Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, and now your
Speaker 1: host Tony Peterson. Hey everyone, welcome to the wire to
Speaker 1: Hunt Foundations podcast, which has brought to you my first light.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Tony Peterson, and today I'm gonna give
Speaker 1: you a weird but I hope inspiring episode. When you
Speaker 1: do what I do and you probably don't, which is
Speaker 1: create hunting content, you find yourself in like a weird place.
Speaker 1: If you're filming I don't know, like a how to video,
Speaker 1: for example, it's pretty cut and dry. You have your
Speaker 1: key points, maybe a script and you film the stand
Speaker 1: up in the cover video. Or maybe you do podcasts
Speaker 1: and you have something worth talking about for twenty minutes,
Speaker 1: or you have a great guest to chat with for
Speaker 1: an hour or two. But you never really have to
Speaker 1: be vulnerable if you don't want to, and most of
Speaker 1: us in this industry don't even writing. If you write
Speaker 1: how two articles, I don't know, how to kill bucks
Speaker 1: in the cattails or whatever, you can stay pretty surface level.
Speaker 1: But to be a good writer, eventually you also have
Speaker 1: to make yourself available to the audience in a way
Speaker 1: that isn't always fun, but it can be cathartic and valuable.
Speaker 1: So that's what I'm gonna do today. Listen, no one
Speaker 1: probably really wants to hear what I'm gonna say later
Speaker 1: in this episode, but first I'm going to lay the
Speaker 1: groundwork for why I think it needs to be said,
Speaker 1: or at least why I need to say it. And
Speaker 1: I want to do something I've never done on this podcast,
Speaker 1: which is tell you why I got sober and how
Speaker 1: that made me a better deer hunter in a roundabout
Speaker 1: but very welcome way. Nine years of go, I had
Speaker 1: two babies at home, which is a lot of babies.
Speaker 1: I was struggling as a freelance writer. I was struggling
Speaker 1: as a hunter. I thought I had overcome most of
Speaker 1: my buck fever because for a few years I killed
Speaker 1: at least one good buck, but my old tendencies crept
Speaker 1: back in and my hunting suffered, and honestly, I was
Speaker 1: suffering too. I was drinking a lot. I always did
Speaker 1: ever since I started when I was like twelve or thirteen,
Speaker 1: but it had gotten worse, as addiction does, and I
Speaker 1: kept a stash at Jim Beam or Wild Turkey at
Speaker 1: the ready in the garage because I knew I was
Speaker 1: going to need it, and I did need it every night.
Speaker 1: And believe me when I say this, if you're hiding
Speaker 1: alcohol from your loved ones, you're pretty far down the
Speaker 1: rabbit hole. And my friends, I was pretty far down
Speaker 1: that rabbit hole. But I was functioning, and I was
Speaker 1: getting work assignments and stuff. I was taking care of babies,
Speaker 1: and I was trying to fill my Minnesota tag. It
Speaker 1: was past the gun season into late November, rerutally cold
Speaker 1: and not looking that great. But I did what we
Speaker 1: all do, which is head out for a hunt because
Speaker 1: I had the time. And even when the odds are
Speaker 1: low and you're gonna be staring down and freezing northwest
Speaker 1: wind all night, it's still pretty good to get into
Speaker 1: a tree. What I didn't expect after hanging my stand
Speaker 1: on a small property in the suburbs of the Twin
Speaker 1: Cities was I started seeing deer almost right away. They
Speaker 1: were holed up in a low area ringed by cat
Speaker 1: tails and saw grass and dogwoods and willows, swampy stuff.
Speaker 1: And I was in the market for any deer, any
Speaker 1: deer at all. So when a spike buck broke from
Speaker 1: the cover and headed my way. I stood up and
Speaker 1: got ready. He like, I don't know most young dumb
Speaker 1: bucks do. You never saw me, even at maybe like
Speaker 1: three or four yards when I drew. He never looked up,
Speaker 1: And he also didn't make it very far. And it
Speaker 1: was a weird wind because I was happy about filling
Speaker 1: my tag and having a delicious deer to eat. But
Speaker 1: I knew business wise spikes didn't do me much good
Speaker 1: and I'd have to do with the usual small buck
Speaker 1: shaming bullshit that comes with it. But after gutting that
Speaker 1: buck and cleaning my hands in the snow, I started
Speaker 1: the long drag back to my truck. Actually that's not true.
Speaker 1: I started a short drag back to my truck, which
Speaker 1: was maybe four yards away at most. I had to
Speaker 1: go through a snow covered slew, but it should have
Speaker 1: been pretty easy, and yet it wasn't. Now, I was
Speaker 1: bundled up for a cold sit, so I was way
Speaker 1: overdressed for the task. But I was also really, really
Speaker 1: out of shape, and I didn't realize how out of
Speaker 1: shape I was until I was halfway back to my truck,
Speaker 1: sitting on the ground next to that young buck, looking
Speaker 1: up at the sky. And listening to the last remnants
Speaker 1: of rush hour traffic on the highway that bordered the property.
Speaker 1: There's a line in a tool song that goes repugnant
Speaker 1: as the creature who would squander the ability to lift
Speaker 1: an eye to heaven conscious of his fleeting time here.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the Reverend Maynard meant when he
Speaker 1: wrote that, but I think of it often. It brings
Speaker 1: me back to that view of the sky at night,
Speaker 1: while I sat there, sweating my ass off and facing
Speaker 1: a reality that I did not want to face. It
Speaker 1: hit me. Then I could keep drinking and would probably
Speaker 1: die or at the very least be a really bad father.
Speaker 1: Or I could quit, which I knew I needed to do,
Speaker 1: and I could try to get my life in order.
Speaker 1: So I did what everyone in my position does, which
Speaker 1: is set a date in an arbitrary timeline. I said
Speaker 1: that on January one, I was going to start fresh.
Speaker 1: I was going to give it a year, so that way,
Speaker 1: if I didn't make it, I wouldn't really have failed,
Speaker 1: because it was only a year. And let me tell you,
Speaker 1: it was embarrassing to tell people I quit. Drinking had
Speaker 1: been such a part of my identity for so long.
Speaker 1: That it felt like I was admitting something horrible about
Speaker 1: myself when I told people that I was finished. That
Speaker 1: was a stupid way to feel, I know now, but
Speaker 1: at the time I didn't know that when you need
Speaker 1: to quit, your friends and family know it, though, and
Speaker 1: don't kid yourself on that front. They aren't dumb and
Speaker 1: a lot of them will be really happy for you.
Speaker 1: People are on your side. If it seems hard to believe,
Speaker 1: and if they aren't, at least in this capacity I'm
Speaker 1: talking about right now, then you might want to boot
Speaker 1: them out of your life. I thought it would be
Speaker 1: really difficult to quit. I thought i'd relapse and have
Speaker 1: a moment of weakness, or more likely dozens of them.
Speaker 1: But I also woke up feeling pretty good, or at
Speaker 1: least not that bad, and at the urging of my wife,
Speaker 1: I started going to the gym. No, I'm not being
Speaker 1: facetious when I say that, I actually think that might
Speaker 1: have saved my life. I was two d and twenty pounds,
Speaker 1: with the fat, alcoholic face and self conscious every time
Speaker 1: I walked into the gym. I didn't really know how
Speaker 1: to work out. I didn't really know where to start,
Speaker 1: but I got on the treadmill, I hit the weight
Speaker 1: room and I just put my head down and tried
Speaker 1: not to think about how much more comfortable most of
Speaker 1: the other people in the gym looked. It sucked, my friends.
Speaker 1: I hated every second of it. But I like not drinking,
Speaker 1: and I liked the feeling of the first five king
Speaker 1: iran or jogged slow jogged. I like the fact that
Speaker 1: within a few months I was down to a hundred
Speaker 1: and nine two pounds. It felt like some divine hand
Speaker 1: had waved a magic wand and given me a different
Speaker 1: life when it felt like it had a real future
Speaker 1: to it. Now you probably think I might be a
Speaker 1: little bit over the top here, but I'm being honest.
Speaker 1: I'm also probably focusing too much on the highlight reel
Speaker 1: because it wasn't easy. There were moments that made me
Speaker 1: want to drink bad, getting a nasty graham from a
Speaker 1: stranger who found a reason to hate me because of
Speaker 1: something I said or wrote, and then they want to
Speaker 1: tell me all about it and tell me how horrible
Speaker 1: I am. That would do it when my wife would
Speaker 1: nag me, or the girls just wouldn't stop crying no
Speaker 1: matter how tired I was. You name it. The triggering
Speaker 1: events are out there waiting for you. But I stuck
Speaker 1: with it, and I can't really say why now. I'm
Speaker 1: just real glad I did. And I was really glad
Speaker 1: when that first hunting season came along and I was
Speaker 1: sober and leaving at home a happier family than I
Speaker 1: thought I could ever have. I started that season out
Speaker 1: on a solo trip to North Dakota to Arrow of
Speaker 1: Velvet Buck, and when I got out there, I had
Speaker 1: it right for a tree near a crossing that had
Speaker 1: produced a really good buck for me the year before.
Speaker 1: But the river was too high, and there was a
Speaker 1: stand in there from a guy who straight up poached
Speaker 1: the spot from me. It wasn't looking good. The bucks
Speaker 1: were mostly on the other side of the river, and
Speaker 1: that dimmed my prospects further. But one little bachelor group
Speaker 1: of four bucks was still on my side, and they
Speaker 1: crossed to a pinch point that put them in play.
Speaker 1: When I sat up there for opening night, I had
Speaker 1: the nervous anxiety of a new season when I keep
Speaker 1: falling apart, when I keep my ship together, I didn't know.
Speaker 1: But when I saw those bucks crossing that stage flat
Speaker 1: and heading my way, I knew. I was going to
Speaker 1: find out, and it happened fast. When they hit that
Speaker 1: pinch point, the buck I really wanted slipped through first
Speaker 1: without stopping. The second buck did stop, and when he
Speaker 1: tipped over on the river bank, I was hit with
Speaker 1: a huge wave of relief. Now I nearly stepped on
Speaker 1: a rattlesnake that night getting that buck back to my truck,
Speaker 1: and it was a lot of work. It was a late, late,
Speaker 1: late night before I had a back and cooling off
Speaker 1: next to my tent. But I felt good, really good,
Speaker 1: and the whole season went that way. I'm going to
Speaker 1: brag about it just for a little bit to really
Speaker 1: frame this up. I followed that North Dakota buck up
Speaker 1: with one of my oldest books I've ever killed in
Speaker 1: my life at home in Minnesota a deer that field
Speaker 1: dressed at two pounds. In September, on the same weekend,
Speaker 1: I also killed my first bear. I went to South
Speaker 1: Dakota after that and killed my biggest mule deer on
Speaker 1: public land. Then I went to Nebraska and killed my
Speaker 1: biggest white tail ever on public land. I wrapped up
Speaker 1: that year on a TV hunt for bow Hunter, where
Speaker 1: I erote a great bucca do and a pig on
Speaker 1: film in Texas. It was honestly a dream season that
Speaker 1: I will likely never repeat again, but I don't care.
Speaker 1: The lesson I learned along the way that season was
Speaker 1: that getting my act together made me physically way healthier,
Speaker 1: which affects hunting in so many positive ways. And with that,
Speaker 1: your mental health is going to get better, to surprise, surprise,
Speaker 1: and when that happened, it's a huge boost to your
Speaker 1: hunting enjoyment, which is a huge boost usually to your
Speaker 1: hunting success. Now, I didn't quit drinking and start working
Speaker 1: out to be a better hunter, but it allowed me
Speaker 1: to be a way better hunter. It was, and I'm
Speaker 1: not joking here, the best side benefit to anything I've
Speaker 1: ever done in my life. It made the work so
Speaker 1: much more tolerable and made me less likely to make
Speaker 1: excuses and not do the work. And don't kid yourself here,
Speaker 1: guys and gals, hunting is mostly work, white tail hunting anyway,
Speaker 1: and we try to shortcut it. We try to do
Speaker 1: things that will make it so we have to work less.
Speaker 1: But for the most part it's just, I don't know,
Speaker 1: effort in and rewards out. That's the beauty of what
Speaker 1: we love to do. And no, you don't have to
Speaker 1: work your ass off. Like I said last week in
Speaker 1: last week's episode, you do you and you hunt how
Speaker 1: you want. I'm just telling my story and I want
Speaker 1: to get the point across that the positive changes I
Speaker 1: made in my life to directly made me more successful
Speaker 1: as a hunter. They directly made me enjoy my time
Speaker 1: in the woods more. They made me love my time
Speaker 1: and attend in some random state trying to arrow public
Speaker 1: land dear more, and my time with a backpack weighed
Speaker 1: down by pounds and pounds of my favorite protein. I'm
Speaker 1: telling you, it all got better. My attitude got better.
Speaker 1: Was a game changer. So what does this mean to you?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm not sure honestly. Maybe nothing, maybe
Speaker 1: a whole lot. But I want to say is this.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we look in the wrong spots for things we
Speaker 1: think will help. That's easy enough to see in the
Speaker 1: hunting world. When you walk down the aisles of a
Speaker 1: Cabela's or a Shields or wherever, you'll see rows and
Speaker 1: rows and rows of products destined to put bucks in
Speaker 1: your lap, and they call for your fat ass dirty dollar,
Speaker 1: which is my second tool reference in this podcast. But
Speaker 1: maybe what you need to do to be more successful
Speaker 1: as a deer hunter. Maybe that's not sitting on a
Speaker 1: shelf in Cabella's with a price tag on it. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's not something you can hold in your your hand.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's not something you can order off Amazon. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's not something you can plant in the ground with
Speaker 1: the promise that as long as the rain comes and
Speaker 1: the sun shines, the deer two will be there when
Speaker 1: you need them. I think it's good for us to
Speaker 1: reflect on our lives and what we could do differently
Speaker 1: to maybe enjoy them more. Maybe we need to just
Speaker 1: reframe our goals or what we think would make us happy,
Speaker 1: and then really target them. I've seen this with white
Speaker 1: tails a lot, where people think the biggest dead buck
Speaker 1: is the key to all of it. And believe me,
Speaker 1: I've never been sad to shoot a big buck. But
Speaker 1: I've been not as happy as I should be or
Speaker 1: thought I would be, for a variety of reasons, like
Speaker 1: I just didn't feel like I earned it. And I've
Speaker 1: been real, real happy to shoot little bucks and doze
Speaker 1: and just wake up and see the sun rise. While
Speaker 1: the potential for a deer encounter makes every minute on
Speaker 1: stand something worth enjoying. So I'm kind of honestly a
Speaker 1: little bit lost here is to what the message really
Speaker 1: is with this podcast. I don't think anyone needs to
Speaker 1: get into shape to enjoy hunting, like the popular Western
Speaker 1: hunting message, and I don't think hunting by itself is
Speaker 1: the best reason to try to become a better version
Speaker 1: of ourselves. But you can't deny that it's tied to
Speaker 1: our identity and our existence, and it's not something that
Speaker 1: is divorced from our non hunting decisions. What we do
Speaker 1: off the field affects what we do on the field.
Speaker 1: I guess I could say is a really shitty sports metaphor.
Speaker 1: So maybe take some time to think about what you're
Speaker 1: doing off the field, and if there's something you feel
Speaker 1: like you could do to make yourself a little happier,
Speaker 1: a little more present, maybe do that, maybe to give
Speaker 1: yourself a real sense of accomplishment and whatever facet of
Speaker 1: life the opportunity to do so is available to you.
Speaker 1: And if it's not, or you think it's not, maybe
Speaker 1: figure out how to open the door to just such
Speaker 1: an opportunity and see where it takes you. Now, it
Speaker 1: might not be easy, just like killing a big buck
Speaker 1: is usually not easy, but it'll probably be worth it,
Speaker 1: or at least it's worth it to think about, because
Speaker 1: if you could do something non hunting related that seems
Speaker 1: really difficult, you'll be able to do something hunting related
Speaker 1: that is really hard, like I don't know, killing a
Speaker 1: big buck. Like I said last week, If you're so inclined,
Speaker 1: make a big goal, my friends, but treat it like
Speaker 1: a daily challenge, the one step at a time thing.
Speaker 1: Set yourself up to struggle but to hopefully win. To
Speaker 1: grab life by the delicates every morning, and squeeze until
Speaker 1: he's on his knees. If that's dumping the gym, being
Speaker 1: down the drain and saying enough is enough, I'm absolutely
Speaker 1: pulling for you. If it's just to be more present
Speaker 1: with your kids, even when work has left you depressed
Speaker 1: and dreading another day dealing with your asshole boss, or
Speaker 1: maybe dealing with the general public, or maybe complaining patients,
Speaker 1: or maybe your students parents who think their little shitbird
Speaker 1: kids can do no wrong. Whatever it is you've got this,
Speaker 1: Maybe it's just to shoot a few more times per week,
Speaker 1: or hang a few more cameras. Maybe the goal the
Speaker 1: one thing that would make you happier. It's just to
Speaker 1: scout a new property or hell by that non resident
Speaker 1: and tag for wherever. So you force yourself to take
Speaker 1: the trip you never thought you could afford or never
Speaker 1: thought you'd take because you didn't have enough confidence in
Speaker 1: your skills to bring your hunting game on the road.
Speaker 1: You probably do, and if you don't, the best way
Speaker 1: to get it this is to just go go full
Speaker 1: on Nike and just do it. Maybe that first trip
Speaker 1: will be a disaster, but you'll be better for having
Speaker 1: taken it, and you'll go again. Whatever you do, try
Speaker 1: to be honest with yourself about how to make this
Speaker 1: life a little better. It might be hard, but the
Speaker 1: decisions you make to achieve those ends will provide something
Speaker 1: extra that is a sweet little bonus. My friends. You'll
Speaker 1: become a happier, better deer hunter and you don't have
Speaker 1: to buy a single stupid get rich quick product to
Speaker 1: do it. That's it for this week, my friends. I'm
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson and this has been the Wire to Hunt
Speaker 1: Foundations podcast, which is brought to you by First Light.
Speaker 1: As I always thank you, thank you, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening and for all of your support, all
Speaker 1: of us here at meat Eater, we sincerely appreciate it.
Speaker 1: We really do, and if you want more white tail content,
Speaker 1: head on over to the meat eator dot com slash
Speaker 1: wired to check out our weekly articles, or go visit
Speaker 1: our wire to Hunt YouTube channel to see our weekly
Speaker 1: how to videos