We're still in early season here in Alabama while most of y'all are hunting the rut, so this week we answer your Circle and email questions and tell some stories. Andrew went back to a water oak bottom with the recurve, shook the acorns out of his tree, and heard footsteps 30 seconds later. A doe walked to 13 yards, and then it all went wrong. We also get into food plots that hold mature deer, bucks that jump fences wherever they want, map pins vs. following fresh sign, crossing water quietly, and the dumbest hunts we had when we were starting out.

In this episode:

- Hot take: should a buck's score matter as much as it does?

- Aging deer on the hoof, and where to send off a tooth

- What a 3½-year-old buck looked like in Iowa

- Rattling for 30 minutes straight on our Iowa hunt

- Food plots that hold mature deer: cover, travel routes, and pressure

- Why oaks don't pull deer very far in pine country

- Bucks jumping the fence anywhere: hunt the crossing or the sign?

- Map pins vs. following fresh sign on the way in

- Listener tip: pretend the deer have guns

- Yes, slip hunting works in the South

- How to walk through water quietly

- Charcoal and wood ash instead of face paint

- What we use for mosquitoes

- If you could only hunt with one weapon for the rest of your life

- Don't fear failure: a second-year bowhunter rattles in his first bucks

- Our dumbest early hunts: a power line 11-point, a fogged-up scope, and a bobcat underfoot

- Shaking acorns out of the tree, and a doe at 13 yards with the recurve

- Why the shot went wrong: aiming at the whole deer

- Brisket hits and the blood that gives you false hope

- Tracking a wounded doe through the bedding cover

- Putting out utilization cages on food plots

- A destination food source with bedding right next to it

- Why feed trees still produce on hot early-season days

- Don't overlook food plots on public land

- Why plots go quiet once the acorns start dropping

Mentioned in this episode:

Join our Circle Community here - https://linkly.link/2o0Sn

Check out Plot Lock from Whitetail Hill here - https://linkly.link/2xhlw

Grab some Southern Outdoorsmen merch here - https://l.linklyhq.com/l/1u4aK

Join Woodsman Wire - https://l.linklyhq.com/l/1u4aR

Use code "SOUTHERN" for a discount on Whitetail Hill food plot seed & trees - https://linkly.link/2myBP

Use the promo code "southern" for a discount on your OnX Hunt membership here - https://l.linklyhq.com/l/1tyfm

Check out Latitude Outdoors for your mobile hunting gear - https://2ly.link/1zVDI

Use code TSOP15 for a discount on Mossy Oak - https://linkly.link/2ERb8

Use code SOUTHERN20 for a discount on all Vortex apparel, including eyewear

Dr. Stephen Ditchkoff has studied whitetails since 1992 and has spent the last 26 years as a professor at Auburn University, where his team runs a 430-acre deer research facility built to follow which bucks actually breed, which does they breed, and how that changes over a deer's life. We sat down with him for the second time to talk about the rut: why the peak is the worst time to hunt, why the Southern rut runs longer, what does are looking for in a buck, and how mature bucks change the whole breeding season.

Our first episode with Dr. Ditchkoff - https://youtu.be/QZncXOxHpfI

In this episode:

- Why the peak of the rut is the worst time to hunt

- 26 years at Auburn and the 430-acre deer research facility

- Are antlers an honest signal of a buck's quality?

- How many does one buck can breed in a season

- Why Boone and Crockett symmetry isn't what a deer sees

- Do does choose which buck breeds them?

- Why bucks may be choosy too

- Do mature bucks get harder to kill in the rut?

- The windows on either side of the peak

- "They're running" days vs. actual peak breeding

- Why the Southern rut is longer and bucks can't run as hard

- Late-born fawns: once behind, always behind

- The age bucks breed most successfully

- Good mothers vs. bad mothers: a third of does raise most of the fawns

- What a doe wants from a buck: immune system genetics

- The white T-shirt study

- How deer learn: 8,760 hours a year in the classroom

- How a grandmother's condition shows up in her grandfawns

- What last year's acorn crop means for bucks 4–5 years from now

- How mature bucks shorten the rut and move it earlier

- Post-rut mortality

- Why culling "management bucks" doesn't work

- Listener question: where did all the mature bucks go?

- What solunar charts actually show

- Counting deer with thermal drones

- Flying drones over hunters to see how deer react

- The buck that walked within 50 yards of a hunter, unseen

- The new research he can't talk about yet

Join our Circle Community here - https://linkly.link/2o0Sn

Grab some Southern Outdoorsmen merch here - https://l.linklyhq.com/l/1u4aK

Join Woodsman Wire - https://l.linklyhq.com/l/1u4aR

Use code "SOUTHERN" for a discount on Whitetail Hill food plot seed & trees - https://linkly.link/2myBP

Use the promo code "southern" for a discount on your OnX Hunt membership here - https://l.linklyhq.com/l/1tyfm

Check out Latitude Outdoors for your mobile hunting gear - https://2ly.link/1zVDI

Use code TSOP15 for a discount on Mossy Oak - https://linkly.link/2ERb8

Use code SOUTHERN20 for a discount on all Vortex apparel, including eyewear

Jacob's back from his honeymoon! We've interviewed a lot of slip hunters this season, so Andrew finally tried it himself. He used what Zach Ferenbaugh taught us about moving through cover, crouched under a cedar with a recurve, and had two bucks walk to 12 yards without ever knowing he was there. We also answer your questions on late-season quota hunts, whether deer know it's the weekend, rattling in high-pressure woods, and hunting Alabama's SOAs, then talk through our first early-season hunts together.

In this episode:

- Late-season quota hunt in middle Georgia: clear cuts, water oaks, and green browse

- Why so few Southern hunters hunt the late season

- Don't overthink low-pressure deer

- Do deer know it's the weekend?

- Getting help with your property through Circle and the Hunter Hangouts

- Listener tip: don't check your phone at last light

- A misfire at 20 yards: is the stand burned?

- Yes, rattling works in high-pressure Southern woods

- How Alabama's SOA draw hunts work, and how to hunt them

- The perfect thermal hub with no deer in it

- Why big bucks on draw hunts die in the fallow wildlife openings

- Jacob's first hunt back and climbing a tree by phone light

- Stingy white oaks: hunting mountain oaks, red oaks, and water oaks instead

- A spike drinking from a spring seep (have you ever seen a deer drink?)

- Slip hunting the edge between the pines and the hardwoods

- Two bucks at 12 yards, on the ground, with a recurve

- Why early season is the time to slip hunt

- Getting winded in a creek-bottom bowl

- Why bottoms need calm mornings

- Morning spots vs. evening spots

- Resting a drainage so you don't burn it out

- Hunting the last hour from the ground

Mentioned in this episode:

- Stand Hunting Is Riskier Than Hunting on the Ground | Zach Ferenbaugh - https://youtu.be/_wN0QG2BIQM

- Travis Murray on setting up on the ground - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4Eib99ax8k

Join our Circle Community here - https://linkly.link/2o0Sn

Grab some Southern Outdoorsmen merch here - https://l.linklyhq.com/l/1u4aK

Join Woodsman Wire - https://l.linklyhq.com/l/1u4aR

Use code "SOUTHERN" for a discount on Whitetail Hill food plot seed & trees - https://linkly.link/2myBP

Use the promo code "southern" for a discount on your OnX Hunt membership here - https://l.linklyhq.com/l/1tyfm

Check out Latitude Outdoors for your mobile hunting gear - https://2ly.link/1zVDI

Use code TSOP15 for a discount on Mossy Oak - https://linkly.link/2ERb8

Use code SOUTHERN20 for a discount on all Vortex apparel, including eyewear