Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 879: Foundations - How to De-Stress Your Deer Game

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Ep. 879: Foundations - How to De-Stress Your Deer Game · 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,
0:23
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by first Light. I'm your host,
0:25
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about stress and
0:28
Speaker 2: how it relates to deer hunting and what we can
0:30
Speaker 2: all do to relax a little bit. This morning, I
0:35
Speaker 2: went to the gym after dropping the girls off at school.
0:37
Speaker 2: Throughout my lifting session, I talked to two of my
0:40
Speaker 2: gym buddies. Both of them were stressed out to the max.
0:44
Speaker 2: One of them a woman whose son just got his
0:47
Speaker 2: license has already racked up a speeding ticket and hit
0:51
Speaker 2: a deer in his short time behind the wheel. The
0:54
Speaker 2: other buddy, coincidentally, is a canine police officer here in
0:57
Speaker 2: the Twin Cities, which, as you can imagine, with a
1:00
Speaker 2: lot of stress, and he was running on no sleep
1:03
Speaker 2: and started telling me about how his squad car keeps
1:05
Speaker 2: breaking down and a couple other things. In his life
1:08
Speaker 2: that we're driving him a little nuts. Stresses everywhere, and
1:11
Speaker 2: we are all subjecting ourselves to more stressful news by
1:14
Speaker 2: the day. This affects our lives, and it affects our
1:18
Speaker 2: deer hunting success and enjoyment, which is what this episode
1:20
Speaker 2: is all about. People often conflaint stress with anxiety, and
1:33
Speaker 2: although they really kind of walk hand in hand, they
1:35
Speaker 2: aren't the same things. Stress is a response to something
1:39
Speaker 2: that happens externally, say when you pull up to your
1:42
Speaker 2: favorite little public land honeyhole and see three trucks park
1:45
Speaker 2: there already. Anxiety is all about the internal, say, sitting
1:51
Speaker 2: on stand and hearing a stick crack and suddenly losing
1:54
Speaker 2: your shit because you're worried about missing the big buck
1:56
Speaker 2: that is just about to come down the trail. Neither
1:59
Speaker 2: are much fun, and both are pretty much standard issue
2:02
Speaker 2: human emotions. Stress often triggers the body's flight or fight response,
2:08
Speaker 2: which developed when we all faced real danger throughout our lives.
2:12
Speaker 2: A consequence of feeling this way is that the brain
2:14
Speaker 2: will say that it's time to dump some serious adrenaline
2:17
Speaker 2: into the bloodstream now, cue the speeding heart rate, a
2:20
Speaker 2: burst of energy which actually doesn't usually feel that good
2:23
Speaker 2: unless you really need it, and then you know a
2:25
Speaker 2: whole bunch of other physiological changes. Way back when we
2:29
Speaker 2: needed this response to avoid getting eaten by I don't know,
2:32
Speaker 2: short face bears and other predators, this system evolved to
2:35
Speaker 2: return to normal once the threat was gone. Pretty simple, really,
2:40
Speaker 2: not one point. We did need to suddenly be stronger
2:43
Speaker 2: and more energetic and more acutely aware of our surroundings
2:46
Speaker 2: while toggling between running the hell away from something or
2:50
Speaker 2: fighting to the death or a draw. But you can't
2:53
Speaker 2: stay in that state forever for obvious reasons. But when
2:56
Speaker 2: we need it, it's there for us. The problem is
2:59
Speaker 2: that now a lot of us have chronic stress. We
3:02
Speaker 2: live in a generally heightened state, and we consume NonStop
3:06
Speaker 2: bullshit on our phones designed to anger us. We have
3:10
Speaker 2: too much access to other people, too many people trying
3:14
Speaker 2: to profit off of our anger and attention, and it's
3:17
Speaker 2: really really not good for us. Chronic stress can lead
3:21
Speaker 2: to all kinds of bad stuff, like certain cancers, chronic pain, fatigue,
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Speaker 2: heart disease, sleep disorders, depression, obesity, and a whole list
3:29
Speaker 2: of other stuff that I don't need to tell you
3:30
Speaker 2: about because I'm sure you get the idea. The biggest
3:33
Speaker 2: stressors in our lives are usually our jobs, our relationships, money, family, health, politics,
3:40
Speaker 2: or the general state of the world, as we are
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Speaker 2: told by those pesky folks who want to profit off
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Speaker 2: of our anger and attention. So what do we do
3:49
Speaker 2: to de stress? Tell you what I used to do.
3:52
Speaker 2: I used to go sit in a tree stand and
3:54
Speaker 2: wait for a deer to walk by. If it wasn't
3:56
Speaker 2: deer season, I'd scout. If I didn't scout, I'd fish
4:00
Speaker 2: for trout or bass, or do something in nature. I'll
4:03
Speaker 2: bet since you're listening to this, you have similar coping mechanisms.
4:08
Speaker 2: But here's the problem with deer hunting these days. One
4:11
Speaker 2: of the biggest contributors to our stress lives in our pocket,
4:16
Speaker 2: and we are all addicted to it. I don't know
4:19
Speaker 2: about you, but I'm having a harder and harder time
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Speaker 2: enjoying deer hunting the last few seasons because it's so
4:25
Speaker 2: hard to unpluck. I'm convinced that's one of the reasons
4:28
Speaker 2: I love certain kinds of fishing and upland hunting so much.
4:32
Speaker 2: There's no way to do either without giving yourself to
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Speaker 2: the pursuit there isn't idle time to go on Instagram
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Speaker 2: or Reddit or whatever and consume mental junk food. Deer
4:42
Speaker 2: hunting not so much. What's worse is that when you're
4:46
Speaker 2: not shooting one hundred and forty inch bucks and are
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Speaker 2: instead staring at your phone while squirrels play grab ass
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Speaker 2: around your stand and you're not even in the same
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Speaker 2: section as a buck that big, you can see NonStop
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Speaker 2: pictures and videos of people with deer that side in
5:00
Speaker 2: bigger hell. You don't have to try that hard to
5:02
Speaker 2: see seven year olds with bigger taxidermy bills than you'll
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Speaker 2: ever have. That's kind of a compounding problem, and it sucks. Now.
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Speaker 2: I don't know how to help you with your phone
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Speaker 2: addiction because I don't really know how to help myself
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Speaker 2: with that problem. I think in fifty or one hundred
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Speaker 2: years we might look back at this like it was
5:18
Speaker 2: a species altering mistake that really caused some downstream problems.
5:23
Speaker 2: But until then, there are ways to de stress your
5:27
Speaker 2: deer hunting and make it so you enjoy things much
5:29
Speaker 2: more this season. The easiest way to do this is
5:32
Speaker 2: to look at what stresses you out or what is
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Speaker 2: giving you anxiety about this year and this season, and
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Speaker 2: then think about what you can do about it. I'll
5:41
Speaker 2: give you an example from my life that I've been
5:43
Speaker 2: thinking about quite a bit. I've had stress in the
5:45
Speaker 2: last few years about not hunting enough the way I want.
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Speaker 2: That way is going to just some random public somewhere
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Speaker 2: and just trying to figure out some deer with some
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Speaker 2: low standards in my heart and a full quiver hanging
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Speaker 2: from my pack. So this year I'm going someplace new.
6:01
Speaker 2: I just applied for a Kansas Turkey tag recently to
6:04
Speaker 2: facilitate this. Without that tag, I'm less likely to go
6:08
Speaker 2: back down there and scout. The less I scout somewhere,
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Speaker 2: the less I'll find that it'll just beg me to
6:15
Speaker 2: go hunt someplace. So I just did it, and I'm
6:17
Speaker 2: also researching other states as a backup, which I've talked
6:20
Speaker 2: about in the last couple episodes. I also have anxiety
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Speaker 2: over the spot I found in northern Wisconsin last year
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Speaker 2: that was absolutely covered in buck sign. I'm worried I
6:30
Speaker 2: won't scout it enough, and when I go to hunt
6:33
Speaker 2: there this fall, I'll revert to the spots I know
6:35
Speaker 2: I can probably see a deer, but not go to
6:38
Speaker 2: where I believe a big one will walk by. That's
6:41
Speaker 2: a dumb thing to worry about now, But I know myself.
6:45
Speaker 2: There's going to be a million basketball tournaments on the
6:47
Speaker 2: weekends for the girls, and they have softball coming up,
6:50
Speaker 2: and I'll have work trips and there'll be other distractions,
6:53
Speaker 2: and suddenly it'll be September and I'll realize I didn't
6:55
Speaker 2: do what I needed to. That's going to stress me out.
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Speaker 2: So my plan is figure out how to get over there,
7:02
Speaker 2: maybe once every other month until the season starts, and
7:04
Speaker 2: just get my bearings, just learn it better so that
7:08
Speaker 2: when fall does come and I walk in with a
7:10
Speaker 2: Camo diaper on and some stick strapped to my pack,
7:13
Speaker 2: I can just saddle up in a tree and feel
7:14
Speaker 2: good about it. Another thing that has given me a
7:17
Speaker 2: lot of stress the last several seasons is not hunting
7:20
Speaker 2: a farm I really love. In southeastern Minnesota, there are
7:24
Speaker 2: some properties that just have a special feel, the ones
7:28
Speaker 2: you've hunted a long time and have served not only
7:30
Speaker 2: as a jumping off point for a good sit some
7:32
Speaker 2: random October evening, but absolutely tether your mind to something
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Speaker 2: positive throughout the year. I think we forget about this part,
7:41
Speaker 2: but the woods. In our time out there where the
7:43
Speaker 2: deer live, isn't just a mission to kill something. It's
7:47
Speaker 2: about getting away from life's bs. And that's one of
7:50
Speaker 2: the reasons I hate the messaging that to be a
7:53
Speaker 2: good deer hunter you have to leave everything alone until
7:56
Speaker 2: the conditions are right. So you do that and you
7:59
Speaker 2: kill a big one, that's awesome, But the opportunity cost
8:02
Speaker 2: on that strategy is that you stayed out of the
8:05
Speaker 2: woods a whole bunch, which is not nothing. That farm
8:09
Speaker 2: in southeastern Minnesota is where I grew up hunting. That's
8:12
Speaker 2: where I spent so much time with my dad, just
8:15
Speaker 2: learning deer and turkeys and squirrels and bunnies and whatever.
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Speaker 2: It's a place that speaks to me and something that,
8:21
Speaker 2: as I get older, carries more and more weight. I
8:24
Speaker 2: get the same feeling walking into the woods there as
8:27
Speaker 2: I do when I step up to a trout stream
8:29
Speaker 2: in the bluff somewhere and look at the water and
8:31
Speaker 2: try to read just where they'll be laying, and I
8:34
Speaker 2: listen to the sound of that water, and I can
8:36
Speaker 2: smell the limestone as it hits me and reminds me
8:40
Speaker 2: of about a million hours spent on the same kind
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Speaker 2: of water. When when I was growing up, my buddies
8:45
Speaker 2: and I almost always had something to do because we
8:48
Speaker 2: could almost always get to water like that, whether we
8:52
Speaker 2: had to walk or ride our bikes or later drive
8:54
Speaker 2: a little ways. Those places are a natural remedy to
8:58
Speaker 2: stress if we fail facilitate the right kind of visit,
9:02
Speaker 2: if we carve out a little time to be there
9:04
Speaker 2: when we need to be. I'm reminded now of something
9:18
Speaker 2: I'm trying to do, which sounds dumb to a lot
9:20
Speaker 2: of people, but I don't care. I'm trying to learn
9:23
Speaker 2: how to meditate, and I can tell you that if
9:25
Speaker 2: you think you have a relatively calm mind, you should
9:28
Speaker 2: give that a shot. It's like a gunfight during a
9:31
Speaker 2: coke fueled party at a disco in my brain. When
9:34
Speaker 2: I try to push the thoughts out, one tactic people
9:38
Speaker 2: try to do is envision a rock periscoping out of
9:41
Speaker 2: a river. Your thoughts are the water moving around it,
9:46
Speaker 2: and the rock is your focal point. Got to forget
9:49
Speaker 2: everything else, But I can, because when I try to
9:52
Speaker 2: imagine that rock, my mind immediately goes to the water
9:55
Speaker 2: and the eddy behind it, and then I think about fishing,
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Speaker 2: and then how I don't get to fish as much
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Speaker 2: I want, and the whole spell is broken. Our brains
10:03
Speaker 2: are a work in progress, but we should be working
10:05
Speaker 2: on them. With deer hunting. This means more than just
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Speaker 2: getting to the woods because you like the woods, or
10:12
Speaker 2: sitting in a certain stand because you like that certain stand.
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Speaker 2: Like think about your setups, for example, is there anything
10:18
Speaker 2: that stresses you out about your setups that you could
10:20
Speaker 2: remedy well before the season? Maybe your box, blind windows foga,
10:25
Speaker 2: what's the remedy or you know, the chair that you
10:28
Speaker 2: use in there is just as super squeaky, and you
10:31
Speaker 2: know ahead of time that you could fix both, but
10:34
Speaker 2: you don't. That's a stressor and it takes away from
10:36
Speaker 2: the experience. The same goes for you know, not chriming,
10:39
Speaker 2: proper shooting lanes, or entrance or exit routes. Is there
10:42
Speaker 2: anything more stressful than saving a stand for the pre
10:45
Speaker 2: rut and then taking a day off of work to
10:47
Speaker 2: slip in there? Only sound like a herd of elephants
10:49
Speaker 2: trumpet through the woods while deer snort their disapproval all
10:52
Speaker 2: around you. Maybe you do get to your stand just fine,
10:56
Speaker 2: but the sticks you used can't handle the smooth bark
10:59
Speaker 2: of a poplar tree, and so they squeak super loudly
11:03
Speaker 2: in a cold, calm morning. As you climb your way
11:06
Speaker 2: up or when you get into your stand, you look
11:08
Speaker 2: around and realize that the most likely approach to you
11:12
Speaker 2: that the deer is probably going to take is eye
11:15
Speaker 2: level on a hillside, and they are definitely going to
11:17
Speaker 2: bust you. Not only do those things give you anxiety
11:21
Speaker 2: as you think about them throughout the year, but they
11:23
Speaker 2: stress you out when you actually experience them in real life.
11:27
Speaker 2: That sucks, and it makes deer hunting less fun. Let's
11:31
Speaker 2: look at another example. A lot of us have anxiety
11:34
Speaker 2: about hunting simply because we feel we are supposed to
11:36
Speaker 2: kill a mature buck. The judgment we expect to receive
11:40
Speaker 2: if we don't gives us anxiety. It's palpable. Part of
11:44
Speaker 2: this is that there are just a lot of shitheads
11:46
Speaker 2: in our ranks who will make you feel bad for
11:48
Speaker 2: shooting a deer. They feel you shouldn't shoot, But really
11:52
Speaker 2: what they want to do is feel superior to you.
11:54
Speaker 2: It's not about the deer, it's about them finding a
11:56
Speaker 2: reason to be better than you. That's a real source
11:59
Speaker 2: of anxiety for a lot of us. But you know
12:02
Speaker 2: how I'm trying to look at it these days. I
12:04
Speaker 2: look at it like how my daughters get stressed out
12:06
Speaker 2: about basketball. They won't take a shot they should because
12:11
Speaker 2: they're worried they'll miss, or if they do airball a shot,
12:14
Speaker 2: they'll perseverate on it to the point that it will
12:17
Speaker 2: affect their play. But at the end of a day
12:19
Speaker 2: of tournaments where they'll have played three games, I always
12:23
Speaker 2: ask them if they remember every mistake their teammates made.
12:27
Speaker 2: They're going to remember a few because it's fresh, and
12:29
Speaker 2: there'll be some big ones, but when the games are over,
12:33
Speaker 2: they don't really care. Then I'll ask them if they
12:36
Speaker 2: remember any from a weekend before or two weeks before.
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Speaker 2: They usually won't because it's not that important to them
12:42
Speaker 2: to remember someone else's mistakes. They don't really register with
12:46
Speaker 2: other people a whole lot. They stick with us personally,
12:49
Speaker 2: and when it comes to shooting a deer, you want
12:51
Speaker 2: to shoot. Sure, some people might make a comment on
12:54
Speaker 2: your social feed that sucks, but those folks are going
12:57
Speaker 2: home to be miserable and stressed out themselves any and
13:00
Speaker 2: they probably don't kill a lot of mature bucks. By
13:03
Speaker 2: the way, they aren't thinking about you because they don't
13:07
Speaker 2: care about you and your buck. That stress is self induced,
13:11
Speaker 2: and of course we could all be better about that,
13:14
Speaker 2: but a lot of us won't. It also doesn't matter
13:17
Speaker 2: if you have anxiety because you really want to shoot
13:19
Speaker 2: two year old bucks when it feels like everyone is
13:21
Speaker 2: preaching five year old bucks, shoot that freaking two year old.
13:25
Speaker 2: I bet your life actually only gets better because of it. Now,
13:30
Speaker 2: I know I push that point a lot, but I
13:31
Speaker 2: think it's important. I think it's really important for us
13:34
Speaker 2: to keep finding reasons to love this stuff and to
13:36
Speaker 2: keep coming back to the woods, even when the deer
13:38
Speaker 2: kick our asses most of the time. I think one
13:41
Speaker 2: of the best ways to do this is by looking
13:43
Speaker 2: at what bothers us and figuring out what we can
13:45
Speaker 2: do about it. Now, this is where it gets a
13:48
Speaker 2: little tricky with deer hunting, or really life in general.
13:51
Speaker 2: We want to find the source of our problems and
13:54
Speaker 2: have someone to blame. We want to believe the Fish
13:57
Speaker 2: and Game Department plant a bunch of wolves in our
13:59
Speaker 2: backyard and killed the deer off because they are anti
14:02
Speaker 2: hunters at heart. Now, even if that were true, what
14:06
Speaker 2: could you do about it? You know, why the deer
14:09
Speaker 2: aren't gone, and you certainly can't shoot down those black
14:12
Speaker 2: helicopters at night that are dropping off all the wolves.
14:15
Speaker 2: We want to blame the person who gives us permission
14:17
Speaker 2: to hunt but limits us to certain days or types
14:20
Speaker 2: of deer, or something like that. We want to blame
14:23
Speaker 2: the non residents for killing all the bucks on public
14:25
Speaker 2: land before they have a chance to mature. When if
14:27
Speaker 2: we got off of our lazy asses and scouted a
14:30
Speaker 2: hunt and we'd see there's plenty of deer out there.
14:33
Speaker 2: We want to set fire to the rich guy who
14:35
Speaker 2: clearly inherited a fortune from his grandpa and bought the
14:38
Speaker 2: farm we used to hunt. But we can't do that,
14:40
Speaker 2: and we just need to figure out what's next. There
14:43
Speaker 2: are things we can't change, things we don't have control
14:46
Speaker 2: over that are just beyond us. I mean, they matter,
14:49
Speaker 2: but they kind of don't. Forget about them when it
14:52
Speaker 2: comes to deer hunting, What can you do to de stress,
14:56
Speaker 2: relax and have a better time in the woods. How
14:59
Speaker 2: can you do something about having a better, more enjoyable
15:02
Speaker 2: season this year? When it's February, Bet there's something. I
15:06
Speaker 2: bet that something will take you into the woods to
15:08
Speaker 2: scout or just find some sheds something, and I bet
15:11
Speaker 2: not only will that help you out this coming season
15:14
Speaker 2: to be a little more zen, but it'll also make
15:16
Speaker 2: you feel better. Now. There isn't anything good that's going
15:20
Speaker 2: to come out of doing nothing, because that's a breeding
15:22
Speaker 2: ground for anxiety and eventually stress, and the downstream effect
15:26
Speaker 2: of that is going to be that deer hunting probably
15:28
Speaker 2: won't be what you need it to be, and who
15:31
Speaker 2: wants that? I don't, But I also know this stuff
15:34
Speaker 2: is hard, but it doesn't require a wholesale change in
15:37
Speaker 2: your action. In your activity. You don't have to go
15:40
Speaker 2: from no winter scouting to putting on dozens of miles
15:43
Speaker 2: every day while dropping a billion way points on on
15:46
Speaker 2: X just more than you did before. Is usually going
15:50
Speaker 2: to suffice. Just try to do enough to make yourself
15:52
Speaker 2: feel better about your prospects this season and maybe take
15:56
Speaker 2: the edge off of life a little bit. Right now,
15:59
Speaker 2: you know that Monday is going to come around and
16:00
Speaker 2: your boss is still going to be a huge pain
16:02
Speaker 2: in the ass, and the usual stressors are going to
16:05
Speaker 2: be there, but they don't have to invade your hunting life,
16:08
Speaker 2: and better yet, you can use your wiring as a hunter,
16:13
Speaker 2: your call to be outdoors to your advantage to help
16:16
Speaker 2: mitigate the rest of life stress. That's what hunting really
16:21
Speaker 2: does for us, or at least it certainly can, but
16:25
Speaker 2: it will never be that if we don't work on
16:26
Speaker 2: it a bit, which is exactly what we can do
16:29
Speaker 2: right now as we settle into the off season. So
16:31
Speaker 2: think about that, think about coming back next week because
16:34
Speaker 2: I'm going to talk about Chad Antlers and what they
16:37
Speaker 2: teach us and why you better get out there right
16:39
Speaker 2: now and see if you can find a couple. That's
16:43
Speaker 2: it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson. This has been
16:45
Speaker 2: the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast. I know it's the
16:48
Speaker 2: off season and it kind of sucks. We really appreciate
16:51
Speaker 2: you showing up and listening to some of our podcasts
16:53
Speaker 2: or checking out our videos. If you're not aware yet,
16:57
Speaker 2: you can go over to the medeater dot com and
16:59
Speaker 2: find tons and tons of content, articles, recipes, podcasts. You know.
17:04
Speaker 2: You can go listen to Clay's Bear Grease, or check
17:06
Speaker 2: out Brent Reeves This Country Life, which is an awesome show.
17:11
Speaker 2: You can watch a ton of videos there. We drop
17:13
Speaker 2: new films probably every week. Good stuff there at the
17:17
Speaker 2: meadeater dot com and again, thank you so much for
17:20
Speaker 2: your support. We would be nothing without you, so we
17:22
Speaker 2: truly appreciate that