September 12, 2023 • 17 mins
On this week's show, Tony explains that most hunters are far too conservative in their approach, which means they often don't scout or hunt the best areas. He argues that playing it safe has its place in the woods, but it shouldn't be the default strategy for most of us.
Connect with Tony Peterson and MeatEater
Tony Peterson on Instagram and Facebook
MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube
Shop MeatEater 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):
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 Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
which is brought to you by first Light. I'm your
house Tony Peterson, and today I'm going to talk about
going where you shouldn't, whether that's in the White Tail
Woods or the Elk Mountains or wherever. I know I've
(00:41):
mentioned this many many times, but it's worth bringing up
again that hunting content that you've been consuming for much
of your life came from people who don't operate in
the same world as you. They hunt unbelievable spots and
they either have control over them or they pay for
the opportunity to hunt where someone else controls the pressure.
In a lot of content, the narrative that comes out
(01:02):
of these folks is pretty much an echo chamber of
do this, don't do that. But the truth is I
kind of have to do things differently from them. One
of those things, but I think will make you a
better hunter is to go where you normally wouldn't go,
which is what this episode is all about. Earlier this summer,
(01:30):
I filmed a fishing show with the one and only
Andy May. During our shoot, I happen to catch a
personal best smally in a spot that has just kind
of come on a radar, on a lake that I
fish more than anybody of water ever except for maybe
the Mississippi River. I honestly don't know really why the
spot holds big fish, but I have some ideas. Depth
(01:52):
definitely plays a role in it. I find differences in
small mouth concentrations and quality of fish, often in places
that are a foot or two deeper than the surrounding areas.
Food is another one. I know that the minos end
up getting pushed up against the shore there when the
wind is blown just right, but you know that happens
in a lot of spots on big lakes. So it's
(02:12):
kind of still a mystery I'm trying to figure out.
But it's also a good reminder that on a specific
lake where I'm real confident in my knowledge, I still
miss things all the time, and things are always changing,
So maybe that spot wasn't good five or ten years ago,
or maybe I just missed it, maybe something changed and
made it better. I think this is possible because some
(02:32):
of the normal rock piles that usually host schools of
Brownies are getting a lot more pressure than they used to.
Now are bast smart enough to move somewhere where they
get harass less. Probably maybe I don't know. I know
deer moved to places where they get harrass less. In fact,
that's one of the biggest drivers in their daily habits.
It's something that's super relevant right now too, considering how
(02:55):
many states are opening up their white Tail season over
the next few weeks, if they haven't already. Let me
lay this out in an orderly fashion so you understand
where I'm going with this episode. As the season opens up,
we all dive into our opening week or early season
plan on an individual level. Great, that's great, how do
(03:15):
your best field edge stands and try to arrow that
dumb buck that just hasn't caught onto the pressure yet.
But understand this, the pressure that shows up opening weekend
and honestly the weeks before, as hunters get the itch
to hang stands and check cameras and just get in
the woods, is going to change the deer right as
you think they should be most predictable. Now you've put
(03:36):
in all this work, at least I hope you have
to get yourself ready for filling an early season tag,
and now you're going to read the conditions and act
on that plan. But the wild cards are many. If
you don't have a sweet, tightly controlled place to hunt,
some plans will work out for hunters, but mostly they won't.
That means the fervor of opening week will come and
(03:57):
go and the reality of the season will set in.
This is just like when you go on your first
day of rutcation, say on November first, and you're so
excited you peech just a little bit on the front
of your cameo boxer's Mark Kenyan style. But after that
first all day sit reality kicks you right upside the
head like a drunk muytai fighter at a dive bar.
(04:19):
As soon as you're done counting tweetybirds, your job is
to figure out the deer, and that isn't something you
can do by listening to advice from people who don't
have to worry about a hunting pressure or limited hunting
time or not having very much hunting skill. So how
do you do this. One of the ways is you
go where you aren't supposed to. You're going to have
(04:40):
to go find the fresh sign somewhere. You're going to
have to look around and accept the fact that the
spot you thought was the spot of all spots, the
one you just knew you'd kill your number one hitlister
in has gone the way of the old dinosaur. Now,
this is so much easier to preach than it is
to practice. I deal with this in my life all
(05:00):
the time, and I'm constantly fighting the patterns of my behavior.
I do have one benefit in all of this. It's
that I've been wrong about deer a lot, and fish
and turkeys and elk and squirrels and marriage and all
sorts of fun stuff. If you haunt enough to be
wrong a lot, you realize that you have less to
lose than you think, and more to gain from breaking
(05:22):
some of the hard and fast rules that most hunters follow.
But you have to acknowledge two things. The first is
that you're going to do things you think you probably shouldn't.
The second is that it's not going to happen quickly.
Let's start with the first part. What do I mean
by going where you shouldn't. Well, isn't that self explanatory?
(05:44):
You have to go walk that swamp edge, You have
to go into what you think is the primo betting area.
Sometimes you have to go where you can learn something.
If you're thinking, man, this guy's an idiot, I'm not
walking into the best spot on the thirty acres I
hunt only a few days after the season opener. Let
me remind you of something. I've been begging you to
find more spots to hunt. Why didn't you? Huh wouldn't
(06:06):
one more spot make a world of difference? So you
wouldn't be so scared to go? Figure out why you're
listening to just another moron. It's spout hunting advice instead
of taking your freshly killed and kate buckhead to the taxidermist.
Even you, mister, I only hunt thirty acres. Guy can
go where you think you shouldn't. The way I do
it for those small properties is this, I wait until
(06:29):
I have the conditions working in my favor. The first
is that I know I won't be able to hunt
that property for at least a few days. I want
to go in when I know I'm going to be
somewhere else for a little while, you know, right before
a trip or a long stretch of dumb work where
there won't be any hunting to do. The second is
I want to go in there in the midday, preferably
(06:50):
in the rain. The midday part is easy enough to do,
especially if I plan to do a morning hunt on
one of those small properties. The rain isn't as easy
to come by, but it helped if you can get it.
I'll also just take a good steady wind to at
least cover up some of the sound and some of
my movement. Then it's just a matter of guessing on
where the deer probably went if they weren't where I
(07:13):
expected them to be. I see this a lot in
my neck of the woods, where the deer starts really
tuck into the edges of the wetlands once the season opens.
They are often a mix of soft and hard edges
close together, and it's consistently some of the best betting
cover also functions as staging cover, where those early season
bucks will often leave their first rubs of the year.
(07:34):
The overall goal is just take a quick look around
while causing as minimal damage as I can, yet still
trying to learn something if you are interested in this
and are a small property hunter, or hell, if you
hunt huge properties, this works too. You should think small
when it comes to hunting spots. Don't think of a
whole ridge or the whole edge of the cattail. SIU
(07:57):
think about the exact spot the bucks should want to
be the most. Then go find it. Take that walk. Yeah,
you'll leave scent, you'll probably spook some deer, but you
should learn something. And I'm going to get into this later,
but remember this isn't a short game. Even though you
might find some sign worth going mobile on right now,
(08:18):
you're also building up some knowledge on what the deer
do as soon as they know they are getting bow
hunted again. That knowledge comes into play for the rest
of your hunting life on that property you hunt right
now and others you'll hunt in the future. Look at
it this way. Even if you've been hunting the same
spot for fifty years, there are things you don't know.
There are deer spots you've never understood in those five decades,
(08:41):
and there are countless things that are different this year
from twenty five years ago, as well as one season ago.
There's always something to learn. I feel this every time
I start setting up for the new season, and then
(09:03):
really understand it once I start hunting. But it's also
a motivator to get out figure some new things out.
Sometimes I have a hard time with that though, for
a couple of reasons. One is that I get scared
and lazy. I don't want to spook dear, and sometimes
I just don't want to go do extra work for
something that should be fun, so I trick myself into
(09:24):
doing it. This often means I pick up a shotgun,
a round up my dogs. Maybe I'm gonna go jump
shoot a few woodies. Maybe I grab my twenty two
and I'm gonna go hunt squirrels for a little bit.
If there is something else to hunt, I find it
easier to go where I think I shouldn't. Now I
know this is sort of a contradiction because I told
you not to make an impact, but again, you got
(09:46):
to figure out how to do this. It's more important
than not doing it. So if that's what it takes,
go do it. It's kind of like how it's easier
to go winter scouting if you have the possibility to
find a shed antler or two, or how it's not
so bad to hike a couple of miles deep into
an elk drainage if you know you have a couple
of blunt tip arrows in your quiver and really high
odds of bumping into those delicious and oh so stupid
(10:08):
mountain dwelling grouse. You know, the lowly woodcock, the worst
eating and easiest to hit game bird I've ever encountered.
And yes, I know you'll send me some nasty emails
on how tasty they are and how they are the
supreme challenge for real wingshooters, even though you're wrong, has
probably led to more accidental big woods deer hotspots for
me than any other activity, aside probably from winter scouting,
(10:32):
which I think is a big woods hunter's best friend.
The thing is, woodcock hunting is fun, especially if you've
got a puppy and you want them to learn the
ways of game birds without dealing with roosters that will
run them to death or the randomness of rough grouse
In the early thick woods. Woodcock are predictable. They feed
in low wet areas, the kind of areas that bucks
(10:52):
on public land often retreat to when the masses show
up with their bows and crossbows ready to roll the
routes I take through the woods to shoot a few
of those warner meters as the routes I need to
take to often figure out where the bucks are living.
This is one of my favorite things to do when
I have time and several thousand acres of national forest
to hunt, although I will do it on a smaller
(11:14):
private parcel too. The truth is it's just something I
enjoy doing enough that I'll sand bag a little bit
of potential deer success now to do it. But even
that's not entirely true, because walking where I think woodcock
might be has led to an awful lot of deer.
Like I said a few years ago, I spent quite
a bit of time on a large parcel of land
(11:35):
in northern Wisconsin hunting deer, grouse, woodcock, and catch it
a few brook trout throughout September and October. I pretty
much target all those animals and fish. At some point,
and as the rut drew closer, I switched mostly to deer,
but I hunted spots I found four weeks earlier while
woodcock hunting, because that took me into places I needed
to see to have a better deer plan throughout the season.
(11:58):
Some of the spots I've found this way have become
season after season places that I always check and more
often than not hunt at some point. Now, this is
a different strategy than the low impact style so many
people preach. But the truth is, if you hunt pressure ground,
the deer used to some impact. They are used to
people going into areas and leaving scent all around and
(12:19):
generally making their lives more stressful. Now, you might think
you can shortcut this whole thing and be real smart
by running trail cameras, but that's a tall order. Sure,
if you have one trail or one tight spot that
you can run a camera on and figure something out, great.
Think about it this way. What if the property you
hunt has just one ten acre swamp on it. There
(12:40):
might be dozens of trails leading into and out of it.
There are hundreds of yards of inside and outside edges
to hunt on that little swamp. How many cameras would
you have to run to get a pattern on the
deer going in and out of it? Probably more than
you own. Now, what can you learn by taking one
or two laps around and through it will be quite
(13:00):
a bit. Some of it will be actionable in the
short term, but a lot of it will be actionable
in the long term. Now, of course, running cameras around
it all season long might give you a hell of
a glimpse into what you should do next season, So
there is that. But I still think there is such
a benefit to finding sign in person and taking note
of the deer that you jump and really looking at
(13:20):
the land and how the deer use it or how
they heloc use it or whatever. The main takeaway to
this is that you can't be afraid to break the
rules a little bit. I mean the rules of the
hunting industry, not your state rigs. Just to be clear,
the rules that others follow apply to their hunting situation,
not yours. And honestly, if the generally accepted hunting rules
(13:41):
that came from the hunting industry worked so well, it
wouldn't be so damn hard for so many of us
to consistently fill our tags. Yet it is think about that.
I want you to think about this as well. As
you're opening week, plan unravels and you see how it's
really going to take shape. Maybe that bachelor group you've
been glassing all summer sticks to the pattern and you're
good to go. That's great, But if not, what's next.
(14:04):
Maybe the best way to learn this is by going
elk hunting, which is a topic I covered a few
weeks ago. Elk will teach you things about how quickly
gain can be here today and gone tomorrow, to force
you to keep an eye on the clock because you'll
be on limited time. They'll remind you pretty much daily.
But how if you're not really right around them, you're
in for long, slow, frustrating, boring days. White tails will
(14:28):
teach you the same thing if you learn to ignore
the reality that you do have a long ish season
in which to encounter them. They'll teach you that lesson
if you're willing to be honest about the gaps in
your knowledge on any given property, and your willingness, often
too your own detriment to keep slapping the ass of
that dead horse you're trying to ride when it's clear
that things have changed and then deer have left you behind.
(14:51):
You don't have to buy a well bred lab puppy
in a little twenty eight gage to woodcock hunt to
do this. You don't have to go hunt squirrels in
the same oaks that you're dear feet under you don't
have to trick yourself into jump shooting some teal on
a series of ponds hidden deep in a national force.
But you should look at what it takes to get
yourself out there, learning and looking around as that season progresses.
(15:14):
This is the best way to stay proactive in my opinion.
And if you need to pair this strategy with some
fresh trail camera sets, great. It's hard to gather too
much deer intel, at least in my experience, But my
main point is this, don't be like other folks. Don't
put all your faith into your early season plan without
(15:35):
acknowledging that if it doesn't work well, you need to
do some work. Don't just say to yourself, well, things
will get back to normal as soon as the wreck
gets closer, because then you'll sit out so much of
the season on a long odds bet instead of getting
out there and adding to your baseline of property knowledge
and your overall understanding of just what deer might do
(15:56):
at any given point of the season. And don't forget
to come back next week because I'm going to talk
about shot angles, dear body language, and how to mostly
deflate lungs or puncture dear hearts when you draw your bow.
That's it. I'm Tony Peterson. This has been the Wire
to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which is brought to you by
(16:17):
a first Light. I just want to say thank you
to all the listeners, all the people who go read
the articles at the Mediatter's site, everybody who's viewing the
different series that we put up there. So much support
from you guys at Gales. We just absolutely love it.
We truly appreciate it. If you are listening to this
and you want to hear podcasts by Clay or whoever,
(16:38):
you can go to the mediator dot com find those.
You can find all those series. The Element boys are
putting up all kinds of good stuff, and of course
tons of articles on every kind of hunting and fishing
and foraging and whatever else that you want to see.
It's all there. And if you're like, you know what,
I think I need a new first Light jacket or
maybe an FHF bino harness something like that to your
(17:00):
stores there for you as well. So while you're doing
a little reading and consuming some content, maybe do a
little shopping too, you do you, but check it out
at the medeater 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 Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
which is brought to you by first Light. I'm your
house Tony Peterson, and today I'm going to talk about
going where you shouldn't, whether that's in the White Tail
Woods or the Elk Mountains or wherever. I know I've
(00:41):
mentioned this many many times, but it's worth bringing up
again that hunting content that you've been consuming for much
of your life came from people who don't operate in
the same world as you. They hunt unbelievable spots and
they either have control over them or they pay for
the opportunity to hunt where someone else controls the pressure.
In a lot of content, the narrative that comes out
(01:02):
of these folks is pretty much an echo chamber of
do this, don't do that. But the truth is I
kind of have to do things differently from them. One
of those things, but I think will make you a
better hunter is to go where you normally wouldn't go,
which is what this episode is all about. Earlier this summer,
(01:30):
I filmed a fishing show with the one and only
Andy May. During our shoot, I happen to catch a
personal best smally in a spot that has just kind
of come on a radar, on a lake that I
fish more than anybody of water ever except for maybe
the Mississippi River. I honestly don't know really why the
spot holds big fish, but I have some ideas. Depth
(01:52):
definitely plays a role in it. I find differences in
small mouth concentrations and quality of fish, often in places
that are a foot or two deeper than the surrounding areas.
Food is another one. I know that the minos end
up getting pushed up against the shore there when the
wind is blown just right, but you know that happens
in a lot of spots on big lakes. So it's
(02:12):
kind of still a mystery I'm trying to figure out.
But it's also a good reminder that on a specific
lake where I'm real confident in my knowledge, I still
miss things all the time, and things are always changing,
So maybe that spot wasn't good five or ten years ago,
or maybe I just missed it, maybe something changed and
made it better. I think this is possible because some
(02:32):
of the normal rock piles that usually host schools of
Brownies are getting a lot more pressure than they used to.
Now are bast smart enough to move somewhere where they
get harass less. Probably maybe I don't know. I know
deer moved to places where they get harrass less. In fact,
that's one of the biggest drivers in their daily habits.
It's something that's super relevant right now too, considering how
(02:55):
many states are opening up their white Tail season over
the next few weeks, if they haven't already. Let me
lay this out in an orderly fashion so you understand
where I'm going with this episode. As the season opens up,
we all dive into our opening week or early season
plan on an individual level. Great, that's great, how do
(03:15):
your best field edge stands and try to arrow that
dumb buck that just hasn't caught onto the pressure yet.
But understand this, the pressure that shows up opening weekend
and honestly the weeks before, as hunters get the itch
to hang stands and check cameras and just get in
the woods, is going to change the deer right as
you think they should be most predictable. Now you've put
(03:36):
in all this work, at least I hope you have
to get yourself ready for filling an early season tag,
and now you're going to read the conditions and act
on that plan. But the wild cards are many. If
you don't have a sweet, tightly controlled place to hunt,
some plans will work out for hunters, but mostly they won't.
That means the fervor of opening week will come and
(03:57):
go and the reality of the season will set in.
This is just like when you go on your first
day of rutcation, say on November first, and you're so
excited you peech just a little bit on the front
of your cameo boxer's Mark Kenyan style. But after that
first all day sit reality kicks you right upside the
head like a drunk muytai fighter at a dive bar.
(04:19):
As soon as you're done counting tweetybirds, your job is
to figure out the deer, and that isn't something you
can do by listening to advice from people who don't
have to worry about a hunting pressure or limited hunting
time or not having very much hunting skill. So how
do you do this. One of the ways is you
go where you aren't supposed to. You're going to have
(04:40):
to go find the fresh sign somewhere. You're going to
have to look around and accept the fact that the
spot you thought was the spot of all spots, the
one you just knew you'd kill your number one hitlister
in has gone the way of the old dinosaur. Now,
this is so much easier to preach than it is
to practice. I deal with this in my life all
(05:00):
the time, and I'm constantly fighting the patterns of my behavior.
I do have one benefit in all of this. It's
that I've been wrong about deer a lot, and fish
and turkeys and elk and squirrels and marriage and all
sorts of fun stuff. If you haunt enough to be
wrong a lot, you realize that you have less to
lose than you think, and more to gain from breaking
(05:22):
some of the hard and fast rules that most hunters follow.
But you have to acknowledge two things. The first is
that you're going to do things you think you probably shouldn't.
The second is that it's not going to happen quickly.
Let's start with the first part. What do I mean
by going where you shouldn't. Well, isn't that self explanatory?
(05:44):
You have to go walk that swamp edge, You have
to go into what you think is the primo betting area.
Sometimes you have to go where you can learn something.
If you're thinking, man, this guy's an idiot, I'm not
walking into the best spot on the thirty acres I
hunt only a few days after the season opener. Let
me remind you of something. I've been begging you to
find more spots to hunt. Why didn't you? Huh wouldn't
(06:06):
one more spot make a world of difference? So you
wouldn't be so scared to go? Figure out why you're
listening to just another moron. It's spout hunting advice instead
of taking your freshly killed and kate buckhead to the taxidermist.
Even you, mister, I only hunt thirty acres. Guy can
go where you think you shouldn't. The way I do
it for those small properties is this, I wait until
(06:29):
I have the conditions working in my favor. The first
is that I know I won't be able to hunt
that property for at least a few days. I want
to go in when I know I'm going to be
somewhere else for a little while, you know, right before
a trip or a long stretch of dumb work where
there won't be any hunting to do. The second is
I want to go in there in the midday, preferably
(06:50):
in the rain. The midday part is easy enough to do,
especially if I plan to do a morning hunt on
one of those small properties. The rain isn't as easy
to come by, but it helped if you can get it.
I'll also just take a good steady wind to at
least cover up some of the sound and some of
my movement. Then it's just a matter of guessing on
where the deer probably went if they weren't where I
(07:13):
expected them to be. I see this a lot in
my neck of the woods, where the deer starts really
tuck into the edges of the wetlands once the season opens.
They are often a mix of soft and hard edges
close together, and it's consistently some of the best betting
cover also functions as staging cover, where those early season
bucks will often leave their first rubs of the year.
(07:34):
The overall goal is just take a quick look around
while causing as minimal damage as I can, yet still
trying to learn something if you are interested in this
and are a small property hunter, or hell, if you
hunt huge properties, this works too. You should think small
when it comes to hunting spots. Don't think of a
whole ridge or the whole edge of the cattail. SIU
(07:57):
think about the exact spot the bucks should want to
be the most. Then go find it. Take that walk. Yeah,
you'll leave scent, you'll probably spook some deer, but you
should learn something. And I'm going to get into this later,
but remember this isn't a short game. Even though you
might find some sign worth going mobile on right now,
(08:18):
you're also building up some knowledge on what the deer
do as soon as they know they are getting bow
hunted again. That knowledge comes into play for the rest
of your hunting life on that property you hunt right
now and others you'll hunt in the future. Look at
it this way. Even if you've been hunting the same
spot for fifty years, there are things you don't know.
There are deer spots you've never understood in those five decades,
(08:41):
and there are countless things that are different this year
from twenty five years ago, as well as one season ago.
There's always something to learn. I feel this every time
I start setting up for the new season, and then
(09:03):
really understand it once I start hunting. But it's also
a motivator to get out figure some new things out.
Sometimes I have a hard time with that though, for
a couple of reasons. One is that I get scared
and lazy. I don't want to spook dear, and sometimes
I just don't want to go do extra work for
something that should be fun, so I trick myself into
(09:24):
doing it. This often means I pick up a shotgun,
a round up my dogs. Maybe I'm gonna go jump
shoot a few woodies. Maybe I grab my twenty two
and I'm gonna go hunt squirrels for a little bit.
If there is something else to hunt, I find it
easier to go where I think I shouldn't. Now I
know this is sort of a contradiction because I told
you not to make an impact, but again, you got
(09:46):
to figure out how to do this. It's more important
than not doing it. So if that's what it takes,
go do it. It's kind of like how it's easier
to go winter scouting if you have the possibility to
find a shed antler or two, or how it's not
so bad to hike a couple of miles deep into
an elk drainage if you know you have a couple
of blunt tip arrows in your quiver and really high
odds of bumping into those delicious and oh so stupid
(10:08):
mountain dwelling grouse. You know, the lowly woodcock, the worst
eating and easiest to hit game bird I've ever encountered.
And yes, I know you'll send me some nasty emails
on how tasty they are and how they are the
supreme challenge for real wingshooters, even though you're wrong, has
probably led to more accidental big woods deer hotspots for
me than any other activity, aside probably from winter scouting,
(10:32):
which I think is a big woods hunter's best friend.
The thing is, woodcock hunting is fun, especially if you've
got a puppy and you want them to learn the
ways of game birds without dealing with roosters that will
run them to death or the randomness of rough grouse
In the early thick woods. Woodcock are predictable. They feed
in low wet areas, the kind of areas that bucks
(10:52):
on public land often retreat to when the masses show
up with their bows and crossbows ready to roll the
routes I take through the woods to shoot a few
of those warner meters as the routes I need to
take to often figure out where the bucks are living.
This is one of my favorite things to do when
I have time and several thousand acres of national forest
to hunt, although I will do it on a smaller
(11:14):
private parcel too. The truth is it's just something I
enjoy doing enough that I'll sand bag a little bit
of potential deer success now to do it. But even
that's not entirely true, because walking where I think woodcock
might be has led to an awful lot of deer.
Like I said a few years ago, I spent quite
a bit of time on a large parcel of land
(11:35):
in northern Wisconsin hunting deer, grouse, woodcock, and catch it
a few brook trout throughout September and October. I pretty
much target all those animals and fish. At some point,
and as the rut drew closer, I switched mostly to deer,
but I hunted spots I found four weeks earlier while
woodcock hunting, because that took me into places I needed
to see to have a better deer plan throughout the season.
(11:58):
Some of the spots I've found this way have become
season after season places that I always check and more
often than not hunt at some point. Now, this is
a different strategy than the low impact style so many
people preach. But the truth is, if you hunt pressure ground,
the deer used to some impact. They are used to
people going into areas and leaving scent all around and
(12:19):
generally making their lives more stressful. Now, you might think
you can shortcut this whole thing and be real smart
by running trail cameras, but that's a tall order. Sure,
if you have one trail or one tight spot that
you can run a camera on and figure something out, great.
Think about it this way. What if the property you
hunt has just one ten acre swamp on it. There
(12:40):
might be dozens of trails leading into and out of it.
There are hundreds of yards of inside and outside edges
to hunt on that little swamp. How many cameras would
you have to run to get a pattern on the
deer going in and out of it? Probably more than
you own. Now, what can you learn by taking one
or two laps around and through it will be quite
(13:00):
a bit. Some of it will be actionable in the
short term, but a lot of it will be actionable
in the long term. Now, of course, running cameras around
it all season long might give you a hell of
a glimpse into what you should do next season, So
there is that. But I still think there is such
a benefit to finding sign in person and taking note
of the deer that you jump and really looking at
(13:20):
the land and how the deer use it or how
they heloc use it or whatever. The main takeaway to
this is that you can't be afraid to break the
rules a little bit. I mean the rules of the
hunting industry, not your state rigs. Just to be clear,
the rules that others follow apply to their hunting situation,
not yours. And honestly, if the generally accepted hunting rules
(13:41):
that came from the hunting industry worked so well, it
wouldn't be so damn hard for so many of us
to consistently fill our tags. Yet it is think about that.
I want you to think about this as well. As
you're opening week, plan unravels and you see how it's
really going to take shape. Maybe that bachelor group you've
been glassing all summer sticks to the pattern and you're
good to go. That's great, But if not, what's next.
(14:04):
Maybe the best way to learn this is by going
elk hunting, which is a topic I covered a few
weeks ago. Elk will teach you things about how quickly
gain can be here today and gone tomorrow, to force
you to keep an eye on the clock because you'll
be on limited time. They'll remind you pretty much daily.
But how if you're not really right around them, you're
in for long, slow, frustrating, boring days. White tails will
(14:28):
teach you the same thing if you learn to ignore
the reality that you do have a long ish season
in which to encounter them. They'll teach you that lesson
if you're willing to be honest about the gaps in
your knowledge on any given property, and your willingness, often
too your own detriment to keep slapping the ass of
that dead horse you're trying to ride when it's clear
that things have changed and then deer have left you behind.
(14:51):
You don't have to buy a well bred lab puppy
in a little twenty eight gage to woodcock hunt to
do this. You don't have to go hunt squirrels in
the same oaks that you're dear feet under you don't
have to trick yourself into jump shooting some teal on
a series of ponds hidden deep in a national force.
But you should look at what it takes to get
yourself out there, learning and looking around as that season progresses.
(15:14):
This is the best way to stay proactive in my opinion.
And if you need to pair this strategy with some
fresh trail camera sets, great. It's hard to gather too
much deer intel, at least in my experience, But my
main point is this, don't be like other folks. Don't
put all your faith into your early season plan without
(15:35):
acknowledging that if it doesn't work well, you need to
do some work. Don't just say to yourself, well, things
will get back to normal as soon as the wreck
gets closer, because then you'll sit out so much of
the season on a long odds bet instead of getting
out there and adding to your baseline of property knowledge
and your overall understanding of just what deer might do
(15:56):
at any given point of the season. And don't forget
to come back next week because I'm going to talk
about shot angles, dear body language, and how to mostly
deflate lungs or puncture dear hearts when you draw your bow.
That's it. I'm Tony Peterson. This has been the Wire
to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which is brought to you by
(16:17):
a first Light. I just want to say thank you
to all the listeners, all the people who go read
the articles at the Mediatter's site, everybody who's viewing the
different series that we put up there. So much support
from you guys at Gales. We just absolutely love it.
We truly appreciate it. If you are listening to this
and you want to hear podcasts by Clay or whoever,
(16:38):
you can go to the mediator dot com find those.
You can find all those series. The Element boys are
putting up all kinds of good stuff, and of course
tons of articles on every kind of hunting and fishing
and foraging and whatever else that you want to see.
It's all there. And if you're like, you know what,
I think I need a new first Light jacket or
maybe an FHF bino harness something like that to your
(17:00):
stores there for you as well. So while you're doing
a little reading and consuming some content, maybe do a
little shopping too, you do you, but check it out
at the medeater dot com.
Host
Mark Kenyon
Popular Podcasts
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
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.