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 Foundation's podcast,
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by first Light. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about what hunters
Speaker 2: get wrong about hunting soft and hard mass. I spent
Speaker 2: some time in the woods last weekend bear hunting with
Speaker 2: my daughter and it just hit me how much food
Speaker 2: is out there in the woods right now, not just
Speaker 2: for the yogi is looking to get their paws on
Speaker 2: a picnic basket, but for the deer. There's no shortage
Speaker 2: of food, and a lot of that exists in two forms,
Speaker 2: soft mast and hard mast. We all know what fits
Speaker 2: into those two categories, but what we don't all knows
Speaker 2: how to hunt either pattern in the early season really well,
Speaker 2: which is what I'm going to talk about right now.
Speaker 2: I know this is a first world problem. I get it,
Speaker 2: I totally do, but I struggle more and more with
Speaker 2: the transition from fishing to hunting as I get older,
Speaker 2: the fall fishing is just so good. And while it
Speaker 2: might seem like a deer hunting sin to not go
Speaker 2: hunting on the bow opener, I'm seriously considering skipping the
Speaker 2: tree stand thing to go bang away on some schooled
Speaker 2: up smallmouth you see. For some reason this year, I
Speaker 2: just stumbled across some schools of fish that are out
Speaker 2: on structure, way off ashore, way far away from the
Speaker 2: easy to identify rock piles and rock points. You know.
Speaker 2: One of those schools I found is just full of giants.
Speaker 2: And when I say that, I mean we caught fish
Speaker 2: that actually measured twenty two inches, which is pretty good
Speaker 2: size for a small mouth anywhere. That school is BAUSI
Speaker 2: on an old river channel in a lake that I
Speaker 2: like a lot. There, maybe I don't know, one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty yards from the nearest shore line, kind of
Speaker 2: out in the middle of nothing now down south. I'm
Speaker 2: sure I wouldn't be the only one on those fish,
Speaker 2: because in a lot of those reservoirs and big water
Speaker 2: down there, they're pretty good at finding fish off offshore
Speaker 2: on structure. But up here in near Canada Land, it
Speaker 2: feels like I'm kind of the only one who has
Speaker 2: found them. And when you get false small mouth all
Speaker 2: schooled up, and then you add in the cold nights
Speaker 2: and the bait fish concentrations, you get fishing that is Baananas.
Speaker 2: I threw a zara spook on those fish a couple
Speaker 2: of weeks ago and had a legit five pound dish
Speaker 2: type fish hit it, and I got him about halfway
Speaker 2: to the boat before he tossed my lure and it
Speaker 2: went end over end who straight up and came back down.
Speaker 2: And the second it landed, a different five pounder hit it,
Speaker 2: and I managed to keep him buttoned up and landed him.
Speaker 2: A few casts later, I had a three pounder hit
Speaker 2: and when I was fighting that fish, a different three
Speaker 2: pounder tried to steal the lure from his mouth. So
Speaker 2: briefly I had two three pounds small mouth with different
Speaker 2: ideas on how to get away, both attached to the
Speaker 2: same lure. There are so many fish there, you know,
Speaker 2: the competition for food is intense. There are a lot
Speaker 2: of minos in that spot. And you know how I know, well,
Speaker 2: I saw them. I saw the smallies puke them up
Speaker 2: when we fought them, and I caught several walleyes chason
Speaker 2: minnows there on top waters. Now I've spent maybe I
Speaker 2: don't know, seven hundred and fifty thousand hours of my life,
Speaker 2: which is a rough estimate, throwing top waters around in
Speaker 2: the hope so that some big bass or big northern
Speaker 2: or musky will hit. What has never, not once happened
Speaker 2: to me is catching a walleye on a top water. Now,
Speaker 2: when it happened on that smallie school the first time,
Speaker 2: I chalked it up to a confused walter who was
Speaker 2: raised by a family a small mouth and didn't know
Speaker 2: any better, kind of like the stories about kids who've
Speaker 2: been abandoned in the wild to only be taken in
Speaker 2: by a friendly pack of wolves or a group of gorillas.
Speaker 2: So they aren't acting like wolves or gorillas. But when
Speaker 2: the second wall I surfaced and ate my top water,
Speaker 2: I realized I was dealing with something different. There were
Speaker 2: so many predatory fish in that one little spot that's
Speaker 2: really only about the size of a pickup truck, that
Speaker 2: they are all just going full send on any potential
Speaker 2: meal they can get. It was wild, and it happened
Speaker 2: during two different weekends, and I can only imagine how
Speaker 2: much more they are going right now. But I'm going
Speaker 2: to go sit in a tree stand instead, I think.
Speaker 2: But that school of fish and some of the others
Speaker 2: I found, they can teach us some lessons on deer
Speaker 2: in a few simple forms. And the first, it's just
Speaker 2: resource scarcity. The hunters who get good at finding high
Speaker 2: value resources in limited quantities are the hunters who can
Speaker 2: fill their tags any damn where they please. The second
Speaker 2: is that that kind of action will happen when the
Speaker 2: time is right, and not before and not after. It's
Speaker 2: a moment thing, and if you can get on it
Speaker 2: when it's going, you're in for the type of fishing
Speaker 2: or hunting that generates stories you'll tell for a long
Speaker 2: long time. It's just special. The third thing that school
Speaker 2: of big old bronze backs and walters can teach us
Speaker 2: about hunting is that old adage and selling real estate. Location, location, location.
Speaker 2: Those fish are positioned in a place that just isn't
Speaker 2: obvious to a lot of fishermen. They get left alone
Speaker 2: to work schools as shiners and do their fall feeding thing,
Speaker 2: while fishermen cast to empty rock piles and sand drops
Speaker 2: that aren't even all that close to them. For some reason,
Speaker 2: we like to rank things in the order of importance,
Speaker 2: perhaps because we have a long evolutionary history of hierarchy arrangement.
Speaker 2: I don't know. What I do know is that if
Speaker 2: you were to try to think about white tails the
Speaker 2: way you might think about finding an unbelievable small mouth
Speaker 2: or walleye spot, you'd probably want to decide what is
Speaker 2: the most important, what criteria matters the most. Now, obviously,
Speaker 2: without the oak tree dropping acorns, or the apple tree
Speaker 2: throwing down some apples, or the persimmon tree littering the
Speaker 2: ground with fruity goodness, you don't have much of a
Speaker 2: masked pattern. There has to be some mask to get
Speaker 2: a masked pattern, which is the most obvious thing you
Speaker 2: could probably say, even though that doesn't make it less true.
Speaker 2: But we know there is masked out there where you hunt,
Speaker 2: where I hunt, just about anywhere the white tail lives,
Speaker 2: and honestly, probably everywhere the white tail lives, there is
Speaker 2: some kind of mast, and a hell of a lot
Speaker 2: of it gets ripe during September and early October. A
Speaker 2: lot of the white tail hunting advice out there will
Speaker 2: tell you to go find that white oak, and basically
Speaker 2: your job is done. The thing is when one white
Speaker 2: oak is dropping, often many many white oaks are dropping.
Speaker 2: When the percimons are ripe in your region, they are
Speaker 2: ripe everywhere. It's not enough to know that some mass
Speaker 2: type event is happening because that's the lowest hanging fruit here.
Speaker 2: Get it. But we like to rank that as maybe
Speaker 2: the number one factor in arrowing a bit buck on
Speaker 2: a mass pattern. But the best mass pattern is the
Speaker 2: one that plays off a resource scarcity in real cover.
Speaker 2: Let me give you a real world example. I have
Speaker 2: a little spot over there in Wisconsin that has about
Speaker 2: six acres of oak trees and what you could describe
Speaker 2: as just a beautiful little chunk of woods. It looks perfect,
Speaker 2: and there are several giant oak trees in there. When
Speaker 2: the oak trees are dropping heavy like they were last year,
Speaker 2: the deer in there pretty thick. But you know what
Speaker 2: they weren't in there in daylight, a whole lot because
Speaker 2: that patch of oaks is within a long arrow shot
Speaker 2: distance of a neighbor's destination food plot. As far as
Speaker 2: I can tell, those neighbors only hunt that food plot,
Speaker 2: and they hunt it a lot. It's too busy in there,
Speaker 2: and so those giant oaks that rain down those acorns,
Speaker 2: you know, they also shade out the understory, and they
Speaker 2: look like they should be the draw. It should be easy,
Speaker 2: and you might make the mistake of walking through there
Speaker 2: and seeing all those giant acorns on the ground and
Speaker 2: tons of deer poop scared ed it around and assume
Speaker 2: that it's done, it's all figured out. But when you
Speaker 2: sit there on stand you might very well blank. It's
Speaker 2: almost the right setup, but it's missing the good cover.
Speaker 2: This is mistake hunters make a lot, and it has
Speaker 2: plenty to do with the fact that we just like
Speaker 2: setting up where we can see far and wide. Even
Speaker 2: though you could hunt those oaks that still very much
Speaker 2: be in the woods, you're not really in the kind
Speaker 2: of woods that a lot of pressure deer are going
Speaker 2: to use during daylight. And it would be a big
Speaker 2: ask to the deer gods to see a really good
Speaker 2: buck there during the hours when you can legally shoot him.
Speaker 2: What I figured out last year, way too late, i
Speaker 2: might add, is that some of the oak trees in
Speaker 2: that spot grow right next to the swamp. In fact,
Speaker 2: it was a group of tom turkeys that clued me
Speaker 2: into this pattern, if I'm being totally honest, they were
Speaker 2: scratching away in there when I went in to figure
Speaker 2: out what I was missing, and I realized that where
Speaker 2: the swamp edge butts up to the high ground, you
Speaker 2: know where the oaks are, you kind of have a
Speaker 2: special situation. You have a soft edge that deer naturally love.
Speaker 2: But that soft edge is also a buffer between woods
Speaker 2: that is awful open and an alder and willow choke
Speaker 2: swamp that is a nightmare to get through. It's perfect
Speaker 2: bedding cover, security cover, ideal escape cover. So the deer
Speaker 2: they want to eat acorns in daylight, but don't want
Speaker 2: to put themselves in a position to get killed by
Speaker 2: the very predictable hunters in the area. They feed those
Speaker 2: edges a lot. Now I have to say this. I
Speaker 2: set up some cameras this summer to try to dial
Speaker 2: in this pattern and just get a better idea when
Speaker 2: the big boys will start using those spots, and I
Speaker 2: literally cannot buy a deer picture in there. Once in
Speaker 2: a while, when a storm rolls through, I'll get some
Speaker 2: doze munching along there, But the bucks are nowhere to
Speaker 2: be found. But neither are most of the acorns. That
Speaker 2: I was counting on those trees dropped heavy, heavy last year,
Speaker 2: and they are being awful, stingy this year. This is
Speaker 2: a point that matters a lot, and I want to
Speaker 2: talk about it. Masked patterns, they're like a moving target.
Speaker 2: They might be amazing this year in a certain spot
Speaker 2: and terrible the next, and the tree you killed on
Speaker 2: a year ago might not draw a single visitor this fall.
Speaker 2: There's a little bit of hunting on memories that can
Speaker 2: happen with masts, but mostly you better forget that and
Speaker 2: figure out what's going on now. Now. There are two
Speaker 2: ways to looking at how to find the right mass
Speaker 2: pattern and how to hunt it. The first is if
Speaker 2: it's an individual tree thing. This seems to happen more
Speaker 2: with soft mass in my experience, but certainly can with
Speaker 2: hard masks too. It's just that most of us aren't
Speaker 2: hunting an apple orchard or a whole section of percymon trees.
Speaker 2: Those types of trees often exist as a solo option
Speaker 2: or in a small cluster. Oak trees and other hard
Speaker 2: mass trees are often different, not always, but often When
Speaker 2: you're looking to get on a single tree, particularly one
Speaker 2: deep in the cover where the deer will visit in daylight.
Speaker 2: You're pretty much going to have to go in and scout.
Speaker 2: There's no way around it. If you don't see it
Speaker 2: in person, and by that I mean the sign under
Speaker 2: the tree, then you probably won't find it unless you
Speaker 2: get lucky. Now, before I talk about this other style,
Speaker 2: I'll say this, it's not just enough to find that
Speaker 2: perfect apple tree that's back in the cover and littered
Speaker 2: with deer droppings underneath it. You have to look and
Speaker 2: see how much food is left. Most of the apples
Speaker 2: are on the ground or have already been carried away
Speaker 2: into digestive tracks of deer. You might catch the tail
Speaker 2: end of the activity on that tree, or it might
Speaker 2: already be over. Now, if it's absolutely loaded with fruit,
Speaker 2: that's a different story. It's probably time to call it
Speaker 2: and stick to work and make it happen. There. A
Speaker 2: good way to understand this is to drop a camera
Speaker 2: in a spot with a single, soft mass producing tree.
Speaker 2: When I do this, I'm often amazed at how predictable
Speaker 2: some of the deer are. They'll swing through in the
Speaker 2: morning or the evening and try to see if anything
Speaker 2: has fallen overnight or throughout the day, and they can
Speaker 2: be like clockwork, and I'll tell you something else here.
Speaker 2: If you are the kind of hunter who likes shooting
Speaker 2: does or little bucks, this is a tough situation to beat.
Speaker 2: But ture box are a different story because they just
Speaker 2: don't seem to be as predictable on situations where you
Speaker 2: might have one soft mass tree somewhere, but some of
Speaker 2: the other deer can be real predictable on that and
Speaker 2: that could be pretty dang fun. But what if you're
Speaker 2: not in a position to throw a camera up and
Speaker 2: pattern some soft mass munchers, and instead you have ridges
Speaker 2: and ridges of oak trees to work with, any of
Speaker 2: which could be the right tree for the week. Scouting
Speaker 2: sign is good, but not as good as hunting and watching.
Speaker 2: Here's what I like to do. Sneak in, set up
Speaker 2: on the fringe of the mass trees with the wind
Speaker 2: in my favor, even if there are ten or fifteen
Speaker 2: acres or more stretched out along the same ridge. I'll
Speaker 2: start out cautious on the outside where the access is easier.
Speaker 2: This is generally an evening situation first, but I really
Speaker 2: really like to hunt mast in the morning, especially in
Speaker 2: the first couple weeks of the season. I feel like
Speaker 2: this is just something that gets ignored over easier to
Speaker 2: identify food sources, and the reality is that fewer hunters
Speaker 2: go into the woods for morning sits in the early
Speaker 2: season than they do in the evenings. Some of my
Speaker 2: better bucks in the last ten years that I've killed
Speaker 2: and more that I've just seen, have been really late
Speaker 2: in the morning on a mass pattern in the woods.
Speaker 2: So what I like to do is slip in and
Speaker 2: play it relatively safe. First, I set up maybe fifty
Speaker 2: percent to kill and fifty percent to watch. A spot
Speaker 2: really gets my attention if I think I can get
Speaker 2: back in there for a morning sit the following morning
Speaker 2: after I do my evening sit. I use the tracker
Speaker 2: feature on on X a lot for this, and it's
Speaker 2: kind of been a game changer for me because it
Speaker 2: allows me to walk right back to whatever tree I
Speaker 2: picked in the daylight the day before. A lot of
Speaker 2: hunters won't do that because they think they'll make too
Speaker 2: much noise or too much disturbance to that. I say,
Speaker 2: try to find a way to go in slow, make
Speaker 2: yourself sound like a deer, and give yourself a lot
Speaker 2: of time to get the way early. Then pay attention.
Speaker 2: One thing that I've come to realize about watching deer
Speaker 2: is that if I see some dose or little bucks
Speaker 2: enter in alfalfa field or some other destination food source,
Speaker 2: it doesn't really give me much confidence that a much
Speaker 2: bigger deer will do that the following night or sometime
Speaker 2: within the week. That's different than observing a mass pattern
Speaker 2: where there are plenty of options for the deer. Every
Speaker 2: sighting is important, and I mean that I glass a
Speaker 2: lot in these situations and try to see exactly what
Speaker 2: the deer are doing. Are they swinging through quickly and
Speaker 2: moving off? Do they circle the tree a few times?
Speaker 2: Do they bounce around the ridge multiple times? Or just
Speaker 2: hone in on one spot below one tree and sit there.
Speaker 2: Is there maybe a gully or something below the ridge
Speaker 2: that might funnel tons of dropped acorns to the same spot.
Speaker 2: It's not enough to just see deer visit a tree,
Speaker 2: watch them, even the spikes you don't care to shoot,
Speaker 2: because they'll tell you how other deer will use that
Speaker 2: exactly situation. My general rule, if I think I have
Speaker 2: enough info from an evening and morning sit is to
Speaker 2: move in and go for broke. I don't know why
Speaker 2: this is, but I just often enough will observe some
Speaker 2: deer feeding on a mass pattern, and when I hunt it,
Speaker 2: I'll encounter a variety of deer feeding the same way,
Speaker 2: and sometimes they are just good bucks. The inclination here
Speaker 2: for a lot of hunters might be to drop a
Speaker 2: camera to find the big ones and pattern them, but
Speaker 2: you really don't have that much time. In at least
Speaker 2: many of these situations. You also might be off by
Speaker 2: a single tree, and that might change the entire direction
Speaker 2: of your recon and usually not for the better. Now,
Speaker 2: I'm not saying a camera or three can't help you
Speaker 2: get dialed in here, especially if you're a weekend hunter
Speaker 2: who has to leave the woods for five days to
Speaker 2: do stupid work stuff. That's better than not using a
Speaker 2: camera by far. But don't not hunt because of what
Speaker 2: your camera shows. If that makes sense. If it shows
Speaker 2: good movement, you're onto them. If it doesn't, assume they
Speaker 2: are close and you just aren't getting the full picture
Speaker 2: of what's going on there. Scout and hunt and observe.
Speaker 2: If you have no faith this will produce a big buck.
Speaker 2: Because you're not confident of this style, go try to
Speaker 2: kill a dough. While you're doing it. You'll learn a
Speaker 2: lot and might put some meat in the freezer, or
Speaker 2: you might just see a good one on the move
Speaker 2: well into daylight when he's supposed to be tucked deep
Speaker 2: in a swamp, betting away the hours when the sun
Speaker 2: is shining. The key is just to be cautious, but
Speaker 2: get on it now and actively try to figure out
Speaker 2: how to make masts work for you within the next
Speaker 2: week or two or three, because if you miss the window,
Speaker 2: it'll close for good and it'll be time to start over.
Speaker 2: Think about that as we get into the season here,
Speaker 2: and think about coming back next week because I'm going
Speaker 2: to talk about the shots we should take and the
Speaker 2: ones we probably shouldn't. That's it for this episode. I'm
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson. This has been the Wirre to Hunt Foundations podcast,
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by First Light. I know
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