Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 1003: Foundations - Why Good Snacks are the True Heroes of Whitetail Hunting

Transcript

Ep. 1003: Foundations - Why Good Snacks are the True Heroes of Whitetail Hunting · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
0:05
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,
0:09
Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or
0:13
Speaker 1: blind First Light Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your
0:18
Speaker 1: host Tony Peterson.
0:20
Speaker 2: Hey everyone, welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
0:24
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by first Light. I'm your host,
0:25
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson. In today's episode, you know, it's just kind
0:28
Speaker 2: of a fun one about the foods that carry us
0:30
Speaker 2: through the long days on stand and in blinds all
0:33
Speaker 2: season long. Last week I talked about my love of
0:43
Speaker 2: Vedicon and how it's a nutrient dent superfood that can't
0:46
Speaker 2: really be compared to anything else meat wise, at least
0:49
Speaker 2: anything else that doesn't live inside of a fence. Anyway.
0:52
Speaker 2: I love Vedicon because it's healthy, but I also love
0:55
Speaker 2: things that aren't healthy, like candy and snacks, the hell
0:58
Speaker 2: of a lot of stuff that's just, you know, the
1:00
Speaker 2: total opposite of a superfood. I especially love this stuff
1:04
Speaker 2: during the fall, when I'm hunting like crazy. Now this
1:07
Speaker 2: might seem dumb, but I actually believe that once in
1:09
Speaker 2: a while, when I bring the right snacks into the
1:11
Speaker 2: woods with me. I kill it deer because of them.
1:13
Speaker 2: Allow me to explain that right now. Since the deer
1:23
Speaker 2: season for me is truly over in every way, I've
1:26
Speaker 2: been messing with my gear to try to sort it
1:28
Speaker 2: out and you know, find some semblance of order. This
1:31
Speaker 2: is a task I do every year with hunting and
1:33
Speaker 2: fishing gear. I don't like it, but I do like
1:36
Speaker 2: the end result if I get to someplace that looks
1:38
Speaker 2: less like a disaster zone and more like Mark Kenyan's
1:41
Speaker 2: carefully curated butterfly collection. This year, almost as soon as
1:45
Speaker 2: I started, I pulled two different one gallon ziploc bags
1:48
Speaker 2: out of a couple of my go to hunting packs.
1:50
Speaker 2: The contents of each bag look like if you handed
1:52
Speaker 2: a ten year old a credit card and cut them
1:54
Speaker 2: loose in a giant candy store. Now, in the interest
1:57
Speaker 2: of how we are all victims these days, and how
1:59
Speaker 2: I don't want to take personal responsibility for anything, let
2:01
Speaker 2: me say this. I am a candy monster, but it's
2:05
Speaker 2: not my fault. You see, if you drink a handle
2:07
Speaker 2: of jim Beam every three days for quite a few
2:09
Speaker 2: years and suddenly take that away so you don't die,
2:13
Speaker 2: your brain starts looking for a substitute real fast. I
2:17
Speaker 2: didn't know this when I quit drinking, but I figured
2:19
Speaker 2: it out not long after. You see, alcohol has a calming, relaxing,
2:24
Speaker 2: somewhat euphoric effect on your brain depending on how much
2:27
Speaker 2: you consume. It also increases your blood glucose levels, and
2:30
Speaker 2: this trigger is are released of that sweet, sweet dopamine.
2:34
Speaker 2: Dopamine just doesn't make us feel good. It also cuts
2:38
Speaker 2: down on all of the static and our amygdala, the
2:41
Speaker 2: part of our brain that controls stress responses and some
2:43
Speaker 2: of our emotions. I guess a simple way to frame
2:45
Speaker 2: that up is that a lot of us addicts do
2:48
Speaker 2: what they do to numb themselves, and it works temporarily. Now,
2:53
Speaker 2: if your brain is used to that kind of thing
2:55
Speaker 2: and you take it away, it's not going to give
2:57
Speaker 2: up without a fight. So much of what we have
3:00
Speaker 2: wrong with ourselves is just us fighting our biology, our evolution.
3:04
Speaker 2: And this is really no different for folks like me.
3:07
Speaker 2: Trading whiskey for milky ways is called a replacement addiction.
3:11
Speaker 2: That reward center in your brain that alcohol trips well,
3:14
Speaker 2: a whole lot of sugar in a short amount of
3:16
Speaker 2: time can produce a somewhat similar effect. Honestly, the only
3:21
Speaker 2: time I've ever craved sugar more than in the months
3:23
Speaker 2: right after I quit drinking was when I stupidly did
3:25
Speaker 2: the Keto diet for thirty days. When that broke, I
3:29
Speaker 2: made a huge bowl of ice cream with a bunch
3:31
Speaker 2: of toppings and ate the whole thing, And immediately marched
3:34
Speaker 2: back into the kitchen and made another huge bowl of
3:36
Speaker 2: ice cream with a bunch of toppings and ate that
3:38
Speaker 2: whole thing. Self control has always been a moving target
3:41
Speaker 2: for me. That's one of the reasons I love just
3:44
Speaker 2: going a little nuts on snacks when I deer hunt.
3:47
Speaker 2: It's a green light to not care. And honestly, some
3:50
Speaker 2: of my favorite memories of hunting with my daughters are
3:52
Speaker 2: about going to the grocery store before we headed out
3:55
Speaker 2: for a long weekend turkey your deer hunt somewhere, just
3:58
Speaker 2: letting them pick out a bunch of candy, a little
4:00
Speaker 2: Debbie snacks and chocolate milk and whatever else they want it,
4:03
Speaker 2: then eating those snacks for breakfast in a blind while
4:06
Speaker 2: listening to distant turkey's gobble, or concentrating on the sounds
4:09
Speaker 2: of the forest while waiting to hear that most wonderful
4:12
Speaker 2: sound of a stick snapping because something bigger than a
4:15
Speaker 2: squirrel is finally on its way in. I think about
4:18
Speaker 2: this stuff a lot, and I don't know if it's
4:20
Speaker 2: a consequence of getting older or what, but it's that
4:23
Speaker 2: little stuff that really isn't so little that makes what
4:26
Speaker 2: we do so damn fun and meaningful. It's one of
4:29
Speaker 2: the reasons that I have such a hard time filming ons.
4:32
Speaker 2: The whole thing is an exercise to weed out anything
4:34
Speaker 2: that isn't immediately interesting or compelling, and essentially boils down
4:39
Speaker 2: days of effort into a sizzle reel design to work
4:41
Speaker 2: with YouTube algorithms. Look, there's a place for that, But
4:44
Speaker 2: how it feels is not unlike how it feels if
4:47
Speaker 2: you ever try to learn to play guitar and realize
4:49
Speaker 2: that that sweet riff you love in some song is
4:51
Speaker 2: the most obvious part of a tapestry of notes and
4:54
Speaker 2: sounds that blend together so well you can't really pick
4:57
Speaker 2: them out until you're either really looking for them or
5:00
Speaker 2: someone shows you exactly how each instrument contributes to the
5:04
Speaker 2: whole thing. You know, that guitar riff that we headbanged
5:07
Speaker 2: too is the buck walking in, But the pace and
5:09
Speaker 2: drums and everything else that makes up a good tune
5:11
Speaker 2: is all of the non dear critters doing their thing,
5:14
Speaker 2: and the smell of the woods in the fall, and
5:16
Speaker 2: the feeling that once the sun starts to set, the
5:18
Speaker 2: scene is going to start humming with something intangible, and
5:21
Speaker 2: even if he doesn't show up, it felt like he
5:23
Speaker 2: was going to, and that anticipation is so compelling that
5:26
Speaker 2: we keep going back, you know, like listening to a
5:29
Speaker 2: new favorite song and repeat. My daughter's eating Swiss cake
5:33
Speaker 2: rolls at seven thirty in the morning while I dip
5:35
Speaker 2: a kitcat into some black coffee. Isn't the same as
5:38
Speaker 2: the feeling of following a short blood trail to a
5:40
Speaker 2: spike in the big woods, But I wouldn't want that
5:43
Speaker 2: without plenty of the other stuff. Now, I know that
5:46
Speaker 2: the current trend in the outdoors is, you know, fitness, fitness, fitness.
5:50
Speaker 2: It's pretty hard to scroll through Instagram without seeing some
5:52
Speaker 2: jack dude shooting his bow without his shirt on, or
5:55
Speaker 2: some perfectly sculpted chick just finding a reason to shoot
5:58
Speaker 2: her bow and shorts that wouldn't quite adequately cover a
6:01
Speaker 2: baby chipmunk. And man, I'm sure there is a joke
6:04
Speaker 2: there i'd make with my buddies, but I have to
6:05
Speaker 2: rein it in on this podcast. Any huski, you'll never
6:09
Speaker 2: hear me say that you shouldn't try to not only
6:12
Speaker 2: get in good shape, but stay there, because I believe
6:14
Speaker 2: it. It's a cheat code of life. But you'll also never
6:17
Speaker 2: catch me with a kale smoothie in my pack while
6:19
Speaker 2: I hang off the side of a tree all day
6:21
Speaker 2: long in my saddle, waiting on something to cruise through.
6:24
Speaker 2: The food that we bring with us shapes our experiences.
6:27
Speaker 2: I truly believe that. The crazy thing about it is
6:30
Speaker 2: we often carry foods into the woods that we really
6:32
Speaker 2: don't want to eat, but for convenience sake, we just
6:34
Speaker 2: do it anyway. The first time that I went elk hunting,
6:37
Speaker 2: I did this in a major way. It was a
6:40
Speaker 2: long time coming, and I had spent a lot of
6:43
Speaker 2: time shooting and a lot of time at the gym,
6:44
Speaker 2: and I had worn out several pairs of brooks running shoes.
6:48
Speaker 2: I didn't want to be left huffing and puffing at
6:50
Speaker 2: the trailhead. I wanted to make the most of it.
6:52
Speaker 2: I wanted to be like a Western hunter, so I
6:56
Speaker 2: bought packets of almond butter, and I bought supplements basically
7:00
Speaker 2: created daily food bags that had about thirty five hundred
7:03
Speaker 2: calories in them, but you know, didn't weigh too much.
7:06
Speaker 2: By day three of roaming the Sangredee Cristo's out in Colorado,
7:10
Speaker 2: I was absolutely sick of just about everything I brought
7:14
Speaker 2: with me, including the mountain house meals that I had
7:16
Speaker 2: never tried before. I drove eleven hundred miles to spend
7:19
Speaker 2: a week in the back country. I lost a lot
7:22
Speaker 2: of weight on that trip, and I thought about how
7:24
Speaker 2: I wouldn't eat a packet of almond butter for any
7:27
Speaker 2: reason in my regular life. Ever, I don't like it,
7:30
Speaker 2: and I really don't even like peanut butter either, which
7:33
Speaker 2: is unfortunate because I had made bacon and peanut butter
7:35
Speaker 2: tortillas for my trip. I learned a lot about what
7:38
Speaker 2: I won't eat even when I'm on a serious calorie
7:41
Speaker 2: burning trip. It was stupid, and my white tail hunting
7:45
Speaker 2: hasn't been immune to this either. For quite a few years,
7:47
Speaker 2: a couple buddies and I did as many over the
7:49
Speaker 2: road hunts as we could, which usually meant just a
7:52
Speaker 2: couple each season. Now, at the time, it felt like
7:54
Speaker 2: a lot. But we don't do that anymore, and I
7:57
Speaker 2: missed the shit out of it. Life gets in the
7:59
Speaker 2: way and jobs and all that stuff, and the willingness
8:02
Speaker 2: to live in a tent, you know, with your buddy,
8:04
Speaker 2: it's just simmers down, but it never goes away. One
8:07
Speaker 2: of those buddies that used to travel with I'll just
8:10
Speaker 2: call him Ryan because that's his real name, is one
8:13
Speaker 2: of those people who, how do I put this, would
8:16
Speaker 2: frogger his way across an eight lane highway during rush
8:20
Speaker 2: hour to pick up a dime on the other side. Well,
8:33
Speaker 2: we made him the de facto snack guy for a
8:35
Speaker 2: lot of our trips because he wasn't reliable enough to
8:38
Speaker 2: handle any of the meals. He always brought a flat
8:42
Speaker 2: of very low grade muffins, and, probably because he found
8:45
Speaker 2: them on sale or in a dumpster, a huge amount
8:49
Speaker 2: of cliff bars. Now, I don't have anything against cliff
8:52
Speaker 2: bars or granola bars or protein bars, but he brought
8:55
Speaker 2: that same bag of cliff bars to multiple hunts over
8:58
Speaker 2: multiple years. It got to the point where, even to
9:02
Speaker 2: this day, a decade or so later, the sight, smell,
9:05
Speaker 2: or taste of a cliff bar makes me wish I
9:07
Speaker 2: had that kale smoothie instead, And as far as low
9:11
Speaker 2: grade muffins for breakfast, that's a hard pass on that
9:14
Speaker 2: one too. You don't want to bring food that you
9:17
Speaker 2: don't want to eat on a hunt, because that just sucks.
9:20
Speaker 2: It takes something that could be a nice little reward
9:23
Speaker 2: and turns it into a nice little punishment. You don't
9:25
Speaker 2: want that. You know why, because if you play this
9:28
Speaker 2: NAT game correctly, you might actually kill more deer because
9:31
Speaker 2: of it. I've talked about this some and I'm sure
9:33
Speaker 2: I've written about it a few times. But having some
9:36
Speaker 2: food as a reward throughout the day helps me stay
9:38
Speaker 2: and stand longer, to the point now where an awful
9:41
Speaker 2: lot of my hunts, I don't leave the woods all day,
9:44
Speaker 2: even when it's not the rut and I'm not sitting
9:45
Speaker 2: the same stand all day. I just want to be
9:48
Speaker 2: out there. But that takes enough food to kill the
9:50
Speaker 2: urge to leave and head to the cafe for a burger,
9:53
Speaker 2: back to camp to cook up something. This naturally means
9:55
Speaker 2: I eat a lot of sandwiches, and if you hunt
9:57
Speaker 2: a lot, you probably do too. Let me put it
10:00
Speaker 2: in another way, I almost never ever eat sandwiches at
10:04
Speaker 2: home because the amount of time I spend on the
10:06
Speaker 2: road is enough to get me my sandwich bix over
10:09
Speaker 2: and over. But man, the right sandwich on stand or
10:13
Speaker 2: while sitting on a river bank as you move spots
10:16
Speaker 2: can just change the arc of your day. I used
10:19
Speaker 2: to do pretty simple stuff, you know, a bun, some Mayo, cheese, meat.
10:24
Speaker 2: Now I try to get creative because if I have
10:26
Speaker 2: something I want to eat, it's a bigger reward and
10:28
Speaker 2: it makes me happy to be out there. Look, I
10:31
Speaker 2: know that sounds dumb, but I'm telling you this and
10:33
Speaker 2: I mean it. We are constantly looking for reasons to
10:36
Speaker 2: not be in the woods, even when we can be.
10:38
Speaker 2: For me, the more I'm out there, the happier I am,
10:42
Speaker 2: and the more I fill tags, which also makes me happy.
10:46
Speaker 2: Little things like adding some bacon and maybe a tomato
10:49
Speaker 2: to a sandwich can make it so much better. I
10:51
Speaker 2: lived a bare minimum lifestyle for a long time in
10:53
Speaker 2: my early freelance days, but now I like to mix
10:56
Speaker 2: things up. In fact, one of my favorite ways to
10:59
Speaker 2: address a hunting sandwich issue is to grill up a
11:02
Speaker 2: whole backstrap before I leave and then slice it thin
11:05
Speaker 2: for lunch. Meat. There's nothing wrong with store bought deli
11:08
Speaker 2: or ham or roast beef or whatever, but it's not
11:11
Speaker 2: as good as fresh backstraps on a good bond. You know,
11:14
Speaker 2: maybe with some pepper jack cheese or something. I'll make
11:16
Speaker 2: tortillas the same way, to mix things up, because even
11:19
Speaker 2: good sandwiches can wear you out after a few days.
11:23
Speaker 2: There are a lot of ways to make it a
11:24
Speaker 2: little more tolerable out there beyond good sandwiches too. You know,
11:28
Speaker 2: if you saw my North Dakota show that dropped a
11:31
Speaker 2: couple of years ago, you saw me eating peak refuel
11:33
Speaker 2: meals when I switch stands. That's one of my favorite
11:36
Speaker 2: moments on a Western hunt, and I've started mixing them
11:39
Speaker 2: into my white tail hunts as well. A hot meal
11:42
Speaker 2: eaten midday in the wild and chase with a twinkie
11:45
Speaker 2: or some gummy worms is just a spirit lifter. I
11:48
Speaker 2: don't know how to describe it any other way. It's
11:51
Speaker 2: awesome and just not something most people in the white
11:54
Speaker 2: tail space even consider. My Western cooking kit comes along
11:58
Speaker 2: with me a lot these days. I'll tell you that
12:00
Speaker 2: I'm cold mornings with my daughters when I make a
12:03
Speaker 2: batch of fresh hot cocoa for them. It has always
12:08
Speaker 2: brought us a lot more blind time than I deserve.
12:11
Speaker 2: So snack wise, you can make your hunts a hell
12:13
Speaker 2: of a lot more enjoyable, but there is a downside
12:16
Speaker 2: to bringing along a lot of junk food. I don't
12:18
Speaker 2: know if this is intentional or not, but it feels
12:21
Speaker 2: like the big brains behind snack foods are also huge
12:23
Speaker 2: anti hunters, and their goal is to scare away all
12:26
Speaker 2: of the deer by encasing their sugary gut bombs in
12:29
Speaker 2: the noisiest wrappers possible. Seriously, just try to open up
12:33
Speaker 2: a pack of pop Tarts in your tree stand when
12:35
Speaker 2: it's calm. It's impossible. Sometimes I pre open my snacks
12:40
Speaker 2: and put them in ziploc bags, but a lot of
12:42
Speaker 2: times I'm just too lazy, and I tell myself that, well,
12:45
Speaker 2: if this is how they bust me, they earned it.
12:48
Speaker 2: That's the potential tax I pay for bringing zebra cakes
12:51
Speaker 2: into my stand, and not something built with quieter packaging,
12:54
Speaker 2: like I don't know, bananas or oranges. Now, the funny
12:57
Speaker 2: thing about this is that it's just like when you're
13:00
Speaker 2: trying to sneak through the woods with someone for whatever reason,
13:03
Speaker 2: I'm always super duper quiet and stealthy and very forgiving
13:07
Speaker 2: during the rare moments when I put all my weight
13:09
Speaker 2: on a dry stick and it cracks loud enough to
13:11
Speaker 2: spook birds out of the next section, or when I
13:14
Speaker 2: step on a rock in ravine and then it tips
13:16
Speaker 2: and clunks into another rock, which is a sound that
13:19
Speaker 2: instantly tells all prey animals within earshot that some big
13:22
Speaker 2: asshole with a bow is headed their way. Now, when
13:25
Speaker 2: I do it, it's okay and just an honest mistake.
13:28
Speaker 2: When my hunting partners do it, that makes my blood
13:31
Speaker 2: pressure skyrocket instantly, even when it's my own daughter's, you know,
13:35
Speaker 2: and they have the subtlety of a drunken accordion player.
13:38
Speaker 2: The same rule applies to snacks. I had a cameraman
13:41
Speaker 2: with me a few years ago when we filmed the
13:43
Speaker 2: second season of One Week in November who for the
13:45
Speaker 2: first few days of the hunt where we posted up
13:48
Speaker 2: on public land in southern Minnesota, you know, where the
13:51
Speaker 2: deer weren't very thick. But the pressure was brought along
13:54
Speaker 2: a couple of things that drove me nuts. The first
13:57
Speaker 2: was a giant metal YETI that he couldn't not whack
14:02
Speaker 2: into everything metal that he found, and he was finding
14:05
Speaker 2: metal stuff all the time. But he also carried with
14:08
Speaker 2: him a really big bag of Starburst. Now I'm not
14:12
Speaker 2: against starbursts, I love them, but his strategy was to
14:16
Speaker 2: eat them only during prime time. And I'll tell you what,
14:20
Speaker 2: it almost killed me. Actually know what, It almost killed
14:23
Speaker 2: him because I was staring at his safety strap thinking
14:26
Speaker 2: maybe I should cut it and just give him a shove. Now, look,
14:29
Speaker 2: I know it's a dumb gripe, but when someone who
14:32
Speaker 2: has been two feet away from you all day waits
14:34
Speaker 2: until it's absolutely prime time to root around in their
14:37
Speaker 2: pack for a super crinkly package of candy and then
14:40
Speaker 2: eats it next to you, you understand how every once
14:43
Speaker 2: in a while people just totally snap. I guess with
14:47
Speaker 2: tree stand snacks comes great responsibility, because the one thing
14:51
Speaker 2: you don't want to do while you're trying to make
14:53
Speaker 2: your all day sits a little more palatable is to
14:55
Speaker 2: get busted by a deer when you're looking for a
14:57
Speaker 2: little sugar rush. You also don't need to think of
14:59
Speaker 2: a this solely when it comes to all day sits.
15:02
Speaker 2: Like I said before, my strategy for maybe the last
15:05
Speaker 2: eight or so seasons has been to spend as much
15:07
Speaker 2: time as I can on stand. I love this when
15:10
Speaker 2: I'm hunting water tucked away somewhere because you can get
15:13
Speaker 2: a visitor at any time of the day. But I
15:16
Speaker 2: also love it when I'm sitting over early season food
15:18
Speaker 2: sources or whatever. We like to think deer move early
15:21
Speaker 2: and late until pre run. It's just not true. Every
15:25
Speaker 2: couple of seasons I kill a decent one way into
15:29
Speaker 2: the midday, and man, is that rewarding. It's also a
15:33
Speaker 2: hell of a lot easier to be there when my
15:35
Speaker 2: pack is full of stuff that I want to eat
15:37
Speaker 2: and drink. And I know it's not as cool as
15:40
Speaker 2: a high level bed hunting strategy or something else, but
15:42
Speaker 2: it's actually doable for all of us, which is no
15:45
Speaker 2: small thing. Spending more time out there as long as
15:49
Speaker 2: you have the wind right and you don't have anywhere
15:51
Speaker 2: to be, is always a good thing. We miss this
15:55
Speaker 2: opportunity in the early in the mid season all the
15:58
Speaker 2: time because we think we shouldn't be out there, but
16:01
Speaker 2: we should. And one of the ways to be there
16:04
Speaker 2: and believe that and at least give yourself something to
16:06
Speaker 2: look forward to, is to bring the right snacks, So
16:09
Speaker 2: eat those little debiesnam on some peanut m and ms,
16:13
Speaker 2: and shoot a thirsty buck at noon in September when
16:16
Speaker 2: the rest of the hunters are at home thinking there's
16:18
Speaker 2: no good reason to be out there. And come back
16:20
Speaker 2: next week for some more ramblings, rants and ravings on
16:24
Speaker 2: this thing that we love so damn much. That's it
16:28
Speaker 2: for this week. I'm Tony Peterson. This has been the
16:31
Speaker 2: Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast. Thank you so much for
16:35
Speaker 2: all of your support. Truly appreciate it here. I know
16:38
Speaker 2: you're probably a little bored this time of year. If
16:42
Speaker 2: you need some more entertainment or some education on something,
16:45
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16:48
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16:52
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16:57
Speaker 2: at that site. There's so much content, so much good stuff,
17:00
Speaker 2: and not just typical how to kill a buck this
17:03
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17:06
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17:09
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17:12
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17:15
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17:18
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17:20
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17:23
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17:27
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Speaker 2: Great way to kill some time when you're driving or whatever.
17:32
Speaker 2: Check it out, and again, thank you so much for everything.