Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 877: Foundations - The Deer That Change Us

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Ep. 877: Foundations - The Deer That Change Us · 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 Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
0:22
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by first Light. I'm your host,
0:24
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today I'm going to talk about the
0:26
Speaker 2: deer that change us and why those encounters matter so much.
0:33
Speaker 2: I've been thinking about this topic for a while, and
0:35
Speaker 2: it was during a January dough hunt with one of
0:37
Speaker 2: my daughters where I got hit upside the head with
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Speaker 2: the reality that some deer just changes Some deer encounters
0:43
Speaker 2: just change the arc of our hunting. I hadn't figured
0:46
Speaker 2: out why it really matters or what to say about
0:48
Speaker 2: it before then, but sometimes the pieces just fall into
0:50
Speaker 2: place and the picture becomes so much clearer. So what
0:53
Speaker 2: I'm going to talk about now are the moments with
0:55
Speaker 2: deer that alter the course of me as a hunter,
0:58
Speaker 2: and why you should think about this stuff too, because
1:00
Speaker 2: there's something important to be learned from this thought exercise
1:03
Speaker 2: that will make you a better hunter. My daughter and
1:10
Speaker 2: I walked across a mostly snowless wheat field in southwest
1:14
Speaker 2: Wisconsin in the middle of January. Our destination was a
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Speaker 2: redneck blind on a clover plot that was situated on
1:20
Speaker 2: the top of a bluff above the Mississippi River Valley.
1:24
Speaker 2: You'd really have a hard time drawing up sort of
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Speaker 2: dreamier deer country than that. I think there is one
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Speaker 2: hell of an important education to be had in the outdoors.
1:32
Speaker 2: So I had pulled her out of school that day
1:34
Speaker 2: to try to get her on a dough or two
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Speaker 2: before the clock ran out on the late season there.
1:39
Speaker 2: And when we crested the rise and the plot came
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Speaker 2: into view, I realized we were about to spook a
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Speaker 2: whole herd of them. It didn't matter that they all
1:46
Speaker 2: ran off, because I knew that a bunch of them
1:48
Speaker 2: would probably come back. The deer density there and that
1:51
Speaker 2: part of the state is real high, and they are
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Speaker 2: the kind of babysat deer that shake off getting spooked
1:57
Speaker 2: pretty easily. To me. It was most meat mission where
2:01
Speaker 2: I expected a specific outcome that I really don't expect
2:04
Speaker 2: on most of my hunts. We settled into the blind
2:07
Speaker 2: opened up one of the windows and my daughter practiced
2:10
Speaker 2: aiming with her crossbow. She had a buck tag and
2:12
Speaker 2: a dough tag, but the goal was just a good
2:14
Speaker 2: shot on a dough now. Naturally, the first year to
2:17
Speaker 2: show up were bucks, a button buck and a little
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Speaker 2: five pointer. I texted my buddy to gauge his interest
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Speaker 2: in her shooting the buck, and he gave her the
2:25
Speaker 2: green light, but I also knew that it would probably
2:27
Speaker 2: be better if she just shot a dough. Well, the
2:30
Speaker 2: bucks made the decision for us anyway, when they spooked. Later,
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Speaker 2: a whole bunch of doughs came out and they got
2:36
Speaker 2: super close to shooting range, and then all spooked from
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Speaker 2: something that we just didn't understand. Later, the floodgates opened
2:43
Speaker 2: and we had probably about fifteen of them munching on
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Speaker 2: the clover and heading our way. It was truly candy
2:49
Speaker 2: land hunting and honestly, just not really my thing. But
2:53
Speaker 2: she didn't know that, and after only seeing a handful
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Speaker 2: of deer all season in northern Wisconsin and our hunts
2:58
Speaker 2: in Minnesota, she was just enjoying every second of being
3:02
Speaker 2: snowed in with deer. We were two feet apart, having
3:05
Speaker 2: a totally different experience now. When we finally had a
3:09
Speaker 2: mature dough feed into her range, I gave her the
3:12
Speaker 2: thumbs up and watched as she made an absolutely perfect
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Speaker 2: shot that cleared the field except for four doughs that
3:18
Speaker 2: didn't seem to have the best survival instincts. I managed
3:21
Speaker 2: to get the crossbow cocked again, but they were far
3:24
Speaker 2: enough to the side of the blind that she couldn't shoot.
3:26
Speaker 2: So she looked at me and she said, you should
3:28
Speaker 2: shoot them. It really hadn't occurred to me to do that,
3:30
Speaker 2: mostly because I was in the guide mindset, but I
3:33
Speaker 2: thought it'd be really nice to cap off our season
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Speaker 2: with two more doughs from a property where the deer
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Speaker 2: could stand a little thinning than just the one that
3:39
Speaker 2: we already had shot. The dough spooked, and I didn't
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Speaker 2: really care. We had done what we set out to do,
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Speaker 2: and that's about all you can ask out of any hunt.
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Speaker 2: She was bummed, and it occurred to me how different
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Speaker 2: the experience was for her than me. So when a
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Speaker 2: lone dough popped up literally out of nowhere at twenty
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Speaker 2: yards and practically begged me to shoot her, my daughter
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Speaker 2: looked at me and she said, Dad, you have to.
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Speaker 2: So Dad did, and that dough died maybe twenty yards
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Speaker 2: from her dough. She was ecstatic, and she said, other
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Speaker 2: than the buck we decoyed in last year together, that
4:10
Speaker 2: was the coolest hunt she's ever had. Now that kind
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Speaker 2: of floored me, honestly. But she doesn't know the same
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Speaker 2: challenge as I know, and she isn't wired the same
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Speaker 2: way I am. And quite honestly, what I want out
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Speaker 2: of a hunt and what she wants out of a
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Speaker 2: hunt are just different. That deer, or I should say
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Speaker 2: those deer. They didn't represent any real hunting challenge to me,
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Speaker 2: but to her it was incredible. And I'll say this
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Speaker 2: before I looked like too much of an asshole. The
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Speaker 2: whole trip down there to my buddies was so fun
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Speaker 2: with her. We made some cheeseburgers that night, watched a
4:43
Speaker 2: few hunting shows on TV, and spent the next day butchering.
4:47
Speaker 2: On the way home, we stopped at her favorite fast
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Speaker 2: food place, which is Arbi's, where they couldn't have screwed
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Speaker 2: up our order anymore if they tried, But that didn't matter.
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Speaker 2: It was a good weekend for her and for me.
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Speaker 2: Even if we got vastly different things out of it.
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Speaker 2: The deer she shot and the deer she watched me
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Speaker 2: shoot will change her forever. Now you might be thinking that, well,
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Speaker 2: no shit, man, when you kill a deer, it's a
5:11
Speaker 2: good thing and it changes you for the better. But
5:13
Speaker 2: that's not where I want to go with this episode.
5:16
Speaker 2: I think about the deer encounters I've had throughout my
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Speaker 2: career that put me in a different space and help
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Speaker 2: me level up my skills, or made me take blood
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Speaker 2: tracking more seriously, or made me feel like absolute shit
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Speaker 2: as a human and as a hunter. I think about how,
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Speaker 2: in a matter of two seasons I killed two different
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Speaker 2: doughs in Minnesota because someone else bumped them directly to me.
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Speaker 2: One was a farmer on an ATV that put a
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Speaker 2: doll right in my lap, and another was a woodcock
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Speaker 2: hunter on public land here in the Cities that pushed
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Speaker 2: a trio of doughs from nearly out of rifle range
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Speaker 2: to twenty five yards out in broadside, which made me
5:52
Speaker 2: think about how often I think of someone else messing
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Speaker 2: up my hunts, but never about how they might actually
5:58
Speaker 2: do me a favor. About the first time I really
6:01
Speaker 2: patterned any deer with trail cameras, and how the first
6:04
Speaker 2: morning I hunted acrossing in a swamp here in central
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Speaker 2: Minnesota and I saw a specific dough coming that had
6:10
Speaker 2: been like clockwork on my camera, it all sort of
6:14
Speaker 2: became clearer that this tool that was mostly an interesting
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Speaker 2: novelty to me up to that point, could actually be
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Speaker 2: much more. You see, we think it's the big bucks
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Speaker 2: we killed it matter the most, that changes the most.
6:28
Speaker 2: But I don't think so, at least not always. There
6:31
Speaker 2: is a tendency to be dismissive about DOES in general,
6:35
Speaker 2: often because the biggest trophy hunters out there have places
6:38
Speaker 2: where killing DOES is like going to the grocery store.
6:41
Speaker 2: But for a lot of us, it's not so simple,
6:43
Speaker 2: and it's not so easy. I've talked about this a
6:46
Speaker 2: few times, but back in twenty seventeen, I spent six
6:49
Speaker 2: days in northern Wisconsin hunting the big woods with a
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Speaker 2: buck and a dough tag in my pocket during what
6:54
Speaker 2: should have been somewhat of a chase fest. Well, you
6:57
Speaker 2: don't get much of a chase fest where there aren't
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Speaker 2: very many deep but I did manage to see a
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Speaker 2: handful of bucks and doze every dough that got anywhere
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Speaker 2: near me busted me, and it started to give me
7:08
Speaker 2: kind of a complex. I couldn't get it done with
7:11
Speaker 2: quite a bit of time and a lot of whatever
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Speaker 2: it is that helps me get it done in other places.
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Speaker 2: So when I sat down on my second to last night,
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Speaker 2: twenty yards from a pounded trail on the edge of
7:21
Speaker 2: a public land creek bottom, and I finally heard the
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Speaker 2: footfalls of deer coming, I drew the instant I saw
7:27
Speaker 2: a flash of brown in the brush. That old doe
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Speaker 2: walked out, looked right at me, and was about to
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Speaker 2: spook when I shot. She was more of a challenge
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Speaker 2: than most of the big Bucks I've killed, and it
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Speaker 2: was a good reminder to me that how we present
7:43
Speaker 2: hunting to the masses is rarely a true view of
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Speaker 2: what it is actually like out there. For most folks.
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Speaker 2: It's not always the deer you kill that change us either.
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Speaker 2: We all have the ones we missed that haunt us.
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Speaker 2: Adam Moore just wrote a piece for the Mediatter Dot
8:00
Speaker 2: about this, which highlights some of our crew's biggest white
8:03
Speaker 2: tail misses. They involve, as I'm sure you'd expect, shooting
8:08
Speaker 2: at big Bucks. Mostly missing big Bucks sucks a lot,
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Speaker 2: But what that teaches us usually is that we have
8:16
Speaker 2: buck fever and we just don't want to admit it. Now,
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Speaker 2: I know that's not all that newsworthy. There are other
8:22
Speaker 2: misses or times when you get caught drawing that sting
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Speaker 2: just as much, and that can change you as a hunter.
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Speaker 2: There are times when you don't shoot that do as well.
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Speaker 2: One of those deer that taught me a real valuable
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Speaker 2: lesson was a nice two and a half year old
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Speaker 2: eight pointer that was as big as any deer I
8:50
Speaker 2: had shot at that time in my life. I was
8:53
Speaker 2: in a stand in a poplar tree when he walked
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Speaker 2: by during an early morning sit in October. I didn't
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Speaker 2: draw or shoot, even though I wanted to kill him badly.
9:04
Speaker 2: But I was sitting there with a recurve in my hand,
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Speaker 2: and the year before I had killed a doe in
9:08
Speaker 2: a very similar buck with it. But the year before
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Speaker 2: I shot a lot, and by that I mean a lot.
9:15
Speaker 2: I was prepared for that season with that trad bow,
9:18
Speaker 2: and the results showed it, but I hadn't practiced enough
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Speaker 2: the following season, so when that buck walked through, I
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Speaker 2: was terrified to shoot because I expected to screw it. Up.
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Speaker 2: That is not a good way to go about the
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Speaker 2: whole hunting thing. But that buck arcing into and out
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Speaker 2: of my life, and the feeling that I hadn't done
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Speaker 2: enough to be confident in a totally doable shot situation
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Speaker 2: stuck with me in a way that gives me anxiety
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Speaker 2: to write about even now. Nearly two decades later, when
9:48
Speaker 2: I first got into the hunting industry and the free
9:51
Speaker 2: gear started to show up and the invites to media
9:53
Speaker 2: hunts started coming in, I didn't know anything about how
9:56
Speaker 2: most of the industry really operated. The first white tail
10:00
Speaker 2: and I did for work was in Texas, and it
10:02
Speaker 2: was so easy that I could scarcely believe it. I'm
10:05
Speaker 2: not saying it wasn't fun, because it was. I saw
10:08
Speaker 2: more bucks and more rod activity in one sit that
10:10
Speaker 2: I'd seen in an entire season back home. But the
10:13
Speaker 2: buck I killed meant really nothing to me, and worse,
10:16
Speaker 2: it made me realize how many deer were killed like
10:19
Speaker 2: that by people who hadn't worked for them to present
10:22
Speaker 2: the image that they really knew what they were doing
10:24
Speaker 2: with hunting. Maybe that sounds too harsh, but that first
10:27
Speaker 2: Texas buck I killed, and the others that I saw
10:30
Speaker 2: come back to camp and Dusty side by sides made
10:33
Speaker 2: me realize that the whispers I heard from the audience
10:35
Speaker 2: were justified. We were doing things that were easy and
10:38
Speaker 2: yet presenting them as something else. It sparks something in
10:42
Speaker 2: me that still burns to this day, and I owe
10:44
Speaker 2: that to those tiny bodied, big racked Texas deer that
10:48
Speaker 2: knew nothing other than to go right to the feeder
10:50
Speaker 2: when it turned on. The deer we encounter teach us
10:53
Speaker 2: a lot, and if we are open to their lessons,
10:56
Speaker 2: we can become better hunters, not just in the skill department,
11:00
Speaker 2: although that's undeniably true, but also when it comes to
11:03
Speaker 2: our personal ethics. There is nothing that says you have
11:07
Speaker 2: to blood trail deer until you're brain dead from exhaustion
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Speaker 2: and staring at the leaves for the tiniest, slightest little
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Speaker 2: pin prick of blood that tells you he or she
11:16
Speaker 2: went this way or that way. You can give it
11:18
Speaker 2: a half assed quick grid search the minute things get tough,
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Speaker 2: and you're not gonna get arrested. It's not like that.
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Speaker 2: Just like you can take the shot when it's a
11:27
Speaker 2: half a minute before legal shooting light ends and maybe
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Speaker 2: it'll work out. But maybe it won't. No one's gonna
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Speaker 2: stop you, and no one will really care. But if
11:37
Speaker 2: you find yourself looking at an arrow covered in gut
11:40
Speaker 2: material when you know you have to go to work
11:42
Speaker 2: in the morning, that almost dark shot takes on a
11:45
Speaker 2: different feel, and that can change how you operate from
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Speaker 2: here until it's time to hang up your bow forever.
11:51
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's just the deer we see do something that
11:54
Speaker 2: challenges our thoughts to change us. I've watched fawns hide
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Speaker 2: in the grass while dogs and people walk by, and
12:01
Speaker 2: they've always made me think about how often mature deer
12:04
Speaker 2: must do that to me and other hunters. Does that
12:07
Speaker 2: change how I hunt? I don't know. Probably not, but
12:10
Speaker 2: it makes me think about this stuff more. So, maybe
12:12
Speaker 2: it doesn't. I don't even know it. The bucks that
12:15
Speaker 2: we encounter pheasant hunting almost always teach me something about
12:18
Speaker 2: how important cover is to them and how much of
12:21
Speaker 2: a survival mechanism it is to tuck themselves away into
12:24
Speaker 2: that good wind blocking geothermal cover and then sit so
12:29
Speaker 2: tight you would bet real good money they aren't there.
12:32
Speaker 2: And then when you and your buddies and the dogs
12:33
Speaker 2: are about thirty yards past, you hear them get up
12:36
Speaker 2: and run like greyhounds out behind you. There are some
12:39
Speaker 2: lessons there that will probably would help me if I
12:42
Speaker 2: was more of a bed hunter, but maybe they help
12:45
Speaker 2: me anyway. I know it doesn't hurt us to learn
12:47
Speaker 2: about the quarry we hunt, and those lessons carry a
12:50
Speaker 2: hell of a lot more weight than a series of
12:52
Speaker 2: trail camera photos usually do. But there are lessons obvious
12:57
Speaker 2: and not so obvious in that type of scouting too.
13:00
Speaker 2: This will come as no surprise to anyone who regularly
13:03
Speaker 2: listens to this show that I sometimes don't know where
13:06
Speaker 2: I'm going with these episodes, and the aha moment just
13:09
Speaker 2: hits me in time with this one. The biggest takeaway
13:13
Speaker 2: I can give you is a parallel to something I
13:16
Speaker 2: talk about a lot. If you do the same thing
13:18
Speaker 2: over and over, you might kill deer, but you won't
13:21
Speaker 2: learn about hunting nearly as much. To many of us,
13:24
Speaker 2: that doesn't matter at all, and that's good enough. But
13:27
Speaker 2: if you want to get better, if you want to
13:29
Speaker 2: meet up with the deer that might teach you something real, valuable,
13:33
Speaker 2: you often have to do something a tiny bit outside
13:36
Speaker 2: of your comfort zone. The obvious route is to travel
13:39
Speaker 2: to hunt, but I'm not going to talk about that here.
13:41
Speaker 2: You know how I feel about that and why I
13:43
Speaker 2: think it's valuable. Instead, I think it's better to look
13:46
Speaker 2: at the year ahead and try to identify those opportunities
13:49
Speaker 2: in which you can meet the deer where they'll be
13:52
Speaker 2: in a way that you normally wouldn't If you only
13:55
Speaker 2: ever run cameras to scout, you might want to get
13:57
Speaker 2: out the summer and glass hunt the big woods up north,
14:01
Speaker 2: or you're a Southern white tail hunter down in the
14:03
Speaker 2: swampy grounds in Louisiana or Florida, Alabama, wherever you might
14:07
Speaker 2: not have easy fields to glass, then trail cameras are
14:10
Speaker 2: probably a big part of your process, but so should
14:13
Speaker 2: winter scouting be, and just walking through the woods at
14:15
Speaker 2: any point in the air. If you always sit the
14:18
Speaker 2: same three tree stands all fall across your fingers that
14:20
Speaker 2: a buck will come by, you have so many options
14:23
Speaker 2: to learn something about the deer and encounter them in
14:25
Speaker 2: a different way. One of the main reasons I push
14:28
Speaker 2: this point is because I don't think most of us
14:31
Speaker 2: understand how well the deer actually pattern us. Now. I
14:34
Speaker 2: know that's a cliche, but as a rabid pheasant hunter,
14:37
Speaker 2: something struck me this year while following my labs around
14:40
Speaker 2: the cattails. Pheasants are masters at patterning most hunters. This
14:46
Speaker 2: tiny brain disco chicken of a bird that spent most
14:50
Speaker 2: of its evolutionary journey in China, of all places, completely
14:54
Speaker 2: understands where the hunting pressure originates from and how it's
14:58
Speaker 2: going to proceed through their home turf, and those pheasants
15:01
Speaker 2: react accordingly to survive. You think deer don't do that better,
15:06
Speaker 2: I promise you that they do, and they do it
15:09
Speaker 2: to the same level, which might seem crazy until you
15:12
Speaker 2: realize the winning result is just them surviving and avoiding us,
15:16
Speaker 2: and whether it's a rooster who does that or one
15:18
Speaker 2: hundred and forty inch buck, that result is them winning
15:21
Speaker 2: and us not making a plan to sit in a
15:24
Speaker 2: ground blind or still hunt, or find a new property
15:27
Speaker 2: that comes with a whole new set of riddles to
15:29
Speaker 2: figure out, or traveling across state lines the first time
15:32
Speaker 2: to wade into unfamiliar habitat will eventually expose you to
15:36
Speaker 2: the deer that will take what you think you know,
15:39
Speaker 2: squat right over it, and piss away. If you're a
15:42
Speaker 2: student of the game, that lesson will stick and it
15:46
Speaker 2: will usher you into some new phase of hunting and
15:49
Speaker 2: of being a better hunter. Not only is that a
15:52
Speaker 2: good way to get better at killing deer, but is
15:54
Speaker 2: probably the most overlooked and easiest way to learn to
15:58
Speaker 2: enjoy the whole thing just a little bit more. So
16:01
Speaker 2: think about that and think about coming back next week,
16:03
Speaker 2: because I'm gonna talk about stress, which is something we're
16:06
Speaker 2: all dealing with in our lives right now, but I'm
16:08
Speaker 2: gonna relate it to deer hunting and how we can
16:10
Speaker 2: help ourselves relax a little and enjoy hunting more throughout
16:14
Speaker 2: the year. That's it. I'm Tony Peterson. This has been
16:18
Speaker 2: the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast, which is brought to
16:22
Speaker 2: you by First Light. I want to say thank you.
16:25
Speaker 2: I do this every week because I mean it. All
16:28
Speaker 2: of your support, all your loyalty. You know, when I'm
16:31
Speaker 2: at a shields somewhere and I see somebody in a
16:34
Speaker 2: beargreas hat or a meat eater's shirt, whatever's it truly
16:37
Speaker 2: means the world to us that you guys show up
16:39
Speaker 2: and you support us and we're all kind of on
16:42
Speaker 2: the same team together. So thank you for that. If
16:45
Speaker 2: you want some more content, you know, maybe you want
16:47
Speaker 2: to watch a video of I don't know, clay hunting
16:51
Speaker 2: mountain goats, maybe Steve hunting something somewhere, mark, whatever the
16:56
Speaker 2: meeteater dot com has you covered. While you're there, you'll
16:58
Speaker 2: see a ton of art articles, recipes, and have access
17:02
Speaker 2: to our whole network of podcasts where there is a
17:06
Speaker 2: ton hours and hours and hours of stuff you can
17:09
Speaker 2: listen to, whether on your drive to and from work,
17:12
Speaker 2: maybe taking a little road trip to scout somewhere, or
17:14
Speaker 2: whatever the mediator dot com has you covered.