Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 741: Foundations - Make An Effort To Truly Understand The Land If You Want To Kill Big Bucks

Transcript

Ep. 741: Foundations - Make An Effort To Truly Understand The Land If You Want To Kill Big Bucks · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: First Light Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Hey everyone, welcome to the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: which has brought to you by First Light. I'm your host,
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about the opportunity
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: that winter offers you to truly understand the land, which
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: is kind of the ticket for figuring out big deer.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: This happens all the time. Someone sends me an email
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: or a message asking me about how they should.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: Scout to kill more big bucks.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: The general tone is always like there's some kind of
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: secret that I'm withholding and they just haven't been told yet.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: And once they get it, they're the club and their
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: taxidermy bill is going to skyrocket like the cost of
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: well just about everything lately. But there are no real
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: secrets left. I'm sorry to say that, but it's true.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: The dead bucks will come, but only if you put
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: in the work to do the things in a way
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: that should produce results. How's that for disappointing and pretty weaselish.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: But now for the good news. I'm of the belief
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: that the one thing you can do for yourself that
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: will really help you overall for the rest of your
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: life is to make an effort to understand the land,
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: not just the land you hunt all the time, but
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: land in general. What I mean by this is all
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: about to become a hell of a lot clearer right
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: about now. I'd guess that just about every one of
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: us has, you know, at least a few places in
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: our lives that we drive to a lot.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: Work is the most obvious.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: If you have to commute to an office or a
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: job site, you know what it's like to travel the
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: same route over and over and over again. Maybe you're
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: lucky and you get to work from home while writing
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: about deer hunting and dog training and you don't have
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: to commute. You probably have a few places in your
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: town that you travel too often. The gym, the grocery store,
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: gas stations, whatever. I'll bet you something about these routes
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: and those destinations. There's a lot of stuff you don't
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: notice on the way to and from these places. This
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: is a weird phenomenon, but you can see if you're
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: susceptible to it. The next time you commute to work
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: or drive to the gym, just try to look at
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: something different. What I mean by that is, try to
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: see some houses or stores, or woodlots or something that
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: you just normally don't look at during your drive. Because
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: you see, when we are used to going certain places
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: in a certain way, we tend to focus our attention
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: on specific aspects of the trip. There's probably an evolutionary
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: component to this somewhere, you know, maybe the preservation of
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: some brain energy or something.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: I don't really know. What you might realize.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: If you intentionally try to look at different landmarks and
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: buildings and stuff along the way is that you've been
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: missing a lot of things. Another easy way to do
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: this is to go for a run along a route
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: you usually drive. Since you probably run quite a bit
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: slower than you drive, you have a lot of time
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: to take in the scenery. And I'm telling you it's
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: eye opening, not so much because you might notice a
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: taco bell where you didn't realize there was one, but
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: because your blind spots are probably huge on your most
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: known and familiar routes. I'll give you an example. About
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: two hundred yards from my house is one of those
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: ninety degree turns that almost should have been a cul
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: de sac, if that makes sense. It's like a three
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: quarter cul de sac. I drive that route dozens of
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: times a week. I can see most of it my
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: picture window in my living room. I also almost always
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: passed through there when I go for a run or
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: a bike ride with the girls. Last summer, I walked
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: out the front door to go for a run when
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: I saw emergency lights in that mutant cul de sac.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: As I jogged past several cop cars in an ambulance,
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: I saw them carding out someone from a house that
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: I really didn't even know was there. It's tucked back
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: into a wooded lot, and I guess I'm always just
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: looking ahead around the corner instead of off to the side.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: If you'd asked me beforehand how many houses were on
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: that little bend there, i'd have been one short, and
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: there's only four in total. Our brains have the amazing
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: capacity to mostly filter out unnecessary stuff. If you think
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: that doesn't happen to you, and I'm just the most
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: unobservant fool out there, just try to pay attention more
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: just for the hell of it. I bet you'll see
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: things that you just totally have ignored for years larger
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: because you didn't need or think you needed to know
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: they were there. Guess what, my little ombres, we do
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: this in deer hunting. In fact, the best way to
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: kill big bucks for a lot of folks is to
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: intentionally create scenarios where there is no penalty for not
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: noticing stuff. If you have a managed property with food
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: plots and ponds and box blinds, does it really matter
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: if you know where a certain rub line is or
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: a specific ditch crossing that only gets good for a
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: few weeks in October exists?
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: Not really.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: This is why it's so popular to try to raise
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: dear on a specific property versus learning how to figure
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: them out. On any piece of land you might step
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: foot on with any kind of weapon in your hands,
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: you probably don't have the means to block off a
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: section or two to let a handful of bucks get
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: old and comfortable so that you can shoot them when
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: they are mature enough to not being harassment on social media.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: That drive to work where you don't notice a whole
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: lot of stuff.
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: That's like the walk.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: Into your favorite stand, you know, the one where you
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: always see a few deer, the one that's easy to
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: get to, the one you run cameras on, you know,
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: from summer, you know, midsummer, probably to the season's end,
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: that stand. We all have at least one spot like that,
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: typically on private land, on public land.
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: Whatever.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: It gets worse though, think about shed hunting season, which
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: we're coming into right now. We all want to scoop
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: up a bunch of shed antlers, and we all have
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: our best spots to go, but how we move from
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: spot to spot is probably similar from shed hunt to
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: shed hunt, and from.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: Year to year.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: We probably follow the same routes. When we're looking for antlers,
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: just like we do and we're going to our stands,
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: we are so very predictable and that hurts us as
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: dear unters in two ways. The first is the obvious one,
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: where the deer figure us out when we were actually
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: hunting and our stands go cold as they just tiptoe
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: around the ambush sites we default to over and over
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: the other is that it keeps us from learning the
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: land and really how the deer used the land that
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: we aren't really paying attention to. Let me give you
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: two examples here. The first time I drew in Iowa,
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: tag I got permission to hunt a farm in northeastern
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: corner of the state. It was a decent property, it
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: wasn't great, but it was Iowa, and I was hunting
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: the rut with a buddy of mine. I ended up
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: snort wheezing in a great ten pointer and killing him
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: about halfway through my rut cation. So I stuck around
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: and tried to arrow a doe and just give my
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: buddy some help. One morning, while waiting on a doe
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: to walk by, I saw a solid one hundred and
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: forty class buck walking through the woods above me. Instead
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: of taking the ridge on top of the bluff or
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: walking the creek bottom below, which is what I was
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: set up on, he just sidehilled. I thought that was
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: kind of interesting until I saw more bucks take the
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: exact same trail. Fast forward about thirteen years to this
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: past season, where I was hunting some public land in
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: North Dakota. This land is quite a bit different from
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: that private farm in Iowa, but I managed to errow
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: a decent ten point round my second day there. Since
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: I had a bit of free time to just kind
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: of poke around. I went scouting in the midday, after
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: checking to make sure there weren't any other hunters parked
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: at this particular parcel. What I found was that the
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: area had the most confidence in was not surprisingly, a
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: ridge stop over a river, kind of like that Iowa spot.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: The trail on the ridge was pounded and also under
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: heavy observation by several trail cameras. The trail on the
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: river bottom wasn't pounded, but it showed some usage. Then
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: there was the trail halfway up the hillside that was
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: real pounded and there were no cameras watching it that
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: I could see. Sit up on that ridgetop, you probably
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: wouldn't see any bucks cruising that trail below you. If
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: you were on the bottom, the bucks would be level
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: or slightly above you, which is a great way to
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: get busted. It was an interesting find, one that will
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: probably play into my twenty four hunting plans. The thing
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: about these little aha moments is they don't happen all
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: that frequently to most of us. In the likelihood they
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: are going to happen on a property you know pretty well,
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: or you think you know pretty well.
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: It's not so great.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: This isn't because there aren't Aha moments waiting for you
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: on your grandma's farm. It's that you probably don't think
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: you even need to look for them.
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: Here's the rub.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: An awful lot of folks are stuck between thinking they
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: have things pretty dialed and still not being able to
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: consist instantly killed big bucks. If you have things dialed,
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: let's say like Andy May, you probably wouldn't feel that way.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: You'd believe that the mature deer will be there and
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: that you'd kill a handful of them each season. But
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: you probably don't. And I'm going to make an educated
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: guess here, you probably aren't like Andy May in a
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: lot of ways. The one that's Germane to this podcast
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: is that he scouts like a fiend and tries to
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: understand the land and how the deer use it more
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: than anyone I've ever met. And that's saying something because
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: I know a lot of really good deer hunters, as
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: well as being someone who just personally loves the scout. Now,
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: scouting comes in many forms and involves many things.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: For some folks.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: When the scouting or in season scouting, you know it's
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: all about deer sign rubs and scrapes and beds. That's great,
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: there's nothing wrong with that strategy, But there's an undercurrent
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: to the whole thing that you might never experience if
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: you focus too much on just finding locations that have
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: some good bucks sign There's the whole thing about how
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: deer get to those spots, when they should be there,
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: and where they go when they leave. This will be
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: dictated almost entirely by how secure those bucks feel on
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: certain routes and what they have to do to stay
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: off the radar of most hunters, including you. Take a
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: buck that wants to rut hard find a couple of girlfriends,
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: but he also lives on a property that gets a
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: ton of pressure. Let's say that property has a few
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: valleys in it. He might just, through random encounters in
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: the presence of stands and cameras, start to realize that
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: the two legged predators he's trying to avoid often hunt
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: on top. They might even park where he can see
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: them drive in and walk to those stands in the
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: pre dawn hours. So he says, man, I really wouldn't
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: mind finding a new girlfriend this morning, but I know
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: that the ridgetop is a danger zone. He might also
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: feel the same way about those nice flats along the
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: creek in the bottom of the valley, where there have
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: been a handful of ladder stands since Reagan was in office.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: So he does something simple. He splits the difference and
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: uses a side hill trail. This way, he can use
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: the thermals avoid the two most likely spots where he'd
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: encounter danger, and he has the option to go high
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: or low if he does meet someone who wants to
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: deflate his lungs. It's honestly that simple a lot of times,
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: but we don't learn the land as well as we should,
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: so we set up on top and rattle our happy
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: asses off, thinking that since it's the rut, every big
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: buck is going to throw caution to the wind and
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: risk their necks. But they mostly won't. That side hill
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: trail you're missing, it's out there waiting for you to
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: walk it this month. If you're a big woods hunter
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: that has thousands of acres of flat timberland to work with,
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: you might not have that bluff side trail to discover,
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: since the land's just pancake flat. But there might be
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: a subtle fold in the train somewhere that offers a
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: bit of elevation, and that might be all you need
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: use onex to look at the land and the elevation changes,
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: and then get out there and see them in person.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: Don't just half asset, but set out to learn with
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: the idea that you have definitely been missing stuff over
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: the years. This is one of the reasons I think
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: hunting new ground is so important. When you leave the
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: lease your dad has paid for since two thousand and
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: three and go scout some new properties, you accept the
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: reality that you don't know what you're going to find.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: You know you have to go look, and that you
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: have to go learn. When you walk that lease this winter,
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: it's very likely that you don't feel the same way.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: You're going to walk the same routes and try to
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: confirm what you believe you know. That's a great way
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: to manifest a fun, familiar destiny come fall. Instead, consider
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: the advantages you have right now. The woods are as
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: bare as they'll be all seasoned for most of us.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: Most of the hunting seasons are over. They're damn close,
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: so there isn't a whole lot of danger to going
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: into sanctuaries or betting areas or just generally walking anywhere
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: you damn well. Please couple this with the reality that
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: you have a lot of time this winter to work
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: things out, and the opportunity to learn is real now.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: While the average YouTube celebrity or influencer or whatever will
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: feed you content on this subject like it's a mission
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: to locate every huge rub and betting area an important
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: land feature in a matter of twenty minutes or so,
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: a more realistic take is to mostly just go for
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: a walk in the woods while staying curious. Scouting is
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: a lifelong, cumulative process, not something that is easy to
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: knock out and master in one January afternoon. So go
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: where you don't go. You know, I've talked about that
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: a lot, but I think it's so important. I mean,
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: even if that's just fifty yards from where you always go,
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: don't stare at your feet. Look around. What does that
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: land show you as you walk through it. Is there
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: a knob or a bench on a hill that you
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: just never go look at? Well, go look at it
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: and then look around. Imagine what you would do if
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: you were a buck standing there in November. What can
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: you see? What would you be able to smell if
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: you had his nose? What would it be like to
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: be bedded there in September versus November. What wind direction
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: would make it a really safe spot if you were
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: a mature buck? Is there a spot right next to
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: the road that you never hunt because you don't want
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: to listen to people driving by all evening? I don't
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: know how often this happens to me, but every year
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: I find all kinds of animals and areas like that.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: Western critters know this trick, and so do white tails.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: Hell pheasants are pretty keyed into it too. Go walk
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: that spot. What do you have to lose? Look around?
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: We often frame productive scouting as going farther than the
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: average hunter, but it's not always about being miles from
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: the parking area. It's about finding the spots people don't
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: go and learning the lay of the land. It's about
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: giving yourself more to think about, more options for when
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: it's October and you're struggling and you don't know what
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: to do about your burned out stand sites. You know,
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: if you give your chance to go sneak in and
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: hang in hunt on that bench you found in January,
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: you might be surprised what you see. But now here's
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: where this gets tough. Most of us think about our
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: hunting properties as a whole chunk of land, but every
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: individual acre probably holds a secret about deer usage. We
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: focus on finding the whole ridgetop that might be good
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: for a hunt instead of learning what each part of
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: it contains. We walk field edges and decide to hunt
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: the corners because that's where deer like to concentrate in
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: the early season. But even a couple hundred yards of
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: field edge can offer dozens of spots to hunt if
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: you take into account that some trails will be good
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: at certain times while others will be dead. You know,
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: how will mast influence certain things, How will it be
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: different to hunt that field edge when it's eighty five
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: degrees versus sixty or forty. Then you've got swamps and
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: slews and monoculture, pine deserts and a hell of a
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: lot more all existing on the land. And you know
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: there's easy travel routes out there and not so easy
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: travel roads. There's deer hiding cover, and there's brows and
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: a whole lot of things that are important to dear
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: on the land. If you want to be better at
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: deer hunting, there's no better way than to learn the ground,
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: and there's no better time to do it than now.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: The miles you walk while keeping your eyes open and
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: your curiosity peaked will be more beneficial to you than
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: the trail cameras you put up this summer. They'll be
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: more beneficial than the bottles of dopey you'll buy in
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: late October. All of that stuff's great, but it really
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: starts to hum when you put it together with an
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: actual understanding of the land. Commit yourself to this, not
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: only the scouting aerial photos of your ground or any
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: ground you might consider hunting, but to also just walk it.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Maybe once a week, maybe twice a week, whatever depends
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: how much land you have to work with, how ambitious
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: you are, go where you don't go. Try to understand
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: the land. This is fundamental and it allows you to
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: develop a base level that won't change. The hills aren't
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: going to be flat next year, and the ditch isn't
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: suddenly going to change somehow. Hunting pressure probably will, the
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: weather definitely will, food, the density, maturity, you, predators, whatever,
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: Most of the variables of your hunt are open to
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: not being the same as they were before. But the land,
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: you know how it rolls, that generally won't change a ton,
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: And that's a huge benefit to you because it gives
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: you something to start with on every single hunt. So
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: get out there, put on the miles, bring your binoculars,
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: stay curious, try to learn something each time you go.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: Then come back next week because I'm going to dive
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: deeper into this topic of winter scouting, because I think
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: it's the one thing that really separates great hunters from
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: average hunters, and I think a lot of people don't
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: get how important it truly is. That's it for this week.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: I'm Tony Peterson. This has been the Wired to Hunt
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: Foundation's podcast, which is brought to you by First Light.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: As always, I just want to thank you so much
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: for all the support. It's been amazing putting together this
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: podcast for the last couple of years and hearing from
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: a lot of you folks, and I just I just
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: want you to know that I absolutely appreciate you tuning
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: in and heading on over to the medeater dot com
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: and reading the articles and checking out to everybody you know,
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: everybody under our stable, their shows, their other podcasts, all
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: that we truly appreciate you. And of course if you
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: want more of that stuff, like I just said, the
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: meeteater dot com is your place to go, check it out,