Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, and now your host,
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson. Hey everyone, welcome to the Wire to Hunt
Speaker 1: Foundations podcast, which is brought to you by First Light.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is all about how you have to bring
Speaker 1: your A game to the woods to tag out on
Speaker 1: any buzzer beater or deer. Aside from our deer hunting
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters in the Deep South, most of us
Speaker 1: are staring down the final chapter of the season. Throughout
Speaker 1: this podcast, I've pretty much gone week to week on
Speaker 1: how to try to stay on top of deer action
Speaker 1: throughout the season. This show will pretty much wrap up
Speaker 1: that style. But before we move on to shed antlers
Speaker 1: and winner scouting and all that good stuff, there are
Speaker 1: still opportunities to arrow deer right now. But you better
Speaker 1: bring your A game into the woods. YEA. One of
Speaker 1: the best things about having a ton of deer hunting
Speaker 1: experience is that there aren't a lot of surprises. One
Speaker 1: of the worst things about having a ton of deer
Speaker 1: hunting experiences there aren't a lot of surprises. Now, I know,
Speaker 1: markets pissed at me when I speak in riddles because
Speaker 1: he's such a straight laced fella. So I'll explain this
Speaker 1: better by using a couple of examples of late season
Speaker 1: experiences I've had. A few years ago, I set out
Speaker 1: for a late December muzzle er hunt with the idea
Speaker 1: that it wouldn't be terribly difficult to put one more
Speaker 1: dough in the freezer. Now. I don't know about you, folks,
Speaker 1: but when I get cocky like that, mother nature tends
Speaker 1: to knock me down a peg or two, usually pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: And even though I had a front stuff or dialed
Speaker 1: in and the deer scouted out, all it took was
Speaker 1: crunchy snow to absolutely ruin my chances. I couldn't get
Speaker 1: anywhere in the woods without spooking everything. I hunted anyway,
Speaker 1: And no, I didn't kill a deer. I almost saw one, though,
Speaker 1: I think or maybe it was a squirrel. Another time,
Speaker 1: more recently, I had a loan dough feeding her way
Speaker 1: in right after Christmas. It was dead, calm out, and
Speaker 1: as soon as she made her way into range, I
Speaker 1: started to draw. I had put maybe three pounds of
Speaker 1: pressure on my bowstring when she acted as if I
Speaker 1: had blown an air horn in her ear, She swapped ends,
Speaker 1: took off, and snorted a jolly little tune to the
Speaker 1: rest of the deer herd that there was some prick
Speaker 1: up in the tree trying to kill them all. My
Speaker 1: failures in both cases didn't surprise me, which brings me
Speaker 1: full circle to my opening statement. I knew, just through
Speaker 1: the conditions and the variables of each hunt that I
Speaker 1: probably didn't have enough to work with to make a
Speaker 1: successful late season hunt. Happened that crunchy snow it did
Speaker 1: me in those calm conditions on a super pressured old
Speaker 1: dough forget it. In those cases, it's like I can
Speaker 1: see into the future and I can watch myself screw up.
Speaker 1: I'm sure a lot of you can relate. If you
Speaker 1: hunt the late season without a badass spot to sit
Speaker 1: over some groceries and shoot them where they feed. The
Speaker 1: late season is just tough, and it gets exponentially more
Speaker 1: difficult the more pressure the deer are. But here's the
Speaker 1: thing I've said many times before, and I'll probably say
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of times in the future. It's not impossible.
Speaker 1: You've got options, even if you're a public land hunter,
Speaker 1: even if you don't have a banging food source to
Speaker 1: sit over now. Last week I talked about how I
Speaker 1: go about finding deer during this time of year. That's
Speaker 1: a good start, but if you find them and don't
Speaker 1: know how to hunt them, doesn't really matter. This brings
Speaker 1: me to my first and main point, proximity. I think
Speaker 1: the biggest criticism I have when I see others tree
Speaker 1: stands and blinds is that they're too close to where
Speaker 1: the deer are expected to be. I see this when
Speaker 1: I hunt with my buddies, and I see it all
Speaker 1: of the time when I'm wandering public land or some
Speaker 1: of my private properties where other people have permission as well.
Speaker 1: Just pictures this, Like, if there's a nice logging road
Speaker 1: it's all scraped up and leads from the timber to
Speaker 1: the fields, you can bet your ass there will be
Speaker 1: a stand on it, and you can also bet your
Speaker 1: ass that that stand will be about three ft from
Speaker 1: the trail, pointed right in the direction where the deer
Speaker 1: will come from. Honestly, if you spend enough time hunting
Speaker 1: and scouting on public land, you start to get really
Speaker 1: familiar with how most hunters hang their stands, and from
Speaker 1: what I can tell, they aren't very good at it.
Speaker 1: It's not just deer hunters. I love to hunt late
Speaker 1: season pheasants, and the amount of hunter trails pounded into
Speaker 1: the snow that lead just around the edge of the
Speaker 1: good cover it's astounding. It's so rare to see a
Speaker 1: set of bootprints wade right into the thick stuff where
Speaker 1: the birds actually are in the late season, and I
Speaker 1: know those hunters are thinking that their dogs will flush
Speaker 1: or point the birds out on the edge, but most
Speaker 1: of the time the roosters just run to the middle
Speaker 1: and let the danger pass. We often talk about how
Speaker 1: predictable game animals are or should be, but we rarely
Speaker 1: acknowledge how predictable hunters are. You can see this and
Speaker 1: all most call your shots by looking at on X
Speaker 1: and then walking into public land For white tails, the
Speaker 1: stands will be exactly where you expect them, and there
Speaker 1: will be very little effort to conceal them. It seems
Speaker 1: like a lot of hunters think that as long as
Speaker 1: they are in a tree where dear travel, that's good enough.
Speaker 1: But it's not, and it leads to the problem of
Speaker 1: wanting an easy close shot but also not wanting to
Speaker 1: get busted. In the early season, this is sometimes possible
Speaker 1: in December, it's usually not, and it gets worse because
Speaker 1: most of us haven't been shooting like we were in August.
Speaker 1: This tends to push us closer and closer with our
Speaker 1: anticipated shots, which spells trouble when you're working with jaded
Speaker 1: late season survivors and often very calm, very still, very
Speaker 1: very quiet conditions. One little scratch of fleece on tree
Speaker 1: bark or the slightest flexing of cold bow limbs, and
Speaker 1: it's over if you're too close. Having gone down this
Speaker 1: road a depressing amount of times, I've realized that my
Speaker 1: ideal shot distance on late season deer is like to
Speaker 1: thirty yards. Deer at that range have less chance of
Speaker 1: hearing me draw and less chance of their spiky senses
Speaker 1: sending their eyes skyward until they spot me and go
Speaker 1: on red alert. Now this goes for tree stands situations
Speaker 1: as well as when I'm on the ground, which is
Speaker 1: a late season strategy I employ a lot. While I
Speaker 1: like hunting from an elevated position whenever I can, I
Speaker 1: like shooting from the ground more, and when the leaves
Speaker 1: are down and the woods are bare, I can often
Speaker 1: tuck into some cedars or a deadfall and disappear better
Speaker 1: than when I'm up in a tree. The views aren't
Speaker 1: as good, of course, but the shots are less complicated,
Speaker 1: and the cover is often the best you'll get. Plus
Speaker 1: you can play the wind really well when you're on
Speaker 1: the ground. Now, infomercial guy here, But wait, there's more.
Speaker 1: Another thing that I like about being on the ground
Speaker 1: is that it means I'm not in the stands I've
Speaker 1: hunted all season long. Well, I don't want the deer
Speaker 1: to surprise me. I do want to surprise them, and
Speaker 1: it's not a big shocker for them to up into
Speaker 1: a tree you've sat fourteen times this season to see
Speaker 1: the same asshole looking back. Now. I can't prove this,
Speaker 1: but I've heard some pretty compelling stories and seeing some
Speaker 1: pretty interesting things myself about how some deer seemed to
Speaker 1: almost check stands. This is especially true with old doze
Speaker 1: that don't tolerate a whole lot of bs. They often
Speaker 1: seem to know where your stands are and look up
Speaker 1: to confirm that you're they're not. This might lead them
Speaker 1: to bolt or just give you a wide berth, or
Speaker 1: they might truck right on by. But stay on super
Speaker 1: KG full alert mode the entire time. All of those
Speaker 1: are bad, and to some extent can be avoided by
Speaker 1: throwing them for a loop, by getting on the ground
Speaker 1: and just hiding really well, you might be thinking, well,
Speaker 1: this is doable. This guy should gives simple, easy to
Speaker 1: follow advice that I appreciate greatly. And while all that
Speaker 1: may be true, I'm not done. Let me circle back
Speaker 1: again to my opening statement about not being surprised much.
Speaker 1: That was only partially true. Deer can surprise the best
Speaker 1: of us any given time, and they are really good
Speaker 1: at this in the late season. They move like ninjas,
Speaker 1: and the best way to have one close that you
Speaker 1: don't kill is to not be ready for it. If
Speaker 1: you're too busy trying to figure out I don't know
Speaker 1: what the next meme stock will be on Wall Street bets,
Speaker 1: or you're posting a six selfie to highlight the frost
Speaker 1: in your beard and your overall caveman badassery, you might
Speaker 1: not see the dear ghosting into range, which is bad.
Speaker 1: If your bow is hanging up and your phone is
Speaker 1: in your hand, you've got to make a lot of
Speaker 1: movement to get into any kind of position to shoot.
Speaker 1: Movement that is silent will get you busted. Plenty, but
Speaker 1: movement is rarely silent. The goal is to see or
Speaker 1: hear the deer coming long before you want to shoot them,
Speaker 1: so you can get ready and possibly draw well ahead
Speaker 1: of their arrival. I've done this a few times on
Speaker 1: deer in Minnesota and Wisconsin that I heard or saw
Speaker 1: coming in, and it's always worked out better for me
Speaker 1: than waiting for them to get close and then drawing.
Speaker 1: I've still been picked off, but it's been too late
Speaker 1: for the deer. The issue here is that if you
Speaker 1: haven't been shooting, you might not want to draw too
Speaker 1: early and try to hold steady for an extended period
Speaker 1: of time while a deer works in. Fatigue in your
Speaker 1: shoulders or your bow arm is an accuracy killer, and
Speaker 1: it's one of the things that tends to cause us
Speaker 1: to panic when we shoot again. This is no bueno.
Speaker 1: Watching the deer or hearing them as they approach will
Speaker 1: give you a chance to be ready for the shot.
Speaker 1: Of course, watching them is better than hearing them, because
Speaker 1: you don't want to be drawn on a deer that
Speaker 1: you don't want to shoot, because then you've got to
Speaker 1: let down. But if you're out there with low standards,
Speaker 1: which you probably should be. If you're listening to this podcast,
Speaker 1: then it's a pretty safe bet that crunch, crunch, crunch,
Speaker 1: and the leaves of the snow is being made by
Speaker 1: some kind of shooter, even if it's just a delicious youngster. Now,
Speaker 1: this close encounter should not be the first time you're
Speaker 1: at full draw during your sit I highly recommend taking
Speaker 1: a few minutes right when you settle in or right
Speaker 1: at first light if your morning hunting, to draw an
Speaker 1: aim a few times. This will cool you into the
Speaker 1: fact that your bow might have developed a little creek
Speaker 1: due to the cold weather, or it'll tell you that
Speaker 1: your binal harness is awful close to your string. Considering
Speaker 1: you've layered up to stave off the arctic conditions. It's
Speaker 1: a great opportunity to learn that the hood on your
Speaker 1: winter hunting jacket is a bark scraper, or that the
Speaker 1: platform of your stand is prone to metal pops and
Speaker 1: clicks when you stand up and shift into position. Ask
Speaker 1: any hunter who has quite a few seasons under his
Speaker 1: or her belt if extra clothing it has ever saved
Speaker 1: a deer's life in their world, and you'll probably hear
Speaker 1: a few stories. The first time this happened to me.
Speaker 1: I was bow hunting during the last days of Minnesota's
Speaker 1: muzzle older season when I was still in high school.
Speaker 1: It was a weird afternoon with snow on the ground
Speaker 1: and pouring rain coming down. While I expected to be miserable,
Speaker 1: I didn't expect to see any deer, so I was
Speaker 1: really surprised when a basket racked eight pointer started walking
Speaker 1: down the trail right at my stand. At that time
Speaker 1: in my life, that was a big deer and a
Speaker 1: big deal, and I wanted him in the worst way.
Speaker 1: When he got to like ten yards, I drew, aimed
Speaker 1: at him and I missed him by about four ft.
Speaker 1: Since it was muzzle oder season, cold and rainy, I
Speaker 1: was wearing everything I could, and I had on a
Speaker 1: cheap orange vest that didn't fully button. But what it
Speaker 1: did do, besides theoretically keeping me from getting shot, was
Speaker 1: getting the way of my string during the shot cycle
Speaker 1: and throw my arrow way off. It was a bummer
Speaker 1: and something I could have easily gotten ahead of had
Speaker 1: I drawn and aimed a few times when I got
Speaker 1: into stand. As a side note here, I ran into
Speaker 1: conditions with snow on the ground on New Year's Eve,
Speaker 1: maybe I don't know, eight or ten years ago, and
Speaker 1: I had a great hunt then as well. Dear move
Speaker 1: during the rain throughout there early in the mid season
Speaker 1: like crazy, Maybe they do just as consistently in the
Speaker 1: late season as well. That's not much of a thing
Speaker 1: to rely on in the northern reaches where I live,
Speaker 1: but I'll bet it has some validity for all you
Speaker 1: listeners who live farther south or just happen to run
Speaker 1: into one of these weird, you know, late December rainstorms.
Speaker 1: And another thing to consider is your gloves. Grippy gloves
Speaker 1: on your bow hand will cause you to torqu your bow,
Speaker 1: which is bad. A glove that interferes with your release
Speaker 1: in any way that's also bad. This is where I
Speaker 1: go full Michael Jackson mode. When I late season bow hunt.
Speaker 1: I use a slippy cloth type of glove on my
Speaker 1: bow hand and no glove on my release hand. Instead,
Speaker 1: I keep handwarmers in both pockets or in a muff,
Speaker 1: and I only bring my hands into play when it's
Speaker 1: time to get ready. Sometimes I get really really cold
Speaker 1: hands when the deer don't follow the script and they're
Speaker 1: in close proximity. But I'll take that over making a
Speaker 1: bad shot because I'm using the wrong gloves. It's just
Speaker 1: something to consider now. All side notes, while aside details matter.
Speaker 1: If you're not in the sweet spot to get a
Speaker 1: shot at the right least likely to be detected range,
Speaker 1: then you're in trouble. That's the reality of the stuff.
Speaker 1: And it's also something that leads me back to a
Speaker 1: point I've danced around quite a bit on this podcast,
Speaker 1: which is that you need to set up to kill.
Speaker 1: A lot of hunters, bow hunters and gun hunters they
Speaker 1: set up to see. This strategy isn't great during any
Speaker 1: time of the season unless you're truly doing it from
Speaker 1: an observational standpoint, sort of like a stepping stone to
Speaker 1: the next set up. In a late season, setting up
Speaker 1: to see is a great way to be seen. Set
Speaker 1: up instead to kill. This is a lot harder for
Speaker 1: folks to do than it seems. And when you're sitting
Speaker 1: at work pretending to make important spreadsheets or whatever it
Speaker 1: is that you actually do while you're listening to hunting
Speaker 1: podcasts in your cubicle, you'll think that's no problem. But
Speaker 1: we are creatures of habit and there are patterns to
Speaker 1: our behavior. One of those is to default to hunting
Speaker 1: spots that allow us to see a lot fight that
Speaker 1: and think about how hard it is to earn a
Speaker 1: late season shot. Think about how you'd want that shot
Speaker 1: to unfold. You'd want to be undetected, of course, so
Speaker 1: that you can avoid the panic of aiming at a
Speaker 1: just about to bolt deer, relaxed, unsuspecting deer at doable
Speaker 1: but not super close range. Those are the goal. This
Speaker 1: means you've got to be opened hunting from the air
Speaker 1: or the ground, and truly cognizant of your hiding spots
Speaker 1: in the conditions in which you hunt. I know this
Speaker 1: sounds like a lot, but I really recommend you hunt
Speaker 1: out the final days of your season, even if you've
Speaker 1: only got an analyst tag left. This is because deer season,
Speaker 1: first and foremost, is a gift, which I'll cover in
Speaker 1: greater detail next week. It's also because difficult hunting makes
Speaker 1: you better. Easy hunting doesn't. Just like when you're single.
Speaker 1: Easy can be fun, but it's not all that rewarding.
Speaker 1: A challenge is something that sticks with you and makes
Speaker 1: you feel better about life, and in the realm of
Speaker 1: deer hunting, there are a few greater challenges than killing
Speaker 1: a late season dear of any shape or size with
Speaker 1: archie tackle. While it might seem like a stretch, putting
Speaker 1: in real late season effort before the clock runs out
Speaker 1: will make you better at all of this stuff. I
Speaker 1: know that's not as exciting as buying a new call
Speaker 1: or loading up on trail cameras to saturate the woods
Speaker 1: with seven surveillors, but it is one of the long
Speaker 1: game ways in which you learn not only how to
Speaker 1: understand dear better, but how better to deal with them
Speaker 1: when they're at their peak predator avoiding performance. Plus what
Speaker 1: else do you have to do right now? Ice fish?
Speaker 1: Come on, there's time for that, But until then, get
Speaker 1: into the woods because it's almost time to put the
Speaker 1: bowl away and start scouting again, which means it's almost
Speaker 1: time for like nine months of not deer hunting, So
Speaker 1: get out there. That's it for this week, my late
Speaker 1: season hunting friends. I'm Tony Peterson and this has been
Speaker 1: the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast. Be sure to visit
Speaker 1: the metator dot com slash wired to check out more
Speaker 1: whitetail content, and visit the Wired to Hunt YouTube channel
Speaker 1: as well to see the videos we drop every single week.