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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide

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Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,

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Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.

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Speaker 1: First Light, Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host

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Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.

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Speaker 2: Hey, everyone, welcome to the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast,

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Speaker 2: which is brought to you by first Light. I'm your host,

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Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today I'm going to talk about how

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Speaker 2: you can become a better hunter this year, but you're

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Speaker 2: gonna have to get out of your own way to

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Speaker 2: do it. It's the new year. Another lap around the

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Speaker 2: old nuclear generator in the sky has passed, and we're

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Speaker 2: a little older and a little wiser, you know, than

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Speaker 2: the last time we celebrated this totally made up milestone. Right,

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Speaker 2: For some of us, the new year means that deer

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Speaker 2: season is over. For others, there might be a few

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Speaker 2: weeks or a month or solo, but generally we're looking

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Speaker 2: at a lot more in the rear view mirror than

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Speaker 2: we are out in front of us through the windshield.

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Speaker 2: This is as good of a time as any to

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Speaker 2: reflect on what happened last year, but also to really

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Speaker 2: figure out how we want this season to go. It

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Speaker 2: might seem like you have months and months to r

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Speaker 2: act together on that front, but you don't, and I'm

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Speaker 2: going to tell you why right now. I know I

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Speaker 2: talk about this topic a lot, so bear with me.

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Speaker 2: I'm going somewhere with it. You probably can't predict where,

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Speaker 2: but I want to start with this statement. My wife

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Speaker 2: has a lot of great qualities, but she's also a

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Speaker 2: giant pain in the ass. If you're wondering if she

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Speaker 2: feels the same way about me, you're wrong. There's no

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Speaker 2: way she would admit that I have great qualities. One

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Speaker 2: of the reasons she's hard to handle is that her

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Speaker 2: memory is unreal. I hate it. I can't remember anything

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Speaker 2: because I pickled my brain with Jim Beam for way

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Speaker 2: too long. But she's like an elephant in memory, not

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Speaker 2: any other way. She breathed through multiple levels of education

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Speaker 2: on academic scholarships, while I took the five year paths

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Speaker 2: to just barely getting a worthless four year degree. I

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Speaker 2: don't know if you've ever been around someone with an

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Speaker 2: insanely accurate memory, but the people who have it tend

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Speaker 2: to succeed in life. The ability to retain information when

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Speaker 2: coupled with the willingness to learn new things, is a

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Speaker 2: sure way to open some doors in life that most

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Speaker 2: folks would gladly walk through. It also can be a

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Speaker 2: great deceiver. You see, my bride has a doctorate in

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Speaker 2: exercise science. If you want to know weird facts about

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Speaker 2: human anatomy, she's your gal. In fact, she recently explained

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Speaker 2: to me what the Paul Merris longest muscle is and

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Speaker 2: why the tendon of that muscle is important to college

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Speaker 2: and Major League baseball pitchers. Somewhere along the long timeline

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Speaker 2: of human development, we needed to climb a lot more

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Speaker 2: than we do now in what has taken hundreds of

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Speaker 2: thousands of years. Some of us have retained this muscle,

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Speaker 2: and some of us haven't. If you're a pitcher who

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Speaker 2: needs Tommy John surgery and you have it, you're in luck.

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Speaker 2: It's like a spare part right there for you, you know,

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Speaker 2: kind of like having that spare tire on your truck

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Speaker 2: when you're antelope hunting and get that not so fun

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Speaker 2: warning on your dash's display that you're about to have

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Speaker 2: to dig out the jack and lay down in a

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Speaker 2: dusty gravel road. If you don't have the Palmyra's longest muscle.

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Speaker 2: Surgeons are going to have to root around in other

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Speaker 2: areas of your body to find a suitable tendon if

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Speaker 2: you want to revive your pitching career. My wife knows

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Speaker 2: this kind of stuff, and she brings it up often

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Speaker 2: in random conversations. She also, and this is probably technically true,

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Speaker 2: is an expert in exercise, largely due to how much

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Speaker 2: she knows about how our bodies work. She could sit

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Speaker 2: down and tell you exactly how how to develop certain muscles,

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Speaker 2: or how to get your body into the creb cycle

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Speaker 2: to burn fat instead of sugar, or any number of things. Academically,

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Speaker 2: she's pretty tough to beat in this category, but in

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Speaker 2: the real world it's not so simple. What I mean

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Speaker 2: by that is she'll often tell me how to run

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Speaker 2: to achieve certain benefits or meet certain goals, but she

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Speaker 2: doesn't really run a whole lot. I do, and it

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Speaker 2: drives me nuts. My sweet spot for yearly miles is

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Speaker 2: seven hundred now, which is my goal every year. I've

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Speaker 2: run as much as eleven hundred miles in a single year,

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Speaker 2: but that proved to be too much. I say this

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Speaker 2: to demonstrate something my wife has far more knowledge on

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Speaker 2: running than I do, but I have far more experience.

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Speaker 2: If you wanted to start running, you'd probably think she'd

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Speaker 2: be a better source, but I probably am. Honestly, I've

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Speaker 2: gone from not running at all and being pretty out

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Speaker 2: of shape to running an occasional half marathon and just

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Speaker 2: to prove I can, all while putting on the miles

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Speaker 2: every week for nearly a decade. Now. So what does

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Speaker 2: that mean? It means that there's a wide gap between

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Speaker 2: practical or accepted knowledge and putting that knowledge into real

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Speaker 2: world use. There is no substitute for experience. An overweight

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Speaker 2: doctor can tell you exactly how to lose weight by

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Speaker 2: figuring out how to put yourself in a caloric debt,

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Speaker 2: but they maybe have never actually done it for themselves.

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Speaker 2: There are many many things that can't be learned from

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Speaker 2: books and lectures. Now listen, I'm not shitting on academics

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Speaker 2: or anyone. I'm just using this to make a point.

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Speaker 2: Personal experience is so important in hunting. You can read

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Speaker 2: all day about certain tactics, or you can watch the

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Speaker 2: hunting public guys blaze their way across the landscape while

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Speaker 2: killing public land bucks in multiple states. You can see

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Speaker 2: how it's done. You can take in a lot of

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Speaker 2: information on hunting, but it's no substitute for actually hunting

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Speaker 2: or scouting. This is something that is just missing in

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Speaker 2: our world. I know this because people keep asking me

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Speaker 2: about it. They'll email and say, I just want to

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Speaker 2: know how to scout my little area of the country.

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Speaker 2: But the truth is, the information is out there. I've

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Speaker 2: personally probably created seven thousand pieces of content on scouting,

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Speaker 2: but I can't scout for you. No one can. You

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Speaker 2: can read about how to keep your adrenaline check and

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Speaker 2: how to go through a step by step shot process

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Speaker 2: to never send a bad arrow toward a big buck,

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Speaker 2: but that doesn't make you a stone cold killer during

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Speaker 2: the moment of truth. You have to get there through experience.

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Speaker 2: I know this seems obvious, but I don't think it is.

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Speaker 2: I don't think we actually acknowledge where we are most

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Speaker 2: of the time on our hunting journeys, and we fill

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Speaker 2: in a lot of gaps with information from other people.

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Speaker 2: Now I'm not saying you can't listen to Andy May

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Speaker 2: on a podcast and learn something about hunting that will

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Speaker 2: be applicable to your situation, because you absolutely can, but

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Speaker 2: you also won't have Andy May level success by listening

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Speaker 2: to him just talk. He didn't get there by reading

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Speaker 2: magazine articles about hunting. If you get my drift, the

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Speaker 2: path that the hunting industry wants you to take mostly

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Speaker 2: is a bad one.

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Speaker 1: Now.

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Speaker 2: I know I'm not supposed to say that, but I

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Speaker 2: believe it more and more as the years go by.

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Speaker 2: I see this with some of my hunting buddies, and

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Speaker 2: it's kind of weird. The dream is to own land

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Speaker 2: and then develop that land into a white tail haven.

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Speaker 2: You know, put in your food plots and your brush screens,

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Speaker 2: plant some apple trees, dig a pond, and then punctuate

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Speaker 2: the whole endeavor with a mini house on metal stilts

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Speaker 2: that cost nearly as much as it does to fund

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Speaker 2: a roth Ira for a year. That's the dream. But

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Speaker 2: what it does for all involved is creates a situation

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Speaker 2: with a ton of gravity that will pull you to

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Speaker 2: that blind over and over and over and over again.

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Speaker 2: It answers the questions you still need to ask, you know.

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Speaker 2: Couple this with the advice the best way to kill

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Speaker 2: a big one is to stay out of the woods

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Speaker 2: until he gets too confident in his safety that he's

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Speaker 2: going to move in daylight and bang, You're done. So

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Speaker 2: what does that do? It convinces us to stop scouting.

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Speaker 2: Aside from running trail cameras. It makes the decision making

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Speaker 2: process easy because we don't have to make a lot

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Speaker 2: of decisions. Just go sit the blind. But wait, you

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Speaker 2: also have to not hunt most of the time to

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Speaker 2: make it work when you do want to hunt, because

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Speaker 2: the conditions are right now. If that's what you want,

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Speaker 2: that blows the wind up your skirt, go for it.

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Speaker 2: I honestly don't care how anyone else wants to hunt.

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Speaker 2: I'm just making an observation that method is a great

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Speaker 2: way to consistently kill big bucks, but it's not a

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Speaker 2: great way for a lot of people to actually enjoy hunting.

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Speaker 2: And it's also a terrible way to get better at hunting.

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Speaker 2: And some folks don't want to get better. They want

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Speaker 2: to relax and kill deer. And that's great, but it's

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Speaker 2: probably not you. If you're listening to this. The rub

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Speaker 2: here is the information you're consuming is coming from a

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Speaker 2: lot of folks who want to hit the easy button

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Speaker 2: as much as possible because their livelihood depends on them

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Speaker 2: being an expert on hunting, and one way to appear

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Speaker 2: to be an expert is to kill a lot of

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Speaker 2: big bucks, no matter the difficulty level involved. Now, I'm

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Speaker 2: not calling for an all out revolt because my neck

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Speaker 2: would be in the guillotine at some point, I'm sure.

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Speaker 2: I'm asking you to look at last season. I'm asking

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Speaker 2: you to look at what did you love about it?

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Speaker 2: What did you hate about it? What nagging feeling do

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Speaker 2: you have about what you should have done at one

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Speaker 2: point or another? Then think about this. It's blank slate time.

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Speaker 2: It's January, so most of us have about nine months

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Speaker 2: before going to suit up and hunt once again. What

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Speaker 2: do those months in between mean to you? What do

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Speaker 2: you want to do with them? So much of what

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Speaker 2: we focus on is the physical side of things, like

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Speaker 2: actively winter scouting or hanging stands or whatever. And I'm

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Speaker 2: going to talk about all that stuff here in the

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Speaker 2: next couple of months. But this right now is mostly

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Speaker 2: a mental exercise because that's just what it should be.

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Speaker 2: You know, just like running eleven hundred miles in a

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Speaker 2: year sounds like an awful lot of physical effort, it's

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Speaker 2: mostly the mental side that gets you to that goal.

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Speaker 2: Trust me, what do you want out of this year?

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Speaker 2: And don't say, well, I want my first one hundred

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Speaker 2: and forty inch deer, because that doesn't matter, at least

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Speaker 2: not yet. That's the wrong focus. That's like the guy

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Speaker 2: who goes on his first public land l hunt and

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Speaker 2: spends all of his prep time thinking about how you

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Speaker 2: know he's probably gonna pass a two to eighty bowl

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Speaker 2: to kill a true three hundred. That's like wondering what

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Speaker 2: you'll do with all the leftover cake when you haven't

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Speaker 2: even brought the ingredients out yet and you don't even

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Speaker 2: own an oven. If you're having trouble envisioning what I meant,

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Speaker 2: break down what I know I'm going to work toward

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Speaker 2: this year. I'm gonna hunt Elk in September, come hell

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Speaker 2: or high water. This is the last year for over

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Speaker 2: the countertags in Colorado, so I'm planning on driving out

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Speaker 2: there and competing with all those Michigan and Texas hunters

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Speaker 2: who are also going to get in before the gates

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Speaker 2: start to close. At least if I don't draw a

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Speaker 2: new Mexico tag. That's my plan, and I probably won't,

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Speaker 2: so I probably will head to Colorado. I'm going to

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Speaker 2: work on a property I own too, so my little

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Speaker 2: girls have another rock solid place to hunt that will

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Speaker 2: feature a food plot and a blind and really the

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Speaker 2: makings of me being a huge hypocrite for what I

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Speaker 2: just said a little bit ago. In my defense, it's

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Speaker 2: not for me, but I see why you'd give me

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Speaker 2: the suspicious side eye on that. I'm also going to

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Speaker 2: keep working at two things, arrowing a big one in

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Speaker 2: the Big Woods and figuring out how to kill a

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Speaker 2: buck out of a cattail slew at public land. Those

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Speaker 2: two environments couldn't be more different from each other or

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Speaker 2: the typical places I hunt. But man, have they sunk

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Speaker 2: their teeth into me. They kick my ass and I

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Speaker 2: love it. I actually do because new is good, different

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Speaker 2: is good, Struggle is good. Remember that. Aside from those goals,

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Speaker 2: I don't know where my hunting journey will take me

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Speaker 2: this year, but they represent a pretty solid framework upon

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Speaker 2: which I'll try to build a great year. The elk

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Speaker 2: thing will keep me working out and will light a

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Speaker 2: fire under my ass the September draws closer. The Big

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Speaker 2: Woods goal will get me to winter and spring scout

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Speaker 2: a ton which I love, but I always need a

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Speaker 2: little bit of motivation to go do in that Western

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Speaker 2: Minnesota cattail deer thing. I don't know what that'll do

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Speaker 2: for me, but I bet it'll involve a lot of

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Speaker 2: map work on on X and at least a few

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Speaker 2: off season scouting trips, you know, and the food plot

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Speaker 2: habitat work on my property will just give me a

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Speaker 2: great excuse to load up the girls and the dogs

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Speaker 2: this summer and go get things done, you know, while

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Speaker 2: taking a few breaks here and there for some brook

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Speaker 2: trout fishing and maybe a little ice cream. Will some

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Speaker 2: of these things help me level up as a hunter?

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Speaker 2: Probably not, but some of them will. And I like

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Speaker 2: that promise a lot. So, dear listener, what are you

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Speaker 2: going to do with this fresh year laid out before you?

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Speaker 2: Are you content enough with your results over the last

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Speaker 2: few seasons to do the same things you've always done?

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Speaker 2: If so, carry on? But what if you want something different?

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Speaker 2: What if that is just making your first good shot

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Speaker 2: on a deer? How will you accomplish that? It won't

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Speaker 2: be just through more time at the range. Although that's

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Speaker 2: certainly a good move, it's definitely also going to involve

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Speaker 2: more scouting, more prep work for stands. Also, you can

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Speaker 2: put yourself in a position to take that dreamy fifteen

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Speaker 2: yard broadside on a relaxed deer, which is one hell

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Speaker 2: of a good way to make good shots. Is your

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Speaker 2: goal to kill your first big one or some level

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Speaker 2: of buck that is a step up from everything else

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Speaker 2: you've shot good. Do that, and I'll give you a hint.

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Speaker 2: If you want to buy something to aid you on

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Speaker 2: that journey, get some more trail cameras, just kidding, Buy

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Speaker 2: some hiking boots. Use cameras all you want, but remember

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Speaker 2: that it's time in the woods and boots on the

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Speaker 2: ground that will give you the experience necessary to level

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Speaker 2: up as a hunter. On this note, I should say

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Speaker 2: something else. If you want to set a new goal

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Speaker 2: for yourself this year, make it tough but attainable. Don't

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Speaker 2: be the couch potato who decides he's going to run

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Speaker 2: a marathon in six months because he won't get there.

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Speaker 2: That's nearly a guaranteed failure. Don't be the hunter who

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Speaker 2: has a few weekends to go each season who hunts

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Speaker 2: public land and decides that it's one fifty or nothing.

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Speaker 2: Even in Iowa, which is candyland compared to every other state.

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Speaker 2: That's a lost cause for most hunters. So figure out

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Speaker 2: what would be a challenged year for you where you

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Speaker 2: hunt and with consideration to your life and your time available.

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Speaker 2: Maybe that's your first two year old wish. To a

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Speaker 2: lot of people, probably sounds dumb, But as someone who

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Speaker 2: had to hunt hard for like ten years before he

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Speaker 2: killed a buck that wasn't a fawn or a year

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Speaker 2: and a half old, I fully endorse that goal. Now,

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Speaker 2: maybe it's your first mature buck. What does that mean?

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Speaker 2: Is it a three year old one hundred and fourteen

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Speaker 2: inch year or something bigger and older. Ask yourself why

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Speaker 2: you're picking that goal and what it would take for

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Speaker 2: you to have a reasonable chance of getting there. Maybe

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Speaker 2: it's not about buck size at all. I find myself

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Speaker 2: in this world as venison becomes more and more important

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Speaker 2: to me, where I'm not thinking about buck size as

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Speaker 2: much as I'm thinking about how many pounds of venison

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Speaker 2: i have in the freezer. So when I start the season,

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Speaker 2: I tend to focus on the goal of how many

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Speaker 2: deer my family will need to feed itself for a year,

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Speaker 2: and that takes into account if I'll split meat with

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Speaker 2: cameraman or give meat to a landowner who wants some,

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Speaker 2: or whatever. That goal is one that drives me hard. Hell,

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Speaker 2: it nearly got me divorced during this latest muzzle Older season,

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Speaker 2: but it all worked out in the end. So what's

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Speaker 2: the goal, my friends, what's the best way for you

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Speaker 2: to get lots of practical, real world experience out there

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Speaker 2: where the wild things live. Instead of phoning it in

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Speaker 2: for the next nine months and then hoping a new

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Speaker 2: grunt call or a bottle of dope will save your

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Speaker 2: struggling ass next fall, make a plan to scout and hunt,

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Speaker 2: shoot whatever, so you don't need to rely on anything

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Speaker 2: more than your ability to set yourself up where deer

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Speaker 2: like to walk. Then maybe add some of that other

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Speaker 2: stuff in later, at the very least, give this some thought.

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Speaker 2: This is the time of year for it. It's not

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Speaker 2: the general hunting knowledge that is everywhere that's going to

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Speaker 2: help you kill more or bigger deer, or even help

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Speaker 2: you have more fun out there, which is probably the

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Speaker 2: most important part. It'll be the work you dedicate yourself to,

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Speaker 2: the discipline you bring to the table, and the realization

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Speaker 2: that for you to get better at this stuff, it's

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Speaker 2: going to take personal experience and a lot of it

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Speaker 2: make that happen. And you know what, just like finally

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Speaker 2: getting to a point where you accept a six mile

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Speaker 2: run is nothing more than what you do on your

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Speaker 2: lunch break. The work and stress of being a hunter

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Speaker 2: will meet the enjoyment and feeling of contentment that is

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Speaker 2: the back end of the hard stuff. When you get

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Speaker 2: to that place, it's sweet, but it's just a stop

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Speaker 2: on the journey. There is no ultimate goal. You'll never

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Speaker 2: beat the final boss because there's always a new environment

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Speaker 2: to hunt in. There's always a bigger deer out there,

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Speaker 2: or a chunk of public land that you've never hunted

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Speaker 2: that is just worth hiking into. There's always something to do.

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Speaker 2: Figure out how to do it. Come back next week

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Speaker 2: because I'm going to talk about the lay of the

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Speaker 2: land and why you probably don't know as much as

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Speaker 2: you think you do about the spots you hunt. So

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Speaker 2: really it's going to be a winter scouting episode that

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Speaker 2: focuses heavily on what you should be looking for right

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Speaker 2: now so you can reframe your thought process for next

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Speaker 2: dear season. That's it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson.

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Speaker 2: This has been the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which

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Speaker 2: is brought to you by First Light. As always, I

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Speaker 2: just want to thank each and every one of you

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Speaker 2: for all of your support, you know, reading the articles,

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Speaker 2: listening to the podcast, showing up at these Mediator live

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Speaker 2: events we've been doing all this stuff. We really really

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Speaker 2: appreciate it, so thank you for that. If you want

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Speaker 2: some more content, you know where to go, the mediator

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Speaker 2: dot com. You can find all of our YouTube series,

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Speaker 2: you can find all of our podcasts, all of our articles,

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Speaker 2: maybe a recipe for some wild game you want to

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Speaker 2: cook this month. Whatever, it's all there at the mediator

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Speaker 2: dot com