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. Today, I'm
Speaker 2: going to talk about something that plagues so many hunters,
Speaker 2: even if they might not want to admit it. Sometimes
Speaker 2: inspiration falls right into your lap, or at least pops
Speaker 2: up in your email. An old acquaintance of mine recently
Speaker 2: sent me a note about how much he's struggling with
Speaker 2: bow hunting. He feels like he can't get over the
Speaker 2: hurdle that separates being a deer shooter adder type of
Speaker 2: guy to a deer shooter type of guy. His frustration
Speaker 2: was palpable, and there were a lot of clues in
Speaker 2: his message that spawned the idea for this whole podcast.
Speaker 2: He admitted to not being super good at bow hunting,
Speaker 2: but also targeting mature four and a half year old
Speaker 2: plus bucks. That's a bad combo that happens a lot.
Speaker 2: It's also what this whole episode is kind of really
Speaker 2: all about. There used to be a progression to hunting
Speaker 2: that allowed someone to start small and worked their way
Speaker 2: up to the deer. Not only was it a good
Speaker 2: way to develop some serious woodsmanship skills, it's also something
Speaker 2: guys my age were romanticize and remember in a nice
Speaker 2: glow of nostalgia. It doesn't always jive with reality. It
Speaker 2: always started with rabbits and squirrels, and as a young
Speaker 2: man with a bolt action Remington twenty two, in a
Speaker 2: real bloodlust in my heart, I spent a lot of
Speaker 2: time roman the woods with that rim fire, trying to
Speaker 2: remove bushytails from the trees. I also got to carry
Speaker 2: a pump twenty gage for bunnies, and if you think
Speaker 2: I didn't love that shit, you're off your rocker. Some
Speaker 2: of my best memories of my childhood involved hunting small game,
Speaker 2: mostly with my dad. I remember rallying around a squirrel
Speaker 2: family with a pocket full of shells one time, which
Speaker 2: is a rage against the machine reference for you young
Speaker 2: lads listening on that morning, my dad put me in
Speaker 2: a tree stand, probably without a safety harness, and told
Speaker 2: me to work on my squirrel accuracy. I think that's
Speaker 2: where a lot of my problems started, because even though
Speaker 2: I was surrounded by bushytails, I couldn't hit a squirrel
Speaker 2: well to save my life. I literally had squirrel fever.
Speaker 2: And I'll never forget him walking in to pick me up,
Speaker 2: and he asked me how many I got, because he
Speaker 2: had spent all morning listening to me shoot. The body
Speaker 2: count was one, and it wasn't even a clean kill
Speaker 2: until I got down and sent that poor bushytail to
Speaker 2: the great big oak tree in the sky. Another time,
Speaker 2: while rabbit hunting a lot a stretch of abandoned railroad tracks,
Speaker 2: I looked down in the grass and saw a cottontail
Speaker 2: pulling his best If I stay real still, maybe he
Speaker 2: won't see me move. But I did see him, and
Speaker 2: I don't know if you know what a well aimed,
Speaker 2: loaded lead shot does to a bunny that is about
Speaker 2: six feet off the end of your shotguns barrel. But
Speaker 2: the disappointment in my dad's eyes when he tried to
Speaker 2: pick up what was left of that poor rabbit was
Speaker 2: pretty obvious. I probably knew it at the time without
Speaker 2: really knowing it, But the whole stage was being set
Speaker 2: for me to become a deer hunter then. Now, at
Speaker 2: that time, twelve was the minimum age, and it took
Speaker 2: me forever to get there. We hunted everything we could
Speaker 2: but deer until that season. And then I gradulated to
Speaker 2: the big leagues. And let me tell you something, I
Speaker 2: was a born natural. Just kidding, I was definitely born unnatural.
Speaker 2: That's probably not the right way to say it, but
Speaker 2: if there wasn't a word for being really, really bad
Speaker 2: at deer hunting, I'd have definitely been in the running
Speaker 2: for some hardware for my trophy case. Those first couple
Speaker 2: of years, I could barely lay eyes on a deer,
Speaker 2: and if I did and it got within twenty yards,
Speaker 2: it definitely got shot at, and it always walked or
Speaker 2: ran away totally unscathed. My daughter's recently asked me if
Speaker 2: I've missed more deer than I've shot, and I honestly
Speaker 2: couldn't answer. I'd say maybe, because just in those first
Speaker 2: four years alone, I racked up a string of whiffs
Speaker 2: that should have got me sent back down to the miners,
Speaker 2: or worse, sent down to carry the mobile hot dog
Speaker 2: heater thing while hiking up and down the concrete steps,
Speaker 2: yelling at people. It was brutal and it was the
Speaker 2: source of my first white tail meltdown. When I was fifteen,
Speaker 2: the thing I wanted so much was so close, yet
Speaker 2: so very very far away. I told my dad I
Speaker 2: was done. I was going to become a gun hunter.
Speaker 2: Now I was going to start killing deer. He said, okay,
Speaker 2: let's get some slugs and figure this thing out. But
Speaker 2: he didn't, and I didn't really want to go that route.
Speaker 2: I wanted to arrow a deer. If you're wondering if
Speaker 2: I really have any character flaws, I'll tell you this.
Speaker 2: I'm a pretty stubborn fella. I don't know why. It
Speaker 2: mostly doesn't serve me very well. But in some ways,
Speaker 2: if I set a course for myself, it takes a
Speaker 2: hell of a lot to get me to steer in
Speaker 2: a new direction. So I kept hunting, you know what.
Speaker 2: I eventually started to hit a few deer. Then I
Speaker 2: started to hit a few correctly, and over time the
Speaker 2: young bucks and even some two year old started to
Speaker 2: die with enough frequency where I got a little cocky.
Speaker 2: My progression to that point in my life had involved
Speaker 2: a whole lot of small game, a whole lot of
Speaker 2: upland birds, quite a few turkeys, a fair amount of
Speaker 2: deer well rounded. I was for sure and totally clueless
Speaker 2: about what I was getting into when I said it
Speaker 2: was time to kill a pope and young buck. When
Speaker 2: I made that move, what I didn't realize was that
Speaker 2: I was turning back the time to old Tony or
Speaker 2: I guess young Tony. Anyway, it was like I was
Speaker 2: twelve again, and while I could always get my bow drawn,
Speaker 2: I definitely could not get the pin anywhere close to
Speaker 2: where it needed to be meltdown. Number two happened again
Speaker 2: on a night I've talked about on this podcast before,
Speaker 2: where in the span of maybe ten minutes, I missed
Speaker 2: a solid one hundred and fifty class year and then
Speaker 2: a really nice eight pointer that was close enough that
Speaker 2: I probably could have dismounted from my stand and very
Speaker 2: briefly wrote him like a rodeo bowl. In fact, that
Speaker 2: probably would have been more effective than what I actually did,
Speaker 2: which was see him pee my pants, a little shoot
Speaker 2: over his back, and then pray to the deer guys
Speaker 2: that lightning would take me out of this life that
Speaker 2: I definitely wasn't meant to live. As all stories go,
Speaker 2: I finally did kind of get my shit together and
Speaker 2: I killed a couple of big bucks in consecutive seasons.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you something. I thought I had the
Speaker 2: whole thing tied up with a nice bow after that.
Speaker 2: What I didn't expect was to get a job in
Speaker 2: the hunting industry and suddenly have a whole lot of
Speaker 2: pressure to be good at this stuff. My deer hunting
Speaker 2: life has been a lot like trying to go up
Speaker 2: a super steep driveway that is covered in mostly ice.
Speaker 2: You know, I can throw it and four low and try,
Speaker 2: but the odds are pretty good that my best efforts
Speaker 2: will eventually leave me at the bottom of the hill,
Speaker 2: sideways in the road, with nothing to show for it
Speaker 2: but elevated blood pressure and the desire to set the
Speaker 2: world on fire. That meltdown was so bad that it
Speaker 2: forced me to switch up how I shot, how I practiced,
Speaker 2: what I thought about, and pretty much reinvent myself as
Speaker 2: a deer hunter. That's not that easy to do, my friends,
Speaker 2: But so far this mostly worked. Now I'm too conditioned
Speaker 2: to failure to believe another meltdown isn't coming, But for
Speaker 2: now it feels like I might not regress anytime too soon.
Speaker 2: I'll think about this. That's a pretty abbreviated version of
Speaker 2: thirty one years of bow hunting, and I still struggle
Speaker 2: all the time, And I mean all the time. Do
Speaker 2: you know why? Because bow hunting white tail deer, specifically
Speaker 2: mature bucks, is really, really hard. It's not easy for anyone,
Speaker 2: at least if they are hunting pressure deer.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 2: Sure, we have ways to hack the system, and if
Speaker 2: you have the right land, you can all but ensure
Speaker 2: an opportunity are free. But most folks don't have that option.
Speaker 2: Most folks are like you and I, where they work
Speaker 2: and have kids and are under constant strain of life.
Speaker 2: They have small spots to hunt, or share farms with
Speaker 2: other folks, or trek across public land all season. For
Speaker 2: most of us, this stuff is really difficult. There's a
Speaker 2: silver lining. If you've been a passenger on the old
Speaker 2: Big Bucks struggle bus for a while, you can get
Speaker 2: over it. Unfortunately, you might not like the remedy. You
Speaker 2: might not like the cure a whole lot. I'm going
Speaker 2: to be blunt about this in a way that for
Speaker 2: some reason in society we look down on We just
Speaker 2: don't value honesty over hurting people's feelings. And I'll admit
Speaker 2: there's always room for tact. There's also always room to
Speaker 2: just lay things out and not pull your punches. So
Speaker 2: here it goes. If you're struggling with killing a mature buck,
Speaker 2: whether it's your first or maybe you sporadically make it happen,
Speaker 2: but there's no consistency to your game, here's the deal.
Speaker 2: You're probably not good enough at hunting to make that
Speaker 2: your goal. Now. I know, goals are subjective and you're
Speaker 2: free to do what you want to do, but keep
Speaker 2: that in mind, especially if you find yourself having a
Speaker 2: meltdown over not achieving that specific goal. If you're super
Speaker 2: content with your hunting, great, If you're not, you can't
Speaker 2: understand why deer hunting is so frustrating and not all
Speaker 2: that much fun. Listen up, you're not good enough at
Speaker 2: it to set your goals where they are. They're just
Speaker 2: too high and you either need to live with that
Speaker 2: or make a real change. Now. A lot of hunters,
Speaker 2: I think they realize that, and they do what we
Speaker 2: just kind of often do in life. They look for
Speaker 2: a quick fix, like maybe if you ask Andy May
Speaker 2: to look at your screenshot of your property, he'll tell
Speaker 2: you how to hunt. And if you do you know
Speaker 2: you'll have andy may results not quite though, or maybe
Speaker 2: if you buy a sweet decoy or some new calls,
Speaker 2: or you go all out on the salad game and
Speaker 2: decide the best way to kill big Bucks is to
Speaker 2: be in a new tree stand every night. Give that
Speaker 2: a shot. Whatever floats your boat. But this strategy is
Speaker 2: like trying to reason with your physical fitness, trying to
Speaker 2: rationalize why you don't really need to do cardio or
Speaker 2: why it's not that big of a deal to eat
Speaker 2: ice cream every night. The formula for getting in shape
Speaker 2: is real simple and it hasn't changed a lot in
Speaker 2: a long time. You can make bargains, but you don't
Speaker 2: make the rules. They are there, like the laws of physics,
Speaker 2: and whether you agree with them or not, you're still
Speaker 2: beholding the gravity and the law of thermodynamics. So are
Speaker 2: you good enough for your goals? This is a tricky
Speaker 2: one because if you don't set challenging, somewhat hard to
Speaker 2: achieve goals, and how are you going to grow as
Speaker 2: a person and as a hunter. The downside of this
Speaker 2: is we often focus our goals on a simple metric,
Speaker 2: which is antler size. Sure, we say we target mature bucks,
Speaker 2: that's just weasel words, and we all know it. If
Speaker 2: a deer comes in with one hundred and sixty inches
Speaker 2: of antlers on his head, he's getting shot. Whether he's
Speaker 2: a baby or a grandpa, dear, Mostly what we target
Speaker 2: is actually antler size, and that's just the reality of
Speaker 2: it all. But simply killing one hundred and forty inch
Speaker 2: or when you've only ever killed two and a half
Speaker 2: year olds, isn't the only way to go about this. Like,
Speaker 2: I don't know how good of a shot are you
Speaker 2: not at the range, but on real deer. If you
Speaker 2: think you have the younger bucks and does mastered, so
Speaker 2: it's time to target the big boys. Ask yourself when
Speaker 2: you shoot those other deer, do you really always do
Speaker 2: your job correctly or mostly always? How many of them
Speaker 2: have you shot? When you're sitting in a stand and
Speaker 2: you see one hundred inch two year old coming down
Speaker 2: the trail and the weather is perfect and your heart
Speaker 2: rate spikes, do you want to shoot him? Be honest
Speaker 2: if you do, but you're worried he isn't big enough,
Speaker 2: Ask yourself who is not big enough? For strangers on
Speaker 2: social media? You're hunting buddies If you have good buddies.
Speaker 2: They'll give you some shit, but they'll also be real
Speaker 2: happy for you. If someone on social media disapproves of
Speaker 2: the deer you shot, you have some options like not
Speaker 2: posting your kills, which is pretty simple. If you just
Speaker 2: have to post it, just be happy about it and
Speaker 2: let folks know that you are happy about it. Some
Speaker 2: people will still be pricks about it, but that's because
Speaker 2: they are miserable with their own lives. Leave them alone
Speaker 2: and let them suffer until they get their act together.
Speaker 2: Celebrate your success. Those people aren't your problem. If you
Speaker 2: have the world of younger Bucks and Doze totally dialed
Speaker 2: and you are honestly ready for the big leagues but
Speaker 2: have struggled mightily, think about this. Where are you going wrong?
Speaker 2: Are you not seeing the big bucks well? Are they
Speaker 2: there or are you hunting a place where the age
Speaker 2: quality is lacking. If they are there and you can't
Speaker 2: see them when you're hunting, then it's probably all about
Speaker 2: scouting and hunting smarter. That's it. Got to put in
Speaker 2: the work and really think through your setups. Try to
Speaker 2: learn why your efforts aren't producing the sightings or are
Speaker 2: you seeing the big ones getting shots at them? But
Speaker 2: not quite able to make the right connection. This is
Speaker 2: a big one and it happens to just about every
Speaker 2: bow hunter who doesn't grow up with a thousand acres
Speaker 2: a premale ground to hunt in Iowa. This stage can
Speaker 2: wreck you as a hunter and as a human. It's
Speaker 2: just rough. So what do you do? The only way
Speaker 2: out is through, and for me it involved a lot
Speaker 2: of target practice and a lot of inner monologue where
Speaker 2: I told myself to focus on the shot, watch the
Speaker 2: deer's body, plan for the moment when I'll draw the
Speaker 2: moment went I'll shoot. Am I gonna stop him? Am
Speaker 2: I gonna shoot him as he naturally comes through. What
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna do is stare at those antlers and
Speaker 2: think about how much I'm worried that I'm going to face. Now,
Speaker 2: this seems easy enough, but even if you do keep
Speaker 2: your kind of head in the game and plan out
Speaker 2: the shot, most of those encounters are still going to
Speaker 2: result in failure. That failure is going to tell you
Speaker 2: what to do differently next time. That's how I look
Speaker 2: at it. It's kind of like getting kicked in the
Speaker 2: mental nards while getting stung by wass on your eyeballs.
Speaker 2: But it is a stepping stone. Did you shoot too high,
Speaker 2: too low? Seven feet behind this tail? Where did you
Speaker 2: go wrong? What went wrong? What would you have done differently?
Speaker 2: What will you do differently next time? Do you consider
Speaker 2: it a win to have a deer like that that
Speaker 2: close to you? Because you should. Most hunters don't get
Speaker 2: that in any given season. Listen, I know that's thin
Speaker 2: gruel to live on, but it's not nothing. You did
Speaker 2: it once, you can do it again. And this time,
Speaker 2: instead of punching the trigger on your release before you
Speaker 2: settle your pin, settle your pin. It's a difference of
Speaker 2: one two seconds. But it's also the difference between another
Speaker 2: meltdown or that sweet, sweet feeling of finally doing things right.
Speaker 2: And remember this, You're not alone. This thing we do
Speaker 2: with white tails so damn fun, it's so damn hard.
Speaker 2: I promise you that. Just about every hunter you look
Speaker 2: up to, and many others you've never heard of. But
Speaker 2: who are the best of the best, all struggled. They
Speaker 2: shared a seat with guys like you and me on
Speaker 2: the struggle bus at one point or another, maybe for
Speaker 2: a season or two, maybe for a decade or two.
Speaker 2: The journey to becoming a content somewhat consistent. Big buck
Speaker 2: killer is a long personal one for almost everyone. It
Speaker 2: can be a lot of things, both good and bad,
Speaker 2: and it will be just that. But it's also a
Speaker 2: progression of sorts. If you treat it right now, you
Speaker 2: don't need to murder a million squirrels and cottontails when
Speaker 2: you're in grade school to work your way up to it.
Speaker 2: You do have to look around and ask yourself, where
Speaker 2: are you in your journey now? Did you get a
Speaker 2: little too far ahead of yourself because of the social
Speaker 2: pressure to not shoot young bucks. Did you take a
Speaker 2: few wins and use them as conclusive evidence that it's
Speaker 2: time to skip ahead by about forty seven steps in
Speaker 2: the process, or are you getting there you know, naturally
Speaker 2: in a way that feels pretty good. Where are you
Speaker 2: on this journey? And what does it mean for you
Speaker 2: to set certain goals? I don't take the easy way out,
Speaker 2: but don't put yourself in a position where this thing
Speaker 2: you are supposed to love becomes just a source of
Speaker 2: stress and anxiety and disappointment. There's plenty of life to
Speaker 2: do that for you. You don't need it from deer hunting,
Speaker 2: So find your path, walk it at the pace you need,
Speaker 2: and eventually you'll get to a point where the challenge
Speaker 2: is real but also doable. That's a wonderful place to be,
Speaker 2: even if it's just always kind of a temporary place
Speaker 2: to be. So get out there, my friends. Make something
Speaker 2: good happen in the woods. Come back next week because
Speaker 2: I'm going to talk about gambling kind of. That's it
Speaker 2: for this week, my friends. I'm Tony Peterson. This has
Speaker 2: been the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast. As always, thank
Speaker 2: you so much for listening. I can't tell you how
Speaker 2: much all of us here at meat Eater truly appreciate
Speaker 2: your support, but we do. It means the world to us,
Speaker 2: so thank you for that. If you want some more
Speaker 2: white tail content, if you want to listen to Clay
Speaker 2: talk about you know, stone points. If you want to
Speaker 2: go check out the meat Eater trivia podcast, maybe the
Speaker 2: buck truck series that the Element guys put out, I
Speaker 2: don't care, whatever it is. Go to the meeteater dot
Speaker 2: com and you will find so much hunting and fishing content,
Speaker 2: cooking content too. If you want to make some backstraps
Speaker 2: or something really hum go there, check it out. Get
Speaker 2: your fixed. You know, if you feel the need to
Speaker 2: maybe treat yourself to something nice. The Meat eater Stor
Speaker 2: is right there. There's a whole lot of good stuff
Speaker 2: in there that's often on sale, so go check out
Speaker 2: it as well. Thank you so much again. It