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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide

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Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,

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Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.

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Speaker 1: First Light Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host

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Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.

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Speaker 2: Hey everyone, welcome to the wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast,

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Speaker 2: which is brought to you by first Light. I'm your host,

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Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about why learning

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Speaker 2: what does do helps you kill bucks. They get no

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Speaker 2: love and it drives me nuts. I honestly think that

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Speaker 2: if those were as rare as mature bucks, they'd be

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Speaker 2: harder to kill the mature bucks. I know people will

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Speaker 2: laugh at that because it's situational like olive hunting. In

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Speaker 2: some places, killing does is as easy as picking an

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Speaker 2: evening to go sit on the food and then shooting one.

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Speaker 2: But in some places, killing a good buck is like

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Speaker 2: that too. In others lots of others, killing a dough

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Speaker 2: is as tough as any deer hunting challenge out there

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Speaker 2: are pretty damn clothes, But it's more than that. The

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Speaker 2: ladies of the deer herd can teach us a lot.

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Speaker 2: If we were willing to pay attention to them. And

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Speaker 2: that's what I'm really going to dive into this week.

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Speaker 2: I know you guys and gals think I'm super clever

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Speaker 2: at coming up with all this stuff on my own,

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Speaker 2: but sometimes someone around me will say something and that's

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Speaker 2: all I need to come up with an article or

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Speaker 2: a podcast. My kids do this to me fairly often.

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Speaker 2: I'll give you a couple examples. When my girls were

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Speaker 2: maybe six, I was cleaning out a wood duck house

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Speaker 2: in our backyard that hangs over our little pond. This

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Speaker 2: task involves getting up on a ladder, sweeping out the

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Speaker 2: old wood shavings, and refilling the box sometime in the

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Speaker 2: early spring. Often there's evidence of other critters using the

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Speaker 2: nesting box. At some point, a pair of gray squirrels

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Speaker 2: had had some babies in the duck apartment, but it

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Speaker 2: was clear that they had moved out. They had also

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Speaker 2: abandoned one of their youngsters, who was really dead and

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Speaker 2: really fascinating to my daughter. So we talked about squirrels,

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Speaker 2: all kinds of them, including pine squirrels and gray squirrels

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Speaker 2: and fox squirrels and even flying squirrels, which really caught

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Speaker 2: her attention. Later long after I had forgotten about the conversation,

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Speaker 2: I heard my daughter excitedly telling my wife about her conversation,

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Speaker 2: and at some point she said, there were flying dead

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Speaker 2: squirrels in there. Now, flying dead squirrels will be the

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Speaker 2: name of the parenting book I'll eventually write. My other daughter,

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Speaker 2: the one who casually blurted out that she could actually

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Speaker 2: smell the blood inside of me when we were driving

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Speaker 2: one time, said something else that I'll make into some

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Speaker 2: kind of content. At some point, she, along with her

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Speaker 2: sister and cousins, had been working hard on a ford

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Speaker 2: up at the lake. They scrounged up a couple of tarps,

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Speaker 2: some old chair cushions, and other sorted crap that just

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Speaker 2: seems to slowly accumulate in life. They're pretty into this

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Speaker 2: whole fort building thing, so into it that they talked

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Speaker 2: to my sister in law to taking them shopping for

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Speaker 2: supplies recently. And when I asked my daughter what they bought,

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Speaker 2: she quickly replied, hmmm, just fort snacks and fly traps.

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Speaker 2: Fort snacks and fly traps will be the inspiration for

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Speaker 2: something eventually, probably a podcast or an article, or maybe

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Speaker 2: I don't know, I'll start a punk band who knows

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Speaker 2: the thing is when you do what I do. Inspiration

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Speaker 2: is everywhere if you learn to look for it. Mark

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Speaker 2: hasn't really figured that out yet, but he's young and

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Speaker 2: we'll probably get there eventually as his slightly older and

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Speaker 2: much much wiser mentor I've learned to keep my ears

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Speaker 2: open for any such utterance that might light a spark

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Speaker 2: of an idea. This is what happened earlier this month

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Speaker 2: when I was packing up my spotting scope and my

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Speaker 2: camera gear on the edge of a beanfield in southeastern Minnesota.

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Speaker 2: My hunting partner Eric and I had posted up on

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Speaker 2: the edge to see if we could turn up a

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Speaker 2: bachelor group of big bucks. What we saw instead was

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Speaker 2: a few scrappers and a lot of does and fawns, which,

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Speaker 2: to our sadness, is what our cameras on that property

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Speaker 2: had been consistently showing us. As we walked out, we

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Speaker 2: pondered where the big boys might be, and Eric casually

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Speaker 2: said they definitely aren't hanging with a bachelorette group. There

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Speaker 2: you have it, a podcast is born. While he was

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Speaker 2: making a joke, he was also making a true observation, which,

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Speaker 2: if you really think about it, is the cornerstone of

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Speaker 2: so many good jokes, kind of like one of my

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Speaker 2: favorite lines in The Crossing, which is a book by

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Speaker 2: Cormack McCarthy that you should read because it's well pretty incredible. Anyway,

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Speaker 2: one of the characters in the book says something like

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Speaker 2: it would take one hell of a wife to beat

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Speaker 2: no wife at all, which, while it's one of my

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Speaker 2: favorite jokes, my wife actually doesn't think is very funny.

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Speaker 2: But you guys can probably also tell that my wife

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Speaker 2: never listens to any of my podcasts. The thing about

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Speaker 2: the Bachelorette group comment is this, the doze and bucks

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Speaker 2: often don't hang together much. This is true in the

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Speaker 2: world of white tails, it's true in the world of

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Speaker 2: elk antalope, meal deer, and you see it all the

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Speaker 2: time with turkeys. I wonder if it happens with fish. Now.

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Speaker 2: I know that all the critters will mix at some point,

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Speaker 2: otherwise we wouldn't have new little critters running around. But

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Speaker 2: nature often segregates itself in such a way, and there's

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Speaker 2: a lot to learn from that.

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Speaker 1: Hell.

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Speaker 2: Take dose, for example. I've already mentioned this, but I

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Speaker 2: believe it. If you can go kill pressure doze, mature

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Speaker 2: pressure dose, I should say, with I don't know, some

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Speaker 2: level of consistency, you can kill mature pressure bucks. I

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Speaker 2: know that doesn't seem true, but it is. If you're

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Speaker 2: good enough to learn the ladies and their habits and

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Speaker 2: of their detection at most times of the season, you

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Speaker 2: can do the same with their elderly boyfriends. The only

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Speaker 2: difference is that the elderly boyfriends aren't very common. It's

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Speaker 2: kind of like this. A lot of hunters with some

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Speaker 2: Western experience and a lot of hunters with no Western

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Speaker 2: experience would rank elk as the toughest critter to get

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Speaker 2: an arrow in on public land now in Colorado or

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Speaker 2: Idaho and an over the countertype unit. You can make

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Speaker 2: a pretty strong case for that. But what about on

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Speaker 2: a twelve thousand dollars landowner tag in New Mexico that

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Speaker 2: you're using on public land? Different story there. The variables

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Speaker 2: are endless, so generalizing is often a good way to

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Speaker 2: be wrong. But I'll say this in my somewhat not

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Speaker 2: so limited experience, if you're good enough to crawl across

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Speaker 2: the prairie and arrow an analope of any size somewhat consistently,

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Speaker 2: you can kill just about anything that might make its

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Speaker 2: way into the Super Slam list. It's just to test

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Speaker 2: of good hunting skills. Arrowing elk is too, or spotting

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Speaker 2: and stocking meal deer, and so is being able to

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Speaker 2: figure out white till doze on a regular basis, at

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Speaker 2: least if you're in a place where they get hunted

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Speaker 2: fairly hard. But those ladies and these early season groups

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Speaker 2: of them also do something else for us as hunters.

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Speaker 2: They tell us where the bucks often aren't. You see,

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Speaker 2: nature does a wonderful job of creating hierarchies. The biggest

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Speaker 2: and toughest in any group tends to own the spots

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Speaker 2: with the best advantages security, cover, water, food sources, you

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Speaker 2: name it. The entire deer herd on your property is

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Speaker 2: organized this way, kind of like that org chart at

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Speaker 2: work that shows who works under who and what department.

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Speaker 2: It's also not a perfect pyramid shape either, because some

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Speaker 2: does are dominant over other doughs, while some bucks are

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Speaker 2: dominant over other bucks. In general, what you see as

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Speaker 2: you scout the last days of velvet living in the

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Speaker 2: first couple weeks of hard antlered life is that the

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Speaker 2: deer tend to split up into groups divided by gender.

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Speaker 2: The dose will be in the beanfield of multiple spots,

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Speaker 2: but the bucks, at least the bigger deer will usually

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Speaker 2: be in very specific locations. They'll be in the back

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Speaker 2: corner that is invisible from the road and is close

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Speaker 2: to the trout stream where they can drink some delicious

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Speaker 2: cold water any damn well time they please. When they

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Speaker 2: are feeding together, you often won't see groups of dozen

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Speaker 2: fawns get too close to the bucks or mix it

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Speaker 2: up with them. When you watch groups of dozen fawns

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Speaker 2: feeding in a spot, they often won't mix it up

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Speaker 2: with other dozen fawns either, and if they do, you

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Speaker 2: often see ears, pin back and hoof's flying. They do

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Speaker 2: this even when they have two hundred acres of the

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Speaker 2: same food source right at their disposal. It's the proximity

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Speaker 2: to one another that matters most, and they often aren't

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Speaker 2: that tolerant. So what does this mean? Well for starters,

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Speaker 2: what if you're getting a whole bunch of pictures of

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Speaker 2: dozen fawns but not a whole bunch of pictures of

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Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty inch bucks. Well, either the bucks

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Speaker 2: aren't around, or your camera is on a spot that

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Speaker 2: is great for the ladies but not so great for

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Speaker 2: the dominant bucks. You might think, well, I do get

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Speaker 2: some buck pictures, so they are around, and aren't I

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Speaker 2: supposed to be around does for my rut hunts. Sure, buddy,

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Speaker 2: that's all true, but the run is a long ways

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Speaker 2: off and a lot is going to change between then

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Speaker 2: and now. Don't you want to fill your deer tag

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Speaker 2: earlier in the season so you can go to another

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Speaker 2: state and have some more deer fun. Here's the thing.

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Speaker 2: The does are often not exactly where the bucks are.

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Speaker 2: That matters for your scouting, for your camera placement, for

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Speaker 2: your stand sites, for all of it. It's not a

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Speaker 2: hard and fast rule, of course, but it is something

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Speaker 2: to consider when you're trying to make a hunting plan

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Speaker 2: that results in you getting a big buck, which is

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Speaker 2: what we're talking about here. So the ladies teach us

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Speaker 2: a lot of things. They teach us where the secondary

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Speaker 2: feeding areas probably are, which is what that bachelorette group

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Speaker 2: that Eric so aptly named showed us. But we didn't

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Speaker 2: learn their full message until we pulled a camera in

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Speaker 2: one spot on that giant beanfield that has just tucked

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Speaker 2: away sort of no man's land and close to a

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Speaker 2: water source. That camera had more big buck pictures on

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Speaker 2: it than the other four or five on the field combined.

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Speaker 2: It also has a really interesting stand set up on

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Speaker 2: it now that you'll probably get to see next year

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Speaker 2: on the media or YouTube channel. At some point, I'm

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Speaker 2: guessing the other cameras we have on that field, the

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Speaker 2: spotting scope work we've done on that field, it all

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Speaker 2: came together to show us where a lot of dough

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Speaker 2: family groups were, and you know, where a couple of

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Speaker 2: year and a half old bucks were. Two it also

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Speaker 2: showed us where the bachelor group of older bucks wasn't

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Speaker 2: And they weren't nocturnal, they weren't on somebody else's property.

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Speaker 2: They just weren't in the spots we monitored. This happens

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Speaker 2: a lot. It happens when you're scouting and running cameras.

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Speaker 2: That happens when you're hunting. Now, I know I'm contradicting

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Speaker 2: myself here on some level, because I do believe trying

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Speaker 2: to get in close proximity to all kinds of deer

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Speaker 2: is good for your hunting overall. But for early season

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Speaker 2: hunts where your target is a decent buck, sometimes you

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Speaker 2: want to get away from most of the rest of

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Speaker 2: the deer. You also don't want to write does off

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Speaker 2: as interesting things to watch while you're waiting for another

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Speaker 2: chance to rack up a taxidermy bill. This is because

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Speaker 2: the dough groups, when they do overlap with good buck movement,

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Speaker 2: often show up first. I see this in the evenings

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Speaker 2: a lot, and almost always in the mornings. I don't

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Speaker 2: know why this is, but when I hunt early season mornings,

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Speaker 2: you know, when every white tail expert out there says

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Speaker 2: that you shouldn't, I often see does and youngsters come

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Speaker 2: through first. Then, like eight thirty or nine in the morning,

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Speaker 2: when I start thinking about pancakes and a midday nap

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Speaker 2: or maybe going to troutfish for a few hours, the

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Speaker 2: bigger deer will cruise through. If I get busted by

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Speaker 2: the does first, the big guy is going to show up.

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Speaker 2: If you're on a field edge in the evening and

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Speaker 2: that dough with two fawns decides she doesn't like the

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Speaker 2: first light specter covered blob in the tree filming her

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Speaker 2: with an iPhone ten or worse taking selfies for the

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Speaker 2: gram good luck, She's going to send out the bat

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Speaker 2: signal and the bucks aren't going to show, or if

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Speaker 2: they do, it's going to be real late. The point

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Speaker 2: I'm trying to make here is this, There is no

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Speaker 2: just hunting big bucks. You might focus solely on that

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Speaker 2: as your goal, but you're never gonna do that without

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Speaker 2: dealing with other deer in the herd. They're always a consideration.

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Speaker 2: It's kind of like throwing frogs for large mouth in

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Speaker 2: the lily pads. When you're in the north country, your

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Speaker 2: goal might be an amphibian's chomping five pounder that is

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Speaker 2: living in two feet of water and just waiting to

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Speaker 2: smash something slimy on the surface. But along the way

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Speaker 2: you'll also do with northern pike biting you off and

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Speaker 2: ripping holes in your twelve dollars spro frogs so often

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Speaker 2: that you might need to take out a heelock just

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Speaker 2: to pay for your next shields order. They are just

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Speaker 2: a part of the whole thing, just like the groups

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Speaker 2: of doze out there. I know this one has been

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Speaker 2: kind of all over the place, so let me try

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Speaker 2: to stick this landing here without breaking in an ankle.

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Speaker 2: Pay attention to the doze on your cameras, the doze

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Speaker 2: you see while glassing, and the doze you see while hunting.

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Speaker 2: What they do bucks will do the trails they walk.

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Speaker 2: Bucks will eventually walk the way they drop down to

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Speaker 2: the pond for a little drink, so too will some

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Speaker 2: bucks at some point. But they'll also show you, particularly

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Speaker 2: in the early season, where the bucks often aren't that

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Speaker 2: beautiful open woods you like to sit in because there

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Speaker 2: are a bunch of white oaks in there, that's great.

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Speaker 2: But if it's just dough after dough during daylight, it's

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Speaker 2: not because the bucks are nocturnal. It's because they either

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Speaker 2: have a better spot to feed where you aren't, or

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Speaker 2: they're just taking their sweet ass time moving in better

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Speaker 2: cover until you leave and the lights go out. If

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Speaker 2: your camera on your kill plot shows tons of daylight

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Speaker 2: activity from does but not much daylight activity from good bucks,

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Speaker 2: pay attention. Are they in there after dark? Then you

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Speaker 2: might have to hunt them a little ways off of

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Speaker 2: the groceries, all while avoiding detection from the ladies as

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Speaker 2: they pass through. First, I think you have to learn

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Speaker 2: how to hunt the does before you can learn how

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Speaker 2: to hunt the big dudes. But you also have to

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Speaker 2: work with them throughout the season because they are going

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Speaker 2: to be a part of the whole thing, whether you

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Speaker 2: like it or not. They sometimes show you exactly where

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Speaker 2: you should hunt, like if they are using a river

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Speaker 2: crossing or traveling along a soft edge while browsing in

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Speaker 2: the big woods. But they also sometimes show you where

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Speaker 2: you shouldn't hunt if you want a big buck. That is,

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Speaker 2: if the part of the field you love to watch

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Speaker 2: is dominated by does. Take note if your favorite stand

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Speaker 2: that is easy to get to and sits over a

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Speaker 2: power line with nice views in two directions is always

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Speaker 2: full of ladies and youngsters, take note. The bucks are

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Speaker 2: likely around, but they are using some part of the

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Speaker 2: terrain that offers them something better. This lesson is often

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Speaker 2: most easily understood by betting. You see this with Western

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Speaker 2: critters a lot, too, because they often show themselves in

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Speaker 2: their beds, so you can see exactly where they are

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Speaker 2: and make a good guess as to why white tails

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Speaker 2: aren't as generous that way. But you can fill in

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Speaker 2: the blanks pretty well with when and where you jump

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Speaker 2: deer and when and where you see them on your hunts.

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Speaker 2: At least if you're hunting in the cover, the does

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Speaker 2: will often be betted in the most obvious spots, and

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Speaker 2: the bucks won't. They will show you this by either

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Speaker 2: actually showing themselves or not. How is that confusing. Look

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Speaker 2: at it this way. If you walk into the woods

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Speaker 2: and you see some does running away at say noon,

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Speaker 2: you know they were probably betted there. You might find

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Speaker 2: proof of that by well finding their beds. But if

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Speaker 2: you hike up a bluff onto a nice little bench

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Speaker 2: where the view is solid and the wind is just right,

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Speaker 2: you probably won't see any deer. You might find a

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Speaker 2: great big loan bed and think, dang, at some point,

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Speaker 2: he's here. But the truth is he's always going to

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Speaker 2: be gone when you get there, because he knows you're coming.

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Speaker 2: Because his bed is positioned in such a way you're

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Speaker 2: just not going to sneak up on him. His spot

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Speaker 2: is better than where those does bed up on the

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Speaker 2: ridge or in the open valley below. The deer all

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Speaker 2: have something to teach us, just like every elk encounter

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Speaker 2: is a lesson in elk behavior, just like every turkey

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Speaker 2: that feeds through the meadow is giving you a first

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Speaker 2: hand lesson on turkey behavior. These things matter, and they

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Speaker 2: are the secret sauce that takes average hunters to the

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Speaker 2: next level. So my friends, don't write off the ladies.

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Speaker 2: Use their presence, use your pictures of them, your sightings

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Speaker 2: to inform your decisions on how to hunt whatever deer

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Speaker 2: trips your trigger, and come back next week because I'm

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Speaker 2: going to break down one of our biggest allies in

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Speaker 2: one of our biggest enemies as hunters, an unseen force

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Speaker 2: that influences our hunting decisions more than just about anything else.

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Speaker 2: It's an invisible element of each and every second we

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Speaker 2: spend in the outdoors that can make or break your

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Speaker 2: experience in a matter of seconds, and there ain't a

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Speaker 2: damn thing we can do about it. You guessed it.

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Speaker 2: I'm going to talk about squirrels. Just kidding. It's wind.

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Speaker 2: That's it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson. This has

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Speaker 2: been the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which is brought

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Speaker 2: to you by First Light. As always, thank you so

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Speaker 2: much for listening and for all your support. Every one

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Speaker 2: of us here at meat Eater truly appreciates it. We

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Speaker 2: can't thank you enough. If you want some more hunting content,

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Speaker 2: and I'm talking other podcasts, videos, articles, whatever, you want

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Speaker 2: to do a little shop and head on over to

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Speaker 2: the medeater dot com and you'll see all of that

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Speaker 2: more