Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 920: Foundations - Whitetail Rules are Made to be Broken (Sometimes)

Transcript

Ep. 920: Foundations - Whitetail Rules are Made to be Broken (Sometimes) · 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 Foundations podcast,
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: which is brought to you by first Light. I'm your host,
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Tony Peterson. In today's episode is all about the rules
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: we think exists for white tails and why we should
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: be careful about sticking too tightly to them. This one's
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: kind of a fun one for me because I'm largely
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: a contrarian at heart. I also have a deer hunting
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: background that started with a question everything type of attitude.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: You know what, Actually, that's not entirely true. It was
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: just that my dad and I weren't very good at it,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: so we kind of just did things the way we wanted.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: And he's the kind of guy who would just try
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: something crazy hunting wise, just to see and while it
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: really worked out, sometimes it did. And I'm the same
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: way and this has shaped almost everything I've thought about
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: when it comes to deer hunting. So Buckle up because
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: it's time to break some of the hard and fast
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: deer behavior and hunting strategy rules and kill some bucks. Anyway,
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: as I said, this is a fun one for me.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: But let me make this clear right from the start,
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: what I mean by white tail rules throughout this podcast
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: are not the laws and regulations you should obey those.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: I'm not giving you the green light to go shoot
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: a bunch of velvet bucks over a bait pile in August,
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: well before the actual season opens up. But instead, I
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: just want to talk about how we make up our
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: minds that things are a certain way when they often aren't.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Let's start with a non deer hunting situation here that
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: I've talked about a few times but I think really
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: encapsulates this whole idea. Last year, when I was baiting
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: bears for my daughter in Wisconsin, we had exactly two
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: bears to work with. One was a monster boy with
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: a belly hanging on the ground. And while everyone says this,
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: I promise you in this case it's true. He was
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: well over three hundred pounds. The other was much more
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: of your typical yogi, you know, like the one hundred
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: and fifty pound type bear. Now that big bruin. He
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: was a nighttime visitor. He knew the game and he
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: was good at it. The younger one wasn't, so that
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: became our target bear. Now, if you know anything about bears,
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: they get hunted a lot. They do a pretty good
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: job of leaning into the nocturnal game. Now, if you
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: don't know anything about the general rules for bear hunting,
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: you also know that afternoons are when ninety nine point
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: seven percent of all bear hunters sit. Of course, i'm
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: talking about baited bear hunts here. Those hunters, they'll tell
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: you with very much confidence that there is no reason
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: to hunt mornings or in most cases even the lunch shift.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: It's afternoons and evenings. Now, while you would never confuse
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: me for an expert bear hunter, I've always just followed
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: that line of thinking. After all, how the whole culture
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: around that type of bear hunting have it wrong. The
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: trouble is, if you have a limited amount of licorice
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: trail mix out and you have two bears competing for
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: those calories, they'll just generally sort themselves out into some
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: level of avoidance through their visits. Or, more specifically, if
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: a bear is double the size of another, bear, the
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: smaller one will do a hell of a good job
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: of avoiding the big one. And if that big one
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: is nocturnal, the smaller one is going to be a
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: daylight visitor. That's it. And because the fall is the
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: time when bears like to eat just like pigs, you know,
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: and to bulk up for hibernation, those daylight visits might
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: happen multiple times during those daylight hours. That's what my
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: daughter's bear was doing. So, in a weird move to
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: maximize one of the three days we had to hunt,
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: we went in at sunrise and she shot that bear
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: at noon. It was one of my top ten coolest
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: hunting experiences ever, and it was made possible simply by
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: breaking the general rule of when we should hunt. You're
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: probably listening to this going, well, dumb man, you have
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: pictures of a yogi come in in at all hours
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: of the day to feed, You go in, you cover
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: those hours of the day. But this is where I'll
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: kindly steer you to the deer world and ask if
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: it's so easy for you to go against the grain
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: and try something that is genuinely thought of as a
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: no go proposition. Now, what do I mean by that?
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: Let me count the waves. How About here's a simple one,
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: hunting mornings in the early season. How About snort wheezing
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: two one hundred and three inch two and a half
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: year old on Halloween. He's probably not the dominant buck,
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: is he. How About snort wheezing to that deer in September?
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Pretty dumb right. How About taking a swing at your
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: number one hit lister in your number one stand site
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: well before he starts daylighting on your cameras. How About
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: hunting hard during the middle of October when you know
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: damn well that none of the bucks are moving because
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: they are all mandated by deer latigo nocturnal during the lull.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Do you know why all of those rules have kind
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: of entered to zeitgeist and stuck right on our slightly
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: smooth brains, Because we have to vicariously learn some of
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: this stuff, and to do that we follow people who
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: seem to be a hell of a lot better than
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: us at killing deer. But their rules are not good
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: for you. And I promise you that even though they
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: kill two hundred inch deer frequently and you don't. The
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: reason for this is because the deer behavior varies so
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: much by state and county and property in region and whatever.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: Are there general behaviors that transcend locality. Absolutely, there's also
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: the depths of nuance to any situation that creates scenarios
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: here but not there, and there but not here. Let
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: me give you an example. I have permission to hunt
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: a large dairy farm in southeastern Minnesota that I talk
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: about sometimes. That property borders another property that one of
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: my buddies' leases, and it also borders a small property
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: that is generally treated as a deer sanctuary. Now, my
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: property is the opposite of what you'd call a deer sanctuary.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: A lot of people hunt it, and the landowner would
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: like it if lots of deer were shot out of there,
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: and he does his best to facilitate that every year,
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: and the deer know it. So a lot of the
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: deer that I end up with on my property at
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: some point of the season often move to those other
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: two properties, and as the season progresses, the differential in
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: pressure has a major effect on a lot of things,
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: including the dispersal of big bucks. Now, when the pre
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: rut kicks in, my buddy hunts his lease and is
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: generally covered in good deer chasing and doing their thing,
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: and it's literally right across the fence, literally in a
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: place where I can see from some of my stands,
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: and yet on my property I struggle to see good
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: bucks and sometimes any bucks. It's not even close to
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: the same experience, even though the properties are very close.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: So what does that mean? Well, for starters, the rules
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: he should follow wouldn't make much sense for me, would they.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: I'm dealing with just a vastly different scenario. And what's worse,
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: if I didn't know any better and he were to
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: tell me what he was doing to get on deer,
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: and then I were to try those things, they probably
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: wouldn't work for me. Now, imagine someone who owns a
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: thousand acres in southern Iowa telling the masses that the
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: deer rules are this and not that according to his experience.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: Do you think that makes a whole lot of sense
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: for the hunter in Georgia who has to fight the
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: crowds on public land. Academically, it just doesn't work. Yet
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: we all kind of fall into this trap often. And
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: do you know why? At least this is my thought anyway,
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: I think the rules we think deer follow scare us,
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: And really, why wouldn't they rules are meant to encourage
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: specific behavior, and without consequences for not doing those behaviors,
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: then they don't matter. So we believe if we don't
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: follow the rules, we will not kill deer, and worse,
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: we will actually make it harder on ourselves in the future.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Most of these rules come from the line of thinking
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: that you'll do more harm than good. So don't hunt,
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: don't scout, don't go in and blow those bucks up
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: before they get carryless and start to move a lot
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: during daylight. It's a calculation, you know, that makes sense
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: for maybe five percent of the deer hunters out there.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: The further you are from a really good property that
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: is well managed, the less likely those general deer rules
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: are worth following. Part of this is simply because you
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: can predict the behavior of your fellow hunters, because they
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: are going to more or less follow the general rules.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: The big one, of course, is you know when to hunt.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: Most hunters won't hunt the lull. Most hunters will hunt
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: the rut. Simple right now, Imagine what the deer do
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: in response to that. Most hunters won't hunt when it's
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: super hot, but they will when a cold front hits.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: What do you think deer do in response to that?
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: And how many hunters are we talking about in your
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: neck of the woods, because that's what really matters. Now,
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: think about this another way. Some of the general deer
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: rules are probably pretty good ones to follow, but we
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: often don't take the all day sits during the rut.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: For example, here, you want to kill more big bucks,
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: that's one of your answers. You won't shoot one at
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: noon every year, But if you're in the habit of
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: all day sits, you'll get a few really good midday
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: opportunities every decade of your deer hunting life. Now, maybe
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: that means only one or two more mounts on your wall,
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: but that's enough to get a guy like minis it
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: all day. The best way to look at this might
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: simply be to ask yourself, how do I know this
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: rule is a good one? Did I hear it over
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: and over from people who seem to have a real
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: handle on deer hunting? Okay? But have I witnessed it firsthand?
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: Have I tried this thing or not? Take the snort
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: wheeze deal that I talk about all the time. Last
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: year I snort weezed in a really good North Dakota
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: buck on public land and missed him, which you can
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: watch over at the mediater dot com. My cameraman for
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: that hunt is a really good deer hunter, but since
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: our timing was outside the rut, he thought it was
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: nuts that I was snort wheezing at that buck. After
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: the whole encounter, he told me that flat out, he
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: thought there was no way that was going to work.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: But it took like four storm wheezes and that buck
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: came right in. Now, my camera guy, he's a really
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: good deer hunter, really good. But in his head, he
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: had a rule about snort wheezing, and you only do
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: it during the rut and only on really big deer.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: When you believe that, Will you ever snort wheeze at
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: a deer outside of the rut? Probably not. Well, you
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: ever snort weeze at a small buck? Probably not? So
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: what does that mean? It means that you'll follow that
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: rule even if you don't actually know it's a good one.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Let's think about something else. On that dairy farm I
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: mentioned earlier, there is one hundred acre field on one
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: part of it. Now that field is split by a
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: waterway and it's a crapshoot on any of given year.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: What'll be planted in there? Sometimes, like this year, the
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: whole thing is corn, sometimes half of its corn and
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: half of its alfalfa, sometimes half as beans. You get
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: my drift. Now, On some years, I can access the
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: woods that that field borders via standing corn, and I
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: can kill decent bucks in the morning in September as
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: they work their way back to bed. Sometimes I can't
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: get anywhere near that field in the mornings, or I'll
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: blow the whole thing out because of what's planted in there.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: So on some years on that farm, the rule about
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: not hunting early season mornings is pretty solid. On other years,
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: following that rule would cost me real opportunities at good bucks.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: The only thing that changes those rules is the crop
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: rotation and my willingness to hunt when the rules seem wrong.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: For the scenario where I'm going with all of this
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: is that we find comfort in guardrails. If you believe
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: you shouldn't hunt early season mornings and you don't hunt them,
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: you're going to feel like you are being a good hunter.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: But what might have been a good decision last year
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: could be a dumb one this year. Or what might
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: be a good one on that property that you used
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: to hunt might not be a good one on the
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: least that you have this year. Another example, if you
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: believe you can't hunt bottoms of valleys because the wind
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: will swirl and you'll get busted, for sure, you're not
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: going to try to hunt bottoms of valleys, and I
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: promise you there are conditions where you can get away
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: with it, and if you do, you're probably going to
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: be on deer. The danger to all of this is
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: that you have to try things that you've been conditioned
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: to believe just won't work. That sucks, but it's also
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: why I love heading out on the road to hunt
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: public land in random states. My willingness to be cavalier
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: and try riskier strategies goes way up when I'm a
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: strict timeline and have little to know history with a property.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: When you do that, it sort of crumbles the foundation
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: ever so slightly that we've built on our home ground
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: where we just know we can do this, but not that.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: I also believe that the rules we like to follow
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: keep us from figuring out how to hunt as if
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: they don't exist. Let me give you an example about
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: seven or eight years ago, I killed one hundred and
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: forty six inch ten pointer on public land in South Dakota.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: The buck, along with his little buddy, came through in
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: the morning in late September, when you're not supposed to
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: hunt mornings. But I'd watched some deer use that spot,
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: and I knew they were passing through there in the mornings.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: I just didn't have a great idea how to approach
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: the whole thing. So I stuck a blind into a
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: bunch of dead cedars, and I went in way early
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: and parked down the road in a place that meant
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: I had to walk in from the opposite direction the
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: deer were likely to approach from, and it worked. If
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: that had been a home ground situation, I doubt I
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: would have tried. That would have been too risky. It's
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: honestly as simple as that. Though now I have to
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: say this because if I didn't, I wouldn't feel great
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: about myself. A lot of the things that I try
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: to make work, which might be outside of general deer
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: hunting rules that people like to follow, they just don't work.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: I don't know how many times I've tried to access
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: the spot that I thought i'd get away with sneaking
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: in and not letting the bucks know I was there,
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: and it just didn't happen. This happens a lot. What
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: it does for me is helped me set up my
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: own rules for certain properties in certain times of the year.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Take this little chunk of land I own in Wisconsin.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: It's three hundred yards from my east to west boundary,
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: and if I park anywhere but the farthest southwest corner,
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: my daughters and I generally won't see deer when we sit,
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: at least if we hunt in the evenings. Anyway. Now,
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: I learned this because I thought I needed to park
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: on the other side due to where I figured the
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: deer would be betted. But they knew when we went in,
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: no matter how careful I was. Now we park as
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: close so as you could to where they bed, just
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: because it also puts us close to two neighbors we
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: have on that property, and our noise sort of blends
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: into the general noise of those other two people, or
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: the other two households, I should say, they hear human
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: noise there in that corner all the time. On the
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: other side of the property, there's no houses or driveways,
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: and a truck crunching along the gravel and stopping there
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: seems to be just enough to keep them from doing
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: what they need to do. The lesson there is that
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: I had a rule in my head when I started
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: hunting that property, but the deer showed me it was
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: a bad one. Then I had to go through some
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: trial and error to figure out that specific property and
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: how to make it work. That rule about where to
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: park and how to access it is literally property specific.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't park as close as I could to a
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: known bedding area anywhere else. In almost any situation, I
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: go the opposite way, and you know what, I might
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: be totally right in doing that, even if on my
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: land that's the wrong move. Here's the thing that makes
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: all of this even tougher. That might not be the
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: case this season or in five seasons from now. Maybe
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: they won't bed there as much in the future, and
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: my access will have to change. I don't know. What
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: I do know is that I have a rule for
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: where I park now and how I get into that piece,
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: and it's a good one. If we stop seeing deer,
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: it'll be time to rewrite the rules and figure out
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: what to do to get things working in my direction again.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: So what does all of this mean for you? For starters,
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: I'll give you a simple one which plays off that
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: summer scouting episode I did last week. One of the
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: summertime rules a lot of us follow is to run
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: cameras and mostly stay out of the woods. How about
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: don't do that. Run cameras and go into the woods.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: Take a good look around. Try to envision what you
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: should do now to kill one the first week of
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: the season. Go check some of your rut funnels for
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: tracks now, walk field edges and fence rows. Go into
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: the woods. Pay attention to the heat and the bugs
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: and how bad they are while you're standing up on
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: top of the hill looking at your on X and
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: how bad they are when you drop into the bottom
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: of the valley to look around. Pay attention to the
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: water sources and the browsing evidence. The more we learn
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: about the deer we are hunting, the more we realize
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: that the general rules don't matter much. It's far more
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: important to figure out exactly what's going on in your spot,
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: not what someone else is doing seven states away on
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: a property that is nothing like yours. So don't break
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: the laws and the regulations, but think about the general
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: deer hunting rules that you follow. Do they seem to
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: be working out for you? Or do you still struggle
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: to fill tags even though you're diligent about them. If
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: the latter is true, go figure out how to do
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: things differently, break some of those rules and forget about
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: what you're supposed to do and try to learn what
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: you should do. I want you to do that. I
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: want you to come back next week because I'm going
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: to talk about some more summertime, your concerns and get
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: into some strategies that I have right now to set
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: myself up for hunts all fall, including rut hunts, even
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: though it's hot, miserable out and I'm not really that
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: excited to do it. That's it for this week. I'm
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Tony Peterson. This has been the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: which is brought to you by First Light. As always,
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: thank you so much for listening. We really appreciate it.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: Here at Meat Eater, I firmly believe we have the
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: best audience out there. You guys are so loyal, you
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: check in all the time. It's just great. Your support
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: means the world to us. If you need more, Dear
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: Hunting content, Maybe you need some good storytelling on a podcast.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: Maybe you want to watch a film or three. The
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: medeater dot com has you covered. We literally drop hunting
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: and fishing content every single day at that site. Go
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: check it out.