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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light, creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light, Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host Tony Peterson.
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Speaker 2: Hey, everyone, welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundation’s podcast, which is brought to you by first Light. I’m your host, Tony Peterson, and in today’s episode is all about call sense decoys and when you should use or get rich quick products during the run.
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Speaker 1: This is it.
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Speaker 2: All those days you didn’t hunt because it was a better idea to stay out of the woods, you know, and get in there when they getting should be good. Well, that’s right now. This is the time for dark to dark sits, or at least for some folks to pretend that’s what they do. It’s the time for hostess cupcakes and tree stands, selfies and every damn trick you can use to bring a big one into bowt range. Those tricks in when you should use them are what I plan to talk about right now. So buckle up because it’s time to dive into the fun part about rut hunter. I’ve talked about this a few times, so I’m just gonna give you a quick recap here to sort of frame this up. Back in twenty twenty three, I drove one of my daughters over to north central Wisconsin for a week into rut hunting, and we had a Dave Smith dough in the back of the truck and a simple plan just put the dough out somewhere visible and wait. My reasoning, besides it being the run, was that the deer density was so low there that any buck that laid eyes on that fake lady would probably come in. It took about ninety two percent of an all day sit for that to happen. When it did, it was one of the coolest things I’ve ever witnessed it, and I can promise you it changed my daughter as a deer hunter.
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Speaker 1: Now.
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Speaker 2: A week later, I did the same thing with that decoy, and when that roly poly swamp buck laid eyes on the decoy was like watching a carbon copy of my daughter’s hunt, but was just like a little bit bigger deer going two four two with a decoy was incredible. And then I took that sucker home and had a little bucks circle it on my first hunt back home, when I put the decoy out in Minnesota, it was crazy. I felt like I had unlocked a rout cheat code with that decoy, to the point where last year when I went down to Iowa to hunt some public land, I took it with me, thinking that it was going to be a big part of it. I put it out on a river bottom and eventually I had a buck commit to it who put on a real show and it was one of the coolest things I’ve seen, which by the way, you can see too because we filmed it and now it’s up on the med Eater YouTube channel. But in between those successful hunts, I got so confident in that decoy that I used it in places where it just didn’t make as much sense, like one stand in the woods on a pond here in Minnesota, where I just tried to force it. I even had bucks walk by and see it, but they didn’t commit. There is not only a right time, but a right place for rut tricks, And to take that a step further, you got to try to put yourself in a buck shoes, mostly to make up for the reality that it wouldn’t work every time with the decoy, I tried adding scent on the ground behind it. I tried calling, but what I realized what there was just spots where that decoy would work, you know, like I was hunting on easy Moon, and there were other times where it was just like I was hunting with no decoy at all. This was, you know, kind of like the decoy version of blindly rattling on a field edge every ten minutes during the rut, when you’re just trying to force something to happen. It’s just not always the right situation for it. And the deer will tell you this probably saves more big bucks than anything, and I can almost promise you that it’ll save a pile of them this season, especially on pressured ground as panic hunters try to make something happen. I’m a firm believer that one of the ways to get better at decision making is to give yourself time to think about stuff. I know that might sound dumb or simple, but ever since I started running a lot, I realized that it’s one of the few times my brain isn’t totally distracted by just constant stuff. I can work through problems when I’m running and just sort of live out scenarios to see where different outcomes would take me. And when it comes to using send calls or decoys or whatever, we often don’t put a lot of thought into them past a simple criteria, which is, well, it’s the right time of the year because it’s the rut and I’m going to one of the spots I like, that might just be it. But think about this example. Steve Vernella texted me a few weeks back about a rut hunt we’re doing in Nebraska this year for a show. He wanted to know what I thought about rattling down there, and I told him he can rattle all he wants, I just don’t think he’ll be very effective. Here’s what happened there. He’s been hunting Texas quite a bit for white tails and to kill them in a cool way on film. They’ve been rattling and using decoys a lot. But Texas, especially private land that has managed for big deer and lots of them, just a different world. It’s a high density of a deer down there, like a really high density in a lot of places. Ii’ve hunted Texas in some of those places, and it’s kind of hard to describe how thick the deer really are. They have a lot of competition. The bucks bump into each other all the time, and the terrain is just such that there’s like a lot of openings and pockets in between those mosquite flats and oak mots. At least in a lot of the state, it’s like that, you know, not all of the state. Rattling where he rattled makes sense. Those deer have to fight a lot, and they are in constant competition with each other for doze and for territory. On the Nebraska ranch we’re hunting, the deer numbers are scary low, like scary low. The bucks are going to be looking for dos sure, but I don’t see a world in which they’ll be conditioned to charge into a buck fight at the drop of a hat. Could they Sure, deer fight everywhere at some point, and it’s not crazy to think they might. But a far better strategy than offering up the appearance of two angry bucks, at least in my view, is to offer them what they are looking for, what they’re lacking, Because you know, a fight can cause them to lose their eyes or their dignity, but a dough won’t. So I told him he can rattle all he wants, But I’m going to live and die by pinch points, and if I have to, I’m gonna put out a dough ecoy. Those bucks down there, I don’t have a lot of options. If a doe comes into Astris, it’s gonna be a big deal. They’re gonna have to cover ground, They’re gonna have to work to find a girlfriend. The game will just be different there because of the low density. Will I have rattling antlers with me, I don’t know, probably, But will they stay in my truck most of the time. Probably? I will have some deer calls with me, because there’s just a different vibe when you’re dealing with a soft contact grunt or some tending grunts versus trying to make it sound like two bucks are fighting. And before I move off of that notion, let me say what I’ve said many times before. If you’re going to rattle, consider what you’re trying to convey. This isn’t the time of year for light sparring. This is like bar clothes at two am, and all the vodka red bull fueled dudes who never left your hometown are keyed up and ready to prove why they wear affliction t shirts make it sound like a fight. And if you’ve never heard too actual real bucks fight, it’s eye opening. It’ll change the way you think about rattling. I’ve only seen a handful of bucks, you know, really fight, but every one of them was a complete soundscape, and not just disembodied racks clashing and grinding together. They break sticks, they crash around, and they sound like a pair of two hundred pound animals who are trying to kill each other. If you want to rattle and sell the ruse, make them believe what they expect to hear. Now, with this style of rattling, and honestly all of calling, you really want to think about where you are, where the deer should be, and what they’ll do if they commit, and also what will happen if they commit but do so on the downwind side, which is very very common with all kinds of calling. So let’s think about this. If you’re making the noise of a deer, the deer are expecting to well see a deer. In this case of rattling, they expect to see two. Now, what if you’re in a wide open river bank out west, perch in a cottonwood tree and you see a buck about to pass at one hundred yards and you instinctively grab those antlers. Well, that dear is definitely going to hear you. He’s definitely going to look over at your tree, and he’s definitely going to see no bucks, and probably that little warning light on the dash of his brain is going to light up. That deer is a more prime candidate for some soft grunting, or better yet, just to be left alone because the scenario is not in your favor. But that buck sees a decoy in your game changes. Now head on into the thick shit wherever you hunt, and you better leave that decoy at home. But remember that the calling game is now going to change. Let’s say you’re on a washed out ravine on the side of a bluff where they can only cross in a few spots, and a buck decides to cruise on the next crossing above you. That deer’s looking for doze. He needs something to happen, and if he hears a grunt, he can’t immediately decide that there’s no buck there and something is fishy. He is much better candidate for that contact call of some sort. You know, whether it’s actually a hunter, a bleach, or a snort wheeze. But again, this is something to think through. But the main point is he’s a callable deer because he’s already where he kind of wants to be, and he can’t immediately decide that the noise he heard came from the ether and not from some deer standing there that he just can’t see. Now, if you’re hunting where the pressure is high, you can bet your ass that every one of the other folks who hunts out there is going to at least have a grunt too, for sure. It’s just kind of the go to for everyone. And you know, if you have a three year old buck crossing through, that deer might have already been grunted to a dozen times this season. Now, when I’m in this situation, I either try to go big with a snort wheeze a lot of times because most hunters are just too scared to use them, or I go the other direction with a dobe bleed. This is sort of a no harm, no fall type of call, because a bleap means they just potentially aren’t going to get their ass kicked at least. It’s also what they are generally looking for during the run. Remember earlier when I said we all need to take some time to think through various scenarios in life so we are better prepared when they manifest into reality. That’s the stuff I think about when I go into a stand or a blind I have a pretty good idea of the tricks I’ll use if I happen to see a buck. I don’t blind call, at least hardly, ever, so I’m not going to talk about that because I just don’t have much faith in blind calling anywhere ever. Your mileage may vary on that front. But when I sit in that stand, on that washed out ravine before it even gets light out, I have a pretty good idea how I’ll make contact with a buck before I see him. If he’s really cruising, he’s going to get that bleep because I know his mind is on a dough. If he’s not given me a point A to B you know right now kind of vibes, he either gets a grunt or more likely a snort wheeze, because that’s a year who isn’t sure what he’s looking for. But if someone insults him, he can often be talked into a fight. Where we get squirrely with this stuff, is that mostly these products work against us when we encounter bucks, we use them like we see in deer hunting con But I promise you that if you’re listening to this, you’re probably not hunting the kind of ground that most deer hunting shows are filmed on. You have to pay attention to what your success rate is when you try these tricks, and what the body language of the buck shows before and after contact. And you have to consider what works on your home farm that you leave alone all season until the rut, and that that might not mirror what will work when you head out on the road for your first public land deer hunt. When you think about why you sit where you sit, and when you hunt this spot not that one, and what you think the deer should be doing right now, you’re taking into account a ton of variables. That’s how good decisions are made, pros and cons and all that jazz. But just using a deer call or a decoy because it’s the rut doesn’t really work like it should because that’s a decision that should be made around the right variables as well, and so should the use of sense. There was a long time in my hunting career where I used a hell of a lot of different sense. When I was at bow Hunter Magazine, I used to get sen boxes of sense from all the major players, and let me tell you, I tried pretty hard to make them work in a lot of different situations. You know what I found. Let me put it this way, I can’t remember the last time I used scent other than they give my daughters a little extra confidence. Scents and lures were all of the rags for a long long time in the bow hunting industry, and I can remember countless times when my dad would set up to drag a rag as it’s called, to give bucks a chance to run across the scent of a hot dough and follow it right into a setup. It worked, you know, once or twice, but mostly didn’t. Is there really any danger in trying, though, I’d say maybe. When you invite a deer to go where you go, you invite them to smell you, and they will. Mostly. Most of the time, we use scentwix loaded with the good stuff to try to bring in a buck, and most of the time it just won’t. A better bet is to use it as guardrails for a hunt you believe will already produce a close encounter. So instead of hanging nine cent wiks in a tree on a field edge like you’re decorating a pea Christmas tree, think about your setups in relation to the wind and the predicted deer travel. You know what trails can you shoot and what trails can you not shoot. A buck that is set to pass by at forty seven yards and eventually get down wind of view might get a whiff of a cent which can close that crucial yardage to get into range at that point. It’s really a cost benefit thing, and the downsides are probably low. Maybe you expect them to cruise through your shooting window in record time because it’s just too tight and you’re worried you won’t get a shot or won’t be able to stop them without having them freak out. Then the right scent there can buy you enough time to shoot them while they are preoccupied with suddenly smelling estros dopey four feet up in a tree. The idea that a buck will smell a scent trap you’ve laid out from far away and come to it is mostly flawed. They just aren’t going to smell it from all that far away, So instead it’s better to look at your setups and see if you can influence their behavior when they already get close to the red zone. But again, if you can predict that, you probably don’t need to lean too head beyond extra stuff since you’re already almost there. But there are variables that come into play with every setup where it might make total sense to refresh a scrape near your stand or hang a sentwick in a strategic location to change a buck’s behavior when he gets close. I guess what I really want to highlight with this episode is this, don’t just use rut tricks, because it’s the rut that’s a lost cause reality that could very well work against you. You might think that blindly rattling during primetime is sort of a net neutral because the bucks should be fighting. That is not how it works, because what bucks and where what type of fighting are you mimicking. The best way to use this stuff correctly is to think about it beforehand, and then when you get into your spot, really read the situation to decide what would be best, and then lean on those decisions when he actually does show himself. And remember this, when you do use calls or sense or decoys, you’re asking for his attention and you will get it. There is a difference, you know, from a buck just naturally cruising through on his way to find some ladies and a buck that goes from that mode to one where he sees a deer or he smells a deer or he hears a deer. Suddenly, he’s got a different mentality about it because he has expectations in that spot that he didn’t have a second ago. And you just don’t want to surprise a buck too much because they’re like middle aged dudes who are beat down by life and quietly just want to fish and hunt pheasants until the grim reaper shows up one day. They don’t like surprises. And now, as a last point, let me say this, if calling or using sense or running a decoy keeps you out there longer it just makes you happy, then by all means donuts for donuts. Every one of those things can work. And whatever it takes to enjoy your time out there, or lift your confidence a little, or just get you to spend a few extra hours in a tree when you want to go home and take a nap, it’s not a bad thing. Just think about that, and good luck out there this week. This truly is the time to make something happen, and I hope he too, because it’s freaking sweet when it does. But if it doesn’t, come back next week, because I’m going to get into the reality of finding big Bucks when all the shine is off the old rut apple and it’s down to the pere grind phase of the rut. That’s it for this week. 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 for all your support. I truly hope you’re out there right now shooting some big Bucks during the rut. If you’re not, if you’re stuck in your office, maybe you’re stuck on your commute, maybe you’re driving somewhere and you need some entertainment. You know, a podcast, or maybe you need a recipe at home to cook up the backstraps you got in the freezer or whatever. The mediator dot com has you covered. You can go there and learn a ton of stuff. You can go there if you just want to be entertained. You can go there if you just want to watch one of us hunt some deer or some other critics somewhere we drop new content every week. Go check it out at the mediator dot com and thanks them once again for your support.
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