This is an IHeart podcast.

Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast, your guide to the fundamentals of better deer hunting.

Presented by First Light, creating proven, versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle, or blind.

First Light. Go farther, stay longer. And now, your host, Tony Peterson.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which is brought to you by First Light.

I'm your host, Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about putting in the work right now

to kill a giant, mega huge, pretty good buck during during the rut as much as i like to talk about

hunting the early season or spending my time in a saddle during the middle of october when everyone else

is running out the clock to get to the rut i know something about us as hunters well not all of us but a hell

of a lot of us anyway we are going to put in most of our effort, most of our time during the rut.

We can't help it.

And that's okay.

If that sounds like you, or you just don't have as much faith in the earlier part of the bow season as I do, consider this.

You can do an awful lot of work now to prepare yourself for rut hunting success,

which is something I'm going to talk about right now.

Sometime last December, I found myself standing in a cattail slew with the wind just

whipping across the prairie. And I was thinking that my limit bird was laying out there somewhere.

And not only could I not see it obviously but I couldn't see

my dog and I couldn't hear her. I knew that Sadie was in the ballpark because the rooster had gotten

up while cackling his displeasure at being forced to fly, which is almost always something that

happens after the dog gives them a really good chase, and they finally decide to

use their wings instead of their legs. I mean, they honestly just kind of sound like they're pissed

...