Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 703: Foundations - Dumbed Down Deer Hunting

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Ep. 703: Foundations - Dumbed Down Deer 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. I'm your host,
0:25
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and this week's show is all about a
0:28
Speaker 2: common problem so many of us have with deer hunting,
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Speaker 2: and let's just kind of keeping thing simple. No one,
0:42
Speaker 2: well probably no one would say rabbit hunting is overly complex.
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Speaker 2: Even the most diehard beagle owner who loves pushing Southern
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Speaker 2: habitat for swamp bunnies. Now, they might try to make
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Speaker 2: it seem like more than it is, you know, when
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Speaker 2: the same goes for bird hunters, although duck hunters might
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Speaker 2: be the exception there. This probably happens because duck hunt
1:00
Speaker 2: and can actually be kind of complicated and hardcore duck
1:03
Speaker 2: hunters are like a different species of human, but the
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Speaker 2: same ghosts for whitetail hunters, and the same rules apply you.
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Speaker 2: Deer hunting can be complicated, but it really shouldn't be.
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Speaker 2: This is the lesson of the day. My friends, and
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Speaker 2: I think you can develop a way of thinking that
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Speaker 2: dumbs down deer behavior, and I think that'll make you
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Speaker 2: better off every season. In a past life, I flirted
1:30
Speaker 2: with becoming a lawyer. I actually got three years down
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Speaker 2: the higher education rabbit hole on that quest. Before being
1:36
Speaker 2: brutally honest with myself about my abilities in college and
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Speaker 2: my future in that role. I switched gears to be
1:43
Speaker 2: a writer, which turned out pretty well, even though it
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Speaker 2: felt like almost as much of a gamble. The money
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Speaker 2: would have been nice, but a lot of the other
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Speaker 2: parts of that career path might not have been so
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Speaker 2: much fun. One that would have bothered me a lot
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Speaker 2: would have been having to communicate with legal lees. As
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Speaker 2: a writer by trade, my job is to become more
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Speaker 2: precise and direct with each sentence, and not to be
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Speaker 2: like intentionally obtuse legal ease. As it's called. It's kind
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Speaker 2: of ridiculous. It's like a weird form of gatekeeping where
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Speaker 2: those in the law club can decipher the gibberish while
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Speaker 2: the common folks can't come close to comprehending it. It's
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Speaker 2: unnecessarily complicated and results in sentences like in the event
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Speaker 2: that the appellate signs the waiver pursuance any claims against
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Speaker 2: the third party, the co signer shall not heed the
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Speaker 2: exemplary consequences without the proper damages being attributed to the defendant,
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Speaker 2: who to this point has been unnamed, as a countermeasure
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Speaker 2: to the incidental yet punitive sorcery related to the actions
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Speaker 2: heretoforece renamed in the deposition labeled Exhibit F after the
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Speaker 2: injunction filed briefly for emotion. I ran into this recently
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Speaker 2: while researching an article about how states can absolutely stick
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Speaker 2: it to non residents even if they are hunting federal land,
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Speaker 2: and it made me think, why not. Why do we
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Speaker 2: stick it to non residence Because the answer is because
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Speaker 2: we can, and they are mostly powerless. If the state
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Speaker 2: with a capital s wants to abuse you for their
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Speaker 2: monetary game and not reap any real repercussions, the state
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Speaker 2: will do that. No. The why I asked myself was
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Speaker 2: about the wording and the language of legalese. What's the
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Speaker 2: point of making it overly complicated except to make people
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Speaker 2: feel like they are dumb or not a part of
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Speaker 2: the conversation Is it to make those in the legal
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Speaker 2: profession feel smarter? Is it actually the best way to
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Speaker 2: draw up contracts and work through the morass that is
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Speaker 2: the legal system, and actually therefore necessary. I don't know.
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Speaker 2: I know that it's a bend that a lot of
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Speaker 2: us have, and it has even invaded our space as
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Speaker 2: whitetail hunters. There are a few reasons why, but I
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Speaker 2: think it is so we can make ourselves sound better
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Speaker 2: at hunting. I mean, it's not that cool to tell
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Speaker 2: a story where you're like, well, I killed this buck
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Speaker 2: on the edge of the bean field because I know
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Speaker 2: like to eat beans, and so that's where I sat,
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Speaker 2: and that's where he walked in. It's better to say,
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Speaker 2: you know something, like I knew this buck was betting
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Speaker 2: halfway down a ridge after all the winter scouting I
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Speaker 2: did with my trail camera intel in my midsummer glassing sessions,
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Speaker 2: I identified his core destination food source. I knew that
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Speaker 2: the pressure would be intense, so I set up a
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Speaker 2: stand for a south or a west wind, with the
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Speaker 2: idea that this old buck would give me one shot
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Speaker 2: before he went nocturnal. And on and on and on
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Speaker 2: and on. This thing happens in fishing. It happens in
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Speaker 2: dog training when someone catches a giant bass or has
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Speaker 2: a three musky day. It's never simple. It's always about
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Speaker 2: a specific pattern and a specific presentation that the average
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Speaker 2: fishermen would have never identified. With dogs, the behavior is
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Speaker 2: always challenging, and this situation is always unique, Like I
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Speaker 2: don't know this lab really prefers to be stubborn during
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Speaker 2: morning training sessions, so I always work into our double
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Speaker 2: blind retrees by setting up wagon wheel drills first, and
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Speaker 2: then I switch it up just to as the wind
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Speaker 2: start switching directions, so he has to quarter the opposite
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Speaker 2: way and will need my help in telling him where
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Speaker 2: the bumpers are. In reality, it's not that complicated most
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Speaker 2: of the time. And even if we tell our stories
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Speaker 2: like we are pretty gifted at this outdoor thing, it's
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Speaker 2: better to keep things simple. It's better to look at
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Speaker 2: this stuff for what it is, which is largely cut
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Speaker 2: and dry. Let me give you an example that's easy
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Speaker 2: to understand. A few years ago, I killed a good
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Speaker 2: buck on public land in North Dakota. This was a
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Speaker 2: pre rut right into the beginnings of the real rut
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Speaker 2: kind of hunt. I knew it was going to be
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Speaker 2: a low deer affair, so my best bet was to
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Speaker 2: do all day sits in a place that funnel deer movement. Simple, right,
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Speaker 2: It really was. I parked my happy ass in a
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Speaker 2: spot for four days and I averaged maybe a couple
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Speaker 2: of deer sightings a day. The spot was just a
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Speaker 2: strip of river bottom on public land that attaches private
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Speaker 2: woods on both sides. The rest of the land, at
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Speaker 2: least the public land was open ground covered in cattle.
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Speaker 2: If the deer wanted to go from one woodlot to
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Speaker 2: the other and they wanted to stay in the cover,
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Speaker 2: their options were real limited. That's it. The whole setup
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Speaker 2: was just a pinch point during a time when the
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Speaker 2: bucks should have been cruising and they were. There really
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Speaker 2: wasn't anything high level about it, and it resulted in
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Speaker 2: a great public land deer that most private land hunters
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Speaker 2: would have been thrilled to shoot. I guess I could
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Speaker 2: add in a bunch of details about the spot that
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Speaker 2: made it better, but the truth was, it's not the
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Speaker 2: kind of thing that needs to be complicated, because it wasn't.
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Speaker 2: Most of deer hunting is like that. Hell, most of
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Speaker 2: any type of hunting is like that. Elk hunting is
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Speaker 2: like that, and the biggest hurdle there is just getting
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Speaker 2: around them. After that, they aren't that difficult to hunt
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Speaker 2: most of the time until they figure out you're there,
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Speaker 2: or the whims of the mountain dwellers take them to
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Speaker 2: two drainages over for some reason. Take another example that's
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Speaker 2: near and deer. No pun intended to my heart water holes.
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Speaker 2: The entire reason I love hunting water is because it's
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Speaker 2: so damn simple. Deer get thirsty, they go to drink.
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Speaker 2: That's it. The hotter it is, the easier it is
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Speaker 2: to run this program. There isn't anything super technical about it,
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Speaker 2: at least as a hunting style or strategy. The little
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Speaker 2: details like how to approach a water hole and where
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Speaker 2: to set up will involve some mental horsepower because every
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Speaker 2: situation is a little different, you know, in the variables
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Speaker 2: of wind and weather can alter plans in a hurry.
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Speaker 2: But again, a lot of that is pretty simple. If
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Speaker 2: it's ninety degrees and there's a south wind blowing, you
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Speaker 2: have a perfect tree to set up in for just
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Speaker 2: that wind. I don't know, man, it's pretty simple. If
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Speaker 2: it's forty degrees with a variable wind, now it's a
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Speaker 2: different story, But that's not when you'd really want to
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Speaker 2: be on water anyway, and instead should maybe hunt some
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Speaker 2: travel quarters. Now, there is a difference in simplicity when
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Speaker 2: it comes to hunting deer versus hunting individual bucks. When
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Speaker 2: you're hunting just deer, which is what everyone should do
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Speaker 2: for some years before they are to hunt specific bucks,
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Speaker 2: the rules are simple. Where do they probably bed? How
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Speaker 2: about travel feed? What trails connect those spots? How can
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Speaker 2: you get into those areas while causing the least amount
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Speaker 2: of disturbance? These questions are about all you need to
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Speaker 2: answer correctly to really be in the game. If you're
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Speaker 2: hunting pressure, dear, you can add in the idea that
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Speaker 2: the easy stuff will get hunted and the hard stuff
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Speaker 2: maybe won't. This is actually really simple, too, but we
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Speaker 2: make it way more complicated because even when we know
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Speaker 2: it to be true, we have a hard time not
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Speaker 2: hunting spots we want to hunt. We like familiarity a lot,
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Speaker 2: we don't like change. As hunters, both of these predispositions
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Speaker 2: can make us bad at the task. In this way,
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Speaker 2: we actually keep it too simple so that we don't
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Speaker 2: have to think about things, and that makes hunting seem
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Speaker 2: hard and complicated. I know that's a word salad made
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Speaker 2: mostly with kale, which is hard to handle, but it's true.
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Speaker 2: Deer are simple creatures, but so are we. What makes
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Speaker 2: things more complicated is mostly between our ears, and that's
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Speaker 2: the danger we all face. This is no more true
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Speaker 2: than when we are struggling, which is what I'm going
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Speaker 2: to talk about in next week's podcast. Think of it
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Speaker 2: this way, when are you most likely to believe this
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Speaker 2: is all really complex? When are you most likely to
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Speaker 2: believe the ways of deer are complicated and beyond the
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Speaker 2: understanding of our sad, smooth brains when things go wrong,
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Speaker 2: or at least when things don't go really right. Take
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Speaker 2: a hunt I shared with one of my daughters in
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Speaker 2: the end of September as an example. It was pretty
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Speaker 2: cut and dry. She wanted a deer, so we hunted
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Speaker 2: a few blinds that should have produced encounters. Since it
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Speaker 2: was pouring rain for our first sit and the wind
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Speaker 2: was blowing from the southeast, which sucks mostly, we went
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Speaker 2: to a backup spot to preserve a better spot. The
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Speaker 2: wind was good for that backup spot, but the question
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Speaker 2: was if we'd bumped deer on the way in, since
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Speaker 2: they sometimes bed there. Well, I don't know what happened,
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Speaker 2: because we blanked. We then blanked on three sits after that,
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Speaker 2: while looking at a lush little kill plot tucked into
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Speaker 2: the big woods of Wisconsin. I was flustered. It made
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Speaker 2: me think a lot of things. Now. I talk a
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Speaker 2: lot of shit about people who buy into moon phase
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Speaker 2: as a primary driver of deer movement, but let me
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Speaker 2: tell you this. I was staring at that full moon
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Speaker 2: during that trip like it had just kicked my dog
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Speaker 2: and made a pass at my wife. I was like,
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Speaker 2: you rotten chunk of rock and regolith just spinning out.
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Speaker 2: There's two hundred and sixty thousand miles away from me,
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Speaker 2: with your dumb tides and your werewolf connections. I also
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Speaker 2: blame the weather, since it was either pouring or stupid hot.
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Speaker 2: I blamed a lot of things for the turd sandwich
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Speaker 2: that was that hunt. But I think the truth is
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Speaker 2: far more simple. When I hunt that property and keep
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Speaker 2: things really safe, I almost always have a few days
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Speaker 2: where the dos are scrapper bucks. They cooperate pretty well.
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Speaker 2: But I took a gamble on our first sit of
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Speaker 2: that weekend, and I think it cost us. I think
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Speaker 2: the deer knew we came in there, and they don't
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Speaker 2: like those intrusions. Usually, when I go in there and
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Speaker 2: get busted, you know, or I'm grouse hunting or whatever,
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Speaker 2: the will disappear for at least a few days. I
11:03
Speaker 2: didn't think that first hunt in that betting area would
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Speaker 2: produce those results, but those results happened, and I think
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Speaker 2: that's why, so Lesson learned. Maybe the moon did affect
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Speaker 2: our hunt, maybe it was the weather, but I know
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Speaker 2: I did something I never do. And the following hunts
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Speaker 2: were highlighted by rabbit and squirrel sightings and one fat
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Speaker 2: raccoon moving way too late in the morning. From now on,
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Speaker 2: with a bad wind, I'll hunt somewhere other than that property.
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Speaker 2: Now Here's where the main Lesson probably comes in. I'm
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Speaker 2: an outdoor communicator, and my natural reaction is to break
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Speaker 2: that hunt down in a way that makes the deer
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Speaker 2: sound like they are super smart while also making me
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Speaker 2: sound pretty damn crafty. But the deer we were hunting
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Speaker 2: aren't super smart. We were literally targeting four key's and
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Speaker 2: does not seven and a half year old public land bruisers.
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Speaker 2: The gravity I feel to make things sound more complicated
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Speaker 2: and thus less accessible to some of my audience is real.
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Speaker 2: This is endemic in the outdoor world, and it's most
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Speaker 2: often noticeable on someone who has a specific style of hunting.
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Speaker 2: I don't care what it is, either bed hunting experts,
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Speaker 2: stalking experts, ground hunting experts, early season experts, rod hunting experts,
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Speaker 2: to your calling experts, whatever. If someone is selling you
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Speaker 2: information about hunting, the odds are decent that they might
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Speaker 2: intentionally or unintentionally overcomplicate things. I mean, it's a pretty
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Speaker 2: short sales pitch for your skills. If you're like, I
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Speaker 2: don't know, I like hunting buck beds because that's where
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Speaker 2: bucks go to spend their day. If I set up
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Speaker 2: close by, I can sometimes shoot them. Because of this,
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Speaker 2: that's not that cool, even though it's kind of true.
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Speaker 2: Making the whole process and strategies sound way more complicated
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Speaker 2: means that the audience has to follow along, and they'll
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Speaker 2: have a lot of questions about why they failed and
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Speaker 2: you didn't. But the truth is you did almost every time.
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Speaker 2: You just have the luxury of talking about your wins
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Speaker 2: and skipping over the many, many losses, and they are
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Speaker 2: far more aware of their losses because they are trying
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Speaker 2: something out of their comfort zone, and while they hope
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Speaker 2: to succeed, most people expect to fail at this stuff,
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Speaker 2: and when they do. An easy reason why is because
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Speaker 2: the task was so complicated. Oh oh, most folks would
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Speaker 2: have failed. There's comfort and shared misery. If there wasn't,
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Speaker 2: we wouldn't all be so addicted to social media. So
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Speaker 2: the balance lies in recognizing when things actually are complicated,
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Speaker 2: or where we are making them be so without them
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Speaker 2: actually needing to be so. A good way to find
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Speaker 2: this balance is to spend time watching deer, which is
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Speaker 2: what I've talked about a lot. The more you can
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Speaker 2: see them do their thing, the less crafty they really seem.
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Speaker 2: This goes for in season observation any time of the
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Speaker 2: year when you can watch deer, even dozen fawns and
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Speaker 2: scrapper bucks. It's also important to break down what should
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Speaker 2: be simple and what might not be. Hunting deer shouldn't
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Speaker 2: be complicated, it's just not. Your job is to figure
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Speaker 2: out where deer like to walk, and that isn't that hard.
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Speaker 2: They leave a lot of sign They are influenced by terrain,
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Speaker 2: and while they're pretty predictable in general, we know a
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Speaker 2: lot about deer. My friends The part where it gets
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Speaker 2: complicated sometimes is when to hunt a spot, how to
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Speaker 2: hunt a spot. This is where you can get bogged
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Speaker 2: down in the overthinking and the over analysis, and that's trouble.
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Speaker 2: A good hedge against a mental meltdown over this stuff
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Speaker 2: is just to accept the risk of trying something. If
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Speaker 2: you feel like you know where deer like to walk
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Speaker 2: in the evening, but you have a few different options
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Speaker 2: for setups, just try something. Whether it's saddling up in
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Speaker 2: the best tree or building a natural ground blind, whatever,
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Speaker 2: give it a go. Sometimes the deer do what you expect.
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Speaker 2: A lot of times they don't. When they do, you've
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Speaker 2: learned something, and when they don't, you've learned something. Over time,
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Speaker 2: especially if you' into a mobile hunting strategy, you start
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Speaker 2: to get very comfortable with this process. It teaches you
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Speaker 2: that trying is almost always worth it because sometimes it
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Speaker 2: works out, and even when it doesn't, you're probably like
15:11
Speaker 2: a little better hunter because of it. You're not sitting
15:14
Speaker 2: in the same tree stand over and over wondering why
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Speaker 2: the jury brothers are killing huge bucks left and right
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Speaker 2: and you can't see a spike to save your life. Instead,
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Speaker 2: you're actively working the deer in a way that takes
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Speaker 2: into account the simple things we know about them, the
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Speaker 2: stuff like where they probably bed and where they definitely
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Speaker 2: sometimes walk, and where they for sure like to fill
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Speaker 2: their bellies, even if it's at midnight. The basics are
15:38
Speaker 2: all right there, and they aren't out of reach of
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Speaker 2: any hunter. Even big woods hunters who have to play
15:44
Speaker 2: the brows pattern with low deer densities can do this stuff,
15:47
Speaker 2: although that situation can be a little more complicated and
15:50
Speaker 2: a hell of a lot more frustrating. Still attainable, though,
15:53
Speaker 2: if you keep it simple and understand that a lot
15:56
Speaker 2: of the reason deer hunting seems so complicated is because
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Speaker 2: it's just a different task to begin with, and so
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Speaker 2: much of the advice comes from folks who have a
16:04
Speaker 2: vested interest in making the whole process sound way more
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Speaker 2: complex than it really is. This is just good stuff
16:11
Speaker 2: to think about, but it might not help you with
16:13
Speaker 2: next week's topic, which is why it's so damn hard
16:16
Speaker 2: for so many of us to keep our shit together.
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Speaker 2: I'm mature, bucks, That's what I'm going to talk about.
16:22
Speaker 2: And even if you're in the I don't know, shoot
16:24
Speaker 2: any deer phase of your hunting journey, you're gonna want
16:26
Speaker 2: to give it a listen. And if you're real interested
16:28
Speaker 2: in big Bucks, you're definitely gonna want to give it
16:30
Speaker 2: a listen. That's it for this week, my friends. I'm
16:34
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson. This has been the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
16:37
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by first Light. Head on
16:40
Speaker 2: over to the Meat Eater dot com and you will
16:42
Speaker 2: see so many articles, so many videos, so many podcasts,
16:48
Speaker 2: so much hunting content. You can also stop at the
16:51
Speaker 2: store there, maybe pick up a new Phelps Call or
16:53
Speaker 2: some first Light camel whatever. Go check it out if
16:56
Speaker 2: you want to get your fix on not only deer hunting,
16:59
Speaker 2: but fishing stuff of Western big game hunting, small game,
17:02
Speaker 2: but whatever, it's all there. Mm hmm