Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, and now your host,
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson. Hey, everyone, welcome to the Wire to Hunt
Speaker 1: Foundations podcast, which is brought to you by First Light.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is all about those pesky little words always
Speaker 1: and never and how they are, or at least can
Speaker 1: be a deer hunter's biggest enemy. I'm a firm believer that,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things that holds us back
Speaker 1: as a species and as individuals is that we cling
Speaker 1: too tightly to what we believe. It's easier than being wrong,
Speaker 1: of course, but it's also easier than having to think
Speaker 1: through issues and explore ideas. We love shortcuts, and our
Speaker 1: history is one that is tightly interwoven with intellectual ordcasts
Speaker 1: that promised to do the thinking for us. That might
Speaker 1: seem crazy, but it wasn't all that long ago that
Speaker 1: we thought stupid stuff like piles of straw produced baby mice,
Speaker 1: and then if we sailed far enough into the ocean,
Speaker 1: we just fall right off the edge of the earth.
Speaker 1: Deer hunters have many many outdated We're just not I
Speaker 1: guess black and white ideas that hurt us too, and
Speaker 1: in this episode, I'm gonna talk about a lot of them.
Speaker 1: If you listen to this podcast enough, you know that
Speaker 1: I love space. I just think it's pretty amazing what
Speaker 1: we're learning, and really amazing what we could learn humans.
Speaker 1: As long as we have been humans have been star gazers.
Speaker 1: It really wasn't until probably about the nineteen fifties, when
Speaker 1: there was a TV in every living room that this
Speaker 1: really started to die, at least in develop nation anyway.
Speaker 1: Plenty of people still like to go to places with
Speaker 1: little light pollution and look up at the sky, which
Speaker 1: is one of the most underrated benefits of a remote
Speaker 1: hunt in my opinion. You know, I'm sure it's great
Speaker 1: to bavy out for Elk at nine thousand feet on
Speaker 1: the side of a mountain somewhere for obvious reasons, But
Speaker 1: sitting there in the darkness, looking up at the sky
Speaker 1: while listening for a bugle, it's pretty damn special because
Speaker 1: of our fascination wonder with a night sky. Well, probably
Speaker 1: the day skuy too, but mostly the night sky. We've
Speaker 1: gone through some wild beliefs as humans. Take Mars, for example,
Speaker 1: that red planet out there that Elon might get us too,
Speaker 1: if he'd ever stopped messing around with Twitter and focus
Speaker 1: on one thing. Anyway, Go back, I don't know, say
Speaker 1: about five thousand years, and people thought that Mars was
Speaker 1: a god. They saw a reddish light in the sky
Speaker 1: that didn't quite look like normal stars, and that was
Speaker 1: pretty special to them. They also noticed that every couple
Speaker 1: of years it would be really visible and observation. They
Speaker 1: added all kinds of un do significance too. Of course,
Speaker 1: sometime a few centuries ago people started figuring out the
Speaker 1: whole telescope thing, and Mars was a natural target for
Speaker 1: some of those close up observations that early work. And
Speaker 1: while people started getting a better look at the red planet,
Speaker 1: the idea that since it was a planet and Earth
Speaker 1: was a planet that happened to be teeming with life,
Speaker 1: people assumed Mars too must have been full of life.
Speaker 1: That's where Martians come from. Now. In the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: an Italian astronomer spent some time looking at Mars from
Speaker 1: a telescope in Milan, and he decided to drop a
Speaker 1: map of the planet. He names some motions and some continents,
Speaker 1: and also thought he saw some intelligently constructed canals. Now
Speaker 1: that was good enough for the masses, and it was
Speaker 1: generally believed that Mars had not only a life, but
Speaker 1: intelligent life, and not only that, but a lot of it.
Speaker 1: Now about thirty five years later that Tesla Fella, the
Speaker 1: original guy I even said that he had communicated with
Speaker 1: Martians on his radio, and Tesla was well known for
Speaker 1: his scientific discoveries and contributions. It's also, at least on
Speaker 1: this one thing, totally full of shit. Now fast forward
Speaker 1: and you get the NASA image of the face on Mars,
Speaker 1: which is a rock with some shadows that kind of
Speaker 1: look like a face. You probably remember it. You get
Speaker 1: a meteorite discovered in Antarctica that had some markings on
Speaker 1: it that kind of looked like bacteria. The rock, which
Speaker 1: scientists trace back to Mars. Somehow lead some to believe
Speaker 1: that there must have been bacteria on Mars, which later
Speaker 1: investigation proof totally inconclusive. These days, we have probes flying
Speaker 1: around Mars, flying on Mars in the form of a
Speaker 1: little helicopter and roaming around Mars on tracks. They're currently
Speaker 1: leaving samples on Mars and can tainers examples of dirts
Speaker 1: and whatever else rocks to pick up with probes in
Speaker 1: the future. So people can actually study real samples of
Speaker 1: Martian dust and rock. We now know that Mars was
Speaker 1: sort of earth like a couple of billion years ago,
Speaker 1: with an atmosphere and plenty of liquid water. And there's
Speaker 1: still so much we don't know because we've obviously never
Speaker 1: been there. The things we believe today will inevitably be
Speaker 1: proved wrong as science gets more sophisticated. Now, what the
Speaker 1: hell does that have to do with the deer Well,
Speaker 1: I'll bet you if you could go back in time
Speaker 1: to about night when orson Wells wore the world's radio
Speaker 1: drama played out, that a hell of a lot of
Speaker 1: people would have told you flat out, of course, there's
Speaker 1: life on Mars. Hell, there's intelligent life on Mars, lifelike humans,
Speaker 1: in fact, humanoid things. Now those people were wrong, of course,
Speaker 1: And in deer hunting, we do this all the time,
Speaker 1: and we are wrong all the time, and the worst
Speaker 1: part is we often don't know it because it's stuff
Speaker 1: that's just generally believed, and that's I don't know. That's
Speaker 1: where the real danger and our deer hunting beliefs come from,
Speaker 1: and it starts with us filling into blanks. Those folks
Speaker 1: back there living on the cusp of the Second Grade
Speaker 1: War had very very little evidence of anything on ours,
Speaker 1: let alone civilizations, but they had been told, you know,
Speaker 1: for centuries that it was a certainty. Pop culture came in,
Speaker 1: even if it was the old school radio pop culture,
Speaker 1: and made them believe it even more. In the deer hunting,
Speaker 1: you know, we've had a lot of ideas for a
Speaker 1: long long time. We've had a massive influence from deer
Speaker 1: hunting pop culture at least, you know, which is kind
Speaker 1: of like our redneck version of pop culture that directly
Speaker 1: relates to hunting rabbits with antlers, And we have taken
Speaker 1: much of that as gospel, so much so that many
Speaker 1: of the things that we believe can't be attributed to
Speaker 1: any one person. So many of these things that are
Speaker 1: part of the old zeitgeist, if you will, they're just
Speaker 1: dangerous because they've been here so long and they've sunk
Speaker 1: pretty deep in. And here's why, what you don't see
Speaker 1: through your own observations and don't learn through your own
Speaker 1: experiences is always suspect, and even worse, some of the
Speaker 1: stuff we do see for ourselves and experience for ourselves
Speaker 1: is subject to our own fill in the blank biases. Now,
Speaker 1: this is natural. I'm not trying to shoot on anyone here.
Speaker 1: If you only have encounters with little Bucks and does,
Speaker 1: you're going to have to live vicariously through somebody else
Speaker 1: who encounters Big Bucks. Everybody does this with all kinds
Speaker 1: of the parts of hunting, and honestly, life's sort of
Speaker 1: just part of the human experience. What is dangerous about that, however,
Speaker 1: is when it leads to always and never. Any time
Speaker 1: I hear someone say always and never as it pertains
Speaker 1: to hunting advice, I get to feeling like I just
Speaker 1: ate a big wallefe filet and I'm now about to
Speaker 1: die or come close to it. If you're confused by that,
Speaker 1: it's okay, I'm allergic to fish, which is the kind
Speaker 1: of information I should have told you before making that statement.
Speaker 1: Always and never are your enemies. They're almost as bad
Speaker 1: and damaging. The hunting success is sharing a property with
Speaker 1: a bunch of hunters who don't know how to hunt.
Speaker 1: I honestly believe that. So let's go through some of
Speaker 1: these statements, because I want to drive this home, and
Speaker 1: I'll start with an easy one. The Bucks never moved
Speaker 1: when it's this hot, this or some version of it
Speaker 1: is uttered probably hundreds of thousands of times throughout any
Speaker 1: given November. I've talked about this one a lot, and
Speaker 1: it drives me crazy because how hot is too hot?
Speaker 1: How About I don't know what's hot in September versus November.
Speaker 1: How About in the upper peninsula of Michigan versus the
Speaker 1: swamps Louisiana. What's hot up there? What's hot down there?
Speaker 1: Are there temperatures so hot that a buck won't go
Speaker 1: get a drink or maybe pick a shady corner of
Speaker 1: a soybean field to eat, or sniff the butt of
Speaker 1: a dough as she chops by on I don't know,
Speaker 1: November ten, maybe, but I'll bet those temperatures almost never
Speaker 1: ever actually happen. What about wounded deer always going to
Speaker 1: water or never ever ever going uphill. Go talk to
Speaker 1: someone who owns a good tracking dog and ask them
Speaker 1: how often wounded deer break those two rules. How About,
Speaker 1: on a more individual level, how often have you heard
Speaker 1: someone say I never rattled to these bucks because they
Speaker 1: get hunted too hard, Or I always snort, we'se at
Speaker 1: mature bucks, or I don't know, I never had a
Speaker 1: full moon. Deer always bet on south facing exposure during
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, or if a doe bust me and snorts,
Speaker 1: I leave because I'm never going to see another deer
Speaker 1: after that, or whatever. They're always turns on this piece
Speaker 1: of public land, so it's never worth going. When we
Speaker 1: lock ourselves into statements like those which are tied to beliefs,
Speaker 1: we lose. It's plain and simple. This happens with outdoor
Speaker 1: pursuits all of the time. I saw this so much
Speaker 1: when I was fishing bass tournaments. You know, somebody saying,
Speaker 1: I never throw a frog when it's in a cold
Speaker 1: front because the bass will have lockjaw. When the Smalley's
Speaker 1: are looking down for crayfish, they are canna ignore the
Speaker 1: top waters. I never throw white or sharp true lures
Speaker 1: in clear water, and I always throw gold and muddy water,
Speaker 1: on and on. Listen. Part of that's tied to confidence
Speaker 1: and experience with whatever. But I can't universally be true
Speaker 1: and listen. The most dangerous part about always and never
Speaker 1: is that they very well may be rooted in truth.
Speaker 1: If you have a badass place to hunt and no
Speaker 1: one else is gonna mess with your deer, never hunting
Speaker 1: on a full moon might be a good idea. Assuming
Speaker 1: that that the deer will always stay better during hotter
Speaker 1: weather might work in your favor there. Whether it's true
Speaker 1: or not, it might be the good call for your
Speaker 1: hunting situation. Many of our truths are just personal, and
Speaker 1: this brings me back to what I said in the
Speaker 1: beginning about your own observations. In this way, you're kind
Speaker 1: of like a little white tail scientists. You're out there
Speaker 1: trying to prove something wrong, not prove something right. So
Speaker 1: I don't know. For example, if someone tells you that
Speaker 1: only mature bucks respond positively to a snort wease, you
Speaker 1: might never ever snort wease at a two year old
Speaker 1: because you damn well know it's not gonna work. But
Speaker 1: do you know that if you never try it, you're
Speaker 1: proving them right. If you try it and that two
Speaker 1: year old comes in that science, I guess I don't know.
Speaker 1: Something like it. If you believe that the October low
Speaker 1: will never ever put a good buck in front of you,
Speaker 1: and you don't spend any time in a tree during
Speaker 1: that part of October, guess what you're saying That never
Speaker 1: statement is true. But what if you go out and
Speaker 1: you hunt and you find a white oak that is
Speaker 1: dropping like mad and the bucks are all over it.
Speaker 1: What if you find a banging river crossing that is
Speaker 1: close to a staging area of real cover and the
Speaker 1: deer think they are safe to use it, even when
Speaker 1: a lot of hunters would tell you that the bucks
Speaker 1: will always be bettered all day long during that time
Speaker 1: of the season. And maybe they're right about their dear,
Speaker 1: but are they right about yours? How would you find
Speaker 1: this out? Tearing these always and never statements to shreds
Speaker 1: is one of the biggest benefits of traveling to hunt.
Speaker 1: If you go elk hunting in Colorado, in and over
Speaker 1: the counter unit, and you consumed any kind of content
Speaker 1: built around it, you'll see people who say that you
Speaker 1: might as well leave your calls at home. You better
Speaker 1: not bugle, and if you do, you know, if you do,
Speaker 1: be careful. If you call, call, you better chirp a
Speaker 1: few times and then shut the hell up. They'll say,
Speaker 1: you know, the pressured elk never respond to calling. They've
Speaker 1: been burned too many times, or they always run three
Speaker 1: mountain ranges away when they hear a bugle. But do
Speaker 1: they all elk? I don't know. Maybe in some spots.
Speaker 1: Maybe not if you find a nice pocket of them
Speaker 1: in the dark timber with a few aspen veins running
Speaker 1: through it, that just kind of gets overlooked by other hunters,
Speaker 1: and maybe that never Bugle advice is great if you're
Speaker 1: i don't know, a hundred yards from the trailhead, but
Speaker 1: not so great when you're four miles in and a
Speaker 1: hundred yards from an actual bowl. I honestly think the
Speaker 1: best way to be a successful hunter is to give
Speaker 1: yourself as many options as possible figure out when to
Speaker 1: use them. This goes for hunting spots, of course, but
Speaker 1: calling and hunting techniques since whole host other categories. Keep
Speaker 1: an open mind and understand that the deer will teach
Speaker 1: you that always never are rarely true. Take this one
Speaker 1: for example. I spoke recently with someone who is a
Speaker 1: really good white to hunter. This dude gets it done
Speaker 1: on public land and some of the more heavily hunted states,
Speaker 1: and he was describing some of his camera strategy. He
Speaker 1: flat outsid at one point, I never haunt a specific
Speaker 1: buck until he starts daylighting on my camera and listen
Speaker 1: his results. They prove that his strategy works. He kills
Speaker 1: good bucks, but I also wonder couldn't he hunt other
Speaker 1: places while waiting for a good one to daylight on
Speaker 1: one of his cameras. You know, maybe not honey hoole stuff,
Speaker 1: But isn't it worth it to go even when your
Speaker 1: cameras are showing only midnight movement? But also, his strategy
Speaker 1: involves dozens of cameras, and he also scouts a ton
Speaker 1: and has enough public land to work with that he
Speaker 1: can wait for the right time to go in on
Speaker 1: specific bucks. What if you only have two cameras, and
Speaker 1: what if they aren't cell cams but traditional cameras. What
Speaker 1: if you only have a few weekends throughout the season,
Speaker 1: should you never hunt until you get a buck daylighting?
Speaker 1: See what I mean? This stuff is very individualized. I
Speaker 1: remember talking to a fellow who is pretty dang well
Speaker 1: known in hunting circles, and he said he never goes
Speaker 1: into the woods until the rut. He only hunts the
Speaker 1: field edges and the food plots and leaves all their
Speaker 1: thicker cover and funnels alone until the bucks should be cruising.
Speaker 1: And you know what, that's a great strategy if you're
Speaker 1: running a couple of thousand acres and managed ground. But
Speaker 1: what about somebody who isn't that always strategy won't make
Speaker 1: much sense for the public land hunter, who would be
Speaker 1: probably wasting his or her time sitting field edges with
Speaker 1: set of the competition out there. Again. The antidote to
Speaker 1: these confining beliefs his actual experience, trying new things, hunting
Speaker 1: new places, going out when you believe the hunting shouldn't
Speaker 1: be very good. It involves letting the deer show you
Speaker 1: that what you believe is mostly wrong, or at the
Speaker 1: very least not always right. I've had so many experiences
Speaker 1: out there that have done this for me. The first
Speaker 1: big buck I killed did this when he was the
Speaker 1: first one in the field one really awesome night in September,
Speaker 1: a long time ago. The bucks I've seen and killed
Speaker 1: while hunting in October when it's supposed to be a
Speaker 1: low same deal. Killing one of my best year ever
Speaker 1: on public land when the temperature was in the nineties
Speaker 1: changed how I thought about things. The little bucks that
Speaker 1: have come running into my storm wheeze. The deers that
Speaker 1: have showed up right after a dose snorted five thousand
Speaker 1: times after winning me, the bucks on public land where
Speaker 1: so many people have told me there are never good bucks,
Speaker 1: there or never bucks of a certain caliber. There the
Speaker 1: great hunts I've had on ground that people have said
Speaker 1: they always get shot out by the rifle hunters, or
Speaker 1: HD killed them all, you name it. There are a
Speaker 1: ton of always and never statements out there that just
Speaker 1: don't hold water. But you might be thinking, what does
Speaker 1: this do for you now? I don't know. I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: but I am a big believer in thinking through problems.
Speaker 1: That's one of the reasons I like running. After a while,
Speaker 1: your body just goes into autopilot and your brain can
Speaker 1: do a little heavy lifting on some of the things
Speaker 1: you'd like to figure out. For me, one of those
Speaker 1: things is the perpetual problem of how do I get
Speaker 1: dear close enough in a variety of spots in a
Speaker 1: bunch of different states so I can shoot some of them? Now,
Speaker 1: even if you don't travel all over, it's a safe
Speaker 1: bet that if you listen to this podcast, you do
Speaker 1: run into the same problems as me every season, or
Speaker 1: some of the same problems. How do you get one
Speaker 1: close enough to shoot? It's so simple and yet so
Speaker 1: freaking hard. Sometimes thinking about what might be holding you back,
Speaker 1: like what you believe about the deer Hunting that isn't
Speaker 1: just universally true is a great way to expand your
Speaker 1: repertoire bit it's a great way to uncheckle yourself from
Speaker 1: yourself and go try some new things. And at the
Speaker 1: very least it's worth the mental gymnastics anyway if it
Speaker 1: gets you to start thinking about what maybe you believe
Speaker 1: you know that might not be so true. That's literally
Speaker 1: how humanity has advanced to the point we are today.
Speaker 1: And while some of these advancements really suck, we also
Speaker 1: have some pretty decent things going on in life that
Speaker 1: are a hell of a lot better than huddling around
Speaker 1: a fire in a cave somewhere, eating raw meat and
Speaker 1: using animal skins to cover our giblets. So what are
Speaker 1: your always and never beliefs about, dear, think about them,
Speaker 1: and then think about how you go out and prove
Speaker 1: them wrong this season, and tune in next week because
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk about how it doesn't matter where
Speaker 1: you hunt, or what you shoot, or who you follow
Speaker 1: on the old Instagram. That's it for this week. I'm
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson. This has been the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast,
Speaker 1: which brought to you by First Light. As always, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for listening, and if you want more content,
Speaker 1: you can head on over to the meat eater dot
Speaker 1: com slash wired and see articles by myself and Mark
Speaker 1: and Alex Gilstrom and a whole bunch of white tail killers.
Speaker 1: Or you can check out our wire to Hunt YouTube channel.
Speaker 1: Let's see the weekly how to content that we dropped