Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, and now your host,
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson. Hey everyone, welcome to the Wire to Hunt
Speaker 1: Foundations podcast, which is brought to you by First Light.
Speaker 1: This week's episode is all about the little ways we
Speaker 1: settle with our summertime shooting sessions and how that can
Speaker 1: cost us big time when the hunting season rolls around. Listen,
Speaker 1: it's the end of July and if you're not shooting
Speaker 1: somewhat regularly, you should be back in the spring. I
Speaker 1: dropped a couple of episodes on target shooting with some
Speaker 1: wisdom on how to make the most of your sessions,
Speaker 1: and I really kind of hope he started shooting back
Speaker 1: there in the spring. But if you didn't, you better
Speaker 1: get to the range now. And you should also pay
Speaker 1: attention into your gear, whether you're a bow hunter or
Speaker 1: a gun hunter both, because there are a million different
Speaker 1: ways we settle that can cost us when the actual
Speaker 1: season opens up and it's time to go hunting. One
Speaker 1: of the things I love about elk hunting it's just
Speaker 1: the downtime throughout the day. I know that sounds weird,
Speaker 1: but since I've never done anything but public land over
Speaker 1: the counter elk hunts. I've never gotten into one of
Speaker 1: those dreamy situations where the elk are just bugling all
Speaker 1: day and going absolutely nuts. My hunts and probably yours,
Speaker 1: if you've ever been lucky enough to elk hunt, they
Speaker 1: just contain a lot of dead hours. And even if
Speaker 1: you hunt the last week of the season when temperature
Speaker 1: should be cooler, this is almost a guarantee you're gonna
Speaker 1: hit those dry spells. And if you're hunting with a
Speaker 1: partner like I, usually you tend to shrug off your
Speaker 1: pack somewhere in the shade, pull out your pocket rocket
Speaker 1: to boil some water for coffee, and you just shoot
Speaker 1: the ship while waiting for something to happen. During one
Speaker 1: of these sessions in my elk hunting partner, Tyler started
Speaker 1: telling me stories about his first hunts. He told me
Speaker 1: about bear encounters, his lack of skills, and an elk
Speaker 1: he missed because he was using three different weights of arrows.
Speaker 1: He didn't know any better at the time, so he
Speaker 1: filled his quiver up with whatever arrows he could get
Speaker 1: his hands on, and he just went hunting. Now, considering
Speaker 1: he's one of the most gear obsessed bow hunters. I
Speaker 1: know now it's safe to say he learned from his mistakes,
Speaker 1: but not before it cost him some opportunities. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: different today with all the information available, but I also
Speaker 1: remember those older days pretty well. I hunted for years
Speaker 1: with arrows that were probably not spined correctly. They're probably
Speaker 1: not the right length, and they're probably tipped with broadheads
Speaker 1: of different weights. While any of those things alone might,
Speaker 1: and I do mean might, cost you an animal, certainly
Speaker 1: not a guarantee. Bow Hunting is a game of little details,
Speaker 1: and to an extent, so is gun hunting. If you
Speaker 1: don't show up everything that is within your power, you'll
Speaker 1: have deer slip right through your fingers. And those losses
Speaker 1: sting the most, at least in my mind, they do
Speaker 1: because they're preventable, and there is no better time than
Speaker 1: now to address some of those things, long before the
Speaker 1: summer shooting sessions are over and the actual season is
Speaker 1: upon us. So let's take archery ammo our arrows as
Speaker 1: a first example, at least before we get into bullets.
Speaker 1: For all you bow hunters, ask yourself, are you shooting
Speaker 1: a properly spined arrow? I hope so, because if not,
Speaker 1: you're in trouble. An improperly spined arrow is either going
Speaker 1: to be too stiff or not stiff enough for your setup,
Speaker 1: and it's going to wreak havoc on your accuracy. You
Speaker 1: might not notice if you only practice at twenty yards
Speaker 1: with a paper plate tacked to your target, but if
Speaker 1: you try for any level of precision, you might. And
Speaker 1: if you try to shoot broadheads, even mechanicals, you'll probably notice.
Speaker 1: If you shoot fixed blade heads you almost definitely will.
Speaker 1: Now i'd argue, although I could lose this argument, the
Speaker 1: proper spine is more important than your individual arrow brand choice.
Speaker 1: What I mean by that is, if you spend big
Speaker 1: money to buy the new, greatest, I don't know, micro
Speaker 1: diameter arrows, you can, but they aren't spined for your setup,
Speaker 1: You'd be better off with a dozen that costs a
Speaker 1: quarter of the high end AMMO, but is spine correctly. Now,
Speaker 1: what you tip your arrows with matters too. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to dive into front of center and some of
Speaker 1: the more technical stuff here, but I'll say the grain
Speaker 1: scale is a pretty good investment cheap two. Understanding why
Speaker 1: you might need it, it's important I like knowing exactly
Speaker 1: how much my arrows way, and I like knowing that
Speaker 1: my field points way exactly or damn near exactly the
Speaker 1: same as my broadheads. You pull out a handful of
Speaker 1: field points that range from five grains to your arrows
Speaker 1: won't behave all that different, uh probably, but it will
Speaker 1: give you a skewed view of your point of impact,
Speaker 1: especially if you only shoot a hundred grain heads, which
Speaker 1: is by far the most common weight these days. Also,
Speaker 1: as a life pro tip, if you do have an
Speaker 1: archery tackle box with a bunch of broadheads in it,
Speaker 1: always close it up and keep it out of reach.
Speaker 1: I had an open tackle box with a bunch of
Speaker 1: broadheads in my office one time, and I was leaning
Speaker 1: back in my office chair talking on the phone when
Speaker 1: that chair flat out exploded on me. I instinctively put
Speaker 1: my hand out to catch myself, and it went right
Speaker 1: into a box with like seventies three different broadheads in it.
Speaker 1: It was an absolute miracle that I didn't need stitches
Speaker 1: or surgery, but it also made me think about a
Speaker 1: little kid tripping over it and made me realize I
Speaker 1: should probably be a little safer with that stuff anyway.
Speaker 1: Consistency in your gear is a very good thing, because
Speaker 1: we strive to be as consistent as possible with our
Speaker 1: shooting form and shot execution for these reasons. Now, if
Speaker 1: your practice heads weighs three different weights but your broadheads don't,
Speaker 1: you've got some inconsistency there. It might not treat you
Speaker 1: very well. When the buck of ten lifetime stops at
Speaker 1: forty two yards and you think I can thread the
Speaker 1: needle and get this one, and your gun hunters, you're
Speaker 1: not off the hook either. I don't know how many
Speaker 1: times a relative or some other acquaintance has told me
Speaker 1: about buying a box of shells right before the deer opener. Sure,
Speaker 1: they'll say they sighted in their rifle at the old
Speaker 1: quarry a few weeks ago, but they used old Ammo
Speaker 1: and wanted to make sure they had some heavy hitting
Speaker 1: stuff for those big Northwoods bucks or whatever off those
Speaker 1: bucks happened to cruise by it Like fifty yards, switching
Speaker 1: from a hundred forty grain bullets to hundred eighty grain
Speaker 1: bullets might not matter a whole lot, But what about
Speaker 1: when he's two fifty yards out in a clear cut
Speaker 1: trying to sniff a doze butt and now you drop
Speaker 1: is ten inches instead of six. We might feel the
Speaker 1: need to settle for whatever we can get our hands
Speaker 1: on in the current AMMO market. But if you do
Speaker 1: hunt with what you practice with, please, whether you're gun
Speaker 1: hunter bow hunt, I also think it's imperative to use
Speaker 1: a range finder as religiously as possible. Now. I know
Speaker 1: there are sometimes in the woods where the action happens
Speaker 1: real fast and you don't have time to pop a reading,
Speaker 1: but most of the time you have more time than
Speaker 1: you think. Bow Hunters out west are probably the most
Speaker 1: consistent with this, and white tail bow hunters through at
Speaker 1: the Midwest in the East probably pretty consistent. But if
Speaker 1: that's a crutch you use to know exactly where to aim,
Speaker 1: then you should lean on it a lot. This is
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why I don't like going to
Speaker 1: shooting ranges too often. Many often have targets set up
Speaker 1: in exactly ten yard increments, or if they have a
Speaker 1: walk through course, there will be a sign with specific yardage. Now,
Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with shooting at these courses, but it's
Speaker 1: also a good idea to shoot where you don't know
Speaker 1: the range and you have to use your range funter
Speaker 1: to tell you every time you knock an arrow. This
Speaker 1: does two things. It gets in the habit of always
Speaker 1: using it, and it helps you estimate range better when
Speaker 1: you don't have the chance to use it. Don't settle
Speaker 1: for guessing when you don't need to. And this goes
Speaker 1: for rifle hunting too, And I honestly think a range
Speaker 1: finder is a hell of a lot more important to shotgun,
Speaker 1: rifle and muzzle or hunters than we give it credit for. Now.
Speaker 1: I know that the margin of error is a little
Speaker 1: smaller when you're working with controlled explosions and lead spinning
Speaker 1: its way through rifle barrels. But think about every rifle
Speaker 1: range you've ever been to. There will be shaded benches
Speaker 1: with targets at a hundred yards, two hundred yards, maybe
Speaker 1: three hundred yards, might be some in the middle distances
Speaker 1: at fifty yard increments as well. Maybe you hold your
Speaker 1: two seventy dead on at a hundred yards and it
Speaker 1: hits I don't know, four inches low at two hundred,
Speaker 1: maybe it hits ten or twelve inches low at three hundred.
Speaker 1: So you shoot half a box of shells and you
Speaker 1: think to yourself, I don't know, if he's within three
Speaker 1: football fields, he's dead. Then you go out to your
Speaker 1: favorite ladder stand on the power line on opening morning.
Speaker 1: At first, ladies ups out nervously and you think to yourself,
Speaker 1: I don't know, he can't be more than a fifty yards.
Speaker 1: You hold a smidge high and you let her rip,
Speaker 1: But then you see belly hair blow up and he
Speaker 1: runs off. When you get down to look for blood,
Speaker 1: you realize he was big, bigger than you've ever seen
Speaker 1: while hunting, and he was a hell of a lot
Speaker 1: farther away than you guessed. This type of thing happens
Speaker 1: all the time because we settle for good enough when
Speaker 1: we could just use some of the tools at our
Speaker 1: disposal to be far more accurate and confident in our
Speaker 1: shooting out in the field. And we do this a
Speaker 1: lot of other ways, too, in ways that transcend bow
Speaker 1: or gun hunting to just the general hunting experience. Take comfort.
Speaker 1: For example, when we are shopping for new camel or
Speaker 1: even a seat cushion, we often think about price. First.
Speaker 1: I get that, I really do, but then we also
Speaker 1: think camel patterns. We think a lot of things about ourselves,
Speaker 1: like I don't know, well, this mid layer jacket is
Speaker 1: way cheaper than the heavy duty cold weather one, and
Speaker 1: I'm pretty tough, so I can handle a lot of cold.
Speaker 1: So I think, let's go with it, or you think, hell,
Speaker 1: I'm a super tough guy who doesn't get too miserable anywhere.
Speaker 1: I don't need an extra layer of padding on that
Speaker 1: old ladder stand. I can sit all day on metal
Speaker 1: and not have to worry about it. You know. Then
Speaker 1: November rolls around, and it's with it. The temperatures drop
Speaker 1: and the wind picks up out of the north, and
Speaker 1: it might be perfect rut weather, but it's also not
Speaker 1: great weather for being seventeen feet up in a tree
Speaker 1: for hours on end while the cold wind blows right
Speaker 1: in your face and that mid layer jacket, or not
Speaker 1: having a good seat cushion. You know, that's a different
Speaker 1: kind of thing there. It's not so much fun, not
Speaker 1: so comfortable. Now. I'm not saying you need to drop
Speaker 1: serious coinage for high end camera to kill deer, but
Speaker 1: when it comes to settling for good enough, sometimes mother
Speaker 1: Nature says not on my watch. And when you're moving
Speaker 1: around him miserable and prone to calling a hunt hours
Speaker 1: before you have to, you're gonna kill fewer deer. You're
Speaker 1: gonna have us fun. This is kind of like pain tolerance.
Speaker 1: Ask anyone who works in the medical profession what the
Speaker 1: average person rates their pain tolerance on in the one
Speaker 1: to tend scale. Most people respond with a really high number,
Speaker 1: quickly followed by the disclaimer that I have a really
Speaker 1: high threshold for pain. But they don't understand the assignment
Speaker 1: because they aren't doubled over bawling their eyes out and
Speaker 1: praying to a merciful God to take them from this
Speaker 1: earth and relieve them of their agony. They are sitting
Speaker 1: there calm as a cucumber, overestimating their ability to handle pain.
Speaker 1: They're not out of ten. This is just like what
Speaker 1: we often do when we think about deer hunting conditions,
Speaker 1: and we're not actually out in those deer hunting conditions.
Speaker 1: And I know this might sound a little crazy too,
Speaker 1: but I think if we settle on the little stuff
Speaker 1: like inconsistent weights of our bullets or field points, we'll
Speaker 1: start to settle in other ways, like I don't know
Speaker 1: how many cameras we run, or whether we go glass
Speaker 1: for white tails once a week or once per month,
Speaker 1: or whether we put up three stands in the preseason
Speaker 1: instead of six. In that way, I think all of
Speaker 1: this stuff, like most of the things in life, is
Speaker 1: a good, slow, gradual progression towards being better. If you
Speaker 1: make the decision to weigh your field points and screw
Speaker 1: them into arrows that are spine correctly, you're gonna be
Speaker 1: better off and you're gonna have more fun shooting. Then
Speaker 1: you might not settle for a few practice sessions throughout
Speaker 1: the summer, but instead get a little more disciplined on
Speaker 1: the quality and quantity of your sessions. And if you
Speaker 1: do that, you'll be looking forward to that first bucket
Speaker 1: of the season walking right into your shooting lane because
Speaker 1: you're gonna believe that you're gonna kill him instead of
Speaker 1: looking forward to the encounter because it's cool to have
Speaker 1: a buck that close, but also being somewhere in the
Speaker 1: range of a little nervous you'll screw up to being
Speaker 1: totally afraid of having to take the shot, because what
Speaker 1: if you do screw up and then you have to
Speaker 1: tell your buddies again that you whift big or worse.
Speaker 1: It's time to talk some fresh batteries into the flashlights
Speaker 1: and go on another wild goose chase, blood trailing adventure
Speaker 1: that it will always end with the predictable platitudes like
Speaker 1: I don't know, who knows, maybe he'll make it, or
Speaker 1: the coyotes have to eat too, or some other way
Speaker 1: we make ourselves feel better while masking the truth with
Speaker 1: great a bullshite. Maybe if you don't settle at this
Speaker 1: time of year when you're at the range, you won't
Speaker 1: settle for a good enough shooting lane or a good
Speaker 1: enough entrance route when you know damn well you're engaged
Speaker 1: in a fun game of self sabotage where you'll make
Speaker 1: way too much noise on the way in opening morning,
Speaker 1: or you'll watch the woods wake up with the rising sun,
Speaker 1: only to realize that you have one so so shooting lane. Now,
Speaker 1: there in times in life where settling is okay. Just
Speaker 1: for an example, the other day, we went out to
Speaker 1: eat and I asked for a diet coke and they
Speaker 1: brought me a doctor pepper instead, and I thought, what
Speaker 1: the hell, it's pretty delicious, more delicious than a diet
Speaker 1: coke actually, And even though I settled for a full
Speaker 1: gr soda like a I don't know, real housewife of
Speaker 1: somewhere I guess or something, I'm really not that big
Speaker 1: of a prima donna. I could have said something, but
Speaker 1: I didn't. I don't care that much. You can settle
Speaker 1: in other ways too. Some people settle for a spouse
Speaker 1: because they think the viable mate market is mostly tapped
Speaker 1: out for them. I don't really recommend that because that's
Speaker 1: kind of a big one and reminds me of something
Speaker 1: I read the other day. It was a story about
Speaker 1: dad jokes, I think, but anyway, the author said that
Speaker 1: his father always referred to his mother as his first wife,
Speaker 1: even though they are currently married and have no plans
Speaker 1: to serve her the papers and look for a second one.
Speaker 1: I've been using that on my wife too, and she
Speaker 1: hates it, but I think it's hilarious. You don't want
Speaker 1: to settle for a spouse or a pediatrist when you
Speaker 1: really need an optometrist. And you don't want to settle
Speaker 1: for too many little things in your pursuit to become
Speaker 1: a better hunter. If you can control it, you should
Speaker 1: try to control it. A good way to look at
Speaker 1: this is to think about summer shooting sessions. What are
Speaker 1: the ways to encourage better accuracy? How do they change
Speaker 1: from the range to the field. Is there a way
Speaker 1: to bridge that gap or ensure that they won't change
Speaker 1: when you go from the backyard to the tree tops
Speaker 1: in your new saddle. Is there a way where you
Speaker 1: can be a little more disciplined so you know exactly
Speaker 1: what range you're shooting at, no matter whether you're just
Speaker 1: punching paper or trying to deflate lungs. What are the
Speaker 1: little ways you cannot settle for good enough, but instead
Speaker 1: up for exactly what you need or exactly what you
Speaker 1: should be doing. Now, if you start to flush some
Speaker 1: of those things out, they're gonna snowball in a positive direction.
Speaker 1: If you don't believe that, just pay attention to some
Speaker 1: of the best hunters out there, those public land hunters
Speaker 1: who just get it done wherever they go. They're not
Speaker 1: settling a whole lot. They don't settle when they're e scouting,
Speaker 1: hanging stands, shooting in the summer, choosing when to take
Speaker 1: a shot, you name it. They don't settle for good enough,
Speaker 1: Because when you're dealing with a game of infinite variables
Speaker 1: in the most important of tiny details, one little thing
Speaker 1: that isn't up to park and set off cascading failures
Speaker 1: that ultimately ends up with a buck living another day
Speaker 1: and not them taking grip and grin photos. So, my friends,
Speaker 1: be careful what you settle for, because good enough in
Speaker 1: the white tailed woods isn't usually that good. That's it
Speaker 1: for this week, my white tail loving friends. I'm Tony
Speaker 1: Peterson and this has been the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast,
Speaker 1: which is brought to you by First Light. If you
Speaker 1: haven't gotten enough white tail goodness your your white tail
Speaker 1: fixed on this podcast and the regular wire to Hunt podcast,
Speaker 1: please head on over to our Wired to Hunt YouTube
Speaker 1: channel and check out our how to videos or visit
Speaker 1: them meat eater dot com slash wired to read all
Speaker 1: the latest and greatest articles that we dropped every week
Speaker 1: from myself market a whole bunch of white tail slayers,
Speaker 1: and as always, thank you, thank you, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening for your support. We really appreciate it.