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 Foundation's podcast,
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by First Light. I'm your
Speaker 2: houset Tony Peterson, and today's episode is about how to
Speaker 2: be happy and well, I guess just kind of not
Speaker 2: sad when it comes to deer hunting. Man, We're in
Speaker 2: a weird time right now. It seems like everyone is
Speaker 2: on edge and everyone's depressed and stressed though, and then
Speaker 2: happiness is like just merely a concept we came up with,
Speaker 2: but it's not something we can actually achieve. I have
Speaker 2: some theories on this, and while I don't have the
Speaker 2: answers to all the world's problems, I do think if
Speaker 2: you're a hunter, you at least have some options for
Speaker 2: how to be a little happier and learn to just
Speaker 2: let some shit go and live your life. That's what
Speaker 2: I'm going to talk about right now. The phrase touch
Speaker 2: grass is an insult that you can lob at someone
Speaker 2: for spending too much time online. It implies that too
Speaker 2: much doom scrolling and random hours spent looking at tiktoks
Speaker 2: is bad for us, and that if you do that
Speaker 2: too much, you're missing out on the real world. It's
Speaker 2: hard to argue with that. Honestly, I feel that more
Speaker 2: and more every day, and I feel like all of
Speaker 2: us pretty much need to touch a little more grass.
Speaker 2: These days. People are edgy and in some ways, you
Speaker 2: know rightfully so the world just feel like a powder
Speaker 2: keg right now. There are some serious wars going on
Speaker 2: in case you haven't been paying attention, and global tensions
Speaker 2: feel like they are real high. It's not a totally
Speaker 2: irrational thought to believe that Russia's invasion of Ukraine could
Speaker 2: be viewed way in the future as the event that
Speaker 2: started World War Three. If that seems a little nuts,
Speaker 2: do a little research on how the Second Great War
Speaker 2: came to be and the events that led up to it.
Speaker 2: This stuff doesn't happen overnight. Generally, it's a slow boil
Speaker 2: and then suddenly it's not. I sure, hope I'm way wrong,
Speaker 2: But to definitively say that's not a potential route we
Speaker 2: as a species are headed down would probably be a mistake.
Speaker 2: We are four years out from the start of the pandemic, too,
Speaker 2: and it sure seems like that changed us in a
Speaker 2: lot of ways. There are probably a lot of reasons
Speaker 2: for this, but I'm starting to wonder if it's not
Speaker 2: at least partially because for a lot of us, that
Speaker 2: was the event that showed us we aren't as free
Speaker 2: as we thought. The idea that the government could shut
Speaker 2: down your business or take away your job had never
Speaker 2: occurred to a lot of us, Or that our kids
Speaker 2: would suddenly not be able to get on a school
Speaker 2: bus and go away for eight hours to fill their
Speaker 2: brains with reading and writing and arithmetic, but instead would
Speaker 2: have to stare at screens all day to get some
Speaker 2: level of their education. Hell, until about twenty twenty, I
Speaker 2: think it's safe to say that a lot of us
Speaker 2: always thought we'd have enough charman to wipe our butts with,
Speaker 2: and we found out that some people really value that,
Speaker 2: and we're willing to buy up copious amounts of toilet
Speaker 2: paper on the off chance that supply chains got so
Speaker 2: disrupted that they would have to resort to using I
Speaker 2: don't know, dish towels or something. I think we thought
Speaker 2: of ourselves as more free than we really are, and
Speaker 2: we're facing that reality. You know, it changed, and it
Speaker 2: didn't make us any happier. We've always known, you know,
Speaker 2: that we better pay our taxes or we'd go to jail.
Speaker 2: It just didn't feel all that real. It's just something
Speaker 2: we did. I think it kind of does feel more
Speaker 2: real now, and that's weird. It's unsettling. It's weird to
Speaker 2: feel that the agency we have over our lives isn't
Speaker 2: quite what we thought. Those feelings only get worse with
Speaker 2: the widespread phone addictions that pretty much all of us have.
Speaker 2: We're just feeding ourselves rage inducing nonsense because we can't
Speaker 2: help it. And that's just so bad. Like recently, my
Speaker 2: wife called me to ask me if I had heard
Speaker 2: what happened in a park maybe three miles from our house.
Speaker 2: I told her I hadn't, and she filled me in
Speaker 2: on a mom who shot her two young children and
Speaker 2: herself in the park. I don't need to know that,
Speaker 2: and none of us need to know that that kind
Speaker 2: of thing is happening all over the world every day,
Speaker 2: and you know, far worse things are happening. It is
Speaker 2: said that all knowledge is power, but I don't know.
Speaker 2: Knowing the bad news of eight billion people seems to
Speaker 2: make us feel powerless. It's a weird time to be alive.
Speaker 2: But maybe humans have been saying that since humans have
Speaker 2: been able to say that, who knows? I don't. I
Speaker 2: do know that life is hard for everyone, and that
Speaker 2: there is a silver lining to all of this. Instead
Speaker 2: of being hold to touch grass in a derogatory way,
Speaker 2: you and I probably don't really need a reminder. We
Speaker 2: don't need an insult to get us outside and to
Speaker 2: feel the sun on our skin and maybe tuck our
Speaker 2: doom machine into our pocket or our pack, and experience
Speaker 2: the real world as it exists, as it exists naturally.
Speaker 2: I guess I should say there's also no small amount
Speaker 2: of good stuff that comes from being productive. As I
Speaker 2: get older, I'm starting to realize how important productivity and
Speaker 2: momentum really is now. I've talked about this a few times,
Speaker 2: but this mild winter allowed me to be real productive
Speaker 2: and keep my dear work momentum going in a way
Speaker 2: that I don't think I've ever experienced before. I'm not
Speaker 2: feeling a whole lot of anxiety about this fall which
Speaker 2: is unusual, especially when I start to figure out my
Speaker 2: travel schedule. Now, I know the anxiety will come as
Speaker 2: the summer progresses, but it will likely be subdued and
Speaker 2: not as nerve racking as it could be. You know,
Speaker 2: sometimes that's the best we can hope for now. Look,
Speaker 2: I'm pretty far from a mental health specialists, although I
Speaker 2: have spent some serious time and money with people who are.
Speaker 2: The thing you often find if you go see one
Speaker 2: of these folks is that you're looking for someone else
Speaker 2: to fix your problems. But really they are more in
Speaker 2: line with a coach who will help you fix your
Speaker 2: own problems, if that makes sense. And you know what's
Speaker 2: wild about me and you and anyone who has the
Speaker 2: luxury of listening to a deer hunting podcast in their
Speaker 2: free time, we already have one hell of a prescription
Speaker 2: for boosting our mood and making ourselves feel better. It's
Speaker 2: not the answer for everyone, but it sure can be
Speaker 2: for a lot of us. And it's just waiting out
Speaker 2: there in the deer woods, and it's waiting out there
Speaker 2: in the Turkey woods, and it's waiting out there in
Speaker 2: the trout stream and the bay and your favorite lake
Speaker 2: where the crappies spawn. This is where I'm going to
Speaker 2: take a slightly weird turn. As someone tasked with coming
Speaker 2: up with some way to teach people how to hunt
Speaker 2: deer or turkeys over and over, I've had to focus
Speaker 2: a lot on mission specific con you know, the stuff
Speaker 2: like three ways to make sure you kill your biggest
Speaker 2: buck this season, or how to hunt a buck in
Speaker 2: the cattails, or why your trail camera strategy is hurting you.
Speaker 2: That kind of stuff. Those are linear pieces of content
Speaker 2: that pose a problem and then a solution to that
Speaker 2: problem that the audience might not have thought of. That
Speaker 2: stuff performs well because we like solutions to difficult things.
Speaker 2: We like shortcuts to our own thinking. This is why
Speaker 2: we like religion and auto investing and the idea that
Speaker 2: Andy may can say the right words and suddenly your
Speaker 2: tags will damn near fill themselves. But there's another way
Speaker 2: to look at this stuff that isn't so linear, but
Speaker 2: is probably far more important than finally wrapping your tag
Speaker 2: around the antlers of a mature buck. It's also just
Speaker 2: good for you to meet a challenge head on and
Speaker 2: try to figure it out. It's why you feel differently
Speaker 2: when you go mobile for a night in a question
Speaker 2: mark spot than when you go to the Old Faithful
Speaker 2: Stand to look at the same food plot for the
Speaker 2: seventeenth time of the season. It's why some of the
Speaker 2: best deer hunters on the planet share a simple trait
Speaker 2: that they like being in nature, and they facilitate that
Speaker 2: desire as much as possible. Sure, on paper, the idea
Speaker 2: might be to go scout a creek bottom on some
Speaker 2: public land, or maybe hike a few ridges that look
Speaker 2: cool on on X, But that's sort of a trick
Speaker 2: we play on ourselves. It's like when I bank a
Speaker 2: podcast I'm really interested in so that I can listen
Speaker 2: to it when I go for a run instead of
Speaker 2: burning through it while I'm distracted and cleaning the garage.
Speaker 2: We use little tricks to keep ourselves in the game,
Speaker 2: so to speak. But in the case of going into
Speaker 2: the woods or getting out on the water, the benefits
Speaker 2: extend far beyond us increasing our chances to kill a
Speaker 2: deer or catch a fish. The act of being there,
Speaker 2: touching grass, if you will, is really good for us.
Speaker 2: I know I can just say that, and you will
Speaker 2: probably agree with me because you know it is well
Speaker 2: as I do. But listen to this. According to the
Speaker 2: Mayo Clinic, which is sort of the gold standard for
Speaker 2: medical care not only in our country but the world,
Speaker 2: that stress stimulates our sympathetic nervous system. With that comes
Speaker 2: elevated blood pressure and an increase in heart rate and
Speaker 2: blood sugar. That's one of the ways your body reacts
Speaker 2: to stress, and in small doses it's fine. The system
Speaker 2: evolved for a reason. Too much stress, though, and you're
Speaker 2: gonna have issues. I think it's safe to say most
Speaker 2: of us are stressed out on a daily basis to
Speaker 2: some extent, which means we are probably all at risk
Speaker 2: of the negative repercussions from stress. Studies have shown that
Speaker 2: an antidote to that sympathetic nervous system stimulation is you
Speaker 2: guessed it gulf. Actually, that one might be true unless
Speaker 2: you have a bad day on the links and you go,
Speaker 2: I don't know, full happy Gilmore and break clubs over
Speaker 2: your knees and toss them into a water hazard. The
Speaker 2: real answer is time and nature as little as five
Speaker 2: minutes of it can calm us down. The benefits of
Speaker 2: going into the woods or wet waiting a small MoU stream.
Speaker 2: They're nearly instant and nearly all positive. Think about that
Speaker 2: this literally lowers your risk of having a major chest
Speaker 2: grabber or developing certain chronic diseases. In this case, that
Speaker 2: environment deer live in is actually medicine for us. Let
Speaker 2: me frame this up another way. Do you know why
Speaker 2: it's more expensive to book a hotel room with a
Speaker 2: sweet view versus one overlooking a dingy alley where you
Speaker 2: might get to watch people shoot heroin into their veins.
Speaker 2: The better view is in higher demand. It's worth more
Speaker 2: money because we are genetically drawn to nature. This is
Speaker 2: an evolutionary thing. Studies have shown that hospital patients with
Speaker 2: another nice view of trees and green space tend to
Speaker 2: heal faster than those with no view or those with
Speaker 2: a shitty view. Believe what you want about why nature
Speaker 2: is good for us, but at least believe that it is.
Speaker 2: Studies have shown that nature is beneficial to our eyesight
Speaker 2: as well. People who spend more time in nature can
Speaker 2: literally see better on average than people who spend more
Speaker 2: time indoors. Time in nature is correlated to lower body
Speaker 2: mass index, which is a measure of physical healthiness. It's
Speaker 2: good for depression, and that one I believe with all
Speaker 2: my soul. It helps us focus and concentrate. It improves
Speaker 2: problem solving skills. Humans who participate in nature tend to
Speaker 2: be more spiritual, and that tends to have a more
Speaker 2: positive impact on their mental health. If you want to
Speaker 2: treat yourself better and treat your loved ones better, and
Speaker 2: you know, avoid wanting to strangle your coworkers because even
Speaker 2: though they've never seen a wild whitetail, they think they
Speaker 2: should be able to tell you, one of the most
Speaker 2: successful whitetail hunters in the country, what kind of content
Speaker 2: you should make because it'll get more clicks, you know,
Speaker 2: if you just talk about the rut one more time,
Speaker 2: But then you're like, I swear to all things holy
Speaker 2: if you do this one more time, I'm going to
Speaker 2: put my hands around your throat and cackle like a
Speaker 2: horny rooster fresent in the spring while I watch the
Speaker 2: light in your eyes get dimmer and dimmer until you
Speaker 2: finally swump to the floor and I walk away to
Speaker 2: eat a bollo of lucky charms without care in the
Speaker 2: world or whatever. It'll make you nicer if you spend
Speaker 2: more time in nature, is what I'm saying. This is
Speaker 2: one of the things that we have control over and
Speaker 2: it's important. It's important to take care of yourself and
Speaker 2: acknowledge the behaviors we get into that make our quality
Speaker 2: of life worse, just as it's important to recognize the
Speaker 2: things that will be good for us, like going to
Speaker 2: take a walk through your deer property without any real
Speaker 2: objective or any worry that we might spook some bucks
Speaker 2: out or whatever. I think it's good to take a
Speaker 2: holistic view of this stuff, to not distill it down
Speaker 2: just to time scouting, and you know, hunting as a
Speaker 2: soul mission to kill a big deer, that's a good
Speaker 2: way to drain the fun from it, and to be
Speaker 2: honest to not be a very good deer hunter. The
Speaker 2: wild card trips into the woods or on the water
Speaker 2: are the ones that we often enjoy the most. And
Speaker 2: do you know why that is because the bar is low.
Speaker 2: My friends, if you go take a walk in the
Speaker 2: woods in May, you're not going to be stressed out
Speaker 2: about your presence in the woods. You're not going to
Speaker 2: be wondering if you should have stayed out because you
Speaker 2: haven't got a picture of one of your hitlisters in
Speaker 2: three days. Hell, you might not have a real purpose
Speaker 2: to your time in the woods at all, which is
Speaker 2: honestly the best way to go about it, at least
Speaker 2: some of the time. I don't know how many times
Speaker 2: I have found a cool place to fish or hunt
Speaker 2: simply because I felt the gravity of life getting a
Speaker 2: little heavier, and I took the natural escape, which is
Speaker 2: to sprint to the woods, which, if I'm being that's
Speaker 2: holy honest, is a hell of a lot better remedy
Speaker 2: for being anxious and depressed and stressed then I don't know,
Speaker 2: sprinting right to the liquor cabinet to chug what can
Speaker 2: only be described is definitely not a good fix for
Speaker 2: most of my problems, other than I guess the temporary
Speaker 2: leaf that comes before things get worse because well, I
Speaker 2: made them worse. Find an excuse to go into the woods,
Speaker 2: whether that's a scouting mission you've been thinking about, or
Speaker 2: better yet, some other simple reason like maybe you just
Speaker 2: want to look at a property, or maybe you want
Speaker 2: to find some fossils, maybe you're gonna hopefully stumble across
Speaker 2: somewhere else. Figure out what kind of trick you need
Speaker 2: to play on yourself to get out there. When you
Speaker 2: have the chance, maybe you'll get lucky and find something
Speaker 2: deer wise, that will really help you out this fall.
Speaker 2: If not, who cares? You're going to be better off
Speaker 2: just for going. Maybe that trout stream you don't fish
Speaker 2: anymore because it's full of dinks is actually the best
Speaker 2: spot for you to be, because, after all, who really
Speaker 2: is going to be disappointed with a couple hours on
Speaker 2: the water catching ten inches just for the hell of it.
Speaker 2: That environment's going to treat you pretty well, even if
Speaker 2: you don't come away with a single grip and grin
Speaker 2: of a twenty seven inch brownie with a great big
Speaker 2: hook jaw. Maybe most importantly understand this, everyone you know
Speaker 2: is struggling. I mean that the folks who have tons
Speaker 2: of money and the folks who have nothing. Sure, their
Speaker 2: struggles are different, but everybody is carrying more weight on
Speaker 2: their shoulders than it appears from the outside looking in.
Speaker 2: The world is like this right now, and I don't
Speaker 2: think it's going to get better. But the good news
Speaker 2: is in all of that doom and gloom, you and
Speaker 2: I already have the answer to some of these problems. Now, Sure,
Speaker 2: a walk in the deerwoods in May won't cure your
Speaker 2: bipolar disorder, just as it won't suddenly make your next
Speaker 2: rent payment, but it'll take you from the edge of
Speaker 2: despair to a place that's more tolerable and might help
Speaker 2: you settle down enough to sleep better or make more
Speaker 2: informed decisions about changing the things in your life that
Speaker 2: you need to change. That's powerful shit, even if it's
Speaker 2: really easy to ignore while we stay home and doom
Speaker 2: scroll while our spouse is negus about something we're definitely
Speaker 2: going to do on our own time when we're damn
Speaker 2: well ready, get out there amongst the trees and the
Speaker 2: grasses and the bugs and Mark's butterflies and take your medicine.
Speaker 2: My friends, It'll help nullify the sharp edges of everyday life,
Speaker 2: and if you make a habit of this, it'll help
Speaker 2: you understand that natural world in a better way. I
Speaker 2: know that's not as cool as some dude telling you
Speaker 2: exactly how to snoret wheeze, you know, to blind call
Speaker 2: in every buck in the woods, but it's honestly a
Speaker 2: better way to get better at this stuff, and it
Speaker 2: comes with a hell of a lot of welcome side benefits.
Speaker 2: Do that and come back next week, because I'm going
Speaker 2: to talk about you know, kind of a similar topic,
Speaker 2: but not really. I'm gonna talk about hunting buddies or
Speaker 2: how to find great ones and recognize the ones that
Speaker 2: you just might not be compatible with. That's it for
Speaker 2: this week. I'm Tony Peterson. This has been the Wired
Speaker 2: to Hunt Foundations podcast, which is brought to you by
Speaker 2: First Light. I know you know this. I'm gonna tell
Speaker 2: you anyway if you need more hunting content, whether you
Speaker 2: want to learn something from an article, or maybe you
Speaker 2: just want to watch a I don't know, random turkey
Speaker 2: hunting show where yours truly and Sam Soholt get totally
Speaker 2: crushed by public land gobblers in Nebraska. You can find
Speaker 2: that in a hell of a lot more over at
Speaker 2: themeadeater dot com. While you're there, if you need to
Speaker 2: pick up some new gear, you can find a hell
Speaker 2: of a lot of good stuff that way too. Thank
Speaker 2: you so much for listening. I can't tell you how
Speaker 2: much I appreciate it. I hope you come back next week.
Speaker 2: Thank you