Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 522: Foundations- Gobbler Hunting Sessions and Deer Hunting Lessons
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
- 0:05Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, and now your
- 0:10Speaker 1: host Tony Peterson. Hey, everybody, welcome to the Wire to
- 0:14Speaker 1: Hunt Foundations podcast, which has brought to you by First Light.
- 0:17Speaker 1: I'm your host, Tony Peterson, and this episode is all
- 0:20Speaker 1: about what you can learn about deer while you're chasing
- 0:23Speaker 1: long beards across the countryside. Last week, I tried to
- 0:39Speaker 1: make a good case for anyone who is interested in
- 0:41Speaker 1: traveling for deer to first head out on a turkey
- 0:44Speaker 1: hunting trip. This week, I want to talk about something
- 0:48Speaker 1: I never hear anyone in my position, talk about how
- 0:51Speaker 1: hunting one thing like turkeys can make you much better
- 0:55Speaker 1: at hunting something else. You know what I mean, of course,
- 0:59Speaker 1: But maybe you don't really unerstand what I'm talking about.
- 1:01Speaker 1: Hell sometimes I don't, and neither does Mark because he
- 1:04Speaker 1: lets me know when he's confused. Anyway, get ready, because
- 1:07Speaker 1: I'm gonna help you level up as a white tail
- 1:09Speaker 1: hunter in a pretty unconventional way. In a past life,
- 1:25Speaker 1: when I was an associate editor for a big game
- 1:27Speaker 1: bow hunting magazine, one of the writers and I got
- 1:30Speaker 1: into a conversation about turkey hunting. This guy, who has
- 1:34Speaker 1: a more prominent name in the white tail space than
- 1:36Speaker 1: almost anyone, he casually mentioned that he doesn't turkey hunt
- 1:40Speaker 1: because there's no money in it. The deer where the
- 1:43Speaker 1: dollar signs are, he said, and honestly, he wasn't totally wrong.
- 1:47Speaker 1: If you want to be an outdoor writer or hell
- 1:50Speaker 1: I know these days, a content creator and your soul
- 1:52Speaker 1: focus is turkey hunting, I hope you really like eating
- 1:55Speaker 1: ramen noodles and living with your parents. Now, I know
- 1:58Speaker 1: that's not much of a concern for the listeners of
- 2:00Speaker 1: this podcast, and so his answer should be interpreted a
- 2:03Speaker 1: different way. Not hunting an open season in the spring
- 2:08Speaker 1: for a bird that can be a ton of fun
- 2:09Speaker 1: to hunt, it's kind of strange and can be defeating
- 2:13Speaker 1: if you want to level up your woodsmanship game and
- 2:16Speaker 1: become a better deer hunter. Now, I do understand that
- 2:19Speaker 1: not everyone likes turkey hunting. Oftentimes, I find it's the
- 2:23Speaker 1: people who tried it once and either had a really
- 2:25Speaker 1: difficult hunt or more often a really easy hunt, who
- 2:29Speaker 1: just aren't big fans. The folks who see turkeys at
- 2:32Speaker 1: their bird feed are all winter long. There's there are
- 2:35Speaker 1: the kind of people who seem to devalue the opportunity
- 2:37Speaker 1: to hunt them as well, and I get it. But
- 2:39Speaker 1: fortunately there are a ton of different ways to hunt turkeys,
- 2:43Speaker 1: in a ton of different states, in a ton of
- 2:46Speaker 1: different types of habitat, And honestly, one of the biggest
- 2:50Speaker 1: things I love about turkeys is that they are easier
- 2:53Speaker 1: to kill on public land than about any animal I've
- 2:56Speaker 1: ever pursued. This makes a compelling case hunting them on
- 3:00Speaker 1: public land, which leads to a lot of dear discoveries
- 3:04Speaker 1: which you don't have to just hunt them on public land.
- 3:07Speaker 1: And I'm going to get to that, but first let's
- 3:10Speaker 1: backtrack a little to the folks who don't like to
- 3:12Speaker 1: turkey hunt. If you're in this category, I wonder do
- 3:17Speaker 1: you really know how to call? Because if not, you're
- 3:20Speaker 1: missing out on the best part about the whole thing,
- 3:22Speaker 1: the interaction. It's what makes elk hunting so damn special too, aside.
- 3:28Speaker 1: I don't know, of course, from like the locations in
- 3:31Speaker 1: which we tend to pursue elk, and I don't know
- 3:34Speaker 1: how much pure deliciousness they contain. If you're lucky enough
- 3:37Speaker 1: to kill one, maybe you've never really used quality turkey decoys,
- 3:42Speaker 1: which changes the whole thing as well. If you don't
- 3:45Speaker 1: think it's fun to watch a couple of Tim's run
- 3:47Speaker 1: into your spread and start fighting with your fake Jake,
- 3:50Speaker 1: I'm not sure you and I would be friends. I
- 3:52Speaker 1: say that, but I have to remind myself that there
- 3:54Speaker 1: are people out there who love country music and the
- 3:59Speaker 1: taste of coke, Nutter Green peppers, reality television. All of
- 4:03Speaker 1: those things are very unappealing to me, but they boiled
- 4:07Speaker 1: down to personal taste. So it's okay if you don't
- 4:10Speaker 1: like turkey hunting. It's okay if you hate it, in fact,
- 4:13Speaker 1: but do me a favor. Listen in until the end,
- 4:16Speaker 1: because maybe there's something about turkeys you haven't thought about
- 4:20Speaker 1: that will make you a better deer hunter. This something,
- 4:23Speaker 1: for me, is at least partially just time in the woods.
- 4:28Speaker 1: We often preach a big white tail game as something
- 4:31Speaker 1: that can be conducted with surgical precision, sort of like
- 4:35Speaker 1: a drone strike. We just sit back, we look at
- 4:38Speaker 1: screens to see satellite imagery, then we look at weather data. Bam.
- 4:43Speaker 1: We head into the woods at the most likely time
- 4:45Speaker 1: to kill a buck, and we do just that, except
- 4:48Speaker 1: we mostly don't. This works for a few, but not
- 4:51Speaker 1: for the many. For most of us, offseason time in
- 4:55Speaker 1: the woods is more important than any other aspect of
- 4:57Speaker 1: white tail hunting, aside from actually white tail hunting. The
- 5:01Speaker 1: problem here is that most of us don't possess whatever
- 5:05Speaker 1: gene it is that guys like Andy may have that
- 5:08Speaker 1: make them want to scout constantly. Most of us just
- 5:11Speaker 1: won't do that, and we think something like trail cameras
- 5:14Speaker 1: will bridge that gap, but they won't. The reality is
- 5:17Speaker 1: that the more time you spend in the woods with
- 5:19Speaker 1: a purpose memori, you'll start to understand how dear you
- 5:21Speaker 1: use the landscape. It's that simple, even if it's not easy. Now,
- 5:27Speaker 1: keep in mind that I consider myself to be genetically
- 5:29Speaker 1: gifted in one way, and that is that I must
- 5:33Speaker 1: possess some type of coding deep in my cells or
- 5:36Speaker 1: somehow possess an ancestral calling to hunt a bunch of
- 5:39Speaker 1: different critters. I just want to Basically, if I can
- 5:42Speaker 1: eat it, I really want to hunt it. I don't
- 5:46Speaker 1: have to convince myself to go hunt anything from squirrels
- 5:48Speaker 1: on up to elk. I love upland game, waterfall, small game,
- 5:52Speaker 1: big game. I'll love them all, and like I said
- 5:55Speaker 1: last week, I love turkeys, and turkeys are what we
- 5:58Speaker 1: can hunt in the spring, So that's what I'm in
- 6:00Speaker 1: a hunt, and that's what you should hunt. But here's
- 6:02Speaker 1: the thing. Whether you bow hunt for turkeys from a
- 6:05Speaker 1: pop up blind or you run and gun while putting
- 6:07Speaker 1: your back to any random oak tree that tickles your fancy,
- 6:11Speaker 1: you can learn a lot about deer from these hunts.
- 6:14Speaker 1: So I want to start here with the turkey bow
- 6:17Speaker 1: hunt first. There are a few hunts that are more
- 6:19Speaker 1: mentally taxing than a dark to dark turkey bow hunt
- 6:23Speaker 1: from a blind. This is a style of hunting that
- 6:27Speaker 1: can border on pure torture, particularly for anyone with a
- 6:30Speaker 1: natural wanderlust and who is also short on patients. Usually
- 6:35Speaker 1: go together, but there are certain situations where your turkey
- 6:38Speaker 1: scouting leads you to a high traffic area and maybe
- 6:41Speaker 1: you're hunting a really small parcel where you can't get
- 6:44Speaker 1: out and cover too much ground. I don't Maybe you
- 6:47Speaker 1: don't want to carry a whole flock of full body decoys,
- 6:49Speaker 1: a blind, a chair, and all the makings for a
- 6:51Speaker 1: long sit all across the countryside. Maybe you want to
- 6:54Speaker 1: plant your happy ass in one spot call the birds
- 6:56Speaker 1: to you all day long instead of going to them.
- 6:59Speaker 1: I I do this probably about fifteen days every turkey season,
- 7:03Speaker 1: and it helps me kill birds with my bow, oftentimes
- 7:06Speaker 1: public land birds. It also helps me mentally when fall
- 7:10Speaker 1: rolls around, because if you can put in like a
- 7:12Speaker 1: fifteen hour shift during May to kill a bird, it's
- 7:16Speaker 1: really not so hard to string together a bunch of
- 7:18Speaker 1: dark to dark sits for deer come November. All day
- 7:21Speaker 1: turkey bow hunts also allowed me to observe, through every
- 7:25Speaker 1: hour of the day what the turkeys are doing and
- 7:28Speaker 1: what the deer doing, and that's something that interests me
- 7:31Speaker 1: a lot. I'll give you an example of this which
- 7:34Speaker 1: started a long and widening road to a dead buck
- 7:36Speaker 1: for me. A few years back, a buddy and I
- 7:38Speaker 1: drove to Texas to turkey hunt. On the way home,
- 7:41Speaker 1: we stopped at a spot in Nebraska where we saw
- 7:43Speaker 1: a bird strutting from the road. We gave him a
- 7:45Speaker 1: quick hunt and then decided to look around a little more.
- 7:48Speaker 1: What we found was a pretty decent spot to turkey hunt.
- 7:51Speaker 1: So the following spring we drove back down there with
- 7:54Speaker 1: our camping gear ready to go. There was snow on
- 7:56Speaker 1: the ground, The birds were still pretty flocked up and
- 7:59Speaker 1: it was ideal weather. But I did manage to set
- 8:02Speaker 1: up on top of a spot some jake's really wanted
- 8:04Speaker 1: to be, and I did manage to call three of
- 8:06Speaker 1: them in almost immediately an arrow one. I peaked early
- 8:10Speaker 1: turkey wise on that trip, but I also put in
- 8:13Speaker 1: a full day in that very spot, and the next
- 8:15Speaker 1: morning I watched several deer leave the private fields and
- 8:18Speaker 1: work their way up into the sand hills. I even
- 8:21Speaker 1: watched a doll with two fons bed down on a
- 8:23Speaker 1: small bench for quite a few hours. As the sun
- 8:26Speaker 1: crept toward the western horizon and my sanity frayed further
- 8:30Speaker 1: from my voluntary confinement, I watched some of the same
- 8:33Speaker 1: dear from the morning reverse their course. Then I saw
- 8:36Speaker 1: a bachelor group of shed bucks take the same route
- 8:40Speaker 1: out of the hills down to the fields. And that's
- 8:42Speaker 1: actionable intel, my friends. How dear use the landscape is
- 8:47Speaker 1: mostly what I'm interested in about deer, and watching them
- 8:50Speaker 1: from a turkey blind can turn up lots of useful
- 8:53Speaker 1: nuggets of information. It also often shows you how wrong
- 8:57Speaker 1: we are about thinking what dear do when they're betting.
- 9:01Speaker 1: Instead of a buck heading into his best safest bed
- 9:04Speaker 1: and laying there until dark, they seem to bed down
- 9:07Speaker 1: for a little while and then get up. They look around,
- 9:10Speaker 1: they stretch, they take a dump, they reposition themselves. Oftentimes
- 9:14Speaker 1: they get up, they go to water, or they browse
- 9:16Speaker 1: for an hour before laying it back down. It's really
- 9:19Speaker 1: a fascinating glimpse into the world of white tails. We
- 9:21Speaker 1: originally only speculate about it, and then we get it
- 9:24Speaker 1: wrong a lot. Turkey hunting can give you a glimpse
- 9:27Speaker 1: into that world, and in this case, the deer observations
- 9:30Speaker 1: led me to come back for the early September opener,
- 9:33Speaker 1: where I killed a great velvet ten pointer the first
- 9:35Speaker 1: evening of the season. Part of that dear success was
- 9:38Speaker 1: due directly to turkey hunting that spot, I promise you.
- 9:42Speaker 1: Another time in South Dakota, I watched a whole herd
- 9:45Speaker 1: of deer leave a private alf alpha field to browse
- 9:48Speaker 1: their way through patches of sumac and scrub brush. Once
- 9:51Speaker 1: they got to a little thicker cover, a couple of
- 9:53Speaker 1: coyotes set up a deer drive for them that damn
- 9:56Speaker 1: near worked, except that the object of their push was
- 9:59Speaker 1: a little master than they anticipated. It was an amazing show,
- 10:03Speaker 1: one that I'd have never seen if I hadn't been
- 10:05Speaker 1: posted up in a blind waiting on a gobbler to
- 10:07Speaker 1: come in that property, the one where I watched those
- 10:10Speaker 1: deer and those coyotes play out their deadly chess game. Well,
- 10:14Speaker 1: I went back there that fall. In fact, I went
- 10:16Speaker 1: back there four years in a row, and I killed
- 10:18Speaker 1: four bucks there on public land. Some of those bucks
- 10:22Speaker 1: ended up wearing my tag because of what I saw
- 10:24Speaker 1: during subsequent turkey hunting trips. Not only does springtime observations
- 10:29Speaker 1: sometimes translate to good fall deer hunting strategies, but it
- 10:33Speaker 1: also gives you a good reason to cover some ground.
- 10:36Speaker 1: While I do go on a fair amount of turkey
- 10:38Speaker 1: bow hunts, even on those, you'll end up looking at
- 10:41Speaker 1: the places you think public land turkey should frequent. Those
- 10:44Speaker 1: are also the places, often the exact same places the
- 10:47Speaker 1: public land bucks and does frequent. And if you choose
- 10:51Speaker 1: to run and gun with a twelve gauge slung over
- 10:53Speaker 1: your shoulder, which is a more popular style of turkey hunting,
- 10:57Speaker 1: you'll probably see a lot of ground depending on how
- 10:59Speaker 1: much running you do. Here's the thing about this that
- 11:03Speaker 1: if you listen to enough of these episodes already, you
- 11:06Speaker 1: probably know this about me or my beliefs. But I
- 11:09Speaker 1: don't think there are too many accidents in nature. I
- 11:12Speaker 1: don't think there's a ton of randomness out there in
- 11:15Speaker 1: a weird way. Nature in the animals that it consists of,
- 11:18Speaker 1: are always in survival mode. I guess it's really not
- 11:21Speaker 1: that weird. This means they do things on purpose. Whether
- 11:25Speaker 1: they can reason that out or not, it doesn't really matter.
- 11:28Speaker 1: They don't take unnecessary risks very often. They don't walk
- 11:32Speaker 1: randomly through their world, burning extra calories and exposing themselves
- 11:35Speaker 1: to potential death unless they have a reason, a reason
- 11:39Speaker 1: that is almost always tied either to survival or the
- 11:42Speaker 1: propagation of their species. What does that mean? It means
- 11:47Speaker 1: that every observation of a deer tells you something. Every
- 11:50Speaker 1: track in the sand tells you something. Every old rub
- 11:54Speaker 1: you run across while your turkey hunting tells you something.
- 11:57Speaker 1: Every bleached and half chewed up antler you find tells
- 12:00Speaker 1: you something. Everything out there, deer wise is giving you
- 12:03Speaker 1: little hints. When you're running a mouth call and propping
- 12:07Speaker 1: a twelve gage in your lap while putting your back
- 12:09Speaker 1: to a tree. Your focus is first on the gobblers,
- 12:12Speaker 1: but don't ignore the deer and the deer sign. One
- 12:16Speaker 1: of my favorite things to do, which I recently talked
- 12:18Speaker 1: about on a different episode, is to run and gun
- 12:20Speaker 1: for turkeys on public land that I'm curious about deer hunting.
- 12:23Speaker 1: This is a scouting method that really gets me out
- 12:26Speaker 1: there from dark to dark every day. It might mean
- 12:29Speaker 1: that I cover miles and miles in search of a bird,
- 12:32Speaker 1: but those miles and all of those setups where I
- 12:34Speaker 1: have time to sit and watch the woods around me
- 12:36Speaker 1: for an hour or two, they put me right where
- 12:38Speaker 1: the deer live. And while it could, this doesn't have
- 12:42Speaker 1: to happen in a situation where your three states from home,
- 12:45Speaker 1: running and gunning with a nonresident turkey tag in your pocket.
- 12:48Speaker 1: You can learn about deer by doing this on your
- 12:50Speaker 1: home farm too. In fact, this is sometimes the best
- 12:54Speaker 1: way to learn about dear Scratch that it's sometimes the
- 12:58Speaker 1: best way to learn about what you think about the
- 13:00Speaker 1: deer that isn't actually true, or that your picture of
- 13:04Speaker 1: dear usage on the property you've hunted for a while
- 13:07Speaker 1: is incomplete. I'll give you an example. Last spring, my
- 13:12Speaker 1: buddy bought an amazing property in southwestern Wisconsin. We met
- 13:16Speaker 1: up to hunt one of the late seasons in May
- 13:19Speaker 1: and we set up on one of his fields. It
- 13:21Speaker 1: was simple stuff. We knew the birds were coming into
- 13:23Speaker 1: the picked corn field, and we knew they'd see our decoys.
- 13:27Speaker 1: It worked very well, and I was out of tags
- 13:29Speaker 1: within an hour. But in that hour and in the
- 13:32Speaker 1: hours after when we tried to get my buddy a bird,
- 13:34Speaker 1: we saw quite a few deer. Some of them entered
- 13:37Speaker 1: that field on a very subtle trail and they crossed
- 13:40Speaker 1: it without stopping to leave on a very subtle trail.
- 13:45Speaker 1: At the time, it honestly didn't feel that important. But
- 13:48Speaker 1: fast forward to last November and I was sitting in
- 13:51Speaker 1: a ground blind with a cameraman next to me, filming
- 13:54Speaker 1: an episode of our One Week in November series. My
- 13:56Speaker 1: goal was mostly to try to arrow a dough on
- 13:59Speaker 1: that field, while I was really trying to just leave
- 14:02Speaker 1: a couple other areas alone so that the conditions would
- 14:04Speaker 1: break in my favor and I could sneak in and
- 14:06Speaker 1: sit where I really wanted to hunt. Well, I missed
- 14:10Speaker 1: a nice eight pointer and a colossal melt down that night.
- 14:13Speaker 1: That resulted partly from my own flaws and partly from
- 14:16Speaker 1: the Bucks stopping the first time right where he couldn't
- 14:18Speaker 1: be filmed. By the time he walked where he was
- 14:21Speaker 1: in frame, I'd mostly just lost my mind and I
- 14:24Speaker 1: flat out whiffed, which isn't that much fun when you're
- 14:26Speaker 1: not on camera, and it's a special kind of not
- 14:29Speaker 1: fun when you are. Later that evening, when the camera
- 14:32Speaker 1: light faded and we were thinking about packing up, one
- 14:35Speaker 1: of the biggest Bucks I've ever seen, ran into the
- 14:37Speaker 1: far end of the plot and started chasing Dose. And
- 14:40Speaker 1: the trail that he took to get there. You guessed it.
- 14:44Speaker 1: It was the one that the random deer took during
- 14:46Speaker 1: Turkey season. Now, recently, my buddy and I walked that
- 14:51Speaker 1: trail as far as we could and we found an
- 14:53Speaker 1: amazing crossing at the bottom of a ravine, And I
- 14:57Speaker 1: do mean amazing. Next year, I'll have a stand on
- 15:01Speaker 1: it for sure, and I'll have a trail tacked straight
- 15:04Speaker 1: up the bluff from a highway so I can get
- 15:06Speaker 1: into that crossing in the morning without any dear knowing. Now,
- 15:12Speaker 1: the point here and all of this rambling is this
- 15:15Speaker 1: the initial question of why deer are doing what they
- 15:17Speaker 1: are doing. Came to my buddy and I while we
- 15:20Speaker 1: were sitting on the ground waiting on some turkeys to
- 15:22Speaker 1: lose their minds and come charging in. We didn't have
- 15:25Speaker 1: to be in the woods scouting deer to learn something
- 15:27Speaker 1: very valuable about scouting deer, even if the full lesson
- 15:31Speaker 1: didn't reveal itself right away. My friends, I believe in
- 15:35Speaker 1: this stuff, and I believe that the time you spend
- 15:37Speaker 1: in the woods turkey hunting, whether you're running, gunning solo,
- 15:42Speaker 1: or maybe you've got a youngster with you, maybe you're
- 15:44Speaker 1: junior all day bow hunt, it's all important. It's important
- 15:48Speaker 1: for the act in and of itself, but it's also
- 15:51Speaker 1: ancillari lee important as a deer hunter. All of your
- 15:55Speaker 1: time in the woods is just as all of your
- 15:57Speaker 1: time e scouting is. But what's cool about the spring
- 16:01Speaker 1: is that you can have a hell of a lot
- 16:02Speaker 1: of fun focusing on turkeys while you're just keeping an
- 16:04Speaker 1: eye out for interesting deer clues. Do this, even if
- 16:08Speaker 1: you think you know everything about your dear Pay attention
- 16:11Speaker 1: to where you see spring deer traveling, because that's how
- 16:14Speaker 1: they'll travel in the fall. A lot of times, pay
- 16:17Speaker 1: attention to not only the travel and the sightings and
- 16:19Speaker 1: the sign that you fully expect to see, but also
- 16:22Speaker 1: the stuff that makes you stop and wonder why those
- 16:25Speaker 1: deer and that sign. They help you grow as a
- 16:28Speaker 1: deer hunter. That's how you level up, and that's how
- 16:31Speaker 1: you kill deer you wouldn't have killed five years ago
- 16:35Speaker 1: because you're learning and you're questioning what you know. You're
- 16:38Speaker 1: confirming some beliefs and shattering others with every hour you
- 16:42Speaker 1: spend in the woods. That's a beautiful thing. And it
- 16:45Speaker 1: only gets better when you're zoned out and thinking about
- 16:48Speaker 1: birds and how they're not going to play, and suddenly
- 16:50Speaker 1: a butt pucker and close gobble rattles your chest and
- 16:53Speaker 1: it's all you can do to slowly get your gun
- 16:54Speaker 1: to your shoulder. So get out there, huntsome birds, learn
- 16:59Speaker 1: about the deer, have some fun, and listen in next
- 17:03Speaker 1: week because I'm gonna start switching things up a little
- 17:05Speaker 1: bit to some episodes that focus on hunting gear and
- 17:08Speaker 1: maybe possibly buying a little piece of deer ground for yourself.
- 17:13Speaker 1: That's it for this week, my friends. I'm Tony Peterson
- 17:15Speaker 1: and this has been the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast.
- 17:18Speaker 1: As I always thank you so much for listening. If
- 17:21Speaker 1: you need some more white tailed goodness, head on over
- 17:23Speaker 1: to our YouTube channel or visit The Metiator dot com,
- 17:26Speaker 1: slash wire