Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 751: Foundations - Livin' On The Edge
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
- 0:05Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,
- 0:09Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.
- 0:14Speaker 1: First Light Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host,
- 0:19Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.
- 0:20Speaker 2: Hey everyone, welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
- 0:23Speaker 2: which is brought to you by first Light. I'm your
- 0:24Speaker 2: House Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about breaking
- 0:28Speaker 2: down edges because I keep getting asked about it and
- 0:30Speaker 2: I feel like there needs to be a definitive, once
- 0:33Speaker 2: and for all podcasts on understanding edges when it comes
- 0:36Speaker 2: to white tail habitats and behaviors, just about every day,
- 0:46Speaker 2: after driving my daughter's somewhere or pick them up from somewhere,
- 0:50Speaker 2: or usually both, it reminds me of how weird it
- 0:53Speaker 2: is that so many people we know won't make their
- 0:56Speaker 2: sixteen year olds get their licenses these days. That definitely
- 0:59Speaker 2: was not the case when I was growing up. And
- 1:01Speaker 2: once you're the designated uger driver and door dasher, a
- 1:04Speaker 2: grub hubber, lifter, shape shifter, whatever of the family, you
- 1:09Speaker 2: start to fantasize about your kids being able to get
- 1:11Speaker 2: places without your help. That's not really what this episode
- 1:15Speaker 2: is about. But during a recent trip to the middle
- 1:17Speaker 2: school to drop off my daughters, I realized something about
- 1:20Speaker 2: deer hunting that I'm going to talk about right freaking now.
- 1:28Speaker 2: If you're not married to a complete and total psycho,
- 1:30Speaker 2: you might not know this, but there are unfrosted pop
- 1:34Speaker 2: tarts for sale at grocery stores across the US, and
- 1:38Speaker 2: I can only guess probably the world. I didn't even
- 1:41Speaker 2: know they existed until I got married. Growing up, when
- 1:44Speaker 2: I did, we ate a lot of food that was
- 1:47Speaker 2: just barely barely real food. I'd rank pop tarts in
- 1:51Speaker 2: this category, along with toaster strudels, lucky charms, and most
- 1:56Speaker 2: of the stuff that my sister and I ate while
- 1:57Speaker 2: we wondered where our parents were. Now, I wouldn't say
- 2:01Speaker 2: that I eat a lot of pop tarts these days,
- 2:03Speaker 2: because that would be a lie. We do always seem
- 2:05Speaker 2: to have a steady supply of them, and they mostly
- 2:08Speaker 2: get into our house after I shop for hunting or
- 2:10Speaker 2: fishing trips. I don't know what it is, but I
- 2:14Speaker 2: never really want a pop tart ever. But if I'm
- 2:17Speaker 2: going to be hunting out of a tent for five days,
- 2:19Speaker 2: I will load up on those some bitches and eat
- 2:21Speaker 2: very few of them, so then they come back home
- 2:24Speaker 2: and live in the pantry until I have a moment
- 2:26Speaker 2: of weakness and I just need something quick. My wife,
- 2:30Speaker 2: on the other hand, you know, the previously mentioned lunatic
- 2:34Speaker 2: always has a stash of pop tarts. And here's the kicker.
- 2:38Speaker 2: They are always unfrosted. She prefers them that way. Here's
- 2:44Speaker 2: my advice to all you young bucks listening who think
- 2:47Speaker 2: that maybe the right dough can make your life better.
- 2:50Speaker 2: Don't take a dough back to your bedding area if
- 2:53Speaker 2: you think she might be the kind of dough who
- 2:55Speaker 2: intentionally eats unfrosted pop tarts because she prefers them. I
- 2:59Speaker 2: know there's a lot to unpack here, but I think
- 3:02Speaker 2: you can hear that giant red flag flapping in the
- 3:05Speaker 2: morning wind. I don't understand it. There are only two
- 3:09Speaker 2: good parts to pop tarts, the frosting and the filling.
- 3:12Speaker 2: The rest is cardboard grade crust that is just basically
- 3:16Speaker 2: like the caloric equivalent of attacks on your sugary bonus.
- 3:20Speaker 2: I don't even like it when whoever or whatever food
- 3:23Speaker 2: producing robots get a little lazy and the frosting ratio
- 3:27Speaker 2: on my pop tarts gets thrown off, you know the
- 3:30Speaker 2: ones where instead of a nice rectangle of frosting on top,
- 3:33Speaker 2: it's all shifted to one end or the other, like
- 3:35Speaker 2: the conveyor belt hit warp speed for a second, and
- 3:38Speaker 2: the frosting paintbrush just couldn't keep up. Gross anyway, even
- 3:44Speaker 2: a perfectly frosted pop tart has a fair amount of
- 3:46Speaker 2: real estate that is unfrosted, and that sucks. They could
- 3:50Speaker 2: do better, but they don't because at some point you
- 3:53Speaker 2: just look at a product like that and go, eh,
- 3:55Speaker 2: that's enough of this shit. They'll eat it anyway, and
- 3:58Speaker 2: they're right, Bill. We will also feed them to our
- 4:02Speaker 2: children when we need to take them to school, because
- 4:04Speaker 2: they have giant tagboard science fair projects that and I'm
- 4:08Speaker 2: not making this up, nearly tore our family apart because
- 4:11Speaker 2: it was a lot to ask of sixth graders, and
- 4:14Speaker 2: a lot to ask of six grader parents, who, you know,
- 4:18Speaker 2: like they do in the nineteen eighty sitcoms. Really keep
- 4:21Speaker 2: the whole science fair industry from growing belly up because
- 4:24Speaker 2: we do all the freaking heavy lifting. Anyway, my daughters
- 4:29Speaker 2: needed to get their science fair projects to school safely
- 4:31Speaker 2: and early, so I had to drive them in. The
- 4:34Speaker 2: route is I don't know, maybe five miles, and we
- 4:36Speaker 2: often see a few turkeys are deer along the way
- 4:39Speaker 2: mixed in with the morning traffic. We also drive past
- 4:42Speaker 2: this giant cattail slew that is pock marked with tiny
- 4:45Speaker 2: islands of trees, and right through the center this kind
- 4:49Speaker 2: of subtle line of saplings. When I say line, I
- 4:52Speaker 2: actually mean it. I don't know if someone planted them,
- 4:55Speaker 2: which seems kind of unlikely, or if there's just a
- 4:58Speaker 2: sliver a high ground in there, maybe something that was
- 5:00Speaker 2: artificially created to help with drainage or something. It doesn't matter,
- 5:04Speaker 2: because what inevitably happens is I drive down that road
- 5:07Speaker 2: by their school. I said, I look at that very faint,
- 5:10Speaker 2: subtle edge in that cattail sleugh and I feel a
- 5:13Speaker 2: strong desire to walk it. It's a similar feeling to
- 5:17Speaker 2: driving by a lake or going on a bridge over
- 5:19Speaker 2: some trout or smallmouth river. There's just some serious gravity
- 5:22Speaker 2: to certain natural settings that pull us in so we
- 5:25Speaker 2: can see what fish live there or what deer have
- 5:28Speaker 2: left rubs on the saplings. Now, listen, I wouldn't want
- 5:31Speaker 2: to hunt this property. I don't have any desire for
- 5:34Speaker 2: that due to its location the makeup of the habitat,
- 5:38Speaker 2: but I just want to walk that edge and pat
- 5:39Speaker 2: myself on the back when I inevitably find rubs in there,
- 5:42Speaker 2: because you know they're there. It's just one of those
- 5:45Speaker 2: things where if you spend enough time inhaling cattail fuzzs
- 5:48Speaker 2: while chasing roosters or trying to find deer beds, there's
- 5:52Speaker 2: just some consistencies out there, and that's fun to find
- 5:55Speaker 2: over and over. Another consistency in the white tail world
- 5:59Speaker 2: that I've noticed recently, and which plays nicely with the
- 6:02Speaker 2: idea of edges that I'm going to really dive into here,
- 6:05Speaker 2: is that I almost never find deer antlers or deer
- 6:09Speaker 2: beds without feeling like I'm walking through something thorny. This
- 6:13Speaker 2: might seem like a dumb point, but pay attention to
- 6:16Speaker 2: that when you're out there this winter. Pay attention when
- 6:19Speaker 2: you're hunting next fall. Maybe when you're going mobile, or
- 6:22Speaker 2: when you're blood trailing a deer that hasn't been hit perfectly.
- 6:26Speaker 2: You'll often realize that you're being careful with the path
- 6:29Speaker 2: you choose and where you put your hands because there
- 6:31Speaker 2: are pokey plants all around. I ran into this last
- 6:35Speaker 2: October while hunting Oklahoma public dirt with Steve. The best
- 6:39Speaker 2: spot I found was in one hundred yard wide strip
- 6:41Speaker 2: of timber that funneled deer threw on their way to bed,
- 6:45Speaker 2: but not before they got a belly full of acorns
- 6:47Speaker 2: and per simmons. The first buck I arrowed in there
- 6:51Speaker 2: was a tiny spike where he died. Was just kind
- 6:55Speaker 2: of a little nightmare to get through. The next buck
- 6:57Speaker 2: I killed, and the deer Steve killed in there all
- 7:00Speaker 2: pretty much follow the same program. And it made me
- 7:03Speaker 2: realize that even though I considered myself to be hunting
- 7:05Speaker 2: an edge pattern already, just because of the overall shape
- 7:08Speaker 2: of the woods, inside of that strip of timber was
- 7:12Speaker 2: a world of smaller edges. It's kind of like fishing
- 7:16Speaker 2: for smallies or walleyes in a boulder field. If you
- 7:20Speaker 2: find the edge where it meets mud or sand, you
- 7:22Speaker 2: will find fish, but you'll also graft piles of boulders
- 7:26Speaker 2: inside of it, and smaller patches of sand or mud
- 7:29Speaker 2: that create smaller edges throughout the general area of the fisher.
- 7:33Speaker 2: Relating to we often think of edges in terms of
- 7:37Speaker 2: hard edges, like where the swamp meets the hardwoods, or where
- 7:42Speaker 2: a pine plantation meets a patch of CRP. Those are edges,
- 7:46Speaker 2: no doubt, just like the edge of a bean field
- 7:48Speaker 2: or a food plot or a clearcut is also an edge,
- 7:53Speaker 2: an easy to identify edge that a lot of people
- 7:55Speaker 2: will be drawn to, and they're hunting setups in fact.
- 7:58Speaker 2: But there is so much more more to it than
- 8:00Speaker 2: those hard edges that every hunter out there can easily
- 8:04Speaker 2: identify that edge in the cattails by my daughter's school,
- 8:09Speaker 2: That one might contain one hundred saplings in total, and
- 8:12Speaker 2: it would be really easy to miss. You wouldn't even
- 8:16Speaker 2: be able to hunt it from the middle, because you'd
- 8:18Speaker 2: essentially be either right on top of where the deer
- 8:21Speaker 2: are going to go, or you'd be hunkered down in
- 8:23Speaker 2: six foot cattails, listening to them as they walk by,
- 8:26Speaker 2: but probably not being able to see them. So what
- 8:39Speaker 2: good does that soft edge in the middle of a
- 8:41Speaker 2: nearly impenetrable piece of cover do for you? Well, it
- 8:46Speaker 2: tells you how they'll get through that slew for starters,
- 8:49Speaker 2: and that's not nothing this game of white tail hunting.
- 8:53Speaker 2: If you're not in a situation where you can manipulate
- 8:55Speaker 2: the land to get them to come to you. Is
- 8:58Speaker 2: all about figuring out where they lie to walk, and
- 9:01Speaker 2: then figuring out if where they like to walk also
- 9:04Speaker 2: takes them through a spot that gives you some kind
- 9:06Speaker 2: of advantage, you know, a spot that allows you to
- 9:09Speaker 2: set up somewhere while hiding your presence and surprising them
- 9:12Speaker 2: with an arrow through their chest cavity. This is the
- 9:15Speaker 2: whole game. And I'll tell you something else. I've been
- 9:18Speaker 2: finding a lot of random scent wicks hanging in trees
- 9:22Speaker 2: this winter while I'm out winter scouting and shed hunting.
- 9:25Speaker 2: Here's the deal on that, my friends. If you want
- 9:28Speaker 2: to use scents, go ahead, but think about this. If
- 9:32Speaker 2: you know where a buck is going to walk, where
- 9:34Speaker 2: he'll be close enough to smell that scent and will
- 9:37Speaker 2: come in, you already know enough to not need that scent.
- 9:41Speaker 2: You know enough to not have to go leave more
- 9:44Speaker 2: than the scent of bottle Dopey down there, because you're
- 9:47Speaker 2: gonna have to go in and hang that wick. If
- 9:51Speaker 2: you think that doesn't send mixed messages to passing bucks,
- 9:54Speaker 2: you're probably wrong. They can smell that synthetic dopey or
- 9:58Speaker 2: that doughinestra scent that was probably not collected from a
- 10:00Speaker 2: doan estris. And they also smell you in some way
- 10:05Speaker 2: because you were there and you handled that wick, and
- 10:08Speaker 2: so did whoever made it and packaged it, not to
- 10:10Speaker 2: mention the brush you touched while hanging it and the
- 10:13Speaker 2: noise you made as well. You sent, don't you sent?
- 10:17Speaker 2: I don't care, but I do care. If you think
- 10:20Speaker 2: about why you're setting up in a specific spot and
- 10:22Speaker 2: why you think that a quarter ounce of dopey on
- 10:25Speaker 2: a cent wick is the final piece of the puzzle
- 10:27Speaker 2: for that setup, it might be can work, but think
- 10:31Speaker 2: about what you're doing, think about why the deer would
- 10:34Speaker 2: be there, or why they'd pass too far away for
- 10:37Speaker 2: you to shoot them, and maybe think about changing your
- 10:40Speaker 2: setup if you can. This might seem like I'm talking
- 10:43Speaker 2: in circles or that I got distracted by a squirrel here,
- 10:47Speaker 2: but the benefit to figuring out soft edges in the
- 10:49Speaker 2: world of white tails is that they tend to give
- 10:51Speaker 2: you options for your setups. Let's say hypothetically that you're
- 10:57Speaker 2: walking through the woods. You know, a nice deciduous forest
- 11:00Speaker 2: with old growth trees, and you're thinking that maybe it'd
- 11:04Speaker 2: be a good place to hunt when the acorns are
- 11:05Speaker 2: dropping fair enough, there's nothing wrong with that plan. But
- 11:09Speaker 2: then you see an old barber ware fence. It's intact
- 11:12Speaker 2: in some places, but in others it's sagging or held
- 11:15Speaker 2: down by fallen trees. It's also just kind of this
- 11:18Speaker 2: little vein of brush and shrubs in in otherwise pretty
- 11:20Speaker 2: open woods. You know, maybe there's a few vines that
- 11:24Speaker 2: have climbed up and used the old fence like lattice
- 11:26Speaker 2: work on a house. That line of cover in the woods.
- 11:30Speaker 2: That soft edge might be fifty yards longer, it might
- 11:33Speaker 2: be five hundred. It might have one good crossing or many.
- 11:37Speaker 2: It will almost undoubtedly convince the deer to parallel it,
- 11:42Speaker 2: but also to cross through it at specific points. Anytime
- 11:46Speaker 2: you find that you have a spot that gives you
- 11:49Speaker 2: two chances to encounter deer, you know, the parallel traveler
- 11:53Speaker 2: and the jumping across travelers. My right mass says that
- 11:57Speaker 2: doubles your chances of seeing deer, although that might not
- 11:59Speaker 2: be true. Who instead of finding one good crossing and
- 12:03Speaker 2: calling it good enough, walk the length of it, find
- 12:07Speaker 2: all the crossings, find where it hangs across a ravine
- 12:10Speaker 2: or where it ends completely. You know, dude to time
- 12:12Speaker 2: and disrepair. The more you investigate, the more you'll find
- 12:16Speaker 2: setups for the morning or the evening, or a north
- 12:19Speaker 2: wind and a west wind, all from a stupid fence
- 12:22Speaker 2: in the woods that has created a soft edge. The
- 12:26Speaker 2: same rules apply when you're dealing with swamps, when you're
- 12:29Speaker 2: dealing with timber harvest in the big woods or not
- 12:32Speaker 2: so big woods, anywhere the two types of habitat meet
- 12:35Speaker 2: up is an edge, and those edges are all over
- 12:38Speaker 2: out there, and the deer use them a lot. And
- 12:41Speaker 2: the reason for this is, well, remember what I said
- 12:45Speaker 2: about thorns being a good sign you might be around
- 12:48Speaker 2: deer antlers, or deer beds, or hell, real live deer
- 12:51Speaker 2: throughout the season. Well, soft edges like that represent a
- 12:55Speaker 2: boundary between where some hunters will go, but where most won't.
- 13:00Speaker 2: That's almost it. We can say that they might like
- 13:04Speaker 2: soft edges for the brows, which could certainly be true.
- 13:07Speaker 2: We can say it's a great option to allow for
- 13:10Speaker 2: escape should the sudden need arise, which is also true.
- 13:14Speaker 2: There are a lot of reasons for deer to relate
- 13:15Speaker 2: to edges. This means more than you might think. Consider
- 13:19Speaker 2: what the typical deer hunting strategies hinge upon feeding areas.
- 13:25Speaker 2: If you don't know where the food is, good luck
- 13:28Speaker 2: betting areas, find them and all of your big buck
- 13:31Speaker 2: woes are over. But not really. It's good knowledge, for sure,
- 13:35Speaker 2: but food and betting is highly variable when it comes
- 13:38Speaker 2: to actionable choices. Then you have edges places deer will
- 13:43Speaker 2: stage walk, browse, bed, and cruise for company. If you
- 13:47Speaker 2: don't know anything about deer and you want to start somewhere,
- 13:51Speaker 2: this is a good place to start. This is especially
- 13:54Speaker 2: true if you're hunting a place with some pressure. The
- 13:57Speaker 2: easy stuff, particularly the easy food in the nice open woods.
- 14:02Speaker 2: Those places are hunter magnets. They concentrate pressure. Very few
- 14:08Speaker 2: weekend warriors or average hunters are out there trying to
- 14:10Speaker 2: figure out an edge pattern. And edges are also highly
- 14:14Speaker 2: visible on aerial photography, which is a huge advantage for you.
- 14:19Speaker 2: The downside to this is they are everywhere. That cat
- 14:23Speaker 2: tail slewed by my daughter's school has that cool little
- 14:26Speaker 2: spine of saplings that I consider an edge, but it
- 14:29Speaker 2: also has a bunch of little islands of trees and
- 14:32Speaker 2: a mix of plumb thickets and dogwood thickets. All edges
- 14:36Speaker 2: within edges within edges. Then you have mode yards around it,
- 14:40Speaker 2: which represent another edge. Then you have busy roads and
- 14:43Speaker 2: not so busy roads. In that little forty acresh chunk,
- 14:47Speaker 2: you might find all kinds of edges that either draw
- 14:50Speaker 2: deer traffic or possibly repel it, like in the case
- 14:53Speaker 2: with certain roads or certain bodies of water, certain wide
- 14:57Speaker 2: open pastures that are full of cows. It's an easy
- 15:00Speaker 2: concept on paper to understand, but gets a lot muddier
- 15:04Speaker 2: when you try to figure this stuff out in person.
- 15:07Speaker 2: But the good news this is the kind of thing
- 15:10Speaker 2: that transcends states and regions. It's something that a Florida
- 15:14Speaker 2: hunter will deal with while messing around into palmeadows and
- 15:17Speaker 2: trying not to get eaten by a giant swamp lizard
- 15:20Speaker 2: or carried away by biblical swarms of mosquitoes. It's actionable
- 15:24Speaker 2: in Pennsylvania on public land when you're on top of
- 15:27Speaker 2: the mountain or roaming the valleys below. The Midwest the South.
- 15:30Speaker 2: Those wonderfully dumb Western white tails who don't look up
- 15:33Speaker 2: too often, it's good for them too, So if you're
- 15:36Speaker 2: struggling to kill big bucks, or more importantly, just have
- 15:40Speaker 2: more enjoyable hunts when you feel you're putting yourself in
- 15:43Speaker 2: the game versus just sitting the same field edge and
- 15:45Speaker 2: crossing your fingers. Go out there now, look around, Ask
- 15:51Speaker 2: yourself where you can see hard edges on aerial photos
- 15:54Speaker 2: and soft edges. Look at them from a bird's eye view,
- 15:58Speaker 2: and then go look at them in person. Pay attention
- 16:01Speaker 2: to the sign particularly the trails. Are there parallel trails
- 16:06Speaker 2: along the soft edge or just one or two that
- 16:08Speaker 2: cut right through it for some reason. Then follow the
- 16:11Speaker 2: advice of last week's show and ask yourself why. The
- 16:16Speaker 2: more you do this now, the more you'll give yourself
- 16:18Speaker 2: an edge this season. It'll take you from the spots
- 16:20Speaker 2: that literally any hunter with a season or two hundred
- 16:24Speaker 2: his belt could find to something most hunters don't even
- 16:27Speaker 2: look for. This not only helps you actually find overlook
- 16:31Speaker 2: good hunting locations, but it also puts you in the
- 16:34Speaker 2: mindset of thinking differently from your competition. That's probably the
- 16:38Speaker 2: most valuable asset a hunter could have when dealing with
- 16:40Speaker 2: pressure ground, and honestly, often when dealing with lightly pressure ground,
- 16:45Speaker 2: Because even if the deer on your lease rarely get pressured,
- 16:48Speaker 2: they probably spend time on the neighbor's place at some
- 16:51Speaker 2: point they deal with typical hunters somewhere, and if they don't, well,
- 16:56Speaker 2: you're probably not going to listen to this podcast because
- 16:58Speaker 2: you probably don't need any help killing. If you do,
- 17:03Speaker 2: think about those edges, my friends, go look at them now.
- 17:06Speaker 2: Don't wait until turkey season when it's green and the
- 17:08Speaker 2: ticks are all over. Go now and come back next
- 17:11Speaker 2: week because I'm going to talk about hunting around predators,
- 17:15Speaker 2: the four legged kind. That's it for this week. I'm
- 17:19Speaker 2: Tony Peterson. This has been the Ware to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
- 17:22Speaker 2: which is brought to you by First Light. As always,
- 17:25Speaker 2: thank you so much for listening and for all your support.
- 17:28Speaker 2: Everybody here at Meat Eater we love you to death.
- 17:30Speaker 2: We wouldn't be anywhere we would be able to do
- 17:32Speaker 2: anything without you, so thank you for your support. If
- 17:35Speaker 2: you want more white tail content, or you just want
- 17:38Speaker 2: to check out some cool hunting videos or some other
- 17:40Speaker 2: podcasts or whatever, themeatheater dot com is your place to go.
- 17:45Speaker 2: So much content there for you to check out. Thanks again,
- 17:48Speaker 2: talk to you next week.