Show Notes
In this episode Micheal and I discuss our preparations for the upcoming season. We talk about gear, hunting strategies, early season tactics, and identifying travel corridors for the pre-rut phase. We talk a bit about access on public ground specifically, and how utilizing unique accesses can increase your odds of success. Michael discusses hunting strategies in Pennsylvania and Maryland during the early season and the transition into the pre-rut. He emphasizes the importance of understanding deer movement and finding travel corridors between bedding areas. Michael shares his experience of hunting in mountainous terrain and using topography to his advantage. Kevin Creeley shares his own experiences hunting in flatlands and the significance of small topographic features like drains and saddles. They discuss the importance of scouting and finding fresh sign, such as scrapes and how they dictate deer movement. We discuss finding and hunting travel corridors, including unique examples such as pond dams, pine meets hardwood transitions, and timber strips between multiple thick bedding areas. We emphasize the significance of understanding buck's movement patterns during the rut and how travel corridors play a role in their behavior. The conversation also touches on the importance of considering neighboring properties and using technology like trail cameras to gather information. Overall a great chat with Micheal, thanks everybody for listening!
Show Transcript
Kevin Creeley (00:01.494)
Michael, how you doing, buddy?
Michael Rebert (00:02.828)
not bad, man. How are you?
Kevin Creeley (00:05.57)
wonderful man no complaints here it's about 12 days until i'll be at deer camp so no complaints from me
Michael Rebert (00:12.072)
wow, that's pretty exciting. It's exciting stuff. I know down here and we start on the sixth in Maryland, September 6th. So, time's ticking, man. I'm ready.
Kevin Creeley (00:22.774)
Right on. Are you, are you hunting the opener in Maryland this year?
Michael Rebert (00:29.111)
yeah, for sure, for sure.
Kevin Creeley (00:31.548)
So in Maryland, is it primarily public that you're hunting?
Michael Rebert (00:35.308)
Yeah, mostly public, but I do have a small 10 acre access that kind of backs right up against the public. So I kind of utilize that little area as well. But mostly public down there. Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (00:42.786)
Perfect.
Kevin Creeley (00:51.084)
Yeah, what have you been doing like preseason wise getting ready other than shooting like a madman? I've seen you on Instagram just slinging arrows every day. So I know you got that going on.
Michael Rebert (00:59.404)
I mean, for the most part, all my gear is ready to rock, I pretty much go over that at the end of the season every year. Just get it all ready, put it all away. And I know it's ready to go because I've been doing a couple of practice climbs already and just kind of knocking the rust off. That first climb is always the toughest mountain open in Maury, you know how?
Kevin Creeley (01:23.489)
Mm
Michael Rebert (01:27.486)
Especially if you're going in on a saddle or something it's Knocking the rust off is not the one that's not the first not the way you want to be doing things going in climate for the first time in the morning, so I got all my gear pretty much set up arrows though, they're down and Cameras hung
Kevin Creeley (01:27.702)
Mm -hmm.
Kevin Creeley (01:38.366)
Absolutely not.
Michael Rebert (01:49.952)
pretty much just going to wait for the weather.
come up with a plan after that.
Kevin Creeley (01:58.294)
Yeah, you mentioned a saddle so I assume you saddle hunt
Michael Rebert (02:01.972)
Yeah, that's just another tool that I guess I use, you But, especially on public land, saddle hunting is a huge tool to have.
Kevin Creeley (02:13.394)
Yeah, for me personally, I use a lightweight hang on and sticks. I've never entered into the saddle world. I've been in a saddle one time in my life, in my buddies, in my backyard and shot out of it. I don't know, maybe it's just a comfort thing. Like I haven't practiced with it and I see the versatility of it. Like I do understand it's the lightest weight setup you can do. But I personally, like I haven't found a tree that I'm...
I've been unable to climb with my hang on and sticks. use like a really small platform and excuse me. use the XOP X2 sticks. They're like an 18 inch stick and it's really lightweight. I think the whole setup's like somewhere around 17 pounds or something. Don't quote me on that, but I don't know. It's super easy. I use that and I've been loving that. So.
Michael Rebert (03:02.932)
Right, yeah. Yeah, obviously.
Kevin Creeley (03:05.152)
Yeah. Go ahead. Sorry.
Michael Rebert (03:09.066)
I basically just took one of those extra P -sticks and just made them into like my own version of the tethered one stick that they came out with. have my own platform kind of rigged up on the top of it and a three -step ater that comes down. So that's just what I've been using over the past two or three seasons that's been working. So it ain't broken.
Kevin Creeley (03:17.963)
Mm
Kevin Creeley (03:33.462)
Right on, Absolutely, yeah. That's the motto I like to stick to. I hunted out of a climber for years and years. The area that I hunt in Virginia, the private land anyway, that I hunt in Virginia, it's a lot of timberland. There's tons of pines of various ages. And with pines just comes really easy climbing, you know, because it's straight trees. And a lot of times...
Michael Rebert (03:49.834)
Yeah.
Michael Rebert (03:57.494)
Right.
Kevin Creeley (04:00.128)
In those areas I'm hunting the transitions from like where it's mature pines to cut pines and along those transition lines, there's traditionally always some just really straight pine trees to climb. so I had always just used a climber because it was just easy and accessible. Probably when I started hunting public landmores, when I transitioned to like, okay, I need to do something different because I couldn't find, you know, I'd spend more time finding a tree to climb. And it was like, I'd get in the spot.
Michael Rebert (04:12.491)
Right.
Michael Rebert (04:27.637)
Right.
Kevin Creeley (04:29.378)
And I'd be like, this is where I need to find a tree. And then I'd end up 50, 60 yards off the spot because I had to find a tree that was appropriate for my equipment. And that got frustrating.
Michael Rebert (04:37.034)
Right. And there's just really no efficient way to carry a climber through the woods, man. Like, I don't care what climber brand it is. Like, you got those things clanging around or, you know, just it's just a lot more to carry around compared to, you know, even a small hang on it sticks. You know, nowadays you can carry five sticks and practically put it in your bag, you know, so.
Kevin Creeley (04:42.337)
No.
Kevin Creeley (04:47.169)
Mm
Kevin Creeley (04:58.988)
Yeah, absolutely. it's like, think all the old tricks from back in the day, you know, you like fill the climber with spray foam. You got like four different straps strapping the thing together so it doesn't clank. And then like you're taping up the cables so they don't make as much noise.
Michael Rebert (05:12.138)
Yeah, but you you know, even though you're going through tight trails of brushing stuff and the brushes hitting it, it's just like, there's really no way of making it like super.
Kevin Creeley (05:22.658)
Dude, I can think of a time where a buddy and I were hunting public land and we made this access and we picked a spot in the dark that we wanted to get to. And we had been to the area, but the way we were accessing was new and we were like, it can't be that bad. It's gotta be just like the other side that we access from. We're like, screw it. And we did it in the dark climbers on our back and we made it like 50 yards in there. And it was so dense, dude. My climbers getting hung on everything behind me. We're ducking.
under brush and climbing over dead falls. And I got so frustrated that I walked back to the front of like where we started the access. I took the climber off. set it on the ground and I said, Nope, I'm ground hunting. I just walked in there. I was like, nah, dude, this is so frustrating.
Michael Rebert (05:55.563)
I'm
Michael Rebert (06:02.796)
Nonetheless, though, it's still I think every good hunter is going to utilize, you know, everything. I think it's nice to have a saddle. I think it's nice to be able to use a climber, be able to use a hang on in the situation that you have, depending on where you're hunting, just, you know, to have all those tools in the bag. I think that's the name of the game, really.
Kevin Creeley (06:27.498)
Yeah, it just comes with experience too. when I first started using the Hang On a couple of years ago, I was using that Hawk came out with like their first Ultralight platform a few years ago or whatever. And then I bought the Lone Wolf sticks, which I wasn't a huge fan of because they're really long and they were like, I mean almost twice as long as the platform. So there was no good way to strap them to the stand. A couple of hunts I can recall. I remember just, I ended up just carrying them.
Michael Rebert (06:38.645)
Right.
Kevin Creeley (06:53.378)
And then I had to stand on my back, is obviously not ideal because then you'll have a free hand because you your bow and your sticks and backpack on your back with this platform. It just became so much. it used to take me like the only benefit at that point in having a hang on was like, well, I can get in any tree. But once I got to the tree, I would, on average, it would take me like 30 minutes to get up because I just didn't have an efficient system. And then I switched to the XOP setup.
Michael Rebert (06:53.868)
Yeah.
No.
Kevin Creeley (07:20.628)
And now like I timed myself the other day, I was up a tree in nine minutes and that's like standing at the base of the tree, stand on my back, everything secured, backpack strapped down the whole nine. And I wasn't like rushing, you know, I was just getting up the tree and four sticks up, platform hung, bow pulled up, bow hanging, backpack hanging, like ready to hunt. It was nine minutes. And I was like, yeah, we're cooking with, cooking with grease now. So.
Michael Rebert (07:33.281)
Right.
Michael Rebert (07:44.662)
Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (07:46.754)
Well, that's cool, man. you starting out? You're hunting Maryland for the opener. Are you hunting private or public or both that weekend?
Michael Rebert (07:52.96)
so I'll be, like I said, the, the, little public land that I, their private land that I do have to hunt is, kind of right across to, a fairly main road from a huge reservoir that is all public land. It's all only archery hunting. And, you know, I think there's, there's a, I kind of break up the, the public lands in our area and kind of three different categories. So to get kind of more, you're recreational.
like state park land and then you got your game land, which is, you know, kind of small in acreage, more based around your small game, like small game hunting. You know, you got a lot of stockings. It's controlled by the game commission. And you got your your state forest, which is, you know, big woods type lands. But I'll be hunting more of that reservoir, public land, archery only.
public land, but it's also going to be just right up against private. So, and Maryland, are allowed to be, but I've never really have any success shooting big bucks off of corn piles ever. So it's one of those things. No, no, no, no, you cannot, you know, you can only be on, you can only be on private. So I have a little, like a little 10 acre private lot that backs right up to the public.
Kevin Creeley (09:04.367)
Can you bait on the public?
Michael Rebert (09:16.076)
So it's just kind of nice to be able to pull those deer off of the public land to come check out that corn pile and You know I can grab Intel from that and try to see what's in the area what's on the public land and then go from there to try to make a strategy on You know where I'm gonna hunt opening day so
Kevin Creeley (09:28.578)
Hmm.
Kevin Creeley (09:34.464)
Yeah, makes sense. Yeah, usually historically for me, I don't start deer hunting until like the first or second week of October. That's usually when Virginia's open early fall. And by that time, white oaks are usually dropping pretty good. Red oaks are definitely dropping. If we got a good acorn crop that year, they're dropping pretty good. And that's like my primary focus always has been in the early quote unquote early season for Virginia. It's just been the acorn crop.
Michael Rebert (09:57.569)
Mm
Kevin Creeley (10:04.342)
This year I'll be hunting in September. It's my first year ever hunting in September. I'm going to some public land in North Carolina and it's really, really swampy public land. and I scouted it a little bit the other day and I found some acorn trees that were holding and stuff. don't think they will be dropping in time for opening weekend. I found some areas with some good browse. I specifically, I found one area where there was an old log deck and there was a lot of greenbrier grown up.
in this log deck and, in the, kind of the pinch of this old log deck, looked like someone took a weed eater to the top of the green briar. So kind of switching gears this year, I've never really had to focus on finding like an early season food source with the exception of like, obviously soybeans and stuff like that. But on this swampy public land with no ag around and stuff, I'm like kind of getting out of my comfort zone. And I'm like, no, all right. Yeah. It's pretty much just pines.
Michael Rebert (10:51.457)
Mm -hmm.
Kevin Creeley (11:01.412)
the occasional patches of oaks and a lot of water. So what do you like to focus on in that early, early season in Maryland?
Michael Rebert (11:10.676)
Early season food source down in Maryland. I tend to find the deer just are hanging out in the woods, man. They're just doing a lot of browse. That's why I do hold that corn pile on that little tiny little lot, just because there isn't a single oak tree on it. And so there's not a single acorn fallen early, you know, early October, mid October. So there's there's no food on it. It's just it's just thick brush, you know, high stem count with.
You
a corn pile, a nice little drainage ditch running through it. So there's not a single food source on there for them to eat besides browse, whatever they're eating, know, walking through the woods, just kind of chilling.
Kevin Creeley (11:59.52)
Yeah, kind of feels similar to the setup where I'm hunting in Carolina this year. Like when I was scouting the other day, was like, I usually like to find like four or five spots if I'm scouting a new area and then I can kind of like, you know, if I got three days to hunt, I can check the boxes, those spots kind of one at a time. And, it was not one spot that I've, and I covered a lot of ground, but there wasn't one spot that I found that was like, this is it. This is the dynamite spot. Like it was all just like, yeah, a little bit of sign here.
A little bit of sign here, you know, there's not, cause I'm like these food sources I'm keying in on it's not an acorn food source. It's not an ag field. It's not something to that effect. it's like, I don't know. It's going to be a lot more, just scouting and observation, I think more than anything.
Michael Rebert (12:44.342)
Yeah, because, you know, in an early season, you still got all your, you know, your beans coming in. got people, you know, the deer really hanging out in the corn. And I don't have any huge egg fields or, you know, any big farms that I have access to hunt. You know, I only have access to public lands. So any of the any of the public lands that are holding, you know, corn and stuff like that, I have access to that. But, you know, every other hunter does, too. So. And the areas that I hunt, especially in Maryland.
Kevin Creeley (13:09.974)
Yeah.
Michael Rebert (13:14.06)
and southern Pennsylvania, the game lands are small. We're 1200 acres to 10 ,000 acres as compared to upstate Pennsylvania where you got 85 ,000, 100 ,000 acres of just state forest, huge state forest game lands and stuff like that. down here in Maryland,
Kevin Creeley (13:32.706)
Sheesh. Yeah.
Michael Rebert (13:42.38)
If you have access to some good farmland with good ag, good corn and stuff like that, that's, know, not everyone has access to that stuff. So I just try to make work with being around water, especially in the early season, because these past two early seasons, man, it's been hot, like talking 90 degrees, you know. So it's really important to be around water the first the first week or so, week or two before those first couple of cold fronts start coming in.
And just being around, you know, brows if you don't have any egg to be sitting on. That's, you know, that's the best way to do it in my opinion.
Kevin Creeley (14:24.758)
Yeah. What are your, expectations early season wise? you chasing bucks right off the rip? you trying to knock a couple of days down in that early season?
Michael Rebert (14:33.676)
So historically, I would go out and shoot a doe every day, pretty much every time. But it was about three or four years ago, I was sitting out there, it was hot, man. was like 90, 95 degrees. And I had a doe come in and I was just thinking to myself, like, man, if I shoot her, I know what that's going to entail, right? I'm going to get down, track this thing through all of this thick early season brush, crawling in there with all the spider webs and you name it, right?
and drag her out and deal with all that, get her on ice. And you know, got a timeframe, you got a time crunch in that early season where you shoot a dough, you got to get her on ice, you got to get her out, get her on ice quick. You know, so I was sitting there thinking one night, like, no, I'm not, I'm gonna hold back. And long behold, I had a buck show up, you know, 15 minutes before shooting light and I ended up shooting and killing him, so.
After that happened, that kind of really opened my eyes. Like, man, I'm just going to wait it out for the first couple of days. So I stopped shooting, though, on the first day, first two days of the season, just for that reason. just, you know, if you've got them on camera and you know they're in the area, might as well wait them out, you know.
Kevin Creeley (15:48.854)
That's awesome. I'm very much the opposite.
Michael Rebert (15:51.912)
Yeah, I've heard I've heard your podcast. You like to sling them off right from day one. I respect that,
Kevin Creeley (15:56.736)
Yeah.
Well, my take on it is like, it's like meat is super important to me. Deer meat is my wife and I will eat like eight deer a year. That's like our number is like eight. Last year we killed seven and we ran out of deer meat like a week ago. So my freezer is empty. So trigger finger starts itching and I need to get meat in the freezer as soon as possible, especially like this North Carolina trip. It's public land. I don't care, you know, about how I pressure it or anything like that. Like I'm killing does a hundred percent. I'm killing does like.
Michael Rebert (16:07.606)
Mm
Kevin Creeley (16:28.642)
And the bucks, my expectation for bucks up there, like, yeah, I'm not going to shoot a spike or a four corn, but my expectation of like, what's a quote unquote big buck on that piece of public is going to be vastly different from what I'll shoot on my lease in Virginia. know? So really it's just, it's just extending my opportunity, an extra month and getting in the woods earlier. And that's really the whole reason I'm going. it's kind of a unique situation. You were saying like, you've got the 10 acre access.
Michael Rebert (16:43.093)
Right, right.
Kevin Creeley (16:58.338)
the private access there that, that butts up to that public in Maryland. this, this chunk of private that I'm hunting in Carolina, my buddy, he's got, he's in a, in a hunt club that's in Carolina. And it's one of the largest tracks of private land in Carolina. It's like, I don't know, 12 ,000 acres or something like that. One continuous track. And, this swamp public land that I'm hunting borders that, that private and,
Michael Rebert (17:02.23)
Mm
Kevin Creeley (17:25.41)
the side of the public that I'll be spending most of my time or I spent most of my scouting time the other day, there's two ways to get to it. You can either take a boat up the river and then trek through a ton of swamp to get to the pines where I scouted the other day. Or you can come through my buddy's hunt club as the only two ways. And the hunt club members, they don't hunt it, the swamp, because they have 12 ,000 acres of private and it's dry ground and it's, you know, it's a lot easier to hunt. The swamp's kind of miserable.
Michael Rebert (17:43.499)
Right.
Michael Rebert (17:52.51)
Right. Right.
Kevin Creeley (17:55.17)
So he's literally going to drive me all the way to the back corner of that 12 ,000 acres, drive me off at the corner of the public. And then I'll walk in and it's about a half mile through the swamp and then you get to those pines. And so I'm pretty confident I'll have the whole place to myself, which is, which is neat.
Michael Rebert (18:09.356)
yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's the way to do it, man. You were asking earlier, like some of my strategies for the opening week in Maryland and that's just it right there. Like I got that 10 acre access that bucks up to be the private or the public land there. you know, that's, I, you know, historically really know that area. kind of know when the deer start using that, that, you know, little 10 acre access to travel through. And as far as other
areas such as within the private or the public land. Just getting up behind those people's houses that butts up right up right up against their that that private land, those reservoirs. You know, there's a lot of wealthy people down there who do not like, you know, so there's, know, they got their horse farms or they got just a really nice, rich, big properties with their Kentucky bluegrass growing up, you know, and there's deer come right out into their yards, you know, in the evenings from the from the
you know, public lands, you know, so if you can get up, that's the hardest part is getting access there. You know, if you don't have a boat to get in there and that, know, that reservoir specifically is electric motors only, it's a huge reservoir. So you're either paddling or you're getting in, you know, with a trolling motor and you're getting there and there's not many legal, there's not many like boat ramps to get in and out of there. So you're going be traveling a long ways, you know, so it's either getting a kayak.
Kevin Creeley (19:10.486)
guys.
Michael Rebert (19:37.01)
or putting boots on the ground and walking around the perimeter of this private land to get in there behind these people's houses that don't hunt, you know, and that's where the deer are just really stacked up in there. So that's kind of more of my tactic is in Maryland because there's, I don't want a lot of really big woods. It's more of a very urban kind of territory down there. So.
Kevin Creeley (19:48.29)
on.
Kevin Creeley (19:59.732)
Yeah. And I'm sure as the season progresses, I don't know how long you hunt in Maryland, but I'm sure as the season progresses, that area that you're describing probably just continues to get better. I'll do to the fact that the pressure from the other side where the primary access to the public ground is, it's going to push those deer into those pockets of like up behind those residences and stuff like that.
Michael Rebert (20:11.552)
Mm -hmm.
Michael Rebert (20:19.372)
Absolutely. Exactly. Yeah. The farther the farthest away you can get away from the parking area, man, is, you know, is no joke. You know, you hear on other podcasts, people talk about it all the time. Get as far away as you can, as far as ways you can. Well, I mean, that could mean 50 yards off a private road or a public road. could be 50 yards off a public road. But if that's a hard place to get access to because of private land or, know, you got to get water through water to get there. You can't just walk off the road to get there because there's
private landing between there, you know, that could be, you know, it doesn't have to be five miles out in the middle of nowhere, you know, it be a hundred yards off of the main road. Just hard to get there because you got to get access to it.
Kevin Creeley (21:05.026)
Yeah, dude, we've got a, I could tell a story about a deer I killed on public land. And, without going into too much detail, basically you have to come across this bridge to enter the public. And, once you cross this bridge, like the second you cross the bridge, you're on the public and there's a beach on both sides of the bridge that paralleled that beach is the border of the public ground. And everybody drives, you know, five, six, 700 yards past that bridge, pulls off the side of the road, walks into those pines and hunts.
A buddy of mine and I parked right there at the bridge one day to scout. And we walked down the beach. That was the edge of that bridge. And then we walked into the timber and there was a drain in there that was just, I mean, littered with deer sign. And then we went in there, first hunt, killed a deer. And I mean, we were literally a stone's throw into the public land and I didn't see a soul there, you know? So now we were.
Michael Rebert (21:57.356)
Just one of those look real small overlook spots, you know, that's all it is.
Kevin Creeley (22:04.778)
Yeah, so now we were actually, whenever we hunt that spot, we'll pull up in the dark, take our stands, sticks, bows, chuck them out the window right there into the ditch. I mean, not literally throw them, but you know, put our stuff right there in the ditch. And then we'll pull down like 400 yards and we'll go park like we're going to go into this big stand of pines. That's well into the public with everybody else. We'll go park in literally a parking lot full of trucks and then we'll turn around, walk back up the hard surface road.
Grab our stuff and walk down that beach because we just don't want people to see us, you know, going in there, but it's a cool, it's a cool little spot like that. yeah, I don't know. Definitely. If you can get innovative with your access, I feel like that could make a big difference hunting public ground.
Michael Rebert (22:37.622)
Yeah.
Michael Rebert (22:50.538)
Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (22:52.292)
What Go ahead, sorry
Michael Rebert (22:54.996)
I'm sorry, the public land down in Maryland, at least from my experience, the public lands I hunt down there compared to the public lands up here in PA are just completely different. First off, Pennsylvania, we got a lot of hunters here. A lot of the houses that do bump up to that public land are probably hunters or they let somebody hunt. So the access here is a little different. And then, of course, upstate, you're more mountainous.
territory, you know, that's just a whole different ball game. If anybody has been up to New York or anywhere upstate, it's like a needle in a haystack, right? But the needles move, you know? So it can be tough.
Kevin Creeley (23:41.292)
for sure. So transitioning out of the early season mindset, what time of year do you usually start hunting Pennsylvania?
Michael Rebert (23:49.772)
So I'll hunt opening day or mostly opening week in Pennsylvania, but I probably wait until about mid -October to really start taking things as serious as far as knowing from past experience where the deer are starting to move, where the bucks are starting to, where they're going to show up.
during that mid October frame when they're starting their search, know, for hot, not really searching for dough. They're just searching for doughs, you know, checking out the area, you know, going to check in on different concentrations of deer within, you know, their home range. so right around mid October is when I'll start my transit. I wouldn't really say there's a transition, but right around mid October, I'll start hunting, you know, more aggressive.
in those travel corridors and Pennsylvania, same thing. As soon as that comes in, you're about a week out from that timeframe.
Kevin Creeley (24:59.934)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, and so what do you usually key in on that time of year? Let's call it October 10th through the 20th. What do you usually key in on that time to find deer movement?
Michael Rebert (25:14.966)
That's a question. would say a lot of past experience as far as the October 10th, knowing the region that you hunt is huge. Right. So like, I'm sure you have your, you know, your hunting lease and you know about what time of the year that you're, especially from past experience, you know, exactly kind of where when there's deer going to moving through that property a lot more. Right. So everyone's going to start using trail cameras. got trail cameras between, you know, different,
populations of like of the deer. So we got a bedding area over here and maybe you have another bedding area 500 yards away. I think a lot of people, what they need to ask themselves is like, you got this this population of deer here in this bedding area, right? And then you got another population of deer, a whole nother mountain away. You got to ask that that there's travel routes in between those areas, you know.
Like how is a big buck gonna move between those populations of deer herds? You know what saying?
Kevin Creeley (26:22.944)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So you're, you're, but you're saying is you're, you're primarily focusing on travel corridors. Like pretty much as soon as you break into October, you're focusing in on where bucks are starting to cruise, take inventory, maybe check and make scrapes, or, or a buck is just starting to, you know, kind of take inventory of where the dough herds are that way. Once the special time of year comes around, he's, he's kind of already got his, his ducks in a row and you're trying to get, so yeah, in between bedding areas. That's a.
Michael Rebert (26:29.482)
Absolutely
Michael Rebert (26:35.436)
Mm
Absolutely.
Michael Rebert (26:48.691)
Absolutely.
Kevin Creeley (26:52.694)
That's a great tactic. personally don't start with that until probably, usually the number for me is October 26th is like traditionally every year been the timeframe that I, at least in my experience where I hunt, start to see bucks cruising in daylight in those travel corridors between bedding. where I hunt it's in Virginia anyway, it's, it's a lot of really dense cover and it's hard to see a buck on his feet. I mean, unless you're in his bedroom.
Michael Rebert (27:10.495)
Mm
Kevin Creeley (27:21.812)
in that early October timeframe. now with that said, excuse me, with that said, the first week of October, second week of October, I'm pretty much just hunting a food source. and then usually that's going to be white oak acorns. if white oak acorns don't drop, I have a couple of spots where I'll hunt chestnut acorns, a little bit less desirable for the deer, seems like, but, if the white oaks don't drop, then they will certainly eat it. And I have seen some good bucks on acorn trees.
Michael Rebert (27:23.659)
Mm -hmm.
Kevin Creeley (27:51.043)
early season, it's, it's never, it's never like a target of mine, like, I'm to hunt this acorn tree and see a good buck because just from past, experience and trail camera Intel, the bucks are typically not making it to those acorn trees in daylight in the areas that I'm, that I'm hunting them. so me personally, I'm not really hunting more than like maybe 150 to 200 yards off the road until October 26th, the week of Halloween.
Michael Rebert (28:19.86)
Right. Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (28:21.414)
up until then I'm hunting food sources. I'm inside corners of soybean fields and corn fields, white, okay. Corn trees, swamp, chestnut, trees, stuff like that. And, like I said, usually my, my goals are very different than yours in early season. I'm, killing dose. I'm killing. want to kill like five. So a hundred yards off a red, find a white oak tree, find one with good sign, climb a tree, kill a doe, never hunt that spot again. And that's kind of like the story of my early season.
Michael Rebert (28:35.286)
Right.
Michael Rebert (28:45.674)
Yeah. Yeah. So you got those like those concentrations of deers, the acorns start falling. I'll set up kind of somewhere in between those. I'll find a concentration of deer. And then my next question is where is the next closest bedding area, the safe, the next closest safe zone here that's kind of hold a whole completely different concentration of deer. Right. And then I'm going to map out those distances, kind of connect the dots. And I'm going to try to find every train feature in between those two concentrations.
And I'm going to do that, you know, just keep doing that throughout the entire public land, private land, get boots on the ground, go digging around in those in those those bedding areas that that hold there, you know, all day, you know, and, know, everyone's been walking through the woods and and in the middle of the day, you see a deer bedded down just kind of in a random spot, you know, underneath a dead tree. And it's just like they're just bedded down in between those two safe zones, you know. And you got to figure out come come, you know,
Kevin Creeley (29:37.61)
Yep.
Michael Rebert (29:45.576)
mid -October when those bucks start coming around chasing they're going to be using those safest travel corridors between those concentrations of deer to get to come check out what they're going to be doing first week of November. yeah, first couple weeks of October, I would say the first two weeks of October, I'll sit in those travel corridors and that's when I'll start shooting those. I'll shoot a doe or two then and just wait for something to shoot.
Kevin Creeley (30:02.198)
Mm
Kevin Creeley (30:14.219)
Right on.
Michael Rebert (30:15.052)
just wait for something to start to show up. And then once I see something that show up, that's when I'm start getting aggressive on that specific deer or try to catch another deer slipping the same way one that one did.
Kevin Creeley (30:32.043)
Yeah, I had an old timer tell me one time and this, I don't know why this just stuck with me really hard. And it seems really simple and kind of silly when you say it out loud. But if you actually think about it and if you're like, especially if you're newer to deer hunting, it makes a ton of sense. He told me, he said, with the exception of the rut, if you see a deer walking through the woods, that deer is either on the way to a food source or on the way to a bedding area. It's doing.
Michael Rebert (30:58.305)
Mm
Kevin Creeley (30:59.446)
The deer is doing one of two things in the early season timeframe. Now, you know, they're in the rut and that's a little different, right? But because there's all kinds of stuff going on in the rut, but in the early season timeframe, he said, you know, he's either on his way to a food source or on his way to a bedding area. And it's like, huh, light bulb, you know? So it's like, if you can identify the food source, right. Then you can backtrack that deer and find a bedding area.
Michael Rebert (31:17.504)
Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (31:24.618)
If you can identify the bedding area, then you can backtrack and find the food source. You know, and I just thought that was like a big light bulb moment for me and my deer hunting career. you know, cause it's, it's, it's an easy thing to overthink deer hunting is like why are deer doing what they do? But in all reality, they're pretty simplistic creatures, you know,
Michael Rebert (31:24.907)
Right.
Michael Rebert (31:42.956)
Absolutely, 100%. We give them too much credit, man. We really do.
Kevin Creeley (31:48.977)
So when you're hunting those travel corridors, let's say it's hmm, I don't know. Let's call it Halloween week like 26 through 31st, right? you're hunting what's that?
Michael Rebert (31:56.587)
favorite week.
That's probably my favorite week, probably the 26th through the first and the second of November. Right in there, it's a great time to be in the woods, So.
Kevin Creeley (32:05.547)
All right on.
Kevin Creeley (32:09.292)
Like, yeah. Yeah. I traditionally take off a lot of time in the rut. This year I took off the 25th through the second, which I'm fired up about. I took a lot of time off during the rut too, but I took that off as well. I just took more time off this year, but anyway, back to my question. So, paint me a picture. It's October 26th. You're hunting a travel corridor. Paint me a picture of what the bedding area looks like.
Let's say on the south end and on the north end and then what the travel corridor in between the two is
Michael Rebert (32:41.832)
So I can just kind of paint a picture of a situation that I kind of have without giving too many terrain features away.
So up on the top of this mountain, I was doing some east calc one time and I found this, these two peaks, right? You're looking at a topo map, you see the two peaks and they're only about 50 yards away from each other. So I was like, hmm, that's kind of interesting. It just looks like two mountain peaks. I don't know what I'm saying. Like looks like two circles within 50 yards away from each other as it's on a topo map. So I went in there and I started, started snooping around and I found, you know, some real nice thick bedding, we're talking mountain laurel.
a lot of layover trees in there. And you can just tell it's holding the deer. If you walk around the outskirts, you can see their droppings. You can see the trails going in and out and, and then a nice drag gradual and, gradual deep, you know, decline down, down the mountain, you know, it drops off on all the other sides. It's pretty steep. And I'm not saying they're not going to use that way, but deer, like we said, they're pretty simple creatures. They're going to use the easiest route of resistance. So,
Kevin Creeley (33:42.178)
Mm
Kevin Creeley (33:51.852)
Mm.
Michael Rebert (33:52.048)
I'm going to go find the closest bedding area to that. That could be in the next valley over. That could be, you know, on the next mountain, the next peak, next peak over. But I would say the perfect picture is to get in between those two bedding areas. If you know deer traveling back and forth in between those two bedding areas, there's all the sign in the world. There's the trails, your home cameras, whatever you did is to get in that travel corridor with the wind.
to your face. I specifically like to have a real steep slope to my back, like on a bench or something like that. And just wait it out, man, wait it out for for one to come slipping up through there, you know, it's going to happen. So it's just a matter of time, you know, being in the woods. If you have all the intel from years experience or just walking around, you see a nice buck market on your own X, get in there, figure out where he's going and figure out this
Kevin Creeley (34:26.54)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Michael Rebert (34:51.85)
where he's going to be traveling and set up on it.
Kevin Creeley (34:56.044)
Dude, how good does it feel when you, let's say you're scouting an area, you find a bedding area, you find what you assume is a travel corridor and you're, make an assumption, right? You're like, okay, the deer, the wind is blowing out of the North. The bedding areas to the North. There's this, whatever it is that makes up what you think would be a travel corridor to the South of that. And in your head, you paint this picture like, he's going to come out here. He's going to cruise like this. And this is what he's going to do. Blah, blah.
Michael Rebert (34:59.254)
Thank
Kevin Creeley (35:24.834)
When you set up in that travel corridor and a buck does exactly that, dude, it is the best feeling. You're just like, dude, I nailed it. You know what I mean? Like, cause how, cause how many. Yeah. Cause how many times do you set up in that situation? And then he's 50 yards behind you and you're like, well, what, the heck's he doing? You know what I mean? So,
Michael Rebert (35:29.174)
We
Yeah, yeah, exactly what happened to me last year.
Michael Rebert (35:44.598)
Yeah, yeah, There's a there's a specific spot that's this trying to paint you a picture of this spot like you got two bedding areas, one's kind of more on the top of this on this bridge. I told you it was between those two peaks and then the the valley on the bottom of this mountain is all real thick of the bedding area, real thick mountain laurel where the deer kind of you can see the trail is kind of going back and forth. Well, I set up with on the on the bench.
Okay. It's like a big bench to kind of goes all the way down the mountain. And I set up one of the banks with the, with the wall of the mountain to my back. So real steep terrain straight to my back. Right. So they're not going to, they're going to go around that. Right. So, and then I had the wind blowing straight, straight into my face. So straight into my face, up that big slave, up to the top. Right. And
It was, it's only about, it's only a bench is only about 50 yards and, and it just trails going straight. It's just, it's so plain in the day, you know, and I had a, walked in there one morning and I was just doing a little bit of scouting and I found a fresh scrape right along the edge of that bench going straight down into that other bedding area. That's on the bottom of the mountain and fresh scrape, you know, I already had piss in it and everything. And I was like, man, this is, this is fresh.
But I already committed to hunting to a different spot that day. You know, so I was like, I really got to keep, you know, mark this down in my in my tracks. I remember to come back here, put a camera out, whatever. So I get back to my truck and I'm back to my cabin. We got a cabin up there in the state forest up in South Central. So. From heading back to the cabin, I'm just thinking about that spot as I'm driving down the road, I'm looking.
at one of my other, I'm driving, I'm going to drive past one of my other spots and I see a truck parked on the side of the road right there where I was going to, where I usually tend to go in that. And I was like, man, this guy in there hunting. That's the first time I see a truck parked there. And was like, I got to come up with a different plan. So I get back to the cabin and I'm getting all my stuff on and I'm getting ready. And I was like, I'm just going to go out here behind the cabin, look for some fresh sign and go set up on that. And then as you hit me, I was like, I just found that fresh scrape up there on that ridge.
Kevin Creeley (37:53.474)
Hmm.
Michael Rebert (38:05.93)
pissing it like I need to go set on one that. So I immediately turn around, got in my truck, ran back there, set up and, you know, walked around, picked around looking for a good tree, trying to figure out which way the wind was blowing and all that stuff. I found a good setup. I was in the tree for about three hours and I was just letting letting out a little bit of grudge. is November 1st, by the way. So this is first November 1st. We had a huge cold front come through. And yeah, it was just a perfect evening. Right.
Kevin Creeley (38:09.164)
Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (38:32.278)
Now, awesome.
Michael Rebert (38:36.076)
So I set up there in the evening and I was just putting out a couple little grunts here and there. And lo and behold, that buck got up from that bedding area between those two peaks on top of that mountain. He either got up or he was in that area and he heard me and he made his way down to, shot him at 15 yards from my tree. So yeah, man, got to... Yeah, this is November 1st.
Kevin Creeley (38:55.57)
God, gotta love it. He said November one was.
Kevin Creeley (39:03.264)
Right on, yeah that's a good day. Man that's awesome. So it sounds like there's a lot of topography where you're hunting in PA.
Michael Rebert (39:05.141)
Thank
Michael Rebert (39:10.076)
yeah, you know, when you get into the big woods and when I say big woods, mean like mountainous areas, you know, when you get up there, you got a lot of topography, you know, and I really use that to my advantage because it's just like, it's, kind of, it's a no brainer. Like how would you use it? You know, like how are you going to walk around it? You know what I mean? You're to take the easiest ways. You're going to take all the little valleys and you know, you're not going to go up and around an area that you don't need to, get to another area.
Kevin Creeley (39:15.969)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Michael Rebert (39:38.08)
you're going to find the easiest way to get there. So, you know, that's that's probably the easiest is because when you're looking at a flat map, just in flat feet, you know, the guys who hunt these big farms and stuff are just flat farmland. It's like. There you even hear them say, like, well, any any type of elevation changes is, you know, is it kind of where you want to be or you want to check this area out, you know, because it's it's hard to read them when they're just, you know.
Kevin Creeley (39:38.54)
Right.
Michael Rebert (40:06.368)
how they're get around a corn field. They're go straight through it, as compared to a mountain. How are they gonna get around the mountain? Well, they're gonna take the easiest way to get around it, so.
Kevin Creeley (40:16.002)
Yep. Yeah. I can attest to that. All the land that I lease in Virginia is about as flat as a pancake. But if you have like a 30 foot drop into a drain or anything like that, even if it, you know, when I say a drain, doesn't have to hold water necessarily just as just anywhere the topography drops a little bit. I mean, like 30 feet would be a lot in the area that I hunt in Virginia. And those areas are going to create travel corridors. It just, it just does. Even if it's like a monotonous pine ticket, that's like three years old.
Michael Rebert (40:40.896)
Mm
Kevin Creeley (40:45.918)
And it's real dense. You'll have spots where there was old drains in between those pine thickets and it'll just be a little bit lower in those areas. And those areas will be beat down with sign. So it's like, you know, I don't, I don't, I've not haunted a ton of areas with rich topography. I hunt mostly flatlands. so I'm pretty new to it this year. I'm going to be spending a week in New York during the rut and, it's like foothills starting to get into mountainous terrain. It's.
Michael Rebert (40:55.434)
Maybe.
Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (41:15.882)
It's pretty rolling Hills, pretty steep, at least for me, you know? And so I've been starting to deep dive a little bit into trying to figure that stuff out. I went up there this past season and I Turkey hunted and the sign and all the like drains and little saddles. And if you had like a high point here and a high point here, and then a dense area in between that was lower that connected the two, the two, like crests, that's where I was finding a lot of dense sign deer sign, you know, during Turkey.
Michael Rebert (41:36.075)
Mm
Michael Rebert (41:41.75)
Right. And up there was it were so you were turkey up, turkey hunting up there was that in the early season or late season, like just this past.
Kevin Creeley (41:49.538)
They start in May. Their turkey season starts in May. So it was May 1.
Michael Rebert (41:52.99)
Okay, so there was a lot of vegetarian scone with trees and stuff still.
Kevin Creeley (41:57.31)
Not really. mean, it's so cold up there, man, where I was hunting. It's like, yeah, it's like central Western, I guess, New York. And well, I say this, there was, yeah, there was some green up, but not compared to Virginia. mean, Virginia by May looks like what I would imagine New York looks like in August. Like,
Michael Rebert (42:01.803)
Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (42:18.53)
Virginia by May timeframe is really, really green. Like a white oak tree is completely green from the top to the bottom. Like every leaf on the tree is on and it's green and it's dense. It's a lot of hardwoods and cedars and stuff like that in the area that I hunt in New York. And it was still pretty, I mean, I could see for 250 yards in one of those drains in New York. So it's pretty cool. It's private land there.
Michael Rebert (42:29.77)
Right.
Kevin Creeley (42:48.13)
I, it turns out I have a family member that had 500 acres. Kind of the dream. Like, and, I, yeah, just stumbled across that. It was like a removed family member and I saw her at a family gathering. She knew I deer hunted. She's like, Hey, I got 500 acres in New York. You should come up North and hunt it. And I'm like, okay. You know, so went and checked that out. Turkey hunted it first. This will be my first year deer hunting it, but beautiful, man. Beautiful place. It's a.
Michael Rebert (42:51.574)
Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (43:16.106)
cow country. They're both cow farmers, my aunt and uncle there. And it's just massive, wide open fields. Like you can see for miles if you get on a ridge in one of those fields. Silage fields, all the fields are planted in like oats and clover and hay and alfalfa and just, I mean, just a deer's dream, you know? And then little parcels of timber connecting every single field. And these parcels will be anywhere from
Michael Rebert (43:36.937)
Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (43:44.29)
100 to 700 yards wide and then like as you drop down an elevation they get dense You know, I found this one area you're talking about travel corridors. I found this one area that my uncle was like, hey, there's an old cow pasture It was a cow pasture 20 years ago and we let it grow and no one's been back there in long time And I don't even know what it looks like but I know you're poking around for deer season looking for some sign He said you might want to go check that out. I was like, all right, dude. So cool. It was like
So was literally, like he said, it was a cow pasture and then they just let it go fallow for like 15 years. And I walked in there and it was so freaking thick. And the second I crested the first hill in there, I bumped like 20 deer out of the bottom. And then I dropped down in there, I started finding sheds. There was old scrapes like all along the transition of that old pasture. And it is just nasty. So I'm trying to describe it the best I can, but it is, it's so diverse. was like mature hardwoods.
to the east, mature hardwoods to the west. And then there's just this drain that's an old pasture. That's probably like eight foot tall of just every kind of brush and just nasty thick drain that runs through the middle. And the deer trail in there looked like you released a herd of cattle and just made them walk north all day. Dude, was sick. So I cannot wait to hunt that spot. That spot's been like burned into my brain since I was there this spring. I'm like daydreaming about it at work, you know? So pretty fired up.
Michael Rebert (44:55.28)
No, yeah, I guarantee it. I guarantee it. Yeah.
Michael Rebert (45:08.01)
Right.
Kevin Creeley (45:09.954)
Pretty fired up for that. So I was gonna ask you, I was gonna transition to the scrape talk, because you had mentioned like finding scrapes in travel corridors. And I was gonna ask you if you'll hunt scrapes during that Halloween week. But you kind of already touched on that telling me that you killed one on November 1. So over something like that.
Michael Rebert (45:24.096)
yeah.
Michael Rebert (45:27.564)
yeah, 100%. Yeah, if I'm walking around through the woods in the mornings or if I'm not up in my stand, I don't like particularly, people are going to think I'm crazy with this, but I'm not a big morning hunter. I don't like to hunt in the morning. Most of my success comes in the evening. And I don't know why that is. It's just, there's really no specific, I mean, I've definitely killed, you know, nice deer in the morning, but maybe it's just me. prefer to hunt in the evenings and I, and so.
Kevin Creeley (45:44.706)
Okay.
Michael Rebert (45:57.278)
If I'm not in my tree in the morning or if I get out, you know, mid mid morning or early afternoon, I'm going around in that time, specific time frame. And that's exactly what I'm looking for. I'm looking for fresh scrapes like anything super fresh, fresh, you know, deer scat. I'm looking if I could find a scrape that has pee in it and a licking branch, pretty, you know, pretty high off the ground, you know, or anything like that, because
I'm going to be pumped up. I'm going be sitting there. And, you know, in the first couple of bucks to show up to it, they might not be shooters, but eventually one's going to one's going to slip up within within that first that time frame we talked about, especially that October 26 through the November 2nd area in there, man, like you're going to find one slipping right there if you just, you know, but not a lot of guys have, you know, can take the time off to go out and sit all day long in those those types of spots. But
Kevin Creeley (46:39.521)
Mm
Kevin Creeley (46:43.447)
Yep.
Kevin Creeley (46:54.135)
Mm
Well too, like if you're going to, most guys, if you're going to take vacation, unless you're like, like yourself or just really, really interested in hunting that, that timeframe, most guys are going to take their vacation time during the rut, you know? So to take a week off before the rut really starts kicking off, what we'll call the, like the chasing phase of the rut anyhow, to some people it's going to be blasphemous to like, why would I take vacation in October? You know what I mean? me personally, I love, I love that week.
Michael Rebert (46:57.376)
out
Michael Rebert (47:23.615)
Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (47:26.882)
26 through the 31st. It's like what I can always consider quote unquote scrape week, you know, like that time that's the time when I'll start diving in in between. I'm no longer hunting a hundred yards off the road, hunting white oak trees, stuff like that. I'm now finding like a transition either a right. It's usually for me, it's a riparian zone because I don't cut overs a lot. So if you're not, you know, I've talked on the podcast before about riparian zones. I don't think I need to explain what they are again for the listeners, but
Michael Rebert (47:33.056)
Right.
Michael Rebert (47:49.088)
Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (47:55.638)
Those riparian zones and those cutovers are dynamite funnels, dynamite funnels that last week of October, first and second week of November, even those are dynamite funnels, just big strips of timber that connect two thick areas, whatever that is in your area, you're going to find scrapes in it. If there's an area that's flat and there's overhanging lamps, especially if it's like hardwood leaf littered floor, dude, there's going to be scrapes in it, you know? And, man, I found one one time it was a
Michael Rebert (48:12.086)
I'll find it.
Michael Rebert (48:19.703)
yeah.
Kevin Creeley (48:24.524)
So this was like a chestnut stand that was in the, is a small stand of chestnuts on the top of a ridge that was in a little pine kind of circle that connected two farms. So it was like a big chunk of pines that touched the neighbor's farm. And then it touched our farm and then on both sides of its wide open field. So like a textbook funnel, you know, well, in the middle of it on the ridge top, there was like a chestnut stand and there was some chestnuts dropping in there. I hunted in there in early season, saw some does and stuff. And then I went back in there.
And that Halloween week and there was this old log road that I missed that I didn't see in early season and it went through that chestnut stand and there was a scrape on it and I walked down, there's another scrape, walked down another scrape. So there's like a good scrape line going down that log road, which makes sense. And I'm like, okay, this is cool. I'll put a camera here. I don't know that I'll hunt here a lot because I had some other spots that were pretty good at the time, but I put a camera there and it was a non -cell camera and I come back.
And I was like, well, I'm going to go in there. I'm going to check that camera on a hunt there this evening. So I didn't walk up to the camera and check it and then hunt, you know, cause I would have been walking right on top of where I've been shooting it deer. So I walked way around the camera, hung Stan, got in the tree, hunted, saw some does in the distance. They crossed, didn't see anything else. just a slow evening. It was really hot and just kind of poor conditions. And, so I get down, I like, let me check this camera. I walk up to the camera and there was like,
I mean, I lost count at 20 scrapes all up and around the camera up and down, like fresh dirt, tilled up, licking branches, ripped to death. It's stunk in there, you know, just smelled like deer. And I was like, man, I can't wait to freaking check this camera. Flip the thing open and it said SD card error. I was like, dude, I mean, who knows? It could have been one fork that had just the time of his life, but I doubt it. You know what I mean?
Michael Rebert (50:01.61)
it.
Michael Rebert (50:10.966)
man.
Michael Rebert (50:18.654)
Right, right. Yeah. Yes. So no, so no one took the SD card that is just an error.
Kevin Creeley (50:20.554)
as much activity as there was on there.
Kevin Creeley (50:26.376)
Yeah, was just an it's camera just decided to stop working and I pulled the battery tray out and it had like burn marks on it looked like the thing caught on fire like I don't even know I don't even know what happened dude. It wasn't
Michael Rebert (50:33.278)
wow. Yeah, it probably got so many freaking pictures on it. It's fried. I can't think of too many.
Kevin Creeley (50:39.458)
It was just taking them. can't take anymore. man, that's great. Yeah, no, it's a, that's a good time of year to hunt though, What about the rut? Are you big rut hunter?
Michael Rebert (50:52.704)
Yeah, dude. I'll be honest with you, the past the past three, four years. Fortunately, mean, when I say right, mean, like you're talking about like November, you're talking about like the November 2nd all the way, you know, November 12th, 15th, 16th type area as you're talking usually about it.
Kevin Creeley (51:11.531)
Yeah, like I'm talking about when most people, guess, refer to quote unquote the rut, we're talking about the chasing face, right? Cause that's like what people, guess traditionally refer to as the rut. Like, cause you'll hear like, the rut hasn't began yet. It's only October 25th. Well, like, but yeah, the deer is seeking, you know, they're looking for those bedding areas and stuff, but the quote unquote rut, guess I'm referring to would be like, let's say November 4th through November 18th, right?
Michael Rebert (51:27.2)
Right.
Michael Rebert (51:41.162)
Yeah. Yeah. So, mean, I'm, I'm usually going to be in the woods if I haven't tagged out already, you know, so last, fortunately last year I tagged out in both Maryland and Pennsylvania before, before, yeah, before November 2nd. So, I didn't get to hunt the rut. And then the year, year before that, I think I tagged out, tagged out down in Maryland, probably.
Kevin Creeley (51:52.022)
Man, right on, dude.
Kevin Creeley (51:56.566)
Dang, that's awesome.
Michael Rebert (52:10.516)
right before November, that last week of October there, I tagged out then. the past couple of years, I haven't really been huge on hunting the rut, just because I've been having finding so much success before that, that there's you know, seeking stages of it. But I have definitely had some crazy hunts during the rut, don't get me wrong, you know, so I definitely look forward to that time.
Kevin Creeley (52:29.951)
Mm
Michael Rebert (52:39.766)
just to be in the woods and see how the deer are moving. And if I don't have a tag, I'm still going to be out there, you know, definitely watching, you know, try to smack some dares or whatever. But but yes, historically, historically, I like to try to get it done before the rut, just because I don't like all the hunting pressure that comes with it. You know, if you're hunting, I hunt a lot of public land, so there's everyone's going to be out there then. So I like to try to get it done before then. But I definitely still like to be in the woods then.
Kevin Creeley (52:52.052)
Yeah, yeah.
Kevin Creeley (53:00.855)
Hmm.
Michael Rebert (53:09.804)
especially in this big, big state, you know, huge acreage state forest land, stuff like that. You know, you can see a lot of cool things.
Kevin Creeley (53:16.95)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. We were talking about like when you have that aha moment of seeing a buck do exactly what you thought he was going to do. and for me personally, that is usually between October 26th and November 5th that I'll have a hunt like that where I'm got an idea of what I think he's going to do. And then he does exactly that. And I'm like, man, that's cool. I have seldom.
Michael Rebert (53:37.888)
Right. And for me.
Kevin Creeley (53:41.374)
I've seldom had that happen in the rut. It's usually like, yeah, I'll find a concentration of deer. I'll hunt that area and I'll see several deer. I've certainly without doubt see more deer during the rut, just deer in general than I do during any other time of the year. But a lot of times they're just doing random stuff and it's just like, man, no idea why he did that. You know what I mean? Just like,
Michael Rebert (53:54.326)
Right.
Michael Rebert (54:00.885)
Right.
Yeah. Yeah. And people talk about like kind of tracking a specific deer and try to figure out exactly what he's doing for me. I'm like, if I shoot a deer in a specific situation or if I spot a deer in specific that situation, especially we were just talking about that moment the next year, I'm going to be looking for the next deer that moved into that territory. He's taken over those deer's travel corridors. He's doing the same exact thing that that deer was doing the year before. I'll be looking for him.
for the next one being in there using the territory, doing the same thing. You know what I mean? And I hear a different, but they're all going to use the same, the territory, you know, the, terrain features and everything. They're all going to use them similar. So if you have a buck using a, that you killed a buckle on a, on a travel quarter last year and he was running that trail this time of the year, last year during this week of, you know, late October, you know, he was checking this bedding area. I would be in there again this year.
because another bucks can be doing the same exact thing. And that's just the kind of, that's the really what I kind of, how I got my, you know, how I get success every year just banking on that's that next deer that moved in, that next big dominant buck that moved in it where you didn't kill him. He's going to be coming back around, you know, but if you did kill a nice deer, that next deer that's moving into that area using those trained features, going to I'm going be bank on him and how I can catch him slipping.
Kevin Creeley (55:31.87)
Yeah, man. And those travel corridors, they're not always going to be, you know, the textbook like, a finger of timber with thick brush on both sides and two bedding areas on each side. sometimes they're just weird, especially on private land, in my experience. you can, there's some weird, like a road dude, like a dirt road will be a travel corridor. A power line, a gas line, stuff like that. I've got a buddy that's killed a mature buck three years in a row on this power line.
Michael Rebert (55:50.826)
Right, right, right.
Kevin Creeley (56:00.258)
Excuse me. It's at our, hunting lease that we share and it's a big wide open power line. I mean, it's, it's, it's usually planted and it's usually cut by like October. They'll plant it in corn, bean, whatever. And it's, it's harvested by like first week of October. And then it's just, you know, grass or whatever, like rye, whatever they planted in cover crop after that. And, I mean, this thing's probably, I don't know, 40 yards across and 200 yards long and it's wide open pines on one side, but way back in the bottom of those pines, there's some, there's like a thicket.
And on the other side of the pines, there's a thicket. you've got, excuse me, you've got betting opportunity on both sides of this power line. And he's killed a mature buck there three years in a row. And the first two times buck came out of the pines on one side, chased a doe down the power line. He was hunting with the muzzleloader. He killed the doe and the buck. And then the following year, he killed one doing the same thing, but came out of the other side. This past year, he killed one. So you got the power line.
And let's say it runs 200 yards towards the north and then it hits a hard surface road. On the other side of that hard surface road, there's a long stand of huge hardwoods that's been there for years and years. It's not ours. Well, he was hunting just inside the road. He could see the power line. He could see the woods behind him and he could see the road. And he will literally do that intentionally because he has seen so many deer across that hard surface road. Because it connects, it connects that timber change from those hardwoods to our pines. And it's a change right there.
Michael Rebert (57:20.264)
yeah.
Kevin Creeley (57:26.752)
He has killed deer, like they'll come across that hard surface road and then walk under his stand. Last year he shot and bloodied up a really, really big deer. He said it was the biggest deer he's ever killed. Obviously I never saw it cause we didn't find it, but he shot that deer back in there and we tracked and tracked and tracked, had to get neighbors permission. We tracked the deer for two days. was, it was a whole event. We got a dog and everything. mean, dude, we found blood for over half mile. Like I was like, God, they're such amazing animals. The fact that that survived, but.
Michael Rebert (57:53.354)
Yeah. yeah.
Kevin Creeley (57:55.54)
Anyway, my point is these travel corridors are not always going to be like this picture perfect thing. That's just a matter of finding, like you said, and you put it in good words earlier in the show, find a concentration of deer, find another concentration of deer farther away from that, and then find a position of travel in between those two areas. And then that Halloween week, you're going to find scrapes in there. I mean, if you, if you assume like, okay, I think this is a travel corridor. Like they were talking about on the podcast. And then you go in there.
and there's scrapes up and down the thing, I can almost guarantee you it is. You know what I mean? So anyway.
Michael Rebert (58:27.66)
Yeah, there's scrapes in there and then, know, Buck's been in there and he's been in there, he's been comfortable enough to stop and make himself a scrape, you know. And, know, it's only, you know, you got a shot, you know, you got to also, you got to take into effect, know, of course there's a lot of night activity too, but when you get into that magical moment, you know, when you get into those magical couple of days there and then, you know, late October, early November, whatever it is.
Kevin Creeley (58:37.558)
Mm -hmm.
Kevin Creeley (58:41.718)
Yeah,
Michael Rebert (58:54.696)
you know they're going to slip, know, that hot dog comes in and they're going to be, they're going to be using those, those travel corridors specifically. You know, to me, I'm just thinking of, you know, nice deep ravines with, with that run in between bedding areas or really nice benches that, you know, that might go around the side of a mountain from one bedding area to another. And you know, if you can, if you can get yourself one of those set up on a fresh screen, find a fresh screen.
You're in the money,
Kevin Creeley (59:25.918)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm, dude. So, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna play a game I'm gonna describe a travel corridor that I've seen in my deer hunting experience And then you're gonna describe one and we'll just see how many we can ramble off. Does that sound good?
Michael Rebert (59:41.74)
I hope you try it out. Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (59:44.706)
All right. So, all right. So, here's a unique one that I've found. It was a pocket of timber and there was a pond at the end of the pocket of timber where it met an ag field. And then there was a pond dam that ran the edge of that pond and the farmer would traditionally bush hog that pond dam and use it for getting equipment in and out. The other side of the pond dam starts another pine stand. The pond dam ain't but like 12 feet across is small.
but it all but connected the two parcels of timber and one, they're both very large chunks of timber. Dude, you could set up on that pond dam. There's always, always going to be scrapes on this pond dam, always up and down the thing. You could put cameras on it. You're to have deer on it and it's all going to be night sign and all the like probably almost the whole month of October. And then like a light switch gets flicked in November.
And bucks will cross that thing in daylight. Now they're steaming across it. Don't get me wrong. They're not stopping and hanging out in that pond dam, but there it's, still like, it's a really cool little travel corridor. And if you can get in the pines on either side of it, it's a, it's a pretty dynamite little spot.
Michael Rebert (01:00:53.27)
Yeah, yeah, that's sounds like a dynamite spy, man. So I got one that I guess down in, I guess, name a specific one for you down in Maryland, one of the private spots that I hunt. There's a, you know, State Forest, it's not State Game, it's not State Forest, it's public lands, archery only hunting in public lands, it's a reservoir and it's right across the street and then it comes up to like a main road, a heavily traveled road, you know.
And then underneath of it, there's a little drainage creek that runs underneath of it with a bridge. Right? I mean, if you stop your car, go down that bridge, you can just see the tracks running underneath that road coming from the private land to the public land, vice versa. And then once you go underneath that bridge, there's about a 15 to 20 yard thick tree line that just runs straight down about four or 500 yards and then empties out until a big, know, thick
patch of woods and I got my tree, I have a tree stand sitting 10 yards into that thick patch of woods right where that tree line comes down and then to the property that I have to hunt. so just something like that, just a 15 foot or yeah, 15 yard tree line that runs from private land to public land. That could be the travel corridor of a century right there, know, come.
Kevin Creeley (01:01:54.966)
Hmm.
Kevin Creeley (01:02:05.622)
Hmm.
Michael Rebert (01:02:20.352)
mid October, you're going to have deer coming off the private or the public or off the public or the private to come check out all those, those, there's different, like I said, different herds, you know, there's, there's that new meat, you know, if you will, you know, they're going to come check, they're going to come check it out. So, and I always, I always don't, I never cut off that if you have a bedding area on a specific piece of private land that you can hunt.
Kevin Creeley (01:02:27.18)
Hmm.
Kevin Creeley (01:02:35.212)
Yep, absolutely.
Michael Rebert (01:02:48.342)
you got to think about the other private land that you can't hunt, your neighbor's land. Because he have a good, instead of bedding, he have a good corridor over there that's holding a different concentration of deer. those are always something you got to think about as well, just because the next concentration of deer isn't on the property you have to hunt. You can't roll out any of your neighbors and so on and so forth.
Kevin Creeley (01:03:16.384)
Yeah, that's a good piece of advice I got. I don't remember from who, but I can vaguely remember getting it a long time ago was if you're looking at on X and you're trying to pick apart a property, turn the property layer off where you can see the borders because our brains like only want to look at what's inside the property that we have access to, whether it's public, private, whatever.
You turn that property layer border off and look at the thing as a whole and start to paint the picture and go ahead and drop your pins and stuff like that while you're e -scouting it. Then turn the property layer back on and go, okay, what can I actually put my boots on? And it'll just, you can just paint a more pretty picture. You know what I mean? You're not forgetting about this. Yeah.
Michael Rebert (01:03:53.639)
Right, yep.
Exactly. Yeah, that's that's a good piece of advice. That's a really good piece of advice. A lot of people probably don't think about it like that. If you really looked at it as a bigger picture, you can really kind of figure out there's travel corridors, you know, in a bigger, you know. And then from there, it's just kind of what is one going to come slipping through my property? And we're talking about at this point, we're talking about small parcels. If you have just small private parcels to hunt, you know, or a couple of acres here and there like.
You gotta look at it from a bird's eye view.
Kevin Creeley (01:04:27.788)
Thank
Yep. All right, so next one. This one I've seen several times. Stand of pines, tall stand of pines meets tall stand of hardwoods. in that edge, anywhere there's a drop in elevation on that edge, I've always found scrapes and always seen deer on an edge like that. So that's good. There's a good one. And actually to play that.
To play back to the example that you gave of like, you'll find scrape lines on a lot of these travel corridors, but they won't receive daylight activity until, you know, sometimes during the chasing phase, I had a camera on a pine meets hardwood transition in a drain. And there was a big community scrape at what I would kind of consider the hub of activity for this. It kind of, the pines curved around and then met the hardwoods at like a point. And in the bottom of that point, there was a big scrape.
And all along the rest of the edge behind it, there was little scrapes. So I put a camera on the big scrape that was on the edge and I assumed it was like the community scrape where all the deer were coming from below in the thick bed and coming up, checking that scrape got so many pictures of deer, specifically one deer that I was trying to kill really, really big wide 11 pointer. And the, the story that I just previously told, this is on my hunting lease or my buddy killed the buck and the doe on the power line with the muzzleloader. That was that.
Michael Rebert (01:05:41.643)
Mm -hmm.
Kevin Creeley (01:05:56.61)
11 pointer and, I got the picture of him five times and it was all like one o 'clock in the morning, three o 'clock in the morning, four o 'clock in the morning. And this is way back in cover, you know, and then November 7th or whatever it was, he's sprinting down a wide open power line chasing that dough. You know what I mean? So if you know, yeah, yeah. 8 AM. So if you know, there's a buck in the area and you're starting to get into that sweet timeframe, don't.
Michael Rebert (01:06:06.272)
No.
Michael Rebert (01:06:15.978)
And then we'll die.
Kevin Creeley (01:06:25.058)
think, I mean, don't always think just because your pictures are 2 a If it's the rut now, if it's October 5th, we're a different conversation. But if it's November 5th or November 8th or 10th or whatever, don't discount to that durable daylight and one of those travel corridors.
Michael Rebert (01:06:39.794)
yeah, and come November, you know, first week of November, second week of November, if I see a bucket on a trail camera, show up on trail camera overnight, it could be at one o 'clock in the morning, two o 'clock in the morning. I'm immediately excited because I know that his chances of daylighting in there are higher than any, you know, at that point of the year. So it's like. Yeah, you mean. Just because you get.
Kevin Creeley (01:06:58.282)
Yeah. And he might've just shown up from another farm where he had a doe and he two properties over and then she went out of estrus and now he's moved over, you know?
Michael Rebert (01:07:07.328)
Yeah, just because he didn't walk in front of your camera during the day doesn't mean he wasn't walking around all around it during the day. You know, so if he's in there, if I have if I have, you know, if I get a hit that he's in there, I'm going to be hunting that area hard, you know, for sure. But I got the one one of those pinch point or one of those it's good travel corridor slash pinpoint pinch point. You know, obviously, once you start finding travel corridors, you can start narrowing down on your pinch points. But I got this.
real thick bedding area that kind of backs up to the. So they've got these these main road here. It's not really a main road. I'm just talking about a road inside of a state forest. So, you know, a traveled road with vehicles, obviously, no O .H .V., no mountain bikes or anything. This is a road vehicle or a vehicle where you're you're the road running this way and then your road that kind of branches off and then in this in this area right in here.
It's just real thick bedding, right? Right. And it just backs right up against the road. Well, if you come down here to this, you know, to walk in from the road, all the way to the corner of where that bedding kind of is, there's just it's just a drop in a drop in elevation, huge drop in elevation. mean, it just kind of. Swoops right out, kind of like a bowl, you know, and then just the thick brush is kind of
Peters out and it's just a bunch of small saplings coming out of this bedding area and it's just rubs out the ass going down to this all the way down to a creek and then if you follow that Creek downstream, it's gonna two or three hundred yards away. It's gonna lead you straight into another thick bedding area, you know that has like the same type of real thick high stem count Mountain Laura area and
Kevin Creeley (01:08:44.044)
Nice.
Kevin Creeley (01:09:00.556)
That sounds awesome, dude.
Michael Rebert (01:09:02.988)
Yeah, it's just a an awesome kind of place to set up right there along the creek because you know, during the rut, they're going to come out of that, run right down that creek, go to that next bedding area, 500 yards away, whatever it is.
Kevin Creeley (01:09:11.276)
Mm
Kevin Creeley (01:09:15.17)
Yeah, absolutely. Sounds like a dynamite spot. well, I'll tell you what, Mike, I, I want to be respectful of your time, dude. I see I'm looking at the bottom here. It looks like we've been chatting for about an hour and 10 minutes. So I want to be respectful of your time. while I have you on the show, why don't you kind of for the listeners, give them a, where they can find you Instagram, Facebook, stuff like that. If you have any content out there, do you feel like you want to share?
Michael Rebert (01:09:19.454)
yeah.
Michael Rebert (01:09:39.98)
I don't really, I don't have a YouTube or anything like that. You can find me on Instagram, MikeWRubber underscore hunts, hunts a spell with a Z at the end. But this year I've actually just got a bunch of GoPros and stuff and getting all the batteries and everything ready. So this year I'm really starting to, really thinking about starting to videotape more of my hunts and try to get some of those harvests on film and just post them up on YouTube. And so other people can kind of.
Kevin Creeley (01:10:05.376)
Right on dude. Yeah.
Michael Rebert (01:10:10.4)
You know, get into that. think it's for us hunters. Some of the biggest ways we learn is not only just listening to people podcasting. I listen to you know, big shout out to Dan Johnson, non Chronicles, Wired to Hunt. You know, I listen to those guys every single day. So, you know, just just to have that type of, you know, there's resources for us hunters is huge. You know, you can you can get on YouTube. Somebody's never hunted before. Just get on YouTube and just kind of get the gist of.
Kevin Creeley (01:10:17.186)
Hmm.
Kevin Creeley (01:10:21.174)
that.
Kevin Creeley (01:10:25.557)
Awesome.
Michael Rebert (01:10:38.026)
how difficult it could be, but also you can get a lot of good information on there.
Kevin Creeley (01:10:44.564)
Awesome, man. Absolutely. Well, hey man, thanks so much for your time, dude. I really appreciate you hopping on here and chatting deer hunting with me. And I hope you, I hope you send me a picture of this October 27th of a giant buck propped up in a travel corridor.
Michael Rebert (01:10:50.816)
Of course,
Michael Rebert (01:10:57.932)
Me too, man, I really do. But good luck to you and be safe out there,
Kevin Creeley (01:11:07.66)
Yes, sir. Absolutely. You do the same.
