have any of them daylight again until like the 23rd. Yeah. So it was weird. Like October 1st, it was like they all daylighted on the day I was not expecting them to daylight, and then you know, and it got me antsy, and then they didn't daylight again until you know the weather worked its way back in.
SPEAKER_02But I really think if you get a cold front, you get a cold front there that first weekend, it's pretty deadly, but then obviously it slows down until we get to the last eight, nine days of October. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Which I know it's September, but man, I feel like uh everything's turning very quick around us. I mean, the the color of trees, I mean, I just feel like you know, fall's hitting really, really quick.
SPEAKER_02I agree. And uh like I said, the the beans, like we just said, corn beans are coming out, so they're gonna be switching everything up here quickly.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yes. I'm I'm hoping that they don't switch up too quick and then it throws a pattern off, which I'm curious to see what this deer will do this year because last year November hit and he was everywhere.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_01I don't know if him getting a little older, if his home range will shrink a little, or if he's gonna be just as crazy as was last year. I mean, I know in like three days, I mean, he covered I mean, he was at like six miles away one day, then it felt like three the next. Like it was it was crazy the amount of ground that deer was covering.
SPEAKER_02Well, and you got you got more food on the place, so maybe he sticks around longer than that, which obviously will bring more dough, so maybe makes them want to stay longer.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, we'll de we'll definitely see. It'll be interesting to see what happens. I'm definitely I'm still running cameras on uh other farms just uh then actually there's one more farm I haven't made it to.
SPEAKER_02I'd like I'm gonna try to get two cameras out there, and then I should have cameras on all my permission farms, so I just you know, every year I put out cameras and I think of about two or three other spots, so I actually just ordered some more today.
SPEAKER_01You always gotta keep a couple in your backpack, so I I'd hate to know what your uh your bill is.
SPEAKER_02If you don't look at it, you don't know. That's why I'm not married and don't have kids, so I can spend money on batteries and trail cameras.
SPEAKER_01Trail cameras. Yeah, well, and you it's crazy too, is I I know you don't have no youth week youth hunters this upcoming weekend, but it is youth season, so yeah, there will be deer going on the ground.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Good luck to all those youth hunters. I kind of forgot about that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I was hoping to be able to take. I have a boy that usually takes, but I said, We're not gonna be able to make a youth weekend, but I'll fit you in one week in there in October. Well, we'll get them out. So go ahead. I said it it's it's time we're there. I mean, by the time our next one's out, we sh we'll be in tree stands.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. We'll do a October 1st episode, like we always do the quick one for you to listen to on the way to your stand or in the tree. So we appreciate everyone listening. Good luck to all those youth hunters this weekend and get your last-minute projects done.
SPEAKER_01Yep, stay safe. I can't wait to see everybody's success.
SPEAKER_02Yep. Thanks, guys.