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. Welcome to the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast,
Speaker 1: brought to you by First Light. Today's episode is all
Speaker 1: about taking what we learned last week about eat scouting
Speaker 1: and really getting down into the nitty gritty details to
Speaker 1: figure out where bucks should be on your chosen deer grown.
Speaker 1: The fun part of east scouting is just the promise
Speaker 1: of new spots. It's like a little treasure hunt that
Speaker 1: might show you something you've been missing, or show you
Speaker 1: spots on a distant parcel of public land that should
Speaker 1: be killer ambush locations for a run hunt. But you've
Speaker 1: got to know how to read the land and really
Speaker 1: understand what you're seeing to use the scouting in a
Speaker 1: really effective way. That's what this show is all about. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: welcome to the wire to Hunt Foundations podcast. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson. If you listen to the last two weeks
Speaker 1: of episodes, you heard me just beg and plead for
Speaker 1: you to develop not only a love of all scouting,
Speaker 1: but to consider how big picture EAT scouting can really
Speaker 1: set you up for better hunts. On this episode, we're
Speaker 1: gonna take East scouting to a more enjoyable level, because
Speaker 1: once you've developed an overall understanding of how the features
Speaker 1: of your dear ground tie together via satellite imagery, you're
Speaker 1: gonna want to fire up your scouting app and get real,
Speaker 1: real comfortable with the waypoints feature. Or more specifically, I'm
Speaker 1: going to cover where you really want to plant your
Speaker 1: digital flag versus the stuff you're better off ignoring, and
Speaker 1: how to do this in a way that will eventually
Speaker 1: let you pare down your research to spots worth scouting
Speaker 1: in person or if necessary, just showing up blind to hunt.
Speaker 1: And way points, which started out in the world of
Speaker 1: GPS so that when you left your truck or your
Speaker 1: camp you wouldn't die, are not commonplace on all mapping apps.
Speaker 1: On some like on X, you can choose all kinds
Speaker 1: of symbols that represent just about everything you're likely to
Speaker 1: encounter in the act of deer scouting and deer hunting
Speaker 1: because it was developed four hunters. Other broader use mapping
Speaker 1: apps aren't his user friendly for hunting specific scouting, So
Speaker 1: pay attention to what platform you choose, and at this stage,
Speaker 1: what I like to do when I've narrowed down a
Speaker 1: property I know I'm going to hunt is to scroll
Speaker 1: over it and mark every interesting location. In fishing, there's
Speaker 1: a saying that goes hook sets are free, which is
Speaker 1: a subtle way to insult someone who thought they might
Speaker 1: have had a bite but didn't swing on it because
Speaker 1: of indecision. In the same vein, waypoints are free to
Speaker 1: the digital scouter. You aren't going to run out of them,
Speaker 1: and no one is going to cap you at a
Speaker 1: certain amount. This is gonuts for donuts time. With all
Speaker 1: of those waypoints locked, loaded and ready to be dropped,
Speaker 1: it's time to just start with the easy stuff. Get
Speaker 1: on your app and zoom across the land you plan
Speaker 1: to hunt. Zoom into the back corners of fields. Look
Speaker 1: at the water hole tucked into a ridgeline, Look at
Speaker 1: the no question dear funnel that connects two wood lots,
Speaker 1: drop away point, make a few notes if necessary, and
Speaker 1: move on. The goal is to mark everything that might
Speaker 1: signify a potential hunting spot. Forget about the details like
Speaker 1: prevailing wind direction, access and all that other stuff that's
Speaker 1: white noise. Right now, treat it like you're an eight
Speaker 1: year old and you've got a toy store catalog in
Speaker 1: your lap and are tasked with making your Christmas wish
Speaker 1: list for your very very very wealthy parents. Shoot for
Speaker 1: the moon here, even if you might settle for hitting
Speaker 1: the barn. Do this. Whether you hunt on private ground
Speaker 1: or public land. Do this, whether you plan to hunt
Speaker 1: a specific property on opening week in September or during
Speaker 1: the rout in November. Just go big here, because what
Speaker 1: you want to do is create a visual representation of
Speaker 1: your white tail ambush site wish list. You want to
Speaker 1: look at your scouting app and laugh because it's nearly
Speaker 1: filled up with way points. I did this when I
Speaker 1: knew I was going to draw my nonresident Iowa tag
Speaker 1: last fall. For six months, I scrolled over thousands of
Speaker 1: acres of public land in my zone and I just
Speaker 1: dropped waypoint after waypoint on any terrain feature, on food sources,
Speaker 1: on water sources, anything that picked my interests got a
Speaker 1: pin on it. And just for ships and giggles. I
Speaker 1: counted my way points to see how many I ended
Speaker 1: up with, and in total it was just over sixty,
Speaker 1: spread out across about eight different parcels. Now, even if
Speaker 1: I lived in Iowa, I had loads of free time,
Speaker 1: both of which aren't true. I couldn't have hunted all
Speaker 1: of those spots in one season. What's worse is that
Speaker 1: I knew that I would go through a pretty harsh
Speaker 1: culling phase as the October one opener drew near. Most
Speaker 1: of those waypoints would eventually get deemed not good enough,
Speaker 1: and I knew I would delete them. And as sad
Speaker 1: as that is, it's necessary and it doesn't negate the
Speaker 1: crazy phase of dropping your wish list way points. That
Speaker 1: step is important because you're just looking for a little
Speaker 1: bit of everything that might be worth hunting. You've developed
Speaker 1: a picture of all the spots that might be worthwhile
Speaker 1: without going through them individually, to parce out the good
Speaker 1: stuff from the spots that just don't have the right
Speaker 1: access or won't play into the timing of your hunt.
Speaker 1: If this seems clear as mud, let me grab a
Speaker 1: big old stick and stir the whole thing up a
Speaker 1: little bit more. What you're really looking to do now
Speaker 1: is think about what's really going on under those way points.
Speaker 1: Think of them not just as a remotely interesting feature
Speaker 1: on the landscape, but as an actual physical place you
Speaker 1: will walk into with a stand on your back or
Speaker 1: a saddle on your butt, or maybe you'll just set
Speaker 1: up in the preseason if it's a private piece of ground,
Speaker 1: Is that waypoint a hunter yards from the parking area
Speaker 1: on the main trail a really good idea. Are you
Speaker 1: the kind of person who has the discipline to hike
Speaker 1: in two or three miles to a remote island in
Speaker 1: a swamp to hunt, or do you just kind of
Speaker 1: like the idea of finding a big buck better than
Speaker 1: nomad land? Do you really think a stand at the
Speaker 1: back corner of a public land hayfield is going to
Speaker 1: be your ticket to a decent buck? Maybe maybe on
Speaker 1: opening night, of course, But what about six weeks into
Speaker 1: the season, after seventy us have posted up there while
Speaker 1: thinking the same exact thing, What if you won't be
Speaker 1: hunting in their opening night? Do you really need to
Speaker 1: devote an ounce of brain activity to a spot like that?
Speaker 1: Probably not delete it. What if you've marked several water
Speaker 1: holes thinking that you'll be early season hunting and hydration
Speaker 1: is mouy importante to September bucks? Maybe, but how many
Speaker 1: water holes are there if you're in the swamps of
Speaker 1: Louisiana or Florida, where a buck could probably trip with
Speaker 1: his mouth open get a drink. Does it make sense
Speaker 1: to focus on water sources, or should you be looking
Speaker 1: for higher ground that might be loaded with brows or
Speaker 1: some other food source, or maybe just trying to find
Speaker 1: like a sweet little landing strip of ground between all
Speaker 1: that water that could feature a season long travel route
Speaker 1: because it's the only place where a deer can cross
Speaker 1: from one side of a pretty to the other without
Speaker 1: requiring a snorkele. What about if you're going to take
Speaker 1: a trip in search of a western white tail, should
Speaker 1: you really focus on way points that are out in
Speaker 1: the middle of nowhere where antelope might even feel like
Speaker 1: it's a little too open. The waypoint revisiting stage is
Speaker 1: a great time to shed the excess spots that just
Speaker 1: don't give you the warm and fuzzies. But remember you
Speaker 1: don't have to get rid of anything at any point.
Speaker 1: Cutting just to cut is silly. Spend time with this phase,
Speaker 1: and if most of your waypoints nag you in a
Speaker 1: good way, keep them. This is not a point A
Speaker 1: to B strategy. It's up to the individual. That's why
Speaker 1: you have the initial cut loose stage so that your
Speaker 1: full waypoint whish list is entirely visible, and the odds
Speaker 1: are you just you won't get them all right, especially
Speaker 1: if you really get after it early on. But the
Speaker 1: worst thing you can do is to lead a waypoint
Speaker 1: just because you think you have to. There's there's an
Speaker 1: art to this stuff, and just like art, it's up
Speaker 1: to us to decide what we want to create and
Speaker 1: where we want to take the end product. You. Eventually,
Speaker 1: if you're honest with yourself and give the initial calling phase,
Speaker 1: sometime you'll be left with a more just actionable roster
Speaker 1: of potential stand sites. This is when you filter in
Speaker 1: your likely hunting dates as far as seasonal timing, and
Speaker 1: you start to look at how you'd get into and
Speaker 1: how of these spots. At this point, I like to
Speaker 1: try to focus on the way points that just scream
Speaker 1: to me, and instead of falling in love with them,
Speaker 1: I try to figure out what am I missing? What
Speaker 1: could happen in those spots that would make it so
Speaker 1: it was just a dud and not a producer. Try
Speaker 1: to pin down the details of your hunt and apply
Speaker 1: the most likely factors as far as weather and hunting pressure,
Speaker 1: and then to decide if it's still as promising as
Speaker 1: it feels, and while I don't have a formal style
Speaker 1: of ranking way points, I do end up through a
Speaker 1: little bit too much mind grinding knowing which spots are
Speaker 1: the most interesting to me. This happens to me when
Speaker 1: I travel out of state for public land hunt for
Speaker 1: a few days, or on some of the places I
Speaker 1: have permission to hunt in Minnesota that I've been on
Speaker 1: for years, and there's no time line for this. If
Speaker 1: you're a slow learner like I am, you might devote
Speaker 1: so much time to east scouting that your wife actually
Speaker 1: gets kind of pissed at you. You might if you
Speaker 1: forget to take your meds for the day, just start
Speaker 1: spontaneously east scouting at events where you should be focused
Speaker 1: on other things, like maybe your kids baptism, or yesterday
Speaker 1: when my wife was trying to explain to me that
Speaker 1: we need to fix the drain in our bathroom tub.
Speaker 1: Do everything you can to pare down your east scouting
Speaker 1: to the most likeliest of spots and then have some
Speaker 1: faith in them. Sometimes this process proves to be almost futile.
Speaker 1: Other times it can put you right on top of
Speaker 1: incredible dear action, even in pressured places, even on public ground.
Speaker 1: The latter happened to me a few years ago in
Speaker 1: North Dakota, after my truck decided it didn't want to
Speaker 1: run on my first trip out there to two more
Speaker 1: familiar stomping grounds. Had a long weekend in the beginning
Speaker 1: of November to spare because I just filled a tag
Speaker 1: and I thought, I'm gonna drive up there and see
Speaker 1: what I can do. So I fast tracked this east
Speaker 1: scouting approach to a massive chunk of federal land in
Speaker 1: the southeastern corner of the state that I'd never laid
Speaker 1: eyes on. By the time I was headed north and
Speaker 1: west to get there, I had only four way points left.
Speaker 1: Knowing that it was prime cruising time, I had marked
Speaker 1: only spots that I felt offered killer travel corridors and
Speaker 1: positioning that would allow me to hunt them with either
Speaker 1: north or west winds. When I showed up, I hiked
Speaker 1: a mile into my number one spot and within seconds
Speaker 1: realized that I probably wouldn't need to go anywhere else
Speaker 1: as long as I didn't have any other hunters creep
Speaker 1: in on me. The ridge I set up on over
Speaker 1: a tight river bottom was basically the only cover connecting
Speaker 1: two good sized wood lots. It was one of the
Speaker 1: most natural funnels I found in a lifetime of looking,
Speaker 1: and the only surprise what is it? And the only
Speaker 1: surprise was that it took me three days there and
Speaker 1: one slight hundred yard move to arrow a pope and
Speaker 1: young eight pointer that just wouldn't leave his girlfriend alone.
Speaker 1: Of course, hunting is kind of like investing. We all
Speaker 1: love to brag about our winners. No one talks a
Speaker 1: big game about how they went all in with their
Speaker 1: life savings in Kodak or Blockbuster. When it comes to
Speaker 1: East scouting, I've dropped an embarrassing amount of waypoints on
Speaker 1: spots that when I walked in to look at them,
Speaker 1: were absolute duds. In fact, I've hinged entire weeks and
Speaker 1: ten or twelve hours of drive time to get two
Speaker 1: spots where not only were my way points worthless, the
Speaker 1: entire property that I had chosen was a metaphorical kick
Speaker 1: square to the delegates. This happened to a hunting partner
Speaker 1: and I one time when we made the trek to
Speaker 1: southern Oklahoma. Aside from camping right on top of what
Speaker 1: I can only assume is the largest colony of fire
Speaker 1: ants in the Sooner State, our pre hunt research was
Speaker 1: mostly written in cryans, and we colored so far outside
Speaker 1: the lines that our moms wouldn't post them on the fridge.
Speaker 1: It was terrible. I saw more hunters on that parcel
Speaker 1: than I saw a deer by orders of magnitude. Sometimes
Speaker 1: we just get things wrong, but it's still better to
Speaker 1: start with a plan than to assume you're going to
Speaker 1: screw up the whole thing and not put in the
Speaker 1: East scouting effort. It's also important to know when to
Speaker 1: throw in the towel over confidence in EA scouting despite
Speaker 1: what you actually see in those spots when you're there
Speaker 1: is dangerous. Learn to love and let go and recognize
Speaker 1: there is value to getting things wrong even though it sucks.
Speaker 1: We left that Oklahoma spot and went rogue to a
Speaker 1: totally new area, found some public land, and managed to
Speaker 1: arrow three deer in three days. In this phase, if
Speaker 1: you eliminate the dead spots, you'll theoretically get closer to
Speaker 1: the good stuff. You'll also start your boots on the
Speaker 1: ground efforts around areas where you've established a base level
Speaker 1: of faith, which is real important. Maybe your waypoint on
Speaker 1: the loaner tree in the corner of the meadow isn't
Speaker 1: spot on, but just beyond the meadow is a real
Speaker 1: pinch point that funnels deer movement in a way that matters.
Speaker 1: If you believe in a spot, you'll find those things.
Speaker 1: Or maybe in the process of checking out your pre
Speaker 1: scouted options, you see that you should have paid more
Speaker 1: attention to the hybrid layers that show not only the
Speaker 1: satellite imagery, but a topographical line overlay signifying all the
Speaker 1: elevation changes. Perhaps the spot you thought was flat isn't,
Speaker 1: and that mistake is when you won't make again. This
Speaker 1: happened to me the first time I bow hunted South
Speaker 1: Dakota for white tails, where my plan was to hike
Speaker 1: into a water hole and set up my number one
Speaker 1: way point. Was loaded with promise, but as I pulled
Speaker 1: up to the access point, I realized how much I'd
Speaker 1: underestimated the rolling terrain along the Missouri River. I'd have
Speaker 1: needed a half a day to hike and do what
Speaker 1: I thought was most promising. It was out of the question.
Speaker 1: This is like falling in love with someone because they're attractive,
Speaker 1: even though they frequently hit you in the face with
Speaker 1: golf clubs. It's stupid. Just don't do it. Or maybe
Speaker 1: the pond you thought was an ideal set up is
Speaker 1: try as a popcorn fart. By the time you're there
Speaker 1: and you realize that the imagery you built your research
Speaker 1: on was taken in May when the spring rains had
Speaker 1: the whole thing flushed with frog habitat The key to
Speaker 1: East scouting is to use it to give yourself the
Speaker 1: best possible start and to keep learning. Pay attention to
Speaker 1: what your favorite spots look like on satellite imagery, and
Speaker 1: then in person, pay attention to the things you get wrong,
Speaker 1: because that's how you really learn to be a better
Speaker 1: white tail hunter. And I know making mistakes sucks, but
Speaker 1: that's the clay with which the best hunters are molded.
Speaker 1: It's not just the successes that create the consistent killers,
Speaker 1: it's the way they handled getting everything wrong by putting
Speaker 1: themselves in challenging environments and then striking out over and
Speaker 1: over again. In fact, I bet that most of the
Speaker 1: best hunters have become that way through years of stacking
Speaker 1: up failures at a rate that far exceeded their successes.
Speaker 1: Tossing a touchdown pass is great, but what sticks with
Speaker 1: you is the bone headed interception that cost the game.
Speaker 1: No one wants that feeling again, including all of us
Speaker 1: white tail junkies, and in the hunting industry, we've often
Speaker 1: idolized people solely on their track record of killing huge bucks,
Speaker 1: without much concern for how those bucks were killed or
Speaker 1: whether the hunter actually put in any effort to kill them.
Speaker 1: The truly talented hunters out there aren't the ones who
Speaker 1: are dead set on ling up their trophy room through
Speaker 1: the easiest means possible. They're the ones who accept that
Speaker 1: they're chosen path is a challenging one, and while it
Speaker 1: might dole out some sweet successes if you walk it
Speaker 1: long enough, most of the time it's just fraught with mistakes.
Speaker 1: So don't be afraid to screw up your scouting. Don't
Speaker 1: be afraid to drop a million way points until you've
Speaker 1: blotted out your phone screen, and then pare them down
Speaker 1: to an actionable amount. This will be variable on whether
Speaker 1: you have the time to individually scout each way point
Speaker 1: before the season, or you plan to show up for
Speaker 1: a four day hunt and give it your all. Then
Speaker 1: for the home game hunt, you might be able to
Speaker 1: file through fifteen or twenty spots. On any away game
Speaker 1: hunt through or four might be plenty. Either way, understand
Speaker 1: that you're probably mostly wrong in your waypoint placement, but
Speaker 1: that's okay. You only have to get this part right
Speaker 1: once in a while to have a hell of a season,
Speaker 1: and even the parts that you get wrong will shape
Speaker 1: you into someone who makes fewer slip ups in the future,
Speaker 1: which is a good thing. So to wrap this up
Speaker 1: and tie a nice bow on it, after you've taken
Speaker 1: a big picture look at the ground you plan to hunt,
Speaker 1: dive into this phase with away points or free mentality,
Speaker 1: go nuts and mark anything you want on the ground
Speaker 1: you plan to hunt. Then ease into this calling phase.
Speaker 1: Be honest about where you really want to hunt, when
Speaker 1: you'll hunt, and what the spots really look like, access
Speaker 1: wise and potential dear movement wise. Lastly, get serious when
Speaker 1: the calling phase gets rolling. What you're doing is committing
Speaker 1: yourself to time either spent scouting or actually hunting at
Speaker 1: these specific sites. You want to be careful here because
Speaker 1: this is the foundation of your hunt and it's a
Speaker 1: process that just takes time. And of course, all of
Speaker 1: the east scouting in the world doesn't save you from
Speaker 1: actually having to get out there in the woods and
Speaker 1: look around, which is next week's topic. So get ready
Speaker 1: because in the next episode, we'll be braving the mosquito
Speaker 1: infested woods to ground truth or digital efforts. That's it,
Speaker 1: my fellow dear junkies. Be sure to tune in next
Speaker 1: week to keep your white tail game moving in the
Speaker 1: right direction. I'm Tony Peterson and this has been the
Speaker 1: wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast. As always, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for your support and we will see you right
Speaker 1: here next week