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: Hi, everyone, welcome to the Wire 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 I'm going to talk about how
Speaker 2: to hunt deer where there just aren't very many of them.
Speaker 2: I truly believe that there are just a few situations
Speaker 2: where you can learn to be a really good overall
Speaker 2: deer hunter. If you focus on big woods deer, you'll
Speaker 2: probably get there, provided you put in the work. Or
Speaker 2: if you just happen to hunt someplace with low deer numbers,
Speaker 2: which not coincidentally happens to be in the big woods
Speaker 2: a lot, you're going to get there. The challenge of
Speaker 2: hunting a small population of deer is real, and it's
Speaker 2: a proving ground for your skills. Now, it's not necessary
Speaker 2: to go seek out someplace like this, but it is
Speaker 2: a good idea to understand what to do when you're
Speaker 2: struggling to just find deer or where every encounter is
Speaker 2: truly a gift. That's what this episode is all about.
Speaker 2: And even if you hunt a place with one hundred
Speaker 2: deer per square mile, you should listen because there's going
Speaker 2: to be something in here for you too. I've only
Speaker 2: been to the state of California a handful of times,
Speaker 2: and each trip was either for a pig hunt or
Speaker 2: a blacktail hunt. So it wasn't like I spent a
Speaker 2: lot of time shopping or hanging out at Disneyland or
Speaker 2: anything like that. It was, to my surprise, at least
Speaker 2: the first time I went, kind of in an amazing dichotomy.
Speaker 2: The bigger cities made me feel like I was allergic
Speaker 2: to the environment, while the areas we hunted made me
Speaker 2: feel like I was in Wyoming or Montana or some
Speaker 2: other western state with very few people and a lot
Speaker 2: of really cool ground that I wanted to hunt. It
Speaker 2: was weird, but life is like that when you get
Speaker 2: a little bit of exposure to things that are outside
Speaker 2: of your normal world. Now, if you take a city
Speaker 2: like San Francisco, for example, you can break this down
Speaker 2: even a little bit further. The city by the Bay
Speaker 2: has sort of become a poster child for the stark
Speaker 2: difference between the haves and the have nots. Tech executives
Speaker 2: and other C suite high income folks live there in
Speaker 2: numbers that are way overrepresented from say, I don't know, Omaha, Nebraska.
Speaker 2: For a totally absurd example, the median rent in San
Speaker 2: Francisco as of October this year was three three hundred
Speaker 2: and seventy six dollars a month. That's a healthy house
Speaker 2: payment in most of the country and could buy you
Speaker 2: damn near a mansion in some places. Not just because
Speaker 2: I was curious, I looked up the median rent in
Speaker 2: Omaha and it came in at thirteen hundred and fifty dollars,
Speaker 2: which to me actually seemed pretty high as well. But
Speaker 2: it's also been a long time since I rented anyway.
Speaker 2: As you can imagine buying a house in San Francisco,
Speaker 2: or even going out to eat or playing around a gulf,
Speaker 2: it's going to be pretty damn expensive compared to the
Speaker 2: rest of the country. And you have thousands and thousands
Speaker 2: of people who can afford to do any of those things,
Speaker 2: and they are living right next to a pretty substantial
Speaker 2: homeless population. Roughly eight thousand people live on the streets
Speaker 2: of San Francisco, but I don't know how accurate that is.
Speaker 2: I don't know how they'd count them. Doesn't matter for
Speaker 2: this podcast. I just point that out to illustrate something.
Speaker 2: There are Silicon Valley execs and homeless people living in
Speaker 2: the same block, or within at least a few blocks
Speaker 2: of one another. They are both technically residents of the
Speaker 2: same city, I guess, but their individual existence from day
Speaker 2: to day life couldn't be further apart. Now. I don't
Speaker 2: know anyone who would be so dumb as to suggest
Speaker 2: that just because those two types of people live in
Speaker 2: the same general place, that they experience the same general lives.
Speaker 2: That would be stupid and obviously disingenuous. Yet we do
Speaker 2: this all the time in hunting. We stereotype our fellow
Speaker 2: hunters or the difficulty of all our deer hunting, based
Speaker 2: around somewhat arbitrary things like what state we live in
Speaker 2: or how many gun hunters there are in our county.
Speaker 2: We take credit for how tough our personal hunting might
Speaker 2: be by attaching something to it that might not have
Speaker 2: any actual effect on how difficult our hunting is. You know,
Speaker 2: the number of folks who buy a gun tag is
Speaker 2: just a good example of this. You know, even if
Speaker 2: you live in Pennsylvania or Michigan or Wisconsin or some
Speaker 2: other state with several hundred thousand firearms hunters, what really
Speaker 2: matters is what happens in the general neighborhood of your
Speaker 2: hunting spots. Now, I know a lot of folks who
Speaker 2: live in high hunter density states who also control decent
Speaker 2: sized chunks of ground. They don't really struggle killing big
Speaker 2: bucks in any given year because their experience isn't the
Speaker 2: general experience of other hunters. It's unique to them. This
Speaker 2: is one of the reasons why I talk so much
Speaker 2: about going out and figuring this stuff out on your own.
Speaker 2: It's also why I always caution against taking too much
Speaker 2: advice from anyone who's hunting experience is vastly different from yours.
Speaker 2: If somebody controls six thousand acres of land in the
Speaker 2: heart of the best deer country out there, and they
Speaker 2: tell you planting a certain type of brasscas will definitely
Speaker 2: help you arrow a giant in the late season, what
Speaker 2: they mean is they want you to spend money on
Speaker 2: a product they get paid to use, which also helps
Speaker 2: them shoot giants in the late season because they have
Speaker 2: amazing hunting. But what good does that do you? What's worse?
Speaker 2: And I promise you this is true. Most of the
Speaker 2: deer hunting advice you're going to get is going to
Speaker 2: come from people who hunt where the density is really,
Speaker 2: really high. If you don't hunt a similar situation, most
Speaker 2: of the advice you're getting has very little bearing on
Speaker 2: your hunts. It will probably make things worse.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I know I talked about this last week, but I
Speaker 2: want to break this down further because I think I
Speaker 2: think it's super important. Take. I don't know the first
Speaker 2: time I tried to find a good buck on public
Speaker 2: land in North Dakota. Scratch at take. The first day
Speaker 2: I tried to find a good buck on public land
Speaker 2: in North Dakota. As I sat up on that ridge
Speaker 2: with my spotting scope of my binoculars a couple days
Speaker 2: before the season opened a long time ago, I saw
Speaker 2: fifteen bucks that I considered good enough for my non
Speaker 2: resident tag. Now, I killed the smallest of those fifteen
Speaker 2: bucks on the first night, and he ended up scoring
Speaker 2: one forty as a clean eight. At the same time,
Speaker 2: I was messing around on public land in Minnesota near
Speaker 2: the Twin Cities. I couldn't find fifteen deer total there
Speaker 2: in an entire season, and was super lucky to see
Speaker 2: a deer on any given sit Advice or strategies on
Speaker 2: how to hunt that North Dakota spot might have been
Speaker 2: the worst thing I could have done while hunting those
Speaker 2: chunks of public land here forty five minutes from the
Speaker 2: Concrete Jungle can be broken down further because that's kind
Speaker 2: of an extreme example. Take where I hunt in southeastern Minnesota.
Speaker 2: The farm that I've roamed around on since I was
Speaker 2: fifteen looks amazing on paper and in person, but it's
Speaker 2: owned by a dairy farmer who is not a huge
Speaker 2: fan of deer eating his crops. He doesn't really care
Speaker 2: about white tails and is very happy when a bunch
Speaker 2: of them get shot. Every year. That farm has a
Speaker 2: decent population of deer because it is, you know, in
Speaker 2: southeastern Minnesota, mildish winters, good egg, all that stuff, but
Speaker 2: it's pretty tough to find a big one on there
Speaker 2: in any given year. There's just a lot of pressure
Speaker 2: in all the seasons, but it's really obvious during the
Speaker 2: gun season when large parties of shotgun hunters push the
Speaker 2: woods every day. Now, this property corners up to a
Speaker 2: different property that my buddy is leased for several years.
Speaker 2: It's also a place that I bought into this year.
Speaker 2: It's about a third of the size of the dairy
Speaker 2: farm next to it and doesn't have a whole lot
Speaker 2: of cover. In fact, i'd say it's probably about twenty
Speaker 2: percent woods and the rest is just fields. But the
Speaker 2: pressure is highly controlled. The deer know this, and it's
Speaker 2: always good in there and only gets better when the
Speaker 2: neighboring properties start to really get pounded. It's one of
Speaker 2: the most fun and honestly easiest places I've ever hunted. Now.
Speaker 2: Part of that is because my buddy is a pretty
Speaker 2: good deer hunter and he has the place figured out,
Speaker 2: but it's also just a function of low pressure and
Speaker 2: good ground. The only difference between the lease and my
Speaker 2: permission farm next to it is how many people go
Speaker 2: in there to shoot deer on any given season. This
Speaker 2: affects everything, and it highlights a key point to this podcast.
Speaker 2: Deer density is relative. It might be awesome on one
Speaker 2: farm and terrible on the neighbors. You can't draw a
Speaker 2: ton of conclusions from a thirty thousand foot view of
Speaker 2: your hunting ground. You have to be honest about what
Speaker 2: you're working with and what you find on the ground.
Speaker 2: I think that starts with thinking about how how high
Speaker 2: or lower deer density really is. Not what your state
Speaker 2: is or your county is, but what's happening on your property,
Speaker 2: Like where are you hunting now? This is totally arbitrary,
Speaker 2: so bear with me, but a good way to understand
Speaker 2: if you're working with a truly low deer density is
Speaker 2: to think about how surprised you are to blank on
Speaker 2: any given sit. If you're like, holy shit, I can't
Speaker 2: believe I didn't see a single deer this afternoon, you
Speaker 2: probably have a fairly high deer density or way too
Speaker 2: much confidence in yourself. If you're like, well, I thought
Speaker 2: i'd see one, but I didn't, then you're probably working
Speaker 2: with lower deer density, and if you are, you're gonna
Speaker 2: have to cater your strategy to handle this needle in
Speaker 2: the haystack. Reality. This all begins with sign, whether your
Speaker 2: winter scouting or summer scouting or in season scouting, Any
Speaker 2: and all deer sign you can find so important. This
Speaker 2: is not the case with high deer density hunts because
Speaker 2: a lot of deer make a lot of sign, but
Speaker 2: not a lot of deer makes a not a lot
Speaker 2: of sign. If you find a crossing in the swamp
Speaker 2: that has a okay amount of tracks in it, that's
Speaker 2: a big deal. A concentration of rubs in a creek
Speaker 2: bottom that cuts its way through a huge tract of
Speaker 2: timber also a big deal. Several beds on a slight
Speaker 2: knob and a sea of trees, big deal. A good
Speaker 2: sized scrape and a place where two old logging roads intersect,
Speaker 2: you guessed it, big deal. Now this is where a
Speaker 2: lot of hunters struggle. They might see a rub on
Speaker 2: a one inch in diameter sapling and not pay it
Speaker 2: any attention. Or they might see a small scrape and
Speaker 2: just assume it with some scrapper passing through who felt
Speaker 2: a little excited for a little while. But the truth is,
Speaker 2: if you don't have a lot of deer to deal with,
Speaker 2: every bit of sign is a clue to how the
Speaker 2: deer used the area. For high deer density hunts, a
Speaker 2: lot of sign is the equivalent to white noise. You
Speaker 2: just need to drown it out a bit. Find the
Speaker 2: stuff that matters. In areas where you might only have
Speaker 2: a dozen deer per square mile. That little rub tells
Speaker 2: you a lot. This is because your job is to
Speaker 2: get around deer first. We don't acknowledge this a whole lot,
Speaker 2: but so many people have hunting situations where they already
Speaker 2: know they're going to be around a ton of deer
Speaker 2: just by getting into the woods. They don't have to
Speaker 2: try to be around deer because they just will be.
Speaker 2: So they have the luxury of trying to get close
Speaker 2: to big bucks and focus on that goal. Now that
Speaker 2: has bled into other hunting situations, But I promise you this,
Speaker 2: if you hunt really low deer density stuff, you won't
Speaker 2: get close to too many big deer until you figure
Speaker 2: out how to consistently get close to just deer. Think
Speaker 2: about it this way. If you don't know how to
Speaker 2: consistently catch a limit of eater sized walleyes, you're probably
Speaker 2: not gonna want to target thirty inch plus fish. If
Speaker 2: you get my drift, all sign is important to the
Speaker 2: low deer density hunter because what little sign there is
Speaker 2: was made by the deer you have to hunt. I
Speaker 2: can't make it any more simple than that. Now. If
Speaker 2: that sounds a little depressing, sorry, it's about to get worse.
Speaker 2: I can't prove this because it's anecdotal, but when I
Speaker 2: hunt where there are not very many deer, I feel
Speaker 2: like the deer are just generally harder to kill. They
Speaker 2: seem to be on their a game for spotting me
Speaker 2: in a tree, and they seem to be very intolerant
Speaker 2: of my mistakes. This is probably due to two reasons.
Speaker 2: The fewer prey animals there are, the more they are
Speaker 2: targeted by all predators. It's also probably because every blown
Speaker 2: encounter represents a limited chance going bye bye. It's not
Speaker 2: like you can spook a buck in the big woods
Speaker 2: and just expect several more to come down the trail
Speaker 2: that might, you know, have been your one chance all
Speaker 2: day or all weaker all season. And it's not just
Speaker 2: the big bucks. The does that live where few deer
Speaker 2: lives seem to be real cagy. They are tasked with
Speaker 2: raising fawns in areas where they'll livin. Ain't easy, and
Speaker 2: that puts them on red alert a lot. If you
Speaker 2: have fifty deer per square mile where you hunt, getting
Speaker 2: blown at by a dough sucks, but it's not that
Speaker 2: big of a deal. She's going to run off. Another
Speaker 2: deer will walk in eventually, if that's the only dough
Speaker 2: in the three hundred acres you like to hunt, or
Speaker 2: at least one of the only does around, that's a
Speaker 2: different story. Now. Mistakes are going to be made, but
Speaker 2: the more you make with limited amount of deer, the
Speaker 2: harder the whole thing gets. And this can snowball pretty quickly.
Speaker 2: This is because you can't just move down the ridge
Speaker 2: and hit the reset button. Knowing that a bunch of
Speaker 2: deer are still around. You are most likely going to
Speaker 2: have to find them again and be even more careful
Speaker 2: and then try to capitalize on your scouting and your
Speaker 2: mobility and hope you don't blow it again, all while
Speaker 2: hunting a small number of deer that are trying real
Speaker 2: hard to not die. Because I've spent a lot of
Speaker 2: my time hunting in situations like this, I'm overly cautious
Speaker 2: about trying anything extra on my sits. You know, the
Speaker 2: guy who hunts private land in Iowa can rattle all
Speaker 2: he wants because he's going to get a positive response eventually,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't matter much if he has some negative interactions.
Speaker 2: It'll all work out. If you bang those same antlers
Speaker 2: together where the deer are few and far between. You're
Speaker 2: already creating a scenario for the deer to encounter something
Speaker 2: they just don't expect. You're also almost guaranteeing that the
Speaker 2: deer that do respond will do so in a cautious
Speaker 2: way where they'll approach downwind. It's not to say that
Speaker 2: calling or decoying or using sense can't work, certainly can.
Speaker 2: You just have to do the right due diligence on
Speaker 2: your setup and the conditions to make sure the odds
Speaker 2: are in your favor as much as they can be.
Speaker 2: Most owners don't do that. They instead use these tactics
Speaker 2: to try to make something happen because they aren't having
Speaker 2: the encounters they want from their hunting tactics and effort.
Speaker 2: There's a huge difference between the two. There's another consideration
Speaker 2: with low deer density hunts I want to talk about,
Speaker 2: which is just randomness. It seems random to see a
Speaker 2: buck do something once every ten or twenty sits. It's
Speaker 2: probably not, though if you hunt it in I don't know,
Speaker 2: Pike County, Illinois or Buffalo County, Wisconsin. On private ground,
Speaker 2: you might see a buck walk a certain ridge one
Speaker 2: day and not the next, but a few days later
Speaker 2: he or another buck will probably walk that ridge. The
Speaker 2: odds are good that where a buck walk today, other
Speaker 2: deer are going to walk tomorrow. The odds are good
Speaker 2: that a big woods buck that crosses a creek one
Speaker 2: morning might not repeat that pattern anytime soon, but he
Speaker 2: or other deer will likely travel the same route at
Speaker 2: some point. This is something that is very very hard
Speaker 2: for me to acknowledge because it leads to a lot
Speaker 2: of second guessing if I observe something and then can't
Speaker 2: get it to quickly repeat. But most deer in most
Speaker 2: situations aren't as predictable day to day as we'd like
Speaker 2: them to be. They do eventually run the same routes
Speaker 2: and patterns, but it's nothing for there to be a
Speaker 2: few days in between. This means that not only is
Speaker 2: signed real important to low deer density hunts, but so
Speaker 2: is observation. Even if it seems random, it's probably not.
Speaker 2: It just might only happen a couple of times a
Speaker 2: week or less. This is something that trail cameras show us,
Speaker 2: yet we kind of gloss over it to see what
Speaker 2: we want to see. If you do this where a
Speaker 2: few deer live, you'll miss a lot of the clues
Speaker 2: that tell you where you should volume hunt and when
Speaker 2: you should really be there. It's hard to do when
Speaker 2: you're stacking up the blanks or just not seeing many deer,
Speaker 2: but you have to try to do this in order
Speaker 2: to understand how it works. This is how my daughter
Speaker 2: and I both killed our northern Wisconsin deer this year.
Speaker 2: It was just a matter of factoring in the odds
Speaker 2: that eventually abuq would emerge from the swamp to cruise
Speaker 2: a certain woodline, and while it took a lot of hours,
Speaker 2: two bucks did just that. We never saw any other deer,
Speaker 2: but we saw two we wanted to shoot, and we
Speaker 2: shot them. Low deer density hunts are like this, and
Speaker 2: they can be frustrating as hell, but they will make
Speaker 2: you better and they sure are rewarding when they go right. Now.
Speaker 2: The other side of the coin are those places where
Speaker 2: the deer are thick. That situation is more fun to
Speaker 2: hunt for most folks, and it actually comes with its
Speaker 2: own set of challenges. Now, that's what I'm going to
Speaker 2: talk about next week, so come back for more if
Speaker 2: you're so inclined. That's it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson.
Speaker 2: This has been the ware to hunt Foundation's podcast. As always,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for your support. Truly appreciate you
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