Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Dirk Durham and at this recording date it's November twentieth,
Speaker 1: arguably my favorite time to hunt mountain white tails. With
Speaker 1: snowflakes dropping in the higher of elevations, I'm packing my
Speaker 1: bags to head up and try a little luck at
Speaker 1: tagging a big buck. After Jason Phelps talked about Kansas
Speaker 1: hunting on last week's episode, I wanted to compare and
Speaker 1: contrast my experienced rival hunting those same type of deer
Speaker 1: in Idaho. Now, as all you know, I love archery,
Speaker 1: elk hunting, and to be honest, all elk cunning. But
Speaker 1: what you probably don't know is whitetail hunting was my
Speaker 1: very first love, hunting white tails from twelve years old
Speaker 1: with my dad. Looked a lot different at age thirteen,
Speaker 1: and then a lot different today. Back then, it was
Speaker 1: all big timber deer hunting, much zero clear cuts. At
Speaker 1: least where I began hunting. This was state land, private timberland,
Speaker 1: and sometimes private property. Sometimes I'd get permission from these
Speaker 1: local farmers who I worked for in the summertime putting
Speaker 1: up hay and come fall, you know, I'd ask him
Speaker 1: if I could hunt, and they would say, oh, absolutely,
Speaker 1: because farmers, most farmers, they want to trim down the
Speaker 1: deer herd and the elk hurd as much as they can. Well,
Speaker 1: twelve year old me hunting, was riding around in the
Speaker 1: truck with my dad all day looking for deer, hoping
Speaker 1: one wouldn't magically appear. But man, did they ever appear.
Speaker 1: There were deer everywhere back then. It was crazy. You
Speaker 1: didn't have to drive very long and you would see
Speaker 1: a deer run across the road or be standing next
Speaker 1: to the road. But the funny part was they were
Speaker 1: almost impossible to get right, you know, by the time
Speaker 1: you'd get out, run off the side of the road
Speaker 1: and run out in the brush, you'd try to get one,
Speaker 1: and they were always gone. And so I kind of
Speaker 1: made a decision. Thirteen year old me had had enough
Speaker 1: road hunting that very first year. Every deer we saw
Speaker 1: it was on high alert and running. So I wanted
Speaker 1: to shoot a deer more than anything in the world,
Speaker 1: and I knew doing it from a truck was definitely
Speaker 1: not the way I was going to get it done.
Speaker 1: So honestly, I think I think my dad he hoped
Speaker 1: we didn't get a deer. I think he was just
Speaker 1: just out enjoying the fallwoods, you know, taking in all
Speaker 1: the sites, all the pretty all the pretty fall colors,
Speaker 1: and driving around, sipping on coffee, having a candy bar.
Speaker 1: You know. It was that kind of a kind of
Speaker 1: a vibe, and I think he was just out there
Speaker 1: enjoying it. I feel like he had zero intention of
Speaker 1: actually getting a deer back then. So at thirteen, I
Speaker 1: made the decision that I wanted to get out of
Speaker 1: the truck and I wanted to hunt hunt deer. I
Speaker 1: wanted to get in the woods on foot and find
Speaker 1: find a big buck. So I'd have my mom or
Speaker 1: my dad dropped me off in the woods for a
Speaker 1: morning hunt or an evening hunt, and then meet back
Speaker 1: where they dropped me. And this may be, you know,
Speaker 1: they may drop me thirty minutes before first light and
Speaker 1: pick me up later on that morning. They may drop
Speaker 1: me off right after school, and I'd hunt till dark,
Speaker 1: a little after dark. In fact, most most of the time,
Speaker 1: I would hunt every single day before school until I
Speaker 1: got my deer. I'd go out for an hour or two,
Speaker 1: just get out there my mom. Sometimes my mom would
Speaker 1: go with me my dad. He was just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's cold out, I'm not into it. I think he
Speaker 1: was pretty much over it by that time. I think
Speaker 1: he'd go, if we want to drive around, but he
Speaker 1: didn't want to. He called it beating the brush. He's like,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna get out there and beat the brush.
Speaker 1: He's he always he always thought if you beat the brush,
Speaker 1: you're gonna just spook the hero over to someone else.
Speaker 1: So he didn't want to do that. So today hunting
Speaker 1: looks completely different. There's virtually no big timber. There's clear
Speaker 1: cuts everywhere on state and timberland. There's a little and
Speaker 1: some of the private stuff is not cut up so bad.
Speaker 1: But a lot of those farmers, you know, they that
Speaker 1: I used to go hunt on their place, then they've
Speaker 1: long since retired or passed on. So it's definitely a
Speaker 1: different game these days. And i'd say there's there's less
Speaker 1: deer today too, And I attribute to a couple things
Speaker 1: that dominate those things. But some of the things I'll
Speaker 1: talk about before I tell you what I think the
Speaker 1: key key things are is predators. Predators are taking their
Speaker 1: fair shared deer, that's for sure. You know, back in
Speaker 1: the early or in the eighties and nineties, you know,
Speaker 1: mountain lions and coyotes were thick in Idaho and they
Speaker 1: I think they took their fair shared deer, but I
Speaker 1: don't think coyotes had the population like they do today
Speaker 1: in my opinion. Today today, wolves and coyotes probably doing
Speaker 1: most of damage. There's still some lions out there, but
Speaker 1: I think the wolves and the coyotes are taking down
Speaker 1: the larger numbers. For one, coyotes, there's just no market
Speaker 1: on their fur these days, and nobody's really trapping coyotes
Speaker 1: in a large scale like they used to do. There
Speaker 1: was a lot of guys just out trapping a lot
Speaker 1: of coyotes back in the day, putting a pretty good
Speaker 1: dent in their population, but we just don't see that
Speaker 1: as much today. The hides are hardly worth a thing,
Speaker 1: which is unfortunate because it really helps with, you know,
Speaker 1: creating some balance out there. Another thing to think about
Speaker 1: is disease. You know, when as a kid, we'd never
Speaker 1: had any disease to speak of. They we'd never had
Speaker 1: any blue tongue, we never had any EHD come through,
Speaker 1: and then in the nineties we saw our first first
Speaker 1: cases of that. It seemed like we had more droughts
Speaker 1: during the mid to late nineties and we had some
Speaker 1: pretty substantial die offs where you know, we lost like
Speaker 1: eighty to ninety percent of the deer in some spots.
Speaker 1: And today, you know, continue through the last you know,
Speaker 1: if you look at the last decade, the last two decades,
Speaker 1: you know we've had I have had quite a bit
Speaker 1: of drought and we've had a few more HD and
Speaker 1: blue tongue die offs. So that definitely does put a
Speaker 1: put a nail in the coffin on some of these
Speaker 1: deer herds. But they seem to bounce back after a
Speaker 1: few years and you start getting your deer herd built
Speaker 1: up again after a few years. But my personal opinion
Speaker 1: on one of the main the main culprits is too
Speaker 1: many tags and habitat loss. I'd like to say, first
Speaker 1: one hundred percent, I support logging in the timber industry,
Speaker 1: but with the massive clear cuts that have removed security
Speaker 1: cover for the deer and also an abundance of deer
Speaker 1: tags for residents and non residents alike, it's really taking
Speaker 1: its toll. I'll say the herds are starting to slowly
Speaker 1: look better as the clear cuts are starting to grow
Speaker 1: up a little bit and offer more security, but we're
Speaker 1: just not there where we were at back in the
Speaker 1: eighties and nineties. I think without you know, reaction from
Speaker 1: the fishing game. I don't want to pick on them
Speaker 1: too much, but there's a lot of nuance I feel
Speaker 1: like in big game management, and one of them is
Speaker 1: loss of habitat and security cover. And when when they
Speaker 1: started making those clearcuts, you know, they were really great
Speaker 1: because you'd have big blocks of timber and then you'd
Speaker 1: have a clearcut and that would give the deer a
Speaker 1: ton of food and they still had somewhere to hide.
Speaker 1: But man, over the last five six years, all these
Speaker 1: big clearcuts they'd put out there previously, they've all started
Speaker 1: connecting them. Now they've they've wiped out a lot of
Speaker 1: the big blocks of standing timber, and the deer run
Speaker 1: kind of running out of places to hide. But I
Speaker 1: will say in the last three or four years as well,
Speaker 1: some of those earlier clearcuts are starting to grow up,
Speaker 1: and we're starting to get little fir trees and brush
Speaker 1: and deer starting to find some new places to hide.
Speaker 1: So so I feel like in the next five ten
Speaker 1: years there should be a pretty good heyday of deer.
Speaker 1: For deer, I feel like, you know, they're going to
Speaker 1: be a lot less vulnerable and a lot harder to
Speaker 1: see no matter how many tags are going to be
Speaker 1: out there. But one bad thing about having too many
Speaker 1: tags is you know, and I'm I'm all for everybody
Speaker 1: getting the hunt every year. I love to hunt every year,
Speaker 1: but man, at some point it gets tough because it
Speaker 1: gets overcrowded. And you have to look at Idaho's population,
Speaker 1: the resonant population. In the last three or four years,
Speaker 1: it's exploded from a lot of folks moving to Idaho
Speaker 1: because they love our resources, they love the outdoors, they
Speaker 1: love to hunt. They they're looking for a different life
Speaker 1: or a different way of life. So I feel like
Speaker 1: there'll probably be some corrections or changes in tag availability
Speaker 1: in the next few years, you know, which I don't
Speaker 1: look forward to. But I feel like for the greater good.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you know, it's painful, but man, we we have
Speaker 1: to have have something done, so you know, it's still
Speaker 1: a pleasure of pleasurable experience. Again for those kids, Like
Speaker 1: if you take kids out, you know, you want them
Speaker 1: to have a good time and have fun hunting, you know,
Speaker 1: what makes what makes a good deer hunt for me? Well,
Speaker 1: I personally, I just want to see a lot of deer.
Speaker 1: I just want to see does and fawns. I want
Speaker 1: to see young bucks. I want to see middle aged bucks,
Speaker 1: and I want to see mature bucks. Basically, I want
Speaker 1: to a well balanced herd with the possibility of taking
Speaker 1: home a mature buck from time to time. I want
Speaker 1: to be able to take a kid hunting and keep
Speaker 1: him or her engaged by showing them a bunch of deer.
Speaker 1: I want it to be fun. We're competing with all
Speaker 1: this instant gratification of electronics and all this other stuff,
Speaker 1: and it's it's really tough to get kids out there
Speaker 1: and show them a good time if they're not seeing
Speaker 1: a lot of deer. So that's for me, that's really
Speaker 1: what it's about. You know, I don't need to try
Speaker 1: to shoot one hundred and seventy inch deer every fall.
Speaker 1: Some people might say, oh, you're just a trophy hunter,
Speaker 1: but honestly, I just want to see a well balanced herd.
Speaker 1: I want to see just a lot of deer. I
Speaker 1: want to see does and fawns and little bucks and
Speaker 1: middle aged bucks and old bucks. I just want to
Speaker 1: see I'd like to see this kind of same kind
Speaker 1: of deer hunting we had when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: That way this generation can can enjoy that same thing
Speaker 1: I did. Now I want to switch gears a little bit.
Speaker 1: And this week's Pendleton Whiskey Question and answer A question
Speaker 1: is from that was kind of funny. Question and answer.
Speaker 1: Question is from an Instagram direct message. Now I didn't
Speaker 1: get the guy's name, but I'll read you the question
Speaker 1: he said. I'm taking my kid on an Idaho whitetail
Speaker 1: hunt in a month and have been crushing maps as
Speaker 1: its new hunting unit for me. Some of the areas
Speaker 1: I've been eyeballing or clearcuts at timber edges and on
Speaker 1: state in private timberland. I've not done a mountain whitetail
Speaker 1: hunt in Idaho before, so I'm assuming they act similar
Speaker 1: to our Willamette Valley whitetail in Oregon. But if you
Speaker 1: have any thoughts aside from that, I'm all ears. Current
Speaker 1: plan is to archery spot in stock I'll bring provisions
Speaker 1: to get in a tree if need be. This tag
Speaker 1: being new to me, I'm curious to see what kind
Speaker 1: of hunter numbers I run into. That's a great question.
Speaker 1: I've actually been getting similar questions a lot because on Instagram, Facebook,
Speaker 1: because folks know I've you know, grew up in north
Speaker 1: central Idaho and have you know a little bit of
Speaker 1: insight on on the hunting up there. But first off,
Speaker 1: I'd like to say, you know, archery spot and stock
Speaker 1: will be kind of like taking a knife to a gunfight.
Speaker 1: The area, it's it's rifle season, right Everybody's gonna be
Speaker 1: running in with a rifle. The area has a large
Speaker 1: number of other hunters using rifles and they're gonna be
Speaker 1: using ATVs extensively. The area is very roaded. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of roads that are open to ATVs. Recently there's
Speaker 1: been some some closures to some of the roads, but
Speaker 1: I still feel like you're going to run into a
Speaker 1: lot of people run their side by sides and four
Speaker 1: wheelers around, whether that's whether they're supposed to or not.
Speaker 1: It seems like there's always a bad apple out there
Speaker 1: abusing abusing the the laws. But I'd say, if you're
Speaker 1: committed to bow hunting, I would a one hundred percent
Speaker 1: suggest setting up a tree stand or ground blind. Personally,
Speaker 1: my style of hunting Mountain white tails is a lot
Speaker 1: more mobile than folks who hunt in Eastern States. I'm
Speaker 1: more of a I'm more of a get on the
Speaker 1: ground and hunt the guy than a tree standing guy.
Speaker 1: I like to cover a lot of country, whether I'm
Speaker 1: on foot or on four wheels. Either I'm a pickup
Speaker 1: or I'm in an ATV, you know, on roads that
Speaker 1: are open. I really hate running an ATV at that time.
Speaker 1: It's cold, and I'm just not into hunting from the
Speaker 1: truck or the four wheeler. I really want to get
Speaker 1: out there and just enjoy, you know, the quiet once
Speaker 1: once it starts snowing. Man in the deer woods, it
Speaker 1: can be so quiet. There's no birds chooping, there's no bugs,
Speaker 1: there's no bees buzzing. It's just very quiet, just you
Speaker 1: and the sounds are like maybe some squirrels or the deer,
Speaker 1: and I just really love that. So I would just
Speaker 1: like to cover for a lot of country to begin with.
Speaker 1: I like to look specifically for tracks. I want to
Speaker 1: look for deer trails. I want to look for rubs
Speaker 1: and scrapes. Then I dial it in from there. Ideally,
Speaker 1: I like to watch an area. I like to watch
Speaker 1: a place where deer cross crossing from fetting feeding or
Speaker 1: from feeding to security cover. You know, this may give
Speaker 1: me a fifty yard shot or even a three hundred
Speaker 1: or four hundred five hundred yard shot, depending on the area.
Speaker 1: But I like to kind of sit and wait in
Speaker 1: those kind of places just because deer they've got a
Speaker 1: pretty good eye for people walking around. But I will
Speaker 1: say I do also love hunting big timber. I like
Speaker 1: to still hunt big timber, and that's kind of how
Speaker 1: I cut my teeth as a kid. And what I
Speaker 1: do is I interesstand a big timber on a game trail,
Speaker 1: and then I move really slowly, so slowly that it
Speaker 1: almost appear that I'm standing in one spot. It might
Speaker 1: take me an hour to walk two hundred yards. It's
Speaker 1: almost exhausting, honestly, just because you're moving so slow and
Speaker 1: you're just standing one spot. You don't want any perceivable
Speaker 1: movement from a deer. And if if you move that slowly,
Speaker 1: a lot of times you can walk up. You'll as
Speaker 1: you move through there, eventually a deer will appear and
Speaker 1: you'll have the jump on them. They won't see you
Speaker 1: before you see them. And a lot of times I
Speaker 1: like to sit down when I get to the thickest
Speaker 1: cover likes as the forest, as the big open timber
Speaker 1: kind of starts closing in, and I start getting into
Speaker 1: more fir trees and more brushy areas where deer tend
Speaker 1: to bed. I like to sit down, and then I
Speaker 1: like to use my grunt call or rattling horns, and
Speaker 1: then I intend on on calling in a deer out
Speaker 1: of that thick stuff, because a lot of times those
Speaker 1: doughs will bet up in there, and if there's a
Speaker 1: if there's a buck there that's not on a hot dough,
Speaker 1: and sometimes a buck's you know, depending on the period
Speaker 1: of the rep, there'll be a buck in there too bedded.
Speaker 1: He may not be on a dough, but if you
Speaker 1: can call into there, I've had it happen several times
Speaker 1: where a buck will just come either come boiling out
Speaker 1: of there running or they'll just they'll they'll come so
Speaker 1: quick and silently. You'll look up and you'll just see
Speaker 1: their feet standing there, and then you see a piece
Speaker 1: and a part of a deer and you're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: there he is. And then you have just enough deer
Speaker 1: to raise your rifle and put a bullet in them.
Speaker 1: Now for archery hunting that would be that would be tough,
Speaker 1: so that that's still hunting for with an archery with
Speaker 1: a bow. I feel like it'd be really tough because
Speaker 1: just central Idaho and north central Idaho it's pretty pretty
Speaker 1: thick cover. A third way I like to hunt deer
Speaker 1: is to hunt them kind of like you would elk.
Speaker 1: I like to get on an old road or a trail,
Speaker 1: a travels shoe kind of some semi open timber or
Speaker 1: grown up clear cut that has lots of nooks and crannies.
Speaker 1: More of a flat, more flatter kind of country. I'm
Speaker 1: not talking about steep canyon lands because if you're if
Speaker 1: you're into that stuff where it's more like canyon brakes
Speaker 1: or or big deep draws and ridges. As you come
Speaker 1: around the corner on an old road, you around the corner,
Speaker 1: you can see that hole here hillside, which is pretty effective.
Speaker 1: You can see and you can glass it up and
Speaker 1: look and see if you can see a deer. But
Speaker 1: now you're walking. You got to walk another quarter mile
Speaker 1: half mile sometimes before you get to ever see another
Speaker 1: good site picture. But I'm talking about kind of more
Speaker 1: flatter ground, where as though ground unfolds as you walk
Speaker 1: maybe every two hundred yards, maybe one every hundred yards
Speaker 1: or so, you'll see new nooks and crannies. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: a place they did a select cut of some logging,
Speaker 1: or they did some maybe a clear cut, you know,
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, fifteen, twenty years ago, and there's still
Speaker 1: some old old skid trails and logging roads that are exposed.
Speaker 1: And as you kind of walk your way around a
Speaker 1: main road or a main trail, you'll see you'll peer
Speaker 1: down into these other skid roads or old skid trails,
Speaker 1: and it's a great way to just walk right up
Speaker 1: on deer and a lot of times you'll find a
Speaker 1: dough there that's eating or moving. And if it's November twentieth,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna bet there's gonna be a buck with her.
Speaker 1: More times than not there'll be a buck. If not,
Speaker 1: you'll know it because she won't be watching her back trail.
Speaker 1: But if she has a buck with her, she'll be
Speaker 1: looking behind her nervously, because not all doughs like a
Speaker 1: buck following them. And if you see a dough acting
Speaker 1: like that, if she's looking behind her and then she
Speaker 1: kind of moves off, have your gun up, have your
Speaker 1: gun ready, and in that opening, because that buck's gonna
Speaker 1: follow that same line and you possibly could have could
Speaker 1: get a shot at a really nice deer. Now another way,
Speaker 1: just like the folks back east in the Midwest, like
Speaker 1: the hunt, I'm looking for deer in the fringe, fringe
Speaker 1: areas and the tree you know, where the trees and
Speaker 1: thick cover, the thin trees and the thick cover kind
Speaker 1: of kind of meat. It seems like the deer love
Speaker 1: traveling that stuff. So I like to set up to
Speaker 1: where I can sit and watch a place like that.
Speaker 1: And if I was to put a tree stand, I
Speaker 1: might put it up in one of those fringe areas,
Speaker 1: especially if it was a really good, really good trail
Speaker 1: going through there with a lot of a lot of tracks,
Speaker 1: especially this time of year that's a little bit muddy.
Speaker 1: You can find big buck tracks, you can find their rubs,
Speaker 1: you can find their scrapes where they've been traveling. It's
Speaker 1: a great way to set up. But as far as
Speaker 1: tree stands go, honestly, by default, I'm just not really
Speaker 1: a tree stand guy. There's nothing wrong with him, and
Speaker 1: I'd probably do a lot better if i'd start using one,
Speaker 1: But it's just a different style of hunting. But I
Speaker 1: will say if you want to hear about how to
Speaker 1: hunt mountain white tails from a tree stand, you got
Speaker 1: to go back and listen to episode one oh five
Speaker 1: where Jason picks Troy Pottinger's brain on hunting mountain white tails.
Speaker 1: Troy is the real deal and literally has shot He
Speaker 1: just literally shot a giant another giant white tail last week.
Speaker 1: Get on Facebook, look up Troy Pottinger. It's a it's
Speaker 1: a it's an impressive giant buck and he's got several
Speaker 1: of those under his belt. So that's a that's a
Speaker 1: great deep dive to go into. If you want to
Speaker 1: listen to more about hunting white tails as far as
Speaker 1: a tree stand and maybe even with a bow. Well,
Speaker 1: that's a wrap for this week's episode. I figured I'd
Speaker 1: share my thoughts on a subject that I hold near
Speaker 1: and dear to my heart and that sideahole white tails.
Speaker 1: And if you guys have any other questions you'd like
Speaker 1: to answer, just shoot us an email at CTD at
Speaker 1: phelpsgame Calls dot com or call our super secret number
Speaker 1: two zero eight two one seven seven zero one. Just
Speaker 1: leave a voicemail and we'll play it on the air
Speaker 1: and answer it the best. We can. Try to keep
Speaker 1: that question about three minutes or less because it will
Speaker 1: cut you off if it's if you go too long.
Speaker 1: But anyway, good luck out there and we will catch
Speaker 1: you on the next one. St