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 has brought to you by First Light. You might
Speaker 2: have seen this already, but first Light has some new
Speaker 2: gear out that's pretty freak and sweet, including the three
Speaker 2: toaded pants and the Uma base layers. Check them out
Speaker 2: if you want some good stuff. Today's episode is all
Speaker 2: about understanding limited resources and how they affect big buck behavior.
Speaker 2: I've been thinking about this topic for a while, but
Speaker 2: it really hit home with me when a buddy purchased
Speaker 2: a beautiful property in southwestern Wisconsin a few years ago.
Speaker 2: That land and what it offers is pretty dreamy, but
Speaker 2: his take on it was a lot different than mine,
Speaker 2: and it got me thinking about what do you really
Speaker 2: need in any given area and how that's sort of
Speaker 2: the key to figuring this stuff out really no matter
Speaker 2: where you live. Now. I'm going to get into that
Speaker 2: in a second, but first, if you like these podcasts
Speaker 2: and you like dogs, I have some great news for
Speaker 2: you over on Old Cow's podcast feed, where you can
Speaker 2: find his weekend review in Snort Reports. You can also
Speaker 2: now check out Houndations, which is a dog based podcast
Speaker 2: just like this one that I plan to drop every
Speaker 2: two weeks. Dog training, dog breeds, dog health, dog whatever
Speaker 2: you name it, it's going to be covered over there.
Speaker 2: If you're so inclined, go check them out. But first,
Speaker 2: let's talk about some deer. I'm convinced that so many
Speaker 2: folks today are just whiny ass biznatchos these days for
Speaker 2: one good reason. They've had a pretty good life. Now.
Speaker 2: I know everyone has their struggles, but most of us
Speaker 2: aren't struggling today in any manner like folks struggle in
Speaker 2: a lot of the parts of the world, or how
Speaker 2: they struggled not too many decades ago. Now that's a
Speaker 2: broad generalization, of course, but for a good swath of
Speaker 2: the population it's pretty true. And listen, I can throw
Speaker 2: a pity party with the best of them, so I'm
Speaker 2: not exempting myself here either. In fact, it's during certain
Speaker 2: hunts where I get some not so subtle reminders of this.
Speaker 2: Take my last el kant in twenty twenty two. I'd
Speaker 2: never killed one over water, and since it was hot
Speaker 2: and I was there in the first week of September,
Speaker 2: I decided I was going to do just that. Now,
Speaker 2: I'm a patient guy when I believe an animal will
Speaker 2: eventually show up, so I rode out several dark to
Speaker 2: dark sits over water. I saw a few bulls from
Speaker 2: stand too, which is pretty freaking cool. What wasn't cool
Speaker 2: was that they were either all spooked or, in the
Speaker 2: case of a really nice five by five, using the
Speaker 2: wind to approach the water. Now, if you want to
Speaker 2: feel deflated, go put in about forty hours in like
Speaker 2: three days of sitting, and then watch a random mid
Speaker 2: afternoon bowl walk over the ridge and right into your
Speaker 2: scent stream at about thirty five yards. It took a
Speaker 2: switch from our starting spot to a much deeper in
Speaker 2: the back country backup spot and another pair of nearly
Speaker 2: all days sits before I leaned out in my saddle
Speaker 2: and shot a big, thirsty five by five while his
Speaker 2: younger buddies watched. That bowl died six miles in and
Speaker 2: we were on our sixth day of bivy hunting in
Speaker 2: the back country. Now, if you've never packed out a
Speaker 2: big bowl that far. Let me tell you something, It's
Speaker 2: the most wonderfully horrible experience you can imagine. After a while,
Speaker 2: every step is just like a tiny bit of torture.
Speaker 2: You know, you're already low on sleep and haven't eaten
Speaker 2: enough calories for you know, nearly a week, and then
Speaker 2: you have to do something that is so physically demanding
Speaker 2: it just takes you into de deep dark water. By
Speaker 2: the end of that pack job, which included not only
Speaker 2: getting all the usable parts of that bowl to the trailhead,
Speaker 2: and then an extra trip to round up our camps,
Speaker 2: I felt like a different version of myself at the
Speaker 2: end of something like that. Your body tells you what
Speaker 2: it needs. And on that last trip down the mountain,
Speaker 2: my hunting partner and I talked about two very different topics.
Speaker 2: The first one I can't really mention on this podcast,
Speaker 2: but if you've ever been in a back country for
Speaker 2: like ten days, you probably know what I mean. Your
Speaker 2: inner cave man comes out and you think a lot
Speaker 2: about one of the main reasons you got married in
Speaker 2: the first place, and that wasn't so you could mow
Speaker 2: the lawn for fifty seven years and then die on
Speaker 2: your porch, my friends. The second one is food, greasy
Speaker 2: bar food, bacon, cheeseburgers, fries, mazzarella sticks, pizza, ice cream, lemonade.
Speaker 2: You don't ever want to see another cliff bar again.
Speaker 2: Forget trail mix, Forget a bag of freeze dried whatever
Speaker 2: that makes you blow mud all over the mountain. Those
Speaker 2: little packets of almond butter or peanut butter ough puke,
Speaker 2: gag bach. It was mid afternoon when we finally got
Speaker 2: to the truck after thirty miles of packing, and we
Speaker 2: headed right to one of those trendy Aspen microbrewery places
Speaker 2: that looks like it's just stocked full of meat eat
Speaker 2: or employees in their flannels and flat brims. We ordered
Speaker 2: a couple of appetizers, two full sized pizzas, and we
Speaker 2: wrapped the whole thing up with root beer floats. I
Speaker 2: don't know how many glasses of lemonade and water we drank,
Speaker 2: but it was enough to get to the server to
Speaker 2: ask us if we were okay. The crazy part is
Speaker 2: I merely just felt satisfied after eating one of the
Speaker 2: largest meals I've ever eaten. We probably could have taken
Speaker 2: down a third pizza. What we craved, and what we
Speaker 2: needed was calorie dense food that was loaded with fat,
Speaker 2: because we had been living off of the opposite of
Speaker 2: that while literally working our asses off. If you've never
Speaker 2: been in like a true state of deprivation, that's probably
Speaker 2: hard to grasp. What's also hard to grasp, maybe, is
Speaker 2: how this relates to whitetails, mostly because we've been fed
Speaker 2: kind of a dominant narrative from the hunting industry that
Speaker 2: pushes the idea that food is the key to killing
Speaker 2: all the white tails out there. But we all know
Speaker 2: it goes deeper than that. But no strategy for shooting
Speaker 2: deer has taken hold in such a commanding way as
Speaker 2: food plots have. Man, I don't know, maybe calling or something,
Speaker 2: but food plots are a big one. And I don't
Speaker 2: know where this started, but I remember when it got
Speaker 2: big on the Outdoor Channel and Sportsman's Channel. It was like,
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, you couldn't watch a hunting show
Speaker 2: without seeing deer pour into a plot of clover or
Speaker 2: some other deer food. It looked so easy. I'll also
Speaker 2: never forget at that time, I was tasked with writing
Speaker 2: some stuff for the Outdoor Channel, and they asked me
Speaker 2: to interview one of the guys who hosted one of
Speaker 2: the more popular shows. He blew me off three times,
Speaker 2: which to this day makes me low key despise him,
Speaker 2: especially since the third time his wife told me he
Speaker 2: wanted to do the interview, but he had also scheduled
Speaker 2: a haircut at the same time. When I did get
Speaker 2: him on the phone, he casually mentioned that he ran
Speaker 2: over one hundred acres of food plots in Iowa. I
Speaker 2: thought most folks don't even have one hundred acres total
Speaker 2: to hunt, let alone the means to plant and maintain
Speaker 2: that much deer food, all in a state where if
Speaker 2: you have half a brain, you can kill a good
Speaker 2: one every year on public land. No less any huski
Speaker 2: that guy can go kick rocks in the street. Sorry,
Speaker 2: I'm still a little bitter over it. Anyway. It was
Speaker 2: folks like that the paint of the picture of whitetail
Speaker 2: killing as being directly connected to your ability to garden
Speaker 2: with the intent of producing deer food. Now, I have
Speaker 2: nothing against food plots, hell. One of my most enjoyable
Speaker 2: parts of my life in the deer world right now
Speaker 2: is working on my food plots in Wisconsin. So that
Speaker 2: my daughters can go and have productive hunts. I absolutely
Speaker 2: love the process of those plots and planting them and
Speaker 2: hauling in bags of lime and fertilizer around my back.
Speaker 2: I love it just as much as I love slipping
Speaker 2: in there for the first hunt with one of my daughters,
Speaker 2: knowing that we have a really good chance of watching
Speaker 2: a young buck make a fatal mistake. Over there in
Speaker 2: cheese land where my plots are, the limiting factor is
Speaker 2: open food sources with solid greenery. That's why that little
Speaker 2: kill plot is so fun. If you scout over there,
Speaker 2: which I do a lot, you realize quickly that there
Speaker 2: are some things that deer need that are just kind
Speaker 2: of available everywhere. Cover at least over there is the
Speaker 2: big one. Now, while there is a tiny bit of
Speaker 2: egg over there, the land is mostly dominated by big
Speaker 2: woods and big swamps. It's bear country with some deer
Speaker 2: mixed in for fun. Bedding. Cover and just generally thick
Speaker 2: habitat is everywhere. It's not limited in the least. Water
Speaker 2: is everywhere too. You got swamps, streams, lakes, you name it.
Speaker 2: A thirsty deer over there is a deer that just
Speaker 2: isn't trying too hard working a water pattern over there
Speaker 2: is damn near a lost cause because they just have
Speaker 2: too many options. Food is limited over there, and especially
Speaker 2: food where they have a little breathing room to keep
Speaker 2: an eye out for predators. In that situation, food plots
Speaker 2: are a huge deal, even little kill plots. But let's
Speaker 2: reverse that. I just got the wonderful news that I
Speaker 2: would decided to grant me a white tail tag for
Speaker 2: this year. I know that even on the public land
Speaker 2: where I plan to hunt, there's going to be fields everywhere.
Speaker 2: A deer that wants to eat alfalfa doesn't have to
Speaker 2: walk too far. A deer that wants to eat beans
Speaker 2: doesn't have to walk too far. A deer that wants
Speaker 2: to eat corn Yep, you guessed it. There's food everywhere
Speaker 2: in the form of egg, and there's also big oak
Speaker 2: trees all over, so the mass situation gets pretty wild
Speaker 2: that time two. Any deer down there that has a
Speaker 2: rumble in his belly and doesn't take care of it
Speaker 2: quickly has kind of lost the plot. Now, water isn't
Speaker 2: quite as prevalent. But here's the kicker. Since I'm hunting
Speaker 2: public land, there's usually some river system or some other
Speaker 2: body of water there, because if it was all relatively
Speaker 2: dry and full of that good dark Iowa soil, it
Speaker 2: likely wouldn't be. Public water is an option, but it
Speaker 2: boils down to finding it in a spot that the
Speaker 2: deer feel really safe. This is where the limiting factor
Speaker 2: comes into play, which is cover, thick cover. Deer of
Speaker 2: all stripes, but especially big bucks, they don't mind open
Speaker 2: woods or fields in the off season, but after a
Speaker 2: little bit of pressure and as the leaves start to
Speaker 2: come down, they tend to go where they can hide.
Speaker 2: When I scout down there, I'm always looking for the thickest,
Speaker 2: gnarliest cover I can find. First, I can tell by
Speaker 2: the tree stands I find and the hunters I see
Speaker 2: when I do hunt down there that this isn't the
Speaker 2: case for everyone. You can see the hunter patterns since
Speaker 2: they leave plenty of evidence on the field edges. Now,
Speaker 2: if you're sitting on a soybean field edge, you certainly
Speaker 2: have a chance even on public land. But why would
Speaker 2: a big buck go where the hunting pressure is most
Speaker 2: concentrated when he can either ride out the daylight hours
Speaker 2: and whatever cover is available, or just hop any number
Speaker 2: of fences and go feed on soybeans. On somebody's private
Speaker 2: property where the pressure is guaranteed to be less than
Speaker 2: on public, he won't. And in a lot of cases,
Speaker 2: when it comes to private land and egg heavy ground,
Speaker 2: he'll still stick mostly to the best cover for most
Speaker 2: of the season. You have to think about what a
Speaker 2: big buck needs and then work with that, and what
Speaker 2: he needs first and foremost is to encounter to predators
Speaker 2: as few times as possible throughout the season. He can
Speaker 2: eat at night, he can drink at night, but in
Speaker 2: the day he needs to stay safe from us. Where
Speaker 2: woods are a precious commodity. He's going to figure out
Speaker 2: the best corners of cover to stick to, and he's
Speaker 2: going to use that cover to beat us because most
Speaker 2: of us are going to go sit the easy stuff
Speaker 2: that we've been led to believe is the ticket to
Speaker 2: killing big deer. Take another example here. When I head
Speaker 2: out west to hunt white tails, I usually sit in
Speaker 2: river bottoms. The reason for that is simple. The cover
Speaker 2: out there in antelope country is usually very limited. The
Speaker 2: best bet to find any decent cover is where there's
Speaker 2: consistent water, which is along rivers. When you get into
Speaker 2: those situations, at least on the public where I tend
Speaker 2: to hunt. It's also a high concentration of hunting pressure
Speaker 2: in those waterways. Those corridors of water and cover draw
Speaker 2: almost all the hunters, because if you are after white tails,
Speaker 2: you probably aren't going to go try to stalk one
Speaker 2: in a giant sage brush flat. I only have one
Speaker 2: hunting buddy who would do that, and I secretly think
Speaker 2: he's just out there looking for butterflies and other pollinators,
Speaker 2: which is his real passion. If you've never hunted western
Speaker 2: white tails, you might think, well, it's probably just a
Speaker 2: matter of in a cottonwood to either shoot one that
Speaker 2: comes down to drink or one that passes by on
Speaker 2: the way to browse something tasty along the river. That
Speaker 2: plan can work, but it's success will depend a lot
Speaker 2: on pressure. If the deer know they are being targeted
Speaker 2: by lots of hunters, they'll use those crossings in the dark.
Speaker 2: They'll lunch that shrubbery in the dark. They might still
Speaker 2: drink some H two O in the daylight if they
Speaker 2: can find it where it's tucked into some patch of
Speaker 2: cover off of the main areas that people hunt. In
Speaker 2: this way, something they really need is available in multiple spots.
Speaker 2: It's not super limited in general, but for them to
Speaker 2: stay safe and satisfy that need, the opportunities are limited.
Speaker 2: Small ponds in the right spot tend to highlight this
Speaker 2: the best. And if I had to choose one scenario
Speaker 2: to try to kill a deer in an awful lot
Speaker 2: of different scenarios, that would be it. Limited water in
Speaker 2: decent cover is a recipe for big deer to risk
Speaker 2: their lives. Take another example here. We all know about
Speaker 2: soft and hard mast. I don't care where you live
Speaker 2: and hunt. At some point, mast is going to factor
Speaker 2: into your sits. We talk about this in generalities that
Speaker 2: don't make much sense when you walk into the woods. However,
Speaker 2: take white oaks. The old Filet Mignon of mast. Dear
Speaker 2: love white oak acorns. But in a lot of situations,
Speaker 2: at least when they're dropping pretty heavy, the options aren't
Speaker 2: limited at all. It's not like a single apple tree
Speaker 2: dropping the sugary good stuff at the head of a
Speaker 2: deep ravine, or it's not like the lone per Simon
Speaker 2: tree dropping well the sugary goods stuff you know, deep
Speaker 2: in a staging area on public land eight hundred yards
Speaker 2: from the nearest field. In this case, we look at
Speaker 2: white oak acorns like they are a limited resource because
Speaker 2: they might only show up for a certain amount of time,
Speaker 2: but during those times they can be crazy abundant. So
Speaker 2: now it's not about just finding oak trees, but about
Speaker 2: finding the tree or the ridge of trees where the
Speaker 2: deer feels safe enough to take advantage of that during
Speaker 2: daylight hours. There are now qualifiers to this stuff, like, well,
Speaker 2: the acorns aren't that limited in general, but those tasty
Speaker 2: acorns in a spot where their deer don't encounter too
Speaker 2: many humans, that's a different story. You want to give
Speaker 2: yourself lots of options while looking for situations where the
Speaker 2: deer have very few options. We love pinch points and
Speaker 2: terrain traps for this very reason. If there's only one
Speaker 2: good spot to cross a high five strand barbeere fence,
Speaker 2: that's just another example of a limited resource. Now where
Speaker 2: it gets tricky, it's trying to figure out how this
Speaker 2: applies to you. You know, whether you live in Georgia
Speaker 2: or Maine or wherever. What does the land generally offer
Speaker 2: where you live? How can you decide what the big
Speaker 2: easy stuff is so you can narrow your spots down
Speaker 2: to the things that are limited in a Bucks World.
Speaker 2: This is where scouting comes in. You're not going to
Speaker 2: learn this stuff through trail camera usage, although you can
Speaker 2: definitely fine tune your strategies around limited resources with the
Speaker 2: use of trail cameras. In fact, that might be the
Speaker 2: best way to use them. Now, getting your boots on
Speaker 2: the ground is the true differentiator here, and it sets
Speaker 2: the stage for everything else, and that matters now. It's
Speaker 2: also important to think about these things not as a
Speaker 2: rule for the whole season, but how they might change
Speaker 2: from September to October to November and on. Water might
Speaker 2: be a big factor in September but a non starter
Speaker 2: in December. On the other hand, good cover might not
Speaker 2: mean really a big factor in September at all because
Speaker 2: it's thick out there, but it might be the most
Speaker 2: important factor by November or December. The availability of quality
Speaker 2: food might mean you need to look for water or
Speaker 2: good cover, or it might mean you really have to
Speaker 2: hone your scouting to locate that apple tree or per
Speaker 2: symmetry or small patch of oh next to a cattail
Speaker 2: sleugh where you'd most likely not think about hunting. Just
Speaker 2: like when you're walking out of the mountain with the
Speaker 2: front shoulder of a bull elk in your pack and
Speaker 2: you're fantasizing about a plate of nachos. You have to
Speaker 2: think about what a buck needs every day, every week
Speaker 2: and every month, and then you have to look at
Speaker 2: what he has easy access to and what he doesn't
Speaker 2: have access to. That's very easy, but he needs it.
Speaker 2: What he doesn't is offen the ticket to figuring out
Speaker 2: where he will be killable. This is maybe the best
Speaker 2: way to look at this. It's easy to figure out
Speaker 2: generally where he might feed or water or bed up
Speaker 2: in most situations, but one of those things might either
Speaker 2: be always limited or some of them might be highly
Speaker 2: limited at specific points in your season. Now you can
Speaker 2: wait for the rut so he'll break his own rules
Speaker 2: and give you a chance, or you can try to
Speaker 2: play this limited resource game from opener to the last
Speaker 2: day of the season. I know what works for me,
Speaker 2: and it isn't pinning all my hopes on a cruiser
Speaker 2: on November seventh. Maybe the same thing applies to your situation,
Speaker 2: and maybe you should come back next week because I'm
Speaker 2: going to talk about tree stand prep and why so
Speaker 2: many of us get this part wrong. That's it for
Speaker 2: this week. I'm Tony Peterson. This has been the Wire
Speaker 2: to Hunt Foundations podcast, which is brought to you by
Speaker 2: first Light. As I always, thank you so much for
Speaker 2: listening and for all your support. Everybody here at meat
Speaker 2: Eater we all truly appreciate it, so thank you for that.
Speaker 2: If you need some new white tailed duds, maybe you
Speaker 2: want to check out some stuff, go over to the
Speaker 2: medeater dot com and you can see what first Light
Speaker 2: has for sale there. Or maybe you're just looking for
Speaker 2: a little more deer hunting advice, maybe some entertainment for
Speaker 2: a road trip you're taking with your family. You need
Speaker 2: some podcasts, maybe just a recipe for your next cookout.
Speaker 2: Go to themeadeater dot com and you can find all
Speaker 2: of that and a hell of a lot more