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 Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast,
Speaker 2: which has brought to you by First Light. I'm her host,
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about the deer
Speaker 2: hunting dress rehearsals you can do during summer scouting sessions
Speaker 2: and how important they really are. Listen. I think I
Speaker 2: speak for most of us when I say this is
Speaker 2: kind of hard to believe that it's mid July already.
Speaker 2: What that means is that the feeling of having all
Speaker 2: the time in the world before deer season is kind
Speaker 2: of a liar. You don't have that much time. Honestly.
Speaker 2: The opener is closing in and the things that bite
Speaker 2: us in the ass, or you know, at least one
Speaker 2: of the things. The big thing is not being prepared
Speaker 2: for the things we can prepare for, and that's what
Speaker 2: I'm going to talk about today. First, I have to
Speaker 2: drop a quick announcement about First Light's new three to
Speaker 2: eight pants. I got a chance to test both the
Speaker 2: regular and the line version of these pants for quite
Speaker 2: a few months during the last hunting season and during
Speaker 2: off season chores. They're badass, and I mean that I
Speaker 2: hate jeans and any type of pants that are just rigid.
Speaker 2: I'm this way, you know, in everyday life and with
Speaker 2: my deer hunting gear and also my brush pants I
Speaker 2: wear while I'm following my dogs around in the fall
Speaker 2: chase and roosters. To three O eights are the opposite
Speaker 2: of the stiff, uncomfortable options that you have out there.
Speaker 2: They're just real comfortable and they're designed with simplicity and functionality.
Speaker 2: I love them and you might too if you go
Speaker 2: check them out. I also have another quick plug here
Speaker 2: and then I will stop. I swear. Over on the
Speaker 2: mediator clips YouTube channel, you'll be able to see Mark
Speaker 2: and I dropping some extra whitetail knowledge with our new
Speaker 2: white Tail Edu series. In it, we take the most
Speaker 2: common questions we get and try to break them down
Speaker 2: in an easy to understand way which should be applicable
Speaker 2: to white tail hunters across the whole country. The first episode,
Speaker 2: which is all about what deer eat is going up
Speaker 2: this week, and for at least the next several weeks,
Speaker 2: you'll be able to check out a fresh video that
Speaker 2: might just help you level up as a white tail hunter.
Speaker 2: All right, that's enough sales stuff onto this podcast. I've
Speaker 2: talked about my issues with alcohol more than a few
Speaker 2: times in this podcast. As happy as I am to
Speaker 2: have quit drinking a decade ago, I still get the
Speaker 2: urge to consume copious amounts of whiskey and generally make
Speaker 2: a jackass of myself. The two times at the urge
Speaker 2: to not only fall off the wagon but swan dive
Speaker 2: right into total idiocy and be irresponsible hits me in
Speaker 2: this order in two different ways. When my wife is
Speaker 2: on one over something and she won't speak to me
Speaker 2: like I'm not in kindergarten, that's a big trigger for me,
Speaker 2: you know, Like when she says, do you think we
Speaker 2: should haul a bunch of rock into the backyard so
Speaker 2: that the pond doesn't e road anymore? As if she's
Speaker 2: going to be out there rocking big old boulders on
Speaker 2: her back. We know who is going to be the
Speaker 2: manual laborer in that equation, and it doesn't do any
Speaker 2: of us any good to pretend like we don't. That
Speaker 2: drives me totally bonkers. My friends. The other time, when
Speaker 2: that little devil on my shoulder says, you know what
Speaker 2: would taste real good on this summer night is when
Speaker 2: I'm coaching my girls in any sport, but most recently softball.
Speaker 2: If you want to check out a league of kids
Speaker 2: with almost zero understanding of the rules of softball and
Speaker 2: very rudimentary skills at softball, head on down to the
Speaker 2: local ballpark and watch the sixth graders in a rec league.
Speaker 2: It's not only the reality that they have the athleticism
Speaker 2: and grace of a newborn giraffe, but that a lot
Speaker 2: of times there's just like zero enthusiasm there. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's like watching a funeral out there with a bunch
Speaker 2: of kids who are terrified to try to field a
Speaker 2: ball or hit a ball, or sometimes just be in
Speaker 2: a field where a softball might land. That's hard for
Speaker 2: a guy like me, but not some of the other coaches.
Speaker 2: What's worse is that some of the other coaches are
Speaker 2: so much more prepared when a player inevitably falls or
Speaker 2: gets run into by an opposing player, or gets stung
Speaker 2: by a bee or whatever. The other coaches will dig
Speaker 2: into their bags and pull out a first aid kid
Speaker 2: or an ice pack. They're prepared for just about anything,
Speaker 2: and they are much better at anticipating the needs of
Speaker 2: a bunch of twelve year old girls than I am.
Speaker 2: My house has. Now, this is just an estimate here,
Speaker 2: but I would say about four thousand random hair ties
Speaker 2: scattered about. But how many times do you think I've
Speaker 2: brought one to softball?
Speaker 1: Zero?
Speaker 2: How many times you think someone has needed one? That's right,
Speaker 2: every fricking game and every fricking practice. Being unprepared sucks,
Speaker 2: and I'm really good at it with some stuff. Thankfully,
Speaker 2: I don't bring that mentality to deer hunting. I hate,
Speaker 2: I mean I absolutely, without a doubt, hate the feeling
Speaker 2: of not being ready for the season or for any
Speaker 2: individual hunt. How about you? Do you feel the same
Speaker 2: way or are you the deer hunting version of me
Speaker 2: as a softball coach. Now here's the thing. You can
Speaker 2: prepare yourself not for everything, and not just for the
Speaker 2: obvious stuff, but for the things that will make or
Speaker 2: break your hunt. Let me give you an example here.
Speaker 2: A couple of years ago, I drove down to southern
Speaker 2: Minnesota to hang some stands with my buddy Eric. There's
Speaker 2: a spot on the farm that I really wanted to
Speaker 2: hunt because it's basically a hillside with a huge wash
Speaker 2: out on it. The wash out pushes deer high or low.
Speaker 2: The deer that go low are often bucks that are
Speaker 2: coming into that valley to bed. Now, the washout is deep,
Speaker 2: it's full of rocks and fallen trees, and at least
Speaker 2: on paper, the perfect entrance route to that stand, because
Speaker 2: no deer is going to just go down in the
Speaker 2: bottom of it. Now, we ended up dubbing that stand
Speaker 2: the American Ninja Bohunter Stand because getting to it was
Speaker 2: a total pain in the ass. Now, sure, in daylight
Speaker 2: in August, when I wasn't trying to be quiet or
Speaker 2: worry about leaving sent all over and I wasn't actually
Speaker 2: carrying any of my hunting gear, navigating that route wasn't terrible. Now,
Speaker 2: it still required some care because the logs we needed
Speaker 2: to cross and to use to get through that gully
Speaker 2: were all low grade, wet and super slippery. Now, why
Speaker 2: walk on top of logs like that? Well, in some
Speaker 2: spots we just had to, but in others it was
Speaker 2: better than stepping on big loose rocks in the dark.
Speaker 2: There's nothing that says sneaky, big predator like the sound
Speaker 2: of a big old rock clunking into another big old rock.
Speaker 2: This only gets worse when it happens like a half
Speaker 2: an hour before first light on a calm morning. The
Speaker 2: problem with this entrance route, or I guess the problem
Speaker 2: with me in regard to the entrance route, is that
Speaker 2: I didn't run through it enough before I hunted it,
Speaker 2: and that was dumb. I could have timed how long
Speaker 2: it took me to go through there in the daylight
Speaker 2: and then padded that number for an actual hunting scenario
Speaker 2: in the dark, but I didn't, and it made hunting
Speaker 2: an awesome spot less awesome because I just didn't get
Speaker 2: the rehearsal part right. The thing about this stuff is
Speaker 2: that we overlook the parts that will bite us in
Speaker 2: the ass. When we drive afore we learn into the
Speaker 2: woods with a ladder, stand strap to it, and then
Speaker 2: put it up. We feel like we are doing ourselves
Speaker 2: a huge favor. Sure, you're getting deer work done, and
Speaker 2: that's a good thing. But what if you think, well,
Speaker 2: I can't walk in on the logging road, because that's
Speaker 2: what the deer use. So I'll just cut through the
Speaker 2: woods and hike here slowly and steady to hunt this
Speaker 2: new ladder stand. I say to that, good luck. You
Speaker 2: won't know how long it'll actually take you to get there,
Speaker 2: how easily it'll be, to stay quiet, and a whole
Speaker 2: lot of other stuff that's going to make things more difficult.
Speaker 2: Figuring that out in the summer is a million times
Speaker 2: better than figuring it out out on opening morning, with
Speaker 2: the sun threatening to come up, and the sweat rolling
Speaker 2: down your back and the curse words flowing under your breath.
Speaker 2: If you can run through some routes and really learn them,
Speaker 2: you're ahead of the game. This isn't as big of
Speaker 2: a deal for some private land hunts that can be
Speaker 2: set up well, but it still can be. It's also
Speaker 2: almost a necessity for public land hunts. Let me give
Speaker 2: you another example to drive this home. Probably ten years ago,
Speaker 2: I was roaming the bad lands of western North Dakota
Speaker 2: with an any deer tag in my pocket, which means
Speaker 2: I could shoot a meal deer or a white tail.
Speaker 2: While I'd hunted the area quite a bit, I found
Speaker 2: myself in a sage dotted flat along the little Missouri River. Now,
Speaker 2: I'd seen a patch of cedar trees with some scrub
Speaker 2: oaks while glassing, and i'd watched a few deer enter
Speaker 2: that cover, but i'd never been in there myself. So
Speaker 2: that's where I went, thinking, at the very least it
Speaker 2: would get me to a place where I could climb
Speaker 2: a bluff that wasn't nearly a sheer cliff, so you know,
Speaker 2: I could get some elevation and glass more. What I
Speaker 2: didn't expect to encounter was a small cattle tank tucked
Speaker 2: into those cedar trees. Now, there was a young mule
Speaker 2: deer slurping away when I blundered into it, and as
Speaker 2: he ran off, he picked up two other, much bigger
Speaker 2: mule deer. The muddy ground around that guzzler was pock
Speaker 2: marked with tracks, and it was one of those things
Speaker 2: that you find that eventually you know you're gonna hunt it.
Speaker 2: It was also a long long ways from where I
Speaker 2: could park. I bawled a few trees around it that
Speaker 2: might accommodate a small stand, and I made sure to
Speaker 2: time my route out when I had it back to
Speaker 2: my truck. I also realized that to avoid bumping any
Speaker 2: betdied White tails on that river bottom or getting spotted
Speaker 2: by mule deer loafing away in the hills. I basically
Speaker 2: had to stay on the river bank for like half
Speaker 2: of the walk. Now, that's an easy thing to do
Speaker 2: in the daylight, but getting in there in the dark
Speaker 2: was a challenge. It was a forty five minute hike
Speaker 2: in the daylight when I was really not trying to
Speaker 2: be sneaky, so in the dark it took almost twice that.
Speaker 2: It also involved several spots where I had to drop
Speaker 2: down the bank or climb up it to stay on
Speaker 2: the best route. It was honestly a huge pain in
Speaker 2: the butt. That could have been much easier, you know,
Speaker 2: just by taking a more direct route. But a more
Speaker 2: direct route would have spooked cattle grazing in there, and
Speaker 2: definitely would have spooked deer. I also knew what I
Speaker 2: was getting into because I ran the whole thing through
Speaker 2: a few times. It wasn't until a few years later
Speaker 2: that I went in there with a white tail tag
Speaker 2: in my pocket and took the long and winding path
Speaker 2: to the guzzler to set up for an afternoon hunt.
Speaker 2: In October, the eight pointer I killed there showed up
Speaker 2: with a small buddy while I was still putting on
Speaker 2: my release, and I'm positive he was close enough to
Speaker 2: me when I got there that I'd have bumped him
Speaker 2: if I had taken any other route than the one
Speaker 2: I took. The extra work of figuring that one out
Speaker 2: helped me kill a great public land buck and then
Speaker 2: a mule deer a few years later. It was just
Speaker 2: a good spot, but the approach was ripe for making
Speaker 2: lots of mistakes. Now this is something I cannot stress enough.
Speaker 2: The more opportunity we leave ourselves to make big mistakes,
Speaker 2: the more big mistakes will make. This might not work
Speaker 2: the way you think, though. Think about it this way.
Speaker 2: When you train a hunting dog in your yard, you
Speaker 2: might shore up some of the fundamentals of good behavior.
Speaker 2: You might be doing a good job. Your dog might
Speaker 2: learn to sit and stay and come and you know,
Speaker 2: all the stuff you want a dog to do. You
Speaker 2: might feel pretty good about yourself and your four legged
Speaker 2: hunting buddy. But those skills will only be fully cemented
Speaker 2: in your yard. They're not going to transfer over to
Speaker 2: the grouse woods, or at least fully transfer over to
Speaker 2: the grouse woods or the duck blind or the pheasants. Lows.
Speaker 2: There will be some attrition in performance, and the best
Speaker 2: you can do is recognize that and try to train
Speaker 2: as closely as possible to a real world hunt. Sound familiar,
Speaker 2: it should. While you might think you've cut a great
Speaker 2: path to the stand in the corner of Grandma's farm
Speaker 2: where you know the big boys cruise during the pre rut,
Speaker 2: ask yourself if you know how long it'll take for
Speaker 2: you to walk in quietly in the dark. When you
Speaker 2: walk it in there in the daylight, does your shirt
Speaker 2: ever snag on any brush? Are there any sections of
Speaker 2: it where you have to leave extra cent around for
Speaker 2: some reason, like maybe a spot with a steep climb
Speaker 2: where you need to hold onto some saplings. Are there
Speaker 2: a bunch of little dead branches scattered throughout the the
Speaker 2: leaves right below the stand, you know, right in the
Speaker 2: spot where you'll have to stand before you climb up.
Speaker 2: What about anything right in that spot that might force
Speaker 2: you to leave a bunch of extra scent right where
Speaker 2: you don't want it at the base of your tree.
Speaker 2: Those little things don't seem like much in August and
Speaker 2: hell often don't even register, but they do during actual hunts,
Speaker 2: and they can all be exposed by a dress rehearsal
Speaker 2: in the summer. This can go far far deeper than
Speaker 2: that too. One of the little properties I own in
Speaker 2: Wisconsin has taken me like nine years to figure out
Speaker 2: where to park and how to walk along the road
Speaker 2: just the right way. Now. I know that might seem dumb,
Speaker 2: and I have talked about this before, but parking where
Speaker 2: I originally thought I should just seemed to tip my
Speaker 2: hand to the deer, and I honestly don't really know why.
Speaker 2: I just know it did. So I experimented, and I
Speaker 2: realized that as long as I park on one corner
Speaker 2: that is close to two houses, the deer seem to
Speaker 2: believe that I'm part of the daily hustle and bustle
Speaker 2: and not some dude looking to kill them. Part of
Speaker 2: the reason for this is that they simply don't like
Speaker 2: the sound of a truck parking in a spot that
Speaker 2: trucks rarely park in. That's pretty simple, but think about
Speaker 2: the noise you make when you drive up and park
Speaker 2: off a gravel road in the dark. It's easy to
Speaker 2: make extra noise opening and closing doors and tailgates, and
Speaker 2: then the crunch of boots on gravel is a dead
Speaker 2: giveaway that Shenanigans are afoot when I hunt there. Now,
Speaker 2: I park where I need to, and I pull off
Speaker 2: into the ditch so we never have to set foot
Speaker 2: on gravel. I also have all of our gear ready
Speaker 2: to go in the back seat, so it's a matter
Speaker 2: of quietly opening and closing one truck door. I also
Speaker 2: know exactly how long it'll take us to walk in
Speaker 2: and set up, which is good for me but a
Speaker 2: necessity when I'm hunting there with my daughters. There are
Speaker 2: other little things that add up to deer hunting mistakes too.
Speaker 2: Think about an all days sit during the rut and
Speaker 2: the food and drinks you bring along. You might not
Speaker 2: ever think of the sound of opening a candy bar
Speaker 2: wrapper or an energy bar wrapper when you're sitting in
Speaker 2: your living room, but you should. It's the same sound
Speaker 2: those products will make in a tree stand, and that
Speaker 2: might be cause for concern. It might be as simple
Speaker 2: as taking your food out of its original packaging and
Speaker 2: stowing it in a freezer bag, or wrapping it in
Speaker 2: some paper towels or plastic wrap. How about that delicious
Speaker 2: and oh so welcome hot coffee in your thermos? How
Speaker 2: quiet is it when you unscrew the cap at home,
Speaker 2: because that's how loud it'll be every time you do
Speaker 2: it in your tree stand. Here's another scenario that I'll
Speaker 2: use to tie a bow on this whole thing. Think
Speaker 2: about how often you've gone into it in the summer
Speaker 2: to hang a stand and you realize, oh, no, I
Speaker 2: forgot my limb saw. So you tell yourself you'll just
Speaker 2: get rid of a few of the branches that are
Speaker 2: in your way when you come in there to hunt
Speaker 2: for the first time. Most deer hunters have tried to
Speaker 2: quietly saw a limb, and most deer hunters have learned
Speaker 2: there isn't a quiet way to saw a limb off.
Speaker 2: There just isn't. It's just better to cut that sucker
Speaker 2: off in July or August and then not have to
Speaker 2: worry about it. Now, that's simple, I know. But the
Speaker 2: ways in which we sabotage ourselves deer wise are many.
Speaker 2: Thinking about doing some level of work later means you
Speaker 2: have to think about what that work will entail and
Speaker 2: how it'll put your hunt at risk. Because it will
Speaker 2: put your hunt at risk, even if it seems like
Speaker 2: a small detail. You know, the small details are what
Speaker 2: separate the absolute deer killers from you know, the average
Speaker 2: deer hunters. So many people think it's only about having
Speaker 2: an amazing spot or some secret scouting strategy, but that's
Speaker 2: just not true. People go in every season to hard
Speaker 2: hunted public land and kill big deer, often in areas
Speaker 2: that other hunters just think it's impossible. Now, it might
Speaker 2: be for them for a lot of different reasons, but
Speaker 2: it isn't for everyone. And the ones that just get
Speaker 2: it done, they tend to build insurance policies into their
Speaker 2: hunting plans. They run through their routes, think about how
Speaker 2: it'll be shooting from a certain tree or hiking into
Speaker 2: a specific spot when the leaves are dry and the
Speaker 2: wind isn't blowing enough to cover the sound. They prepare
Speaker 2: for the inevitable, which is that most of their hunts
Speaker 2: will require more effort and attention to execution than they
Speaker 2: seem like they should. During the off season, think about
Speaker 2: whatever you can do to dress, rehearse parts of your
Speaker 2: hunts this year. The more you can learn about what
Speaker 2: you absolutely need to do and then do it to
Speaker 2: see what you're missing, the less likely you are to
Speaker 2: have a whole bunch of frustrating clunker hunts this fall,
Speaker 2: where the illusion of a well set up hunt meets
Speaker 2: the reality of a somewhat poorly planned hunt. Don't do
Speaker 2: that to yourself, give yourself a chance and come back
Speaker 2: next week because I'm going to talk about how to
Speaker 2: learn to look for what's limited in the white tails
Speaker 2: world and why that will help you kill big bucks
Speaker 2: no matter where you live and hunt. That's it. I'm
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson and this has been the Wired to Hunt
Speaker 2: Foundation's podcast, which has brought to you by First Light.
Speaker 2: As always, thank you so much for listening. If you
Speaker 2: want to check out those three oh eight pants I
Speaker 2: talked about at the beginning of this, head on over
Speaker 2: to the medeater dot com and check out our store
Speaker 2: there First Light as well obviously, Or if you want
Speaker 2: to check out those white Tail clips for our new
Speaker 2: white Tail Edu series, you can head over to the
Speaker 2: meat Eater Clips channel on YouTube. You'll find all kinds
Speaker 2: of stuff there. We're filling that up like crazy. Or
Speaker 2: if you just need some articles, you want to find
Speaker 2: a few new podcasts, maybe a recipe or something, the
Speaker 2: medeater dot com has you covered for all kinds of
Speaker 2: hunting and fishing information