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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 better dear hunting, presented by first Light,

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Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel through the stand Saddler 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. Hey, everybody, welcome to the wire to Hunt

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Speaker 1: Foundations podcast, which is brought to you by First Light.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host, Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all

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Speaker 1: about how to figure out where bucks live and more importantly,

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Speaker 1: where they like to travel. Listen, it doesn't matter if

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Speaker 1: you run a thousand trail cameras and you scout, you

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Speaker 1: know every day of your life. There's just going to

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Speaker 1: be aspects of a buck's life that are just not

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Speaker 1: available to you. This is true even for the deer

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Speaker 1: that are raised on sweet properties that are designed to

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Speaker 1: keep bucks around. And granted, in that scenario, there are

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Speaker 1: quite a few less secrets than there are. Say on

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Speaker 1: I don't know public land in Georgia or Wisconsin or wherever.

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Speaker 1: The truth is, bucks do what they do, so we

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Speaker 1: won't know what they do, and our best bet to

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Speaker 1: figure out what they do is to scout them with

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Speaker 1: an eye toward what we are missing. How's that for

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Speaker 1: a word salad tasty? Anyway, this whole episode is about

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Speaker 1: how to figure out where bucks spend most of their

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Speaker 1: time so you can be there this fall when they

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Speaker 1: slip up and move in the daylight. If you head

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Speaker 1: on over to northern Africa Egypt, to be more precise,

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Speaker 1: you'd see that the Pyramids of Giza are the premier

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Speaker 1: tourist attraction. These structures, built like forty five hundred years ago,

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Speaker 1: have been a source of awe for humans for a

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Speaker 1: long long time. We still don't really know how they

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Speaker 1: built them, and theories range from thousands and thousands of

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Speaker 1: workers building massive ramps and pulley systems to cut and

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Speaker 1: move the giant stones, to help from other worldly visitors

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Speaker 1: insert crazy hair guy. I'm not saying it was aliens,

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Speaker 1: but it was definitely aliens meme here. While some of

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Speaker 1: the construction aspects are a tantalizing mystery, it's safe to

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Speaker 1: say that the pyramids are just freaking cool. They've also

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Speaker 1: been studied for a long long time. We know that

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Speaker 1: they were built as tombs, which makes sense since Egypt's

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Speaker 1: pharaohs fully expected that once they'd reached the afterlife, they'd

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Speaker 1: become gods. The pyramids are also a treasure trove of

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Speaker 1: art and explanations for a life at that time. There's

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Speaker 1: scenes of farming and religious rituals, and livestock tending and

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Speaker 1: even fishing can be found in the walls and pictographs

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Speaker 1: and hieroglyphics. These stone structures provide an amazing glimpse into past.

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Speaker 1: They also keep revealing their secrets. In early March, it

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Speaker 1: was revealed that the discovery of a hidden, unfinished corridor

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Speaker 1: had been made through the use of non invasive scanning technology. Essentially,

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Speaker 1: scientists use infrared thermography, cosmic ray imaging, and three D

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Speaker 1: simulations to look through the pyramids. What they found in

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Speaker 1: early March was that they'd previously missed a thirty foot

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Speaker 1: long corridor that is located not far from the main

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Speaker 1: interests of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Now, while the

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Speaker 1: Great Pyramid of Giza isn't small, it measures about four

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Speaker 1: hundred and sixty feet tall with a base of about

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Speaker 1: seven hundred and fifty six square feet, it's not so

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Speaker 1: big that, after a couple hundred years of serious scientific scrutiny,

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Speaker 1: you'd expect there to be too many secret chambers left uncovered.

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Speaker 1: This isn't Harry Potter here, but they are still finding them.

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Speaker 1: And that, my friends, is a good lesson for all

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Speaker 1: of us deer hunters, because you can look, use the

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Speaker 1: best newest technology, and you're still going to miss things.

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Speaker 1: What's worse is you think you might have the whole

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Speaker 1: thing dialed. I promise you. Over there in that hot

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Speaker 1: African sun, there were some archaeologists who said with conviction

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Speaker 1: that there were no chambers left to be discovered in

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Speaker 1: the Great Pyramid, and they were obviously wrong. We often

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Speaker 1: think like that as deer hunters. We say, well, I

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Speaker 1: don't know. They feed here, they sleep the day away there,

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Speaker 1: and the space between is where they travel. And it

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Speaker 1: can be that simple on paper, but it rarely plays

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Speaker 1: out that way in real life. Conditions change, hunting, pressure

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Speaker 1: influences movement, and deer have enough free will to walk

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Speaker 1: one way to day in a different way tomorrow, and

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Speaker 1: they might not even know why. But there are patterns

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Speaker 1: to their behavior, just like there are patterns to our behavior.

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Speaker 1: And I don't mean them as individuals, although that also

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Speaker 1: certainly holds true. What a buck does today very well

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Speaker 1: might do tomorrow. I think this is one of those

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Speaker 1: things in deer hunting that we often get wrong, though,

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Speaker 1: which is that we think of behavior in terms of

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Speaker 1: the individual. This probably has a lot to do with

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Speaker 1: the one buck hunt mentality that is all the rage

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Speaker 1: right now and listen. As much as I personally feel

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Speaker 1: that the hit list name every buck something stupid type

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Speaker 1: of hunting is a little bit cringey, I also think

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of value in learning an individual bucks behavior,

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Speaker 1: but I think to get better as a hunter, learning

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Speaker 1: what bucks plural do is way way better. I want

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Speaker 1: to give you two examples of this to kind of

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Speaker 1: frame my whole thought process up here. I've talked a

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Speaker 1: few times about bucks I've bumped that have come back

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Speaker 1: through within a pretty short period of time. The first

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Speaker 1: time this happened to me, it was two bucks better

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Speaker 1: than a ridge as far back on a property in

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Speaker 1: southeastern Minnesota as I could go, and still beyond that

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Speaker 1: landowner's property. I was headed in to hang and hunt

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Speaker 1: over a natural seep on a bluff side that I

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Speaker 1: had found while spring scouting. The two deer I jump

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Speaker 1: both look like pretty good bucks, and after I set up,

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Speaker 1: the first two deer I saw were those bucks coming back,

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Speaker 1: and they were indeed pretty good, like one twenty and

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Speaker 1: a one forty type of buck, which you know, at

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Speaker 1: that time was huge to me. A fast forward a

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Speaker 1: whole lot of years, and the last time I drew

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Speaker 1: an Iowa tag, I bumped a couple of doughs in

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Speaker 1: a good buck looking for a place to set up,

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Speaker 1: And not long after I did set up, the first

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Speaker 1: year to come back was the buck, and he was

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Speaker 1: big enough to burn an Iowa tag on. Dear, behavior

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Speaker 1: transcends the individual, just as human behavior transcends the individual.

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Speaker 1: Now you know, we all know the bump and dump

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Speaker 1: thing that people talk about with bucks, but that's a

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Speaker 1: luck of the draw type of encounter. Honestly, most of

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Speaker 1: the time, where bucks walk and where they live is

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Speaker 1: far more reliable if you can figure it out. So

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Speaker 1: let me give you another example. Growing up and after

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Speaker 1: I got into the hunting industry, I noticed an awful

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Speaker 1: lot of bucks getting shot after walking or running right

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Speaker 1: out into open fields and food plots. On the videos

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Speaker 1: I watched, the articles I read netted in whatever. It

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Speaker 1: was like the big deer couldn't help themselves, and they

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Speaker 1: had no qualms about sprinting into the wide open to

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Speaker 1: chase dos or grab a mouthful of clover. But in

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Speaker 1: my own life that never happened, or if it did,

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Speaker 1: and that was rare, it was always tied to a

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Speaker 1: major front passing through and conditions that were often windy

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Speaker 1: or rainy and not great for the casual hunter who

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Speaker 1: might prefer a little more fair weather type of sit

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Speaker 1: I also realized, on those perfect nights, like in late

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Speaker 1: October early November, I still wouldn't see bucks come out

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Speaker 1: into the open stuff in broad daylight, but I would

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Speaker 1: sometimes see them staging and cutting corners off the food.

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Speaker 1: After enough of those encounters, you start to put together

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Speaker 1: some thoughts, like, geez, those bucks never sprint out here

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Speaker 1: into the wide open, but once in a while, when

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Speaker 1: the wind is right, they seem to cut the corners

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Speaker 1: of the field while staying in the cover or I

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Speaker 1: don't know. In other words, they're just taking the safest

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Speaker 1: route possible to scent check a field. They use their

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Speaker 1: nose to tell them everything they need to know about

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Speaker 1: danger and the potential for a one night stand, and

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Speaker 1: they stay in the cover where they are far less

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Speaker 1: likely to encounter a hunter. Since most hunters can't help themselves,

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Speaker 1: but sit right on the field edge. Simple survival behavior,

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Speaker 1: and if you hunt pressure deer, you can count on

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Speaker 1: some of the bucks figuring this trick out. I've seen

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Speaker 1: this in multiple states, always well, not always, but often

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Speaker 1: on public land, and it's often pretty apparent. If you

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Speaker 1: go out and winter scout, which you should, you'll see

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Speaker 1: rubs leading out to the food sources, which tells you

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Speaker 1: what you already knew. You'll see rubs leading away from

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Speaker 1: the food sources, which tells you again what you already knew.

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Speaker 1: Bucks leave the cover to go feed, and then they

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Speaker 1: leave the food to go to bed. But you'll also

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Speaker 1: see rub lines paralleling the open stuff, but far enough

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Speaker 1: back in the cover to be interesting, and you'll often

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Speaker 1: see a concentration of rubs off the back corners of fields.

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Speaker 1: This is two things, and both are worth understanding. The

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Speaker 1: simple explanation is they stage there waiting on darkness to

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Speaker 1: go out do their thing, or when they leave the

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Speaker 1: food in the morning, kill a little bit of time

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Speaker 1: before they go back to bed. But they're also cutting

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Speaker 1: those corners and taking in the whole scene from the

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Speaker 1: safety of the cover so they don't encounter you. The

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Speaker 1: parallel to the open trail stuff. That tells you a

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Speaker 1: lot too a pressure buck is rarely, and I mean rarely,

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Speaker 1: going to spend time in the open when he doesn't

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Speaker 1: have to. Sure, he could get to the bedding area

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Speaker 1: on some knob by walking right across the cut cornfield

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Speaker 1: in the morning, but he's not going to do that

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Speaker 1: most of the time. Most of the time he's going

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Speaker 1: to slip into the timber and work his way back

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Speaker 1: through the The good thing is he's killable there when

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Speaker 1: he does that, just like he's killable when he cuts

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Speaker 1: corners while sent checking doze. But you need to get

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Speaker 1: in there ahead of him and hunt him like your

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Speaker 1: competition won't. If you go out winter scouting, look for

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Speaker 1: those rubs to tell you what I'm telling you. You'll

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Speaker 1: get bonus points on some of your inside corner scouting

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Speaker 1: if you find a community to scrape back off the

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Speaker 1: open stuff, because you probably will. Now some of you

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Speaker 1: listeners are thinking, well, I don't hunt where the dirt

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Speaker 1: is black and productive and grows corn ten feet tall,

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Speaker 1: and the bucks are dumb. Listen, I hear your cluck

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Speaker 1: in their big chicken, So think about buck travel in

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Speaker 1: another way, like I don't know you hunt the big woods,

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Speaker 1: and they could go any damn where they please. Fine,

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Speaker 1: look for rubs, then look for soft edges or hard edges.

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Speaker 1: Then when you find both, which you will because bucks

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Speaker 1: are suckers for edges, you have something to work with.

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Speaker 1: The deal here, whether you're up north in the swamps

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Speaker 1: or down south somewhere in the swamps, is finding some

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Speaker 1: spot where the randomness of big woods travel suddenly isn't random.

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Speaker 1: I'll give you an example. I spent a lot of

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Speaker 1: years trying to figure out a property in northern Wisconsin.

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Speaker 1: In fact, I'm still trying to figure it out, and

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Speaker 1: this place is section after section of timber and swamps.

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Speaker 1: One year I killed a decent eight pointer who was

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Speaker 1: playing a stupid game of skirting the parking area to

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Speaker 1: go from some bedding knobs to some flats to feed.

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Speaker 1: When I went back the following spring to winter scout

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Speaker 1: the area, I found a massive bed on a ridgetop.

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Speaker 1: Standing in that bed, I could see rubs leading up

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Speaker 1: and down the ridge and a rub line heading straight

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Speaker 1: down to the creek bottom, where I killed a buck

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Speaker 1: on an old, long abandoned logging road that happened to

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Speaker 1: pass between two swamps. It's a classic funnel. Now that

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Speaker 1: randomness of deer travel in the Big Woods isn't quite

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Speaker 1: as random. It also led to a spot where I

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Speaker 1: killed a different buck a few years earlier along that

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Speaker 1: creek bottom, but that he wasn't following the creek. He

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Speaker 1: was following the edge of a clear cut, a soft edge.

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Speaker 1: He was heading up the ridge to bed on it

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Speaker 1: somewhere after a morning and doing his thing in mid October. Now,

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Speaker 1: there were three years between those two Bigwoods buck kills,

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Speaker 1: and I'm still figuring out their travel there. But the

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Speaker 1: lesson is the bucks betting there now and using that

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Speaker 1: huge tract of public are probably still relating to the

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Speaker 1: same spots where I was killing deer quite a few

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Speaker 1: years ago, and a hell of a lot of that

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Speaker 1: sign is out there waiting to be discovered by some hunter.

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Speaker 1: But let me break it down a little bit further.

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Speaker 1: If you hunt big timber, you will see from year

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Speaker 1: to year a lot of what looks like randomness in movement.

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Speaker 1: This is especially true the flatter the country is, because

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Speaker 1: there are a fewer pinch points and terrain traps. The

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Speaker 1: oak that's dropping this week might draw deer from one

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Speaker 1: direction while some kind of soft mast next week might

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Speaker 1: draw them from another direction. In my opinion, if that

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Speaker 1: matters at all, if you hunt flat big woods and

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Speaker 1: you consistently kill decent bucks, you could probably just about

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Speaker 1: go anywhere and get it done. It's tough shit, but

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Speaker 1: there are always edges somewhere to work with. There's always

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Speaker 1: something they're going to give you a little clue into.

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Speaker 1: And this might be a swamp edge, which is kind

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Speaker 1: of always a buck magnet. Or it might be the

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Speaker 1: edge of some meadow or some type of wetland that

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Speaker 1: is soggy but not swimmable. It might be a seven

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Speaker 1: year old clear cut next to a one year old

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Speaker 1: clear cut, or an old growth forest that hasn't heard

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Speaker 1: the wine of chainsaws for forty years. Whatever the edge,

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Speaker 1: if you find it, you probably have found a spot

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Speaker 1: where bucks like to travel throughout the season. But you know,

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Speaker 1: this is painting with broadbrush type of thinking too. What

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Speaker 1: many deer do, many more will do kind of thinking.

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Speaker 1: I guess. It also seems like individual properties also seem

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Speaker 1: to have their own quirkiness, where bucks almost always take

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Speaker 1: this trail but not that one. This is where trail

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Speaker 1: cameras and in person observation really shine. I have a

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Speaker 1: spot like this in northern Wisconsin that I'm going to

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Speaker 1: put my daughters on this fall. It's going to take

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Speaker 1: some work and be a different kind of hunt than

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Speaker 1: what they're used to, but I can't ignore the trail

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Speaker 1: camera intel anymore. For a few years, I've left cameras

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Speaker 1: soaking to cover that spot. And it's a spot where

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Speaker 1: not only the bucks cut through to avoid the neighbor's

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Speaker 1: small hayfield where they keep their horses, but they move

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Speaker 1: at all hours of the day through there. It's a

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Speaker 1: patch of timber that is connected to several sections of

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Speaker 1: swampy big woods cover. I'm confident by looking at the

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Speaker 1: aerial photos and talking to the neighbors randomly that even

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Speaker 1: though the hunting pressure is pretty intense in the area,

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Speaker 1: there aren't too many people hunting that big timber. And

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Speaker 1: a benefit here is because baiting is legal there, and

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Speaker 1: so my neighbors are sitting over cornpiles in places they

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Speaker 1: can drive their four wheel or two, and this place

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Speaker 1: is just not that easy to access. So bucks know it,

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Speaker 1: and they know they walk through there and rarely encounter hunters.

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Speaker 1: But they're gonna this year. Those guys you know around there.

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Speaker 1: They're all sitting in the edges of openings. And you

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Speaker 1: know who knows that. Like I said, it's the bucks.

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Speaker 1: While they could just but walk anywhere through that cover

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Speaker 1: and be relatively safe from bow hunters, they lean real

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Speaker 1: heavy on one trail. I can speculate why, but it

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Speaker 1: doesn't matter because the evidence is clearly visible when I

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Speaker 1: check my trail cameras every year. This, in my humble opinion,

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Speaker 1: is important. If I know one trail on a property

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Speaker 1: that is more likely to host some buck travel than

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Speaker 1: any other, I can plan my entire fall around it.

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Speaker 1: I can go in when the conditions should put bucks

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Speaker 1: on their feet and it gives me a wind advantage.

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Speaker 1: I can avoid it when the odds of an encounter

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Speaker 1: are lower because I don't have that wind advantage or

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Speaker 1: the bucks shouldn't be on their feet. I can force

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Speaker 1: myself to pay extra special attention when I do hunt

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Speaker 1: it because I want to know exactly how they approached

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Speaker 1: the spot and how they'll leave it. Because the buck

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Speaker 1: I'm hunting today he might not be around tomorrow, but

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Speaker 1: eventually another buck will be. So maybe the best question

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Speaker 1: to ask when you're trying to figure out where bucks

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Speaker 1: travel on your hunting ground. Is why when you see

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Speaker 1: the rubs, or you get a trail camera pick, or

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Speaker 1: you make an in person observation, ask yourself what he's

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Speaker 1: doing there. It wasn't random. It wasn't random when the

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Speaker 1: forky walk through, and it won't be random when one

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Speaker 1: hundred and sixty five inchro walks through. What convinced a

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Speaker 1: buck to do what he did, because it'll convince other

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Speaker 1: bucks to do the same thing. What can you learn

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Speaker 1: about buck travel in general? And what can you learn

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Speaker 1: about buck travel that is specific to the ground you hunt.

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Speaker 1: Take another example here, cattail sluse talk him out all

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Speaker 1: the time. I love them. I love them for what

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Speaker 1: they offer pheasants and deer, and as a hunter, I'm

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Speaker 1: pretty interested in both those critters. And there are some

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Speaker 1: universal truths about cattail slows. As long as they aren't

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Speaker 1: too wet, bucks are gonna bed in them. And even

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Speaker 1: if they are pretty wet, those deer often find some

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Speaker 1: high spot and use it to their advantage. This is

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Speaker 1: like universal behavior because the cover is that good. They'll

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Speaker 1: also travel from point A to B, often at the

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Speaker 1: narrowest point of the slough pretty consistently. Again, it's a

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Speaker 1: pretty universal behavior. It lets them get to where they

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Speaker 1: need to go while working as little as possible and

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Speaker 1: staying in the most protective cover. That's pretty smart behavior

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Speaker 1: for a prey animal. But if you break down individual properties,

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Speaker 1: you'll see that while buck's behavior transcends specific ground, it

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Speaker 1: also caters itself too specific ground. If there is a

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Speaker 1: cattail slu that has a finger that extends up into

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Speaker 1: a draw the main slough, you can bet your ass

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Speaker 1: that a buck will bed there at some point because

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Speaker 1: he knows he now has an extra escape route that

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Speaker 1: allows him to get him away if he needs it.

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Speaker 1: He also probably has some kind of thermal hub or

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Speaker 1: at least some type of wind advantage there as well,

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Speaker 1: which is going to be tied directly to the terrain.

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Speaker 1: So you can know that bucks bed in and travel

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Speaker 1: through cattiles flows in a specific way. But then you

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Speaker 1: can look at an individual property and probably call your

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Speaker 1: shots for exactly or at least approximately where they'll bed.

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Speaker 1: That's powerful stuff and you can use it to your advantage.

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Speaker 1: You should too, And I know you're sick of me

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Speaker 1: saying this, but the window for figuring out the winter scouting.

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Speaker 1: Part of this stuff is closing hell. You might still

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Speaker 1: have some snow like we do and are looking at

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Speaker 1: a couple of weeks left of it, you know, but

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Speaker 1: you're going to have a real melt at some point

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Speaker 1: and before the onslaught of ticks, you need to get

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Speaker 1: out there. You need to use that time figure out

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Speaker 1: where bucks like to travel. And you need to tune

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Speaker 1: in next week because I'm going to talk about paying

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Speaker 1: attention and how easily we get distracted and how hard

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Speaker 1: staying on the mission is for most of us. That's it.

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Speaker 1: I'm Tony Peterson and this has been the Wire to

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Speaker 1: Hunt Foundations podcast, which has brought to you by First Light.

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Speaker 1: As I always, thank you so much for listening, And

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Speaker 1: if you want some more whitetail content, you can of

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Speaker 1: course check out the regular Wire to Hunt podcast, or

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Speaker 1: you can head on over to thumbetter dot com slash

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Speaker 1: wired and see a pile of hunting articles from guys

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Speaker 1: like Dylan Tramp and Any May and Alex Gilstrom and

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Speaker 1: Beaumartonic and Mark Kennan and myself. Head on over there.

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Speaker 1: Tons of info