Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, 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 Tony Peterson.
Hey, everyone, welcome to the Foundation's podcast, which is brought to you by First Light. I'm your host, Tony Peterson. In today's episode is all about comparing ourselves to others and that kind of weird disease that seems to have infected whitetail hunters. Absolutely, they didn't really want to do this podcast because it's kind of a little too predictable, and I'm sure it's going to be a little too preachy.
But I think the new year and the direction whitetail hunting is kind of going probably makes this a little more palatable for a lot of us. It's also good for us to remind ourselves what matters in deer hunting and how we should probably just watch our own bobbers,
as my wife likes to say. So, I'm going to talk about trophies in comparison, in the shitty ways we treat each other, and why all this is leading the you know, some loss and opportunity and just making things worse, kind of just sucking the joy out of the whole thing. A few weeks back, one of my really good buddies and I sat in a hotel room in western Minnesota after a day of falling one bird short of our pheasant limit. It was honestly a great day in the
public land cattails. The dog work was incredible. The birds, they're pretty plentiful, and for the most part where we pointed our shotguns, our strings of fives and sixes went. If it wasn't for one last runner that my buddy knocked down that evaded three worn out dogs until the clock ran out, it would have been about as good as you can get. Now. While I don't see him often,
when we do get together, it's great. We talked about a lot of stuff, and then he mentioned that he was within a few months of a huge buyout at work and that when it came he was punching out forever at the age of forty five. Do you know what I felt in that moment? Peer unadulterated jealousy, envy. This is a guy who has been one of my best friends since we were twelve. I got him into bass fishing and then into bow hunting. We've traveled to so many states and we've worked public land, white tails
and turkeys. He watched me shoot my first meal, dear and help me pack it out, and I watched him shoot his and helped him pack it out. We try to go fish in the salt water once a year, and it's pretty tough to find someone who is more of a gamer to do the work and keep a smile on his face the whole time than him. But when he told me he was about to be relatively free financially, boy did it uncage something ugly inside of
me that I'm not proud of. My first reaction wasn't to be happy for him, which is what a good human would probably do. My first reaction was to almost be pissed, and that doesn't make me feel great. But then I thought, you know, he's been under a crazy amount of stress for years. To do the job he does at the level he got to, you have to
make huge sacrifices. I can remember fishing with him on a small trip to northern Minnesota when we were in our early thirties, and he spent far more time on his phone working than he did casting senkos into the pockets of vegetation looking for a large mouth. I remember thinking during that trip that I wouldn't trade positions with him for the world, and I wouldn't have. But the minute that all of that stress and sacrifice paid off for him, I couldn't help but think why couldn't that
be me? But it couldn't, and it never would have been. I didn't have the vision he did to see what it would become, nor the chops to pursue it. His path, his skills, his life situation, his goals, his drive is whatever was a course set far differently from mine. We had damn near the same upbringing and so many of the same shared passions, But the similarities between two people have to end somewhere. It's a poignant lesson on human behavior. And I know you know where I'm going with this.
We do with everything in life, and we sure as hell do it with deer hunting. And I don't know if it's worse now than when I started a long time ago, but I think that it is. We have almost no way to not see other people's successes these days. It's everywhere. It's just about everyone is ready and willing to show their success off to the world. Worse than that, everyone else has the ability to weigh in on those other people's lives in a way that is just so unhealthy,
or at least it can be now. I spoke about this on a recent Wire to Hunt episode with Mark, but I want to talk about it again because I think it's important. Medeater recently dropped an episode with me taking one of my twin daughters, who was eleven at the time when we filmed it, over to Wisconsin on a combo deer in bear Hunt. A spoiler alert here if you haven't watched it, but the bear hunting was
a bust for a few seasons. Nuisance trapping cleared out my best bait site, and the weather just planes sucked for hunting bears. We did have a few little bucks patterned, and when we set out our first evening, I knew there was a decent chance that either a spike or forky would come in, and I kind of expected both of them to. They were our hitlisters because they were
the only two bucks I had any consistency on. But do you know who doesn't really want a trophy hunt eleven year old girls who might get two weekends a season to hunt, and who happened to be hunting in a county where ninety percent of the fawns are killed in the first eleven months of their lives, due largely to the fact that the region is infested with coyotes, wolves, bears,
and bobcats. Add in Wisconsin's huge hunting culture, which I love, by the way, and I truly mean that, And of course, you know, every person you meet over there, or it seems like it, at least in the northern half of the state, seems to wear camouflage more often than not. In social settings, everybody hunts, you know. Then you have the once every I don't know so many years winter that just grinds the deer down to a pulp and
leaves the herd shll of its former self. You just have the toughest place I've ever deer hunted, and I've haunted a lot of places. So when that spike walked in, there was no question whether it was going to get shot. It wasn't my tag, And even though I gave her a little bit of shit and tried to talk her into waiting for that four ky because I knew he
was going to come in. It wasn't my call. My daughter killed that spike and she was super happy with herself, and I was real happy with her too, and she should have been happy with herself. But like an idiot, when meat Eater dropped a little teaser from that hunt, I started reading the comments, which is against my personal policy because it is terrible for my mental health. The very first comment was from someone asking why she would shoot that deer instead of letting it go for a
bigger one. Not taking things personal is really not my strong suit, and it just blew my mind that someone would suggest an eleven year old girl hunting the big woods of northern Wisconsin should be a trophy hunt. And I also can't help thinking that if eleven year old kid on a show passed up a whole bunch of deer to shoot a big one, the comments probably wouldn't
get any better. Sometimes you just can't win, but you can't put yourself in someone else's hunting boots, or at least acknowledge that you might not know a single thing about their situation. You likely don't. I often see field Good posts or here on podcasts with hunters about how hunters are some of the best people out there. That's not true. We are just people who hunt in that
mix are great people. Some of my favorite, most giving, most generous people in the world are definitely hunters, which should come as really no surprise since I have heavy exposure to hunters, so the sample is way biased. But some of my least favorite people are hunters too, So I don't know where to go with that other than to acknowledge that maybe it's a human nature thing and not something predicated on whether you own a few trail
cameras or not. The thing about this stuff is that it's all so much bullshit wrapped up to justify how we personally want to do things. If you have a sweet lease where you can grow dear and name them and have the time to take off of work to hunt them when the cold fronts move in or the rut is burning hot, that's great. I'm happy for you. But you have nothing in common with a hell of
a lot of hunters, and this cuts both ways. If you only hunt public land and would be stoked to arrow a single dough all season long while you're out there with the masses. It's not the lease hunter's fault. Different paths and lives, good luck, bad luck, privilege. There's not equity out there and how life shakes out, and it's a consequence of nature that there never will be. And we've seen many times through humanity where we've tried to force equitable results, and boy does it not work. Well.
Let's take that lease hunter in that public land hunter and dive a little deeper. The lease hunter might tell you that his challenge is mature bucks and that he's the one who is responsible because those bucks that reach prime age have spread their genes and you know, lived a good deer life and taking him out when he hits five and a half is the right thing to do. He probably even believes that, but it's mostly just the coat of paint we put over deer hunting to be
trophy hunters and not feel bad about it. There's no divorcing that hunter from the antlers he wants, and when those antlers don't stack up to whatever, then that buck who really represents what he says he's out there for. It's a pass. I watched this happen in real time once and it blew my mind. You know, I have a buddy who really talks the trophy talk. But when a incredible older buck walked in during a late season hunt where we were sitting together, that buck got a
pass because he had dropped aside already. I told him that that was the mature buck he's been talking about all season long, right there in the flesh within bow range, ready to take an arrow through both lungs. But it wasn't the same buck in his eyes. And that's fine, it's his tag. But maybe we should acknowledge more fully why we do what we do, and maybe that would temper some of our willingness to shit on folks who
don't or can't do what we want to do. Personally, then you have that just happy with a dough public land hunter who can throw a pity party with the best of them while also trying to feel superior because he's doing it the hard way. Maybe he really can't get on any private land anywhere near where he lives for some reason, or maybe he just doesn't really try that hard. Maybe it's not a big priority for him the way it is for that lease hunter who goes out and bird dogs till he gets a place that
really does something for him. Maybe the public land that public land hunter is on is actually way better than he thinks, because in my experience across so many states, that's almost universally true, even though a lot of people don't want to believe it. Maybe he just doesn't really put it in any scouting time. Maybe he hunts like he's on private land and expects private land results, but that just doesn't work. Maybe there's a million things he could do to have a better season and he just
doesn't do them. There's no moral high ground there. It's just the other side of the same coin. What are we doing to each other? I think the best way to look at this is to think about the folks who are generally really supportive and try to avoid this caddy biznatcho bullshit. I've had the good fortune of working with a hell of a lot of dog trainers in my life and have that time has been pretty immersed in that world.
Now.
I know I've talked about this a lot, but one of my favorite people in the world is a fellow named Tom Dowkin, who is maybe the best retriever trainer to ever set foot on the planet. I've spent hundreds, maybe thousands of hours talking to Tom about life and dogs, and I've never heard him say a bad thing about another. True, he doesn't have to. He's been there and done that and has nothing to prove and nothing to gain by taking someone else down. You guys, hear me talk a
lot about Andy May. There's a reason for that. I just respect him a ton as a person and of course as a deer hunter. I don't know. You put Andy in Antarctica with a bow and a deer tag and somehow a one sixty would swim across the ocean, show up there, leave a little sign, and Andy would kill him. He would probably only take him about three days too. When you talk to him, he has nothing to prove to anyone else. He's proving things to himself
and he always will be. He's not the kind of guy to question why an eleven year old girl would gladly whack a spike buck, and it wouldn't make sense to him to even think about it other than that's just a net positive for hunting in general. His journey is impressive, easily one of the most impressive of anyone who has ever bought a deer tag. But it's is and if you want to emulate someone, emulate him, think
about this stuff for yourself. I talk a lot about goals and trying to find some way in the outdoors to fill our cups, so to speak. And I think when you see a guy like him, he's just one of the few who has it figured out at least somewhat. He knows what he needs to do to keep silencing that inner critic, even though the voice always comes back and always will need another lesson and just shutting the hell up for a little bit. So what do you need to do. It's not take a look at others
and wonder why they can do what you can't. Is to look at yourself and wonder, what can I do that I think I can't do, or what can I do that I really just want to, but I think I shouldn't because of what others will think. What can we do to stop comparing ourselves to others? And what is essentially a solo journey that we are so damn lucky to get to take. The answer to that question will change over time. It'll change by the season and
by the day. It's fluid and nuanced like life. This is one of the reasons why so many hunters are generally so unhappy with their hunting right now. If you decide that you want to keep up with the deer hunting joneses and start the season with the goal of a one forty or bust, take a hard look at what that goal will mean for you, and then think about how it affects you as the actual hunting season
comes and goes. What if the days you have off, you know, the ones you marked on the calendar weeks in advance, mostly you just end up with the wind you didn't think you were going to get, or there's a little too much sun and heat and not enough cold fronts. Or what if your kid surprisingly makes a traveling sports team and your weekend hunting time gets cut in half in an instant. What's important to you on
your journey? Then maybe the goal still is, Or maybe you suddenly realize that while you're sitting out there that mature bucks are real cool, but so is that ninety seven inch eight pointer that is feeding his way towards you in the row of beans fifteen yards out, and that you you'd love to make a really great shot on a deer and not have the pressure of finding time to hunt closer to the rut, and boy does he look delicious and wouldn't it just be fun to
shoot him? In that case, airw that son of a bitch, throw a pair of middle fingers up in the air and be proud of it. You did something that most hunters won't do this season, even though if you look at social media too much, you might be convinced that you literally killed the smallest buck anyone killed in your
state during the entire season. And that means not only that you're a terrible hunter, but also a terrible human and you know, probably has the tiniest manhood in all the land and should probably just go live under a bridge with all the other outcasts who shoot young bucks like a bunch of losers who can't kill the deer someone else thinks they're supposed to. Sorry, folks, I get
a little fired up on this stuff. I love deer like you, and I think it's just a gift that they are out there, and for the most part, if you put in a minimum amount of effort, you can at least hunt them anywhere they live. And getting to hunt them at all is what really matters, not what you kill. What doesn't matter is how other folks hunt them or what other folks choose to fill their tag on.
And if someone argues with you that you shouldn't have whacked that two year old beanfield muncher because it took a future trophy away from someone else, just let it go. It's not worth it. Every deer we shoot takes a deer away from someone else, sort of, just like every deer we try to hoard on our properties kind of takes a deer away from someone else maybe, And yet they are always out there waiting to be hunted somewhere
by someone. And if that someone is happy with the deer that walks down the trail, who are we to decide they are wrong. That's just bananas to me, just as it is to get caught up in comparing ourselves and our own successes and failures to other folks who are undoubtedly, unquestionably on a different journey, a journey that's just wrought with totally different circumstances. Some of us get
to retire early, some don't. Some shoot one hundred and sixty inch bucks without burning a calorie, while others will never ever see a deer of that caliber out in the wild. That's how it goes. But at the root of it is the reality that we get to do our own thing for ourselves, and we should be happy about that. We should try to be the kinds of good people that hunters are supposed to be, the ones we talk about when we want to portray our ranks as just a little kinder, a little more giving than
the general population. That's a good goal to have. I think, think about that and then come back next week because I'm going to talk about something I'm pretty deep into right now, which is how to find a new state to hunt this fall, and how to find a place to hunt in that state, which is really a process that has changed a hell of a lot in the last five or ten years. That's it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson. This has been the Wire to Hunt
Foundation's podcast. I just want to thank you guys so much. This podcast has gone on way longer than I expect it to and it really means so much to me. All the support. It's crazy. If you have Mark and I here at Meat Eater at Wired to Hunt. We love you guys, we really do, and we appreciate everything that you've done for us. If you're sitting there in the off season and you just need to live vicariously through Us or Clay or the Element Boys or whoever.
You want to check out some hunting films or maybe listen to some other podcasts, go to the meeteater dot com. Check it out. Tons of articles, tons of podcasts, tons of shows, tons of good hunting content is over there, the medeater dot com