Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better dear hunting, and now your
Speaker 1: host Tony Peterson. Hey everyone, welcome to the Wire to
Speaker 1: Hunt Foundations podcast, which has brought to you by First Light.
Speaker 1: I am your host, Tony Peterson, and today's topic is
Speaker 1: all about being organized as white to hunter, which will
Speaker 1: help you kill more dear. This one is going to
Speaker 1: be narrowing to the point it's going to help you
Speaker 1: be a better white tail hunter and have less frustration
Speaker 1: in the field all fall. It's basically the culmination of
Speaker 1: three decades of being a dedicated deer hunter and having
Speaker 1: gone through every mistake and stupid decision you can make
Speaker 1: while hunting. It's all about having a system for your
Speaker 1: gear and really following through with it. Yeah, back about May,
Speaker 1: right at the beginning of the summer. At some point
Speaker 1: in late spring sometime, one of my twin daughters she
Speaker 1: said to my wife and I that she was just
Speaker 1: about done having a roommate, and her sister not surprisingly agreed.
Speaker 1: Now that set in motion what is I don't know,
Speaker 1: basically my nightmare because it meant not only did I
Speaker 1: have to give up my office, which is the third
Speaker 1: bedroom of our house, but that my wife then decided
Speaker 1: it was time to upgrade the whole damn basement. Here's
Speaker 1: the thing. I have buddies who are really good at
Speaker 1: building stuff, fixing things, and just you know, generally doing
Speaker 1: manly type stuff. Somehow those skills evaded me almost entirely,
Speaker 1: probably because I've spent so much time sitting about seventeen
Speaker 1: feet up in trees or looking into all kinds of
Speaker 1: water for fish that might bite something I might throw
Speaker 1: their way. Or maybe I just don't have those skills.
Speaker 1: It wasn't born with them, And it has come to
Speaker 1: my attention recently that I may have adult a d
Speaker 1: h D. And that's actually not a joke. Maybe that's
Speaker 1: why I can't put up trim correctly or build a
Speaker 1: simple shelving unit from target that probably most twelve year
Speaker 1: olds could assemble without swearing and bleeding. But in the
Speaker 1: immortal words of Bob Dylan, it ain't me, babe. I
Speaker 1: suck at most manly stuff and it doesn't look like
Speaker 1: that's about to change anytime soon. So not only did
Speaker 1: this basement redo job test my skills and show all
Speaker 1: of us what we already knew, about me, but it
Speaker 1: tested my marriage, our collective sanity, and allowed my bride
Speaker 1: to decide where to put most of my hunting gear.
Speaker 1: That is so so so bad. You see, I'm somewhat
Speaker 1: messy but also somewhat organized. If you need a limb saw,
Speaker 1: I know where it is, even if it wouldn't be
Speaker 1: apparent to the casual observer. You want a head lamp,
Speaker 1: I got you on head safety harness traps, you name it,
Speaker 1: I know where it is. Well scratch that I knew
Speaker 1: where it was until the Tasmanian devil who will get
Speaker 1: half of my land and a divorce, decided it was
Speaker 1: time to move everything to new spots. This is frustrating
Speaker 1: on a level that I can barely describe, and I'm
Speaker 1: a word smith sort of. When you have a full
Speaker 1: fall lined up with a first trip being like a
Speaker 1: ten day backcountry hunt for meal, dear Elkin bear, you
Speaker 1: don't want to spend August deconstructing random piles of r
Speaker 1: hunting gear to find out where your stuff is, where
Speaker 1: the things you need are. It was a good reminder
Speaker 1: of how important my white tail system is and how
Speaker 1: you should have one too. This, honestly was something I
Speaker 1: thought everyone did until Dave Hurto, who was one of
Speaker 1: the editors over at Field and Stream, hit me up
Speaker 1: like six years ago to collaborate on a feature about
Speaker 1: public land white tail hunting. Now, we not only hunted
Speaker 1: public land in South Dakota of that year for the
Speaker 1: main narrative of the peace, but we also broke down
Speaker 1: my public land bow hunting strategy. And what I didn't
Speaker 1: realize until I had to lay it all out for
Speaker 1: someone else was how much I relied on systems. It's
Speaker 1: ingrained in me from years and years of making mistakes.
Speaker 1: Now let me give you example of this while trying
Speaker 1: not to make myself sound um too obsessive compulsive. On
Speaker 1: any given day that I'll be going white tail hunting,
Speaker 1: whether I'm saddling up on public land or going to
Speaker 1: sit somewhere in a sweet box blind on private food plots,
Speaker 1: I know what is in my right pocket. My release
Speaker 1: will be in there, along with a thin glove that
Speaker 1: I may or may not wear. In the side pocket
Speaker 1: of my pants will be a tow rope for my bow.
Speaker 1: In my left pocket, you'll find a lightweight glove that
Speaker 1: features nothing grippy on it. That glove will get worn
Speaker 1: while I'm hunting, but won't interfere with my grip if
Speaker 1: I have to draw and shoot in any way. You'll
Speaker 1: also find a folding pocket knife, likely something from Bench
Speaker 1: Made because I love their stuff so much. This one
Speaker 1: is important for two reasons. You just always need a
Speaker 1: good sharp knife for something. It's also necessary if you
Speaker 1: have a weird tree stand situation happen you need to
Speaker 1: cut yourself out of your harness. I know this is
Speaker 1: a long long shot, and I hope it never happens
Speaker 1: to any of us, but if you are in a
Speaker 1: weird situation like that, having an accessible knife it's going
Speaker 1: to be real important. On the left side pocket of
Speaker 1: my pants you'll find anywhere from nothing to three items,
Speaker 1: depending on the hunt. Those three items are a limb, saw,
Speaker 1: a pruner, and a headlamp. That's also where I carry
Speaker 1: my beanie on the way into hunt. My backpack, and
Speaker 1: this is important, my friends, is bigger than most white
Speaker 1: tail hunters would carry. This is due to a couple
Speaker 1: of reasons. I tend to have a lug around camera gear,
Speaker 1: which takes up a lot of space and can get heavy.
Speaker 1: But I also like having backups of certain things. Along
Speaker 1: with the gear necessary to break down a deer and
Speaker 1: pack it out. I know not everyone has those concerns,
Speaker 1: so you gotta bear with me here. Things that are
Speaker 1: always with me and accessible in a top or front
Speaker 1: pocket are face paint. First. I use carbon mass face
Speaker 1: paint all season long because it's not oily, and it
Speaker 1: dries kind of light, so it's not shiny. I also
Speaker 1: have at least one tube of black with me at
Speaker 1: all times in that pocket, and a backup somewhere in
Speaker 1: my backpack that serves me on stand and in blinds.
Speaker 1: I use it on my hands and my face religiously.
Speaker 1: I also have at least one screwing step for hanging
Speaker 1: my backpack now, even if I'm on public land that
Speaker 1: I can't use it on, It's in my pack all
Speaker 1: season long. I always have a grunt tube as well,
Speaker 1: even though I rarely use one depending on the length
Speaker 1: of my sit. Those pockets will also contain my food
Speaker 1: and drinks for the day, and I often carry at
Speaker 1: least one or two extra water bottles in the bottom
Speaker 1: of my pack, two just in case. I've had times
Speaker 1: where I killed an unexpected deer or sat all day
Speaker 1: when I didn't intend to where some extra hydration went
Speaker 1: a long way. I tend to keep a stash of
Speaker 1: granola bars and candy in my interior pocket of my
Speaker 1: pack two for the same reason. You don't need a
Speaker 1: ton of calories through the day, but if you end
Speaker 1: up staying out there a lot longer than you think,
Speaker 1: you're gonna those granola bars or a couple of Snickers
Speaker 1: bars or something really appreciated. Now, the outside pocket will
Speaker 1: also contain a roll of biodegradable flagging tape. This is
Speaker 1: always with me all season long. This is for obvious
Speaker 1: things like marking trails in and out of the woods,
Speaker 1: but also comes in mighty handy for blood trailing at
Speaker 1: different times. Now, because I put your a fair amount
Speaker 1: of critters in the field, I also keep some wet wipes,
Speaker 1: a good knife, and a dozen or so gallon ziploc
Speaker 1: bags in my pack. I know this sounds like a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff already, but most of it's small and
Speaker 1: really light weight. Inside my pack in its own little
Speaker 1: pouch that can be moved from pack to pack are
Speaker 1: my various licenses, a pen, spare, batteries for headlamps and
Speaker 1: my range finder, and a little fire starter kit. Now
Speaker 1: I've never needed the fire starter kit. But I suppose
Speaker 1: there is a situation where a rogue forky spears me
Speaker 1: and the guts and I have to spend the night
Speaker 1: out there where the comfort of the flames would be
Speaker 1: most welcome. I also keep some band aids, gauze, and
Speaker 1: medical tape in there as well. I'm prone to cutting
Speaker 1: myself because I'm impatient, so having a few necessities to
Speaker 1: remedy a slip up with the blade is a good idea.
Speaker 1: You might even want to turniquet in there. Now. These
Speaker 1: are just a few of the things that are pretty
Speaker 1: much with me no matter what. Not only do I
Speaker 1: make sure I have them, I make sure they are
Speaker 1: always in the same spots. This is an important part
Speaker 1: of the system that is worth acknowledging. The more time
Speaker 1: you spend looking for stuff or make do without the
Speaker 1: things you really need, the more likely you are to
Speaker 1: not to kill deer, or you know, you get set
Speaker 1: up later than expected, or you have to move around
Speaker 1: more and move men equals noise. All this stuff costs you. Now,
Speaker 1: that might sound like overkill, and maybe it is just
Speaker 1: for an afternoon. Is sitting in a tree stand waiting
Speaker 1: on an October buck to walk by. But in my world,
Speaker 1: it's not hate needing something in the field that is
Speaker 1: back at my truck, or in the mud room in
Speaker 1: my house, or god knows where my freaking wife put it.
Speaker 1: Most of us have probably had to strap our bows
Speaker 1: to our pack to climb up into our stand, or
Speaker 1: got a deer with a tiny pocket knife, or just
Speaker 1: use some kind of tool that isn't meant for the job,
Speaker 1: and that stuff sucks, just like it sucks to slip
Speaker 1: into a staging area and find banging sign, set up
Speaker 1: a portable lightweight stand, and then sneak out, thinking it'll
Speaker 1: be easy to find in a pre dawn darkness, only
Speaker 1: to realize when you're in the pre dawn darkness that
Speaker 1: nothing that isn't glowing in the night sky is easy
Speaker 1: to find in the dark, let alone a specific tree
Speaker 1: and a patch of timber that looks nothing like it
Speaker 1: did when you were so confident in your route in
Speaker 1: the day before. That roll of flagging tape could have
Speaker 1: helped you out immensely there, huh, And there are other
Speaker 1: things you might want to carry. Two. I almost always
Speaker 1: have an extra midlayer tucked into the bottom of my pack.
Speaker 1: I've fallen in love with puffy vests and jackets, mostly
Speaker 1: from my days in the mountains chasing elk. I don't
Speaker 1: know if there's a better wait to warmth garment out
Speaker 1: there than some of these puffies, and they fold down
Speaker 1: to almost nothing. No, not every hunt is going to
Speaker 1: demand that type of warmth, but when you need it,
Speaker 1: sure it's nice to have. If you plan to hunt
Speaker 1: a long day and you'll need your phone to function
Speaker 1: all day, a spare battery charger might be the ticket too.
Speaker 1: This is a life saver on spring turkey hunts, well
Speaker 1: spring turkey bow hunts. I should say where he's spen.
Speaker 1: Dark to dark in a blind can also be a
Speaker 1: life saver on a deer stand. If you spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time killing the boardom by surfing the web,
Speaker 1: or for some reason like you've got little kids at home,
Speaker 1: you just always need to be connected. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: This might be something you require and you should have.
Speaker 1: If that's the case. Impacts that are compatible with hydration bladders,
Speaker 1: which is an awful lot of packs these days. You'll
Speaker 1: have a pouch in the back where the bladder is
Speaker 1: supposed to go. I put about a dozen handwarmers in there.
Speaker 1: At the start of the season. I probably won't need
Speaker 1: them in September, probably, but they are there for me
Speaker 1: or for when I take my girls hunting, because even
Speaker 1: some of those early seas and mornings can get awful cold.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you this to give you an idea what
Speaker 1: I think about my hunts and what I anticipate I
Speaker 1: might need. Even though this might seem like too much stuff,
Speaker 1: it's not. Carrying in the right white tail gear is
Speaker 1: a million times easier than carrying in the necessary elk
Speaker 1: hunting stuff while climbing a couple of thousand vertical feet.
Speaker 1: There are nearly the same physical limitations as white tails,
Speaker 1: and you know where they lives. Pretty easy to walk
Speaker 1: most of the time, even if you hunt mountain white tails.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not as hard as elk, I should say,
Speaker 1: So it's not a bad idea to plan for what
Speaker 1: you might need and just resign yourself to having carry it,
Speaker 1: and just resign yourself to having to carry it, so
Speaker 1: you think through your hunts. Maybe you're like Mark and
Speaker 1: you need to write everything down on a nice list,
Speaker 1: maybe have a memory like a steel trap, And that's
Speaker 1: not necessary. It doesn't really matter. What does matter is
Speaker 1: that you start to break down your gear choices and
Speaker 1: decide what you have to have with you. Then it's
Speaker 1: a matter of gathering that gear up and putting it
Speaker 1: in its appropriate spots. This last port is way more
Speaker 1: crucial than it sounds, and I know I alluded it
Speaker 1: to it earlier, but let me really break it down
Speaker 1: for you and give you an example. A couple of
Speaker 1: years ago I found some bucks on public land in Nebraska.
Speaker 1: I've talked about this hunt a lot, but not about
Speaker 1: how I set up a stand to kill a buck
Speaker 1: and how my buddy went in there and killed a
Speaker 1: buck out of that same stand too. The tricky part
Speaker 1: of the whole hunt was that the deer were betting
Speaker 1: in some soybeans on a patch of walking ground, the
Speaker 1: limited trees along the edgement that the options for stands
Speaker 1: were pretty rough. But what was worse was that it
Speaker 1: was really really hot and I'd be setting up within
Speaker 1: earshot of several bucks. That was a guarantee, but there
Speaker 1: was no way around it. And while I had a
Speaker 1: decent south wind to help cover my noise, I knew
Speaker 1: it was going to be a test to get set
Speaker 1: up without getting busted. So after swinging down wind of
Speaker 1: the field and slowly walking along until I found a
Speaker 1: suitable tree. I started the process of setting my climbing
Speaker 1: sticks on the tree. At first, due to the way
Speaker 1: the woods fell away from the field, this wasn't too bad.
Speaker 1: I knew I wasn't going to get spotted by a
Speaker 1: buck bedded slightly above me and three foot tall beans.
Speaker 1: But by the time I was on my third stick,
Speaker 1: I was really exposed. Even climbing up the back side
Speaker 1: of the tree felt like I could get busted at
Speaker 1: any moment. Any little click of metal or a creak
Speaker 1: of the strap, and I knew I'd be in trouble.
Speaker 1: In other words, there wasn't much room for a mistake.
Speaker 1: When I got to stand height, I looked into the
Speaker 1: field and there was a velvet ten pointer feeding like
Speaker 1: fifty yards away. That buck was slowly browsing in my direction,
Speaker 1: and I had a loose stand in my hands and
Speaker 1: a bow on the ground. It was an ideal. I
Speaker 1: managed to get that stand set while he was feeding,
Speaker 1: and then watched as he answered my prayers and bedded
Speaker 1: down at thirty seven yards. This let me finish the setup,
Speaker 1: toll my bow up and settle in to stare at
Speaker 1: his antler tips in the sunlight that pounded down on
Speaker 1: the bean field. I killed that buck the next time
Speaker 1: he stood up to feed, which was vindicating and a
Speaker 1: testament at least in small part to having a system. Now,
Speaker 1: another example from the hunt I mentioned earlier that I
Speaker 1: did for Field and Stream involved hanging an opening night
Speaker 1: stand over a pond. As I climbed onto the platform,
Speaker 1: I heard something behind me, and I looked as a
Speaker 1: decent buck trotted over the hill. Again, I looked at
Speaker 1: my tow rope tied to the bottom of my stand platform,
Speaker 1: which was tethered to my bowl in the ground. That
Speaker 1: buck had to shake flies off his ears, which meant
Speaker 1: he'd give me like a few seconds of time to
Speaker 1: move every you know, thirty seconds or so. I managed
Speaker 1: to get my bowl lifted up without him knowing, and
Speaker 1: I killed him in that pond. And I have to
Speaker 1: imagine if, for example, I would have had a dig
Speaker 1: into my pack to find my release instead of just
Speaker 1: reaching into my pocket where it always is, that buck
Speaker 1: would have caught me. Now, these examples might not mean
Speaker 1: much to you. You might think that ship never happens
Speaker 1: to me, So why do I have to be so
Speaker 1: ready because it might. My friends, you might have a
Speaker 1: November cruiser run in thirty seconds after you get set
Speaker 1: up in your stand, or you just might have a
Speaker 1: late October buck goes through at the are end of
Speaker 1: a staging area, in a buck you did not expect
Speaker 1: to see and would love to shoot, But your grunt
Speaker 1: tube is in your pack. When you try to pull
Speaker 1: it out, the flexible end part falls off and you
Speaker 1: make a bunch of noise in that buck you could
Speaker 1: have grunted in is now on red alert, and you
Speaker 1: have an unfilled tag and a whole bunch of sadness
Speaker 1: in your heart. Take stock of your gear, what you need,
Speaker 1: what you might need. Think about your various hunting styles
Speaker 1: and how they demand different gear. What you always need
Speaker 1: to have with you, regardless of when you'll be hunting
Speaker 1: or what style you'll be hunting. Where does that stuff
Speaker 1: go on your person? Think about how you need to
Speaker 1: cater your gear selection to the task. What you need
Speaker 1: in December that you didn't need in October. What do
Speaker 1: you need when you saddle up for a sit versus
Speaker 1: when you carve on a natural ground blind? How does
Speaker 1: that change your system? And are you ready to do
Speaker 1: just that so you never have a stupid scramble moment
Speaker 1: out there when you could have been a little more prepared.
Speaker 1: I know this is kind of boring stuff, but it's important.
Speaker 1: This attention to little d tales while anticipating what can
Speaker 1: go wrong can have a big impact on your enjoyment level.
Speaker 1: And when the stars aligned, can help you kill a
Speaker 1: buck that a less organized person simply would not kill.
Speaker 1: That should be motivation enough to develop a system, So
Speaker 1: I think you should try. That's it for this week,
Speaker 1: my friends, be sure to tune in next week for
Speaker 1: more white tail goodness. I'm your host, Tony Peterson, and
Speaker 1: this has been the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast, which
Speaker 1: has brought to you by First Light. As I always
Speaker 1: thank you so much for your support, every one of
Speaker 1: us here at Meat Eaters sincerely appreciates it. If you
Speaker 1: want more white tail content, head on over to our
Speaker 1: wire dhunt YouTube channel, check out the how to videos
Speaker 1: at Mark and I produce every week, and visit the
Speaker 1: meat eater dot com slash Wired to read articles by myself,
Speaker 1: Mark and a host of other absolute white tail killers.