Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 439: Foundations - The Long Lost Art of Long-Range Glassing

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Ep. 439: Foundations - The Long Lost Art of Long-Range Glassing · 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 dear hunting, and now your host,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Tony Peterson. Hey everyone, welcome to the Wire to Hunt
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Foundations podcast, which is brought to you by First Light.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: This week's episode is all about going old school to
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: watch big bucks do their thing throughout the summer. If
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: you spend any time at all hunting with a Western
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: bow hunter who has truly dialed in, you'll see someone
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: who spends a lot of time glassing. White tail hunters
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: can learn from this. Even though we tend to glass
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: before the season is open to gather summertime intel instead
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: of finding an animal to target right now. Like our
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Western brethren, I realized not everyone has the chance or
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: the means to glass summertime bucks, but if you do,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: you absolutely should. I think this is one of the
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: most enjoyable types of scouting, and honestly might be the
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: most valuable in some situations. That's the whole idea behind
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: this episode, which is dedicated to busting out the optics
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: and tapping into your inner dear voyor. Welcome to the
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast, brought to you by First Light.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: So far We've covered boots on the ground scouting, and
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: just about everything I can think of when it comes
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: to trail cameras. Now it's time to get serious about
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: my favorite kind of deer scouting, summertime glassing. This is
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: almost a lost art these days for a couple of reasons.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: For one, why would you swat mosquitoes while a spotting
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: scope sucks your eyeballs out of your head just to
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: watch bucks feeding when you could walk in, hang a camera,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: and get out in the same amount of time it
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: takes to watch a Simpson's rerun. And there is also
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: the reality that many of us face where we don't
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: have a dreamy soybean field or fell fulfield to glass.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: If you're a suburban hunter, or maybe a big woods hunter,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: it might not be possible to hike in with a
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: spotter and watch a group of velvet bucks do their thing.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: You got to read your situation and understand that while
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: you might not have an ideal glassing scenario, you might
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: have more options than you think. When I was living
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: in north central Minnesota and hunting ground in a region
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: with limited hay fields and other egg I realized that
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: the crop heavy style of scouting I grew up with
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: was gone. I also realized that there were some meadows
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: worth watching and occasionally clear cuts, really fresh clear cuts
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: that would allow me to post up in a corner
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: and observe. After moving from there to the suburbs of
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: the Twin Cities, I realized I was around more egg
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: but also relegated to small properties, really small properties. This
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: was tough because the food was always on someone else's ground.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you just have to accept that you can't scout
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: the way you want to. In that case, I could
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: drive by and throw the binos up when I had
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: the chance, but it was a poor substitute for actual
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: summertime glassing sessions. So it's not possible for everyone. But
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: if you do have the chance to glass summer, dear
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: that you could eventually hunt in the fall, you absolutely should.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Here's why it's not just about hitless and inventory. And
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: sure it's fun to lay eyes on a red coated
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: summertime toad out munching away with his buddies in the evening,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: But what does that do for you? It might change
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: your hunting plans and force you to get a little
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: more serious, which is good. Or it might prompt you
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: to run a few more cameras or spend more time
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: on the glass, both of which should increase your odds
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: of success as long as you don't overstay your welcome
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: where he lives. Seeing big Bucks is fun, But the
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: benefit isn't getting to give a wild critter acute name mark,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: or knowing that you've got four fifty inches in your
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: neighborhood to target this fall. The benefit is that watching
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: deer is well, it's beneficial. There are a few different
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: fronts here, but I'll start with one that you might
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: not be thinking of. How often in your life do
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: you encounter mature bucks? For yours truly, who hunts quite
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: a few states and puts in a lot of time,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: the end seasoned encounters might tally up to half a
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: dozen on any given year. Of those, one, or if
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: I'm really super duper lucky, two or three will end
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  Speaker 1: up in the back of my truck. That's not a
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  Speaker 1: lot of interaction, it's not a lot of experience. And
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: I'm a lucky guy. I get to hunt, at least
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  Speaker 1: partially for my job. Most of us just aren't encountering
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: mature bucks on any level of consistent basis While we're
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: hunting This is part of the reason why buck fever
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: is so much more common than most of us will admit.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Even hunters in the great state of Iowa, who have
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: a higher expectation of running into big bucks than anyone
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: else often fall apart when those bucks actually do walk by.
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  Speaker 1: This is because it's just not that common, even in
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: the places where it's most common. Another way to look
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: at this is just to like, turn on out door
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: television and watch a few hours if you fancy a
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: little low level torture. It won't be long before you'll
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: see some twelve year old kid who was spawned by
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: an industry celebrity power couple hunting. This kid will shoot
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: right in the lungs a buck bigger than you could
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: imagine seeing in any given decade of hard hunting, and
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: you'll probably think, how the hell does a sixth grader
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: keep it together on a booner when I lose my
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: ship on bucks? It's because they know that if they
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: screw up, the next one is coming down the trail.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: They miss a big one, go to moral, there'll be
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: another pass up a one. Don't worry, there's a one
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  Speaker 1: hitting the other end of the plot. He'll be there
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  Speaker 1: in a second for you, that one buck that represents
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: something big for you is a rare thing. Indeed, this
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: is one of the reasons we kind of had these
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: mythical elements to what amounts to rabbits with antlers. We say,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: do dear have a sixth sense? Can they recognize when
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: you're looking at them in the eyes? Honestly no, but
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: they are good at detecting two pound quivering lumps of
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: anxiety hanging off trees and what amounts to their bedroom
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: because if they weren't, they die as four keys. Big
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: bucks aren't unkillable. Survival machines and long range glassing will
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: teach you that at no time of the year can
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: you watch mature bucks doing what mature bucks do more
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: easily than you can in the back half of the
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: summer when I was in college, I really started getting
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: after the long range glass and game, really started to
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: enjoy it, and I remember how astonished I was that
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: I could often find an observed box that were forty
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: or sixty inches bigger than anything I'd ever killed. What
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: was crazier was that they would often walk out and
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: feed along the whole woodline or enter a corner of
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: a field every night like clockwork, as long as I
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: didn't creep in too close and start blowing deer out.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Those efforts made me start to consider that not only
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: were they not as special as I thought, but then
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: I'm might kill one. I did too. Eventually, after fourteen
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: years of obsessive bow hunting, that non typical fourteen pointer
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: looked like a moose when I first saw him, and
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: it was an absolute act of God that my arrow
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: passed through the right stuff when he was just ten
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: yards away on the edge of a bean field in
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: a September drizzle. So many of my previously held beliefs
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: died with that deer that night. And while that success
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: wasn't solely due to summer glass ng, a huge part
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: of that level up moment can be attributed to just
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: watching Bucks in August. Look, what I'm saying is that
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: glass in one evening can teach you more about dear
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: behavior than running a pile of cameras can all summer long.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: This is important because the Bucks will give you a
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: first hand glimpse into how they use the terrain during
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: various weather conditions. So instead of just watching to see
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: big Bucks, watch to see big Bucks step up. From
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: the trail and look around. Pay attention to wh already
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: walked out the trail. Did a doe group them already?
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: How about a bachelor group of scrappers? What did the
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: big boy or big boys do before they got into
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  Speaker 1: the field or right after they got out there? Could
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: you get into a situation where you could see them
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  Speaker 1: before they made it into the groceries? This is possible
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: in a lot of places they are more open, like
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: when it comes to western white tails. Farther east, It's
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: not as likely, but could still be possible depending on
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  Speaker 1: your hunting situation. Pay attention to what wind direction was
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  Speaker 1: blowing when the bucks stepped out of a specific trail.
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  Speaker 1: Did that favor them? And they're likely travel route? How
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  Speaker 1: so when they entered the field, where they in a
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  Speaker 1: low spot that isn't visible from any road, or were
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: they on a high spine that gave them the best
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: chance to see predators in the field? Kind of like
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: where Big Tom's really like to strut in April? Did
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  Speaker 1: the bucks come out two hours before dark or five
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  Speaker 1: minutes When they got to the food, did they dive
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  Speaker 1: right in and start eating without a real direction in
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  Speaker 1: mine or did they look like they were working toward
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  Speaker 1: a bigger goal. That goal might be a pond tucked
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  Speaker 1: in somewhere, or it might be that they are headed
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  Speaker 1: toward a fence crossing that leads to the neighbor's field.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Their direction of travel and the rate they move and
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: where they end up before you lose sight of them
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  Speaker 1: are huge things to know. You get to see what
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: they favor and can speculate why they favor those things,
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  Speaker 1: which is valuable intel to file away for the hunting season.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: And I can't stress this enough. All of that stuff
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  Speaker 1: is important. In today's dear world, we tend to try
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: to control the uncontrollable as much as possible. For example,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: where baiting is legal, it's to go to strategy simply
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: because it's sort of promises results in the exact spots
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: we want to hunt. Food plots offer the same illusion,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: and although they take a little more work than a
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: bait pile, the results can be very similar. Cutting trails,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: adding in water sources, whatever. We love to try to
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  Speaker 1: nudge deer to do what we want them to do
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: to make our hunting easier. And that's okay, it's part
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: of the game. If you can plan a food plot,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: do it. If you can hire someone to come in
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: and build upon go for it. That part's fun too,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: if you have the option. But if you want to
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: be a better deer hunter in general, learning about what
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: dear do naturally is how you do it, And the
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: window for the most education here is now, in the
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: form of summertime observation. Now, of course, you've got to
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: have the ability to see dear from far away. For me,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: this involves both binoculars and a spotting scope. In some situations,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: you could probably get away with just binoculars if that's
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: all you got, but a spotter really changes the game,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: even a relatively inexpensive one. There's no need to take
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: out a helock loan for a spotting scope used solely
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: for white tails. But I will say this, when it
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: comes to glass, you get what you pay for. Inexpensive
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: isn't necessarily bad. It just won't be crazy good. It
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: could easily be good enough, though, which is fine. But
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: what's not fine is a super cheap tripod. Spending thirty
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: dollars for a tripod is a great way to wipe
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: your butt with thirty dollars while still not having a tripod.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: I bought a cheaper and a pinch one time for
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: a photo shoot, and it literally broke while I was
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: unboxing it. It didn't even have the structural integrity to
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: hold up while I removed it from a cardboard box.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: The difference in spending an extra hundred dollars on a
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: tripod is truly incredible. It's one of those things where
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: you just don't want to go cheap, like when it
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: comes to broadheads or buying a Western hunting pack, and
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: when you do get out with your optics, you want
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: to use your binoculars to scan. These are for picking
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: up the color of a summer coat, or the flicker
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: of velvet tines above a sea of green waste high soybeans,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: any hint of a deer, and the spotter it gets
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: trained on the location and the magnification gets dialed up.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: This seems simple enough, but there's an art to it
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: in art, not only to reading the landscape and picking
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: out the deer, but then really getting on them quickly
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: with your optics. If you don't believe this glass with
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: somebody who's really good at it or someone who's really
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: terrible at it, the difference in dear spotted will be appreciable.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: The people who are good learned to about the inconsistencies
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: in the landscape, just like the hunters who are quick
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: to pick up the hint of a back line in
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: the woods or a glimpse of a white tail's white tail.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Just like with hunting, sometimes when you're glassing, the deer
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: suddenly appear or unmistakable. They're just there. But other times
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: it's a matter of slowly scanning with your binos to
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: look for something that just doesn't quite belong. This might
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: be that reddish summer coat that isn't quite the same
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: color as the c RP grass, or the flash of
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: a throat patch as a buckle pokes his head out
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: of the woodline to see if there's any visible danger
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: in the field. Practice and experience matter here, and the
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: more you glass, the better you'll get at it. This
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: is an obvious benefit during summer scouting sessions, but also
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: carries over into your time into the field come fall.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: And also pay attention to your comfort. In the next episode,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: I'm really going to break down a glassing strategy, but
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: for now consider some of the big picture stuff, like
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: how you'll deal with bugs and whether you can sit
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: comfortably in the edge of a cornfield while poking your
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: spot or out for a few hours. Have a way
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: to deal with mosquitoes, whether you spray down or you
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: use a thermocell unit. Discomfort is the enemy of hunting
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: success and glassing success. You need to enjoy this time,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: and if you're constantly swatting mosquitoes, you're not gonna enjoy it.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: You won't enjoy it either if your lower back is
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: screaming in agony after half an hour of sitting on
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: the ground, A good cushion or a little tripod chair
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: like those we use in Turkey season can be the ticket.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: And don't sabotage yourself before you even get out there.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Give yourself a chance and understand that what you're doing
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: is going out an hour or two before you plan
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: to see a deer, and we'll be sitting until it's
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: too dark to see anything. This might be three or
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: four hours on a decent evening, and at least two
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: if it's really hot. As much fun as I think
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: summertime glassing is, I'm also reminded that it's often mostly
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: tedium and discomfort until the deer show up. Just like
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: a lot of my actual hunts, are, but they're always
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: worth it if you see them through to the end.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: So take a look at your hunting spots, both your
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: private spots and any public you might be interested in hunting.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: The good thing about summertime glassing is that you can
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: devote an evening or two per week for the month
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: August and really get your finger on the pulse of
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: different spots. A night spent watching an egg field that
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: borders a large chunk of public land might not really
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: seem like it's worth it. It's not maybe a great
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: way to spend your time, but it can tell you
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: whether the public might be worth hunting or whether you
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: are better off sticking to those smaller chunks of private
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: you have permission to hunt if you've been scouting in
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: person and with cameras a couple of nights. A long
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: range glass and can also really help you tie together
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: the dear movement on your property. Not only do you
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: have pictures of the buck you're after slur bring up
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: some water in the morning as he heads back to bed,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: but now you've watched him enter a certain field three
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: different times in two weeks. That knowledge is how we
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: get those instagram worthy trophy photos. My friends, make a
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: plan to long range glass if it's possible. You'll learn
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: more about mature books than you ever could listening to
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: random hunting podcasts or reading random hunting articles. You'll also
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: find that it's probably the most fun type of scutting
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: there is, aside from the early spring days when you're
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: just itching to get out and shake off the cabin
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: fever while putting on some miles in the woods. So
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: get ready to glass. But I understand that you won't
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: be driving into the edge of the field and watching
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: from your truck while singing along to Luke Brian. You're
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: instead going to treat your glassing sessions like a rifle hunt,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: which is the topic of next week's episode. So please
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: tune in and I promise you we will make this
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: amission that will help you kill more big bucks. That's
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: it for this episode, my friends, be sure to check
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: out next week's show so you can keep leveling up
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: your white tailed glassing game. I'm Tony Peterson and this
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: has been the Wired Hunt Foundations podcast. As always, thank
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: you so much for your support and we will see
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: you right here next week.