Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 916: Foundations - How to Stop Wishing for a Good Deer Season and Make One Happen

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Ep. 916: Foundations - How to Stop Wishing for a Good Deer Season and Make One Happen · 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, everybody, welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations 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 how to
0:28
Speaker 2: change your future as a deer hunter and ensure that
0:30
Speaker 2: you'll have a successful season. We all know that we
0:35
Speaker 2: love those get rich quick hunting products, we love the rut,
0:39
Speaker 2: We'll love anything that'll give us an advantage because deer
0:41
Speaker 2: hunting is hard, it's not impossible, and we're all just
0:44
Speaker 2: kind of chasing rabbits with antlers around, hoping we get
0:47
Speaker 2: lucky in fill a tag.
0:49
Speaker 3: Well, not everyone.
0:50
Speaker 2: There are a lot of people out there who kind
0:52
Speaker 2: of manifest their own deer destiny and it's no accident
0:55
Speaker 2: that they succeed when most hunters fail.
0:57
Speaker 3: That's kind of like a power.
0:59
Speaker 2: That's in us all, at least to some extent, and
1:01
Speaker 2: it's what I'm going to talk about right now. A
1:10
Speaker 2: few weeks ago, the stars aligned and myself and three
1:13
Speaker 2: buddies made a guy's trip happen. While one of them
1:16
Speaker 2: had to leave early in the trip to go attend
1:18
Speaker 2: a bachelor party, another had to show up late because
1:20
Speaker 2: he has a lot of work to do. So it
1:23
Speaker 2: actually shook out really well because at any given point
1:26
Speaker 2: of that trip, I only had two other people in
1:28
Speaker 2: my boat. When you're tossing top waters with a bunch
1:31
Speaker 2: of treble hooks on them for smallmouth or fake kermits
1:34
Speaker 2: for large mouth, three dudes in one boat is more
1:38
Speaker 2: than enough. We had originally tried to make a Florida
1:41
Speaker 2: fishing trip happen last winter, But anyone who has kids
1:44
Speaker 2: and friends and jobs in life and all that other
1:46
Speaker 2: stuff understands that at some point you just lose any
1:50
Speaker 2: easy chance to get together with your buddies and do
1:52
Speaker 2: something cool for four or five days. It's pretty wild.
1:55
Speaker 2: And I know you young fellas listening to this won't
1:57
Speaker 2: believe it'll happen to you, but it will any hooters.
2:02
Speaker 2: We timed our trip well, and the smallies were just
2:05
Speaker 2: coming up to spawn and the large mouth were just
2:07
Speaker 2: wrapping up a wave of spawning. So depending on the wind,
2:10
Speaker 2: whether and how busy the lakes were. We fished for
2:13
Speaker 2: smallies on the rocks or large mouths in the weeds.
2:16
Speaker 2: The large mouth were already guarding fry and hanging around
2:19
Speaker 2: the bluegill beds that looked like craters on the moon,
2:21
Speaker 2: although they're just a bit too uniform in size. The
2:24
Speaker 2: small mouth were just on shallow, hungry males up making
2:29
Speaker 2: beds or forming little wolf packs to chase minnows, while
2:32
Speaker 2: the big females were holding tight to boulders and docks.
2:35
Speaker 2: It was easy fishing and changed by the day. Finding
2:40
Speaker 2: some fish anywhere that seemed fishy wasn't terribly difficult, but
2:44
Speaker 2: we were on the hunt for big ones, and so
2:46
Speaker 2: we catered our strategy to them. It was a blast,
2:49
Speaker 2: and I didn't think much of our success until I
2:52
Speaker 2: showed some pictures to a woman at the gym who
2:54
Speaker 2: asked me often why she doesn't and her family doesn't
2:58
Speaker 2: catch bigger fish at their lake Kevin. Now, when she
3:01
Speaker 2: saw the bass we caught, she said, you're so lucky
3:04
Speaker 2: at fishing. We never get that lucky boy. Have I
3:08
Speaker 2: heard that a time or two in my life, and
3:10
Speaker 2: it's representative of a common outdoor mindset, those who succeed
3:16
Speaker 2: are lucky, those who don't aren't. This is a comforting
3:20
Speaker 2: thought for a lot of folks because it means that
3:22
Speaker 2: at some point the fates will break their way and
3:25
Speaker 2: it'll be their turn to be lucky. But that totally
3:27
Speaker 2: discounts the reality of nature of predators and their prey,
3:31
Speaker 2: and the truth that the outdoors can definitely deliver you
3:33
Speaker 2: some good fortune, but it mostly won't until you give
3:37
Speaker 2: it what is necessary to be. You know where you
3:40
Speaker 2: need to be when you need to be there. When
3:43
Speaker 2: it comes to catching a five pound large mouth on
3:46
Speaker 2: a bright pick frog and the lily pads and emerging
3:48
Speaker 2: wild rice, it's mostly a matter of making a lot
3:52
Speaker 2: of long casts in areas where they should be when
3:55
Speaker 2: they are looking up to eat. If it's pretty cold
3:58
Speaker 2: or pretty windy and you look around and you and
4:00
Speaker 2: see a whole bunch of dragonflies cruising around, you might
4:03
Speaker 2: not get too many blow ups.
4:05
Speaker 3: The fish could be there.
4:06
Speaker 2: The fish could be there, but they might not be
4:08
Speaker 2: eating kermits a whole lot. You might have the right
4:12
Speaker 2: location but your timing is off. Or you might go
4:15
Speaker 2: out and fish that sweet spawning bay with the beaver
4:17
Speaker 2: dams and the floating bogs and only catch a few
4:20
Speaker 2: northerns even though the sun's shining, it's dead calm, and
4:24
Speaker 2: the dragonflies are just buzzing all over. So now you've
4:27
Speaker 2: got the right timing in the wrong spot. Now think
4:31
Speaker 2: about this with white tails. Scratch that, Think about this
4:35
Speaker 2: with a really good buck, the kind of buck we
4:38
Speaker 2: all want to shoot, who represents a class of deer
4:40
Speaker 2: that is rare enough in our neck of the woods
4:42
Speaker 2: to be a trophy. Not only do you need to
4:45
Speaker 2: be in the right spot at the right time, you
4:47
Speaker 2: also need that to happen on one of the moments
4:50
Speaker 2: when he puts himself in a position to be in
4:52
Speaker 2: the wrong place at the wrong time. I know that's
4:54
Speaker 2: kind of saying the same thing, but kind of not.
4:57
Speaker 2: On any given day that you can hunt, he probably
5:01
Speaker 2: won't do that, And if he does, he has a
5:04
Speaker 2: pretty good chance of winding you, or spotting you up
5:07
Speaker 2: in your tree, or just taking a trail you didn't expect.
5:10
Speaker 2: So instead of walking by at twenty yards, he passes
5:12
Speaker 2: by at forty five, and then you try to grind
5:14
Speaker 2: him in and he doesn't have the best reaction, or
5:16
Speaker 2: you miss or whatever. When you acknowledge how hard this
5:20
Speaker 2: shit is, it's easy to want to believe that it's
5:23
Speaker 2: all just luck. For most of us, that's a comfortable
5:27
Speaker 2: blanket to wrap ourselves in because it removes most of
5:30
Speaker 2: our personal agency and protects our egos. I like that,
5:34
Speaker 2: and I bet you do too. I honestly think this
5:36
Speaker 2: is one of the reasons there's been such a harsh
5:38
Speaker 2: reaction to non residents in the last ten years. Has
5:42
Speaker 2: crowding increased in some areas, for sure, no question. But
5:46
Speaker 2: we've also been shown that some folks can show up
5:50
Speaker 2: in our backyards and kill big deer and we can't
5:53
Speaker 2: do it, and that doesn't sit well with a lot
5:56
Speaker 2: of us. So there must be a reason. And this
5:59
Speaker 2: social contagent thing creeps in and we decide that no
6:02
Speaker 2: one can do it because there are too many people trying.
6:05
Speaker 2: So the best bet is to kick some people out
6:07
Speaker 2: who are powerless. That's far more comfortable for a lot
6:10
Speaker 2: of us than admitting we aren't very good at this
6:12
Speaker 2: thing that we love, especially when we know that some
6:15
Speaker 2: people can go to where we hunt and kill the
6:18
Speaker 2: big deer that we can't. That sucks, but it happens
6:21
Speaker 2: to all of us. But we do have agency over ourselves,
6:25
Speaker 2: and we have the means to make a good hunt
6:27
Speaker 2: happen instead of singing back and crossing your fingers, you know,
6:31
Speaker 2: and thinking maybe this'll be our year.
6:34
Speaker 3: Now.
6:34
Speaker 2: I know I sound like a judge prick here, but
6:36
Speaker 2: let me tell you something. I can have a pity
6:38
Speaker 2: party with the best of them. I mean, try being
6:41
Speaker 2: friends with Andy may all fall. You get pictures from
6:45
Speaker 2: him of giant deer from someplace public, and there's always
6:48
Speaker 2: like a quick text with it that's like, well, I
6:51
Speaker 2: only had three days to haunt two states that I've
6:54
Speaker 2: never been to, so I killed these two one sixties
6:56
Speaker 2: quickly and went home. It's honestly kind of disgusting. I
7:00
Speaker 2: also know, from spending time with him and a hell
7:02
Speaker 2: of a lot more really good hunters, that it's not
7:05
Speaker 2: just luck to put those deer in.
7:06
Speaker 3: Front of Andy and these other guys.
7:09
Speaker 2: He knows what it takes to make something good happen,
7:11
Speaker 2: and he does that no matter where he's hunting. At home,
7:25
Speaker 2: that means tons of scouting, boots on the ground, scouting,
7:30
Speaker 2: not just trail camera work, but getting out there to
7:32
Speaker 2: learn about deer and the places they call home is
7:35
Speaker 2: what he's doing on the road. It's tons of digital scouting,
7:41
Speaker 2: which is immediately ground truth whenever he gets to where
7:44
Speaker 2: he's going. It's a near constant quest for up to
7:47
Speaker 2: the minute intel. Now pay attention to that, because this
7:51
Speaker 2: is a mindset thing, and it's something I personally struggle
7:54
Speaker 2: with every season. In fact, I think my biggest weakness
7:58
Speaker 2: as a white tail hunter is this.
8:00
Speaker 3: I like to hunt off of memories. A lot of
8:03
Speaker 3: us do.
8:04
Speaker 2: We had a good encounter last season around Halloween in
8:07
Speaker 2: this spot, so we go back there this year. It
8:10
Speaker 2: might work, but it probably won't because something major will
8:14
Speaker 2: have changed. Crop rotations, hunting pressure, wind direction, general weather,
8:19
Speaker 2: hard mass, soft mass, a pack of coyote, you're setting
8:21
Speaker 2: up shops somewhere new, you name it. The variables are endless.
8:26
Speaker 2: You might get a repeat, but you should try to
8:28
Speaker 2: figure out how likely that is. I think about it
8:31
Speaker 2: this way. When I have some good encounter, public or private,
8:35
Speaker 2: and I'm inclined to go try to repeat that pattern
8:38
Speaker 2: the following season, I try to remind myself of what
8:42
Speaker 2: went into having that good encounter in the first place.
8:46
Speaker 2: If it was a public land hunt, it's almost a
8:49
Speaker 2: guarantee that some sighting or some mid day scouting session
8:55
Speaker 2: put me in a spot that was just humming with potential,
8:59
Speaker 2: which means that I did some level of work to
9:01
Speaker 2: make it happen. When I hunt on memories, I'm mostly
9:04
Speaker 2: counting on the scouting or sightings of some other season
9:08
Speaker 2: to make something happen now. And when it comes to
9:11
Speaker 2: pressure deer anyway, old data is generally not very good.
9:17
Speaker 2: This is where things get tricky because we can easily
9:20
Speaker 2: fool ourselves when we are running the mind game of
9:23
Speaker 2: where to hunt, and when we think, well, I haven't
9:26
Speaker 2: been in the woods in two weeks, so this spot
9:29
Speaker 2: should be primed for deer activity because the pressure has
9:32
Speaker 2: been super low.
9:33
Speaker 3: But what does that mean?
9:35
Speaker 2: What if you only hunt forty acres, so you mitigated
9:38
Speaker 2: some of the pressure on a piece of ground that's
9:41
Speaker 2: four hundred yards by four hundred yards. That's great, But
9:45
Speaker 2: what about the rest of that deer's home range around
9:48
Speaker 2: where you hunt. Where I'm going with this is that
9:51
Speaker 2: we often talk ourselves into a plan because it's easy
9:54
Speaker 2: and not necessarily the best way to achieve our goals.
9:58
Speaker 2: I see this at the gym a lot, with people
10:00
Speaker 2: who month after month walk on the treadmill and play solitaire.
10:04
Speaker 3: Look, that's great, but I know.
10:07
Speaker 2: A couple of them well because they are my neighbors,
10:09
Speaker 2: and they often complain about not getting fitter, not getting skinnier,
10:12
Speaker 2: even though they go to the gym quite a bit.
10:15
Speaker 2: But if you don't get your heart rate up and
10:16
Speaker 2: really get moving, you're not going to get the results
10:19
Speaker 2: you want. It's one of those simple but not simple things.
10:23
Speaker 2: You could literally move into the gym and eat like
10:25
Speaker 2: shit and not really exercise a whole lot and never
10:28
Speaker 2: see results in spite of literally living in a gym.
10:32
Speaker 2: It's not the time there that matters, it's how you
10:35
Speaker 2: use that time. And the same rules apply to the
10:39
Speaker 2: White Tail Woods in season and odd of season. If
10:42
Speaker 2: you go out and glass from the same spot over
10:44
Speaker 2: and over because it's where you have the best chance
10:46
Speaker 2: to see a bachelor group, that's great, but over time
10:51
Speaker 2: it can tip from being a net benefit to being
10:53
Speaker 2: net neutral or if they are onto your game or
10:56
Speaker 2: the conditions change, a net negative alone doesn't mean anything,
11:01
Speaker 2: and to figure out how to do it in a
11:02
Speaker 2: way that will inform your choices for the season and
11:05
Speaker 2: not potentially hurt your chances. And then you use that
11:09
Speaker 2: information to set yourself up to be where the deer
11:12
Speaker 2: should be early in the season, which is when the
11:14
Speaker 2: summer glassing juice is easiest to squeeze out of your hunts.
11:18
Speaker 2: Of course, most of us aren't glassing a whole lot
11:20
Speaker 2: now that trail cameras are pretty cheap and easy to use,
11:24
Speaker 2: which is maybe the biggest component of us wishing for
11:27
Speaker 2: a good hunt instead of actively trying to make one happen.
11:30
Speaker 2: When we get pictures of that one forty who lives
11:33
Speaker 2: in the section that our land is in, it tells
11:36
Speaker 2: us many things, some of which are true and some
11:39
Speaker 2: of which are lies. For starters, we know he's in there,
11:43
Speaker 2: in the area somewhere. That's huge, It's true, it's important.
11:47
Speaker 2: There's something about knowing you're around a deer you'd really
11:49
Speaker 2: like to shoot that just helps sharpen the blade, so
11:52
Speaker 2: to speak. You're less likely to be sloppy, more likely
11:56
Speaker 2: to go in early and sit as long as possible,
11:58
Speaker 2: more likely to try to be quieter and pay attention more.
12:02
Speaker 2: All good stuff, really, But that picture or pictures, even
12:07
Speaker 2: if you know he shows up every week or every
12:09
Speaker 2: couple of weeks, they also lie to us, or they
12:13
Speaker 2: allow us to lie to ourselves. We tend to use
12:16
Speaker 2: the images to fill in a whole lot of blanks
12:18
Speaker 2: and decide that he'll show up on the retisan and
12:20
Speaker 2: he's no longer nocturnal, or we think that we can
12:23
Speaker 2: rattle him in during late October when the mornings are
12:25
Speaker 2: cold and the whole thing is about to snap like
12:27
Speaker 2: a top rubber band. Yet we don't know anything about
12:31
Speaker 2: that deer really, like those small moths coming out of
12:35
Speaker 2: their wintering holes, spawning on a big boulder and two
12:38
Speaker 2: feet of water, then backing out to stage and recover
12:41
Speaker 2: in five or six feet of water where there's cabbage
12:43
Speaker 2: starting to grow and the minnows are thick, and then
12:46
Speaker 2: eventually moving to the mid lake rock piles and points
12:50
Speaker 2: and sand drops for the summertime. Bulk up deer have
12:53
Speaker 2: a purpose to their daily movements, their weekly movements, and
12:57
Speaker 2: whether you know they're going to give you a chance
13:01
Speaker 2: or not, all of that's tied in there.
13:03
Speaker 3: Now.
13:03
Speaker 2: That buck that you got the pictures of, he has
13:05
Speaker 2: multiple bedding sites he uses. He's feeding on all kinds
13:09
Speaker 2: of different brows and masts and crops and whatever he
13:11
Speaker 2: has access to. He has trails, he likes to take
13:13
Speaker 2: when the wind is out of the southwest, and trails
13:16
Speaker 2: he'll only take when it comes from the north. He
13:19
Speaker 2: knows all of the deer in his neighborhood, and he
13:21
Speaker 2: knows a hell of a lot about when you come
13:23
Speaker 2: into the woods and when you leave. He can learn
13:26
Speaker 2: about you after you leave, and most likely does when
13:30
Speaker 2: he walks past your camera. He's giving you a single
13:32
Speaker 2: data point, and it might be very valuable. Probably is,
13:36
Speaker 2: but it's not enough to build a real plan on.
13:40
Speaker 2: You need to see him if you can, even in
13:42
Speaker 2: June or July. That's a start, But also finding his
13:45
Speaker 2: tracks or getting a picture of him in two different
13:48
Speaker 2: locations in a week, or finding an area with huge
13:51
Speaker 2: rubs absolutely shredded in mid October. Then you start to
13:55
Speaker 2: understand his routine and the routine of big Bucks in
13:58
Speaker 2: your area. You start to be able to predict where
14:01
Speaker 2: he might actually show up and win at least have
14:04
Speaker 2: a pretty educated guess. And when you can do that,
14:08
Speaker 2: you stop wishing, at least to some extent, and you
14:10
Speaker 2: start manifesting your own destiny. Now I realize I'm dumbing
14:14
Speaker 2: this way down, but I'm also not dear are creatures
14:17
Speaker 2: of habit just like us, and they leave evidence of
14:19
Speaker 2: their presence, just like us. Their job is to avoid us.
14:24
Speaker 2: Our job is to find them. They're generally better at
14:27
Speaker 2: their job than we are at ours, but we can
14:29
Speaker 2: get better at ours. We never will, though, if we
14:33
Speaker 2: take a mostly passive approach to figuring out their day
14:36
Speaker 2: to day activities. This is something that can be accomplished
14:39
Speaker 2: in multiple ways, but there's one that works for me
14:42
Speaker 2: pretty well. When I go into the woods, I try
14:44
Speaker 2: to get myself to pay attention.
14:46
Speaker 3: And be curious.
14:47
Speaker 2: I'm heading to Wisconsin to hang some cameras this weekend,
14:50
Speaker 2: and I know it'll be a buggy and thick and
14:52
Speaker 2: generally gross mess out there, but I also know it
14:54
Speaker 2: has rained a lot lately, so finding big tracks is
14:57
Speaker 2: a real possibility. Instead of just marching in to hang
15:01
Speaker 2: cameras on trees that I've hung cameras on before and
15:04
Speaker 2: then getting out, I'm going to force myself to pay
15:06
Speaker 2: attention to the trails and the tracks and the beds
15:09
Speaker 2: and anything else that can help me sort of put
15:11
Speaker 2: the whole thing together over there. To me, that's literally
15:15
Speaker 2: the difference between walking slowly on the treadmill for forty
15:18
Speaker 2: five minutes or running for forty five minutes. You could
15:21
Speaker 2: do either with the same amount of time, but one
15:24
Speaker 2: is definitely more beneficial. So I guess my question to you,
15:27
Speaker 2: find folks is how are you going to stop wishing
15:30
Speaker 2: for a good hunt this season and try to make
15:32
Speaker 2: one happen? Do you have anything planned in the next
15:34
Speaker 2: couple of weeks that will put you on the right
15:36
Speaker 2: path forward? What's your scouting plan for this summer? Do
15:40
Speaker 2: you have a plan? How about your stand hanging plan?
15:43
Speaker 2: Do you feel it's too early to care about that
15:45
Speaker 2: stuff because the hit list isn't even close to being
15:47
Speaker 2: ready yet. Are you going to wait till August and
15:50
Speaker 2: then go put up your usual sets for the year
15:51
Speaker 2: while you haunt on memories? If so, ask yourself this,
15:55
Speaker 2: how well has that worked for me in the past.
15:58
Speaker 2: If it's worked pretty well, great, You know what isn't
16:01
Speaker 2: broke doesn't need much fixing. But what if it didn't work?
16:04
Speaker 2: How will you take agency over your deer hunting success
16:06
Speaker 2: this fall by doing something?
16:07
Speaker 3: Now?
16:08
Speaker 2: I know this kind of sucks to hear because hunting
16:10
Speaker 2: is supposed to be fun and not tons of work.
16:12
Speaker 2: But fun comes in many forms. It's pretty satisfying to
16:15
Speaker 2: glass up a good one right now, even if the
16:17
Speaker 2: mosquitoes are bonkers and there are a lot of fish
16:20
Speaker 2: to be caught. It's pretty satisfying to hang a few
16:23
Speaker 2: cameras earlier than you need to, and to start getting
16:25
Speaker 2: pictures of some bucks doing their thing in different spots,
16:28
Speaker 2: which means that you'll be able to slip in some
16:29
Speaker 2: rainy summer day to hang a set or three in
16:32
Speaker 2: those new locations.
16:33
Speaker 3: It's pretty fun to get.
16:34
Speaker 2: Active with this stuff so that you're really learning about
16:36
Speaker 2: the deer and what they do, because that can tamp
16:39
Speaker 2: down the season long second guessing and give you confidence
16:42
Speaker 2: in your decisions.
16:43
Speaker 3: Don't look at it like work. Look at it like.
16:45
Speaker 2: It's just a necessary part of the process that will
16:47
Speaker 2: literally set you apart from most of the competition, because
16:50
Speaker 2: you know what, most of those big bucks out there
16:53
Speaker 2: are counting on you to hunt like everyone else, and
16:55
Speaker 2: when you don't, you start to run into them more frequently,
16:59
Speaker 2: and that is when you can really level up as
17:00
Speaker 2: a white tail hunter, which is what we all want.
17:03
Speaker 2: So do that and come back next week, because I'm
17:05
Speaker 2: going to talk about summer scouting mistakes that most folks
17:08
Speaker 2: make and how to avoid them. That's it for this episode.
17:12
Speaker 2: I'm Tony Peterson and this has been the Wire to
17:14
Speaker 2: Hunt Foundation's podcast, which is brought to you by First Light.
17:18
Speaker 2: As always, thank you so much for your support for listening,
17:22
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17:25
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17:27
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17:30
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17:33
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17:41
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