Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 838: Foundations - How a Doe Decoy Can Help You Get a Buck to Swipe Right During the Rut

Transcript

Ep. 838: Foundations - How a Doe Decoy Can Help You Get a Buck to Swipe Right During the Rut · 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. I'm your host,
0:25
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about why you
0:28
Speaker 2: might want to use a doe decoy instead of a
0:30
Speaker 2: buck decoy. If this week doesn't make your giblets tingle
0:39
Speaker 2: as a deer hunter, you might want to check your pulse.
0:42
Speaker 2: It's go time and all of you folks who sat
0:45
Speaker 2: out the hot weather or the lull or whatever to
0:47
Speaker 2: hunt the best time of the year, well it's here
0:50
Speaker 2: and you better get out there. But first you might
0:53
Speaker 2: want to consider a doe decoy, which is something I'm
0:56
Speaker 2: going to lean on pretty heavily this year. But first
0:58
Speaker 2: I need to explain why I keep leaving the buck
1:01
Speaker 2: decoy at home and going with the dough. So buckle
1:04
Speaker 2: up my pre rut buttercups, because it's time to talk
1:07
Speaker 2: to your Let's do a little imaginary lesson. To start
1:20
Speaker 2: this one off, Let's say you're a guy, because that's
1:23
Speaker 2: a pretty safe bet for a podcast with this level
1:25
Speaker 2: of juvenile humor that is centered on trying to outsmart
1:28
Speaker 2: rabbits with antlers, and you're about to head to the
1:32
Speaker 2: local watering hole. Now, let's also say that you are
1:35
Speaker 2: a single fella. I don't care if your main squeeze
1:38
Speaker 2: got hit by a train and it has been the
1:40
Speaker 2: appropriate amount of time since the funeral, or you're just
1:42
Speaker 2: a pioneer not a settler. Whatever. So you walk into
1:46
Speaker 2: some fine establishment adorned with plenty of Neon signage in
1:49
Speaker 2: the windows, and you stroll up to the bar to
1:51
Speaker 2: order I don't know, seven shots of fireball or whatever
1:54
Speaker 2: the kids are drinking these days. I've been out of
1:56
Speaker 2: the game for quite a while on that front, so
1:58
Speaker 2: you got to fill in the blanks yourself here. Now
2:01
Speaker 2: you look to your right and you see what is
2:03
Speaker 2: clearly a large collection of women dressed in cowgirl themed
2:06
Speaker 2: outfits that they clearly bought for some bridesmade get together
2:09
Speaker 2: type thing. Maybe one of them has a veil on
2:12
Speaker 2: or something and is carrying a balloon that is shaped
2:14
Speaker 2: a lot like a not safer work balloon. If you
2:16
Speaker 2: get my drift, you take a head count, you realize
2:19
Speaker 2: there are eleven of them and they are doing shots
2:22
Speaker 2: and having fun. Then you look to your left. At
2:25
Speaker 2: the other end of the bar is a collection of dudes.
2:28
Speaker 2: They all have Affliction T shirts on. They are about
2:31
Speaker 2: two sizes too small, Several have barbed ware tattoos around
2:35
Speaker 2: their biceps, many of them have backwards hats on, and
2:39
Speaker 2: all of them are drinking what looks like brown hard
2:42
Speaker 2: liquor that is mixed with nothing more than an ice
2:44
Speaker 2: cube and bad decision making. To further clarify what's going on,
2:49
Speaker 2: one of the bridesmaids she goes to the jukebox and
2:52
Speaker 2: plays Mark Kenyon's favorite Taylor Swift love song. Then one
2:56
Speaker 2: of the Affliction T shirt wearing dudes struts over and
2:59
Speaker 2: plays a German death metal song that sounds a bit
3:01
Speaker 2: like what they used to use to make it very
3:03
Speaker 2: uncomfortable for the detainees in Guantanamo Bay. You have two choices.
3:10
Speaker 2: What group do you approach first? Now, let's say that
3:14
Speaker 2: you pose this question to the next one hundred guys
3:17
Speaker 2: you run across. Some of them are five feet tall
3:19
Speaker 2: and one hundred pounds soaking wet, while others look like
3:22
Speaker 2: they failed the NFL draft for being too big and
3:25
Speaker 2: too violent, and of course there's everything in between. What
3:29
Speaker 2: percentage of guys do you think would stroll up to
3:32
Speaker 2: the barboyer tattoo crowd? First, it's probably a pretty small,
3:36
Speaker 2: pretty low amount, although there might be a few mixed
3:40
Speaker 2: in there that just like the thrill of throwing haymakers
3:42
Speaker 2: on a Saturday night, the smart money is on the ladies.
3:46
Speaker 2: Maybe not all the guys go that way, of course,
3:49
Speaker 2: but the numbers would be in your favor there. Now,
3:51
Speaker 2: let's think about deer. I had the recent pleasure of
3:55
Speaker 2: snort wheezing in a giant eight pointer on public land.
3:58
Speaker 2: That was clearly a dominant buck, and he was the
4:01
Speaker 2: kind of deer that could handle the deer version of
4:04
Speaker 2: you know what are you looking at? Pal? I also
4:06
Speaker 2: had the displeasure of cutting hairs off of his back
4:09
Speaker 2: when I guess the rains wrong, because I was in
4:11
Speaker 2: full meltdown mode from thinking that he was going to
4:14
Speaker 2: walk out a frame and get out of my life,
4:16
Speaker 2: which he did later on, and which stung a lot.
4:20
Speaker 2: But that buck was the buck to challenge I tried
4:24
Speaker 2: the same thing on a smaller deer and it worked
4:26
Speaker 2: exactly like it often does. That buck was a lover
4:29
Speaker 2: and not a fighter. In fact, almost every deer you
4:32
Speaker 2: see will choose the lover approach because in nature it
4:36
Speaker 2: makes more sense to burn precious calories passing on your
4:39
Speaker 2: genes versus locking the cage of the octagon for five rounds.
4:44
Speaker 2: Yet we almost always choose a buck decoy over a
4:48
Speaker 2: dough decoy. Why is that? Well for starters, the people
4:53
Speaker 2: who sell you buck decoys tend to hunt places that
4:56
Speaker 2: you definitely wouldn't be allowed on. If your farm is
5:00
Speaker 2: hovered up in prime age bucks, a buck decoy is
5:04
Speaker 2: no big deal. You can weed through the little tiny
5:07
Speaker 2: one hundred and forty inches and wait on the one
5:08
Speaker 2: sixty five who rules the roost. You also probably have
5:12
Speaker 2: a very good idea where he likes to travel and win,
5:16
Speaker 2: So a buck decoy with an aggressive body posture is
5:19
Speaker 2: the right call there, and it works. You can turn
5:23
Speaker 2: on your favorite hook and Bullet channel or go on
5:25
Speaker 2: over to YouTube and watch this play out a lot
5:28
Speaker 2: this time of year, and it is cool as hell.
5:32
Speaker 2: A buck that approaches sort of sideways while licking his
5:35
Speaker 2: lips and side eyeing a plastic rival. It's just a
5:39
Speaker 2: sight to behold. And when he sucker punches a fake
5:42
Speaker 2: buck in the guts, it's pretty damn amazing. But again,
5:47
Speaker 2: if you choose a buck decoy, you're playing the odds game,
5:51
Speaker 2: and what you're doing is saying I don't want a
5:53
Speaker 2: certain number of bucks to come in to range, and
5:56
Speaker 2: I certainly don't want any actual doze around me. This
6:01
Speaker 2: is the equivalent of casting a huge bucktail for muskies.
6:05
Speaker 2: You aren't going to accidentally catch very many bass on it,
6:09
Speaker 2: and maybe, just maybe you might catch a mongo pike,
6:13
Speaker 2: but mostly you're going to either catch nothing or hook
6:16
Speaker 2: into a big musky. Now, if that's what you're into,
6:20
Speaker 2: doughnuts for deer doughnuts, But if you're listening to this podcast,
6:24
Speaker 2: my guess is that maybe you're open to the possibility
6:26
Speaker 2: that decoying in one hundred inch dear would be pretty
6:29
Speaker 2: sweet too. That's where I'm at and I'm going to
6:32
Speaker 2: get to it, But first I should talk a little
6:35
Speaker 2: bit about a third option. You can use a small
6:38
Speaker 2: buck decoy. I'm trying to get Dave Smith to make
6:41
Speaker 2: me a realistic looking basket rack six pointer. But it
6:44
Speaker 2: turns out he knows the decoy market better than me
6:47
Speaker 2: and isn't interested in my suggestion for how to run
6:49
Speaker 2: his business. I also asked him to make me a
6:52
Speaker 2: feeding dough decoy, and that got me a response that
6:55
Speaker 2: was similar to what I told my wife that I thought,
6:57
Speaker 2: after this whole filming whitetail run, I'm on wraps up.
7:00
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna go hunker down in Wisconsin for a
7:03
Speaker 2: few weeks until I run out of season or kill
7:05
Speaker 2: a big buck. Anyway, a little buck decoy opens up
7:10
Speaker 2: your options more. A big buck's not usually going to
7:14
Speaker 2: fear a little buck, but that doesn't mean he's gonna
7:16
Speaker 2: mess with him. Sometimes they come in and it seems
7:19
Speaker 2: like they just want to push them around, kind of
7:20
Speaker 2: like when you use a quarter strut jake for spring turkeys.
7:23
Speaker 2: But sometimes they almost don't pay them any mind at all,
7:27
Speaker 2: even if you pair that decoy up with some rattling
7:29
Speaker 2: or grunting or snort wheezing or whatever. The bucks that
7:32
Speaker 2: are out there this time of year are looking for
7:34
Speaker 2: one thing first and foremost. That's not a fight. It's
7:38
Speaker 2: something that while I'm not a dear biologist here seems
7:41
Speaker 2: like it's more likely to get offered up by doze
7:44
Speaker 2: than bucks. There is also the reality that putting out
7:47
Speaker 2: a buck decoy has a ripple effect on the rest
7:50
Speaker 2: of the non target deer That doesn't seem to do
7:53
Speaker 2: you too many favors if you like having non target
7:55
Speaker 2: deer around you. What I mean by that is, by
7:59
Speaker 2: the time the pre rudd is really kicking in, it
8:02
Speaker 2: seems like the doughs have had enough of the harassment already.
8:05
Speaker 2: They are generally pretty leery of decoys anyway, which I
8:09
Speaker 2: think is funny because we always talk about them as
8:11
Speaker 2: if they are easy to kill while acting like big
8:14
Speaker 2: bucks are super smart. I think the average dough, at
8:17
Speaker 2: least pressure dough, has better survival instincts than the average
8:21
Speaker 2: big buck. But that's fodder for a different podcast, and
8:24
Speaker 2: one that might get me shunned out of the deer
8:26
Speaker 2: on In community because it's built on the notion that
8:28
Speaker 2: mature bucks are the masters of avoiding hunters. Any huski.
8:33
Speaker 2: If you put a buck decoy out, you are generally
8:35
Speaker 2: admitting a few things. The first is you're calling out
8:39
Speaker 2: bucks that are just not big enough, or the ones
8:42
Speaker 2: that don't have the right mentality to mess with your decoy.
8:45
Speaker 2: The second is you're probably going to alarm some non
8:48
Speaker 2: target deer with its presence, which can have a negative
8:51
Speaker 2: effect on your sit. With a dough decoy, you mitigate
8:56
Speaker 2: a lot of that stuff, And to be honest, doesn't
8:59
Speaker 2: it just makes sense to give the deer what they're
9:02
Speaker 2: looking for. I really don't get the idea that it
9:05
Speaker 2: should always be a buck decoy, but maybe that's a
9:07
Speaker 2: personal problem. This really started to take shape for me
9:10
Speaker 2: a long time ago when I started using some portable
9:13
Speaker 2: fold out deer decoys. One of them was a meal
9:17
Speaker 2: deer decoy, but represented a feeding meal deer, so in
9:20
Speaker 2: other words, it just looked like a relaxed deer that
9:23
Speaker 2: was munching on some greenery or acorns. The white tails
9:26
Speaker 2: didn't seem to notice that it wasn't their species. And
9:29
Speaker 2: what blew me away was that I could use it
9:32
Speaker 2: in the early season, like in a beanfield setup, and
9:35
Speaker 2: almost all of the deer would eventually come over and
9:37
Speaker 2: feed by it. Now, some of the dose would look
9:40
Speaker 2: very suspiciously at it at first, but almost always they'd
9:44
Speaker 2: end up feeding over to it. It kind of shattered
9:47
Speaker 2: my notion of what I knew about decoying at the time,
9:51
Speaker 2: but the lesson there was one that stuck with me.
9:54
Speaker 2: We absorb a lot of information about deer hunting vicariously.
10:00
Speaker 2: I you it at least partially as an academic pursuit,
10:04
Speaker 2: which it is, but it's all so experiential. In fact,
10:09
Speaker 2: experience is just the real difference maker between being good
10:12
Speaker 2: at this stuff or not. In my experience messing around
10:15
Speaker 2: with that feeding mule deer dough decoy and then later
10:18
Speaker 2: their white tailed dough decoy, was that a lot of
10:21
Speaker 2: what I'd always heard about decoying is just not always true.
10:32
Speaker 2: You can say I had a natural bend toward doe
10:35
Speaker 2: decoys to begin with, but that really became something different
10:38
Speaker 2: last season when I hunted with my daughters. Now I
10:41
Speaker 2: know I've talked about this a lot, so bear with me.
10:43
Speaker 2: After one of my daughters shot a spike on the
10:46
Speaker 2: first night of the season, her sister was up to
10:49
Speaker 2: bat and while I tried really hard to get a
10:51
Speaker 2: buck in front of her, I couldn't even get a
10:52
Speaker 2: deer to show itself. We sat in the north woods
10:55
Speaker 2: and blanked and blanked and blanked, and it got to
10:57
Speaker 2: be the first week of November, and I told her
10:59
Speaker 2: that our shot was going to be to post up
11:01
Speaker 2: with that dough decoy and just wade out a buck.
11:04
Speaker 2: My rationale was that in a low deer density area,
11:08
Speaker 2: a lone dough would draw some serious attention if we
11:10
Speaker 2: could get a buck to even look at it. And
11:13
Speaker 2: it took us all day, but the buck that did
11:15
Speaker 2: look at it liked what he saw so much that
11:18
Speaker 2: he put on a scraping show for us and then
11:20
Speaker 2: trotted into about fourteen yards and gave our fake deer
11:24
Speaker 2: a good butt sniff. He seemed very confused at what
11:27
Speaker 2: he got a whiff of, but he didn't get much
11:29
Speaker 2: time to ponder it because my daughter shot him right
11:32
Speaker 2: through the lungs and in a matter of seconds we
11:33
Speaker 2: were getting out of the blind to go look at him.
11:36
Speaker 2: A week later, I sat in the exact same blind
11:39
Speaker 2: with the doe set up in the exact same spot
11:41
Speaker 2: and watched a cruising two year old eight pointer pop
11:43
Speaker 2: out of the field and trot right past my setup.
11:47
Speaker 2: It was one of those deer hunting moments that went
11:49
Speaker 2: from oh he's in so much trouble to oh shit,
11:52
Speaker 2: please come back, please come back so fast that happened
11:56
Speaker 2: that you can barely believe it. I could almost see
12:00
Speaker 2: that buck stop at the edge of the swamp and
12:02
Speaker 2: process that he had a plan to go cruise somewhere else.
12:05
Speaker 2: But his rut dulled brain had just seen the very
12:08
Speaker 2: thing he was looking for, even though he wasn't expecting it.
12:12
Speaker 2: He turned to one eighty and came back into my life.
12:14
Speaker 2: And while he made a tiny bit farther than my
12:17
Speaker 2: daughter's deer, it didn't matter. We went two for two
12:20
Speaker 2: after struggling all season, all because of a Doe decoy.
12:24
Speaker 2: Now you might be thinking, well, if I had such
12:26
Speaker 2: sweet ground to hunt like those dumb ass podcast hosts,
12:30
Speaker 2: I could decoy one too. Now, I assure you most
12:34
Speaker 2: of the public land I hunt in the Midwest is
12:36
Speaker 2: better than this private ground up in northern Wisconsin, and
12:39
Speaker 2: I can barely see a deer on it with my
12:41
Speaker 2: best efforts, which sometimes are pretty good. It was just
12:45
Speaker 2: the right situation to put out a fake lady. And
12:49
Speaker 2: that's just it. In fact, I'm really hoping that by
12:52
Speaker 2: the time you listen to this episode, I'm posing with
12:55
Speaker 2: a giant public land buck down on Iowa that falls
12:57
Speaker 2: for the same trick. That's a TB kind of thing
13:00
Speaker 2: at the moment, though. The truth is a dough decoy
13:04
Speaker 2: is a good idea for a lot of folks, but
13:06
Speaker 2: it isn't just as simple as putting it out and waiting.
13:09
Speaker 2: You want visibility first. You don't have to post up
13:13
Speaker 2: on one hundred acre alfalfa field to make it happen,
13:16
Speaker 2: but obviously you want it where a buck might look
13:19
Speaker 2: at it and see it. You don't want to surprise
13:22
Speaker 2: anyone with it. Deer like a lot of things, but
13:25
Speaker 2: what they don't like is walking into a small kill
13:27
Speaker 2: plot or meadow and suddenly seeing a deer that they
13:29
Speaker 2: haven't heard or smelled before getting there. Now, some bucks
13:33
Speaker 2: might tolerate it, but you're likely to get a reaction
13:36
Speaker 2: that's negative out of a lot of deer. You got
13:38
Speaker 2: to give them some space and then think about what
13:41
Speaker 2: deer would naturally do. In that setting where my daughter
13:44
Speaker 2: and I killed, a lot of the deer come out
13:47
Speaker 2: of the corner of the field from this nearby swamp
13:49
Speaker 2: where they bed. So a deer that looks like it's
13:52
Speaker 2: forty yars out from that corner facing in the right
13:54
Speaker 2: direction just looks very natural. Now, maybe this isn't as
13:59
Speaker 2: big of a deal as I believe, But I do
14:00
Speaker 2: the same thing with turkey decoys in the spring. I
14:03
Speaker 2: want them to look as much like how real turkeys
14:05
Speaker 2: would use the landscape as possible, So with a dough decoy,
14:09
Speaker 2: I look for that kind of thing, even though maybe
14:12
Speaker 2: that's just to settle my brain down and make it
14:14
Speaker 2: think that it's doing some smart stuff. But you do
14:17
Speaker 2: have to think about how they'll approach. This is one
14:20
Speaker 2: of the reasons I like doe decoys more than buck decoys.
14:23
Speaker 2: While bucks will generally approach a buck decoy head on,
14:26
Speaker 2: or at least in the general direction of the head
14:29
Speaker 2: which has all of the weapons on it, a dough
14:32
Speaker 2: decoy is not a threat, it's an invitation, and they'll
14:36
Speaker 2: generally approach it from straight behind. This gives you a
14:40
Speaker 2: very good chance to position them exactly how you want.
14:43
Speaker 2: They also seem to forget about swinging down wind more
14:46
Speaker 2: with dough decoys than buck decoys, which is an added bonus.
14:49
Speaker 2: Although it's not a hard and fast rule, you should
14:52
Speaker 2: think about the wind in any ascent. You might leave
14:54
Speaker 2: around the decoy, for sure, but generally they walk in
14:59
Speaker 2: right behind her and stick their necks out to give
15:01
Speaker 2: her a good sniffing. This means, if you like fifteen
15:04
Speaker 2: or twenty hour broadside shots that distracted deer, a doe
15:08
Speaker 2: decoy is a great idea. This is something that is
15:11
Speaker 2: amazing even for forty four year old adult hunters with
15:15
Speaker 2: pretty extensive resumes, but who still screw up shots enough
15:18
Speaker 2: to think about it way too much when they are
15:20
Speaker 2: trying to fall asleep and their dumb brains decide to
15:23
Speaker 2: run a low light reel of failures just to remind
15:26
Speaker 2: them that they should probably be golfers. And it's even
15:29
Speaker 2: more amazing when that happens for inexperienced hunters who need
15:34
Speaker 2: shots set up as predictably as possible. Plus, and I
15:38
Speaker 2: want to stress this all lot, it's super fun. Deer
15:44
Speaker 2: hunting should be fun. And watching a buck c and
15:48
Speaker 2: then approach a decoy that's just about as fun as
15:51
Speaker 2: it gets. It's cool knowing that you have that ace
15:54
Speaker 2: up your sleeve where instead of waiting for them to
15:57
Speaker 2: choose a route that brings them close, they might walk
16:00
Speaker 2: in from anywhere to exactly where you want them to be,
16:04
Speaker 2: all because they decided it was better to approach the
16:07
Speaker 2: bride'smaid party instead of the dudees chugging yagger bombs and
16:10
Speaker 2: mean mugging the rest of the patrons. So think about
16:15
Speaker 2: that if you're looking to juice up your rut hunts
16:17
Speaker 2: this year, a good dough decoy might be the missing
16:21
Speaker 2: piece there. And think about listening next week because I'm
16:24
Speaker 2: going to talk about how people get the rut wrong
16:26
Speaker 2: and what they should do to get it right. That's
16:31
Speaker 2: it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson and this has
16:33
Speaker 2: been the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which is brought
16:36
Speaker 2: to you by First Light. I know you need some
16:38
Speaker 2: hype content this time of year. You want to see
16:41
Speaker 2: some big bucks get killed. You want to listen to
16:43
Speaker 2: some podcasts on the way out to your hunting spot.
16:45
Speaker 2: The meat eater dot com has you covered. We just
16:48
Speaker 2: recently dropped my North Dakota hunt from last year that
16:51
Speaker 2: happened on public Land. You can watch me struggle mightily
16:55
Speaker 2: on that one. Or if you're not in the mood
16:58
Speaker 2: for tons of whitetail content which we have, you can
17:00
Speaker 2: go listen to Clay's podcast. He's always covering something just fascinating.
17:05
Speaker 2: We've got Meet Eat Radio on Thursdays now dropping on
17:09
Speaker 2: Fridays too. You can check that out. A whole bunch
17:12
Speaker 2: of stuff there, tons of content the mediator dot com.
17:15
Speaker 2: Please go check it out, and thank you again for
17:17
Speaker 2: all your support.