Ep. 670: Foundations - We Are All Hunting Hypocrites, So Be Nice

how are you going to know about them? Who is going to point them out to you every day until you die? We are all hypocrites, and it's okay. It's how we treat each other it really matters, and that's what this show is all about. My wife and I coach are eleven year old girls in softball. The league they play in is all girls who are either going into sixth grade or fifth It's a slow pitch player pitch league, so as you can imagine, the games are

pretty terrible. The rule for player pitchers is that if they walk three batters in any inning, it's time for a coach to tag in and pitch for them. If they didn't have that rule, the games would last forever and the scores would be I don't know, ten thousand to ten thousand after four hundred ninety seven innings of play. What's weird about the coach pitch situation is that most of the coaches are terrified to pitch. It's like, I don't know, kind of like a public speaking engagement almost,

so most of them will not do it. Now, I've been speaking in public long enough to know that I don't have a ton of shame left, so I usually do it, and you know what, occasionally I almost get divorced over it. My wife absolutely will not pitch, and if you ask her why, you're not going to get a straight answer. But we all know why. So I do it. And the truth is I do a pretty good job now. I'm not being cocky there either. I pitched to my daughters all the time and I've pitched

in this league for a few years. It's not terribly difficult to underhand a slow softball over the plate, even when the strike zone varies so much because some of the players are tiny. What sucks is most of the girls aren't very good at hitting, and by that I'm being very very charitable. Even our best hitters strike out often, and our worst hitters would probably strike out trying to bat off a tee. What makes me look good is when they hit. What makes me look bad is when

they whiff. It doesn't matter if I throw perfect pitches. They whiff a lot. My wife, who apparently doesn't realize how popular I think i'd be on Tinder if I were to fire up a fresh profile, often comments on how bad my pitching is. But it's not and from the dugout it's pretty tough to tell just where the pitches go. That doesn't stop her from telling me she thinks I should do a better job, a job I'll remind all you dear listeners that is one she will

not do. It drives me crazy, almost as crazy as a recent episode of the podcast I put out about small water holes and how making one might help you kill some deer. I had a fellow who I've never met but who's loosely connected to the hunting industry call me out on it for being bad advice. His reasoning was that in CWD hot zones, a water hole could

cause the disease to spread. He even supported his email with quotes from three fellows who also work in the hunting industry, and to his credit, he said he didn't listen to the episode, and I got the impression none of them did. And also to his credit, he's right on one count. If you're in a CWD heavy area, you probably shouldn't have followed my advice. I didn't say that in the podcast, and I should have listen. Guys. I'm a good softball pitcher, but not really good at giving

hunting advice. Sometimes you live and learn now, As you can imagine. When he called me out, complete with support from several guys who also didn't listen to the podcast, I got defensive. I noticed, not surprisingly, that all of them own their own land, all of them have pretty big chunks of ground to manage. And while they told me that putting water out is unnecessary because deer have survived for thousands of years without our help, and that

they can get water naturally. They failed to address the reality that they are all four kill plots. Some of them have written articles about kill plots. They clearly don't mind putting something out for the deer that the deer don't need in an effort to artificially concentrate them. And we know CWD prions can live in the soil and eventually end up in plants the deer eat, but none of them cared about that for some reason. Now I

did mention that fact, but none of them responded. I didn't mention the fact that while it's fun to view the entire world of white tails through our own experiences, I don't have that luxury. I have to try to think about people who live all over the country who hunt white tails, many of whom don't own large tracks

of land that they can manage. In other words, those guys are hypocrites, and so are you, and so am I. I've mentioned this before, but I have this nasty habit of trying to find some advantage someone might have who either kills a giant buck or who has a track record of getting it done. The exercise, which comes way too naturally just allows me to feel a little bit

better about myself. But it's an ugly trait and it makes me a hypocrite, just like it does when I see someone pose with a dead buck and a crossboard or a rifle. It's very very easy for me to think, well, sure, anyone can kill a buck with a weapon like that, that's an awful big crutch. YadA YadA. Now you take some stick bow hunter and have him tell me to take the training wheels off of my bow because I use a compound, and I'm all like, hey, man, go kick rocks in the street. You lead us prick. You

see how that works. Hypocrisy is rampant in human nature, and it's probably more prevalent in an ego centric type of activity like hunting than it is in some of the things in life that we're just less passionate about. But it is everywhere. Let me give you another example. If you ever visit hunting forums, you'll see hypocrisy at a level that's almost laughable. I actually like hunting forums, even though I don't participate in them much because I have to talk to enough people every day that I

really don't want to communicate with. But those hunting forums serve a pretty damn good purpose. Generally, if you have a question about broadhead choice, or the durability of some kind of clothing, or how to camp in grizzly country, and on and on, you can usually find a localized, experienced community on hunting forums. And while you might need to filter out some of the folks who aren't really qualified to give advice, you'll find plenty who are. That's

great in my opinion. But you'll also see that a lot of these forums are dominated by about fifty posters, and the threads often veer in the same predictable direction over time. There's one forum that is primarily focused on Western hunting, which is definitely one of those The cause de jure is shitting on non residents and lately hunting influencers for ruining all the hunting out West. Often, much to my delight, these guys will point out that influencers

who are making millions of dollars are the root cause. Now, if they'd listen to me, which they probably won't, I'd explain to them that if you run into one of the three hunting influencers who's actually making millions, it's going to be on a ranch where the cost of an ELK is twenty five thousand dollars, it's probably not going to be on public dirt in their favor over the

counter unit in Colorado. Anyway, the common refrain is that hunter's participating in social media, particularly with kill photos, are ruining all hunting. Now that leads to the commercialization of hunting, and how the whole thing is terrible and needs to stop. And you might be nodding your head and saying, preach it, my Western brothers, But the problem is that forum is covered in bannered ads, and I mean covered in them.

You can also read all kinds of reviews on high end gear, which, if you know anything about that world, you know how those reviews come to be. Now, I'm not saying this is specific to that forum or any forum, but generally the gear tends to be painted in a pretty positive light, and there are very compelling reasons for

such a rosy picture to be out there. Anyway, every once in a while, someone will point this reality out to the posters, and they'll immediately find ways to show that their favorite hunting forum isn't nearly as damaging as this site or that site or this person or that personality or whatever. They hate the commercialization of hunting, except they don't understand that the spot they are bitching about

is commercializing hunting. They also don't know, but I do that advertisers have a lot of say in the direction of the content in the forums and the articles in

the video is created by the owners. I once had an illuminating conversation with a woman who worked for a major bowl manufacturer, and I asked her about this as we mowed down on some PF changs for lunch at ATA show one time, and she said, the whole reason we advertise with some forums is so we have a say in the content and shut down negativity if it pops up. We are all hypocrites. We are all, nearly to a man and woman, quick to point out the

dangers of the anti hunting crowd. They want to take away our rights and our opportunities in our way our life. They are the enemy, and we must form a united front against them. Fair enough, but I promise you that you'll lose far more hunting opportunities in the next decade to your fellow hunters than you will the vegan cat crowd. With peta bumper stickers on their electric cars. We are

all hypocrites. I'll give you another example. I've had permission to hunt a farm in southeastern Minnesota for a long time. You've heard me mention this place many, many times. I love the place, even if the hunting kind of sucks. I love it when every couple of years the landowner lets in so many people that a few unscrupulous individuals sneak in and they really make it rough for everyone else. But here's the thing. I want you to know how hard it is to hunt there because I want credit

for that. I'm not proud of it, but I really don't want you to think I'm hunting some cushy spot where the hunting is easy. Although when we had Antler Point restrictions it sure was easy. It's not now, and it wasn't before. But I didn't really go out of my way to make it sound like a walk in the park for those years that it actually was pretty easy. This is one of the reasons I like hunting public land.

Everyone knows the language around public land, and everyone understands that it's generally the toughest hunting we can have for white tails and other critters. You don't really need to say much more. But if you hunt private land, all bets are off. You better say how many hunters could be there, and how early your gun season is, and how the DNR ruined everything by encouraging a huge harvest over CWD concerns and on down the line. But really, who cares? I mean, really, who freaking cares? We do

because we're all hypocrites. But that's okay. We do this with our political tribalism. We do this with our jobs and our finances, in our lives and our kids and our hunting. So you know what I propose, at least on the hunting front, that we acknowledge this and we just try to be better. It doesn't matter if someone kills a deer with a crossbow and you think they

are the work of the devil himself. It doesn't matter if someone has access to unbelievable ground and you're stuck slugging out with the rest of the peons on public land. At the opposite end, if you're a able to afford a sweet crossbow and a nice lease and you stack up the one fifties, acknowledge that not everyone is there. If your grandpa happened to buy a land back in the forties to farm, and he was good at it, And now you're the benefactor of several thousand amazing acres

a deer dirt. That's great. Don't shit on the person who doesn't have that, who is really really stoked to just shoot a forky somewhere. We all have different circumstances, we all have different goals in life and different opportunities, but we all love this hunting thing and that's great, so we should all just be nice about it. Let me give you another example here to tie a nice bow on this whole thing. I recently filmed a fishing show with the one and only Andy May. Now, if

you don't know who Andy is, google him. There are only a couple people in the country with a resume like his when it comes to big deer on public land. Hell, he might have the best resume, even though he'll be the first to admit it's not a competition, and he has an awful lot of people he looks up to a lot. You know what, Andy's right, He's competing against himself to be better and he gets better every year. That's the kind of person I respect. But it goes

a lot further than that, As you can imagine. While Andy and I shared a boat together for hours and hours trying to catch big smallies in large mouth, I got to know him in a way that I just never have in the I don't know, six or eight years that we've known each other, and he's a guy who hasn't had a lot handed to him, but he's gone out and done amazing things. He also is not very quick to shit on people, and that's real important.

He's at the top of the wait tail game and the bow hunting in general game, and he's genuinely happy for people's success. He's about the least hypocritical guy I know when it comes to hunting, and it makes me a little ashamed that I'm not there yet. It's also a reminder that while we were all hypocrites to some extent, we can do better. We can be more like Andy and hell think that'd be a good shirt or maybe we should mentor I don't know, more hunters and post

hashtags be like Andy. I don't know. What I do know is that life sucks a lot of times. It's hard. It feels like we are living in this dystopian nightmare that might be some sort of late stage capitalism that is teetering on the brink of something much, much worse. There's a lot of anxiety and stress in life, some of which we invite in and some we just absorb through our daily existence. And as hard as you have it or I have it, or whoever, they are countless

people who have things way harder. I might not outwardly show it because me, like a lot of people, are good at compartmentalizing this stuff and presenting a positive image. But the truth is we're all just fighting our own battles. Most of us are just trying to do a decent job at life, and we don't always get it right. We don't always win, we don't always kill big bucks whatever, but we try to be a little happier and have

a better life. And if you're listening to this, one of the ways you probably try to get a little better is by shooting your bow in the summer, maybe running a few trail cameras, maybe getting together with a buddy or two to plant a trip. In the fall, you scout, and you use hunting as an escape to get away from the crushing weight of everyday life. Just so you can recharge the batteries a little bit, and it's a good way to do it too. But you won't do it in a way that makes everyone happy.

You won't do it in a way that is harder than every other hunter out there. You're going to use your advantages, however big or small, or impactful or meaningful, and you'll draw your own lines in the sand for what you want out of it, and those are yours, and it's your journey. Enjoy it. Just remember that no one else is on the same hunting journey, and no one else is on the same life journey. It's all different for each of us, and it's all good. So let's be nice. Let's enjoy the shit out of this

hunting thing while we have it. Maybe share some venison with some non hunters. Let's take a few people out if we can, even it's only a late season dough hunter, whatever. Let's recognize this for what it is, acknowledge that we are all hypocrites in our own right, and just do a little better. I think we will all be better off for that, don't you. And I also think we owe it to ourselves to just give each other a break and be a little more supportive of this whole

thing before it's too late. How's that sound? Also? How does this sound? Next week, I'm going to talk about a couple of things you can do to make yourself better in the off season. If you want to be a better hunter, there are things you can do that aren't directly tied to throwing out that trail camera, doing this or that. Trust me, I'm going to get into them next week, So listen up. That's it for this week, folks.

Thank you so much for listening on Tony Peterson. This has been the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, which is brought to you by First Light. As always, thank you so much for listening. We truly appreciate your support here.

It means the world to us. If you want some more hunting content, and I mean white tail articles series like the buck Truck that we dropped recently, anything hunting related and quite a bit of phishing related stuff too, you can head on over to the meeteater dot com watch our series, read our articles, listen to the podcast. Whatever you need to scratch that itch, it's there.