Ep. 751: Foundations - Livin' On The Edge

which is brought to you by first Light. I'm your House Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about breaking down edges because I keep getting asked about it and I feel like there needs to be a definitive, once and for all podcasts on understanding edges when it comes to white tail habitats and behaviors, just about every day, after driving my daughter's somewhere or pick them up from somewhere, or usually both, it reminds me of how weird it is that so many people we know won't make their

sixteen year olds get their licenses these days. That definitely was not the case when I was growing up. And once you're the designated uger driver and door dasher, a grub hubber, lifter, shape shifter, whatever of the family, you start to fantasize about your kids being able to get places without your help. That's not really what this episode

is about. But during a recent trip to the middle school to drop off my daughters, I realized something about deer hunting that I'm going to talk about right freaking now. If you're not married to a complete and total psycho, you might not know this, but there are unfrosted pop tarts for sale at grocery stores across the US, and I can only guess probably the world. I didn't even know they existed until I got married. Growing up, when I did, we ate a lot of food that was

just barely barely real food. I'd rank pop tarts in this category, along with toaster strudels, lucky charms, and most of the stuff that my sister and I ate while we wondered where our parents were. Now, I wouldn't say that I eat a lot of pop tarts these days, because that would be a lie. We do always seem to have a steady supply of them, and they mostly get into our house after I shop for hunting or fishing trips. I don't know what it is, but I

never really want a pop tart ever. But if I'm going to be hunting out of a tent for five days, I will load up on those some bitches and eat very few of them, so then they come back home and live in the pantry until I have a moment of weakness and I just need something quick. My wife, on the other hand, you know, the previously mentioned lunatic always has a stash of pop tarts. And here's the kicker.

They are always unfrosted. She prefers them that way. Here's my advice to all you young bucks listening who think that maybe the right dough can make your life better. Don't take a dough back to your bedding area if you think she might be the kind of dough who intentionally eats unfrosted pop tarts because she prefers them. I know there's a lot to unpack here, but I think you can hear that giant red flag flapping in the

morning wind. I don't understand it. There are only two good parts to pop tarts, the frosting and the filling. The rest is cardboard grade crust that is just basically like the caloric equivalent of attacks on your sugary bonus.

I don't even like it when whoever or whatever food producing robots get a little lazy and the frosting ratio on my pop tarts gets thrown off, you know the ones where instead of a nice rectangle of frosting on top, it's all shifted to one end or the other, like the conveyor belt hit warp speed for a second, and the frosting paintbrush just couldn't keep up. Gross anyway, even a perfectly frosted pop tart has a fair amount of

real estate that is unfrosted, and that sucks. They could do better, but they don't because at some point you just look at a product like that and go, eh, that's enough of this shit. They'll eat it anyway, and

they're right, Bill. We will also feed them to our children when we need to take them to school, because they have giant tagboard science fair projects that and I'm not making this up, nearly tore our family apart because it was a lot to ask of sixth graders, and a lot to ask of six grader parents, who, you know, like they do in the nineteen eighty sitcoms. Really keep the whole science fair industry from growing belly up because

we do all the freaking heavy lifting. Anyway, my daughters needed to get their science fair projects to school safely and early, so I had to drive them in. The route is I don't know, maybe five miles, and we often see a few turkeys are deer along the way mixed in with the morning traffic. We also drive past this giant cattail slew that is pock marked with tiny islands of trees, and right through the center this kind of subtle line of saplings. When I say line, I

actually mean it. I don't know if someone planted them, which seems kind of unlikely, or if there's just a sliver a high ground in there, maybe something that was artificially created to help with drainage or something. It doesn't matter, because what inevitably happens is I drive down that road by their school. I said, I look at that very faint, subtle edge in that cattail sleugh and I feel a strong desire to walk it. It's a similar feeling to driving by a lake or going on a bridge over

some trout or smallmouth river. There's just some serious gravity to certain natural settings that pull us in so we can see what fish live there or what deer have left rubs on the saplings. Now, listen, I wouldn't want to hunt this property. I don't have any desire for that due to its location the makeup of the habitat, but I just want to walk that edge and pat myself on the back when I inevitably find rubs in there,

because you know they're there. It's just one of those things where if you spend enough time inhaling cattail fuzzs while chasing roosters or trying to find deer beds, there's just some consistencies out there, and that's fun to find over and over. Another consistency in the white tail world that I've noticed recently, and which plays nicely with the idea of edges that I'm going to really dive into here, is that I almost never find deer antlers or deer

beds without feeling like I'm walking through something thorny. This might seem like a dumb point, but pay attention to that when you're out there this winter. Pay attention when you're hunting next fall. Maybe when you're going mobile, or when you're blood trailing a deer that hasn't been hit perfectly. You'll often realize that you're being careful with the path you choose and where you put your hands because there are pokey plants all around. I ran into this last

October while hunting Oklahoma public dirt with Steve. The best spot I found was in one hundred yard wide strip of timber that funneled deer threw on their way to bed, but not before they got a belly full of acorns and per simmons. The first buck I arrowed in there was a tiny spike where he died. Was just kind of a little nightmare to get through. The next buck I killed, and the deer Steve killed in there all

pretty much follow the same program. And it made me realize that even though I considered myself to be hunting an edge pattern already, just because of the overall shape of the woods, inside of that strip of timber was a world of smaller edges. It's kind of like fishing

for smallies or walleyes in a boulder field. If you find the edge where it meets mud or sand, you will find fish, but you'll also graft piles of boulders inside of it, and smaller patches of sand or mud that create smaller edges throughout the general area of the fisher. Relating to we often think of edges in terms of hard edges, like where the swamp meets the hardwoods, or where

a pine plantation meets a patch of CRP. Those are edges, no doubt, just like the edge of a bean field or a food plot or a clearcut is also an edge, an easy to identify edge that a lot of people will be drawn to, and they're hunting setups in fact. But there is so much more more to it than those hard edges that every hunter out there can easily identify that edge in the cattails by my daughter's school, That one might contain one hundred saplings in total, and

it would be really easy to miss. You wouldn't even be able to hunt it from the middle, because you'd essentially be either right on top of where the deer are going to go, or you'd be hunkered down in six foot cattails, listening to them as they walk by, but probably not being able to see them. So what good does that soft edge in the middle of a

nearly impenetrable piece of cover do for you? Well, it tells you how they'll get through that slew for starters, and that's not nothing this game of white tail hunting. If you're not in a situation where you can manipulate

the land to get them to come to you. Is all about figuring out where they lie to walk, and then figuring out if where they like to walk also takes them through a spot that gives you some kind of advantage, you know, a spot that allows you to set up somewhere while hiding your presence and surprising them with an arrow through their chest cavity. This is the

whole game. And I'll tell you something else. I've been finding a lot of random scent wicks hanging in trees this winter while I'm out winter scouting and shed hunting. Here's the deal on that, my friends. If you want to use scents, go ahead, but think about this. If you know where a buck is going to walk, where he'll be close enough to smell that scent and will come in, you already know enough to not need that scent.

You know enough to not have to go leave more than the scent of bottle Dopey down there, because you're gonna have to go in and hang that wick. If you think that doesn't send mixed messages to passing bucks, you're probably wrong. They can smell that synthetic dopey or that doughinestra scent that was probably not collected from a

doan estris. And they also smell you in some way because you were there and you handled that wick, and so did whoever made it and packaged it, not to mention the brush you touched while hanging it and the noise you made as well. You sent, don't you sent?

I don't care, but I do care. If you think about why you're setting up in a specific spot and why you think that a quarter ounce of dopey on a cent wick is the final piece of the puzzle for that setup, it might be can work, but think about what you're doing, think about why the deer would be there, or why they'd pass too far away for you to shoot them, and maybe think about changing your

setup if you can. This might seem like I'm talking in circles or that I got distracted by a squirrel here, but the benefit to figuring out soft edges in the world of white tails is that they tend to give you options for your setups. Let's say hypothetically that you're walking through the woods. You know, a nice deciduous forest with old growth trees, and you're thinking that maybe it'd be a good place to hunt when the acorns are dropping fair enough, there's nothing wrong with that plan. But

then you see an old barber ware fence. It's intact in some places, but in others it's sagging or held down by fallen trees. It's also just kind of this little vein of brush and shrubs in in otherwise pretty open woods. You know, maybe there's a few vines that have climbed up and used the old fence like lattice work on a house. That line of cover in the woods. That soft edge might be fifty yards longer, it might be five hundred. It might have one good crossing or many.

It will almost undoubtedly convince the deer to parallel it, but also to cross through it at specific points. Anytime you find that you have a spot that gives you two chances to encounter deer, you know, the parallel traveler and the jumping across travelers. My right mass says that doubles your chances of seeing deer, although that might not

be true. Who instead of finding one good crossing and calling it good enough, walk the length of it, find all the crossings, find where it hangs across a ravine or where it ends completely. You know, dude to time and disrepair. The more you investigate, the more you'll find setups for the morning or the evening, or a north wind and a west wind, all from a stupid fence

in the woods that has created a soft edge. The same rules apply when you're dealing with swamps, when you're dealing with timber harvest in the big woods or not so big woods, anywhere the two types of habitat meet up is an edge, and those edges are all over out there, and the deer use them a lot. And the reason for this is, well, remember what I said about thorns being a good sign you might be around deer antlers, or deer beds, or hell, real live deer

throughout the season. Well, soft edges like that represent a boundary between where some hunters will go, but where most won't. That's almost it. We can say that they might like soft edges for the brows, which could certainly be true. We can say it's a great option to allow for escape should the sudden need arise, which is also true. There are a lot of reasons for deer to relate

to edges. This means more than you might think. Consider what the typical deer hunting strategies hinge upon feeding areas. If you don't know where the food is, good luck betting areas, find them and all of your big buck woes are over. But not really. It's good knowledge, for sure, but food and betting is highly variable when it comes to actionable choices. Then you have edges places deer will

stage walk, browse, bed, and cruise for company. If you don't know anything about deer and you want to start somewhere, this is a good place to start. This is especially true if you're hunting a place with some pressure. The easy stuff, particularly the easy food in the nice open woods. Those places are hunter magnets. They concentrate pressure. Very few weekend warriors or average hunters are out there trying to

figure out an edge pattern. And edges are also highly visible on aerial photography, which is a huge advantage for you. The downside to this is they are everywhere. That cat tail slewed by my daughter's school has that cool little spine of saplings that I consider an edge, but it also has a bunch of little islands of trees and a mix of plumb thickets and dogwood thickets. All edges within edges within edges. Then you have mode yards around it,

which represent another edge. Then you have busy roads and not so busy roads. In that little forty acresh chunk, you might find all kinds of edges that either draw deer traffic or possibly repel it, like in the case with certain roads or certain bodies of water, certain wide open pastures that are full of cows. It's an easy concept on paper to understand, but gets a lot muddier when you try to figure this stuff out in person. But the good news this is the kind of thing

that transcends states and regions. It's something that a Florida hunter will deal with while messing around into palmeadows and trying not to get eaten by a giant swamp lizard or carried away by biblical swarms of mosquitoes. It's actionable in Pennsylvania on public land when you're on top of the mountain or roaming the valleys below. The Midwest the South.

Those wonderfully dumb Western white tails who don't look up too often, it's good for them too, So if you're struggling to kill big bucks, or more importantly, just have more enjoyable hunts when you feel you're putting yourself in the game versus just sitting the same field edge and crossing your fingers. Go out there now, look around, Ask yourself where you can see hard edges on aerial photos and soft edges. Look at them from a bird's eye view, and then go look at them in person. Pay attention

to the sign particularly the trails. Are there parallel trails along the soft edge or just one or two that cut right through it for some reason. Then follow the advice of last week's show and ask yourself why. The more you do this now, the more you'll give yourself an edge this season. It'll take you from the spots that literally any hunter with a season or two hundred his belt could find to something most hunters don't even

look for. This not only helps you actually find overlook good hunting locations, but it also puts you in the

mindset of thinking differently from your competition. That's probably the most valuable asset a hunter could have when dealing with pressure ground, and honestly, often when dealing with lightly pressure ground, Because even if the deer on your lease rarely get pressured, they probably spend time on the neighbor's place at some point they deal with typical hunters somewhere, and if they don't, well, you're probably not going to listen to this podcast because

you probably don't need any help killing. If you do, think about those edges, my friends, go look at them now. Don't wait until turkey season when it's green and the ticks are all over. Go now and come back next week because I'm going to talk about hunting around predators, the four legged kind. That's it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson. This has been the Ware to Hunt Foundation's podcast,

which is brought to you by First Light. As always, thank you so much for listening and for all your support. Everybody here at Meat Eater we love you to death. We wouldn't be anywhere we would be able to do anything without you, so thank you for your support. If you want more white tail content, or you just want to check out some cool hunting videos or some other podcasts or whatever, themeatheater dot com is your place to go.

So much content there for you to check out. Thanks again, talk to you next week.