Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals better dear hunting. Present it 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: Everybody, welcome to the Warre to Hunt Foundations podcast, which
Speaker 2: is brought to you by First Light. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today I'm going to talk about how
Speaker 2: to make your own little white tailed watering hole. It's
Speaker 2: better than calling, better than decoys, better than the best
Speaker 2: damn fresh out of a doze butt sent that you
Speaker 2: could buy water. You know I love hunting over water,
Speaker 2: and you know that bucks drink pretty much every day.
Speaker 2: Did you also know that you don't really need a
Speaker 2: ton of land, or a bulldozer or a backo to
Speaker 2: create a watering hole? And did you know that this month,
Speaker 2: when turkey season is still going strong, is the perfect
Speaker 2: time to get outside and accomplish this little chore. Listen up,
Speaker 2: because I'm going to tell you why and of course
Speaker 2: how to make this happen. But before I get into it,
Speaker 2: I have to let you know about that meat eater
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Speaker 2: but only only if you want a chance to win
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Speaker 2: a personalized outfitting session from Yanni the old Latvian Eagle himself.
Speaker 2: All you gotta do is head on over to the
Speaker 2: medeater dot com slash giveaway again. That's thumbmeadeater dot com
Speaker 2: slash giveaway at enter takes like thirty seconds, It's free,
Speaker 2: and you could end up with a ton of kickass gear,
Speaker 2: at least as far as we know, because our sample
Speaker 2: size so far is limited to Earth. Water is the
Speaker 2: medium upon which life is built. Without it, there ain't
Speaker 2: no life to positively charge hydrogen atoms that bind to
Speaker 2: one negatively charged oxygen atom form water here on Carl
Speaker 2: Sagan's Pale Blue dot. Water is a polar molecule, meaning
Speaker 2: that opposite charges attract one another, which allows water to
Speaker 2: form strong bonds and as a result, gives us the
Speaker 2: oceans and rivers and lakes, and even the glass of
Speaker 2: the good stuff on your nightstand after you've had I
Speaker 2: don't know a few too many post Gulf beers with
Speaker 2: the buddies, and your head is pounding. The cohesion of
Speaker 2: the water molecule also makes it possible for plants to
Speaker 2: take up water via their roots and allow animals to
Speaker 2: regulate their body temperature. Most biological molecules, including those that
Speaker 2: make us up as well as I don't know white tails,
Speaker 2: have some electrical asymmetry which allows water to weasel its
Speaker 2: way into every little nook and cranny, not unlike dissolving
Speaker 2: a spoonful of sugar in your Starbucks in the morning.
Speaker 2: This is a roundabout way of saying that water is
Speaker 2: a universal solvent. Life needs it to carry around all
Speaker 2: the things that make us us. This is one of
Speaker 2: the reasons that scientists who are looking for possible life
Speaker 2: on other planets and moons and asteroids often start by
Speaker 2: looking for water, which they didn't think existed in great
Speaker 2: abundance in space, but we now know it's insanely common
Speaker 2: and comes in quantities that are going to blow your
Speaker 2: freaking minds. Take a couple of recent discoveries. One is
Speaker 2: that the moon seems to be chalk full of water,
Speaker 2: making a long term habitat project. They're much more viable.
Speaker 2: Water's pretty heavy and getting weight out of Earth's gravity. Well,
Speaker 2: that's a big problem. If you don't have to shoot
Speaker 2: a bunch of H two O into space because your
Speaker 2: astronauts can find it right on the Moon. That's a
Speaker 2: big wind. Far crazier than that is a discovery that
Speaker 2: an international team of astronomers made recently, which is a
Speaker 2: cloud of water vapor that is located thirty billion miles
Speaker 2: from Earth. So a big deal, you think, right, after all,
Speaker 2: isn't that what clouds are right here? Well, consider this.
Speaker 2: We don't quite know where our Earth's water came from,
Speaker 2: and there are a few competing theories, ranging from asteroids
Speaker 2: and commets hitting early Earth and delivering payloads of water
Speaker 2: to it being present when the material of the Earth
Speaker 2: is made of coalesced roughly four and a half billion
Speaker 2: years ago. Where our water came from is an important
Speaker 2: question to answer, and the researchers who found that water
Speaker 2: vapor cloud they might be getting there. The thing is
Speaker 2: this cloud, which is located in a quasar, which is
Speaker 2: an insanely bright galactic nucleus. This cloud, it's no normal cloud,
Speaker 2: mind you. It is estimated to contain about one hundred
Speaker 2: and forty trillion times the water that's on Earth, all
Speaker 2: of the water on Earth. Think about that for a second. Water.
Speaker 2: It seems it's pretty damn common out there in the
Speaker 2: observable universe. It's also pretty wild stuff. You've probably seen
Speaker 2: people walk outside in the dead of winter in places
Speaker 2: like Alaska with a pot of super hot water to
Speaker 2: throw in the air to show that it turns instantly
Speaker 2: into snow. But you can't do that with cold water.
Speaker 2: Only hot water forms hanging icicles, which if you're not
Speaker 2: careful when shooting your brand new red Rider BB gun
Speaker 2: outside and might accidentally catch a ricochete of the eye,
Speaker 2: you can blame that icicle for falling on your face,
Speaker 2: so your mom doesn't know she was right about you
Speaker 2: being too young and irresponsible to own an air gun, right, Ralphie.
Speaker 2: But water also forms icicles that freeze up these ice spikes,
Speaker 2: seemingly defy gravity. Water can also be cooled well below
Speaker 2: its freezing point and yet still remain liquid until you
Speaker 2: move it, then it freezes instantly. Water in a glass
Speaker 2: is clear, Water falling from the sky is clear. But
Speaker 2: water is actually blue, which you can see in some
Speaker 2: glaciers and icebergs. Unlike most substances. Water becomes less dense
Speaker 2: when you freeze it. You can bend water with static electricity.
Speaker 2: Water is weird in so many ways, but also one
Speaker 2: hell of an important part of a deer's life. See, guys,
Speaker 2: I got there. It just took me a while. I
Speaker 2: have sort of a reputation for killing bucks, you know,
Speaker 2: around water for good reason. I can think back to
Speaker 2: quite a few of the deer that I've arrowed, many
Speaker 2: of which were public land bucks, and some type of
Speaker 2: wa water source played an important role in that hunt,
Speaker 2: usually the most important role. Deer need water, and if
Speaker 2: you find limited water, then you're onto something. But you
Speaker 2: can also create a water hole, which is what this
Speaker 2: episode is all about. It's a hell of a lot
Speaker 2: easier than putting in a food plot, even a tiny
Speaker 2: kill plot. And provided you do it right, you can
Speaker 2: position deer for a shot in a way that is
Speaker 2: almost unreal. Now that may or may not be your thing.
Speaker 2: I learned this when I was a young bowhunter at
Speaker 2: the tender innocent age of twenty four. I don't know
Speaker 2: why I said that, so creepy, so anyway, forgive me. Anyways,
Speaker 2: that was the year my dad and I decided to
Speaker 2: get back to our roots and hunt with traditional bows.
Speaker 2: It was also the year where I said, I'm going
Speaker 2: to buy one of those ornamental ponds and put it
Speaker 2: by our best stand. I figured we needed all the
Speaker 2: help we could get, because well we did. So I
Speaker 2: took a shovel in that little pond and I dug
Speaker 2: a spot for it eighteen yards from a stay, and
Speaker 2: we hung. Every year, it's just located in a hub
Speaker 2: this season long deer activity. The first morning I climbed
Speaker 2: in there with my re curve in hand, I watched
Speaker 2: a dough in a fond brought their way through the woods.
Speaker 2: You know where they ended up right at that pond.
Speaker 2: And you know what, I didn't do. Shoot. It felt weird,
Speaker 2: It felt too contrived to me. I didn't want a
Speaker 2: killer at that point in my life. I wanted pretty
Speaker 2: much any deer pretty badly. But I also didn't feel
Speaker 2: great about creating an artificial situation that would put a
Speaker 2: deer right into my lap like that. I don't really
Speaker 2: know how to explain it. I've obviously also changed my
Speaker 2: tune on some of this stuff, because I greatly enjoy
Speaker 2: putting in little water holes and making kill plots, although again,
Speaker 2: if I'm being brutally honest, I rarely hunt those things
Speaker 2: for myself. It just doesn't do it for me for
Speaker 2: some reason. But I have a hell of a lot
Speaker 2: of fun watching my daughters shoot deer on them and
Speaker 2: letting my buddies go in there and shoot them. You
Speaker 2: know what, else doesn't really matter because I'm on my
Speaker 2: course and you're on your course. And if your course
Speaker 2: is one where you're like, hell, yes, I want an
Speaker 2: edge over the deer and I have the opportunity to
Speaker 2: put in some water, then I say donuts for donuts,
Speaker 2: my friend. Before you buy that plastic pond or tote
Speaker 2: or big tarp or however you're going to do this, though,
Speaker 2: stop pump those breaks, buddy. You need to figure out
Speaker 2: where to put water. This is more important than how
Speaker 2: you get a water source out there. Trust me, And
Speaker 2: that example I just told you about, the little pond
Speaker 2: I put out is located in a valley. The deer
Speaker 2: stage in morning and evening, so at the beginning, right
Speaker 2: off the bat, I knew I was in a good spot.
Speaker 2: This isn't like putting an automatic deer feeder out in
Speaker 2: the mesquite flats of Texas and just creating a deer
Speaker 2: heavy spot simply because that's where the food ends up
Speaker 2: on the ground every morning and evening. This is a
Speaker 2: strategy to play off existing deer concentrations and make one
Speaker 2: spot better. But it's not enough to think, well, deer here,
Speaker 2: so that's good enough. Having hunted a ton of water
Speaker 2: sources in my life, I'll say this in the cover
Speaker 2: is better than not in the cover. How's that for
Speaker 2: a dumb revelation. But the truth is you might think, well, shoot,
Speaker 2: the deer always come out to the field where I hunt,
Speaker 2: so I'm going to put a pond in right there.
Speaker 2: That's great, But do the deer always come to the field?
Speaker 2: Do they come out after you've hunted there seven times
Speaker 2: in a row? Maybe a better bet would be to
Speaker 2: tuck that pond into the cover twenty yards deep, so
Speaker 2: that before they have to decide to go into the
Speaker 2: open or not, they can slake their thirst there in
Speaker 2: the cover. Maybe you can get the best of both
Speaker 2: worlds with the right wind, so you can shoot them
Speaker 2: on the water where you know they're drinking in the woods,
Speaker 2: or shoot them when they get out to the beans
Speaker 2: in front of your stand, or maybe it's better to
Speaker 2: figure out one of those deer heavy spots you have
Speaker 2: back in the cover where you have dynamite access, and
Speaker 2: then consider where to put the water source. I think
Speaker 2: that's the best strategy, especially if you're the kind of
Speaker 2: hunter who likes to shoot big bucks. A mature deer
Speaker 2: is so much more likely to water in the cover
Speaker 2: during shooting hours than to go anywhere near the open
Speaker 2: stuff to drink. It's simple, and it's true. Do you
Speaker 2: have a spot like that? If that's the case, can
Speaker 2: you dig in a small ornamental type pond or something
Speaker 2: else like a tote? It might be that simple, Or
Speaker 2: maybe you already have a seasonal ish type of water
Speaker 2: source that you can spruce up with a little pond
Speaker 2: or tarp. I have a spot like this on a
Speaker 2: farm I hunt in southeastern Minnesota. That driftless region is
Speaker 2: known for a few things, one of which is the limestone,
Speaker 2: which isn't the hardest rock you're likely to find. It's
Speaker 2: soft at least for rock, which means that it erodes quickly.
Speaker 2: At least for rock. This leads to caves, and caves
Speaker 2: lead to sinkholes. If you drive around that area, you'll
Speaker 2: see plenty of ag fields with little islands of trees
Speaker 2: out there which are just sinkholes, the kinds of spots
Speaker 2: you don't want to go over with a tractor that
Speaker 2: weighs like fifteen tons and costs as much as it
Speaker 2: would to put a couple kids through an Ivy League
Speaker 2: school for four years. This spot on the farm I
Speaker 2: hunt it has just a mini sinkhole in the woods.
Speaker 2: That sinkhole, being a hole in all fills up with
Speaker 2: water and it's unbelievable for deer activity at certain points
Speaker 2: of the year. I recently looked at it after my
Speaker 2: buddy and I doubled up on a couple of unlucky longbeards,
Speaker 2: and not only was it pounded with tracks, it was
Speaker 2: also the most obvious spot in the world due to
Speaker 2: the muddy, spoked out deer trails leading to it. Back
Speaker 2: when I found it, I thought my deer prayers had
Speaker 2: been answered, But when I hunted it, I realized that
Speaker 2: August often did a good number on the actual water
Speaker 2: that was there, and instead of hunting a drinking fountain,
Speaker 2: I was hunting a patch of dry dirt, which, in
Speaker 2: case you don't know, is a lot less appealing to
Speaker 2: thirsty deer. So I put a small pond in the bottom,
Speaker 2: one that would collect and hold the water a little better,
Speaker 2: and it worked a little better. But it also showed
Speaker 2: me that if I wanted to keep the deer coming
Speaker 2: in there, I better haul some water in, which I
Speaker 2: did with a backpack a few times. It was mostly
Speaker 2: an exercise and futility, but it was a good workout
Speaker 2: when I had an olktag in my pocket. I have
Speaker 2: yet to kill a deer on that pond, but I will.
Speaker 2: Maybe you have a spot like that where you could
Speaker 2: use a pond or a tarp and help collect and
Speaker 2: keep the water in a specific spot. It's a great
Speaker 2: option if you have it, But the downside is you
Speaker 2: then have to hunt it the best way it allows.
Speaker 2: It's not like putting in a little pond on a
Speaker 2: tried and true spot that you know already produces will
Speaker 2: just always provide good hunts. You instead have to adapt
Speaker 2: to the location. This has been my biggest problem with
Speaker 2: my sinkhole spot, because it's terrible to hunt in a
Speaker 2: west or south wind, which is kind of the wind
Speaker 2: you get when the weather's pretty warm. You know that
Speaker 2: has some quality trees right on top of the pond,
Speaker 2: but nothing that allows you to get like twenty yards
Speaker 2: away and have some cover and still use the wind correctly.
Speaker 2: In fact, I'm thinking after my little scouting session back
Speaker 2: in April that it might be a better ground blind spot.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Ask yourself what you're working with in
Speaker 2: this capacity. Do you have a place where you could
Speaker 2: bring a little sweat equity into the equation and have
Speaker 2: some water it on over? Do you have a way
Speaker 2: to get some water in there if it dries out.
Speaker 2: That's a big problem with small water sources, but it's
Speaker 2: solvable in most situations. It's also important to note that
Speaker 2: you should provide a way for little critters who happen
Speaker 2: to fall in to be able to climb out. A
Speaker 2: dead mouse floating around in your deer's water is a
Speaker 2: bad scenario, so I usually just lay a log or
Speaker 2: something in it in such a way that it allows
Speaker 2: for an easy climb out. This is simple, but it's
Speaker 2: pretty important. It's also worth mentioning. Like I said in
Speaker 2: the beginning, this might not be for everyone, but if
Speaker 2: it doesn't bother you, and it's legal as far as
Speaker 2: I know, this is legal just about everywhere you can
Speaker 2: find deer provided you have the private ground to do
Speaker 2: it on, it's worth a shot. It's also something that
Speaker 2: can really to liven up a small property. This is
Speaker 2: one of the things that I learned when I started
Speaker 2: having to find places in the suburbs to hunt. I
Speaker 2: don't need to create food plots and tiny ponds on
Speaker 2: properties where I have half of a section or maybe
Speaker 2: more to roam. A big enough property will give you
Speaker 2: pretty much everything you need, so it's kind of unnecessary.
Speaker 2: But if you're stuck on a ten or twenty or
Speaker 2: even forty acre parcel, it might be a different story.
Speaker 2: You might only have a handful of deer a week
Speaker 2: to pass through, and the odds of you being there
Speaker 2: when they are super low. Increasing the odds of an
Speaker 2: encounter going your way is not a bad idea if
Speaker 2: this is the world you live in. It's also worth
Speaker 2: mentioning that this will be a waste of time and
Speaker 2: money if you hunt in an area where water is abundant.
Speaker 2: I learned this in northern Wisconsin after my little girls
Speaker 2: started hunting deer. I had a kill plot in one
Speaker 2: of my properties that was pretty good, but also fairly inconsistent,
Speaker 2: largely due to the low deer density. I figured it's
Speaker 2: not going to hurt to sink upon into that plot
Speaker 2: and refill it if I need to. After all, even
Speaker 2: if the deer weren't hungry enough to come in, maybe
Speaker 2: the promise of some room temperature water there's full of
Speaker 2: bugs and frog poop might convince them. But it really didn't.
Speaker 2: As you can imagine, I run cameras over that plot,
Speaker 2: and after I sunk that little pond in, I started
Speaker 2: running my cameras so I could see how many deer
Speaker 2: drank out of it. The answer was almost none of them.
Speaker 2: It was truly rare to get images of deer feeding
Speaker 2: in the plot, even in July and August, and then
Speaker 2: drinking in the pond. A few did, but it wasn't
Speaker 2: the deer magnet I assumed it would be. Do you
Speaker 2: know why, because there's water everywhere up there. Even on
Speaker 2: the driest years I've hunted there, it's not a problem
Speaker 2: to find standing water. It's everywhere. And you have to
Speaker 2: imagine that if a deer lives on I don't know,
Speaker 2: six or seven hundred acres, they might have hundreds of
Speaker 2: spots to drink in, and just that amount of land
Speaker 2: in that region a little pond in one spot isn't
Speaker 2: going to be a game changer there. It's kind of
Speaker 2: like buying land in parts of egg dominated, you know,
Speaker 2: Iowa or Kansas or whoever, and then thinking all I
Speaker 2: need is a food plot and it'll be booner city,
Speaker 2: except that the deer there have food everywhere, literally just
Speaker 2: about everywhere. What they don't have is cover, So planning
Speaker 2: some trees would probably be a better bet than planning
Speaker 2: a food plot. Now, limited water is always good, but
Speaker 2: there's another benefit to water that we don't talk about much,
Speaker 2: hunting when it's hot. I've written about this, and I
Speaker 2: talked about it a lot, because I like hunting when
Speaker 2: other people won't. If you're the kind of hunter who
Speaker 2: won't hunt because it's hot, maybe putting in a little
Speaker 2: pond would change your opinion. After all, if it's eighty
Speaker 2: degrees in September and you think it's not worth it
Speaker 2: to go, you might change your mind knowing you have
Speaker 2: a little water source by one of your best stands,
Speaker 2: and if the bucks are going to go anywhere in
Speaker 2: that beechy weather, it's probably going to be there. So
Speaker 2: think about it and think about listening next week because
Speaker 2: I'm going to talk about how to figure out if
Speaker 2: you're a pioneer or a settler when it comes to
Speaker 2: deer hunting. That's it. That's it for this week. I'm
Speaker 2: your host, Tony Peterson, and this has been the Wired
Speaker 2: to Hunt Foundations podcast, which is brought to you by
Speaker 2: First Light. As always, thank you so much for tuning in.
Speaker 2: If you want more white tail wisdom, you can head
Speaker 2: on over to the mediat dot com slash wired and
Speaker 2: see all kinds of articles by me, Mark, Alex Gilstrombomartonic,
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of killer white tail hunters. Tons of
Speaker 2: good information there, and while you're there, you can register
Speaker 2: for that Mediator giveaway that I told you about in
Speaker 2: the beginning of this podcast, so you can have three
Speaker 2: thousand dollars more worth of hunting gear to go hunting
Speaker 2: this ball with. So go do both of those things.