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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, and now your

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Speaker 1: host Tony Peterson. Hey, everybody, welcome to the Wire to

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

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

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Speaker 1: about what you can learn about deer while you're chasing

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Speaker 1: long beards across the countryside. Last week, I tried to

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Speaker 1: make a good case for anyone who is interested in

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Speaker 1: traveling for deer to first head out on a turkey

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Speaker 1: hunting trip. This week, I want to talk about something

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Speaker 1: I never hear anyone in my position, talk about how

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Speaker 1: hunting one thing like turkeys can make you much better

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Speaker 1: at hunting something else. You know what I mean, of course,

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Speaker 1: But maybe you don't really unerstand what I'm talking about.

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Speaker 1: Hell sometimes I don't, and neither does Mark because he

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Speaker 1: lets me know when he's confused. Anyway, get ready, because

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna help you level up as a white tail

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Speaker 1: hunter in a pretty unconventional way. In a past life,

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Speaker 1: when I was an associate editor for a big game

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Speaker 1: bow hunting magazine, one of the writers and I got

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Speaker 1: into a conversation about turkey hunting. This guy, who has

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Speaker 1: a more prominent name in the white tail space than

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Speaker 1: almost anyone, he casually mentioned that he doesn't turkey hunt

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Speaker 1: because there's no money in it. The deer where the

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Speaker 1: dollar signs are, he said, and honestly, he wasn't totally wrong.

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Speaker 1: If you want to be an outdoor writer or hell

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Speaker 1: I know these days, a content creator and your soul

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Speaker 1: focus is turkey hunting, I hope you really like eating

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Speaker 1: ramen noodles and living with your parents. Now, I know

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Speaker 1: that's not much of a concern for the listeners of

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Speaker 1: this podcast, and so his answer should be interpreted a

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Speaker 1: different way. Not hunting an open season in the spring

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Speaker 1: for a bird that can be a ton of fun

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Speaker 1: to hunt, it's kind of strange and can be defeating

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Speaker 1: if you want to level up your woodsmanship game and

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Speaker 1: become a better deer hunter. Now, I do understand that

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Speaker 1: not everyone likes turkey hunting. Oftentimes, I find it's the

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Speaker 1: people who tried it once and either had a really

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Speaker 1: difficult hunt or more often a really easy hunt, who

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Speaker 1: just aren't big fans. The folks who see turkeys at

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Speaker 1: their bird feed are all winter long. There's there are

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Speaker 1: the kind of people who seem to devalue the opportunity

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Speaker 1: to hunt them as well, and I get it. But

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Speaker 1: fortunately there are a ton of different ways to hunt turkeys,

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Speaker 1: in a ton of different states, in a ton of

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Speaker 1: different types of habitat, And honestly, one of the biggest

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Speaker 1: things I love about turkeys is that they are easier

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Speaker 1: to kill on public land than about any animal I've

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Speaker 1: ever pursued. This makes a compelling case hunting them on

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Speaker 1: public land, which leads to a lot of dear discoveries

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Speaker 1: which you don't have to just hunt them on public land.

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Speaker 1: And I'm going to get to that, but first let's

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Speaker 1: backtrack a little to the folks who don't like to

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Speaker 1: turkey hunt. If you're in this category, I wonder do

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Speaker 1: you really know how to call? Because if not, you're

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Speaker 1: missing out on the best part about the whole thing,

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Speaker 1: the interaction. It's what makes elk hunting so damn special too, aside.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, of course, from like the locations in

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Speaker 1: which we tend to pursue elk, and I don't know

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Speaker 1: how much pure deliciousness they contain. If you're lucky enough

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Speaker 1: to kill one, maybe you've never really used quality turkey decoys,

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Speaker 1: which changes the whole thing as well. If you don't

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Speaker 1: think it's fun to watch a couple of Tim's run

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Speaker 1: into your spread and start fighting with your fake Jake,

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure you and I would be friends. I

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Speaker 1: say that, but I have to remind myself that there

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Speaker 1: are people out there who love country music and the

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Speaker 1: taste of coke, Nutter Green peppers, reality television. All of

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Speaker 1: those things are very unappealing to me, but they boiled

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Speaker 1: down to personal taste. So it's okay if you don't

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Speaker 1: like turkey hunting. It's okay if you hate it, in fact,

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Speaker 1: but do me a favor. Listen in until the end,

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Speaker 1: because maybe there's something about turkeys you haven't thought about

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Speaker 1: that will make you a better deer hunter. This something,

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Speaker 1: for me, is at least partially just time in the woods.

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Speaker 1: We often preach a big white tail game as something

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Speaker 1: that can be conducted with surgical precision, sort of like

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Speaker 1: a drone strike. We just sit back, we look at

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Speaker 1: screens to see satellite imagery, then we look at weather data. Bam.

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Speaker 1: We head into the woods at the most likely time

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Speaker 1: to kill a buck, and we do just that, except

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Speaker 1: we mostly don't. This works for a few, but not

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Speaker 1: for the many. For most of us, offseason time in

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Speaker 1: the woods is more important than any other aspect of

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Speaker 1: white tail hunting, aside from actually white tail hunting. The

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Speaker 1: problem here is that most of us don't possess whatever

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Speaker 1: gene it is that guys like Andy may have that

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Speaker 1: make them want to scout constantly. Most of us just

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Speaker 1: won't do that, and we think something like trail cameras

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Speaker 1: will bridge that gap, but they won't. The reality is

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Speaker 1: that the more time you spend in the woods with

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Speaker 1: a purpose memori, you'll start to understand how dear you

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Speaker 1: use the landscape. It's that simple, even if it's not easy. Now,

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Speaker 1: keep in mind that I consider myself to be genetically

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Speaker 1: gifted in one way, and that is that I must

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Speaker 1: possess some type of coding deep in my cells or

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Speaker 1: somehow possess an ancestral calling to hunt a bunch of

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Speaker 1: different critters. I just want to Basically, if I can

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Speaker 1: eat it, I really want to hunt it. I don't

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Speaker 1: have to convince myself to go hunt anything from squirrels

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Speaker 1: on up to elk. I love upland game, waterfall, small game,

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Speaker 1: big game. I'll love them all, and like I said

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Speaker 1: last week, I love turkeys, and turkeys are what we

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Speaker 1: can hunt in the spring, So that's what I'm in

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Speaker 1: a hunt, and that's what you should hunt. But here's

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Speaker 1: the thing. Whether you bow hunt for turkeys from a

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Speaker 1: pop up blind or you run and gun while putting

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Speaker 1: your back to any random oak tree that tickles your fancy,

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Speaker 1: you can learn a lot about deer from these hunts.

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Speaker 1: So I want to start here with the turkey bow

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Speaker 1: hunt first. There are a few hunts that are more

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Speaker 1: mentally taxing than a dark to dark turkey bow hunt

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Speaker 1: from a blind. This is a style of hunting that

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Speaker 1: can border on pure torture, particularly for anyone with a

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Speaker 1: natural wanderlust and who is also short on patients. Usually

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Speaker 1: go together, but there are certain situations where your turkey

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Speaker 1: scouting leads you to a high traffic area and maybe

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Speaker 1: you're hunting a really small parcel where you can't get

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Speaker 1: out and cover too much ground. I don't Maybe you

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Speaker 1: don't want to carry a whole flock of full body decoys,

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Speaker 1: a blind, a chair, and all the makings for a

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Speaker 1: long sit all across the countryside. Maybe you want to

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Speaker 1: plant your happy ass in one spot call the birds

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Speaker 1: to you all day long instead of going to them.

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Speaker 1: I I do this probably about fifteen days every turkey season,

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Speaker 1: and it helps me kill birds with my bow, oftentimes

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Speaker 1: public land birds. It also helps me mentally when fall

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Speaker 1: rolls around, because if you can put in like a

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Speaker 1: fifteen hour shift during May to kill a bird, it's

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Speaker 1: really not so hard to string together a bunch of

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Speaker 1: dark to dark sits for deer come November. All day

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Speaker 1: turkey bow hunts also allowed me to observe, through every

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Speaker 1: hour of the day what the turkeys are doing and

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Speaker 1: what the deer doing, and that's something that interests me

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

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Speaker 1: started a long and widening road to a dead buck

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Speaker 1: for me. A few years back, a buddy and I

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Speaker 1: drove to Texas to turkey hunt. On the way home,

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Speaker 1: we stopped at a spot in Nebraska where we saw

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Speaker 1: a bird strutting from the road. We gave him a

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Speaker 1: quick hunt and then decided to look around a little more.

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Speaker 1: What we found was a pretty decent spot to turkey hunt.

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Speaker 1: So the following spring we drove back down there with

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Speaker 1: our camping gear ready to go. There was snow on

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Speaker 1: the ground, The birds were still pretty flocked up and

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Speaker 1: it was ideal weather. But I did manage to set

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Speaker 1: up on top of a spot some jake's really wanted

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Speaker 1: to be, and I did manage to call three of

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Speaker 1: them in almost immediately an arrow one. I peaked early

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Speaker 1: turkey wise on that trip, but I also put in

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Speaker 1: a full day in that very spot, and the next

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Speaker 1: morning I watched several deer leave the private fields and

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Speaker 1: work their way up into the sand hills. I even

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Speaker 1: watched a doll with two fons bed down on a

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Speaker 1: small bench for quite a few hours. As the sun

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Speaker 1: crept toward the western horizon and my sanity frayed further

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Speaker 1: from my voluntary confinement, I watched some of the same

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Speaker 1: dear from the morning reverse their course. Then I saw

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Speaker 1: a bachelor group of shed bucks take the same route

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Speaker 1: out of the hills down to the fields. And that's

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Speaker 1: actionable intel, my friends. How dear use the landscape is

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Speaker 1: mostly what I'm interested in about deer, and watching them

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Speaker 1: from a turkey blind can turn up lots of useful

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Speaker 1: nuggets of information. It also often shows you how wrong

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Speaker 1: we are about thinking what dear do when they're betting.

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Speaker 1: Instead of a buck heading into his best safest bed

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Speaker 1: and laying there until dark, they seem to bed down

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Speaker 1: for a little while and then get up. They look around,

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Speaker 1: they stretch, they take a dump, they reposition themselves. Oftentimes

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Speaker 1: they get up, they go to water, or they browse

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Speaker 1: for an hour before laying it back down. It's really

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Speaker 1: a fascinating glimpse into the world of white tails. We

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Speaker 1: originally only speculate about it, and then we get it

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Speaker 1: wrong a lot. Turkey hunting can give you a glimpse

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Speaker 1: into that world, and in this case, the deer observations

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Speaker 1: led me to come back for the early September opener,

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Speaker 1: where I killed a great velvet ten pointer the first

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Speaker 1: evening of the season. Part of that dear success was

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Speaker 1: due directly to turkey hunting that spot, I promise you.

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Speaker 1: Another time in South Dakota, I watched a whole herd

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Speaker 1: of deer leave a private alf alpha field to browse

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Speaker 1: their way through patches of sumac and scrub brush. Once

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Speaker 1: they got to a little thicker cover, a couple of

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Speaker 1: coyotes set up a deer drive for them that damn

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Speaker 1: near worked, except that the object of their push was

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Speaker 1: a little master than they anticipated. It was an amazing show,

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Speaker 1: one that I'd have never seen if I hadn't been

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Speaker 1: posted up in a blind waiting on a gobbler to

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Speaker 1: come in that property, the one where I watched those

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Speaker 1: deer and those coyotes play out their deadly chess game. Well,

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Speaker 1: I went back there that fall. In fact, I went

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Speaker 1: back there four years in a row, and I killed

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Speaker 1: four bucks there on public land. Some of those bucks

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Speaker 1: ended up wearing my tag because of what I saw

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Speaker 1: during subsequent turkey hunting trips. Not only does springtime observations

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Speaker 1: sometimes translate to good fall deer hunting strategies, but it

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Speaker 1: also gives you a good reason to cover some ground.

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Speaker 1: While I do go on a fair amount of turkey

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Speaker 1: bow hunts, even on those, you'll end up looking at

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Speaker 1: the places you think public land turkey should frequent. Those

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Speaker 1: are also the places, often the exact same places the

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Speaker 1: public land bucks and does frequent. And if you choose

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Speaker 1: to run and gun with a twelve gauge slung over

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Speaker 1: your shoulder, which is a more popular style of turkey hunting,

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Speaker 1: you'll probably see a lot of ground depending on how

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Speaker 1: much running you do. Here's the thing about this that

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Speaker 1: if you listen to enough of these episodes already, you

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Speaker 1: probably know this about me or my beliefs. But I

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Speaker 1: don't think there are too many accidents in nature. I

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Speaker 1: don't think there's a ton of randomness out there in

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Speaker 1: a weird way. Nature in the animals that it consists of,

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Speaker 1: are always in survival mode. I guess it's really not

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Speaker 1: that weird. This means they do things on purpose. Whether

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Speaker 1: they can reason that out or not, it doesn't really matter.

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Speaker 1: They don't take unnecessary risks very often. They don't walk

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Speaker 1: randomly through their world, burning extra calories and exposing themselves

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Speaker 1: to potential death unless they have a reason, a reason

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Speaker 1: that is almost always tied either to survival or the

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Speaker 1: propagation of their species. What does that mean? It means

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Speaker 1: that every observation of a deer tells you something. Every

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Speaker 1: track in the sand tells you something. Every old rub

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Speaker 1: you run across while your turkey hunting tells you something.

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Speaker 1: Every bleached and half chewed up antler you find tells

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Speaker 1: you something. Everything out there, deer wise is giving you

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Speaker 1: little hints. When you're running a mouth call and propping

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Speaker 1: a twelve gage in your lap while putting your back

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Speaker 1: to a tree. Your focus is first on the gobblers,

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Speaker 1: but don't ignore the deer and the deer sign. One

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Speaker 1: of my favorite things to do, which I recently talked

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Speaker 1: about on a different episode, is to run and gun

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Speaker 1: for turkeys on public land that I'm curious about deer hunting.

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Speaker 1: This is a scouting method that really gets me out

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Speaker 1: there from dark to dark every day. It might mean

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Speaker 1: that I cover miles and miles in search of a bird,

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Speaker 1: but those miles and all of those setups where I

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Speaker 1: have time to sit and watch the woods around me

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Speaker 1: for an hour or two, they put me right where

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Speaker 1: the deer live. And while it could, this doesn't have

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Speaker 1: to happen in a situation where your three states from home,

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Speaker 1: running and gunning with a nonresident turkey tag in your pocket.

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Speaker 1: You can learn about deer by doing this on your

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Speaker 1: home farm too. In fact, this is sometimes the best

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Speaker 1: way to learn about dear Scratch that it's sometimes the

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Speaker 1: best way to learn about what you think about the

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Speaker 1: deer that isn't actually true, or that your picture of

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Speaker 1: dear usage on the property you've hunted for a while

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Speaker 1: is incomplete. I'll give you an example. Last spring, my

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Speaker 1: buddy bought an amazing property in southwestern Wisconsin. We met

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Speaker 1: up to hunt one of the late seasons in May

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Speaker 1: and we set up on one of his fields. It

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Speaker 1: was simple stuff. We knew the birds were coming into

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Speaker 1: the picked corn field, and we knew they'd see our decoys.

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Speaker 1: It worked very well, and I was out of tags

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Speaker 1: within an hour. But in that hour and in the

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Speaker 1: hours after when we tried to get my buddy a bird,

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Speaker 1: we saw quite a few deer. Some of them entered

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Speaker 1: that field on a very subtle trail and they crossed

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Speaker 1: it without stopping to leave on a very subtle trail.

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Speaker 1: At the time, it honestly didn't feel that important. But

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Speaker 1: fast forward to last November and I was sitting in

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Speaker 1: a ground blind with a cameraman next to me, filming

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Speaker 1: an episode of our One Week in November series. My

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Speaker 1: goal was mostly to try to arrow a dough on

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Speaker 1: that field, while I was really trying to just leave

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Speaker 1: a couple other areas alone so that the conditions would

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Speaker 1: break in my favor and I could sneak in and

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Speaker 1: sit where I really wanted to hunt. Well, I missed

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Speaker 1: a nice eight pointer and a colossal melt down that night.

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Speaker 1: That resulted partly from my own flaws and partly from

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Speaker 1: the Bucks stopping the first time right where he couldn't

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Speaker 1: be filmed. By the time he walked where he was

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Speaker 1: in frame, I'd mostly just lost my mind and I

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Speaker 1: flat out whiffed, which isn't that much fun when you're

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Speaker 1: not on camera, and it's a special kind of not

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Speaker 1: fun when you are. Later that evening, when the camera

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Speaker 1: light faded and we were thinking about packing up, one

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Speaker 1: of the biggest Bucks I've ever seen, ran into the

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Speaker 1: far end of the plot and started chasing Dose. And

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Speaker 1: the trail that he took to get there. You guessed it.

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Speaker 1: It was the one that the random deer took during

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Speaker 1: Turkey season. Now, recently, my buddy and I walked that

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Speaker 1: trail as far as we could and we found an

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Speaker 1: amazing crossing at the bottom of a ravine, And I

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Speaker 1: do mean amazing. Next year, I'll have a stand on

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Speaker 1: it for sure, and I'll have a trail tacked straight

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Speaker 1: up the bluff from a highway so I can get

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Speaker 1: into that crossing in the morning without any dear knowing. Now,

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Speaker 1: the point here and all of this rambling is this

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Speaker 1: the initial question of why deer are doing what they

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Speaker 1: are doing. Came to my buddy and I while we

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Speaker 1: were sitting on the ground waiting on some turkeys to

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Speaker 1: lose their minds and come charging in. We didn't have

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Speaker 1: to be in the woods scouting deer to learn something

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Speaker 1: very valuable about scouting deer, even if the full lesson

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Speaker 1: didn't reveal itself right away. My friends, I believe in

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Speaker 1: this stuff, and I believe that the time you spend

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Speaker 1: in the woods turkey hunting, whether you're running, gunning solo,

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Speaker 1: or maybe you've got a youngster with you, maybe you're

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Speaker 1: junior all day bow hunt, it's all important. It's important

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Speaker 1: for the act in and of itself, but it's also

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Speaker 1: ancillari lee important as a deer hunter. All of your

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Speaker 1: time in the woods is just as all of your

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Speaker 1: time e scouting is. But what's cool about the spring

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Speaker 1: is that you can have a hell of a lot

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Speaker 1: of fun focusing on turkeys while you're just keeping an

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Speaker 1: eye out for interesting deer clues. Do this, even if

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Speaker 1: you think you know everything about your dear Pay attention

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Speaker 1: to where you see spring deer traveling, because that's how

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Speaker 1: they'll travel in the fall. A lot of times, pay

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Speaker 1: attention to not only the travel and the sightings and

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Speaker 1: the sign that you fully expect to see, but also

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Speaker 1: the stuff that makes you stop and wonder why those

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Speaker 1: deer and that sign. They help you grow as a

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Speaker 1: deer hunter. That's how you level up, and that's how

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Speaker 1: you kill deer you wouldn't have killed five years ago

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Speaker 1: because you're learning and you're questioning what you know. You're

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Speaker 1: confirming some beliefs and shattering others with every hour you

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Speaker 1: spend in the woods. That's a beautiful thing. And it

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Speaker 1: only gets better when you're zoned out and thinking about

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Speaker 1: birds and how they're not going to play, and suddenly

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Speaker 1: a butt pucker and close gobble rattles your chest and

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Speaker 1: it's all you can do to slowly get your gun

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Speaker 1: to your shoulder. So get out there, huntsome birds, learn

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Speaker 1: about the deer, have some fun, and listen in next

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Speaker 1: week because I'm gonna start switching things up a little

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Speaker 1: bit to some episodes that focus on hunting gear and

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Speaker 1: maybe possibly buying a little piece of deer ground for yourself.

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Speaker 1: That's it for this week, my friends. I'm Tony Peterson

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Speaker 1: and this has been the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast.

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Speaker 1: As I always thank you so much for listening. If

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Speaker 1: you need some more white tailed goodness, head on over

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Speaker 1: to our YouTube channel or visit The Metiator dot com,

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Speaker 1: slash wire