Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, and now your
Speaker 1: host Tony Peterson. Hey, everyone, welcome to the Wire to
Speaker 1: Hunt Foundations podcast, which has brought to you at First Light.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Tony Peterson, and today I'm going to
Speaker 1: take a deep dive into the unfortunate reality of all
Speaker 1: hunting and of course whitetail hunting. Listen, no one wants
Speaker 1: to talk about it without pointing fingers. No one really
Speaker 1: wants to acknowledge what we are facing as hunters. But
Speaker 1: the end is coming. It's not soon enough to cause
Speaker 1: too much alarm, but it is the reality that I
Speaker 1: believe we need to face. Do I think we can
Speaker 1: stop it? I don't know. Probably not, but I think
Speaker 1: we can slow it down. And that's what this podcast
Speaker 1: is all about. Yeah, doom and gloom, negativity. We are
Speaker 1: inundated with bad news all day, every day, and it
Speaker 1: is no fun. It has divided us. It's left us
Speaker 1: at our most tribal points since well we all kind
Speaker 1: of lived in tribes. That's crazy, but we are stuck
Speaker 1: in this brave new world. In the grand scheme of
Speaker 1: it all. It seems crazy to even be concerned with
Speaker 1: something like hunting. The big picture issues that dominate the
Speaker 1: twenty four hour news cycle, and they're curated propaganda that
Speaker 1: goes along with it. They seem so much more important.
Speaker 1: But to you and I, hunting is important. The existence
Speaker 1: of white tails in the woods and the chance to
Speaker 1: go hunt them, it's some mooe important and it might
Speaker 1: feel like it's not really threatened, like those opportunities aren't threatened,
Speaker 1: But they are. They really are. So where am I
Speaker 1: going with this? Let me bring up a couple examples
Speaker 1: to drive home the overall point of this episode before
Speaker 1: I really get into it. The first one is happening
Speaker 1: out there in Wyoming. If you've been playing the points
Speaker 1: game there, the preference point game, I should say, in
Speaker 1: the Cowboys state, you've maybe heard about some of the
Speaker 1: task Force recommendations out there, and basically, and I'm really
Speaker 1: just summon this up quickly here, they're looking at a
Speaker 1: ninety split for the truly keynote species in Wyoming. This
Speaker 1: means that if you have your heart set on drawing
Speaker 1: a sheep tag or maybe a shiris moose bowl tag,
Speaker 1: but you're not in the top three point pools. You
Speaker 1: are super duper ship out of luck. All that money
Speaker 1: you dumped into points is basically charity, not it isn't
Speaker 1: official yet, So maybe I'm way off base here, but
Speaker 1: that's what they're looking at it. It seems like non
Speaker 1: residents are in for a real treat with Wyoming. Probably
Speaker 1: in a few years you'll see this situation creep into
Speaker 1: the elk Antal Open Meal Deer point pools too. When
Speaker 1: that happens, it's going to suck for a lot of
Speaker 1: people who will pull out of the points game altogether.
Speaker 1: Wyoming knows this, so one of the things they'll probably
Speaker 1: do is raise those nonresident license prices more to make
Speaker 1: up the difference. And the world keeps spinning head on
Speaker 1: south from Wyoming to the Great State of Arizona, and
Speaker 1: you'll see that they too, are taking a shot at nonresidents.
Speaker 1: The days of the over of the counter cous deer
Speaker 1: melder tags are dying on the old vine. So what
Speaker 1: you think, I'm a white tail hunter and I don't
Speaker 1: need to worry about those Western states. Well, maybe you
Speaker 1: haven't heard yet about the state of Nebraska and how
Speaker 1: they're tightening things up this year for nonresidents as well
Speaker 1: with a cap on nonresident white tail tags. Now you
Speaker 1: might be thinking, good, we need to cater to those
Speaker 1: residents of whatever state first. After all, they pay the taxes,
Speaker 1: they deserve to reap the rewards. And anyway, if someone
Speaker 1: really wants to hunt my state, they should just up
Speaker 1: and move here. Now, if you think that, or if
Speaker 1: you say that, go on over and ask some Montana
Speaker 1: and Idaho residents how they feel about people moving into
Speaker 1: their state. It's not working out so well for them.
Speaker 1: And on the tax thing, the tax argument, let's be
Speaker 1: real honest here. If you're traveling to hunt, you're paying
Speaker 1: your share of taxes. And those pesky federal taxes end
Speaker 1: up going to every state in various forms, not the
Speaker 1: least of which is to manage the federal land on
Speaker 1: which all of us should be able to hunt. But
Speaker 1: then you've got the wildlife being held in a state
Speaker 1: trust for all the citizens, which muddies the water and
Speaker 1: gives hunters a great excuse to screw other hunters, which
Speaker 1: is what we are doing these days. And it's not
Speaker 1: gonna end well now. Listen, I don't care what your
Speaker 1: reason is for advocating to take away hunting opportunities from
Speaker 1: other hunters. If the state deems it's a resource issue
Speaker 1: and there's a good biological motive, I totally get that.
Speaker 1: We've got a man and she's animals. If it's a
Speaker 1: social issue and you'd rather just have the animals in
Speaker 1: the ground of yourself, then there's somewhat of a problem there.
Speaker 1: And listen, I know, I know everyone does this. This
Speaker 1: is perhaps the most maddening thing about hunters in today's world.
Speaker 1: We say we are all in this together, but the
Speaker 1: moment there is a chance to try to get easier
Speaker 1: hunting for ourselves at the behest of our fellow hunters,
Speaker 1: we take it. Now. That's a short term game, though,
Speaker 1: and I don't think it bodes well for our future.
Speaker 1: I think we need to think about this. The truth is,
Speaker 1: we are losing hunting opportunities without having to actively lobby
Speaker 1: to take them away from our fellow hunters. There are
Speaker 1: quite a few of us out there, and the places
Speaker 1: we have left to hunt are mostly shrinking. That's a
Speaker 1: big problem. We also have a ton of promotion around hunting,
Speaker 1: which I'm absolutely guilty of. I can't help it. I
Speaker 1: want people to hunt. I think we need people to hunt,
Speaker 1: and I think one of the ways we kick this
Speaker 1: old can down the road is by getting more people
Speaker 1: involved in our passion it. Now, I realized that leaves
Speaker 1: us at odds with overcrowded woods. But here's the thing
Speaker 1: about that doesn't mean anything. You're overcrowded might be vastly
Speaker 1: different from my overcrowded and probably is. A common and
Speaker 1: widely unchallenged example of overcrowding involves Colorado elk on public land.
Speaker 1: Having gone out there for elk a handful of times, listen,
Speaker 1: I get it, the crowding can be intense, but the
Speaker 1: weird thing is the elk are out there somewhere. I've
Speaker 1: never not encountered elk, and I'm a bad elk hunter.
Speaker 1: I do hunt with some good elk hunters, which certainly helps.
Speaker 1: But I've also run into elk on my own out
Speaker 1: there in a couple of different crowded units, and it
Speaker 1: feels like the same rules applying the white tail woods.
Speaker 1: I don't care how crowded you say your state is
Speaker 1: or some specific property, because someone could go in there
Speaker 1: and kill a deer. Hell, someone could go in there
Speaker 1: and kill a big deer, probably somewhat consistently the opportunities
Speaker 1: for an amost are out there, even in the busiest
Speaker 1: of spots, but the opportunities are being taken away, and
Speaker 1: when they go, they don't come back. One of my
Speaker 1: biggest hunting regrets is not drawing a Minnesota moose tag
Speaker 1: when I could have the rules before the hunt was
Speaker 1: closed down, and I think they called for a party application.
Speaker 1: Anywhere from two to four hunters had to apply together
Speaker 1: and it was a one and done deal. Once in
Speaker 1: a lifetime. I just never buddied up with anyone who
Speaker 1: I thought would want to hunt as hard as I wanted,
Speaker 1: you know, and spend the whole sixteen days or whatever
Speaker 1: the season was. So I never applied, and then we
Speaker 1: had a series of confusing factors contribute to the decline
Speaker 1: of our population and the season was put on hold.
Speaker 1: That was like a decade ago, and it's still on hold.
Speaker 1: This lost opportunity was blamed on brainworms, global warming, and wolves,
Speaker 1: and you know what, it doesn't really matter what caused it,
Speaker 1: because it's gone now and it's probably never coming back.
Speaker 1: And this problem doesn't just involve the big picture of
Speaker 1: hunting for certain species like moose or sheep or whatever
Speaker 1: it is. That you'll probably never get to hunt like
Speaker 1: I won't. It gets down to a more micro level
Speaker 1: as well. Urban sprawl is eating up the suburbs and
Speaker 1: with it the parcels that many of us used to hunt.
Speaker 1: You might think, well, I live in rural wherever and
Speaker 1: those cities slickers aren't coming for me. But don't get
Speaker 1: too cocky. I know a lot of folks who have
Speaker 1: been in cities like Bozeman, Montana, for example, who never
Speaker 1: thought the average shitty little house would be selling site
Speaker 1: unseen to California transplants for three quarters of a million dollars.
Speaker 1: Either there they are. There are plenty of people growing
Speaker 1: up right now who are going to want to live
Speaker 1: and work in a remote place that that is not
Speaker 1: going to go away. That's going to keep happening. The
Speaker 1: appeal of being able to work from anywhere, even a
Speaker 1: nice little town in the Midwest where white tells dominate,
Speaker 1: is real. The thing about this is when people is
Speaker 1: their spots to hunt, they only have a couple of options.
Speaker 1: You go find a new place, often through leasing or
Speaker 1: occasionally buying a place outright, or they quit hunting. Both
Speaker 1: aren't great for our future. Now. I'm not knocking leasing
Speaker 1: as an option because it is what it is, and
Speaker 1: it's here to stay. It's a good move for a
Speaker 1: lot of landowners that also happens to benefit a lot
Speaker 1: of folks like you and I. But it's also the
Speaker 1: kind of thing that's designed for exclusivity, and that means
Speaker 1: you pay or you don't play. The ones who can't
Speaker 1: or don't want to pay end up hunting on public
Speaker 1: land or getting permission to hunt the dairy farms that
Speaker 1: allows anyone to hunt. This leads generally to a degraded
Speaker 1: quality of experience, which further causes the whole thing to spiral.
Speaker 1: I know what some of you are thinking, aren't you
Speaker 1: one of those assholes who pushed everyone into hunting and
Speaker 1: encourage people to travel in New States? Aren't you making
Speaker 1: a sweet living off the outdoors and ruining it for
Speaker 1: good hunters who just want to be a left alone? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mentioned that earlier. And I do want people to hunt,
Speaker 1: I really do. I mean that I want a wile
Speaker 1: to go have cool adventures in the woods and disconnect
Speaker 1: from our increasingly technologically murky lives. That's why this stuff
Speaker 1: worries me so much. I firmly believe we need people
Speaker 1: in our ranks. I think the only way to survive
Speaker 1: is through two things. Once our collective voice stays as
Speaker 1: relevant as possible, that's important, and we open up as
Speaker 1: much land to hunting as we can. The first one
Speaker 1: is just to share numbers game and it involves hunters
Speaker 1: doing something we haven't done very well in the past,
Speaker 1: which is not be apathetic. I know that's hard. Trust me,
Speaker 1: I'm as apathetic as they come. I hate being involved
Speaker 1: in stuff. I hate joining organizations. I'm mostly an introvert
Speaker 1: at heart. But hunting is important, and hunting opportunities keep
Speaker 1: the whole thing alive and kicking. So even though you
Speaker 1: love it when people cancel plans for things you don't
Speaker 1: want to do in the first place, and you'd be
Speaker 1: just as happy to sit at home and watch Netflix
Speaker 1: with your pets, the reality is that it's a good
Speaker 1: thing to get involved with this stuff somehow. And if
Speaker 1: that's it, I don't know, joining the Pope and Young
Speaker 1: Club or the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, so be it.
Speaker 1: If it's becoming a member of your local archer club,
Speaker 1: so be it. If it's just recruiting one person a
Speaker 1: year in our ranks through a solid introduction to hunting.
Speaker 1: So be it. In fact, that might be the best
Speaker 1: way to do this, through grassroots efforts where we vet
Speaker 1: people through our own interests and decide if they are
Speaker 1: worth the time in the effort of an introduction, because
Speaker 1: not everyone is, but most people deserve a shot. Now,
Speaker 1: this movement doesn't work very well with the other parts
Speaker 1: that addresses access. However, without the land available to hunt,
Speaker 1: it doesn't do us much good to recruit a pile
Speaker 1: of new hunters into our ranks. We need land that
Speaker 1: is open, and that is something I think we should
Speaker 1: all advocate for. It is so important whether you're a
Speaker 1: resident or a nonresident of whatever state, whether you have
Speaker 1: a prime spot all locked up, or are stuck hunting
Speaker 1: public land with a bunch of week end warriors who
Speaker 1: litter the woods with scent wicks and bang antlers together
Speaker 1: every five minutes. Walk in programs, and anything else that
Speaker 1: addresses this issue pretty much win in my book. I
Speaker 1: don't think we have too many other options for preserving
Speaker 1: our chances to hunt for the masses. I really don't.
Speaker 1: I think access is it, and I know this is
Speaker 1: a weird one and it's easy to look the other way.
Speaker 1: After all, what are the odds your own state is
Speaker 1: gonna limit deer hunting opportunities to the point where it
Speaker 1: will affect you personally? Who knows. That's dependent on a
Speaker 1: ton of different factors. But the cautionary tale comes from
Speaker 1: the West. Again. If you think that maybe in ten
Speaker 1: or fifteen years, your own state won't limit residents to
Speaker 1: white tails and white tail opportunities, think again. It's absolutely possible,
Speaker 1: and it will come from the same source that is
Speaker 1: currently working so hard to limit other hunters opportunities complaining
Speaker 1: our complainers, I guess right now, right now, the target
Speaker 1: is non residents because we have a legal loophole to
Speaker 1: screw fellow hunters who live across drawn lines on a map.
Speaker 1: That's an easy one, but it's hiding our true nature.
Speaker 1: In the US versus them thing, resident versus nonresident fight,
Speaker 1: the lines are drawn out and the battles are clearly defined,
Speaker 1: the winners and losers. They're easy enough to parse out.
Speaker 1: While that's bound to keep happening, the next wave, and
Speaker 1: I hope it's a wave that doesn't happen soon will
Speaker 1: be residents taking on other residents as we get pushed
Speaker 1: onto the land that's left, there's going to be more conflict,
Speaker 1: more demand for spots, more issues. Guess what that hunter
Speaker 1: who is screaming from the rooftops about the poacher non
Speaker 1: residents and the no ethics and no morals who shoot
Speaker 1: all the animals and litter and probably kick puppies and
Speaker 1: maybe even strangles baby seals for fun. That person will
Speaker 1: eventually be out of the conversation. But the person bitching won't, though,
Speaker 1: and there will be time to find a new target,
Speaker 1: and it might be someone who is on your side,
Speaker 1: not that long ago, when the enemy didn't have as
Speaker 1: much power because he lives somewhere else. We eat our
Speaker 1: own so often, and listen, I get it. I like
Speaker 1: uncrowded woods, like easy hunting. Sometimes I like not having
Speaker 1: people walk through my setups and not seeing fourteen trucks
Speaker 1: at the trailhead or parking lot on my favorite w
Speaker 1: m A. But I also like hunting, just hunting, and
Speaker 1: you do too. And even though it feels like it
Speaker 1: will never go away, it's going to. It won't through
Speaker 1: one fell swoop. It will be a bunch of little swoops.
Speaker 1: Is that right? What the hell does fell swoop mean? Anyway? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't sorry. This will be like death from a
Speaker 1: thousand paper cuts. C w D is going to get
Speaker 1: us there, and it's going to affect our opportunities. Urban
Speaker 1: sprawl is going to get us there. Trophy hunting and
Speaker 1: the big money to tracts that would be in the
Speaker 1: mix too. There's a lot of doom and gloom on
Speaker 1: this front, my friends, But we haven't passed the event
Speaker 1: horizon yet. On this black hole of hunting where escape
Speaker 1: is not going to happen anymore. We're still orbiting out there,
Speaker 1: staring into its black maw and wondering if we will
Speaker 1: slip across the threshold. I don't know when that will happen,
Speaker 1: but I think it's gonna and I think we need
Speaker 1: to acknowledg and that it's a real possibility in our lifetimes,
Speaker 1: and if not, by the time this next generation gets
Speaker 1: to the point where they've got a little gray in
Speaker 1: their beard and the crushing way to middle age settled
Speaker 1: upon their shoulders. More land, more access, that equals more opportunities.
Speaker 1: It's probably not the only thing we can do, but
Speaker 1: it's something worth fighting for. It might be the saplings
Speaker 1: we plant that will eventually become trees from which we
Speaker 1: will never pick an apple or enjoy the shade of
Speaker 1: but someone will. If we love hunting the way we
Speaker 1: say we do, I think it's a good idea that
Speaker 1: we consider getting our shovels out and trying to plant
Speaker 1: some of those trees. That's a metaphor. Obviously, maybe it
Speaker 1: won't work, or maybe I'm just wrong about all this stuff,
Speaker 1: but I don't know. I think we can see a
Speaker 1: thousand little examples throughout the various states and the hunting
Speaker 1: that happens within our borders that portends the future as
Speaker 1: well as any glimpse into the old crystal ball would.
Speaker 1: Maybe this is my plea, after all this rambling, let's
Speaker 1: try to do something. If you'd rather eat a live cockroach,
Speaker 1: then join an organization. Maybe take someone out who has
Speaker 1: an interest in hunting, show them this part of your
Speaker 1: world and let them decide if it's as special as
Speaker 1: you and I think it is or not. If there's
Speaker 1: a chance to get something going access wise, that's another
Speaker 1: great goal. Here in Minnesota, we have a walk in
Speaker 1: program that opens up a couple hundred thousand acres for
Speaker 1: three dollars. I buy it every year, even though I
Speaker 1: don't usually hunt any of the ground because it's worth
Speaker 1: the three dollars. Even if I don't enjoy it, some
Speaker 1: other hunters will spreads out everybody. Everybody's a little happier.
Speaker 1: I'd pay more than that, quite a bit more, honestly.
Speaker 1: And lastly, maybe the best thing we can do is
Speaker 1: stop complaining so much. This goes for all of us
Speaker 1: because it's fun to bitch. I love it, but it's
Speaker 1: also damaging. It tends to bring other people down or
Speaker 1: rope them into our negativity, and it tends to degrade
Speaker 1: the whole experience. It's a big problem with honey, and
Speaker 1: it's not doing us any favors. The Western hunter who
Speaker 1: bitches about too many Wisconsin license plate at the trailhead
Speaker 1: is probably never going to be happy. It will probably
Speaker 1: only serve to lesson the whole thing for every one,
Speaker 1: including him or herself, and to what end, to limit
Speaker 1: the options for other folks, to make it easier for
Speaker 1: themselves to excuse away another poor performance because bitching is
Speaker 1: easier than scouting and hunting hard. Who knows, but I
Speaker 1: do know it's a drain on all of us, and
Speaker 1: we could all use a reminder to try to stay
Speaker 1: a little more positive. S All right, that's my rant
Speaker 1: on this topic. I'm done. I'm done with it. Next
Speaker 1: week I'm going to talk about something totally different. I'm
Speaker 1: going to get into hunting with kids and actually two
Speaker 1: part episode on everything you need to think about from
Speaker 1: getting kids started our white tail hunting to what you
Speaker 1: really really really really need to think about when you're
Speaker 1: trying to set up for them to have a high
Speaker 1: odds shot. That's it, my friends. This has been the
Speaker 1: Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast and I'm your host, Tony Peterson.
Speaker 1: This episode was brought to you by first Light, which
Speaker 1: now has a whole bunch of white tail garments that
Speaker 1: are designed to keep you from freezing in the wind.
Speaker 1: As always, thank you so much for listening for your
Speaker 1: support all of us here at meat Or really really
Speaker 1: appreciate it. If you want more white tail content, check
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Speaker 1: deer strategy, deer hunting tips, whatever you need to become
Speaker 1: a little bit better of a deer hunter. Those articles
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