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 the early
Speaker 2: stages of planning a white tail road trip and just
Speaker 2: how beneficial it is to give yourself some time for
Speaker 2: the process. It might seem a little bit crazy since
Speaker 2: it's January, but this is actually a good month to
Speaker 2: start thinking about your deer plans. Now. I've personally come
Speaker 2: to the realization that when it comes to white tails,
Speaker 2: I'm just wired to be a pioneer and not much
Speaker 2: of a settler, and I really want to hunt a
Speaker 2: new state this year. That process, you know, just planning
Speaker 2: it out, it's fun to me, and it gives me
Speaker 2: something to think about in research and study and honestly
Speaker 2: kind of just daydream about. It's not all academic. Sometimes
Speaker 2: it's just fun. There is a process to it and
Speaker 2: that process is important. It's also what I'm going to
Speaker 2: talk about right now. A couple of weeks ago, I
Speaker 2: was laying on the floor praying for a merciful death.
Speaker 2: The previous day, I had woken up at three am
Speaker 2: in a little hotel room in western Minnesota with what
Speaker 2: I would describe as a not very good feeling in
Speaker 2: my body. Now, I know that Alien franchise is fictional,
Speaker 2: or at least I sure hope it is. But if
Speaker 2: you ever take the time to watch the original movie,
Speaker 2: where Sigourney Weaver and a bunch of space miners find
Speaker 2: an abandoned ship on a random planet that is full
Speaker 2: of creatures best left in deep space, you probably at
Speaker 2: least know about the chest burster scene. Now, it's pretty
Speaker 2: tame by today's standards, as my daughter's pointed out when
Speaker 2: we watched it recently, but at the time it was
Speaker 2: so gory that it really shocked moviegoers. The way that
Speaker 2: little baby alien took a creative route out of the
Speaker 2: guy's body before running off to grow very quickly and
Speaker 2: not get any friendlier was about what I was experiencing
Speaker 2: a few hours before the last day of Pheasant season
Speaker 2: was about to kick off, Except the aliens in my
Speaker 2: body had a pretty good idea which routes they were
Speaker 2: going to take to freedom, and neither was a whole
Speaker 2: lot of fun for me. Now, I highly doubt I
Speaker 2: need to go into any more detail here. Let me
Speaker 2: tell you I've had some long drives home from haunts,
Speaker 2: but that two hundred miles was an exercise in pure torture.
Speaker 2: And when I did get home, it didn't get any better.
Speaker 2: And while I'm not good at a lot of things,
Speaker 2: laying around doing nothing is definitely not my strong suit.
Speaker 2: So I spent some time doing what I was going
Speaker 2: to do anyway, which is pick a few states with
Speaker 2: deer in them and that might sell me a license,
Speaker 2: and it might have some public land where a guy
Speaker 2: could camp and hunt for a week or so. And
Speaker 2: I dove in, and you know what, it was a
Speaker 2: pretty nice distraction from what I had going on, which
Speaker 2: for about forty eight hours made me question whether it
Speaker 2: would be a good idea to hit the old eject
Speaker 2: button on life and just end my suffering. But I didn't, obviously,
Speaker 2: and in addition to feeling pretty dang good again, I
Speaker 2: also have the loosest of plans laid out for a
Speaker 2: fall white tail hunt this year. Now, before I get
Speaker 2: into that process, I want to talk about something that
Speaker 2: is a huge, often overlooked benefit to traveling to hunt.
Speaker 2: You see, we have a way of distilling the whole
Speaker 2: thing down to the likelihood of killing a big buck,
Speaker 2: and that's the focal point of trip planning. Something like, well,
Speaker 2: if I draw Iowa, I can go down there and
Speaker 2: shoot one of their many, many dumb and uneducated booners
Speaker 2: that just can't help, but Chase does all day long.
Speaker 2: That kind of thing. It's sort of like deciding you're
Speaker 2: going to run a marathon for the first time and
Speaker 2: spending most of your time figuring out exactly what where
Speaker 2: you will hang your finisher's medal. There's a whole lot
Speaker 2: that has to happen in between the decision and the
Speaker 2: finality of a long term, difficult goal. But then, like
Speaker 2: prepping your body for a twenty six point two mile run,
Speaker 2: planning a hunt is fun, or it should be. It's
Speaker 2: like a ticket to daydream for about eleven months or so,
Speaker 2: and it's the kind of thing that opens the door
Speaker 2: to a little more shooting throughout the summer, a little
Speaker 2: more gear prep and planning and just some good old
Speaker 2: fashioned scouting and logistics planning. The more time you have
Speaker 2: to plan, the more of that stuff you get to do,
Speaker 2: and the better off you'll be for it. It's fun
Speaker 2: to be prepared, and being prepared for an over the
Speaker 2: road hunt is really kind of the best way to
Speaker 2: actually achieve that goal of shooting that Hawkeye State booner
Speaker 2: when he comes grunting in now. Just as a side
Speaker 2: note here, this also applies to hunting somewhere different in
Speaker 2: your home state as well, which is something I think
Speaker 2: a lot of us could benefit from, if for no
Speaker 2: other reason than to get us out of our comfort
Speaker 2: zone and in a fresh territory. Now, your process will
Speaker 2: look different from mine, and that's okay, because there are
Speaker 2: things we can still share. But for starters, I always
Speaker 2: plan to go solo now. I love heading out on
Speaker 2: my own to be responsible only for myself. It's just
Speaker 2: such a relaxing, relieving feeling of not having to think
Speaker 2: about anyone for a few days. And I know most
Speaker 2: people won't do that, and I get why, but I
Speaker 2: also often don't actually end up going solo. I have
Speaker 2: some buddies who are almost always willing to travel if
Speaker 2: they can carve out the time, and it's great. But
Speaker 2: when I plan a trip, I plan it for myself first.
Speaker 2: I don't want someone else's schedule or life to get
Speaker 2: in the way before the whole thing even has any
Speaker 2: legs to stand on. When the locations and dates are
Speaker 2: kind of loosely in place and there are some waypoints dropped,
Speaker 2: and you know you can get a license, that it's
Speaker 2: a good time to loop in your buddies if that's
Speaker 2: your thing. Before that, there can just be a little
Speaker 2: bit too much static in the process, and it's easy
Speaker 2: to lose the thread. So to start it off, figure
Speaker 2: out your goal, and when you do, please think beyond
Speaker 2: just the size of the buck that you want to kill.
Speaker 2: You're planning a hunting trip, literally, a modern day adventure,
Speaker 2: and not a trip to a high fence ranch to
Speaker 2: order up a certain sized deer because you have a
Speaker 2: little room left on the wall of your vacation house
Speaker 2: for one more amount. Is there an environment that speaks
Speaker 2: to you or just seems cool as hell and you
Speaker 2: want to spend some time in it. Maybe it's something
Speaker 2: totally foreign, like endless sections of big woods or grassland,
Speaker 2: or maybe you want a carbon copy of this stuff
Speaker 2: you really love to hunt, like the bluffs along a
Speaker 2: big river that look exactly the same as the bluffs
Speaker 2: along that same river, but just on the other side
Speaker 2: in a different state. Of course, you can't think about
Speaker 2: this stuff without thinking about what states offer the habitat
Speaker 2: that gets you going, and then you have to imagine
Speaker 2: which of those states will actually sell you a license.
Speaker 2: This year, I'm looking at a few different states. I
Speaker 2: haven't decided on one yet. Missouri is one of them.
Speaker 2: I love Missouri, although I've only ever turkey hunted there
Speaker 2: and have only just scouted it for deer. For some reason,
Speaker 2: even though I can get to the top third of
Speaker 2: the state in about seven hours, I just haven't hunted
Speaker 2: deer there yet. I'm looking at Kansas too, if I
Speaker 2: can draw tag. Technically, I have hunted there once, but
Speaker 2: it wasn't the kind of hunt I'm looking for out
Speaker 2: of this, so I'm going to ignore that previous work
Speaker 2: trip down there and treat this as a fresh state
Speaker 2: for me now. The reason I'm looking at Kansas mostly
Speaker 2: is that I don't want to do a rut hunt
Speaker 2: down there. I think I can find some deer to
Speaker 2: hunt during October when I suspect the pressure on public
Speaker 2: will be very low. I like the idea of heading
Speaker 2: down there with a whole bunch of pins dropped on
Speaker 2: anything that might contain a little water, and then hunting
Speaker 2: when it's hot and everyone else is just waiting on
Speaker 2: November to suit up and head out. I'm also looking
Speaker 2: that Kentucky and Tennessee. I think both states are just beautiful,
Speaker 2: and I've never hunted either one. I did fish a
Speaker 2: tournament down in Kentucky a long time ago, and I
Speaker 2: did notice that we were around a hell of a
Speaker 2: lot of public land, and I also noticed that the
Speaker 2: public land kind of looked like the ground I like
Speaker 2: to hunt Minnesota, and it kind of looked like it
Speaker 2: was covered in big oak trees. And well, it's bothered
Speaker 2: me for a long time that I just never made
Speaker 2: the drive down there to chase a few deer. I
Speaker 2: threw Tennessee into the equation too, mostly because it's by
Speaker 2: Kentucky and it's always nice to just try to figure
Speaker 2: out if there's a compelling reason to just call an
Speaker 2: audible and hit up something that's a big question mark.
Speaker 2: I also just want to start heading down south to
Speaker 2: hunt more because I think there's a lot to learn
Speaker 2: from the big woods dwellers who don't have to worry
Speaker 2: about surviving winners. All of those options me within about
Speaker 2: I don't know, half a day's drive of my house,
Speaker 2: which is about as far as I want to ever
Speaker 2: drive anywhere anymore. They all also have at least some
Speaker 2: level of over the countertags or some areas I might
Speaker 2: be able to draw without having to buy preference points
Speaker 2: for too many years. As I mentioned with my potential
Speaker 2: Kansas timing if I could get a tag there, all
Speaker 2: of those states offer me something else, an opportunity to
Speaker 2: hunt when I want to without missing some part of
Speaker 2: the season at home that I'd really hate to miss.
Speaker 2: For you, that might be opening week, it might be
Speaker 2: the rut, it might be the youth rifle season. For me,
Speaker 2: the thing that I just will not miss is the
Speaker 2: time when my daughters can hunt here in Minnesota or
Speaker 2: across the river in Wisconsin. Their schedules are just stupid,
Speaker 2: busy and short of getting a divorce and somehow winning
Speaker 2: full custody, which let's be honest here, no judge in
Speaker 2: his or her right mind would grant me over my wife.
Speaker 2: I'm stuck working with whatever or time they can get
Speaker 2: away with for a few days. I don't really care
Speaker 2: if I miss the opener or the rut or whatever.
Speaker 2: For myself, I just don't want to squander the time
Speaker 2: I can get with the girls. Your mileage will vary
Speaker 2: depending on the circumstances of your life, but that's a
Speaker 2: big part of the fun of planning this stuff. You
Speaker 2: can look at the times of the season when you
Speaker 2: just know you aren't keyed up to get out into
Speaker 2: the woods and try to plug one of those holes
Speaker 2: with a deer hunting adventure somewhere else, And it pays
Speaker 2: to think of it as an adventure. And I truly
Speaker 2: mean that. I often hear folks say, well, why would
Speaker 2: I go there for the same kind of buck that
Speaker 2: I can hunt here? And I always think, why wouldn't you?
Speaker 2: Why does it always have to be about the odds
Speaker 2: of killing something bigger? What if it's something a hell
Speaker 2: of a lot more challenging and it gets you out
Speaker 2: of the house and doing something different. Now, maybe you
Speaker 2: live off your trail cameras at the home farm and
Speaker 2: have a good plan to never go out until they
Speaker 2: show you know your target buck's daylighting. That's a great
Speaker 2: way to kill a deer, But it's one hundred and
Speaker 2: eighty degrees different from the kind of hunt you might
Speaker 2: find just across state lines, where you need to show up,
Speaker 2: read sign, hang and bang for a week and see
Speaker 2: what the deer gods will grant you for the opportunities. Sure,
Speaker 2: maybe you could kill a good buck with a hell
Speaker 2: of a lot less effort at home, and in the
Speaker 2: name of efficiency, that's better. But in the name of
Speaker 2: enjoying the hell out of this stuff and feeling a
Speaker 2: sense of accomplishment, that deer across the river, even if
Speaker 2: he's smaller, is going to stick with you in a
Speaker 2: more meaningful way. The reason I pushed this stuff is
Speaker 2: that I know what it has done for me as
Speaker 2: a hunter, and I can see what it does for
Speaker 2: my daughters already. It's kind of like why I talk
Speaker 2: about quitting drinking a lot or starting to work out
Speaker 2: a lot. I know it's not for everyone, but I
Speaker 2: can almost bet anyone who does either they're going to
Speaker 2: be really happy they did. And I look at traveling
Speaker 2: hunting just like that. And the earlier in the year
Speaker 2: you start to play anna hunt, the better it will
Speaker 2: be because you have the time to develop a really
Speaker 2: good plan, and the mental benefit from that is real,
Speaker 2: not to mention the tangible benefit when you do finally
Speaker 2: load up the truck and head out this fall. But
Speaker 2: before that you have the opportunity to settle on a
Speaker 2: state and then whittle it down to a part of
Speaker 2: a state, and then maybe down to some individual properties.
Speaker 2: And with most of the opportunities, your buy in is
Speaker 2: some time spent staring at your phone in the dead
Speaker 2: of winter. If you have to apply for a tag,
Speaker 2: that'll come usually in the spring, but there's even a
Speaker 2: few months before that's a real concern. The timing thing
Speaker 2: works on the financial front too. A lot of folks
Speaker 2: think spending seven hundred dollars to shoot a deer in Iowa,
Speaker 2: or not quite that much but still not nothing in
Speaker 2: another state is crazy. The more time you have to plan,
Speaker 2: the more time you have to save up for a trip.
Speaker 2: If you need to look I get it. Life is
Speaker 2: expensive as hell lately, But a non resident and deer
Speaker 2: tag can be had by skipping some nights out with
Speaker 2: the family throughout the first nine months of the year,
Speaker 2: and again, you're buying a ticket to an experience you're
Speaker 2: not paying for the same buck you could shoot at home.
Speaker 2: It's a different thing. What I'm saying with this is
Speaker 2: that the sooner you start thinking about it, the more
Speaker 2: likely you are to make it happen, because you can
Speaker 2: get in front of the usual roadblocks that keep most
Speaker 2: folks from going. Now, maybe seven hundred dollars at one
Speaker 2: time is too much for a tag, but how about
Speaker 2: twenty bucks a week until your piggy bank is full
Speaker 2: enough to buy it. As I get older, I just
Speaker 2: believe in the long game approach to stuff more and more.
Speaker 2: It takes a little discipline, but it's almost always worth it.
Speaker 2: And when it comes to taking an advantage of the
Speaker 2: dwindling opportunities in the hunting space, I think it's way
Speaker 2: way worth it. The process of planning a road trip
Speaker 2: for ten or eleven months down the road gives you
Speaker 2: the chance to think happy thoughts about it and look
Speaker 2: forward to it and feel like you're putting in the
Speaker 2: reps to make a successful hunt happen. But it also
Speaker 2: gives you time to get over the negative thoughts. You know.
Speaker 2: I mentioned the money aspect, which is a concern for
Speaker 2: almost everyone, but it goes deeper than that. If an
Speaker 2: impromptu out of state trip came up in your life,
Speaker 2: and say October, you might suddenly realize that you don't
Speaker 2: have the camping gear necessary to make it happen, or
Speaker 2: you don't really have a good mobile setup that you're
Speaker 2: comfortable hunting with, or you don't really have a clue
Speaker 2: how to show up and find a deer in a
Speaker 2: place and then kill him in a short amount of time.
Speaker 2: That second guessing in those self doubts save a lot
Speaker 2: of deer every year, and they're totally understandable, but they
Speaker 2: can also be silenced by the right level of planning,
Speaker 2: which just takes time. Hell on that note, the sooner
Speaker 2: you look at maybe doing something cool somewhere that isn't
Speaker 2: your home ground, you now have an excuse to actually
Speaker 2: go look at it in person. If that's at all feasible,
Speaker 2: maybe that will fall under, you know, the guise of
Speaker 2: a turkey hunting trip in April, or maybe it can
Speaker 2: just be a day trip in February to see if
Speaker 2: the waypoints you dropped actually landed where the bucks like
Speaker 2: to live. I can tell you that personally, one of
Speaker 2: my favorite things about planning and out of state hunt
Speaker 2: is trying to figure out a weekend to get to
Speaker 2: wherever and start to see it for myself and learn it.
Speaker 2: Almost every time I've done that, it has fueled my
Speaker 2: fire to see the trip through. Now once in a
Speaker 2: while I just don't find anything. But when you have
Speaker 2: enough time to pivot out of one plan and into another,
Speaker 2: that's not such a big deal to go walk a
Speaker 2: bunch of ground and just cross it off the list
Speaker 2: because it just doesn't do it for you. Now, that
Speaker 2: might seem like a failure, but it's not. That's how
Speaker 2: you get better at hunting, and it's a thousand times
Speaker 2: more beneficial than hunting a comfortable situation where you don't
Speaker 2: have to solve any big mysteries. Now, if you do
Speaker 2: loosely plan a trip somewhere and a little scouting weekend
Speaker 2: shows you the good stuff, you'll have the mental benefit
Speaker 2: of months of optimism that will saturate your dear brain.
Speaker 2: That's also crazy beneficial. The upsides to something like this
Speaker 2: are so many, and the downsize can be mitigated pretty
Speaker 2: heavily toward the minimal. Also, and I can't stress this enough,
Speaker 2: it's just fun.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: It's not for everyone, but it is probably for more
Speaker 2: of us than we'd like to believe I'm going to
Speaker 2: dive into it as a hell of a lot deeper
Speaker 2: throughout the next few months as I go through the
Speaker 2: process as well. But for now, maybe just kick it around.
Speaker 2: Maybe you're an over the road hunter just waiting to happen,
Speaker 2: and maybe you should come back next week because I'm
Speaker 2: going to talk about how your mind is often not
Speaker 2: your friend when it comes to deer hunting. That's it
Speaker 2: for this week. I'm Tony Peterson. This has been the
Speaker 2: Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which is brought to you
Speaker 2: by First Light. I just want to say thank you.
Speaker 2: I say it every week, and I mean it every week.
Speaker 2: You guys are awesome. Your support is amazing. We wouldn't
Speaker 2: be here without you, and we truly appreciate showing up
Speaker 2: every week and for reading the articles and watching the
Speaker 2: films and just kind of going along with us on
Speaker 2: our adventures and sharing your stuff with us as well.
Speaker 2: So thank you for that. Now, if you want to
Speaker 2: get some more white tail content or you just bored
Speaker 2: out of your mind because it's the debt of Winner,
Speaker 2: the mediater dot com has so much entertaining stuff there.
Speaker 2: You know, you can find recipes and articles whatever, and
Speaker 2: you can make yourself a better hunter, or you can
Speaker 2: just check out some of the films that we drop
Speaker 2: just for a little bit of entertainment and watch people
Speaker 2: you know doing stuff throughout the fall, throughout the year. Really,
Speaker 2: that just fun to watch. And of course we got
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of podcasts worth listening to there as well,
Speaker 2: so go check them out at the mediater dot com.