Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 682: Foundations - Creepy Crawly Cuddle Puddles
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
- 0:05Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,
- 0:09Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.
- 0:14Speaker 1: First Light, Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host
- 0:19Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.
- 0:21Speaker 2: Hey everyone, welcome to the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
- 0:23Speaker 2: which is brought to you by first Light. I'm your host,
- 0:25Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about dealing with
- 0:29Speaker 2: insects while you hunt. This is a weird one, but
- 0:42Speaker 2: you gotta bear with me. The truth about what we do,
- 0:46Speaker 2: whether that's I don't know, thinking solely about white tails
- 0:49Speaker 2: twenty four to seven, or turkey hunting or antelope hunting
- 0:52Speaker 2: or whatever, is that there are a lot of elements
- 0:55Speaker 2: to any hunt, and really any preseason scouting or prep
- 0:59Speaker 2: work that we kind of just gloss over. One of
- 1:03Speaker 2: those is the presence of bugs, a category into which
- 1:07Speaker 2: I'm gonna lump spiders and scorpions and just about anything
- 1:10Speaker 2: that sucks in as gross and could potentially bite your
- 1:12Speaker 2: sting you. This episode is all about those creepy crawley
- 1:15Speaker 2: bastards and how to deal with them in the preseason
- 1:18Speaker 2: and throughout the season. Picture this if you will. Your
- 1:32Speaker 2: life is as a lab mouse, pretty rough right. The
- 1:38Speaker 2: odds are you're gonna be injected with some disease or
- 1:41Speaker 2: put through some tests that probably I would venture to say,
- 1:45Speaker 2: are not much fun, not as fun as hanging out
- 1:48Speaker 2: with a bunch of lady mice and eating cheese or
- 1:50Speaker 2: whatever mice daydream of. Nope, you're a lab mouse, and
- 1:54Speaker 2: one day some white coated human takes you and puts
- 1:58Speaker 2: you in a panic and do like maybe showing you
- 2:02Speaker 2: a video of a snake staring into your little mouse
- 2:05Speaker 2: cage all of a sudden. Also introduced into this situation
- 2:10Speaker 2: is a cherry blossom, a sweet, smelling, entirely totally innocent
- 2:16Speaker 2: cherry blossom. Now, imagine that they do this to you
- 2:20Speaker 2: several times over the course of a study. And while
- 2:22Speaker 2: you don't know what the hell is going on, because
- 2:25Speaker 2: you're a mouse, you know that every time you see
- 2:27Speaker 2: a snake, you smell a cherry blossom. Now, before you think,
- 2:31Speaker 2: I've totally lost my marbles, and some of them have
- 2:34Speaker 2: rolled under the couch, and some of them are rolled
- 2:36Speaker 2: into the driveway and eventually into the storm drain, to
- 2:38Speaker 2: never be seen again. What I'm actually describing was an
- 2:42Speaker 2: experiment real scientists did to see if genetics play a
- 2:47Speaker 2: role in our fear responses. Specifically, can one generation pass
- 2:53Speaker 2: down a fear of something to another generation or several generations.
- 3:00Speaker 2: What one experiment nature neuroscience study showed was that a
- 3:05Speaker 2: terrifying experience that changed the genetics of mice in such
- 3:09Speaker 2: a way it actually manifested itself as a phobia. And
- 3:13Speaker 2: what's wild is that it passed down through a couple
- 3:16Speaker 2: of generations of mice. So even the offspring of those mice,
- 3:21Speaker 2: when they smelled cherry blossoms, without being exposed to panic
- 3:25Speaker 2: inducing situations at the same time, still exhibited a real
- 3:29Speaker 2: and measurable fear response. Even mice that were created with
- 3:34Speaker 2: in vitro fertilization from those original mice inherited the same
- 3:40Speaker 2: fear response. In other words, through a traumatic experience, an
- 3:45Speaker 2: echo of fear was created that several generations could hear. Now,
- 3:52Speaker 2: this is just mice, you might be thinking, and those
- 3:55Speaker 2: scientists probably don't know what the hell they are talking about,
- 3:58Speaker 2: and blah blah blah. But the truth is that's pretty wild,
- 4:03Speaker 2: and it's prevalent in us humans too. If you don't
- 4:07Speaker 2: think so, ask yourself, why are you so scared as
- 4:11Speaker 2: snakes or maybe heights, small spaces? What's your phobia, my friends?
- 4:19Speaker 2: Because I bet you have one, and if you don't,
- 4:21Speaker 2: I bet you know a lot of people who do.
- 4:23Speaker 2: And also you're probably lying. Now ask yourself, why would
- 4:27Speaker 2: someone I don't know living in New York City where
- 4:30Speaker 2: chances of exposure to wild, venomous snakes are probably almost zero,
- 4:35Speaker 2: Yet you could find plenty of people living there who
- 4:38Speaker 2: have lived there their entire lives, who are terrified as snakes.
- 4:43Speaker 2: It's not rational, which is the cornerstone of a lot
- 4:47Speaker 2: of our current phobias. Or I don't know how about
- 4:50Speaker 2: public speaking. I ever stood in front of a large
- 4:53Speaker 2: crowd and had to address them sober. That sucks for
- 4:57Speaker 2: most people, even the repercussions for a bad speech or
- 5:00Speaker 2: saying something dumb, you know, even they're pretty small, But
- 5:03Speaker 2: the fear is large, so large, in fact, that it
- 5:07Speaker 2: creates a real metabolic response, a fear response. Or I
- 5:13Speaker 2: don't know how about spiders. That's my big one, and
- 5:17Speaker 2: I freaking hate it. I hate them. I can't describe it.
- 5:22Speaker 2: I don't know why it is but I hate spiders. Snakes,
- 5:26Speaker 2: no problem, heights, mild problem, big cats, bears, whatever, fine,
- 5:32Speaker 2: But spiders, uh no, thank you. I know, and I
- 5:36Speaker 2: mean I know this, even if I can't prove it.
- 5:40Speaker 2: Somewhere way back in my bloodlines, some of my ancestors
- 5:44Speaker 2: had some rough run ins with spiders and that made
- 5:47Speaker 2: a scar on our genetics that is visible today. They
- 5:50Speaker 2: are gross and dumb, and I know they eat a
- 5:52Speaker 2: bunch of bugs and are mostly gentle and whatever, but
- 5:55Speaker 2: I just don't care. I don't like them. Of the
- 5:58Speaker 2: places I want to visit in the world, Australia is
- 6:02Speaker 2: super low on my list, mostly because of their spider situation.
- 6:08Speaker 2: But if you hunt, you'll deal with spiders. If you
- 6:11Speaker 2: set stands in the summer or just live down south
- 6:15Speaker 2: in general, you're going to run into some eight legged buddies.
- 6:19Speaker 2: They're going to show up at your party at some point.
- 6:21Speaker 2: It just happens. In fact, if you do this stuff enough,
- 6:25Speaker 2: you'll probably deal with all kinds of creepy crawlees that
- 6:27Speaker 2: can bite or sting or just generally ruin a good time. Hell,
- 6:31Speaker 2: there are even caterpillars out there that should be cartoon like,
- 6:36Speaker 2: fun loving, slow movers that should pose no harm to humans,
- 6:40Speaker 2: but some, specifically one with a name that I can't
- 6:43Speaker 2: say on here because people think I'm making it up,
- 6:46Speaker 2: are covered in soft hairs that actually cover spines that
- 6:50Speaker 2: will break off in your skin and cause severe pain.
- 6:55Speaker 2: This is one of the reasons why when I travel
- 6:58Speaker 2: to hunt Southern States, or maybe to catch some fish
- 7:01Speaker 2: down there, I'm always leery of all the bugs, even
- 7:04Speaker 2: the cute ones that look like they should be in
- 7:05Speaker 2: a Disney cartoon. You never know which little caterpillar or
- 7:09Speaker 2: fly or whatever is going to send you to the er,
- 7:11Speaker 2: or at least make you very, very uncomfortable. But they
- 7:16Speaker 2: are out there and we have to deal with them.
- 7:19Speaker 2: In fact, if you go out this month to scout
- 7:21Speaker 2: or hang some stands, or hell crawl across the prairie
- 7:25Speaker 2: to try to arrow an antelope, you will find yourself
- 7:28Speaker 2: dealing with bugs and spiders and bees. I have bad
- 7:32Speaker 2: luck with bees, and I can only attribute it to
- 7:35Speaker 2: the reality that I spend a lot of time outside
- 7:37Speaker 2: disturbing the world around me. As I read this, I'm
- 7:41Speaker 2: fighting the urge to scratch and scratch and scratch. Some
- 7:44Speaker 2: spots on my legs and some spots way up on
- 7:47Speaker 2: my legs that might make it look like I caught
- 7:50Speaker 2: some kind of venereal disease recently. The truth is I
- 7:54Speaker 2: mowed right over a yellowjacket hive, and those satanic bastards
- 7:58Speaker 2: took it upon themselves to not only me a few
- 8:00Speaker 2: times on my lower legs, but also to work their
- 8:03Speaker 2: way up into my shorts. And this is only speculation
- 8:06Speaker 2: on my part, so take it for what it is.
- 8:09Speaker 2: But I think they might have been trying to sting
- 8:10Speaker 2: me on the old knackers because they got a little
- 8:12Speaker 2: too close for comfort. Late summer and early fall that's
- 8:28Speaker 2: bee time. And if you're out hanging stands and maybe
- 8:31Speaker 2: running a chainsaw to clear out some trails on your
- 8:33Speaker 2: deer ground, pay attention. I average a couple of stings
- 8:36Speaker 2: out there a year. And while most situations are just
- 8:39Speaker 2: painful and leavey, shaking your fist at a dumb insect
- 8:42Speaker 2: with a weapon on its ass and a poor attitude,
- 8:44Speaker 2: you can get into trouble you. Obviously, if you're allergic
- 8:48Speaker 2: to bees, you should know how to keep yourself safe
- 8:50Speaker 2: and how to get your EpiPen in your hands if
- 8:53Speaker 2: you need it. But getting whacked a bunch of times
- 8:55Speaker 2: can cause non allergic folks to have bad reactions too.
- 8:59Speaker 2: My personal record for one encounter was eight bee stings
- 9:02Speaker 2: while I was hanging stands and my black lab found
- 9:05Speaker 2: a ground nest that didn't take kindly to a black
- 9:07Speaker 2: bear looking dog poking her nose into the entrance hole.
- 9:10Speaker 2: I've had a couple other close calls, like when I
- 9:13Speaker 2: went to hang a stand one time and I realized
- 9:14Speaker 2: that there was a ground nest below me at the
- 9:16Speaker 2: base of the tree. So when I figured that out,
- 9:19Speaker 2: I was like eight feet up, and I realized that
- 9:21Speaker 2: if I descended in normal fashion like we would all
- 9:24Speaker 2: get down from our tree stand, I'd have to go
- 9:27Speaker 2: right through a swarm of perturbed bees. So I executed,
- 9:32Speaker 2: in at least my assessment, a near perfect dismount out
- 9:35Speaker 2: of the tree, complete with a barrel roll at the end.
- 9:39Speaker 2: Think about it this way. They are all over out there,
- 9:43Speaker 2: and they won't take kindly to you messing with them.
- 9:45Speaker 2: And what's even more annoying is how often you're in
- 9:49Speaker 2: a stand minding your own dang business when a couple
- 9:52Speaker 2: of bees just take a keen interest in you for
- 9:54Speaker 2: some reason. At least caterpillars never do that shit. You'll
- 9:59Speaker 2: also deal with mosquitoes, which, according to a lot of people,
- 10:02Speaker 2: are the deadliest bug out there, since they are vectors
- 10:05Speaker 2: for bad diseases like malaria. Here in the States, we
- 10:08Speaker 2: have plenty of mosquitoes, and they can mostly be dealt
- 10:11Speaker 2: with by wearing clothes that they can't poke through. Sure,
- 10:16Speaker 2: they're annoying, you know when you hear them buzzing in
- 10:18Speaker 2: your ear or watch them flying in front of your
- 10:20Speaker 2: face over and over and over again. But mostly mosquitos
- 10:23Speaker 2: are pretty easy to handle, at least until they get
- 10:25Speaker 2: to the point where they are overwhelming. Now, I've had
- 10:28Speaker 2: this happen down in the Everglades of Florida, and here
- 10:31Speaker 2: at home in Minnesota, and across the river in Wisconsin
- 10:35Speaker 2: on those big wood situations where the mosquitoes can be
- 10:39Speaker 2: a pretty special experience. But I'll tell you what. One
- 10:42Speaker 2: of the worst mosquito situations I ever found myself in
- 10:46Speaker 2: was in western South Dakota, of all places, while I
- 10:49Speaker 2: was hunting antelope. As you may well guess, there isn't
- 10:53Speaker 2: a ton of standing water in western South Dakota. You're
- 10:56Speaker 2: as likely to see a bunch of small cactus growing
- 10:58Speaker 2: than you are to see a wall. But boy, oh boy,
- 11:02Speaker 2: when you do find standing water at the right time,
- 11:05Speaker 2: you find every mosquito in the county. And those prairie
- 11:08Speaker 2: mosquitoes are built with a little extra armor and a
- 11:11Speaker 2: tenacity that no big woods mosquito can match. I've found
- 11:15Speaker 2: some of those same style of mosquitos on early season
- 11:18Speaker 2: velvet hunts in Nebraska too. They are kama Cozi mosquitoes
- 11:22Speaker 2: that come in hot, and they don't do a whole
- 11:24Speaker 2: lot of courtesy laps around you to figure out where
- 11:27Speaker 2: a good spot is to land. They see skin, I guess,
- 11:31Speaker 2: and they go for it. Mosquitoes can be managed pretty
- 11:35Speaker 2: good with clothing, as I've said, and a thermicell unit.
- 11:39Speaker 2: Now they don't pay me. I don't even really know
- 11:41Speaker 2: anyone who works for the company. I just know that
- 11:44Speaker 2: if you deal with mosquitos and you need some help,
- 11:46Speaker 2: that Thermoicella is legit and there isn't a better product
- 11:49Speaker 2: on the market. Seriously, they're incredible, although you probably wouldn't
- 11:53Speaker 2: want to use one in an enclosed space, I don't think.
- 11:56Speaker 2: And yes, the deer can smell them, but they can
- 11:59Speaker 2: also smell you. If they can smell a thermosol, so
- 12:01Speaker 2: it doesn't matter. There's also I don't know the gnats
- 12:05Speaker 2: and no sums that make early season hunts no fun.
- 12:09Speaker 2: Oftentimes I end up with itchy gnat bites on my
- 12:12Speaker 2: forehead and my ears and my hands for my early
- 12:15Speaker 2: season hunts, which is annoying but not super bad. They
- 12:19Speaker 2: do have a knack for flying right into your eyeballs,
- 12:21Speaker 2: which is also real annoying, and no sums can be
- 12:25Speaker 2: almost worse because well, you can't see them. Do you
- 12:30Speaker 2: wish we named other critters that way? I do. No
- 12:33Speaker 2: sums are a pain, and while I've never experienced them
- 12:37Speaker 2: horribly on any hunt, I have had the displeasure of
- 12:40Speaker 2: fishing close to mangroves in Florida at first Light, where
- 12:43Speaker 2: the largest free ranging population of those minuscule blood sucking
- 12:46Speaker 2: bastards live. And while they made me itch like crazy,
- 12:50Speaker 2: they made my little girls swell up like little blonde balloons.
- 12:54Speaker 2: I bet no matter where you live and hunt, you
- 12:56Speaker 2: probably have some kind of bug in your region that
- 12:59Speaker 2: causes you fits at certain points of the season. Maybe
- 13:03Speaker 2: it's scorpions, which I know aren't really a bug, and
- 13:06Speaker 2: I also have had very limited experience with him. And
- 13:09Speaker 2: I'm not too sad about that. I've been stung exactly
- 13:12Speaker 2: one time by a scorpion, and that was enough to
- 13:14Speaker 2: get me to cross Texas off my list of places
- 13:17Speaker 2: to live now. My cowboy hat wearing buddies from the
- 13:20Speaker 2: Lone Star State are pretty nonchalant about scorpions and other
- 13:23Speaker 2: gross critters because they deal with them all the time.
- 13:27Speaker 2: Oh they shake out their boots before putting them on
- 13:29Speaker 2: and look real closely at the ground when they sit
- 13:31Speaker 2: on it to call turkeys or try to shoot a
- 13:33Speaker 2: pig or a deer. I do too now when I'm
- 13:36Speaker 2: down there, but one time I didn't, and I leaned
- 13:38Speaker 2: right up against a scorpion that probably holds the world
- 13:41Speaker 2: record for largest stinger. At least it felt that way
- 13:44Speaker 2: when he shoved it right into my back, which was
- 13:47Speaker 2: pretty rude. That feeling a throbbing pain and the uncertainty
- 13:50Speaker 2: of knowing whether I was going to die for a
- 13:52Speaker 2: really terrible axis deer hunt was not my idea of
- 13:56Speaker 2: a good time, But it happened where it usually does
- 14:00Speaker 2: in the outdoors when you're in Texas or quite a
- 14:04Speaker 2: few states. Now you also have to consider fire ants. Now,
- 14:08Speaker 2: I've been lucky. I've never had a run in with them,
- 14:10Speaker 2: at least to the point where I got to learn
- 14:12Speaker 2: firsthand why they are named as they are. But I've
- 14:15Speaker 2: seen plenty of them, and honestly, if spiders are on
- 14:18Speaker 2: my list of creepy crawleys that I really hate, ants
- 14:21Speaker 2: are probably close second, or maybe third, after bees and wass.
- 14:27Speaker 2: I don't know what it is about ants, but if
- 14:29Speaker 2: you've ever had the displeasure of getting bit by them,
- 14:32Speaker 2: you know what I mean. Now. I know we aren't
- 14:34Speaker 2: dealing with bullet ants here in the States, at least
- 14:37Speaker 2: not yet. Probably if we give it enough time, they'll
- 14:40Speaker 2: make their way to Florida or somewhere, but we do
- 14:43Speaker 2: have plenty of ants that can ruin your day. I've
- 14:45Speaker 2: been stung or bitten by a lot of ants a
- 14:49Speaker 2: few different times, and I'll bet you if I was
- 14:51Speaker 2: a mouse, my offspring would have a real fear of ants.
- 14:56Speaker 2: In fact, my one daughter does, so maybe it already
- 14:59Speaker 2: changed my genes. My worst experience was while I was
- 15:03Speaker 2: hunting blacktails in California. And this is an estimate on
- 15:07Speaker 2: my part, but at least a million big black carpenter
- 15:11Speaker 2: looking type of ants crawled up my legs in the dark,
- 15:13Speaker 2: and they all waited for the go ahead signal to
- 15:16Speaker 2: bite me at the same time. It was horrible mooey
- 15:21Speaker 2: or eblay and made me really appreciate Minnesota winters in
- 15:24Speaker 2: the five months of brutal cold that comes with them.
- 15:27Speaker 2: Bugs and spiders and creepy crawleys, they're all over. They
- 15:32Speaker 2: are a part of our lives as outdoorsmen, and can
- 15:35Speaker 2: actually even be a positive part. Just think about how
- 15:38Speaker 2: much Mark Kenyon loves pollinators. Without them, we wouldn't have
- 15:42Speaker 2: all kinds of food and stuff, and also Kenyan wouldn't
- 15:45Speaker 2: have anything to weirdly obsess over. Now, a lot of
- 15:48Speaker 2: those creepy crawleys out there, they're actually not They're not
- 15:51Speaker 2: really threatening at all, and they're mostly welcome around us.
- 15:55Speaker 2: Butterflies are a good example. I've never felt threatened by
- 15:58Speaker 2: a butterfly ever, draggonflies or another. I spent quite a
- 16:02Speaker 2: few hours watching dragonflies hunt over high country water holes
- 16:05Speaker 2: last September while waiting on a bull elk, and if
- 16:08Speaker 2: there is a more impressive hunter out there, I'm not
- 16:11Speaker 2: sure I've seen it. Sometimes bugs can be entertainment, and
- 16:14Speaker 2: sometimes they can just be a part of the whole
- 16:16Speaker 2: experience well without causing us extreme pain or multi generational phobias.
- 16:22Speaker 2: They aren't a reason to stay home, obviously, but in
- 16:25Speaker 2: certain environments, at certain times, they can be a reason
- 16:28Speaker 2: to be super cautious. Think about that as you head
- 16:31Speaker 2: out with the best intentions to watch a bachelor group
- 16:34Speaker 2: of bucks as the clock winds down to the most
- 16:36Speaker 2: wonderful day of the year, the deer opener. Or maybe
- 16:40Speaker 2: you aren't quite there yet, but know that a bunch
- 16:42Speaker 2: of trees have fallen down across your favorite access trail.
- 16:45Speaker 2: It's time to fire up the old chainsaw and get
- 16:47Speaker 2: to cutting. Maybe it's as simple as taking a pole
- 16:50Speaker 2: saw on your favorite ladder stand to trim up a
- 16:52Speaker 2: few trees around those stand and open up some shooting lanes.
- 16:56Speaker 2: Make sure there isn't a paper wasp nest in one
- 16:58Speaker 2: of those shot blocking limbs. Trust me on that one.
- 17:02Speaker 2: Or maybe you have a hunt book to a new state,
- 17:04Speaker 2: a new environment, and you're laser focused on killing whatever
- 17:07Speaker 2: animal happens to be on the menu. That's great, develop
- 17:10Speaker 2: a good plan, work with what your outfit or advises,
- 17:14Speaker 2: or whatever the DIY forums tell you to do, but
- 17:17Speaker 2: also remember that if you're from Pennsylvania or Wisconsin or
- 17:20Speaker 2: somewhere and you decide to go hunt I don't know
- 17:22Speaker 2: Arizona coups deer, you better check your sleeping bag for
- 17:25Speaker 2: unwanted snuggle buddies. You don't want to start a cuddle
- 17:27Speaker 2: puddle with a scorpion, and if you do, go seek help,
- 17:31Speaker 2: professional help. Please and please keep listening to this podcast
- 17:35Speaker 2: because I'm going to talk about more stuff next week.
- 17:37Speaker 2: Stuff that might help you kill a deer, for example,
- 17:41Speaker 2: or to put it in another way, stuff that might
- 17:43Speaker 2: help you kill a big buck early in the BO
- 17:45Speaker 2: season or later in the BO season sometime maybe gun
- 17:48Speaker 2: season two, whatever. Just listen. This has been the Wired
- 17:54Speaker 2: to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which is brought to you by
- 17:56Speaker 2: First Light. I'm your host, Tony Peterson. As I always,
- 17:59Speaker 2: thank you so much for checking in and for listening.
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