The best time of year is here — and this week's Q&A digs into why deer "jump the string" and duck your arrow before they ever hear the shot, plus a full round of hot takes and hot tips from the Circle community.

In this episode:

- Why deer duck your arrow before the sound reaches them — the deer-vision science behind "jumping the string"

- Are big-buck killers just sitting in better spots? Consistency vs. hunting brand-new ground

- Time in the woods vs. woodsmanship — which matters more

- Why "too much information" is beating more hunters than too little

- Learning new property: walk every inch, or scout your way in and hang-and-hunt

- The bullet/caliber debate — diameter vs. cartridge, and bullet construction (ELD-X, cup-and-core, polymer tip, monolithic)

- Broadheads, shot placement, and what actually puts deer down fastest

- Early-season morning hunts from a Southern perspective

- A bed-to-food pattern take backed by four years of hard numbers

- Doe harvest and herd balance — what the biologists keep telling us

- Luck vs. providence, and a few Little Debbie hot takes to close it out

- Recap: the Zach Ferenbaugh ground-hunting episode, small-game season kicking off, dove opener, and an offshore trip

These questions came from our Circle community — come join the conversation and get your questions in for next week.

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Drop a comment with your take on any of these. And remember — stay southern.

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Zach Ferenbaugh of The Hunting Public has killed some of his biggest bucks without ever climbing a tree — slipping through cover on the ground, calling them into bow range, and getting close enough to reach out and touch them. In his first-ever sit-down with us, Zach breaks down the woodsmanship behind ground hunting whitetails: reading conditions and other animals, moving through the woods undetected, why deer can't see nearly as well as you think, and why getting closer actually makes a mature buck easier to kill.

If you love turkey hunting, hate sitting still, or just want another tool in the bag, this one's for you.

In this episode:

- Why Zach walked away from the tree stand — and started killing bigger bucks on the ground

- How to move through the woods: when to speed up, when to freeze, and how to use wind, rain, and terrain to time every step

- Reading other animals as alarms — including the woodpecker "deer alarm" that tips him off before a buck ever shows

- Why the nastiest, thickest cover gives the hunter the advantage, not the deer

- How deer really see (and why staying still beats staying hidden)

- Calling and rattling on the ground: making it sound real, and "becoming the deer"

- Deer drives, bumping deer on purpose, and why spooking them isn't the end of the world

- Gear, shot angles, single-bevel broadheads, and shooting through cover

Special thanks to the NWTF for providing us with a space to record this episode.

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NOTE: Not all advertisements run on this show are endorsed by The Southern Outdoorsmen Podcast unless an ad is read by one of the hosts. 

Chapters:

00:00 The three-yard buck

01:12 Eight years to finally get Zach on

02:24 How ground hunting made deer hunting fun again

06:24 More opportunity, faster learning off the ground

09:08 The mental hurdle of leaving the tree

13:19 Moving through the woods: speed up or freeze

16:15 Using wind and conditions to time every move

19:34 The best teacher in the woods is the deer itself

34:13 Reading conditions to predict where deer bed

46:52 Reading other animals and the woodpecker "deer alarm"

54:05 Why the thicker the cover, the better

58:42 Staying patient with a buck at seven yards

1:03:05 Why deer can't see you as well as you think

1:11:45 The sign that says sit down — and the sign that lies

1:20:24 Deer drives and spooking deer on purpose

1:33:00 Becoming the deer: how Zach moves and calls

1:40:06 Calling on the ground and making rattling sound real

1:54:52 How turkeys and elk made him a better deer hunter

2:02:14 What Zach carries: the M2 pack, water, and gear

2:12:46 Shot angles, single-bevel broadheads, and shooting through cover

2:23:30 Do what makes hunting fun for you

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Rusty & Russten Johnson KNOW how to find mature bucks fast, and they've got the receipts. The summer we recorded this, he had close to 100 bucks over 120 inches on trail camera on PUBLIC land alone, including a 170-class deer and a near-200-inch giant, with no bait and no private honey holes. In this throwback from the back catalog (an episode that produced a pile of listener success stories the first time it aired), Russten and his dad Rusty break down the exact trail-camera system they use to locate big bucks before season — the ridge-running, road-hunting, net-casting method that turns a blank map into a hit list.

In this episode:

- The A/B camera-spot rating system — and why Ruston only hangs cameras on "compounding factor" locations

- Why you DON'T have to hike two miles deep — big bucks on cameras 10 feet off the road

- The four pillars: organization, technical proficiency, personal psychology, and being in the right spot

- Casting the net wide in August, then narrowing cameras onto a target buck as season closes in

- Why video mode beats picture mode — and what body language tells you a still photo never will

- Building years of history with individual public-land bucks (some 10 years old on the same ground)

- Buck personality types — homebodies vs. wanderers — and how to relocate a buck that disappears

- Reading a buck's morning direction to predict where he beds

- Magnetic Points of Reference (MPRs): the terrain magnets that pull deer in wide-open Kansas country

- The psychology of the check — why Ruston goes in LOUD with music blaring instead of sneaking

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

Guest: Rusty & Russten Johnson — United Outdoors

- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/united.outdoors/?hl=en

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Russ Seale has killed more mature bucks on one specific set of conditions than any other day of the season — and he'll argue the point with any biologist who says otherwise. This is the 3020 Factor: rising barometric pressure behind a cold front, a 10–15° temperature drop, and a steady north/northwest wind. Last year it put two Boone & Crockett bucks on his wall seven days apart — a 190" non-typical and a 184". We get into all of it.

In this episode:

- The 3020 Factor explained — the exact pressure, wind, and temperature window Russ builds his season around

- Why he'll argue the "best day to move" with any deer scientist — and the two booners that back it up

- Reading flat river-bottom and Delta ground where "it all looks the same" — water crossings, subtle bluffs, and the transition edges deer travel like a highway

- Why he almost never hunts a feed tree unless it's on fire fresh — and what he hunts instead

- Doe groups as the one common denominator from the Deep South to the Midwest

- Hunting the mental game — why you choke when the giant finally steps out, and how to fix it before the moment comes

- How respect on public land opened the private-farm doors that produced both giants

- The 190" Kansas hunt, the 184" Missouri hunt, and the "curse" Russ finally broke

Guest: Russ Seale — High Pressure Hunting / the 3020 Factor

- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@highpressurehunting

-----------------------------------

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And remember — y'all Stay Southern.

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Clay Harper is a DIY traveling hunter who's turned breaking down brand-new ground into a system. He picks a state, a season, and a "theme" long before he ever sets foot on the property, then kills mature bucks on public land across the country. In this one, we get into his early-season playbook: how he reads unfamiliar woods fast, why he hunts the mid-morning window nobody else does, and the mindset shift that's put more bucks on the ground for him than any single tactic.

In this episode:

- Why mature bucks get up and move mid-morning in the early season — and the mineral craving behind it

- The "theme of the hunt" framework: deciding what you're hunting before you ever open a map

- Overcoming the objection — the sales-mindset question Clay asks himself before every hunt

- Reading a brand-new property from the food back to the bed using rub lines

- How to speed-scout unfamiliar ground and pick spots that set up in your favor

- Why big deer often hold close to access — and you don't have to hike miles deep

- Using a decoy and rattling to pull cruising bucks off the ridgetops out West

- Why he kills more deer on the ground than out of a treestand

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We just rolled in from the Mobile Hunters Expo in Dalton, and the season is coming fast so this Thursday Q&A is a loaded one. Andrew and Jacob work through a stack of listener questions and Circle hot takes: reading a spotty mast year, finding bucks when the ground's too dry to track, velvet-buck decisions, doe harvest, neighbor management, and a run of rapid-fire hot takes that'll get the comments going. Grab a seat.

In this episode:

• Mobile Hunters Expo recap and this year's record crowd
• The mast crop report — why Virginia's looking spotty and central Alabama's holding solid
• How to hunt a bad acorn year — beech nuts, browse lines, greenbrier, and other overlooked food
• Finding buck tracks when it's too dry — track traps, leaf-blower tricks, and when to just run cameras
• HOT TAKE: if your whole season depends on the rut, you never learned to hunt October
• Velvet bucks — take him now, or wait for a hard-horned target during the season?
• How many does to actually harvest, and why you can't kill them out on one property
• HOT TAKE: encouraging your neighbor to shoot whatever he wants (reverse-psychology management)
• Velvet hunting West Tennessee public land — where to focus when bucks aren't leaving sign
• HOT TAKE: most hardcore public land hunters would secretly rather hunt private
• Is a thermal drone really any different than a livescope?
• Shooting a bow with no peep sight, brush guns and slug setups, and the high-fence debate
• How to physically prep for the season without living in the gym
• What counts as a deer hunting "hat trick" — and a look back at the Ben Davis feed-tree episode

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Archery seasons are opening soon across the country, and early-season success comes down to one thing: acorns. Ben Davis of central Alabama joins us to break down his complete early-season feed tree blueprint — how to find the oaks that are actually hot, the overlooked sign that tells you a tree is about to fire before the deer even pattern it, and how to hunt it without blowing it out. It's a wide-open early-season how-to for every deer hunter, then a deep, technical dive into traditional bow hunting for those who want to take it all the way.

In this episode:

• How deer feeding on green acorns tells you a tree is 1–2 weeks from getting hot
• The oak-drop calendar — chestnut/mountain oaks, then white oaks, then red and water oaks late season
• Reading feed sign — busted hulls, fresh droppings, and ground disturbance under a hot tree
• Why your first sit on a fresh tree is almost always your best one
• Scouting before rain to erase your intrusion and get a free pass
• Late-morning feed tree kills — and why wind gets deer on their feet
• Creek crossings, entry and exit, and the water-scent problem that wrecks slam-dunk setups
• Isolated oaks vs. stands of oaks, and getting tight to bedding cover
• Getting into traditional archery without getting over-bowed — form and instinctive shooting
• Bare-shaft tuning, arrow spine, weight-forward setups, and picking a broadhead
• Sharpening fixed-blade heads and getting a true burr
• The story of a mature Alabama buck taken with a recurve — and the recovery that almost didn't happen
• Plus mentors, hard-earned lessons, and why he'd rather hunt sign than stare at a trail camera

Check out Ben's latest video here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRl90uaCoo0

Looking for land in Alabama's Black Belt region? Contact Ben here - https://www.whitetailproperties.com/agents/ben-davis-1

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Can a mature buck actually recognize your treestand, your climber, or your trail cameras? Andrew opens this one with a story about the biggest buck he'd ever seen in bow range — a buck that stepped out, locked onto the base of the tree he was sitting in, and eased off without a sound. It never saw him. It never smelled him. So what gave him away?

From there, Andrew and Jacob work through a stack of your questions from Circle and the website. Classic Thursday Q&A — straight from you guys.

In this episode:

• Do deer recognize your treestand & trail cameras?
• The buck that busted Andrew's climber — and what gave him away
• Shooting houses, box blinds & the black-window trick
• Why you're giving mature bucks too many chances to learn you
• Will a mature buck abandon his home range under pressure?
• The good bucks you never knew were on your property
• Could you actually pressure a buck out of his core?
• Do deer relocate, or just shut down and go thick?
• You jumped your target buck scouting — now what?
• Scouting in August & September on familiar ground
• Finding a bachelor group in a cool creek bottom
• Are you putting your trail cameras in the wrong spots?
• Cameras on feed trees: before or after they drop?
• Has extreme mobile hunting saved more bucks than it's killed?
• The Who / Where / When of killing a specific buck
• Do bucks bed in the same spot year after year?
• Thermals, wind & hunting tight to water
• Is killing a mature buck more luck or skill?
• Mast crop report

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Eddie McRae has bowhunted the same Georgia farms for 40 years — and he says he hasn't been smelled by a deer in nearly a decade. No ozone units, no expensive sprays. Just a scent system he runs 365 days a year and a theory that most deer don't even know what a human smells like anymore.

In this episode of The Southern Outdoorsmen, Eddie (of Riverman Custom Calls) breaks down the self-taught, low-pressure approach that's put six mature bucks on the wall in the last four years. We cover deer this time - turkey's coming in a follow-up.

What we get into:

• How Eddie taught himself to hunt with no mentor, and why he switched from gun to bow in the late '80s
• The bow record he almost can't explain — hundreds of deer, and his take on staying calm at full draw
• Paper tuning, shooting at 60–80 yards, and building form you can repeat 100% of the time
• His arrow setup: 200 grains up front, high FOC, and why he thinks ultra-heavy arrows are a mistake
• The scent system in full — unscented everything, baking-soda washes, clothes that never enter the house, dog fennel cover scent, and the e-bike
• Why he believes deer have stopped recognizing "clean" human scent altogether
• The UV/detergent glow rabbit hole — the glove that busted him, the black-light test, and Dr. Karl Miller's UGA deer-vision work
• The four kinds of deer (wild, suburban, managed, public) and why behavior — not bait — drives everything
• Hunting a 400-acre farm like a sanctuary by doing the exact opposite of pressured neighbors
• Why mature bucks lock into tiny core areas — the 11-acre buck that never showed on another camera
• Cutting a ground blind into the nastiest cover on the property, and building a staging spot to kill a blown-out buck
• Hunting major weather swings and "hunting from the sofa" until a deer tells you it's time
• The get-in-get-it-done-get-out access philosophy (h/t Bobby Worthington)
• Eddie's most controversial take: why he doesn't believe the South has a definitive rut, and the fawn-drop evidence behind it

Check out Eddie's calls:

Riverman Custom Calls — https://rivermancustoms.com/

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