Ep. 613: Foundations - How to Make the Late Season Suck Less

of bullshit involved. Everyone is on a mission to present themselves as something pretty amazing, and in that process, an awful lot of the details seemed to just get left out. Lies of all mission a rampant and that's everybody's move. Now that social media is the delivery du jur for the updates on all of our lives, well, I get why people want to show only highlight real stuff about

their lives, and I really do. The thing that always drove me nuts about the hunting industry was how late season hunting was always presented as this awesome time to kill a buck. No, no, no, to kill a giant buck. It's not and I think we should acknowledge that. And that's actually what this episode is all about. I used to like to travel. I mean I still do, but with kids in quite a few years of travel intensive work in the rear view mirror, you know, the shine

is really off the old apple. These days. If I get on a plane, it's because my boss makes me, or there's something really appealing waiting for me at some distant airport. That's usually warm weather and ocean fish. But throughout my life I found plenty of reasons to book a flight and take some trips. What you find, as I'm sure most of you have at one point or another, is that if you're about to subject yourself to being a tourist, you're also about to subject yourself to some

seriously misrepresented situations. Take the latest and greatest stage of destination lodging, where you stay in someone else's house instead of staying at a resort or a hotel. It's a great idea, right, You get a kitchen, as many bedrooms as you're willing to pay for, and pretty much whatever amenities you have at home. So you look through listing after listing, and they're all full of pictures and descriptions

that pretty much build up a dream world. Scenario fu fu adjectives like cozy, roomy, cushy, picturesque, dreamy, and whatever, they'll all be there. Wide angle images of every aspect of the house will show you a distorted view, kind of like long arming a buck in a grip and grin photo. You won't see that the neighborhood where the house you're checking out is super trashy, or that the house is only really seven square feet when it looks

like three thousand in the pictures. The folks listing these houses, they're selling you an image of something that is actually something else. Now, not everyone does that. You can find some sweet houses backed by real reviews to tell you exactly everything all that you're paying for. The same goes for cities in Mexico, or cruise ships to hit a bunch of Caribbean islands, or that sweet ski resort in Colorado where you can go shreds and black diamonds or something.

I don't know. If you can't tell, I don't ski. I do fall down on the ice fairly often and right on through it occasionally, so that's something. Anyway. If you get the chance to travel enough, you tend to develop a serious BS meter and figure out how to pretty quickly weed through the charlatan's. Do the same rules apply for hunting content. I feel like for many folks

it does. If you have enough experience hunting, you probably know that someone who tells you the late season is the best time to kill a mature buck is probably leaving out about a thousand crucial details to how they came to that conclusion. But other folks with less hunting experience might not be so quick to suss out the

truth from the curated deceit. That's a shame, but there is hope if you're in that category and you think that it's your fault for not killing a hundred and seventy on a food source in December when they I don't know, the most prolific personalities on outdoor television do it with surprising regularity. Let me help you out. The late season kind of mostly sucks. Hunting for probably of deer hunters is worse now than any other time of

the season. Hell, it's probably like for anybody on pressure ground, the late season is probably way worse than the other worst times of the season, like the octo over Lowell. Now I have to say this because there's always a disclaimer. There are some situations where even pressured ground might have the right mix of terrain or food or whatever to

produce enjoyable late season hunts. But for the most part, as Rick Astley, the very talented musician who has probably featured on several posters and Mark Kenyon's man Cave said, you know the rules, and so do I, and the rules are that late season hunting is tough. What that doesn't mean you should give it up, even if it lets you down, runs around, or I don't know, deserts. You sorry, I got caught up in a Rick Roll vortex there. Back to the subject at hand, the disappointing

truth about late season hunting. It's just hard. Odds are low, it's usually pretty cold, and generally just requires a little more planning, a lot more stealth, and a hell of a lot of faith. But it's not a loss cause I just got a text from my good buddy Clint Campbell over there at the Truth from the Stand podcast with a video of him paddling a kayak through some cold ass looking water with a great, big dead dose slung over the bow. He said, he just went hunting deer,

and that's what he killed a deer. Also, it doesn't take much context when you see his video to realize he wasn't phoning it in. He wasn't walking a hundred yards from his truck to get into a box blind. If you're paddling a kayak to bow hunt late season, dear, you're already out working just about everyone who is still out there hunting. And that, my friends, is an important

point to pay attention to. We are sold from those disingenuous bastards in the outdoor media who are absolutely nothing like me, that this stuff is just going to get easier the colder it gets. But I have bad news for you. It probably won't. It'll probably it harder. Maybe arctic conditions will roll in and the deer will have

to eat to survive. But what they eat, where they eat it, and when they eat will be dictated almost entirely, not by those super frigid temperatures, but they're likelihood of walking too close to one of us. You see, Survival is survival to them. A full belly is pretty important when it's cold, but not any more important than not getting shot. They know this, even if they may be quite can't. Really, I don't know rationalize it the way the we can. That doesn't matter because their behavior shows

their mentality pretty clearly. They also, since they are pretty tied into photo periodism, understand that the window to feed in the dark is much larger and much safer than the small window to feed in the day. Now, those deer that have been baby sat on premier properties, they don't learn those lessons very well. They learned that there's

no danger to moving in daylight, so they do. But the deer that have been shot at all season and have walked through the woods in the fields every night, smelling hunters where they walked and climbed into trees and surface ship their way across the landscape, those deer know what's up. You have to acknowledge this reality and then figure out what to do to get the odds on your side. The first is to learn that hunting, even when it will most likely suck a lot, is still

worth it. This and I know most people don't want to hear this is one of the lessons that becoming a runner taught me. Now, I hate running, just like about everyone who has four brain cells rattling around in their skull. But you can learn to appreciate what it does for you. That's the key. Every day, or at least every other day, when I lace up my arm clouds, choose a podcast, and set on the mean streets of the suburbs or on a treadmill at the gym, I

hate it. I don't want to do it. And the first half mile or so, or the first mile, it's always kind of just torture. I don't think that's ever going to change for me. But then somewhere after that first mile, there is the inevitable acceptance that it is just going to happen because I'm not gonna let myself quit. Depending on the distance, it might be over an hour or a half hour or hour and a half, but even a half hour that's a Simpsons episode. You can

get through that. The longer ones they're, you know, a physical grind, but not so much as a mental one, and that's what that teaches you. But finishing it, whether it's a four mile or ten, always feels good. It's always worth it at the end. Late season hunting is just like that. It's not always fun, it's rarely easy, but it's always worth it, especially if you want to get better at being a deer hunter, you might as well go hunt the hard ones. Huh. You gotta understand that,

because it's important. You've got to understand this. You have to figure out ways to enjoy it. Let's go back to running for a second. While I love listening to music when i'm lifting or at any other part of my life, really I hate it while I'm running. I figured that out and realized that podcasts were the best way to get myself to focus on something other than the misery of running and just kind of disassociate a

little bit. Now, good shoes like those on Clouds, which don't sponsor me anyway, so I don't care what you buy. I just really like them. They're huge, too. Shitty shoes make running really suck, and there's no way around it. I've also figured out routes I like to run that might allow me to see a few deer or at least go up and down a few hills and some parks. I figured out that I don't need pre workout, but

maybe just a little caffee before running. All of these little things don't make it totally suck free, but they make it much more tolerable for me personally. Now, when it comes to late season hunting, What can you do to cut down on the suck to make it more tolerable. You've heard me preach about lowering your standards plenty, so

I won't keep whacking that dead pony. But I'll say this, if you struggle to kill whatever caliber of deer is that you kind of set your sights on throughout the earlier season, you're not likely to suddenly find tons of success on that same caliber of deer in the late season. Adjust accordingly and apologize to no one. What if you don't handle the cold well? Some people are like polar bears, some aren't. If you can layer up with the good stuff and use wind blocking outer layers, you're going to

be better off. If you can't, maybe a pop up blind with a propane heater is the ticket for you. If you think that kind of hunting is for lesser men, go out in your loincloth and show us Pansy's how it's done. Maybe with a spear. If you would rather be comfortable enjoy your hunting, do what you have to do. And another way to make the late seasons suck less is surprise surprise to see more, Dear, you can file

that under the most obvious statement ever made. But it's true at such a base level, and it's true at a different level. Of course. Seeing more dear makes hunting more fun. And if we could wave a magic wand to make that happen, we would, but we can't, even though the hunting industry tries to sell us stupid magic wands all the time. You have to figure it out for yourself. And here's the rub. You might have to

get off the food. You might also have to scout right now for the most pounded trails, the freshest of sign. This is one of those times where you have a negative and a positive working for you. The negative is that wandering around and scouting now and then figuring out how to set up on those hotspots you find is

often a lot of work. But the plus side is the sign of deer travel is usually pretty evident in the back half of December, whether you have snow to work with or not, you should be able to find concentrations of deer and specific routes that deer will take throughout the day. Pay attention to them, but also ask yourself whether you're looking at daylight sign or midnight sign.

Kind of like every other part of the season. If you do find a trail that is pounded and you realize you're in a spot that needs to be hunted, try to really think through your setup. The first thing I do is take a long look around. How far away can the deer be and still know that I walked into that spot? Can you see for five yards through the open winter woods? If so, are the deer likely to be betted somewhere in that distance where they will see or hear you. That's the case. That hot

sign is mostly just a tease. If you can't get in and hunt it without spooking deer, it's not good enough. Is there a way to walk that trail to find some better access? Does it dip through a steep ravine or maybe a little frozen creek. Does it head straight up a bluff where the ridge top bedding deer might not see you as you slip in below. Maybe what you thought could be an awesome afternoon setup isn't because the deer bedded just where they're going to see you.

Yet you might be able to sneak in the back way long before first light and catch them coming into bed. Morning hunts are sometimes pretty damn good in the late season, even though most people advise against it. I hate those blanket statements because I think there's situations where you might be able to sneak in there. Think about it, and who is to say you don't have an amazing spot to hunt mornings in the late season. Travel routes are

travel routes, my friends. And just because the deer off the fields at sunrise does not mean they're back to their beds already by the time you can shoot. They often all season long, get into the cover at first light or before first light, and then browsed their way through. Where I'm going with this is that confidence in your setups is key to enjoying the hunting and mitigating the

suckier parts. Think about it this way. Have you ever gone hunting while believing that you wouldn't see a thing, and then surprise, surprise, you don't see a freaking thing. It's not much fun, right, That's the gun hunter's curse by about the third day of the firearm season. Now, have you ever gone into a sit knowing in your heart of hearts you're going to be snowed in with deer or you were for sure without doubt going to see a good buck and then surprise, surprise, you blanked.

Which sit was more fun the one that was full of anticipation? I bet? I bet you hunted quieter, you sat longer, you glass more, and just felt like you were way more into the hunt than the one where you didn't believe it was going to happen. That ship is so important. It's also the stuff that keeps us looking. And while we might not kill every time, what if you do the work and you get into a late season setup you believe in, and while you're there you glass up a buck or a group of does doing

something other than what you plan for. Did you hear that? It was the sound of another piece of the puzzle falling into place, and it was you realizing that there's still a chance that the hunt is still going on. That's one of my favorite things about late season hunting. Honestly, the deer will tell you what they're going to do every day, and it's your job to get around them

without making too big of a mistake. There's also just a little bit of a badass factor if you can get out there an arrow of fawn when most hunters have given up you're going to feel it. You're gonna feel it in your bones. If you shoot an old door or a buck, you might actually feel your chest hair grow a little bit as you level up in manhood. Now, if you're a woman, then I don't know what it will do for you, but I hope it doesn't prompt

spontaneous chest hair growth. Your job, just like it is with most hunting, is to figure out the best way to enjoy it, and then make the work happen that will deliver the joy to you. Hell as Hallmark card like as that sounds, that's kind of the secret to having a decent life. Work towards something challenging and figure out how to make things tolerable while allowing for the work to open up a few doors, doors through which

a late season dear might walk, for example. So don't give up, don't give into the false reality of white tail hunting. When the majority of the season is already gone. There's still time to get out there and fill a tag. There's still time to have fun and prove that you can do what most other hunters aren't willing to do. There's still the chance to get better at this stuff, which is something the late season will absolutely do for you. It will challenge you to be better and challenge you

to find your own path as a deer hunter. That may be the biggest benefit to suiting up and facing the Arctic conditions. Keep learning and to keep your foot on the gas when every stoplight seems to be changing to yellow. So good luck, my friends. I hope you find your way to a buzzer, beat or buck or dough or fawn or whatever. And I hope you tune in next week when I talk about how to manage your personal hunting pressure when you're really down to the

wire and simply hunting for a last minute deer. That's it for this week, my friends. I am your host, Tony Peterson, and this has been the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, which is brought to you by First Light. I just want to say thank you so much for your support. We really appreciate it here at meat Eater.

And if you want more white till advice, you can head on over to the meat eator dot com slash wired see a bunch of articles by Market myself and whoever else, or you can visit our Wire to Hunt YouTube channel where Mark and I drop a pile of new videos every single week,