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: Hi, everyone, welcome to the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by first Light. I'm arouse
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about finding bachelor groups,
Speaker 2: watching them, learning about them, and eventually hunting them. It's
Speaker 2: the time of year when a lot of us are
Speaker 2: starting to get very excited and very nervous about whether
Speaker 2: the bucks we've been paying attention to are going to
Speaker 2: stick to their patterns throughout the fall. Some do, some don't,
Speaker 2: and it's always a crapshoot whether that opening night sit
Speaker 2: will be awesome or a letdown. But it's not totally
Speaker 2: up to chance. And that's what I really want to
Speaker 2: talk about right now, So buckle up and listen real
Speaker 2: good if you want to have your best chance possible
Speaker 2: of tagging a big one in the early season. I
Speaker 2: have a buddy who got divorced a couple of years ago,
Speaker 2: and he did what a lot of guys would do
Speaker 2: in his situation, which was hit the dating apps and
Speaker 2: play the field. Think of that what you will, But
Speaker 2: he told me some stories while we were elk hunting
Speaker 2: that were pretty interesting. He said that pretty much every
Speaker 2: woman he matched with mentioned that their favorite photo of
Speaker 2: his on his dating profile was of him packing out
Speaker 2: a bull elk. He then went on to explain that
Speaker 2: pretty much every woman he ended up going on a
Speaker 2: date with said that the dating pool was full of
Speaker 2: dudes who don't really work out in the game a lot,
Speaker 2: and they don't really do well manly stuff. Their words,
Speaker 2: not mine, guys, But it's interesting given the research coming
Speaker 2: out lately on testosterone levels in young men, Several large
Speaker 2: studies show results that in recent decades, lower testosterone levels
Speaker 2: are very common throughout the US, Europe, and parts of Asia.
Speaker 2: Now there is enough variance in the test results and
Speaker 2: the testing methods to question the research some, but it
Speaker 2: points to a trend that science is working to prove
Speaker 2: more conclusively. There is also the reality that feeling sluggish
Speaker 2: or not you know, very energetic or basically not too
Speaker 2: keen to grab life by the coin person squeeze real
Speaker 2: hard can be attributed to a lot of things that
Speaker 2: aren't low tea. Obesity, poor sleep, lack of physical activity,
Speaker 2: shitty diets, medications and substance abuse and stress can all
Speaker 2: induce low tea like symptoms. It's somewhat of a mystery yet,
Speaker 2: but the lab coats are working on it. And if
Speaker 2: there is one thing that lower testosterone does, it's that
Speaker 2: it pumps the brakes on a lot of what makes
Speaker 2: men do manned stuff. I don't mean shoot elk here,
Speaker 2: but really more like rage at having to fix something
Speaker 2: that someone in their family broke because they never listen,
Speaker 2: and for some reason you never have the right tools,
Speaker 2: so you have to go to the hardware store when
Speaker 2: all you really wanted to do today was maybe catch
Speaker 2: a few large mouth and relax a little since, you know,
Speaker 2: work this week's been a total biz natcho, You know
Speaker 2: what I mean. Testosterone is a blessing and a curse,
Speaker 2: and in the dear world, it plays a big role
Speaker 2: in what's going on with the bucks right now, which
Speaker 2: is well summertime mode, summertime survival. I guess the bucks
Speaker 2: are out there. They're all bachelored up, and research into
Speaker 2: bachelor groups has turned up somewhat of an interesting finding
Speaker 2: that they are relatively stable out there. Their boy groups
Speaker 2: are stable consist of individuals who get along pretty well,
Speaker 2: you know, until eventually they won't, which we'll talk about later.
Speaker 2: Bachelor groups are an adaptive strategy that provides several survival benefits.
Speaker 2: The easiest one to understand is that the more eyes, ears,
Speaker 2: and noses in a group, the less likely a predator
Speaker 2: is to slip in and chomp someone. Bucks live solitary
Speaker 2: lives much of the fall, and that means they have
Speaker 2: to devote more energy to staying alive. Summer. Bucks don't
Speaker 2: have to do that quite as aggressively because there's a
Speaker 2: built in safety net when there are four or five
Speaker 2: more deer around you at all times. That might not
Speaker 2: sound like a huge benefit, but consider how many calories
Speaker 2: professional chess players burn just by thinking. Our brains do
Speaker 2: a lot of work, and so do bucks brains, and
Speaker 2: they don't have to worry about quite as much right
Speaker 2: now through basically predator detection, so they are able to
Speaker 2: stock up energy more efficiently. And that's not nothing, but
Speaker 2: there are more benefits. One of the theories about this
Speaker 2: involves younger Bucks getting to hang with older bucks now
Speaker 2: deer don't consciously teach each other anything, just like old
Speaker 2: bird dogs don't teach puppies anything intentionally. But you can't argue,
Speaker 2: at least very well that there isn't a benefit to
Speaker 2: a young dog spending time in the field with a
Speaker 2: seasoned veteran. The same rules apply to bucks. There is
Speaker 2: also the reality that in the summer food is more
Speaker 2: available than any other time of the year. In the fall,
Speaker 2: a buck that gets too close to another buck and
Speaker 2: a cornfield might very well get challenged to a fight.
Speaker 2: Guarding resources as natural as hierarchies are, and when the
Speaker 2: food is abundant, the risk of someone taking too many
Speaker 2: calories from you is just gone. That means the survival
Speaker 2: benefit of grouping up can exist without the risk of
Speaker 2: paying for it later by having not packed on enough pounds.
Speaker 2: Of course, bucks and their priorities shift over time, and
Speaker 2: what life does is figure out how to best leave
Speaker 2: some extra life in its wake via its bloodline. Having
Speaker 2: four of your buddies around when you're looking at the
Speaker 2: hottest dough in the herd is the opposite of that,
Speaker 2: and so when the velvet goes, so does the brotherly
Speaker 2: love for the most part. But until then you can
Speaker 2: count on the bucks hanging with their buddies, and you
Speaker 2: can count on them doing something that they just don't
Speaker 2: do throughout much of the fall, which is be very predictable.
Speaker 2: If you challenge me to kill one forty anywhere and
Speaker 2: told me I could either scout them in the summer
Speaker 2: and hunt them the first week of the season, or
Speaker 2: scout them throughout the fall and hunt them during the rut,
Speaker 2: I'd pick the early season every single time. There would
Speaker 2: be no question in my mind. Honestly. Look, I love
Speaker 2: the rut and all it entails, but there is nothing
Speaker 2: about deer hunting I love more than scouting a bachelor
Speaker 2: group and trying to put a plan together to kill
Speaker 2: one of its members on opening night, or at least
Speaker 2: in the first few days of the season. I really
Speaker 2: believe that's the best opportunity for awful lot of hunters,
Speaker 2: and the reason that they don't take it is because
Speaker 2: the rut gets so much love and the early season,
Speaker 2: with its hot weather and bugs, just isn't as appealing
Speaker 2: to a lot of hunters. I get that, but I
Speaker 2: like when a plan comes together and I get to
Speaker 2: shoot big deer. But here's the deal. It's easier than
Speaker 2: a lot of things in deer hunting, but far from easy.
Speaker 2: Most of us at this point of the year have
Speaker 2: cameras out and we have some bucks located. This is
Speaker 2: the easy part. Maybe you've been out glassing too, and
Speaker 2: if you have, you get bonus points because you're doing
Speaker 2: better than most hunters these days. Finding that bachelor group
Speaker 2: is one thing, but putting a pattern on it is
Speaker 2: something else. They can be very consistent, for sure, but
Speaker 2: the most consistent bachelor groups will still do inconsistent things,
Speaker 2: and that will only increase as the season gets closer.
Speaker 2: Now you might have the only bean field in the
Speaker 2: section and so that might not happen, or you might
Speaker 2: haunt a pivot alfalfa field out west, and the deer
Speaker 2: literally have no better options, but for most folks they do.
Speaker 2: I have a camera up on a private piece of
Speaker 2: ground in northern Wisconsin right now that has an alfalfa
Speaker 2: field on it. It's the only alfalfa field for a
Speaker 2: couple of miles. Predictably, there's a bachelor group on it.
Speaker 2: The leader of the group is a really really nice
Speaker 2: eight pointer and he has several buddies. They're solid deer
Speaker 2: for that area. They were like clockwork at one point
Speaker 2: in July for days and days. Then we got really
Speaker 2: really hot weather and they became like, well whatever. The
Speaker 2: opposite the clockwork is they have water everywhere, so I
Speaker 2: don't think that's it. I don't know where they went.
Speaker 2: I just know that my cameras went dead and they
Speaker 2: didn't stop feeding, because deer don't really do that for
Speaker 2: a week at a time. This reality points to something
Speaker 2: that I think a lot of folks miss when putting
Speaker 2: a pattern on a bachelor group. You're hedging your bets,
Speaker 2: but you need backup plans. Cold fronts, warmfronts, wonky unexpected
Speaker 2: wind directions, and a host of other factors can throw
Speaker 2: deer off of a pattern real fast. In fact, the
Speaker 2: bucks that are on my buddy's place are most likely
Speaker 2: to get thrown off by him in the days leading
Speaker 2: up to the opener. One of his sons has a
Speaker 2: bear tag over there, which opens up before the deer season,
Speaker 2: so that property will go from no humans messing around
Speaker 2: to a lot of humans messing around and four wheelers
Speaker 2: driving around in the presence of people in the woods
Speaker 2: where the deer might be betting, and well, just enough stuff
Speaker 2: to get those bucks off of their pattern. This is
Speaker 2: my number one concern when I try to pattern bachelor
Speaker 2: groups on public land, because I know without question the
Speaker 2: amount of people in the woods will increase as the
Speaker 2: season opener gets closer. You might think, well, I hunt private,
Speaker 2: and I'm the only one with a key to the gate,
Speaker 2: so I'm really not worried about that. You might be
Speaker 2: right in that confidence, but those bucks might also bet
Speaker 2: on the neighbors or feed a couple of nights a
Speaker 2: week somewhere else, and the presence of hunters and those
Speaker 2: other spots might affect your place. It might help you
Speaker 2: where it might hurt you. But I know that in
Speaker 2: my experience, when more people are in the woods with me,
Speaker 2: it rarely does mean a lot of favors. But that's
Speaker 2: a later problem. Right now, you have to find those
Speaker 2: bucks and figure out what they're doing. This is a
Speaker 2: big one. And while it's pretty easy to get confirmation
Speaker 2: that a bachelor group is using a spot, it's not
Speaker 2: enough to know that they are just sometimes using a
Speaker 2: field corner. You need more info than that bucks off
Speaker 2: and enter fields from different trails based on the wind direction.
Speaker 2: That's pretty good information to have when you're setting up
Speaker 2: to actually hunt them. If it's going to be a
Speaker 2: million degrees, they'll often enter on the shady side first.
Speaker 2: That's good information to have if you're setting up for
Speaker 2: them and it's going to be hot, which is real
Speaker 2: common in the early season. Bucks often hit the field
Speaker 2: and then go back into the woods to browse, and
Speaker 2: then hit the field again. What they are doing in
Speaker 2: the woods is really important to know, and that's a
Speaker 2: great job for trail cameras to figure out. Bucks also
Speaker 2: often follow pretty specific routes through fields. They often have,
Speaker 2: you know, destinations in mind, and they sort of all
Speaker 2: flow the same direction. Knowing this gives you more ambush options,
Speaker 2: which is really important. Instead of pinning your hopes on
Speaker 2: you know, putting a tree stand in one corner of
Speaker 2: the field and then looking at the forecast for opening
Speaker 2: day only to realize the wind sucks for your stand,
Speaker 2: you have options. And speaking of options, the times when
Speaker 2: I've killed early season bucks that I have patterned, it's
Speaker 2: almost always been because I found a couple of spots
Speaker 2: they frequented, not just one point where they walked out
Speaker 2: into a field. In fact, I think the most underrated
Speaker 2: thing you can do for an early season hunt is
Speaker 2: figure out how to kill those same bucks in the morning,
Speaker 2: at least try it. Some foods say situations aren't conducive
Speaker 2: to evening hunting without a really high blowout factor, but
Speaker 2: slipping in to catch those bucks coming back through in
Speaker 2: the morning can be a different story. The basic strategy
Speaker 2: is to find an evening spot they like to feed
Speaker 2: in and then set up there. But if that doesn't work,
Speaker 2: you're out of luck, and we'll keep pushing it. Learning
Speaker 2: more about what they really like to do beyond to
Speaker 2: eat some beans in the early season is a good idea.
Speaker 2: There's no substitute for glassing actual bachelor groups, which I
Speaker 2: know I've talked about a lot, but I really believe
Speaker 2: is the key. Trail cameras are great to confirm your
Speaker 2: suspicions and lead you down new paths of discovery on
Speaker 2: the bucks, but the glassing is what tells you where
Speaker 2: to set up, who does what when they get into
Speaker 2: the open, and where they come from and where they
Speaker 2: go you know how you can actually move in and
Speaker 2: kill them. It's the way to get the highest odds
Speaker 2: of success possible, and it works, but you have to
Speaker 2: put in the work without getting busted, and you have
Speaker 2: to understand that you all always need to think about
Speaker 2: what you're going to do if the bachelor group just
Speaker 2: decides enough is enough and they break up before or
Speaker 2: during your first chances to hunt them. How I look
Speaker 2: at this is basically like this. If I have done
Speaker 2: my homework on some Bucks and they start to break up,
Speaker 2: I know the clock is ticking, but that I can
Speaker 2: still hunt them pretty much like I would if they
Speaker 2: were still together. The biggest Bucks will often stick to
Speaker 2: the pattern for a little while because they're going to
Speaker 2: command the best spots at the dinner table, the places
Speaker 2: they've usually been choosing to feed in the summer. If
Speaker 2: you get my drift, you might only get a cracker
Speaker 2: two at them, but if you put in the preseason work,
Speaker 2: that might be all you need. And it's also true
Speaker 2: that if you take your best swing and it doesn't
Speaker 2: result in a blood trail, it's very likely to result
Speaker 2: in a sighting. Bring your binos, of course, and pay
Speaker 2: real close attention. The bucks all individually might still be
Speaker 2: using that food source or getting a drink at the
Speaker 2: same pond in the woods before they go to bed,
Speaker 2: but they don't maybe use them so brazenly in daylight.
Speaker 2: You might only catch a glimpse of the biggest dude
Speaker 2: in the bachelor group coming out in the far corner
Speaker 2: of the field at dark. That sucks, but it's also
Speaker 2: good motivation to get your happy ass over there the
Speaker 2: next night and set up for him. Or maybe your
Speaker 2: bachelor group blows up on you. But you see some
Speaker 2: doze and fawns feeding on the first of the acorn
Speaker 2: drop on the edge of the field, and now you
Speaker 2: think maybe your bachelor group just shifted its feeding patterns
Speaker 2: to take advantage of that back in the woods food
Speaker 2: source before they head out into the open to feed
Speaker 2: after dark. Hunting whitetails has just take constant quest to
Speaker 2: make educated guesses upon educated guesses until something hits an
Speaker 2: awful lot of the bigger deer I've killed in the
Speaker 2: first week of the season in North Dakota or South
Speaker 2: Dakota or Wisconsin or Minnesota or Nebraska or wherever have
Speaker 2: been not on my first sit but my second. I
Speaker 2: often think I have them dialed, only to see them
Speaker 2: doing something a little bit different on the first day
Speaker 2: that forces me to change my plan for the second day.
Speaker 2: I'm often only off by a little bit when you're
Speaker 2: bow hunting, that's enough. The key is to be open
Speaker 2: to that possibility and have a whole bunch of data
Speaker 2: from the preseason to help guide you through the new situation.
Speaker 2: The worst thing you can do is hunt the same
Speaker 2: stand twice and then call it a lost cause and
Speaker 2: then pat yourself on the back for getting out of
Speaker 2: the woods for several weeks until it's almost Halloween. Think
Speaker 2: about what the bucks are doing beyond what you can
Speaker 2: absolutely know about where they feed, Like where are they
Speaker 2: betting in the woods or in a grassy swale in
Speaker 2: the middle of the field. Is that likely to change
Speaker 2: as the season gets closer? And if it does, how
Speaker 2: will you relocate them? Where do they get some water?
Speaker 2: This is a big one, and it's real important if
Speaker 2: you don't hunt where there are awesome summertime in early
Speaker 2: fall food sources. I'd much much rather have a bachelor
Speaker 2: group visiting a water hole in the cover a couple
Speaker 2: times a week over a bachelor group hitting a field
Speaker 2: edge almost every night. If I'm being honest, that water
Speaker 2: pattern just isn't likely to delaminate the way a field
Speaker 2: edge pattern can. Think about that about the trails those
Speaker 2: bucks are likely to take to get to the neighbors,
Speaker 2: or what exact fence crossing they'll probably take in the
Speaker 2: morning when they come back from wherever, and think about
Speaker 2: safely glassing for them as much as you possibly can
Speaker 2: as the season looms ever closer. When they shed their
Speaker 2: velvet and that testosterone starts to ramp up, they might
Speaker 2: not follow the summertime pattern anymore, but they won't become
Speaker 2: total ghosts. They'll still eat and drink and travel. And
Speaker 2: while it's nice to glass for a full month in July,
Speaker 2: that might not give you as much actionable intel as
Speaker 2: glassing the three nights before the opener. Just make damn
Speaker 2: sure you don't spook them, because that might be the
Speaker 2: end of all that hard work and put those deer
Speaker 2: on a path that doesn't lead by your highest odds.
Speaker 2: Stand think about that, Think about coming back next week,
Speaker 2: because I'm going to drop some more deer knowledge as
Speaker 2: we get ever closer to that most wonderful time of
Speaker 2: the year when we can all stop talking about this
Speaker 2: stuff and actually get out there and hunt some deer.
Speaker 2: That's it for this week. I'm Tony Peter and this
Speaker 2: has been the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast. As always,
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