Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast, your guide to the White Tail Woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light, Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. This week on the show, I'm joined by Tony Peterson to explore the art of making better decisions and creating more satisfying hunting experiences. All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light, and today we're continuing the trend that we started last week by kind of taking a deep breath. I want us to take a deep breath in, take a deep breath out, let our shoulders sag down, kind of shake off all of the work
and thinking. And I don't know, we've been diving into a bunch of stuff this winter and spring. We spent a bunch of time talking about habitat, We dove deep into some conservation topics. We just came off of a full month of parenting discussions, and now we're in the summer and I kind of want us to kind of shake everything off and get ready for the big push into hunting season. So what I've kind of been feeling this month is is letting our hair down and just
having a little fun. Last week we did that with Dan, catching up on things over the last ten years, and today we've got my buddy right hand man, Tony Peterson on to do the same thing. And Tony, I don't know if you know this, but I told Dan Johnson, our fellow, our mutual friend, that this is our tenth year of the Wired Hunt podcast. We've entered the tenth season. Can you believe that a decade of this thing?
I actually kind of can't. Why. It's kind of incredible.
Yeah, So it's, uh, it's not so ten years of the podcast and fifteen years of Wired to Hunt since it's you know, it's a website and stuff before that. So it's shocking to me how fast that's all gone. But part of what I did with Dan last week, and I think it might be interesting to chat with you a little bit about two, is is to kind of look back on the past ten years. And so that's something I'm going to ask you about in here second. But before that, Tony, I'm just thinking, today, let's let's
catch up a little bit. Let's talk through some of the stuff that's going on in our own lives as far as dear projects we've done this spring and summer, stuff we're gonna be working on leading to the season. Maybe talk through some of our plans and a little bit more detail, and then yeah, I want to press you a little bit on a ten year reflection too, if you're willing to do that. Are you game for a lot?
I'm game for it all, buddy.
Yeah. So are you are you in full blown fishing mode or do you still have your eyes on some deer projects right now? Like what's what's Tony's life look like?
Right now? I am mostly in fishing mode, but I've been spending some time in the woods, just just working on a little bit of stuff, mainly over there in Wisconsin, but mostly just feeding the mosquitoes, which have been unfreaking real out there right now. I don't know if you've experienced that where you live, but man, it has been rough.
Is it just because there's so much snow, there's moisture everywhere?
Now? It was well partially, but it was the rain that we had at certain points this spring, and that first hatch was a freaking doozy and I'm hoping, you know, the same thing happens with the ticks. Right, you get into late May and they're everywhere, and the mosquito hatch really happens, and then usually by about July things start to level off a little bit, And so I kind of treat June like a mess around deer Mont. Maybe shoot my boat a little bit, maybe get into the
woods a little bit. But I do spend a lot of time chasing smallies and not necessarily thinking too hard on the deer.
Mm hmm, well, there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, we've talked, both of us have talked about this on the podcast and off about how it's just as important to be able to peel yourself away from it sometimes to kind of refill the tank on other pursuits, and then that gives you more energy and probably more context and ideas to bring back to the deer hunting world when you do dive back in.
Right, yep, big time, big time is there.
This is going to be a stretch. But I'm curious how creative you can get. Is there anything from your small mouth fishing, your pursuit of smallies that has made you a better deer hunter? Can you can you bridge that gap for me and teach me something about deer hunting that you've learned while chasing smallies.
Uh? Absolutely, man. In fact, I'm gonna be.
Uh and it can't it can't be a basic like structure analogy how bass crowd to like a piece of structure in a lake. That's not almost too easy?
Come on, dude, Okay, well, okay, I'll give you an idea that I'm kind of really obsessed with right now for deer hunting. In fact, I did a Foundations episode that was tied pretty tightly to it not that long ago, and it it's deer hunt like. To be a good deer hunter, you have to process information quickly and make good decisions like you're You're always making a series of decisions that lead to where you're gonna sit and whether
you call or when you draw what whatever. Right, Yeah, everything that I do in the outdoors is like that. So even though small mall fishing is you know, lower pressure, you know, like, it's not it's not the same thing as hunting a deer, right, But I go out, especially when you're talking end of May, beginning of June, when when I really start getting after it it all right, what's the water temperature. What's the water temperature at eight in the morning versus two in the afternoon when the
sun's been shining all day. Are they moving up shallow yet? Are they not there yet? If you catch one, you know, say you catch a little mail, he's real pale. You go, Okay, they just came out of the wintering holes. I might need to be flipping instead of throwing the top water.
And it's just like working that muscle of thinking through the conditions, thinking through how they're changing, you know, by the minute or by the hour or whatever, and then adapting to that and then using everything they give you to make a little bit better decision. It's like, oh, you missed one here a short strike, or you had one come up and look at your swim bait, but it dropped back down and didn't eat it. All of that stuff just helps you solve problems on the fly.
And I feel like it just gets you in a better mode. Even when you just go out scouting in the summer for white tails. You're making all these decisions and you're looking at you know, oh, the neighbor has this kind of crop coming up, and all of a sudden, some trees got knocked down here, and you're just filtering everything through. So I honestly think that's why being sort of an outdoor to generalist is so valuable to being a deer hunter. I mean, I see it with beezant hunting.
I see it with a lot of stuff.
I two thousand percent agree. And I also feel like that's maybe very close to my very favorite thing about hunting and fishing, is that decision making process. Like this this puzzle that you have to put together every single time, right, But there's like two parts to it. There's part one, which is the data collection, Like you have to get all the information that's input into the system, and then
you have to make sense of it. And that's where you're making the decisions based on all that data, right, based on the scouting inteler, based on the weather and the you know, what you're seeing on the water and what the smallers are doing right now, YadA, YadA, YadA. But I think there's a lot of people and I'm
going to make an assumption here. I'm going to assume that a lot of people have made the same mistakes that I have made in the past, which would be like getting stuck into part one of that process or part two of that process, but not doing a good job of doing both together. So like I think early on, at least in my deer hunting career, I got stuck in the data collection process. Like I knew, like, Okay, I need to scout. I need to get a bunch
of information. So I go out there and I'd see the tracks, and i'd see the rubs, and i'd see the scrapes, and i'd see the cover, and i'd see the food. And I was pretty good at just seeing all of it, but I was not good at figuring out how to keep accumulate that stuff in a way that I could then make sense of it. So like you see a bunch of stuff, but then you never really do a good job of parsing through it and making decisions based on it or understanding the bigger picture
based on it. Do you know what I mean? Like, don't you think a lot of people and maybe you, at one point in your life did a bunch of scouting that was basically worthless because you were just looking at stuff, but you weren't doing good job of retaining it, noting it down, or using it well.
Oh absolutely. I mean I think I think there's like a real hurdle you have to get over, which is not just taking everything and going okay, like you said, there's a scrape here, there's a rub there, bucks must be here, instead of asking yourself why that's why? Why is that scrape there? Or why does this scrape have? You know, why is it the side of a truck hood and have three looking branches over it when other scrapes I find are tiny and have one licking branch?
Or why is it every time I get into like one of these bottoms where three different ridges feed down in there and it's kind of like a feels like a hub. Why do I find a big scrape there? You know? Like and I think about that stuff, like we kind of sell this this false narrative that you know, go scouting, find a big one, give him a name, and you're good to go. And it's like, well, why did he walk down that trail? Why is he here
in August and disappear for September or October? Like there's there's so many questions we don't answer, and we kind of look for shortcuts around it, but really you have to ask yourself why why would they be here? Why did they make that sign? Like all of that stuff feeds into like us making better decisions, Like, Okay, if this is a community scrape here, there has to be a reason there's a multi generational scrape right here. Well, it's because there's a lot of deer that go through there. Why,
Like what's feeding in there? Like how can you play off of that? Like what does the wind do in one of those hubs? And the more you ask yourself, like beyond just a surface value of something like well take the take Last weekend, I was fishing with one of my nephews and we left the small mouth stuff and went drove way back in and started fishing large mouth because they're you know, pooling into the shallows too. And we started catching them in one spot where there's
there's a hillside that comes down. And this is all like a floating bog cattails type of stuff, swampy type of stuff. It all looks good, it all has little pads. But we started catching a concentration of fish in one spot where there's a pretty steep hillside, and when you look at that, you go, well, it doesn't really look that much different than you know so much of the other stuff we fished, but it had fewer fish on it.
And the reality is the way the land works there, it's just a little bit deeper, like maybe a foot deeper on average there than most of the stuff around it. So the fish are there. But you might go through, you know, throw a frog up on the bank, drag it in and catch a big, large mouth and go, oh, there was a large mouth there, like not think about why. But if you start thinking about why have I gotten
three bites here? And it took me two hours to get three bites going through a bunch of this other stuff, And now you go, there has to be a reason. And if you figure out that reason, you can replicate that in other places and go, man, I have that in my back pocket always. And there's so much like that with deer hunting.
That single question and word why question mark is like that's that's the power? Like that is that one thing I think is Yeah, I don't know if life shaving, but hunting and fishing life changing. If you can learn to always ask that question at all parts of the process, you will get exponentially better. And then it applies. It applies the first part like when you're collecting data and like trying to see like, okay, all this, what am I seeing? What am I? What am I noting? What's
what's happening here? Asking why?
Why? Oh? Why?
And then it also applies on the back half of the decision making process, when you're actually like, okay, what do I do? What's the right thing to do right now? Well, then you need to be asking why would I think a deer would come through here? Or if you think this is a tree, we'll shall hunt this tree or not? Well, okay, why would a deer come by this tree? Why would he not come by this tree? Why would this work
right now? Why might this not work right now? If you are constantly having that internal dialogue at each step in the process, whether your turkey hunting or deer hunting or small off bass fishing, you all of a sudden are forced to do like the second layer thinking that gets you to start understanding things and starts helping you make informed decisions versus just random decisions. We're like, wow, screwt, I'll just sit here and see what happens. There's no
randomness in nature. Everything happens for almost no randomness. Almost everything happens for a reason, and the more we can start identifying those, the much much much better we get as outdoors treat.
People big time. I mean, I think that's like the core tenant of why you know. People say and I've said this, I'm sure you said this, like the first time you sit a stands the best, or the first time you saddle up in a spot it's the best. And part of that is, Yeah, the deer aren't used to you being there, they don't expect you in that spot, like that's a that's a big benefit. But part of it is you've made that decision based off of something
right now. You're not you're not going into that tried and true ladder stand that you've had up for seven years where you're crossing your fingers and hoping they come by. You found something. Yet you know, you scouted, you saw you observe something, there was something there that you said, I got to be there now, and it works out enough where it's a really viable strategy.
Yeah, So this is this is a topic that is
fascinating to me. Like a year or two ago, I did like a deep kind of wormhole dive reading a bunch about different like decision making theories and alsos and stuff like that, because I kind of had the same thought that you're having, which is at the core of this whole deer hunting thing, at the very bottom of the whole thing, is just like making good decisions, Like that's how you become a good deer hunter, is if you learn how to make a good decision in the
moment or that day or that week that puts you in the right place based on all this data we've collected, all this information, Like that is what good deer hunters do, whether they know it or not. That's the muscle that they're using, that decision making muscle.
So I started, well, yeah, go ahead, Oh, I was just going to say, for sure. But it's also those people learn really quickly to shrug off the bad decisions because they make those all the time too.
Yeah. So here's my question though. One of the things when as I was going into this whole decision making world that I found very applicable and hard to figure out or one of the challenges of making good decisions in the context of hunting or fishing, is this this kind of cognitive pitfall. The humans have a lot which is being fooled by randomness. So like something will happen and we say, why did that happen, and we apply,
we essentially make a rule of a single thing. So by that, I mean you're out there hunting in the woods, you see a buck cruise across one hundred yards out and you say, well, man, if that buck did that, I should go and hunt that spot because that buck just did that. So you're betting on the idea that he did that for a reason maybe, and that you need to be there ten minutes from now for the next time a different deer comes passing through it out.
Sometimes that's the right call. Sometimes that is a random act, and we are fooled by that random act and we think, well, because that one buck did that one time, Now for the next ten years, you always hunt that spot because you saw a buck come through that one spot that one time. You know, I'm sure there's a lot of people that have got that tree stand that man in nineteen ninety seven, I killed a buck here and he was a giant. So I'm always going to keep hunting
this spot because man, that was a good spot. So there's this risk of being fooled by randomness that then can skew your decision making. So what I'm trying to get out here, Tony is is how do you think about that? Have you dealt with that? Is that something you think about at all? And how do you try to wrestle with this risk of Okay? Am I making the decision here based on what could be a random thing?
Or is there actually a better reason, a sol more solid reason that I can feel like this is actually something worth acting on?
You know, I would say, in that specific example where you see a buck do something, I don't feel like I'm going to assign a whole lot of randomness to it. I feel like there's quite a bit of value in observing a buck do something. And yeah, I mean it might be it might be so like conditionally dependent that it just doesn't happen very often, you know. I mean seeing a buck run across an open pasture like September twentieth, you're like, I don't know, who knows, right, could have
been a coyote, could have been something else. But seeing that same buck do something like that on November seventh carries more weight, you know, So again you got to filter that through. But I would say, where we run into a lot of danger with using one off, one off bits of information to draw big conclusions. Is like trail camera usage, man, where you get that little glimpse and you're like, oh, I've had three bucks this week and they're all at night, so they must be nocturnal.
Or I'm hunting twenty five acres and I got a picture of a one forty passing through on September eighteenth, so he's living there, or he's there and huntable now. And it's not enough information to make you know, like real informed decisions around. And I think when we fill in the blanks, we we really make a lot of mistakes.
And I mean we do this when we haunt too, right, Like you go sit a stand that you think is just going to be banging for whatever reason, and you blank and it's like, Okay, well the deer don't use this spot, or it was too hot for them or something, when it could have been they all knew you were in there.
Or it also could be just it's just unlucky like that. Just maybe that's the flip side of it, is assigning a judgment to that sit based off on a one time sit, when actually, if you stay for the next four days, maybe three out of four days, you'd have big deer rolling through there. But you happen to just be fooled by randomness on the one day that you got unlucky. That's the tricky thing, right.
Yep, yeah, I mean that's that's where you know, time in the field and experience comes into play.
And I also think it comes back to that question of why too, Like anytime you see a one off thing happen, asking why and trying to really think hard about, Okay, to the extent of my knowledge, can I explain why this happened? And if you really can't explain why, if there's no good reason for what happened to have happened, and you know, and you feel confident in your knowledge of the area and what's going on, then maybe this was a random thing that's not worth making a you know,
basing a decision off. But on the flip side, like you said, you know, if you see a buck go cruising through a strip of timber on November seventh, and you're thinking, okay, is that random or why would this have happened? And then you start thinking, okay, well, let me think here, I don't know this property super well.
But I do know there's that creek bottom. He was found the creek bottom, and it does connect to that big chunk of timber up to the north, so you know he probably was cruising maybe from that betting area there to the other one. And that seems like something that will repeat itself because there's a bunch of bucks doing that this time of the year. So yeah, I bet you that wasn't random. I bet you there'll be other bucks that utilize it the same way. So yes,
I should be there. I think if you go through that kind of thought process, whenever you get a new input, a new observation, a new trail camera photo, that can make it more useful for sure.
I mean I've been pushing this this message a lot. In fact, I just I wrote a piece for Meat Eater very recently on just adding one new spot, like the value of taking whatever you hunt and trying to find one more place to hunt, public, private, whatever, just
to give yourself more options. And I think, you know, we we're really lucky, right, Like we get to hunt all over and we're kind of like we live in these hunting circles where we're around people who get to travel all over and build up tons of experience in a single year. The average hunter doesn't have that, but it's not like they can't replicate that to some extent.
And I think sometimes when you're like, man, I kind of think I know this property, like I haven't figured out if I go here on Halloween they come out, or if I do this or that. But then you go hunt, you have to figure someplace new o and all of a sudden, all those why questions come to be. And the more you do that, the better you get. Like I really think it's a valuable thing for leveling up as a deer hunter.
It's it's just like a muscle. You have to exercise that muscle for it to grow, right.
Absolutely. I mean i'll tell you what. So last year, for the last couple of years, because of my tag situation and you having to film and whatever, I haven't been doing as much early season public land whitetail hunts, which are kind of like my favorite things, Like I just I love doing that. In last year, I went out to South Dakota to film a show with the
Element Boys, and I felt out of practice. I was like, this is something I've done dozens of times, but not as much in the last couple of years, and just getting out there, I was like, man, I forgot, you know, or at least it was a little bit old. It felt like I like having to make all those decisions and figure something out on the fly, and I loved it. I was like, oh, man, I'm kind of reminded of
what really gets me going. But at the same time, I felt out of practice, Like, man, I need to do this more because I'm not as good at it as I was a couple of years ago.
So what does that mean? Now? What are you going to do? Because of that?
I'm gonna go hunt a lot more early season white tails on public land.
Where are you going this year for that? You know?
It's provided. I'm kind of in limbo right now because I'm waiting to see if I draw Iowa. I don't know if I will, but that's that will color my fall quite a bit. But I after hunting turkeys down in Nebraska, I'm like, I gotta go back down there, provided I can get a tag when they go on sale. I really want to do that, And if I can't, I'm probably going to go do something in North Dakota
right around the opener, and then I'm hunting Minnesota. This is going to be private, but I'm hunting a new place in the mid September and just kind of getting back to chasing those deer, you know, six weeks before the rut, eight weeks before the rut, and I cannot wait.
Yeah, that is fun stuff. I love that time here too, so so fun. So what else are you working on right now in preparation for that or anything else you mentioned You've been doing some Wisconsin stuff. Is that scouting or prepping on those properties that you own or what are you doing on that front?
A little of both, you know. I'm working on the properties I own for my daughters, you know, and plus I drew a bear tag over there and sort of one of my daughters. I'm kind of getting some stuff
ready for that. But I'm also looking at some of that public land I like to hunt over there, and kind of taking stock of the deer population and just just starting to like poke around a little bit and see what I'm going to be dealing with this fall, and other than the bugs, it feels really good to get out there.
Yeah, So I'm excited to hear about your Wisconsin scouting since I'm going to piggyback off you a little bit this year, I think, as you.
Know, are you are you ready to shoot a four key?
Yeah? For sure. I've broke that seal a couple of years ago down in Alabama, So I'm on that train in the right situation. Yeah, man, I mean, I'm very excited for Speaking of early season trips, my big early season trip this year is going to be this kind of Upper Great Lakes road trip. And the idea I had was kind of breaking away a little bit from the standard deer trip that we take a lot time,
and I think a lot of people do is. And I don't know if you feel this way, Tony, but I think you probably have had moments where you feel like this sometimes. It seems like sometimes we go on these trips and it feels like a military operation in that like we have this goal, we have this period of time, and we have to go into this new zone and break it down and attack it with a mission focus. And you know, nothing is more important than
achieving the goal. So you've got to go, go, go, and you just got to kill the deer, and you're after a big deer or whatever, and it feels very I don't know, maybe you're better at this than I am, but I have a hard time separating the experience from that goal when I do it that way, Like I'm just so focused. I'm trying to get away from that at least some of the time and do more like
things just for the experience. And I did some of this last year, like I made some of my decisions about where I was going, you know, based on like I just like the place, I just like being out there. And I'm taking that one step further this year by doing this Upper Great Lakes thing where I'm gonna do a trip that's not just about killing a big deer. So what I want to do, And thank you for helping me kind of think through some of this the other day and pitch some ideas to me about what
places I might be able to do it. I'm gonna do like a road trip up through and I think I might even go up through the up of Michigan and hit the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, northern Wisconsin, and northern Minnesota and kind of showcase and experience for myself, like everything that the the wildest parts of my home region, the Great Lakes region has to offer. So I want to do some grouse hunting. I want to do some
brook trout fishing. I want to do some fishing for small e's and pike, and then I want to hunt deer. And I'm going to camp and I'm in a canoe and I'm gonna hear some loons, see some moves maybe, and you know, just feel that whole vibe, you know what I mean.
Oh, I'm I feel like you're I'm so proud of you. I feel like you're growing up.
It's taken a while, dude, it's tough.
Man. You go through phases in this where the antlers are so important and there's you put a lot of pressure on yourself to kill big ones, and after a while you kind of get to the point where you're like, that's not actually why I want to be out there, Like that's a that's a motivator to some extent in some situations. But when you start to see those places like the big woods, like, I don't know what it is,
you know what you're talking about there? That is not hardly anyone's dream deer trip because it's just not a good strategy to kill big deer easily like you're but it's the same thing. This is one of the things that drives me so nuts about this resident non resident fighting right now and how difficult it's getting to get elk tags if you don't live out west. It's like, yeah, everybody wants to shoot an elk. It's they're delicious. It's pretty freaking cool to walk up on a bull you
killed or a cow or whatever. But the main thing about elk hunting is getting up into the mountains and camping and being there, you know. And I know you could go do that and bird watch or trout fish or whatever, but for most people that's not you know, enough of a carrot to drive, you know, a thousand miles or two thousand miles and do it. Like there has to be something real, tangible at steak and but it's like tied to so much more than just killing an elk. And that's the way the Big Woods is,
like that trip you're talking about. I hope you go kill three four keys in a row and catch a bunch of trout and just enjoy it, because that setting is so bad ass. Even if you know, the northern third of any of those states you mentioned really aren't conducive to going out and having you know, super productive deer hunts. It's just so worth being there.
They're just wild places and they I do have, you know, great opportunities, but they're different opportunities, you know. So yeah, So I think I'm gonna start up near the Boundary Waters. So I'm gonna I'm gonna start farthest away and work my way back, I think. So I'm gonna head up to the Boundary Waters Canoe Camp, do some fishing right around there, experience that place again, Like it's such an amazing spot that I got to experience one time. I
want to I want more of that. So I'm gonna start there and then do a little grouse hunting outside of that zone, and then work my way southeast into Wisconsin, do a little deer hunting in some of these areas that you've been kind enough to kind of point me towards, and maybe hit some brook trout, little streams and stuff. And I think that like late September time period up there, it's gonna be comfortable but starting to cool down a little bit, like the early little whispers of fall coming in.
I just think it's gonna be great. Just gonna be really really cool.
It is. You're gonna have a blast.
Yeah, I wish you could. I wish you could join. Man, I know you've got another thing going on, but it would have been a good opportunity for us to celebrate our home turf a little bit.
You know, I might when you make it to Wisconsin, I might be able to make it over there for a couple of days. And I don't know if I could. I can help you get out of deer, but I bet I can help you catch some brook choler maybe shoot it grows.
Hey, that's a that's going to be all part of it. And and what's also nice about this trip is it's going to be it's just like when I turn to dough hunting mode back home, Like it's a totally different kind of feeling and experience when you're going out just to hunt for does. It's it's freeing in some kind of way. I don't know if you feel this way, but I've I've really come to love like antler list specific hunts. It just feels like, man, it's a more
target rich environment. It's it's a different level of excitement. I don't know why, but it is and I feel like the same thing applies when you go on a hunt and you lower your typical expectations or goals or something. So you know, on this I'm going to go in with like any deer is a shooter deer, and that I think will be really exciting and still really rewarding. Like if I can kill a deer up there in northern Wisconsin, I'm gonna be really proud and really happy.
If I kill a foky or a dough, I'll be stoked. So going in that with those expectations I think will make the trip more fun than if I went out there I was like, Man, I'm gonna kill a mature buck and I'm gonna show everyone I'm a badass, big woods Hunterman. I don't care about that. I want to have a good time.
Man. That's a message that I can I can fully get behind. I mean, I think that's one of the things you realize if you're if you're forcunate to get to travel enough, you know, you do the highway thing or the Kansas thing or whatever premier state, and yeah, it can be a hell of a lot of fun. But trophy hunting in general, for a lot of people is not that much fun and you but but we
kind of default to it. And then when you go somewhere like you're talking, you go to the Big Woods, and you're like, I'm gonna be around oh deer densities. I don't you know, you don't have twenty seven years of history there. I mean, it's like on the fly, just whatever comes down the trail type of hunting. When you put yourself in that situation, you do realize how
enjoyable it is. Like my favorite hunts are ones where I'm around lots of deer and I have lots of tags, Like I don't I don't care if I'm not within five miles of a one point thirty one forty plus if I'm in that situation, because I know it's going to be fun, kind of like going turkey hunting. It's like it's just going to be fun.
Yeah, I'm learning that. I like I'm finding what the sweet spot is for me, and like having a mix of like a little bit of all these different things has is seeming like the sweet spot for me. Like I I've found I need to have some of this public land adventure like and I need to be trying new places. I need to be figuring out new spots.
I need to have some of this just experience stuff, Like I'm going somewhere not because it's a big deer spot, but because it's this kind of trip like I just described. But I also know that I do like to still travel to some places where I'm just gonna see deer doing deer things and see mature bucks doing mature box things that I just don't get to see often back home,
Like I love going to that complace. So I still want to have like an Iowa or Kansas or Illinois or something on the trip, you know, planned every year if I can, because that's a cool experience. But I don't need that the whole time. And then I also still also need or I enjoy getting to have the local thing too, or like I have spots I've hunted forever and I know the area and I know the deer and I've had like history that I really enjoyed that thing too, But I wouldn't want to have just
one of those. Like I like having the diversity of experience, and I recognize that we're like very privileged that we have the time to do that. Not everyone can do that. But for whatever it's worth, I found like, and this has been a theme you and I've talked about the last couple of years, like having a diversity in your set of experiences makes you better and it ends up being a lot more fun.
Yep. Well, and what we don't talk about there is, you know we so much of deer hunting and deer hunting advice is structured around making it easier, like it's all a promise of easier, but easy doesn't necessarily make it more fun. Like sometimes you know, every once in a while, a gift buck is awesome, right, Like sometimes you need that slumpbuster and he comes down the trail
and it's awesome. Yeah, But overall, you find that you get more out of it sometimes when you put yourself in those new situations and you have to figure it out and work towards something instead of going someplace where you don't have to think about it at all, Like, well,
I go here and sit here. I sit here because it's October, and you know that's kind of like antithetic to lots of deer hunting advice, But once you do it, you realize, like, man, it is pretty dang fun to have to figure out something even if it's just you know, leaving your home fune arm and going to still hunt the public land down the road like with low expectations. Like it's it's a different thing, and that variety is pretty beneficial to us mentally.
Yeah, It's like there needs to be like a whole different set of ideas for you know, if the old way has always been like how to make deer hunting easier, like how to make it easier to kill deer, there could almost be a whole new set of ideas for how to make deer hunting like more satisfying or more fulfilling or something like. There's a whole other set of ideas for that side of the equation. I think that
are worth talking about all for sure. So kind of on the line of thinking and speaking of Northern Great Lakes, I don't think I've talked to you about this. I briefly previewed this for Dan, but I'm also working on another thing for this coming season that's going to be very fulfilling but also not likely to lead to any
kind of big deer thing. But we have been like doubling down on our family deer camp up in northern Michigan and have completed and not completed, but have started like the biggest habitat thing we've ever done up there. So I'm very very excited to see what comes of all that. It's you know, it's a forty acre piece. Half of its swamp that's basically like you can't do anything with it, so it is what it is, a big, thick,
nasty swamp, which is great. And then a quarter of it is like where our cabin is, and where like the just kind of what used to be an old field it's now overgrown, there's an old pine stand, there's just just like kind of the living area. But then there's this other quarter. So it's like about a ten acre section to the south. I guess this would be the south well, yeah, the southeast corner of the property.
And that has been like a zone that has screamed out to me for years as having like potential, Like it's far enough away from the cabin that it's huntable and you can do stuff there without people blowing it up while out at the cabin. It's also like accessible to do some kind of habitat work on. It's not so wet that you couldn't make improvements. But it's also like a little bit of a deer desert has been a deer desert because what used to be there has
all matured. So there was a big open field that used to be like the one of the main edge opportunities for edge habitat, and there used to be a lot deer that moved through here out of the swamp, coming to this field and feeding, transitioning out to other properties. And then there was about a seven acre ish pine stand I guess that has now matured into now like a it's like a black hole. You go into it and it's just there's zero I mean literally zero understory.
It's just pine needles on the ground and big dark pine trees and hemlocks overhead, and nothing uses it. I mean every once in a while deer will travel through it, but there's no bedding, there's no feeding, there's no grouse, there's no turkeys, there's nothing in there. And so for years I was like, man, we got to do something with this and try to make this area better. And then that field that I mentioned that completely overgrew, so it's just like more of a thicket. It's more of
the same. We have nothing, but the same on the property. So I don't know, six seven years ago we carved in like a tiny little food plot into that old field, like an eighth ache or maybe. And you know, I've told you a few times over the years about some updates on that, and that's actually helped some. We had deer start, you know, dope family group probably hanging around that more often, and bucks cruising and checking it and stuff. But this year we brought in, we brought in some help.
Guy knowamed Kyle Perry, came in with some bigger equipment that I don't have to help me actually cut down and push out and significantly expand that food plot from what was like an eighth and acre to about an acre. So that's like a pretty darn big substantial in the timber big Woods food plot now and then carved in like five I think it's five like wildlife openings within
that stand to pines. So what was a seven acre stand of of monoculture pines zero understory, Now we've got five different openings pocketed throughout there where there's now all the sun coming down, there's tree tops scattered all over the place. So we have all this new structure, all this new deer level cover and hopefully by now a lot of new green growth now popping in where that
sunlight is. So it's it went from like a ten acre dead zone to I think now it's going to be a ten acre hotspot that I'm really excited to see how that comes along throughout the year.
Can I ask you something about that pine desert? There? Were you hesitant to do that just because it looks good? Because dude, that that pine desert situation happens in a lot of places, and people love seeing that big stand of pines, but it is totally worthless once it's like a certain level of growth, totally worthless for deer, like you said, but it looks good, Like did you look at it and go, man, I don't know if we should be knocking those trees.
Down man a little bit. There were definitely moments and I think my grandfather had that feeling, you know, back in the day. I think that was where he was at with it, and so this was something that happened, you know, after his time. But I think you're right. It is easy to be wooed by like the park. Look, you know, just that pretty open, but if you can see all the way across a three hundred yard area
in the woods. It's not great for wildlife. They don't like that, and so so yeah, that was a little bit of a thing. And there's still there's some impressive, big, mature trees in there that I didn't want to touch. So like we didn't take any of like the big kind of like legacy trees. There's a few in there, like, man, this tree has been here a long, long long time
and kept those around, I guess for sentimental reasons. But there's a lot of stuff, there's kind of like scrubby, crappy pines and stuff in there in hemlock that you know, weren't doing anything for wildlife. And I think we're able to, you know, maintain a lot of the value that those mature pines did provide for thermal cover while also adding
this new early successional habitat alongside of it. So I'm hoping it will be you know, good betting now small opportunities for feeding a spot they're going to travel through more often and then transition towards this great big food plot I have now deep in the timber that's going to be a you know, a bang up food source. That's very unique, right, There's no egg in the area, so they're not used to having, you know, a nice, big opportunity for good, high quality food. And that'll be
a hub. And I'm kind of setting it up to be like a spot for my dad and my sons to have good hunting opportunities. So I want to be able to go up to our family deer camp and have the whole family thing, like do the thing that I love so much be at this place that built me,
this place where I learned to hunt fish. I want to be able to spend time there in this place I love, and also still have an opportunity that my dad can kill a deer, my kids can see deer when they're up there, because for the past, you know, twenty years, I've been going up there because I love the place, but not expecting to shoot anything. I'd love it if we could have the expectation of hunting success and the fun of being there too, you know.
Yeah, isn't it weird how when you get a hold of something like that, it's so easy to not care at all about hunting it yourself, but so fun to build it up.
Yeah, the progress, the project, the work and then you know, the coolest thing will be. You know, we're going to put in some ground blinds around this food plotting around some of these like transition areas and stuff. And the first time I get to sit there with my dad, or the first time I go in there with Everett and we actually see deer like the way I did twenty five years ago, and my grandpa took me to
that old field. Like the very first memory I have of deer in my entire life, at least that I can, you know, still remember, was at this spot when I was probably four years old, give or take. My grandpa took me to the edge of this field and we sat in his old blind that he hunted forever. And at this point the field was pretty wide open, and
deer would come out there and feed and stuff. And it was in the summer, and he brought a I mean, this would have been like nineteen ninety or something like that, so he had like an old handicam whatever those things looked like back then. And so there's video of this
of him and me sitting there in the summer. It would have been like July or August, and sitting in the blind just watching deer and had there was a group, a family group of I don't know, six seven, eight domes came out and fed out in front of the blind about within ten yards, I mean so close it felt like I could reach out and touch them. I just remember being floored by that experience, like seeing these big animals up close. They had no idea we were there,
and and that like just was magical. And so to be able to go back to this same EXAs place that in the subsequent you know, thirty years has become a place where you know, you'll never see any deer to now, if I could go out there and sit with my son when he's five years old in that same place, right near where my grandpa's old blind was, and to have him see six or seven deer come out and have him have a magical experience there too,
Like what an incredible full circle moment that'll be. I'm really really hoping that all comes together.
Oh it'll come together and it'll be really sweet.
Yeah. So yeah, those are a couple of things that I'm looking forward to this year, probably more than anything. Those are probably top two most exciting things for the twenty twenty three season.
On my side, I mean what you're talking about there. That's one of the and I know people will listen to this and say, I don't have my own land or whatever to work on, but just figuring out ways to do stuff all year round that are related to white tails. That's that's one of the reasons white tail hunting is so special. I think, you know, I mean when you go west, like there's there's so much time where you know, the hunters out west are not really thinking about you know, like it's such an in the
moment type of hunting. A lot of it is, at least elk and mule deer, but white tails, like there's so much you can do all year round and that, like, I don't know, I just think that makes it different. It's so fun.
Yeah, I do love that. I want to take a hard pivot hero quick though, unless you unless you've got anything else you want to follow up on that. I wanted to spin and grill you on one thing before we.
Wrap up this episode, go nuts man, all right.
So this kind of relates to a lot of what we talked about because I think almost the theme of where we've been going with this is kind of this evolution as hunters and learning to appreciate different things, learning to make better decisions, learning to value different parts of the hunt. Right last week with Dan, we were talking about this last ten years and the ten years of the wire Hunt podcast and what we did for that one.
Prior to is we listened to the very first podcast that Dan and I ever recorded together, and we went back and listened to that one, and we heard us talking about, you know, the things we on that first episode. We talked about the worst thing that happened in our twenty twenty thirteen hunting season I think it was, and the best thing that happened during our twenty twenty or twenty thirteen hunting season. And listening to that, I was having all these like, oh man, had come so far
since that. Oh Man, I'm so much better at this than that. But then I also had a bunch of moments I was like, oh, geez, I'm still struggling with the exact same thing I was dealing with back then, Like, I don't know how much progress I've made on that one in ten years. So so that exercise was kind of eye opening for me. I want to put you
through that exercise. I'm curious if you look back on this last decade, Tony, if you could kind of rewind and play the movie of your last ten years as a deer hunter, what would you say has been your greatest area of growth? Like, like, what has been the greatest positive change or type of progress you've made in this last decade? Does anything stand out to you when you think about that?
Absolutely? Uh. I think it's just my patience level as a hunter. Like I, you know, if you were to go back ten years ago to twenty thirteen, I mean I was like obsessed with killing good bucks on public land like I was. That was like in you know, at a time in my life where I was on the road so much and e scouting so much and just like you know, really trying to figure out a bunch of states in any given year, and I wasn't I was a hard worker, but I wasn't patient, if
that makes sense. And now I just feel like I trust the process more and I'm like, if I find a spot that I think is going to work great, or if I find an area like we'll take for example, where I hunted in western Minnesota last year, I hunted public land for a couple days for one week in November I got my ass kicked. It didn't really bother me at all because I know it's probably going to take me years to figure out that area.
Well, we should ask your cameraman about this because he might have a different opinion if that bothered you or not.
But I mean sure, I'm not going to say it was all. You know, it was all a wonderful experience, but it doesn't that would have eaten me alive. Yeah. Ten years ago, you know, like that would have really bothered me. And now I just know this stuff doesn't happen quickly. You know, like if you trust the process, then you're going to put in enough of the work and enough of the effort and be patient it'll come,
like you'll you'll get there. And it's a hard like, So I would I guess I would say like in addition to that kind of like or complimentary to that, would just be like embracing the long game more. Stop stop being so shortsighted and thinking like everything has to happen for me now, and just understanding that if I if my inputs are right, eventually I'm going to get
that reward that I want. And that's a that's like a hard place to get to Man, it's it's really easy to get super frustrated in the moment and wonder why you're doing it wrong or why you know, you have a bad week or a bad three weeks of the season or a bad season. But man, it's just if you're putting in the effort, it's going to break the right way for you eventually, and if you if you know that, it's just like mentally so much easier to handle this whole thing.
Yeah, I think a lot of that must come with experience. Right Like early on in our deer hunting journey, there's there's so many questions like is this not going right because I'm an idiot? Is this not going right because I don't know what I'm doing? Am I doing the wrong thing? Am I totally off base? Am I totally lost?
But at some point I think we develop a level of confidence in our skill set or our process and you know where you're at and where I feel like I'm at now, Like I now can find myself a situation like that where things aren't going right, and you'll have that that initial like, ah shit, what's going on? Why isn't this happening? But but I can I can ground myself back in the all right, man, trust the process, your your your logic here is good, your plan is good.
You know why this should work. You're here for the right reason, or you're you've you've got the right process in place. Trust trust this thing, you know, trust the process, ride it out, you know, adjust as needed. But but trust your experience and know that, like you said, this is a long game. Sometimes that's in the matter of a week, or sometimes that's in the matter of a season. But you do need to eventually learn to trust like the foundations of your plan well.
And I would say it goes way beyond even that timeframe. I mean when you when you look at what it takes most people you know who don't have just an unbelievable spot or really good mentors, you know, it might be ten years before they kill their first pope and young buck, like, I don't think that would be uncommon at all, And so you just have to embrace that reality is like, this is not This is not an
easy thing that we do. We try to make it look easy, and we try to sell around, you know, the idea that we can make it easier for people, and maybe you can a little bit. But for most people it is like a long game. It's way longer than the three months a season that's going to happen
this year or happened last year or whatever it's. It takes time, but once you get comfortable with that, the wins they come, you know, and it's not just I think maybe another thing that worth touching on is it's not just the tags that you fill, you know, like I like, you had a badass year last year. That's a good year. But there's also years where you don't have that, where you have some pretty sweet encounters in places that you're unfamiliar with. Those are big wins too.
You know, they don't look as good on social media, but in reality, like for your personal journey, they're pretty sweet. They're like pretty good wins, even though they don't you know, we don't kind of measure them the same way, but I think personally we kind of should.
Yeah, so much, so much of my progress and just like learning to you know, like last year, talking through trying to you know, better enjoy the whole thing. It's just just getting away from valuing that dead deer on the ground is the only thing you're chasing. Instead placing value on the encounters, placing value on those learning moments, placing value on that you know, breakfast with your buddies
after the haunt. Like all that stuff makes for a great season two if you can remove yourself from the tunnel vision of like gotta have a big buck, gotta have a big buck, gotta have a big buck, you know.
Yeah, oh man, and it even I mean I would take that a step further too, and say, once you start to get into that kind of mode where you tamp down those thoughts of having to kill a big one and the pressure that goes with it, and just just accepting the process and like I'm gonna try this today because I think they're gonna be here, and I'm gonna try this tomorrow, or I have my vacation days lined out, and just really allowing yourself to go from the non deer hunting bs in life which is heavy,
to checking out mostly and being in that space. Like I know that probably sounds like sounds dumb, but man, we I don't know if you feel this or not, but let's say if I go on like a five day hunt somewhere, I feel like the first day is me like unplugging from the matrix and like finding this other world. And then when you get if you can really kind of immerse yourself in that, it's freaking awesome.
If you wake up and you're like, all I have to do today is think about deer, Like all I have to do today is think about what stand I'm gonna be in, or if I'm going to you know, do a little scouting at midday and move or like, when you start reducing it down to that, it becomes a lot more enjoyable. And I know it probably sounds crazy, but like when you go when I do hunts like that and I come home, it takes me like a day to acclimate to being back into like dad life again,
you know. And you really see that if you go out west and you do like that ten twelve day l hunt, where you know your your life is like shrunk down to this you know, task in this really cool setting and getting back into the real world and dealing with traffic and taking the kids to all their sports and all that stuff. It's like a you feel this palpable difference in like you're you're like being You're like, man,
I was that thing. Now I'm back to this thing and getting into that mindset and that that way of being is real important and it's hard.
So true, so true. So speaking of challenges, then if you were to look back on the last ten years and think back on the biggest thing that you are still struggling with. So if you we just talked about the area of your greatest growth, what would you say is the thing that, man, over the last ten years, you still haven't figured out, or you still have struggles you are still working on, You still have that thing that you have not quite conquered. Can you think of anything there?
Oh? Man?
Yeah?
Uh?
Being happy with myself? I mean you, you and I. You don't know this, but you helped me a lot. I think it was probably last year where we weren't I don't remember. We were talking about planning or some of the content we were going to make or something, and I was stressing out about not doing enough public land hunts and felt like I needed to be out there just grinding away on public land. And you said to me, You're like, you don't, you don't have anything
left to prove, Dude, like do what you want. And I think about this all the time, where and I'm sure, a lot of people listening to this do this where you know you're your your own worst critic, right, Like we're nobody's harder on us than ourselves, right. And it's so it's so easy for me when I if I were to think back to the last ten years in my head, it's not a highlight reel. I'm not like, oh, I killed that big buck here and I killed that
one there. I'm always like, oh, I screwed up on this one and I blank there, And it's just a default to the negative. And it's that's a hard thing to deal with, and I think we all do that, Like I think I think generally we're all dealing with more stress and anxiety and issues than we than we outwardly project a lot of times, and that that bleeds into everything. And so for me, you know, one of the things that I try to look at and work on is like, just just do this in a way
that makes you feel good. Forget, forget everything else. Just like try to go find the joy in this every time you can, whether it's you know, me hunting somewhere for myself or hunting for a project or taken my kids. Just like try to get into a good place with it always because I know I'm going to default to think and I'm the worst deer hunter ever and I've missed so many deer and at any given point, I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing, and I will like focus on that and it's so dumb.
It's so hard to get over.
Yeah, but that is like the that's the trick, like to get past. That is the thing that changes it all, I think. I mean, I mean, you know, we've talked about this a lot the last couple of years. I've dealt with the same thing. And when you have those moments where you transcend that inner voice, of that inner critic, when you transcend that and you can just focus on the good and the experience and the fun and all that man like, then you're like, geez, this is yeah,
this makes sense. This is why I love this thing so much. This is why I'm amped to wake up at four am to go do the thing. Like. That's why we want to do this stuff all year round is because of all this good stuff. And it's so silly to ever let ourselves, you know, make it miserable because of some inner expectation or worry about outside critics or anything, even though it's human nature to do it. But yeah, like that just not ever losing the joy
of it like that. If ten years ago when I started this podcast, my goal with the podcast was like to make us better deer hunters, my goal now is like to reclaim the joy of it all, because I think that that's the shit that matters.
Yeah, dude, I think it's like being willing to put in the commensurate at work, like the work necessary without like inner de sing the pressure that can go along with it. Like I think it's like understanding the effort. I mean, I'll give you an example. You know, I love defesstant hunt. I'm big into the dogs. Like my One of my favorite things in the world to do is just follow my labs around on public land somewhere and try to shoot some roosters. Like I love it.
And I know if I relax, especially if I'm hunting by myself and I'm not worried about somebody else and their dogs. If I'm just by myself, I know, if I relax and I go, dogs show me where they are and I don't push it too fast, and I don't care if I get my two bird limit or three bird limit or whatever. If I'm just like I'm gonna just I'm gonna follow along behind them and let me show or let them show me where the birds are.
It's those roosters are in trouble, man. Like there's almost always a limit out there that's gonna get up close enough. But if you get out there and you're like, oh, you know, I gotta get my limit today, Like we got to just cover as much ground as possible. You walk past, you rush your shots, You make dumb decisions because of that pressure. And if you can just learn to go I got to let some of that shit go and just enjoy it and slow down and be
a little more patient. Man, good things happen. It's just it's just hard to learn and hard to force yourself to do.
And it's not a thing, at least from my experience, it's not a thing that you like check the box on and it's done. It's it's not a thing like today I'm like, Okay, I figured it out now I know, and it's always gonna be great. I think this is like a every single time you go out you will have to like kind of work through this thing right or often. Absolutely, it's a lifelong process of learning to get a little bit better at this.
Absolutely. I mean I say this a lot, but like happiness is a moving target, like a lot of this stuff is a moving target. Like it's when you hit it today, it doesn't mean you're gonna like it doesn't
mean you're good for tomorrow, you know. Like, But but it's a it's a mindset thing, and it's it's how you look at this stuff and when you just learn to treat it that way and understand like mother nature is going to deliver man, like if you if you put in the work to earn it, and you know, you keep your head about you, you you're gonna get your chances, like you're gonna have those experiences that make you want to come back for more. But man, it can be easy to spiral, that.
Is true, And it's just it's not worth it's not worth it. Like all the silly things we put on ourselves that stress us out, it's not worth stealing the joy out of this just incredible thing we have here to be able to hunt or fish, get out in either your backyard or a beautiful farm or the mountains or the plains, like, God, it's so good. It's uh, we're just so lucky to ever not enjoy it is a shame.
Oh, big time man, big time. Well.
I feel like this is a This is a good place to wrap it up, I think. I feel I feel like we hit on something that resonates with me at least and hopefully with others. And it's it's a great kicking off point for the rest of the year, I think, because we're gonna move into you know here pretty soon Midsummer. It's it's time to really gear up and get ready for the for the big opening day and and all that stuff. And I think we're all gonna be, you know, getting pretty hyped up. We're gonna
be shooting our bows. We're gonna be getting the cameras out there. We're gonna see the target bucks, we're gonna be scouting the new spots, putting up the last minute tree stands, whatever. Like it's about to get serious and we can't forget this thing we're talking about today. We can't let ourselves get carried away when we get that giant buck on trail camera and get all obsessed and then get crazy as we get into September and October.
I think we've got to keep coming back to this set of ideas here today, and if we can do that, I think that's that's a recipe for a great hunting season.
Totally agree, buddy.
All Right, man, well thanks for doing this.
Yeah, thanks for having me on, all.
Right, and that is a wrap. Thank you for joining us for another Wired to Hunt podcast. We are, as I just mentioned to Tony, going to be ramping up here pretty soon, so get excited. We're gonna be diving into some die hard deer hunting ideas, talking some great
deer hunters here in the coming weeks and months. But for now, I hope you can reflect a little bit on what Tony and I just talked about and let it soak in, kind of marinate in these ideas of creating these better experiences, of focusing on the process and all of the joy that hunting brings. If we can keep that as our north star, I guess as we continue through the hunting season, I think, well, we not only have more fun, but you'll probably have more success too.
So with that all said, thanks for being he here, thank you for being a part of this community. And until next time, stay wired to hunt,