Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 772: Foundations - Repeating Deer Patterns that Actually Repeat Themselves

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Ep. 772: Foundations - Repeating Deer Patterns that Actually Repeat Themselves · 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 Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
0:23
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by a first Light. I'm
0:25
Speaker 2: your host, Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about
0:28
Speaker 2: patterning deer and how we often get this task so
0:32
Speaker 2: very wrong. When I was in high school, I got
0:39
Speaker 2: permission to hunt this dairy farm where quite a few
0:42
Speaker 2: people had permission to hunt. One of the other hunters
0:45
Speaker 2: was maybe, I don't know, like ten years older than me,
0:48
Speaker 2: and he had a reputation for being a big buck killer.
0:52
Speaker 2: I randomly bumped into him walking out one morning and
0:56
Speaker 2: he showed me some pictures, actual printed photographs, not self
1:00
Speaker 2: CAMPI since it was like nineteen ninety six, there were
1:03
Speaker 2: just several big bucks that he had killed. He then
1:06
Speaker 2: pointed to a valley on the farm and said they
1:09
Speaker 2: usually bet in there and dropped down on the hillside
1:11
Speaker 2: to go feed in the evening, And I remember thinking
1:14
Speaker 2: I don't know. I've hunted that hillside a lot and
1:16
Speaker 2: that's just not been the case. But it turns out
1:18
Speaker 2: that he was right, so was I. And now I'm
1:21
Speaker 2: going to tell you how that can be true. Do
1:29
Speaker 2: you know why we love music so much? Part of
1:32
Speaker 2: the reason is that we have a long history, like
1:35
Speaker 2: two million years of history, where recognizing patterns helped us
1:40
Speaker 2: either fill our bellies or keep us from filling something
1:44
Speaker 2: else's belly. In fact, our creation of music and our
1:48
Speaker 2: hunting abilities are intertwined, even if that's hard to believe
1:52
Speaker 2: because you're I don't know, as tone deaf as a
1:54
Speaker 2: fence post, but you love to hunt. Now, whether you're
1:57
Speaker 2: talking melody in the form of a catchy core rhythm
2:00
Speaker 2: in the form of a guitar riff that just makes
2:02
Speaker 2: you feel all warm and fuzzy, music is built on
2:05
Speaker 2: a foundation of repetition. In that latter case, the key
2:10
Speaker 2: to a good riff is that it involves playing notes
2:13
Speaker 2: or chords, but also utilizes the silence in between. This
2:17
Speaker 2: gives you, the listener, a chance to anticipate the next
2:20
Speaker 2: notes and gives the song kind of this feeling that
2:23
Speaker 2: it's progressing. Take one of the best songs that has
2:27
Speaker 2: ever been written. Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd.
2:31
Speaker 2: I'm teaching my daughter to play the rhythm for this
2:33
Speaker 2: song on her acoustic guitar, and she's pretty good, but
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Speaker 2: her timing sucks. While she might play every note in
2:40
Speaker 2: the right order without the right spacing, it doesn't work.
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Speaker 2: The pattern falls apart, and our brains don't like it
2:47
Speaker 2: one bit. Now, with music, it's pretty easy to identify patterns.
2:52
Speaker 2: It happens damn near naturally to all of us. Our
2:56
Speaker 2: brains just do the work, and we know what sounds
2:59
Speaker 2: good and what sounds off. Disability is a bit more
3:02
Speaker 2: subdued out there in the wild, where we might be
3:05
Speaker 2: clued into super obvious patterns, but not into the subtle
3:08
Speaker 2: ones and allow us to hunt deer or other critters
3:11
Speaker 2: more effectively. This is kind of wild, considering our ability
3:15
Speaker 2: to recognize patterns came from our continual quest to survive
3:20
Speaker 2: and thrive as a species. Of course, you have the
3:23
Speaker 2: patterns in nature that keep you alive but don't help
3:26
Speaker 2: you hunt. Take honey, for example. That delicious bee puke
3:31
Speaker 2: is one of our most ancestrally consistent foods. It can
3:35
Speaker 2: be found all over the world, or at least in
3:37
Speaker 2: most of the parts that people can actually live, and
3:40
Speaker 2: it has been eaten by us for a long long time.
3:44
Speaker 2: That's one of the reasons natural honey is also really
3:48
Speaker 2: good for you. Your body knows what to do with honey,
3:51
Speaker 2: unlike I don't know, say, a package of gushers or
3:54
Speaker 2: some other junk food that was created in a lab.
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Speaker 2: We like the look of hexagon stack on top of
4:00
Speaker 2: one another, which is a pattern that can be found
4:03
Speaker 2: where honey is often found. We also don't like the
4:06
Speaker 2: look of two hundred bees forming a single spot, which
4:09
Speaker 2: makes us run. A few bees is a different story. Now.
4:13
Speaker 2: I read a line in an article about this that
4:15
Speaker 2: goes evolution necessitates economical and reliable brain mechanisms in some
4:22
Speaker 2: environmental context. Take a couple of caveman hunters looking to
4:27
Speaker 2: throw a spear into something big and meaty. Here they
4:30
Speaker 2: head out to hunt, but on the trail ahead of
4:32
Speaker 2: them they see some wolf tracks, or maybe the tracks
4:35
Speaker 2: of a short face bear. They have learned that a
4:38
Speaker 2: lot of wolves big trouble, but a few might be manageable.
4:42
Speaker 2: They have also learned that one short face bear that's
4:46
Speaker 2: having a bad morning can reduce their little family group
4:48
Speaker 2: by several members in a matter of seconds. The pattern
4:52
Speaker 2: of the wolf tracks would mean they need to investigate
4:55
Speaker 2: to determine how many there are. Maybe there are just
4:58
Speaker 2: two distinct sets on the trail, but old Ugg and
5:01
Speaker 2: Cronk or whoever, swing low and high, and they find
5:04
Speaker 2: two more sets. They have learned that wolves don't always
5:07
Speaker 2: travel in single file, and underestimating the amount of toothy
5:11
Speaker 2: dogs they could run into can be very costly. There's
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Speaker 2: a pattern to the wolve's behavior which shapes human behavior
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Speaker 2: into patterns. Just like the presence of one single big
5:22
Speaker 2: danger like the short face bear, cause humans to change
5:25
Speaker 2: their behaviors a lot. Then you have other connections that
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Speaker 2: result in us recognizing patterns. Say a certain tree bears
5:34
Speaker 2: fruit during a few weeks of the year when the
5:36
Speaker 2: weather is just right, and not only is that fruit
5:39
Speaker 2: good for you to gather up and bring back to
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Speaker 2: the tribe, but it also draws in deer who understand
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Speaker 2: the same pattern you do. Now you have a plant
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Speaker 2: pattern that's tied into a weather pattern and also a
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Speaker 2: certain geographical pattern that causes humans to learn a new
5:55
Speaker 2: pattern of behavior while being exposed to certain prey animals
5:58
Speaker 2: and their behavior around the same kind of pattern, which
6:02
Speaker 2: undoubtedly causes the deer to be a little more cautious
6:05
Speaker 2: because well, we know that they're patterning us too. There
6:09
Speaker 2: are songs that are created with nothing more than an
6:12
Speaker 2: acoustic guitar and a singer, than there are songs created
6:15
Speaker 2: by whole teams of folks playing a multitude of instruments
6:18
Speaker 2: and using every single technological advancement they have to add sounds.
6:23
Speaker 2: Patterns can be simple, and they can be complicated. As
6:28
Speaker 2: hunters in today's world, we strive to make them simple.
6:32
Speaker 2: We put in a food plot and hope the bucks
6:35
Speaker 2: just decide it's a good place to eat every day,
6:38
Speaker 2: or at least the doe do, and then we leave
6:41
Speaker 2: them alone about, you know, until Halloween, and then the
6:44
Speaker 2: bucks start coming in. Simple, we don't really have to
6:49
Speaker 2: know where they bed, or where they travel or what
6:52
Speaker 2: they do when they don't come in. We just need
6:55
Speaker 2: to know that the pattern contains at least some level
6:58
Speaker 2: of them entering the food plot, so we volume hunt
7:02
Speaker 2: it once it should turn on. It's actually pretty simple
7:07
Speaker 2: until it's not. How often have you had a good plan, now,
7:11
Speaker 2: I mean one where you just had so much confidence,
7:15
Speaker 2: and then you executed and you didn't see anything. What happened?
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Speaker 2: Did you not understand the pattern to their deer movement
7:24
Speaker 2: or did they understand your pattern better than you thought?
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Speaker 2: Was it just bad luck. I'm convinced that one of
7:31
Speaker 2: the reasons people struggle so much with elk hunting isn't
7:34
Speaker 2: that there is a ton of pressure and the bulls
7:36
Speaker 2: are quiet. Sure that happens, But I also think it
7:40
Speaker 2: has to do with the fact that most of us,
7:42
Speaker 2: and by us, I mean residents and non residents in
7:45
Speaker 2: Western states and you know, Midwest and East who just
7:49
Speaker 2: show up in the mountains to hunt. All of us,
7:52
Speaker 2: It's hard to really scout elk. It's hard to really
7:56
Speaker 2: see elk, it's hard to pattern them, and they live
7:59
Speaker 2: in a world that is much larger than the white tails,
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Speaker 2: which means even if there is a repeatable pattern, observing
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Speaker 2: it directly or figuring it out from sign alone just
8:11
Speaker 2: a tough proposition. White tails are different, But we've also
8:15
Speaker 2: been conditioned to believe that they are super patternable. They
8:20
Speaker 2: generally aren't, at least if they live in a place
8:22
Speaker 2: with a moderate level of hunting pressure. Now I know,
8:26
Speaker 2: I've talked about this a thousand times. But the advice
8:29
Speaker 2: you've been hearing forever on white tails often comes from
8:32
Speaker 2: a place where they are very patternable because they don't
8:35
Speaker 2: have a lot to fear. I heard a story about
8:38
Speaker 2: a giant like one hundred and ninety ish whitetail that
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Speaker 2: got shot on film by someone on one of the
8:44
Speaker 2: most popular shows out there, and they managed to capture
8:48
Speaker 2: two different angles of the kill with two different cameramen
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Speaker 2: because they knew how much they had of that buck's
8:56
Speaker 2: pattern coming into a certain food plot very consistent. Now,
9:01
Speaker 2: imagine trying that putting a hunter and a cameraman on
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Speaker 2: one side and then a cameraman on the other side
9:08
Speaker 2: of the trail, and even killing a four key in
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Speaker 2: most places be pretty tough, let alone a deer that's
9:15
Speaker 2: bumping up on two hundred inches. You don't have that,
9:19
Speaker 2: But that's okay. There are still plenty of patterns out
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Speaker 2: there for you to recognize and use during your hunting
9:25
Speaker 2: season and for every season for the rest of your life.
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Speaker 2: This is where the advice is gonna get a little tricky,
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Speaker 2: but I'm gonna do my best. When we talk of
9:33
Speaker 2: patterning deer, we tend to default to the thinking that
9:37
Speaker 2: concerns a single buck, or at least mature bucks. We
9:41
Speaker 2: think about finding a giant bed, getting trail camera photos
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Speaker 2: of the deer in a food source, and then working
9:46
Speaker 2: with that info to fill in the blanks. And that's
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Speaker 2: certainly one way to start patterning deer. The other is
10:01
Speaker 2: to pattern deer in general. This is where most of
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Speaker 2: your big buck public land hunters have a huge advantage
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Speaker 2: over most folks. They understand that the task does involve
10:13
Speaker 2: finding some big bucks and patterning them, but they are
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Speaker 2: starting first with the knowledge of what patterns are most
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Speaker 2: likely in the environments they'll be hunting. What I mean
10:25
Speaker 2: by that is they scout and scout and hunt and hunt,
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Speaker 2: and pretty soon when they walk into a place that
10:32
Speaker 2: they've never been before, they start to recognize terrain features
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Speaker 2: that mirror other terrain features they've been around a lot.
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Speaker 2: They start to see sign in specific spots. They enter
10:42
Speaker 2: the deer's world with an understanding of how deer used
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Speaker 2: that world, and so much of the work they've put
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Speaker 2: in in other places becomes directly applicable to the task
10:52
Speaker 2: at hand in a new spot. This goes for someone
10:56
Speaker 2: hunting a different chunk of land in the same county
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Speaker 2: they always hunt and for somebody I don't know, traveling
11:01
Speaker 2: from Pennsylvania to Kansas, or from South Carolina to Tennessee.
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Speaker 2: This is a hard thing for people to really grasp,
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Speaker 2: but it's true. Part of the problem here is that
11:11
Speaker 2: we all have, you know, kind of local bias where
11:14
Speaker 2: we think we are hunting the hardest killed deer out there.
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Speaker 2: This is always wild to me as someone who has
11:20
Speaker 2: traveled a lot, because over time you find areas that
11:23
Speaker 2: are just really difficult, and you hunt areas even on
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Speaker 2: public land, where the hunting is so much easier than
11:29
Speaker 2: other spots. But what is consistent throughout is that a
11:33
Speaker 2: lot of the locals think they are hunting the toughest
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Speaker 2: to kill deer. That gives them a built in excuse
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Speaker 2: for failure, and it also changes how they view patterns.
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Speaker 2: Think about it this way. If you hunt, say Michigan
11:46
Speaker 2: public land, and you just know you have more hunting
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Speaker 2: competition than anyone, you might find some rubs all clustered
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Speaker 2: together on the edge of a small creek, and you
11:55
Speaker 2: might immediately think, well, there's a decent one around, but
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Speaker 2: he's going to be not because all of the bucks
12:01
Speaker 2: here are nocturtle because we have so much pressure. Then
12:04
Speaker 2: you take that same hunter and he finds a similar
12:06
Speaker 2: setup in Iowa after waiting six years to draw a tag.
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Speaker 2: Do you think he's going to write that spot off
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Speaker 2: as a lost cause? In Iowa, the sign and the
12:16
Speaker 2: environment are pointing him in the exact same direction, but
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Speaker 2: the difference is how he views the situation. Or take
12:23
Speaker 2: that Iowa hunter who has no idea how easy is
12:26
Speaker 2: hunting has ben while growing up on grandma's farm and
12:28
Speaker 2: having a couple hundred acres to himself. That person has
12:32
Speaker 2: developed an understanding of patterns around a high deer population
12:36
Speaker 2: and you know, relatively easy to kill deer. Then he
12:39
Speaker 2: goes to the swamps of Louisiana or northern Wisconsin, where
12:42
Speaker 2: the deer population is ten percent of what he's used to.
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Speaker 2: He sees a bench on a hillside with a single
12:48
Speaker 2: bed on it, you know, a few scattered rubs here
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Speaker 2: and there, and he thinks this is like back home.
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Speaker 2: But the sign just doesn't do it for me. There
12:55
Speaker 2: isn't enough to work with. But has he calibrated himself
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Speaker 2: to the environment or is he taking what he's used
13:01
Speaker 2: to and applying it to a world in which it
13:03
Speaker 2: doesn't really apply same pattern. It just appears less impactful
13:08
Speaker 2: due to the fact that there are so many fewer deer.
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Speaker 2: Now you don't have to travel anywhere to get tripped
13:14
Speaker 2: up by this. Take your home, farm, your lease, the
13:17
Speaker 2: public land, you hunt whatever. You probably believe you understand
13:22
Speaker 2: the deer movement really well. But does your hunting reflect that?
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Speaker 2: I mean, do the results of your efforts reflect a
13:29
Speaker 2: deep understanding of what all the deer do, or what
13:33
Speaker 2: the big deer do. Maybe, but I'll bet that they
13:36
Speaker 2: often don't. They don't for me, And honestly, one of
13:40
Speaker 2: the things that's the hardest for me is to kill
13:42
Speaker 2: a big deer on places I know really well, you know,
13:46
Speaker 2: places that also allow other hunters in, or places that
13:48
Speaker 2: are public. I feel like I know what the deer
13:51
Speaker 2: do on paper, But in the woods, I'm often subjected
13:54
Speaker 2: to a reality I don't expect. Sure, we know the
13:59
Speaker 2: bucks bet up on a ridge, and we know they
14:01
Speaker 2: are going to get to the beans to feed, But
14:03
Speaker 2: why do they so rarely follow that script? How do
14:07
Speaker 2: we get it wrong so often? Well, for starters, as
14:12
Speaker 2: much evolution as we have relating to the patterns of
14:15
Speaker 2: our environment, the deer have the same advantage they've evolved
14:19
Speaker 2: or recognize patterns too. I talked about this recently, but
14:23
Speaker 2: I think a good way to look at it is
14:25
Speaker 2: that if you're not happy with your hunting in general,
14:28
Speaker 2: it's probably because you think you understand their patterns better
14:32
Speaker 2: than you do, while also underestimating how good they have
14:37
Speaker 2: you patterned. With the first part, it's best to treat
14:42
Speaker 2: it like a scientist. What do you believe the deer
14:45
Speaker 2: are doing, and how do you believe you'll cross paths
14:48
Speaker 2: with the deer that you want to kill. Do that
14:52
Speaker 2: and ask yourself how well it worked out. Are you
14:56
Speaker 2: consistently surprised that you don't see mature bucks even though
14:59
Speaker 2: you seem to be hunting in a way that should
15:01
Speaker 2: produce at the very least some sightings. Then there's a
15:05
Speaker 2: hole in your game. That's okay, there are holes in
15:08
Speaker 2: all of our games. We mostly won't see big bucks
15:11
Speaker 2: on any given day, but we also shouldn't let that
15:14
Speaker 2: stop us from trying harder. And there's also another reality here.
15:18
Speaker 2: If you want to actually pattern big bucks and kill them,
15:22
Speaker 2: you might need to rethink when you hunt and where
15:25
Speaker 2: deer start the season as patternable as they'll be all year,
15:29
Speaker 2: and if you don't take advantage of that, things get
15:32
Speaker 2: difficult in a hurry. The earlier the opener, say, you know,
15:36
Speaker 2: a September first opener versus a mid September opener or
15:39
Speaker 2: even in an October one opener, provides a huge advantage.
15:44
Speaker 2: A good percentage of the bucks I have in my
15:46
Speaker 2: walls died in September because a summer pattern is an
15:49
Speaker 2: easy pattern to recognize. Now, I also have quite a
15:53
Speaker 2: few bucks that I killed in mid October because they
15:55
Speaker 2: tend to slip into a pattern. Then as well, they
15:58
Speaker 2: react to the pressure move into the cover, and they
16:01
Speaker 2: get harder to see for a lot of hunters who
16:04
Speaker 2: stay outside the cover. But the great leveling agent there
16:09
Speaker 2: is you know, those October bucks leave more and more sign,
16:14
Speaker 2: So instead of direct observation to build a pattern, it's
16:18
Speaker 2: often more a matter of finding sign and maybe running
16:21
Speaker 2: some cameras. Even then you're still just playing the odds
16:24
Speaker 2: because most dear at least after a week or two
16:27
Speaker 2: of the season. They don't do the same thing over
16:29
Speaker 2: and over again. I firmly believe that. Think about how
16:33
Speaker 2: often you have checked a trail camera and has shown
16:36
Speaker 2: a certain buck using a certain trail a couple of
16:38
Speaker 2: times in one month. There's a loose pattern there. You know,
16:42
Speaker 2: it's just diluted by a hell of a lot of
16:44
Speaker 2: days where the buck did something else. This happens all
16:49
Speaker 2: the time, and even consistent bucks are somewhat inconsistent and
16:54
Speaker 2: that they are definitely not going to do the same
16:56
Speaker 2: thing every day. You know, they might get thrown off
16:59
Speaker 2: by the press, some predators, or the weather changes or whatever,
17:03
Speaker 2: but they have a pattern they adopt when those things
17:06
Speaker 2: happen too. We just might not know what the hell
17:09
Speaker 2: that means. We also know that prey animals that make
17:13
Speaker 2: their daily habits a little too well known are ripe
17:16
Speaker 2: for predation. The deer that vary up their schedule make
17:21
Speaker 2: themselves less patternable, which makes them more likely to survive.
17:26
Speaker 2: I think this is where the lesson matters the most.
17:30
Speaker 2: Just like when you're writing a song, an instinctively no
17:32
Speaker 2: to give some space at certain points in the rhythm
17:34
Speaker 2: or the melody, the patterns deer follow often have a
17:39
Speaker 2: lot of dead air in between the movements. We want
17:42
Speaker 2: bucks that do the same thing every day, but the
17:44
Speaker 2: bucks that do that often get shot when they're a
17:47
Speaker 2: year and a half old or two and a half
17:49
Speaker 2: years old. The bucks that make it to maturity, you know,
17:53
Speaker 2: either consciously or probably unconsciously, engage in a lifestyle that
17:58
Speaker 2: isn't point a to be cookie cutter stuff. Every day.
18:02
Speaker 2: They change up their routine often and bed here or
18:06
Speaker 2: there and take this trail and not that one. But
18:09
Speaker 2: over time, if you do your job, you'll see a
18:11
Speaker 2: pattern in the conditions and the location that comes together
18:15
Speaker 2: to give you higher odds of running into the deer
18:17
Speaker 2: that you want to run into. That's what's so damn
18:20
Speaker 2: fun about this stuff. You can get it dialed or
18:24
Speaker 2: think you have it dialed, and still fail miserably. But
18:27
Speaker 2: you can also get it dialed and wash it work
18:30
Speaker 2: out in real time. And there are very few feelings
18:33
Speaker 2: in hunting that rival that accomplishment because it's just so
18:36
Speaker 2: dang rare and so special. So think about this as
18:40
Speaker 2: your scouting right now, and as your turkey hunting, and
18:43
Speaker 2: you know, you watch some shedbuck hop a fence in
18:46
Speaker 2: a certain spot and drop into a valley, and as
18:49
Speaker 2: you're thinking about getting some cameras out, you know, in
18:51
Speaker 2: the next couple of months, think about this stuff and
18:54
Speaker 2: their patterns. Think about coming back next week because I'm
18:58
Speaker 2: going to talk about regrets in life and in hunting.
19:03
Speaker 2: That's it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson. This has
19:05
Speaker 2: been the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which is brought
19:09
Speaker 2: to you by First Light. As always, thank you so
19:12
Speaker 2: much for your support everybody here at Meat Eater. We
19:15
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