Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better dearer hunting, and now your
Speaker 1: host Tony Peterson. Hey, everyone, welcome to the Wire to
Speaker 1: Hunt Foundations podcast, which is brought to you by First Light.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all
Speaker 1: about the ladies and why it's a mistake to look
Speaker 1: right past them and focus totally on the bus. They
Speaker 1: don't get any credit and it's a shame. You know,
Speaker 1: does make up a big part of the deer herd
Speaker 1: and they are directly responsible for raising future generations of
Speaker 1: white tails. And they're delicious and often just as challenging
Speaker 1: to kill as their male counterparts. But they don't have antlers. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess like one and eight thousand of them do.
Speaker 1: But for the most part, of dough is a dough
Speaker 1: is a dough is a dope, But that's not really true,
Speaker 1: and it varies quite a bit from hunter to hunter,
Speaker 1: and how easy it is to not only get around
Speaker 1: them but kill them. I personally loved him. I love
Speaker 1: them so much. I'm going to talk about them for
Speaker 1: the next two weeks. And even if you're the biggest
Speaker 1: antler fetish hunter out there who cares only about big
Speaker 1: racks on the wall, you should give a listen, because
Speaker 1: learning about how to hunt does and help you hunt
Speaker 1: the bucks better. A couple of weeks ago, we took
Speaker 1: my daughters to a local high school. By the time
Speaker 1: we got there, the parking lot was full of cars.
Speaker 1: Kids of all ages could be seen walking through the
Speaker 1: cold Minnesota morning to the front doors. Most of them
Speaker 1: were wearing jerseys. Inside, the activity increased. There were players
Speaker 1: and coaches and parents and parents all over in the hallways,
Speaker 1: and the distant sound of cheering and ref whistles filled
Speaker 1: the air. Our girls had three games on the schedule
Speaker 1: in a matter of just four hours. To top it off,
Speaker 1: this nasty flu that is going around, or COVID two
Speaker 1: or whatever the hell it is had knocked their team
Speaker 1: back from nine players to seven, and one of those
Speaker 1: remaining girls she was fading pretty fast, so we could
Speaker 1: safely call it about six and a half players. The
Speaker 1: first game was a decent one, with my girls team
Speaker 1: taking an early lead and keeping it throughout both periods.
Speaker 1: Day one with twenty four points, which is about average
Speaker 1: for fifth grade girls. Now, of those twenty four, one
Speaker 1: of my daughters scored twenty. She was pretty proud of herself,
Speaker 1: and so were we. Now. The second game looked to
Speaker 1: be a little bit more of a challenge, but our
Speaker 1: girls started out strong and they pulled out to a
Speaker 1: ten to zero lead, over coming a five bucket deficit.
Speaker 1: In that age group, it's not very easy, but the
Speaker 1: opposing team managed to do it now. They even got
Speaker 1: a little help from my non twenty point scoring daughter, who,
Speaker 1: in a moment of not so great basketball awareness, shot
Speaker 1: into the wrong hoop. It was the first basket she
Speaker 1: made all day, and it ended up counting for the
Speaker 1: opposing team. It also tied the whole game up and
Speaker 1: sent us into overtime, so not ideal. We won thanks
Speaker 1: to a free throw from my daughter, who did not
Speaker 1: graciously provide opponents with an extra two points, so that
Speaker 1: was good. The third game, I was a train wreck,
Speaker 1: but they came in second place. For the tournament, it
Speaker 1: was full of ups and downs, and while it was
Speaker 1: embarrassing when my daughter made a basket in the wrong hoop,
Speaker 1: it also helped that I was sitting by a woman
Speaker 1: whose daughter went zero for ten on free throws, and
Speaker 1: of those she airballed nine. Of them. Anyway, Even though
Speaker 1: my twin daughters were both playing on the same team
Speaker 1: in the same games, it was clear that one of
Speaker 1: them is really, really good. I'm not ashamed to say
Speaker 1: the best on the team. The other she needs some work.
Speaker 1: I don't know, or maybe some golf clubs are volleyball
Speaker 1: or something. What does this have to do with deer hunting. Well,
Speaker 1: we are all deer hunters, right, We are all chasing
Speaker 1: the same species, yet we don't have the same skill sets. Sure,
Speaker 1: we wear the same jerseys, maybe looked up to the
Speaker 1: same coaches. But some of us are starters and some
Speaker 1: of us are bench warmers. For now, some of us
Speaker 1: should focus on mature bucks, and some of us should
Speaker 1: be really happy to make a good shot on any deer,
Speaker 1: even if that deer doesn't have antlers and never would.
Speaker 1: That's right. Some of us should just be deer hunters
Speaker 1: with an emphasis on Does that might seem crazy or
Speaker 1: that I'm shooting on newbies or low experience hunters. That's
Speaker 1: not my intention at all. I'm a firm believer in
Speaker 1: working your way up the ladder in life, and I
Speaker 1: think there is a progression to whitetail hunting that can
Speaker 1: be circumvented, but shouldn't be. How do you circumvent it?
Speaker 1: That's pretty easy. You just have to have a parent
Speaker 1: who I don't know, invested in an apple and kept
Speaker 1: all their shares until recently, and now that they've gifted you,
Speaker 1: I don't know, tens of millions of dollars. Just go
Speaker 1: out and buy a section or two of land in
Speaker 1: Iowa or Kansas. Done and done. See it's pretty easy
Speaker 1: right now. There are other ways to circumvent the process too,
Speaker 1: but if you had those, you wouldn't be listening to me.
Speaker 1: So let's assume you don't, and let's ask another question,
Speaker 1: how easy is it for you to kill those? If
Speaker 1: you answer it's pretty dang easy, bro, i'd counter with, okay,
Speaker 1: when and where? Now? If you answered, well, it's kind
Speaker 1: of easy for me to kill dose, I'll just fill
Speaker 1: in the blanks here and assume that that's actually kind
Speaker 1: of a nun. I learned that trick from a doctor
Speaker 1: one time, who asked me how much I drank. When
Speaker 1: I told him, he said, well, that's a lot, and
Speaker 1: I said, I don't know, man, I think that seems
Speaker 1: pretty reasonable, and he said, well, we double the amount
Speaker 1: you tell us because everyone lies to us, And I
Speaker 1: was like, how dare you call out the exact behavior
Speaker 1: I literally just did and make me sound like your
Speaker 1: run of the mill, lying idiot, which I just was.
Speaker 1: The audacity of some folks. Killing dose seems easy because
Speaker 1: you know what, but what I said earlier, they don't
Speaker 1: have antlers. So a dough is a dough is a dough.
Speaker 1: The year and a half old dough. She gets lumped
Speaker 1: in with the old horsehead dough that is gray in
Speaker 1: the face, snorts at you when you even think about hunting,
Speaker 1: and has put two fawns on the ground and guided
Speaker 1: them to young adulthood every spring for a decade. Would
Speaker 1: we do the same thing with bucks? I mean, would
Speaker 1: you say a forky is the same as a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty in no, because that would be dumb as
Speaker 1: dumb as lying to your doctor, but a really unhealthy
Speaker 1: addiction that you have. We would say, well, oh no,
Speaker 1: those two deer have nothing in common. That forky. He's
Speaker 1: just young and dumb, and he has maybe his whole
Speaker 1: life ahead of him if somebody doesn't shoot him. He's
Speaker 1: no real challenge for a quote unquote real hunter. But
Speaker 1: the one fifty. Let me tell you something. That dear
Speaker 1: isn't even really a dear. He's a wizard of the
Speaker 1: animal world that can wave his little magic wand and
Speaker 1: disappear in a whisper smoke. He can sense your presence
Speaker 1: through his sixth sense and feel the vibration of your
Speaker 1: heart beating through your first light vest from a half
Speaker 1: a mile away. He's so nocturnal he doesn't even remember
Speaker 1: what it's like to move in the daylight hours. If
Speaker 1: you spook him, well son, you best target another buck,
Speaker 1: because that deer has done unpacked his bags and moved
Speaker 1: to a whole old new property, and now he's so
Speaker 1: cagy he actually digs a hole and hides in it
Speaker 1: after covering himself up with leaves another debris. All you'll
Speaker 1: see is an antler tip poking on the leaf litter
Speaker 1: if you see him at all, which you won't because
Speaker 1: he's practically invisible. Of course, this is all great a
Speaker 1: level horseshit. A five and a half year old dough
Speaker 1: is probably pretty damn similar to a five and a
Speaker 1: half year old buck, at least when it comes to survival.
Speaker 1: The downside she has is that she's usually got little
Speaker 1: miles to feed, and that might put her in a
Speaker 1: position to take more risks the buck he can and
Speaker 1: does just look after himself. So where am I going
Speaker 1: with this? If you want to be a better deer hunter,
Speaker 1: you have to get better at hunting deer, all of them.
Speaker 1: You will never be a great big buck hunter if
Speaker 1: you can't kill does on the same properties you're hunting
Speaker 1: those bucks. You will never be a really successful over
Speaker 1: the road buck hunter if you can't travel and shoot
Speaker 1: some adult does. Now, I know a lot of people
Speaker 1: might not believe this because we focus so hard on bucks,
Speaker 1: But let me share a couple of stories of my
Speaker 1: life about does to kind of frame this up for you. Now,
Speaker 1: I mentioned this one particular old gal a few times,
Speaker 1: so I'll just keep it short. But I once co
Speaker 1: owned a little property in the suburbs here. We put
Speaker 1: in a kill plot on that place, and an old
Speaker 1: long nose dough claimed it. She would rear up and
Speaker 1: swat at the other deer that came in, both bucks
Speaker 1: and does, and was generally a great, a dear version
Speaker 1: of a biz natcho. So I said, well, I think
Speaker 1: it's time to put her in the freezer. But she
Speaker 1: was on to that stand that we had over the plot.
Speaker 1: So out smarter, I put a ground blind in there
Speaker 1: as well. I figured she would never see me in
Speaker 1: the blind and never know for sure if I was
Speaker 1: in there until it was too late. Except when I
Speaker 1: did sit that blind and I did try to draw
Speaker 1: on her, she busted me instantly. I tried to kill
Speaker 1: that dough quite a few times, and I failed every
Speaker 1: single time. For all I know, she's still out there
Speaker 1: knocking the lesser dear senseless with her ancient hoofs Or
Speaker 1: how about this I think it was. I had quite
Speaker 1: a bit of time to hunt in northern Wisconsin. I
Speaker 1: had a buck and a dough tag, and I thought,
Speaker 1: I just want to shoot both on public land dairy
Speaker 1: I hunt over. There has no shortage of big woods
Speaker 1: that's opened anyone, so I figured killing a dough wouldn't
Speaker 1: be much of a challenge. But I figured wrong. I
Speaker 1: got two cocky. It took me three weeks, and while
Speaker 1: I didn't hunt every day, I did hunt a lot.
Speaker 1: I got busted by every single dough that came into
Speaker 1: range until we finally got some snow and I changed
Speaker 1: up my program to set a spot. I've been curious about.
Speaker 1: I set my stand facing away from the trail I
Speaker 1: expected them to use, and I waited in the frigid cold.
Speaker 1: In about fifteen minutes before shooting light was up, I
Speaker 1: heard the crunch, crunch, crunch of a deer coming up
Speaker 1: the trail. Since I had a buck tag and a
Speaker 1: dough tag and very low standards, and also quite a
Speaker 1: bit of PTSD from getting busted so much, I drew early,
Speaker 1: way early. And as soon as that dough stepped out
Speaker 1: to where she could see me aiming around the trunk
Speaker 1: of that tree, she had me pegged. I mean instantly.
Speaker 1: It reminded me of one of the only bobcats I've
Speaker 1: ever seen while hunting that walked out across the field,
Speaker 1: looked up at me, sat down, and then spooted. That
Speaker 1: kitty was two hundred yards away and saw me instantly
Speaker 1: without even trying, And so did this dough. And the
Speaker 1: only mistake that she made was that enough of her
Speaker 1: chest was visible that I had a shot, and I
Speaker 1: got it off, and I hit her well, but I'm
Speaker 1: pretty confident she would have been gone in a few
Speaker 1: seconds if I hadn't. It was a humbling three weeks
Speaker 1: of hunting my friends. I've had other experiences with doze
Speaker 1: that made me realize we should give them more credit
Speaker 1: to A recent example is when I was sitting in
Speaker 1: Wisconsin on a property I own with one of my
Speaker 1: daughters back in October. Our blind, which I had said
Speaker 1: on a little kill plot before the season even opened,
Speaker 1: had been really kind of the hot spot, so we
Speaker 1: had hunted it a few times already. I still felt
Speaker 1: confident in a deer would come in, and as the
Speaker 1: sun set, we saw a doe looking at us from
Speaker 1: the edge of the woods. She was laser focused on
Speaker 1: the blind, so we sat like statues. She took two
Speaker 1: steps out, stopped, and then she took two steps back.
Speaker 1: The wind was perfect. We hadn't moved, she hadn't seen us,
Speaker 1: she hadn't smelled us, and we hadn't made a sound.
Speaker 1: She just didn't like the vibes, I guess, and I
Speaker 1: thought she was leaving. So I slowly eased my binos
Speaker 1: up to my eyes and I realized that she was
Speaker 1: standing in a patch of gray wooden aspens. She was
Speaker 1: still staring. She just made sure to do it from
Speaker 1: the cover. That's also when I saw two more doughs
Speaker 1: doing the same thing. It took five minutes, but the
Speaker 1: Leado finally walked into the plot, and when she did,
Speaker 1: she sidestepped. She tried to get our wind, and she stopped,
Speaker 1: and she looked, and she stared some more. She didn't
Speaker 1: have any funds with her, Anita did the other two dos,
Speaker 1: but that didn't seem to matter at all. Now the
Speaker 1: Leado finally decided to feed in, which sent the all
Speaker 1: clear to the other two. But I am confident we
Speaker 1: wouldn't have gotten away with that in a tree stand
Speaker 1: she had just seen us. I'm also confident that any
Speaker 1: slight mistake on our part and the whole thing would
Speaker 1: have been over. Now. I rarely see bucks, even public
Speaker 1: land bucks act that way, but I see old does
Speaker 1: act of that KG quite a bit. It's unfortunate, really,
Speaker 1: that we focus so heavily on bucks when the doughs
Speaker 1: can help us improve our games so much by teaching
Speaker 1: us about dear. Now, this might seem like a weird
Speaker 1: way to justify shooting more does, but it's not. I
Speaker 1: really think the lessons you can learn from trying to
Speaker 1: kill does are just as valuable as the lessons you
Speaker 1: can learn from trying to kill bucks. Now, the big
Speaker 1: difference here, and this is important, my friends, is you'll
Speaker 1: just get more opportunities with does. This is something I've
Speaker 1: harped on a lot, but most hunters just aren't closers.
Speaker 1: It's not really their fault, and I'll explain why. But
Speaker 1: let me give you something to chew on here. Think
Speaker 1: about the biggest buck you have ever gotten a shot at.
Speaker 1: Think about your hunting buddies, or your dad, or your uncles,
Speaker 1: or whoever is in your like tight hunting circle. Think
Speaker 1: about the biggest buck they've ever got a shot at.
Speaker 1: Because I'm sure they've told you the story. How did
Speaker 1: it go? Was it an easy double lung shot that
Speaker 1: ended with a short blood trail and a trip to
Speaker 1: the taxidermist? Maybe? Probably not. I hear a lot of
Speaker 1: the biggest buck of my life stories, and almost all
Speaker 1: of them involved the buck not riding in the back
Speaker 1: of the hunter's truck. They almost always involve a miss
Speaker 1: or a shot so poor that recovery never happened. Why. Well,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of reasons. Buck fever is the biggest one.
Speaker 1: Because we lose our minds on big bucks. We just do,
Speaker 1: whether we admit it or not. And a lot of
Speaker 1: us don't. Another factor, though, is that most of us
Speaker 1: just haven't developed into closers. We might have developed into
Speaker 1: pretty decent deer hunters over time, but that's just like
Speaker 1: phase one or two. We still need years to get
Speaker 1: good at sealing the deal. This is not something you
Speaker 1: can shortcut. It takes close encounters that allow you the
Speaker 1: opportunity to stand exactly when you have to or draw
Speaker 1: at the perfect time. Then you have to pick a spy,
Speaker 1: aim and execute. I know this sounds so simple in practice,
Speaker 1: but it's so hard in real life. It gets much
Speaker 1: much harder when you only get the chance to flex
Speaker 1: your closer muscles once or twice a season, or maybe
Speaker 1: once or twice every couple of seasons. This happens to
Speaker 1: the most dedicated trophy hunters out there. If they don't
Speaker 1: have easy places to hunt, they get into this space
Speaker 1: where it's big bucks or nothing. But they aren't even
Speaker 1: good at the things it takes to make a great
Speaker 1: shot on a deer, and they won't get there at
Speaker 1: least not for a long, long long time without more experience.
Speaker 1: I'll think about it this way. If you make it
Speaker 1: a goal to fill your freezer with mature doughs, and
Speaker 1: you can get a buck tag or three dough tags
Speaker 1: in your state. Now this is hypothetical, but bear with me.
Speaker 1: You should have a lot more opportunities to fill those
Speaker 1: dough tags. You still have a mature deer to fool
Speaker 1: that is in your red zone and fully committed to
Speaker 1: seeing another sunrise. You have to do everything right before
Speaker 1: the shot and after. Not only do you level up
Speaker 1: your preshot game, but your recovery game as well, and
Speaker 1: those are not small things in the development of a
Speaker 1: deer hunter. It's also a game changer to go out
Speaker 1: with more than one type of animal on the hit list. Now,
Speaker 1: I get that bucks and does are the same species,
Speaker 1: but you'll put yourself in predator mode a hell of
Speaker 1: a lot more if you're open to the possibility of
Speaker 1: shooting whatever comes down the trail and not just something
Speaker 1: that's worthy of the Graham. I think this is one
Speaker 1: of the most important things about traveling to hunt, even
Speaker 1: though it probably sounds dumb. I always buy a dough
Speaker 1: teg if some state will sell me one, because sometimes
Speaker 1: I just need to go find deer before I can
Speaker 1: hunt bucks. I have way more fun knowing that I
Speaker 1: can shoot a dough and it changes how I approach
Speaker 1: my scouting and my hanging hunt strategy. I actually think
Speaker 1: it makes me way better at home and way way
Speaker 1: better when I'm on the road. And that's what I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get into next week. Not why I think those
Speaker 1: are worthy adversaries to us as hunters, but how to
Speaker 1: kill them. I know that sounds crazy, but I promise
Speaker 1: you at least twelve percent of it will make sense.
Speaker 1: So tune in, keep after it, and look at that
Speaker 1: empty space in your freezer as a personal challenge and
Speaker 1: not a failure. That's it for this week. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. I'm your host, Tony Peterson
Speaker 1: and this has been the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast,
Speaker 1: which is brought to you by First Light. If you
Speaker 1: want more white tail hunting no how, head on over
Speaker 1: to them eat eater dot com slash wired to read
Speaker 1: our latest articles, or visit the Wired to Hunt YouTube
Speaker 1: channel to view our weekly how to videos.