Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Welcome to Episode number twenty three. I'm Ben O'Brien,
Speaker 1: and I'm excited about this podcast. Um. I'm excited about
Speaker 1: it for a bunch of reasons. Excited about it because
Speaker 1: of the group of people I was with when we
Speaker 1: recorded this podcast. I'm excited about it because of the topic, um,
Speaker 1: and I'm just excited about it to be a part
Speaker 1: of a community of people that I believe cares about
Speaker 1: the right stuff. And part of why this podcast is
Speaker 1: what I've wanted to do and what I've enjoyed doing,
Speaker 1: is because of that exact thing. Is a group of
Speaker 1: people that are passionate about something that I've shared ideas
Speaker 1: and that are looking to expand their knowledge, are looking
Speaker 1: to share their stories. And so Episode number twenty three
Speaker 1: is about those things, but it's also about public lands.
Speaker 1: It's also about five people coming together to express themselves,
Speaker 1: else to share ideas, and to talk about the threats
Speaker 1: to our public land. Now, these five people, myself included,
Speaker 1: are not experts, were not uh legislators, We are not
Speaker 1: policy makers, We are not part of of leadership in
Speaker 1: any conservation groups. But what we are is five people
Speaker 1: that really care about public lands and and when something
Speaker 1: comes up to threaten those lands, I think we all
Speaker 1: felt um that would be productive to sit down and
Speaker 1: address those so we did that. We did that on
Speaker 1: Sam Sohol's public land bus in the middle of the night,
Speaker 1: Big Sky Montana. And the folks that join me you'll
Speaker 1: hear him pretty soon are the guys from Hushing, Brian
Speaker 1: mcelray and Casey Butler, Ben Dead Demante, Old Shed Crazy,
Speaker 1: Sam sohold himself and end me open over and so
Speaker 1: I hopefully you can understand where we were going with this.
Speaker 1: You can understand that we're just five guys that love hunting, love,
Speaker 1: efficient love, public lands, are passionate about learning, and take
Speaker 1: exactly that from this, and hopefully you have conversations like
Speaker 1: this with your group of friends and the circles that
Speaker 1: you travel, and then you can inspire each other to
Speaker 1: learn more. So, without further ado, please enjoy episode others
Speaker 1: clips on Hey, we're live with everybody. We're on a bus.
Speaker 1: We're not on public land, are we We're not. We
Speaker 1: are on very private land, very private land. Very private land.
Speaker 1: Probably could be public land. It could be if people
Speaker 1: didn't like to pay high dollar for skiing. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: people do. They do people really like that bus? Here
Speaker 1: we are, but hey, celebrate I say, celebrate private landowners
Speaker 1: as well. Let's do it. Yes, think everybody think that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm proud of the half acre. I own me too.
Speaker 1: I'm point four three no way here in this beautiful
Speaker 1: state of Montana. Yeah, yeah, shoot on you man. Um,
Speaker 1: let's go around and say who we are. Sam, please
Speaker 1: begin Sam's holt. I am a professional photographer in the
Speaker 1: hunting industry, owner of the public land bus, and we
Speaker 1: are currently sitting here in my bus were the bus. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my name is Ben Detta Monty. Um, I'm currently sitting
Speaker 1: in the bus of Sam's hold as well. And uh
Speaker 1: I do Instagram, YouTube and whatever I want. Wow, my
Speaker 1: name's Casey Butler. I am sitting on the bus as well.
Speaker 1: Actually seeing on Ben's lap on the bus that's sitting
Speaker 1: on public private land. That's Betel Brian Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been on this podcast once before. Thanks for having
Speaker 1: me back. I'm from I'm one third of Hush You Are.
Speaker 1: I'm Brian Mackray, two thirds of Hush yea and the
Speaker 1: second third or the actually that's not far off on
Speaker 1: the back end of things. What do you didn't even
Speaker 1: hear it. Would you rather he's saying he's doing two thirds?
Speaker 1: Would you rather be the second third or the third third?
Speaker 1: I'm the third third? Yeah, no doubt really tying it down.
Speaker 1: I am You're the glue. The yeah, I'm I'm hurting
Speaker 1: the hotelis hush, Yes, you're the Jannest Patlis the perfect analogy.
Speaker 1: The last podcast we called Yanni the glue, the glue.
Speaker 1: You're the glue as well. I would definitely say he's
Speaker 1: the glue. The glue stick can have a responsible Jannest
Speaker 1: has a much cooler nickname than I do, though, what's
Speaker 1: your nickname? A lot of them didn't just does. He
Speaker 1: has a cooler real name and nickname than you, with
Speaker 1: the last name of battle Ray, which is unpronounceable when
Speaker 1: you see it on paper by most people. You get
Speaker 1: a lot of nicknames growing up as a kid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all shortened down like anything Mac, mac and cheese everything, Ben,
Speaker 1: give me give me a mac McGregor's the only thing
Speaker 1: I can think of right now, Big Mack. It's kind
Speaker 1: of ironic. I went to food. I was with you
Speaker 1: immediately to food. B max sins were Since you are
Speaker 1: the glue, tell us, what what brought us onto the
Speaker 1: bus today, why we came here to be together. We're
Speaker 1: gonna talk a little bit about some of the recent
Speaker 1: comments from a Senator Mike leout of beautiful state of
Speaker 1: Utah where I actually reside. Who else he resides in Utah?
Speaker 1: I do, Ben does. Yeah, I live in the south
Speaker 1: end of the state, and then Casey here and Ida.
Speaker 1: But you're basically you might as well be in Utah. No, no,
Speaker 1: you don't know. No, you don't claim it. I lived,
Speaker 1: loved I lived in Utah for ten years and uh,
Speaker 1: and then we moved back. We moved to l A
Speaker 1: and then moved uh to Idaho, where I was raised.
Speaker 1: And my wife was trying to convince me to move
Speaker 1: back to Utah. I said, no, no, I won't do
Speaker 1: it because of mike Le. Mike Lee, that's the one reason.
Speaker 1: You were like, listen, honey, you know who must lives there.
Speaker 1: My my reasons were very selfish. It wasn't because of
Speaker 1: Mike Lee. But I was like, Babe, the honey, opportunities
Speaker 1: here in Idaho are just that much better. And she's like,
Speaker 1: you're really gonna base where we live and where we
Speaker 1: raise our family off funding. I said yes, And now
Speaker 1: we're in Idho still Yeah, I won. Was that prior
Speaker 1: to hush or during last year? Yeah, you're like, we
Speaker 1: have a hunting YouTube channel. Yeah, She's like, you can
Speaker 1: do that anywhere. Kind of deep. Yeah, well I like Idaho. Well, Um,
Speaker 1: to the point of public lands, I think what we
Speaker 1: all should acknowledge before we begin this discussion is that
Speaker 1: Mike Lee, Senator Mike Lee, a Great State of Utah,
Speaker 1: is one of many villains in a long storyline that
Speaker 1: is public lands going back to when they began, when
Speaker 1: there was railroad tycoons and Robert Barons and people that
Speaker 1: wanted to push our expansion westward, manifest destiny whatnot. And
Speaker 1: they were pushing against you know, um pinch Ow and
Speaker 1: Roosevelt and pushing back on the idea of preserving and
Speaker 1: uh lands for everyone because those lands can be profitable.
Speaker 1: So Mike Lee is just the most recent villain in
Speaker 1: the story many many of which reside in Utah. In Utah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but the most recent. Uh. It's kind of like the
Speaker 1: vestige of transfer proxy. Really yeah, good that you know
Speaker 1: a lot of us, a lot of folks that and
Speaker 1: this will know about Jason Schaffitz, But um Jason Schaffitz
Speaker 1: was the most recent. Was he a senator, congressman, congressman,
Speaker 1: congressman out of Utah to stand up and say we
Speaker 1: should transfer a federal ownership of lands to the states. Uh,
Speaker 1: the states can better manage those resources. But more over,
Speaker 1: Mike Lee gave a speech recently where he said a wilderness. Specifically,
Speaker 1: he traced wilderness to the European aristocracy prior to the
Speaker 1: colonization of this land that we sit on. I believe
Speaker 1: it's hashtag royal force. Hashtag royal force. So he somehow
Speaker 1: drew a line from uh, a place that is owned
Speaker 1: by the public. Two European aristocracy in the sevred somehow
Speaker 1: made that the draw and his his thing was, wilderness
Speaker 1: is for the few. Not everybody can go to wilderness,
Speaker 1: So wilderness is for the few. And he made hard
Speaker 1: left at common sense and practicality, and then went right
Speaker 1: towards aristocracy. The aristocracy wanted hunting to be for the few,
Speaker 1: be for the ridge to be for the well off.
Speaker 1: Wilderness somehow is the same thing. Anybody want to take
Speaker 1: that up, try to help us with that. I had
Speaker 1: a hard time understanding that analogy because to me, it
Speaker 1: was even beyond wilderness. It really like was just any
Speaker 1: public lands was very elitist. And the example he gave
Speaker 1: was people from Aspen flying in on their private jets,
Speaker 1: sipping on their coffee and micro brewis you know, to
Speaker 1: go to the Archers National Park and then they fly out,
Speaker 1: and how that is negatively impacting the local economy. And
Speaker 1: it just is a very interesting analogy that didn't resonate
Speaker 1: with me because I think, like most of us, pretty
Speaker 1: average guys grew up recreating on public LANs all of
Speaker 1: our lives, and so it almost seemed as if it
Speaker 1: was the opposite of the parallel he was drawing to
Speaker 1: what reality is for anybody that I know which is
Speaker 1: not elitist whatsoever. I mean the people that we run
Speaker 1: into on public plans or about his blue collar average
Speaker 1: folks as you can get just like how we were
Speaker 1: all raised. And so yeah, that was an interesting way
Speaker 1: too phrase his part of the speech. Yeah, And I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know what I know Orange Hatch, and I
Speaker 1: know the legislatre, state legislature in Utah is full of
Speaker 1: folks that are Rob Bishop. Yeah, Rob Bishop is a
Speaker 1: big one. Yeah, they're full of folks that are are
Speaker 1: can spin that yarn. Rob Bishop is on that yarn
Speaker 1: on many times, many times on the media podcast himself.
Speaker 1: Um to hear them say it, it's it's a out
Speaker 1: returning these lands to the people and allowing the people
Speaker 1: of the state to profit off these lands once more,
Speaker 1: which it can be a compelling argument to listen and
Speaker 1: listen to. When it's veiling that way, listen to that,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, that's playing am I much like uh
Speaker 1: During the National Monuments crisis, I will call it a
Speaker 1: crisis of conscience or whatever we'll call that, people were saying.
Speaker 1: One side was like, well, Trump's given the land back
Speaker 1: to the people, and the other side was like, Trump's
Speaker 1: taking the land away from the people. Holy sh it.
Speaker 1: Somewhere is the right answer, And it's neither one of
Speaker 1: those somebody's lying or both of them are lying. Just
Speaker 1: a small disconnect between the two ends on that one.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, I think that's what's so interesting about
Speaker 1: this whole topic is so the bears here was going
Speaker 1: to go in a couple of years ago, and I
Speaker 1: don't know that Eric has some friends lived down there,
Speaker 1: and that's the last thing they wanted was that monument,
Speaker 1: And well, now and there are people just like us.
Speaker 1: They hunt fish, enjoy public lands, and uh where they
Speaker 1: they didn't want the monument, right. I don't know the
Speaker 1: details of that one anyway, But it's like this, we
Speaker 1: draw a sand, like a line in the sand, and
Speaker 1: it's it's because of these politicians are just giving out
Speaker 1: such wrong information and leading people to believe what it
Speaker 1: is better that the federal that we own our public
Speaker 1: or that the state's control of public LANs. But what
Speaker 1: we've learned from history is a lot of times the
Speaker 1: states will sell those public LANs off to pay for
Speaker 1: whatever school districts or or something like that. But I
Speaker 1: always say, it's just a communication breakdown. Like it seems
Speaker 1: like that's why you task such a big problem. It's
Speaker 1: like the Republicans have continuously done this in the past.
Speaker 1: And it's like that famous speech when tex Triers came
Speaker 1: to Ido trying to convince the IDO people that it's
Speaker 1: the right thing to do, and he's like, you look
Speaker 1: at the state that I come from, only two of
Speaker 1: our lands are ran by the federal government. And it's like,
Speaker 1: because that's all the public lands you guys have remaining. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, you gotta be in this case, you have
Speaker 1: to be pro nuance and anti bullshit. The National Monument
Speaker 1: things specifically was full of nuance. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: things that you know, grand staircase escalante is that bears
Speaker 1: ears is not. There's a lot of issues and micro
Speaker 1: macro terms for both those places that need to be
Speaker 1: set aside and dealt with on their on their own
Speaker 1: but in but in the same way, when you look
Speaker 1: at the history of of all this, you have to
Speaker 1: understand that, you know, public lands are good for this country,
Speaker 1: but there's a whole lot of micro issues on the
Speaker 1: regional level that make them complicated. And so what we
Speaker 1: I think as a group who care about these things
Speaker 1: need to do, in my opinion is, um, now, let's
Speaker 1: not get into the n R a bullshit where the
Speaker 1: sky is always falling, everything's always going away. We're unwilling
Speaker 1: to have a, you know, a serious dialogue about when
Speaker 1: is federal ownership of lands not the best thing for
Speaker 1: that land? Um And you can't always be preaching from
Speaker 1: the same pulp, because then you become fearmongers. Then you
Speaker 1: become because that's what this like that Mike Lee comes
Speaker 1: out and then it's like the next thing to get
Speaker 1: excited about. Well, it's the same conversation. It's the exact
Speaker 1: same conversation. Both sides have been saying the same thing
Speaker 1: for many decades. I think the difference though, is that,
Speaker 1: you know, the chiefest thing kind of erupted, and then
Speaker 1: through social influence, largely a lot of people, created a
Speaker 1: big stir and he ultimately killed that bill that he
Speaker 1: introduced because of the backlash, and then that died down
Speaker 1: for almost a good year, and then Mike Lee is
Speaker 1: the next guy to kind of surface back up with
Speaker 1: some pretty bold statements. The way he finished off his
Speaker 1: speech was very definitively and he had three initiatives that
Speaker 1: he plans on moving forward with which, then, to your point,
Speaker 1: is the next major thing to talk about It particularly
Speaker 1: for folks in the industry or any public land users
Speaker 1: or owners that are kind of passionately hanging onto this,
Speaker 1: it's just relevant because it's back again. It's it's like
Speaker 1: it's like a virus that just to bring it up
Speaker 1: and beat it down. Yeah, I mean, Sam, your your
Speaker 1: mother is uh state State State Center in South Dakota
Speaker 1: dealt with a lot of these issues. Yes, so a
Speaker 1: little bit of it. Yeah, and the big one, like
Speaker 1: at the state level more than the federal level in
Speaker 1: South Dakota was most recently there was a change in
Speaker 1: the law to UM. So in South Dakota. When the
Speaker 1: state was founded, they put the water in public trust,
Speaker 1: so it's called the public trust doctrine. So the people
Speaker 1: of the state owned the water, so that no one
Speaker 1: had a superior right to do with the water what
Speaker 1: they wanted to do with it. So um. But more,
Speaker 1: they just passed the law that did end up giving
Speaker 1: um that my mom thought this really hard. Um. But
Speaker 1: they passed a law that gives superior right to the
Speaker 1: landowner to be able to close off access to a
Speaker 1: public resource. Um just because they don't want people to
Speaker 1: come near their property. Um So, even though somebody might
Speaker 1: be floating on top of the public water, even though
Speaker 1: there's private land underneath. Because a lot of the eastern
Speaker 1: half of South Dakota flooded. Um just through a long
Speaker 1: series of um complaints and different things that happened in
Speaker 1: lawsuits and different things, the legislature unfortunately passed the law
Speaker 1: that closed down I mean could potentially close down up
Speaker 1: close to half million acres of public resource. So she's
Speaker 1: been on I don't a lot to fight that, um,
Speaker 1: and she hasn't done dealt much with any of the
Speaker 1: public land stuff at the federal level. But it just
Speaker 1: goes to show you it doesn't matter what level you're at.
Speaker 1: It's like it's you know, it's a fight to protect
Speaker 1: it all. Yeah. I think that's another misunderstanding to when
Speaker 1: these Utah delegation continues to bring forth these uh comments
Speaker 1: and plans to do things. A lot of folks think that, oh, well,
Speaker 1: that's just in Utah, like that's whatever I lived somewhere else,
Speaker 1: so it's not that important of an issue. But the
Speaker 1: reality is, you know, when he's talking about some of
Speaker 1: the things he would like to do, it would impact everything. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean well, I mean I listened to the link
Speaker 1: cut out on me when I was listening to a speech,
Speaker 1: so I only got about halfway through it, but it, uh,
Speaker 1: it seemed to me that he was just kind of
Speaker 1: guessing that most people wouldn't do the research on like
Speaker 1: what public land actually is and would just follow along
Speaker 1: with kind of what he was saying because he's and
Speaker 1: you know, an elective official and he should have all
Speaker 1: the answers, and so I think, um, it was like
Speaker 1: almost like a marketing speech, like like selling people on
Speaker 1: the idea, like that his idea was correct, and spinning
Speaker 1: it in a way that you know, made this like
Speaker 1: one of America's most you know, precious resources, making it
Speaker 1: seem like it was something for the you know, the
Speaker 1: only the elite people. Well, there's there's nuance happening, right,
Speaker 1: We all as hunters have to agree that the states
Speaker 1: can better manage wildlife that's in our North American model
Speaker 1: of conservation is held in trust by the states. So
Speaker 1: that's at one level we're saying the states are best suited.
Speaker 1: The state biologists, state widlife biologists and state game agencies
Speaker 1: run hunting. They and when we buy Pittman Robertson's funds
Speaker 1: go through the federal government back to state agencies. So
Speaker 1: it's it's not that they're incapable of doing it. And
Speaker 1: so there's nuance to that conversation. So you could use
Speaker 1: that point and argue all day that that why would
Speaker 1: why would states not want to own that land when
Speaker 1: state wildlife managers are the ones that we trust and
Speaker 1: wildlife biologists to dictate how we hunt and where are
Speaker 1: we hunt and how we do it and what it
Speaker 1: costs and where we can go. But at the same
Speaker 1: time you understand, like, while that is true, what's also
Speaker 1: true is if that if the states own that land,
Speaker 1: the governors, state legislator their dictate. Their dictation is too
Speaker 1: control the budget and balance the budget. That's their job.
Speaker 1: And historically, especially in Utah, when you give them the
Speaker 1: ownership of public lands, they will balance the budget and
Speaker 1: sell what could be an albatross for for the state budget.
Speaker 1: So I think we all need to be able to
Speaker 1: talk through. Hey, look, we all on the states rights
Speaker 1: kind of guy. I guess when it when it makes sense,
Speaker 1: um when it doesn't that I'm not, but I think
Speaker 1: we need. We can get caught up in a one
Speaker 1: politician thinking that that states rights lane and sticking to
Speaker 1: it and never will That's what Mike Lee does. He
Speaker 1: just talks about it. He's like, states right, States right,
Speaker 1: States right. I'm with the states rights most of the time,
Speaker 1: but in this one case, you're you're wrong. I mean
Speaker 1: a lot of it comes down to finances, right. I
Speaker 1: mean I think a lot most everybody could admit that
Speaker 1: the fed federal government could do a better job managing
Speaker 1: the public lands the resources that we have right now,
Speaker 1: but they also aren't getting the funding that they're due
Speaker 1: because of how Congress is budgeting the money to be had,
Speaker 1: right I mean, that's one of the biggest challenges currently
Speaker 1: is that the federal resources and managers don't really have
Speaker 1: much to work with. And then you look on the
Speaker 1: contrary side of that, like Ben's point is, if states
Speaker 1: did have suddenly control over all of these additional acreages
Speaker 1: and resources, how the heck can they pay for the
Speaker 1: stuff that right now the federal government struggling to degree
Speaker 1: to pay for. And so it comes down to this
Speaker 1: financial challenge of well, and there's been some can be
Speaker 1: afforded in the public land sphere, there's been some winds
Speaker 1: In the recent omnibus package that the spending bill that
Speaker 1: was passed. They set some some rules against fire borrowing,
Speaker 1: which is when um, when uh fire happens on public
Speaker 1: lands a lot of times the budget that was that's
Speaker 1: there for wildlife managers and land managers to manage that
Speaker 1: public land. They're taking money out of their pockets to
Speaker 1: put the fire out, and that's millions, millions, billions of
Speaker 1: dollars and so that I'm gonna package had some language
Speaker 1: in it that said, can't do that anymore, or it's limited.
Speaker 1: And there's a laundry list of of what I would
Speaker 1: consider winds for UH public land and public land owners
Speaker 1: and users. And so I think that on the micro side,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of things we can say, let's go
Speaker 1: on the right way. But there again, there's some folks
Speaker 1: in Utah that would would likely say, hey, look we'll
Speaker 1: take We'll take those micro losses if we can convince
Speaker 1: enough people that the that states need to run this land.
Speaker 1: And then at the end of the day, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to look up the numbers in Utah. Some percentage of
Speaker 1: state held land and Utah has already been sold off.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the number is, but it's a
Speaker 1: significant number. I think people underestimate the sentiment of Utah's
Speaker 1: Utah's Southern Utah, especially like Mike Lee is a well
Speaker 1: like guy um in my neck of the woods. Um
Speaker 1: with the people that I know, the people that that
Speaker 1: I run with, so um Or and Hatch we talked
Speaker 1: about orn Hatch earlier. Um he was elected in Utah
Speaker 1: and he ran on the platform of the stage Brush
Speaker 1: Rebellion His whole thing was give us the land back,
Speaker 1: or we're gonna succeed from the United States. And he
Speaker 1: won on that platform in Utah, and he got to
Speaker 1: Washington and learned that that wasn't the way things worked,
Speaker 1: and um, yeah, and people hate him for that. They
Speaker 1: hate him for the fact that he didn't follow through
Speaker 1: on that. So it's just the mentality is different. I
Speaker 1: was raised in that kind of a mentality screw the
Speaker 1: federal right and and large degree I feel like that.
Speaker 1: I'm like you're saying, you know, states rights for me
Speaker 1: of the time, and it took me until a lot
Speaker 1: of kind of conversations like this to sit down with
Speaker 1: people and realize the importance of the federal government in
Speaker 1: managing our public lands. Because I saw the opposite side
Speaker 1: of that, and and that was what was taught to
Speaker 1: me the whole time I was growing up. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a big part of it, and a big part of
Speaker 1: the hunting population leans right and leans states rights. And
Speaker 1: except for good reasons, I'm not a big fan of
Speaker 1: the federal government and a lot of things, but I
Speaker 1: do shure like Rhods, you know that I'm driving on.
Speaker 1: I do shure like all the little the things that
Speaker 1: my tax dodge go to the fund um. But again
Speaker 1: there there's just there's just nuance to that story. And
Speaker 1: when you grow up in the situation you had been that.
Speaker 1: I don't wholly disagree with that, but I do there's
Speaker 1: like an at the end of the day, which and
Speaker 1: this is different than the gun debate. I always tried
Speaker 1: to draw comparisons to that because you look at the
Speaker 1: n r A and you look what they've done. Nobody
Speaker 1: wants b h A to be the n RA of
Speaker 1: the public lands, right, None of us want that. None
Speaker 1: of us want to be like blind followers of something
Speaker 1: for just to blind. I just like just to be
Speaker 1: the the n r A sycophan, or to be the
Speaker 1: guy that's like, they're never gonna take our guns. There's
Speaker 1: no way, nothing can happen, slippery slope, don't touch anything.
Speaker 1: In fact, I need to have more without saying like
Speaker 1: what's best for this society, best for this country. I
Speaker 1: think what we can avoid is being that, you know,
Speaker 1: sitting around here without full perspective and saying, don't ever
Speaker 1: touch our public land. Don't ever touch our public land.
Speaker 1: I mean, how many types of public lands are there?
Speaker 1: And how many types of different states and what things
Speaker 1: and so. Um, when there's a movement like we're part of,
Speaker 1: everybody is just looking to what's the next thing to
Speaker 1: look at. Because we got a little we had a
Speaker 1: little dead spot before Mike Lee spoke up. It was
Speaker 1: pretty quiet for a long time where where you know,
Speaker 1: public land advocates were looking around like do we do it?
Speaker 1: We gotta do more? What do we gotta Bruefest coming up?
Speaker 1: What do we got going on? I guess we'll throw
Speaker 1: a party. Well that Yeah, then it became it became
Speaker 1: Land and Water Conservation Fund, which is important. Um, so
Speaker 1: that's another good point to say, Lana Water Conservation Fund
Speaker 1: is not all that popular topic until there was a
Speaker 1: lag in the public land conversation and he needed something
Speaker 1: to pick up. That very important piece of legislation got
Speaker 1: a bunch of chatter for that reason. I think that's
Speaker 1: a good thing for sure, and and I think it
Speaker 1: will get funded, but not in perpetuity, yeah, unfortunately, but
Speaker 1: hopefully it's more than the recommended amount of like eight
Speaker 1: million down from yah situation. Yeah, and then you I'm
Speaker 1: not a big fan of politics, but I'd be interested here.
Speaker 1: Anybody's opinion on you get a Republican administration run by
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and they slash and burn the e p
Speaker 1: A like that's that's a victory. And they slash in
Speaker 1: pern regular nation, the slash and and that would become
Speaker 1: into public lands. That's what exactly the same thing they'd
Speaker 1: like to do there. So those policies are um and
Speaker 1: and these are people that are pro hunting air quotes.
Speaker 1: What do we do with that? What do we do
Speaker 1: with that? Are we now screaming liberal a holes because
Speaker 1: we want the environment to be protected in the public
Speaker 1: lands to day in federal hands. I don't think. I
Speaker 1: don't think you can say that. I think the fact
Speaker 1: is it's okay to agree with you know, a person
Speaker 1: or an administration on certain things and disagree on others. No,
Speaker 1: it's not, Sam, I watched Fox Newsy step down. I agree, man.
Speaker 1: I think that's the big biggest issue. It's our society
Speaker 1: is we can't talk through things like it's either it's
Speaker 1: this way or no, it's not right, And especially with politics,
Speaker 1: like why can't we believe in certain things that certain
Speaker 1: candidates are for and not believe in other of things?
Speaker 1: Like I think that that should be allowed right, Like
Speaker 1: it's like you. I like you for a lot of
Speaker 1: different reasons. I don't like the way you look though.
Speaker 1: It's marginal, it's margin, but no, like, yeah, that's what's
Speaker 1: so interesting about Utah's So those people that live down
Speaker 1: in southern Utah, when they proposed the Bears their monument,
Speaker 1: they were like no, like, we don't want that. That's
Speaker 1: the last thing we want. I remember people are sending
Speaker 1: Eric text like hey, help us, like get the word
Speaker 1: out about this, like we need to shut this down. Well,
Speaker 1: then we have another big group of hunters and fishermen
Speaker 1: that are like, no, this is actually a good thing
Speaker 1: for you guys, and so like how is how is
Speaker 1: the message being washed so thin throughout this whole group
Speaker 1: of people that do the same things. Yeah, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you how. Because that national monument desination is complicated, Like
Speaker 1: I've read through a lot of trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what exactly is a national monument in that sense? What
Speaker 1: access does it provide? What access doesn't limit? From what
Speaker 1: I could say, it doesn't limit much access at all,
Speaker 1: other than you know, a road here or there or
Speaker 1: something like that. Now, then you're talking about what is access.
Speaker 1: You've got to define what the word access means. What?
Speaker 1: What what does public mean? What why it went? Is
Speaker 1: public good? One? Is it bad? Um? Because public can
Speaker 1: be bad. To ship too many people in a place,
Speaker 1: we all know that's not good. Access, too many roads
Speaker 1: on a place, we all know that's not good. But
Speaker 1: that's some people. That's access. Yeah, I think some of that.
Speaker 1: We deal with that a lot in the south end
Speaker 1: of the state too. Um. You take these areas like
Speaker 1: there's an area near my home in southern Utah that
Speaker 1: started off as um it's a place called Canaro Falls.
Speaker 1: I talked about it now because it's the whole world
Speaker 1: knows about it, and uh, they're running into a lot
Speaker 1: of these similar problems. It's just a popular height and
Speaker 1: for years no one knew about this place. You know,
Speaker 1: it was a local spot. Everybody would go up there.
Speaker 1: And then because of whatever, you know, social media as
Speaker 1: well as you know, it became a really well known thing.
Speaker 1: And then you have to deal with, um, the crowds,
Speaker 1: you have to deal with parking, you have to deal
Speaker 1: with Sanita shan and so now they're looking to incorporate
Speaker 1: it in design National Park. Well, then it becomes a
Speaker 1: fee area and I think it just makes it a
Speaker 1: really complicated question anytime the word gets out, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people, I know in the local demographics fear that.
Speaker 1: With the bearsers, I know that was a huge part
Speaker 1: of the problem is it becomes a national monument and
Speaker 1: then when you look at places to visit, here's this
Speaker 1: national monument, that's something we can check out and and
Speaker 1: the problems that come with so much traffic is a
Speaker 1: big fear for the locals. Yeah, and that's a delicate situation,
Speaker 1: you know. And then you start, I think you can
Speaker 1: get on on a national level, you get people that
Speaker 1: are just picking apart, they're just taking what they want
Speaker 1: out of that. And you know how much national money
Speaker 1: you get tourism, right when dollars come from tourism. But
Speaker 1: this is a that's a pretty unique place. They got
Speaker 1: more people chomping around on it, and people want to
Speaker 1: access it, more campers going up. But that's what at
Speaker 1: some level we're talking about. We're talking about public access
Speaker 1: to things and so and I'm I sit on the
Speaker 1: board of b h A. I don't know what they
Speaker 1: think about, you know, me saying let's think about the
Speaker 1: nuance first, and let's not always just be like, hey,
Speaker 1: if it's public it is better. Let's think about both
Speaker 1: sides of that at all times. I know that's the
Speaker 1: kind of centrist organization I believe B H A two B.
Speaker 1: But um, it's way easier to market the other ship.
Speaker 1: Well that's what the other I mean, that's what they
Speaker 1: do that. It's like we're talking about with you know,
Speaker 1: you watch Fox News, you picture side right. They want
Speaker 1: to say you have to be on one side of
Speaker 1: the issue or the other. Either you are pro public
Speaker 1: land transfer or not, and that's it. Those are the
Speaker 1: only options. But neither one of those is a perfect option.
Speaker 1: I mean, you have to break it down to what
Speaker 1: works best for each specific chunk of land. And you
Speaker 1: have to break it down when you look at either ideology,
Speaker 1: which parts you like, which parts you don't like. That's
Speaker 1: how you become educated about a thing. You know, you
Speaker 1: can't just say I'm opposed, I'm for it and close
Speaker 1: your eyes. And I think that's what a lot of
Speaker 1: people want to do. And when you find people like
Speaker 1: with the mentality that are so opposed to this this
Speaker 1: are so in favor of this public land transfer, it's
Speaker 1: because it's easier just to swallow the whole people. Let's
Speaker 1: say I'm opposed or I'm in favor, than it is
Speaker 1: to get educated on every little part of it. And
Speaker 1: I hear you're talking about reading bills um and talking
Speaker 1: about proposed reading proposed legislation. What is it half of
Speaker 1: a percent that does that. Everybody else just watches on
Speaker 1: TV and they say I'm form against. They get in
Speaker 1: their camp. Yeah I've read some legislation. I still come
Speaker 1: away like, I'm not sure what the funk I just read.
Speaker 1: I don't know how I would distill that to the
Speaker 1: public and make sure to make it make them read it.
Speaker 1: And you can't, Yeah, you can't come out and be like, well,
Speaker 1: I know you guys are all really piste off as
Speaker 1: nastional money thing, but we're you know, we're looking into it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll get back. We'll get back to you in about
Speaker 1: ten years. And I mean that's the way society is
Speaker 1: right now. We want immediate gratification and everything. And I
Speaker 1: mean even Mike Lee's speech was like an hour and
Speaker 1: a half on how many people legitimately sat through it
Speaker 1: and watched every second of that speech or read the
Speaker 1: entire transcript of it. Most people one for the cliff
Speaker 1: Notes version, like we're back in college, right. I got
Speaker 1: to the part where it pissed me off, and I
Speaker 1: stopped yecause I'm like, maybe after this will say something
Speaker 1: really cool, but I don't want to read that, right,
Speaker 1: I just want to be mad. I just want to
Speaker 1: be mad at this guy. We've always talked Case and
Speaker 1: I've talked to you know. We we both grew up
Speaker 1: super conservative, and you know, many generations of that in
Speaker 1: our families. And I think that's the easy way to go.
Speaker 1: Is people just kind of fall into what they know,
Speaker 1: what they're comfortable with, and it's a it's a little
Speaker 1: bit more challenging to step outside of that and say, Okay,
Speaker 1: there are certain things that I certainly agree with and
Speaker 1: on on board with. However, man, there's some really shady
Speaker 1: shit happening on that side of the fence. Like maybe
Speaker 1: I should reconsider a couple of things. Maybe I should
Speaker 1: reevaluate all of their decisions, and maybe I should even
Speaker 1: reconsider not just going down a party line if it
Speaker 1: gets to that, but really making some decisions on issues.
Speaker 1: And you know, I know for a lot of us,
Speaker 1: we may pick and choose certain issues that are more
Speaker 1: important than other ones. But there's a lot of folks
Speaker 1: that every time Mike Glee posts on Instagram Nowlysis just
Speaker 1: every comments keep it public. And I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot of folks that don't really understand what they're doing there.
Speaker 1: And that's I don't want that. I just don't want
Speaker 1: that as as a father, as a human being with
Speaker 1: a brain and fucking you know, marginal good looks that
Speaker 1: that's I just don't want that. I don't want that
Speaker 1: for anybody. I don't want I don't want to be
Speaker 1: on one end like you know, screw you haretics. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, be allowing haretics to be in
Speaker 1: my my community's like just don't don't be that. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, like you said, it's real fancy
Speaker 1: to talk about public lands right now, Like maybe at
Speaker 1: some point we'll get so comfortable that it won't be
Speaker 1: It just takes a lot of work to to really
Speaker 1: understand it because it is there's so many complexities to it,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean diving in deep to Utah for example,
Speaker 1: and for trying to figure out why why does this
Speaker 1: delegation keep running down this road? What is that? What's
Speaker 1: the root of it? And there's a lot of layers
Speaker 1: to that get to that route. When you start to talk,
Speaker 1: when you start to talking what you said about Orange Hatch,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a deep stage rush rebellion. That's a
Speaker 1: deep seated, you know, like fundamental ideology that goes against
Speaker 1: federal ownership of basically everything. And at some level there's
Speaker 1: parts of that that you can see. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: there's parallels to our own, our own worlds, you know,
Speaker 1: the gun world being the one that I always try
Speaker 1: to draw parallels too, because you can see how you
Speaker 1: can see how people got spun up with gun rights.
Speaker 1: It's gun rights is compelling and wonderful and and fluffy
Speaker 1: a topic as public lands. It's like Heritage, Constitution, America, freedom,
Speaker 1: bald Eagles. It's just all the words you say to
Speaker 1: get elected. Yeah, but it's soon. It's easy to get
Speaker 1: swept up in that, and then the next thing you know,
Speaker 1: you got you've got something like n r A that
Speaker 1: doesn't look so nice anymore. Oh Yeah, so let's not
Speaker 1: do that. Let's avoid How do we avoid that? Because
Speaker 1: I I do feel like you get going down the
Speaker 1: road that we're on and everybody stops being educated and
Speaker 1: everybody just says to keep it public all the time,
Speaker 1: and that's not the point. That's not the point. Well,
Speaker 1: I think the fact that, you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: the people that are speir hitting this realize that fact
Speaker 1: right there changes all of it. The fact that they're saying,
Speaker 1: let's not just be a sounding board, like, let's actually
Speaker 1: be educated, because a large part of the other side
Speaker 1: of the issue is actively trying to engage the opposite.
Speaker 1: They're actually and trying to get people to just support
Speaker 1: and blindly follow. And the fact that you can look
Speaker 1: at yourself from a position of influence and say let's
Speaker 1: not be that that's the starting point right there. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: and the fact that everybody here when I say land
Speaker 1: or conservation nyms like checking her head like yeah, cool,
Speaker 1: I know what that is, Like that's pretty damn good.
Speaker 1: Like that's a good starting point when you can use
Speaker 1: all that excitement to basically, you know, pump up that
Speaker 1: the idea that you need to be knowledgeable is you're
Speaker 1: pretty close at that point to lead people to water.
Speaker 1: You can't make him drink though. I think the hope though,
Speaker 1: is that through through some of this keep it public
Speaker 1: movement and you know, maybe to an entry level standpoint,
Speaker 1: is people just post that that that would lead to
Speaker 1: other things like doing more research and getting more invested
Speaker 1: in finding out what does that really mean, and digging
Speaker 1: into the layers of why certain delegations are doing one
Speaker 1: thing and why others are trying to do a different thing,
Speaker 1: and just better understanding and educating yourself. So to me,
Speaker 1: it's like just taking action. And that doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 1: you have to join a conservation organization or b h
Speaker 1: A or whoever, but you can take action to just
Speaker 1: further understand this really dynamic, complex topic which you know
Speaker 1: hopefully evolved in the next step. And taking action can
Speaker 1: be anything like that. You know, all of us, I
Speaker 1: think most of us here we're at the b h
Speaker 1: A DO and Boise this year, Like there's there's actionable
Speaker 1: stuff there, there's actual energy in that group of people.
Speaker 1: That group of people is pretty studious, Like they care
Speaker 1: about stuff. They're willing to go and do a group
Speaker 1: of people and and learn and listen, talk and have conversations.
Speaker 1: And that's important. So don't get me wrong. The movement
Speaker 1: is important, but movements are dangerous, man. Yeah, you just
Speaker 1: gotta ride that line between it just being trendy and
Speaker 1: it's what the cool kids are doing and actually moving
Speaker 1: things forward and doing things that are gonna change the
Speaker 1: outcome and not just have it be a way to
Speaker 1: sell a T shirt. Yeah, I mean, and I'm doing
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm selling T shirts. So you know, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to ride that line. I'm trying to you know,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to. I don't want to be like I'm
Speaker 1: not doing this just so I can make some money.
Speaker 1: I'm doing it so like you know, like my whole
Speaker 1: goal with the bus was just to have people stop
Speaker 1: and think for a second, be like, what what is
Speaker 1: he even talking about? And then go, you know, listen
Speaker 1: to stuff like this and listen to other podcasts and
Speaker 1: go whatever, Google why is public Land cool or whatever
Speaker 1: that you know, whatever you're gonna go look up, but
Speaker 1: start to realize like what everybody's trying to do. But
Speaker 1: it's it is, it's it's gonna be tough to because
Speaker 1: right now that's a good analogy. Here's you know, the
Speaker 1: water is boiling, but what are you going to cook
Speaker 1: with it? I Mean, we have all these young people
Speaker 1: that are all fired up and want to help and
Speaker 1: want to do something and they're talking to everybody, and
Speaker 1: they're telling their buddies about public land and all these
Speaker 1: different things, but that it's no one sending them anywhere
Speaker 1: to go do anything and actually make a difference on
Speaker 1: the path that this needs to go. So I think
Speaker 1: that's I think that's the next step is figuring out
Speaker 1: how to utilize that. Figure it out. Five of us,
Speaker 1: we can we can play you start, We'll go around table.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the tables are yet cool. I
Speaker 1: think hashtag built for the wall. One thing I've been
Speaker 1: thinking about a lot is is that dot com. One
Speaker 1: thing I've been thinking about a lot is um that.
Speaker 1: I mean, the whole public land thing. But a lot
Speaker 1: of us just say, you know whatever, hunting. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm a hunter, I'm a conservationists not necessarily true, um.
Speaker 1: And I think moving forward, I think just being a
Speaker 1: hunter and buying a hunting license is not enough anymore.
Speaker 1: So I think people need to take a good hard
Speaker 1: look and figure out what they what else they can
Speaker 1: do two contribute to, you know, the culture of hunting,
Speaker 1: rather than just being you know, like, oh I hunted,
Speaker 1: you know, and buy guns and ammo and I'm I
Speaker 1: support because of that, I support public lands and conservation. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: Nail's name name five things people ought to know about
Speaker 1: that they don't know about. Pittman, Robertson's fucking one of them. Yeah, Pittman,
Speaker 1: robers Snack, Daniel Johnson. Um, I mean just like the
Speaker 1: amount of money like where, Like I mean, I would
Speaker 1: like to see an educational series about just where that
Speaker 1: money actually goes? And then like, how far does you
Speaker 1: know if say you're a resident, you buy a hunting
Speaker 1: tag for thirty five dollars, where do those thirty five
Speaker 1: dollars actually go? And how much more do we need
Speaker 1: to do to you know, pump enough money into the
Speaker 1: like into the states for them to be able to
Speaker 1: manage wildlife properly and land properly. Yeah, well, how many
Speaker 1: people that buy license know the tenants of the North
Speaker 1: American model of the wildlife conseration? Very few? In five? Um,
Speaker 1: how many of them know when they're how their money,
Speaker 1: how their tax dollars is put into Pitman Robertson, Daviel Johnson.
Speaker 1: Very few? How many of them know how to type
Speaker 1: hashtag keep it public into their most so like, but
Speaker 1: I think what you're saying, what how what do we boy,
Speaker 1: what to be cooking with a boiling water. That's what
Speaker 1: we're cooking, man, We're cooking this like thing we already got,
Speaker 1: We've already had this beautiful thing that's working and working
Speaker 1: very well. That there's healthy lands, there's healthy ecosystems, there's
Speaker 1: healthy wildlife populations. There's a bunch of passionate people that
Speaker 1: love those things. But there's like a hollow shell there
Speaker 1: that's hollow at some level. I mean, I wrote a
Speaker 1: piece on pitt and Robertson for Patient Sunny Magazine, and
Speaker 1: I interviewed just hundred hundreds of that all the way
Speaker 1: down to my dad and my uncle, and I just
Speaker 1: asked him of this, the simple question, what is Pittman Robertson?
Speaker 1: What is the Wildlife Frustration Act? What is it? And
Speaker 1: hundred people that know what it was? And that and
Speaker 1: these are just regular hunting folks that my dad didn't
Speaker 1: know what it was. He's been paying into it since
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty. He taught me a hunt. Um guarantee, he
Speaker 1: wouldn't even know what the North American Mala life contravation
Speaker 1: even is. Um. But his son is boiling on public
Speaker 1: lands and boiling all this stuff and so my son
Speaker 1: may not boil on it, but he's gonna know what
Speaker 1: it is if he wants to go hunting. If he doesn't,
Speaker 1: then fine. But but I think that's that's my opinion.
Speaker 1: Anybody else will tell me I'm stupid. I think it's
Speaker 1: paramount that you get the information out there in a
Speaker 1: way that's digestible for the average joe. I think that's
Speaker 1: why podcasting has been such a huge thing for me.
Speaker 1: The majority of my education and understanding anything that has
Speaker 1: to do with conservation of public lands comes from in
Speaker 1: large part the media or podcast and just from other podcasts,
Speaker 1: to where when I was in the field, that stuff
Speaker 1: was readily available, that information was there for me to
Speaker 1: listen to in an entertaining way. It's like the waters boiling,
Speaker 1: what are you gonna cook with it? Well, I think
Speaker 1: huge part of that has to be just making a
Speaker 1: really complex issue digestible for the average joe. And that's
Speaker 1: why I think these conversations are so important. Case you
Speaker 1: got anything for us, Yeah, I think, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think it boils down to edg edging and like there's
Speaker 1: so many guys I know that you know, I grew
Speaker 1: very conservative, their conservative, but they followed that party and
Speaker 1: so whatever that party says they buy into no matter what.
Speaker 1: They don't even know what I means. So he's just like, yep,
Speaker 1: we the states should take back their federal the lands.
Speaker 1: And it's like, no, wait, hold on, let's talk about
Speaker 1: that dad. But another thing is, um, you know, I
Speaker 1: was at the b h A rendezvous in Bois you
Speaker 1: with you and uh I there and Patagonia had a
Speaker 1: big presidence there was that the owner that was there
Speaker 1: found super cool guy, told a really cool story. But
Speaker 1: I saw people comment on posts and stuff after like
Speaker 1: why is b h A supporting Patagonia, Like Patagonia is
Speaker 1: trying to shut down grizzly bear hunt this grizzly bear
Speaker 1: hunting and this and that there they're against like hunting,
Speaker 1: and you know, maybe I don't know where they stand
Speaker 1: on hunting, to be honest with you, but guess what,
Speaker 1: Patagonia has a big, giant audience and they're powerful company
Speaker 1: and they want the same things we want, right they
Speaker 1: want public lands. So let me probably stop you there
Speaker 1: and I'll say I don't think because I've I've talked
Speaker 1: to the patagony folks at that in depth about this.
Speaker 1: There against predator hunting. Okay, they told me they're against
Speaker 1: predator hunting, flat out, word forward. So what do we
Speaker 1: think about that? Do we agree with that? No, not really,
Speaker 1: bears coots wills, they're against it, flat out that there
Speaker 1: is against that as we are state transfers. So did
Speaker 1: we just be like, but there are four public lands
Speaker 1: and and your van and archer did see what happened
Speaker 1: in Utah, Jason Schaefez, So what do we do we
Speaker 1: do about that? Well, it's just going back to what
Speaker 1: we said about, you know, like not not agreeing with everything,
Speaker 1: you know, but agreeing with some things and coming to
Speaker 1: the table with those with those commonalities. Right, Patagonia might
Speaker 1: be against predator hunting, but there are four public lands
Speaker 1: and that's what we're trying to fight for right now.
Speaker 1: So I think, yeah, we should all be able to
Speaker 1: have open and honest conversations just like you were talking about,
Speaker 1: and let's go through the bs and and you know,
Speaker 1: and get those commonalities. There's a lot of people to
Speaker 1: enjoy public cleans. It's not just the hunters, you know,
Speaker 1: they're spikers, fisherman, canoers, rock clambers, all those people enjoy
Speaker 1: public cleans. They enjoy being out and uh yeah we
Speaker 1: might not at all see I die, but we still
Speaker 1: all want to enjoy those things together. Yeah, and that's it.
Speaker 1: I mean, what do we do with like the I
Speaker 1: don't know what the answers to what you do with that?
Speaker 1: You know, you try to educate, but first be educated yourself.
Speaker 1: So I think that's the big that's one of the
Speaker 1: bigger problems. Um. I don't know that I'm even educated
Speaker 1: enough on predator hunting as a whole. I think and
Speaker 1: taking anything as a whole and saying I'm against is
Speaker 1: stupid anyways. But at the same time, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of wildlif foiles, So I'll tell you shooting kites as
Speaker 1: good for just produces more coyouds. Um. But like like
Speaker 1: Benja said, you listen to enough podcasts. You listen to
Speaker 1: Ronella Talk or some folks that are educated on stuff
Speaker 1: J speak about it. Learned a little bit about that,
Speaker 1: and then you can dictate that back to somebody that
Speaker 1: works at Paddygoing. You might tell you that you shouldn't
Speaker 1: have hunt predators, but yeah, you're not kicking pad. You're
Speaker 1: not kicking out of the BHA fucking rendevo because yeah,
Speaker 1: he founded the company. Doesn't like bear Hunt's just not
Speaker 1: doing that. Have be foolish. Can I tell a story
Speaker 1: on the lighter side about Chinard at the b h
Speaker 1: A Rendebow, please do. So. I was just sitting on
Speaker 1: a bench outside and there's a bunch of seminars going on.
Speaker 1: I was hanging out and Van came down the hallway
Speaker 1: and he's, you know, I've watched films and different stuff
Speaker 1: about what he's done in conservation or whatever. And so
Speaker 1: I stood up, introduced myself, thanked him for what he's
Speaker 1: done for conservation all over the world. Um. I told
Speaker 1: him that I had turned a bus into my mobile
Speaker 1: hunting camp and was traveling around and had it parked
Speaker 1: over a brewery two blocks away at the Rendego and
Speaker 1: staying in there. And I'm telling him this little story
Speaker 1: and and uh, meanwhile, my brother had walked down somewhere
Speaker 1: and he was coming back and he sees me in
Speaker 1: the conversation with this guy and Vango. So you're staying
Speaker 1: in the bus and h Josh goes, yep, I gotta
Speaker 1: sleep somewhere, and the bottom laughs and then we walked
Speaker 1: away and I go that was the founder of pedagon.
Speaker 1: He's like really, he's like, the only thing I said
Speaker 1: to him was not sleep somewhere, but you're welcome. Thanks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's for conversations like that. It's like riting, rioting conversations
Speaker 1: that brings Yeah, talking about the legend out probably the
Speaker 1: only time he'll be able to meet the founder of,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the largest companies in the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you gotta sleep somewhere. A bus is a bus, the buses.
Speaker 1: Bus is a busy. Yeah, I think um the reason
Speaker 1: Van one of the reasons Yvonne was there. I never
Speaker 1: asked him this and he never um told me was
Speaker 1: that he saw his group that out to a wreck.
Speaker 1: Group using conservation is like a you know, they're running
Speaker 1: that out the flagpole, you know. To celebrate. They do
Speaker 1: marches and where like wristbands and and do what they do.
Speaker 1: They did a lot of public land rallies. They did
Speaker 1: one in Salt Lake City during out the retail. They
Speaker 1: moved out to a retail to Denver, away from Salt
Speaker 1: Lake City because of the out the out outrage after
Speaker 1: shaefits and some of those other policies that those things
Speaker 1: seem impactful, but at the end of the day, Jason
Speaker 1: Schafittz got run out of town because groups like b
Speaker 1: h A and I think Yvonne was like, WHOA, here's
Speaker 1: a pretty powerful group of people that not only that
Speaker 1: not only advocate for the things they desire, but also
Speaker 1: show up and do it too. I've walked into there's
Speaker 1: two rallies. One that was directly from outdoor retailer in
Speaker 1: Salt Lake to the state capital. Attended that one, and
Speaker 1: then there was the second one that was at a
Speaker 1: town hall meeting that chaef has had cotton on Heights,
Speaker 1: which I also attended. And the really interesting thing is
Speaker 1: there's a lot out of people that certainly disagreeing and
Speaker 1: you know, protesting other things, but the one commonality where
Speaker 1: everybody at that rally came together, regardless if you were
Speaker 1: in Hunter Orange or if you were in um you know,
Speaker 1: your ri I flip flops and whatever the case may be,
Speaker 1: everybody came together for the public lands component of what
Speaker 1: Jason Schaffitz had introduced. I thought that was very interesting because,
Speaker 1: particularly in in utah Um, that doesn't happen a lot.
Speaker 1: So there's this one event which despite our differences, we
Speaker 1: aligned pretty well on that, and that that's that crowd
Speaker 1: of Patagonia and yeah, and some of those other folks
Speaker 1: that are out outdoor retailer. They're not hunters by any means,
Speaker 1: but they are certainly outdoor recreationists. So that was a
Speaker 1: that was very unique to see from my standpoint standing
Speaker 1: there just gonna looking around and taking it all in.
Speaker 1: That was a very strong common you know ball that
Speaker 1: we all shared with the question is why is that important?
Speaker 1: Why does that matter? Yeah? I mean I think it's
Speaker 1: important to have unique perspectives from diverse groups that are
Speaker 1: all utilizing these public plans, right, I mean, they're they're
Speaker 1: meant to be managed by for multi use for a
Speaker 1: lot of different reasons. Specifically, why that matter? Why does
Speaker 1: that matter to hunters? Specifically that we have the common
Speaker 1: bond about that. Why is that? Why is that coming
Speaker 1: together matter? For hunting gives us gives a way more
Speaker 1: powerful voice. Yeah, Yeah, it's it's a more dynam common
Speaker 1: it's a more dynamic voice because it's bigger, it's more diverse,
Speaker 1: it's more unique, and it's helpful to move these initiatives
Speaker 1: that we are trying to you know, dissect and look
Speaker 1: at and if we can get that crowd, which I
Speaker 1: don't know the numbers, but I would assume that crowd
Speaker 1: is larger than our crowd, many millions of people, larger,
Speaker 1: h and many millions millions of dollars larger, probably more
Speaker 1: billions of dollars probably the better term to use there.
Speaker 1: But I think it's important because we're four million hunters.
Speaker 1: Whatever the number we are, we're a very small percentage
Speaker 1: of the overall population in this country. But as we
Speaker 1: all are well aware, a lot of what we do
Speaker 1: will be in the future, maybe not as much now,
Speaker 1: but it will be in the future dictated by public sentiment.
Speaker 1: In public sentiment will will drive public policy, and public
Speaker 1: policy will drive what the hell we get to do
Speaker 1: when we go outside and the folks that clothe that
Speaker 1: are I describe it like this, It's almost like Van
Speaker 1: Sinnard and the owner of X Hunting Company, or me
Speaker 1: and the dude that wears Patagonia and goes Van camping
Speaker 1: and where's Chocos and his announce retailer type of guy.
Speaker 1: We started saying, Brian, you are Chaka had a pair.
Speaker 1: We started the same spot, right, everybody starts at the
Speaker 1: same spot with wildlife and and lands. They're like, we
Speaker 1: care about this ship, all right, you say, you're always
Speaker 1: staying at the same spot and you're talking to each
Speaker 1: other like you care about wild life and lands, recreational
Speaker 1: use of these lands. They're like, yeah, how about you?
Speaker 1: Yeah cool? And then they turned You turned back to
Speaker 1: each other, and what you're a hunter and they're out
Speaker 1: direct person. They start walking away from each other, and
Speaker 1: as you walk away you forget. The further you get
Speaker 1: from each other, the more you forget where he started
Speaker 1: and that there there are common alleys, and the farther
Speaker 1: you get, then you refuse to even turn on and
Speaker 1: face each other anymore. It's two, you're too far away.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what what's happened with us. We started,
Speaker 1: We've started at a place we all care about these animals,
Speaker 1: specifically the animals probably more than anything, but the lands
Speaker 1: as well. But we're just walking in different directions. And
Speaker 1: about the only time we turned to face each other's
Speaker 1: when we're about to argue about some lion that got
Speaker 1: shot and what well you're talking about. What that signifies
Speaker 1: is turned around and facing each other and talking to
Speaker 1: each other about something and maybe walking a couple of
Speaker 1: steps back towards the center where we started and the
Speaker 1: yavan Jinnard showing up to the b h A. Rennie
Speaker 1: views like maybe like a shuffle on a few steps
Speaker 1: more forward to that goal and finally getting back to
Speaker 1: the center together would signify that group affecting public opinion
Speaker 1: and public policy, because that is that that's the group
Speaker 1: that is so closely aligned with what we do that
Speaker 1: it's it's hilarious that they they disagree with some of
Speaker 1: the stuff that we do, because these are people that
Speaker 1: love you go outside, they love to recreate, they spend
Speaker 1: their money on it. They think about these things, think
Speaker 1: about conservation, they use that term, and for whatever reason
Speaker 1: they just disagree with X number of things and hunting
Speaker 1: and so how do we get them to just turn
Speaker 1: and walk and turn and faces and walk towards us. Well,
Speaker 1: public lands is one hell of a good way to
Speaker 1: do that. And when it comes down to when somebody
Speaker 1: is trying to vote down all bear hunting in the
Speaker 1: United States because um trophy hunting is terrible, just like
Speaker 1: they did in British Columbia, maybe Vans and Art might
Speaker 1: stand up be like, wait, I don't know that I
Speaker 1: agree with this, but let's talk about it. Let's try
Speaker 1: to figure it out and maybe that saves something along lawns.
Speaker 1: I think equally important is having someone like like you
Speaker 1: want to stand up is the possibility that somebody on
Speaker 1: the other side who would otherwise be opposed to hunting
Speaker 1: now maybe has a friend um or some personal experience
Speaker 1: with someone who is on the other side of that equation,
Speaker 1: and then when they go to participate in voting on
Speaker 1: something like you know, banning a bear hunt, they can say, well,
Speaker 1: I met this guy Joe and he hunts bears, and
Speaker 1: he had me over to his house. We ate some
Speaker 1: bear together and he showed me the process. And I
Speaker 1: think that's so valuable, just just that just even that connection,
Speaker 1: to be able to have a personal connection to somebody
Speaker 1: on the other side helps so much in seeing the
Speaker 1: commonality the things that we have in common with them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's only there's more common eyes than anybody. I want
Speaker 1: to admit at any level. Those commonalities are if we
Speaker 1: don't leverage them in, we're missing out. And that's what
Speaker 1: public lands is like, the leverage almost in that conversation
Speaker 1: to be like, we all care about this thing, you
Speaker 1: just happen to want to climb around on it, and
Speaker 1: we just happened to want to go take some stuff
Speaker 1: off and eat that stuff. Yeah. Um, and and talking
Speaker 1: about that it is important. Then what's your what's your
Speaker 1: most what's your fondest public lan memory? Mhm, it's a
Speaker 1: good question. It happened in Utah. Unfortunately. Hey, sorry mam,
Speaker 1: if you're listening to this. I had a buddy growing
Speaker 1: up named Mike Li so sorry Mike if you listening
Speaker 1: to this. I was really into Bruce Lee when I
Speaker 1: was grown up. Yeah, listen, cousin, Miles, cousin. Ye, my
Speaker 1: fondest memory. There's a lot of cliche ones, um man.
Speaker 1: I think my fondest memory on public lands in my
Speaker 1: life is going to the Western Hunting Expo for the
Speaker 1: first time. I was like two or three years ago,
Speaker 1: and um, I'm from the East Coast. Like, being a
Speaker 1: Western hunter, it was always something that like I saw
Speaker 1: in the movies and I thought was cool, Like there's
Speaker 1: buffalo out there, and I saw it and saw it
Speaker 1: in loss stuff. I watched that there's buffalo. Take your
Speaker 1: hat off when you say that, um, And so being
Speaker 1: a Western hunter was kind of always I never hunted.
Speaker 1: I didn't hunt outside of the East Coast until I
Speaker 1: was twenty something early early twenty and went to Yaomi
Speaker 1: Shine Island, like, this is cool, man, I'd love to
Speaker 1: get into this. How could I be a part of this?
Speaker 1: And being a part of it finally came when I
Speaker 1: went to the Western Hunting Expo, put in that those
Speaker 1: five dollar draw as they do there, and I got.
Speaker 1: I drew an elk tag there uh for Pankish Lake, Utah.
Speaker 1: And it was a coveted fifteen you know, late season
Speaker 1: rifle tag where big bulls running around. And that was
Speaker 1: one of the first times where I truly got to
Speaker 1: take opportunity, the opportunity to dive headfirst into what would
Speaker 1: be a like an epic public land hunt. I be
Speaker 1: hunted public land in the West prior to that, but
Speaker 1: never It's something that I felt like, Hey, this tag
Speaker 1: is a special thing. This tag is something that you
Speaker 1: know that I need to have some reverence for. And
Speaker 1: so I went. I had a kid. Uh, I had
Speaker 1: my son in October, and the tag was for the
Speaker 1: first week in November, second week in November, and I thought,
Speaker 1: for sure, there's no way I'm going on this hunt.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna leave my wife with a month or
Speaker 1: a month old baby, our first baby, and run off
Speaker 1: and go hunting. But her and I had a little
Speaker 1: conversation about what what I just said. It's like, hey, look,
Speaker 1: this is special. This is something to me that signifies
Speaker 1: like maybe my coming of age and being able to
Speaker 1: be a Western hunter and take part in this special thing.
Speaker 1: And she's like, go, I'll be fine, Like I'll figure
Speaker 1: it out, to go, get it done, come back, bring
Speaker 1: the meat. We'll be fine. Don't screw it up. And
Speaker 1: so so I went and we didn't have time to
Speaker 1: scout because I was, you know, having to having a kid,
Speaker 1: and so well who was that? Would I answer? It's
Speaker 1: hawks pretty him on the podcast Cardinal sin Right. We
Speaker 1: always like to bring those people on anyway, I um,
Speaker 1: I had a son, and that that was the first
Speaker 1: time I did when I having a son, And so
Speaker 1: there was also that way in on me too, was
Speaker 1: the first time I had to go away and miss
Speaker 1: this for this little human you know. Um we went there,
Speaker 1: no scouting. Me and uh Shawn of Gray who runs
Speaker 1: Total Archer Challenge where we are right now and um
Speaker 1: pitched up with campus wall tent in the Diston National
Speaker 1: Forest and kind of just went to walking around without
Speaker 1: having scattered. We had a little local intel that some
Speaker 1: bulls windered in this valley where we were and there'd
Speaker 1: be some stuff there. But I ended up killing a
Speaker 1: giant bull. After six days of you know, hunting the
Speaker 1: road system, riding around glass and the hike and doing
Speaker 1: the thing, killed a giant bull, stuffed and then the
Speaker 1: YETI cooling and the back of the truck and drove
Speaker 1: it back to to my kid and my wife, and um,
Speaker 1: that's when I think, driving back there, I was like
Speaker 1: the most proud I've ever been to be a hunter,
Speaker 1: you know, and then thinking about my son, thinking about
Speaker 1: like I just did that thing, and I can be
Speaker 1: a part of making sure that's to live for him
Speaker 1: when he's of age to go do it. So that
Speaker 1: was mine. This is, uh, this cliche as these stories
Speaker 1: can be. It's pretty cool, awesome story. I love hearing
Speaker 1: that stuff, man, That's what that's to me, what evokes
Speaker 1: emotion and connects to people and maybe that makes them
Speaker 1: rethink their next move on taking this faction. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: funny enough, funny enough. That was in Utah, right, and
Speaker 1: that's National Forest and what's not who's who? Who owns
Speaker 1: the National Forest? Federal government. Um. And so yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean those opportunities could go quickly go away, and you know,
Speaker 1: you go to the hunting expo and some of that
Speaker 1: land gets sold, and maybe there's half the amount of
Speaker 1: tags this year. Maybe in ten years there's a third
Speaker 1: the amount of tags, and then by the time my
Speaker 1: son's twenty five years, well maybe there's two. Maybe there's none. Um.
Speaker 1: And that's a reality because I'm sure there's a whole
Speaker 1: lot less tags there right now and there was twenty
Speaker 1: years ago. When there's a whole lot more public plan
Speaker 1: in the state of Utah. Sam. Yeah one ah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's right here on the wall behind me. Uh.
Speaker 1: So growing up, I grew up in South Dakota, and
Speaker 1: I didn't really big game hunt when I was younger,
Speaker 1: So it's um. When I was really little, we did
Speaker 1: a lot of pheasant hunting. I didn't pheasant how much.
Speaker 1: I just walked in the fields. Um. Like my dad
Speaker 1: told a story to the Prime crew yesterday that I
Speaker 1: think I was like seven or eight and I went
Speaker 1: on a peasant hunt with them. Um, and my I
Speaker 1: asked my brother if he had grabbed my boots and
Speaker 1: he said yes, and we got there and I had
Speaker 1: to right boots, so I had one that was my
Speaker 1: left foot was a right also right boot, but it
Speaker 1: was bigger. But anyway, so, um, I started, you know,
Speaker 1: pheasant hunting was really young, and then we got into
Speaker 1: duck hunting and I was a you know, lived in
Speaker 1: breathe waterfall hunting all you know, all the way through
Speaker 1: middle school and high school and college. I mean I
Speaker 1: chose my um college based on being able to be
Speaker 1: close to some of the best duck hunting the world.
Speaker 1: So you know, I went to North Dakota State and
Speaker 1: hopefully my parents won't listen to this, but like my
Speaker 1: junior and senior college, I think I was duck hunting
Speaker 1: like four or five days a week, you know, showing
Speaker 1: up the class with face paint on and like blood
Speaker 1: on my hands and like feathers like you know, stuck
Speaker 1: to my pants and stuff. So um yeah, I lived
Speaker 1: and breathe water fall unting. But after moving west and
Speaker 1: getting more into big game hunting. Uh, I went home
Speaker 1: to do a white tail hunt and I was able
Speaker 1: to look at I was able to look at the
Speaker 1: country in a completely different way, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: do all in public land, and uh, but you know,
Speaker 1: going from looking for ponds and different stuff and trying
Speaker 1: to find birds and fields and figure out routes or
Speaker 1: whatever it was, you know, looking at maps and looking
Speaker 1: at different like travel routes and stuff for big game
Speaker 1: and you know, looking for white tail. And I had
Speaker 1: a gap between photo jobs, and so I had like,
Speaker 1: I was like, well, I've got twenty one days to
Speaker 1: just like figure this out if I want to, And
Speaker 1: so I just poured myself into it, and anything within
Speaker 1: a half hour of you know, where I was basing
Speaker 1: out of, I would go. I would look at it
Speaker 1: in the map like kind of cross off which ones
Speaker 1: were good and which ones you know, look better and whatever,
Speaker 1: and then I drive out there and like walk out.
Speaker 1: And it was during the hunting season. I didn't really
Speaker 1: care if I scared deer. I just wanted to go
Speaker 1: learn to learn the country. And so I probably put
Speaker 1: you know, seventy hiking on these little chunks of public
Speaker 1: ground and I finally walked into one and found this huge,
Speaker 1: you know, community scrape and I just like immediately backed
Speaker 1: out of there. And it was like three days later
Speaker 1: that the wind was finally right and I went in
Speaker 1: and clambered my way up a tree with a tree stand.
Speaker 1: I was hanging a tree was like the size of
Speaker 1: a number two pencil and there was no cover on us.
Speaker 1: So I was hanging like thirty feet up. I was
Speaker 1: hanging in this tree like thirty feet up, and it
Speaker 1: was one of those trees where like when your heart beat,
Speaker 1: like the tree would sway, and uh, it just happened
Speaker 1: to all come together that more. And the deer that's
Speaker 1: hanging in the bus walked by and I, you know,
Speaker 1: shot him at twenty two yards wherever, and he ran
Speaker 1: under the tree and fell over. And like, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I've ever been more proud of just like
Speaker 1: the amount of time and effort I put into learning
Speaker 1: a new area and looking something, you know, a completely
Speaker 1: different way, and uh, having that success and all of
Speaker 1: that came um from being able to access public land.
Speaker 1: So Benjamin, Um, I have so many, you know, I'm sure,
Speaker 1: like like all of you, so many experiences on public land. UM.
Speaker 1: The one that kind of stood out to me um
Speaker 1: as you guys started talking about the stories that you've
Speaker 1: had in the past, I was the first elk that
Speaker 1: I ever killed over the counter unit in Utah public land. UM,
Speaker 1: I was working full time. I didn't have near the
Speaker 1: time to hunt that I do now. I was just
Speaker 1: trying to get in a couple of hours every evening,
Speaker 1: and every day I would get off work and get
Speaker 1: in my truck and I just as fast as I
Speaker 1: could go up the mountain up in to the Dixie
Speaker 1: National Forest, trying to get onto, uh, onto some elk.
Speaker 1: And I did that pretty much every day the hunt.
Speaker 1: And it was the second or third last day of
Speaker 1: the hunt. UM, I decided to just check on this
Speaker 1: little piece of public I've been in there ten or
Speaker 1: fifteen times during that hunt, and parked and just ran
Speaker 1: to the top of that little piece. UM just caught
Speaker 1: a little five point bowl coming through. I was able
Speaker 1: to to take that bowl. Um, just this little teeny
Speaker 1: sliver a public land surrounded by private and I just remember,
Speaker 1: um the validation of getting it done on such a
Speaker 1: low success rate unit, but also just being grateful that
Speaker 1: there was this little piece um amongst all, amongst all
Speaker 1: the private, that I could just run away to after
Speaker 1: work every night and run in there as fast as
Speaker 1: I could and just try to get an hour in
Speaker 1: before I got dark. And uh that was the first
Speaker 1: out that I ever killed on my own, no other help,
Speaker 1: nobody around, and so it was just really uh validating
Speaker 1: and a really fulfilling experience for me. And it never
Speaker 1: would have happened without that little section of public land
Speaker 1: being blocked off. The public land island just I mean,
Speaker 1: it's literally can't be two hundred acres. It's probably more
Speaker 1: like hundred acres, small, small chunk, so a million stories
Speaker 1: like everybody else, I'm sure, but Casey, yeah, not one
Speaker 1: really sticks out in my mind. But um, I really
Speaker 1: had a lot of fun this year turkey hunting, and uh,
Speaker 1: me and my little brother Logan that films for us now,
Speaker 1: would just go out every morning. We probably went out
Speaker 1: ten days in a row, close together. But yeah, we
Speaker 1: found this little chunk of public land with our on
Speaker 1: X maps. But it was really cool too, uh to
Speaker 1: find this little chunk of paradise. And it was paradise.
Speaker 1: There was Turkey's ever all over Goblin. There was deer
Speaker 1: in there, moves like, and I was just a maze
Speaker 1: that that place existed because I had actually lived up
Speaker 1: by this piece and I had always thought all of
Speaker 1: this country was was all privately owned and uh, obviously,
Speaker 1: with the helps of our on X map, we're able
Speaker 1: to find it. But we had we had an absolute blast.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, it wasn't the hunting that was
Speaker 1: so fun. It was just experiencing something that everybody can
Speaker 1: experience if they want. And another story is just about
Speaker 1: a place I grew up hunting and now thinking back,
Speaker 1: like I have so many experiences with my dad up
Speaker 1: there hunting elk and it's the first place I ever
Speaker 1: took my own took an elk with a bow, and uh,
Speaker 1: I just made a lot of good memories up there.
Speaker 1: And now that I'm my kids are getting to the age,
Speaker 1: now we're gonna go make memories up there. And once again,
Speaker 1: it's just these are these are experiences that anybody can
Speaker 1: go and enjoy, not even just hunting. Just go out
Speaker 1: and enjoy this this land that we have and pass
Speaker 1: that down to generation generation, you know. And that's my story.
Speaker 1: You should stick to it. It be mack boy. My
Speaker 1: mind goes back a few years back to when I
Speaker 1: was a kid. That really resonates with me to this day.
Speaker 1: But I can remember trapes around with my dad, pays
Speaker 1: a hunting to start out with, for sure, when I
Speaker 1: just got my hunting license, and that was kind of
Speaker 1: my first crack at getting out there and chasing stuff
Speaker 1: around on public lands. But the one that really sticks
Speaker 1: out to me is growing up in Oregon, we would
Speaker 1: always go east to the Blue Mountain Range and started
Speaker 1: out as an archery hunter, but before I was able
Speaker 1: to even hunt, I just go and kind of camp
Speaker 1: with him while he hunted around. But what really has
Speaker 1: left and impact is, like many of us, he was
Speaker 1: working hard to support his family. He was very passionate,
Speaker 1: hard working, wired kind of a a guy. And sometimes
Speaker 1: it's are to unlind when you're in the daily flows
Speaker 1: of life, and you know, like a lot of us,
Speaker 1: we get stressed out about maybe a job that we
Speaker 1: don't love or some situations that have been challenging and
Speaker 1: created some setbacks force. And I can vividly remember when
Speaker 1: we would get up to our elk camp how the
Speaker 1: dynamics of his personality would change. As soon as we
Speaker 1: got camp set, he literally would just turn into like
Speaker 1: this different person that I wouldn't see as much at
Speaker 1: home because of those things that get in the way
Speaker 1: of life. And that was just like something that has
Speaker 1: always resonated with me was how much I loved that
Speaker 1: moment with my dad and my family, just being out
Speaker 1: there on our little piece of heaven, you know, and
Speaker 1: that was our mountain. It was everybody's mountain, but it
Speaker 1: was our mountain when you're a kid and you're out
Speaker 1: there with your dad and your uncle and man that
Speaker 1: To this day, I always think of how important that
Speaker 1: place was for my growth as a kid and development
Speaker 1: as a hunter, and more importantly just as a building
Speaker 1: a relationship with my dad, and that that little area
Speaker 1: has a ton of nostalgia. It's a really hard area
Speaker 1: to draw a tag now, and I hope at some
Speaker 1: point in my life I can go hunt it one
Speaker 1: more time now that I'm not a resident there, but
Speaker 1: without a doubt, that changed who I became. And it's
Speaker 1: certainly a really big reason why I'm so passionate about
Speaker 1: continue to have access. So you know, everybody that can
Speaker 1: go have their own little throwing a little mountain or
Speaker 1: a little piece of property that they kind of feel
Speaker 1: like it's there's yeah, there's some id there's ideas there
Speaker 1: that just the idea. Man like I grew up in Maryland,
Speaker 1: of course, and uh, we had public land there and
Speaker 1: we hunted it a lot. And then I got a
Speaker 1: job and moved into well. First I moved the d
Speaker 1: C Washington d C. That was terrible. And then I
Speaker 1: moved to Illinois, UM where most of the land is privatized.
Speaker 1: Most of the land's farm country, most of it is
Speaker 1: has corn on it, and most of it most of
Speaker 1: the giant white tails are under lock and key. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: And when I moved there as a as a just
Speaker 1: a die hard whit tail hunter coming up, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm moving to the mecca. Man, I'm moving to the
Speaker 1: white tail mecca. This is gonna be like my white
Speaker 1: tail hunting time. I never I lived there three and
Speaker 1: a half years, didn't kill the white tail one. I
Speaker 1: got to hunt him two or three times when I
Speaker 1: begged off an outfitter to hunt in his back forty.
Speaker 1: And then from there I moved to Texas. And in Texas,
Speaker 1: UH hunted public land twice, once for doves and I
Speaker 1: got pelted with a few pellets. Didn't shoot any doves
Speaker 1: with those pellets, but I took a couple myself from
Speaker 1: another hunter, and um. The second time was hunting hogs
Speaker 1: on a on a different place, out of a piece
Speaker 1: of ground outside Austin, Texas, and just only saw hunters
Speaker 1: and no pigs. And so I've spent probably the last
Speaker 1: seven or eight years in this weird vacuum where you'd
Speaker 1: wake up in the morning and you just don't have
Speaker 1: there's a feeling is just not there. And that's not
Speaker 1: not being hyperbolic about that feeling. I mean that that's
Speaker 1: truly you wake up in the morning, you're like, if
Speaker 1: I want to, I could find that public plan island
Speaker 1: and go out there and just sit and see if
Speaker 1: a bull walks by, even if it's not hunting season,
Speaker 1: you know. Or I could go to my mountain up
Speaker 1: in Oregon and that like that option when it's removed
Speaker 1: from your life. If that's what you love to do,
Speaker 1: everybody in this bus loves to do that. That that
Speaker 1: should take a toll on you, and it has on
Speaker 1: me in a lot of ways. And so I can imagine.
Speaker 1: I think if somebody said, like, hey, what happens of
Speaker 1: all public land goes away? I'm like, well, I live there.
Speaker 1: I live in Texas and it's like two percent public land.
Speaker 1: It's a big state. It's a bit in the two
Speaker 1: percent public land they have is it's pretty messy. Um.
Speaker 1: And if it's easy to get to. It's hard to access,
Speaker 1: and it's hard to get to. It generally is a
Speaker 1: little easier to access, but it but it's a nuclear option.
Speaker 1: That's the nuclear option then. And there's a lot of
Speaker 1: really nice paved roads in South Texas where there's no
Speaker 1: there's three houses in fifty square miles. There's really nice
Speaker 1: paved roads because oil trucks drive on them. And I
Speaker 1: started notice that when I hunted some big ranches down
Speaker 1: that way. So, um, animals are the animals are supposed
Speaker 1: to be. They're supposed to belong to everybody, and they're
Speaker 1: supposed to be held and trust by the state they
Speaker 1: happen to be standing in. And there's a few states
Speaker 1: that aren't trustworth these others when it comes to that.
Speaker 1: So you guys, everybody here grew up essentially in the West,
Speaker 1: in places where this stuff is um part of your life.
Speaker 1: It's part of your waking hours of the day that
Speaker 1: it's it's out there for you. And as somebody who
Speaker 1: lives in a place where it's not really there for you,
Speaker 1: that sucks, man sucks. So yeah, I'd say go find
Speaker 1: your piece of public land and use it as much
Speaker 1: as you possibly can, because it's not not there for
Speaker 1: everybody in this world, that's for sure. Anything else everybody
Speaker 1: like that's pretty good, pretty good, pretty good. Round cooler
Speaker 1: discussion was sitting around and sitting around around table around
Speaker 1: a square cooler or is the rectangle correct to? Um? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm glad that, uh, we're all together an industry where
Speaker 1: everybody cares. You know, there's nobody in this nobody here
Speaker 1: that's a wildlife biologist or legislator or professional lobbyist or
Speaker 1: anything like that, or you can speak to you know
Speaker 1: hr five seven two three four eight one dashed seven
Speaker 1: and what that actually Yeah, well I've read it and
Speaker 1: it's it's a doozy case. Um, but that's not While
Speaker 1: always said that getting educated is important, that's not the
Speaker 1: point of of what brings people together at some level.
Speaker 1: So what's the what's the what's the action item? Everybody,
Speaker 1: just give give one action item for whoever's listening to this,
Speaker 1: and maybe for yourself too. I'll just say, ye, have
Speaker 1: become more educated with what's going on, specifically what uh
Speaker 1: with what can possibly happen if the states take back
Speaker 1: takes to back the land, and what's happened in the past. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's second point is an important one. What's happened
Speaker 1: in the past, especially in Utah. Yeah, because that it's
Speaker 1: happened already. It has Man, I'd say, uh, I talked
Speaker 1: to somebody on the other side of the coin, or
Speaker 1: somebody that we have things in common with, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe your palate wears a patagony best or ari I
Speaker 1: flip flops whatever. Build on that common ground and use
Speaker 1: that as a platform to help them understand, um, what
Speaker 1: we do, and also as a platform understand the way
Speaker 1: they feel and why they feel that way. I like it, Sam,
Speaker 1: you got anything deep super deep deep bus thoughts. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean I was gonna say, you know, if you
Speaker 1: want to join some sort of a conservation organization, it's
Speaker 1: a good way to get educated. But above and beyond that, UM,
Speaker 1: in a world where everything's out there, I think we
Speaker 1: need to do a good job of just portraying ourselves
Speaker 1: and being our own pr agents and UM portraying hunting
Speaker 1: and the reason we want to keep public lands in
Speaker 1: public hands, UM portraying that as a very positive thing.
Speaker 1: Back action item, Well, if you live out west, this
Speaker 1: is going to be a pretty easy one. But I
Speaker 1: would just say get out to your favorite public clean spot,
Speaker 1: take it all in, you know, and and kind of
Speaker 1: do a little self reflection. What does it truly mean
Speaker 1: to you? What would it mean if you didn't have
Speaker 1: the ability to go there? And if you're not in
Speaker 1: a state or you know, an area that provides much
Speaker 1: of that, make a point to go somewhere that has it,
Speaker 1: you know, get out. I mean, we've met so many
Speaker 1: people this weekend that have come from Virginia, Kansas, Nebraska,
Speaker 1: but just you know, eastern Midwest states that they haven't
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time out here in Montana. And man,
Speaker 1: if you want to, you want to really open your
Speaker 1: eyes to the beauty of some of these public plans,
Speaker 1: Montana is probably one of the better places to go
Speaker 1: check out because there's so much access just right outside
Speaker 1: of Bowsman or Missoula. But go, uh go check it out,
Speaker 1: you know. And again, a little self reflection, a little
Speaker 1: little therapeutic moment in the woods of public land spot,
Speaker 1: I think could change your your trajectory on what you
Speaker 1: want to do as far as taking that next step
Speaker 1: of action like we're all talking about. Yeah, I would
Speaker 1: just say, be be active and be pro nuance, be
Speaker 1: anti bullshit and surge out perspective, search out the perspectives
Speaker 1: of that matter. And and and uh, guys like Shane Mahoney,
Speaker 1: guys like Steve Rinella, Guys that have perspectives that matter.
Speaker 1: And that's perspectives that are measured and that are delivered
Speaker 1: in such a way that, um, it seems like they
Speaker 1: care about you. Because there's a lot of people in
Speaker 1: the news media that don't care about you. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of people in the hunting industry. They don't give
Speaker 1: a shit about you. Um, they care about themselves. Ben,
Speaker 1: She's crazy one of them. There's one in every group.
Speaker 1: It's that's I don't care about you. Find somebody that
Speaker 1: cares about you. And then that's more educated than you,
Speaker 1: or that's been doing it longer, and uh and and
Speaker 1: follow them and listen what they have to say, and
Speaker 1: then um, pass that on, man, pass the love on.
Speaker 1: That's it. Man. It's like one in the morning, isn't
Speaker 1: it perfect? All right, We're gonna go to bed. It
Speaker 1: seems like a good time to wrap it up is
Speaker 1: we're just gonna crawl into the bunk beds. I got
Speaker 1: enough room. We're all sleeping in the bus bust, sleepover party,
Speaker 1: slumber party. Bye. That's it. That is all Episode number
Speaker 1: twenty three in the books. Thank you too, you guys
Speaker 1: from Hushing Shed Crazy the bus guy for joining me. UM.
Speaker 1: I'm blown away by by the thoughtfulness of these people,
Speaker 1: by the conversations that we're able to have, UM, and
Speaker 1: by the learning that we're able to do from both
Speaker 1: each other and from everybody that listens to this thing.
Speaker 1: So without getting too sappy on everybody, without getting to
Speaker 1: UM no teary eyed about the subject. I've got a son.
Speaker 1: It's two years old, and I hope you can listen
Speaker 1: to this in fifteen years and understand what his dad
Speaker 1: felt in this place and time about public lands and
Speaker 1: why they were so special to him and the people
Speaker 1: that he surrounded himself with. So hopefully all that comes
Speaker 1: through and came through an episode number twenty three. So
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you all listening. UM. Please stick around
Speaker 1: for more podcasts. Please keep commenting, Please keep sending in messages,
Speaker 1: Please keep criticizing, please keep praising, Please keep doing what
Speaker 1: you do out there in the world. I really truly
Speaker 1: appreciate it. And for every single person that listens to this,
Speaker 1: every single person that goes out and goes hunting and
Speaker 1: thinks of a better way. My sinceres thank you to you.
Speaker 1: That's it. We'll see you next time on the Hunting
Speaker 1: clo