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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide

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Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,

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Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.

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Speaker 1: First Light Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host

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Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.

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Speaker 2: Hey everyone.

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Speaker 3: I know last week I said I was going to

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Speaker 3: talk about setting up for rut hunts in the middle

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Speaker 3: of the summer, but I'm going to put that on

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Speaker 3: hold for a week to talk about our recent public

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Speaker 3: land fight, those sell off attempts, and why this issue

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Speaker 3: should matter to all deer hunts. Well, if you haven't

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Speaker 3: been living under a rock, you've probably heard about a

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Speaker 3: specific senator from Utah named Mike Lee and his grand

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Speaker 3: plan to sell off public land, which he finally pulled

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Speaker 3: after a ton of pressure from you guys.

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Speaker 2: This was a huge win.

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Speaker 3: This issue has been front and center in the hunting

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Speaker 3: community for a few weeks now, and it has been

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Speaker 3: pretty wild.

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Speaker 2: Now. The good news here is that a.

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Speaker 3: Lot of hunters showed up for the fight, and both

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Speaker 3: Cal and Mark here have had a huge impact on

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Speaker 3: the issue in a truly positive way. But it's also

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Speaker 3: something that might feel a little disconnected from the average

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Speaker 3: whitetail hunter, which is fare, but it's not something we

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Speaker 3: can or should ignore. And that's what I'm going to

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Speaker 3: talk about right now. This is going to sound like

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Speaker 3: me bragging a lot, but I don't mean it that way.

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Speaker 3: I just want to list off something about my life

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Speaker 3: to sort of contextualize this whole public land issue and

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Speaker 3: make the case for why all of us deer hunters

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Speaker 3: should be concerned not only with having land for all

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Speaker 3: of us to hunt, but what it means to us

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Speaker 3: at our core as Americans. Maybe that sounds a little

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Speaker 3: grandiose or overly dramatic, I don't really care, so let

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Speaker 3: me start with this. In the last ten years, I've

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Speaker 3: hunted and killed whitetails on public land in my home

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Speaker 3: state of Minnesota, across the river in Wisconsin northeast of me,

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Speaker 3: in North Dakota, and then down in South Dakota, and

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Speaker 3: in Nebraska and in Oklahoma and in Iowa. Some of

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Speaker 3: those states, I hunted public because it was the best option,

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Speaker 3: and sometimes it was because it was just an interesting

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Speaker 3: option that I wanted to explore, and it's really nice

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Speaker 3: to have options. Now that was just deer I've also

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Speaker 3: turkey hunted all those states, or at least almost all

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Speaker 3: of them on public land as well. And you can

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Speaker 3: throw in Kansas into that list now since we're including gobblers.

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Speaker 2: But then you have Western critters.

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Speaker 3: I've personally a hunted and killed elk, mildeer, and antelope

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Speaker 3: and a couple of Western states in that same timeframe,

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Speaker 3: and I was really happy to have a place to

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Speaker 3: hunt each and every time it was all on public Now,

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Speaker 3: allow me to tap into my infomercial side here and

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Speaker 3: say this, but wait, there's more. When it comes to

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Speaker 3: following my dogs around trying to shoot some birds, I've

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Speaker 3: hunted pheasants, grouse, woodcock, prairie chicken, sharp tails, bob white quail,

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Speaker 3: and a whole host of ducks and geese on public

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Speaker 3: land and the same timeframe, not to mention squirrels, cottontail, rabbits,

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Speaker 3: and snowshoe hairs. In fact, I have plenty of private

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Speaker 3: land places to hunt in a few different states, but

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Speaker 3: I'd give them up in a heartbeat to not lose

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Speaker 3: any public land opportunities.

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Speaker 2: And I mean that too.

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Speaker 3: Public land has been a ticket to a better life

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Speaker 3: for me, and I'm not alone in that. Now, you

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Speaker 3: don't have to hunt public I don't really care if

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Speaker 3: you do or you don't. I know there are some

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Speaker 3: hunters who think we don't need public land at all,

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Speaker 3: and that the government shouldn't be in the business of

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Speaker 3: owning idle recreational land. Now, it's no coincidence that most

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Speaker 3: of those hunters, and probably all of them, if you

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Speaker 3: really get down to it, have private places to hunt

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Speaker 3: where they don't feel their access will ever be threatened.

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Speaker 2: Okay, if you have that, good for you, that's great.

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Speaker 3: But can you put yourself in someone else's camo knee

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Speaker 3: highs and understand that not everyone owns land, or was

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Speaker 3: born into some family land, or makes the money necessary

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Speaker 3: to lease some ground. To me, that mentality is kind

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Speaker 3: of like the anti car thing that you hear about

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Speaker 3: largely in Europe but also in population centers in the

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Speaker 3: United States.

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Speaker 2: Dates.

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Speaker 3: Some people who live in metro areas with walkable amenities

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Speaker 3: think that no one really needs to own a car,

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Speaker 3: let alone an evil, gas guzzling truck. But that takes

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Speaker 3: an astounding level of cognitive dissonance to get behind. They

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Speaker 3: can't imagine why someone would need a truck for their

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Speaker 3: living or just their life. Or what it would be

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Speaker 3: like to live in most of the country where you

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Speaker 3: can't just ride a bike to the grocery store. Life

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Speaker 3: doesn't work like that, and when we get that myopic

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Speaker 3: of a view of something, it just doesn't jive with

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Speaker 3: reality usually. So anyway, even if you don't hunt public

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Speaker 3: land for deer or whatever critters, try to understand how

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Speaker 3: that could be valuable to other hunters, let alone the

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Speaker 3: non blood sport crowd that might enjoy some of the

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Speaker 3: wild places we like to rome as well. Look, this

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Speaker 3: is just me in my opinion, but I like public

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Speaker 3: land because I like freedom. I think the ability and

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Speaker 3: the opportunity to walk into thousands of acres of woods

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Speaker 3: or cat or whatever is fundamental to us as humans,

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Speaker 3: and without it we'd be missing something that makes us

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Speaker 3: who we are. When I think about the animals I've

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Speaker 3: hunted and all the fish I've tried to catch, either

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Speaker 3: on public land or by accessing something through public it's

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Speaker 3: not a running total of a body count. It's a

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Speaker 3: hell of a lot of memories of getting to do

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Speaker 3: what I want in the places I want to be

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Speaker 3: the most. But I don't want to just live in

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Speaker 3: the past, and that's the reason I love public land too.

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Speaker 3: The prospect of planning hunts and fishing trips around public

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Speaker 3: land is sort of the life force that keeps me

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Speaker 3: and a lot of other outdoors minded people going every year.

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Speaker 3: This season alone, I plan to hunt white tails in

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Speaker 3: a couple of states on public and bird hunt a

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Speaker 3: couple more. The planning behind that, the eat, scouting, the

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Speaker 3: process of it all. I just love it so much,

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Speaker 3: and that would go away if the public land did

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Speaker 3: Without the setting. There is no show if you get

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Speaker 3: my drift, And this is what I know about the

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Speaker 3: public land that has been on and off the chopping

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Speaker 3: block over the last few weeks.

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Speaker 2: Once it goes away, it's gone.

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Speaker 3: This is no different from a hell of a lot

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Speaker 3: of hunting opportunities, and one of the reasons I think

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Speaker 3: the resident non resident fight in a bunch of states

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Speaker 3: is so dangerous because once an opportunity goes away, it

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Speaker 3: generally just doesn't come back, no matter how much the

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Speaker 3: conditions change. If this public land out there, scattered across

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Speaker 3: a whole bunch of western states in Alaska had been

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Speaker 3: sold off, it would be gone for good. I know

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Speaker 3: that seems evident, but it's hard to understand the impact

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Speaker 3: of something like that in the moment before it really happens,

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Speaker 3: especially if it doesn't affect you personally. We could try

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Speaker 3: to make up ground through walk in programs and tax

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Speaker 3: incentivized programs, which we should every chance we can get,

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Speaker 3: but the appetite usually isn't there in a meaningful way,

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Speaker 3: and that means that while we can try to recoup

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Speaker 3: some of those losses somehow, it's never going to get

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Speaker 3: us back to baseline. It'll be a net loss, guaranteed.

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Speaker 3: So what would have been the impact of losing three

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Speaker 3: hundred thousand or three million or one point two million

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Speaker 3: acres of public land. Well, it would have shifted more

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Speaker 3: pressure to available spots, which would have degraded the quality of.

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Speaker 2: The hunts on those spots to some level.

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Speaker 3: It would have put more pressure on leasing prices and

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Speaker 3: recreational land prices, which both favor the well healed but

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Speaker 3: not so much the rest of us. So there would

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Speaker 3: have been some residual loss of all hunting ground, even

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Speaker 3: for some hunters who didn't hunt public land at all.

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Speaker 3: That would be bad enough if this would have somehow

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Speaker 3: been a magical, one off event. But the precedent is

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Speaker 3: what scares the shit out of so many of us,

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Speaker 3: just like that resident non resident fight I already mentioned

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Speaker 3: and will again toward the end of this rant. Once

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Speaker 3: some people with some power over others figure out how

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Speaker 3: to use it to their advantage, it becomes almost like

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Speaker 3: a contagion.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 3: It might slow down at certain points, but it never

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Speaker 3: seems to stop. This goes both for the general complaints

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Speaker 3: and the fix, which benefits some hunters but removes opportunities

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Speaker 3: from others. Once we have the template for this kind

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Speaker 3: of thing, it's very repeatable and will be repeated.

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Speaker 2: So this isn't a one off deal.

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Speaker 3: And honestly, it's a fight that's going to keep coming

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Speaker 3: up until enough people don't care about it to challenge

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Speaker 3: it anymore. Is that a risk we should have taken.

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Speaker 3: I don't think so, and I know a lot of

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Speaker 3: you don't think so as well. There are some things

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Speaker 3: that are just too valuable to some of us to

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Speaker 3: let them go without a fight, and public Land is

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Speaker 3: one of them. Will we lose this fight eventually, I

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Speaker 3: don't know. I kind of believe so, but that's not

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Speaker 3: good enough of a reason to be dismissive of it.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 3: This is probably a good time to point something else

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Speaker 3: up with this issue, too, which is that we are

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Speaker 3: constantly actively being divided all the time. We see this

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Speaker 3: political which is a huge issue in and of itself.

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Speaker 3: With the public land selloff thing, you kind of just

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Speaker 3: have to pick a side in it. And once we

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Speaker 3: pick sides on one issue, it's human nature to paint

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Speaker 3: ourselves all on one team or another, and that sucks bad.

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Speaker 3: You can love public land and you can love guns

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Speaker 3: and not be so tribal as to lose your voice

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Speaker 3: in the fear that you'll be considered one of us

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Speaker 3: or one of them. That division leaks through into hunting

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Speaker 3: in a million different ways. And it's easy to throw

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Speaker 3: your hands up and say that something like this doesn't

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Speaker 3: really matter because it's all going to shit anyway.

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Speaker 2: But it's not. And I don't care if your number one.

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Speaker 3: Issue is I don't know too many wolves in your

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Speaker 3: state or too much overcrowding on public land according to

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Speaker 3: your standard of who should be out there, and when

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Speaker 3: I don't care right now that the bird watchers and

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Speaker 3: the mountain bikers don't really foot the bill for a

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Speaker 3: lot of this stuff the way we do. Those issues

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Speaker 3: are all real, all valid and all worth discussion and debate,

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Speaker 3: But without the places to go to do the things

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Speaker 3: that might be affected by those issues, it doesn't matter

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Speaker 3: as much. The fight to keep the land ours should

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Speaker 3: take precedence over those issues that only really exist because

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Speaker 3: we have the land in the first place. Now, I

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Speaker 3: know these issues aren't that simple, and I'm glossing over

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Speaker 3: some of the nuance, but you get my drift. We

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Speaker 3: can fight about a lot of stuff later, but for now,

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Speaker 3: it's a good idea to consider what has to be

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Speaker 3: done to keep this land open to all of us

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Speaker 3: in the future. And it's also important to acknowledge what

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Speaker 3: this means to the average white tail hunter right now.

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Speaker 2: Not much.

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Speaker 3: I mean that most of us wouldn't miss a beat

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Speaker 3: if one point two million acres of BLM land had

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Speaker 3: gotten sold out west this year, we wouldn't A handful

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Speaker 3: of us will lose antelope spots or elk spots, maybe

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Speaker 3: a place to hunt mule deer, but mostly it wouldn't

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Speaker 3: matter to most of us at all. But how about

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Speaker 3: that national forest you might hunt or a lot of

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Speaker 3: the hunters in your state do hunt, but you don't

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Speaker 3: because that could be next maybe not this year. Or

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Speaker 3: in the next decade. But when we start placing more

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Speaker 3: value on land being in private hands than in the

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Speaker 3: public trust, we are going to give bad ideas to

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Speaker 3: politicians all across the country. And if not the national forest,

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Speaker 3: perhaps it's the state wildlife management areas. The Western stuff

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Speaker 3: is sort of the canary and the coal mine here

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Speaker 3: in a lot of those states, there's a lot of

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Speaker 3: land and not a lot of people. When you have

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Speaker 3: an abundance of something, it's easy to try to devalue.

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Speaker 2: It, especially if you don't use it. But there's a

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Speaker 2: slow creep to.

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Speaker 3: Things like that, and it'll eventually make its way to

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Speaker 3: the east, and when it does, a lot of Western

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Speaker 3: politicians will have already navigated the waters enough to provide

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Speaker 3: other politicians with an effective route to take on this topic.

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Speaker 3: Just think about how much of a pain in the

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Speaker 3: ass old Mike Lee has been with just his three

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Speaker 3: recent attempts to sell off public. Imagine even a handful

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Speaker 3: of politicians east of the Mississippi trying the same thing.

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Speaker 3: It'll be death by a thousand paper cuts, and it'll

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Speaker 3: kill off a hell of a lot of hunting opportunities. Now,

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Speaker 3: even if the odds seem low right now, they aren't

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Speaker 3: zero and the prospect of losing land this way should

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Speaker 3: scare all of us, and you a warning and beat

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Speaker 3: an absolute dead horse just a little bit more. This

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Speaker 3: is one of those moments in our hunting culture where

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Speaker 3: you hear the rallying cry that straight out of Pink

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Speaker 3: Floyd's song Hey you, We're right at the end as

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Speaker 3: they fade into the outro, Roger Waters sings united, we stand, divided,

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Speaker 3: we fall, We are united in a way right now

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Speaker 3: that I haven't seen in a long time over this

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Speaker 3: public land issue, and it gives me a hell of

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Speaker 3: a lot of hope, it really does. I honestly can't

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Speaker 3: tell you how much I appreciate guys like Cal and

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Speaker 3: Mark getting after this issue with their audiences and really

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Speaker 3: pushing the message and how important this is while giving

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Speaker 3: a simple call to action that absolutely makes a big

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Speaker 3: positive difference.

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Speaker 2: It's huge, truly.

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Speaker 3: But remember how I said I wasn't done addressing the

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Speaker 3: resident non resident issue earlier. Here's the thing. This is

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Speaker 3: a Western issue first. Mostly it just is and it

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Speaker 3: will be until it's not. But for now, there are

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Speaker 3: a hell of a lot of us who live where

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Speaker 3: the elevation is about eight hundred feet and that's it.

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Speaker 3: And we called Mike Lee and left him messages telling

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Speaker 3: him how important public land was to us, and at

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Speaker 3: least in my case, how I was going to create

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Speaker 3: a podcast to talk about how misguided he is when

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Speaker 3: it comes to the issues, so that our listeners can

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Speaker 3: learn about his motivations. This is because we are united

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Speaker 3: right now, riding the high that comes with a big win,

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Speaker 3: that feels like real, actual justice.

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Speaker 2: But I wonder how long.

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Speaker 3: It'll take before we get back to our old selves.

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Speaker 3: As I said, this fight is going to keep coming up.

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Speaker 3: Right now, we are largely in this together, But the

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Speaker 3: more a lot of us are told we are no

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Speaker 3: longer welcome in this state or that state to hunt

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Speaker 3: this or that critter, it's going to start to wear

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Speaker 3: on our unity. You want me to fight for your

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Speaker 3: public land and your state, I will, A lot of

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Speaker 3: us will. But when we also actively remove hunting opportunities

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Speaker 3: from our fellow outdoorsman, we are actively removing some pieces

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Speaker 3: of that collective voice. At some point, enough hunters who

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Speaker 3: don't live where you do and who will never get

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Speaker 3: to hunt the animals that you hunt, even on federally

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Speaker 3: owned land, in your state, They're going to become apathetic

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Speaker 3: to the cause, and when that happens, the dominoes will

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Speaker 3: start to fall more often and more quickly. We can't

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Speaker 3: preach unity now and then engage in so much division

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Speaker 3: later without suffering some of the consequences. It just won't

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Speaker 3: work long term. And while we have just won this fight,

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Speaker 3: we got to pay attention to this stuff because it's

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Speaker 3: not going to go away. I want to feel like

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Speaker 3: I need to fight for this until I'm dead, and

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Speaker 3: I want my kids to feel that this is a

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Speaker 3: torch that's worthy of picking up and carrying. But I

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Speaker 3: also know how easy it is to decide a fight

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Speaker 3: is not your fight, especially when you've been removed from

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Speaker 3: something you love because other people who love the same

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Speaker 3: thing have a way to take it from you.

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Speaker 2: We just have to be careful with this shit.

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Speaker 3: We should use this moment to pause and at least

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Speaker 3: think about our future as hunters together and what that

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Speaker 3: might mean for us as far as land usage, land ownership,

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Speaker 3: and general hunting opportunities. A win now is huge, but

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Speaker 3: how we set ourselves up for the next fight matters too.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 3: I know this sounds like wishy washy, horseshit, But I

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Speaker 3: think we are better off unified in about every possible way.

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Speaker 2: I know.

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Speaker 3: We disagree on crossbows versus vertical bows versus traditional bows,

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Speaker 3: and baiting versus not baiting, and trophy hunting versus meat hunting,

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Speaker 3: and about a million other issues that at the end

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Speaker 3: of the day might mean a hell of a lot

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Speaker 3: to our time in the field, or might just be

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Speaker 3: something we like to argue about. Because we have strong

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Speaker 3: opinions on this deer hunting thing that we are so

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Speaker 3: passionate about, we can argue and disagree when we have to,

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Speaker 3: but we should be keenly aware of our collective voice.

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Speaker 3: It's quite literally the thing that just kept that land

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Speaker 3: in our hands for now, and that benefits a hell

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Speaker 3: of a lot of us directly and the hell of

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Speaker 3: a lot more of us indirectly. Let's try not to

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Speaker 3: forget what we are capable of as a largely unified group.

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Speaker 3: We as hunters are treated like clueless bubbas and heartless

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Speaker 3: murderers in the media all the time. We are written

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Speaker 3: off as a dying demographic, kindred to cave men and

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Speaker 3: women who haven't quite evolved enough to do the ethical

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Speaker 3: thing which I guess is have someone else kill animals

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Speaker 3: for us in an industrial building far away from the

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Speaker 3: eyes of general society, so we can eat them with

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Speaker 3: a guilt free conscience. We just proved we are so

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Speaker 3: much more than that, and that's amazing to me. Let's

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Speaker 3: keep this momentum moving in the right direction by at

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Speaker 3: least remembering what it took to get us to coalesce

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Speaker 3: into the kind of group that wouldn't give up the

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Speaker 3: fight and who all threw our middle fingers in the

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Speaker 3: air and pointed them in the direction of a specific

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Speaker 3: politician who thought he could take something from us that

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Speaker 3: didn't belong to him. So wrap this up, I want

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Speaker 3: to offer us sincere thanks to everyone who may aid

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Speaker 3: the call to the Capitol switchboard or who did something

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Speaker 3: somehow to get the word out. My kids, thank you

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Speaker 3: and so do I.

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Speaker 2: That's it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson.

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Speaker 3: This has been the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which

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Speaker 3: is brought to you by First Light. As always, thank

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Speaker 3: you so much for listening and for all of your support.

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Speaker 3: If you want some more deer hunting advice, you know,

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Speaker 3: maybe read some articles, some other podcasts, Maybe you just

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Speaker 3: want to hear some good old storytelling over on the

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Speaker 3: Bear Grease Speed We've got Klay's Bear Grease podcast obviously,

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Speaker 3: which is amazing. But then you got Brent Reeves over there,

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Speaker 3: who's a national treasure telling stories every week on This

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Speaker 3: Country Life. Or the new podcast by my buddy Lake

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Speaker 3: Pickle called Backwoods University, that's just fascinating. He's doing a

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Speaker 3: great job with it. Go check those out. Check out

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Speaker 3: the new films we're dropping whatever. We have tons of

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Speaker 3: new content going down every single week at the mediator

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Speaker 3: dot com.

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Speaker 2: Zig in for your support.

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Speaker 3: M