March 5, 2025 • 29 mins
This week, Tony sits down with Ben Brettingen from onX, to talk about how they both find game birds on public land no matter what they are hunting for, or where they are.
Connect with Tony, Cal, and MeatEater
MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips
MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube
Shop Cal's Merch
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, everyone, Welcome to the Foundations podcast. I'm your host
Tony Peterson. We have a special bonus episode for you
today where Ben Bredigan from on X and I are
going to break down how to find birds on public land.
So we are at the Southeastern Wildlife Expo right now
and I'm about to talk to my buddy Ben, who
(00:23):
works for on X, passionate bird hunter, loves to hunt
roosters just like I do. And we are just going
to talk a little bit about our strategy for finding
birds because a lot of times you hear people say that,
you know, there are no public land bird opportunities. And
we're down here way in the southeast. We're in Charleston,
South Carolina, so we're kind of in like quail territory,
and you hear this across the country, and so Ben
(00:44):
and I are going to break this down right now.
So Ben, the first question I have for you is
when you go duck hunting, Let's say you got a
bunch of mallard scouted out yep. Are you usually the
kind of guy who's there before first light or do
you show up about three hours later.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I like to find I like to find a good
flight low thing shoot generally where you show up at noon.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
I'm just I'm giving Ben a little bit of shit
because we had a little scheduling issue this morning.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
I was working on Pacific time. In my defense, a
lot of stuff happens at these shows. Yeah, keep you
out pretty late, make the mornings a little early. Yeah,
But seriously, man, thanks for thanks for doing this. I
know you know, you and I have kind of flown
in the same circles. We live in the same state,
and I know you're you're super passionate about the public
land bird thing.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Get your dogs out there. And I know you hear this,
and I hear this a lot, And this is why
I want to do this. People people always say I
would love to haunt x, I would love to hunt.
Why you hear you know, in this part of the world,
it's quail, right, there's no bob whit quail left and
there's nothing worth hunting or the grouse population is low.
(01:58):
But you find birds every year in multiple species. How
do you start. Yeah, So here's the biggest thing.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
It's it's uh, it's a bit of a kicker, but
there shouldn't be a secret.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Is I go to where the birds live?
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Okay, again, Like that's the biggest thing, is like, so
what do you say to somebody who's like, there are
no birds on the public land where.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
I live, Well, go somewhere else or so come out.
There's two ways to two ways to skin the cat.
First is go to where they live, go to where
the best populations are if you if you're able, if
you want to travel. But there's also on the flip side,
if you want to stay local, like there are odds
are there are birds, especially when we talked about pest
in country, like there will be birds there. It is
(02:40):
just finding the optimal piece of habitat to be able
to hunt. Like it's you know, on bad bird years,
there are only birds in the best spots. On good
bird years, then you can go hunt marginal habitat and
still find birds. But it's just depending on where you know,
where are they going to live. You see this a lot.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
You know, I live in the suburbs of the Twin Cities,
and so when I moved up to that's part of
the reason I started duck hunting, because I could find
migratory birds that would hit some of the ponds and
the rivers, and I had to you know, I would
rather pheasant hunt. I just would, but that's not what
you have. And then you start to realize, Okay, well there,
I'm not going to kill a grouse here, I'm not
going to kill a rooster. But the woodcock migration comes through,
(03:21):
and now you're out there sitting on your tree standing
in early October and you're like, Okay, there's another opportunity
happening here. And I think I see this a lot,
you know, like with people who dream about Western big game,
like I'd love to hunt elk, but I never will
because of y or Z. It's like, well there's still
hunts out there, but you you're gonna have to change
like your expectations, right, And the bird world, it's easier
(03:41):
to be like there are no pheasants, there's no wild
pheasants in Iowa anymore, and I'm not going to do it.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
And it's like that's just that's just not true, right, right,
Like there are they're there. Well, that's one thing I
really appreciate, appreciate about you, Tony, is like I followed
you a lot, like the big game deer hunting, Like
you go out and it's it's all about expectations, right,
you know, you weren't going out and shooting booters, but
like you were successful in a lot of different states
chasing deer, and it was that's a that's a great
(04:09):
eye opener. It should be an example for a lot
of people. It's like, yeah, you can go do this.
Don't expect to light the world on fire just just
because you went to South Dakota. Don't expect that you're
gonna light the world on fire. It's still tough in
a lot of situations on public land, but if you
set those expectations correctly, it's gonna be a successful trip.
And what's I always tell people, if you go and
(04:30):
do it, go drive and experience it.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
What's the worst that's gonna happen?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Like, you're not gonna find a bunch of birds, right,
that's fine, right, You're not gonna die generally hopefully not
right right?
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Well, And that's I kind of I kind of equate this.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
You know, I grew up in southeastern Minnesota, so I
fish the Mississippi River a lot. And if you were
like a Basque guy or a northern guy, walleyes would
be a little different. But you could look at the
backwaters of the Mississippi and be like, there are thousands
and thousands of acres of basque cover bassie looking cove right, right,
But you start getting in there and there's no current here,
(05:05):
and it's kind of it's not the right stuff. And
then you find that sand drop or you find something
where you're like, oh, they are here because the shatter
fed to them or whatever. There's like an advantage people
in the bird world. You take pheasants and you go,
I want to walk that nhigh crp and I want
to watch my dog work perfectly and flush those birds
when it's birdy, or get on that tripod point. And
(05:26):
it's like, if you're on a private place that's been
babysat or your early season and you have that high population,
you might be able to expect that hunt if it's
at if it's December.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
That's not going to be your reality in most situations, right.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
So it's a matter of people think that they're going
to go out there. Their expectation is that I'm going
to go out there because you hunt pheasants this way
in this cover.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Yeah, but those pheasants that live.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
That way and that cover are dead, and so you
have to go, Okay, my hunt is going to be
different now, But it doesn't mean that they're not there. Yeah,
just means that they're not gonna be there where it's easy.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Well.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
And the other thing too, is like they might be there,
but it's a situation that doesn't yield itself well for
you being able to get on them and shoot them.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Right.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Sure, they're certainly utilizing maybe it's like early successional habitat,
but the problem is is it's thin, it's short, They're
gonna be spooky, they're gonna run, and where are they
gonna run to or fly to?
Speaker 3 (06:23):
The cattails? Right? And that's where you got to play
with them in a lot of situations, right.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
And that's you know, I always tell people we were
talking right before this, you know, like my my, the
closest thing to dying and going to heaven for me
right now is walking into a giant cat tail slew
in the late season because I know there's enough birds
in there to work. Whether I'm gonna walk out.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
With a limit or not.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
I know my dog is gonna be bloody and it's
gonna be a it's you're gonna feel like you did something.
But I I always tell people like we pull into
parking areas and we'll see people leaving and you can
still look out there, and if it's the right cover
and you know how to read it, you're like, there's
multiple limits here.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Still, I just need to solve for that.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
And so instead of going and walking around the edge
like the last guy did and all the birds got
pushed in the middle, or you know, you think about
I use coming from the space that I come from.
I use on X for white tail hunting and western hunting,
religiously turkey haunting trips. What I didn't realize was how
how I had started using it just to find parcels
(07:30):
right Like, I'm like, okay, well I could peasant hunt
this three twenty or this section or whatever. But you
start toggling between layers and seeing low land and then
looking at it, you know, like on the top of
a layer, and then looking at it on you know,
the hybrid layer or whatever and seeing, okay, now it
looks like this is mostly this, but in the back
(07:50):
corner there's a huge kattoo slew or something lower where
those birds are going to be, and you can start
to be targeted instead of burning yourself out and burning
your dog out. And I think a lot of people
do that where they're like, I'm just gonna accept that
this is gonna suck and not be good instead of
going like, okay, well, if you have X amount of
physical capital and you're gonna burn it on the grass
(08:11):
hunt where they're not gonna be you could go hunt
that cattail salu that's in the back corner and probably
have a better chance, or go hit that vein of
willows or dogwood or whatever and.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Just just make it happen. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yeah, I mean I applaud you for going and busting cattails.
My like, my, uh, my technique is a little different
because I absolutely hate just marching through Like that sounds
like my hell, So that is very fun that you're
like I love this.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
That's cool.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
But yeah, like the biggest thing is being successful. Whether
it's quail, whether it's pheasants, whether it's X y Z
bird species. The people that I find that are good
at scouting are people that can understand aerial imagery and
translate to what that looks like on the ground, right
that like that period, like if I could you look
(09:00):
at a map and you're like, oh, that's you know,
that looks like some cattails next to some thick grass. Okay,
here's you know, here's some like a little shelter belt
next to it. Okay, the grass gets a little thicker,
grass gets a little thicker, and they can you can
just quickly look at a map and say, oh, yeah,
that'll be a good spot, right.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
That's the that's the biggest thing, And that's that's something
we preach on the on the white tail side specifically.
A lot is like, you know, if you're winter scouting
and you find something, look at what it looks like,
so you can repeat that pattern. When you draw that,
I would tag and it one of the one of
the places that I think that that's most valuable. So
I talk a lot about pheasants because I love it,
and I know you do. But when you think about
(09:37):
the big wood stuff, whether you're in uh, you know,
northern Michigan, or you're in some of these swamps down
here somewhere and you have some level of timber activity
and you have some level of true swamp edge, you know,
maybe where you'll have your woodcock or whatever, when you start,
when you start to plan your routes around that stuff
instead of just like, okay, I'm gonna walk the two
track that literally everybody walks, right, and those dumb grouse
(10:00):
have been shot out since September twentieth. And you start
to do that, and you go, okay, well I flushed
three birds in a row on this walk. Why are
you on that soft edge? Was there timber?
Speaker 3 (10:12):
You know? Did they clear cut this seven years ago?
Like what are you working with?
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Because as soon as you start putting those pieces together,
You're like, I'm not wasting time anymore.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Yeah, Like I'm I have.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
A calculated route and I know the wind, and so
I'm like, well I can swoop down here find some woodcock,
or there should be grouse on this route. And man,
you start putting pieces like patterns like that together, so fun.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Yeah, and and and to that point, it's like, you know,
you talk about whether it's a big marsh or a
big woods. It's those nuances that often make a difference, like, oh,
this is just a giant patch of woods. It's like no, no,
Like if you move a bird, I mean I do
it a lot with fishing too. It's like why is
that bird here?
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Right?
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Like, open up its crop, look at why it's here,
Especially in the case with the grouse. I think grouse
are much more multi dimensional than a pheasant. Like pheasant's
like you know where they're gonna be, but gross can
be a bit of a game. But yeah, like figure
out stop look around and say, hey, why is this
bird here right now? And then go replicate that. So
(11:10):
that's why I preach like an onyx to go put
a pin. It's like if you shoot a bird, put
a pin. So then in the moment it's hard to
you know, it's like you're fired up, you want to
go hunt birds like I'm I'm blowing and going when
I'm hunting, but I'll always drop a pin on the
spot I kill a bird, because then I'll take a
step back, like after the hunt or this time of
the year when it's you know, not a lot going on,
(11:31):
and I'll look back and say like, oh, like start
to put together patterns and start to hone in and
get better at finding birds versus just like oh that
was fun shot birds here. It's like the why behind
it will help make you a better bird hunter huge,
And that's I think that that.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
I think that a lot of people look at bird
hunting with their dogs sort of like a lot of
Western hunters look at like elk hunting like I'm going
to walk down my opportunity. I'm going to go find it,
and it's I don't need a bunch of inputs, you know,
Like on the white sail side, we're obsessed with like
the setup right right, like is it the conditions?
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Is it the spot?
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Like is it what where are they at seasonally? And
you know, like Western hunting, you're just like I'm gonna
go out and wait for one to bugle or spot
one in a meadow. Bird hunters do that a lot
where they're like, well, I just like walking through this spot,
So I'm going to just go do this regardless of
time of day, you know, time of season, right, is
it a Saturday afternoon or is it a Tuesday morning?
(12:29):
And I'll tell you what I got a lesson last year.
I do a lot of I do more early season
grouse hunting than I ever have because I've been over
in northern Wisconsin a lot the last few years with
my daughters. Yeah, and that the gray dogwood thing, you know,
I've been around gray dog woods. They're all over that
kind of region. But my daughter drew a bear tag
(12:49):
last year and so we were over there just before
the deer and the grouse season opened up, baiting bears
and hunting them, and I had I'm not a good
bear hunter, but I had this bear that was really
and I'm like, God, I hope this one sticks right,
And I pulled her out of school. I was so
confident that bear was going to come in. We hunted,
it didn't come in, and I go, so it must
(13:09):
have known we were there, right, Like, I got to
fill in the blanks.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Well.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
The next that night, I told my daughter, I said,
this bear's been coming in randomly all day long.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Let's go do an all day bear sit. See.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Yeah, she killed that bear at noon, really, and that
bear was full, I mean full of gray dogwood berries.
And so I was like, if this is a valuable
enough food source today to keep a bear from coming
into a pile of doughnut king and gummy bears and shit,
(13:40):
then you're like, if you're a grouse, if you're a
one pound bird out there, that is what you're going
to do every day until that food source is gone, right,
And so, like you said, if you're out there and
you're like I got you know, I'm flushing birds here
there or whatever, I kill one and you open it
up and you see those white berries in there because
they're ripe, Like, there's your pattern.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Where are those Where is that food source? Damn? And
I love that shit. Yeah, that is super interesting.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yeah, because it's like that's a good point, Like I
never thought about that. This year was a we had
a quite a bumper crop for acorns right in a
lot of the state, right right, and this year, more
than ever I have seen. I saw grouse with five
(14:26):
six whole acorns in their crop and early on in
the year, and it was like, at first it was like, oh,
this is interesting, Like whatever I shot this, girls, that's
got a bunch of acorns in it. But like it
happened consistently, and so we actually spent some time up
up in the northeast part of the state where there
oak trees are not super common. But after seeing this
(14:49):
all year, it was like, this was later in the season,
I'm gonna go and find oak trees. And it was
funny because generally oaks are not gonna be a preferred
species for grouse. Generally, you know it's you're looking for
that stem density. But I turned on I think it
was a oak producing or the acorn producing oaks layer,
and I was like, I'm just gonna try this. I'm
(15:11):
gonna like, I don't care what what the cover looks like,
but I would run my dog in that northeast or
in the northeast region where there's not very many oaks,
I would go and find those oaks, and it seemingly
didn't matter what the cover looked like, right, and there
would be Now whether they would hold or not was
a different story, but there'd be grouse there, right.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
So that's I mean.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
One of the things that I've noticed I see this
a lot with grouse is when you spend a lot
of time in tree stands, like in the big woods,
you see them doing things like I think people have
you kind of alluded to this earlier, Like I think
people have this idea that rough grouse specifically don't really
cover a lot of ground, you know, Oh, they don't run, like,
(15:54):
they don't do a lot of these things that we
think like people say they don't do, which is they
do all of those things, and often when there's a
food source like that, Like I noticed this last year
when I was hunting in northern Wisconsin. One of the
spots I set up on this huge chunk of public land,
just like.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Miles of big woods.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
I had grouse flying into a tree not very far
away from me, where it was like you would see
them coming through the woods and they would land in
their feed and they would.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Fly back out.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Interesting, and I've seen that in different I've seen that
sitting because you do like an all day sit. You
just notice like they're not even walking in a lot
of times where you'd be like, oh, they're picking along.
They're like, there's my destination food source going there. I'm
going there, and then I'm going to leave and go
back to something that shit's so valuable.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Oh, that's really interesting, especially especially with gross, which are
so multifaceted. That's like another situ or another situation set
up that works well for pheasants, grows x y Z games,
bird species is finding that mosaic of cover where there
are a lot of different parts all together in one area.
(17:01):
Because yeah, with gross, like I mean, I haven't There's
a few people I know that have like figured out
their biologists, like they understand I have not like figured
out the game. So it's like I'm gonna put myself
in an area where there are pines, there's aspens, there's
you know, there's cover if it rains, and I'm gonna
put myself in those areas where there's the most diversity
(17:24):
of cover in one area, because at some point I'm
gonna stumble across something, or my dog isn't gonna go
point something. Same thing for pheasants, cattails, short grass, long grass, crops,
like everything in one area. You increase your odds of
finding something just by happenstance because there's so many types
of cover.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Well, that's so that's a really that's a good point
because a lot of times we talk about these like
very specific incidences where you're like, I saw these animals
do this thing specifically, and so I think people take
that away and they're like, well, I gotta go out
and find that lone tree in the big woods that's
dropping acorns.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
It's not like that.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
No, it's like if you I mean, I think one
of the most basic rules to follow with this, and
it's it kind of bleeds into almost all of my
hunting and fishing is edges matter.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Yes, hard edges, soft edges.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Hard edges are easiest to see, but soft edges, like
when you when you wade into or let's say this
that you stand back and look at a cattail slop
and it's you know, one hundred acres of cattails. It
looks like mono haabitat from here to the end. And
then you wade in there and a lot of it
is just sucks, but one part will be blown down
this way because of the way the hills are in
(18:32):
the distance and the winds came through it whatever time.
And then there's a you know, there's a ditch and
so there's like that sawgrass mixed in there, and then
you get inside of it, and then for some reason
it's wetter or dryer, and there's a soft edge in
there that might have you know, like a little plump
thicket going through there, and all of a sudden, instead
of just wading into nothingness and being like I'm just gonna,
(18:55):
you know, gorilla warfare my way through you know, three
hours of cat tail, you're like, I, I literally can
see the route I should probably take because I'm either
gonna hit those hard edges or like hardsh edges where
they're gonna stop and wait for me, yeah, or they're
just going to be there because there's multiple types of cover,
not just the geothermal cover, not just the overhead cover,
(19:16):
the brushy berry stuff and you so you don't have
to have like that knowledge where you're like, I know
they eat this on this day and this barometric pressure
right on down the line. You can just be like,
I know that they are critters who like an edge,
and I can see that and I can structure my
route to it.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
It's like, yeah, tak taking that step back and this
is like, yeah, touching on multiple points we talked about,
but take a step back, look at like why, like
think of a why are the birds gonna be in
this area? It's like, well, to your point, if it's
if it's a big hundred acre cattail slew, yeah, like
that's a lot of ground to cover. So I mean
my approach is I am very like I will not
(19:56):
sit and beat areas up in terms of like if
there's a hundred your cattail slu like, I am not
gonna walk through it.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
I'm gonna I'm gonna go and pick apart right the
key areas.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
I'm gonna go to the next spot, pick apart the
key areas, go to the next spot versus I don't
walk and cover the entire thing. I'm just it's like
a power fishing, like go to the best areas, But
why are those birds in that area because there a
crop field on this side of the Like if there's
a cropfield, say on the left side of the swamp,
(20:28):
well the oddside of the birds are probably gonna be there,
especially if it's you know, on a backside where there's
less pressure. I'm gonna go walk those key areas and
then then go right.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Well and that's I mean, we talk about this all
the time, but like the access issue, you know, like
where does the pressure originate from? Because you can just
about look into the future and see what people are
going to do. So that kind of stuff too, even
just hunting a different way. But if you think about
you know, like I have this for years in the
(21:01):
white tail space, like how do you find bucks on
public land?
Speaker 3 (21:04):
How do you find bucks on public land?
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Most of what I'm doing is just trying to do
something different than other people.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
And then if you can.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Figure out like they usually do this, If I try this,
then you'll bump into the animals that know that they
usually do this. Yeah, and we think I was thinking
about this at the end of the season this year
in Minnesota, where I was like, these pheasants have us
so figured out by now because they get hunted so much.
So unless I do something different and play that win
(21:33):
right and structure my routes to like just show them
something different of that knowledge, right, I think about every
big game animal I've ever hunted. Of course they're going
to pattern you on public land. If a pheasant can
do it, you know, if the grouse can sit out
there and they can hear that four wheel are on
the two track and they can be in that old
(21:54):
homestead with the crab apples or whatever, they're just going
to do that and the pressure is going to go
buy them over and over again.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Yeah, that's a super interesting point. I've got a kind
of a fun case study. So there's a there's a
piece of puppic plan a WMA near my house that
I run run the dogs on every day that's legal.
So from July fifteenth to April first, like, I would
go if I wasn't hunting, I would go take all
the dogs out and we'd go run the WMA. Every
single day. We would do this. It was just exercise.
(22:23):
For the dog. So but I would do the same
route every single day. And by doing it every single day,
you see those patterns on what those birds are doing.
Like people would come and it's like I'd be there
and they'd come hunt it. During the season, I wasn't hunting.
I was just running them, and it's like I see
what they would do, and it's like I'd do a
(22:45):
I do this every day so I can tell you
what they're gonna do, where they're gonna be, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
But yeah, it's like like clockwork.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
I would see somebody pull in and they would walk
down the edge around this shelter belt. It's like, man,
I do this every day in these birds like they
know this game. Like it's there's a lot of birds
on this piece of property, but maybe I don't know
one out of ten days would I maybe move a
pheasant or my dog's like I would get in range
(23:13):
to shoot a pheasant if I was hunting, And so yeah,
it's just just really interesting.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
To see how well they learned that.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
And on this property, there's an access on the back
side of it as well, but it's overgrown.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
You kind of got.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
To pick your way to get to it, and the
times that I go and park there and work it
the opposite way. It's like the birds they just don't
understand what's going on there. Right, It's like, oh, and
I get if I go and I'd rarely do that side,
but if I do, it's like almost every time I
(23:49):
am getting within gun range of a bird.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Right.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
So yeah, it's just very interesting, not that complicated. No,
it just takes. It just takes a little different. We
got to wrap this up here in a second. I
want to talk about just a couple things. I know,
so people are going to listen to this and they're
gonna be like, well, there's still no birds on public
land by my house. And I just want to say, like,
when I moved to the suburbs of the Twin Cities,
I was like, I have no birds. Like I'm like,
(24:12):
I have no birds to hunt. But I had to
find a place to hunt deer. So I started scouting
white tails because I'm like, I got to I gotta
be in a tree stand.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
I just do.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
And I started finding wood ducks that were real patternable.
I started finding some teal that were real patternable. I
had a retriever, so I was like, well, switch gears now,
and in the process of that, it just hit me
so hard. I was like I had taken woodcock for
granted because of I have access to big woods, lots
(24:43):
of woodcock stuff if I want it. It's not my
I'd rather hunt grouse. I'd rather hunt a lot of
stuff than a woodcock, just would.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
But I was.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
I remember sitting on a tree stand in this spot
in the Cities, listening to traffic and watching woodcock fly
into this swamp and just going, Okay, they have no
idea where they're at. So even though eleven months of
year you might not have a viable upland bird like
population at all to hunt there, there's a time in
(25:11):
October where all of a sudden, these worm meters from
Canada show up and you can go in there and
have a true upland hunt. And I started all of
my dogs as puppies on woodcock in the Twin Cities,
in a place where people are like, you can't do it,
and it's like there's a window.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Is it your dream hunt? No? I love shooting woodcock, right, it's.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Great, But yeah, no, is it like the end, I'll
be all the best thing in the world.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Probably not well, but what I mean by that is like,
do people want to sit there and listen to morning
rush hour traffic? Like love Woodcock? Hate him, I don't care.
What I'm saying is like, if you look at that scenario,
you'd be like, that's not necessarily like where I would.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
I wouldn't choose it. I would draw up a better plan.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
But it was even there, So I'm like, all I
want to say is like, there probably are opportunities closer
than you think for something at some point in the
season where you can get your dog out, find some
birds on public land and still have a bad ass hunt.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, And that's you know, It's it's that taking again,
the taking that step back and realizing like, hey, it
might not be Woodcock.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
You might live in in Phoenix.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Well, in that case, it's called the Gamble's Quail Right
right there, they're littered, Like you pick a city and
there's there's probably something happening there.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
It's just taking that step back and.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Say, hey, maybe I won't talking to a guy here
at Sewee and he's like, yeah, I hunted forty days
and I found one covey at Quail and he's like,
then I then.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
I figured then I heard about Woodcock.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
And now I'm making ten contacts a day. So he's
like that was a game changer, right, So it's taking
that step back and realized like, Okay, what other opportunities
are here for me if I'm developing a dog, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Right, you brought up the the Arizona thing. I know,
I said I was gonna wrap this up. We will second.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
I it.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
I know a whole bunch of people who have and
you know you're talking a state that's like fifty percent
public land, three different species of quail.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Season goes into like February or it did, Yeah, still does.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
So it's a destination place for a lot of people
who have the means to be like, I want to
keep my freaking season going. But the people I know
who are really good at that down there, you would
have thousands of acres of the same kind of mono habitat,
Like where are these birds? Where do you start? Well,
if you live in the desert, you're gonna get thirsty.
(27:31):
So you can look at those cattle tanks, the water tanks,
like the gozzlers and start there and be like, now
my route is this Instead of lighting out across the
desert and being like, I hope I find a covey
of quail in this, and so just even a little
intention and using some tools there to put you at
least where like at some point in the day these
(27:54):
birds are going to drink. Maybe it's this one, maybe
it's the next one where it spills out and there's
some nice grass below it or something. They're going to
show up there and you're already putting yourself your odds
are just better to get your dog some contacts and
get you just like have a better hunt.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
I love that shit.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Yeah, yeah, because I remember distinctly first time I hunted
New Mexico, Like we just went out and it was
this area that there were words there. We saw them
from the road they were running around, but it was
a big kreasout flat. So just the same thing for
hundreds of thousands of acres and sure there were words
in there. But the other thing, like we talked about,
(28:29):
is finding where they are and where you can actually
get an opportunity to shoot one there. They would just
I mean they were they were as fast as my
damn pointer was. Like they were just running. You could
never hold them. Went to a different area, thicker grass, right,
and Okay, now they're going to hold here or this
is an opportunity where we can pin them against something.
(28:49):
So that was that was an eye opening experience. That's
shit's so fun. Yeah, so fun. All Right, we got
to wrap this up.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
There's tons of people here at the expo and adorable
puppies walking by us.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
Ben, thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Uh, if you're listening to this and you want to
figure out where birds are, obviously, I mean Ben works
for AX, we have a tight relationship with him, but
it's like a that's one of the tools that put
so many birds in my game bag. I live off
of it because it just works.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Yep, appreciate it. Tell me thanks buddy. Yeah,
Hey, everyone, Welcome to the Foundations podcast. I'm your host
Tony Peterson. We have a special bonus episode for you
today where Ben Bredigan from on X and I are
going to break down how to find birds on public land.
So we are at the Southeastern Wildlife Expo right now
and I'm about to talk to my buddy Ben, who
(00:23):
works for on X, passionate bird hunter, loves to hunt
roosters just like I do. And we are just going
to talk a little bit about our strategy for finding
birds because a lot of times you hear people say that,
you know, there are no public land bird opportunities. And
we're down here way in the southeast. We're in Charleston,
South Carolina, so we're kind of in like quail territory,
and you hear this across the country, and so Ben
(00:44):
and I are going to break this down right now.
So Ben, the first question I have for you is
when you go duck hunting, Let's say you got a
bunch of mallard scouted out yep. Are you usually the
kind of guy who's there before first light or do
you show up about three hours later.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I like to find I like to find a good
flight low thing shoot generally where you show up at noon.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
I'm just I'm giving Ben a little bit of shit
because we had a little scheduling issue this morning.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
I was working on Pacific time. In my defense, a
lot of stuff happens at these shows. Yeah, keep you
out pretty late, make the mornings a little early. Yeah,
But seriously, man, thanks for thanks for doing this. I
know you know, you and I have kind of flown
in the same circles. We live in the same state,
and I know you're you're super passionate about the public
land bird thing.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Get your dogs out there. And I know you hear this,
and I hear this a lot, And this is why
I want to do this. People people always say I
would love to haunt x, I would love to hunt.
Why you hear you know, in this part of the world,
it's quail, right, there's no bob whit quail left and
there's nothing worth hunting or the grouse population is low.
(01:58):
But you find birds every year in multiple species. How
do you start. Yeah, So here's the biggest thing.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
It's it's uh, it's a bit of a kicker, but
there shouldn't be a secret.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Is I go to where the birds live?
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Okay, again, Like that's the biggest thing, is like, so
what do you say to somebody who's like, there are
no birds on the public land where.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
I live, Well, go somewhere else or so come out.
There's two ways to two ways to skin the cat.
First is go to where they live, go to where
the best populations are if you if you're able, if
you want to travel. But there's also on the flip side,
if you want to stay local, like there are odds
are there are birds, especially when we talked about pest
in country, like there will be birds there. It is
(02:40):
just finding the optimal piece of habitat to be able
to hunt. Like it's you know, on bad bird years,
there are only birds in the best spots. On good
bird years, then you can go hunt marginal habitat and
still find birds. But it's just depending on where you know,
where are they going to live. You see this a lot.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
You know, I live in the suburbs of the Twin Cities,
and so when I moved up to that's part of
the reason I started duck hunting, because I could find
migratory birds that would hit some of the ponds and
the rivers, and I had to you know, I would
rather pheasant hunt. I just would, but that's not what
you have. And then you start to realize, Okay, well there,
I'm not going to kill a grouse here, I'm not
going to kill a rooster. But the woodcock migration comes through,
(03:21):
and now you're out there sitting on your tree standing
in early October and you're like, Okay, there's another opportunity
happening here. And I think I see this a lot,
you know, like with people who dream about Western big game,
like I'd love to hunt elk, but I never will
because of y or Z. It's like, well there's still
hunts out there, but you you're gonna have to change
like your expectations, right, And the bird world, it's easier
(03:41):
to be like there are no pheasants, there's no wild
pheasants in Iowa anymore, and I'm not going to do it.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
And it's like that's just that's just not true, right, right,
Like there are they're there. Well, that's one thing I
really appreciate, appreciate about you, Tony, is like I followed
you a lot, like the big game deer hunting, Like
you go out and it's it's all about expectations, right,
you know, you weren't going out and shooting booters, but
like you were successful in a lot of different states
chasing deer, and it was that's a that's a great
(04:09):
eye opener. It should be an example for a lot
of people. It's like, yeah, you can go do this.
Don't expect to light the world on fire just just
because you went to South Dakota. Don't expect that you're
gonna light the world on fire. It's still tough in
a lot of situations on public land, but if you
set those expectations correctly, it's gonna be a successful trip.
And what's I always tell people, if you go and
(04:30):
do it, go drive and experience it.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
What's the worst that's gonna happen?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Like, you're not gonna find a bunch of birds, right,
that's fine, right, You're not gonna die generally hopefully not
right right?
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Well, And that's I kind of I kind of equate this.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
You know, I grew up in southeastern Minnesota, so I
fish the Mississippi River a lot. And if you were
like a Basque guy or a northern guy, walleyes would
be a little different. But you could look at the
backwaters of the Mississippi and be like, there are thousands
and thousands of acres of basque cover bassie looking cove right, right,
But you start getting in there and there's no current here,
(05:05):
and it's kind of it's not the right stuff. And
then you find that sand drop or you find something
where you're like, oh, they are here because the shatter
fed to them or whatever. There's like an advantage people
in the bird world. You take pheasants and you go,
I want to walk that nhigh crp and I want
to watch my dog work perfectly and flush those birds
when it's birdy, or get on that tripod point. And
(05:26):
it's like, if you're on a private place that's been
babysat or your early season and you have that high population,
you might be able to expect that hunt if it's
at if it's December.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
That's not going to be your reality in most situations, right.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
So it's a matter of people think that they're going
to go out there. Their expectation is that I'm going
to go out there because you hunt pheasants this way
in this cover.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Yeah, but those pheasants that live.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
That way and that cover are dead, and so you
have to go, Okay, my hunt is going to be
different now, But it doesn't mean that they're not there. Yeah,
just means that they're not gonna be there where it's easy.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Well.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
And the other thing too, is like they might be there,
but it's a situation that doesn't yield itself well for
you being able to get on them and shoot them.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Right.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Sure, they're certainly utilizing maybe it's like early successional habitat,
but the problem is is it's thin, it's short, They're
gonna be spooky, they're gonna run, and where are they
gonna run to or fly to?
Speaker 3 (06:23):
The cattails? Right? And that's where you got to play
with them in a lot of situations, right.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
And that's you know, I always tell people we were
talking right before this, you know, like my my, the
closest thing to dying and going to heaven for me
right now is walking into a giant cat tail slew
in the late season because I know there's enough birds
in there to work. Whether I'm gonna walk out.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
With a limit or not.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
I know my dog is gonna be bloody and it's
gonna be a it's you're gonna feel like you did something.
But I I always tell people like we pull into
parking areas and we'll see people leaving and you can
still look out there, and if it's the right cover
and you know how to read it, you're like, there's
multiple limits here.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Still, I just need to solve for that.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
And so instead of going and walking around the edge
like the last guy did and all the birds got
pushed in the middle, or you know, you think about
I use coming from the space that I come from.
I use on X for white tail hunting and western hunting,
religiously turkey haunting trips. What I didn't realize was how
how I had started using it just to find parcels
(07:30):
right Like, I'm like, okay, well I could peasant hunt
this three twenty or this section or whatever. But you
start toggling between layers and seeing low land and then
looking at it, you know, like on the top of
a layer, and then looking at it on you know,
the hybrid layer or whatever and seeing, okay, now it
looks like this is mostly this, but in the back
(07:50):
corner there's a huge kattoo slew or something lower where
those birds are going to be, and you can start
to be targeted instead of burning yourself out and burning
your dog out. And I think a lot of people
do that where they're like, I'm just gonna accept that
this is gonna suck and not be good instead of
going like, okay, well, if you have X amount of
physical capital and you're gonna burn it on the grass
(08:11):
hunt where they're not gonna be you could go hunt
that cattail salu that's in the back corner and probably
have a better chance, or go hit that vein of
willows or dogwood or whatever and.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Just just make it happen. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yeah, I mean I applaud you for going and busting cattails.
My like, my, uh, my technique is a little different
because I absolutely hate just marching through Like that sounds
like my hell, So that is very fun that you're
like I love this.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
That's cool.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
But yeah, like the biggest thing is being successful. Whether
it's quail, whether it's pheasants, whether it's X y Z
bird species. The people that I find that are good
at scouting are people that can understand aerial imagery and
translate to what that looks like on the ground, right
that like that period, like if I could you look
(09:00):
at a map and you're like, oh, that's you know,
that looks like some cattails next to some thick grass. Okay,
here's you know, here's some like a little shelter belt
next to it. Okay, the grass gets a little thicker,
grass gets a little thicker, and they can you can
just quickly look at a map and say, oh, yeah,
that'll be a good spot, right.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
That's the that's the biggest thing, And that's that's something
we preach on the on the white tail side specifically.
A lot is like, you know, if you're winter scouting
and you find something, look at what it looks like,
so you can repeat that pattern. When you draw that,
I would tag and it one of the one of
the places that I think that that's most valuable. So
I talk a lot about pheasants because I love it,
and I know you do. But when you think about
(09:37):
the big wood stuff, whether you're in uh, you know,
northern Michigan, or you're in some of these swamps down
here somewhere and you have some level of timber activity
and you have some level of true swamp edge, you know,
maybe where you'll have your woodcock or whatever, when you start,
when you start to plan your routes around that stuff
instead of just like, okay, I'm gonna walk the two
track that literally everybody walks, right, and those dumb grouse
(10:00):
have been shot out since September twentieth. And you start
to do that, and you go, okay, well I flushed
three birds in a row on this walk. Why are
you on that soft edge? Was there timber?
Speaker 3 (10:12):
You know? Did they clear cut this seven years ago?
Like what are you working with?
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Because as soon as you start putting those pieces together,
You're like, I'm not wasting time anymore.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Yeah, Like I'm I have.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
A calculated route and I know the wind, and so
I'm like, well I can swoop down here find some woodcock,
or there should be grouse on this route. And man,
you start putting pieces like patterns like that together, so fun.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Yeah, and and and to that point, it's like, you know,
you talk about whether it's a big marsh or a
big woods. It's those nuances that often make a difference, like, oh,
this is just a giant patch of woods. It's like no, no,
Like if you move a bird, I mean I do
it a lot with fishing too. It's like why is
that bird here?
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Right?
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Like, open up its crop, look at why it's here,
Especially in the case with the grouse. I think grouse
are much more multi dimensional than a pheasant. Like pheasant's
like you know where they're gonna be, but gross can
be a bit of a game. But yeah, like figure
out stop look around and say, hey, why is this
bird here right now? And then go replicate that. So
(11:10):
that's why I preach like an onyx to go put
a pin. It's like if you shoot a bird, put
a pin. So then in the moment it's hard to
you know, it's like you're fired up, you want to
go hunt birds like I'm I'm blowing and going when
I'm hunting, but I'll always drop a pin on the
spot I kill a bird, because then I'll take a
step back, like after the hunt or this time of
the year when it's you know, not a lot going on,
(11:31):
and I'll look back and say like, oh, like start
to put together patterns and start to hone in and
get better at finding birds versus just like oh that
was fun shot birds here. It's like the why behind
it will help make you a better bird hunter huge,
And that's I think that that.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
I think that a lot of people look at bird
hunting with their dogs sort of like a lot of
Western hunters look at like elk hunting like I'm going
to walk down my opportunity. I'm going to go find it,
and it's I don't need a bunch of inputs, you know,
Like on the white sail side, we're obsessed with like
the setup right right, like is it the conditions?
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Is it the spot?
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Like is it what where are they at seasonally? And
you know, like Western hunting, you're just like I'm gonna
go out and wait for one to bugle or spot
one in a meadow. Bird hunters do that a lot
where they're like, well, I just like walking through this spot,
So I'm going to just go do this regardless of
time of day, you know, time of season, right, is
it a Saturday afternoon or is it a Tuesday morning?
(12:29):
And I'll tell you what I got a lesson last year.
I do a lot of I do more early season
grouse hunting than I ever have because I've been over
in northern Wisconsin a lot the last few years with
my daughters. Yeah, and that the gray dogwood thing, you know,
I've been around gray dog woods. They're all over that
kind of region. But my daughter drew a bear tag
(12:49):
last year and so we were over there just before
the deer and the grouse season opened up, baiting bears
and hunting them, and I had I'm not a good
bear hunter, but I had this bear that was really
and I'm like, God, I hope this one sticks right,
And I pulled her out of school. I was so
confident that bear was going to come in. We hunted,
it didn't come in, and I go, so it must
(13:09):
have known we were there, right, Like, I got to
fill in the blanks.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Well.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
The next that night, I told my daughter, I said,
this bear's been coming in randomly all day long.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Let's go do an all day bear sit. See.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Yeah, she killed that bear at noon, really, and that
bear was full, I mean full of gray dogwood berries.
And so I was like, if this is a valuable
enough food source today to keep a bear from coming
into a pile of doughnut king and gummy bears and shit,
(13:40):
then you're like, if you're a grouse, if you're a
one pound bird out there, that is what you're going
to do every day until that food source is gone, right,
And so, like you said, if you're out there and
you're like I got you know, I'm flushing birds here
there or whatever, I kill one and you open it
up and you see those white berries in there because
they're ripe, Like, there's your pattern.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Where are those Where is that food source? Damn? And
I love that shit. Yeah, that is super interesting.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yeah, because it's like that's a good point, Like I
never thought about that. This year was a we had
a quite a bumper crop for acorns right in a
lot of the state, right right, and this year, more
than ever I have seen. I saw grouse with five
(14:26):
six whole acorns in their crop and early on in
the year, and it was like, at first it was like, oh,
this is interesting, Like whatever I shot this, girls, that's
got a bunch of acorns in it. But like it
happened consistently, and so we actually spent some time up
up in the northeast part of the state where there
oak trees are not super common. But after seeing this
(14:49):
all year, it was like, this was later in the season,
I'm gonna go and find oak trees. And it was
funny because generally oaks are not gonna be a preferred
species for grouse. Generally, you know it's you're looking for
that stem density. But I turned on I think it
was a oak producing or the acorn producing oaks layer,
and I was like, I'm just gonna try this. I'm
(15:11):
gonna like, I don't care what what the cover looks like,
but I would run my dog in that northeast or
in the northeast region where there's not very many oaks,
I would go and find those oaks, and it seemingly
didn't matter what the cover looked like, right, and there
would be Now whether they would hold or not was
a different story, but there'd be grouse there, right.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
So that's I mean.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
One of the things that I've noticed I see this
a lot with grouse is when you spend a lot
of time in tree stands, like in the big woods,
you see them doing things like I think people have
you kind of alluded to this earlier, Like I think
people have this idea that rough grouse specifically don't really
cover a lot of ground, you know, Oh, they don't run, like,
(15:54):
they don't do a lot of these things that we
think like people say they don't do, which is they
do all of those things, and often when there's a
food source like that, Like I noticed this last year
when I was hunting in northern Wisconsin. One of the
spots I set up on this huge chunk of public land,
just like.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Miles of big woods.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
I had grouse flying into a tree not very far
away from me, where it was like you would see
them coming through the woods and they would land in
their feed and they would.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Fly back out.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Interesting, and I've seen that in different I've seen that
sitting because you do like an all day sit. You
just notice like they're not even walking in a lot
of times where you'd be like, oh, they're picking along.
They're like, there's my destination food source going there. I'm
going there, and then I'm going to leave and go
back to something that shit's so valuable.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Oh, that's really interesting, especially especially with gross, which are
so multifaceted. That's like another situ or another situation set
up that works well for pheasants, grows x y Z games,
bird species is finding that mosaic of cover where there
are a lot of different parts all together in one area.
(17:01):
Because yeah, with gross, like I mean, I haven't There's
a few people I know that have like figured out
their biologists, like they understand I have not like figured
out the game. So it's like I'm gonna put myself
in an area where there are pines, there's aspens, there's
you know, there's cover if it rains, and I'm gonna
put myself in those areas where there's the most diversity
(17:24):
of cover in one area, because at some point I'm
gonna stumble across something, or my dog isn't gonna go
point something. Same thing for pheasants, cattails, short grass, long grass, crops,
like everything in one area. You increase your odds of
finding something just by happenstance because there's so many types
of cover.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Well, that's so that's a really that's a good point
because a lot of times we talk about these like
very specific incidences where you're like, I saw these animals
do this thing specifically, and so I think people take
that away and they're like, well, I gotta go out
and find that lone tree in the big woods that's
dropping acorns.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
It's not like that.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
No, it's like if you I mean, I think one
of the most basic rules to follow with this, and
it's it kind of bleeds into almost all of my
hunting and fishing is edges matter.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Yes, hard edges, soft edges.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Hard edges are easiest to see, but soft edges, like
when you when you wade into or let's say this
that you stand back and look at a cattail slop
and it's you know, one hundred acres of cattails. It
looks like mono haabitat from here to the end. And
then you wade in there and a lot of it
is just sucks, but one part will be blown down
this way because of the way the hills are in
(18:32):
the distance and the winds came through it whatever time.
And then there's a you know, there's a ditch and
so there's like that sawgrass mixed in there, and then
you get inside of it, and then for some reason
it's wetter or dryer, and there's a soft edge in
there that might have you know, like a little plump
thicket going through there, and all of a sudden, instead
of just wading into nothingness and being like I'm just gonna,
(18:55):
you know, gorilla warfare my way through you know, three
hours of cat tail, you're like, I, I literally can
see the route I should probably take because I'm either
gonna hit those hard edges or like hardsh edges where
they're gonna stop and wait for me, yeah, or they're
just going to be there because there's multiple types of cover,
not just the geothermal cover, not just the overhead cover,
(19:16):
the brushy berry stuff and you so you don't have
to have like that knowledge where you're like, I know
they eat this on this day and this barometric pressure
right on down the line. You can just be like,
I know that they are critters who like an edge,
and I can see that and I can structure my
route to it.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
It's like, yeah, tak taking that step back and this
is like, yeah, touching on multiple points we talked about,
but take a step back, look at like why, like
think of a why are the birds gonna be in
this area? It's like, well, to your point, if it's
if it's a big hundred acre cattail slew, yeah, like
that's a lot of ground to cover. So I mean
my approach is I am very like I will not
(19:56):
sit and beat areas up in terms of like if
there's a hundred your cattail slu like, I am not
gonna walk through it.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
I'm gonna I'm gonna go and pick apart right the
key areas.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
I'm gonna go to the next spot, pick apart the
key areas, go to the next spot versus I don't
walk and cover the entire thing. I'm just it's like
a power fishing, like go to the best areas, But
why are those birds in that area because there a
crop field on this side of the Like if there's
a cropfield, say on the left side of the swamp,
(20:28):
well the oddside of the birds are probably gonna be there,
especially if it's you know, on a backside where there's
less pressure. I'm gonna go walk those key areas and
then then go right.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Well and that's I mean, we talk about this all
the time, but like the access issue, you know, like
where does the pressure originate from? Because you can just
about look into the future and see what people are
going to do. So that kind of stuff too, even
just hunting a different way. But if you think about
you know, like I have this for years in the
(21:01):
white tail space, like how do you find bucks on
public land?
Speaker 3 (21:04):
How do you find bucks on public land?
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Most of what I'm doing is just trying to do
something different than other people.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
And then if you can.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Figure out like they usually do this, If I try this,
then you'll bump into the animals that know that they
usually do this. Yeah, and we think I was thinking
about this at the end of the season this year
in Minnesota, where I was like, these pheasants have us
so figured out by now because they get hunted so much.
So unless I do something different and play that win
(21:33):
right and structure my routes to like just show them
something different of that knowledge, right, I think about every
big game animal I've ever hunted. Of course they're going
to pattern you on public land. If a pheasant can
do it, you know, if the grouse can sit out
there and they can hear that four wheel are on
the two track and they can be in that old
(21:54):
homestead with the crab apples or whatever, they're just going
to do that and the pressure is going to go
buy them over and over again.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Yeah, that's a super interesting point. I've got a kind
of a fun case study. So there's a there's a
piece of puppic plan a WMA near my house that
I run run the dogs on every day that's legal.
So from July fifteenth to April first, like, I would
go if I wasn't hunting, I would go take all
the dogs out and we'd go run the WMA. Every
single day. We would do this. It was just exercise.
(22:23):
For the dog. So but I would do the same
route every single day. And by doing it every single day,
you see those patterns on what those birds are doing.
Like people would come and it's like I'd be there
and they'd come hunt it. During the season, I wasn't hunting.
I was just running them, and it's like I see
what they would do, and it's like I'd do a
(22:45):
I do this every day so I can tell you
what they're gonna do, where they're gonna be, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
But yeah, it's like like clockwork.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
I would see somebody pull in and they would walk
down the edge around this shelter belt. It's like, man,
I do this every day in these birds like they
know this game. Like it's there's a lot of birds
on this piece of property, but maybe I don't know
one out of ten days would I maybe move a
pheasant or my dog's like I would get in range
(23:13):
to shoot a pheasant if I was hunting, And so yeah,
it's just just really interesting.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
To see how well they learned that.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
And on this property, there's an access on the back
side of it as well, but it's overgrown.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
You kind of got.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
To pick your way to get to it, and the
times that I go and park there and work it
the opposite way. It's like the birds they just don't
understand what's going on there. Right, It's like, oh, and
I get if I go and I'd rarely do that side,
but if I do, it's like almost every time I
(23:49):
am getting within gun range of a bird.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Right.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
So yeah, it's just very interesting, not that complicated. No,
it just takes. It just takes a little different. We
got to wrap this up here in a second. I
want to talk about just a couple things. I know,
so people are going to listen to this and they're
gonna be like, well, there's still no birds on public
land by my house. And I just want to say, like,
when I moved to the suburbs of the Twin Cities,
I was like, I have no birds. Like I'm like,
(24:12):
I have no birds to hunt. But I had to
find a place to hunt deer. So I started scouting
white tails because I'm like, I got to I gotta
be in a tree stand.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
I just do.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
And I started finding wood ducks that were real patternable.
I started finding some teal that were real patternable. I
had a retriever, so I was like, well, switch gears now,
and in the process of that, it just hit me
so hard. I was like I had taken woodcock for
granted because of I have access to big woods, lots
(24:43):
of woodcock stuff if I want it. It's not my
I'd rather hunt grouse. I'd rather hunt a lot of
stuff than a woodcock, just would.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
But I was.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
I remember sitting on a tree stand in this spot
in the Cities, listening to traffic and watching woodcock fly
into this swamp and just going, Okay, they have no
idea where they're at. So even though eleven months of
year you might not have a viable upland bird like
population at all to hunt there, there's a time in
(25:11):
October where all of a sudden, these worm meters from
Canada show up and you can go in there and
have a true upland hunt. And I started all of
my dogs as puppies on woodcock in the Twin Cities,
in a place where people are like, you can't do it,
and it's like there's a window.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Is it your dream hunt? No? I love shooting woodcock, right, it's.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Great, But yeah, no, is it like the end, I'll
be all the best thing in the world.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Probably not well, but what I mean by that is like,
do people want to sit there and listen to morning
rush hour traffic? Like love Woodcock? Hate him, I don't care.
What I'm saying is like, if you look at that scenario,
you'd be like, that's not necessarily like where I would.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
I wouldn't choose it. I would draw up a better plan.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
But it was even there, So I'm like, all I
want to say is like, there probably are opportunities closer
than you think for something at some point in the
season where you can get your dog out, find some
birds on public land and still have a bad ass hunt.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, And that's you know, It's it's that taking again,
the taking that step back and realizing like, hey, it
might not be Woodcock.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
You might live in in Phoenix.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Well, in that case, it's called the Gamble's Quail Right
right there, they're littered, Like you pick a city and
there's there's probably something happening there.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
It's just taking that step back and.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Say, hey, maybe I won't talking to a guy here
at Sewee and he's like, yeah, I hunted forty days
and I found one covey at Quail and he's like,
then I then.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
I figured then I heard about Woodcock.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
And now I'm making ten contacts a day. So he's
like that was a game changer, right, So it's taking
that step back and realized like, Okay, what other opportunities
are here for me if I'm developing a dog, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Right, you brought up the the Arizona thing. I know,
I said I was gonna wrap this up. We will second.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
I it.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
I know a whole bunch of people who have and
you know you're talking a state that's like fifty percent
public land, three different species of quail.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Season goes into like February or it did, Yeah, still does.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
So it's a destination place for a lot of people
who have the means to be like, I want to
keep my freaking season going. But the people I know
who are really good at that down there, you would
have thousands of acres of the same kind of mono habitat,
Like where are these birds? Where do you start? Well,
if you live in the desert, you're gonna get thirsty.
(27:31):
So you can look at those cattle tanks, the water tanks,
like the gozzlers and start there and be like, now
my route is this Instead of lighting out across the
desert and being like, I hope I find a covey
of quail in this, and so just even a little
intention and using some tools there to put you at
least where like at some point in the day these
(27:54):
birds are going to drink. Maybe it's this one, maybe
it's the next one where it spills out and there's
some nice grass below it or something. They're going to
show up there and you're already putting yourself your odds
are just better to get your dog some contacts and
get you just like have a better hunt.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
I love that shit.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Yeah, yeah, because I remember distinctly first time I hunted
New Mexico, Like we just went out and it was
this area that there were words there. We saw them
from the road they were running around, but it was
a big kreasout flat. So just the same thing for
hundreds of thousands of acres and sure there were words
in there. But the other thing, like we talked about,
(28:29):
is finding where they are and where you can actually
get an opportunity to shoot one there. They would just
I mean they were they were as fast as my
damn pointer was. Like they were just running. You could
never hold them. Went to a different area, thicker grass, right,
and Okay, now they're going to hold here or this
is an opportunity where we can pin them against something.
(28:49):
So that was that was an eye opening experience. That's
shit's so fun. Yeah, so fun. All Right, we got
to wrap this up.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
There's tons of people here at the expo and adorable
puppies walking by us.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
Ben, thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Uh, if you're listening to this and you want to
figure out where birds are, obviously, I mean Ben works
for AX, we have a tight relationship with him, but
it's like a that's one of the tools that put
so many birds in my game bag. I live off
of it because it just works.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Yep, appreciate it. Tell me thanks buddy. Yeah,
Host
Cal Callaghan
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com