Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 423: Foundations - Why You Should Develop a True Love of Deer Scouting

Transcript

Ep. 423: Foundations - Why You Should Develop a True Love of Deer Scouting · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Hey, guys and girls, we've got something different
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: for you today. We have launched a whole bunch of
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: new stuff this week on Wired Hunt. It is a
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: very big week on Wired to Hunt, and one of
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: those things is this brand new podcast you're about to hear.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: This is the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast with a
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: new host, Tony Peterson. You've heard him on the show before.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: And what I want to do here in a second
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: is toss you over to a little intro conversation between
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Tony and I explaining who he is, what this new
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: podcast is going to be about, and what you can
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: look forward to in the future. I'm really excited about this.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: You're going to enjoy this. Tune in for this intro discussion,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: and then we're gonna jump right into the first episode
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: of the new show. You're gonna learn a lot, you're
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: gonna become a better deer hunter because of this, and
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: you're gonna be having a damn good time too. So
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: thank you. You know, by the way, new theme music
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: coming at you now to both for this podcast. And
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: the regular Wired Hunt show. So get ready for a
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: little dance party. Two. All right, thanks for tuning in.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: to you by First Light. We have got a different
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: kind of show for you today, and you have a
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: different kind of show every week from here on out
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: when you listen to this podcast. Because I'm here with
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Tony Peterson, who has been a long time contributor to Mediator,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: a frequent guest on the Wired Hunt podcast, and now
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: officially a Wired to Hunt team member. Tony is here
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: with me on the show today to talk to you
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: about a brand new mini series we're launching here that
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Tony is going to be hosting. So I'm I'm really
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: excited about this. We've got some cool stuff in store.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: And uh, Tony, are you equally as as amped as
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: I am? Or is this just a one sided love
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: affair right now? That I'm just pretty stoked and you're
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: you're sitting in the corner like, I don't know, man,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I I'm stoked to buddy. I think
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: this is gonna be a really fun project to get
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: out there, and it's it's been really interesting to work
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: on so far. So I want to give folks just
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: a little bit of background to you before we get
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: into the details of what this podcast is going to
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: be all about, because most long time listeners know your story.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, there's a lot of people
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: have come on more recently and and since the early days.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: You just kind of jumped in and been like, hey,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Tony is a public land expert, and then you talk, Uh,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: we haven't really gotten into the Tony Peterson story. So
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: now that you're gonna be the host of this show,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: people really need to know you man. Your skeletons have
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: got to come out of the closet. We've got to
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: put it out there to the world. Can you can
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: you give me like the cliff notes on how you
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: got here, Tony Man. I feel and I'm not being
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: you and I have talked about this many times. I'm
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: not being totally humble here. I feel like I've I
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: got very lucky. And I just grew up loving to write,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: loving to read, and always had this had this little
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: dream in the back of my mind of becoming an
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: outdoor writer, even though I didn't think it was actually
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: a viable career choice. And I just had a couple
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: of people take a flyer on me over the years,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: a couple of editors and publishers, and I got into
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: the industry, uh in my mid twenties, and it really
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: it was an eye opener for me because I was
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: I was an associate editor for a big bow hunting magazine,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: and the readers kept reaching out and saying, you know,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: I love the articles, I love blah blah blah, but
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: I want to hear more relatable stuff. You know. When
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: I was sitting there, like, freshly married, no kids, tons
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: of free time, and I'm looking at this and I'm like, well,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: so to why, like as a consumer of you know,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: hunting media and somebody who had always just loved white
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: tales and bow hunting white tales, I was like, I
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: want to see more public land stuff, and I want
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: to see more do it yourself stuff. And I ended
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: up doing that job a couple of years and then
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: going out freelance, and I just thought, I'm gonna just
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: try to give the audience what they want, and so
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: I started focusing on public land I don't know, twelve
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: thirteen years ago now, and it really just lit a
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: fire in me. It made me realize how much. I
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: love that part of white tails, and so that's kind
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: of where that's kind of where I came from. But
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: it's always just I've always been rooted in a love
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: of deer, Like it's something that has kept me awake
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: my entire life, ever since I was a little boy
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: and my dad was hunting and you tell me about it,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: I just couldn't get enough of it. And then when
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: I actually was old enough to hunt, it was just
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: consuming for me and it still is. And it's just
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: it's different now than it was then, but it's something
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: I just love so much. Yeah, you know, it's it's
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: funny you were doing the public claim before the public
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: thing was cool. You're you're really one of the O. G. S.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Tony um as the kids would say. And um, it's
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: it's always interesting to hear your perspective on stuff because
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: you've got more public land deer hunting experience than almost
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: anybody out there, at least anyone who's talking about this
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: stuff publicly. You really have a tremendous amount of experience. Um,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: But you're not limited just in that experience. So one
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: thing I really appreciate about you, and that I've always
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: found particularly helpful is that you can talk the talk
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: and walk the walk on the public land thing, but
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: you've also done private land stuff. You've also done the
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: management stuff. You've kind of put your your toe into
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: all those waters and experienced it. And then you're not
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: just in one place all the time. Either You've done
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: You've hunted in Florida, you've hunted in North Dakota, you've
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: hunted in Oklahoma, You've hunted it in Wisconsin. Like you've
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: crossed the country too, So you've got this wide swath
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: of experience. You've tested your ideas in many different settings,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: and I think that gives you a lot of credibility
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: and authority on this stuff, which is why you know,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: over the years, I've always looked at you as like
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: one of the absolute top people I could ever talk
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: to you because you just had this um, I don't know,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: just a really helpful set of experiences you could point
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: back on that always helped me learn. And so, you know,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: as we started thinking about what's next for Wired to hunt,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: where are the new opportunities, Where are the holes that
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: we need to fill? Where are the opportunities where we
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: can build what we've done and make it even better. Um,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: you know, you were that person who I saw as
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: as being a really good fit to do that, Tony.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: And and I think with this podcast that we're launching today,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: this new podcast miniseries, I guess, um, I think you
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: are uniquely fitted to to do this particular thing as well.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: So that's that's a long wind up to me basically
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: saying I want to I want to lay out a
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: real simple explanation of what we're gonna do, and then
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: I want you to give me like the long winded
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: explanation of of why and how. But here's here's the
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: basic gist. This new mini series is going to be.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: You know, it's gonna be a second episode every week,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: so they're still gonna be the regular Wired Hump podcast
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: episodes that I'll be hosting, but each week you're also
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: going to get this extra episode from Tony. And these
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: are gonna be short episodes featuring just Tony talking about
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: just one specific foundational thing. So that's like the that's
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: the first paragraph of the article. Now, Tony, give me
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: the how, what, why, when details on exactly where this
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: is going. What you have in mind, this is your
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: this is gonna be your baby. Uh what do we
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: have in store every week from here on out from
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: your podcast? Well, man, this is this. This came from
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: many many conversations you and I had about, uh, the
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: questions we were getting asked by our audience, and there's
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: there's just certain lanes those questions fall into, and they
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: might involve scouting, or they might involve gear, they might
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: involve you know, hunting tactics, and so this podcast will
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: really be a breakdown of these concepts of everything that
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: is involved in the white tailed world. And it's not
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: just a public land thing, it's not just a private
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: land management thing. It's it's a lot of these topics
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: that transcend and so, you know, you and I were
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: chatting and saying, hey, how do we kick this off
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: the right way? What's what's like one of the most
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: transcendental topics out there? And it's scouting. You know, like
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: everybody who's a really, really good deer hunter has some
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: love of scouting and engages in it year round to
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: some extent. Well, then we look at that and we
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: start breaking that down into what's what's the most beneficial
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: for the largest amount of deer hunters, And you start
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: getting these topics that range from East scouting to you know,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: long range glassing and all these all these sort of
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: umbrella categories. But then you start breaking them down and going, Okay,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: how does this really benefit you know, a hunter down
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: in Louisiana versus a hunter in the north woods of Michigan.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: And that's been the whole goal of this thing. And
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: these episodes that come out are going to be a
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: real breakdown of these these topics. It's gonna be just
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: me nerd ing out on so many of these different
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: things that are so important to deer hunters down to
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: a real granular level to just try to make them
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: as accessible as possible to the most deer hunters out
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: there and help people just learn on the on the
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: process of white tails. You know, I think one of
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: the one of the great things about podcasts has been
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: that it is allowed folks within the hunting community to
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: have these these deep conversations with somebody. Right, we'll brand
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: some expert and we talk for a couple hours, and
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: we go into all these different topics and we get
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: deep into these ideas and strategies that you know, you
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: just can't get when you're reading an article or when
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: you watch a twenty two minute TV show, um, and
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: so that that lends itself to a lot of interesting stuff.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: But the downside is that those most important nuggets are
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: those most important takeaways sometimes get lost in the soup
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: of all the other things you talk about over the
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: course of two hours. So it takes a long time
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: to get to those most important ah ha moments. And
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: it's also you know, sometimes lost in the noise. And
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: what I'm hoping and what I'm pretty confident that we're
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: gonna be able to do with this is get straight
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: to the aha moments, get straight to those key takeaways.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: You know, instead of listening for me ramble for two
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: hours of somebody, you can listen to Tony for fifteen minutes,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: give you, like a straight shot right to the Maybe
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: this is a bad metaphor, it's gonna give you, it's
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: gonna it's gonna give you a just a I don't know,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: I'm lacking for metaphors completely, not Tony, but it's gonna
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: give you exactly what you want in the shortest amount
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: of time, very clearly and concisely explaining a topic, an
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: important topic, without all the beating around the bush, so
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: that if you've got fifteen minutes on the treadmill, or
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: if you've got twenty minutes to get to work, or
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: if you've got twelve minutes before the kids wake up
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: from their nap, you can look and find Hey, you
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: know what, I really need to get a better understanding
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: of the scouting in this kind of way. Bam, here
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: it is. Tony is going to give you the low
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: down in in about as detailed and helpful of ways
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: you could find anywhere on the internet, but you're gonna
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: get it through your headphones or your speakers in a
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: way that's easy for you to to consume. Um, I
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, that's that's the side of this
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: thing that's got me excited. I think it's just gonna
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: be so. I don't know. These days, time is more
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: important than anything to a lot of us. Right. We're
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: always busy, We're always running all over the place, and
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: I'm always trying to think, like what's the best bang
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: for my buck when it comes to how I spend
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: my time. So if I'm to choose between you know,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: watching this show or watching this five minute video or
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: whatever it might be, I'm always thinking about, Okay, what
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: do I want to get out of this and how
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: much time do I have to give to it? And
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: I don't think there's gonna be any better use of
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: your deer hunting learning time than one of these straight
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: shots of Tony Peterson. Man, I hope you're right by
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: what else? What else? What else do we have to
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: look forward to? Here? Like? What do you want folks
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: to know about? Um? You said you're gonna nerd out
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: every week? What does that mean? So? My my strategy
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: with content like this is I want to I want
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: to give people ideas, right, Like people often reach out
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: to us and they want to know, how do I
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: hunt this spot? Or why don't I kill you know,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: big Bucks more often? Or I travel somewhere and I fail? Why?
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: But hunting is like so individual, it's so subjective, and
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: it's hard to sit here and give advice to and
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: you you know this better than anyone, and give advice
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: to the whole range of of white tail hunters who
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: are going to check in. But the idea is to
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: take these concepts, these foundations that are that that are
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: found no matter where you hunt, no matter how you hunt,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: and really give people like a deep dive into them
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: and give them some ideas how how to how to
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: do them better, or how to apply them to their
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: white tail scouting or their white tail hunting, or maybe
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: they're they're you know, post shot recovery, and just give
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: people something to think about and consider to level up
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: their white tail game. I think in addition to that,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: the world that can to my mind, as you're saying
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: that is actionable, Like these are really actionable. It's it's
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: not a bunch of fluffy Oh you know, I went
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: out and did this thing and it was kind of interesting. No,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: it's like, hey, here is one specific thing. Here's a
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: few really important things I've learned along the way, and
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: here's something you can do tomorrow. Here's something you can
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: do two months from now that is going to help you,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: and this is exactly how to do it. Um, you
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: don't get that in the audio world a whole lot.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: This is where you will find that. UM. I gotta
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: tell you what, I'm putting a lot of pressure on
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: your Tony. I'm really I'm really really shining the spotlight
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: on what I'm hoping and thinking this is gonna be.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: So you better, you better, Dan well produced, Tony. You
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: know I'm trying, but you keep cutting out all my
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: good jokes in my in my script. That's the truth
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: to that. Uh yeah, man, I mean everything said it's true.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: I can tell you that I've always find that the
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: best podcast podcast episodes of Wired Hunt are the ones
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: where I personally am like, genuinely thrilled to learn from
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: this person or learn about this topic. And now I
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: know that every single week there's gonna be something like
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: that coming from you, because I can honestly say, and
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: this is not me tooting your horn and blowing smoke
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: up your butt. Um, I value your experience and opinion
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: more than just about anyone else there in the deer
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: hunting world. So I selfishly am excited to learn from
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: you and to get refreshers on a lot of these things,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: and probably some new stuff too that I haven't thought about.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: I guess the only other thing I would say, Tony
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: is maybe you know, are there any other do you
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: want to tease? I guess what we have to look
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: forward to, any specific topics or episodes coming down? Like
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: what can people specifically look to be popping up in
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: their podcast feed over the coming weeks or months? Well, yeah,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: for sure, man. You you can think about it this
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: way is it is. It's gonna be tied into seasonality.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: So these are gonna drop every week, and you know,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: we're gonna be in the heart of of scouting season
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: right now. So there's gonna be a lot of a
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: lot of episodes on the different kinds of scouting, you know,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: boots on the ground, trail cameras, different kinds of trail cameras,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: how to use them, uh, some long range you know,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: glassing stuff, and then it'll get us right into the
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: season and I'm really excited for that part because it's
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: it'll be a breakdown of different hunting styles and probably
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: kick off September with some some water hunting episodes and
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: you know that's something I get asked about all the time,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: and you know, different kinds of water, rivers, ponds, cattle, tanks,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: and just move right on through October and uh cover
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: really seasonably appropriate, seasonally appropriate topics, and I just can't
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: wait to get into them. Yeah. Well, I, like I said,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm excited about it, interested to start listening. And
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: I guess with that being said, Tony, I think maybe
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: I should drop off, I should shut up, and I
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: should let you take it from here. So, uh, that
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: sound a good plan. Sounds like a great plan, buddy.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: All right, here goes episode one of Foundations with Tony Peterson.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, and now your
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: host Tony Peterson. Hey, everybody. On this week's show, I'm
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: going to make the case for why every white tail
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: hunter needs to fall madly in love with scouting so
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: they can take their game to the next level. I
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: get asked every single week, probably every single day at
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: this point about deer hunting, and the questions always take
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: two paths. What can I buy to kill more deer?
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Where can I go to kill more big bucks? And
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: I get it. Everybody wants they want that secret sauce.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: They want to know, like, what's what's the call that's
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: going to always bring them in? Where's the public land
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: in a certain state that I'm gonna go and see one?
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Forties left and right doesn't exist. The key to becoming
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: a better deer hunter and enjoying your time out there
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: more is just outing. It's the secret sauce out there.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: And if you learn to not only just love scouting,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: but to really really embrace the different methods of scouting
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: that are available to us. You will absolutely fill more tags,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: but you'll find that there's just like a more fulfilling
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: experience out there as a deer hunter. And this episode
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: is just dedicated to begging you to learn to love scouting,
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: to accept the fact that if this is the first
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: step to becoming somebody who can really level up their
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: white tail game, and in fact, like the next ten episodes,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: they're all devoted to scouting. That's how important I think
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: this is to becoming a better deer hunter. Have you
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: ever really thought about how some people just seem to
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: fill their buck takes no matter where they hunt, whether
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: they stay in their home state and hunt private ground
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: or they had out of state to hunt some distant
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: chunk of public dirt. Some hunters just have critter sense,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: and they aren't killing deer simply by growing them on
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: exclusive ground, which is a strategy that dominates much of
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: the white tail scene these days. These hunters seem to
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: find success everywhere, often on ground that is open to
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: anyone and has a reputation for not exactly churning out
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: easy to kill deer, kind of like that public land
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: that you probably hunt so what's their secret. It could
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: be time. Of course, there is a tangible benefit to
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: having days upon days to devote to all things dear.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Yet many of these absolute killers are working full time
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: jobs and they're out there raising young families, and they're
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: just not exactly flushed with early retirement level free time.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: They might, you could guess, have a lot of disposable
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: income to spend on the best gear, which certainly helps.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Or they might have a vast network of people willing
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: to share secret spots with them, so no matter where
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: they hunt, they've got insider information to operate with. Or
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: they might just possess, don't know, like some level of
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: cosmic luck that just shows up during their tree stand
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: sets and ushers big bucks into range with annoying frequency.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: You and I know these are all possibilities, of course,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: but they don't take into account the reality of what
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: it takes to be a big buck serial killer on
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: pressured ground. To accomplish this, you've simply got to develop,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: like all of the most successful do it yourself is,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: have ap pere true love of scouting. And now it's
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: often said that a buck's home range will consist of
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: no more than a section of land, and that within
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: that square mile, a buck will settle down as a youngster,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: and he'll build a nice little life for himself. He'll
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: have all the dose he needs, plenty of predator free
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: places to take a little mid day snooze, and enough
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: groceries to see him through the old age, provided he
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: can survive that long. It's not so simple, though. GPS
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: studies in states like South Carolina and Pennsylvania have shown
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: how tricky pinning down a home range really is. Not
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: to mention how variable they are in size. Some bucks
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: average three fifty acre home ranges, which is pretty small,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: while others might call more than nine acres home, which
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: is pretty big. Whatever specific bucks number is, his home
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: range isn't wrapped in a nine ft tall fence to
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: keep him right where he's supposed to be. At least
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: that's the case with the deer you and I are hunting.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Excursions are made and home ranges can shift over time
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: due to a variety of factors. And even if there
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: was like a hardwired genetic trigger in bucks that forced
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: them to keep home ranges of exactly a certain number,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: there's there's really a problem with how we think about it,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: you know, as humans, we have a tendency to try
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: to simplify complex topics for a personal understanding, just to
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: make things a lot easier for ourselves. And so in
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: this case we envision a buck living in an actual
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: square mile. But it hear's home range isn't all about
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: living dead center in the middle of a specific amount
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: of land. It's all about what that land has to
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: offer the deer. Habitat or quality habitat is really the
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: name of the game here. This is easiest to understand
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: when you think about this in terms of a western
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: white tail like picture the stereotypical five inture out there
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: in the Milk River in Montana, in one of those
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: places that for like ten years, when you turned on
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: the outdoor channel or you started watching a hunting video,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: you saw these bucks crossing that river coming out into
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: an alf alfa field. Picture that buck that was so
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: popular back then. He might have lived in a river
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: bottom that is framed on both sides by cottonwoodwood lots
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: and you know, just thicker than the surrounding area patches
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: of brush and shrubs, or to put it another way,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: just generally the best habitat in his region. Even if
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: he might have chased a dough out through the prairie
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: at some point during the rout, or had to cross
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: a mostly featureless pasture to get to food right now.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: You can find this scenario in the Big Sky State,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: of course, but also from the western Dakotas on down
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: through Oklahoma and farther west into other states more known
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: for elk and mildeer opportunities. What you won't find, generally
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: is a solid block of sixty acres of sweet deer cover,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: even though we're all looking for that. Right. You'll find
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: thin strips of cover along the water, and fingers of
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: it stretching up into the hills. You might be able
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: to lump in the disused corners of an irrigated alfalpha
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: field or some other agriculture, But no matter what, you're
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: just not going to find a simple square land that
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: is the right size and consists of everything a buck needs.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: And even if you did find that unicorn out there,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: you're probably not gonna get permission to hunt it anyway.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: Those river bottom bucks might very well have a home
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: range that sixty acres or real close to that, but
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: it could consist of three miles a thin creeker river
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: bottom which might serpentine its way through three or five
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: different properties. These regions, with their limited cover are at
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: least easier to narrow down when you're on the hunt
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: for a good box home base. Those hunters in the
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: deep South, or up in the far North, or plenty
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: of places out east have have a totally different task.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: How do you find a specific DearS home range in
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: thousands of acres of unbroken timber? Or a bigger ask,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: how do you find the fifty or hundred acres a
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: core area where a specific book really spends most of
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: his daylight hours through the hunting season. In my life
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: as a die hard bow hunter, this is the biggest
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: challenge I've encountered out there so far, and the answer
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: to it, the answered a lot of these questions, just
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: involves scouting. This is the great intangible that you can't
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: buy at your local sporting goods store. It's not a
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: magic grunt tube that doubles as a fawn bleeding snort,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: wheezing guaranteed to call in only dominant five and a
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: half year old bucks to boot looking range super call.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: It's not a simple hunting strategy either. Like I don't know,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: posting up on a soybean field in September, rattling on
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Halloween morning, or heading into sit a sweet terrain pinch
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: point on November seven. Instead, it's a year long pursuit
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: of deer knowledge that allows you to pick up not
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: only on an individual bucks clues, but the evidence that
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: all of the deer leaving behind every single day of
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: their lives. And there are many many methods of scouting,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: and the best hunters learned to love them all. But
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: just like the best hunters don't rely solely on one
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: hunting style. This willingness to expand their trusted bag of
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: tricks into which falls all types of scouting, allows them
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: to not only start honing in on an individual book
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: if they have the option, but also just develop layers
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: of understanding on deer and build the confidence they need
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: to get into the kill zone when the situation presents itself.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: These hunters, in their time spent ea scouting, hiking through
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: the woods in the off season, they're sitting on the
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: glass in August check several boxes on how to become
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: more consistently successful at filling tags. They do this by
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: gaining a real understanding of the ground and they find
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: actionable sign on that ground, which adds to the list
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: of clues on just how the deer use it. And lastly,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: they put themselves in a position to actually watch deer
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: both in and odd of the season. They then mix
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: all this together to create a picture of usage on
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: any given tract of land. This allows them to take
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: that knowledge to a new property or to a new
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: state and imply what they've learned. The benefits of this
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: experience if you want to become a better deer hunter,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: are hard to put into words. It's the secret sauce
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: to all d I Y big buck killers. It's in
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: their DNA. It's in the DNA of every single hunter
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: who has made a name for himself as a successful
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: public land hunter. It's the reason guys like Eddie, Claypool
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: or Andy May can show up in a new state
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: on ground they've never seen before and put together an
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: actionable and often successful hunting plan, even if they only
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: have a few days to work with. The knowledge levels
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: they've built by loving to scout allow them to apply
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: tried and true templates to just about any spot of
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: white tail calls home, and then they can cater their
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: strategy to sync up with regional specifics. In other words,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: their love was scouting allows them to fast track the
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: process so that they can layer in east scouting, a
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: quick turn and burn boots on the ground mission, and
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: then pivot to a hunt in almost no time. Drawing
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: on their past experience and putting it to good use
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: in the moment is their strategy, and it works. When
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: I first started traveling to hunt white tails and random
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: states on public land, this point was just absolutely driven
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: home to me. From the very first mornings and evenings
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: I spent glassing North Dakota River bottom bucks to killing
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: a hundred forty eight pointer the first day I really
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: set out to hunt mature bucks on public land, the
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: whole thing just became clear. It's the work you put
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: in beforehand before each hunt that matters the most, and
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: most of that work just involves different kinds of scouting.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: Now you're probably thinking, Okay, so I've got to scout
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: more if I want to kill more books. That's not
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: exactly rocket science, dude. We've been hearing that a long time,
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: and you're right, it's not. But that's not the case.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: I'm laying out here instead of just spending a couple
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: more weekends winter scouting, or maybe running a few more
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: cameras this summer like it's a job. You've actually got
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: to learn to foster a love of scouting. You've got
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: to develop a deep, unabashed, seventh grade crush on scouting.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: You should be writing your name plus deer scouting and
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: framing it in a heart with an arrow through it
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: in your notebook. That's how much you should love scouting.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: And you should embrace this part of the hunt because
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: it is, without question a part of the hunt, and
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: it's fun too. If you learn to look at as
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: an extension of the hunt, it gets even more enjoyable
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: when you start seeing some of it turn into the
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: little rewards along the way. This is the key to
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: long game beneficial activities like I don't know, getting in shape,
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: or doing the best you can to raise kids so
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: they don't turn out to be faeral lunatics. It takes work,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: but work can be enjoyable if it's rewarding, and in
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: the case of loving the scout, the big payoffs might
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: be a dead buck each ball, or they might be
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: smaller things like seeing a few more deer on your
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: sits and feeling like you're just always in the game.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: No matter where you hunt, that's a big deal. It's
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: not nothing. In fact, a great way to think about
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: it is to imagine someone posing on the beach in
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: Florida with a big red fish in his or her hands.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: That instagram worthy moment looks like the best part of
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: inshore fishing, and it is a blast. But if you
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: can reverse engineer it, you might see that same fisherman
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: minutes or hours earlier, working along eyeball in the way
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: aaves that are breaking in an effort to find a
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: rip tide or just some current seam. You might see
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: them spots something in the action of the swells that
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: trips a memory of past catches, and it says to
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: them this this is the place to cast. You might
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: see their anticipation manifest itself visibly in their body language,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: just like when a good bird dog gets on the
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: fresh scent of a rooster. Or you could go further
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: back and you might see that person fishing by a
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: pier with a little bait catching sabiki rig earlier in
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: the day, filling up their bait bucket. Or maybe you'd
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: see them winging a cast net into the surf to
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: round up some pinfish or mullet. Certainly, a bait catching
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: mission like that isn't the same thing as fighting a
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: big red through the surf, but it is still more
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: importantly a fun step in the direction of the ultimate goal.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: And don't kid yourself, it was absolutely necessary to the process.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: White tail hunting is like that, and I'm not saying
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: to you that you have to devote three in sixty
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: five days in a year to scouting, but you could,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: although at some point you'd probably be doing more harm
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: than good to your hunting, into your marriage, probably to
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: like your sanity. Instead, just work to gradually increase the
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: frequency of all types of scouting, not just the ones
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: you like, and try to figure out why it's more
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: fun than not doing something white tail related. Embracing and
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: enjoying East scouting in time in the woods during the
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: off season adds to the entire deer hunting process and
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: isn't just the best way to become a more effective
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: terminator level white tail killer. It's a way to level
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: up on your woodsmanship and really develop a confidence level
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: that allows for better decision making when you set down
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: the spotting scope and actually pick up your bowler rifle
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: It's also a way to balance out the unknowns that
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: make deer hunting such a challenge. You can't predict what
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: the weather will be like when you take your PTO
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: to hunt. It's out of your hands. But you can
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: go into that rutcation with multiple potential stand sites, or
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: hunting spots that were littered with rubs last year, or
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: maybe just features a season long pinch point that boasts
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: the most well used multi generational trails on the property.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: You can't predict how many other hunters will pull into
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: the management area parking lot an hour before first light,
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: but you can't stay ahead of them and the deer
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: by waiting out to the rubbed up island you found
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: back in April. Instead of griping about the pressure and
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: a lack of a plan, b a love of scouting
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: will position you to react according to these variables that
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: are simply out of your control and yet a part
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: of every single hunt. Over time, and with a little
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: extra effort, you might find that the key to that
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: late October grippingrin was that you simply couldn't wait way
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: back in March to go take a walk through a
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: random chunk of public land to see if you could
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: find some deer sign and maybe look at a few
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: interesting benches along a certain hard to reach ridgeline, and
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: that you know you've got to foster a true love
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: of scouting. You're gonna want to keep listening to Foundations.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: We've only scratched the surface of white tail scouting, and
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: for the next several weeks, I'll be taking a serious
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: dive into all aspects of deer scouting, right down to
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: the tiniest details, starting with next week's episode that focuses
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: all on big picture EA scouting. And that is it
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: for this week, my friends, be sure to stay tuned
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: so you can keep developing your white tail hunting game
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: to a higher level. I'm Tony Peterson and this has
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: been the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast. Thank you so
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: much for listening, and we will see you here next week.