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 Foundations podcast,
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by First Light. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today I'm going to get into the
Speaker 2: Christmas spirit, which is very very loosely kind of has
Speaker 2: something to do with deer hunting.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: I think if the world was just full of dudes,
Speaker 2: Christmas would probably die out in about three years at least.
Speaker 2: That's my very unscientific theory based off of living with
Speaker 2: a house full of women who are very very into Christmas.
Speaker 2: My wife and daughters love the whole thing, from the presence,
Speaker 2: to the baking, to the decorating to the music. While
Speaker 2: I like the pheasant hunting and the late season deer
Speaker 2: hunt what there are a few things Christmas and the
Speaker 2: whole idea behind it can teach us about deer hut,
Speaker 2: which is what I'm going to talk about right now.
Speaker 2: Christmas is a weird holiday, but I guess all of
Speaker 2: them kind of are. What you might not know is
Speaker 2: that Christmas and its early real beginnings are tied to stargazing,
Speaker 2: which is a topic I like a lot. Now we
Speaker 2: know the name for Christmas comes from well, Christ, so
Speaker 2: there's no denying the religious implications there. Depending on where
Speaker 2: you land on that spectrum, this season might be one
Speaker 2: that is tightly linked to religion and spirituality. For others
Speaker 2: it might be mostly or entirely about what Christmas has
Speaker 2: morphed into. But before that, the whole stargazing thing really
Speaker 2: shaped a celebration around December twenty first, which is the
Speaker 2: winter solstice. That's the day when the top half of
Speaker 2: the earth is tipped as far away from the Sun
Speaker 2: as it'll get all year long, meaning that the hours
Speaker 2: of daylight versus dark are skewed more heavily in favor
Speaker 2: of vampires than all of us well on undead folks.
Speaker 2: I guess Europeans, long before the arrival of Jesus paid
Speaker 2: close attention to this date. And you would have two
Speaker 2: if you didn't have a thermostat on your wall that
Speaker 2: controls the temperature of your dwelling, and you couldn't just
Speaker 2: go to your local super target for a box of
Speaker 2: lucky charms if you were snacky. People like the Norse,
Speaker 2: celebrated Yule on that date in recognition of the return
Speaker 2: of the sun. Fathers and sons would go out and
Speaker 2: gather a giant log through on the fire, and they'd
Speaker 2: feast until that log burned down to coals. This could
Speaker 2: take as many as twelve days, which is a long
Speaker 2: ass feast. They believed that the sparks from the fire
Speaker 2: represented new calves or piglets that would be born in
Speaker 2: the spring. This coincided with the time of year when
Speaker 2: they'd slaughter their cows so as not to have to
Speaker 2: feed them all winter long, and it was often the
Speaker 2: only time when they had an abundance of fresh meat.
Speaker 2: They also made their own wine and beer, which, as
Speaker 2: you can guess, was a popular addition to those winter
Speaker 2: solstice festivities. In other places, like Germany, they went a
Speaker 2: little bit of a different route, where they honored a
Speaker 2: pagan god named Odin, who was known to fly through
Speaker 2: the sky and decide which folks would prosper or which
Speaker 2: ones would perish. Believing this, a lot of those crazy
Speaker 2: Germans stayed inside during this time of the year in Rome,
Speaker 2: they honored Saturn, the god of agriculture. They also celebrated
Speaker 2: the birthday of Mithra, who was the god of unconquerable sun.
Speaker 2: This happened on December twenty fifth, if you can believe
Speaker 2: that shit. When you get into Christianity, you find out
Speaker 2: that the history of December twenty fifth and the reason
Speaker 2: we celebrate it is a little murcurier than you might guess.
Speaker 2: With church officials about sixteen hundred years ago making the
Speaker 2: big decision around when and why they would celebrate Christmas,
Speaker 2: part of which meant they placed it close to the
Speaker 2: winter solstice in kind of a marketing effort to ensure peace.
Speaker 2: People got on board with the whole thing because they
Speaker 2: were already used to partying that time of year. Then
Speaker 2: you have several centuries of kings and Puritans and a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of folks taking Christmas one way or another
Speaker 2: until it was declared a federal holiday here in the
Speaker 2: States in eighteen seventy. This was also around the time
Speaker 2: when Christmas was more like marti Gras than a time
Speaker 2: to get together with family and celebrate being thankful for
Speaker 2: the good stuff in life. Now, Christmas is big business,
Speaker 2: over twenty five million trees a year are sold. That's
Speaker 2: live trees, by the way, not fake ones. People spend
Speaker 2: a lot of money on Christmas, with the average individual
Speaker 2: adults spend at around nine hundred bucks a year. Overall,
Speaker 2: Christmas generates nine hundred and sixty some billion dollars, which,
Speaker 2: if your math challenged, is damn near a trillion dollars,
Speaker 2: which is bonkers. The whole thing is pretty crazy, but
Speaker 2: it's a good reminder of a few things. The first
Speaker 2: is that we just kind of focus pretty heavily on gifts,
Speaker 2: which if you have little kids, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: My daughters are old enough now where there isn't an
Speaker 2: avalanche of toys and plastic shit that we will break
Speaker 2: or throw away after a while, which is nice. We've
Speaker 2: transitioned as a family from focusing super heavily on you know,
Speaker 2: mostly meaningless gifts to experiences, which is why I just
Speaker 2: pay for a trip to Florida every year and absolve
Speaker 2: myself of really having to shop a whole lot, or
Speaker 2: by presence, a whole lot. I think the lesson in
Speaker 2: there is an important one, and I think it ties
Speaker 2: to deer hunting. Now, this is a slippery slope for
Speaker 2: a fellow like me, because I work for a company
Speaker 2: that owns several companies that would very much like to
Speaker 2: sell you, guys, lots of stuff. We'd like you to
Speaker 2: buy lots of First Light clothes and Dave Smith decoys
Speaker 2: and FHF Binal harnesses and Phelps grunt calls. Hell, if
Speaker 2: you could go buy a few Meat Eater shirts and
Speaker 2: maybe meteaor Trivia Home Edition, that would be great too.
Speaker 2: Then Steve Ranella could finally move his wife and kids
Speaker 2: out of that tiny walk up apartment they share with
Speaker 2: three other impoverished families and get a place of their own.
Speaker 2: New hunting gear is great, but does it outweigh new
Speaker 2: hunting experiences? No, it does not. But I think the
Speaker 2: best way to look at this is to think about
Speaker 2: what you need to help you have new experiences. You
Speaker 2: see a lot of us hunt a certain way, and
Speaker 2: we want gear that will make that certain way easier
Speaker 2: or more effective. Let's say you have a lease and
Speaker 2: you only hunt that eighty acre lease, So that's what
Speaker 2: you need to have set up for yourself year after year.
Speaker 2: So maybe you need a new ladder stand for that
Speaker 2: ridgetop trail that all the deer take when they skirt
Speaker 2: your plot, or maybe you need a new, i don't know,
Speaker 2: sweet brush cutter to clean some shooting lanes and access trails.
Speaker 2: That's a very linear thought process and honestly makes a
Speaker 2: lot of sense. But what about if you're that lease
Speaker 2: hunter and you have it figured out so well that
Speaker 2: you usually tag out on opening week, or you know,
Speaker 2: if you wait till the rut to sit for a
Speaker 2: few days, you have a very good chance of filling
Speaker 2: your tag. What if either style or whatever you have
Speaker 2: leaves you wanting some more, well, maybe a mobile setup
Speaker 2: gear there, or maybe a tent or some other camping gear.
Speaker 2: Is there something that you can buy that would talk
Speaker 2: you into going hunting in a way that you don't
Speaker 2: usually go now, I know that might sound dumb, but
Speaker 2: I think the value in that is hard to measure,
Speaker 2: and I think it's worth thinking about it at the
Speaker 2: very least. Let's take hunting in your home state, for example.
Speaker 2: The breakdown of the season in most places goes like this.
Speaker 2: Archery season opens up and runs for a certain amount
Speaker 2: of time. You know, sometimes there's a youth season or
Speaker 2: something else mixed in there, But then the general firearm
Speaker 2: season opens up after that muzzleloader that's mostly the arc
Speaker 2: of the season in a lot of places. Now you're
Speaker 2: listening to this show, so it's a fairly safe bet
Speaker 2: you probably bohunt some But do you muzzleloader hunt? Maybe
Speaker 2: a new smoke bowl for Christmas, even if you have
Speaker 2: to treat yourself to it is a ticket to an
Speaker 2: entirely new season and an entirely new type of hunting.
Speaker 2: I can't speak for everyone, but when I started muzzle
Speaker 2: order hunting, I almost rediscovered how fun deer hunting can be.
Speaker 2: That's a good thing, and it's possible through just a
Speaker 2: Christmas gift. What about something like a gilly suit? I
Speaker 2: don't know if you've ever hunted out of one, But
Speaker 2: if there is anything that makes you feel more like
Speaker 2: a badass than a gilly suit, I don't know if
Speaker 2: I've found it yet. Maybe it's the close association to
Speaker 2: snipers in the armed forces and what we all know
Speaker 2: to be generally true about someone who earns that title.
Speaker 2: I mean, who wouldn't want to be that disciplined, in
Speaker 2: that schooled in the art of camouflage, patience, not to mention,
Speaker 2: you know, being that calm and collected when it's time
Speaker 2: to squeeze off a shot. Plus a gilly suit is
Speaker 2: just like a secret passageway you can take to hunting
Speaker 2: spots you just normally wouldn't hunt, and experiencing the woods
Speaker 2: in a way that you normally might not experience it.
Speaker 2: That's a good gift right there, my friends. Maybe it's
Speaker 2: as simple as a new trail camera. I have quite
Speaker 2: a few of the Moultrie Edge two cameras up in
Speaker 2: the woods right now, and I can safely say that
Speaker 2: most folks I know wouldn't hate finding one in their stocking.
Speaker 2: Sell cameras are just fun, and they've gotten pretty affordable
Speaker 2: and reliable in the last few years. They are also
Speaker 2: just a ticket to little drips of excitement all year long,
Speaker 2: even during Turkey season. Okay, that's enough of the commercialization
Speaker 2: side of Christmas and this time of the season, which
Speaker 2: is something we kind of just can't help but lean into.
Speaker 2: It's a byproduct of what we are as a species.
Speaker 2: I think, maybe not, I don't know, but there are
Speaker 2: other aspects of this holiday season we should consider. For starters,
Speaker 2: you have the whole tradition thing. I'll admit that this
Speaker 2: didn't bother me a whole lot when I was a
Speaker 2: fellow who occasionally drank like I don't know half a
Speaker 2: lead a jim beam every day of his life. Sitting
Speaker 2: around at one of my wife's relatives houses for another
Speaker 2: ham dinner while her uncle's told me, I don't know
Speaker 2: the hunting stories I've heard several thousand times was made
Speaker 2: just a little more palatable when I was some shade
Speaker 2: of shmammered. Today I just raw dog those holidays, and
Speaker 2: it's a little tougher to stomach. But not every tradition
Speaker 2: has to be about going to grandma's house for whatever,
Speaker 2: because that's what you always do. This is also a
Speaker 2: time of year when an awful lot of folks have
Speaker 2: time off of work and the kids have time off
Speaker 2: of school. If you're at the stage of life where
Speaker 2: everything is just soaked up by schedules and activities and
Speaker 2: you finally get a little breathing room, starting an outdoor
Speaker 2: tradition of your own can be a wonderful thing. I'm
Speaker 2: thinking about that this year with my daughters. I've killed
Speaker 2: several deer myself on Christmas even Christmas, and I've started
Speaker 2: taking my daughters out during this late season to freeze
Speaker 2: a little and maybe earn a shot at something. This year,
Speaker 2: we might do a short Christmas hunt Wisconsin. Maybe we'll
Speaker 2: stay at home. I'm not really the start of tradition
Speaker 2: kind of guy, but I really like the idea of
Speaker 2: my daughter associating Christmas with more than just gifts and
Speaker 2: overeating in all of the non hunting parts of this
Speaker 2: time of year. If they come to associate Christmas Break
Speaker 2: with trying to arrow a late season do with their dad,
Speaker 2: maybe that'll stick, and it won't just quickly become a memory,
Speaker 2: but will instead be a part of what we do
Speaker 2: every year until life just decides for whatever reason, it
Speaker 2: can't happen anymore. You see this a lot in the
Speaker 2: Upland world around Thanksgiving and Christmas, where the extended family
Speaker 2: will get together and go walk some slews to see
Speaker 2: if they can knock some pheasants out of the sky. Now,
Speaker 2: that type of hunting can be very conducive to social gatherings,
Speaker 2: but deer hunting isn't quite that way. Some folks will
Speaker 2: get together and do late season bow drives, which is
Speaker 2: something I've done a handful of times, but not to
Speaker 2: the point where I've ever seen a deer actually get
Speaker 2: shot during one. Hell, I don't know if I've ever
Speaker 2: seen a deer get shot at either. But that isn't
Speaker 2: the only reason to be out there, and it might
Speaker 2: not even crack the top five if we are being
Speaker 2: real honest about this stuff. So maybe you can treat
Speaker 2: yourself to a new president that will take you on
Speaker 2: an outdoor adventure. Sure, and maybe you can drum up
Speaker 2: some kind of new hunting activity that just happens around Christmas.
Speaker 2: That's a pretty good start, in my opinion, which leaves
Speaker 2: the last point I want to make. We should be grateful.
Speaker 2: This isn't lip service here, my friends. I'm saying it
Speaker 2: because I believe it. I mean it. If you hunt
Speaker 2: someone else's land, you should be very very grateful for
Speaker 2: that experience. That is a gift that keeps on giving,
Speaker 2: and it's an important one. In fact, I've been hunting
Speaker 2: with my daughters on a property by our house. There's
Speaker 2: mostly off limits for most of the year, but the
Speaker 2: landowner green lights me to take them in December when
Speaker 2: the gun seasons are over. It's hard hunting and often
Speaker 2: not very productive as far as filled tags are concerned,
Speaker 2: but man, am I happy to have it, and I
Speaker 2: let him know it too. Do you have someone in
Speaker 2: your life who lets you hunt their land, let them
Speaker 2: know that you appreciate it, even if it's your favorite uncle,
Speaker 2: And it's just a given that he's going to let
Speaker 2: you roam his land anytime you down well, please, he's
Speaker 2: still paying those property taxes. He still has the power
Speaker 2: to keep you out if the mood strikes. A simple
Speaker 2: hedge against that is to let him know how much
Speaker 2: it means to you. But that's not the best reason
Speaker 2: to reach out and tell him. The best reason is
Speaker 2: because it's just the right thing to do. Think about
Speaker 2: it this way. If you have a situation like that
Speaker 2: and someone else, some other hunter, could take it from
Speaker 2: you to hunt it for themselves, how long would it
Speaker 2: take before that happened. Not long? I bet that's because
Speaker 2: it's a big deal, and it's important to a lot
Speaker 2: of people to have a hunting spot. And it's important
Speaker 2: to a lot of people to have a spot that
Speaker 2: only they can hunt so they can structure things exactly
Speaker 2: how they want to and make it easier to kill
Speaker 2: the kind of deer they want. That's the trend of
Speaker 2: this whole deer hunting thing right now. And it's not
Speaker 2: wrong or right. It's just our path as humans, just
Speaker 2: like how we took a peg and holiday and watch
Speaker 2: it more over and over for thousands of years, to
Speaker 2: the point now where it's a gigantic mundy generator for
Speaker 2: big business. With the reality of more and more people
Speaker 2: trying to manage for mature deer, we have the side
Speaker 2: effect of fewer people having spots to hunt. If someone
Speaker 2: is gracious enough to provide you a spot, even a
Speaker 2: landowner who leases their ground to you, it's still something
Speaker 2: that you should probably appreciate, even if it's just a
Speaker 2: buddy who lets you out with the kids, I don't
Speaker 2: know for the youth turkey season, or the landowner who
Speaker 2: doesn't let you hunt but lets you park in their
Speaker 2: field drive and access a different property through their place.
Speaker 2: Maybe someone just let you blood trail a deer on
Speaker 2: their land this year because the buck you shot hopped
Speaker 2: the fence before he croaked. Deer hunting, especially bow hunting,
Speaker 2: and especially if you're mostly a trophy hunter, is largely
Speaker 2: an individual pursuit, or at least it often feels that way,
Speaker 2: but it really isn't, or you know, that's often rarely
Speaker 2: true anyway, someone probably helped you out somehow this season.
Speaker 2: Maybe that person is easy to identify because they taught
Speaker 2: you how to shoot a bow, or they're the ones
Speaker 2: who said go on and hunt the back eighty just
Speaker 2: let me know if you shoot something. Whatever, our success,
Speaker 2: the kind that results in a grip and grin where
Speaker 2: we post it for the world to see how awesome
Speaker 2: we are, is generally built upon the backs of others,
Speaker 2: even if we did most of the heavy lifting. That's
Speaker 2: something I think about a lot with as many generous
Speaker 2: friends as I have, and how often it occurs to
Speaker 2: me that some experience I had for myself or with
Speaker 2: my daughters was made possible largely through the generosity of
Speaker 2: someone else. That's a big deal, and there isn't a
Speaker 2: better time of year to show that appreciation than around
Speaker 2: the holidays, when everyone gets together and celebrates for whatever
Speaker 2: reason they have to celebrate. So throw down some eggnog
Speaker 2: until you're ready to fistfight your cousins, Eat ham and
Speaker 2: turkey and mashed potatoes until they have to roll you
Speaker 2: away from the table, and monitor your vital signs to
Speaker 2: make sure you won't die. Stuff those stockings, swipe that
Speaker 2: credit card over and over again. Listen to those hunting
Speaker 2: stories that the old guys just like telling and act
Speaker 2: like you've never heard them before. Laugh at the punchlines,
Speaker 2: think about this season and what it means to you.
Speaker 2: Buy that ticket to a new kind of hunting. Start
Speaker 2: a new tradition with the kids, even if it's just
Speaker 2: a midday squirrel hunt, just because it's fun. And then
Speaker 2: thank some people. Let them know how important the world
Speaker 2: of the white tail is to you and how lucky
Speaker 2: you feel to be able to step into it. Then
Speaker 2: come back next week because I'm going to talk about
Speaker 2: something Mark talks about a lot, which is setting goals,
Speaker 2: but I'm going to do it in a fun, relatable,
Speaker 2: non butterfly way. That's it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson.
Speaker 2: This has been the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast. As always,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for listening and for all of
Speaker 2: your support. We've had a great year here at Meat Eater,
Speaker 2: but none of it would be possible without you guys,
Speaker 2: so we truly appreciate all of your support. If you
Speaker 2: need some more hunting content, you know where to go,
Speaker 2: whether you need articles, maybe a recipe, you want to
Speaker 2: listen to some podcasts, maybe you just want to watch
Speaker 2: my daughter shoot a spike buck in northern Wisconsin. Whatever.
Speaker 2: The mediator dot com has tons of content. We're putting
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