00:00:01 Speaker 1: 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. 00:00:20 Speaker 2: Hey everyone, welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which is brought to you by first Light. 00:00:24 Speaker 3: I'm your host, Tony Peterson, and this episode. 00:00:26 Speaker 2: Is all about what you should do right now with your bow or your crossbow, your gun to get ready to be a stone cold killer this fall. 00:00:33 Speaker 3: A look. 00:00:35 Speaker 2: I know we all know what we should do throughout the summer practice wise, but I also know what a lot of us just don't do. Part of this is a function of having really accurate weaponry these days. We just don't need to practice as much as we used to in order to be pretty good. But pretty good on the range and pretty good in the woods are different things. That's something a lot of us don't realize until we watch a buck run out of our lives without an arrow through his lungs, and it's something we can work on in the next several weeks. It's also what I'm going to talk about right now. One of our editors and writers here at Meat Eater is a fellow named Adam Moore. He lives and hunts down south in the part of the country Mark and I rarely talk about for deer hunting because it's a world we don't play in very much. Now, Adam recently called me up for some quotes for an article he was working on about the things that the hunting industry won't tell you, things that will help you be successful but aren't necessarily going to sell a bunch of deer calls or sense or whatever you get to drift. Now, while I talked about woodsmanship and figuring out natural movement and a couple things I really believe help all deer hunters level up, I didn't mention practice or preseason practice specifically. I know this is a boring topic, but it's important and it is one of the things that we can control in a very real way, which are not always that easy to find in the deer woods. So to frame this up, let me give you a little recap my last season in the shots that I took. The first was in Minnesota on a mature dough that walked into a pond I was sitting over in September. Everything looked like it was lining up really nicely, until she just turned and walked straight at me, then went under my stand and walked straight away before stopping. I started to draw on her twice while anticipating her next move, and I got it wrong both times. But she finally did turn hard enough to give me a quartering shot at maybe ten yards, and when I took it, she did not go very far. It was a good start to the season. Then I went to North Dakota and snort weezed in a really big buck and I didn't range him. I thought he was walking in at thirty five yards, and just for a few seconds, I checked my sight. I checked to see if my cameraman was on him. Then I went to shoot him. I didn't realize he had walked into twenty six and other than a few hairs, I shot off his back as a consolation prize. I watched that deer run out of my life, and I was very sad. Later on in that trip, I shot a dough on a water hole at thirty yards while sitting on my butt on a rocky hillside that was angled in such a way that not only was it uncomfortable as hell, but it was also just a very unnatural way to shoot. I killed her, it wasn't my best shot. After that, headed down to Iowa and I decoyed in a buck that did everything you want a buck to do, and I still managed to put my decoy off just a few yards from my small shooting lane, and that caused me to lean out a little farther than I thought I was going to have to, and I just clipped a willow stem with my broad head on the shot. I got him again, but it was not my finest shot. So after that stretch of disasters on film, I went back to Minnesota to try to redeem myself, and I finally had a decent eight pointer flirting with death for like fifteen minutes. Drew on him at least twice that I can remember, before he kind of worked his way around and posed up at maybe twenty yards and I shot him right through the heart watched him tip over. Some years, I shoot like I was born with a bow in my hand. Some years, I shoot like I was born with a handful of delicious lead paint chips in my hand. I used to only shoot like I had tried to lobotomize myself with a screwdriver for fun, but after a lot of painful seasons, I got that kind of taken care of. Filming is a different story for me. If there is a moment when I'll go back to my old ways, it's when there's a camera over my shoulder and the reality that a whole hell of a lot of people are about to watch me shit my camel undies metaphorically, speaking of course, now my flaws aside. You know what all of those real world shots at white Tails I took last year have in common. Not a single one involved me standing flat footed in a mode yard while having all the time in the world to make a perfectly known, distant shot. So let's break that down for a second. When we shoot in our yards, is there any pressure to make a great shot? 00:04:51 Speaker 3: Not? 00:04:52 Speaker 2: Usually not really. If we shank one, we just shoot another one. You can add some pressure to your sessions, have you know, maybe the chance to go to a three D shoot, or you invite a couple of buddies over for a session that doesn't hurt And I think any way that you can vary up your preseason practice to challenge. What you have going on between the ears is a good thing. I guess I'll put a finer point on this by saying that I've shot at a lot of whitetails in my life, like a lot, and I don't recall too many where I was relaxed and feeling no pressure. 00:05:23 Speaker 3: It doesn't really work that way. 00:05:25 Speaker 2: Now, look at the mechanical side of the The reason that we shoot the way we do in ninety nine percent of our practice sessions is because it's the easiest way to send some arrows downrange while being as accurate as we can. This type of practice has its place, but it would kind of be like doing a bunch of cardio before your big MMA debut and the octagon, but never sparring or grappling. When I think about the shots I took last season, they all had some type of mechanical or maybe technical type of variable that made them more challenging than any shot taking while standing flat footed on the same level as my target. A ten yard shot on a d j oh that's eighteen feet below you and quartered away and in about three steps from being totally safe. It's just not something we usually practice for that kind of situation might put your ideal point of impact five inches higher than you'd aim at a foam target and back maybe another four or five inches. Do you ever set a stand to practice from or shoot from your deck to condition yourself for a shot like that, because at some point a wild live year is going to offer himself up that way, and then it's on you to envision that wound channel and where you have to put the right pin. 00:06:33 Speaker 3: If you have. 00:06:33 Speaker 2: Gallons of adrenaline flooding your veins in that moment, the odds of getting it right drop like a rock. Do we need to practice for every scenario out there? Well, no, we couldn't even if we wanted to. But it's usually a pretty good idea to practice more than we think we need to, and to try to shake up our practice sessions with new wrinkles whenever we can. 00:06:53 Speaker 3: It's also a good. 00:06:54 Speaker 2: Idea to remember that your ability to shoot well on the range and out there in the forest is a personal journey. There are a lot of folks out there who talk a big game about how they personally shoot or how other people shoot. That sucks, But those people are usually one of two things so new that they don't have the experience, you know, to understand what mistakes everyone inevitably will make, or the other thing, which is they are likely just totally full of shit. Hunting deer and shooting at them is a game of infinite variables, and getting it right once can be easy. How about getting it right five shots in a row, though, that's a different story, or ten shots in a row. Send enough arrows or bullets at animals and you're going to screw up, and when you do, it might be a little more likely that you'll screw up again. Because bow hunting is a sport that produces good and bad streaks. 00:07:53 Speaker 3: I don't know why. 00:07:54 Speaker 2: I just know that it does, and I know the best way to smooth out the ebbs and flows of the whole thing is to practice more in as many ways as you can. And I also know that those gun hunters out there aren't immune to this issue either. One of the problems with most modern firearms, and honestly, I'll throw crossbows in here as well, is that they are stupid accurate. If you site in either with a good bench or a good rest, and you take your time to really dial them in, well, then you're really dialed in. But are you well your gun is or your crossbow is, but are you dialed in as the shooter? Probably not. This is a concept that's easy to understand with vertical bows because we, as the shooters, have a lot of influence on how the shot goes. If we do everything right, the arrow will go exactly where we point it. If we don't, it won't. And that's about it. Since we all inherently know that, we also understand why that type of weapon requires a healthy amount of practice. You have to get good with shot execution, and that comes from reps with a rifle or a crossbow or a hell a muzzloader. We can sit at the range and shoot tight groups and call it good enough. I mean, my daughters can shoot their crossbows in such a way that they'll ruin bolts if they don't intentionally try to shoot around the ones that are already in the target. But that doesn't make them super good shots in the field. Just because your rifle can put five rounds in the same hole at three hundred yards off the bench on a column day doesn't mean you can put one round right where it needs to be at two hundred and fifty seven yards during a blizzard at the end of a four hour sit where the wind is just hucking out of the north at twenty miles per hour. Sure your rifle can make that shot, but can you. We tend to think of target practice as a means for us to become more accurate, which is a component. For sure, you wouldn't punch paper or foam if it asn't a direct route to being a better shot, because that would be bonkers. But it's more than that. It's also about becoming extremely comfortable with your weapon. I've talked about this a lot, but if you put a rifle or a crossbow in my hands, it's just awkward to me. 00:10:14 Speaker 3: I don't have the. 00:10:14 Speaker 2: Reps necessary with either to pick one up and just be super comfortable with it. A vertical bowl or a shotgun is a different story, because those are weapons I've handled my entire life, very natural to me, and the muscle memory is real, the comfort level is very real. But not so with a rifle or a crossbow. And here's the thing about that stuff. Let's say you are new to crossbow hunting, or this is your first year rifle hunting, since your brand new in laws invited you up to deer camp. You have a weapon that is accurate as hell, which you've proven at the range, But then you get into a double ladder stand and watch the sunrise. Your setup is designed around an old logging road that passes by at forty yards a chip shot with a rifle and what should be a chip shot with a cross hospo. But then a good buck bigger than you expected to see, snaps a stick behind your tree. 00:11:06 Speaker 3: You turn around. 00:11:07 Speaker 2: There he is at forty six yards, and he's pointed in a direction that means you have to spin the opposite way and get ready to shoot before he takes more than about ten or twelve steps. You get turned around and pick him up as he clears your tree, but he's taken a few steps farther away and turned harder than you expected. You have to factor all of that in, and while the range might not matter with either weapon, the shot angle does. Then you go to take the safety off, and you can't quite remember where it is because your brain is slowly melting like a grape slushie in the sun. Now you've taken your mind off of the task to do something for a split second that would be totally natural to someone who has practiced more, and now you get that safety off, and you have to reel your mind back into the moment and stop him and execute the shot while a shot clock goes off in your head. It should be easy because with a target at that you'd make a good enough shot with either weapon ten out of ten times. But we all know that your odds, Sorry, it should torry. It should be easy because with a target like that at the range the shooting range I mean, by the way, you'd make a good enough shot with either weapon ten out of ten times. But we also know that your odds of killing that book cleanly are not one hundred percent, and they never will be. But they can be better this year than last, and they can be better in six weeks than they would be if you didn't practice a whole lot. I also have come to believe something else about preseason practice that sort of flies in the face of a lot of modern advice. There is a lot of emphasis on long range shooting these days. It's not all that uncommon to see a video of some dude shooting an arrow at a mule deer a football field away, or some other dude shooting an elk in the mountains that's half a mile away. I'll leave the ethics of that up to the individual, but will say that I do love long distance practice. It feels really good to be able to string together a group of arrows at eighty yards. That wouldn't be too shabby at thirty. You know, to dial in your form and your execution. Long range practice is a great strategy. But I've found in the last several years that I really want to kill deer at about twenty yards. And while I do still shoot some longer stuff, I'm more interested in trying to be the best I can be at sub forty yard shots. I just want to know that, no matter what, if a deer poses up at thirty like they often do, that I couldn't be more confident at that range if I tried. The same goes for my rifle hunts, and the rifle hunting i'm preparing my daughters for. I want them to shoot at two hundred just to see what they can do about it. But I want them really comfortable at like fifty to one hundred yards, because that's the distance range they'll actually shoot when we're in the woods. I know that seems pretty simple because it is, but we get caught up, you know, in trends and a lot of other stuff. There's something to be said about trying to get really good with your weapon at the distances you're most likely to actually shoot at. This is also a great way to enforce a little more patience on ourselves. Effective range, whatever that is for you can be variable depending on situations. But we can also talk ourselves into shooting at a deer because we know our weapon can do it, but can we That's the rub, and I know that personally. I've really started to try to set up for easy close shots because of it. I know what can go wrong, and I know what can happen between my ears. So I want a twenty yard shot way more than I want a forty yard shot, even though when I'm on a range, forty isn't all that much different from twenty. By the time the season is about to open up in the woods, it is, though, and that's something we all learn the heart way over time. So ask yourself what your plan is for the next few weeks. If you haven't started shooting your bow, you better get out there. If you're a crossbow hunter and think you don't really need to practice, I'd say you probably should, even if that is just to work on some elevated practice off the deck or maybe some low light stuff when the sun starts to dip below the trees. And the same goes for rifle hunters. Although most folks aren't going to spend too much time prepping for the rifle season now, we are though in my family because I want my daughters to have really good first hunts, and one of the variables I can control to some extent here is how comfortable they are with their weapon. It's also a great excuse for me to facilitate more practice shooting, too, because the Peterson girls aren't the only ones who need to get more comfortable with the rifles. I guess all that is to say that it is time to shoot for all of us, trad bow hunters, compound hunters, crossbow hunters, gun hunters, whatever you hunt with. There really isn't a downside to this aspect of the preseason, and while it might not make you go ten out of ten in the next three seasons, it's going to help you shoot better than you would if you didn't practice, which is where I'll leave this one for now. So hit the range, shake up your sessions, get comfortable with your weaponry, and come back next week because I'm going to talk about how the social aspect of deer hunting affects all of us and how some of us would be better off planning a little more solo time in the woods. This ball, that's it. I'm Tony Peterson. This has been the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which is brought to you by First Light. As always, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you guys showing up for everything. 00:16:19 Speaker 3: That we have going on here at meat Eater. 00:16:21 Speaker 2: You know, I know we drop a ton of content, new content every day, probably from the film's podcast articles, but I also know that you have a lot of places to go to get hunting content. So we really appreciate it that you support us, that you're loyal to us. Like without without you, guys, we're nothing, So thank you for that. Now, if you want to check out that other content that I'm talking about, the easiest way to do it is the head over to the medeater dot com and you will have more than enough stuff to do there, to read, to watch, to listen to, to fill up your time and maybe help you level up a little bit, maybe just be entertaining for a road trip. Whatever, go check it out at the medeater dot com.