Speaker 1: All right, Welcome back, guys to another episode of Cutting
Speaker 1: the Distant Podcast. I'm Dirk Durham, and tonight I've got
Speaker 1: an old friend and fellow podcaster, old Jim Huntsman himself.
Speaker 2: Who you call an old.
Speaker 3: I guess I am the guy with the white face here.
Speaker 2: How's it going?
Speaker 3: Man? Good good?
Speaker 1: I would grow a really big, big beard, but every
Speaker 1: time I even get a little bit shaggy, everybody says, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: Santa Claus.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no kidding, that's I'd look like zz tap man.
Speaker 2: I'm just I keep mine nice and trimmed.
Speaker 1: Zz top or old Bolt Bill Golden from the Oakreage Boys,
Speaker 1: big Beard and along hair man ooom up a mile out. Well, Hey,
Speaker 1: I got Gym on the podcast here tonight, and we
Speaker 1: want to talk about something that's kind of been grinding
Speaker 1: my gears for a while and been you know, I've
Speaker 1: been kind of watching social media and whether it's a
Speaker 1: hunter posting or maybe maybe a fishing game entity, they
Speaker 1: post on Facebook or whatever and they talk about, hey,
Speaker 1: it's time to voice your opinion on different regulation.
Speaker 3: Changes or whatever. But there's this big.
Speaker 1: Division, and I think we see it everywhere. America is divided, right,
Speaker 1: it seems like if you like purple, if you like green,
Speaker 1: if it doesn't matter when people are taking a lot
Speaker 1: of sides and really divided right now in America, and
Speaker 1: I don't think social media or media in general is
Speaker 1: helping things out. So I thought i'd kind of talk
Speaker 1: to you about it. And it kind of bothers me
Speaker 1: a little bit, because if you look at the if
Speaker 1: you look at the overall picture, I think we're all
Speaker 1: in this thing together.
Speaker 3: We all want the same goals.
Speaker 1: But man, we get kind of caught up in all
Speaker 1: the bickering and back and forth on on social media
Speaker 1: and commenting and and on it. I honestly think there's
Speaker 1: some people on there that would would never say the
Speaker 1: kind of things they say on social media to another
Speaker 1: person's face, but for some reason, they start typing and
Speaker 1: and they they feel like, you know, they don't have
Speaker 1: to respect their human their their their human counterpart. They
Speaker 1: don't have to respect their fellow hunter. And uh, what
Speaker 1: are your thoughts, Jim.
Speaker 2: Well, I think that it's I think it's a bigger
Speaker 2: problem than what a lot of people are even giving
Speaker 2: it credit for. I think that this division is used
Speaker 2: against us by not only you know, the the hostile
Speaker 2: vegan crowd or the anti hunting crowd. I think that
Speaker 2: it it creates like this disparity in beliefs and values
Speaker 2: that are going to be important when we have to
Speaker 2: come together when the anti hunting movement grows larger and
Speaker 2: louder and more influential on the non hunter and so that,
Speaker 2: you know, having that what's the word I'm looking for.
Speaker 2: There's when when people are mad at each other, they're
Speaker 2: gonna not want to support each other. So like, for example,
Speaker 2: if there is some regulation being passed about a rifle season,
Speaker 2: for example, and the rifle hunters and the bow hunters
Speaker 2: have been bigger and back and forth, and they've got
Speaker 2: like this animosity build up. Why is that bow hunter
Speaker 2: going to go help support that rifle hunter if there's
Speaker 2: some kind of you know, regulatory or peace of legislation
Speaker 2: or commission decision coming down the pike. Because they don't
Speaker 2: like each other essentially, and we're like looking at each
Speaker 2: other in the it's it's misplaced anger and animosity when
Speaker 2: we have a much bigger threat and a much bigger
Speaker 2: problem and a much bigger enemy, you know, so to speak.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think it's a major issue. I remember, Dirk,
Speaker 2: when when I was a kid, there was this gas
Speaker 2: station in our town and during hunting season, everybody but
Speaker 2: it would take like polaroids or they'd go get pictures
Speaker 2: printed up. This was before like you know, social media
Speaker 2: and all that. Obviously we're talking like the early nineties
Speaker 2: and maybe even in the late eighties, I can't remember,
Speaker 2: but everybody would post the picture of their buck or
Speaker 2: elk or whatever on the on the wall in the
Speaker 2: entryway of this gas station, and everybody kind of stand
Speaker 2: around and and look at this. And I remember at
Speaker 2: some point some jokester took a marker and blacked out
Speaker 2: a tooth on somebody's picture, right, just being being funny
Speaker 2: or whatever. But people hunters back then, this was like
Speaker 2: the talk of the town in the cafe and all
Speaker 2: this stuff where people were pissed that somebody respected that hunter,
Speaker 2: that fellow hunter, and and that was like the attitude
Speaker 2: back then, and and all it was was probably some
Speaker 2: kid that decided that, you know, thought he was funny
Speaker 2: to black out a tooth, and uh, but but people
Speaker 2: took that as a sign of.
Speaker 3: Did was probably me? It was probably you. I That's
Speaker 3: what I said back then.
Speaker 2: I was like nine years old.
Speaker 1: It was a little bit of a Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: a little bit of a whitacre. Well, I still kind
Speaker 1: of am. I would do it today.
Speaker 2: I would. I'm dude, I'm in my forties. I'd black
Speaker 2: out somebody's tooth in a funny picture. But uh, you know,
Speaker 2: it's it just kind of speaks to the difference in
Speaker 2: how respect levels were in terms of you know, these
Speaker 2: are these are fellow hunters.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: They didn't care about the method of take in which
Speaker 2: they killed that buck. They didn't care about you know,
Speaker 2: brands that you wore, or bows that you shot, or
Speaker 2: you know whatever, it doesn't matter. They the point was
Speaker 2: there was there was a lot of unification and that
Speaker 2: doesn't exist today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's crazy and the tangents people get on. For instance,
Speaker 1: I've seen one here on Facebook the other day. It
Speaker 1: was Idaho Department of Fishing Game. They were wanting some
Speaker 1: public input on whether people wanted to continue using number
Speaker 1: eleven musket caps or is it number the eleven number eleven? No, yeah, number.
Speaker 2: Eleven, number number eleven percussion caps and and good luck
Speaker 2: with that because you can't find them anywhere anyway.
Speaker 1: You can't buy them two falls ago. I was going
Speaker 1: to take advantage of the muzzli ter season, and I
Speaker 1: searched tying Low on the internet and locally thought, well,
Speaker 1: every little mom and pop gun shop somewhere should have
Speaker 1: a you know, a handful of these. No, I just
Speaker 1: couldn't find them, and luckily a friend of mine gave
Speaker 1: me some of his. But so, anyway, then they acknowledged
Speaker 1: that that it was kind of a they're hard to
Speaker 1: hard to find these days, and they're they're saying, you know,
Speaker 1: wanting public input. What do you think about going to
Speaker 1: the shotgun grammers?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: You know, can are you guys against it or for it?
Speaker 1: And honestly, I'm I'm for it just because of the
Speaker 1: fact that if you don't have musket caps, you can't
Speaker 1: make your musket go boom?
Speaker 3: Right yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then who knows, you know, ammunition and primers
Speaker 1: in general have been really hard to get. So anyway,
Speaker 1: so I supported that. I got online and went and
Speaker 1: took their survey and there was a couple other questions
Speaker 1: on there, and I think they talked about jacketed bullets,
Speaker 1: sabage bullets and such, you know, for the in lines
Speaker 1: or whatever, and oh man, it was a garage fire.
Speaker 1: In the comments, people were mad and then they're saying,
Speaker 1: you know, you guys are trying to put scopes on
Speaker 1: muzzleloaders and you're trying to do this that there was
Speaker 1: scopes were never mentioned in the questionnaire, but you know,
Speaker 1: everybody seems to want to kind of roll downhill, go
Speaker 1: negative on it. But it was just crazy, you know,
Speaker 1: and then pretty soon people are bicker amongst each other
Speaker 1: and then they're you know, well have you ever killed anything? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've killed a lot of stuff, And you know, it
Speaker 1: just the conversation just degrades from there and you see
Speaker 1: that more and more, and it it doesn't matter what
Speaker 1: it is. If it's just a tiny bit controversial. If
Speaker 1: you were to post a picture of a wolf and
Speaker 1: you put that on your your social media feed, you're
Speaker 1: gonna have a lot of supporters. But eventually somebody's gonna
Speaker 1: start throwing rotten eggs. And then then the conversation just
Speaker 1: goes south really fast. And I think, you know, the
Speaker 1: anti hunters and the wolf loving community they I think
Speaker 1: they kind of band together, so they're like, hey, go
Speaker 1: go blow up this guy's picture, this guy's feed, and
Speaker 1: then you got you know, those guys tag team each
Speaker 1: other and get in there and.
Speaker 3: Type a bunch of mean, hateful things.
Speaker 1: But I don't know, it feels like it seems like
Speaker 1: it's so easy to go down that road these days
Speaker 1: and get negative. And sometimes maybe I see something that
Speaker 1: upsets me on on social media, maybe someone did something,
Speaker 1: maybe some company did something that's hey, I thought those
Speaker 1: guys were supposed to be hunters, or I thought they
Speaker 1: supported gun rights or hunting, and now everybody kind of
Speaker 1: almost jumps to the worst conclusion really quickly, seems like
Speaker 1: on some of these topics instead of like push and pause,
Speaker 1: and I usually have to do that. I'm a little
Speaker 1: bit of a hot head myself sometimes and I have
Speaker 1: to push pause and be like, Okay, well, what are
Speaker 1: the facts besides? But this little thing I read on
Speaker 1: this little snippet on Facebook, Instagram, wherever, and let me
Speaker 1: do some research before I get an emotional response to it.
Speaker 1: Maybe there's more to it. And ninety nine percent of
Speaker 1: the time you've just got a little snippet of what
Speaker 1: the problem or the situation actually is, and then once
Speaker 1: once you were kind of read through it, mull it
Speaker 1: over a little bit. I have a lot more understanding
Speaker 1: and maybe I'm not so spirited on my on the
Speaker 1: repla I would initially would have put, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think we're all guilty of that, Derek. I mean
Speaker 2: we we've all gotten on Facebook, especially Facebook seems to
Speaker 2: be that one in Twitter seemed to be like the
Speaker 2: most fiery where people get super emotional and have these
Speaker 2: these crazed responses. And I'm you know, I'm working on
Speaker 2: this one project, so I you know, as a test,
Speaker 2: this was a total this was a non serious post.
Speaker 2: But as a test, I posted the meat yield difference
Speaker 2: between my four and a half or five and a
Speaker 2: half year I'm not sure how old this buck was.
Speaker 2: This buck ey'd killed. The meat yield of that one
Speaker 2: versus my daughter's spike she just killed. And I and
Speaker 2: I everybody, anybody who's hunted, we all know it's obvious.
Speaker 2: You know, these bigger, these more mature bucks, you're gonna
Speaker 2: get a lot more meat, right, And so that's what
Speaker 2: that's exactly what I wanted to try and see how
Speaker 2: easily people are triggered when it comes to this hunting topic,
Speaker 2: because let's face it, hunter are just you know, we
Speaker 2: are passionate, We're emotional people. We get you know, this
Speaker 2: stuff is important to us, and so I posted it,
Speaker 2: and I took a picture. I put a picture of
Speaker 2: the my buck and my daughter's buck and kind of
Speaker 2: put them together, you know, And and I like just
Speaker 2: basically reported the meat yield, purposely, not advocating whether or
Speaker 2: not we should hunt big bucks, mature bucks versus little
Speaker 2: bucks or anything like that. I said nothing about that.
Speaker 2: It was just strictly like the facts of here's how
Speaker 2: much meat this buck gave, here's how much meat this
Speaker 2: buck produced, and you know, we butchered all all ourselves,
Speaker 2: so I was able to control all the all the
Speaker 2: weighing and everything. And man not not five minutes after
Speaker 2: posting that, somebody went but just absolutely berserk and well,
Speaker 2: don't tell me what kind of buck I should I
Speaker 2: should hunt and what I shouldn't hunt. And like, man,
Speaker 2: I didn't. I didn't. I literally posted this to see
Speaker 2: what people would say that in that kind of response,
Speaker 2: and it's again, it's for something else, I'm more, but
Speaker 2: it's it's interesting to see again, going back to what
Speaker 2: you said, you know, we've all been there where we
Speaker 2: see something and we kind of have this knee jerk
Speaker 2: reaction without understanding, maybe the context in which something was posted,
Speaker 2: whether it was from like a fishing game agency or
Speaker 2: somebody just sharing, you know, some of their success in
Speaker 2: the field or whatever, and people just have this. I
Speaker 2: don't know what it is about social media that makes
Speaker 2: people this way, other than the fact that we're not
Speaker 2: sitting down face to face. Because if if we were
Speaker 2: sitting in a cafe or something, you know, if we
Speaker 2: were having breakfast together, we were sitting in a bar
Speaker 2: having a beer and talking about this stuff, and I
Speaker 2: showed somebody a picture of these two different bucks, and
Speaker 2: I said, hey, this buck produced you know, whatever amount
Speaker 2: of meat, and this smaller buck produces this much amount
Speaker 2: of meat. The person sitting next to me is not
Speaker 2: going to freak out on me because we're face to face.
Speaker 2: And so this lack of being face to face, and
Speaker 2: it's this, you know, we all know hunters are just
Speaker 2: opinionated in general, just by our very nature, and we
Speaker 2: all have different experiences and we were all taught different things.
Speaker 2: And so you know, if if if somebody like I
Speaker 2: looked up to my grandpa big time, if my grandpa
Speaker 2: said it man, that his word was gold, and that
Speaker 2: is how things were right and so I have things
Speaker 2: from when I'm like five years old that I remember
Speaker 2: my grandpa taught me about hunting or fishing, especially because
Speaker 2: he was a big time fisherman. And as to this day,
Speaker 2: I have proven what he said was actually not entirely accurate,
Speaker 2: but to him it was, and I still think he's right,
Speaker 2: even though I know it's not. Does that make sense
Speaker 2: how I'm explaining that? And so we get stuck in
Speaker 2: those We get stuck in that maybe what we were
Speaker 2: taught that what is that there's like a fancy term
Speaker 2: for like cognitive dissidents or something where it's like we
Speaker 2: we think things are true that might not be true,
Speaker 2: or we wanted to fends something that we've always believed
Speaker 2: because it's how we've done it. But because we're on
Speaker 2: social media, we have this ability to get super aggressive
Speaker 2: about it and not get punched in the face.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, Yeah, And I think some of that, like
Speaker 1: is confirmation bias. You have an opinion on something, so
Speaker 1: you're always looking to confirm that opinion in everything you see.
Speaker 1: You know, for instance, I believe pretty strongly that every
Speaker 1: year during the Year of the Huckleberry, you know, when
Speaker 1: there's years of the I call it the year of
Speaker 1: the huckleberry. When we have a bumper huckleberry crop. A
Speaker 1: lot of the elk don't beegle worth a crap.
Speaker 3: In the places I hunt.
Speaker 1: And it's kind of a funny little term, but you know,
Speaker 1: I think it all goes back to how much water
Speaker 1: it's getting soaked into the ground. There's how much feed
Speaker 1: there is, and you know you have you know, you
Speaker 1: have elk spread out all across, all across the landscape
Speaker 1: instead of like on a dry year when things are
Speaker 1: a drought. You know, you don't have feed in certain
Speaker 1: spots to congregate. There's more competition for those those cows
Speaker 1: because every all the elker in that spot anyway. But no,
Speaker 1: you're you're right. You know, everybody wants to defend their
Speaker 1: their opinion. Grandpa said this. Grandpa said that my dad,
Speaker 1: he was an avid sportsman, about the most opinionated man
Speaker 1: you'll ever meet, and a lot of the things he
Speaker 1: told me growing up, you know, taught me. You know,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh yeah, my dad, he knows, he knew.
Speaker 1: But I've I've dismantled a lot of those a lot
Speaker 1: of those ideas of hunting and the way things work,
Speaker 1: just just through my own experiences and not on purpose.
Speaker 1: It's just like, huh, this just didn't turn out the way,
Speaker 1: you know, my dad saw things. And yeah, I think
Speaker 1: people everyone sees things through a little different lens, kind
Speaker 1: of like the old the old game, what.
Speaker 3: Is it, the telephone game? Right? You?
Speaker 1: You somebody tells you something, you whisper into the person
Speaker 1: next to you ear and you tell them exactly what
Speaker 1: that other person told you. And you have a room
Speaker 1: full of people. So you go around six or eight
Speaker 1: people here, and by the time the message gets to
Speaker 1: the last person, it's changed dramatic. Yeah, because the way
Speaker 1: people hear it, they process it, they paraphrase, they put
Speaker 1: it out to the next person maybe in a way
Speaker 1: they think they're going to understand it in the same
Speaker 1: way they understood it, and it changes a lot. So
Speaker 1: I feel like everybody's so quick to judge another person's
Speaker 1: opinion and not like, well, well why don't you tell
Speaker 1: me your opinion and listen and maybe analyze it and
Speaker 1: mull on it a little bit. But I feel like
Speaker 1: that instant satisfaction or gratification of fire and back really
Speaker 1: quickly with that emotional response is is really it's damaging,
Speaker 1: honestly to our hunting heritage.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, because again it goes back to that animosity
Speaker 2: thing and that resentment thing. How are we supposed to
Speaker 2: come together when you know you've got for uh, I'll
Speaker 2: use Washington as an example. You know, they've got this
Speaker 2: this part of their commission or like hot their flat
Speaker 2: hostile towards hunters, right, And and they're trying to push
Speaker 2: this this agenda that is taking away whether it's spring
Speaker 2: bear or or any other predator type hunting they're trying
Speaker 2: to they're trying to get rid of like mountain lion hunting,
Speaker 2: and trying to change the model of wildlife management in
Speaker 2: the state of Washington away from like the North American
Speaker 2: model to something that they see as like this utopian,
Speaker 2: leave everything alone kind of model. And and if we're
Speaker 2: if we're over here and the Anni hunters know this stuff,
Speaker 2: you know, they monitor us, they watch this stuff. So
Speaker 2: so we're over here, we're bickering about whether or not
Speaker 2: a six point five creed More is deadly enough for
Speaker 2: an elk, And and they're over here pushing things under
Speaker 2: the under the table through the commission, saying hey, this
Speaker 2: is how we can get rid of spring bear hunting.
Speaker 2: This is how we can get rid of all bear
Speaker 2: hunting and mountain lion and hunting. This is how we
Speaker 2: could do away with with hounds and and all these
Speaker 2: things that are precious to us. That that they're they're
Speaker 2: working on that, you know, that saying how to you
Speaker 2: eat an elephant? One bite at a time. They're taking bites.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile we're just nipping at each other. And and you know, hey,
Speaker 2: you know that I don't care if you shoot a spike.
Speaker 2: You should you can't eat the horns. And then you
Speaker 2: got the other guy going, you know, oh, well because
Speaker 2: of you, there's no big bucks left on this mountain
Speaker 2: because you're killing all the spikes, you know. And and
Speaker 2: and really the problem, like, I hate that argument. I
Speaker 2: hate that particular argument more than any other because I
Speaker 2: have wanted to take a side on that argument, and
Speaker 2: I cannot find tangible information to back up either side
Speaker 2: of that, and so I have no strong opinion on it.
Speaker 2: And if I can't form like a strong opinion on it,
Speaker 2: I just don't like the argument. And I think that
Speaker 2: people start forming these arguments and these opinions on things
Speaker 2: that really cannot be back up and and again.
Speaker 3: It's just this.
Speaker 2: Big distraction from from a greater enemy and a greater threat,
Speaker 2: and we're wasting our time. It's it's just a it's
Speaker 2: going to it's going to come back and bite hunters
Speaker 2: right in the behind being being this hostile towards each other.
Speaker 2: It's so unnecessary.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 1: We have these bigger fish to fry than like you said,
Speaker 1: the six fight creed, more conversation, more traditional archery versus compound.
Speaker 1: You know that that's a very spirited, spirited conversation a
Speaker 1: lot of times, and within a niche. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of supporters within those niches, but they don't back up
Speaker 1: sometimes on both sides and think, dang it, we're all hunters.
Speaker 1: I want to support hunters, you know. Gee whiz, I
Speaker 1: decide I want to shoot a recurve bow and limit
Speaker 1: my shot distance or whatever. Maybe not maybe maybe a
Speaker 1: person's an excellent shot with a recurve it at a
Speaker 1: long ways away.
Speaker 3: But but to.
Speaker 1: Sit there and throw rocks at a compound shooter for
Speaker 1: having sights or or vice versa. You know, the compound
Speaker 1: shooters think they're superior or or what I mean, you
Speaker 1: could if you search the internet, you can find every
Speaker 1: situation or scenario argued about. But in the in the end,
Speaker 1: guys and gals were you're both bow hunters, support your
Speaker 1: bow hunters. Okay, gun hunters versus bow hunters. You know,
Speaker 1: within those conversations, you see somebody if there was a
Speaker 1: question about what we should would what should we do
Speaker 1: with the bow season and the rifle hunters or maybe
Speaker 1: would say, oh, we we want more rifle season during
Speaker 1: the bow season, or or you know where the bow
Speaker 1: hunters may want more bow season that would take shortened
Speaker 1: the rifle season. But nope, pretty soon the conversation degrades again,
Speaker 1: and in the end we're they're both hunters, you know,
Speaker 1: bow or and gun hunting. I mean, you're both hunting.
Speaker 1: I've always been an opportunity, opportunistic hunter. I love hunting
Speaker 1: of all kinds. So I started out as a rifle
Speaker 1: hunter and then found out about bow hunting, and I'm like, wow,
Speaker 1: I can hunt another month.
Speaker 3: I love hunting.
Speaker 1: I want to be in the woods as much as
Speaker 1: it possibly can. So I'll pick up a bow and wow,
Speaker 1: I can chase bugling bulls the month of September.
Speaker 3: This is awesome.
Speaker 1: And then back when I was a kid, then you
Speaker 1: could you could continue with the same elk tag. You
Speaker 1: could continue on from archery season to rifle season with
Speaker 1: that same elk tag. Things have changed a lot in Idaho.
Speaker 1: But I was like, wow, this is this is great.
Speaker 1: I can I can hunt with a bow, I can
Speaker 1: hunt with a rifle. And if I don't get one
Speaker 1: with the rifle, I can get one with a muzzle loader.
Speaker 3: What this is awesome? Like opportunistic.
Speaker 1: So I have a I have a massive respect for
Speaker 1: for all of all of the hunting.
Speaker 3: You know what.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe it's a maybe somebody wants to use
Speaker 1: a crossbow.
Speaker 3: That's not my cup of tea.
Speaker 1: But you know, if if you want to go lug
Speaker 1: one of them things around, I mean, if by all means,
Speaker 1: go do it. As long as it's legal, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as long as I'm legal.
Speaker 3: And it's a we shouldn't poo poo on other people's parades.
Speaker 2: Yeah that and and you nailed it. And that's the thing.
Speaker 2: Uh not to keep up bringing my grand my grandparents up,
Speaker 2: but my grandma would say, uh, mind your business, in
Speaker 2: mind your manners. See those two things hunters need to
Speaker 2: take into account. When we're talking about like social media,
Speaker 2: because I think two things happened. I think, like, like
Speaker 2: you said, I'm an opportunist as well. Uh, there was
Speaker 2: a time where I went to I tried to be
Speaker 2: like this purest bow oh hunter, you know, all strictly archery.
Speaker 2: Everything I was going after was archery and and the
Speaker 2: and and that's great. I don't I don't care if
Speaker 2: somebody wants to do that. I don't, you know. That's
Speaker 2: that's the great part about hunting is you have these
Speaker 2: options to to worry about. But I think what happens
Speaker 2: and and and like social media is a really good
Speaker 2: place to air all this dirty laundry. But I think
Speaker 2: that somebody thinks about their Let's use elk hunting for
Speaker 2: an example. Let's somebody thinks about their archery season all
Speaker 2: year long. You know, maybe maybe they get a new
Speaker 2: bow in December, in January or something. They get it
Speaker 2: all you know, set up for them, and and they
Speaker 2: start getting out there in the spring and flinging arrows,
Speaker 2: and they you know, go to some three D archery shoots,
Speaker 2: and they listen to podcasts, and they watch a bunch
Speaker 2: of videos and and and they buy like the some
Speaker 2: of those online hunting courses, and and they're putting all
Speaker 2: this effort. They buy a bunch of new gear, new
Speaker 2: new Camo, new boots, and they they come around to
Speaker 2: season and they get in an air a situation where
Speaker 2: they're not here in bugles and maybe their unit is
Speaker 2: really crowded. These are real problems. These are real problems.
Speaker 2: You'll go into an area that looks super elky on
Speaker 2: like on X, and then you'll get there and it's
Speaker 2: like a desert well, like the aliens came in and
Speaker 2: abducted They abducted all the elk. You know that you're
Speaker 2: not getting a sound. And you'll go to another unit
Speaker 2: and it's like everybody and their dog and the governor
Speaker 2: and the governor's dog is there bugling for elk, you know,
Speaker 2: and they're just super swamped. I'm not saying those issues
Speaker 2: don't exist, but I'm saying that people don't allow themselves
Speaker 2: to be flexible enough to adapt to whatever the situation is.
Speaker 2: And then you know, season ends, they don't notch a tag.
Speaker 2: And the best place to air that dirty laundry is
Speaker 2: to make excuses as to why that happened by blaming
Speaker 2: the fish and game or blaming the rifle hunters, or
Speaker 2: blaming the muzzleloader hunters, or the houndsmen, or the bait,
Speaker 2: the bear bais, you know, all these different hunters, these
Speaker 2: other these factstions, if you will, that make up hunting,
Speaker 2: and they can use that as an excuse, and they
Speaker 2: could they could take their that pain and anger that
Speaker 2: builds up from not notching a tag and put you know,
Speaker 2: some kind of label as to why it didn't happen
Speaker 2: outside of the fact that maybe you just didn't go
Speaker 2: far enough from the road. Maybe you didn't weren't flexible
Speaker 2: enough to switch units or drive thirty miles down the
Speaker 2: dirt road and find an area that wasn't so crowded.
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe those were some of the things that led
Speaker 2: to you know, tag soup, and not the fact that
Speaker 2: you know, I heard I this like perfect for this.
Speaker 2: Somebody was complaining about wolves killing all the elkiness unit
Speaker 2: that I know almost for a fact, there's no wolves
Speaker 2: over there, and so it's like it's that kind of stuff,
Speaker 2: you know. And and the other part, too, is what
Speaker 2: you were talking about when you're saying, like, you know,
Speaker 2: you like to you enjoy the archery c and then
Speaker 2: going into the rifle season and the muzzleloader. I like
Speaker 2: all those two because I like the experience. I love
Speaker 2: rifle hunting. I think it's fun. I really enjoy rifle hunting.
Speaker 2: It's a totally different experience, and I love bow hunting too.
Speaker 2: But people have a tendency to want to blame the
Speaker 2: system versus blaming themselves. So like, if the season are
Speaker 2: not set to what you think they should be, that
Speaker 2: does not mean that every hunter out there thinks or
Speaker 2: agrees with your opinion on it, because there if you
Speaker 2: take a hundred hunters, you're going to have a hundred
Speaker 2: different opinions as to how that season should be set.
Speaker 2: And the better approach to it would be to check
Speaker 2: out what those seasons are and work hard with those seasons.
Speaker 2: Don't work against them, work to those seasons, you know,
Speaker 2: focus on how they are laid out. Okay, rifle season
Speaker 2: doesn't open until you know middle of October. For elk,
Speaker 2: what are the elk doing in middle of October? What
Speaker 2: are they doing towards the end of ours Cober? You know?
Speaker 2: And and focus on that. Focus your energy on that
Speaker 2: instead of worrying about whether or not the entirety of
Speaker 2: the fish and game agency and whatever state you're hunting
Speaker 2: in is going to change that season because you don't
Speaker 2: like it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, I have to look in the mirror.
Speaker 2: Oh me too.
Speaker 1: This season twenty twenty three, my ELK season here, I
Speaker 1: want to choose a unit that was a little closer
Speaker 1: to home and have the opportunity to hunt with my
Speaker 1: son some more. And I didn't do all my due diligence,
Speaker 1: and you know, I did my summer work, did scouting,
Speaker 1: you know, check the unit out and found ELK. It's like, wow,
Speaker 1: this place is great. It's beautiful, has a little bit
Speaker 1: of everything. There's back country, you know, if you want
Speaker 1: to pack in, if you want to try real hard
Speaker 1: and hike to the deepest holes, there's that. If you
Speaker 1: want easier days where there's some roaded areas, there's that.
Speaker 1: So fast forward to opening opening day. Opening day was great.
Speaker 1: There's a few people around them, not too many. But
Speaker 1: after lay day, you know what happens that Labor Day weekend,
Speaker 1: everybody shows up and nobody went home, and more and
Speaker 1: more people came and this place was a zoo.
Speaker 3: There were people everywhere. Literally every place that you.
Speaker 1: Could possibly camp, there was someone camped and Immediately your
Speaker 1: mind starts racing, like.
Speaker 3: Gee whiz.
Speaker 1: You know, the fishing game, they shouldn't sell so many
Speaker 1: tags in this units?
Speaker 3: A yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: The funny thing is like I hardly saw any non residents.
Speaker 1: They were all Idaho plates.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, Idaho's had a been big influx of people moving recently.
Speaker 1: That's true else but yeah, we won't say that, say
Speaker 1: that place. But anyhow, I was just like, man, they
Speaker 1: need to cut the tags back here, you know. And
Speaker 1: immediately that was my first knee jerk reaction. Then as
Speaker 1: you sit and dwell on it a little bit, it's like, no, dummy,
Speaker 1: you should have done your homework a little better. The
Speaker 1: fishing game provides it's all the all the information and
Speaker 1: data at your fingertips. I should have looked of how
Speaker 1: many tags they sold that in that unit last year?
Speaker 3: How many and what was the harvest rate? What was this?
Speaker 3: What was that?
Speaker 1: You know, it breaks it down, you know, spikes, how
Speaker 1: many percentage of elk that were harvested were spikes? How
Speaker 1: many were six point or bigger? You know, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of data there in the hunt planner, But I
Speaker 1: I overlooked that.
Speaker 3: That's my fault.
Speaker 1: That's one of those everyone else's fault for trying to
Speaker 1: go out and have a good time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's that it's that same thing where it's
Speaker 2: the mistake I make all the time where you'll find
Speaker 2: a unit that seems like it's close and convenient to town,
Speaker 2: and you'll look at it in the summer and nobody's
Speaker 2: up there, but comes September, the place is packed because
Speaker 2: everybody else has the same mindset. They they you know,
Speaker 2: if you're if you're hunting outside of like a big
Speaker 2: metro area, everybody wants that closer access. We don't want
Speaker 2: to drive six hours every time. It'd be nice to
Speaker 2: just drive an hour from home and get up in
Speaker 2: the sticks and find some pugl and bowls. And so
Speaker 2: that's that's always a factor. And you know, there's no
Speaker 2: getting away from it either way, because like even if
Speaker 2: it's three hours from home, there's people that are gonna
Speaker 2: be like, I'm gonna get away from the crowds by
Speaker 2: getting further away from town, and it's still crowded, you know,
Speaker 2: And so it's it's hard to it's hard to say, yeah,
Speaker 2: what's gonna work. But I don't know. That's I guess
Speaker 2: that's that's why they call it hunting, and it's it's
Speaker 2: not you know, we're not We're not just going up
Speaker 2: to fetch an elk, right and and uh a couple
Speaker 2: of hundred pounds of meat. We're going up there to hunt,
Speaker 2: and and it's gonna be tough. And what makes it
Speaker 2: tough or not just the elk and the terrain you
Speaker 2: gotta cover. It's it's uh, it's the other hunters. It's
Speaker 2: the non residents and the residents, and the and the
Speaker 2: seasons that the Fishing Game Agency sets up. It's it's
Speaker 2: all that. And you have to play into that game
Speaker 2: because if you're not playing the game, you're not gonna
Speaker 2: you're not gonna be successful. And and you know, bitching
Speaker 2: about it on facebook's not gonna not gonna help you
Speaker 2: next year.
Speaker 3: Right right? Absolutely? Yeah.
Speaker 1: I feel like people don't like to look at the
Speaker 1: man in the mirror too often, you know, face the
Speaker 1: fact that, well, maybe maybe I'm the culprit, maybe I'm
Speaker 1: the problem, maybe I should.
Speaker 3: Have planned better.
Speaker 1: Now, what are your thoughts on bad apples? So we
Speaker 1: do have some bad apples in hunting. You know, young
Speaker 1: people who are caught poaching, you know, the people who
Speaker 1: are maybe putting videos on there that maybe the general
Speaker 1: public is just not ready to see yet. Those are
Speaker 1: usually pretty pretty polarizing as well. Yeah, and kind of
Speaker 1: a dumpster fire as well. What are your thoughts on
Speaker 1: that stuff?
Speaker 2: That's such a tough question, man, That's been a big
Speaker 2: discussion on my show. It's like a who decides what's
Speaker 2: okay to post? You know, because I have my opinions,
Speaker 2: and you're going to have your opinions, and maybe your
Speaker 2: opinion isn't the same, and everybody listening to the this
Speaker 2: is going to have their own opinion. In terms of
Speaker 2: the bad apples, I don't care if you're talking about
Speaker 2: a church, a company, an organization, a government entity, a
Speaker 2: knitting group, club, or a bottle cap collecting club. There's
Speaker 2: always a percentage of bad apples that tend to shine
Speaker 2: that negative light on the rest of us.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: I think I just told this story. But when I
Speaker 2: just got out of boot camp in the Marines, and
Speaker 2: you know, you're all you're all pumped up, You're all,
Speaker 2: you know, filled with pride and motivation. No, I'm a
Speaker 2: US Marine now, I just got out of boot camp
Speaker 2: or whatever, and then I get out and they give
Speaker 2: you like this ten day leave time to go home
Speaker 2: and walk around and in your dress blue uniforms and
Speaker 2: flaunt the fact that you just became a marine or whatever.
Speaker 2: All over in the newspapers was the headline was two
Speaker 2: US Marines post wild horses in like the Mojave Desert.
Speaker 3: Oh geez.
Speaker 2: So instead of saying that two guys went out and
Speaker 2: poached horses, they labeled it two US Marines and they
Speaker 2: were they were Marines. They were stationed at a camp
Speaker 2: Penalton or whatever in California there, and they went out
Speaker 2: and had killed some horses, you know. And the problem
Speaker 2: with that is is that reflects on the entirety of
Speaker 2: the Marine Corps. So everybody thought that Marines were nothing
Speaker 2: but a bunch of innocent horse killers, wild horse poachers,
Speaker 2: you know. And this went on for like months. Everybody
Speaker 2: was talking about it, you know that it was national
Speaker 2: news and and so that sort of thing that that
Speaker 2: same thing happens in the hunting space. If we have
Speaker 2: somebody like if you remember, if you remember back a
Speaker 2: couple of years, those those uh, those younger guys had
Speaker 2: wounded that little buck and the buck is struggling, but
Speaker 2: couldn't get up, and they're over there like filming them
Speaker 2: selves kicking this buck. And then there was this other
Speaker 2: video that came out where they they had hung the
Speaker 2: carcass in a garage and uh, these young again young
Speaker 2: young guys were pouring beer into the chest cavity and
Speaker 2: shooting like, like, what do you call that where you
Speaker 2: beer really fast foot Like, yeah, beer bombing, that's what
Speaker 2: it was. I was drawing a blank. Ye I've drank.
Speaker 2: I drank so much beer in my life, I can't
Speaker 2: remember cool terms like that, beer bonging. And they were
Speaker 2: like bonging the beer out of the mouth of this
Speaker 2: this buck hanging upside down in a garage, and then
Speaker 2: they put that they chose to put that on social media. Now,
Speaker 2: those two examples are super obvious things of stuff that
Speaker 2: we need to police ourselves on. We can't allow stuff
Speaker 2: like that to be posted because that reflects on the
Speaker 2: entirety of the hunting community. PETA is going to grab
Speaker 2: a hold of that video and they're going to put
Speaker 2: it out to thousands, if not, if not millions of
Speaker 2: people and say, look look at what hunters do. Look
Speaker 2: at what these red I kill billies do to these
Speaker 2: innocent animals and that that message is gonna you know,
Speaker 2: and then you're gonna have some some lady sitting on
Speaker 2: our couch watching a late night show and this peda
Speaker 2: commercial comes on and these these hunters are kicking the
Speaker 2: crap out of a deer that's wounded and can't get up,
Speaker 2: and it's making all this noise, and that is going
Speaker 2: to be her representation in her mind, that is going
Speaker 2: to be her perception as to what a hunter is.
Speaker 2: So like two weeks later, maybe she that same lady
Speaker 2: sitting in church and the guy next to her is like, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I can't wait for church to get out so I
Speaker 2: can get up on the mountain and go deer hunting.
Speaker 2: She's gonna look negatively on that guy because she thinks
Speaker 2: he's gonna go out there wound a deer and then
Speaker 2: kick it and paunch it and film it and put
Speaker 2: it on Facebook. So those are the obvious things that
Speaker 2: I think as hunters, as a community, we need to
Speaker 2: jump on that kind of stuff. Those kids that were
Speaker 2: pouring the beer down the chest cavity, I hit them
Speaker 2: up all on Facebook and I was trying to get
Speaker 2: them on my show. They one of them responded, but
Speaker 2: they wouldn't come on my show. But those are the
Speaker 2: kind of people we need to police ourselves. It's the
Speaker 2: other stuff that is a is a much more difficult conversation.
Speaker 2: It's stuff that is like h and I bring this
Speaker 2: example a lot up on my show where they they've
Speaker 2: got a coyote in a foothold trap and they're they're
Speaker 2: filming themselves walking up to this coyote that's just freaking out,
Speaker 2: making all this noise, yipping and yapping and that circle
Speaker 2: of death. He's going crazy in this circle of death.
Speaker 2: And the guys are laughing and making this big deal
Speaker 2: and this scene and and oh, we're killing or I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: we're saving a bunch of deer because we're gonna get
Speaker 2: this kyot. And then bam, they shoot this coyote and
Speaker 2: then they post that video. The thing is with that
Speaker 2: is there are some gnarly realities that come out of
Speaker 2: hunting and trapping, and we know that as hunters, we
Speaker 2: know the brutality that can come out of it. We
Speaker 2: don't have to show that stuff. We don't have to
Speaker 2: show that stuff. And I am not going to be
Speaker 2: like the judge and jury as to what we should
Speaker 2: and shouldn't post. But I think obvious things like that
Speaker 2: we need to police ourselves and start reaching out to
Speaker 2: those kind of people. And you know the proverb proverbial guy,
Speaker 2: I can't speak tonight, man, shake your finger at those
Speaker 2: kind of people and let them know, hey, man, that
Speaker 2: that is not a good look for us as as
Speaker 2: a community. You need to take that video down. And
Speaker 2: I am not saying you know, your your average kill
Speaker 2: shot with a bow or rifle shot and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: I am talking about the extreme ones that that the
Speaker 2: non hunter. I'm not talking about the anti hunter. We're
Speaker 2: not going to change their mind. It's the extreme or
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, the non extreme, non hunting, average citizen that
Speaker 2: doesn't have any real exposure to hunting that are going
Speaker 2: to see something. And you have to really use common sense.
Speaker 2: If some non hunter sees this post, are they going
Speaker 2: to think negatively or positively about hunters? And that is
Speaker 2: what's going to bode for us in the future when
Speaker 2: it comes down to who the stakeholders are in the
Speaker 2: future of hunting and if it comes down to like
Speaker 2: a ballot initiative, you know, should deer hunting continue in America?
Speaker 2: You know, not that I think that's right around the corner.
Speaker 2: But I do think that that is in our future.
Speaker 2: At some point, it's going to come down to like
Speaker 2: a vote, a populous vote, and those people are going
Speaker 2: to remember those nasty videos that we posted. Are that
Speaker 2: poor coyote in that traphold? I love hunting and trapping
Speaker 2: coyotes too, so don't anybody mistake me. I know the
Speaker 2: brutality that goes into it, especially when you're trapping him,
Speaker 2: but I don't show that stuff. I don't think I've
Speaker 2: ever posted one of my coyotes, and I've killed a
Speaker 2: lot of coyotes, and I don't care if you do.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying you shouldn't. I am saying in that context,
Speaker 2: that's where we got to police ourselves, not showing them
Speaker 2: in that circle of death and everything else, you know,
Speaker 2: and showing that helpless coyotes sitting there with his foot
Speaker 2: stuck in a foothold trap and a bullet going through
Speaker 2: his head? Why show that? Why do we have to
Speaker 2: show that? I don't know, what do you think?
Speaker 3: I think it's just too graphic.
Speaker 1: And here's here, I think as hunters we sometimes forget
Speaker 1: our personal individual roots. We don't forget, we take that
Speaker 1: for granted. So where you came from, what you've seen,
Speaker 1: what you've done in your life. You know you've seen,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe you've done a lot of you've run
Speaker 1: a trapline, maybe you've shot and butchered a lot of animals,
Speaker 1: you know, in the woods, you know, cut them up
Speaker 1: in pieces, pack them out, you know, whatever you were,
Speaker 1: you grew up in the mountains, a small town, you've
Speaker 1: done a lot in the woods, in the backwoods. But
Speaker 1: what a lot of us don't realize, I think, is
Speaker 1: not everyone has had those same exposures in their life.
Speaker 1: So a non hunter, new hunter, maybe a hunter who's
Speaker 1: been hunting for twenty thirty years, they just never have
Speaker 1: seen something of that kind of a graphic nature, or
Speaker 1: maybe haven't participated in anything similar to that to where
Speaker 1: they see it, and it's it's disturbing. And as a
Speaker 1: non hunter, if they've never been exposed to any kind
Speaker 1: of animal death, then that would be a gruesome thing
Speaker 1: to witness, right absolutely. If you're a trapper and you've
Speaker 1: shot lots of lots of coyotes and then you you're
Speaker 1: you know, you know what it's all about, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: For instance, here here there. There was a video that
Speaker 1: kind of went viral on Instagram the other day. The
Speaker 1: guy was he shot an elk. He cut the head off,
Speaker 1: and it was really steep country and is so steep.
Speaker 1: Rather than cut the meat off of the carcass right
Speaker 1: there and pack it on your back down this steep hillside,
Speaker 1: he rolls the elk, the headless elk, down the hillside,
Speaker 1: and it rolls and tumbles way down the hillside, saving him.
Speaker 1: You know, lots of work, lots of you know, you
Speaker 1: got a lot closer to the truck, you know, right,
Speaker 1: But not every but he's ready to see that, you know,
Speaker 1: the video to exact cost that video, not everybody is
Speaker 1: ready to see it.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I don't personally don't have a problem with I thought
Speaker 1: it was wow, that's ingenious.
Speaker 3: That's good. I saw that.
Speaker 2: I saw that video and and I thought the same
Speaker 2: exact thing. You. I'm like, I'd do that in a heartbeat.
Speaker 2: I just wouldn't film it and put it on Instagram.
Speaker 1: No, No, And you know, I don't think anyone. I
Speaker 1: don't think he was probably trying to disrespect the animal.
Speaker 1: You know, the animal's dead, he's taking his life. He's
Speaker 1: going to try to get that thing closer to, you know,
Speaker 1: his destination, and probably it was probably warm out. Let's
Speaker 1: let's get this thing down the hill quick as we can.
Speaker 3: You know, it's not a good look.
Speaker 1: Though.
Speaker 3: Maybe maybe I'm not going to share that kind of
Speaker 3: a video. Yeah, maybe I'm you.
Speaker 1: Know, maybe maybe some things can remain a little bit
Speaker 1: of a secret, right, you don't. And so I feel
Speaker 1: like because there was a he got a ton.
Speaker 3: Of hate mail.
Speaker 2: Oh I read I read all those comments.
Speaker 1: Lots read all the comments, you know, and people were
Speaker 1: very mad and upset, and I think, you know, as
Speaker 1: I read through the comments, I'm like, you know, and
Speaker 1: that's what got me to thinking, like, you know, not
Speaker 1: a lot of people have had the same upbringing or
Speaker 1: have had experienced taking an animal's life. Even there's a
Speaker 1: lot of new hunters, you know, maybe they've never even
Speaker 1: killed an animal, but they would like to kill a
Speaker 1: deer or whatever, but they haven't shot ground squirrels or
Speaker 1: coyotes or other deer or elk or whatever. They have
Speaker 1: no experience with that. And then they see that and
Speaker 1: that's kind of one of the it's kind of graphic
Speaker 1: in something I'm really hard to digest if you've never
Speaker 1: thought about it or seen it. So yeah, man, that
Speaker 1: maybe before posting videos like that, we you know, I
Speaker 1: would censor myself like oh this is cool, until like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't think this is not something for everyone to see.
Speaker 2: And I actually I've always I've always like respected the
Speaker 2: way that you post when when you get an elk down,
Speaker 2: your posts are always super tasteful looking like it's there's
Speaker 2: just something you always give, like reverence and respect to
Speaker 2: the animal in some way. You're not like laying down
Speaker 2: next to it, trying to give it a kiss in
Speaker 2: the ear or whatever some of these weird pictures people do.
Speaker 2: You know, it's always just a good clean photo, you know,
Speaker 2: like an honoring and it's honoring multiple things. You're honoring
Speaker 2: yourself as a honor, you're honoring the animal, and you're
Speaker 2: honoring the the experience that it was. But you know,
Speaker 2: getting back to what we were talking about, you you
Speaker 2: nailed it, man, that there are people that go through
Speaker 2: this life that have no experience. You've got to remember
Speaker 2: there's a huge part of the population, even if they're
Speaker 2: meat eaters, they have never been on a farm, they've
Speaker 2: never seen something butchered. They've never seen something killed outside
Speaker 2: of maybe a spider getting stepped on, and even that
Speaker 2: bothers them. So I saw a post the other day
Speaker 2: somebody was out muzzleloader had had got a cow elk down,
Speaker 2: and it was a big, beautiful cow elk and they
Speaker 2: had got a good shot of it, and it was
Speaker 2: kind of like, you know, the snow light snow had
Speaker 2: fallen and they'd kind of staged the yel cleaned it
Speaker 2: up a little bit. But the problem, See, what hunters
Speaker 2: don't like pick up on, because this is something we've
Speaker 2: been exposed to for a long time. What we don't
Speaker 2: pick up on sometimes, and I'm guilty of this is, uh,
Speaker 2: the blood bath that ensues from a fifty caliber muzzleloader
Speaker 2: going through flesh like this, right, and so around this
Speaker 2: this elk was just I mean, it looked like somebody
Speaker 2: brought in a garden hose full of blood and it's
Speaker 2: it's up and down the tree, and it's all over
Speaker 2: the snow and and like to to guys like you
Speaker 2: and I, that's just normal. We we expect that, right,
Speaker 2: and it's it's not it's not bothersome. But think about
Speaker 2: the person that has never been and uh, that has
Speaker 2: never been exposed to that, and how are they going
Speaker 2: to react? And we can be jerks and we could
Speaker 2: be we could sit around and talk about how well
Speaker 2: I don't care how how they are. I'm a hunter.
Speaker 2: They need to know how this is, this is this
Speaker 2: I I only care about what I post. Okay, they
Speaker 2: need to toughen up and grow a pair or whatever.
Speaker 2: But you have to understand that these people, it's not
Speaker 2: about that. Like, I've never been to a place where
Speaker 2: they butcher cows, and it would probably disturb me. And
Speaker 2: I raised cows when I was like, I didn't personally
Speaker 2: raise them, but our family are we we raised cattle,
Speaker 2: and uh we would send them off and we'd never
Speaker 2: see him again. You know, I didn't go out there
Speaker 2: and butcher these things. And you know, so something like that,
Speaker 2: I imagine I might be slightly disturbed by seeing that
Speaker 2: that that rod or whatever go through the head. But
Speaker 2: the other side to that too is you know, have
Speaker 2: you seen that meme Dirk that has been going around
Speaker 2: where it's like everybody's there at Thanksgiving and uh, it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: there's our deer hunter. And then the next next person
Speaker 2: is like, oh, there was deer I saw some deer
Speaker 2: in my yard, and and somebody else was did you
Speaker 2: bring me some deer?
Speaker 1: Me?
Speaker 2: You know that whole thing where you're you're sitting there
Speaker 2: and there's a fan to catch, Did you catch a
Speaker 2: deer's yet? And I always text you that. I think
Speaker 2: I text you that this year? How many elks have
Speaker 2: you catched yet? Dirk?
Speaker 3: Anyway?
Speaker 2: The uh? But but if you as funny as that
Speaker 2: meme is, you have to think about those are the
Speaker 2: people when you post, when you post something that you've
Speaker 2: killed out in the field. Those are the people that
Speaker 2: see that, that are sitting there and they're they're the
Speaker 2: ones asking you if you catched a deer right, and
Speaker 2: and they don't have exposure to this life. They don't
Speaker 2: know how. They couldn't even begin to tell you how
Speaker 2: to gut a deer. They couldn't tell you how much
Speaker 2: blood is visible when when you do got a deer.
Speaker 2: They can't tell you how quickly a coyote'll come in
Speaker 2: and snatch your venison right out of your head, you know,
Speaker 2: wherever you leave it, if you're taking one load out.
Speaker 2: They don't know how all that stuff works. And it's
Speaker 2: not because they're stupid. It's because that's just not what
Speaker 2: they do. And so those are the people when you
Speaker 2: post something, is one of the people at that table
Speaker 2: and that meme going to see that on Facebook while
Speaker 2: they're sitting there after dinner one night and think, man,
Speaker 2: that is some brutal shit. Why would somebody do that?
Speaker 2: And I think that we need to start having more
Speaker 2: conversations about what that means and how we kind of
Speaker 2: police ourselves and clean up our own house before we
Speaker 2: start judging these other houses, like the hostile vegan crowd
Speaker 2: or the anti hunting crowd and all these other crowds
Speaker 2: that want to see our lifestyle taken away before we
Speaker 2: start getting after them. We need to clean up our
Speaker 2: own house and look at what the non hunter has
Speaker 2: been expo because we already have things like Hollywood is
Speaker 2: against us, we have anti hunting groups putting out propaganda,
Speaker 2: we have some hostile commissions on some of these wildlife
Speaker 2: agency boards. We have all these things that are against us,
Speaker 2: and we're just like playing right into their game plan.
Speaker 2: And I think that it's time to stop kind of
Speaker 2: pussy footing around the fact that these conversations need to
Speaker 2: be had because the future of hunting really is at stake,
Speaker 2: and we are the ones that are solely responsible for
Speaker 2: any of the negative press that comes out of it.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, absolutely, I think everybody just needs to step back
Speaker 1: sometimes and think about when somebody voices an opinion or
Speaker 1: you know, maybe they just said something online, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's maybe not a method of maybe you don't
Speaker 1: like bow hunting, or maybe you don't like traditional archers,
Speaker 1: or maybe you don't like whatever, and but you have
Speaker 1: to think about that person and what what part of
Speaker 1: hunting do you like? Well, I like this part and
Speaker 1: this is what's really important to me, and I am
Speaker 1: very passionate about it. Well, you have to understand that
Speaker 1: other person. They're just as passionate about what they like
Speaker 1: as much as you're passionate about what you like. And
Speaker 1: it's all a form of hunting, right, so as long
Speaker 1: as it's you know, as long as you're not shooting
Speaker 1: holes in the boat, you know, and long as you're
Speaker 1: not being a bad apple, you know, if it's a
Speaker 1: legal method to take and the optics are good on it.
Speaker 1: We should support each other. We should, you know, we
Speaker 1: should have each other's we should have each other's back.
Speaker 1: We shouldn't be so quick to rain on somebody's parade
Speaker 1: because they don't shoot the same bow you shoot, or
Speaker 1: the same rifle caliber or.
Speaker 3: Muzzle, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we shouldn't be so quick to rain on someone
Speaker 1: else's parade. We should we should have, you know, applaud
Speaker 1: them if you if you have some negative to say,
Speaker 1: maybe you should think about it before you say it,
Speaker 1: and maybe not say it, just like let it go.
Speaker 1: Because really, if I learned this a long time ago
Speaker 1: on the internet, like, if you want to sit there
Speaker 1: and argue, you can argue for as much time as
Speaker 1: you want to sit at a computer and type the keys,
Speaker 1: and as fast as you can type, the people will
Speaker 1: do the same thing.
Speaker 3: So I've been so guilty of that. Yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 3: you know it's not my day. First day on the internet.
Speaker 1: Right back when I first got on the internet, they
Speaker 1: felt like I needed to talk to say some things.
Speaker 3: But honestly me too.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you know, it just ain't it's not worth it,
Speaker 1: you know that the time to try to try it,
Speaker 1: especially if you're going to say something negative.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think I think if we can all just work
Speaker 1: together towards supporting hunting all types, that's legal, that's ethical
Speaker 1: and has good optics. You know, I think we should
Speaker 1: all kind of work work towards that instead of trying
Speaker 1: to tear each other down over over car caliber of
Speaker 1: cartridges and broadheads and lighted knocks and expandable broadheads. Yeah,
Speaker 1: traditional bows and wheelbows, and there's I mean, there's a
Speaker 1: million different things to argue about.
Speaker 3: Is there a public land versus private land? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, private or you know, high fence hunter versus public
Speaker 2: land hunter. And it's like you have the problem is
Speaker 2: is we're breaking these down into like these these factions
Speaker 2: and there's like nothing worse than that post that you
Speaker 2: just mentioned that, Hey, what's the best caliber for elk hunting?
Speaker 2: Or what's the best caliber for deer hunting? Man, I
Speaker 2: cringe anytime I see that, because, hey, for let me
Speaker 2: tell you something. I've been deer hunting since I was
Speaker 2: a kid, and I don't care. I don't care what
Speaker 2: caliber you choose. Everybody has their opinion. I have my favorite,
Speaker 2: but I've killed deer with all sorts of different calibers
Speaker 2: and all sorts of different ranges. Yeah, it's really that
Speaker 2: that's such a question that is so dependent on the
Speaker 2: particular individual hunter. But back to you, But to your
Speaker 2: point that you just made, I think it's really important
Speaker 2: that we talk about that because those are some of
Speaker 2: the factions we have. We have your your private land
Speaker 2: versus public land. Hunter, You've got your OTC versus you know,
Speaker 2: your your special draw or whatever. You've got your guided
Speaker 2: hunter versus DI I Y. You've got your you know,
Speaker 2: high fans versus public land, and you can there are
Speaker 2: a million different ways to break this down, but at
Speaker 2: the end of the day, I've I've always maintained that
Speaker 2: hunters we're looking for three things. And and I don't
Speaker 2: care what your method to take is. I don't care
Speaker 2: if you're a rifle or a bow hunter, or a
Speaker 2: fly fisherman versus a bait fisherman. Specifically, for hunters, we're
Speaker 2: looking for three things, and that is that primal connection
Speaker 2: to nature is one right, and then you've got the
Speaker 2: meat in the freezer. You may not even know, you
Speaker 2: may not even you might not even recognize that. But
Speaker 2: the re and why it is so exciting, and this is,
Speaker 2: you know, this is probably more specific for like men's personalities,
Speaker 2: but that is something that we seek and we almost
Speaker 2: required in our lives. And that's why I think, well,
Speaker 2: that's a whole other podcast episode. So we're looking for
Speaker 2: that primal connection in nature. We're looking for meat in
Speaker 2: the freezer. And the third thing is we're looking for
Speaker 2: that memory. And those are the three things.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 2: That's that's all all hunters are always looking for. Sure,
Speaker 2: does are there variations out of that where you know,
Speaker 2: somebody might go hunt a brown bear that's not good
Speaker 2: eating or want to go hunt a wolf that's not
Speaker 2: good eating. Yeah, I get it. We don't need a
Speaker 2: nicolin Again. That goes back into why rip this whole
Speaker 2: concept apart, because the concept of what ninety nine point
Speaker 2: nine percent of hunters are pursuing is we are looking
Speaker 2: for that primal connection we're looking at, which is adventure.
Speaker 2: That that feeling of fulfillment you when you get out
Speaker 2: there and it's yourself up against a wild beast and
Speaker 2: you're successful. That's that connection we're looking for because we're
Speaker 2: not participants in nature. We are part of nature when
Speaker 2: we are hunters, and that that freezer full of meat
Speaker 2: is a super important aspect. Like I am I am
Speaker 2: very serious about filling our freezer. That's that we don't
Speaker 2: buy a lot of store bought meat unless I have
Speaker 2: a really bad year and that happens. And then that
Speaker 2: third thing, that memory. That memory could be anything from
Speaker 2: a big, you know, nice taxidermy mount on the wall,
Speaker 2: or it could be just something that's in your mind,
Speaker 2: you know that memory. Thirty years from now, you'll remember
Speaker 2: getting your first cow elk with a with a muzzleloader,
Speaker 2: for example, or my daughter shooting your first spike, you know,
Speaker 2: buck or something like that. Or it could be a
Speaker 2: nice euromount, or it could be like this bear rug
Speaker 2: or bear hide on the wall behind me, you know
Speaker 2: those kind of things. Those are the three things that
Speaker 2: hunters are pursuing, and it's it's consistent across the board
Speaker 2: in North America and Africa or anywhere else where anybody hunts.
Speaker 2: Those are the three things that we pursue, and they
Speaker 2: are all three individually worth fighting for as themselves. But
Speaker 2: when you can bind all three, it is worth it
Speaker 2: for everybody to keep that in mind because if you're
Speaker 2: some otcdy public land hunter, which I am that's what
Speaker 2: I do, and you're giving somebody a hard time because
Speaker 2: they paid thirty grand to go hunt on a ranch,
Speaker 2: that outcome is the same for both parties. If they're
Speaker 2: both successful, that primal connection is there. Sure one may
Speaker 2: have been a little bit harder, but maybe not, maybe not.
Speaker 2: I've never hunted at high paid ranch, so how do
Speaker 2: I know what if that hunt is harder than an
Speaker 2: OTC tag, I don't know. But the point is is
Speaker 2: we're not going to judge it because we have the
Speaker 2: three same goals with that endgame is the same for
Speaker 2: all of us. And when it comes to us picking
Speaker 2: a side when the bigger threats come down the pike
Speaker 2: against the hunting community, we're going to be standing on
Speaker 2: the same side of the aisle. And I don't want
Speaker 2: to have animosity towards my brother or sister over there
Speaker 2: that that may have had the money to go spend
Speaker 2: thirty grand on a hunt. We're still going to be
Speaker 2: on the same team. We were on the same team,
Speaker 2: and I'm not gonna judge them for it. And that's
Speaker 2: how I feel about it.
Speaker 3: We'll say you, yeah, absolutely, I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 1: And that that person that maybe threw down that that
Speaker 1: big money to go hunt on a on a private
Speaker 1: land hunt, maybe they have some money to put towards,
Speaker 1: you know, a worthwhile project for a hundred all hunters
Speaker 1: in general. You know, maybe they want to donate money
Speaker 1: to a to a good cause, you know that's going
Speaker 1: to fight against against anna hunting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we got yeah bigger fish to fry. We want people.
Speaker 1: There's people that want to take away or hunting rights.
Speaker 1: They want to take away the right to eat meat
Speaker 1: in general. I mean there's there's crazy radical groups everywhere
Speaker 1: they want to put they don't even think people should
Speaker 1: live in certain parts of the country.
Speaker 3: I mean, you name it.
Speaker 1: There's there's there's somebody that's got an organization trying to
Speaker 1: take away something.
Speaker 3: And as far as hunting rights and.
Speaker 1: Stuff goes, we all need to like put our sides,
Speaker 1: se our differences aside, and stand up together and be
Speaker 1: one voice and kind of push back against these ni
Speaker 1: hunters because if not, if you look like if you
Speaker 1: rewind a little bit, if you go back to like
Speaker 1: when Washington and Oregon lost hound hunting back in the day.
Speaker 1: You know, back then, hunters there was no internet, there
Speaker 1: was no there was no good way for hunters to
Speaker 1: connect and to join forces. You just kind of heard
Speaker 1: about stuff in the newspaper, you know, and you know,
Speaker 1: some people would go down to the town hall or
Speaker 1: go to the meetings and say, you know, we don't
Speaker 1: want you to do that, but it wasn't enough of
Speaker 1: a ruckus to to stop that kind of litigation or
Speaker 1: legislation and keep those laws.
Speaker 3: From getting pasted.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Well, now there's no excuse for it. Like there's we
Speaker 1: have a lot of hunters all across America. There's social
Speaker 1: media to spread the word when things are going wrong.
Speaker 1: And then instead of like sitting here tearing each other down,
Speaker 1: that'd be a good opportunity to spend that time advocating
Speaker 1: for hunting. You know, don't waste your time keyboard warrior
Speaker 1: in it for for you know, because you're against six
Speaker 1: or five creedmores. You know, take that time and advocate
Speaker 1: for hunting. Put honey where your mouth is, put your
Speaker 1: time where your mouth is. Join a conservation group. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I always look at it.
Speaker 2: I always look at it, Dirk, Like it's like we're
Speaker 2: all in the same football team and we're getting to
Speaker 2: the super Bowl, you know, the Super Bowls coming up
Speaker 2: in a couple of weeks or whatever, and we go
Speaker 2: to practice or whatever, maybe we go to some football
Speaker 2: camp or something like that, and like, you know, everybody's
Speaker 2: like the they didn't like the the jocks drap that
Speaker 2: the quarterback picked out, and so they're all kicking him
Speaker 2: in the knee and so now his knee's all jacked
Speaker 2: up by the time the super Bowl comes around. And
Speaker 2: that's kind of how I see it. And if you
Speaker 2: look at the other side, the folks that are anti
Speaker 2: hunting are like the hostile vegans because there's like a
Speaker 2: way to and we don't have to get into all that.
Speaker 2: But they're separated, and they're separate and they have different motivations.
Speaker 2: But like the anti hunting crowd, they're not kicking each
Speaker 2: other in the kneecap man, they're not fighting, they're not
Speaker 2: behind the scenes pulling each other's hair. They're not elbowing
Speaker 2: somebody in the face in public and ripping each other apart.
Speaker 2: These folks are they They are well tuned into the
Speaker 2: fact that hunters are are essentially ripping each other apart.
Speaker 2: It's almost as if they I've heard I've actually seen
Speaker 2: some of them say this. If you follow some of
Speaker 2: these like I geek out on this stuff. I actually
Speaker 2: follow them in Facebook groups. I like disguise who I
Speaker 2: am and join some anti hunting Facebook groups, you know,
Speaker 2: and and I'll watch them and the comments that they
Speaker 2: make are literally, you know, even if we don't have
Speaker 2: the money to pursue this through litigation, the hunters are
Speaker 2: are are ripping each other apart anyway. They're they're fighting
Speaker 2: about such and such hunting season and stuff. And I've
Speaker 2: literally seen them write this kind of stuff in their comments,
Speaker 2: and and they you know, they'll say stuff like they're
Speaker 2: losing support amongst the public. They are public support for
Speaker 2: hunting for meat has dropped ten percent in the last
Speaker 2: twenty years, and you know, and they're putting all these
Speaker 2: little statistical data in there, and then they're they're they're
Speaker 2: backing that up with the fact that all we have
Speaker 2: to do is keep letting these hunters do what they
Speaker 2: do on social media and and the general public's going
Speaker 2: to be turning against them anyway. And so that's why
Speaker 2: these conversations are so important. It's not like this stuff
Speaker 2: is just you know, Dirk and I sitting around making
Speaker 2: stuff up and creating problems that don't actually exist. These
Speaker 2: problems actually do exist, and they actually strategically plan for
Speaker 2: this kind of stuff to come after our rights as
Speaker 2: hunters and our future as hunters, and I am not
Speaker 2: going to sit around and risk my daughters and my
Speaker 2: grandchildren's future of being able to do what I love
Speaker 2: to do because I chose not to say something about
Speaker 2: it because I was afraid of maybe being less popular
Speaker 2: or or somebody disagreeing with me. Is time that we
Speaker 2: come together and defend our principles as hunters and be
Speaker 2: unified and not give a crap about what caliber somebody shoots.
Speaker 3: There elk with.
Speaker 2: It's just it's so silly that we do that. I
Speaker 2: don't get it.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree with you more. Everything you just said
Speaker 1: I echoes my thoughts as well.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 1: Jim Man, we're pushing up to an hour here, and
Speaker 1: it feels like we've been talking for about ten minutes.
Speaker 1: If you guys haven't heard Jim's podcast, it's called The
Speaker 1: Western Huntsman, and he's got all sorts of guests on there.
Speaker 1: I've been on there a couple of times. He's got
Speaker 1: all sorts of different guests and all sorts of different topics.
Speaker 3: So if you like to to like to.
Speaker 1: Listen about hunting stories or hunting tactics, or he does
Speaker 1: this really cool thing called the School of September where
Speaker 1: he talks about elk elk calling tips and tactics by
Speaker 1: a bunch of different guests and some some con conservation
Speaker 1: stuff too. He gets all sorts of folks on there.
Speaker 1: How do we best find your your podcast and and
Speaker 1: you on social media?
Speaker 2: Well they could just the easiest places on Instagram. It's
Speaker 2: at the Western Huntsman and you can. You can find
Speaker 2: the podcast anywhere podcasts are found, or at the Western
Speaker 2: Huntsman podcast dot com.
Speaker 3: Awesome.
Speaker 1: Well, thanks again, Jim. Always a pleasure to get on
Speaker 1: here and talk with you. We need to connect somewhere
Speaker 1: again here real soon in the future. Maybe I can
Speaker 1: get on your podcast and we'll talk about some other
Speaker 1: fun stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do it, man. I love chewing the fat
Speaker 2: with you anytime, brother, all right, thanks ma'am.