Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast, your guide to
Speaker 1: the White Tail Woods, presented by First Light, creating proven
Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light,
Speaker 1: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. This week on
Speaker 2: the show, I'm joined by Tony Peterson to explore the
Speaker 2: art of making better decisions and creating more satisfying hunting experiences.
Speaker 2: All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought
Speaker 2: to you by First Light, and today we're continuing the
Speaker 2: trend that we started last week by kind of taking
Speaker 2: a deep breath. I want us to take a deep
Speaker 2: breath in, take a deep breath out, let our shoulders
Speaker 2: sag down, kind of shake off all of the work
Speaker 2: and thinking. And I don't know, we've been diving into
Speaker 2: a bunch of stuff this winter and spring. We spent
Speaker 2: a bunch of time talking about habitat, We dove deep
Speaker 2: into some conservation topics. We just came off of a
Speaker 2: full month of parenting discussions, and now we're in the
Speaker 2: summer and I kind of want us to kind of
Speaker 2: shake everything off and get ready for the big push
Speaker 2: into hunting season. So what I've kind of been feeling
Speaker 2: this month is is letting our hair down and just
Speaker 2: having a little fun. Last week we did that with Dan,
Speaker 2: catching up on things over the last ten years, and
Speaker 2: today we've got my buddy right hand man, Tony Peterson
Speaker 2: on to do the same thing. And Tony, I don't
Speaker 2: know if you know this, but I told Dan Johnson,
Speaker 2: our fellow, our mutual friend, that this is our tenth
Speaker 2: year of the Wired Hunt podcast. We've entered the tenth season.
Speaker 2: Can you believe that a decade of this thing?
Speaker 3: I actually kind of can't. Why. It's kind of incredible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it's, uh, it's not so ten years of
Speaker 2: the podcast and fifteen years of Wired to Hunt since
Speaker 2: it's you know, it's a website and stuff before that.
Speaker 2: So it's shocking to me how fast that's all gone.
Speaker 2: But part of what I did with Dan last week,
Speaker 2: and I think it might be interesting to chat with
Speaker 2: you a little bit about two, is is to kind
Speaker 2: of look back on the past ten years. And so
Speaker 2: that's something I'm going to ask you about in here second.
Speaker 2: But before that, Tony, I'm just thinking, today, let's let's
Speaker 2: catch up a little bit. Let's talk through some of
Speaker 2: the stuff that's going on in our own lives as
Speaker 2: far as dear projects we've done this spring and summer,
Speaker 2: stuff we're gonna be working on leading to the season.
Speaker 2: Maybe talk through some of our plans and a little
Speaker 2: bit more detail, and then yeah, I want to press
Speaker 2: you a little bit on a ten year reflection too,
Speaker 2: if you're willing to do that. Are you game for
Speaker 2: a lot?
Speaker 3: I'm game for it all, buddy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So are you are you in full blown fishing
Speaker 2: mode or do you still have your eyes on some
Speaker 2: deer projects right now? Like what's what's Tony's life look like?
Speaker 3: Right now? I am mostly in fishing mode, but I've
Speaker 3: been spending some time in the woods, just just working
Speaker 3: on a little bit of stuff, mainly over there in Wisconsin,
Speaker 3: but mostly just feeding the mosquitoes, which have been unfreaking
Speaker 3: real out there right now. I don't know if you've
Speaker 3: experienced that where you live, but man, it has been rough.
Speaker 2: Is it just because there's so much snow, there's moisture everywhere?
Speaker 3: Now? It was well partially, but it was the rain
Speaker 3: that we had at certain points this spring, and that
Speaker 3: first hatch was a freaking doozy and I'm hoping, you know,
Speaker 3: the same thing happens with the ticks. Right, you get
Speaker 3: into late May and they're everywhere, and the mosquito hatch
Speaker 3: really happens, and then usually by about July things start
Speaker 3: to level off a little bit, And so I kind
Speaker 3: of treat June like a mess around deer Mont. Maybe
Speaker 3: shoot my boat a little bit, maybe get into the
Speaker 3: woods a little bit. But I do spend a lot
Speaker 3: of time chasing smallies and not necessarily thinking too hard
Speaker 3: on the deer.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm, well, there's nothing wrong with that. I mean,
Speaker 2: we've talked, both of us have talked about this on
Speaker 2: the podcast and off about how it's just as important
Speaker 2: to be able to peel yourself away from it sometimes
Speaker 2: to kind of refill the tank on other pursuits, and
Speaker 2: then that gives you more energy and probably more context
Speaker 2: and ideas to bring back to the deer hunting world
Speaker 2: when you do dive back in.
Speaker 3: Right, yep, big time, big time is there.
Speaker 2: This is going to be a stretch. But I'm curious
Speaker 2: how creative you can get. Is there anything from your
Speaker 2: small mouth fishing, your pursuit of smallies that has made
Speaker 2: you a better deer hunter? Can you can you bridge
Speaker 2: that gap for me and teach me something about deer
Speaker 2: hunting that you've learned while chasing smallies.
Speaker 3: Uh? Absolutely, man. In fact, I'm gonna be.
Speaker 2: Uh and it can't it can't be a basic like
Speaker 2: structure analogy how bass crowd to like a piece of
Speaker 2: structure in a lake. That's not almost too easy?
Speaker 3: Come on, dude, Okay, well, okay, I'll give you an
Speaker 3: idea that I'm kind of really obsessed with right now
Speaker 3: for deer hunting. In fact, I did a Foundations episode
Speaker 3: that was tied pretty tightly to it not that long ago,
Speaker 3: and it it's deer hunt like. To be a good
Speaker 3: deer hunter, you have to process information quickly and make
Speaker 3: good decisions like you're You're always making a series of
Speaker 3: decisions that lead to where you're gonna sit and whether
Speaker 3: you call or when you draw what whatever. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: everything that I do in the outdoors is like that.
Speaker 3: So even though small mall fishing is you know, lower pressure,
Speaker 3: you know, like, it's not it's not the same thing
Speaker 3: as hunting a deer, right, But I go out, especially
Speaker 3: when you're talking end of May, beginning of June, when
Speaker 3: when I really start getting after it it all right,
Speaker 3: what's the water temperature. What's the water temperature at eight
Speaker 3: in the morning versus two in the afternoon when the
Speaker 3: sun's been shining all day. Are they moving up shallow yet?
Speaker 3: Are they not there yet? If you catch one, you know,
Speaker 3: say you catch a little mail, he's real pale. You go, Okay,
Speaker 3: they just came out of the wintering holes. I might
Speaker 3: need to be flipping instead of throwing the top water.
Speaker 3: And it's just like working that muscle of thinking through
Speaker 3: the conditions, thinking through how they're changing, you know, by
Speaker 3: the minute or by the hour or whatever, and then
Speaker 3: adapting to that and then using everything they give you
Speaker 3: to make a little bit better decision. It's like, oh,
Speaker 3: you missed one here a short strike, or you had
Speaker 3: one come up and look at your swim bait, but
Speaker 3: it dropped back down and didn't eat it. All of
Speaker 3: that stuff just helps you solve problems on the fly.
Speaker 3: And I feel like it just gets you in a
Speaker 3: better mode. Even when you just go out scouting in
Speaker 3: the summer for white tails. You're making all these decisions
Speaker 3: and you're looking at you know, oh, the neighbor has
Speaker 3: this kind of crop coming up, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: some trees got knocked down here, and you're just filtering
Speaker 3: everything through. So I honestly think that's why being sort
Speaker 3: of an outdoor to generalist is so valuable to being
Speaker 3: a deer hunter. I mean, I see it with beezant hunting.
Speaker 3: I see it with a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2: I two thousand percent agree. And I also feel like
Speaker 2: that's maybe very close to my very favorite thing about
Speaker 2: hunting and fishing, is that decision making process. Like this
Speaker 2: this puzzle that you have to put together every single time, right,
Speaker 2: But there's like two parts to it. There's part one,
Speaker 2: which is the data collection, Like you have to get
Speaker 2: all the information that's input into the system, and then
Speaker 2: you have to make sense of it. And that's where
Speaker 2: you're making the decisions based on all that data, right,
Speaker 2: based on the scouting inteler, based on the weather and
Speaker 2: the you know, what you're seeing on the water and
Speaker 2: what the smallers are doing right now, YadA, YadA, YadA.
Speaker 2: But I think there's a lot of people and I'm
Speaker 2: going to make an assumption here. I'm going to assume
Speaker 2: that a lot of people have made the same mistakes
Speaker 2: that I have made in the past, which would be
Speaker 2: like getting stuck into part one of that process or
Speaker 2: part two of that process, but not doing a good
Speaker 2: job of doing both together. So like I think early on,
Speaker 2: at least in my deer hunting career, I got stuck
Speaker 2: in the data collection process. Like I knew, like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I need to scout. I need to get a bunch
Speaker 2: of information. So I go out there and I'd see
Speaker 2: the tracks, and i'd see the rubs, and i'd see
Speaker 2: the scrapes, and i'd see the cover, and i'd see
Speaker 2: the food. And I was pretty good at just seeing
Speaker 2: all of it, but I was not good at figuring
Speaker 2: out how to keep accumulate that stuff in a way
Speaker 2: that I could then make sense of it. So like
Speaker 2: you see a bunch of stuff, but then you never
Speaker 2: really do a good job of parsing through it and
Speaker 2: making decisions based on it or understanding the bigger picture
Speaker 2: based on it. Do you know what I mean? Like,
Speaker 2: don't you think a lot of people and maybe you,
Speaker 2: at one point in your life did a bunch of
Speaker 2: scouting that was basically worthless because you were just looking
Speaker 2: at stuff, but you weren't doing good job of retaining it,
Speaker 2: noting it down, or using it well.
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely. I mean I think I think there's like
Speaker 3: a real hurdle you have to get over, which is
Speaker 3: not just taking everything and going okay, like you said,
Speaker 3: there's a scrape here, there's a rub there, bucks must
Speaker 3: be here, instead of asking yourself why that's why? Why
Speaker 3: is that scrape there? Or why does this scrape have?
Speaker 3: You know, why is it the side of a truck
Speaker 3: hood and have three looking branches over it when other
Speaker 3: scrapes I find are tiny and have one licking branch?
Speaker 3: Or why is it every time I get into like
Speaker 3: one of these bottoms where three different ridges feed down
Speaker 3: in there and it's kind of like a feels like
Speaker 3: a hub. Why do I find a big scrape there?
Speaker 3: You know? Like and I think about that stuff, like
Speaker 3: we kind of sell this this false narrative that you know,
Speaker 3: go scouting, find a big one, give him a name,
Speaker 3: and you're good to go. And it's like, well, why
Speaker 3: did he walk down that trail? Why is he here
Speaker 3: in August and disappear for September or October? Like there's
Speaker 3: there's so many questions we don't answer, and we kind
Speaker 3: of look for shortcuts around it, but really you have
Speaker 3: to ask yourself why why would they be here? Why
Speaker 3: did they make that sign? Like all of that stuff
Speaker 3: feeds into like us making better decisions, Like, Okay, if
Speaker 3: this is a community scrape here, there has to be
Speaker 3: a reason there's a multi generational scrape right here. Well,
Speaker 3: it's because there's a lot of deer that go through there. Why,
Speaker 3: Like what's feeding in there? Like how can you play
Speaker 3: off of that? Like what does the wind do in
Speaker 3: one of those hubs? And the more you ask yourself,
Speaker 3: like beyond just a surface value of something like well
Speaker 3: take the take Last weekend, I was fishing with one
Speaker 3: of my nephews and we left the small mouth stuff
Speaker 3: and went drove way back in and started fishing large
Speaker 3: mouth because they're you know, pooling into the shallows too.
Speaker 3: And we started catching them in one spot where there's
Speaker 3: there's a hillside that comes down. And this is all
Speaker 3: like a floating bog cattails type of stuff, swampy type
Speaker 3: of stuff. It all looks good, it all has little pads.
Speaker 3: But we started catching a concentration of fish in one
Speaker 3: spot where there's a pretty steep hillside, and when you
Speaker 3: look at that, you go, well, it doesn't really look
Speaker 3: that much different than you know so much of the
Speaker 3: other stuff we fished, but it had fewer fish on it.
Speaker 3: And the reality is the way the land works there,
Speaker 3: it's just a little bit deeper, like maybe a foot
Speaker 3: deeper on average there than most of the stuff around it.
Speaker 3: So the fish are there. But you might go through,
Speaker 3: you know, throw a frog up on the bank, drag
Speaker 3: it in and catch a big, large mouth and go, oh,
Speaker 3: there was a large mouth there, like not think about why.
Speaker 3: But if you start thinking about why have I gotten
Speaker 3: three bites here? And it took me two hours to
Speaker 3: get three bites going through a bunch of this other stuff,
Speaker 3: And now you go, there has to be a reason.
Speaker 3: And if you figure out that reason, you can replicate
Speaker 3: that in other places and go, man, I have that
Speaker 3: in my back pocket always. And there's so much like
Speaker 3: that with deer hunting.
Speaker 2: That single question and word why question mark is like
Speaker 2: that's that's the power? Like that is that one thing
Speaker 2: I think is Yeah, I don't know if life shaving,
Speaker 2: but hunting and fishing life changing. If you can learn
Speaker 2: to always ask that question at all parts of the process,
Speaker 2: you will get exponentially better. And then it applies. It
Speaker 2: applies the first part like when you're collecting data and
Speaker 2: like trying to see like, okay, all this, what am
Speaker 2: I seeing? What am I? What am I noting? What's
Speaker 2: what's happening here? Asking why?
Speaker 3: Why? Oh? Why?
Speaker 2: And then it also applies on the back half of
Speaker 2: the decision making process, when you're actually like, okay, what
Speaker 2: do I do? What's the right thing to do right now? Well,
Speaker 2: then you need to be asking why would I think
Speaker 2: a deer would come through here? Or if you think
Speaker 2: this is a tree, we'll shall hunt this tree or not? Well, okay,
Speaker 2: why would a deer come by this tree? Why would
Speaker 2: he not come by this tree? Why would this work
Speaker 2: right now? Why might this not work right now? If
Speaker 2: you are constantly having that internal dialogue at each step
Speaker 2: in the process, whether your turkey hunting or deer hunting
Speaker 2: or small off bass fishing, you all of a sudden
Speaker 2: are forced to do like the second layer thinking that
Speaker 2: gets you to start understanding things and starts helping you
Speaker 2: make informed decisions versus just random decisions. We're like, wow, screwt,
Speaker 2: I'll just sit here and see what happens. There's no
Speaker 2: randomness in nature. Everything happens for almost no randomness. Almost
Speaker 2: everything happens for a reason, and the more we can
Speaker 2: start identifying those, the much much much better we get
Speaker 2: as outdoors treat.
Speaker 3: People big time. I mean, I think that's like the
Speaker 3: core tenant of why you know. People say and I've
Speaker 3: said this, I'm sure you said this, like the first
Speaker 3: time you sit a stands the best, or the first
Speaker 3: time you saddle up in a spot it's the best.
Speaker 3: And part of that is, Yeah, the deer aren't used
Speaker 3: to you being there, they don't expect you in that spot,
Speaker 3: like that's a that's a big benefit. But part of
Speaker 3: it is you've made that decision based off of something
Speaker 3: right now. You're not you're not going into that tried
Speaker 3: and true ladder stand that you've had up for seven
Speaker 3: years where you're crossing your fingers and hoping they come by.
Speaker 3: You found something. Yet you know, you scouted, you saw
Speaker 3: you observe something, there was something there that you said,
Speaker 3: I got to be there now, and it works out
Speaker 3: enough where it's a really viable strategy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So this is this is a topic that is
Speaker 2: fascinating to me. Like a year or two ago, I
Speaker 2: did like a deep kind of wormhole dive reading a
Speaker 2: bunch about different like decision making theories and alsos and
Speaker 2: stuff like that, because I kind of had the same
Speaker 2: thought that you're having, which is at the core of
Speaker 2: this whole deer hunting thing, at the very bottom of
Speaker 2: the whole thing, is just like making good decisions, Like
Speaker 2: that's how you become a good deer hunter, is if
Speaker 2: you learn how to make a good decision in the
Speaker 2: moment or that day or that week that puts you
Speaker 2: in the right place based on all this data we've collected,
Speaker 2: all this information, Like that is what good deer hunters do,
Speaker 2: whether they know it or not. That's the muscle that
Speaker 2: they're using, that decision making muscle.
Speaker 3: So I started, well, yeah, go ahead, Oh, I was
Speaker 3: just going to say, for sure. But it's also those
Speaker 3: people learn really quickly to shrug off the bad decisions
Speaker 3: because they make those all the time too.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So here's my question though. One of the things
Speaker 2: when as I was going into this whole decision making
Speaker 2: world that I found very applicable and hard to figure
Speaker 2: out or one of the challenges of making good decisions
Speaker 2: in the context of hunting or fishing, is this this
Speaker 2: kind of cognitive pitfall. The humans have a lot which
Speaker 2: is being fooled by randomness. So like something will happen
Speaker 2: and we say, why did that happen, and we apply,
Speaker 2: we essentially make a rule of a single thing. So
Speaker 2: by that, I mean you're out there hunting in the woods,
Speaker 2: you see a buck cruise across one hundred yards out
Speaker 2: and you say, well, man, if that buck did that,
Speaker 2: I should go and hunt that spot because that buck
Speaker 2: just did that. So you're betting on the idea that
Speaker 2: he did that for a reason maybe, and that you
Speaker 2: need to be there ten minutes from now for the
Speaker 2: next time a different deer comes passing through it out.
Speaker 2: Sometimes that's the right call. Sometimes that is a random act,
Speaker 2: and we are fooled by that random act and we think, well,
Speaker 2: because that one buck did that one time, Now for
Speaker 2: the next ten years, you always hunt that spot because
Speaker 2: you saw a buck come through that one spot that
Speaker 2: one time. You know, I'm sure there's a lot of
Speaker 2: people that have got that tree stand that man in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety seven, I killed a buck here and he
Speaker 2: was a giant. So I'm always going to keep hunting
Speaker 2: this spot because man, that was a good spot. So
Speaker 2: there's this risk of being fooled by randomness that then
Speaker 2: can skew your decision making. So what I'm trying to
Speaker 2: get out here, Tony is is how do you think
Speaker 2: about that? Have you dealt with that? Is that something
Speaker 2: you think about at all? And how do you try
Speaker 2: to wrestle with this risk of Okay? Am I making
Speaker 2: the decision here based on what could be a random thing?
Speaker 2: Or is there actually a better reason, a sol more
Speaker 2: solid reason that I can feel like this is actually
Speaker 2: something worth acting on?
Speaker 3: You know, I would say, in that specific example where
Speaker 3: you see a buck do something, I don't feel like
Speaker 3: I'm going to assign a whole lot of randomness to it.
Speaker 3: I feel like there's quite a bit of value in
Speaker 3: observing a buck do something. And yeah, I mean it
Speaker 3: might be it might be so like conditionally dependent that
Speaker 3: it just doesn't happen very often, you know. I mean
Speaker 3: seeing a buck run across an open pasture like September twentieth,
Speaker 3: you're like, I don't know, who knows, right, could have
Speaker 3: been a coyote, could have been something else. But seeing
Speaker 3: that same buck do something like that on November seventh
Speaker 3: carries more weight, you know, So again you got to
Speaker 3: filter that through. But I would say, where we run
Speaker 3: into a lot of danger with using one off, one
Speaker 3: off bits of information to draw big conclusions. Is like
Speaker 3: trail camera usage, man, where you get that little glimpse
Speaker 3: and you're like, oh, I've had three bucks this week
Speaker 3: and they're all at night, so they must be nocturnal.
Speaker 3: Or I'm hunting twenty five acres and I got a
Speaker 3: picture of a one forty passing through on September eighteenth,
Speaker 3: so he's living there, or he's there and huntable now.
Speaker 3: And it's not enough information to make you know, like
Speaker 3: real informed decisions around. And I think when we fill
Speaker 3: in the blanks, we we really make a lot of mistakes.
Speaker 3: And I mean we do this when we haunt too, right,
Speaker 3: Like you go sit a stand that you think is
Speaker 3: just going to be banging for whatever reason, and you
Speaker 3: blank and it's like, Okay, well the deer don't use
Speaker 3: this spot, or it was too hot for them or something,
Speaker 3: when it could have been they all knew you were
Speaker 3: in there.
Speaker 2: Or it also could be just it's just unlucky like that.
Speaker 2: Just maybe that's the flip side of it, is assigning
Speaker 2: a judgment to that sit based off on a one
Speaker 2: time sit, when actually, if you stay for the next
Speaker 2: four days, maybe three out of four days, you'd have
Speaker 2: big deer rolling through there. But you happen to just
Speaker 2: be fooled by randomness on the one day that you
Speaker 2: got unlucky. That's the tricky thing, right.
Speaker 3: Yep, yeah, I mean that's that's where you know, time
Speaker 3: in the field and experience comes into play.
Speaker 2: And I also think it comes back to that question
Speaker 2: of why too, Like anytime you see a one off
Speaker 2: thing happen, asking why and trying to really think hard about, Okay,
Speaker 2: to the extent of my knowledge, can I explain why
Speaker 2: this happened? And if you really can't explain why, if
Speaker 2: there's no good reason for what happened to have happened,
Speaker 2: and you know, and you feel confident in your knowledge
Speaker 2: of the area and what's going on, then maybe this
Speaker 2: was a random thing that's not worth making a you know,
Speaker 2: basing a decision off. But on the flip side, like
Speaker 2: you said, you know, if you see a buck go
Speaker 2: cruising through a strip of timber on November seventh, and
Speaker 2: you're thinking, okay, is that random or why would this
Speaker 2: have happened? And then you start thinking, okay, well, let
Speaker 2: me think here, I don't know this property super well.
Speaker 2: But I do know there's that creek bottom. He was
Speaker 2: found the creek bottom, and it does connect to that
Speaker 2: big chunk of timber up to the north, so you
Speaker 2: know he probably was cruising maybe from that betting area
Speaker 2: there to the other one. And that seems like something
Speaker 2: that will repeat itself because there's a bunch of bucks
Speaker 2: doing that this time of the year. So yeah, I
Speaker 2: bet you that wasn't random. I bet you there'll be
Speaker 2: other bucks that utilize it the same way. So yes,
Speaker 2: I should be there. I think if you go through
Speaker 2: that kind of thought process, whenever you get a new input,
Speaker 2: a new observation, a new trail camera photo, that can
Speaker 2: make it more useful for sure.
Speaker 3: I mean I've been pushing this this message a lot.
Speaker 3: In fact, I just I wrote a piece for Meat
Speaker 3: Eater very recently on just adding one new spot, like
Speaker 3: the value of taking whatever you hunt and trying to
Speaker 3: find one more place to hunt, public, private, whatever, just
Speaker 3: to give yourself more options. And I think, you know,
Speaker 3: we we're really lucky, right, Like we get to hunt
Speaker 3: all over and we're kind of like we live in
Speaker 3: these hunting circles where we're around people who get to
Speaker 3: travel all over and build up tons of experience in
Speaker 3: a single year. The average hunter doesn't have that, but
Speaker 3: it's not like they can't replicate that to some extent.
Speaker 3: And I think sometimes when you're like, man, I kind
Speaker 3: of think I know this property, like I haven't figured
Speaker 3: out if I go here on Halloween they come out,
Speaker 3: or if I do this or that. But then you
Speaker 3: go hunt, you have to figure someplace new o and
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, all those why questions come to be.
Speaker 3: And the more you do that, the better you get.
Speaker 3: Like I really think it's a valuable thing for leveling
Speaker 3: up as a deer hunter.
Speaker 2: It's it's just like a muscle. You have to exercise
Speaker 2: that muscle for it to grow, right.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. I mean i'll tell you what. So last year,
Speaker 3: for the last couple of years, because of my tag
Speaker 3: situation and you having to film and whatever, I haven't
Speaker 3: been doing as much early season public land whitetail hunts,
Speaker 3: which are kind of like my favorite things, Like I
Speaker 3: just I love doing that. In last year, I went
Speaker 3: out to South Dakota to film a show with the
Speaker 3: Element Boys, and I felt out of practice. I was like,
Speaker 3: this is something I've done dozens of times, but not
Speaker 3: as much in the last couple of years, and just
Speaker 3: getting out there, I was like, man, I forgot, you know,
Speaker 3: or at least it was a little bit old. It
Speaker 3: felt like I like having to make all those decisions
Speaker 3: and figure something out on the fly, and I loved it.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, man, I'm kind of reminded of
Speaker 3: what really gets me going. But at the same time,
Speaker 3: I felt out of practice, Like, man, I need to
Speaker 3: do this more because I'm not as good at it
Speaker 3: as I was a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2: So what does that mean? Now? What are you going
Speaker 2: to do? Because of that?
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go hunt a lot more early season white
Speaker 3: tails on public land.
Speaker 2: Where are you going this year for that? You know?
Speaker 3: It's provided. I'm kind of in limbo right now because
Speaker 3: I'm waiting to see if I draw Iowa. I don't
Speaker 3: know if I will, but that's that will color my
Speaker 3: fall quite a bit. But I after hunting turkeys down
Speaker 3: in Nebraska, I'm like, I gotta go back down there,
Speaker 3: provided I can get a tag when they go on sale.
Speaker 3: I really want to do that, And if I can't,
Speaker 3: I'm probably going to go do something in North Dakota
Speaker 3: right around the opener, and then I'm hunting Minnesota. This
Speaker 3: is going to be private, but I'm hunting a new
Speaker 3: place in the mid September and just kind of getting
Speaker 3: back to chasing those deer, you know, six weeks before
Speaker 3: the rut, eight weeks before the rut, and I cannot wait.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is fun stuff. I love that time here too,
Speaker 2: so so fun. So what else are you working on
Speaker 2: right now in preparation for that or anything else you
Speaker 2: mentioned You've been doing some Wisconsin stuff. Is that scouting
Speaker 2: or prepping on those properties that you own or what
Speaker 2: are you doing on that front?
Speaker 3: A little of both, you know. I'm working on the
Speaker 3: properties I own for my daughters, you know, and plus
Speaker 3: I drew a bear tag over there and sort of
Speaker 3: one of my daughters. I'm kind of getting some stuff
Speaker 3: ready for that. But I'm also looking at some of
Speaker 3: that public land I like to hunt over there, and
Speaker 3: kind of taking stock of the deer population and just
Speaker 3: just starting to like poke around a little bit and
Speaker 3: see what I'm going to be dealing with this fall,
Speaker 3: and other than the bugs, it feels really good to
Speaker 3: get out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I'm excited to hear about your Wisconsin scouting
Speaker 2: since I'm going to piggyback off you a little bit
Speaker 2: this year, I think, as you.
Speaker 3: Know, are you are you ready to shoot a four key?
Speaker 2: Yeah? For sure. I've broke that seal a couple of
Speaker 2: years ago down in Alabama, So I'm on that train
Speaker 2: in the right situation. Yeah, man, I mean, I'm very
Speaker 2: excited for Speaking of early season trips, my big early
Speaker 2: season trip this year is going to be this kind
Speaker 2: of Upper Great Lakes road trip. And the idea I
Speaker 2: had was kind of breaking away a little bit from
Speaker 2: the standard deer trip that we take a lot time,
Speaker 2: and I think a lot of people do is. And
Speaker 2: I don't know if you feel this way, Tony, but
Speaker 2: I think you probably have had moments where you feel
Speaker 2: like this sometimes. It seems like sometimes we go on
Speaker 2: these trips and it feels like a military operation in
Speaker 2: that like we have this goal, we have this period
Speaker 2: of time, and we have to go into this new
Speaker 2: zone and break it down and attack it with a
Speaker 2: mission focus. And you know, nothing is more important than
Speaker 2: achieving the goal. So you've got to go, go, go,
Speaker 2: and you just got to kill the deer, and you're
Speaker 2: after a big deer or whatever, and it feels very
Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe you're better at this than I am,
Speaker 2: but I have a hard time separating the experience from
Speaker 2: that goal when I do it that way, Like I'm
Speaker 2: just so focused. I'm trying to get away from that
Speaker 2: at least some of the time and do more like
Speaker 2: things just for the experience. And I did some of
Speaker 2: this last year, like I made some of my decisions
Speaker 2: about where I was going, you know, based on like
Speaker 2: I just like the place, I just like being out there.
Speaker 2: And I'm taking that one step further this year by
Speaker 2: doing this Upper Great Lakes thing where I'm gonna do
Speaker 2: a trip that's not just about killing a big deer.
Speaker 2: So what I want to do, And thank you for
Speaker 2: helping me kind of think through some of this the
Speaker 2: other day and pitch some ideas to me about what
Speaker 2: places I might be able to do it. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: do like a road trip up through and I think
Speaker 2: I might even go up through the up of Michigan
Speaker 2: and hit the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, northern Wisconsin, and
Speaker 2: northern Minnesota and kind of showcase and experience for myself,
Speaker 2: like everything that the the wildest parts of my home region,
Speaker 2: the Great Lakes region has to offer. So I want
Speaker 2: to do some grouse hunting. I want to do some
Speaker 2: brook trout fishing. I want to do some fishing for
Speaker 2: small e's and pike, and then I want to hunt deer.
Speaker 2: And I'm going to camp and I'm in a canoe
Speaker 2: and I'm gonna hear some loons, see some moves maybe,
Speaker 2: and you know, just feel that whole vibe, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm I feel like you're I'm so proud of you.
Speaker 3: I feel like you're growing up.
Speaker 2: It's taken a while, dude, it's tough.
Speaker 3: Man. You go through phases in this where the antlers
Speaker 3: are so important and there's you put a lot of
Speaker 3: pressure on yourself to kill big ones, and after a
Speaker 3: while you kind of get to the point where you're like,
Speaker 3: that's not actually why I want to be out there,
Speaker 3: Like that's a that's a motivator to some extent in
Speaker 3: some situations. But when you start to see those places
Speaker 3: like the big woods, like, I don't know what it is,
Speaker 3: you know what you're talking about there? That is not
Speaker 3: hardly anyone's dream deer trip because it's just not a
Speaker 3: good strategy to kill big deer easily like you're but
Speaker 3: it's the same thing. This is one of the things
Speaker 3: that drives me so nuts about this resident non resident
Speaker 3: fighting right now and how difficult it's getting to get
Speaker 3: elk tags if you don't live out west. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: everybody wants to shoot an elk. It's they're delicious. It's
Speaker 3: pretty freaking cool to walk up on a bull you
Speaker 3: killed or a cow or whatever. But the main thing
Speaker 3: about elk hunting is getting up into the mountains and
Speaker 3: camping and being there, you know. And I know you
Speaker 3: could go do that and bird watch or trout fish
Speaker 3: or whatever, but for most people that's not you know,
Speaker 3: enough of a carrot to drive, you know, a thousand
Speaker 3: miles or two thousand miles and do it. Like there
Speaker 3: has to be something real, tangible at steak and but
Speaker 3: it's like tied to so much more than just killing
Speaker 3: an elk. And that's the way the Big Woods is,
Speaker 3: like that trip you're talking about. I hope you go
Speaker 3: kill three four keys in a row and catch a
Speaker 3: bunch of trout and just enjoy it, because that setting
Speaker 3: is so bad ass. Even if you know, the northern
Speaker 3: third of any of those states you mentioned really aren't
Speaker 3: conducive to going out and having you know, super productive
Speaker 3: deer hunts. It's just so worth being there.
Speaker 2: They're just wild places and they I do have, you know,
Speaker 2: great opportunities, but they're different opportunities, you know. So yeah,
Speaker 2: So I think I'm gonna start up near the Boundary Waters.
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna I'm gonna start farthest away and work
Speaker 2: my way back, I think. So I'm gonna head up
Speaker 2: to the Boundary Waters Canoe Camp, do some fishing right
Speaker 2: around there, experience that place again, Like it's such an
Speaker 2: amazing spot that I got to experience one time. I
Speaker 2: want to I want more of that. So I'm gonna
Speaker 2: start there and then do a little grouse hunting outside
Speaker 2: of that zone, and then work my way southeast into Wisconsin,
Speaker 2: do a little deer hunting in some of these areas
Speaker 2: that you've been kind enough to kind of point me towards,
Speaker 2: and maybe hit some brook trout, little streams and stuff.
Speaker 2: And I think that like late September time period up there,
Speaker 2: it's gonna be comfortable but starting to cool down a
Speaker 2: little bit, like the early little whispers of fall coming in.
Speaker 2: I just think it's gonna be great. Just gonna be
Speaker 2: really really cool.
Speaker 3: It is. You're gonna have a blast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wish you could. I wish you could join. Man,
Speaker 2: I know you've got another thing going on, but it
Speaker 2: would have been a good opportunity for us to celebrate
Speaker 2: our home turf a little bit.
Speaker 3: You know, I might when you make it to Wisconsin,
Speaker 3: I might be able to make it over there for
Speaker 3: a couple of days. And I don't know if I could.
Speaker 3: I can help you get out of deer, but I
Speaker 3: bet I can help you catch some brook choler maybe
Speaker 3: shoot it grows.
Speaker 2: Hey, that's a that's going to be all part of it.
Speaker 2: And and what's also nice about this trip is it's
Speaker 2: going to be it's just like when I turn to
Speaker 2: dough hunting mode back home, Like it's a totally different
Speaker 2: kind of feeling and experience when you're going out just
Speaker 2: to hunt for does. It's it's freeing in some kind
Speaker 2: of way. I don't know if you feel this way,
Speaker 2: but I've I've really come to love like antler list
Speaker 2: specific hunts. It just feels like, man, it's a more
Speaker 2: target rich environment. It's it's a different level of excitement.
Speaker 2: I don't know why, but it is and I feel
Speaker 2: like the same thing applies when you go on a
Speaker 2: hunt and you lower your typical expectations or goals or something.
Speaker 2: So you know, on this I'm going to go in
Speaker 2: with like any deer is a shooter deer, and that
Speaker 2: I think will be really exciting and still really rewarding.
Speaker 2: Like if I can kill a deer up there in
Speaker 2: northern Wisconsin, I'm gonna be really proud and really happy.
Speaker 2: If I kill a foky or a dough, I'll be stoked.
Speaker 2: So going in that with those expectations I think will
Speaker 2: make the trip more fun than if I went out
Speaker 2: there I was like, Man, I'm gonna kill a mature
Speaker 2: buck and I'm gonna show everyone I'm a badass, big
Speaker 2: woods Hunterman. I don't care about that. I want to
Speaker 2: have a good time.
Speaker 3: Man. That's a message that I can I can fully
Speaker 3: get behind. I mean, I think that's one of the
Speaker 3: things you realize if you're if you're forcunate to get
Speaker 3: to travel enough, you know, you do the highway thing
Speaker 3: or the Kansas thing or whatever premier state, and yeah,
Speaker 3: it can be a hell of a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: But trophy hunting in general, for a lot of people
Speaker 3: is not that much fun and you but but we
Speaker 3: kind of default to it. And then when you go
Speaker 3: somewhere like you're talking, you go to the Big Woods,
Speaker 3: and you're like, I'm gonna be around oh deer densities.
Speaker 3: I don't you know, you don't have twenty seven years
Speaker 3: of history there. I mean, it's like on the fly,
Speaker 3: just whatever comes down the trail type of hunting. When
Speaker 3: you put yourself in that situation, you do realize how
Speaker 3: enjoyable it is. Like my favorite hunts are ones where
Speaker 3: I'm around lots of deer and I have lots of tags,
Speaker 3: Like I don't I don't care if I'm not within
Speaker 3: five miles of a one point thirty one forty plus
Speaker 3: if I'm in that situation, because I know it's going
Speaker 3: to be fun, kind of like going turkey hunting. It's
Speaker 3: like it's just going to be fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm learning that. I like I'm finding what the
Speaker 2: sweet spot is for me, and like having a mix
Speaker 2: of like a little bit of all these different things
Speaker 2: has is seeming like the sweet spot for me. Like
Speaker 2: I I've found I need to have some of this
Speaker 2: public land adventure like and I need to be trying
Speaker 2: new places. I need to be figuring out new spots.
Speaker 2: I need to have some of this just experience stuff,
Speaker 2: Like I'm going somewhere not because it's a big deer spot,
Speaker 2: but because it's this kind of trip like I just described.
Speaker 2: But I also know that I do like to still
Speaker 2: travel to some places where I'm just gonna see deer
Speaker 2: doing deer things and see mature bucks doing mature box
Speaker 2: things that I just don't get to see often back home,
Speaker 2: Like I love going to that complace. So I still
Speaker 2: want to have like an Iowa or Kansas or Illinois
Speaker 2: or something on the trip, you know, planned every year
Speaker 2: if I can, because that's a cool experience. But I
Speaker 2: don't need that the whole time. And then I also
Speaker 2: still also need or I enjoy getting to have the
Speaker 2: local thing too, or like I have spots I've hunted
Speaker 2: forever and I know the area and I know the
Speaker 2: deer and I've had like history that I really enjoyed
Speaker 2: that thing too, But I wouldn't want to have just
Speaker 2: one of those. Like I like having the diversity of experience,
Speaker 2: and I recognize that we're like very privileged that we
Speaker 2: have the time to do that. Not everyone can do that.
Speaker 2: But for whatever it's worth, I found like, and this
Speaker 2: has been a theme you and I've talked about the
Speaker 2: last couple of years, like having a diversity in your
Speaker 2: set of experiences makes you better and it ends up
Speaker 2: being a lot more fun.
Speaker 3: Yep. Well, and what we don't talk about there is,
Speaker 3: you know we so much of deer hunting and deer
Speaker 3: hunting advice is structured around making it easier, like it's
Speaker 3: all a promise of easier, but easy doesn't necessarily make
Speaker 3: it more fun. Like sometimes you know, every once in
Speaker 3: a while, a gift buck is awesome, right, Like sometimes
Speaker 3: you need that slumpbuster and he comes down the trail
Speaker 3: and it's awesome. Yeah, But overall, you find that you
Speaker 3: get more out of it sometimes when you put yourself
Speaker 3: in those new situations and you have to figure it
Speaker 3: out and work towards something instead of going someplace where
Speaker 3: you don't have to think about it at all, Like, well,
Speaker 3: I go here and sit here. I sit here because
Speaker 3: it's October, and you know that's kind of like antithetic
Speaker 3: to lots of deer hunting advice, But once you do it,
Speaker 3: you realize, like, man, it is pretty dang fun to
Speaker 3: have to figure out something even if it's just you know,
Speaker 3: leaving your home fune arm and going to still hunt
Speaker 3: the public land down the road like with low expectations.
Speaker 3: Like it's it's a different thing, and that variety is
Speaker 3: pretty beneficial to us mentally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, It's like there needs to be like a whole
Speaker 2: different set of ideas for you know, if the old
Speaker 2: way has always been like how to make deer hunting easier,
Speaker 2: like how to make it easier to kill deer, there
Speaker 2: could almost be a whole new set of ideas for
Speaker 2: how to make deer hunting like more satisfying or more
Speaker 2: fulfilling or something like. There's a whole other set of
Speaker 2: ideas for that side of the equation. I think that
Speaker 2: are worth talking about all for sure. So kind of
Speaker 2: on the line of thinking and speaking of Northern Great Lakes,
Speaker 2: I don't think I've talked to you about this. I
Speaker 2: briefly previewed this for Dan, but I'm also working on
Speaker 2: another thing for this coming season that's going to be
Speaker 2: very fulfilling but also not likely to lead to any
Speaker 2: kind of big deer thing. But we have been like
Speaker 2: doubling down on our family deer camp up in northern
Speaker 2: Michigan and have completed and not completed, but have started
Speaker 2: like the biggest habitat thing we've ever done up there.
Speaker 2: So I'm very very excited to see what comes of
Speaker 2: all that. It's you know, it's a forty acre piece.
Speaker 2: Half of its swamp that's basically like you can't do
Speaker 2: anything with it, so it is what it is, a big, thick,
Speaker 2: nasty swamp, which is great. And then a quarter of
Speaker 2: it is like where our cabin is, and where like
Speaker 2: the just kind of what used to be an old
Speaker 2: field it's now overgrown, there's an old pine stand, there's
Speaker 2: just just like kind of the living area. But then
Speaker 2: there's this other quarter. So it's like about a ten
Speaker 2: acre section to the south. I guess this would be
Speaker 2: the south well, yeah, the southeast corner of the property.
Speaker 2: And that has been like a zone that has screamed
Speaker 2: out to me for years as having like potential, Like
Speaker 2: it's far enough away from the cabin that it's huntable
Speaker 2: and you can do stuff there without people blowing it
Speaker 2: up while out at the cabin. It's also like accessible
Speaker 2: to do some kind of habitat work on. It's not
Speaker 2: so wet that you couldn't make improvements. But it's also
Speaker 2: like a little bit of a deer desert has been
Speaker 2: a deer desert because what used to be there has
Speaker 2: all matured. So there was a big open field that
Speaker 2: used to be like the one of the main edge
Speaker 2: opportunities for edge habitat, and there used to be a
Speaker 2: lot deer that moved through here out of the swamp,
Speaker 2: coming to this field and feeding, transitioning out to other properties.
Speaker 2: And then there was about a seven acre ish pine
Speaker 2: stand I guess that has now matured into now like
Speaker 2: a it's like a black hole. You go into it
Speaker 2: and it's just there's zero I mean literally zero understory.
Speaker 2: It's just pine needles on the ground and big dark
Speaker 2: pine trees and hemlocks overhead, and nothing uses it. I
Speaker 2: mean every once in a while deer will travel through it,
Speaker 2: but there's no bedding, there's no feeding, there's no grouse,
Speaker 2: there's no turkeys, there's nothing in there. And so for
Speaker 2: years I was like, man, we got to do something
Speaker 2: with this and try to make this area better. And
Speaker 2: then that field that I mentioned that completely overgrew, so
Speaker 2: it's just like more of a thicket. It's more of
Speaker 2: the same. We have nothing, but the same on the property.
Speaker 2: So I don't know, six seven years ago we carved
Speaker 2: in like a tiny little food plot into that old field,
Speaker 2: like an eighth ache or maybe. And you know, I've
Speaker 2: told you a few times over the years about some
Speaker 2: updates on that, and that's actually helped some. We had
Speaker 2: deer start, you know, dope family group probably hanging around
Speaker 2: that more often, and bucks cruising and checking it and stuff.
Speaker 2: But this year we brought in, we brought in some help.
Speaker 2: Guy knowamed Kyle Perry, came in with some bigger equipment
Speaker 2: that I don't have to help me actually cut down
Speaker 2: and push out and significantly expand that food plot from
Speaker 2: what was like an eighth and acre to about an acre.
Speaker 2: So that's like a pretty darn big substantial in the
Speaker 2: timber big Woods food plot now and then carved in
Speaker 2: like five I think it's five like wildlife openings within
Speaker 2: that stand to pines. So what was a seven acre
Speaker 2: stand of of monoculture pines zero understory, Now we've got
Speaker 2: five different openings pocketed throughout there where there's now all
Speaker 2: the sun coming down, there's tree tops scattered all over
Speaker 2: the place. So we have all this new structure, all
Speaker 2: this new deer level cover and hopefully by now a
Speaker 2: lot of new green growth now popping in where that
Speaker 2: sunlight is. So it's it went from like a ten
Speaker 2: acre dead zone to I think now it's going to
Speaker 2: be a ten acre hotspot that I'm really excited to
Speaker 2: see how that comes along throughout the year.
Speaker 3: Can I ask you something about that pine desert? There?
Speaker 3: Were you hesitant to do that just because it looks good?
Speaker 3: Because dude, that that pine desert situation happens in a
Speaker 3: lot of places, and people love seeing that big stand
Speaker 3: of pines, but it is totally worthless once it's like
Speaker 3: a certain level of growth, totally worthless for deer, like
Speaker 3: you said, but it looks good, Like did you look
Speaker 3: at it and go, man, I don't know if we
Speaker 3: should be knocking those trees.
Speaker 2: Down man a little bit. There were definitely moments and
Speaker 2: I think my grandfather had that feeling, you know, back
Speaker 2: in the day. I think that was where he was
Speaker 2: at with it, and so this was something that happened,
Speaker 2: you know, after his time. But I think you're right.
Speaker 2: It is easy to be wooed by like the park. Look,
Speaker 2: you know, just that pretty open, but if you can
Speaker 2: see all the way across a three hundred yard area
Speaker 2: in the woods. It's not great for wildlife. They don't
Speaker 2: like that, and so so yeah, that was a little
Speaker 2: bit of a thing. And there's still there's some impressive, big,
Speaker 2: mature trees in there that I didn't want to touch.
Speaker 2: So like we didn't take any of like the big
Speaker 2: kind of like legacy trees. There's a few in there, like, man,
Speaker 2: this tree has been here a long, long long time
Speaker 2: and kept those around, I guess for sentimental reasons. But
Speaker 2: there's a lot of stuff, there's kind of like scrubby,
Speaker 2: crappy pines and stuff in there in hemlock that you know,
Speaker 2: weren't doing anything for wildlife. And I think we're able to,
Speaker 2: you know, maintain a lot of the value that those
Speaker 2: mature pines did provide for thermal cover while also adding
Speaker 2: this new early successional habitat alongside of it. So I'm
Speaker 2: hoping it will be you know, good betting now small
Speaker 2: opportunities for feeding a spot they're going to travel through
Speaker 2: more often and then transition towards this great big food
Speaker 2: plot I have now deep in the timber that's going
Speaker 2: to be a you know, a bang up food source.
Speaker 2: That's very unique, right, There's no egg in the area,
Speaker 2: so they're not used to having, you know, a nice,
Speaker 2: big opportunity for good, high quality food. And that'll be
Speaker 2: a hub. And I'm kind of setting it up to
Speaker 2: be like a spot for my dad and my sons
Speaker 2: to have good hunting opportunities. So I want to be
Speaker 2: able to go up to our family deer camp and
Speaker 2: have the whole family thing, like do the thing that
Speaker 2: I love so much be at this place that built me,
Speaker 2: this place where I learned to hunt fish. I want
Speaker 2: to be able to spend time there in this place
Speaker 2: I love, and also still have an opportunity that my
Speaker 2: dad can kill a deer, my kids can see deer
Speaker 2: when they're up there, because for the past, you know,
Speaker 2: twenty years, I've been going up there because I love
Speaker 2: the place, but not expecting to shoot anything. I'd love
Speaker 2: it if we could have the expectation of hunting success
Speaker 2: and the fun of being there too, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, isn't it weird how when you get a hold
Speaker 3: of something like that, it's so easy to not care
Speaker 3: at all about hunting it yourself, but so fun to
Speaker 3: build it up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the progress, the project, the work and then you know,
Speaker 2: the coolest thing will be. You know, we're going to
Speaker 2: put in some ground blinds around this food plotting around
Speaker 2: some of these like transition areas and stuff. And the
Speaker 2: first time I get to sit there with my dad,
Speaker 2: or the first time I go in there with Everett
Speaker 2: and we actually see deer like the way I did
Speaker 2: twenty five years ago, and my grandpa took me to
Speaker 2: that old field. Like the very first memory I have
Speaker 2: of deer in my entire life, at least that I can,
Speaker 2: you know, still remember, was at this spot when I
Speaker 2: was probably four years old, give or take. My grandpa
Speaker 2: took me to the edge of this field and we
Speaker 2: sat in his old blind that he hunted forever. And
Speaker 2: at this point the field was pretty wide open, and
Speaker 2: deer would come out there and feed and stuff. And
Speaker 2: it was in the summer, and he brought a I mean,
Speaker 2: this would have been like nineteen ninety or something like that,
Speaker 2: so he had like an old handicam whatever those things
Speaker 2: looked like back then. And so there's video of this
Speaker 2: of him and me sitting there in the summer. It
Speaker 2: would have been like July or August, and sitting in
Speaker 2: the blind just watching deer and had there was a group,
Speaker 2: a family group of I don't know, six seven, eight
Speaker 2: domes came out and fed out in front of the
Speaker 2: blind about within ten yards, I mean so close it
Speaker 2: felt like I could reach out and touch them. I
Speaker 2: just remember being floored by that experience, like seeing these
Speaker 2: big animals up close. They had no idea we were there,
Speaker 2: and and that like just was magical. And so to
Speaker 2: be able to go back to this same EXAs place
Speaker 2: that in the subsequent you know, thirty years has become
Speaker 2: a place where you know, you'll never see any deer
Speaker 2: to now, if I could go out there and sit
Speaker 2: with my son when he's five years old in that
Speaker 2: same place, right near where my grandpa's old blind was,
Speaker 2: and to have him see six or seven deer come
Speaker 2: out and have him have a magical experience there too,
Speaker 2: Like what an incredible full circle moment that'll be. I'm
Speaker 2: really really hoping that all comes together.
Speaker 3: Oh it'll come together and it'll be really sweet.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So yeah, those are a couple of things that
Speaker 2: I'm looking forward to this year, probably more than anything.
Speaker 2: Those are probably top two most exciting things for the
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three season.
Speaker 3: On my side, I mean what you're talking about there.
Speaker 3: That's one of the and I know people will listen
Speaker 3: to this and say, I don't have my own land
Speaker 3: or whatever to work on, but just figuring out ways
Speaker 3: to do stuff all year round that are related to
Speaker 3: white tails. That's that's one of the reasons white tail
Speaker 3: hunting is so special. I think, you know, I mean
Speaker 3: when you go west, like there's there's so much time
Speaker 3: where you know, the hunters out west are not really
Speaker 3: thinking about you know, like it's such an in the
Speaker 3: moment type of hunting. A lot of it is, at
Speaker 3: least elk and mule deer, but white tails, like there's
Speaker 3: so much you can do all year round and that, like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, I just think that makes it different.
Speaker 3: It's so fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do love that. I want to take a
Speaker 2: hard pivot hero quick though, unless you unless you've got
Speaker 2: anything else you want to follow up on that. I
Speaker 2: wanted to spin and grill you on one thing before we.
Speaker 3: Wrap up this episode, go nuts man, all right.
Speaker 2: So this kind of relates to a lot of what
Speaker 2: we talked about because I think almost the theme of
Speaker 2: where we've been going with this is kind of this
Speaker 2: evolution as hunters and learning to appreciate different things, learning
Speaker 2: to make better decisions, learning to value different parts of
Speaker 2: the hunt. Right last week with Dan, we were talking
Speaker 2: about this last ten years and the ten years of
Speaker 2: the wire Hunt podcast and what we did for that one.
Speaker 2: Prior to is we listened to the very first podcast
Speaker 2: that Dan and I ever recorded together, and we went
Speaker 2: back and listened to that one, and we heard us
Speaker 2: talking about, you know, the things we on that first episode.
Speaker 2: We talked about the worst thing that happened in our
Speaker 2: twenty twenty thirteen hunting season I think it was, and
Speaker 2: the best thing that happened during our twenty twenty or
Speaker 2: twenty thirteen hunting season. And listening to that, I was
Speaker 2: having all these like, oh man, had come so far
Speaker 2: since that. Oh Man, I'm so much better at this
Speaker 2: than that. But then I also had a bunch of
Speaker 2: moments I was like, oh, geez, I'm still struggling with
Speaker 2: the exact same thing I was dealing with back then, Like,
Speaker 2: I don't know how much progress I've made on that
Speaker 2: one in ten years. So so that exercise was kind
Speaker 2: of eye opening for me. I want to put you
Speaker 2: through that exercise. I'm curious if you look back on
Speaker 2: this last decade, Tony, if you could kind of rewind
Speaker 2: and play the movie of your last ten years as
Speaker 2: a deer hunter, what would you say has been your
Speaker 2: greatest area of growth? Like, like, what has been the
Speaker 2: greatest positive change or type of progress you've made in
Speaker 2: this last decade? Does anything stand out to you when
Speaker 2: you think about that?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? Uh. I think it's just my patience level as
Speaker 3: a hunter. Like I, you know, if you were to
Speaker 3: go back ten years ago to twenty thirteen, I mean
Speaker 3: I was like obsessed with killing good bucks on public
Speaker 3: land like I was. That was like in you know,
Speaker 3: at a time in my life where I was on
Speaker 3: the road so much and e scouting so much and
Speaker 3: just like you know, really trying to figure out a
Speaker 3: bunch of states in any given year, and I wasn't
Speaker 3: I was a hard worker, but I wasn't patient, if
Speaker 3: that makes sense. And now I just feel like I
Speaker 3: trust the process more and I'm like, if I find
Speaker 3: a spot that I think is going to work great,
Speaker 3: or if I find an area like we'll take for example,
Speaker 3: where I hunted in western Minnesota last year, I hunted
Speaker 3: public land for a couple days for one week in
Speaker 3: November I got my ass kicked. It didn't really bother
Speaker 3: me at all because I know it's probably going to
Speaker 3: take me years to figure out that area.
Speaker 2: Well, we should ask your cameraman about this because he
Speaker 2: might have a different opinion if that bothered you or not.
Speaker 3: But I mean sure, I'm not going to say it
Speaker 3: was all. You know, it was all a wonderful experience,
Speaker 3: but it doesn't that would have eaten me alive. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Ten years ago, you know, like that would have really
Speaker 3: bothered me. And now I just know this stuff doesn't
Speaker 3: happen quickly. You know, like if you trust the process,
Speaker 3: then you're going to put in enough of the work
Speaker 3: and enough of the effort and be patient it'll come,
Speaker 3: like you'll you'll get there. And it's a hard like,
Speaker 3: So I would I guess I would say like in
Speaker 3: addition to that kind of like or complimentary to that,
Speaker 3: would just be like embracing the long game more. Stop
Speaker 3: stop being so shortsighted and thinking like everything has to
Speaker 3: happen for me now, and just understanding that if I
Speaker 3: if my inputs are right, eventually I'm going to get
Speaker 3: that reward that I want. And that's a that's like
Speaker 3: a hard place to get to Man, it's it's really
Speaker 3: easy to get super frustrated in the moment and wonder
Speaker 3: why you're doing it wrong or why you know, you
Speaker 3: have a bad week or a bad three weeks of
Speaker 3: the season or a bad season. But man, it's just
Speaker 3: if you're putting in the effort, it's going to break
Speaker 3: the right way for you eventually, and if you if
Speaker 3: you know that, it's just like mentally so much easier
Speaker 3: to handle this whole thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think a lot of that must come with experience.
Speaker 2: Right Like early on in our deer hunting journey, there's
Speaker 2: there's so many questions like is this not going right
Speaker 2: because I'm an idiot? Is this not going right because
Speaker 2: I don't know what I'm doing? Am I doing the
Speaker 2: wrong thing? Am I totally off base? Am I totally lost?
Speaker 2: But at some point I think we develop a level
Speaker 2: of confidence in our skill set or our process and
Speaker 2: you know where you're at and where I feel like
Speaker 2: I'm at now, Like I now can find myself a
Speaker 2: situation like that where things aren't going right, and you'll
Speaker 2: have that that initial like, ah shit, what's going on?
Speaker 2: Why isn't this happening? But but I can I can
Speaker 2: ground myself back in the all right, man, trust the process,
Speaker 2: your your your logic here is good, your plan is good.
Speaker 2: You know why this should work. You're here for the
Speaker 2: right reason, or you're you've you've got the right process
Speaker 2: in place. Trust trust this thing, you know, trust the process,
Speaker 2: ride it out, you know, adjust as needed. But but
Speaker 2: trust your experience and know that, like you said, this
Speaker 2: is a long game. Sometimes that's in the matter of
Speaker 2: a week, or sometimes that's in the matter of a season.
Speaker 2: But you do need to eventually learn to trust like
Speaker 2: the foundations of your plan well.
Speaker 3: And I would say it goes way beyond even that timeframe.
Speaker 3: I mean when you when you look at what it
Speaker 3: takes most people you know who don't have just an
Speaker 3: unbelievable spot or really good mentors, you know, it might
Speaker 3: be ten years before they kill their first pope and
Speaker 3: young buck, like, I don't think that would be uncommon
Speaker 3: at all, And so you just have to embrace that
Speaker 3: reality is like, this is not This is not an
Speaker 3: easy thing that we do. We try to make it
Speaker 3: look easy, and we try to sell around, you know,
Speaker 3: the idea that we can make it easier for people,
Speaker 3: and maybe you can a little bit. But for most
Speaker 3: people it is like a long game. It's way longer
Speaker 3: than the three months a season that's going to happen
Speaker 3: this year or happened last year or whatever it's. It
Speaker 3: takes time, but once you get comfortable with that, the
Speaker 3: wins they come, you know, and it's not just I
Speaker 3: think maybe another thing that worth touching on is it's
Speaker 3: not just the tags that you fill, you know, like
Speaker 3: I like, you had a badass year last year. That's
Speaker 3: a good year. But there's also years where you don't
Speaker 3: have that, where you have some pretty sweet encounters in
Speaker 3: places that you're unfamiliar with. Those are big wins too.
Speaker 3: You know, they don't look as good on social media,
Speaker 3: but in reality, like for your personal journey, they're pretty sweet.
Speaker 3: They're like pretty good wins, even though they don't you know,
Speaker 3: we don't kind of measure them the same way, but
Speaker 3: I think personally we kind of should.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so much, so much of my progress and just
Speaker 2: like learning to you know, like last year, talking through
Speaker 2: trying to you know, better enjoy the whole thing. It's
Speaker 2: just just getting away from valuing that dead deer on
Speaker 2: the ground is the only thing you're chasing. Instead placing
Speaker 2: value on the encounters, placing value on those learning moments,
Speaker 2: placing value on that you know, breakfast with your buddies
Speaker 2: after the haunt. Like all that stuff makes for a
Speaker 2: great season two if you can remove yourself from the
Speaker 2: tunnel vision of like gotta have a big buck, gotta
Speaker 2: have a big buck, gotta have a big buck, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh man, and it even I mean I would
Speaker 3: take that a step further too, and say, once you
Speaker 3: start to get into that kind of mode where you
Speaker 3: tamp down those thoughts of having to kill a big
Speaker 3: one and the pressure that goes with it, and just
Speaker 3: just accepting the process and like I'm gonna try this
Speaker 3: today because I think they're gonna be here, and I'm
Speaker 3: gonna try this tomorrow, or I have my vacation days
Speaker 3: lined out, and just really allowing yourself to go from
Speaker 3: the non deer hunting bs in life which is heavy,
Speaker 3: to checking out mostly and being in that space. Like
Speaker 3: I know that probably sounds like sounds dumb, but man,
Speaker 3: we I don't know if you feel this or not,
Speaker 3: but let's say if I go on like a five
Speaker 3: day hunt somewhere, I feel like the first day is
Speaker 3: me like unplugging from the matrix and like finding this
Speaker 3: other world. And then when you get if you can
Speaker 3: really kind of immerse yourself in that, it's freaking awesome.
Speaker 3: If you wake up and you're like, all I have
Speaker 3: to do today is think about deer, Like all I
Speaker 3: have to do today is think about what stand I'm
Speaker 3: gonna be in, or if I'm going to you know,
Speaker 3: do a little scouting at midday and move or like,
Speaker 3: when you start reducing it down to that, it becomes
Speaker 3: a lot more enjoyable. And I know it probably sounds crazy,
Speaker 3: but like when you go when I do hunts like
Speaker 3: that and I come home, it takes me like a
Speaker 3: day to acclimate to being back into like dad life again,
Speaker 3: you know. And you really see that if you go
Speaker 3: out west and you do like that ten twelve day
Speaker 3: l hunt, where you know your your life is like
Speaker 3: shrunk down to this you know, task in this really
Speaker 3: cool setting and getting back into the real world and
Speaker 3: dealing with traffic and taking the kids to all their
Speaker 3: sports and all that stuff. It's like a you feel
Speaker 3: this palpable difference in like you're you're like being You're like, man,
Speaker 3: I was that thing. Now I'm back to this thing
Speaker 3: and getting into that mindset and that that way of
Speaker 3: being is real important and it's hard.
Speaker 2: So true, so true. So speaking of challenges, then if
Speaker 2: you were to look back on the last ten years
Speaker 2: and think back on the biggest thing that you are
Speaker 2: still struggling with. So if you we just talked about
Speaker 2: the area of your greatest growth, what would you say
Speaker 2: is the thing that, man, over the last ten years,
Speaker 2: you still haven't figured out, or you still have struggles
Speaker 2: you are still working on, You still have that thing
Speaker 2: that you have not quite conquered. Can you think of
Speaker 2: anything there?
Speaker 3: Oh? Man?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 3: Being happy with myself? I mean you, you and I.
Speaker 3: You don't know this, but you helped me a lot.
Speaker 3: I think it was probably last year where we weren't
Speaker 3: I don't remember. We were talking about planning or some
Speaker 3: of the content we were going to make or something,
Speaker 3: and I was stressing out about not doing enough public
Speaker 3: land hunts and felt like I needed to be out
Speaker 3: there just grinding away on public land. And you said
Speaker 3: to me, You're like, you don't, you don't have anything
Speaker 3: left to prove, Dude, like do what you want. And
Speaker 3: I think about this all the time, where and I'm sure,
Speaker 3: a lot of people listening to this do this where
Speaker 3: you know you're your your own worst critic, right, Like
Speaker 3: we're nobody's harder on us than ourselves, right. And it's
Speaker 3: so it's so easy for me when I if I
Speaker 3: were to think back to the last ten years in
Speaker 3: my head, it's not a highlight reel. I'm not like, oh,
Speaker 3: I killed that big buck here and I killed that
Speaker 3: one there. I'm always like, oh, I screwed up on
Speaker 3: this one and I blank there, And it's just a
Speaker 3: default to the negative. And it's that's a hard thing
Speaker 3: to deal with, and I think we all do that,
Speaker 3: Like I think I think generally we're all dealing with
Speaker 3: more stress and anxiety and issues than we than we
Speaker 3: outwardly project a lot of times, and that that bleeds
Speaker 3: into everything. And so for me, you know, one of
Speaker 3: the things that I try to look at and work
Speaker 3: on is like, just just do this in a way
Speaker 3: that makes you feel good. Forget, forget everything else. Just
Speaker 3: like try to go find the joy in this every
Speaker 3: time you can, whether it's you know, me hunting somewhere
Speaker 3: for myself or hunting for a project or taken my kids.
Speaker 3: Just like try to get into a good place with
Speaker 3: it always because I know I'm going to default to
Speaker 3: think and I'm the worst deer hunter ever and I've
Speaker 3: missed so many deer and at any given point, I
Speaker 3: feel like I have no idea what I'm doing, and
Speaker 3: I will like focus on that and it's so dumb.
Speaker 3: It's so hard to get over.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that is like the that's the trick, like
Speaker 2: to get past. That is the thing that changes it all,
Speaker 2: I think. I mean, I mean, you know, we've talked
Speaker 2: about this a lot the last couple of years. I've
Speaker 2: dealt with the same thing. And when you have those
Speaker 2: moments where you transcend that inner voice, of that inner critic,
Speaker 2: when you transcend that and you can just focus on
Speaker 2: the good and the experience and the fun and all
Speaker 2: that man like, then you're like, geez, this is yeah,
Speaker 2: this makes sense. This is why I love this thing
Speaker 2: so much. This is why I'm amped to wake up
Speaker 2: at four am to go do the thing. Like. That's
Speaker 2: why we want to do this stuff all year round
Speaker 2: is because of all this good stuff. And it's so
Speaker 2: silly to ever let ourselves, you know, make it miserable
Speaker 2: because of some inner expectation or worry about outside critics
Speaker 2: or anything, even though it's human nature to do it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, like that just not ever losing the joy
Speaker 2: of it like that. If ten years ago when I
Speaker 2: started this podcast, my goal with the podcast was like
Speaker 2: to make us better deer hunters, my goal now is
Speaker 2: like to reclaim the joy of it all, because I
Speaker 2: think that that's the shit that matters.
Speaker 3: Yeah, dude, I think it's like being willing to put
Speaker 3: in the commensurate at work, like the work necessary without
Speaker 3: like inner de sing the pressure that can go along
Speaker 3: with it. Like I think it's like understanding the effort.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'll give you an example. You know, I
Speaker 3: love defesstant hunt. I'm big into the dogs. Like my
Speaker 3: One of my favorite things in the world to do
Speaker 3: is just follow my labs around on public land somewhere
Speaker 3: and try to shoot some roosters. Like I love it.
Speaker 3: And I know if I relax, especially if I'm hunting
Speaker 3: by myself and I'm not worried about somebody else and
Speaker 3: their dogs. If I'm just by myself, I know, if
Speaker 3: I relax and I go, dogs show me where they
Speaker 3: are and I don't push it too fast, and I
Speaker 3: don't care if I get my two bird limit or
Speaker 3: three bird limit or whatever. If I'm just like I'm
Speaker 3: gonna just I'm gonna follow along behind them and let
Speaker 3: me show or let them show me where the birds are.
Speaker 3: It's those roosters are in trouble, man. Like there's almost
Speaker 3: always a limit out there that's gonna get up close enough.
Speaker 3: But if you get out there and you're like, oh,
Speaker 3: you know, I gotta get my limit today, Like we
Speaker 3: got to just cover as much ground as possible. You
Speaker 3: walk past, you rush your shots, You make dumb decisions
Speaker 3: because of that pressure. And if you can just learn
Speaker 3: to go I got to let some of that shit
Speaker 3: go and just enjoy it and slow down and be
Speaker 3: a little more patient. Man, good things happen. It's just
Speaker 3: it's just hard to learn and hard to force yourself
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 2: And it's not a thing, at least from my experience,
Speaker 2: it's not a thing that you like check the box
Speaker 2: on and it's done. It's it's not a thing like
Speaker 2: today I'm like, Okay, I figured it out now I know,
Speaker 2: and it's always gonna be great. I think this is
Speaker 2: like a every single time you go out you will
Speaker 2: have to like kind of work through this thing right
Speaker 2: or often. Absolutely, it's a lifelong process of learning to
Speaker 2: get a little bit better at this.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. I mean I say this a lot, but like
Speaker 3: happiness is a moving target, like a lot of this
Speaker 3: stuff is a moving target. Like it's when you hit
Speaker 3: it today, it doesn't mean you're gonna like it doesn't
Speaker 3: mean you're good for tomorrow, you know. Like, But but
Speaker 3: it's a it's a mindset thing, and it's it's how
Speaker 3: you look at this stuff and when you just learn
Speaker 3: to treat it that way and understand like mother nature
Speaker 3: is going to deliver man, like if you if you
Speaker 3: put in the work to earn it, and you know,
Speaker 3: you keep your head about you, you you're gonna get
Speaker 3: your chances, like you're gonna have those experiences that make
Speaker 3: you want to come back for more. But man, it
Speaker 3: can be easy to spiral, that.
Speaker 2: Is true, And it's just it's not worth it's not
Speaker 2: worth it. Like all the silly things we put on
Speaker 2: ourselves that stress us out, it's not worth stealing the
Speaker 2: joy out of this just incredible thing we have here
Speaker 2: to be able to hunt or fish, get out in
Speaker 2: either your backyard or a beautiful farm or the mountains
Speaker 2: or the plains, like, God, it's so good. It's uh,
Speaker 2: we're just so lucky to ever not enjoy it is
Speaker 2: a shame.
Speaker 3: Oh, big time man, big time. Well.
Speaker 2: I feel like this is a This is a good
Speaker 2: place to wrap it up, I think. I feel I
Speaker 2: feel like we hit on something that resonates with me
Speaker 2: at least and hopefully with others. And it's it's a
Speaker 2: great kicking off point for the rest of the year,
Speaker 2: I think, because we're gonna move into you know here
Speaker 2: pretty soon Midsummer. It's it's time to really gear up
Speaker 2: and get ready for the for the big opening day
Speaker 2: and and all that stuff. And I think we're all
Speaker 2: gonna be, you know, getting pretty hyped up. We're gonna
Speaker 2: be shooting our bows. We're gonna be getting the cameras
Speaker 2: out there. We're gonna see the target bucks, we're gonna
Speaker 2: be scouting the new spots, putting up the last minute
Speaker 2: tree stands, whatever. Like it's about to get serious and
Speaker 2: we can't forget this thing we're talking about today. We
Speaker 2: can't let ourselves get carried away when we get that
Speaker 2: giant buck on trail camera and get all obsessed and
Speaker 2: then get crazy as we get into September and October.
Speaker 2: I think we've got to keep coming back to this
Speaker 2: set of ideas here today, and if we can do that,
Speaker 2: I think that's that's a recipe for a great hunting season.
Speaker 3: Totally agree, buddy.
Speaker 2: All Right, man, well thanks for doing this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for having me on, all.
Speaker 2: Right, and that is a wrap. Thank you for joining
Speaker 2: us for another Wired to Hunt podcast. We are, as
Speaker 2: I just mentioned to Tony, going to be ramping up
Speaker 2: here pretty soon, so get excited. We're gonna be diving
Speaker 2: into some die hard deer hunting ideas, talking some great
Speaker 2: deer hunters here in the coming weeks and months. But
Speaker 2: for now, I hope you can reflect a little bit
Speaker 2: on what Tony and I just talked about and let
Speaker 2: it soak in, kind of marinate in these ideas of
Speaker 2: creating these better experiences, of focusing on the process and
Speaker 2: all of the joy that hunting brings. If we can
Speaker 2: keep that as our north star, I guess as we
Speaker 2: continue through the hunting season, I think, well, we not
Speaker 2: only have more fun, but you'll probably have more success too.
Speaker 2: So with that all said, thanks for being he here,
Speaker 2: thank you for being a part of this community. And
Speaker 2: until next time, stay wired to hunt,