Ep. 755: Foundations - Wet and Wild Whitetail Access

there wherever you hunt. If you can't find the ridges, benches, swamps, crossings, or whatever that bucks are most likely to use, you're in trouble. Truth is find you good spots, Nanda. Isn't that hard. Sometimes whitetails don't leave as much sign as a herd at elk, but deer do leave plenty of breadcrumbs out there for us to follow. Where those clues

lead are the good spots. But a spot is really only good if you can get there relatively undetected and get out without making too big of an impression on the local deer. That's what this episode is all about, because it's something you can figure out right now. Way way back in two thousand and four, I finished a shift at a restaurant I worked at and drove to

pick up my dad. We pointed my truck west at midnight, and by mid morning we started seeing antelope out in the wide expanses of South Dakota and then Wyoming, which was our final destination. We'd never traveled out of state to hunt anything other than turkey's or pheasants, but a good buddy of mine was obsessed with rifle hunting Western big game. He'd given us some units to look into, with quite a bit to public land, and he helped

us figure out how to navigate the application process. So we ended up drawing our tags and I went to Cabella's to buy a rifle, since I'd only ever bow hunted at that point in my life. I picked up a used two forty three for like four hundred bucks, which was a lot of money to me. Then it shot flat and accurate and seemed like it would be

good medicine for speed goats. When we arrived in the Red Hills to pick out a campsite on public land, we found a turnaround on a dirt road that had an old, gnarled tree that will probably someday be a piece of petrified wood that Spencer Newhart's great great great great great great great grandkids will puzzle over at some point. It was a good enough spot, so we shot our rifles to make sure all was copascetic there, and then

we started hunting. This was back when driving all night and hunting all of the next day didn't bother me in the least. That has changed, and if I started a hunt with an all nighter it ruins the whole experience for me, But back then I didn't care, especially because we were finally hunting a western critter in a setting that could have been damn near straight out of Mars.

So we climbed a weathered plateau for a better view of that flat country around us, and glassed up a whole lot of rocks and dust and weigh way off in the distance a herd of elk that looked totally out of place. It took about ten seconds of glassing to realize why every other hunter we had seen was road hunting. When we hiked back to the truck, we decided we needed to go out and look at a few more chunks of public to see if we could

even find an antelope. Well we did, and all it took was one short stock and my dad was on the board. His antelope had wide horns and by all accounts, was just a pretty cool bronghorn. It was also anti climatic because it was so easy. The next morning, I set out to see what I could do about filling my tag, and as we were hiking across the dusty landscape under the early October sun, a lone antelope so far away that I couldn't tell from the distance if

it was a legal mail or not. But it was alone, and that's usually a pretty good sign, so I figured I better try to get closer. The problem was that there was nothing between us, you know, that would have really even hidden a coyote pup let, alone a full sized human. As I scanned the landscape, which always seems pool table, flat and totally featureless, I spotted a washout.

You know, some might call it a drainage, I suppose, but you know, it was more of a ravine or a gully in my definition, it doesn't really matter what you call it, because it was about ten feet deep and looked to more or less lead close to the antelope. So I told my dad to sit back and observe while I dropped in and started hiking along the bottom

of that dry gully. It took me back and forth, back and forth, but I always more or less in the right direction, kind of like how the stock market goes up and down, but in its history has always eventually just gone up in a slow, steady march toward higher gains. Even if you don't feel like it. It'll get you where you want to go if you give

it enough time. That's kind of what I'm saying. Anyway, I missed that goat on the first shot, hit him pretty good on the second one on a dead run, missed him when he stopped to figure out where the asshole was that was shooting at him, and then with my last bullet put him down, And it was pretty exciting. The entire sequence of me getting into range of that antelope was made possible by lucky access that kept me hidden.

That's it, and it's something that is all over out there in the white tail world if you know how to use it. Now, of course, you might not be so lucky as to find a dry run that will take you right where you need to go. But then again, you might. When I took Steve Rannella down to Oklahoma last fall to teach him how to bowhunt white tails as well as you know, many other things about life that he just kind of needs to learn, we discovered that the rivers in the area were no longer really rivers.

They were mostly dry runs, pock marked with pockets of water that not only held random wood ducks, which made sneaking through not as quiet as it could have been, but they were also full of dying carp and gar that drew in all kinds of critters looking for a little rough fish sushi. The access those dried up rivers gave us played into nearly every single setup I had, you know what scratch that they played into nearly every single spot I found where we either killed bucks or

had close encounters. I sat other spots and put Steve in other spots where we didn't have the same kind of access, and none of those setups worked out very well. The spots I found that had a mix of acorns and per simmons, but were also featured some kind of sneaky ravine type access or dry river access produced all the deer for us. Every spot I found that offered everything, but that access didn't work out very well. Maybe on private ground with a little to no pressure, the difference

wouldn't be as stark. But those deer were public land dwellers, and they were well acquainted with bow hunters at that point, especially cross bow hunters looking to shoot one while sneaking around at first and last light. I know I've talked about water a lot on this podcast, but this struck me as I was shed hunting with my daughter the other day. Water is great for killing deer and I use it a lot, but water ways are the key to unlocking the best spots in the woods, like I

had reaffirmed to me in Oklahoma last year. I know this isn't an option for everyone, depending on where you live and hunt, but it's worth understanding. In any case. Very few things will help you consistently get on bucks more than understanding how waterways work in your favor access wise. Now, this is a broad topic because we could be talking about a brook, trout stream that is basically a souped up trickle, one that you can hop across or walk

along without getting your ankles wet in most spots. Now, the other end of the spectrum could be the Missouri or the Mighty Mississippi, or any lake or reservoir take your pick. One thing about this country that's pretty sweet is we have a hell of a lot of freshwater to work with. As I've talked about before, you can use water as a general barrier to keep your competition out,

or at least a confunction that way. A lot of hunters don't want to crosswater to get to the deer that they think they can get to by not crossing water. This is always worth investigating, especially if you're on pressured ground. But the truth is waterways should be viewed as two things. Areas where deer will congregate and areas where you might be able to get into and out of their world undetected.

I know you're thinking something like, yeah, well, if there is a stream that starts by the road and goes right to the spot I want to hunt, then sure that makes sense. But I like hunting way up the ridge and out of the vat where the water flows great use the water to cover eighty five percent of

your entrance and exit. There are times where you might enter a property way far away from where you want to hunt, so that you have to hike to the water and then follow it through the property in a long and winding route to get where you really want to hunt. This is where so many hunters fail. It's easier to just go from point A to B. That's what your competition is going to do. But if that means you park and walk through an area that will

spook the deer, is it worth the shortcut. I find this type of access a lot in the Midwest where I know I can park on the far end of a section and drop into a creek bed. Now, it might take me forty five minutes to get where I want to go, when I could have taken a direct route and cut it down to ten. But I don't care about that. I want to get to where I want to go without the deer knowing, and that's always

worth a longer walk. You obviously might get some noise from the moving water to cover your own noise, and your scent is going to be low and not likely to blow across the bedding areas as well. You might get nice sand to walk across, or you might have to slowly wade the water. The key is to understand where waterway will allow you to go and what it will allow you to do, and then you know you need to figure out how to execute on that plan.

You can figure a lot of this stuff out now in the late winter and early spring, and you should. But what if the water isn't walkable or waitable. What if it's too deep for you to safely cross or to hike through in the dark on your way to a morning setup. There's other options. You've all seen the photos of someone with a big buck lane in the bottom of a canoe or a caped out deer strapped

the front of a kayak. A portable water craft in some ways is a pain in the ass, but the trade off is that you can hunt where almost no one will hunt. If you like shooting big bucks, that's important. I'm currently obsessed with an old town kayak I got a couple of years ago that is built for sportsmen. Look, that's a shameless plug, but it's a great product, so

I don't care. It's built to help you catch fish. Obviously, but also just to allow for easy access to a whole world of hunting ground that is not easy to access for most folks. Instead of walking through the water or along the bank to get somewhere, it's like hunting on easy mode. It's also really quiet if you're careful.

I find myself looking for public land on on X that shows quality river access, because having that kayak means it's always an option instead of parking where everyone parks and walking in the same way that everyone walks in, a kayak or a canoe allows you to slip in from a totally unexpected route. That element of surprise will work in your favor when it comes to white tails

and turkeys and in some situations western game or whatever else. Now, both types of watercraft allow you to cross bigger water too, but you better pay attention to the conditions and take your safety seriously. I spent way too much time in my youth toying with drowning while paddling canoes around to take that for granted. Now, tip a canoe in icy water and you just get a good appreciation for how

quickly a quiet paddle can turn into something else. But if the conditions are right, and you have the means. Paddling your way into deer is a really, really good option, so is just being able to paddle in the first place. If you have a canoe or a kayak, it'll change your style of scouting. It changes how you look at satellite imagery because you don't need to write off bodies of water. They become a part of the process. Instead of going around or not being able to get to

certain places, you can go straight to them. No, you can also do this with bigger boats and a little two or four stroke horsepower. Obviously, the required watercraft is commensurate to the size of the water. You're not going to take a stand up paddle board across a three mile wide stretch of the Mighty Mississippi in the dark to bow hunt an island during a cold front in November, or if you do, at least have your affairs in order and make sure you leave your hunting gear to

somebody who will appreciate it. Bigger boats are nice for a lot of reasons, but are also a pain in the ass for a lot of reasons. The key to all of this is to take a look at what you have access to where you might hunt or where you want to hunt and how that all comes together. But then you want to tryal run the whole thing. I can't stress this enough. Whether you're wet waiting a small stream, or firing up the outboard to go ten miles down the Missouri to bowhunt a chunk of public land.

Not only do you want to know what you're going to get into when you do try this, but how long it's going to take, if there are any dangerous parts to the journey, and basically you just want to familiarize yourself with the route. Keep in mind that when you do walk these routes while winter scouting or paddle them this spring, they could probably be out there in the headspace where it'll seem easy because you're not going to be, you know, trying to be quiet, and you'll

probably have good light to work with. You probably don't have a bunch of extra gear. Waterway access is a whole different thing in the dark when you're trying to be stealthy. Understand that drop waypoints on the entrance and exit spots where dangerous stuff might be, and actually, you know, just plan out the route if you can then understand one thing water changes where Steve and I were hiking through you know, mud and rock in October this year.

Five years earlier, Buddy and I couldn't even wade that same river when we showed up to salvage a hunt down there. Many of the places I've hunted in hike this year were dry and walkable, when a few years ago they would have required a boat some September or October. Rain can change things in a hurry. Now. A downpour isn't going to affect the level of a reservoir too much, probably, but it might make a waitable stream a hell of

a lot less waitable. A frozen swamp that you look at in March and think would be one hell of a good spot to ambush a big buck in November will probably be a totally different thing in November. The goal is to get comfortable with whatever level of water access you can muster up, and then to start to

understand that spots and routes where it'll really come into play. Now, if I'm being honest, I'd say probably at least a third of the bucks I've killed on public land have died partially because of some kind of water based access. Quite a few others died because of their first but a lot of them just happen to live in places where using a waterway to get to them was the

best approach. This is partially because it's a good method, and partially because a lot of public lands tend to have a lot of water, because if it was dry, it would be farmed. For this reason alone, if you tend to hunt public land, there should be something you at least think about. It'll come into play in so many scenarios from Canada on down to the Southern States where there's no shortage of H two O out there

where the deer live. If this at all sounds like something that would or could affect your hunting strategy this fall, get on on X now, get out there in the next few weeks and start to look at the ground. Figure this stuff out. The goal of winter scouting is always to find the best spots to set up in, but those mean nothing if you don't have a good

way to get to them. Access is as important as finding a banging staging area or a generational buck bed tucked you know, into the bluff side bench or a high spot in the cattail slough. So go channel your Introduckling, my friends, and get your feet wet and come back next week because I'm going to talk about how the best hunters out there often have a few traits more closely associated with goblins. That's it. 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 your support, you know, whether that's listening to this podcast, checking out a few articles that we've written, watching series, checking out somebody else's podcast, whatever, your support means the world to us. We really really appreciate it here at meat Eater. If you want some more white tail content, you know where to find it.

Head on over to the meeteater dot com and you will have more than enough stuff to distract you until it's time to hunt some turkeys.