Ep. 740: My End of Hunting Season Review and How To Do One Yourself

And today is our first episode of the new year. It is twenty twenty four now, which is pretty wild, and today I want to do something pretty different. There's no guests today, just me, me and you talking about this past hunting season and the hunting season to come. What I want to do is I want to walk you through an end of year review. This is actually something that I do myself every year, both you know, hunting related and just general life, work, personal, all that

kind of stuff. And so what I want to do is talk you through why I do that, you know, what is an end of your review, Why I find it valuable, why this could be applicable to our hunting lives, and how it can actually help us as deer hunters and outdoors men and women, And to help you kind of understand what I'm talking about here and to understand how to do it yourself if you're interested. I want to walk through my own end of year review for my hunting side of things. So I want to talk

through how I do it. I want to talk through the things I'm thinking about, and I want to share with you the way I'm processing this most recent hunting season, which was the twenty three season. It just came to a close for me yesterday. Actually yesterday was my very last hunt of the year. It was a great one. I'm going to share that story with you, as well as a whole bunch of other stories that I haven't

shared yet on the podcast, because here's the thing. The headline of my twenty three season is that I just completed the best hunting season of my life. Now, it's not that I killed the most deer of my life. It's not that I killed the biggest dear of my life. But when you look at the entirety of this season, what it meant to me, the experiences I had, the memories I made, the people I shared it with, without

a doubt, it's the best ever. So I want to talk you through that, but also talk through the things that didn't go well, talk through the mistakes. I may, talk through some lessons I learned, talk through some things I want to change, and lots more along the way. So that is the game plan for today. Again, We're going to talk through what the end of your review is, why it's important, and then use my specific example to

explain how you can do it yourself. So my recommendation for you, my thoughts, my hope, so that you know, after listening to this conversation, it's a one set of conversation, I guess, but after listening to this you might be able to take half hour, an hour, however much time you want and sit down with a pen and paper or with your computer up or whatever it is, and do something like this yourself, Because I really do think it will help now real quick, before we do that,

I do want to share one quick little piece of news. It's exciting we finally have wired to Hunt hats again. Now you might have seen the meat Eater white tail hat that I've been wearing for the last two years. Just this past summer, I think it was that finally became available. It's that rope pat black with the deer across the front. If you're watching this on YouTube, you can actually see we've now got a Wired Hunt version

of that. So if you're watching, you can see I've got the deer on the front and then it says wired to Hunt here on the side now and it's available in two unique colors. You can't get in the regular Meat Eater white tail hat that originally launched, so we've got a new gray with orange text and then a tan color as well, so they'll both work in the field hunting, and it's a great way to support Wired to Hunt and show that's you're part of this community,

which I really appreciate. And you know, if we sell these hats, maybe they'll let me stick around for a while longer at meat Eater and keep doing these podcasts. So thank you for picking up a hat. If you're interested, you can go to the meat Eater store, which is just you know, go to the meat eater dot com. You'll see the links for the store and navigate your way to the apparel or logo where and you'll find

the hats there. So pretty cool, excited about that. Just want to give you a heads up that all said, let's talk end of the year review, and I'm going to be drink It has been coffee as we do this, because you know, when it's just you and me, there's no guest on the line that I need to be sitting back and listening to, so I need to take the occasional drink break or air brake as we go along.

So you know, as I record this, it's January TEWOD twenty twenty four, and what my wife and I did yesterday was a joint end of the review where we sit down and we talk about all the things that happened last year. We talked through the things that we think went well. We talked to the things that we thought didn't go so well. We talked through some of our highlights. We talked through kind of review our goals from last year, talk through what we achieve, but we didn't,

and then we do the same thing looking forward. And I think that this does a few things for me number one, and this is this is me making the case to you for why I might suggest you consider doing something similar. And this applies not just to life but hunting. I think that when you do a review like this, when you look back on that past twelve months or the last three months of hunting, whatever it is, I think it helps you fully soak it in. I

think life is so crazy, it's so busy. I don't know if this is how you feel, but it just feels like it is a constant blur. It's like you're on a roller coaster and you're going and you're going and you're going, and there's no time to look back. There's no time to think back on that vacation you had, or that trip you had, or that amazing hunt two

months ago, because you're worrying about today. You're worrying about tomorrow or next week, or this deadline of that project, or this daycare drop off or school extracurricular activity, whatever it is. There's so much going on that life can just fly by and you'll hardly even know that it happened. And so by doing this end of year review, I have really found that it almost lets me re experience the past year or highlights of that and actually have them kind of sink in in some kind of way.

I think it helps you appreciate so much more of what happened. If you don't take time to really reflect on the things that happen, especially the good things that happen, it's very easy not to truly appreciate that the great opportunities we've had, the great experiences we've had, the memories we've had. You know something I did, which I would recommend you do too, is I actually went and I mirrored my phone up to the TV and pulled up the photos at and look through my entire photo album

from the last year. And it's such a great way just to again relive what happened and just remember, like there's all these little things that happen on day to day hunts that in the moment, maybe you snap a quick picture of, but you never end up going and seeking those photos out again, and you might never see

them again. If you make time to do this little review, pull up your photo up and go back and look at all these things, and you're going to remember, oh, man, you know, I saw that raccoon climb up the tree and look at me right in the eyeball some two

feet away. Or I remember that morning when my son was so excited to go hunting and he spilled hot chocolate everywhere, and whatever it is, Right, there's all these little things that happen in life that are pretty darn special if we give him a moment to really sink in.

I suppose so by doing this end of year review, it gives yourself a chance for those types of moments, for that opportunity to be thankful for everything that happened, to truly feel a sense of gratitude for all of those hunts, you know, the early mornings when they're actually happening during the rut. At least for me, a lot of those early mornings, I'm kind of like, I don't

want to do this. But when I look back on him and I remember all the different things that happen on all those different days, man, it puts a huge smile on my face. But the only way that happens is if I take the time now to look back on it and relive those things. So this end of year review gives you a chance to do that. I posted I don't know when this was no past year.

I posted a little thing on Instagram about how you know, I've been so guilty over the years of every time I kill a deer, especially a buck, it just seems like it's an absolute blur of things that have to get done right. I gotta go, you know, get whatever I need to go track the deer, and then I've got friends coming, or a camera guy coming, or family coming, someone's gonna come be on the track job. And then you're trying to find the deer and you can't really

enjoy anything because you're so stressed. And then you finally find the deer, and once you find it, then it's like, Okay, I gotta tag and I gotta gut it, we gotta move it, we gotta take pictures, and we gotta get it home. And then I gotta, you know, cut it up or get it on ice, or bring it to the process or drop it off for the tax dermist. And there's a million things that I'm trying to do, and I have in the past not done a good

job of slowing down and just cherishing it. Just relishing in that moment because you put in so much time, so much energy, stress and hope and anxiety and excitement and nerves and so so so much of you goes into these hunts. Right, how many of you have killed that buck or achieved that goal, whatever it was, and then you blink and it's all gone, and you're laying

in bed and you thought, what just happened? This is an opportunity to go back and try to relive those Hopefully you've got some pictures or hopefully you've got some memories in your mind that you can just take a second and close your eyes and just live it again, think it through again. That is so valuable. It's so valuable. It's not just valuable in the way that you can enjoy those experiences again, but a big part of this end of your review is the opportunity to learn from

these experiences, to learn from the past hunting season. Because, right, if there's anything we've talked about on the Wired Hunt podcast over the last ten plus years, it's the fact that you always need to keep learning, always keep growing, always ask why, always take that next step. No matter where you are on this journey, there's all another step you can take. There's always another lesson you can learn.

And when we're going through the season, it's like I said, it's a train, and it's really hard to hop off that train. It's really hard to stop that train and take a breath. Now's the chance, Now's the chance to think through what went right and what can we learn from it? What went wrong? And what can I learn from it? What do I just kind of feel about? Why is that? Why do I feel this way? What's my general sense after the hunting season? Do I feel satisfied?

Am I exhausted? Am I rare to go again? Am I pumped up about what just happened? And I can't wait for the next season. I'm ready to get to work right now. Or maybe on the flip side, maybe I'm kind of burnout and I'm not happy about things. Maybe I've lost the fun. What does that mean? What do you take from that? This is the opportunity to start working through those things rather than just blindly going into the new year and just moving on to the next thing on your list and going on with life.

Then all this sun July or August or September comes around, no new hunting seasons? About here, I better start getting ready. I better start thinking about it. I better start planning for It's so much better to do that thinking, to do that unpacking mentally, to do that reflection now, so you can start putting a plan in place for what you want to do differently or the same coming into

that next season. So that is something that I think can truly that only help you, you know, enjoy hunting more, but also help you become a more effective hunter in whatever way it is that you're trying to do that. I think this end of your review is just as important for someone who is a brand new deer hunter as it is for someone who is an absolute killer who's been doing this for decades and is one of the best out there. This is something that can help ever one of us. So that is my pitch. That

is why I think this whole thing's valuable. That's why I think that there's cause to take a moment here at the beginning of the new year and not talk tactics, not talk strategies, not hear another big Bucks story. It's worth pausing, and that's I think what this is about. This is about a pause, This is about a breath, and this is about actually thinking things through. So here's an outline, a breakdown of how I do this myself. And so I'm going to use my own season as

an example. So I'm going to talk through some of these things that happen for me, and you can just kind of, you know, follow along, learn from my experiences. But then also, you know, maybe write down some of your own thoughts as you go along. Maybe you know, insert your own big wins or misses along the way, or take time later and do this yourself without me John along the way. So when I'm doing this end of your review, a couple of things I would recommend.

Number one, I would recommend writing stuff down. Don't just sit and think about this. I really would suggest getting a pen and paper, or pulling up your computer and open up a word document or your notes app on your phone, whatever it is that you want to use physically getting something down, moving your fingers in some kind

of way. Putting this down in writing is not only valuable in that you can go back and look at it later, but I also, and this is a an opinion, this is actually science backed fact that writing things down more tangibly and concretely lacks things into your psychee. It makes things stick in your mind more so. Actually, you know, when it comes like taking notes or like trying to learn things, most people actually retain information better. It becomes more a part of them when they write it down.

So we're going to do that with this End every Year review. I already gave you another one of my tips, which is pull up your photo album and start looking through pictures. So the first thing you might want to do, like I said, pull up your photos if you or one of those people that takes a lot of photos. If not, close your eyes and start thinking back on this past year. Think through those first days maybe leading into the season. Think think about the work you did

leading into the hunting season. First, let's do that. Let's close our eyes or look at our photo album and think about that spring. Think about shed hunting, Think about the scouting you did, and not just generally, I mean think about some specific instances. Just start writing things down. This is a great exercise. Just start writing down a

little highlight memories. Write down you know, okay, I remember that time that Peter found that big shed, or the time that I, you know, tripped when I was going across the creek, and fell out of my face, or right about the time when your kids came out with you to help frost seeding, whatever it is, write down

the things that stand out in your memory. Right, So, as we go through the scouting season and the shed hunting season, then we get into you know, if you've got private land, maybe we're talking food plot season, you're hanging stands, maybe you're out there scouting beanfields. Think through all those moments. Write down some of those highlights. Write down those moments you appreciate the most. Write down those moments that bring a smile to your face. Just write

down a quick little line here. I mean, there's so many things I can talk about. There's the shed hunting trip to Iowa with my buddies. There are the projects that my two boys give me this spring when we started preparing food plots, there was without a doubt coming and starting our summer glassing and getting out there in Michigan and seeing my target buck for the first time.

Just an incredible bean field night out there. It was early August and I slipped into the edge of a standing cornfield in the soybean fields, right in the edge of this bedding that I knew the WY nine was living in historically, and there's been a little bit of a summer cold front, and I just remember thinking, like, if ever I'm going to see it, this should be

the night. And here comes a little spike and then here comes a nice like two year old a pointer, and then here comes like a nice three year old and then boom he is And it was just like in a movie when the star character like Superhero merges for the first time and that music like wells up. It was like that kind of moment. It was so exciting to finally see him in person, to know he was back. I mean, that memory kind of gives me

goosebumps right now just thinking about it. What's yours? What are some of those moments for you leading into the season, and then as the season arrives, think back on that first year hunt of the year, think back to that first really close call, think back on that first do you took a shot at or the first year you got a shot out of this year or whatever it is. Think through the season and start writing down those highlights.

So that's our starting point. We're going to just write down what are the things that stand out in our memory. Let's look through our photo album and smile and appreciate each one of those different moments as we go through, and we're probably gonna be reminded of a bunch of things we actually forgot about, because again, like I mentioned, so much of this just just flies by. So that's step one. Just remember and kind of simmer in the experience that we just had. Okay, that's step number one.

Step number two is we're going to write down a list of our big wins. Whatever you think happened last year that you would categorize as something that went well, whether it's a big goal you accomplished, or if it's just one of these things that gave you a big smile, if it was one of your favorite things that happened last season, if it's something that you think you did very well, whether it be a choice or something that you're working towards, or maybe just got lucky, but it

was a heck of an experience. Let's write down some of those favorite things from last season. I think this again, there's a couple things for us. Number one, we get to experience. At number two, I really want to encourage you to kind of wrap yourself up in gratitude for these moments, right, because again, we do this thing because we love it, because it's fun, because it's fulfilling, because it's it's life like something. It kind of, at least for me, it fills me with life, and this is

an opportunity to again appreciate that. And so for me, I'm thinking through things like, you know, the Working for Wildlife tour that I got to go on this year, and I'm not directly tied to my deer hunting season necessarily, but that was something that happened throughout the season. Getting to meet so many different hunters and anglers, getting to work on all those different pieces of public land that

just gave me so much joy and satisfaction. Getting to you know, clean up a wildlife refuge or plant trees or remove invasive species, whatever. It was. Just getting to be in the outdoors with other people that cared about it and doing something that gives back. That was something that that's a big win for me. It gave me a lot of energy and excitement this year. Let's keep on moving down the list, Let's go through the season. Let's let's talk through some of the things that made

this my best hunting season ever. You know that first trip of the year, I went to Minnesota and Wisconsin, and this trip epitomized the new way I want to approach my hunting seasons, which is not single mindedly obsessed with having to kill a certain number of deer or a certain age deer or a certain size deer. Again, I have goals, but I want to get better at appreciating the whole picture and getting back to fun. Right.

That's something that I've been talking about the last two years, and this year I wanted to, you know, continue to walk down that path. And so with this Wisconsin Minnesota trip, I decided to plan this trip in a way that was different than many of my other trips. And so, you know, step number one of doing that was, Hey, I'm not just gonna go target deer. I'm going to do some other things I enjoy. Because every deer hunting trip doesn't have to be just a single minded military

mission put a tag on a deer. You can actually do some other things too. That might sound obvious to some of you, but to me it was kind of an epiphany. So, man, when I did that, it paid off in a big way because I planned to go up to a place that I love. A beautiful, really special place, the Boundary waters of northern Minnesota, and I got to go up there spend time with a couple buddies. I got to fish on some absolutely beautiful lakes, so I got to do one of the things I love,

which is fly fish. I got to camp on the edge of this just perfectly pristine wilderness lake. We fried up fish tacos right on the edge of the water, cook them over and open campfire. We cook backstrap. Another night, we were hearing LUN's calling, We're wolves howling. Just an amazing start to the hunting season. And then from there slide on down a couple hours to Wisconsin to meet up with another good friend of mine. I got to spend some really quality of time with my friend, Doug Duran.

He was gracious enough to help me have access to a neighboring farm. We talked about this on a past podcast. But I had a great hunt down there. I was able to kill a dough and then also kill a really, really nice buck, and it was successful from a hunting perspective. What stands out when I sit here and think about that hunt was really the conversations that I got to have with dog. We had a bunch of car rights. We drove just kind of all over the place a

couple of different trips. We drove to the Vortex's headquarters, and we drove to the Taxidermis, and we drove to a friend of his and we drove all over his property,

his farm and all that. Just like Windshield time with Doug was a blast, getting to debate him about you know, anything and everything, Debating about food plus, debating about deer hunting, debating about how to deal with CWD, debating bow hunting versus gun hunting, and like fun debates with someone who you know is thoughtful and cares about you but also has different perspectives. I love that and that is something I could look back with a lot of fondness, and

that made that trip a big win. So thinking about highlights like that or moving on the season, you know.

The first trip or first kind of big thing in Michigan was this back forty hunt that we filmed with two of the new hunters who I first mentored out there a couple of years ago, Evanon Forrest, and it got to spend four days with them out there kind of talking through their journey, talking through what's been going on on the Back forty property since we donated to the National Deer Association, since they started their field to fork program out there, and man, looking back on that huge,

huge win. We didn't kill a deer on that particular trip, but seeing how their journey has progressed has been a win in itself. They've now become diehard hunters. I was with both of them on their first deer kill three years ago. I guess it is and now they love deer hunting. They're fully consumed with it. I continue to stay in touch with them. I've had them out to hunt on some of my other places since then. We've

shared a lot of great memories. I got to be a part of several other new hunter events out there this year, including getting the mentor another new hunter to one of his first deer out there on the Back forty, So that whole thing, big, big win, you know. Another huge highlight of my twenty twenty three season was the extra time I got to spend at our family deer camp, Ken Roband. Some of you have probably heard me talk about it, and in this year I wanted to find

a way to spend more time up there. And document what we've been trying to do, which in a very short version, is that we've been trying to revitalize the camp up there and then help make the hunting better again. And so we started some pretty significant projects this past spring. We put expanded food plots in, We did some significant cutting to add new structure and cover into some of

the old mature timber. We fixed up all sorts of new blind blinds that would be good hunting locations for my dad who has some specific needs, put up more cameras than ever before, and it kind of came out of all that work was then some really special trips. We did the longest trip I've done up there that I can remember. We had five fold days I think six five six days, five nights, something like that, but a long time up at camp with my dad, with

my buddy Josh, my friend Charlie. A great trip there in October, and then we came back in November with the kids and had our first true family deer camp with all the boys. So Everett, my five year old, has been to deer camp before, but this past season my three year old Colt got to come for the first time. And then Josh's son Wade, who's four, got

to come for the first time. So we had a five year old to four year old and a three year old up at deer Camp with us, and you know, that was really special to get to share this place with the fourth generation of hunters now at our family deer camp. So we had a lot of great memories during that long weekend. And that's that's, without a doubt, a big, big part of what made this season so special.

And then, you know, I think that ties back to another one of these things that I've been trying to focus on this general themes, which is, you know, a big part of why these last couple of seasons I think have been a lot better for me, which is going back to prioritizing those things that actually matter, not being too worked up about how many dearI kill, how big a deer, all that kind of stuff that relates to like the outside world or what other people think

about your success, getting tied up in inches or antlers or anything like that, which it's easy to do because we love deer hunting. We love deer. They get us geeked out. But prioritizing family and friends, time with the people you care about sharing the outdoors and sharing our hunts and our experiences with other people. It's easy to lose sight of that when you're just chasing big bucks. My one of my absolute biggest lessons over the last

couple of years is what a mistake that is. And this year at our deer camp, going up to Ken Rovan, spending extra time with my dad, my kids, pals. That's that's what hunting is all about. That's what got me into it in the first place. And I'm so so glad I was able to, you know, continue that tradition now with my two sons. So without a doubt, twenty twenty three man, huge, huge year when it comes to Ken Roven and spending time with the boys, and that

continues on. That did continue on throughout the season because after our family deer camp and once it kind of became time to really focus on dough hunting, I was able to get my kids out some more with me. And two very exciting things happened recently, well, several exciting things happen. One I already mentioned I got to mentor another new hunter to a deer on the back forty a few weeks ago, and then I had another dough hunting night with a buddy, Josh on different property. We

both killed those in the same night. That's the first time we've ever doubled together. And he's my best hunting buddy. We spent a lot of days hunting together, but this was the first time we both killed a deer in the same hunt, So that was a really fun night to share. A few a week or two later, I invited him out to one of the farms I hunt, another one of the farms I hunt, and he was actually able to kill another dough and had his son visiting down with my kids at the same time, so

we were able to get all the boys out. So Everett Colt and his son Wade to go and help track his dough and so that was the first time Wade was ever able to be on a blood trail and help recover deer with his dad. So it's really awesome to share that with him. And then the highlight probably I mean right up there at the top of my highlights for the year, maybe the number one highlight of the year. This would have been just a few

nights ago. Me and Everett went out. So my five year old son, he's been out quite a bit with me in the past. He started hunting with me when he was three. Last year, as a four year old, he went out quite a bit. I've talked about some of the really cool hunts we had. We had a couple close calls with Wide nine, a couple close calls trying to get a dough, but we just couldn't quite get it done. So this year we're hoping to get

over the hump. And four or five nights ago, we go out and we're sitting in this big box linef got and it was just one of those nights that the stars aligned and magic happened. He was great sneaking out there. I remember we were slipping out to the tree. He kept on looking at me and giving me a big thumbs up, And then one time he kind of starts whispering to me, and I leaned down to hear what he's saying. He says, hey, Dad, we're doing a lot better job than last time, aren't we. We're being

really quiet. And it was so funny that he brought this up himself, because last time we went hunting together it was one of those really still nights. There was no wind and it was very dry, so the leaves were incredibly crunchy. There was no masking noise, and I was just very stressed about how allowed to work getting in and so I remember just like repeating to him,

like got to slow down, we gotta be quiet. And then eventually I just picked him up and put him on my shoulders for the last little bit to get to the blind, because I was just was worried every day in the world was gonna hear us. That was last time, but this time the leaves are a little bit moist. It was a little to breeze, and so he actually noticed himself how much quieter we were, and

he was excited about that. So that was cool. And then we get up there on the blind and we're sitting there and you know, I like to read him some stories and we he's getting good at seeing through the binoculars and scanning things. And it was a pretty

slow start to the night. But then right at the end of the evening, maybe the last half hour or so, I see a dough pop out, and then another dough and another dough, and they come or heading right into the food plot we were hunting, and then a buck, and then I realized This isn't just a buck, this is bulldozer. This is the biggest buck left on this particular property, this set of properties that I hunt. This is the number one buck I'll be hunting next year.

And it's a deer that ever actually named last year. And so like end of the season, we're talking like December, I don't know what it was, thirtieth or twenty ninth or something like that. Late. I mean, there's been a lot of pressure and here's the number one deer and this is the closest encounter I have with him the entire season. I've never been this close to him this year.

And here he is. He comes walking right in to gun range until probably seventy yards smack dab in front of me in my five year old like really cool encounter. And then matured, oh, comes in a range, gives me a perfect broadside shop. Everett was a champ. So I told him, hey, like, if these deer come out and I have to open the windows, and when I do that, I need you to be sitting very still, be very quiet.

But then I also need you to act as my eyes because in this particular blind I've got to stand up, I've got to lift the window up. I have to latch it shut and then slowly sit back down and try to do all that without deer seeing us, you know, seventy yards away or whatever whatever. It was probably closer to fifty or sixty at this point. And so we do that. I've opened that window and I'm whispering to him like, hey, are they looking at me? And at

one point he's like, yeah, freeze, So I freeze. He's like, okay, you can start to move. And I start to move and says, O, I freeze. I froze again, and he says, okay, you can start to move, but go really slow. So I keep on easing down. And so he's guiding me as if he's the adult, telling me exactly what I need to do. And he did it perfectly, and I was able to sit. And in my head I'm thinking, like, there's no way there's not deer staring at it right now.

But sure enough, he knew what he was doing. He guided me perfectly. Now I'm able to sit down, I'm able to get my gun up, I'm able to get the deer in the crosshairs. I whisper to him to make sure he's ready. He's already covering his ears. He's already sitting back in his chair. He's ready. I take

the shot. It's a good shot. The dough runs off, and then Everett is just out of his mind, just like the tiger woods fist whatever you call the fist thing, fist pump, thank you, the tiger was fist pumped, just like, Yes, Yes, we did it, Dad, We did it. Dad kept on getting hug he was high fives, hugs, high fives. He told me that he had happy tears because he was so excited, and it was just right up there with

the very very coolest hunting experiences of my entire life. Ever, it's been so into all this, he's been, you know, constantly, you know, imagining those kinds of moments himself, playing out these moments in the house. It's really really fun to see and to actually have him there now for one of these hunts that came together really special. So we went home, had dinner, came back out. We're able to pick up the blood trail. Ever, was able to find the blood and he let it led the blood trail.

He can see it way better than me, and he led us right to that deer and eventually helped me, you know, with the gutting, helped me drag it out. My younger son, Colt, was able to come along for the track job too, so he got to be there. Just a really, really really great night and you know, without a doubt, I keep on saying that without a doubt. I'm not sure why, but it was just another one

of those great highlights. And then finally, if we're talking about you know, big wins or accomplished goals, the whole Wide nine saga was you know right up there too. I don't need to belabor it. We had a whole podcast about it maybe a month ago, so a lot of you already know the story there. But that was one of those honey experiences that taught me so much.

I learned so much along the way. I went through all sorts, ups and downs, a lot of frustrating moments, disappointing moments, but ultimately got very fortunate that after getting a shot at him with my bow in October and hit him in the shoulder, he survived, and I was able to get another shot at him in November with my firearm and was able to finish the deal. And that whole set of experiences was you know, while trials and tribulations along the way, was a net positive and

in a very very meaningful hunt as well. So those are my big wins. Those are the reasons why I look at this season as, without a doubt, the best hunting season of my life. All of that time with my kids, all of that time with my dad, so many different hunts I got to share with my hunting buddies, killed three mature bucks, one of them being like the buck I was after, with so much history and so many different experiences, got to mentor several different new hunters.

I got to have, you know, really cool experiences with other hunters and anglers out there giving back to the landscape. Got to take Colt, my three year old, for a hunt on the last day of the season, just last night, and you know, he's not quite at the level that ever it is right now, but we had some fun too. Just so many cool experiences like that with the family, and and what there was I guess three bucks and

five dos this year and just uncountable memories. So that's step one is going through and writing down all those big wins and kind of doing what I just did there, which I encourage you to do in your own way, maybe maybe not talking to a microphone for half an hour talking through every one of those points, but trying to think it through and relive them kind of like I just did, because that was that was a lot of fun for me, and that was a very productive

way I think, to just again experience and appreciate gratitude for what happened. So that's that's what I think I would recommend you start with, and then take a little bit of time to think through all those things that we just talked about that went well, and think about the why. This is something again that we've emphasized on the podcast a lot over the years, but ask why. So when it comes back to you know, I don't know, the Wisconsin Minnesota trip, why was that so much fun?

Why did that go so well? Why did I enjoy that so much? I think I think I shared some of the reasons why in my explanation to you, things like getting to spend time with Doug, geting to spend time with my buddies up in the boundary waters, getting to camp, getting to fish, having a diverse experience, and I think when you take a second to think about that, it helps inform the decisions you want to make in the future. Maybe I want to do more trips like

that that are outside of the ordinary. Maybe I do need to continue prioritizing experience over the best chance to kill big buck or what about You know, why was this hunting season the best ever? Well, a huge part of it. It's just about the times I got to spell my sons. I didn't kill the biggest year of my life. I didn't kill anywhere close to the biggest year of my life, but this is by far the best year. Why. It's because of people, It's because of memories.

It's because of investing time and energy into doing hard things and seeing that come together and learning from it. It's about prioritizing, you know, time with my dad, all that kind of stuff. This year I think has been a perfect It's been a great example of why that

kind of stuff matters. So take some time to go through your list of wins or your accomplished goals or whatever that list is for you, and ask why for each one, and maybe write down a little sub bule it's like, Okay, this came together because I did this extra work, or because I followed through on this plan, or because I actually, you know, took the time to do a B and C in preparation for the season.

Or maybe it's because I learned not to stress so much, or maybe I learned to share intel with someone else and then that, you know, the favor was reciprocated. Whatever it is, it's worthwhile to think about how this stuff all came to be, because most of the things on your list probably didn't happen by happenstance. Sure, good luck always plays a role, but there's probably some decision along the way, or some act of goodwill from a friend, or some serendipity or whatever it is. It's all worth

noting and kind of recognizing. Write that down, Put that down your list. That's our first part of this whole thing. Now there's gonna be another column, I would suggest, you're right, or another page. And this is going to be our win or sorry, the opposite of our wins. This is gonna be our mistake or our misses or our disappointments. This is going to be the list of things that maybe didn't go so well. Maybe these are the goals

you didn't accomplish. Maybe these are those moments that you regret. Maybe these are going to be the decisions that you look back with a sense of sadness or frustration, whatever it is. Left takes some time now to think back on those. I know it's it's tempting and easy to want to bury that stuff. I've done that too, where something bad happens or something frustrating happens during the hunting season, I just want to forget about it and I want to move on, and I don't want to pull that

out of the closet again. But it's almost always better for the future if we can pull that skeleton out of the closet, looking in the eye in daylight and talk about with ourselves what happened here. So here in this phase, we're going to write all that stuff down. We're going to write them down, the mistakes we made. We're going to write down the things that maybe there wasn't even a mistake made. Maybe just think didn't go

quite the way you want him to. And it's worth kind of thinking about what happened in the why so few things? For me, the big thing that stands out for me would be something that has been a continued area of development for me over the years, which is shooting. Like the biggest points of frustration for me this year were related to bad shots. The most notable one was the shot on the Y nine hit him in the shoulder, and you know, as most of you know, as I

just told you, wasn't able to recover him. Heartbreaking situation. It led to a whole lot of stress for me. It led to you know, that deer unnecessarily suffering to some degree over the next month until I was able to get another shot at him. It led to just just a lot of angst. Right So that happened the buck I shot in Wisconsin earlier, that shot was a little back And so like each one of these things, it's worth talking to this thing happened and then think

through why did it happen? And I'm not going to go through that right now on the air, because we already did that when I had the Why nine podcast. You already heard me talk about that with the Wisconsin podcast. Probably you know, I've been able to kind of process what happened with each one of those shots. I've been able to think through what I wanted to do differently, or what I could have done differently, or what happened that was outside of my hands. But I'd recommend you

do this yourself. Whether it be a bad shot, whether it be a hunt that just didn't go well, whether it be losing access to a spot or getting a fight with a hunting buddy, or your equipment failing, or whatever it is, write down the thing that happened, and then the next thing we're gonna do is talk about why So. That's why I did with this Wisconsin buck, That's why I did with the Why nine. I had another situation after the so I shot the Y nine did not recover him. Then I went to Nebraska killed

the buck in Nebraska. But when I got back from that trip, I thought, man, I just gotta I need to just keep getting my archery confidence back up after the whole y nine things. So I was like, I'm gonna shoot a dough and I want to get a great shot and I want to feel great about it.

So I did, and then that shot was a little bit back and that got me just so frustrated because I was I was so dead set on I need a perfect shot in this deer to get my confidence back and to get my moja leading to the rest of the season. And then I you know, fudge that shot a little bit, and I remember just being in a very frustrated place in you know, mid November, and that is a thing that I look back on as hey, that was that was a set of mistakes there. So

what can I keep doing? Like, how do I get better at this? How do I continue to grow? And as we talked about during the Wide nine podcast, there's a whole set of new things that I'm doing now

going into the new year. And that's that involves, you know, simplifying my archers, set up, changing my sights, set up changing my bow, changing my maximum range, a number of different things that I'm going to do to continue to address, you know, how I can become a better archer and a more effective bowhunter in those final moments of truth. And so that's what I would recommend to do with this list. We write down the list of all the things that didn't go the way we wanted them to.

We start asking why for each one of those things, why did this happen? What led to it? What was the mistake or what was the bad luck or what was the circumstance? Right this probably combination of all those things. And then finally the last step is, Okay, what can we learn from this? What could I do a little bit different? What do I need to think about differently next year? What do I need to do differently next year? How do we move forward from this in a different way?

And the same thing again can be applied to the first part. So I didn't explicitly mention this, but when it comes to your good side of the list, at the end of that, we should also be thinking, Okay, what do we learn from this, and how do I make more of these things happen in the future. So this is a thought exercise that we do with the good, it's a thought exercise that we do with the bad. And then all of that kind of puts you in a place that you can start thinking about the new year.

So we do that year and review, and that gives us the foundation for the next year preview or whatever you want to call it, or preparation or goal setting. And again I think this is something that you know, it's cliche to set new year's resolutions or whatever, and so I wouldn't suggest we do that, but I would suggest, at least for me, it's very helpful to go through this whole thing and put together a plan for the new year, because it gives me something to work towards.

It gives me something to continuously check back on and see, like, hey, am I on track? Am I going in the right direction? Am I doing those things that I know? You know it matter to me. It kind of goes back to what we talked about earlier. Life is so wild. This train is going so fast that the days can just stack up. Right. You can just like, I just gotta get through today. And if you can get through today, then I can I get through tomorrow, And if you

get through tomorrow's it just get to the weekend. When the weekend comes, you just grow so exhausted. You just want to relax for a day or two, and then you've got to get a bunch of chores done, or work around the house, or deliver kids to hear there, whatever it is. Before you know, it's Monday again, and then you just want to get through Monday. Then you

just want to get to the weekend. And then this happens week after week after week after week, and that is how your life flashes before your eyes and you blink and one day you're sixty or seventy or forty or whatever it is, and you think to yourself, where did the time go? Life and momentum can just kind of take you somewhere if you don't take a moment to stop reflect and actually put tracks and plans down

in place for where you want to go. Because if you don't choose where you want to go, other people will. Life will put your places, work will put your places. Other people's priorities will put you places and suck up your time, and all of a sudden, your life is kind of outside of your hands if you don't take the time to do this kind of thing and to try to stick with it in some kind of way.

And so when it comes to our hunting, if we want to grow as hunters, if we want to continue to have satisfying, fulfilling, successful hunting seasons in one way or another, this kind of process looking into the new year is one of the best ways I know of to do that, at least, so I think the first thing I would do when it comes to thinking about the new year, after we've just performed that whole end of your review is take a little bit of time to think about the themes that bubbled up in that

end of your review, I talked about some of these in myself. In my own review, I talked about how a lot of my joy and satisfaction came from times of friends and family. I talked about how I got a lot of joy out of giving back during those working for wildlife tour events. Talked about how much satisfaction I got out of mentoring those new hunters. I talked about how great it was to do something different, to have a more diverse experience with that whole Minnesota Wisconsin trip.

Those are some themes that I think can help you. And your version will be different, but if you think about some things like that, I think it helps you start to maybe put words to, or some level of concreteness to what your values or motivations for hunting are. And maybe that's as I talk about this, maybe that's

a useful thing. Maybe right now, as you're doing this, as we're planning for twenty twenty four or whatever year it is that you're planning for right now, maybe before we set our goals down, maybe we should just write down right now a handful of the things that matter to us when it comes to hunt. Why do we hunt? What are the things that bring us the most joy. What are we trying to do? Here's okay, I'm gonna start writing my list and and say, okay, I want

to put food in the freezer. Number one, I got to put meat in the freezer. Number two. I want to have like close deep engagement with wildlife. I want to get to know the wild landscape and wild animals more. Number three, I want to have adventure. I want to push myself. I want to challenge myself. I want to, you know, back to these other things. I want to do these things with the people I care about. I want to spend more time with my dad and my

sons and my friends. I want to, you know, whatever it is, YadA, YadA, YadA, start just writing down all these things related to hunting that matter to you and that bring you joy and that keep you doing this kind of thing. Maybe it's hey, I love seeing deer reach older age classes. I love getting to know these

deer yea after year. Maybe it's I love the challenge of going into public land where everyone else is trying to do the same thing, and somehow I'm able to go in there and be that one percent that actually finds that book. Whatever the thing is that gets you up out of bed in the morning, write those things down, because I think if we can do that, actually like put words to the reasons why we're doing this, Like why the heck are you listening to this podcast? Why

do you listen to Wired Time? Why do you love this stuff enough that you're willing to listen to some nerd like me talk about it week after week after week after week. What is it about this experience and this lifestyle and this pursuit that makes it so so something, whatever that something is for you, write that stuff down, And I think once we do that, I think, and that can inform how we set our goals and hopes

and dreams for the next season. So that's it. One other kind of thought before we talk through some goals or talk through like how you might want to set some goals, is that I would really encourage you to not make the same mistake I've made in the past, which is letting other people's thoughts or opinions impact your goals.

I don't know if I necessarily realized this was happening to me for a number of years, but I was so worried about you know, if other people thought I was a good enough hunter, or if I was killing enough deer or a big enough dear or whatever it was that I was putting pressure on myself to do these things to satisfy someone else's demands. And that is a really silly and trivial thing to do, especially when the pursuit that we're involved in is so damn serious.

If you're gonna hunt and kill an animal, it sure as hell shouldn't be because you care what some person on Instagram thinks about you doing that. It should be for a very real, deep personal reason. So our goals around this whole thing, I would suggest, should be about

us and not about others. It's very easy, though, to let that slip into our subconscious, to worry about what other people will think, to worry about Oh man, what if I shoot this little buck and someone on Facebook tells me I should have given another year, Or what if I, you know, want to do this thing or use this tool or use whatever. There's going to be people who don't like that, or people don't think I do this well enough for people, whatever, YadA, YadA, YadA.

Close out that noise. Please try to just look inside yourself as you start thinking about this new year and then start. I think a good starting point is to just start writing down like some hopes and some dreams, like some things that you would love to see happen. And that's a starting point, like it's brain starting, like when I write, when I write anything, really, when I'm writing a book or an article or a newsletter. Something that's very, very very helpful for me is to remember

that all all first drafts are shit. Excuse my French, but just getting something down is the way to start. You don't need to have it just right. You don't need to be perfect. Nobody writes Ernest Hemingway quality words when they start. Nobody writes good goals when they start. You just got to vomited out on the page. So just right now, or after our conversation here today, just start writing down things that you maybe want to do next season. Maybe you want to take that trip to

Ohio for the face first time. Maybe you want to try to get that lease. Maybe you want to try to explore some new public land. Maybe you want to finally learn how to bowhunt or try traditional archery, or maybe you want to try hunting without trial cameras, or maybe whatever it is, just start writing those things down. Just get that brainstorm list down on paper in front of you, and then once you do that, then we can start thinking about creating a little bit more tangible goals.

So have that brainstorm list, and then I would encourage you to, you know, maybe circle or start next to those very most import and ones. I don't know what the right number is. I think everyone's got a different right number. For me, I usually can have maybe two, three, four goals per category in my life, So I can have like maybe two or three different things related to work. You have like two or three things related to like my personal or home life. I can have like two

or three things related to hunting something like that. That's what works for me because if you've got you know, ten goals for everything, it's it's it's impossible to do everything just right, but I can do I can focus pretty darn well on a couple things and make meaningful progress on them if I focus in that kind of way. So that's just what works well for me, not saying

it will for you. But the way I'm going to do this, the way I would offer you to consider is to from that big brainstorm list, pick out that top three or four items maybe that you see as being either the area for most growth or the thing that will bring the most satisfaction or joy, maybe something

that will challenge you. Pick on a handful of things like that and highlight those those top goals, whatever those big things are going to be, whether it's the thing that's going to push you to grow or just help you love this thing, and even more, highlight that. And then we're going to try to or at least you know, what I try to do is then kind of make these goals more concrete, and I follow generally follow a set of principles around goals called smart and so these

this is like it's an acronym smart. So s M a R T is a set of five different things to think about when trying to write an effective goal. And so these five different things to think about would be that your goals should be specific, they should be measurable, they should be actionable, they should be realistic but maybe also a little risky, and they should be time bound, so they should have some kind of time attached to it.

So you know, an example like this, So again, like this is trying to help you avoid just a generic goal. So the generic goal might be like, hey, well, I'll just give you an example.

a reason. I'm trying to spend time like all the things I told you about already, and so I had good reasons for doing that, and I'm glad I did those things. But she did also kind of put a spark in me that got me thinking about, you know, I do also value the new, the different, thenallenging, and it got me thinking that I probably could use a real adventure. So I want to add some adventure back in my hunting season. And I'm honestly not exactly sure how I want to do that yet. I'm still working

that through. But for our purposes now, the generic example might be like, just have a more adventures hunting season. Like that would be the the not as useful goal to have. The way to make this more useful would

be to you know, maybe that's the starting point. But then I'm going to take a week or a few days or whatever it is and think more about it and start trying to think through, Okay, how can I actually, you know, make this goal pop. Because if you can make your goals more specific, more measurable, more actionable, more realistic or risky, and also have a time associated if you can plan that out, write that kind of stuff down, it makes it a lot easier and more likely that

you will follow through on it. So a different way to approach that goal might be, Okay, I'm going to try to be specific with this goal. So I'm going to think about how could I make my hunting season more adventurous. And let's say, well, you know what, I should go to a true wilderness area and try to pull off a whitetail hunt in a true wilderness area. Let's say, and I'm going to think about, you know,

maybe a very specific place. Maybe I'll say, like, oh, I'm going to go to this national forest in this state, and I'm going to do a week long backpacking whitetail hunt. And this is something like when it comes to measurable, it's obviously measurable because it's either you do it or you don't do it. Actionable, you know, is it a

thing you can actually take action on? Absolutely? And what I would recommend you do underneath these goals eventually we'll get to this is I actually start writing action items. So what do you need to do to make this thing happen? Is it realistic? In this case? I think it's something that is within the realm of possibility for me. It's not like I'm saying, hey, I'm going to go and do this thing that costs fifty thousand dollars. No, this is something I can do within my budget, within

my a lot of time, with my skill set. But still it's a challenge. It's going to push me to do new things, to try new things, to go new places, and then finally put a time stamp on it. You know, I don't want to just say like, hey, I want to do more adventurous things. That leads a whole lot of open endedness to all this. I would say that I would say, okay, I want to happen in this season, or even better, like, hey, I'm going to do it the month of September or the month of October or

whatever it is. The specific goal in the end would be something like my goal for twenty twenty four is to go on a wilderness backpacking whitetail hunt in Minnesota in the month of November with my boat, whatever it is. That is a very smart, quote unquote goal. And if you can do a handful of those, you will have done the thinking and the kind of intellectual handiwork to have put you in a place to actually do this stuff. So one of my goals is get some adventure back

in my hunting season. The second goal, the second big one, is just related to the shooting thing I talked about earlier. And I haven't quite figured out how I want to frame this yet for myself, but you know, there's gonna be a number of things. I want to have that

perfect shot like I want to have. I've yet to have a shot in which I would give myself the A plus plus rating in which I did everything right, in which I did not rush in any kind of part of it, where everything was under control, where everything went exactly the way I wanted to. I've had a lot of shots that went the way I wanted them to. I just have yet to have that perfect shot where I was, where I was the machine, at the driver's

controls the entire time. That's what I want to somehow achieve. And I don't know if that happens for anyone all the time or ever. Maybe it doesn't, Maybe we're all in some different version of imperfection on these shots. But I want to keep on striving for that, and so I want to craft a goal and a set of action items to get me closer of that. So I've already talked about it right I'm, you know, pulling in my max range. I'm doing the thirty yard pinning in

challenge this year. So that's leading to me and reconfiguring my both set up. That's good, leading me to rethink my both setups, some locations, lots of stuff like that. So there's going to be a shooting related goal in there for myself. And then I'm also setting some non hunting goals that are kind of adjacent to hunting. I want to do a big new physical challenge. Maybe that's

doing my first marathon this year. Maybe it's a harder half marathon, but I'm thinking through that kind of stuff and all that I think helps me as a deer hunter and an outdoorsman. So all of this leads me to the final step, which is once you have your smart goals written out, or whatever version of goals that you want to do written out, what my final step is is that I like to go through and I think through action items for those goals, what are the next steps that I need to take to actually move

forward on these things? And a kind of next level thing to do is something that I read about in a book called Atomic Habits by James Clear Really really really recommend that book. If there's any book I could recommend to you related to this kind of stuff, it would be Atomic Habits. It really walks through a great way like how you can set goals and achieve them,

create new habits, break bad habits, whatever. It might be a lot of these things we're talking about, not all of them, but many of them could be related to habits. And he talks about not just writing down action items for your goals, but actually writing down systems, like thinking about not just like what's the next step I can do today, But what's the system I could put in place to make those steps easier to do? And I'm trying to think of what a good example of this

might be. I guess, let's say with a shooting Let's say I have a goal around shooting and continuing to grow in that. In that way, an action item might be like, Hey, I'm just gonna shoot more. That's like the simple generic action item of a way that I pursue that goal. The system based approach would be to think about, okay, like how do I actually build a

system that makes sure I do that? So a system to make sure that I shoot more might might include, Hey, I'm going to put a calendar notification for every day at the end of my work day from four thirty five that says, go shoot your bow. And then I also know that it's easy to maybe forget that too, So I'm also going to put my bow in the mud room next to the door so that every time I come in out of the house, I'm reminded of

my bow being there. Or maybe I'm going to move the target to the front yard so I can't leave the house or get back to the house without seeing it there. And you know, maybe I'm going to do one last thing, which is adding a training kind of incentive, you know, sign myself up for a competition or something. Those three things would work together as a system that

would pull me forward on that goal. This can look a lot of different ways, but think about how you can build build like an ecosystem, a thing that will help you move towards that goal. That would be the kind of the jiu jitsu move on how to take these goals to that next step. Again, I'm not doing a great job explaining how exactly to do that. Check

out James Clear's book Atomic Habits. That's that final step, talking through, writing down how what kind of steps you can take, what kind of systems you can build, what kind of changes you need to make in the coming weeks or months to actually move you forward on those top three or four goals that we've talked about here today. And that's it. That is the year end review and the year coming preview. That's the process I go through to prepare for the year and for the hunting season.

That's what I've just kind of completed or just kind of started really Yesterday's started that process today and the rest of this week, I'm going to be continuing to fine tune. I'm going to be start kind of taking my brainstorm goals and turning them into quote unquote smart goals and start working through my action items. And all

of this might seem I mean, it doesn't seem. This is kind of nerdy, right, I get it, this is kind of I don't know, maybe some people are thinking this is way too much work to go through for hunting. We're just hunting. Just go out there, have fun. And you're right, like, if that's good for you, good, go have fun, Go do your thing. Don't worry about taking

things to this level. But if you're someone like me, and if you listen to this podcast, you are probably kind of like me in one way or another, I think this is a way that you can, you know, learn to better appreciate this season. We just had learn from it more effectively and put yourself in position to have a more satisfying, joyful, successful hunting season in the new year. And that's my hope for you, that's my

dream for you. My reason for doing this podcast now for ten plus years has always been that I hope that you can grow alongside of me and come to love hunting even more, come to be more successful as a hunter, and eventually, you know, be able to give back to others, bring other people into this community, into this lifestyle, and give back to the landscape and the critters.

We can have more successful hunters, that will lead to more hunters, that will lead to better conserved landscapes, that will lead to healthier wildlife populations, and the cycle continues. That's my, I guess hope for all this, and that's why I'm here today and why I'm really thankful to be here in twenty twenty four, still doing it. So thank you guys for tuning in today, thank you for being a part of this podcast. Thanks for listening all of last year. It's been the honor of a lifetime.

Excited to do it again this season. Check out the new Wired Hunt hats over at the Mediator Store if you want to support the podcast and rep the Wired to Hunt brand for your buddies to see. And I'm pretty sure it's going to be a lucky hat, So get them while they're hot. That's probably the number one thing we can all do to have a successful hunting season here in twenty four. But in all seriousness, appreciate you.

Have a great day, have a great week, Enjoy these first couple days of the new year, and until next time, stay wired, Tom