Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 656: Foundations - Are You A Whitetail Pioneer Or A Settler?

Transcript

Ep. 656: Foundations - Are You A Whitetail Pioneer Or A Settler? · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast, Your guide
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better dear hunting. Present it by
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: First Light, creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: saddle or blind. First Light Go Farther, Stay Longer, and
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: now your host, Tony Peterson.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Hey everyone, welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: which has brought to you by First Light. Today, I'm
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: going to talk about a topic that doesn't get much love,
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: but I think should basically figuring out how you like
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: to hunt and then really leaning into that style. I'll
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: never forget listening to two older dudes in one of
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: my high school classes talking about their love lives. I
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: guess one of them casually mentioned that he was more
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: of a pioneer than a settler. You can infer from
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: that what you wish. Anyway, Ever since I heard him
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: say that, I've used that statement a lot. It applies
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: to many things in life, even to whitetail hunting. That's
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: what I'm gonna talk about today. It's mostly about finding
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: your chosen lane through new experiences till you can honestly
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: declare yourself a certain kind of hunter. And maybe that
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: doesn't make sense, but I think it will. But before
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: I get into it, I still have to let you
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: know about this Mediator giveaway that's going on because you
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: have until May twenty first to sign up, but only
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: if you want a chance to win regrand worth of
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: sweet hunting gear along with a personalized outfitting session from
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: the Latvian Eagle himself. So you just got a head
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: on over to the mediator dot com slash giveaway to enter.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: It's free, takes like thirty seconds, and you could end
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: up with a boatload of kick ass gear. One of
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: the things that drives me nuts about hunting advice and
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: hell advice in general is that it's easiest to declare
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: a right way to do things instead of explaining how
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: nuanced stuff is. It's far less difficult to just say
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: there's just one way, the right way, and that's it.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: But life doesn't really work like that, however. Take music,
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: you guys know, I love music, and I've played guitar
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: for a long long time. I'm not very good at it,
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: but I love it, and teaching myself how to play
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: has come with plenty of revelations that have helped me
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: understand life better. Take chord progressions in a song. For example,
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: if you don't play music, you probably don't realize this,
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: but you can look at just about any song out
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: there and find a way to break it down to
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: a simple chord progression. Or I guess an easier way
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: to explain this would be imagine a heavy ish type
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: of tune, some kind of songs, pretty heavy, something that
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: has a lot of distorted electric guitars, often guitars that
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: are tuned way down, way down to sound deeper and heavier.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Then you add in some different effects through pedals and
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: mixing and posts, and you throw in some badass drums,
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: a good bassline, and a melody sung through everything from
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: whispers to screams. That's a far cry from like an
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: old Willie Nelson tune, but at its roots it's kind
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: of not. There will be a basic chord progression in there, somewhere,
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: tucked way beneath all those layers of sound, and it
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: just won't be as obvious to your ear as hearing
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: old William Merle Haggard saying poncho and left here or
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: something like that. The thing about this is even the
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: chord progressions aren't totally set in stone. You could take
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: something that calls for a C chord, which is made
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: up of CE and G notes, and try out an
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: A minor or an E minor. Now they aren't the
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: same as a C obviously, but they share some of
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: the same notes and they produce a sound that might
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: just work as good. You can also substitute major chords
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: in the place of minor chords and do a whole
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: host of stuff that is way beyond my skill set
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: for explaining. But what I'm really saying here is there
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: are different ways to get to the same result, take
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: a closer to the source material. Example of fishing, I've
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: probably mentioned this a million times, but in my lifetime,
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: I've looked at a lot of bass swimming in the water,
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: and I know I've talked about this, but I think
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: it really kind of frames us up on large mouths
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: and small mouth They just appeal to me, and there's
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: nothing I like better than site fishing them. It's kind
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: of like a nice mix of hunting because you have
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: to see them before they see you, and then fishing,
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: because well, you have to try to catch them. And
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: when you steer into a lot of different bodies of
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: water looking for little green or brown fish, you start
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: to see patterns of behavior emerge some bass, and they're
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: often a little bit smaller bass school up and they
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: go hunting. You'll see little wolf packs of bass working
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: off of the points of wing dams or on a
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: river system or patrolling a drop off in a lake.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Their strategy is probably one of survival, because it's easier
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: not to get eaten when you're with your buddies who
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: might get eaten instead of you. But it's also a
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: feeding strategy. You know, running into a school of shad
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: or other baitfish when you've got the chaos of several
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: of your buddies trying to eat them, it disorients the
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: whole food source. And when that happens, the likelihood of
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: a minno breaking out and offering up a chance for
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: you to eat him is higher, kind of like when
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: a pride allions try to force a young will to
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: beast out of the herd. But then you have the
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: fish who ambush stuff, and these are usually bigger bass
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: who have identified some prime location in the cover or
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: next to structure where they can just kind of slip
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: into the shadows and stay still and observe. And then
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: when a crayfish wanders too close or a little group
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: of bluegills. The element of surprise comes into play. Plus
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: you burn fewer calories with this strategy. It's efficient. Now again,
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: they're vastly different strategies to achieve similar results, which is
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: to fill their bellies while not filling something else's bigger bellies.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: When it comes to deer hunting, there are many ways
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: to achieve the same result. You might use a high
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: powered rifle to shoot a big buck on an automatic
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: feeder during a guided hunt, or somebody else did all
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: the work for you, But a dead buck is a
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: dead buck, right. Or you might also make your own
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: re curve out of a tree you cut down, and
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: then still hunt for a full season on public land
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: with yourself bo somewhere in the big woods, and still
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: manage to kill a big buck. Again, the results are
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: kind of the same. Dead buck is dead buck. But
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: anyone hearing those two examples knows that it's not actually
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: about the result. It's about the process and the experience.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: And I think you can largely break down white tail
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: hunters into two categories, the pioneers and the settlers. Now
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: this is purely academic, so bear with me, because people
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: change and often don't fit rigidly into a two part system.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: Take me, for example, I'm primarily a pioneer when it
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: comes to deer hunting. I enjoy hunting new spots more
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: than I enjoy going back to the same spots over
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: and over again. I don't know why that is, but
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: I'd rather have to figure out new areas and new
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: states and new properties every season than not. There is
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: a comfort level I enjoy going into old, familiar setups
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: on properties I know and I've hunted for a long time.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: But if we're going to talk about what I really
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: enjoy out of hunting, that's not it. That's why I
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: try to structure my season around those new experiences I've
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: learned over a lifetime of hunting that that is what
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: I need to really enjoy the whole thing as much
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: as possible. Now, Listen, I have fun hunting over food
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: plots from year to year, or climbing into certain stands
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: where I have years of memories stacked up. But what
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: makes me feel alive and still so obsessed with white
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: tail hunting is scouting up something new and then settling
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: in for a sit that's shrouded in the unknowns in
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: the mystery. A lot of hunters, they're almost exactly the
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: opposite of me, And you know what, that's great. I've
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: got a buddy who I hunt with a fair amount,
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: who is obsessed with creating perfect deer spots. He can't
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: get enough of food plots and planting apple trees and
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: then climbing into a box blind right in the middle
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: of his little deer meccas. He'll do this every year
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: until he dies, and he'll be really happy about it
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: because that's what he likes and it works for him.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: He knows this because he's done a lot of different hunting.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: He used to go out west every year, sometimes multiple
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: times a year. He used to go turkey hunting all
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: over and hunt deer in several states. Now he basically
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: hunts two states on two properties he owns, and you
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: can't get him to even consider not sitting certain rifle
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: stands for the Wisconsin opener, or not sitting as redneck
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: for ninety five percent of his bow hunting in Minnesota.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: I think this is important stuff to know about yourself.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: You don't know how many deer seasons you have left,
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: any more than any of us do, and so making
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: the most of them is important, and it's not about
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: making the most of them in a way that means
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: you'll have the best chance of killing big bucks. That's
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: a part of it, for sure, but that's not really
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: what I'm talking about here, Instead learning whether you need
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: knowns or unknowns, whether you need to set out across
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: the plains of deer hunting, or plant your flag next
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: to some river and start building a cabin for you
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: and your family. But why is this important? Though? I
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: think it's because deer hunting demands our time and our resources.
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  Speaker 2: It soaks up some of our mental bandwidth. It's a
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: big part of our lives, and it's important to feel
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: like you're getting what you need out of it. So
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: let's say you're not sure what camp you belong to.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Have you ever traveled to hunt? If you did, how
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: was it? Be honest? Did you love seeing new ground
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: and living out of a tent or a motel? Did
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: you enjoy the process of speed scouting some new chunk
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: of dirt somewhere and then going mobile to hunt it,
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: or do you feel like you were spinning your wheels
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: and wishing you were back home. Have you ever taken
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: a saddle and some sticks into public land somewhere to
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: try to do what all the guys on social media
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: seem to be doing. How did it work out for you?
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: Did you like it? Now? Keep in mind here, I'm
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: not asking if you killed a deer. I'm asking if
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: you enjoyed the process. Now, I'm asking if you loved
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: every second of it, because you probably didn't. But how
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: did it make you feel afterwards? I look at this
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: kind of like going on a long run. It's not
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: that much fun, but it sure does make you feel
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: good when it's over. Hunting deer a lot of times
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: is just like that. How about if you have always
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: hunted your grandma's farm or you've been on the same
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: lease for a decade. You go hunting to have fun,
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: So are you having fun when you go? Do you
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: find yourself super excited to get out there, or are
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: you in a situation where you just know that if
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: you wait until the Halloween and you go, you'll probably
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: get your shot. Is that what you want out of hunting?
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: Or do you wish you could go more but that
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: you just don't have to ask yourself? Are you bored?
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: Do you feel a sense of accomplishment when you hunt
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: this way? Or maybe do you just feel that it's
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: exactly what you need to refill your cup a little
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: after a week of working and taking care of the kids.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: I think we often aspire to do what others do
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: without considering if that's really what we want out of life.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: Take the white tail settler or someone who might be
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: leaning into that type of hunting. That person can watch
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: unlimited hours of people hunting for TV shows and YouTube
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: episodes through that very style of hunting. It looks pretty
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: sweet on film, but it's also a reality that that
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: style of hunting strongly favors the kind of person who
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: wants good footage of big deer dying. They might not
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: even be doing it because they're drawn to it. They
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: might be doing it because it's the easiest way to
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: film white tails getting shot. Because it is. It's the
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: same reason why so many hunting shows are filmed in Texas.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: There isn't a better place to go if you want
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: to film a lot of deer, including a lot of
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: nice bucks, and to kill one in a matter of
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: a couple days. That type of hunting just might be
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: what folks love to do, or it might simply be
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: a matter of how easy they can get a show
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: out of the deal. Shows filmed in Africa often happen
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: for the same reason, or at least that's one of
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: the reasons you see an awful lot of hunting content
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: film where lions still kind of roam. Sometimes this is
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: a weird journey because you can live vicariously through so
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: many different people, and I think you should, or at
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: least you should let them inspire you to try new things,
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: to find your own white tail lane, if you will.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: I think it's valuable to try new things on many
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: many levels. Take food plots, for example. There are people
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: who live to plant them and to work them and
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: then hunt over them, and there are people who straight
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: up shit on the idea and call them bait plots.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: I wish the people in the latter category would go
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: create one sometime, just to see that it's not quite
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: as easy to minimize it if you've never really done
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: the work to try to get one to grow. They'd
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: see that, just as they'd see that having a food
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: plot is often not the answer to easily killing more
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: big bucks. It's often a lot of time and money
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: to see some four ky's and doe you know, the
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: same deer you'd see without a plot. But it's also
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: just kind of rewarding to do the work and see
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: the results. I wish the folks who hunt prime ground
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: would go out and have to find a few deer
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: on pressured public land. I don't wish that to punish them,
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: but instead to get them to experience a new deer
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: challenge and a new deer reality. I want all of
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: you to try as much different kinds of white tail
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: hunting as possible, because through those experiences you can start
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: to filter out the things that really don't do it
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: for you. Instead of being pissed off that you'll never
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: be one of those rich pricks who has an awesome
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: property to hunt where they don't have to work to
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: kill a big buck, you might find that that type
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: of hunting does nothing for you. White Tail hunt is
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: supposed to be fun, but that's base level stuff. If
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: you don't enjoy it on some level, I don't know
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: it's time to I don't know. Golf. There should be
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: enjoyment in it for you, but there should be more.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: You should feel good about yourself and get what you
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: need out of it. If that's simply to unplug from
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: the rat race and your loud kids and your kind
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: of mean wife who is always passively aggressively telling you
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: to do something around the house until you want to
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: do a bunch of industrial drugs and move to Europe
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: to be an underground rave DJ. So be it. If
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: it's because white tail hunting is a driving force in
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: your life and something that just feels gene deep to
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: the point where you think about it all the time
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: and it represents the biggest challenge in your life on
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: any given day, then that's great. Figure out what makes
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: it really hum for you and then lean into that.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: So I guess, I guess what I'm saying here is this.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: We settle for unhappiness a lot in life. It's a
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: disease of humanity and it's prevalent in our societ piety.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: This is unavoidable in some aspects of life, but deer
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: hunting isn't one of them. We have options even if
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: you can't afford to buy like two hundred and forty
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: acres a sweet ground for yourself, or maybe sign on
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: the dotted line for an amazing lease, even if you
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: only have public land as an option, and even if
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: you only have limited time to hunt in any given season,
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: there are options for you to try to figure out
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: how to get the most out of your deer hunting.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: It might be as simple as trying to kill a
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: deer with a recurve because you love the challenge of
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: shooting without sights. Or maybe you want to shoot any
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: deer with your rifle from the ground while sneaking through
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: the big woods five days into the gun season. Maybe not.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: You should try different stuff to find out, because the
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: more you do, the more you'll be able to say
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: one way or the other, whether you're a white tail
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: pioneer who has to see new ground and do new things,
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: or you're a white tail settler who can't think of
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: a better way to spend a random afternoon than doing
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: some timber improvement projects or maybe cutting an acre of clover.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: The way I'd really frame this up is try stuff,
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: keep looking, keep challenging yourself to do new things until
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: you start to identify the aspects of whitetail hunting that,
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: for whatever reasons, just work for you, and then keep
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: lean and into them so that you eventually figure out
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: why you want to be there and what it really
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: means to you to be there doing that, and tune
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: in next week, because I'm going to talk about the
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: realities of using different kinds of trail cameras and how
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: to maximize your scouting in the off season by using
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: them correctly and most importantly, giving yourself time. That's it
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: for this week. I'm Tony Peterson. This has been the
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast. As I always, thank you
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: so much for listening. Now, if you want more whitetail info,
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: you can head on over to the mediat dot com
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: slash wired to check out a bunch of articles, or
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: if you just want to be entertained and maybe learn
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: a thing or two, the guys over at the Element
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: have dropped their new Buck Truck series. You can find
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: it on the Mediator YouTube channel. You might even see
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: me on an episode, Clay Mark. Pretty good stuff and
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: those boys are killers, so if you want to check
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: it out, head on over there and watch them