Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 784: Foundations - The Way to a Buck's Heart Probably Isn't Through His Stomach

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Ep. 784: Foundations - The Way to a Buck's Heart Probably Isn't Through His Stomach · 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,
0:22
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by first Sight. I'm your host,
0:24
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and this week's show is all about food plots,
0:27
Speaker 2: mineral licks, bait sites, and all of the ways we
0:30
Speaker 2: think we really help deer but kind of don't. This
0:41
Speaker 2: is the time of year when a lot of white
0:43
Speaker 2: tail hunters go pretty heavy into the land management world
0:45
Speaker 2: when it comes to food plots. Aside from nearly ubiquitous
0:49
Speaker 2: usage of trail cameras and more recently box blinds, I
0:53
Speaker 2: don't know if there is something that has become more
0:54
Speaker 2: common in whitetail hunting than food plots have in the
0:57
Speaker 2: last twenty years. Of course, there's also the mineral lick
1:01
Speaker 2: thing and bait piles or hem supplemental feeding that goes
1:06
Speaker 2: into the whole late spring early summer thing too. All
1:09
Speaker 2: of that stuff is on the agenda for today, but
1:11
Speaker 2: I also want to talk about why we think we
1:13
Speaker 2: need to do these things and how we probably really don't.
1:28
Speaker 2: People are weird. If that's too vague, let me go
1:32
Speaker 2: off here for a second. There's a fella you probably
1:35
Speaker 2: haven't heard of who died in two thousand and seven,
1:38
Speaker 2: but before that he was known as Monsieur Manjetous, or
1:44
Speaker 2: for the non French speaking amongst us, mister eat All.
1:48
Speaker 2: I love it when a nickname gets right to the point.
1:51
Speaker 2: And Michael lo Tito or Michelle lo Tito, I guess
1:55
Speaker 2: mister eat All was a guy who would really eat
1:59
Speaker 2: it all. From the time he was a child, he
2:02
Speaker 2: figured out that he could eat non food items without
2:04
Speaker 2: any negative repercussions, which is really something when you consider
2:08
Speaker 2: the first non food item he ate was a broken
2:12
Speaker 2: glass that he was drinking from. Now imagine just for
2:16
Speaker 2: a second, all you folks listening who have kids, and
2:19
Speaker 2: you find out one of them broke a glass and
2:22
Speaker 2: the way to clean it up was to eat it naturally.
2:26
Speaker 2: He was examined by a few physicians over the course
2:28
Speaker 2: of his life, and they found that he had an
2:30
Speaker 2: abnormally thick lining to his stomach and intestines, which is
2:34
Speaker 2: pretty wild, but not as wild as the fact that
2:38
Speaker 2: the dude literally ate eighteen bicycles, several television sets, grocery
2:43
Speaker 2: store carts, skis, chandeliers, a coffin, and the kicker a
2:49
Speaker 2: whole freaking airplane. It took him two years to eat
2:53
Speaker 2: the plane, but he managed to eat the whole thing.
2:56
Speaker 2: In his life, he ate over nine tons of metal.
3:00
Speaker 2: Here's a plot twist with mister eat All. He struggled
3:04
Speaker 2: eating soft foods and had a hell of a time
3:06
Speaker 2: getting things like bananas down. Other than most likely being
3:10
Speaker 2: certifiably cuckoo for cocoa puffs, mister eat All suffered from
3:14
Speaker 2: a condition called pika. This is something that mostly affects
3:18
Speaker 2: pregnant women and children, where they'll seek out chalk or
3:22
Speaker 2: dirt or dried paint or flakes of metal. This is
3:25
Speaker 2: actually an eating disorder and can signal greater issues than
3:28
Speaker 2: just an appetite for non food items. It's also a
3:31
Speaker 2: hallmark of someone who eats a lot of ice, so
3:34
Speaker 2: as being anemec. Now, this is how you know my
3:37
Speaker 2: wife never listens to this podcast because I'm going to
3:40
Speaker 2: talk about some medical issues she's had for a while
3:43
Speaker 2: that we're just kind of getting sorted out. Now. Behind
3:46
Speaker 2: these issues with her is a craving for ice. And
3:50
Speaker 2: when I say that, I kind of mean that in
3:54
Speaker 2: a way where you would be like, hey, Tony kind
3:57
Speaker 2: of likes deer hunting. Now, when I say that, you're
4:01
Speaker 2: probably like, hey, you know my black labs like to
4:04
Speaker 2: chomp on an ice cube too. It's cute while partner,
4:08
Speaker 2: it's not cute when you're sitting on the couch at
4:10
Speaker 2: the end of the day and you hear that spoom
4:12
Speaker 2: clinking in that glass and ice and then chomp, chomp, chomp, crunch, crunch, crunch, lather, rinse, repeat.
4:19
Speaker 2: I'm sure spouses have been murdered for worse reasons, but
4:22
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure I have PTSD from listening to her
4:25
Speaker 2: eat ice for several years now. It's a sound that
4:28
Speaker 2: makes me instantly redline, And even when I try to
4:32
Speaker 2: ignore it, it's like I just can't now. As you
4:35
Speaker 2: can imagine, or you know, if you're young and excited
4:38
Speaker 2: to get married, because it's going to be all roses
4:40
Speaker 2: and unicorns, you'll eventually see something like that can really
4:44
Speaker 2: drive a wedge between two people in a relationship. Couple
4:48
Speaker 2: that with the reality that she's been crazy tired the
4:50
Speaker 2: last couple of years, to the point where me, a
4:53
Speaker 2: guy who happens to be a mid level outdoor writer
4:56
Speaker 2: with zero qualifications to give health advice, had to beg her,
5:00
Speaker 2: a physical therapist with a doctorate an exercise science, to
5:04
Speaker 2: go to the doctor and figure out what's wrong, because
5:06
Speaker 2: something is wrong. Anyway, She finally did, and it's all
5:11
Speaker 2: getting sorted out, and hopefully when we were on the
5:13
Speaker 2: other side, I won't have such murderous thoughts about her
5:16
Speaker 2: because she won't need to chomp ice in my freaking
5:18
Speaker 2: ear all night long. People are weird, but you know what,
5:22
Speaker 2: we tend to figure out how to get what we
5:24
Speaker 2: need to keep our bodies running. Scratch that, we don't
5:28
Speaker 2: really figure anything out about our bodies. Our subconscious just
5:32
Speaker 2: seems to figure it out for us, and it creates
5:34
Speaker 2: some cravings and then we kind of just listen to them.
5:37
Speaker 2: It works sometimes, but also definitely doesn't work for a
5:40
Speaker 2: lot of people. This is because we are generally kind
5:43
Speaker 2: of dumb with food, but also because we have so
5:45
Speaker 2: many options. That's not the case with Deer, well not really. Actually,
5:51
Speaker 2: I don't know if I can say that with confidence
5:53
Speaker 2: because I'm not a deer, and sometimes someone gets a
5:56
Speaker 2: video of a deer eating something that's just not normal
5:59
Speaker 2: at all, like a baby bird or a mouse or something. Generally, though,
6:03
Speaker 2: they seem to go where the greenery is best for
6:05
Speaker 2: them this time of year, and since it's the right
6:07
Speaker 2: time of year for it, they have a lot of
6:09
Speaker 2: food options to provide themselves with the minerals and nutrients
6:12
Speaker 2: they need. But then we come along and say they
6:16
Speaker 2: need more. I'm going to be a good steward of
6:19
Speaker 2: the land and give them something extra special. The easiest
6:22
Speaker 2: way to do this is to give them a salt
6:24
Speaker 2: block or a mineral lick. Now, when it comes to
6:26
Speaker 2: a salt block spring in summer, white tails seek them
6:28
Speaker 2: out for a few reasons. Bucks need them to support
6:33
Speaker 2: antler and muscle growth, dose need them to give their
6:36
Speaker 2: bodies a boost when they are carrying the weight of
6:38
Speaker 2: keeping some fawns alive. All deer use salt to create
6:42
Speaker 2: hydrochloric acid, which helps with digestin. They can find salt
6:46
Speaker 2: and natural mineral deposits and they are very good at it.
6:49
Speaker 2: So do we need to put out salt blocks or
6:51
Speaker 2: mineral licks. Probably not. Now they aren't even legal in
6:55
Speaker 2: every state, which is a good thing to know. There
6:58
Speaker 2: also isn't a whole lot of evident that suggests providing
7:01
Speaker 2: mineral licks does them much more good than just letting
7:04
Speaker 2: them go at this problem alone and figure it out
7:07
Speaker 2: the way they have for several million years. We use
7:10
Speaker 2: minerals under the guise of helping the deer, but the
7:13
Speaker 2: truth is you're probably not going to take a buck
7:16
Speaker 2: from a potential one point fifty to you know booner's status.
7:20
Speaker 2: Just by heading the shields and buying a mineral block,
7:23
Speaker 2: you will create one hell of a spot to run
7:25
Speaker 2: a trail camera and start building your summer inventory, which,
7:28
Speaker 2: as long as it's legal, might be the only reason
7:31
Speaker 2: most of us would consider this. Now, with CWD regulations
7:35
Speaker 2: in most of the states I hunt, this isn't an
7:37
Speaker 2: option anymore, and I don't really care. I don't miss it.
7:40
Speaker 2: I didn't like putting out something that I knew would
7:42
Speaker 2: concentrate deer when I couldn't hunt them, and then become
7:46
Speaker 2: way less of a deer draw when I could no
7:49
Speaker 2: not much of a hitlister. So it was just mostly
7:51
Speaker 2: something to do in the summer to get some pictures
7:53
Speaker 2: but I didn't really care about it. No way more
7:56
Speaker 2: popular than mineral licks these days are food plots. We
8:00
Speaker 2: have destination plots and kill plots, and late season plots
8:03
Speaker 2: and early season plots and you name it. Planning something
8:06
Speaker 2: for deer is big business, and a hell of a
8:08
Speaker 2: lot of people are into it. It's also totally unnecessary
8:13
Speaker 2: as far as deer survival is concerned. Well, maybe not
8:17
Speaker 2: totally unnecessary, but it's damn close. I guess you could
8:20
Speaker 2: argue that in areas with severe winter, the right type
8:23
Speaker 2: of brassica plot or maybe a plot full of standing
8:25
Speaker 2: corn could definitely help carry the local herd through, which
8:29
Speaker 2: directly translates to better survival. Mostly, though, plots are something
8:33
Speaker 2: we do so we have an awesome spot to hunt
8:36
Speaker 2: in the fall, and that's probably a good enough reason
8:39
Speaker 2: without us saying we do it to give the fauns
8:42
Speaker 2: some clover or keep the deer herd healthy. Deer have
8:46
Speaker 2: been able to stay real healthy without us filling up
8:48
Speaker 2: the buffet for a long time. And if there's one
8:51
Speaker 2: thing that's the hallmark of a white tail, it's their
8:54
Speaker 2: ability to adapt and survive. They make a lot of
8:58
Speaker 2: those Western critters all the Bozeman. Dorks here at Meat
9:01
Speaker 2: Eater think are so special look like amateurs in that department.
9:18
Speaker 2: The white Tail has a diverse diet and most of
9:21
Speaker 2: the year it's only job is to find safe spaces
9:24
Speaker 2: to munch on a variety of different foods. Plots generally
9:28
Speaker 2: are for us, not them. But you know what, that's okay,
9:33
Speaker 2: that's great. I feel sorry for anyone who hasn't had
9:35
Speaker 2: the chance to create a plot and work it, because
9:38
Speaker 2: it's some of the most fun you'll have in the
9:39
Speaker 2: off season. I say this as a staunchly mediocre food
9:43
Speaker 2: plot guy. I'm not interested in being a gardener, and
9:47
Speaker 2: while I love trees and plants in general because that's
9:50
Speaker 2: what's out in the places I love to be, I
9:53
Speaker 2: have very little desire to babysit them, and even less
9:56
Speaker 2: desire to hunt over the plants I have babysat just
9:58
Speaker 2: to get some deer to walk by, I mean, but
10:01
Speaker 2: when it comes to my daughters and just finding something
10:04
Speaker 2: to do in the spring and summer that will get
10:06
Speaker 2: me into the woods, I love food plots. The feeling
10:09
Speaker 2: of seeing a bed of clover sprout, or walking in
10:12
Speaker 2: during the summer to cut the weeds down or just
10:14
Speaker 2: sitting there and opening night with one of my girls
10:16
Speaker 2: waiting on a spike or a doda walk in is
10:19
Speaker 2: pretty awesome. Now. I think that outdoor television and the
10:22
Speaker 2: fact that most hunting media comes from folks who have
10:25
Speaker 2: really good places to hunt, has skewed the perspective on
10:28
Speaker 2: food plots. They look almost too good to be true
10:32
Speaker 2: when you see them filled up with giant eyewoder, but
10:36
Speaker 2: that's just not reality, and we all really kind of
10:39
Speaker 2: know it. Most of us could put in an unbelievable
10:42
Speaker 2: amount of time into food plots and not achieve three
10:45
Speaker 2: percent of the results that some folks who really know
10:48
Speaker 2: how to grow white tails end up getting. This makes
10:52
Speaker 2: it seem like plots are solely built to kill white tails,
10:55
Speaker 2: and I guess a lot of them are, but they
10:58
Speaker 2: don't work that way, at least often they don't. They
11:01
Speaker 2: work to get us to hunt the same areas over
11:04
Speaker 2: and over on the hopes that a hungry dough will
11:06
Speaker 2: draw a horny buck in, but mostly it shakes out
11:09
Speaker 2: to the deer figure out where we volume hunt and
11:12
Speaker 2: they avoid that spot in daylight. Then we get more
11:15
Speaker 2: nighttime pictures, which further reinforces what we want to do,
11:19
Speaker 2: which is sit the plot. We want to wait out
11:22
Speaker 2: a big one in daylight, because after all, he's there
11:24
Speaker 2: four nights in a row right after dark. It's just
11:27
Speaker 2: a matter of time, right, right, Sometimes but mostly no,
11:33
Speaker 2: that's okay, though you might just have to reframe how
11:36
Speaker 2: you look at this stuff. Putting in a plot and
11:39
Speaker 2: working it is well work. This is true of big plots,
11:42
Speaker 2: of course, but also small kill plots, which are kind
11:45
Speaker 2: of my specialty. And by that I mean they're the
11:47
Speaker 2: only ones I can create because of the land I
11:49
Speaker 2: have to work with and the limited amount of machinery
11:52
Speaker 2: I have, which mostly boils down to my body in
11:54
Speaker 2: a brushcutter. And if I'm really lucky a buddy with
11:57
Speaker 2: a chainsaw. Deer don't need us to put food plots in,
12:01
Speaker 2: and honestly would probably benefit more if we took that
12:04
Speaker 2: time and money and dumped it into timber stand improvement projects.
12:08
Speaker 2: They are good at finding food in a variety of
12:11
Speaker 2: environments and would probably do better with quality betting areas
12:14
Speaker 2: and fawning grounds and the just increased ability to avoid
12:18
Speaker 2: predators more easily. But where's the fun in that when
12:22
Speaker 2: you can create a spot where deer might go to
12:25
Speaker 2: in order to fill their bellies during daylight. And I
12:28
Speaker 2: don't want to discourage anyone from doing this, but to
12:31
Speaker 2: instead encourage them to understand what they're really doing. They
12:34
Speaker 2: aren't helping the deer a whole lot. But you can
12:37
Speaker 2: argue both ways of that, and I'd be open to it.
12:39
Speaker 2: But you are getting into the woods to work and
12:42
Speaker 2: put in some sweat equity, and that's important. They're finding
12:46
Speaker 2: a hell of a reason to be out where life
12:48
Speaker 2: is good, and that, coupled with some caveman tasks, is
12:51
Speaker 2: a great way to spend some time every month. In
12:54
Speaker 2: that regard, it really doesn't matter if the deer need
12:57
Speaker 2: the clover or oats or whatever, or if it's mostly
13:00
Speaker 2: an exercise in getting some work done in a cool environment. Plus,
13:04
Speaker 2: if you have kids, the right plot can put a
13:06
Speaker 2: deer in front of them in a way that is
13:08
Speaker 2: just fun. That's been the most enjoyable part of my
13:11
Speaker 2: food plot journey, and I can tell you second place
13:14
Speaker 2: is not even close. It's not as effective as baiting,
13:17
Speaker 2: which is something else a lot of folks do when
13:19
Speaker 2: they can. Some states you can bait all through the fall,
13:23
Speaker 2: while in others you can supplemental feed in the off season,
13:26
Speaker 2: but I have to close the whole thing down before
13:28
Speaker 2: the opener, oftentimes a set amount of days before the opener.
13:31
Speaker 2: I look at supplemental feeding in the summer very similarly
13:34
Speaker 2: to running a mineral station. If it's legal and you
13:37
Speaker 2: want to do it, go nuts. I guess again, it's
13:40
Speaker 2: pretty unnecessary and not all that easy to do legally
13:43
Speaker 2: given the CWD regulations in so many states, But it
13:46
Speaker 2: is an option somewhere, and you might live there. And
13:49
Speaker 2: if you do this, remember what you're actually doing. You're
13:53
Speaker 2: concentrating the deer in the off season to fill up
13:55
Speaker 2: your trail cameras. Summertime, deer don't need an extra pilot
13:58
Speaker 2: corner apples to survive. They'll take it. They don't need it.
14:03
Speaker 2: If you can't keep that bait going on through the fall,
14:06
Speaker 2: what you're doing is giving yourself a false read on
14:08
Speaker 2: deer movement. It's not a big deal either way, but
14:11
Speaker 2: remember that it's not helping them much and it might
14:13
Speaker 2: not be helping you very much. We do a lot
14:16
Speaker 2: of this stuff because we want to and we can,
14:19
Speaker 2: But as far as being a difference maker for overall
14:23
Speaker 2: success in the general hunting population. Most of these efforts
14:26
Speaker 2: don't produce great results. Now baiting does, of course, but
14:30
Speaker 2: in most places that's an exercise in bringing in dos
14:33
Speaker 2: in young bucks with the hopes that a big one
14:35
Speaker 2: screws up eventually. Where baiting is legal, it's usually very prevalent,
14:39
Speaker 2: and that means that any buck with a few seasons
14:41
Speaker 2: under is belt will tend to be a little cagy
14:44
Speaker 2: around a pile of the good stuff. You know, it's
14:47
Speaker 2: got a camera over it and sits twenty yards away
14:49
Speaker 2: from a ladder stand. Now, there is an argument to
14:52
Speaker 2: be made with salt or bait or even kill plots,
14:55
Speaker 2: at the very least that they show you where bucks
14:57
Speaker 2: approach from. Since you're going to run a camera on them,
15:00
Speaker 2: Maybe that intel leads you to finding a bedding area
15:03
Speaker 2: or a trail that he likes to use. Maybe it doesn't,
15:06
Speaker 2: but it's a possibility and it's a benefit. Can also
15:09
Speaker 2: show you the frequency in which a buck might be
15:10
Speaker 2: in your neighborhood, while something super attractive can feed you
15:15
Speaker 2: a false look into a buck's habits. There are situations
15:18
Speaker 2: where you might just get a picture of a certain
15:19
Speaker 2: deer once every week or every couple of weeks if
15:22
Speaker 2: you hunt small properties. This is probably more the rule
15:25
Speaker 2: than the exception. I guess my point with all of
15:28
Speaker 2: this is to look at what we think we're doing
15:30
Speaker 2: for the deer versus what those activities are doing for us,
15:34
Speaker 2: and whether they really matter to our hunting success. I
15:37
Speaker 2: think a lot of times we do things because we
15:38
Speaker 2: can or we think we're supposed to, but the number
15:41
Speaker 2: of tags we feel really never changes. In that case,
15:45
Speaker 2: the same old stuff or doing what everyone else seems
15:48
Speaker 2: to be doing might actually be holding us back. This
15:51
Speaker 2: is true in so many facets of deer hunting, but
15:54
Speaker 2: a category where it's highly prevalent is in the world
15:57
Speaker 2: where we try to provide them with some extra calories
15:59
Speaker 2: through whatever legal means are available. And I'd also say this,
16:04
Speaker 2: while food plots feel pretty safe for now, baiting and
16:07
Speaker 2: running mineral licks aren't methods of inventory gathering or hunting
16:11
Speaker 2: I'd be comfortable with over the long haul, just given
16:13
Speaker 2: the spread of CWD and the regulations that will follow
16:16
Speaker 2: wherever there's a positive test result. This is just another
16:20
Speaker 2: consideration because if you have a style that relies on
16:23
Speaker 2: those things, you know your hunting strategy might go away
16:26
Speaker 2: at any moment. Having a backup style or several never hurts,
16:31
Speaker 2: and you guys know how I feel about Plan B
16:34
Speaker 2: through Z. Anyway, that's it for this week. Come back
16:38
Speaker 2: next week because I'm going to talk about how the
16:40
Speaker 2: worst hunting, you know, the kind where we don't have
16:43
Speaker 2: any excuses to quit, makes us the best hunters and
16:46
Speaker 2: why that's so hard for so many people to handle.
16:50
Speaker 2: That's it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson. This has
16:52
Speaker 2: been the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast, which is brought
16:55
Speaker 2: to you by First Light. As always, thank you so
16:57
Speaker 2: much for listening. Truly appreciate your at every level of
17:01
Speaker 2: this thing. It's awesome to see you people show up
17:03
Speaker 2: and keep listening to the podcast and watching the videos,
17:07
Speaker 2: reading the articles. And if you're not doing that or
17:10
Speaker 2: you want to do more of it, the place to
17:12
Speaker 2: go is themeeteater dot com. Tons of articles, all the podcasts,
17:18
Speaker 2: you know. Go listen to Clay, go listen to meat
17:20
Speaker 2: Eater podcast, YouTube videos. You can see some stuff drop
17:25
Speaker 2: by me that's maybe not white to hunting, you know,
17:27
Speaker 2: check out a turkey show or maybe a phishing show.
17:30
Speaker 2: Lots of good stuff over there. Go check it out
17:31
Speaker 2: at the meeteater dot com