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 Wired 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's episode is all about planning an
Speaker 2: overnighter scouting trip. March is the suckiest month of the year,
Speaker 2: sure down South. In some places people are already hunting
Speaker 2: turkeys and catching fish, but most of us are just
Speaker 2: in a holding pattern, waiting on April to get here
Speaker 2: so we can have some fun. You know, this is
Speaker 2: the month of white tail work. You know, I feel anyway,
Speaker 2: cut down those trees, trimnose, shooting lanes, pull some stands,
Speaker 2: do what needs to be done. And if you plan
Speaker 2: to hunt somewhere other than your backyard or close to home,
Speaker 2: it's also a good time to consider a scouting trip.
Speaker 2: This is arguably the best way to spend your time
Speaker 2: right now, but it takes some planning and consideration, which
Speaker 2: is what I intend to talk about right now. I'm
Speaker 2: sure some of you listeners are in the life stage
Speaker 2: where your kids are old enough to be in a
Speaker 2: lot of activities, or they're into one activity that consumes
Speaker 2: much of your life. I don't know where we went
Speaker 2: wrong with this, but somehow a lot of society decided
Speaker 2: that ten year olds in hockey are the most important
Speaker 2: thing in the world, and that it must be a
Speaker 2: year round commitment. That definitely doesn't mean that junior is
Speaker 2: going to make it to the NHL. My daughters aren't
Speaker 2: fully committed to any one activity, but boy, oh boy,
Speaker 2: are they in a lot of stuff. In fact, we
Speaker 2: just wrapped up a long basketball season wherever the span
Speaker 2: of three months, they played in ten weekend tournaments, Nearly
Speaker 2: all of them were two day tournaments, and nearly all
Speaker 2: of them were not very close to our house. It
Speaker 2: was a grind, and I don't know why I was
Speaker 2: surprised by this, but it was only their first basketball
Speaker 2: league of the year. The day after that one ended,
Speaker 2: they started another four week league that my wife didn't
Speaker 2: even tell me about, probably because I would have said
Speaker 2: that is absolutely freaking crazy. Well, she didn't ask me,
Speaker 2: which tells you everything you need to know about my marriage,
Speaker 2: in addition to an extra basketball league that ends right
Speaker 2: before Turkey season starts. The girls are in student Senate
Speaker 2: and choir and this thing called Destination Imagination, which is
Speaker 2: a stem program that encourages imagination and engineering and teamwork
Speaker 2: and is actually pretty cool and my daughter's love it.
Speaker 2: But there's one part that one of my daughters hates,
Speaker 2: and that's performing. Their team of seven kids has to
Speaker 2: write a skit, build a bunch of props, and eventually
Speaker 2: perform it for judges and an audience. The audience is
Speaker 2: almost entirely composed of parents and grandparents, because, let's be honest,
Speaker 2: it's not like they put on a high demand show.
Speaker 2: It's not like when Taylor Swift plays within a thousand
Speaker 2: miles of Michigan and Mark and Spencer dip into their
Speaker 2: retirement accounts to buy VIP meet and greet tickets. This
Speaker 2: is a little more low key than that. But that
Speaker 2: doesn't matter to one of my daughters. You'd think she
Speaker 2: was about to live Mark's dream and get called up
Speaker 2: on stage to sing right next to Taylor in front
Speaker 2: of I don't know one hundred thousand screaming fans. Instead
Speaker 2: of seventeen people, eight of which she's directly related to.
Speaker 2: Sometimes our brains can't rationalize that, and we freak out anyway.
Speaker 2: Performance anxiety, or that bastard fight or flight response that
Speaker 2: kicks in when we are in front of a group
Speaker 2: of people isn't much fun. It's the result of glossophobia,
Speaker 2: which comes from some Greek words mashed together to describe
Speaker 2: the fear of public speaking. There are some theories as
Speaker 2: to where this comes from, but a common one is
Speaker 2: that it wasn't that long ago in our history where
Speaker 2: if we were addressing a crowd of people, we were
Speaker 2: pleading for our lives. Now, generations of people who might
Speaker 2: have to make the case to not get publicly executed
Speaker 2: while standing in front of a crowd would probably lead
Speaker 2: to a rough response to that situation even today. I suppose,
Speaker 2: as someone who spent quite a few years speaking at
Speaker 2: various sports shows and deer classics, I can say that
Speaker 2: there is only one way I found to alleviate the
Speaker 2: hyper anxiety of public speaking, familiarity with your material. The
Speaker 2: more I rehearsed my presentations at home before any event,
Speaker 2: the easier it was to fall right into the groove
Speaker 2: when my seminar started, but that wasn't enough. Sometimes the
Speaker 2: promoter would ask me to address like a specific topic,
Speaker 2: so instead of me choosing what I wanted to cover,
Speaker 2: you know, there was always some kind of ask about
Speaker 2: the material that maybe wasn't as natural to me. Now
Speaker 2: I could cobble together a deer calling seminar and make
Speaker 2: it work, but it wasn't ever as easy as a
Speaker 2: seminar on like diy public land whitetail hunting, if that
Speaker 2: makes sense. I tried to explain this to my daughter
Speaker 2: when she was losing her shit the night before their
Speaker 2: regional competition. I said, if you can't sleep, just rehearse
Speaker 2: your lines. The more you know them, the more comfortable
Speaker 2: you'll be. Now, rationalizing that to a twelve year old
Speaker 2: nutcase who is chock full of her father's genes isn't easy,
Speaker 2: but it was the right move. She freaked out over
Speaker 2: nothing because she had her stuff down. It's honestly that simple.
Speaker 2: It's also one of the primary reasons to take a
Speaker 2: road for deer scouting. Now I realize a lot of
Speaker 2: people only hunt one place and they don't need to
Speaker 2: do an overnight or to scout it. You also know
Speaker 2: how I feel about hunting only one place, and how
Speaker 2: I feel about the future of traveling to hunt. I'm
Speaker 2: telling you right now, if you ever wanted to cross
Speaker 2: state lines to hunt anything, you better get on it now.
Speaker 2: These opportunities are going away, and that's only going to
Speaker 2: accelerate for a while. But before you do, consider how
Speaker 2: to make a scouting trip productive. Because this is your
Speaker 2: dress rehearsal, at least to some extent. It's your chance
Speaker 2: to not only find good locations to set stands, but
Speaker 2: also to familiarize yourself with the process and the logistics
Speaker 2: of the travel. This is something a lot of people
Speaker 2: totally ignore when they decide to spread their wings and
Speaker 2: try to hunt somewhere that isn't their home go to property.
Speaker 2: So let's take the travel part first. When I was
Speaker 2: a young lad growing up in south eastern Minnesota, I
Speaker 2: had spots to hunt that were maybe, I don't know,
Speaker 2: five to thirty minutes away from home. Scouting and hunting
Speaker 2: could be done in a few hour timeframe. For getting
Speaker 2: something at home like a saw or whatever, not a
Speaker 2: big deal. You just go back and you get it.
Speaker 2: Or if I needed some food between morning and evening sits,
Speaker 2: it was simple, go to town and eat, get back
Speaker 2: out there. Of course, back then gas was like eighty
Speaker 2: nine cents a gallon, but still, if you live that
Speaker 2: close to home hunting lifestyle, you might not realize that
Speaker 2: some of the best hunting locations don't have a lot
Speaker 2: of amenities nearby. Especially when it comes to western white tails.
Speaker 2: You might realize that your chosen honey hole is fifty
Speaker 2: minutes away from anything that will sell you gas or
Speaker 2: groceries or a place to sleep. What you don't want
Speaker 2: to do is buy a non resident tag somewhere, focus
Speaker 2: solely on e scouting, you know, potential deer ground, and
Speaker 2: then show up to realize that you're a long ways
Speaker 2: from some of the things you'll need to keep the
Speaker 2: hunt going. Figuring this out on a scouting trip so
Speaker 2: much easier than figuring it out on a hunting trip.
Speaker 2: And the cool part about this as well, there's no pressure. Well,
Speaker 2: you'll want to get into the woods and start putting
Speaker 2: on the miles so you can find some bedding areas
Speaker 2: and staging areas and food sources and I don't know,
Speaker 2: sweet pinch points. It's such a different thing than traveling
Speaker 2: to actually hunt. When you do that the clock is
Speaker 2: always ticking and the pressure is vastly different. Scouting is
Speaker 2: a lazier figure it all out kind of a fair,
Speaker 2: which is a really good thing. Maybe instead of crashing
Speaker 2: at a roach motel, you want a camp great. You
Speaker 2: can figure out some of your gear and the logistics
Speaker 2: ahead of time. You can also figure out if your
Speaker 2: chosen campground requires a reservation, how expensive it is, what
Speaker 2: amenities they offer, and whether it's a good move to
Speaker 2: stay there when you're actually hunting. Now, this probably seems weird,
Speaker 2: but I've stayed in a lot of campgrounds. Some are
Speaker 2: awesome for hunting trips, and some just planes suck. They
Speaker 2: might be noisy, or too busy, or just full of
Speaker 2: people who don't want to watch you butcher a deer
Speaker 2: on the picnic table. I want to know that before
Speaker 2: I ever go hunting. So many of the things that
Speaker 2: make a traveling hunt not much fun happen when we
Speaker 2: confront the disconnect between what we expected and what we
Speaker 2: actually got. What I mean by this is if you
Speaker 2: expect a nice, peaceful campsite and then get there and
Speaker 2: realize it's anything but that the quality of your hunting
Speaker 2: experience is going to drop. You know, the same goes
Speaker 2: for the actual scouting part. I don't know how many
Speaker 2: times I've e scouted my ass off only to show
Speaker 2: up somewhere and that it's just not what I expected.
Speaker 2: This happens a lot with walk in type properties, especially
Speaker 2: which are you know, those private land open to public
Speaker 2: hunting spots, usually through some kind of state program. Now,
Speaker 2: these properties are often cattle ranches with very little deer cover.
Speaker 2: Even though they look good on satellite imagery, what you
Speaker 2: don't see is that the oak tree covered woods is
Speaker 2: really mostly just a pasture with zero undergrowth, and you
Speaker 2: know it's covered in a high population of bovine hunt
Speaker 2: spoilers mooing and taking giant dumps on the landscape. Again,
Speaker 2: wouldn't you rather know that before you go hunting? Now?
Speaker 2: This issue goes much deeper than cole pastures in marginal
Speaker 2: deer habitat. Sometimes I'll e scout properties and think, you know,
Speaker 2: I'll just park there, walk in there, scout that spot.
Speaker 2: Then I get there and the ditch is totally washed
Speaker 2: out and there's nowhere to park, or the easy walk
Speaker 2: is anything but that, or this is something that happens
Speaker 2: a lot. I'll mark some ponds to walk in and
Speaker 2: track check them and look for suitable stand trees, only
Speaker 2: to realize that the pond is way way bigger than
Speaker 2: I expected, or more often nonexistent. This happened to me
Speaker 2: in Oklahoma last year several times, and it was a
Speaker 2: real pain in the ass, considering it was like eighty
Speaker 2: five degrees when I was scouting. Having the chance to
Speaker 2: ground truth your e scouting and familiarize yourself with access
Speaker 2: points is such an advantage for when you actually hunt.
Speaker 2: It's such an advantage I probably can't even really contextualize
Speaker 2: it properly. This is the differentiator between settling during a
Speaker 2: hunt in a subpar spot versus always being in a
Speaker 2: location where you have confidence. Again, that is a huge
Speaker 2: difference maker when it comes to enjoying your time and
Speaker 2: actually fill in some tags. An off season scouting trip
Speaker 2: offers you something else as well, which is a good thing.
Speaker 2: When you find something worth hunting, it allows you to
Speaker 2: make a much better plan overall because you have so
Speaker 2: much time to expand on your findings. Let me give
Speaker 2: you an example from my life recently where this happened.
Speaker 2: So last fall, I took the dogs and one of
Speaker 2: my daughters on a midday grouse hunt in northern Wisconsin.
Speaker 2: As I usually do, I ended up marking a few
Speaker 2: big rubs we found while trying to shoot a few
Speaker 2: grouse for dinner. I didn't think much of those waypoints
Speaker 2: that I dropped until I went back there just a
Speaker 2: couple of weeks ago. Now I'm a little embarrassed to
Speaker 2: admit this, but when I was back out there with
Speaker 2: nothing to distract me, it became very clear why the
Speaker 2: rubs were where they were. As I looked at my
Speaker 2: waypoints on on X, they were strung out on an
Speaker 2: elevation line in a property that honestly might have ten
Speaker 2: feet of elevation difference throughout the whole thing. The one
Speaker 2: top o line that runs through it also happened to
Speaker 2: be exactly where the rubs were. It was clear that
Speaker 2: even though the difference in elevation might not equal the
Speaker 2: height of a regulation basketball hoop, bucks traveled along it
Speaker 2: enough to leave a concentration of sign. That's a great
Speaker 2: finding and something that should not have been as much
Speaker 2: of a puzzle to me as it was. But what
Speaker 2: it also does is tell me how to keep looking
Speaker 2: for buck movement in that mostly flat mono habitat of
Speaker 2: big woods over there. My deer hunting blood runs deep
Speaker 2: in bluff country, so I'm pretty familiar with deer habits
Speaker 2: in the hills. When I get to flat ground, I struggle,
Speaker 2: But a scouting trip helped me see something that wasn't
Speaker 2: evident at first. This is a huge advantage when I'm
Speaker 2: looking for more spots and some kind of pattern to
Speaker 2: play off of. If you travel to scout, you might
Speaker 2: find something similar, and in fact probably will if you
Speaker 2: go somewhere that is a bit different from your usual haunts.
Speaker 2: Deer have definite patterns to their behavior. You know this
Speaker 2: span from Canada to Florida, but there's also a heavy
Speaker 2: bit of deviation depending on the habitat and terrain. Spending
Speaker 2: more time and places where you're not familiar with the
Speaker 2: local nuances of deer life will help you get better
Speaker 2: at reading sign and identifying quality ambush spots. Again, this
Speaker 2: is a different beast in March when you're on a
Speaker 2: long weekend trying to crush cabin fever and be somewhat productive,
Speaker 2: versus showing up in late October with an expensive tag
Speaker 2: in your pack. The benefits extend beyond that, as well,
Speaker 2: let's say you're wearing a new pair of boots or
Speaker 2: trying out a new pack, or you plan to drop
Speaker 2: off a couple of cell cameras to send you updates
Speaker 2: on deer activity for the next several months. All of
Speaker 2: those pieces of gear that come together to make a
Speaker 2: hunt better or worse have the potential to an enhance
Speaker 2: your hunt or detract from it. Maybe you've got a
Speaker 2: smoking deal on some close out cameras and you think, well,
Speaker 2: one hundred dollars a pop for sell cameras is the
Speaker 2: best thing going, so you load up and you take
Speaker 2: them out there with you. But then a few weeks
Speaker 2: later you realize that one of the cameras doesn't seem
Speaker 2: to be sending and he picks at all. Another is
Speaker 2: all deer butts and leaves blowing in the wind, and
Speaker 2: another is draining battery life, you know, like seventeen times
Speaker 2: faster than it's advertised. Maybe your pack doesn't ride right
Speaker 2: on your shoulders, or your boots give you hot spots
Speaker 2: on your feet. Maybe a dress rehearsal with your gear
Speaker 2: on a low pressure scouting trip shows you a lot
Speaker 2: about what to do or what not to do when
Speaker 2: you return to hunt in seven or eight months. I
Speaker 2: honestly think this is one of the reasons guys like
Speaker 2: Andy May are so deadly in the woods. He's not
Speaker 2: showing up to hunt after not scouting for five months,
Speaker 2: while hoping all of his gear is just good enough.
Speaker 2: He's been there and done that dozens and dozens of
Speaker 2: times in that span of months, and there are very
Speaker 2: few surprises left to change his hunt for the worst. Now,
Speaker 2: there's one last thing I want to say on this topic.
Speaker 2: You might not think you need to travel to hunt
Speaker 2: because you have a good spot at home. You might
Speaker 2: not see the reason to leave your state to shoot
Speaker 2: a buck that you could shoot at home. But here's
Speaker 2: the thing. This is not just about killing deer. Taking
Speaker 2: your hunting on the road, away from the ground you
Speaker 2: know by heart. It's good for you. It's good for
Speaker 2: all of us to get into the unknown and have
Speaker 2: to rediscover how to do this stuff. It's also a
Speaker 2: great way to find more outdoor experiences to enjoy, which
Speaker 2: is kind of like compound interest. Your initial investment is
Speaker 2: just the idea of getting a tag and hunting deer somewhere.
Speaker 2: So you go scout that place in March and maybe
Speaker 2: you find a great place to hunt, or maybe you don't,
Speaker 2: but maybe when you're scouting that area you find a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of pheathers living on public land. Or maybe
Speaker 2: you run into an area that just seems chalk full
Speaker 2: of turkeys. Maybe you cross a beautiful trout stream ten
Speaker 2: times while looking for thigh sized rubs, and you realize
Speaker 2: that it wouldn't be such a terrible idea to drive
Speaker 2: the kids out this summer to catch some fish. When
Speaker 2: you open yourself up to these possibilities, things just get
Speaker 2: more interesting. I don't know how many times I've found
Speaker 2: a reason to go somewhere for some fun in the
Speaker 2: outdoors that started out as a deer scouting trip but
Speaker 2: then morphed into something else. And the reverse is also true.
Speaker 2: I've had some of my best deer hunts because I
Speaker 2: traveled upland birds somewhere, or because I fished a stretch
Speaker 2: of a smallmouth river that I'd never been to before.
Speaker 2: Whitetail hunters are heavily fixated on the goal of killing
Speaker 2: a big deer, but there are many many paths to
Speaker 2: take you on your way there, and there are many
Speaker 2: ways to enjoy the world of the whitetail without taking
Speaker 2: the most direct path from not having a dead buck
Speaker 2: to hopefully having one. Think about this stuff as we
Speaker 2: grind our way through this stupid ass month and start
Speaker 2: to think about turkey hunting, and come back next week
Speaker 2: because I'm going to talk about how to save some
Speaker 2: money on deer hunting, which is probably a good topic
Speaker 2: to dive into considering how expensive everything seems to be.
Speaker 2: Right now, that's it. I'm Tony Peterson. This has been
Speaker 2: the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which is brought to
Speaker 2: you by First Light. As always, thank you so much
Speaker 2: for your support, Thank you for listening. If you want
Speaker 2: some more white tail content or some turkey content, which
Speaker 2: is dropping like crazy right now, head on over to
Speaker 2: the meedeater dot com. You'll see all kinds of videos.
Speaker 2: You'll see all kinds of podcasts, all kinds of articles,
Speaker 2: lots of good stuff there. Go check it out.