Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, and now your
Speaker 1: host Tony Peterson. Hey everyone, welcome to the Wire to
Speaker 1: Hunt Foundations podcast, which is brought to you by First Light.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all
Speaker 1: about the ladies once again and how hunting them will
Speaker 1: help you become a better white tail hunter. Overall. Last
Speaker 1: week's episode was all about the does and why I
Speaker 1: really don't think we as hunters give them enough credit. Now,
Speaker 1: if you didn't listen to it, probably go back and
Speaker 1: do that before you dive into this one. Now. I
Speaker 1: think we need to understand how to hunt does, really
Speaker 1: understand it. And what better time to talk about that
Speaker 1: than when we were right on the cusp of the
Speaker 1: late season where it's kind of, you know, just easier
Speaker 1: to drop your standards and shoot whatever comes down the trail. Anyway,
Speaker 1: this episode is all about that, and even if you're
Speaker 1: only a die hard big buck hunter, I think you'll
Speaker 1: still get something out of this episode. One of the
Speaker 1: reasons I like professional fishing, mostly professional bass fishing, is
Speaker 1: because it allows you to prove whether you're the best
Speaker 1: or not. Anyone who can pony up the entrance fees
Speaker 1: and has a tournament compatible boat and an adequate insurance
Speaker 1: policy can compete. Now you know, this is obviously for
Speaker 1: lower level derbys and circuits, because you're not going to
Speaker 1: fish some of the bigger tours without a little more
Speaker 1: on your resume than I don't know. I just like
Speaker 1: to catch bass and I have some money in hunting.
Speaker 1: We don't have this great leveler for a few reasons.
Speaker 1: The first is that catching release hunting really isn't a thing.
Speaker 1: It might be in the future when we lose most
Speaker 1: of our opportunities, but for now we don't really get
Speaker 1: to shoot, box, throw them in our alive well, and
Speaker 1: then release them back into the woods at the end
Speaker 1: of the day. Now hear me out, I'm absolutely against
Speaker 1: turning hunting into competition. I hate it. I don't like
Speaker 1: that idea at all, and I know there have been
Speaker 1: a few failed attempts to do just that, but luckily
Speaker 1: they never really stuck. So I don't want that. And
Speaker 1: this is just purely a thought exercise, so treated as such.
Speaker 1: I would like to know how good some hunters really are.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people would. I think it'd
Speaker 1: be fun to see some of the industry folks have
Speaker 1: to prove themselves against other industry folks. And I don't
Speaker 1: mean candy land hunter versus candy land hunter here. I'd
Speaker 1: love to see some of these folks with a couple
Speaker 1: two inches under their belt compete against I don't know,
Speaker 1: like a Zach Farrenbauer or an Andy may On public
Speaker 1: Land and some state like Pennsylvania or Louisiana or somewhere
Speaker 1: else that is just not gonna offer too many easy deer.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be full of challenges and be pretty skimpy
Speaker 1: with the buck sights. That's a pipe dream, and honestly,
Speaker 1: maybe just a projection of the pettiness I possessed deep
Speaker 1: in my heart over the hunting industry as a whole.
Speaker 1: Where I should have gone with this, and where I
Speaker 1: intended to before I got sidetracked by one of my many,
Speaker 1: many character flaws is that hunting is an easy thing
Speaker 1: to talk about in a way that makes us all
Speaker 1: look good. Where this drives me a little bit crazy
Speaker 1: is when people talk about all the deer that they
Speaker 1: could have shot but didn't. You know, the people who
Speaker 1: take credit for not shooting the hunter and ten inch
Speaker 1: buck that just happened to walk by at fifty four
Speaker 1: yards and last light in the woods, and they couldn't
Speaker 1: have hit it, probably with two quivers full of arrows,
Speaker 1: but they claim it because, well, who's going to be
Speaker 1: able to prove them wrong. Who's going to call them
Speaker 1: out on that? Nobody? And it really doesn't matter. It
Speaker 1: just grinds my gears a little like it does when
Speaker 1: people talk about shooting does as if it's like a
Speaker 1: don't know, a trip to the grocery store in the woods,
Speaker 1: and almost like a transactional thing. In reality, trying to
Speaker 1: shoot a dough in many, many situations isn't nearly as
Speaker 1: easy as we make it sound on a grand scale,
Speaker 1: mostly because a lot of the people who talk that
Speaker 1: way have really easy hunting or they aren't actually trying
Speaker 1: to shoot dose. Now I know a lot of people
Speaker 1: who do have easy setups to shoot dose, and that's
Speaker 1: just fine. If you're in a high deer density area
Speaker 1: and have at least a few brain cells rattling around
Speaker 1: in your old skull, you should be able to eventually
Speaker 1: get a dough to pose up at twenty yards. If
Speaker 1: you have a remotely decent place to hunt, but even
Speaker 1: that's probably too harsh because it's often not that easy.
Speaker 1: When I first started deer hunting, we could only get
Speaker 1: one tag in Minnesota for archery hunters. If I remember correctly,
Speaker 1: it was good for either a buck or a dough
Speaker 1: back then. But I spent my first few years as
Speaker 1: a bow hunter around a group of guys that did
Speaker 1: not shoot dose. And believe me, I wanted to shoot dose.
Speaker 1: I wanted to shoot them bad enough that I had
Speaker 1: occasionally try, and I'd always fail. Now, I watched those
Speaker 1: guys kill spikes and four keys and occasionally a good one,
Speaker 1: and my dad always encouraged me to just get some
Speaker 1: deer under my belt. But that was a bad environment
Speaker 1: to start in. It really kind of set me back.
Speaker 1: I felt it when I had watched does go through
Speaker 1: while I was waiting on a buck. I felt it
Speaker 1: when I broke during my first year as a deer
Speaker 1: hunter and I shot not once, not twice, but three
Speaker 1: times at a dophon at like eight yards That fond
Speaker 1: made it away unscathed, and I carried a whole shipload
Speaker 1: of shame out of the woods with me that day.
Speaker 1: I didn't kill a deer that season and the next
Speaker 1: year on Opening Day, when I was thirteen years old,
Speaker 1: I had two button bucks come up to my tree
Speaker 1: on Opening night. Now, I knew I'd be crucified if
Speaker 1: I shot one, so I let them walk. My dad
Speaker 1: told me that was crazy, and you know, I know
Speaker 1: now he was right, but I didn't want to deal
Speaker 1: with the negativity then. In a way, it reminds me
Speaker 1: of how so many hunters treat other hunters today. Of course,
Speaker 1: back then it was much more personal. You knew the
Speaker 1: people who were going to buck shame you versus a
Speaker 1: bunch of strangers on social media. But the sentiment was
Speaker 1: the same, I'm going to bring something shitty into this
Speaker 1: world that has no bearing on anything actually important, just
Speaker 1: because I am human nature. Guys, it's rough sometimes Anyway.
Speaker 1: If I had grown up with antler list tags available
Speaker 1: right from the jump, I think my whole deer hunting
Speaker 1: evolution would have been fast tracked. In fact, I think
Speaker 1: when I finally got a chance to shoot some deer,
Speaker 1: when I had, you know, an either sex tag and
Speaker 1: a dough tag, I almost always filled both. I also
Speaker 1: started hunting deer in a different way. It wasn't solely
Speaker 1: about getting around buck sign and hoping one would walk by.
Speaker 1: It started to become a matter of hunting spots and
Speaker 1: not burning them out, and thinking about how all of
Speaker 1: the deer used the terrain, not just the ones that
Speaker 1: have antlers. This clicked for me when I was probably
Speaker 1: about twenty and I went out opening morning to a
Speaker 1: stand that I had hung that summer on the top
Speaker 1: of a ridge. The woods there by that stand was
Speaker 1: only about twenty yards thick before it dropped off into
Speaker 1: a valley, and there was a prominent wash out on
Speaker 1: the hillside right there that forced all the traveling deer
Speaker 1: lower high. Now I bet on high because of the
Speaker 1: wind advantage. I also had a suspicion that deer would
Speaker 1: use the trail, based on it being kind of position
Speaker 1: between an alfalfa field and a thicker patch of woods
Speaker 1: where I often jumped bedded deer when I went through there. Now,
Speaker 1: that morning alone dough came down the trail and I
Speaker 1: shot her. Well, that probably doesn't seem like much, but
Speaker 1: it made me realize I had been mostly counting on
Speaker 1: randomness to deliver a deer to me, and this dough
Speaker 1: had done what I had hoped deer would do. I
Speaker 1: know it doesn't seem like much, but it was. I
Speaker 1: had other experiences like one on public land in the
Speaker 1: Twin Cities here probably I don't know, eight or ten
Speaker 1: years ago did again kind of reminding me of that lesson.
Speaker 1: Now in the summer scouting, I had found this this
Speaker 1: kind of cool crossing in a swamp and that every
Speaker 1: day it seemed like a few deer would use it.
Speaker 1: Not wasn't a major trail or a major travel route,
Speaker 1: but it made sense if deer wanted to go from
Speaker 1: one high ground spot to another without getting too wet
Speaker 1: or working too hard. I shot a dough they're opening
Speaker 1: morning too. Now why is this valuable? Because you might
Speaker 1: not always get to hunt your grandma's farm where you
Speaker 1: know the bucks hit the food plot on Halloween every
Speaker 1: year to check scrapes, or the bachelor up on the
Speaker 1: beans and you can kill one. Early land changes hands,
Speaker 1: deer populations ebb and flow, New neighbors move in and
Speaker 1: they shoot everything. Or you might decide to buy a
Speaker 1: nonresident license somewhere and realize that just because you can
Speaker 1: consistently kill good bucks on your lease at home, it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you can kill a deer on public land
Speaker 1: in Oklahoma, even with a week's worth of time to hunt.
Speaker 1: I think being open to shooting dos in the right
Speaker 1: situation is a huge benefit for all of us as hunters,
Speaker 1: provided we have the option. I also think even if
Speaker 1: you believe it's easy to kill those, it's worth setting
Speaker 1: up some rules around when you will, and that changes
Speaker 1: the game. I'll give you an example. I try really
Speaker 1: hard not to shoot dose with fawns. I like the
Speaker 1: challenge of hunting loan does and waiting them out, because
Speaker 1: where I hunt, they'll show up. In northern Wisconsin with
Speaker 1: the predator densities there, it's pretty much a given. Then
Speaker 1: I'll see a fair amount of dose without fawns. And
Speaker 1: the last time, I said screw it, and I shot
Speaker 1: a dough with twin fawns, which is double bad, super bad,
Speaker 1: really bad if you have twins yourself. I promptly nearly
Speaker 1: lost my nutsack to a fence post. I got greedy
Speaker 1: down there on that public land in Oklahoma, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to fill some tags. So when that dough came
Speaker 1: in and posed up by my natural ground blind, I
Speaker 1: threw caution to the wind, and I broke one of
Speaker 1: my rules. Now I know you think it's just a quincid.
Speaker 1: But when I was laying on the ground there with
Speaker 1: blood coming out of quite a few spots in my
Speaker 1: body and pain in my apple bag, that felt like
Speaker 1: going I don't know, nine rounds with a fence post.
Speaker 1: It was just radiating through my body. I thought that
Speaker 1: maybe maybe I shouldn't have broken one of my rules.
Speaker 1: I love hunting when I green light myself for does,
Speaker 1: and my favorite time is when I'm hunting on a
Speaker 1: September October morning and then I see that loan dough
Speaker 1: walking in. Then it's all systems go for me. I
Speaker 1: also love it when I'm on the road on public
Speaker 1: land somewhere and I have a dough tag changes the
Speaker 1: entire hunt. And I'll tell you something, I kind of
Speaker 1: even secretly like it a little now when I go
Speaker 1: to my banker and I asked for a personal loan
Speaker 1: every few years so I can draw an Iowa tag
Speaker 1: and they make me buy a dough tag for like
Speaker 1: five bucks. The mature dough I shot down there in
Speaker 1: while she was drinking at a river crossing was kind
Speaker 1: of really my goal for that sit, kinda. I also
Speaker 1: wanted to see how Dear used the cross, and even
Speaker 1: though I had low hopes of killing a buck there
Speaker 1: I don't know, I still felt like I had a chance.
Speaker 1: Plus it was just fun to hunt, knowing that any
Speaker 1: loan do that came past was in real trouble. No,
Speaker 1: there's a little nugget hidden in that story that I
Speaker 1: want to tell you about. It was fun. I know,
Speaker 1: we like to sit in the woods and see the
Speaker 1: sunrise and eat junk food and wait out a buck.
Speaker 1: But I don't enjoy hunting anymore than when I go
Speaker 1: into the mode where I intend to shoot. I don't
Speaker 1: know why, but it changes everything. I just love the
Speaker 1: feeling of my heart pounding between my ears and living
Speaker 1: in that moment where time slows down and you know
Speaker 1: you're going to try to draw soon, and once you
Speaker 1: do draw, you have to be ready to read the
Speaker 1: deer and aim and execute. Then there's the post shot
Speaker 1: adrenaline dump and the instant feeling of while you've either
Speaker 1: done things really well or not so much. I guess
Speaker 1: put another way and really dumbed down and simplified. It's
Speaker 1: pretty fun to shoot deer. So what does this mean
Speaker 1: for you? M Do you have your mind made up
Speaker 1: on what hunting doz is like, and you're not interested? Okay,
Speaker 1: are you having fun hunting? Are you going to have
Speaker 1: fun hunting this month when it's super cold in the
Speaker 1: deer kg and your odds of seeing a good buck
Speaker 1: are less likely than the odds of Kenyan catching an
Speaker 1: eighteen inch trout and not immediately plastering it all over
Speaker 1: a social media Are you struggling to kill good bucks?
Speaker 1: Probably if you're listening to me yammer on week after week.
Speaker 1: I promise you if that's the case, opening yourself up
Speaker 1: to the possibility of shooting a door or two and
Speaker 1: then actually doing that, it's going to help your cause.
Speaker 1: This is especially undeniably true if you hunt pressure deer. Now,
Speaker 1: if you hunt candy land deer, then these rules really
Speaker 1: don't apply. But pressure dear, the does and the bucks
Speaker 1: are pretty good at the survival game. If you can
Speaker 1: somewhat consistently kill mature does where lots of people hunt them,
Speaker 1: then you will evidently be a better big buck hunter
Speaker 1: for it. Take that to the bank, my friends, because
Speaker 1: it's as good as gold. This stuff is not easy,
Speaker 1: and it won't get any easier for most of us
Speaker 1: if we aren't making moves to get better at being
Speaker 1: good deer hunters. Now, not mature buck hunters, mind you,
Speaker 1: which is a nice satellite benefit to becoming better deer hunters,
Speaker 1: but just learning deer and becoming better at the whole thing.
Speaker 1: This is a skill that will help you far more
Speaker 1: than obsessing over the best times to grunt to rattle
Speaker 1: or buying a six dollar decoy that looks so good
Speaker 1: the other hunters and your party will occasionally take a
Speaker 1: poke at it. The key to being better is to
Speaker 1: recognize which challenges are available to you, and then meeting
Speaker 1: them head on and listen. The mature buck challenge is
Speaker 1: always going to be there, but it's honestly a bridge
Speaker 1: too far for a lot of hunters. It's a worthy consideration,
Speaker 1: but a great way also for a lot of hunters
Speaker 1: to eat a lot of tags and real sick of
Speaker 1: those early alarms in those cold, unproductive sits. I don't know,
Speaker 1: all stick and no carrot is no fun for something
Speaker 1: that is supposed to be fun. Think about this as
Speaker 1: we go into what are definitely the final innings of season.
Speaker 1: There might be a month left for some or two
Speaker 1: for others, but the best parts for most of us,
Speaker 1: they're in the rear view mirror. Now it's up to
Speaker 1: us to figure out how to use our time for
Speaker 1: the rest of the season. For me, that will involve
Speaker 1: some dough hunts that will feel an awful lot like
Speaker 1: I'm hunting for big bucks. I'm not gonna be able
Speaker 1: to make too many mistakes, because once the gun season
Speaker 1: is over, the deer that are left really don't enjoy
Speaker 1: sharing the woods with people still bent on deflating their lungs.
Speaker 1: It'll be a staging area thing mostly, which is a
Speaker 1: skill that has paid off well in my buck hunts.
Speaker 1: If you can figure out how to kill dose staging,
Speaker 1: you can figure out how to kill bucks. Trust me.
Speaker 1: It might be a betting area thing too, which is
Speaker 1: something I just want to get better at. In I'm
Speaker 1: not going to go out and kill mature bucks out
Speaker 1: of their bed as easily as I'm going to figure
Speaker 1: out how to kill some goes around a bedding area.
Speaker 1: Huge benefit there, you know. And I planned to run
Speaker 1: a few cameras, do some observations and just see how
Speaker 1: I can put together a plan here in Minnesota and
Speaker 1: maybe in Wisconsin that will end up with an easy
Speaker 1: blood trail in the snow. I highly recommend many of
Speaker 1: my listeners they do the same. Now. It's an easy
Speaker 1: choice for me because I love the meat, but maybe
Speaker 1: you don't. I bet you can find a way to
Speaker 1: donate it, or find someone in your life who would
Speaker 1: love some venisine. I've never had a problem finding somebody
Speaker 1: who would take some veniicine. And I think the key
Speaker 1: takeaway here is, I don't know to maybe just keep
Speaker 1: hunting off the does on your place are too easy.
Speaker 1: Go still hunt the public land down the road. Easy.
Speaker 1: We'll go out the window then, but you know what,
Speaker 1: you'll still be hunting, and that's better than sitting at
Speaker 1: home not hunting, or sitting somewhere where you know it's
Speaker 1: a foregone conclusion and it's not that exciting. Or maybe
Speaker 1: you could kill dose all day long out of your
Speaker 1: box blind on the food plot. Great. If that's the
Speaker 1: case and you want to do that, go ahead. But
Speaker 1: if that doesn't really do it for you, go try
Speaker 1: to kill one from the ground in the woods. If
Speaker 1: that's too easy, find someone who sucks that hunting and
Speaker 1: take them out. They'll be tickled to have a chance
Speaker 1: to shoot a dough and you'll watch someone have a
Speaker 1: hard time doing something you think is easy, and that's
Speaker 1: an important thing to be reminded of. And however you
Speaker 1: do it, consider this. Just don't sell does short just
Speaker 1: because they don't have antlers. Consider them what they are,
Speaker 1: were the adversaries in the woods, which they often are.
Speaker 1: They are also fun to hunt, full of delicious meat,
Speaker 1: and far more available on a general scale than big,
Speaker 1: old mature bucks. That's enough reasons to hunt them. Right there,
Speaker 1: I'd say, all right, I'm done talking about dose. Done,
Speaker 1: done done. Next week I'm going to talk about weapon
Speaker 1: choice and why you should consider hunting deer with something
Speaker 1: different than you're chosen weapon. And I know that sounds weird,
Speaker 1: but I'll explain it in detail when that show drops.
Speaker 1: Until then, shoot straight and stay safe, my friends. That's
Speaker 1: all I've got for you this week. I'm Tony Peterson
Speaker 1: and this has been the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast,
Speaker 1: which has brought to you by First Light. As always,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for your support, and if you
Speaker 1: want some more white tail wisdom, head on over to
Speaker 1: the meat eater dot com slash wired to read my
Speaker 1: latest articles and articles from a whole host of white
Speaker 1: tail killers, and you can also check out the weekly
Speaker 1: how to videos that Mark and I produce for the
Speaker 1: wire to Hunt YouTube channel.