Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 873: Foundations - How to Make the Most of Your Winter Scouting Efforts

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Ep. 873: Foundations - How to Make the Most of Your Winter Scouting Efforts · 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, presented by first Light,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: First Light, Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Hey everyone, welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: which is brought to you by First Light. I'm your host,
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about how to
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: be efficient and effective with your winter scouting efforts. Look,
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: we all know it's some of the most valuable time
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: you could spend in the woods, and yet most deer
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: hunters don't really care about winter scouting. In some situations,
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: they probably feel like they don't need to, or they
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: don't understand the actual value that winter scouting can bring.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: But for a lot of us, it's real necessary. To me,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: it's really the scouting that puts me in deer most
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: of the time, at least outside of in season scouting.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: And even then, most of my in season scouting is
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: at least loosely built off of what I found months
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: and months earlier. So I plan to talk about this
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: and quite a bit more. Right freaking now you know
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: the uh, just do it Nike slogan. Well, my personal
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: slogan would probably be just put it off until it
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: drives you absolutely nuts, and then wait another two or
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: three weeks and then do it. Being an adult kind
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: of sucks, mostly because you always have a bunch of
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: annoying stuff hanging over your head. You know, you have
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: to renew your license tabs and pay the property taxes,
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: set up the annual vet appointment for the dogs, drive
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: the kids to choir, then to basketball practice, then to
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: their other basketball practice, and then you have to help
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: your father in law move a giant toolbox because your
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: mother in law has to control everything, you know, the
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: usual stuff. One of the things that I put off
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: every year is emptying my boat out of like all
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: of the tackle and rods and just sorting everything out
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: so I can start with an organized situation and when
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: spring comes around. I know from past experience that when
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: I do this, I feel like a total idiot. The
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: first time I go fishing and I look at all
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: of the tackle I bought over the winter and how
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: much of it I didn't really need, Or the first
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: time I go to dig out a certain size of
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: jerk bait or a swimming jig, and then I realized
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: that not once all last summer did I ever put
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: anything back in the right spot. Of course, I also
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: fish with a bunch of kids, too, so that makes
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: the situation about a billion times worse. I know this
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: is a first world problem, but my boat reminds me
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: of the kind of person I am, and I'm just
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: not a huge fan of him most of the time.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: You know, mixing my Senko's up with my frog selection
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: or my buzz baits is annoying. But it's not the
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: only thing that just weighs on my mind this time
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: of year when there isn't a whole hell of a
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: lot to do. The deer that got away a last season,
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: or the time I spent deer hunting when I just
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: didn't feel like I had something going on. They also
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: bother me too. There's one trail in particular that I've
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: thought about a whole bunch of times, and I can
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: get it out of my head. It snakes its way
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: along a ridgetop through a clearcut that might be about
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: I don't know, six or seven years old at this point.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: That ridge follows a creek bottom more or less and
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: it's a total pain in the ass to hunt because
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: it's so thick. But you know what, every time I
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: hunt around there, I end up with some kind of encounter,
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: and it's almost always tied to that ridge, and almost
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: always tied to that specific trail. That's not that surprising
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: to me because it's on public land, and it's the
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: one spot on the whole portion of that property that
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: kind of avoids all of the logging roads that the
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: locals have turned into many highways for their four wheelers
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: and side by sides. Now, nine years ago, I killed
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: a buck as he walked that trail, but it was
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: mostly because I was sitting on a perpendicular trail that
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: bisected the ridge trail. I killed that deer in the morning,
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: in the middle of October, and I've seen plenty of
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: other deer use it. It's also the only trail I've
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: ever seen a bear walk down that was just doing
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: his thing and not coming into a pile of dough
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: that might not carry much weight with a lot of you,
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: but I've spent a ton of time hunting in bear
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: country and I've only once seen one just walking on through.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: They don't make a lot of mistakes like that, and
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: I really don't know how they do it, but they
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: don't show themselves very much. A good sized bear that
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: feels safe enough to travel the same trail that's some
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: bigger than your average bucks like to use tells you.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: Something tells me that I shouldn't be so lazy, and
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: I should go walk that trail out, along with any
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: other trails that might peel off of it. So that's
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: what I'm gonna do. Now, we are stuck in some
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: sort of purgatory constructed around what seems like an infinite
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: supply of seventh grade girls basketball tournaments, and these absolutely
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: insane suburban moms who embrace that shit like it's the
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: hobby they've been waiting for their whole lives, and they
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: don't seem to understand that there's other cool stuff to
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: do out there. So I have to find a weekend
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: when my kids aren't playing in some random city. But
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: it's looking like a window has opened up, So I'm
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: making a plan. I know, with the the snowcover we
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: have now, the scrapes from last year are going to
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: be impossible to find unless I get lucky and spot
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: a very obvious licking branch in a very obvious type
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: of spot for a scrape, but I don't really care
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: about scrapes right now. I want to see the trails
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: and I want to see rubs. And I know that
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: exact trail that I'm interested in that also had a
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: really good deer on it last fall when I pulled
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: my saddle set up one evening to make the long
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: hike out. I know that trail is going to have
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: plenty of rubs on it. So my first goal with
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: winter scouting this year is to start right by the
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: property boundary and work toward the interior along that trail.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: I want to see which way the rubs are facing
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: to get an idea of when the bucks were there,
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: and I want to see if it leads me to
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: some benches or something else that might indicate a nice
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: little buck bedding area. Because I assume it's in there,
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: I want to walk its entire length, which in a
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: property of several thousand acres might take me a while.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: But I know I'm missing a lot out there, and
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: while I've had decent success hunting around it, I haven't
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: dove into it, you know, to really kind of piece
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: it out. And that's the best part about winter scouting,
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: and unlike organizing my boat, I'm really looking forward to
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: this mission because here's the thing. I don't know how
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: to hunt them well on that trail, and scouting is
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: an activity that is supposed to inform us on how
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: to hunt spots better. I don't know why I feel
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: the need to say that, I just kind of do.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: I think it's because we look at scouting this time
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: of year like it's mostly just a bonus situation, kind
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: of like how it's easier to spend money on Payday
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: than two weeks later when you're waiting on that next
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: check to hit your account. It feels like we have
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: all the time in the world right now, and learning
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: what we can in February doesn't really hold a strong
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: connection to our fall success, at least for a lot
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: of us. But it does. I've said this before, and
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: I'm sure i'll say it again, but winter scouting is important,
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: if for no other reason, then it's like a free
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: play where you can go any damn where you please
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: and look at any part of your hunting ground you
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: want to look at without any fear of pushing your
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: target bucks out to get shot by the neighbor or
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: just knocking them off some kind of pattern. There's also
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: the benefit of time, but most importantly, this is the
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: moment of the year when you can just go, try
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: to answer some questions and get a clear picture not
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: only of the deer on your ground, but the ground
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: on your ground. That ridgetop trail I'm going to figure out.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: I can see it on on X. I know roughly
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: how it courses through the landscape. I've shot grouse and
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: woodcock around it, so it's not a total question mark
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: to me. But when you take a travel route that
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: might consist of a third or a half of a
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: mile or more, not to mention all of that distance
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: can be traveled pretty much in thick cover, it's impossible
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: to know how to really hunt it without just diving in.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: What I plan to do is look for spots where
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: that trail allows me to get an edge on the bucks,
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: which means I have to figure out a crafty approach
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: for morning and evening sits, and I have to pay
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: close attention to how to hunt various sections of it
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: with different winds. This is a big one because I
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: know that the trail runs mostly east to west, with
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: the uphill side to the north. That means south winds
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: are going to be tough, but depending on where I
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: have to sit, east or west winds might be a
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: no go too. But I also know a trail like
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: that doesn't exist in a straight line. It'll weave through
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: the cover according to the shape of the land, and
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: there will be spots where the bucks will have to
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: travel not straight east or west, and those areas are
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: interesting to me. I want a spot where he has
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: to give up something, even if it's just in a
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: small section, because that's an advantage I can use. Now.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: I can't know that stuff just from east gout. Neither
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: can you. You can make a guess on ambush sites,
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: but until you get in there and put your eyeballs
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: on the land, you really just can't know. My guess
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: just by knowing how thicket is in there is that
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: there won't be a ton of good spots to hunt
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: from a tree. There will probably be some, And I
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: also just want to know if there are any big
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: oak trees standing around in there, possibly left by foresters
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: at seed trees. A single tree dropping some hard masks
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: in a spot where they feel secure can be the
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: ticket to filling a tag. In late September or throughout October.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Those deer don't have a bunch of dreamy alfalfa and
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: cornfields to go to, kind of like a lot of
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: deer down in the Deep South that spend their time
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: in the swamps and endless seas of timber. It's also
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: true that a tree with a good canopy, you know,
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: that happens to be located in fairly thick cover, like
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: a clear cut. We'll have some open ground beneath it
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: compared to the rest of the cover, and that does
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: two things. It often gives you a chance to shoot,
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: which is important on public land where you can't cut
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: shooting lanes. But it also often creates a soft edge
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: around the tree. Soft edges are deer magnets, and they
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: are something I'll be looking for pretty heavily during my
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: winter scouting trips over to Wisconsin this year. Another part
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: of my plan, one that I forget about when I
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: start hiking, is that I'm going to drop more pins
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: and cross reference what I see in person with what
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: I see on on X. The thing about this spot
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: is that a lot of people use the logging roads,
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: you know, They just drive them for fun and they
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: try to shoot an easy grouse from one, they just
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: offer up a lot of access. What I want to
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: know as I follow that ridgetop trail is how it
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: allows the deer to avoid those easy access logging roads,
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: and how I might be able to use those logging
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: roads for access myself, especially on morning hunts where hiking
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: the long way through a clear cut is generally an
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: exercise in torture. Of course, maybe the greatest thing about
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: really making a winter scouting plan isn't that you get
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: to answer some of the big deer questions you have,
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: but that it gets you to ask a lot more questions.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: I know when I head over there, I'll get distracted
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: by sign and trails and folds and the terrain. And
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: while my mission is laid out pretty clearly in my head,
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: I also understand myself well enough to know that I
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: can deviate from a plan real quick. But I don't care,
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: because that will help me learn some stuff this winter too.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: Now you might be thinking, well, that's great, dude, you
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: go do your thing, But how does that help me
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: with my spot, which isn't anything like a chunk of
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: big woods and wolf country? Well, what don't you know
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: about deer movement? On your place. Are you one of
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: those people who has a good lease and a pile
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: of hitlisters every year and think you have it all
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: figured out? I bet you don't, And I bet there
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: are things you think are true which you don't really know.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: Like your deer are always nocturnal in October, which you
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: may know is true because you don't see the big
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: bucks and your camera's slow down. Okay, maybe that is true.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: Or maybe you don't see them because they aren't traveling
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: in the spots you like to hunt, so you put
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: less effort in and suddenly your expectations meet the reality
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: that you expect kind of manifest your own destiny there.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Maybe the deer aren't running across the countryside with reckless abandoned,
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: but they are laying down tons of sign in some
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: tight areas like a few valleys or the creek bottom
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: you consider off limits because you just know all the
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: big deer bed there. Is there a way to walk
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: that now and figure out something to do during the
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: times when you think it would be better to not hunt.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: I think the thing that might be most beneficial about
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: winter scouting, or at least it's way up there, is
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: how often I find like a half acre that has
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: just rubbed a shit somewhere. The natural inclination here is
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: to assume it's a buck's bedroom and that most of
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: the rubs were made, you know, probably around Halloween, but
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: that's probably not true. Oftentimes those little spots are staging areas,
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: and while more of the rubs might have showed up
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: the last week October than the first, it doesn't mean
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: that those bucks weren't there at other points of the season.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Those areas are safety zones, which is why there is
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: so much sign there. It's not because they love the
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: spot and that prompts them to mark it up. It's
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: because it's safe for them to be there in daylight,
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: and you know, while they're waiting to run out the clock,
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: they leave lots of sign. Finding those areas is often
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: the ticket to not having nearly as much downtime in
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: the season as you could have, and at the very least,
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: they make a compelling argument for some summertime in early
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: fall trail camera recon Now, I kind of look at
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: winter scouting like I look at elk hunting in and
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: over the counter unit in Colorado. I know the bulls
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: are there, but they will be where most people don't go,
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: and often that's just down the hill from the road
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: or in the drainage above the trailhead that is full
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: of nasty, dark timber. It doesn't have to be far,
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: it just has to be overlooked. Now, even on properties
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: where we are the only ones hunting these deer, there
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: are usually so many places that we overlook. Hell, I
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: find this quite a bit on properties I hunt that
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: are small, like twenty five or thirty acres, and it's
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: almost a certainty that when you start to get some
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: more acreage to work with, you start to find all
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: kinds of spots where that you just use them because
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: we just don't. Winter scouting is like a cheat code
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: for finding those areas. And while it might be beneficial
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: to find a good rub line just below the access road,
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: what you really need to use winter scouting for is
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: to convince yourself that your findings are beneficial. This is
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: the hard part about walking your deer ground out in February.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: There's so much time for our discoveries to fade in
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: our memories a little bit, and for us to talk
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: ourselves into running cameras where we always run cameras, and
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: setting stands where we always set stands, but don't do that.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: Go scout this winter with a plan, drop plenty of
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: way points, mark your tracks, think about the spots you
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: don't go to during the season, ask yourself why they
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: use this trail, and then walk it to see what
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: you can come up with. Go explore. We often get
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: so locked up in the idea of being super conservative
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: with our presence in the woods that we hold ourselves
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: back under the guise of b being wise old deer hunters.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: Now that may hold some water in the season or
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: the immediate preseason. And keep in mind, I said may,
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: because I hunt public land all the time, and myself
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: and the other hunters out there, of which there are
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: often many, don't seem all that concerned with maintaining sanctuaries.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: And on that ground, there are big deer to be
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: found and hunted, even where they get bumped around a lot.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: So even if you don't believe that, I don't care,
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: because it doesn't matter when it comes to winter scouting.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: You can go deep into every nook and cranny and
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: figure out a hell of a lot about what the
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: bucks did last fall, and that can inform your summer
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: scouting decisions and your fall hunting plans, and it really should.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: So do that and then come back next week because
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: I'm going to talk about the changing landscape of drawing
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: all kinds of hunting tags from turkeys to deer to
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: elk in what that means for you. If you ever
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: want to travel to hunt again, that's it. I'm Tony Peterson.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: This has been the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: is brought to you by First. I want to thank
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: you for all of your support. We wouldn't be anything
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: without you, guys, and you've shown up in a big
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: way for us so many times, so I really want
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: to thank you for all that support. If you need
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: more hunting content, if you need to get a fix
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: on a podcast or maybe watch some videos, check out
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: a recipe, an article, whatever. The meat eater dot com
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: has you covered, tons of good stuff there, go check
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: it out.