Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light, creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light, Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host Tony Peterson.
Hey everyone, welcome to the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which is brought to you by First Light. I'm your host, Tony Peterson, and this episode is all about deer densities. Something occurred to me recently while recording an episode of Wired to Hunt with the trout bum himself. As Mark told the story of hitting his target buck this year, I realized that he sees more dear on one Michigan sit than I see in an entire season in northern Wisconsin.
His stories go something like, at first I saw a buck, and then four doughs, and then a buck in another buck, and then six more bucks plus some doze, while my stories go well, I saw one squirrel and then probably the same squirrel, and then two sits later, the loneliest dough in all the land briefly emerged from the swamp Shrek style to take a look around Mark's very easy, privileged hunting, when contrasted with my extremely difficult workingman's hunting,
made me realize we don't talk about deer densities enough, but they are so important to strategy, and this is what I'm going to talk about right now and next week. So buckle up. Did you know that your vision runs one hundred milliseconds behind what's actually happening in the world. It doesn't take much time for light to bounce off an object so you can see it, and then your eye has to send a signal to your brain so it can decide what it's looking at. But it does
take a little bit of time. Do you remember that short lived fad about the dress that was either gold or blue? On the internet, like in twenty fifteen. Randomly something like that pops up and it divides people because some see one color, some see a different color. But how can that be? How can address that is blue appear gold to us or vice versa, or let's take
it a step further. Neuroscientists have studied how much our brains fill in the blanks with what we perceive to be reality, and they've studied how we as individuals have unconscious bias, which means we are totally unaware of it. They've done studies with people who were tasked with watching videos of civilians interacting with law enforcement, where they were instructed to either focus on the civilian or the police officer depending on their backgrounds and interactions with law enforcement.
The perceptions of the interactions on video varied wildly, yet they all watched the same video. Our brains work hard to mold and shape reality to fit our prior experiences. We make up our minds to fit the reality that we are most comfortable with. Take chronic wasting disease CWD for example. If you want something that hits close to home with a lot of us anyway, this is a
good topic. There are a lot of people who have their minds made up with CWD, but most of the staunch opinions aren't really rooted in reality because there's a lot we don't know, a lot that just isn't backed up by data on both sides. So we draw our own lines in the sand, fill in the blanks. I'd bet you'd be more willing to take the thread of CWD more seriously if you had had positive interactions with Game and Fish employees, or had a generally positive view
of the agency. Now, if you have a negative view for whatever reason, I bet there's generally more of a chance that you think that it's just bullshit built in around CWD. There are two different perceptions of reality around this issue, and we really don't know yet which one is right. What is far more likely is that the truth is going to be some type of hybrid reality
between the two. Or take another hot topic, wolves. I had a conversation with a fellow at the gym earlier this year who couldn't blame our Minnesota DNR enough for the prevalence of wolves and how disastrous they have been to the Northern Minnesota deer heerd. He also didn't understand anything about the Endangered Species Act, or federal activist judges working out at Washington, DC, or the sheer complexity of the legal system as it transcends federal and state levels
and involves a species like wolves. His thought was that the DNR wanted wolves to replace hunters, and that was that. Now. I don't know if the agency that relies heavily on the license sales from deer hunters would cut its own throat by conspiring to proliferate an apex predator across the land, a predator I'm pretty confident has never bought a hunting
license ever. A part of the reason these issues suck to think about and deal with is because even though our tendency is to see them in black and white because that's easy, they are far from simple issues. Society is plagued by complex issues. If you talk to young folks these days, wealth inequality is a big one. Their take on it is quite a bit different from how
many in my parents' boomer generation feel about it. Things get even weirder when we see a couple of the biggest, most outspoken billionaires working on my favorite subject, which is going into space, or they see Bill Gates on TV trying to guess the price of some simple grocery and home goods item. Did you know that Bill Gates did this one time on I think it was The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and he thought a bag of Totino's pizza
rolls cost twenty two dollars. Let that sink in and tell me if he isn't experiencing a different reality from you. Where the perception of reality gets real weird. We let what others believe about life bleed into our world and sometimes shape how we proceed with our actions. This happens
in hunting all the time. Trust me, if you think there isn't a difference and the opportunities presented to you versus I don't know some of the hunting industry people, you're off your rocker there, Betty Crocker from media hunts and outfitters, trading hunts for exposure to people who just have badass places to hunt that want to associate with big names. The world is kind of like Candyland for a lot of hunting industry folks. Now, naturally, some of
them do things the hard way. Some of them also built their own empires and they hunt their own ground, which is pretty cool, But the reality there is still not something you're going to experience. Let me try to explain this in a way that's something like we should all be able to relate to. We are all aware of the concept of deer density. In some places, the general deer density might be forty or sixty or more dear per square mile. In other places that might be
closer to ten or fewer deer. You might hunt the up of Michigan and see a handful of deer all season in southern Michigan, you might average a dozen or more sightings per sit. You might watch the big names on the outdoor channel passing up one forties left and right to wait for a giant. They can do this because not only do they have an extremely high deer density to work with, that deer density is flush with
prime age bucks. There are properties in Iowa that might have more mature bucks on them than some counties have in other parts of the country. Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration, but I bet it's somewhat true. Pretty close. Now, imagine if every TV host had to tell you how many deer they saw on every set they showed, or you know, every Instagram post about a day buck. Would you still believe some of those folks were the best
hunters alive? If you heard them say once again that they saw seventy six deer in their food plot on some random night in October, how hard would you think it would be to hold out for one hundred and eighty inch deer If you knew that you could at any given point in the season kill one hundred and fifty or one hundred and sixty inch or in a few days time. Their reality is different from yours, which I know is obvious, but I don't think some people
understand the gap. Part of this is because we are hardwired to make things sound more difficult, and I do this too. Take the buck I shot a couple weeks ago in Wisconsin. The hunting there is tougher for me than anywhere else I hunt. That's just due to the deer density being really low. Now you know, the predator one hundred density is high too, which doesn't help, but
that just contributes to the deer density. It's just a different beast than a lot of places, but it's also very similar to a lot of places, such as the nature the big Woods. Now, on that hunt, I hunted all day for three days, and I saw a do Then a buck that looked like someone took the body of a horse and married it to the rack of a coups deer came running in and stiffed my decoy.
I killed him, and it was wonderful. I also want you and everyone else who listens to know how hard it is to hunt over there, because that makes me look better. The truth is it's it is a difficult place to hunt, but I also love it. I don't not enjoy hunting over there, even if I know I'm only going to see very few deer and am very unlikely to see a big one. It just is what
it is. There really isn't a reason to try to make it sound worse than it is besides ego, and we have our biases and that colors our perception of reality. But reality isn't really up for negotiation. It just is what it is. This is the case with deer densities, and I don't think we fully understand how much this affects our season. Just think about the com confidence you'd have if you knew when you went hunting that you'd
always see deer, and a lot of them. And when you see a lot of deer, there are almost always a few good bucks mixed in at some point. Would that change your view on getting up at o dark thirty again? I know it does for me. It's a hell of a lot easier to go hunting and stay in the game when you know it's going to be
a freaking blast. Or look at it this way. Over in Wisconsin, my daughters and eye hunted parts of twenty days before we saw a single dough Literally we saw a few bucks, but we averaged one deer sighting per weekend. The last time I drew in Iowa Tag, I hunted public land and saw twenty six deer on my first full day of hunting. In the beginning of October, I saw fourteen deer on my first morning hunt there, including six bucks ranging from one hundred to one hundred and
seventy inches. In which situation would you be able to rally and keep getting up and ready to go When we believe we are going to have fun. It's so much easier to go than when we believe you're not going to see anything. This is reflected in the harvest data that is coming out from some of the general firearm seasons that just wrapped up in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
The numbers are low compared to last season. The obvious culprit is the warmer than average weather we had, but the less obvious culprit is that the perception of hunting in warm weather does bad things to hunters. It convinces them to put in less effort, which is the exact opposite way to approach a difficult hunt. Hunters believe the reality of their hunt will be low deer movement because of the weather. They then hunt with less enthusiasm, and
suddenly we're in like a manifest destiny situation. All right, So where am I going with this? Well? A lot of directions actually, But for right now, I want you to be honest about the deer density and the properties you hunt. I don't care if you live in Michigan or Louisiana wherever, and you think you have the hardest hunting ever, I want you to think about the properties you hunt. Don't break it down by stay or region or something else that can color your bias. Go to
the individual properties. How many deer live there or use them somewhat consistently. This is the basis for a lot of the decisions you'll make throughout the season, so it's important to be honest. Trail cameras and in person observations are huge for this because they show us two things, the deer we can confidently say live on or around our properties, and the deer that might use them somewhat
but aren't regulars. Of course, this doesn't take into account shifting home ranges or what factors can change deer densities. But I'm not going to get into that this week. That's topic for a podcast that's coming up. For now, just try to be honest about how many deer you really have access to. If you're in a low deer density world, then you have to be very careful with all of the deer you might encounter. If you hunt where the deer are thickest thieves, your concerns are different.
Both circumstances come with unique challenge, but you can't get into those until you think about what you have to work with overall, and you have to be willing to be wrong. This past winter looked like it was a really rough one on the deer in my world, at least some of the places I hunt. We had wet, heavy snow at some really inopportune times, and I thought going into spring that the northern deer herds were going to be decimated. A random conversation with a forester convinced
me that I was probably wrong. He said that the amount of treetops that suddenly became accessible to the deer helped the herd out a lot, which makes sense, and my springtime observation seems to show that I had overestimated the severity of the winter kill. But By August, I was less sure I won property I own. I had a handful of little bucks, two dos, and one decent deer on camera. I saw several of those deer in
person as well. When I was scouting. I never got a picture of a dough with a fawn all summer or fall, nor did I see I didn't have a bunch of new deer show up. And the more I scouted other public properties in that area and ran cameras on a few of the private areas I hunt, I realized that I couldn't find a fawn to save my life, and I could barely find a dough. My reality there shifted multiple times, and it ended up forcing me to hunt my highest odd spots for all days sins while
lowering my standards to whatever buck might come in. I also left my dough tags at home because there was no reason for me to kill a few baby makers when there just weren't that many around. So I started out in the preseason with a plan based around a certain deer density that I expected to have to work with, but by opening day I had to alter that strategy, and by the rut, my entire perception of the hunt
and how I had to go about. It had changed completely and this was all tied to the amount of deer that were available to me, which wasn't very many. So what does this have to do with your hunting everything? Should you be rattling NonStop during the run if you have one mature buck per section to work with and totally horrible buck to dough ratio? Probably not, despite the fact that a lot of people who have better places
to hunt will swear by that tactic. Or should you kam a cozi your way right into a prime betting area with questionable wind to shoot a big one when you know that you have a high deer density and you'll be spooking non target deer all day long with that move. Or think about in season scouting. If you hunt where the winners are mild and the ag is plentiful, you know there's deer everywhere. How much damage versus benefit will you get from in season scouting every acre to
find the exact spot to kill a big one. Now take that same scenario and put it in a low density woods and it's kind of the only game in town to get around any deer. Pay attention because this is important. What is a good dial or strategy for
someone else might be a total disaster for you. This will hinge on a lot of things like personal skill level and a real deep understanding of the strategy, But the risk reward ratio of these things is heavily dependent on the quantity and quality of deer you have to work with. I'll frame this up another way. Do you know who the most annoying elk hunter in the West is?
It's the guy who hunts an over the counter unit on public land and thinks that the only thing he has to do is walk ridgelines of bugling his head off all day long. His idea is that the more ground he covers, the more likely he is to run across a bowl that will respond accordingly. The problem is that the bulls that live in those places have had so many negative interactions after checking out a strange bugle, the odds of a bull giving his location in response,
or better yet, coming in while bugling are low. In a place where a high density and limited pressure this move will net you response is like crazy. It won't spook elk probably and will instead convince enough of them to come in or bugle back that it seems like the best strategy ever, and it is if you're on the Deseret Ranch in Utah and you have a twenty
thousand dollars ELK tag in your pocket. But if you're in and over the counter unit in Colorado, it's almost guaranteed to fail every time, and worse work against you. You might be thinking that this has more to do with pressure than game density, and you're right, sort of. With fewer animals, the mistakes are compounded because the opportunities are lessened with each screw up. The margin for error
just isn't in your favor. So think about the density you're working with on your home ground or the place you love to travel, to be honest about it, and think about how you'll take an even better census next year. And then come back next week because I'm going to talk about all all kinds of strategies for hunting low deer densities, and then the week after I'll probably touch
on that high deer density thing. But should listen in because there's a lot to consider just when you're working around the amount of deer that might be available to you. That's it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson. This has been the wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, which is brought to you by first Light. As always, thank you so much for your support, for listening, for reading the articles. For whatever you're doing in this media world, we really
really appreciate it. If you want more content, you know where to go, the medeater dot com. You can check out all kinds of stuff there. Maybe pick up the new board game of Meat Eater Trivia if you want to play that over the holidays or something. Lots of good stuff there at the medeater dot com.