Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 979: Foundations - How to Overcome the Gun Hunter's Dilemma
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
- 0:05Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,
- 0:09Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.
- 0:14Speaker 1: First Light Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host
- 0:19Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.
- 0:20Speaker 2: Hey, everyone, welcome to the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast,
- 0:22Speaker 2: which is brought to you by First Light. I'm your host,
- 0:24Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and this week I'm giving you your yearly
- 0:27Speaker 2: reminder that gun hunting, like gun hunters, usually ends in
- 0:30Speaker 2: unfilled tags and what you should do to not suffer
- 0:33Speaker 2: the same fate as your orange clad brethren. All right,
- 0:42Speaker 2: before I jump into this one, I have to let
- 0:43Speaker 2: you know that meat Eater is running a mega, super
- 0:46Speaker 2: huge Black Friday sale right now. And I know, I
- 0:49Speaker 2: know you're sick of hearing about sales, but trust me,
- 0:51Speaker 2: that's not.
- 0:51Speaker 3: Going to stop us.
- 0:52Speaker 2: So you might as well go buy some deeply discounted stuff,
- 0:56Speaker 2: stuff like the Origin hoodie and pants, which you can
- 0:58Speaker 2: get at fifty percent, or the Furnace hoodie, which I
- 1:02Speaker 2: wear a lot because it's one of my favorite pieces,
- 1:04Speaker 2: at twenty percent off. Our white tail kits are up
- 1:07Speaker 2: to forty percent off, meat eat or apparel up to
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- 1:19Speaker 2: to the meat Eater dot com and check it out now.
- 1:21Speaker 2: If you don't, then Mark won't have the budget to
- 1:23Speaker 2: go count butterflies for his latest twenty six part series
- 1:26Speaker 2: on pollinators, and I won't have the budget to go
- 1:29Speaker 2: hunt public land white tails like a real man. All right,
- 1:31Speaker 2: Enough of that, It's gun season throughout much of the country,
- 1:34Speaker 2: and that means that most hunters of any time, any
- 1:38Speaker 2: given point of the year are going to be in
- 1:40Speaker 2: the woods right now. The deer gonna be scared shitless,
- 1:42Speaker 2: and on average, about twenty to thirty percent of hunters will.
- 1:45Speaker 3: Fill their tags.
- 1:46Speaker 2: The rest won't, and they'll be sad about it. And
- 1:48Speaker 2: since I don't want you guys to be sad, it's
- 1:50Speaker 2: time to talk about how to fill those rifle and
- 1:52Speaker 2: shotgun tags even when the going gets really, really tough.
- 2:02Speaker 2: This will probably come as a surprise to almost no
- 2:05Speaker 2: one who ever listens to this podcast, but I don't
- 2:08Speaker 2: really love gun hunting. Now, you know what, that's too
- 2:11Speaker 2: simple of a take on it. I love hunting a
- 2:13Speaker 2: lot of stuff with guns. I just don't really love
- 2:16Speaker 2: participating in the general gun deer season. In most places.
- 2:20Speaker 2: This is due to a lot of reasons, but the
- 2:22Speaker 2: one that probably sits at the top of the list
- 2:24Speaker 2: most often is that I don't like to cross my
- 2:26Speaker 2: fingers and hope a deer comes by. The thing I
- 2:29Speaker 2: love about deer hunting is figuring out where they like
- 2:31Speaker 2: to walk and then sneaking in there to see if
- 2:33Speaker 2: I'm right. I'm often not right, but when I am,
- 2:36Speaker 2: it's a feeling that is worth chasing from season to
- 2:38Speaker 2: season and state to state. With general gun seasons, the
- 2:42Speaker 2: natural movement goes largely out the window. Now, sure, if
- 2:46Speaker 2: you have a badass spot with little to no pressure
- 2:48Speaker 2: and it's big enough, you can certainly witness plenty of
- 2:51Speaker 2: normal day to day deer stuff. If you don't, you won't,
- 2:54Speaker 2: at least not quite in the way most of us
- 2:56Speaker 2: would like. I say all of that, and now I'm
- 2:59Speaker 2: going to say this. The general firearms season is also
- 3:02Speaker 2: an interesting opportunity to learn about deer and to try
- 3:06Speaker 2: to play the game of figuring out where they will go.
- 3:09Speaker 2: The times that I've killed bucks with a rifle or hell,
- 3:12Speaker 2: even a muzzloader have almost always felt like the bucks
- 3:15Speaker 2: that I've killed with a bow on public land, and
- 3:19Speaker 2: like those bow hunts for pressure deer. You know where
- 3:22Speaker 2: this gets super duper hard is that not only do
- 3:24Speaker 2: you have to go take a flyer on some sits,
- 3:27Speaker 2: you have to employ the other rock solid but sucks
- 3:29Speaker 2: a lot tactic of putting in tons of hours watching
- 3:32Speaker 2: squirrels and praying to the deer gods to show you
- 3:35Speaker 2: just one. This is generally too much to ask for
- 3:38Speaker 2: most hunters, so they won't do it. But if you
- 3:41Speaker 2: want to kill good bucks somewhat consistently and you're not
- 3:44Speaker 2: secretly one of Elon Musk's forty seven kids, you have
- 3:47Speaker 2: to do the work. There's just no way around this
- 3:50Speaker 2: without lots of money and time. Now, I've talked a
- 3:53Speaker 2: lot about how I think most firearms hunters would benefit
- 3:56Speaker 2: greatly from just doubling their hunting locations from one to two.
- 4:00Speaker 2: I don't mean whole parcels of land. I just mean
- 4:02Speaker 2: going from you know, one ladder stand to two ladder stands.
- 4:05Speaker 2: This is a good way to get your fixed with
- 4:07Speaker 2: an old stand by where you can see a lot
- 4:09Speaker 2: and you know some years you're gonna shoot one from it.
- 4:12Speaker 2: But when the movement dies down to a trickle on
- 4:13Speaker 2: that big view stand that's easy to get to goes
- 4:16Speaker 2: totally cold.
- 4:17Speaker 3: Having another one is just a great option. You know.
- 4:20Speaker 2: This is the thick stuff standard blind, and it's the
- 4:22Speaker 2: kind of location that drives a lot of hunters knots
- 4:24Speaker 2: because they can't see very much, but if they do
- 4:27Speaker 2: see one, they're probably gonna kill it. Most people won't
- 4:30Speaker 2: do this, and most people won't even really consider a
- 4:32Speaker 2: switch up. A lot of the gun hunters I know
- 4:34Speaker 2: seem to resign themselves to sort of a lottery player
- 4:37Speaker 2: status where they're like, well maybe this year my numbers
- 4:40Speaker 2: will get drawn, and they play the same numbers every year.
- 4:43Speaker 2: I have a buddy like this who has a handful
- 4:45Speaker 2: of rifle stands in a swamp he owns in Wisconsin.
- 4:49Speaker 2: He and his dad used to somewhat frequently shoot good bucks,
- 4:52Speaker 2: but that has dried up the last several years. But
- 4:54Speaker 2: they still push that program even though it rarely works.
- 4:58Speaker 2: Now this year I hunted his and I killed a
- 5:00Speaker 2: really nice buck with a bow in a spot that,
- 5:02Speaker 2: as far as I can tell, was full of bucks
- 5:05Speaker 2: because of the presence of more wolves than usual. I'll
- 5:08Speaker 2: tell the full story on here someday, but suffice it
- 5:11Speaker 2: to say I hung a stand after almost four full
- 5:13Speaker 2: days of blanking, and then I saw three bucks and
- 5:16Speaker 2: killed my biggest big woods buck in a hunt that
- 5:18Speaker 2: would have been pretty sweet for Iowa, let alone a
- 5:20Speaker 2: place with like eight deer per square mile. The deer
- 5:24Speaker 2: just went where the wolves wouldn't normally go, and then,
- 5:27Speaker 2: once there and somewhat concentrated, the old rut carried on
- 5:31Speaker 2: and provided me with one hell of a sit. The
- 5:34Speaker 2: deer where you rifle hunt will respond in a similar fashion,
- 5:37Speaker 2: although they'll mostly button up their movements and stay in
- 5:40Speaker 2: a place that, for whatever reason, you won't go. We
- 5:44Speaker 2: all kind of know this, but we do a couple
- 5:46Speaker 2: of things to try to get around it. The first
- 5:48Speaker 2: is that we hope that someone in our group or
- 5:50Speaker 2: maybe the neighbors, when they do their annual deer drive
- 5:52Speaker 2: at noon on day two of the season, will bump
- 5:55Speaker 2: a deer past us. Does this work, Yes, someone eventually
- 5:59Speaker 2: wins the but it's probably not going to be you.
- 6:02Speaker 2: The other thing we do is to try to justify
- 6:05Speaker 2: doing what we want to do, which is not sit
- 6:07Speaker 2: where we have no confidence, but instead to go sneak
- 6:10Speaker 2: around and try to shoot one. Look, this comes from
- 6:13Speaker 2: a place of heavy bias, but a good way to
- 6:16Speaker 2: look at the deer thing is to always try to
- 6:18Speaker 2: bowhunt them, no matter what weapon you're carrying, or in
- 6:22Speaker 2: other words, if it wouldn't likely work very well if
- 6:25Speaker 2: you were carrying a vertical bow, then it probably won't
- 6:28Speaker 2: work super well if you're carrying a crossbow or a
- 6:31Speaker 2: rifle or a shotgun fitted with the latest and greatest
- 6:34Speaker 2: slug barrel. This is the move of a lot of people,
- 6:37Speaker 2: and it's entirely an attempt to make something happen, because
- 6:40Speaker 2: sitting and waiting for something to happen is too much
- 6:43Speaker 2: to ask for a good percentage of hunters, especially after
- 6:47Speaker 2: opening day comes and goes. But imagine this. You're a
- 6:51Speaker 2: deer and in the week leading up to the gun season,
- 6:54Speaker 2: a hell of a lot of two legged predators start
- 6:56Speaker 2: to show up and poke around in your world. They
- 6:58Speaker 2: make a lot of noise, they leave a lot of scent.
- 7:01Speaker 2: They drive four wheelers into the clear cut, and they
- 7:03Speaker 2: check their ladder stands, their presence becomes quickly known than
- 7:09Speaker 2: the day before the opener, and certainly the hours before
- 7:12Speaker 2: first light on the opener.
- 7:13Speaker 3: There are hunters everywhere.
- 7:15Speaker 2: Every cabin is bustling with activity, Trails that see light
- 7:19Speaker 2: to know usage for about ninety percent of the year
- 7:21Speaker 2: suddenly have ATVs and side by sides and hunters just walking.
- 7:25Speaker 2: And it doesn't take a rocket scientist of a deer
- 7:27Speaker 2: to figure out that the shit is about to go down.
- 7:30Speaker 2: And when the first whisper of shooting light breaches at
- 7:32Speaker 2: the horizon, at least in some places I've hunted, the
- 7:35Speaker 2: guns start going off even before it's legal shooting light.
- 7:39Speaker 2: The deer will hear plenty of shots. The whole thing
- 7:42Speaker 2: is just known, there's really no other way to put it,
- 7:46Speaker 2: and the deer do what the deer do, which is
- 7:49Speaker 2: react to that known pressure. And as the weekend progresses
- 7:53Speaker 2: and more activity ripples its way through the woods and
- 7:55Speaker 2: deer drives start to happen, the whole thing just gels
- 7:58Speaker 2: into place. In my experience, this literally might take a
- 8:02Speaker 2: few hours or a day or two, but the deer
- 8:05Speaker 2: tend to just figure it out as you would if
- 8:08Speaker 2: your world was suddenly inundated with something that was only
- 8:11Speaker 2: there to try to kill you, or a whole bunch
- 8:13Speaker 2: of somethings. Now lucky for the deer. Most people are
- 8:26Speaker 2: highly predictable, and they can play the odds and avoid them.
- 8:30Speaker 3: Your job is to be less predictable.
- 8:32Speaker 2: That's a hard thing to do, so let me offer
- 8:35Speaker 2: up a solution, or a few solutions, or I guess
- 8:37Speaker 2: at least suggestions. The value of seeing a deer, whether
- 8:43Speaker 2: it goes by natural or you bump it while sneaking
- 8:46Speaker 2: along the ridge because a wander lust got the best
- 8:48Speaker 2: of you, cannot be overstated. Just like when you're hunting
- 8:51Speaker 2: a low density area, any glimpse of any deer is
- 8:55Speaker 2: a huge clue. You now know where they were, so
- 8:59Speaker 2: they have to ask yourself, why why are they there?
- 9:03Speaker 2: I'm talking dos fawns for kis and two hundred inch
- 9:05Speaker 2: mega giants. Why were they where they were when you
- 9:09Speaker 2: saw them or bump them? What does their presence tell you?
- 9:13Speaker 2: I firmly believe deer choose their spots wisely, and when
- 9:16Speaker 2: you stumble into one of those spots when they are
- 9:18Speaker 2: under more pressure than they will be at any other
- 9:21Speaker 2: time of the season, they've just told you a lot.
- 9:24Speaker 2: Is this a location that you should post up at
- 9:27Speaker 2: and wait them out for a day or two, or
- 9:29Speaker 2: is it a location you know, kind of like when
- 9:31Speaker 2: you catch a really big smallmouth on a drop off
- 9:34Speaker 2: next to an island, which gives you a chance to
- 9:37Speaker 2: run a pattern and see if it's not just that
- 9:39Speaker 2: that specific location is good, but a set of variables
- 9:42Speaker 2: have come together in multiple locations to create the right
- 9:45Speaker 2: spots all over the place. This stuff matters, just like
- 9:48Speaker 2: it matters if one person in your group is covered
- 9:51Speaker 2: in deer and everyone else is not seeing anything. Why
- 9:54Speaker 2: is that person a lucky one? Is there a hot
- 9:56Speaker 2: dough in there? Or are they in the stick of
- 9:58Speaker 2: stuff on the farm? Or is the wind really good
- 10:01Speaker 2: for their setup and not so much for anyone else.
- 10:04Speaker 2: Try to figure that stuff out because it can help
- 10:06Speaker 2: you make better decisions. And on that front, I shouldn't
- 10:09Speaker 2: need to say this, but I'm going to anyway. You're
- 10:11Speaker 2: hunting the hardest to kill deer of the season. If
- 10:14Speaker 2: you don't put in a good effort, you'll fail. My
- 10:17Speaker 2: buddy I mentioned earlier, who will not sit the stand
- 10:19Speaker 2: I just killed out of, even though I left it
- 10:22Speaker 2: for him, but will go into a couple of ladder
- 10:24Speaker 2: stands that have been up for a long long time.
- 10:26Speaker 2: He's not a bad deer hunter. He kills a lot
- 10:28Speaker 2: of good bucks and so do his sons. But he
- 10:31Speaker 2: might make a decision to sit a stand weeks before
- 10:34Speaker 2: it's actually time, which means that the decision is made
- 10:37Speaker 2: without factoring in the wind and the general weather conditions.
- 10:41Speaker 2: That's a huge issue. I don't know too many bow
- 10:44Speaker 2: hunters who ignore the wind completely unless they are lying
- 10:47Speaker 2: because they have a sponsor contract for some kind of
- 10:49Speaker 2: senn eliminated spray or some other wonder product. You can't
- 10:52Speaker 2: ignore the wind with white tails and it kill them
- 10:55Speaker 2: very often. Anyway, this goes beyond just factoring in predicted
- 10:59Speaker 2: wind direction. How let's say your usual ladder standard box
- 11:02Speaker 2: B lind setup just doesn't produce and you decide you're
- 11:05Speaker 2: going to go find the deer and hunt them where
- 11:07Speaker 2: they are.
- 11:08Speaker 3: That's great. How are you going to hunt them?
- 11:11Speaker 2: I can promise you one thing, because these companies talk
- 11:13Speaker 2: to me a lot about it. But there aren't a
- 11:15Speaker 2: ton of saddles or six pound hang ons being sold
- 11:18Speaker 2: to the gun hunting crowd. Bow hunters who gun hunter
- 11:21Speaker 2: are a different story. But for some reason, we look
- 11:23Speaker 2: at gun hunting as a largely not mobile scenario, unless
- 11:27Speaker 2: the mobile style we bring to the table is walking around.
- 11:30Speaker 2: If you have a thick ass creek bottom you think
- 11:33Speaker 2: the deer will hole up in, or some other cottontail
- 11:35Speaker 2: friendly rabbit location, you're not likely to hunt it right
- 11:39Speaker 2: if you walk up into it and sit on the ground,
- 11:42Speaker 2: or you just try to still hunt through it. We
- 11:44Speaker 2: keep trying to reinvent how to kill white tails, but
- 11:47Speaker 2: we just aren't likely to get past the reality of
- 11:49Speaker 2: a really good ambush set up in some good old
- 11:51Speaker 2: fashioned patience. We all know the saying about how your
- 11:55Speaker 2: first sit on a stand is the best hit, because
- 11:57Speaker 2: it's generally true. I killed three pretty good bucks this year,
- 12:00Speaker 2: and all three were on first sit stands. Two I
- 12:04Speaker 2: had hung ahead of time, and one I hung for
- 12:05Speaker 2: that particular evening. The last one is the most relevant
- 12:08Speaker 2: to this rant because that's what a lot of folks
- 12:11Speaker 2: need to do to salvage a gun season when it's
- 12:13Speaker 2: at least twenty four hours old. So if you do
- 12:16Speaker 2: follow this advice, and I hope you do, make a
- 12:19Speaker 2: plan to actually truly hunt when you have a suspicion
- 12:23Speaker 2: about where the deer have moved off to. If you
- 12:26Speaker 2: need to scratch the itch and still hunter whatever, that's fine.
- 12:29Speaker 2: Pay attention to the deer you bump in the fresh
- 12:31Speaker 2: sign you find, which will usually be just tracks and droppings,
- 12:35Speaker 2: But then make a plan to go mobile if you
- 12:37Speaker 2: can't play the wind. Try to be really stealthy, and
- 12:41Speaker 2: remember that you'll probably mostly get it wrong when deer
- 12:46Speaker 2: have hunkered down. The whole thing is a close quarters
- 12:48Speaker 2: game with a small margin for error. Barring that unicorn
- 12:52Speaker 2: hot dough situation, they're just not going to move that much.
- 12:55Speaker 3: But I do know one thing.
- 12:56Speaker 2: A few times in my life when I've devoted serious
- 12:58Speaker 2: time to hunting during the general gun season, I've killed
- 13:01Speaker 2: good bucks that acted like bucks are supposed to. But
- 13:04Speaker 2: they all did it in the thick cover.
- 13:06Speaker 3: You know.
- 13:07Speaker 2: Cattail slews swampy woods, overgrown home seats, places that are
- 13:12Speaker 2: not only uninviting to us, but also allow them to
- 13:15Speaker 2: know when we come into the cover with them.
- 13:18Speaker 3: That's a huge key to.
- 13:19Speaker 2: This, and figuring out how to not crash your way
- 13:21Speaker 2: through while effectively hunting the edge and looking in is
- 13:25Speaker 2: probably the best way to either shoot one or spot
- 13:27Speaker 2: one that you can shoot with a revised plan. Now
- 13:31Speaker 2: I have to say this, even though I want you
- 13:33Speaker 2: guys to buy lots of hunting products so I don't
- 13:35Speaker 2: have to go lay aside. But the mentality of a
- 13:38Speaker 2: lot of struggling gun hunters isn't to go look for
- 13:40Speaker 2: the deer, but to double down on a spot and
- 13:43Speaker 2: try to get them to come to them. This almost
- 13:46Speaker 2: never works, but banging rattling antlers together or putting out
- 13:49Speaker 2: a bunch of scent wix soaked with dopey is a
- 13:51Speaker 2: lot easier than going to look for where the deer
- 13:54Speaker 2: are Right now, Nearly all those products really only work
- 13:58Speaker 2: when you put yourself in close PROCs to the right bucks,
- 14:02Speaker 2: and then you just let them give you the last
- 14:04Speaker 2: ten percent after you've done like ninety percent of the
- 14:07Speaker 2: heavy lifting. The efficacy of those products on deer that
- 14:10Speaker 2: are truly scared for their lives and are very unlikely
- 14:13Speaker 2: to travel any distance to check out a fight or
- 14:15Speaker 2: the scent of a potential mate is very low. If
- 14:19Speaker 2: there is one thing that I truly believe about filling
- 14:21Speaker 2: gun tags when the going gets tough, it's that the
- 14:23Speaker 2: best bet is to try to figure out how to
- 14:25Speaker 2: get close to them while staying as undetected as possible,
- 14:29Speaker 2: and then just putting in enough quiet time in those
- 14:32Speaker 2: spots to see if you're right. I know it's not
- 14:35Speaker 2: as fun as calling one in, but calling and calling
- 14:37Speaker 2: without any response is a great way to not only
- 14:40Speaker 2: never call them in, but to further burn out a
- 14:43Speaker 2: standard is probably burned out already. So I'll bring this
- 14:46Speaker 2: thing full circle. Think about what you and your hunting
- 14:49Speaker 2: party are likely to do this season, and how much
- 14:51Speaker 2: of those sits in drives and still hunts are the
- 14:53Speaker 2: same ones that you always do. Ask yourself how often
- 14:56Speaker 2: they work and whether they should work given the weather,
- 14:59Speaker 2: and as much as you know about the presence of
- 15:01Speaker 2: deer and your hunting ground. If you're not brimming with confidence,
- 15:05Speaker 2: or you were and now a day later you're not,
- 15:08Speaker 2: the season isn't over, even though a lot of your
- 15:10Speaker 2: competition will mostly give up.
- 15:12Speaker 3: Don't be like them.
- 15:13Speaker 2: Go find the deer and then hunt the deer like
- 15:15Speaker 2: you truly believe you can kill one at any moment,
- 15:17Speaker 2: because you can't. Good luck out there, my friends. Stay
- 15:21Speaker 2: safe and come back next week, because I'm going to
- 15:23Speaker 2: talk about what I consider to be the most frustrating
- 15:25Speaker 2: thing in modern hunting, which is the amount of money
- 15:28Speaker 2: involved in how it has shaped us in a negative way.
- 15:33Speaker 3: That's it.
- 15:34Speaker 2: I'm Tony Peterson. This has been the Wire to Hunt
- 15:35Speaker 2: Foundation's podcast as always, Thank you so much for listening
- 15:38Speaker 2: and for all your support.
- 15:39Speaker 3: If you want some more.
- 15:40Speaker 2: Hunting content, maybe some more podcasts, maybe a video or two.
- 15:44Speaker 2: Maybe you need a new recipe, you know, cook up
- 15:46Speaker 2: some backstraps on that deer you just killed. Whatever, go
- 15:49Speaker 2: to the medeater dot com check it out.