Ep. 776: Foundations - To Kill The Buck, You Must Become The Buck (Sort Of)

weird places. I'm most recently found some of that good stuff after not being able to find one of my dogs in the house. I know that doesn't make any sense, but trust me, it will if you keep on listening. My wife doesn't drink a whole lot, but occasionally she'll tie one on. Recently, while watching the women's Final four game to see if Caitlin Clark could make fifteen or

twenty three pointers from half court. My bride went pretty deep in her celebratory libations for my slower listeners, I mean, she had three drinks, which is a lot for her. She was so keyed up after that Hawkeye's win and knowing they were going to make it to the championship that she stayed up after I went to bed, since I was planning on getting up bright and early to

go to Wisconsin to do some deer work. Now, before I went to bed, I let the young dog outside, and then I gave my bride specific instructions to let Sadie back in. And then I went back and I gave her specific instructions to let Sadie back in again, which, if you're paying attention, is twice. I told her to let Sadie back inside. Well. When I woke up in the morning, it was pretty clear during feeding time that

one of my dogs was definitely sleeping in. I checked my daughter's room, where Sadie usually snuggles up, and while I was squinting in the dark, trying not to wake my daughter and see a black dog in the black dark, I realized something. My dog was probably still tied up outside and I might need to have an intervention with my wife, which would be real ironic given my history. Now, that poor little dog was so happy to see me, it was almost worth leaving her outside all night. I'll admit.

As a dog lover, my first instinct was to run into the bedroom and wake my wife up to let her know what she had done. I was pissed, but then I thought, well, it's not like I'm batting a thousand in life, and it's not like I never made any really stupid decisions when I drank. So I did the grown up thing and I let her off easy. Plus I knew she'd feel terrible since she loves that little black lab so much. Now I got to thinking

about Sadie's night tied up in our front yard. I have no doubt she heard some coyotes, because we hear them often. I wondered if any of the neighborhood foxes or deer walk by at some point. I wonder what she smelled throughout the night, sitting there in the dark, wondering why she got stuck with such shitty owners. Now that got me thinking about a fellow I interviewed a few years ago when I had a podcast dedicated to dogs.

The show was about a guy down in Texas who trains dogs to sniff out in dangered sea turtle nests so they can help the little turtles hatch and survive the journey into the ocean. Now, that trainer also adopts quite a few dogs, including dogs that are blind or deaf, or in a couple cases both. Now I asked him how he trained to blind and deaf dog, and he said, well, with a lot of treats, which makes sense. He also told me about how his blind and deaf dog reacted

the first time they visited the beach together. Basically, that dog stuck its snout in the air and started running circles down the beach, obviously enjoying his time in that environment. The crazy thing is that the dog did that because that dog maps out the world just with its nose. In its eternal silence and darkness, the best way to interact with the world is with its sniffer, and on a beach, it quickly knew that nothing was blocking the wind for miles, which in its head meant it wasn't

going to run into anything. Now, there's something pure about a dog just running because it wants to run, but also a blind and deaf dog getting to run freely because it figured out it's in a safe place to run freely. The trainer and I talked about this, and he basically said he can watch that dog avoid trees and plants and cars and garbage cans and whatever else because it travels with the wind at its face. If it all can, I'll imagine that it's pretty hard for

us to relate. But think about if your nose provided as much intel about the world as your eyes do. That's the way it is for dogs, And you guessed it giraffes. Just kidding. Well, technically I have no idea how good giraffe noses are, but it doesn't matter because I'm talking about deer here. I think this is something

to acknowledge, and it's something to try to understand. In fact, I think at least thinking about how deer map their world with their noses and how they see the world is something that can help you level up as a deer hunter. What they hear, you know, that matters too. But it's pretty easy to figure out how to be quiet. So I'm not gonna dwell on that one. So let's start with something blatantly obvious. We can't even grasp what it's like to be able to interpret the world the

way deer do. We have to make a guess, we have to fill in the blanks and just kind of roll with it. But how well you do that matters, and it's something I think we can all benefit from. Let me give you an example. The morning I figured out that my wife had basically tortured my poor scared dog all night long by leaving her outside to fend for herself in the mean streets of the suburbs, I

drove to Wisconsin. The goal was to cut a trail on a property, scout out some trees for bow stands and rifle stands, and if I had the time, put up a stand or a blind. One thing that happens to saw blades around me is that they get real dull. This happens over there a lot, because you know you'll be happily zoned out swinging that brushcutter around when the blade will whack into a rock and send a shower

of sparks. When you do this enough, your sweet tree cutting saw blade turns into mostly a giant pizza cutter. When that happened, I ran to town to buy a new blade, but they were sold out. That gave me a has to carry a stand into a spot I set up a few weeks ago and get ahead of the game

a little bit. When I was up there in that tree, you know, covering my hands and sap and setting the stand in just such a way so that I won't even have to stand up to shoot a mature buck when he cruises through the big Woods this fall, I realized the wind was blowing straight out of the west. That direction in that spot means any buck walking into it along the slight elevation line I talked about a

few weeks ago will think he's good. He'll think that the danger in front of him is going to be discovered via his nose long before he gets into the red zone. This only gets a little better because the elevation line doesn't sit on a perfectly east west line. It comes in slightly from the north, which means the buck's traveling it will actually be giving me an even

better edge, and they'll believe they are safe. When that stuff comes together, the kind of stuff that makes big bucks believe they have the upper hand when they don't. You have the makings for an amazing spot. Now here's where things get a little wonky. When I was running a camera in that spot for the last few years, or grouse hunting at last fall, or walking it out this winter while scouting, I wasn't thinking about what bucks think about. I was thinking about what a hunter who

wants to kill bucks thinks about. You know, things like, man, there's a sweet rub there and a sweet rub there, and since my camera's over there and shows me this travel, I just need to pick a good tree and the rest is history. Yet we do that a lot and a lot of times, we don't kill big bucks. I think this is because we don't put ourselves in their shoes, so to speak. We don't think about how walking through the woods for them is a matter of life and death.

Now I realize, at any given moment, you or I could be strolling down the sidewalk listening to German death metal on our earbuds when a bus could veer off course and pancake us right into the side of a quick trip. But we don't fear that kind of thing a whole lot. You know, we know it's possible, but not very likely. A big buck walking through the woods knows that he could run into a hunter two legged or four, and that when he does, it's highly likely

his life is in danger. What probably reinforces this a hell of a lot is that he can also smell when predators have been through in the last few days. The entire world of Scent is a matrix of animals and plants coming together in his environment. For him to travel a certain elevation line, at least a lot of the time, he's going to want to do it when his nose could save his ass. It's actually pretty simple.

And while I realize they don't always follow the rules, especially when it's the rut, I believe they follow those rules a lot. I think they're far more aware of us than we'd like to believe, and a way to bridge this gap is to try to think like a deer. I know this probably sounds a little crazy, but hear me out. Nature is on a survival mission, and there are two ways creatures survive. One is the obvious way, which is that they don't die if they can help it.

The other is by passing on their jeans so that even when they are dead and gone, some part of them is still out there on the landscape. Giving a new generation of hunter's hope. We don't think about our own survival a whole lot because we don't have to. We have the luxury of not fretting over getting killed at any given moment. We don't have to look at the woods as a source of total danger, but instead

a source of enjoyment. What we hunt doesn't have that same luxury, and it matters how you think about that. Take bed hunters like Dan Enfhalt, for example. A guy like that isn't just trying to figure out where a big buck beds on a high spot in a swamp. He's trying to figure out why. On a surface level, I guess we could say every big buck bed is in a spot where big bucks think they are safe. But that only works if you ignore all of the

other conditions. That big buck bed on the edge of a swamp in Louisiana or Georgia might be ideal for some type of south wind, But what if a cold front blows in and the wind switches to the north. Is the bed still is valuable? Probably not. You see, when we think of wind and conditions, we think about how favorable they'll be to us. We have stands that are ideal for south winds or west winds or whatever.

But what does that mean to the deer. It might mean they have to give up some degree of danger detection to travel to or through your spot, and that means that some big, old, mature deer just aren't going to go there. The risk reward is out of whack for them. So while we know it's best for us, that doesn't really matter. Imagine they're thinking on this, however, whatever level they can reason to. I guess they know they want to go somewhere to drink or fill their

belly or sniff a doze, but that's great. But they know getting there is the real battle. And if they can't map the unseen world in front of them with their noses, some deer aren't gonna make that move in daylight because it's just not worth it. They also know that if they can use their nose first, they will instead of poking their head out into a wide open field, they'll most likely send check it from the safety of

the cover first. When hunters understand this part of the game, they really start to understand how to use it against deer. This is part common sense and actually part visualization. Take a random rub in the woods. For example, Let's say you stumble across it while running and gunning for turkeys. It's a cool fine, and you drop a waypoint before moving on, because after all, waypoints are free, and that's

something you want to remember. But what's better than doing just that is to stop and take a long look around an actual three hundred and sixty degree You know which way the buck was standing by the way he rubbed the tree, so you can place him there in your mind. Now ask yourself where did he come from? Ask yourself where's he likely going? If he traveled to this tree in the same direction he made the rub. What wind would have been best for him to make

that move? Why would a buck think he was safe to do that, especially if you believe he did it in the daylight? Where else did he leave clues for you? What does it all mean in the grand scheme of things? And by that I mean what other info do you have about the area and potentially that buck. Did you get any trail camera images of a big win around there last year? When did you find a big old bed on a bench one hundred yards away? Did you get down into that bed and take a long look around.

Can you see the rub from the bed or not? Where is the nearest destination food source? And how would a buck go from there to that bed? Why does he feel safe there? And how how can you make him unsafe without letting him know you're onto him. I know I'm throwing a lot of stuff your way, but there's something I want to highlight here. If you think about what a buck might be thinking about, you start to be able to predict when he might move and where.

You'll mostly get it wrong. But this is a learning process, and that's okay. The best hunters are built upon a foundation of countless mistakes, thousands of them if you stick with this stuff long enough. But over time you start to realize why bucks choose the beds and the trails in the staging areas they do. They're not random, They're their best spots for survival. That's it. This is something that is largely subdued with low pressure deer, which is

why they are just so much easier to hunt. The more pressure the deer get, the more likely they are to make their daily decisions around not taking unnecessary risks. By the way, old does are masters of this too. If you can figure out a way to consistently get in range of old does, especially old does with fawns, you can figure out a way to get around mature bucks. We don't talk about that aspect enough, but I believe it in my heart. Outwitting old deer is outwitting old deer,

whether they have antlers or not. Think about this as you're out there, you know, maybe wrapping up your winter and spring scouting efforts, or more likely poking around the woods trying to shoot a gobbler. The tracks you find in the mud that show a big deer walk through last night, they offer you a chance to think about the why of it all. You know, the button heead crew of bucks leaving the alfalfa and jumping a fence to go into the woods while you stare at some

turkey decoys. They're telling you a lot too. Ask yourself which way the wind is blowing. Ask yourself, why would they cross there and not somewhere else? Where are they going? Where will they go when they get up to leave their beds later in the day, What are they thinking about?

I know that seems dumb, you know, mostly because it's easier for us to think about them subconsciously making decisions and not deliberate on the pros and cons of jumping the fence where it SAgs or slipping between the strands in a different spot. We just think they don't think like us, which is probably true. But even if they aren't devoting tons of mental horsepower to making the best decisions given to any set of circumstances, they are operating

off of a base level risk reward thought process. They know when they bed with a dead fall to their back that no coyotes are going to sneak up too close from that direction, just as they know when they bet on a ridge they can see down into the valley where danger is likely to approach from. Since we know they know that, we can use it to our advantage by just trying to get inside their heads as

much as we can. As I get older and try to keep hunting new places and find new experiences out there in the white tail world, I think about this stuff a lot. It's something that comes from a lot of scouting, and it's something that shapes my season long plans. It's also probably the biggest contributor to us trusting our instincts, which is the only way we might ever get on

the level of a mature buck. So do this come back next week because I'm going to talk about why we all need to get outside and touch a little grass. That's it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson. This has been the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which is brought to you by First Light. As I always, thank you so much for listening and for all your support all of us here at Mediatter, we truly truly appreciate it, so thank you for that. Maybe you want a little more

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