Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 564: Foundations - Taking Kids and Newbies Hunting, Part 2
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast your guide
- 0:05Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, and now your
- 0:10Speaker 1: host Tony Peterson. Hey, everybody, welcome to the wire to
- 0:14Speaker 1: Hunt Foundations podcasts, which is brought to you by First Light.
- 0:17Speaker 1: I'm your host, Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all
- 0:20Speaker 1: about hunting with kids and newbies, really how to set
- 0:24Speaker 1: them up for good shots and a great experience. Last
- 0:36Speaker 1: week I talked about taking kids and beginners hunting and
- 0:39Speaker 1: how there is this internal battle for us to figure
- 0:42Speaker 1: out how to make it easy. This week, I want
- 0:45Speaker 1: to take it a step further and talk about the
- 0:46Speaker 1: things I've learned after taking my twin daughters deer hunting
- 0:49Speaker 1: for two years, or I guess more specifically, what I've
- 0:52Speaker 1: learned about the setups and the things I have to
- 0:54Speaker 1: do right so they love their time out there in
- 0:56Speaker 1: the woods and they get hooked on hunting, which is
- 0:58Speaker 1: my secret goal. Yeah. Here's the thing, my young listeners,
- 1:13Speaker 1: who may not have a minivan full of kids yet.
- 1:16Speaker 1: You may not think this topic is relevant to you,
- 1:19Speaker 1: but it probably is. Taking kids out isn't a whole
- 1:22Speaker 1: lot different from taking newbie hunters out. You learn that
- 1:25Speaker 1: your game has to be damn near perfect because there's
- 1:28Speaker 1: won't be, and we should be taking people out. If
- 1:31Speaker 1: you remember a couple of weeks ago when I talked
- 1:33Speaker 1: about where hunting goes to die, and that the hedge
- 1:37Speaker 1: against that that I think is at least possible is participation,
- 1:42Speaker 1: more participation by us. So I say, let's not let
- 1:46Speaker 1: it die on our watch. Let's keep it alive because
- 1:48Speaker 1: hunting is a gift, and one way to do that
- 1:52Speaker 1: is to introduce people to hunt it, like I did
- 1:55Speaker 1: with my daughters. But just like when I had my
- 1:57Speaker 1: punks out there with me, you've got us think through
- 2:00Speaker 1: your setups when you've got newbies. You really do. But
- 2:03Speaker 1: this is a good thing on two fronts. The main
- 2:06Speaker 1: one i'll get too later in this episode, but the
- 2:08Speaker 1: first one is that you kind of just default right
- 2:11Speaker 1: back to just hunting deer. And I've talked about this
- 2:15Speaker 1: a lot, but I think there's a huge benefit to
- 2:18Speaker 1: just hunting deer. I think when we laser focus in
- 2:21Speaker 1: on big box, which is totally okay in so many situations,
- 2:25Speaker 1: we tend to miss a lot of important aspects of
- 2:28Speaker 1: being a good hunter and about enjoying the whole process. Now,
- 2:32Speaker 1: when you take two fourth grade girls, you learn all
- 2:35Speaker 1: about this. The girls had one rule for me, well
- 2:38Speaker 1: too technically, but the first was they were not shooting fawns.
- 2:42Speaker 1: I figured that was pretty much a given anyway, so
- 2:45Speaker 1: early wasn't on the table. The second was that they
- 2:48Speaker 1: wouldn't orphan fawns. If a doe had fawns, it was
- 2:51Speaker 1: a no go. They were not cleared hot. The good
- 2:55Speaker 1: news on that front is that we were hunting a
- 2:57Speaker 1: predator rich environment where a lot of does lose or
- 3:00Speaker 1: fawns to bears and coyotes and bobcats and wolves. I
- 3:03Speaker 1: knew it would be just as likely we'd have a
- 3:05Speaker 1: lone dough come through as we would a doe with fawns,
- 3:08Speaker 1: and it it turns out it's actually way more likely because
- 3:11Speaker 1: there's really high fond mortality over there. If you take
- 3:15Speaker 1: a new bee out, it's important to listen to them
- 3:19Speaker 1: about stuff like that. Everyone has their own hangups and expectations.
- 3:24Speaker 1: And while you might be some weirdo who loves nothing
- 3:27Speaker 1: more than to shoot those with youngs, you know, still
- 3:29Speaker 1: spotted triplets, the person you're taking out might be devastated
- 3:33Speaker 1: by that. In that way, you kind of have to
- 3:36Speaker 1: play by their rules. If that seems dumb, think about
- 3:40Speaker 1: the lines you draw in the sand around your own hunting.
- 3:43Speaker 1: We all have things we like and things we don't,
- 3:46Speaker 1: things we will do, and things we won't. I feel
- 3:48Speaker 1: like I just wrote a pop song that Mark would
- 3:50Speaker 1: play on his way to some dumb convention somewhere. Anyway,
- 3:54Speaker 1: it's important to pay attention to the hunters you take out.
- 3:57Speaker 1: They'll tell you what they're looking for out of the experience.
- 4:00Speaker 1: There's a caveat to this. It involves the size of
- 4:03Speaker 1: a buck. Usually with a couple of young girls who
- 4:06Speaker 1: have seen me bring home everything from dose to four
- 4:09Speaker 1: keys to a hundred and fifty plus inters. I knew
- 4:12Speaker 1: I probably wouldn't be dealing with an unearned sense of
- 4:14Speaker 1: entitlement to big Bucks, but it happens all the time.
- 4:19Speaker 1: I know a lot of husbands who have brought their
- 4:20Speaker 1: wives out only to find out that they want a
- 4:23Speaker 1: big buck or nothing for their first year. I know
- 4:26Speaker 1: a hell of a lot of dudes who have started
- 4:28Speaker 1: hunting with someone who is acting like a mentor, who
- 4:32Speaker 1: have the same kind of idea about Big Bucks. In
- 4:35Speaker 1: that situation, I say no, just kind of read it,
- 4:39Speaker 1: feel out how much it actually matters to kill a
- 4:41Speaker 1: big one, and if it seems right, if the opportunity
- 4:45Speaker 1: comes along, encourage a little drop in the old standards department.
- 4:49Speaker 1: In this realm, I'm like that Green Day song because
- 4:51Speaker 1: I'm a walking contradiction. I want people to shoot whatever
- 4:55Speaker 1: makes them happy, while simultaneously believing that starting out as
- 4:59Speaker 1: a trophy hunt is a sure way to never really
- 5:01Speaker 1: develop a love of the game. This is why when
- 5:04Speaker 1: I take new hunters out, I try to stress that
- 5:06Speaker 1: we are looking for a no brainer shot first and foremost,
- 5:11Speaker 1: just like you wouldn't take a brand new hunter on
- 5:13Speaker 1: a spotting stock antelope hunt where the diaper butts are
- 5:16Speaker 1: likely to not let you get closer than sixty yards.
- 5:19Speaker 1: Setting up for good box often means setting up for
- 5:21Speaker 1: some shots that require a little skill, that might require
- 5:25Speaker 1: a thread the needle scenario, or something that isn't just
- 5:27Speaker 1: a fifteen yard broadside situation. Stressing the importance of hunting
- 5:34Speaker 1: deer for really high odd shot tends to diminish the
- 5:37Speaker 1: desire for the end result of a big buck at
- 5:40Speaker 1: least some because it reframes the parameters of the hunt,
- 5:44Speaker 1: and it shifts the focus from a certain caliber of
- 5:47Speaker 1: a deer to a deer that poses up in a
- 5:49Speaker 1: way that is most appreciated by anyone who wants to
- 5:51Speaker 1: make a perfect shot. The last summer, when I was
- 5:55Speaker 1: setting up for the girls and this summer while setting
- 5:57Speaker 1: up for them and my buddy's son, this was first
- 6:00Speaker 1: and foremost on my mind. I knew this meant one thing.
- 6:04Speaker 1: Though we wouldn't be where we would see a lot
- 6:07Speaker 1: of deer. This is one of the ways you just
- 6:09Speaker 1: have to find a balance with this stuff, and it's
- 6:11Speaker 1: something I've talked about a ton. It seems like there
- 6:15Speaker 1: are so many situations where you can sit and see
- 6:17Speaker 1: deer but the odds of a great shot opportunity are
- 6:19Speaker 1: pretty low, or you can sit where you won't see
- 6:22Speaker 1: tons of deer, but the odds of a really good
- 6:24Speaker 1: shot opportunity are high. I almost always default to the
- 6:29Speaker 1: latter situation because I had a lot of pressure deer.
- 6:33Speaker 1: I'm not going to go sit on a food plot
- 6:34Speaker 1: or a field edge very often and see seventeen deer
- 6:36Speaker 1: in a sit although I am lucky to hunt places
- 6:39Speaker 1: where that happens once in a while. For the most part, though,
- 6:42Speaker 1: I'm always looking for something that will put me right
- 6:44Speaker 1: on top of a travel route, or some food or
- 6:47Speaker 1: water source that is small and because of its size,
- 6:51Speaker 1: should really concentrate movement. Now, remember back at the beginning
- 6:55Speaker 1: of this episode when I said there were two benefits
- 6:57Speaker 1: to taking newbies out. I think this one is huge.
- 7:02Speaker 1: It's just for us to develop his hunters. When you
- 7:05Speaker 1: have someone who might move too much, or you know,
- 7:07Speaker 1: make a bit too much noise or whatever, you need
- 7:10Speaker 1: to do everything you can to put deer right in
- 7:12Speaker 1: front of them. That makes you better. For my girls,
- 7:17Speaker 1: that meant pop up blinds that are truly brushed in
- 7:20Speaker 1: and seasoned. And I'm not joking here. I like to
- 7:24Speaker 1: get my blinds out in midsummer at least and then
- 7:26Speaker 1: cross my fingers that an angry yogi doesn't come along
- 7:29Speaker 1: and tear them up. At least once per year that happens.
- 7:34Speaker 1: In fact, bears tend to take out at least one
- 7:36Speaker 1: of my blinds and one of my trail cameras every
- 7:38Speaker 1: single year. It sucks, but it's just a name of
- 7:41Speaker 1: the game in the north Woods. This year, I put
- 7:45Speaker 1: up a camera in Wisconsin to leave it for several weeks,
- 7:48Speaker 1: only to have a d twelve pound bear come in,
- 7:50Speaker 1: swat it right off the tree and move on with
- 7:52Speaker 1: his life. Like six hours after I hung it, he
- 7:55Speaker 1: hit it hard enough to snap the plastic pieces on
- 7:57Speaker 1: the back that holds the strap. I've that happened a lot,
- 8:00Speaker 1: and without a bearcage, it's almost a given at some point.
- 8:03Speaker 1: I even had one Minnesota bear that I tried my
- 8:06Speaker 1: hardest arrow and never did that put his canine tooth
- 8:09Speaker 1: right through the lens of a camera. It was a
- 8:11Speaker 1: perfect bull's eye, turned my camera into a camel covered
- 8:14Speaker 1: paper weight. I don't know. Maybe you deal with bears,
- 8:17Speaker 1: maybe you don't. But pop up blinds are a really,
- 8:20Speaker 1: really good option for new hunters. The ability to move
- 8:24Speaker 1: and whisper and eat a sandwich or sip some coffee,
- 8:27Speaker 1: or eat fifty calories worth of runts and those unbelievable
- 8:31Speaker 1: gummy nerd candies that we recently discovered. That's nice. The
- 8:36Speaker 1: downside to blinds is well known to most of us,
- 8:39Speaker 1: and if you follow my strategy of setting up fifteen
- 8:41Speaker 1: to twenty yards downwind of a pounded trailer water source,
- 8:44Speaker 1: you might not hardly see anything until the year is
- 8:47Speaker 1: right on top of you. That's the downside. Now. That
- 8:50Speaker 1: happened to my daughters and I last year with almost
- 8:52Speaker 1: every deer we encountered. We were hunting mostly early season,
- 8:56Speaker 1: so the leaves didn't do us any favors for hearing
- 8:59Speaker 1: or seeing approach deer. And we're in the big woods,
- 9:02Speaker 1: you know, the timber is thick. You just not not
- 9:04Speaker 1: a great option to watch a lot of deer activity.
- 9:07Speaker 1: And that's the downside, especially when you put yourself in
- 9:10Speaker 1: a blind. But the upside was that the deer that
- 9:14Speaker 1: did come in almost all posed up so well that
- 9:18Speaker 1: even two kids with the woodsmanship skills of a born
- 9:20Speaker 1: and raised Los Angeles socialite could kill them, and they did.
- 9:25Speaker 1: The three high odd shots that they took and made
- 9:29Speaker 1: didn't happen by accident, even though there were spots I
- 9:33Speaker 1: wanted to set them up in because I thought we'd
- 9:35Speaker 1: see more, Dear, I didn't want to get into a
- 9:37Speaker 1: situation where the deer we encountered weren't anywhere other than
- 9:40Speaker 1: right on us and oblivious to our presence. This goes
- 9:44Speaker 1: back to the brushing and blinds thing, And I mean
- 9:46Speaker 1: I truly blend them in with limbs, branches hanging over
- 9:50Speaker 1: the windows, I want to give it a true three
- 9:52Speaker 1: D look and hide our movements in the shadows. It
- 9:56Speaker 1: also meant that we could only keep one window open
- 9:58Speaker 1: where the shot would be w cross our fingers that
- 10:01Speaker 1: that was what would happen. It also meant that I
- 10:04Speaker 1: had to think about prevailing wind directions not only for
- 10:07Speaker 1: the mid September opener, but what it was going to
- 10:10Speaker 1: be like when we were hunting in mid October. It
- 10:13Speaker 1: also meant since the girls were in school and had
- 10:15Speaker 1: limited time to hunt, I needed morning and evening options
- 10:19Speaker 1: for different winds. Now, this is something I'm going to
- 10:22Speaker 1: go through like in a deep dive in the next episode,
- 10:25Speaker 1: so I'll keep this a little light here, but I'll
- 10:27Speaker 1: say this, having to think through all of that stuff
- 10:31Speaker 1: absolutely made me a better hunter. I really mean that,
- 10:34Speaker 1: it really did. I didn't think it would either. It's
- 10:38Speaker 1: easier to get delusional about yourself as a hunter, and
- 10:40Speaker 1: I've kind of relied on my public Land resume to
- 10:42Speaker 1: do the talking for me. You know, it's easy to
- 10:45Speaker 1: drink your own cool and I guess, but I've been
- 10:47Speaker 1: hunting white tails for thirty years. I should know how
- 10:49Speaker 1: to put myself on a deer putting new hunters on
- 10:52Speaker 1: a deer is different, and it forces you to really
- 10:55Speaker 1: consider the possibilities. It forces you to think about the
- 10:58Speaker 1: little details and a thing you might have gotten wrong.
- 11:01Speaker 1: It makes you consider whether you have enough setups to
- 11:04Speaker 1: keep things going through a variety of conditions, and you
- 11:07Speaker 1: know what, it makes you realize that you can always
- 11:11Speaker 1: do more. Last year I put up three blinds for
- 11:14Speaker 1: the girls. I set them up for south and west winds.
- 11:17Speaker 1: Mostly I set them up from mornings and evenings, and
- 11:21Speaker 1: in fact they all worked for both. Some worked better
- 11:25Speaker 1: for first light, well, some worked better for last light,
- 11:27Speaker 1: but they would do for either scenario. No, I'm bad
- 11:31Speaker 1: at math, but that feels kind of like I might
- 11:33Speaker 1: have doubled our options. And even so, after one of
- 11:36Speaker 1: my daughters killed a doe on the second morning of
- 11:38Speaker 1: the season, it felt like that blind was burned. That
- 11:41Speaker 1: left two, which isn't that many. I felt like I
- 11:44Speaker 1: needed more. So this summer we did more. Not only
- 11:48Speaker 1: did I have my buddy's son to think about, so
- 11:50Speaker 1: I had another youth hunter to consider, but also just
- 11:53Speaker 1: the reality that if the conditions don't favor my setups, well,
- 11:57Speaker 1: I end up forcing something that I don't want to force.
- 12:01Speaker 1: I think us deer hunters we do this a lot,
- 12:04Speaker 1: especially when we have private land to set up for
- 12:06Speaker 1: the season. And on this note, I think there's really
- 12:10Speaker 1: something important to talk about too, to help, or more specifically,
- 12:14Speaker 1: having kids or whoever you're taking out help when they
- 12:18Speaker 1: get involved in that process. Like I talked about in
- 12:20Speaker 1: the last episode, they just tend to own it more.
- 12:24Speaker 1: And I think we don't acknowledge this enough in this space.
- 12:28Speaker 1: Quite frankly, with parenting in general, when it comes to
- 12:31Speaker 1: hunting deer with bow or a gun, being involved in
- 12:34Speaker 1: the preseason work or the set up work throughout the season,
- 12:38Speaker 1: it just helps everyone form a stronger connection to the
- 12:40Speaker 1: work and the hunts. It's real important. I think it
- 12:44Speaker 1: might be something that a lot of us who hunt
- 12:46Speaker 1: for ourselves don't even truly understand. Back when I had
- 12:49Speaker 1: a lot more time to check my d m s
- 12:51Speaker 1: and respond to all of them, before this weird meat
- 12:53Speaker 1: eater association made it just too much time. One of
- 12:56Speaker 1: the most common things that happened to me was people
- 12:58Speaker 1: reaching out to ask me where I hunt. They always
- 13:02Speaker 1: think they are being tricky and often really try to
- 13:05Speaker 1: brow you up before their real motives come out. You know.
- 13:09Speaker 1: This bothers me for obvious reasons, like if I put
- 13:11Speaker 1: a ton of time into scouting a spot in a
- 13:13Speaker 1: specific state so I can have an enjoyable hunt there,
- 13:16Speaker 1: I don't really want to just give that info away
- 13:18Speaker 1: to a stranger. But it also bothers me because that's
- 13:22Speaker 1: so much a part of what is fun about hunting,
- 13:26Speaker 1: finding spots and scouting spots and hunting spots, and of
- 13:29Speaker 1: course the less fun part, which is the inevitable losing spots.
- 13:33Speaker 1: But when that happens, the cycle starts over, so you
- 13:35Speaker 1: get to have some fun again. Owning that part, or
- 13:39Speaker 1: those parts, I should say, it's important, just like it's
- 13:42Speaker 1: important for a couple of ten year old girls to
- 13:44Speaker 1: swat some horse flies while setting up cameras or helping
- 13:47Speaker 1: brush in blinds, or maybe sitting on the edge of
- 13:49Speaker 1: a bean field in late August to use the spotting
- 13:51Speaker 1: scope to find a few velvet bucks. There's another aspect
- 13:55Speaker 1: of this that's worth acknowledging as well, the role of
- 13:57Speaker 1: the teacher. I really believe, especially after getting to know
- 14:01Speaker 1: some of my daughter's teachers over the last half a decade,
- 14:04Speaker 1: the good teachers are so damn important to society. I
- 14:08Speaker 1: think they rank right up there with good cops and
- 14:09Speaker 1: good nurses and anyone else who has a career mixed
- 14:12Speaker 1: with helping people. Being a teacher, which I most definitely
- 14:15Speaker 1: am not in a professional capacity, provides a great benefit.
- 14:20Speaker 1: If you want to learn a subject, well, you can
- 14:22Speaker 1: study it, but you want to develop a deep understanding
- 14:25Speaker 1: of a subject, you also have to learn how to
- 14:28Speaker 1: teach it. And teaching hunting, as silly as that might sound,
- 14:32Speaker 1: is going to help you level up. Explaining the why
- 14:35Speaker 1: behind everything helps you understand the reasons so much better,
- 14:39Speaker 1: and it helps spawn new ideas too. It's important. I
- 14:42Speaker 1: think it's actually probably some kind of evolutionary thing. It
- 14:45Speaker 1: might be why so many societies help. Probably all of
- 14:48Speaker 1: them had such a strong oral tradition with their stories,
- 14:53Speaker 1: and not really just stories, but tales and myths and
- 14:55Speaker 1: fables and lessons that were good enough to remember and
- 14:59Speaker 1: pass on on through multiple generations. In that case, the
- 15:03Speaker 1: listener gets a benefit from them in the lesson, but
- 15:05Speaker 1: to tell her those stories get something out of it too.
- 15:09Speaker 1: Thinking about the ancient Greeks or maybe Native Americans passing
- 15:11Speaker 1: along their lesson filled tales of existence at various points
- 15:15Speaker 1: through their history might seem like a real stretch when
- 15:17Speaker 1: you're compared to trying to take a I don't know
- 15:20Speaker 1: a new biout and talk them through their set up,
- 15:22Speaker 1: or why you hang a camera certain way, or just
- 15:25Speaker 1: why all the tracks emerge from the standing corn here
- 15:28Speaker 1: and not there. But it's not. It's not as far
- 15:30Speaker 1: away as it sounds. It's not to me anyway. I
- 15:33Speaker 1: think we aren't so far removed from our recent history.
- 15:36Speaker 1: And hell, I mean a couple of generations ago, Lewis
- 15:38Speaker 1: and Clark thought they might run into Mastodon's in the
- 15:40Speaker 1: middle of America because it was so wild, which is
- 15:43Speaker 1: crazy to consider that wasn't that long ago. We aren't
- 15:47Speaker 1: so different from those explorers heading up river into territory
- 15:50Speaker 1: unknown to them but well known to others. Even though
- 15:52Speaker 1: a lot of that has changed, what hasn't are the
- 15:55Speaker 1: fundamentals of learning and of teaching, Of giving a gift
- 15:59Speaker 1: to someone in the form of a well placed blind
- 16:01Speaker 1: and a setting sun accompanied by the sound of hoofs
- 16:04Speaker 1: scraping and the dried leaves. That's so important. And that's
- 16:08Speaker 1: enough for now, my friends. Next week, I'm gonna expand
- 16:12Speaker 1: on this topic of giving yourself real options. I mean
- 16:16Speaker 1: real options, because it's not just important if you take
- 16:18Speaker 1: a couple of kids, or a new coworker, your brother
- 16:21Speaker 1: in law, or whoever out hunting. It's good for you too,
- 16:25Speaker 1: especially if you want to kill mature bucks, and I
- 16:28Speaker 1: know you do, so tune in next week because I'm
- 16:30Speaker 1: gonna make a case for you to truly expand your
- 16:34Speaker 1: options to be a more effective hunter this fall. That's
- 16:39Speaker 1: it for this week, my dear obsessed amigoes. I'm Tony
- 16:41Speaker 1: Peterson and this has been the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast,
- 16:44Speaker 1: which has brought to you by First Light. As always,
- 16:47Speaker 1: thank you so much for listening. All of us here
- 16:49Speaker 1: at Metator truly appreciate it. And if you need more
- 16:51Speaker 1: white tail wisdom, go to the meat eator dot com
- 16:54Speaker 1: slash wired and you can see all kinds of articles
- 16:57Speaker 1: by Mark myself and a whole slew of white tail
- 16:59Speaker 1: killers and and head on over to our wire to
- 17:01Speaker 1: Hunt YouTube channel where we drop weekly how to content
- 17:04Speaker 1: as well. MHM