Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 890: Foundations - How to Find Deer on Ground that Gets Hunted Hard

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Ep. 890: Foundations - How to Find Deer on Ground that Gets Hunted Hard · 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: Everyone, welcome to the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which
0:23
Speaker 2: 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: kill deer in areas with high hunting pressure. Now, this
0:33
Speaker 2: might seem kind of like an odd time of year
0:35
Speaker 2: for a podcast about hunting around lots of other hunters,
0:37
Speaker 2: but honestly, this might be the most important thing to
0:39
Speaker 2: learn for an awful lot of us. And it starts
0:41
Speaker 2: with our mindsets and how we view our hunting situation.
0:44
Speaker 2: And you know, there is no bad time of year
0:45
Speaker 2: to address that kind of thing. But that's not all
0:47
Speaker 2: I'm going to talk about here. I'm going to explain
0:49
Speaker 2: how I approach my hunts on public land and just
0:52
Speaker 2: generally pressured at spots, and go pretty deep on why
0:54
Speaker 2: I think this is sort of the easiest and the
0:56
Speaker 2: hardest thing to do in the white tail space. My
1:03
Speaker 2: paid writing career started in two thousand and three with
1:06
Speaker 2: a trout fishing article, and let me tell you something,
1:09
Speaker 2: when I saw my byline and an actual outdoor publication,
1:12
Speaker 2: I about lost my mind. I thought wrongly, I might
1:16
Speaker 2: add that my place in the outdoor industry was solidified
1:19
Speaker 2: at that point. After all, they don't just let any
1:22
Speaker 2: rando write a trout fishing article for a newspaper and
1:25
Speaker 2: then pay him a whole thirty five bucks for it.
1:28
Speaker 2: I knew I was breathing some rarefied air there, but man,
1:32
Speaker 2: was I super wrong. It took me years of begging
1:36
Speaker 2: for work to get anywhere at all, and those few
1:38
Speaker 2: years that I really had to go hard they were
1:40
Speaker 2: awful lean. I had to learn not only how to
1:43
Speaker 2: write for individual editors and their audiences, but also how
1:46
Speaker 2: to pitch assignments that I could actually tackle. No. Over time,
1:49
Speaker 2: this gets easier, but you never really have things mastered.
1:53
Speaker 2: I was reminded of this when an editor of a
1:55
Speaker 2: now defunct magazine asked me to write a simple article
1:58
Speaker 2: on walleye fishing. Do you guys know how I feel
2:01
Speaker 2: about walleyes, and while I will occasionally target them, especially
2:04
Speaker 2: when I have a landowner who is willing to trade
2:06
Speaker 2: out hunting access for fresh filets. I'm just more of
2:09
Speaker 2: a bass guy. I can't eat fish. I hate trolling,
2:14
Speaker 2: and although I did catch two walleyes on top waters
2:16
Speaker 2: last year, I generally gravitate toward fish that when they hit,
2:20
Speaker 2: will make your heart race. You know, another way to
2:23
Speaker 2: look at it is I really like the kind of
2:25
Speaker 2: fish that will definitely eat a frog if it hops
2:27
Speaker 2: on by overhead through some lily pads. Anyway, I took
2:32
Speaker 2: that walleye assignment because when you're a freelancer, you get
2:35
Speaker 2: into the habit of saying yes, because when you do,
2:38
Speaker 2: you can buy Eggo waffles for your kids, and if
2:40
Speaker 2: you say no, you generally can't. But as soon as
2:43
Speaker 2: I started writing that piece, I realize I wasn't qualified.
2:47
Speaker 2: I don't remember the exact gist of the article, but
2:49
Speaker 2: I knew that my info would be a mile wide
2:52
Speaker 2: and an inch deep, and that just doesn't cut it
2:54
Speaker 2: when you're supposed to be a quote unquote expert. It
2:57
Speaker 2: was one of the few times in my life that
2:58
Speaker 2: I just flat out admitted to an editor that I
3:00
Speaker 2: didn't have the chops for an assignment. I thought I did,
3:04
Speaker 2: but what I thought about myself was wrong. That shit
3:07
Speaker 2: always stings a little, and it always reminds me of
3:09
Speaker 2: how hunters view the key to their success in the field.
3:13
Speaker 2: There's sort of a ubiquitous reasoning in the white tail space,
3:17
Speaker 2: at least for folks who aren't consistently successful, that what
3:20
Speaker 2: they lack in skills they can make up for by
3:23
Speaker 2: buying something. Look, that's an easy thing to understand, at
3:27
Speaker 2: least for us, you know, men and our egos. But
3:30
Speaker 2: in reality, we just don't have what it takes. We
3:32
Speaker 2: don't acknowledge that we don't want to, so it must
3:36
Speaker 2: be something we don't own, like a specific deer call,
3:39
Speaker 2: or the right knee high boots, or the most realistic
3:41
Speaker 2: decoy or whatever. Now, Look, I work for meat Eater,
3:45
Speaker 2: and I want you guys to buy all kinds of
3:47
Speaker 2: hunting stuff because my kids still eat eggo waffles for breakfast.
3:51
Speaker 2: But the truth is, if you're hunting where other hunters hunt,
3:54
Speaker 2: your best bet is going to be to buy something
3:56
Speaker 2: your competition won't buy. It'll be to understand what it
3:59
Speaker 2: means to hunt around pressure. So let's look at it
4:04
Speaker 2: this way. First, Why does everyone want a hunting spot
4:08
Speaker 2: to themselves. Why does everyone dream of having control over
4:11
Speaker 2: deer ground. Why do most of the people who are
4:14
Speaker 2: killing giant deer also happen to be the same people
4:16
Speaker 2: who have access to ground that no one else has
4:18
Speaker 2: access to Because unpressured deer are dumb and they are easy.
4:24
Speaker 2: Now there are degrees to this stuff. Of course, unpressured
4:28
Speaker 2: deer on a two thousand acre lease in Iowa are
4:30
Speaker 2: a different thing from unpressured deer on a hundred acre
4:33
Speaker 2: lease in Georgia, South Carolina. But the thing about whitetails
4:37
Speaker 2: is that if we give them a safe space away
4:39
Speaker 2: from our influence, they just tend to be less cagey.
4:44
Speaker 2: They tend to grow more comfortable moving during daylight hours
4:47
Speaker 2: and just doing deer stuff when deer are supposed to
4:50
Speaker 2: do their stuff. This is like the secret that no
4:53
Speaker 2: one really talks about in the hunting industry because most
4:56
Speaker 2: of the hunting industry is dominated by this type of hunting.
4:58
Speaker 2: But most hunters are dealing with with the challenge of
5:00
Speaker 2: killing big deer, where other people are trying to kill
5:03
Speaker 2: big deer. The thought process here is generally that the
5:07
Speaker 2: hunting pressure sucks, but I still have to outsmart the deer,
5:11
Speaker 2: and the way we've been promised to do that is
5:13
Speaker 2: by grunting at a certain point in the season, or
5:15
Speaker 2: using an ozone generator, or buying whatever and using it correctly.
5:19
Speaker 2: That will allow us to fool the deer. And to
5:21
Speaker 2: some extent, all of that is true. If you buy
5:25
Speaker 2: good products and use them correctly, you're not going to
5:27
Speaker 2: be a worse hunter for it. But we are also
5:29
Speaker 2: not going to kill booners on public land in Kentucky
5:32
Speaker 2: because of it either. The thing about this is that
5:35
Speaker 2: if you want to fool the deer where they get
5:37
Speaker 2: hunted a lot, you have to understand how they survive.
5:42
Speaker 2: What do they do that allows them to live on
5:44
Speaker 2: parcels that have lots of hunters, Because when you think
5:47
Speaker 2: about it that way, you have at least some type
5:49
Speaker 2: of roadmap to follow to find the actual deer. Let's
5:54
Speaker 2: start with something that I hear so often but just
5:56
Speaker 2: drives me nuts. I hear hunters make blanket statements all
6:00
Speaker 2: the time about deer in their state, or the deer
6:02
Speaker 2: in their county, or on a specific chunk of public land.
6:05
Speaker 2: I remember reading a thread on bow Site quite a
6:07
Speaker 2: few years ago about public land hunting in Nebraska, several
6:11
Speaker 2: of the locals weighed in and said there were no
6:13
Speaker 2: bucks older than two and a half or three and
6:14
Speaker 2: a half due to the timing of the gun season
6:16
Speaker 2: and the onslaught of hunting pressure from non residents not
6:20
Speaker 2: that time. I hunted Nebraska public land every year, and
6:23
Speaker 2: I never had an easier time finding mature bucks than
6:25
Speaker 2: I did there. At home in Minnesota, I could find them,
6:29
Speaker 2: but not as easily and not as frequently, and I
6:31
Speaker 2: might add not even on public land but private I thought,
6:36
Speaker 2: if you believe that to be true, you will absolutely
6:40
Speaker 2: live that truth. As the kids like to say, you're
6:42
Speaker 2: never going to overcome that mindset because you've given yourself
6:45
Speaker 2: an excuse not to. It's an open and shut case,
6:48
Speaker 2: but it's also mostly bullshit. There are good bucks in
6:52
Speaker 2: every state that has white tails, and plenty of them
6:56
Speaker 2: live on public land. You have to operate under that assumption,
7:00
Speaker 2: but you also have to keep your standards within reason.
7:03
Speaker 2: If you want five and a half year old bucks
7:05
Speaker 2: and only on a few weekends on public land in Oklahoma,
7:08
Speaker 2: good luck, buddy. You're just not living in reality. And
7:12
Speaker 2: it's not because the bucks aren't there. It's because you're
7:14
Speaker 2: not gonna be able to do what it takes to
7:15
Speaker 2: kill them. You have to scout enough and hunt enough
7:19
Speaker 2: to believe the truth about the deer that are out there.
7:22
Speaker 2: Because they are out there, then you have to take
7:24
Speaker 2: a long look at your competition just the way the
7:28
Speaker 2: deer will. So let's think about this from the perspective
7:31
Speaker 2: of something that is said, all of the time, deer
7:34
Speaker 2: pattern us better than we pattern them. It's cliched. I
7:39
Speaker 2: also believe it to be absolutely true. I really do.
7:42
Speaker 2: I think when you're a prey animal and your number
7:45
Speaker 2: one predator shows you what it does, you pay attention
7:49
Speaker 2: and you play the odds that what that predator usually does,
7:52
Speaker 2: it will keep doing. If an animal with a brain
7:56
Speaker 2: about one third the size of ours can predict our activities,
8:00
Speaker 2: why can't we. We want to be able to run
8:02
Speaker 2: a pattern on the deer so we can predict them
8:05
Speaker 2: you know when and where to hunt them, But first
8:07
Speaker 2: we have to run a pattern on ourselves in our competition.
8:10
Speaker 2: So what does that mean? Well, where do you usually
8:14
Speaker 2: start at the parking area other access points? Where is
8:18
Speaker 2: the average hunter going to walk into the ground that
8:21
Speaker 2: you're hunting. This is usually pretty easy to predict and
8:24
Speaker 2: it's a hell of a starting point. But where does
8:26
Speaker 2: it go from there? On pressured ground, there are often
8:40
Speaker 2: well worn hunter trails into various parts of the property.
8:44
Speaker 2: How far do you think the average hunter is going
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Speaker 2: to go? Is he likely to climb a bluff, cross
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Speaker 2: a river, wade into a thorny mess or is he
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Speaker 2: going to mostly stay on the level and not cross
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Speaker 2: the water and avoid the thick stuff just to stay
8:57
Speaker 2: in the easier habitat what you looking at there is
9:00
Speaker 2: probably what eighty percent of your competition will default to.
9:04
Speaker 2: The deer know this well and they bet their lives
9:07
Speaker 2: on it. So now what you just go where others don't?
9:11
Speaker 2: Sort of, That's a huge part of it, if I'm
9:13
Speaker 2: being honest, And a huge part of knowing where those
9:16
Speaker 2: areas are is by scouting right now when everyone else
9:18
Speaker 2: isn't scouting bucks on public land leave sign too, and
9:22
Speaker 2: it's out there waiting for you to find it. Now.
9:25
Speaker 2: On this task alone, we make the mistake of thinking
9:27
Speaker 2: that if we find the spots on the places we
9:29
Speaker 2: currently hunt, then our job is over. It's not. You're
9:33
Speaker 2: not just looking for the location you can arrow a
9:36
Speaker 2: buck this fall, but you're trying to learn how to
9:39
Speaker 2: find the spot's pressure deer most likely to use. Because
9:43
Speaker 2: that great spot that you find tucked into a river
9:45
Speaker 2: bottom flat this spring might be the ticket of this fall.
9:49
Speaker 2: Or you might have a couple of young dudes who
9:51
Speaker 2: like jump shooting ducks show up and change your whole game.
9:54
Speaker 2: It's not enough to just find a few good spots,
9:57
Speaker 2: although that's a hell of a start. I want to
10:00
Speaker 2: understand the process of how you go about finding the
10:02
Speaker 2: locations you need to find, no matter when it is
10:06
Speaker 2: and what's going on around you with the other people. Now,
10:09
Speaker 2: this makes it sound too simple, because you might find
10:12
Speaker 2: the absolute best mature buck spot on the thousand acres
10:15
Speaker 2: of public land in your neck of the woods. Hey,
10:17
Speaker 2: that's great, it's freaking great. But does that mean it's
10:21
Speaker 2: the kind of spot you can arrow a one P
10:22
Speaker 2: fifty in during the September opener or do you need
10:25
Speaker 2: to go in there and hang and bang in late October?
10:29
Speaker 2: Is there enough pressure on your spot to make you
10:31
Speaker 2: consider not trying to get in there on a Saturday
10:34
Speaker 2: afternoon instead of waiting until a Wednesday. What factors are
10:37
Speaker 2: at play here? Are you going to state where crossbows
10:40
Speaker 2: are legal, and a lot of the weekend warriors might
10:42
Speaker 2: be sneaking around trying to shoot one in a way
10:44
Speaker 2: that almost certainly won't work. How we think about this
10:48
Speaker 2: stuff is as important as putting in the miles and
10:50
Speaker 2: the sweat equity, and it all needs to be filtered
10:53
Speaker 2: through the reality of what the hunting pressure is probably
10:56
Speaker 2: going to be like, because hunting pressure is your number
10:59
Speaker 2: one enemy. It puts deer down, It disrupts the rhythm
11:03
Speaker 2: of nature, and at some points you just can't really
11:05
Speaker 2: overcome it. You have to work around it. So to
11:09
Speaker 2: dive deeper here, think about it this way. What's your
11:12
Speaker 2: dream date to hunt? November seventh, Halloween? I bet it's
11:15
Speaker 2: somewhere around there, maybe a little later if you'd live
11:17
Speaker 2: in the Deep South. Now ask yourself, who else would
11:21
Speaker 2: answer those exact same dates? Is it most hunters? Because well,
11:26
Speaker 2: it's pretty simple shit really Okay. So if you were
11:30
Speaker 2: a prey animal that even though you really want to
11:32
Speaker 2: spread your genes around, but also realize that day to
11:35
Speaker 2: day the amount of nasty predators in your world is increasing,
11:38
Speaker 2: how would you respond? You would probably tamp down that
11:42
Speaker 2: breeding urge sum because if you don't, you will die.
11:46
Speaker 2: You also know that the predators you're most worried about
11:49
Speaker 2: generally leave the woods alone all night long, so you
11:53
Speaker 2: don't move much during daylight when the predator saturation is high.
11:57
Speaker 2: But there are times when the predators sature is low,
12:01
Speaker 2: and you know it because you can see them, and
12:04
Speaker 2: you can hear them, and you can most definitely smell
12:07
Speaker 2: them when they're there and long after they've left, when
12:11
Speaker 2: they aren't around nearly as much, you know it. But
12:15
Speaker 2: we think about seasonal timing and it will just override
12:18
Speaker 2: their survival instincts. Sometimes it does, but not nearly as
12:22
Speaker 2: much as most of us need it to. A hot
12:25
Speaker 2: dough can make magic happen on heavily hunted ground, it
12:28
Speaker 2: just most likely won't happen to you on any given season.
12:33
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people who complain about hunting
12:35
Speaker 2: pressure want to hunt when they think it's supposed to
12:37
Speaker 2: be the best. But that's the dominant line of thinking
12:41
Speaker 2: in the hunting community at large. You have to be
12:44
Speaker 2: a contrariant here if you want to get around all
12:47
Speaker 2: of that hunting pressure and its negative effects. I know
12:50
Speaker 2: no one wants to take their rautation in earlier mid October,
12:53
Speaker 2: but if you hunt where the pressure is high, you
12:56
Speaker 2: probably should. I keep seeing this in my travels to
12:59
Speaker 2: hunt public life in many different states, and it's to
13:01
Speaker 2: the point now where I don't think a whole lot
13:03
Speaker 2: about the peak rut when I'm on public land. I
13:06
Speaker 2: like the weeks before that, when everyone else is waiting
13:09
Speaker 2: for it to get good, because the deer I want
13:11
Speaker 2: to kill will be more relaxed then than they will
13:15
Speaker 2: be when all the trucks roll in during the rut.
13:18
Speaker 2: It's so simple, but kind of not. To understand this
13:22
Speaker 2: and believe it, you have to go against lifelong beliefs
13:26
Speaker 2: that the best in the business have told us all about.
13:30
Speaker 2: You have to figure out why the general standard deer
13:33
Speaker 2: hunting advice doesn't actually apply to someone who is hunting
13:35
Speaker 2: a place where there are lots of other hunters. It
13:39
Speaker 2: would be like the difference between hunting elk and a
13:41
Speaker 2: unit in Wyoming where there are grizzlies versus a unit
13:44
Speaker 2: where there aren't. Both hunts can be a typical bugle
13:47
Speaker 2: until you get one working type of deal, or you know,
13:50
Speaker 2: maybe post up on water until you get one that's
13:52
Speaker 2: thirsty enough to come in, or he just wants to
13:54
Speaker 2: roll around in the mud, but there will be a
13:56
Speaker 2: dominant concern that just changes the game. The grizzly hunt,
14:02
Speaker 2: or you know, the hunt in an area with grizzlies,
14:04
Speaker 2: it is an elk hunt, but it's one with an
14:06
Speaker 2: added challenge. A pressured ground white tail hunt is a
14:10
Speaker 2: white tail hunt, sure, but it's one with an added challenge.
14:14
Speaker 2: And if you don't think about that challenge and understand
14:16
Speaker 2: how it affects the deer, you'll think that you're dealing
14:19
Speaker 2: with an insurmountable problem. You're not, but it will be
14:23
Speaker 2: if you approach it the same way as any average
14:25
Speaker 2: whitetail hunter would. Maybe that last point is the most important. Honestly,
14:31
Speaker 2: the people I hear from who say that their spot
14:33
Speaker 2: is just too busy, they kind of seem to have
14:35
Speaker 2: their minds made up. But I never hear them say
14:38
Speaker 2: that they scout it all winter long, or tried anything
14:41
Speaker 2: to overcome the issue of a lot of people in
14:43
Speaker 2: the woods. So I don't know what to make of it.
14:45
Speaker 2: I do know that pressured white tails are the hardest
14:48
Speaker 2: white tails to hunt. I believe that, and it only
14:50
Speaker 2: gets worse in a low density situation, And that only
14:53
Speaker 2: gets worse in a big woods type of situation. But
14:56
Speaker 2: even then the problem is solvable. It takes a due,
15:00
Speaker 2: realistic approach of putting in the work to figure out
15:02
Speaker 2: the spots of the deer are likely to use so
15:04
Speaker 2: that they don't bump into you, but also understanding that
15:06
Speaker 2: if you don't try to deviate from the strategies that
15:08
Speaker 2: most hunters rely on, you're going to have average results.
15:12
Speaker 2: And I tell you this because I think it's important
15:15
Speaker 2: if hunting pressure ground is too tough for you, lower
15:19
Speaker 2: your standards. I say that a lot, but I think
15:22
Speaker 2: a lot of people get frustrated not being able to
15:24
Speaker 2: kill mature bucks where they hunt. But what about two
15:26
Speaker 2: and a half year olds? What about does actually hunting
15:30
Speaker 2: for something you might be able to shoot is really important?
15:34
Speaker 2: Hunting for something that isn't going to happen is a
15:36
Speaker 2: great way to lose interest and to kill your drive
15:39
Speaker 2: and to give yourself an excuse to not go. And
15:42
Speaker 2: when that happens, you'll definitely believe the pressure has taken
15:45
Speaker 2: your opportunities away. So maybe you need to look at
15:47
Speaker 2: it a little differently and try to target something more
15:49
Speaker 2: doable to figure out how to make that happen, and
15:53
Speaker 2: then actually succeed out there. You know, that's something you
15:56
Speaker 2: know most folks won't do on pressure ground, but you can.
16:00
Speaker 2: And when you can do that, you can at least
16:02
Speaker 2: see the way in which you might turn it into
16:04
Speaker 2: something bigger. But it all starts with our mindset and
16:08
Speaker 2: our willingness to examine what it would take for a
16:10
Speaker 2: white tail to live through a couple of seasons where
16:12
Speaker 2: there are a lot of people trying to ensure that
16:14
Speaker 2: doesn't happen. That kind of thing can start now, and
16:18
Speaker 2: it should, especially if you pair it up with some
16:21
Speaker 2: scouting before the ticks are too thick and the greenery
16:23
Speaker 2: drowns out last year's sign. So do that and come
16:27
Speaker 2: back next week because I'm going to talk about procrastination
16:30
Speaker 2: and how it can kill the best white tail plans,
16:32
Speaker 2: especially when it comes to our gear. That's it for
16:36
Speaker 2: this week. I'm Tony Peterson. This has been the Wired
16:38
Speaker 2: to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which is brought to you by
16:41
Speaker 2: First Light. Thank you so much for your support. We
16:44
Speaker 2: truly appreciate it. You guys are showing up for our
16:46
Speaker 2: Turkey Week this week in big numbers, and just generally,
16:50
Speaker 2: you guys listening to these podcasts, you know, Clay's, Brent's,
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Speaker 2: Whoever's uh, watching our films, reading the articles, whatever you're doing,
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Speaker 2: you know, checking in on socialb We truly appreciate it.
17:02
Speaker 2: Without you, guys, we are nothing, So thank you for that.
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