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: I'm your host Tony Peterson, and today's episode is about
Speaker 2: how complex game management really is and why it matters
Speaker 2: to you on probably some levels you might not even realize.
Speaker 2: There are a couple of things people like to bitch
Speaker 2: about and you know, simultaneously bond over. I'm a Minnesotan,
Speaker 2: so for us it's the weather, but you know, for
Speaker 2: probably everyone else everywhere else's the weather. Politics are another
Speaker 2: issue that transcends locality and either bonds us or drives
Speaker 2: us to irrationally despise each other. Money issues are a
Speaker 2: big one for obvious reasons. Then there's game management, or
Speaker 2: more specifically, whatever branch of government is responsible for managing
Speaker 2: wild game and hunting opportunities in your state. It's like
Speaker 2: a national pastime to complain about the DNR, the game
Speaker 2: and fish or the division of wildlife. Sometimes those complaints
Speaker 2: are totally justified, other times they aren't. That's what this
Speaker 2: episode is partially about, but it's also is just kind
Speaker 2: of about understanding how to work with whatever parameters those
Speaker 2: agencies set in front of you. There is a lake
Speaker 2: located about an hour and some change north of me
Speaker 2: that is called Malas. It's pretty well known. You might
Speaker 2: have even heard of it yourself. In French, Malacs means
Speaker 2: thousand lakes, although I guess I don't know why they
Speaker 2: call it that. I also know that one of my
Speaker 2: wife's older relatives calls French people cheese eating surrender monkeys,
Speaker 2: which is pretty offensive but also speaks to opinions he
Speaker 2: seemed to develop as a young man in the military.
Speaker 2: Malax in Ojibwe means grand lake, which makes more sense
Speaker 2: than the French meeting. The maximum depth of Malax is
Speaker 2: forty two feet, which is pretty shallow for a lake
Speaker 2: that covers over one hundred and thirty thousand acres. It's
Speaker 2: basically a great, big bowl that is absolutely full of
Speaker 2: big fish. While it's primarily known as a walleye lake,
Speaker 2: the muskies and malaks get huge, so do the small mouth.
Speaker 2: In fact, a few years ago, bass held their angler
Speaker 2: the year tournament there, and the winner, a fella who
Speaker 2: I fished against when we were both in high school
Speaker 2: and who has a mustache that makes Mark Kenyon look
Speaker 2: like a little girl, won it with over seventy five
Speaker 2: pounds for three days. That's a five pound plus average
Speaker 2: for three days on smallmouth in a tournament against the
Speaker 2: best anglers in the world. I fish Malax on a
Speaker 2: not very regular basis, and it's honestly something special every
Speaker 2: time I do. Though I'm not a walleye guy, but
Speaker 2: I usually catch a couple of good ones, like twenty
Speaker 2: five to twenty nine inch type fish every time I
Speaker 2: go there, even though I'm never just targeting walleyes. What's
Speaker 2: crazy about this is that the story of the walleyes
Speaker 2: and malax is one that has caused more than a
Speaker 2: few fist fights in the local bars. Walleye fishermen tend
Speaker 2: to be meat fishermen, because really, why else would you
Speaker 2: choose to fish the most boring way possible for the
Speaker 2: most boring fish out there unless it's best quality was
Speaker 2: found in its filets. When walleye fishermen can't keep their catch,
Speaker 2: it tends to sour the whole experience for them, and
Speaker 2: I get that. I wouldn't be super happy if the
Speaker 2: dn R said, hey, buddy, you can go hunt deer,
Speaker 2: but you can't eat them. Maybe that's a poor example,
Speaker 2: but the walleye situation gets way weirder. Due to the
Speaker 2: lake being subject to treaties with the Native America PRIs,
Speaker 2: the non tribal fishermen get to fish only as a
Speaker 2: privilege that can be taken away by the state. Tribal
Speaker 2: members are granted a right to fish by the federal government.
Speaker 2: In this right, they are allowed to net walleyes, which
Speaker 2: often happens during the spawn when the fish moves shallow
Speaker 2: now to muddy the waters more. There are allocations set
Speaker 2: for the year that take into account netting take and
Speaker 2: traditional angler take. They also factor in the success of
Speaker 2: spawning through various year classes, probably a whole host of
Speaker 2: other things. All of this comes together each year when
Speaker 2: the state decides what the catch and keep limit is
Speaker 2: for non tribal fishermen. This year, for example, it's all
Speaker 2: catch and release until mid August, and then I think
Speaker 2: they can only keep one fish of a certain size. Essentially,
Speaker 2: if you like eating walleyes, you're better off fishing somewhere else.
Speaker 2: As you can imagine, this pisses a lot of anglers off.
Speaker 2: What makes it worse is that the bite has been
Speaker 2: so good the the last couple of years, I mean
Speaker 2: stupid good. So people naturally assume that the lake is
Speaker 2: overfilled with walleyes and they can't understand why they can't
Speaker 2: keep a few for the fish fry. That makes sense, right,
Speaker 2: But then you learn that the forage base for the walleyes,
Speaker 2: the young perch and tulabies, for example, they're not doing
Speaker 2: so hot according to extensive surveys. Now what does this mean, Well,
Speaker 2: the walleyes are hungry and their food options are more
Speaker 2: limited than they have been in the past. This means
Speaker 2: they are more likely to eat whatever we present them
Speaker 2: on the end of our line, because well they have to,
Speaker 2: because they're hungry. So you take a situation that seems simple,
Speaker 2: and you find out they're mitigating factors to change things.
Speaker 2: And then you find out they're mitigating factors to those
Speaker 2: mitigating factors. And if you're honest, game and fish management
Speaker 2: is a constant process of shooting at a moving target.
Speaker 2: So then all of a sudden you kind of realize
Speaker 2: that these things aren't so simple. But we like simple explanations, though,
Speaker 2: especially ones that allow us to rage a bit. Take wolves,
Speaker 2: for another example. It's easy to blame wolves for there
Speaker 2: not being any elk in the mountain range you hunt,
Speaker 2: and you could very well be right about that. It
Speaker 2: might simply be the prevalence of wolves where they weren't
Speaker 2: a little bit ago that has changed your hunting for
Speaker 2: the worse. Now. I hear this a lot when I
Speaker 2: talk to Minnesota and Wisconsin hunters, and listen before I
Speaker 2: say what I'm gonna say, I just want to cover
Speaker 2: my ass. I don't care about wolves a whole lot.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't hunt them myself because I'm not interested. But
Speaker 2: I have zero problems with them being managed in any
Speaker 2: way necessary, including hunting and trapping. And I also think
Speaker 2: reintroducing them to places like Colorado is just kind of dumb.
Speaker 2: We aren't running out of wolves in the Great Lakes
Speaker 2: region or Alaska or Canada. We don't need to put
Speaker 2: them in places just because it's an option to do so.
Speaker 2: I also don't think wolves are the sole reason for
Speaker 2: the deer population issues in certain places. For example, where
Speaker 2: I hunt Wisconsin, the easiest way to bond with the locals. Know,
Speaker 2: besides drinking beer for breakfast and discussing the finer points
Speaker 2: of the Green Bay Packers, offense is to talk about
Speaker 2: how the wolves killed all the deer, you know, never
Speaker 2: mind the bad winter we had last year that was
Speaker 2: just not easy on the animals. And yes, I realized
Speaker 2: that bad winners allow the wolves to do their thing
Speaker 2: really efficiently, but I also know that bad winners there
Speaker 2: without the wolves would still kill a lot of the deer.
Speaker 2: Not to mention the fact that our area is almost
Speaker 2: essentially unlimited analyst tags, which if you want to knock
Speaker 2: the deer herd down, you make a lot of tags
Speaker 2: available to shoot the breeders. This stuff is rarely simple.
Speaker 2: It often sucks. It's also often not really what we think.
Speaker 2: It's easy to believe the Game and Fish Department wants
Speaker 2: all the deer dead if you disagree with their management decisions,
Speaker 2: but you'd also have to acknowledge that they are cutting
Speaker 2: their own throat revenue wise, which doesn't make much sense.
Speaker 2: It's also true that we as hunters view this whole
Speaker 2: thing through the lens of wanting lots of animals on
Speaker 2: the landscape, so we can have a good time in
Speaker 2: the woods. We forget sometimes that we aren't the only
Speaker 2: stakeholders that game managers need to consider in their decisions.
Speaker 2: I got a dose of this last year when my
Speaker 2: daughter and I drew Wisconsin bear tags. After spending a
Speaker 2: lot of time and money setting bear bait sites up
Speaker 2: and keeping them refreshed, a neighboring farmer complained about crop damage,
Speaker 2: and the DNR sent someone out to trap. They took
Speaker 2: fourteen bears there the first week, which was the week
Speaker 2: before the opener, and they kept trapping through much of
Speaker 2: the season. To say that pissed me off would be
Speaker 2: like saying Steve and Clay have a small, totally normal
Speaker 2: romance going on. It wouldn't even cover one percent of
Speaker 2: the truth. My daughter and I we played the points game,
Speaker 2: We put in our time and effort to set up
Speaker 2: for a hunt, and then the DNR decided a different
Speaker 2: stakeholder was more important than us, and we literally had
Speaker 2: all of our legal bears trapped out and moved twenty
Speaker 2: five miles away. Too bad, so sad. That was their
Speaker 2: strategy to deal with bears knocking down cornstocks, and because
Speaker 2: of it, my daughter's hunt turned to total shit. That happens.
Speaker 2: It's part of the game. There are a lot of
Speaker 2: management decisions made every year that will benefit one party
Speaker 2: and enrage another. That's not likely to change. And while
Speaker 2: we should be involved in any way we can, you
Speaker 2: know't have to fight for what we think is right.
Speaker 2: It's also the truth that we just have to deal
Speaker 2: with those decisions as they come our way. The thing
Speaker 2: about this stuff is that most of it is totally
Speaker 2: out of your control. But what is in your control
Speaker 2: is being informed on not only the decision being made,
Speaker 2: but why they are being made. Then deal with them
Speaker 2: how you have to in order to get the most
Speaker 2: out of your time afield. Now, let's take that walleye
Speaker 2: example on Malax one more time. If your number one
Speaker 2: priority is eighteen inch fish to eat, you got to
Speaker 2: go somewhere else. That sucks, But unless you want to
Speaker 2: get on the wrong side of the law, it's your
Speaker 2: only option. If you want to catch the biggest walleye
Speaker 2: of your life, often on a swim bait like three
Speaker 2: feet of water, then heading to the big lake on
Speaker 2: a calm day might be the best decision you've ever made.
Speaker 2: For a more close to home example, let's say you
Speaker 2: hunt in the heart of the wolf range, and you
Speaker 2: always have you have a reason to complain that the
Speaker 2: big dogs in the big woods are eating your big
Speaker 2: bucks and little bucks and dozen fawns. The first thing
Speaker 2: you can do is figure out how big of an
Speaker 2: impact they are actually having on your local deer. This
Speaker 2: goes beyond saying, well, I only see a couple of
Speaker 2: deer off my stand every rifle season when I used
Speaker 2: to see a dozen. Listen, we aren't entitled to the
Speaker 2: hunts we want. We just get what we get. The
Speaker 2: effort we put in is generally commensurate to the results,
Speaker 2: kind of like most things in life. So maybe the
Speaker 2: wolves did remove most of your deer from your woods.
Speaker 2: But go out figure that out first. Figure it out
Speaker 2: now by scouting. Don't wait until gun season to go
Speaker 2: to your ladder stand that's been up since two thousand
Speaker 2: and eight and let mother nature confirm your suspicions. Figure
Speaker 2: it out now, maybe you'll realize there are some other
Speaker 2: factors at play. Maybe a clear cut a mile or
Speaker 2: two away is drawing your deer because it's full of
Speaker 2: better cover and better food. Maybe the high ridge you
Speaker 2: like to sit on is kind of a game desert,
Speaker 2: But the swamp below you. That's where it's at. Before
Speaker 2: declaring all of the deer are gone, it's best to
Speaker 2: do a little detective work, That's all I'm saying. And
Speaker 2: then you know, what if you're right. What if the
Speaker 2: DNR did import hybrid wolves that are three times the
Speaker 2: size of a regular wolf, and you know it can
Speaker 2: kill multiple deer in one night without breathing hard, and
Speaker 2: whole packs of them were dropped off right by your
Speaker 2: hunting camp in the middle of the night by covert
Speaker 2: agents and black helicopters, then it's time to change. You
Speaker 2: can't go back in time and keep those wolves out.
Speaker 2: You can only figure out what you're working with now
Speaker 2: and then react accordingly. Maybe ten miles down the road
Speaker 2: is a zone on public land that the wolves just
Speaker 2: don't use much. And sure it's not the hunt where
Speaker 2: you walk out the back door of the shack and
Speaker 2: take the ATV two hundred yards down the trail to
Speaker 2: a familiar spot, but it'll get you closer to a different,
Speaker 2: better hunt. Maybe the game managers for your state or
Speaker 2: your unit decide that the deer are too thick and
Speaker 2: they issue a ton of tags, a move you wholeheartedly
Speaker 2: disagree with because you're not seeing the numbers you used
Speaker 2: to see. They might be right, or you might be right,
Speaker 2: or you both might be kind of right, or both
Speaker 2: kind of wrong. On your one hundred acres, maybe the
Speaker 2: deer aren't there as much because you hunt the piss
Speaker 2: out of it, and the deer have better places to
Speaker 2: go where they get bothered. Less, you experience fewer deer
Speaker 2: sightings and assume it's the DNR's fault and worse, they're
Speaker 2: telling you to shoot more. But the zone or unit
Speaker 2: or county or region they are managing is a lot
Speaker 2: bigger than your hundred acres, and maybe you're just in
Speaker 2: a poor area. They don't manage the property because that
Speaker 2: would be a lost cause and totally impossible. So it's
Speaker 2: kind of just up to you to manage for your
Speaker 2: land and understand that even if they say you can
Speaker 2: shoot fifty dollars a year and not dent the herd,
Speaker 2: you know better for your little corner of the world,
Speaker 2: so you don't, and over time, your level of deer
Speaker 2: starts to get a bit closer to what they say
Speaker 2: is out there. This stuff is muddy, my friends, And
Speaker 2: while we often assign malicious intent, to people who hold
Speaker 2: different opinions. In US, malice in game management is probably
Speaker 2: extremely rare. It's probably extremely rare in ballot box game
Speaker 2: management too, where the general public votes on something. Although well,
Speaker 2: I'm positive there's a different level of vindicativeness that creeps
Speaker 2: into that world, especially when it involves cute animals or predators.
Speaker 2: That's another story, and it's a stark reality for hunters
Speaker 2: living in certain states like Colorado that probably won't end
Speaker 2: well for us. Over time. Game management plays into our
Speaker 2: lives in a lot of ways. Sure, it might not
Speaker 2: have a huge impact on you if your goal is
Speaker 2: to just shoot a decent bucket a door two each
Speaker 2: year because a lot of whitetail states. Now, that's not
Speaker 2: something that's going to be affected a whole lot by
Speaker 2: normal management decisions. If you plan to travel to hunt
Speaker 2: might be a different story. It's often the case where
Speaker 2: we take many of our preconceived notions with us from
Speaker 2: our home hunting situation and try to apply them to
Speaker 2: over the road hunts, which tends to not work out
Speaker 2: very well, or at least sometimes it doesn't. You can
Speaker 2: see this with Western critters fairly easily. Like say you
Speaker 2: loved antelopehunt, you want to go to Wyoming. Forget the
Speaker 2: points issue in the waiting game to draw a tag
Speaker 2: for a second, and just consider that Wyoming is generally
Speaker 2: known for having a pile of antelope. You think, well,
Speaker 2: I'll always be able to hunt speed goats there. Then
Speaker 2: a wild winter hits and suddenly the population is fifty
Speaker 2: percent of what it was in great swaths of the
Speaker 2: state you know where they had tons of antelope just
Speaker 2: a few months prior. Guess who isn't going to be
Speaker 2: able to easily get a tag there for a few
Speaker 2: years or maybe longer. In that case, the priority will
Speaker 2: be to coddle the herd, to get it to rebound,
Speaker 2: and to offer the locals the better part of the tags. First,
Speaker 2: they're a prudent management decision that is largely or entirely
Speaker 2: for the resource is keeping you out and could be
Speaker 2: viewed as a big negative. But it's not so simple.
Speaker 2: None of this stuff is simple, but it does impact
Speaker 2: our hunting decisions. So I guess my takeaway from all
Speaker 2: this it's just, you know, pay attention not only to
Speaker 2: the decisions that game managers make that affect your hunts,
Speaker 2: but also to try to learn why those decisions are
Speaker 2: being made. It's not always the case, but it is
Speaker 2: often the case. The decisions made that we disagree with
Speaker 2: the most are the ones that are made to help
Speaker 2: the resource. They aren't nefarious, They are just one of
Speaker 2: the few options. Game agencies have to try to keep
Speaker 2: the deer herd or the elk or the walleyes or
Speaker 2: whatever at a sustainable level. And the more you learn
Speaker 2: about this stuff, the easier it is to stomach things
Speaker 2: when there is a change for the worse in the
Speaker 2: management plan. It's not all negative, though, because when big
Speaker 2: decisions are made and you feel like they weren't made
Speaker 2: to your wishes, you have the option to figure something
Speaker 2: else out. It's kind of like getting laid off from
Speaker 2: your job. Sometimes that's a truly horrible situation that can
Speaker 2: really alter the course of your life for the worse,
Speaker 2: and that really really sucks. But sometimes it forces us
Speaker 2: to reinvent ourselves or seek out a situation where we
Speaker 2: won't suddenly be on the chopping block, and that can
Speaker 2: be a very good thing. That's growth, even if the
Speaker 2: catalyst for it is a really shitty event. In the
Speaker 2: interest of hunting and more importantly, absolutely loving to hunt,
Speaker 2: you just can't divorce your passion from the decisions made
Speaker 2: by the agency's tasked with managing the animals. They're intertwined.
Speaker 2: That's not going to change. The best way to handle
Speaker 2: this is to learn about it, learn from it, and
Speaker 2: expect it to change your life for the better or
Speaker 2: the worse, and then just roll with it and make
Speaker 2: the most of it. Sound good? Good? How does this sound?
Speaker 2: Next week, I'm going to talk about something that I've
Speaker 2: been thinking about a lot, how do you avoid us?
Speaker 2: And why this is something we should all think about
Speaker 2: a lot more than we probably do, especially in the
Speaker 2: off season when we're starting to build a plan for
Speaker 2: this coming hunting season. That's it for this week. I'm
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson and this has been though wired to Hunt
Speaker 2: Foundation's podcast, which is brought to you by First Light
Speaker 2: as always, and I truly mean this. Thank you so
Speaker 2: much for listening and for all your support. If you
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