Ep. 796: Foundations - Why the Pre-Season is the Perfect Time for Deer Hunting Dress Rehearsals

of a liar. You don't have that much time. Honestly. The opener is closing in and the things that bite us in the ass, or you know, at least one of the things. The big thing is not being prepared for the things we can prepare for, and that's what I'm going to talk about today. First, I have to drop a quick announcement about First Light's new three to

eight pants. I got a chance to test both the regular and the line version of these pants for quite a few months during the last hunting season and during off season chores. They're badass, and I mean that I hate jeans and any type of pants that are just rigid. I'm this way, you know, in everyday life and with my deer hunting gear and also my brush pants I wear while I'm following my dogs around in the fall

chase and roosters. To three O eights are the opposite of the stiff, uncomfortable options that you have out there. They're just real comfortable and they're designed with simplicity and functionality. I love them and you might too if you go check them out. I also have another quick plug here and then I will stop. I swear. Over on the mediator clips YouTube channel, you'll be able to see Mark and I dropping some extra whitetail knowledge with our new

white Tail Edu series. In it, we take the most common questions we get and try to break them down in an easy to understand way which should be applicable to white tail hunters across the whole country. The first episode, which is all about what deer eat is going up this week, and for at least the next several weeks, you'll be able to check out a fresh video that might just help you level up as a white tail hunter.

All right, that's enough sales stuff onto this podcast. I've talked about my issues with alcohol more than a few times in this podcast. As happy as I am to have quit drinking a decade ago, I still get the urge to consume copious amounts of whiskey and generally make a jackass of myself. The two times at the urge to not only fall off the wagon but swan dive right into total idiocy and be irresponsible hits me in

this order in two different ways. When my wife is on one over something and she won't speak to me like I'm not in kindergarten, that's a big trigger for me, you know, Like when she says, do you think we should haul a bunch of rock into the backyard so that the pond doesn't e road anymore? As if she's going to be out there rocking big old boulders on her back. We know who is going to be the manual laborer in that equation, and it doesn't do any of us any good to pretend like we don't. That

drives me totally bonkers. My friends. The other time, when that little devil on my shoulder says, you know what would taste real good on this summer night is when I'm coaching my girls in any sport, but most recently softball. If you want to check out a league of kids with almost zero understanding of the rules of softball and very rudimentary skills at softball, head on down to the local ballpark and watch the sixth graders in a rec league.

It's not only the reality that they have the athleticism and grace of a newborn giraffe, but that a lot of times there's just like zero enthusiasm there. I mean, it's like watching a funeral out there with a bunch of kids who are terrified to try to field a ball or hit a ball, or sometimes just be in a field where a softball might land. That's hard for a guy like me, but not some of the other coaches.

What's worse is that some of the other coaches are so much more prepared when a player inevitably falls or gets run into by an opposing player, or gets stung by a bee or whatever. The other coaches will dig into their bags and pull out a first aid kid or an ice pack. They're prepared for just about anything, and they are much better at anticipating the needs of a bunch of twelve year old girls than I am.

My house has. Now, this is just an estimate here, but I would say about four thousand random hair ties scattered about. But how many times do you think I've brought one to softball?

as a softball coach. Now here's the thing. You can prepare yourself not for everything, and not just for the obvious stuff, but for the things that will make or break your hunt. Let me give you an example here. A couple of years ago, I drove down to southern Minnesota to hang some stands with my buddy Eric. There's a spot on the farm that I really wanted to hunt because it's basically a hillside with a huge wash out on it. The wash out pushes deer high or low.

The deer that go low are often bucks that are coming into that valley to bed. Now, the washout is deep, it's full of rocks and fallen trees, and at least on paper, the perfect entrance route to that stand, because no deer is going to just go down in the bottom of it. Now, we ended up dubbing that stand the American Ninja Bohunter Stand because getting to it was

a total pain in the ass. Now, sure, in daylight in August, when I wasn't trying to be quiet or worry about leaving sent all over and I wasn't actually carrying any of my hunting gear, navigating that route wasn't terrible. Now, it still required some care because the logs we needed to cross and to use to get through that gully were all low grade, wet and super slippery. Now, why

walk on top of logs like that? Well, in some spots we just had to, but in others it was better than stepping on big loose rocks in the dark. There's nothing that says sneaky, big predator like the sound of a big old rock clunking into another big old rock. This only gets worse when it happens like a half

an hour before first light on a calm morning. The problem with this entrance route, or I guess the problem with me in regard to the entrance route, is that I didn't run through it enough before I hunted it, and that was dumb. I could have timed how long it took me to go through there in the daylight and then padded that number for an actual hunting scenario in the dark, but I didn't, and it made hunting an awesome spot less awesome because I just didn't get

the rehearsal part right. The thing about this stuff is that we overlook the parts that will bite us in the ass. When we drive afore we learn into the woods with a ladder, stand strap to it, and then put it up. We feel like we are doing ourselves a huge favor. Sure, you're getting deer work done, and that's a good thing. But what if you think, well, I can't walk in on the logging road, because that's

what the deer use. So I'll just cut through the woods and hike here slowly and steady to hunt this new ladder stand. I say to that, good luck. You won't know how long it'll actually take you to get there, how easily it'll be, to stay quiet, and a whole lot of other stuff that's going to make things more difficult.

Figuring that out in the summer is a million times better than figuring it out out on opening morning, with the sun threatening to come up, and the sweat rolling down your back and the curse words flowing under your breath. If you can run through some routes and really learn them, you're ahead of the game. This isn't as big of a deal for some private land hunts that can be set up well, but it still can be. It's also almost a necessity for public land hunts. Let me give

you another example to drive this home. Probably ten years ago, I was roaming the bad lands of western North Dakota with an any deer tag in my pocket, which means I could shoot a meal deer or a white tail. While I'd hunted the area quite a bit, I found myself in a sage dotted flat along the little Missouri River. Now, I'd seen a patch of cedar trees with some scrub oaks while glassing, and i'd watched a few deer enter

that cover, but i'd never been in there myself. So that's where I went, thinking, at the very least it would get me to a place where I could climb a bluff that wasn't nearly a sheer cliff, so you know, I could get some elevation and glass more. What I didn't expect to encounter was a small cattle tank tucked into those cedar trees. Now, there was a young mule deer slurping away when I blundered into it, and as he ran off, he picked up two other, much bigger

mule deer. The muddy ground around that guzzler was pock marked with tracks, and it was one of those things that you find that eventually you know you're gonna hunt it. It was also a long long ways from where I could park. I bawled a few trees around it that might accommodate a small stand, and I made sure to time my route out when I had it back to my truck. I also realized that to avoid bumping any betdied White tails on that river bottom or getting spotted

by mule deer loafing away in the hills. I basically had to stay on the river bank for like half of the walk. Now, that's an easy thing to do in the daylight, but getting in there in the dark was a challenge. It was a forty five minute hike in the daylight when I was really not trying to be sneaky, so in the dark it took almost twice that. It also involved several spots where I had to drop down the bank or climb up it to stay on the best route. It was honestly a huge pain in

the butt. That could have been much easier, you know, just by taking a more direct route. But a more direct route would have spooked cattle grazing in there, and definitely would have spooked deer. I also knew what I was getting into because I ran the whole thing through a few times. It wasn't until a few years later that I went in there with a white tail tag in my pocket and took the long and winding path to the guzzler to set up for an afternoon hunt.

In October, the eight pointer I killed there showed up with a small buddy while I was still putting on my release, and I'm positive he was close enough to me when I got there that I'd have bumped him if I had taken any other route than the one I took. The extra work of figuring that one out helped me kill a great public land buck and then a mule deer a few years later. It was just a good spot, but the approach was ripe for making lots of mistakes. Now this is something I cannot stress enough.

The more opportunity we leave ourselves to make big mistakes, the more big mistakes will make. This might not work the way you think, though. Think about it this way. When you train a hunting dog in your yard, you might shore up some of the fundamentals of good behavior. You might be doing a good job. Your dog might learn to sit and stay and come and you know, all the stuff you want a dog to do. You might feel pretty good about yourself and your four legged

hunting buddy. But those skills will only be fully cemented in your yard. They're not going to transfer over to the grouse woods, or at least fully transfer over to the grouse woods or the duck blind or the pheasants. Lows. There will be some attrition in performance, and the best you can do is recognize that and try to train as closely as possible to a real world hunt. Sound familiar,

it should. While you might think you've cut a great path to the stand in the corner of Grandma's farm where you know the big boys cruise during the pre rut, ask yourself if you know how long it'll take for you to walk in quietly in the dark. When you walk it in there in the daylight, does your shirt ever snag on any brush? Are there any sections of it where you have to leave extra cent around for some reason, like maybe a spot with a steep climb

where you need to hold onto some saplings. Are there a bunch of little dead branches scattered throughout the the leaves right below the stand, you know, right in the spot where you'll have to stand before you climb up. What about anything right in that spot that might force you to leave a bunch of extra scent right where you don't want it at the base of your tree.

Those little things don't seem like much in August and hell often don't even register, but they do during actual hunts, and they can all be exposed by a dress rehearsal in the summer. This can go far far deeper than that too. One of the little properties I own in Wisconsin has taken me like nine years to figure out where to park and how to walk along the road

just the right way. Now. I know that might seem dumb, and I have talked about this before, but parking where I originally thought I should just seemed to tip my hand to the deer, and I honestly don't really know why. I just know it did. So I experimented, and I realized that as long as I park on one corner that is close to two houses, the deer seem to believe that I'm part of the daily hustle and bustle

and not some dude looking to kill them. Part of the reason for this is that they simply don't like the sound of a truck parking in a spot that trucks rarely park in. That's pretty simple, but think about the noise you make when you drive up and park off a gravel road in the dark. It's easy to make extra noise opening and closing doors and tailgates, and then the crunch of boots on gravel is a dead

giveaway that Shenanigans are afoot when I hunt there. Now, I park where I need to, and I pull off into the ditch so we never have to set foot on gravel. I also have all of our gear ready to go in the back seat, so it's a matter of quietly opening and closing one truck door. I also know exactly how long it'll take us to walk in and set up, which is good for me but a necessity when I'm hunting there with my daughters. There are other little things that add up to deer hunting mistakes too.

Think about an all days sit during the rut and the food and drinks you bring along. You might not ever think of the sound of opening a candy bar wrapper or an energy bar wrapper when you're sitting in your living room, but you should. It's the same sound those products will make in a tree stand, and that might be cause for concern. It might be as simple as taking your food out of its original packaging and stowing it in a freezer bag, or wrapping it in

some paper towels or plastic wrap. How about that delicious and oh so welcome hot coffee in your thermos? How quiet is it when you unscrew the cap at home, because that's how loud it'll be every time you do it in your tree stand. Here's another scenario that I'll use to tie a bow on this whole thing. Think about how often you've gone into it in the summer to hang a stand and you realize, oh, no, I

forgot my limb saw. So you tell yourself you'll just get rid of a few of the branches that are in your way when you come in there to hunt for the first time. Most deer hunters have tried to quietly saw a limb, and most deer hunters have learned there isn't a quiet way to saw a limb off. There just isn't. It's just better to cut that sucker off in July or August and then not have to worry about it. Now, that's simple, I know. But the ways in which we sabotage ourselves deer wise are many.

Thinking about doing some level of work later means you have to think about what that work will entail and how it'll put your hunt at risk. Because it will put your hunt at risk, even if it seems like a small detail. You know, the small details are what separate the absolute deer killers from you know, the average deer hunters. So many people think it's only about having an amazing spot or some secret scouting strategy, but that's

just not true. People go in every season to hard hunted public land and kill big deer, often in areas that other hunters just think it's impossible. Now, it might be for them for a lot of different reasons, but it isn't for everyone. And the ones that just get it done, they tend to build insurance policies into their hunting plans. They run through their routes, think about how it'll be shooting from a certain tree or hiking into a specific spot when the leaves are dry and the

wind isn't blowing enough to cover the sound. They prepare for the inevitable, which is that most of their hunts will require more effort and attention to execution than they seem like they should. During the off season, think about whatever you can do to dress, rehearse parts of your

hunts this year. The more you can learn about what you absolutely need to do and then do it to see what you're missing, the less likely you are to have a whole bunch of frustrating clunker hunts this fall, where the illusion of a well set up hunt meets

the reality of a somewhat poorly planned hunt. Don't do that to yourself, give yourself a chance and come back next week because I'm going to talk about how to learn to look for what's limited in the white tails world and why that will help you kill big bucks no matter where you live and hunt. That's it. I'm Tony Peterson and this has been the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which has brought to you by First Light.

As always, thank you so much for listening. If you want to check out those three oh eight pants I talked about at the beginning of this, head on over to the medeater dot com and check out our store there First Light as well obviously, Or if you want to check out those white Tail clips for our new white Tail Edu series, you can head over to the meat Eater Clips channel on YouTube. You'll find all kinds

of stuff there. We're filling that up like crazy. Or if you just need some articles, you want to find a few new podcasts, maybe a recipe or something, the medeater dot com has you covered for all kinds of hunting and fishing information