Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,
Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.
Speaker 1: First Light Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.
Speaker 2: Hey everyone, welcome to the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by first Light.
Speaker 3: I'm your host, Tony Peterson.
Speaker 2: Today's episode is all about really truly understanding deer trails. Look,
Speaker 2: I get it, scrapes, I don't know scrapes and rubs
Speaker 2: anyway a matter a lot.
Speaker 3: I like buck sign just as much as the next hunter.
Speaker 2: But if you put a gun to my head and said,
Speaker 2: what's the key to killing more big bucks and more
Speaker 2: deer in general than really anything else, I'd probably say
Speaker 2: that truly understanding how to read deer trails might be
Speaker 2: it when the deer literally show you exactly where they
Speaker 2: might walk at any given times. A huge piece of
Speaker 2: the puzzle. But it's not so simple. It's also what
Speaker 2: I'm going to talk about right now. It is a
Speaker 2: popular belief amongst humans that there are animals and there
Speaker 2: are US fish and US bacteria In us virus in
Speaker 2: us whatever to the deer. There is probably no distinction
Speaker 2: between us and the coyote or the wolf. It's just
Speaker 2: them and the animals that try to kill them. Predator
Speaker 2: and pray. We really don't think of ourselves as predators,
Speaker 2: and truthfully, as animals at all. We think of ourselves
Speaker 2: as special, sentient, and generally better than the rest of
Speaker 2: the animals, even other primates. When civilized cultures started bumping
Speaker 2: into wild apes, which wasn't that long ago, really, the
Speaker 2: natural reaction was that they were uncomfortably like us. So
Speaker 2: those researchers and the people interested in science set out
Speaker 2: to prove that those primates were nothing like us. But
Speaker 2: it didn't work that way. Primate attitudes toward making new
Speaker 2: apes and monkeys made researchers very uncomfortable, because we've been
Speaker 2: told for a long time by the authorities that that
Speaker 2: kind of situation should be kept in the dark and
Speaker 2: left largely unspoken and unseen. Researchers watched them fight and
Speaker 2: didn't make the connection between that activity and ours. Chimpanzees
Speaker 2: which share ninety nine point six percent of their DNA
Speaker 2: with ours or ours with them, and bnobo's, which share
Speaker 2: just slightly less than that have mostly erased the idea
Speaker 2: that there is truly an US in them. Most people
Speaker 2: don't want to hear that, but consider this. They make
Speaker 2: tools and they use them. They engage in trade, They play,
Speaker 2: they make art, they make music, they engage in politics.
Speaker 2: They kiss, They engage in face to face little monkey
Speaker 2: making where the females uh also get their cookies. They laugh,
Speaker 2: They can be altruistic. They play, They have their own language,
Speaker 2: and they reason out problems, some of which involve many
Speaker 2: steps of planning. Makes a lot of us uncomfortable to
Speaker 2: think about the traits we share with gimps and bonobos,
Speaker 2: many of which we view as uniquely human. Now, this morning,
Speaker 2: I drop my daughters off at their school, and while
Speaker 2: much of our snow is gone, not all of it is.
Speaker 2: And if you look at the grounds around their school,
Speaker 2: you'd see trails leading from various streets and parks, connecting
Speaker 2: the school to the greater world around it. I'm not
Speaker 2: proud of this, and I want to make sure that
Speaker 2: everyone listening knows I absolutely do not want to bowhunt humans.
Speaker 2: But when I'm out with the dogs in the park,
Speaker 2: or you know, at the canoe landing or on the river,
Speaker 2: down the road wherever. I often look at the trails
Speaker 2: people have created by hunting around a fence, or to
Speaker 2: go across the corner of a soccer field or whatever.
Speaker 2: Then I like to look at the trees and I think,
Speaker 2: where would I hang a stand if I had to
Speaker 2: hunt the folks who use the trails, so that not
Speaker 2: only would I have a good shot, but also wouldn't
Speaker 2: get busted by approaching soccer moms or other dudes with
Speaker 2: their dogs. Again, this is not something I'm interested in.
Speaker 2: It's just something that occurs to me often, probably because
Speaker 2: I have a lot of zombie apocalypse nightmares, so subconsciously,
Speaker 2: maybe I'm preparing for the end of the days I
Speaker 2: don't know, or I'm just bored and I miss scouting deer.
Speaker 2: Hard to say, but those trails we make around the
Speaker 2: places we congregate, they are evidence of our patterns. How
Speaker 2: are multiple trails carved through a neighborhood parked or some
Speaker 2: backyards leading to and from a middle school really any
Speaker 2: different from multiple trails carved into the woods leading to
Speaker 2: and from a small watering hole. If we had someone
Speaker 2: hunting us, it'd be pretty much the exact same thing. Luckily,
Speaker 2: we are pretty much at the top of the food
Speaker 2: so we can walk those trails relatively oblivious to the
Speaker 2: threats around us. This is not the case for white tails.
Speaker 2: They walk their trails for two reasons, to get where
Speaker 2: they are going in a manner that keeps them from
Speaker 2: burning excessive calories, and to not become excessive calories. For
Speaker 2: some other life form, the balance is always between efficiency
Speaker 2: and safety when it comes to prey animal travel during
Speaker 2: the rut. You could make the case that this is
Speaker 2: not true, and you'd probably be somewhat correct. Efficiency is
Speaker 2: a big factor in rut travel because exposure to potential
Speaker 2: estrius doze is always the goal. So as we all know,
Speaker 2: safety takes somewhat of a secondary role there mostly, but
Speaker 2: that's a couple of weeks window where the rules change somewhat.
Speaker 2: Although I would argue that an understanding of trails and
Speaker 2: how deer use them is a huge factor in being
Speaker 2: successful for the pre rut and at least partially in
Speaker 2: the peakra well in hell, the post route too, I
Speaker 2: guess anyway, I like deer trails a lot. When I
Speaker 2: travel to random places to hunt public land white tails,
Speaker 2: I generally can't glass for days on end to find them.
Speaker 2: Some environments like the big Woods don't allow for that anyway.
Speaker 2: No trail cameras can tell you a lot, but not
Speaker 2: if you don't have a lot of them or a
Speaker 2: lot of time to use them. So sure, a huge
Speaker 2: concentration of rubs or a community scrape is also you
Speaker 2: know it's going to get my attention. But what if
Speaker 2: it's the end of September and the buck sign is
Speaker 2: almost non existent, or what if it's the late season
Speaker 2: for that matter, And even if I do find some
Speaker 2: bucks sign, I can't ignore how valuable is that without
Speaker 2: knowing how the bucks will get there and where they'll
Speaker 2: go when they leave. Understanding deer travel throughout the year
Speaker 2: and definitely throughout the season is the base upon which
Speaker 2: a lot of great hunters are built. We often think
Speaker 2: it's about finding the right deer, that's a huge component,
Speaker 2: but finding how that deer goes from place to place
Speaker 2: is how you kill him. Knowing how existence alone is
Speaker 2: usually not enough, especially considering how everyone is pretty much
Speaker 2: running trail cameras these days and can generally be aware
Speaker 2: of most, if not all, of the mature bucks using
Speaker 2: their area. It takes more and The easiest way to
Speaker 2: get more is to start thinking about deer trails scratch.
Speaker 2: That's to start going out in the woods and not
Speaker 2: just noticing trails, but figuring out the why behind them.
Speaker 2: Shed hunting and winter scouting are perfect for this task
Speaker 2: because we often generally default to the strategy of walking
Speaker 2: deer trails during both activities. There's also just a lot
Speaker 2: that goes into learning deer travel, and if you want
Speaker 2: to learn how to use deer trails more effectively as
Speaker 2: a hunter, it's got to be a priority. I'm going
Speaker 2: to get into that, but the first thing I want
Speaker 2: to talk about is understanding trails in your specific world.
Speaker 2: Now this might seem dumb, but think about this. When
Speaker 2: I first started hunting the big woods and scouting big cranberries,
Speaker 2: bogs and swamps and wetlands and huge swaths of tamaracks
Speaker 2: generally wet, soft conditions, I was blown away by the trails.
Speaker 2: They were all cut deep into the moss and mud,
Speaker 2: so easy to read it seemed almost fake. What I
Speaker 2: realized after a few years of hunting there was that
Speaker 2: the deer population was really low, and that didn't jive
Speaker 2: with how well worn and used the trails. Looked while
Speaker 2: they were certainly carved into the landscape, it wasn't because
Speaker 2: there were tons of big bucks walking them every day.
Speaker 2: It was because generations of low density deer used them
Speaker 2: some and the landscape just holds those memories.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: Now take a twelve or fourteen hour drive from there
Speaker 2: to some of the stuff I've hunted in Nebraska and Kansas.
Speaker 2: Then you have a different story. Suddenly you have much
Speaker 2: dryer ground, you have way less pronounced trails, and you
Speaker 2: have way way more deer using them. While this is
Speaker 2: probably easy enough to do on your home turf, recalibrating
Speaker 2: your understanding of the land and the likely amount of
Speaker 2: deer using trails, it's an important skill to possess. It's
Speaker 2: important to understand that a deer trail in some area
Speaker 2: might only have a handful of travelers on it in
Speaker 2: any given week, no matter how well used it might appear.
Speaker 2: Just as it's important to understand in some places the
Speaker 2: trails might not look great but might have a bonker's
Speaker 2: amount of activity on them due to the high prevalence
Speaker 2: of deer in the area.
Speaker 3: Then you have the reality of.
Speaker 2: Parsing out the trails that are mostly for all the
Speaker 2: deer and the ones that are more likely to witness
Speaker 2: some big buck activity. I'm going to get to that first.
Speaker 2: I want to talk about figuring out trails in general.
Speaker 2: There is a common thing people do when they are
Speaker 2: scouting or out on a summer stand hanging mission that
Speaker 2: walk through the woods or along a field edge and
Speaker 2: they'll notice a super well used trail. They'll say, hot, damn,
Speaker 2: found my But and believe me, you can kill a
Speaker 2: pile of deer by not doing much more than this.
Speaker 2: But a better bet is to find that trail and
Speaker 2: figure out what they use it for, not just walking,
Speaker 2: but to and from what and when. I love spring
Speaker 2: scouting for this very task. If I find a trail
Speaker 2: that was definitely in use last fall, then I want
Speaker 2: to walk it out both directions if I can, as
Speaker 2: far as I can go until I either hit a
Speaker 2: property line or the trail just peters out or it
Speaker 2: ends up somewhere at a destination. I try to think of,
Speaker 2: you know, think of it kind of like a road
Speaker 2: system or the way a city could be laid out.
Speaker 2: There's interstates, there's two lane highways, there's back roads, gravel roads,
Speaker 2: and they all lead from betting areas to food sources
Speaker 2: or water sources. The ridgetop trail that goes from the
Speaker 2: thick betting knob to the egg field. That one might
Speaker 2: be simple enough, But what about the secondary trail that's
Speaker 2: quarter of the way down the hill. What purpose does
Speaker 2: that one serve? And why does that one have a
Speaker 2: few more rubs on it than the main trail above it?
Speaker 2: Walk that one out, figure out why. Maybe that trail
Speaker 2: leads to a betting nob that is just ideal for
Speaker 2: catching the early October sun. Maybe it has a perfect
Speaker 2: dead fault to lay against while prevailing winds deliver any
Speaker 2: old factory news that might portend to visit from a predator.
Speaker 3: I remember reading about.
Speaker 2: Dan Infalse Bedhunting Strategy a long time ago, and he
Speaker 2: talks about climbing into a buck bed to look around.
Speaker 2: At the time, I thought that was bullshit, but I
Speaker 2: didn't understand it. I walked trails a lot, and I
Speaker 2: look around when I'm walking trails a lot to see
Speaker 2: how visible I might be and how visible nearby openings are.
Speaker 2: I try to think about the wind and what directions
Speaker 2: it would have to be blowing to make that trail
Speaker 2: the best one for travel or make it kind of
Speaker 2: a no go.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: You can definitely reinforce these findings with trail camera recon
Speaker 2: and you definitely should, but you won't learn the purpose
Speaker 2: of any given individual trail just through trail camera work.
Speaker 2: Take some boots on the ground effort. This will also
Speaker 2: give you a chance to pick out really good ambush sites.
Speaker 2: I cannot stress this enough, but understanding where deer walk
Speaker 2: and when they should walk there is important. But without
Speaker 2: identifying the spot along the way where you have an
Speaker 2: ambush advantage, it just leaves you with a lesser value plan.
Speaker 2: So let's give a nod to the Southern hunters who
Speaker 2: don't get much love on this podcast because I mostly
Speaker 2: don't know what the hell I'm doing down there. But
Speaker 2: there's a lot of big woods and a lot of
Speaker 2: swamps in that world. Just like in the northern parts
Speaker 2: of the Midwest, those wet areas might be ankled deep
Speaker 2: to a deer or something they just don't want to
Speaker 2: wade or swim through. If they don't have to, you
Speaker 2: might scout there and you might find parallel trails around
Speaker 2: most of the water, which just makes sense. But you
Speaker 2: might also find a trail that it just cuts through
Speaker 2: some part of the swamp through the wet stuff. There's
Speaker 2: a reason, and you want to know that reason. It
Speaker 2: might be just because there's a little bit higher spine
Speaker 2: of land under the water there. Even if it's an
Speaker 2: elevation chain of a single foot, just allows for a shallower,
Speaker 2: lower effort crossing. There might be a difference in bottom
Speaker 2: composition there where it's sucking stinky mud everywhere else. But
Speaker 2: for whatever reason, the one spot has a vein of
Speaker 2: sandy or a rocky bottom, whatever it is. You now
Speaker 2: have a situation where two trails meet, the one going
Speaker 2: around the water and the one going through. One offers
Speaker 2: an easy path around the landscape, and one goes.
Speaker 3: Through this feature.
Speaker 2: That's huge, But it doesn't do any good if the
Speaker 2: only tree to hang a stand in that spot also
Speaker 2: happens to be right on top of the crossing trail
Speaker 2: or just won't work with prevailing winds. You gotta walk
Speaker 2: that sucker out until you find a landscape feature you
Speaker 2: can work with, something that will give traveling bucks a
Speaker 2: reason to not look for you. This happens when they
Speaker 2: go from super thick cover to something thinner. They almost
Speaker 2: always walk through the last buffer of thick stuff and
Speaker 2: then stop at the edge to survey the easier to
Speaker 2: see parts of their world in the area I grew
Speaker 2: up hunting with a lot of bluffs. You can watch
Speaker 2: dear c I'm a trail that eventually ends up on
Speaker 2: a ridgetop. There's almost always a point when they hit
Speaker 2: a ridge where they'll look around, but mostly look in
Speaker 2: the direction they intend to travel. You can almost predict
Speaker 2: where their focus will be at certain points along a
Speaker 2: trail by walking them yourself and reading the land. I
Speaker 2: kind of look at this like how deer cross fences.
Speaker 2: While they are individuals and they can do as they please,
Speaker 2: there's sort of a template for deer behavior when they
Speaker 2: jump a fence. You know, they walk up, spend some
Speaker 2: time looking around, surveilling what's on the other side, then
Speaker 2: jump land with a couple of quick steps, and either
Speaker 2: put their head down to feed or stop again for
Speaker 2: a quick look. But mostly they get the looking done
Speaker 2: before they jump. If you're set up twenty yards away
Speaker 2: from a fence crossing, you can damn near scene into
Speaker 2: the future and when you should draw and when a
Speaker 2: buck is going to be distracted by the crossing. That
Speaker 2: stuff matters, and it's one of the reasons that when
Speaker 2: hunters have a ton of experience with pressure deer, they
Speaker 2: tend to not surprisingly be really good at hunting because
Speaker 2: they study behavior. Now, there's another thing I want to
Speaker 2: say about scouting deer trails before I wrap this up.
Speaker 2: That also involves looking into the future. When you're out
Speaker 2: there in March, walking out trails and looking for ambush sites,
Speaker 2: you have to try to understand when individual trails would
Speaker 2: be the most likely to see some usage. Why would
Speaker 2: a big buck walk a certain trail in September or
Speaker 2: October or November. A pounded trail now doesn't necessarily equate
Speaker 2: to season long travel, and I'd argue almost never does.
Speaker 2: There are windows when these trails are the best, and
Speaker 2: that means you have to scout them now, run trail
Speaker 2: cameras this summer, and still try to learn what you
Speaker 2: can from in person observation when you actually hunt them.
Speaker 2: Even more than that is the fact that some of
Speaker 2: the trails just seem to be more conducive to buck travel.
Speaker 2: I think we look at this a little bit wrong,
Speaker 2: but maybe not. I think we often think that these
Speaker 2: bucky trails are used because they offer a lot more
Speaker 2: security and predator detection advantages or whatever. And that might
Speaker 2: be true, but I think that's selling the whole thing
Speaker 2: short a bit bucks, especially big mature bucks, claim prime
Speaker 2: betting spots. There are many benefits to being at the
Speaker 2: top of the hierarchy in an animal group, humans included,
Speaker 2: and bucks bed where they are likely to be safe,
Speaker 2: They feed where the food is the best, and they
Speaker 2: travel between those spots. Does and smaller bucks have less
Speaker 2: access to high value resources, so they sometimes start and
Speaker 2: end at slightly different locations than mature bucks. All of
Speaker 2: this is to say that if you get starry eyed
Speaker 2: over a well used trail and fully expect to kill
Speaker 2: a giant on it, you should definitely try. But big bucks,
Speaker 2: at least the ones I've been around on public land
Speaker 2: and other pressured spots, seem just as likely to use
Speaker 2: a little bit more of a subtle trail than the
Speaker 2: deer highway that any hunter could identify in an instant.
Speaker 2: That's why the intersection of trails and the planning around
Speaker 2: really good ambush sites makes the whole thing start to hum.
Speaker 2: If you hunt the maten trail, great, he might walk
Speaker 2: right down it, but he might also skirt you by
Speaker 2: seventy five yards and if you let him know you're there,
Speaker 2: you might not see him use that secondary trail. Ever, again,
Speaker 2: you want to use what he just showed you as
Speaker 2: the basis for moving over to the next trail option,
Speaker 2: and hopefully several months earlier, you walk that trail out
Speaker 2: as well, so that you know when you see a
Speaker 2: toad go down it that there is a spot where
Speaker 2: he had to have jumped across a small ditch and
Speaker 2: twenty yards from that ditch with awesome access as a
Speaker 2: clump of bassboads that are perfect for a stand. That
Speaker 2: might sound like a made up dream scenario, but it
Speaker 2: doesn't have to be. You just have to put in
Speaker 2: some of the work now to start figuring out individual
Speaker 2: trails and use that to inform your fall strategy. So
Speaker 2: do that and come back next week because I'm going
Speaker 2: to talk about spring scouting specifically to find mature buck hotspots.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 2: I'm Tony Peterson. This has been the Wire to Hunt
Speaker 2: Foundations podcast, which is brought to you by First Light.
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