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 Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
Speaker 2: which has brought to you by first Light. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about how expensive
Speaker 2: deer hunting can be and some of the things you
Speaker 2: can do to keep it cheap. And in case you
Speaker 2: haven't heard, stuff is getting pretty expensive out there. Sure,
Speaker 2: if you're a high roller like Steve Vanella and you
Speaker 2: have a whole collection of rare ivory backscratchers or whatever,
Speaker 2: you're probably not feeling it the same way. But if
Speaker 2: you're like most of us, you probably feel a little
Speaker 2: in anxiety or a lot of anxiety. Just go into
Speaker 2: the grocery store later, or worse, if you have to
Speaker 2: rent a new apartment or you want to buy a
Speaker 2: starter home. Stuff is expensive, and so is hunting, or
Speaker 2: at least it can be. There doesn't have to be, though,
Speaker 2: and that's what this episode is really all about I
Speaker 2: was born in nineteen eighty, which, according to Mark Kenyon
Speaker 2: because he's jealous of how many public land bucks I've killed,
Speaker 2: is equal to like fourteen seventy three. Well, listen, I'll
Speaker 2: take old and wise any day over young and obsessed
Speaker 2: with butterflies and Taylor Swift. In that year, the one
Speaker 2: that I appeared on the scene, the US hockey team
Speaker 2: kicked the Soviets right in their kamiasses to win the
Speaker 2: gold in the Olympics in what would forever be referred
Speaker 2: to as a miracle on ice. Mount Saint Helen's also erupted,
Speaker 2: which is kind of hard to fath them today, but
Speaker 2: at the time it was a big enough disaster to
Speaker 2: kill fifty seven people. John Lennon, one of the founding
Speaker 2: members of the Beatles, was shot to death by a
Speaker 2: lunatic fan. CNN began broadcasting John Wayne Gacy, a serial
Speaker 2: killer known as the Killer Clown, was caught after murdering
Speaker 2: at least thirty three boys and men. There were only
Speaker 2: two hundred and twenty six and a half million people
Speaker 2: here in the US. Kim Kardashian was born as well.
Speaker 2: Star Wars was real popular, so was the show Facts
Speaker 2: of life, which has a theme song that my tournament
Speaker 2: fishing partner sings a lot, even when you've heard it
Speaker 2: so many times that you really want to throw him
Speaker 2: out of the boat or at least hit him with
Speaker 2: a fake frog on the end of a seven and
Speaker 2: a half foot flipping stick going about seven thousand miles
Speaker 2: an hour. Now that you have a lot of useless
Speaker 2: facts about the year of my birth, let's try a
Speaker 2: little thought exercise. Let's say you had a dollar, then
Speaker 2: you earned one dollar. Now you fast forward to today.
Speaker 2: What do you think that dollar would be worth about
Speaker 2: twenty five cents? The medium home sale price then was
Speaker 2: about fifty eight thousand dollars. Today that price is right
Speaker 2: around four hundred and twenty thousand dollars. We all know
Speaker 2: the story of college tuition, a rent of everything. The
Speaker 2: whole system tends to shoot for inflation at like two
Speaker 2: to three percent, which is actually a good thing if
Speaker 2: they thread the needle, because keeps things growing at a
Speaker 2: steady pace. Now, inflation is a supply and demand consequence,
Speaker 2: and you know there are a few factors that cause
Speaker 2: it to suddenly go bonkers, like we've seen the last
Speaker 2: few years, when the supply of something gets limited, the
Speaker 2: demand goes up, which raises prices. Think housing here and
Speaker 2: how many family homes either turned into short term rentals
Speaker 2: like airbnbs or bought up by corporations as long term rentals.
Speaker 2: Fewer houses for people to live in means buyers better
Speaker 2: up their offers. Across the aisle is the demand side
Speaker 2: of the whole thing, which involves just how much money
Speaker 2: is out there. Print more money. You devalue every dollar
Speaker 2: out there. Essentially, now, I know it's not quite that simple,
Speaker 2: but it kind of is. This is especially true if
Speaker 2: there is an unanticipated increase in the available dollars, because
Speaker 2: supply hasn't had a chance to build up and meet
Speaker 2: the new increase. We saw that during COVID and we
Speaker 2: are now reaping what was sewn. Then. So the Feds
Speaker 2: come along, and you know, they say the interest rates
Speaker 2: are going to go up until the buying slows down.
Speaker 2: And while that usually works, it's not a quick process,
Speaker 2: and a lot of people will struggle when that happens.
Speaker 2: It's ugly and it affects almost everyone. Some of the
Speaker 2: first things you see happen are the buying of expensive
Speaker 2: toy slows down. I mean, you know, when your grocery
Speaker 2: bill is three times what it was a couple of
Speaker 2: years ago, you're not as likely to buy a couple
Speaker 2: new snowmobiles. Theoretically, it should keep people from traveling to
Speaker 2: hunt as much, but I think that's unlikely to materialize. Again,
Speaker 2: the whole demand thing is so far outstripping the supply
Speaker 2: that it's easy to raise those non resident prices and
Speaker 2: keep selling tags, at least for a while. So what
Speaker 2: is a hunter to do when everything costs a lot
Speaker 2: more than it used to and wages just haven't caught
Speaker 2: up with the whole thing. I guess there's only one answer,
Speaker 2: which is to start golfing. Just kidding, that might be
Speaker 2: the only thing that's more expensive than obsessing over hunting. Well.
Speaker 2: Fishing is right up there, as my wife often reminds
Speaker 2: me of, since I bought a new boat last year without,
Speaker 2: as she puts it, even asking her if she thought
Speaker 2: it was a good idea is if we don't have
Speaker 2: a new boat's worth of random junk entering our house
Speaker 2: every year via Amazon deliveries in a death by a
Speaker 2: thousand paper cut scenarios. Anyway, there are ways to have
Speaker 2: good hunts without going broke. I feel like I'm prop
Speaker 2: probably somewhat of an expert on this because I started
Speaker 2: my freelance journey as a public land whitetail guy in
Speaker 2: two thousand and nine, which, as some of you folks know,
Speaker 2: wasn't a great time for the average person money wise.
Speaker 2: As a struggling freelance magazine writer who needed to stack
Speaker 2: up lots of experience and lots of dead deer and
Speaker 2: other critters, I had to figure out how to do
Speaker 2: that on a very limited budget. What I found was
Speaker 2: that some of our money issues are purely in our heads,
Speaker 2: and they hold us back in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2: For starters, there's the price of the license in your
Speaker 2: home state. This isn't going to amount to a whole lot,
Speaker 2: maybe twenty to forty bucks something like that. Tack on
Speaker 2: a couple of dough tags, and you're still not even
Speaker 2: at the cost of taking the family out to eat
Speaker 2: at Applebee's. Out Of state tags are definitely another story,
Speaker 2: and they've outpaced inflation in many states the way college
Speaker 2: tuition has. There's no way around this if you want
Speaker 2: to travel to hunt, and I often look at it
Speaker 2: like it's just my main expense, and I gotta suck
Speaker 2: it up because this is mostly true. Other than possibly
Speaker 2: the fuel cost to get there and back. The way
Speaker 2: to look at this is that you're buying a ticket
Speaker 2: to a great experience. It's expensive, especially if you had
Speaker 2: Iowa or a few other premier states. There's no way
Speaker 2: around this one. Maybe you can go a much cheaper
Speaker 2: road in a less desirable state, but you still got
Speaker 2: to expect to pay. And one of the things I
Speaker 2: do when I'm buying tags is just look for combo
Speaker 2: offers or look for states that will sell me something
Speaker 2: extra that is cheap. For example, in Wisconsin, I can
Speaker 2: spend like two hundred bucks for a buck tag, which
Speaker 2: isn't bad, but then I can tack on some twenty
Speaker 2: dollars dotags, so instead of hunting for one deer on
Speaker 2: two hundred dollars, I can hunt for two on two
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty dollars. In my home state of Minnesota,
Speaker 2: I have a few different options for combo licenses that
Speaker 2: cover things i'll hunt and fish for while reducing the
Speaker 2: cost of buying them individually. You might be able to
Speaker 2: find something like that as well, or if you decide
Speaker 2: to travel to hunt, keep an eye out for them.
Speaker 2: In your chosen state. Now, staying home or heading out
Speaker 2: on the road could involve another big cost that is
Speaker 2: becoming more and more common in the white tail world.
Speaker 2: Leasing now. This is a good option for people with
Speaker 2: money who want to control a deer situation, but who
Speaker 2: also don't or can't buy some land. It's also generally
Speaker 2: not very cheap. Most leases will involve at least a
Speaker 2: couple of people to split the cost, which can be
Speaker 2: a great idea. Just make sure that if you're going
Speaker 2: to do that, your goals and desires match up with
Speaker 2: whoever you lease with. If they don't, there will be
Speaker 2: trouble because there's money involved. You don't want to split
Speaker 2: the cost of a lease only to realize your buddy
Speaker 2: has no intention of ever buying a tree stand or
Speaker 2: a trail camera or anything that might actually help you
Speaker 2: guys hunt. In this case, what seems like a responsible
Speaker 2: thing money wise might actually turn out to be a
Speaker 2: bad thing for you You because you're gonna have to buy everything.
Speaker 2: The same goes for you know, the general willingness to
Speaker 2: scout and set up stuff, which might not affect your
Speaker 2: pocketbook but can definitely be a mental expense. Splitting costs
Speaker 2: is a no brainer with a lot of whittail stuff
Speaker 2: well beyond leasing, Maybe you have a neighbor who loves
Speaker 2: to shoot and target practice too, and you guys can
Speaker 2: go have these on a good three D target that
Speaker 2: will last you both for years, instead of individually buying
Speaker 2: cheapy targets that can't handle broadheads or too much exposure
Speaker 2: to the weather. The same can be said for some
Speaker 2: equipment like fletching jigs, aarosauce, boat presses, whatever. Learning to
Speaker 2: build your own arrows comes with more cost up front,
Speaker 2: but levels out and lets you get money ahead by
Speaker 2: the dozen. This is even better if you have someone
Speaker 2: to share those costs with. It's also a good idea
Speaker 2: to audit yourself a little bit on hunting gear. There
Speaker 2: are some categories of gear that I just won't go
Speaker 2: cheap on because they might cost me a deer or
Speaker 2: my enjoyment of deer hunting. There are other categories I
Speaker 2: almost never spend a dime on. An example of those
Speaker 2: would be cheap broadheads, bottles of dope, and cent wix.
Speaker 2: I used to have to test a lot of broadheads
Speaker 2: a lot of broadheads when I worked at Bowhunter magazine
Speaker 2: and let me tell you that there are some great
Speaker 2: a pieces of shit out there that, while they might
Speaker 2: cost you know, five or ten bucks ahead, will perform
Speaker 2: like junk and will bite you in the ass eventually
Speaker 2: they are not worth the cost savings. On the other hand,
Speaker 2: you know you have sense and lures and send eliminating
Speaker 2: sprays and stuff that people think, well, this is cheap
Speaker 2: and I definitely need this, But I don't buy them
Speaker 2: hardly ever, why because I don't have any faith in
Speaker 2: them generally. Now, listen, you do you, But over the
Speaker 2: years come to the realization that if I put out dope,
Speaker 2: it's almost entirely to make myself feel a little better,
Speaker 2: even though I know it's probably never going to draw
Speaker 2: on a buck for me, Spending money on that stuff
Speaker 2: is like setting fire to your dollars a little by little,
Speaker 2: at least in my experience. I'd rather spend up for
Speaker 2: good broadheads and save money on things that I just
Speaker 2: don't think will benefit me much. Now. Another category is
Speaker 2: food around hunting. This is a big one. While groceries
Speaker 2: have gotten expensive, they are still generally a much better
Speaker 2: deal than going out to eat. Even if your favorite
Speaker 2: place to eat is McDonald's. If you're traveling to hunt
Speaker 2: or planning to stay home and do an all days
Speaker 2: sit make your own food. This is a big one
Speaker 2: for me, and it's honestly one of the best ways
Speaker 2: to rain in the cost of a hunt or a
Speaker 2: scouting trip. The more you can reach into a cooler
Speaker 2: and grab a pre made sandwich, the less likely you
Speaker 2: are to drive somewhere to spend more money at restaurants
Speaker 2: are on fast food and on the note of food,
Speaker 2: if you don't know how to butcher your own deer,
Speaker 2: think about learning. I think this is one of the
Speaker 2: best parts of being a deer hunter, and it's also
Speaker 2: a hell of a lot cheaper than paying someone to
Speaker 2: do it. While you can start to spend some money
Speaker 2: if you want, you know, to grind your own burger,
Speaker 2: or make your own jerky, or get a little fancier
Speaker 2: with the processing, you don't have to Cutting deer into
Speaker 2: steaks is easy, and if you need burger a one
Speaker 2: off purchase of a grinder and the essentials to bag
Speaker 2: and seal everything, it's pretty cheap in the long run.
Speaker 2: I think I bought my meat grinder like eight or
Speaker 2: nine years ago and I use it once a year
Speaker 2: to make all the burgers you know that I don't
Speaker 2: even remember one hundred and fifty dollars purchase or whatever
Speaker 2: it was, has probably paid for itself multiple times by now.
Speaker 2: Another way this saves money is that once you're totally
Speaker 2: comfortable butchering your own deer, you start to look forward
Speaker 2: to it. One of the reasons I shoot a lot
Speaker 2: of deer every year if I can, is because I
Speaker 2: know that once I get home, it'll be about a
Speaker 2: four hour process start to finish, and I'll have a
Speaker 2: whole nother deer packaged up and in the freezer. I
Speaker 2: don't have to think about taking it somewhere and what
Speaker 2: that will cost. That's a big deal, and it's honestly
Speaker 2: a great way to become a better deer hunter, because
Speaker 2: the more comfortable you are with meat processing, the more
Speaker 2: dear you're likely to shoot, The more deer you try
Speaker 2: to shoot, the better you become as an overall hunter
Speaker 2: and especially as a closer. That's not nothing, my friends,
Speaker 2: And while it might seem like a stretch, it's not.
Speaker 2: Plus in the long run, it'll save you a lot
Speaker 2: of money. Another way to save some dough on hunting
Speaker 2: is to just try to stay organized this is, shall
Speaker 2: we say, not, my strong suit. Every single season, I
Speaker 2: end up buying stuff I already own because I can't
Speaker 2: find it. Toe ropes, bow hangers, SD cards for cameras,
Speaker 2: just camo gloves of some sort you trail tax flagging, tape, handsaws,
Speaker 2: limb bruners, and knives are all big ones for me. Here.
Speaker 2: I've started to use tots to keep my gear somewhat
Speaker 2: organized at the insistence of my bride, and I'll begrudgingly
Speaker 2: admit it has helped some. But I also keep a
Speaker 2: blood trailing kid in my truck every year so I
Speaker 2: don't have to try to find a place to buy
Speaker 2: a new headlamp or flashlight when I'm on the road,
Speaker 2: keep an extra release aid and a few other things
Speaker 2: in there all season long. Two. While this is not
Speaker 2: only just a good move to make sure I have
Speaker 2: some backups, it keeps me from having to buy something
Speaker 2: somewhere because I really needed in the moment, even though
Speaker 2: I might have seven of them at home in the mudroom.
Speaker 2: Being intentional about your purchases can save you big in
Speaker 2: the long run.
Speaker 1: Two.
Speaker 2: There's a strong argument to be made both for and
Speaker 2: against expensive hunting clothing. For example. What I'll say about
Speaker 2: this is that building a system of clothes that works
Speaker 2: for you and your conditions is is way better than
Speaker 2: buying random stuff on sale throughout the years just because
Speaker 2: it's on sale. Now wait for the sales if you
Speaker 2: need to in order to get the pieces you want
Speaker 2: at a discount, but make sure you're working towards a
Speaker 2: system that will have you covered. This goes for stand
Speaker 2: setups too. I'm at the point where I'd rather have
Speaker 2: one good mobile setup that might cost a little more
Speaker 2: at the onset than to go to wally World in
Speaker 2: August and buy a bunch of inexpensive steel stands that
Speaker 2: weigh a ton and look like they were designed by
Speaker 2: someone who couldn't tell a white tail from a moose.
Speaker 2: A good mobile setup allows you to hunt all over, obviously,
Speaker 2: and alleviates the need for multiple setups. In fact, I
Speaker 2: think at this point in my life, other than maybe
Speaker 2: taking the girls, I could probably get away with a
Speaker 2: couple of sets of sticks, a stand, a saddle, and
Speaker 2: a small ground blind every year and kill a bunch
Speaker 2: of deer, even though I own a hell of a
Speaker 2: lot more than that. The key to all this stuff
Speaker 2: is to the money on the things you need, and
Speaker 2: understand why you might want to prioritize certain products or
Speaker 2: hunting license or whatever. The more you think about this
Speaker 2: stuff and plan ahead, the less of a shock it'll
Speaker 2: be to your bank account throughout the year. This is
Speaker 2: maybe the most important part of it all. You know
Speaker 2: that hunting isn't going to get cheaper. You know that
Speaker 2: waiting to buy a piece of deer ground for you
Speaker 2: and the kids isn't suddenly just gonna be super affordable someday.
Speaker 2: The price of land, the price of deer leases, the
Speaker 2: price of licenses, hunting gear, the price of everything is
Speaker 2: pointed north, and that's it. How fast it climbs will
Speaker 2: change by the year, But rest assured it's gonna keep
Speaker 2: climbing because you know you're not going to stop hunting.
Speaker 2: You need to figure out a way to make this
Speaker 2: stuff as affordable as possible. Figure out how that works
Speaker 2: in your situation, Play the long game with it. Understand
Speaker 2: that some stuff might seem expensive now, but it'll end
Speaker 2: ups saving you money enhancing your experience in the long run.
Speaker 2: And understand that a lot of the stuff that seems
Speaker 2: cheap and inconsequential is actually like the daily Starbucks trips,
Speaker 2: and the avocado toast of the hunting world. It's not
Speaker 2: much on any given day, but like the interest on
Speaker 2: your credit card, it adds up quicker than it should
Speaker 2: and culminates in a bigger expense than seems possible from
Speaker 2: just the smaller daily impulse spending. I guess I want
Speaker 2: to sign off by saying one more thing. Everyone's finances
Speaker 2: are different. Forget about the dudes chasing their third super
Speaker 2: Slam or leasing another two thousand acres in the county
Speaker 2: where you're forced to hunt public land. Don't keep up
Speaker 2: with the Joneses because you can't, and it's just poison
Speaker 2: to focus on others and what they are doing, and
Speaker 2: how much money they make and how much money they spend.
Speaker 2: Try to keep your eyes on your own bobber and
Speaker 2: figure out how to make your situation work. Try to
Speaker 2: keep the right attitude about it. One of the worst
Speaker 2: things about how expensive some stuff is is that it
Speaker 2: reminds us of what we'll never do. But that shouldn't
Speaker 2: keep us from working toward things that are in our grasp.
Speaker 2: You know that dreamy el hunt or drawing a Iowa tag.
Speaker 2: Once in a while or just a week of living
Speaker 2: in camp up north where the wolves number the deer,
Speaker 2: and it's anything but a certainty that you'll even see
Speaker 2: a white tail in that time. But man, is there's
Speaker 2: something special about being there for days on end, keep
Speaker 2: making things happen, my friends at home, away from home, whatever, however,
Speaker 2: you have to stay in this white tail game and
Speaker 2: enjoy it and come back next week because I'm going
Speaker 2: to talk about something I've been thinking about a lot,
Speaker 2: which is off season trail camera at work and just
Speaker 2: changing my trail camera strategy to take in just a
Speaker 2: bigger picture. That's it for this week, my friends. I'm
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson. It's been the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast,
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by First Light. As always,
Speaker 2: I just want to say thank you to each and
Speaker 2: every one of you. You supported us during our Turkey week.
Speaker 2: You're here listening. We love it, we need you. We
Speaker 2: appreciate your support in ways that you can't even understand,
Speaker 2: So thank you for that. If you want some more
Speaker 2: white tail content, or you want some more phishing content,
Speaker 2: some turkey hunting stuff, maybe a different podcast, maybe a
Speaker 2: video series, just head on over to the meeteater dot
Speaker 2: com and you're gonna find so much stuff that'll lot
Speaker 2: keep you entertained, maybe educate you a little bit, and
Speaker 2: get you through this off season as we move closer
Speaker 2: and closer and closer to whitetail hunting