Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 718: Foundations - How to be Your Orange-Clad Self During Gun Season
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 Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
- 0:23Speaker 2: which has brought to you by first Light. I'm your host,
- 0:25Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today I'm going to be talking about
- 0:27Speaker 2: gun hunting for white tails, but maybe kind of doing
- 0:30Speaker 2: it in a way that will set yourself apart from
- 0:33Speaker 2: a lot of your competition throughout much of the country.
- 0:43Speaker 2: Right now, the archery season is giving way to gun season. Now,
- 0:47Speaker 2: that might be bad news for a lot of you
- 0:49Speaker 2: hardcore you know, rider die bow hunters, but it also
- 0:52Speaker 2: might be a hell of a relief for many of you.
- 0:54Speaker 2: Gun hunting is just a different beast and it comes
- 0:57Speaker 2: with a different set of rules, at least that's what
- 1:00Speaker 2: many of us think. I kind of think the rules
- 1:03Speaker 2: stay the same, but the game is just a little different.
- 1:06Speaker 1: Now.
- 1:06Speaker 2: I know that's confusing as hell, So you just have
- 1:08Speaker 2: to let me get there, which is what I'm going
- 1:09Speaker 2: to do right now. There's a quote that I love
- 1:31Speaker 2: that is pretty hard to attribute to any one individual
- 1:33Speaker 2: because so many people have said it and written it
- 1:35Speaker 2: over the years, so I actually don't know who came
- 1:37Speaker 2: up with it first. But it goes like this tradition
- 1:41Speaker 2: is just peer pressure from dead people. A lot of
- 1:45Speaker 2: traditions are harmless and just help us feel more socially connected.
- 1:49Speaker 2: Here in the good old USA, or just a little
- 1:51Speaker 2: bit north of here, in the land of hockey and
- 1:53Speaker 2: maple syrup. Most of our traditions are pretty laid back
- 1:57Speaker 2: and not really all that shocking little thing. It's like saying,
- 2:01Speaker 2: you know, how are you instead of what we mean,
- 2:03Speaker 2: which is hey, bro. That's one. Smiling as strangers is another.
- 2:08Speaker 2: Try that in some countries and you might get kicked
- 2:10Speaker 2: right in the old sock puppet. Try that with a
- 2:13Speaker 2: wrong monkey or other primate and you might see that
- 2:15Speaker 2: old sock puppet get removed from your body and tossed
- 2:18Speaker 2: into the trees. Traditions you might not know about include
- 2:23Speaker 2: drinking coffee on the go. There are a lot of
- 2:25Speaker 2: cultures where coffee is a communal thing and not just
- 2:28Speaker 2: a baseline drug we use every day. So do murder
- 2:31Speaker 2: someone for I don't know, weirdly smiling at us Mark
- 2:34Speaker 2: Kenyan style. We also have a weird tradition of requesting
- 2:38Speaker 2: changes to the menu at restaurants, or I guess you know,
- 2:41Speaker 2: changes to a certain type of dish at a restaurant.
- 2:44Speaker 2: As someone who cooked his way through college, this one
- 2:47Speaker 2: drives me bah nanas, especially when my mother in law
- 2:50Speaker 2: does it every single time she goes out to eat.
- 2:53Speaker 2: During the process of explaining how she wants something totally
- 2:56Speaker 2: changed in a dish that doesn't make sense, I can
- 2:58Speaker 2: see the servers just die a little inside, and I
- 3:02Speaker 2: feel for the lime cook who has to make something
- 3:04Speaker 2: totally different after having made it exactly one way five
- 3:07Speaker 2: thousand times. Other than sort of ruining a restaurant worker's day,
- 3:12Speaker 2: most of those traditions are pretty harmless. Head to the
- 3:16Speaker 2: other parts of the world and you'll see that this
- 3:18Speaker 2: isn't always the case. In parts of Indonesia, there are
- 3:22Speaker 2: tribes where women are expected to show their grief by
- 3:25Speaker 2: chopping off part of their finger. This is done to
- 3:28Speaker 2: satisfy ancestral ghosts and can result in older ladies missing
- 3:32Speaker 2: a lot of the parts of their fingers that most
- 3:34Speaker 2: of us wouldn't want to lose involuntarily, let alone voluntarily.
- 3:39Speaker 2: Although that's the thing about tradition, it's often not that voluntary.
- 3:43Speaker 2: Take the vegetarian festival in Thailand, for example. This culture
- 3:47Speaker 2: abstains from eating meat in October in an attempt to
- 3:50Speaker 2: invite good fortune into their lives. To further appeal to
- 3:54Speaker 2: the gods that they'd like some seriously good luck, many
- 3:57Speaker 2: of these people penetrate their own bodies withs needles and knives,
- 4:02Speaker 2: then they walk around town. Google this. If you're not squeamish,
- 4:07Speaker 2: then google foot binding in China and bullet ant gloves
- 4:11Speaker 2: for some particularly unlucky tribes people of the Amazon. I
- 4:15Speaker 2: guess I shouldn't say that. They probably feel more gratitude
- 4:18Speaker 2: for their lives than a lot of US Western folks,
- 4:20Speaker 2: and they are testing themselves in a way that probably
- 4:22Speaker 2: feels pretty satisfying to get through. So I guess who knows.
- 4:26Speaker 2: What I do know is that we view tradition through
- 4:28Speaker 2: many lenses, and we often don't realize how much it
- 4:31Speaker 2: has an influence over our lives. When it comes to hunting,
- 4:35Speaker 2: there's no more evidence of this than on a typical
- 4:39Speaker 2: opening weekend a gun season, when you're heading to the
- 4:41Speaker 2: cabin to meet up with your relatives. If you could
- 4:44Speaker 2: see a time lap shot of the typical gun hunting
- 4:47Speaker 2: party that has a the traditional cabin somewhere, you could
- 4:51Speaker 2: probably relay opening weekend every year over opening weekend from
- 4:55Speaker 2: every other year, and I bet it would look very
- 4:58Speaker 2: similar at least the start of the whole thing. Would
- 5:01Speaker 2: You'd probably see the same orange clad hunters walking the
- 5:04Speaker 2: same trails to the same stands. You'd see the same
- 5:07Speaker 2: four wheelers and side by sides puttering along the same routes.
- 5:11Speaker 2: You'd probably see the reverse of that moment at about
- 5:13Speaker 2: the same time every day, maybe a few hours into
- 5:16Speaker 2: the morning, maybe sometime at midday. Then you might see
- 5:19Speaker 2: a whole bunch of orange clad hunters set up the
- 5:21Speaker 2: same deer drive in the same spots year after year.
- 5:26Speaker 2: By afternoon, you're likely to see the same movement that
- 5:29Speaker 2: you saw in the morning, lather, rinse, repeat. I bet
- 5:33Speaker 2: if you could survey a random group from the up
- 5:35Speaker 2: of Michigan, and a random group from Pennsylvania, and then
- 5:37Speaker 2: a random group from North Carolina and wherever, year after year,
- 5:41Speaker 2: you'd probably hear about the same relative amount of success
- 5:45Speaker 2: at any given opening weekend. There's a consistency to the
- 5:49Speaker 2: success side of things because there is a consistency to
- 5:52Speaker 2: the effort. One hot dough can change that, of course,
- 5:56Speaker 2: but so can twenty degree weather versus seventy degree weather.
- 6:00Speaker 2: But these things have a way of finding a path
- 6:03Speaker 2: of least resistance, so to speak, and the results, well,
- 6:07Speaker 2: they're typical. We don't really think about how much of
- 6:11Speaker 2: a tradition it is for grandpa to go to a
- 6:13Speaker 2: certain stand, for the young hunters to always be the
- 6:16Speaker 2: drivers and the deer draggers. We don't think too hard
- 6:19Speaker 2: on the fact that even though we might complain about
- 6:21Speaker 2: not killing much or not really even seeing much, we've
- 6:25Speaker 2: also locked ourselves into a pattern of behavior that produces
- 6:29Speaker 2: expected results. It's weird, but you know, absolutely ensconced in
- 6:34Speaker 2: the human condition. It's gene deep to embrace tradition, and
- 6:38Speaker 2: it happens across all cultures. But it doesn't have to happen.
- 6:43Speaker 2: We mostly choose it. We mostly lean into it, at least,
- 6:47Speaker 2: you know, most of us. For the traditional gun hunting party,
- 6:52Speaker 2: not doing what you always do might be viewed as
- 6:54Speaker 2: greedy or an attempt to flip over the old apple cart,
- 6:58Speaker 2: so to speak. You might not hunt the way you
- 7:00Speaker 2: want because your uncles seem real resistant to change, and
- 7:03Speaker 2: you don't want to get loads of shit tossed your
- 7:05Speaker 2: way for changing their natural order. But this is just
- 7:09Speaker 2: deer hunting. Deer camp peer pressure is prevalent, but it's
- 7:13Speaker 2: not that big of a deal. It's also kind of dumb.
- 7:17Speaker 2: Doing the same thing year after year after year is
- 7:20Speaker 2: a great way to not have a very successful hunt
- 7:22Speaker 2: year after year after year. You're playing a game with
- 7:25Speaker 2: animals that do have a memory, and they do have
- 7:28Speaker 2: some pretty typical reactions to typical hunter movements. We often
- 7:33Speaker 2: make it so easy for them to avoid us. This
- 7:36Speaker 2: is especially true if you just blissfully ignore the difference
- 7:39Speaker 2: in conditions from year to year and day to day
- 7:42Speaker 2: and instead just go always sit that one ladder stand
- 7:44Speaker 2: you like which has a nice view. I think a
- 7:47Speaker 2: lot of hunters over in the land of cheese and
- 7:50Speaker 2: thinly veiled functional alcoholism where I hunt are going to
- 7:54Speaker 2: be in for a rude awakening this year. A lot
- 7:56Speaker 2: of those die hard Packers fans are going to go
- 7:59Speaker 2: out to their guns stands for the first time all
- 8:01Speaker 2: year and realize that their shooting lanes are gone, and
- 8:04Speaker 2: that the old logging road they used to walk to
- 8:06Speaker 2: get to their stand is now nearly fully blocked by
- 8:09Speaker 2: down trees. Add in the further reality that a CWD
- 8:13Speaker 2: positive deer in a nearby game farm has baiting on
- 8:16Speaker 2: the no fly list and their hunt is about to change.
- 8:20Speaker 2: But will they change with it. I don't know. They
- 8:23Speaker 2: probably should. It would be inconceivable for most of us
- 8:27Speaker 2: bow hunters to not obsess over the wind direction and
- 8:30Speaker 2: the weather conditions before we go sit for a lot
- 8:32Speaker 2: of gun hunting, it's not even really considered. Now. I'm
- 8:36Speaker 2: generalizing here, of course, but if you have one stand
- 8:39Speaker 2: you always sit, then it's highly likely you'll sit there
- 8:41Speaker 2: whether there's an east wind or a west wind, or
- 8:44Speaker 2: whether it's freezing cold or sweltering hot. So here's the thing.
- 8:49Speaker 2: You don't need to hold court with all of your
- 8:51Speaker 2: fellow rifle hunting buddies the night before the opener and
- 8:54Speaker 2: tell them you're calling a camp wide audible and that
- 8:57Speaker 2: everything is going to change. You can do little things
- 9:00Speaker 2: to be different, and you should take shot opportunities. For example,
- 9:05Speaker 2: if you're going to rifle or shotgun hunt or muzzlod
- 9:08Speaker 2: or hunt, I guess what are your lanes like, what's
- 9:11Speaker 2: the average shot distance? A lot of people look at
- 9:14Speaker 2: gun hunting in their effective range so much differently than
- 9:17Speaker 2: bow hunters. Most bow hunters tend to practice at some
- 9:21Speaker 2: distance and then they peel off a certain percentage of
- 9:24Speaker 2: that distance. In respect to the reality of shooting wild
- 9:26Speaker 2: deer and wild situations. Gun hunters often don't do that.
- 9:30Speaker 2: They shoot their rifles or whatever at certain distances and
- 9:33Speaker 2: then kind of figure they can push it by fifty
- 9:35Speaker 2: or one hundred yards by holding a little high That's
- 9:38Speaker 2: great for good shooters, but often not so great for
- 9:41Speaker 2: people who don't shoot a whole lot, which is probably
- 9:44Speaker 2: most of the whitetail hunters. And it's a different thing
- 9:47Speaker 2: sitting on a bench punching paper at three hundred yards
- 9:50Speaker 2: than it is to try to shoot a live buck
- 9:52Speaker 2: as he walks along a clear cut three football fields away.
- 9:56Speaker 2: It's hard not to put a little lead in the
- 9:58Speaker 2: air when you can, but sometimes it's best to understand
- 10:02Speaker 2: what your real effective range is. This is one of
- 10:05Speaker 2: the reasons that when I gun hunt, whether it's a
- 10:07Speaker 2: general season or a muzzleloader hunt, I'm often in places
- 10:10Speaker 2: that don't allow for a long shot because I know
- 10:14Speaker 2: I'm only an okay shot with a gun. I'm really
- 10:17Speaker 2: only an okay shot with a bow, too, which is
- 10:19Speaker 2: why I'm a super huge fan of twenty yard broadside shots,
- 10:21Speaker 2: and I work pretty hard to try to set those
- 10:23Speaker 2: up with guns. You know that distance is mostly too close,
- 10:28Speaker 2: but it also doesn't take me too long to get
- 10:30Speaker 2: into a little bit too far a territory. Either, know
- 10:33Speaker 2: this about yourself and understand what it means for your
- 10:37Speaker 2: stand or blind setup. Think about your shots, and if
- 10:40Speaker 2: you're thinking about how far you should really shoot, consider
- 10:43Speaker 2: something else house your rest. One of the things I've
- 10:46Speaker 2: learned here at meat Eater, where we are overrun by
- 10:49Speaker 2: Western rifle hunters who probably would hold a bow upside
- 10:52Speaker 2: down if you handed them one, is that they don't
- 10:54Speaker 2: shoot without a good rest. When they have a chance
- 10:58Speaker 2: to shoot, their focus goes on getting a good range
- 11:01Speaker 2: and establishing a rest, a really good rest. Quickly, you
- 11:06Speaker 2: might think, well, hell, Peterson, I have that covered since
- 11:09Speaker 2: I hunt out of a ladder stand with a shooting rail,
- 11:11Speaker 2: And I'd say, well, hell, random listener, how tall are you?
- 11:15Speaker 2: How comfortable is your shot off that shooting rail? It
- 11:18Speaker 2: might be a different deal for someone who is five
- 11:20Speaker 2: to three versus someone who is six ' five. Now
- 11:23Speaker 2: I don't hunt out a ladder stands much, but I've
- 11:25Speaker 2: noticed that shooting rails are perfect for some shot angles
- 11:28Speaker 2: and kind of a struggle for others. Can you get
- 11:32Speaker 2: a better rest? Can you maybe wrap the rail on
- 11:34Speaker 2: something soft and malleable. Can you use some hockey tape
- 11:38Speaker 2: or a bungee cord and a fix a bipod to
- 11:40Speaker 2: your stand? Maybe set it up for the highest odd
- 11:43Speaker 2: shot anyway, Now, what if a deer comes behind you?
- 11:47Speaker 2: This is a little thing that makes a big difference,
- 11:50Speaker 2: and it's something that most of your competition isn't doing.
- 11:53Speaker 2: Take it a step further though. A typical bow hunter
- 11:56Speaker 2: who watches deer do something, but those deer don't get
- 11:59Speaker 2: into range will do one thing, try to call the
- 12:02Speaker 2: deer in. A good bow hunter will usually just move
- 12:06Speaker 2: closer to the action and kill one. A gun hunter
- 12:09Speaker 2: who watches deer goes through the cedars but never offer
- 12:12Speaker 2: a shot is very likely to follow a typical bow
- 12:15Speaker 2: hunter's plan and turn that can call over a few
- 12:18Speaker 2: hundred times or grunt to his heart's content. He might
- 12:22Speaker 2: also try to slip a shot through the brush, But
- 12:26Speaker 2: what would be a better bet you know it move.
- 12:29Speaker 2: This is something that the general gun hunting crowd does
- 12:32Speaker 2: not seem to grasp very well. Sure they'll move, but
- 12:35Speaker 2: they'll move with the confidence of someone who can make
- 12:37Speaker 2: an offhand shot at two hundred yards. You know they can't,
- 12:41Speaker 2: and neither can you. Probably the ability to close the
- 12:44Speaker 2: distance and leave behind your traditional stand is huge. You
- 12:48Speaker 2: can probably still stay in the zone of your stand
- 12:50Speaker 2: or your spot so you don't piss off the rest
- 12:52Speaker 2: of the people and your party. But it might be
- 12:55Speaker 2: a move of you know, fifty yards that changes everything.
- 12:59Speaker 2: You might have to set up on the ground. That's great,
- 13:01Speaker 2: grab a tripod do that. The distances that gun hunting
- 13:05Speaker 2: allows for make it ideal for a little chess move
- 13:08Speaker 2: where you put your back to a tree somewhere without
- 13:10Speaker 2: too much of a risk of getting busted before you
- 13:12Speaker 2: get a shot. If you have the means to go
- 13:15Speaker 2: mobile with a stand or a saddle, that's usually better.
- 13:19Speaker 2: This is something very very few gun hunters do, although
- 13:23Speaker 2: it's getting more popular again. All you're doing is breaking
- 13:27Speaker 2: tradition just a little bit, and another way to break
- 13:30Speaker 2: the tradition that might be the best way to kill
- 13:33Speaker 2: deer during a general gun season. Is something I've talked
- 13:36Speaker 2: about a lot. Just hunt more, hunt longer hours, take
- 13:40Speaker 2: a couple of vacation days to stick around camp on
- 13:43Speaker 2: Monday and Tuesday, when most hunters make a mass exodus
- 13:47Speaker 2: out of the woods and head back to their daily lives.
- 13:50Speaker 2: The reality is that most hunters don't want to sit
- 13:52Speaker 2: that long. They put in a couple hours in the
- 13:54Speaker 2: morning and a couple in the afternoon. Those windows get
- 13:57Speaker 2: even shorter as the season goes on and the hangovers
- 14:00Speaker 2: kick in and the action dries up and the futility
- 14:03Speaker 2: of it all starts to settle across the land. That's
- 14:06Speaker 2: an opportunity for you to do the opposite. Spend all
- 14:09Speaker 2: day out there. I know I've talked about this a lot,
- 14:12Speaker 2: but you just want to be there when others aren't.
- 14:15Speaker 2: If you go to your same old ladderstand with the
- 14:18Speaker 2: plan to get back by eleven to watch the game
- 14:20Speaker 2: and eat some chili, that's great, but that's the move
- 14:23Speaker 2: for almost everyone, and the deer know that, or they
- 14:27Speaker 2: figure it out real quickly. A better bet is to
- 14:29Speaker 2: stick it out and even though you won't see tons
- 14:31Speaker 2: of deer. You might see the one you want, and
- 14:34Speaker 2: he might either just be moving through because of the
- 14:36Speaker 2: lull and hunter presence, or he might be sneaking out
- 14:40Speaker 2: through the side door as the neighbors set up for
- 14:42Speaker 2: another midday drive through the betting cover. There are other
- 14:45Speaker 2: ways to break tradition too. Depending on how much seniority
- 14:49Speaker 2: you have, you might be able to suggest some slight
- 14:51Speaker 2: variations and the deer drives. Instead of parking exactly where
- 14:54Speaker 2: you always park and sending one hunter to cover the
- 14:56Speaker 2: waterway and two to post up at the end of
- 14:58Speaker 2: the woods, take a look at the satellite imagery of
- 15:00Speaker 2: your ground. Think about how often the drive has worked,
- 15:03Speaker 2: or how often someone has watched a deer squored out
- 15:06Speaker 2: in a random spot which is probably not as random
- 15:09Speaker 2: as it seems. Maybe it's a matter of talking to
- 15:12Speaker 2: everyone about slowing way way down and trying to be quiet,
- 15:17Speaker 2: or maybe it's a matter of putting someone in a
- 15:18Speaker 2: spot to watch a new area as long as it's safe.
- 15:21Speaker 2: Breaking the mold a little on deer drives can be
- 15:24Speaker 2: a wildly educational experience. Here's the thing. Not to toot
- 15:28Speaker 2: my own horn a little too much. But I'm kind
- 15:30Speaker 2: of a contrarian at heart. I don't like doing things
- 15:33Speaker 2: just because you're supposed to. I also don't like hunting
- 15:36Speaker 2: when I feel like I'm just crossing my fingers and
- 15:38Speaker 2: praying to the deer gods for a pity buck. I
- 15:40Speaker 2: think most of us lean into this a little too much.
- 15:44Speaker 2: You know, it's easier to follow tradition and do the
- 15:46Speaker 2: same thing over and over. It's even easier when there's
- 15:50Speaker 2: an element of peer pressure involved. So here's the deal.
- 15:53Speaker 2: If you planned a gun hunt this season, ask yourself
- 15:56Speaker 2: why you're doing what you're doing, are you sitting where
- 16:00Speaker 2: you are? And if there's a chance to shake things up,
- 16:03Speaker 2: at least consider it. Maybe not on day one, but
- 16:06Speaker 2: by day two or three. Ask yourself what the results
- 16:10Speaker 2: are of your effort and the efforts of anyone else
- 16:12Speaker 2: you may be hunting with. Are they not so great?
- 16:15Speaker 2: Would it be possible to suggest a few new things?
- 16:18Speaker 2: If not, that's okay, watch your own bobber and try
- 16:21Speaker 2: to make the best adjustments you can to the situation
- 16:23Speaker 2: you're in. It often doesn't take much to go from
- 16:28Speaker 2: finger crossing kind of hunt to someone who is actually
- 16:31Speaker 2: in the game. That feeling usually feeds further adjustments and
- 16:35Speaker 2: not only makes it more likely you'll fill your tag,
- 16:38Speaker 2: but it makes the whole thing a hell of a
- 16:40Speaker 2: lot more enjoyable. And when you enjoy it, more kill
- 16:42Speaker 2: more deer. Trust me on that. So stay safe out there,
- 16:46Speaker 2: shoot straight, change things up a little bit if you're
- 16:49Speaker 2: not happy with how it's going, and come back next
- 16:52Speaker 2: week because I'm going to talk about a concept in
- 16:54Speaker 2: engineering that also applies to deer hunting, one that can
- 16:57Speaker 2: really help you eliminate some of the things that can
- 16:59Speaker 2: totally derail a hunt. That's it for this week. I'm
- 17:03Speaker 2: Tony Peterson. This has been the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast.
- 17:07Speaker 2: If you want any more hunting content, and I mean podcast,
- 17:12Speaker 2: I mean videos, I mean articles, head on over to
- 17:16Speaker 2: the meeteater dot com and you'll see all that stuff.
- 17:19Speaker 2: You can also check out our store which has a
- 17:22Speaker 2: recent edition which is the board game of our Meet
- 17:25Speaker 2: Eater Trivia, you know, the game where conservation wins every time.
- 17:29Speaker 2: Pretty cool product out there, and now something to take
- 17:32Speaker 2: to dear camp. Maybe just try out with the family
- 17:35Speaker 2: or whatever, and know that when you buy that, they're
- 17:38Speaker 2: gonna peel off a little chunk and give that to conservation,
- 17:41Speaker 2: so you're doing something good getting a great product for
- 17:43Speaker 2: yourself at them meeteater dot com. Thanks again for everything.