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.
Speaker 3: I'm your host, Tony Peterson.
Speaker 2: And today's episode is all about the lottery game preference
Speaker 2: points and you know what we can guess will be
Speaker 2: the future of getting tags for deer hunting. This is
Speaker 2: an issue that's pretty much always top of mind for me,
Speaker 2: especially as we say goodbye to the garbage month that
Speaker 2: is January and we slide our way into February, which
Speaker 2: also kind of sucks, but at least it's a little
Speaker 2: closer to Turkey season, drawing tags, playing the lottery game
Speaker 2: preference points.
Speaker 3: It's all around us in the hunting space. Now.
Speaker 2: I know what a lot of you are thinking, Well,
Speaker 2: I never leave my home state, so I don't care.
Speaker 2: But hold your horses there, my little buckeroos. If you
Speaker 2: think this issue isn't coming for you your homestate, you're
Speaker 2: probably wrong. It's also just the reality that if you
Speaker 2: want to hunt something extra anywhere, even in your home state,
Speaker 2: you should probably at least be aware of what's going
Speaker 2: on in the hunting license space.
Speaker 3: So that's what this episode is all about.
Speaker 2: As is often the case, when I sit down and
Speaker 2: do these podcasts, I get distracted the instant. The words
Speaker 2: just don't spill from my brain onto the computer. So
Speaker 2: I did what anyone in my position would do, and
Speaker 2: I went and applied for a Kansas non resident spring
Speaker 2: turkey tag. This April, I turned forty five. And while
Speaker 2: I hope I'm in a turkey blind on my birthday
Speaker 2: with my daughters then, which I probably will because I'm
Speaker 2: almost always in a turkey blind on my birthday, I'm
Speaker 2: also just more acutely aware of our lost opportunities as hunters.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: My natural inclination here is to go into a rant
Speaker 2: about how quick we are to take away hunting opportunities
Speaker 2: from each other and justify it however.
Speaker 3: We need to.
Speaker 2: But I'm going to spare you that if you listen
Speaker 2: to this podcast with any level of frequency, you know
Speaker 2: how much of a mistake I think that is.
Speaker 3: Instead, I'm feeling a sense.
Speaker 2: Of loss over our hunting opportunities. This comes from many sources.
Speaker 2: The news about states tightening up their non resident allocations
Speaker 2: while following the predictable path of raising prices on the
Speaker 2: license and the preference points and the application fees. That's
Speaker 2: a good reminder, and you don't have to look too
Speaker 2: hard to find those stories. But it's way more than
Speaker 2: that though. I recently went through some of my photos,
Speaker 2: of which I have nearly one hundred thousand, most of
Speaker 2: which are from hunting in some form, although there are
Speaker 2: a hell of a lot of fishing and general wildlife
Speaker 2: images mixed in there. But one picture caught my eye
Speaker 2: recently and it hit me kind of hard. In it,
Speaker 2: one of my best friends can be squatting to one
Speaker 2: side of a dead meal deer which is hanging from
Speaker 2: a tree. On the other side of the deer is
Speaker 2: me in the same pose, holding the small four by
Speaker 2: four rack up so it looks a little better for
Speaker 2: the camera. And I think about that hunt all the time,
Speaker 2: about how we were so clueless then on how to
Speaker 2: spot and stock. The opportunities were many, and our standards
Speaker 2: were super low. Now that little buck wasn't the original
Speaker 2: target of the stock It was this spike buddy that
Speaker 2: I spotted first as we hiked our way out of
Speaker 2: the north to Quota bad Lands while the early September
Speaker 2: sun baked the whole landscape. I hit the dirt instinctively,
Speaker 2: and so did my buddy, who was behind me on
Speaker 2: the trail. The route before us was good enough, and
Speaker 2: I started crawling. It wasn't until I was within about
Speaker 2: fifty yards of that spike that I saw yet a
Speaker 2: bigger buddy with him, who happened to be on a
Speaker 2: course that would bring him even a little closer. It
Speaker 2: was unreal and only got better when my arrow actually
Speaker 2: hit him and we went from being mule deer hunters
Speaker 2: to finally being mule deer killers. It was one of
Speaker 2: those formative moments in hunting that creates a before and
Speaker 2: after feeling. We used to not be able to seal
Speaker 2: the deal. Now we can if you get my drift.
Speaker 2: At that time you had to apply for that tag,
Speaker 2: but it was a sure thing. You could also buy
Speaker 2: an archery antelope tag as a kicker. As you can
Speaker 2: probably guess, things aren't so simple there now. One loope
Speaker 2: tags for non residents are long gone, and the meal
Speaker 2: deer tags are a half decade investment in applications and
Speaker 2: points at least now. To be fair, the whole thing
Speaker 2: went south there largely due to winterkill, which in the
Speaker 2: interest of the resource, makes a tag reduction so much
Speaker 2: easier to swallow. It just makes sense. No one resident
Speaker 2: or not wants to see fragile game populations reduced to
Speaker 2: a point where they can't rebound, simply because we like
Speaker 2: hunting more than we like sitting out from hunting. That
Speaker 2: memory is fresh in my mind from that specific hunt,
Speaker 2: even though anyone born on that day could be taking
Speaker 2: their driver's license test this year. Time is a constant,
Speaker 2: and with it comes change. As you get older, you
Speaker 2: pine for the world that was, while casting a suspicious
Speaker 2: side eye to the world that is. And when it
Speaker 2: comes to hunting, this is an expected reaction. We want
Speaker 2: to protect our opportunities. And if there is one thing
Speaker 2: that makes hunting harder generally, it's change. If there is
Speaker 2: one thing that's coming from most of our hunting though,
Speaker 2: it's also change. But that's really kind of fodder for
Speaker 2: another topic. What I want to focus on today is
Speaker 2: that while things are changing, there are still a lot
Speaker 2: of opportunities out there. Many require us to focus on
Speaker 2: a draw, you know, building a few preference points, or
Speaker 2: just understanding what licenses are available to us. If you
Speaker 2: think you'll be immune to this because you never leave
Speaker 2: your home state to hunt, you're probably wrong. If you say,
Speaker 2: no way, man, I only hunt white tails and we
Speaker 2: get three buck tags a year here, and that's not
Speaker 2: going away to that, I say, sure, maybe, But to
Speaker 2: believe that our deer populations are a constant, and that
Speaker 2: tag allocations, especially relatively generous tag allocations, are a constant,
Speaker 2: it's probably a mistake. The truth, no matter where you live,
Speaker 2: is that we just keep making more people, and those
Speaker 2: people keep taking up more space. So do we That
Speaker 2: space we take up comes from somewhere, and animals are
Speaker 2: rarely the benefactors when we gobble up real estate. Now,
Speaker 2: if a whole shit will do people stop hunting for
Speaker 2: whatever reason, it might all level off with the available
Speaker 2: hunting space per hunter kind of thing. And we are
Speaker 2: losing hunters in some categories, but not at the rate
Speaker 2: world in the gate urban sprawl and the loss of
Speaker 2: hunting ground. And even if that were true, the loss
Speaker 2: of hunters would become an issue on other fronts, not
Speaker 2: the least of which is funding for conservation and a
Speaker 2: collective voice against the folks who would rather we buried
Speaker 2: our heads in the sand and eight animals raised in
Speaker 2: captivity for the purpose of consumption. We will probably all
Speaker 2: have to play the lottery game at some point in
Speaker 2: our hunting careers, and if not us, our kids for sure.
Speaker 2: So what does this mean for you? Well, let me
Speaker 2: start by saying that most hunters won't travel to hunt,
Speaker 2: but every hunter who has the means probably should. Now,
Speaker 2: if you're concerned with being a better hunter, which, if
Speaker 2: you're listening to me ramble on, is somewhat of a
Speaker 2: safe bet, then there isn't much of a better way
Speaker 2: to have a hell of a good time hunting while leveling.
Speaker 3: Up your game. That's just kind of an objective truth.
Speaker 2: Now, it's also true that if you don't take advantage
Speaker 2: of some of the opportunities you have now, then you
Speaker 2: might find yourself remorseful about that at some point in
Speaker 2: the future. The easiest way to look at this is
Speaker 2: with elk. Go find a white tail hunter of the
Speaker 2: age I don't know, say, twelve to fifty five, who
Speaker 2: doesn't dream at least a little bit about hunting elk
Speaker 2: in the mountains. Now, think about how many of them
Speaker 2: never will. Most I'd say, meal deer aren't quite to
Speaker 2: draw elk are, but the path in the situation for
Speaker 2: them is exactly the same. Really, all Western critters are
Speaker 2: following that path, and Western hunters are more than happy
Speaker 2: to keep everyone else out. And while I blame them
Speaker 2: a little for that, I also don't. It's like, in
Speaker 2: the last ten years everyone figured out that living in
Speaker 2: places with mountains and trout streams and clean air is
Speaker 2: actually really nice, and a whole shitload of people with
Speaker 2: urban money decided to go kind of rural. That's a
Speaker 2: threat to a way of life that many many Western
Speaker 2: outdoorsmen and women are living through right now, and there
Speaker 2: doesn't seem to be a real end in sight. So
Speaker 2: maybe the game appeals to you just because it means
Speaker 2: you might get to hunt a critter you know you
Speaker 2: won't get to hunt maybe more than a handful of
Speaker 2: times in your life. And with that critter comes hunting
Speaker 2: in an environment that is pretty damn unique to you
Speaker 2: and pretty damn special. It's hard to argue with that,
Speaker 2: But maybe a thousand dollars elk tag after five years of.
Speaker 3: Waiting is a bridge too far. What can you do
Speaker 3: at home or in a neighboring state plenty?
Speaker 2: Probably where I live in Minnesota, I can get to
Speaker 2: North Dakota and South Dakota, Nebraska, and I have a Missouri, Illinois,
Speaker 2: Wisconsin without putting really too many miles on my truck.
Speaker 2: Every one of those states will sell me some type
Speaker 2: of non resident license for deer, turkeys or ducks, or
Speaker 2: upland game or something. Some I have to build points
Speaker 2: for others I can order up on my phone in
Speaker 2: a matter of a few minutes. All are tickets to
Speaker 2: something I can't do at home. You know what you're thinking,
Speaker 2: why would you go hunt the same turkeys or deer
Speaker 2: in Wisconsin that you could hunt Minnesota. To that, I say,
Speaker 2: they aren't the same animals, or at least it's not
Speaker 2: the same hunt, And that's the point. They live somewhere else,
Speaker 2: often in habitat that might be similar to my home
Speaker 2: ground or nothing like it at all. Sure, one hundred
Speaker 2: inch eight point round a property here in the suburbs
Speaker 2: is built pretty much like one hundred inch eight pointer
Speaker 2: in the big Woods of Wisconsin, but the similarities for
Speaker 2: the hunt are so different What I like about the
Speaker 2: prospect of hunting somewhere else first and foremost is that
Speaker 2: it's exciting to think about doing something different that Kansas
Speaker 2: turkey tag I applied for today. It's going to take
Speaker 2: me to a state I've only hunted once for deer
Speaker 2: and once for turkeys. But better, it's going to take
Speaker 2: me to some public land in an area I've never
Speaker 2: hunted or even driven through.
Speaker 3: I don't think. So what's waiting for me there?
Speaker 2: I don't know, but I hope there are a few
Speaker 2: gobblers around, and if they are tough, I don't care
Speaker 2: all care scout deer and see what I can do
Speaker 2: about bringing home the main ingredients for turkey nuggets, which
Speaker 2: are my daughter's favorite meal. Process for applying for that tag,
Speaker 2: it was so simple I could hardly believe it. I'll
Speaker 2: say this about modern technology. It is on a constant
Speaker 2: march to making things easier and easier for us to
Speaker 2: spend our money in the interest of applying for a
Speaker 2: turkey tag. That's kind of awesome, especially if you're old
Speaker 2: enough to remember walking into some random Walmart somewhere and
Speaker 2: trying to buy a non resident tag from an eighteen
Speaker 2: year old in some random Missouri town who probably couldn't
Speaker 2: spell its first name if you spotted him half the letters.
Speaker 2: Some states could follow suit there, which you figure out
Speaker 2: pretty quickly if you try to apply for a non
Speaker 2: resident license and say I don't know Wyoming as a
Speaker 2: random example. The process varies by state and often by critter,
Speaker 2: but it's something worth researching, even if you think you'll
Speaker 2: never actually go. I don't know how many times I've
Speaker 2: talked to someone roughly my age who has little kids
Speaker 2: and wishes they could take I'm hunting for turkeys and deer,
Speaker 2: but they can't see beyond our own states restrictions. Yet
Speaker 2: there are multiple states within a short drive that will
Speaker 2: sell youth tags dirt cheap and don't have minimum age restrictions.
Speaker 2: The fun part about some of this stuff is just
Speaker 2: forgetting what you think you know about hunting opportunities and
Speaker 2: doing a little research on what is out there and
Speaker 2: available to you. My little girls started hunting deer in
Speaker 2: Wisconsin before they started hunting in Minnesota for this very reason,
Speaker 2: and a hell of a lot of people looked at
Speaker 2: me a little funky when I told them my nine
Speaker 2: year old daughters were successful deer hunters. Maybe the non
Speaker 2: resident tag option is just too much for you in
Speaker 2: whatever state, but maybe there's a youth opportunity there's priced
Speaker 2: for the bargain bin and is definitely worth some research
Speaker 2: during February when you don't have anything else to do.
Speaker 2: And there's another way to look at this, which I
Speaker 2: think is important. Any slight inconvenience to getting a tag
Speaker 2: or buying a preference point can be enough of a
Speaker 2: deterrent to throw your hands in the air and say.
Speaker 3: To hell with it.
Speaker 2: With our lives full of so much bs with work
Speaker 2: and families, it's easy to see anything like filling out
Speaker 2: an app or buying preference points for a few years
Speaker 2: as a good argument to just give it up and
Speaker 2: not do it. I have a couple buddies who are
Speaker 2: like that now, and I can promise you one thing.
Speaker 2: They aren't any happier in the fall for not going
Speaker 2: and traveling to hunt. They know what they're missing, and
Speaker 2: just like not exercising or taking care of yourself some
Speaker 2: other way, you can justify it in your head easy enough,
Speaker 2: but there is a little voice that lets you know
Speaker 2: that maybe you should make some different choices. It's easier
Speaker 2: to give up and I see a lot of that
Speaker 2: right now here in the Upper Midwest, Like with the
Speaker 2: wolf situation, the traditional up north deer camp, you know,
Speaker 2: mostly for rifle hunting, is dying on the vine, and
Speaker 2: the presence of big deer eating canines is certainly accelerating
Speaker 2: that drop off.
Speaker 3: I talk to people every year who.
Speaker 2: Say it's not worth going up to the big woods anymore,
Speaker 2: and maybe they're right, But is that a good enough
Speaker 2: reason to not hunt anywhere, to at least not do
Speaker 2: a little dive into the opportunity that are still available,
Speaker 2: and it might allow you to keep hunting, even if
Speaker 2: it's not the hunt you think you want. Is it
Speaker 2: better to quit altogether because that specific opportunity one a way?
Speaker 2: I don't think so. And also on that point, it's
Speaker 2: worth just some time researching opportunities in your home state.
Speaker 2: We get stuck doing what we generally always do at home,
Speaker 2: on our familiar ground, but we forget that pretty much
Speaker 2: every state opers up more than we engage in in
Speaker 2: any given season or in any given lifetime. Maybe you're
Speaker 2: unaware of some of the ones in a lifetime opportunities
Speaker 2: in your state, or the fact that you can get
Speaker 2: an extra buck tag in some corner of your state
Speaker 2: for some reason, or maybe just go on a dough
Speaker 2: hunt in some other corner of your state when you
Speaker 2: thought the whole season was just over because of where
Speaker 2: you usually hunt. I'm reminded of this often when I
Speaker 2: talk about bear hunting, because people ask me about hunting
Speaker 2: bears in Minnesota a lot, and I've only really done
Speaker 2: it a handful of times in a very specific location.
Speaker 2: I just don't have a lot of information, But I
Speaker 2: know that you can buy a no quota over the
Speaker 2: countertag in some parts of this state and play the
Speaker 2: points game.
Speaker 3: In the others.
Speaker 2: You could literally hunt bears in the suburbs here or
Speaker 2: do a camping trip in the boundary waters in the
Speaker 2: northern part of the state. There are licenses to consider
Speaker 2: tags to try drawing, and there are opportunities out there
Speaker 2: for us, even in our home state. So what does
Speaker 2: this all mean. I guess it's part rally cry and
Speaker 2: part warning for you guys. Things are going to change
Speaker 2: and you're not gonna like it always. You can wait
Speaker 2: for that change to come to you and face the
Speaker 2: existential hunting crisis of maybe giving up or maybe never
Speaker 2: hunting that dream. Bull Elk or whatever, or you can
Speaker 2: try to get ahead of this stuff and be a
Speaker 2: little bit proactive. This is kind of like what my
Speaker 2: wife does with shopping for a big purchase. At first,
Speaker 2: she'll say she's just looking because she likes it or whatever,
Speaker 2: but she's not. She's scouting in her own way, and
Speaker 2: eventually that money will be spent and whatever products she
Speaker 2: had her eye on will end up in Okay, Maybe
Speaker 2: this is nothing like that.
Speaker 3: Instead, it's free to look.
Speaker 2: You can browse hunting opportunities, and an easy way to
Speaker 2: do it is to think what you might have to
Speaker 2: work with in some state or some part of the
Speaker 2: state that isn't your traditional hunt. Isn't your traditional hunting spot?
Speaker 2: Even do you have a relative who has always told
Speaker 2: you that you can hunt their place. It's a real
Speaker 2: good start in the research process. Do you spend some
Speaker 2: time fishing with the family somewhere and notice a hell
Speaker 2: of a lot of public land signage in the area,
Speaker 2: maybe an area that you just really like spending time in.
Speaker 2: Start with that. What's there for you to hunt? And
Speaker 2: how do you go about getting a license? Maybe you
Speaker 2: just feel like your home state and has gotten a
Speaker 2: little stale because you know, if you leave your lease
Speaker 2: alone until Halloween, you'll be able to go in and
Speaker 2: kill a buck. Well, do you want to hunt any
Speaker 2: part of the season other than that or just be
Speaker 2: a super efficient killer? What do you want here to hunt?
Speaker 2: Or to just execute a real life, viable plan and
Speaker 2: fill the one tag you have as quickly as possible.
Speaker 2: This past September, my daughter killed a bear in Wisconsin,
Speaker 2: and the amount of people who we've told that story
Speaker 2: to who have also said they've always wanted to hunt
Speaker 2: bears is pretty incredible, And every time I'm like, uh,
Speaker 2: go hunt them. Yogi is very comfortable on public land,
Speaker 2: and the process of getting a few preference points under
Speaker 2: your belt and planning where to get bait it's pretty
Speaker 2: exciting and it's also not that difficult. But most people
Speaker 2: will never do it because it's easier to not do that. Eventually, though,
Speaker 2: those tags might not be available or the fire might
Speaker 2: just burn out inside of you. Why let that happen
Speaker 2: if you don't have to. Wouldn't you rather find yourself
Speaker 2: about sixteen years down the road, looking fondly at a
Speaker 2: photo of your much younger self and your much younger
Speaker 2: hunting buddy posing with a critter you never thought you'd hunt,
Speaker 2: let alone kill, and think fondly about that, and use
Speaker 2: it as motivation to keep looking, to keep trying to
Speaker 2: find a little adventure, than to just be the guy
Speaker 2: who says I always wanted to do this one thing
Speaker 2: and I just didn't do that one thing for whatever reason,
Speaker 2: and now I can't because eventually the tags will be gone,
Speaker 2: the critters might be gone, or the willingness to make
Speaker 2: it happen will be gone before that, I say go,
Speaker 2: or at least do just a bit of research here
Speaker 2: in the off season on maybe going and see if
Speaker 2: that doesn't convince you to well, go do that and
Speaker 2: come back next week, because I'm going to talk about
Speaker 2: the deer that change us, the ones we kill, the
Speaker 2: ones we don't kill, and the ones that just alter
Speaker 2: our course as hunters. That's it for this week. I'm
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson. This has been the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by First Light. As always,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for your support. We really truly
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Speaker 2: to this podcast. The main Wire to Hunt podcast. Maybe
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