Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 1075: Foundations - How to Make the Most of Morning Hunts When It's Not the Rut

Transcript

Ep. 1075: Foundations - How to Make the Most of Morning Hunts When It's Not the Rut · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired2Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide to the
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: fundamentals of better deer hunting. Presented by First Light, creating proven,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle, or blind. First Light,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: go farther, stay longer. And now, your host, Tony Peterson.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Hey everybody, welcome to the Wired2Hunt Foundations podcast, which is
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: brought to you by First Light. I'm your host, Tony Peterson,
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: and today's episode is all about morning hunts and the
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: mistakes that keep us from killing mature bucks when that
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: alarm goes off super early. It is whitetail week here
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: at MeatEater, and here's the deal. If you head on
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: over to TheMeatEater.com, you'll see that you can sign up
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: through your email, and I know you hate that as
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: much as I do, but if you do go do that,
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: you will be entered into the ultimate whitetail giveaway. You
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: don't even have to buy anything to be entered as
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: long as you sign up through one of our sites.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: But if you do go buy some stuff, you'll have
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: a much better chance of winning that prize package that's worth,
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: get this, over $ 23, 000.
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: That's no joke.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Also, pay attention to the meat eater socials, and you'll
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: see daily incentives around buying some sweet gear like the
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Faze Chalice Fleece Jacket or maybe the FHF Fob, which
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: is the best.
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: Vinyl harness I've ever used.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: And you can earn extra bonus entries in the giveaway
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: by buying that stuff. Someone's going to win that prize package,
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: so maybe it'll be you.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: Now, here's the deal.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: I'm done selling you stuff, and I'm going to tell
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: you about this podcast. You might not think you need
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: to learn about morning hunts. You might be like, ah,
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: I've been morning hunting forever.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Everybody who's hunting whitetails hunts morning some, but there are
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: a lot of mistakes that people make with those early
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: alarm hunts, and there's a lot of mistakes around not
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: hunting or not hunting correctly in the mornings. I'm going
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: to talk about that all right now because I think it's,
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: I don't know, kind of maybe one of the more
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: valuable lessons in deer hunting. And I think a lot
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: of people kind of look over it. So I'm going
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: to get into that right now. If you're lucky enough
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: to live until you've made 90 laps around the sun,
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: you will have slept for about 30 years of your life.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: If you're lucky anyway, because sleep is real important. If
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: you don't get enough of it, you don't usually function
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: very well. For starters, your attention suffers. Your reaction time
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: gets slower because your brain takes longer to detect stimuli
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: and direct instructions to your muscles. Your decision-making gets worse.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Your emotions get harder to regulate. Your memory even suffers.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: And it's not just your brain that experiences negative effects
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: from being tired, either. We experience a whole slew of
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: physical issues when we don't get enough Zs. There is
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: a lot of research on this topic, you know, for
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: obvious reasons, but we still don't really know why sleep
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: exists in the first place. We just know that it does,
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: and that the brain essentially needs to be taken offline
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: for a certain amount of time in every 24-hour period.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Do you know who isn't always super fun to be
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: around when they don't get enough sleep? 14-year-old girls, which
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: has been pretty evident with my daughters and their freshman
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: year schedules, which have them up at 6 a.m.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: Sharp every school day.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Do you know who else doesn't do well when they
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: are really tired? I don't know, pretty much all of
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: us who don't have raging cocaine addictions. If I had
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: to describe myself and my willingness to wake up early
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: and enjoy life, I'd say that's not what I am
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: as a person. I do get up early a lot,
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: because that's when the turkeys gobble and the big smallmouth
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: like to eat and the deer like to walk around
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: in the woods. But I'm rarely super excited when the
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: alarm goes off and I've only been in dreamland for
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: a few hours. Now, back when I was a drinking man,
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: this was a lot worse. Like, a lot worse for me.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: When I quit drinking, my morning hunting experiences got a
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: lot better. Take from that what you will, dear listener.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: But the truth is that morning hunting is just generally
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: harder for most of us to get behind than afternoon sits,
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: at least when it's not prime time for rutting activity.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: It's easy to talk ourselves out of hunting in the mornings,
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: and honestly a whole lot of the hunting advice out
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: there in the deer world will tell you that you
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: are a super smart hunter if you don't hunt mornings
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: for a good portion of the season.
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: Listen.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: There are situations where it is easier to kill a
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: big buck if you don't hunt mornings in their early season.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: But if you're listening to this podcast, you probably don't
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: hunt in those situations. That is advice for people who
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: have land locked up, who manage for big bucks, and
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: who can confidently wait to take their shot when the
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: dates and the weather line up. For most of us,
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: following that advice will actually make it harder to kill
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: big bucks. Just like a hell of a lot of
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: the advice out there that has, you know, sort of
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: become standard. Maybe you don't believe me, but let me
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: ask you, if you don't believe me, have you ever
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: put in real effort to figure out if that advice
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: is good for you or not? I mean, not hunting
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: is going to give you a very predictable result, but
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: is that making it easier for you to kill running
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: bucks later?
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: Probably not.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: And it's definitely not making it easier to kill early
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: and mid-season bucks. I've said so much on this topic
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: though already and in past podcasts. I don't want to
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: belabor it anymore. I want to talk about how to
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: make morning hunts easier and more productive. And the first
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: thing I'd say was that when I started taking care
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: of myself, morning hunts got easier. I mentioned the quitting
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: drinking thing already, but also just trying to figure out
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: how to help myself sleep better. There are ways to
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: do that that no one wants to hear. So I'm
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: going to skip that too.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: Be healthy. It'll help.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: That's all I'm going to say. You can take care
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: of yourself in other ways though. For starters, think about
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: how often you run behind during morning hunts or really
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: anything that has you getting up, you know, when the
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: sun won't rise for a few hours. Because your brain's
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: a little slow. It's easy to make little mistakes and
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: forget stuff. Instead of trying to force yourself to go
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: to bed at 7.30, like you're a child or you're
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: 108 years old, take the time when you're awake to
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: square away what you'll need for the morning. I've started
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: making sure that my pack is truly packed, like dialed,
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: with every.
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: Single thing I need for the hunt. And then I
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: do more.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: The coffee maker gets primed and loaded the night before.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: So as soon as I wake up, I can make
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: some of that delicious java that keeps me going. Depending
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: on how long I plan to sit or be out
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: in the woods, if I'm going to switch stands throughout
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: the day, I'll get all my food in order. Make sandwiches,
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: pack snacks, whatever. It's all in a Ziploc in the
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: fridge so I can grab it and go. My hunting
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: gear is usually all loaded in my truck and ready
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: to go as well. Or it's laid out in the
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: garage waiting to be loaded. I have a tote that
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: I keep in my truck with a whole bunch of
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: extra stuff too. You know, stuff like bow hangers and
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: lifelines and flashlights, and just about anything extra I might
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: need on any hunt. This is huge for a couple
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: of reasons. The most obvious is that if I forget
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: something in my pack, it's more than likely in my truck.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: But there's also the peace of mind of knowing that
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: if I get to where I want to hunt, and
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: there are three trucks in the parking area or the
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: wind is out of the north when it was forecasted
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: to be out of the south, I can pivot quickly
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: to plan B and I'll have all the stuff I need. Or,
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: you know, maybe I go drive out to one of
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: my private spots and one of the other hunters is
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: already where I want to go. And so I have
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: to slip into a natural ground blind instead of a
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: stand that I wanted to hunt, knowing exactly where my
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: pruners and saw are because I might not have brought
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: them for that tree stand hunt that I set up
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: in August. Or, you know, knowing that I have an
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: extra cushion in my truck, that can make that whole
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: transition pretty seamless. The lesson here, and I can't stress
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: this enough, is to do everything you can ahead of
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: time to make morning hunts as easy as possible. This
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: is a habit I've picked up over a lot of
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: years of making my life harder than it needed to
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: be by either being lazy or not thinking things through
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  Speaker 2: as well. You know, just kind of living like a
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: caveman with a smartphone, I guess. Now, a good way
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: to look at this is just to kind of do
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: a little self-reflection. What stresses you out the most about
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: your morning hunts? If it's forgetting crucial pieces of gear,
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: then I just gave you your solution. If it's running late,
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: you can get a lot of the things ready the
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: night before and give yourself a little breathing room. But
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: that doesn't entirely address the stress of knowing that the
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: sun is going to come up and it's not going
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: to wait on you because you need to stop for
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: gas or you slept through your first two alarms or whatever.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: Or that you figured, wrongly, that it would take 20
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: minutes to drive out to the lease and 10 minutes
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: to get to your stand. This is one of the
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: hardest things to do for a lot of people. But
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: building in a cushion of time is so important. The
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: thing that derails the enjoyment of a lot of morning
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: hunts is having to really rush things. It points your
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: momentum in a bad direction and can very easily cause
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: you to miss an opportunity at a buck. I'm to
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: the point now with mornings where I'll do all of
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: the math I need, you know, in order to figure
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: out when I have to get up and when I
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: have to be on the road and walking out of
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: camp or whatever. And then I tack on like an
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: extra 30 minutes. I do this at home and I
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: do this when I'm living out of a camp while
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: hunting public land somewhere. I don't want to feel rushed
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: and I want to be able to take my time
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: to drink my coffee and think through my plan and
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: just sort of rise to the occasion.
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: If it's a.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Mad scramble from the moment the alarm goes off, I
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: know that even if nothing else goes wrong, I'm not
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: going to enjoy my morning as much because I'm going
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: to be stressed. And stress can come in many forms
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: while you're deer hunting. Like if you have a not
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: very well planned route to your stand or blind. If
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: you're taking a nicely mowed two track to your stand,
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: things are probably going to be pretty simple. But if
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: you're hiking along a river bank for a half a
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: mile before cutting up a bluff to reach a ridge top,
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: that's a different story. How familiar are you with the route?
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: This is one that takes a little bit more to
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: think about than most folks understand. I've walked into a
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: lot of spots to hang stands or scout and then
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: returned in the dark and the difficulty level.
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: Is always way higher.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: I did this to myself last year in Nebraska while
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: hunting with Steve and you can see a snippet of
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: it in the new film that we just dropped. The
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: stand that I shot my buck out of I got
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: to by going across dry ground with a can-am in August.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: The river next to that stand looks shallow and sandy.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: You know, the kind of river I've walked through about
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: a million times to get to deer. So I figured
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: that would be an easy, safe access route. But looking
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: shallow and being shallow are different things. I had icy
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: cold water in my knee highs about seven seconds into
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: that walk, which isn't great when you're planning to sit
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: all day. I also realized that I'd never be able
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: to make it to my stand on time by wading
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: through a river and trying to use my headlamp to
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: gauge the best sandbars to walk.
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: On and avoid all the deeper holes.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: I ended up having to push my way through a
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: bunch of streamside willows and other brush, which was loud
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: and just not ideal.
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: What I did, and what we do often with.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: The access routes, is just assume one thing without knowing
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: for sure, and I'll tell you something I've learned. A
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: route is almost never easier than I assume it to be.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: It's almost louder and sketchier and more time-consuming than my
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: brain thinks it will be when I'm not actually walking
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: it in the dark and trying to be quiet. Flagging
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: tape or reflective tags, maybe the tracker feature.
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: On your OnX app.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: Whatever you need to do to keep yourself on course,
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: do that. It's a huge deal. And you need to
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: give yourself time. you will rarely regret getting to your
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: stand and getting settled in a little earlier than you planned.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: But even when you get to your stand, your potential
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: stressors don't disappear. I know a lot of people who
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: choose to hang sets in the dark, which to me
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: is insane if you have the chance to hang them
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: in the daylight ahead of your sit. In some situations,
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: you just can't though, like on certain pieces of public
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: land where sets have to be pulled every night, which
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: is a rule that really sucks but exists in some places.
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: But if you're hunting.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: Private ground, or public where you can leave a setup overnight,
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: not doing that when you could is just crazy. Hanging
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: a set in the dark, even when you're familiar with
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: the tree and the gear, is just a situation that's
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: ripe for mistakes. It can absolutely be done though. Hanging
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: a set in the dark on a tree you're not
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: familiar with and with gear you aren't super comfortable with
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: is a great way to make yourself feel not very
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: good about yourself and potentially cost yourself a buck. Again,
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Whatever you can take care of in the daylight, you know,
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: without the stress of the clock ticking, is always the
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: right move. And if you do this and everything else
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: I've talked about, do you want to know what will happen?
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: You'll shoot more bucks. I mean that.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: We think we shouldn't hunt mornings a lot, you know,
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: throughout the season because we'll spook our target deer and
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: cost ourselves later. But if you do the work to
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: hunt correctly, you'll put yourself in a position to kill
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: more bucks. This is because you'll be meticulously planning your
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: morning hunts. Not just the how of the hunt, but
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: the why.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: Why would the.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: Bucks filter through this oak flat in the morning? Well,
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: maybe they're spending their nights on the neighbor's bean field.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: And even, you know, if they're off the field at
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: first light, which they are a lot of times, they're
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: not necessarily going to be back to bed until way
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: later in the morning. If you can access that oak
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: flat quietly from the backside, you know, away from the
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: field and the wind is right, What's the harm? The key,
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: at least for me when trying to find quality morning
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: spots this time of year, is to think about the
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: food-to-bed pattern and then reverse what I mostly do for
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: afternoon sits.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: I don't mean in specific spots, though.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: I mean kind of in the distance I try to
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: set up from the locations I believe they are starting
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: from or will end up at. Think about this distance
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: as a football field. 100 yards framed up by end zones.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: One end zone is a bedding area. The other is
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: the destination food source. In the evening, I want to
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: be close to a staging area.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: Off the food source.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: So I might post up in the timber on, say,
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: the 15 or 20-yard line. I can see the end zone,
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: but I'm not quite there yet. And I'm 80, 85
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: yards away from the bedding area in this weird unit
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: of measurement that I'm doing, if it makes any sense.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: But in the morning, I want to go the other
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: direction and be close to the bedding area.
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: Not in it.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: But about the same distance I would be to catching
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: deer staging in the afternoon. Because that same play, you know,
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: I'm going to make it in the morning and that
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: distance is just like a comfortable spot to be. I
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: want to give myself a chance to get in way
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: ahead of them, which helps by being closer to their
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: final destination. And I don't want to have to get
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: out where they're going to bed down. So you're just
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: playing that game. This is a thing that you have
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: to think through, but it's no different than finding a
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: staging area at night. You know, and the rules will
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: change during the rut, but I'm not talking about the
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: rut here. Now, one of the main reasons people give
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: for not hunting mornings right now is because the bucks
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: are back to bed too early. But that's just not
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: universally true. And you can give yourself a real chance
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: if you try to reverse engineer their travel and set
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: up where they should end up after legal shooting light
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: kicks in. This isn't nearly as hard as it sounds,
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: but it does take some work and some planning. It's
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: also something that a lot of folks won't do. And
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: they all have their reasons. For me, one of my
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: favorite challenges in whitetail hunting is trying to figure out
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: where to shoot a good one in the morning when
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: the timing of the season says it probably won't happen.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: I got into this habit when I started hunting public
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: land a lot because most of my hunts were not
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: rut hunts and I didn't want to waste half of
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: my sits. What I realized and what I took home
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: with me to a lot of my private land hunts
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: was that big bucks are definitely killable in the mornings.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: And it's not really any more difficult to figure out
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: than it is to try to kill them in the evenings.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: Which is to say, you know, it's still pretty difficult,
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: but also doable. There are creek and river crossings out there,
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: you know, that offer perfect morning access and plenty of
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: daylight activity. There's water holes in the woods. There's pinch
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: points and terrain traps of all varieties. There are bucks
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: that will bed early and then move when the thermals
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: kick in at 9 or 10 in the morning. There
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: are oak trees dropping, there's browse popping, and there are
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: all kinds of bucks who aren't going to be tucked
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: away in a bed all day long. You know, getting
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: in there long before daylight hits, only to not move
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: all day until after dark. Accept that for the truth,
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: because it is true. And go try to find a
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: way to intercept them long before the rut kicks in
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: and the rest of the hunters set their alarms to
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: go off super early.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: Do that.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: And then come back next week because I'm going to
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: talk about how to break down the land and try
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: to call your shots through e-scouting and why just generally
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: scouting this time of year is way more important than
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: most hunters think. That's it for this episode. I'm Tony Peterson.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: This has been the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast. Thank
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: you so much for all your support, especially on a
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: week like this where we have Whitetail Week going and
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: we're asking a lot of you.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for that.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: If you need some new gear, you know where to go.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: If you need some new content, you know where to go. TheMeatEater.com.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: We drop new films, new podcasts, new articles almost every
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: day of the week, all year long. There's so much
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: good content there. Go check it out. You'll also see
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: that we have Whitetail Week going on and there's some
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: cool incentives there to maybe go do a little shopping
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: at TheMeteor.com.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for everything.