Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast, your guide
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better dear hunting. Present it by
Speaker 1: First Light, creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand,
Speaker 1: saddle or blind. First Light, Go farther, stay longer, and
Speaker 1: now your host Tony Peterson.
Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, welcome to the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast,
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by First Light. Today's episode
Speaker 2: is kind of a continuation of last week's episode, but
Speaker 2: now we're going to cover just how to glasp most
Speaker 2: efficiently no matter what type of environment you plan to
Speaker 2: scout or hunt. Glassing is an art, but art exists
Speaker 2: on a spectrum. Your kid's finger paintings might end up
Speaker 2: on a fridge, you know, in an overzealous display of
Speaker 2: their burgeoning abilities, but they aren't likely to fetch a
Speaker 2: couple hundred thousand gees at a fancy New York auction
Speaker 2: house just like that. Glassing can be a simil as
Speaker 2: looking out your picture window with binos to check out
Speaker 2: the deer in the neighbor's field, or it can involve
Speaker 2: a real strategy for getting into an advantageous spot and
Speaker 2: trying to watch as much game friendly terrain as possible.
Speaker 2: The latter is a better bet mostly, and that's what
Speaker 2: I plan to talk about right freaking now. We're lucky
Speaker 2: to have a destination trailer on a little plot of
Speaker 2: land in northern Minnesota that allows us to live the
Speaker 2: lake cabin kind of lifestyle without the price tag of
Speaker 2: actually having a real cabin on a lake. It's pretty sweet.
Speaker 2: But one of the downsides is that I have all
Speaker 2: of my in laws right there with me as well.
Speaker 2: I mean, and by that I honestly mean at any
Speaker 2: given point there might be ten to fifty of them
Speaker 2: swarming around and living the vacation life too. Now, I'm
Speaker 2: actually pretty lucky with my in laws, so I'm not
Speaker 2: going plain about them too much, but I'll just say
Speaker 2: this that sometimes it can be a little overwhelming. Anyway,
Speaker 2: back in early May, while I was off trying to
Speaker 2: shoot a turkey somewhere, my wife brought the girls up
Speaker 2: to the lake. At that time, the water was really high,
Speaker 2: like flood stage high, and it was minutes out of
Speaker 2: ice out, which put our water temperatures at hypothermia level.
Speaker 2: It's the worst time of the year to be there,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, because the lake looks somewhat fishable and
Speaker 2: the water is open. But the truth is you can't
Speaker 2: even use the landing to get your boat in, and
Speaker 2: if you did, the only thing you'd catch as a
Speaker 2: cold or maybe you'd catch a few pale crappies in
Speaker 2: one of the wintering holes, but overall it would mostly
Speaker 2: just be a lost cause. That was during that kind
Speaker 2: of weather, on that kind of weekend when my wife
Speaker 2: happened to talk to a few of her relatives, and
Speaker 2: apparently one of them, who has a young toddler aged child,
Speaker 2: had one of her young toddler aged children playing along
Speaker 2: the edge the lake. He was out of her site
Speaker 2: and in the spot where if he fell in you
Speaker 2: might not know it for a while. So really not
Speaker 2: a great situation. And when my wife mentioned this to
Speaker 2: the mom, she was pretty dismissive of the whole thing,
Speaker 2: which fired my bride right up. Now, just like art,
Speaker 2: parenting exists on a spectrum. You have fairal free range
Speaker 2: types like my wife's in laws, who have far more
Speaker 2: faith in the general survivability of their kids than most folks.
Speaker 2: Then you have the helicopter parents who breastfeed their kids
Speaker 2: until they are preteens and don't require them to move
Speaker 2: out of the house and grow up until they're in
Speaker 2: their thirties. My wife is pretty centered between those two extremes,
Speaker 2: and in defense of calling out a relative, she said,
Speaker 2: I think when you're around a cold lake with a
Speaker 2: three year old, you should have line of sight on
Speaker 2: them at all times. I hate to admit it, but
Speaker 2: that's pretty reasonable for the mom to get line of
Speaker 2: sight on her kid in that situation. Anyway, she would
Speaker 2: have had to leave the patio furniture I'm through a
Speaker 2: small ditch, and watch your kid from a less comfortable spot.
Speaker 2: She opted to stay put, and now her and my
Speaker 2: wife have to mean mug each other when they are together,
Speaker 2: and I have to pretend like I don't want to
Speaker 2: put rocks in my pockets and jump over her toddler
Speaker 2: into the lake, so I don't have to hear about
Speaker 2: this kind of dumb shit anymore. Anyway, I'll get to
Speaker 2: my point. When we glass, we often take the easy
Speaker 2: way out. We don't think of our line a site
Speaker 2: a whole lot. We don't think about what will spook.
Speaker 2: We just kind of do the easy thing, and we
Speaker 2: figure if we get eyes on something that's good enough,
Speaker 2: there's a net positive. Now, There is an obvious difference
Speaker 2: between trying to glass up a meal deer to stalk
Speaker 2: versus trying to lay eyes on a couple of potential
Speaker 2: hitlisters in the summer as they munch on some alfalf
Speaker 2: our soybeans. The purpose of the glassing session might be different,
Speaker 2: but the strategy for glassing correctly probably shouldn't be kind
Speaker 2: of want to treat it like you're a sniper. Get in,
Speaker 2: get the job done, and get out, all while not
Speaker 2: getting detected. This requires planning and the idea that you
Speaker 2: shouldn't be glassing like most people. Take something that drives
Speaker 2: me a little nuts but also works in my favor,
Speaker 2: which is glassing from a vehicle. Now, listen, there are
Speaker 2: some situations where this just makes sense. If you hunt
Speaker 2: where there's a fair amount of traffic near where the
Speaker 2: animals are visible, you're probably not going to disturb anything
Speaker 2: by using a window mounted spotting scope. But this can
Speaker 2: go south in a hurry if the animals aren't real
Speaker 2: accustomed to close proximity vehicles. They're an awful lot of
Speaker 2: places where you can see deer from your truck, but
Speaker 2: the deer do not trust a vehicle that is stopped
Speaker 2: or slowed down on a nearby road, and they're going
Speaker 2: to bolt. This is true a Western game too, even
Speaker 2: though this seems like the primary method of a lot
Speaker 2: of Western hunters to scout. I also believe, through about
Speaker 2: seven thousand different hunting experiences in my life, that most
Speaker 2: of the bigger animals you might want to take a
Speaker 2: look at and eventually shoot aren't all that comfortable being
Speaker 2: visible from the road. Pressured critters tend to find comfort
Speaker 2: and seclusion, and that might be as simple as feeding
Speaker 2: one ridge beyond the road. It might be as simple
Speaker 2: as feeding in a low spot or a tucked away
Speaker 2: corner of a field. Whatever the case, unless your quary
Speaker 2: has proven to you that they are just fine with
Speaker 2: close vehicle traffic, assume they aren't, and then make a
Speaker 2: plan to glass from a better spot. Let me give
Speaker 2: you an example of this that kind of changed my
Speaker 2: entire thinking around using optics in the field. When I
Speaker 2: first started hunting in western North Dakota, I picked an
Speaker 2: area of river bottom I thought might hold some white
Speaker 2: tails to prove that my spidy senses were solid. I
Speaker 2: also looked at on X until I found the highest
Speaker 2: point possible that looked like it would give me a
Speaker 2: good view of an awful lot of that river bottom.
Speaker 2: It was maybe a one mile hike in with a
Speaker 2: pretty decent North Dakota level climb to the glassing spot,
Speaker 2: so all in all about as much effort as it
Speaker 2: takes to make oatmeal and coffee and elk camp on
Speaker 2: an average DIY hunt. When I first climbed up to
Speaker 2: the point I had marked, I realized the view was
Speaker 2: better than I expected. I could see most of like
Speaker 2: two miles of river bottom. I could see a private
Speaker 2: field that was teeming with critters, and I could see
Speaker 2: a big brushy flat that had mixed in sage and
Speaker 2: small patches of timber. It was probably the most fun
Speaker 2: I've ever had behind a spotter. There were white tails everywhere,
Speaker 2: but there were also elk, meal, deer, and antelope. It
Speaker 2: was also nearly impossible to get busted where I set up.
Speaker 2: In other words, it was the ideal glassing location. It
Speaker 2: let me watch deer cross the river and marked specific
Speaker 2: trees for stands, and it allowed me to see deer
Speaker 2: head back in the morning, all while staying undetected and
Speaker 2: gleaning so much actionable information that one spot and the
Speaker 2: things I've learned from glassing there over multiple seasons, has
Speaker 2: helped me fill probably like eight white tail taggs and
Speaker 2: at least one meal deer tag. It's also just one
Speaker 2: of my favorite places to be in the world. Now
Speaker 2: that example involves a couple of things that make glassing easier.
Speaker 2: The terrain is ideal for hauling a spot her up
Speaker 2: to a point. Open country is like that. It was also,
Speaker 2: at least before EHD burned through in every single hunter
Speaker 2: in the country figured out that program full of animals,
Speaker 2: which certainly helps your glassing efforts. But what do you
Speaker 2: do if your glassing situation isn't like that? Well, figure
Speaker 2: it out. Let's say, for example, you only want to
Speaker 2: watch white tails, but you hunt an area that is
Speaker 2: a mix of big woods with a few random hayfields
Speaker 2: or other egg fields mixed in. Where are the openings
Speaker 2: where you can watch? It's first step, just find them
Speaker 2: if you can hunt one of the fields. The job
Speaker 2: of figuring out how to glass it involves just planning
Speaker 2: to get in and out and not getting winded or spotted.
Speaker 2: It's usually not that hard, but it might take a
Speaker 2: little trial and error. But what if you hunt a
Speaker 2: wooded patch that has no openings, but maybe border some fields.
Speaker 2: We'll talk into the woods and glass the openings. The
Speaker 2: deer you're hunting, at least some of them will come
Speaker 2: from your woods. And if they aren't visible on yours,
Speaker 2: but you can stay on the right side of the
Speaker 2: fence and watch them, then you need to plan for that. Again, though,
Speaker 2: this involves access and involves playing the wind, which might
Speaker 2: mean you can only glass in certain types of weather.
Speaker 2: The reason that you want to be so careful about
Speaker 2: your glassing, whether we're talking summertime white tails or game
Speaker 2: time Western critters, is because you actually want to observe
Speaker 2: what they do. This is not a game where the
Speaker 2: sole goal is to just lay eyes on some critter.
Speaker 2: That's great, but it doesn't mean that much. You want
Speaker 2: to lay eyes on critters, but then watch what they do.
Speaker 2: I talked about this last week, and I believe it.
Speaker 2: Your goal isn't just to verify they exist, but to
Speaker 2: find them and learn what they like to do. I
Speaker 2: know I've said this a lot, but when a deer, elk,
Speaker 2: or whatever shows you what they like to do, they're
Speaker 2: not lying. If they are acting naturally, they're not spooked.
Speaker 2: You're witnessing their truth. You're looking at so many things
Speaker 2: that could help you close the distance and get into
Speaker 2: their guard. So much value there, but it involves being
Speaker 2: smart and often more effort than we want to give.
Speaker 2: I've seen this a lot with people who go out
Speaker 2: west for the first time. Often they just bring binoculars
Speaker 2: and that's it. They scan over several thousand acres aground
Speaker 2: and declare after a few minutes that all the meal
Speaker 2: there are better not a sight, or they aren't there
Speaker 2: at all. A good glasser will be there for hours,
Speaker 2: picking apart the cover. They'll divide the deeper shadows into
Speaker 2: quadrants and slowly pick them apart. They'll look at all
Speaker 2: the shadows for a bit of antler or a throat patch.
Speaker 2: They'll find something where most folks won't. And this is
Speaker 2: a skill that feeds itself. It's a self perpetuating machine.
Speaker 2: Think of it this way. If you hunt pheasants with
Speaker 2: someone who is pretty good with dogs and happens to
Speaker 2: have some pretty good dogs, they'll kill more birds than
Speaker 2: the average non dog owner, even if that non dog
Speaker 2: owner is a world class wingshooter. And you might be thinking, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: this is because the dogs will kick up more birds
Speaker 2: for the owner, which is one hundred percent true. But
Speaker 2: it's also a reality that someone who can easily and
Speaker 2: readily read dogs is going to know when the birds
Speaker 2: are close. There's more to it than seeing an excited
Speaker 2: bird dog and saying, old Hank is birdy? Better get
Speaker 2: ready to take that safety off. They know the young
Speaker 2: dog will give false positives but show off a lot
Speaker 2: while doing it, just as they know the old dog,
Speaker 2: who isn't flashy anymore, will only tell the truth with
Speaker 2: its body language. Even in cover where the dogs are
Speaker 2: barely visible, a glimpse of them tells you so much,
Speaker 2: just as the sound of a tail whacking the cattails
Speaker 2: can tell you the right person all he needs to
Speaker 2: know about the prospect of a rooster getting up that
Speaker 2: lead time. That awareness, even if it's only a second,
Speaker 2: is a huge advantage. That person is just at a
Speaker 2: different level, just like someone who is patient at glassing
Speaker 2: will almost always be more successful than someone who views
Speaker 2: it as a way to pass time and not a
Speaker 2: way to find an animal worth hunting. The discipline person
Speaker 2: learns to look for pieces of game, pieces of a
Speaker 2: game animal anyway, and not a whole critter, and they
Speaker 2: learn to go back and forth between binoculars and spotting
Speaker 2: scope so they don't miss anything and they learn as
Speaker 2: much as possible. This is because even when they have
Speaker 2: a good buck or bull to watch, they know there
Speaker 2: is going to be other actors on the stage somewhere.
Speaker 2: A velvet meal that you're browsing in the stage should
Speaker 2: demand some of your attention. But if you want to
Speaker 2: stalk him, you might want to do a real thorough
Speaker 2: sweep with your binos to see who else is around
Speaker 2: who might blow up the whole thing if you try
Speaker 2: to stalk. Or maybe you're watching a bachelor group of
Speaker 2: white tails and they are all feeding contentedly in the beans,
Speaker 2: so you ignore the lone buck who is a scraper anyway,
Speaker 2: and you miss the time he drops in and do
Speaker 2: a draw and comes back out with wet feet. Sure
Speaker 2: he's not the buck you want to kill. You're watching
Speaker 2: the other deer. They're bigger, But did he just give
Speaker 2: you something actionable to think about? With the rest of
Speaker 2: the deer? Those other bucks, the bigger ones, they're going
Speaker 2: to get thirsty too. Do you even know where he was?
Speaker 2: Do you know where he went? Do you know why
Speaker 2: there was water in there? There's so many actionable things
Speaker 2: out there if you're watching and paying attention. And the
Speaker 2: thing about it is, the more you do this, the
Speaker 2: better you get. It's just like hunting from a tree
Speaker 2: saddle or setting up ground blinds for turkeys, calling ducks. Hell,
Speaker 2: it's just like every outdoor skill, but this one is
Speaker 2: real important and it doesn't get that much love anymore.
Speaker 2: We kind of take it for granted that everyone knows
Speaker 2: how to use optics to look at stuff, but it's
Speaker 2: just not true. I mean, maybe the easiest way to
Speaker 2: frame this up is to think about someone who is
Speaker 2: not very comfortable with the spotting scope. Now ask that
Speaker 2: person to find a small object that is seven hundred
Speaker 2: yards away by pointing out terrain features. This happens in
Speaker 2: hunting a lot, and it usually goes something like this
Speaker 2: found one where look at that dip on the second ridge.
Speaker 2: See it? Yep. Now follow the left side down until
Speaker 2: you see that light colored bush or tree. From there,
Speaker 2: he's like one hundred yards downhill by that seater that
Speaker 2: looks like it's half burnt, but it's actually just brown
Speaker 2: or something. You got him? Uh nope, Okay, do you
Speaker 2: see the seater? Yep? Follow that little blaze of sunlight
Speaker 2: straight up into the right. He's off behind that slight rise,
Speaker 2: so you can only see the tips of his antlers.
Speaker 2: Now I still don't have him, Holy frog, smackers man,
Speaker 2: Just look at the freaking spot of sunlight and then
Speaker 2: you know, and it just keeps going. That kind of
Speaker 2: conversation whispered screaming fighting conversation happens between hunting partners a
Speaker 2: lot when there's a lot of glassing. It always devolves
Speaker 2: into this frustrating whisper fight that might make the casual
Speaker 2: passerby if there was one out there, think they are
Speaker 2: listening to a marital spat. The last thing isn't actually
Speaker 2: as easy as it looks, And what's worse is that
Speaker 2: it's a skill you have to work to develop. The
Speaker 2: best way to do this is to find reasons to glass,
Speaker 2: and then to do it around an actual strategy where
Speaker 2: you solve for ahead of time at least a few
Speaker 2: of the problems you're likely to run into. This results
Speaker 2: in better, more productive glassing sessions, of course, but it
Speaker 2: also helps you in the grand scheme of things, because
Speaker 2: you know what your problem solving. In an effort to
Speaker 2: be more efficient in the field. The more you work
Speaker 2: that muscle, my friends, the stronger it gets. You can
Speaker 2: do this if you're outfitted with the best optics money
Speaker 2: can buy, and of course all the sweet accessories that
Speaker 2: go along with that, or you're running a basement pair
Speaker 2: of hand me down binoculars that probably saw a little
Speaker 2: combat time in the Last Great War. While the right
Speaker 2: optics are important for a lot of what we do,
Speaker 2: they aren't totally necessary. What is is using whatever optics
Speaker 2: you can get your hands on, and hopefully they're decent,
Speaker 2: to figure out as much as possible from a good
Speaker 2: safe distance while not spooking anything, and just vacuuming up
Speaker 2: as much intel as the critters will throw your way.
Speaker 2: Think about that. Think about the last two weeks I've
Speaker 2: talked about glassing and how you could increase your optics
Speaker 2: game and figure out how to scout better. Think about that.
Speaker 2: As we get deeper this summer and the white tail
Speaker 2: scouting starts to ramp up and itch to head west,
Speaker 2: this season hits a fever pitch, think about tuning in
Speaker 2: next week because I'm going to talk about how much
Speaker 2: I love antelope and why I think every single person
Speaker 2: should hunt them at least once just to see what
Speaker 2: it's like. And I urge you to listen to it
Speaker 2: even if you have no interest in antelope hunting, because
Speaker 2: I'm going to make my best country lawyer case for
Speaker 2: why you should at least think about antelope as a
Speaker 2: potential reason to point your truck west. That's it for
Speaker 2: this week, my friends. I'm Tony Peterson. This has been
Speaker 2: the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which is brought to
Speaker 2: you by First Light. As always, thank you so much
Speaker 2: for listening and for all your support. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Mark really appreciates it. Everybody at Mediator really appreciates your support.
Speaker 2: And if you want a little bit more white tail
Speaker 2: content or hunting content in general, you can head on
Speaker 2: over to the meediater dot com and you can find
Speaker 2: all kinds of video series. You can find all kinds
Speaker 2: of articles by myself and Mark and Alex Gilstrom and
Speaker 2: Beaumartonic and a whole bunch of really good writers.