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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide

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Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, and now your

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Speaker 1: host Tony Peterson. Hey, everyone, welcome to the Wire to

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Speaker 1: Hunt Foundations podcast, which has brought to you by First Light.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host, Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all

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Speaker 1: about the deer hunting ideas that we love, but how

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Speaker 1: most aren't really what they appear to be. This is

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Speaker 1: kind of like a weird concept this week, my friends,

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Speaker 1: but you're gonna have to bear with me because I

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Speaker 1: think it's important to overall deer hunting success and really

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Speaker 1: the reality of rutt hunting, which is coming up awful

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Speaker 1: damn quick here. You've probably picked up on this already

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Speaker 1: from some of these episodes, but I'm a big believer

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Speaker 1: that a lot of our deer hunting success comes from

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Speaker 1: two places, hard physical work and the three pound mass

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Speaker 1: of fat and electricity between our ears. The latter is

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Speaker 1: what this week is really all about, and I think

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Speaker 1: you'll get something out of it as we all buckle

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Speaker 1: in for what should be the best part of the

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Speaker 1: deer season. There are three definitions for the word idea.

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Speaker 1: The first is something such as a thought or conception

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Speaker 1: that is the product of mental activity. The second is

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Speaker 1: an opinion or conviction or principle. The third is a plan, purpose,

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Speaker 1: or goal. Now maybe it's the English geek in me,

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Speaker 1: but honestly don't know why I listed those out for you.

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Speaker 1: I'm sure you already knew what the hell an idea was,

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Speaker 1: and if you didn't, you should probably be hunting squirrels

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Speaker 1: for a few years before you tart your white tails.

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Speaker 1: Another thing about ideas is that we fall in love

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Speaker 1: with um. If you were to take a walk through

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Speaker 1: my house and rummage around every closet, you'd find evidence

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Speaker 1: that the Peterson's are prone to this very problem. One

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Speaker 1: in particular, one member of my family, I should say,

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Speaker 1: who shall remain nameless, has all kinds of physical evidence

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Speaker 1: of ideas that she has fallen in love with. Where

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Speaker 1: fantasy land met reality and the whole thing follow the

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Speaker 1: sky like a goose that has just soaked up the

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Speaker 1: brunt of a three and a half inch load of

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Speaker 1: steel yoga mats, an easel for painting random crafty things

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Speaker 1: meant to be turned into some kind of kitchy home

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Speaker 1: to core stuff. You'd find them all tucked into our

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Speaker 1: closets covered in dust, shoved into the back corners away

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Speaker 1: from the light, and you'd probably think we aren't very

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Speaker 1: good at seeing things through, and you'd be right, And honestly,

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Speaker 1: I'm not immune. If you poked around all the random

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Speaker 1: de tritus of my life, you'd find all kinds of

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Speaker 1: things like this. You'd find more fly tying and lure

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Speaker 1: making material than I could use in ten lifetimes. Hell,

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Speaker 1: you'd find old pots, plastic jig trailer molds, and squeeze

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Speaker 1: tubes full of goo that are supposed to be heated

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Speaker 1: into fishing plastics. Now, let me tell you, I loved, loved,

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Speaker 1: past tense, the idea of making my own stuff in

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Speaker 1: my own colors so that the outdoor big box stores

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Speaker 1: wouldn't get all my money every spring and summer when

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Speaker 1: I wanted to fish. But it took me just one

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Speaker 1: session where I heated the plastic compound up on the

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Speaker 1: kitchen stove to realize that inhaling burnt plastic fumes is

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Speaker 1: a great way to nearly pass out and also have

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Speaker 1: a hazy conversation with God. That was the second worst

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Speaker 1: experience I've had with the kitchen stove. The first was

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Speaker 1: when I decided to try to try to boil a

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Speaker 1: buck skull on it when my wife was gone for

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Speaker 1: the day. Now, if you can't imagine the smell of that,

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Speaker 1: I'd say that my house kind of stunk like if

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Speaker 1: you let a skunk spray a road kill deer in

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Speaker 1: August in Death Valley. Then it marinated for a few

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Speaker 1: hours before he started adding discarded undergarden. It's from our

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Speaker 1: less personal hygiene, concerned members of society. If after that

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Speaker 1: you soaked it in dog diarrhea, you'd be in the ballpark.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't my finest moment, and neither was nearly sending

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Speaker 1: myself to the Great Tree standing in the sky to

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Speaker 1: save four dollars a bag on flipping jig trailers. In

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Speaker 1: other words, not all the ideas are great, and falling

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Speaker 1: in love with ideas is generally a bad idea. Take

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Speaker 1: an obvious example here, the all day sit with the

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Speaker 1: rut speeding right at us right now. All day sits,

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Speaker 1: they should be pretty common, but are they. Let's break

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Speaker 1: this down for a second. As an idea, the all

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Speaker 1: day sit makes near perfect sense unless you absolutely have

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Speaker 1: to leave the woods to attend to life or the

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Speaker 1: conditions switch up on you, and your stand situation changes,

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Speaker 1: most likely with the wind. But all days sits are

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Speaker 1: a major, major biz nacho, my friends. They are hard

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Speaker 1: most But I know and I know a lot of

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Speaker 1: hunters with pretty solid track record of killing big deer rarely,

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Speaker 1: if ever do them. I think this is one of

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Speaker 1: those things that has talked about so much in the

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Speaker 1: hunting space, kind of like I don't know, bivy hunting

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Speaker 1: for elk at twelve ft elevation and thirteen miles from

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Speaker 1: the nearest trailhead. Does that happen? Sure, I guess do

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Speaker 1: all days it's happen. They sure do. But the frequency

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Speaker 1: in which they are discussed and the frequency in which

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Speaker 1: a dark to dark sit actually happens are not the

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Speaker 1: same number. They're not even close. Why Because the idea

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Speaker 1: of never leaving the woods when bucks should be running

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Speaker 1: around crazy is a good one. That idea makes sense,

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Speaker 1: And you can kill a midday buck. You absolutely can.

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Speaker 1: Last year, while hunting for a one week in November show,

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Speaker 1: I killed the Wisconsin buck at one pm. I knew

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Speaker 1: from sunrise on that morning that I had a really

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Speaker 1: good chance of doing just that. This confidence in your

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Speaker 1: set up and in the conditions is a huge mode

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Speaker 1: of waters. Sit all day, at least it is for me.

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Speaker 1: I like all day sits. But that doesn't make it easy,

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Speaker 1: and that's the problem. Most of us decide that since

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Speaker 1: it's November seven and there is a super cold front

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Speaker 1: rolling through that the eleven ish twelve ish type hours

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Speaker 1: of daylight we can hunt would be best utilized by

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Speaker 1: planting our butts on stand and staying. Yet that cold

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Speaker 1: front brings well cold weather, and cold weather is often

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Speaker 1: an all day sit killer, especially when it comes with

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Speaker 1: some wind. And then there is the unfortunate reality of

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Speaker 1: the rut, which means that while we expect tons of action,

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Speaker 1: it's mostly a weight and not see anything kind of game.

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Speaker 1: I relearned this lesson every single season, and at this

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Speaker 1: point I should understand it, but I don't. I always

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Speaker 1: think the rut is going to be amazing, and it

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Speaker 1: tends to be the same deer hunting grind as the

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Speaker 1: rest of the season, except it sprinkled with more optimism

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Speaker 1: and occasionally a day where the dear Gods do smile

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Speaker 1: upon us, but mostly they don't. Mostly they frown or

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Speaker 1: flip us off or whatever, and mostly you are uncomfortable

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Speaker 1: board and racked with doubt on whether you are using

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Speaker 1: your time wisely. The idea of all day sits crashes

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Speaker 1: headlong into the reality of all day sits, and guess what,

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Speaker 1: it's so easy to get down. It's so easy to

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Speaker 1: fall into the mind grinding, the second guessing, and to

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Speaker 1: talk yourself into leaving. Now, if this sounds about right,

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Speaker 1: if this sounds a little familiar, you really have two options.

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Speaker 1: Acknowledging that you're more of a three or four hour

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Speaker 1: at a time hunter, or you've got to change things

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Speaker 1: up so that you can tolerate sitting from dark to dark. Now.

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Speaker 1: I've talked about this several times, but for me, it

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Speaker 1: takes a few things. I need to be in a

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Speaker 1: spot that has some kind of all day feature that

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Speaker 1: should draw deer, or more appropriately, I guess I should say,

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Speaker 1: should funnel them through. If I'm not on a banging

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Speaker 1: terrain trap or some water source tucked into the cover,

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Speaker 1: I have a hard time with all day sits now.

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Speaker 1: If I'm not fully loaded with food and coffee and candy,

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Speaker 1: I'm also in trouble. And if I don't have a

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Speaker 1: book or something to distract myself with I'm in trouble too.

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Speaker 1: The physical aspect of an all day sit is real,

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Speaker 1: but it's nothing compared to the mental side of things.

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Speaker 1: Think about that as we get closer to the rut.

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Speaker 1: Another idea that we love but often doesn't work out

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Speaker 1: too well for us is the hunt the does during

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Speaker 1: the rut strategy. Now, if you're not around does during

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Speaker 1: the right you might be in trouble. That's pretty elementary stuff.

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Speaker 1: But where do we usually find does on food sources

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Speaker 1: that cut corn field or kill plot or whatever source

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Speaker 1: of groceries you like to hunt? Who visits it most

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Speaker 1: often probably does and fawns. Then the rut comes around

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Speaker 1: and we think, well, I need to be around the does.

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Speaker 1: Then I know I need to be around the food

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Speaker 1: source that has the does on it. Now I know

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Speaker 1: you can watch bucks sprint across corn fields at noon

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Speaker 1: in some places, but for the most part, you aren't

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Speaker 1: going to have doze feeding in the wide open in

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Speaker 1: the midday. And if you don't, why would the bucks

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Speaker 1: be there. The idea of being around the dose to

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Speaker 1: kill a buck it's a great one, especially if you

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Speaker 1: have a badass dough betting area, But you have to

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Speaker 1: filter that idea through your hunting reality. A much much

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Speaker 1: better bet, like I said, is to say, do I

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Speaker 1: know where the does are going to bed? Where are

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Speaker 1: they going to be? Maybe from sunrise to sunset? Where's

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Speaker 1: a better odds? Because I know they're not going to

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Speaker 1: be out in that cut cornfield all day. Getting downwind

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Speaker 1: of a spot like that during the rut, especially if

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Speaker 1: that spot is tucked into some cover, It's a much

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Speaker 1: better bet than posting up all day on a hunter

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Speaker 1: acre alfalfa field. For most of us, I think an

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Speaker 1: even better bet is to make an educated guess on

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Speaker 1: where a couple of different dough betting areas are and

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Speaker 1: then look for the terrain traps between them. Now you

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Speaker 1: have bucks that should be coming and going, and you

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Speaker 1: have the makings of catching a cruiser at any point

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Speaker 1: of the day. Now, another idea that we fall in

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Speaker 1: love with during the rut, and I've talked about a lot,

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Speaker 1: is get rich quick products. We just can't help ourselves.

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Speaker 1: And honestly, it's such a situationally variable thing that I'm

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Speaker 1: kind of nervous about even addressing it. So I'll say this,

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Speaker 1: pay attention to the deer you are hunting and how

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Speaker 1: they react and pay attention to how often these things

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Speaker 1: work for you. If you love the idea rattling like

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Speaker 1: crazy because it's the pre rut in the bucks should

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Speaker 1: be feeling a little froggy, great, go nuts, But pay attention.

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Speaker 1: If you rattle in a buck even once every five sessions,

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Speaker 1: you're doing pretty well. If you rattle all day and

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Speaker 1: nothing shows, or if you rattle for a full week

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Speaker 1: right at first light and it doesn't work, then acknowledge

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Speaker 1: that the idea isn't really matching reality. The same goes

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Speaker 1: for decoys or grunt calls or whatever. A lot of

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Speaker 1: hunters view them as a net neutral type of strategy

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Speaker 1: during the rut, but I don't. I think every book

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Speaker 1: can be grunted in at the right time, but that

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Speaker 1: window is small. I think most bucks can be decoyed into,

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Speaker 1: but again, the odds of getting the timing right they're

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Speaker 1: not great. Now, this doesn't mean you shouldn't try any

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Speaker 1: of these, because you should, just don't overplay your hand.

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Speaker 1: If the deer show you in your area that your

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Speaker 1: idea of what should happen during the rut is vastly

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Speaker 1: different from what is actually going to happen, or what

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Speaker 1: actually does happen now. Another category in white toil hunting

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Speaker 1: that is right for this problem is the traveling hunt.

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Speaker 1: We romanticize the over the road adventure, and if you're

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Speaker 1: on social media at all, you're probably inundated with images

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Speaker 1: and stories from hunters who traveled to a different state

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Speaker 1: shot an enormous buck. Most of these posts tell a

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Speaker 1: surprisingly sparse story on the actual hunt. I bet that

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Speaker 1: at least of the people who travel have a hell

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Speaker 1: of a good spot to travel too. Whether that's an

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Speaker 1: outfitted property or a lease, or a grandparent on a

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Speaker 1: homestead farm that is loaded with deer and devoid a

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Speaker 1: hunting pressure, it doesn't matter. Those situations are everywhere, and

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Speaker 1: they are almost always left out of the story or

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Speaker 1: glossed over in a major and I might add not

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Speaker 1: unintentional way. Now, there are plenty of people out there

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Speaker 1: doing d i y hunts, many of which occur on

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Speaker 1: public land. Some of those people are killing good deer too,

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Speaker 1: and in a similar but different way, are also kind

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Speaker 1: of glossing over the realities of their hunts. This is

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Speaker 1: because when we see success, we focus on it and

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Speaker 1: we assign it a way heavier weight than it deserves.

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Speaker 1: I'll give you a dumb example. In September, I took

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Speaker 1: one of my daughters to Wisconsin to hunt opening weekend.

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Speaker 1: The weather was hot, like mid sixties overnight, like eight

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Speaker 1: in the day kind of hot. It was hazy, muggy,

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Speaker 1: and not that much fun to sweat while hiking a

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Speaker 1: couple of hundred yards to our blinds. And the blind

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Speaker 1: we did sit because it was our best opportunity. In

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Speaker 1: a south wind was full of spiders, and I mean

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Speaker 1: full of spiders. Now, listen, I'm pretty manly, as you

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Speaker 1: guys probably all know, but when it comes to spiders,

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Speaker 1: I'm not. I hate them. There's some ancestral memory in

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Speaker 1: my jeans of distant slope foreheaded grunting and butt scratching

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Speaker 1: pre Peterson type of people who dealt with venomous, disgusting spiders.

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Speaker 1: I know it because when I see a spider, I'm

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Speaker 1: filled with revulsion. When I see like fourteen of them,

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Speaker 1: big bastards too in a small blind that I need

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Speaker 1: to climb into, it's not that much fun for me.

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Speaker 1: It's also not that much fun. I learned for a

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Speaker 1: ten year old girl who screams if a ladybug is

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Speaker 1: in her room. A couple of those eight legged bastards

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Speaker 1: with hot weather in eight hours of hunting without seeing

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Speaker 1: a deer, and you have the makings of a full

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Speaker 1: day that really wasn't that much fun. Now, the second

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Speaker 1: morning of the season, however, with attempts still stupid high

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Speaker 1: in the humidity at roughly a hundred and twelve percent,

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Speaker 1: we managed to have a spike buck walk right in

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Speaker 1: and pose up at like twelve yards. He ran maybe

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Speaker 1: fifty yards before piling up, and is honestly a perfect

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Speaker 1: first buck for my daughter. So now the hunt looks

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Speaker 1: like it was amazing, and in that one specific way

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Speaker 1: it sure was, But in many other ways it honestly

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Speaker 1: wasn't that much fun. The same goes from my elk

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Speaker 1: hunt in September. People see a gripping and granted with

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Speaker 1: a good bull from public land and they think, well,

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Speaker 1: that must have been like a vacation. It wasn't, and

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Speaker 1: elk hunting for most of us common folks never is.

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Speaker 1: Traveling hunts are a great idea. I actually wish everyone

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Speaker 1: could and would do them. I wish they could. The

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Speaker 1: rewards are worth it, and there is nothing better in

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Speaker 1: life than cool experiences. There isn't but that doesn't mean

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Speaker 1: that there won't be a ship ton of work to

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Speaker 1: do on those hunts, and it won't mean that they

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Speaker 1: aren't expensive, And then you know, maybe there's going to

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Speaker 1: be some added pressure to kill you. I p camping,

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Speaker 1: which is something that everyone says they love, but I

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Speaker 1: suspect that they just haven't camped enough. I used to

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Speaker 1: camp like forty to fifty days a year on all

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Speaker 1: my public land hunts, and I can tell you that

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Speaker 1: the shine wears off the old camping apple after a while.

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Speaker 1: It's still my favorite way to go about d I

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Speaker 1: Y hunts, but camping is something that can be a

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Speaker 1: whole lot of no fun, especially if you don't have

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Speaker 1: a really good system down and at least marginally decent gear.

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Speaker 1: In fact, this is a really bad comparison, but I'll

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Speaker 1: do it anyway. I think camping is the man's version

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Speaker 1: for childbirth, not in the pain and suffering aspect or

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Speaker 1: anything like that. It's just something that we get this

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Speaker 1: weird amnesia over. Anyone who has witnessed or gone through

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Speaker 1: birthing a child wouldn't say the act itself is a nice,

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Speaker 1: easy thing that is no big deal. But is it

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Speaker 1: worth it? Of course, but fun and relaxing sure didn't

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Speaker 1: look like it camping for us, dudes, It's kind of

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Speaker 1: like that. We go through it, we remember how much

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Speaker 1: it can suck, especially if it's super hot or rainy

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Speaker 1: or a gear suck, and we swear it off never again,

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Speaker 1: we say, than a few months pass and the next

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Speaker 1: year season is coming up and we start to forget

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Speaker 1: the misery and decide that, you know what, I can't

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Speaker 1: wait to go camping. Camping is a great idea and

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Speaker 1: I'm super stoked for it. Lather rents repeat. So what's

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Speaker 1: the lesson in all of this That everything sucks and

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Speaker 1: we should probably stay home and watch football. Nope, the

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Speaker 1: lesson is to be realistic about hunting and about ourselves,

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Speaker 1: to find that homeostasis, that equilibrium between what we think

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Speaker 1: about hunting and what hunting actually is when we do it.

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Speaker 1: The more you acknowledge that there are a lot of

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Speaker 1: sucky parts to hunting, but they are worth wading through

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Speaker 1: for the experience, the easier it is to tolerate the

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Speaker 1: not so fun parts. When you do that, you'll hunt more,

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Speaker 1: you'll hunt smarter, and you'll enjoy the whole process a

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Speaker 1: hell of a lot more. And when you do that,

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Speaker 1: when that happens, you feel more tags, which makes those

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Speaker 1: all day sits or the seventh night in a row

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Speaker 1: in a small tent so much more palatable because it's

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Speaker 1: not the idea of what we do that matters, it's

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Speaker 1: the reality of what we do. While that reality isn't

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Speaker 1: quite as rose colored as our fantasies about craze bucks

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Speaker 1: chasing at noon, it's still pretty damn good. It's worth

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Speaker 1: it every single time you can go. Now, next week,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to talk about the rut. I'm going to

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Speaker 1: talk about how often we kind of look for all

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Speaker 1: the deer when we should be looking for the right Dear.

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Speaker 1: That's it for this week, my friends. I'm Tony Peterson.

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Speaker 1: This has been the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast, which

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Speaker 1: has brought to you by First Light. As always, thank

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Speaker 1: you so much for your support, and if you want

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Speaker 1: more of a white tail fix, feel free to check

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Speaker 1: out Mark's new show on the meat eat Or YouTube channel,

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Speaker 1: which is called Deer Country. You can also visit the

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Speaker 1: wire to Hunt YouTube channel for our how to videos,

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Speaker 1: and go to the meat eator dot com slash wired

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Speaker 1: to read all kinds of white tail related articles,