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 Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast,
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by First Light. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and this week's show is all about how
Speaker 2: to fill one last tag before the whole thing ends
Speaker 2: and we're stuck waiting on next fall. I have a
Speaker 2: love hate relationship with a late season. It's a rare
Speaker 2: day that I get to hunt a place that has
Speaker 2: a good food source and the promise of deer just
Speaker 2: pouring into the groceries to compete for some calories. During
Speaker 2: the last few weeks of the season, I kind of
Speaker 2: just tend to want to phone it in because I
Speaker 2: know it's not going to be easy, and I'm always
Speaker 2: a little burned out this time of year, and i
Speaker 2: know the odds of having a fun, productive hunt aren't
Speaker 2: that great. But that attitude is kind of dumb, because
Speaker 2: hunting even when it's cold and the deer activity is
Speaker 2: probably going to be pretty light, can still be enjoyable.
Speaker 2: You just have to find the motivation to get out
Speaker 2: there and then bring your a game, because tagging any
Speaker 2: buzzer beater deer is a tough proposition, which is what
Speaker 2: this whole episode is all about. One weird thing about
Speaker 2: being a human which makes me sound I don't know,
Speaker 2: like I come from the same planet as Mark Zuckerberg
Speaker 2: or hell Mark Kenyan is that we have to lie
Speaker 2: to ourselves all the time. Well, technically we don't have to,
Speaker 2: but we do. Back when my job was just writing
Speaker 2: assignments for different newspapers and magazines, and I wasn't forced
Speaker 2: to be a social media influencer who wants to kick
Speaker 2: his own ass every day, I procrastinated. Often having a
Speaker 2: couple hundred deadlines a year keeps you in the groove.
Speaker 2: But it's easy to tell yourself you'll write that piece
Speaker 2: on training pheasant dogs tonight, and that you should probably
Speaker 2: just go bass fishing today since it's so nice out
Speaker 2: and the frog bite is on fire. And then at
Speaker 2: the end of the night, the computer just sits there
Speaker 2: quietly waiting for you to tap out a thousand words
Speaker 2: or so, and often doesn't see your smiling mug until
Speaker 2: the next morning. We lie to ourselves in a lot
Speaker 2: of ways. Think about all of the fad diets out there,
Speaker 2: all of the programs to take you from sitting on
Speaker 2: the couch eating potato chips slathered with onion dip while
Speaker 2: watching reruns of the Office, to someone with six percent
Speaker 2: body fat, who can bench press a small European car,
Speaker 2: and who prefers to spend his free time meditating. We
Speaker 2: lie to ourselves and say that since the daily motivation
Speaker 2: isn't there, we just need to commit to some program
Speaker 2: like that that'll keep us accountable to ourselves. But the
Speaker 2: warden is us, and he's pretty lenient and prone to
Speaker 2: well lying, so we can have what we want, which
Speaker 2: is not drinking a kale smoothie after running a half
Speaker 2: marathon over lunch. He wants us to have cheesecake and
Speaker 2: take a nap, so he tells us we can work
Speaker 2: out tomorrow. When I first started working out, which was
Speaker 2: a long time ago but created a lot of core
Speaker 2: memories because I hated it so much, I figured out
Speaker 2: pretty quickly that I had been lying to myself about
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff I wasn't remotely in shape, and
Speaker 2: I had the discipline of a seven year old at
Speaker 2: an ice cream Sunday buffet. During my initial phases of
Speaker 2: trying to be a regular gym bro, I realized that
Speaker 2: lying to ourselves can go both ways, or at least,
Speaker 2: you can trick yourself into doing things you don't want
Speaker 2: to do, which ends up making you feel good and
Speaker 2: eventually means you don't have to trick yourself a whole lot.
Speaker 2: That's a tasty word salad full of mental kale, So
Speaker 2: let me explain this. I love music. I think maybe
Speaker 2: one of the best things about our current level of
Speaker 2: technology is that you can listen to any damn song
Speaker 2: you want at any time, and you can find a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of new music that will make it into
Speaker 2: the regular rotation. This is wonderful, especially if you're old
Speaker 2: enough to remember buying tapes to listen to when you
Speaker 2: were in elementary school, which sounds a little like admitting
Speaker 2: that you had to dodge dinosaurs on your way to
Speaker 2: drink water from the river after you woke up in
Speaker 2: your cave while wearing a saber toothed tiger skull on
Speaker 2: your head and a loincloth made from skunk fur anyway.
Speaker 2: I love music, and I thought that would carry me
Speaker 2: along nicely on the current when I did some cardio
Speaker 2: or picked up some heavy stuff and put it down.
Speaker 2: But it didn't. The thing about trying to become a
Speaker 2: runner is that your body doesn't want to do it,
Speaker 2: and your brain is going to listen to your body.
Speaker 2: It'll ignore the sweet sounds of Reverend Maynard singing about
Speaker 2: California falling into the ocean and focus entirely on the misery.
Speaker 2: At least that's what happened for me. I didn't realize
Speaker 2: how to take my mind out of the equation until
Speaker 2: I started listening to podcasts that really interested me. Maybe
Speaker 2: I'm just not a very good multitasker, but I had
Speaker 2: to trick my brain in focusing on a podcast while
Speaker 2: my body trudged through another slow, painful five k. That
Speaker 2: discovery changed everything for me about doing cardio. It's simple,
Speaker 2: kind of dumb, but it works, or at least it
Speaker 2: worked for me. Now, that same strategy in the weight
Speaker 2: room proved to be a disaster. I don't know why,
Speaker 2: but if I am lifting weights, I need music. And
Speaker 2: I'm not talking about Mariah Carey Christmas songs or the
Speaker 2: theme de Frago Rock on repeat, like Mark would listen
Speaker 2: to while curling five pound dumbbells. I'm talking about the
Speaker 2: kind of music that makes your chest hair grow and
Speaker 2: probably qualifies you to fight on the undercart of the
Speaker 2: next UFC event. Think after the Burials lost in the
Speaker 2: Static here or Archspire's Drone corpse Aviator. Something that turns
Speaker 2: your intestines to jelly and makes you want to wrestle
Speaker 2: grizzly bears. It's just a little trick to play on
Speaker 2: yourself that will keep you there and working out nothing more.
Speaker 2: These types of things happen in everyday life all the time.
Speaker 2: We play mental games. Think about how you envision time
Speaker 2: passing as you work. You probably try not to look
Speaker 2: at the clock for as long as possible, sometimes so
Speaker 2: you don't obsessively focus on how slow the day is
Speaker 2: moving and how your boss sucks. And sometimes you just
Speaker 2: want to swan dive right out of the tenth floor window.
Speaker 2: These little personal lies, these mental gymnastics, they happen to
Speaker 2: us all the time. In hunting too. Think about how
Speaker 2: often you talk yourself into not hunting. Why, Because hunting
Speaker 2: is work, it's supposed to be fun. But there is
Speaker 2: a lot of labor built into everything. If not on
Speaker 2: the front end of just going out and being around deer,
Speaker 2: or trying to be around deer anyway, the back end
Speaker 2: is certainly work. Even if you don't process your own deer,
Speaker 2: killing one or shooting one is going to result in
Speaker 2: some work somehow, probably stress, possibly frustration too. So we say, well,
Speaker 2: you know, I'd like to go hunting before the closing bell,
Speaker 2: but I only hunt public land and there aren't any
Speaker 2: deer left after gun season. Or you think, the last
Speaker 2: five times I set my stand, I never saw a deer,
Speaker 2: why would one walk by? Now, if we do decide
Speaker 2: to go, we might lie to ourselves a little more
Speaker 2: since we don't expect much. We might just go someplace easy.
Speaker 2: We might think, while this guy in the Outdoor Channel
Speaker 2: who has killed five two hundred inch bucks said, if
Speaker 2: you're not sitting on food, you're not in the late
Speaker 2: season game. So you just go out to a stand
Speaker 2: that you hung in September and you hope something picks
Speaker 2: its way through a chisel plowed beanfield. Never mind that
Speaker 2: that hunter spends his entire season hunting what is essentially
Speaker 2: high fence deer without the fences, never mind that the
Speaker 2: stand you hung for September deer actually sucks for a
Speaker 2: north wind, and there hasn't been three calories worth of
Speaker 2: food left available for the deer there since early November.
Speaker 2: To put yourself in the game right now, you have
Speaker 2: to trick yourself into believing you have a good plan,
Speaker 2: that you have at the very least a chance. I
Speaker 2: often think this is something we never talk about, but
Speaker 2: it's essential to enjoying a hunt. Most of us don't
Speaker 2: need to be fully snowed in with deer on any
Speaker 2: given sit to enjoy it, but the mere promise of
Speaker 2: seeing deer can be enough. If you don't believe you're
Speaker 2: gonna see one, hunting's gonna suck, especially you know when
Speaker 2: you don't see one, So you have to trick yourself
Speaker 2: into believing you'll see one. How do you do this well?
Speaker 2: For starters, If your cameras are pretty slow, which they
Speaker 2: probably will be this time of year, and they show
Speaker 2: mostly nocturnal movement, which they probably will this time of year,
Speaker 2: you need to forget about them. If you don't have
Speaker 2: a really good spot to hunt, cameras during a late
Speaker 2: season are just playing dangerous. They will almost inevitably give
Speaker 2: you a reason to not hunt, but don't fall for that. Instead,
Speaker 2: ask yourself what you need to do to be in
Speaker 2: the game right now. For me lately that has been
Speaker 2: a lot of scouting and a lot of observation. I'm
Speaker 2: not that great of a late season deer hunter. I
Speaker 2: struggle with it every year, but I have killed some
Speaker 2: deer up until the last day of the season, and
Speaker 2: I find as the years pass, I'm more tolerant of
Speaker 2: going out just to go out, even if I know
Speaker 2: the odds of filling a tag are super low. But
Speaker 2: it all starts with believing that you're in the game.
Speaker 2: You have to put yourself there. So look at it
Speaker 2: this way. How are you going to be around deer?
Speaker 2: Where will they be moving? What setups do you have
Speaker 2: or could you have to make it happen. A good
Speaker 2: way to look at this is to think of it
Speaker 2: like an early season hunt, only much much harder. You
Speaker 2: want to know where the deer are likely to eat,
Speaker 2: which probably isn't too heavy of a mental lift. A
Speaker 2: destination food source, or the oak flat with all the
Speaker 2: red oak acorns still laying around, or that prime age
Speaker 2: clear cut whatever, you know, what it is. If you
Speaker 2: don't start with the idea of where they'll go to
Speaker 2: fill their bellies, you're in trouble. It's also a good
Speaker 2: idea to make a real educated guess on where they
Speaker 2: are likely betting, kind of like, well, the early season,
Speaker 2: this is point a to b hunting, really, but that
Speaker 2: distance might be short, at least shorter now than it
Speaker 2: was three months ago, and the woods will be open,
Speaker 2: and the deer aren't all that excited to deal with
Speaker 2: another hunter after months of dodging arrows and bullets and
Speaker 2: crossbow bolts. While this reality would, at least on paper,
Speaker 2: lend itself to a turn and burn scouting mission to
Speaker 2: look for sign, that's also a high risk move because
Speaker 2: you're likely to bump them. Maybe that's not too big
Speaker 2: of a deal, but it all depends on their sensitivity
Speaker 2: to pressure where you hunt where I hunt. Mostly that
Speaker 2: pressure makes them real sensitive, so I'd rather not send
Speaker 2: them scrambling and blowing across the land. If you're paying attention,
Speaker 2: I've recommended forgetting your trail cameras and not putting your
Speaker 2: boots on the ground to cover every inch of your property,
Speaker 2: which leaves what observation kind of like early season. The
Speaker 2: one good thing about the late season is that the
Speaker 2: deer are visible, or at least they can be if
Speaker 2: you have a way to watch them. Do it. Play
Speaker 2: it safe at first, if you have the time. I'm
Speaker 2: always amazed when I go out in the late season
Speaker 2: how easy it is to pick up movement in the
Speaker 2: cover and watch as deer do their thing. Why is
Speaker 2: this important? Well beyond the obvious, it gives you a
Speaker 2: glimpse in of their world. If it's forty below, they
Speaker 2: might be ling it straight from their beds to the food.
Speaker 2: But if it's not, they often take their time. They browse,
Speaker 2: they might even lay down a little sign, but generally
Speaker 2: they kill time. They're not in a hurry. To most deer,
Speaker 2: an open field or other food source is probably the
Speaker 2: greatest threat to their existence. It's where the danger is
Speaker 2: most concentrated all season, and by now, believe me, they
Speaker 2: know it. They don't want to go there in daylight,
Speaker 2: and often they don't. But they also don't just lay
Speaker 2: down for all daylight hours either. Pay attention to the deer.
Speaker 2: You see, how do they navigate their way through the cover.
Speaker 2: What trees do they walk by? What patches of brush
Speaker 2: do they disappear into where do they stop and stare
Speaker 2: for two minutes at a time. Don't just watch them,
Speaker 2: observe them. I talked about this last week too. This
Speaker 2: is important, and while you're at it, plan to hunt them.
Speaker 2: This might seem dumb, but the reality of watching and
Speaker 2: then moving in to hunt isn't what most people think
Speaker 2: it is. It takes skill. It immediately exposes you to
Speaker 2: holes in your game. When you thought you just walk
Speaker 2: in and saddle up. Where they went turns into a
Speaker 2: mission to just find a suitable tree, because everything looks
Speaker 2: different at twenty yards versus one hundred and fifty. The
Speaker 2: more info you have on the way in to hunt,
Speaker 2: the more likely you are to find a suitable ambush point,
Speaker 2: or realize you can slip into a stand or blind
Speaker 2: you already have and use that to your advantage. While
Speaker 2: you're doing this, do something else for me. Forget about
Speaker 2: big bucks for a few days. Forget about the fact
Speaker 2: that you started the season thinking it would be a
Speaker 2: one forty year bust. Those days are gone. That goal,
Speaker 2: which is great, is an early season goal for most
Speaker 2: of us. This is the time to do something I
Speaker 2: preach about a lot, which is to just hunt deer, dose, pahone,
Speaker 2: scrapper Bucks, two hundred inch typicals, they're all on the menu.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing. If you can't get within range
Speaker 2: of a button buck right now, you're not going to
Speaker 2: get in range of a five and a half year
Speaker 2: old stud. Remember when I told you that I listened
Speaker 2: to an alarming amount of German death metal when I
Speaker 2: lift weights so that I keep going when I don't
Speaker 2: want to hunting any and all deer is like that.
Speaker 2: It's the Romstein of late season deer hunting. It's so
Speaker 2: much easier to go hunting when you know it's going
Speaker 2: to be really difficult, and you lower your standards right
Speaker 2: to the floor. Do you want to know what's crazy
Speaker 2: about that? Even if you wouldn't stoop so low as
Speaker 2: to ever consider shooting a fo, you probably can't get
Speaker 2: one in front of you in the last week of
Speaker 2: the season anyway. It's that hard. I think that rattles
Speaker 2: around in the back of our minds and we know it.
Speaker 2: I think that's a big motivator to stay home, because
Speaker 2: we don't want to encounter the reality that we might
Speaker 2: not be the trophy hunting studs we'd like to be.
Speaker 2: But this is exactly how you get better at this stuff.
Speaker 2: You recognize whatever opportunity is in front of you, and
Speaker 2: you figure out a way to lace up your boots
Speaker 2: and get out there. You don't acknowledge that nagging voice
Speaker 2: that says it's not worth it. You find a way
Speaker 2: to go. It might just be that you want to
Speaker 2: doe in the freezer, or you just don't want to
Speaker 2: waste the last days of the season, whatever it is,
Speaker 2: find that motivation. And if you're worried about shooting a
Speaker 2: scrapper or a dough fund and having your buddies give
Speaker 2: you shit, forget it, or worse, you're worried about keyboard
Speaker 2: warriors you'll never meet giving you shit, forget it. They
Speaker 2: aren't out there arrowing the hardest dear to kill all season.
Speaker 2: They're sitting at home, eating chips lathered an onion dip
Speaker 2: and laughing at Michael Scott's management style. They aren't getting better.
Speaker 2: But you will be, or you could be. It just
Speaker 2: takes the right motivation and a plan to get out
Speaker 2: there and see some deer, and if you're lucky enough
Speaker 2: to see them, you're lucky enough to have a loose
Speaker 2: foundation for a successful late season deer hunt, and you
Speaker 2: know what, if you go out and do this, even
Speaker 2: if you know the odds are low, you're going to
Speaker 2: carry that lesson with you. Sometimes the late season deer
Speaker 2: do cooperate, and a little bit of that success, mixed
Speaker 2: in with the reality of not filling tags is enough
Speaker 2: to change you as a hunter. It'll make you better
Speaker 2: next year when the clock is ticking and the days
Speaker 2: are short, but it will also make you better next
Speaker 2: October when the lull is supposed to keep all the
Speaker 2: bucks from moving. It'll make you better when it's seventy
Speaker 2: degrees and the rut's supposed to be raging but mostly
Speaker 2: feels like a lost cause. It'll make you a better
Speaker 2: hunter because you won't be like most hunters. You'll be
Speaker 2: out there scouting and learning and hunting when most folks
Speaker 2: just don't see the value in it. So your job
Speaker 2: is to find the value in it. Do this anyway,
Speaker 2: you have to lie to yourself, trick yourself with the reward,
Speaker 2: lower your standards to where you'd never lower them. Whatever.
Speaker 2: Just find a way to get out there because the
Speaker 2: season's going to be over soon and that well sucks.
Speaker 2: Don't waste what's left, you've got this. That's it for
Speaker 2: this week. I'm Tony Peterson. This has been the Wire
Speaker 2: to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which is brought to you by
Speaker 2: First Light. As always, thank you so much for listening,
Speaker 2: and thank you so much for supporting us here at
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Speaker 2: want to buy that, or you just want to read
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