Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 733: Foundations - Deer Everywhere, Now What?

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Ep. 733: Foundations - Deer Everywhere, Now What? · 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 Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
0:23
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by first Light. I'm your host,
0:25
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and this week is all about hunting where
0:28
Speaker 2: the deer density is real high. Last week I covered
0:44
Speaker 2: the dismal reality of hunting where very few deer live.
0:48
Speaker 2: But this week I'm going to go the opposite way.
0:50
Speaker 2: I'm going to talk about the challenges of hunting areas
0:53
Speaker 2: that are simply full up with deer. Now, this is
0:56
Speaker 2: a good problem to have for most hunters, but it
0:58
Speaker 2: still can be a problem. That's probably for like, I
1:01
Speaker 2: don't know, the swamp hunters and the folks who spend
1:03
Speaker 2: their fall looking at pine squirrels and thousands of acres
1:06
Speaker 2: of timber. It's probably pretty hard for them to understand.
1:08
Speaker 2: But it is true there are considerations to be made
1:11
Speaker 2: when you're dealing with lots of deer, and we often
1:13
Speaker 2: don't really think how a high deer density should affect
1:17
Speaker 2: our strategies. But it does. And now I'm gonna tell
1:19
Speaker 2: you why. Probably about I don't know, fifteen or sixteen
1:31
Speaker 2: years ago now, my fishing partner and I were signed
1:33
Speaker 2: up to fish a tournament that was launching out of Winona, Minnesota.
1:37
Speaker 2: Since that's where I went to college. It was always
1:40
Speaker 2: a fun venue. It was always fun placed fish because
1:44
Speaker 2: there are I don't know, only a few places I
1:47
Speaker 2: fished more than the Mississippi River in those various pools
1:50
Speaker 2: of southeastern Minnesota. The tournament was a late summer deal,
1:53
Speaker 2: which usually means a couple of things. It means you
1:56
Speaker 2: usually have to weed through a lot of bass to
1:58
Speaker 2: get big ones. And it means that the best spots
2:01
Speaker 2: often feature schooling fish. You know, certain wing dams, sand drops.
2:06
Speaker 2: There's just certain spots that will draw both large mouth
2:09
Speaker 2: and small mouths together on the river to post up
2:11
Speaker 2: and feed, you know, on what the mighty Mississippi can
2:14
Speaker 2: funnel toward their gullets. A lot of times this is
2:17
Speaker 2: based around baitfish, but it sometimes involves fish in a
2:21
Speaker 2: shell bed for bass that are keyed into concentration of
2:23
Speaker 2: crayfish or something else. The thing about it is you
2:27
Speaker 2: want to get to a spot and milk it for
2:29
Speaker 2: all of the fish that can give you, because you know,
2:32
Speaker 2: in the middle of a bunch of fourteen to sixteen inches,
2:34
Speaker 2: there are going to be a few that weigh three
2:37
Speaker 2: four pounds or more. Those fish are the ones that
2:39
Speaker 2: put you in the money. Which is as simple as
2:41
Speaker 2: I can kind of lay this out. Well, when my
2:44
Speaker 2: partner and I started pre fishing for that tournament, we
2:47
Speaker 2: knew it could go a lot of ways, but also
2:49
Speaker 2: that if we wanted to find bigger fish, we probably
2:52
Speaker 2: needed to flip some jigs or throw some frogs. Both
2:55
Speaker 2: are tactics that tend to produce big bites, especially in
2:58
Speaker 2: the summer, which is always the case if you go
3:01
Speaker 2: throw swimming jigs or maybe dead stick a senko. We
3:05
Speaker 2: happened to stumble across a lily pad and duckweed covered
3:08
Speaker 2: bay just off of the main channel one day that
3:11
Speaker 2: was just loaded with big, large mouth. You know, the
3:15
Speaker 2: current sweeping past the mouth of that bay must have
3:18
Speaker 2: just funneled a ton of food in there, and the
3:20
Speaker 2: greenies were in there thick. You could toss a fake
3:23
Speaker 2: current in any direction and get a blow up. When
3:26
Speaker 2: you find a spot like that before a tournament, it
3:28
Speaker 2: gives you a special feeling, kind of like when you
3:31
Speaker 2: go out of state to hunt white tails for the
3:33
Speaker 2: first time and you're roaming around on some public land
3:35
Speaker 2: and you walk into a piece of cover that is
3:37
Speaker 2: littered with big rubs and fresh, stinky scrapes. You know,
3:42
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, you go from wondering about the
3:44
Speaker 2: future to making real plans and playing things real carefully.
3:48
Speaker 2: It's so fun. Well, we were in that state of
3:52
Speaker 2: nervous excitement when the tournament director waved us out in
3:54
Speaker 2: the morning, and then when we pulled up to the
3:57
Speaker 2: mouth of the bay and saw that none of our
3:59
Speaker 2: competitors had been us to the spot, we felt pretty good,
4:02
Speaker 2: because that's a big deal when you're working with only
4:04
Speaker 2: a couple of acres of prime water. What happened over
4:07
Speaker 2: the next several hours can only be described as the
4:10
Speaker 2: worst meltdown in the history of tournament fishing that has
4:13
Speaker 2: ever happened to anyone, let alone a two man team.
4:16
Speaker 2: When I say we could not get it right, imagine
4:19
Speaker 2: I don't know, you're a young lad and you and
4:21
Speaker 2: your buddies build a sweet BMX bike jump. You finally
4:25
Speaker 2: get the courage to ride your red Huffey off of it,
4:28
Speaker 2: but instead of sticking the landing and fist pumping toward
4:30
Speaker 2: the sky, you fly off sideways and go full scorpion.
4:34
Speaker 2: When you hit the ground, if you don't know what
4:36
Speaker 2: that is, that's when your face arrests your forward movement,
4:39
Speaker 2: but your torso and legs keep going right over the
4:41
Speaker 2: top of you. And while you're breaking with your teeth
4:44
Speaker 2: in the gravel, a bus I don't know drives by,
4:47
Speaker 2: and it's full of all the girls from your class,
4:49
Speaker 2: and they get to see you doing your best scorp
4:51
Speaker 2: and one of the tires of the bus splashes mud
4:53
Speaker 2: up on your shorts just right, so it looks like
4:56
Speaker 2: you had a battle of wheels with yesterday's taco bell
4:58
Speaker 2: and lost. Then when you land, a stray dog pisses
5:02
Speaker 2: on your head and you get a sliver in your
5:03
Speaker 2: eyeball or something like that. Anyway, we sucked that day
5:08
Speaker 2: on the water in a brutal, brutal way, and the
5:12
Speaker 2: problem was execution. We had so many fish to work with,
5:16
Speaker 2: we couldn't focus. We weren't paying attention to our hook
5:19
Speaker 2: sets and really trying to see the process through, which
5:23
Speaker 2: is the kiss of death. When you frog fish in
5:25
Speaker 2: the slop, it's kind of like watching someone try to
5:29
Speaker 2: wing shoot a bob white quail when a whole covey
5:32
Speaker 2: gets up, they just kind of point shoot and don't
5:35
Speaker 2: pick out an individual bird, and you know, mostly all
5:38
Speaker 2: the birds get away.
5:40
Speaker 1: Now.
5:40
Speaker 2: Sometimes it can be easy to lose your focus when
5:43
Speaker 2: there's too much of a good thing to work with. Normally,
5:46
Speaker 2: a ton of big, large mouth looking to eat amphibians
5:49
Speaker 2: and who are also confined to a small area is
5:53
Speaker 2: a good thing if you're in a fishing tournament. But
5:55
Speaker 2: humans are real good at messing stuff up even when
5:58
Speaker 2: the whole situation is right for easy success. This happens
6:03
Speaker 2: to a lot of hunters who get the chance to
6:05
Speaker 2: hunt around high deer densities. Generally, the higher the density,
6:10
Speaker 2: the more fun the hunting is. After all, seeing deer
6:14
Speaker 2: is usually the difference maker between a so so sit
6:16
Speaker 2: and something that is truly enjoyable. The bar is low there,
6:20
Speaker 2: but it is there. But even over time seeing them
6:24
Speaker 2: isn't enough. Killing a big one usually becomes the goal,
6:28
Speaker 2: and that's where a lot of deer can be an
6:30
Speaker 2: asset or a liability. We often talk about this, but
6:33
Speaker 2: I'll start with something easy. When you know you can
6:37
Speaker 2: always see deer, it's hard not to go sit somewhere
6:40
Speaker 2: that promises just that. Oftentimes this is a field edge
6:44
Speaker 2: scenario or something that hinges on big views. You all
6:49
Speaker 2: know my thoughts on that, so I'm not going to
6:50
Speaker 2: repeat them. But the other thing that happens with high
6:53
Speaker 2: deer densities a lot is we create spots for the
6:56
Speaker 2: deer to go too. This is like the prere strategy
7:00
Speaker 2: for a lot of hunters and a dream for a
7:02
Speaker 2: lot more of them. But I think it's a double
7:05
Speaker 2: edged sword. You know, of course, we all want a
7:07
Speaker 2: sweet place to hunt where there are a lot of deer,
7:11
Speaker 2: and we can plan a food plot and put up
7:13
Speaker 2: a box blind and never think about strategy or scouting again.
7:16
Speaker 2: You just wait for the cell camera picks to show up,
7:19
Speaker 2: go sit in a little house on stilts, and bam,
7:22
Speaker 2: done and done. That's a great way for a lot
7:25
Speaker 2: of people to struggle to kill the caliber of deer
7:28
Speaker 2: they really want, because it leads to predictable predator behavior.
7:33
Speaker 2: In this case, if you're not paying attention, we are
7:36
Speaker 2: the predators. If you know you can always sit the ladder,
7:41
Speaker 2: stand on the edge of the beans or corn and
7:43
Speaker 2: see deer. It's hard to do something different. A lot
7:47
Speaker 2: of deer on the landscape promises that level of success
7:50
Speaker 2: with that simple strategy pretty much every time, but it's
7:54
Speaker 2: not so simple. In fact, that poll to the easy
7:57
Speaker 2: stuff complicates things quite a bit. This is because your
8:01
Speaker 2: job is to try your hardest to not let the
8:03
Speaker 2: deer know you're there. That's a pretty giant component of
8:07
Speaker 2: this whole thing, and it's really difficult when you're dealing
8:10
Speaker 2: with a lot of deer. It's a hard thing for
8:13
Speaker 2: us to qualify or truly witness, But there seems to
8:17
Speaker 2: be a ripple effect from hunter presence. It's easiest to
8:21
Speaker 2: see when you get busted by a dough that blows
8:23
Speaker 2: like crazy and clears a field. The next night, you're
8:26
Speaker 2: probably going to see fewer deer out there if you
8:29
Speaker 2: only have a handful of deer in the neighborhood. A
8:31
Speaker 2: mistake like this feels real heavy. It feels a bit
8:35
Speaker 2: lighter when you have a ton of deer around, but
8:37
Speaker 2: it's not. It's the opposite. The more you educate any
8:41
Speaker 2: of the deer, the more all of the deer figure
8:44
Speaker 2: you out. When non target deer are onto you, your
8:48
Speaker 2: target deer become much harder to kill. The way that
8:51
Speaker 2: non target deer figures us out is that we are
8:54
Speaker 2: either sloppy, or predictable or just plain unlucky. And you know, honestly,
8:59
Speaker 2: most of us cannot out all three of those on
9:01
Speaker 2: every single sit. This is where some of the people
9:04
Speaker 2: you can watch on Sportsman's channel got it right. They
9:08
Speaker 2: preach about being cautious and when you're going in and
9:11
Speaker 2: timing your sits to perfect conditions. The truth is, if
9:14
Speaker 2: you're hunting low deer densities, you don't really have a
9:17
Speaker 2: choice but to be aggressive. You have to find the deer,
9:20
Speaker 2: and you don't do that sitting around. But with tons
9:23
Speaker 2: of deer to hunt, you want to minimize your impact
9:26
Speaker 2: on the herd. Playing it somewhat safe is often a
9:29
Speaker 2: better strategy. But you can go way too far with
9:32
Speaker 2: this and take it the wrong way in a real hurry,
9:35
Speaker 2: because like for starters, too many deer to hunt means
9:38
Speaker 2: you can hunt them in a lot of different spots,
9:41
Speaker 2: but not every location will be good for giant bucks,
9:43
Speaker 2: So maybe you have to play it safe with your
9:45
Speaker 2: best stand sites, but you can still keep hunting and
9:48
Speaker 2: those fringe areas, and you know, maybe you can go
9:53
Speaker 2: out in early October and hunt one of those, you know,
9:57
Speaker 2: not your favorite spots. You don't want to play. It's
10:00
Speaker 2: so safe. You don't ever hunt until you feel it's perfect.
10:04
Speaker 2: It's kind of what I'm trying to say. Just go
10:06
Speaker 2: hunt some of your lesser stuff and shoot some does
10:09
Speaker 2: learn something, But don't stay out of the woods when
10:11
Speaker 2: you could hunt or you want to. Because someone who
10:14
Speaker 2: manages thousands of acres of private land says that's the move.
10:17
Speaker 2: It might be for them, but it might not be
10:19
Speaker 2: for you. It's also important to note something I talked
10:32
Speaker 2: about a lot last week, which is sign. As you
10:36
Speaker 2: can probably guess you know if your parents aren't first
10:38
Speaker 2: cousins anyway, is that a lot of deer leave a
10:41
Speaker 2: lot of sign. There were some years where I hunted
10:45
Speaker 2: in southeastern Minnesota where their deer numbers were really high,
10:48
Speaker 2: and I was just amazed by how much sign was everywhere, scrapes, rubs, tracks, beds.
10:54
Speaker 2: They weren't tough to find. And this is a problem
10:56
Speaker 2: because it often leads hunters to think they're around bucks
11:00
Speaker 2: all the time. And so they stop scouting, they stop looking.
11:04
Speaker 2: Mostly they stick up a trail camera or three, and
11:07
Speaker 2: they call it a job well done. Well, you know
11:10
Speaker 2: how I feel about nocturnal sign, And with lots of
11:13
Speaker 2: deer in any given neighborhood, you'll have a lot of
11:15
Speaker 2: sign that was created at midnight. And this does you
11:18
Speaker 2: no good other than to tell you where the deer
11:20
Speaker 2: spend their nights. But you probably already knew that with
11:24
Speaker 2: high deer densities, you have to get to the spots
11:27
Speaker 2: that would be most advantageous to bucks, and then use
11:30
Speaker 2: the sign in those areas to guide you. Even with
11:33
Speaker 2: lower hunting pressure and higher deer numbers, a good percentage
11:37
Speaker 2: of the actionable rubs and scrapes and tracks and beds
11:41
Speaker 2: will be in places where you'll go, Man, this looks amazing,
11:45
Speaker 2: but how the hell do I hunt it? If you
11:48
Speaker 2: find a concentration of good sign in the cover and
11:51
Speaker 2: can't immediately decide what tree you'd sit, you know, or
11:55
Speaker 2: what route you'd access it by, you're probably onto something.
11:59
Speaker 2: And that last one is doozy when it comes to
12:00
Speaker 2: hunting around a lot of deer. If you can't get
12:03
Speaker 2: in and out somewhat stealthy, You're in real trouble. I've
12:07
Speaker 2: got permission to hunt a property in southwestern Wisconsin that
12:10
Speaker 2: is pretty incredible. The downside is that the woods are
12:14
Speaker 2: real open, and the deer are likely to bed right
12:17
Speaker 2: on the edges of the fields because that's where the
12:18
Speaker 2: best brush is. The landowner often hunts the top, which
12:22
Speaker 2: is easy to access, but not easy to access undetected.
12:27
Speaker 2: The deer sightings on that farm drop by the night
12:30
Speaker 2: until it's a blank city there as soon as there's
12:33
Speaker 2: just a little too much pressure up on top. Now
12:36
Speaker 2: this seems straightforward, but the thing is he has food
12:40
Speaker 2: plots and fields and box blinds and cameras all set
12:43
Speaker 2: up on top. Even when the deer tell him they
12:46
Speaker 2: are done showing their faces in broad daylight, there's a
12:49
Speaker 2: lot of gravity pulling him in to hunt those spots.
12:54
Speaker 2: This is the real danger of high deer numbers. They
12:56
Speaker 2: convince us the hunting should be easy. Now, it certainly can,
13:00
Speaker 2: but if you don't have much land to work with,
13:03
Speaker 2: or you hunt a place with a decent amount of pressure,
13:05
Speaker 2: a lot of deer doesn't mean it's going to be easy,
13:08
Speaker 2: you know, Even though the science says it should be
13:09
Speaker 2: and the trail cameras show there are plenty around, you
13:12
Speaker 2: still have a difficult task. It's also pretty easy to
13:17
Speaker 2: get fooled into thinking that everywhere is just as good
13:19
Speaker 2: as anywhere when it comes to higher deer numbers. You
13:23
Speaker 2: drive in and out during the summer and you see
13:24
Speaker 2: deer everywhere, everybody's farm, everybody's field. It's easy to think
13:29
Speaker 2: that one would lot is as good as the next,
13:31
Speaker 2: and that the pick beanfield should be teeming with deer
13:34
Speaker 2: every night. But high deer numbers often mean a few things,
13:37
Speaker 2: like the carrying capacity is way up due to quality
13:41
Speaker 2: food and a lack of predators and often a lack
13:44
Speaker 2: of deer killing winners. If they don't need something specific
13:48
Speaker 2: on your property to survive, they won't be there a
13:52
Speaker 2: whole lot of the times. If the pressure is too high,
13:55
Speaker 2: they can hop across the fence and live the good
13:57
Speaker 2: life on the neighbors and get everything they need without
14:00
Speaker 2: getting harassed. This becomes even more true when you're not
14:04
Speaker 2: hunting huge properties. Fifty or one hundred acres is great,
14:08
Speaker 2: but that's maybe one twelve to one six of a
14:10
Speaker 2: bucks home range. That means he has a lot of
14:13
Speaker 2: other places to be, and so do his girlfriends. The
14:16
Speaker 2: way to combat all of this with high deer numbers
14:19
Speaker 2: is to give yourself a lot of options. I know
14:21
Speaker 2: I've covered that a lot, but there's no situation where
14:25
Speaker 2: it's more important than when you're on limited land with
14:27
Speaker 2: lots of deer around. Sure, you could hunt the up
14:31
Speaker 2: of Michigan and set up fifty stands in a section
14:33
Speaker 2: and that might help you, but probably not as much
14:36
Speaker 2: as having a few mobile setups and you know, going
14:38
Speaker 2: to where the deer are right now. But with high
14:41
Speaker 2: deer numbers, being able to rotate spots and keep things
14:45
Speaker 2: somewhat fresh is a huge deal. You're probably gonna spook
14:49
Speaker 2: deer no matter what. Going in coming out questionable wins,
14:53
Speaker 2: whatever it happens. But the more your presence is known
14:57
Speaker 2: in very specific spots, the more those specific sp become
15:00
Speaker 2: dead zones when you can hunt. Now Here is where
15:04
Speaker 2: I'm going to diverge greatly from a lot of conventional advice.
15:09
Speaker 2: It might seem like low impact trail camera usage is
15:12
Speaker 2: the way to dial in the right deer when there
15:14
Speaker 2: are a lot of them, But being around a lot
15:17
Speaker 2: of deer gives you a really, really good opportunity to observe.
15:22
Speaker 2: This is a benefit I can't overstate. When you're on
15:26
Speaker 2: stand and you see dose or scrappers do something, they
15:29
Speaker 2: are telling you what big deer will do when they
15:31
Speaker 2: go through. Pay attention to them, pay attention to where
15:34
Speaker 2: they cross fences and how they approach water holes, and
15:36
Speaker 2: what they do when they're in the field and a
15:38
Speaker 2: truck goes by on the road. And while it's fun
15:42
Speaker 2: to hunt and sea lots of deer, it's also important
15:44
Speaker 2: to recognize that as an excellent education on what deer
15:49
Speaker 2: liked to do. When you're in the big woods and
15:52
Speaker 2: you watch a deer go by, it's the same lesson.
15:54
Speaker 2: You just don't see very many of them, so it's
15:56
Speaker 2: a rare treat. High deer densities that are different. You
16:00
Speaker 2: can watch how they travel the land, how their ears
16:03
Speaker 2: perk up when they hear another deer coming out of
16:05
Speaker 2: the woods, and who gets to claim what spots when
16:08
Speaker 2: they are feeding. That's just something a big woods hunter
16:12
Speaker 2: just won't get much of, and that's one of the
16:14
Speaker 2: main reasons why hunting lower deer densities is so much
16:16
Speaker 2: more difficult. There are far more surprises than anything, which
16:20
Speaker 2: isn't the case in places where the herd is add
16:23
Speaker 2: or near full capacity. And there's one more thing I
16:26
Speaker 2: want to talk about when it comes to hunting these
16:27
Speaker 2: types of areas. Movement. When I was growing up, we
16:31
Speaker 2: believed you could hardly move on stand. I mean we'd
16:34
Speaker 2: scan left to right or right to left and move
16:36
Speaker 2: our heads crazy slow. We didn't stand up, stretch, or
16:40
Speaker 2: stare at our phones. It was dreadfully boring a lot
16:44
Speaker 2: of times. But I'm sure I saw more deer then
16:47
Speaker 2: than I do now with so many distractions right at
16:49
Speaker 2: my fingertips. If you know there is a good chance
16:54
Speaker 2: for deer to be moving around, you pay attention to
16:57
Speaker 2: your movements, not just theirs, last a lot, keep looking
17:02
Speaker 2: because it's easy for a deer to catch you off guard,
17:05
Speaker 2: especially if there's lots of deer that might catch you
17:07
Speaker 2: off guard. This only increases in possibility when there's more
17:13
Speaker 2: deer close. It's got to make sense, right, So pay
17:16
Speaker 2: attention to that. We think it's kind of licensed to
17:20
Speaker 2: go the opposite way and not pay attention as much
17:22
Speaker 2: because you're going to be covered in them. But that's
17:24
Speaker 2: not the way to go about this. Okay, that's enough,
17:28
Speaker 2: talking about deer densities. Next week, I'm going to talk
17:32
Speaker 2: about the reality of going for a buzzer beater deer
17:35
Speaker 2: and how it's not that much fun. It's usually not
17:39
Speaker 2: very easy, but it's always worth it to keep hunting
17:43
Speaker 2: until the closing bell rings. That's it for this week.
17:47
Speaker 2: I'm Tony Peterson. It's been the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
17:50
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by First Light. As I always,
17:52
Speaker 2: thank you so much for listening and for all your support.
17:55
Speaker 2: We truly appreciate it here at medi Eatter, so thank
17:58
Speaker 2: you for that. If you want some more were deer
18:00
Speaker 2: hunting content, if you want to read some recipes, you
18:02
Speaker 2: want to listen to Clay's podcasts, whatever, the medeater dot
18:06
Speaker 2: com has so much stuff. You know, how to videos, podcasts, articles,
18:14
Speaker 2: links to all kinds of stuff. It's it's pretty comprehensive.
18:18
Speaker 2: So if you want to get your fixed, especially as
18:20
Speaker 2: winners coming on and you're not gonna get to get
18:22
Speaker 2: out as much, the medeater dot com is a good
18:24
Speaker 2: place to go.