Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast, your guide
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better dear hunting. Present it by
Speaker 1: First Light, creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand,
Speaker 1: saddle or blind. First Light, Go Farther, Stay Longer, and
Speaker 1: now your host Tony Peterson.
Speaker 2: Hey, everyone, welcome to the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast,
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by First Light. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today's show is dedicated to a reality
Speaker 2: that a lot of us probably don't want to face,
Speaker 2: which is that we are all hypocrites when it comes
Speaker 2: to hunting. Let's face it, we're all pretty biased toward ourselves.
Speaker 2: It's not real hard to overlook our own greed and
Speaker 2: our own securities and well a lot of the flaws
Speaker 2: we all bring to the table. And if you're not married,
Speaker 2: how are you going to know about them? Who is
Speaker 2: going to point them out to you every day until
Speaker 2: you die? We are all hypocrites, and it's okay. It's
Speaker 2: how we treat each other it really matters, and that's
Speaker 2: what this show is all about. My wife and I
Speaker 2: coach are eleven year old girls in softball. The league
Speaker 2: they play in is all girls who are either going
Speaker 2: into sixth grade or fifth It's a slow pitch player
Speaker 2: pitch league, so as you can imagine, the games are
Speaker 2: pretty terrible. The rule for player pitchers is that if
Speaker 2: they walk three batters in any inning, it's time for
Speaker 2: a coach to tag in and pitch for them. If
Speaker 2: they didn't have that rule, the games would last forever
Speaker 2: and the scores would be I don't know, ten thousand
Speaker 2: to ten thousand after four hundred ninety seven innings of play.
Speaker 2: What's weird about the coach pitch situation is that most
Speaker 2: of the coaches are terrified to pitch. It's like, I
Speaker 2: don't know, kind of like a public speaking engagement almost,
Speaker 2: so most of them will not do it. Now, I've
Speaker 2: been speaking in public long enough to know that I
Speaker 2: don't have a ton of shame left, so I usually
Speaker 2: do it, and you know what, occasionally I almost get
Speaker 2: divorced over it. My wife absolutely will not pitch, and
Speaker 2: if you ask her why, you're not going to get
Speaker 2: a straight answer. But we all know why. So I
Speaker 2: do it. And the truth is I do a pretty
Speaker 2: good job now. I'm not being cocky there either. I
Speaker 2: pitched to my daughters all the time and I've pitched
Speaker 2: in this league for a few years. It's not terribly
Speaker 2: difficult to underhand a slow softball over the plate, even
Speaker 2: when the strike zone varies so much because some of
Speaker 2: the players are tiny. What sucks is most of the
Speaker 2: girls aren't very good at hitting, and by that I'm
Speaker 2: being very very charitable. Even our best hitters strike out often,
Speaker 2: and our worst hitters would probably strike out trying to
Speaker 2: bat off a tee. What makes me look good is
Speaker 2: when they hit. What makes me look bad is when
Speaker 2: they whiff. It doesn't matter if I throw perfect pitches.
Speaker 2: They whiff a lot. My wife, who apparently doesn't realize
Speaker 2: how popular I think i'd be on Tinder if I
Speaker 2: were to fire up a fresh profile, often comments on
Speaker 2: how bad my pitching is. But it's not and from
Speaker 2: the dugout it's pretty tough to tell just where the
Speaker 2: pitches go. That doesn't stop her from telling me she
Speaker 2: thinks I should do a better job, a job I'll
Speaker 2: remind all you dear listeners that is one she will
Speaker 2: not do. It drives me crazy, almost as crazy as
Speaker 2: a recent episode of the podcast I put out about
Speaker 2: small water holes and how making one might help you
Speaker 2: kill some deer. I had a fellow who I've never
Speaker 2: met but who's loosely connected to the hunting industry call
Speaker 2: me out on it for being bad advice. His reasoning
Speaker 2: was that in CWD hot zones, a water hole could
Speaker 2: cause the disease to spread. He even supported his email
Speaker 2: with quotes from three fellows who also work in the
Speaker 2: hunting industry, and to his credit, he said he didn't
Speaker 2: listen to the episode, and I got the impression none
Speaker 2: of them did. And also to his credit, he's right
Speaker 2: on one count. If you're in a CWD heavy area, you
Speaker 2: probably shouldn't have followed my advice. I didn't say that
Speaker 2: in the podcast, and I should have listen. Guys. I'm
Speaker 2: a good softball pitcher, but not really good at giving
Speaker 2: hunting advice. Sometimes you live and learn now, As you
Speaker 2: can imagine. When he called me out, complete with support
Speaker 2: from several guys who also didn't listen to the podcast,
Speaker 2: I got defensive. I noticed, not surprisingly, that all of
Speaker 2: them own their own land, all of them have pretty
Speaker 2: big chunks of ground to manage. And while they told
Speaker 2: me that putting water out is unnecessary because deer have
Speaker 2: survived for thousands of years without our help, and that
Speaker 2: they can get water naturally. They failed to address the
Speaker 2: reality that they are all four kill plots. Some of
Speaker 2: them have written articles about kill plots. They clearly don't
Speaker 2: mind putting something out for the deer that the deer
Speaker 2: don't need in an effort to artificially concentrate them. And
Speaker 2: we know CWD prions can live in the soil and
Speaker 2: eventually end up in plants the deer eat, but none
Speaker 2: of them cared about that for some reason. Now I
Speaker 2: did mention that fact, but none of them responded. I
Speaker 2: didn't mention the fact that while it's fun to view
Speaker 2: the entire world of white tails through our own experiences,
Speaker 2: I don't have that luxury. I have to try to
Speaker 2: think about people who live all over the country who
Speaker 2: hunt white tails, many of whom don't own large tracks
Speaker 2: of land that they can manage. In other words, those
Speaker 2: guys are hypocrites, and so are you, and so am I.
Speaker 2: I've mentioned this before, but I have this nasty habit
Speaker 2: of trying to find some advantage someone might have who
Speaker 2: either kills a giant buck or who has a track
Speaker 2: record of getting it done. The exercise, which comes way
Speaker 2: too naturally just allows me to feel a little bit
Speaker 2: better about myself. But it's an ugly trait and it
Speaker 2: makes me a hypocrite, just like it does when I
Speaker 2: see someone pose with a dead buck and a crossboard
Speaker 2: or a rifle. It's very very easy for me to think, well, sure,
Speaker 2: anyone can kill a buck with a weapon like that,
Speaker 2: that's an awful big crutch. YadA YadA. Now you take
Speaker 2: some stick bow hunter and have him tell me to
Speaker 2: take the training wheels off of my bow because I
Speaker 2: use a compound, and I'm all like, hey, man, go
Speaker 2: kick rocks in the street. You lead us prick. You
Speaker 2: see how that works. Hypocrisy is rampant in human nature,
Speaker 2: and it's probably more prevalent in an ego centric type
Speaker 2: of activity like hunting than it is in some of
Speaker 2: the things in life that we're just less passionate about.
Speaker 2: But it is everywhere. Let me give you another example.
Speaker 2: If you ever visit hunting forums, you'll see hypocrisy at
Speaker 2: a level that's almost laughable. I actually like hunting forums,
Speaker 2: even though I don't participate in them much because I
Speaker 2: have to talk to enough people every day that I
Speaker 2: really don't want to communicate with. But those hunting forums
Speaker 2: serve a pretty damn good purpose. Generally, if you have
Speaker 2: a question about broadhead choice, or the durability of some
Speaker 2: kind of clothing, or how to camp in grizzly country,
Speaker 2: and on and on, you can usually find a localized,
Speaker 2: experienced community on hunting forums. And while you might need
Speaker 2: to filter out some of the folks who aren't really
Speaker 2: qualified to give advice, you'll find plenty who are. That's
Speaker 2: great in my opinion. But you'll also see that a
Speaker 2: lot of these forums are dominated by about fifty posters,
Speaker 2: and the threads often veer in the same predictable direction
Speaker 2: over time. There's one forum that is primarily focused on
Speaker 2: Western hunting, which is definitely one of those The cause
Speaker 2: de jure is shitting on non residents and lately hunting
Speaker 2: influencers for ruining all the hunting out West. Often, much
Speaker 2: to my delight, these guys will point out that influencers
Speaker 2: who are making millions of dollars are the root cause. Now,
Speaker 2: if they'd listen to me, which they probably won't, I'd
Speaker 2: explain to them that if you run into one of
Speaker 2: the three hunting influencers who's actually making millions, it's going
Speaker 2: to be on a ranch where the cost of an
Speaker 2: ELK is twenty five thousand dollars, it's probably not going
Speaker 2: to be on public dirt in their favor over the
Speaker 2: counter unit in Colorado. Anyway, the common refrain is that
Speaker 2: hunter's participating in social media, particularly with kill photos, are
Speaker 2: ruining all hunting. Now that leads to the commercialization of hunting,
Speaker 2: and how the whole thing is terrible and needs to stop.
Speaker 2: And you might be nodding your head and saying, preach it,
Speaker 2: my Western brothers, But the problem is that forum is
Speaker 2: covered in bannered ads, and I mean covered in them.
Speaker 2: You can also read all kinds of reviews on high
Speaker 2: end gear, which, if you know anything about that world,
Speaker 2: you know how those reviews come to be. Now, I'm
Speaker 2: not saying this is specific to that forum or any forum,
Speaker 2: but generally the gear tends to be painted in a
Speaker 2: pretty positive light, and there are very compelling reasons for
Speaker 2: such a rosy picture to be out there. Anyway, every
Speaker 2: once in a while, someone will point this reality out
Speaker 2: to the posters, and they'll immediately find ways to show
Speaker 2: that their favorite hunting forum isn't nearly as damaging as
Speaker 2: this site or that site or this person or that
Speaker 2: personality or whatever. They hate the commercialization of hunting, except
Speaker 2: they don't understand that the spot they are bitching about
Speaker 2: is commercializing hunting. They also don't know, but I do
Speaker 2: that advertisers have a lot of say in the direction
Speaker 2: of the content in the forums and the articles in
Speaker 2: the video is created by the owners. I once had
Speaker 2: an illuminating conversation with a woman who worked for a
Speaker 2: major bowl manufacturer, and I asked her about this as
Speaker 2: we mowed down on some PF changs for lunch at
Speaker 2: ATA show one time, and she said, the whole reason
Speaker 2: we advertise with some forums is so we have a
Speaker 2: say in the content and shut down negativity if it
Speaker 2: pops up. We are all hypocrites. We are all, nearly
Speaker 2: to a man and woman, quick to point out the
Speaker 2: dangers of the anti hunting crowd. They want to take
Speaker 2: away our rights and our opportunities in our way our life.
Speaker 2: They are the enemy, and we must form a united
Speaker 2: front against them. Fair enough, but I promise you that
Speaker 2: you'll lose far more hunting opportunities in the next decade
Speaker 2: to your fellow hunters than you will the vegan cat crowd.
Speaker 2: With peta bumper stickers on their electric cars. We are
Speaker 2: all hypocrites. I'll give you another example. I've had permission
Speaker 2: to hunt a farm in southeastern Minnesota for a long time.
Speaker 2: You've heard me mention this place many, many times. I
Speaker 2: love the place, even if the hunting kind of sucks.
Speaker 2: I love it when every couple of years the landowner
Speaker 2: lets in so many people that a few unscrupulous individuals
Speaker 2: sneak in and they really make it rough for everyone else.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing. I want you to know how
Speaker 2: hard it is to hunt there because I want credit
Speaker 2: for that. I'm not proud of it, but I really
Speaker 2: don't want you to think I'm hunting some cushy spot
Speaker 2: where the hunting is easy. Although when we had Antler
Speaker 2: Point restrictions it sure was easy. It's not now, and
Speaker 2: it wasn't before. But I didn't really go out of
Speaker 2: my way to make it sound like a walk in
Speaker 2: the park for those years that it actually was pretty easy.
Speaker 2: This is one of the reasons I like hunting public land.
Speaker 2: Everyone knows the language around public land, and everyone understands
Speaker 2: that it's generally the toughest hunting we can have for
Speaker 2: white tails and other critters. You don't really need to
Speaker 2: say much more. But if you hunt private land, all
Speaker 2: bets are off. You better say how many hunters could
Speaker 2: be there, and how early your gun season is, and
Speaker 2: how the DNR ruined everything by encouraging a huge harvest
Speaker 2: over CWD concerns and on down the line. But really,
Speaker 2: who cares? I mean, really, who freaking cares? We do
Speaker 2: because we're all hypocrites. But that's okay. We do this
Speaker 2: with our political tribalism. We do this with our jobs
Speaker 2: and our finances, in our lives and our kids and
Speaker 2: our hunting. So you know what I propose, at least
Speaker 2: on the hunting front, that we acknowledge this and we
Speaker 2: just try to be better. It doesn't matter if someone
Speaker 2: kills a deer with a crossbow and you think they
Speaker 2: are the work of the devil himself. It doesn't matter
Speaker 2: if someone has access to unbelievable ground and you're stuck
Speaker 2: slugging out with the rest of the peons on public land.
Speaker 2: At the opposite end, if you're a able to afford
Speaker 2: a sweet crossbow and a nice lease and you stack
Speaker 2: up the one fifties, acknowledge that not everyone is there.
Speaker 2: If your grandpa happened to buy a land back in
Speaker 2: the forties to farm, and he was good at it,
Speaker 2: And now you're the benefactor of several thousand amazing acres
Speaker 2: a deer dirt. That's great. Don't shit on the person
Speaker 2: who doesn't have that, who is really really stoked to
Speaker 2: just shoot a forky somewhere. We all have different circumstances,
Speaker 2: we all have different goals in life and different opportunities,
Speaker 2: but we all love this hunting thing and that's great,
Speaker 2: so we should all just be nice about it. Let
Speaker 2: me give you another example here to tie a nice
Speaker 2: bow on this whole thing. I recently filmed a fishing
Speaker 2: show with the one and only Andy May. Now, if
Speaker 2: you don't know who Andy is, google him. There are
Speaker 2: only a couple people in the country with a resume
Speaker 2: like his when it comes to big deer on public land. Hell,
Speaker 2: he might have the best resume, even though he'll be
Speaker 2: the first to admit it's not a competition, and he
Speaker 2: has an awful lot of people he looks up to
Speaker 2: a lot. You know what, Andy's right, He's competing against
Speaker 2: himself to be better and he gets better every year.
Speaker 2: That's the kind of person I respect. But it goes
Speaker 2: a lot further than that, As you can imagine. While
Speaker 2: Andy and I shared a boat together for hours and
Speaker 2: hours trying to catch big smallies in large mouth, I
Speaker 2: got to know him in a way that I just
Speaker 2: never have in the I don't know, six or eight
Speaker 2: years that we've known each other, and he's a guy
Speaker 2: who hasn't had a lot handed to him, but he's
Speaker 2: gone out and done amazing things. He also is not
Speaker 2: very quick to shit on people, and that's real important.
Speaker 2: He's at the top of the wait tail game and
Speaker 2: the bow hunting in general game, and he's genuinely happy
Speaker 2: for people's success. He's about the least hypocritical guy I
Speaker 2: know when it comes to hunting, and it makes me
Speaker 2: a little ashamed that I'm not there yet. It's also
Speaker 2: a reminder that while we were all hypocrites to some extent,
Speaker 2: we can do better. We can be more like Andy
Speaker 2: and hell think that'd be a good shirt or maybe
Speaker 2: we should mentor I don't know, more hunters and post
Speaker 2: hashtags be like Andy. I don't know. What I do
Speaker 2: know is that life sucks a lot of times. It's hard.
Speaker 2: It feels like we are living in this dystopian nightmare
Speaker 2: that might be some sort of late stage capitalism that
Speaker 2: is teetering on the brink of something much, much worse.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of anxiety and stress in life, some
Speaker 2: of which we invite in and some we just absorb
Speaker 2: through our daily existence. And as hard as you have
Speaker 2: it or I have it, or whoever, they are countless
Speaker 2: people who have things way harder. I might not outwardly
Speaker 2: show it because me, like a lot of people, are
Speaker 2: good at compartmentalizing this stuff and presenting a positive image.
Speaker 2: But the truth is we're all just fighting our own battles.
Speaker 2: Most of us are just trying to do a decent
Speaker 2: job at life, and we don't always get it right.
Speaker 2: We don't always win, we don't always kill big bucks whatever,
Speaker 2: but we try to be a little happier and have
Speaker 2: a better life. And if you're listening to this, one
Speaker 2: of the ways you probably try to get a little
Speaker 2: better is by shooting your bow in the summer, maybe
Speaker 2: running a few trail cameras, maybe getting together with a
Speaker 2: buddy or two to plant a trip. In the fall,
Speaker 2: you scout, and you use hunting as an escape to
Speaker 2: get away from the crushing weight of everyday life. Just
Speaker 2: so you can recharge the batteries a little bit, and
Speaker 2: it's a good way to do it too. But you
Speaker 2: won't do it in a way that makes everyone happy.
Speaker 2: You won't do it in a way that is harder
Speaker 2: than every other hunter out there. You're going to use
Speaker 2: your advantages, however big or small, or impactful or meaningful,
Speaker 2: and you'll draw your own lines in the sand for
Speaker 2: what you want out of it, and those are yours,
Speaker 2: and it's your journey. Enjoy it. Just remember that no
Speaker 2: one else is on the same hunting journey, and no
Speaker 2: one else is on the same life journey. It's all
Speaker 2: different for each of us, and it's all good. So
Speaker 2: let's be nice. Let's enjoy the shit out of this
Speaker 2: hunting thing while we have it. Maybe share some venison
Speaker 2: with some non hunters. Let's take a few people out
Speaker 2: if we can, even it's only a late season dough hunter, whatever.
Speaker 2: Let's recognize this for what it is, acknowledge that we
Speaker 2: are all hypocrites in our own right, and just do
Speaker 2: a little better. I think we will all be better
Speaker 2: off for that, don't you. And I also think we
Speaker 2: owe it to ourselves to just give each other a
Speaker 2: break and be a little more supportive of this whole
Speaker 2: thing before it's too late. How's that sound? Also? How
Speaker 2: does this sound? Next week, I'm going to talk about
Speaker 2: a couple of things you can do to make yourself
Speaker 2: better in the off season. If you want to be
Speaker 2: a better hunter, there are things you can do that
Speaker 2: aren't directly tied to throwing out that trail camera, doing
Speaker 2: this or that. Trust me, I'm going to get into
Speaker 2: them next week, So listen up. That's it for this week, folks.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening on Tony Peterson. This
Speaker 2: has been the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, which is
Speaker 2: brought to you by First Light. As always, thank you
Speaker 2: so much for listening. We truly appreciate your support here.
Speaker 2: It means the world to us. If you want some
Speaker 2: more hunting content, and I mean white tail articles series
Speaker 2: like the buck Truck that we dropped recently, anything hunting
Speaker 2: related and quite a bit of phishing related stuff too,
Speaker 2: you can head on over to the meeteater dot com
Speaker 2: watch our series, read our articles, listen to the podcast.
Speaker 2: Whatever you need to scratch that itch, it's there.