Show Notes
In this episode, Dan Johnson discusses the excitement and strategies for the upcoming hunting season, focusing on the impact of weather patterns on deer behavior, effective hunting strategies, and the importance of setting ethical goals in hunting. He emphasizes the need for safety and respect in the field while encouraging hunters to enjoy the process and help others in the hunting community.
Takeaways:
- The first week of November is crucial for hunting.
- Weather changes can disrupt deer patterns, leading to increased movement.
- Aggressive hunting strategies can yield better results during peak times.
- Staging areas and pinch points are key locations for successful hunts.
- Patience is essential; sometimes scouting is more beneficial than sitting in the rain.
- Setting clear goals can enhance the hunting experience.
- Respect for land and wildlife is paramount in hunting ethics.
- Safety should always be a priority when hunting.
- Sharing knowledge and experiences can help new hunters succeed.
- Enjoy the process of hunting, not just the end result.
Show Transcript
Dan Johnson (00:01.135)
Ladies and gentlemen, please, can I have your attention? This is a get in the tree stand alert coming from me, the nine fingered dipshit. Man, I'll tell you this, man. I don't wanna wish time away, but these weather patterns are lining up for one epic first week of November, including today, which is November.
or excuse me, the last day of October. And of course, it all lines up on trick or treat day. And unfortunately, I'm not gonna be able to go and partake in the first part of this process. But starting tomorrow, once the kids get on the bus, I'm in kill mode for quite a while. I I'm looking at this weather and I'm pretty much a walking hard on right now.
Cell cams have started to ease up as this front has moved through a lot of the Midwest or at least the western side of the Midwest. Let me pull up a radar real quick. And so here's, at this moment it is 846 AM Central Standard Time and I am looking through this gigantic cold front coming through almost the entire eastern part of the United States, right?
It just came through, it just came through Iowa. The temperatures are dropping as I speak. And up in Minnesota and Wisconsin, it looks like you guys are gonna get a lot more rain, so heavy rain, big, big temperature drop. And now you guys have heard me talk about temperature drops early season. Doesn't really matter to me. Even a temperature drop in the breeding season,
I look at that a little heavier, but to me the key indicator here is precipitation. We, these deer, this precipitation is messing up their daily bed to food pattern. And when you have that, they bed down for longer periods of time and they miss that routine. This is my experience. They miss that routine. And when they miss that routine, it shuffles them up just for a little bit.
Dan Johnson (02:20.374)
and now they have to catch back up to it and that includes more daylight movement. This is my experience. So if I could right now at 846 in the morning, I would be going out, checking any trail cameras that I have, checking my cell cameras, and then going into your best possible spot based off wind direction. So Iowa, Southern Minnesota, Southern Wisconsin, Iowa.
Northwestern Illinois, you guys are in a pocket right now and the wind is gonna shift down into, the second wave of this is gonna shift down with additional rain. Minnesota's getting snow right now. I'm guessing Wisconsin's gonna get some of that snow. Michigan, it's hitting you right now. And so what I would do is if you're gonna be a part of this pocket, get in tonight.
if humanly possible, Saturday morning depending on when, or Friday morning if you can. And for me, the system will be 100 % through by Friday evening. And that's gonna be my first hunt. And I'm going in to, I'm going in big to chase deer. I'm gonna be extremely aggressive, first time in, best time in. I have unique winds. I'm gonna be having an east wind. And I'm gonna talk a little bit about that here in a second. But before we do,
I just wanna send a huge shout out to all of you. Thank you very much for taking time out of your day to listen and support the Nine Finger Chronicles and the entire catalog of the Sportsman's Empire podcast network. Please share these podcasts with your friends. I am biased, but I do believe that we have some of the best, if not the best content as far as hunting and the outdoors related. So of course I'm biased. So quick commercial break here real quick.
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Dan Johnson (04:42.817)
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There's still plenty of time to get a Huntworth order in, huntworthgear.com, take a look at their new camo pattern Vertec, and then reveal trail cameras are popping off right now with this. Within the last 24 hours, I have had two shooter bucks show up on Cellcam. One is a first timer, the other one is a repeat customer from this summer. So I don't get a lot of pictures of him.
but he is in and on my property right now and unfortunately, I'm not gonna be able to take advantage of that right now. And so when I do, just to let everybody know when it comes to cell cameras and how cell cameras work, please take a look at your state's rules and regulations of how you can use a cell camera. I don't want anybody to get pinched for something that they've done on accident using a cell cam. So take a look at that.
and then my company, Full Sneak Gear. I'm in the process, probably within the next month, I'm gonna be launching three new designs at fullsneakgear.com for the winter season. So go ahead and take a look at fullsneakgear.com. all right. Let's talk, I wanna keep this short and sweet because I got a lot of shit to do before we start talking about, before we get into the hunt, right? And I'm gonna be,
Dan Johnson (07:07.519)
Like, I gotta shoot my bow today, I gotta start packing, because my goal is to just disappear. Now, there is one wrench thrown in the spokes, and I may have to come back for a coaches meeting on Sunday, and I've kinda timed that up with rain. So it's probably gonna rain all day Sunday, not a big problem, but, so we have this cold front coming through right now. Once you listen to this, look at your schedule, see if you can make it work tonight, tomorrow.
within the next three days depending on where you hunt. After that initial cold front comes through, there is another big period of rain coming and we're talking off and on, scattered showers, shitty weather for, I think it was three days. I think it's Monday, Tuesday, and the morning of Wednesday for where I hunt and then correspond that to where you live and it looks to me like it's gonna be.
throughout the entire Midwest, even dipping down into the South. And so...
I can sit here and I can provide example after example for you on my experiences, but we all hunt different locations. We all hunt different terrain. We all hunt different food, vegetation. Like every farm is different. So here's what I'm going to tell you that is for me, the key indicator in getting into the stand and trying to match up the perfect timing. And that 100 %
is large amounts of precipitation. Snow works, rain definitely works, and these deer are, their pattern is off, and as soon as that rain stops, if you can match it up with an evening hunt, my god, dude, it is ridiculous. The amount of big mature bucks I have seen over the last 20 years get on their feet and start
Dan Johnson (09:09.811)
start their process of the breeding season. They're checking scrapes, they're going into, you know, they're freshening up their sign. They're kind of just covering an entire area where they, where the does that they want to breed live. And their goal is to just let everybody know that they're there and they plan on ruling the roost. And so I have a couple spots in mind.
Like I said, I got an east, southeast wind coming in the next couple of days, along with some high pressure. And then that pressure goes away for a little bit during that rainstorm. And then that pressure comes back. So man, it's gonna be money within the, this, there are gonna be some times, and it sucks to say, where you might need to just be patient. And I know we've waited so, excuse me.
We've waited so long for this time. Nobody wants to be patient anymore, but I am not the guy who sits in the rain all day long. I'm not gonna do it, right? What I do is in the rain, maybe I do some scouting, maybe I check SD cards, maybe I'm driving around, I'm getting my equipment set up, and I'm planning for that next period. Now, if you're going on an out-of-state hunt, you might have a shorter window in that case.
I don't know what to tell you, man. Go get wet, right? Make sure you got your rain gear with you. Make sure your boots don't get wet, your gear doesn't get wet, any electronics that you bring, like camera and stuff like that. But as far as strategy is concerned, man, I'm going into the best possible pinch point. I'm going into staging areas. And I almost hunt staging areas exclusively right now. Pinch points and staging areas. That is where I've had most of my success over the course of the year.
Or my career as a as bow hunter and I just continue to do it because that's where the success comes now Do I jump into a bedding area? Yes Mostly mostly mornings in bedding areas because I don't want to try to tiptoe into a bedding area During an afternoon hunt will I sit all day? No, very rarely Do I sit all day unless I go the weather conditions are perfect like what we have here if I could hunt today?
Dan Johnson (11:32.755)
I probably would go in about 10 o'clock this afternoon and just sit the rest of the day and watch the temperatures just drop to just try to see what the woods are doing. A lot of times when these types of weather patterns come through, deer necessarily aren't quick to bed. Again, my experience is they just kind of meander through the properties.
And so they're slow getting back to bed. They didn't get the chance to feed all night because of the rain events, things like that. So where I'm at, I would definitely try to get back into, if I had some water access, I'd get a little muddy, but I try to still take advantage of water access, low points, and then creep up into some of these stand locations. Man, I'm telling you, this weather is gonna have them on their feet longer periods of time because it disrupts their pattern.
staging areas. You know, I've talked a lot about staging areas and why I like them. I have a couple staging areas that are close to bedding. I have a couple staging areas that are 200, 300 yards away from bedding and those tend to be my favorite this time of year because I don't necessarily need to worry about what my scent is doing that close to bedding. You know, if I could, I would be in...
One of my favorite stands that I hunt that I hunted already this year on this past Friday But of course this east southeast wind is gonna throw a wrench in in that and Yes, I probably could get in there, but it's not where I want to be I need a west wind I need a southwest wind south wind and that's gonna help me out North wind didn't play out like I wanted it to last week because of
A lot of vegetation was still on the trees, but I'm looking out my window, the same window that I looked out of yesterday or two days ago when I recorded a different version of this podcast and then I had a technical issue and it didn't go well. There are way more trees leaves off of the trees right now because of this storm and the second storm is going to knock more of them off. So it's going to change everything in the in the woods. It's going to change where deer are bedding.
Dan Johnson (13:57.631)
It's going to change how far you can see and there's nothing better than sitting on top of a ridge and just, you know, obviously you want to be close, but you can see a long ways. Now you can see the brown spots moving through the timber at extended ranges because of lack of, and it's just going to help you better identify deer movement and where you need to be. So there's that. Okay. back to staging areas for a moment, dude, like you should.
Staging areas are great. Find that thick cover, find that edge, find that destination food source. It's easy for me because I live in these very noticeable, I guess, features, right? The bedding areas, they're thick. They're usually on a slant. They're at the end of ridges. They are in thick, tall grass down in the river bottoms. And then you have open timber.
an open timbered finger and then files into another thick area where they hold up, they make their sign, aka the staging area, and then they go out to an egg field, which is their destination food source. That's great. Now, I also hunt big timber, lots of acorns. I would say that this year on the timber that I hunt is a medium acorn day or a year. It's not like there's not an abundance of them, but they're definitely out there. It almost looked like
The size of the acorns are much smaller this year as well. So, and I think a lot of that has to do with how dry it was the second half of the summer. Spring was pretty good, but then the rain just kind of shut off for a long period of time. And so there are a couple of places where I have some acorn flats, some acorn ridges that I would like to investigate. Big timber, still somewhat close.
to ag in a way, but I feel like Friday night, Friday nights probably, even though I want to set up in a kill spot and go into a good area, I'm gonna do it, but I'm there for two reasons. I had a buck show up on trail camera. I want to see if I can catch him any possible way. Like I want to be able to catch him any possible way. And this wind is going to allow me to back door him.
Dan Johnson (16:21.897)
Sorry. I'm not going to sexually assault a whitetail buck, but I'm going to go going to creep into his back. I'm so immature. I'm going to sneak in behind him and I'm going to try to catch him coming back or leaving this one particular ridge where I think he could be betting or at least see another ridge where he's coming in and out of.
Now, is, what am I, I'm not gonna be, like unless I can maybe catch him with a grunt or catch him on this line where my wind direction is gonna cut this trail and it's gonna go to the west side of this ridge and his travel pattern is gonna go right in front of me on the east side of this trail, on the east side of the ridge and I think that's where I'm gonna try to set up.
in this particular example, the wind down there is gonna be extremely, it's gonna be in the bottom. I'm not gonna try to ridge sit and get a great wind. I'm gonna try to come on the west side of this valley and hopefully this east-southeast wind is just gonna be pushing everything right through, right through. There's gonna be some kind of wind disruption and there's a chance that based off of, based off of what I,
where I sit, I might have to get up there. The wind could be swirling. I might have to get down and then move it a little bit further one direction or the other. And I'm really hoping that something shows up, something big shows up. Now I have the, that's my main farm where I'm going to, I'm going to kick this rut vacation off. Then I'm going to be heading. If I can't connect on something or I don't see what I want to see, I'm going to bounce in. I'm going to bounce around my main farm for probably
Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday morning, depending on weather, and then bounced to my main farm where also a giant just showed up. He's 11 pointer. I'd put him in the low 160s, I'm guessing. He probably is not Booner caliber. I do have two other deer that are on that farm that I would shoot, but they haven't been on trail camera for the last week and a half. My dad drove by the property a couple days ago.
Dan Johnson (18:48.128)
And he was down in that area of the state just cruising. He's retired. So he just, the dude just goes where he wants to go. And he checks out state parks in different counties. And his goal is to try to like camp in all these different state parks in every county of Iowa. That's just what retired single retired dudes do. Right. And so he just cruises and he then he goes to his grandkids events. But the moral of the story is that he drove by the farm.
and they're standing corn on it still. And that could possibly be an issue, right? Now that we have this dump of water, they're not gonna be able to get into the timber the next couple days. These doe, I'm guessing the does and a lot of the deer, now that the vegetation has kind of dried out, the leaves are off the trees, they're probably gonna be in the fingers leading up to the corn and maybe even in the corn.
So I might do it once I go there if the crops don't come out. I'll probably do a Sit in the corn type night to see what caliber of deer are in these particular areas hell I might even I might even sit in a tree. I'm thinking about it right now It's not timber. It's just like a couple draws within a CRP field that have a couple trees in them one's big enough to hunt
And if I get the right wind, I'm guessing a west wind, I'm going to try to sit in the middle of this, in this big tree. It's in the wide open. A lot of branches up high, so I might be able to get in there with my saddle and just kind of play around in there. But getting in and out of it, especially in the evenings, might be a little difficult. Getting into the stand isn't going to be an issue.
getting out of the stand might be an issue because of the deer will be around me and so I have to take that into consideration and remember this time of year access route the deer aren't dumb yet they get dumb next week if you have a western or if you have a typical rut timing within the Midwest now take everything that I've said today and then pair it
Dan Johnson (21:12.975)
to if you hunt in the south and you have a unique rut timing, take everything I've said and apply it to that. I talked with a guy yesterday from Georgia who shot a great deer and his rut is already over. He has an early October rut, he lives close to the coast and from what I understand that if you're closer to the ocean, different timings of the rut.
And then you have obviously the southern January rut, the December rut, the late November rut throughout the south. take what I've said and apply that to your rut timing. And so really, I mean, I've been talking for about 22 minutes now and I'm not.
I'm just excited. It's time to start the process, right? It's time to start hunting mornings. It's time to start hunting afternoons. If you are taking this upcoming week off for vacation, it's time. It's time to take no shortcuts. Make sure that you have your access routes planned. You need to be looking at maps. You need to be checking weather. And then I hate to say it, but I even catch myself being lazy sometimes. And let's try to avoid being lazy.
I challenge everybody to not take shortcuts this rut. And if the wind is wrong, the wind's wrong, dude. Get out, go to a different stand. Get down, move to where the wind is right. And I think you're gonna, it's gonna suck to do it, but.
I don't know, it might be worth it. The other thing is know what your goal is, okay? If you say to yourself, okay, I got a goal and my goal is to shoot my first deer ever with a bow.
Dan Johnson (23:08.558)
Don't switch your goal because you see antlers, okay? Check, get that box checked, right? Get that box checked. The other thing is for the people out there, and I don't wanna tell you, I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'm just saying, hey, I'm looking to kill my first deer. Go kill your first deer. It doesn't have to be a buck, okay? The first deer that walks by,
take advantage of that opportunity, shoot it, more than likely you live in a state where you can get multiple tags. So you might be able to get another doe tag. You might be able to get another buck tag. You might be able to have almost infinity doe tags depending on where you live. And you can extend your season by hunting does. The other thing is, if you're the type of person who likes to bitch and complain about not having any big bucks,
this year but you still want to quote unquote get your buck practice some trigger control this year try passing a small buck and shooting a doe and and putting yourself in a better position for a mature whitetail if that is in fact your goal I just really hate I don't hear it as much anymore because everybody kind of knows it there's a lot of people out there who will shoot a buck
and then bitch that all the bucks are small. Okay, well, a buck doesn't get big if you shoot it when it's small. We all know that. Think about that. I'm not telling you what to do. Just think about it a little bit. And the most important thing at this point in the game is this is the time of year that we all love. We all love to watch the rut unfold wherever and however it unfolds throughout where you hunt.
It's just a magical time to be a deer hunter and we have an opportunity to enjoy this. And I think if we take things too serious, like I have done in the past, right? Trust me, I'm gonna go hunt hard for big bucks. That's what I do. That's what I love. But there has been times where I focus so much on the end result and not the process. And the process is what the fun part is.
Dan Johnson (25:32.665)
the getting up early, getting to the stand. Sometimes that sucks, but it's that type two fun that we've talked about in the past. And so take advantage of this, have fun. If you are an experienced hunter and you've got a wall full of antler and a meat full of freezer, think about helping somebody else out who has trouble fulfilling those goals. Maybe you let somebody hunt your property. Maybe you go onto somebody else's property
who had without your weapon and you just point out things to him, right? Help a brother out. Maybe you guys wants to fill his freezer and he doesn't know how to do that. Go help him. Go help set up a tree stand. Go maybe share one of your trail cameras with him for the rest of the season. Maybe if you get tagged out, go help somebody. And I think what you're gonna find is there's different layers to this.
this hunting path that we have chosen, I think I'm still in Big Buck. I'm still in a Big Buck type of place in my life, but I'm creeping into the kids part of my life. And once my kids get older, I think then, and I've checked my boxes as far as shooting big deer, and I've checked my boxes as bringing my kids into this. I also want to share this with people who don't get to experience a lot.
And so I think that's the third step for me. I'm still in big buck. I'm at the beginning of youth hunting and then it's going to be sharing what I know and how I've been successful with others if they'll have me. So I'm really looking forward to all those stages, man. All I got to say is don't get stupid. Wear your damn safety harness. It's not worth it. We all know this. I'm a broken record on this. Don't be stupid.
because a big buck is not worth losing a friendship, it's not worth a fine, it's not worth ruining your reputation. Because in this, whether you're in the industry or whether you are just an average Joe within your community, once you get labeled a poacher or once you get labeled shady when it comes to deer hunting, that label will stay with you.
Dan Johnson (27:56.257)
for a very, very, very long time. And people will continue, if you shoot a big deer, you know, let's say you hop a fence, you get busted for trespassing, and then the next two years from then, you shoot a big buck, people will say, dude's a trespasser. That's just human nature. They're gonna talk shit on you, and they're gonna talk shit on everything that you do. And so, it's very important to not let a big antler deer
or any deer, get in the way of your reputation and get in the way of a friendship. So, you you do something shady. The other thing is, okay, here's the other thing. Don't lose your properties by doing something stupid, okay? I've known guys in the past where I used to hunt a really good farm back in the mid 2000s. I would, like the late 2000s.
and then the early 2000 teens. And so right around that 2009 to 2000, I believe it was 13. I shared it with another guy. He was a little shady. I did what the farmer says. He had one rule. He said, do not drive in my pasture when it's wet. It's a hell of a walk back there from the road or from the parking lot, from the little parking area or from the field entrance. Not a big deal. I walked it.
The other guy did not put ruts in his pasture and what did the farmer do? He said bye bye to all hunters on it. He kicked out me, he kicked out that other guy who had been hunting his farm, the other guy had been hunting his farm for like 15 years. I'd only been hunting it for three at that point, three or four or something like that. Kicked out an entire party of shotgun hunters, late season hunters, like turkey hunters. He said, nope, just me now.
No hunting on my farm. And so, you don't want that to happen. So respect the properties that you're on. And that includes public, man. Pick up your trash, right? If you kill a deer and you have a gut pile and you used rubber gloves, take the rubber gloves with you. They're trash, man. I really hate running into a, like rubber gloves that are sitting in the woods. I know what happened there, but
Dan Johnson (30:21.344)
you know, an animal's gonna eat that and they're gonna choke on it, more than likely they're gonna die. So, let's show some respect for the land and for the animals that we have. Man, I also wanna talk about shot placement here for just a brief moment. I go into kill mode when I see a deer. Now, am I taking frontal shots at 40 yards, 30 yards? No, I'm not. It all depends on the scenario.
Know your limitations, right? Is a broadside shot at 20 yards the best possible shot? Probably, right? Mistakes happen, I get it, but know your limitations, right? For me, I will take a frontal shot at 10 yards. If it's right in front of me and his head's up, I'm taking that shot if he's calm. Now, if the deer's spooked, probably not. I'm just gonna let it play out until he gets broadside, then I have a better opportunity.
Know your limitations. If you don't feel comfortable, if you've never practiced or have accomplished a frontal shot, don't do it. Don't do it. Me, I've practiced some of that stuff and I don't want to say that I'm better than anybody, but I've practiced it. I practice my shooting. I'm comfortable in the stand when big deer are around now, except last year, right? Last year was a bad example, but the deer I ended up drilling last year.
Just very calm, very comfortable, got the shot done, and then I broke down. So take a deep breath, get composed, and pull off and execute an amazing shot. And that's all we want, and that's all the animal deserves. Put it through the lungs, the heart, maybe even the liver, depending on where you get them hit. All those areas are deadly, and is what it is.
So, safety, respect, and then go hard. It's that time, go hard. October 31st, go hard. Good vibes in, good vibes out. Go to Instagram, send me all of your success pictures. I wanna see it. good vibes, guys. Be safe and keep listening to the Nine Finger Chronicles.
