July 29, 2025 • 17 mins
This week, Tony explains why learning to read trees and keeping an open mind on how to set up in them, is often the key to killing more big bucks by not just defaulting to our go-to stands.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,
creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.
First Light, Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host
Tony Peterson.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hey, everyone, welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
which has brought to you by first Light. I'm your host,
Tony Peterson, and this episode is all about trees, you know,
learning how to read them and how that can help
you become a better deer hunter because you have better setups.
This one is one of those topics that sounds boring
as hell, but I'll tell you something.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
It's important.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
I spend a stupid amount of time looking up at trees,
eyeballing them, thinking about if I could get a stand
in them, and if I do, where and how I'll
set up. Now, this is relevant to summer stand hanging missions,
of course, but also throughout the rest of the season,
and it's absolutely necessary if you want to be a
mobile hunter at all. Now, I promise to try to
make this less boring than it sounds, and I promise
(01:02):
you that if you give it a listen and you
start to take it seriously, you will become a better
whitetail hunter.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
So buckle up, because it's time to talk about trees.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
There are roughly about seventy thousand different species of trees
on our planet. At least those are the ones that
have been identified and cataloged anyway, They obviously vary by
size and shape and a whole lot of other features
by species, and can be small, little tiny guys like
the Bonzai tree, or giants like those redwoods out on
the West coast. Throughout our history, trees have played a
(01:39):
significant role in our cultures and our religions, and it's
not surprising why from a practical perspective, a hell of
a lot of trees give us some sort of food,
and to break that down further, a lot of those
food sources like apples. We're probably one hell of a
seasonal here today, gone tomorrow type of tree for us,
(02:00):
just like they are for deer. Trees are also a
great place to take refuge, you know, and when something
big and toothy is considering you for breakfast, as long
as that's something that's big and toothy, is an also
adept at climbing trees. Trees are pretty good at showing
you where there's water in the ground or water flowing
above the ground too. It's not hard to imagine crossing
(02:21):
the prairies, you know, a couple hundred years ago anyway,
and being awfully parched, only to spot a sparse line
of cottonwoods in the distance. To you and I, that
might mean a good place to go look for some deer.
To someone making a foray into new territory, that might
mean the difference between life and death. This is practically
(02:42):
true and also something that has been true for a
long long time. Many mythologies contain trees to which people
of that time attach sacred meaning. Deciduous trees, for example,
seem to die in the winter along with most plants,
but not some conifers. Greens, being well ever, green, don't
(03:03):
show the same life and death cycle and have long
been associated with the eternal or immortality, or is the
case in many cultures fertility. We have a weird affinity
toward trees, but maybe it's not that weird.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
As a species.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
We've used them for our benefit for a long time,
and today, when you drive through a lot of places
that are dominated by grassland and egg you'll still see
carefully sculpted groves of trees around homesteads. We like the
privacy trees offer, and the wind break benefits, and the shade,
and well a lot of.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Stuff about them.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
As whitetail hunters, we think about trees a lot, but
often only in one specific direction. What kind of food
will they produce for deer? And what does that mean
to our hunting strategy? Where are the white oaks or
the persimon trees? We plant trees for the deer specifically,
and I'll tell you that one of the first things
I did, oh I've done every time I've bought deer ground,
(03:57):
I guess, is to go out and plant some apple trees.
Have yet to kill a single deer from that effort,
but I really like having apple trees around anyway.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
We think about trees as betting cover too.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
It's pretty hard to deny that old growth, big canopy
trees don't really allow for much understory, which means that
they might be passed through spots in most places, but
aren't likely to host a bunch of sleepy bucks in
any given day. But a four year old clearcut that's
full of saplings, that's a different story, And there's food
in there too, but the cover provides a huge advantage
(04:28):
to pray animals looking to take a snooze in safety.
When you think about deer hunting, at least scouting deer,
you're almost always thinking about trees in a variety of ways.
But what I really want to focus on here is
the reality of setting up in trees and how to
think about that, because that's a skill that seems pretty easy,
but it's often not. And the reason it's not is
(04:48):
because we usually default to a good stand tree and
sacrifice something in the process. So what makes a good
stand tree to most people, Well, it should be perfectly
straight trunk wise and have almost no branches below the
preferred stand height. With this kind of tree, you have
to do minimum amount of work to set it up.
It can accommodate a saddle or a hang on. It
(05:10):
can work just fine with a double ladder stand doesn't matter.
This type of tree is easy, and because of that,
it's the kind we look for the most.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
But easy isn't always the best route.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
And while it's always nice to find a good tree
in a spot you really want to hunt, that kind
of tree can cause you problems.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
I deal with this a lot.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
In some of the public land I hunt in northern Wisconsin,
there are some trees there, due mostly to the forestry
practices that are just ideal for.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Any type of setup.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
In fact, that's one of the places I still occasionally
use a climber stand, just because the trees are so
conducive to it. But I also get busted a lot
over there. There's nothing to break up my outline. And
I know this is crazy, but when there are scattered
trees like that throughout the woods, I feel like the
deer is just quicker to notice a two hundred pound
blob hanging off the side. I almost always have to
(06:00):
set up directly behind the trunk and actively have to
hide myself from the deer. I almost always get busted anyway,
at least in some of those trees. Now, you might
hunt somewhere else that has less pressure or deer that
just don't get hunted as much from stands, and you
might get away with this type of setup all season long.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
I do. Out West.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
There are a lot of cotton woods out there that
I've killed western white tails from that have very little
cover for me, and it doesn't seem to matter. But
the farther east I go, the rules seem to change.
This is an issue in a lot of places and
can be a real pain in the ass down south
where the hunting pressure is high. So the ideal stand
tree isn't always so ideal after all. But the less
(06:44):
than ideal stand trees also come with a lot of problems.
I like trees that have some branches and some cover
to work with, but not so much that I have
to spend more time sawing limbs than setting up. Now,
of course that's a private land deal. On a lot
of public land, that's a no go oh, So you
have to write off multi limb trees right from the jump.
This is tough in a lot of situations, but a
(07:07):
real pain in the ass where you're primarily working with
some types of pine trees. Now, some of the pine
tree plantations will offer up a million pine trees that
are all perfect for stands, but they usually offer the
deer very little. But a lot of pines are different,
and some of them are amazing for stands. Some will
have a band of limbs at intervals, and in between
those you'll have a nice section of bear trunk to
(07:29):
work with, which is ideal, not only do you have
some limbs to work with on your way up, but
you also have cover above and below you that's going
to stick around all season long, dream scenario stuff. The
downside of this is if you set up in pine
trees at all and have done any level of tripping,
you know what the SAP situation can be.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Like.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
I run into this a lot in my neck of
the woods because pine trees often offer the best cover,
and they often exist in places where there are like
little grassland, meadows and general staging area type of habitat.
But dealing with that SAP can really suck, and that's
just the nature of the beast.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
I haven't figured out a good way to.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Combat that yet, so sometimes I just resigned myself to it.
Resigning yourself to certain trees is the name of the game. Honestly.
If you watched the Rough Cuts episode I shot with
Steve in Oklahoma a few years ago, you'll see me
set up right in the beginning of the show on
a pond that has a bunch of per Simon trees
around it. Those trees were tiny, but it was the
(08:28):
best we could do in that setup. In fact, those
trees were so small I had to saddle up in
one and put my cameramen in a saddle in a
different one. Two people in any one of those trees,
especially as wendy as it was, would have been a
recipe for disaster.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Sometimes you just have to.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Make a small, not ideal tree work and then cross
your fingers that the first tear to come in is
the one you want to shoot, because it's a high
odds proposition that you'll get caught. But you can also
hunt areas bucks love if you're open to small trees,
and some of the cattail bucks in prairie pothole bucks
and bucks that just don't have big groves of trees
(09:15):
as an option, can be killed in tiny trees while
you're only slightly above their eye line. In fact, I
think a setup, you know, whether you're talking a saddle
or a small hang on, that is conducive to tiny
trees is one of the best things you can own
if you want to kill big bucks. The options for
where you can hunt just expand exponentially with one setup
(09:37):
like this, and you sure can learn a lot. Being
eight feet up and overlooking a swamp or a slew
where most hunters won't enter and certainly won't spend time
observing from any level of an aerial position. The other
side of the coin are the big trees that aren't
all that easy to set up in either. If you
check out the show that just dropped of my twenty
twenty four North Dakota hunt, you'll see me with on
(10:00):
a really good deer. The tree that I shot at
that deer from was in the right spot, but it
was way too big for the straps on my climbing sticks.
My camera man who's a good hunter, and I had
to get creative there because we did have extra straps
and we didn't need all of the sticks I brought
to get to stand height. So that perfect spot with
(10:22):
the two big tree suddenly became huntable by doubling down
on our straps. Look, it's not ideal, and I have
to say this if you ever go this route or
even consider it, think about your safety First. Gravity is undefeated,
and if you're not one hundred percent sure you can
pull it off safely, keep looking for a better tree.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Now, there are a.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Lot of other considerations when you're eyeballing trees to decide
if you can set up in them. To me, the
most important is having about four to six feet of
straight trunk to work with at some height where I
think I won't get busted.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
That's my criteria most of the time, and it's often
very difficult to find. But if you set up enough
stands or spend enough time mobile hunting, you start to
develop an eye for this sort of thing, and when
you do, you'll kill more big bucks. This is because
it'll allow you to work more spots better instead of
finding the right tree and then hoping the spot is
(11:16):
good enough. That was the downfall of the climbing stand thing.
For the most part, in my opinion. Aside from very
specific situations, you mostly spent time looking for a tree
that would work instead of scouting sign and set up
where the deer want to be. But even the best
mobile setups won't always work, which is why you have
to look at a tree and decide how to get
(11:36):
in it where your stand or saddle platform will go,
and then keep an open mind. I generally try to
climb up the backside of the tree, or to put
it a different way, decide I don't expect a deer
to come from when I get to the spot where
I intend to actually set up. I try to face
my stand almost entirely away from the likeliest approach position,
(11:57):
but still give myself like maybe twenty five degree ease
in their direction, so that as a right handed shooter,
I can either stay seated and shoot around the trunk,
or I can stand up and shoot around it, all
while keeping that tree trunk in between me and the deer.
I do this almost as a rule no matter where
I'm hunting, even on field edges where the poll to
set up facing right out toward the groceries is high.
(12:20):
This is something that provides an advantage in the moment
of truth when you have deer close, which seems obvious,
but it's also a hedge for future hunts. The less
I get busted in a tree, the better. So if
a bunch of dos come out and they are cagy,
I have a better chance of not blowing out the field.
If they have to look through the tree trunk to
see most of me, they can't do it, and that
(12:41):
helps preserve natural movement in my spots. This is almost
the opposite of the typical ladder stand strategy. I also
like having some cover to break up my outline, which
again is a no brainer but what does that really mean. Well,
any cover around your setup that can break up your
line is good cover, but a lot of it doesn't
(13:02):
really matter. What I really like is cover at my
exact level that extends behind me if possible. We tend
to think that leafy limbs in front of us are
the answer, and they can help for sure, but having
some good stuff behind you is huge. It'll break up
your outline and allow you to get away with more movement,
especially if you're dealing with a little bit of wind.
(13:24):
You want the deer to be able to look up
at you and just not recognize a human shape.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Honestly, it's that simple.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
A good way to think about this is that forty
years ago you could just get into a tree and
that was enough.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Most of the time.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
The deer just weren't as conditioned to look up for danger,
But in so many places that we hunt them at,
they just are. Now you still have to hide from
them somehow, even if you're seventeen or eighteen feet up.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Well, you don't have to, but you'll be better off
if you do.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
The caveat here is that sometimes you just have to
hunt what the land will give you, and at least
when you do, you generally have the element of surprise.
I can't prove this, but it sure feels like in
some types of cover deer ore prone to looking up,
while in other areas they just aren't. It makes sense
in my head anyway, because when they're in the woods,
they're in an area where if they encounter a human hunter,
(14:14):
he's very likely to be in a tree. But in
that marshland or swamp land, it's a different story. It's
also true that being in an elevated position just gives
you enough advantages that it's worth trying, even if the
setup is really rough and it feels like you're not
going to get away with it. You only need them
to slip up once. And I'm a huge believer that
(14:35):
trying stuff that has low odds but is in a
high odd spot that's almost always worth it. We often don't, though,
and that's why we default to our favorite ladder stands
and box blinds and the usual suspects. But learning to
make the available trees work is a huge advantage, and
you can do it on your home farm where you
really feel like you already have very little reason to
(14:57):
color outside the lines in this way. In fact, I
think some of these situations where we have our go
to year over year setups, they're some of the best
ones for us to try to read some new trees
in new spots and see what we can do with
them to show the deer we are in as one dimensional.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
As they think.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
I know it's not as exciting as talking about snort
wheezing in pre rut bucks, but learning how to look
at the trees in your region and figure out how
to hunt them where you want to hunt is a
skill that is so useful, and since it is a skill,
it takes practice. Think about this when you're starting to
get the itch this summer to scout or to go
out and hang some stands. Do you have a random
(15:37):
pond that you always wanted to hunt on your lease,
but you think the trees around it are too small.
Maybe you got a fence lign with some scrubby trees
that the bucks always run. Maybe you have one of
those monster trees that survive the axes and chainsaws for
whatever reason, just sits in the middle of the field,
but every time you hunt on the other edge, the
deer just walk by it and feed under it and
generally mill around it. Take a closer life, consider what
(16:01):
options you might have to set up there. You know,
maybe it's not an easy ladderstand type of setup, but
maybe you could get a hang on in there with
a little ingenuity. And if you do, you can almost
always bet the bucks won't have a clue you're there
the first time they show up when you're hunting them.
At least give it some thought and come back next
week because I'm going to talk about summer ranges and
(16:21):
fall ranges and buck excursions and all the movement they
do and what it means to you as you're scouting
this time of year. That's it for this week. I'm
Tony Peterson. This has been the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast,
which is brought to you by First Light. As always,
thank you so much for listening for all your support.
(16:43):
Truly truly appreciate it. You might notice we have a
new show here running a limited series with Jake Hoffer
about the land and habitat and all that cool stuff
that Mark and I try to cover, but we maybe
don't get into as much detail as Jake's going to
really good show.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Check it out.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
It's going to drop on this feed if you need
some more hunting content, you know where to go the
medeater dot com.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
New articles, new recipes.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
There's a couple of uh, you know, word games on there.
Maybe you just want to listen to a new podcast.
Maybe it's Lake's Backwoods University podcast on clays Feed. Whatever
new content dropping there every single day. Go check it
out at the mediater dot com.
Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,
creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.
First Light, Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host
Tony Peterson.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hey, everyone, welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
which has brought to you by first Light. I'm your host,
Tony Peterson, and this episode is all about trees, you know,
learning how to read them and how that can help
you become a better deer hunter because you have better setups.
This one is one of those topics that sounds boring
as hell, but I'll tell you something.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
It's important.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
I spend a stupid amount of time looking up at trees,
eyeballing them, thinking about if I could get a stand
in them, and if I do, where and how I'll
set up. Now, this is relevant to summer stand hanging missions,
of course, but also throughout the rest of the season,
and it's absolutely necessary if you want to be a
mobile hunter at all. Now, I promise to try to
make this less boring than it sounds, and I promise
(01:02):
you that if you give it a listen and you
start to take it seriously, you will become a better
whitetail hunter.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
So buckle up, because it's time to talk about trees.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
There are roughly about seventy thousand different species of trees
on our planet. At least those are the ones that
have been identified and cataloged anyway, They obviously vary by
size and shape and a whole lot of other features
by species, and can be small, little tiny guys like
the Bonzai tree, or giants like those redwoods out on
the West coast. Throughout our history, trees have played a
(01:39):
significant role in our cultures and our religions, and it's
not surprising why from a practical perspective, a hell of
a lot of trees give us some sort of food,
and to break that down further, a lot of those
food sources like apples. We're probably one hell of a
seasonal here today, gone tomorrow type of tree for us,
(02:00):
just like they are for deer. Trees are also a
great place to take refuge, you know, and when something
big and toothy is considering you for breakfast, as long
as that's something that's big and toothy, is an also
adept at climbing trees. Trees are pretty good at showing
you where there's water in the ground or water flowing
above the ground too. It's not hard to imagine crossing
(02:21):
the prairies, you know, a couple hundred years ago anyway,
and being awfully parched, only to spot a sparse line
of cottonwoods in the distance. To you and I, that
might mean a good place to go look for some deer.
To someone making a foray into new territory, that might
mean the difference between life and death. This is practically
(02:42):
true and also something that has been true for a
long long time. Many mythologies contain trees to which people
of that time attach sacred meaning. Deciduous trees, for example,
seem to die in the winter along with most plants,
but not some conifers. Greens, being well ever, green, don't
(03:03):
show the same life and death cycle and have long
been associated with the eternal or immortality, or is the
case in many cultures fertility. We have a weird affinity
toward trees, but maybe it's not that weird.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
As a species.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
We've used them for our benefit for a long time,
and today, when you drive through a lot of places
that are dominated by grassland and egg you'll still see
carefully sculpted groves of trees around homesteads. We like the
privacy trees offer, and the wind break benefits, and the shade,
and well a lot of.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Stuff about them.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
As whitetail hunters, we think about trees a lot, but
often only in one specific direction. What kind of food
will they produce for deer? And what does that mean
to our hunting strategy? Where are the white oaks or
the persimon trees? We plant trees for the deer specifically,
and I'll tell you that one of the first things
I did, oh I've done every time I've bought deer ground,
(03:57):
I guess, is to go out and plant some apple trees.
Have yet to kill a single deer from that effort,
but I really like having apple trees around anyway.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
We think about trees as betting cover too.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
It's pretty hard to deny that old growth, big canopy
trees don't really allow for much understory, which means that
they might be passed through spots in most places, but
aren't likely to host a bunch of sleepy bucks in
any given day. But a four year old clearcut that's
full of saplings, that's a different story, And there's food
in there too, but the cover provides a huge advantage
(04:28):
to pray animals looking to take a snooze in safety.
When you think about deer hunting, at least scouting deer,
you're almost always thinking about trees in a variety of ways.
But what I really want to focus on here is
the reality of setting up in trees and how to
think about that, because that's a skill that seems pretty easy,
but it's often not. And the reason it's not is
(04:48):
because we usually default to a good stand tree and
sacrifice something in the process. So what makes a good
stand tree to most people, Well, it should be perfectly
straight trunk wise and have almost no branches below the
preferred stand height. With this kind of tree, you have
to do minimum amount of work to set it up.
It can accommodate a saddle or a hang on. It
(05:10):
can work just fine with a double ladder stand doesn't matter.
This type of tree is easy, and because of that,
it's the kind we look for the most.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
But easy isn't always the best route.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
And while it's always nice to find a good tree
in a spot you really want to hunt, that kind
of tree can cause you problems.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
I deal with this a lot.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
In some of the public land I hunt in northern Wisconsin,
there are some trees there, due mostly to the forestry
practices that are just ideal for.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Any type of setup.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
In fact, that's one of the places I still occasionally
use a climber stand, just because the trees are so
conducive to it. But I also get busted a lot
over there. There's nothing to break up my outline. And
I know this is crazy, but when there are scattered
trees like that throughout the woods, I feel like the
deer is just quicker to notice a two hundred pound
blob hanging off the side. I almost always have to
(06:00):
set up directly behind the trunk and actively have to
hide myself from the deer. I almost always get busted anyway,
at least in some of those trees. Now, you might
hunt somewhere else that has less pressure or deer that
just don't get hunted as much from stands, and you
might get away with this type of setup all season long.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
I do. Out West.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
There are a lot of cotton woods out there that
I've killed western white tails from that have very little
cover for me, and it doesn't seem to matter. But
the farther east I go, the rules seem to change.
This is an issue in a lot of places and
can be a real pain in the ass down south
where the hunting pressure is high. So the ideal stand
tree isn't always so ideal after all. But the less
(06:44):
than ideal stand trees also come with a lot of problems.
I like trees that have some branches and some cover
to work with, but not so much that I have
to spend more time sawing limbs than setting up. Now,
of course that's a private land deal. On a lot
of public land, that's a no go oh, So you
have to write off multi limb trees right from the jump.
This is tough in a lot of situations, but a
(07:07):
real pain in the ass where you're primarily working with
some types of pine trees. Now, some of the pine
tree plantations will offer up a million pine trees that
are all perfect for stands, but they usually offer the
deer very little. But a lot of pines are different,
and some of them are amazing for stands. Some will
have a band of limbs at intervals, and in between
those you'll have a nice section of bear trunk to
(07:29):
work with, which is ideal, not only do you have
some limbs to work with on your way up, but
you also have cover above and below you that's going
to stick around all season long, dream scenario stuff. The
downside of this is if you set up in pine
trees at all and have done any level of tripping,
you know what the SAP situation can be.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Like.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
I run into this a lot in my neck of
the woods because pine trees often offer the best cover,
and they often exist in places where there are like
little grassland, meadows and general staging area type of habitat.
But dealing with that SAP can really suck, and that's
just the nature of the beast.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
I haven't figured out a good way to.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Combat that yet, so sometimes I just resigned myself to it.
Resigning yourself to certain trees is the name of the game. Honestly.
If you watched the Rough Cuts episode I shot with
Steve in Oklahoma a few years ago, you'll see me
set up right in the beginning of the show on
a pond that has a bunch of per Simon trees
around it. Those trees were tiny, but it was the
(08:28):
best we could do in that setup. In fact, those
trees were so small I had to saddle up in
one and put my cameramen in a saddle in a
different one. Two people in any one of those trees,
especially as wendy as it was, would have been a
recipe for disaster.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Sometimes you just have to.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Make a small, not ideal tree work and then cross
your fingers that the first tear to come in is
the one you want to shoot, because it's a high
odds proposition that you'll get caught. But you can also
hunt areas bucks love if you're open to small trees,
and some of the cattail bucks in prairie pothole bucks
and bucks that just don't have big groves of trees
(09:15):
as an option, can be killed in tiny trees while
you're only slightly above their eye line. In fact, I
think a setup, you know, whether you're talking a saddle
or a small hang on, that is conducive to tiny
trees is one of the best things you can own
if you want to kill big bucks. The options for
where you can hunt just expand exponentially with one setup
(09:37):
like this, and you sure can learn a lot. Being
eight feet up and overlooking a swamp or a slew
where most hunters won't enter and certainly won't spend time
observing from any level of an aerial position. The other
side of the coin are the big trees that aren't
all that easy to set up in either. If you
check out the show that just dropped of my twenty
twenty four North Dakota hunt, you'll see me with on
(10:00):
a really good deer. The tree that I shot at
that deer from was in the right spot, but it
was way too big for the straps on my climbing sticks.
My camera man who's a good hunter, and I had
to get creative there because we did have extra straps
and we didn't need all of the sticks I brought
to get to stand height. So that perfect spot with
(10:22):
the two big tree suddenly became huntable by doubling down
on our straps. Look, it's not ideal, and I have
to say this if you ever go this route or
even consider it, think about your safety First. Gravity is undefeated,
and if you're not one hundred percent sure you can
pull it off safely, keep looking for a better tree.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Now, there are a.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Lot of other considerations when you're eyeballing trees to decide
if you can set up in them. To me, the
most important is having about four to six feet of
straight trunk to work with at some height where I
think I won't get busted.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
That's my criteria most of the time, and it's often
very difficult to find. But if you set up enough
stands or spend enough time mobile hunting, you start to
develop an eye for this sort of thing, and when
you do, you'll kill more big bucks. This is because
it'll allow you to work more spots better instead of
finding the right tree and then hoping the spot is
(11:16):
good enough. That was the downfall of the climbing stand thing.
For the most part, in my opinion. Aside from very
specific situations, you mostly spent time looking for a tree
that would work instead of scouting sign and set up
where the deer want to be. But even the best
mobile setups won't always work, which is why you have
to look at a tree and decide how to get
(11:36):
in it where your stand or saddle platform will go,
and then keep an open mind. I generally try to
climb up the backside of the tree, or to put
it a different way, decide I don't expect a deer
to come from when I get to the spot where
I intend to actually set up. I try to face
my stand almost entirely away from the likeliest approach position,
(11:57):
but still give myself like maybe twenty five degree ease
in their direction, so that as a right handed shooter,
I can either stay seated and shoot around the trunk,
or I can stand up and shoot around it, all
while keeping that tree trunk in between me and the deer.
I do this almost as a rule no matter where
I'm hunting, even on field edges where the poll to
set up facing right out toward the groceries is high.
(12:20):
This is something that provides an advantage in the moment
of truth when you have deer close, which seems obvious,
but it's also a hedge for future hunts. The less
I get busted in a tree, the better. So if
a bunch of dos come out and they are cagy,
I have a better chance of not blowing out the field.
If they have to look through the tree trunk to
see most of me, they can't do it, and that
(12:41):
helps preserve natural movement in my spots. This is almost
the opposite of the typical ladder stand strategy. I also
like having some cover to break up my outline, which
again is a no brainer but what does that really mean. Well,
any cover around your setup that can break up your
line is good cover, but a lot of it doesn't
(13:02):
really matter. What I really like is cover at my
exact level that extends behind me if possible. We tend
to think that leafy limbs in front of us are
the answer, and they can help for sure, but having
some good stuff behind you is huge. It'll break up
your outline and allow you to get away with more movement,
especially if you're dealing with a little bit of wind.
(13:24):
You want the deer to be able to look up
at you and just not recognize a human shape.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Honestly, it's that simple.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
A good way to think about this is that forty
years ago you could just get into a tree and
that was enough.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Most of the time.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
The deer just weren't as conditioned to look up for danger,
But in so many places that we hunt them at,
they just are. Now you still have to hide from
them somehow, even if you're seventeen or eighteen feet up.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Well, you don't have to, but you'll be better off
if you do.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
The caveat here is that sometimes you just have to
hunt what the land will give you, and at least
when you do, you generally have the element of surprise.
I can't prove this, but it sure feels like in
some types of cover deer ore prone to looking up,
while in other areas they just aren't. It makes sense
in my head anyway, because when they're in the woods,
they're in an area where if they encounter a human hunter,
(14:14):
he's very likely to be in a tree. But in
that marshland or swamp land, it's a different story. It's
also true that being in an elevated position just gives
you enough advantages that it's worth trying, even if the
setup is really rough and it feels like you're not
going to get away with it. You only need them
to slip up once. And I'm a huge believer that
(14:35):
trying stuff that has low odds but is in a
high odd spot that's almost always worth it. We often don't, though,
and that's why we default to our favorite ladder stands
and box blinds and the usual suspects. But learning to
make the available trees work is a huge advantage, and
you can do it on your home farm where you
really feel like you already have very little reason to
(14:57):
color outside the lines in this way. In fact, I
think some of these situations where we have our go
to year over year setups, they're some of the best
ones for us to try to read some new trees
in new spots and see what we can do with
them to show the deer we are in as one dimensional.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
As they think.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
I know it's not as exciting as talking about snort
wheezing in pre rut bucks, but learning how to look
at the trees in your region and figure out how
to hunt them where you want to hunt is a
skill that is so useful, and since it is a skill,
it takes practice. Think about this when you're starting to
get the itch this summer to scout or to go
out and hang some stands. Do you have a random
(15:37):
pond that you always wanted to hunt on your lease,
but you think the trees around it are too small.
Maybe you got a fence lign with some scrubby trees
that the bucks always run. Maybe you have one of
those monster trees that survive the axes and chainsaws for
whatever reason, just sits in the middle of the field,
but every time you hunt on the other edge, the
deer just walk by it and feed under it and
generally mill around it. Take a closer life, consider what
(16:01):
options you might have to set up there. You know,
maybe it's not an easy ladderstand type of setup, but
maybe you could get a hang on in there with
a little ingenuity. And if you do, you can almost
always bet the bucks won't have a clue you're there
the first time they show up when you're hunting them.
At least give it some thought and come back next
week because I'm going to talk about summer ranges and
(16:21):
fall ranges and buck excursions and all the movement they
do and what it means to you as you're scouting
this time of year. That's it for this week. I'm
Tony Peterson. This has been the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast,
which is brought to you by First Light. As always,
thank you so much for listening for all your support.
(16:43):
Truly truly appreciate it. You might notice we have a
new show here running a limited series with Jake Hoffer
about the land and habitat and all that cool stuff
that Mark and I try to cover, but we maybe
don't get into as much detail as Jake's going to
really good show.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Check it out.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
It's going to drop on this feed if you need
some more hunting content, you know where to go the
medeater dot com.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
New articles, new recipes.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
There's a couple of uh, you know, word games on there.
Maybe you just want to listen to a new podcast.
Maybe it's Lake's Backwoods University podcast on clays Feed. Whatever
new content dropping there every single day. Go check it
out at the mediater dot com.
Host
Mark Kenyon
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