Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 607: Foundations - For the Love of Does, Part 2

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Ep. 607: Foundations - For the Love of Does, Part 2 · 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
0:10
Speaker 1: host Tony Peterson. Hey everyone, welcome to the Wire to
0:14
Speaker 1: Hunt Foundations podcast, which is brought to you by First Light.
0:17
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all
0:20
Speaker 1: about the ladies once again and how hunting them will
0:23
Speaker 1: help you become a better white tail hunter. Overall. Last
0:38
Speaker 1: week's episode was all about the does and why I
0:42
Speaker 1: really don't think we as hunters give them enough credit. Now,
0:46
Speaker 1: if you didn't listen to it, probably go back and
0:48
Speaker 1: do that before you dive into this one. Now. I
0:51
Speaker 1: think we need to understand how to hunt does, really
0:54
Speaker 1: understand it. And what better time to talk about that
0:57
Speaker 1: than when we were right on the cusp of the
0:59
Speaker 1: late season where it's kind of, you know, just easier
1:01
Speaker 1: to drop your standards and shoot whatever comes down the trail. Anyway,
1:05
Speaker 1: this episode is all about that, and even if you're
1:08
Speaker 1: only a die hard big buck hunter, I think you'll
1:10
Speaker 1: still get something out of this episode. One of the
1:24
Speaker 1: reasons I like professional fishing, mostly professional bass fishing, is
1:28
Speaker 1: because it allows you to prove whether you're the best
1:31
Speaker 1: or not. Anyone who can pony up the entrance fees
1:35
Speaker 1: and has a tournament compatible boat and an adequate insurance
1:39
Speaker 1: policy can compete. Now you know, this is obviously for
1:44
Speaker 1: lower level derbys and circuits, because you're not going to
1:46
Speaker 1: fish some of the bigger tours without a little more
1:48
Speaker 1: on your resume than I don't know. I just like
1:50
Speaker 1: to catch bass and I have some money in hunting.
1:54
Speaker 1: We don't have this great leveler for a few reasons.
1:57
Speaker 1: The first is that catching release hunting really isn't a thing.
2:00
Speaker 1: It might be in the future when we lose most
2:02
Speaker 1: of our opportunities, but for now we don't really get
2:05
Speaker 1: to shoot, box, throw them in our alive well, and
2:07
Speaker 1: then release them back into the woods at the end
2:09
Speaker 1: of the day. Now hear me out, I'm absolutely against
2:14
Speaker 1: turning hunting into competition. I hate it. I don't like
2:16
Speaker 1: that idea at all, and I know there have been
2:18
Speaker 1: a few failed attempts to do just that, but luckily
2:21
Speaker 1: they never really stuck. So I don't want that. And
2:24
Speaker 1: this is just purely a thought exercise, so treated as such.
2:28
Speaker 1: I would like to know how good some hunters really are.
2:31
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people would. I think it'd
2:33
Speaker 1: be fun to see some of the industry folks have
2:35
Speaker 1: to prove themselves against other industry folks. And I don't
2:38
Speaker 1: mean candy land hunter versus candy land hunter here. I'd
2:42
Speaker 1: love to see some of these folks with a couple
2:43
Speaker 1: two inches under their belt compete against I don't know,
2:46
Speaker 1: like a Zach Farrenbauer or an Andy may On public
2:48
Speaker 1: Land and some state like Pennsylvania or Louisiana or somewhere
2:53
Speaker 1: else that is just not gonna offer too many easy deer.
2:56
Speaker 1: It's gonna be full of challenges and be pretty skimpy
2:59
Speaker 1: with the buck sights. That's a pipe dream, and honestly,
3:03
Speaker 1: maybe just a projection of the pettiness I possessed deep
3:05
Speaker 1: in my heart over the hunting industry as a whole.
3:08
Speaker 1: Where I should have gone with this, and where I
3:11
Speaker 1: intended to before I got sidetracked by one of my many,
3:14
Speaker 1: many character flaws is that hunting is an easy thing
3:18
Speaker 1: to talk about in a way that makes us all
3:20
Speaker 1: look good. Where this drives me a little bit crazy
3:25
Speaker 1: is when people talk about all the deer that they
3:28
Speaker 1: could have shot but didn't. You know, the people who
3:31
Speaker 1: take credit for not shooting the hunter and ten inch
3:33
Speaker 1: buck that just happened to walk by at fifty four
3:35
Speaker 1: yards and last light in the woods, and they couldn't
3:38
Speaker 1: have hit it, probably with two quivers full of arrows,
3:41
Speaker 1: but they claim it because, well, who's going to be
3:44
Speaker 1: able to prove them wrong. Who's going to call them
3:46
Speaker 1: out on that? Nobody? And it really doesn't matter. It
3:50
Speaker 1: just grinds my gears a little like it does when
3:52
Speaker 1: people talk about shooting does as if it's like a
3:55
Speaker 1: don't know, a trip to the grocery store in the woods,
3:57
Speaker 1: and almost like a transactional thing. In reality, trying to
4:02
Speaker 1: shoot a dough in many, many situations isn't nearly as
4:06
Speaker 1: easy as we make it sound on a grand scale,
4:09
Speaker 1: mostly because a lot of the people who talk that
4:11
Speaker 1: way have really easy hunting or they aren't actually trying
4:15
Speaker 1: to shoot dose. Now I know a lot of people
4:18
Speaker 1: who do have easy setups to shoot dose, and that's
4:21
Speaker 1: just fine. If you're in a high deer density area
4:24
Speaker 1: and have at least a few brain cells rattling around
4:27
Speaker 1: in your old skull, you should be able to eventually
4:29
Speaker 1: get a dough to pose up at twenty yards. If
4:31
Speaker 1: you have a remotely decent place to hunt, but even
4:35
Speaker 1: that's probably too harsh because it's often not that easy.
4:39
Speaker 1: When I first started deer hunting, we could only get
4:41
Speaker 1: one tag in Minnesota for archery hunters. If I remember correctly,
4:45
Speaker 1: it was good for either a buck or a dough
4:47
Speaker 1: back then. But I spent my first few years as
4:50
Speaker 1: a bow hunter around a group of guys that did
4:53
Speaker 1: not shoot dose. And believe me, I wanted to shoot dose.
4:58
Speaker 1: I wanted to shoot them bad enough that I had
5:01
Speaker 1: occasionally try, and I'd always fail. Now, I watched those
5:05
Speaker 1: guys kill spikes and four keys and occasionally a good one,
5:09
Speaker 1: and my dad always encouraged me to just get some
5:11
Speaker 1: deer under my belt. But that was a bad environment
5:14
Speaker 1: to start in. It really kind of set me back.
5:18
Speaker 1: I felt it when I had watched does go through
5:21
Speaker 1: while I was waiting on a buck. I felt it
5:23
Speaker 1: when I broke during my first year as a deer
5:25
Speaker 1: hunter and I shot not once, not twice, but three
5:28
Speaker 1: times at a dophon at like eight yards That fond
5:32
Speaker 1: made it away unscathed, and I carried a whole shipload
5:35
Speaker 1: of shame out of the woods with me that day.
5:37
Speaker 1: I didn't kill a deer that season and the next
5:40
Speaker 1: year on Opening Day, when I was thirteen years old,
5:43
Speaker 1: I had two button bucks come up to my tree
5:45
Speaker 1: on Opening night. Now, I knew I'd be crucified if
5:49
Speaker 1: I shot one, so I let them walk. My dad
5:51
Speaker 1: told me that was crazy, and you know, I know
5:54
Speaker 1: now he was right, but I didn't want to deal
5:56
Speaker 1: with the negativity then. In a way, it reminds me
5:59
Speaker 1: of how so many hunters treat other hunters today. Of course,
6:04
Speaker 1: back then it was much more personal. You knew the
6:06
Speaker 1: people who were going to buck shame you versus a
6:09
Speaker 1: bunch of strangers on social media. But the sentiment was
6:12
Speaker 1: the same, I'm going to bring something shitty into this
6:15
Speaker 1: world that has no bearing on anything actually important, just
6:19
Speaker 1: because I am human nature. Guys, it's rough sometimes Anyway.
6:26
Speaker 1: If I had grown up with antler list tags available
6:28
Speaker 1: right from the jump, I think my whole deer hunting
6:31
Speaker 1: evolution would have been fast tracked. In fact, I think
6:36
Speaker 1: when I finally got a chance to shoot some deer,
6:38
Speaker 1: when I had, you know, an either sex tag and
6:40
Speaker 1: a dough tag, I almost always filled both. I also
6:45
Speaker 1: started hunting deer in a different way. It wasn't solely
6:47
Speaker 1: about getting around buck sign and hoping one would walk by.
6:51
Speaker 1: It started to become a matter of hunting spots and
6:53
Speaker 1: not burning them out, and thinking about how all of
6:56
Speaker 1: the deer used the terrain, not just the ones that
6:58
Speaker 1: have antlers. This clicked for me when I was probably
7:02
Speaker 1: about twenty and I went out opening morning to a
7:04
Speaker 1: stand that I had hung that summer on the top
7:07
Speaker 1: of a ridge. The woods there by that stand was
7:10
Speaker 1: only about twenty yards thick before it dropped off into
7:12
Speaker 1: a valley, and there was a prominent wash out on
7:15
Speaker 1: the hillside right there that forced all the traveling deer
7:18
Speaker 1: lower high. Now I bet on high because of the
7:21
Speaker 1: wind advantage. I also had a suspicion that deer would
7:24
Speaker 1: use the trail, based on it being kind of position
7:26
Speaker 1: between an alfalfa field and a thicker patch of woods
7:29
Speaker 1: where I often jumped bedded deer when I went through there. Now,
7:33
Speaker 1: that morning alone dough came down the trail and I
7:35
Speaker 1: shot her. Well, that probably doesn't seem like much, but
7:39
Speaker 1: it made me realize I had been mostly counting on
7:42
Speaker 1: randomness to deliver a deer to me, and this dough
7:45
Speaker 1: had done what I had hoped deer would do. I
7:48
Speaker 1: know it doesn't seem like much, but it was. I
7:51
Speaker 1: had other experiences like one on public land in the
7:54
Speaker 1: Twin Cities here probably I don't know, eight or ten
7:57
Speaker 1: years ago did again kind of reminding me of that lesson.
8:01
Speaker 1: Now in the summer scouting, I had found this this
8:03
Speaker 1: kind of cool crossing in a swamp and that every
8:07
Speaker 1: day it seemed like a few deer would use it.
8:10
Speaker 1: Not wasn't a major trail or a major travel route,
8:13
Speaker 1: but it made sense if deer wanted to go from
8:15
Speaker 1: one high ground spot to another without getting too wet
8:19
Speaker 1: or working too hard. I shot a dough they're opening
8:22
Speaker 1: morning too. Now why is this valuable? Because you might
8:27
Speaker 1: not always get to hunt your grandma's farm where you
8:30
Speaker 1: know the bucks hit the food plot on Halloween every
8:32
Speaker 1: year to check scrapes, or the bachelor up on the
8:35
Speaker 1: beans and you can kill one. Early land changes hands,
8:39
Speaker 1: deer populations ebb and flow, New neighbors move in and
8:42
Speaker 1: they shoot everything. Or you might decide to buy a
8:46
Speaker 1: nonresident license somewhere and realize that just because you can
8:49
Speaker 1: consistently kill good bucks on your lease at home, it
8:53
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you can kill a deer on public land
8:55
Speaker 1: in Oklahoma, even with a week's worth of time to hunt.
8:59
Speaker 1: I think being open to shooting dos in the right
9:01
Speaker 1: situation is a huge benefit for all of us as hunters,
9:05
Speaker 1: provided we have the option. I also think even if
9:09
Speaker 1: you believe it's easy to kill those, it's worth setting
9:12
Speaker 1: up some rules around when you will, and that changes
9:15
Speaker 1: the game. I'll give you an example. I try really
9:19
Speaker 1: hard not to shoot dose with fawns. I like the
9:22
Speaker 1: challenge of hunting loan does and waiting them out, because
9:25
Speaker 1: where I hunt, they'll show up. In northern Wisconsin with
9:28
Speaker 1: the predator densities there, it's pretty much a given. Then
9:31
Speaker 1: I'll see a fair amount of dose without fawns. And
9:33
Speaker 1: the last time, I said screw it, and I shot
9:36
Speaker 1: a dough with twin fawns, which is double bad, super bad,
9:40
Speaker 1: really bad if you have twins yourself. I promptly nearly
9:44
Speaker 1: lost my nutsack to a fence post. I got greedy
9:47
Speaker 1: down there on that public land in Oklahoma, and I
9:50
Speaker 1: wanted to fill some tags. So when that dough came
9:52
Speaker 1: in and posed up by my natural ground blind, I
9:55
Speaker 1: threw caution to the wind, and I broke one of
9:56
Speaker 1: my rules. Now I know you think it's just a quincid.
10:00
Speaker 1: But when I was laying on the ground there with
10:02
Speaker 1: blood coming out of quite a few spots in my
10:04
Speaker 1: body and pain in my apple bag, that felt like
10:07
Speaker 1: going I don't know, nine rounds with a fence post.
10:10
Speaker 1: It was just radiating through my body. I thought that
10:12
Speaker 1: maybe maybe I shouldn't have broken one of my rules.
10:17
Speaker 1: I love hunting when I green light myself for does,
10:20
Speaker 1: and my favorite time is when I'm hunting on a
10:22
Speaker 1: September October morning and then I see that loan dough
10:26
Speaker 1: walking in. Then it's all systems go for me. I
10:30
Speaker 1: also love it when I'm on the road on public
10:32
Speaker 1: land somewhere and I have a dough tag changes the
10:34
Speaker 1: entire hunt. And I'll tell you something, I kind of
10:38
Speaker 1: even secretly like it a little now when I go
10:40
Speaker 1: to my banker and I asked for a personal loan
10:43
Speaker 1: every few years so I can draw an Iowa tag
10:45
Speaker 1: and they make me buy a dough tag for like
10:48
Speaker 1: five bucks. The mature dough I shot down there in
10:51
Speaker 1: while she was drinking at a river crossing was kind
10:54
Speaker 1: of really my goal for that sit, kinda. I also
10:58
Speaker 1: wanted to see how Dear used the cross, and even
11:00
Speaker 1: though I had low hopes of killing a buck there
11:03
Speaker 1: I don't know, I still felt like I had a chance.
11:06
Speaker 1: Plus it was just fun to hunt, knowing that any
11:07
Speaker 1: loan do that came past was in real trouble. No,
11:11
Speaker 1: there's a little nugget hidden in that story that I
11:13
Speaker 1: want to tell you about. It was fun. I know,
11:17
Speaker 1: we like to sit in the woods and see the
11:18
Speaker 1: sunrise and eat junk food and wait out a buck.
11:21
Speaker 1: But I don't enjoy hunting anymore than when I go
11:23
Speaker 1: into the mode where I intend to shoot. I don't
11:26
Speaker 1: know why, but it changes everything. I just love the
11:29
Speaker 1: feeling of my heart pounding between my ears and living
11:32
Speaker 1: in that moment where time slows down and you know
11:35
Speaker 1: you're going to try to draw soon, and once you
11:38
Speaker 1: do draw, you have to be ready to read the
11:41
Speaker 1: deer and aim and execute. Then there's the post shot
11:45
Speaker 1: adrenaline dump and the instant feeling of while you've either
11:48
Speaker 1: done things really well or not so much. I guess
11:52
Speaker 1: put another way and really dumbed down and simplified. It's
11:56
Speaker 1: pretty fun to shoot deer. So what does this mean
11:59
Speaker 1: for you? M Do you have your mind made up
12:03
Speaker 1: on what hunting doz is like, and you're not interested? Okay,
12:07
Speaker 1: are you having fun hunting? Are you going to have
12:10
Speaker 1: fun hunting this month when it's super cold in the
12:12
Speaker 1: deer kg and your odds of seeing a good buck
12:15
Speaker 1: are less likely than the odds of Kenyan catching an
12:17
Speaker 1: eighteen inch trout and not immediately plastering it all over
12:20
Speaker 1: a social media Are you struggling to kill good bucks?
12:24
Speaker 1: Probably if you're listening to me yammer on week after week.
12:28
Speaker 1: I promise you if that's the case, opening yourself up
12:31
Speaker 1: to the possibility of shooting a door or two and
12:34
Speaker 1: then actually doing that, it's going to help your cause.
12:38
Speaker 1: This is especially undeniably true if you hunt pressure deer. Now,
12:44
Speaker 1: if you hunt candy land deer, then these rules really
12:47
Speaker 1: don't apply. But pressure dear, the does and the bucks
12:51
Speaker 1: are pretty good at the survival game. If you can
12:54
Speaker 1: somewhat consistently kill mature does where lots of people hunt them,
12:59
Speaker 1: then you will evidently be a better big buck hunter
13:02
Speaker 1: for it. Take that to the bank, my friends, because
13:06
Speaker 1: it's as good as gold. This stuff is not easy,
13:09
Speaker 1: and it won't get any easier for most of us
13:12
Speaker 1: if we aren't making moves to get better at being
13:15
Speaker 1: good deer hunters. Now, not mature buck hunters, mind you,
13:19
Speaker 1: which is a nice satellite benefit to becoming better deer hunters,
13:22
Speaker 1: but just learning deer and becoming better at the whole thing.
13:26
Speaker 1: This is a skill that will help you far more
13:29
Speaker 1: than obsessing over the best times to grunt to rattle
13:32
Speaker 1: or buying a six dollar decoy that looks so good
13:34
Speaker 1: the other hunters and your party will occasionally take a
13:36
Speaker 1: poke at it. The key to being better is to
13:39
Speaker 1: recognize which challenges are available to you, and then meeting
13:43
Speaker 1: them head on and listen. The mature buck challenge is
13:47
Speaker 1: always going to be there, but it's honestly a bridge
13:51
Speaker 1: too far for a lot of hunters. It's a worthy consideration,
13:55
Speaker 1: but a great way also for a lot of hunters
13:58
Speaker 1: to eat a lot of tags and real sick of
14:00
Speaker 1: those early alarms in those cold, unproductive sits. I don't know,
14:06
Speaker 1: all stick and no carrot is no fun for something
14:09
Speaker 1: that is supposed to be fun. Think about this as
14:12
Speaker 1: we go into what are definitely the final innings of season.
14:16
Speaker 1: There might be a month left for some or two
14:18
Speaker 1: for others, but the best parts for most of us,
14:21
Speaker 1: they're in the rear view mirror. Now it's up to
14:24
Speaker 1: us to figure out how to use our time for
14:26
Speaker 1: the rest of the season. For me, that will involve
14:29
Speaker 1: some dough hunts that will feel an awful lot like
14:31
Speaker 1: I'm hunting for big bucks. I'm not gonna be able
14:34
Speaker 1: to make too many mistakes, because once the gun season
14:37
Speaker 1: is over, the deer that are left really don't enjoy
14:39
Speaker 1: sharing the woods with people still bent on deflating their lungs.
14:43
Speaker 1: It'll be a staging area thing mostly, which is a
14:46
Speaker 1: skill that has paid off well in my buck hunts.
14:49
Speaker 1: If you can figure out how to kill dose staging,
14:52
Speaker 1: you can figure out how to kill bucks. Trust me.
14:55
Speaker 1: It might be a betting area thing too, which is
14:57
Speaker 1: something I just want to get better at. In I'm
15:00
Speaker 1: not going to go out and kill mature bucks out
15:02
Speaker 1: of their bed as easily as I'm going to figure
15:04
Speaker 1: out how to kill some goes around a bedding area.
15:07
Speaker 1: Huge benefit there, you know. And I planned to run
15:10
Speaker 1: a few cameras, do some observations and just see how
15:12
Speaker 1: I can put together a plan here in Minnesota and
15:14
Speaker 1: maybe in Wisconsin that will end up with an easy
15:17
Speaker 1: blood trail in the snow. I highly recommend many of
15:21
Speaker 1: my listeners they do the same. Now. It's an easy
15:25
Speaker 1: choice for me because I love the meat, but maybe
15:26
Speaker 1: you don't. I bet you can find a way to
15:29
Speaker 1: donate it, or find someone in your life who would
15:32
Speaker 1: love some venisine. I've never had a problem finding somebody
15:35
Speaker 1: who would take some veniicine. And I think the key
15:37
Speaker 1: takeaway here is, I don't know to maybe just keep
15:41
Speaker 1: hunting off the does on your place are too easy.
15:45
Speaker 1: Go still hunt the public land down the road. Easy.
15:48
Speaker 1: We'll go out the window then, but you know what,
15:51
Speaker 1: you'll still be hunting, and that's better than sitting at
15:53
Speaker 1: home not hunting, or sitting somewhere where you know it's
15:57
Speaker 1: a foregone conclusion and it's not that exciting. Or maybe
16:01
Speaker 1: you could kill dose all day long out of your
16:03
Speaker 1: box blind on the food plot. Great. If that's the
16:06
Speaker 1: case and you want to do that, go ahead. But
16:08
Speaker 1: if that doesn't really do it for you, go try
16:10
Speaker 1: to kill one from the ground in the woods. If
16:12
Speaker 1: that's too easy, find someone who sucks that hunting and
16:15
Speaker 1: take them out. They'll be tickled to have a chance
16:17
Speaker 1: to shoot a dough and you'll watch someone have a
16:20
Speaker 1: hard time doing something you think is easy, and that's
16:23
Speaker 1: an important thing to be reminded of. And however you
16:26
Speaker 1: do it, consider this. Just don't sell does short just
16:30
Speaker 1: because they don't have antlers. Consider them what they are,
16:34
Speaker 1: were the adversaries in the woods, which they often are.
16:38
Speaker 1: They are also fun to hunt, full of delicious meat,
16:41
Speaker 1: and far more available on a general scale than big,
16:44
Speaker 1: old mature bucks. That's enough reasons to hunt them. Right there,
16:48
Speaker 1: I'd say, all right, I'm done talking about dose. Done,
16:53
Speaker 1: done done. Next week I'm going to talk about weapon
16:56
Speaker 1: choice and why you should consider hunting deer with something
17:00
Speaker 1: different than you're chosen weapon. And I know that sounds weird,
17:04
Speaker 1: but I'll explain it in detail when that show drops.
17:07
Speaker 1: Until then, shoot straight and stay safe, my friends. That's
17:13
Speaker 1: all I've got for you this week. I'm Tony Peterson
17:15
Speaker 1: and this has been the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast,
17:18
Speaker 1: which has brought to you by First Light. As always,
17:21
Speaker 1: thank you so much for your support, and if you
17:23
Speaker 1: want some more white tail wisdom, head on over to
17:25
Speaker 1: the meat eater dot com slash wired to read my
17:30
Speaker 1: latest articles and articles from a whole host of white
17:33
Speaker 1: tail killers, and you can also check out the weekly
17:35
Speaker 1: how to videos that Mark and I produce for the
17:38
Speaker 1: wire to Hunt YouTube channel.