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 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 is all about understanding your home
Speaker 2: field advantage and how you can use it to have
Speaker 2: a better deer season. One of the things that sucks
Speaker 2: the most about modern society is how prevalent victim mentality is.
Speaker 2: Now we all have a reason to blame someone else
Speaker 2: for our problems, and the more we are exposed to
Speaker 2: that kind of thinking, the more we normalize it.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: Of course, there are plenty of people who are actually
Speaker 2: real victims of many bad things, but there's also the
Speaker 2: reality that a lot of us just wanted an excuse
Speaker 2: for not doing something that we should. This happens in
Speaker 2: all facets of life, and of course it happens in
Speaker 2: deer hunting, but it doesn't have to and that's kind
Speaker 2: of what this show is all about. A couple of
Speaker 2: weeks back in the middle of June, I caught a
Speaker 2: flight out of MSP to Bozeman, where the meat Eater
Speaker 2: headquarters is. The main reason for my western travel was
Speaker 2: so I could film a show where I explained how
Speaker 2: hard it is to teach Steve Vanella how to white
Speaker 2: tail hunt. I wish that was a joke, but you'll
Speaker 2: see anyway, if you were to ask me about that
Speaker 2: part of Montana versus the part of Minnesota I currently
Speaker 2: live in, I'd pretty much vote to move out there
Speaker 2: in a heartbeat. When you land in Bozeman, you can
Speaker 2: see a couple of mountain ranges that look like they
Speaker 2: are straight out of a Bob Ross painting, complete with
Speaker 2: a hell of a lot of happy little trees. The
Speaker 2: opportunities to hunt a variety of critters there are a
Speaker 2: hell of a lot different than what I have at home,
Speaker 2: and I'm kind of a I don't know.
Speaker 3: A variety kind of fella. I guess.
Speaker 2: The air is crisp and clean, and there's just a
Speaker 2: vibe to those mountain towns that I love. People are
Speaker 2: generally pretty dang healthy because they can get outside and
Speaker 2: do stuff, and there's a nice mix of modern convenience,
Speaker 2: old school cool. In fact, I think about moving out
Speaker 2: to the mountains a lot, partially because I only think
Speaker 2: about the good stuff. I don't have to actually try
Speaker 2: to buy a house while competing against a horde of
Speaker 2: trust funders whose vacation homes are worth three times what
Speaker 2: my normal home is worth. I don't have to drive
Speaker 2: a big truck on streets built for horse and buggies
Speaker 2: back in the eighteen hundreds. I can think about how
Speaker 2: awesome it is to shoot an elk while not thinking
Speaker 2: about busy trailheads and competing against a pile of outdoor
Speaker 2: recreation enthusiasts for space on the trail. Hell, when I
Speaker 2: was there in mid June, it snowed, not up in
Speaker 2: the mountains, well, I guess up in the mountains, but
Speaker 2: right in town too. It was a true blizzard in
Speaker 2: mid June. Top that off with the fact that many
Speaker 2: of the best rivers out there were seriously blown out,
Speaker 2: and the reality of living there becomes something more balanced
Speaker 2: between well, I don't know, amazing and a heaping.
Speaker 3: Pile of horseshit.
Speaker 2: Reality often sucks, Like say you get a job with
Speaker 2: your dream company and you're like, I'm going to make
Speaker 2: so much cool content. But then suddenly you find yourself
Speaker 2: in some swamp in Michigan with some coworker who won't
Speaker 2: shut up about what kind of pollinators are his favorite,
Speaker 2: while you're filming something related to deer hunting and you
Speaker 2: should be turkey hunting, and you realize, dang, actually got
Speaker 2: myself a real job. Anyway, here's a thing. It's a
Speaker 2: good idea to acknowledge reality and how to deal with it.
Speaker 2: This is something I think we should all do. And
Speaker 2: I got to remind you of this recently, when a
Speaker 2: Kentucky whitetail hunter emailed Old cal with a question about
Speaker 2: how he should look at the increased pressure on public
Speaker 2: land in the Bluegrass state. This guy, who put more
Speaker 2: thought into this problem than a lot of folks, admitted
Speaker 2: he just wasn't stoked about how many non residents there
Speaker 2: are chasing the same whitetails he's after. Ugh, this is
Speaker 2: a common problem. What was uncommon is that he admitted
Speaker 2: being uneasy about advocating to take away hunting opportunities from someone, anyone,
Speaker 2: even folks who live across the state lines from him. Now,
Speaker 2: I got to tell you it warmed my heart to
Speaker 2: read that he was truly concerned with the issue of
Speaker 2: hunters taking hunter opportunities away. As I was thinking about
Speaker 2: how to respond to him, I realized how often I
Speaker 2: hear residents of some state say that non residents are
Speaker 2: taking away their chances, but they have home field advantage
Speaker 2: and should use it. It's not all doom and gloom.
Speaker 2: The reality for all of us who don't own or
Speaker 2: lease land is that it just seems like there's more
Speaker 2: pressure out there pretty much everywhere.
Speaker 3: You know. I don't know if that's true, but at
Speaker 3: least it sure feels that way. Now.
Speaker 2: While I'm going to get into some other things, I
Speaker 2: want to address this first. Pretty much, any hunter who
Speaker 2: has to drive into your state to hunt is at
Speaker 2: a disadvantage compared to you. We should all be thinking
Speaker 2: about how to use that. For example, it's July. Do
Speaker 2: you know what that means. Most of us have one
Speaker 2: hell of an opportunity to do some real scouting right now.
Speaker 2: We can run trail cameras, we can glass, and we
Speaker 2: can get out there and take a good look around.
Speaker 2: If you live, say, twenty minutes from where you hunt,
Speaker 2: you have a huge advantage over someone who lives five
Speaker 2: hours away. Why not use it? You know the pressure
Speaker 2: is going to be there in the fall, so the
Speaker 2: best you can do is use your home field advantage
Speaker 2: to find places where the pressure might not be that bad.
Speaker 3: The best part about this.
Speaker 2: Is that you'll be looking to get away from the
Speaker 2: other hunters, just like the deer. That's a two birds,
Speaker 2: one stone situation, maybe two bucks one arrow. I know
Speaker 2: that sounds like generic throwaway advice, so let's dive into
Speaker 2: something a little deeper. Do you do any long distance
Speaker 2: scouting before trail cameras became so common, this was the
Speaker 2: move in the summer. It's probably my favorite thing to
Speaker 2: do with white tails, besides actually hunting them. The surface
Speaker 2: level approach to long range glassing is to find a
Speaker 2: bachelor group with some hitlisters and call that good enough.
Speaker 2: But it's not. If you have a way to get
Speaker 2: in and watch often, you should.
Speaker 3: It's the easiest way to get.
Speaker 2: On in an early season pattern, and honestly the easiest
Speaker 2: way I've ever found to kill a big one, even
Speaker 2: on public land. Now we all think the rut is
Speaker 2: the best bet, but for pressure ground it's often not.
Speaker 2: When you go out in glass you can see many,
Speaker 2: many things just beyond the obvious stuff like I don't
Speaker 2: know bucks like to feed in the soybeans in July.
Speaker 2: You can see where they feed in the afternoon when
Speaker 2: it's super hot and the sun is shining, they're going
Speaker 2: to stay in the shade.
Speaker 3: It's going to tell you a lot.
Speaker 2: You can see what trails they take to get to
Speaker 2: the food, and when they take them. Often you see
Speaker 2: them crossfields in such a way that just doesn't appear
Speaker 2: to make much sense. But when you watch enough and
Speaker 2: see enough deer do something, it doesn't really matter if
Speaker 2: you know why. It's good enough to know that they
Speaker 2: just often do that something. Maybe you notice that one
Speaker 2: corner often has dozen vonds, but another tends to have
Speaker 2: more bucks. That's pretty good intel that's not going to
Speaker 2: come from a single glassing session. Now, imagine if you
Speaker 2: do some glass and often enough to start learning this
Speaker 2: kind of stuff, and then you throw up a couple
Speaker 2: of trail cameras in the woods on various trails leading
Speaker 2: out to that food source. What are you doing? Then
Speaker 2: you're putting together some real knowledge. Because what if a
Speaker 2: bunch of those loser non residents come in the night
Speaker 2: before the sea and walk those field edges and hang
Speaker 2: some stands. Well, you know what trails the bucks usually
Speaker 2: take to get to the fields and what conditions they
Speaker 2: take them during, so you have a huge advantage. No
Speaker 2: one who is just showing up is going to have
Speaker 2: that piece together as well as you. Even if you
Speaker 2: never had to compete with a single out of state
Speaker 2: or for a spot, that strategy would put you ahead
Speaker 2: of most of your local competition too. And do you
Speaker 2: know why, because most people don't even understand how to
Speaker 2: give themselves a real advantage over the deer and the
Speaker 2: other hunters, and even if they do, they probably won't
Speaker 2: put in the effort. Think about it this way, if
Speaker 2: you're frustrated with how hard hunting on public land has become,
Speaker 2: for example, you might look at it as almost an
Speaker 2: impossible task. A lot of Colorado residents feel that way
Speaker 2: about out their elk situation. In fact, a lot of
Speaker 2: hunters will say that, but it's not true, and the
Speaker 2: proof is in the folks who go out and fill
Speaker 2: their tags in places that other hunters think is impossible.
Speaker 2: Some folks are content to allow themselves to be victims
Speaker 2: of too much pressure, while other folks just show up
Speaker 2: and try to get the job done. There's not much
Speaker 2: more to be said on that front, actually, but let's
Speaker 2: take it a step further. Anyway, If you're dealing with
Speaker 2: a lot of pressure and you just can't connect with
Speaker 2: a deer, take a look at the old calendar. Are
Speaker 2: you hunting only weekends? Are you hunting opening weekend and
Speaker 2: then sporadically through the season, and then pinning your hopes
Speaker 2: on the rut. If so, guess what, you're gonna have
Speaker 2: a lot of company. I know it sucks to see
Speaker 2: a ton of trucks in the parking areas on opening weekend,
Speaker 2: but it doesn't suck seeing almost no trucks on October tenth,
Speaker 2: especially if you're slipping into an oak flat where you
Speaker 2: know there's going to be some hard mask, or maybe
Speaker 2: you're down south somewhere in the per simmons are just
Speaker 2: starting to ripen up. You can set yourself up for
Speaker 2: this stuff, especially if you live close to where you hunt.
Speaker 2: Let me give you another example of how to recognize
Speaker 2: your deer privilege. Last year, when I drove up to
Speaker 2: North Dakota to try to film big prairie buck hitting
Speaker 2: the dirt, I ended up on a section of land
Speaker 2: that was littered with trail cameras. Now, there aren't very
Speaker 2: many trees in that part of the state to begin with,
Speaker 2: but it felt like about half of them had cameras
Speaker 2: on them. It was pretty discouraging, but the deer sign wasn't.
Speaker 2: It was especially not discouraging under a few huge oaks
Speaker 2: that were scattered throughout the property. Now, I'm not the
Speaker 2: smartest pup in the old litter, but I know that
Speaker 2: when I see a ton of fresh sign that I
Speaker 2: should hunt. That's what I did, and it was a
Speaker 2: short hunt that ended up with a short blood trail
Speaker 2: and a long drag through the night. The hunters who
Speaker 2: lived there, without doubt having an advantage over an odda
Speaker 2: stater who drove in with zero intel and walked out
Speaker 2: to figure something out, they thought. And I'm filling in
Speaker 2: the blanks here, but I believe it to be true
Speaker 2: that running cameras was good enough. But it wouldn't clue
Speaker 2: anyone into that mast pattern. Most likely it just wouldn't.
Speaker 2: But some fresh late October snow and an hour walk
Speaker 2: would do. You see where I'm going with this. It's
Speaker 2: easy to pin our failures on someone else, and in
Speaker 2: some cases that's okay, because it's definitely going to be true,
Speaker 2: but it's usually not when we start pointing our fingers
Speaker 2: at some faceless enemy who has sabotaged all of our
Speaker 2: deer hunting effort. Like most things in life, it's just
Speaker 2: pretty much on us. We have agency over ourselves, and
Speaker 2: that's about it.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: This is where I'm not going to veer off into
Speaker 2: the kind of lalla land that a lot of hunting
Speaker 2: personalities like to pretend it is real. I could say
Speaker 2: that you have to be a scouting machine. You have
Speaker 2: to risk divorce to be out there every day that
Speaker 2: you can. You have to scout so much that your
Speaker 2: kids look at you a little funny at first when
Speaker 2: you come home, because they rarely ever see you. You
Speaker 2: don't have to go that far, but you have to
Speaker 2: do more than your competition, sometimes quite a bit more
Speaker 2: if you do really haunt a high pressure area. Oftentimes
Speaker 2: though it's not as much work as we'd like to think,
Speaker 2: but it is more work, there's no way around it.
Speaker 2: Kind Of like you can't out exercise a horrible diet,
Speaker 2: you can't out haunt a lazy off season. This isn't
Speaker 2: elk hunting where any moment one could bugle and you
Speaker 2: could be in the game. It's white tails and you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess a buck could show up at
Speaker 2: any time, but they usually just require some effort when
Speaker 2: we'd all rather be fishing for big smallies or playing
Speaker 2: rec league softball or whatever. Now, another way you might
Speaker 2: acknowledge a real advantage is just proximity to your hunting grounds.
Speaker 2: Can you snack a little on scouting here and there,
Speaker 2: maybe an hour after work to walk into a spot
Speaker 2: you think might have some water you can hunt in
Speaker 2: the early season. You don't need to spend dark to
Speaker 2: dark out there. If you don't have to an hour
Speaker 2: here and there adds up, especially if you go in
Speaker 2: with a This is easy to do once you get
Speaker 2: into the groove of it, and it's beneficial. I can't
Speaker 2: tell you how many times I've gone into a spot
Speaker 2: to glass in the summer, or just look at an
Speaker 2: area that I never ever go in where I've found
Speaker 2: something that has led me to some good deer. A
Speaker 2: great way to think about this stuff is to try
Speaker 2: and remember your last few seasons. Do you feel like
Speaker 2: you settled a lot by sitting a couple of your
Speaker 2: go to spots too?
Speaker 3: Much did you try.
Speaker 2: To make a hunt happen where you wanted it to happen,
Speaker 2: despite the deer telling you that that wasn't a good idea,
Speaker 2: or maybe the other hunters telling you that they thought
Speaker 2: it was a great idea because they were all hunting
Speaker 2: there too. You've heard me say this a lot, but
Speaker 2: it's worth repeating, especially at this time of the year.
Speaker 2: If you have options, you're in the game. That's it.
Speaker 2: If you don't have very many options, you'll be out
Speaker 2: of the game. The more you scout, the more you
Speaker 2: go into check areas that you can either add to
Speaker 2: your list or scratch off of it, the less you're
Speaker 2: going to be forced to. I honestly think this is
Speaker 2: one of the reasons that some good hunters will kill
Speaker 2: on land three states away that the locals struggle with.
Speaker 2: When you show up, you don't have any choice but
Speaker 2: to work your butt off to find something to work
Speaker 2: with right now. When you live close by, it's easier
Speaker 2: to think the time you spend hunting will make up
Speaker 2: for the lack of scouting or stand prep, but it
Speaker 2: mostly won't. It's kind of like how a lot of
Speaker 2: folks you know, they think the only way to have
Speaker 2: a truly good bird dog is by taking it to
Speaker 2: a professional trainer. While trainers are a dang good thing
Speaker 2: for getting results out of dogs, they can only do
Speaker 2: so much in eight or twelve weeks. Do you know
Speaker 2: who has a better chance of making your own dog
Speaker 2: a really great dog?
Speaker 3: You?
Speaker 2: You're with that dog every day, every little moment you
Speaker 2: take the train as a win, and no one is
Speaker 2: going to be more in tune or have more opportunities
Speaker 2: to do good by that dog than you. Sure, it's
Speaker 2: nice to offshore that stuff, but it's also not the
Speaker 2: only pas to what you want. And better yet, you
Speaker 2: have the best opportunity out of anyone to get what
Speaker 2: you want out of the situation. Let me try to
Speaker 2: offer up a few more reasons before I wrap a
Speaker 2: boat around this whole thing. Just think about the really
Speaker 2: little stuff, like knowing where every parking area is on
Speaker 2: the land you hunt. You know you can know each
Speaker 2: of those spots well and when you should use one
Speaker 2: versus the other. Think about property boundaries. You can learn
Speaker 2: those in the off season, like get a real feel
Speaker 2: for them. You can get a real feel for what
Speaker 2: the neighboring properties might have on them. If you go
Speaker 2: scout enough, you'll be in tuned to where the cattle
Speaker 2: are being pastured this week, where the corn gets cut
Speaker 2: for silage, when you should be counting on it for
Speaker 2: much later in the season. You can check the river
Speaker 2: after a fresh rain and see how high it gets
Speaker 2: and whether it would still be waitable or not if
Speaker 2: the same amount of rain falls, say in October, you
Speaker 2: know the night before you want to go hunt that property.
Speaker 3: The more you scout now, the more you learn. This
Speaker 3: kind of.
Speaker 2: Stuff that we never really think about when it comes
Speaker 2: to killing big bucks. But the truth is having a
Speaker 2: lot of relevant, up to date information about the ground
Speaker 2: you like to hunt is far more important than buying
Speaker 2: the latest and greatest bottle of deer p Instead of
Speaker 2: getting to the river edge in the dark and realizing
Speaker 2: you might be going for a dangerous swim if you
Speaker 2: step in, so you got to hike out and go
Speaker 2: back to bed, you can use that knowledge to start
Speaker 2: the morning out on one of your spots that doesn't
Speaker 2: require you to cross that river. And hell, you can
Speaker 2: even factor in that the deer might not want to
Speaker 2: cross it either, which could make certain spots better appoint
Speaker 2: you in the right direction for catching a buck in
Speaker 2: the morning, trying to get back to his bedding area.
Speaker 2: All I'm saying is that it's a good idea to
Speaker 2: take stock in your privilege, embrace it, use it to
Speaker 2: your advantage. Start now if you haven't already, and you'll
Speaker 2: be real happy with your decisions, you know, by about September,
Speaker 2: and even happier when you're on stand and hunting like
Speaker 2: you should be. While a lot of your competition either
Speaker 2: isn't hunting or scrambling to put together some kind of plan.
Speaker 2: Think about that. Think about coming back next week because
Speaker 2: I'm going to talk about scouting again, but how scouting
Speaker 2: can be used sort of as a deer hunting dress rehearsal,
Speaker 2: and why it's such an important thing to get into
Speaker 2: the groove of doing because it will make you a
Speaker 2: much more efficient and effective deer hunter. I promise you
Speaker 2: that that's it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson. This
Speaker 2: has been the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which is
Speaker 2: brought to you by First Light. As always, thank you
Speaker 2: so much for listening and for all your support. I
Speaker 2: can't tell you how much that means to us. Just
Speaker 2: trust me on this. We love it, we appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Also, if you're like man, I'm getting the
Speaker 2: itch and it's time to start thinking about some extra
Speaker 2: deer hunting information or just diving real deep into the game,
Speaker 2: you can head over to the meat eater dot com
Speaker 2: and there is going to be a pile of different
Speaker 2: content waiting for you.
Speaker 3: Various podcasts.
Speaker 2: You can check out the Element guys and what they're
Speaker 2: doing for their white Tail prep of the season. You
Speaker 2: can see all kinds of different video series, and of
Speaker 2: course there's articles there, recipes, and a whole lot more.
Speaker 2: Go check it out at the meat eater dot com.