Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 530: Foundations - Off-Season Scouting, One Last Time

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Ep. 530: Foundations - Off-Season Scouting, One Last Time · 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, and now your host,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Tony Peterson. Hey everyone, welcome to the wire to Hunt podcast,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: which is brought to you by First Light. I'm your host,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Tony Peterson, and today's episode is about off season scouting
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: and how we are really running out of time. I
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: know last week I said I was going to get
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: into some episodes about choosing accessories and setting up bows,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: and I will get there, but not this week. I've
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: had an interesting experience recently while I was pulling some
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: of the last year's stands and giving a property one
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: last chance for some off season scouting, and it made
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: me realize there's more to talk about on this topic.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: If you want to be a better deer hunter, this
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: episode might very well be the one that gets you there.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: I got really, really lucky about twenty years ago. At
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: the time, I was in college, mostly a drunken idiot,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: barely keeping my g p A up enough to not
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: get kicked out of one on a state and aside
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: from my alcohol induced extracurriculars, I was mostly just obsessed
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: with fishing. I know, people throw that word obsession around
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: a lot, but in this case, I mean it from
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: ice out until bow opener. I fished. I fished tournaments.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: I fished for fun. I fished bass, trout, crappys, walleyes,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: northern as basket's catfish, everything that swims that was legal
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: to target, I fished for it. And in one of
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: my tournaments, which was a pro am format, meaning one
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: pro and one amateur fishing together, I drew a fellow
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: from Waterloo, Iowa, who traveled with a small group of
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: other fishermen. One of those guys was an amateur just
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: like me, and we just kind of hit it off.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Eventually we started fishing a few team tournaments together, we
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: started hunting together, and we just became really good friends.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: And fast forward a couple of decades and that really
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: good friend bought a sweet property in southwestern Wisconsin. Remember
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: how I said, I got lucky. He lets me hunt it,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: which is awesome, And if you want to see it,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: go watch our one Week in November series from last
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: year on YouTube, which has like five episodes where yours
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: truly hunts that very farm for the first time. Before
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: that shoot, we turkey hunted the property and then all summer.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: We scouted the ship out of it. We walked it,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: we glassed it, we ran cameras, and we built a
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: fall hunting plan. We hung stands, we put out blinds
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: in August, and then we hunted it during the very
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: best time of the season, the first week in November.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: And I'm being honest when I say that I was very,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: very confident that I had that place figured out. After all,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: it only consists of about, I don't know, sixty acres
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: of timber. And I had a great hunt there, which
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: included a seven and a half minute encounter with a
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty injur that I didn't get to shoot,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: and I ended up arrowing a decent eight point at
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: one o'clock in the afternoon. It was a great hunt.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: It was fun, But what was maybe the most enjoyable
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: part of it was just the learning. The amount of
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: deer I saw that was awesome. What they did was enlightening.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: When I left that shoot and I dropped my cameraman
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: off at MSP Airport, I was more confident for this
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: year than I was going into last year. I mean
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: by far. After all, how do you beat five and
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: a half days of observation, well more days of observation
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: or winter scouting. Now. I know you thought we were
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: past this stage of the year with the turkeys out
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: there gobbling and the cropp he's moving up shallow. But
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: here's the thing that I've said all times, because I
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: just absolutely believe it. Time in the woods is everything.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: The time that I recently spent in the woods, which
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: was divided between cutting down some trees and brush clearing
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: a little kill plot and putting out blinds for turkey
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: hunting with our kids, and shed hunting, and at last
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: winter scouting taught me something. The deer that I thought
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: I had dialed actually had me dialed, or I should
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: put it in another way. Some of the bucks had
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: me and my hunting partner dialed, along with anyone driving
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: the roads around the property, and certainly the locals who
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: like to spotlight the fields and then tell us about
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: all the bucks they see while they are three sheets
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: through the wind at the local pub, which is the
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: only place to grab a burger anywhere near there, and
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: is a gathering of well i'll call them interesting hunters. Anyway,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: back to my buddies farm, which borders a gravel quarry. Now,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: he's got a deal with the owners where they store
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: some rock on his land and we get to access
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: his property through theirs. They also gave us permission to
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: hunt third ground, but that doesn't do as much good
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  Speaker 1: since most of it is all rock quarry. But here's
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: the thing. When we walk the perimeter of the actual quarry,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: which we did mostly just take a look at it
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: and maybe see if we could find a nailer, we
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: started finding rubs. And let me tell you, these weren't
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: just your run of the mill. One rub here, one
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  Speaker 1: rub down the ridgeline. This was the best rub line
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: on the property by far. It told a clear story
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: of a big buck or maybe bucks, betting in or
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: around the quarry and then working up through the woods
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  Speaker 1: to the one part of the fields on top that
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: just aren't visible to anyone driving the roads that border
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: those fields. Let me put this another way, A great
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: big buck left very clear sign that he was betting
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: in one spot and traveling to another. He did it
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: in such a way that he not only avoided all
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: of the places my buddy and I like to hunt,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: but also in a way that kept him totally out
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: of sight of everyone else who might be looking for him.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: It was a master class on big buck behavior, and
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: the only thing that gave him away was those rubs.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: And honestly, it wasn't just that rub line that gave
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: it away. It was the sheer amount of rubs, starting
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: at the base of the quarry and working up through
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: my buddies woods to the field edges. They were everywhere.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: They spoke a whole lot of words on hunter avoidance,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: and I feel like we listened. It also reminded me
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: of a morning last season where I sat close to
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: that spot and I heard a buck chasing and grunning
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: his head off at first light. I never saw him,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: and I could never quite figure out where he went,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: But now I know he skirted me, just like he
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: probably did every time I sat that spot. And what
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: was more interesting than that was that those rubs were
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: around older rubs, multigenerational rubs. When you see a fresh
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: rub line that follows more or less the same route
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: as older rub lines, you know that you're looking at
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: a spot, and specifically a travel route that multiple bucks
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: have figured out over multiple seasons. This is the kind
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: of knowledge that helps you absolutely figure out a property
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: or as I learned every single year, come closer to
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: figuring it out. Things change, and that means the lessons
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: of today it might not matter tomorrow, but there always
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: worth learning anyway. Now. I don't want to sound too cocky,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: but I feel like it's damn near a done deal
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: that I'm going to kill a buck in that spot
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: this fall. I know it might not work out that way,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: but I promise you by midsummer I'll have a stand
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: up in that spot to hunt it with the likeliest
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: prevailing winds of early November. Now, in the words of
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: an old Atlantis Morissette song, enough about me, let's talk
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: about you for a minute. Did you do enough offseason
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: scouting this winner? Did you do any Is there anywhere
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: you didn't go that you could walk before it gets
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: too green and too full of ticks and there's too
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: much other exciting stuff to do. Before you answer those questions,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: I think, real hard, think about how I just told
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: you that I totally, without question completely missed what could
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: be the best big buck spot on a property I
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: scouted for multiple days and hunted for multiple days. I
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: mean in that sense I shot for the moon and
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: hit the barn with that One of my friends and
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: I get paid to do this stuff sort of. Now,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: I was only off by I don't know, a hundred yards,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: but when your bow hunting and the cover is thick
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: and the bucks are pressured, that might as well be
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: a mile or two. Now, think long and hard about
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: your winter scouting and how confident you are that you
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: know what the dear do on your hunting ground. Are
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: you always on big box or are there long patches
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: of no dear sightings in your season? Are you really
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: really surprised when you see a good one? Or does
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: it feel more like everything is just working out the
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: way it's supposed to. I stress these questions and all
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: of this self reflection because I know how easy it
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: is to convince ourselves that we've done a good job.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: We grade our own white tail papers, and damn it,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: we give ourselves gold stars and smiley faces written in pen.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: It's always a job well done, But maybe it's not.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: If there's any nagging doubt, see what you can do
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: about getting back out there. On previous episodes, I talked
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: about going where you don't normally go to see parts
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: of your properties you don't normally scout or hunt. I'm
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: going to refine that just a little bit by saying
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: do that that's important, but understand by how little you
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: have to be off to be off? X marks the spot,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: But the X is not very big a lot of times,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: and you might walk by it not realize that you're
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: on the uphill side of a bunch of rubs. You know,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: I just miss it by a little bit. And that's
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: what we did with this spot I keep talking about,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: and it caused me to miss them. No, it wasn't
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: until I went where I didn't think the deer would
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: be that I could see the rubs in the layout
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: of the land and realize what was actually going on
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: there last fall. Think about this another way, how often
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: have you been involved in a rough blood trail where
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: you or other members of your crew walked within a
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: few yards of a down deer and broad daylight, let
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: alone in the dark. It's crazy how easily this can happen.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: And then when you see the deer, it seems impossible
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: that anyone would miss it. Well, this happens with signed
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: to It might be a rub, It might be a
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: community scrape with three licking branches, or it might just
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: be an unbelievable fence crossing. It might be obvious, or
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: it might just be a lone buckbed tuck into a
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: knob halfway up a bluff that takes a trained eye
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: to really pick out. Now here's the situation with some
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: of this advice. If you'll notice, I didn't figure out
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: that quarry connection until I could actually go into that
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: quarry to poke around. That was a gift most spots
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: and most of us, we won't get that opportunity on
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: any given property we might hunt. That doesn't mean that
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: you can't take a look onto your neighbor's ground, though
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: the window for this is rapidly closing, however, as the
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: wood's green up, like when I'm shed hunting or just
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: winter scouting. In general, I always carry binoculars for obvious reasons,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: but I also use them to look at interesting objects
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: in the woods that aren't antlers or rubs or whatever.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: This might be tree stands, or just a line of
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: flagging tape, or maybe a brushed in ground blind a
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: hunter yards across the fence on the neighbor's property. All
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: of this intel is valuable, and it tells you more
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: of a complete picture of a hunting pressure on neighboring properties,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: as well as the exact spots that people might be
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: hunting on that scouting trip I keep talking about. I
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: happened to find myself in one corner my friend's property
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: where a shared logging road runs down a ridge top
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: onto someone else's ground. Last summer, we hung a stand
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: where that logging road enters my buddy's food plot. It's
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: honestly about a no brainer of a stand site, as
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: they get. I never sat it, but he did several times,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: and early in the season he saw a pile of
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: deer enter his plot from that logging road, so it
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: seemed pretty cut and dry. It was working, but as
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: the pre rut kicked in and then the rut, the
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: deer activity on that logging road just died. I didn't
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: think anything of it because I wasn't hunting there anyway,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't until I was standing there looking for
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: an antler when I looked down that logging road and
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: saw what I thought was a ladder on one of
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: the neighbor's trees. Through my binos, I could see bits
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: and pieces of what looked like a new ladder stand
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: and it was positioned, damn are right on top of
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: that logging road. Now, why the hunter didn't move it
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: ten or fifteen yards off one side of that ridge
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: or the other to take advantage of the wind blowing
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: out over two huge valleys and cutting down on the
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: chances of getting picked off. I don't know, but what
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: I do know is that that hunter was most likely
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: in there intercepting many of those deer while my buddy
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: hunted his own land just down the ridge. They wouldn't
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: have been able to see each other, but the impact
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: on the deer would have been felt by both of them. Now,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: it's worth noting that my buddy had a camera on
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: the spot where the logging road dumped out into his
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: food plot. I remember many conversations last fall where we
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: talked about the deer activity just drying up there at
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: least in the daylight. The bucks would be there at night,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: but that didn't do us any good. Now, I have
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: a bad memory, so don't quote me on this, but
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: I'll bet we talked a lot about the usual suspects
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: for the sudden lack of daylight deer usage there. I'll
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: bet we talked about the low the acorn drop, probably
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: iotes and bobcats, the weather, and I'll bet we settled
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: on some explanations that may or may not have been true.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: We've filled into blanks. It simply could have been that
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: he was walking in one way and sitting there with
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: certain winds, and someone else was coming in from the
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: opposite direction, playing the win to his advantage. It was
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: probably a great lesson in not falling in love with
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: any stand spot despite how good it should be, because
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: how actually is is what really matters. Now, let me
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: say this that hunter picked a good spot, and so
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: did my buddy. They were both totally legal and just
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: doing their things as hunters. But that good spot with
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: pressure coming in from both sides, it's not really good
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: spot anymore, or at least by mid season, when they've
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: both presumably hunted there enough, it isn't as good as
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: it should or could be. Now that's a weird benefit
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: to offseason scouting that we rarely talk about. You See,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: we always think it's just us working against the deer,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: and in a lot of ways it is, especially depending
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: on the kind of properties you get to hunt. But
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: it's also the deer working against us. Like that quarry
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: dweller with a penchant for making rubs that I'm going
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: to catch up to on about November five this year.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: But it's also us working against us and us working
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: against other hunters. And I don't mean this in an
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: adversarial way either. I mean that for us to have
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: a successful season as far as lots of deer encounters
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: and hopefully a few filled tags are concerned, the more
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: we know about what's going on in and around our
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: hunting spots, the better decisions we can make. Honestly, this
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: is the key to all scouting. Really. We are looking
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: at filling up our database over the years, with new
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: information coming in whenever and however we can get it.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: That info layers itself on older info, and depending on
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: whether things stayed the same from year to year or
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: things have changed for some reason, like a new hunter
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: on a neighboring property sitting close to the fence line,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: we can plug in that intel and use it to
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: our advantage. This is a process, my friends, It's ongoing,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: and it changes every season, and if you do it enough,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: really makes the case that you should take advantage of
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: the various windows of opportunity that open up and then
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: close in the white tilt woods. And one of those
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: windows is closing right now, and I get it. It's
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: easy to write off this part of the year, dear
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: wise to do other things, but the opportunity to learn
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: it's still out there. There's intel waiting to be discovered,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: and there are plenty of reasons to spend a few
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: more days looking at every piece of property that you can.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: This goes for private land hunters as well as public
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: land hunters. It goes for folks with a thousand acres
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: to hunt and folks with twenty. The work is never finished,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: but that's okay. That work is what makes this thing
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: so special and makes the rare times when it all
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: comes together so worth it. Get out there, look around
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: and keep listening. Is next week. I'm kicking off a
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: two parter on setting up hunting bows, but mostly about
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: accessories and white hunters would choose one site over another,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: or why one hunter might opt for a drop away
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: rest versus some kind of static whisker biscuit style. And
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: I know that's not as exciting as scouting and glassing
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: and running trail cameras and things like that, but this
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: is the detail heavy stuff that will help you kill more.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Dear that's it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson that
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: spend the wire to Hunt Foundations podcast, which is brought
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: to you by First Light. As always, thank you for listening.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: We appreciate it so much. And if you need more
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: white tail info, head on over to the meat eator
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: dot com, slash wired or visit our Wired to Hunt
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: YouTube channel. In both spots you'll find tons of relevant
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: white tail information created by Mark myself and a whole
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: host of really talented white tail hunters.