November 28, 2024 • 20 mins
Dirk takes you on a walk down "memory lane" this week as he shares his journey of whitetail deer hunting in his home state of Idaho. Not hunting from a tree is the go-to tactic for Dirk and many other hunters in that region. Listen in on his take of Idaho whitetail deer hunting.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance podcast.
I'm Dirk Durham and at this recording date it's November twentieth,
arguably my favorite time to hunt mountain white tails. With
snowflakes dropping in the higher of elevations, I'm packing my
bags to head up and try a little luck at
tagging a big buck. After Jason Phelps talked about Kansas
(00:32):
hunting on last week's episode, I wanted to compare and
contrast my experienced rival hunting those same type of deer
in Idaho. Now, as all you know, I love archery,
elk hunting, and to be honest, all elk cunning. But
what you probably don't know is whitetail hunting was my
very first love, hunting white tails from twelve years old
with my dad. Looked a lot different at age thirteen,
(00:54):
and then a lot different today. Back then, it was
all big timber deer hunting, much zero clear cuts. At
least where I began hunting. This was state land, private timberland,
and sometimes private property. Sometimes I'd get permission from these
local farmers who I worked for in the summertime putting
(01:16):
up hay and come fall, you know, I'd ask him
if I could hunt, and they would say, oh, absolutely,
because farmers, most farmers, they want to trim down the
deer herd and the elk hurd as much as they can. Well,
twelve year old me hunting, was riding around in the
truck with my dad all day looking for deer, hoping
one wouldn't magically appear. But man, did they ever appear.
(01:40):
There were deer everywhere back then. It was crazy. You
didn't have to drive very long and you would see
a deer run across the road or be standing next
to the road. But the funny part was they were
almost impossible to get right, you know, by the time
you'd get out, run off the side of the road
and run out in the brush, you'd try to get one,
and they were always gone. And so I kind of
(02:03):
made a decision. Thirteen year old me had had enough
road hunting that very first year. Every deer we saw
it was on high alert and running. So I wanted
to shoot a deer more than anything in the world,
and I knew doing it from a truck was definitely
not the way I was going to get it done.
So honestly, I think I think my dad he hoped
(02:25):
we didn't get a deer. I think he was just
just out enjoying the fallwoods, you know, taking in all
the sites, all the pretty all the pretty fall colors,
and driving around, sipping on coffee, having a candy bar.
You know. It was that kind of a kind of
a vibe, and I think he was just out there
enjoying it. I feel like he had zero intention of
actually getting a deer back then. So at thirteen, I
(02:49):
made the decision that I wanted to get out of
the truck and I wanted to hunt hunt deer. I
wanted to get in the woods on foot and find
find a big buck. So I'd have my mom or
my dad dropped me off in the woods for a
morning hunt or an evening hunt, and then meet back
where they dropped me. And this may be, you know,
(03:12):
they may drop me thirty minutes before first light and
pick me up later on that morning. They may drop
me off right after school, and I'd hunt till dark,
a little after dark. In fact, most most of the time,
I would hunt every single day before school until I
got my deer. I'd go out for an hour or two,
(03:32):
just get out there my mom. Sometimes my mom would
go with me my dad. He was just like, yeah,
it's cold out, I'm not into it. I think he
was pretty much over it by that time. I think
he'd go, if we want to drive around, but he
didn't want to. He called it beating the brush. He's like,
I'm not gonna get out there and beat the brush.
He's he always he always thought if you beat the brush,
(03:53):
you're gonna just spook the hero over to someone else.
So he didn't want to do that. So today hunting
looks completely different. There's virtually no big timber. There's clear
cuts everywhere on state and timberland. There's a little and
some of the private stuff is not cut up so bad.
But a lot of those farmers, you know, they that
(04:15):
I used to go hunt on their place, then they've
long since retired or passed on. So it's definitely a
different game these days. And i'd say there's there's less
deer today too, And I attribute to a couple things
that dominate those things. But some of the things I'll
talk about before I tell you what I think the
key key things are is predators. Predators are taking their
(04:37):
fair shared deer, that's for sure. You know, back in
the early or in the eighties and nineties, you know,
mountain lions and coyotes were thick in Idaho and they
I think they took their fair shared deer, but I
don't think coyotes had the population like they do today
in my opinion. Today today, wolves and coyotes probably doing
(04:57):
most of damage. There's still some lions out there, but
I think the wolves and the coyotes are taking down
the larger numbers. For one, coyotes, there's just no market
on their fur these days, and nobody's really trapping coyotes
in a large scale like they used to do. There
was a lot of guys just out trapping a lot
(05:18):
of coyotes back in the day, putting a pretty good
dent in their population, but we just don't see that
as much today. The hides are hardly worth a thing,
which is unfortunate because it really helps with, you know,
creating some balance out there. Another thing to think about
is disease. You know, when as a kid, we'd never
had any disease to speak of. They we'd never had
(05:40):
any blue tongue, we never had any EHD come through,
and then in the nineties we saw our first first
cases of that. It seemed like we had more droughts
during the mid to late nineties and we had some
pretty substantial die offs where you know, we lost like
eighty to ninety percent of the deer in some spots.
And today, you know, continue through the last you know,
(06:02):
if you look at the last decade, the last two decades,
you know we've had I have had quite a bit
of drought and we've had a few more HD and
blue tongue die offs. So that definitely does put a
put a nail in the coffin on some of these
deer herds. But they seem to bounce back after a
few years and you start getting your deer herd built
(06:22):
up again after a few years. But my personal opinion
on one of the main the main culprits is too
many tags and habitat loss. I'd like to say, first
one hundred percent, I support logging in the timber industry,
but with the massive clear cuts that have removed security
cover for the deer and also an abundance of deer
(06:43):
tags for residents and non residents alike, it's really taking
its toll. I'll say the herds are starting to slowly
look better as the clear cuts are starting to grow
up a little bit and offer more security, but we're
just not there where we were at back in the
eighties and nineties. I think without you know, reaction from
the fishing game. I don't want to pick on them
(07:04):
too much, but there's a lot of nuance I feel
like in big game management, and one of them is
loss of habitat and security cover. And when when they
started making those clearcuts, you know, they were really great
because you'd have big blocks of timber and then you'd
have a clearcut and that would give the deer a
ton of food and they still had somewhere to hide.
But man, over the last five six years, all these
(07:26):
big clearcuts they'd put out there previously, they've all started
connecting them. Now they've they've wiped out a lot of
the big blocks of standing timber, and the deer run
kind of running out of places to hide. But I
will say in the last three or four years as well,
some of those earlier clearcuts are starting to grow up,
and we're starting to get little fir trees and brush
(07:47):
and deer starting to find some new places to hide.
So so I feel like in the next five ten
years there should be a pretty good heyday of deer.
For deer, I feel like, you know, they're going to
be a lot less vulnerable and a lot harder to
see no matter how many tags are going to be
out there. But one bad thing about having too many
tags is you know, and I'm I'm all for everybody
(08:08):
getting the hunt every year. I love to hunt every year,
but man, at some point it gets tough because it
gets overcrowded. And you have to look at Idaho's population,
the resonant population. In the last three or four years,
it's exploded from a lot of folks moving to Idaho
because they love our resources, they love the outdoors, they
love to hunt. They they're looking for a different life
(08:29):
or a different way of life. So I feel like
there'll probably be some corrections or changes in tag availability
in the next few years, you know, which I don't
look forward to. But I feel like for the greater good.
Sometimes you know, it's painful, but man, we we have
to have have something done, so you know, it's still
a pleasure of pleasurable experience. Again for those kids, Like
(08:52):
if you take kids out, you know, you want them
to have a good time and have fun hunting, you know,
what makes what makes a good deer hunt for me? Well,
I personally, I just want to see a lot of deer.
I just want to see does and fawns. I want
to see young bucks. I want to see middle aged bucks,
and I want to see mature bucks. Basically, I want
to a well balanced herd with the possibility of taking
(09:13):
home a mature buck from time to time. I want
to be able to take a kid hunting and keep
him or her engaged by showing them a bunch of deer.
I want it to be fun. We're competing with all
this instant gratification of electronics and all this other stuff,
and it's it's really tough to get kids out there
and show them a good time if they're not seeing
a lot of deer. So that's for me, that's really
(09:35):
what it's about. You know, I don't need to try
to shoot one hundred and seventy inch deer every fall.
Some people might say, oh, you're just a trophy hunter,
but honestly, I just want to see a well balanced herd.
I want to see just a lot of deer. I
want to see does and fawns and little bucks and
middle aged bucks and old bucks. I just want to
see I'd like to see this kind of same kind
(09:55):
of deer hunting we had when I was a kid.
That way this generation can can enjoy that same thing
I did. Now I want to switch gears a little bit.
And this week's Pendleton Whiskey Question and answer A question
(10:16):
is from that was kind of funny. Question and answer.
Question is from an Instagram direct message. Now I didn't
get the guy's name, but I'll read you the question
he said. I'm taking my kid on an Idaho whitetail
hunt in a month and have been crushing maps as
its new hunting unit for me. Some of the areas
I've been eyeballing or clearcuts at timber edges and on
(10:39):
state in private timberland. I've not done a mountain whitetail
hunt in Idaho before, so I'm assuming they act similar
to our Willamette Valley whitetail in Oregon. But if you
have any thoughts aside from that, I'm all ears. Current
plan is to archery spot in stock I'll bring provisions
to get in a tree if need be. This tag
being new to me, I'm curious to see what kind
(11:01):
of hunter numbers I run into. That's a great question.
I've actually been getting similar questions a lot because on Instagram, Facebook,
because folks know I've you know, grew up in north
central Idaho and have you know a little bit of
insight on on the hunting up there. But first off,
I'd like to say, you know, archery spot and stock
(11:23):
will be kind of like taking a knife to a gunfight.
The area, it's it's rifle season, right Everybody's gonna be
running in with a rifle. The area has a large
number of other hunters using rifles and they're gonna be
using ATVs extensively. The area is very roaded. There's a
lot of roads that are open to ATVs. Recently there's
(11:44):
been some some closures to some of the roads, but
I still feel like you're going to run into a
lot of people run their side by sides and four
wheelers around, whether that's whether they're supposed to or not.
It seems like there's always a bad apple out there
abusing abusing the the laws. But I'd say, if you're
committed to bow hunting, I would a one hundred percent
(12:06):
suggest setting up a tree stand or ground blind. Personally,
my style of hunting Mountain white tails is a lot
more mobile than folks who hunt in Eastern States. I'm
more of a I'm more of a get on the
ground and hunt the guy than a tree standing guy.
I like to cover a lot of country, whether I'm
on foot or on four wheels. Either I'm a pickup
or I'm in an ATV, you know, on roads that
(12:28):
are open. I really hate running an ATV at that time.
It's cold, and I'm just not into hunting from the
truck or the four wheeler. I really want to get
out there and just enjoy, you know, the quiet once
once it starts snowing. Man in the deer woods, it
can be so quiet. There's no birds chooping, there's no bugs,
(12:49):
there's no bees buzzing. It's just very quiet, just you
and the sounds are like maybe some squirrels or the deer,
and I just really love that. So I would just
like to cover for a lot of country to begin with.
I like to look specifically for tracks. I want to
look for deer trails. I want to look for rubs
and scrapes. Then I dial it in from there. Ideally,
(13:10):
I like to watch an area. I like to watch
a place where deer cross crossing from fetting feeding or
from feeding to security cover. You know, this may give
me a fifty yard shot or even a three hundred
or four hundred five hundred yard shot, depending on the area.
But I like to kind of sit and wait in
those kind of places just because deer they've got a
(13:32):
pretty good eye for people walking around. But I will
say I do also love hunting big timber. I like
to still hunt big timber, and that's kind of how
I cut my teeth as a kid. And what I
do is I interesstand a big timber on a game trail,
and then I move really slowly, so slowly that it
almost appear that I'm standing in one spot. It might
(13:52):
take me an hour to walk two hundred yards. It's
almost exhausting, honestly, just because you're moving so slow and
you're just standing one spot. You don't want any perceivable
movement from a deer. And if if you move that slowly,
a lot of times you can walk up. You'll as
you move through there, eventually a deer will appear and
you'll have the jump on them. They won't see you
(14:13):
before you see them. And a lot of times I
like to sit down when I get to the thickest
cover likes as the forest, as the big open timber
kind of starts closing in, and I start getting into
more fir trees and more brushy areas where deer tend
to bed. I like to sit down, and then I
like to use my grunt call or rattling horns, and
then I intend on on calling in a deer out
(14:35):
of that thick stuff, because a lot of times those
doughs will bet up in there, and if there's a
if there's a buck there that's not on a hot dough,
and sometimes a buck's you know, depending on the period
of the rep, there'll be a buck in there too bedded.
He may not be on a dough, but if you
can call into there, I've had it happen several times
where a buck will just come either come boiling out
(14:56):
of there running or they'll just they'll they'll come so
quick and silently. You'll look up and you'll just see
their feet standing there, and then you see a piece
and a part of a deer and you're like, oh, yeah,
there he is. And then you have just enough deer
to raise your rifle and put a bullet in them.
Now for archery hunting that would be that would be tough,
(15:19):
so that that's still hunting for with an archery with
a bow. I feel like it'd be really tough because
just central Idaho and north central Idaho it's pretty pretty
thick cover. A third way I like to hunt deer
is to hunt them kind of like you would elk.
I like to get on an old road or a trail,
a travels shoe kind of some semi open timber or
(15:40):
grown up clear cut that has lots of nooks and crannies.
More of a flat, more flatter kind of country. I'm
not talking about steep canyon lands because if you're if
you're into that stuff where it's more like canyon brakes
or or big deep draws and ridges. As you come
around the corner on an old road, you around the corner,
you can see that hole here hillside, which is pretty effective.
(16:02):
You can see and you can glass it up and
look and see if you can see a deer. But
now you're walking. You got to walk another quarter mile
half mile sometimes before you get to ever see another
good site picture. But I'm talking about kind of more
flatter ground, where as though ground unfolds as you walk
maybe every two hundred yards, maybe one every hundred yards
(16:23):
or so, you'll see new nooks and crannies. Maybe it's
a place they did a select cut of some logging,
or they did some maybe a clear cut, you know,
twenty years ago, fifteen, twenty years ago, and there's still
some old old skid trails and logging roads that are exposed.
And as you kind of walk your way around a
main road or a main trail, you'll see you'll peer
down into these other skid roads or old skid trails,
(16:49):
and it's a great way to just walk right up
on deer and a lot of times you'll find a
dough there that's eating or moving. And if it's November twentieth,
I'm gonna bet there's gonna be a buck with her.
More times than not there'll be a buck. If not,
you'll know it because she won't be watching her back trail.
But if she has a buck with her, she'll be
(17:10):
looking behind her nervously, because not all doughs like a
buck following them. And if you see a dough acting
like that, if she's looking behind her and then she
kind of moves off, have your gun up, have your
gun ready, and in that opening, because that buck's gonna
follow that same line and you possibly could have could
get a shot at a really nice deer. Now another way,
(17:34):
just like the folks back east in the Midwest, like
the hunt, I'm looking for deer in the fringe, fringe
areas and the tree you know, where the trees and
thick cover, the thin trees and the thick cover kind
of kind of meat. It seems like the deer love
traveling that stuff. So I like to set up to
where I can sit and watch a place like that.
(17:55):
And if I was to put a tree stand, I
might put it up in one of those fringe areas,
especially if it was a really good, really good trail
going through there with a lot of a lot of tracks,
especially this time of year that's a little bit muddy.
You can find big buck tracks, you can find their rubs,
you can find their scrapes where they've been traveling. It's
a great way to set up. But as far as
tree stands go, honestly, by default, I'm just not really
(18:16):
a tree stand guy. There's nothing wrong with him, and
I'd probably do a lot better if i'd start using one,
But it's just a different style of hunting. But I
will say if you want to hear about how to
hunt mountain white tails from a tree stand, you got
to go back and listen to episode one oh five
where Jason picks Troy Pottinger's brain on hunting mountain white tails.
Troy is the real deal and literally has shot He
(18:39):
just literally shot a giant another giant white tail last week.
Get on Facebook, look up Troy Pottinger. It's a it's
a it's an impressive giant buck and he's got several
of those under his belt. So that's a that's a
great deep dive to go into. If you want to
listen to more about hunting white tails as far as
(19:01):
a tree stand and maybe even with a bow. Well,
that's a wrap for this week's episode. I figured I'd
share my thoughts on a subject that I hold near
and dear to my heart and that sideahole white tails.
And if you guys have any other questions you'd like
to answer, just shoot us an email at CTD at
phelpsgame Calls dot com or call our super secret number
two zero eight two one seven seven zero one. Just
(19:25):
leave a voicemail and we'll play it on the air
and answer it the best. We can. Try to keep
that question about three minutes or less because it will
cut you off if it's if you go too long.
But anyway, good luck out there and we will catch
you on the next one. St
Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance podcast.
I'm Dirk Durham and at this recording date it's November twentieth,
arguably my favorite time to hunt mountain white tails. With
snowflakes dropping in the higher of elevations, I'm packing my
bags to head up and try a little luck at
tagging a big buck. After Jason Phelps talked about Kansas
(00:32):
hunting on last week's episode, I wanted to compare and
contrast my experienced rival hunting those same type of deer
in Idaho. Now, as all you know, I love archery,
elk hunting, and to be honest, all elk cunning. But
what you probably don't know is whitetail hunting was my
very first love, hunting white tails from twelve years old
with my dad. Looked a lot different at age thirteen,
(00:54):
and then a lot different today. Back then, it was
all big timber deer hunting, much zero clear cuts. At
least where I began hunting. This was state land, private timberland,
and sometimes private property. Sometimes I'd get permission from these
local farmers who I worked for in the summertime putting
(01:16):
up hay and come fall, you know, I'd ask him
if I could hunt, and they would say, oh, absolutely,
because farmers, most farmers, they want to trim down the
deer herd and the elk hurd as much as they can. Well,
twelve year old me hunting, was riding around in the
truck with my dad all day looking for deer, hoping
one wouldn't magically appear. But man, did they ever appear.
(01:40):
There were deer everywhere back then. It was crazy. You
didn't have to drive very long and you would see
a deer run across the road or be standing next
to the road. But the funny part was they were
almost impossible to get right, you know, by the time
you'd get out, run off the side of the road
and run out in the brush, you'd try to get one,
and they were always gone. And so I kind of
(02:03):
made a decision. Thirteen year old me had had enough
road hunting that very first year. Every deer we saw
it was on high alert and running. So I wanted
to shoot a deer more than anything in the world,
and I knew doing it from a truck was definitely
not the way I was going to get it done.
So honestly, I think I think my dad he hoped
(02:25):
we didn't get a deer. I think he was just
just out enjoying the fallwoods, you know, taking in all
the sites, all the pretty all the pretty fall colors,
and driving around, sipping on coffee, having a candy bar.
You know. It was that kind of a kind of
a vibe, and I think he was just out there
enjoying it. I feel like he had zero intention of
actually getting a deer back then. So at thirteen, I
(02:49):
made the decision that I wanted to get out of
the truck and I wanted to hunt hunt deer. I
wanted to get in the woods on foot and find
find a big buck. So I'd have my mom or
my dad dropped me off in the woods for a
morning hunt or an evening hunt, and then meet back
where they dropped me. And this may be, you know,
(03:12):
they may drop me thirty minutes before first light and
pick me up later on that morning. They may drop
me off right after school, and I'd hunt till dark,
a little after dark. In fact, most most of the time,
I would hunt every single day before school until I
got my deer. I'd go out for an hour or two,
(03:32):
just get out there my mom. Sometimes my mom would
go with me my dad. He was just like, yeah,
it's cold out, I'm not into it. I think he
was pretty much over it by that time. I think
he'd go, if we want to drive around, but he
didn't want to. He called it beating the brush. He's like,
I'm not gonna get out there and beat the brush.
He's he always he always thought if you beat the brush,
(03:53):
you're gonna just spook the hero over to someone else.
So he didn't want to do that. So today hunting
looks completely different. There's virtually no big timber. There's clear
cuts everywhere on state and timberland. There's a little and
some of the private stuff is not cut up so bad.
But a lot of those farmers, you know, they that
(04:15):
I used to go hunt on their place, then they've
long since retired or passed on. So it's definitely a
different game these days. And i'd say there's there's less
deer today too, And I attribute to a couple things
that dominate those things. But some of the things I'll
talk about before I tell you what I think the
key key things are is predators. Predators are taking their
(04:37):
fair shared deer, that's for sure. You know, back in
the early or in the eighties and nineties, you know,
mountain lions and coyotes were thick in Idaho and they
I think they took their fair shared deer, but I
don't think coyotes had the population like they do today
in my opinion. Today today, wolves and coyotes probably doing
(04:57):
most of damage. There's still some lions out there, but
I think the wolves and the coyotes are taking down
the larger numbers. For one, coyotes, there's just no market
on their fur these days, and nobody's really trapping coyotes
in a large scale like they used to do. There
was a lot of guys just out trapping a lot
(05:18):
of coyotes back in the day, putting a pretty good
dent in their population, but we just don't see that
as much today. The hides are hardly worth a thing,
which is unfortunate because it really helps with, you know,
creating some balance out there. Another thing to think about
is disease. You know, when as a kid, we'd never
had any disease to speak of. They we'd never had
(05:40):
any blue tongue, we never had any EHD come through,
and then in the nineties we saw our first first
cases of that. It seemed like we had more droughts
during the mid to late nineties and we had some
pretty substantial die offs where you know, we lost like
eighty to ninety percent of the deer in some spots.
And today, you know, continue through the last you know,
(06:02):
if you look at the last decade, the last two decades,
you know we've had I have had quite a bit
of drought and we've had a few more HD and
blue tongue die offs. So that definitely does put a
put a nail in the coffin on some of these
deer herds. But they seem to bounce back after a
few years and you start getting your deer herd built
(06:22):
up again after a few years. But my personal opinion
on one of the main the main culprits is too
many tags and habitat loss. I'd like to say, first
one hundred percent, I support logging in the timber industry,
but with the massive clear cuts that have removed security
cover for the deer and also an abundance of deer
(06:43):
tags for residents and non residents alike, it's really taking
its toll. I'll say the herds are starting to slowly
look better as the clear cuts are starting to grow
up a little bit and offer more security, but we're
just not there where we were at back in the
eighties and nineties. I think without you know, reaction from
the fishing game. I don't want to pick on them
(07:04):
too much, but there's a lot of nuance I feel
like in big game management, and one of them is
loss of habitat and security cover. And when when they
started making those clearcuts, you know, they were really great
because you'd have big blocks of timber and then you'd
have a clearcut and that would give the deer a
ton of food and they still had somewhere to hide.
But man, over the last five six years, all these
(07:26):
big clearcuts they'd put out there previously, they've all started
connecting them. Now they've they've wiped out a lot of
the big blocks of standing timber, and the deer run
kind of running out of places to hide. But I
will say in the last three or four years as well,
some of those earlier clearcuts are starting to grow up,
and we're starting to get little fir trees and brush
(07:47):
and deer starting to find some new places to hide.
So so I feel like in the next five ten
years there should be a pretty good heyday of deer.
For deer, I feel like, you know, they're going to
be a lot less vulnerable and a lot harder to
see no matter how many tags are going to be
out there. But one bad thing about having too many
tags is you know, and I'm I'm all for everybody
(08:08):
getting the hunt every year. I love to hunt every year,
but man, at some point it gets tough because it
gets overcrowded. And you have to look at Idaho's population,
the resonant population. In the last three or four years,
it's exploded from a lot of folks moving to Idaho
because they love our resources, they love the outdoors, they
love to hunt. They they're looking for a different life
(08:29):
or a different way of life. So I feel like
there'll probably be some corrections or changes in tag availability
in the next few years, you know, which I don't
look forward to. But I feel like for the greater good.
Sometimes you know, it's painful, but man, we we have
to have have something done, so you know, it's still
a pleasure of pleasurable experience. Again for those kids, Like
(08:52):
if you take kids out, you know, you want them
to have a good time and have fun hunting, you know,
what makes what makes a good deer hunt for me? Well,
I personally, I just want to see a lot of deer.
I just want to see does and fawns. I want
to see young bucks. I want to see middle aged bucks,
and I want to see mature bucks. Basically, I want
to a well balanced herd with the possibility of taking
(09:13):
home a mature buck from time to time. I want
to be able to take a kid hunting and keep
him or her engaged by showing them a bunch of deer.
I want it to be fun. We're competing with all
this instant gratification of electronics and all this other stuff,
and it's it's really tough to get kids out there
and show them a good time if they're not seeing
a lot of deer. So that's for me, that's really
(09:35):
what it's about. You know, I don't need to try
to shoot one hundred and seventy inch deer every fall.
Some people might say, oh, you're just a trophy hunter,
but honestly, I just want to see a well balanced herd.
I want to see just a lot of deer. I
want to see does and fawns and little bucks and
middle aged bucks and old bucks. I just want to
see I'd like to see this kind of same kind
(09:55):
of deer hunting we had when I was a kid.
That way this generation can can enjoy that same thing
I did. Now I want to switch gears a little bit.
And this week's Pendleton Whiskey Question and answer A question
(10:16):
is from that was kind of funny. Question and answer.
Question is from an Instagram direct message. Now I didn't
get the guy's name, but I'll read you the question
he said. I'm taking my kid on an Idaho whitetail
hunt in a month and have been crushing maps as
its new hunting unit for me. Some of the areas
I've been eyeballing or clearcuts at timber edges and on
(10:39):
state in private timberland. I've not done a mountain whitetail
hunt in Idaho before, so I'm assuming they act similar
to our Willamette Valley whitetail in Oregon. But if you
have any thoughts aside from that, I'm all ears. Current
plan is to archery spot in stock I'll bring provisions
to get in a tree if need be. This tag
being new to me, I'm curious to see what kind
(11:01):
of hunter numbers I run into. That's a great question.
I've actually been getting similar questions a lot because on Instagram, Facebook,
because folks know I've you know, grew up in north
central Idaho and have you know a little bit of
insight on on the hunting up there. But first off,
I'd like to say, you know, archery spot and stock
(11:23):
will be kind of like taking a knife to a gunfight.
The area, it's it's rifle season, right Everybody's gonna be
running in with a rifle. The area has a large
number of other hunters using rifles and they're gonna be
using ATVs extensively. The area is very roaded. There's a
lot of roads that are open to ATVs. Recently there's
(11:44):
been some some closures to some of the roads, but
I still feel like you're going to run into a
lot of people run their side by sides and four
wheelers around, whether that's whether they're supposed to or not.
It seems like there's always a bad apple out there
abusing abusing the the laws. But I'd say, if you're
committed to bow hunting, I would a one hundred percent
(12:06):
suggest setting up a tree stand or ground blind. Personally,
my style of hunting Mountain white tails is a lot
more mobile than folks who hunt in Eastern States. I'm
more of a I'm more of a get on the
ground and hunt the guy than a tree standing guy.
I like to cover a lot of country, whether I'm
on foot or on four wheels. Either I'm a pickup
or I'm in an ATV, you know, on roads that
(12:28):
are open. I really hate running an ATV at that time.
It's cold, and I'm just not into hunting from the
truck or the four wheeler. I really want to get
out there and just enjoy, you know, the quiet once
once it starts snowing. Man in the deer woods, it
can be so quiet. There's no birds chooping, there's no bugs,
(12:49):
there's no bees buzzing. It's just very quiet, just you
and the sounds are like maybe some squirrels or the deer,
and I just really love that. So I would just
like to cover for a lot of country to begin with.
I like to look specifically for tracks. I want to
look for deer trails. I want to look for rubs
and scrapes. Then I dial it in from there. Ideally,
(13:10):
I like to watch an area. I like to watch
a place where deer cross crossing from fetting feeding or
from feeding to security cover. You know, this may give
me a fifty yard shot or even a three hundred
or four hundred five hundred yard shot, depending on the area.
But I like to kind of sit and wait in
those kind of places just because deer they've got a
(13:32):
pretty good eye for people walking around. But I will
say I do also love hunting big timber. I like
to still hunt big timber, and that's kind of how
I cut my teeth as a kid. And what I
do is I interesstand a big timber on a game trail,
and then I move really slowly, so slowly that it
almost appear that I'm standing in one spot. It might
(13:52):
take me an hour to walk two hundred yards. It's
almost exhausting, honestly, just because you're moving so slow and
you're just standing one spot. You don't want any perceivable
movement from a deer. And if if you move that slowly,
a lot of times you can walk up. You'll as
you move through there, eventually a deer will appear and
you'll have the jump on them. They won't see you
(14:13):
before you see them. And a lot of times I
like to sit down when I get to the thickest
cover likes as the forest, as the big open timber
kind of starts closing in, and I start getting into
more fir trees and more brushy areas where deer tend
to bed. I like to sit down, and then I
like to use my grunt call or rattling horns, and
then I intend on on calling in a deer out
(14:35):
of that thick stuff, because a lot of times those
doughs will bet up in there, and if there's a
if there's a buck there that's not on a hot dough,
and sometimes a buck's you know, depending on the period
of the rep, there'll be a buck in there too bedded.
He may not be on a dough, but if you
can call into there, I've had it happen several times
where a buck will just come either come boiling out
(14:56):
of there running or they'll just they'll they'll come so
quick and silently. You'll look up and you'll just see
their feet standing there, and then you see a piece
and a part of a deer and you're like, oh, yeah,
there he is. And then you have just enough deer
to raise your rifle and put a bullet in them.
Now for archery hunting that would be that would be tough,
(15:19):
so that that's still hunting for with an archery with
a bow. I feel like it'd be really tough because
just central Idaho and north central Idaho it's pretty pretty
thick cover. A third way I like to hunt deer
is to hunt them kind of like you would elk.
I like to get on an old road or a trail,
a travels shoe kind of some semi open timber or
(15:40):
grown up clear cut that has lots of nooks and crannies.
More of a flat, more flatter kind of country. I'm
not talking about steep canyon lands because if you're if
you're into that stuff where it's more like canyon brakes
or or big deep draws and ridges. As you come
around the corner on an old road, you around the corner,
you can see that hole here hillside, which is pretty effective.
(16:02):
You can see and you can glass it up and
look and see if you can see a deer. But
now you're walking. You got to walk another quarter mile
half mile sometimes before you get to ever see another
good site picture. But I'm talking about kind of more
flatter ground, where as though ground unfolds as you walk
maybe every two hundred yards, maybe one every hundred yards
(16:23):
or so, you'll see new nooks and crannies. Maybe it's
a place they did a select cut of some logging,
or they did some maybe a clear cut, you know,
twenty years ago, fifteen, twenty years ago, and there's still
some old old skid trails and logging roads that are exposed.
And as you kind of walk your way around a
main road or a main trail, you'll see you'll peer
down into these other skid roads or old skid trails,
(16:49):
and it's a great way to just walk right up
on deer and a lot of times you'll find a
dough there that's eating or moving. And if it's November twentieth,
I'm gonna bet there's gonna be a buck with her.
More times than not there'll be a buck. If not,
you'll know it because she won't be watching her back trail.
But if she has a buck with her, she'll be
(17:10):
looking behind her nervously, because not all doughs like a
buck following them. And if you see a dough acting
like that, if she's looking behind her and then she
kind of moves off, have your gun up, have your
gun ready, and in that opening, because that buck's gonna
follow that same line and you possibly could have could
get a shot at a really nice deer. Now another way,
(17:34):
just like the folks back east in the Midwest, like
the hunt, I'm looking for deer in the fringe, fringe
areas and the tree you know, where the trees and
thick cover, the thin trees and the thick cover kind
of kind of meat. It seems like the deer love
traveling that stuff. So I like to set up to
where I can sit and watch a place like that.
(17:55):
And if I was to put a tree stand, I
might put it up in one of those fringe areas,
especially if it was a really good, really good trail
going through there with a lot of a lot of tracks,
especially this time of year that's a little bit muddy.
You can find big buck tracks, you can find their rubs,
you can find their scrapes where they've been traveling. It's
a great way to set up. But as far as
tree stands go, honestly, by default, I'm just not really
(18:16):
a tree stand guy. There's nothing wrong with him, and
I'd probably do a lot better if i'd start using one,
But it's just a different style of hunting. But I
will say if you want to hear about how to
hunt mountain white tails from a tree stand, you got
to go back and listen to episode one oh five
where Jason picks Troy Pottinger's brain on hunting mountain white tails.
Troy is the real deal and literally has shot He
(18:39):
just literally shot a giant another giant white tail last week.
Get on Facebook, look up Troy Pottinger. It's a it's
a it's an impressive giant buck and he's got several
of those under his belt. So that's a that's a
great deep dive to go into. If you want to
listen to more about hunting white tails as far as
(19:01):
a tree stand and maybe even with a bow. Well,
that's a wrap for this week's episode. I figured I'd
share my thoughts on a subject that I hold near
and dear to my heart and that sideahole white tails.
And if you guys have any other questions you'd like
to answer, just shoot us an email at CTD at
phelpsgame Calls dot com or call our super secret number
two zero eight two one seven seven zero one. Just
(19:25):
leave a voicemail and we'll play it on the air
and answer it the best. We can. Try to keep
that question about three minutes or less because it will
cut you off if it's if you go too long.
But anyway, good luck out there and we will catch
you on the next one. St
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