ALEC: (Whispering) Oh, geez!
KABLE: (Whispering) Is he right here?
ALEC: (Whispering) Yeah, he's coming.
KABLE: (Whispering) I'm on him, buddy.
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GRANT: You may recall that during early November, Kable killed a great buck in Indiana.
KABLE: Look at that deer.
GRANT: And since then, he's been hunting with his son, Alec, and running the camera.
GRANT: Alec has been Kable's hunting partner since he was five years old.
GRANT: This father-son team's had a great season so far.
During the early season, both Kable and Alec took several does.
And in November, Kable took a great buck.
So his Indiana season was over.
There was still some great bucks on the family farm.
And with Alec up to bat, they both knew his chances were good.
ALEC: (Whispering) Back in the same stand we hunted last night.
We didn't have any bucks come through, but we have high hopes for this morning.
GRANT: Alec and Kable spent a bunch of time hunting during the rut in Indiana.
They focused primarily on cover, hoping the does would bring one of those Indiana giant
bucks right to their stand.
GRANT: We've all been there.
As hot as these two hunters were during the early season, things had went a little cold
and they were spending time without seeing mature bucks.
KABLE: We hunted hard from November 6th up till November 26th.
Uh, we didn't miss hardly, didn't miss a day.
We hunted bedding areas for uh, bucks chasing does, and we knew that that's the area they
would, should be in.
ALEC: We've been hunting really hard.
We've been at it.
He killed his buck on the 6th of November.
We haven't really been seeing shooters since then.
I, I didn't see them at all.
I wasn't with him when he shot his buck, so.
GRANT: After 20 days of straight hunting, they felt like they were just putting their
time in.
GRANT: It was November 24th, and the forecast showed a strong cold front headed for their
farm.
With the cold front coming, the two hunters knew it was time to get out of cover and start
hunting the best food source in the neighborhood.
KABLE: We had some standing corn, actually right over my shoulder.
Um, a field that we leave up for deer, and rabbits, and squirrels, and turkeys, and everything
to take advantage of it.
We don't ever harvest it.
GRANT: One of Kable's favorite hunting techniques is to plant a small corn field and knock a
little bit more of it down as the season progresses.
Deer are very drawn to cut corn, especially mature bucks during the late season, when
they're seeking the high energy food source.
GRANT: Kable had started the season with five acres of corn and by November 24th, three
of it had been mowed to the ground.
ALEC: (Whispering) Dad and I are at our home here in southern Indiana.
We're watching over a corn plot tonight, that's been pushed over.
We already have deer out in the field right now, so that's a good sign.
ALEC: We had some good movement, last two nights.
Had a two and a half year old, and some does, and some spikes out here eating.
So we're hoping tonight's the night.
It's snowing, it's nice out, we've had uh, some good trail cam pictures from the Reconyx.
Showed a buck we call Bernie and a buck we call Splits.
Those are the two deer -- those are our two hit list deer that we're after.
Both been pretty nocturnal, but it's been very cold the last three days, so you never
know what can show up.
ALEC: (Whispering) Oh, geez!
KABLE: (Whispering) Is he right here?
ALEC: (Whispering) Yeah, he's coming.
KABLE: (Whispering) I'm on him, buddy.
ALEC: (Whispering) ...brow tine splits in 3 ways.
KABLE: (Whispering) Not yet.
Okay.
You're good.
Get him to look up at you before you shoot.
ALEC: Wow, we did it.
KABLE: Good job, buddy.
ALEC: That's the deer we call Splits.
That was perfect.
Came out here, perfect -- did exactly what we wanted him to.
KABLE: Got him in the snow.
ALEC: That's the first time we've actually seen him hunting.
All this year he's been pretty nocturnal.
KABLE: Hope I hit "record".
(Laughter) You didn't ask me.
ALEC: Oh, no.
I just figured you'd just would be on it.
I guess that's where he stand, right there.
ALEC: Well folks, we got blood right here.
Right here on this corn stalk.
That's lung blood all over it, right there.
Right down into brush here.
There he is, right there.
KABLE: Got him?
ALEC: Yep.
Right there.
He didn't, he didn't make it 40 yards.
KABLE: Nope.
ALEC: 40/50 yards.
He's got, he's got some mass on him, doesn't he?
He did split three different ways.
Tell you what.
It's a good looking deer.
That's a good shot right there, folks.
This is why you plant the corn and do all the right things, for this right here, makes
it easy, you don't get them during the pre-rut or rut stage, food, the next best thing.
He wasn't chasing, he was purely coming in, it was cold, it was snowing, coming in to
get some, get some carbohydrates.
GRANT: What a great hunt.
The footage of Splits coming through that snow is as beautiful as it gets.
I really enjoy and learned from watching this father and son team hunt.
They stuck together through the good times, and really supported each other in the slow
times.
In the end, they both had a great season.
KABLE: Nice deer.
ALEC: Hard to pass up, hard to pass up.
GRANT: There's never an easier time to read the current sign of where whitetails are moving
than when it snows.
Our ground is so rocky that there's no way to see all these tracks when the snows not
on.
Scouting the snow is a huge advantage.
Oftentimes, when it's really cold and deer are trying to conserve their resources, they
will bed very close to the food source.
Cover, food, cover, food, with minimum movement in between helps them conserve energy and
more importantly, body heat.
GRANT: Bed right there.
GRANT: Oftentimes, when deer are bedded for quite some time -- this deer was here long
enough it actually melted the snow away, they will void their bladder, or urinate while
they're bedded.
And if the urine stain is on either end of the bed, you know it's a female.
But it tends to be in the middle of the curl, on the bottom of the bed, it's obviously a
male.
GRANT: So classic location for deer bed -- protected by this big cedar -- you can tell the snows
only couple inches deep here, versus several inches deep out here.
Foods up here about 30-40 yards, got the wind protecting it's back, it's vision looking
down slope to see predators coming.
This is an awesome location for deer bed.
GRANT: We hear a lot of talk about the second rut, and what that usually is in habitats
where there's enough nutrition for fawns to reach 60-70 pounds, female fawns will become
receptive, or have their first estrous cycle.
We're certainly not in the ag belt, here at The Proving Grounds, but we've done a lot
of prescribed fire and the heavy food plot program, and a lot of our fawns will become
receptive during their first winter.
So we expect to find a lot of fresh rubs and scrapes during January.
You can see the shavings and hair on top of the snow.
Not only are healthier fawns an obvious advantage to the deer herd, but it's a huge advantage
as a hunter.
When fawns become receptive, unlike mature does, fawns don't seek dense cover to try
to shake the bucks off.
They continue their daily pattern of food, cover, food, cover.
And when they're receptive, they're dragging those mature bucks right behind 'em, right
out to the food plots.
GRANT: A lot of folks are messed up by the word forage soybean.
They don't realize how many pods they make.
We showed you this exact field this summer when it was super hot and super droughty and
I couldn't imagine how these plants were making a bunch of forage as they did.
GRANT: Now we're in December -- the temperatures have been below zero couple nights, and I've
got these great pods that are full of soybean oil and protein, high energy and protein,
late season deer are all about the food source.
The snow has obviously covered up whatever acorns are left.
Native browse is hardened off and long gone.
These forage soybeans are really carrying the load for the deer herd here at The Proving
Grounds.
GRANT: Whether the part of Creation you hunt is covered with snow or not, slow down and
take time to listen to what the Creator is saying to you.
Thanks for watching GrowingDeer.tv.