Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 706: Foundations - The Big Buck Struggle Bus

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Ep. 706: Foundations - The Big Buck Struggle Bus · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
0:05
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,
0:09
Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.
0:14
Speaker 1: First Light Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host,
0:19
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.
0:20
Speaker 2: Hey, everyone, welcome to the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
0:23
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by first Light. Today, I'm
0:25
Speaker 2: going to talk about something that plagues so many hunters,
0:29
Speaker 2: even if they might not want to admit it. Sometimes
0:42
Speaker 2: inspiration falls right into your lap, or at least pops
0:46
Speaker 2: up in your email. An old acquaintance of mine recently
0:50
Speaker 2: sent me a note about how much he's struggling with
0:52
Speaker 2: bow hunting. He feels like he can't get over the
0:56
Speaker 2: hurdle that separates being a deer shooter adder type of
0:59
Speaker 2: guy to a deer shooter type of guy. His frustration
1:03
Speaker 2: was palpable, and there were a lot of clues in
1:06
Speaker 2: his message that spawned the idea for this whole podcast.
1:09
Speaker 2: He admitted to not being super good at bow hunting,
1:12
Speaker 2: but also targeting mature four and a half year old
1:14
Speaker 2: plus bucks. That's a bad combo that happens a lot.
1:19
Speaker 2: It's also what this whole episode is kind of really
1:21
Speaker 2: all about. There used to be a progression to hunting
1:32
Speaker 2: that allowed someone to start small and worked their way
1:35
Speaker 2: up to the deer. Not only was it a good
1:37
Speaker 2: way to develop some serious woodsmanship skills, it's also something
1:41
Speaker 2: guys my age were romanticize and remember in a nice
1:45
Speaker 2: glow of nostalgia. It doesn't always jive with reality. It
1:50
Speaker 2: always started with rabbits and squirrels, and as a young
1:54
Speaker 2: man with a bolt action Remington twenty two, in a
1:56
Speaker 2: real bloodlust in my heart, I spent a lot of
1:59
Speaker 2: time roman the woods with that rim fire, trying to
2:01
Speaker 2: remove bushytails from the trees. I also got to carry
2:04
Speaker 2: a pump twenty gage for bunnies, and if you think
2:07
Speaker 2: I didn't love that shit, you're off your rocker. Some
2:10
Speaker 2: of my best memories of my childhood involved hunting small game,
2:13
Speaker 2: mostly with my dad. I remember rallying around a squirrel
2:16
Speaker 2: family with a pocket full of shells one time, which
2:19
Speaker 2: is a rage against the machine reference for you young
2:21
Speaker 2: lads listening on that morning, my dad put me in
2:24
Speaker 2: a tree stand, probably without a safety harness, and told
2:28
Speaker 2: me to work on my squirrel accuracy. I think that's
2:31
Speaker 2: where a lot of my problems started, because even though
2:34
Speaker 2: I was surrounded by bushytails, I couldn't hit a squirrel
2:37
Speaker 2: well to save my life. I literally had squirrel fever.
2:41
Speaker 2: And I'll never forget him walking in to pick me up,
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Speaker 2: and he asked me how many I got, because he
2:46
Speaker 2: had spent all morning listening to me shoot. The body
2:49
Speaker 2: count was one, and it wasn't even a clean kill
2:52
Speaker 2: until I got down and sent that poor bushytail to
2:55
Speaker 2: the great big oak tree in the sky. Another time,
2:58
Speaker 2: while rabbit hunting a lot a stretch of abandoned railroad tracks,
3:02
Speaker 2: I looked down in the grass and saw a cottontail
3:04
Speaker 2: pulling his best If I stay real still, maybe he
3:07
Speaker 2: won't see me move. But I did see him, and
3:11
Speaker 2: I don't know if you know what a well aimed,
3:12
Speaker 2: loaded lead shot does to a bunny that is about
3:15
Speaker 2: six feet off the end of your shotguns barrel. But
3:18
Speaker 2: the disappointment in my dad's eyes when he tried to
3:20
Speaker 2: pick up what was left of that poor rabbit was
3:23
Speaker 2: pretty obvious. I probably knew it at the time without
3:27
Speaker 2: really knowing it, But the whole stage was being set
3:31
Speaker 2: for me to become a deer hunter then. Now, at
3:34
Speaker 2: that time, twelve was the minimum age, and it took
3:37
Speaker 2: me forever to get there. We hunted everything we could
3:41
Speaker 2: but deer until that season. And then I gradulated to
3:45
Speaker 2: the big leagues. And let me tell you something, I
3:48
Speaker 2: was a born natural. Just kidding, I was definitely born unnatural.
3:55
Speaker 2: That's probably not the right way to say it, but
3:56
Speaker 2: if there wasn't a word for being really, really bad
3:59
Speaker 2: at deer hunting, I'd have definitely been in the running
4:01
Speaker 2: for some hardware for my trophy case. Those first couple
4:04
Speaker 2: of years, I could barely lay eyes on a deer,
4:08
Speaker 2: and if I did and it got within twenty yards,
4:11
Speaker 2: it definitely got shot at, and it always walked or
4:15
Speaker 2: ran away totally unscathed. My daughter's recently asked me if
4:20
Speaker 2: I've missed more deer than I've shot, and I honestly
4:23
Speaker 2: couldn't answer. I'd say maybe, because just in those first
4:26
Speaker 2: four years alone, I racked up a string of whiffs
4:30
Speaker 2: that should have got me sent back down to the miners,
4:32
Speaker 2: or worse, sent down to carry the mobile hot dog
4:35
Speaker 2: heater thing while hiking up and down the concrete steps,
4:37
Speaker 2: yelling at people. It was brutal and it was the
4:41
Speaker 2: source of my first white tail meltdown. When I was fifteen,
4:46
Speaker 2: the thing I wanted so much was so close, yet
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Speaker 2: so very very far away. I told my dad I
4:53
Speaker 2: was done. I was going to become a gun hunter.
4:56
Speaker 2: Now I was going to start killing deer. He said, okay,
5:00
Speaker 2: let's get some slugs and figure this thing out. But
5:02
Speaker 2: he didn't, and I didn't really want to go that route.
5:05
Speaker 2: I wanted to arrow a deer. If you're wondering if
5:07
Speaker 2: I really have any character flaws, I'll tell you this.
5:10
Speaker 2: I'm a pretty stubborn fella. I don't know why. It
5:13
Speaker 2: mostly doesn't serve me very well. But in some ways,
5:16
Speaker 2: if I set a course for myself, it takes a
5:18
Speaker 2: hell of a lot to get me to steer in
5:19
Speaker 2: a new direction. So I kept hunting, you know what.
5:23
Speaker 2: I eventually started to hit a few deer. Then I
5:26
Speaker 2: started to hit a few correctly, and over time the
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Speaker 2: young bucks and even some two year old started to
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Speaker 2: die with enough frequency where I got a little cocky.
5:35
Speaker 2: My progression to that point in my life had involved
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Speaker 2: a whole lot of small game, a whole lot of
5:40
Speaker 2: upland birds, quite a few turkeys, a fair amount of
5:43
Speaker 2: deer well rounded. I was for sure and totally clueless
5:48
Speaker 2: about what I was getting into when I said it
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Speaker 2: was time to kill a pope and young buck. When
5:53
Speaker 2: I made that move, what I didn't realize was that
5:55
Speaker 2: I was turning back the time to old Tony or
5:58
Speaker 2: I guess young Tony. Anyway, it was like I was
6:01
Speaker 2: twelve again, and while I could always get my bow drawn,
6:04
Speaker 2: I definitely could not get the pin anywhere close to
6:07
Speaker 2: where it needed to be meltdown. Number two happened again
6:11
Speaker 2: on a night I've talked about on this podcast before,
6:14
Speaker 2: where in the span of maybe ten minutes, I missed
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Speaker 2: a solid one hundred and fifty class year and then
6:18
Speaker 2: a really nice eight pointer that was close enough that
6:21
Speaker 2: I probably could have dismounted from my stand and very
6:23
Speaker 2: briefly wrote him like a rodeo bowl. In fact, that
6:27
Speaker 2: probably would have been more effective than what I actually did,
6:29
Speaker 2: which was see him pee my pants, a little shoot
6:33
Speaker 2: over his back, and then pray to the deer guys
6:35
Speaker 2: that lightning would take me out of this life that
6:37
Speaker 2: I definitely wasn't meant to live. As all stories go,
6:41
Speaker 2: I finally did kind of get my shit together and
6:43
Speaker 2: I killed a couple of big bucks in consecutive seasons.
6:47
Speaker 2: Let me tell you something. I thought I had the
6:49
Speaker 2: whole thing tied up with a nice bow after that.
6:52
Speaker 2: What I didn't expect was to get a job in
6:54
Speaker 2: the hunting industry and suddenly have a whole lot of
6:56
Speaker 2: pressure to be good at this stuff. My deer hunting
6:59
Speaker 2: life has been a lot like trying to go up
7:02
Speaker 2: a super steep driveway that is covered in mostly ice.
7:05
Speaker 2: You know, I can throw it and four low and try,
7:08
Speaker 2: but the odds are pretty good that my best efforts
7:10
Speaker 2: will eventually leave me at the bottom of the hill,
7:12
Speaker 2: sideways in the road, with nothing to show for it
7:14
Speaker 2: but elevated blood pressure and the desire to set the
7:17
Speaker 2: world on fire. That meltdown was so bad that it
7:21
Speaker 2: forced me to switch up how I shot, how I practiced,
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Speaker 2: what I thought about, and pretty much reinvent myself as
7:27
Speaker 2: a deer hunter. That's not that easy to do, my friends,
7:30
Speaker 2: But so far this mostly worked. Now I'm too conditioned
7:34
Speaker 2: to failure to believe another meltdown isn't coming, But for
7:38
Speaker 2: now it feels like I might not regress anytime too soon.
7:41
Speaker 2: I'll think about this. That's a pretty abbreviated version of
7:46
Speaker 2: thirty one years of bow hunting, and I still struggle
7:50
Speaker 2: all the time, And I mean all the time. Do
7:53
Speaker 2: you know why? Because bow hunting white tail deer, specifically
7:57
Speaker 2: mature bucks, is really, really hard. It's not easy for anyone,
8:03
Speaker 2: at least if they are hunting pressure deer.
8:17
Speaker 1: Oh.
8:17
Speaker 2: Sure, we have ways to hack the system, and if
8:20
Speaker 2: you have the right land, you can all but ensure
8:22
Speaker 2: an opportunity are free. But most folks don't have that option.
8:26
Speaker 2: Most folks are like you and I, where they work
8:28
Speaker 2: and have kids and are under constant strain of life.
8:31
Speaker 2: They have small spots to hunt, or share farms with
8:34
Speaker 2: other folks, or trek across public land all season. For
8:37
Speaker 2: most of us, this stuff is really difficult. There's a
8:40
Speaker 2: silver lining. If you've been a passenger on the old
8:43
Speaker 2: Big Bucks struggle bus for a while, you can get
8:47
Speaker 2: over it. Unfortunately, you might not like the remedy. You
8:51
Speaker 2: might not like the cure a whole lot. I'm going
8:54
Speaker 2: to be blunt about this in a way that for
8:57
Speaker 2: some reason in society we look down on We just
9:00
Speaker 2: don't value honesty over hurting people's feelings. And I'll admit
9:03
Speaker 2: there's always room for tact. There's also always room to
9:07
Speaker 2: just lay things out and not pull your punches. So
9:09
Speaker 2: here it goes. If you're struggling with killing a mature buck,
9:12
Speaker 2: whether it's your first or maybe you sporadically make it happen,
9:15
Speaker 2: but there's no consistency to your game, here's the deal.
9:19
Speaker 2: You're probably not good enough at hunting to make that
9:22
Speaker 2: your goal. Now. I know, goals are subjective and you're
9:25
Speaker 2: free to do what you want to do, but keep
9:28
Speaker 2: that in mind, especially if you find yourself having a
9:31
Speaker 2: meltdown over not achieving that specific goal. If you're super
9:35
Speaker 2: content with your hunting, great, If you're not, you can't
9:39
Speaker 2: understand why deer hunting is so frustrating and not all
9:41
Speaker 2: that much fun. Listen up, you're not good enough at
9:46
Speaker 2: it to set your goals where they are. They're just
9:49
Speaker 2: too high and you either need to live with that
9:51
Speaker 2: or make a real change. Now. A lot of hunters,
9:55
Speaker 2: I think they realize that, and they do what we
9:58
Speaker 2: just kind of often do in life. They look for
10:01
Speaker 2: a quick fix, like maybe if you ask Andy May
10:05
Speaker 2: to look at your screenshot of your property, he'll tell
10:07
Speaker 2: you how to hunt. And if you do you know
10:10
Speaker 2: you'll have andy may results not quite though, or maybe
10:13
Speaker 2: if you buy a sweet decoy or some new calls,
10:16
Speaker 2: or you go all out on the salad game and
10:17
Speaker 2: decide the best way to kill big Bucks is to
10:19
Speaker 2: be in a new tree stand every night. Give that
10:21
Speaker 2: a shot. Whatever floats your boat. But this strategy is
10:25
Speaker 2: like trying to reason with your physical fitness, trying to
10:29
Speaker 2: rationalize why you don't really need to do cardio or
10:32
Speaker 2: why it's not that big of a deal to eat
10:34
Speaker 2: ice cream every night. The formula for getting in shape
10:37
Speaker 2: is real simple and it hasn't changed a lot in
10:40
Speaker 2: a long time. You can make bargains, but you don't
10:44
Speaker 2: make the rules. They are there, like the laws of physics,
10:48
Speaker 2: and whether you agree with them or not, you're still
10:50
Speaker 2: beholding the gravity and the law of thermodynamics. So are
10:54
Speaker 2: you good enough for your goals? This is a tricky
10:57
Speaker 2: one because if you don't set challenging, somewhat hard to
11:00
Speaker 2: achieve goals, and how are you going to grow as
11:02
Speaker 2: a person and as a hunter. The downside of this
11:05
Speaker 2: is we often focus our goals on a simple metric,
11:08
Speaker 2: which is antler size. Sure, we say we target mature bucks,
11:12
Speaker 2: that's just weasel words, and we all know it. If
11:15
Speaker 2: a deer comes in with one hundred and sixty inches
11:16
Speaker 2: of antlers on his head, he's getting shot. Whether he's
11:19
Speaker 2: a baby or a grandpa, dear, Mostly what we target
11:22
Speaker 2: is actually antler size, and that's just the reality of
11:25
Speaker 2: it all. But simply killing one hundred and forty inch
11:28
Speaker 2: or when you've only ever killed two and a half
11:29
Speaker 2: year olds, isn't the only way to go about this. Like,
11:33
Speaker 2: I don't know how good of a shot are you
11:36
Speaker 2: not at the range, but on real deer. If you
11:38
Speaker 2: think you have the younger bucks and does mastered, so
11:41
Speaker 2: it's time to target the big boys. Ask yourself when
11:43
Speaker 2: you shoot those other deer, do you really always do
11:47
Speaker 2: your job correctly or mostly always? How many of them
11:51
Speaker 2: have you shot? When you're sitting in a stand and
11:53
Speaker 2: you see one hundred inch two year old coming down
11:55
Speaker 2: the trail and the weather is perfect and your heart
11:57
Speaker 2: rate spikes, do you want to shoot him? Be honest
12:01
Speaker 2: if you do, but you're worried he isn't big enough,
12:04
Speaker 2: Ask yourself who is not big enough? For strangers on
12:07
Speaker 2: social media? You're hunting buddies If you have good buddies.
12:11
Speaker 2: They'll give you some shit, but they'll also be real
12:13
Speaker 2: happy for you. If someone on social media disapproves of
12:16
Speaker 2: the deer you shot, you have some options like not
12:19
Speaker 2: posting your kills, which is pretty simple. If you just
12:22
Speaker 2: have to post it, just be happy about it and
12:25
Speaker 2: let folks know that you are happy about it. Some
12:28
Speaker 2: people will still be pricks about it, but that's because
12:30
Speaker 2: they are miserable with their own lives. Leave them alone
12:33
Speaker 2: and let them suffer until they get their act together.
12:35
Speaker 2: Celebrate your success. Those people aren't your problem. If you
12:40
Speaker 2: have the world of younger Bucks and Doze totally dialed
12:43
Speaker 2: and you are honestly ready for the big leagues but
12:46
Speaker 2: have struggled mightily, think about this. Where are you going wrong?
12:51
Speaker 2: Are you not seeing the big bucks well? Are they
12:54
Speaker 2: there or are you hunting a place where the age
12:57
Speaker 2: quality is lacking. If they are there and you can't
13:00
Speaker 2: see them when you're hunting, then it's probably all about
13:03
Speaker 2: scouting and hunting smarter. That's it. Got to put in
13:06
Speaker 2: the work and really think through your setups. Try to
13:08
Speaker 2: learn why your efforts aren't producing the sightings or are
13:12
Speaker 2: you seeing the big ones getting shots at them? But
13:15
Speaker 2: not quite able to make the right connection. This is
13:19
Speaker 2: a big one and it happens to just about every
13:22
Speaker 2: bow hunter who doesn't grow up with a thousand acres
13:24
Speaker 2: a premale ground to hunt in Iowa. This stage can
13:28
Speaker 2: wreck you as a hunter and as a human. It's
13:31
Speaker 2: just rough. So what do you do? The only way
13:36
Speaker 2: out is through, and for me it involved a lot
13:39
Speaker 2: of target practice and a lot of inner monologue where
13:41
Speaker 2: I told myself to focus on the shot, watch the
13:44
Speaker 2: deer's body, plan for the moment when I'll draw the
13:48
Speaker 2: moment went I'll shoot. Am I gonna stop him? Am
13:51
Speaker 2: I gonna shoot him as he naturally comes through. What
13:54
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna do is stare at those antlers and
13:56
Speaker 2: think about how much I'm worried that I'm going to face. Now,
14:02
Speaker 2: this seems easy enough, but even if you do keep
14:05
Speaker 2: your kind of head in the game and plan out
14:08
Speaker 2: the shot, most of those encounters are still going to
14:11
Speaker 2: result in failure. That failure is going to tell you
14:14
Speaker 2: what to do differently next time. That's how I look
14:17
Speaker 2: at it. It's kind of like getting kicked in the
14:19
Speaker 2: mental nards while getting stung by wass on your eyeballs.
14:22
Speaker 2: But it is a stepping stone. Did you shoot too high,
14:26
Speaker 2: too low? Seven feet behind this tail? Where did you
14:30
Speaker 2: go wrong? What went wrong? What would you have done differently?
14:35
Speaker 2: What will you do differently next time? Do you consider
14:38
Speaker 2: it a win to have a deer like that that
14:40
Speaker 2: close to you? Because you should. Most hunters don't get
14:44
Speaker 2: that in any given season. Listen, I know that's thin
14:47
Speaker 2: gruel to live on, but it's not nothing. You did
14:51
Speaker 2: it once, you can do it again. And this time,
14:53
Speaker 2: instead of punching the trigger on your release before you
14:55
Speaker 2: settle your pin, settle your pin. It's a difference of
14:59
Speaker 2: one two seconds. But it's also the difference between another
15:02
Speaker 2: meltdown or that sweet, sweet feeling of finally doing things right.
15:07
Speaker 2: And remember this, You're not alone. This thing we do
15:11
Speaker 2: with white tails so damn fun, it's so damn hard.
15:16
Speaker 2: I promise you that. Just about every hunter you look
15:19
Speaker 2: up to, and many others you've never heard of. But
15:21
Speaker 2: who are the best of the best, all struggled. They
15:25
Speaker 2: shared a seat with guys like you and me on
15:26
Speaker 2: the struggle bus at one point or another, maybe for
15:29
Speaker 2: a season or two, maybe for a decade or two.
15:33
Speaker 2: The journey to becoming a content somewhat consistent. Big buck
15:37
Speaker 2: killer is a long personal one for almost everyone. It
15:42
Speaker 2: can be a lot of things, both good and bad,
15:44
Speaker 2: and it will be just that. But it's also a
15:46
Speaker 2: progression of sorts. If you treat it right now, you
15:49
Speaker 2: don't need to murder a million squirrels and cottontails when
15:51
Speaker 2: you're in grade school to work your way up to it.
15:54
Speaker 2: You do have to look around and ask yourself, where
15:56
Speaker 2: are you in your journey now? Did you get a
15:59
Speaker 2: little too far ahead of yourself because of the social
16:01
Speaker 2: pressure to not shoot young bucks. Did you take a
16:04
Speaker 2: few wins and use them as conclusive evidence that it's
16:07
Speaker 2: time to skip ahead by about forty seven steps in
16:09
Speaker 2: the process, or are you getting there you know, naturally
16:13
Speaker 2: in a way that feels pretty good. Where are you
16:16
Speaker 2: on this journey? And what does it mean for you
16:18
Speaker 2: to set certain goals? I don't take the easy way out,
16:22
Speaker 2: but don't put yourself in a position where this thing
16:24
Speaker 2: you are supposed to love becomes just a source of
16:26
Speaker 2: stress and anxiety and disappointment. There's plenty of life to
16:30
Speaker 2: do that for you. You don't need it from deer hunting,
16:33
Speaker 2: So find your path, walk it at the pace you need,
16:36
Speaker 2: and eventually you'll get to a point where the challenge
16:38
Speaker 2: is real but also doable. That's a wonderful place to be,
16:42
Speaker 2: even if it's just always kind of a temporary place
16:44
Speaker 2: to be. So get out there, my friends. Make something
16:48
Speaker 2: good happen in the woods. Come back next week because
16:51
Speaker 2: I'm going to talk about gambling kind of. That's it
16:56
Speaker 2: for this week, my friends. I'm Tony Peterson. This has
16:58
Speaker 2: been the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast. As always, thank
17:00
Speaker 2: you so much for listening. I can't tell you how
17:03
Speaker 2: much all of us here at meat Eater truly appreciate
17:06
Speaker 2: your support, but we do. It means the world to us,
17:09
Speaker 2: so thank you for that. If you want some more
17:11
Speaker 2: white tail content, if you want to listen to Clay
17:14
Speaker 2: talk about you know, stone points. If you want to
17:18
Speaker 2: go check out the meat Eater trivia podcast, maybe the
17:21
Speaker 2: buck truck series that the Element guys put out, I
17:24
Speaker 2: don't care, whatever it is. Go to the meeteater dot
17:26
Speaker 2: com and you will find so much hunting and fishing content,
17:30
Speaker 2: cooking content too. If you want to make some backstraps
17:33
Speaker 2: or something really hum go there, check it out. Get
17:36
Speaker 2: your fixed. You know, if you feel the need to
17:38
Speaker 2: maybe treat yourself to something nice. The Meat eater Stor
17:40
Speaker 2: is right there. There's a whole lot of good stuff
17:43
Speaker 2: in there that's often on sale, so go check out
17:46
Speaker 2: it as well. Thank you so much again. It