Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 908: Foundations - How to Hunt Small Properties with Big Pressure

Transcript

Ep. 908: Foundations - How to Hunt Small Properties with Big Pressure · 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: Everyone, welcome to the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which
0:23
Speaker 2: is brought to you by First Light. I'm your host,
0:25
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today's show is all about small properties
0:28
Speaker 2: in areas of high hunting pressure. This episode comes from
0:35
Speaker 2: the deepest, darkest corners of my hunting heart. I don't know,
0:39
Speaker 2: maybe that's too dramatic for a deer hunting podcast, but
0:42
Speaker 2: if I had to drop a scenario that sucks to
0:44
Speaker 2: hunt in, it would be small properties with lots of pressure. Now,
0:47
Speaker 2: that might not be more difficult overall than a big
0:50
Speaker 2: wood scenario with a really low deer density, but it
0:53
Speaker 2: can definitely be real tough. There are ways to make
0:56
Speaker 2: it happen, though, which is what I'm going to talk
0:57
Speaker 2: about right now. Where I currently live in the suburbs
1:05
Speaker 2: of the Twin Cities feels like there are just way
1:09
Speaker 2: way too many people for a guy like me, because
1:12
Speaker 2: well there are and that really sucks. The density of
1:16
Speaker 2: people happens for different reasons, and I'd be willing to
1:19
Speaker 2: bet that most of you find folks who listen to
1:21
Speaker 2: this podcast would happily lean toward living with fewer people
1:24
Speaker 2: around than more. Of course, that also involves what you
1:29
Speaker 2: just know and are comfortable with. My wife loves it
1:32
Speaker 2: here because it's all she has ever known, and even
1:34
Speaker 2: if she hated it, she's pot committed now and would
1:37
Speaker 2: never admit that there are just too many freaking people
1:41
Speaker 2: and just not enough of nature. And there is also
1:43
Speaker 2: the reality of getting older and realizing that the more
1:46
Speaker 2: people you have to interact with, the more you just
1:48
Speaker 2: realize that a lot of them are like energy vampires.
1:52
Speaker 2: You know, not all of them, but you know what
1:53
Speaker 2: I mean. I learned a valuable lesson on this from
1:57
Speaker 2: Zach Over at the Hunting Public one time when I
1:59
Speaker 2: asked him about checking dms on social media. His response
2:03
Speaker 2: was something to the gist of, there just isn't enough
2:06
Speaker 2: time in the world for that shit. And it's also
2:09
Speaker 2: generally a good way to get into a conversation with
2:11
Speaker 2: people who want something from you or want to tell
2:14
Speaker 2: you how horrible you are, so you end up just
2:17
Speaker 2: tightening the circle a bit, and you leave the whole
2:20
Speaker 2: thing on red, which is an impulse I can relate
2:22
Speaker 2: to on a level I can scarcely describe. And even
2:26
Speaker 2: though I'm bitching about where I live, and you know
2:29
Speaker 2: the relatively large yards we have in this area and
2:32
Speaker 2: the available parks and rivers and streams and lakes to fish,
2:35
Speaker 2: there are people who have it a hell of a
2:37
Speaker 2: lot worse. You've probably seen a few of those super
2:40
Speaker 2: huge apartment complexes scattered throughout the world that look like
2:43
Speaker 2: absolute dystopian nightmares. There's one in Johannesburg, South Africa that
2:49
Speaker 2: is a fifty five story building that holds about three
2:52
Speaker 2: thousand residents. Think about that for a second. The entire
2:56
Speaker 2: town I grew up in had a population of about
2:58
Speaker 2: twenty two hundred people. There's a building in Hong Kong
3:02
Speaker 2: which currently houses about four thousand people, and one in
3:06
Speaker 2: Brazil that contains eleven hundred and sixty apartments and about
3:11
Speaker 2: five thousand people, which means that the building is so
3:14
Speaker 2: big and so full of residents that it has its
3:16
Speaker 2: own postal code. Now the winner of where I really
3:20
Speaker 2: wouldn't want to live, Although as a country it's more
3:22
Speaker 2: appealing than a few of the others. Is located in Geneva, Switzerland.
3:27
Speaker 2: Technically it consists of two buildings, but for the sake
3:30
Speaker 2: of a deer hunting podcast, it doesn't matter at all.
3:32
Speaker 2: We can just let that slide. This complex houses over
3:35
Speaker 2: six thousand people in twenty seven hundred and eighty units,
3:39
Speaker 2: with a population density that mirrors Manhattan, New York. It's
3:44
Speaker 2: hard to wrap our minds around living in a building
3:46
Speaker 2: with people on all sides of us, and true rush
3:49
Speaker 2: hour traffic in the hallways and stairwells and elevators, just
3:53
Speaker 2: people walking. That's a rock hard Nope, they're my friends.
3:58
Speaker 2: But it's also just the reality of some places with
4:01
Speaker 2: lots of people, and it's easy to judge when you're
4:04
Speaker 2: a long ways off from having to consider such living conditions.
4:08
Speaker 2: Not having enough space to be left alone is a
4:10
Speaker 2: real issue for a lot of people, and in fact,
4:12
Speaker 2: when we really want to punish bad people in society,
4:15
Speaker 2: we put them in small cells with strangers and make
4:18
Speaker 2: them stay inside for most of every day. Fundamentally, we
4:22
Speaker 2: just need space. We want it, but we can't always
4:25
Speaker 2: get what we want, can we. Mike Jagger, I think
4:27
Speaker 2: about that a lot as I hunt some really small
4:31
Speaker 2: properties here in the suburbs and across the river in Wisconsin,
4:34
Speaker 2: a lot of us hunt small properties and it's well huh,
4:38
Speaker 2: less fun than hunting big properties. This only gets more
4:41
Speaker 2: true with a couple other qualifiers, like whether you share
4:44
Speaker 2: the property with other hunters, or where you hunt just
4:48
Speaker 2: doesn't have a great deer density. Now, if you have
4:50
Speaker 2: to deal with both on a small property, I'd say
4:54
Speaker 2: maybe it's time, I don't know, have to go pick
4:56
Speaker 2: up that new set of golf clubs. But I should
4:58
Speaker 2: also say that when you get to load deer density areas,
5:01
Speaker 2: you often get to areas that not tons of people
5:03
Speaker 2: want to live, So you usually have a situation where
5:05
Speaker 2: you at least have plenty of ground to work with.
5:08
Speaker 2: The place is that lots of people want to live,
5:10
Speaker 2: will often have small parcels worth hunting because of decent
5:14
Speaker 2: deer densities, But you also have a higher hunter density.
5:18
Speaker 2: Now there is something to differentiate here, because it matters.
5:22
Speaker 2: I mentioned on a recent episode of the show that
5:24
Speaker 2: the turkeys we have been hunting here started out on
5:27
Speaker 2: a feeder pattern in the backyards of a new development.
5:30
Speaker 2: It was maddening, and I've seen that movie before. I'm
5:34
Speaker 2: guessing that people feeding them they're mostly hunters, but probably
5:37
Speaker 2: some are just nature lovers who like to watch birds,
5:39
Speaker 2: deer and whatever. Who knows. But the pattern that became
5:42
Speaker 2: evident pretty quickly was that on a Tuesday morning, when
5:45
Speaker 2: everyone was at work, those birds could hang out under
5:48
Speaker 2: those feeders for hours and they didn't have to move,
5:50
Speaker 2: and they mostly didn't. But when people started to come
5:54
Speaker 2: home from work, the birds would bump off the development
5:56
Speaker 2: back into the property. I could hunt. On weekends when
6:00
Speaker 2: people were home all day, the hunting was usually really,
6:03
Speaker 2: really good. For the same reason. Even those half dumb
6:07
Speaker 2: yardbirds up here don't really like hanging out at a
6:10
Speaker 2: bird feeder when someone is mowing the yard, so they
6:13
Speaker 2: are more callable because they're just much more at play.
6:17
Speaker 2: The lesson here is one that I think that matters
6:20
Speaker 2: a lot, which is there is a way to figure
6:22
Speaker 2: out all of this stuff. I could declare those birds unkillable,
6:27
Speaker 2: because for a lot of days they seem to be
6:29
Speaker 2: that way, but they aren't, And finding those windows in
6:32
Speaker 2: which they are is a big difference maker. It's no
6:35
Speaker 2: different than if you put in minimal work on public land,
6:38
Speaker 2: white tails, and only hunt weekend afternoons. You might be
6:41
Speaker 2: pretty quick to look for an excuse as to why
6:43
Speaker 2: it's so hard, but the truth is that you're probably
6:46
Speaker 2: just not doing what it takes. The deer are there
6:49
Speaker 2: and they can be shot by you, but not the
6:52
Speaker 2: way you're hunting. I've talked about this a lot, and
6:55
Speaker 2: when it comes to small properties, this all seems amplified
6:59
Speaker 2: and more frustrating because of the limited options. Even sharing
7:03
Speaker 2: a property with one other person can feel like a
7:06
Speaker 2: bit too much, which I'm acutely aware of because every
7:09
Speaker 2: small property I've ever hunted that I didn't own has
7:11
Speaker 2: had someone else on it. If that person isn't as
7:14
Speaker 2: careful as you are, then your level set to their skills,
7:19
Speaker 2: you're at a disadvantage. It's that simple, because the deer
7:22
Speaker 2: will react to their pressure the most. Not all hope
7:25
Speaker 2: is lost, though, my little ombres, because you can do
7:28
Speaker 2: some things to help out your cause. For starters, look
7:32
Speaker 2: for your advantages. A small property is easy to scout,
7:36
Speaker 2: but I say that, and I should also say this.
7:39
Speaker 2: Small properties can feel like you know them very well,
7:43
Speaker 2: and you can still miss some things. The spot that
7:45
Speaker 2: I killed my Minnesota buck last year is twenty five acres,
7:48
Speaker 2: with about ten or twelve being actually realistically huntable. The
7:52
Speaker 2: area he was in when I shot him as a
7:54
Speaker 2: small woodlot that has a pond in it, just a
7:56
Speaker 2: hub for activity on that property, and what I learned
7:59
Speaker 2: last year is that they approach it from a litany
8:01
Speaker 2: of different directions, but usually pass through one specific spot.
8:05
Speaker 2: The reasons for that vary. There seems to be a
8:08
Speaker 2: dough betting group on the neighbors, which is obviously a
8:11
Speaker 2: big draw for bucks, but also makes it pretty easy
8:14
Speaker 2: to predict dough movement. It's a huge win. There are
8:28
Speaker 2: also three other ways they approach, all from different properties,
8:31
Speaker 2: which makes sense because they certainly aren't going to spend
8:34
Speaker 2: their whole lives on a twenty five acre piece. The
8:37
Speaker 2: way they approach from other properties and how to set
8:40
Speaker 2: up for them makes a small piece seem a little
8:43
Speaker 2: bigger because if you play it right, you can work
8:45
Speaker 2: different wind directions to keon basically the same area. That's
8:50
Speaker 2: something that matters a lot when you're relegated to smaller
8:52
Speaker 2: parcels maximizing your opportunities. This also allows you to distribute
8:57
Speaker 2: your personal hunting pressure a little more evenly, even though
9:01
Speaker 2: that might not seem like the case if you're still
9:03
Speaker 2: hunting only a five acre area on a small property,
9:07
Speaker 2: but it's way way better than either just hunting the
9:10
Speaker 2: same stand over and over, or only hunting one stand
9:13
Speaker 2: when the conditions seem to be perfect for it. Now,
9:16
Speaker 2: if you took a quick two minute walk from that
9:18
Speaker 2: spot to the east side of that property, you'd find
9:20
Speaker 2: a strip of pines mixed with a few oak trees.
9:23
Speaker 2: It's basically a pass through spot that connects one of
9:26
Speaker 2: the larger woodlots in the area, one that I can't hunt,
9:29
Speaker 2: by the way to another decent sized woodlot, also one
9:32
Speaker 2: that I can't hunt. Those pass through spots are the
9:35
Speaker 2: ticket when you're on small properties, especially if you share
9:39
Speaker 2: a property with other hunters. The pressure on the good
9:42
Speaker 2: spots will be high, but a pass through spot seems
9:45
Speaker 2: to be a lower odd situation overall, but will stay
9:48
Speaker 2: somewhat consistent even when you overhunt the other areas on
9:51
Speaker 2: the same parcel or your neighbors overhunt all the bordering properties.
9:58
Speaker 2: This is one of the hardest things to over come
10:00
Speaker 2: when you're in this situation, because a lot of times
10:02
Speaker 2: where you can find a I don't know, fifteen to
10:05
Speaker 2: forty acre piece to hunt, there will be a lot
10:08
Speaker 2: of other small fifteen to forty acre pieces around, and
10:12
Speaker 2: if there are, and there are enough people around, plenty
10:16
Speaker 2: of them will get hunted. When I winter scout small parcels,
10:20
Speaker 2: which I do a lot just to see what I'm missing,
10:22
Speaker 2: I'm almost always amazed at how many blinds and stands
10:25
Speaker 2: I can see when I walk the perimeters. All of
10:28
Speaker 2: that is good data because it can answer some of
10:31
Speaker 2: the questions you might have, like why when the wind
10:34
Speaker 2: seemed perfect for one of your setups, you just couldn't
10:37
Speaker 2: buy a deer sighting there. It could simply be because
10:40
Speaker 2: one of the neighbors is posted up in a way
10:42
Speaker 2: that cuts you off. A response to that is what
10:46
Speaker 2: we do on public a lot, which is to hunt
10:48
Speaker 2: when the neighbor isn't likely to be there. I saw
10:51
Speaker 2: this on a twenty nine acre chunk I used to
10:53
Speaker 2: own in Minnesota that had hunters on all sides. Weekends sucked,
10:59
Speaker 2: rout hunting most sucked. Opening weeks sucked. There were just
11:02
Speaker 2: too many people in the woods at those times, and
11:04
Speaker 2: it definitely suppressed deer movement for me. But if I
11:08
Speaker 2: was going to see a decent buck or at least
11:10
Speaker 2: have a chance to arrow a door or two, that
11:12
Speaker 2: timeframe around the end of September to mid October was
11:15
Speaker 2: pretty good. Then the late season it got pretty good again.
11:19
Speaker 2: I know that's not what most of us want to hear,
11:21
Speaker 2: because we want to hunt when it's supposed to be
11:23
Speaker 2: the best. But all of this stuff is relative to me.
11:26
Speaker 2: The best hunting is when I have as few people
11:29
Speaker 2: as possible to compete with, while the odds of a
11:32
Speaker 2: deer going through feel like they're as high as they're
11:34
Speaker 2: going to get, which pretty much walk in lockstep if
11:37
Speaker 2: you get my drift. So the rut might sound great,
11:41
Speaker 2: but I can have maybe a more peaceful hunt in
11:44
Speaker 2: the beginning of October, and potentially I have higher odds
11:46
Speaker 2: of seeing some deer. Now, well, that's a better hunt
11:49
Speaker 2: on paper, even when it shouldn't be. Now, what I've
11:53
Speaker 2: talked about so far is mostly the reality of hunting
11:55
Speaker 2: a place where you don't have a lot of control
11:57
Speaker 2: over the land. If you own some ground or you
12:00
Speaker 2: have the ability to work on some dirt, you just
12:02
Speaker 2: have some more options. I have a thirty acre piece
12:05
Speaker 2: I bought in Wisconsin about ten years ago that I
12:08
Speaker 2: just love. Over the years, I've expanded a little kill
12:11
Speaker 2: plot to be an actual food plot, although it's a
12:13
Speaker 2: really shitty food plot compared to what most people think
12:15
Speaker 2: of food plots. The good news is the deer up
12:18
Speaker 2: there don't have a lot of great food options, so
12:20
Speaker 2: their standards are pretty low. Is that plot good for
12:23
Speaker 2: killing big deer? No, that has not been the case,
12:27
Speaker 2: but it has been good for some deer, and it's
12:29
Speaker 2: definitely a stopping off point for them. It also allows
12:32
Speaker 2: me to position them and play the wind very well,
12:35
Speaker 2: and having planted some apple trees around there and opened
12:38
Speaker 2: up some wild apple trees to some more sun, hasn't
12:40
Speaker 2: hurt the spot at all, although I can't say it's
12:42
Speaker 2: helped me kill a single deer yet. And I did
12:45
Speaker 2: put in a little pond last year too, and while
12:47
Speaker 2: that didn't kill us any deer either, I guess it
12:50
Speaker 2: doesn't hurt. This again boils down to making the most
12:53
Speaker 2: of what you have to work with. But I'll tell
12:55
Speaker 2: you something I have learned about that property. It is
12:58
Speaker 2: very easy for me to def to hunting that plot
13:01
Speaker 2: over and over, and the deer figure that out pretty quickly.
13:05
Speaker 2: When I do, it's with my daughters because it's a
13:08
Speaker 2: really good strategy for killing a few doughs and running
13:10
Speaker 2: into some dinks. But the cumulative pressure of just us
13:14
Speaker 2: in there definitely pushes some of the deer to other
13:17
Speaker 2: spots of that property. This creates another pass through situation,
13:21
Speaker 2: mostly because again, deer aren't going to spend their whole
13:24
Speaker 2: lives on thirty acres. But one thing I have noticed
13:27
Speaker 2: is that some bucks and some dough groups will call
13:29
Speaker 2: it home pretty consistently. If I don't go wandering through,
13:32
Speaker 2: they're a ton. Now, this is the last point I
13:35
Speaker 2: want to make on here, and I think it's a
13:36
Speaker 2: good one. I'm generally most confident in my hunting when
13:40
Speaker 2: I find sign and figure out how to work it.
13:43
Speaker 2: A pounded trail means a hell of a lot more
13:45
Speaker 2: to me than some trail camera images, just like finding
13:48
Speaker 2: an awesome rubline does. But when it comes to small
13:51
Speaker 2: properties where I'm trying to be cognizant of my presence
13:54
Speaker 2: because I know how quickly I can put the deer down,
13:57
Speaker 2: trail cameras provide a huge advantage. Not only can you
14:00
Speaker 2: monitor those pass through spots to see what you can
14:03
Speaker 2: do about setting up for deer in those areas, but
14:06
Speaker 2: you can often figure out how deer use your property
14:08
Speaker 2: in a way that you just wouldn't be able to
14:10
Speaker 2: without cameras. On that thirty I have over in Wisconsin,
14:14
Speaker 2: I usually run maybe four or five cameras all summer
14:17
Speaker 2: and fall, and often through the winter. The camera on
14:20
Speaker 2: the plot shows the most action until the camera in
14:23
Speaker 2: the far corner does, but often when the bucks are moving,
14:27
Speaker 2: they'll walk by more than one camera in a single day.
14:30
Speaker 2: That information is crazy valuable to me. And it's not
14:34
Speaker 2: just the bucks either, the doze too. When I see
14:37
Speaker 2: how they use a property, I can use that to
14:39
Speaker 2: my advantage in a major way. So not only does
14:42
Speaker 2: this show me when that buck is on his feet,
14:45
Speaker 2: and when it shows me if he was in one
14:49
Speaker 2: spot at five thirty and the next one at six o'clock,
14:52
Speaker 2: or if the does were there in the morning and
14:54
Speaker 2: they came back in the evening, and from what direction
14:57
Speaker 2: you could start to understand a picture of deer usage
15:00
Speaker 2: on a small piece that can play into your hunting
15:02
Speaker 2: strategy in a major way, in a way that's easier
15:06
Speaker 2: than if you have a larger property. So there's an
15:08
Speaker 2: advantage there, and you can also start to easily gather
15:11
Speaker 2: year over year data on that small property. In particular,
15:17
Speaker 2: I always get an influx of bucks in the end
15:19
Speaker 2: of September on that place. I don't actually know why,
15:22
Speaker 2: but I know it's true. I think it might be
15:24
Speaker 2: due to the neighbors just putting more pressure on them
15:26
Speaker 2: than I do, and then those deer seek out a
15:28
Speaker 2: little sanctuary. But I also think it might be something else.
15:31
Speaker 2: In that county in particular, even though baiting has been
15:34
Speaker 2: banned for two years, a lot of the residents just bait.
15:36
Speaker 2: It's ingrained in the deer hunting culture, and I often
15:39
Speaker 2: have summer bucks patterned really well, only to have them
15:42
Speaker 2: totally disappear right before the opener, which isn't always a
15:45
Speaker 2: sign of nearby baiting, but often is. I think a
15:49
Speaker 2: lot of the neighbors hit it hard around opener, and
15:51
Speaker 2: then they slack off with a baiting a couple weeks
15:53
Speaker 2: into the season before ramping up again closer to the
15:56
Speaker 2: rut and the rifle season. I think that the deer
15:59
Speaker 2: that show up in my place are back on a
16:01
Speaker 2: more natural food pattern, and that brings them through my
16:04
Speaker 2: plot into my apple trees and very likely the random
16:07
Speaker 2: oaks scattered throughout the piece. That could be wrong doesn't
16:11
Speaker 2: really matter because the trail cameras show me that year
16:14
Speaker 2: over year, a good time to be there is the
16:16
Speaker 2: end of September. Small property hunting teaches you a lot
16:20
Speaker 2: about deer, but more about how to hunt parcels where
16:23
Speaker 2: you just don't have much room to roam. It's not
16:25
Speaker 2: as fun as having a couple of sections all to yourself,
16:28
Speaker 2: but it's reality and only becoming more so as we
16:31
Speaker 2: make more people and build more McMansions where farms once dominated.
16:36
Speaker 2: It's just the direction we are headed. So for a
16:38
Speaker 2: lot of us, mastering the small property thing is a
16:41
Speaker 2: good idea. It's also a good idea to come back
16:43
Speaker 2: next week because I'm going to talk about a topic
16:45
Speaker 2: that I didn't really care about much until a few
16:47
Speaker 2: years ago, and now because of my daughters, it's important.
16:51
Speaker 2: And that topic is crossbows. Whether you hate them, you're
16:55
Speaker 2: going to want to listen, whether you love them, you're
16:57
Speaker 2: going to listen. Really just listen, because I'm going to
17:00
Speaker 2: go through my process of how I came to start
17:03
Speaker 2: using them for my daughters and what I've learned about
17:06
Speaker 2: hunting with them. That's it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson.
17:09
Speaker 2: This has been the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which
17:11
Speaker 2: has brought to you by First Light. As always, thank
17:14
Speaker 2: you so much for your support. I can't tell you
17:16
Speaker 2: how much it means to us here at meat Eater.
17:19
Speaker 2: If you want some more content, maybe you want to
17:21
Speaker 2: listen to Brent's This Country Life podcast. Maybe you want
17:25
Speaker 2: to watch Mark Hunt and Blacktails up in Alaska Entertainment education,
17:30
Speaker 2: we have it all. Maybe just want to read some
17:32
Speaker 2: articles about dog training, which we're covering like crazy lately.
17:36
Speaker 2: Whatever them meeteater dot com. We drop new content every day,
17:40
Speaker 2: tons of good stuff. Go check it out, and again,
17:42
Speaker 2: thank you so much