Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 996: Foundations - It's Time to Ponder the Lessons Last Season Taught Us

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Ep. 996: Foundations - It's Time to Ponder the Lessons Last Season Taught Us · 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.
0:21
Speaker 3: The Wire to Hunt Foundations broadcast, which is brought to
0:23
Speaker 3: you by First Light. I'm your host, Tony Peterson, and
0:25
Speaker 3: today's episode is all about reflecting on the past season
0:28
Speaker 3: and trying to learn from it.
0:35
Speaker 2: Look, I know it's not over everywhere.
0:37
Speaker 3: A lot of Southern hunters definitely have some season left,
0:40
Speaker 3: and there are a few late season opportunities still going
0:42
Speaker 3: on up here in the arc there. But for a
0:44
Speaker 3: lot of us, the season is either actually over or
0:46
Speaker 3: over enough to be considered pretty much as wrapped up.
0:49
Speaker 3: This is a good time to relax a bit, but
0:51
Speaker 3: to also think about the past season and what happened
0:53
Speaker 3: to you, what went well, what didn't, what you learn.
0:57
Speaker 2: This is not just.
0:57
Speaker 3: About how to kill deer, but how to enjoy the
0:59
Speaker 3: whole more, which is what I'm going to talk about
1:01
Speaker 3: right now. This particular week is just a weird one
1:11
Speaker 3: for me. Every single year. Not only does it signify
1:14
Speaker 3: that I can stop making the three hour drive to
1:16
Speaker 3: the part of our state that has some wild roosters
1:19
Speaker 3: to hunt every single chance I get, but the deer
1:22
Speaker 3: season is just about pretty much over. I am going
1:26
Speaker 3: to take my daughters on a dome mission sometime this
1:28
Speaker 3: month in southwestern Wisconsin, but I'm not gonna hunt, and
1:31
Speaker 3: that's a candy Land deal, so it sort of doesn't
1:33
Speaker 3: feel like the kind of hunting where you get a
1:34
Speaker 3: real fix, if that makes any sense. Although my daughters
1:38
Speaker 3: don't care, and I guess I really shouldn't care either.
1:41
Speaker 3: It's a good opportunity, but it is bittersweet to see
1:44
Speaker 3: another season end, and not just because having the option
1:46
Speaker 3: to hunt deer is generally always better than not being
1:49
Speaker 3: able to hunt deer. But I also don't know anyone
1:51
Speaker 3: who gets after it pretty hard who also isn't just
1:54
Speaker 3: ready for a little off season.
1:56
Speaker 2: I am. I just feel conflicted on it.
1:59
Speaker 3: I'm also inflicted on the fact that it just seems
2:01
Speaker 3: like life is screaming by so fast lately. I've had
2:05
Speaker 3: a lot of conversation with folks who feel the same
2:08
Speaker 3: way as if the whole thing got put on double
2:10
Speaker 3: speed when we weren't looking, and now the years are
2:12
Speaker 3: disappearing in the rearview mirror at a rate that just
2:15
Speaker 3: doesn't seem right. It's in that spirit that I want
2:18
Speaker 3: to talk about my first lesson from this season, which
2:20
Speaker 3: I think is an important one. I didn't hunt with
2:23
Speaker 3: my girls as much as I'd like to be fair.
2:26
Speaker 3: That happens every season. It always makes me feel guilty,
2:29
Speaker 3: and by all accounts, they had a great season from
2:31
Speaker 3: the perspective of shooting bucks. They teamed up to kill
2:35
Speaker 3: three between Minnesota and Wisconsin, which is a lot for
2:37
Speaker 3: a pair of thirteen year olds, I guess, but we
2:40
Speaker 3: all know it's not just the killing that makes the season,
2:43
Speaker 3: especially when the killing happens barely quickly without a lot
2:45
Speaker 3: of effort, which is what happened with both of their
2:48
Speaker 3: Minnesota bucks. Now, we did have some really cool sits
2:51
Speaker 3: where we saw lots of critters, and both of my
2:53
Speaker 3: daughters got to see legitimately nice bucks for the areas
2:56
Speaker 3: we hunt, which is always fun as a dad. When
3:01
Speaker 3: I look back on last season, I'm reminded of the
3:04
Speaker 3: low grade fighting between my wife and I over getting
3:07
Speaker 3: my daughters into the woods. More She's on the path
3:10
Speaker 3: that most of the suburb dwellers here are leaning into,
3:12
Speaker 3: so I don't blame her for it. But for me,
3:15
Speaker 3: I think we are just way overdoing the activities with
3:18
Speaker 3: our kids. I can't help but think that my daughters
3:20
Speaker 3: would have had, you know, better memories from more time
3:24
Speaker 3: in the woods than they will from another basketball tournament
3:27
Speaker 3: out of a dozen or so per season. But I
3:29
Speaker 3: know I'm shouting into the void on that one. At least,
3:32
Speaker 3: it seems like it still doesn't make me feel great
3:34
Speaker 3: to know that every season I find myself wishing I'd
3:37
Speaker 3: figured out just a little bit better how to hunt
3:39
Speaker 3: with them more. Just pull them out of school more,
3:41
Speaker 3: just make it happen. Now, if there was a way
3:43
Speaker 3: to bottle up that feeling and save it for nine
3:45
Speaker 3: months so I could get a fresh dose, you know,
3:47
Speaker 3: on the onset of the twenty sixth season, I would
3:50
Speaker 3: because otherwise I'll forget it to some extent and things
3:53
Speaker 3: will probably play out in a similar fashion. I do
3:56
Speaker 3: feel better about how my daughters handled themselves on the
3:59
Speaker 3: season's hunt this year, though I made them take a
4:02
Speaker 3: step up in responsibility with their gear so that I
4:04
Speaker 3: didn't have to think of everything, and they would have
4:07
Speaker 3: to keep a little bit of, you know, more ownership
4:10
Speaker 3: over their enjoyment and success in the field.
4:12
Speaker 2: That's a good thing.
4:13
Speaker 3: But I also know that for sure when it comes
4:15
Speaker 3: to the upcoming season, I'm going to get those girls
4:18
Speaker 3: in tree stands more. They will be old enough to
4:21
Speaker 3: hunt solo, and I want them to get the experience
4:23
Speaker 3: of being in stands more often and blinds less often.
4:27
Speaker 3: I'm actually really excited to work on some of that
4:29
Speaker 3: stuff in the off season on the properties where I
4:31
Speaker 3: can hunting two states kind of hard, I guess with
4:34
Speaker 3: them also makes me want to keep going to other places.
4:38
Speaker 2: The writing is basically.
4:39
Speaker 3: On the wall for most traveling hunts, especially for the
4:42
Speaker 3: folks who aren't wealthy, and I'd really like my daughters
4:45
Speaker 3: to hunt for a few new critters in some really
4:47
Speaker 3: cool places before that's kind of, you know, completely off
4:50
Speaker 3: the table. I don't know yet if that'll just be
4:52
Speaker 3: a turkey trip to Nebraska or maybe some type of
4:54
Speaker 3: trip out west for something. But this year they're going
4:57
Speaker 3: to a new state to hunt for something. Now this season,
5:00
Speaker 3: I also learned, or I probably should say relearned a
5:03
Speaker 3: few things about myself as a white tail hunter. That
5:06
Speaker 3: Nebraska rut hunt I did reminded me of just how
5:09
Speaker 3: nice it is to get my hands on a property
5:11
Speaker 3: and get to really work just that property with cameras
5:14
Speaker 3: and then a whole bunch of well scouted out setups.
5:17
Speaker 3: It wasn't the hardest hunt of the season, but that's
5:19
Speaker 3: just fine. Sometimes. I really enjoyed the process of looking
5:23
Speaker 3: at a new piece of ground where I could trim
5:25
Speaker 3: shooting lanes and run a whole bunch of cameras and
5:27
Speaker 3: just work it and learn it and then see how
5:29
Speaker 3: everything came to fruition. It was a good reminder of
5:32
Speaker 3: a lot of things, but also how important it is
5:35
Speaker 3: to have a plan if you're going to hunt a
5:36
Speaker 3: place for a limited amount of time and that time
5:39
Speaker 3: happens to be the rut. I really don't feel like
5:42
Speaker 3: that hunt taught me too much other than sort of
5:45
Speaker 3: reinforcing a load deer density strategy and maybe helping me
5:48
Speaker 3: be more patient that way. But a few other hunts
5:50
Speaker 3: have my wheels just turning. One was the early season
5:54
Speaker 3: hunt in Minnesota here with my daughter, when we drove
5:57
Speaker 3: to southern Minnesota and it was hotter than hell, sat
6:00
Speaker 3: on a pond, or at least as close as I
6:02
Speaker 3: dared for the first night and had encounters with four bucks,
6:05
Speaker 3: but they all did what I secretly hoped they wouldn't.
6:08
Speaker 3: And the next night, when when we returned to sit closer,
6:12
Speaker 3: the farmer who owns the place decided to chop all
6:14
Speaker 3: the corn for silage, the corn that the deer were
6:17
Speaker 3: using to get to that pond. Now I had played
6:20
Speaker 3: it safe, got close, and then got shut out. I
6:24
Speaker 3: only had two days to hunt with her, so I
6:26
Speaker 3: should have just gone in and sat right on top
6:28
Speaker 3: of the water as best I could, But I didn't,
6:30
Speaker 3: and it cost us. The next time I'm convinced a
6:33
Speaker 3: buck or multiple bucks are going to use a spot
6:36
Speaker 3: like that, whether I'm with the girls or not, I
6:39
Speaker 3: am going to go for broke, but also just make
6:41
Speaker 3: sure I have a backup spot in case I blow
6:43
Speaker 3: the whole thing up. There is a dance between being
6:47
Speaker 3: too cavalier and being too cautious that is so easy
6:50
Speaker 3: to screw up, and most of the time I think
6:52
Speaker 3: we are just too cautious, And even though I rarely
6:55
Speaker 3: am when it comes to a lot of my public
6:57
Speaker 3: land stuff, I keep finding myself playing it a little
7:00
Speaker 3: with the girls that I probably need to. I think
7:03
Speaker 3: that lesson is one that we can all learn from,
7:05
Speaker 3: and it's important to remember how much recency bias or
7:07
Speaker 3: I guess you know, the successful hunts bias our memories
7:11
Speaker 3: and our future plans. Think about how often you didn't
7:14
Speaker 3: hunt because you wouldn't think it would be good, and
7:16
Speaker 3: then think about when you did hunt because it should
7:18
Speaker 3: be good, but you sat somewhere that you knew was
7:20
Speaker 3: a little dicey. Those decisions, like all of our decisions,
7:25
Speaker 3: have repercussions, and they can help us make better plans
7:27
Speaker 3: in the future. I think all of us be wise
7:40
Speaker 3: to pay attention to when we feel the need to
7:42
Speaker 3: go for broke versus the timing or conditions that talk
7:46
Speaker 3: us into being super cautious. When it comes to the latter,
7:49
Speaker 3: there are a few follow up questions we should probably
7:51
Speaker 3: ask ourselves, like was I overly cautious because I had,
7:56
Speaker 3: you know, only a few stands in blinds to choose from?
7:59
Speaker 3: Or I just don't I don't have a reliable mobile setup.
8:02
Speaker 3: Even if you remotely believe either to be true, it
8:05
Speaker 3: would be a good idea to learn from that and
8:07
Speaker 3: alter your course for next season. Another lesson that I
8:10
Speaker 3: learned from this season is how easy it is for
8:12
Speaker 3: me to miss something crucial. I found a spot this
8:15
Speaker 3: past summer on some public land in Wisconsin that got
8:17
Speaker 3: me really interested, so I scouted it and then I
8:21
Speaker 3: hunted it a few times in the early season. I
8:23
Speaker 3: had encounters with doughs every sit, which is no small
8:26
Speaker 3: victory over there, but I never saw a buck, and
8:29
Speaker 3: I mostly didn't want to shoot a dough there, even
8:30
Speaker 3: though I had a tag. There just aren't that many
8:33
Speaker 3: deer over there right now where we hunt, so I
8:35
Speaker 3: just didn't feel like I needed to shoot a dough
8:37
Speaker 3: just because, so I limited myself to bucks. I also
8:40
Speaker 3: hung one camera above a creek crossing as I left
8:43
Speaker 3: one morning after hunting, just to see what I was missing,
8:46
Speaker 3: and man, I was missing a lot. I had a
8:49
Speaker 3: couple of dough groups that got pretty consistent, and then
8:51
Speaker 3: some bucks as the rut ramped up. Now, I never
8:54
Speaker 3: got a really big deer on camera there, but I
8:56
Speaker 3: had a couple of year typical two year old type
8:58
Speaker 3: of deer that I would have loved scene coming in.
9:00
Speaker 3: They would have been just fine for me. Now, when
9:03
Speaker 3: I killed my buck on a different property. I went
9:05
Speaker 3: over to pull that camera, and I realized a couple
9:08
Speaker 3: of things. The first is that there are some apple
9:10
Speaker 3: trees along the trout stream in that property that deserves
9:13
Speaker 3: some attention in the early season. I don't know why
9:15
Speaker 3: it never occurred to me that they could even be there,
9:18
Speaker 3: but they are, and I'm not going to forget them
9:20
Speaker 3: this year. I also realized that the trail camera that
9:24
Speaker 3: I had hung was on a trail that split about
9:27
Speaker 3: ten yards below the spot I actually chose, so I
9:30
Speaker 3: had monitored one trail instead of both. And if you're
9:34
Speaker 3: wondering why, the only thing I can say is because
9:36
Speaker 3: I'm stupid.
9:37
Speaker 2: I guess.
9:38
Speaker 3: I don't know how I missed that when I hung
9:40
Speaker 3: the camera, but I did, and it actually explained some
9:43
Speaker 3: of the travel that the images showed, which I didn't
9:45
Speaker 3: understand at the time. I think it was like a
9:48
Speaker 3: low faith do it because you can set a camera
9:51
Speaker 3: kind of thing that I just didn't care.
9:53
Speaker 2: That much about.
9:55
Speaker 3: That was stupid because the travel on both trails looked
9:57
Speaker 3: to be about the same, so I might have actually
10:00
Speaker 3: down by half the amount of recon I could do
10:04
Speaker 3: instead of just simply pointing my camera downhill. Instead of uphill.
10:08
Speaker 3: I could have captured both of those trails. If there's
10:11
Speaker 3: a lesson there is to try to get your cameras
10:13
Speaker 3: in the best spots possible instead of just getting so
10:15
Speaker 3: much tunnel vision that you don't even look around a
10:18
Speaker 3: little bit. I also found a few trees on that
10:21
Speaker 3: trail which were way better for a quick hang and
10:24
Speaker 3: bang with my saddle than the ones I had actually
10:26
Speaker 3: set up. And when I went in there to hunt,
10:28
Speaker 3: I hate when I do stuff like that to myself,
10:31
Speaker 3: But I also checked my work a lot, so maybe
10:33
Speaker 3: I'm not more of a mistake machine than most of us.
10:36
Speaker 3: I don't know, but I know that that spot had
10:38
Speaker 3: a lot of promise and it delivered on some fun sits,
10:41
Speaker 3: and it left me with a lot of questions and
10:44
Speaker 3: the feeling that I had done about I don't know
10:46
Speaker 3: ten percent of what I needed to in order to
10:48
Speaker 3: kill a buck there. And speaking of killing bucks, I'd
10:52
Speaker 3: say maybe the most pertinent lesson I got from last
10:54
Speaker 3: season was this, you can kill bucks incredibly easy with
10:58
Speaker 3: the right setups, or you can get your ass absolutely
11:01
Speaker 3: kicked for years while doing almost everything right. I killed
11:06
Speaker 3: a super easy buck in Minnesota on water in September
11:08
Speaker 3: when it was hot and they were just coming to
11:11
Speaker 3: get a drink.
11:11
Speaker 2: They were just gonna get there.
11:13
Speaker 3: Then I killed a super easy buck in Nebraska that
11:16
Speaker 3: was cruising through a very obvious pinch point.
11:18
Speaker 2: Simple stuff.
11:19
Speaker 3: But the last buck, the one in Wisconsin, that was
11:22
Speaker 3: a totally different thing. I had literally talked myself into
11:26
Speaker 3: believing that I'd never get a big one over there.
11:28
Speaker 3: It's like I could never get all that close no
11:30
Speaker 3: matter what I did. And what I mean by that
11:33
Speaker 3: is that year after year it felt largely like I
11:37
Speaker 3: reset to zero and had to start over. That's a
11:40
Speaker 3: hard mode to operate in because if you feel like
11:43
Speaker 3: you're not making progress, it's really hard to give it
11:45
Speaker 3: a real effort. But that's the only way to do it.
11:48
Speaker 3: And even though I felt like I wasn't really phoning
11:51
Speaker 3: it in, there was always just like this nagging sense
11:54
Speaker 3: that it wasn't meant to be. I had that same
11:57
Speaker 3: feeling for a long time when I just started bowhunting,
12:00
Speaker 3: you know, about killing any deer. Then I had it
12:03
Speaker 3: about killing anything bigger than a year and a half old.
12:06
Speaker 3: Then I had it about killing a big buck. I
12:09
Speaker 3: guess in some ways, a lot of us live with
12:12
Speaker 3: that throughout much, if not all, of our hunting careers.
12:16
Speaker 2: It's a tough pill to swallow.
12:17
Speaker 3: When the old ego says it shouldn't be this hard,
12:19
Speaker 3: but the deer decided that it will be. That buck
12:22
Speaker 3: I killed over there was just such a good reminder
12:24
Speaker 3: that even in places where it's just difficult to hunt
12:27
Speaker 3: for a variety of reasons, it's still possible. You just
12:30
Speaker 3: need the time to scout and to hunt, and you
12:32
Speaker 3: need to listen to the deer. What the deer this
12:35
Speaker 3: year told me was that they weren't going to hang
12:37
Speaker 3: out in the big old swamps where the wolves liked
12:39
Speaker 3: to howl, but they were going to leave. But they
12:43
Speaker 3: also weren't going to leave the country. They along with
12:47
Speaker 3: the coyotes, just shifted their core areas for a while,
12:49
Speaker 3: which did a couple of things that I hope I
12:51
Speaker 3: never forget. The first was that they moved closer to
12:54
Speaker 3: human habitation, even the big bucks, which tells you how
12:58
Speaker 3: much you know they respect the wolf's ability to eat them.
13:01
Speaker 3: The second was that when they opted to mostly move
13:04
Speaker 3: out of the big cover, they got concentrated in smaller,
13:07
Speaker 3: easier to hunt cover. The third was that if it's
13:10
Speaker 3: the rut, you just have to get your ass out
13:12
Speaker 3: there and keep trying. I know that's kind of anti climactic,
13:16
Speaker 3: but that Wisconsin buck and his buddies were absolutely doing
13:19
Speaker 3: their thing, and they were not nocturnal.
13:22
Speaker 2: They were just not where I wanted them to be.
13:24
Speaker 3: I kept pushing hunts to happen in places where I
13:27
Speaker 3: thought they might show up because of the magic of November.
13:31
Speaker 3: But they didn't show up, and they almost never do,
13:33
Speaker 3: so I had to go looking for them. In a way,
13:36
Speaker 3: I guess this brings me all the way back to
13:39
Speaker 3: that lesson on being too cavalier versus too cautious. For
13:43
Speaker 3: my Wisconsin Rut hunt, I was being pretty cautious because
13:46
Speaker 3: I thought I had to preserve a couple of spots
13:48
Speaker 3: where I figured eventually I just catch one cruising.
13:51
Speaker 2: But those spots were dead.
13:52
Speaker 3: And if I'm being honest, which I don't really want
13:55
Speaker 3: to be, at least one of them is just a
13:57
Speaker 3: dud for reasons I can't name. I don't know why
14:01
Speaker 3: they won't cruise through there when I'm there, but they won't,
14:04
Speaker 3: and I need to do something different about it. I
14:07
Speaker 3: don't know what that is yet, but I know that
14:08
Speaker 3: it was a high confident spot for me last year
14:11
Speaker 3: and this year, and it has delivered me a total
14:14
Speaker 3: of one button buck sighting and enough hours to tell
14:17
Speaker 3: me that it's just wrong. So it's back to the
14:20
Speaker 3: drawing board with that spot or that property. But that's okay.
14:23
Speaker 3: That's what this time of year is good for. We
14:26
Speaker 3: can get our heads right and give our past season
14:28
Speaker 3: some real thought. That's what you should do, and you
14:31
Speaker 3: should be as honest as you can about it, because
14:33
Speaker 3: the more we take stock in our successes and our failures,
14:37
Speaker 3: and the more we kind of mentally inventory the plans
14:39
Speaker 3: that worked and the ones we were sure would work
14:42
Speaker 3: but didn't, the more likely we are to try something
14:45
Speaker 3: different next season that will work. I think this is
14:49
Speaker 3: good for all of us, whether we only hunt one
14:51
Speaker 3: spot and we think we have it pretty much dialed,
14:54
Speaker 3: or you kind of free spirit type of person who
14:56
Speaker 3: saddles up in a new tree for every sit of
14:58
Speaker 3: the season. Give yourself some time to reflect, see if
15:02
Speaker 3: you can pull a few lessons out of the last
15:04
Speaker 3: season to learn from, and come back next week because
15:06
Speaker 3: I'm going to dive into a white tails biology to
15:08
Speaker 3: break down how they survive. Winner and further highlight how
15:12
Speaker 3: freaking awesome these critters really are.
15:16
Speaker 2: That's it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson.
15:18
Speaker 3: This has been the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which
15:20
Speaker 3: is brought to you by First Light. As I always,
15:22
Speaker 3: thank you so much for all of your support. We
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Speaker 3: couldn't do it without you, and I mean that from
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Speaker 3: the bottom of my heart. All of us here at
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