Ep. 784: Foundations - The Way to a Buck's Heart Probably Isn't Through His Stomach

when it comes to food plots. Aside from nearly ubiquitous usage of trail cameras and more recently box blinds, I don't know if there is something that has become more common in whitetail hunting than food plots have in the last twenty years. Of course, there's also the mineral lick thing and bait piles or hem supplemental feeding that goes

into the whole late spring early summer thing too. All of that stuff is on the agenda for today, but I also want to talk about why we think we need to do these things and how we probably really don't. People are weird. If that's too vague, let me go off here for a second. There's a fella you probably haven't heard of who died in two thousand and seven, but before that he was known as Monsieur Manjetous, or for the non French speaking amongst us, mister eat All.

I love it when a nickname gets right to the point. And Michael lo Tito or Michelle lo Tito, I guess mister eat All was a guy who would really eat it all. From the time he was a child, he figured out that he could eat non food items without any negative repercussions, which is really something when you consider the first non food item he ate was a broken

glass that he was drinking from. Now imagine just for a second, all you folks listening who have kids, and you find out one of them broke a glass and the way to clean it up was to eat it naturally.

He was examined by a few physicians over the course of his life, and they found that he had an abnormally thick lining to his stomach and intestines, which is pretty wild, but not as wild as the fact that the dude literally ate eighteen bicycles, several television sets, grocery store carts, skis, chandeliers, a coffin, and the kicker a whole freaking airplane. It took him two years to eat the plane, but he managed to eat the whole thing. In his life, he ate over nine tons of metal.

Here's a plot twist with mister eat All. He struggled eating soft foods and had a hell of a time getting things like bananas down. Other than most likely being certifiably cuckoo for cocoa puffs, mister eat All suffered from a condition called pika. This is something that mostly affects pregnant women and children, where they'll seek out chalk or dirt or dried paint or flakes of metal. This is actually an eating disorder and can signal greater issues than

just an appetite for non food items. It's also a hallmark of someone who eats a lot of ice, so as being anemec. Now, this is how you know my wife never listens to this podcast because I'm going to talk about some medical issues she's had for a while that we're just kind of getting sorted out. Now. Behind these issues with her is a craving for ice. And when I say that, I kind of mean that in a way where you would be like, hey, Tony kind

of likes deer hunting. Now, when I say that, you're probably like, hey, you know my black labs like to chomp on an ice cube too. It's cute while partner, it's not cute when you're sitting on the couch at the end of the day and you hear that spoom clinking in that glass and ice and then chomp, chomp, chomp, crunch, crunch, crunch, lather, rinse, repeat. I'm sure spouses have been murdered for worse reasons, but I'm pretty sure I have PTSD from listening to her

eat ice for several years now. It's a sound that makes me instantly redline, And even when I try to ignore it, it's like I just can't now. As you can imagine, or you know, if you're young and excited to get married, because it's going to be all roses and unicorns, you'll eventually see something like that can really

drive a wedge between two people in a relationship. Couple that with the reality that she's been crazy tired the last couple of years, to the point where me, a guy who happens to be a mid level outdoor writer with zero qualifications to give health advice, had to beg her, a physical therapist with a doctorate an exercise science, to go to the doctor and figure out what's wrong, because

something is wrong. Anyway, She finally did, and it's all getting sorted out, and hopefully when we were on the other side, I won't have such murderous thoughts about her because she won't need to chomp ice in my freaking ear all night long. People are weird, but you know what, we tend to figure out how to get what we need to keep our bodies running. Scratch that, we don't

really figure anything out about our bodies. Our subconscious just seems to figure it out for us, and it creates some cravings and then we kind of just listen to them. It works sometimes, but also definitely doesn't work for a lot of people. This is because we are generally kind of dumb with food, but also because we have so

many options. That's not the case with Deer, well not really. Actually, I don't know if I can say that with confidence because I'm not a deer, and sometimes someone gets a video of a deer eating something that's just not normal at all, like a baby bird or a mouse or something. Generally, though, they seem to go where the greenery is best for them this time of year, and since it's the right time of year for it, they have a lot of food options to provide themselves with the minerals and nutrients

they need. But then we come along and say they need more. I'm going to be a good steward of the land and give them something extra special. The easiest way to do this is to give them a salt block or a mineral lick. Now, when it comes to a salt block spring in summer, white tails seek them out for a few reasons. Bucks need them to support antler and muscle growth, dose need them to give their bodies a boost when they are carrying the weight of keeping some fawns alive. All deer use salt to create

hydrochloric acid, which helps with digestin. They can find salt and natural mineral deposits and they are very good at it. So do we need to put out salt blocks or mineral licks. Probably not. Now they aren't even legal in every state, which is a good thing to know. There also isn't a whole lot of evident that suggests providing mineral licks does them much more good than just letting them go at this problem alone and figure it out

the way they have for several million years. We use minerals under the guise of helping the deer, but the truth is you're probably not going to take a buck from a potential one point fifty to you know booner's status. Just by heading the shields and buying a mineral block, you will create one hell of a spot to run a trail camera and start building your summer inventory, which, as long as it's legal, might be the only reason

most of us would consider this. Now, with CWD regulations in most of the states I hunt, this isn't an option anymore, and I don't really care. I don't miss it. I didn't like putting out something that I knew would concentrate deer when I couldn't hunt them, and then become way less of a deer draw when I could no not much of a hitlister. So it was just mostly something to do in the summer to get some pictures but I didn't really care about it. No way more

popular than mineral licks these days are food plots. We have destination plots and kill plots, and late season plots and early season plots and you name it. Planning something for deer is big business, and a hell of a lot of people are into it. It's also totally unnecessary as far as deer survival is concerned. Well, maybe not

totally unnecessary, but it's damn close. I guess you could argue that in areas with severe winter, the right type of brassica plot or maybe a plot full of standing corn could definitely help carry the local herd through, which directly translates to better survival. Mostly, though, plots are something we do so we have an awesome spot to hunt in the fall, and that's probably a good enough reason without us saying we do it to give the fauns

some clover or keep the deer herd healthy. Deer have been able to stay real healthy without us filling up the buffet for a long time. And if there's one thing that's the hallmark of a white tail, it's their ability to adapt and survive. They make a lot of those Western critters all the Bozeman. Dorks here at Meat Eater think are so special look like amateurs in that department. The white Tail has a diverse diet and most of the year it's only job is to find safe spaces

to munch on a variety of different foods. Plots generally are for us, not them. But you know what, that's okay, that's great. I feel sorry for anyone who hasn't had the chance to create a plot and work it, because it's some of the most fun you'll have in the off season. I say this as a staunchly mediocre food

plot guy. I'm not interested in being a gardener, and while I love trees and plants in general because that's what's out in the places I love to be, I have very little desire to babysit them, and even less desire to hunt over the plants I have babysat just to get some deer to walk by, I mean, but when it comes to my daughters and just finding something to do in the spring and summer that will get

me into the woods, I love food plots. The feeling of seeing a bed of clover sprout, or walking in during the summer to cut the weeds down or just sitting there and opening night with one of my girls waiting on a spike or a doda walk in is pretty awesome. Now. I think that outdoor television and the fact that most hunting media comes from folks who have really good places to hunt, has skewed the perspective on

food plots. They look almost too good to be true when you see them filled up with giant eyewoder, but that's just not reality, and we all really kind of know it. Most of us could put in an unbelievable amount of time into food plots and not achieve three percent of the results that some folks who really know how to grow white tails end up getting. This makes it seem like plots are solely built to kill white tails, and I guess a lot of them are, but they

don't work that way, at least often they don't. They work to get us to hunt the same areas over and over on the hopes that a hungry dough will draw a horny buck in, but mostly it shakes out to the deer figure out where we volume hunt and they avoid that spot in daylight. Then we get more nighttime pictures, which further reinforces what we want to do, which is sit the plot. We want to wait out a big one in daylight, because after all, he's there

four nights in a row right after dark. It's just a matter of time, right, right, Sometimes but mostly no, that's okay, though you might just have to reframe how you look at this stuff. Putting in a plot and working it is well work. This is true of big plots, of course, but also small kill plots, which are kind

of my specialty. And by that I mean they're the only ones I can create because of the land I have to work with and the limited amount of machinery I have, which mostly boils down to my body in a brushcutter. And if I'm really lucky a buddy with a chainsaw. Deer don't need us to put food plots in, and honestly would probably benefit more if we took that time and money and dumped it into timber stand improvement projects.

They are good at finding food in a variety of environments and would probably do better with quality betting areas and fawning grounds and the just increased ability to avoid predators more easily. But where's the fun in that when you can create a spot where deer might go to in order to fill their bellies during daylight. And I don't want to discourage anyone from doing this, but to instead encourage them to understand what they're really doing. They

aren't helping the deer a whole lot. But you can argue both ways of that, and I'd be open to it. But you are getting into the woods to work and put in some sweat equity, and that's important. They're finding a hell of a reason to be out where life is good, and that, coupled with some caveman tasks, is a great way to spend some time every month. In that regard, it really doesn't matter if the deer need the clover or oats or whatever, or if it's mostly

an exercise in getting some work done in a cool environment. Plus, if you have kids, the right plot can put a deer in front of them in a way that is just fun. That's been the most enjoyable part of my food plot journey, and I can tell you second place is not even close. It's not as effective as baiting, which is something else a lot of folks do when

they can. Some states you can bait all through the fall, while in others you can supplemental feed in the off season, but I have to close the whole thing down before the opener, oftentimes a set amount of days before the opener. I look at supplemental feeding in the summer very similarly to running a mineral station. If it's legal and you want to do it, go nuts. I guess again, it's pretty unnecessary and not all that easy to do legally given the CWD regulations in so many states, But it

is an option somewhere, and you might live there. And if you do this, remember what you're actually doing. You're concentrating the deer in the off season to fill up your trail cameras. Summertime, deer don't need an extra pilot corner apples to survive. They'll take it. They don't need it. If you can't keep that bait going on through the fall, what you're doing is giving yourself a false read on

deer movement. It's not a big deal either way, but remember that it's not helping them much and it might not be helping you very much. We do a lot of this stuff because we want to and we can, But as far as being a difference maker for overall success in the general hunting population. Most of these efforts don't produce great results. Now baiting does, of course, but in most places that's an exercise in bringing in dos in young bucks with the hopes that a big one

screws up eventually. Where baiting is legal, it's usually very prevalent, and that means that any buck with a few seasons under is belt will tend to be a little cagy around a pile of the good stuff. You know, it's got a camera over it and sits twenty yards away from a ladder stand. Now, there is an argument to be made with salt or bait or even kill plots, at the very least that they show you where bucks

approach from. Since you're going to run a camera on them, Maybe that intel leads you to finding a bedding area or a trail that he likes to use. Maybe it doesn't, but it's a possibility and it's a benefit. Can also show you the frequency in which a buck might be in your neighborhood, while something super attractive can feed you a false look into a buck's habits. There are situations where you might just get a picture of a certain deer once every week or every couple of weeks if

you hunt small properties. This is probably more the rule than the exception. I guess my point with all of this is to look at what we think we're doing for the deer versus what those activities are doing for us, and whether they really matter to our hunting success. I think a lot of times we do things because we can or we think we're supposed to, but the number of tags we feel really never changes. In that case, the same old stuff or doing what everyone else seems

to be doing might actually be holding us back. This is true in so many facets of deer hunting, but a category where it's highly prevalent is in the world where we try to provide them with some extra calories

through whatever legal means are available. And I'd also say this, while food plots feel pretty safe for now, baiting and running mineral licks aren't methods of inventory gathering or hunting I'd be comfortable with over the long haul, just given the spread of CWD and the regulations that will follow wherever there's a positive test result. This is just another consideration because if you have a style that relies on those things, you know your hunting strategy might go away

at any moment. Having a backup style or several never hurts, and you guys know how I feel about Plan B through Z. Anyway, that's it for this week. Come back next week because I'm going to talk about how the worst hunting, you know, the kind where we don't have any excuses to quit, makes us the best hunters and why that's so hard for so many people to handle. That's it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson. This has been the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast, which is brought

to you by First Light. As always, thank you so much for listening. Truly appreciate your at every level of this thing. It's awesome to see you people show up and keep listening to the podcast and watching the videos, reading the articles. And if you're not doing that or you want to do more of it, the place to go is themeeteater dot com. Tons of articles, all the podcasts, you know. Go listen to Clay, go listen to meat

Eater podcast, YouTube videos. You can see some stuff drop by me that's maybe not white to hunting, you know, check out a turkey show or maybe a phishing show. Lots of good stuff over there. Go check it out at the meeteater dot com