Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 856: Foundations - The Joys of Winter Wonderland Whitetails

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Ep. 856: Foundations - The Joys of Winter Wonderland Whitetails · 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 dealing with
0:27
Speaker 2: the cold when you're after late season deer If I
0:34
Speaker 2: am being honest, and I am this is my least
0:39
Speaker 2: favorite time of year to be a deer hunter. Look,
0:41
Speaker 2: I do love getting out into the woods and hunting,
0:44
Speaker 2: but there are all those roosters out there that I
0:47
Speaker 2: want to chase, and there's just the reality that hunting
0:49
Speaker 2: in the cold often really really sucks. But that doesn't
0:53
Speaker 2: mean it's time to dust the cobwebs off of the
0:55
Speaker 2: dog and just forget about deer hunting completely. It just
0:59
Speaker 2: means that you have to learn learn to live with
1:01
Speaker 2: the coal, which is what I'm going to talk about
1:03
Speaker 2: right now. I've noticed something about most of the people
1:13
Speaker 2: who claim to love winter and snow and cold and
1:16
Speaker 2: all the dumb things that happen this time of year.
1:19
Speaker 2: Most of them don't ever have to spend much time outside.
1:23
Speaker 2: My mother in law is one of those people, and
1:25
Speaker 2: she will often talk about how wonderful it is to
1:28
Speaker 2: get snow and how pretty the world looks to her
1:31
Speaker 2: in the winter. But she can also pretty much spend
1:34
Speaker 2: all winter laying on the couch watching Netflix too. Talk
1:38
Speaker 2: to oh, I don't know, like a dairy farmer or
1:41
Speaker 2: maybe someone who works in construction, and you might get
1:43
Speaker 2: a different reaction out of them since they have to
1:45
Speaker 2: go out and work in this shit no matter what.
1:48
Speaker 2: There's a parallel to this in the deer hunting space,
1:50
Speaker 2: if you can believe that the folks I know who
1:53
Speaker 2: profess an undying love for the late season are also
1:56
Speaker 2: the people who have a very specific kind of hunting situation.
2:00
Speaker 2: I'll give you a hint here. Almost none of them
2:02
Speaker 2: own a saddle, and they'd look like a monkey trying
2:05
Speaker 2: to learn quantum physics if they had to try to
2:07
Speaker 2: do some kind of mobile setup. They are most likely
2:10
Speaker 2: like a friend of a friend of mine, guy who
2:13
Speaker 2: talks a lot of shit about being an amazing hunter
2:16
Speaker 2: but also has a chunk of private ground in Iowa
2:18
Speaker 2: where he leaves several acres of standing beans every season
2:21
Speaker 2: around his redneck blind. He'll casually say things like he
2:25
Speaker 2: had seventy deer in the field with him during late
2:27
Speaker 2: season hunts, and you'll say other things like get this,
2:31
Speaker 2: baiting isn't really hunting, which is an interesting take anyway,
2:35
Speaker 2: given the circumstances he sets up for himself to hunt
2:38
Speaker 2: deer when they need calories the most. I'm not going
2:41
Speaker 2: to go too deep into that right now, but maybe
2:43
Speaker 2: in a different podcast. The truth is, generally speaking, if
2:47
Speaker 2: you love the late season, you probably have a super
2:50
Speaker 2: awesome place to hunt. But you might also just like
2:54
Speaker 2: the challenge and the fact that most folks have just
2:56
Speaker 2: pretty much given up on the season. There is that
2:59
Speaker 2: reality too, and it's a positive to the late season thing.
3:02
Speaker 2: In fact, this goes for private land as well as
3:05
Speaker 2: public land in a lot of places. There are some
3:07
Speaker 2: real advantages to late season hunting, or at least there
3:10
Speaker 2: can be for all of us, and having the woods
3:13
Speaker 2: largely to ourselves is a real advantage. It allows you
3:17
Speaker 2: to mostly work the deer, which is huge when you're
3:20
Speaker 2: used to not only working the deer but working all
3:23
Speaker 2: of the other hunters who are also working all of
3:25
Speaker 2: the deer and presumably all of the other hunters including you.
3:29
Speaker 2: There are some other advantages too. You can kind of
3:32
Speaker 2: forget about a lot of the deer sign that really
3:34
Speaker 2: blows the wind up your skirt in the early season. Now,
3:37
Speaker 2: I know there are some guys out there who are
3:38
Speaker 2: still hunting scrapes and they are killing deer on them, probably,
3:42
Speaker 2: But you're not going to probably, and I probably won't either,
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Speaker 2: because that's not really on my radar at all. Neither
3:48
Speaker 2: are rubs, and I love rubs. I pay attention to them,
3:51
Speaker 2: and they might indicate a thicker area that a late
3:54
Speaker 2: season buck could hole up in, But that isn't really
3:57
Speaker 2: like a hunting sign. It's like using sign to sort
3:59
Speaker 2: of back test your theory about where deer might be.
4:03
Speaker 2: But of course you could just look at the cover
4:04
Speaker 2: and make a pretty well educated guess on whether deer
4:07
Speaker 2: will be there or not. The sign that matters now
4:10
Speaker 2: is tracks where deer walk matters, and it matters a
4:14
Speaker 2: lot this time of year. This only gets easier when
4:17
Speaker 2: you get snow, But even up here in Canada South
4:19
Speaker 2: it feels like snow is harder to come by than
4:22
Speaker 2: it used to be. If you live farther south, you
4:24
Speaker 2: might not ever get that advantage, but you usually do
4:27
Speaker 2: get some level of freezing and thawing, and that can
4:30
Speaker 2: be beneficial for looking for tracks and beating down trails.
4:34
Speaker 2: This is important because late season hunting usually kind of
4:36
Speaker 2: involves starting fresh. The deer after gun season becomes something different,
4:41
Speaker 2: and that involves survival mode, but not the way that
4:45
Speaker 2: most people think, and not the way it's mostly portrayed
4:47
Speaker 2: in the hunting media. Sure, the private land deer that
4:51
Speaker 2: our babysat specifically to be kind of dumb and vulnerable
4:55
Speaker 2: will pile into a food plodder field in a late season,
4:58
Speaker 2: but the deer that get hunt hard usually won't. Their
5:02
Speaker 2: survival mode is to move, not a whole lot, and
5:06
Speaker 2: to do whatever moving they will do, mostly in the
5:09
Speaker 2: cover and mostly close to darkness. Walking trails out looking
5:14
Speaker 2: for heavily tracked up areas can help you pinpoint those spots.
5:19
Speaker 2: It's not easy, but it is fun, and you have
5:21
Speaker 2: another advantage when it comes to the late season, although
5:24
Speaker 2: this one can work against you, which is that the
5:26
Speaker 2: woods are real open. You know how big of a
5:30
Speaker 2: fan I am of watching deer do stuff. Observation is
5:34
Speaker 2: the key to an awful lot of the deer I
5:36
Speaker 2: end up shooting, and there isn't much of a better
5:38
Speaker 2: time to see them than right now. With snow it
5:42
Speaker 2: gets even easier, but you have to pay attention. Winter
5:47
Speaker 2: white tails are quiet. They aren't chasing around and breaking
5:51
Speaker 2: lots of sticks and making a lot of big, noisy movements.
5:55
Speaker 2: They move like battle weary soldiers, which in a way
5:59
Speaker 2: they kind of they appear, they go through, they disappear,
6:05
Speaker 2: They focus on danger wherever it may be, and mostly
6:09
Speaker 2: they take their time. Now, you will see some deer
6:13
Speaker 2: kind of you know, practically run into food sources, but
6:16
Speaker 2: that's a rarity and usually involves very specific circumstances. Most
6:20
Speaker 2: of the time they just kind of show up. And
6:22
Speaker 2: if they do that one hundred and twenty five yards
6:24
Speaker 2: away in the brush, it's better to have your binos
6:27
Speaker 2: on them to see exactly what they do, then to
6:29
Speaker 2: suddenly realize they are already halfway out across the cut cornfield. Now,
6:33
Speaker 2: I'm sure there are a few other advantages that the
6:36
Speaker 2: late season offers, including, you know, allowing you to lower
6:40
Speaker 2: your standards solow that even a button buck might get
6:42
Speaker 2: you to clip your release to your d loop, but
6:44
Speaker 2: mostly it's a matter of finding tracks, watching and then
6:49
Speaker 2: doing a decent amount of suffering. That's what really separates
6:53
Speaker 2: the late season killers from the folks who spend most
6:56
Speaker 2: of the late season ice fishing or pulling tabs at
6:59
Speaker 2: the local watering. Hunting the late season is a matter
7:03
Speaker 2: of gauging your willingness to be uncomfortable and then pushing
7:06
Speaker 2: that as far as you can. And this starts with
7:10
Speaker 2: our brains. If you can believe that, just like when
7:13
Speaker 2: it comes to all day rut sits confidence in the
7:16
Speaker 2: late season matters. If you're going to go out to
7:19
Speaker 2: any old favorite stand that is much better in October
7:23
Speaker 2: than at Christmas time, and you have very little faith
7:25
Speaker 2: it'll produce, but you go there because it's easy. Good
7:29
Speaker 2: luck putting in a lot of hours. Confidence in your
7:32
Speaker 2: setup can go so far in getting you out there
7:35
Speaker 2: when you need to be and keeping you there for
7:39
Speaker 2: as long as you need to be there. This is
7:41
Speaker 2: a way bigger component of late season success than most
7:44
Speaker 2: people realize. Now, you can cheat this to some extent
7:47
Speaker 2: if you need to. The box blind hunter I shit
7:50
Speaker 2: on earlier, well, he has the right idea for comfort.
7:54
Speaker 2: If you've never sat in a Redneck or some other
7:56
Speaker 2: box blind with a heater running in the late season,
7:59
Speaker 2: you don't know how good you can have it. It's
8:02
Speaker 2: honestly kind of crazy, how comfortable you can be when
8:04
Speaker 2: you have the money and the willingness to haunt that
8:06
Speaker 2: certain way. This has become clearer to me as my
8:09
Speaker 2: daughters have started hunting with me. And this might come
8:12
Speaker 2: as a surprise to you, but a rail thin ten
8:15
Speaker 2: year old girl doesn't have a huge tolerance for sub
8:18
Speaker 2: zero temperatures in long sits. If the wind is blowing
8:22
Speaker 2: at all, forget it unless you can put them in
8:25
Speaker 2: a blind and turn on a mister Buddy heater, which
8:27
Speaker 2: is exactly what I do. And do you know what,
8:31
Speaker 2: that heater feels pretty dang good to forty four year
8:34
Speaker 2: old men too. Maybe you're tough as nails and can
8:47
Speaker 2: hang in a saddle all day from dark to dark,
8:49
Speaker 2: to shoot a dough in late December, but most folks can't,
8:53
Speaker 2: and most folks wouldn't even try because they know that
8:55
Speaker 2: about themselves. Maybe you need a pop up blind, you know,
8:58
Speaker 2: brushed into some cedars or something, and maybe you need
9:01
Speaker 2: a little extra heat from burning propane to get you through,
9:04
Speaker 2: if that's what it takes do that. I don't do
9:08
Speaker 2: that in the late season much for one simple reason though.
9:11
Speaker 2: I have a hard time getting drawn in a blind
9:13
Speaker 2: during the late season. It seems like the deer are
9:16
Speaker 2: always too close, and by the time they move it's
9:18
Speaker 2: often very very calm ount When you have a bundled
9:22
Speaker 2: up hunter and a suspicious camo cube and the deer
9:25
Speaker 2: are already superjaded from a long season. I found that
9:28
Speaker 2: it's just hard for me to get drawn. I actually
9:31
Speaker 2: have way better luck and natural blinds and tree stands
9:34
Speaker 2: because the deer seem to be less focused on me
9:37
Speaker 2: then and the instead of being in a ground blind,
9:40
Speaker 2: so that means I go through handwarmers like crazy. They
9:44
Speaker 2: are cheap, so I go pretty deep on them. And
9:47
Speaker 2: it's crazy that a mixture of iron, powder, water, salt,
9:51
Speaker 2: activated charcoal, and vermiculite can, when it's exposed to oxygen,
9:56
Speaker 2: generate an appreciable amount of heat for hours. This chemical
10:00
Speaker 2: process is pretty much the same thing that happens when
10:03
Speaker 2: iron rusts. We just forced it to happen at a
10:05
Speaker 2: much quicker pace so that it gives off heat and man,
10:09
Speaker 2: are those things a lifesaver. I buy a lot of them,
10:12
Speaker 2: and they are an absolute blessing on late season hunts.
10:15
Speaker 2: So is something very hot to drink in a thermos.
10:19
Speaker 2: I have a good buddy of mine who is about
10:21
Speaker 2: as far behind on the times as you can get,
10:23
Speaker 2: who sent me a message during Minnesota's gun season this year.
10:27
Speaker 2: He was out with a shotgun in the southeast corner
10:29
Speaker 2: of the state trying to shoot a buck while I
10:31
Speaker 2: was across the river here in Wisconsin trying to arrow one.
10:35
Speaker 2: It was real cold and real windy, and he mentioned
10:39
Speaker 2: that he'd appreciate some hot coffee and some food for
10:42
Speaker 2: his sit because he didn't know how long he'd make
10:44
Speaker 2: it before he would have to head back to the truck.
10:47
Speaker 2: I was like, well, buddy, have I got some good
10:49
Speaker 2: news for you, because we've been making food and beverages
10:53
Speaker 2: portable for a long long time. I sent him a
10:57
Speaker 2: pick of my yetti full of hot coffee and my
10:59
Speaker 2: Emerging See candy bag, which is just a bag of
11:02
Speaker 2: candy I always have in my pack for those times
11:04
Speaker 2: when I need a Reese's peanut butter cup or some
11:06
Speaker 2: M and ms to get me through a long dearless
11:08
Speaker 2: part of my sit If you don't drink coffee, I
11:11
Speaker 2: don't know, because you're some kind of psycho who just
11:13
Speaker 2: raw dog's life without caffeine, then maybe your shit out
11:16
Speaker 2: of luck. I just know that there are very few
11:19
Speaker 2: things that feel like almost instantly better than when you're
11:23
Speaker 2: freezing your little knackers off and then you take a
11:25
Speaker 2: swig of hot coffee and feeling it warming your insides up.
11:29
Speaker 2: Now you might be thinking, why don't you just layer
11:32
Speaker 2: up so you can handle it cheaf Well, that's a
11:35
Speaker 2: good point, imaginary listener person. But the truth is there's
11:39
Speaker 2: a level to which you can't get past once you've
11:42
Speaker 2: been stationary for a long time and it's very cold
11:45
Speaker 2: out now. The right layering system and the right socks
11:48
Speaker 2: and boots and hat and whatever, it's all important. But
11:52
Speaker 2: you know that if you don't consider that extensively for
11:54
Speaker 2: your late season hunts, you're just in trouble. You'll have
11:57
Speaker 2: to move too much or just not hunt long enough,
12:00
Speaker 2: both of which will pretty much kill your chances. And
12:03
Speaker 2: if you do move too much, you might notice something
12:05
Speaker 2: else that's very difficult about late season hunting, which is
12:09
Speaker 2: managing how much noise you make now. If you watch
12:12
Speaker 2: me hunt on any of the shows I've filmed, you'll
12:15
Speaker 2: notice one thing about me besides the fact that I
12:17
Speaker 2: make a lot of mistakes for someone who is way
12:20
Speaker 2: better at hunting than Mark, which is that I don't
12:23
Speaker 2: use hoods hardly. Ever. I hate hoods on anything but
12:27
Speaker 2: a sweatshirt. And here's why, because I can't hear anything
12:31
Speaker 2: to begin with. I've had some guns shot way too
12:35
Speaker 2: close to my ears. I played a lot of loud music,
12:38
Speaker 2: and I've been to a ton of concerts. My hearing sucks,
12:42
Speaker 2: and hoods make my hearing sucks so much more that
12:45
Speaker 2: I cannot stand it, especially in those quiet late season conditions.
12:50
Speaker 2: But hoods also scrape the tree when I move, and
12:53
Speaker 2: I hate that too. It might not seem like that
12:56
Speaker 2: big of a deal sitting there in rifle season waiting
12:59
Speaker 2: on a buck to walk through two hundred yards away,
13:02
Speaker 2: but during late season bow hunts, that hood can be
13:05
Speaker 2: the difference between getting busted trying to get a shot
13:08
Speaker 2: or not. I've also noticed that some of my climbing
13:11
Speaker 2: sticks just suck in really cold weather. Some suck on
13:15
Speaker 2: all trees and you know, different kinds of bark, while
13:18
Speaker 2: some only suck on certain trees with certain kinds of bark. Now,
13:22
Speaker 2: if I'm over in northern Wisconsin, for example, I know
13:25
Speaker 2: the paper bark birch trees are mostly off limits for
13:27
Speaker 2: my mobile hunts. The steps will squeak and creak, as
13:31
Speaker 2: will my stand or my saddle platform. Some ladder stands
13:35
Speaker 2: pretty noisy too, especially ladder stands that have been up
13:38
Speaker 2: for a few years, and if they have any play
13:40
Speaker 2: in the ladder at all, they're gonna make some noise.
13:44
Speaker 2: Cold weather means quiet conditions and loud gear. Generally, that's
13:48
Speaker 2: a huge consideration. The upside to this is that you
13:52
Speaker 2: can leave most of the extra stuff at home. Late
13:55
Speaker 2: season hunting is a matter of putting yourself where the
13:57
Speaker 2: deer want to be and not doing a bunch of
13:59
Speaker 2: call and other shit. This is something I try to
14:02
Speaker 2: think about a lot if I go mobile at all,
14:04
Speaker 2: because I want to reduce my profile as much as
14:07
Speaker 2: possible and just generally not have a bunch of stuff
14:09
Speaker 2: to bump into or have to work around. This is
14:12
Speaker 2: also why I like to do natural ground blinds when
14:14
Speaker 2: I can, Even though drawing can be a risky proposition,
14:18
Speaker 2: I don't have to make a lot of movements that
14:20
Speaker 2: could cause noise otherwise. Though now I know I haven't
14:24
Speaker 2: painted a very rosy picture of late season hunting. Let
14:27
Speaker 2: me give you one last thing that I use to
14:29
Speaker 2: keep myself going out there even when I don't want
14:31
Speaker 2: to remember earlier in this episode, when I joked about
14:34
Speaker 2: lowering your standards to button buck level, that was only
14:38
Speaker 2: kind of sort of a joke. I know my personal
14:41
Speaker 2: odds of killing a giant buck in the late season
14:43
Speaker 2: are almost zero. I just don't have the spots and
14:47
Speaker 2: I'm certainly not going to put in the time. So
14:49
Speaker 2: when I go I think about it differently. If I'm
14:52
Speaker 2: in Minnesota, here, it'll be just all about trying to
14:55
Speaker 2: arrow a single dough. That's the goal. Now I'm not
14:59
Speaker 2: looking for bucks. I don't have a buck tag left,
15:01
Speaker 2: at least for myself. My daughters are a different story.
15:04
Speaker 2: But for me, the scouting and the stand prep and
15:07
Speaker 2: anything else is all about just getting a dough into
15:09
Speaker 2: shooting range. That's fun because it's a doable, realistic goal,
15:13
Speaker 2: but it's still challenging. So that works for me now
15:17
Speaker 2: over in Wisconsin, at least this year, I still have
15:19
Speaker 2: a buck tag, so my goal will be any dough
15:22
Speaker 2: or any buck. That's even more fun because it opens
15:26
Speaker 2: up the possibility to basically shoot whatever might come through
15:30
Speaker 2: the key there is to just get around deer and
15:33
Speaker 2: hope it works out. Now, if I set my sights
15:35
Speaker 2: on even a two and a half year old or
15:38
Speaker 2: older buck over there, I probably wouldn't even go hunting
15:41
Speaker 2: because my optimism just doesn't stretch that far. I would
15:44
Speaker 2: probably have a better chance of seeing a wolf for
15:47
Speaker 2: real than a buck that has been kicking around for
15:49
Speaker 2: any length of time. So if you do decide to
15:52
Speaker 2: test your metal against late season deer and go frolic
15:54
Speaker 2: in the winter wonderland they call home, think about this
15:58
Speaker 2: stuff because it matters. What are you out there looking for?
16:01
Speaker 2: What kind of deer would make you happy? But don't
16:04
Speaker 2: stop there. We all know what kind of deer would
16:07
Speaker 2: probably make us happy, but the reality is that you
16:10
Speaker 2: need to get one within range and it needs to
16:12
Speaker 2: be unaware of you. Now, the thought of just killing
16:15
Speaker 2: a doe or a little buck changes because academically that
16:19
Speaker 2: shouldn't be that tough for a lot of us, But
16:21
Speaker 2: when we put it into practice and head out there
16:23
Speaker 2: with our bows, it does become a hell of a
16:26
Speaker 2: lot tougher than we think. But tough is good. Now. Sure,
16:29
Speaker 2: there are guys looking at dozens of deer eating beans
16:32
Speaker 2: planted specifically for the deer while they watch an NFL
16:35
Speaker 2: game on their phone and wait for a hitlister to
16:37
Speaker 2: wander by. But there is also the reality that most
16:40
Speaker 2: folks are out of the woods, and the last part
16:42
Speaker 2: of the season isn't for the weekend warrior. It's for
16:46
Speaker 2: someone who wants to scout, think through the whole process,
16:50
Speaker 2: and to try to make it happen even when it
16:52
Speaker 2: flat out sucks to be in the woods. That's you,
16:55
Speaker 2: and that's what you should do this year before the
16:57
Speaker 2: whole thing ends and you regret not getting after it more.
17:01
Speaker 2: That's what I'm gonna do, and I'm going to come
17:03
Speaker 2: back next week to talk about going where you don't
17:05
Speaker 2: care about deer movement so you can learn all about
17:09
Speaker 2: deer movement. That's it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson.
17:14
Speaker 2: This has been the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which
17:16
Speaker 2: has brought to you by First Light. I gotta tell you,
17:19
Speaker 2: the year's almost up. We've done a ton of sales,
17:22
Speaker 2: We've asked a lot out of you guys, and I
17:24
Speaker 2: just want to say thank you for sticking around, thank
17:26
Speaker 2: you for supporting us. It's been an amazing year. We
17:30
Speaker 2: truly appreciate it here at meat Eater. If you're just
17:33
Speaker 2: kind of like I'm not ready for the season to
17:36
Speaker 2: be over, or you need maybe something to fill the
17:38
Speaker 2: void when you're driving to Grandma's house for Christmas or whatever,
17:42
Speaker 2: the mediater dot com has a ton of podcasts. You
17:46
Speaker 2: can go over and listen to Clay's Bear Grease podcast.
17:49
Speaker 2: The meat Eater channel has three different shows on it now,
17:53
Speaker 2: the main mediator podcast, mediat Radio, and meat Eater Trivia.
17:57
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18:00
Speaker 2: to cook something for Christmas dinner, whatever. The meat Eater
18:03
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18:09
Speaker 1: H