Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 425: Foundations - Big-Picture E-Scouting for Whitetails

Transcript

Ep. 425: Foundations - Big-Picture E-Scouting for Whitetails · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, and now your host,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Tony Peterson. Welcome to the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: brought to you by First Light. On this show, it's
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: time to take a thirty thousand foot view of your
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: deer ground. Literally. This is all about big picture east
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: scouting and how it can set you up for deer
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: hunting success. I've noticed in my personal deer hunting life
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: that I get excited about all kinds of scouting, but
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: the most consistent is EA scouting. And that's because it's
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: just easy, of course, but it's also so dang effective.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: The ability to learn ground fairly well that you've never
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: seen is like the biggest leveling agent out there for
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: all deer hunters. But it takes a little bit of
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: time to understand how to east together a plan when
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: you're looking at satellite imagery. That's really the gist of
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: this show, and I think it's something that every white
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: tail hunter should master or I don't know, you know,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: just like try to get better at Hey, everybody, welcome
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: to the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast. I'm your host,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Tony Peterson. Today's episode is called Big Picture Eat Scouting
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: to Kill More Bucks, plain and simple. Right On this episode,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: it's all about that big picture digital scouting that we
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: all start our started scouting efforts with. On later episodes,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: I'll center on the nitty gritty details of your digital
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: scouting and how you can master them. But this show
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: is really all about the macro and how this type
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: of e scouting is really the foundation upon which an
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: awful lot of deer huntings excess is actually built. When
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: I started bow hunting white tails in way way back
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: when I was in sixth grade, my dad would buy
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: a county plat book and we would use it to
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: find landowner names and locate chunks of public land. Those
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: black and white layouts of properties and their property owners.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: They were the best we had, and we were happy
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: to have them. Later in high school, when I went
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: on my first out of state trip to hunt Missouri
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  Speaker 1: public land for turkeys, I had a paper map in hand,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: a map that I actually had to order through the
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: mail from the Department of Conservation. Even later than that,
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  Speaker 1: at least a couple of years later, my buddies and
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  Speaker 1: I got obsessed with the pheasant population in northern Iowa.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: At that point, we would actually write the addresses of
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  Speaker 1: chunks of public land down on the side of shotgun
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  Speaker 1: shell boxes, or maybe if we knocked on a door
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: and we got permission to run a slew, we'd write
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: that person's address down. It was a crude system, and
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: in some ways it's kind of easy to look back
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: that time with nostalgia because I don't currently have to
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: recognize how much of a pain in the acid actually was.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: If you spilled a cup of coffee on a paper map,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: or open your truck door on a windy day and
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: it simply blew away like a like a tumbleweed, we
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: were out of years of research. Sometimes compared to today's technology.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: It was absolutely archaic and worse yet, the best maps
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: and map books of the time, they were always kind
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: of in this like steady process of devaluation, sort of
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: like when you stroke a big check for a new
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: F one fifor a Silverado and you drive it off
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: the lot. With those maps, the more time that passed,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: the less relevant the information became, because both private and
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: public properties always being bought and sold. Hunting wise, it
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: might have been some sort of the good old days,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: but scouting wise, it really wasn't it sucked. It wasn't
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: a stretch then to envision staring up at the night
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: sky and wishing for an easier way to not only
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: find land, but to be able to understand it on
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: a deeper level. And if you had done just that,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: you might have actually seen way up there in the cosmos,
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  Speaker 1: faintly glowing the answer to your frustrations. Circling the Earth
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: even then and especially now, our satellites that are traveling
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  Speaker 1: at thousands of miles per hour while snapping NonStop photos.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Those images and others captured from aerial survey planes are
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: then stitched together through a process called photogrammytry. This creates
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: a seamless image of the world, which includes all of
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: the places you and I like to hunt for white tails.
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  Speaker 1: Satellite imagery has been around for decades, and it's now
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  Speaker 1: so ubiquitous that we all have at least one or
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  Speaker 1: two apps on our smartphone that offer an entire look
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: at the world in an instant. And while you can
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: make a solid argument that smartphones haven't been the greatest
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: asset to hunting overall, you'd be hard pressed to claim
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: that easier EA scouting isn't a benefit to most of us.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: The ability to develop an understanding of deer ground from
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: the comfort of your favorite recliner is truly incredible. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: I think it might be the single biggest leveling agent
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  Speaker 1: out there for all hunters, because we don't all make
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: the same amount of money or even want to devote
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: the same amount of our cash to hunting, which means
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: gear wise and and specifically opportunity wise, we're all in
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: different places. The same goes for the amount of free
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: time each one of us has. Some folks can devote
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: months of their lives each year to deer, while others
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: are lucky to car vote a few days here and there.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: And of course there is always the question of experience
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: and skills as well, which very wildly based on the individual.
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  Speaker 1: In other words, there are a lot of differences between
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  Speaker 1: each one of us, but we all have access to
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  Speaker 1: the same information, and somehoters argue that this is a
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  Speaker 1: bad thing. Most often, this particular case is made by
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  Speaker 1: someone who has watched a one secret public land hotspot
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  Speaker 1: suddenly turned into a camel clad goat rodeo. Everyone having
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: the same East scouting abilities is a little bit of
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  Speaker 1: a curse amongst a pretty sizeable individual blessing. The best
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: hunters take that for what it's worth, and they use
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: East scouting tools to become better hunters overall. As we
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: covered in last week's episode, fostering a deep love of
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  Speaker 1: scouting is the most direct path to consistent success in
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  Speaker 1: the woods, and all the killers do this at least
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: partially through obsessive East scouting that starts, of course, after
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: identifying the land they want to hunt. Modern tools like
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  Speaker 1: the on x app make finding public land a breeze
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  Speaker 1: without question. Locating a horrible ground has never been easier,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: and it's a baseline level to East scouting, and of
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: course you can use on extra Google or is to
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  Speaker 1: scout private ground as well. It doesn't matter what type
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: of land you hunt, because the value of East scouting
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: transcends the minutia and allows you to quickly develop a
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: broad understanding of a specific parcel of land. Most of
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: us already know this. This isn't revolutionary stuff anymore, but
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: a lot of the East scouting advice that's out there
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: in the hunting media right now. It takes the audience
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  Speaker 1: right from the macro to the micro without giving the
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  Speaker 1: former it's due credit, and sure it's really satisfying to
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: look at a specific tree or maybe a promising river
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  Speaker 1: crossing and then hike in, hunted and kill a deer.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: I've done this a few times in my life on
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  Speaker 1: public land, and it's safe to say I absolutely don't
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  Speaker 1: hate it when it happens. The first time this actually
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  Speaker 1: happened to me, it occurred twice in the same season. Initially,
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  Speaker 1: it was just a hasty, last second decision to sit
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: a specific tree on a parcel of public land in Oklahoma.
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  Speaker 1: Not only did I arrow a deer from it, but
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: I saw several bucks and I nearly killed a hundred
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  Speaker 1: forty class stud at night. Later that same season, I
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: chose a tree next to a pond on a public
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  Speaker 1: land in South Dakota. The first sit there after, I
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: just walked in and I took a quick in person
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  Speaker 1: look around to confirm that my digital recon was close enough.
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  Speaker 1: I shot an awesome, non typical buck. Since then, there
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: have been a few others, and it's always a rush
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  Speaker 1: to pick a very specific spot on aerial photos and
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: then hike in to see that all of the digital
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  Speaker 1: research was spot on that last pick your spot stage
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  Speaker 1: of the process is of course located at the bottom
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  Speaker 1: of the funnel, and I'll give it some serious love
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  Speaker 1: in future episodes of this podcast, but for now, the
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  Speaker 1: focus is at the top of the funnel, where the
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: aperture is much wider and we are more concerned with
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  Speaker 1: just general research. This is where e scouting begins, and
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  Speaker 1: it's an important part of the process for public land hunters.
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  Speaker 1: It might be the most important part, I would argue
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  Speaker 1: for private ground deer hunters might be less important, but
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  Speaker 1: there's still plenty of value to unlock. And big picture
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: views are just that, and they give you an overlay
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  Speaker 1: understanding of what you're working with. You can clearly see timber,
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  Speaker 1: wooded fence, rose, water, food sources, all of it exactly
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  Speaker 1: how it exists on the land, and this is not
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  Speaker 1: something you can see in the same way or understand
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  Speaker 1: fully from ground level. Better yet, for all deer hunters,
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  Speaker 1: is that you can snoop into properties that you can
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: actually walk in and hunt or look around on. If
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: you're wondering why the bucks on your forty acres always
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: seem to cross one corner of your land in the evening,
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  Speaker 1: you can use satellite imagery to figure out if your
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: neighbor has a food plot, or because the technology has
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  Speaker 1: gotten so good, you might even see an automated deer
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  Speaker 1: feeder in there. Maybe you'll see that it wasn't food
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  Speaker 1: after all, that was promoting specific buck movement. Maybe it
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: was just a subtle ridge that extends through your land
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  Speaker 1: that you never really recognized as being more than a
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  Speaker 1: slight rise, when in reality it's a high spine of
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  Speaker 1: good cover that threads its way through multiple sections of timber.
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  Speaker 1: The goal is satellite imagery, whether you're looking at a
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  Speaker 1: private farm you've hunted for decades or a three states
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  Speaker 1: over piece of public land you've never actually seen in person,
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  Speaker 1: is to first develop a total understanding of the habitat
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  Speaker 1: and land features. You want to connect big picture dots
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  Speaker 1: as far as likely deer movement on all ground. If
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  Speaker 1: it's somewhere you're looking to hunt, the goal is to
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  Speaker 1: set yourself up for either a more informed hunt or
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  Speaker 1: a more efficient boots on the ground scouting mission. If
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  Speaker 1: you know where the food is, where the best cover
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  Speaker 1: is located, you're already well on your way, but you'll
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  Speaker 1: also see how your ground connects to other properties, or
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  Speaker 1: how a larger river bottom really lays out. Maybe you'll
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: see how one particular area that contains a vast network
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: of wetlands actually features some patches of decently high ground,
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  Speaker 1: like the kind that mature swamp dwelling bucks love to
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  Speaker 1: bet on. The value of these findings can be extremely high.
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  Speaker 1: But what's better is that a bird's eye view shows
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: you not only potential dear travel routes, but also potential
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  Speaker 1: human travel roads. This is so important on public land.
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  Speaker 1: For example, a little green ribbon showing a two track
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  Speaker 1: winding its way through a piece of public dirt could
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  Speaker 1: very well be the easy access through the valley that
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: the hunters travel on. You might see through your digital
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  Speaker 1: recon that the path never really even approaches a nearby bluff,
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  Speaker 1: which is a bit more difficult to get to and
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  Speaker 1: clearly not indirect line of the no hassle travel that
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: that little path offers. Info like this matters so much,
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  Speaker 1: you know, just as it matters to see how each
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  Speaker 1: parking area or access point is positioned in relation to
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  Speaker 1: the entirety of the parcel. If most of the pressure
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: is likely to originate in one corner of a property
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: where there are a cluster of parking areas. A good
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: bet for deep dive eat scouting and later boots on
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: the groundwork is to focus your efforts as far away
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: from that high traffic corner as you can get. And
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: I know, I know it's cliche, but you might also
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: find a patch of cover close to a parking area
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  Speaker 1: but not directly easily accessible to features some deer. I
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: had an AHA moment like this a few years ago
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: while I was shooting some photos on a piece of
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  Speaker 1: public ground in the Twin Cities. To reach the closest
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: deer cover, I walked straight up from the parking area
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: instead of along the pounded with boot tracks trail that
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: leads farther back into the heart of the parcel. Two
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: yards into it, I was looking at rubs, I found
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: a bed, and I even watched a buck bostata there.
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  Speaker 1: I know for a fact that that property gets hunted
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: ridiculously hard, but at least a few of the deer
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: and at least one buck set up shop unbelievably close
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: to where most of the hunters begin their hunt on
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: that property. Another light bulb moment in this vein happened
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: to me in Wisconsin a few years ago. I've been
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: hiking deeper and deeper into a huge timber track of
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: public land while walking right by good By sign on
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: a whim. I set up so close to the access
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: that I could see into the trucks that passed by.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: I also saw a legitimate hundred and sixty in Northwood
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: stud and later aarrowed a great eight pointer there. Dragging
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: that buck back to my truck took maybe ten minutes,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: which is an absolute gift when you're hunting big woods bucks.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Finding those potential spots is what big picture east scouting
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: is really all about. You want to get a feel
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: for what generally should be going on deer wise and
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: people wise on your chosen hunting properties before you really
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: start to dig in deeper to individual ambush sites. And
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: one good trick for accelerating this process is to disable
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: the landowner layers and the property lanes in your east
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: scouting app. This allows you to turn down the volume
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: on all the static and really see the land for
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: what it is, regardless of who owns a deed to
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: certain property or where a parcel of state land ends.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Better yet, this type of east scouting is something that
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: is so easy to do throughout the year, and it
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: can really help you build a better base of understanding
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: when stepping into a property for the first time. It
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: can also help explain some of the dear mysteries and
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: properties you've hunted for years and that you know extremely well,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: probably sometimes almost too well. And you don't even have
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: to leave your couch to do it. I mean, come on,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: you know you're going to stare at your phone a
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: million times this year to stave off boredom, so why
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: not devote some of that time to doing something good
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: white tail wise, Just like with target shooting, EA scouting
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: is something that you should consider as a year round
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: part of being a successful deer hunter, and it doesn't
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: have to consume hours upon hours of your life during
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: any given week. By taking a bit of time throughout
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: the year to look around from an eagles perspective can
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: really bring a level of clarity to the entirety of
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: the properties you currently hunt and any ground you're interested
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: in exploring. And once you start doing that, you'll start
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: to zone in a little hider on things you know,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: give you an idea of this spot looks really interesting
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: to me. I wonder what the X on the X
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: is here? That's what next week is going to be
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: all about digging into individual spots through your East scouting
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: and really taking advantage of your mapping apps and your
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: digital scouting apps, and this this high tech stuff that
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: allows you to really really see what's going on out there.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: This is not something you're gonna want to miss. That's it,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: my white tail loving friends. Be sure to tune in
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: next week when I break down East scouting to a
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: granular level. I'm Tony Peterson and this has been the
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Wired Hunt Foundations podcast. As always, I cannot thank you
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: enough for your support and we will see you right
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: here next week