When you think about what it takes to be a successful whitetail guide, it’s a wonder they even exist. It’s their job to make the big-buck dreams of perfect strangers come true over and over again, all season long, every season. It’s such a tall order that you can’t help wonder: How do they do it? What do they know that the rest of us don’t. What are their secrets?
Well, we wonder too. So, we’re asking them. In a new series called Secrets of the Deer Guides, we are reaching out to the country’s top deer outfitters and guides to get their top tactics, secrets tips, favorite gear, best stories, pet peeves, and more. And to kick things off, we spoke to Matt Peterson, owner of MDL Outfitters (@MDLOutfitters on Facebook and Instagram), who runs semi- and fully guided hunts for giant whitetails in the heart of southern Iowa. Below, Peterson dishes on everything from the most important summer tasks to the average hunter’s biggest mistakes and from the best deer hunting advice to the exact—and I mean exact—conditions when you’ve got to be in a deer stand.