Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
Speaker 1: the white Tail Woods, presented by first Light, creating proven
Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand saddler blind, First Light,
Speaker 1: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon, and this week on the show, I'm joined
Speaker 1: by Kip Adams to discuss the current state of white
Speaker 1: tails and the opportunities we have to create a better
Speaker 1: future for deer and deer hunting. All right, welcome back
Speaker 1: to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by
Speaker 1: First Light. Today we are walking into week two of
Speaker 1: our Conservation Month series, and as I just mentioned, we're
Speaker 1: joined by Kip Adams and this week's show is a
Speaker 1: really nice I guess zoom in from where we started
Speaker 1: last week. If you remember last week we talked with
Speaker 1: Doug Chadwick and got this thirty thousand foot overview of
Speaker 1: kind of the state of wildlife across the world. How
Speaker 1: do we stand, where are things going? What caused for
Speaker 1: concern is there? Where do we see hope? What kind
Speaker 1: of action can we take to make sure there are
Speaker 1: wild critters all across this world? And now today we're
Speaker 1: going to zoom in to America and one specific species,
Speaker 1: white tailed deer. I think anyone listening to this podcast
Speaker 1: would probably rank white tails right at the top of
Speaker 1: their list of favorite critters, and I think that's going
Speaker 1: to make today's episode particularly interesting to a lot of you.
Speaker 1: Our guest, Kip Adams, as I mentioned, is the chief
Speaker 1: conservation officer for the National Deer Association, and what we're
Speaker 1: doing today is using the twenty twenty three Deer Report
Speaker 1: and this document that the National Deer Association it's together
Speaker 1: every year. We're going to use that as a tool
Speaker 1: to explore the current state of white tails across the country.
Speaker 1: Where things stand with a herd. What kind of trends
Speaker 1: are we seeing in the harvest data, in the information
Speaker 1: that state game and fish agencies are sharing, What kinds
Speaker 1: of changes are we seeing, what's looking good, what's looking
Speaker 1: not so good? What do we need to work on?
Speaker 1: What can we be doing to continue what in many
Speaker 1: ways are the golden years of deer hunting in this country.
Speaker 1: We cover a lot of stuff like that. We explore
Speaker 1: some really interesting trends that we're seeing, some maybe surprising
Speaker 1: data points that Kip and his team have pulled out,
Speaker 1: and we also talk through some action, some things that
Speaker 1: we as deer hunters and managers can do tangibly to
Speaker 1: make things better or to change the story or to
Speaker 1: keep the good times going. We cover everything from current
Speaker 1: trends with buck age structure. We talk about antler lists
Speaker 1: and their buck harvest numbers, where things are looking there.
Speaker 1: We talk through some really interesting things around how and
Speaker 1: why and when we should be targeting at loveless deer
Speaker 1: and why that's important to maintaining good deer hunting and
Speaker 1: a healthy herd and healthy balance with our habitat out there.
Speaker 1: We dive into some policy, some legislation that's particularly important.
Speaker 1: We talk about the importance of private land conservation, especially
Speaker 1: for deer and deer hunting, and the opportunity that provides
Speaker 1: a lot of us. We do spend some time talking
Speaker 1: about CWD, which is not necessarily a fun thing to
Speaker 1: talk about, but we took advantage today to kind of
Speaker 1: level set to see, Okay, this has been a thing
Speaker 1: we've been talking about a long time. Where are we today?
Speaker 1: What's real? What's you know, what's the data show us today?
Speaker 1: What's working, what's not working? What can we really do.
Speaker 1: Moving forward, we get a new sense of all that
Speaker 1: and man, that's just scratching the surface. There's a whole
Speaker 1: lot covered today. I think that I know that every
Speaker 1: one of you listening is a deer hunter, interested in
Speaker 1: white tailed deer in the future, wanting to make sure
Speaker 1: we've got these creatures to hunt, to watch, to chase,
Speaker 1: to study, to introduce your kids too, or your friends too.
Speaker 1: I know this stuff matters to you, and I know
Speaker 1: that I think you'll be able to find some ideas
Speaker 1: here today that you can take action on to make
Speaker 1: sure this stuff lasts long, long into the future. So
Speaker 1: that's the plan. That's what we're going to discuss. I
Speaker 1: will give you one more quick PSA, which is just
Speaker 1: an update on what I've been sharing with you over
Speaker 1: the last couple of weeks, which is the latest on
Speaker 1: the Working for Wildlife Tour. This is a series of
Speaker 1: volunteer events that we are hosting and participating in in
Speaker 1: collaboration with a bunch of different conservation organizations where we're
Speaker 1: heading out to public land across the country and doing
Speaker 1: some good work. We are picking up trash, make habitat improvements,
Speaker 1: doing different stuff like that. I told you last week
Speaker 1: about the first event, and our second event is coming
Speaker 1: up in just over a week, so I just want
Speaker 1: to give you another reminder. That is April twenty second,
Speaker 1: Earth Day up in Calcaska, Michigan, in partnership with the
Speaker 1: MUCC that's Michigan United Conservation Clubs. We're gonna be building
Speaker 1: small game habitat, brush piles, some other habitat stuff that's
Speaker 1: gonna be great for all sorts of creatures, including deer
Speaker 1: of course, and we're gonna have a good time. So
Speaker 1: I hope to see you there on Earth Day. If
Speaker 1: you can't make it, or if you live in the
Speaker 1: other part of the country, man, don't let that stop you.
Speaker 1: Get out there on some public lan by your house
Speaker 1: or your own dear property, or just your backyard and
Speaker 1: planet tree, pick up some trash, get out there with
Speaker 1: some buddies, do a little something. I can promise you
Speaker 1: it does help and it's a good time. So that's
Speaker 1: it for me. Let's get into my chat with Kip
Speaker 1: Adams as we dive into the state of white tails
Speaker 1: across the country. All right here with me now for
Speaker 1: what I don't know, Maybe it's the tenth or eleventh,
Speaker 1: twelfth time. I'm not sure what it is, Kip, but
Speaker 1: we've got a Kip Adams back on the show. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Kip for being so generous with your time over all
Speaker 1: these years. Absolutely Mark my pleasure. And yeah, it's hard
Speaker 1: to believe we've had this many dear reports to talk
Speaker 1: about here, but good information just keeps on coming. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I just passed ten years of doing this podcast, which
Speaker 1: blows my mind. I don't know where the time went,
Speaker 1: but uh, it's it's gone fast. So you and I
Speaker 1: both were getting up there, Kip. Yeah, that's not I
Speaker 1: got a good way to start this at all. Mark.
Speaker 1: Usually we have a we have a great conversation, but
Speaker 1: it's certainly we have We've got to talk about a
Speaker 1: lot of deer stuff over the years, and it is
Speaker 1: crazy to think how long we've both been in the
Speaker 1: dear world and you know, and things we've been doing.
Speaker 1: So I agree, time has certainly gone fast. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think it's because we both enjoy what we do
Speaker 1: so much. That's true. Certainly doesn't drag doesn't feel like
Speaker 1: a job where we're both very fortunate. Yeah, that is
Speaker 1: that is the truth. It's a good problem to have
Speaker 1: when it seems to fly by, so I can't I
Speaker 1: can't complain, Um. But as you know, Kip, we've done
Speaker 1: these almost every year for I'm not sure if it's
Speaker 1: been ever one of those years that the podcasts have
Speaker 1: been around, but if not, it's really close. So the
Speaker 1: audience probably knows what to expect here, but just in
Speaker 1: case they don't, you know, my hope is to of
Speaker 1: course review your latest edition of the Deer Report, Um,
Speaker 1: and some of the highlights, some of the trends, some
Speaker 1: of the things that you're particularly interested in. But then
Speaker 1: also I think hopefully leave folks with a better understanding
Speaker 1: of just where do we stand right now when it
Speaker 1: comes to deer and deer hunting and habitat and all
Speaker 1: those different factors that impact this pursuit and lifestyle that
Speaker 1: we love so much in the in the resource that
Speaker 1: makes all that possible. So that being said, Kip, if
Speaker 1: I can toss you into the deep end right out
Speaker 1: the gay forgive me, um. But let's imagine you were
Speaker 1: a doctor, okay, like a medical doctor, and deer and
Speaker 1: deer hunting as a combination. I guess we'll talk to
Speaker 1: the animals and the life style and the habitat necessary
Speaker 1: if that was your patient, If you were the doctor
Speaker 1: and deer and deer hunting is your patient, how would
Speaker 1: you assess its assess its general health today? If we
Speaker 1: just got out of our check in for the year,
Speaker 1: what would you tell us? How would you assess or
Speaker 1: diagnose the current state of white tails and white tail hunting?
Speaker 1: And if you want to expand that to general deer
Speaker 1: that's fine too. But what's what's our standing right now?
Speaker 1: I think it would be that the patient is in,
Speaker 1: for the most part, really good condition. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of very positive things. Maybe it's a professional I think,
Speaker 1: you know, it's finally tuned, you know, well muscled, great
Speaker 1: cardiovascular shape. But maybe it's had an injury that he
Speaker 1: or she is dealing with that's not out of one
Speaker 1: hundred percent. I think that's a fair assessment relative to
Speaker 1: where deer hunting is. There's we are in the golden
Speaker 1: age for for so many aspects of it, and I
Speaker 1: know that we'll talk about some of those on here today.
Speaker 1: So there's some really really good things going on in
Speaker 1: the deer world today. Of course, it's not without as
Speaker 1: challenge as though, so as I'm alluded to, maybe an
Speaker 1: injury that they're getting over. It's kind of the disease
Speaker 1: aspect of what so many hunters have to deal with today,
Speaker 1: with the CWD first and foremost. Certainly there's some other
Speaker 1: deer diseases, but that being the big one. So I
Speaker 1: think I think it's very fair to say there's a
Speaker 1: lot of really really good things going on, um, but
Speaker 1: a little nag and injury that we have to deal
Speaker 1: with as well. Okay, so one of the things that
Speaker 1: you know, that's kind of my sense of things from
Speaker 1: the outside, kind of trying to assess where we're at.
Speaker 1: It's seems like that's the case. But one of the
Speaker 1: I guess risks of being in that kind of situation
Speaker 1: where things are going pretty well, where you know you're
Speaker 1: you're on the Baltimore Ravens and you're playing well, life's good.
Speaker 1: You've seem to be pretty high. You're riding high and
Speaker 1: happy is that you can. It can be tempting to
Speaker 1: let your guard down. It can be tempting to get
Speaker 1: lazy and just kind of ride that momentum the good
Speaker 1: let the good times keep rolling. It's tempting in those situations,
Speaker 1: I think too. I don't know if apathy is the
Speaker 1: right word. But when there isn't a serious, imposing threat
Speaker 1: or a boogeyman breathing down your neck, it's easy to
Speaker 1: not be engaged, to not be active, and so, in
Speaker 1: stepping away from the analogy, just directly what we're dealing
Speaker 1: with here, I worry sometimes that we deer hunters have
Speaker 1: it so good across so much of the country and
Speaker 1: the white tail population and have it there's a lot
Speaker 1: of good things going on that it would be easy
Speaker 1: to lose sight or to not be involved in trying
Speaker 1: to perpetuate that. Do you ever think about that? Do
Speaker 1: you ever worry about that? I mean, I know this
Speaker 1: has been a thing that in the past there's been
Speaker 1: conversation around It's like, man, the duck hunters are really active,
Speaker 1: or the upland hunters are really active with their conservation
Speaker 1: work and advocacy, because like those things have needed it,
Speaker 1: But white tails for so long have been doing so
Speaker 1: well that we don't always get that engagement. Is this
Speaker 1: I'm rambling now, Kip. Are you worry about the same things?
Speaker 1: Is that something that makes sense? Am I onto something
Speaker 1: or am I over blowing it? No? I do think
Speaker 1: you're onto something, And you know, I'm not somebody that's
Speaker 1: screening the sky is fallen by any means. But I
Speaker 1: think it's always good, you know, to keep our eye
Speaker 1: on the prize here. You can look at waterfowl hunters today,
Speaker 1: You could look at turkey hunters today. You don't have
Speaker 1: to look very far to realize, holy caw. You know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't all that long ago we were at historically
Speaker 1: high turkey numbers and just tre just turkey hunting them.
Speaker 1: That's not the case for a large part of that
Speaker 1: range today. Yeah, been thin in waterfowl hunting. You know,
Speaker 1: there's you know, there's there's a lot of work being
Speaker 1: done on that, but suddenly it's not the Golden age anymore.
Speaker 1: So I think what you're saying is a very fair assessment.
Speaker 1: We are enjoying some historically good deer hunting right now,
Speaker 1: but you know that's because hunters have been engaged so
Speaker 1: much in the past two decades, and that today's hunters
Speaker 1: are so much more knowledgeable about deer and wanting to
Speaker 1: get engaged with these programs. So I think it's good
Speaker 1: that our hunters are engaged as much as they are,
Speaker 1: and I think it's important that they stay that way
Speaker 1: to make sure that we continue to have great deer hunting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so is there anything specifically before we dive into the
Speaker 1: report itself right out here at the top, is there
Speaker 1: anything that you think we as a community need to
Speaker 1: be engaging and more or really keeping an eye on
Speaker 1: or making sure is top of our list to you know,
Speaker 1: be ready to jump at the moment's notice, to ensure
Speaker 1: that we don't end up in a situation like the
Speaker 1: Turkey world has been recently or something else. How do
Speaker 1: we make sure we keep our position in our golden years?
Speaker 1: How do we keep that going kip and avoid this
Speaker 1: slip back? Well, I think the single largest threat to
Speaker 1: the future of what we have right now from a
Speaker 1: deer hunting world is chronic waste and disease continues to spread,
Speaker 1: continues to infect more deer herbs. So I think that
Speaker 1: is where hunters need to stay in tune, need to
Speaker 1: do what they can to to limit the spread of that.
Speaker 1: As of right now, we can't stop it, but we
Speaker 1: don't sure can limit where it is. And there's something
Speaker 1: that every single hunter can engage in that fight, And
Speaker 1: then you know, that's not a fun thing to talk about.
Speaker 1: And so because of that, a lot of hunters don't,
Speaker 1: but we try to take the tack that, hey, this
Speaker 1: is not a good thing for sure. However, there is
Speaker 1: something that every hundred can do every day that he
Speaker 1: or she goes to the woods to help this. So
Speaker 1: I think that's an important message for hunters to hear
Speaker 1: and to realize, and the more hunters that do help
Speaker 1: with that, the better job we can do. Keeping the
Speaker 1: disease word is right now, you know, and getting science
Speaker 1: of time to catch up and figure out a way
Speaker 1: to defeat. So since we're since this, since you brought
Speaker 1: it up, let's drill into the CWD side of things
Speaker 1: a little bit, because you're right like it is. It's
Speaker 1: one of those topics where I think there has been
Speaker 1: some real issue fatigue. I think folks have gotten, for
Speaker 1: better or worse, tired of hearing about CWD, or they
Speaker 1: have felt like, well, everyone made a huge hullabaloo about
Speaker 1: it so many years ago, but you know, it pops
Speaker 1: up here and there, but it's really not impacting media.
Speaker 1: It's not really taking anything that I'm seeing yet, And
Speaker 1: so I think there's this continued perception that it's it's
Speaker 1: not looming or it's not what it was thought to be,
Speaker 1: or that I don't know, just hear this kind of
Speaker 1: sentiment simmering still as CW just becomes more and more prevalent,
Speaker 1: and there's almost maybe when I'm getting at here, has
Speaker 1: there's been like a shifting baseline where a long time
Speaker 1: ago and c to CWD first popped up, it was like,
Speaker 1: oh man, this is this is this is new? What
Speaker 1: do we do? But now it's almost becoming baked into
Speaker 1: the culture, like we all know about it. It's there
Speaker 1: and it's kind of silently there. What's your read on
Speaker 1: where we are now, Kip with the CWD situation, and
Speaker 1: do you feel like on the research side, with new
Speaker 1: things we've learned, or what's the progress towards some kind
Speaker 1: of solution. Is it just feels like we've been treading
Speaker 1: water for a long time? Am I right on that?
Speaker 1: What's your read? I think you're right, yeah, we we
Speaker 1: have been treading water, or at least it feels like,
Speaker 1: you know, there's no good news about it because everything
Speaker 1: we're here is so dire, and I think that there
Speaker 1: is some good news relative to some success, is that
Speaker 1: the researchers showed us so you know, for example, we
Speaker 1: have better ways to test for today in the landscape
Speaker 1: than in the past. UM. We have ways that we
Speaker 1: can go out and identify without having to have a
Speaker 1: dead deer you know that's either shot during hunting season
Speaker 1: or as part of a targeted removal or are killed
Speaker 1: in the road. That's a huge advancement that we can
Speaker 1: now start to find new errors where this is. We
Speaker 1: are continue to reduce the amount of time that it
Speaker 1: takes to get a sample back to a hunter, you know,
Speaker 1: if they harvest the deer, to go until they find
Speaker 1: out whether the deer had the disease or not. So,
Speaker 1: you know, those are those are things that are definitely
Speaker 1: bright spots in the fight against the disease UM. You know,
Speaker 1: there's there's legislation now that that's helping states, you know,
Speaker 1: monetarily battle this disease so UM for a long time,
Speaker 1: there just wasn't any good news at all, and we're
Speaker 1: starting to see some some victories with that now. What
Speaker 1: the disease is still one hundred percent fail all the deer,
Speaker 1: but least we're starting to figure out ways to do
Speaker 1: a better job with surveillance and with monitoring and given
Speaker 1: hunters some other things, you know, that can help them
Speaker 1: or at least help this be less of an inconvenience
Speaker 1: for them. So I think those are all good things,
Speaker 1: and I'm hopeful that that's, you know, just on the
Speaker 1: cusp of more things to come that will help hunters.
Speaker 1: So I'm an optimist, you know. I firmly believe that
Speaker 1: we are going to beat this someday. So I want
Speaker 1: to do everything in my power to make sure that
Speaker 1: when we figure out how to beat it, it's in
Speaker 1: as few places as possible, so that weekend eradicated as
Speaker 1: quickly as possible. I don't I don't want to see
Speaker 1: this in every county that has white tails and mule
Speaker 1: deer and elk and just make it that much harder
Speaker 1: to battle. Yeah, I don't know how deep you've gone
Speaker 1: into this side of things, Kip, so if this is
Speaker 1: beyond your purview, don't feel bad telling me that. But
Speaker 1: have we you know, we've been I can't remember what
Speaker 1: the year was that CWD first popped up down there
Speaker 1: in southwest Wisconsin, but it's been a good number of
Speaker 1: years and that feels like maybe twenty years or something
Speaker 1: like that. Now where we've been, you know, actively as
Speaker 1: a deer hunting community talking about it, trying to deal
Speaker 1: with it, trying to adapt to it, trying to mitigate
Speaker 1: what's happening. Do you feel like we're making progress in that?
Speaker 1: What's the word I'm looking for here in dealing with it?
Speaker 1: Have we are we getting better at slowing the spread?
Speaker 1: Have the things we tried in certain states led to
Speaker 1: some best practices now that are actually working. Do you
Speaker 1: feel like that side of things is getting better so
Speaker 1: that now twenty years later, we are doing a better
Speaker 1: job of slowing the spread? Has there been progress there?
Speaker 1: Do you think? Absolutely? And you're right. There was first
Speaker 1: confirmed in Wisconsin in two thousand and two from from
Speaker 1: Deer that we're harvested in the fallible one. So yes,
Speaker 1: it's been just over twenty years now. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of wildlife professionals that they've spent their entire career, you know,
Speaker 1: with CWD. So at that time we knew so little
Speaker 1: about it that there wasn't much hope at all. Fast
Speaker 1: forward to today, and yes, many states are dueing a
Speaker 1: much better job than Wisconsin was able to do at
Speaker 1: limiting the spread. Illinois is a perfect example. They got
Speaker 1: they found the disease at the same time as Wisconsin
Speaker 1: took a very different tact and at try to reduce it,
Speaker 1: and much of those initial areas in Wisconsin today the
Speaker 1: prevalence rate is over forty of some of those deer.
Speaker 1: In Illinois, we're still in the single digits, you know,
Speaker 1: four or five percent prevalence rate, you know, strictly from
Speaker 1: a management standpoint, So we've seen, you know what, Illinois
Speaker 1: has done a much better job at limiting that spread
Speaker 1: past two decades. There's a lot of other states who
Speaker 1: are just now finding it or maybe have found it
Speaker 1: within the last five years. They're able to do more
Speaker 1: of what Illinois did, you know, to help limit that spread.
Speaker 1: So we definitely have some case examples today of things
Speaker 1: to do and things not to do that helps every
Speaker 1: state that now finds it or you know, continues to
Speaker 1: deal with it. You've got a big section in the
Speaker 1: report about I think the terminology is targeted removal for
Speaker 1: CWD management. Is that a big part of what Illinois
Speaker 1: got right? Or if not, what do you think, you know,
Speaker 1: what is the best practice that Illinois has has shown
Speaker 1: works so much better than what's going on in Wisconsin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is what they got right, and early on Wisconsin
Speaker 1: employed that strategy as well, but for political reasons that
Speaker 1: they had to forego it, so they stopped. Illinois continued
Speaker 1: with that, and we are a big fan of that
Speaker 1: partly because it allows agencies to go in and strategically
Speaker 1: removed dear in areas where you know you have the disease.
Speaker 1: So you can remove far more CWD positive animals by
Speaker 1: shooting fewer animals in total than any other way. So
Speaker 1: what that means is you can remove those animals from
Speaker 1: the landscape, which helps all the deer that are there,
Speaker 1: the remaining deer. But then it helps hunters too because
Speaker 1: that is the least inconvenience to hunters. You know, it's
Speaker 1: outside of the hunting season. It involves the smallest number
Speaker 1: of properties, the smallest number of actual deer, So it's
Speaker 1: best for hunters and it's best for the deer resource.
Speaker 1: So so it's some targeted removal can be a really
Speaker 1: really good strategy in those areas, and Illinois is living
Speaker 1: proof of it. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. I know
Speaker 1: it's I know that's no fun for the person who
Speaker 1: owns and hunts that property where it happens, but it
Speaker 1: sure seems to make sense for the long term, and
Speaker 1: the numbers, like you said in Illinois certainly seemed to
Speaker 1: back that up. It's hard to argue with that. You
Speaker 1: mentioned one other piece of good news on the CWD side,
Speaker 1: which is some legislation. I'm assuming you're referencing the CWD
Speaker 1: Research and Management Act, which seemed like one of the
Speaker 1: most substantial wins we've had from alleged lative perspective when
Speaker 1: it comes to deer maybe in a while, Am I
Speaker 1: right on that? Is? Is it truly going to be impactful?
Speaker 1: This is the thing that folks were talking about last year,
Speaker 1: really trying to push across the finish line, and we
Speaker 1: did it. Now what Yeah, you're right, and that's exactly
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about. You know, up to this point,
Speaker 1: in the very early years, there was some federal funding
Speaker 1: to monitor CWD and to collect samples. All that went
Speaker 1: away almost twenty years ago. So the the cost of
Speaker 1: this has been on the state wilife agencies, you know,
Speaker 1: almost the entire cost, which means then they have to
Speaker 1: take money away from other things they would much rather do,
Speaker 1: like enhance habitat and you know, a hundred recruitment and
Speaker 1: you know, public access, all those things that has hunters
Speaker 1: we would love to have our state wallife agency working on.
Speaker 1: So much of that money got shifted into disease sampling,
Speaker 1: disease monitoring, etc. Well, now this CWD Research and Management
Speaker 1: Act makes seventy million dollars available a year, thirty five
Speaker 1: million for research, thirty five million for management, and that
Speaker 1: will be split among the states. So that suddenly now
Speaker 1: the money of the state wilife agencies had four of
Speaker 1: those other things we wanted them to do, they can
Speaker 1: put that money back in those coffers. So this is
Speaker 1: this legislation is a huge win for deer hunters, for
Speaker 1: all wildlife enthusiasts, and ultimately our deer hurts. So that
Speaker 1: this is a really really good thing. Good good, Well,
Speaker 1: I'm glad that was that was one of those nice
Speaker 1: last minute addends there at the end of the year
Speaker 1: last year that that came to fruition, and it seemed like,
Speaker 1: man on paper, this sounds like it should be a
Speaker 1: good thing because you know, we can't we can't solve
Speaker 1: the CWD issue and finally push that off the plate
Speaker 1: unless there's the funding necessary to get the research done,
Speaker 1: to get the monitoring done to do all those different things.
Speaker 1: So I was, I was glad to see that, um,
Speaker 1: and now we'll just have to see what happens coming
Speaker 1: out of it. But h but thank you for humoring
Speaker 1: me kept by starting with like the downer topic, which
Speaker 1: is not the most fun thing to talk about though,
Speaker 1: But I feel like, as you in your analogy, like
Speaker 1: the nagging injury that this elite athlete has right now
Speaker 1: can't be ignored. If you ignore the nagging injury, that
Speaker 1: nagging injury, all of a sudden becomes something that knocks
Speaker 1: you out for a year or two or three, or
Speaker 1: takes you out of the league completely. You know. So
Speaker 1: let's let's look at in the hairy eyeball versus sweeping
Speaker 1: underneath the rug. Now, I agree, it doesn't do it's
Speaker 1: any good to hide from it. So there's there is
Speaker 1: so much good stuff going on, So I think we're
Speaker 1: fine starting with that one and getting that right out
Speaker 1: of the way, and then we can just start talking
Speaker 1: about good stuff and gain momentum throughout throughout this talk. Yes, exactly, So,
Speaker 1: so give me some of the good news kit. What's
Speaker 1: maybe one or two of the most exciting or important
Speaker 1: takeaways that you took out of this year's report as
Speaker 1: you compiled it and as you've reviewed it, we see
Speaker 1: justin sheer numbers of deer that hunters are killing remains
Speaker 1: very high. It really strong deer harvest across the white
Speaker 1: tails range. We have mule deer harvests as well. That's
Speaker 1: a separate section in here. And you know, relative to
Speaker 1: five or ten years ago, mule deer are doing really
Speaker 1: well too, so that's good. We had such a long
Speaker 1: slide and mule deer numbers that the good news is
Speaker 1: many of those populations today have either stabilized or some
Speaker 1: of them are increasing. So mule deer are looking pretty
Speaker 1: good relative to where they were a few years ago,
Speaker 1: and white tails are really really strong. We're maintained in
Speaker 1: very high buck harvest rate, almost historically high numbers. But
Speaker 1: we have better age structure in the buckside that we've
Speaker 1: had in at least the last one hundred and maybe
Speaker 1: last hundred and fifty years. And that's pretty cool from
Speaker 1: a deer health standpoint, and it's obviously really cool from
Speaker 1: a hunter standpoint. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's one of
Speaker 1: those things that folks are feeling on the ground. I mean,
Speaker 1: just in my you know, fifteen years in this side
Speaker 1: of things, running Wired to Hunt and everything. I remember
Speaker 1: seeing these early reports about you know, age structure and
Speaker 1: that data that was showing where things were, you know,
Speaker 1: for example, in my home state of Michigan. And I
Speaker 1: have been able to over the last fifteen plus year
Speaker 1: scene on the ground with my own eyes those changes here,
Speaker 1: and I know they're being felt across the state or
Speaker 1: across the country. Sorry, and yeah, I mean, I know
Speaker 1: we've talked about this in the past, but that age structure,
Speaker 1: it leads to a different hunting experience, whether or not
Speaker 1: you're wanting to target mature bucks. It just leads to
Speaker 1: a more natural herd, a different dynamic across the landscape.
Speaker 1: It seems to have a lot of ripple effects, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's been what the QTMA preached for so
Speaker 1: many years, was that there's all these there's this cascading
Speaker 1: series of benefits when you manage for a natural herd
Speaker 1: in balance with the habitat. And and you must I
Speaker 1: think we've talked about this last year, maybe too, but
Speaker 1: it must be really rewarding for you, Kip and the
Speaker 1: rest of the team there to see so many of
Speaker 1: the things that you've advocated for over the last couple
Speaker 1: of decades, you know, manifesting in real life now. Oh,
Speaker 1: it is that it's so rewarding, you know, because we
Speaker 1: want to see deer herds man as well, you know,
Speaker 1: and be able to express what they can and you know,
Speaker 1: and show the way that they evolve. And you know,
Speaker 1: in the hunters are the ultimate benefishiaries of that. So
Speaker 1: being a lifelong deer hunter, it's great to see hunters
Speaker 1: be able to photograph older bucks during the course of
Speaker 1: the year and you know, and see very natural behaviors
Speaker 1: like a group of bachelor a group of bucks in
Speaker 1: the summer, and you know, an older deer in the fall,
Speaker 1: you know, a chase mature bucks during the rut and
Speaker 1: fighting and just everything that goes with it. It is very,
Speaker 1: very rewarding for sure. And I vividly remember, um, maybe
Speaker 1: fifteen years ago, I built a talk that I gave
Speaker 1: on you know, uh where where the best places were
Speaker 1: to kill mature bucks? And uh gosh, it was like,
Speaker 1: you know, five places in the country, you know that
Speaker 1: that's where if you wanted the mature buck, you went
Speaker 1: to one of these places. And that was really it.
Speaker 1: And uh, just think about where we are today. You know,
Speaker 1: you legitimately have the chance of killing a mature buck,
Speaker 1: you know, in every single state that white tails live.
Speaker 1: So it's not just you know, a handful of hunters anymore,
Speaker 1: or you don't have to travel numerous states to get
Speaker 1: to one of these spots anymore. You know, deer are
Speaker 1: are accessible to just about every hunter in the country,
Speaker 1: and you can you can be in any state that
Speaker 1: white tails are and legitimately have a chance to hunt
Speaker 1: mature deer. And uh, and that's really really cool. Now,
Speaker 1: while on the buck side of things and age structure
Speaker 1: and sheer numbers, that all seems to be pretty darn positive.
Speaker 1: You know, the other half of the quality dear management
Speaker 1: equation has always been also managing the antler list population,
Speaker 1: and that is how you manage the overall population in
Speaker 1: relation to habitat, right, And that the antler list side
Speaker 1: of things stood out to me though, is another possible
Speaker 1: This looks like a little concerning And I know over
Speaker 1: the last couple of years you've been seeing this too,
Speaker 1: this idea or idea, but the fact that we seem
Speaker 1: to be getting a reduced antler list harvest compared to
Speaker 1: antler bucks when it really should be the reverse. If
Speaker 1: I think I got the steat here right, tell me
Speaker 1: if this is wrong. But I think in the report
Speaker 1: it showed that fifty nine percent of states killed more
Speaker 1: bucks than does in the twenty twenty one season, which
Speaker 1: is what the stat is from. Did I get that right?
Speaker 1: And what's your read on that and the trend that
Speaker 1: we've seen pop up in the last couple of years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the one thing that we need to really start and
Speaker 1: a handle on is we do need to start shooting
Speaker 1: more ant loists deer than antlerd bucks. Again. For a
Speaker 1: bunch of years during the early in mid two thousands,
Speaker 1: we did that, and that's what gave us a bunch
Speaker 1: of the successes that we have today relative to correct
Speaker 1: number of deer for what our habitats can support. But
Speaker 1: we come along, you know, two fourteen fifteen, basically a
Speaker 1: lot of states, through increased antalist harvests, had balanced deer
Speaker 1: herbs with their habitat, so they strategically then reduced the
Speaker 1: number of ant loist year that hunters needed to take.
Speaker 1: You know, we don't need to shoot some many anymore
Speaker 1: because we're in a good spot. Well, that corresponded with
Speaker 1: a couple of really bad hammorrhagic disease years where we
Speaker 1: lost a bunch of deer about the time that in
Speaker 1: the southeastern US we were seeing greatly elevated kyrie populations
Speaker 1: and reduced fun recruitment rates. So there was a lot
Speaker 1: of things that work together there and really scared a
Speaker 1: bunch of hunters into oh man, we were shooting a
Speaker 1: bunch of doze. Things were good. All of a sudden,
Speaker 1: Now our agencies are telling us not to shoot as
Speaker 1: many and deer herbs are dropping. So what that did
Speaker 1: is that had a ripple effect where for several years
Speaker 1: after that, hunters really pulled back it purposely were passing
Speaker 1: on ant last deer that probably didn't need to as much.
Speaker 1: So we're at a point today where you know, suddenly
Speaker 1: more states or harvesting bucks than ant last deer now,
Speaker 1: which is not a not a good thing. There are
Speaker 1: some states that should do that. States northern New England,
Speaker 1: some of the states on the west that are kind
Speaker 1: of on the fringe of white tail habitat, Yeah, they
Speaker 1: can be very successful by harvesting more bucks than does
Speaker 1: each year. But most of the US they should be
Speaker 1: harvesting more ant list deer than bucks, or else those
Speaker 1: deer herds just grow too high and you end up
Speaker 1: back like we were twenty and thirty years ago, and
Speaker 1: there's just way more deer than we had food for.
Speaker 1: So we're we're still in a good shape. But the
Speaker 1: last couple of years we have started to sound the
Speaker 1: alarm that hey, we're we've really backed off on the
Speaker 1: antlists side. We're not back off on the buck side.
Speaker 1: We're killing more bucks than we ever were, but we
Speaker 1: need hunters to start shooting some more antlists deer as
Speaker 1: well to make sure we don't get ourselves in the
Speaker 1: same predicament that we had back in the seventies and
Speaker 1: eighties and nineties. Yeah, and so is it still the case? So,
Speaker 1: I know you mentioned there was a little bit of
Speaker 1: a blowback after populations dropped and hunters got scared and
Speaker 1: worried about this. Is it still a hunter culture issue
Speaker 1: right now that's leading to these reduced antlalyst harvests, or
Speaker 1: is any of the regulation it's hunter culture. Um, there
Speaker 1: are opportunities to shoot more ant laists deer and almost
Speaker 1: every state that hunters are taking advantage of. So it's
Speaker 1: just it's a punch as choosing not to to shoot
Speaker 1: those deers. One of the statistics that we monitor is
Speaker 1: just hunter success rates. And if we take a look
Speaker 1: around the country, you know, every hunter has a chance
Speaker 1: to shoot a buck. In many states, you have an
Speaker 1: opportunity to shoot multiple bucks. You could shoot multiple antle
Speaker 1: this steer. But nationally, only about forty one percent of
Speaker 1: all the hunters shoot a single deer. So less than
Speaker 1: half of all the hunters that went a field last
Speaker 1: year shot a deer, and only about eighteen percent of
Speaker 1: all the hunters will shoot more than one. So what
Speaker 1: we have is, you know, this focus more on the
Speaker 1: buck side than the antlyd side. And hey, I get it.
Speaker 1: I mean there's more big deer running around than ever before.
Speaker 1: So we have a lot of hunters that say, you
Speaker 1: know what, maybe I'm only going to eat one deer
Speaker 1: or can't eat more than that. So if I'm only
Speaker 1: going to shoot one, I'm going to shoot a buck
Speaker 1: if I had to get a chance. And more hunters
Speaker 1: today are having a chance of shooting deer that are three, four,
Speaker 1: you know, five years old. It's hard to knock a
Speaker 1: hunter for shooting you know, a middle age or a
Speaker 1: mature buck. So what we need to do, Mark is
Speaker 1: convince more of them. All right, that's totally fine, and
Speaker 1: congratulations for shooting that, but let's do, you know, help
Speaker 1: out our deer herds and also take an antlist deer.
Speaker 1: And I think the way we can encourage more folks
Speaker 1: to do that is, you know, help provide more from
Speaker 1: the venison donation side, where you know, more people would
Speaker 1: donate a deer if they didn't either have to pay
Speaker 1: for the process need or pay for a portion of
Speaker 1: the processing. So I think we have a really good
Speaker 1: opportunity to help hunters from that end where they can
Speaker 1: shoot that antlist deer, either give it to a friend
Speaker 1: or a needy family, or take it to a place
Speaker 1: that can be donated, you know, at no cost to them,
Speaker 1: where hey, they're they're helping the deer herd, they're feeding
Speaker 1: the needy family, man, they're a champion of society. So
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I think that is the next thing as
Speaker 1: hunters and as managers where we can really make a
Speaker 1: big game. Yeah. I think that's a think that's a great,
Speaker 1: great point and something that if let's take a little
Speaker 1: step back and dive into that a little more, because
Speaker 1: I think there's a bunch of questions that pop up
Speaker 1: for hunters when they start thinking about analysts harvest, questions like, well,
Speaker 1: how do I know if my specific property has enough
Speaker 1: dos to be shooting a bunch of them? Or how
Speaker 1: do I know how many doughs to shoot? Or I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a whole bunch of questions. What about when's the
Speaker 1: best time to be shooting a doll? Or is it
Speaker 1: okay to shoot a doll that has too young of
Speaker 1: the year with it. There's all these new questions that
Speaker 1: pop up when you start talking about doe harvest that
Speaker 1: just don't seem to be there when it comes to bucks.
Speaker 1: So if you humor me, Kip, can we tackle a
Speaker 1: couple of those questions since we're on the topic of
Speaker 1: analysts harvest, Since this is so important, let's just get
Speaker 1: some of these big boogeyman questions out of the way
Speaker 1: so that hunters listening today we'll can say, Okay, yes,
Speaker 1: I do need to participate an analysts harvest, or at
Speaker 1: least we do across the country in many places. So
Speaker 1: how can I better understand these specific questions to know
Speaker 1: if I can on my property and the right way
Speaker 1: to do it. Do you want to tackle a couple
Speaker 1: those kip or do you want me to repeat them
Speaker 1: while they're fresh? Sure? No, I'm glad to do that
Speaker 1: because I do think this is the most important fast
Speaker 1: and deer management. And as much as I like bucks,
Speaker 1: and as much as I like seeing you know the
Speaker 1: bucks I property managed, the most important point is not
Speaker 1: having too many deer for the landscape or too few, dear,
Speaker 1: you know, it's about having the biologically appropriate numbers so
Speaker 1: everybody gets enough to eat or not degrading habitat. All
Speaker 1: those other wildlife species there, you know, are able to
Speaker 1: benefit from a good habitat. So so it all starts
Speaker 1: with the endless side. And we have all kinds of
Speaker 1: articles on our website that folks can run through to
Speaker 1: be able to calculate how many dose they should remove
Speaker 1: from the area they are, but just real basic and
Speaker 1: there was a general rule of thumb for the vast
Speaker 1: majority of white tail hunters you should be removing more
Speaker 1: dos than you are bucks on an annual basis. There
Speaker 1: are certainly some exceptions in some of those states you know,
Speaker 1: they're kind of a white tail extremes, but for most
Speaker 1: of us, you know, if you're a landowner and you're
Speaker 1: going to shoot, you know, one or two bucks off
Speaker 1: your property each year be taken at least one or
Speaker 1: two doughs. Make sure you're taking at least that many.
Speaker 1: And that's a that's a great place to start. But
Speaker 1: it's very simple for people to be able to just
Speaker 1: take a look at what's going on and assess, you
Speaker 1: know what, did they think I have too many deer
Speaker 1: for the amount of food or not? If you plant
Speaker 1: food plots, you know, if you have an exclusion cage,
Speaker 1: there as the food outside of an exclusion cage as
Speaker 1: tall as it is inside. For nine percent of the
Speaker 1: people who plant food plots answers no. That means those
Speaker 1: deer and that using that property could use more food.
Speaker 1: So in your woods, do you have all kinds of
Speaker 1: new trees regenerating all these little seedlings and sapling, or
Speaker 1: is it you know a brows line where deer of
Speaker 1: eating everything. If that's the case, there's not enough food,
Speaker 1: it means either you need to enhance habit to provide
Speaker 1: more food, and you also need to then reduced deer
Speaker 1: numbers so there's less mouths vying for that. So so
Speaker 1: there's some pretty simple things that hunters can do to
Speaker 1: at least start to assis, you know, what, are there
Speaker 1: more deer than there should be? And let maybe take
Speaker 1: it back, nobody thinks there's more deer than there should
Speaker 1: be And I'm the same way. I like to see
Speaker 1: dear when I'm hut, are there more deer than there
Speaker 1: is available food? And if the answer is yes, hey
Speaker 1: ta take an extra dough this year, you know, and
Speaker 1: then and then assess again next year. So that's some
Speaker 1: pretty easy things hunters can do to help, you know,
Speaker 1: battle that. Yeah, that's that's great. And like you mentioned,
Speaker 1: I'll just second the point you made about the fact
Speaker 1: that you guys have some great resources on the website,
Speaker 1: uh that break down, you know, some more detailed ways
Speaker 1: to assess what your population is on your property. I
Speaker 1: know there's some different you know, surveying techniques that can
Speaker 1: give you a better sense of Okay, what's the herd
Speaker 1: looking like, what would be the appropriate antlerlest harvest? They
Speaker 1: can they can find all that. What's the website is
Speaker 1: a deer association dot org or what does it know? Doc? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Deer Association dot com? Okay, perfect, So definitely check that
Speaker 1: out for anybody who wants more details? Um, what about
Speaker 1: a couple more? What about the best time of year
Speaker 1: to take a doll. There's a lot of folks, myself included,
Speaker 1: that at times have worried about shooting a doll earlier
Speaker 1: in the year because I didn't want to mess up
Speaker 1: my buck hunting prospects, and I always wait until the
Speaker 1: end of the year, and then many years I would
Speaker 1: push it off, push it off, push it off, and
Speaker 1: then when I'm actually trying to kill a doll at
Speaker 1: the end of the year, it ends up being harder
Speaker 1: than I think, and I don't have as much success
Speaker 1: as I wanted. Um, what's your take on that, Kip.
Speaker 1: I know I've heard, I've heard it said that early
Speaker 1: and often is better, But what would you say. I'm
Speaker 1: a big fan of early season antalysts harvest, partly because,
Speaker 1: as you alluded to, they get really wise towards the
Speaker 1: end a hunting season and very hard to see. So
Speaker 1: I personally go into every hunting season with a dough
Speaker 1: harvest prescription for our farm. I calculated, this is how
Speaker 1: many doughs we're gonna shoot this year. Share that with
Speaker 1: all of the friends and family members that I know,
Speaker 1: we'll be hunting, and we have a bunch of people
Speaker 1: that hunt our farm, so we start every season with
Speaker 1: a plan. Hey, this is how many we're going to kill.
Speaker 1: So the earlier you can get started at that, the
Speaker 1: more likely you are to meet that quota. And I
Speaker 1: love to take care of that early in the year
Speaker 1: because then I can save that food that those doughs
Speaker 1: would have been eaten during the course of the year
Speaker 1: for other deer. And there is no better feeling than
Speaker 1: to get to the rut, which for many people that's
Speaker 1: the favorite time to hunt, and no man, I've already
Speaker 1: shot one dough or two dos or wherever how many
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I literally can just focus the whole to
Speaker 1: my hunting season on hunting a buck. So that is
Speaker 1: a great place to be because I know so many
Speaker 1: people don't want to mess something up in the rut,
Speaker 1: you know, by shooting the dough. And although having a
Speaker 1: dead dough nearby is literally one of the absolute best
Speaker 1: buckmac that you can have during the rut, but I'm
Speaker 1: a big fan of that early season and I personally
Speaker 1: shoot dose early and I have the people that hunt
Speaker 1: our farm all shoot dos from opening day of archery
Speaker 1: get them as early as we can. That's just a
Speaker 1: really good for the deer hurt. Yeah. And another plus
Speaker 1: of that approach, at least if you take enough doughs,
Speaker 1: is that if you have way too many doughs during
Speaker 1: the rut, it tends to lead to a situation where
Speaker 1: the bucks don't need to work too hard to find
Speaker 1: a receptive dough, and so they are locked down more
Speaker 1: often with a dough and traveling long distances less and
Speaker 1: that leads to you know, you're not getting to see
Speaker 1: the frenetic chasing and seeking of bucks. But if you've
Speaker 1: got a or imbalance structure of bucks or ratio between
Speaker 1: bucks and does if you're taken a few more doughs
Speaker 1: off the farm before the rut, those bucks willing need
Speaker 1: to travel a little more, be a little bit more active,
Speaker 1: you know, work a little harder, which which leads to
Speaker 1: hopefully better hunting encounters. Right exactly. And you know, most
Speaker 1: doughs on a property, at least in the northern two
Speaker 1: thirds of the US, they're going to be bread over
Speaker 1: a very short window. So you know, the fewer doughs
Speaker 1: that you actually have coming into heat any given day
Speaker 1: just just adds to the excitement of the rut and
Speaker 1: adds to you know, to more movement by those bucks. Uh.
Speaker 1: The rut can be an incredibly fun place to be
Speaker 1: and time to hunt, or it can be one of
Speaker 1: the loneliest times of the whole year. I've had plenty
Speaker 1: of sits during the you know, early mid November on
Speaker 1: really good properties where you know, I saw almost nothing.
Speaker 1: You know, it's because of you know, all the bucks
Speaker 1: were with those or you know, that just wasn't a
Speaker 1: hot dough moving. So it's it's far better for hunters
Speaker 1: to have bucks under their feet seeking those doughs. And
Speaker 1: that happens, you know, when you when you have a
Speaker 1: very balance sex ratio as those gear come into the
Speaker 1: into rut rather than just having doughs everywhere. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: here's another situation that a lot of guys will bulk
Speaker 1: at guys or girls bulk when they are in the
Speaker 1: tree and they're gonna go out there and try to
Speaker 1: take a dough. But then here comes the mature dough
Speaker 1: with a yearling or two. There's some folks that see
Speaker 1: that and then and they're really worried about, you know,
Speaker 1: if those doughs should be on the target list. I
Speaker 1: guess you might say, what's your take on that situation?
Speaker 1: Is it okay to take that mature dough or should
Speaker 1: you not? As long as those fawns do not have spots,
Speaker 1: they are plenty big enough to survive on their own.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're in an area where they were
Speaker 1: just really late born, or you know your season is
Speaker 1: just really early where yeah, you can still see spots
Speaker 1: on them, then I would go ahead and pass that dough.
Speaker 1: If they don't have spots, she's on the target list. Now.
Speaker 1: I totally get some people do not want to shoot
Speaker 1: a dough that has fawns, whether you know there's no
Speaker 1: biological reason not to, they just don't want those spawns
Speaker 1: to stay there. And I get it. So if that's
Speaker 1: the case, you know you can pass on that one.
Speaker 1: But it makes no difference to me if a dough
Speaker 1: comes under my stand and has fawns, whether if there's
Speaker 1: no spots and I can get a good shot at
Speaker 1: that dough, I'm taking it. Yeah, Okay. I feel like
Speaker 1: that covers the top level questions that I get at
Speaker 1: least a lot when it comes to should you take
Speaker 1: a dough? Should you not? When should you? When should
Speaker 1: you not so hopefully that arms folks are a little
Speaker 1: bit more information to go out there this coming season
Speaker 1: and you know, get after it. And like you said earlier, kid,
Speaker 1: I mean I've yet, I've never once not been able
Speaker 1: to find a home for a deer that I harvested.
Speaker 1: There's there's any time I had more than I needed
Speaker 1: in my freezer. There's always been someone who would like
Speaker 1: that deer, who would like to have that meat. Um,
Speaker 1: it's it's such a great thing to be able to
Speaker 1: share with people. And like you said, almost every state
Speaker 1: has a donation program now, but if you ask around
Speaker 1: a friends and family, it's often very easy to find
Speaker 1: someone who could use that meat just to within your
Speaker 1: own network too. So there's there's lots of opportunities to
Speaker 1: do good both for the herd, for the landscape, and
Speaker 1: for people who could use that meat. So it's a
Speaker 1: it's a win win win as far as I'm concerned. No,
Speaker 1: I agree. There's data in the US the shows somewhere
Speaker 1: around one in seven households or food insecure. I mean
Speaker 1: they don't have enough protein. So so think about that
Speaker 1: one out of seven. So how many is that just
Speaker 1: in your neighborhood? So Yeah, it's a great way for
Speaker 1: hunters to provide food to families who need it. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know it never helps to you know to uh
Speaker 1: or never hurts. I guess that to help our public image.
Speaker 1: So hunters are already providing a free ecological service to
Speaker 1: society by you know, managing deer by shooting deer. So
Speaker 1: you know, if we can add to that by helping
Speaker 1: see folks, you know who who needs some protein, that's
Speaker 1: a pretty cool place to be. Yeah. So so pivoting
Speaker 1: a little bit here, Kip. There was another UM report
Speaker 1: or kind of topic you guys took a look at
Speaker 1: within the report which was kind of a deep dive
Speaker 1: into the breakdown of where folks were killing deer private
Speaker 1: versus public And I believe the number was that nine
Speaker 1: out of ten deer killed in America were killed on
Speaker 1: private land versus public And there's been a lot of talk,
Speaker 1: you know, around this public land versus private land topic,
Speaker 1: whether it be how we invest our dollars or advocacy
Speaker 1: efforts or our time and energy. What what was your
Speaker 1: guys takeaway from that when you saw that data come
Speaker 1: rolling in that this vast majority of the deer are
Speaker 1: being killed still on private land. What does that tell you?
Speaker 1: What do you what do you garner from that? What
Speaker 1: should we be thinking about too? Yeah, you know what
Speaker 1: if you just take a look at public land in
Speaker 1: the United States, we were very lucky, and you know
Speaker 1: that we have over six hundred million acres, so just
Speaker 1: looking at anything, man, this is great, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of people that couldn't hunt if it wasn't public land. However,
Speaker 1: about ninety percent of that public land is in the
Speaker 1: western US, whereas you know, about ninety percent of the
Speaker 1: white tails are east of the Rocky Mountains, so you
Speaker 1: know they're in the eastern two thirds. So where we
Speaker 1: have the most of our public land doesn't really match
Speaker 1: up with where our white tails are or where most
Speaker 1: of our hunters are. So most zero managers, I think
Speaker 1: suspected that the majority of white tails shop are taken
Speaker 1: on private land, but we never had a number until
Speaker 1: this year. So as we start looking at that, we realized,
Speaker 1: and what you said is correct, it's nearly nine out
Speaker 1: of every ten white tails. It actually came out at
Speaker 1: eighty eight percent of all the white tails taken, and
Speaker 1: we shoot about six million white tails a year, so
Speaker 1: eighty eight percent of those are taken on private land.
Speaker 1: So I knew the number would be high, but I
Speaker 1: didn't realize it would be quite that high. Yeah, that's uh,
Speaker 1: that's pretty stark. So what do you think that indicates,
Speaker 1: Kip does that? Is that is that a function of
Speaker 1: how many people are honey on private versus hunting on
Speaker 1: public Or is that a function of how much more
Speaker 1: productive the private lands are than the public. I think
Speaker 1: that's a little bit of both. And uh, And if
Speaker 1: you look at the eastern two thirds of the US,
Speaker 1: you know, states range anywhere from fifty some percent private
Speaker 1: land up to like nine percent private landland like in Texas,
Speaker 1: and obviously a lot of deer hunters in Texas and
Speaker 1: a lot of land, so there's a lot more opportunity
Speaker 1: to hunt private land for you know, all the hunters
Speaker 1: in general. So there's a lot of private land that
Speaker 1: we have. But then also you just have so much
Speaker 1: more work over the last two decades, work work just
Speaker 1: being occurred private land to enhance habitat for deer. So
Speaker 1: take right beside your house or right beside my house.
Speaker 1: You take a landowner that's doing food, but he's you know,
Speaker 1: has a bunch of early sea or early successional vegetation.
Speaker 1: They're working in the woods, even if rate next door
Speaker 1: is private land and it's all over mature hardwood. For us,
Speaker 1: you know, with nothing underneath, you're going to have more
Speaker 1: deer on that private landowner. You know, that's really getting engaged.
Speaker 1: So I think we have more opportunity on private land
Speaker 1: because there's so much more of it in the eastern
Speaker 1: two thirds of the US, and then you just have
Speaker 1: so much more work growing on. This is not a
Speaker 1: knock at all on our state wilife agencies or our
Speaker 1: federal agencies relative to habitat management that they're doing. But
Speaker 1: we all know the stories like with the fishing or
Speaker 1: the Forest Service, that you can't cut on forests, you know,
Speaker 1: because of the political reasons, and so that the private
Speaker 1: landers have so much more flexibility relative to what they
Speaker 1: can do to enhance habitat, specifically for dear, and we're
Speaker 1: seeing it. I know there was a stat out of
Speaker 1: the Southeast Dear Partnership this past year that a deer
Speaker 1: hunters in the southeast, so the southeastern US, they spend
Speaker 1: about one hundred and eighty three million dollars a year
Speaker 1: on wildlife plannings. Wow, that's a lot of money. That's
Speaker 1: a lot of money on food plots and fruit tree
Speaker 1: plannings and other things specifically for deer hunting. So I
Speaker 1: think that just highlights all of this really good work
Speaker 1: that's going on on private land to make things better
Speaker 1: for deer. Yeah, and when I look at that, I
Speaker 1: just see this huge opportunity that we have. You know,
Speaker 1: it's really not really well, yeah, I would say it's
Speaker 1: really hard. It's it's pretty darn hard for the average
Speaker 1: deer hunter to influence what happens on public lands as
Speaker 1: far as you know, conservation work, habitat work, improving that
Speaker 1: habitat for wildlife, it's pretty darn hard. It requires a
Speaker 1: whole lot of different layers. There's a lot of cooks
Speaker 1: in that kitchen to make good things happen on those acres,
Speaker 1: very very important acres, like you said, But it's it's
Speaker 1: hard and slower to make positive changes there. But when
Speaker 1: you like as you said, on these private lands, there
Speaker 1: is this huge opportunity we have not only to improve
Speaker 1: our deer hunting, but really to address a lot of
Speaker 1: different wildlife issues. You look at any of these species
Speaker 1: that are not doing as well as deer like turkeys,
Speaker 1: or songbirds, upland birds, pollinators. We have a huge, huge
Speaker 1: footprint across the country managed by hunters where we can
Speaker 1: just go fix the problem ourselves. In many ways, we
Speaker 1: don't need to wait for the government. We don't need
Speaker 1: to wait for some new law. We could just take
Speaker 1: matters into our own hands. Because we have influence over
Speaker 1: so many of these private acres that are so important.
Speaker 1: I just see it as this like superpower that we
Speaker 1: have compared to almost anyone in the country. We as
Speaker 1: a hunting community, have you prioritized owning or managing land,
Speaker 1: and we can use it for the great are good,
Speaker 1: which is which is kind of exciting to me. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, does that make Does that resonate? It does?
Speaker 1: And I agree with that. And you know, and this
Speaker 1: is not to diminish the public lands that we have
Speaker 1: or the good work on public lands by any means.
Speaker 1: We certainly need more public lands than the east, and
Speaker 1: we need to do a better job manage and habitat
Speaker 1: than a bunch of our public lands. But it just
Speaker 1: highlights the importance of these private holdings and the cool
Speaker 1: thing about you know, deer driving this system. If people
Speaker 1: are doing a good work for deer, then all those
Speaker 1: other wildife species are benefiting as well. You know. Young
Speaker 1: forests you know are awesome for grouse and woodcock, you
Speaker 1: know the pollinators that need to help. Early successful vegetation
Speaker 1: is perfect for butterflies and bees and you know those
Speaker 1: grassland birds. And so it's pretty cool that in the
Speaker 1: name of deer, and even though the deer is kind
Speaker 1: of the carrots getting to stick, there are so many
Speaker 1: other wildlife species benefiting from this good work. Um. That's
Speaker 1: one of the reasons I'm so proud through the NDA,
Speaker 1: you know, of all of the habitat enhancement of stuff
Speaker 1: that we teach, you know, And I'm proud to be
Speaker 1: from a deer hunter and to know that deer hunters
Speaker 1: are driving this whole system. And it is amazing the
Speaker 1: number of acres that are being impacted, you know, through
Speaker 1: work to make things better for deer and maybe see
Speaker 1: a few more deer or kill a bigger buck in
Speaker 1: the ball. Yeah, there's a tremendous ripple effect. I'm curious.
Speaker 1: I've looked into this and I've tried to pull the numbers,
Speaker 1: and I'm curious if you know of any more recent
Speaker 1: numbers or more built out. But but I found a
Speaker 1: report from you guys back in two thousand and nine
Speaker 1: that stated back then, just within the membership of what
Speaker 1: was done the QDMA, they were about thirteen million acres
Speaker 1: of land owned for hunting back in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 1: And then I also saw a US Fish and Wildlife
Speaker 1: Service estimate that said that I think this was maybe
Speaker 1: a twenty eighteen report on this one. I think they
Speaker 1: said that there was approximately four hundred and forty million
Speaker 1: acres of private land that was either leased or owned
Speaker 1: for wildlife dependent recreation, which I think from what as
Speaker 1: I understand it, that would mostly be hunting. Have you
Speaker 1: seen any other data like that that quantifies, you know,
Speaker 1: what our footprint is out there as far as land
Speaker 1: managed by hunters or by deer hunters, or anything like
Speaker 1: that that could kind of get a sense of the
Speaker 1: scalt that opportunity. Yeah, I have not seen an updated
Speaker 1: Fish and Wildife Service number four that, but yes, I
Speaker 1: think that is mostly for hunting. Somewhere around eighty percent
Speaker 1: of all hunters in the US are deer hunters, so
Speaker 1: the vast majority of that would be for deer hunting.
Speaker 1: I do know that with our Deer Steward program. Of
Speaker 1: the classes that we teach, we've been teaching them since
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine UM and since then, we measure
Speaker 1: impact of those classes. You know, everybody that comes through,
Speaker 1: you know, how many acres do you own or manage?
Speaker 1: And a lot of people that take that don't own
Speaker 1: any But we've talked those to a lot of state
Speaker 1: wildlife agencies and deer managers. So I know that we
Speaker 1: alone folks have come through our Deers to a program
Speaker 1: have impacted over fifteen million acres of land, so you know,
Speaker 1: and that's you know, there's like four thousand graduates in that,
Speaker 1: so four thousand people that have come through one of
Speaker 1: our classes, that many acres. So think about all of
Speaker 1: the others out there, you know, that are adding into
Speaker 1: this as well. I mean, it's just a huge footprint
Speaker 1: of wildlife habitat across the country. So you know, it's
Speaker 1: no wonder deer are doing so good and in so
Speaker 1: many places, and you know, and other other wildie species
Speaker 1: are strong as well. So it's there's there's a lot
Speaker 1: being done in the name of wildlife, and that's one
Speaker 1: of the things that that irritates me. You know when
Speaker 1: non hunters who don't understand this part, you know, start
Speaker 1: attacking hunters for for certain things. You know, even if
Speaker 1: you don't choose a deer hunt, you know, that's fine
Speaker 1: if you don't want to, but man at least recognize,
Speaker 1: you know, all of the services that a deer hunter
Speaker 1: is providing. And if you like feeding those birds, please
Speaker 1: recognize that a deer hunter is largely responsible for those
Speaker 1: songbirds being alive and you know, being able to come
Speaker 1: to your window. So that's that's one thing that as hunters,
Speaker 1: we need to do a better job telling that story,
Speaker 1: you know, because it's about way more than you know,
Speaker 1: just pulling the trigger in the fall if you're a
Speaker 1: deer hunter. Yeah, that's uh, that's that's so true. And
Speaker 1: what a what an incredible you know, ripple effect you
Speaker 1: guys have had with those dear Steward courses. That that
Speaker 1: number at fifteen million, that's that's wild um. And I guess,
Speaker 1: you know, I guess one last thing on this topic
Speaker 1: is recognizing the importance of these private lands to conservation. Like,
Speaker 1: if we want to impact wildlife populations, you can't ignore
Speaker 1: private lands. We've we've kind of demonstrated that now, I
Speaker 1: think when we've looked at the scale of these acres
Speaker 1: and how much of the wildlife is on these private lands,
Speaker 1: so if we're gonna do anything good for him, it's
Speaker 1: got to happen on private lands just as much, if
Speaker 1: not more so, than on public I think that just
Speaker 1: makes it even more obvious how important private land conservation
Speaker 1: related programs and funding is too, which which all brings
Speaker 1: me back to the upcoming Farm Bill, which will be
Speaker 1: you know, being kind of hashed out over the coming
Speaker 1: months leading into this fall for the twenty twenty three
Speaker 1: Farm Bill, which which has so many of these private
Speaker 1: land conservation related issues and funding mechanisms and programs as
Speaker 1: part of that. We're actually kept going to have a
Speaker 1: full deep dive episode coming up this month on the
Speaker 1: farm bill. But I'm just curious if there's anything from
Speaker 1: your perspective as part of the NDA that you guys
Speaker 1: at the organization particularly want us deer hunters thinking about
Speaker 1: when it comes to this upcoming version of the farm bills,
Speaker 1: or anything we should know or that we should be
Speaker 1: talking to. You are representatives and senators about to make
Speaker 1: sure that a good for deer and good for wildlife
Speaker 1: version of the farm billets gets signed and improved this year. Well,
Speaker 1: I think one thing it's important for hunters and state
Speaker 1: wildlife agencies to realize this just knowing homedy deer are
Speaker 1: shot on public I'm sorry, I'm private land and the
Speaker 1: importance of that. There are some states that have you know,
Speaker 1: private land programs. Missouri is a perfect example. You know,
Speaker 1: they have a bunch of state Wildlife agency biologists that
Speaker 1: are working on research and others on public land or
Speaker 1: you know, everything in the state. But then they have
Speaker 1: a specific private lands division to work with private landers
Speaker 1: to help them enhance habitat, to help them manage deer, etc.
Speaker 1: You know. And there are some states that they have
Speaker 1: their staff, you know, the statewide staff, and you know
Speaker 1: there's no preference at all given to private land. I
Speaker 1: think that we are coming into a day and age,
Speaker 1: well we need to recognize just how important private land
Speaker 1: management is and that I would love to see every
Speaker 1: state wildlife agency have a staff that works specifically with
Speaker 1: private landowners. I think the Farmville is a great way
Speaker 1: to do that. Look at all of the pheasants forever
Speaker 1: Farmville biologists that help private landowners enhance habitat, you know,
Speaker 1: for upland birds. I think that there's a synonym with
Speaker 1: deer that we should be taken advantage of. Certainly, not
Speaker 1: not to take away anything from other duties of our
Speaker 1: of our state agencies, but I think there are some
Speaker 1: that feel that it's wrong to just focus on private lands.
Speaker 1: And I think we have enough data now on deer harvests,
Speaker 1: deer hunter numbers that are that are hunting our private land.
Speaker 1: That's a big deal. Um, there's twenty nine states that
Speaker 1: have a private land access program, so there's a room
Speaker 1: to grow. That should be all of our states, you know,
Speaker 1: have that where the state agency works specifically with landowners
Speaker 1: to to get some all those acres into private land access.
Speaker 1: And I think we should have a staff at the
Speaker 1: state agency helping those private landowners enhands that have to
Speaker 1: make it even better for for deer and other wildlife.
Speaker 1: That's something that twenty years ago would have been not
Speaker 1: even discussed. Ten years ago they start to discuss it,
Speaker 1: but yeah, maybe maybe not. I think today this is
Speaker 1: a no brainer that should be happening on all these
Speaker 1: states that have white tails. Yeah, that that just makes
Speaker 1: all the sense in the world, And it's it's great
Speaker 1: that there are those types of things starting to happen. Though,
Speaker 1: what else, Kip when you look at this report zooming
Speaker 1: back out a little bit, when we look at the
Speaker 1: twenty three edition of the report, we've we've kind of
Speaker 1: covered the private land versus public land thing pretty well.
Speaker 1: We covered the nagging injury of CWD. We took a
Speaker 1: deep dive into the dough harvest and the importance of
Speaker 1: all that. Is there any other big takeaway here that
Speaker 1: we really would be remiss if we didn't cover. When
Speaker 1: you look at the important stuff that you touched on
Speaker 1: that report, I think it's important for folks to know
Speaker 1: just how many hunters we have out there. We know
Speaker 1: that there are somewhere between nine and eleven million year
Speaker 1: hunters each year in the US. There's more deer hunters
Speaker 1: than that if you take a look at the number
Speaker 1: that have hunded at least once within the last five years.
Speaker 1: But there's any given here somewhere around ten million deer hunters.
Speaker 1: And we often fight amongst the different fractions of when
Speaker 1: we hunt deer. So you know, we know that about
Speaker 1: twenty two percent of all of our hunters deer hunters.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, we'll hunt with a muzzleloader about twice that
Speaker 1: many hunt with a bow or crossbow, so it's about
Speaker 1: and about twice that many help with a firearms. So
Speaker 1: what we have seen with a lot of expanded archery
Speaker 1: seasons over the past decade and expanded the muzzleoader opportunities,
Speaker 1: we really haven't increased the deer harvest much. We just
Speaker 1: kind of have made it occur in a larger portion
Speaker 1: of our deer season. You know, where so many states
Speaker 1: the vast majority occurred with the firearms. Now we've seen
Speaker 1: about the same number shot, but a lot of them
Speaker 1: are shot earlier in the year. You know, particularly with
Speaker 1: the use of crossbow. Some hunters get all upset about that.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, man, thanks for hunting, being a hunter and
Speaker 1: continuing to hunt. So you know, I'm glad that we
Speaker 1: see more firearms hunters also hunting with a bow or
Speaker 1: also hunting with a muslums. I don't think that dilutes
Speaker 1: us at all, or you know, I think that's a
Speaker 1: good thing, that we're just taking advantage of more of
Speaker 1: the opportunities. I would much rather see somebody pick up
Speaker 1: a bow or a crossbow and hunted October than not
Speaker 1: hunt at all. You know, in November or December, so
Speaker 1: I think just known when those numbers are, letting hunters see,
Speaker 1: you know, like what the state by state breakdowns you know,
Speaker 1: are for the different categories. I think that's important, and
Speaker 1: so certainly being able to monitor them and watch how
Speaker 1: that changes over time, I think is good for deer
Speaker 1: management and good for hunters. That's a really really important
Speaker 1: topic and great point. And I think, so I want
Speaker 1: you to say this one more time to make sure
Speaker 1: that I heard it right and everybody else heard it right.
Speaker 1: Are you telling me that when state opens a crossbow
Speaker 1: season that they open archery to being able owed to
Speaker 1: use excuse me, to use crossbows during archer season. When
Speaker 1: that happens, that's not devastating and changing the deer population
Speaker 1: in the herd dynamics and the number of deer being killed.
Speaker 1: Is that what you're saying? That is correct? And we've
Speaker 1: looked at all the states that have, you know, crossbow seasons,
Speaker 1: and so there's no state that has had to reduce
Speaker 1: harvest opportunity once they've opened crossbows. You know, they're not
Speaker 1: devastating the buck side, they're not devastating the analysts side.
Speaker 1: In most cases, they just redistribute when those harvest occur,
Speaker 1: and they tend to now occur a little earlier in
Speaker 1: the year, during you know, an archery season rather than
Speaker 1: during the firearm season. All right, there, you haven't the
Speaker 1: data has spoken, we don't need to be so so
Speaker 1: worried about that when it comes down the line. It
Speaker 1: seems like every state, whenever that gets put out there,
Speaker 1: there's this this this crazy tizzy of fear and worry
Speaker 1: about it. And I'm glad to see that numbers have
Speaker 1: not shown some kind of negative impact. But that does
Speaker 1: lead me to one other thing, which we did chat
Speaker 1: about this last year, Kip. But I'm just curious to hear,
Speaker 1: you know, as things have evolved, where your head's at
Speaker 1: on it, and what your sense of the challenges, and
Speaker 1: that is hunter recruitment versus hunter crowding or access challenges.
Speaker 1: There's this, you know, for a long number of years
Speaker 1: we've been hearing about, you know, lowering recruitment, the fact
Speaker 1: that there's there's fewer and fewer new hunters coming into
Speaker 1: our lifestyle, how the demographics are changing and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of folks aging out, and so there's been this
Speaker 1: long running concern about how do we bring new folks
Speaker 1: into the fold, and there's been some really great programs
Speaker 1: put in place, like the Field of Fork program that
Speaker 1: you guys have at NDA, helping do that, helping educate
Speaker 1: new hunters, helping mentor new hunters. It's you know, being involved,
Speaker 1: and some of that stuff has been some of the
Speaker 1: very best things I've done as a dear your hunter
Speaker 1: in my life. But on the flip side, there's been
Speaker 1: this growing kind of backlash to that, I guess from
Speaker 1: some folks who are concerned that, you know, public lands
Speaker 1: are becoming overcrowded and that there's too many hunters out
Speaker 1: there now today and you can't get access on private
Speaker 1: land anymore because everything is already being hunted or is
Speaker 1: being leased by hunters, and you know, public lands are
Speaker 1: being loved to death, and so there's this I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's a loud minority. Maybe it probably is
Speaker 1: just a loud minority, but there is a loud some
Speaker 1: number of folks who are saying, forget hunter recruitment, we
Speaker 1: should hoard it all to ourselves because there's too many
Speaker 1: people out there right now and it's ruining things. What's
Speaker 1: your sense of the reality of this Kip, is it
Speaker 1: different than where you were a year ago? Are you
Speaker 1: more or less concerned about it? What's your take? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I get the crowding ended and I'm the same
Speaker 1: way when I go on and I don't want to
Speaker 1: be crowded. It's always nice to have more of the
Speaker 1: woods to ourselves. I think that's kind of a selfish
Speaker 1: view of it, though, you know, because the wildlife management
Speaker 1: doesn't depend on just me. It depends on me and
Speaker 1: you and every other hunter that we have. So as
Speaker 1: our hunter numbers age out, and fortunately we have about
Speaker 1: the same number of hunters that we did last year,
Speaker 1: you know, a few years ago, but the average age
Speaker 1: continues to get older, so very soon we're gonna have
Speaker 1: a big drop in hundred numbers. And that's why, you know,
Speaker 1: the field of four programs and others are so important.
Speaker 1: And thank you for your involvement in hours and everything
Speaker 1: you do to help recruit hunters. I think if we
Speaker 1: look at the end of the day, take a look
Speaker 1: at the actual number of hunters on the landscape, and
Speaker 1: we've done this for the different regions. The Western US
Speaker 1: certainly big wide open spaces, they only average one deer
Speaker 1: hundred per square mile. Now, certainly people travel to the west.
Speaker 1: I get it, but in large part one deer hundred
Speaker 1: per square mile. The southeastern US average is four deer
Speaker 1: hunds per square mile, the Midwest average is five, the
Speaker 1: Northeast average is nine, and my home state of Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: has the most. We average about fourteen deer hundreds per
Speaker 1: square mile. So so I get it from one hundred
Speaker 1: crowd and then you know, there's not always a deer
Speaker 1: behind every tree, but at times it feels like there's
Speaker 1: one hundred and every tree. Yeah, you know, at fourteen
Speaker 1: and a half. Dear, I think so much of it
Speaker 1: is what people grew up hunting. If you grew up
Speaker 1: in an area where you just didn't see many, then
Speaker 1: even two or three deer hundreds per square mile might
Speaker 1: seem like too many. You know, if you grew up
Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania with fourteen, well, two or three feels like
Speaker 1: you have everything to yourself. So I think we have
Speaker 1: to recognize that. Sure, we don't want to be crowded,
Speaker 1: but we need all the hundreds that we can get.
Speaker 1: You know, only five percent of the US population binds
Speaker 1: a hunting license, and we don't get to do anything
Speaker 1: because five percent of us want to do it, so
Speaker 1: more hunters that we have now is better. I agree,
Speaker 1: we don't need one hundred percent of the US to hunt,
Speaker 1: but you know it would it would help us if
Speaker 1: more than five hunted. So I think for right now anyways,
Speaker 1: everything we can do to recruit more for hunters is
Speaker 1: a very important thing for our future. Yeah, and now
Speaker 1: I'll just re emphasize the point I made, which was,
Speaker 1: not only is it a good thing to do for
Speaker 1: the future of hunting, it is fun. It is fun.
Speaker 1: I mean helping new hunters, teaching new hunters, mentoring new hunters,
Speaker 1: being out there to see I mean, I know you've
Speaker 1: seen a kid. I don't. I'm preaching to the choir here,
Speaker 1: but I mean there's almost nothing more rewarding than being
Speaker 1: out there when someone experiences a hunting success for the
Speaker 1: first time. I mean, these have been the absolute coolest
Speaker 1: thing seeing people learn to hunt, seeing them, you know,
Speaker 1: walk up to the first deer they've ever taken a
Speaker 1: shot at, and they have this meat and they have
Speaker 1: this experience, and I mean I've had people tell me
Speaker 1: it's life changing. It's not. It's no small thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: these are really impactful changes in ways of helping folks.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I think it's if you look at
Speaker 1: how hunting is positively influenced you, and I don't think
Speaker 1: anyone listening to this would not agree with the fact
Speaker 1: that hunting has so positively influenced each and every one
Speaker 1: of us. I mean, the good you can put into
Speaker 1: the world by helping other people experience that, I mean,
Speaker 1: that is a reward in itself. Um, so all other
Speaker 1: arguments aside, Yeah, it's a great thing. I agree, And
Speaker 1: it's some of the most fun I have every year
Speaker 1: is mentoring hunters. And one of the hunters I mentored
Speaker 1: last year and never shot a deer. It was a father,
Speaker 1: young father, and We're sitting in the blind the first night,
Speaker 1: and I asked me, like, why do you want to hunt?
Speaker 1: And I still expected him to say, you know, I
Speaker 1: want to take some meat home. You know that that's
Speaker 1: because there's so many new hunters today. That's the driving force.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, I'm a father, you're a father,
Speaker 1: so you can relate to this. He said, I have
Speaker 1: three little boys at home, and I want to be
Speaker 1: able to do this, to be able to teach them
Speaker 1: and to prove that that I can, I can bring
Speaker 1: meat home for our family. Yeah, and I remember thinking,
Speaker 1: if I have to hunt with you every day the
Speaker 1: rest of the year, you're going to take a deer home.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do everything possible to make sure. So, uh
Speaker 1: in any way, you know, it's that that was pretty powerful,
Speaker 1: you know, as a parent, you know, and as a father,
Speaker 1: I know what it's like. You know how important it
Speaker 1: is for me to you know, bring meat home to
Speaker 1: my family or you know, when my kids are hunting
Speaker 1: with me. So um that that really hit me hard.
Speaker 1: You know. He didn't grow up the way you did
Speaker 1: or I did, you know, with the family figure you know,
Speaker 1: teach them that. So he came to it later in life.
Speaker 1: And good for him, you know, for for wanting to
Speaker 1: do it now and taking the steps necessary. So I
Speaker 1: certainly was going to do everything in my power that
Speaker 1: that that he learned to you know, learned to be
Speaker 1: a hundred and was able to take some dear home. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's pretty great. Will keep given what you know, came
Speaker 1: to understand throughout the process of putting together this twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three Dear Report, or through through any of the
Speaker 1: other things discussed today. If you had to distill all
Speaker 1: the topics we talked about down to two related actions
Speaker 1: that you would like our audience to take after having
Speaker 1: heard this conversation, there's two things that you would like
Speaker 1: to encourage our listeners to do over the you know,
Speaker 1: next year that would help lead us towards a better
Speaker 1: future for deer and deer hunting. What would those two
Speaker 1: things be you'd like us to do. One would be
Speaker 1: take somebody new hunting this year. I think it's hunters
Speaker 1: responsibility now to mentor you know the next group, So
Speaker 1: take somebody hunting and shoot a doe this fall. Both
Speaker 1: of those are incredibly important. And you know, if we
Speaker 1: had more hunters do in those if when you and
Speaker 1: I talk next year, we'll be in better shape. Man.
Speaker 1: That's an easy ask, Kip, because both of those things
Speaker 1: are a lot of fun. Like we already talked about
Speaker 1: how fun it is to mentor. But then also every year, Kip,
Speaker 1: I'm always reminded, like when I go in the field
Speaker 1: on a dough mission, like specifically to go out to hunt.
Speaker 1: Does every day I do it, I'm like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: this is so much fun. Like I almost like those
Speaker 1: hunts more because you're going out there. It's a target
Speaker 1: rich environment. You just it feels like every moment is
Speaker 1: a little bit more charged because it just feels like, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gonna happen. You better be ready. And then it
Speaker 1: doesn't always happen. But man, I love hunting for dose
Speaker 1: Like that's a blast. I'm with you on that one.
Speaker 1: So we'll see if we can encourage some folks to
Speaker 1: do that. All right, Well, Kip, one last question, where
Speaker 1: can folks go to get their own copy of the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three d Report and read? I mean, there's
Speaker 1: so much more on there that we didn't get to cover,
Speaker 1: so I'd highly encourage folks to download it and give
Speaker 1: it a read. So where can they find them? And
Speaker 1: then also, can you give folks just a quick quick
Speaker 1: rundown of how they can become a member of the
Speaker 1: National Deer Association and what all isn't included with that? Sure,
Speaker 1: they can go to our website which is Deer Association
Speaker 1: dot com. M on there, they can click on the
Speaker 1: Deer Reports and it's a free download. Every one of
Speaker 1: these are there and they can grab every single year
Speaker 1: if they'd like and see how their state compares to
Speaker 1: the neighboring states and others in their region or different regions,
Speaker 1: so can do that all for free. And then as
Speaker 1: far as becoming a member, they can also do that
Speaker 1: right at the website. Gives them you know, regular information
Speaker 1: like we're talking about here relative to deer and habitat
Speaker 1: management and hunter recruitment. Gives them opportunities to get engaged
Speaker 1: locally relative to issues you know, impacting their deer hunting,
Speaker 1: and keeps them up to date and all the latest science,
Speaker 1: dear wives, so they can take care of all of
Speaker 1: that right on the website. Terrific. Well, I appreciate as always, Kip,
Speaker 1: thanks for walking through all this with me and answering
Speaker 1: all my questions. And and I just I want to
Speaker 1: reiterate we talked at the front end about how, you know,
Speaker 1: long we've been doing this and how I'm starting to
Speaker 1: realize that and you've been at it much longer than
Speaker 1: I have. And I just want to publicly say thank
Speaker 1: you for what you've done in your time in this
Speaker 1: role with the QDMA and now the NDA, and you've
Speaker 1: been such a great champion in voice for deer and
Speaker 1: deer hunters for a very long time now. And I'm
Speaker 1: sure you know this, but I'm not sure if you
Speaker 1: take the time to sit down and appreciate it or
Speaker 1: or revel in it. That being this, this tremendous positive
Speaker 1: impact you've had on our pursuit and our resources and
Speaker 1: our lifestyle so on behalf of all my listeners over
Speaker 1: all these years. Thank you for that. Well, I certainly
Speaker 1: appreciate the kind words. Mark, I appreciate that a lot,
Speaker 1: and I'll throw it right back at you. You have
Speaker 1: a you have a big voice. You have always done
Speaker 1: a great job and been a great champion for for
Speaker 1: hunters and public lands and deer in particular. So I
Speaker 1: appreciate the opportunity to be on here and be able
Speaker 1: to share some of our data. So keep up the
Speaker 1: good work, all right, Right back at your Kip, looking
Speaker 1: forward to doing our twenty twenty four edition here before
Speaker 1: we know it. All right, and that's a rap. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for tuning in today. As Kip mentioned,
Speaker 1: please go on over download the twenty twenty three Whitetail
Speaker 1: Report get the full scoop on everything we talked about.
Speaker 1: If you're not a member of the National Deer Association,
Speaker 1: it's cheap. It gets you access to a ton of
Speaker 1: great resources and gets you plugged into a really what
Speaker 1: I think is a special community of whitetail hunters and
Speaker 1: managers and conservationists. So check it out going over to
Speaker 1: the Deer Association dot com And until next time, thank
Speaker 1: you for tuning in. Hope to see a lot of
Speaker 1: you April twenty second at the Working for Wildlife tour
Speaker 1: and until then, stay wired to Hunt.