Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,
Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.
Speaker 1: First Light, Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.
Speaker 2: Hey everyone, welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by First Light. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about how to
Speaker 2: be efficient and effective with your winter scouting efforts. Look,
Speaker 2: we all know it's some of the most valuable time
Speaker 2: you could spend in the woods, and yet most deer
Speaker 2: hunters don't really care about winter scouting. In some situations,
Speaker 2: they probably feel like they don't need to, or they
Speaker 2: don't understand the actual value that winter scouting can bring.
Speaker 2: But for a lot of us, it's real necessary. To me,
Speaker 2: it's really the scouting that puts me in deer most
Speaker 2: of the time, at least outside of in season scouting.
Speaker 2: And even then, most of my in season scouting is
Speaker 2: at least loosely built off of what I found months
Speaker 2: and months earlier. So I plan to talk about this
Speaker 2: and quite a bit more. Right freaking now you know
Speaker 2: the uh, just do it Nike slogan. Well, my personal
Speaker 2: slogan would probably be just put it off until it
Speaker 2: drives you absolutely nuts, and then wait another two or
Speaker 2: three weeks and then do it. Being an adult kind
Speaker 2: of sucks, mostly because you always have a bunch of
Speaker 2: annoying stuff hanging over your head. You know, you have
Speaker 2: to renew your license tabs and pay the property taxes,
Speaker 2: set up the annual vet appointment for the dogs, drive
Speaker 2: the kids to choir, then to basketball practice, then to
Speaker 2: their other basketball practice, and then you have to help
Speaker 2: your father in law move a giant toolbox because your
Speaker 2: mother in law has to control everything, you know, the
Speaker 2: usual stuff. One of the things that I put off
Speaker 2: every year is emptying my boat out of like all
Speaker 2: of the tackle and rods and just sorting everything out
Speaker 2: so I can start with an organized situation and when
Speaker 2: spring comes around. I know from past experience that when
Speaker 2: I do this, I feel like a total idiot. The
Speaker 2: first time I go fishing and I look at all
Speaker 2: of the tackle I bought over the winter and how
Speaker 2: much of it I didn't really need, Or the first
Speaker 2: time I go to dig out a certain size of
Speaker 2: jerk bait or a swimming jig, and then I realized
Speaker 2: that not once all last summer did I ever put
Speaker 2: anything back in the right spot. Of course, I also
Speaker 2: fish with a bunch of kids, too, so that makes
Speaker 2: the situation about a billion times worse. I know this
Speaker 2: is a first world problem, but my boat reminds me
Speaker 2: of the kind of person I am, and I'm just
Speaker 2: not a huge fan of him most of the time.
Speaker 2: You know, mixing my Senko's up with my frog selection
Speaker 2: or my buzz baits is annoying. But it's not the
Speaker 2: only thing that just weighs on my mind this time
Speaker 2: of year when there isn't a whole hell of a
Speaker 2: lot to do. The deer that got away a last season,
Speaker 2: or the time I spent deer hunting when I just
Speaker 2: didn't feel like I had something going on. They also
Speaker 2: bother me too. There's one trail in particular that I've
Speaker 2: thought about a whole bunch of times, and I can
Speaker 2: get it out of my head. It snakes its way
Speaker 2: along a ridgetop through a clearcut that might be about
Speaker 2: I don't know, six or seven years old at this point.
Speaker 2: That ridge follows a creek bottom more or less and
Speaker 2: it's a total pain in the ass to hunt because
Speaker 2: it's so thick. But you know what, every time I
Speaker 2: hunt around there, I end up with some kind of encounter,
Speaker 2: and it's almost always tied to that ridge, and almost
Speaker 2: always tied to that specific trail. That's not that surprising
Speaker 2: to me because it's on public land, and it's the
Speaker 2: one spot on the whole portion of that property that
Speaker 2: kind of avoids all of the logging roads that the
Speaker 2: locals have turned into many highways for their four wheelers
Speaker 2: and side by sides. Now, nine years ago, I killed
Speaker 2: a buck as he walked that trail, but it was
Speaker 2: mostly because I was sitting on a perpendicular trail that
Speaker 2: bisected the ridge trail. I killed that deer in the morning,
Speaker 2: in the middle of October, and I've seen plenty of
Speaker 2: other deer use it. It's also the only trail I've
Speaker 2: ever seen a bear walk down that was just doing
Speaker 2: his thing and not coming into a pile of dough
Speaker 2: that might not carry much weight with a lot of you,
Speaker 2: but I've spent a ton of time hunting in bear
Speaker 2: country and I've only once seen one just walking on through.
Speaker 2: They don't make a lot of mistakes like that, and
Speaker 2: I really don't know how they do it, but they
Speaker 2: don't show themselves very much. A good sized bear that
Speaker 2: feels safe enough to travel the same trail that's some
Speaker 2: bigger than your average bucks like to use tells you.
Speaker 2: Something tells me that I shouldn't be so lazy, and
Speaker 2: I should go walk that trail out, along with any
Speaker 2: other trails that might peel off of it. So that's
Speaker 2: what I'm gonna do. Now, we are stuck in some
Speaker 2: sort of purgatory constructed around what seems like an infinite
Speaker 2: supply of seventh grade girls basketball tournaments, and these absolutely
Speaker 2: insane suburban moms who embrace that shit like it's the
Speaker 2: hobby they've been waiting for their whole lives, and they
Speaker 2: don't seem to understand that there's other cool stuff to
Speaker 2: do out there. So I have to find a weekend
Speaker 2: when my kids aren't playing in some random city. But
Speaker 2: it's looking like a window has opened up, So I'm
Speaker 2: making a plan. I know, with the the snowcover we
Speaker 2: have now, the scrapes from last year are going to
Speaker 2: be impossible to find unless I get lucky and spot
Speaker 2: a very obvious licking branch in a very obvious type
Speaker 2: of spot for a scrape, but I don't really care
Speaker 2: about scrapes right now. I want to see the trails
Speaker 2: and I want to see rubs. And I know that
Speaker 2: exact trail that I'm interested in that also had a
Speaker 2: really good deer on it last fall when I pulled
Speaker 2: my saddle set up one evening to make the long
Speaker 2: hike out. I know that trail is going to have
Speaker 2: plenty of rubs on it. So my first goal with
Speaker 2: winter scouting this year is to start right by the
Speaker 2: property boundary and work toward the interior along that trail.
Speaker 2: I want to see which way the rubs are facing
Speaker 2: to get an idea of when the bucks were there,
Speaker 2: and I want to see if it leads me to
Speaker 2: some benches or something else that might indicate a nice
Speaker 2: little buck bedding area. Because I assume it's in there,
Speaker 2: I want to walk its entire length, which in a
Speaker 2: property of several thousand acres might take me a while.
Speaker 2: But I know I'm missing a lot out there, and
Speaker 2: while I've had decent success hunting around it, I haven't
Speaker 2: dove into it, you know, to really kind of piece
Speaker 2: it out. And that's the best part about winter scouting,
Speaker 2: and unlike organizing my boat, I'm really looking forward to
Speaker 2: this mission because here's the thing. I don't know how
Speaker 2: to hunt them well on that trail, and scouting is
Speaker 2: an activity that is supposed to inform us on how
Speaker 2: to hunt spots better. I don't know why I feel
Speaker 2: the need to say that, I just kind of do.
Speaker 2: I think it's because we look at scouting this time
Speaker 2: of year like it's mostly just a bonus situation, kind
Speaker 2: of like how it's easier to spend money on Payday
Speaker 2: than two weeks later when you're waiting on that next
Speaker 2: check to hit your account. It feels like we have
Speaker 2: all the time in the world right now, and learning
Speaker 2: what we can in February doesn't really hold a strong
Speaker 2: connection to our fall success, at least for a lot
Speaker 2: of us. But it does. I've said this before, and
Speaker 2: I'm sure i'll say it again, but winter scouting is important,
Speaker 2: if for no other reason, then it's like a free
Speaker 2: play where you can go any damn where you please
Speaker 2: and look at any part of your hunting ground you
Speaker 2: want to look at without any fear of pushing your
Speaker 2: target bucks out to get shot by the neighbor or
Speaker 2: just knocking them off some kind of pattern. There's also
Speaker 2: the benefit of time, but most importantly, this is the
Speaker 2: moment of the year when you can just go, try
Speaker 2: to answer some questions and get a clear picture not
Speaker 2: only of the deer on your ground, but the ground
Speaker 2: on your ground. That ridgetop trail I'm going to figure out.
Speaker 2: I can see it on on X. I know roughly
Speaker 2: how it courses through the landscape. I've shot grouse and
Speaker 2: woodcock around it, so it's not a total question mark
Speaker 2: to me. But when you take a travel route that
Speaker 2: might consist of a third or a half of a
Speaker 2: mile or more, not to mention all of that distance
Speaker 2: can be traveled pretty much in thick cover, it's impossible
Speaker 2: to know how to really hunt it without just diving in.
Speaker 2: What I plan to do is look for spots where
Speaker 2: that trail allows me to get an edge on the bucks,
Speaker 2: which means I have to figure out a crafty approach
Speaker 2: for morning and evening sits, and I have to pay
Speaker 2: close attention to how to hunt various sections of it
Speaker 2: with different winds. This is a big one because I
Speaker 2: know that the trail runs mostly east to west, with
Speaker 2: the uphill side to the north. That means south winds
Speaker 2: are going to be tough, but depending on where I
Speaker 2: have to sit, east or west winds might be a
Speaker 2: no go too. But I also know a trail like
Speaker 2: that doesn't exist in a straight line. It'll weave through
Speaker 2: the cover according to the shape of the land, and
Speaker 2: there will be spots where the bucks will have to
Speaker 2: travel not straight east or west, and those areas are
Speaker 2: interesting to me. I want a spot where he has
Speaker 2: to give up something, even if it's just in a
Speaker 2: small section, because that's an advantage I can use. Now.
Speaker 2: I can't know that stuff just from east gout. Neither
Speaker 2: can you. You can make a guess on ambush sites,
Speaker 2: but until you get in there and put your eyeballs
Speaker 2: on the land, you really just can't know. My guess
Speaker 2: just by knowing how thicket is in there is that
Speaker 2: there won't be a ton of good spots to hunt
Speaker 2: from a tree. There will probably be some, And I
Speaker 2: also just want to know if there are any big
Speaker 2: oak trees standing around in there, possibly left by foresters
Speaker 2: at seed trees. A single tree dropping some hard masks
Speaker 2: in a spot where they feel secure can be the
Speaker 2: ticket to filling a tag. In late September or throughout October.
Speaker 2: Those deer don't have a bunch of dreamy alfalfa and
Speaker 2: cornfields to go to, kind of like a lot of
Speaker 2: deer down in the Deep South that spend their time
Speaker 2: in the swamps and endless seas of timber. It's also
Speaker 2: true that a tree with a good canopy, you know,
Speaker 2: that happens to be located in fairly thick cover, like
Speaker 2: a clear cut. We'll have some open ground beneath it
Speaker 2: compared to the rest of the cover, and that does
Speaker 2: two things. It often gives you a chance to shoot,
Speaker 2: which is important on public land where you can't cut
Speaker 2: shooting lanes. But it also often creates a soft edge
Speaker 2: around the tree. Soft edges are deer magnets, and they
Speaker 2: are something I'll be looking for pretty heavily during my
Speaker 2: winter scouting trips over to Wisconsin this year. Another part
Speaker 2: of my plan, one that I forget about when I
Speaker 2: start hiking, is that I'm going to drop more pins
Speaker 2: and cross reference what I see in person with what
Speaker 2: I see on on X. The thing about this spot
Speaker 2: is that a lot of people use the logging roads,
Speaker 2: you know, They just drive them for fun and they
Speaker 2: try to shoot an easy grouse from one, they just
Speaker 2: offer up a lot of access. What I want to
Speaker 2: know as I follow that ridgetop trail is how it
Speaker 2: allows the deer to avoid those easy access logging roads,
Speaker 2: and how I might be able to use those logging
Speaker 2: roads for access myself, especially on morning hunts where hiking
Speaker 2: the long way through a clear cut is generally an
Speaker 2: exercise in torture. Of course, maybe the greatest thing about
Speaker 2: really making a winter scouting plan isn't that you get
Speaker 2: to answer some of the big deer questions you have,
Speaker 2: but that it gets you to ask a lot more questions.
Speaker 2: I know when I head over there, I'll get distracted
Speaker 2: by sign and trails and folds and the terrain. And
Speaker 2: while my mission is laid out pretty clearly in my head,
Speaker 2: I also understand myself well enough to know that I
Speaker 2: can deviate from a plan real quick. But I don't care,
Speaker 2: because that will help me learn some stuff this winter too.
Speaker 2: Now you might be thinking, well, that's great, dude, you
Speaker 2: go do your thing, But how does that help me
Speaker 2: with my spot, which isn't anything like a chunk of
Speaker 2: big woods and wolf country? Well, what don't you know
Speaker 2: about deer movement? On your place. Are you one of
Speaker 2: those people who has a good lease and a pile
Speaker 2: of hitlisters every year and think you have it all
Speaker 2: figured out? I bet you don't, And I bet there
Speaker 2: are things you think are true which you don't really know.
Speaker 2: Like your deer are always nocturnal in October, which you
Speaker 2: may know is true because you don't see the big
Speaker 2: bucks and your camera's slow down. Okay, maybe that is true.
Speaker 2: Or maybe you don't see them because they aren't traveling
Speaker 2: in the spots you like to hunt, so you put
Speaker 2: less effort in and suddenly your expectations meet the reality
Speaker 2: that you expect kind of manifest your own destiny there.
Speaker 2: Maybe the deer aren't running across the countryside with reckless abandoned,
Speaker 2: but they are laying down tons of sign in some
Speaker 2: tight areas like a few valleys or the creek bottom
Speaker 2: you consider off limits because you just know all the
Speaker 2: big deer bed there. Is there a way to walk
Speaker 2: that now and figure out something to do during the
Speaker 2: times when you think it would be better to not hunt.
Speaker 2: I think the thing that might be most beneficial about
Speaker 2: winter scouting, or at least it's way up there, is
Speaker 2: how often I find like a half acre that has
Speaker 2: just rubbed a shit somewhere. The natural inclination here is
Speaker 2: to assume it's a buck's bedroom and that most of
Speaker 2: the rubs were made, you know, probably around Halloween, but
Speaker 2: that's probably not true. Oftentimes those little spots are staging areas,
Speaker 2: and while more of the rubs might have showed up
Speaker 2: the last week October than the first, it doesn't mean
Speaker 2: that those bucks weren't there at other points of the season.
Speaker 2: Those areas are safety zones, which is why there is
Speaker 2: so much sign there. It's not because they love the
Speaker 2: spot and that prompts them to mark it up. It's
Speaker 2: because it's safe for them to be there in daylight,
Speaker 2: and you know, while they're waiting to run out the clock,
Speaker 2: they leave lots of sign. Finding those areas is often
Speaker 2: the ticket to not having nearly as much downtime in
Speaker 2: the season as you could have, and at the very least,
Speaker 2: they make a compelling argument for some summertime in early
Speaker 2: fall trail camera recon Now, I kind of look at
Speaker 2: winter scouting like I look at elk hunting in and
Speaker 2: over the counter unit in Colorado. I know the bulls
Speaker 2: are there, but they will be where most people don't go,
Speaker 2: and often that's just down the hill from the road
Speaker 2: or in the drainage above the trailhead that is full
Speaker 2: of nasty, dark timber. It doesn't have to be far,
Speaker 2: it just has to be overlooked. Now, even on properties
Speaker 2: where we are the only ones hunting these deer, there
Speaker 2: are usually so many places that we overlook. Hell, I
Speaker 2: find this quite a bit on properties I hunt that
Speaker 2: are small, like twenty five or thirty acres, and it's
Speaker 2: almost a certainty that when you start to get some
Speaker 2: more acreage to work with, you start to find all
Speaker 2: kinds of spots where that you just use them because
Speaker 2: we just don't. Winter scouting is like a cheat code
Speaker 2: for finding those areas. And while it might be beneficial
Speaker 2: to find a good rub line just below the access road,
Speaker 2: what you really need to use winter scouting for is
Speaker 2: to convince yourself that your findings are beneficial. This is
Speaker 2: the hard part about walking your deer ground out in February.
Speaker 2: There's so much time for our discoveries to fade in
Speaker 2: our memories a little bit, and for us to talk
Speaker 2: ourselves into running cameras where we always run cameras, and
Speaker 2: setting stands where we always set stands, but don't do that.
Speaker 2: Go scout this winter with a plan, drop plenty of
Speaker 2: way points, mark your tracks, think about the spots you
Speaker 2: don't go to during the season, ask yourself why they
Speaker 2: use this trail, and then walk it to see what
Speaker 2: you can come up with. Go explore. We often get
Speaker 2: so locked up in the idea of being super conservative
Speaker 2: with our presence in the woods that we hold ourselves
Speaker 2: back under the guise of b being wise old deer hunters.
Speaker 2: Now that may hold some water in the season or
Speaker 2: the immediate preseason. And keep in mind, I said may,
Speaker 2: because I hunt public land all the time, and myself
Speaker 2: and the other hunters out there, of which there are
Speaker 2: often many, don't seem all that concerned with maintaining sanctuaries.
Speaker 2: And on that ground, there are big deer to be
Speaker 2: found and hunted, even where they get bumped around a lot.
Speaker 2: So even if you don't believe that, I don't care,
Speaker 2: because it doesn't matter when it comes to winter scouting.
Speaker 2: You can go deep into every nook and cranny and
Speaker 2: figure out a hell of a lot about what the
Speaker 2: bucks did last fall, and that can inform your summer
Speaker 2: scouting decisions and your fall hunting plans, and it really should.
Speaker 2: So do that and then come back next week because
Speaker 2: I'm going to talk about the changing landscape of drawing
Speaker 2: all kinds of hunting tags from turkeys to deer to
Speaker 2: elk in what that means for you. If you ever
Speaker 2: want to travel to hunt again, that's it. I'm Tony Peterson.
Speaker 2: This has been the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which
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