Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 770: Foundations - How to Avoid Being Avoided by Whitetails
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 Foundation's podcast,
- 0:23Speaker 2: which is brought to you by first Light. I'm your host,
- 0:24Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today's show is all about how to
- 0:27Speaker 2: recognize when the deer have you patterned and what you
- 0:31Speaker 2: can do about it. A few weeks ago, I talked
- 0:43Speaker 2: about finding some bucks sign on a slight elevation rise
- 0:46Speaker 2: in the Big Woods, Wisconsin and how it started to
- 0:49Speaker 2: make total sense to me when I walked it out.
- 0:51Speaker 2: I set up a killer stand spot there, which you know, well,
- 0:55Speaker 2: I don't want to get too cocky, is definitely going
- 0:58Speaker 2: to net me a stud of a Big Woods buck
- 1:00Speaker 2: fall or you know, possibly a two year old or whatever.
- 1:03Speaker 2: I thought I was done with that whole situation. I
- 1:05Speaker 2: even told you so, but I was wrong. Another weekend
- 1:08Speaker 2: over there looking around made me realize something that I
- 1:10Speaker 2: do in the White Toau Woods that is so dumb,
- 1:13Speaker 2: and I bet you do it too, and that's what
- 1:15Speaker 2: this show is all about. Albert Einstein is famous for
- 1:29Speaker 2: a lot of things, his theory of relativity and his
- 1:33Speaker 2: care free, genius level haircut. He's also probably one of
- 1:38Speaker 2: the most quoted fellas to hit the scene in at
- 1:40Speaker 2: least a couple of hundred years. A couple of his
- 1:43Speaker 2: more notable quotes on intelligence go like this. The difference
- 1:47Speaker 2: between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
- 1:52Speaker 2: The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge, but imagination,
- 1:57Speaker 2: and probably the one you hear the most. Everybody as
- 2:00Speaker 2: a genius. But if you judge a fish by its
- 2:02Speaker 2: ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole
- 2:04Speaker 2: life believing that it's stupid. That last one is clever.
- 2:08Speaker 2: But it's also a little hard to believe that everyone
- 2:11Speaker 2: is a genius. Maybe this proves his point, not mine.
- 2:14Speaker 2: But if you spend a little time at the public
- 2:16Speaker 2: land boat landing on some pretty popular lakes, say on
- 2:20Speaker 2: July fourth, you'll witness people who are trying real hard
- 2:23Speaker 2: to disprove that quote. The crazy thing is most of
- 2:27Speaker 2: us think we are pretty damn smart. This is often
- 2:31Speaker 2: the folly of young folks heading out into the real
- 2:33Speaker 2: world to stake their claim. This is something I dealt
- 2:36Speaker 2: with recently in a situation that not only proved at
- 2:39Speaker 2: least one youth didn't know a whole lot, but her
- 2:41Speaker 2: mentor is a stone cold moron at times. This should
- 2:46Speaker 2: come as no surprise to anyone who listens to this podcast.
- 2:49Speaker 2: But I don't have a lot of friends. I have
- 2:52Speaker 2: a handful of good friends, some work besties like Mark,
- 2:55Speaker 2: and then I have gym friends. When you work from home,
- 2:58Speaker 2: you make friends where you find them, and for me,
- 3:00Speaker 2: that's mostly at the gym. Well, one of my work
- 3:03Speaker 2: friends mentioned her daughter was starting a career as a
- 3:06Speaker 2: nurse and she needed to set up her benefits and
- 3:09Speaker 2: most importantly, her four H three B account for retirement,
- 3:12Speaker 2: and she needed to set up her HSA. I told
- 3:15Speaker 2: her that I could help, since I'm kind of a
- 3:17Speaker 2: geek in that realm and I've had to handle that
- 3:19Speaker 2: stuff on my own for quite a while when I
- 3:21Speaker 2: was self employed. So we made a plan to meet
- 3:24Speaker 2: up at the gym in the community area and get
- 3:27Speaker 2: all of her stuff signed up and ready to plan
- 3:29Speaker 2: for her future. In doing so, I parked in a
- 3:33Speaker 2: lot behind the gym instead of in the front where
- 3:35Speaker 2: I usually park. Now, as we navigated through her onboarding
- 3:39Speaker 2: for her job and got her retirement contribution squared away
- 3:42Speaker 2: and her HSA on the way to being funded, I
- 3:45Speaker 2: was reminded of how often we don't prepare young people
- 3:48Speaker 2: for the world of finance. This is such a failure
- 3:52Speaker 2: on our part. Anyway, it didn't take long and she
- 3:55Speaker 2: was good to go, so I left her to go
- 3:57Speaker 2: work out, which I did. When I got down to
- 4:00Speaker 2: the locker room to change to go hit the steam
- 4:02Speaker 2: room for a little sweat session, I did something I
- 4:05Speaker 2: do a lot. I bent over to pick up my
- 4:08Speaker 2: shoes and I hit the top of my head square
- 4:12Speaker 2: on this stupid little metal tab you know that sticks
- 4:15Speaker 2: out of the locker so you can lock it now.
- 4:18Speaker 2: I do this like once every couple of weeks, and
- 4:21Speaker 2: it's one of those self inflicted injuries that hurts like
- 4:24Speaker 2: a mother bleeper, as my kids might say, But you
- 4:27Speaker 2: can't show it because you're at the gym in any
- 4:29Speaker 2: kind of weakness might draw in the hyenas. Or I
- 4:32Speaker 2: guess it's just embarrassing as hell to make a habit
- 4:34Speaker 2: out of whacking your skull on a part of a
- 4:36Speaker 2: locker with enough frequency that it doesn't even surprise you
- 4:39Speaker 2: anymore when you do it. After nursing my head wound
- 4:43Speaker 2: in the steam room, I showered up, headed to the
- 4:45Speaker 2: parking lot, and my heart fell right out of my
- 4:48Speaker 2: ass as I looked around and realized that my truck
- 4:51Speaker 2: was just gone, just vanished. I stood there for a
- 4:55Speaker 2: minute or so thinking about how sometimes it seems the
- 4:57Speaker 2: world is out to get you and it's just barely
- 5:00Speaker 2: worth keeping going, and if you could hit the eject button,
- 5:03Speaker 2: how bad could it really be? And well, I worked
- 5:07Speaker 2: myself into a pretty wild frenzy thinking about the ways
- 5:10Speaker 2: I tortured the freaking weasels who took my truck. When
- 5:13Speaker 2: it hit me that I had actually parked in the
- 5:15Speaker 2: back lot and my truck was just on the other
- 5:18Speaker 2: side of the building and not currently being used in
- 5:21Speaker 2: a multi state crime spree. I felt as dumb then
- 5:26Speaker 2: as I did in a more recent conversation I had
- 5:29Speaker 2: with my wife where I mentioned that we should probably
- 5:32Speaker 2: have more quickies in our marriage. But she thought I
- 5:35Speaker 2: said cookies because we had a small argument earlier in
- 5:39Speaker 2: the day over a huge chocolate chip cookie. So she
- 5:43Speaker 2: got real excited, and then I got real excited because
- 5:47Speaker 2: I expected a much bigger fight. For at least a minute,
- 5:51Speaker 2: we both lived in a world where it was like
- 5:53Speaker 2: we were witnessing our first beautiful sunrise. And then I
- 5:57Speaker 2: realized that there's no way this is going good, and
- 6:01Speaker 2: I pretty quickly figured out we were not on the
- 6:03Speaker 2: same page at all. We are all dumb, my friends,
- 6:09Speaker 2: just in fun and creative ways. That makes life a
- 6:11Speaker 2: little harder to handle on a daily basis. While I
- 6:15Speaker 2: might not have the spatial awareness to not repeatedly give
- 6:18Speaker 2: myself a traumatic brain injury, or remember where my truck
- 6:22Speaker 2: is parked, which, now that I think about it, might
- 6:24Speaker 2: be related, I am a pretty smart fella in the
- 6:28Speaker 2: deer woods. You guys know that, otherwise you wouldn't listen
- 6:31Speaker 2: to this podcast. But here's the real truth. I'm pretty
- 6:34Speaker 2: dumb in the woods too, and I bet you are
- 6:36Speaker 2: as well. You know that sweet story I told about
- 6:40Speaker 2: the slight change in elevation, those big woods bucks follow
- 6:43Speaker 2: and how I'm gonna kill one right there this fall.
- 6:46Speaker 2: That wasn't dumb. It's actually a pretty sweet partial mystery
- 6:50Speaker 2: to solve. But I had way underestimated what was going
- 6:54Speaker 2: on there to understand why you have to visualize what
- 6:58Speaker 2: that property consists of and what the neighbors have on
- 7:01Speaker 2: their ground. I'll try to explain this in a short
- 7:05Speaker 2: and concise way so I don't suddenly break into Mark's
- 7:08Speaker 2: habit of talking about a bedding area you've never seen
- 7:11Speaker 2: that features western deer movement with a northern wind, but
- 7:14Speaker 2: only if he accesses it from the south during a
- 7:16Speaker 2: high pressure front that also creates thermals and then draws
- 7:18Speaker 2: some of the deer from the east to also visit
- 7:21Speaker 2: the secondary bedding area that can only be approached from
- 7:23Speaker 2: the northwest on a full moon, but only after the
- 7:25Speaker 2: neighboring farmer has picked as beans. You guys know what
- 7:28Speaker 2: I mean. This property of mine is thirty acres. There
- 7:31Speaker 2: is a forty to the east and a ten acre
- 7:33Speaker 2: proper to the west. The southern boundary is a gravel road,
- 7:38Speaker 2: which is where all the houses are and all the
- 7:40Speaker 2: access is. To the north is a huge swamp that
- 7:43Speaker 2: covers a couple of sections close to the road. On
- 7:46Speaker 2: the south end, I have a small food plot, so
- 7:49Speaker 2: does the neighbor to my east, and my neighbors on
- 7:52Speaker 2: the west have a small hay field. And the most
- 7:55Speaker 2: annoying rooster I've ever seen that I would strangle with
- 7:58Speaker 2: my bare hands if he walked by my bloe. I
- 8:01Speaker 2: hate that freaking chicken so much so. In other words,
- 8:05Speaker 2: the south end of all three of our properties contains
- 8:08Speaker 2: most of the human activity, which means it contains most
- 8:12Speaker 2: of the hunting activity. This wasn't planned, it's just how
- 8:15Speaker 2: it worked out. It also worked out that there's a
- 8:28Speaker 2: band of higher, totally wooded and thick as hell ground
- 8:32Speaker 2: between where we mostly hunt and where the huge swamp is.
- 8:36Speaker 2: What I had attributed to a high level of understanding
- 8:40Speaker 2: of how deer use elevation was actually far more interesting.
- 8:45Speaker 2: They slipped through there to avoid me and the neighbors,
- 8:48Speaker 2: all of whom hunt. Scratch that, all of whom hunt
- 8:51Speaker 2: damn near the same way, in the same type of spots.
- 8:55Speaker 2: The bucks there that want to avoid us get a
- 8:58Speaker 2: three for one day on those properties because we all
- 9:01Speaker 2: allow ourselves to be patterned in the same way. Of course,
- 9:05Speaker 2: I didn't fully grasp this until I was sitting in
- 9:08Speaker 2: a Redneck blind in March with one of my daughters
- 9:10Speaker 2: trying to glass up some turkeys. When three shed bucks
- 9:13Speaker 2: and two does came out. They stared at the blind,
- 9:17Speaker 2: fed around, and generally treated the blind like they'd get
- 9:20Speaker 2: murdered if they got too close, which you know is
- 9:23Speaker 2: a pretty solid plan since so many deer have been
- 9:25Speaker 2: shot from that spot even months after the last days
- 9:29Speaker 2: of the season. Those deer are concerned with a spot
- 9:32Speaker 2: they associate with hunting pressure in a home range of
- 9:36Speaker 2: a square mile. Try to imagine how many places they
- 9:39Speaker 2: know of like that. Try to imagine how many areas
- 9:43Speaker 2: a mature buck with five or six seasons under his
- 9:46Speaker 2: belt believes he needs to avoid on a daily basis,
- 9:49Speaker 2: or at least throughout the fall to stay safe in
- 9:52Speaker 2: some areas, those regions with high hunting pressure. I bet
- 9:56Speaker 2: that's dozens and dozens of locations. I bet, just like
- 10:00Speaker 2: that situation in Wisconsin where I hunt, they are also
- 10:03Speaker 2: just bands of cover that the bucks use while you
- 10:06Speaker 2: and your hunting competition go to other areas and tip
- 10:09Speaker 2: your hand of the deer because here's the thing, we
- 10:13Speaker 2: want deer to be where we want to hunt. I
- 10:16Speaker 2: firmly believe this is why so many hunters lean so
- 10:18Speaker 2: heavily on the rut movement, and why so many hunters
- 10:21Speaker 2: do not fill their tags during the rut It's not
- 10:25Speaker 2: just that the bucks will be moving in daylight more vulnerable,
- 10:29Speaker 2: it's that we believe that means the bucks will move
- 10:31Speaker 2: to the places where we want to hunt them. It's
- 10:34Speaker 2: like the rut makes every stand sit a first sit
- 10:38Speaker 2: of the year, every day kind of thing. But it
- 10:41Speaker 2: doesn't work that way. Jaded deer that have been through
- 10:44Speaker 2: a few seasons of real pressure, they don't suddenly risk
- 10:47Speaker 2: at all for the biscuit. Well, if there is a
- 10:50Speaker 2: hot dough, they will, but the odds of you being
- 10:52Speaker 2: where the hottest doll in the woods is at the
- 10:54Speaker 2: time she's most down to clown with the bucks are
- 10:57Speaker 2: pretty low. We tend to gravitate towards the easier setups,
- 11:01Speaker 2: into places with a good view that just provide a comfortable,
- 11:04Speaker 2: familiar hunt, and then we hope the rut convinces bucks
- 11:07Speaker 2: that they should definitely go to those spots, and they
- 11:10Speaker 2: sometimes do, but they oftentimes don't. So in other words,
- 11:15Speaker 2: we hunt the spots where most of the deer go,
- 11:18Speaker 2: and we hope that mature bucks go there too, But
- 11:21Speaker 2: that's not really how it works for most of us, unfortunately.
- 11:25Speaker 2: Think about it this way. How often do you see
- 11:28Speaker 2: mature bucks outside of the rut, or even during the rut.
- 11:32Speaker 2: What's the real frequency? Now, how often do you hunt
- 11:37Speaker 2: spots and see some deer? Probably hopefully somewhat frequently. We
- 11:42Speaker 2: often assume the disconnect here is that there are a
- 11:45Speaker 2: lot more dos and four ky's out there than there
- 11:47Speaker 2: are one hundred and fifty inches, which is true, But
- 11:50Speaker 2: we also forget that the deer that most want to
- 11:53Speaker 2: survive are the older ones who have dealt with us
- 11:55Speaker 2: and other hunters for a long long time. They know
- 11:59Speaker 2: what we do and they go where we don't. They
- 12:02Speaker 2: do this to you and your neighbors and the folks
- 12:05Speaker 2: you've never met who bohunt three properties away from you.
- 12:08Speaker 2: They are masters at avoiding the spots you like during
- 12:12Speaker 2: the hours when you can see your site pins without
- 12:14Speaker 2: using a light. We encourage this during the season by
- 12:18Speaker 2: hunting our usual spots, but we also reinforce this with
- 12:22Speaker 2: our presence during the off season because we tend to
- 12:24Speaker 2: go to those areas more than anywhere else. We literally
- 12:28Speaker 2: give them a year round education, and they are very
- 12:31Speaker 2: good students. Now, the real rub here is that we
- 12:35Speaker 2: think we don't do this, and even if we know
- 12:38Speaker 2: we do this, we think we can overcome it by
- 12:41Speaker 2: using a better scent control or putting out some cent wix,
- 12:44Speaker 2: or waiting for the new moon in a cold Front's sure,
- 12:48Speaker 2: you know you can tip the odds in your favor
- 12:50Speaker 2: and you might get lucky during the rut. But a
- 12:52Speaker 2: better way to look at it is to get out
- 12:54Speaker 2: there and try to understand how the deer avoid you.
- 12:56Speaker 2: And you're a competition. Where are the locations of buck
- 13:00Speaker 2: might travel in late September or mid October. You find
- 13:04Speaker 2: those spots and you have a fighting chance of being
- 13:07Speaker 2: in the game all season long, and guess what, having
- 13:11Speaker 2: a hell of a lot better chance to kill one
- 13:13Speaker 2: during the rut as well. The best way to do
- 13:16Speaker 2: this is to combine boots on the ground scouting with
- 13:19Speaker 2: ET scouting. Honestly, that's actually the answer to most of
- 13:22Speaker 2: our deer problems. But it's a hell of a lot
- 13:24Speaker 2: easier to bang those rattling antlers together and hope a
- 13:27Speaker 2: nearby buck wants to throw hands or I guess hoofs.
- 13:30Speaker 2: The reason you need the eat scouting aspect is because
- 13:33Speaker 2: you can scout the neighboring properties. If you looked at
- 13:36Speaker 2: my property on satellite imagery, you'd see my food plot
- 13:39Speaker 2: and the neighbor's food plot, and the other neighbors small field.
- 13:42Speaker 2: You'd see the giant swamp to the north. It would
- 13:44Speaker 2: on a macro level look kind of like the hunting
- 13:47Speaker 2: pressure and human activity is all sort of centered in
- 13:49Speaker 2: the same line, and the best cover is to the north.
- 13:53Speaker 2: It's kind of simple, but also kind of not. In
- 13:57Speaker 2: a different scenario, you might have small patches of timbers
- 14:00Speaker 2: brought out like islands in a sea of agg or
- 14:02Speaker 2: you might be down south and trying to figure out
- 14:04Speaker 2: swamp books where most of the land offers the same
- 14:07Speaker 2: kind of stuff. The et scouting aspect allows you to
- 14:10Speaker 2: see these areas in a way where you can come
- 14:12Speaker 2: up with a rough idea of how deer might move
- 14:15Speaker 2: through on their way to the stuff they like, but
- 14:18Speaker 2: also how people might get into or move through it.
- 14:22Speaker 2: You know, the same cover, then you got to get
- 14:24Speaker 2: in there, and you got to get that micro look. Now.
- 14:27Speaker 2: I know this sounds like generic scouting advice, because it is.
- 14:30Speaker 2: We aren't inventing the wheel here. But the goal isn't
- 14:33Speaker 2: to go out and find some rubs and decide that's
- 14:35Speaker 2: good enough. The goal is to try to figure out
- 14:37Speaker 2: where the hunting concentration is and how deer avoid it.
- 14:41Speaker 2: If you have a food plot with a box blind
- 14:43Speaker 2: on it, this is a pretty simple task because the
- 14:45Speaker 2: deer will probably show you just how easily they avoid
- 14:48Speaker 2: your presence. The next closest cover to your setup, it's
- 14:52Speaker 2: going to have some sign. The next closest thick cover
- 14:55Speaker 2: will probably have more sign and more trails that allow
- 14:58Speaker 2: the deer to pass by without getting spot. We often
- 15:02Speaker 2: use those findings to validate our strategy to sit where
- 15:05Speaker 2: we want to sit, because, after all, look at that
- 15:07Speaker 2: huge community scrape and all those rubs just one hundred
- 15:09Speaker 2: and twenty five yards downhill from the kill plot. That's
- 15:13Speaker 2: not necessarily evidence of deer that will visit the plot
- 15:16Speaker 2: when you're hunting there, though, it's very likely it's evidence
- 15:19Speaker 2: of deer doing things to avoid you while waiting for
- 15:23Speaker 2: you to get out of there. I hope that makes sense,
- 15:26Speaker 2: because I believe it's true. I believe we often win
- 15:29Speaker 2: our scout to confirm what we want to believe, But
- 15:32Speaker 2: those findings might not jive with our hunts and our sightings,
- 15:35Speaker 2: and the deer we killer don't kill. In those cases,
- 15:38Speaker 2: we have to ask ourselves why the answer is almost
- 15:41Speaker 2: always because we are doing what we like to do.
- 15:44Speaker 2: The deer figure that out, and so they do what
- 15:46Speaker 2: they have to in order to avoid us and anyone
- 15:49Speaker 2: else who might be staged up in the area trying
- 15:51Speaker 2: to kill them. In reality, what I'm saying is that
- 15:55Speaker 2: there is a window of time right now to try
- 15:58Speaker 2: to gain some insight into how the deer might avoid.
- 16:00Speaker 2: This is really just scouting with a different mindset while
- 16:03Speaker 2: trying to piece together a plan for next season that
- 16:05Speaker 2: allows you to break out of your traditional setups and
- 16:07Speaker 2: try something new. Here's the last thing I'll say about that.
- 16:12Speaker 2: Go actually do this if you want to have a
- 16:15Speaker 2: better season. I know it's easy to get distracted and
- 16:18Speaker 2: decide that scouting can happen later, but it won't be
- 16:20Speaker 2: the same thing. You're not going to go into the
- 16:22Speaker 2: woods in July and figure this out. By then, It's
- 16:26Speaker 2: way too late. It'll be too easy to default to
- 16:29Speaker 2: your usual setups during the hunting season. Instead, make an
- 16:33Speaker 2: effort to understand this now. Because the deer don't expect
- 16:36Speaker 2: you to change your habits, and the other hunters you
- 16:38Speaker 2: share the woods with you know they're not likely to
- 16:41Speaker 2: change either. It's up to you to be different, acknowledge
- 16:44Speaker 2: the stupid choices we all make when it comes to
- 16:46Speaker 2: our setups, and try something that might surprise the bucks.
- 16:50Speaker 2: Do it and come back next week because I'm going
- 16:53Speaker 2: to talk about recognizing patterns in the whitetail world in
- 16:56Speaker 2: a way that might not be totally obvious at first.
- 17:01Speaker 2: That's it. I'm Tony Peterson. This has been the Wired
- 17:03Speaker 2: to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which is brought to you by
- 17:06Speaker 2: First Light. As always, thank you so much for listening
- 17:09Speaker 2: and for all your support. Means the world to us
- 17:11Speaker 2: at Mediator here, so thank you for that. If you
- 17:14Speaker 2: want some more white tail content, articles, videos, episodes, head
- 17:18Speaker 2: over to the mediat dot com. While you're there, you're
- 17:20Speaker 2: going to see a bunch of turkey hunting content. You'll
- 17:23Speaker 2: see all kinds of podcasts, videos, articles, you name it.
- 17:27Speaker 2: Maybe you just need a new recipe for how to
- 17:29Speaker 2: cook up that gobbler you just killed. Whatever, The mediator
- 17:32Speaker 2: dot com is where it's at. Again, thank you so
- 17:34Speaker 2: much for all your support.