Mental side of duck hunting

Let’s dive into what it really takes beyond the blind.

This episode is all about the mental side of duck hunting the part nobody talks about. Staying motivated in the offseason when the skies are empty. Pushing through slow seasons when nothing seems to go right, and managing the obsession with the grind that comes with chasing something you love.

We break down how to use your past hunts your wins, your losses, your data to get better. How to lean on your crew, your friends, and your family, and understand that everyone’s journey is different. It’s always good, better, best.

At the end of the day, Team DD is built on doing things the right way putting in the work, trusting the process, and respecting the grind no matter the outcome.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right, everybody. Thanks for joining me on the Duck Dependent podcast. Fired up as usual to be here, episode 18, guys. We're going to talk about the mental side of hunting. A few things I want to kind of go over. How to stay motivated in the off-season. Um, and how do you deal with some of those slower seasons? You know, we've all had them. I'm going to talk about a little bit of some I've had and how I deal with them. And then how and that obsession with the grind. During season, off-season, what it takes, all the things that you want to do mentally prepare for preseason, staying motivated, dealing with turbulence, and staying absolutely obsessed with it. But first, let's talk about the partners. They make this thing go. Guys, flight day ammunition, I trust them. Steel shot, max payload. I actually shot my turkey with it. Number fours, ounce and three eighth, 12 gauge, guys. Absolutely hammered them. One shot hit the ground. Flight ammunition, guys. 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They greet you at the door, they talk to you, they make you feel like you're the only customer. So that's Les Schwab Tires, guys, all over the West. Great partners of this show as well. And then DuckDependent.shop, guys. Um, if you go sign up right now for a first time, you get 15% off your first order. And guys, they're actually really starting to move, so I'm very thankful for the customers. But guys, don't wait till duck season. Uh, we've got new drops coming all the time. Um, go check it out, duckdependent.shop. Remember, if you sign up, um, sign up with your email, you get 15% off the first order. So very thankful for all those partners, but we're gonna dive into it. The mental side of hunting, guys, like I talked about. How to stay motivated in the off season. So, or for me, what what things you can do to stay motivated, and I'll just talk about some of those. So, for me, I was actually talking to a good buddy about it, and he's like, man, I need to call more in the offseason to keep improving. Guys, we all do. So, um that's another thing to do um to stay motivated, just kind of keep your mind on it, guys. I don't do it every day, um, but probably bi-weekly I go and probably do a session uh with all the various calls that I have on my lanyard, and just you know, tune myself up or keep myself almost in shape, but you know, from a calling perspective. And if there's something you want to work on, if you want to get better on the feed call, the if you want to do the chuckle, the comeback, the hail, or if you're working on the bouncing hand or whatever it is, um, that's a great way to uh it helps me stay motivated because it kind of gets you in that mood, like, okay, um, yeah, let's keep working on that. And then staying motivated in the off-season, it's really tough because you got life's the summer heat and all these things. But the reality is it's like anything else. If you front load this and get this stuff done, um it really helps you, and then you kind of you you kind of have that light switch of before season or when season gets here of like, hey, I'm ready to go. And so things that I like to do, um, I just talked about calling. Obviously, I keep my dog in shape, and that kind of helps you, you know, think about ducks and stay motivated because I'll I'll go work different bodies of water with them as I'm training blue and keeping him in shape and keeping him dialed in. Um I also do a lot of walking. Um, I talked about it before, a lot of jogging and light weights, and definitely not a like a huge fitness guy, but um, it's helped me over the last four or five years of uh when you travel and you're walking into these public lands, and and that the motivation behind that is hey, I don't want to be tired. Um I don't want to be grumpy when I'm with my buddies or my friends or family or we're getting together because a lot that happens a lot when you're tired and you're out of shape. Um, you get up tight and and you don't want to keep keep going deeper in the woods or chasing or scouting more. And so that's kind of my motivation. Um, big time on that is is some of those things in the offseason is to eliminate that during the season. I don't want to be tired. I want to be in shape. I don't want to have to have a walk that's too far, especially if there's ducks in there, right? I want to be able to get to them and picking up these spreads. Sometimes we put 60, 70 decoys out, and I want to be able to do that for as long as I can. So a lot of that has to do with um, you know, staying motivated and getting after. Uh another thing that we like to do a lot is I usually shoot about probably about two cases of clay ammo out um in the off season, and I like to shoot that with various guns. I have a couple of 20 gauges. I'm pumped up. I got a couple of new ones coming from Retay. Um, but those are all things that I that I love to do. Um, you can go with your buddies, you can get your daughter, your son involved, and you're doing a lot of shooting, and it really doesn't hurt, guys. It's all about reps. Um, and so you know, there's never a scenario that I feel um if I'm on the left side, the right side, in a tree, behind a tree, that I don't feel comfortable with that that retay Ace and shooting. And so those are things that help me stay motivated is thinking about not just doing those things because it's all duck related, but understanding that when I get to season or when you get to the game, so to speak, you've really done everything, and and that motivates me even more um to do all those things to stay ready and be ready. So training training the dog is a great one. If you don't have a dog, staying in somewhat shape, guys. Once again, I'm not saying I'm a fitness buff, but I just like to stay in shape, cardio, lightweight, so that when we it's time to grind, you're ready to go. You don't have that soreness after you hike and do those things. Um and then the little things, practice calling, maybe have all your decoys stringed up, right? That that um all those things in preparation. I'm gonna dive into that in some other episodes, but those are kind of the how I stay motivated in the off season is thinking about when the season actually ticks. And it's all based off your season, but for me, it starts September 1st in some early goose for about a week or two, and then it goes right in from October, the first Saturday of October to the last Sunday of January. I mean, it's all go. And so that's what helps me kind of do all those things is thinking about what that what that grind is because it's a heavy grind, and you guys know that. I know a lot of guys will hunt more than me. I hunted 50 days last year, but I know a lot of guys that hunt 60 days of the season, 80 days, whether you're guiding or you're just a diehard and you want to get after it. Those are it takes a lot to do that. And what I will say is, for me, what I've learned is if I can come into the season, I would say like game game day or game shape ready for all the stuff. It doesn't take a month or two to be like in shape or feeling better about it, right? Like the first two weeks you're just wiped because you you haven't stayed on everything personally or your or your equipment and everything. So I just kind of like having that um kind of motivate me to say, hey, I'm gonna be ready on game day, or I'm gonna be ready on season, and we'll be able to be adaptable, and and so that's a big one for me. And then another one that we're I kind of wanted to talk about was dealing with slow seasons. And I'm gonna dive in a little bit deeper on that because you know it's it's a it's a real thing, and after every year, it seems like um, you know, just from other podcasts and people talking, you're talking with groups and friends and family, or maybe acquaintance, or maybe you volunteer at DU or whatever it is, um, people that have good seasons. This is just my opinion and my observation. When you have a really good season, it you tend to be like those people tend to be quiet. Like you're not really saying much, and you're probably just thankful and soaking it in, like, hey, that was a great year, and then and then a lot of times, maybe that's just everything in life, but when you have a bad season, it's really vocal, and you really want to share why it why it was so bad and how are things um how come they can't improve and all that. So what what I'll say is how I deal with slow seasons, and once again, just my thought, just my opinion. But guys, believe it or not, for as many years as I've been hunting and traveling all over the West, there are some tough seasons. And what I do to combat that is I simply simplify it. And what I mean by that is guys, there's nothing better we talk about the good, better, best. There's nothing better than just getting out on your day off, enjoying the sunrise, running your boat, putting decoys out, um, sharing it with friends or family, sharing it with your daughter, your son, or if you sometimes I've talked about it before, just a good solo hunt, just you and your dog, or you by yourself walking in or boating in, however you do it. It's just peaceful, you can reflect, and some of those days you would need anyways in life. And um but there is there is a thing that gets a little bit disheartening, and it is tough on slow season, and I'll talk about that. I want to say it was about three years ago. And then I want to also let you know on how I try to combat some of that, um, what I've done over the years. So, guys, we chase them, like I said, October to January. And I want to say it was three years ago. But guys, it was absolutely difficult to kill birds, and some of the same locations I've hunted um my entire life, and some of the locations that I've acquired the last decade in four different states. Guys, it was simply we couldn't get on birds, you know, and there was no excuse. We were scouting just as hard. Um there was just these random things that would come up. Well, this person couldn't go, or man, we just got nasty rain and the bird stayed somewhere else. And even in my backyard here in Utah, I know just a couple years ago. Just couldn't consistently get on big numbers of birds. Couldn't get like, I would say, one of those good, better, best, like I said, a better hunt. They were all good because I'm out there and I'm obsessed with it, but just really couldn't get those stacks that you wanted to, right? Everybody loves stacks, so um dealing with that. You really just have to to find a better place mentally and just say, hey guys, this is it. And then I'll get to that in a second, but to combat that is when I had those tough years and we weren't actually killing birds and guys, I was traveling all over. I was doubling down on talking with my friends and family and saying, hey, what do you guys got? Hey, and and I was kind of hearing the same thing, like, man, it's it's you know, it's sparse right now, and and so what I would do to combat it, combat that is well, let's just have fun then. You know, it's uh it's fun anyways, but let's just okay, the part of this trip is gonna be the travel, the new roads, hanging with family, having breakfast, that stuff. I I kind of it's already elevated, guys, but what I'm trying to say is that was really elevated at that time. Hey, let's just get together and go out, man. We we've scouted our tails off. We're trying to find birds all over the dang West, and we're just not doing it, right? We're getting our butt kicked this year, and maybe other guys are successful and they've got it figured out in this tougher year, and maybe it was just us that year, but um things, those are some of the mindset I think is number one to deal with slow seasons. And then another thing that's really cool during slow seasons, and you can kind of get a feel of we're just not finding birds, and I've done this my whole entire life. Try new tactics and go to new areas. And what I mean by that is I've hunted some new pockets and b and bodies of water that I was like, I don't know if that would work. Well, when you're having a bad year, it doesn't matter sometimes. And so I was even here in my backyard trying some new pockets, trying to think outside the box, um, because we I have a great extensive knowledge and documented um through the last since 2008 of good areas and what they've produced. And so we have a I have a good kind of blueprint um on how the season should go almost in these different states and times, and and if all that lines up, you know, it's pretty close. It's Mother Nature still, so it's not 100%. But uh what I'm saying is try different tactics. Um obviously I run a boat a lot, and I remember that year we started hitting just more walk-in spots. It was changing the area, changing the environment, and guys, sometimes that just pumps you up and try something new. Try different decoys, you know, like it's it's whatever it takes to kind of get through those. Go buy a new dozen decoys of a different brand and try them or or shrink your spread down. And so that for me is what I've learned that helps me, and I get to have a lot of fun doing that when it's like, hey, it's November, it's Thanksgiving, it's after Christmas, we're still getting our butts kicked, right? We're we're not really getting those big amounts of birds. Let's go over here. We haven't hunted that in years. I should, you know, I look at my spreadsheet, I hunted it in 2011. We got some birds. Let's go try it, let's go do a micro spread, let's stop throwing out 48, 60. So that are things that I feel like you can combat slow seasons. It's just trying new things, maybe hunt with new people, whatever it is. Just try to mix it up, knowing that it could be that year, and and try to elevate and highlight other people. Maybe, hey, I have a buddy, and that happened, speaking of that for I forget. That year, um, I had a buddy that I've known locally here that's like, hey, I'd like to try to get into duck hunting. And and um, and I said, Hey, I'll be honest with you, it's really it's been really tough right now, but um if you want to get out and kind of get that experience and know what to do, kind of a thing, let's do that. And credit to him because he's like, Yeah, that's probably a good idea before it gets chaos. We got four or five guys together on some banger hunts. And so that was really cool. I got someone involved. It just kind of happened organically, but there's another good thing. Um maybe getting people out and just kind of showing them those onesie twosies. You really learn a lot um when you get some of those some of those onesie twosies or those smaller hunts where it's just a you know, on look on slow seasons, guys. The reality is is I want to hunt with all you know everybody all the time, but a lot of times what ends up happening is you start shrinking it out because people do start falling off and they kind of get the gist of like, well, it's not a good year. So it ends up being just twosie threes, in my experience, anyways. I'm not saying that for everybody, but people tend to fall off. So that's always a good thing, too. Um is you you know, you can get with a buddy, or in this case I was talking about, he kind of came out and he's like, okay, you know, and the onesie twosie's coming in and he gets to raise up and shoot by himself, right? It's not this big chaos thing where you're putting big flocks of 24 or a dozen mallards down. So uh do that. Um that's that that was really helpful. And then lastly, with kind of dealing with the slow season, is before I end that, um, I've talked about in other podcasts, but what we found is what I have to combat that is is knowledge, history, good people throughout the west, where we can kind of pivot. And I know a lot of times duck honey is is regional based, you know, maybe the Midwest or the South or the East or the West is not having a good year, but I'll say this the I would say I've never had a bad season, right? It's good, better, best. The slower seasons we uh have the opportunity to talk to family and friends in a state. Talk to two really good buddies that are a state over, hey, how are you doing? And then my own knowledge of my of all those states and living in different states or traveling to different states, the reality is if that would be my motivation for off-season stuff, and it kind of falls in line is to combat all those things. So staying motivated in the off-season, like I already talked about, I don't want to re-go back to that, but is hey, let's go venture out, let's go find new spots, let's meet some people. Could we trade a hunt? Get those things. That kind of goes into that, I would say that that bullet too I'm talking to about dealing with slow seasons. That helps it because I don't know about you guys, but there's something about loading up the dog, getting in your truck, your boat, wherever, even if you're just driving, whatever you're doing, there's something about remotivating you to go hop over to a state. Go get go set up on a new marsh setting. All that is exciting, even if you're not absolutely hammering them, that can help slow seasons. And then you get to document how you went or where you went, how it went, and all those things. So those kind of fall in line with each other, and you can kind of maybe have a putting parentheses in the air, a slow season not feel like that. Um, and so I've done that a lot of the years, and now the full culmination of you know, if it's a slower year bird count number, or if it's a slower year on hunts, that's okay because you can mix it up and you can make it feel like it's not that. So those are just um kind of those first two bullet points there. Those are just things that I like to do. Um, it's really helped, and I think you evolved to I'm gonna keep saying it till you guys are annoying, but or annoyed is good, better, best. You know, that's where I'm at in life, and it took a lot of years, I'll admit. Took a lot of seasons to come to that to kind of put your the whole culmination of that and figure that out, but that's where I'm at, and I hope that all hunters can do that, whatever you're chasing, turkey, deer, elk, and you guys know, but I'm talking about ducks. If you can get to that point, all these things, your pendulum doesn't swing as far left or right, so to speak, right? You just kind of yeah, it's good, or it's yeah, okay, it could be better, but we're gonna keep we're gonna change it up and we're gonna go here and and um do some different things. And then the obsession with the grind was the last bullet I want to talk about. What I believe it takes to overcome all those things I just talked about, and what duck dependent means is guys, we are. I I'm absolutely obsessed with getting it right, chasing these ducks like it's my job, and also doing it with the people that want to be there, guys. That obsession never goes away, and I don't know if it's an obsession with being successful or it's just a thing that a lot of us have, and I know all you guys have it, whether it's your work life, your dad, your mom, your whatever it is, that never goes away with duck hunting. And I think if you get to that point, just my opinion again, guys, any kind of turbulence or obstacles don't really impact you as much because we've all been through them, right? We've all been through, I've already talked about on some previous podcasts, years of like, okay, buddy's not showing up, somebody backing out last minute. Doesn't mean you can't get mad, sad, or happy or whatever it is. But when you're obsessed with the grind, those don't affect you anymore. And I've learned every time those experiences happened this last year, I felt even better. Okay, who can go, who can't go. Nothing personal, you don't want to go, that's fine, okay, cool. You can't, you're working, there's new experience, you know, new life things going on. I just rolled with it. And whoever could go and and and we wanted to spend time together or share the blind together, we went. And so that the obsession of wanting to be successful and wanting to go and wanting to bring other people in and wanting to do the right thing when we hunt has kind of helped all these bullet points I've talked about kind of scaled down a little bit. Slow seasons, I don't even know what that is anymore. Like I get it on paper if I because I track them on XL, I get it. Okay, I didn't kill as many. Sure, if you that's the definition, well, I won't argue that. But I'm talking about for me, it's easy to stay motivated in the offseason. It's easy to deal with once again, parentheses in the air, slow seasons. It's easy to stay obsessed once you evolve and you get to kind of some of all the things I've talked about, if that makes sense. So for me, um I'll admit this staying after it and going through the grind is very difficult sometimes. Like no matter all that stuff I just said, because it's not just duck hunting. Some of us are fortunate enough to chase ducks as a as a job or almost your job, or you're in the outdoor industry and you do it, but you can't escape life. Your obligations to your your wife, your husband, whatever it is, even if you're a single guy or gal, whatever you have, everyone has obligations for the job, or your dog, or you're helping your grandparents out, your aunt and uncle. And I think all those things can get heavy, and those can affect your motivation. But what I'll say is I've spun it now to when you start going year after year after year, I stay motivated and and stay on the grind because I've almost set set that expectation of people think about that, right? And it's like, well, oh my gosh, you know, like Dion's not hunting as much, and and and is everything okay, right? Those I I kind of laugh, but that's kind of the real thing. That's what kind of keeps me motivated and keeps me on the grind is the expectations you've set um for everybody. So it's like anything at work when you're reliable and dependable, and all of a sudden you don't show up or you don't get the job done, or in time, people start looking at it like, oh man, is everything okay? Everything and it's just little things like that that I've done and used in life to just stay motivated and stay after it. And I actually get excited because I just talked to somebody, um, uh I would say a good buddy of mine, we were talking about hunting, and he's in the outdoor industry, and we were talking about last year, and he was like, Man, I was just getting my butt kicked. And I was like, Really? And he goes, Yeah, we just couldn't get on birds, and and he hunts local, he doesn't travel a whole bunch, and so he just Said, you know what, we're gonna change it up, and I took something from him. He he is older than me, but he goes, you know, I started hunting with my son-in-law, and we couldn't figure it out. We were doing the early thing and we were doing the afternoon thing, and he says, You know what we did? We got tired of getting our butt kicked and getting up early. We started going on Saturday or Sunday, I forgot what he said, their days off. He goes, We started I started going to his house and and uh hanging with my daughter, and we'd have a good breakfast and we'd have some fellowship and chit-chat, and then just go to the to the marsh mid-morning and and hunt midday. And I kind of and I kind of wrote that down in my, you know, took a mental note of like that's the way to do it. And he he's he's figured that out as well of like, hey, October, November, even December when we got weather. We were out there early, we got the the number one spot, the number, you know, the top spots that we know of, and the birds just simply didn't do it. So and so he kind of transitioned that latter part of the year. We have a big season out here out west, guys. If you're new to listeners, 107 days, 105 days. They transitioned to spending time with my son-in-law, he'd get to see his daughter, have breakfast, see his grandkids, and they'd go out mid-morning in the marsh, and like I said, they changed something up to combat, you know, like some of those bullet points I talked about, dealing with slow seasons. Um and so I took that for my own thought, and I'm gonna continue to input that later. Maybe that's something I have in my tool belt. Hey, when the seasons, man, we're just getting our butt kicked. What can we do? Oh, maybe I'll do that, you know, just something to mix it up. So, with that, guys, the mental side of hunting, it's a big deal, but I I just want to echo what I like to do. Stay positive, good, better, best. It's the boat ride, the dogs, the fellowship, the obsession to find ducks, all those things line up for me, and they're really high on my list to keep top priority. Um I want everyone I'm with to have a good time. And so if you have all those things, if you line up those things, the birds are an absolute bonus. And I'll be honest, I'm super competitive and want birds just like anybody else, and and and want to and get as many as I can, right? Whatever the legal limit is, but I want to do it the right way. I want to do it with the right people, and when those things fall in line, the birds are an absolute bonus, and it just takes you to that next level, Nirvana, when you have all those things in line, and then you're successful with birds. So, with that, guys, thank you for catching up on this. I've got a whole series I'm coming with coming out with the off season. Um, I'm super excited on the next one. I'm gonna be heading down the road, and we're gonna uh get Mud Buddy back on the podcast, guys. We we had Keith on here before. We're gonna get him back on there. So with this, with that, guys, thank you to the spot the sponsors again, Ritay USA. I'm gonna say it every time. The baddest inertia shotgun on planet. Les Schwab tires, good, better, best. Greet you at the door. They're always there for your tire needs. Flight day ammunition, guys, max payload steel. Do not wait. Who knows what goes on with ammo and all these things. Get it, save some money at checkout with DD10, Flight Day Ammo, guys, DD 10, and then duckdependent.shop, guys. Premium hatch, premium lids. If you sign up for the first time, it's 15% off on your first order. And with that, guys, I'll catch you on the next one.