Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 686: Foundations - Bachelorette Groups
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,
- 0:25Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about why learning
- 0:28Speaker 2: what does do helps you kill bucks. They get no
- 0:42Speaker 2: love and it drives me nuts. I honestly think that
- 0:44Speaker 2: if those were as rare as mature bucks, they'd be
- 0:47Speaker 2: harder to kill the mature bucks. I know people will
- 0:49Speaker 2: laugh at that because it's situational like olive hunting. In
- 0:53Speaker 2: some places, killing does is as easy as picking an
- 0:56Speaker 2: evening to go sit on the food and then shooting one.
- 1:00Speaker 2: But in some places, killing a good buck is like
- 1:02Speaker 2: that too. In others lots of others, killing a dough
- 1:07Speaker 2: is as tough as any deer hunting challenge out there
- 1:09Speaker 2: are pretty damn clothes, But it's more than that. The
- 1:12Speaker 2: ladies of the deer herd can teach us a lot.
- 1:15Speaker 2: If we were willing to pay attention to them. And
- 1:17Speaker 2: that's what I'm really going to dive into this week.
- 1:29Speaker 2: I know you guys and gals think I'm super clever
- 1:32Speaker 2: at coming up with all this stuff on my own,
- 1:35Speaker 2: but sometimes someone around me will say something and that's
- 1:38Speaker 2: all I need to come up with an article or
- 1:39Speaker 2: a podcast. My kids do this to me fairly often.
- 1:43Speaker 2: I'll give you a couple examples. When my girls were
- 1:46Speaker 2: maybe six, I was cleaning out a wood duck house
- 1:48Speaker 2: in our backyard that hangs over our little pond. This
- 1:52Speaker 2: task involves getting up on a ladder, sweeping out the
- 1:54Speaker 2: old wood shavings, and refilling the box sometime in the
- 1:58Speaker 2: early spring. Often there's evidence of other critters using the
- 2:02Speaker 2: nesting box. At some point, a pair of gray squirrels
- 2:05Speaker 2: had had some babies in the duck apartment, but it
- 2:08Speaker 2: was clear that they had moved out. They had also
- 2:11Speaker 2: abandoned one of their youngsters, who was really dead and
- 2:14Speaker 2: really fascinating to my daughter. So we talked about squirrels,
- 2:18Speaker 2: all kinds of them, including pine squirrels and gray squirrels
- 2:21Speaker 2: and fox squirrels and even flying squirrels, which really caught
- 2:24Speaker 2: her attention. Later long after I had forgotten about the conversation,
- 2:28Speaker 2: I heard my daughter excitedly telling my wife about her conversation,
- 2:32Speaker 2: and at some point she said, there were flying dead
- 2:34Speaker 2: squirrels in there. Now, flying dead squirrels will be the
- 2:38Speaker 2: name of the parenting book I'll eventually write. My other daughter,
- 2:42Speaker 2: the one who casually blurted out that she could actually
- 2:44Speaker 2: smell the blood inside of me when we were driving
- 2:47Speaker 2: one time, said something else that I'll make into some
- 2:50Speaker 2: kind of content. At some point, she, along with her
- 2:53Speaker 2: sister and cousins, had been working hard on a ford
- 2:56Speaker 2: up at the lake. They scrounged up a couple of tarps,
- 2:59Speaker 2: some old chair cushions, and other sorted crap that just
- 3:02Speaker 2: seems to slowly accumulate in life. They're pretty into this
- 3:05Speaker 2: whole fort building thing, so into it that they talked
- 3:09Speaker 2: to my sister in law to taking them shopping for
- 3:11Speaker 2: supplies recently. And when I asked my daughter what they bought,
- 3:14Speaker 2: she quickly replied, hmmm, just fort snacks and fly traps.
- 3:19Speaker 2: Fort snacks and fly traps will be the inspiration for
- 3:22Speaker 2: something eventually, probably a podcast or an article, or maybe
- 3:26Speaker 2: I don't know, I'll start a punk band who knows
- 3:29Speaker 2: the thing is when you do what I do. Inspiration
- 3:32Speaker 2: is everywhere if you learn to look for it. Mark
- 3:35Speaker 2: hasn't really figured that out yet, but he's young and
- 3:38Speaker 2: we'll probably get there eventually as his slightly older and
- 3:42Speaker 2: much much wiser mentor I've learned to keep my ears
- 3:45Speaker 2: open for any such utterance that might light a spark
- 3:48Speaker 2: of an idea. This is what happened earlier this month
- 3:52Speaker 2: when I was packing up my spotting scope and my
- 3:54Speaker 2: camera gear on the edge of a beanfield in southeastern Minnesota.
- 3:59Speaker 2: My hunting partner Eric and I had posted up on
- 4:02Speaker 2: the edge to see if we could turn up a
- 4:04Speaker 2: bachelor group of big bucks. What we saw instead was
- 4:09Speaker 2: a few scrappers and a lot of does and fawns, which,
- 4:12Speaker 2: to our sadness, is what our cameras on that property
- 4:14Speaker 2: had been consistently showing us. As we walked out, we
- 4:18Speaker 2: pondered where the big boys might be, and Eric casually
- 4:21Speaker 2: said they definitely aren't hanging with a bachelorette group. There
- 4:27Speaker 2: you have it, a podcast is born. While he was
- 4:30Speaker 2: making a joke, he was also making a true observation, which,
- 4:34Speaker 2: if you really think about it, is the cornerstone of
- 4:37Speaker 2: so many good jokes, kind of like one of my
- 4:40Speaker 2: favorite lines in The Crossing, which is a book by
- 4:43Speaker 2: Cormack McCarthy that you should read because it's well pretty incredible. Anyway,
- 4:49Speaker 2: one of the characters in the book says something like
- 4:51Speaker 2: it would take one hell of a wife to beat
- 4:54Speaker 2: no wife at all, which, while it's one of my
- 4:56Speaker 2: favorite jokes, my wife actually doesn't think is very funny.
- 5:00Speaker 2: But you guys can probably also tell that my wife
- 5:03Speaker 2: never listens to any of my podcasts. The thing about
- 5:07Speaker 2: the Bachelorette group comment is this, the doze and bucks
- 5:12Speaker 2: often don't hang together much. This is true in the
- 5:15Speaker 2: world of white tails, it's true in the world of
- 5:17Speaker 2: elk antalope, meal deer, and you see it all the
- 5:20Speaker 2: time with turkeys. I wonder if it happens with fish. Now.
- 5:25Speaker 2: I know that all the critters will mix at some point,
- 5:27Speaker 2: otherwise we wouldn't have new little critters running around. But
- 5:31Speaker 2: nature often segregates itself in such a way, and there's
- 5:35Speaker 2: a lot to learn from that.
- 5:37Speaker 1: Hell.
- 5:38Speaker 2: Take dose, for example. I've already mentioned this, but I
- 5:41Speaker 2: believe it. If you can go kill pressure doze, mature
- 5:45Speaker 2: pressure dose, I should say, with I don't know, some
- 5:48Speaker 2: level of consistency, you can kill mature pressure bucks. I
- 5:53Speaker 2: know that doesn't seem true, but it is. If you're
- 5:57Speaker 2: good enough to learn the ladies and their habits and
- 5:59Speaker 2: of their detection at most times of the season, you
- 6:03Speaker 2: can do the same with their elderly boyfriends. The only
- 6:06Speaker 2: difference is that the elderly boyfriends aren't very common. It's
- 6:11Speaker 2: kind of like this. A lot of hunters with some
- 6:13Speaker 2: Western experience and a lot of hunters with no Western
- 6:16Speaker 2: experience would rank elk as the toughest critter to get
- 6:20Speaker 2: an arrow in on public land now in Colorado or
- 6:24Speaker 2: Idaho and an over the countertype unit. You can make
- 6:26Speaker 2: a pretty strong case for that. But what about on
- 6:29Speaker 2: a twelve thousand dollars landowner tag in New Mexico that
- 6:32Speaker 2: you're using on public land? Different story there. The variables
- 6:36Speaker 2: are endless, so generalizing is often a good way to
- 6:39Speaker 2: be wrong. But I'll say this in my somewhat not
- 6:42Speaker 2: so limited experience, if you're good enough to crawl across
- 6:45Speaker 2: the prairie and arrow an analope of any size somewhat consistently,
- 6:49Speaker 2: you can kill just about anything that might make its
- 6:51Speaker 2: way into the Super Slam list. It's just to test
- 6:55Speaker 2: of good hunting skills. Arrowing elk is too, or spotting
- 6:58Speaker 2: and stocking meal deer, and so is being able to
- 7:01Speaker 2: figure out white till doze on a regular basis, at
- 7:04Speaker 2: least if you're in a place where they get hunted
- 7:06Speaker 2: fairly hard. But those ladies and these early season groups
- 7:10Speaker 2: of them also do something else for us as hunters.
- 7:14Speaker 2: They tell us where the bucks often aren't. You see,
- 7:17Speaker 2: nature does a wonderful job of creating hierarchies. The biggest
- 7:21Speaker 2: and toughest in any group tends to own the spots
- 7:23Speaker 2: with the best advantages security, cover, water, food sources, you
- 7:27Speaker 2: name it. The entire deer herd on your property is
- 7:30Speaker 2: organized this way, kind of like that org chart at
- 7:33Speaker 2: work that shows who works under who and what department.
- 7:37Speaker 2: It's also not a perfect pyramid shape either, because some
- 7:41Speaker 2: does are dominant over other doughs, while some bucks are
- 7:43Speaker 2: dominant over other bucks. In general, what you see as
- 7:48Speaker 2: you scout the last days of velvet living in the
- 7:50Speaker 2: first couple weeks of hard antlered life is that the
- 7:52Speaker 2: deer tend to split up into groups divided by gender.
- 7:56Speaker 2: The dose will be in the beanfield of multiple spots,
- 7:59Speaker 2: but the bucks, at least the bigger deer will usually
- 8:02Speaker 2: be in very specific locations. They'll be in the back
- 8:05Speaker 2: corner that is invisible from the road and is close
- 8:08Speaker 2: to the trout stream where they can drink some delicious
- 8:10Speaker 2: cold water any damn well time they please. When they
- 8:13Speaker 2: are feeding together, you often won't see groups of dozen
- 8:16Speaker 2: fawns get too close to the bucks or mix it
- 8:19Speaker 2: up with them. When you watch groups of dozen fawns
- 8:22Speaker 2: feeding in a spot, they often won't mix it up
- 8:24Speaker 2: with other dozen fawns either, and if they do, you
- 8:29Speaker 2: often see ears, pin back and hoof's flying. They do
- 8:33Speaker 2: this even when they have two hundred acres of the
- 8:35Speaker 2: same food source right at their disposal. It's the proximity
- 8:39Speaker 2: to one another that matters most, and they often aren't
- 8:42Speaker 2: that tolerant. So what does this mean? Well for starters,
- 8:46Speaker 2: what if you're getting a whole bunch of pictures of
- 8:48Speaker 2: dozen fawns but not a whole bunch of pictures of
- 8:50Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty inch bucks. Well, either the bucks
- 8:54Speaker 2: aren't around, or your camera is on a spot that
- 8:56Speaker 2: is great for the ladies but not so great for
- 8:59Speaker 2: the dominant bucks. You might think, well, I do get
- 9:02Speaker 2: some buck pictures, so they are around, and aren't I
- 9:05Speaker 2: supposed to be around does for my rut hunts. Sure, buddy,
- 9:09Speaker 2: that's all true, but the run is a long ways
- 9:12Speaker 2: off and a lot is going to change between then
- 9:14Speaker 2: and now. Don't you want to fill your deer tag
- 9:17Speaker 2: earlier in the season so you can go to another
- 9:19Speaker 2: state and have some more deer fun. Here's the thing.
- 9:22Speaker 2: The does are often not exactly where the bucks are.
- 9:26Speaker 2: That matters for your scouting, for your camera placement, for
- 9:30Speaker 2: your stand sites, for all of it. It's not a
- 9:33Speaker 2: hard and fast rule, of course, but it is something
- 9:36Speaker 2: to consider when you're trying to make a hunting plan
- 9:38Speaker 2: that results in you getting a big buck, which is
- 9:41Speaker 2: what we're talking about here. So the ladies teach us
- 9:55Speaker 2: a lot of things. They teach us where the secondary
- 9:58Speaker 2: feeding areas probably are, which is what that bachelorette group
- 10:02Speaker 2: that Eric so aptly named showed us. But we didn't
- 10:06Speaker 2: learn their full message until we pulled a camera in
- 10:08Speaker 2: one spot on that giant beanfield that has just tucked
- 10:12Speaker 2: away sort of no man's land and close to a
- 10:14Speaker 2: water source. That camera had more big buck pictures on
- 10:17Speaker 2: it than the other four or five on the field combined.
- 10:21Speaker 2: It also has a really interesting stand set up on
- 10:23Speaker 2: it now that you'll probably get to see next year
- 10:26Speaker 2: on the media or YouTube channel. At some point, I'm
- 10:28Speaker 2: guessing the other cameras we have on that field, the
- 10:32Speaker 2: spotting scope work we've done on that field, it all
- 10:36Speaker 2: came together to show us where a lot of dough
- 10:38Speaker 2: family groups were, and you know, where a couple of
- 10:41Speaker 2: year and a half old bucks were. Two it also
- 10:44Speaker 2: showed us where the bachelor group of older bucks wasn't
- 10:48Speaker 2: And they weren't nocturnal, they weren't on somebody else's property.
- 10:52Speaker 2: They just weren't in the spots we monitored. This happens
- 10:56Speaker 2: a lot. It happens when you're scouting and running cameras.
- 11:00Speaker 2: That happens when you're hunting. Now, I know I'm contradicting
- 11:03Speaker 2: myself here on some level, because I do believe trying
- 11:06Speaker 2: to get in close proximity to all kinds of deer
- 11:08Speaker 2: is good for your hunting overall. But for early season
- 11:11Speaker 2: hunts where your target is a decent buck, sometimes you
- 11:15Speaker 2: want to get away from most of the rest of
- 11:18Speaker 2: the deer. You also don't want to write does off
- 11:22Speaker 2: as interesting things to watch while you're waiting for another
- 11:24Speaker 2: chance to rack up a taxidermy bill. This is because
- 11:27Speaker 2: the dough groups, when they do overlap with good buck movement,
- 11:31Speaker 2: often show up first. I see this in the evenings
- 11:34Speaker 2: a lot, and almost always in the mornings. I don't
- 11:37Speaker 2: know why this is, but when I hunt early season mornings,
- 11:41Speaker 2: you know, when every white tail expert out there says
- 11:43Speaker 2: that you shouldn't, I often see does and youngsters come
- 11:46Speaker 2: through first. Then, like eight thirty or nine in the morning,
- 11:50Speaker 2: when I start thinking about pancakes and a midday nap
- 11:52Speaker 2: or maybe going to troutfish for a few hours, the
- 11:55Speaker 2: bigger deer will cruise through. If I get busted by
- 11:58Speaker 2: the does first, the big guy is going to show up.
- 12:01Speaker 2: If you're on a field edge in the evening and
- 12:03Speaker 2: that dough with two fawns decides she doesn't like the
- 12:06Speaker 2: first light specter covered blob in the tree filming her
- 12:08Speaker 2: with an iPhone ten or worse taking selfies for the
- 12:12Speaker 2: gram good luck, She's going to send out the bat
- 12:16Speaker 2: signal and the bucks aren't going to show, or if
- 12:18Speaker 2: they do, it's going to be real late. The point
- 12:22Speaker 2: I'm trying to make here is this, There is no
- 12:26Speaker 2: just hunting big bucks. You might focus solely on that
- 12:30Speaker 2: as your goal, but you're never gonna do that without
- 12:32Speaker 2: dealing with other deer in the herd. They're always a consideration.
- 12:37Speaker 2: It's kind of like throwing frogs for large mouth in
- 12:40Speaker 2: the lily pads. When you're in the north country, your
- 12:42Speaker 2: goal might be an amphibian's chomping five pounder that is
- 12:46Speaker 2: living in two feet of water and just waiting to
- 12:48Speaker 2: smash something slimy on the surface. But along the way
- 12:52Speaker 2: you'll also do with northern pike biting you off and
- 12:54Speaker 2: ripping holes in your twelve dollars spro frogs so often
- 12:57Speaker 2: that you might need to take out a heelock just
- 12:59Speaker 2: to pay for your next shields order. They are just
- 13:02Speaker 2: a part of the whole thing, just like the groups
- 13:05Speaker 2: of doze out there. I know this one has been
- 13:07Speaker 2: kind of all over the place, so let me try
- 13:09Speaker 2: to stick this landing here without breaking in an ankle.
- 13:13Speaker 2: Pay attention to the doze on your cameras, the doze
- 13:16Speaker 2: you see while glassing, and the doze you see while hunting.
- 13:20Speaker 2: What they do bucks will do the trails they walk.
- 13:25Speaker 2: Bucks will eventually walk the way they drop down to
- 13:28Speaker 2: the pond for a little drink, so too will some
- 13:31Speaker 2: bucks at some point. But they'll also show you, particularly
- 13:35Speaker 2: in the early season, where the bucks often aren't that
- 13:39Speaker 2: beautiful open woods you like to sit in because there
- 13:42Speaker 2: are a bunch of white oaks in there, that's great.
- 13:45Speaker 2: But if it's just dough after dough during daylight, it's
- 13:49Speaker 2: not because the bucks are nocturnal. It's because they either
- 13:52Speaker 2: have a better spot to feed where you aren't, or
- 13:55Speaker 2: they're just taking their sweet ass time moving in better
- 13:57Speaker 2: cover until you leave and the lights go out. If
- 14:01Speaker 2: your camera on your kill plot shows tons of daylight
- 14:03Speaker 2: activity from does but not much daylight activity from good bucks,
- 14:08Speaker 2: pay attention. Are they in there after dark? Then you
- 14:12Speaker 2: might have to hunt them a little ways off of
- 14:14Speaker 2: the groceries, all while avoiding detection from the ladies as
- 14:18Speaker 2: they pass through. First, I think you have to learn
- 14:22Speaker 2: how to hunt the does before you can learn how
- 14:25Speaker 2: to hunt the big dudes. But you also have to
- 14:28Speaker 2: work with them throughout the season because they are going
- 14:31Speaker 2: to be a part of the whole thing, whether you
- 14:32Speaker 2: like it or not. They sometimes show you exactly where
- 14:36Speaker 2: you should hunt, like if they are using a river
- 14:39Speaker 2: crossing or traveling along a soft edge while browsing in
- 14:42Speaker 2: the big woods. But they also sometimes show you where
- 14:45Speaker 2: you shouldn't hunt if you want a big buck. That is,
- 14:49Speaker 2: if the part of the field you love to watch
- 14:51Speaker 2: is dominated by does. Take note if your favorite stand
- 14:55Speaker 2: that is easy to get to and sits over a
- 14:57Speaker 2: power line with nice views in two directions is always
- 15:00Speaker 2: full of ladies and youngsters, take note. The bucks are
- 15:04Speaker 2: likely around, but they are using some part of the
- 15:06Speaker 2: terrain that offers them something better. This lesson is often
- 15:11Speaker 2: most easily understood by betting. You see this with Western
- 15:15Speaker 2: critters a lot, too, because they often show themselves in
- 15:18Speaker 2: their beds, so you can see exactly where they are
- 15:22Speaker 2: and make a good guess as to why white tails
- 15:25Speaker 2: aren't as generous that way. But you can fill in
- 15:28Speaker 2: the blanks pretty well with when and where you jump
- 15:32Speaker 2: deer and when and where you see them on your hunts.
- 15:35Speaker 2: At least if you're hunting in the cover, the does
- 15:38Speaker 2: will often be betted in the most obvious spots, and
- 15:41Speaker 2: the bucks won't. They will show you this by either
- 15:44Speaker 2: actually showing themselves or not. How is that confusing. Look
- 15:48Speaker 2: at it this way. If you walk into the woods
- 15:50Speaker 2: and you see some does running away at say noon,
- 15:54Speaker 2: you know they were probably betted there. You might find
- 15:58Speaker 2: proof of that by well finding their beds. But if
- 16:01Speaker 2: you hike up a bluff onto a nice little bench
- 16:03Speaker 2: where the view is solid and the wind is just right,
- 16:07Speaker 2: you probably won't see any deer. You might find a
- 16:10Speaker 2: great big loan bed and think, dang, at some point,
- 16:13Speaker 2: he's here. But the truth is he's always going to
- 16:17Speaker 2: be gone when you get there, because he knows you're coming.
- 16:20Speaker 2: Because his bed is positioned in such a way you're
- 16:23Speaker 2: just not going to sneak up on him. His spot
- 16:26Speaker 2: is better than where those does bed up on the
- 16:28Speaker 2: ridge or in the open valley below. The deer all
- 16:34Speaker 2: have something to teach us, just like every elk encounter
- 16:37Speaker 2: is a lesson in elk behavior, just like every turkey
- 16:40Speaker 2: that feeds through the meadow is giving you a first
- 16:42Speaker 2: hand lesson on turkey behavior. These things matter, and they
- 16:46Speaker 2: are the secret sauce that takes average hunters to the
- 16:48Speaker 2: next level. So my friends, don't write off the ladies.
- 16:52Speaker 2: Use their presence, use your pictures of them, your sightings
- 16:56Speaker 2: to inform your decisions on how to hunt whatever deer
- 16:59Speaker 2: trips your trigger, and come back next week because I'm
- 17:02Speaker 2: going to break down one of our biggest allies in
- 17:04Speaker 2: one of our biggest enemies as hunters, an unseen force
- 17:08Speaker 2: that influences our hunting decisions more than just about anything else.
- 17:11Speaker 2: It's an invisible element of each and every second we
- 17:14Speaker 2: spend in the outdoors that can make or break your
- 17:17Speaker 2: experience in a matter of seconds, and there ain't a
- 17:20Speaker 2: damn thing we can do about it. You guessed it.
- 17:23Speaker 2: I'm going to talk about squirrels. Just kidding. It's wind.
- 17:28Speaker 2: That's it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson. This has
- 17:31Speaker 2: been the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which is brought
- 17:33Speaker 2: to you by First Light. As always, thank you so
- 17:36Speaker 2: much for listening and for all your support. Every one
- 17:39Speaker 2: of us here at meat Eater truly appreciates it. We
- 17:42Speaker 2: can't thank you enough. If you want some more hunting content,
- 17:45Speaker 2: and I'm talking other podcasts, videos, articles, whatever, you want
- 17:51Speaker 2: to do a little shop and head on over to
- 17:54Speaker 2: the medeater dot com and you'll see all of that
- 17:56Speaker 2: more