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 Hunt Foundation's podcast, which
Speaker 2: is brought to you by first Light. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about individual bucks
Speaker 2: and why when we generalize too much about deer behavior,
Speaker 2: we often miss out on our best chances to tag out.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I know a lot of you find listeners probably think
Speaker 2: the inspiration for these podcasts comes from NonStop time in
Speaker 2: the outdoors obsessing over big bucks. Some of it does,
Speaker 2: just as some of it comes from casual time in
Speaker 2: the outdoors thinking about little bucks and does and squirrels
Speaker 2: and turkeys and rabbits and occasionally cryptids like bigfoot and chupacabras.
Speaker 2: Sometimes inspiration doesn't come from a likely source. Sometimes it
Speaker 2: just runs up to me and bites my hand and
Speaker 2: reminds me of an idea I had a while back
Speaker 2: to got lost in the sledge of my brain. Well,
Speaker 2: here is that idea as it's burst into the world.
Speaker 2: And while it might seem like a strange one, I
Speaker 2: think there's real merit here to thinking about deer as individuals.
Speaker 2: And now I'm gonna tell you why. Our history with
Speaker 2: canines it's pretty incredible. Just like with the timeline for
Speaker 2: when modern humans made it all over the world, the
Speaker 2: timeline for us and our four legged pals keeps getting
Speaker 2: pushed back further and further through new discoveries. Not long ago,
Speaker 2: it was believed that we co evolved with dogs in
Speaker 2: the last fifteen thousand or so years, but that is
Speaker 2: now more like twenty to forty thousand years. Much of
Speaker 2: the early years when we coaxed wolves or other wild
Speaker 2: canids from the darkness to trust us for some calories
Speaker 2: in exchange for a little protection from the big and
Speaker 2: scary stuff out there is thought that the relationship was
Speaker 2: purely transactional. In other words, we give you some food,
Speaker 2: little doggie, or we let you dig through the scraps
Speaker 2: and chomp on some charred bones and exchange you can
Speaker 2: stay with us as long as you growl or bark
Speaker 2: when danger gets too close. Seems simple, right, Well, eventually
Speaker 2: we started to grow crops and learn a little about
Speaker 2: animal husbandry, and dogs worm their way into our lives
Speaker 2: through new roles. We selected certain dogs for certain traits,
Speaker 2: even tail wagging according to recent studies, and now we
Speaker 2: have a whole slew of different breeds to choose from.
Speaker 2: We tend to look at this coevolution as something that
Speaker 2: was mostly beneficial to us and that we were in control.
Speaker 2: That wasn't until real relatively recently, that we had it
Speaker 2: so good as a society that we could call our
Speaker 2: dogs fur babies, which, if I'm being honest, is a
Speaker 2: term that makes me want to hit myself in the
Speaker 2: face with a brick, so I might forget that it exists.
Speaker 2: But the fur baby movement has been around longer, or
Speaker 2: it's been in the making longer then we might think,
Speaker 2: at least according to a recent archaeological find in Sweden,
Speaker 2: which has been carbon dated to about eighty four hundred
Speaker 2: years ago, researchers working on deciphering all there is to
Speaker 2: know about a Mesolithic site containing fifty one structures, hearths, postholes,
Speaker 2: and at least one well preserved dog that was buried
Speaker 2: with what we called grave goods. It's kind of illuminating
Speaker 2: what was going on back then. People have been sending
Speaker 2: other people to the afterlife with an assortment of goodies
Speaker 2: and valuables to aid them on their journey for a
Speaker 2: long time. But also we know now at least one dog,
Speaker 2: who I can only surmond must have been a very
Speaker 2: good boy, has been found with some grave goodies as well.
Speaker 2: In fact, quite a few of them have been found
Speaker 2: carefully placed in a grave with necklaces, spoons, and other
Speaker 2: offerings that might have been dog toys. To frame this up,
Speaker 2: consider that someone in Sweden loved their dog enough to
Speaker 2: give it a proper burial, complete with gifts for the afterlife.
Speaker 2: This happened before the first stones were laid which would
Speaker 2: become the Great Pyramids of Giza. Ditto for Stonehenge, which
Speaker 2: has been standing for like fifty centuries. It happened way
Speaker 2: before Genghis Khan and his Mongolian horde murdered like one
Speaker 2: out of every ten people on the planet. It happened
Speaker 2: way before the Fall Rome, before much of our recorded history, people,
Speaker 2: at least some people were infatuated with dogs. Now this
Speaker 2: is obviously still true to this day, which was evidence
Speaker 2: to me recently when I went and met my sister
Speaker 2: in law's new French bulld Bruno. Bruno has a one
Speaker 2: year old dog that looks like he was built from
Speaker 2: spare parts Pilford from the hound factory, and who has
Speaker 2: a face that I doubt even a mother could love.
Speaker 2: He breathes like he's constantly on the verge of suffocating
Speaker 2: because he kind of is with his God's own prototype
Speaker 2: smashed face. He's stocky, bites everyone, but his mouth isn't
Speaker 2: very big or strong, so I guess it's cute to
Speaker 2: some people, and he barks a lot. He's also, and
Speaker 2: I say this as a true dog lover, one of
Speaker 2: the dumbest animals I've ever met. But my sister in
Speaker 2: law loves him, and like most dog people, she has
Speaker 2: her breed mostly because she likes how they look, and
Speaker 2: she had one before who died way too young. Because
Speaker 2: French bulldogs, like a lot of breeds, aren't bred for health.
Speaker 3: They are bred for.
Speaker 2: Looks and quantity due to their popularity, she was hoping
Speaker 2: to get a two point zero version of her last dog, Ted,
Speaker 2: who is actually uglier than Bruno and quite possibly the
Speaker 2: gassest dog never exists. Anyone who has gone from one
Speaker 2: beloved dog to a new pup. Knows how that works out.
Speaker 2: You don't get the same dog, even from the same breeder,
Speaker 2: You get a new dog. Because they are individuals. We
Speaker 2: sometimes forget this. Hell, we do it with people all
Speaker 2: the time. My twin daughters could not be more different,
Speaker 2: but they are often treated as a single unit instead
Speaker 2: of two individuals. We do this with broader groups of people,
Speaker 2: whether it's in politics or sports, or religion or hell
Speaker 2: hunting influencers. We do this with deer too. If you
Speaker 2: want to know the easiest example of this, look at
Speaker 2: how many people are out there who definitively declare a
Speaker 2: buck is a certain age because of how it looks.
Speaker 2: You can't do that with dogs, you can't do that
Speaker 2: with people. But here we are declaring every one hundred
Speaker 2: and thirty inch buck a three and a half year
Speaker 2: old and calling it a day. I think that is
Speaker 2: something that is really holding us back as hunters. That mentality,
Speaker 2: not that specific example, although that's certainly something that has
Speaker 2: changed the landscape at whitetail hunting, and I'd argue probably
Speaker 2: not for the better. But here's the thing about deer hunting.
Speaker 2: We talk in general behavior because we can't talk about
Speaker 2: individuals very often. But just because that's how we view
Speaker 2: our world as it pertains to hunting doesn't mean it's
Speaker 2: the best way for us as individual hunters to approach
Speaker 2: our task. Let's take a simple example. In many places
Speaker 2: with a long deer hunting tradition, the deer will generally
Speaker 2: look up in trees for danger. The more pressure from
Speaker 2: tree stand hunters, the more likely they are to look
Speaker 2: up into the trees to see somebody bad up there.
Speaker 2: It's pretty simple if you hunt out east, pretty easy
Speaker 2: to get busted. Even if you're twenty feet up out
Speaker 2: west in some of those river bottoms that snake their
Speaker 2: way through the prairies, you might not ever get picked off.
Speaker 2: Those deer just aren't as used to predators waiting in
Speaker 2: the cottonwoods to send sharp sticks through their lungs. Now,
Speaker 2: you smart listeners might be thinking, well, you're not really
Speaker 2: talking about individuals here, You're talking about generalities between deer
Speaker 2: of different regions. And you're right, you got me, So
Speaker 2: I'll take it a step further. If you hunt good
Speaker 2: private land, you might not have to worry about deer
Speaker 2: looking up too much, no matter where it's located. Yet,
Speaker 2: if you drive down the road and hunt the same
Speaker 2: way on public land, you might have a vastly different experience.
Speaker 2: This is one of the reasons I have no problems
Speaker 2: shooting small bucks or does on public land.
Speaker 3: A lot of the times.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I need easier deer to kill, and those deer
Speaker 2: tend to be easier to find and kill than big bucks,
Speaker 2: especially when the pressure is intense. The difference from one
Speaker 2: section to the next can be stark. But again, I'm
Speaker 2: still kind of talking in generalities, even if I'm just
Speaker 2: referring to the deer on one six hundred and forty
Speaker 2: acre chunk versus deer on the next six hundred and
Speaker 2: forty acre chunk. But tucked into those spots are deer
Speaker 2: that are individuals, just like the two labs laying at
Speaker 2: my feet right now. Even though they are both black labs,
Speaker 2: both have awesome bloodlines, and both are female, They're vastly
Speaker 2: different in their personalities size, just like deer. So think
Speaker 2: about it this way. The current rage out there is
Speaker 2: to find a buck that is mature, name him, and
Speaker 2: then hunt that specific deer. And this is great if
Speaker 2: that's what you're into. But what people don't get really
Speaker 2: good at is learned that just because a five and
Speaker 2: a half year old buck makes your hit list, it
Speaker 2: doesn't mean he's going to act like a five and
Speaker 2: a half year old buck is supposed to act.
Speaker 3: What I mean by that is.
Speaker 2: You might follow all of the conventional hunting advice and
Speaker 2: never get a crack at that specific deer, But if
Speaker 2: you hunt like some of the folks who are really
Speaker 2: good at patterning an individual, you might learn what that
Speaker 2: deer likes to do. This is an important distinction, and
Speaker 2: I feel like I should break it down further before
Speaker 2: explaining what it means to you as a hunter. You
Speaker 2: might think that since the average TV hunter you see
Speaker 2: is really good at patterning big bucks in the same way,
Speaker 2: since they often kill giants that have names. But it's
Speaker 2: a different world for many of them. They have cell cameras,
Speaker 2: food plots, the acreage in the time to allow for
Speaker 2: a certain buck to start daylighting in a specific area.
Speaker 2: They aren't necessarily learning the particulars of that buck and
Speaker 2: killing him on high level hunts. They are playing the
Speaker 2: weighted out and let him get comfortable game. I don't
Speaker 2: care what deer it is if he doesn't get pressured
Speaker 2: and he doesn't have any negative consequences for moving in daylight.
Speaker 2: He's eventually going to move more and more because well,
Speaker 2: why wouldn't he. Again, this isn't a knock on the
Speaker 2: strategy or whatever. It's just to point out that you
Speaker 2: probably should base your hunting strategies, not necessarily on that style,
Speaker 2: because it's just highly unique to those hunters. Instead, you
Speaker 2: should be paying attention to the deer that you see,
Speaker 2: the deer that you can watch in the off season,
Speaker 2: the sign you might be able to attribute to certain bucks,
Speaker 2: and try to learn not only what the group traits
Speaker 2: are for the deer you hunt in any given spot,
Speaker 2: but anything you can learn about the individuals. Take calling,
Speaker 2: for example, if you're lucky, you've probably called in some
Speaker 2: bucks in your life, maybe a grunt of them in
Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe you rattled them in whatever. Some
Speaker 2: bucks are callable and some just aren't. Why why Well,
Speaker 2: who knows? Some dogs fight other dogs on site, while
Speaker 2: other dogs couldn't muster aggressiveness if they were forced to.
Speaker 2: Why would deer be any different. This means that if
Speaker 2: you're out there on Halloween and you see a good
Speaker 2: buck walking on a range, you might call him in
Speaker 2: he might just be in the mood to check out
Speaker 2: a distant grunt, or he might be the kind of
Speaker 2: deer who very much prefer the solo life. You can
Speaker 2: take this a step further by looking at dear buddies,
Speaker 2: which sounds like a sitcom idea Mark would pitch to
Speaker 2: Steve at our content summit. But the truth is some
Speaker 2: bucks prefer to hang with other bucks, often until the
Speaker 2: rut and sometimes through it. Why who knows, but I
Speaker 2: know that when you see a good buck and a
Speaker 2: smaller buck together often that a grunt call might be
Speaker 2: all I need to kill that bigger one. I'm sure
Speaker 2: there is a survival component to pairing up when it
Speaker 2: comes to bucks, and that's something that can be used
Speaker 2: in your favor. It's a survival strength to them, but
Speaker 2: you can turn it into a survival weakness. Another way
Speaker 2: that we see this individuality highlighted is through nocturnal behavior.
Speaker 2: This might be the most obvious example. Some bucks seem
Speaker 2: to have no problem showing up randomly in the daylight hours,
Speaker 2: while others are damn near vampires. If you target a
Speaker 2: buck that is in that vampire status, which I did
Speaker 2: for a few years here in Minnesota, prepare yourself for
Speaker 2: some disappointment. Unless you have a lot of time to
Speaker 2: sit during the rut, those bucks are extremely hard to kill.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying you should use a few nighttime trail
Speaker 2: camera photos to declare a buck nocturnal and therefore unkillable,
Speaker 2: but to be honest about what you can learn about
Speaker 2: individual deer these days, if a buck leads me to
Speaker 2: believe he's mostly nocturnal, I almost won't even think about
Speaker 2: him because I know what it leads to. In fact,
Speaker 2: this happened to me last fall in Wisconsin. There were
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty inch type bucks occasionally using a
Speaker 2: small property I own. The neighbors well aware of them,
Speaker 2: and he was actually putting in some time for them.
Speaker 2: I'm being honest when I say I didn't even really
Speaker 2: care they were there. I knew I was probably not
Speaker 2: going to see them give him my limited time over there,
Speaker 2: and the fact that I'm mostly hunting with eleven year
Speaker 2: olds at the time, so I didn't let those deer
Speaker 2: factor into my decisions a whole lot. Maybe that's defeatist,
Speaker 2: but I hunt for fun mostly, and it's not fun
Speaker 2: for me to target a deer that I consider to
Speaker 2: be generally a ghost. Bucks show their individuality in other
Speaker 2: ways too. Where they bed is often interesting, Although this
Speaker 2: is due partially to deer density, A lot of the
Speaker 2: big buck beds I find in swamps and big wood
Speaker 2: situations feel very isolated. Tiny islands of cover and big
Speaker 2: swamps highlight this very well. Maybe it's because they don't
Speaker 2: have younger deer to bed with and act as centuries,
Speaker 2: but older bucks in the big woods seem to lean
Speaker 2: hard into the introvert lifestyle. When I've hunted high density
Speaker 2: areas like Iowa, it seems like they either don't seek
Speaker 2: that level of isolation or simply just can't find it.
Speaker 2: But it also often has the vibe of hunting early
Speaker 2: season meal deer in high country basins.
Speaker 3: There you can watch the big.
Speaker 2: Boys choose the best spots to bed while their younger
Speaker 2: buddies filter out and act as an early alarm system.
Speaker 2: This seems like the same scenario with white tails, and
Speaker 2: while that's intuitive to a lot of folks, it's also
Speaker 2: telling on how to hunt an individual buck in that situation.
Speaker 2: You're probably not going to still hunt into his bedding
Speaker 2: area and shoot him while he's napping. You're going to
Speaker 2: have to have rock solid access and let some of
Speaker 2: the other deer go before he gives you a chance.
Speaker 2: Every type of hunting situation has its own challenges, my friends,
Speaker 2: but it pays to try to learn individual traits of
Speaker 2: specific deer whenever you can. In fact, this reminds me
Speaker 2: of something that a fellow named Dan Evans, who started
Speaker 2: a trophy taker a long time ago. He told me
Speaker 2: years ago during a conversation. Now, if you don't know
Speaker 2: who Dan is, he's one of the best elk hunters
Speaker 2: in the world. He targets huge old bulls and he's
Speaker 2: probably killed more four hundred class animals than anyone, especially
Speaker 2: considering he's often hunting units that you and I could draw.
Speaker 2: When I asked him what his secret was, he said
Speaker 2: that the monster bulls are often total loaners. He said,
Speaker 2: they often don't even participate in the rut in a
Speaker 2: meaningful way. The challenge is finding them first, of course,
Speaker 2: But then once he does, he watches them as much
Speaker 2: as he can to figure out their daily lives. Then
Speaker 2: he sneaks in and tries to kill them, not call them.
Speaker 2: Usually just sneak in and ambush them. Now, this is
Speaker 2: a dumbed down version of a conversation we had a
Speaker 2: long time ago.
Speaker 3: But the gist of it is that if you.
Speaker 2: Hunted those giant elk like you're supposed to hunt elk,
Speaker 2: you wouldn't see them, let alone kill them. They are
Speaker 2: different and they are individuals who do certain things a
Speaker 2: certain way. Deer do this too, and it's not just bucks.
Speaker 2: If you're low deer density area or just think that
Speaker 2: the rut is your best bet. Wherever you hunt, paying
Speaker 2: attention to the doe is a huge benefit to your
Speaker 2: buck hunting strategy. Does can be predictable even on public land.
Speaker 2: That's an advantage that I cannot overstate. If you can
Speaker 2: sneak in and watch a small family group or learn
Speaker 2: about a solo dough feeding or betting or traveling somewhere
Speaker 2: somewhat consistently, you have a really good trap set for
Speaker 2: yourself for the rut. This is something that I'm trying
Speaker 2: to get better at in the big Woods because I
Speaker 2: think it's the key to killing a really good deer
Speaker 2: during the rut, and some of the spots I hunt
Speaker 2: it might not happen, but it might also just be
Speaker 2: that I'll figure out where a doe group or a
Speaker 2: single dough likes to hang out in the swamps, and
Speaker 2: then do my best to stay down win and wait
Speaker 2: out a buck that undoubtedly knows about her habits as well.
Speaker 2: Think about this as we trudge our way through winter
Speaker 2: and have all of this time before next season. Maybe
Speaker 2: this will help you develop a better tree camera strategy
Speaker 2: or prompt you to finally buy a spotting scope so
Speaker 2: you can glass your happy ass off this summer. In fact,
Speaker 2: if you want a little bit of a hint here
Speaker 2: before I wrap this up, what I talked about earlier
Speaker 2: about the bucks that I've dealt with it are truly nocturnal.
Speaker 2: A really good way to gauge that isn't necessarily from
Speaker 2: trail camera photos, although that helps a lot, but how
Speaker 2: easy they are to watch in the summer, because some
Speaker 2: bucks just don't seem to hardly ever shed that nocturnal
Speaker 2: bent no matter what. And if they're out there and
Speaker 2: you're getting nighttime trail camera photos of them in July
Speaker 2: and you can't get out there with your spotting scope
Speaker 2: and pick them up, those deer know what they're doing. Anyway,
Speaker 2: that was a little diversion. I want to wrap this
Speaker 2: up by saying, you know, maybe you'll end up killing
Speaker 2: a specific buck this fall just because you learn something
Speaker 2: about him that doesn't jive with general deer knowledge, which
Speaker 2: is something that you have to be thinking about because
Speaker 2: not only are you trying to get better at learning
Speaker 2: all the deer, but those specific ones and when you
Speaker 2: kill that specific one, it's pretty sweet. Come back next
Speaker 2: week and I'm going to talk about why why deer
Speaker 2: are where they are and why that's probably the most
Speaker 2: important question we should be asking ourselves as hunters. That's
Speaker 2: it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson. It's been the
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