September 19, 2023 • 18 mins
On this week's episode of Foundations, Tony discusses how much of the advice on shooting better revolves around range time. While this is inherently a good thing, he explains how hunters need to learn to take their accuracy into the field with them, which isn't as simple as it sounds.
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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 Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
which has brought to you by first Light. I'm your host,
Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about how to
actually make good shots on white tails and not just
how to be more accurate with your bow, because there's
a difference. The reason that there are so many folks
(00:43):
out there making YouTube tutorials on how to be a
better archer is because they are like definitive answers to
many of our common problems. Addressing shooting form, using the
right accessories, tuning your bow, you know, on and on.
It's good stuff, not knocking it. After all, if you
can't shoot well on the range, you sure as hell
(01:04):
won't be able to consistently shoot well on deer. This,
as you probably know, is pretty important and it just
so happens to be the topic of this episode. If
you train retrievers or really any kind of dog, you
(01:24):
start to understand false positives. Some people think a false
positive is a dog that looks real birdie only to
flush I don't know, a rabbit or a skunk or something.
Pointing dogs are prone to false positives too. Inexperienced pointers
will lock up in a beautiful tripod point where a
rooster was I don't know, ten minutes ago, or with
(01:44):
some other critter in the grass that's definitely not a pheasant,
a grouse, or whatever you're after. False positives in the
dog world they come in many forms, and they are
the enemy of the amateur trainer. They convince us that
we have gotten our dogs to a point where they
are real good and well. Most of the work's done.
You can pat yourself on the back, break up your
(02:05):
hound at the local touny bar, and get ready to
kill a limit of ring necks or green heads or whatever.
Putting the cart before the old horse is a no
bueno situation, though, and it often happens with people who
train in the same environment over and over. The dog
that will heal perfectly and sit perfectly still until he
send him while you're working in the neighborhood soccer field.
(02:26):
That's great, but will you get that same behavior while
you're hunting. It's kind of like, I don't know, working
out or walking with a pack on your back when
you live at eight hundred feet above sea level and
assuming that's going to be good enough to get you
into the mountains and hunt an elk like a rock
star doesn't work very well. Sometimes it's better than nothing. Anyway,
(02:47):
back to dogs, how about if you're working on a
hunt dead scenario or a fine the bone antler scenario
in the knee high grass. If you've been there and
you've trained dozens of times, it's probably pretty consistent that
if you point one way or the other, your dog
will read your hand signals and switch directions till he
finds the price. Now, take these same dogs in an
(03:08):
actual hunt, and the wheels will fall off pretty quickly,
at least a lot of times they do. This is
why so many folks, mostly men, lose their ever loving
minds on the first couple of hunts of the season,
especially if you have a few smirking buddies hunting with them.
It's embarrassing to break up a dog only to watch
them totally delaminate in the field. It's also extremely common
(03:32):
I honestly don't know if there has ever been a
single bird dog that advanced to a high level of
training in low key environments that also brought that same
level of excellence right to the field during a hunt.
I think it's possible, honestly, at least not right away.
You know, older seasoned dogs can you know, they can
get pretty damn close. But the seasoned part is the
one that's important there. And while plenty of retrievers and
(03:55):
pointers are likely to get older, not all of them
get seasoned real well. Takes time in the field hunting
for a dog to learn what you want out of him.
While you're out in the field hunting. There's no shortcuts there,
and you can train and train and even overtrain, but
there's on the job experience, and that's just that. You
(04:17):
know what else is like this pickleball? Just kidding, it's golf,
just kidding, it's bow hunting white tails. You can shoot
foam until you're an Olympic level shooter, but that's only
going to take you so far in the field. You
know a lot of the conventional advice here and have
probably heard me go on and on about some of it.
I think you should practice in some ways that will
(04:38):
help you be a better shot, like using three D targets,
you know, shooting from your deck or a tree stand
set up just for that purpose. I think you should
practice in low light, and that you should shoot at
odd yardages with limited arrows. You should make every shot
count and treat every shot like you don't get a mulligan,
because in the wild you probably won't. And that's a
(05:00):
good start, But there's more to be done now. I've
told you guys a few stories about some of my
most embarrassing misses and the years I struggled with real
buck fever, But I don't think you can quite understand
how bad I used to fall apart. It was like
having a disease that caused me to black out, lose
my mind, and always or nearly always shoot over the
(05:20):
back of the deer that I so desperately wanted. It
got so bad I felt like quitting many many times.
I didn't know a way out, and I didn't really
understand the process of getting over my buck fever and
learning to be a good shot on animals. In fact,
I still don't know for sure how to do it completely.
I kind of think you can't, but you can be
(05:42):
better than a quivering mass of total dipshit who couldn't
hit a buck in the lungs with twelve quivers full
of arrows and unlimited time. Now, I think this is
going to sound kind of dumb, but I want you
to hear me out. The first step is visualization. I know,
I know it sounds like some you know, Kenyon's hippie
dippy mustache laiden bs, but the truth is it works,
(06:06):
or it can work, and for me it works this way.
I think about shooting deer a lot. And if you
don't believe that, talk to my wife when I'm driving
and she's telling me something that I absolutely am not
really taking in and definitely won't retain, or you know,
when strangers talk to me. A lot of times I
get to daydreaming. You know, maybe it's a touch of
(06:27):
ADHD or whatever, but I start thinking about shooting deer,
and I start thinking about shooting them out of very
specific setups, like when I get into my stand. I
also always, always always draw my bow a few times
and aim at stuff. Now, not deer. You know this
is going to be leaves or whatever, But it's the
process of thinking through and visualizing your shot. You don't
(06:50):
have to do this just when your wife's talking to you.
You should do it in your stands as well. I
do it when I'm in a groundb line or a
tree stand or hanging in a saddle. I draw an
aim at random, I am at whatever, and I think
about how easy it would be to make a shot
on a deer if a deer was standing there. If
you don't do this, start, I'm totally serious. If you
(07:12):
get into a ground blind and you don't draw your
bow and aim out the window a few times, you're
far more likely to screw up a shot. If you
get saddled up and you don't practice drawing and aiming
around both sides of the tree or behind you, you're
setting yourself up to make a mistake. You do not
want the first time you draw at a weird angle
to be the time there's one hundred and thirty five
inch ten pointers standing there. Imagine the buck on that
(07:35):
trail and watch how your pin floats across that yellow
leaf you're aiming at, or that bare patch dirt or whatever.
Do this. If you're hunting an evening, do this as
soon as you settle in and then maybe once or
twice more before primetime. If you're hunting mornings, wait until
first light, do a good perimeter check to make sure
(07:56):
you don't have any deer closing in. Then do this.
Do it later in the morning too, when you start
to get sleepy and you start to think about packing
the whole thing up. Do this in hot weather and
cold weather, and even if you've made seventeen perfect double
lung shots in a row, it's just a good exercise,
but it serves another purpose. It tells you how shooting
(08:17):
out of your specific setup is kind of gonna go.
This is something a lot of us don't appreciate until
it's too late and we're smack dab in the middle
of an encounter. Take a groundb line, for example. You
set up a pop up on the edge of an
alfalfa field. You arrange the far woodline, and it's forty yards.
You know there are several trails that lead into the field,
(08:38):
and you could draw your bow, aim a little and
you're just gonna be good to go. You start to
daydream about a big one coming in and you think
he's going to walk right into the middle of the
field and pose up at twenty yards, but he doesn't.
He stays on the far wood edge, at the boundary
between where you can shoot where you can't because of
how your chair is positioned and how the shooting port
(08:59):
is situated. This is the kind of thing that causes
real panic, and real panic is the kind of thing
that causes us to make bad shots. Knowing how far
you can swing your bow one way or the other
to really shoot and what you'll do if he doesn't
follow the script is important. It's something you should think
about when you have the luxury of thinking about it
on your own time, and not when it's suddenly very
(09:21):
important because he's walking through the same goes for tree
stands and saddles. Do you know where you can draw
and aim and take a shot from the ladder stand
your dad's set up for you seven years ago, when
you're hanging and hunting out of a saddle and thinking
about where you can shoot and what trail he's likely
to come down? Do you know where your real shooting
windows are and how easy it'll be for you to
(09:43):
aim through them. The more you think about this stuff
without a deer there, the easier it is to make
a shot work. When a deer is there. I know
this sounds like overkill, but it's not. You want to
know how things are going to go before they get going.
A little dress rehearsal if you will. The same goes
for shot distance. When you get on stand. Do you
(10:06):
range several markers so you know how many yards he
will be if he stops at the yellow patch of
beans in the field. What if he takes the farther
trail around your pinch point? Stan? Are you going to
wait until he's there to range him and then suffer
the possibility that the extra movement and that extra time
will cause you to miss out on a shot opportunity.
If you can do something beneficial before he gets there,
(10:29):
you should do it. I'd also recommend drawing metaphorical lines
in the sand when you get into your setup. As
far as shot distances go. If I'm on a bean field,
for example, I'll range the rose until I know what's
(10:50):
forty yards out. That for me is the farthest I'm
going to shoot at a white tail in perfect conditions.
And if it's not perfect conditions because the light is
fading or it's raining or whatever, that range is going
to get reduced. I figure this out as soon as
I can, so I don't have to hamm an awe
during the moment of truth. This stuff helps you make
better shots on deer, but so will something else. Watching deer,
(11:14):
and I don't mean just seeing deer and taking a
video of them walking by so you can post it
on Instagram. I mean watching them and paying attention to
what they do and when and how you'd shoot them
at various times during your encounter. I do this on
pretty much every deer that gets into range. I don't
drawn aim at deer. I don't want to shoot, and
I don't recommend that because if you have a big
(11:35):
old brain fart trip that trigger, which is a possibility,
you could have one hell of a oopsie on your hands.
But watching deer and how they browse and how their
body positioning can change, just from how they look back
down the trail, or when they scratch their nose with
a back hoof, or when they stretch their necks out
to sniff a certain leaf. That's the stuff that will
give you more confidence in choosing the right aiming point.
(11:57):
You can damn near predict the future when you want enough.
So even when we use three D targets to practice.
We often think of real white tails kind of as
a two D thing. We think of them from the broadside,
and we know where the guts are, and we know
where the liver is and the heart and the lungs,
but we almost never shoot it here that's perfectly broadside
(12:18):
while we were on the ground with them. We almost
always have to deal with a couple of different angles,
whether they are quartered to us or a little bit
away from us, whether we are ten feet above them
or thirty feet above them. A deer walking down a
hill by your stand is probably not a shot that
you ever ever practice at the range. A deer that's
really close, say four yards in the base of your tree,
(12:40):
is another shot you probably never practice, maybe shouldn't take.
But it all depends on so many things. Can you
get your arrow into both lungs? How likely is it?
How likely is it that you'll get into both lungs
on a giant buck like that? If you've never once
thought about taking that shot, or visualized it, or watched
a four key do this same thing and actually studied
(13:01):
his movements and picked out the best aiming points every
seconds he made his way through, I really think Watching
deer and learning about their movements is an education that
is worth so much to all of us hunters. This
allows us to take better shots, partially because it allows us,
you know, like I said, to predict the future. Just
like in dog training, where there are certain behaviors that
(13:22):
are just going to show at certain times, deer are
very very likely to do certain things at certain times.
I'll give you an easy example. If a buck walks
in and he's totally relaxed, but then he stops to
focus on something and he stares for like thirty seconds,
you might think you're in trouble. Would you feel relief
if you watched him shake his tail a couple times
(13:44):
real fast? You should, because that means he's probably gonna
drop his head and start walking, just like every other
deer who has done the same thing. If you watch
deer enough, you start to learn those types of behaviors
and understand when your best shot opportunity is about to happen.
That's so important to making good shots in the field
when it counts the most. Think about it this way too.
(14:08):
Most of the time, when deer come in and they're relaxed,
they're moving pretty slow. They sniff here they step there,
They almost forecast their movements, and that gives you a
really good chance to draw when you need to and
anticipate right where you should be aiming. All this stuff
requires patients, and it actually helps you to become more patient,
(14:32):
which is the antidote to rushing shots, which is the
one thing that causes us to make bad shots more
than anything else. Let me give you another example. You
guys know I like to hunt rivers, I like to
hunt water. Well. One river I like to hunt is
in North Dakota and has steep banks. The deer almost
always approach it at a walk and then they descend
(14:52):
right down to the water and drink. This usually happens
without a whole lot of stopping. Then they cross the
river and they have to ascend the other bank. When
they do, they almost always always stop to survey their surroundings.
They've probably dealt with enough coyotes and lions there to
know that the safe side of the river they just
left is a memory, and it's time to figure out
(15:13):
if there is danger waiting for them on the new side.
It's pretty simple prey behavior. But if you're up in
a tree there and they pop up, that bank. It
often seems like they are onto something because they seem
just a little bit edgy, like maybe they caught just
a slight whiff of you and they're considering leaving. But
they mostly didn't and they mostly aren't. But if you
believe that you know that they might be on their
(15:35):
way out, you're gonna rush a shot when you could
have just waited a little bit until they convinced themselves
that the new bank, the new side, is all good,
and then they walk right by totally unaware that you're
about to skewer them. Pay attention to all of the deer,
study them. It's important. And lastly, I have one more
thing for you. If you want to be a stone
(15:56):
cold killer who consistently makes the kind of shots where
you get to witness the light, it's going out, take
shots that you know you can make. I know that
seems dumb, because of course that's what should do, but
a lot of people don't. Just think about it this way.
If you put a deer out in front of you
at fifteen yards a broadside and it's relaxed, how often
(16:17):
are you going to tank that shot? Not very often,
I hope. But now put that same deer quartering away
in a little bit tense at let's say thirty three yards. Sure,
you can make thirty three yard shots all day, but
it's not nearly as much of a foregone conclusion as
that first fifteen yard broadside shot. Knowing your limitations and
(16:39):
being patient enough to wait for a no brainer shot
or good things. It's also really tough to learn either
of those things and implement them in the field. But
we should all be working to be better at shooting deer.
I deal with this every year, and it gives me
so much pride to string together several good shots. You know,
it doesn't always happen, and I doubt it ever will
(17:02):
for me or you or you know someone like John Dudley,
who could probably outshoot most of us if we were
in broad daylight and he had to shoot in a
pitch black cave. He probably still screws up some shots,
you know. So the goal isn't to just become a
badass paper puncher here. It's to become a reliable, consistently
good shot on actual animals. That takes a few things
(17:26):
that you can't just accomplish on the range. Think about
this as your season opens up here. Think about coming
back next week, because I'm going to talk about how
to navigate the quote unquote October lull in real time,
and I'm going to give you an example for that
when I open that show that you're probably not going
to expect. That's it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson.
(17:49):
This has been the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which
is brought to you by First Light. As I always,
thank you so much for listening and for all your support.
Truly appreciate it means the world to me and the
rest of us here at meat Eater. If you want
some more white tail content, or you want to see
some videos with Steve or Clay or whoever, listen to
some podcasts, go to the meaedeater dot com and you
(18:10):
will find so much content that you will probably get
fired from work because you'll spend too much time looking
at it. But that's okay.
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 has brought to you by first Light. I'm your host,
Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about how to
actually make good shots on white tails and not just
how to be more accurate with your bow, because there's
a difference. The reason that there are so many folks
(00:43):
out there making YouTube tutorials on how to be a
better archer is because they are like definitive answers to
many of our common problems. Addressing shooting form, using the
right accessories, tuning your bow, you know, on and on.
It's good stuff, not knocking it. After all, if you
can't shoot well on the range, you sure as hell
(01:04):
won't be able to consistently shoot well on deer. This,
as you probably know, is pretty important and it just
so happens to be the topic of this episode. If
you train retrievers or really any kind of dog, you
(01:24):
start to understand false positives. Some people think a false
positive is a dog that looks real birdie only to
flush I don't know, a rabbit or a skunk or something.
Pointing dogs are prone to false positives too. Inexperienced pointers
will lock up in a beautiful tripod point where a
rooster was I don't know, ten minutes ago, or with
(01:44):
some other critter in the grass that's definitely not a pheasant,
a grouse, or whatever you're after. False positives in the
dog world they come in many forms, and they are
the enemy of the amateur trainer. They convince us that
we have gotten our dogs to a point where they
are real good and well. Most of the work's done.
You can pat yourself on the back, break up your
(02:05):
hound at the local touny bar, and get ready to
kill a limit of ring necks or green heads or whatever.
Putting the cart before the old horse is a no
bueno situation, though, and it often happens with people who
train in the same environment over and over. The dog
that will heal perfectly and sit perfectly still until he
send him while you're working in the neighborhood soccer field.
(02:26):
That's great, but will you get that same behavior while
you're hunting. It's kind of like, I don't know, working
out or walking with a pack on your back when
you live at eight hundred feet above sea level and
assuming that's going to be good enough to get you
into the mountains and hunt an elk like a rock
star doesn't work very well. Sometimes it's better than nothing. Anyway,
(02:47):
back to dogs, how about if you're working on a
hunt dead scenario or a fine the bone antler scenario
in the knee high grass. If you've been there and
you've trained dozens of times, it's probably pretty consistent that
if you point one way or the other, your dog
will read your hand signals and switch directions till he
finds the price. Now, take these same dogs in an
(03:08):
actual hunt, and the wheels will fall off pretty quickly,
at least a lot of times they do. This is
why so many folks, mostly men, lose their ever loving
minds on the first couple of hunts of the season,
especially if you have a few smirking buddies hunting with them.
It's embarrassing to break up a dog only to watch
them totally delaminate in the field. It's also extremely common
(03:32):
I honestly don't know if there has ever been a
single bird dog that advanced to a high level of
training in low key environments that also brought that same
level of excellence right to the field during a hunt.
I think it's possible, honestly, at least not right away.
You know, older seasoned dogs can you know, they can
get pretty damn close. But the seasoned part is the
one that's important there. And while plenty of retrievers and
(03:55):
pointers are likely to get older, not all of them
get seasoned real well. Takes time in the field hunting
for a dog to learn what you want out of him.
While you're out in the field hunting. There's no shortcuts there,
and you can train and train and even overtrain, but
there's on the job experience, and that's just that. You
(04:17):
know what else is like this pickleball? Just kidding, it's golf,
just kidding, it's bow hunting white tails. You can shoot
foam until you're an Olympic level shooter, but that's only
going to take you so far in the field. You
know a lot of the conventional advice here and have
probably heard me go on and on about some of it.
I think you should practice in some ways that will
(04:38):
help you be a better shot, like using three D targets,
you know, shooting from your deck or a tree stand
set up just for that purpose. I think you should
practice in low light, and that you should shoot at
odd yardages with limited arrows. You should make every shot
count and treat every shot like you don't get a mulligan,
because in the wild you probably won't. And that's a
(05:00):
good start, But there's more to be done now. I've
told you guys a few stories about some of my
most embarrassing misses and the years I struggled with real
buck fever, But I don't think you can quite understand
how bad I used to fall apart. It was like
having a disease that caused me to black out, lose
my mind, and always or nearly always shoot over the
(05:20):
back of the deer that I so desperately wanted. It
got so bad I felt like quitting many many times.
I didn't know a way out, and I didn't really
understand the process of getting over my buck fever and
learning to be a good shot on animals. In fact,
I still don't know for sure how to do it completely.
I kind of think you can't, but you can be
(05:42):
better than a quivering mass of total dipshit who couldn't
hit a buck in the lungs with twelve quivers full
of arrows and unlimited time. Now, I think this is
going to sound kind of dumb, but I want you
to hear me out. The first step is visualization. I know,
I know it sounds like some you know, Kenyon's hippie
dippy mustache laiden bs, but the truth is it works,
(06:06):
or it can work, and for me it works this way.
I think about shooting deer a lot. And if you
don't believe that, talk to my wife when I'm driving
and she's telling me something that I absolutely am not
really taking in and definitely won't retain, or you know,
when strangers talk to me. A lot of times I
get to daydreaming. You know, maybe it's a touch of
(06:27):
ADHD or whatever, but I start thinking about shooting deer,
and I start thinking about shooting them out of very
specific setups, like when I get into my stand. I
also always, always always draw my bow a few times
and aim at stuff. Now, not deer. You know this
is going to be leaves or whatever, But it's the
process of thinking through and visualizing your shot. You don't
(06:50):
have to do this just when your wife's talking to you.
You should do it in your stands as well. I
do it when I'm in a groundb line or a
tree stand or hanging in a saddle. I draw an
aim at random, I am at whatever, and I think
about how easy it would be to make a shot
on a deer if a deer was standing there. If
you don't do this, start, I'm totally serious. If you
(07:12):
get into a ground blind and you don't draw your
bow and aim out the window a few times, you're
far more likely to screw up a shot. If you
get saddled up and you don't practice drawing and aiming
around both sides of the tree or behind you, you're
setting yourself up to make a mistake. You do not
want the first time you draw at a weird angle
to be the time there's one hundred and thirty five
inch ten pointers standing there. Imagine the buck on that
(07:35):
trail and watch how your pin floats across that yellow
leaf you're aiming at, or that bare patch dirt or whatever.
Do this. If you're hunting an evening, do this as
soon as you settle in and then maybe once or
twice more before primetime. If you're hunting mornings, wait until
first light, do a good perimeter check to make sure
(07:56):
you don't have any deer closing in. Then do this.
Do it later in the morning too, when you start
to get sleepy and you start to think about packing
the whole thing up. Do this in hot weather and
cold weather, and even if you've made seventeen perfect double
lung shots in a row, it's just a good exercise,
but it serves another purpose. It tells you how shooting
(08:17):
out of your specific setup is kind of gonna go.
This is something a lot of us don't appreciate until
it's too late and we're smack dab in the middle
of an encounter. Take a groundb line, for example. You
set up a pop up on the edge of an
alfalfa field. You arrange the far woodline, and it's forty yards.
You know there are several trails that lead into the field,
(08:38):
and you could draw your bow, aim a little and
you're just gonna be good to go. You start to
daydream about a big one coming in and you think
he's going to walk right into the middle of the
field and pose up at twenty yards, but he doesn't.
He stays on the far wood edge, at the boundary
between where you can shoot where you can't because of
how your chair is positioned and how the shooting port
(08:59):
is situated. This is the kind of thing that causes
real panic, and real panic is the kind of thing
that causes us to make bad shots. Knowing how far
you can swing your bow one way or the other
to really shoot and what you'll do if he doesn't
follow the script is important. It's something you should think
about when you have the luxury of thinking about it
on your own time, and not when it's suddenly very
(09:21):
important because he's walking through the same goes for tree
stands and saddles. Do you know where you can draw
and aim and take a shot from the ladder stand
your dad's set up for you seven years ago, when
you're hanging and hunting out of a saddle and thinking
about where you can shoot and what trail he's likely
to come down? Do you know where your real shooting
windows are and how easy it'll be for you to
(09:43):
aim through them. The more you think about this stuff
without a deer there, the easier it is to make
a shot work. When a deer is there. I know
this sounds like overkill, but it's not. You want to
know how things are going to go before they get going.
A little dress rehearsal if you will. The same goes
for shot distance. When you get on stand. Do you
(10:06):
range several markers so you know how many yards he
will be if he stops at the yellow patch of
beans in the field. What if he takes the farther
trail around your pinch point? Stan? Are you going to
wait until he's there to range him and then suffer
the possibility that the extra movement and that extra time
will cause you to miss out on a shot opportunity.
If you can do something beneficial before he gets there,
(10:29):
you should do it. I'd also recommend drawing metaphorical lines
in the sand when you get into your setup. As
far as shot distances go. If I'm on a bean field,
for example, I'll range the rose until I know what's
(10:50):
forty yards out. That for me is the farthest I'm
going to shoot at a white tail in perfect conditions.
And if it's not perfect conditions because the light is
fading or it's raining or whatever, that range is going
to get reduced. I figure this out as soon as
I can, so I don't have to hamm an awe
during the moment of truth. This stuff helps you make
better shots on deer, but so will something else. Watching deer,
(11:14):
and I don't mean just seeing deer and taking a
video of them walking by so you can post it
on Instagram. I mean watching them and paying attention to
what they do and when and how you'd shoot them
at various times during your encounter. I do this on
pretty much every deer that gets into range. I don't
drawn aim at deer. I don't want to shoot, and
I don't recommend that because if you have a big
(11:35):
old brain fart trip that trigger, which is a possibility,
you could have one hell of a oopsie on your hands.
But watching deer and how they browse and how their
body positioning can change, just from how they look back
down the trail, or when they scratch their nose with
a back hoof, or when they stretch their necks out
to sniff a certain leaf. That's the stuff that will
give you more confidence in choosing the right aiming point.
(11:57):
You can damn near predict the future when you want enough.
So even when we use three D targets to practice.
We often think of real white tails kind of as
a two D thing. We think of them from the broadside,
and we know where the guts are, and we know
where the liver is and the heart and the lungs,
but we almost never shoot it here that's perfectly broadside
(12:18):
while we were on the ground with them. We almost
always have to deal with a couple of different angles,
whether they are quartered to us or a little bit
away from us, whether we are ten feet above them
or thirty feet above them. A deer walking down a
hill by your stand is probably not a shot that
you ever ever practice at the range. A deer that's
really close, say four yards in the base of your tree,
(12:40):
is another shot you probably never practice, maybe shouldn't take.
But it all depends on so many things. Can you
get your arrow into both lungs? How likely is it?
How likely is it that you'll get into both lungs
on a giant buck like that? If you've never once
thought about taking that shot, or visualized it, or watched
a four key do this same thing and actually studied
(13:01):
his movements and picked out the best aiming points every
seconds he made his way through, I really think Watching
deer and learning about their movements is an education that
is worth so much to all of us hunters. This
allows us to take better shots, partially because it allows us,
you know, like I said, to predict the future. Just
like in dog training, where there are certain behaviors that
(13:22):
are just going to show at certain times, deer are
very very likely to do certain things at certain times.
I'll give you an easy example. If a buck walks
in and he's totally relaxed, but then he stops to
focus on something and he stares for like thirty seconds,
you might think you're in trouble. Would you feel relief
if you watched him shake his tail a couple times
(13:44):
real fast? You should, because that means he's probably gonna
drop his head and start walking, just like every other
deer who has done the same thing. If you watch
deer enough, you start to learn those types of behaviors
and understand when your best shot opportunity is about to happen.
That's so important to making good shots in the field
when it counts the most. Think about it this way too.
(14:08):
Most of the time, when deer come in and they're relaxed,
they're moving pretty slow. They sniff here they step there,
They almost forecast their movements, and that gives you a
really good chance to draw when you need to and
anticipate right where you should be aiming. All this stuff
requires patients, and it actually helps you to become more patient,
(14:32):
which is the antidote to rushing shots, which is the
one thing that causes us to make bad shots more
than anything else. Let me give you another example. You
guys know I like to hunt rivers, I like to
hunt water. Well. One river I like to hunt is
in North Dakota and has steep banks. The deer almost
always approach it at a walk and then they descend
(14:52):
right down to the water and drink. This usually happens
without a whole lot of stopping. Then they cross the
river and they have to ascend the other bank. When
they do, they almost always always stop to survey their surroundings.
They've probably dealt with enough coyotes and lions there to
know that the safe side of the river they just
left is a memory, and it's time to figure out
(15:13):
if there is danger waiting for them on the new side.
It's pretty simple prey behavior. But if you're up in
a tree there and they pop up, that bank. It
often seems like they are onto something because they seem
just a little bit edgy, like maybe they caught just
a slight whiff of you and they're considering leaving. But
they mostly didn't and they mostly aren't. But if you
believe that you know that they might be on their
(15:35):
way out, you're gonna rush a shot when you could
have just waited a little bit until they convinced themselves
that the new bank, the new side, is all good,
and then they walk right by totally unaware that you're
about to skewer them. Pay attention to all of the deer,
study them. It's important. And lastly, I have one more
thing for you. If you want to be a stone
(15:56):
cold killer who consistently makes the kind of shots where
you get to witness the light, it's going out, take
shots that you know you can make. I know that
seems dumb, because of course that's what should do, but
a lot of people don't. Just think about it this way.
If you put a deer out in front of you
at fifteen yards a broadside and it's relaxed, how often
(16:17):
are you going to tank that shot? Not very often,
I hope. But now put that same deer quartering away
in a little bit tense at let's say thirty three yards. Sure,
you can make thirty three yard shots all day, but
it's not nearly as much of a foregone conclusion as
that first fifteen yard broadside shot. Knowing your limitations and
(16:39):
being patient enough to wait for a no brainer shot
or good things. It's also really tough to learn either
of those things and implement them in the field. But
we should all be working to be better at shooting deer.
I deal with this every year, and it gives me
so much pride to string together several good shots. You know,
it doesn't always happen, and I doubt it ever will
(17:02):
for me or you or you know someone like John Dudley,
who could probably outshoot most of us if we were
in broad daylight and he had to shoot in a
pitch black cave. He probably still screws up some shots,
you know. So the goal isn't to just become a
badass paper puncher here. It's to become a reliable, consistently
good shot on actual animals. That takes a few things
(17:26):
that you can't just accomplish on the range. Think about
this as your season opens up here. Think about coming
back next week, because I'm going to talk about how
to navigate the quote unquote October lull in real time,
and I'm going to give you an example for that
when I open that show that you're probably not going
to expect. That's it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson.
(17:49):
This has been the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which
is brought to you by First Light. As I always,
thank you so much for listening and for all your support.
Truly appreciate it means the world to me and the
rest of us here at meat Eater. If you want
some more white tail content, or you want to see
some videos with Steve or Clay or whoever, listen to
some podcasts, go to the meaedeater dot com and you
(18:10):
will find so much content that you will probably get
fired from work because you'll spend too much time looking
at it. But that's okay.
Host
Mark Kenyon
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