Ep. 743: Foundations - Winter Scouting Whitetails & The Lost Cause Factor

believe that. I also believe that there are some spots that are super conducive to hunting and others that are just lost causes. There are more of those out there than you probably think. So listen up because I'm going to get into it. But first, have you bought yourself the new Meat Eater Trivia board game. If not, you might want to consider it. Since we have about fourteen months a winter left that will be full of plenty

of boredom. Now, if you're worried you won't like it because it's Spencer Newhart's baby, and he's well, almost weirder than Mark Kenyon. Don't worry. Other than the vague memory that the game is Spencer's brainchild, he won't be involved in your family game night. Go check it out at the meat eater dot com and remember that a portion of every sale goes directly to conservation. I have a

lot of issues with colleges and universities. Not only do I think it's a crime against humanity that they've raised to it prices so much in recent years, but I also think it's totally bs that you're required to take a couple of years of gen d's before getting into

your major. Now, I know no one forces us to go, but higher education is the director route to a career for an awful lot of eighteen year olds and offering them ridiculous loans and then requiring they take bowling or interpretive dance or in my case, badminton to even begin to earn a degree. Is as close to outright theft as you can get without actually reaching into their wallets and taking their cash. I know there is a counterpoint to buying the ticket and taking the ride, and that's valid.

It's just a system that bothers me personally, probably because of the classes I had to take. Some of those classes were like accounting in various levels of math. Now, I had a therapist tell me one time how dangerous self diagnosis was, But he also wore a lot of pink sweater vests, so maybe his judgment was a little lot. Either way, I have all of the signs of dyscalculia,

which is a learning disorder involving numbers. The long and short of it is, you have trouble even as an adult with math that's above about a fourth grade level. If you have that, you might suffer from this condition. And if you have it, you might have trouble. I don't know. Memorizing a phone number, for example, you might as well hit yourself in a face with a brick if somebody rattles off a bunch of quick numbers might

be more pleasant. And as an added bonus, if you write that number down by hand, the odds are pretty good you'll swap a few digits, which makes most phone numbers a lot less valuable as someone who truly cannot grasp the numbers game. College level math and accounting courses were pure torture for me. The concepts that my peers so easily grasped were so far beyond me it was

truly embarrassing. It has been clear to me for a long long time that I was never going to work in a field that required a lot of math, and spending stupid money to take courses on topics that I'll never, ever, ever, ever work in was just kind of insulting. It's just like, there's no way for my brain to figure out algebra. No matter how slow people talk to me about it or how much they break it down. It doesn't matter if they grab some visual aids like colored blocks. It's

nearly inaccessible to me. Now, I'm not proud of this, and I don't recommend this for anyone listening. But I cheated my ass off in those classes and I barely barely made it through. I don't want any of you find folks to write yourself off as a lost cause in any category, at least not without giving it a hell of a go. But the truth is, at some point we have to recognize some of the things that are just beyond our reach. This might occur in the

dating world for you single folks. It might be a promotion at your job when your immediate supervisor would rather electro shock is delicates than talk to you. Or it might be this sweet sweet spot you find when you're scouting this year that's full of big buck sign but just isn't huntable for some reason. How is that did I stick that landing when I brought that whole rant home? I hope so, because this is something we don't hear about much, but spots that are just unhuntable are all

over out there and they will factor into your life. Now, before I dive into how to figure out if you're dealing with one of those areas, let me say a few things. The reason that this rarely gets talked about is because we often get fed information from people who can just make enough spots huntable that they don't have to worry about this. This is one of the many reasons why baiting has such a high compliance rate where it's legal, and honestly too high of a compliance rate

many places where it's not legal. If you can make the deer walk somewhere you've smoothed out most of the wrinkles. If you can't, you have to understand what you're working with. Now. Another reason you rarely hear about this topic is because, even though it happens a lot to most of us, these spots don't play into our success stories for obvious reasons.

An area that is just teeming with buck sign but has the worst swirling winds and horrible access is probably not going to make it into a bunch of stories about big public land bucks getting killed. And speaking of public land bucks, let me lay out a scenario for you to really frame this up. When you travel to new states and new pieces of ground where anyone can hunt, you almost have to scout and go mobile if you

want a chance on these hunts. I find spots that I want to sit all the time, but they often don't allow me to hunt them in a way that won't be a total disaster. And when I say this happens all the time, I mean it. You know, from trees not being conducive to a saddle or a stand, to nowhere remotely decent to set up on the ground lost cause spots are all over out there. You know the same goes for prevailing wind and access. Even if you could hunt a spot because it has the right tree,

the conditions might make it a real bad idea. I'd say finding these types of spots is more common than finding good spots that actually allow for a decent hunt. In fact, my ratio is probably about three to one. How's that for math? This is something most of us don't think about when we winter scout. I know that I have to remind myself of it all the time.

It's so easy to walk up to that hillside bench you've always ignored, see a bunch of big rubs on it, maybe a great big bed, and think, well, well, my work's done. That's all I need to do. But you have to scout now while living in the future. What will that bench look like, you know, in September when there's good cover on it. How many suitable trees are within shooting range of it that will allow you to not get spotted or winded? How good is the access?

When you're out there walking a side hill that terminates in a valley and you start to investigate where the hardwoods spill into a swamp, pay attention to not only why the spot has deer sign, but whether that matters to you as a hunter. The best, most rubbed up areas out there might be nearly unhuntable, and that means that you've only found a small piece of the puzzle and aren't as close to solving the whole thing as

you think. The thing about the advice I gave last week on really committing yourself to learning the land is that you should absolutely do that. So you cannot only figure out where deer like to walk, but where the spots are that they are actually killable. Learning about a spot where a big buck made a bunch of rubs or visited scrapes, that's valuable, but it doesn't get you where you need to be if you can't hunt it properly.

Connecting the various types of features or learning which oak trees should be dropping in early October is great, but it pays to remember that you probably just can't wait for the acorns to start falling in walk in there, find a tree, set up, and shoot a buck. The reason I think it's important to walk through the woods and figure out the terrain features and the soft edges and whatever else is because you can filter all that stuff through reality. Some places are just unhuntable at all times,

or more likely during certain conditions. Now, with that caveat, I'll say this, I don't want to give you too much hope on a certain conditions thing. Some spots might be hauntable on say, I don't know an east wind, which you'll certainly get a couple of times each season and that's about it. Or maybe you can only access a certain banging spot when it's raining, because otherwise you'll

make far too much noise. All right, what are the odds that your free time and the right east wind or the right rain shower will align, along with a bunch of other conditions. Recognizing the lost cause is important, But it's also important to recognize something as a lost cause without actually knowing if it's true. This is where things get weird. But hear me out. I winter scout a lot, and I find a lot of spots that I think I can hunt. Some I'm nice twenty nine

percent sure will work out. Others I have a lot less faith in. But I rarely write off a good spot completely until I've actually hunted. The spots that start as iffy but work out tend to be the ones I have the most off season time invested in. If that bench that is covered in sine just won't work, but I know there's a rub line leading down the hill to the creek bottom, I don't need that bench

as much anymore. I might be able to sniff out an ambush site two hundred yards away and still play off that January discovery, but not exactly off the best spot I found. I hear from hunters often who tell me they can't hunt certain valleys or certain spots because they'll get busted. This most likely ties into swirling winds, or, more importantly, the belief that the wind is always going

to swirl. There. As someone who grew up hunting valleys in bluff country and didn't really understand swirling winds at the time, I'll say this, that is not a universal truth. We need to quit buying into that because it's entirely dependent on a ton of factors that can change and will change. Will the winds swirl if they are five miles per hour the same way they will at thirty? What about if the wind is blowing straight down the

valley versus across it. Be careful with this loss caused stuff while you're winter scouting, because what we think we know and what is actually true are often vastly different. It's also important to draw upon the opposite end of the spectrum. Have you ever had a spot that was just like you had an invisible shield around you. Maybe it's a bass wood clump or some other clump of trees where the access was perfect and you just never

got busted. Those locations tend to become our favorites for obvious reasons, but ask yourself what makes them special, And when you start answering that question, ask yourself where you

might find that somewhere else. Instead of resigning yourself to probably getting busted by carrying a saddle and some sticks into a risky spot that is covered inside, is there a much safer setup nearby that maybe won't offer as high as an odds of an encounter, but will offer a much better chance of stringing together multiple, less risky hunts. This is where you need to think things through while

winter scouting. Maybe you find a spot that you really like, but you know it's going to be pretty rough wind wise, or all of the trees are super small and you're likely to get busted, but you really really want to hunt look around. Is there a way to set up on the ground, Maybe season of ground blind from July through to the hunting season, or prep a natural ground blind. Getting on the ground changes the wind game. I mean, it's implifies it. It also allows you to hide better

if you know what you're doing. I don't know how many bucks I have killed because a lost cause spot turned more huntable just because I figured out some way to hunt it from the ground. But it happens a lot. I know you know this stuff, but it's easy to forget when you're winter scouting. We tend to assume we will be super disciplined and figure out as much as we can so that we have a huge advantage when

the season hits. But there's a lot of time between now and the rut, My friends, there's a lot of time to forget the little details, or worse, convince ourselves that we're pretty much covered all of our bases way back in January. If only it's so easy to sabotage your future self by not winter scouting the way you need to in order to set yourself up for success.

This is why I'm such an advocate for getting out there now and dropping some waypoints and laying down some accents roads, and just generally gauging the likelihood that I'll be able to truly hunt a spot the way I want. So let me tie a bow on this by bringing in one more scenario. Think about your fall. Any fall you've had as a hunter, you have probably had this

happen dozens of times. You think, all right, it's October twenty fifth, I'm getting out of work early, and I just know a big one is going to get moving a little bit before sunset. I know he's probably betted up on that good ridge somewhere and will come down to the field at last light, and you have a stand hung or a tree prepped to catch him on

the most likely trail. You know it'll happen, But you check the forecast and it's going to be sixty five degrees instead of thirty five, and the wind is going to be southwest and not straight out of the north. It's really not good for that setup. But you want to hunt there so bad, so you do one of three things. You talk yourself into hunting it and you risk it, or you hunt somewhere else where you have way less confidence, or you just don't hunt I think

all three of those are pretty bad options. What if you had winter scouted better and found the little seep on the hillside that pulls into a gallon of spring water and is only a couple hundred yards from where he's probably betted. Or what if you had stumbled across a really cool rub line dropping off of that betting ridge, but in a direction sort of away from that obvious

food source. Why was that there? What if you had scoured the area and not only found a bang and tree stand site on your favorite trail, you know, the one you wanted to go into to hunt but can't really because of the conditions, but you also found a spot seventy five yards away where you can tuck into

a dead fall and hunt from the ground. You know, the kind of spot that is perfect for a south ish wind but terrible for a north Instead of forcing yourself to make a bad decision based on what you believe a big one is going to do, you can scout enough to give yourself some backups, and then some

backups to your backups. You've worked out the land and the connection between various types of habitat to not only discover the best buck sign, but the spots that will allow you to hunt them when the conditions are a certain way. I know this sounds easy when you're listening to some math challenge podcast host, but it's not. The toughest part is doing enough of the work to make this happen. And what's worse is there probably isn't enough work in the world to cover you in every situation.

Even if you winter scout every day from January to April, and you are sure you have everything dialed, you probably won't even be close. You will be far more prepared than your competition, will have a hell of a lot better understanding on how to surprise a big one with your presence when he thinks he's safe. But you can't master this stuff. The best you can do is try to be disciplined enough to get closer and closer as the years go by. So get out there and learn

the land. When you find something that makes you feel a little tingly inside, like Mark does when he sees a neat pollinator fluttering across the native prairie grass, figure it out. And I mean, and I'll say this for my Canadian friends too, figure it out. Look for signs of a lost cause or a rock solid option or something in between that you're gonna have to work with. Work those spots in multiple directions and find what they might be connected to in the grand scheme of buck travel.

Build your knowledge base now so you can have some fun hunting with confidence later, and come back next week because I'm gonna do a fun episode on all of the shit that I truly believe about deer hunting and why that might matter to you or well not. That's it. I'm Tony Peterson. This has been the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast. As always, thank you so much for listening and for all your support. I honestly truly appreciate it,

as does everyone else at the Old Meat Eater. And if you want some more white tail content, or maybe you want to listen to Clay's podcast or check out those Element Boys hunting some hogs down in Texas, go to themeateater dot com and you'll find all kinds of amazing content