Speaker 1: And we're back with another episode of Cutting the Distance podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Dirk Durham and though elk season is in full
Speaker 1: swing right here in the West, there are some folks
Speaker 1: in the Midwest, in the East and southern US sitting
Speaker 1: in trees right now in ground blinds looking to punch
Speaker 1: their deer tag. Today on the show, I have a
Speaker 1: buddy of mine, whitetail expert Tony Peterson. You probably already
Speaker 1: know who Tony is, or his name might even sound familiar,
Speaker 1: because he's written umpteen articles about hunt and whitetail deer
Speaker 1: and a whole bunch of other stuff for many major
Speaker 1: publications over the years. He's even authored several books and
Speaker 1: developed multiple podcasts and currently writing articles and featured in
Speaker 1: Whitetail Edu films at Meat Eater. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, buddy.
Speaker 1: So what's your fall look like? You got anything cool
Speaker 1: going on? Is it just hunting your home state or
Speaker 1: what are you doing? Man?
Speaker 2: You know you brought that up in the intro about
Speaker 2: all the Western hunters chasing elk and I really wrestled
Speaker 2: with an elk hunt this year. You know, Colorado's last
Speaker 2: year for you know, total over the counter, and I
Speaker 2: was like, I gotta go do it. Been working out
Speaker 2: all year, but my daughter drew a bear tag over
Speaker 2: in Wisconsin and the opener is first weekend in September,
Speaker 2: and so I was like, or you know, first week
Speaker 2: is September, I should say, And I thought, man, if
Speaker 2: I go out and hunt elk, I'm gonna I'm going
Speaker 2: to miss that. And you know, you know how it
Speaker 2: is with our jobs, October and November pretty much spoken for,
Speaker 2: so I figured i'd better stay home. But you know,
Speaker 2: that'll be fun. I'll be hunting over there in Wisconsin
Speaker 2: with for the girls, try to get them a deer,
Speaker 2: you know, try to get her a bear. And you know,
Speaker 2: I've got Minnesota, I've got North Dakota. I'm head out
Speaker 2: there in film some public land stuff. And then I
Speaker 2: did draw a an Iowa white tail tag this year,
Speaker 2: so I'm putting a little time into that to scouting,
Speaker 2: go down there and try to shoot one on public
Speaker 2: probably the end October. So I don't have a too
Speaker 2: wild and crazy of a schedule this year, but it'll
Speaker 2: be a pretty good fall.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds like you'll be busy enough and having
Speaker 1: some fun getting out there. How old are your daughters?
Speaker 1: They're twelve twelve, man, that's awesome taking down a big,
Speaker 1: old black bear. That's got to be a pretty cool
Speaker 1: experience for a kid.
Speaker 2: Well, we'll see. I am not a very good bear hunter,
Speaker 2: and we you know, we have pretty low standards. I
Speaker 2: have a couple of bears that look like they're your
Speaker 2: typical kind of two year old bear that's, you know,
Speaker 2: not very big, but pretty easy to pack out and
Speaker 2: pretty easy to butcher and everything. And I'm kind of
Speaker 2: I'm kind of pinning my hopes on a couple of those.
Speaker 2: I do have one other bear that looks he's kind
Speaker 2: of a long, skinny bear, but he's he's definitely old
Speaker 2: than some of the other ones. But it's I'm not
Speaker 2: I'm I'm just hoping for a loan bore to walk in.
Speaker 2: I don't care if he's one hundred and twenty five
Speaker 2: pounds or three hundred and fifty pounds at this point.
Speaker 1: That's that's the great, that's the perfect expectation. You know,
Speaker 1: just go and just have a good hunt, and you know,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe she'll get a giant, maybe not, but it'll
Speaker 1: it'll be fun either way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know where we're at in Wisconsin.
Speaker 2: Up until about two years ago, they just changed the
Speaker 2: quota and the tag system to allow people a lot
Speaker 2: more people to hunt each year. So it used to
Speaker 2: be like eight years you had to wait where we're at.
Speaker 2: So the trophy quality was incredible, but our fawn recruitment
Speaker 2: and just the crop damage and everything was just a
Speaker 2: lot of people were complaining. So now it's like two
Speaker 2: years and so there's a lot more bears getting killed
Speaker 2: over there. So you can even see just in a
Speaker 2: little bit of time that I've I've baited them over
Speaker 2: there and run cameras. I can see that, you know,
Speaker 2: your odds of killing one that's like four hundred plus,
Speaker 2: which was not like totally out of the question a
Speaker 2: couple of years ago because there were old bears there.
Speaker 2: Now that's changing, and it's starting to to me it's
Speaker 2: kind of starting to look a lot more like Minnesota.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I mean, that might not be a
Speaker 2: great reference for people, but you see a lot of
Speaker 2: bears in like the you know, one hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: five hundred and fifty pound range till like two point fifty.
Speaker 2: You know, three hundred is a really good one. But
Speaker 2: that's a pretty good bear anywhere, really.
Speaker 1: Right, That's kind of like North Idaho your average bear,
Speaker 1: you know, you're looking at like one hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: five hundred and thirty pound bear to you know, to
Speaker 1: two hundred pounds, you know, that's pretty average. You get
Speaker 1: in that three hundred three fifty that's definitely an exceptional bear.
Speaker 1: And they're not under every under every log, you know,
Speaker 1: they're they're you may have to hunt a while before
Speaker 1: you get one of those. Now, I will say some
Speaker 1: of the guys are able to get way deep into
Speaker 1: the back country some of the wilderness stuff that it's
Speaker 1: very difficult to get to away from baiting and hound
Speaker 1: hunt hunting. Then those guys can usually find some pretty
Speaker 1: old old bores. But if you're very close to a road,
Speaker 1: then those bears the age class is just not there.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and we don't have I mean, I'm sure
Speaker 2: there's probably some national forest that you could get way
Speaker 2: back in on and maybe do that there too, but
Speaker 2: just the access out here in the Midwest is different.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's not like you can go eight miles
Speaker 2: deep in the back country, you know, and there and
Speaker 2: where we hunt there are people who are running hounds
Speaker 2: pretty heavy, and they're pretty good at it, you know.
Speaker 2: They they're they're local and they know what they're doing.
Speaker 2: So but it's I don't care, Like I don't. I
Speaker 2: want her to have a good hunt, and we're you know,
Speaker 2: we're heading over there and doing a lot of work baiting,
Speaker 2: and I just want I just want a chance. You know,
Speaker 2: she doesn't care what size it is. I don't care
Speaker 2: what size it is. And I just think it would
Speaker 2: be really really cool to be sitting there and see
Speaker 2: a black bear coming in. So our goal is a bear,
Speaker 2: just like when we hunt, we're just hunting deer.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep, that's awesome. I love it. So I kind
Speaker 1: of read off your all your accomplishments over the years,
Speaker 1: written lots and lots of articles, hundreds, i'm sure for
Speaker 1: major publications. When did you get into writing.
Speaker 2: Man, I think you could say it would be thousands
Speaker 2: at this point, to be honest with you, I mean
Speaker 2: I got into it. I always wanted to be a writer,
Speaker 2: you know, growing up. I just the way I grew up,
Speaker 2: you know, it was like never really felt like a possibility.
Speaker 2: I mean, everybody kind of went into the trades or
Speaker 2: you just got a job at where, you know, wherever,
Speaker 2: and you worked until you retired. You know, it wasn't
Speaker 2: it wasn't like you were chasing your dreams. But I
Speaker 2: just kind of had the itch and I got a
Speaker 2: chance to write for a few deer organizations here in Minnesota.
Speaker 2: You know, when I was like nineteen twenty, I wrote
Speaker 2: for free, and then I approached the Minnesota Outdoor News
Speaker 2: about writing for them, and they bought a piece from me,
Speaker 2: a trout fishing piece in two thousand and three. And
Speaker 2: that just getting that thirty five dollars check from that
Speaker 2: article changed how I looked at the whole thing, Like
Speaker 2: I just I was like, oh my god, like somebody
Speaker 2: will actually pay me, you know, And I mean it
Speaker 2: was it was like peanuts, right. I remember listening to
Speaker 2: Steve Ranella Tak and he said he got paid four
Speaker 2: grand for his first article. You know, different worlds. But
Speaker 2: you know, I kind of that little little bit of
Speaker 2: a fire that didn't I didn't really get it going
Speaker 2: until I was like I had worked some jobs that
Speaker 2: I hated with a passion, and I was like, I
Speaker 2: don't see myself as the kind of person who can
Speaker 2: do something I hate for the rest of my life.
Speaker 2: And so I started to just sort of try to
Speaker 2: backfill a little bit by writing as much as I
Speaker 2: could anybody who would who would say yes, And it
Speaker 2: sort of just spiraled into a couple jobs in the industry,
Speaker 2: and I just got I feel like, I just got
Speaker 2: really lucky, and I just, you know, because I was
Speaker 2: super passionate about fishing, and I was super passionate about
Speaker 2: bow hunting white tails, you know, and then the dog
Speaker 2: stuff came along and the Western stuff and just it's
Speaker 2: sort of it sort of forced me to do tons
Speaker 2: of things in the outdoors because you get you know,
Speaker 2: you get bored righting about bass fishing, or you get
Speaker 2: bored about writing about tree stand whitetail hunting, and it's like, man,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm training a dog now, like where's where's
Speaker 2: some angles I can write about? Or you know, I've
Speaker 2: never really been a hardcore duck hunter, so if I
Speaker 2: start duck hunting a little bit, when you're kind of
Speaker 2: learning those processes, like when you're you know, when you're
Speaker 2: like quote unquote an expert in something, it feels like
Speaker 2: there's an expectation for what you're supposed to say, but
Speaker 2: there's a different process to just learning something new. So
Speaker 2: if you start, you know, at a pretty low level
Speaker 2: and you're like, I'm just out there figuring this stuff
Speaker 2: out like I've done with a lot of Western stuff,
Speaker 2: and just you know, the dog saying it was really
Speaker 2: beneficial to my writing because I was learning as I
Speaker 2: went and so even you know and white tails, that
Speaker 2: happened to me big time too. It forced me to
Speaker 2: try to get good at it because I wasn't very
Speaker 2: good when I started writing, And so it's just been
Speaker 2: a it's it's fun for me, like I like writing,
Speaker 2: and it has just been a constant motivator to just
Speaker 2: go try new stuff and be out there as much
Speaker 2: as possible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome I feel like having, especially if you're
Speaker 1: just learning those things. If you've been doing a certain
Speaker 1: hunt or a certain activity for a long time, you
Speaker 1: kind of take for granted what new people the lens
Speaker 1: they see things through. So we kind of like glass
Speaker 1: over some things that have seemed very obvious to us
Speaker 1: that we've been doing a long time, But new folks
Speaker 1: who are are just learning about it, then they would
Speaker 1: surely appreciate that that perspective. Like as you're learning and
Speaker 1: you're sharing like the things that you learned there, like,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's that's great, that's good information. I can
Speaker 1: see that that'd be very valuable.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. I mean, you know how it is, like
Speaker 2: I listened to you a couple of weeks ago blowing
Speaker 2: on a bugle tube and I'll bet you could talk
Speaker 2: for hours on how to bugle and probably don't even
Speaker 2: you probably don't even understand to what level you could
Speaker 2: teach that because you're so it's so natural to you,
Speaker 2: you've worked on that so much, And I mean, you
Speaker 2: know how it is. You take your kids out, or
Speaker 2: you take somebody new out and you have to dial
Speaker 2: everything back and say, here's why I'm doing this. You know,
Speaker 2: we haven't heard a bowl in four hours. Here's why
Speaker 2: I'm I'm bugling this way. Or we've got one who
Speaker 2: just lit up in the valley below us and it
Speaker 2: sounds like Jurassic Park down there, and you're throwing a
Speaker 2: different vibe at them. That teaching somebody that helps you
Speaker 2: get better at it, and it just it's just a
Speaker 2: it's a cool thing to do that I think a
Speaker 2: lot of people don't really realize, especially when they get
Speaker 2: into our position, like for long enough, it's sort of
Speaker 2: easy to take it for granted that you you know,
Speaker 2: you say this and people follow it or whatever, but
Speaker 2: it's really not not how it works. A lot of times,
Speaker 2: like you really have to think about it from the
Speaker 2: perspective of somebody who's new or you know, somebody on
Speaker 2: their first l coon, deer hunt, whatever, and really kind
Speaker 2: of reverse engineer this stuff that you you know so
Speaker 2: well to explain it in a you know, like an
Speaker 2: easily digestible way. There's there's like kind of an art
Speaker 2: to it that just it seems sort of like it's
Speaker 2: easy to sort of gloss over it. Like you said,
Speaker 2: you just you don't realize what goes into this stuff
Speaker 2: until you really break it down and teach somebody and
Speaker 2: then you go, Okay, there's a lot of lessons here
Speaker 2: that I take for granted.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, So how many articles do you typically write
Speaker 1: a here? I mean, you've probably got I know, you
Speaker 1: told me the other day, so I kind of I know,
Speaker 1: I know what what your workload is right now, But
Speaker 1: how many how many articles.
Speaker 2: Do you write? Now? Well, when I was a freelancer,
Speaker 2: it was a couple hundred a year, you know, because
Speaker 2: you think about the weekly columns, and I mean when
Speaker 2: I got this Meet Eater gig, I was writing five
Speaker 2: different columns and so those alone got you into like
Speaker 2: the mid one fifties and then you know, just all
Speaker 2: the other stuff. But right now, you know, for Meat Eater,
Speaker 2: probably about I don't know, sixty to seventy a year.
Speaker 2: But I also have to write the scripts for my
Speaker 2: Foundations podcast and my Foundations podcast, So I have seventy
Speaker 2: two of those a year that are three thousand words.
Speaker 2: So it starts to it starts to get up there.
Speaker 2: It just seems like, you know, the output's pretty high.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, it's literally my favorite part
Speaker 2: about this job. Like I love writing, Like I just
Speaker 2: feel that feels the most natural to me. Like if
Speaker 2: somebody you know, said what would you give up, or
Speaker 2: like what would be the easiest thing to give up,
Speaker 2: it'd be filming first. Well, you know, like that's a
Speaker 2: different thing, and but the but the writing is it's fun. Man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome. So did you grow up in a
Speaker 1: hunting family or did you started later in life or
Speaker 1: who was your mentor as a as a new hunter?
Speaker 2: My dad, my dad was a bow hunter, you know,
Speaker 2: back in kind of south central Minnesota, you know, probably
Speaker 2: from the time he got back from Vietnam. Uh you know,
Speaker 2: so back in the six late sixties, maybe early seventies,
Speaker 2: when it was like they were like five deer in
Speaker 2: the state, you know, and to see one was a
Speaker 2: huge deal. And he was always just into bow hunting,
Speaker 2: you know, he was like and I didn't realize this
Speaker 2: at the time. I realized this, now, my dad was.
Speaker 2: You know, my dad was into big bucks just like
Speaker 2: everybody else. But he was just into hunting deer, you know,
Speaker 2: like he just he just liked to hunt deer. It
Speaker 2: was a big deal to get a dough, a big
Speaker 2: deal to get a little four ky or a little
Speaker 2: you know, scrap or eight point or whatever. And I
Speaker 2: think that was a I think that was way more
Speaker 2: important for my kind of formative years than I realized
Speaker 2: at the time, you know, because I was like everybody else, right,
Speaker 2: I started out and couldn't kill a deer, couldn't see
Speaker 2: a big buck. Ever. I mean, it took me, it
Speaker 2: took me years and years and years of hard hunting
Speaker 2: to ever kill a big one. And I just remember
Speaker 2: being like, why can't we do this like you see
Speaker 2: other people do it, you read the magazines whatever. But
Speaker 2: I feel like now, you know, now I can appreciate it,
Speaker 2: you know. And he took me. I mean we phezand hunted,
Speaker 2: grouse on it, squirrel hunted, rabbit hunted, when turkeys, you know,
Speaker 2: when we could start hunting turkeys, you know, because we
Speaker 2: started getting those I think in the sometime in the
Speaker 2: late eighties in Minnesota where you could start hunting them.
Speaker 2: And he he was applying right away, and then when
Speaker 2: I turned twelve, I could apply. And it was just
Speaker 2: it was just a good, a good thing. Like we
Speaker 2: hunted and fished pretty freaking hard, and we weren't really
Speaker 2: very good at it, but we were like avid. I mean,
Speaker 2: we we got after it. And so that was that's
Speaker 2: kind of I mean, if there's one reason how I
Speaker 2: ended up the way I am, it's because of that.
Speaker 2: My dad just took me hunting and fishing a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome. I kind of grew up the same
Speaker 1: way my dad. He was quite a bit older though,
Speaker 1: he was like fifty whenever I was born, so he
Speaker 1: was he was kind of winding down on his hunting.
Speaker 1: He'd moved to Idaho back right after World War two,
Speaker 1: when there were hardly any people and tons of elk,
Speaker 1: and it was just a different kind of hunting versus
Speaker 1: whenever I was a kid. But he always made time
Speaker 1: to take me hunting and fishing, and it was the
Speaker 1: same thing. It's like if if somebody got a doe
Speaker 1: or a buck of any kind, that was that was
Speaker 1: a big deal, like, wow, we got we got one,
Speaker 1: you know, and it was it was everybody was happy
Speaker 1: and excited in the house. And and I got pretty
Speaker 1: lucky and started getting some pretty decent bucks at a
Speaker 1: pretty early age, just because where we lived there was
Speaker 1: a lot of deer. That that was a very rich
Speaker 1: game game environment of a big of big white tail bucks.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a sleeper state, you know. Back then
Speaker 1: nobody really knew Idaho had big bucks, but we had
Speaker 1: some really good ones and a lot of deer. Fast
Speaker 1: forward to these days, we don't have quite the hunting
Speaker 1: like that anymore in that area there. The deer numbers
Speaker 1: are down, the age glasses down. But anyhow, if I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have had, you know, all that that positive experiences
Speaker 1: back as a young person, you know, able to go
Speaker 1: out see deer, see lots of deer, able to get
Speaker 1: a deer. You know, I might not have been so
Speaker 1: interested in it.
Speaker 2: So was that all rifle hunting or were you both?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I started out with rifle hunting and then bow hunting.
Speaker 1: My first taste of bow hunting was for elk I'd
Speaker 1: been I was sitting out by this old pond waiting
Speaker 1: for a bear, opening day of a bear season and
Speaker 1: elk season archery elk season. When I was sitting there
Speaker 1: with the rifle waiting for a bear, and these elk
Speaker 1: came up and splashed around the pawn, I was like,
Speaker 1: holy cow, they didn't even see me. They're like fifteen
Speaker 1: yards away. I'm like, man, I could just shoot that
Speaker 1: bowl with a bow so easy. They laughed and my
Speaker 1: dad picked me up. About two hours later. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: we got to go to town. I have a bow,
Speaker 1: but I don't have any arrows or broadheads. But we
Speaker 1: got to go buy arrows and broad heads. I'm goname back.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna shoot that elk. He's like, no, you're not
Speaker 1: going to do that. That's that's that. You can't shoot
Speaker 1: an elk with a bow. I said, you can. I
Speaker 1: know people that have done it. He's like no, I said, well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna save my money next year and buy all
Speaker 1: the stuff and get into it. You know, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna shoot it up with a bow and then
Speaker 1: and learn how to call and everything. And the next year,
Speaker 1: as luck would have it, you know, I made enough
Speaker 1: money bucking bales for farmers, you know, hey bales and stuff,
Speaker 1: and made enough mind to buy a bow and all
Speaker 1: the gear, and I was able to call in a
Speaker 1: nice bowl and shoot it on the third day of season.
Speaker 1: So from then on I was just hooked on bow hunting.
Speaker 1: And but I've always been an opportunist, you know, whether
Speaker 1: it's it's bow hunting or rifle hunting or muzzleoading. I
Speaker 1: just like to I'd just like to be out there.
Speaker 1: It's just so fun to get out there. I never
Speaker 1: played sports in high school or in school at all.
Speaker 1: I just I would go hunting all the time. While
Speaker 1: everybody else is having fun playing football, basketball, whatever, I
Speaker 1: was out in the woods run around. So that that's
Speaker 1: how I got into it.
Speaker 2: I know all about that, buddy. I quit baseball to fish,
Speaker 2: and I quit football to hunt. So I played basketball, yeah,
Speaker 2: because it was it was right in the middle of winter.
Speaker 2: In Minnesota where there wasn't much to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome. So I'm a longtime Western whitetail hunter,
Speaker 1: so like I told you, I was, I grew up
Speaker 1: hunting deer, but those are white tails. You know. People
Speaker 1: people think Idaho it's like mule deer, but where I
Speaker 1: lived there was there was a few meal dere but
Speaker 1: not too many. But do you have any tips for
Speaker 1: guys like me who haven't spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: in a tree stand to become more comfortable in a
Speaker 1: tree stand Because I've been going to Kansas the last
Speaker 1: couple of years and I get in a tree stan
Speaker 1: and I feel like I'm going to fall out of
Speaker 1: this dang thing whenever I try to draw my bow.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a little bit freaked out. So do you
Speaker 1: have anything any advice for guys like me?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I mean, you got to get your
Speaker 2: reps in, buddy. I mean, really, the thing about tree stands,
Speaker 2: the comfort level comes from safety. So if you you know,
Speaker 2: if you're using lifelines right now, and you have a
Speaker 2: safety harness, which you should should have both of those,
Speaker 2: it's a matter of just getting comfortable then. And I
Speaker 2: would guess I don't know this for sure, but on
Speaker 2: that on those Kansas hunts, are you putting up those
Speaker 2: stands or are you sitting somebody.
Speaker 1: Else's I'm sitting somebody else's stands.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, that sucks. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I know there's always that little doubt in your mind, like, ah,
Speaker 1: did he do it right? And they're solid? You know?
Speaker 1: Did he feel solid? It looks solid, But you always
Speaker 1: have that like when you do it yourself, I feel
Speaker 1: like there's that confidence. I feel like whenever I've set
Speaker 1: tree stands before in Idaho and I put them up,
Speaker 1: it wasn't so weirded out about about.
Speaker 2: It, right, I mean, it's to me that it's just
Speaker 2: I hate it in other people's stands. I just hate it.
Speaker 2: It's just a different The setup is never the way
Speaker 2: I would do it, you know, And it's just that's
Speaker 2: I'm sure when I hang stands, it's the same thing
Speaker 2: when people sit in my stands too. But really, I mean,
Speaker 2: I think I think one of the best ways to
Speaker 2: do it. And I've started to do this at my
Speaker 2: house more, especially hunting out of saddles a lot is
Speaker 2: even even if you hang a stand like four feet
Speaker 2: off the ground, and practice from it. You get pretty
Speaker 2: used to your how to maneuver around it and take
Speaker 2: those little baby steps and spin around and shoot and
Speaker 2: you know where where should you you know, tether from
Speaker 2: your safety harness be so it doesn't interfere with your
Speaker 2: arm all of that stuff, and you know, I mean
Speaker 2: the other thing you can do too, is is you know,
Speaker 2: pay attention to how tight your safety harnesses to the tree,
Speaker 2: like if there's way more play and you can lean
Speaker 2: out like a lot of and this this happens a
Speaker 2: lot with lifelines, so I know, I'm going all over
Speaker 2: the place here, but if you can lean out on
Speaker 2: that safety harness and it's tight, which is not necessarily
Speaker 2: the best way to maneuver around when you're comfortable, but
Speaker 2: there's like a peace of mind thing there, you know.
Speaker 2: It's like it's the same thing when you when you
Speaker 2: start saddle hunting and you lean out for that first time,
Speaker 2: it's just like a weird it's an uncomfortable feeling. But
Speaker 2: once you get used to it and you trust, you
Speaker 2: know your lineman's belt to go up, and then you
Speaker 2: trust your you know your tether, it's like, oh okay,
Speaker 2: like I I rely on this now, I'm not scared
Speaker 2: to lean out and feel that finally, but right away,
Speaker 2: and it's just it's just a numbers game and you
Speaker 2: just got to get in the time. But the easiest
Speaker 2: way to get comfortable. I'm starting to do this with
Speaker 2: my daughters a little bit because I want them to
Speaker 2: get off the ground and start hunting out of trees.
Speaker 2: Get into it, even if you set it up two
Speaker 2: feet off the ground, just to get used to wearing
Speaker 2: that hardness and get used to the whole process of it,
Speaker 2: because it is different. You're right, you know, and everybody
Speaker 2: talks about you know, if you have a deer like
Speaker 2: way below you and you have that steep angle where
Speaker 2: you know you're how to maintain your form and bend
Speaker 2: at the waist and all that stuff like, that's great.
Speaker 2: But eight steps before that is just being comfortable on
Speaker 2: that little tiny platform spinning around to shoot this way
Speaker 2: or that way or whatever. If you if you get there,
Speaker 2: if you get comfortable with that, taking that steep angle
Speaker 2: shot is like taking the tough shots is a lot easier,
Speaker 2: Like you don't have to go through a bunch of
Speaker 2: mental gymnastics, but it's a it takes a while to
Speaker 2: just get used to it.
Speaker 1: I was kind of wondering that, like about you know
Speaker 1: your tether, and like do you sometimes lean out there
Speaker 1: and just like let that thing catch and be like
Speaker 1: all right, you know, and make your shot off off
Speaker 1: off of that. I was thinking that would probably be
Speaker 1: pretty effective.
Speaker 2: All the time. I mean, the last bull elk I
Speaker 2: killed two years ago in Colorado, I was over a
Speaker 2: water hole with a saddle, and I had that shot
Speaker 2: where you lean out shoot behind you kind of so
Speaker 2: you're you're leaned way out, but man, it's it's pretty steady,
Speaker 2: like if you're if you're used to it, like it
Speaker 2: feels like when you draw, you feel good. But I
Speaker 2: could see where if you weren't used to it, it
Speaker 2: would be a freaking nightmare. And you know how it is.
Speaker 2: I mean, the danger of this stuff is if you
Speaker 2: take your your mind out of the shot sequence for
Speaker 2: half a second, if you have ten percent distraction in
Speaker 2: there because you're worried about falling or whatever, you make
Speaker 2: a bad shot. You or you or you don't make
Speaker 2: the shot. You could like you might not necessarily make
Speaker 2: a bad shot, but if you're if you want to
Speaker 2: put yourself in a position to make a bad shot.
Speaker 2: Take your brain out of the game in those two, three, four, five,
Speaker 2: six seven seconds that it takes you to draw, aim
Speaker 2: and execute that release. And so little stuff like this,
Speaker 2: You know, even if it's just like a little niggling
Speaker 2: thing in the back of your head where you're like,
Speaker 2: I just don't feel that comfortable here, there's going to
Speaker 2: be some attrition on your accuracy because your brain isn't
Speaker 2: just dedicated to that little task you have to see through,
Speaker 2: and that can become a big deal in a hurry.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I could definitely see that. Yeah, So early
Speaker 1: season white tails kind of want to talk to you
Speaker 1: about that a little bit. I know, they're super fun
Speaker 1: to hunt. It's a different time of year, you're not
Speaker 1: you're not as as cold typically, it's a little different.
Speaker 1: What do you do to mitigate insects? Are you fighting
Speaker 1: mosquitoes and ticks and.
Speaker 2: All the time? You know, our tic situation. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's not like a huge deal tree stand hunting, but
Speaker 2: we do, we do get a fall hatch of ticks
Speaker 2: up here. That can be I mean, it's one of
Speaker 2: the reasons I stopped grouse hunting early season, like first
Speaker 2: week October, first two weeks of October if it's warm.
Speaker 2: The Arctic situation is bananas, but the mosquito thing is
Speaker 2: the one. The mosquitoes and nats are what drive you
Speaker 2: nuts white tail hunting, and so I either use a
Speaker 2: thermicel and in fact, I hunted Florida a couple of
Speaker 2: years ago because they have a summertime deer season, because
Speaker 2: they don't run around the seasons, because they don't have
Speaker 2: any seasons down there, And so you're literally calling in
Speaker 2: running bucks in like the end of July, beginning of
Speaker 2: August in horrible condition. Yes, I mean, oh, it's just
Speaker 2: it was the worst hunt I've ever been on as
Speaker 2: far as just like comfort. I ran two thermoicells down
Speaker 2: there because the mosquitoes were so bad it was almost unbearable.
Speaker 2: And you know, people will say, well, I don't want
Speaker 2: something that makes scent, and they can you can smell it. Right.
Speaker 2: I'm to the point now where I will I will
Speaker 2: use a thermo cell and I will spray around my head,
Speaker 2: maybe my hat with with bugs, spray for the for
Speaker 2: the nats, and I just play the wind. And you know,
Speaker 2: people a lot of like die hard whitetail people would
Speaker 2: probably cringe at that, but I'm gonna play the wind
Speaker 2: guy through and through, Like I just believe in that strategy,
Speaker 2: Like if they're up wind to me, they're not gonna
Speaker 2: smell me if I have a thermoicell going. So I
Speaker 2: just got to figure out how to put myself in
Speaker 2: that position. Because the one thing that I've started to
Speaker 2: do the last several years is if i have a
Speaker 2: day to hunt, I'm trying not to leave the woods
Speaker 2: very much. So even in the you know, I'm not
Speaker 2: saying I sit dark to dark in September fifteenth, because
Speaker 2: I don't. But I have found that if I try
Speaker 2: to sit till like eleven in the morning or noon
Speaker 2: versus leaving at nine thirty, sometimes those bucks come through late.
Speaker 2: Or if I get out there at one or two
Speaker 2: o'clock in the afternoon, then you're dealing with the hottest
Speaker 2: part of the day in a lot of bugs. But
Speaker 2: I hunt water a lot, you know, I'll hunt food
Speaker 2: sources where the shade's going to hit this corner first,
Speaker 2: and sometimes you kill a bucket like two o'clock. You know,
Speaker 2: sometimes when the bugs are really bad, a lot of
Speaker 2: our deer, and I've seen this in multiple places, we'll
Speaker 2: bed right in a soybean field or right in a
Speaker 2: place where that wind's going to keep the bugs off
Speaker 2: of them. They'll stand up, eat for a while, and
Speaker 2: go bed back down. And so those conditions, like the
Speaker 2: worst conditions for hunters to me are like the conditions
Speaker 2: I want to be out there, and so, I bugs
Speaker 2: are just a part of it. Heat is just a
Speaker 2: part of it. But if you if you do a
Speaker 2: lot of public land hunting, especially early season, if it's
Speaker 2: something that will keep people away, I'm going to go
Speaker 2: hunt it. And I know people don't like to hear
Speaker 2: that because they want to wait for the rut and
Speaker 2: it's going to be you know, twenty degrees in the
Speaker 2: morning and thirty five at midday or whatever. But one
Speaker 2: of the best ways I've found to just kill big
Speaker 2: deer on public land has been to just go hunt
Speaker 2: when the conditions just absolutely suck, Like they're just not
Speaker 2: good fun conditions to hunt in. But you're you can
Speaker 2: take out a crazy amount of your competition if it's
Speaker 2: you know, the bugs are bad and it's warm, and
Speaker 2: so those deer out there living with that stuff every day,
Speaker 2: you know, they figured out how to how to mitigate
Speaker 2: some of that that discomfort. So your job is just
Speaker 2: go out and go Okay, I'm going to figure out
Speaker 2: a way to manage this and then be there when
Speaker 2: most people won't.
Speaker 1: Right on, Well, you mentioned you like to hunt water
Speaker 1: and you like to hunt food plots. You're just probably
Speaker 1: depends on the property. I guess what you're going to
Speaker 1: focus on for early season tactics. I feel like in Idaho,
Speaker 1: you know, we have some agriculture where I grew up,
Speaker 1: and you know, the deer could come out just about anywhere.
Speaker 1: You know, they come out in this corner, they come
Speaker 1: out in that corner. They weren't real consistent. But where
Speaker 1: they were pretty consistent is around water, especially you know, hot,
Speaker 1: dry summer conditions. Do you do you like to hunt
Speaker 1: travel corridors as well, or you can hunt right on
Speaker 1: the water, or you can hut right on the you
Speaker 1: said field edge like the shadowy field edge. Just depends.
Speaker 2: It just depends, man. I mean I like water for
Speaker 2: the same reason you just said there. I don't think
Speaker 2: there's anything more consistent. And you know, I've I have
Speaker 2: one little property that I have a food plot on
Speaker 2: that I put the girls on. I don't I don't
Speaker 2: really hunt it because it doesn't it It's just not
Speaker 2: my thing. But I do really like scouting agg fields
Speaker 2: and glass and deer and trying to figure out when
Speaker 2: and where they're going to show up, because it because
Speaker 2: you're right, you know it, it's on paper. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: those Bachelor that Bachelor group's going to come out in
Speaker 2: the same corner every night, and on opening night you
Speaker 2: go in there and you shoot them, and it's like
Speaker 2: when you start watching them, you're like, well they came
Speaker 2: out there last night. Tonight, they didn't come to the
Speaker 2: field at all. You know tomorrow they might come in
Speaker 2: some other different spot, and your job is to figure
Speaker 2: out why, right, Like was the wind coming out of
Speaker 2: the west today and the south tomorrow? Like what is it?
Speaker 2: You know, was the sun super bright overhead or was
Speaker 2: it a little cooler and overcast? Like did that change
Speaker 2: their approach? And I love that stuff for early season.
Speaker 2: But if I'm looking for some situation with consistency, like
Speaker 2: a high level of consistency, and I'm talking white tails,
Speaker 2: elk meal deer, like you said earlier, bears, water is
Speaker 2: like limited water is your best friend. You know, you
Speaker 2: might get into a situation like where we hunt Wisconsin.
Speaker 2: There's water everywhere, so it's just unless there's a water
Speaker 2: source real close to some apple trees or acorns or
Speaker 2: something that's like, you know, an extra kind of bonus
Speaker 2: thing that they're going to, and they just swing by
Speaker 2: to that water because it's it's secure and it's close
Speaker 2: that you know, you're kind of in trouble if there's
Speaker 2: a lot of water. But you go out we I
Speaker 2: go out west to some places and there might be
Speaker 2: one cattle tank in a couple of sections or that
Speaker 2: little meandering stream, and I'm like, here's this is where
Speaker 2: you kill because they're gonna drink every day and it's
Speaker 2: gonna be super consistent.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you ever like try to call deer early season,
Speaker 1: like rattling or grunning or anything.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't. I don't rattle very much. I've
Speaker 2: just I've killed a few deer that way. I just
Speaker 2: have never I've never had a lot of confidence in it.
Speaker 2: So even it kind of hurts me because even like
Speaker 2: when I go to Iowa or I draw a good
Speaker 2: tag somewhere, I'm just I don't rely on it like
Speaker 2: I like to call. I just don't rattle very much.
Speaker 2: And so early season. If you if I see a
Speaker 2: bachelor group of bucks, like if I'm working a group
Speaker 2: of deer, I will use contact grunts a lot, like
Speaker 2: if there's a couple of bucks in the same general area,
Speaker 2: Like I killed a buck in Minnesota, probably, I don't know,
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen. Some point I knew there was
Speaker 2: a He was just a really nice eight poin where
Speaker 2: he wasn't a giant, but he was hanging with a
Speaker 2: couple of young bucks and he was coming out in
Speaker 2: the soybean field. And I got in there second night
Speaker 2: of the season, and he came out with two other
Speaker 2: little bucks, and they were just feeding, doing bachelor group stuff,
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty five yards away, and I started to
Speaker 2: contact grown at him, just like a sharp just one grunt,
Speaker 2: and you know, they picked their heads up, drop their
Speaker 2: heads back down, start feeding, Throw another one at him,
Speaker 2: and eventually they started going after each other a little bit.
Speaker 2: And I saw that big deer kind of swing his
Speaker 2: antlers and sort of like posture up a little bit,
Speaker 2: and I was like, he's toast because he's gonna You
Speaker 2: could see the body language change right. Eventually he came in.
Speaker 2: They all came in but he came in first and
Speaker 2: I shot him. And it's like there's a situation with
Speaker 2: those early season bucks where they're used to being around
Speaker 2: other bucks, but they're also getting a little sick of
Speaker 2: them and they get a little testy, and so they
Speaker 2: will hang together, but there's still even when they're hanging together,
Speaker 2: there's that hierarchy, and people kind of don't think about this.
Speaker 2: We think about dominant bucks, but we don't think about, like,
Speaker 2: what does that mean? Like that three year old one
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty inchure that you would look at, go,
Speaker 2: there's no way this is the dominant buck here. There's
Speaker 2: a one fifteen in the neighborhood that'll kick his ass
Speaker 2: all day long. But that deer is dominant to all
Speaker 2: those two year olds and one and a half year
Speaker 2: olds and all the does. Just like the doz. If
Speaker 2: you start paying attention to individual dos, there's a whole
Speaker 2: hierarchy of dominance there too. It all matters. And so
Speaker 2: when you get that buck who's like I can whoop him,
Speaker 2: I can whoop him. And now I hear this dude
Speaker 2: down there somewhere that I can't see, but he's grunning
Speaker 2: at me like I'm gonna I'm gonna go check this out.
Speaker 2: I love that situation and the other thing that I like.
Speaker 2: And people think this is nuts, but it's worked for
Speaker 2: me a lot. I shouldn't say a lot. It's worked
Speaker 2: for me enough where I believe in it wholeheartedly. Is
Speaker 2: a it's a snort wheeze, and people just I don't
Speaker 2: know where this came from. I think it's because we
Speaker 2: never hear deer snortwheeze, right, Like in my entire life
Speaker 2: of hunting out there, I heard one buck snortweeze and
Speaker 2: he was in Texas and there was one hundred and
Speaker 2: seventeen thousand deer around me, and he was just chasing
Speaker 2: nuts and snort wheezing and they were fighting, and it
Speaker 2: was like not a realistic scenario, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: Like it's not I saw. I remember sitting there thinking,
Speaker 2: I'm like, it's an hour into the morning, and I've
Speaker 2: seen more like shooter class bucks today than I'll see
Speaker 2: in an entire season hunting Minnesota, Wisconsin, you know. So
Speaker 2: it's like that's sort of like an artificially curated environment.
Speaker 2: So I think we don't hear dear snortwed like we
Speaker 2: don't witness this behavior hardly ever, but just because I
Speaker 2: I don't know, I'm kind of just like a I'll
Speaker 2: just try stuff. I started snort wheezing at deer all
Speaker 2: season long because I killed a big one in Iowa
Speaker 2: the first time I drew down there, came out on
Speaker 2: a dough right at last light, and I he wouldn't
Speaker 2: respond to a grunt, so I snort wheeze at him
Speaker 2: and it took me about five snort wheezes and he
Speaker 2: got to seven yards and I killed him, and I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, okay, like this can work, right, this
Speaker 2: call can work. And so after that, if i'd see
Speaker 2: a loan buck I did. It doesn't seem to work
Speaker 2: very well with deer that are together. I don't know why.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's just like my experience, but i'd see a
Speaker 2: loan buck and if you look like he just had
Speaker 2: nothing to do, not that like on a bee line
Speaker 2: to go somewhere, but kind of just like staging through
Speaker 2: the woods, or you know, early in the evening he's
Speaker 2: not going to go out to the field yet, or
Speaker 2: once in a while you'll see him just you know,
Speaker 2: walking that edge between the beans and the corn, and
Speaker 2: they really you know, they're living pretty good. Some of
Speaker 2: those deer are so susceptible to a snort wheeze, even
Speaker 2: in September, even in early October. And it's weird because
Speaker 2: the reaction out of them, you know, usually pretty quick,
Speaker 2: like you snort wieze and they'll stop and look at you,
Speaker 2: and you can almost tell whether you're going to have
Speaker 2: to use a second snort wheeze or not, or they're like,
Speaker 2: I don't I don't like this, you know. And I
Speaker 2: went out the year after I killed that buck in
Speaker 2: Iowa and I was just sitting on a stand. It
Speaker 2: was early in the evening. I was on an alfalfa
Speaker 2: field and there was a cornfield strip a corn above
Speaker 2: me and then some woods and had a little four
Speaker 2: ky walk out and it was like not even close
Speaker 2: to primetime. So I was like, I'm gonna snort weeze
Speaker 2: at him, just just to see what he does. And
Speaker 2: I snort weezed at that deer and he came right
Speaker 2: in in front of me and looked around, and I went,
Speaker 2: this goes against everything I've ever heard about this. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And so my buddy and I were filming, we were
Speaker 2: going to film the next like I don't know the
Speaker 2: next week or something. It's still September. And we had
Speaker 2: antler point restrictions in Minnesota then, so I had to
Speaker 2: be four points on one side. And I saw this
Speaker 2: buck going through the woods and it was early in
Speaker 2: the evening again, and it looked like a decent deer
Speaker 2: and I snored wheezed at it, and that buck stopped
Speaker 2: and I was like, man, he looks like he might
Speaker 2: I might be able to talk him in. And it
Speaker 2: took like six of them, but he got all the
Speaker 2: way in and circled down Win and he just happened
Speaker 2: to be a big six point. He didn't have any
Speaker 2: brow times he couldn't shoot in and he left. Actually
Speaker 2: he got down Win and he winded us, but he can't.
Speaker 2: I could have killed him all day long before that.
Speaker 2: And I just remember thinking, man, what I thought I
Speaker 2: knew about this call is just wrong. And I hear
Speaker 2: people constantly say, like, only dominant buck snortweeze, It's only
Speaker 2: a rut call, and I've just found that to totally
Speaker 2: not be true, and in fact, and the weird thing
Speaker 2: about it is, I shot a buck in Kansas one
Speaker 2: time during the rut. I bet I snort weezed at
Speaker 2: that deer like thirty times, because every time I'd snort
Speaker 2: weeze at him, he'd come like five yards closer than
Speaker 2: he'd hold up. But every time I would do it,
Speaker 2: he'd get a little closer. And that was like one
Speaker 2: hundred and forty in eight pointer. And I had another
Speaker 2: time in Wisconsin hunting public land, and like it was
Speaker 2: like October tenth or something. I was in this big woods,
Speaker 2: you know, overgrown clearcut situation with a creek running through it,
Speaker 2: and I had a buck get past me. It was
Speaker 2: super windy, and I didn't realize he had made his
Speaker 2: way through there, and he was already like fifty yards
Speaker 2: past me, and so I snort weezed at that dear
Speaker 2: and he stopped and he didn't do anything, and then
Speaker 2: he kind of started walking in. I snort weezed again,
Speaker 2: and like the third time I did it, I saw
Speaker 2: him like tip his head back like fine, like you
Speaker 2: could see him just be like all right, I'm coming over.
Speaker 2: And he bristled up and turned around and came in
Speaker 2: right to me, and I shot him. And I just
Speaker 2: like I've had experiences like that where I go there's
Speaker 2: way more going on with this call than we think.
Speaker 2: And I think all it does is play off the
Speaker 2: fact that these bucks all know who they can beat
Speaker 2: and who they can't, and they almost all have somebody
Speaker 2: who they can beat and who they can't. And I
Speaker 2: mean that's just me filling in the blanks. But it's
Speaker 2: like it's like that's a dominant deer to some of
Speaker 2: the other deer, you know, like the little basket four
Speaker 2: kis and sixes or whatever, he's dominant to them. Or
Speaker 2: that one forty who you know, you've got that one
Speaker 2: seventy on camera, Like, okay, so the one forty is
Speaker 2: not dominant to him, probably right, but think how many
Speaker 2: deer are below him in the hierarchy. And so but
Speaker 2: it's it's really all early season calling. Maybe all deer
Speaker 2: calling is like if you can lay eyes on them
Speaker 2: and work through some of these calls, you know how
Speaker 2: to proceed. They're going to tell you, you know, like
Speaker 2: I would never go out there early season and throw
Speaker 2: contact grunts out there blindly, Like I would never go
Speaker 2: out there and just snort, wheeze blindly hoping there's a
Speaker 2: buck around, you know, Like that's that's a different thing.
Speaker 2: But when you can see them and you can work
Speaker 2: through some of those, like it can work so much
Speaker 2: better than people think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think people kind of experiment a little
Speaker 1: bit with it and then maybe get a negative reaction
Speaker 1: and they're like, oh, man, I'm never going to do
Speaker 1: that again. For instance, here a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: I had the snort Wheeze prototype call we've been working
Speaker 1: on and had this. I had a couple bucks there
Speaker 1: and then this pretty good sized buck. He didn't have
Speaker 1: a big react, but he was just a big, bully,
Speaker 1: bullish looking thing, just big, heavy, mature body. He looked
Speaker 1: pretty old, and he come in all bristled up to
Speaker 1: these younger bucks, and I'm like, oh, yeah, I want
Speaker 1: to see what happens with this snort wheeze because he's
Speaker 1: obviously the fat cat in the field right now. You know,
Speaker 1: he's the dominant buck. So I snort wheezed at him,
Speaker 1: and he about turned inside out, like took him off guard,
Speaker 1: jumped like ran over and stood there and stared at
Speaker 1: me for a little bit and then split. But I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: that didn't work work out like i'd hoped or but
Speaker 1: I didn't know what I'd really hoped. I just like
Speaker 1: I thought maybe he would probably come over and and
Speaker 1: want to check me out, but I just wanted to experiment,
Speaker 1: to see what would happen and exactly. And then last
Speaker 1: fall I did it again. But this buck was a
Speaker 1: couple hundred yards across his field and he'd kind of
Speaker 1: worked his way through this this crp field and he
Speaker 1: got to the edge of the timber there and he
Speaker 1: was kind of stopped there making a scrape. But I thought, man,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna snort wheeze that sucker, and maybe I'll come
Speaker 1: over here. And I snort weezed did him two or
Speaker 1: three times, and he'd stop and he'd stare at me,
Speaker 1: and then he'd go back to work, so I'd hit
Speaker 1: him again, and then he finally just kind of wandered off.
Speaker 1: So I feel like he probably had other things on
Speaker 1: his mind, like he's checking scrapes and not trying to
Speaker 1: fight fight guys right now right.
Speaker 2: But I'll tell you what, I think a lot of
Speaker 2: people quit too early, Like I think he doesn't come
Speaker 2: in and so you go, well, I don't want to
Speaker 2: spook him. But a lot of the deer that I've
Speaker 2: killed snort wheezing have taken way more calls than you
Speaker 2: would think. But on that first buck he talked about
Speaker 2: there this is. This might be totally freaking, it might
Speaker 2: be totally whacky, it might not be true at all,
Speaker 2: But I kind of think because I've had bucks do this,
Speaker 2: I've had bucks do that too, where you're like, man,
Speaker 2: he looks like he's primed for this, and they take
Speaker 2: off or their reaction is like super negative, and I
Speaker 2: kind of think, you know, you talk about a Kansas
Speaker 2: buck that's four or five six years old, that deer's
Speaker 2: probably visited or went down wind of a million bait
Speaker 2: sites in his life. He lives in a generally more
Speaker 2: visible environment, that deer's probably been called to a ton,
Speaker 2: So you know, I know, I mean, maybe that's crazy,
Speaker 2: but I really think there's something to that where if
Speaker 2: you think about the average hunter out there and he
Speaker 2: sees a buck that's one hundred and twenty five inches
Speaker 2: and it's not coming in, he's calling to it right
Speaker 2: like I mean, grunt, snortwheeze, is rattling whatever those deer,
Speaker 2: And you know, if you're around enough pressure, those deer
Speaker 2: might get called to every freaking time a hunter sees
Speaker 2: them in daylight. And so their reaction to that stuff.
Speaker 2: They could just be way more prone to a negative
Speaker 2: reaction in a heartbeat. And I always think, like, personally,
Speaker 2: my better responses to snort wheezing especially have been in cover.
Speaker 2: And I just think, you know, a they can't see
Speaker 2: that there's no deer there, right or not not as easily.
Speaker 2: But also I kind of wonder if they're less used
Speaker 2: to getting called to in the cover just because more
Speaker 2: people will hunt openings than anything. And you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: this might be totally it might be total bs. I
Speaker 2: don't know, but I kind of think that. And I
Speaker 2: do know without question, you know, you go, I don't
Speaker 2: care what state it is, if it's October twentieth on,
Speaker 2: almost every hunter you meet is going to have a
Speaker 2: grunt to for sure, and a hell of a lot
Speaker 2: of them are going to have a rattle bag or antlers.
Speaker 2: And if they're not blind calling, you can bet they're
Speaker 2: calling to the bucks they see. And a lot of
Speaker 2: them are not factoring anything in other than that deer's
Speaker 2: not going to come in. So I'm going to try
Speaker 2: what I can to see if I can talk him in.
Speaker 2: And so those deer get an education at a level
Speaker 2: that I don't. I don't think we can appreciate by
Speaker 2: a one off encounter, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that aligns it perfectly with elk hunting. Calling elk,
Speaker 1: especially in open country right people sit there, they'll see
Speaker 1: an elk across the claer cut or something and be like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: I need to cow call that thing in and they'll
Speaker 1: start cal calling the bowl kind of perk up and start.
Speaker 1: We'll look in and like they're not seeing any elk
Speaker 1: over there. Pretty soon they get kind of nervous and
Speaker 1: they just bolt and they get that, you know, a
Speaker 1: couple of times they get pretty wise pretty quick. And
Speaker 1: I feel like, especially in that kind of country where
Speaker 1: there's a lot of clear cut, it's a lot of logging,
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of access roads, they're getting
Speaker 1: called that all the time. Anytime someone seats season, they
Speaker 1: jump out of their pickup and start blowing blowing calls
Speaker 1: at them, just like, oh, what will happen if I
Speaker 1: blow my call at this elk? And when I'm standing
Speaker 1: by my pickup and he can visibly see me, I
Speaker 1: wonder what his reaction is going to be. Well, he's
Speaker 1: gonna run away, of course, But people do that of.
Speaker 2: Course, I'm sure well they do. And I mean I think,
Speaker 2: you know, elk are a little different because an elk
Speaker 2: bugle is meant to be heard from a long ways away,
Speaker 2: and so I don't think I think it's a little
Speaker 2: different with deer, but I think proximity to pressured animals
Speaker 2: and calling is huge. So you see that buck, you know,
Speaker 2: crossing that Kansas prairie, and he's three hundred yards away,
Speaker 2: and you snore it wheeze at him. When you hear
Speaker 2: a buck snort, wieze, it's quiet, and so already you've
Speaker 2: done even though you're making the right call, maybe you're
Speaker 2: already changing it to something that he can hear that
Speaker 2: he just does not expect. Like he's like, I don't
Speaker 2: have a buck anywhere near me, and now I can
Speaker 2: hear one challenging me. Like even even if they can't
Speaker 2: reason that out or a super loud grunt, it's not
Speaker 2: that natural. They know that, you know, they know that, right,
Speaker 2: Like they're like, I can look around me, and I'm
Speaker 2: perfectly safe. There's nobody around here. I could smell, there's
Speaker 2: nobody been here, and now I'm hearing this super loud
Speaker 2: call coming from somewhere it's just a weird thing. And
Speaker 2: so it feels like there's a you know, you don't
Speaker 2: want them too close, right, you don't want them forty
Speaker 2: yards away and snort ways out of blue because they're
Speaker 2: going to take off, you know, kind of like with Elk,
Speaker 2: Like you you hunt Elk that last seat last week
Speaker 2: of bow season and they've been pushed around and called
Speaker 2: to and everything. It's all about proximity. They're still super callable,
Speaker 2: but you got to be in like the dark timber
Speaker 2: with them, right, Like they got to be one ridge
Speaker 2: over or they got to be down below you, but
Speaker 2: like one hundred yards away or you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Like there's just a range where it just works because
Speaker 2: they're like, okay, I can't see it there. That's a
Speaker 2: natural sounding call close to me where I'm I'm where
Speaker 2: Elk are?
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: So I think a lot of that stuff factors together,
Speaker 2: and I think the same thing with white tails. There
Speaker 2: seems to be just this sweet spot of like, I
Speaker 2: don't know, fifty sixty yards out to you know, one
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty one hundred and fifty yards maybe depending
Speaker 2: on the conditions, but it's so dependent on them being
Speaker 2: very confident where they're at. And you know, you talked
Speaker 2: about that when you get an elk out in the open,
Speaker 2: they might be super comfortable out there, But during hunting season,
Speaker 2: the pressure is going to be concentrated around that meadow. Right,
Speaker 2: people are going to go a lot of different places,
Speaker 2: but a lot of people are going to go there,
Speaker 2: and so they might not just be as confident as
Speaker 2: they are in that dark timber where they they smell
Speaker 2: two hundreds a week versus twenty, you know, And I
Speaker 2: think white tails are the same way, where if you
Speaker 2: catch them where they're like, this is my spot, this
Speaker 2: is my staging area. Nobody hardly ever comes in here,
Speaker 2: you know. I know where the people come in, I
Speaker 2: know where the predators come in from. When they're in
Speaker 2: that spot, there's so much more callable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that makes perfect sense to me. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna change my tactics, my calling tactics a little bit.
Speaker 2: I don't think you need to change your calling tactics.
Speaker 1: Dude, for deer, Yeah for deer. Yeah. Cool. Well, I
Speaker 1: was gonna ask you if you could hunt one period
Speaker 1: of the white tail rut, which is your.
Speaker 2: Favorite the rut? Man if you'd asked me five years ago,
Speaker 2: I would have said the first week of November. And
Speaker 2: I'm really starting to lean hard on that last week October. Now,
Speaker 2: I just think I don't know what it is. I
Speaker 2: just think they're they get into a state where they'll
Speaker 2: they're a little more careless, but still kind of predictable,
Speaker 2: you know. When I when I get into November, you know,
Speaker 2: first week in November, first ten days in November, it's
Speaker 2: it's like often a reality check for me because in
Speaker 2: my head, I'm like, I'm going to go write out
Speaker 2: this funnel, this pinch point, some kind of train trap,
Speaker 2: and I'm I'm patient, Like I'll put in all day there,
Speaker 2: for multiple days, and I'm like, that's all I need
Speaker 2: to do to kill one. Except a lot of times
Speaker 2: I do that and I don't kill one. And it's
Speaker 2: just different when you get that late October thing where
Speaker 2: if you've done some scouting and there's a lot of
Speaker 2: sign out there then so you have a you kind
Speaker 2: of have a blueprint to follow, you get those deer
Speaker 2: staging or you get the right conditions. I think those
Speaker 2: big deer are super killable then, and it's just like
Speaker 2: not quite when everybody's going to be out there, you know,
Speaker 2: by November first, second, third, every person who's gonna hunt
Speaker 2: is going to be out there in the woods with you.
Speaker 2: And that changes things in a lot of places. Not
Speaker 2: you know, if you have five hundred acres to yourself,
Speaker 2: it's a different story. But where a lot of people hunt.
Speaker 2: You know, if you're on a small property and you're like,
Speaker 2: I got forty acres or twenty five acres to work, well,
Speaker 2: you might have fifteen twenty hunters in that section with
Speaker 2: you on Saturday morning in the first weeks of November. Sorry,
Speaker 2: and that even though you're like, I did everything right,
Speaker 2: I've my access is air tight. I got in early.
Speaker 2: My setup's great. Wins great, Well, those deer are they're
Speaker 2: encountering people all over every day just because you're doing
Speaker 2: everything right, yeah, you know, like and so I just
Speaker 2: I'm I'm constantly playing the people angle kind of in
Speaker 2: parallel with the deer, and I think way too many people.
Speaker 2: I think this is like the best way to learn
Speaker 2: this is to hunt over the counter elk, because you
Speaker 2: might know everything that elk naturally do, and you might
Speaker 2: be able to make every sound that elk naturally make.
Speaker 2: And be a wizard at it. But if you don't
Speaker 2: understand people, you don't kill all very often because because
Speaker 2: that's you can't divorce your pursuit from the fact that
Speaker 2: the woods are saturated with these predators that the elk
Speaker 2: are very scared of, and I think white tails are
Speaker 2: the same way. And so any any kind of timing
Speaker 2: where I can be like I have an advantage over
Speaker 2: the people, then I just have to work the animals more.
Speaker 2: When I go November seventh somewhere and I'm hunting public land,
Speaker 2: I have to consider the people in a major way,
Speaker 2: and that's that's just harder, you know, So I would
Speaker 2: say the last week October. The other thing I would
Speaker 2: say is I'm starting to really kind of get fond
Speaker 2: of like or November, you know, like fifteenth through twentieth,
Speaker 2: you know, the kind of traditional lockdown period that a
Speaker 2: lot of people talk about. I, you know, just this
Speaker 2: is just from running cameras the last few years, and
Speaker 2: I kind of got a plan for northern Wisconsin built
Speaker 2: around this this year. But I really think that people
Speaker 2: get in hot and heavy the beginning of November and
Speaker 2: they really start to peel out, and I'm getting pictures
Speaker 2: in some of these places, like these swamps where it's
Speaker 2: like once every two or three days, a big one
Speaker 2: will go through there in daylight. And it's not the
Speaker 2: chase fest. It's not like it's not just bonkers like
Speaker 2: you want it. But it's like he's out there with
Speaker 2: his route and he's like, there's fewer people out here.
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna take this risk, and I'm gonna stay
Speaker 2: in the cover and I'm gonna go scent and check
Speaker 2: these betting areas or whatever. And I think a patient
Speaker 2: hunter who figures that stuff out can have a really
Speaker 2: really good chance of killing big deer kind of when
Speaker 2: the rut should already sort of be tailing off a
Speaker 2: little bit for in a lot of regions anyway, obviously
Speaker 2: be a little different down south. So I'm kind of
Speaker 2: kind of going contrary and again and I'm getting out
Speaker 2: of like what most people consider the prime time, largely
Speaker 2: because most people consider it the prime time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense. Man, this has been a great,
Speaker 1: great conversation. We've given me some pretty good insight here.
Speaker 1: I have to I'm gonna have to listen to this
Speaker 1: back and kind of digest it all really well. But
Speaker 1: I think I think we covered some really good stuff.
Speaker 1: Where can people find you? You got social media or
Speaker 1: are you just on the meat eater dot com or
Speaker 1: what I mean? Sounds like they probably find you all
Speaker 1: over the place.
Speaker 2: That all the above, you know, everything we do now
Speaker 2: is for meat Eater obviously, so the mediatter dot com,
Speaker 2: the articles of podcasts, the videos, you know, primarily Instagram
Speaker 2: at Tony J. Peterson, they can find me. But if
Speaker 2: they want to read anything or listen to, you know,
Speaker 2: the Foundation's podcast I put out every week is on
Speaker 2: the wire to hunt feed at our site, you know,
Speaker 2: and also probably every single place that they you can
Speaker 2: find podcasts too. But there's there's plenty of my stuff
Speaker 2: out there. If anybody wants to just go deep and
Speaker 2: get to the point where they're sick of me, they
Speaker 2: can go find it because it's it's out there.
Speaker 1: Awesome. Well, I appreciate you coming on and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: let's uh let's connect again. I got some more questions
Speaker 1: on a on another podcast. We'll dive down some deep
Speaker 1: holes and and cover some other stuff here later in deer.
Speaker 2: Season, so anytime, brother, Kay.
Speaker 1: Well thanks a lot, Tony, Thanks man M