Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
Speaker 1: the White Tail Woods presented by first Light, creating proven
Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First
Speaker 1: Light Go farther, stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon, Welcome.
Speaker 2: To the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on the show,
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson and I are reviewing our twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: year in the outdoors to look for trends and patterns
Speaker 2: that can lead us to planning a better twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: All right, welcome back to the Wired to Hunt podcast,
Speaker 2: brought to you by First Light and their Camel for
Speaker 2: Conservation initiative. If you're not familiar, a portion of every
Speaker 2: sale of first Light spector Camel pattern goes to the
Speaker 2: National Deer Association to help them with their mission to
Speaker 2: improve the future for deer and deer hunters. Stuff there
Speaker 2: and the future is what we're talking about here today
Speaker 2: in the podcast. But we're doing that by looking to
Speaker 2: the past. Today me and TONI are going to be
Speaker 2: talking through our twenty twenty four mostly focusing on our
Speaker 2: hunting seasons, but also extending back past that to other
Speaker 2: outdoor activities and adventures. The prep for our hunting seasons,
Speaker 2: all sorts of stuff like that, and we're talking through
Speaker 2: the highs and the lows, and then what takeaways we
Speaker 2: can get from that, Because by looking at the best
Speaker 2: moments of our year and the worst moments of our year,
Speaker 2: the hope is that we can identify, you know, if
Speaker 2: there's any consistencies there, are there any particular things that
Speaker 2: keep on showing up in the good parts or keep
Speaker 2: showing up in the bad parts, And can that help us,
Speaker 2: you know, better plan our next year, make sure we're
Speaker 2: leaning into the good stuff, make sure we're learning from
Speaker 2: the less good stuff. That's the hope today, And the
Speaker 2: hope is that by us kind of working through this ourselves,
Speaker 2: you guys can learn some stuff too. Maybe you're gonna
Speaker 2: hear things that you can relate to. Maybe you're gonna
Speaker 2: hear some thoughts that maybe would be worth you kind
Speaker 2: of chewing on a little bit. Maybe there'll be some
Speaker 2: ideas that we have for changes we want to make
Speaker 2: next year, or things we've struggled with this past year
Speaker 2: that we're going to continue working on in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: five that might be relatable, useful, or eye opening for you.
Speaker 2: That's the hope as we kick off this new year,
Speaker 2: as we look forward to what should be a terrific
Speaker 2: twelve more months around the sun. So I am wishing
Speaker 2: you all a very happy new year and a great
Speaker 2: start to this one, and I hope this podcast is
Speaker 2: a useful way to do that. So, without any further ado,
Speaker 2: let's get to my chat with Tony as we review
Speaker 2: our twenty twenty four and look forward to the next year.
Speaker 2: All right, Joining me on the line now is mister
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson Today. When this episode is dropping, Tony, we'll
Speaker 2: be January second, so it will be a new year.
Speaker 2: It is twenty twenty five, if you can imagine we're
Speaker 2: recording this a little bit before that, but in present
Speaker 2: time when folks hear and see this as twenty twenty five,
Speaker 2: how do you feel about the new year?
Speaker 3: Tony?
Speaker 2: Is it gonna be a good one?
Speaker 3: Boy? I hope, so, buddy, I hope. So sure, I hope.
Speaker 2: So all right, that's what I want to hear. I
Speaker 2: want to hear optimism because that's kind of what I
Speaker 2: want to do today, is think about this upcoming year
Speaker 2: by way of reflecting on last year. So I think
Speaker 2: we've done something kind of like this in the past
Speaker 2: where you've done kind of a season in review, and
Speaker 2: I think I've talked on an episode I can't remember
Speaker 2: if it was with both of us. It was just
Speaker 2: one of the ones where it's just me ranting to
Speaker 2: the audience, But I think I've talked about how I
Speaker 2: do a little bit of a year in review process
Speaker 2: and try to plan out the year. So I thought
Speaker 2: maybe we'd do that together and look back on twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four, not just the deer hunting season, but maybe
Speaker 2: the larger year in our outdoor experiences, and look at
Speaker 2: three things. Look at the best moments of our last
Speaker 2: year in the outdoors, the worst moments of our year
Speaker 2: in the outdoors, and then finally, what patterns or trends
Speaker 2: or takeaways there might be when we look at those
Speaker 2: things together. Because as I've started to do this, I've
Speaker 2: started to see, like, oh, interesting, when I look at
Speaker 2: all the best moments in my year, they all have
Speaker 2: this thing or that thing. Or when I look at
Speaker 2: all my worst moments, they all kind of have to
Speaker 2: do with this thing or that thing, and that might
Speaker 2: help inform me making my plans for the next year.
Speaker 2: When I think about what I want to do in
Speaker 2: twenty five or how I want to approach things in
Speaker 2: twenty five. Maybe I can learn some shit from what
Speaker 2: went well or what went wrong last time around. So
Speaker 2: that's the plan for this quick beginning of the new year,
Speaker 2: looking forward by looking backward episode sound good, absolutely buddy cool.
Speaker 2: So twenty twenty four looking back. If you were going
Speaker 2: to put like a a grade, like a school grade
Speaker 2: on your twenty twenty four in the outdoors, so not
Speaker 2: just deer, not just this fall, but across the board,
Speaker 2: your outdoor year, how would you grade it? If you
Speaker 2: had to real quick like gut check, what your thought
Speaker 2: would be. What do you think?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 4: If I'm not teasing out the white tail hunting, I
Speaker 4: would say probably like a solid B.
Speaker 2: And uh, okay, that's pretty good. That's a pretty good year.
Speaker 2: Is that? How would you say that relates? Or how
Speaker 2: how does that stack up as far as maybe the
Speaker 2: last ten years? Does this is that kind of an
Speaker 2: average or is this a below average above average?
Speaker 3: Do you know? It's hard for me.
Speaker 4: It's hard for me to do this and not focus
Speaker 4: on the white tail side of things, which was just
Speaker 4: not I would give that not a bee, But man,
Speaker 4: I had a lot of really good fishing with my daughters.
Speaker 4: I had a lot of uh, we had a good
Speaker 4: Turkey season. We did a lot of stuff. Just my
Speaker 4: personal deer hunting kind of sucks. So it drug my
Speaker 4: grade down. So I would say, like, pretty it's pretty consistent,
Speaker 4: you know, like we have a lot of fun in
Speaker 4: the outdoors.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, what if what if I made you grade
Speaker 2: just your deer season.
Speaker 4: I would say in the first semester B plus the
Speaker 4: second semester maybe like a D minus if I was.
Speaker 3: Gonna break it out. No, I mean, it was a
Speaker 3: tough year.
Speaker 4: It was a it was a weird year deer hunting. Uh,
Speaker 4: you know, so, but those happen. You know, sometimes you
Speaker 4: have years where it's like you can almost do no wrong,
Speaker 4: and then sometimes you have years where you're like it
Speaker 4: just will not break my way.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, man, you're you're singing a tune. I can
Speaker 2: relate to this year because if I were to do
Speaker 2: this exercise myself, I would give my broader year, you know,
Speaker 2: pretty close to an A. It was an A except
Speaker 2: for deer season, and deer season was like a C
Speaker 2: minus or a D. I don't know. It felt rough.
Speaker 2: So so yeah, both of us had a weird fall
Speaker 2: that brought down the rest of our year. I don't
Speaker 2: know what we take away from that. Maybe we shouldn't
Speaker 2: be maybe we shouldn't be hosting the White Tail podcast. Well, well,
Speaker 2: like you said, you know, you're gonna have years like that.
Speaker 2: And I've tried to remember in the years that, like
Speaker 2: you said, things are going really well, you have to
Speaker 2: appreciate those moments because they're not guaranteed every year, and
Speaker 2: you have to remember in the years where it's just
Speaker 2: not happening like this two shell pass. Sometimes you can
Speaker 2: do everything right and still it doesn't fall your way.
Speaker 2: And that's an important thing to remember.
Speaker 4: Out there, well right, And you can also just have
Speaker 4: I mean, I stacked up three bad shots in a
Speaker 4: row that really just changed the arc of my season.
Speaker 4: You know, I bookended them with good shots, but in
Speaker 4: the middle of that and that that's too many, you know,
Speaker 4: like that's that changes your whole season. In addition to
Speaker 4: just the randomness of the rut this year in the
Speaker 4: southeast winds and the foggy weather and just the weird
Speaker 4: the weird fall of it all, you know, I mean,
Speaker 4: it just sometimes just sometimes goes weird.
Speaker 2: So many southeast winds. That was so many that was weird.
Speaker 3: We're still getting them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can actually use them right now now at
Speaker 2: this part of the year, I could use a southeast wind.
Speaker 2: But it didn't help me in November, that's for sure.
Speaker 2: Do you want to start then? Do you want to
Speaker 2: start with the good of the band? If we break
Speaker 2: down like our highs and lows or best and worst?
Speaker 2: Would you rather start on one of the other.
Speaker 4: Let's start with the lows so we can end with
Speaker 4: the highs, should we?
Speaker 2: Sure? I like that? Uh? You want to leave us off?
Speaker 2: What what stands out for you is a low or
Speaker 2: a worst moment or worst thing of the year.
Speaker 3: You know, or challenge.
Speaker 4: I talked about this a little bit already, probably on
Speaker 4: here too, But you know I missed a big one
Speaker 4: in North Dakota. Uh, just totally misjudge. The rain wasn't
Speaker 4: at range, I wasn't. I wasn't in the moment the
Speaker 4: way I needed to be. It was dumb, right, didn't
Speaker 4: bother me that much. But then I made a terrible
Speaker 4: shot on another deer That bothered me because I knew
Speaker 4: I knew what I had to do to make the
Speaker 4: shot in that moment because I thought about it ten
Speaker 4: million times before I took the shot, and I just
Speaker 4: reverted back to just get that arrow out the door,
Speaker 4: and I caught an artery and she died quick. But
Speaker 4: it was dumb like it. It was totally preventable. And
Speaker 4: then I did the same thing down in Iowa, where
Speaker 4: I knew, like the window that I had to shoot
Speaker 4: through was tight, but I didn't think it would matter.
Speaker 4: And then it got me. And you know, I got
Speaker 4: the deer, but it was an ugly shot and just
Speaker 4: three in a very short period of time on public
Speaker 4: land that could have been a I could have strung
Speaker 4: together a really nice, you know, couple deer and had
Speaker 4: good shots, and that just I just didn't do it,
Speaker 4: and it bothered me so much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hard to get that funk out of the
Speaker 2: system when it goes that way. Even though you got
Speaker 2: the deer, like you said, on two of them, it's
Speaker 2: still I know the same feeling. I felt the same
Speaker 2: way at times too, where it almost the how it
Speaker 2: went matters more than the end result.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think that's a I think that's something
Speaker 4: you get to when you do this stuff enough, right,
Speaker 4: is like you're kind of the end result is cool,
Speaker 4: but all of the other stuff's really what matters. And
Speaker 4: for me, I just making bad shots. You know, sometimes
Speaker 4: they just happen, right, Like sometimes there's just something where
Speaker 4: you're like, man, I just didn't see that little twig
Speaker 4: or something and it just didn't break my way. But
Speaker 4: when it's like preventable and you knew it and you
Speaker 4: still did it wrong, and then that stuff kind of feeds.
Speaker 4: You know, We've we've talked about this before, but like
Speaker 4: when you have those little nagging thoughts in your head
Speaker 4: at that moment of truth and your confidence has taken
Speaker 4: a hit, suddenly it becomes not very much fun until
Speaker 4: you start stringing together those double lungs again.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, like you said, we've talked about this a
Speaker 2: lot over the years, and you went through a thing,
Speaker 2: I don't know, a decade ago or fifteen years ago
Speaker 2: or whatever it was, where you had some serious target
Speaker 2: panic issues and you push through it and you've come
Speaker 2: out the other side. And I've publicly talked about my
Speaker 2: target panic issues and how I've had I've tried various
Speaker 2: ways to get better at that and get through it.
Speaker 2: And I'll tell you I've had a level of what's
Speaker 2: the right word. It's more than frustration, like a level
Speaker 2: of Oh, I was supposed to have this fixed, Like
Speaker 2: I said, I had this fixed, I had I had
Speaker 2: a solution, this was supposed to do it, and then
Speaker 2: I still make mistakes. And that's that, Like when you
Speaker 2: talk about like chipping away on the inside at yourself.
Speaker 2: That's hard to like keep on pushing there, like God,
Speaker 2: dang it, Like I thought I had this figured out.
Speaker 2: Now I'm dealing with it again two years later, and
Speaker 2: now here it is again. So you just had a
Speaker 2: situation where you kind of had a batter run here.
Speaker 2: How have you been processing that? How all of you
Speaker 2: been shaking yourself out of that?
Speaker 4: You know what's weird about is I started this year
Speaker 4: with a perfect shot, you know, on a doe in Minnesota,
Speaker 4: smoked her, made three bad shots in a row, and
Speaker 4: then I shot a buck in Minnesota.
Speaker 3: Perfect right through the heart.
Speaker 4: And so I don't feel there are times where I
Speaker 4: feel like I slipped back to major buck fever and
Speaker 4: kind of rush in the shot. I really feel that
Speaker 4: if I'm out west and an elk walks in or
Speaker 4: something like, I really have to try to not lose
Speaker 4: my shit then. But for me, the thing that like
Speaker 4: this year specifically was I know exactly what I did
Speaker 4: wrong on every shot. I just didn't do my job right.
Speaker 4: And so it's not like I feel like I have
Speaker 4: a bunch to work on there. It's just like I
Speaker 4: made dumb mistakes like I shouldn't do that, you know,
Speaker 4: So like the fix isn't I'm not searching for like
Speaker 4: a you know, Joel Turner type of fix here. I'm like,
Speaker 4: I know what, I know what was broken in my
Speaker 4: process there. Yeah, you know, and that's that sucks even
Speaker 4: well maybe not more, it's a different kind of suck.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah. So okay, so the shooting, the bad shots,
Speaker 2: that whole situation, that is a fair that's a fairly
Speaker 2: negative bummer right of a moment. Do you want to
Speaker 2: go back and forth or do you want to go
Speaker 2: through your whole list? Do you have a sense of
Speaker 2: what you would prefer? Do you want to get all
Speaker 2: off chest?
Speaker 4: You know, I don't care. I mean that to me,
Speaker 4: that's really for my personal hunting.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: That was that was it, Like that's what brought me down,
Speaker 4: the rest of it's pretty pretty good.
Speaker 3: I'm not not going to complain too much.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, then I'll lead with my big negative
Speaker 2: one this year, which was my head was not in
Speaker 2: the game right this year in the fall, and I
Speaker 2: wasn't sure if I want to talk about this or not,
Speaker 2: but Giannis convinced me that I should. So you know
Speaker 2: a little bit about this, Tony, but I'll kind of
Speaker 2: share that this fall, I had some weird stuff going
Speaker 2: on and it led to me just like not being
Speaker 2: in it. From mid October on, in the short version
Speaker 2: of the story, is started having chest pains, shortness of breath, radiating, burning,
Speaker 2: all this kind of stuff going around in the chest region,
Speaker 2: which that's all sorts of red flags flying. And this
Speaker 2: started happening right about when you and I got back
Speaker 2: from Louisiana, right after I shot my buck in Michigan,
Speaker 2: shot a buck in southern Michigan, like the I can't
Speaker 2: remember the fourteenth or thirteenth or fifteenth somewhere in that ballpark.
Speaker 2: Felt great, got this deer on the ground, and then
Speaker 2: like the next day or two, started having this stuff
Speaker 2: going on, and to really shrink down, which was like
Speaker 2: six weeks of stuff into as short of a story
Speaker 2: as I can tell here, had this stuff going on
Speaker 2: started like noticing it and kind of worrying about it.
Speaker 2: And then as soon as you like google anything about
Speaker 2: like what is this, what is this? Why am I
Speaker 2: feeling this way? Then it makes you more worried about
Speaker 2: what it is, and you're focusing on it more, and
Speaker 2: then you start noticing it more. And so had like
Speaker 2: a regular physical and they, you know, gave me some
Speaker 2: stuff to think about, but they didn't really think there
Speaker 2: was anything that you could do right away rather than
Speaker 2: going on like having like more extensive tests and stuff.
Speaker 2: So they said, well, if if this thing happens or
Speaker 2: that thing happens, then we need to go and get
Speaker 2: it checked out further at the hospital or something. So
Speaker 2: as soon as she tells me about these things I
Speaker 2: need to pay attention to, like all of a sudden
Speaker 2: that I start noticing them. Every time I'm in the
Speaker 2: tree stand, You're sitting there with nothing to do but
Speaker 2: watch for deer and sitting there quietly, and when you're
Speaker 2: when I'm not doing something else, and then all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, you're noticing this stuff even more. So, especially
Speaker 2: when I hunted, I noticed this stuff. And so for
Speaker 2: day after day, night after night, I'm feeling this stuff
Speaker 2: and worrying about it, and it seems to be getting worse,
Speaker 2: and you know, it just very very uncomfortable, very disconcerting,
Speaker 2: and very stressful. And I'd be out there hunting and
Speaker 2: not really able to enjoy what I'm doing because the
Speaker 2: whole time out there are big parts of it. I'm
Speaker 2: thinking about it or worried about it or trying to
Speaker 2: like is this is this real? Is this in my head?
Speaker 2: What's going on? That the physical? She was like, well,
Speaker 2: you know, it could just be this or that. Uh So,
Speaker 2: end of October, ended up going to the er in
Speaker 2: the middle of the night because I had like really serious,
Speaker 2: what seemed really serious to me stuff going on. Can't
Speaker 2: sleep all night, it's middle of the night, and so
Speaker 2: go to the er and I'm like, this stuff's not
Speaker 2: going away. I don't know what it is. But when
Speaker 2: you read about some of these things, like, hey, you
Speaker 2: got to take this stuff serious. So I do. They
Speaker 2: do all sorts of tests they hooked me up to
Speaker 2: you know, I got IVS and I got X rays
Speaker 2: and I've got this test and that test and all
Speaker 2: this other stuff and kind of freaking out like holy shit,
Speaker 2: what is going on with me? I'm in the hospital,
Speaker 2: and you know, after being there all night. It's like
Speaker 2: October thirty first or October thirtieth or something like that's
Speaker 2: right there, like the when it should be like the
Speaker 2: sweet about the hunting season. And I'd gone to Illinois
Speaker 2: a couple of days before that, and it got like
Speaker 2: really bad down there, and that's why that trip flopped.
Speaker 2: I went down. I was like, I feel like, shit,
Speaker 2: I'm not enjoying this at all. You know, this like
Speaker 2: long drives, it would happen too more often too, So
Speaker 2: like taking long drives, I'd be like focusing on this,
Speaker 2: and the hospital visit comes out the end of it.
Speaker 2: And there was nothing that they could find wrong with
Speaker 2: the heart or the lungs, which are like the big worries,
Speaker 2: but they couldn't really figure it out. So they said,
Speaker 2: you know, here's here's here's a possible thing. Here's a
Speaker 2: possible thing. Keep monitoring it. We can't find anything like
Speaker 2: super like the horrible, horribly scary stuff isn't showing up
Speaker 2: for us right now. But we still don't know, so
Speaker 2: maybe check go to your primary care physician or whatever.
Speaker 2: But otherwise, here's some heartburn meds. Maybe that'll take care
Speaker 2: of it, good luck. And so then the rut starts,
Speaker 2: and now you know, not sleeping very much because of
Speaker 2: the rut, traveling all around, go to Kentucky, do this
Speaker 2: public land hunt. The stuff still continues, but now I'm
Speaker 2: not sleeping, I'm stressed about general life stuff, work stuff,
Speaker 2: hunting stuff. And then this stuff kind of keeps building
Speaker 2: and simmering underneath the underneath the surface of it all,
Speaker 2: and I'm trying to like battle it out and say
Speaker 2: I can tough it through, like this is it's nothing,
Speaker 2: I'm fine? Or what is it? Hopefully the doctors said
Speaker 2: it wasn't something, you know, bad, super serious bad in
Speaker 2: the moment, so it's probably nothing. Keep doing your stuff,
Speaker 2: but again, wouldn't go way. Kept lingering was exactly like
Speaker 2: a mental toll on me. And this seemed like the
Speaker 2: more I was, the more you think about, of course,
Speaker 2: the worst it would get.
Speaker 4: And you're not a guy who's prone to overthinking, are you, Mark?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Exactly. So fast forward through the first two weeks
Speaker 2: of the rut. I'm doing my best, hunting hard, doing
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff, but again, just like not
Speaker 2: not enjoying myself, not feeling right. I remember like coming
Speaker 2: home one night and my wife was just like, why
Speaker 2: are you sell eared of them? Like, I just want
Speaker 2: to feel like a normal person again. I just don't
Speaker 2: feel normal. I feel like, you know, I don't know,
Speaker 2: just was not great. Then we get to, you know,
Speaker 2: a shitty rut, as I've talked about on the podcast,
Speaker 2: kind of like you like, really weird hunting situations. Nothing
Speaker 2: going my way, no deer to hunt in all the
Speaker 2: places I typically hunt and have permission, like all the
Speaker 2: mature bucks have disappeared. Get to gun season northern Michigan.
Speaker 2: Go up there with my kids. Should be a great weekend,
Speaker 2: very exciting to be up at the family deer camp.
Speaker 2: Should be a peak moment of the year. And for
Speaker 2: all sorts of reasons, like just was like kind of
Speaker 2: stressed out about stuff and kids and everything, and also
Speaker 2: this thing is like popping up, and it's getting worse
Speaker 2: and worse throughout the day first day there, over the
Speaker 2: night the next day, and like like I thought, like
Speaker 2: I thought, maybe we had been trending down. Why is
Speaker 2: this shit happening again? Why what is this feeling? Why
Speaker 2: isn't this going away? And so the midday on the
Speaker 2: sixteenth of them I remember, I think it was it
Speaker 2: was getting like painful, and I remember stepping outside of
Speaker 2: the cabin and just like walking around trying to drink
Speaker 2: a bottle of water and like remember trying to do
Speaker 2: like some deep breath to like calm down, because I
Speaker 2: could tell I was like getting like kind of freaked
Speaker 2: out by why this was happening again and why I
Speaker 2: was getting worse and like what just again, Like this
Speaker 2: is like frustration, not understanding what this is, why I'm
Speaker 2: feeling this way, why I feel like shit? And then
Speaker 2: my fingers started getting numb, and then I started getting
Speaker 2: like dizzy and woozy, and then it went up my arms.
Speaker 2: And then Josh, my buddy, our mutual friend, Josh Hilliard,
Speaker 2: came out of the cabin just could see what I
Speaker 2: was doing, and I was like, it's like, dude, something's
Speaker 2: going on. Like I'm all of a sudden like couldn't
Speaker 2: stand up straight and told my like I'm going numb.
Speaker 2: Then it went like up my arms, my neck, my face,
Speaker 2: everything started going like as if you'd stuck nova cane
Speaker 2: in me. And I'm like, I think I need to
Speaker 2: go to the doctor. Something's going on. I don't know
Speaker 2: what's going on? Ah, So he like gets me in
Speaker 2: the seat of the car and then now in this moment,
Speaker 2: I'm like, holy shit, whatever this thing is that the
Speaker 2: doctor couldn't figure out, Like it's happening, Like there's something
Speaker 2: really insane going on right now. It felt like I'm
Speaker 2: having a heart attack or a stroke or whatever it is.
Speaker 2: Something really I've never experienced my entire life was happening.
Speaker 2: And I get to the point when in the car,
Speaker 2: in the front sea of the car, and my arms
Speaker 2: get like this like across my chest and completely lock up,
Speaker 2: like I can't move my fingers, I can't move my arms,
Speaker 2: I can't move anything. I'm like paralyzed, and I'm like
Speaker 2: can't do anything except for try to focus on breathing
Speaker 2: and kind of get out words to Josh. I'm like called,
Speaker 2: like take me to the hospital. Something that bad. It's happening.
Speaker 2: And so that ended up being like the scariest moment
Speaker 2: probably in my life. I thought, literally I was having
Speaker 2: a heart attack or a stroke or something. Pretty much
Speaker 2: thought I was dying. Told Josh like take care of
Speaker 2: my kids please, like you know, that's what I thought
Speaker 2: was going on, and takes me to the hospital had
Speaker 2: an EMT meet us on the way there and go
Speaker 2: through the whole nine yards. And this is a very
Speaker 2: long winded story of a six week window of my
Speaker 2: life that just happened to coincide with like the peak
Speaker 2: of our white tail season and all the stuff we
Speaker 2: do and made for a very unfun, challenging, stressful, confusing
Speaker 2: time period. Go to the hospital, they grun all these
Speaker 2: tests and everything, and there was there's two main things
Speaker 2: that you know, so I guess, stop this long, boring story.
Speaker 2: Three things were identified. Number one, what was going on
Speaker 2: in that moment when I thought I was dying was
Speaker 2: not that I had a heart attack or a stroke, Thankfully,
Speaker 2: it was none of those things. They tested for cloths,
Speaker 2: they tested for any kind of cardiac issues or any
Speaker 2: kind of anything like that. None of those things happened.
Speaker 2: What it was was that my CO two levels had
Speaker 2: plummeted to almost zero. They were able to check what
Speaker 2: my excuse me, my CO two levels were in that moment,
Speaker 2: and it was like two or something, and it's supposed
Speaker 2: to I don't know what it's supposed to be, supposed
Speaker 2: to be way way higher than that. And so what
Speaker 2: that happens that's caused by basically hyperventilation, which is breathing
Speaker 2: too deeply, too fast or something. I'm not I can't
Speaker 2: remember exactly what the thing is, but I was basically
Speaker 2: having a stress related panic attack or something in that moment,
Speaker 2: which led to this thing with my breathing, which led
Speaker 2: to this feeling, which apparently is a common thing for
Speaker 2: folks having some kind of thing like I was having.
Speaker 2: And so that was what caused this thing on that
Speaker 2: Sunday or Saturday, whatever day that was. And then I
Speaker 2: go to another series of doctors, they do these different tests.
Speaker 2: What they found or what they believed was causing the
Speaker 2: original issue was this condition that apparently leads to like
Speaker 2: inflammation of the cartilage and muscles across my sternum up
Speaker 2: and down my sternum. So like a muscular skeletal issue
Speaker 2: had caused or has been causing this initial pain I'm
Speaker 2: feeling my chest, and you google this stuff and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: people think they're having a heart attack with this thing.
Speaker 2: It's like common, it's a common thought that people have
Speaker 2: and worry that people have with this condition. And so
Speaker 2: what the doctors think was going on was that I
Speaker 2: had this original thing which has been going on and
Speaker 2: is still ongoing, which then led to me thinking about it,
Speaker 2: focusing on it, worrying about it, being stressed about it,
Speaker 2: which then you know, she's like, well, do you have
Speaker 2: any stress in your life otherwise? Are you not sleeping otherwise?
Speaker 2: Are you working too much otherwise? Are you go go
Speaker 2: going otherwise? I'm like, well, yeah, NonStop right now. So
Speaker 2: basically what the doctors think is that I had this
Speaker 2: original chest issue in pain, which was musculo skeletal, and
Speaker 2: then the hunting season relayed stress, travel, relayed stress compounded
Speaker 2: on top of me stressing and worrying and thinking about
Speaker 2: this chest pain and shortness of breath and all this stuff,
Speaker 2: and then led to this snowballing and snowballing and snowballing
Speaker 2: to where I would be having this concern about why
Speaker 2: is my chester why can't I breathe right? And that
Speaker 2: leads to actual physiological changes related to that stress, which
Speaker 2: do lead to more chest tightness, chest pain, breathing issues,
Speaker 2: which then led to more of that. And so that
Speaker 2: was going on for like six weeks and led to
Speaker 2: me having this incident where I thought I was dying
Speaker 2: and went to the hospital and just led to a
Speaker 2: really aft up fall where I was not able to
Speaker 2: enjoy it a lot of it, was not able to
Speaker 2: really be in it the way I usually am, didn't
Speaker 2: have the hootspa and excitement, was worried about my health.
Speaker 2: So I was like, I don't know if I want
Speaker 2: to travel across the country to go to this other
Speaker 2: state or do this other thing because I just want
Speaker 2: to get this shit figured out and feel normal again.
Speaker 2: I don't know, man, it just led to a really
Speaker 2: really weird fall that on the bright side, I think
Speaker 2: I'm coming out of it now that I understood what's
Speaker 2: going on. We're able to do some stuff that has
Speaker 2: reduced that original pain and that that condition I think
Speaker 2: is improving. And then I've also been able to kind
Speaker 2: of work on shilling out a little bit, dealing with
Speaker 2: some of that stress. I think a lot of that
Speaker 2: stress has left now that I have some answers, you know, uh,
Speaker 2: exploring some mindfulness practices, UH, some woo woo ship and
Speaker 2: uh and maybe that's what I've needed to So yeah,
Speaker 2: that's been the big negative for me this fall, which
Speaker 2: which probably has led to some of the lack of
Speaker 2: quote unquote success, but also there's the other weirdness going
Speaker 2: on where I just haven't had anything to hunt some
Speaker 2: of my spots, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 2: what's going on. That's what I've dealt with.
Speaker 4: So can I tell you something that that reminds me of? Yeah,
Speaker 4: because I knew you were going through that obviously. I
Speaker 4: kind of forgot about this when I quit drinking very
Speaker 4: shortly after I had a lot of pain on my
Speaker 4: right side and I went through MRIs and all kinds
Speaker 4: of shit because I was like, oh great, I quit drinking.
Speaker 4: Now my liver is gonna crap out on me. And
Speaker 4: they finally figured out that I had torn the cartilage
Speaker 4: underneath my ribs, and it was sounds like kind of
Speaker 4: similar to what you were talking about with your chest,
Speaker 4: where it's like this thing happens and they're like, ah,
Speaker 4: we don't know, and then all of a sudden they're
Speaker 4: like no answers, no answers, and your brain starts to spiral.
Speaker 4: Yeah shit, you just don't see coming.
Speaker 2: No, no, not at all, really really weird. Really Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know if I've still fully processed all of
Speaker 2: like the stuff that's coming out of that just it
Speaker 2: made me feel very old like or more mortal, do
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? Like this is the first
Speaker 2: time in my life where I was like, holy shit,
Speaker 2: like I thought I was gonna croak? Am I doing stuff? Right?
Speaker 2: Am I taking care of myself?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: Do I need to re examine how I'm taking care
Speaker 2: of myself in other ways?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: I don't know. It was just a whole whole bunch
Speaker 2: of stuff that you know made me and made me
Speaker 2: already and will I'm sure make me think more in
Speaker 2: the future about a lot of different things. But how
Speaker 2: I do stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it makes me feel bad because when when you
Speaker 4: started your story, I remember the other part of my
Speaker 4: fall that sucked, but I don't want to talk about
Speaker 4: it now because yours is way worse.
Speaker 2: I still want to hear about it. It's all all
Speaker 2: issues are valid on this podcast, Tony.
Speaker 4: I'm glad you got that sorted out, because I know
Speaker 4: that was weighing on you real heavy, or at least
Speaker 4: you got to some clarity on it, some visibility into it.
Speaker 3: It is. It is really hard to.
Speaker 4: It's sort of hard to understand something like that if
Speaker 4: you haven't gone through it or faced it, or you know,
Speaker 4: had those little kids at home and think about your
Speaker 4: own mortality. I mean that's a that's a heavy mental
Speaker 4: lift that really when when stuff like that happens, it
Speaker 4: really makes like the size of the buck. Like some
Speaker 4: of the stuff seemed really stupid that we kind of
Speaker 4: fixated Ourial, you know, and I so what I was
Speaker 4: going to say too, is so we you and I
Speaker 4: started out, you know, the Louisiana trip, and then we
Speaker 4: just went gangbusters right back to back to back whatever,
Speaker 4: just trying to you know, you have like eight weeks
Speaker 4: of just chaos, right, And I got through all of that.
Speaker 4: I found a really good concentration of bucks on public
Speaker 4: land in northern Wisconsin, like I had something going on.
Speaker 3: Took my daughter in there.
Speaker 4: We had one hundred and thirty inch or like forty yards,
Speaker 4: I mean like cool. And so when when when I
Speaker 4: got out of that and we got out all of
Speaker 4: our travel, I was like, I'm going over there. I
Speaker 4: scrapped my whole plan for the rut and I'm like,
Speaker 4: I'm going to go focus on this area of public,
Speaker 4: not hunt my private and work those deer. And I
Speaker 4: got over there and on my first morning had a
Speaker 4: pretty good eight pointer come in that I almost killed.
Speaker 4: He was ten yards away and I just started to
Speaker 4: draw and he busted me. Just came into one place
Speaker 4: where he was going to get a little bit of
Speaker 4: my wind. But I was like, you know, day one
Speaker 4: for that area, really like that's a good encounter. Like
Speaker 4: I go all season and don't have that. And that
Speaker 4: night I hunted, didn't see anything, and left and I
Speaker 4: drove a route that I've driven I don't know, dozens
Speaker 4: and dozens and dozens of times, maybe hundreds at this
Speaker 4: point between the trout fishing and everything else and just
Speaker 4: looking for deer, and I took a slightly different rut.
Speaker 4: I went two miles on a highway when I usually
Speaker 4: go on the gravel. I got out on that highway
Speaker 4: in the rain, and I had a guy coming up
Speaker 4: behind me pretty quick. Just looked at every viewer mayor
Speaker 4: looked back up and there was a deer coming out
Speaker 4: on the highway and I was like, there's nowhere to go.
Speaker 4: Just smoked or day one. So the first chance I
Speaker 4: had to hunt for myself, it was over and I
Speaker 4: you know, and I'm over there in northern Wisconsin and
Speaker 4: you're just like, man, this stuff can go south. And
Speaker 4: where I'm going with that is like everything was fine right,
Speaker 4: Like I didn't I didn't go in the.
Speaker 3: Ditch or anything.
Speaker 4: I mean, it really sucked, I had a knife or
Speaker 4: it was just you know, not a fun experience. Right
Speaker 4: then you're then you're you're done. But it's like it
Speaker 4: reminded me like when everybody when I told people, I'm like,
Speaker 4: I just smoked the deer, the first question is are
Speaker 4: you okay? And you forget this kind of like you
Speaker 4: forget how quickly something can go wrong, you know, and
Speaker 4: how the other thing that I that your story with
Speaker 4: what you went through for you know, multiple weeks of
Speaker 4: like am I freaking dying here? Like are like are
Speaker 4: my kids gonna not have a dad in a very
Speaker 4: short amount of time? Like like those like heavy things
Speaker 4: you don't ever consider until they're right in your face.
Speaker 3: It's like.
Speaker 4: When we should just treat each other better, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean, Like when that's happening. And then if
Speaker 4: you would have gone out and killed a two and
Speaker 4: a half year old just to be happy, a whole
Speaker 4: bunch of strangers would have shot on it for the
Speaker 4: size of it without having a clue what you just
Speaker 4: went through and so I think it's a good reminder
Speaker 4: when we see people out there wherever, like like you
Speaker 4: don't know what they're going through, you know, like have
Speaker 4: you have no clue what's like happening in their day
Speaker 4: to day life. Like, I think that's a good reminder.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's such a great reminder. And and also be
Speaker 2: kinder to ourselves. Two. I think because I found myself,
Speaker 2: like for example, in Kentucky, just like beating myself up
Speaker 2: a bunch about you know, not not getting on the
Speaker 2: deer or not being close enough or didn't make their eye.
Speaker 2: You know, you should have moved there, You should have
Speaker 2: moved there. At midday, I'll sit there for like hours
Speaker 2: thinking about I should have done this, or you know,
Speaker 2: you should have done that thing, or you could have
Speaker 2: done this thing but you didn't, or God, you should
Speaker 2: have we should have approached it this way, or you know,
Speaker 2: things go wrong and then you you know, you're pissed
Speaker 2: off about it or frustrated about it, or thinking about it. Ah, well,
Speaker 2: here's another thing that didn't go my way, or what's
Speaker 2: such and such gonna mean for the future or whatever.
Speaker 2: And you know, anytime, anytime where I'm overly focused on
Speaker 2: the end goal. It always leads to bad stuff. It
Speaker 2: always leads to stress and not enjoying it. And uh,
Speaker 2: you know, especially given the stuff I was going through
Speaker 2: this year, I probably should have cut myself a little
Speaker 2: bit slack, maybe, But instead I was like, maybe doubly
Speaker 2: hard on myself in some ways because I, like Jesus, like,
Speaker 2: just get do something right, right, And man, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean back to your point about i'ast shoot a
Speaker 2: two and a half yeo to shoot whatever you want,
Speaker 2: or this whole year without having like a mature buck
Speaker 2: to hunt, I've been wrestling with you know, why am
Speaker 2: I obsessing over trying to find a mature buck? Maybe
Speaker 2: I just need to just shoot anything to have fun.
Speaker 2: Or maybe I just need to chill the heck out
Speaker 2: and stop stressing about it and just start taking my
Speaker 2: kids hunting and enjoy that, because that's the one thing
Speaker 2: that's super fun. But instead, I because I haven't killed
Speaker 2: the mature buck yet, I've pushed off taking my kids
Speaker 2: more and more and more because I'm still trying to
Speaker 2: kill mature buck. And so now I'm in December and
Speaker 2: haven't hunted with my kids at all because I've been
Speaker 2: feeling like I'm obligated to kill a big buck and
Speaker 2: and then you know, not doing the thing that really
Speaker 2: would bring me the most joy or that is the
Speaker 2: most fun or that actually you know, matters in the
Speaker 2: long term. So those are the kinds of things and
Speaker 2: questions that I've been wrestling with again this year as
Speaker 2: I you know, continue to evolve, I guess as a
Speaker 2: hunter and trying to understand, you know, what I want
Speaker 2: this to look like for me and what my goals
Speaker 2: are and will be in the future. This is definitely
Speaker 2: another step this year of very examining that stuff.
Speaker 4: Right, It's a good reminder. I mean, and you said
Speaker 4: something before. I just I wrote about this for a
Speaker 4: Foundation's episode that I think probably came out this week,
Speaker 4: that this episode will drop about goals and how often
Speaker 4: in hunting we kind of screw them up.
Speaker 3: Like the goal.
Speaker 4: It's it's like so easy to be like, well, I
Speaker 4: want a buck bigger than one I've ever killed, or
Speaker 4: I want a one forty, or you know, you talked
Speaker 4: about like the end result sort of tainting the whole
Speaker 4: process and focusing too much on that. And you know,
Speaker 4: I felt that with my I would tag this year
Speaker 4: where it was like I was really looking forward to that,
Speaker 4: and I had about seventeen things go wrong in a
Speaker 4: in a very short period of time, and was like,
Speaker 4: now I just I kind of just want to kill
Speaker 4: one and get out. And I had I just looked
Speaker 4: at it wrong, you know. And when you when you
Speaker 4: get one of those premiere tags like that that.
Speaker 3: You've been waiting on.
Speaker 4: Or any you know, whenever there's like a heightened level
Speaker 4: of pressure, you know, to do well, then all of
Speaker 4: a sudden, it can be real not fun in a hurry.
Speaker 4: And it's it's a hard thing to remember, but it's
Speaker 4: it happens, and when it happens, it sucks bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know what the solution is that I've
Speaker 2: thought a lot about that. It's like, man, every time
Speaker 2: I put these like increased expectations on a hunt or
Speaker 2: a place or a season or whatever, it always comes
Speaker 2: down to that like self induced pressure that you put
Speaker 2: on yourself or the situation, and that al was always
Speaker 2: you know, I remember when it used to be just
Speaker 2: like really fun to get up in the morning, go
Speaker 2: hunt and see what the hell you're gonna see? Right, man,
Speaker 2: this gonna be great. I'm gonna go out there and
Speaker 2: who knows what's gonna happen. And if it didn't go
Speaker 2: your way, no big deal, Let's go hunting again next
Speaker 2: time when I want to go. Now, it's like, I mean,
Speaker 2: what's what's a little bit said for me? Is that
Speaker 2: I I caught myself and recognized this in myself. You know,
Speaker 2: years ago, a couple of years ago, we were talking
Speaker 2: about this, and still it's really hard to break those
Speaker 2: bad habits. I still find myself, you know, executing what
Speaker 2: feels like a military mission right and beating myself up
Speaker 2: about it, and you know, I've yet to figure out
Speaker 2: how to shake that. Maybe that's just part of it.
Speaker 2: If if you're gonna try to do anything well, which
Speaker 2: we are trying to do things well, you inherently have
Speaker 2: to have that along the way. But maybe there's a
Speaker 2: middle ground that is where I'm constantly trying to find
Speaker 2: things and you know, find that sweet spot. But yeah,
Speaker 2: you kind of I don't know. I don't know exactly
Speaker 2: where that right spot is, but I do know that
Speaker 2: the obsession and the obsession by the media and us
Speaker 2: in the past, and all the Instagram stuff and YouTube
Speaker 2: and everywhere, like constant big buck, this big buck, that
Speaker 2: big buck, this like that is definitely I can't be
Speaker 2: you and I can't be the only ones feeling this way.
Speaker 2: Like there's gotta be a lot of other people who
Speaker 2: are feeling this, and I want to find some way
Speaker 2: to to change that a little bit in whatever small
Speaker 2: way we can. I don't know what that looks like yet,
Speaker 2: but but man, we got to bring the got to
Speaker 2: keep the joy in deer hunting and get off of
Speaker 2: this obsession with like did you get your big one
Speaker 2: this year? Because that's I don't think that's helping many people, right.
Speaker 4: I mean, well, I can tell you you know, I
Speaker 4: was looking at what I kind of want to do
Speaker 4: this year for hunts, and I definitely want to hunt
Speaker 4: a new state somewhere. I'm going to go public land hunt.
Speaker 4: It might be Kansas, might be somewhere else. I'm not
Speaker 4: sure yet. But I really realized that when I went
Speaker 4: over to wiscont to Wisconsin with my daughter, where I
Speaker 4: was like, we just got to get a little buck
Speaker 4: to come in here, and she's gonna be super happy.
Speaker 4: And we hunted private land where I had a bunch
Speaker 4: of cameras out didn't have much for deer going on
Speaker 4: and then I said, you know what, she's she's good enough.
Speaker 4: I probably wouldn't have done this with her sister, but
Speaker 4: she's good enough. Where I was like, let's go scout
Speaker 4: public land and just like, just see, I have a
Speaker 4: spot that I really like and there might be something there.
Speaker 4: In the minute we pulled up there, I could see
Speaker 4: rubs in the woods and a scrape on this little
Speaker 4: loggin road coming out and I said, we're we're gonna
Speaker 4: go in here and we're gonna do something fun. And
Speaker 4: the minute we started hunting there, instead of being like, well,
Speaker 4: I don't have any pictures on this camera this in
Speaker 4: the last forty eight hours and the wind's wrong for
Speaker 4: this spot and this, as soon as we walked in there,
Speaker 4: I was like, now I'm having fun. Like now there's
Speaker 4: a mystery. I don't care who's living here. I can
Speaker 4: tell there's good ones here, but there's just a concentration
Speaker 4: of deer and now we're gonna figure it out. And
Speaker 4: we blanked that night, and then we went back in
Speaker 4: the next morning with a new plan and we kind
Speaker 4: of walked her through on X and like, here's what
Speaker 4: we're gonna do. We're gonna get up early, We're gonna
Speaker 4: go in there and maybe, just maybe, And it almost worked,
Speaker 4: and it was like, Okay, this is this.
Speaker 3: Is what I like.
Speaker 4: I need those reminders because it's easy in a lot
Speaker 4: of situations to be like, well, I'm I'm not excited
Speaker 4: about this, like you said, because I don't have any
Speaker 4: deer to shoot. It's like, okay, well on that private
Speaker 4: place where your standards are this high, whatever, that's fine.
Speaker 4: You don't have anything there, is it better to not hunt,
Speaker 4: Like can you go find that somewhere else, or can
Speaker 4: you go do something else, or like what can you
Speaker 4: do to make sure that you keep that going instead
Speaker 4: of just being like, I hunt this forty acres and
Speaker 4: there's no shooters, so I'm not going because I think
Speaker 4: that's I think we are on a like a.
Speaker 3: Dangerous path with that.
Speaker 4: And you hear that a lot where people are like,
Speaker 4: I'm not going in until that buck shows up, and
Speaker 4: when he does, then I will hunt him. Yeah, And
Speaker 4: it's like that's just so it's so different than some
Speaker 4: of the ways you can do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I'll tell you one of the most fun
Speaker 2: hunts I had in this area where I have been,
Speaker 2: you know, struggling to find a buck to hunt was
Speaker 2: when I was like, you know what, nothing's working. I'm
Speaker 2: not find him anywhere. Let's just do something crazy. Let's
Speaker 2: go in and hunt this other area that I never
Speaker 2: go to that shouldn't have deer. But I'm gonna still
Speaker 2: hunt my way in there and sneak in and hunt
Speaker 2: the ground and slip around and sneak into some bedding
Speaker 2: areas and just do some crazy stuff just to switch
Speaker 2: it up, because can't hurt at this point, just being
Speaker 2: willing to adventure a little bit, try different things, or
Speaker 2: another thing I haven't done but I keep on threatening
Speaker 2: to do and I want to do, is like just
Speaker 2: go up north and track deer in the snow. Try
Speaker 2: that again. Just drive around, find a track, go for
Speaker 2: a hike, see if you can walk down a deer.
Speaker 2: And I'd be thrilled to shoot any buck like that.
Speaker 2: But we put these like self created restrictions on ourselves
Speaker 2: or feel like we're obligated to stick with an original
Speaker 2: goal or whatever, and allow that to kind of paint
Speaker 2: ourselves into a corner, which is which is a mistake.
Speaker 4: Probably, dude, we just can't help but trophy hunt, we
Speaker 4: can't help it. It's so it's just like so ensconced
Speaker 4: in our like DNA.
Speaker 2: I can tell you, I mean kind of fast forwarding
Speaker 2: a little bit into like the good stuff. Like the
Speaker 2: things that were the highs and the best moments were
Speaker 2: the moments when I wasn't worried about that, Like the
Speaker 2: times when I was able to pull myself away from
Speaker 2: that were the best moments of a year, Like you know,
Speaker 2: going doing the couple hunts that I have been able
Speaker 2: to do with my sons so far, super fun. Best
Speaker 2: moments of my hunting season, uh, hunting with my son
Speaker 2: for turkeys this spring. We got a turkey together that
Speaker 2: was a highlight, absolutely incredible. The you know, another thing
Speaker 2: that stands out, and this is I guess I'm kind
Speaker 2: of skipping to some of the takeaways or trends and
Speaker 2: patterns I saw, but but really almost all of the
Speaker 2: best moments of my year in the outdoors were those
Speaker 2: excuse me, were those in which I was with people
Speaker 2: right right. It was like the times that I made
Speaker 2: time to do something with someone in my life that
Speaker 2: I care about the are the absolute best. They were
Speaker 2: not the times when I had the best chance to
Speaker 2: kill a big, huge buck. It was the time when
Speaker 2: I was with my dad at deer camp, and we're
Speaker 2: with Josh and his kids and my kids at deer camp.
Speaker 2: It was our spring turkey camp where a bunch of
Speaker 2: my hunting budies all get together for a long weekend
Speaker 2: and chase turkeys and do a bunch of dumb stuff
Speaker 2: and have a good time. That's a highlight. And again
Speaker 2: it gets it gets harder and harder. I think for
Speaker 2: a lot of us who are trying to kill a
Speaker 2: bunch of mature bucks, you end up spending a bunch
Speaker 2: of long days on the road and you hunt by yourself.
Speaker 2: Here in our case, maybe a camera guy's with us,
Speaker 2: but we do a bunch of those kinds of trips
Speaker 2: where you know we're on a mission, you're with your
Speaker 2: camera guy, you or I know guys who do this
Speaker 2: like We've got plenty of friends who do this kind
Speaker 2: of thing, who are like lone wolf superstar deer hunters
Speaker 2: who feel like they've got to kill four bucks a
Speaker 2: year or five bucks a year. They travel from place
Speaker 2: to place, and when you do that, you oftentimes sacrifice
Speaker 2: time with buddies for more time in the woods, or
Speaker 2: more time to go to more state or whatever it is.
Speaker 2: And I keep on seeing over the last couple of
Speaker 2: years paying attention to this that those are almost always
Speaker 2: the times when I'm overstressed and not having fun, and
Speaker 2: the times when I am like, hey, I'm gonna enjoy
Speaker 2: my time with my friends. You I'm gonna hunt hard
Speaker 2: and do some good stuff at the same time, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna have lunch with my friends, or hey, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: take my kids out for some of these haunts like
Speaker 2: those end up being the best, So I gotta get
Speaker 2: better leaning into those.
Speaker 4: It's tough, buddy, but I'm right there with you, man.
Speaker 4: I mean, if I if I look back at this
Speaker 4: year and just think about, like, what were the real highlights.
Speaker 4: The first one was Turkey season when my daughter's doubled
Speaker 4: up on this hunt.
Speaker 3: That was just we had.
Speaker 4: We had gotten our butts kicked for a couple of days,
Speaker 4: and then the weather broke and I called in some
Speaker 4: birds from so far away that shouldn't even have been
Speaker 4: in play, and they bull shot Jake's the same time,
Speaker 4: and we're just stoked. It was just it was cool.
Speaker 4: My buddy and his daughter got to watch it because
Speaker 4: they were in a blind not too far away, and
Speaker 4: then that bear with my daughter was for sure the
Speaker 4: highlight because we you know, I had my daughters over
Speaker 4: there a whole bunch, baiting the bears and setting up
Speaker 4: cameras and blinds and you know, trout fishing in the
Speaker 4: middle of the day or whatever, and just the whole experience,
Speaker 4: like culminating with her, like making a perfect shot on
Speaker 4: a bear was like just it was just cool. And
Speaker 4: then her sister, the one who's just we just dropped
Speaker 4: an episode a little bit ago where I was hunting
Speaker 4: with one of my daughters when she drew a bear tag,
Speaker 4: you know, two years ago now where we went over
Speaker 4: and kind of did a combo hunt.
Speaker 3: She killed a spike.
Speaker 4: This year, we went out the first weekend we could
Speaker 4: get over there, which was I think in the end
Speaker 4: of September, and just sitting with her on the ground,
Speaker 4: so we weren't in a blind for the first time,
Speaker 4: Like I'm trying to get them hunting a little more
Speaker 4: than just sitting in a in a blind.
Speaker 3: And we were sitting on the ground and.
Speaker 4: It was getting late and I looked over there and
Speaker 4: this deer walked out and she we had been talking, obviously,
Speaker 4: and she's she had killed two spikes and she's like,
Speaker 4: I hope it's a spike. And she's like, I really
Speaker 4: want to kill a velvet deer. And it was like
Speaker 4: September twentieth or something. I'm like, well, you're not gonna
Speaker 4: kill velvet deer. Sorry, just this is not gonna happen.
Speaker 4: And then I glassed this deer at like forty yards
Speaker 4: and I'm like, honey, I think it's a spike, and
Speaker 4: I think he's in velvet and I could hear her
Speaker 4: breath just like and he walked out and she shot
Speaker 4: him and I'm glassing and I'm like, I think that's
Speaker 4: a velvet spike.
Speaker 3: And it was.
Speaker 4: And I'll tell you what, man, she was like, she
Speaker 4: was real happy with herself. So she's she's gone three
Speaker 4: for three on spikes in the last three years and
Speaker 4: she's kind of just.
Speaker 3: Kind of hanging her hat on that.
Speaker 4: But those three, you know, and then you know, we
Speaker 4: did some late season hunting. I'm trying to get them
Speaker 4: to like suffer a little bit and earn it, and dude,
Speaker 4: they are like there. It's so fun to sort of
Speaker 4: vicariously experience this through them now, like with their first
Speaker 4: tree stand hunt, you know, or both of them killed
Speaker 4: deer from the ground, not in blinds. This year of
Speaker 4: them had encounters with deer that we almost killed but didn't.
Speaker 4: And so even with like the limited time of fall
Speaker 4: and all the school schedules and our you know, our
Speaker 4: travel schedule and everything, I was like, man, the thing
Speaker 4: that really kept me upright this year was just stuff
Speaker 4: with them, and I mean, and we caught a ton
Speaker 4: of fit.
Speaker 3: We had a great year fishing too. So yeah, get
Speaker 3: out with your kids.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that was you alluded to the next The
Speaker 2: other thing I was going to say, other than the
Speaker 2: fishing or sorry, other than the kids thing was just
Speaker 2: the other highlights of me here were when I inserted
Speaker 2: diversity and adventure into our outdoor experience. Even though you
Speaker 2: and I are whitetail obsessed and that's like our thing,
Speaker 2: you know, every time we went fishing as a family,
Speaker 2: every fishing trip this year we did a lot of it.
Speaker 2: That was so much fun. And that's as we've talked
Speaker 2: in the past, it's like a pressure release. It's just
Speaker 2: kind of straight type one fun. There's not all the
Speaker 2: pressure and expectations. I thought a lot about like, how
Speaker 2: can I how can I act the way I act
Speaker 2: when I fish, but while I'm hunt. Is there any
Speaker 2: way that we can hunt and feel the way we
Speaker 2: do when we fish, or is it just inherently different?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I know how how you gotta get yourself a lab
Speaker 4: you gotta train it for pheasant hunting, and then you
Speaker 4: got to follow it around in Because I feel the
Speaker 4: same way when I'm when I'm pheasant hunting as I
Speaker 4: do when I'm trying to get a SMALLI to come
Speaker 4: up on top water. I'm like, this is just pure
Speaker 4: in the moment.
Speaker 3: It's kind of like.
Speaker 4: Kind of like Western hunting, where it's like you're just like,
Speaker 4: what's happening now, Like what's the input now? Like what's
Speaker 4: gonna happen now, what's gonna happen in the next five minutes.
Speaker 4: It's just so in the moment and fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Like there's got to be ways to to
Speaker 2: bring that, to cross pollinate that somehow. But yeah, like
Speaker 2: the absolute highlights of the year some epic fishing experiences
Speaker 2: with the boys. Really getting to see my kids like
Speaker 2: really figure it out, especially my oldest, Like he's really
Speaker 2: into fishing and getting good at it, like proficient and
Speaker 2: like we can be out there and he's just going
Speaker 2: at it like we're on one camping trip this summer
Speaker 2: and three days straight, seven plus hours a day, all day,
Speaker 2: and that's all he wanted to do. Like I didn't.
Speaker 2: It was like him saying, no, I want to keep going.
Speaker 2: I want to keep going. There was no like I
Speaker 2: want to go home, dad. It's like no, I'm just
Speaker 2: going to cast and cast and cast. He's just having
Speaker 2: a blast. That was absolute highlight. And then you know
Speaker 2: my like my Alaska trip, doing the fishing trip and
Speaker 2: the keys, like just like seeing new places, going new
Speaker 2: places outside of my comfort zone, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: And again that's something I think can translate to the
Speaker 2: white tail world too. Is like breaking out of your
Speaker 2: usual box, adding adventure, adding new things to it, I
Speaker 2: think is a great way. Like, you know, I feel
Speaker 2: a need for a new like white tail adventure in
Speaker 2: my future. I don't know what that's going to look
Speaker 2: like yet, but whether it'sn't going or maybe it's doing
Speaker 2: the track in the snow thing like I talked about,
Speaker 2: or I've threatened to do a backpacking white tail hunt
Speaker 2: for years, but something, because those those things always end
Speaker 2: up being a lot of fun when there's not a
Speaker 2: lot of expectation on the actual kill. Again, it's like, hey,
Speaker 2: let's go out there, have an adventure, do all this
Speaker 2: fun stuff and chase some deer for fun and hopefully
Speaker 2: it works out. But you know it's not going to
Speaker 2: be a tragedy if you don't kill one fifty. I
Speaker 2: think that that's that's a big takeaway, is like adventure,
Speaker 2: diversity and experience and deal with people you care about
Speaker 2: those things, Like that's the recipe.
Speaker 4: Right, Well, I mean you touched on the good point
Speaker 4: there that we don't We talk about some but when
Speaker 4: you're you kind of keep arcing back to this thing
Speaker 4: of like when it doesn't have to be the one fifty,
Speaker 4: when it doesn't have to be the trophy, when it
Speaker 4: doesn't have to be the mature buck. Most people aren't
Speaker 4: going to they're not going to go for a little one,
Speaker 4: or they're not going to still hunt or something when
Speaker 4: it's like your home ground that you've been working on
Speaker 4: and have your hit list and right on down the line.
Speaker 4: So again it's like you you might have to go
Speaker 4: find that somewhere else where you don't care. Like the
Speaker 4: some of the most fun that you can have with
Speaker 4: white til hunting is going somewhere where you absolutely do
Speaker 4: not expect to shoot a big one, And you're like,
Speaker 4: now my standards have recalibrated to this four day hunt
Speaker 4: somewhere else, and it doesn't have to be an out
Speaker 4: of state trip, you know, Like I think about this
Speaker 4: in my home state of Minnesota a lot. I mean,
Speaker 4: I can hunt way vastly diverse types of habitat and
Speaker 4: terrain and never leave the boundaries of my state, you know.
Speaker 4: And it's not like unique to Minnesota, right, Like you
Speaker 4: can people think about you know, you and I love
Speaker 4: to go to North Kota, right you think about how
Speaker 4: different the western half of that state is versus the eastern, southern,
Speaker 4: versus northern. There are some opportunities out there where you
Speaker 4: don't you don't have to buy that non resident tag
Speaker 4: and spend a bunch of money and then have that
Speaker 4: pressure of the non resident trip, because immediately that changes
Speaker 4: the kind of the vibe of.
Speaker 3: The whole thing.
Speaker 4: Sometimes it's like a matter of going an hour away
Speaker 4: to do that big woods hunt where you're just like
Speaker 4: trying to track one or something and it's just a
Speaker 4: different field than going out on your lease or your
Speaker 4: home farm and being like, well, I haven't got a
Speaker 4: picture of my number one buck in five days, and
Speaker 4: maybe the neighbors shot him, or he's nocturnal or whatever.
Speaker 4: It's like you've you've just like reshuffled the deck completely,
Speaker 4: even if it's just for like a day, it can
Speaker 4: be so fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's such a great, such a great point,
Speaker 2: and I just see it and like some of my
Speaker 2: other buddies too, like just the the worry, the stress,
Speaker 2: the pressure we put on, Oh is there gonna be
Speaker 2: a big one, or you know, the hit list. All
Speaker 2: this stuff that you're talking about, we've just built We've
Speaker 2: put all this stuff up on a pedestal. We've built
Speaker 2: up all of this stuff and made it seem like
Speaker 2: it's all so important and and it's it's I don't know,
Speaker 2: we're in some ways we're winning a really good thing.
Speaker 2: And it's like a collective. It's like it's the social
Speaker 2: media slash, larger media slash, just the way of the
Speaker 2: world slash. I don't know what, but it is definitely
Speaker 2: it's definitely something that I think we as a community
Speaker 2: have got to keep on thinking about. And I know
Speaker 2: we've been talking about it for years, but it's not
Speaker 2: fixing itself. And yeah, I guess I'm just living it.
Speaker 2: You're living it. We're all living it. But you know,
Speaker 2: even some of my best hunting buddies that have dealt
Speaker 2: with us themselves when they end up going instead of
Speaker 2: you know, like, I've got a friend who hunts in
Speaker 2: a great area. He's got some really good property and
Speaker 2: for whatever reason, this year, just there weren't the bucks
Speaker 2: he was after. Like there's some good bucks, but he
Speaker 2: wants a big five year old or whatever, and they
Speaker 2: weren't there. And you know, he's a guy who historically
Speaker 2: get really stressed about this, and times will get really
Speaker 2: stressed about this, and like the hunting buddies in our
Speaker 2: group are kind of giving him a hard time of
Speaker 2: body doesn't have shit to hunt. But same thing is
Speaker 2: that you're talking about, Like we've created these crazy standards
Speaker 2: for ourselves because what you're supposed to do or whatever.
Speaker 2: There's plenty of deer he'd go and hunt, have a
Speaker 2: good time with probably, but he's convinced himself that he
Speaker 2: should only be shooting five and a half year old
Speaker 2: bucks or one sixties or whatever it is. And so
Speaker 2: because of that he feels like he has a shitty
Speaker 2: hunting season. But then when he decides to go trapping,
Speaker 2: like run the trap line instead, or take his son
Speaker 2: squirrel hunting, like he has a blast, right, Or when
Speaker 2: he goes out there and you know, has buddies come
Speaker 2: and hunt around them and sees them shoot something different,
Speaker 2: like that's a super fun time too, right, So I think,
Speaker 2: like there's obvious cures here, We're just allowing expectation or
Speaker 2: something to get in the way.
Speaker 4: Well, right, And I mean, one thing that I'm kind
Speaker 4: of hyper aware of right now is the more that
Speaker 4: you go out and do this random stuff that maybe
Speaker 4: doesn't have as much weight as drawn that I would
Speaker 4: take and trying to kill a one fifty. It's sort
Speaker 4: of the antidote to being super judgy, right, right. You
Speaker 4: see this, You see this so often with people who
Speaker 4: are who have like, you know, somebody is hunting in
Speaker 4: candy Land somewhere and they're like why why would anybody
Speaker 4: shoot anything less than a one forty or whatever? And
Speaker 4: You're like, you know, you have no concept of what
Speaker 4: other people are going through to hunt, or their time
Speaker 4: or like what's important to them.
Speaker 3: And I never do this. I made a mistake.
Speaker 4: And I looked at the comments when they posted a
Speaker 4: teaser from that hunt with my daughter. They were they
Speaker 4: were generally very good, but like literally the first comment
Speaker 4: was not trying to throw shade here, but why would
Speaker 4: you shoot that little buck when you could wait for
Speaker 4: a bigger one? And you know, you know me, I'm
Speaker 4: a nutcase. So my first reaction is like, I'm like, God,
Speaker 4: I wish you were standing in front of me. I'd
Speaker 4: kicking the taint so hard. But I'm like, yeah, she's
Speaker 4: she's an eleven year old girl hunting in northern Wisconsin
Speaker 4: and she has a couple of days a season to hunt.
Speaker 3: Like, it's not your tag, you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: Like, I the the petty part of me wants to
Speaker 4: look that guy up and be like, how come your
Speaker 4: wife's not a ten?
Speaker 3: Why is she a five? Right?
Speaker 4: Like you know there are tens out there, right? Why
Speaker 4: are you rolling around with this average woman when you
Speaker 4: could have a super model if you just tried harder,
Speaker 4: Like that would make me a huge prick, right yeah,
Speaker 4: not my not my journey, right, that's his journey.
Speaker 3: And I just think that.
Speaker 4: The more you go out and you're like, you know
Speaker 4: what I'm getting I'm getting out of my farm that
Speaker 4: I know really well, or I'm going to get out
Speaker 4: of the box blind on the food plot and I'm
Speaker 4: going to go still hunt them or whatever. Like whatever
Speaker 4: you do, this is like to get you outside of
Speaker 4: your comfort zone a little bit. You start to like realize, okay,
Speaker 4: like there's more to this, Like I'm seeing this such
Speaker 4: a myopic thing, you know, Like a lot of people
Speaker 4: feel that way about baiting, and I can shooit on
Speaker 4: baiting with the best of them, But when you go
Speaker 4: do it in different situations, whether it's in Texas or
Speaker 4: some other place where you get dump corn on the ground,
Speaker 4: you go okay, like I get it, Like maybe it's
Speaker 4: not for you, like but you can see why it
Speaker 4: would be for somebody else or like what Like it's
Speaker 4: just like sort of dulls those sharp edges you carry
Speaker 4: with like that chip on your shoulder, and you're just like okay,
Speaker 4: Like you know, we're hunting rabbits with antlers here, right,
Speaker 4: Like should I get super pissed off and go after
Speaker 4: a stranger over this? I don't know, man, Like is
Speaker 4: it that important?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a great I think that's a
Speaker 2: really good place to end this out is is both
Speaker 2: being a little bit more I don't know if it's
Speaker 2: forgiving or kind. I mean you said, like being kinder
Speaker 2: to others, not being so damned judgy, not you know,
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff, and then also being a
Speaker 2: little bit kinder to ourselves and releasing some of the
Speaker 2: pressure off ourselves, getting back to having fun, focusing on
Speaker 2: what's important here. I think if we can do those
Speaker 2: two broad sets of things going in, twenty twenty five
Speaker 2: should be a dang good year.
Speaker 4: Maybe, I hope, so, Buddy, for your sake in mind
Speaker 4: and everybody who's listening, I hope so, buddy.
Speaker 2: And on that note, Tony, appreciate you joining me. Let's
Speaker 2: do our best to make twenty five a good one,
Speaker 2: and there'll be lots of fun adventures ahead for us
Speaker 2: to share, and looking forward to hearing from plenty of
Speaker 2: listeners about their journeys too. So without any more I
Speaker 2: don't know crazy stories I'm Tony about kicking people and
Speaker 2: the others. Let's wrap this one up and thank you
Speaker 2: for joining us, folks, and until next week, stay wired
Speaker 2: to hunt, all right, And that's it for us today.
Speaker 2: Appreciate you being here. Thank you for kicking off the
Speaker 2: new year with Tony and I. It's gonna be a
Speaker 2: good one. I don't care what Tony says. We're gonna
Speaker 2: have a terrific twenty twenty five and I'm sure you will,
Speaker 2: and I'm excited to be sharing it with you. Thanks
Speaker 2: for being a part of this community, and thanks for
Speaker 2: staying wired to hunt