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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide

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Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,

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Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.

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Speaker 1: First Light, Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host

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Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.

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Speaker 2: Hey, everyone, welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast,

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Speaker 2: which is brought to you by First Light. I'm your host,

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Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today I'm going to get into the

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Speaker 2: Christmas spirit, which is very very loosely kind of has

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Speaker 2: something to do with deer hunting.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely.

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Speaker 2: I think if the world was just full of dudes,

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Speaker 2: Christmas would probably die out in about three years at least.

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Speaker 2: That's my very unscientific theory based off of living with

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Speaker 2: a house full of women who are very very into Christmas.

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Speaker 2: My wife and daughters love the whole thing, from the presence,

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Speaker 2: to the baking, to the decorating to the music. While

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Speaker 2: I like the pheasant hunting and the late season deer

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Speaker 2: hunt what there are a few things Christmas and the

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Speaker 2: whole idea behind it can teach us about deer hut,

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Speaker 2: which is what I'm going to talk about right now.

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Speaker 2: Christmas is a weird holiday, but I guess all of

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Speaker 2: them kind of are. What you might not know is

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Speaker 2: that Christmas and its early real beginnings are tied to stargazing,

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Speaker 2: which is a topic I like a lot. Now we

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Speaker 2: know the name for Christmas comes from well, Christ, so

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Speaker 2: there's no denying the religious implications there. Depending on where

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Speaker 2: you land on that spectrum, this season might be one

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Speaker 2: that is tightly linked to religion and spirituality. For others

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Speaker 2: it might be mostly or entirely about what Christmas has

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Speaker 2: morphed into. But before that, the whole stargazing thing really

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Speaker 2: shaped a celebration around December twenty first, which is the

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Speaker 2: winter solstice. That's the day when the top half of

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Speaker 2: the earth is tipped as far away from the Sun

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Speaker 2: as it'll get all year long, meaning that the hours

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Speaker 2: of daylight versus dark are skewed more heavily in favor

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Speaker 2: of vampires than all of us well on undead folks.

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Speaker 2: I guess Europeans, long before the arrival of Jesus paid

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Speaker 2: close attention to this date. And you would have two

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Speaker 2: if you didn't have a thermostat on your wall that

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Speaker 2: controls the temperature of your dwelling, and you couldn't just

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Speaker 2: go to your local super target for a box of

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Speaker 2: lucky charms if you were snacky. People like the Norse,

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Speaker 2: celebrated Yule on that date in recognition of the return

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Speaker 2: of the sun. Fathers and sons would go out and

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Speaker 2: gather a giant log through on the fire, and they'd

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Speaker 2: feast until that log burned down to coals. This could

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Speaker 2: take as many as twelve days, which is a long

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Speaker 2: ass feast. They believed that the sparks from the fire

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Speaker 2: represented new calves or piglets that would be born in

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Speaker 2: the spring. This coincided with the time of year when

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Speaker 2: they'd slaughter their cows so as not to have to

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Speaker 2: feed them all winter long, and it was often the

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Speaker 2: only time when they had an abundance of fresh meat.

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Speaker 2: They also made their own wine and beer, which, as

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Speaker 2: you can guess, was a popular addition to those winter

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Speaker 2: solstice festivities. In other places, like Germany, they went a

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Speaker 2: little bit of a different route, where they honored a

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Speaker 2: pagan god named Odin, who was known to fly through

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Speaker 2: the sky and decide which folks would prosper or which

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Speaker 2: ones would perish. Believing this, a lot of those crazy

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Speaker 2: Germans stayed inside during this time of the year in Rome,

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Speaker 2: they honored Saturn, the god of agriculture. They also celebrated

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Speaker 2: the birthday of Mithra, who was the god of unconquerable sun.

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Speaker 2: This happened on December twenty fifth, if you can believe

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Speaker 2: that shit. When you get into Christianity, you find out

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Speaker 2: that the history of December twenty fifth and the reason

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Speaker 2: we celebrate it is a little murcurier than you might guess.

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Speaker 2: With church officials about sixteen hundred years ago making the

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Speaker 2: big decision around when and why they would celebrate Christmas,

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Speaker 2: part of which meant they placed it close to the

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Speaker 2: winter solstice in kind of a marketing effort to ensure peace.

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Speaker 2: People got on board with the whole thing because they

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Speaker 2: were already used to partying that time of year. Then

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Speaker 2: you have several centuries of kings and Puritans and a

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Speaker 2: whole bunch of folks taking Christmas one way or another

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Speaker 2: until it was declared a federal holiday here in the

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Speaker 2: States in eighteen seventy. This was also around the time

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Speaker 2: when Christmas was more like marti Gras than a time

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Speaker 2: to get together with family and celebrate being thankful for

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Speaker 2: the good stuff in life. Now, Christmas is big business,

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Speaker 2: over twenty five million trees a year are sold. That's

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Speaker 2: live trees, by the way, not fake ones. People spend

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Speaker 2: a lot of money on Christmas, with the average individual

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Speaker 2: adults spend at around nine hundred bucks a year. Overall,

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Speaker 2: Christmas generates nine hundred and sixty some billion dollars, which,

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Speaker 2: if your math challenged, is damn near a trillion dollars,

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Speaker 2: which is bonkers. The whole thing is pretty crazy, but

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Speaker 2: it's a good reminder of a few things. The first

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Speaker 2: is that we just kind of focus pretty heavily on gifts,

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Speaker 2: which if you have little kids, you know what I mean.

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Speaker 2: My daughters are old enough now where there isn't an

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Speaker 2: avalanche of toys and plastic shit that we will break

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Speaker 2: or throw away after a while, which is nice. We've

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Speaker 2: transitioned as a family from focusing super heavily on you know,

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Speaker 2: mostly meaningless gifts to experiences, which is why I just

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Speaker 2: pay for a trip to Florida every year and absolve

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Speaker 2: myself of really having to shop a whole lot, or

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Speaker 2: by presence, a whole lot. I think the lesson in

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Speaker 2: there is an important one, and I think it ties

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Speaker 2: to deer hunting. Now, this is a slippery slope for

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Speaker 2: a fellow like me, because I work for a company

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Speaker 2: that owns several companies that would very much like to

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Speaker 2: sell you, guys, lots of stuff. We'd like you to

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Speaker 2: buy lots of First Light clothes and Dave Smith decoys

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Speaker 2: and FHF Binal harnesses and Phelps grunt calls. Hell, if

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Speaker 2: you could go buy a few Meat Eater shirts and

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Speaker 2: maybe meteaor Trivia Home Edition, that would be great too.

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Speaker 2: Then Steve Ranella could finally move his wife and kids

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Speaker 2: out of that tiny walk up apartment they share with

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Speaker 2: three other impoverished families and get a place of their own.

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Speaker 2: New hunting gear is great, but does it outweigh new

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Speaker 2: hunting experiences? No, it does not. But I think the

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Speaker 2: best way to look at this is to think about

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Speaker 2: what you need to help you have new experiences. You

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Speaker 2: see a lot of us hunt a certain way, and

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Speaker 2: we want gear that will make that certain way easier

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Speaker 2: or more effective. Let's say you have a lease and

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Speaker 2: you only hunt that eighty acre lease, So that's what

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Speaker 2: you need to have set up for yourself year after year.

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Speaker 2: So maybe you need a new ladder stand for that

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Speaker 2: ridgetop trail that all the deer take when they skirt

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Speaker 2: your plot, or maybe you need a new, i don't know,

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Speaker 2: sweet brush cutter to clean some shooting lanes and access trails.

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Speaker 2: That's a very linear thought process and honestly makes a

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Speaker 2: lot of sense. But what about if you're that lease

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Speaker 2: hunter and you have it figured out so well that

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Speaker 2: you usually tag out on opening week, or you know,

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Speaker 2: if you wait till the rut to sit for a

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Speaker 2: few days, you have a very good chance of filling

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Speaker 2: your tag. What if either style or whatever you have

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Speaker 2: leaves you wanting some more, well, maybe a mobile setup

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Speaker 2: gear there, or maybe a tent or some other camping gear.

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Speaker 2: Is there something that you can buy that would talk

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Speaker 2: you into going hunting in a way that you don't

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Speaker 2: usually go now, I know that might sound dumb, but

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Speaker 2: I think the value in that is hard to measure,

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Speaker 2: and I think it's worth thinking about it at the

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Speaker 2: very least. Let's take hunting in your home state, for example.

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Speaker 2: The breakdown of the season in most places goes like this.

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Speaker 2: Archery season opens up and runs for a certain amount

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Speaker 2: of time. You know, sometimes there's a youth season or

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Speaker 2: something else mixed in there, But then the general firearm

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Speaker 2: season opens up after that muzzleloader that's mostly the arc

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Speaker 2: of the season in a lot of places. Now you're

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Speaker 2: listening to this show, so it's a fairly safe bet

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Speaker 2: you probably bohunt some But do you muzzleloader hunt? Maybe

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Speaker 2: a new smoke bowl for Christmas, even if you have

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Speaker 2: to treat yourself to it is a ticket to an

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Speaker 2: entirely new season and an entirely new type of hunting.

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Speaker 2: I can't speak for everyone, but when I started muzzle

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Speaker 2: order hunting, I almost rediscovered how fun deer hunting can be.

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Speaker 2: That's a good thing, and it's possible through just a

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Speaker 2: Christmas gift. What about something like a gilly suit? I

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Speaker 2: don't know if you've ever hunted out of one, But

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Speaker 2: if there is anything that makes you feel more like

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Speaker 2: a badass than a gilly suit, I don't know if

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Speaker 2: I've found it yet. Maybe it's the close association to

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Speaker 2: snipers in the armed forces and what we all know

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Speaker 2: to be generally true about someone who earns that title.

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Speaker 2: I mean, who wouldn't want to be that disciplined, in

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Speaker 2: that schooled in the art of camouflage, patience, not to mention,

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Speaker 2: you know, being that calm and collected when it's time

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Speaker 2: to squeeze off a shot. Plus a gilly suit is

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Speaker 2: just like a secret passageway you can take to hunting

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Speaker 2: spots you just normally wouldn't hunt, and experiencing the woods

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Speaker 2: in a way that you normally might not experience it.

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Speaker 2: That's a good gift right there, my friends. Maybe it's

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Speaker 2: as simple as a new trail camera. I have quite

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Speaker 2: a few of the Moultrie Edge two cameras up in

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Speaker 2: the woods right now, and I can safely say that

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Speaker 2: most folks I know wouldn't hate finding one in their stocking.

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Speaker 2: Sell cameras are just fun, and they've gotten pretty affordable

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Speaker 2: and reliable in the last few years. They are also

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Speaker 2: just a ticket to little drips of excitement all year long,

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Speaker 2: even during Turkey season. Okay, that's enough of the commercialization

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Speaker 2: side of Christmas and this time of the season, which

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Speaker 2: is something we kind of just can't help but lean into.

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Speaker 2: It's a byproduct of what we are as a species.

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Speaker 2: I think, maybe not, I don't know, but there are

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Speaker 2: other aspects of this holiday season we should consider. For starters,

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Speaker 2: you have the whole tradition thing. I'll admit that this

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Speaker 2: didn't bother me a whole lot when I was a

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Speaker 2: fellow who occasionally drank like I don't know half a

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Speaker 2: lead a jim beam every day of his life. Sitting

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Speaker 2: around at one of my wife's relatives houses for another

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Speaker 2: ham dinner while her uncle's told me, I don't know

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Speaker 2: the hunting stories I've heard several thousand times was made

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Speaker 2: just a little more palatable when I was some shade

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Speaker 2: of shmammered. Today I just raw dog those holidays, and

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Speaker 2: it's a little tougher to stomach. But not every tradition

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Speaker 2: has to be about going to grandma's house for whatever,

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Speaker 2: because that's what you always do. This is also a

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Speaker 2: time of year when an awful lot of folks have

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Speaker 2: time off of work and the kids have time off

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Speaker 2: of school. If you're at the stage of life where

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Speaker 2: everything is just soaked up by schedules and activities and

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Speaker 2: you finally get a little breathing room, starting an outdoor

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Speaker 2: tradition of your own can be a wonderful thing. I'm

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Speaker 2: thinking about that this year with my daughters. I've killed

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Speaker 2: several deer myself on Christmas even Christmas, and I've started

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Speaker 2: taking my daughters out during this late season to freeze

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Speaker 2: a little and maybe earn a shot at something. This year,

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Speaker 2: we might do a short Christmas hunt Wisconsin. Maybe we'll

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Speaker 2: stay at home. I'm not really the start of tradition

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Speaker 2: kind of guy, but I really like the idea of

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Speaker 2: my daughter associating Christmas with more than just gifts and

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Speaker 2: overeating in all of the non hunting parts of this

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Speaker 2: time of year. If they come to associate Christmas Break

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Speaker 2: with trying to arrow a late season do with their dad,

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Speaker 2: maybe that'll stick, and it won't just quickly become a memory,

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Speaker 2: but will instead be a part of what we do

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Speaker 2: every year until life just decides for whatever reason, it

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Speaker 2: can't happen anymore. You see this a lot in the

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Speaker 2: Upland world around Thanksgiving and Christmas, where the extended family

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Speaker 2: will get together and go walk some slews to see

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Speaker 2: if they can knock some pheasants out of the sky. Now,

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Speaker 2: that type of hunting can be very conducive to social gatherings,

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Speaker 2: but deer hunting isn't quite that way. Some folks will

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Speaker 2: get together and do late season bow drives, which is

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Speaker 2: something I've done a handful of times, but not to

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Speaker 2: the point where I've ever seen a deer actually get

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Speaker 2: shot during one. Hell, I don't know if I've ever

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Speaker 2: seen a deer get shot at either. But that isn't

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Speaker 2: the only reason to be out there, and it might

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Speaker 2: not even crack the top five if we are being

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Speaker 2: real honest about this stuff. So maybe you can treat

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Speaker 2: yourself to a new president that will take you on

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Speaker 2: an outdoor adventure. Sure, and maybe you can drum up

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Speaker 2: some kind of new hunting activity that just happens around Christmas.

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Speaker 2: That's a pretty good start, in my opinion, which leaves

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Speaker 2: the last point I want to make. We should be grateful.

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Speaker 2: This isn't lip service here, my friends. I'm saying it

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Speaker 2: because I believe it. I mean it. If you hunt

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Speaker 2: someone else's land, you should be very very grateful for

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Speaker 2: that experience. That is a gift that keeps on giving,

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Speaker 2: and it's an important one. In fact, I've been hunting

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Speaker 2: with my daughters on a property by our house. There's

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Speaker 2: mostly off limits for most of the year, but the

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Speaker 2: landowner green lights me to take them in December when

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Speaker 2: the gun seasons are over. It's hard hunting and often

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Speaker 2: not very productive as far as filled tags are concerned,

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Speaker 2: but man, am I happy to have it, and I

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Speaker 2: let him know it too. Do you have someone in

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Speaker 2: your life who lets you hunt their land, let them

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Speaker 2: know that you appreciate it, even if it's your favorite uncle,

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Speaker 2: And it's just a given that he's going to let

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Speaker 2: you roam his land anytime you down well, please, he's

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Speaker 2: still paying those property taxes. He still has the power

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Speaker 2: to keep you out if the mood strikes. A simple

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Speaker 2: hedge against that is to let him know how much

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Speaker 2: it means to you. But that's not the best reason

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Speaker 2: to reach out and tell him. The best reason is

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Speaker 2: because it's just the right thing to do. Think about

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Speaker 2: it this way. If you have a situation like that

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Speaker 2: and someone else, some other hunter, could take it from

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Speaker 2: you to hunt it for themselves, how long would it

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Speaker 2: take before that happened. Not long? I bet that's because

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Speaker 2: it's a big deal, and it's important to a lot

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Speaker 2: of people to have a hunting spot. And it's important

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Speaker 2: to a lot of people to have a spot that

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Speaker 2: only they can hunt so they can structure things exactly

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Speaker 2: how they want to and make it easier to kill

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Speaker 2: the kind of deer they want. That's the trend of

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Speaker 2: this whole deer hunting thing right now. And it's not

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Speaker 2: wrong or right. It's just our path as humans, just

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Speaker 2: like how we took a peg and holiday and watch

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Speaker 2: it more over and over for thousands of years, to

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Speaker 2: the point now where it's a gigantic mundy generator for

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Speaker 2: big business. With the reality of more and more people

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Speaker 2: trying to manage for mature deer, we have the side

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Speaker 2: effect of fewer people having spots to hunt. If someone

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Speaker 2: is gracious enough to provide you a spot, even a

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Speaker 2: landowner who leases their ground to you, it's still something

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Speaker 2: that you should probably appreciate, even if it's just a

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Speaker 2: buddy who lets you out with the kids, I don't

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Speaker 2: know for the youth turkey season, or the landowner who

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Speaker 2: doesn't let you hunt but lets you park in their

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Speaker 2: field drive and access a different property through their place.

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Speaker 2: Maybe someone just let you blood trail a deer on

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Speaker 2: their land this year because the buck you shot hopped

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Speaker 2: the fence before he croaked. Deer hunting, especially bow hunting,

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Speaker 2: and especially if you're mostly a trophy hunter, is largely

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Speaker 2: an individual pursuit, or at least it often feels that way,

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Speaker 2: but it really isn't, or you know, that's often rarely

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Speaker 2: true anyway, someone probably helped you out somehow this season.

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Speaker 2: Maybe that person is easy to identify because they taught

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Speaker 2: you how to shoot a bow, or they're the ones

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Speaker 2: who said go on and hunt the back eighty just

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Speaker 2: let me know if you shoot something. Whatever, our success,

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Speaker 2: the kind that results in a grip and grin where

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Speaker 2: we post it for the world to see how awesome

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Speaker 2: we are, is generally built upon the backs of others,

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Speaker 2: even if we did most of the heavy lifting. That's

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Speaker 2: something I think about a lot with as many generous

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Speaker 2: friends as I have, and how often it occurs to

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Speaker 2: me that some experience I had for myself or with

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Speaker 2: my daughters was made possible largely through the generosity of

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Speaker 2: someone else. That's a big deal, and there isn't a

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Speaker 2: better time of year to show that appreciation than around

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Speaker 2: the holidays, when everyone gets together and celebrates for whatever

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Speaker 2: reason they have to celebrate. So throw down some eggnog

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Speaker 2: until you're ready to fistfight your cousins, Eat ham and

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Speaker 2: turkey and mashed potatoes until they have to roll you

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Speaker 2: away from the table, and monitor your vital signs to

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Speaker 2: make sure you won't die. Stuff those stockings, swipe that

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Speaker 2: credit card over and over again. Listen to those hunting

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Speaker 2: stories that the old guys just like telling and act

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Speaker 2: like you've never heard them before. Laugh at the punchlines,

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Speaker 2: think about this season and what it means to you.

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Speaker 2: Buy that ticket to a new kind of hunting. Start

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Speaker 2: a new tradition with the kids, even if it's just

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Speaker 2: a midday squirrel hunt, just because it's fun. And then

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Speaker 2: thank some people. Let them know how important the world

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Speaker 2: of the white tail is to you and how lucky

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Speaker 2: you feel to be able to step into it. Then

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Speaker 2: come back next week because I'm going to talk about

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Speaker 2: something Mark talks about a lot, which is setting goals,

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Speaker 2: but I'm going to do it in a fun, relatable,

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Speaker 2: non butterfly way. That's it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson.

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Speaker 2: This has been the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast. As always,

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Speaker 2: thank you so much for listening and for all of

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Speaker 2: your support. We've had a great year here at Meat Eater,

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Speaker 2: but none of it would be possible without you guys,

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Speaker 2: so we truly appreciate all of your support. If you

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Speaker 2: need some more hunting content, you know where to go,

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Speaker 2: whether you need articles, maybe a recipe, you want to

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Speaker 2: listen to some podcasts, maybe you just want to watch

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Speaker 2: my daughter shoot a spike buck in northern Wisconsin. Whatever.

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Speaker 2: The mediator dot com has tons of content. We're putting

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Speaker 2: new stuff up daily, Awesome podcasts there by Clay Brent Reeves, whatever,

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Speaker 2: tons of hunting shows. It's all there. Go check it

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Speaker 2: out at the mediator dot com