Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 1026: Foundations - Where Does the Whitetail Time Go?

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Ep. 1026: Foundations - Where Does the Whitetail Time Go? · 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 Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
0:22
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by first Light. I'm your host,
0:25
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today's topic is the relentless march of
0:28
Speaker 2: time and what it means to us as deer hunters. Look,
0:41
Speaker 2: this is a topic that's been on my mind for
0:43
Speaker 2: a while, and I'm guessing you'll be able to relate
0:46
Speaker 2: to it. It seems like every year is marked by
0:48
Speaker 2: some kind of annual events and that for some reason,
0:51
Speaker 2: the hourglass is just draining faster than it used to.
0:54
Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know how to describe it.
0:56
Speaker 2: I don't know if we are all masked, disassociating or what,
0:59
Speaker 2: but time freaking flying by. This has implications for our
1:03
Speaker 2: lives as a whole, of course, but also for us
1:05
Speaker 2: as deerhounds, which is what I'm going to talk about
1:07
Speaker 2: right now. A couple of weeks ago, my daughters, my dad,
1:19
Speaker 2: my sister, and my niece walked along a road in
1:21
Speaker 2: Cocoa Beach, Florida, to get to a park on the
1:24
Speaker 2: Banana River, which is really just kind of a giant
1:27
Speaker 2: saltwater lagoon. Hundreds of other folks were already there by
1:31
Speaker 2: the time we showed up, and after checking out a
1:33
Speaker 2: manatee which was doing manatee stuff beneath a wooden walkway
1:36
Speaker 2: over the water, we pointed ourselves to the northeast and
1:39
Speaker 2: we waited at a distance that a fellow like me
1:42
Speaker 2: could run in maybe about forty five minutes. Sat out
1:46
Speaker 2: of sight four astronauts readying themselves for the Artemis two mission.
1:51
Speaker 2: They were set to go on a ten day journey
1:53
Speaker 2: that I'm sure you've heard about, where they were going
1:55
Speaker 2: to travel to the far side of the Moon in
1:57
Speaker 2: what is a multi phase mission to get humans not
2:00
Speaker 2: only to set foot on the Moon again, but to
2:03
Speaker 2: eventually establish a human presence on the Moon, much like
2:07
Speaker 2: we've done with the International Space Station. Now, when we
2:11
Speaker 2: think of a rocket going into space, we often think
2:13
Speaker 2: of the discontinued Space Shuttle program, and we really can't
2:17
Speaker 2: conceptualize the size of the whole thing. This whole ship,
2:22
Speaker 2: rocket boosters, whole thing that was set to lift off
2:25
Speaker 2: on April one and did while we watched with actual,
2:29
Speaker 2: true patriotic pride in our hearts. Measured three hundred and
2:32
Speaker 2: thirty two feet tall and weighed in at launch. It
2:36
Speaker 2: get this five point seven six million pounds To escape
2:42
Speaker 2: Earth's gravity well with what amounts to basically a thirty
2:45
Speaker 2: story building, they needed to burn twelve thousand pounds of
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Speaker 2: rocket fuel every second. Think about that. Their total flight
2:55
Speaker 2: path took them over two hundred and fifty thousand miles
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Speaker 2: from Earth and overall took them across six hundred and
3:02
Speaker 2: twenty thousand miles. They'll see parts of the Moon that
3:06
Speaker 2: have never been seen by humans, and on their return
3:09
Speaker 2: they'll reach twenty five thousand miles per hour while the
3:13
Speaker 2: outside of their shuttle heats up to five thousand degrees fahrenheit.
3:17
Speaker 2: The next time you think of someone being really badass,
3:20
Speaker 2: I want you to think about those astronauts and the
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Speaker 2: risks they took, and the astronauts who will do even
3:25
Speaker 2: more in the near future to advance the Artemis program along.
3:29
Speaker 2: And I want you to think that while they were
3:31
Speaker 2: swinging around the Dark Side of the moon, hopefully listening
3:34
Speaker 2: to some pink Floyd, but probably not that time for
3:37
Speaker 2: them was moving at a different pace than it was
3:39
Speaker 2: for us here on Earth. It's close enough to assume
3:43
Speaker 2: that they probably didn't perceive time moving at a different speed,
3:47
Speaker 2: but atomic clocks prove that it does, just as Einstein
3:51
Speaker 2: predicted a long long time ago, before we proved that
3:54
Speaker 2: time was relative. This is one of those concepts I
3:57
Speaker 2: just can't quite wrap my head around, and I hate it.
4:00
Speaker 2: I don't like to be so handily reminded of the
4:02
Speaker 2: limitations of my own brain. But time is not absolute.
4:06
Speaker 2: It's relative, and what that means is that time is
4:09
Speaker 2: a function of how fast you're moving and how fast
4:12
Speaker 2: you're accelerating. The faster you move, the slower time goes,
4:15
Speaker 2: which is why if you could travel the speed of light,
4:18
Speaker 2: which is the theoretical speed limit of the universe, time
4:21
Speaker 2: essentially stands still, but not to you, because everything around
4:26
Speaker 2: you is slowing down at the same speed, including your
4:29
Speaker 2: aging process. It matches the time you're in No I know,
4:33
Speaker 2: I know there's a lot more to it that gets
4:36
Speaker 2: really wonky, like the twin paradox, but I don't know
4:39
Speaker 2: how to explain it better, because I don't understand it
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Speaker 2: very well at all. What I do know is that
4:43
Speaker 2: I keep talking to people, and I keep seeing Reddit
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Speaker 2: threads and other mentions of the fact that it feels
4:49
Speaker 2: like time has started to move faster for a lot
4:51
Speaker 2: of us in the last six years. But it's really
4:54
Speaker 2: our perception of time which I just read about, and
4:57
Speaker 2: the explanation was that, no surprise, our exposure to technology
5:02
Speaker 2: is the culprit. This may be a totally wrong read
5:04
Speaker 2: on it. I don't know, but I think about how
5:06
Speaker 2: often I pick up my phone to look up something
5:09
Speaker 2: and I get totally distracted by Instagram or some other site,
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Speaker 2: and pretty soon it's half an hour later, and I've
5:15
Speaker 2: done nothing but melt my brain a little bit with
5:17
Speaker 2: NonStop stimulation. That means truly nothing to me or my
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Speaker 2: experience as a human. I don't know, but I know
5:24
Speaker 2: that life is flying by. I thought of that as
5:28
Speaker 2: we watched that rocket takeoff and punch a hole through
5:30
Speaker 2: the atmosphere to enter the vacuum of space, and the
5:33
Speaker 2: fact that not only were my daughters there to witness it,
5:35
Speaker 2: but my dad was too. He's the guy who got
5:38
Speaker 2: me started in hunting. And fishing, and the seed he
5:41
Speaker 2: planted when I was a child has grown into something
5:43
Speaker 2: that has dominated my entire life. It has shaped the
5:47
Speaker 2: course of me as a human. He and I haven't
5:50
Speaker 2: always seen eye to eye, and I'm ashamed to admit
5:52
Speaker 2: this now, but we didn't speak for a decade over
5:55
Speaker 2: something that neither one of us really did, but both
5:57
Speaker 2: of us enabled, and the key player in that story
6:01
Speaker 2: has shed her mortal coil. I'll write the whole thing
6:03
Speaker 2: into a book, but until then, I'll speak as evasively
6:06
Speaker 2: as I can, because I don't want to hurt anyone
6:08
Speaker 2: that way. My dad is seventy six now, and watching
6:11
Speaker 2: him catch his first freshwater fish ever with my daughters
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Speaker 2: and talking to him about the deer we hunted and
6:17
Speaker 2: the turkeys we chased and the dogs we never owned,
6:20
Speaker 2: it kind of got to me. This was the first
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Speaker 2: time we ever flew together on a plane, and it
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Speaker 2: could be the last. I hope not, but I'm not
6:28
Speaker 2: going to count on it, because life is unpredictable and
6:30
Speaker 2: I can scarcely believe the journey I've been on anymore
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Speaker 2: than I can comprehend the life of someone else and
6:35
Speaker 2: their day to day activities. Or their regrets or their
6:38
Speaker 2: dreams are really anything. We are all mysteries to one
6:41
Speaker 2: another in some ways, and maybe that's just how it goes.
6:44
Speaker 2: I don't know, but I know that I regret not
6:47
Speaker 2: hunting with him more than I have over the last
6:49
Speaker 2: fifteen or twenty years of our lives. He's a crossbow
6:52
Speaker 2: hunter now, and he hates it because at heart he's
6:55
Speaker 2: a vertical bowhunter, and sometimes he talks about going back
6:58
Speaker 2: to that, but he won't. He doesn't want a reminder
7:01
Speaker 2: that he can't do that, and I think that's what
7:03
Speaker 2: he'd get. I think he knows that. He talks about
7:06
Speaker 2: death a lot too, which is probably a function of
7:08
Speaker 2: believing you're closer to it than you ever thought you'd get,
7:11
Speaker 2: which for someone who's spent a year and a half
7:13
Speaker 2: in Vietnam and then nearly took himself right out of
7:15
Speaker 2: the game twice not long after they sent him home,
7:18
Speaker 2: I suspect he's pretty happy to get the days he's getting.
7:21
Speaker 2: I also suspect that catching fish with all his granddaughters,
7:24
Speaker 2: and watching humans do something good and powerful with their
7:26
Speaker 2: collective minds, and that explorer spirit that hums inside some
7:30
Speaker 2: folks to the point where they'll agree to a six
7:32
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty thousand mile road trip and the name
7:35
Speaker 2: of getting us off this rock was something pretty special
7:38
Speaker 2: to him. I know it was to me A lot
7:41
Speaker 2: of times on this podcast, including the episode I dropped
7:45
Speaker 2: last week, I comment on the social aspect of hunting.
7:49
Speaker 2: You don't have to listen to this show too often
7:51
Speaker 2: to know that I'm just not a big fan of
7:53
Speaker 2: social media. But I'm also just not interested in the
7:56
Speaker 2: social aspect of hunting too much.
7:58
Speaker 1: Now.
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Speaker 2: I like it some, but after that Florida trip with
8:01
Speaker 2: my dad and my daughters and nearly my whole family,
8:04
Speaker 2: I'm starting to realize that I'm wrong about it. It's
8:07
Speaker 2: cool to go kill a giant buck on public land
8:10
Speaker 2: and you know, engage in the whole solo pursuit with
8:12
Speaker 2: a defined end goal. But you can only hunt on
8:16
Speaker 2: your own so much before you either want someone to
8:19
Speaker 2: share in your experiences or you want to teach someone
8:21
Speaker 2: how to do what you love you want to pass
8:23
Speaker 2: it on, which is you know the stage I'm in
8:26
Speaker 2: right now, And in fact, I just set up a
8:28
Speaker 2: Turkey blind that I know will be a good spot
8:30
Speaker 2: to not only take my kids, but a couple other
8:33
Speaker 2: people this spring, and it's highly likely we'll all see
8:36
Speaker 2: some turkeys die, and if we don't, we'll certainly hear
8:39
Speaker 2: them talk. And we'll see plenty of migrating songbirds, usually
8:42
Speaker 2: a coyote or two, and always some deer somewhere along
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Speaker 2: the way. I'll get out to try to arrow a
8:58
Speaker 2: bird of my own, and that'll be great. Two. But
9:01
Speaker 2: when I look to the future of my life and
9:03
Speaker 2: I acknowledge that this whole thing seems to be set
9:05
Speaker 2: on one point five speed. Now, like what happens sometimes
9:08
Speaker 2: when you hit the wrong button while listening to a
9:10
Speaker 2: podcast and yours truly, or maybe Steve Vanella or Rogan
9:14
Speaker 2: and a guest suddenly go Alvin and Chipmunk with their voices.
9:17
Speaker 2: I'm thinking more about how to use my time Wisely.
9:21
Speaker 2: It's a no brainer to take my daughters as much
9:23
Speaker 2: as possible. But that was going to happen regardless of
9:25
Speaker 2: how fast or slow the clock felt like it was ticking.
9:28
Speaker 2: I live in low grade fear that that whole thing
9:31
Speaker 2: will end at some point and they'll let me know
9:34
Speaker 2: they don't want to go, you know, sit in a
9:36
Speaker 2: turkey blind with me anymore. But so far, that hasn't happened. Now.
9:39
Speaker 2: I did have one daughter get up to fish with
9:41
Speaker 2: me every day on her vacation and one who slept in,
9:44
Speaker 2: but that one spent more time netting crabs and fishing
9:46
Speaker 2: later in the day, so I let it slide. I
9:48
Speaker 2: don't want to force her or anyone else to hang
9:51
Speaker 2: out with me, because I want the things I love
9:53
Speaker 2: to be the things that other people love and not
9:55
Speaker 2: just an obligation. Because if there's a real shared interest,
9:58
Speaker 2: there's a really good chance bond is just going to
10:01
Speaker 2: stay strong. We see that in the white tail world
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Speaker 2: quite a bit. And I bet when you think of
10:06
Speaker 2: some of your favorite people in the whole world, that
10:09
Speaker 2: they all share a love of deer. But it's not
10:12
Speaker 2: a love of deer really, it's a love of what
10:15
Speaker 2: the deer represent to us, which is sort of a
10:18
Speaker 2: ticket to the places they live, and that gravity to
10:21
Speaker 2: be there is strong. Now, if that's true for you,
10:24
Speaker 2: ask yourself what the next ten years hold for you
10:27
Speaker 2: and for them, you know, those people in your life.
10:30
Speaker 2: Is there a trip you could take, maybe start banking
10:33
Speaker 2: those Iowa points together, So over the next three to
10:36
Speaker 2: maybe seven or eight years, you can talk about it
10:39
Speaker 2: and plan it out and do some e scouting, and
10:41
Speaker 2: just always have the prospect of that dream rut hunt
10:44
Speaker 2: riding shotgun in your relationship until it's time to pull
10:48
Speaker 2: the trigger and put the sticks to a tree. Maybe
10:51
Speaker 2: your dad, you know, who grew up rifle hunting in
10:54
Speaker 2: a place with very few deer and very few prospects
10:56
Speaker 2: of shooting a big one has watched his hunting party
10:59
Speaker 2: dwindle down nothing and is maybe thinking about selling the
11:02
Speaker 2: shack because no one used it anymore. Go hunt with him,
11:06
Speaker 2: even if you know that you won't shoot anything. It's
11:09
Speaker 2: not always about the best odds of killing the kind
11:12
Speaker 2: of dear we want, although that's what this entire industry
11:15
Speaker 2: is predicated on, to the detriment of the whole thing,
11:18
Speaker 2: at least to some extent, maybe a large extent, depending
11:22
Speaker 2: on who you ask. Myself included there, As hypocritical as
11:26
Speaker 2: that makes me sound, it's also about doing something with
11:29
Speaker 2: your time that matters if it's all just speed running
11:33
Speaker 2: toward death. For us, what we do with the years
11:36
Speaker 2: we have is important. But even looking at it in
11:39
Speaker 2: terms of years is a mistake. It's too hard to
11:42
Speaker 2: grasp a full year. Months might be too much, and certainly,
11:46
Speaker 2: looking at a hunting season as a whole season, it's
11:49
Speaker 2: too hard to grasp. For example, here in Minnesota, we
11:52
Speaker 2: have six weeks to turkey on if we get an
11:54
Speaker 2: archery tag like I did. But that six weeks covers
11:57
Speaker 2: mid April to the end of May, which is a
12:00
Speaker 2: lot of time and a lot of different kinds of
12:02
Speaker 2: turkey hunting opportunities rolled into one season. There's also a
12:06
Speaker 2: hell of a lot of good fishing to be had
12:07
Speaker 2: in that timeframe, and of course, depending on where you
12:10
Speaker 2: live out of state, birds to chase, maybe bears out
12:13
Speaker 2: West or up in Canada, maybe exotics down in Texas,
12:16
Speaker 2: who knows. Wherever you live, there's probably some good opportunities
12:20
Speaker 2: to get outside, not just during turkey season four turkeys,
12:24
Speaker 2: but during spring for all kinds of things. And of
12:27
Speaker 2: course you can get a little white tail work done
12:29
Speaker 2: or a lot of it, and you can look at
12:32
Speaker 2: summer because it's kind of the same way, just as
12:34
Speaker 2: you should look at this upcoming deer season is not
12:36
Speaker 2: just mostly two important weeks in November, but a whole
12:40
Speaker 2: several month opportunity to use your time wisely, even if
12:44
Speaker 2: that means hunting for a dough some morning in early
12:47
Speaker 2: October when you just know that the big bucks aren't
12:50
Speaker 2: going to walk in. Better yet, hunt that dough with
12:53
Speaker 2: someone else, maybe someone you care about a whole lot,
12:56
Speaker 2: and suddenly the fact that you probably won't kill a
12:59
Speaker 2: big buck won't matter nearly as much because that's not
13:01
Speaker 2: what it's about. I know that's almost sacrilegious to say,
13:05
Speaker 2: but I'm at the stage of my life where I've
13:07
Speaker 2: watched a hell of a lot of people get their
13:08
Speaker 2: hands on prime deer ground, and they can and do
13:12
Speaker 2: kill big deer nearly every year without very much effort.
13:16
Speaker 2: I see a lot of them seem to enter this
13:18
Speaker 2: weird phase where they can't see past the big bucks,
13:21
Speaker 2: but they still want someone to come hunt with them.
13:24
Speaker 2: It's a careful what you wish for situation. Honestly, some
13:28
Speaker 2: of them move past the big buck gatekeeping to recognize
13:30
Speaker 2: that they want more out of hunting, and that means
13:33
Speaker 2: more with other people. But some never do, you know,
13:37
Speaker 2: to each their own, you know, But I think it
13:39
Speaker 2: pays dividends to remind ourselves as often as we can
13:42
Speaker 2: that you can go to prom alone and have some fun.
13:44
Speaker 2: But it's not the same thing as going with a date.
13:46
Speaker 2: If you get my drift. We need other people and
13:50
Speaker 2: we need shared experiences, and if the whole thing happens
13:53
Speaker 2: to be conducive to a summertime glassing session or a
13:56
Speaker 2: long weekend on the road to hunt out of a
13:58
Speaker 2: tent with a couple of buddies, regret it for a
14:00
Speaker 2: single second. Maybe that's the last thing I want to
14:03
Speaker 2: say about this, because you can't talk about the passage
14:07
Speaker 2: of time without acknowledging regret of time spent not doing
14:10
Speaker 2: what you wish you had. I regret not speaking to
14:13
Speaker 2: my dad for a decade in a way that brings
14:16
Speaker 2: me a lot of shame to say it out loud.
14:18
Speaker 2: But I can't go back in time and change the
14:20
Speaker 2: events that conspire to create the whole mess we found
14:22
Speaker 2: ourselves in. I can look forward to this coming turkey
14:26
Speaker 2: season and bring my daughters down to hunt with him,
14:28
Speaker 2: because he'll think it's pretty amazing to watch them shoot
14:31
Speaker 2: a turkey. He'll also think it's pretty amazing just to
14:34
Speaker 2: sit in a blind with them, eating snacks and trying
14:36
Speaker 2: to call in a gobbler. That'll be time spent wisely,
14:40
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure, and I highly doubt I'll regret bringing
14:43
Speaker 2: them down to his neck of the woods, even though
14:45
Speaker 2: I've had about enough of the driving game overall. Another
14:49
Speaker 2: thing that I'm going to do this year is I'm
14:51
Speaker 2: going to hang a couple ladder stands for him on
14:53
Speaker 2: a farm we've hunted since I was fourteen, you know,
14:56
Speaker 2: a piece of dirt. I got permission for us to
14:59
Speaker 2: hunt one once again a couple weeks ago from a
15:02
Speaker 2: phone call to a farmer who has beat cancer twice
15:04
Speaker 2: but is on a timeline that isn't in his favor.
15:07
Speaker 2: My dad and I figured out how to hunt deer
15:09
Speaker 2: on that farm, and if you were to mine my
15:12
Speaker 2: memories for the best ones, a hell of a lot
15:15
Speaker 2: of them would involve he and I bow hunting deer
15:17
Speaker 2: out there when I was younger. Now he hates hunting
15:20
Speaker 2: out of ground blinds, and so I figure if I
15:22
Speaker 2: do the work with those ladder stands and put them
15:24
Speaker 2: in places that are not only pretty easy to get
15:26
Speaker 2: to but also should show him some deer, I'll be
15:30
Speaker 2: pretty happy using my time for that. I'll put up
15:33
Speaker 2: some cameras to keep his excitement up, and maybe I'll
15:36
Speaker 2: get a double ladder stand for one of those spots
15:38
Speaker 2: so he can sit with one of the girls some
15:40
Speaker 2: night and teach her what he taught me when I
15:42
Speaker 2: was their age. I don't know, but I know that
15:46
Speaker 2: I'd rather not have any more big regrets about how
15:48
Speaker 2: I use my time or my life, even though I
15:51
Speaker 2: know I will, because in some ways, just like a
15:54
Speaker 2: lot of us, I'm a mistake making machine. But I'm
15:57
Speaker 2: also just feeling that ever increasing acceleration of time as
16:00
Speaker 2: I watch my little girls grow up, and I watch
16:03
Speaker 2: my father slow down with each sporadic visit, and I hope,
16:07
Speaker 2: above most things, that I don't forget this lesson that
16:11
Speaker 2: I'm trying to teach you all with this episode. I
16:14
Speaker 2: want you to remember it and if you need to
16:17
Speaker 2: remind me of it, if you feel I'm veering off course,
16:22
Speaker 2: I promise I'll do the same for you from time
16:24
Speaker 2: to time before it's too late for all of us.
16:28
Speaker 2: That's it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson. This has
16:31
Speaker 2: been the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast. As always, thank
16:34
Speaker 2: you so much for listening and for all of your support.
16:38
Speaker 2: If you are not subscribed to this podcast, please do
16:40
Speaker 2: that so my podcast editor will leave me alone. If
16:44
Speaker 2: you need more White Tail hunting content. Maybe you just
16:47
Speaker 2: need to see some fishing content. Maybe you need a
16:49
Speaker 2: new recipe for that gobbler you're about to shoot. Whatever,
16:52
Speaker 2: go to the medeater dot com and check out all
16:55
Speaker 2: the stuff we dropped there. We literally put up new
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