The WHTL Podcast - Whitetail Deer Hunting Tactics, Stories & Expert Guests

Scott Buckley left Michigan for southern Iowa chasing bigger deer, and the move paid off. He's arrowed a public-land buck at 170 inches at 8:20 in the morning on October 3rd, taken a wide 160-inch 12-point by catching him off guard on a rare east wind, and this season got his 10-year-old grandson Carson onto three bucks and eight or nine does. Scott hunts a mix of public land and his own farm in s...

Welcome to the WHTL Podcast, your source for Whitetail Deer Hunting Tactics, Stories & Expert Guests. In this episode, we're back in the studio with Jason Michael. We Discuss: The 2026 rut calendar: key October and November dates based on solunar movement charts. Southern hunters can add roughly one lunar month to every November rut date. For mature bucks, the wind should be almost perfect for him...

Steve Pinkston hunts for the wind every other bowhunter is taught to avoid — and he's killed his last ten bucks doing it. Cameron and Tre Kerns go back through last week's conversation to pull out what's actually usable: whether Steve's "light and variable" wind theory holds up the same way in hill country as it does on his flat Ohio ag ground, why food source changes don't move Steve's deer off t...

Welcome to the WHTL Podcast, your source for Whitetail Deer Hunting Tactics, Stories & Expert Guests. In this episode, we're back in the studio with Johnny Stewart. We Discuss: * Early October is food-driven, so look for pockets of acorns, not a whole forest of mast. * Probe into a new area a little at a time instead of hiking every inch and burning it out. * Start e-scouting with the historic win...

Steve Pinkston has killed three bucks over 200 inches — and never entered a single one in the record books. Owner of Hardcore E-Cycles and a member of the Whitetail Addiction team, Steve has spent over 45 years chasing whitetails with a bow, and since 2011 he's hunted the Ohio rut just twice. Since 2019, he hasn't carried a tag past October 13th — five of those kills came on the first sit, three o...

Cameron sits down with Tre Kerns to break down their sixth early season trip to North Dakota: two target bucks, tricky winds, and hunting mature deer from the ground at 15 yards. It's an honest recap of what went right and what didn't. One buck ended up on the tailgate, one got away clean, and one shot didn't go the way anyone wants. Along the way they cover the lessons that will carry into the re...

Welcome to the WHTL Podcast, your source for Whitetail Deer Hunting Tactics, Stories & Expert Guests. In this episode, we're back in the studio with Brian Tanner. We Discuss: * Overcast mid-October days can create longer, more productive deer movement windows. * Topography funnels cruising bucks when a setup accounts for wind and thermals. * The Green Mile uses cover and barriers to guide deer acr...

Aaron Olsen took 13 years to kill his first buck with a bow. Since then, he's hunted 10 states and filled tags in 7 of them. In this Recovery, Cameron sits down in person with Trey Kearns — on location in North Dakota — to break down the 5 things from last week's conversation that you can actually take into the woods this season: getting mobile, treating private and public land as two different to...

Welcome to the WHTL Podcast, your source for Whitetail Deer Hunting Tactics, Stories & Expert Guests. In this episode, we're back in the studio with Adam Hays. We Discuss: Hunt the wind that makes a mature buck feel safe, not the wind that's perfect for you. The best time to hunt a stand is the first time you hunt it, so save it for your best night. Let other hunters pressure deer on bad nights wh...

Aaron Warbritton of The Hunting Public joins the WHTL Podcast to break down the top 5 rules he lives by every season to consistently kill mature bucks — plus how he balances scouting pressure against the information he needs, how he finds the best stand on any property (public or private), and why he thinks trail cameras are one of the most overcomplicated tools in modern whitetail hunting. This e...

Aaron Olsen (Next Step Outdoors) took seven years to kill his first deer with a bow, and thirteen years to kill his first buck. Then something changed — in the last five or six seasons he's hunted ten states, filled tags in seven of them, and built a mobile, saddle-based system from scratch. In this episode, Cameron sits down with Aaron to break down: Why getting mobile was the single biggest leve...

Welcome to the WHTL Podcast, your source for Whitetail Deer Hunting Tactics, Stories & Expert Guests. In this episode, we're back in the studio with K.C. Smith and Tyler Jones. We Discuss: Hunt the calendar first and let the weather be the tiebreaker. The warm-up day on the backside of a cold front can out-hunt the front itself. A stable wind matters more to a deer's comfort than a dropping temper...

Don Higgins has been bowhunting for 49 years — and today he hunts fewer hours than at any point in his career. In this Recovery, we go back through the biggest, most usable takeaways from the full conversation: the discovery that changed how he reads wind and bedding forever, the ethics behind walking away from 19 out of 20 hunting tips, the patience it took to sit on a buck for three full seasons...

Welcome to the WHTL Podcast, your source for Whitetail Deer Hunting Tactics, Stories & Expert Guests. In this episode, we're back in the studio with Brandon Barlow of The 70 Rule. We Discuss: Up to 80% of daytime deer behavior repeats in the same areas year to year. Cameras over corn and field edges produce deer photos, not repeatable data. Browse damage at nipple height marks the bedding mature b...

In this episode of MDRN Whitetail, Don breaks down the principles that actually built a 49-year career chasing giants — not the tips everyone's already heard, but the ones he had to learn the hard way. We get into: The "same time, same place" theory Don first wrote about in 2003 — and how tracking one buck's annual pattern for six straight years led to a first-morning kill Why hunting "the fringes...

Welcome to the WHTL Podcast, your source for Whitetail Deer Hunting Tactics, Stories & Expert Guests. In this episode, we're back in the studio with Kaleb Greiner. We Discuss: Roughly half of summer bucks relocate before October in pressured country. Cereal grains want to be six inches tall on opening day, not two feet. The best summer camera in ag country sits 20 to 80 yards off a pond. Deer walk...

Welcome to MDRN Whitetail — where woodsmanship and technology collide. I'm Cameron Derr, and I didn't learn to deer hunt from a mentor. I learned it from editing YouTube hunting content — first on The Tineman, then as Creative Director at Exodus Outdoor Gear, where I produced Trail Cam Radio (the Exodus Podcast, now WHTL), Whitetail Cribs, and hosted the Deer Gear Podcast. Every guest I edited bec...

Welcome to the WHTL Podcast, your source for Whitetail Deer Hunting Tactics, Stories & Expert Guests. In this episode, we're back in the studio with Jason Michael. We Discuss: Mature bucks have distinct personalities, and each one has to be hunted differently. A buck labeled nocturnal is usually only nocturnal on your 80 acres. Red oaks carry the November acorn crop long after the white oaks are w...

Welcome to the WHTL Podcast, your source for Whitetail Deer Hunting Tactics, Stories & Expert Guests. In this episode, we're back in the studio with Jeff Hopkins. We Discuss: A buck's tarsal gland leaves a scent fingerprint that bottled urine can't copy. Frozen tarsal glands soaked in glycerin gel make your own dominant buck scent. Wax paper under a mock scrape keeps your lure from soaking into th...

Welcome to the WHTL Podcast, your source for Whitetail Deer Hunting Tactics, Stories & Expert Guests. In this episode, we're back in the studio with Jack Huston. We Discuss: Buck-to-doe ratios average 2.3 does per buck, far tighter than the 10-to-1 hunters assume. You need to remove at least 20% of your doe herd in a season to actually shrink deer numbers. Improving timber stand quality can boost...

Welcome to the WHTL Podcast, your source for Whitetail Deer Hunting Tactics, Stories & Expert Guests. In this episode, we're back on the road in Georgia with Travis "T-Bone" Turner of Bone Collector. We Discuss: Confidence with your bow setup comes from accuracy, not chasing raw speed. Spend real money on your rest and release — everything else is negotiable. A 450-520 grain arrow with 14-18% FOC...

Welcome to The WHTL Podcast! Join us as we dive into whitetail hunting tactics, deer camp stories, and conversations with the biggest names in the industry. Hosted by Jake Hofer, this podcast digs deep into what actually makes hunters better — not just what fills the freezer. On today's episode, Jake sits down with Tony Peterson (MeatEater, Wired to Hunt, Foundations Podcast) for one of the most h...

Welcome to the WHTL Podcast, your source for Whitetail Deer Hunting Tactics, Stories & Expert Guests. In this episode, we're back in the studio with Thomas Damren. We Discuss: Rootstock is the "engine" of a tree — it decides size, speed, and hardiness. Home Depot trees are grown on dwarf rootstock built for yards, not neglect. Start with just five trees before planting a full orchard. Seedling roo...

Welcome to the WHTL Podcast, your source for Whitetail Deer Hunting Tactics, Stories & Expert Guests. In this episode, we're back in the studio with Jake Hendrickson. We Discuss: Your hunting gear should function as one complete system. Confidence comes from practicing with your setup. Mobile hunting has improved dramatically over the last decade. Lightweight gear isn't always the best gear. Water...

Welcome to the WHTL Podcast, your source for Whitetail Deer Hunting Tactics, Stories & Expert Guests. In this episode, we're back in the studio with Jake Hendrickson. We Discuss: Finding a mature buck is often harder than killing one. Most summer scouting intel doesn't directly lead to kills. Pressure ruins more hunting spots than poor stand locations. Mobile hunting accelerates learning and adapt...