Ep. 804: Foundations - Why Every Hunter Should Try to Understand Deer Dominance

plug toward our new first Light whitetail systems. If you haven't heard, we dropped the early season Phase, the mid season Core, and the late season Thermic last week and they're all pretty badass. No, you can mix and match pieces, do as you please, but this is, in my opinion, the best white tail gear we've ever put out. And

I don't say that lightly. I say it because I hunted in all of this stuff last season from early September to January through multiple states on a lot of nasty public land hunts, and that really, really worked well for me. If you want to check it out, go on over to first light dot com. All right, As it so often happens with this podcast, it was a kind of like a not so random encounter with some

deer that spawned an idea. I'd taken a little scouting trip recently a couple of weeks back, and I took some photography when I was out there, and I ended up editing those photos and looking at it, and I noticed something in one of the photos. It was that there was a beanfield with a nice, cool kind of buck standing in the shade and a couple of dough standing in the sunlight, and it was hot, hot, hot

that day. There's a lesson there, and it reminded me of deer pecking order and dominance, and it made me realize that that is like a driving force behind a lot of deer behavior, and it's what I'm really going to get into right now. Seven years ago, in August, I found myself sitting in a boat in Argentina while looking at a pile of dead ducks stacked up near

my waiters. We had had the kind of morning, you know of duck hunting that only happens in a place where the limit is literally fifty birds a day, and the water you're hunting in and over was just in the Amazon rainforest a few days earlier. It was a surreal experience, you know, winding our way through these reed

lined channels at speeds that showed our boats. Captain was far more comfortable in that environment than those of us who were born thousands of miles farther north, in a country that doesn't look or feel much like that particular area of South America. And when we were back at the lodge watching several stereotypical Texas oil men, Tai went on at lunchtime, I got to talking to one of

the co owners of the lodge. This guy's a little fella by all accounts, but talking to him, you know, and gave me the impression that he didn't suffer a whole lot of teasing about his height or anything. And he went by Junior, Although to be honest, I don't know if that was his nickname, his real name, or you know, his dad had the name first. I don't know, but it doesn't matter, because talking to Junior was almost like talking to some of those old professional hunters, you know,

back from Hemingway. In rue ARC's time, Junior had spent a lot of time in Africa, and one of the ways that he made money was by catching animals that would eventually end up in zoos throughout Europe and North America. Now I'm not talking like mice or maybe some little

birds or something. Junior was the big animal guy, he told us, and to keep in mind, without a hint of sarcasm, that if you want to stop a giraffe in its tracks, you drive right up next to him and jump out while trying to get a hold of his tail. If you succeed, that three thousand pound animal will stop and essentially let you man handle him and lead him around. But according to Junior, you better make

sure that your grip on the tail is sound. Junior also caught a fair share of lions, which, as you can imagine, you know, that's the kind of thing that not a lot of older fellows attempt, no matter how lofty the paychecks might be. He said that the strategy was to feed the lions and eventually get them used to your presence. You know, It's a long game approach, kind of like tree training a dog, except that a wild African lion is a pretty far cry from a

black lab puppy. Well, Junior said that he was on his way to earning the trust of a particular mail lion, but one morning, when he and his partner drove in to deliver some fresh breakfast, Junior said he could see in the lion's eyes that something had changed. He knew it was going to attack him, and he told his

partner to get ready. He said, when it happened, he went from trying to back away to being knocked down and picked up by the lion, who bit directly into his back and carried him like he was nothing more than a piece of meat, which I guess to the lion is kind of true. For whatever reason, maybe just because he felt like he had taught Junior a lesson. That lion carried him a couple one hundred yards off into the bush and then just dropped him and walked away.

Imagine the relief of feeling those teeth suddenly back out of your skin and muscles and realize that you have a chance to live when you really didn't think you did just a moment earlier. Now that lion is long since dead, and we wouldn't have been able to ask him anyway, but that move was probably tied a little bit to dominance. There are a lot of ways to describe nature, but the constant struggle for dominance is one

way to look at it. Predators find themselves participating in social hierarchies all the time, just as prey animals do. It's a driving force, and we don't give it enough credit for animal behavior. We should, though, even as deer hunters. While we all know the term dominant buck, that's not what I'm talking about here. Every deer in the herd is jockeying for position, and that goes for big bucks. Little bucks doze and you know, not too many months

after they're born fawns. To understand this better, consider the definition of dominance, which is an individual's preferential access to resources over another based on coercive capacity, which is, you know, based on strengths, threat, and intimidation. A dominant animal is one that is largely free to feed, to be aggressive, pursue the opposite sex in order to pass on its genes, and generally do what it pleases, at least in how

it concerns the other members of its species. Subordinate animals live a different life with submissive behaviors that allow them to be easily influenced by others. Now, we used to call this the pecking order, and it's a situation that is constantly in flux. One buck getting run over by a semi haul and some corn down to the river, or a dough getting shot on opening weekend by a hunter changes the dynamics of the system. An injury to

any deer can do that too. Where hierarchies persist, which is pretty much everywhere in nature, including with us hairless apes, weakness is an invitation for someone else to move up, and that's often not pretty. This hit me when I was editing those photos I told you about, because that buck that I was taking pictures of he had the prime spot in that beanfield. The does and fawns they

were on the sunny side. They didn't have the prime spot. No, we talk about this a lot, but the reason the bucks get the shady side and the does don't is because when it comes to brute force, the bucks win. He can feed where it's more comfortable until someone comes along who can kick his ass, and then all bets are off. I've talked about this before, but I went a whole season periodically trying to kill a big dough

that was obviously dominant. She'd come into a kill plot I had in a spot here in Minnesota, and she would not let another deer get into the groceries. It was obvious on the trail camera photos, but even more obvious the few times I actually saw her in that plot. Even little Bucks respected her authority, and let me tell

you something, she was not afraid to throw down. She was also a master at avoiding me to the point where she just flat out one She beat me on my own game, although I guess that was her game too. Either way, I got worked by a dough on private property where I should have had every advantage. Sometimes the lessons we get as deer hunters come from unlikely sources, and that dough has given me a lot to think about over the years. She honestly changed how I look

at deer. Now at this point, you're probably wondering how any of this actually helps you kill a deer, So let me get to that. Once you start to see the why behind deer behavior, you start to be able to predict it with more reliability. You don't need a bottle of dopey, you know, or the peak of the rut to save you're hunting. You can figure this stuff

out for yourself. And when it comes to deer, I like to think of this from a bottom up perspective, as opposed starting with the one you know, one hundred and sixty inch deer in your section who can push every other deer around. I like to think about the young bucks, mostly because I think that they give you the best lesson in the bottom of the deer pecking order. Think about it like this. Young bucks seem dumb, right, and they certainly are compared to old bucks in most dos.

They just don't have enough experience avoiding predators to be very good at it, and they haven't learned to temper their curiosity so they can stay alive. They also are forced to live out there on the fringes in the most dangerous spots. They are the ones that have to bed in the leftover spots, the areas that offer the least amount of safety. They often have to get to food early to get a bite to eat before everyone else shows up and pushes them around. They have no power.

They exist with the constant threat of violence over their dumb heads. And because of that, they are forced to engage in behavior that looks to us like it's stupid or overly risky. And the truth is they don't really have much of a choice. Now. These rules, just like any rules in nature, are subject to a hell of a lot of variables. But one way I like to look at this stuff is this, If you can find the little bucks, they'll tell you something about the big bucks.

The little guys might use the same trails, they might try to feed in the same areas, but they'll mostly do it in a way that doesn't seem like how a bigger, more mature deer would conduct himself. If you see a young buck or a couple young bucks doing something, you say, approaching a pond from a certain direction or on a certain trail, that's a pretty good clue you can tuck away for later. How they cross a ridge is probably how a big one will cross a ridge

in the pre run stage. You just aren't likely to get a whole bunch of in person observation to work with on that older deer. How the little guys focus on the woods when they are out eating beans two hours before dark can tell you they are nervous. About who might show up next, how they approach scrapes where you see them make a rub all. That is a reflection a big buck behavior to some extent, and there's value in that. There's also the reality that what little

bucks do might not reflect mature buck behavior. I think this is most easily understood by thinking about daylight travel and the locations of beds. A bigger deer is just not going to move as much in daylight because he doesn't have to. When he gets to the food source in the dark, he can muscle his way into the best spots. Everyone else will pretty much defer to him, and the resources he needs are there for his taking.

He's not concerned about getting enough to eat. He also knows that no one is likely to try to bed right where he wants to bed. The spots that offer the best site lines while offering the best cover, while offering the best wind advantage. You know they're there for his choosing. He isn't going to be booted out of the edge of the woods to bed in someplace that just doesn't offer the same advantages. He takes what he wants and that's it. As mentioned does do this too.

I know no one wants to hear this because we are laser focused on how to kill big bucks. But I firmly believe you can't be a good deer hunter until you figure out how to somewhat consistently kill highly pressured doze. They are survival machines, and while they can't push even most two year old bucks around, usually they do get the best of the skis that the bucks leave for them. This is why it's so much easier

to clue into a doe bedding area. They have to bet in the best places they can, but that place won't be as hard for you to find as where the bucks are. They'll hit the food sources early, too, because when it gets dark, they won't have as many choice options. The key to how this makes you a better hunter, just like trying to understand young buck behavior, is that you have far more opportunity to learn from

them than you will big bucks. Mature bucks just aren't that common in most places, so your in person interactions with them are going to be highly limited. But they are deer, and other deer can teach you about deer in general, and they can teach you about deer dominance specifically. Where I feel this gives hunters a huge advantage. It's just figuring out deer first. When you hunt a new spot, you know, maybe travel somewhere to hunt public land, or

you get permission on a fresh property or whatever. Figuring out the general deer behavior of all deer is a real big step towards narrowing your focus down to one deer or a certain caliber of deer. And so many of these lessons are just directly tied to dominance. They will also inform you at least somewhat you know how to decoy, how to call. When it comes to decoy, Nearly every hunter I know will go with a buck

decoy over a dough decoy. This is because if you want to kill a big deer, you want him to think someone is going after his resources, which in this case means his potential girlfriends. That's great for a lot of hunters, but what if you're not super concerned with only killing the top dog on your ground. What if you want a decent buck and you don't want to limit your chances to a super super small segment of the deer herd well a doe decoy changes everything you know.

Of course, running bucks like dose for obvious reasons, but there's also zero threat to a dough decoy. Every buck in the woods might approach her, but not every buck in the woods will approach a buck decoy. This is kind of like using a full strutter tom decoy in the spring. Look, they can work real well, but they are also the best opportunity to watch other toms skirt your spread in the hopes of finding some ladies who don't have someone who can kick their asses showing off

for them. If you're like me and you like shooting jake's and two year old birds, using a full strutter might not be the best choice. And that's all tied to dominance. Now, look at deer calling like I don't

know snort wheezing, for example. While almost anyone who claims to know anything about bucks will tell you only dominant, mega huge bucks will snort wheeze, I wonder how many actual bucks they've heard make us snort wheeze, or how many younger bucks they've snored wheezed at to gauge their response. My bet is that they've probably only heard a handful of deer make that sound. If they've heard any I'm

pretty sure in my entire deer hunting career. I've only heard one buck do it, and that was a Texas buck in the middle of a Texas deer tornado during the rut, and he was out of his mind. But I have snort wheeze to a fair amount of bucks, you know, after a chance encounter taught me something. I was sitting on standing in late October in Minnesota when I saw a deer that had all the makings of a decent buck walking through the woods right before last light.

I snored wheezed for a lack of a better option, and he started running in. But so did another buck. And what I realized was that not only had the one hundred and forty inch deer responded aggressively, but a legit four key had beat him to my stand. They both ran in looking for a fight. Now I missed that big deer, which really sucked, but I learned something

in that lesson. I started snort wheezing just more at bucks in every month of the season, and while it definitely didn't work on getting every deer to come in, when they did respond, they all put themselves in a position to get shot, and I did shoot some of them. The snort wheeze isn't just a dominant buck call. It's

a buck. And while one hundred and twenty inch deer might not seem like he's dominant, he certainly is to the fifty inches out there, and those fifty inches might be dominant when it comes to the spikes in the group. The key to all this, I guess, is that we should be looking for reasons why we see deer do what they do. Not every reason for deer behavior can be tied to dominance, but a lot of what we see that we might not really even understand certainly can be.

And the more that you figure that stuff out, the more you can start to dial into how it'll influence the deer you really want to kill this fall. That might be a giant buck, of course, or it might just be your first out of state buck, or it might be a dough in October, you know, because you want some fresh venison in the freezer. Whatever the motivation, it's a good idea to try to understand how nature works and what that means to us when we step

into their world from Mars. So think about that and think about coming back next week, because I'm going to talk about how to really start building an early season pattern. 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 a First Light, which has all that awesome new whitetail gear out there that you're gonna want to go check out. As I always, thank you so much for listening and for all your support, I really

appreciate it. Everybody here at mediatter does, so thank you for that. If you need some more white tail content, you know, maybe the new edu series Mark and I drop over on the met eater clips YouTube channel. You can go check that out. Tons of articles, a bunch more podcasts out there. All of it is at themediator dot com. Go over there check it out.