Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 1072: Foundations - Tight-Quarter Stand Setups for Big Bucks
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired2Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide to the
- 0:05Speaker 1: fundamentals of better deer hunting. Presented by First Light, creating proven,
- 0:10Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle, or blind. First Light,
- 0:15Speaker 1: go farther, stay longer. And now, your host, Tony Peterson.
- 0:20Speaker 2: Hey everyone, welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
- 0:22Speaker 2: which is brought to you by First Light. I'm your host,
- 0:24Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about thinking through
- 0:27Speaker 2: your setups to make sure you get the best shot
- 0:29Speaker 2: opportunities possible on big bucks. All right, I think this
- 0:36Speaker 2: episode might be one of the most helpful ones I've
- 0:37Speaker 2: ever put together so far. The thing I love about
- 0:40Speaker 2: this podcast is that I have to take some of
- 0:41Speaker 2: the things I just do in whitetail hunting that I
- 0:43Speaker 2: think work, you know, like how I set up my
- 0:45Speaker 2: stands and blinds, and then explain them, you know, explain
- 0:48Speaker 2: the reasons why I do what I do. Maybe that
- 0:50Speaker 2: sounds dumb, but on this topic I'm working through today,
- 0:52Speaker 2: I think it'll make a lot of sense when you
- 0:55Speaker 2: hear it. And I think if you listen and at
- 0:56Speaker 2: least loosely follow this advice, you might not necessarily see
- 1:00Speaker 2: more deer, but you'll shoot more deer and not just
- 1:02Speaker 2: any deer either. Big bucks. Let's run a visualization experiment here.
- 1:13Speaker 2: Picture yourself at the top of a mountain, like way,
- 1:16Speaker 2: way at the top. Doesn't have to be Everest. Just
- 1:19Speaker 2: an exposed mountaintop. What's happening to you? Well, you probably
- 1:25Speaker 2: have a beautiful view of the mountain range around you.
- 1:28Speaker 2: You know, the green valleys below. Maybe way off in
- 1:31Speaker 2: the distance you can see a road with traffic passing along.
- 1:34Speaker 2: It looks like it's all just toy cars and trucks
- 1:36Speaker 2: because they're so small from your view. And that view
- 1:38Speaker 2: is great. But also, the wind is smoking and it's cold.
- 1:44Speaker 2: The rocks around you are like a moonscape. And everywhere
- 1:47Speaker 2: you look are places where if you slip and fall,
- 1:49Speaker 2: You just might die or at the very least end
- 1:52Speaker 2: up with a couple of important leg bones sticking out
- 1:54Speaker 2: through your skin. The beauty of the view might outweigh
- 1:57Speaker 2: the feeling of being very exposed and not all that
- 2:00Speaker 2: close to anything truly safe.
- 2:02Speaker 1: Maybe.
- 2:03Speaker 2: Now, leave that mountaintop. Go completely somewhere else. Like Central Florida.
- 2:09Speaker 2: Instead of being 15,000 feet above sea level, you're not
- 2:13Speaker 2: 15 centimeters above sea level. Standing on a small hump
- 2:16Speaker 2: of dry ground in a swamp. let's say, in July.
- 2:21Speaker 2: Forget the bugs for a second, which you wouldn't be
- 2:23Speaker 2: able to do if you were actually there, but just
- 2:24Speaker 2: think about your view. You can see maybe 10 or
- 2:28Speaker 2: 20 feet in any direction, but mostly you see greenery,
- 2:31Speaker 2: jungle-like brush and trees, and there's water everywhere. It's a
- 2:35Speaker 2: claustrophobic environment and probably not all that comfortable for a
- 2:39Speaker 2: lot of people, particularly the average Midwestern whitetail hunter. Now,
- 2:43Speaker 2: if you were hiding from someone, You might be comforted
- 2:46Speaker 2: by the fact that you'd be hard to find just
- 2:48Speaker 2: on principle alone in a spot like that. But what
- 2:50Speaker 2: about the alligators? Maybe there's a big cat roaming the
- 2:53Speaker 2: swamp looking for a bite-sized deer. Snakes? Sure, they're there.
- 2:58Speaker 2: The mind can find plenty of danger in an environment
- 3:00Speaker 2: like that. And since you can't see very far, the
- 3:03Speaker 2: general thought will be that the dangers could be close.
- 3:07Speaker 2: It's not a settling, comfortable environment. Not unlike the mountaintop.
- 3:11Speaker 2: which is kind of the exact opposite but provides a
- 3:15Speaker 2: similar feeling, even though the look is totally different. But
- 3:18Speaker 2: why are those scenarios anxiety-inducing? Well, one explanation comes from
- 3:23Speaker 2: a fellow named Jay Appleton, a geographer who wrote the
- 3:26Speaker 2: book The Experience of Landscape, which came out back in 1975.
- 3:30Speaker 2: The central idea of the book is that humans are
- 3:34Speaker 2: evolutionarily bent toward environments that provide two things, prospect and refuge.
- 3:41Speaker 2: Prospect is simply the ability to see outward and observe
- 3:45Speaker 2: the surrounding environment. But refuge allows for the ability to
- 3:49Speaker 2: hide and find shelter, to remain safe. Where would this
- 3:53Speaker 2: come from? Well, most of our history was spent out,
- 3:57Speaker 2: you know, in the wild looking for food and trying
- 4:00Speaker 2: to find shelter and water, while simultaneously trying to spot
- 4:03Speaker 2: short-faced bears and other critters that could turn us into lunch.
- 4:07Speaker 2: And let's not forget the other humans out there who
- 4:10Speaker 2: once encountered would often prove to not be very friendly.
- 4:14Speaker 2: Simply put, an environment that allowed for observation while remaining
- 4:19Speaker 2: in safety was ideal, and we sought them out. Now,
- 4:24Speaker 2: our ancestors who didn't, didn't get to make as many
- 4:26Speaker 2: babies as those who did. Think about houses and how
- 4:30Speaker 2: they're designed and why they are comfortable and cozy. And
- 4:34Speaker 2: then think about why we generally don't build houses without windows,
- 4:37Speaker 2: for example. Or maybe a more fun way to think
- 4:40Speaker 2: about this is, Think about why kids like to build forts.
- 4:44Speaker 2: This is sort of a universal experience for children, or
- 4:47Speaker 2: at least it used to be. A fort is an
- 4:50Speaker 2: enclosure that offers the feeling of protection, but there's always
- 4:53Speaker 2: a window or a gap in the blankets that allows
- 4:56Speaker 2: for observation. This might also explain our preference for elevated
- 4:59Speaker 2: locations like tree houses, upper floor balconies, hilltops, mountain overlooks,
- 5:04Speaker 2: and well, you get it. It's fascinating stuff, and it
- 5:07Speaker 2: has a lot to do with why a lot of
- 5:10Speaker 2: hunters don't kill very many big bucks. You see, if
- 5:12Speaker 2: you think about our preference for views and our environments,
- 5:17Speaker 2: and you run it back through the march of time,
- 5:20Speaker 2: you can start to understand why our ancestors chose very
- 5:22Speaker 2: specific types of locations. It was truly a means for survival.
- 5:28Speaker 2: We don't really need to think about it that way now,
- 5:30Speaker 2: but you can put yourself in a buck's, uh, hooves?
- 5:34Speaker 2: and start to see why he might not want to
- 5:36Speaker 2: spend much of his daylight hours feeding away in shin-high hayfield,
- 5:40Speaker 2: as opposed to betting on a hillside bench with his
- 5:42Speaker 2: back to a deadfall and his eyes pointed toward the
- 5:45Speaker 2: valley below. He's looking for the right kind of spot
- 5:48Speaker 2: that gives him refuge and a valuable enough view of
- 5:50Speaker 2: whatever might be headed his way. Just like with us,
- 5:54Speaker 2: he's looking for a kind of controlled openness in much
- 5:57Speaker 2: of his life. A big enough view that is paired
- 6:00Speaker 2: with the feeling of protection. All right. So where am
- 6:04Speaker 2: I going with this? Well, take a drive through the
- 6:07Speaker 2: countryside about anywhere these days where deer live and people
- 6:10Speaker 2: still hunt them. You'll see box blinds on field edges
- 6:13Speaker 2: and other highly advantageous spots. We literally took little houses
- 6:17Speaker 2: and put them up where the deer live. Which does what?
- 6:21Speaker 2: It gives us big views, but a cozy spot to
- 6:23Speaker 2: observe them from. Because the big views are often not
- 6:27Speaker 2: great for killing big bucks, though. We often pair those
- 6:29Speaker 2: little houses up with, you know, food plots and other
- 6:32Speaker 2: things that should draw deer in. but I don't want
- 6:34Speaker 2: to talk about box blind hunting here. I want to
- 6:37Speaker 2: talk about regular unenclosed tree stands and saddles and ground blinds,
- 6:41Speaker 2: you know, both the hub style kind and the natural kind,
- 6:44Speaker 2: the kinds of setups that a lot of bow hunters
- 6:45Speaker 2: utilize throughout the season. Now, what would you say is
- 6:49Speaker 2: a fairly common denominator found around, you know, ambush setups
- 6:53Speaker 2: that the average weekend warrior whitetail hunter would choose? Forget
- 6:58Speaker 2: the style of stand or blind, but think about the environment.
- 7:01Speaker 2: it's almost always somewhat open. Field edges? For sure. Meadows?
- 7:08Speaker 1: You bet.
- 7:09Speaker 2: Power lines cut through miles of state forest? You know it.
- 7:12Speaker 2: How about just a nice deciduous forest with old growth
- 7:15Speaker 2: trees that blot out the sun and keep the undergrowth
- 7:18Speaker 2: from getting enough tiny packages of energy from the sky
- 7:21Speaker 2: to grow some weeds and brush? Absolutely. Now imagine just
- 7:24Speaker 2: the difference between hunting those types of spots on the
- 7:27Speaker 2: ground versus being 17 feet up in a tree. The
- 7:31Speaker 2: view is going to change. The vibes are going to change.
- 7:34Speaker 2: What we want is the feeling of being secure and
- 7:36Speaker 2: hidden while also being able to see as much of
- 7:39Speaker 2: the environment around us as we can. Now, imagine that
- 7:42Speaker 2: you're a five and a half year old buck on
- 7:44Speaker 2: public land in Pennsylvania or maybe Kentucky. Your encounters with
- 7:48Speaker 2: hunters and all of the times you catch a whiff
- 7:50Speaker 2: of where someone has been through recently, they all stack
- 7:54Speaker 2: up in your brain as cautionary experiences related to a threat.
- 7:58Speaker 2: What percentage of those encounters with bow hunters, or I
- 8:02Speaker 2: guess deer hunters in general, happen in those types of spots?
- 8:06Speaker 2: I would guess most of them. Especially most of the
- 8:10Speaker 2: encounters that don't involve a person just blindly walking through
- 8:13Speaker 2: the woods anyway. The kind of encounters that signal you're
- 8:16Speaker 2: around someone with bad intentions. What would you do with
- 8:20Speaker 2: that information if you were a big buck? Well, in
- 8:23Speaker 2: a day you'd find that bench or other spot that
- 8:25Speaker 2: offered ideal protection and threat detection. And at night, when
- 8:29Speaker 2: the hunters were gone, at least the two-legged hunters, and
- 8:32Speaker 2: the four-legged toothy critters were out, you'd probably spend more
- 8:35Speaker 2: time out in the open where the danger has no
- 8:38Speaker 2: good approach to you. That leaves most of us with
- 8:51Speaker 2: not a lot of options for how to kill a
- 8:53Speaker 2: big buck of that age. because most of his life
- 8:56Speaker 2: he's conducting himself in a way that doesn't expose him
- 8:59Speaker 2: to our style of preferred ambush hunting. Sure, we can
- 9:03Speaker 2: blind call our asses off and try some other tricks
- 9:06Speaker 2: to get him to give up his advantages, but we
- 9:09Speaker 2: all know how well that works when we're in pursuit
- 9:11Speaker 2: of a real mature buck in most places. This means
- 9:14Speaker 2: you need to break his life down into those spots
- 9:17Speaker 2: in which he's going to move, in daylight, and then
- 9:20Speaker 2: figure out how to get there and hunt him. But
- 9:23Speaker 2: you know what you usually have to do in order
- 9:25Speaker 2: to make that happen? Ignore those big views. This is
- 9:29Speaker 2: a lot harder than people think, and it's partially just
- 9:32Speaker 2: due to our evolution. Kind of like when you come
- 9:35Speaker 2: home from being out all day and you're just starving.
- 9:38Speaker 2: You're not as likely to take the time to make
- 9:40Speaker 2: a nice, well-balanced, and healthy meal because your brain is
- 9:43Speaker 2: wired to look for calorie-dense foods that can give you
- 9:46Speaker 2: energy your body is asking for without any commitment of
- 9:50Speaker 2: extra time. A big bowl of mac and cheese is
- 9:52Speaker 2: just more appealing in that situation than a salad, even
- 9:55Speaker 2: if you could get them to the same calorie count.
- 9:58Speaker 2: When most hunters hang a stand or put up a blind,
- 10:02Speaker 2: at least a partial reason for them choosing the location
- 10:05Speaker 2: is going to be because of the view. But is
- 10:08Speaker 2: that the criteria we should be working off of? I
- 10:12Speaker 2: don't think so. I have a reputation for a couple
- 10:14Speaker 2: of things in the whitetail world. You know, hunting water
- 10:17Speaker 2: is one. Shooting forkeys when I want to is another,
- 10:20Speaker 2: but I also tend to hang stands that don't offer
- 10:23Speaker 2: awesome views a lot of times. I like to hunt
- 10:25Speaker 2: right where bucks are likely to go and set up
- 10:28Speaker 2: so if they do just that, I can shoot them
- 10:30Speaker 2: when they are 20 yards away. People often comment when
- 10:34Speaker 2: they sit my stands that they go a little nutty,
- 10:37Speaker 2: but when the buck shows up, it's awesome. You'll see
- 10:40Speaker 2: a lot of this if you watch the 12 and
- 10:42Speaker 2: 26 film from when I hunted with Steve and his
- 10:44Speaker 2: buddy Pat last fall in Nebraska, which is coming out
- 10:47Speaker 2: this week. Where Pat killed his buck was just one
- 10:51Speaker 2: of those spots. There were far more open areas on
- 10:54Speaker 2: both sides of that pinch point that he was on,
- 10:56Speaker 2: but the spot to get a buck close and broadside
- 10:58Speaker 2: was where I put up that blind. It wasn't a
- 11:01Speaker 2: fun blind to sit because he couldn't see much of anything,
- 11:04Speaker 2: but it was the place to be when a cruising
- 11:06Speaker 2: buck came through. I know that makes sense when you
- 11:09Speaker 2: hear me say it, but think about what most hunters
- 11:12Speaker 2: actually do when they go in to hang a set
- 11:14Speaker 2: or put up a ground blind. And listen, I'm not
- 11:17Speaker 2: saying you can't kill deer or big bucks on field
- 11:20Speaker 2: edges and other openings because that would be stupid. But
- 11:23Speaker 2: most of the season on properties that experience at least
- 11:26Speaker 2: some hunting pressure, or at least in areas with a
- 11:30Speaker 2: decent amount of hunters, that's just not a high odds
- 11:32Speaker 2: deal most of the time. How do you go about
- 11:35Speaker 2: breaking that cycle and not factoring in the view when
- 11:37Speaker 2: you set stands? Well, I think about it like this.
- 11:41Speaker 2: I want to try to predict the exact spot a
- 11:43Speaker 2: buck will walk and then set up for that shot
- 11:46Speaker 2: knowing what conditions it's most likely to happen in. That's
- 11:49Speaker 2: what I care about the most is that specific shot.
- 11:53Speaker 2: You see, we think about a spot to hang a stand,
- 11:56Speaker 2: and we look for a tree, and then we look
- 11:58Speaker 2: for all the trails around it, and we look to
- 12:00Speaker 2: maximize opportunities for shots everywhere we can, and that can work.
- 12:04Speaker 2: But it also plays heavily into us wanting a bigger,
- 12:06Speaker 2: better view. What we should want instead is to figure
- 12:10Speaker 2: out the most likely travel route and then set up
- 12:12Speaker 2: for our best shot on that travel route. while also
- 12:15Speaker 2: hunting it when the conditions favor us just slightly more
- 12:18Speaker 2: than they favor the four-legged travelers on the trail. This
- 12:22Speaker 2: is honestly the best way to kill a big buck
- 12:24Speaker 2: in my experience, during a hell of a lot of
- 12:27Speaker 2: the season anyway. You know, like that time period after
- 12:29Speaker 2: the opener and before the rut kicks in, that big
- 12:32Speaker 2: bulky part of the season where a lot of hunters
- 12:35Speaker 2: just really don't go very much because the odds of
- 12:37Speaker 2: seeing a buck on the move in daylight in the
- 12:39Speaker 2: open fields just aren't great. You know, when he's supposedly
- 12:43Speaker 2: nocturnal because he doesn't want to walk by your bean
- 12:45Speaker 2: field camera in the daylight anymore. I would say this
- 12:49Speaker 2: is one of the hardest things to not only try,
- 12:51Speaker 2: but to sort of build into your whitetail mindset. A
- 12:55Speaker 2: lot of what we find really challenging in life is
- 12:57Speaker 2: just us fighting our evolution, and it plays into diet
- 13:01Speaker 2: and exercise and social interactions and a whole bunch of
- 13:03Speaker 2: stuff that can make us feel good, or more likely,
- 13:06Speaker 2: make us feel not so good. The only way to
- 13:08Speaker 2: get past this stuff is to try and to keep trying.
- 13:11Speaker 2: Positive reinforcement does wonders for us, and it's really the
- 13:14Speaker 2: key to a lot of successful deer hunting strategies, especially
- 13:18Speaker 2: if you don't have a ton of money or a really,
- 13:20Speaker 2: really good spot to hunt. Trying something that isn't supposed
- 13:23Speaker 2: to work and realizing that it works just fine is
- 13:26Speaker 2: a great way for us to bust out of our
- 13:28Speaker 2: mental prison cells. The biggest part of it is to
- 13:32Speaker 2: understand the task, which can be broken down like this.
- 13:35Speaker 2: Between where he beds and where he likely ends up
- 13:37Speaker 2: for the night, he has to travel. He will choose
- 13:40Speaker 2: to travel in daylight if he feels largely concealed and
- 13:43Speaker 2: protected from the usual threats. Where those spots will be
- 13:47Speaker 2: almost always are in the cover. Now you can find
- 13:50Speaker 2: these spots by running trail cameras, which is a huge
- 13:53Speaker 2: advantage if you do it right. You can also find
- 13:56Speaker 2: these spots by scouting on foot, which is something that
- 13:59Speaker 2: most whitetail hunters won't do a whole lot once the
- 14:02Speaker 2: season is open. But the bucks out there are leaving
- 14:05Speaker 2: sign and tracks on certain trails and they're telling you
- 14:07Speaker 2: an awful lot about what they do throughout the day.
- 14:10Speaker 2: What's harder than finding these spots, though, is finding them
- 14:13Speaker 2: and then finding the right ambush options and then putting
- 14:17Speaker 2: in the time to figure out if you were right
- 14:18Speaker 2: or not. This is maybe the biggest, mostly unspoken thing
- 14:23Speaker 2: that holds a lot of whitetail hunters back. They lack
- 14:26Speaker 2: the confidence and conviction to see something like this through.
- 14:30Speaker 2: What I've found with this style of hunting is that
- 14:32Speaker 2: deer are, shockingly, not crazy predictable most of the season. Health.
- 14:38Speaker 2: Even during the run on a great pinch point in
- 14:39Speaker 2: most places, I need to put in at least a
- 14:41Speaker 2: couple of days to run into a good one. Often
- 14:44Speaker 2: more days than that, I guess. More days than I
- 14:46Speaker 2: have sometimes, if I'm being really honest. Now, doing the
- 14:49Speaker 2: same thing on October 5th is another level more difficult.
- 14:54Speaker 2: It's really hard to get past sitting in a spot
- 14:56Speaker 2: where you can't hardly see a thing, where you know
- 14:59Speaker 2: that you're just not going to have a parade of
- 15:01Speaker 2: deer going by, but you have to cross your fingers
- 15:04Speaker 2: that a good one will anyway. when most of the
- 15:07Speaker 2: whitetail sphere says he won't, and your brain says, this
- 15:10Speaker 2: is not a spot I want to be in. But
- 15:12Speaker 2: you know what? It takes one deer to start to
- 15:15Speaker 2: alter your line of thinking. I'll never forget an encounter
- 15:18Speaker 2: I had with a really good buck, like a 130
- 15:20Speaker 2: that came out in a little swamp here in Minnesota,
- 15:24Speaker 2: you know, way back in the beginning of October in
- 15:26Speaker 2: like 2011, 2012, somewhere around there. I was in a
- 15:30Speaker 2: tree on a trail that I felt might just have
- 15:32Speaker 2: a doe come down to it, and it was a
- 15:34Speaker 2: beautiful night, and I wanted to hunt. I didn't think
- 15:37Speaker 2: I would have an encounter with a good one, and
- 15:38Speaker 2: he didn't choose my trail even though he flirted with it.
- 15:41Speaker 2: But I remember thinking, if I was 10 yards away
- 15:44Speaker 2: in a different tree, I could have killed an awesome buck,
- 15:48Speaker 2: when it should have been very unlikely. The truth is,
- 15:51Speaker 2: awesome bucks are out there all over walking through the
- 15:54Speaker 2: cover throughout much of the season, but they aren't very
- 15:57Speaker 2: likely to go into spots that we most likely want
- 16:00Speaker 2: to hunt. The solution to that is simple, but it's
- 16:04Speaker 2: not easy. It's worth the try anyway, because if you
- 16:07Speaker 2: set up for the one shot and the thick stuff
- 16:09Speaker 2: and it all comes together, you'll never not have that
- 16:12Speaker 2: option in your arsenal. And I'm telling you, it's valuable.
- 16:16Speaker 2: It gets you doing what other hunters mostly won't. And
- 16:19Speaker 2: that's exactly what the bucks don't expect you to do.
- 16:22Speaker 2: So think about it and then think about coming back
- 16:24Speaker 2: next week because I'm going to break down morning hunts
- 16:27Speaker 2: and what most hunters I think kind of get wrong
- 16:29Speaker 2: about them and why they cost themselves shots at bucks.
- 16:33Speaker 2: That's it. I'm Tony Peterson. This has been the Wired
- 16:35Speaker 2: to Hunt Foundations podcast. As always, thank you so much
- 16:38Speaker 2: for all of your support. If you need some more
- 16:40Speaker 2: whitetail content, head on over to TheMeatEater.com. If you haven't
- 16:43Speaker 2: watched Brent's Moose Hunt, that film, our 12 and 26 film,
- 16:47Speaker 2: go watch it. He does such a good job. It's
- 16:49Speaker 2: an incredible film. You'll see that at TheMeatEater.com. You'll also
- 16:53Speaker 2: see tons of new articles, tons of new podcasts, films,
- 16:57Speaker 2: how-to stuff, just about everything you want to learn about
- 17:01Speaker 2: the latest outdoor issues or how to catch a fish
- 17:04Speaker 2: or kill a deer or whatever it's all there go
- 17:06Speaker 2: check it out and once again thank you so much
- 17:08Speaker 2: for your support