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 host,
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson. Today's episode is all about finding the right
Speaker 2: tools for deer hunting and learning how to actually use
Speaker 2: them correctly. One of the best things about being in
Speaker 2: the hunting industry is getting to use new products. While
Speaker 2: a lot of the best of the best stuff really
Speaker 2: isn't much different from the rest of the best stuff,
Speaker 2: every once in a while something hits the market that
Speaker 2: just makes the process of scouting or hunting so much
Speaker 2: easier more enjoyable. That's sort of what this podcast is
Speaker 2: all about. But I'm also going to touch on how
Speaker 2: to learn to really utilize the tools at your disposal
Speaker 2: and how to decide what products you really need versus
Speaker 2: the stuff we all think we need but we really don't.
Speaker 2: Loyal listeners to this podcast might recall that several months back,
Speaker 2: my wife volunteered me to install a new sink in
Speaker 2: our kitchen. It was a fun half year marital spat
Speaker 2: that culminated in a new sink that actually works, which
Speaker 2: is incredible. As a home improvement challenged type of fella,
Speaker 2: I hate stuff like that. I don't have the skills
Speaker 2: for it, and I'm probably not ever going to have
Speaker 2: them when I do attempt something that just isn't in
Speaker 2: my wheelhouse. I also find that I tend to have
Speaker 2: a real hole in my game when it comes to
Speaker 2: owning and understand how to use the right tools. I
Speaker 2: look at tools like something that I begrudgingly buy sometimes
Speaker 2: and that mostly gets lost in the void of my
Speaker 2: house or my truck after a little usage. Once in
Speaker 2: a while, I buy something that actually works for a
Speaker 2: specific task I have, and I put it somewhere like
Speaker 2: a responsible adult, so that I can find it every year.
Speaker 2: There are a few specific tools I use on my
Speaker 2: boat that are like this, and after about twenty seven
Speaker 2: years of losing them and buying new ones, I started
Speaker 2: keeping them in a very obvious spot. You guessed it,
Speaker 2: my golf cart. Just kidding. I keep them in my
Speaker 2: boat now when I need them. I root around under
Speaker 2: dozens of tackle boxes and loose bags of jig trailers
Speaker 2: and swim baits until I find what I'm looking for,
Speaker 2: which is usually rusted to hell and barely functional. Then
Speaker 2: I head to YouTube to find myself a video of
Speaker 2: a real man who effortlessly just fixes things and replaces
Speaker 2: stuff and explains it in a way you might teach
Speaker 2: a toddler to tie his shoelaces. You know, first the
Speaker 2: rabbit goes around the tree and then down the hole.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean. I used to be terrible
Speaker 2: about cobbling together a toolbox full of randomness that might
Speaker 2: come in handy when life throws you some stupid task
Speaker 2: that takes up the time you'd use for something fun.
Speaker 2: I am getting better at it. I'm getting more responsible.
Speaker 2: This is bled into my hunting world too. While I
Speaker 2: used to buy a new pruner every year about the
Speaker 2: beginning of April, when I was scramming to get my
Speaker 2: turkey hunting stuff together, I now have a big plastic
Speaker 2: tote dedicated to spring turkey stuff. Call shotgun shells, broadheads,
Speaker 2: black shirts for the blind, gilly suits for putting my
Speaker 2: back to a tree, cushions, you name it. If I
Speaker 2: might need it to chase spring gobblers, it mostly has
Speaker 2: a spot in that tote. Of course, keeping track of
Speaker 2: the right tools for the job is the bare minimum.
Speaker 2: You need to know what tools you need and really
Speaker 2: how to use them in a variety of situations. This
Speaker 2: hit home to me recently when I was talking to
Speaker 2: a guy at the gym about elk hunting. We got
Speaker 2: on the topic of east scouting, and I realized we
Speaker 2: have different ideas about the best way to use apps
Speaker 2: like on X. While a base level benefit of a
Speaker 2: scouting app is to see the ground the way a
Speaker 2: bird might see it, that's selling the whole thing pretty short, naturally.
Speaker 2: The other obvious benefits are seeing who owns what land,
Speaker 2: where access points might be, where food is located, hills, rivers, meadows,
Speaker 2: the obvious stuff. That's all great, but that might be
Speaker 2: like utilizing I don't know twenty percent of the features,
Speaker 2: many of which can benefit you greatly. Take the tracker
Speaker 2: feature on on X. This is one that has become
Speaker 2: kind of a staple in my life. I've used it
Speaker 2: for white tails a lot, to get to stands and
Speaker 2: to get out of them. I make notes on how
Speaker 2: long the tracks take me to walk in daylight, so
Speaker 2: I have a good idea how long they'll take me
Speaker 2: to walk in the dark. In the Elk Mountains, I
Speaker 2: use the tracker feature to find my way to secluded
Speaker 2: water holes that thirsty bowls might slip into. I've used
Speaker 2: it to mark the best route to dead deer and
Speaker 2: other critters once I recover them and realize I need
Speaker 2: to head to my truck to get my killed, or
Speaker 2: just to take a more direct route that saves me
Speaker 2: time when I'm packing something out. It's also awesome for
Speaker 2: sharing with hunting buddies so they can get stands or
Speaker 2: dead bowls or whatever. That's just one feature of a
Speaker 2: multifaceted tool that offers real world benefits. In that instance,
Speaker 2: I'm also probably being a huge hypocrite too, because there's
Speaker 2: probably a lot of stuff packed into most mapping apps
Speaker 2: that I have yet to discover or truly learn how
Speaker 2: to use. Some people just kind of naturally dig pretty
Speaker 2: deep into how to use correctly, but a lot of
Speaker 2: people just don't. And I kind of fall into that
Speaker 2: ladder category. So here's another thing to think about. Trail cameras.
Speaker 2: Great example here, modern cameras can shoot still images video
Speaker 2: time labs, you name it, each has its place in
Speaker 2: the woods for certain setups. Simply setting a camera to
Speaker 2: send you one picture per triggering event is about like
Speaker 2: using on X to look at property boundaries and nothing else.
Speaker 2: Sure there's benefit there, but you're missing a whole lot
Speaker 2: of other options. The thing here is not that you
Speaker 2: need to go all out with anything. It's just that
Speaker 2: if you use these kinds of tools or are interested
Speaker 2: in them, not using them to their potential is costing you. Dear,
Speaker 2: I don't know how to put it more simply than
Speaker 2: that it might not matter to a lot of folks,
Speaker 2: but to some that probably does. To look at it
Speaker 2: another way is to forget that it's costing you deer
Speaker 2: and instead might just be degrading the quality of your hunt.
Speaker 2: You might simply not be enjoying scouting or hunting as
Speaker 2: much because you're not fully utilizing the right tools for
Speaker 2: the right job. Let me give you another example. I
Speaker 2: live off my binoculars if I'm scouting or hunting, or
Speaker 2: hell even shed hunting. I always have binoculars on my chest,
Speaker 2: and I've always kind of thought that when it comes
Speaker 2: to white tails, a pair of eight by thirty twos
Speaker 2: or ten by forties were pretty much similar to other
Speaker 2: pairs at eight by thirty twos or ten by forties.
Speaker 2: Even in a past job when I tested optics quite
Speaker 2: a bit, the differences between two pairs might barely be noticeable. Now,
Speaker 2: if you took a one hundred dollars pair of binos
Speaker 2: from wally World and stack them up against something premiere
Speaker 2: with a premiere price tag, you'd notice obvious differences. Lens quality,
Speaker 2: image sharpness, particularly in low light, how much they fog up,
Speaker 2: and build quality all become pretty obvious in this case.
Speaker 2: But I don't know a five hundred dollars pair against
Speaker 2: a three hundred or a seven hundred dollars pair. There
Speaker 2: just wasn't a ton of benefit either way when it
Speaker 2: came to glassing white tails. So in other words, I've
Speaker 2: been pretty brand agnostic when it comes to whitetail binos,
Speaker 2: although I'll admit that I'm a little more devout when
Speaker 2: it comes to my Western kit. That's pretty much how
Speaker 2: I've lived for a long time until I got my
Speaker 2: hands on a pair of image stabilizing binos from SIG's
Speaker 2: Hour this spring. Listen. They look like a prop out
Speaker 2: of a Star Wars film, which is a little hard
Speaker 2: to get used to. They also use a battery, which
Speaker 2: is a weird concept. But let me tell you something,
Speaker 2: I've never experienced quite the way I did with those
Speaker 2: image stabilizers. It's just hard to describe. And I know
Speaker 2: that people will think I'm saying this because SIG pays
Speaker 2: me huge checks under the table, which if anyone from
Speaker 2: the company is listening, I'm definitely all four. The truth
Speaker 2: is it was just a revelatory experience. The tool that
Speaker 2: I took for granted, is good enough for the job,
Speaker 2: has just gotten a hell of a lot better. It's
Speaker 2: honestly wild how clear of an image you can see
Speaker 2: with them. And I'm being totally honest when I say
Speaker 2: I cannot wait to carry them into the tree stands fall.
Speaker 2: My kids love them too, because they aren't very good
Speaker 2: at glassing, but the image stabilization tech and the SIGs
Speaker 2: makes it easy for them. Now, there are other tools
Speaker 2: that I don't ever want to live without. I know
Speaker 2: myself well enough to make some rules for myself that
Speaker 2: I follow in a hard line way. You all know
Speaker 2: I don't allow myself to drink for many many reasons.
Speaker 2: I also don't allow myself to own a chainsaw, but
Speaker 2: I lay at night thinking about it. I desperately want
Speaker 2: to be a chainsaw owner, and someday I might allow
Speaker 2: myself the chance to try it. But I'm also kind
Speaker 2: of careless, and for some reason, probably because I'm kind
Speaker 2: of careless, relatively prone to cuts that require stitches. There
Speaker 2: is something in me that wants to cut down trees
Speaker 2: and exmell the exhaust of a chainsaw, but also something
Speaker 2: in me that believes I'll hurt myself badly with one.
Speaker 2: This might come from childhood stories about a few of
Speaker 2: my uncles who spent time logging in northern Minnesota and
Speaker 2: who also nearly killed themselves several times with chain saws.
Speaker 2: One of them missed his femoral artery with a wayward
Speaker 2: blade by a margin small enough to get him to
Speaker 2: briefly find God, while another nearly cut his foot off.
Speaker 2: I feel like I have bad bloodlines when it comes
Speaker 2: to chainsaws, so I avoid them instead. I bought this
Speaker 2: steel brushcutter super weed wack tool thing to make up
Speaker 2: for it. When I first bought it, I used it
Speaker 2: only as a saw to cut down brush. And let
Speaker 2: me tell you if you're interested in clearing out small
Speaker 2: entrance paths and kill plots and shooting lanes of whatever else,
Speaker 2: it's the right tool for the job. After a few years,
Speaker 2: I started to buy accessories to mount on it, and
Speaker 2: soon realized that it serves real well for weed whipping
Speaker 2: my plots and doing a hell of a lot of
Speaker 2: yard work that I'm reminded of by my better half
Speaker 2: on a frequent basis that one tool and the ways
Speaker 2: that it can be used have changed how I work
Speaker 2: on my land and has without doubt helped me have
Speaker 2: way better hunts with my daughters. It makes me think
Speaker 2: of how much work we did with machetes when I
Speaker 2: was growing up, and also makes me realize, at least partially,
Speaker 2: why my dad and I didn't exactly set any deer
Speaker 2: killing records when I was younger. Of course, how we
Speaker 2: think about tools often travels in lockstep with what we
Speaker 2: can afford to spend on hunting equipment. This is probably
Speaker 2: more of a concern these days than it has been
Speaker 2: for a while for a lot of us, considering that
Speaker 2: if you want to take a family afford to Applebee's
Speaker 2: these days, your bill is going to end up in
Speaker 2: the neighborhood of about what it would take to tip
Speaker 2: all of your arrows in your quiver with new rage broadheads. Choices, choices, choices.
Speaker 2: Some tools are worth the money, some aren't. Some don't
Speaker 2: cost much, but we'll cover your ass in a variety
Speaker 2: of ways. Take flagging tape, for example, for a couple
Speaker 2: of bucks, you have something to mark trails with. You
Speaker 2: can use it to keep track of blood trails. You
Speaker 2: can hang a strip of it on a tree in
Speaker 2: front of your trail camera so you know which way
Speaker 2: the wind was blowing when a buck walked by. You
Speaker 2: can flag some small apple trees so that when you're
Speaker 2: running your sweet brushcutter like a real man, you don't
Speaker 2: accidentally cut down those apple trees like a total idiot
Speaker 2: might do twice before he figured out to flag them.
Speaker 2: The thing is, we use a pile of different tools
Speaker 2: throughout our journey as hunters. Some of them are actually
Speaker 2: tools like limbsaws, while some of them don't feel like
Speaker 2: tools but function as very useful products. A good example
Speaker 2: there is the right pack for your kind of hunting.
Speaker 2: This category, which Western hunters obsess over, is almost an
Speaker 2: afterthought for a lot of white tail hunters. That to
Speaker 2: me is a mistake, because a pack holds the tools
Speaker 2: I need to scout correctly and hunt the way I
Speaker 2: want to, and often trail wounded deer the way I
Speaker 2: really need to, and then piece them out if I'm
Speaker 2: lucky enough to find them. Maybe I go overboard on
Speaker 2: this stuff, but I don't think so. I do recognize
Speaker 2: that not everyone gets obsessed over gear, or has the
Speaker 2: means to buy a bunch of stuff, or even really
Speaker 2: cares a whole lot to try and improve in this way,
Speaker 2: that's great. But if you do, and honestly, almost all
Speaker 2: of us do to at least some degree, since we
Speaker 2: use products in the outdoors all the time, it's a
Speaker 2: good idea to analyze the situations you find yourself in
Speaker 2: and ask yourself if there is a feasible way to
Speaker 2: buy something to help or use something you already own
Speaker 2: in a different way. Maybe it's as simple as you
Speaker 2: using the same set of steel climbing sticks for all
Speaker 2: of your mobile hunts, but every single time you strap
Speaker 2: them to your pack or try to strap them to
Speaker 2: a tree, you make a lot of noise that makes
Speaker 2: you cringe. What are your options there? Well, if you
Speaker 2: like the sticks and don't mind the weight, A roll
Speaker 2: of hockey tape to dead them down might be the
Speaker 2: right tool for the job. If you do mind the
Speaker 2: weight and you don't want to wrap them with seven
Speaker 2: hundred and ninety feet of hockey tape, maybe it's time
Speaker 2: to pony up for a lightweight set of carbon sticks. Now,
Speaker 2: aside from the resurgence of good tree saddles in recent years,
Speaker 2: I don't think there is a better improvement in a
Speaker 2: product category than the change in materials used to build
Speaker 2: carbon climbing sticks. Now they are far from cheap, trust
Speaker 2: me on that. But when your whole setup is whisper quiet,
Speaker 2: and four or five sticks weighs the same as one
Speaker 2: set of metal sticks, the game changes again. You'll pay
Speaker 2: like you would if you were getting billed by a
Speaker 2: high end attorney, but in the end you'll have a
Speaker 2: product that will improve your hunting and your enjoyment of hunting,
Speaker 2: and it would last long enough that you might be
Speaker 2: able to pass them on to the kids. Just in
Speaker 2: that category alone, you have so many options that range
Speaker 2: so much in price and weight and ease of use
Speaker 2: that finding the right tool is a matter of deciding
Speaker 2: what you want to spend and how important it is
Speaker 2: to get a specific type of this tool for the job.
Speaker 2: I guess the gist of this podcast is a thinly
Speaker 2: veiled attempt to argue against settling for something when you
Speaker 2: don't have to. I'm honestly a huge hypocrite there, because
Speaker 2: I will struggle with some aspect of gear for years
Speaker 2: before I finally just get fed up enough to make
Speaker 2: some kind of change. And it's often something that I
Speaker 2: could afford or I could easily do, and still the
Speaker 2: old procrastination bug digs in under my skin and convinces
Speaker 2: me to suffer for years and years. Maybe we are
Speaker 2: all gluttons for punishment. Maybe not, It doesn't matter. What
Speaker 2: does matter is that this is the perfect time of
Speaker 2: year to take stock in your gear. You don't organize
Speaker 2: your trail cameras. You go through the stands you have
Speaker 2: piled up in the garage and the climbing sticks you've
Speaker 2: been using since you've found them for sale at wally
Speaker 2: World seventeen years ago. And maybe it's time to make
Speaker 2: a change. Or maybe not. Maybe you're happy with where
Speaker 2: you're at and you have the stuff you think you need.
Speaker 2: In that case, ask yourself, are you using your tools
Speaker 2: to the full potential. Think back to the on X
Speaker 2: example at the beginning of this show. If you're dead
Speaker 2: certain you have the whole thing dialed, it's likely you don't,
Speaker 2: and a little time spent researching the tools you already
Speaker 2: use and the creative ways other hunters have used them
Speaker 2: to level up might be just what you need to
Speaker 2: find a new spark and scouting and a few new
Speaker 2: reasons to get out in the woods and try some
Speaker 2: stuff out. That's what I've been doing all Turkey season
Speaker 2: and it's been an eye opener. It's also my plan
Speaker 2: for this summer as I get heavy into the white
Speaker 2: tailed scouting season, consider this route yourself before you get
Speaker 2: into the season and figure out that you're still sabotaging
Speaker 2: yourself somehow when you don't really have to do that.
Speaker 2: Come back next week because I'm going to just kind
Speaker 2: of talk randomly about salt blocks and mineral licks and
Speaker 2: food plots and baiting and all the stuff we do
Speaker 2: that we think helps the deer, at least food wise.
Speaker 2: That's it for this episode. I'm Tony Peterson. This has
Speaker 2: been the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast. As always, thank
Speaker 2: you so much for your support. I can't tell you
Speaker 2: how much it means to all of us at meat Eater.
Speaker 2: Just trust us on this. We really appreciate that you
Speaker 2: guys all show up and listen to the podcast and
Speaker 2: watch the videos, read the articles, and if you want
Speaker 2: more of that stuff, you can head over to the
Speaker 2: medeater dot com and you will find more content based
Speaker 2: around hunting, fishing, foraging, you name it. Then you could
Speaker 2: get through in a lot of boring days at work,
Speaker 2: So go check that out at the medeater dot com.