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.

Hey everybody, welcome to the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which is brought to you by First Light.

I'm your host Tony Peterson.

And today's episode is all about water access and why it can be a White Tail hunter's best friend. One of the main themes of deer hunting content.

One of the main themes of deer hunting content, you know, at least content that is supposed to teach you something, is centered on finding the best spots out there wherever you hunt.

If you can't find the ridges, benches, swamps, crossings, or whatever

that bucks are most likely to use, you're in trouble. Truth is, finding good spots,

kinda isn't that hard sometimes. Whitetails don't leave as much sign as a herd of elk, but deer do leave plenty of breadcrumbs out there for us to follow.

Where those clues lead are the good spots. But a spot is really only good if you can get there

relatively undetected and get out without making too big of an impression on a

local deer. That's what this episode is all about because it's something you can figure out right now

Way way back in 2004 I finished a shift at a restaurant I worked at and drove to pick up my dad.

We pointed my truck west at midnight, and by mid-morning we started seeing Antelope out in the wide expanses of South Dakota and then Wyoming,

which was our final destination.

We'd never traveled out of state to hunt anything other than turkeys or pheasants. But a good buddy of mine was

obsessed with rifle hunting Western big game. He'd given us some units to look

into with you know quite a bit of public land and he helped us figure out how to navigate the application process.

So we ended up drawing our tags and I went to Cabellas to buy a rifle since I'd only

ever bow hunted at that point in my life.

I picked up a used 243 for like 400 bucks,

...