Ep. 592: Foundations - Don't Fall In Love With Deer Hunting Ideas

most aren't really what they appear to be. This is kind of like a weird concept this week, my friends, but you're gonna have to bear with me because I think it's important to overall deer hunting success and really the reality of rutt hunting, which is coming up awful damn quick here. You've probably picked up on this already from some of these episodes, but I'm a big believer that a lot of our deer hunting success comes from two places, hard physical work and the three pound mass

of fat and electricity between our ears. The latter is what this week is really all about, and I think you'll get something out of it as we all buckle in for what should be the best part of the deer season. There are three definitions for the word idea. The first is something such as a thought or conception that is the product of mental activity. The second is an opinion or conviction or principle. The third is a plan, purpose,

or goal. Now maybe it's the English geek in me, but honestly don't know why I listed those out for you. I'm sure you already knew what the hell an idea was, and if you didn't, you should probably be hunting squirrels for a few years before you tart your white tails. Another thing about ideas is that we fall in love with um. If you were to take a walk through my house and rummage around every closet, you'd find evidence

that the Peterson's are prone to this very problem. One in particular, one member of my family, I should say, who shall remain nameless, has all kinds of physical evidence of ideas that she has fallen in love with. Where fantasy land met reality and the whole thing follow the sky like a goose that has just soaked up the brunt of a three and a half inch load of steel yoga mats, an easel for painting random crafty things meant to be turned into some kind of kitchy home

to core stuff. You'd find them all tucked into our closets covered in dust, shoved into the back corners away from the light, and you'd probably think we aren't very good at seeing things through, and you'd be right, And honestly, I'm not immune. If you poked around all the random de tritus of my life, you'd find all kinds of things like this. You'd find more fly tying and lure

making material than I could use in ten lifetimes. Hell, you'd find old pots, plastic jig trailer molds, and squeeze tubes full of goo that are supposed to be heated into fishing plastics. Now, let me tell you, I loved, loved, past tense, the idea of making my own stuff in my own colors so that the outdoor big box stores wouldn't get all my money every spring and summer when

I wanted to fish. But it took me just one session where I heated the plastic compound up on the kitchen stove to realize that inhaling burnt plastic fumes is a great way to nearly pass out and also have a hazy conversation with God. That was the second worst experience I've had with the kitchen stove. The first was when I decided to try to try to boil a buck skull on it when my wife was gone for

the day. Now, if you can't imagine the smell of that, I'd say that my house kind of stunk like if you let a skunk spray a road kill deer in August in Death Valley. Then it marinated for a few hours before he started adding discarded undergarden. It's from our less personal hygiene, concerned members of society. If after that you soaked it in dog diarrhea, you'd be in the ballpark. It wasn't my finest moment, and neither was nearly sending myself to the Great Tree standing in the sky to

save four dollars a bag on flipping jig trailers. In other words, not all the ideas are great, and falling in love with ideas is generally a bad idea. Take an obvious example here, the all day sit with the rut speeding right at us right now. All day sits, they should be pretty common, but are they. Let's break

this down for a second. As an idea, the all day sit makes near perfect sense unless you absolutely have to leave the woods to attend to life or the conditions switch up on you, and your stand situation changes, most likely with the wind. But all days sits are a major, major biz nacho, my friends. They are hard most But I know and I know a lot of hunters with pretty solid track record of killing big deer rarely,

if ever do them. I think this is one of those things that has talked about so much in the hunting space, kind of like I don't know, bivy hunting for elk at twelve ft elevation and thirteen miles from the nearest trailhead. Does that happen? Sure, I guess do all days it's happen. They sure do. But the frequency in which they are discussed and the frequency in which a dark to dark sit actually happens are not the

same number. They're not even close. Why Because the idea of never leaving the woods when bucks should be running around crazy is a good one. That idea makes sense, And you can kill a midday buck. You absolutely can. Last year, while hunting for a one week in November show, I killed the Wisconsin buck at one pm. I knew from sunrise on that morning that I had a really good chance of doing just that. This confidence in your set up and in the conditions is a huge mode

of waters. Sit all day, at least it is for me. I like all day sits. But that doesn't make it easy, and that's the problem. Most of us decide that since it's November seven and there is a super cold front rolling through that the eleven ish twelve ish type hours of daylight we can hunt would be best utilized by planting our butts on stand and staying. Yet that cold front brings well cold weather, and cold weather is often an all day sit killer, especially when it comes with

some wind. And then there is the unfortunate reality of the rut, which means that while we expect tons of action, it's mostly a weight and not see anything kind of game. I relearned this lesson every single season, and at this point I should understand it, but I don't. I always think the rut is going to be amazing, and it tends to be the same deer hunting grind as the rest of the season, except it sprinkled with more optimism and occasionally a day where the dear Gods do smile

upon us, but mostly they don't. Mostly they frown or flip us off or whatever, and mostly you are uncomfortable board and racked with doubt on whether you are using your time wisely. The idea of all day sits crashes headlong into the reality of all day sits, and guess what, it's so easy to get down. It's so easy to fall into the mind grinding, the second guessing, and to talk yourself into leaving. Now, if this sounds about right, if this sounds a little familiar, you really have two options.

Acknowledging that you're more of a three or four hour at a time hunter, or you've got to change things up so that you can tolerate sitting from dark to dark. Now. I've talked about this several times, but for me, it takes a few things. I need to be in a spot that has some kind of all day feature that should draw deer, or more appropriately, I guess I should say,

should funnel them through. If I'm not on a banging terrain trap or some water source tucked into the cover, I have a hard time with all day sits now. If I'm not fully loaded with food and coffee and candy, I'm also in trouble. And if I don't have a book or something to distract myself with I'm in trouble too. The physical aspect of an all day sit is real, but it's nothing compared to the mental side of things. Think about that as we get closer to the rut.

Another idea that we love but often doesn't work out too well for us is the hunt the does during the rut strategy. Now, if you're not around does during the right you might be in trouble. That's pretty elementary stuff. But where do we usually find does on food sources that cut corn field or kill plot or whatever source of groceries you like to hunt? Who visits it most often probably does and fawns. Then the rut comes around and we think, well, I need to be around the does.

Then I know I need to be around the food source that has the does on it. Now I know you can watch bucks sprint across corn fields at noon in some places, but for the most part, you aren't going to have doze feeding in the wide open in the midday. And if you don't, why would the bucks be there. The idea of being around the dose to kill a buck it's a great one, especially if you have a badass dough betting area, But you have to

filter that idea through your hunting reality. A much much better bet, like I said, is to say, do I know where the does are going to bed? Where are they going to be? Maybe from sunrise to sunset? Where's a better odds? Because I know they're not going to be out in that cut cornfield all day. Getting downwind of a spot like that during the rut, especially if that spot is tucked into some cover, It's a much better bet than posting up all day on a hunter

acre alfalfa field. For most of us, I think an even better bet is to make an educated guess on where a couple of different dough betting areas are and then look for the terrain traps between them. Now you have bucks that should be coming and going, and you have the makings of catching a cruiser at any point of the day. Now, another idea that we fall in love with during the rut, and I've talked about a lot, is get rich quick products. We just can't help ourselves.

And honestly, it's such a situationally variable thing that I'm kind of nervous about even addressing it. So I'll say this, pay attention to the deer you are hunting and how they react and pay attention to how often these things work for you. If you love the idea rattling like crazy because it's the pre rut in the bucks should be feeling a little froggy, great, go nuts, But pay attention. If you rattle in a buck even once every five sessions,

you're doing pretty well. If you rattle all day and nothing shows, or if you rattle for a full week right at first light and it doesn't work, then acknowledge that the idea isn't really matching reality. The same goes for decoys or grunt calls or whatever. A lot of hunters view them as a net neutral type of strategy during the rut, but I don't. I think every book can be grunted in at the right time, but that

window is small. I think most bucks can be decoyed into, but again, the odds of getting the timing right they're not great. Now, this doesn't mean you shouldn't try any of these, because you should, just don't overplay your hand. If the deer show you in your area that your idea of what should happen during the rut is vastly different from what is actually going to happen, or what

actually does happen now. Another category in white toil hunting that is right for this problem is the traveling hunt. We romanticize the over the road adventure, and if you're on social media at all, you're probably inundated with images and stories from hunters who traveled to a different state shot an enormous buck. Most of these posts tell a surprisingly sparse story on the actual hunt. I bet that at least of the people who travel have a hell

of a good spot to travel too. Whether that's an outfitted property or a lease, or a grandparent on a homestead farm that is loaded with deer and devoid a hunting pressure, it doesn't matter. Those situations are everywhere, and they are almost always left out of the story or glossed over in a major and I might add not unintentional way. Now, there are plenty of people out there doing d i y hunts, many of which occur on

public land. Some of those people are killing good deer too, and in a similar but different way, are also kind of glossing over the realities of their hunts. This is because when we see success, we focus on it and we assign it a way heavier weight than it deserves. I'll give you a dumb example. In September, I took one of my daughters to Wisconsin to hunt opening weekend. The weather was hot, like mid sixties overnight, like eight

in the day kind of hot. It was hazy, muggy, and not that much fun to sweat while hiking a couple of hundred yards to our blinds. And the blind we did sit because it was our best opportunity. In a south wind was full of spiders, and I mean full of spiders. Now, listen, I'm pretty manly, as you guys probably all know, but when it comes to spiders,

I'm not. I hate them. There's some ancestral memory in my jeans of distant slope foreheaded grunting and butt scratching pre Peterson type of people who dealt with venomous, disgusting spiders. I know it because when I see a spider, I'm filled with revulsion. When I see like fourteen of them, big bastards too in a small blind that I need to climb into, it's not that much fun for me. It's also not that much fun. I learned for a ten year old girl who screams if a ladybug is

in her room. A couple of those eight legged bastards with hot weather in eight hours of hunting without seeing a deer, and you have the makings of a full day that really wasn't that much fun. Now, the second morning of the season, however, with attempts still stupid high in the humidity at roughly a hundred and twelve percent, we managed to have a spike buck walk right in and pose up at like twelve yards. He ran maybe fifty yards before piling up, and is honestly a perfect

first buck for my daughter. So now the hunt looks like it was amazing, and in that one specific way it sure was, But in many other ways it honestly wasn't that much fun. The same goes from my elk hunt in September. People see a gripping and granted with a good bull from public land and they think, well, that must have been like a vacation. It wasn't, and elk hunting for most of us common folks never is. Traveling hunts are a great idea. I actually wish everyone

could and would do them. I wish they could. The rewards are worth it, and there is nothing better in life than cool experiences. There isn't but that doesn't mean that there won't be a ship ton of work to do on those hunts, and it won't mean that they aren't expensive, And then you know, maybe there's going to be some added pressure to kill you. I p camping, which is something that everyone says they love, but I

suspect that they just haven't camped enough. I used to camp like forty to fifty days a year on all my public land hunts, and I can tell you that the shine wears off the old camping apple after a while. It's still my favorite way to go about d I Y hunts, but camping is something that can be a whole lot of no fun, especially if you don't have a really good system down and at least marginally decent gear. In fact, this is a really bad comparison, but I'll

do it anyway. I think camping is the man's version for childbirth, not in the pain and suffering aspect or anything like that. It's just something that we get this weird amnesia over. Anyone who has witnessed or gone through birthing a child wouldn't say the act itself is a nice, easy thing that is no big deal. But is it worth it? Of course, but fun and relaxing sure didn't look like it camping for us, dudes, It's kind of

like that. We go through it, we remember how much it can suck, especially if it's super hot or rainy or a gear suck, and we swear it off never again, we say, than a few months pass and the next year season is coming up and we start to forget the misery and decide that, you know what, I can't wait to go camping. Camping is a great idea and I'm super stoked for it. Lather rents repeat. So what's the lesson in all of this That everything sucks and

we should probably stay home and watch football. Nope, the lesson is to be realistic about hunting and about ourselves, to find that homeostasis, that equilibrium between what we think about hunting and what hunting actually is when we do it. The more you acknowledge that there are a lot of sucky parts to hunting, but they are worth wading through for the experience, the easier it is to tolerate the

not so fun parts. When you do that, you'll hunt more, you'll hunt smarter, and you'll enjoy the whole process a hell of a lot more. And when you do that, when that happens, you feel more tags, which makes those all day sits or the seventh night in a row in a small tent so much more palatable because it's not the idea of what we do that matters, it's the reality of what we do. While that reality isn't quite as rose colored as our fantasies about craze bucks

chasing at noon, it's still pretty damn good. It's worth it every single time you can go. Now, next week, I'm going to talk about the rut. I'm going to talk about how often we kind of look for all the deer when we should be looking for the right Dear. That's it for this week, my friends. I'm Tony Peterson. This has been the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast, which

has brought to you by First Light. As always, thank you so much for your support, and if you want more of a white tail fix, feel free to check out Mark's new show on the meat eat Or YouTube channel, which is called Deer Country. You can also visit the wire to Hunt YouTube channel for our how to videos, and go to the meat eator dot com slash wired to read all kinds of white tail related articles,