Ep. 1015: Foundations - The Deer Don't Beat Us as Often as Our Brains Do

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You crave some wide open spaces the chance to connect with nature maybe in a spot

all your own will head over to land.com.

They've got ranches, forest mountain streams.

You name it search by acreage.

You can search by location.

You can search by the kind of hunting and fishing you're dreaming of land.com.

It is where the adventure begins.

Man, I'm telling you what, when I need auto parts, I go to O'Reilly auto parts.

Here in my hometown of Boson, Montana.

Love those guys.

Always nice.

Always helpful.

They're in the business of keeping your car on the road.

O'Reilly auto parts offers friendly, helpful service and the parts knowledge you need

for all your maintenance and repairs.

They've got thousands of parts and accessories in stock in store or online.

So you never have to worry if you're in a jam.

Need your battery tested?

Windshield wipers replaced?

The brake light fix or a quick service?

They'll help you find the right part or point you to the nearest local repair shop for help.

Last time I was in there, it was for wiper blades and a brake light bulb.

Whether you're a car, aficionado or an auto novice, you'll find the employees at O'Reilly auto parts

are knowledgeable, helpful and best of all friendly.

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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 Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, which is brought to you by First

Light. I'm your host, Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about how difficult deer hunting

often is and what we can do to make it a little bit easier in a way that you probably don't expect.

The impetus for this podcast came from explaining shed hunting to my daughters, if you can believe

that. Well, you should because it's true. When it comes to white-tail hunting, I find myself constantly

stuck between explaining what are simple concepts, but they don't play out in the real world very

easily or simply most of the time. There's a hard truth about white-tail hunting that a lot of us

don't really want to acknowledge, but it's tied to a greater aspect of light. Now if you go back a

couple weeks and listen to an episode that I did with Mark on our regular Wired to Hunt podcast,

you're going to hear all about this, but I'm also going to break it down in more detail right now

so we can understand how to literally retrain our brains to be better not only at white-tail hunting,

but a whole lot of stuff. Have you ever noticed how the people who seem to be able to do difficult

things can often do a variety of difficult things? I thought about this at media recently when I was

thinking about how many of my coworkers have authored books. Now I've written a handful,

and while they can be enjoyable at times, it's also just a grind in a lot of ways,

especially once the rough draft is complete and it's time to get down to the nitty-gritty parts.

But then it occurred to me that a hell of a lot of my coworkers who also have written books,

you know, they're also in pretty good shape and a lot of them play instruments.

That's not an accident, and I haven't even gotten into the hunting part yet.

You see inside of our brains is this thing called the anterior mid-singulate cortex,

which is a region of the brain that is responsible for helping us overcome difficulty

and find motivation and it helps us with effort. What's bonkers about this is that the anterior mid-singulate

cortex can grow or shrink depending on what you do with yourself, what decisions you make.

The more difficult things you do, things that you don't want to do,

you know the stuff that feels like a struggle, that helps this region of your brain grow.

If you do fewer things that challenge yourself and feel like a struggle,

that part of the brain is going to shrink. Our brains evolve to conserve energy and keep us safe,

and this is a part of the reason why we resist discomfort so much, but we need it,

and if we use it correctly, it helps us. Now I'm not going to go full David Goggins here,

but pay attention to this because it's important. The more you push yourself through discomfort,

the more you'll be able to push yourself through discomfort. Struggle that scares us off,

leads to more struggle that'll scare us off. When it comes to dieting or exercise or killing

public land, whitetails, you know, or saving up for that dream outcome, we mostly fail,

yet the people who figure out how to get through just one of those things are more likely to get

through all of them. This is intuitive if you pay attention to the people in your life,

but also no accident. It's not that those people start with more willpower or discipline

or have some secret genetic code that others just don't possess. It's that they work through

struggle and discomfort and their brains changed to allow them to keep working through struggle

and discomfort. People say to me all of the time that they hate running so they can't do it.

They think because they see someone like Cam Haynes running all the time that he must love it.

They say that to me as well, but they're wrong. I freaking hate running. I rarely, rarely look

forward to it, but I never regret it when I'm finished. It's always worth it. That's not something

I was born with. It's just a product of forcing myself to lace up my on clouds and go when I don't

want to, which is pretty much every time. And that last part matters a lot. If you want to make your

anterior mid-singulate cortex grow, you have to do things that you don't want to do.

If you wake up and you absolutely love everything about going for a run, it doesn't work.

That's not a bad thing, mind you. That'd be great, but it's not going to help you get through other

unrelated difficult tasks. Do you know what is a pretty difficult task that we are constantly trying

to make easier for ourselves? Yep. Golf. Just kidding. It's deer hunting. The problem with deer hunting,

at least in today's world, is that it looks just like getting in shape or running 100-mile

mountain marathons or climbing some building in Taiwan while Netflix film crew follows you up.

We are constantly exposed to the people who have already cracked the code for doing

difficult stuff. And when they do difficult stuff, it not only looks easy to us, but they're also

trying to make it look easy. But it's not easy to us. And there's often a huge disparity there.

In the realm of deer hunting, it makes it look like there is a secret strategy or some type

attack that will just take us from not being big buck killers to being big buck killers. But it

doesn't work that way. The people who are in really great shape, who also learn how to play guitar,

and who also can kill public land bull elk every season, aren't capable of that stuff simply

because they are built different from most folks. It's that they actively pursue difficult things.

So much of natural talent, which definitely exists, is just a reflection of this reality.

And don't get me wrong, deer hunting for the vast majority of hunters is difficult.

So difficult that they often don't fill tags. And when you break it down to who kills big bucks

and who doesn't, that number shrinks further. Look, this can be hacked through enough money

or a banging spot, which I've talked about plenty. But for most folks who don't have access to

either or both, this is not an easy thing to do, which is a huge reason why we love it.

Now, I've killed some really big bucks in my life on various hunts and I can tell you they were

fun, really fun, but they didn't mean that much to me. In fact, the buck that has been my favorite

in a hell of a lot of seasons is the eight pointer I killed in Wisconsin last year, because it

took me 18 seasons over there to finally kill a legit pope and young buck. I could write a book

about my struggles just in that one county and eventually might just do that for the hell of it.

I've killed other bucks in Nebraska and Illinois and Iowa and Texas in a handful of states

that didn't challenge me hardly at all. And while they were all fun and there were lessons I took

away with each, none of them felt like that Wisconsin buck. Struggle in a weird way is our friend,

not because it keeps us from success, which it does. But because if we just do what we need to

anyway, struggle rewires our brain to do difficult stuff more easily.

Now, you might be thinking sweet, dude, but what do I have to do to be able to embrace

discomfort and eventually become the mighty white hunter that you are? Well, science has pretty

much figured this out, which is good news and it starts with negotiation. Think about how often

you've had an opportunity to hunt outside of the rut or pre-rut, say October 10th, and you've sat

there in your office around the job site and thought, is it worth it to go sit tonight?

The wind is out of the west so I could sit this stand or this blind. Then imagine how easy it is

to say to yourself, but it is the low. It's not right. The bucks aren't going to move and my odds

are really low. So you don't go. You're negotiating with yourself to reach a conclusion you

arely wanted to reach because you thought going out wouldn't result in a dead big buck.

So it's just better to not go. A better way to look at this would be, I have the evening to go

hunting, to go do the thing I love more than anything in the world. Here are the conditions,

and now I'm going to solve for how to hunt where a big buck might go in them. Then you go hunting.

You probably won't kill a big one, but getting over that mental hurdle and sneaking in with a

saddle or a hang on or building a natural blind and trying is the thing that matters the most.

Sometimes you kill big bucks that way, but you're also not negotiating yourself out of hunting

because it will be easier to not go. That one evening on stand or in blind will generally always

be worth it. It's a small meaningful step on the path to becoming the kind of deer hunter who will

go when the going probably sucks. It's a small step, but it's important because small steps are the way

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data. Over the second half of 2025, all rights reserved. Man, I'm telling you what,

when I need auto parts, I go to O'Reilly Auto Parts. Here in my hometown of Boson, Montana,

love those guys always nice, always helpful. They're in the business of keeping your car on the road.

O'Reilly Auto Parts offers friendly, helpful service and the parts knowledge you need

for all your maintenance and repairs. They've got thousands of parts and accessories in stock in

store or online. So you never have to worry if you're in a jam. Need your battery tested,

windshield wipers replaced, the brake light fixed or a quick service. They'll help you find the

right part or point you to the nearest local repair shop for help. Last time I was in there,

it was for wiper blades and a brake light bulb. Whether you're a car aficionado or an auto novice,

you'll find the employees at O'Reilly Auto Parts are knowledgeable, helpful and best of all friendly.

The professional parts people at O'Reilly Auto Parts are your one stop shop for all things

auto do it yourself and you can find what you need in store or online. Stop by O'Reilly Auto Parts

today or visit O'Reilly Auto dot com slash meat eater. That's O'Reilly Auto dot com slash meat eater.

You ever get that feeling you're stuck inside staring at screens and a primal urge kicks in.

When you crave wide open spaces fresh air the chance to connect with the land. Well maybe it's

time to find your own piece of the wild but searching for property can be a maze. That's where

land dot com comes in. They got millions of listings across the country from mountain ranches

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today to turn one day into today because trust me there's nothing quite like the feeling of

standing on your own piece of earth. This is something I can't stress enough but we are sold

this process or this strategy or this big wholesale change to finally be super skinny or be able

to bench 300 pounds or kill public land bucks every season. But the big moves don't stick usually

and anyone who has gone from no exercise for years to trying to work out six days a week knows how

hard it is to mentally get there. It's damn near impossible. Baby steps matter and just going out

during the lull when you know for a fact you won't see a big one is a huge step and what I learned

from that is that if I hunt the lull enough I almost always see big ones and I often kill them

sometimes on public land likely because most folks negotiated themselves out of hunting and the

deer know damn well when fewer hunters are in the woods with them and they move more. Another way

to look at this is the all day sit thing. Most hunters won't do it because it's too big of an

ask for them. So go sit in an extra hour if you usually would leave the woods at 10 a.m.

Figure out a way to just sit until 11 or if you'd usually go out at 2 p.m. for the evening sit

go at one you're doing a small thing you don't want to but when you get in at one and a buck

eventually cruises by at one 15 the next time you can hunt you'll have your happy ass in that

stand at 12 30 there is also a very god and ask component of this whole thing as well which involves

not viewing the struggle as painful but instead as growth I know this is kind of woo woo but think

about how your attitude shapes the enjoyment of your hunts if you go out and expect to see nothing

your effort and results will generally reflect that that's because we set the bar too high

and instead should view it not as pass or fail depending on a big buck encounter but pass or fail

depending on whether we tried something new and saw it through I'd rather blank on a hunt and learn

something then skip a hunt and feel like I did a good job by literally not doing the thing I love

the most in the world I look at this kind of thing like fishing I'd rather make more cast

than fewer because the more times I cast the more likely it is that I'll catch some fish look I know

on paper this all sounds great but there is a component of it that is kind of non-negotiable

setting goals I know people grown when they hear that but goals are super important the reason I run

so much or at least the thing that keeps me accountable is that I set yearly goals for miles when

I turned 40 a buddy and I both set a running goal of a thousand miles for the year that was a lot

more miles in a year than I'd ever run and it took me a seven-mile run new years even a blizzard

to cross that threshold but I did cross it and ever since then I've said a yearly goal and it's

not something I dread but something I used to keep myself honest I know this shit sounds

hokey but it works but it only really works once you train your brain that you will keep doing

something difficult until you're done now with white tails we all kind of set goals even if they're

loose goals but they're generally based around the wrong thing we go I killed a 135 last year

so I want something bigger this year or I killed a six-pointer last year and now I want something

that seven or eight points or more or you know I want a five-year-old buck and anything younger

gets a pass look if you have that money spot this might be all you need to do because your

hunting isn't all that difficult and the formula is easy to follow but for a lot of us a goal of

shooting you know X size of deer keeps us out of the woods a lot and it's generally a great way

to feel let down by most of our hunts a goal instead to maybe arrow your first year off the ground

without a blind or to hunt every chance you can or to try to kill an october deer in the woods

when all you've ever haunted is field edges or whatever it's a different thing it takes the focus

off of a dead buck and it puts it on us actually doing something that could lead to us encountering

more deer which reinforces our behavior and yes eventually usually leads to big dead bucks over time

the last component of this that I don't adhere too much but I guess I kind of do through my

photography is to track your progress I use a running app on my phone that tallies up my miles

and gives me a whole bunch of stats so I can see whether I'm slacking or right on track or crushing it

and getting ahead of my pace a little bit but with deer you know some hunters journal most don't

and most don't keep track of their progress they hunt when the conditions are good kill or don't kill

and then wait for the next opportunity but this doesn't mean that you can't do something else

difficult to keep track which leads to being able to see through the discomfort of other difficult

tasks the result in the long term is that you are literally making yourself mentally tougher

when that metaphorical snowball starts rolling in the right direction it makes life better

and all aspects of deer hunting a little easier to embrace I explain this sort of to my daughters

recently when we put on quite a few miles to find zero antlers in a long weekend of trekking through

the woods they were discouraged about not finding antlers but I told them that I mostly don't find

antlers and that going shed hunting is worth it anyway because it is it's just good to go walk through

the woods most of what we do with deer hunting is tethered to our eventual success and in a different

but equally relevant way our failures if you can learn to go shed hunting when you don't expect

to find one sometimes you will find one and that's awesome but when you don't you've still done

something worthwhile and your brain is going to reward you for that it makes it easier to go winter

scouting when you're having a hard time mastering up the energy to go into the woods and try to

envision what that work will turn out at in like nine or ten months I've often thought about the

first big buck I killed and how it just opened the flood gates to killing more big bucks and how I've

seen the same thing in my hunting buddies it took me twelve seasons of hunting really really hard

to kill that buck and I was convinced it was just never going to happen I believed it I expected

to screw up and I almost always did and the whole thing just felt impossible then I killed a big

old fourteen pointer in a bean field it's now twenty years later and I've killed big bucks

pretty much every year since the realization that something that difficult is suddenly doable

changes us and the fact that a hell of a lot of the big one since then haven't been easy only

reinforces that truth this is one of the reasons a lot of people who start hunting and decide that

it's only big bucks or nothing have such a hard time when killing a two year old eight pointer in

a whole season is really difficult killing a hundred and thirty enter as your first buck is

nearly impossible and your brain knows it but killing that two year old shows you what's possible

it makes it seem like a three year old isn't a crazy challenge but is still definitely a challenge

I guess the best way to frame this up before I sign off is this when we opt out of doing something

challenging it's usually not because we physically can't do that thing it's because our brains make

the case that it won't be worth it and we buy into that reasoning but our brains aren't our friends

in a lot of ways because they are looking for the easy way out to help us preserve energy and avoid

potential failure this is why it's so difficult but also why the folks who break through that membrane

and learn that the difficult stuff is worth it are the ones who can go anywhere and hunt pretty much

anything they get a tag for and while they won't always be successful because that's how the

stuff goes they are usually far far more successful than the average hunter they've conditioned

themselves to just lean into the struggle and the discomfort because they know on the other side

it's always worth it if you want to be a better deer hunter forget what you can buy for a second

and think about what work you avoid in that harsh truth is the path to killing more big bucks

and while it might seem daunting or not worth it remember that's just your shrunken anterior

mid-singulate cortex talking don't listen to it go do the difficult thing and force that sucker

to grow you won't regret it you also won't regret coming back next week because I'm going to talk

about why we should all try to find a new place to hunt and just how to go about that process right

now that's it for this episode I'm Tony Peterson this has been the wire to hunt foundations podcast

which is brought to you by first light you might want to go check out some first light right now

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you ever get that feeling the walls closing in the concrete jungle suffocating you

you crave some wide open spaces the chance to connect with nature maybe in a spot all your own will

head over to land dot com they've got ranches forest mountain streams you name it search by acreage

you can search by location you can search by the kind of hunting and fishing your dreaming of land

dot com it is where the adventure begins man I'm telling you what when I need auto parts I go to

oriole auto parts here in my hometown of boson Montana love those guys always nice always helpful

they're in the business of keeping your car on the road oriole auto parts offers friendly

helpful service and the parts knowledge you need for all your maintenance and repairs they've got

thousands of parts and accessories in stock in store or online so you never have to worry if

you're in a jam need your battery tested windshield wipers replaced a break like fix or a quick

service they'll help you find the right part or point you to the nearest local repair shop for help

last time I was in there it was for wiper blades and a brake light bulb whether you're a car

aficionado or an auto novice you'll find the employees that arrive auto parts are knowledgeable

helpful and best of all friendly the professional parts people at oriole auto parts are your one stop

shop for all things auto do it yourself and you can find what you need in store or online stop by

oriole auto parts today or visit orioleauto.com slash meat eater that's orioleauto.com slash meat

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