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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, presented by first Light,

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Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.

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Speaker 1: First Light, Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host

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Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.

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Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast,

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Speaker 2: which has brought to you by first Light. I'm your host,

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Speaker 2: Tony Peterson. In today's episode is all about letting the

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Speaker 2: deer be your teachers while you just sit back and

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Speaker 2: absorb information from them. A lot of the hunting industry

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Speaker 2: is built on the idea that you can manipulate deer

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Speaker 2: behavior to your liking, or at least figure out some

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Speaker 2: way to predict exactly what they are gonna do. After all,

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Speaker 2: we scout like fiends, and we buy grunt tubes for

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Speaker 2: obvious reasons. But there is an intangible to deer hunting

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Speaker 2: that can't be bought or figured out solely by learning

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Speaker 2: to read sign This involves letting the deer tell you

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Speaker 2: what they do and then using that to your advantage,

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Speaker 2: which is what I'm going to talk about right now.

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Speaker 2: How many of you find folks have ever thrown frogs

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Speaker 2: for large mouth not real frogs, mind you, but fake frogs.

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Speaker 2: Frogs we used to just call scum frogs because that

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Speaker 2: was the only option, and boy were they rough compared

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Speaker 2: to the fake kermits that are on the market today.

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Speaker 1: Now.

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Speaker 2: If you have you know that it's about the most

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Speaker 2: exciting fishing you can do while staying in fresh water.

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Speaker 2: If you haven't, you're missing out. I love frog fishing,

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Speaker 2: but it's difficult for beginners, and sometimes difficult for guys

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Speaker 2: who've been doing it a long time and should be better.

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Speaker 2: This type of fishing involves tons of aquatic vegetation like

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Speaker 2: the lily pads and arrowhead and duckweed the bass would

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Speaker 2: hide under while waiting for an amphibious snack to venture

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Speaker 2: its way. This means heavy rods, heavy braided line, just,

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Speaker 2: you know, just to have a chance to winch a

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Speaker 2: fish out of the salad. When you get a blow up,

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Speaker 2: the odds are pretty good that eat bass will miss

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Speaker 2: your frog completely, or it'll eat it and spit it

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Speaker 2: out just as you're trying to set the hook. The

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Speaker 2: follow up cast in frog fishing is everything, and it's

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Speaker 2: something that is very, very difficult for newbies to get right.

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Speaker 2: This isn't because of accuracy entirely, although you do have

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Speaker 2: to be able to hit the blow up spot pretty

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Speaker 2: well and as quickly as you can. But this panic

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Speaker 2: that comes from it often leads to backlashes and swearing

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Speaker 2: because the window for a follow up is often pretty

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Speaker 2: short for whatever reason. The more time that passes, and

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Speaker 2: I'm talking seconds here, the more likely it is that

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Speaker 2: your fish will just vanish. Sometimes you want to throw

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Speaker 2: the same frog back in there, and sometimes you want

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Speaker 2: to give them a look at something else. I recently

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Speaker 2: frogfish with someone who has some experience doing it but

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Speaker 2: still is pretty young, and would miss a fish and

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Speaker 2: then ask me what to do. Sometimes I'd say, get

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Speaker 2: that kermit back in there right now, or I'd say

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Speaker 2: pick up that sinko rod and toss it into the blowhole.

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Speaker 2: Every time my fishing partner would question my advice, it

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Speaker 2: was frustrating because I couldn't explain why I felt one

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Speaker 2: approach was better than the other. And it changes from

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Speaker 2: fish to fish, sometimes in the span of a minute

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Speaker 2: or two, oftentimes in the same small weed bed. It's

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Speaker 2: a feel thing that you get after frog fishing a

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Speaker 2: whole lot in your life. It's the cumulative lessons of

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Speaker 2: hundreds and hundreds of fish doing this, but not that, that,

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Speaker 2: but not this. Over time, the bashes tell you what

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Speaker 2: your best odds are because their behavior falls into a

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Speaker 2: few different categories. It's not woodsmanship if it's fishing, so

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Speaker 2: maybe it's uh watersmanship. That doesn't seem right any hooters.

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Speaker 2: We are conditioned to believe that we can just understand

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Speaker 2: fish and game behavior, and we can to some extent.

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Speaker 2: We can, also, at least with white tails, curate situations

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Speaker 2: where they are highly likely to offer us up some

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Speaker 2: sort of predictable behavior. I guess you can do that

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Speaker 2: with fish too. I mean, if you went out to

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Speaker 2: a specific weedy point for a few weeks and through

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Speaker 2: in handfuls of injured minnows, eventually the fish would grow

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Speaker 2: real comfortable showing up to feed. Then after a few months,

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Speaker 2: if you were so inclined, you could catch the living

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Speaker 2: shit out of those fish because they wouldn't see it coming.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if that's a poor comparison to managing deer,

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Speaker 2: but it kind of feels right. I guess it's also

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Speaker 2: beside the point, though, because if enough bass can teach

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Speaker 2: us a lot about how they act in specific situations.

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Speaker 2: Enough deer can as well, and they do if we

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Speaker 2: pay attention. During a recent trip to northern Wisconsin, where

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Speaker 2: I divided my time between trying to bait bears, scout deer,

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Speaker 2: and catch a few bass and muskies, I found myself

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Speaker 2: in a random lake staring at a ridge. It was

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Speaker 2: just one of those spots that looked like white tails

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Speaker 2: would travel it, and while I tried to coax a

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Speaker 2: few large mouth from the pads, I thought about that

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Speaker 2: woods just up the shore from me. Then I heard

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Speaker 2: a splash, which caught my attention because it sounded like

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Speaker 2: a bass gulping a frog or more likely a dragonfly,

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Speaker 2: which I think is the key to great frog bites.

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Speaker 2: I just can't prove it. The splash didn't come from

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Speaker 2: a large though, it came from a dough that was

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Speaker 2: tucked under a dead fall standing in a foot of water.

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Speaker 2: She was the least concerned big woods deer I've ever met,

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Speaker 2: so I used my trolling motor to close the distance.

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Speaker 2: Then I watched her for twenty minutes while she fed

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Speaker 2: on lily pads. Now, if you don't believe that, go

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Speaker 2: on over to my Instagram account and check out the

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Speaker 2: reel I posted. I've never seen a deer actually eating

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Speaker 2: lily pads, let alone sticking her nose into the water

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Speaker 2: past her eyeballs to pull them out by the root.

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Speaker 2: It was really interesting to watch. And then a realization

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Speaker 2: hit me, like a freaking freight train. I had seen

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Speaker 2: deer at the water's edge or in the water all

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Speaker 2: week long. I see deer in lakes all of the time,

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Speaker 2: and every single time I've thought they were there for

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Speaker 2: a drink. Not once did it occur to me that

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Speaker 2: they would go full moose and eat aquatic vegetation. But

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Speaker 2: why not. I'd guess that lily pads have a different

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Speaker 2: nutrition profile than terrestrial vegetation, and it's pretty safe to

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Speaker 2: say that it would be a good way to stay

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Speaker 2: hydrated while feasting away if you're eating stuff that's growing

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Speaker 2: right in a big bowl of water. A one off

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Speaker 2: encounter with a dough eating something I didn't know dear

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Speaker 2: eight was cool, But on the drive home, another freight

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Speaker 2: train slammed into Mynothers, how important are lily pads to

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Speaker 2: Big Woods bucks? Do lily pads green up first or

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Speaker 2: stay green later in the fall when other food sources

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Speaker 2: brown up and yellow up and dry up. I honestly

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Speaker 2: don't know, but I'm interested in trying to figure that out.

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Speaker 2: Last year, over there, I watched a dough in August

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Speaker 2: eating raspberries with the intensity of a stoner sitting down

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Speaker 2: to an episode of South Park with a bag of

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Speaker 2: Cheetos and a big glass of chocolate milk. She went

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Speaker 2: to town on those raspberries, and it answered a question

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Speaker 2: of why I often see deer in that specific overgrown pasture.

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Speaker 2: I thought it was the apple trees, and it certainly

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Speaker 2: sometimes is, but it's more than that, you know. In

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Speaker 2: a few weeks after I saw that dough, my daughter

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Speaker 2: killed that bear over there that was chock full of

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Speaker 2: gray dogwood berries, and I have to assume that deer

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Speaker 2: mao down on them when they ripen as well. I

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Speaker 2: just don't see a situation where a bear would eat

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Speaker 2: him and a deer wouldn't. I've preached the woodsmanship game

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Speaker 2: a lot, and I hear it from a few hunters

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Speaker 2: who I really respect, but it's always sort of a

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Speaker 2: blanket statement that might ring hollow for a lot of hunters.

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Speaker 2: What does it even mean? And how does that matter

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Speaker 2: to someone looking to level up their white tail game.

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Speaker 2: I can't answer that specifically for anyone else, but I

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Speaker 2: know one thing. The more deer that I watch, the

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Speaker 2: more of my questions get answered. And then the more

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Speaker 2: questions come up that I didn't see coming that I

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Speaker 2: don't have an answer to. I look at this kind

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Speaker 2: of like good dog trainers. You might have a trainer

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Speaker 2: who handles a dozen well bred pointers a year. That's

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Speaker 2: freaking great. But that trainer is starting with a good

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Speaker 2: source and has more time to devote to each dog

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Speaker 2: than a lot of other trainers. He's going to get

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Speaker 2: really good at training well bred pointers, but might struggle

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Speaker 2: when a re triever shows up at the kennel or

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Speaker 2: a pointer does that just doesn't have the best blood.

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Speaker 2: But then you have these trainers who take on all

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Speaker 2: kinds of dogs. They get experience with a wide range

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Speaker 2: of breeds, a wide range of socialization, a wide range

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Speaker 2: of bloodlines, and a wide range of owners who have

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Speaker 2: had big time influence on their dogs in a huge

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Speaker 2: variety of ways. They deal with outliers all the time,

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Speaker 2: but also just expand their understanding of general dog behavior

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Speaker 2: and general dog owner behavior in a way that allows

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Speaker 2: them to understand what path to put their clientele on. Now,

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Speaker 2: I guess that's dogsmanship. I know, I'll stop. But truthfully,

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Speaker 2: how this relates to deer is that if your exposure

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Speaker 2: to deer is through trail cameras and hunting encounters, you're

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Speaker 2: training well bred pointers and not very many of them.

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Speaker 2: But if you get into the woods to read sign

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Speaker 2: and have all of those encounters with deer that just

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Speaker 2: happen when you're in the woods with them. Now you're

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Speaker 2: working with pointers and retrievers. Add in some long range glassing.

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Speaker 2: Now you're training shelter dogs that might be totally neurotic

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Speaker 2: lunatics or resource guarding nightmares or whatever. The key to

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Speaker 2: this is to watch deer whenever you can encounter them,

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Speaker 2: be with them, be where they live. I mean that

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Speaker 2: when you're on stand in September and you have that

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Speaker 2: dough with a fall and walk out in the far

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Speaker 2: corner of the beans, that might not interest you very much,

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Speaker 2: but what she does should interest you. Get those binos

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Speaker 2: to your eyes and watch her use that to your advantage.

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Speaker 2: Watch how she crosses the field, how she observes the field,

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Speaker 2: what she does when another deer starts to come out

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Speaker 2: of the wood lot. How long does she spend out there?

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Speaker 2: Last year, I watched a really good buck cross a

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Speaker 2: wide swath of sage grass in North Dakota before he

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Speaker 2: eventually waded through a river and then covered another mile

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Speaker 2: of grassland to bed in a chunk of brush a

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Speaker 2: rocky cliff. Now, I've seen deer do that before in

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Speaker 2: that spot, and I hope to watch them do it again.

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Speaker 2: I've actually killed a few deer that have done that,

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Speaker 2: and I always think about the gift it is to

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Speaker 2: be able to watch a deer walk across two miles

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Speaker 2: of his territory from an elevated position. So think about

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Speaker 2: that for a second. If I were to run cameras

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Speaker 2: for that deer, or at least that buck and other

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Speaker 2: bucks that travel the same route, I would get a

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Speaker 2: snapshot of them, you know, coming down on the river

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Speaker 2: and crossing it, or passing through a patch of timber.

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Speaker 2: That's valuable, especially for the times I can't be there

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Speaker 2: to glass. But watching how he walks across the landscape

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Speaker 2: shows me not only what he does to get from

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Speaker 2: two seemingly unrelated points, but all of the ambush sites

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Speaker 2: he passes on the way. This is the gift that

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Speaker 2: is western white tails, but Midwestern and Eastern and southern

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Speaker 2: deer often don't live where you can post up and

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Speaker 2: put your eye to a spot or to dial them in.

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Speaker 2: This makes every encounter with deer valuable, as the confines

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Speaker 2: are tighter and the opportunities for long duration observation just

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Speaker 2: don't exist nearly as much. But is that an excuse

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Speaker 2: to not pay attention. I don't think so. I know

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Speaker 2: that one of the things that has helped me kill

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Speaker 2: big woods deer is simply by watching them whenever I

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Speaker 2: can and just paying attention to every encounter while trying

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Speaker 2: to tie that into the sign I've found. I'll give

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Speaker 2: you an example here. I've talked about that encounter my

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Speaker 2: daughter and I had on public last year with a

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Speaker 2: buck that was probably pushing one thirty. The whole thing

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Speaker 2: started with a midday scouting trip which led to us

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Speaker 2: finding a lot of fresh rubs and scrapes on an

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Speaker 2: old logging road. They were visible from a gravel road,

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Speaker 2: which allowed me to track check it. While it wasn't

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Speaker 2: pounded with sign, it showed enough tracks that I knew

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Speaker 2: deer were crossing the road quite a bit, which made

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Speaker 2: the scrapes and rubs just make more sense to me.

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Speaker 2: Roads are just a part of the deer's world, and

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Speaker 2: when and where they cross is usually not random, and

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Speaker 2: sightings from the road can teach you a lot. So

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Speaker 2: right there we had two data points and we hadn't

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Speaker 2: seen a deer yet. That night at the cabin, while

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Speaker 2: planning our morning hunt, I noticed a hayfield on private

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Speaker 2: land half a mile away that was almost directly in

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Speaker 2: line with that sign, and you know, kind of the

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Speaker 2: whole line of travel where they crossed the gravel road.

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Speaker 2: That was the third data point, and it really started

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Speaker 2: to tie the whole thing together. When we slipped in

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Speaker 2: well before first light, we walked up on a lone

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Speaker 2: dough fon who happened to spook, but also came back

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Speaker 2: later to browse her way past us. As we sat,

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Speaker 2: she was locked onto that area, and we watched her

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Speaker 2: put on a browse clinic, which made even more sense

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Speaker 2: because old logging roads are basically travel roads with different

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Speaker 2: food sources than much of the surrounding timber, especially if

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Speaker 2: the timber harvest activity didn't happen too many years ago. Now,

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Speaker 2: When that big buck came wandering back from the Hayfield

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Speaker 2: an hour into the morning. He nearly made a huge mistake,

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Speaker 2: even though we only got to see him for a

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Speaker 2: few seconds. He showed us something that I fully intend

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Speaker 2: to use this year, the corner of the woods instead

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Speaker 2: of traveling down the full length of the logging road

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Speaker 2: to a small landing. Why he did that at that

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Speaker 2: time was a total mystery until I walked that route

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Speaker 2: and saw several rubs we had missed on our first

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Speaker 2: scouting mission there. This spring, I walked that route again

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Speaker 2: and followed it to a creek bottom that is just

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Speaker 2: surrounded by benchi goodness and ideal bedding cover more data points.

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Speaker 2: If I had been able to run a camera for

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Speaker 2: those deer, I certainly would have gotten some pictures and

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Speaker 2: that would have been valuable, but I probably wouldn't have

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Speaker 2: learned about how they cut that corner to take a

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Speaker 2: shorter route to the thick stuff along the creek. The

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Speaker 2: buck had to teach us that despite leaving tons of

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Speaker 2: sign and tons of tracks in that area, and if

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Speaker 2: that little fawn hadn't showed us what the browse situation

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Speaker 2: was like, we probably wouldn't have put the whole thing

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Speaker 2: together either. The cumulative effect of watching deer can't quite

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Speaker 2: be summed up effectively as long as as we do

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Speaker 2: our job with scouting. That final part is what teaches

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Speaker 2: us the most about deer behavior, and it comes directly

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Speaker 2: from the deer. There is no other source for it,

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Speaker 2: although trail cameras certainly help. Now you can listen to

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Speaker 2: the best deer hunters drone on and on forever about

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Speaker 2: how they kill bucks, and there will certainly be valuable

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Speaker 2: to that too, But that doesn't replace your time in

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Speaker 2: the woods and your time spent watching deer in your areos.

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Speaker 2: It just doesn't. So how can you be a good

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Speaker 2: student to the white tail right now? The easiest way

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Speaker 2: is just to pay better attention. Do you often see

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Speaker 2: bucks crossing from one waterway to another on your way

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Speaker 2: to work in the morning. What are they doing if

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Speaker 2: they aren't where you can hunt, which is pretty likely?

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Speaker 2: Is there anything you can draw from that to apply

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Speaker 2: to the spots that you can hunt? There? Probably is?

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Speaker 2: How about the dough group you always see eating apples

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Speaker 2: this time here? Anything actionable there? Maybe it's nothing more

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Speaker 2: than a possible explanation for why your trail cameras have

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Speaker 2: been pretty dead lately. The reason for everything they do.

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Speaker 2: You just sometimes need to gather up as many data

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Speaker 2: points as possible to draw a real conclusion. Now, while

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Speaker 2: I realize this isn't groundbreaking, the takeaway I want to

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Speaker 2: leave you with is this. The more deer you encounter,

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Speaker 2: the more you watch them in real time, the more

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Speaker 2: you jump them while scouting some random part of your

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Speaker 2: farm that you usually don't pay attention to, the more

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Speaker 2: they're going to teach you something. They just will. They'll

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Speaker 2: help you understand general deer behavior better, which is always

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Speaker 2: a huge plus. But then you'll see a dough eating

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Speaker 2: lily pads or gnommbing on some raspberries, or you'll see

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Speaker 2: your target buck half a mile out in a soybean

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Speaker 2: field suddenly stand up for a mid afternoon snack, and

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Speaker 2: what you knew about deer will become something different because

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Speaker 2: you now have more answers and more questions. If you're

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Speaker 2: wondering how to facilitate this, consider two options. Force yourself

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Speaker 2: to pay attention to the deer you do encounter in

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Speaker 2: your everyday life, which should include some scouting, of course,

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Speaker 2: But then consider doing something a little different. I know

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Speaker 2: I say this all the time, but I mean it.

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Speaker 2: If you want to get better at this stuff, scout

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Speaker 2: where you normally wouldn't, scout when you normally wouldn't, and

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Speaker 2: try to put yourself in a position to not do

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Speaker 2: what you usually do. This is really the difference maker

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Speaker 2: between climbing into the box blind to look at the

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Speaker 2: food plot again versus walking into the oak ridge with

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Speaker 2: a saddle and some sticks. You can learn a lot

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Speaker 2: from both, and the more you do both, the better

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Speaker 2: you'll be. At deer hunting in general, The more we

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Speaker 2: default to what we think we know, the less likely

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Speaker 2: we are to learn anything new because we aren't generally

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Speaker 2: open to being wrong, or at least not as informed

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Speaker 2: as we'd like. Find a way to let the deer

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Speaker 2: teach you about their lives, and you will have a

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Speaker 2: leg up on most hunters. That's the key to filling

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Speaker 2: more tags, and damn near a requirement if you want

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Speaker 2: to kill more mature bucks. Think about that and think

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Speaker 2: about coming back next week, because I'm going to talk

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Speaker 2: about what happens when bucks shed their velvet and go

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Speaker 2: hard antlered, but what that means to us no matter

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Speaker 2: when our bow opener is. That's it for this week.

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Speaker 2: I'm Tony Peterson and This has been the Wire to

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Speaker 2: Hunt Foundation's podcast, which is brought to you by First Light.

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Speaker 2: As always, thank you so much for your support all

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Speaker 2: of us here at Mediatter. We truly appreciate it. You

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Speaker 2: guys showed up huge for our season opener sale a

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Speaker 2: little bit ago. You've always been there. If you need

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Speaker 2: more content, if you're here because you're like, I got

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Speaker 2: a learner, I need to be entertained, what do you got, Well,

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Speaker 2: we have a lot. The medeater dot com has recipes, articles, films,

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Speaker 2: tons of podcasts on there. We drop new content every day.

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Speaker 2: We have some of the best writers on staff right

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Speaker 2: now covering the latest issues in the outdoors. They're getting

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Speaker 2: the scoop on all kinds of stuff. I don't know

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Speaker 2: how they do it, But we also have just peer

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Speaker 2: entertainment and peer education and everything in between, fishing, hunting,

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Speaker 2: and cooking, you name it, go check it out at

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Speaker 2: the medeater dot com