Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,
Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.
Speaker 1: First Light, Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.
Speaker 2: Hey everyone, welcome to the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast,
Speaker 2: which has brought to you by first Light. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about training yourself
Speaker 2: to think more like a buck when your job every
Speaker 2: week consists of creating content and you're not a guy
Speaker 2: like Mark Kenyon who thinks butterflies are the coolest thing ever,
Speaker 2: and you just lean into that even though the audience
Speaker 2: couldn't care less about monarchs. You just find inspiration in
Speaker 2: weird places. I'm most recently found some of that good
Speaker 2: stuff after not being able to find one of my
Speaker 2: dogs in the house. I know that doesn't make any sense,
Speaker 2: but trust me, it will if you keep on listening.
Speaker 2: My wife doesn't drink a whole lot, but occasionally she'll
Speaker 2: tie one on. Recently, while watching the women's Final four
Speaker 2: game to see if Caitlin Clark could make fifteen or
Speaker 2: twenty three pointers from half court. My bride went pretty
Speaker 2: deep in her celebratory libations for my slower listeners, I mean,
Speaker 2: she had three drinks, which is a lot for her.
Speaker 2: She was so keyed up after that Hawkeye's win and
Speaker 2: knowing they were going to make it to the championship
Speaker 2: that she stayed up after I went to bed, since
Speaker 2: I was planning on getting up bright and early to
Speaker 2: go to Wisconsin to do some deer work. Now, before
Speaker 2: I went to bed, I let the young dog outside,
Speaker 2: and then I gave my bride specific instructions to let
Speaker 2: Sadie back in. And then I went back and I
Speaker 2: gave her specific instructions to let Sadie back in again, which,
Speaker 2: if you're paying attention, is twice. I told her to
Speaker 2: let Sadie back inside. Well. When I woke up in
Speaker 2: the morning, it was pretty clear during feeding time that
Speaker 2: one of my dogs was definitely sleeping in. I checked
Speaker 2: my daughter's room, where Sadie usually snuggles up, and while
Speaker 2: I was squinting in the dark, trying not to wake
Speaker 2: my daughter and see a black dog in the black dark,
Speaker 2: I realized something. My dog was probably still tied up
Speaker 2: outside and I might need to have an intervention with
Speaker 2: my wife, which would be real ironic given my history. Now,
Speaker 2: that poor little dog was so happy to see me,
Speaker 2: it was almost worth leaving her outside all night. I'll admit.
Speaker 2: As a dog lover, my first instinct was to run
Speaker 2: into the bedroom and wake my wife up to let
Speaker 2: her know what she had done. I was pissed, but
Speaker 2: then I thought, well, it's not like I'm batting a
Speaker 2: thousand in life, and it's not like I never made
Speaker 2: any really stupid decisions when I drank. So I did
Speaker 2: the grown up thing and I let her off easy.
Speaker 2: Plus I knew she'd feel terrible since she loves that
Speaker 2: little black lab so much. Now I got to thinking
Speaker 2: about Sadie's night tied up in our front yard. I
Speaker 2: have no doubt she heard some coyotes, because we hear
Speaker 2: them often. I wondered if any of the neighborhood foxes
Speaker 2: or deer walk by at some point. I wonder what
Speaker 2: she smelled throughout the night, sitting there in the dark,
Speaker 2: wondering why she got stuck with such shitty owners. Now
Speaker 2: that got me thinking about a fellow I interviewed a
Speaker 2: few years ago when I had a podcast dedicated to dogs.
Speaker 2: The show was about a guy down in Texas who
Speaker 2: trains dogs to sniff out in dangered sea turtle nests
Speaker 2: so they can help the little turtles hatch and survive
Speaker 2: the journey into the ocean. Now, that trainer also adopts
Speaker 2: quite a few dogs, including dogs that are blind or deaf,
Speaker 2: or in a couple cases both. Now I asked him
Speaker 2: how he trained to blind and deaf dog, and he said, well,
Speaker 2: with a lot of treats, which makes sense. He also
Speaker 2: told me about how his blind and deaf dog reacted
Speaker 2: the first time they visited the beach together. Basically, that
Speaker 2: dog stuck its snout in the air and started running
Speaker 2: circles down the beach, obviously enjoying his time in that environment.
Speaker 2: The crazy thing is that the dog did that because
Speaker 2: that dog maps out the world just with its nose.
Speaker 2: In its eternal silence and darkness, the best way to
Speaker 2: interact with the world is with its sniffer, and on
Speaker 2: a beach, it quickly knew that nothing was blocking the
Speaker 2: wind for miles, which in its head meant it wasn't
Speaker 2: going to run into anything. Now, there's something pure about
Speaker 2: a dog just running because it wants to run, but
Speaker 2: also a blind and deaf dog getting to run freely
Speaker 2: because it figured out it's in a safe place to
Speaker 2: run freely. The trainer and I talked about this, and
Speaker 2: he basically said he can watch that dog avoid trees
Speaker 2: and plants and cars and garbage cans and whatever else
Speaker 2: because it travels with the wind at its face. If
Speaker 2: it all can, I'll imagine that it's pretty hard for
Speaker 2: us to relate. But think about if your nose provided
Speaker 2: as much intel about the world as your eyes do.
Speaker 2: That's the way it is for dogs, And you guessed
Speaker 2: it giraffes. Just kidding. Well, technically I have no idea
Speaker 2: how good giraffe noses are, but it doesn't matter because
Speaker 2: I'm talking about deer here. I think this is something
Speaker 2: to acknowledge, and it's something to try to understand. In fact,
Speaker 2: I think at least thinking about how deer map their
Speaker 2: world with their noses and how they see the world
Speaker 2: is something that can help you level up as a
Speaker 2: deer hunter. What they hear, you know, that matters too.
Speaker 2: But it's pretty easy to figure out how to be quiet.
Speaker 2: So I'm not gonna dwell on that one. So let's
Speaker 2: start with something blatantly obvious. We can't even grasp what
Speaker 2: it's like to be able to interpret the world the
Speaker 2: way deer do. We have to make a guess, we
Speaker 2: have to fill in the blanks and just kind of
Speaker 2: roll with it. But how well you do that matters,
Speaker 2: and it's something I think we can all benefit from.
Speaker 2: Let me give you an example. The morning I figured
Speaker 2: out that my wife had basically tortured my poor scared
Speaker 2: dog all night long by leaving her outside to fend
Speaker 2: for herself in the mean streets of the suburbs, I
Speaker 2: drove to Wisconsin. The goal was to cut a trail
Speaker 2: on a property, scout out some trees for bow stands
Speaker 2: and rifle stands, and if I had the time, put
Speaker 2: up a stand or a blind. One thing that happens
Speaker 2: to saw blades around me is that they get real dull.
Speaker 2: This happens over there a lot, because you know you'll
Speaker 2: be happily zoned out swinging that brushcutter around when the
Speaker 2: blade will whack into a rock and send a shower
Speaker 2: of sparks. When you do this enough, your sweet tree
Speaker 2: cutting saw blade turns into mostly a giant pizza cutter.
Speaker 2: When that happened, I ran to town to buy a new blade,
Speaker 2: but they were sold out. That gave me a has
Speaker 2: to carry a stand into a spot I set up
Speaker 2: a few weeks ago and get ahead of the game
Speaker 2: a little bit. When I was up there in that tree,
Speaker 2: you know, covering my hands and sap and setting the
Speaker 2: stand in just such a way so that I won't
Speaker 2: even have to stand up to shoot a mature buck
Speaker 2: when he cruises through the big Woods this fall, I
Speaker 2: realized the wind was blowing straight out of the west.
Speaker 2: That direction in that spot means any buck walking into
Speaker 2: it along the slight elevation line I talked about a
Speaker 2: few weeks ago will think he's good. He'll think that
Speaker 2: the danger in front of him is going to be
Speaker 2: discovered via his nose long before he gets into the
Speaker 2: red zone. This only gets a little better because the
Speaker 2: elevation line doesn't sit on a perfectly east west line.
Speaker 2: It comes in slightly from the north, which means the
Speaker 2: buck's traveling it will actually be giving me an even
Speaker 2: better edge, and they'll believe they are safe. When that
Speaker 2: stuff comes together, the kind of stuff that makes big
Speaker 2: bucks believe they have the upper hand when they don't.
Speaker 2: You have the makings for an amazing spot. Now here's
Speaker 2: where things get a little wonky. When I was running
Speaker 2: a camera in that spot for the last few years,
Speaker 2: or grouse hunting at last fall, or walking it out
Speaker 2: this winter while scouting, I wasn't thinking about what bucks
Speaker 2: think about. I was thinking about what a hunter who
Speaker 2: wants to kill bucks thinks about. You know, things like, man,
Speaker 2: there's a sweet rub there and a sweet rub there,
Speaker 2: and since my camera's over there and shows me this travel,
Speaker 2: I just need to pick a good tree and the
Speaker 2: rest is history. Yet we do that a lot and
Speaker 2: a lot of times, we don't kill big bucks. I
Speaker 2: think this is because we don't put ourselves in their shoes,
Speaker 2: so to speak. We don't think about how walking through
Speaker 2: the woods for them is a matter of life and death.
Speaker 2: Now I realize, at any given moment, you or I
Speaker 2: could be strolling down the sidewalk listening to German death
Speaker 2: metal on our earbuds when a bus could veer off
Speaker 2: course and pancake us right into the side of a
Speaker 2: quick trip. But we don't fear that kind of thing
Speaker 2: a whole lot. You know, we know it's possible, but
Speaker 2: not very likely. A big buck walking through the woods
Speaker 2: knows that he could run into a hunter two legged
Speaker 2: or four, and that when he does, it's highly likely
Speaker 2: his life is in danger. What probably reinforces this a
Speaker 2: hell of a lot is that he can also smell
Speaker 2: when predators have been through in the last few days.
Speaker 2: The entire world of Scent is a matrix of animals
Speaker 2: and plants coming together in his environment. For him to
Speaker 2: travel a certain elevation line, at least a lot of
Speaker 2: the time, he's going to want to do it when
Speaker 2: his nose could save his ass. It's actually pretty simple.
Speaker 2: And while I realize they don't always follow the rules,
Speaker 2: especially when it's the rut, I believe they follow those
Speaker 2: rules a lot. I think they're far more aware of
Speaker 2: us than we'd like to believe, and a way to
Speaker 2: bridge this gap is to try to think like a deer.
Speaker 2: I know this probably sounds a little crazy, but hear
Speaker 2: me out. Nature is on a survival mission, and there
Speaker 2: are two ways creatures survive. One is the obvious way,
Speaker 2: which is that they don't die if they can help it.
Speaker 2: The other is by passing on their jeans so that
Speaker 2: even when they are dead and gone, some part of
Speaker 2: them is still out there on the landscape. Giving a
Speaker 2: new generation of hunter's hope. We don't think about our
Speaker 2: own survival a whole lot because we don't have to.
Speaker 2: We have the luxury of not fretting over getting killed
Speaker 2: at any given moment. We don't have to look at
Speaker 2: the woods as a source of total danger, but instead
Speaker 2: a source of enjoyment. What we hunt doesn't have that
Speaker 2: same luxury, and it matters how you think about that.
Speaker 2: Take bed hunters like Dan Enfhalt, for example. A guy
Speaker 2: like that isn't just trying to figure out where a
Speaker 2: big buck beds on a high spot in a swamp.
Speaker 2: He's trying to figure out why. On a surface level,
Speaker 2: I guess we could say every big buck bed is
Speaker 2: in a spot where big bucks think they are safe.
Speaker 2: But that only works if you ignore all of the
Speaker 2: other conditions. That big buck bed on the edge of
Speaker 2: a swamp in Louisiana or Georgia might be ideal for
Speaker 2: some type of south wind, But what if a cold
Speaker 2: front blows in and the wind switches to the north.
Speaker 2: Is the bed still is valuable? Probably not. You see,
Speaker 2: when we think of wind and conditions, we think about
Speaker 2: how favorable they'll be to us. We have stands that
Speaker 2: are ideal for south winds or west winds or whatever.
Speaker 2: But what does that mean to the deer. It might
Speaker 2: mean they have to give up some degree of danger
Speaker 2: detection to travel to or through your spot, and that
Speaker 2: means that some big, old, mature deer just aren't going
Speaker 2: to go there. The risk reward is out of whack
Speaker 2: for them. So while we know it's best for us,
Speaker 2: that doesn't really matter. Imagine they're thinking on this, however,
Speaker 2: whatever level they can reason to. I guess they know
Speaker 2: they want to go somewhere to drink or fill their
Speaker 2: belly or sniff a doze, but that's great. But they
Speaker 2: know getting there is the real battle. And if they
Speaker 2: can't map the unseen world in front of them with
Speaker 2: their noses, some deer aren't gonna make that move in
Speaker 2: daylight because it's just not worth it. They also know
Speaker 2: that if they can use their nose first, they will
Speaker 2: instead of poking their head out into a wide open field,
Speaker 2: they'll most likely send check it from the safety of
Speaker 2: the cover first. When hunters understand this part of the game,
Speaker 2: they really start to understand how to use it against deer.
Speaker 2: This is part common sense and actually part visualization. Take
Speaker 2: a random rub in the woods. For example, Let's say
Speaker 2: you stumble across it while running and gunning for turkeys.
Speaker 2: It's a cool fine, and you drop a waypoint before
Speaker 2: moving on, because after all, waypoints are free, and that's
Speaker 2: something you want to remember. But what's better than doing
Speaker 2: just that is to stop and take a long look
Speaker 2: around an actual three hundred and sixty degree You know
Speaker 2: which way the buck was standing by the way he
Speaker 2: rubbed the tree, so you can place him there in
Speaker 2: your mind. Now ask yourself where did he come from?
Speaker 2: Ask yourself where's he likely going? If he traveled to
Speaker 2: this tree in the same direction he made the rub.
Speaker 2: What wind would have been best for him to make
Speaker 2: that move? Why would a buck think he was safe
Speaker 2: to do that, especially if you believe he did it
Speaker 2: in the daylight? Where else did he leave clues for you?
Speaker 2: What does it all mean in the grand scheme of things?
Speaker 2: And by that I mean what other info do you
Speaker 2: have about the area and potentially that buck. Did you
Speaker 2: get any trail camera images of a big win around
Speaker 2: there last year? When did you find a big old
Speaker 2: bed on a bench one hundred yards away? Did you
Speaker 2: get down into that bed and take a long look around.
Speaker 2: Can you see the rub from the bed or not?
Speaker 2: Where is the nearest destination food source? And how would
Speaker 2: a buck go from there to that bed? Why does
Speaker 2: he feel safe there? And how how can you make
Speaker 2: him unsafe without letting him know you're onto him. I
Speaker 2: know I'm throwing a lot of stuff your way, but
Speaker 2: there's something I want to highlight here. If you think
Speaker 2: about what a buck might be thinking about, you start
Speaker 2: to be able to predict when he might move and where.
Speaker 2: You'll mostly get it wrong. But this is a learning process,
Speaker 2: and that's okay. The best hunters are built upon a
Speaker 2: foundation of countless mistakes, thousands of them if you stick
Speaker 2: with this stuff long enough. But over time you start
Speaker 2: to realize why bucks choose the beds and the trails
Speaker 2: in the staging areas they do. They're not random, They're
Speaker 2: their best spots for survival. That's it. This is something
Speaker 2: that is largely subdued with low pressure deer, which is
Speaker 2: why they are just so much easier to hunt. The
Speaker 2: more pressure the deer get, the more likely they are
Speaker 2: to make their daily decisions around not taking unnecessary risks.
Speaker 2: By the way, old does are masters of this too.
Speaker 2: If you can figure out a way to consistently get
Speaker 2: in range of old does, especially old does with fawns,
Speaker 2: you can figure out a way to get around mature bucks.
Speaker 2: We don't talk about that aspect enough, but I believe
Speaker 2: it in my heart. Outwitting old deer is outwitting old deer,
Speaker 2: whether they have antlers or not. Think about this as
Speaker 2: you're out there, you know, maybe wrapping up your winter
Speaker 2: and spring scouting efforts, or more likely poking around the
Speaker 2: woods trying to shoot a gobbler. The tracks you find
Speaker 2: in the mud that show a big deer walk through
Speaker 2: last night, they offer you a chance to think about
Speaker 2: the why of it all. You know, the button heead
Speaker 2: crew of bucks leaving the alfalfa and jumping a fence
Speaker 2: to go into the woods while you stare at some
Speaker 2: turkey decoys. They're telling you a lot too. Ask yourself
Speaker 2: which way the wind is blowing. Ask yourself, why would
Speaker 2: they cross there and not somewhere else? Where are they going?
Speaker 2: Where will they go when they get up to leave
Speaker 2: their beds later in the day, What are they thinking about?
Speaker 2: I know that seems dumb, you know, mostly because it's
Speaker 2: easier for us to think about them subconsciously making decisions
Speaker 2: and not deliberate on the pros and cons of jumping
Speaker 2: the fence where it SAgs or slipping between the strands
Speaker 2: in a different spot. We just think they don't think
Speaker 2: like us, which is probably true. But even if they
Speaker 2: aren't devoting tons of mental horsepower to making the best
Speaker 2: decisions given to any set of circumstances, they are operating
Speaker 2: off of a base level risk reward thought process. They
Speaker 2: know when they bed with a dead fall to their
Speaker 2: back that no coyotes are going to sneak up too
Speaker 2: close from that direction, just as they know when they
Speaker 2: bet on a ridge they can see down into the
Speaker 2: valley where danger is likely to approach from. Since we
Speaker 2: know they know that, we can use it to our
Speaker 2: advantage by just trying to get inside their heads as
Speaker 2: much as we can. As I get older and try
Speaker 2: to keep hunting new places and find new experiences out
Speaker 2: there in the white tail world, I think about this
Speaker 2: stuff a lot. It's something that comes from a lot
Speaker 2: of scouting, and it's something that shapes my season long plans.
Speaker 2: It's also probably the biggest contributor to us trusting our instincts,
Speaker 2: which is the only way we might ever get on
Speaker 2: the level of a mature buck. So do this come
Speaker 2: back next week because I'm going to talk about why
Speaker 2: we all need to get outside and touch a little grass.
Speaker 2: That's it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson. This has
Speaker 2: been the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which is brought
Speaker 2: to you by First Light. As I always, thank you so
Speaker 2: much for listening and for all your support all of
Speaker 2: us here at Mediatter, we truly truly appreciate it, so
Speaker 2: thank you for that. Maybe you want a little more
Speaker 2: turkey hunting content. Maybe you want some other deer hunting content,
Speaker 2: Maybe you just want to listen to one of Clay's
Speaker 2: podcast whatever, head on over to the mediator dot com.
Speaker 2: You're gonna find tons of articles, tons of videos, tons
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