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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 of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,

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Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or 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.

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Speaker 2: Hey everyone, welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast,

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Speaker 2: which is brought to you by first Light. I'm your host,

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Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about how to

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Speaker 2: find and more importantly interpret big Bucks Sign in the

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Speaker 2: days leading up to the pre run. The thing about

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Speaker 2: Bucks sign is that it seems pretty straightforward. Bucks go

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Speaker 2: out and they make some scrapes, and they make some rubs.

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Speaker 2: You go find them, you sit over them, and you

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Speaker 2: shoot the rightful creators of that sign, right and the lungs,

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Speaker 2: and then you celebrate simple right. Well, if it were,

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Speaker 2: finding sign would be the equivalent of snapping the last

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Speaker 2: piece of the puzzle in place, but it's often not.

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Speaker 2: It is a huge step in the right direction, but

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Speaker 2: you need to know what the sign really means and

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Speaker 2: how you can use it to make better decisions.

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Speaker 3: That's what I'm going to talk about right now.

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Speaker 2: There are a lot of memes out there about how

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Speaker 2: people aren't good at picking up the signals of other

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Speaker 2: people who might possibly become potential partners. If you get

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Speaker 2: my drift, I can speak on this from the side

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Speaker 2: of a clueless man, and it's not impossible for me

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Speaker 2: to relate to some dude who finds himself well, I

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Speaker 2: don't know, fishing or mowing the lawn or something, and

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Speaker 2: suddenly realizing that an old coworker who he had a

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Speaker 2: great relationship with was actually flirting super heavy, you know,

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Speaker 2: during his time at the company, maybe during a Christmas party,

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Speaker 2: and he missed every signal, like he was not only blind,

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Speaker 2: but deaf and possibly just a little bit slow. In

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Speaker 2: other cognitive ways, we often see what we expect to see,

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Speaker 2: and that helps us deal with life. If we figure

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Speaker 2: something is going to go wrong with the car at

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Speaker 2: some point because it has over one hundred thousand miles

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Speaker 2: on it, well, guess what something's going to go wrong

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Speaker 2: with it? And when it does, we can say to ourselves,

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Speaker 2: I knew it. I just knew it, and then we

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Speaker 2: can bitch about it and feel a little better about

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Speaker 2: living under this NonStop rain cloud that follows us around

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Speaker 2: everywhere like a duckling imprinted on us after hatching. In life,

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Speaker 2: it's not only about recognizing the signs, but reacting to

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Speaker 2: them in the right way. In the deer woods, the

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Speaker 2: sign literally is deer sign, and how we react to

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Speaker 2: it will poortend our big buck futures. Let me tell

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Speaker 2: you how this usually goes, or at least how it

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Speaker 2: goes for an awful lot of hunters. They start out

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Speaker 2: in the early season and there's very little sign, at

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Speaker 2: least when it comes to rubs and scrapes. As the

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Speaker 2: season progresses, they go back to the box blind on

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Speaker 2: the food plot, or they go to one of their

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Speaker 2: favorite ladder stands, and they start to see a few

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Speaker 2: more rubs show up, maybe a few more scrapes. The

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Speaker 2: field edge they like to sit gets picked and generally

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Speaker 2: has less food to offer them previously, but it also

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Speaker 2: has far more sign on the edge. So how do

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Speaker 2: they interpret that? Well, they think the bucks are getting

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Speaker 2: more active. And since they are getting more active and

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Speaker 2: clearly visiting this spot on this very food source or

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Speaker 2: this very logging road that I take to my favorite stand,

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Speaker 2: my comfort stand, if you will, then that is evidence

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Speaker 2: that I should one hundred percent keep hunting. Here because

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Speaker 2: now the bucks are coming to me. We advance that

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Speaker 2: line of thinking a little further by using it to

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Speaker 2: justify hunting areas that might be totally burned out, especially

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Speaker 2: during the rut.

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Speaker 3: But what does that sign really mean?

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Speaker 2: Well, it definitely means that some bucks are using that

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Speaker 2: area at some point, and some of those bucks, hell,

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Speaker 2: probably all of them, have been laying down some sign. Now,

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Speaker 2: if you are hunting a load deer density area, all

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Speaker 2: this might matter more than if you're hunting a spot

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Speaker 2: that has seventy five dear per square mile. But still,

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Speaker 2: what does it really mean to you? If deer laying

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Speaker 2: down a lot of sign around a destination food source,

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Speaker 2: we usually know what that means, and if not, we

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Speaker 2: can sit that food source in an evening or two

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Speaker 2: and see exactly what's going on. They are either there

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Speaker 2: in the daylight or not. And the more pressure in

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Speaker 2: your area, which includes the pressure you put on that

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Speaker 2: exact food source, the more likely it is that that

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Speaker 2: sign is appearing in the middle of the night. Pretty

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Speaker 2: simple stuff, right, and yet we often kind of look

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Speaker 2: past it so we can hunt in a way that

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Speaker 2: is really comfortable for us.

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Speaker 3: But does that usually.

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Speaker 2: Result in mature bucks dying from our actions. Not really,

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Speaker 2: and listen, I love seeing rubs and scrapes when I'm hunting,

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Speaker 2: no matter where I'm hunting. I wouldn't be much of

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Speaker 2: a deer hunter if I didn't. But it often doesn't

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Speaker 2: mean that much to me because I've learned that finding

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Speaker 2: deer sign isn't just a passive thing for me, because

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Speaker 2: when it was, it really didn't change the outcomes of

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Speaker 2: most of my seasons.

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Speaker 3: Now let me frame this up a different way.

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Speaker 2: Even an awesome concentration of sign around certain spots won't

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Speaker 2: convince me that I need to hunt there, while in

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Speaker 2: other areas, if I find even a little bit of

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Speaker 2: buck sign, I will hang and hunt almost instantly. Why

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Speaker 2: is this, Well, you have to sort of gauge the

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Speaker 2: value of the sign. Let me give you an easy one.

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Speaker 2: Up in the big woods, where I mostly get my

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Speaker 2: ass kicked, I don't usually find a lot of sign

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Speaker 2: because the deer density is low, so I really like

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Speaker 2: finding any rubs up there. And since it's well big woods,

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Speaker 2: the rubs are generally in the timber, so that's something

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Speaker 2: I have to parse out and decide whether it matters

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Speaker 2: or not. So take a random single rub on a

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Speaker 2: hillside in ten thousand acres of public land. That's a

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Speaker 2: great find. But does it mean anything to me? Maybe

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Speaker 2: that depends on which way it's facing, and if that

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Speaker 2: can tell me where he likely came from when he

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Speaker 2: made it. Again, pretty simple stuff, But you can decide

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Speaker 2: if rubs were made in the mornings or the evenings

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Speaker 2: a lot of times by the way they face.

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Speaker 3: And that's a good start.

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Speaker 2: But what if that rub also happens to be facing

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Speaker 2: a crossing, you know, one that I know exists between

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Speaker 2: two swamps. Now I have a direction of travel tied

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Speaker 2: to a spot that should further funnel deer travel. That's

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Speaker 2: kind of like hunting an early season spot that not

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Speaker 2: only has water but also acorns dropping. The more reasons

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Speaker 2: they have to be there, the better. Now, what if

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Speaker 2: that single rub leads me to scout that pinch point

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Speaker 2: and on the other end of that I find a

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Speaker 2: good sized scrape with a licking branch hanging over. Now

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Speaker 2: I have evidence of a buck crossing there, and evidence

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Speaker 2: that he's not the only one, because you don't usually

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Speaker 2: have a community scrape without a community of deer. If

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Speaker 2: you get my drift, the scrape is there because multiple

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Speaker 2: deer does and bucks are using that crossing, and now

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Speaker 2: they are getting serious about keeping tabs on one another.

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Speaker 2: That's not nothing, and that's worth hunting to me. But

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Speaker 2: I'm not likely to find that if I don't go

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Speaker 2: look for it. So let's take another example here. Let's

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Speaker 2: start with that single rub from before. It's cool, but

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Speaker 2: it's only on an inch thick sapling. That's great, but

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Speaker 2: anyone from a forky to a booner could have made it.

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Speaker 2: It's not the kind of sign that is likely to

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Speaker 2: get a whole lot of folks to carry us saddle

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Speaker 2: and some sticks in there and see who's hanging around.

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Speaker 2: But I view that slightly different because I've literally never

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Speaker 2: seen a buck make a giant rub, but I've seen

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Speaker 2: a few giants make small rubs. I take all sizes

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Speaker 2: of rubs seriously because I don't believe they are highly

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Speaker 2: correlated to the size a buck that made them. Now, granted,

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Speaker 2: that wooden fence post rub is probably not from a spike,

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Speaker 2: but most of the rubs aren't giant. They're small, and

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Speaker 2: overlooking them is a mistake if you just attribute them

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Speaker 2: to Now, with that rub, that's okay, it's nothing special,

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Speaker 2: but maybe you can walk it out and find some more,

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Speaker 2: all generally in the same direction. Then you have a

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Speaker 2: rub line. And rub lines are a totally different thing

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Speaker 2: because they generally exist in the woods, and to me,

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Speaker 2: they generally signal a direction that bucks travel in the cover,

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Speaker 2: often enough to leave a viable trail of breadcrumbs for

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Speaker 2: me to follow. Those rubs will exist between two general locations,

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Speaker 2: betting and food. There is nothing we want to find

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Speaker 2: more than the spots in the cover where bucks move

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Speaker 2: from point A to B, because when you find that,

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Speaker 2: you find your opportunity to kill those deer.

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Speaker 3: That's it.

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Speaker 2: And while we can try to solve this academically by

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Speaker 2: using our brains to decide where they sleep and where

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Speaker 2: they fill their bellies, hard undeniable evidence will always trump

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Speaker 2: what we think. Now you can predict to some degree

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Speaker 2: of certainty where they are going in the mornings or

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Speaker 2: the evenings, although I often find that it's not both.

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Speaker 2: I feel like deer in a lot of places have

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Speaker 2: routes that are more of a circuit than a straight line.

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Speaker 2: I actually think when you start to think about their

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Speaker 2: movement this way, you realize how much more important boots

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Speaker 2: on the ground scouting is especially in season boots on

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Speaker 2: the ground scouting, and that kills big Bucks. But to

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Speaker 2: further muddy the waters, I absolutely believe that they're not straight.

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Speaker 2: Line routes are heavily influenced by conditions, primarily the wind.

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Speaker 2: So what you read off a smoking fresh rub line

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Speaker 2: might be his travel route only when the wind is

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Speaker 2: blowing from the west or the north or whatever. But

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Speaker 2: it's still really valuable information. You can make your best

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Speaker 2: guess and then go there to sit, and what they

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Speaker 2: show you will tell you an awful lot about how

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Speaker 2: good you are at interpreting sign This is part of

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Speaker 2: the equation that we really under sell, but it's maybe

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Speaker 2: the most important thing you can do if you want

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Speaker 2: to get better at killing big Bucks. You have to

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Speaker 2: understand that the solution to your problems will be found

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Speaker 2: mostly internally and not externally. You can listen to me

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Speaker 2: Yam or On or Mark talk NonStop about a property

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Speaker 2: you'll never hunt and how we figured it out, and

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Speaker 2: that's great, But what you do on your ground is

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Speaker 2: what matters the most. How you scout and how you

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Speaker 2: hunt it, and how you interpret that data to make

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Speaker 2: future decisions.

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Speaker 3: That's how you level up.

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Speaker 2: The easiest way to do this right now is through

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Speaker 2: scouting bucks sign, but only if you're going to take

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Speaker 2: action with it. Like I said before, it's not enough

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Speaker 2: to just get excited that you see sign popping up

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Speaker 2: in places where you usually already hunt, because that will

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Speaker 2: get you predictable results, which often aren't multiple seasons of

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Speaker 2: big taxidermy bills. Now, I realize this is counterintuitive to

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Speaker 2: most your hunting advice, which would just have you stay

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Speaker 2: out of the woods right now. I believe the opposite.

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Speaker 2: I believe the sign you find right now is the

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Speaker 2: ticket to hire odds hunts throughout the pre rut and

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Speaker 2: to a lesser extent, the rut. The reason I say

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Speaker 2: this is because the sign you find right now, if

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Speaker 2: it's the right stuff, can put you exactly where a

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Speaker 2: big one will move on October twenty seventh when a

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Speaker 2: cold front hits, but it might not matter when he's

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Speaker 2: chasing a hot dough on the neighbor's place a week

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Speaker 2: or two after that. The more years that go by,

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Speaker 2: the more I come to value the last week of

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Speaker 2: October the most. That's because where I live, that's the

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Speaker 2: pre rut, just through and through, you know, down south

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Speaker 2: and the southeast. The pre rut might be way later,

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Speaker 2: but the same rules apply. Now, let's take a little

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Speaker 2: different look at buck sign right now. You know what

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Speaker 2: other type of sign I really really like? A concentration

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Speaker 2: of sign in a small area in the cover. No shit,

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Speaker 2: you might say, and you'd be right. But here's why.

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Speaker 2: Where I generally hunt, there's a lot of hunting pressure.

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Speaker 2: By the middle of October. That pressure has influenced your

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Speaker 2: behavior more than the weather the moonface ever could. It's

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Speaker 2: the driving factor behind most daylight movement in my opinion.

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Speaker 2: So when I sneak through the woods with a stand

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Speaker 2: and sticks on my back and I see a whole

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Speaker 2: bunch of rubs or smaller scrapes in a not very

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Speaker 2: big area, say something less than an acre, I usually

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Speaker 2: don't go any farther because that's not from one buck.

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Speaker 2: It's usually a staging area, and it definitely signals to

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Speaker 2: me that the local bucks feel pretty confident being in

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Speaker 2: that area. I think bucks are going to make rubs

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Speaker 2: and scrapes when they're on their feet at certain times

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Speaker 2: of the season, regardless of where they are, and I

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Speaker 2: think when they view it as a not so safe

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Speaker 2: endeavor to head out to the pitcornfields an hour before

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Speaker 2: dark because there's always hunters there. They just kind of

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Speaker 2: sit tight but still do their thing. It honestly feels

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Speaker 2: a little like when you watch a UFC event and

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Speaker 2: they show some of the fighters backstage in their dressing room.

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Speaker 2: You know, obviously their nerves are on fire and they

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Speaker 2: are putting on a show for the cameras and all that,

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Speaker 2: but they're constantly moving, constantly shadow boxing. There's just this

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Speaker 2: air of pent up aggression, if you will. I think

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Speaker 2: bucks in mid October are sort of in a similar mindset.

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Speaker 2: And I also think a common mistake hunters make when

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Speaker 2: they find this kind of buck sign concentration is that

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Speaker 2: it's more of a betting area than a staging area.

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Speaker 2: I'm sure that's possible, but I tend to think the

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Speaker 2: more rubs and scrapes you find in one area, the

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Speaker 2: more likely it is that multiple Bucks are using this area.

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Speaker 2: You know, betting areas can also have multiple Bucks in them,

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Speaker 2: and you can definitely find them through sign, but it's

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Speaker 2: just a different vibe and I don't really even know

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Speaker 2: how to describe it very well. I just know that

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Speaker 2: when I find a spot that has a shitload of random,

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Speaker 2: you know, rubs and some scrapes, and I hunt it

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Speaker 2: well enough to not make my presence known going in.

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Speaker 2: I usually have really positive results. Again, this depends somewhat

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Speaker 2: on deer density, because the more deer you have, generally,

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Speaker 2: the more Buck signed there will be generally, But a

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Speaker 2: real concentration says something different because on properties that have

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Speaker 2: a lot of pressure, that means something. Now, it's also

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Speaker 2: no secret that when I usually find these types of areas,

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Speaker 2: it's after sneaking in to look at a few question

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Speaker 2: mark spots. It's not usually the kind of thing where

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Speaker 2: they appear in areas that I've already been hunting. Now,

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Speaker 2: maybe that's part psychological. You know, where I value new

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Speaker 2: to me sign over sign that gradually appears. You know,

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Speaker 2: like how you can't really tell how fat your dog is,

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Speaker 2: but someone who doesn't see your dog for long periods

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Speaker 2: of time can instantly see that it has chubbed way up.

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Speaker 2: So what does all this mean? It means that buck

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Speaker 2: sign is relative to a whole ton of variables. It's

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Speaker 2: up to you to not only find the sign, but

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Speaker 2: to decide what exactly it means To you now. While

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Speaker 2: it might mean that it just reinforces the plan you've

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Speaker 2: had for your season all along, be careful with.

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Speaker 3: That line of thinking.

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Speaker 2: It's easy to see what we want to see. What

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Speaker 2: you really want to find is the buck sign that

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Speaker 2: makes you ask a question, why is this rub here now?

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Speaker 2: Or why is this car hood size scrape here now?

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Speaker 2: And they need to ask yourself what should you do

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Speaker 2: about it? How do you use that discovery to actually

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Speaker 2: kill a buck in the next couple of days or

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Speaker 2: next week when a cold front hits and you could

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Speaker 2: go sit on the field edge on a setup that's

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Speaker 2: been there since August and you probably will see some deer,

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Speaker 2: maybe even a few bucks. Or you could slip into

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Speaker 2: that area with a new sign when the temperature drops

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Speaker 2: and the north wind blows, and you can try to

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Speaker 2: answer the question of just who made that sign? I

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Speaker 2: guess that leads me to my final point on all this.

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Speaker 2: You won't learn what that rub line means, or that

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Speaker 2: community scrape, or that real concentration of sign, know what

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Speaker 2: it signifies until you put something into action around it.

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Speaker 2: This isn't just time to drop a camera and cross

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Speaker 2: your fingers. It's time to go looking because what you

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Speaker 2: find this week is where you might kill a big

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Speaker 2: one next week. A lot of hunters will say that

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Speaker 2: it's not worth it to trump around in the woods

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Speaker 2: right now to find that sign, but I absolutely disagree

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Speaker 2: with that. I think to set up for killing a

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Speaker 2: big one doesn't get much better than finding the right

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Speaker 2: buck clues right now to get on them before the

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Speaker 2: rut really breaks loose. In fact, other than patterning one

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Speaker 2: for an early opener, I think consistency wise, this is

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Speaker 2: the highest likelihood setup for most hunters. I think it's

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Speaker 2: more reliable than a rut hunt on a pinch point, honestly,

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Speaker 2: and I don't say that lightly. Soak it out there,

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Speaker 2: look around. If you find some sign worth hunting, figure

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Speaker 2: out how to hunt it, or take a look at

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Speaker 2: the next ten day forecast or whatever, and make a

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Speaker 2: plan to hunt it when the conditions coalesce into something favorable.

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Speaker 2: Good luck, and don't forget to come back next week

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Speaker 2: because I'm going to talk about shot opportunities, when to

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Speaker 2: take them, whether you should stop a buck, and all

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Speaker 2: that jazz.

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Speaker 3: That's it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson.

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Speaker 2: This has been the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which

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Speaker 2: is brought to you by first Light. I know you

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Speaker 2: guys are in the thicket it right now. You're thinking

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Speaker 2: about dear NonStop. Maybe you just got back from an

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Speaker 2: l cont. Maybe you're heading out west for a rifle

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Speaker 2: hunt something like that. If you need more content to

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Speaker 2: just fill up the hours of that drive, or maybe

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Speaker 2: you want to read a new recipe on how to

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Speaker 2: cook something you whack last week.

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Speaker 3: I don't know whatever.

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Speaker 2: The medeater dot com has new content going up every

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Speaker 2: single day, hunting films, tons of different podcasts on our

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Speaker 2: network now, a lot of great articles going up with

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Speaker 2: news stories from the outdoors as well as just how

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Speaker 2: to recipes whatever.

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Speaker 3: It's all there at the mediator.

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Speaker 2: Dot com and as always, thank you so much for

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Speaker 2: your support. We truly appreciate it here, so thank you

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Speaker 2: for that