Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 513: Whitetail Therapy Session with Tony Peterson

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Ep. 513: Whitetail Therapy Session with Tony Peterson · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: modern white tail hunter, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon, and this week on the show, I'm joined
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: by Tony Peterson to break down the good, the bad,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: and the ugly of our hunting seasons and everything that
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: we and hopefully you can learn from those experiences. All right,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: by First Light. And today we're having something that, I,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: for lack of a better term, I am calling a
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: white tail therapy session. I'm just imagining like stepping foot
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: into and I've actually never been to a therapy session,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: so I don't know if this is actually how it goes,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: but from the TV version of things, I'm imagining like
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: I'm stepping into an office and there's this kind of
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: cushy couch in the corner, and I'm being told to
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: go sit on that couch. And then there's this really
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: nice older lady with spectacles sitting in an office chair
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: across from me, and I've envisioning that person is Tony
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Peterson today. Um so, so Tony, you can be my
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: very nice, elderly therapist who is going to sit in
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: the office chair and look at me while kind of
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: drumming your fingers together underneath your chin. And I'm gonna
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: lay on the couch and then we can flip the
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: rolls and I can be that person. You can lay
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: on the couch and we can talk about the hunting season.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: I kind of want to just just like dissect it
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: because we haven't really got to do that together at
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: all since the season started. Maybe we had a little chance.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: I guess we talked about the one we can November hunt. Um,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: but you know, past longtime listeners would know that. In
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: past seasons, you know, me and Dan would be on
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: here every week talking about what happened last weekend or
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: what happened last week? What you do right? What did
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: you do wrong? What'd you learn? How just screw it up?
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: What did you do? What would you do differently? All
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: those kinds of things, And I kind of walked through
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: the year folks could kind of learn along with me.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: And this year we didn't get as much of a
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: chance to do that. I haven't really been able to
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: dive into everything. Um. Now, I know you have been
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: able to do some podcasts, especially in foundations where you've
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: kind of shared some of these anecdotes throughout the year two.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: I really liked that episode you did Tony, I don't know,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: like a few weeks ago, just after the New year
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: broke and kind of talking about, you know, thinking about
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: your past year and what you can learn from it.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: I kind of want to take what you were talking
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: about and do it ourselves here for everyone to listen to.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Um see if you are making learn something or figure
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: something out, or if nothing else, get some ship off
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: our chests. And uh maybe that could be helpful for
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: other people too. So that's my idea. Uh uh, what
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: do you think about him? I love it. And this
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: probably doesn't come as much of a surprise to you,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: but I actually have been to therapy, so maybe I
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: can help you out a little bit. Mark, Yeah was
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: my description on or was I missing anything? Well? Instead
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: of I would take the old elderly lady h and
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: I would replace him with a younger, uh younger kind
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: of smallish guy who likes sweater fests. As a totally
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: non random example, I guess yeah, you've guessed the specifics
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: to point to, Like, have you ever watched the show
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Ted Lasso? Oh? My god. My wife and I are
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: watching ted Lasso right now and we're on season two
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: and it is the best. It is the best, great,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: great show. And so I'm also thinking of the the
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: sports therapist from that season of the show and and her,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: you know, her role in the show and all the
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: different people interacting with her was was interesting. Um so
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: what's her name? Do you remember her name? Um? I
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: just watched an episode last night with her in it. Man,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: because you could you could be my her anyways, So
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: what I'm trying to do, Tony, let's get back on
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: back on task here. What I want to do is
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: just talk about our years and some different things we
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: experienced and learned. And I've been doing a lot of
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: kind of thinking about it because it was a crazy
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: year for me and from a far kind of seemed
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: like it was a different kind of year for you,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: maybe in very very different ways in mind. Um, so
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: tell me this. I guess to start, and you feel
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: free to you know, you play host to Tony, so
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: you can send all these questions right back at me. Um.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: But but I'll start here and just ask if you
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: had to grade your hunting season on an A to
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: F scale, like you're in elementary school again, how would
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: you grade your year? And I don't, I don't know
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: how you're choosing to do this. You tell me, however
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: you want to define success or the great or whatever,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: But how would you how would you rate it? How
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: would you grade it? Oh? Man, you know, personally, my
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: hunting was I would give it. Maybe that's a hard
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: way to This is a hard thing to answer because
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: I didn't get to hunt very much, so it was
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: kind of a unfulfilling season, even though you know, outwardly
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: it looked very successful because I, you know, in the
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: short amount of time I put in, I had a
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: you know, as far as tags filled are concerned, it
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: was great. And so that part was kind of rough
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: because I didn't get to do some of the things
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: I really like to do and go run a bunch
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: of different states for public land. So maybe a C
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: for myself. But I also had the first year ever
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: where I got to take my daughters, you know, multiple weekends,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: and that was a plus. Man, That was that was
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: kind of what made my season. Okay. So I guess
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: combine those two though, So how does the bad grade
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: of your personal combine with a good grade of the
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: larger experience, like where does that nets you out? And
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: do you do? Is that maybe used answer for me?
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: But do you look at us that two things is separate?
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: I don't get yes, I do. I mean, I don't
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: really have any way to think about it other than
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: in my head. I go, you know, there was there
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: were the times where I was just taking them and
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: I didn't have a weapon, and then there were the
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: times where I was hunting and they just were They're different.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: They're so vastly different in how you have to approach them,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: and man, it was just so to take them. It
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: was just so fun. I just enjoyed it so much.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: And you know how this is, and I'm curious what
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: you're gonna say. But when you've got some obligations like
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: we had for one week in November, and you know,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: your your deer hunting gets mixed up in your work,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: it's a different experience and it can still be really
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: really fun, but you approach it in a different way.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: And so it's just it comes with different things kind
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: of attached to it. And that those hunts with my daughters,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: they were just like so pure, like we had one goal,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: you know, get out in the woods as much as
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: possible and try to get a few deer in front
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: of us. And I just I loved it, man, Yeah, yeah,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: I I can relate to that for sure. Um, because
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: you know, one of the things I want to talk
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: about is what we would what the best experiences were
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: of our year. And for me, almost all of the
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: things that kind of came to mind for me when
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: I started thinking about about that was when I was
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: sharing hunts with with someone you know, where where the
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: hunt wasn't about me and my success, but it was
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: about somebody else's or someone else's experience, like taking my
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: dad and son out or going out with new hunters,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: like those ended up being the best things I did
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: all year. When people would might look at what I
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: did and be like, oh man, this trip and that
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: trip in this place in that place, and those are
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: all fine and great. But when I look back, the
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: things that really were like impactful or that really had
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: the most joy associated with him or whatever, it wasn't
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: those things, which kind of surprised me when I started
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: looking at these things. Um. So when I if I
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: were to grave my year, um, I'm giving it like
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: a like a C minus a seed to C minus
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: somewhere in that ballpark. See maybe maybe it's just a
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: south Sea UM. Because there was like a bunch of
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: really cool things and then a lot of less cool
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: things that I kind of experienced throughout or that I
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: was like, I don't know, I mean, we'll get into
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: all that. But it was not it was not a
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: good year for me. UM. So we hold hold on
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: a second though. Are you are you grading your season?
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: You're not grading it on And I think when we
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: look at something like this, you'd say, well, you know,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: how many deer did you kill? How many tags did
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: you have? And it would be an easy way to
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: distill it down that way, But you're you're grading it
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: upon like your enjoyment. Yeah, I'm grading on a combination
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: of things. So from a tag, I'm looking at tags
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: failed a little bit and like so there's like the
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: surface level success of a season, which would be tags filled,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: quality of the hunt, anything like that, achievement of goals,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: anything like that, But then like enjoyment of the year, UM,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: overall satisfaction, UM, just performance like how I did on
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: the things that I try to do well UM, and
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: so on a lot of those metrics, it wasn't where
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: it needed to be or where I would like it
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: to be. Um So, so I think all this leads
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: to me, maybe I'm having this. I wanted to have
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: these conversations because I feel like I am in a
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: transition phase of my hunting life. I didn't realize at
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: the time, but now after this season, I feel like
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: I hit some kind of transition point, like some point
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: of inflection or something. Um And And I guess that's
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: why this is kind of an interesting conversation to have.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Um So, yeah, I think it was like it was
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: one of the coolest seasons I've had in certain ways
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: a long time. At the same time, might be the
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: worst season I've had in a long time. Um And,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: I guess we should get into all those things. Um
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: but yeah, but hold on a second. So when you
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: say that you feel like you're in a in a
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: transitionary period of your of your white tail hunting, what
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: do you mean by that? Okay, so we're gonna kind
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: of this, this will kind of be diving right into Uh.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: I guess that the climatic issue of sorts. But I
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: think I did so much this year. Um went on,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: traveled to so many different places, so many different states
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: with all these high flung goals. Um. And I've been
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: you know, you know this, You've You've had many conversations
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: with me in the past where I'm ranting about my
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: goals and you know, wanting to achieve this thing or
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: that thing, or wanting to kill some specific big old
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: buck with a name, or kill a hundred and fifty
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: five year old or whatever, all those kinds of things. UM.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: I think and I've also just been like more and
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: more and more and more and more. I've been like
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: always striving for more in one way another, whether that's
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: more from a quality perspective or quantity or whatever. Um.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: And after this year, I think I packed myself to
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: the gills with experiences and goals and like high flung aspirations. Um.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: And it came out of it just feeling like I
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: ended up losing sight. With some exceptions, I lost sight
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: of like the fun of it. I lost the fun
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: and things and the things that ended up with the
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: things I've realized ended up that are the most meaningful
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: to me. I did up not have any time for
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: or I didn't get to do it all, and instead
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: I was just like stressed all the time about this
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: thing and going to that thing and doing this thing
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: and did I accomplish this? And did I accomplish that?
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: And the season ended up just being like a giant
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: but all of of stress, um and like checkboxes to
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: mark whether or not you did it and um coming
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: out of it. I just have this feeling like, Man,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I don't I don't think I
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: want to be people that do this stuff all all
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: over the place and all the time, and like kill
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: ten deer year or whatever. Like I don't want to
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: be Leaving Morgan, someone who travels in place to place
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: to place to place in place and has to kill
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: deer everywhere and has to do that and has to
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: pack in all these things. And good for them, great
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: for them. I'm glad there's people out there that can
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: do that. But I don't think that's the path for
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: me now. I don't think I'm going to be that person. Um, hey,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: before this fall, did you think that that was Did
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: you even consider that a possibility before you went out
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: on this wild schedule you had last year? I mean,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: I don't think I ever I don't think I ever
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: wanted to be like I mean, I don't know why
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: I leave as the example and to but I never
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: wanted to go that far probably, but I think I
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: imagined something more towards that end of the scale. I
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: mean I always had like aspirations are always like dreamed of, Like, man,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: look at these dream seasons that people have are going
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: to this state and that state and this state and
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: that state, and they're killing a big buck here and there,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: and they're and I was like, man, I want to
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: do that. And I've had my own little versions of
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: that kind of thing here and there. Um. So so yeah,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: I aspired to something along those lines, um. And you know,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: everyone knows them quite gold driven, and so I like
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: to push myself in certain ways like that. But I
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: guess it went like too far this year or something.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: And maybe it's just like where I am in you know,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: family life and personal life and all those things kind
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: of all overlapping within this like crazy year I had,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: and all those things kind of led me to like whoa, whoa, whoa,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: like tap the brakes. Um, maybe that maybe that's not
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: maybe that's not the thing I want. Um. Does that
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: make sense? Yeah? Man, I feel like you're about seven
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: years behind me on this realization. And I think this
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: you know, you're in a unique position, and so am I.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: But I think when you you sort of chase that
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: that lifestyle, there's a there's a space of life, you know,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: there's a life phase where it's really good, like where
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: you can get after it and devote a lot of
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: time to it. But when you start having little ones
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: at home, it changes the whole thing, and it's harder
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: to be gone, and it's harder to just focus solely
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: on those goals of killing big bucks here and there.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: It just it becomes something different. You realize you don't
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: want to push it that hard. You'd rather, you know,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: cut your travel in half and really enjoy it and
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: have it be meaningful versus just like how much can
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: I get in in three months every fall? Yeah? Yeah, absolutely.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: And then I also think, like, just like the obsession
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: with killing something too a little bit like maybe I
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: would be really happy with having to quote unquote successful hunts,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: but having great experiences throughout versus shooting for while I
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: gotta kill six big bucks or whatever to to show
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: that I'm really good at what I do, and YadA YadA,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: yadaould have good Instagram pictures and all this stuff. And
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: I used to like have that like feeling like, oh,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: I should be doing that, And I've kind of found
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: that that's like tainted stuff for me. Um, and I'm
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: kind of over it. Like I'm I'm getting more and
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: more like over the big buck thing, as crazy as
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: that sounds. I mean, I like big bucks are cool.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: I'm always gonna be geeked out by them, and loved
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: chasing them and learning about I'm fascinated by deer, but
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: I don't know, Like at one point I was like
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: I had like a quiet goal with some of my friends,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: like man, I'm gonna shoot a one seventy by the
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: time I'm thirty. Um, and like that kind of stuff,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: you know, And like I'm over that, Like that's just
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: so trivial now in my mind. U um. And still
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: like those kinds of things, I'm just getting a little
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: burnt out on that side of stuff. Yeah, you're preaching
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: to the choir here, buddy, So so let me let's
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: let's unpack this a little bit more both your experience
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: of mind. So one of the things that made me
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: realize this a little bit was when I started looking
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: at the best experiences of my like what are the
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: things of everything I did that were my very favorite,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: and a couple of those things were Number one. I
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: did a couple of mentored hunts with new hunters, so
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: these Field of Four Counts. We just released a podcast
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: about it, so plenty of people probably heard about this.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: But you know, I got to take out two folks
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: over the course of several different weeks who were interested
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: in learning to hunt, and spend time with them, teaching
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: them about this stuff, and then getting to go out
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: on hunt with them and then see them have these
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: just awesome experiences, you know, seeing their first year of
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: close and then if actually getting to get a shot
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: at one and got their first year and go through
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: all those emotions and go through all that stuff, and
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: that was just so much fun just getting to kind
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: of see that, um, just being reminded of just like
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: the pure joy and the experience of what they were experiencing.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Getting to kind of live it through their eyes again,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Like that was just so much fun and so refreshing. Um.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Those are two, you know, two hunts that are right
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: at the top of my list, and I didn't get
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: to shoot a thing. Um. Another one of the best
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: experiences of my year was the one night the one
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: evening and morning that I was able to carve out
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: time to go hunting with my dad and take my son.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: And how sad is it that I only made time
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: to have one afternoon where I could take my dad
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: and my son up to our cabin and go up
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: there for a night. In the morning, that was it.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: But that was one of the very best things I did.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: So there was like an eye opener for me. Man,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Why am I run around doing all this stuff when
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: the thing that's most important I only give twenty four hours? Um?
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: So those were two things that stood up to me. Um, Well,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: what about for you when you think of like the
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: best things you did this year, the best experiences, I mean,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: I gotta believe a couple of them are taking your daughters. Though, yeah,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: you know I was. I was nervous about this this
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: past season because I knew I was saving my Minnesota
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: and my Wisconsin tag for one week in November. Projects
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I knew I wasn't gonna hunt very much
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: this year for myself, but I also knew my little
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: girls were raring to go, and you know, it was
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: just such a It felt like, maybe this is a
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: bad comparison, But when you get a good bird dog,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: you just go do more stuff outside like a good
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: dog just does that for you. Like I'm I'm taking
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: them for more walks. I'm taking them, you know, shed
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: hunting more. We're gonna hunt more. We're gonna go out more,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: do more things. And with my little girls this year,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: it was like, man, you know, we gotta get over there.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: We got uh, you know, put some blinds up, let's
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: scout around a little bit. And then the season starts
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: getting closer. It's like we gotta shoot more. And it
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: was just it was just such a cool experience for
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: them to be at an age where they were involved
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: in it and then to go over and it was
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: just a it was so relieving to me in some
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: ways to not have to worry about my own tags
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: and just you know, leave my bow at home and
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: take them out and go spend you know, I spent
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: four full weekends with them hunting this year, and it
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: just I had so much fun. I just I loved it.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: And you know, it's it's so great to go out
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: with you know, no standards, right, You're like we got
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: dough tags, we got buck tags, and we're just waiting
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: for a deer. To walk by, and you know, we
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: were in a place with low deer density, and in
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: those four weekends we only saw seven deer, but they
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: killed three of them, and so we got to do
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: the you know, blood trailing, We got to god them,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: we got to butcher all of them, and it was
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: just it was amazing. It was the best part of
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: my season by orders of magnitude. Yeah, So how do
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: you see, like, what does that mean for you moving forward?
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Like this is your first year getting to really have
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: them as involved as he did. How do you see
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: that changing things this year in future years for you? Well,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: probably I'll probably feel a few more tags and they'll
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: fill more, you know. I mean, as long as they
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: want to keep going. And you know we're working hard
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: on Turkey season already and you know, getting a couple
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: of states in and whatever they want to do, I'm
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: I'm game for it. So, you know, I know the
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: balance of my season from here on out at least,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: you know, they might give it up in a few years.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: You don't know what's going to happen, But if they
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: want to go, they're gonna go. We're gonna We're gonna
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: make those opportunities happen, and so I'll be planning more
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: of my hunting just around our you know, our work
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: obligations and when they're not able to hunt. And I'm
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: super okay with that. So what outside of the hunts
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: with your girls? So just the U hunts? Where where?
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Where were those this year? You did obviously Minnesota and
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin as documented on one week in November. Ye, and
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: then what else in North Dakota to so that just
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: that one? So that was way less than you usually do? Yeah, yeah, way,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: you know, I probably well, you know, I try to
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: front load my season every year, so September is usually
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: a really good month for me, and you know that
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: might be white tails and Western Games some kind of
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: mix of that. And I didn't even I mean I
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: literally never carried at my own weapon into the woods
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: the entire month of September this year, which is so unusual.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: So do you think so like now looking back on it,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: are you did you feel like it was did you
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: go too far in that direction and you miss not
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: hunting as much for yourself or do you feel like, man,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: it was it was good. It was fine because of
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: how great is with my daughters. And I'm gonna keep
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: it like this, like, do you see that changing at
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: all or do you see the same? I hope it
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: it bends a little more in my favor, uh, to
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: just sit more, because you know, it's it's just when
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: you're wired to do it, it's hard to have those
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: long times where you don't do it. And it's one
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: of the mains when you're ruggling with when you're wired
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: to hunt. Yes, yes, Uh, one of the things that
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: I'm that I struggled with this year. It's just not
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't I don't have I have one
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: place to hunt close to my house here and it's
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: being developed, so by May one of this year that
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: that place is totally gone and it's been it's been
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: going away for the last two years now, and so
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm really nervous about my future for not having
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: any I don't have any opportunity to just go out
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: and sit like an afternoon on a Wednesday night, you
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: know what I mean. So I'm like, I'm looking at
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: that situation going you know, it's I don't want to
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: really solely on having to travel somewhere to get my fix,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: but that's kind of what I'm staring at and so
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: I need I need to get that figured out, because
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: you know how it is, it's you get really caught
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: up in stuff, especially when you have a big travel schedule,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: and man, you start to miss just those times when
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: you go out by the house and just go sit.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: You know, it's not a big production that you have
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: to pack for you know, you just grab minimal amount
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: of gear and you've got a nice set up and
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: it's it's just relaxing and a nice little break from
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: the week. And when you don't have that, like I'm
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: I'm already anxious about not having that. I'm not even
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: dealing with it yet. So I I think about that
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: for this year a lot. Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: because that's like, as I was thinking through this, I
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: was trying to kind of take note of some of
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: the biggest mistakes or things I realized I want to
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: do differently next year, I guess this year now. And
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: one of those things that stood up to me too
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: was like not enough local time, because I you know,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: you and me both preach often about the value of
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: traveling to hunt and going to new places and challenging
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: yourself to get better and all that stuff, and for
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: good reason, like I think those are good things that
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: can help you grow. We both had a lot of
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: fun with it. But this year I've realized like the alternate,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: like the opposite side of the scale, which is doing
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: that too much to to to the point where you
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: don't do the easy, comfortable, local thing almost at all.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: And I kind of realized, WHOA, I actually really do
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: enjoy that sometimes, and it is important to have some
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: of that, um, Because yeah, like I had very few
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: hunts that were just like the relaxing, walk out the door,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: have a fun sit and you know, be back for
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: dinner kind of stuff, and you know, there's there's value
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: to both sides there, and this year kind of was
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: a was aha moment from me there for sure. So
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: you mentioned earlier that you're you're in this new place
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: where you're not as geeked about big Bucks as you
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: have been in the past. Does that mean you're gonna
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: you're gonna lower your standards and start shooting a bunch
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: of four keys? I did that this year, UM, And UM.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't say like I'm necessarily going to go that
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: far with things, um, But at the same time, I'm
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: not going to be opposed to it. I mean, I
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: I I had an experience, you know, this year lowering
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: my standards and it was fun. Like I'm glad I
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: did that with these hunts that I was on um
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: and so so part of me is like, yeah, that
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: could be more possible. Part of me, you know, also
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: as I think, I don't know, I don't know if
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: I'm fully figured. I don't know if I fully figured
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: out like what I want anymore. I think I'm still
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: in that sess um, but I'm just not going to
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: be I'm not I don't have the crazy obsession that
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: I used to have in which I was like, Okay,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: how can I get to these states where I think
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: there's big one sixties and I want to put more
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: bucks like that on the wall, or you know, really
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: thinking about that a lot. I think what I'm more
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: interested in now is how can I have some hunts
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: that are like super interesting or fun, so you know,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: like I'm interested. Like one of the things, one of
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: the good things that came out of my season was
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: the fact that I got to go to many different
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: places and experience these different styles of hunting, and I
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: found like that to be fun, Like I enjoyed that
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: side of things. Like my best hunt of the year
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: I think was going to Nebraska, and I love that
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: area out there, love the plane, So it was in
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: a place that I just love. And then it was
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: also a new style of hunting that was new and
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: just fun, just going out there with a handheld decoy
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: and running around like an idiot and trying to get
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: close to one. And I was like, it was just
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: pure type one, stupid kid fun and there's nothing wrong
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: with having that sometimes. Um So, I think I see
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: myself starting to not saying this will be like a
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: night and day change, but I think I can see
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: my seasons more and more going towards choosing hunts and
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: locations and things more around what's just a place I
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: want to be or people I want to be with,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: or experiences like I just want to like try or
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: have some fun with and less so man, I gotta
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: have a sick lease in Kansas where I can shoot
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: one seventies every year. I think at one point I thought, oh,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: I want to try to nail down that kind of thing,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: and I think now not so much. Um not that
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to go to big Bucks day, it's
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: not that I'm not going to enjoy those opportunities in
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: different ways, but it's it's just not as high on
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: my priority lists as it used to be. Yeah, you're
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: ready to go have some fun? Yeah exactly. Isn't that
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: what the stuff supposed to be? Um? So, so yeah,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: I think that's that's where I'm I'm heading. And you
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: know what exactly that means in you know reality? Like
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: how that ends up playing out, I'm not sure, but yeah,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: I mean life's too short to to be taking this
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: thing that we love and making it stressful or making
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: it you know so much. And I don't know, I'm
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: this is really getting into some psycho babble bullshit, but
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: I anyone who's listened for a long time knows that
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: I often like get into this like mission focus where
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: I'm like so goal oriented and like deer hunting for
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: me is like a mission. Like you've got the you've
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: got the target, your attacking the target with this very
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: strategic plan, um, and there's no no no quit in
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: you and you've got to do all these things you've
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: got to execute on the plan. And it's like it
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: almost like a military thing for me, and um and
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: I think there there is value to to like some
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: of that stuff, and I think maybe it taps into
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: a thing that I need and maybe other people need
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: to where like a lot of us need to have
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: some kind of thing like that to push towards, Like
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: that's good for you as a person to have, like
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: something to focus you and to focus your work and
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: to push you forward or whatever. Um, I just think
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: I'm realizing maybe it went too far from me and
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: that now I need to take a step back and
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: and look at this more experiential. Like one of the
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: big Aha moments I had this year, And it wasn't
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: like a single epiphany, but it was something that on
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: on many of these hunts that I was on, especially
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: at the second half of the year. Um, you know,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: I've got the cameraman follow me around Phil in this
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: new show, and so basically I got to the point
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: where just any time and I thought would pop in
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: my mind, I would just start talking about it to
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: the camera. Um. And what ended up popping up over
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: and over again multiple times. I discussed this in many
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: different trips, was just this kind of awakening I'm having
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: too too, how the process and the experience is becoming
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: more important to me than the outcome, And so I
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: was I was kind of realizing that like obsessing over
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: while whether I'm gonna kill a buck in Maine or
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin is taking the fun out of it for me,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: and it's it's maybe not what should matter in the
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: first place, maybe looking at the process and the learning.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Like so what I ended up looking back on these
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: hunts is like, dude, you could look at my hunting
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Maine as an utter failure. I didn't see a single
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: deer and kill a deer, let alone see one. Um.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: But when I look at it, and once I allowed
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: myself to start being okay with it, you can look
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: at and say, Okay, yeah, final outcome, goal, achievement, no, nothing, zippo.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Your failure. But on the flip side, I got to
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: learn a really cool thing. I got to spend time
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: with some interesting people. I was in a beautiful place.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: And if I could like release the pressure that I
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: was feeling to kill something, if I if I could
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: just get myself to not be so dang worried about
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: that and instead focus on the process, it was a
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: great thing. And that's what I like. That's like the
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: thing I was trying to do as these hunts went
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: along because I had like this building pressure like you
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: gotta shoot when you gotta shoot one and um and
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: for content like like we're is he you know, we're
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: in a unique situation like we do this for our jobs.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: We're supposed to showcase these things. And so yeah, for
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: my job for interesting videos, probably would have been better
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: if I would have killed more stuff. Sorry, folks, didn't happen.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: But for you know, the reality of most of us,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: and the reality for me this year was was, Hey,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: you know what, you can either hate your hate your
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: experience because you're not getting that outcome that you think
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: you need. Or you can shift the way you look
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: at this stuff and you can say, you know, whether
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: I achieve the goal or kill a big buck or whatever,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: I can still really enjoy this thing for what it
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: is and there's value and enjoying the fact that you're
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: gonna learn something or you're gonna grow. You know, you
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: did that podcast with Aim recently where I know you
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: guys talked about some things along these lines. That was
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: on my mind a lot where you could go and
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: you could have your you know, you're you're super nice,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: iowa a lease or whatever. Let's say nothing against Iowa leases.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: I might have one some day. But let's say you've
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: got your like mega big buck factory place, it's all
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: locked down, and you know every year there's big giant
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: Bucks out there, and you've got it all managed and
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: it's it's it's the air, and you know how to
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: do it and it's comfortable and you're gonna kill big deer.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: Like that's fun. I get that. I'd like to have
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: some fun doing that kind of thing too, But I
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: also found this year, like maybe there's also fun in
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: doing brand new things. Maybe there is also fun in
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: like in trying to learn, in challenging yourself a new ways,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: not being obsessed with the outcome of it, but being
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: obsessed with it. How do I learn as much as possible?
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: How do I grow? And like that's the fun thing?
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Um that like this large I don't know if I'm
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: articulating in this right, but like that was what this
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: year ended up being about. Like the good stuff on
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: my year, it was all related to that stuff. The
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: bad stuff was all related to obsessing over the outcome
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: too much, or like screwing stuff up when I was
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: trying to get the outcome. I'm so proud of you.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: You're making such progress in this therapy session. Or I
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: was worried about you for a while because you're such
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: a headcase, but it seems like you're coming around, buddy. Okay,
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: this is wanted to hear. No. What you're saying reminds
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: me so much when when I when I was twenty,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: I can't remember when I went out freelance. I'm like,
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna be a freelance writer and I'm like, I'm
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: gonna hunt public Land super hard and I'm gonna set
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: the world on fire and show everybody how you can
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: kill Big Bucks out there. I went to the darkest
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: place I've ever been as a deer hunter because I
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: was not enjoying it, and I was like, I've gotta
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: go kill big Bucks, and I fell apart. I mean
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: that's when my buck fever just hit like a whole
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: another level and my enjoyment just dropped, and it was
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: like it was a rough thing to go through, but
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: it changed, Like what you're talking about about, just like
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: I want to go places where I enjoy the experience
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: and you know, I'm gonna have fun and not just
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: not just you know, make all these decisions based around
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: the likelihood of encountering a really big buck. Man, I'm
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: right there with you, and it changed how I look
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: at it, you know, and like talking to Andy recently
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: about that stuff, like I realized, like it's so easy
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: for me to kind of and I think we all
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: do this to some extent, but just lean into like
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: what what we've figured out makes us happy. And you know,
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: like you said that that least down in Iowa that
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: somebody has that's a totally different thing, but that could
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: be just the thing that some hunters need to really
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: enjoy this and really enjoy the experience. You know. We
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: talked about the process a lot, and I've been I've
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: been thinking about this ever since that Andy episode. We
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: probably didn't outline it very well, but you know, like
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: our process is different than a lot of people. And
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: I realized, I'm like, man, the process of working on
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: a little piece of ground and and you know, looking
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: forward to going to till up some soil and you know,
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: throw down some clover seed or whatever, and it's it's
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: it's the same. It's a different path, but you're you're
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: angled towards the same result. Like you're just trying to
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: enjoy and soak up them as much of this as
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: poss sable. And I think that's why it's so easy
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: to sort of push this traveling mentality, because it really
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: gives you a glimpse into what you you really like
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: in this stuff. You know, like when you go to
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: like you said, you go out to Maine, and you
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: go to all these different states and now you're down
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: in Alabama, you're getting you have a really unique opportunity
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: to figure out what you really want to get out
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: of this stuff. And so that's you know, I mean,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: I guess sometimes we probably don't push that message the
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: right way, I guess, but man to go experience some
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: new stuff really shows you like I love this western
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: North Dakota land. I want to hunt your every year
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: no matter what. Or I don't really like driving ten
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: hours and sleeping in a tent when it's hot, you know,
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: like I want to stay closer to home and do
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: something else. When you start figuring that stuff out and
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: thinking about it that way versus just like I went
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: here and I either killed a big buck or I didn't,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: it's just the path to enjoying this stuff. I think
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: it's just it's just a little easier to see. Yeah, yeah,
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: And I guess the only way you figure those things
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: out is by trying all those different things. But then
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: like once you kind of learn where you're at or
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: what makes you happy or how you like to enjoy
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: this stuff, I guess we shouldn't feel guilty for doubling
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: down on that. I guess, like maybe maybe I've gone
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: too far, like pushing, like you said, kind of pushing
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: our narrative of what we like versus you know, kind
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: of also realizing that everyone's gonna have their own path
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: to it. I think that's a great point you make. Um,
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: that's that's also I guess it changes though, too, right.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, like I've had now this transition for me
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: that's changing, and what would make me happy eight years
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: ago it's probably different than what's gonna do it for
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: me now, And that's okay too. Can Can I make
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: a prediction about you? Yeah? Sure, I think you're gonna
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: start killing a lot of deer When you say, what
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: do you mean, like just just a bunch of deer?
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Or are you saying like I'm gonna have more success
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: in I guess expand on that. I think when you
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: start to say you know, the trophy thing, it's losing
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: its appeal to me. When you when you say that,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: what what that carries with it in its orbit is
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: just a greater less pressure and a greater enjoyment. And
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you what, man, when I stopped caring about
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: big Bucks, you know I shouldn't say that when it
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: when it became way less important to me, I started
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: killing a lot more dear because I was going out
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: to have fun and it wasn't that terminator style, you know,
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: gotta gotta encounter big Bucks like you were talking about earlier.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: I just started making decisions based around like where where
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: can I go to hunt that I think is going
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: to challenge me? Or I'm just gonna enjoy it, or
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: it's gonna have a whole bunch of deer that I'm
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: gonna be around, or it is an environment I just
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: want to hunt in. And when I started planning my
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: deer hunting life around just where do I want to be?
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: Because I know it's that that place is going to
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: do it for me. The stress kind of goes away
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: and you level off a little better and you're out
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: there more. I think you have a more larity to
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: your decision making and man, for me, it just when
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: when I did that, when that happened to me, I
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: started killing a lot more, dear. And I think it
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: was just because I wasn't making a bunch of like
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: anxiety stress build decisions. I was just like, what's what's
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: going to be fun about this? And you know what,
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: you know how it is like there's still a lot
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: of work mixed in there, and there's still a lot
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: of failure you know, tossed into the mix as well.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: But man, it changes. It changes how you act out there,
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: and it changes the decisions you make. And for me,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: it went it broken the right way big time, and
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: I think it's gonna for you too. Yeah, I think
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: that makes a lot of sense. And I I see,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: I see, I could see that happening absolutely. I could
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: also see. You asked me about like my goals or
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: standards changing or something, and I don't think. I don't
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: think I'm not I'm not necessarily going to go on
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: a streak of like shooting for keys um because I
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: am I trying to stay here. I think I'm just
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: gonna be okay more okay with just not shooting anything
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: um and that still being fine and cool Um, I
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: think I'll still always be had like a pull towards
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: like I don't know, like like a buck that just
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: makes me extra excited, and you know that will probably
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: maybe not, but I think for the foreseeable future that's
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: still gonna be like, you know, one of the better
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: bucks in the area, a three year old or four
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: year old or whatever. But I'm definitely not going to
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: be obsessing over like having to get a one sixty
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: five year old or something like. You know, some people
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: have these different trajectories where they slowly go up. Some
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: people want to kill a beggar deer every year. Some
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: people only want to shoot one seventy plus is. Some
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: people only want to shoot five or six year old
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: bucks or older. Um. And maybe at one point I
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: thought I would go closer and closer towards some kind
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: of thing like that. I don't think that's gonna happen. Um.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: I think I'll likely or at least I guess. I
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: don't know what the hell I would be like five
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: years from now, but like this coming here, I think
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna be super stoked to kill like a nice
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: deer somewhere, like a three year old. I think that
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: some of those bucks I passed in Iowa this year
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: will be getting an arrow for sure wherever I'm at
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: this year. UM. I also think that, you know, if
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: I'm a somewhere and it's just not happening and it's
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: not going my way, I'll keep on working at but
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna loose. I'm gonna try, you know, I
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: say this now, I'm gonna try not to lose sleep
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: over stuff not going well, and I'm gonna try to
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: be like, you know what, this is still a cool
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: hunt even though I didn't come home with something. Um.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: That's I mean, that's something I've talked about for years,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: trying to get better. But I want to keep getting
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: better at that because it sucks to put all this
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: time and energy into this thing that's supposed to be
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: fun and fulfilling and then you get done with it
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: and like, oh man, what a wasted seven days. Well
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: that's that's that's stupid. Um. So so yeah, I think, like,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: I think you're right in a lot of ways, and
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: having that mindset, hopefully weill ply end up leading to
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: me having more success on that, you know, with that
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: kind of thing like you're describing, because like, yeah, like
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: this year. I definitely found like the stress or the pressure,
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: whatever you wanna call it, you know, definitely impacted me.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, like, if we want to talk about one
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: of my biggest challenges, this is a little of a pivot,
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: but maybe this is a natural pivot, you know, one
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: of the biggest the biggest challenge I experienced and I
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: haven't really talked about this yet publicly, UM, although like
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: examples of it popped up throughout UM was that I
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: totally had a collapse of confidence in my shooting UM.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: And I think it began with that first hunt in
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: d C. I wounded that dough and I was so
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: upset about that. I was so stressed out about that.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: I was so down on myself for that shot. UM,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: and you know that being the documented ending to this show,
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: I was produceding and like all the stuff it led to,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: and you know, having the cops called and just a
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: disaster all the way around. I was so upset about
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: that that then I was like, oh God, I hope
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to have like another descent into target
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: panic like I had a handful of years ago. And
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: I remember having these like internal conversations like don't let
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: this be like a thing. Don't let this start going
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: down that, don't let this get into your head. But
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: of course as soon as you start saying that ship,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: it's getting in your head, um and so and so.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: Then you know, I go to Arkansas and I didn't
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: have a muzzleloader, and so we had to have a
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: muzzleloader shipped to me from Meeta your headquarters before that hunt.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: And then I'm like getting it sighted in and getting
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: it ready like just the week before the season, but
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: week before the hunt, and it will not uh, it
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: will not group well. And like I mean, I went
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: through so many rounds. I can't get this damn thing
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: the group well. I went like three different times to
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: different stores trying to find different sabbots and bullets to try.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: And now I'm having like a panic of like why
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: can't I shoot a gun anymore? What's wrong with me?
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: I can't shoot this damn gun. And I'm trying to
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: figure out what's going on, if it's the scope, if
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: it's me, and so I have this whole thing with
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: my gun now. Um. I ended up finding around that
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: shot better um and was able to be okay with it.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: But it's definitely like like that that mental thing traveled
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: with me to Arkansas, and you know, I killed a
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: deer there. First shot. I don't know what was the
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: first shotter of second shot. One of the shots was
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: not great, one of the shots was perfect. But it
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: took me two shots to kill this deer. Um. But
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: that was like a thing okay in my head that
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: didn't go as well as you wanted to go. And
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: then there's all that leading into it. Now we go
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: to Iowa, my well documented miss on that buck, which
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: now is like, okay, now this is a documented descent
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: into chaos. I wounded a deer in uh d C.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: I had to take two shots on this deer in Arkansas.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: Now I missed one of the biggest bucks in my
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: life in Iowa. Um where like there was so much
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: pressure built to that moment. And finally the last day,
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: and we all know I've already told everyone how I
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: felt throughout that thing. Now that happens. So now we
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: get to Nebraska, right, I leave November seven is our
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: last day in Iowa. I pack up that night and
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: start driving to Nebraska. The next morning. I finished my
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: drive while recording a podcast in which I'm like documenting
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: what happened over the last seven days. I get to Nebraska,
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: and the biggest thing on my mind wasn't like, how
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: do I do this hunt well. It wasn't like what
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: I need to do right. It wasn't like how much
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: cool this place is or how much fun this is
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: gonna be the biggest thing in the back of my
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: mind was you better not mr wounded deer. You better
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: not screw this up. And so that was the thing
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: that was stressing him out that whole time. And because
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: of that, I became super and I have not talked
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: abous yet. I became very shot hesitant. There were several
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: times that there were deer that had been historically within
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: my range that I could killed, probably that I didn't
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: shoot at because I was so paranoid. I didn't trust
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: myself anymore and I did not want to have another
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: screw up um. And so like I had a buck
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: come into the decoy and circle around me and I'm
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: ranging him. He's like forty three, forty two, forty UM,
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: and you know, might have got within forty somewhere in
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: that ballpark was the last number I hit on the
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: range finder and in past years, and you know, I
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: can shoot just fine, and killed deer at forty yards
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: or half historically at least, and I can do that
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: behind the house just fine. But in that moment, I
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: was like, no, I really want this deer to get
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: in with like chip shot distance, and you know, talking
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: to Tony Treats about He's like, yeah, you certainly can
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: get those deer and closer. So that deer was broadside
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: within my typical max range. But I didn't take that
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: shot because I was like, God, I don't I don't
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: want to possibly screwed up. I want just a slam dunk.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: I gotta get just a nice close, easy shot because
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: I didn't trust myself anymore, and I didn't get a
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: shot that deer. Um, there was another smaller deer that
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: did something similar, same deal. I probably had taken a shot,
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: and maybe it's good that I didn't like force a
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: shot that wasn't um, you know, it wasn't a slam dunk.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: But the same side, I guess another side of it
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: was I had opportunities that if I had that confidence,
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: if I hadn't gone down this descent, I probably could
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: have killed the deer out there. Um. So there's a
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: couple of examples there in d c um, you could
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: then look at you know, my continued shooting issues. Go
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: to Alabama and I get a shot. Now this was
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: like I mean these sometimes these things just happened. Like
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: I got a shot and I hit the farthest out
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: inch of this tree this deer was standing behind, and
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: and missed a deer because I was inch and a
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: half too far to the left. If it had been
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: an inch and a half to the right or with
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: a heart shot him, he was dead. Instead, I hit
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: a tree. So now I'm feeling worse about stuff. Then I,
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: you know, hour later, another buck comes out and I
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: do get a shot at him, but the shots back
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: because of all these things. Again, I rushed that shot, um,
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: So like bing bang boom, over and over and over,
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: these things start happening this year. Then I get to
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin and I'm hunting in this box blind, set up
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: that tom and drew ahead in the place right seeing
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: deer coming out to the standing corn, and I think, okay,
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: i gotta go over to the standing corn with his
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: deer coming out, He's got an old box blind. I'll
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: just sitting there the first night, and I remember getting
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: set up in there and trying to think through. Where
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: am I going to get a shot? You know? Where
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: are my shots at? Where can I Where can I
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: do this? And there was this patch of standing corner
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: in front of me, and if a deer came right
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: in front of you, there was corn that art have
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: been cut right in front of you. You You could shoot
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: to twenty yards until you hit the standing corn. And
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: then there was a standing corn. And remember thinking, man,
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: I really want to get set up for a deer
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: to come right through this gap in front of me,
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: because I want a twenty yard shot. I don't want
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: a fourty yard shot. I don't trust myself anymore. There
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: if I were to shoot out the right window, if
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: deer did come from the right, the edge of that
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: standing corn was about forty forty one yards. In previous years,
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: that should have been a shot I was ready to
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: take and could have taken. But in my heart of hearts,
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: I was like, I don't really want to shoot a
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: forty yards shot um in January out of a box
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: blind and it's cold, and I don't want to screw
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: this up again, So I didn't. Now, maybe that was
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: a good call on its own, but this is a
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: symptom of what happened to me this year. And then
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: lo and behold the two shooter bucks I see that
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: night are at that corner at forty one yard something
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: like that, give or take. I could have got shots
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: at those deer, but I did not because I was
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: afraid to shoot at those deer. If I'm being honest
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: with you guys, like in my back of my mind,
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: like I was afraid to do that because I didn't
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: trust myself anymore. And they never ended up coming. They
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: did come and range, but they're in the standing corn
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: and couldn't shoot through it. So there's another possible opportunity
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: I could have had that I didn't because of this
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: thing that happened to me this year that I experienced.
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: And and I think the overarching symptom, or the overarching
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: theme of all these things, I think is the pressure
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: I put on myself and the stress I allowed myself
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: to have on all of these hunts, which I think
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: then led me to freaking out more and more with
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: each of these shots. And then all of the SuDS
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: compound um leading to me having, you know, my worst
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: shooting year ever. And the biggest thing I gotta work
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: on this year is now like rebuilding myself. Um so
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: I don't know. That was a long winding admission of
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: all my screw ups this year. What do you make
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: of any of that? Tony, Well, let me ask you this.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: I know, I know what happened on that Iowa buck
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: to some extent, right, you were trying to trying to
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: squeeze you away under the cameraman's bag, and it was
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: a really big deer at the end of a kind
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: of a rough shoot. But what about what about the
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: dough and DC that you lost? What happened there? So
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: two things, Um it was I was I got stuck
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: at full draw. It was the last night, so it
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: was last hunt. It was wine, we're running out of
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: shooting light. I called with a faun and distress, call
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: to get this dope to come back towards me. She
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: comes back. I remember. I definitely was thinking I gotta
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: get a shot this year, like we need Like I remember,
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: there's talks that we really got to get a you know,
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: we've really got to get a dough to make this
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: episode work whatever, And at least in my head I
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: was thinking that, and so like we have to get
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: this and so this dough starts working her way in
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: and um, I remember thinking, okay, like this is gonna
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: be my only opportunity to get drawn, because she's we're
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: hunting a freaking yard were she's walking across this big
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: grassy yard, and she's about to step behind these tree branches,
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: and and then she's gonna be out of range if
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: she goes any further past that tree, like there's one
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: little opening. So I thought, well, this is it, this
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: is the only chance, and so I drew just as
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: she was going to be going behind those branches, and
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: hopefully we continue her path and give me that one shot.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: Well she stops right there, um, behind the tree branches,
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: out of range, behind the tree branches. I'm well, is
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: that right? She behind the trees? I guess. I don't
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: remember exactly where she was, but all I remember was
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: I was drawn and I couldn't move, so she must
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: have her. She was staring at us, I know that,
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: and I couldn't move, and I was at full draw,
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: and I remember thinking, you better not move, you better
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: not pull this bow down because like she will bust you,
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: and this thing is done zo. And then I was
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: stuck at full draw for I don't remember how long,
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: but it was a very very long time, long enough
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: that I was like, I can't do it. I can't
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: hold this anymore. I remember having like slowly angled down
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: a little bit. I stayed at full draw, but I
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: angled my arm down just so it's like easier for
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: me to hold it. Um. And I was just stuck, stuck, stuck,
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: And then finally she started moving and finally she stepped
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: into that gap. And I certainly, man, I'm trying to
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: remember exactly, I certainly just did not execute that shot perfectly.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: I think part of it was the fact that my
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: arms are super tired, and part of it was like
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: rushing it, just like okay, finally it's here to take
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: the shot. Um. It was a common It was like
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: a twenty shot, and the shot we believe hit low.
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: So I think it was good but low. And we
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: never recovered her. So it was like that low brisket.
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: If it was an inch or too higher, it could
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: have been heard if you know, uh in in this case,
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: it wasn't. When you shoot deer or shoot at dear,
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: do you do you typically remember your pins being on
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: their side or your pin being on their side? Man?
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: I remember I remember like where the pin was in general, Yes,
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: I've had experiences were left like like usually my my
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: my shooting problems would come from the shot would go
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: off as soon as the pin hits the vitals, so
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: like I would be dropping down. And then as soon
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: as the pins on the vitals, like the shots off.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: Now I switched to a back tension style release and
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: so as soon as the pin hits the vitals, that's
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: when I release the safety and my pulling begins and
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: so and some of my hunts that has like it's
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: forced me to slow down and the shot has been better. Um.
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: This year, you know, I shot at two deer in
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: my bow, and I think both of them. I can
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: like I can remember, I can remember the shot being
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: there and feeling like it should have been okay. But
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: I definitely think like my arm dropped on that dough,
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: and I think that could be a combination of rushing
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: and just exhaustion and my my natural if I ever,
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: if I ever miss, whenever I do, um not hit
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: the bulls, and let's say just on a target, it's
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: usually low, like my natural predisposition is for that arm
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: to drop a little bit and so the shot goes
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: a little low. Um, and I think that just happened
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: to the extra with that dough um. I think that
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: happened to a degree with that buck um because of
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: both my arm dropping and because of the funangling of
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: physical or of trying to physically get around that backpack. Um.
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: But I'm sure like that was rushed a little bit too.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: I definitely did not like sit the pin on that
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: box of vitals for five seconds and make sure everything
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: was perfect before like going. That didn't happen that buck
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: I like was maneuver trying to get a position, trying
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: to get position, finally got drawn back, bump up against
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: the backpack, leaned down more, I got the pins on
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: the vitals, and then it was like gone. Um. I
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: still with that one. I still can't explain how it
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: missed as much as it did. Like I was not.
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: It wasn't There's no way I should have missed as
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: much as I missed. And I'm just I'm telling you
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: I've screwed up in a lot of ways, but I
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: did not. There was I wasn't like shaking. It wasn't
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: like I couldn't hold the pins on the buck or anything.
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: So the fact that it hit like three ft to
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: the left in like a foot or whatever makes me
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: think that something else is involved to like when I
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: when I released, like it maybe it hit the backpack
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: on release and bumped it down or something. Um. So
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: it's not to make excuses, but it's same, like something
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: happened there that made that thing extreme. Are you you're
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: shooting what are you shooting? Like a five pin site? Yeah? Yeah,
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: five pin site. I want to go back and watch
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: that miss because I wonder if you're maybe you know,
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: you might be dropping your bow arm, but you might
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: also be trying to look at that arrow as soon
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: as you release the shot, so that might be influencing
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: your form a little bit, especially when you shoot at
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: a deer. You might not notice it. You might not
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: do it when your target shooting. But I've seen this happen.
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: I've got a good buddy that I got into bow
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: hunting probably like twelve thirteen years ago, and he, you know,
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: he started out like everybody did. He had a three
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: or four or five pin side I can't remember, but
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: he would he was shooting guts or you were shooting
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: shoulder over and over and over again. I'm like, man,
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: what is going on here? And what I think he
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: was doing, was he shoot and try to look around
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: those pins, that rack of pins. And so I talked
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: to him into trying out a single pin site, one
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: vertical pin, and he got You know, it wasn't like
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: instantly better, but his his game of shooting deer correctly
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: changed big time. And so sometimes when you you know,
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: like and I know like a lot of people like
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm messing with a single pin site. What what
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: you don't think about is, you know, I can I
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: can buy the right single pin site like an h
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: H and I can have one vertical pin and a
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: entire site window on both sides. I can see the
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: front and the back of the deer. However I'm shooting
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: at them, and I don't like, I personally don't feel
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: like I have to try to look for that arrow
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: or try to see more of the deer. And I
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: think that we don't. You know, some people obviously don't
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: have a problem with it at all. But when you
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: start sliding down that buck fever rabbit hole and you
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: start falling apart, you're doing you're doing probably several things
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: that are screwing up your shot that you're just not
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: aware of. Because it's like like you said you shoot
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: two times a year at deer. You know, like I
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: don't know, there's a lot of things that can go wrong.
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: It's kind of hard to pin down, especially when those
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: things don't afflict you during your practice sessions. But I
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: wonder if you consistently missed that way, it might not
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: be you dropping your arm. It might be you picking
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: your head up to look. Yeah, I don't know, it
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: could be I mean certainly willing to try something different. Um,
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: because yeah, it's it's not like I don't get I
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: don't really get buck fever and like a traditional sense,
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: like I'm not shaking and freaking out or nervous or
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: anything like, I'm very like al right, like this business time,
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: Like this is the thing, this is what you gotta do.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: And I'm pretty locked in. I think my the way
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: it comes out for me is just traditionally has been
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: just like rushing it. Um, just like just that final
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: second or two is is too fast. Um. So let
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: me ask you this, those that that Iowa buck that
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: you missed. If you put a target out their full
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: size three D deer target that size at that range,
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: how many times do you think you'd have to shoot
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: at it before you missed, like missed entirely. Yeah, yeah,
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: like I mean, I mean fifty I don't know. I
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: mean I can, I can. I can put an arrow
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: in the vitals of a thirty three yard deer like
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: piece of cake every time, no doubt about it. It It
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: should have been a chip shot. It should have been easy.
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: Um so so then why are you rushing your shot? Then? Hell?
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: If I know, I mean, it's like the body taken
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: over in that moment. I mean I think that do
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: you know what my assessment is Mark that there might
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: be there might be more buck fever there than you think. Yeah,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: And I guess what I'm saying is is like what
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: I deem traditional buck fever being like shaking and like
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: that kind of thing is not my way. It manifests
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: My manifestation is like what I just described. So yes,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: like there's obviously like something that makes it so that
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: I'm not doing a perfect no doubt about it. Well, yeah,
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: and we so I've given a ton of seminars on
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: buck fever and I've I'm very familiar with it, and
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: I just look at this and I go, if you,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: if you're super confident that you would not screw that
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: shot up on a target, there's something going on. And
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: if you're not rushed when you're target shooting, and yet
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: you know you're rushed when you're shooting at a deer,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: like you can feel it, and you know, like I
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: did it too fast, I did it too fast. You're
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: it's the mental game, isn't there quite the way you think?
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: And that's I mean, that's one of the reasons why
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: I dumbed down my shoe ooting, because I knew if
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: I'm if I'm shooting at a target, I can shoot
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: a seven pin site target shoot all day long, no problem.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: But you put a heartbeat on that thing, and I'm shooting,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: you know, twice as fast as I should. And I
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: just had to declutter my sight window so my target
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: acquisition would be quicker. It was easier to float that pin.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: And because I knew, instead of me being able to change,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: part of it was just changing my equipment to accommodate
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: the fact that I was going to lose my mind.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: And so like what you're talking about their mine mine,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: I was always shooting over. I wasn't shooting under. I
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: was always shooting over because that rack of pins would
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: hit that deer and I'd shoot before I got it
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: down on them, and I just had to like, I
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: don't I don't like this, this feeling of just not
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: being able to keep my ship together when there's a
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: deer in front of me and just dumb the whole
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: thing down. And man, at least for me, it was
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: a game changer. Yeah. Well, hey, I'm muh, I'm gonna
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: be working on working on something new this year, so
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: that very well might be it. Um yeah, I don't know.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: It was. It was not fun having that loss of confidence,
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: that's for sure. Yeah, it's it can that's a that's
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: a season ruiner there. Yeah. Yeah, So that was like
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: my biggest challenge this year. I was dealing with that.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: What about you? Did you have anything at all that
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: you found challenging or some any big like mistake or
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: set of mistakes or something like did anything go wrong? Yeah?
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, isn't that something's always going wrong? You know?
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: I had I had an experience in North Dakota where
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: the deer were really really pressured, and so I felt
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: like I was working on one buck that was coming
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: over on the public side where I was hunting, and
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: I set up for that deer the very first night
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: I hunted and he came in and it looked like
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: I was going to have a really short, really successful hunt.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: And he was about I don't know, three steps maybe
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: maybe four or five six ft away from being in
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: my shooting lane, perfect to my left, and the thermal's
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: got me and he took off and I was sitting
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: there going the only deer I feel like I even there,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: you know, the only nice buck that I felt like
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: I had a chance at just caught me in the
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: only place I felt like I had a chance at
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: him at. And so it was like, okay, time to
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: time to reinvent the wheel there that was. That was
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: a sinking feeling because I knew I knew I wasn't
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: working with a whole lot, and you know, I ended
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: up shooting a deal later there. Um, so it worked
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: out okay. But you know, it's tough when you're like
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: you get out there and you have those real high
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: expectations and you start looking around, you're like, man, I
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: can't even hardly find one, and if I do, he's
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: on the wrong side of the fence. And then there's
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: one really good one and you go there and it's
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: like you give him your best shot, and that deer
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: is like I got you and you watch him run
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: away and it's like, now, now what do I do
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: for the rest of the time? You know, that was
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: that was tough. You know, I missed a buck in Wisconsin,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: so you want you want to talk buck fever um
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: that that buck I missed for one week in November.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: You know, came running out and I stopped that deer,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: you know, wide open from a ground blind and you
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: know he was I can't remember what he was yards
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: something like that. Just like that that that deer is
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: not getting away and my cameraman couldn't get on him
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: because of the blind, and so I'm like, well, now
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: I've now he knows something's up. And that's when that
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: was when the panic for me set in, because now
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking I gotta let him walk. Then I got
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: to stop him again and shoot him. And I should
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: have just knowing how I felt then, and you know
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: how this is. Sometimes you just get into that mode
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: where you're like, I'm killing that deer, and it makes
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: you take dumb shot sometimes. And you know, if you
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: were asking me like right now and be like, is
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: there any situation where you're murped at a deer twice
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: and you're gonna get him and be like, no, that's
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: a train wreck way to happen. Well that's exactly what
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: I did. And man, I you know, I shot over
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: that deer and just dumb like I knew. I knew
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: when I stopped him, and I couldn't shoot him where
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: I planned to shoot him. I should have just let
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: him go, you know, like I should have just been
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: like this was you know, he got me like this,
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: he wins. But I knew he was going to be
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: in the wide open steel and I was gonna have
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: a chance. But by then, my you know, my mental
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: faculties are gone. I'm I'm screwed, and you can see
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: the results. I shot right over him, and so that
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: was that was a good reminder to me because like
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: what you're talking about, when you when you almost get
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: to the point where you don't want to shoot because
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: you're scared of what could happen that you know. I've
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: messed around with traditional bow hunting some in my life,
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: and I had I had one season where I had
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: a good year the re curve and it was really fun,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: and the next year I didn't shoot as much and
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: you can't. You can't half asked that when you're when
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: you're shooting with her traditional bow, it takes so much practice,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: and I didn't put it in. And I remember going
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: out opening morning, and you know, this was I was
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: like twenty five or something, and I had a nice
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: two and a half year old come walking down the
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: trail and I just let him walk right by because
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: I was terrified. I'm like, I don't feel like i'm there,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: like I shouldn't be shooting at him. And I think
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: about that feeling often because it's happened to me and
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: that you know, that's what happened with that buck in Wisconsin,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: like and there that little, you know, voice in your
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: heads like, man, this is this falling apart quickly. You
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: should probably just take this as a loss and not
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: risk wounding him or doing something stupid. But man, that
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: ego gets in the way and you just get into
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: that desire to shoot and you make dumb decisions sometimes,
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: so like what's the what's the slut and our takeaway
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: or I don't know, like is there anything that you
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: is that the kind of thing that you can experience?
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: And then Bill, Okay, I need to do X different
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: or I mean, what what now? Maybe it's the simple
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: question what now? Listen to that little voice, I mean,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: and it's listen. Man. We're all a work in progress,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: right and I know, you know, like especially probably in
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: the last five years, I'm really trying to take only
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: shots where I'm like, this deer is toast, like there's
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: no question when I draw that bow back, and you
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: know that that that gets me hunting from the ground
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: more because I think ground shots are easier, and it
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: gets me kind of that twenty and under game more
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: and more. And you know, but every once in a while,
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: just you know, like the deer do their thing and
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: I revert back to my old ways. But I just
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: try to do stupid stuff like that, you know, less.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: I want the frequency of that to be less and less,
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: and so I just you just hope some of those
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: lessons stick with you and you make better decisions in
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: the future, you know. And I guess maybe some of
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: that ties back to, you know what we were talking
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: about earlier, where you know, when when I'm so focused
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: and you know, so much pressure you're putting yourself that
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: you've gotta kill this deer, that's when you have those
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: like moments where you lose control of the yes, I
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: should shoot her, no I shouldn't shoot, and then you
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: take that bad shot. So it's almost like the more
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: we can be more experience or process focused and less
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: like caring so damn much about the final outcome. Um,
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: I guess like that it ties back to that whole
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: kind of change of mindset and maybe if I can
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: get better at that, I won't be you know, so
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: you know so obsessively you gotta get it, like you said,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: like you get in these moments where like Okay, that
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: dear's gotta die, like this is gonna happen. Gotta get
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: the shot, Gotta get the shot, and then you take
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: a shot that you know you shouldn't or you know,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: after you shoot it, you know you shouldn't have, but
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: in the moment like, oh I could I can make
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: that work? Um, you know I did that. I did
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: that the year prior with that talker Bucks after the
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: one little tiny hole and I've been chasing this deer
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: for three years, was like, I have to get this shot.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: Is the first time I've had him in range. There's
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: a little hole. Yeah, I'm leaning down and trying to
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: get through this it's not great, but I gotta try.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: And then as soon as it took us like that
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: was the stupidest thing. But in that moment, it's it's
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: like you can't your your your judgment is impaired by
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: this crazy desire you have um and it makes you
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: a flaming idiot. Well yeah, and it's I mean, one
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: of the things that's amazing about bow hunting white tails
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: is you're always you're you're never that far away from
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: a big mistake, Like I mean, you just you just
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: make them. And you know, like when you think about
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: that that buck I'm talking about that I missed there
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: that morning was when I had that hundred and fifty
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: inter come in that I had within range for seven
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: and a half minutes, and I drew on that deer
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: four times and never never got the shot I needed.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: And so you think, wow, that's like an amazing example
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: of self control. And then you go out that night
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: on a buck that's thirty inches smaller and you just
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: make a dumb shot like it just you know, bo
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: bow hunting is like so humbling that way, because it
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: just reminds you how stupid you can be. Yeah, that's
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: that's the truth. Oh yeah, if you start getting a
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: big ego, just try bow hunting for a while and
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: I'll bring right back down to earth. It's a it's
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: a humbling experience a lot of times. So yeah, man.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: So then if if those are the things we did
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: wrong or that we had mistakes or challenges with, was
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: there anything like when you look back that you thought, man,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: I got that right, right, I'm proud of myself for
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: that reason, or you figured something out. Is there anything
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: that stands out in that way? Man? You know, the
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: thing that makes me really happy about my season last
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: year was the setup work in the summer, you know,
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: because knowing we were going to film this show, Um,
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: I knew that I had to get some stuff ready
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: to go in Minnesota and Wisconsin. So in Minnesota, you know,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: I hunt with my buddy Eric a lot, and he
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: and I got together and you know, we were working
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: well together. We made some good decisions and I felt
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: like we just got good stands up. And then in
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: in Wisconsin, you know, I've been working with my buddy Adam,
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: and we we did some work in the summer too,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: in between fishing, and I just felt by the end
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: of August this year, I just felt like my my
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: rut hunt was going to be good. Like I felt
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: like it was gonna be a lot of fun and
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: there was gonna be a really good chance to kill
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: a couple of bucks. And so I enjoyed that part,
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: like I enjoyed getting out there with my buddy. Isn't
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: being like this is the spot and getting a stand
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: up and then looking around and and working on it,
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: being like this is a spot and this is a
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: spot and when you start, you know, when you have
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: that option to set up ahead of time and you
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: use it and you get that work done. Man, it
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: just feels good going into the season, like you know,
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna have to adjust on the
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: fly sum because you always do. But generally that that
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: was the part that made me really happy because it
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: just felt like we got the right work done. As
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: a good feeling for sure. I Uh, I wish I
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: had something that I could say, but like nothing really
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: jumps out to me like oh I really did that
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: right or this really went well. I mean, uh, it was.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: It was such a season of like close but not
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: close enough or screw ups. Um, you know, I had
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: like I had a lot of good bucks within shooting range,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: A couple I chose not to shoot. Like I talked
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: about the Wisconsin one. I talked about the Nebraska one.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: I had like another Nebraska one that was you know,
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: I was trying to get a shot him. I've had
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: him at five yards drawn back and he spooked just
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: before I came to full draw. I had a buck
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: at forty yards in d C but didn't want to
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: take a long shot there because of just how tight
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: the property lines are and stuff. I had two different
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: bucks on public land in Idaho within shooting range but
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: behind brush. I mean, like there's it was like a
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: lot of that kind of thing. So I guess if
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to like find silver linings this uh, if
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: I if I were to stretch for silver lining on
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: this year, it could be that I haunted a bunch
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: of different places, most of them brand new or challenging
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: in some kind of way, and was able to like
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: find dear and get within range of some good ones
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: a bunch of times. So I mean, like you could say,
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: like that's good. Um, the the negatives already described, um,
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: but maybe the I guess maybe the best thing wasn't
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: like I did something right, It was that I was
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: forced to think through these things that I just talked
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: about the top, like the whole changing of my mindset
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: and my goals and and how I'm approaching and stuff.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: Maybe it was just the fact that I had to
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: go through that, you know, over the course of this
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: season and start having those like thoughts and thinking through
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: those things this year, trying to get more just focused
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: on the experience and less obsessed with the outcome. I
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: think maybe maybe that's the best thing that came out
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: of this season for me, was was that I had
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: to go through some bullshit to to kind of have
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: that realization maybe, Um. And so maybe that leads to
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: you know what you describe, which is not being a
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: stressed and enjoying it more, and that leads to the
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: outcome being better in the end. Um. Maybe that's maybe
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: that's my thing. I guess, um, But I don't know.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: I mean it was. I will tell you that I
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: felt good about the fact that on almost all the
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: hunts that went on in all these brand new places,
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: like I figured them out pretty quick, and I had
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: opportunities and capitalizing all the opportunities. But I went to
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: a bunch of new places that were all pretty darn tough,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: most of them, and got on deer for sure, and
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: could have killed a whole hell of a lot, dear,
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: and you know, came really damn close to you know
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: this season. It's so funny, like if a few things
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: went just a tiny bit different, Tony, Like if there
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: were just a few things different, an inch here, an
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: inch there, a backpack here, a branch there, I could
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: be looking back on this year and be like, Dude,
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: I killed five really nice bucks. I got on deer
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: in all these brand new places really well. I killed
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: some big deer. I had some good shots. I tried
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: all these really challenging, hard things, and I figured them
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: all out. I mean, the difference between that story and
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: the story I'm telling you right now is not that
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: big a difference. It's like the outcome has been tearing
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: with just the tiniest little bit of chance or mistake
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: or doing something just a little bit different. And it's
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: it's kind of crazy to think about that, Um, but
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: it's it's interesting, I guess, um. And so there's there's
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: something there to to think about. I guess I don't
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: know what I'm I'm not sure what to make of that.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: But it's it's interesting when you start looking back on
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: like how this went right or wrong and it could
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: have been you know, so different. Well, I mean, yeah,
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: that's the that's the nature of this beast, right Like
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: you you need you need those encounters because you know
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: most of them are going to break bad, right, Like,
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: most of them are not going to go your way.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: So the more work you put in to get closer
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: to them and you know, get really good setups and
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: hunt the way you need to. All you're doing is
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: going i know, out of the however many let's say
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: half a dozen big Bucks you're gonna be around in
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: the season, the better work you do, you know, one
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: or two of them really go your way, and that's
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: a good year, you know. But it's just there's so
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: much you just can't control. There's so much that's just
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: gonna go. There's just not going to go your way.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: That's gonna work for them. But you know, if you
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: if you get to that place like you're talking about
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: where you're you're like, man, I spent a lot of
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: time around good Bucks last year, then you're awful close
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: to having some seasons strung together where you've got a
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of dead ones on the ground, So sold
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: all that. All this then being said, what are you
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: doing different in If anything, I'm gonna go hunt some
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: more public land bucks somewhere because I kind of didn't
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: get my fixed last year very well. So I'm I'm
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: looking at and I'm heading out here just in a
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: little bit to go scout some public land in Minnesota
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: that I never thought i'd deer hunting a million years,
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: but I just gotta, I gotta give it a go.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: And you know, some of the stuff down where I
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: hunted in Wisconsin last year where I was on private,
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: I've been. I've been winner scouting some of the public
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: around that area too, And so I'm kind of I'm
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: not looking at necessarily like a really new state to
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: try out like I usually do every year, but just
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: trying different parts of states I've hunted quite a bit,
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: and just just getting that public land fix in and
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: seeing what I can do about hunting some new environments
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: and some places that are just different from what I'm
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: I'm used to. So that's that's kind of my goal
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: for this season. I like it. Um what about with
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: the girls anything, what's the progress going to be on
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: that for anything. We are gonna hunt four keys and
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: those and funds and Spike Bucks and Big Bucks and
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: whatever whatever else. And you know we're we you know,
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: we're not there yet because there's a ton of snow
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: over there. But we'll start heading over and you know,
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: probably sometime around Turkey season, getting out and just looking around,
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: getting them into the woods and maybe maybe put up
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: a few cameras for the hell of it and just
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: getting them shooting again. And you know they're they're all
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: geeked up a hunt to hunt again. So that'll be
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: that'll be a big part of my fall again. Sounds
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: like fun, It sounds like a durn good time. Um.
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm gonna do two things. On my side. I'm
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: going to rebuild my shooting confidence. And how exactly I'm
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: doing that is still a work in progress. But I'm
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: gonna be tearing things down and building them up again
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: and just getting that confidence back, um, so that I
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: don't have those concerns again this coming year. And then
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: I'm going to try to organize and plan my upcoming
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: hunting season to be more fun, better experiences, less stress,
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: changing goals, changing how I pack stuff in and um,
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: and focusing on that kind of thing, focusing on good
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: experiences versus focusing on being the person who posts a
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: bunch of dead deer online or has a bunch of
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: those kinds of stories to tell. And man, I'm not
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: destined to be that person, and I think that's okay,
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: and I'm gonna be you. I'm gonna lean into what
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: I enjoy and find satisfaction in and sharing those experiences
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: for what they are and not worry or given a
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: damn when anybody else thinks about that. I think that's
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: going to be what I'm gonna try to do do. I
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: think that's a good plan on your on your re
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: quest to shore up your shooting. Have you Have you
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: ever spent any real time shooting with a recurver a
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: long bow? No? Man, I'll tell you what what I do,
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: because I really enjoy shooting traditional bows. Uh. If I
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: get into a place with my compounds where I'm starting
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: to feel a little wonky and starting to get inside
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: my head, sometimes I'll hang them up for a week
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: or a couple of days and I'll just I'll grab
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: one of my recurves and I'll start shooting with that.
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: Because I don't I know, I'm not gonna hunt with it, probably,
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: but it sort of distills the shooting process down. It's
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: way more difficult. And so if I get that out
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: of my system for a couple of days and then
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: I go pick up my compound, it's like I have
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: a high powered rifle. Like it's it's amazing. How at
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: least for me, it kind of recenters me and it
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: makes me realize, you know, like I don't know, I
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: don't know if you've shot crossbows much like I haven't
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: shot him a ton. I've messed around with them a
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: little bit, but they're so easy, Like it's it's incredible
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: how accurate they are that you know, like I imagine
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: you could probably do the same thing where if you're
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: like I'm getting a little bit messed up, you know,
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: like you shoot one of those, you're like, oh, that's
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: so easy. Why I do that with with traditional bows?
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: And I feel like it kind of helps me stave
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: off some of the some of the bad habits that
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: might develop with my with my compound practice, and it
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: really makes me appreciate how accurate they are now. Dide,
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: you just totally changed my whole upcoming season. You know
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna shoot a cross bow.
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: I would have killed like five bucks one last year
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: if I had a crossbow. That's what I'm doing. That
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: was not the message I was trying to get a
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: kid a kid um. I like your idea about shooting
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: tradition a little bit is like a palate cleanser almost.
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: Um that I've always I've always thought that would be
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: fun to try and to get into, and maybe that's
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: what i gotta do. Who knows, I might be that
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: knuckle head that all of a sudden it's like, oh man,
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: I like this so much, That's what I'm gonna do
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: all the time. I've had a couple of friends like dude,
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: just knowing what a nutcase you are, you probably would
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: really fall for that hard. So maybe do you have
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: any uh any places out there where you could potentially
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: bowl fish with your with a tread bow? Oh maybe
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: probably I've I've I've not really looked into that thing
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: at all, but I'm then there's carp all over the place,
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: so that probably is stuff you could do like that.
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: I would recommend uh getting a getting a recurve of
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: some sort and getting a getting a bowl fishing set
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: up on it, and you'll start having some fun with
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: your with archery tackle and you can get those in
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: the right situation. If you can get those little boys out,
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: you can shoot a fish and then have them just
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: hand line them in and they will think that's cool.
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: That would be probably a lot of fun. And you
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: will think that's cool too. I can see that. I
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: like it. That's a good idea. Well, Tony Peterson, is
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: there any ground we have not covered that you think
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: we should? Are we good? You are? You are my? Yeah?
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: What's her name? Uh? In ted lasts? So I gotta
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: google this so I know so that I can say
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: that you are my Whatever that is, wait for it,
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: wait for it, and while you wait for it, think
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: if there's anything else we need to cover. Her name
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: is Sharon Sharon. Dr Fieldstone, Sharon Sharon. So i'm your doctor,
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: Sharon Fieldstone? Yeah, you're my? Yes? You do you think
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: one session is enough for you to get your head
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: right there? Mark? You tell me you're the pro I don't.
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: I think we barely scratched the surface of your problems. Okay,
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: Well what do you say, doc? Are we done for
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: this session? At least we go wrapper up now, man. Yeah,
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: we we covered some good stuff. I think it's good
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: for everybody listening to this to just think, like what
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: do you want to get out of next year? You know,
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: like we what do you? What do you want to
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: get out of hunting? Like what's it gonna mean to you?
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: What do you want to do? You start thinking about
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: that stuff and and what you might do with it.
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: It just gives you, gives you something to live on,
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: especially this time of year when it kind of sucks
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: to be a deer hunter, and just give you a
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: little jump on the season. Maybe Yeah, yeah, agreed all
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: every buddy, Well, thank you for joining me here. Man,
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: this is fun. Glad I could get some stuff off
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: my chest and you too, and now we've got some
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: good direction for the new year. Definitely, thanks man, and
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: that will do it. So thank you all for joining us.
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: Hope you guys took something away from these conversations. Hopefully
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: you can relate to it in one way or another,
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: and we and all kind of go on this journey together.
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: So thank you for being you guys, for being a
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: part of this community. And until next time, stay Wired
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: to Hunt. M