Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, and now your host,
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson. Hey, everybody, welcome to the wire to Hunt
Speaker 1: Foundations podcast, which has brought to you by First Light.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is all about deer hunting, weapon choice, and
Speaker 1: how mixing things up can make you a better hunter overall.
Speaker 1: I grew up as a strict bow hunter. From the
Speaker 1: age of twelve until I think I was twenty four,
Speaker 1: I never picked up a gun to hunt any big game.
Speaker 1: Even then, the gun I picked up was a little
Speaker 1: to forty three because my dad and I had planned
Speaker 1: a trip out west to hunt Wyoming antelope. Now the
Speaker 1: little goat I shot on day two. That was my
Speaker 1: first big game animal with a rifle, and while it
Speaker 1: didn't exactly line me out on a gun hunter's path,
Speaker 1: did actually open my eyes. It also made it easier
Speaker 1: for me to try out a muzzle order, which I
Speaker 1: just kind of fell in love with. And throughout this
Speaker 1: and through a brief foray in a traditional bow hunting
Speaker 1: and now crossbows for my kids, I've realized something hunting
Speaker 1: with a different weapon can make you a better hunter overall.
Speaker 1: And now I'm going to tell you how many of
Speaker 1: you find listeners might not know this about me, but
Speaker 1: I am ubsessed with dogs, working dogs mostly, and the
Speaker 1: other side of my career, the one that doesn't involve
Speaker 1: white tails at all, involves dogs, training them, writing about them,
Speaker 1: photographing them, filming them, you name it. I freaking love
Speaker 1: dogs that have a job. I also really look up
Speaker 1: to some dog trainers, and I've had the good fortune
Speaker 1: of becoming close friends with a fellow named Tom Dockin
Speaker 1: and Doc I don't know if he's not the goat
Speaker 1: of retriever training, he's definitely on the podium holding up
Speaker 1: a top three medal, and I know one have interviewed
Speaker 1: a pile of other legends in the sport too, and
Speaker 1: plenty of the up and comers who will probably unseat
Speaker 1: the old names after a few decades. Do you know
Speaker 1: what you find when you embed yourself into that world
Speaker 1: of breeding and training hunting dogs. You find people who
Speaker 1: challenge themselves to level up, and you find people who
Speaker 1: choose an easier path to get really good at very
Speaker 1: specific aspects of dog training or specializing in a certain breed.
Speaker 1: Let me give you example of the former one trainer
Speaker 1: I know who is a certified badass is Jennifer Broom.
Speaker 1: She owns q K Kennels in Connecticut and is not
Speaker 1: only a seriously talented trainer, but also a die hard hunter.
Speaker 1: She and I spent some time last You're chasing woodcock
Speaker 1: and grouse on public land in northern Wisconsin, and she
Speaker 1: explained her strategy of dog training to me, which is
Speaker 1: basically sort of like the Connor McGregor, you know, heyday
Speaker 1: of UFC, Take them all, take on everybody, or maybe
Speaker 1: Nate Diaz or whoever. She wouldn't turn down a dog.
Speaker 1: She'd take on super well bred hunting breeds, she'd take
Speaker 1: on Mutt's shelter dogs, and just generally any dog that
Speaker 1: came her away. She takes the dogs that have already
Speaker 1: been trained very well but also might need a little
Speaker 1: polishing for upper level work like triple blinder trees or
Speaker 1: hand signals. She take dogs that I don't know, wouldn't
Speaker 1: know if peasant if it picked him on the nose.
Speaker 1: She'd take dogs that need basic foundation work at three
Speaker 1: years of age because they never received an ounce of
Speaker 1: training until that point. Now, anyone who knows dogs knows
Speaker 1: what a challenge that is to unravel all of those
Speaker 1: bad habits and then start from scratch and build in
Speaker 1: those positive behaviors you want. In fact, if you ask
Speaker 1: most trainers what the biggest problem they have with any
Speaker 1: dog is, it's undoing the bad work the owner did
Speaker 1: or allowed. A trainer who chooses to work with those
Speaker 1: type of dogs, and dogs that are bred for various
Speaker 1: random tasks and dogs that are just supposed to be
Speaker 1: well behaved house dogs is a trainer who is going
Speaker 1: to have a hell of a lot to work with
Speaker 1: in the old toolbox. Now, the other side of this
Speaker 1: in the training world are you know which you could
Speaker 1: kind of call it the specialists. They love the British labs,
Speaker 1: so that's all they work with. Or they love pointers,
Speaker 1: so it's English pointers or gsps or whatever, and that's
Speaker 1: the lane they stay in. And you know what, they
Speaker 1: get really really good at breeding and training those specific dogs. Now,
Speaker 1: if you have a British lab and you want to
Speaker 1: ring every ounce of prey drive out of it, you
Speaker 1: might want to go to that specialist because they're probably
Speaker 1: gonna have an answer for you. But if you come
Speaker 1: to them with a nova Scotia duck toler maybe not.
Speaker 1: Or if your spouse brings home a dog from a
Speaker 1: back alley litter of hunts and you can't take it
Speaker 1: back and you need it not to chew on your
Speaker 1: furniture or bark at the walls or whatever, maybe not.
Speaker 1: The broader experience solving problems with a huge range of
Speaker 1: dogs make some trainers so good it's almost unreal. The
Speaker 1: people who work with a huge variety of challenging dogs
Speaker 1: just keep getting better because having to solve every random
Speaker 1: problem that comes your way is going to force you
Speaker 1: to think and work through those problems over and over. Hey,
Speaker 1: and the specialists are great, but they are also the
Speaker 1: kind of people who I don't know in the dear world,
Speaker 1: hunt only one spot their entire life. They may get
Speaker 1: very good at that specific property, but they might not
Speaker 1: get real good at generally hunting deer through a variety
Speaker 1: of conditions. Do you see where I'm going with this?
Speaker 1: This podcast leans heavily towards the bow hunting realm for
Speaker 1: several reasons. First off, it's mine and I primarily only
Speaker 1: bo hunt, so that's a per a big factor. It's
Speaker 1: also not much of a secret that the folks who
Speaker 1: are most likely to consume content like this in the
Speaker 1: deer space also tend to mostly be hardcore bow hunters first,
Speaker 1: but as being only a bow hunter the best choice
Speaker 1: if you want to get better at deer hunting, I
Speaker 1: don't think so. I do believe in my heart of
Speaker 1: hearts that the close range game of bow hunting will
Speaker 1: make you better than the long distance buffer you get
Speaker 1: with rifle shotguns and muzzle leaders. But that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that picking up a weapon that makes a little more
Speaker 1: noise when it goes off isn't a good thing. In fact,
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago, I drove on over to
Speaker 1: the Cabella's by my house to buy some muzzle oader
Speaker 1: powder and bullets when Cabella's didn't have anything because for
Speaker 1: some reason that store is turned into mostly a clothing
Speaker 1: shop where you're constantly pressured into opening a credit card
Speaker 1: under the threat of getting water boarded in the warehouse
Speaker 1: by a clueless eighteen year old sales associate in a
Speaker 1: tan shirt. I went elsewhere, I found the supplies, took
Speaker 1: my muzzle leader out, and that sucker dialed in. I
Speaker 1: just have a soft spot in my heart for muzzle
Speaker 1: or hunting, and since the timing worked out. I knew
Speaker 1: I was either going to go to Wisconsin or stay
Speaker 1: in Minnesota, or maybe both. Now the states I hunt
Speaker 1: these days allow for scopes on muzzloaders, and that changes
Speaker 1: the game. Before Minnesota legal eyes scopes, it was an
Speaker 1: open sight deal. Only I still loved it because it
Speaker 1: was kind of like bow hunting on easy mode. Anything
Speaker 1: within a hundred yards was fair game, and anything within
Speaker 1: about seventy five, as long as I had a really
Speaker 1: good rest, was in serious trouble. I learned this after
Speaker 1: learning mostly what not to do with the muzzloader, because
Speaker 1: you see, as a lifelong bow hunter, I felt like
Speaker 1: I would almost be cheating when I picked up a gun,
Speaker 1: even a gun that is a relatively short range weapon
Speaker 1: compared to many of the firearms we take into the field.
Speaker 1: So instead of hunting deer like I do with a bow,
Speaker 1: I started just walking around trying to find one to shoot.
Speaker 1: After all, that extra horsepower should have allowed me to
Speaker 1: still hunt my way to a ton of filled tags,
Speaker 1: and honestly it did well. Not really some tags, for sure,
Speaker 1: but it also led me to watch an awful lot
Speaker 1: of deer run away and reminded me that there are
Speaker 1: good stocking conditions, and there are conditions where you'll never
Speaker 1: ever get anywhere near a deer. That's the time when
Speaker 1: you got an ambush. It taught me that muzzle order
Speaker 1: hunting on a huge chunk of ground was a different
Speaker 1: deal than hunting a tiny parcel. It made me realize
Speaker 1: that what I thought would be easy due to the
Speaker 1: obvious advantage over archery tackle, was almost always mitigated by something.
Speaker 1: Now that might have just been a crunchy layer of
Speaker 1: snow out there, or some early winter rain, or mostly
Speaker 1: just the effects of a ton of hunting pressure from
Speaker 1: bow and gun season, but I always, no matter what
Speaker 1: it seemed like, the whole thing kind of leveled off
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. And what I didn't see coming when I
Speaker 1: started that was that I still had to hunt smart.
Speaker 1: I had to figure out what the conditions we're going
Speaker 1: to do to the deer, what the pressure was going
Speaker 1: to do to the deer, and how I could intersect
Speaker 1: with them on the properties I was hunting at one
Speaker 1: muscle or hunting brought me to a few different states
Speaker 1: on public and private land, and it just gave me
Speaker 1: an education I didn't know I needed. Rifle hunting did
Speaker 1: too once I started doing it. Now you would probably
Speaker 1: be better off growing in Miami vice Mark Kenyan mustache
Speaker 1: for good luck than you would listening to me give
Speaker 1: rifle hunting advice. So take that for what it's worth.
Speaker 1: But rifle hunting taught me a lesson that I needed
Speaker 1: to learn and I needed to be reminded of every year.
Speaker 1: And you've heard me talk about it a ton on here,
Speaker 1: which is cover as king. The bucks I've killed with
Speaker 1: a rifle, they've all been in cattail slues or the
Speaker 1: thickest parts of the biggest woods. They've all been closer
Speaker 1: than I thought they would be, and they've all showed
Speaker 1: me that the deer weren't all gone, they weren't all nocturnal.
Speaker 1: They were just being damned sneaky in places that offered
Speaker 1: them serious advantages. Going from being a strict, pompous, look
Speaker 1: down your nose at everyone else kind of bow hunter
Speaker 1: to a deer hunting generalists who would gladly pick up
Speaker 1: a gun taught me how to be a better deer hunter,
Speaker 1: and it could teach you as well. But here's the thing, though,
Speaker 1: it's easy to go into default mode sometimes, no matter
Speaker 1: what your weapon of choices. If you have that box
Speaker 1: blind on the edge of the pitcornfield and have gone
Speaker 1: from a four yard weapon to a four hundred yard weapon,
Speaker 1: it's pretty easy to grab your little buddy heater and
Speaker 1: some Swiss cake rolls and go live the good life.
Speaker 1: But what does that teach you. It'll probably teach you
Speaker 1: that by gun season the big boys aren't much into
Speaker 1: running across open fields when the masses are out there
Speaker 1: with serious firepower. What would the third day a gun
Speaker 1: season teach you if, instead of crawling up into a
Speaker 1: tiny house built to shoot deer from, you slipped into
Speaker 1: some cover and saddled up for an afternoon sit. Or
Speaker 1: what would you learn about doing two man drives on
Speaker 1: the public river bottom down the road? What could you
Speaker 1: learn if you muzzle it or haunted during a serious
Speaker 1: cold snap when the bed to food patterns should be
Speaker 1: cranking up. What if you don't see them on the
Speaker 1: food even though it's zero degrees and they should be
Speaker 1: carving up in the cornfield. What if you decided to
Speaker 1: take your muzzle leader to an area of your state
Speaker 1: you've never hunted, Maybe to a place that is grassy plains,
Speaker 1: maybe full of cat tails, losing tiny woodlots and couldn't
Speaker 1: look more different from your typical big woods hunt. Or
Speaker 1: what if you went from a place you couldn't glass
Speaker 1: because it's just too thick to a place where you
Speaker 1: could see whole sections of land with the right optics
Speaker 1: or vice versa. What would that change about how you hunt?
Speaker 1: This is the thing about weapon choice, my friends. It
Speaker 1: puts us in a new mindset and allows us the
Speaker 1: chance to hunt just a little bit differently. And this
Speaker 1: is so much harder than it looks. When you turn
Speaker 1: on the outdoor channel these days, you'll mostly see people
Speaker 1: hunting easy stuff, regardless of weapon choice. That box bind
Speaker 1: on the food plot in southern Iowa will be just
Speaker 1: as good for the bow opener as it will be
Speaker 1: for the final days of the season. No matter what
Speaker 1: weapon you've got, it'll be good for whatever weapon they
Speaker 1: pick up all season long in most of the places
Speaker 1: they choose to hunt and film for you. And those
Speaker 1: people have learned to get to the deer to do
Speaker 1: exactly what they want them to do. That's their secret.
Speaker 1: But you don't have that, and honestly, you probably don't
Speaker 1: want that, even though it would be nice to kill
Speaker 1: a buck without having to burn a calorie. That's not
Speaker 1: going to happen, though, But you can get a lot
Speaker 1: better at deer hunting by switching things up. This is
Speaker 1: one of the easiest ways I know to prompt yourself
Speaker 1: out of a hunting rut. We all do this, and
Speaker 1: it's not good for our success or, more importantly, our
Speaker 1: skill set. We go to places where we are comfortable sitting,
Speaker 1: We default where we think we are most likely to
Speaker 1: see the deer. We make excuses, especially as the season
Speaker 1: drags on, We'll get complacent, and honestly, all this stuff's okay.
Speaker 1: Hunting isn't supposed to be hard work for everyone. If
Speaker 1: the ladder stand over the food plot is where you
Speaker 1: want to sit, go for it. But if you find
Speaker 1: yourself wishing you could have more encounters with bigger deer,
Speaker 1: or you find yourself not wanting to do the same
Speaker 1: old thing because you're pretty sure it will deliver the
Speaker 1: same old results, then consider shaking things up now. It
Speaker 1: might be too late for that this year, but it's
Speaker 1: not too late to start thinking about how you do
Speaker 1: that next year. It's not too late to consider what
Speaker 1: you might want to buy yourself for Christmas. That might
Speaker 1: just require hearing protection when you use it, because once
Speaker 1: you decide that, you know what, screw it. I've worked
Speaker 1: my ass off for a long time and I think
Speaker 1: I deserve a new muzzle loader. And anyway, we always
Speaker 1: have some free time during the beginning of December, and
Speaker 1: why shouldn't I just do it. Listen, I say treat yourself,
Speaker 1: because you know what that's gonna do. It's going to
Speaker 1: get you thinking about what you'll have to do to
Speaker 1: be successful. Your bow only strategy isn't going to totally
Speaker 1: cut it this year or next year. When you head
Speaker 1: out with a brand new Blaze Orange vest on, You're
Speaker 1: going to have to think about what it's going to
Speaker 1: take to be successful. And you know what else, it'll
Speaker 1: open up opportunities you might not see coming. One of
Speaker 1: the most challenging hunts I've ever been on, it was
Speaker 1: also one of the most fun. Was in when a
Speaker 1: buddy and I drove to Nebraska in December and muzzleloader
Speaker 1: hunted deer on an enormous chunk of public land. The
Speaker 1: two year old I shot that year after hunting all
Speaker 1: day the first day we got there and not seeing
Speaker 1: a single deer. By the way, it was a trophy
Speaker 1: that I was pretty damn proud of. He brought me
Speaker 1: across miles of sand hills and so many good looking
Speaker 1: spots that simply didn't hold a single deer when I
Speaker 1: was there. That kind of hunting, while I could be
Speaker 1: done with a bow, was not something I had ever
Speaker 1: done with a bow. It took a gun to get
Speaker 1: me to make that eight or drive and do that hunt,
Speaker 1: and I'm so glad I did. In fact, I'm pretty
Speaker 1: happy every time I switched weapons and tried to hunt
Speaker 1: white tails in some different way, you know, whether I'm
Speaker 1: at home or headed on on the road somewhere. I
Speaker 1: love having to plan differently and think about my approach
Speaker 1: and my setups. I also love knowing that if we
Speaker 1: get eight inches of fresh powder and I've got enough
Speaker 1: land to work with, I might be able to channel
Speaker 1: my inner upper Northeastern hunter and track one. The first
Speaker 1: dough I ever killed with a muzzle. Order gave me
Speaker 1: that chance, and it's still one of the few white
Speaker 1: tails I've ever shot in it's bed. It's also the
Speaker 1: biggest dough I've ever shot. Do you have a chance
Speaker 1: to do something like this, to take something other than
Speaker 1: your usual weapon of choice out to try your hand
Speaker 1: at the same game with different rules. If so, I'd
Speaker 1: consider it if I were you. The secret to leveling
Speaker 1: up as a deer hunter isn't gaining access to the
Speaker 1: best ground out there, because while that will certainly help
Speaker 1: you fill up the walls of your man cave with
Speaker 1: sweet mounds, it won't necessarily make you a better hunter. Hell,
Speaker 1: easy deer hunting often makes us worse, even though it
Speaker 1: can be a hell of a lot of fun. What
Speaker 1: a weapon switch instead could do for you is actually
Speaker 1: make you a better hunter, which is pretty fun by
Speaker 1: the way. It will open up new styles like still
Speaker 1: hunting or drives or whatever. It will allow you to
Speaker 1: ambush from the ground in spots where your bow would
Speaker 1: be worthless, or allow you to sit up over a
Speaker 1: valley that you've never hunted because to bow hunt it
Speaker 1: you'd have to get so close to the deer and
Speaker 1: contend with all the swirling wind. But maybe you can
Speaker 1: play it safe at the top of the ridge and
Speaker 1: maybe you'll see the deer do something you didn't think
Speaker 1: they do. Maybe they'll walk past a tree to get
Speaker 1: into that valley that you could hang a stand in.
Speaker 1: Next bow season, shaking things up and challenging ourselves sort
Speaker 1: of the name of the game. And you know what else,
Speaker 1: it's pretty damn enjoyable. I know some hunters who have
Speaker 1: no desire to try anything different, and good for them.
Speaker 1: But if that's not you, or you're looking for a
Speaker 1: way to force yourself to try new things, this can
Speaker 1: be a pretty good move. And it probably won't be
Speaker 1: as easy as you think it'll be, which is exactly
Speaker 1: how it should be. And if it is, I don't know,
Speaker 1: a little too easy, then maybe that will prompt you
Speaker 1: to get out of the box blind and head to
Speaker 1: the public land with your buddies to do a few
Speaker 1: little drives. Or maybe instead of sitting in your favorite stand,
Speaker 1: you'll still hunt I don't know, the fresh snow in
Speaker 1: a river bottom on that public land. Maybe you'll learn
Speaker 1: doing any of those things, while directly influencing your success
Speaker 1: in the moment, will also benefit you a whole lot
Speaker 1: throughout the rest of your life as a hunter. So
Speaker 1: I guess who doesn't want that? Try something new, my friends,
Speaker 1: and be sure to tune in next week as I
Speaker 1: break down late season hunting for people who don't have
Speaker 1: good places to late season hunt. That's all I have
Speaker 1: for you this week, as I always, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for tuning in. This has been the Wire to
Speaker 1: Hunt Foundations podcast and I'm your host, Tony Peterson and
Speaker 1: you know it's brought to you by First Light. Feel
Speaker 1: free to visit them eatier dot com slash wired to
Speaker 1: read our latest articles, or head on over to the
Speaker 1: wire to Hunt YouTube channel to see how our how
Speaker 1: to videos that we drop every week. And again, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for the support. All of us here
Speaker 1: at meat Eater sincerely appreciate it. M