Ever wonder how your mother would look like in full hunting mode? Let’s head out to West Wisconsin, Pepin County and talk with Audrey Pfaffe about her own mother-daughter hunting adventures. Audrey is the co-owner of Monarch Whitetail Nutrition, and knows all about having a balanced herd during the rut. In the first part of a two-part interview, Audrey talks about how she got her mother in a tree stand as part of her introduction to whitetail hunting. This involves principles such as being humble about the sport – can you stand it when people think, Oh well, I shot the biggest buck so I know it all and I don’t have time to talk to people like you? Because hunting is not just going out and shooting the biggest buck; it’s being willing to help others have a good experience, especially aspiring kids. Audrey shares these insights and more in a riveting talk about introducing the oldest and youngest generation to hunting whitetails.

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We’re heading out to West Wisconsin, Pepin County to be exact, and we’re going to talk with Audrey Pfaffe. Audrey is the owner of Monarch Whitetail Nutrition, and that’s about having a balanced herd. Even more important, she knows the rut. The first part, we’re going to talk about how she got her mother in a tree stand, and the second part is how she hunt each separate segment of the rut to seeking the chase, the lockdown in the post rut.

Listen to the podcast here:

Rut Talk Pt. 1 With Audrey Pfaffe

We’re heading out to Wisconsin and we’re going to connect with Audrey Pfaffe. Audrey is a very interesting young lady. She’s got a great hunting tradition. She and her husband, Andrew, own Monarch Whitetail Nutrition and she told me her mom’s getting into hunting. Audrey, welcome to the show.

Thanks so much for having me.

We were talking about your mom getting into hunting. Let’s start there and talk about why your mom’s getting into hunting.

Up until four years ago, she never had any interest in hunting at all. She was always the typical mom. She’s cooking all the big lunches and the big breakfast for all the hunters that are at our typical deer camp, all my uncles and cousins and stuff. She’d be too busy at home taking care of all of us to really have any opportunity to go. She’s a typical woman, doesn’t like cold weather, doesn’t like being out in the rain or anything like that. For her, she was contented just being at home. Four years ago, we had some personal family issues arise and she was telling me, “I want to spend more time with you.” I’m like, “If you’re going spend time with me, you’re going to have to put on some boots and come with me because I’m not going to just sit in the house and watch TV.” I’m out on the woods, so I more or less forced her to come out with me.

I made sure not to bring her out if it was bad weather or cold weather because then she just wouldn’t like it. I brought her out when it was nice blue bird, sunny days and took her to spot where we’d see a lot of stuff and be entertained for the evening. She started to like it because then she started asking me to take her with on weekends instead of me asking her to come. She bought her first deer license, her rifle licensed couple of years ago and brought out with me. We had a couple of opportunities at some good deer and she kept turning them down because she was like, “No, that one’s too little,” or “No, that one without her mom. I can’t shoot her. I feel bad.” I was like, “You’re in your late fifties, you’ve never hunted before in your life and now you’re going to be picky.” The age is on I guess. She came to me and said, “I want to take your rifle hunting. I want to go buy my own gun.” I was like, “You usually use my deer rifle and we’ll trade off every other day or whatever.” I’d much rather have her shoot a deer than me shoot a deer anytime because I’d be so proud of her to get her first deer.

I’d much rather have her shoot one. She was like, “I want to carry my own gun. I want that own sense of accomplishment that it’s mine and I’m doing it by myself,” and all that stuff. We had a typical girl day at the mall shopping, except we’re at Scheels finding deer rifles instead of getting pedicures and getting lunch and doing typical girl stuff. That was a proud moment for me because she’s never really been interested in it. Almost every weekend she’s asking me to take her somewhere. That’s pretty exciting.

This is the first time that a child has gone to their parent and said, “Why don’t you come hunting with me because this is my lifestyle, this is what I do, and I want to share it with you.” All of a sudden, mom gets all excited about it and she’s in the wilderness, not the wilderness. She sits in a tree stand with her daughter and she’s enjoying the heck out of it. You’ll never know unless you ask. Props to you and your mom. That’s outstanding. Has she taken a couple of deer yet or not?

Nope, she has not shot one yet. She shot out one last year, it missed, it was a difficult shot. It would’ve been a hard shot for anybody to make even a seasoned hunter. She ended up missing. Right after she missed, I bawled my eyes out. Just proud of her that she took a shot at a deer because I grew up my whole life hunting with my dad and she wanted nothing to do with it. For her to go out there, it was second week of rifle season. It’s cold, there’s snow on the ground, we’re freezing and miserable and she still wanted to go out and shoot at a deer. I could have cared less if she got it or not. I’m just so happy we made it to that point. This year she’s determined to get one. We’ll see how it goes. I hope she does.

When she does put a buck down or doe, could you send me a photo and then I’d like to get her on the show. I love to interview her on the show and because she would inspire and empower older ladies that have never got into hunting. She would join the fastest growing segment of the outdoor industry who are women. I’d look forward to doing the interview with her and you can be with her too. A mother and daughter that would be off the charts.

She would love that. She’s going to be nervous as heck and it’s going to need a couple of glasses of wine to loosen her up a little bit.

Tell me how you and Andrew started Monarch Whitetail Nutrition.

We met at college in 2010 and we’re doing this agri-science technician program. Animal science, agronomy, farming type program. He was more on the animal reproduction side of things and I was more on the animal nutrition side of things. Naturally, I was like more or less doing his animal nutrition homework because I enjoyed it so much and he didn’t want anything to do with it. We were both avid hunters. Whitetail deer is our favorite animal. That’s our main conversation at our house. Where they’re talking about the military, we’re talking about hunting or we’re talking about fishing, like that’s really all we talk about at our house. After we graduated, I told him I really wanted to do something related to animal nutrition. In Wisconsin, if you want to do that, you’re basically limited to the dairy industry or nothing because it’s such a huge thing here.

I’ve got a job with a good a nutrition company right out of school and did some dairy nutrition programs and worked on some big farms and had some clients for about six months and it was fine. I enjoyed it but my heart wasn’t really in it. I’ve always been so geared towards a whitetail nutrition that I knew that that’s what I wanted to do. I had actually applied for a job with a pretty well-known whitetail nutrition company in Wisconsin here and I was turned down because I didn’t have any experience. That lit a fire under my butt, so to say, to be like, “Fine, I’ll make my own nutrition company.” My hubby was more than supportive and he was like, “You have to do it.” That’s what I did. I had every nutritional resource available at my fingertips at the time and I made up a couple mineral recipes I guess and went to our attorney, got an LLC started and that’s how we’ve got started.

Their Facebook page is Monarch Whitetail Nutrition LLC. I just saw that you’re near, what is it?

Arkansas. It’s pronounced just like the state, but it’s spelled a little bit ticklish.

Jimmy Davis, a good friend of mine, has been on the show, has a farm down there. Do you know Jimmy Davis?

Yeah, I know Jimmy. Him and I have spent a couple nights at the local establishment.

He showed me a monster deer. It was Friday night when the first frost came through. This thing had to be pushing, I’m going to say 160 to be kind. I think it’s bigger than that but just a huge mature deer, let’s leave it at that. He says, “He’s here, come and get him.” I’m going, “Not going to happen.”

Where he hunts borders where we hunt. Turkey season we almost share properties. We had the same books on trial camera and all that stuff. It’s pretty cool.

If you want to get on the show, you hear the show, you know how the show’s set up. Just email me at [email protected]. Love to send you some information. If you want to be a guest, let me know that. How do people get in touch with you, Audrey?

With my Facebook account. I live on social media through my different endeavors that I’m doing. I’m on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or my business email is [email protected].

How do people reach out to you in those social media?

Instagram is @Audrey_ Outdoors. Twitter and then Facebook is Facebook.com/TeamDoubleA or Facebook.com/MonarchWhiteTailNutrition.

Where do people buy your product? Do you have a special website for that?

We do not have yet. It’s through word of mouth or just contact me directly and I can get it shipped to you. I’m literally bagging and sticking labels on my bags and scooping out with little measuring spoons. I’m out of my horse shit right now. I started from the bottom but realistically, a lot of people started in just little workshops in their garage or in basement of their houses and stuff. That’s what we’re doing right now and it’s working out well for us because we live in Pepin county, which borders Buffalo county. We have a lot of friends that hunt at Buffalo county, just by word of mouth and different people getting different leases and friends around the area and stuff. We were actually in, we have customers in nine states right now. All the way from northern Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, even down to Louisiana and Alabama.

The day I stop learning is the day I stopped hunting because there are always new experiences. Share on X

Here’s a good friend of mine out of the Waumandee area. His camp is at the Waumandee House. Pete and Paul Martin, Buffalo County Bucks. Just look them up on the web and tell them I referred them to you and said, “You guys, try this stuff.” They’re great guys. I was going to spend four or five days for them, hunting this fall. He’s in the medical field as well. He’s doing the whitetail outfit. I end up calling, outfitting. I live out West, so it’s different with outfitting. He’s in the whitetail business down there and helps lots and lots of people get big bucks every single year. Pete and Paul Martin, Buffalo County Bucks out Waumandee House. Let’s get back to hunting. Why did you start hunting?

The typical, “Your entire family hunt.” You’re born into a family of hunters. I didn’t have a choice but to enjoy it and it’s just in my DNA. When I was two years old, my dad took me up into a tree stand with him. I can’t imagine we’ve seen a single deer because a little chatty blonde two-year-old girl up in a tree stand with you. There’s no way any deer is going to come near you. He literally carried me to the tree stand, put me up in a tree stand and tied me directly to the tree with the helpline so I won’t fall off so he could climb back down and get his bow and everything. My first hunting experience was when I was two years old.

From there, it went through tagging along on deer grass. I was tagging along if someone shot a deer and helping with blood trails. My dad taught me everything I know about the outdoors and deer hunting. Taught me how to gut a deer, how to follow a blood trail, vital areas, organ hit, the whole thing. It blossoms from tagging along on hunts to hunting all by myself. I’m more or less leading the charge and dad’s just there to supervise. I’ve got my first deer when I was twelve years old with a 243 Remington model seven. That’s the only rifle I’ve ever shot a deer with. I’m 26 years old and I still use that gun. It fits me perfect and I love it. I was shooting rabbits and squirrels and stuff growing up. I grew up in a big farming family as well. I didn’t have a choice but to enjoy hunting because they’re just so big into it and it’s been my lifestyle and my livelihood ever since I was a small child.

Let’s talk about some of the lessons that you’ve carried on and learn from your dad that you carry on and you share today with whoever wants to talk about the hunting tradition. Safety in the outdoors or lessons learned from getting busted by big whitetails.

Every time I go hunting, even if I feel like it was a terrible day, if I’ve got rained out or almost blown out of the tree stand, the wind was wrong. I’ve got busted or winded by those, didn’t see a dang thing offsite. If I just had a terrible, awful night, I still learned something. The day I stop learning is the day I stopped hunting because there are always new experiences, new things to learn, new sites that you see every time you go out. Even right down to just sitting in a tree stand and this really weird bug laying on my tree and I took a picture of it and Googled it and like, “That’s what that is. I’ve never seen it before.” You’re always learning something even right down to just a little minuscule stuff.

Even if I had a horrible night, I still learned something. I’m still gaining experience every single time I set foot out of my vehicle and start walking into the woods or the field or wherever I’m hunting. Never being afraid to ask questions is a huge learning step too because there’s always going to be people there willing to help you. Nobody that I know of anyways, if you’re a new hunter or you’re trying to get into hunting or you’ve been hunting for a little while but you just haven’t gotten a deer yet. Just ask somebody like, “How do we do this? What do you think about this type of broadhead versus this one? What do you think about this stance set up versus this one?”

There are always people out there willing to help you and especially with people, it’d be like, “You’re a new hunter, come hunt with me.” That’s how I am too. If someone would come up, a total stranger to come up to me and be like, “I’m looking to get into hunting, but I don’t know where to start. Can you help me out?” I’ll be like, “Here’s a list of references. Call me anytime. Let’s figure this out. Let’s get you a deer. Let’s get you involved in this. I think that’s really just the first step to getting into it, into learning and loving it, if you hadn’t grown up doing it, you know?

You mentioned people helping people. Have you get in touch with a Kirstie Pike, CEO and Owner of Prois Women’s Hunting Apparel? Do you know Kirstie at all or Prois?

I’ve heard of Prois, but I do not know Kirstie personally.

The other one is John O’Brion with Grandpa Ray Outdoors out of the Madison area. He’s been an agronomist for over 26 years. Even though you’re in competing industries somewhat. He’s a guy that, he’s a teacher and I’ve never seen him not talk to somebody if they got good questions and want to know more about the business. The whitetail business folks, it’s a billion-dollar business and there are seventeen million of them, so there are plenty of room for everybody. It takes people like Audrey to say, “This is what I’m doing. I’ve got some game and I’m willing to learn,” that will stand you and put your miles ahead of a lot of people that as both you and I know. They know it all, which isn’t true.

You should always be humble about the sport. I can’t stand it when people think, “I shot the biggest buck, so I know it all and I don’t have time to talk to people like you.” It hurts me so bad. You should always be promoting the sport and always trying to show people how much you love it and why they should get into it and love it too. It’s not just going out and shooting the biggest buck that makes me a better hunter. It’s being willing to help out everybody so that everyone has a good experience and everyone can fall in love with the sport the way that you do. Just promoting the sport and trying to get other people, especially kids and especially the younger generation because they’re the future of the sport.

Every one of us has a responsibility to help somebody get into our sport. If everybody recruits one, takes one person hunting a year just like your mom. That’s unbelievable. You think about that and because we’ve got a great sport, a great tradition but a lot of people don’t want us to hunt. If we do our part every single year, take a kid, take a cousin, whatever, we’re going help grow the sport. Your thoughts on that?

Now that you bring that up, this past weekend was the youth deer season here in Wisconsin and my little cousin had shot two deer, his first time out deer hunting and he’s ten years old. You know that he’s going to go back to school and tell all his friends about how he had the best weekend in the entire world because he went deer hunting. That was my uncle and my cousin that took him out. It’s like you don’t have to be taken out your own kids or anything like that. Just take a kid that wants to go out and wants to get into it. That’s the first step right there.

Let’s touch on something that’s happened to you. You’re building up for the season. You want to have your optimal range or kill zone range out to 40 yards. What happened there?

I had two goals that I set for myself this year. I’ve been bowhunting since I was thirteen. Every year, I want to improve on something. This year, my two goals where I wanted to shoot consistent good groups out yards, I want to be comfortable shooting out to 40 yards on to bump my poundage up to 50. I ended up bumping my poundage up to a little bit above 50 and I was shooting consistent good groups at 40 yards. I was excited about it. I’m like, “These are my goals I had.” A couple of my friends helped me out with a lot of that at the R 100, the Reinhart target shoot down in Iowa and I think that was back in August. I accomplished that all before the season even started and I was excited about it, but I’ve had this neck pain, ever since May it started, and bumping my town is up.

Help tweak it that little bit more because now my muscles are straining. Just that little bit more to draw my bow back. Actually, it’s hit the pinnacle for me that I was trying to draw back on here when I was out hunting Sunday afternoon and I couldn’t get my bow drawn back because I had this horrible pain right at the base of my neck. Thank God it was a doe, if it would have been a monster buck and I won’t be able to draw back on it. I don’t know what I would’ve done. That would have been the most frustrating or depressing thing for me. I have a chiropractor appointment to see if we can get it fixed and get the little kinks worked out and see if that has anything to do with it.

It’d be a bummer and put a damper on things if I finally I’ve got those two goals accomplished and then I can’t hunt or do anything this fall. We had some really good shooters on camera now and it’s like, ugh. If I wouldn’t be able to go out and hunt down after all this work we put in and all the practice, all the tree stands, all the scouting and, and everything to get a big fat, nothing at the beginning of the season basically because of this issue. That would suck.

I’m not a doctor but I know chiropractor does helped me a lot. The other thing I was going to say, folks were using muscles, were flexing muscles. You get on a tree stand or even a ground blind, you’re shooting at angles you might not have shot at, sometimes you shoot trainees. I know when I started I shot for my knees out to my optimum range which is about 40 yards and I prefer even closer, but I shot for my knees. I shot with my shoulder against the tree and a lot of different sets because I wanted to be ready and have muscle memory. That’s the biggest thing that hurts us is that we don’t practice the shots we’re going to take. I know a lot of people, they’ll shoot just at target bucks and they’ll shoot at 3D targets all day long, but they never shoot out of the tree stand when they’re practicing.

I’ll give a shout out to fit the hunt, Jeremy Kerber and I’m going to send him your email address and introduce you because he helped me get, gave me some ideas for my sheep hunt. He was very supportive the whole time during my hunt. He knows something about how our body works and the muscles. He’s a physical therapist with a bent towards hunting. Let’s talk about lessons learned. Now the rudder we’re not even in the seeking phase yet. What are you seeing out in the woods and how do you break down the period that we all go crazy about the rut?

That’s what I noticed in the past few days here, the little bucks are starting to chase, the doe. They’re starting to kick their fawns away because it’s about time for them to leave and so I’ve seen a lot of fawns running around lonely out in the woods and stuff. The couple of does that I’ve been seeing, that are without their fawns, I haven’t bunch a little buck. Jason. My hubby he shot by, he doubled up, he shot two in the same tree within ten minutes of each other,

The little guys are starting to get frisky because they’re seeing these does are off on their own and they’re more or less trying to get it in before the big guys started getting all ride it up and kick their butts basically and kick them away. The does are having up and they do with them right now. It’s chasing, but it’s still fun to see, especially when they come and grunting and acting tough and stuff. He had during the Rut, It’s the best time of year to be out there because you see more action, you see a lot of cool things that you don’t get to see any other time of the year. I mean write down how vocal they are and their patterns are so different. It’s basically impossible. The pattern deer during the early season, it’s really easy. Late season it pretty easy.

Between about 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM that's primetime to sit during the rut because there's so much chasing and movement going on. Share on X

During the rut, it’s so random and sporadic and it’s cool. Any other time of the year you weren’t planning on sitting that noon ever but for us, we found that between about 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM that’s prime time to sit during the rut because there’s so much chasing and movement going on that it just seems like that’s a good time to be out there for us. Especially if it’s during a cold front or right after a storm front or anything like that. We try to, in preparing for the rut, we try to be near water because that’s more important than being their food at that time of year because there’s one thing on their mind and that’s breeding, and they don’t really care about coming and visiting food sources and really eating.

They don’t care about visiting mineral sites. They don’t care about anything except for chase and breed and safe and freedom. That’s it. We try to be where they think there was. I think the does are going to be, is where we’ll try to set up. If we think that does are going to get tired and try to heighten a breeding area, we’re going to set up near that breeding area because that’s where the bucks are going to congregate because does are buck magnets basically that time of year. We’ll set up in a thick timber, we’ll set up near water sources, we’ll set up near breeding site and usually there’ll be a lot of chasing action going on and every now and then you’ll have a doe bring them right to you. More often than not, it doesn’t happen that way in that site camping.

I still say to this day, my best day of hunting. I didn’t even pick up my bow once and it was my best day hunting and it was during the Rut being out there at like 11:30 AM and it was just nonstop chasing action all day. Running faster scan, bumping into my ladder because they’re running so fast. Several fights that day, just the grunting, the vocalization. It was so loud out in the woods just from all these deer grunting and roaring and then tasting each other and it’s absolutely incredible to see and that’s stuff that you don’t see any other time of the year except for separate them during the Rut. It’s pretty exciting time of year for us.

Breakdown when you are in the Pepin county close to the Mississippi River above Buffalo county. Your dates for when basically the Rut begins, the seeking the chasing and then the lockdown period where they’re breeding and then the posts rep.

For us, it’s usually last week of October is when it’s pretty rut. They’re starting to chase. They’re starting to kick things off a little bit, but the does usually lay down, settle down and I guess stand and get bread until usually about the first or second week of November. It’s fun to get in there about the last week of October, very beginning of November. Right around Halloween is a good day to be out because the bucks are chasing, and it’s action packed. The does aren’t ready to lay down and get bread yet. There’s going to be a lot of action during that time. A lot of chasing. If we can avoid, we will never ever, ever miss hunting Halloween. Because that’s just a fun day to be out and for us it’s been pretty successful.

Usually second week in November. You’re getting into where those are actually coming into heat. They’re getting bred and that’s what’s known as the lockdown where you’re not seeing these big bucks on their feet really anymore because the big mature guys, they’ve got a doe or two pegged and they’re laying down or tired. They’re waiting for her to come and hit so they could breed her and then they’ll move onto the next one. Usually during that lockdown period, you’ll get one here and there without a doe and seeking a new doe. But for the most part, it’s a lot of the younger guys. The younger bucks, the two-and-a-half, three-and-a-half-year-olds, the ones that aren’t the dominant one in that area that are probably gotten their butt kicked a couple of times by now and usually a broken thigh and a little bit tore up. They are the ones that are cruising and looking for these does.The big boys have usually got one locked down by then. Usually the week after that, third weekend in November, is gun season. All bets are off at that time unless you have a lot of property and it’s just you on it. A lot of deer drives are going on. You’ve got an army coming in there and cleaned out a lot of the population. It’s really difficult to say when they’re going to be out have a good hunting tactic, a good game plan to go after these deer, because it’s such a crap shoot with if the neighbors are doing the drive, they’re all going to be yours. It’s going to be constantly getting kicked around and it’s really difficult to pinpoint where you think they’re even going to be at that point.

That’s when a lot of these bigger buck end up going nocturnal during that time for maybe a week or two because they figured out quick, once they hear that first gunshot, “We know what time of year it is.  We’re going to lay low.” That’s usually what they’ll end up doing. Then the following week after deer season, the after season, it’s a muzzle loader. I enjoyed going up from muzzleloader because it’s both seasons except for you have a muzzleloader on you because a lot of people don’t really do it around here. There are some but it’s not nearly as popular as the regular nine days gun season. For us, it’s cool to see how things settle back down. The deer become active in daylight again and it’s more or less just like both season again, but you can shoot out to 150 yards.

That’s the end of part one with Audrey Pfaffe and we’re going to go to the part two on next episode and we’re going to break down the rut and how Audrey and Andrew hunt during those periods of time because big bucks are killed during the lockdown. It happens every year but you have to change up the game a lot. This is the end of the part one. Look forward to having you join us in part two.

 

 Important Links:

• Monarch Whitetail Nutrition
• Jimmy Davis – previous episode
• [email protected]
• [email protected]
• @Audrey_ Outdoors – Instagram
• Audrey Outdoors Twitter
• Facebook.com/TeamDoubleA
• Facebook.com/MonarchWhiteTailNutrition
• Buffalo County Bucks
• Prois Women’s Hunting Apparel
• Grandpa Ray Outdoors