Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 883: Foundations - Why Honesty in Deer Hunting Matters
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.
- 0:20Speaker 2: Hey, everyone, welcome to the Wired 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 this episode is all about honesty and
- 0:28Speaker 2: kind of the dumb lies we tell around deer hunting
- 0:30Speaker 2: and why we should all try to stop. I know
- 0:34Speaker 2: this is a weird one, folks, but the idea, oh,
- 0:36Speaker 2: I guess it was spawned by like a not too
- 0:38Speaker 2: revolutionary thought, which is basically the sheer fact that we
- 0:41Speaker 2: are constantly fed so much bullshit in our daily lives
- 0:44Speaker 2: that lying is just an accepted form of communication. Our
- 0:48Speaker 2: politicians are absolutely full of shit, but so are our bosses,
- 0:51Speaker 2: our co workers, and so many of the people we
- 0:52Speaker 2: interact with on a daily basis.
- 0:54Speaker 1: Us too.
- 0:54Speaker 2: Really partially, that's just how kind of like our social
- 0:57Speaker 2: interactions have involved. It's really kind of bond when you
- 1:00Speaker 2: think about it, And you know, deer hunting didn't escape
- 1:03Speaker 2: this either, like the deer hunting realm.
- 1:05Speaker 1: Is full of this.
- 1:05Speaker 2: But I think we should acknowledge this, maybe try to
- 1:08Speaker 2: lie a little less, which is what I'm going to
- 1:10Speaker 2: talk about right now. The term Ponzi scheme gets thrown
- 1:18Speaker 2: around a lot, but some people really don't seem to
- 1:21Speaker 2: know what it actually means. We know that Bernie Madeoff
- 1:24Speaker 2: ripped off a bunch of high rollers and celebrities a
- 1:27Speaker 2: while back, and it was big news. We know that
- 1:30Speaker 2: some people claim bitcoin is, but it's really not a
- 1:33Speaker 2: Ponzi scheme. It's more of a greater fools theory type
- 1:36Speaker 2: of thing, at least right now. You know, until you
- 1:40Speaker 2: can broadly buy your groceries or whatever with bitcoins, it's
- 1:43Speaker 2: sort of like you got to sell it to somebody
- 1:45Speaker 2: who will pay more for it than you will. A
- 1:47Speaker 2: Ponzi scheme is different, and it started with a guy
- 1:51Speaker 2: whose name might not surprise you. Charles Ponzi. Old Chuck
- 1:56Speaker 2: was an Italian immigrant who back in the nineteen twenties, when,
- 1:59Speaker 2: if you know anything about our financial history, was a
- 2:03Speaker 2: time when people were doing pretty well. The old Roaring
- 2:06Speaker 2: twenties thing and all, oh the thirties would be a
- 2:09Speaker 2: different story. But in the twenties there was some money
- 2:11Speaker 2: to be thrown around and to be made, and one
- 2:14Speaker 2: guy who figured out how to make a bunch of
- 2:16Speaker 2: it was Charles Ponzie. He was a Grade A world
- 2:21Speaker 2: champion at lying, which is a prerequisite to running a
- 2:24Speaker 2: Ponzi scheme. Now, he came up with an idea to
- 2:28Speaker 2: get New Englanders interested in investing into get this postage
- 2:33Speaker 2: stamp speculation. Now, before I explain it further, for all
- 2:37Speaker 2: of you young folks out there wondering how to catch
- 2:40Speaker 2: the next big thing that might ten thousand ex your
- 2:42Speaker 2: money in a few years, ask yourself if you understand
- 2:45Speaker 2: what a highly speculative investment is. If you don't learn
- 2:50Speaker 2: about it before you part with any of your money.
- 2:53Speaker 2: Remember also, if someone comes to you with an amazing
- 2:56Speaker 2: investment opportunity that they are literally offering to get I
- 3:00Speaker 2: used some money they could take for themselves, And then
- 3:03Speaker 2: ask yourself, why would they do that? If you can't
- 3:05Speaker 2: come up with a good reason, like they are literally
- 3:08Speaker 2: my dad and he loves me very much and wouldn't
- 3:10Speaker 2: do that. Consider that the opportunity might not be as
- 3:13Speaker 2: clear cut or as beneficial to you as you might
- 3:16Speaker 2: think anyway. Ponzi promised investors a fifty percent return on
- 3:21Speaker 2: their capital in ninety days, which I hate to do
- 3:24Speaker 2: this again, but I feel an obligation to say. There's
- 3:27Speaker 2: no real, big free money out there. If someone tells
- 3:31Speaker 2: you they are in a dividends stock or ETF that
- 3:34Speaker 2: churns out even eight or ten percent a year, it's
- 3:37Speaker 2: probably not very safe. You can get ten percent a
- 3:40Speaker 2: year in the S and P five hundred, but you
- 3:42Speaker 2: have to give it many years to average the ups
- 3:45Speaker 2: and the downs. It won't be an instant year to
- 3:48Speaker 2: year guaranteed ten percent, let alone fifty percent in three months.
- 3:53Speaker 2: The thing about a Ponzi scheme is that it has
- 3:56Speaker 2: to grow forever because the money that it needs to
- 4:00Speaker 2: return that fifty percent in three months has to come
- 4:04Speaker 2: from somewhere, and it sure as hell isn't going to
- 4:07Speaker 2: come from flipping stamps for a huge profit. So new
- 4:11Speaker 2: investors have to show up with their money, and that
- 4:14Speaker 2: has to go to the early in our investors. Now,
- 4:17Speaker 2: when Ponsi was really humming along, he was bringing in
- 4:20Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty K a day, which would be
- 4:22Speaker 2: about like three million or so today. Not bad for
- 4:26Speaker 2: a day's work right, Well, it didn't take too long
- 4:29Speaker 2: before the growth of new investors didn't outpace the needs
- 4:32Speaker 2: of existing investors to get paid out. Predictably, he went
- 4:36Speaker 2: to prison and a whole bunch of folks lost their
- 4:39Speaker 2: life savings. His devious nature and attitude out lying ruined
- 4:43Speaker 2: a lot of people. We generally despise dishonest people, at
- 4:48Speaker 2: least we present that image, but when it comes to
- 4:50Speaker 2: political tribalism, which just folks we like, we can overlook
- 4:54Speaker 2: a lot of obvious bullshit. In the outdoors, we do
- 4:58Speaker 2: this as well, with fishing and probably being the activity
- 5:01Speaker 2: that is most tightly linked to outright lying. No one
- 5:04Speaker 2: catches a big pre spawn smallly and actively tries to
- 5:07Speaker 2: underestimate the size, just like any of the trout dorks
- 5:11Speaker 2: here at meat Eater when they catch a cutty out
- 5:13Speaker 2: west generally won't round down the length of it when
- 5:16Speaker 2: they type out their Instagram caption to go along with
- 5:19Speaker 2: the photos of themselves with a fly rod in their mouth,
- 5:22Speaker 2: so you know that not only are they better than you,
- 5:24Speaker 2: but also probably smarter and with just a little bit
- 5:27Speaker 2: more impressive manhood than the pond scum who would catch
- 5:30Speaker 2: a trout on a spinning rod. Is there harm in
- 5:33Speaker 2: those lies? I don't know, not really. I mean, who
- 5:37Speaker 2: cares if some Randos trout was closer to eighteen inches
- 5:40Speaker 2: than nineteen it doesn't matter. The same could be said
- 5:44Speaker 2: for rounding up the score of your bucks, antlers. Does
- 5:47Speaker 2: it really matter that your buck is closer to one
- 5:49Speaker 2: twenty than one thirty? Not really? But I will also
- 5:52Speaker 2: say maybe the reason I say that is that, at
- 5:57Speaker 2: least in my opinion, I hear this a lot, which
- 5:59Speaker 2: is way too frequently. Someone will say something like, oh,
- 6:03Speaker 2: that little one hundred and twenty inch buck or that
- 6:06Speaker 2: scrubby one hundred and fifteen inch deer. While there are
- 6:09Speaker 2: folks out there who look at deer that size as small,
- 6:12Speaker 2: they are in a tiny, tiny little minority. What's worse
- 6:16Speaker 2: is that most of the folks making hunting content seem
- 6:19Speaker 2: to be in that tiny, tiny little minority, but general
- 6:22Speaker 2: hunters find their way in there as well. To the
- 6:26Speaker 2: rest of the hunters. Maybe that skews the perception a bit.
- 6:30Speaker 2: I know a lot of really really good hunters, and
- 6:33Speaker 2: I know very few people who pass up bucks that
- 6:35Speaker 2: are bumping up on the pope and young minimum. I
- 6:38Speaker 2: also know a hell of a lot of weekend warriors,
- 6:41Speaker 2: and none of them are passing those bucks up. Those
- 6:43Speaker 2: are big bucks to them, because one hundred and twenty
- 6:46Speaker 2: inch deer generally are not small deer. They just aren't.
- 6:50Speaker 2: One thing I know is that we are most likely
- 6:54Speaker 2: not going to start getting more honest about the size
- 6:56Speaker 2: of bucks we want to shoot or the size of
- 6:59Speaker 2: bucks we actually shoot. But I think that's a shame.
- 7:02Speaker 2: I shoot a lot of little bucks for a lot
- 7:04Speaker 2: of reasons, and a lot of people tell me that
- 7:06Speaker 2: they really like that about me. Some tell me they
- 7:08Speaker 2: hate me for that, but that's fodder for another podcast.
- 7:11Speaker 2: I don't think we will collectively change on that front
- 7:14Speaker 2: a whole bunch. But let me give you another example
- 7:17Speaker 2: that I've probably talked about on here before. Several years ago,
- 7:20Speaker 2: while hunting in western North Dakota with a couple of buddies,
- 7:23Speaker 2: I crested a rise one evening and spotted a mule
- 7:25Speaker 2: deer dough browsing away below me. I was a mule
- 7:28Speaker 2: deer hunter in those days, which meant any meal deer
- 7:31Speaker 2: was on the menu. Because I was not very good
- 7:33Speaker 2: at getting close to them. Well, I got close enough
- 7:35Speaker 2: to that one at least to shoot at her, and
- 7:38Speaker 2: like I did a lot then and still do more
- 7:40Speaker 2: than I'd like, I shot over her back pere buck
- 7:45Speaker 2: fever or I guess doe fever, whatever, But she let
- 7:48Speaker 2: me get another arrow knocked, and this time I shot
- 7:51Speaker 2: under her, which doesn't happen to me very often, but
- 7:54Speaker 2: surprisingly isn't much more fun than air bawling high, which
- 7:58Speaker 2: is what my third arrow did before. So that MULEI,
- 8:01Speaker 2: who must have been drinking a little bit too much
- 8:03Speaker 2: of that polluted fracking wastewater out there, took off.
- 8:07Speaker 1: Now.
- 8:07Speaker 2: Earlier in that trip, my buddy and I were driving
- 8:09Speaker 2: back from a morning of spotting and stocking when we
- 8:12Speaker 2: saw some antelope in what looked like an approachable spot.
- 8:16Speaker 2: I pulled over, I let him out, and kept driving.
- 8:19Speaker 2: I knew it would take him a while to get
- 8:20Speaker 2: to the goats because they were pretty far off the road,
- 8:22Speaker 2: so I got quite a ways away and parked so
- 8:25Speaker 2: that I could see them milling around in the distance.
- 8:27Speaker 2: But I knew I wasn't going to spook them with
- 8:29Speaker 2: my presence. Eventually I saw them all get nervous and
- 8:32Speaker 2: start to peel away. I did not, I might add
- 8:36Speaker 2: watch any of them tip over after catching an arrow
- 8:38Speaker 2: to the lungs when they bolted, I drove back down
- 8:41Speaker 2: to wait for my buddy, who, when he finally hiked
- 8:44Speaker 2: all the way out, was sweating and not in a
- 8:46Speaker 2: great mood. He mentioned that he blew the stock. That
- 8:50Speaker 2: was that happens pretty often when you're bow hunting antelope.
- 8:54Speaker 2: It wasn't until I got back from camp after whiffing
- 8:57Speaker 2: that dough three times and the wild turkey was flowing
- 9:00Speaker 2: that I told my story about how bad I had
- 9:03Speaker 2: flamed out. And after I wrapped up my story, that
- 9:06Speaker 2: buddy admitted that he too had whipped three times on
- 9:10Speaker 2: those antelopes, and that he was too embarrassed to talk
- 9:12Speaker 2: about it at first. Now you might be thinking a
- 9:26Speaker 2: couple of things. First off, that my buddy and I
- 9:28Speaker 2: need to hit the range more, and you'd be right.
- 9:30Speaker 2: I can fall apart with the best of them, and
- 9:32Speaker 2: so can my friends. But you might also be thinking,
- 9:36Speaker 2: why lie about that? And you'd be right. But let
- 9:39Speaker 2: me ask each and every one of you something. Have
- 9:41Speaker 2: you ever just flat out missed a deer for no
- 9:43Speaker 2: other reason than you just didn't aim? You just didn't
- 9:47Speaker 2: do a good job of executing your shot, and instead
- 9:49Speaker 2: of killing a gimme deer at twenty yards, you screwed
- 9:52Speaker 2: it up. And that is that. If you can honestly
- 9:56Speaker 2: answer no to that question, my advice to you is
- 9:58Speaker 2: to keep hunting. That's coming for you, buddy. If you
- 10:02Speaker 2: can answer yes to that question, think about the story
- 10:05Speaker 2: that you tell around it. Does it go something like, man,
- 10:09Speaker 2: I was sitting there as the light started to fade,
- 10:11Speaker 2: and I heard a stick snap, so I stood up
- 10:12Speaker 2: and got ready, and sure enough, here he comes right
- 10:15Speaker 2: down the trail, right on my good side, totally oblivious
- 10:19Speaker 2: to me. And when he got to my best opening,
- 10:22Speaker 2: I drew, squeezed my eyes shut tight as can be,
- 10:25Speaker 2: and shot without aiming at all. Then he ran out
- 10:28Speaker 2: of my life, and I realized that not only am
- 10:30Speaker 2: I not a good hunter, I'm actually pretty bad at
- 10:32Speaker 2: this stuff. Or did you find a way to make
- 10:35Speaker 2: yourself look better. Maybe he came in super quiet and
- 10:40Speaker 2: didn't give you time to range, so you just guessed
- 10:43Speaker 2: and it wasn't right, guess wrong, or more likely, he
- 10:47Speaker 2: managed to duck the string matrix style, so that while
- 10:50Speaker 2: you actually did do everything right, because you're very good
- 10:53Speaker 2: at this, you were just dealing with a deer that
- 10:55Speaker 2: had unparalleled arrow dodging skills. Maybe you hit an unseen twig,
- 11:01Speaker 2: which is such a great excuse that it might be
- 11:03Speaker 2: the most common. And we've all been there. And the
- 11:07Speaker 2: reason we can coct a story like that is because
- 11:09Speaker 2: we are driven at least partially by ego. It's okay,
- 11:13Speaker 2: it's all of us, and I'm including myself in that
- 11:16Speaker 2: big time. It's just something worth acknowledging. It's also just
- 11:21Speaker 2: not fun to be a dumbass. Trust me, I've missed
- 11:24Speaker 2: a lot of animals on film. I know all about it.
- 11:27Speaker 2: Some of my biggest mistakes in the woods have literally
- 11:31Speaker 2: been viewed by hundreds of thousands of people. Maybe that's
- 11:35Speaker 2: why I'm tired of the lying involved in hunting. But
- 11:40Speaker 2: it's also because we all screw up way more than
- 11:43Speaker 2: we let on. Most of the time, when big bucks
- 11:46Speaker 2: or any dear we want to shoot get close to us,
- 11:48Speaker 2: we screw it up or at least don't seal the deal.
- 11:52Speaker 2: I think we'd be healthier as a group if we
- 11:54Speaker 2: were all more honest about our mistakes. I think it's
- 11:57Speaker 2: kind of like this, which is going to be extrain example,
- 12:00Speaker 2: but I'm going to use it anyway. Remember not too
- 12:02Speaker 2: long ago, like before and around Christmas, when the mystery
- 12:06Speaker 2: drone thing was blowing up out in New Jersey and
- 12:08Speaker 2: kind of all along the East Coast and actually kind
- 12:11Speaker 2: of in the world. Honestly, it was a big topic.
- 12:15Speaker 2: And if you talk to people about UFOs and you're
- 12:17Speaker 2: kind of honest and receptive to it without being judgy,
- 12:19Speaker 2: you often suddenly hear stories about weird shit that people
- 12:22Speaker 2: saw in the sky that doesn't quite make sense. A
- 12:25Speaker 2: lot of people have stories they don't want to tell
- 12:27Speaker 2: for fear of judgment or social stigma. But why does
- 12:30Speaker 2: it matter if you saw something in the sky that
- 12:33Speaker 2: you can't quite explain as conventional aircraft? When you start
- 12:37Speaker 2: talking about your failings as a hunter, people often relax
- 12:40Speaker 2: and chime in with their own stories because they know
- 12:43Speaker 2: most of us fail most of the time. There are
- 12:47Speaker 2: a lot of lies in hunting around not wanting to hunt. Two,
- 12:51Speaker 2: the most influential folks in our space and in our
- 12:53Speaker 2: lives are the ones who present the image of the
- 12:56Speaker 2: terminator level determined hunter. Nothing we'll stop them, nothing can
- 13:02Speaker 2: keep them from scouting or hunting, or shooting their bows
- 13:04Speaker 2: or tinkering with their gear. They are single minded in
- 13:07Speaker 2: their pursuit and will stop at nothing. But those folks
- 13:11Speaker 2: don't scout or hunt, or shoot their bows or tinkle
- 13:13Speaker 2: with their gear every chance they can. They want you
- 13:16Speaker 2: to believe that. So when you sleep in because you're
- 13:19Speaker 2: tired from work or wrangling the kiddos and you just
- 13:21Speaker 2: couldn't muster the motivation to go, sit on stand that.
- 13:24Speaker 2: You know you're different from them, But a lot of
- 13:27Speaker 2: that is wrapped up in outright lies. And for your part,
- 13:31Speaker 2: if you do sleep in for some reason, don't you
- 13:34Speaker 2: want to tell your hunting buddies it was for a
- 13:35Speaker 2: very very good reason, as opposed to just being worn
- 13:38Speaker 2: out by life and life's demands. Of course you do.
- 13:42Speaker 2: It's okay to be realistic. We're not curing cancer here.
- 13:45Speaker 2: We're hunting rabbits with antlers. And if you don't want
- 13:47Speaker 2: to hunt someday or sometime or whatever, you don't have
- 13:51Speaker 2: to lie about that. It doesn't matter, because all of
- 13:54Speaker 2: us sometimes just don't want to go, and sometimes we
- 13:57Speaker 2: just don't go when we could. Also, there's no need
- 14:01Speaker 2: to lie about the deer we pass up either. I
- 14:03Speaker 2: don't know why this one bothers me so much, But
- 14:05Speaker 2: I have an inkling, and you know how it goes.
- 14:09Speaker 2: Someone in your circle will casually mention that they passed
- 14:12Speaker 2: up a young one hundred and thirty incher. This is
- 14:14Speaker 2: often something you hear about after telling someone you shot
- 14:17Speaker 2: a one hundred and ten incher, by the way, But
- 14:20Speaker 2: when someone volunteers up information on all of the bucks
- 14:23Speaker 2: they could have killed, I always wonder how much of
- 14:26Speaker 2: it is true. Did that young one hundred and thirty
- 14:30Speaker 2: inch buck walk by at fifteen yards and offer up
- 14:33Speaker 2: multiple good shot opportunities or did he stay in the
- 14:36Speaker 2: thick stuff at forty five yards and not really offer
- 14:39Speaker 2: up any kind of actual shot. That happens a lot,
- 14:42Speaker 2: and if the ego has a little too much say
- 14:44Speaker 2: in how the story gets out, it'll clip out many
- 14:47Speaker 2: of the pertinent details that would change a for sure
- 14:50Speaker 2: filled tag situation to a cool encounter with almost no
- 14:54Speaker 2: actual shot opportunity. We want people to know how dedicated
- 14:58Speaker 2: we are to the big deal and how easy it
- 15:01Speaker 2: would be to kill the kind of deer that almost
- 15:03Speaker 2: everyone else would shoot and mount. But most of it
- 15:06Speaker 2: is b s. Kind of like if Mark told you
- 15:10Speaker 2: that he keeps getting hit on by supermodels, but then
- 15:13Speaker 2: you find out that one time he was in the
- 15:15Speaker 2: same city as one. Sure, buddy, Sure. I think that
- 15:20Speaker 2: we should try to be more honest about what we
- 15:22Speaker 2: have happen and how we screw up when we are
- 15:25Speaker 2: out there hunting deer or hell catching fish, or hunting
- 15:28Speaker 2: turkeys or whatever. I think that the more we are
- 15:31Speaker 2: honest about ourselves in that way, the more we will
- 15:34Speaker 2: find out that a hell of a lot of our
- 15:36Speaker 2: hunting brothers and sisters are in the exact same spot.
- 15:40Speaker 2: I think that might matter more than ever, as we
- 15:42Speaker 2: were exposed to NonStop propaganda in our lives, and we
- 15:46Speaker 2: are exposed to strangers who all seem to be living
- 15:48Speaker 2: the dream and have amazing spouses and all make a
- 15:51Speaker 2: couple million bucks a year while saving orphan penguins and
- 15:54Speaker 2: Antarctica or whatever bs they want to pedal so they
- 15:57Speaker 2: can make money off of you while reveling in your
- 16:01Speaker 2: I think if we talk more about the misses and
- 16:03Speaker 2: the times we just got caught snoozing when the big
- 16:06Speaker 2: boys strolled through, or the times when the alarm went
- 16:08Speaker 2: off and we just weren't feeling it and realized that
- 16:11Speaker 2: another two hours of sleep was more important in the
- 16:13Speaker 2: moment than heading out to the woods to probably not
- 16:16Speaker 2: kill a big buck. Maybe we can't change the hunting
- 16:19Speaker 2: community as a whole, but we can take that role
- 16:22Speaker 2: on individually in our friend group or when we find
- 16:25Speaker 2: ourselves chatting about hunting with whomever in our lives. That
- 16:28Speaker 2: would be a start and kind of a relief for
- 16:30Speaker 2: a lot of people to hear that not only are
- 16:33Speaker 2: they not alone in their screw ups, but there are
- 16:36Speaker 2: other people who are so comfortable with it they don't
- 16:38Speaker 2: feel the need to hide it to lie about it.
- 16:41Speaker 2: I don't think that'd be a bad thing, and I
- 16:43Speaker 2: think a lot of us would really benefit from being
- 16:45Speaker 2: on both sides of that. So let's all be a
- 16:47Speaker 2: little more honest, shall we, And let's come back next
- 16:49Speaker 2: week because I'm going to talk about the spring Woods
- 16:52Speaker 2: deer trails and why my scouting efforts now often yield
- 16:56Speaker 2: good stand sites come full That's it for the week.
- 17:00Speaker 2: I'm Tony Peterson. This has been the Wired to Hunt
- 17:02Speaker 2: Foundation's podcast, which is brought to you by First Light.
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