Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,
Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.
Speaker 1: First Light, Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.
Speaker 2: Hey everyone, welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by first Light. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about all of
Speaker 2: the things that can go wrong when we hunt and
Speaker 2: how to eliminate as many of them as possible. Before
Speaker 2: I get into this, I want to let you know
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Speaker 2: know we have a lot of sales here at Mediator,
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Speaker 2: at the site that is perfect for either, and it
Speaker 2: might just be way way marked down. Okay about this
Speaker 2: episode now. While our Southern hunting brothers and sisters might
Speaker 2: still be experiencing lots of rut, anticipation, and excitement, many
Speaker 2: of us are looking at the reality of the situation
Speaker 2: as it is now. The rut, for the most part,
Speaker 2: is functionally over. Sure, you can chase the second run
Speaker 2: in a couple of or you could spend your time
Speaker 2: setting I don't know, unicorn traps probably have similar results.
Speaker 2: This week, it's a time for reflection and a time
Speaker 2: to think long and hard about what went wrong on
Speaker 2: your hunts. So buckle up, my little ombres, because it's
Speaker 2: time to think about failure. All right, you guys, know
Speaker 2: that I'm a space nerd. I fly that flag loud
Speaker 2: and prout, and even though Mark tries to make fun
Speaker 2: of me for it, we all know that space is
Speaker 2: ten billion times more interesting than pollinators or whatever weird
Speaker 2: shrub fetish the old mustachioed madman has. I don't remember
Speaker 2: when it was, and I'm too lazy to dig through
Speaker 2: my archives, but at one point I released a Foundations
Speaker 2: episode that was based around the building of the James
Speaker 2: Web Space Telescope and how they got into space, which
Speaker 2: was no small feet. It took a huge team of
Speaker 2: people way too smart to spend their free time sitting
Speaker 2: in a Camo diper seventeen f feed up in a tree,
Speaker 2: trying and mostly failing to kill a deer. One of
Speaker 2: the interesting things about the process for building that telescope,
Speaker 2: which has allowed us to image galaxies that are as
Speaker 2: far away as about thirteen point four billion light years,
Speaker 2: or to frame that up, take thirteen point four billion
Speaker 2: times six trillion if you want to know how many
Speaker 2: miles away that is. This telescope, which is a one
Speaker 2: of a kind. And I mean, after all, you couldn't
Speaker 2: just send the blueprints to China or some other manufacturing
Speaker 2: nation and expect them to turn these suckers out. It
Speaker 2: literally is a one of a kind thing. This thing
Speaker 2: was decades in the making, and it's a piece of
Speaker 2: finely tooed scientific instruments that could fail in so many
Speaker 2: different ways. That's not even addressing the big one, which
Speaker 2: is just getting it into space. Rockets and their highly
Speaker 2: flammable rocket fuel occasionally explode long before delivering their payloads
Speaker 2: into space. Now, when something like the James Web Space
Speaker 2: Telescope gets into space, it's not a time to cheer
Speaker 2: too loudly just yet. Due to the size of it
Speaker 2: and the design, this thing had to be folded up
Speaker 2: and built to unfold and unfurl while it took a
Speaker 2: million mile journey to its final destination in space. There,
Speaker 2: it had to finish unfolding and unfurling, and then calibrate
Speaker 2: several mirror panels while also cooling off to a temperature
Speaker 2: that will allow it to image infra red light without
Speaker 2: any interference. I can't imagine the anxiety of being involved
Speaker 2: with that, mostly because the entire thing was built with
Speaker 2: three hundred and forty four single point failures. If any
Speaker 2: of those three hundred and forty four failures happened, the
Speaker 2: results were pretty severe and would disrupt the mission. In
Speaker 2: this case, from the super thin sunshield spreading out like
Speaker 2: wings to the honeycomb shape primary mirror that is coated
Speaker 2: with gold and looks pretty bad ass. Things had to
Speaker 2: go perfectly right. If one of those three hundred and
Speaker 2: forty four had gone wrong, it's very likely that we
Speaker 2: would have launched a ten billion dollar paper weight into space.
Speaker 2: This is the nature of single point failures, but doesn't
Speaker 2: address them completely. A failure at one point might not
Speaker 2: necessarily mean a direct end to the functionality, but it
Speaker 2: would mean that other single point failures were about to happen.
Speaker 2: That's the old casgating failures concept. I know this sounds
Speaker 2: like a giant roll of the dice with a lot
Speaker 2: of taxpayer money involved, but the truth is the team
Speaker 2: that designed this deep space observer left as little two
Speaker 2: chance as possible. They weren't just crossing their fingers that
Speaker 2: it would work. They built in redundancies when they could,
Speaker 2: and were very diligent about testing and retesting the whole
Speaker 2: thing in a lab before shooting it off into space.
Speaker 2: It worked even when the odds seemed like they were
Speaker 2: way way stacked against the whole project. This, my friends,
Speaker 2: is kind of like the odds of going out on
Speaker 2: any given city and killing a big buck or a
Speaker 2: medium sized buck, or if it's anything like my season,
Speaker 2: a dough. There are single point failures in deer hunting,
Speaker 2: and they all have an opportunity to take us from
Speaker 2: deer hunting heroes to zero's real fast. Let me tell
Speaker 2: you about two that recently happened to me to frame
Speaker 2: this whole thing up. A couple of weeks ago, I
Speaker 2: drove to the great state of North Dakota to try
Speaker 2: to arrow a public land buck. The spot I walked
Speaker 2: into is one that I hunted for a few days
Speaker 2: in twenty nineteen. Now I sat there for those days
Speaker 2: and I killed a great buck. You know, it's a
Speaker 2: pinch point along a river, and it's prime spot for
Speaker 2: bucks traveling during the rut. I figured, with the massive
Speaker 2: cold front we had and the general lay of the land,
Speaker 2: it would sort of be a done deal before too long.
Speaker 2: And honestly, the first year I saw after a few
Speaker 2: hours of sitting was a very solid eleven pointer he
Speaker 2: walked into twenty six yards, and when my cameraman finally
Speaker 2: had a clear view, I realized I was about to
Speaker 2: kill a big, big public land buck on my very
Speaker 2: first sit. It was one of those shots where the
Speaker 2: buck was totally relaxed. He was just munching on acorns,
Speaker 2: and I had all the time in the world. Now,
Speaker 2: I remember my pin being right on his vitals, and
Speaker 2: when I hit the release, it should have been all over,
Speaker 2: but what it sounded like was a very loud twang,
Speaker 2: and I watched a very healthy deer run away. I
Speaker 2: still don't know for sure what went wrong, but upon
Speaker 2: many many replays of the whole thing, it's clear that
Speaker 2: my string caught on something. And listen, I was all
Speaker 2: bulked up because it was really cold and super windy,
Speaker 2: and I just didn't have the clearance I needed for
Speaker 2: that shot angle. That's a single point failure. It was sad,
Speaker 2: but it got a lot sadder as I was recapping
Speaker 2: the miss with the camera, and halfway through the cameraman's
Speaker 2: eyes bugged out and he said, big buck right there.
Speaker 2: I turned around and found out that he was not
Speaker 2: lying ten yards away looking at me was a really
Speaker 2: good buck. He wanted to get past us, but he
Speaker 2: wasn't sure since he knew there were two dudes in
Speaker 2: the tree right next to him. When he looked away,
Speaker 2: I drew, and when he started to move, I did
Speaker 2: something really, really dumb. I quietly murped him in my head.
Speaker 2: I thought he was leaving, so I tried to buy
Speaker 2: myself an extra two seconds to aim and shoot. But
Speaker 2: he was super close, and he was on edge, and
Speaker 2: he wasn't having none of that shit. Single point failure
Speaker 2: number two, dumb, dumb, dumb. The ones that come directly
Speaker 2: from our brain and influence our actions through an encounter
Speaker 2: are the hardest to address, So I'm going to get
Speaker 2: to them later. Right now, I want to address some
Speaker 2: of the single point failures that just don't need to happen.
Speaker 2: I've been hunting cold weather white tails since I could hunt,
Speaker 2: and when that big eleven point came in, I just
Speaker 2: bulked up and closed. I had never worn before. I
Speaker 2: drew on stand, but I didn't really check my string clearance.
Speaker 2: I didn't think I needed to do. You know how
Speaker 2: dumb that was, Because I do. That's a single point
Speaker 2: failure you can address so easily. Another one might be
Speaker 2: just how loud your stand and stick set up is,
Speaker 2: or if you aren't going mobile, how loud your setups
Speaker 2: are in general. Do you have a ladder stand that
Speaker 2: always pops super loudly when you climb in. Does it
Speaker 2: have those loose d clip things holding a ladder together
Speaker 2: that are always making noise? Have you climbed in there
Speaker 2: when it's sixty degrees and when it's ten degrees because
Speaker 2: there might be a difference. One of the things I
Speaker 2: did this year when I had to hunt with Steve
Speaker 2: Ranella down in Oklahoma was it I bought a bunch
Speaker 2: of extra random stuff like toe ropes. I didn't know
Speaker 2: if he or the camera guys would have the right
Speaker 2: stuff for tree stand hunting, so I picked up some
Speaker 2: extra stuff just in case that you always need on
Speaker 2: every hunt. And the toe ropes I bought, they all
Speaker 2: have little metal carabiners on them. And you know what
Speaker 2: happens when you're swinging ropes with little metal carabiners on
Speaker 2: them around, They ping off other metal pieces of gear.
Speaker 2: Why we think we need constantly improve on good old
Speaker 2: no metal rope is beyond me. Why I use that
Speaker 2: stuff when I know better is also beyond me. Now
Speaker 2: that might not be a single point failure in the
Speaker 2: realm of a ruining a hunt type of thing, But
Speaker 2: why risk it sitting a spot with the wrong wind.
Speaker 2: Now that's a single point failure, that's a big one.
Speaker 2: But it isn't as simple as the wind blowing right
Speaker 2: to where you think the deer will be. Of course,
Speaker 2: that will derail your plans most likely, but too perfect
Speaker 2: of a wind probably will too, at least in certain
Speaker 2: setups that aren't on movement funneling locations. If the deer
Speaker 2: have the option to get the wind in their favor
Speaker 2: when they travel, they almost always will. Now, if that's
Speaker 2: the case on your perfect wind setup, your wind actually
Speaker 2: might not be as good as it seems. You probably
Speaker 2: know plenty of issues we often have with gear and
Speaker 2: with where we choose to hunt based on conditions. But
Speaker 2: do you know what the source of most of our
Speaker 2: hunting single point failures is our brains, which have a
Speaker 2: tendency to function it less than optimal when a deer
Speaker 2: we want to shoot makes its presence known. The problem
Speaker 2: with this is that we feel like we need to
Speaker 2: make something happen. That little mirp that I gave that
Speaker 2: second North Dakota buck, it was a huge single point failure.
Speaker 2: It literally cost me that deer, and I have no
Speaker 2: one to blame but my own dumb ass. I'll never
Speaker 2: forget my good buddy telling me a story about hunting
Speaker 2: with a cousin of his, Like fifteen years ago. My
Speaker 2: buddy was running a camera and his cousin was running
Speaker 2: a bow. So as soon as they saw a good
Speaker 2: buck walking their way in the woods, my buddy started filming.
Speaker 2: What surprised him was hearing his cousin shuffle around and
Speaker 2: then suddenly bang his rattling antlers together. That buck looked up,
Speaker 2: said ah, hell no, and turned around. Now let me
Speaker 2: explain this. That buck was walking in naturally, he probably
Speaker 2: knew there weren't two big bucks about to square eye
Speaker 2: sixty yards in front of him. You got the hunter
Speaker 2: panicked and try to make something happen. Single point failure,
Speaker 2: and man, that's a doozy closing time. Not when the
Speaker 2: bars are shutting down, but when it's time for you
Speaker 2: to seal the deal on a deer or where a
Speaker 2: hell of a lot of single point failures come into play.
Speaker 2: This is one of the reasons I'm pretty sick of
Speaker 2: trophy hunting. Honestly, I know we all want to kill
Speaker 2: big bucks, but you'll never be good at that unless
Speaker 2: you get good at killing does and little bucks. There's
Speaker 2: no jump in the line on this one. And I'm
Speaker 2: sorry to tell you that the process of ranging a
Speaker 2: deer and finding the exact moment to draw, using the
Speaker 2: right pin or dialing in correctly, and then if you
Speaker 2: have to stopping the deer to execute the shot man,
Speaker 2: any of those things can go wrong, and when they do,
Speaker 2: most of the time, the whole thing's over. What compounds
Speaker 2: that issue is that if you take some time to
Speaker 2: figure out how to shoot four ky's and two year olds,
Speaker 2: they may let you know some of those single point
Speaker 2: failures slide that a mature deer just wouldn't. And on
Speaker 2: that note, let me tell you something else. It's often
Speaker 2: harder to earn a really good shot opportunity and see
Speaker 2: it through on a mature dough than a mature buck
Speaker 2: in high pressure areas. A mature dough will just not
Speaker 2: tolerate your failures, and she's never going to be out
Speaker 2: of her mind crazy with lust like her boyfriend might be.
Speaker 2: Remember that in your process to become a better deer hunter. Now,
Speaker 2: the more you work through a complex ripe for disaster
Speaker 2: situation like trying to shoot a deer with a pointy stick.
Speaker 2: The easier it becomes for you to engineer a scenario
Speaker 2: where all of those single point failures remain unfailed. That's
Speaker 2: not a word. I'm a writer, I swear, although I
Speaker 2: am an outdoor writer. So the story kind of tracks.
Speaker 2: Of course, long before you get a shot. You might
Speaker 2: have set yourself up for a single point failure that
Speaker 2: you don't even understand. I've talked about this a few times,
Speaker 2: but recently witnessed it in the northern Wisconsin. And I'll
Speaker 2: tell you what laziness in general is your enemy. It's
Speaker 2: a breeding ground for single point failures. You know, from
Speaker 2: hunting easy stands to just not really scouting to you
Speaker 2: name it. But one area where it's obvious to me
Speaker 2: is in where you park your vehicle. I have a
Speaker 2: neighbor to one of my Wisconsin properties who has forty acres.
Speaker 2: The front half is a hayfield and the back half
Speaker 2: is part high woods and part swamp. I'm just making
Speaker 2: an educated guess here, but he's probably hunting the high
Speaker 2: woods which borders the Field's a strip of cover that's
Speaker 2: maybe one hundred yards wide from the look of it.
Speaker 2: On on x now when I was there, hunting my
Speaker 2: property next to his. Couple weeks ago. I saw his
Speaker 2: truck part right on the edge of that high woods,
Speaker 2: right on the edge of the open hayfield during the rut.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing about that, Any deer that comes into
Speaker 2: that field is going to spook because that truck is
Speaker 2: only there when he hunts. Any deer that sees that
Speaker 2: truck through the woods, he's probably gonna spook or get edgy.
Speaker 2: And sure that might just be alone dough that's coming
Speaker 2: through that freaks out a bit or a little spike,
Speaker 2: but those negative reactions tend to change the vibe of
Speaker 2: the woods. What's worse is that forty acres is roughly
Speaker 2: four hundred yards by four hundred yards. If he parked
Speaker 2: down the road and walked in, it would maybe tack
Speaker 2: on an extra ten minutes, but would almost guarantee a
Speaker 2: different better hunt. To me, that's a single point failure.
Speaker 2: That's just kind of unacceptable. And yes, he can walk
Speaker 2: just fine. He's younger than I am and not suffering
Speaker 2: from some degenerative disease or recovering from a nasty skydiving accident. Now,
Speaker 2: I recently did a podcast with Mark where we talked
Speaker 2: about this quite a bit. And the truth is, while
Speaker 2: I disagree with Kenyan on a lot of things, like
Speaker 2: the proper facial hair for a man, he's right about
Speaker 2: how he thinks through hunting scenarios before he sets up.
Speaker 2: He's kind of a what can go wrong, probably will
Speaker 2: go wrong kind of hunter, and I am too. This
Speaker 2: is because there are hundreds of variables during every one
Speaker 2: of your hunts that is way beyond your control. What
Speaker 2: is in your control are hundreds of other variables that
Speaker 2: you should consider with most of your setups. I think
Speaker 2: this might be the biggest white tail single point failure
Speaker 2: out there, which is not really considering how many things
Speaker 2: can go wrong and not making a valiant effort to
Speaker 2: at least curb the most obvious ones, you know, the
Speaker 2: easiest ones to address, so to speak, because really, becoming
Speaker 2: a consistently successful white tail hunter is just kind of
Speaker 2: a war of attrition against your own ignorance and bad habits.
Speaker 2: If that sounds too harsh, let me put it in
Speaker 2: a different way. Personally, I'm always fighting my own laziness
Speaker 2: and my own second guessing. I'm constantly pulled toward easy
Speaker 2: setups when I know that a little extra work is
Speaker 2: almost always a better strategy. Experience teaches you the best
Speaker 2: way to do this stuff, but it doesn't totally erase
Speaker 2: our desires to shortcut the whole process and just kind
Speaker 2: of phone it in. But when we do that, that's
Speaker 2: not where the rewards come from, and it's mostly a
Speaker 2: recipe for frustration. A better bet that seems, you know,
Speaker 2: like less fun because it's more work, is to just
Speaker 2: put in the effort, think through what you're doing and
Speaker 2: why you're doing it and what can go wrong if X,
Speaker 2: Y or Z happens. You don't have to overthink it
Speaker 2: to the point of vapor locking your brain, but you
Speaker 2: should consider, you know, what are some of the biggest
Speaker 2: single point failures you've dealt with, and try to figure
Speaker 2: out how to mitigate them. Now, eventually some of the
Speaker 2: issues that constantly plag other hunters will be nothing more
Speaker 2: than a distant memory for you, and you can work
Speaker 2: on more problems. This is a good strategy for life. Honestly,
Speaker 2: take care of something little and let that good habit
Speaker 2: snowball into something else, because if we go the other way,
Speaker 2: the single point failures might stack up into those cast
Speaker 2: gating failures, and that is not a fun place to be.
Speaker 2: Think about this and think about coming back next week,
Speaker 2: because I'm going to talk about muzzle or hunting and
Speaker 2: why I think it's the best opportunity for bow hunters
Speaker 2: who want a little extra firepower on their side while
Speaker 2: they hunt a season that most other hunters just don't
Speaker 2: care a whole lot about. That's it for this week.
Speaker 2: I'm Tony Peterson. This has been the Wire to Hunt
Speaker 2: Foundations podcast, which is brought to you by First Light.
Speaker 2: As always, thank you so much for listening and so
Speaker 2: much for your support. As I mentioned in the beginning,
Speaker 2: Mediator has a monster sale going on right now. Head
Speaker 2: on over to the site. You'll see tons of stuff
Speaker 2: marked way way down, and if you want more content.
Speaker 2: While you're there, you can check out articles written by me, Mark,
Speaker 2: guys like Bo Martonic, Alex Gilstrom, Addamore, whole bunch of
Speaker 2: really good whitetail hunters. And you can find all of
Speaker 2: our other podcasts and a whole bunch of video series
Speaker 2: over there at the mediatter dot com. Go check it out.