Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 985: Foundations - A Different Take on Late-Season Whitetail Hunting

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Ep. 985: Foundations - A Different Take on Late-Season Whitetail Hunting · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
0:05
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,
0:09
Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.
0:14
Speaker 1: First Light, Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host
0:19
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.
0:20
Speaker 2: Hey, everyone, welcome to the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
0:23
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by First Light.
0:24
Speaker 3: I'm your host, Tony Peterson.
0:25
Speaker 2: In today's episode is all about how I'm taking a
0:27
Speaker 2: fresh look at my late season hunt and why you
0:29
Speaker 2: might want to as well.
0:34
Speaker 3: Look, I know that a lot of people.
0:36
Speaker 2: Who listen to this show are about ready to hang
0:38
Speaker 2: up their deer gear and think about something else. As
0:41
Speaker 2: much as the late season gets a lot of love
0:43
Speaker 2: from some folks, it's mostly just a slog for a
0:46
Speaker 2: lot of us. The weather usually kind of sucks. The
0:49
Speaker 2: hunting is as difficult as it will be all season,
0:51
Speaker 2: and once the rut has come and gone, it's just
0:53
Speaker 2: a little tougher to keep the fire lit and burning.
0:56
Speaker 2: But there's still some season love, and that means it's
0:59
Speaker 2: at least worth a shit filling a tag before it's
1:01
Speaker 2: too late.
1:02
Speaker 3: That's what I'm going to talk about. Right now.
1:09
Speaker 2: There is a concept called learned helplessness in psychology that
1:14
Speaker 2: can be applied pretty well to hunting deer in many
1:16
Speaker 2: different situations, but really well when it comes to late
1:19
Speaker 2: season hunting. You see, you've been fed mostly horseshit about
1:24
Speaker 2: the late season from folks who have much much better
1:26
Speaker 2: hunting than you. Back in my magazine editing and writing days,
1:30
Speaker 2: we ran a lot of late season stories from folks
1:32
Speaker 2: who would be so bold as to make the claim
1:35
Speaker 2: that the late season is the best time to kill
1:38
Speaker 2: a big buck. And look, we all know why. Those
1:41
Speaker 2: old mature deer have run themselves right into a state
1:43
Speaker 2: of disrepair and they need calories to get back on
1:46
Speaker 2: track before real winter sets in. So they have no
1:49
Speaker 2: choice but to hit the food sources well before dark,
1:52
Speaker 2: and that's when you can kill them, easy peasy. But
1:55
Speaker 2: anyone who has hunted the late season knows that the
1:57
Speaker 2: mature bucks aren't always willing to go on, you know,
2:00
Speaker 2: full suicidal mode with their movements just because they're pretty
2:03
Speaker 2: hungry after the rut. It doesn't work that way. A
2:06
Speaker 2: hungry deer is still a deer that doesn't want to
2:08
Speaker 2: die from an arrow or a bullet, and they will
2:10
Speaker 2: generally prioritize that over everything else. Maybe the good part
2:14
Speaker 2: about getting bad deer hunting advice is that it can
2:17
Speaker 2: talk us into huntingmore, and that's not so bad. But
2:20
Speaker 2: if you do hunt December and January deer a lot,
2:22
Speaker 2: you're likely to get your butt kicked. Mostly that can
2:26
Speaker 2: lead to the earlier mentioned learned helplessness. This tends to
2:29
Speaker 2: solidify in our dumb brains after we repeatedly face tough
2:32
Speaker 2: situations that feel kind of like no matter what we do,
2:36
Speaker 2: we can't change the outcome for the better. Does that
2:39
Speaker 2: mean the situations are beyond hope and we truly can't do.
2:42
Speaker 3: Anything to affect our trajectory inside of them.
2:44
Speaker 2: Nope, No, it just means that we stop believing we
2:47
Speaker 2: can do just that, so we stop trying. We might
2:51
Speaker 2: still do that thing, but we will do it with
2:53
Speaker 2: minimal effort, and then when the results show up as predicted,
2:56
Speaker 2: we get that warm and fuzzy feeling of absolutely being right.
3:00
Speaker 2: It's a nice blanket to wrap ourselves in, and it's
3:02
Speaker 2: a great way to not achieve what are likely to
3:04
Speaker 2: be achievable goals. For most of my deer hunting life,
3:07
Speaker 2: I did this in the late season, and you know what,
3:09
Speaker 2: it worked, which is not as cool as it sounds,
3:12
Speaker 2: because the times that I did put in some real
3:14
Speaker 2: effort in the last few weeks of the season are
3:15
Speaker 2: the times where I usually ended up with some close
3:17
Speaker 2: encounters or some actual, honest to God filled tags. Now
3:21
Speaker 2: keep in mind those tags were not filled one hundred
3:23
Speaker 2: and seventy inch deer, but I was never hunting them
3:25
Speaker 2: to begin with. They were does in small box and
3:28
Speaker 2: sometimes ok bucks and that was really good considering what
3:30
Speaker 2: I expected. But mostly I had a little pity party
3:33
Speaker 2: about the late season, went out, froze my ass off
3:36
Speaker 2: and didn't shoot anything. But you know what, I knew
3:39
Speaker 2: that I was phoning it in. Instead of hanging a
3:41
Speaker 2: set over a fresh trail, I'd sit on the ground
3:44
Speaker 2: and mostly get busted, just because sitting on the ground
3:46
Speaker 2: was easier. Or instead of hanging a fresh stand, I'd
3:49
Speaker 2: go sit some ladder, standard box, blind or whatever that
3:52
Speaker 2: had been up all season, and the deer were very
3:54
Speaker 2: wise to but it was easier than going in and
3:57
Speaker 2: doing what I should have done in the last couple
4:00
Speaker 2: years with my daughters having you know, buck tags in
4:02
Speaker 2: Minnesota and Wisconsin and enough dough tags to keep us
4:05
Speaker 2: in the woods pretty much anytime we wanted to go.
4:07
Speaker 2: I've started to pay way more attention to the late season,
4:10
Speaker 2: partially because they have big Christmas breaks where they could
4:13
Speaker 2: usually hunt with me without conflicts.
4:15
Speaker 3: Of sports and other activities.
4:17
Speaker 2: So last year we did just that in Minnesota, and
4:19
Speaker 2: I managed to put my daughter on one of the
4:21
Speaker 2: biggest late season bucks I've ever seen, and it was
4:23
Speaker 2: a total heartbreaker to watch her shoulder shooting. It was
4:27
Speaker 2: a bit of a relief to bump into him later
4:28
Speaker 2: in the season and see that, you know, while you
4:31
Speaker 2: had a pronounced limp, he at least had a shot
4:34
Speaker 2: of surviving. He looked like he was doing pretty well
4:37
Speaker 2: that year, probably would have gone right around one hundred
4:39
Speaker 2: and thirty inches, which to us at the time and
4:41
Speaker 2: on that property, was like seeing a two hundred inchro
4:44
Speaker 2: walk in in some places. This year, both my daughters
4:47
Speaker 2: and I are tagged out in Minnesota hunt bucks. We
4:50
Speaker 2: are almost all tagged out in Wisconsin on bucks too,
4:52
Speaker 2: but one of my daughters is sitting on an archery
4:55
Speaker 2: buck tag. Now keep in mind, we don't need a
4:58
Speaker 2: buck tag to go hunt in December. It just helps
5:01
Speaker 2: We will definitely do some dough only sits, but for
5:04
Speaker 2: now we're working on that last stubborn buck tag. So
5:07
Speaker 2: I'm doing things differently. I know that the December year
5:11
Speaker 2: where we hunt are not likely to should their hands
5:13
Speaker 2: too much with extra movement. I also know that my
5:15
Speaker 2: December is bonkers busy, and I can't really get out
5:19
Speaker 2: and scout as much as I'd like, so I'm leaning
5:21
Speaker 2: pretty heavy on trail cameras to start with. This is
5:24
Speaker 2: the first year in a long time I went all
5:26
Speaker 2: in on trail cameras, mostly because of how my hunt
5:28
Speaker 2: schedules shook out. I just had two really good opportunities
5:31
Speaker 2: this year to try to figure things out with cameras,
5:33
Speaker 2: and to be honest, it's the first time that trail
5:36
Speaker 2: cameras for sure help me kill a big buck, and
5:39
Speaker 2: maybe even can be attributed pretty well to killing two
5:42
Speaker 2: big ones. Now, we're not looking for big bucks over
5:45
Speaker 2: there in or central Wisconsin. We're looking for bucks, any bucks,
5:49
Speaker 2: and I'm hoping to dial in a few, even if
5:52
Speaker 2: they are spikes, so that when we go over there
5:54
Speaker 2: to hunt, we have an outside chance of running into one.
5:57
Speaker 2: How I'm doing that is by running cameras in the cover. Now,
6:01
Speaker 2: I know this isn't available for everyone, and it's not
6:04
Speaker 2: the only thing I'm going to do, but this year
6:06
Speaker 2: I ran a handful of cameras in the swamps over there,
6:09
Speaker 2: you know swamps I've hunted quite a bit, and the
6:11
Speaker 2: interesting thing about it was how often cruising bucks walked
6:14
Speaker 2: by all of the cameras I had in one specific swamp,
6:18
Speaker 2: while also noting that a lot of the does didn't
6:21
Speaker 2: do that. And it was also interesting how after the
6:23
Speaker 2: rut and the main gun season was over, nearly all
6:26
Speaker 2: of the deer I got on camera walked by some
6:28
Speaker 2: of the swamp cameras, but almost none of those deer
6:31
Speaker 2: seemed to walk out in front of my cameras that
6:33
Speaker 2: are anywhere near fields or openings. The movement just appeared
6:37
Speaker 2: to tighten way up, and I doubt it'll loosen up
6:40
Speaker 2: much in the next month or so. So the goal
6:43
Speaker 2: is to draw a bead on a few bucks in
6:45
Speaker 2: the thick stuff, try to make some connections on you know,
6:48
Speaker 2: just when they should move, and then thread the needle
6:51
Speaker 2: while hunting with a fourteen year old girl in late season,
6:54
Speaker 2: cold ass conditions. It won't be easy, but the camera
6:58
Speaker 2: data will help a lot with the confidence aspect, which
7:01
Speaker 2: is important when you've gone pretty deep on the learned
7:04
Speaker 2: helplessness side of these things. The thing about this is
7:07
Speaker 2: that I'm going to have to make sure I stay
7:09
Speaker 2: on top of the trail camera data for a few
7:11
Speaker 2: weeks before we go. This is going to involve a
7:14
Speaker 2: couple long drives over to Wolf Country to change batteries
7:16
Speaker 2: and move cameras around. That already seems like a little
7:20
Speaker 2: bit more effort than it'll probably be worth. But I
7:22
Speaker 2: also really want to get my daughter out because she's
7:24
Speaker 2: dying to go and the clock is ticking. I also
7:27
Speaker 2: selfishly just want to see if we can get it done.
7:31
Speaker 2: In the past, I've had a defeated attitude about this
7:34
Speaker 2: late season stuff, and it's one of those deep rooted
7:36
Speaker 2: beliefs about myself that isn't so easy to ferret out
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Speaker 2: and send on its way. I don't want my daughters
7:41
Speaker 2: to learn this, because it's a lie, and they've already
7:45
Speaker 2: had some really good late season success, including my daughter
7:48
Speaker 2: who hit that big buck last year and lost it.
7:51
Speaker 2: Toward the end of the season, she kept hunting and
7:53
Speaker 2: she managed to shoot a big old loan dough in
7:55
Speaker 2: late December, which is some kind of trophy for sure,
7:57
Speaker 2: even if it doesn't have antlers. So that's the first
8:11
Speaker 2: step towards trying to not really screw up the last
8:13
Speaker 2: few weeks of this season. Now, keep in mind, I
8:17
Speaker 2: have permission on a couple of properties where the girls
8:19
Speaker 2: can shoot does and they are, by all accounts, candy
8:22
Speaker 2: land hunts. It's really not a challenge at all on
8:24
Speaker 2: either one most of the time, and that's great in
8:27
Speaker 2: some ways. But I'm also terrified that my daughters will
8:30
Speaker 2: learn only how to go where deer can easily be shot,
8:33
Speaker 2: but not really ever learn how to hunt for deer,
8:37
Speaker 2: if that makes any sense at all. I'm going to
8:39
Speaker 2: take them on some dough missions where the chances of
8:41
Speaker 2: success are very high, but I want them to also
8:44
Speaker 2: understand that the deer hurdles we face can't all be
8:47
Speaker 2: cleared by calling in a favor from someone who has
8:49
Speaker 2: a really good property and is looking to thin the
8:52
Speaker 2: hurt a little bit. I'm going to look at our
8:54
Speaker 2: setups differently as well. Normally I leave some ground blinds
8:57
Speaker 2: up all season, and if the snow doesn't crush them,
9:00
Speaker 2: then that's kind of usually what we sit for our
9:02
Speaker 2: late season hunts. Sometimes it works, but I've noticed that
9:05
Speaker 2: if we have a blind up, we will almost always
9:08
Speaker 2: hunt it, unless the cameras are the observations, or you know,
9:12
Speaker 2: just the instinct says it's time to go somewhere else.
9:15
Speaker 2: The girls are competent enough now with their crossbows and
9:18
Speaker 2: their ability to sit pretty tight, that we are going
9:20
Speaker 2: to hunt some ladder stands and some natural ground blinds.
9:23
Speaker 2: I like natural ground blinds when we have a lot
9:25
Speaker 2: of snow, because I can use some snow cameo, you know,
9:28
Speaker 2: either with us wearing it or just draping it in
9:30
Speaker 2: front of us and then brushing in, and it's pretty
9:33
Speaker 2: dang effective. I have a few spots in mind for this,
9:37
Speaker 2: but I'm waiting to see exactly where we need to
9:39
Speaker 2: set up to get things really going. The good news
9:41
Speaker 2: is they don't need to be within twenty yards anymore.
9:44
Speaker 2: The girls are very comfortable with like thirty yard shots,
9:47
Speaker 2: which with a crossbow and a good rest is so
9:49
Speaker 2: doable for them. Now, that's an extra ten yard cushion
9:52
Speaker 2: we might need because the late season is often so
9:55
Speaker 2: dang quiet, and the deer are often very very cagy.
10:00
Speaker 2: So far, I'm guessing my strategy sounds a hell of
10:03
Speaker 2: a lot like any old deer hunting strategy, where you
10:05
Speaker 2: have to put in the effort and try to find
10:07
Speaker 2: the reward, which I guess is totally true. But I
10:10
Speaker 2: also know something else about the late season. It's just
10:14
Speaker 2: like early season hunting that no one will tell you
10:16
Speaker 2: to go hunt in the mornings. The usual advice is
10:19
Speaker 2: that it's just a lost cause and you'll do more
10:20
Speaker 2: harm than good. You guys know how I feel about that.
10:24
Speaker 2: I have quite a few early season bucks on the
10:26
Speaker 2: wall that were killed during morning sits, but for some reason,
10:29
Speaker 2: I've mostly not hunted mornings in the late season. My
10:32
Speaker 2: goal this year is to find a few spots where
10:34
Speaker 2: I can make that happen with the girls, so that
10:36
Speaker 2: when we do have time to hunt, we can wring
10:39
Speaker 2: the most out of each and every day. The wild
10:42
Speaker 2: card is just getting to those spots without getting busted.
10:46
Speaker 2: But the truth is, as long as the snow isn't
10:47
Speaker 2: overly crunchy, it's usually doable, and even if it is,
10:51
Speaker 2: there are some ways to get around it with access.
10:53
Speaker 2: Either way, I'm going to push away the notion that
10:56
Speaker 2: hunting mornings is just universally dumb this time year, and
10:59
Speaker 2: try to fit figure out a way to hunt them
11:01
Speaker 2: when they head back to bed without screwing up our
11:03
Speaker 2: evening chances. This is going to be mostly a travel
11:07
Speaker 2: route thing in the cover, and it's not going to
11:09
Speaker 2: be easy. But again, cameras can really help with this,
11:12
Speaker 2: and so can just looking at trails, tracks and just
11:15
Speaker 2: general deer sign The good news about late season dear
11:18
Speaker 2: is that they are usually pretty predictable, even if the
11:20
Speaker 2: movement we can accurately predict isn't all that likely to
11:24
Speaker 2: happen in daylight. Nature isn't all about wasting calories when
11:28
Speaker 2: it doesn't have to, and at least here in Canada South,
11:31
Speaker 2: they aren't going to burn precious energy for no reason.
11:35
Speaker 2: I would guess that's a different thing for a lot
11:37
Speaker 2: of Southern hunters, but maybe there is some truth to
11:38
Speaker 2: it down there too. Up here and in a lot
11:41
Speaker 2: of the white Tail range, they're just not going to
11:43
Speaker 2: do a lot of movement that doesn't directly put calories
11:46
Speaker 2: in their bellies. This is a long winded way of
11:49
Speaker 2: saying that I'm working on a couple of different private
11:52
Speaker 2: and public properties so that i have options for both
11:55
Speaker 2: morning and evening hunts, no matter what direction the wind
11:58
Speaker 2: will be blowing.
11:58
Speaker 3: From when we get to go.
12:00
Speaker 2: This is something that has plagued me in the past
12:02
Speaker 2: and has gotten me into trouble. Instead of working different
12:05
Speaker 2: pockets of deer, I'd find a food source that was
12:08
Speaker 2: good enough, backtrack it, and burn it right to the
12:11
Speaker 2: ground because that was all I had going on. You know,
12:14
Speaker 2: there's like sort of a gopher broke mentality that comes
12:17
Speaker 2: into play when you think your odds are very low,
12:19
Speaker 2: and that's what I have mostly done with my late
12:21
Speaker 2: season hunts. This is bad for a lot of reasons,
12:24
Speaker 2: but being too cavalier with your setups on deer that
12:26
Speaker 2: have clearly had enough of Hunter's bullshit for a couple
12:29
Speaker 2: of months is such a great way to take a
12:31
Speaker 2: spot that could deliver some good hunts and totally set
12:35
Speaker 2: fire to it as quickly as possible. I'm going to
12:37
Speaker 2: try to take the same care with these last ditch
12:40
Speaker 2: efforts as I do with the rest of my season
12:43
Speaker 2: on public Land, which is where I just try to
12:45
Speaker 2: hammer down on the little details to see if everything
12:48
Speaker 2: will work in my favor. I don't know if it will,
12:51
Speaker 2: but I know a couple of things. When we put
12:53
Speaker 2: in some real time and effort into something something I
12:56
Speaker 2: don't know, like hunting jaded late season deer, we usually
12:59
Speaker 2: learn something valuable about the deer, and we almost always
13:03
Speaker 2: learn something valuable about ourselves. I'm sure that sounds like
13:07
Speaker 2: woo woo stuff, but I believe it. I've hunted a
13:09
Speaker 2: lot of different ways, in a lot of different states,
13:12
Speaker 2: and with a lot of different expectations, and the hardest
13:15
Speaker 2: haunts just generally provide the best opportunity to level up
13:18
Speaker 2: and really learn. They are often not as successful in
13:21
Speaker 2: the measurement of dead critters as some other hunts, but
13:25
Speaker 2: you can kill a lot of deer, even big mature deer,
13:29
Speaker 2: and never really learn a whole lot. I don't think
13:32
Speaker 2: that's how this will go, and I like the thought
13:34
Speaker 2: of putting in some real effort in a way that
13:36
Speaker 2: has generally been totally unappealing to me in the past.
13:39
Speaker 2: I also know, at the very least then, I have
13:42
Speaker 2: one daughter who's really itching to get back in the woods,
13:44
Speaker 2: and if I do the work I plan on, it'll
13:47
Speaker 2: be a far better experience for both of us, not
13:49
Speaker 2: only because we have a better chance to actually have
13:52
Speaker 2: a fork.
13:52
Speaker 3: You walk in.
13:53
Speaker 2: But also because she and I can talk through what's
13:55
Speaker 2: going on, we can look at the trail camera images
13:58
Speaker 2: every morning and then decide on what setups we should
14:01
Speaker 2: have in place, how we are going to hunt them
14:03
Speaker 2: all that Jazz, I think that will be important for her,
14:06
Speaker 2: and I know it'll be important for me. I don't
14:09
Speaker 2: know why it is, but just workshopping ideas with your
14:11
Speaker 2: hunting partner, even if you do ninety three percent of
14:14
Speaker 2: the work, is a good way to visualize what needs
14:17
Speaker 2: to happen and how things should go, and to just
14:20
Speaker 2: bond over the process.
14:21
Speaker 3: I like the thought of that because.
14:23
Speaker 2: In some ways my daughters live vicariously through me as
14:26
Speaker 2: a hunting guide, and in some ways I live vicariously
14:29
Speaker 2: through them as young hunter is looking to get better
14:31
Speaker 2: at something that's truly difficult. So the upshot of all
14:34
Speaker 2: this is this, think about how you approach the late season.
14:38
Speaker 2: What's your effort level like and would it be beneficial
14:42
Speaker 2: to put in some more effort, even if you're only
14:44
Speaker 2: working on filling an antalylyst tag. What could you do
14:47
Speaker 2: to put yourself in a better late season position. The
14:50
Speaker 2: answer might go way beyond just finding a good destination
14:53
Speaker 2: food source and posting up on it. When the temperatures
14:56
Speaker 2: begin to truly dip, there might be more you can do,
14:59
Speaker 2: and if so, oh you should consider it. The worst
15:01
Speaker 2: thing that happens is that you eat a tiger.
15:03
Speaker 3: Two.
15:04
Speaker 2: The best thing that happens is well you don't, or
15:07
Speaker 2: if you do, you learn a hell of a lot
15:09
Speaker 2: about how to approach things next season. It could be worse,
15:13
Speaker 2: even if it definitely won't be all that easy. That's
15:17
Speaker 2: it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson and this has
15:19
Speaker 2: been the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which is brought
15:21
Speaker 2: to you by first Light. Thank you, thank you, thank
15:24
Speaker 2: you so much for all your support. Mark and I
15:26
Speaker 2: here at Wired to Hunt truly appreciated. All of us
15:28
Speaker 2: at meat Eater really appreciate it. Without you, guys, we're nothing,
15:31
Speaker 2: So thank you for that support. If you're bored, maybe
15:34
Speaker 2: on Christmas break and you're sick of listening to your
15:36
Speaker 2: family argue about politics or whatever, you can go to
15:39
Speaker 2: the medeater dot com and find a hell of a
15:42
Speaker 2: lot of content to educate yourself a little bit and
15:45
Speaker 2: entertain yourself a lot and just have some fun podcasts, films, articles, recipes,
15:52
Speaker 2: You name it, Go to the medeater dot com check
15:54
Speaker 2: it out.
15:54
Speaker 3: Thanks again,