Ep. 749: Foundations - Winter Scouting & The Power Of Asking "Why?"

defeat and low key self inflicted misery. The other is one of wonder with the type of people who keep you looking for answers and questioning what you think you know. I get that that's you know, vague, but trust me, it's going somewhere. In fact, I think if you're spinning your wheels white tail wise, or even if you think you really have a handle on things, you're going to get something out of this one if you want to become a better deer hunter. So listen up, because here

it goes. I've talked about goals a few times recently on this podcast, just because I think they're important. I think that a lot of us just don't have the discipline to always or mostly always do the things we need to. That's where goals come into play, because they keep us accountable to ourselves and sometimes others. And that's a good thing. So good that I set some lofty

goals for myself starting this year. In addition to kind of randomly setting a goal of running eight hundred miles for the year and putting on some serious muscle, I decided I was going to do a no sugar thing for all of January. Well, to be blunt, I decided I was going to do a no extra sugar thing. Not a single minem, not a Reese's peanut butter cup, bowl of ice cream, forget it, little Debbie's deliciousness, No, sir.

It was going to be a month of working out like a fiend every day actually, and not eating any junk food whatsoever. And I damn near did it. Despite catching a serious case of the crud that ruined my will to live and my ability to easily breathe for like a full week. I only took off one day of working out and I can tell you something. If you've never worked out or it's been a long time, the feeling of progress when you get after it is

just something else. It feels so good. I also made it until day twenty seven before I broke the old sugar embargo. It was just dumb. It was just a January game night at my sister in law's, you know, with the temptation of the kind of snacks you put out when it's time to cards against Humanity or whatever.

So I broke. I had a glass of sun Kiss, which I never do but is so delicious, and since I did, I also had quite a few handfuls of Monster Trail Mix, then a whole bunch of strawberry dipped pretzels. Then I asked myself, why why is it so hard to stick to a diet? Why is it so hard to lose weight at any age, let alone forty three? Why is it so hard to go lift for an hour or run five miles when I know both will

make me feel so good once I'm done. There are academic answers tucked into those questions, like the reality that actually losing a pound of body weight is generally going to come at the cost of about thirty five hundred calories. To put that in scary berry terms, if you want to lose twenty pounds to keep it off, you're gonna have to find a way to burn about seventy thousand more calories than you take in. Then you're gonna have to keep up that new program or those lbs will

come creeping back. That's depressing, and inherently we know the answer to why it's so hard to lose weight on a physical level. There's an emotional component that is moody importante as well, though That one gets personal for each of us, and the answer is one that often makes us wish we hadn't asked why in the first place. So anyway, I was throwing a little pity party for myself for being a weak, little biz natcho of a human when my daughters asked me if we could go

shed hunting with two twelve year old girls. I don't know how many times I'll get asked to go look for antlers, so I always say yes. We sued it up, loaded up the dogs, and drove to a chunk of public land that has treated me sort of well over the years. There are a lot of shed hunters in there. There's also a lot of deer in the winter, so it kind of levels off. Since it was the first trip of the season, we took a route that I've walked many times and has produced a few antlers for

me over the years, including my first match set. It was weird walking through the woods in Minnesota in January and not seeing a single patch of snow anywhere. Felt more like early April, and I figured that might allow us to find an antler or two, even though we were a little early for my taste. Anyway, We hiked alone, looking at fresh deer poop and walking trails while the labs ran circles around us. Even the old girl who

will be eleven in April was getting after it. We walked through some patches of woods and through some meadows, and at one point we entered a decent sized patch of old growth woods and found not only tons of evidence of turkey scratching up last falls acorns, but watched as maybe two dozen of them ran out of there in front of us. My daughters asked me a lot of questions about animals and their behavior and made me realize that the power of asking why is important. To

us as hunters. For starters. We checked out a monster oak tree that looks like it's mostly hollow. Why the tree is like that now, I couldn't answer, but I could guess some of the critters that call that massive, hollowed out tree home. We found a pine tree with very there, symmetrical holes in it, like they were drilled

at specific intervals. My daughter asked me why, and my best answer was that some type of woodpecker must have a system for locating bugs beneath the bark that involves drilling holes in a line for a while and then moving up the trunk six inches and starting over, very systematic. Later, as we stood up on a ridge looking down at one of my favorite types of funnels, I asked the girls if they would hypothetically hunt there, and then to

explain why they would or wouldn't. They looked at the way the wetland made mostly a figure eight between two ridges and said maybe it would be a good spot for a deer to get a drink. You know, not a bad answer, but it was a little short. So I asked them if the deer would probably like to get all muddy and wet going through the swamps, or if they'd probably just like to walk the high spine between the two lowland spots, and as if it was

meant to be. While we were looking at the land right there and I was explaining how deer probably go through there, three little bucks got up out of their beds and ran right through that funnel. They were the only antlers we saw that day, and they were all riding around on deer's foreheads. Later we looked at a huge collection of rubs just off of a meadow. We talked about why they were there and why they were

facing more or less all in the same direction. The answer was that the bucks were likely bedded in the scrub seaters and patches of dogwood in the meadow, and then staged on the edge where the brush met the old growth. We later confirmed that theory with the discovery of a couple of beds tuck tight to either thick seaters or dead falls, which made the girls ask why

once again. Now, if you don't want to get eaten by a coyote or surprised by a hunter with a gun in his hands, a good way to do it is to put some structure to your back while working the wind and using your eyes to look over the downhill approach. Now we blanked on antlers, which is what we mostly always do, but it was a really good time anyway. The dogs got muddy enough to truly annoy

my wife. When we got home, the girls got to ask their favorite questions over and over as we picked apart the world of the white tail and the rest of the critters that share their neighborhood. I think this is something that is crazy important to hunters, but we've been led to believe that we don't need to ask why anymore. The trail cameras shows us the buck walk through three times this week. Does it really matter why he's daylighting and it's time to kill him? So that

should be good enough, right. Or we sit on stand and don't see deer on one night and are snowed in with them the next night. Why why was it a snooze fest before and now it's on fire? What changed? Or I don't know. We sit on October tenth just because we need to go into the woods, and even though we just know we won't see a big buck, we go sit anyway, and then a big buck walks through, just out arranged two hours before dark. Why this stuff

seems random but it's not. This happened to me last year while filming a show in Minnesota during opening week. I was posted up on a waterway between two standing cornfields in the morning when I saw a young buck and a doe walk through the woods. No big deal, they were just coming back from the neighbor's beanfield. That was an easy one to answer. But then we saw those two deer reverse course and go back the direction in which they came. Why, I didn't know. I also

didn't know why too much. Bigger bucks followed in their tracks, and then a spike ran down and cross right in front of us. Suddenly it was a buckfest, and I couldn't tell you why, at least not until I talked to another hunter as we were loading up the truck and he told me where he was hunting, which made it all make sense. Past run ins with him have shown me that he mostly tries to kill one by walking around, so he was up on top and booted

all those deer down. To me. Now, that's not the best way to level up as a deer, but once in a while you get an answer without having you look too hard for it. And that's possible for us right now, with the dual opportunities of shed hunting and winter scouting being really our main activities as deer hunters for the next couple of months, there is no better time to ask why and to hopefully get an answer. A good way to do this is to go out and specifically not go where you always like to go.

This is even easier if you can head out on a property you aren't super familiar with, because the worst scouting we do is the scouting that confirms what we already believe about a property. That's a great way to never level up, and it holds a lot of us back far more than we'd like to admit. Instead, go somewhere that isn't on your usual routes, then try to call your shots. When you drop down a hill, or enter a valley, or just get a new view of the big woods. Stop, take a look around. What do

you say that the deer would use? Then call your shot. Should there be a scrape line on the soft edge where the hardwoods and the swamp meat. Where do you think you'll find beds or a bunch of rubs? Why would a buck bed in the spot you think you should, and then go figure out if he actually does. Some of the best lessons I felt like I could impart on my girls during our recent shed hunt just involve soft edges in the direction of likely deer travel. It's

almost just an intuition thing. But if you've been doing this stuff long enough, you can look at the cover and figure out if they are going to parallel it or where there should be a trail leading into and out of it. Sometimes you get it right, of course, sometimes you get it wrong, and when you do get it wrong, it's a great time to ask yourself why

this happened to me. Once with the girls out there on that meadow, my daughter's enjoyed pointing out that I had confidently stated we'd find a well used trail skirting the edge of it. But when we got there, the trail I was sure would be there wasn't. I don't know why, and as we walked around, I never really got a good answer. That's an important part of this too.

There is the notion that this stuff can be mastered, and the truth is the only ones who believe that are folks that have manipulated the land so much that they can force to dear movement in certain ways. Go ask some hardcore public land whitetail hunter if he or she thinks that you can master this stuff, and you should get an answer that goes something like, uh, Nope,

not a chance. They are out there scouting, they're out there asking why, and while they are answering their own questions as often as they can, they are also finding out over and over and over again that there just might not be an answer available to them for specific questions. But the good thing is that's kind of the best part, not being too stupid to answer a question on why dear do something or not, but instead conditioning yourself to

just ask why. To look at a dished out scrape and not stop at the realization that you've found a banging community scrape and that you should probably hang a stand by it, but instead why there is it a hub of activity? Is it the kind of place where lots of dough groups pass through and the wind is off an advantageous to bucks looking to check the latest deer census and leave their own calling card there? What about that rub, the thigh sized rub in the middle

of the woods. It just sort of seems out of place. Why there, where's he coming from to work on that rub? Why that kind of tree? Are there any other rubs around that might give you a clue? If so? Good? If not? Why? The more you ask why now in this off season here in February March, the more you'll have the right answers in hunting season. I know that seems too simple, but think about it this way. The best deer hunters out there scout a lot, and they

are curious. I'm not talking about the folks who have a thousand acres of primo ground, because I don't consider them to be the best. They're very successful, and I'm happy for them. But when you're in a situation where you don't really have to scout aside from running cell cameras, a lot of the challenges is gone. In fact, if you took those people and forced them at gunpoint to hunt public land for a year, I bet most of them would almost instantly realize that they needed to scout

and scout hard. They'd also soon realize that it's not enough to get in the woods with the deer and try to find a few antlers. While looking for some deer heavy spots to hunt next season. They'd realize they need to figure out why bucks might go here but not there, why the match set is tucked into the brush in the old homestead below the main road and not way way way back on the farthest corner of

the property. What this mindset does for you is allow you to confidently figure some stuff out while filtering your answer through as many factors as you can come up with. For example, that spot the girls and I found that was just loaded with rubs and was an obvious staging area close to bedding is also one of the few patches of brush in that area that is just thick, thick, thick. That property does get hunted, but the odds of somebody crawling in there with the bucks instead of sitting in

the nice, open deciduous forest nearby pretty low. So the bucks hole up where they are safe, and they leave a lot of sign there because they spend a lot of time there. Sometimes they leave to go to nearby fields. Sometimes they leave to go scuffle around for acorns if the timing is right. But what they do more than anything is start in a specific couple of acres and expand outward. As they do this over and over in the fall, they leave sign that shows that they in

fact did do that. A small collection of rubs in a spot where there should be a small collection of rubs asks a simple question why. There a lot of walking around to fill in the blanks with some other findings, and then maybe a little time on on X looking at the lay of the land from a bird's eye view, and you suddenly realize that you found a hell of a lot cooler thing that's more actionable than just a

concentration of rubs in a very specific spot. You've damn near deciphered buck movement in that specific area, all while walking around with two twelve year olds in January, while feeling sorry for yourself because sometimes you have the self control of a toddler when it comes to candy. So I guess I'll leave you with this. You know you're supposed to win or scout. You know you're probably going to go out look for some antlers. Do both, do them as much as you can, but stop often to

look around and ask yourself why. Ask why when it comes to annual Ask why when it comes to animal behavior that doesn't seem like it has anything to do with deer, like when turkeys are scratching acorns in a specific spot, although that one actually does have something to do with deer. Anyway, ask why, then try to find the answer. If you do, great, If not, that's also great.

Keep trying, keep looking, keep asking yourself why. That's what really matters, and keep coming back to this podcast so I don't have to go lasid or go sell fishing rods at Cabela's or something. That's it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson. This has been the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which is brought to you by First Light. As always, I just want to thank you so much for listening to this podcast and reading the articles put out and checking out our video series. Your support means

the world to us here at meat Eater. We are nothing without you, so thank you so much for that. Now, if you want some more content, you know where to go the meeedeater dot com articles, podcasts, video series, how to stuff, gear reviews, you name it, it's all over there. I know you got some time because we're in the middle of the winter. Go check it out, and again, thanks for everything.