Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 542: Foundations - Rabbits With Antlers

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Ep. 542: Foundations - Rabbits With Antlers · 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, and now your host,
0:11
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson. Welcome to the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast,
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Speaker 1: which is brought to you by First Light. Today's episode
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Speaker 1: is all about how dear really kind of are like
0:22
Speaker 1: rabbits with anilers. If I have a catchphrase, it's rabbits
0:39
Speaker 1: with handlers. I say it on a podcast all the time,
0:42
Speaker 1: but I also believe it. I don't think dear are
0:45
Speaker 1: really as mysterious as we like to make them out
0:48
Speaker 1: to be, And in fact, we've probably demystified the white
0:52
Speaker 1: tail more than just about any other critter out there,
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Speaker 1: just just through its popularity. Now, I'm not saying they're
0:58
Speaker 1: not fascinating wonderful animals, because I really think they are.
1:01
Speaker 1: In fact, if you take the Labrador Retriever off the list,
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Speaker 1: I don't know. White tales are probably my favorite animal,
1:07
Speaker 1: but they are still kind of like rabbits with anilers,
1:09
Speaker 1: and that's what this whole episode is really about. Listen, folks,
1:25
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go in a weird direction with this one
1:28
Speaker 1: at first, so I ask you just to bear me
1:30
Speaker 1: out for the next couple of minutes. Okay. Now, I
1:33
Speaker 1: often hear from hunters who are frustrated that they can't
1:35
Speaker 1: kill big bucks. Hell, I don't. Quite often I hear
1:39
Speaker 1: from hunters who are frustrated that they can't kill little
1:41
Speaker 1: bucks or dose or fawns. Deer hunting can be tough,
1:45
Speaker 1: It can be really difficult. But to frame this up,
1:49
Speaker 1: I want to talk about something that I geek out
1:51
Speaker 1: over space. Remember I asked you to stay with me here.
1:55
Speaker 1: I love space. In fact, I love space so much
1:58
Speaker 1: that my wife and I have a running joke who
2:00
Speaker 1: you lay down in bed at night? Where she'll turn
2:01
Speaker 1: to me and say, you get one space fact, make
2:04
Speaker 1: it good. So I have to think really hard about
2:07
Speaker 1: I don't know how stars are formed, or what actually
2:09
Speaker 1: happened to make planet Earth, or what we know about
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Speaker 1: black holes or the sheer distance between us and anything
2:15
Speaker 1: else in the cosmos. And then I plucked some tasty
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Speaker 1: morsel out of there to feed her with. And she's
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Speaker 1: usually unimpressed, but that's okay. She's kind of largely stuck
2:24
Speaker 1: with me until something better comes along. Anyway, I love space,
2:29
Speaker 1: and right now something amazing is happening out there. There
2:32
Speaker 1: is a telescope, the James web Space telescope that is
2:36
Speaker 1: sitting at a point in space called L two or
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Speaker 1: Lagrange to. This point in space is the sweet spot
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Speaker 1: between huge celestial bodies and their gravity. In other words,
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Speaker 1: objects in L two tend to just kind of sit
2:51
Speaker 1: there because the gravity from the nearest object cancels out
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Speaker 1: the gravity from the other nearest object. A fellow named
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Speaker 1: Joseph Lagrange figured that out using math that I couldn't
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Speaker 1: possibly even come close to be able to understand or
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Speaker 1: describe to you. The cell two point is nearly a
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Speaker 1: million miles from Earth, and the James Webb Telescope has
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Speaker 1: been sitting out there for months now, just cooling off
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Speaker 1: and calibrating itself, you know, with the help of course,
3:19
Speaker 1: of a whole team of people at NASA. This telescope,
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Speaker 1: which weighs roughly fourteen thousand pounds and features a gold
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Speaker 1: covered sun shield that measures roughly the size of a
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Speaker 1: tennis court, is out there in temperatures of negative three
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Speaker 1: hundred and seventy five degrees fahrenheit. It had to cool
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Speaker 1: off to that point and was designed to do so
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Speaker 1: so that there would be no interference with its imaging
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Speaker 1: capabilities because it will be looking for infrared heat signatures
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Speaker 1: as it searches for some of the first galaxies to
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Speaker 1: form after the Big Bang. This telescope is designed with
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Speaker 1: a ton of rubber shock absorbers to keep it from
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Speaker 1: vibrating even slightly so that it will be able to
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Speaker 1: take crystal clear images of galaxies and stars that are
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Speaker 1: far away. Is thirteen point six billion with a b
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Speaker 1: light years. The light travels had a hundred and eighty
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Speaker 1: six thousand miles per second, or about six trillion miles
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Speaker 1: per year. The light that the James Webb Telescope is
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Speaker 1: going to look at at least some of the light
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Speaker 1: and and take infrared photography of has been traveling for
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Speaker 1: thirteen point six billion light years. Essentially, this thing is
4:35
Speaker 1: looking back in time at light that has been on
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Speaker 1: the move since what we think is probably close to
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Speaker 1: the beginning of the universe. But light doesn't stay constant
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Speaker 1: for that long, and it does something called red shifting.
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Speaker 1: To really understand red shifting, you have to be familiar
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Speaker 1: with Einstein's theory or relativity, or at least recognize that
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Speaker 1: it's coming into play when the objects in the universe
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Speaker 1: like galaxies, keep moving farther and farther away from each other,
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Speaker 1: which is what's happening to see this. That James Webb
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Speaker 1: Telescope is built with four instruments designed to detect this
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Speaker 1: specific type of light. Scientists will also use this telescope
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Speaker 1: to try to determine how galaxies form, how stars form,
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Speaker 1: and to look for physical and chemical properties of planetary
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Speaker 1: systems to investigate the potential for life. Yeah you heard
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Speaker 1: that right. Today scientists have discovered thousands of exoplanets, but
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Speaker 1: we haven't been able to very accurately observe them to
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Speaker 1: see whether they have an atmosphere, and if they do,
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Speaker 1: what that atmosphere consists of. The James web Telescope will
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Speaker 1: use spectroscopy to do just that. By observing when a
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Speaker 1: planet passes in front of its host star, the telescope
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Speaker 1: will be able to analyze their atmospheres to decipher what
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Speaker 1: types of elements and molecules are present. Some like methane
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Speaker 1: could indicate life. It's wild stuff, and you know what,
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Speaker 1: people built it, people like you and I. Well, people
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Speaker 1: probably a lot smarter than you and I, but still.
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Speaker 1: They set out years ago to create a telescope that
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Speaker 1: could be launched into space a million miles from Earth
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Speaker 1: and conduct amazing experiments on world so distant we will
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Speaker 1: never have a chance to even consider visiting them, no
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Speaker 1: matter how advanced we get in our space travel. They designed, tested, bill, tested, redesigned, tested,
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Speaker 1: and eventually completed this sucker. And then they launched it
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Speaker 1: into space and are now controlling it a million miles away.
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Speaker 1: It's out there, getting ready to send back the best
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Speaker 1: images we will have to date of a part of
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Speaker 1: the universe we've never seen. Think about that. Now, think
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Speaker 1: about this. We are trying to kill rabbits with antlers.
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Speaker 1: That's it. They may be good at surviving, but in
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Speaker 1: the thinking department, even the dullest podcast listener Mark has
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Speaker 1: ever reached is orders of magnitude smarter than the smartest buck.
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Speaker 1: Take the hardest, hunted, sick and a half year old
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Speaker 1: buck on public land in Pennsylvania, and he's basically a
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Speaker 1: paint chip eating toddler when compared to even the lowest
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Speaker 1: bandwidth human out there. So why is it so hard? Well,
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Speaker 1: there are a few reasons, but you know, I don't know.
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Speaker 1: You might not want to hear them. For starters, pray,
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Speaker 1: animals are just good at not getting eaten. That's basically
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Speaker 1: the main component of their job description. It's point number one.
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Speaker 1: Just don't get eaten every day, every week, every year.
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Speaker 1: Now they die in other ways, I know. But to them,
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Speaker 1: when we walk into the woods, we are as scary
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Speaker 1: as the scariest bear or coyote or a wolf. We
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Speaker 1: are level I'm possibly above those predators on the fear scale.
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Speaker 1: And so when they're thinking about not getting eaten, they're
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Speaker 1: thinking about us in that way. They don't want us
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Speaker 1: to kill him, So they engage in a few tactics
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Speaker 1: that work. They hide a lot, they're good at it.
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Speaker 1: They don't move a ton during day light. They trust
8:01
Speaker 1: their eyes and their ears quite a bit, and they
8:03
Speaker 1: fully believe their noses. If after a few years of
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Speaker 1: getting lucky, they tend to be pretty intolerant of our bullshit,
8:10
Speaker 1: they just learn how to beat us, and they do
8:13
Speaker 1: it easily. They do it because most hunters aren't putting
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Speaker 1: in a lot of work to kill them. You know,
8:19
Speaker 1: we aren't out there seven with empty stomachs and pointed
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Speaker 1: canine teeth the way a pack of wolves is. We
8:25
Speaker 1: aren't out there all spring long, constantly covering ground in
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Speaker 1: search of food, like newborn fawns. The way your average
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Speaker 1: yogi is. We mostly swoop in for a few hours
8:34
Speaker 1: in the morning and a few hours in the evening,
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Speaker 1: and then we leave. We stink, we are allowed. We
8:40
Speaker 1: stare at our phones too much. We announce our presence
8:43
Speaker 1: through calling when we should just shut the hell up.
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Speaker 1: We do a lot of this stuff wrong. That's why
8:49
Speaker 1: it's hard for a lot of us. And they know us,
8:52
Speaker 1: they know us better than we know them. But they
8:55
Speaker 1: are still rabbits with antlers. They have basic needs in
8:59
Speaker 1: those need tell us a lot about them. They need
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Speaker 1: to eat, they need to drink, They gotta take a
9:05
Speaker 1: little snooze here and there, and when the leaves fall
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Speaker 1: off the trees and the moon is just right, they
9:09
Speaker 1: feel a strong urge to make some new deer. And
9:12
Speaker 1: that's about it. Well, it's not because they are highly
9:15
Speaker 1: adapted surviving machines, but on some level it is pretty
9:18
Speaker 1: easy to distill it down to that level. And so
9:21
Speaker 1: why do we struggle? Oftentimes We actually just don't give
9:25
Speaker 1: ourselves enough credit. That's a big one, and it's what
9:28
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk about next week. And we also
9:32
Speaker 1: do something worse, which is we give the deer too
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Speaker 1: much credit. They aren't some magical beasts that you'd read
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Speaker 1: about in Harry potter book Hiding Away in Haggard's Hut.
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Speaker 1: They don't have a sixth sense. They can't read minds,
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Speaker 1: They can't really outthink us. They don't have the mental
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Speaker 1: horse power. They just do what it takes to survive
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Speaker 1: given what they know about us as predators. And that
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Speaker 1: right there is the key, because it tells you everything
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Speaker 1: you shouldn't do, even if not doing those things is
10:02
Speaker 1: hard for us. We have to respect the white tail
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Speaker 1: because he deserves it, but we don't have to give
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Speaker 1: him extra credit because we aren't good enough to consistently
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Speaker 1: shoot him in the lungs. I know, if you're starting out,
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Speaker 1: this is probably tough to believe. Hell, it might be
10:18
Speaker 1: tough if you've been at it a long time and
10:20
Speaker 1: only have shitty spots to hunt, or you don't give
10:22
Speaker 1: very much time in the woods. There are a lot
10:24
Speaker 1: of things that conspire against your success. But let me
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Speaker 1: tell you something. The deer are pretty consistent. Now. I know.
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Speaker 1: There is a pretty big gap between deer that are
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Speaker 1: babysat their whole lives from deer that grow up in
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Speaker 1: the mean streets of public Land, USA, where hunting pressure
10:38
Speaker 1: is high. But even those deer, they're just doing what
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Speaker 1: they need to in orders five and they grow up fast.
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Speaker 1: In those conditions. They have plenty of negative encounters that
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Speaker 1: shape their behavior. But again that's something that can be
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Speaker 1: used to your advantage if you understand it. Now. This
10:56
Speaker 1: this is kind of a raw, raw speech, but also
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Speaker 1: I want you to think about it this way. The
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Speaker 1: deer they are just out there doing their thing. If
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Speaker 1: you do your thing in a way that's different from
11:05
Speaker 1: most hunters, or frame it up most predators, eventually you'll
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Speaker 1: cross paths with them. Eventually you'll see the unkillable deer
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Speaker 1: do something that puts himself into a position for you
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Speaker 1: to kill him. And that is a moment worth experiencing.
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Speaker 1: I've talked about that moment with me in a really
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Speaker 1: cool non typical buck that just screwed up royally and
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Speaker 1: let me shoot him at eight yards. I've talked about
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Speaker 1: it many times. That mid one fourteen pointer changed my
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Speaker 1: whole deer hunting perspective. I went from wanting to kill
11:34
Speaker 1: one so bad to suddenly having killed one and he
11:38
Speaker 1: just waltzed right into that bean field and then right
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Speaker 1: into my best shooting lane. And it wasn't like he
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Speaker 1: was a survival machine. Then, it was like he was
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Speaker 1: a hungry animal in the early season who happened to
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Speaker 1: like to eat soybeans in the rain. Maybe the other
11:51
Speaker 1: hunters out there don't hunt the rain as much, and
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Speaker 1: he was banking on that. Maybe his grumbling stomach just
11:57
Speaker 1: got the best of him. It doesn't matter. He didn't
12:00
Speaker 1: pull any big buck high jinks to survive there, and
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Speaker 1: he didn't survive. He gave me my opportunity, and other
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Speaker 1: bucks followed, and the lesson became much clearer. And it
12:10
Speaker 1: really hit home when I started shooting big bucks on
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Speaker 1: public land. Those dear should have been invincible. They weren't.
12:17
Speaker 1: The first pope and young buck I killed on public
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Speaker 1: land walked by me at twenty yards when I was
12:21
Speaker 1: hiding behind a big cottonwood tree like a little kid.
12:24
Speaker 1: That's not exactly a master class on survival, if you
12:27
Speaker 1: ask me. And later that same season, I walked out
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Speaker 1: on a public property in the suburbs of the Twin
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Speaker 1: Cities to sit in a morning, and I had to
12:35
Speaker 1: run to my stand because I was late. I got
12:38
Speaker 1: in right after I watched a doe walk through, and
12:40
Speaker 1: I didn't even have anything ready to go when I
12:41
Speaker 1: saw a buck on her tail. I killed that book
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Speaker 1: less than a minute after climbing into my stand, and
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Speaker 1: he made Pope and Young minimum as a clean six
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Speaker 1: pointer with the body of a horse, even though it
12:52
Speaker 1: was the rut. He made a lot of stupid moves
12:55
Speaker 1: to get shot by me then, and either of those
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Speaker 1: deer and lots more could have been shot by anyone.
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Speaker 1: They were being reckless to me because I was there
13:04
Speaker 1: to take advantage of it. But that happens all over
13:07
Speaker 1: all season long. Well, I take that back. It doesn't
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Speaker 1: happen NonStop because that's not how they operate. But there
13:13
Speaker 1: are times when the advantages ours and definitely not in theirs.
13:17
Speaker 1: Remember that believe that understand that there are a deer
13:21
Speaker 1: out there, Dear, you'd be happy to tag that aren't
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Speaker 1: so smart and crafty that they won't make mistakes. Hell,
13:28
Speaker 1: they probably make several mistakes every single day of their lives,
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Speaker 1: but they are forgiven because there's no one there to
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Speaker 1: make them pay. Now, I'm going to switch gears for
13:37
Speaker 1: a second to give the dear sum credit and frame
13:39
Speaker 1: this whole thing up pressure dear, you know, especially pressure
13:43
Speaker 1: deer who have been lucky enough to make at least
13:45
Speaker 1: three or four laps around the sun. They're not tolerant
13:47
Speaker 1: of our mistakes too much. Moving in the stand, they're
13:50
Speaker 1: gonna get you. They get down wind. Do you forget it?
13:54
Speaker 1: Your stand platform creaks a little when you stand up.
13:57
Speaker 1: Now you're in trouble. That desperate grunt you throw his
14:00
Speaker 1: way when he's at fifty yards and facing you. Now
14:03
Speaker 1: you've given him the advantage. It doesn't take much to
14:06
Speaker 1: set off their bullshit meter, and when you do, they
14:09
Speaker 1: suddenly get real concerned over their well being. But if
14:13
Speaker 1: you don't set it off, they're dumb. Set it off
14:16
Speaker 1: and they become something else. They trust their instincts, and
14:20
Speaker 1: I think that is something we don't understand very well.
14:23
Speaker 1: Most of us live in a nerfed up world where
14:26
Speaker 1: real danger is more rare than an original social media post.
14:29
Speaker 1: We don't have grizzlies trying to munch on us, most
14:32
Speaker 1: of us anyway, or big striped cats that might rush
14:35
Speaker 1: out of the tall grass to make a meal out
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Speaker 1: of us. We don't have to listen to our instincts
14:40
Speaker 1: very often because we don't need them much anymore. Now,
14:43
Speaker 1: that's not to say you shouldn't trust your gut around
14:45
Speaker 1: people or even situations with animals like certain dogs, because
14:49
Speaker 1: if something feels wrong, it most likely is we question
14:52
Speaker 1: it because most of the time we don't need our
14:54
Speaker 1: instincts much not It's not the case with prey animals.
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Speaker 1: They quite literally live off of their instincts. The slightest
15:02
Speaker 1: tink of an arrow on an aluminum riser is a
15:05
Speaker 1: sound that nature doesn't make. It's unnatural. If a prey
15:09
Speaker 1: animal here's that, the threat level is raised instantly. You
15:13
Speaker 1: can go from a buck that was totally content to
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Speaker 1: walk through the woods mowing down on acorns or rubbing
15:18
Speaker 1: random saplings, to a deer with only one thing to
15:21
Speaker 1: think about, where did that unnatural, potentially danger signaling sound
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Speaker 1: come from. He has nothing but time and his survival
15:31
Speaker 1: to think about in that moment. Just by one little mistake,
15:34
Speaker 1: we've taken a typical rabbit with antlers and made him
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Speaker 1: into a survival machine that is always just to blow
15:40
Speaker 1: the surface, waiting to come out. And without that tiny,
15:44
Speaker 1: nearly insignificant mistake, he's ours. But is he The whole
15:48
Speaker 1: thing about getting a drawn on a deer, or moving
15:51
Speaker 1: into position to shoot your rifle in the stand. It's
15:56
Speaker 1: it's just wrought with potential mistakes. It's right for us
15:59
Speaker 1: to create the anser for the deer to show us
16:01
Speaker 1: how much he wants to live. You know. The same
16:04
Speaker 1: goes for the branch we touched with our bare hands
16:06
Speaker 1: on the way in. If a deer never gets close
16:08
Speaker 1: enough to sniff it, who cares. But the deer that
16:11
Speaker 1: does understands how long ago we were there due to
16:14
Speaker 1: the evaporation of our scent. Just like how a bird
16:17
Speaker 1: dog knows instantly which way a rooster is running in
16:19
Speaker 1: the grass, even if you ran through thirty seconds or
16:22
Speaker 1: two hours ago. That little moment can tip the advantage
16:26
Speaker 1: from us to them, and we do it all the time,
16:30
Speaker 1: tons of little moments like that. Now I want to
16:32
Speaker 1: help because this is easy to explain but hard to
16:35
Speaker 1: fully implement in the woods throughout the entire deer season.
16:39
Speaker 1: So over the last few months, I've been interviewing wildlife
16:41
Speaker 1: biologists who hold all kinds of advanced degrees. These are
16:45
Speaker 1: the people who am always a little scared to interview
16:47
Speaker 1: because they often make me feel like I'm not quite
16:49
Speaker 1: as evolved as them. These interviews, which will air as
16:53
Speaker 1: a regular Wire to Hunt podcast throughout the whole month
16:55
Speaker 1: of June, which you know we're dubbing the white Tail
16:58
Speaker 1: Science Month, should help you under dan white tails better,
17:01
Speaker 1: and we cover a wide range of topics like truly
17:04
Speaker 1: understanding how dear c to the complexity of dealing with
17:07
Speaker 1: chronic wasting disease too, how often fawns get turned in
17:11
Speaker 1: a little spot it's next by bears in various parts
17:13
Speaker 1: of the country. Each guest is a true student of
17:16
Speaker 1: the white tail as well as a dedicated researcher and scientists.
17:20
Speaker 1: Each episode is an ode of sorts, too Dear, and
17:23
Speaker 1: what we've learned and what we haven't learned, and what
17:26
Speaker 1: we might never learn about them. It's just really cool stuff, folks,
17:29
Speaker 1: and I hope you listen in. I also hope you
17:31
Speaker 1: realize that the white deal deserves a lot of credit
17:33
Speaker 1: for being a really badass animal that we are real
17:36
Speaker 1: lucky to get to hunt, but also is not so
17:39
Speaker 1: cool and adaptable and smart that we can't outmatch him.
17:43
Speaker 1: We can, We all can. And next week I'm going
17:46
Speaker 1: to tell you how you should think about yourself as
17:48
Speaker 1: a hunter so you can make filling tags more of
17:51
Speaker 1: a foregone conclusion than a roll of the weighted dice.
17:56
Speaker 1: That's it for this week, my friends. I'm Tony Peterson
17:59
Speaker 1: and this is been the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast,
18:01
Speaker 1: which is brought to you by First Light. As always,
18:04
Speaker 1: thank you so much for listening and for your support.
18:07
Speaker 1: If you need more white tailed goodness, head on over
18:09
Speaker 1: to dummy theator dot com slash wired to read articles
18:12
Speaker 1: by Mark myself, Beau martinac Alex Gilstrom, and a whole
18:16
Speaker 1: host of white tail killers, and you can also check
18:18
Speaker 1: out our Wire to Hunt YouTube channel, where we dropped
18:21
Speaker 1: new videos every single week