Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,
Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.
Speaker 1: First Light, Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.
Speaker 2: Hey everyone, welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by first Light. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today's episode it's going to be a
Speaker 2: fun one, well at least for me, because I'm going
Speaker 2: to talk about some of the things i feel like
Speaker 2: I've really learned in over three decades being obsessed with
Speaker 2: deer hunting. It's not very often I watch regular old TV.
Speaker 2: With the amount of streaming services out there and the
Speaker 2: sheer availability of on demand content, it's not all that
Speaker 2: common for a lot of people to just flip through
Speaker 2: the channels. If you do, you'll notice that a lot
Speaker 2: of stations run the same show on repeat for hours
Speaker 2: at a time, and in between a major redicut Uelesusness Binge.
Speaker 2: You might also notice a bunch of commercials for products
Speaker 2: and services that are thinly veiled frauds. Think class action lawsuits,
Speaker 2: limited time only amazing products that will change your life,
Speaker 2: and well a hell of a lot of pharmaceuticals that
Speaker 2: you might make you skinny, but will probably also give
Speaker 2: you explosive diarrhea, make you far sighted at night and
Speaker 2: nearsighted in the day, and cause swelling rashes and open
Speaker 2: festering wounds on your undercarriage. Anyway, I recently watched some
Speaker 2: old school TV, subjected myself to those commercials, and voila.
Speaker 2: This podcast was born kind of mostly out of a
Speaker 2: little nostalgia. To be honest, it doesn't really matter, enjoy.
Speaker 2: One thing that has really taken hold recently amongst us
Speaker 2: silly Americans is this whole generational divide thing. Millennials in
Speaker 2: particular seem to have a serious thing against the baby
Speaker 2: boomer generation and to some extent Gen xers gen Z
Speaker 2: is out there getting into the workforce and they're starting
Speaker 2: to figure some stuff out, and other generations they're starting
Speaker 2: to figure some stuff out about them. What's interesting is
Speaker 2: that the complaints from younger generations about the older generations
Speaker 2: have been largely the same since Socrates was robed up
Speaker 2: in the town square talking philosophy on a Sunday afternoon
Speaker 2: in Athens, right now, it seems like the easy target
Speaker 2: is the boomer generation, you know, because they're retiring, and
Speaker 2: I guess to a lot of young folks appear to
Speaker 2: have had it easy. This is most commonly framed in
Speaker 2: some way about money, and you'll see memes and all
Speaker 2: those silly TikTokers out there talking about how it only
Speaker 2: took a boomer thirteen hours on a minimum wage salary
Speaker 2: to buy a brand new house, raise a family, put
Speaker 2: six kids through college, and retire at forty eight, while
Speaker 2: nowadays they need to work two hundred and ninety six
Speaker 2: thousand hours at middle wage to rent a spare closet
Speaker 2: from a slimy landlord who is definitely going to raise
Speaker 2: their rent every month, and who is the epitome of
Speaker 2: corporate greed. They'll gloss over that it mostly wasn't the
Speaker 2: people born into the system that made the rules, or
Speaker 2: the fact that for as hard as they think they
Speaker 2: have it, it's very unlikely they'll get drafted into a
Speaker 2: deeply unpopular war to go spend some time in the
Speaker 2: jungle fighting people who not only had a serious home
Speaker 2: field tactical advantage, but also the emotional advantage of fighting
Speaker 2: for their home Land. My dad spent a year and
Speaker 2: a half over there, and it didn't sound like it
Speaker 2: was a whole lot of fun or that things were
Speaker 2: super easy for him. You could gloss over the reality
Speaker 2: of post World War two America and a long fight
Speaker 2: for civil rights. You know, those poor kids shot up
Speaker 2: at Kent State by their own government, and a whole
Speaker 2: lot of things that wouldn't be all that fun to
Speaker 2: live through today. And you know, the other end of
Speaker 2: the spectrum isn't without merit and their complaints. The young
Speaker 2: kids today do face a system that is set up
Speaker 2: to extract their blood, sweat and tears and whatever money
Speaker 2: they can earn and transfer it to somebody else. They
Speaker 2: were born into a nerved world to some extent, and
Speaker 2: that was a lie. Everyone gets a trophy, but also
Speaker 2: everyone gets an adult world that doesn't give a shit
Speaker 2: about their feelings. Life is hard for all generations, and
Speaker 2: it's hard for almost all people. You younger folks listening
Speaker 2: to that might not believe it, but you'll get there eventually.
Speaker 2: That's one of the things that I've learned as an
Speaker 2: almost millennial but technically a gen xer by about four months.
Speaker 2: As I get older and I stare down the barrel
Speaker 2: on my forty fourth birthday. I think about this stuff
Speaker 2: a lot. It's fun to identify with a specific generation.
Speaker 2: You know, be a part of the tribe if you will.
Speaker 2: We are as humans pretty driven to be around like
Speaker 2: minded people, and this extends into our world as deer hunters.
Speaker 2: But one thing you learn about being in the broad
Speaker 2: tribe of deer hunting and then a smaller tribe of
Speaker 2: bow hunting, and then the smaller tribe of public land
Speaker 2: bow hunting is that we are all playing a weird game.
Speaker 2: It doesn't really matter because our journey is just ours,
Speaker 2: whether you collectively suffer with a bunch of folks or
Speaker 2: you go the whole quiet desperation way that Threau mentioned.
Speaker 2: The journey is yours. The accountability is yours. Your reactions,
Speaker 2: it's your effort and I'm a discipline or the lack
Speaker 2: of it, the enjoyment level, it's on you in life
Speaker 2: and in deer hunting. This is what I want to
Speaker 2: start this podcast with because I feel it in my bones.
Speaker 2: When it comes to deer hunting, we want to be special.
Speaker 2: We want to fit into the cool kids club, and
Speaker 2: you know who is really in that club? Mostly just
Speaker 2: people who kill big bucks quite often. That's kind of it.
Speaker 2: Now you can get bonus points for doing it all
Speaker 2: on public land, or doing it only from the ground
Speaker 2: with a long bow or whatever. But the truth is
Speaker 2: that all of us just want to be in the
Speaker 2: club that kills big Bucks. I can tell you one
Speaker 2: thing about this after a lifetime of deer hunting and
Speaker 2: quite a few years in the hunting industry. That's dumb
Speaker 2: the focus on big Bucks just because they are big.
Speaker 2: It's kind of weird that club is full of people
Speaker 2: who have all different levels of opportunity and finances and
Speaker 2: believe this or not. Skill keeping praise on anyone for
Speaker 2: killing big Bucks without acknowledging how they do it is
Speaker 2: just wild to me. And it kind of confirms how
Speaker 2: little a lot of people know about big Bucks, because
Speaker 2: here's the thing. A lot of big deer are killed
Speaker 2: in ways that aren't challenging at all. If there is
Speaker 2: one thing that I believe about deer hunting, it's that
Speaker 2: this is so damaging to so many people because for
Speaker 2: most folks it's a nearly insurmountable challenge. It can be
Speaker 2: that variable, and I'm here to tell you it is
Speaker 2: that variable. You probably can't actually get admitted into the
Speaker 2: true big buck club because you'll never be able to
Speaker 2: afford it, kind of like a yacht club or I
Speaker 2: don't know, golfing at some of the best courses. Maybe
Speaker 2: you guys know how little I know about golf. I
Speaker 2: think it's better to hunt your own hunt, so to speak,
Speaker 2: find your own reasons to be out there that go
Speaker 2: way beyond just inches of antler. I know that most
Speaker 2: folks aren't pure trophy hunters, but I also know there's
Speaker 2: a lot of bullshit mixed into the messaging of trophy hunting.
Speaker 2: And you know how you can tell just look for
Speaker 2: the weasel words. They exist in all facets of life,
Speaker 2: and especially with hot button political issues, where the terminology
Speaker 2: is always changing but the issues never get fixed. It's
Speaker 2: also obvious in hunting we don't kill deer. We harvest them. Well,
Speaker 2: harvest actually is a technically correct word for it, if
Speaker 2: you want to use it. We all know why we
Speaker 2: say it. We don't trophy hunt anymore. We target much surbucks.
Speaker 2: We wait until the deer are prime age, and then
Speaker 2: we selectively try to remove them because they've done their
Speaker 2: breeding and they've lived their good life and that sounds great.
Speaker 2: You know, until that target buck, the mature one you've
Speaker 2: waited for, I don't know, five or six years on,
Speaker 2: walks in and he's busted both of his main beams off.
Speaker 2: How many folks are shooting that deer? Then he's still mature.
Speaker 2: He still has all of that challenge old into his existence.
Speaker 2: So the antler shouldn't matter, right right? Sure, yeah, totally,
Speaker 2: never mind. It's a hell of a lot harder to
Speaker 2: age year on the hoof than people think, or that
Speaker 2: a real mature deer, say, I don't know, an eight
Speaker 2: and a half year old instead of a five and
Speaker 2: a half year old would be a hell of a
Speaker 2: lot more of a challenge. But no one is letting
Speaker 2: their bucks start to get on the old downswing of
Speaker 2: their antlers and killing them is gnarly one hundred inches
Speaker 2: with huge bellies and gray faces. Nope, it just so
Speaker 2: happens that our definition of mature coincides nicely with the
Speaker 2: biggest racks bucks are ever going to grow and listen.
Speaker 2: If that's your jam and you love it, go for it.
Speaker 2: I mean that. But if you're looking to get into
Speaker 2: that club and feel like the guy working the door
Speaker 2: just isn't going to open the velvet rope for you.
Speaker 2: It might be time to look for something different out
Speaker 2: of your hunting. That's just one of the things I
Speaker 2: truly believe after a long life of obsessing over deer.
Speaker 2: Another is that if you want to truly enjoy hunting,
Speaker 2: figure everything you can out about venison. Now. This will
Speaker 2: sound weird coming from a meat eater guy, but I
Speaker 2: don't mean find the most obscure, show offish recipes for
Speaker 2: your venicon that no one in their right mind would
Speaker 2: actually make besides someone who is looking for Instagram likes
Speaker 2: on their stand in stur videos. I mean the process,
Speaker 2: the appreciation of venison. This is anecdotal, I know this,
Speaker 2: but one of the things that has happened to me
Speaker 2: is I have killed lots of deer and mixed in
Speaker 2: some big ones, is that I'm more interested in the
Speaker 2: meat now than I ever was before. Feeding my family
Speaker 2: means more to me than another big rack on the
Speaker 2: wall that has taught me something. Focusing on procuring venison
Speaker 2: has extended my season, has changed how I feel about hunting.
Speaker 2: It's made it more enjoyable, partially just because it makes
Speaker 2: me go more Now if that seems weird or like bs.
Speaker 2: Let me explain. I like hunting deer, and I like
Speaker 2: shooting deer. I like the process of settling my pin
Speaker 2: on their side or the crosshairs. I like handing my
Speaker 2: daughter's headlamps and heading into the woods at night to
Speaker 2: figure out blood trails, whether they created them or I did.
Speaker 2: I like the feeling of knowing the freezer is full,
Speaker 2: or the feeling of a four hour burger grinding session
Speaker 2: knowing that it'll be tacos and spaghetti sauce all year long.
Speaker 2: Just that aspect, owning it and trying to appreciate it
Speaker 2: has changed how I look at my deer hunting. It
Speaker 2: makes me happy to get dough tags or hunt somewhere
Speaker 2: for a few days knowing that I'm going to be
Speaker 2: hunting hungry, and any deer that walks by and gives
Speaker 2: me the right shot will at least draw some consideration
Speaker 2: from me. And on that note, another thing that I've
Speaker 2: learned kind of relates to me giving different generations at
Speaker 2: the beginning of this podcast is a lot of people
Speaker 2: want you to believe that deer hunting is easy for them.
Speaker 2: This goes for hunting industry folks, and non hunting industry
Speaker 2: folks alike. But the truth is, most people don't tell
Speaker 2: you how hard it is for them to actually get
Speaker 2: it done. They don't tell you their struggles, which far
Speaker 2: outweigh the wins. The truth is that hunting is hard
Speaker 2: for most folks, and if it's not, they aren't looking
Speaker 2: for much of a challenge. Because, believe me on this,
Speaker 2: if you think you're really good, you just haven't put
Speaker 2: yourself in enough situations to learn that you're not. I
Speaker 2: think this is one of the things that our current life,
Speaker 2: with our current technology, has really skewed how we see
Speaker 2: the world. Take Cam Haignes and David Goggins, for example.
Speaker 2: They might be two of the most inspirational people out there,
Speaker 2: and you can see how much amazing shit they've done
Speaker 2: and continue to do with their lives because they plaster
Speaker 2: it all over it's everywhere. They will also tell anyone
Speaker 2: who listens about their struggles. But I promise you that
Speaker 2: doesn't translate as well as some of their successes at
Speaker 2: good money that they both experience serious motivational issues probably
Speaker 2: every day of their lives. They just found the discipline
Speaker 2: to tamp that shit down and power through. But you know.
Speaker 2: The struggle is there because it is part of the
Speaker 2: human experience, and we always want to project an image
Speaker 2: of kicking ass and taking name tags. But most of
Speaker 2: us are just kicking our own asses and well not
Speaker 2: taking names. I guess this is true for life and
Speaker 2: true for hunting, but we don't need to pollute hunting
Speaker 2: with too much stuff that really pisses us off. I
Speaker 2: see this with a lot of Western hunters who focus
Speaker 2: on the non residents ruining their hunting. I see it
Speaker 2: with a lot of white tail hunters who think the
Speaker 2: wolves ate all their deer, or that the neighbor who
Speaker 2: has five hundred acres and doesn't let anyone hunt and
Speaker 2: always kills giant bucks, you know, and he's the worst
Speaker 2: guy in the world. And they just happen to be
Speaker 2: this poor, lowly hunter on twenty acres that borders their
Speaker 2: property and can barely kill a spike. What I know
Speaker 2: about life and deer hunting is you can change and better.
Speaker 2: Yet should hunters are notorious for resisting change, and I
Speaker 2: suspect that's probably an evolutionary thing. We put up a
Speaker 2: lot of guardrails to keep things consistent, because when they aren't,
Speaker 2: it's just as likely things will get worse as opposed
Speaker 2: to better. But deer hunting doesn't need to mirror general life.
Speaker 2: If you're unhappy with your hunting spot, you can find
Speaker 2: another one. Don't tell me you can't, because you can. Now.
Speaker 2: It might not be super awesome, it might not be free,
Speaker 2: it might not be five minutes down the road from
Speaker 2: your house, but the options are out there somewhere. Or
Speaker 2: if you hate non residents and think they ruin your hunting,
Speaker 2: look at it a different way. Imagine having the advantage
Speaker 2: of being right there to scout, to hunt, to camp
Speaker 2: to whatever. Now imagine someone who lives a thousand miles
Speaker 2: away and has less time than you to do all
Speaker 2: those things. Don't you think you can out hunt that
Speaker 2: person nine out of ten times? And if you can't,
Speaker 2: why not. There's no way that person can and scout
Speaker 2: and find every little seat or hidden water hole, every
Speaker 2: bench that the bulls or the bucks might bet on.
Speaker 2: There's no way that person can compete with you. Why
Speaker 2: not get ahead of him and all of his buddies
Speaker 2: and use your advantage. Now, I'm gonna rapid fire a
Speaker 2: few more things that I've come to truly believe about
Speaker 2: hunting before I wrap this whole thing up and warn
Speaker 2: my boss about the hate mail that is probably going
Speaker 2: to roll in over it. I firmly believe that most
Speaker 2: hunters aren't patient enough when it comes to blood trailing,
Speaker 2: not only how long they give an uncertain hit, but
Speaker 2: how long they try to figure it out and grid
Speaker 2: search and give it their best effort. Blood trailing is
Speaker 2: a skill that you can work on, and it's something
Speaker 2: that requires real discipline and patience. It's also something that
Speaker 2: you're gonna have to do whether you like it or not.
Speaker 2: It's a part of deer hunting that can be really
Speaker 2: fun or downright horrible. Try to make everyone lean toward
Speaker 2: the fun category if you can, and you'll enjoy hunting
Speaker 2: far more and feel better about yourself along the way.
Speaker 2: I also think that we should help each other get better.
Speaker 2: I know this sounds woo woo, but I believe it.
Speaker 2: If you're decent at this stuff, help someone who is new.
Speaker 2: If you're new, try to find someone who seems to
Speaker 2: know what they are doing and work with them. I
Speaker 2: know this isn't that easy, and a lot of stuff
Speaker 2: comes into play here, but I can tell you this
Speaker 2: every time I've tried to help someone get better at hunting.
Speaker 2: Not only has it made me feel better, it's made
Speaker 2: me a better hunter. Sure comes with real challenges, and
Speaker 2: there are plenty of people out there who will take
Speaker 2: advantage of you, but sometimes you just get to pass
Speaker 2: along a gift that is worth a hell of a lot. Now,
Speaker 2: if you're worried about taking someone under your wing who
Speaker 2: might shoot a buck that you might want to shoot,
Speaker 2: ask yourself why that matters at all? Does it? Really?
Speaker 2: The answer is up to you, but at least consider
Speaker 2: it before making that decision. Now, another thing that I
Speaker 2: truly believe is this, If you want to get more
Speaker 2: out of hunting, try to learn to love the animals.
Speaker 2: Not just value them for what they can become, but
Speaker 2: love them for what they are. The sheer existence of
Speaker 2: white tails or elk, or bears or antelope or whatever
Speaker 2: just makes our lives better. Kind of like dogs for
Speaker 2: most of us. And while we love our dogs, we
Speaker 2: often look at animals we hunt sort of in an
Speaker 2: abstract way. They are this goal, this thing we want
Speaker 2: to possess. But they are also animals with a connection
Speaker 2: to their world and a will to survive. They're freaking
Speaker 2: cool and if you learn to love them, you'll want
Speaker 2: to be around them more, not just while you're on
Speaker 2: stand with a weapon in your hand, but also all
Speaker 2: that extra time in the off season. Maybe take the
Speaker 2: kids for a drive in the summer just to look
Speaker 2: at them. When you start to think about deer in
Speaker 2: that way, you start to seek out reasons to try
Speaker 2: to be around them. I think that's something that we
Speaker 2: miss in a lot of our hunting advice because it's
Speaker 2: all about scouting and strategizing to kill. The one way
Speaker 2: to get better at this stuff and just like it
Speaker 2: more is to try to appreciate dear for the many
Speaker 2: things they represent to us besides a grip and grin photo. Now, lastly,
Speaker 2: as old gen X or latch key kid who got
Speaker 2: to see the world before the Internet in the world after.
Speaker 2: I'll say this, there are very very few reasons to
Speaker 2: be a prick to someone. This goes for standing in
Speaker 2: line at the grocery store or online, and your favorite
Speaker 2: hunting forum may be parked at the parking area of
Speaker 2: the WMA. If you're going to be nasty to someone,
Speaker 2: please make sure you have a hell of a good reason.
Speaker 2: I don't think disagreeing over hunting strategies is one of them.
Speaker 2: I think that's dumb. Getting jealous over a buck someone
Speaker 2: else killed. It's dumb shitting on someone for shooting a dink. Dumb.
Speaker 2: It's okay to be passionate about this stuff. You should be,
Speaker 2: But it's also good to remember that everyone is on
Speaker 2: their own journey and hunting, and in life, they have
Speaker 2: their own struggles and their own anxiety us, the secret
Speaker 2: self loathing, the addictions, the you name. Its. Making them
Speaker 2: feel worse over hunting is dumb, just as dumb as
Speaker 2: trying to make yourself feel wildly superior over this stuff
Speaker 2: is dumb. Well, I could probably do this for a
Speaker 2: lot longer than I'm going to, but I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: subject you to that. Instead, I'm gonna wrap this sucker
Speaker 2: up and move on to next week, when I'm gonna
Speaker 2: talk about individual deer and how we don't really factor
Speaker 2: this into our hunting decisions, but we definitely should. That's
Speaker 2: it for this week, my friends. I'm Tony Peterson. This
Speaker 2: has been the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which has
Speaker 2: brought to you by First Light. As always, thank you
Speaker 2: so much for your support. I can't tell you how
Speaker 2: much it means to all of us at meat Eater
Speaker 2: that you guys check in and listen to all these
Speaker 2: podcasts and Clay's podcasts, and you watch the Element guys
Speaker 2: hunt Neil Guy or whatever the hell they're doing this week.
Speaker 2: Your support means everything to us. We don't have anything
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Speaker 2: to check out more content, go to the meeteater dot
Speaker 2: com and you will have more than enough stuff to
Speaker 2: fill your time as we write out this January and
Speaker 2: wait for Turkey season.