Ep. 568: Foundations - Develop A Whitetail System

help you kill more dear. This one is going to be narrowing to the point it's going to help you be a better white tail hunter and have less frustration in the field all fall. It's basically the culmination of three decades of being a dedicated deer hunter and having gone through every mistake and stupid decision you can make while hunting. It's all about having a system for your gear and really following through with it. Yeah, back about May,

right at the beginning of the summer. At some point in late spring sometime, one of my twin daughters she said to my wife and I that she was just about done having a roommate, and her sister not surprisingly agreed. Now that set in motion what is I don't know, basically my nightmare because it meant not only did I have to give up my office, which is the third bedroom of our house, but that my wife then decided it was time to upgrade the whole damn basement. Here's

the thing. I have buddies who are really good at building stuff, fixing things, and just you know, generally doing manly type stuff. Somehow those skills evaded me almost entirely, probably because I've spent so much time sitting about seventeen feet up in trees or looking into all kinds of water for fish that might bite something I might throw their way. Or maybe I just don't have those skills. It wasn't born with them, And it has come to my attention recently that I may have adult a d

h D. And that's actually not a joke. Maybe that's why I can't put up trim correctly or build a simple shelving unit from target that probably most twelve year olds could assemble without swearing and bleeding. But in the immortal words of Bob Dylan, it ain't me, babe. I suck at most manly stuff and it doesn't look like

that's about to change anytime soon. So not only did this basement redo job test my skills and show all of us what we already knew, about me, but it tested my marriage, our collective sanity, and allowed my bride to decide where to put most of my hunting gear. That is so so so bad. You see, I'm somewhat messy but also somewhat organized. If you need a limb saw, I know where it is, even if it wouldn't be

apparent to the casual observer. You want a head lamp, I got you on head safety harness traps, you name it, I know where it is. Well scratch that I knew where it was until the Tasmanian devil who will get half of my land and a divorce, decided it was time to move everything to new spots. This is frustrating on a level that I can barely describe, and I'm

a word smith sort of. When you have a full fall lined up with a first trip being like a ten day backcountry hunt for meal, dear Elkin bear, you don't want to spend August deconstructing random piles of r hunting gear to find out where your stuff is, where the things you need are. It was a good reminder of how important my white tail system is and how

you should have one too. This, honestly was something I thought everyone did until Dave Hurto, who was one of the editors over at Field and Stream, hit me up like six years ago to collaborate on a feature about public land white tail hunting. Now, we not only hunted public land in South Dakota of that year for the main narrative of the peace, but we also broke down my public land bow hunting strategy. And what I didn't realize until I had to lay it all out for

someone else was how much I relied on systems. It's ingrained in me from years and years of making mistakes. Now let me give you example of this while trying not to make myself sound um too obsessive compulsive. On any given day that I'll be going white tail hunting, whether I'm saddling up on public land or going to sit somewhere in a sweet box blind on private food plots, I know what is in my right pocket. My release will be in there, along with a thin glove that

I may or may not wear. In the side pocket of my pants will be a tow rope for my bow. In my left pocket, you'll find a lightweight glove that features nothing grippy on it. That glove will get worn while I'm hunting, but won't interfere with my grip if I have to draw and shoot in any way. You'll also find a folding pocket knife, likely something from Bench Made because I love their stuff so much. This one is important for two reasons. You just always need a

good sharp knife for something. It's also necessary if you have a weird tree stand situation happen you need to cut yourself out of your harness. I know this is a long long shot, and I hope it never happens to any of us, but if you are in a weird situation like that, having an accessible knife it's going to be real important. On the left side pocket of my pants you'll find anywhere from nothing to three items, depending on the hunt. Those three items are a limb, saw,

a pruner, and a headlamp. That's also where I carry my beanie on the way into hunt. My backpack, and this is important, my friends, is bigger than most white tail hunters would carry. This is due to a couple of reasons. I tend to have a lug around camera gear, which takes up a lot of space and can get heavy. But I also like having backups of certain things. Along with the gear necessary to break down a deer and pack it out. I know not everyone has those concerns,

so you gotta bear with me here. Things that are always with me and accessible in a top or front pocket are face paint. First. I use carbon mass face paint all season long because it's not oily, and it dries kind of light, so it's not shiny. I also have at least one tube of black with me at all times in that pocket, and a backup somewhere in my backpack that serves me on stand and in blinds. I use it on my hands and my face religiously.

I also have at least one screwing step for hanging my backpack now, even if I'm on public land that I can't use it on, It's in my pack all season long. I always have a grunt tube as well, even though I rarely use one depending on the length of my sit. Those pockets will also contain my food and drinks for the day, and I often carry at least one or two extra water bottles in the bottom

of my pack, two just in case. I've had times where I killed an unexpected deer or sat all day when I didn't intend to where some extra hydration went a long way. I tend to keep a stash of granola bars and candy in my interior pocket of my pack two for the same reason. You don't need a ton of calories through the day, but if you end up staying out there a lot longer than you think, you're gonna those granola bars or a couple of Snickers

bars or something really appreciated. Now, the outside pocket will also contain a roll of biodegradable flagging tape. This is always with me all season long. This is for obvious things like marking trails in and out of the woods, but also comes in mighty handy for blood trailing at different times. Now, because I put your a fair amount of critters in the field, I also keep some wet wipes, a good knife, and a dozen or so gallon ziploc

bags in my pack. I know this sounds like a lot of stuff already, but most of it's small and really light weight. Inside my pack in its own little pouch that can be moved from pack to pack are my various licenses, a pen, spare, batteries for headlamps and my range finder, and a little fire starter kit. Now

I've never needed the fire starter kit. But I suppose there is a situation where a rogue forky spears me and the guts and I have to spend the night out there where the comfort of the flames would be most welcome. I also keep some band aids, gauze, and medical tape in there as well. I'm prone to cutting myself because I'm impatient, so having a few necessities to remedy a slip up with the blade is a good idea.

You might even want to turniquet in there. Now. These are just a few of the things that are pretty much with me no matter what. Not only do I make sure I have them, I make sure they are always in the same spots. This is an important part of the system that is worth acknowledging. The more time you spend looking for stuff or make do without the things you really need, the more likely you are to not to kill deer, or you know, you get set up later than expected, or you have to move around

more and move men equals noise. All this stuff costs you. Now, that might sound like overkill, and maybe it is just for an afternoon. Is sitting in a tree stand waiting on an October buck to walk by. But in my world, it's not hate needing something in the field that is back at my truck, or in the mud room in my house, or god knows where my freaking wife put it.

Most of us have probably had to strap our bows to our pack to climb up into our stand, or got a deer with a tiny pocket knife, or just use some kind of tool that isn't meant for the job, and that stuff sucks, just like it sucks to slip into a staging area and find banging sign, set up a portable lightweight stand, and then sneak out, thinking it'll be easy to find in a pre dawn darkness, only to realize when you're in the pre dawn darkness that nothing that isn't glowing in the night sky is easy

to find in the dark, let alone a specific tree and a patch of timber that looks nothing like it did when you were so confident in your route in the day before. That roll of flagging tape could have helped you out immensely there, huh, And there are other things you might want to carry. Two. I almost always have an extra midlayer tucked into the bottom of my pack. I've fallen in love with puffy vests and jackets, mostly

from my days in the mountains chasing elk. I don't know if there's a better wait to warmth garment out there than some of these puffies, and they fold down to almost nothing. No, not every hunt is going to demand that type of warmth, but when you need it, sure it's nice to have. If you plan to hunt a long day and you'll need your phone to function all day, a spare battery charger might be the ticket too. This is a life saver on spring turkey hunts, well

spring turkey bow hunts. I should say where he's spen. Dark to dark in a blind can also be a life saver on a deer stand. If you spend a lot of time killing the boardom by surfing the web, or for some reason like you've got little kids at home, you just always need to be connected. It doesn't matter. This might be something you require and you should have. If that's the case. Impacts that are compatible with hydration bladders,

which is an awful lot of packs these days. You'll have a pouch in the back where the bladder is supposed to go. I put about a dozen handwarmers in there. At the start of the season. I probably won't need them in September, probably, but they are there for me or for when I take my girls hunting, because even some of those early seas and mornings can get awful cold. I'm telling you this to give you an idea what I think about my hunts and what I anticipate I

might need. Even though this might seem like too much stuff, it's not. Carrying in the right white tail gear is a million times easier than carrying in the necessary elk hunting stuff while climbing a couple of thousand vertical feet. There are nearly the same physical limitations as white tails, and you know where they lives. Pretty easy to walk most of the time, even if you hunt mountain white tails.

I mean, it's not as hard as elk, I should say, So it's not a bad idea to plan for what you might need and just resign yourself to having carry it, and just resign yourself to having to carry it, so you think through your hunts. Maybe you're like Mark and you need to write everything down on a nice list, maybe have a memory like a steel trap, And that's not necessary. It doesn't really matter. What does matter is that you start to break down your gear choices and

decide what you have to have with you. Then it's a matter of gathering that gear up and putting it in its appropriate spots. This last port is way more crucial than it sounds, and I know I alluded it to it earlier, but let me really break it down for you and give you an example. A couple of years ago I found some bucks on public land in Nebraska. I've talked about this hunt a lot, but not about how I set up a stand to kill a buck and how my buddy went in there and killed a

buck out of that same stand too. The tricky part of the whole hunt was that the deer were betting in some soybeans on a patch of walking ground, the limited trees along the edgement that the options for stands were pretty rough. But what was worse was that it was really really hot and I'd be setting up within earshot of several bucks. That was a guarantee, but there was no way around it. And while I had a decent south wind to help cover my noise, I knew it was going to be a test to get set

up without getting busted. So after swinging down wind of the field and slowly walking along until I found a suitable tree. I started the process of setting my climbing sticks on the tree. At first, due to the way the woods fell away from the field, this wasn't too bad. I knew I wasn't going to get spotted by a buck bedded slightly above me and three foot tall beans. But by the time I was on my third stick,

I was really exposed. Even climbing up the back side of the tree felt like I could get busted at any moment. Any little click of metal or a creak of the strap, and I knew I'd be in trouble. In other words, there wasn't much room for a mistake. When I got to stand height, I looked into the field and there was a velvet ten pointer feeding like fifty yards away. That buck was slowly browsing in my direction, and I had a loose stand in my hands and

a bow on the ground. It was an ideal. I managed to get that stand set while he was feeding, and then watched as he answered my prayers and bedded down at thirty seven yards. This let me finish the setup, toll my bow up and settle in to stare at his antler tips in the sunlight that pounded down on the bean field. I killed that buck the next time he stood up to feed, which was vindicating and a

testament at least in small part to having a system. Now, another example from the hunt I mentioned earlier that I did for Field and Stream involved hanging an opening night stand over a pond. As I climbed onto the platform, I heard something behind me, and I looked as a decent buck trotted over the hill. Again, I looked at my tow rope tied to the bottom of my stand platform,

which was tethered to my bowl in the ground. That buck had to shake flies off his ears, which meant he'd give me like a few seconds of time to move every you know, thirty seconds or so. I managed to get my bowl lifted up without him knowing, and I killed him in that pond. And I have to imagine if, for example, I would have had a dig into my pack to find my release instead of just reaching into my pocket where it always is, that buck would have caught me. Now, these examples might not mean

much to you. You might think that ship never happens to me, So why do I have to be so ready because it might. My friends, you might have a November cruiser run in thirty seconds after you get set up in your stand, or you just might have a late October buck goes through at the are end of a staging area, in a buck you did not expect to see and would love to shoot, But your grunt

tube is in your pack. When you try to pull it out, the flexible end part falls off and you make a bunch of noise in that buck you could have grunted in is now on red alert, and you have an unfilled tag and a whole bunch of sadness in your heart. Take stock of your gear, what you need, what you might need. Think about your various hunting styles and how they demand different gear. What you always need to have with you, regardless of when you'll be hunting

or what style you'll be hunting. Where does that stuff go on your person? Think about how you need to cater your gear selection to the task. What you need in December that you didn't need in October. What do you need when you saddle up for a sit versus when you carve on a natural ground blind? How does that change your system? And are you ready to do just that so you never have a stupid scramble moment out there when you could have been a little more prepared.

I know this is kind of boring stuff, but it's important. This attention to little d tales while anticipating what can go wrong can have a big impact on your enjoyment level. And when the stars aligned, can help you kill a buck that a less organized person simply would not kill. That should be motivation enough to develop a system, So I think you should try. That's it for this week, my friends, be sure to tune in next week for

more white tail goodness. I'm your host, Tony Peterson, and this has been the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast, which has brought to you by First Light. As I always thank you so much for your support, every one of

us here at Meat Eaters sincerely appreciates it. If you want more white tail content, head on over to our wire dhunt YouTube channel, check out the how to videos at Mark and I produce every week, and visit the meat eater dot com slash Wired to read articles by myself, Mark and a host of other absolute white tail killers.