Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,
Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.
Speaker 1: First Light Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host,
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.
Speaker 2: Hey everyone, welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by First Light. I'm Marrist
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about figuring out
Speaker 2: how to hunt specific stand sites or in some cases,
Speaker 2: you know, acknowledging that you just can't make it work.
Speaker 2: Sometimes with this job of mine, inspiration flies in like
Speaker 2: a kung Fu kick and knocks you upside the dome.
Speaker 2: That happened to me twice recently on this very topic,
Speaker 2: and I realized that it's something I should probably break
Speaker 2: down in detail, because the hunting industry generally won't. Now,
Speaker 2: that's not a knock, but it is true. And we
Speaker 2: usually give general advice like call at this conditions or
Speaker 2: hunt this weather situation this way, and on and on
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. But this difference between the general
Speaker 2: advice and where you actually hunt is often pretty big,
Speaker 2: and it matters on how you approach that so even
Speaker 2: if that is not clear at all, it will be shortly.
Speaker 2: I haven't seriously fly fished in probably twenty years now.
Speaker 2: I still mess with panfish and poppers, and occasionally sometimes
Speaker 2: I go deep and try, you know, to catch big
Speaker 2: smallmouth or northerns. But mostly fly fishing for me is
Speaker 2: a reason to do something different and give the fish
Speaker 2: a break that wasn't always that way. Where I grew
Speaker 2: up in southern Minnesota, there are hundreds of miles of
Speaker 2: trout streams. They are some of my favorite bodies of water,
Speaker 2: and they weave their way through my favorite kind of land,
Speaker 2: that bluffy, deciduous forest, you know that just full of
Speaker 2: deer in, turkeys and squirrels in a case, viasionally a
Speaker 2: cattle pond with a few wood ducks paddling around. I
Speaker 2: love that area now. As a youngster, my dad got
Speaker 2: me into fly fishing when I was still in grade school.
Speaker 2: He made a crude but functional fly tying table thing,
Speaker 2: kinda that he could set across his lap while he
Speaker 2: sat in his recliner and watch TV all winter long.
Speaker 2: The goal was always to fill the fly boxes with
Speaker 2: as many elk hair cattis flies as we could crank out. Now,
Speaker 2: as you can imagine, he kind of got sick of that,
Speaker 2: so it didn't take him very long before he taught
Speaker 2: me to tie those flies and irresistibles and about any
Speaker 2: streamer that my young brain could come up with. There
Speaker 2: was a sense of accomplishment after tying maybe half of
Speaker 2: a dozen flies in an evening and then looking at
Speaker 2: the rows and the tackle flat slowly filling up. It
Speaker 2: reminds me of how I feel at the end of
Speaker 2: the deer season, when I can look into my chest
Speaker 2: freezers and see enough venison to make it through to
Speaker 2: the next season. It's crazy satisfying. Now. When I first
Speaker 2: started fly fishing, I was obsessed with numbers, as a
Speaker 2: lot of kids are. I kept track of the trout
Speaker 2: I actually caught, and I can remember being eight and
Speaker 2: catching eight in one summer. Now I know that's not great,
Speaker 2: but I'm a slow learner and I'm jumpy as hell,
Speaker 2: So when a ten inch brown SIPs my fly off
Speaker 2: the surface, I give them absolutely no time before I
Speaker 2: set the hook, usually way too aggressively. It's a problem
Speaker 2: I had then, and it's a problem I have today.
Speaker 2: It might just be me. At this point, there were
Speaker 2: a couple of years when I was in third and
Speaker 2: fourth grade, when my dad went from working second shift
Speaker 2: to first shift. That meant instead of only seeing him
Speaker 2: on the weekends, he'd get home every day at about four.
Speaker 2: And when he did that, we fished so hard, and
Speaker 2: the stretches of streams that we frequented became something familiar
Speaker 2: in a way that's kind of hard to describe, even
Speaker 2: if you know nothing about fly fishing for trout. If
Speaker 2: you can imagine a small stream winding its way through
Speaker 2: a cow pasture, think about the structure of moving water.
Speaker 2: Typically you have some rapids, then some deeper water, some rapids,
Speaker 2: and then some deeper, but you also have bends in
Speaker 2: the river, with the inside shallow and the outside generally deeper.
Speaker 2: There are random boulders splitting the current and providing tiny
Speaker 2: pockets of slack water where trout not only have to
Speaker 2: burn fuel caliaries to stay there, but also kind of
Speaker 2: just delivers insects and other food right to their mouth.
Speaker 2: There are undercut banks, the kind that allow for safety
Speaker 2: against overhead predators and the cover of shadows in which
Speaker 2: to hide. You know, there's a tree overhanging this pool,
Speaker 2: and some overging grass along the other bank. When the
Speaker 2: insects start coming off the water, the trout start feeding,
Speaker 2: and it's a wonderful thing to witness. It's also true
Speaker 2: that you can wade into a pool and catch fish
Speaker 2: without knowing hardly a thing. After all, you're taking a
Speaker 2: dumb fish and putting something that looks like food in
Speaker 2: front of it where it expects that kind of food
Speaker 2: to be. But as dumb as they are, or at
Speaker 2: least can be, they don't suffer a lot of mistakes either.
Speaker 2: Thrash the water with your line used too heavy of
Speaker 2: a touch to lay down your fly, sorry, stumble on
Speaker 2: a few wet mossy rocks, and make some ungraceful moves
Speaker 2: to stay above water. Sorry. There starts to be an
Speaker 2: understanding between you and a spot where if you approach
Speaker 2: from downstreams slowly and you work the closer seams first,
Speaker 2: you can get the most out of a spot. It's
Speaker 2: like listening to someone who knows how to play an
Speaker 2: acoustic guitar really well, but they aren't trying to be
Speaker 2: the center of attention, versus a teenager who only knows
Speaker 2: power chords and wants everyone to know they kind of
Speaker 2: can play a few Nirvana songs. The thing about learning
Speaker 2: a spot like that is that it takes time on
Speaker 2: the water, and there's no way around that. It takes
Speaker 2: time when the water is high and low and the
Speaker 2: tap water clean or somewhat stained. It takes cloud cover
Speaker 2: and bright sunny days and amazing hatches and sparse hatches,
Speaker 2: and for whatever reason, no hatches at all. Just one
Speaker 2: pool in a trout stream can be a lifelong learning
Speaker 2: experience if you do it just right. Hunting spots are
Speaker 2: the same way. Mark and I recently had a fellow
Speaker 2: from Florida send us an email about how to manage
Speaker 2: hunting a spot along a creek where there is a
Speaker 2: dominant wind, often blowing, you know, and some thermals to
Speaker 2: contend with, and moving water that might suck the air
Speaker 2: a certain way. His question basically was what do I
Speaker 2: do here? My answer is this, I don't know, but
Speaker 2: I do know that you have a better chance of
Speaker 2: learning that spot through trial and error than listening to
Speaker 2: a couple of upper Midwestern dudes spitball some random suggestions.
Speaker 2: I was thinking about how to respond to him when
Speaker 2: I went out to sit for my second time this
Speaker 2: season on a little piece of private ground where I
Speaker 2: got permission last year. It's just close to my house.
Speaker 2: I walked in and jumped a fawn sleeping away right
Speaker 2: where I saw her the last time I hunted the spot,
Speaker 2: but this time I watched her mom sneak around me
Speaker 2: and meet up with her as well. This spot, you know,
Speaker 2: it's a no brainer location. Really. It's next to a
Speaker 2: small pond in the middle of the woods. It was
Speaker 2: eighty two degrees when I walked out, which is pretty
Speaker 2: hot for Minnesota in the end of September. The landowner
Speaker 2: wanted meat and I wanted to hunt, so I figured
Speaker 2: it was a pretty simple thing to go in and
Speaker 2: sit over some water. Now I had about forty five
Speaker 2: minutes before dark, I heard what I thought was a deer,
Speaker 2: and in a rookie move that I still make, and
Speaker 2: I don't know why, I paid close attention for a
Speaker 2: couple of minutes, and then I kind of just lost focus.
Speaker 2: The second time I heard it, I knew it was
Speaker 2: a deer, and I peered over my left shoulder and
Speaker 2: realized that a good sized loaner dough had made it
Speaker 2: into about fifteen yards. Now, instead of going to the pond,
Speaker 2: she walked right to my tree and sniffed around underneath it.
Speaker 2: I was pinned until she walked straight in front of
Speaker 2: me into a tangle of cedars and grapevines and raspberry fines.
Speaker 2: I realized then that I probably wouldn't get a shot
Speaker 2: despite having a deer I wanted to shoot right next
Speaker 2: to me, but I slowly stood up and got ready anyway.
Speaker 2: And I noticed at that moment, just for a second,
Speaker 2: a little buck walking across a trail in a spot
Speaker 2: that didn't make much sense. How the dough below me
Speaker 2: hung around for a minute or two before making the
Speaker 2: mistake of walking right into the only good shooting lane
Speaker 2: I had on that side of the stand. Look, I
Speaker 2: can screw up shots with the best of them, but
Speaker 2: a ten yard quartering away shot isn't one I mess
Speaker 2: up too often these days. And as soon as I
Speaker 2: heard her crash, I heard another deer behind me. It
Speaker 2: was a dough in a fawn, and they were maybe
Speaker 2: ten yards from the pond, but they never drank. Then
Speaker 2: I had another dough come trotting in from the opposite direction,
Speaker 2: and it looked like she was going to hit the
Speaker 2: corner of the pond and hydrate herself nope. I saw
Speaker 2: seven deer during that sit, and every one of them
Speaker 2: was within maybe thirty yards of that pond at some point,
Speaker 2: but not one of them went in to drink. They
Speaker 2: browsed in certain spots, walked in certain spots, and generally
Speaker 2: gave me a crash course on how I didn't understand
Speaker 2: how they used that location at all. I've set two
Speaker 2: stands there in two seasons, both to shoot the edge
Speaker 2: of the pond, and now I planned to move my
Speaker 2: stand off of the pond just a hair where they
Speaker 2: screwed around it. I'll probably get that wrong too, But
Speaker 2: even when you get things like this wrong, you still
Speaker 2: sometimes end up dragging out a deer. Now here's the thing,
Speaker 2: and I want to make this very clear. Try to
Speaker 2: go into your spots with the idea that there aren't
Speaker 2: very many rules you need to follow. And what I
Speaker 2: mean by that is forget about the thermals for a bit.
Speaker 2: Forget that you think the wind is going to swirl,
Speaker 2: because all you have ever heard is that wind is
Speaker 2: going to swirl in the bottom of the valley or whatever.
Speaker 2: If you have a spot you want to hunt, take
Speaker 2: that risk. Take seven of them. If you have to
Speaker 2: figure out not only how to hunt the spot, but
Speaker 2: what you have to do to keep hunting it. Don't
Speaker 2: worry about spooking deer. As crazy as this may sound,
Speaker 2: we make this so academic, and we think our way
Speaker 2: out of hunting a lot of different spots. But really
Speaker 2: we got to get in there and just try it
Speaker 2: to see how it works. Now, I think we are
Speaker 2: way to concerned with spooking deer, if I'm being honest,
Speaker 2: I say that as a public land deer hunter mostly too,
Speaker 2: we have been conditioned to play it safe so much
Speaker 2: that we are playing it safe too much and not
Speaker 2: going in and doing what we need to do. Now.
Speaker 2: I know I've talked about this a lot, but bear
Speaker 2: with me here because it comes up all the time. Now.
Speaker 2: I want to use the valley example here. At least
Speaker 2: twenty seven times a season, someone will text me or
Speaker 2: email me satellite imagery of their hunting spot and they'll
Speaker 2: mention that they only hunt the ridges because the thermals
Speaker 2: or the swirling winds in the valley just take them
Speaker 2: right out of play. Then, without question, they'll explain how
Speaker 2: much sign is in the valleys. Well, yes, deer love ridges,
Speaker 2: but they love valley bottoms too. They are usually cooler
Speaker 2: when the weather is hot. They often have different types
Speaker 2: of vegetation in trees, often thicker, honestly, and they are
Speaker 2: spots that just concentrate movement due to terrain without thinking
Speaker 2: about swirling winds. Doesn't that sound like it's worth hunting?
Speaker 2: But if you say that the wind is going to
Speaker 2: swirl and that it's unhuntable, that's the end of that.
Speaker 2: But you don't know that, and neither do I. There
Speaker 2: are times when the wind is barely blowing and times
Speaker 2: where it never stops. There are days when it blows
Speaker 2: until five point thirty and then settles down until dark.
Speaker 2: There are times when the temperature rises quickly or cools
Speaker 2: down fast where the thermals are noticeable, and there are
Speaker 2: times when the air temperature doesn't change three degrees during
Speaker 2: the entire sit and the thermals are a total non factor.
Speaker 2: There's also the undeniable reality that if bucks feel they
Speaker 2: have the wind advantage, they move more freely in daylight.
Speaker 2: This is something that can't be taught, but if you
Speaker 2: haunt long enough, you'll start to figure this out. And
Speaker 2: it's important in fact. Learning how to use that confidence
Speaker 2: against them is probably one of the biggest reasons I
Speaker 2: ever kill them. When they feel safe, they act like it,
Speaker 2: and if you're in their neighborhood, the unkillable becomes suddenly
Speaker 2: vult vulnerable. So let's look at that valley example again.
Speaker 2: Oftentimes we blame swirling winds for keeping the deer away,
Speaker 2: when it could be that we just got busted going in.
Speaker 2: Getting into a valley can be easy, or it can
Speaker 2: be really tough and require you a route that just
Speaker 2: isn't all that easy to sneak along. In this case,
Speaker 2: you might want to wait till you have a little
Speaker 2: rain or some really windy conditions. You might need to
Speaker 2: use the weather to cover your track, so to speak,
Speaker 2: and let you get in there and just forget about
Speaker 2: hunting it on calm days. But then what though, Now
Speaker 2: you're in a swirling mess, and as soon as you
Speaker 2: get into your chosen tree you realize that you're probably
Speaker 2: going to get winded. Maybe you didn't need to get
Speaker 2: into a tree. Natural ground blinds are the answer to
Speaker 2: some of these problems, simply because you can reduce your
Speaker 2: scent impact by getting on the ground. Now, let's drill
Speaker 2: this down further. Let's say you do get on the ground,
Speaker 2: or you have to be in a tree, doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: Instead of thinking of the valley as a whole, spot
Speaker 2: break it down. Where's the most signed, the biggest concentration,
Speaker 2: Where are the most prominent trails. Is there a community
Speaker 2: scrape in there somewhere? Maybe you just need to write
Speaker 2: off certain parts of the valley because the wind is
Speaker 2: going to bust deer in half of it. But what
Speaker 2: about the other half? Can you set up to kill
Speaker 2: on a very specific spot on spot type of thing?
Speaker 2: Maybe you should, or maybe you should just try to
Speaker 2: hunt that spot in a few different conditions and figure
Speaker 2: out ways to tweak your approach and set up take
Speaker 2: some risks, just try to be calculated about it. But
Speaker 2: now let's step back to that Florida fellow who emailed us.
Speaker 2: He has a creek near his body is confused about
Speaker 2: and the flow is the opposite of the prevailing winds.
Speaker 2: He wondered if that moving water would pull air against
Speaker 2: the general wind direction. My thought is probably not. But
Speaker 2: also there's a really good way to find out. Plus,
Speaker 2: when you have anybody of water, you almost always have
Speaker 2: a wind advantage if you know how to play it.
Speaker 2: If you can set up right over a stream or river,
Speaker 2: or you can plan for your wind to blow up
Speaker 2: or down it or across it to not mess up
Speaker 2: with a small area or hunting. You're onto something again,
Speaker 2: though there's no way to know until you try. I
Speaker 2: think a lot of hunters don't want to try new
Speaker 2: things because they fear they won't work, and of course
Speaker 2: a lot of them won't. But that's not a good excuse,
Speaker 2: because a lot of what we do doesn't work. In fact,
Speaker 2: most of the decisions we make, even the ones we
Speaker 2: think are really smart and you know, kind of aligned
Speaker 2: with the best advice out there, they just won't work
Speaker 2: on any given time. Bow hunting white tails is a
Speaker 2: game of almost NonStop failures punctuated by a few wins.
Speaker 2: That's it. If you learn to accept that and to
Speaker 2: use the possibility of failure to figure out a spot,
Speaker 2: then you're doing better than most of your competition. Take
Speaker 2: this another way, what if the spot you hunt requires
Speaker 2: you to walk through an area you almost always bust
Speaker 2: deer in, So you go, well, I can't you know,
Speaker 2: I can't hunt there in the morning because the deer
Speaker 2: will spook. And that's that. But is it? I'm getting
Speaker 2: to the point where I don't care that much if
Speaker 2: I spook some deer, it's part of the deal, and
Speaker 2: they are generally more tolerant it then we think, provided
Speaker 2: we are walking. The bigger point here is that if
Speaker 2: you walk in and bust some deer or think you will,
Speaker 2: and you stop trying to figure it out, you definitely
Speaker 2: won't kill more deer there. You just won't. Maybe you
Speaker 2: can't hunt call mornings in that spot, But what about
Speaker 2: windy mornings where you have some noise cover. Is you're
Speaker 2: ruling as true in September as it is in November?
Speaker 2: Does it matter for evenings or mornings? What about if
Speaker 2: you walk in an hour early instead of fifteen minutes early.
Speaker 2: The thing about spooking deer, and generally just our presence
Speaker 2: in the woods is that it eventually kind of resets.
Speaker 2: If you are settled in an hour before first light,
Speaker 2: but you bump some does on the way in. How
Speaker 2: much does that matter by the time shooting light hits.
Speaker 2: Maybe a lot, but probably not as much as we think.
Speaker 2: I think. Maybe the best way to wrap this up
Speaker 2: is I'll explain why I feel so strongly about this topic.
Speaker 2: I approach this stuff as a maybe but I always
Speaker 2: have a plan, and I try to follow through with
Speaker 2: that plan. So I kind of know what tree I'm
Speaker 2: going to, and I kind of know what route I'm
Speaker 2: going to take, and I kind of know what conditions
Speaker 2: I feel will give me the best chance. Then I
Speaker 2: just try it. If it works out great. If it doesn't,
Speaker 2: I usually tweak the plan to try getting in there
Speaker 2: under different conditions, just mix it up a little bit.
Speaker 2: Eventually I either go, well, this spot is just beyond me,
Speaker 2: or now I have something to work with. I know
Speaker 2: that sounds simple when I say it, but it's different
Speaker 2: putting it into practice when you have limited time to
Speaker 2: hunt and maybe limited confidence in your plan. But believe
Speaker 2: me on this though, the more you try stuff like this,
Speaker 2: the better at hunting you'll get because you'll realize that
Speaker 2: a lot of the rules are total bs and don't
Speaker 2: apply to your specific stand locations. Think about that. If
Speaker 2: you're struggling right now and feeling like you need to
Speaker 2: sit out the lull to wait on a good time
Speaker 2: to hunt, you don't. Instead keep trying and keep listening,
Speaker 2: because next week I'm going to talk about the sounds
Speaker 2: in the woods. That's it. I'm Tony Peterson. This has
Speaker 2: been the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which is brought
Speaker 2: to you by First Light. As I always thank you
Speaker 2: so much for listening. Honestly, we appreciate your support so much.
Speaker 2: I know you get sick of hearing about the sales
Speaker 2: and some of that stuff, but the way you guys
Speaker 2: showed up for our white Tail Weeks sale is amazing
Speaker 2: and we do really truly appreciate it. If you want
Speaker 2: some more white Tail content, or if you want any content,
Speaker 2: maybe to kill some time while you're driving out to
Speaker 2: hunt somewhere and you want to listen to Clay's Bargeres podcast,
Speaker 2: or maybe you're at your office and you want to
Speaker 2: watch some hunting films that are getting dropped the meat
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