Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Welcome to the second episode of the Hunting
Speaker 1: Collected podcast. I've been O'Brien and I am joined in
Speaker 1: the second podcast by the one and only Ryan Callahan.
Speaker 1: You guys probably know Ryan from his time with Meat Eater,
Speaker 1: or even more likely know him from his role with
Speaker 1: First Light Clothing and all the things they do at
Speaker 1: that brand. But where are you knowing from? I don't know.
Speaker 1: Is that important in this case? The fact is Ryan
Speaker 1: is good people. I mean, if you say Salt of
Speaker 1: the Earth, you think Ryan Callahan a guy that isn't
Speaker 1: about the flash, isn't about the show, isn't about all
Speaker 1: the things that that may go into someone's reputation on
Speaker 1: honey industry. Man, he just loves hunting. He loves wilderness,
Speaker 1: he loves public lands, he loves to kill, he loves
Speaker 1: to cook, he loves to eat, and as you'll find
Speaker 1: out in this episode, he loves to educate. And he's
Speaker 1: somebody that I greatly admire, not only for what he's doing,
Speaker 1: but what he can do. And I think this conversation
Speaker 1: will show you that he's thought long and hard about
Speaker 1: his position in the hunting industry. He has a lot
Speaker 1: to say and we can all benefit from Ryan Galahans
Speaker 1: and his mustache in the hunting world. So for Numero two,
Speaker 1: we're gonna come to you from the Salt Palace Convention
Speaker 1: Center in Salt Lake City. We're at the Western Hunting Expo,
Speaker 1: sitting and it's so Yota to come and pick up
Speaker 1: on the trade show floor. Amiss the madness, So enjoy
Speaker 1: this conversation, Bryan. Mr Brian, describe in your best first
Speaker 1: where we are current time. I feel like, um, we
Speaker 1: are on like our own little alien ship here observing
Speaker 1: the people of Earth. Um. We we are inside a
Speaker 1: Yetti branded uh Toyota, sitting on the show floor at
Speaker 1: the Western hunt Expo here in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Speaker 1: And we're there's literally a sea of people wandering around us.
Speaker 1: And I would say one out of about thirty or
Speaker 1: forty looks over and realizes there's two guys with headphones
Speaker 1: on and sitting inside of Toyota. Do you think they
Speaker 1: think we're creepy? There's definitely if you make an effort
Speaker 1: to lock eyes with somebody that you definitely get a
Speaker 1: weird double take. That's currently a child out looking at
Speaker 1: me like with It's pretty I'd be lying if I
Speaker 1: said it's not fun. I like this. I'm glad we
Speaker 1: did it here and not like in a just a
Speaker 1: normal setting, because this gives us a chance to really
Speaker 1: reflect on solitude and the human race in the nature
Speaker 1: of trade shows. It's fascinating, right, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: it's fascinating. I think I make no bones about it.
Speaker 1: Like being in it's it's a trade off between m
Speaker 1: being you know, largely antisocial in the woods and then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden it's like severe social time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like severe is a good word for it. It's a
Speaker 1: severe I would The question I have for you is
Speaker 1: which what is worse on your body and mind, Like
Speaker 1: a month in the back country during elk season or
Speaker 1: a month at trade show season in the various cities Vegas,
Speaker 1: Salt Lake included. Oh, I don't think there's any doubt
Speaker 1: trade show season is harder on you know, all aspects
Speaker 1: of mind and body, and and it's not like it
Speaker 1: and I think you could argue that you're really stretching
Speaker 1: your mental capabilities, like having you know, thousands of conversations
Speaker 1: and things. But at the end it all kind of
Speaker 1: blends together too, So yeah, you're not really sure what
Speaker 1: town you're in or you're talking to, but you're pretty sure.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure you're okay. The steak tastes all right,
Speaker 1: but but it's not doesn't taste that good, No, I
Speaker 1: mean that's yeah. It can be like generic meal thirty
Speaker 1: seven B, yeah, thirty seven B. Yeah, at some at
Speaker 1: some level, I was telling somebody to day, like you eat,
Speaker 1: you have this social hour. You have a meal with
Speaker 1: varying people. Sometimes it's the same person as the last night,
Speaker 1: most times it's not. And then you have stay and
Speaker 1: around and is it's the cloud of of human beings
Speaker 1: and try to get some sort of conversation with substance
Speaker 1: to going. But it rarely ever happens. It doesn't. And
Speaker 1: that's the kind of the weird thing from like a
Speaker 1: true trade show. We're at a consumer show where at
Speaker 1: so it's open to the general public and it's a
Speaker 1: little bit different. But trade show where you're supposed to
Speaker 1: be taking care of like trade matters is the theory,
Speaker 1: like it never happens, and it's all partial conversations that
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, well, we gotta follow up because everybody's
Speaker 1: too busy to actually complete something. So yeah, the conversation
Speaker 1: of substances, and I would also says just a point
Speaker 1: of of where we are right now, that we're sitting
Speaker 1: in the truck inside of what is the total archery challenge,
Speaker 1: and there is a group of people shooting flu flu
Speaker 1: arrows at foam disks literally feet in front of us,
Speaker 1: and there is at some level are going over our heads.
Speaker 1: The arrows are somewhat going over our heads. And I
Speaker 1: think the archers themselves are would are so locked into
Speaker 1: the targets that they have no clue that we are here,
Speaker 1: don't know that we're here at all. Well, maybe we'll
Speaker 1: end the podcast by just just a commentary on what's happening,
Speaker 1: just kind of a play by play yes on this
Speaker 1: situation currently here in Salt Lake City. What are the
Speaker 1: ground rules for your podcast? Ben? Is there is its
Speaker 1: free thought? Is it cussing? Is it you can cuss? Okay,
Speaker 1: for sure, it's definitely free thought. I think, Um, now,
Speaker 1: after the first podcast with Steve, we had to we
Speaker 1: fixed the audio problems hopefully, so now we have like
Speaker 1: we got the you know, the technical difficulties out of
Speaker 1: the way the first one. I think going forward, we
Speaker 1: just need to figure out what we're supposed to talk
Speaker 1: about what And that's why did you want to do this?
Speaker 1: Why did you want to do a podcast? Vin with UM? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean I started my career in journalism, right, So
Speaker 1: I always fancy myself some sort of storyteller or at
Speaker 1: least interested in other people's stories rather than my own,
Speaker 1: Right Like I didn't necessarily always want to, um have
Speaker 1: a camera on me. I always felt fairly uncomfortable in
Speaker 1: that situation. But what I did feel comfortable and is
Speaker 1: telling other people's stories. And what what was important to
Speaker 1: me I was being able to do that and whatever
Speaker 1: career that I had, And so I started out at
Speaker 1: a print magazines and digital and actually doing that UM
Speaker 1: my current career at Yettie. We're distroyed storytellers as well,
Speaker 1: we just do it in film in some different ways.
Speaker 1: So for me, this is just a another way. It's
Speaker 1: a burgeoning way that people tell stories, you know, and
Speaker 1: this is a way for people to learn my story,
Speaker 1: but but less that and more to learn yours and
Speaker 1: Steve's and the collective group of people that we you know,
Speaker 1: surround ourselves with. If you learn all those people stories
Speaker 1: becomes this weird tapestry of ideas and philosophies and ideologies
Speaker 1: that comes together to form this thing that we do
Speaker 1: that's hunting, because we all come from I come from
Speaker 1: a far different place from where you came from. Yeah,
Speaker 1: have you And I'm always afraid of redundancy, but have
Speaker 1: you covered your upbringing? Because little Kenyan I um, when
Speaker 1: we've you know, first got together in a setting where
Speaker 1: we could actually talk, um, Yeah, because you're East coast
Speaker 1: um and uh, you kind of had the similar thread
Speaker 1: that you and I have. You kind of have. It
Speaker 1: wasn't your dad, right, it was. It was partially my dad,
Speaker 1: but like I had a name, yeah that was It
Speaker 1: was a mentor, right, and my dad was You know,
Speaker 1: you have to be like to have both things. You
Speaker 1: have to have that mentor that that person that you know,
Speaker 1: maybe as a kid coming up, you're not always really
Speaker 1: good listening to your parents because you've got to do
Speaker 1: that all the time, listen your parents seven. So if
Speaker 1: there's another voice there, if there's another outlet for you
Speaker 1: to kind of push your energy towards. I feel like
Speaker 1: it helped. It certainly did help me. Having our neighbor,
Speaker 1: Bill Miller, was just a fantastic redneck son of a
Speaker 1: bitch and all the proper like he would wear buckskins
Speaker 1: in the weekend, he would like wear buckskins and come
Speaker 1: over with muzzleloaders and we'd yeah, throw axes at trees
Speaker 1: and like, it was just this proper redneck outlet that
Speaker 1: we needed to we needed to come on. We'll wait
Speaker 1: here for a minute till that's it. You'll hear various
Speaker 1: announcements of sheep tags being sold and child being lost
Speaker 1: or whatever. Occasionally people staring, yep, somebody might get in
Speaker 1: the back of the truck. I think they might go
Speaker 1: for a ride at some little anyway. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think my upbringing was probably different than a lot of
Speaker 1: people that have that are in the industry. A lot
Speaker 1: of you know, a lot of people I've met have
Speaker 1: that Western background. Some people I met have that mid
Speaker 1: that Midwestern background, and and it's markedly different than what
Speaker 1: I experienced. It's markedly different than where I grew up.
Speaker 1: I mean, we dear season was very it was tribal,
Speaker 1: it was communal. It was we were five or six
Speaker 1: or eight dudes with rifles and whatever antler we saw
Speaker 1: got shot, and then there wasn't There was a lot
Speaker 1: of tactics involved. There wasn't a lot of talk about
Speaker 1: the philosophies of why we did it. It was mostly
Speaker 1: just spending time together. And I remember my favorite part
Speaker 1: would be we'd kill five or six deer, we'd have
Speaker 1: a skin party in the garage. That's my favorite party
Speaker 1: of hunting, my absolute favorite, other than like the anticipation
Speaker 1: of getting up in the morning and standing on our
Speaker 1: front porch and just like feeling the cold and feeling
Speaker 1: the silence and waiting for everybody kind to assemble and
Speaker 1: getting the trucks and go. Those two moments I remember
Speaker 1: this a kid, like, those two moments were my favorite moments.
Speaker 1: That early morning frost and you just you know, I
Speaker 1: had like this old pair of coveralls that stand out there,
Speaker 1: and my dad'd be making lunch and all that, and
Speaker 1: you just realized that, you know, this is a calm
Speaker 1: before the storm. And then the after party was was
Speaker 1: coming back down from you know, time spent. And you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's very much different from a
Speaker 1: lot of people, but I think just the environment that
Speaker 1: I grew up as pretty redneck. I mean, when I
Speaker 1: look back one at the time, I thought this is normal.
Speaker 1: That's what everybody's doing. But there wasn't There wasn't trophies,
Speaker 1: there wasn't talk of I mean it was it was
Speaker 1: it a six or an eight or four or ten.
Speaker 1: Then there was never We never knew how to measure,
Speaker 1: and we never thought about that. And so I came
Speaker 1: from that angle. And I think part of one into
Speaker 1: podcast is like we all come from such different angles,
Speaker 1: like we all come at this thing and then and
Speaker 1: we change every single I change every year. In fact,
Speaker 1: I sit down um every year and kind of take
Speaker 1: a day, you know, early in the season whenever it
Speaker 1: is to think about, like, how have I changed from
Speaker 1: last year? What what are the things I'm unwilling to
Speaker 1: do now that I was maybe willing to try before.
Speaker 1: That's interesting, you know, what are the things you know?
Speaker 1: What are the things that what are just you know,
Speaker 1: some of the ideas that I questioned now that I
Speaker 1: every question before, you know, so you change. So I
Speaker 1: think that's to the answer. The original question is just
Speaker 1: that the expiration of that, it's some weird catharsis that
Speaker 1: I have to talk to smart people and explore some
Speaker 1: ideas and things that I question because there's a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff in hunting that I don't like, I'm not
Speaker 1: afraid to say that. I don't think that's a detriment
Speaker 1: to hunters as a whole. I just think, just like
Speaker 1: anything else, we got a lot of stuff to figure out.
Speaker 1: The Yeah, I mean there's there's a lot of questions,
Speaker 1: right like um, and being in the positions that that
Speaker 1: we are in and are you know, different jobs? But
Speaker 1: you get this like, yeah, I just want to get
Speaker 1: into the hunting industry. And I always question because that's
Speaker 1: we're on the topic of questioning, like what really is
Speaker 1: the hunting industry? I mean you're selling coolers? Yeah? Is
Speaker 1: that the hunting industry? Right? But you know, you guys,
Speaker 1: the way you tell stories and do you embrace hunting
Speaker 1: certainly is and you know we're selling clothes, um, and
Speaker 1: like what what would be the core of the hunting industry? Yeah,
Speaker 1: what is the core of hunting? And shot man? I
Speaker 1: how do you how do you associate your going hunting
Speaker 1: with a group of people? Like how do you associate
Speaker 1: your what you do alone or with close friends with
Speaker 1: a larger community? Like what's your you know, what's your
Speaker 1: association with the eleven million people that hunt? And you know,
Speaker 1: the even smaller group that call him as part of
Speaker 1: the industry air quotes. I don't know what that is.
Speaker 1: My association to it is it was the way for
Speaker 1: me to spend almost all my time free time outside
Speaker 1: of my family with people that do what I do,
Speaker 1: care about what I care about. Um, there's other ways
Speaker 1: to do it, conservation groups, you know. But I mean
Speaker 1: we both work for companies that are part of this,
Speaker 1: but there's other many other angles to get into it.
Speaker 1: So I just always see it is like the association
Speaker 1: with this group of people, uh, and going back to
Speaker 1: that group of people like that I care about that
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't take for granted that there's a
Speaker 1: lot of people that do what we do. Some of
Speaker 1: them maybe have never thought about the ideas we could
Speaker 1: present and in this format like this podcast and you know,
Speaker 1: talk through some stuff that maybe they've never when they
Speaker 1: never thought of before. And in the first podcast, Steve
Speaker 1: Ronella talked about points where he read a book or
Speaker 1: he read you know, Pinochet, or he read a guy
Speaker 1: like Um Roosevelt and one of his ideas presented change
Speaker 1: the way that Steve saw either his own hunting or
Speaker 1: his relationship with other hunters like those ideas, just the
Speaker 1: exploration or or a statement could change the way that
Speaker 1: people see and act and feel in the hunting world.
Speaker 1: So I mean, maybe that's how we're part of it.
Speaker 1: The exchange of ideas makes us part of it. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Yeah, not smart enough for that. It. Um,
Speaker 1: it is so funny. I talked to a friend of
Speaker 1: mine that actually UM works for Patagonia UM and they
Speaker 1: have a position called the director of Philosophy, and I
Speaker 1: was I was really getting a kick out of that.
Speaker 1: My next title director can you change? I mean, I
Speaker 1: feel like it at first Let you could change? He say, Hey, Kenton,
Speaker 1: I'd like to be the director of philosophy and you
Speaker 1: can probably make that happen. Yes, yeah, yeah, I'm struggling
Speaker 1: whether or not that'll be the poll after this. We're
Speaker 1: gonna put this up in a pall. Do you want
Speaker 1: Roan Cale to be introduced as director of philosophy for
Speaker 1: First Life? But hunting is this like, whether you want
Speaker 1: to admit to it or not, however you participate here. UM,
Speaker 1: it is a deeply philosophical thing, right. It's myself personally,
Speaker 1: and and I know certain groups within the hunting world
Speaker 1: and certain organizations and things try to preach this message,
Speaker 1: but for me, I can tell you it is very true.
Speaker 1: Like I feel like, to my core, I have a
Speaker 1: deeper appreciation for these animals that I hunt. And and
Speaker 1: you know, be open and honest here, it's not every
Speaker 1: single uh creature out there that that I feel this
Speaker 1: way about. It's it's truly the ones that I've spent
Speaker 1: the most time on the mountain pursuing, watching, um, getting
Speaker 1: to know the ins and outs of how they operate. Um, Like,
Speaker 1: I have a deeper love for those animals and eventually
Speaker 1: I kill him Like that is a bizarre thing. And
Speaker 1: how do you explain that to somebody? Well, that's that's
Speaker 1: where we're we're talking about dinner. The other night. I
Speaker 1: was like, we have unfortunately or fortunately however you want
Speaker 1: to look at it, stumbled into a passion that is
Speaker 1: hard to explain. And there was a writer, um, Michael
Speaker 1: Poland who wrote this. He's a liberal activist and um,
Speaker 1: you know, a known author, and he wrote this book
Speaker 1: called The Omni War's Dilemma where he you know, went hunting,
Speaker 1: pig hunting in California and there's this big es start
Speaker 1: about his pig hunt. He goes with these rednecks. I mean,
Speaker 1: the guys he went with were pure, pure pig hunting rednecks.
Speaker 1: And he at the end of it all, he said,
Speaker 1: the thing that struck him the most that from the inside,
Speaker 1: hunting looks so much different than it does from the outside,
Speaker 1: like in there in, he said, there is simply no
Speaker 1: way to explain that chasm, like there's no way in
Speaker 1: his view. And here's this is a Polish surprize winning
Speaker 1: author too. He is accurately experiently teaching at Harvard, right,
Speaker 1: so a smart fellow from the outside looking at one
Speaker 1: more Harvard degree that's in this truck. We currently have zero.
Speaker 1: Let's say, Yeah, here's a guy who's thought about a
Speaker 1: lot of things pretty critically, um, you know, and he
Speaker 1: and he talks about that at length about how it's
Speaker 1: it's so much different. And and so here we are,
Speaker 1: you know, we're we're both you know, relatively younger fellas um,
Speaker 1: a little bit younger than you. But I think we
Speaker 1: you know, we're maybe the first generation that really has
Speaker 1: been truly faced with this, with this problem that hunting
Speaker 1: looks so much different from from the outside looking in,
Speaker 1: because hunting really wasn't available to the mass population. Before
Speaker 1: so a media and before the modern media age, hunting
Speaker 1: really wasn't It was a closet. It was a book.
Speaker 1: People could only read the cover. Now they can read
Speaker 1: every page. And so now we're our generations having a
Speaker 1: just course and find a different way to represent things.
Speaker 1: And what I'm proud of and happy of you guys
Speaker 1: like you are doing your best too to make that happen,
Speaker 1: because there's no other choice. We don't have a choice
Speaker 1: but to rewrite the book in some way. I certainly, man,
Speaker 1: I certainly don't feel like we do have a choice.
Speaker 1: I think there's a number of things going on right
Speaker 1: now that I feel like, if you want to call
Speaker 1: yourself a hunter, and if you want to use this
Speaker 1: tagline that's out there, the hunter conservationist thing, that's not
Speaker 1: just hunting. That is you've got to be an active
Speaker 1: partisans a punt um because hunting is being discussed in
Speaker 1: a lot of rooms, uh, in powerful rooms where people
Speaker 1: are making decisions and hunting. There is not a hunter
Speaker 1: in that room. And that is a scary, scary thing.
Speaker 1: And uh one thing that I have learned on dealing
Speaker 1: with um lots of folks in the government is they're
Speaker 1: very busy people and they're being advised, and it is
Speaker 1: scary sometimes too when you actually get to hear what
Speaker 1: they have to say, what these advisors have told them,
Speaker 1: because they're they're busy people too, it turns out and
Speaker 1: they're not getting the full picture. Well, you say, one
Speaker 1: thing Joe Rogan says a lot of times of his
Speaker 1: podcast about the Office of the President is that it's
Speaker 1: it's an impossible job. It's a task we've given some one,
Speaker 1: one person that's it's seemingly impossible to achieve. You know,
Speaker 1: in the in Mike Row versions of that Secretary of
Speaker 1: Interior is an equally impossible job to to put together.
Speaker 1: You know, you are you are, and you're just expected
Speaker 1: to be a figurehead but also a policy expert at
Speaker 1: the same time. You know, you're expected to be a
Speaker 1: public speaker, but also um, someone that can get down
Speaker 1: the weeds and understands the people. I mean, that's a
Speaker 1: tough thing to do. Yeah, we just be out on
Speaker 1: the construction site and uh, the the future homeowner would
Speaker 1: show up on occasion, and you know, they're paying for
Speaker 1: all this stuff, so they certainly have a right to
Speaker 1: be there. But they Yeah, what's building you know, door
Speaker 1: frame ers, whatever, and yeah, why are you doing it
Speaker 1: that way? What about this way? Like you ever build
Speaker 1: one of these before? Nope? I go okay, well you
Speaker 1: want to just trust me on this one. And then
Speaker 1: you think about voting for the president of the United States,
Speaker 1: Like how many people have some knowledge of that how
Speaker 1: that actually works? Like it's it's kind of a bizarre thing.
Speaker 1: I don't want you tell me how to swing a hammer,
Speaker 1: because I know how to swing a hammer. Not a
Speaker 1: whole lot of people know how to swing that hammer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's going into the posse and that.
Speaker 1: And I would say I joined the National Board of
Speaker 1: b h A about a year ago, and you just
Speaker 1: have been elected, So congratulations and welcome, Thank you. I
Speaker 1: feel like it's a little bit like somebody giving you
Speaker 1: a puppy. Yeah, we're like, oh, great puppy. Yeah it's nice.
Speaker 1: Press release about that puppy was fun. But now I
Speaker 1: got this puppy and shipping everybody. Yeah, and if it
Speaker 1: needs training and taking up a lot of time, yeah, um,
Speaker 1: I think part of that for me. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: not uh board type of fella. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: never say, I never saw myself. I saw boards, is
Speaker 1: like groups of people that were important. UM. And when
Speaker 1: I got on there, though, I I slowly started to
Speaker 1: realize the things that I did not know. Not that
Speaker 1: I didn't know anything about public lands or the policies
Speaker 1: or or have strong beliefs about the right way to
Speaker 1: do it, but some of the machinations and some of
Speaker 1: the things that go on inside of the of a
Speaker 1: group like b h A and then the larger conservation organization,
Speaker 1: you know, spectrum as a whole. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: things that I did not know. And I'm glad I
Speaker 1: did it, just because you know, it has been a
Speaker 1: master class in and how those things work, and how
Speaker 1: policy gets created, and how it gets pushed from one
Speaker 1: side to the other UM and how influence happens. And
Speaker 1: I've learned quite a bit and I'm happy to have
Speaker 1: that knowledge and maybe be able to tell some other
Speaker 1: folks like, hey, this is this is why this door
Speaker 1: frames on this door like I did, maybe I didn't.
Speaker 1: This is why that that was built that. Yeah, Like
Speaker 1: now I can look at the house that is our
Speaker 1: collective conservation efforts will be like, wow, that's why the
Speaker 1: windows look like that that's why the door looks like that, UM,
Speaker 1: And I couldn't before and so that's been a pretty
Speaker 1: pretty great experience. UM. But but one that goes to
Speaker 1: your point of there's a lot of people who are
Speaker 1: not even knowledgeable about the specific issues that can't carry
Speaker 1: that over into just in the reality, in the tangible
Speaker 1: sense of how it actually gets done. You know, how
Speaker 1: policy gets created, or how bills get signed, or how, um,
Speaker 1: how conservation actually works. And that's what I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear your point on this. I think that'd be nice
Speaker 1: to shift to a thing that I always try to
Speaker 1: try to say and I've got varying reactions to it.
Speaker 1: And I think that we say like hunters are conservationists.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's true at all. I think hunters
Speaker 1: are hunters. Conservationists are conservationists. Hunters or have been in
Speaker 1: through our model of conservation a primary tool for for
Speaker 1: people that are conservationists. You know, I'm with you, with
Speaker 1: you now. So translocation is a tool hunting, another tool
Speaker 1: used in different ways at some level, obviously very different,
Speaker 1: but they're both um ways to get at that same
Speaker 1: goal when you go hunting. The problem with calling yourself
Speaker 1: a conservationist, and then somebody who's never hunted before. The
Speaker 1: problem with that is then, like, if you're a conservationist,
Speaker 1: why do you hunt the way that you do, If
Speaker 1: you're out there to manage a population and to maintain
Speaker 1: carrying capacity and habitat in the way that you you hunt,
Speaker 1: why do you do this and this and this and
Speaker 1: this because those things are more a personal pursuit based
Speaker 1: And now you're not a conservationist, You're now you're just hunting. Yes,
Speaker 1: So if you were there too truly manage that population, Yeah,
Speaker 1: if that was your sole goal, why do you take
Speaker 1: thirty days to do that? To find a buck that
Speaker 1: has four points? And similar similar case, similar case, when
Speaker 1: you say I hunt for meat, we're like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: well what about the time where you picked up a bow?
Speaker 1: Like what about the time um that you didn't just
Speaker 1: shoot the first thing you saw? Like those meat and
Speaker 1: conservation I think as hunters are by products of the activity.
Speaker 1: We're acknowledging those byproducts and we know they're there, We
Speaker 1: study them, we enjoy them. We understand that the byproducts
Speaker 1: of our going a field are conservation for wildlife and
Speaker 1: the being part of our model. But then also meat
Speaker 1: is going to happen at the end. But when we're hunting,
Speaker 1: what we're doing, what we do, there's there there's personal
Speaker 1: reasons why you act the way you act. When you're
Speaker 1: working out of the mountain and you're not walking around
Speaker 1: thinking gotta give meat, gotta save the gotta save the population.
Speaker 1: You're you're thinking, I want an experience, I want adventure,
Speaker 1: I want to be with people I love and care about.
Speaker 1: I want to learn, I want there's there's all kinds
Speaker 1: of things you're thinking about that we should just acknowledge
Speaker 1: when we're talking to people that don't hunt, the things
Speaker 1: that we use as reasons to go. Sure, there are
Speaker 1: reasons we go, but we're out there, we're not. That's
Speaker 1: not the full its the you know, full picture. We
Speaker 1: have to maybe at some levels separate those as the
Speaker 1: reasons why we go hunting, because we don't. Our actions
Speaker 1: don't support those words at some level. Does any of
Speaker 1: that makes sense to you, Ryan Callahan, Yes, much much
Speaker 1: of it of it does. I would say, you know, looking,
Speaker 1: the reason hunters are conservationists is because hunters are purchasing
Speaker 1: things tags, bullets, rifles, um. And this is just on
Speaker 1: the hunting side of things that the fishing side has
Speaker 1: has its side also on Often those worlds overlap, right, um.
Speaker 1: But it is because of the purchases that a percentage
Speaker 1: of those purchases go into a big bucket, and that
Speaker 1: bucket full of cash at the end of the year
Speaker 1: then gets to be towards conservation, true conservation. It goes
Speaker 1: to the States based on a percentage of their amount
Speaker 1: of hunters, and they they put it towards all kinds
Speaker 1: of things, wildlife, refugees, hunter safety, you name it. Yes, Now,
Speaker 1: the reason you aren't truly justified and saying I am
Speaker 1: a conservationist because I am a hunter is because you were.
Speaker 1: You know, all these individual purchases are not are not
Speaker 1: cutting it. The conservation work is much different than buying
Speaker 1: your tag or duck stamp. And please do buy those
Speaker 1: tags and duck stamps. And I'm not download who cares.
Speaker 1: That's I care. I care, and that is important. But
Speaker 1: if you really want to call your conservations, call yourself
Speaker 1: a hunter conservationist, it is more than making those purchases.
Speaker 1: Absolutely it's and what is the threshold, I guess, like
Speaker 1: is it? I think it is absolutely damned important to
Speaker 1: go to your fishing game meetings. I think it is
Speaker 1: absolutely damned important to go um to your you know,
Speaker 1: your city council meetings. I mean this is you'd be
Speaker 1: shocked at how many city council meetings I've been to
Speaker 1: and and actual hunting issues come up, you know. Oftentimes
Speaker 1: it's on things that are incredibly near and dear to
Speaker 1: my heart, and it's uh, you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: these new developments out there, they have ease months, public
Speaker 1: ease months built into them, so you can traverse through
Speaker 1: a neighborhood and newly developed neighborhood or one that's been
Speaker 1: around for a long time to get to that national
Speaker 1: forest back there, that BLM back there. And man, I
Speaker 1: tell you, there's a lot of people that have moved
Speaker 1: into some of these developments and they see a guy
Speaker 1: at four am walking through their yard with a oh,
Speaker 1: and they do not like that. And at these city
Speaker 1: council meetings, oftentimes you'll see people be like, well, some
Speaker 1: guy I was walking through and that's that's how I
Speaker 1: got kind of weapon, yeah because I am yeah, so um,
Speaker 1: you know, and that is participating and I would think
Speaker 1: conservation work can get done there, but it'd be an
Speaker 1: advocacy statement. Um, and you know what is true boots
Speaker 1: on the ground, conservation. It can be a lot of
Speaker 1: different things, but man, you better volunteer at least some
Speaker 1: of your time and effort if you want to say,
Speaker 1: I am a hunter and a conservation and we've built
Speaker 1: in right so if you buy I always one of
Speaker 1: the ARGANSLAS makes. If somebody has egotistical or ill reasons
Speaker 1: to go hunting, they still have to play legal hunting.
Speaker 1: They still have to play the game and the rules.
Speaker 1: We've said it up So no matter what their motivation is,
Speaker 1: they're still in the game. There's still that money for
Speaker 1: the bow, the rifle, the am with they bot still
Speaker 1: going into Pittman Robertson phones, their duck stamp they buy
Speaker 1: is still going back into that federal pool. Like, no
Speaker 1: matter what their motivations are, they're still they're still benefiting
Speaker 1: wildlife in some way. Right. But I mean it's amazing, Like,
Speaker 1: so take Pittman Robertson, which is the excise tax for
Speaker 1: UM firearms and ammunition. Um, you know, hunters aren't making
Speaker 1: the bulk of those purchases, which is it's something we
Speaker 1: like to think, but that's not the true no way.
Speaker 1: I mean this thing. This is a I was robbing
Speaker 1: writing an article currently on it on Pittman Robertson for
Speaker 1: for Peterson's Hunting. And one thing that I found, well,
Speaker 1: I think said's seven during FDR that was, you know,
Speaker 1: on the heels of Teddy Roosevelt and National forests and
Speaker 1: just a push to really solidify how we take care
Speaker 1: of our wild life because as everyone knows, and neither
Speaker 1: many decades prior we did not. We killed them all
Speaker 1: at wholesale. And so in the in the building of
Speaker 1: this base that we we work in today. UM, the
Speaker 1: idea that hunters would pay for this privilege to go
Speaker 1: hunting became a thing, and we're you know, where what
Speaker 1: are we eighty years past that? Um? And if you
Speaker 1: look out in this room and all these people that
Speaker 1: are staring at us in this truck right now, I
Speaker 1: would guess that a good percentage of them do not
Speaker 1: know what Pittman Robertson is. You agree, Yeah, I'd be
Speaker 1: shocked if we found otherwise. Yeah, I think five out
Speaker 1: of ten might have an inkling of what it is.
Speaker 1: Generation generationally, they're removed from that idea. My dad, God
Speaker 1: bless my dad. I told him about Pitt and Robertson
Speaker 1: like a month ago. He's been paying into it since
Speaker 1: he was ten years old. He's sixty four, fifty four
Speaker 1: years painting in Pittman Robertson. A month yet we found
Speaker 1: out what it was. My jaws, my jaws dropped. And
Speaker 1: so in the in the in my research for this article,
Speaker 1: I just every person I ran into, I say, what's
Speaker 1: Pittman Robertson, And I would tell you about three out
Speaker 1: of ten new what it was. One out of ten.
Speaker 1: I felt like I probably asked a hundred people. One
Speaker 1: out of ten really knew what it was. Three out
Speaker 1: of ten knew that it was some sort of tax
Speaker 1: we paid to benefit wildlife. And so I say, say,
Speaker 1: we're so generationally moved from the idea that Pitt and
Speaker 1: rode we needed to have Pitt and Robertson. Then we
Speaker 1: as hunters can't tell that story very well. You know,
Speaker 1: I would welcome anyone to come and challenge us on that,
Speaker 1: but I think it's true. And this kind of that's
Speaker 1: why I like this. I'm a hunter, and what is
Speaker 1: the saying like, I'm a hunter? Conservation? Honey, Well, hunting
Speaker 1: is conservation. Yeah, it's not. And I feel like that
Speaker 1: that can be that that slogan itself can be detrimental
Speaker 1: to hunting as a whole. How much Hubris has built
Speaker 1: into that idea because it allows people to not do anything. Well,
Speaker 1: so I am, I'm like, oh no, you're not the
Speaker 1: biproduct of your activity is. But you can still go
Speaker 1: hunting and not know what Pittman Robinson is. My dad's
Speaker 1: case for fifty four years, you're not. You didn't do
Speaker 1: anything other than buy something someone told you to buy. Like,
Speaker 1: you didn't actively you didn't actively take part in it,
Speaker 1: although you did so like you said, it's it removes
Speaker 1: some like tacit ownership away from the hunter has to
Speaker 1: say like, well, if I don't know what Pittman Robinson is,
Speaker 1: I still have to pay the tax, So what do
Speaker 1: I care? Like, that's just what a license cost. What
Speaker 1: that's what a gun cost is, what a boat cost,
Speaker 1: That's what a license cost. I don't know the tenants
Speaker 1: of the North American Wildlife Conservation. I don't know those
Speaker 1: seven or eight tenants or whatever it is. And and yeah,
Speaker 1: so that in hunting could be seen as like we're
Speaker 1: all one giant scalpel and we're trimming out, uh, a
Speaker 1: little bit of the fat off off of our herds
Speaker 1: that we are growing. UM. And and that part is
Speaker 1: a conservation tool, management tool. UM. And yeah, there is
Speaker 1: there's plenty of human wildlife conflict out there, so yeah,
Speaker 1: that that makes sense. But it is shocking to me
Speaker 1: and I always you know, I especially after this trade
Speaker 1: show here in the heart of Utah, having so many
Speaker 1: people grabbed me and not talk about UM, you know,
Speaker 1: these random appearances on on meat Eater and the podcast
Speaker 1: and not talk about first light clothing that I've been
Speaker 1: you know, has been my whole if UM for the
Speaker 1: last six years. But say hey, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for what you do for our community, for what you
Speaker 1: do for conservation. UM. Having so many interactions like that,
Speaker 1: I have always you know, when people, hey, thanks for
Speaker 1: what you do for conservation, Like it's always kind of
Speaker 1: felt disingenuous to to a degree, UM, but your eyes
Speaker 1: kind of start to slowly open to the fact that
Speaker 1: there's so many people out there doing so little that
Speaker 1: the little bit of time that I'm able to put
Speaker 1: in it is actually a big deal. And it's kind
Speaker 1: of scary to think about. And all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I'm a dude that people are pointing a finger out
Speaker 1: and being like, oh yeah, conservation guy, conservation you think.
Speaker 1: But I just think about this way too. If you're
Speaker 1: not If you're a new hunter, and I said to you, like, hey,
Speaker 1: here's this stuff you gotta do to be a hunter.
Speaker 1: And I said, you gotta learn how to read a map,
Speaker 1: read a compass. You learn how to shoot a bow
Speaker 1: or a rifle and be proficient with a weapon. You
Speaker 1: gotta learn how to gain access to ground. You gotta
Speaker 1: learn how to track. You gotta learn how to judge
Speaker 1: an animal. You have to learn how to skin it.
Speaker 1: You know, learn how to take its guts out. You
Speaker 1: gotta learn how to take the meat off its body.
Speaker 1: You gotta learn how to store that meat, use that meat,
Speaker 1: and eat it. Maybe like that's a lot, man, I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, well I've got some more stuff. You also
Speaker 1: have to learn about the natural world, the natural history
Speaker 1: of the animal, where it lives, how it thrives, your
Speaker 1: role in that, develop a bunch of philosophies around that,
Speaker 1: and then learn about its habitat. And then maybe like no, man,
Speaker 1: then i think I'll play tennis. You need to be
Speaker 1: able to mentally write all that up and articulate it
Speaker 1: in a way that you can then positively educate influence
Speaker 1: a non hunter to carry the role on again, and
Speaker 1: then everybody have you presented that, Yeah, that's it, that's
Speaker 1: it simple. I'd be like mm about video games, video games,
Speaker 1: Xbox thing. Yeah, I mean I think it's super It's
Speaker 1: just a daunting idea. And I don't. I don't. You know,
Speaker 1: you're going back to my dad not know him, Pip
Speaker 1: and Robinson is. I don't. I'd never take that against
Speaker 1: him or anyone else. I just think it's so complicated.
Speaker 1: Just the act of hunting in itself is so complicated.
Speaker 1: If you start to put on the icing of conservation
Speaker 1: and be like you gotta understand all that you know
Speaker 1: back to my joining b h A and understanding you even,
Speaker 1: there's so many levels and layers to it that I don't.
Speaker 1: I would never put it hold it against someone to
Speaker 1: say like, it's enough for me in my life call
Speaker 1: myself a hunter and and know how to respect the
Speaker 1: animal and do the things inside of the bubble at
Speaker 1: his hunting. Anything outside of it someone else has to
Speaker 1: take care of for me. Set it up so I
Speaker 1: don't screw it up and let me just do it.
Speaker 1: That's all I have time for. And like, I respect
Speaker 1: that I don't know that. I don't know that that's
Speaker 1: a bad thing. Um. And if this conversations like this
Speaker 1: can help to add layers to their knowledge, opinions and
Speaker 1: what they can do, great, I mean I think that's
Speaker 1: that's maybe the point. But if anybody listening out there
Speaker 1: that thinks that we're calling you out because you're not
Speaker 1: out there doing habitat work on the overgrowing junior person,
Speaker 1: you're you know, in your public land, we're good with that.
Speaker 1: You don't need to do that. If you want too, great,
Speaker 1: you know, join these groups and go um. But we
Speaker 1: can acknowledge it's a daunting idea. It's all of that together.
Speaker 1: It would be so easy to just shut up and
Speaker 1: sell clothes. Um. But you know, my day starts with answering.
Speaker 1: You know, emails that are you know, could turn people
Speaker 1: off of First Light forever if I were to answer
Speaker 1: them improperly, And it'd be a lot easier to just
Speaker 1: be like, oh jeez, I never got that email, but
Speaker 1: it's like I got one yesterday. Why are you guys
Speaker 1: so anti shrinking of monuments. I'm like, well, this, uh,
Speaker 1: the way this question is posed. I'm sure this person
Speaker 1: probably doesn't. It seems like they have an agenda. They
Speaker 1: have an agenda. This is a quicksand type of situation.
Speaker 1: But I feel like it's my responsibility to if we're
Speaker 1: going to take a position on something, it's my responsibility
Speaker 1: then to explain why we came to that position. And um,
Speaker 1: you know I I certainly do not want to. I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm a king issuing decrees. Um. If folks
Speaker 1: can prove me wrong, I will gladly uh write another
Speaker 1: position that says, hey, I used to think this, Now
Speaker 1: I think this much like that's okay, yeah, much like
Speaker 1: I've talked about, you sit down every year and think
Speaker 1: about your hunting gear and what how it changed you.
Speaker 1: I mean that that's everything in your life. Conservation say,
Speaker 1: you know, I never I don't know how many people
Speaker 1: before the recent um dust up with national minds really
Speaker 1: thinking about national monuments as a point of hunting and fishing.
Speaker 1: Not a lot I would, I would adventure. I guess
Speaker 1: not a whole lot of people were. I'll guarantee there
Speaker 1: are people hunting on those monuments. But they don't think
Speaker 1: that that is the monument. Yeah, yeah, the Washington Monument. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get that, but but I don't I'm walking around
Speaker 1: on this ground. It doesn't feel like there's no pictures
Speaker 1: of old white guys around, you know, it doesn't feel
Speaker 1: like a monument and what they're talking about. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that that that monument was just a complicated situation on
Speaker 1: the ground. I think, look, look, it looks a whole
Speaker 1: lot different than it does from everybody's feet view that
Speaker 1: they gain from media for wherever they get their knowledge. Um,
Speaker 1: it's a shame that that piece, you know, bears ears
Speaker 1: specifically has become a political football to be passed back
Speaker 1: and forth from from um, you know, from office to office.
Speaker 1: But that's that's it. And and maybe and then in
Speaker 1: a way, that's good that we can talk about it
Speaker 1: and be like, Okay, let's how many people have educated
Speaker 1: themselves on national monuments that had no idea what they were,
Speaker 1: what they did. There's a giant chunk of giant chunk
Speaker 1: of the reason monuments scared me so much was or
Speaker 1: this shrinking of the monuments scared me so much, is
Speaker 1: you know it to me, it really brings to light
Speaker 1: that this stuff was created with a stroke of a pan.
Speaker 1: It can be resized next, re whatever with the stroke
Speaker 1: of a pan. And I think hunters do a poor
Speaker 1: job of explaining or being even willing to step out
Speaker 1: and say, hey, you know, actually that place is really
Speaker 1: important to me because I think there's part of all
Speaker 1: of our hunting brands. Or if that, well maybe if
Speaker 1: I just shut up and nothing happens nobody, then I'll
Speaker 1: just have that place to myself. So uh, you know,
Speaker 1: so I'm like, oh, well, what if what if they
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't hunt on Grand Staircase as Galante
Speaker 1: or bearers ears, And I talked to quite a few
Speaker 1: folks who who do now and and have grown up
Speaker 1: in that area. I mean, many of which came out
Speaker 1: of the woodwork when we issued a monument statement UM,
Speaker 1: which tell people what that's even was so digging through everything,
Speaker 1: it felt like from the top on down UM and
Speaker 1: media outlets included that UM. There were many many statements
Speaker 1: out there that were had just a little too much
Speaker 1: uh built in media buzz in there from you know,
Speaker 1: Padagon Yes saying the president stole your land and our
Speaker 1: president saying I'm giving this land back to the people
Speaker 1: like you can't. Anybody that would see that situation and
Speaker 1: be like, both of those people are lying to me.
Speaker 1: Anybody that would would argue with you that, like, those
Speaker 1: two hyperbolic statements aren't both lies and the truth doesn't
Speaker 1: lay somewhere in the middle is insane. But how can
Speaker 1: you look at the same situation one person say I'm
Speaker 1: saving you, one person say he's killing you. You can't
Speaker 1: both are lying, Both are lying. I don't know a
Speaker 1: lot of people would say like one personality truth, ones
Speaker 1: like no, no, no. Both in some ways are shifting
Speaker 1: the idea of what the truth is. Yes, and I've
Speaker 1: and the history is you know, we had signed on
Speaker 1: first Light as a company, had signed on to letters
Speaker 1: from different organizations, um, you know, uh, you know a
Speaker 1: year ago saying you know, hey, we know that you're
Speaker 1: thinking about adjusting these monuments. Very concerned about the lasting
Speaker 1: effects on the Antiquities Act, which you know, I believe
Speaker 1: the Antiquities Act, when when used properly, has benefited hunters
Speaker 1: and and people of America by you know, giving us
Speaker 1: some some land that has some protections on it that
Speaker 1: you know, hopefully you know, if I ever have kids
Speaker 1: and when you rear your young pup there, Um, you
Speaker 1: can hopefully go out to those places we like. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is real close to the way it was when
Speaker 1: I got to hunt out here, right, And I think
Speaker 1: that's incredibly important, because man, these wild places are certainly
Speaker 1: the reason I'm here. Um, you know, the being outside
Speaker 1: is it is an important thing to me. And I
Speaker 1: think it has great mental and educational value for everybody,
Speaker 1: and if they so choose, they should be able to
Speaker 1: go to experience that. And I think the Antiquities Act
Speaker 1: is given many people that opportunity that I have had.
Speaker 1: So I felt, um that it would again be disingenuous
Speaker 1: if we did not, uh, you know, let our position
Speaker 1: be known because we had truthfully been taking a position. So, Um,
Speaker 1: that's much appreciated I think in this world, in this
Speaker 1: in the hunting communities, especially, that a brand whose primary
Speaker 1: goal is to make money, you know, would risk hindrance
Speaker 1: to that goal to make a stand. I think that's
Speaker 1: the idea that is to be respected. And I think
Speaker 1: to your point, and I think public lands are this
Speaker 1: way and a lot of other situations, in my mind,
Speaker 1: are not this way. Public Lands are so important, they're
Speaker 1: so fragile that simply the idea of them the is
Speaker 1: more important than the micro points on the ground. Like
Speaker 1: the idea, the slippery slope idea, I don't like it
Speaker 1: in a lot of a lot of other arguments, but
Speaker 1: I like it in public lands. I like it because
Speaker 1: it is the idea is so important. It makes that
Speaker 1: slippery slope real. It does, it does, it's and its
Speaker 1: It's like, we can't there isn't a way for us
Speaker 1: to allow somebody to chisel away parts of the idea
Speaker 1: of what public lands are. And so, like you said,
Speaker 1: with a stroke of the fact, with a stroke of
Speaker 1: a pen, the idea it becomes reality. Just to me,
Speaker 1: that slippery steak argument works for public lands where I'm not.
Speaker 1: I'm not big on that any other place. And so
Speaker 1: what somebody says to me, well, here's why, you know,
Speaker 1: here's why more access for hunters. I'm like, look, I
Speaker 1: get that, I get the access parts. I'm with you,
Speaker 1: But the idea of that land being important to us
Speaker 1: and being protected is way way more uh significant to
Speaker 1: me than any of the micro arguments you may be
Speaker 1: able to make on the ground. And really it's I
Speaker 1: just want to ask people, why in the hell do
Speaker 1: we want to make everything easy. And there are so
Speaker 1: many easy things that people get board with because it's
Speaker 1: so easy, um that they don't do anymore. And the
Speaker 1: challenge and the fact that things are hard is why
Speaker 1: it is so good. And you know, right now, right
Speaker 1: this very instant, there's folks lobbying like crazy to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna just one day, one day out of the
Speaker 1: entire year, We're gonna make uh, certain wilderness areas open
Speaker 1: to wheeled vehicles, motorized access, electric bikes, mountain bikes, or
Speaker 1: just have a chainsaw in there for one day. And
Speaker 1: the real reason is because it just be easier. And man,
Speaker 1: there's there's plenty of places to do easy things. And
Speaker 1: if you want to go do those, go do them.
Speaker 1: You know, you can drive damn here anywhere on a
Speaker 1: lot of blm and there's some cool chunks of there's
Speaker 1: I hunting on a chunk of National forest called the
Speaker 1: Dixie National Forest. It might as well been I mean,
Speaker 1: it might as well been a cattle ranch. And the
Speaker 1: roads is someone that thing was amazing. You could drive
Speaker 1: anywhere you wanted to, the the Apache National Forest, the
Speaker 1: HeLa um unbelievable gorgeous places, and you cannot walk my
Speaker 1: ale without crossing two roads. So yeah, and yeah, people
Speaker 1: say that the idea that that has to be that
Speaker 1: way everywhere is just not to me. It's too dangerous.
Speaker 1: It's too dangerous to think that way. And it's too
Speaker 1: dangerous to be like, ah this, you know they protected
Speaker 1: they didn't adjust any other national minds stuff for those two.
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, but those two were. Yeah, And it's
Speaker 1: just a stroke of a pen people, that's all. And
Speaker 1: that's how we got our wilderness areas that I absolutely
Speaker 1: cherish and enjoy, and I don't hunt in them constantly.
Speaker 1: That's not my soul thing. Variety is the spice of life.
Speaker 1: And that that statement that's been around for quite a while,
Speaker 1: I would think is absolutely freaking true. It's man, I
Speaker 1: can go do the coolest things and the way that
Speaker 1: I want to do them, I just can't do them
Speaker 1: all in one spot. And and if I could write
Speaker 1: it all up, I wouldn't do it any different. Like
Speaker 1: I can go jump on a motorbike and drive on
Speaker 1: a ton of BLM, a ton of national forest. Um,
Speaker 1: I can decide that when I'm I want to get
Speaker 1: away from that, I can go step into a wilderness area.
Speaker 1: And you know, I was speaking with Cameron Haynes last
Speaker 1: night and and he was like, you know, when I
Speaker 1: was first starting out, I didn't didn't know anything, and
Speaker 1: and so I figured that the best way for me
Speaker 1: to have success is to find a wilderness area and
Speaker 1: walk all the way into the middle of it so
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have people around messing me up. And I could.
Speaker 1: And that's how I would find success, you know. And
Speaker 1: and that opportunities out there for everybody who is willing
Speaker 1: to go do it right now, you know. And what's
Speaker 1: that opportunity worth to us, both the tangible for him
Speaker 1: and also the idea that that opportunity is there. What's
Speaker 1: that worth to us? To me, it's invaluable. Like you
Speaker 1: can't put a number on that. You can't put a
Speaker 1: We'll just put a couple of minds over there. I
Speaker 1: would just need this one month. I live in Texas.
Speaker 1: I live in Texas. Dramatic pause, Oliver say it again.
Speaker 1: I live in Texas. Has anybody ever been to Texas?
Speaker 1: And on a public Graham I would love I hunted,
Speaker 1: I thought I live in Texas. On my part of
Speaker 1: b h A, I believe in public lands. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: try it. I'm gonna do all my research in Texas.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to find a good chunk of public ground.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go hunt it. I'm gonna kill something, and
Speaker 1: then I'm gonna prove to everyone that you know, it
Speaker 1: just takes a little bit of effort. I hunted one
Speaker 1: day for doubs in an area outside Austin, and I
Speaker 1: got hit with more babies, and then I hit doubs whoa,
Speaker 1: and so I decided, funk that I'm out. I'll drive
Speaker 1: up to Colorado. Like so in in Texas is the
Speaker 1: best example of what can happen if you let that
Speaker 1: if you start sliding down that slippery slope and there
Speaker 1: is large chunks of the state that it's inaccessible to
Speaker 1: anybody other than the landowner and whoever landed permits to
Speaker 1: be on that ground. Which I don't have a problem
Speaker 1: with that idea, but i'd also i'd like to, you know,
Speaker 1: have some a little very land use and be able
Speaker 1: to go do things. I talked to a lot of
Speaker 1: folks in Texas. Uh first part of January, Dallas far
Speaker 1: a club. Um. You know, I always like to wear
Speaker 1: my public land owner T shirt around and I saw
Speaker 1: a shocking amount of public land owner T shirts in Texas.
Speaker 1: And I talked to so many people that like truly
Speaker 1: gave me warm and fuzzies. They're like, you know what,
Speaker 1: we've been in Texas. I've been listening to you guys,
Speaker 1: and we're going to New Mexico this year. We're going
Speaker 1: to color out of this Yep. We're driving all the
Speaker 1: way to Idaho this year. And they are fired up.
Speaker 1: They don't not a one of them knows what they're
Speaker 1: really getting into. But I can almost promise you the
Speaker 1: next time, you know, some nasty public lands bill rears
Speaker 1: its head, those people have now had boots on the
Speaker 1: ground and they're gonna be, you know, hopefully making some
Speaker 1: phone calls to their re elected Right. Yeah. When I
Speaker 1: when I first I first heard that there was a
Speaker 1: b h A chapter in Texas, I was like, Hi,
Speaker 1: laughed a little bit, like oh interesting, Um. Then I
Speaker 1: figured out that's what those guys are doing. Those guys
Speaker 1: are it's a group of guys who care about public lands,
Speaker 1: that care about hunting, who are venturing out somewhere west
Speaker 1: or north of the state. Do you have a public
Speaker 1: lands venture in Colorado, Wyoming or New Mexico. And how
Speaker 1: ridiculous that is. How ridiculous that they live in one
Speaker 1: of the largest states in their nation. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's the largest, close with probably the most hunters
Speaker 1: per capita, one of the top three most hunters per capita,
Speaker 1: and they their idea of changing their hunting world is
Speaker 1: to leave that state and to go to a magical
Speaker 1: place called the West, where you live where the things
Speaker 1: that they want to go do are available. How crazy? Yeah,
Speaker 1: how crazy? And And the reason one of the main
Speaker 1: reasons why I started to really harden my stance on
Speaker 1: public lands because I was like, this is it, this
Speaker 1: is it. We'll just you know, a couple of leases
Speaker 1: from Bears Ears, no big deal. Uranium costs are down,
Speaker 1: so probably the probably a lot of companies won't even
Speaker 1: want to jump in and get leases. I don't care.
Speaker 1: I don't care about the reality right now. I care
Speaker 1: about the idea of what that could turn into. Like
Speaker 1: I just I lived there. I live in Texas, and
Speaker 1: so that idea to me is has hardened and will
Speaker 1: stay that way for as long as I'm on this earth.
Speaker 1: Just from what I've experienced in my time living in Texas.
Speaker 1: I live in Illinois. I grew up in Maryland, but
Speaker 1: I also grew up right at the at the foot
Speaker 1: of about a hundred thousand acres of public land. That
Speaker 1: I'm much like you. As you're growing up, you don't
Speaker 1: realize that's what the the cost that we've paid for that,
Speaker 1: or the uniqueness of that around the world. Um So,
Speaker 1: a fella took a pot shot at me um on
Speaker 1: on the social media, really surprising. He said, Oh, you're
Speaker 1: just mad because you can't afford a lease. And I
Speaker 1: never responded to him because I don't ever think that's
Speaker 1: real productive on those social forums. Um And I just
Speaker 1: dearly wanted to just be like I do. And it's
Speaker 1: forty million acres and there's a lot of variety on
Speaker 1: it and guess what, if you want to come on it,
Speaker 1: you can. Um And it's a damn cool thing. And
Speaker 1: and and it's so weird because I've definitely gone full circle,
Speaker 1: you know, growing up in Montana, just like you're you know,
Speaker 1: you're up brand. It was like, yeah, everon, you know,
Speaker 1: two point three point whatever, and and it's the act
Speaker 1: going out with folks that you love and and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we spent a lot of time as young
Speaker 1: guys staring over that barbed wire fence, like man, if
Speaker 1: we can only get permission here, and ignoring everything that
Speaker 1: was behind us. And I think about that from time
Speaker 1: to time. And you know, I have done some just
Speaker 1: absolute grocery shopping. Um on. My uncle's got a place
Speaker 1: on the Boulder River in Montana, and and uh, and
Speaker 1: it is grocery shopping. It's like it is so chock
Speaker 1: full of white tails and you used to be you
Speaker 1: can get a handful of dough TEGs and and you know,
Speaker 1: basically just like go sit at the tractor and don't
Speaker 1: shoot white tails. And you know, to me, that is groceries,
Speaker 1: that that just isn't hunting. At this point, well, I
Speaker 1: think I'm gonna attempt an analogy here. It's gonna probably
Speaker 1: not be good attempted anyway. And all difference to my wife,
Speaker 1: who I love. When I when I first met my wife,
Speaker 1: my wife loves to cook. When I first met her,
Speaker 1: I told her that my favorite meal, one of my
Speaker 1: favorite meals was shepherd's pie. It's a lovely dish, meat
Speaker 1: and vegetables, hardy, hearty dish. Uh, it would be potatoes
Speaker 1: ruver top soul food. Yeah, I like shepherd's pie. So
Speaker 1: if she began to make Shepherd's pie for me, and
Speaker 1: it was delicious, and she made it a lot of
Speaker 1: you know especial occasions on my birthday, stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and she knew that I hate peas, like I hate
Speaker 1: peas so much. Peas are the devil's balls. Peas are terrible.
Speaker 1: Anybody out there that's listening to this that likes peas,
Speaker 1: please right in. I'll have you on to talk about peace.
Speaker 1: But anyway, she knows that I don't like peace, and
Speaker 1: she I found a recipe book like a month ago,
Speaker 1: and then that recipe book, it was the recipe for
Speaker 1: her Shepherd's pie and at the bottom of the page
Speaker 1: it said, with a little heart, he hates peas, right
Speaker 1: there at the bottom of her recipe book. And I
Speaker 1: warmed my soul. I'm like, this woman loves me so
Speaker 1: much that she has written down my dislike peas and
Speaker 1: her recipe changing it forever to not include peas. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I picked the right lady, Like this is this is it.
Speaker 1: I'm glad we got married. And then I started to
Speaker 1: realize that since we gotten married, which would be coming
Speaker 1: up on four years, she had started putting the peas
Speaker 1: back in to the shepherd's pie. So that we dated
Speaker 1: for about four years, a pealless existence, I lead. And
Speaker 1: then we've been married for about the same time. The
Speaker 1: peace came back at some point. I don't know when
Speaker 1: they came back. I wasn't paying attention. Maybe she wasn't either.
Speaker 1: I think it just goes to say, I love you,
Speaker 1: honey number one. You're amazing cook in person. But it
Speaker 1: goes to say that we both of us got comfortable
Speaker 1: with our shepherd's by having peas in it. I fucking
Speaker 1: hate peas, and I've been eating peas and shepherd's pie
Speaker 1: for some some years now without really knowing until I've
Speaker 1: realized when I read it in a recipe like I
Speaker 1: remember she made last time, last couple of times she
Speaker 1: made shepherds probably was peas in it. Son of a bitch.
Speaker 1: So I say that to say, I think we both
Speaker 1: got comfortable, like when she was trying to, you know,
Speaker 1: win me, and I was trying to win her. We
Speaker 1: did things differently to please each other. Then we got married.
Speaker 1: I go, all right, this is for the rest, this
Speaker 1: is solid. There's no uh, there's no guessing games here.
Speaker 1: We're married peace. So she started putting peace back into
Speaker 1: the shepherd's pie, and I started eating him. I could
Speaker 1: have never thought of that, would ever done that before.
Speaker 1: So I think here's the analogy, here's where it gets good.
Speaker 1: I think hunters sometimes like when you're young and you
Speaker 1: discover public lands and you're hunting hard and you're earning it.
Speaker 1: Then you get a little older and you have more money,
Speaker 1: I have less time. Now you have kids. You get comfortable,
Speaker 1: and you start thinking, maybe at lease would be nice.
Speaker 1: I don't have a lot of time. I got kids,
Speaker 1: they have soccer, they have band practice, I have a job.
Speaker 1: I used to be this crazy wild public land guy
Speaker 1: who go out for like seven days at a time,
Speaker 1: but I only got like two days on the weekend now.
Speaker 1: So if I got a lease where there was more dear,
Speaker 1: it would be easier and I could be more comfortable,
Speaker 1: and I think it's more efficient, more efficient. So I
Speaker 1: think that idea compared to the idea sometimes that you
Speaker 1: get into with marriage, where you were, you know, very
Speaker 1: much in the beginning at it hard. You were you know,
Speaker 1: learned about each other, and you were it was exciting
Speaker 1: and then you, you know, you get married and maybe
Speaker 1: naturally you settle into it and you start eating the
Speaker 1: peas in the sepher spy, oh pease suck man, peace suck.
Speaker 1: I have often said, and I truly believe this, and
Speaker 1: I've done some samples testing that if you took you
Speaker 1: know a handful of random folks that truly identify as um,
Speaker 1: you know a number of outdoor recreationist groups like your
Speaker 1: mountain biker and your cross country skier, and your hunter
Speaker 1: and your fly fisherman and you're uh, you know bass fishermen.
Speaker 1: He had a random sample of these people that really
Speaker 1: identifies bias, these like single type athletes. Um. Event, Actually,
Speaker 1: everybody's gonna have a number of, if not similar, identical
Speaker 1: responses to the yeah, but why do you really do that?
Speaker 1: And and it's it's the same man and and from
Speaker 1: an industry to come back full circle to this hunting
Speaker 1: industry thing that people talk about, I think the industry
Speaker 1: part of this has shot ourselves. Lost children here at
Speaker 1: the hunt x boll um. Maybe they got shangha had
Speaker 1: by an outfitter in there on their way, nor learned
Speaker 1: how to be a packer. Can you ride a horse? Son? Hey, um,
Speaker 1: so we as this industry, I think we have quite
Speaker 1: possibly shot ourselves in at least one foot by promoting this,
Speaker 1: even for myself, somebody who's you know, I am constantly
Speaker 1: reminded of a mulier that I shot, the only thing
Speaker 1: I've ever shot on TV, right, and uh, I am
Speaker 1: constantly reminded of this thing. And I we as an
Speaker 1: industry have promoted this so often unobtainable end result of
Speaker 1: this grip and grim of somebody standing there and holding
Speaker 1: up whatever animal every time they go out. And we've
Speaker 1: bread in this. You can almost taste it. Fear of
Speaker 1: failure and what if I don't get something? Well, let
Speaker 1: me tell you all about that. Because I don't get
Speaker 1: something the vast, vast, vast majority of the time. That's
Speaker 1: our value system. Like our value system. I think that
Speaker 1: may be the biggest issue, and I think it is.
Speaker 1: I think I think we value the animal. We all
Speaker 1: value the animal, some of them, some of us fetishize
Speaker 1: the antlers and have that thing going on. But some
Speaker 1: level that's okay, Like we can figure that out. That's
Speaker 1: a smaller issue. I think. I think the larger issue
Speaker 1: is that we've devalue the experience. It's to such a
Speaker 1: level that it's gonna be hard to come back from
Speaker 1: like that. It's gonna be hard to come back from
Speaker 1: the inches and and that and the social media showing
Speaker 1: off of your animal. Um, it's gonna be a little
Speaker 1: bit hard to come back from that. As a group,
Speaker 1: all these people in this room, like we're sitting in
Speaker 1: the truck where it's the fun. We're sitting in truck.
Speaker 1: We're sitting this here truck and like around us are
Speaker 1: you know, taxidermy, heads of giant animals, bigger creators and
Speaker 1: I have every right. So there's kids here, man, Like,
Speaker 1: there's kids here that that's all that they know. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that pivot from that, one of
Speaker 1: the things that heartens me that maybe there's a change.
Speaker 1: And this is a long one, but what do you
Speaker 1: what's the percentage of hunters that are over fifty five
Speaker 1: that buy licenses? You know what that is? I mean,
Speaker 1: it's pretty good, it's pretty big percentage. Sorry, over yeah, over.
Speaker 1: I think currently over fifty five is our largest demographic.
Speaker 1: And so there's going to be a gap, right when
Speaker 1: that generation moves on, There's gonna be some sort of
Speaker 1: gap in the hunting populace, like there's gonna be a
Speaker 1: time when there's way less of us. I think that's
Speaker 1: what's happening now. As the numbers go down, there's a gap,
Speaker 1: there's going to be this generational gap, and I think
Speaker 1: we can fill that gap in a way that maybe
Speaker 1: would change that trophy hunting mentality or just change the
Speaker 1: devalue ring of the experience. So I got to take
Speaker 1: a a young lady that worked at this website called
Speaker 1: The Chive. You ever heard of that? Yeah? Yeah, So
Speaker 1: they got awesome, Yeah, they got ahold of me, and
Speaker 1: they said, we want to film this hunt with you
Speaker 1: in this year old girl named Taylor that works at
Speaker 1: the Chive and has never shot a gun, never hunted rarely. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't want to miss characterize sure, but she rarely
Speaker 1: left city life. UM, pretty typically a city girl. And
Speaker 1: they said we want to film it, um and documented
Speaker 1: then have put a video up on the Chive. I
Speaker 1: was like, that's amazing, No, because she's probably gonna be
Speaker 1: in a bikini if everybody know the Chive. It's just
Speaker 1: it's not It didn't seem like a serious affair. But
Speaker 1: then I went and talked to the producers and the directors,
Speaker 1: and they were like saying all the right stuff. So
Speaker 1: I said, let's go do it. Set it up. We
Speaker 1: went there. Weile the havelin hunt in South Texas. We
Speaker 1: literally hunted for eight hours. I showed her how to
Speaker 1: shoot a rifle taughter. She cried two or three times
Speaker 1: during that experience. Was very excited to learn how shooting go.
Speaker 1: And we take her out. We find ha Alina. She
Speaker 1: shoots it about sony five yards and drops it, kills it.
Speaker 1: And then about a span of eight hours from never
Speaker 1: have a shot a gun to having killed a living thing,
Speaker 1: and that microwaved amount of time. So we get this thing.
Speaker 1: I sure had a gut it. We skin it, we
Speaker 1: eat it that night, we cook it, we eat it,
Speaker 1: and on the way back she said something like this
Speaker 1: was this one of the top five days of my life?
Speaker 1: And I thought, holy shit, like the experience of understanding.
Speaker 1: Because I didn't let any We never talked about any
Speaker 1: types of trophies. We never talked about seeing the animal.
Speaker 1: Is this thing you could take a picture of. I didn't.
Speaker 1: I try to look at some of the negative things
Speaker 1: that I think are in hunting out and I didn't
Speaker 1: let her have that, Like I took that away, didn't
Speaker 1: introduce it to her and just kind of said, we're
Speaker 1: gonna go kill this thing. You need to learn about
Speaker 1: the natural history of it. You need to learn about
Speaker 1: where it lives and and kill it, and then you
Speaker 1: need to eat it and have that experience you and
Speaker 1: that animals, just you and that animal. She came out
Speaker 1: saying that that changed her life. To me or you,
Speaker 1: that would be the most simple hunt you could ever do.
Speaker 1: A day hunt for Havelina is not something that I
Speaker 1: particularly would put up there as in my bucket list,
Speaker 1: but I found that, like there's so many people in
Speaker 1: the urban bubble now that have this inner yearning for
Speaker 1: something more that even the simplest form of hunting shows
Speaker 1: them a different way and it could change their life.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's hyperfectly, But for this gal, yeah, Kinada did
Speaker 1: at least changed a little bit of the way that
Speaker 1: she's all things. And so I think maybe that generation
Speaker 1: gap if everybody could, you know, remove the trivy hunting
Speaker 1: and all that stuff and take somebody out for that
Speaker 1: type of experience, a wilderness experience even, or something that
Speaker 1: is more about the experience and the learning than it
Speaker 1: is about the result. We could backfill that generation gap
Speaker 1: with a bunch of people who will then be teaching
Speaker 1: their kids a whole different way to do it that
Speaker 1: I find way more enriching than a lot of this. Well,
Speaker 1: and so to back you up on this, I just
Speaker 1: read UH mentioned demographics and and and part of uh
Speaker 1: part of this study is lifelong hunters are not now
Speaker 1: looking at it now, lifelong hunters are not being made
Speaker 1: in the youngest hunting category. So the kids that we're
Speaker 1: bringing up into hunting, that group is not retaining those hunters.
Speaker 1: They're eventually finding something else to do. They get out
Speaker 1: in the real world there eighteen, they're like, oh, ships, chicks,
Speaker 1: chicks or dudes, I guess whatever. But the group that
Speaker 1: is coming into hunting that is much smaller later in life,
Speaker 1: are sticking with it to the end of I mean,
Speaker 1: for as long as they can. Well, I've seen I
Speaker 1: think there was a study in eleven that said it
Speaker 1: was like returning military was a big part of that.
Speaker 1: A big part of that was female, A big part
Speaker 1: of that was urban and suburban people that just wanted
Speaker 1: to have the experience that Taylor had with me. So
Speaker 1: I think those groups of people are, because that's the
Speaker 1: way to teach enough people that and be like, eventually
Speaker 1: you could get to the trophy hunting thing. It's not
Speaker 1: all wrong, but there's parts of it that wrong. Just
Speaker 1: don't start there, yeah, do not start there. Get there eventually.
Speaker 1: My buddy's kid and I told him we had a
Speaker 1: couple of cocktails after this hunt, and I told him
Speaker 1: flat out, I was like, hey, mann, I want I
Speaker 1: want to take your child from you for future hunting
Speaker 1: seasons as my official protege prodigy um and rear him.
Speaker 1: We will attach a mustache to him until such time
Speaker 1: as he can grow on and and and teach him
Speaker 1: out to hunt my way because he this kid has
Speaker 1: got it and his dad is trying to provide him
Speaker 1: all the opportunities he did not have. And you know,
Speaker 1: I have come to this conclusion that he has made
Speaker 1: hunting so easy for his kids. I will be shocked
Speaker 1: if any of them make it to that lifelong hunter line,
Speaker 1: because they've found all these goals that you know, I
Speaker 1: definitely had as a kid, but I still have not achieved.
Speaker 1: And and and it's and it's pretty much on a
Speaker 1: plate for him, Like there's some work in there, but
Speaker 1: also the attitude. You know. I had this buddy of
Speaker 1: mine out, Um, Kelsey Clevenberg, you may know him as
Speaker 1: Seattle's batman. He uh, he's It seems like a whole
Speaker 1: different chase. This dude down that broke off Ken Griffey Jr.
Speaker 1: Is bat off the statue in front of a Safeco
Speaker 1: feeling made a lot of local papers. No, the man
Speaker 1: was passed out in the alley and and he just
Speaker 1: picked up the bat out of the trash can. I
Speaker 1: think that would have made up a story anyway. This man,
Speaker 1: grown grown man. I grew up in Montana, uh in
Speaker 1: a hunting family. And Um, he shot a forking horn
Speaker 1: mule deer uh in the company of my buddy, uh Josh,
Speaker 1: who's fourteen. And Josh could not figure out why this
Speaker 1: grown man had shot a two point mule here. And furthermore,
Speaker 1: I could not figure out why he was this grown
Speaker 1: man was almost crying, almost doing back flips on the
Speaker 1: mountain over the fact that he had just shot a
Speaker 1: foking horn mule here. And Um, Josh and I are
Speaker 1: dragging this forky down uh to where we can bring
Speaker 1: it out on on his side by side and um
Speaker 1: and Josh turns me. He's like, yeah I did. I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't think he'd shoot that kind of in hushed tones,
Speaker 1: and I said, well, yeah, look at him, Josh. I'm like,
Speaker 1: he's overjoyed and that's all that matters, right, And we're
Speaker 1: dragging this buck through this old growth sage brush which
Speaker 1: is kind of a pain, um, and we're dragging along.
Speaker 1: Then eventually Josh was like, yeah, yeah, that that is
Speaker 1: what matters, and that right there was MHM. Had a
Speaker 1: lot of great moments last hunting season, but that right there,
Speaker 1: I feel is the only moment during hunting season that
Speaker 1: I did something or participated in something that did something
Speaker 1: for the greater good of hunting. That one little moment,
Speaker 1: that's yeah, man. I feel that though too. I mean
Speaker 1: I think there's these little driving back from that hunt
Speaker 1: with Um Taylor from the Chive. I have. The video
Speaker 1: is good, hoping at overstate the experience, but um, driving
Speaker 1: back from that, I just thought this should be a job, Like,
Speaker 1: not the idea of taking people hunting. That's already a job.
Speaker 1: You've done it, yes, but the idea of, like, see,
Speaker 1: taking someone out of their comfort zone and intentionally giving
Speaker 1: them something they couldn't get in their current environment, because
Speaker 1: so many things about hunting that you can't get in
Speaker 1: that environment. So we were talking at at the dinner
Speaker 1: the other night. I just think the fact that more
Speaker 1: people are moving into urban environments is in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways good for hunting because all of those people,
Speaker 1: not all of them, a lot of them have that
Speaker 1: urge build into them to go do something wild. They've
Speaker 1: seen it on TV, they've you know, kind of build
Speaker 1: it up. And the more people that are in those
Speaker 1: urban environments, I think the more people we can convince like,
Speaker 1: try this out, here's a way, come do this, and
Speaker 1: it will change you if you do it right. If
Speaker 1: you do it wrong, it's just kind of a thing
Speaker 1: that you do. But it's you know, going out into
Speaker 1: the natural world and taking something you didn't put there yourself.
Speaker 1: A pretty serious deal. So it ought to be life.
Speaker 1: It ought to be you ought to cry and jump around,
Speaker 1: and and it's not making an impact on you. I
Speaker 1: wager you're going about it in the wrong way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wager I waged that exact thing. I would. There's
Speaker 1: too many people here that are there's just too many
Speaker 1: of them that how is your year? And they're like, well,
Speaker 1: I got me a mule, dear, I got me an elk,
Speaker 1: got me shout fourteen doves and antelope? What else I showed? Like, no,
Speaker 1: nont know? How was your year? Tell me how it was?
Speaker 1: Do you have fun? Do you have a bad year?
Speaker 1: Good year? Would you learn my particular year? I hunted
Speaker 1: a lot in a lot of different places, and I
Speaker 1: feel like I got about thirty five or forty years
Speaker 1: of knowledge and perspective this year, seen this prior year,
Speaker 1: and that's what I'm thankingful for. We could go through
Speaker 1: the list of things that I killed in each experience
Speaker 1: and what I what they meant all, but in its
Speaker 1: collective nature, it made me a better person, maybe a
Speaker 1: better hunter, and may be better able to tackle the
Speaker 1: things that I think we all need to. And so
Speaker 1: if somebody said, how your year? But like, it's freaking
Speaker 1: awesome because I got to travel around and see a
Speaker 1: lot of different things, gained some perspective and maybe in
Speaker 1: part that perspective on to other people. Maybe absolutely. Man,
Speaker 1: Oh it wasn't. If I said, hey, how's your year,
Speaker 1: You're like, I gotta two elk that time. My year
Speaker 1: was huh, I'm a good hunter. Let's see what I got.
Speaker 1: I think that's I think that's built into our community,
Speaker 1: and I think maybe we should start to uh try
Speaker 1: to change that a little bit. Yeah, man, And and
Speaker 1: and it's it's gonna be hard to wrap that up
Speaker 1: in a nice little hashtag or in that dreat that's
Speaker 1: gonna get a bunch of social engagement. Yeah, But on
Speaker 1: a on a personal level, it can be done. It is,
Speaker 1: it is so attainable. And man, it you gotta know.
Speaker 1: Yet you just gotta be willing. I mean, that's that's
Speaker 1: all there is to it. Man, you gotta you gotta
Speaker 1: be willing to just go. And uh, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: on a pretty serious uh run on the old Elkasaurus front,
Speaker 1: you know. And and I look at them as as
Speaker 1: groceries as well, and I feel like a weight has
Speaker 1: been lifted off my shoulders when I get one in
Speaker 1: the freezer. And I've been pretty darn and consistent. Um
Speaker 1: but and the question is always how. And I try
Speaker 1: a new spot every single day. And and even though
Speaker 1: I want one, the end all be all is not
Speaker 1: is not getting that sucker down. It's not getting that picture. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's something. It's just it's something much much different.
Speaker 1: I get get my days in the field and be uh,
Speaker 1: be quiet and not not talking him and uh. And
Speaker 1: I do not leave the truck door with this. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't leave the track going. This is going to
Speaker 1: be a failure if I do not get one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have I can confidently say I have zero fear
Speaker 1: of failure when I think like you're You're just a
Speaker 1: great example to me is someone who it's just a
Speaker 1: generally good person who wants to go out and do
Speaker 1: a good thing, um and wants to think hard about
Speaker 1: that thing and then you know, make sure your energies
Speaker 1: are going in the right direction, boast a better yourself,
Speaker 1: but then also to have some ideas around that betterment
Speaker 1: that can be put out into the world. And I
Speaker 1: would say, like a lot of first this will be
Speaker 1: our second podcast, but the first one and this one
Speaker 1: we're both. Maybe they seem like there's a lot of
Speaker 1: negative talk about hunters and hunting in the community because
Speaker 1: we're talking about things maybe we want to change and
Speaker 1: things we don't see. I think there's a ton of
Speaker 1: good people that are just doing something because that's how
Speaker 1: they were taught, or doing something because they're a part
Speaker 1: of groupthink or they're part of the collective group and
Speaker 1: that's what they see, so they emulate that. And um,
Speaker 1: I think that doesn't make them bad in any way.
Speaker 1: It doesn't make them really as harmful as as in
Speaker 1: my mind it may seem. I think those people are
Speaker 1: are essential. But all those people need to do they
Speaker 1: start to think about things a little different, have a conversation,
Speaker 1: learn and grow and the way that you have and
Speaker 1: I have, and maybe sit down, Um, and well, next
Speaker 1: time they're out on the hunt, they buy hunt from outfitter,
Speaker 1: and it feels weird when they shot the animal. Think
Speaker 1: why did that feel weird? Why why did that not
Speaker 1: feel good? Because there's been some times where I shot
Speaker 1: at the animal and you're sitting there by it or
Speaker 1: you walk up to it and didn't feel good. It
Speaker 1: didn't feel right. And so maybe at the end of
Speaker 1: the day when that happens to you and then sit
Speaker 1: back and think, why didn't that feel right? Why didn't
Speaker 1: I have? You know, your your buddy that shot a
Speaker 1: forky and jumped around and was emotional and cried. That's right,
Speaker 1: Like that's the feeling we should all have all the time.
Speaker 1: When we we achieved that thing. So I would just
Speaker 1: hope that people can can sit down next time that
Speaker 1: happens to him and be like, what led to this?
Speaker 1: What led to this? Not is less than fulfilling feeling,
Speaker 1: because I've had it. I had it dozens of times
Speaker 1: in my hunting life, and each time I'm like, Oh,
Speaker 1: maybe I'm gonna figure out how I got to this.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's the way the outfitter treated it. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: that we just got out of the truck and sat
Speaker 1: down and shot this thing. Maybe you know, maybe it's
Speaker 1: we shot a bunch of ducks and I was in
Speaker 1: a camp and half of the guys never intended to
Speaker 1: take the ducks home. Like maybe being with that group
Speaker 1: of people just didn't make it good, like for me.
Speaker 1: So I don't know. I think about that a lot,
Speaker 1: and I I hope that you know, in these conversations,
Speaker 1: people don't think we're bagging on a bunch of people.
Speaker 1: Were not. We're just trying to openly have the discussion
Speaker 1: that is necessary my view. Yeah, and I don't feel
Speaker 1: like we're having a negative conversation, And then I hope
Speaker 1: that's not what's being broadcast. I think I think it
Speaker 1: is an important message to all of us pig tough,
Speaker 1: macho dudes in the hunting world that it's important to
Speaker 1: think about this stuff because there is a lot to
Speaker 1: think about and h you know, and as this world
Speaker 1: becomes more and more populated, um, you know, these big
Speaker 1: wild chunks of ground are going to be more and
Speaker 1: more sacred, and these critters are going to be more
Speaker 1: and more sacred. Um. And we have an absolute responsibility
Speaker 1: to do a better job myself included of sharing that
Speaker 1: passion with people who don't get it, because it is like,
Speaker 1: like we talked about in the beginning, I kill the
Speaker 1: things I love. And I don't say that lightly at all,
Speaker 1: because it is a bizarre thing when you really think
Speaker 1: about it. And if it's a bizarre thing to me,
Speaker 1: who has been doing it, you know, essentially my whole life.
Speaker 1: And when I wasn't doing it, I was wanting to
Speaker 1: want to participate. Um. If it's a weird thing to me,
Speaker 1: it's a different planet, alien type of observation to a
Speaker 1: just a non hunter. You think about where you are now,
Speaker 1: if you would have gone and talked to young mustache
Speaker 1: lest Ryan Callahan up there in Montana when you're growing
Speaker 1: up and be like, hey, you know later on in
Speaker 1: your life, this is what's gonna happen. Like people are
Speaker 1: going to recognize you as a person that cares about conservation,
Speaker 1: as a leader in this thing, and like you'll have
Speaker 1: an impact on people based on your hunting. And you're
Speaker 1: thinking about hunting, like, ah, yeah, out of here, get
Speaker 1: out of here. You're crazy, You're crazy. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't. I think the same thing when people say
Speaker 1: to me, like, hey, I really appreciate you know what
Speaker 1: you do? Holy sh it, Yeah, party brands screaming why
Speaker 1: the hell does my opinion matter what? And then I
Speaker 1: think the people like other people I respect, like Ranella
Speaker 1: and rogue In and people that have astronomically larger impacts
Speaker 1: on the way people think and feel and are educated.
Speaker 1: I think like, wow, that's a heavy burden, but a
Speaker 1: good one. Um, that's a it's a heavy hammer to swing,
Speaker 1: but swinging anyway, you know, swinging hard and hopefully hit
Speaker 1: your mark. But that's um, So I think we should
Speaker 1: finish up. You probably have to get back to your booth.
Speaker 1: You think there's some people over there, Yes, there's been
Speaker 1: some some sex. Please bring caffeine, please help us, pizza
Speaker 1: and booze. I think maybe we should close out because
Speaker 1: I think would you look into your side view mirror
Speaker 1: please again, We're in a truck. Can you see that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is something that I keep staring at that there
Speaker 1: is at least a six point bull elk looking directly
Speaker 1: into the side of the driver's side mirror as we sit.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to capture a picture. This is over,
Speaker 1: I think. Um, one of the things that I think
Speaker 1: is I think a lot of things, but one of
Speaker 1: them is um. Storytelling and descript in is as old
Speaker 1: as humanity and very important. So I would ask you,
Speaker 1: Ryan Callahan, I will be quiet. I want to ask
Speaker 1: you to take a couple of moments and just describe
Speaker 1: and detail some of the things that you're looking at
Speaker 1: currently and help people to because we're not gonna film
Speaker 1: any Hunting Collected podcasts, and we're gonna make sure we
Speaker 1: always do them in weird situations like one a glass
Speaker 1: and tit or in a truck in a trade show.
Speaker 1: So I'd like you to close it out by just
Speaker 1: picking points of this scene and explaining it to the listener.
Speaker 1: Imagine a a giant hall, a convention hall. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: forty ft tall ceilings. Imagine a Toyota pickup truck UM
Speaker 1: dropped in the middle of I would I mean thousands
Speaker 1: of people in this room. For sure. We're currently surrounded
Speaker 1: by hundreds, some of which have taken notice and and
Speaker 1: are looking in the windows of the truck at Benn
Speaker 1: and myself in front of us. Directly in front of us,
Speaker 1: there is a shooting range with re curve bows and
Speaker 1: bird arrows, and people are lining up to shoot aerial
Speaker 1: targets foam targets that are being thrown in the air
Speaker 1: UM large shoulder mount critters typically elk. I see an
Speaker 1: access here a mule dere to left, which is a
Speaker 1: giant foam yetie for some reason, the abombing a lost
Speaker 1: snowman literally clutching in American flag. God bless America. UM.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean it. It's we are. We're in
Speaker 1: our own little cocoon here in this in this truck,
Speaker 1: and it's fascinating. It's almost like being in a submarine,
Speaker 1: like driving through the you know, in the ocean. And
Speaker 1: there was just a young man wearing a floppy hat.
Speaker 1: He had long flowing hair, kind of like a fabio
Speaker 1: looking hair, and he was just pounding these foam targets
Speaker 1: with a bow. And behind him while he was doing
Speaker 1: that was this yettie. It's white body yettie. It's probably
Speaker 1: about eight or nine ft tall. Say that tall, It's
Speaker 1: very tall. And then behind them at this very moment
Speaker 1: is the gritty bowman recording a podcast and much the
Speaker 1: same way we are. I don't see who he's talking to,
Speaker 1: but it looks very interesting conversation. So you maybe at
Speaker 1: some point listen to this and then listen to that
Speaker 1: podcast and know that it was at the same time.
Speaker 1: It's like the snow globe that looks out on another snow.
Speaker 1: So we are happily. I'm happy that we are in
Speaker 1: this fairly unique set cuation. Yes, both in our careers
Speaker 1: and our lives and in our current locale. Yes, sir.
Speaker 1: Where where do you go from here? Man? I'm gonna
Speaker 1: hidjack your clothing? Thought well, home home? Where does this
Speaker 1: podcast go from it? Oh? Where do I? I thought
Speaker 1: you were like, why I'm going home? This podcast goes
Speaker 1: to my home. I'm an interview of my wife child.
Speaker 1: You know, hey, and my name is Benn. Do you
Speaker 1: remember me? Um? I want to I have a like
Speaker 1: maybe a realistic view of where it will go, and
Speaker 1: then I want to but I might as well just
Speaker 1: described the plant too, because I guess that's all that matters.
Speaker 1: From being in the world of marketing and sponsorships and
Speaker 1: as you are being involved in that dance, I see,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't want to do that, um, so
Speaker 1: I and being also a journalist in my head, um,
Speaker 1: hopefully in my mind. UM, I hope this can just
Speaker 1: be pure honest content. That's all that's my hope for it.
Speaker 1: I hope. I'm pretty certain that I won't let any
Speaker 1: other influences touch it. Um. If someone would like to
Speaker 1: jump on and and uh put words around it so
Speaker 1: get people's attention, that's great, that's fine. But I'm after
Speaker 1: experiencing a lot of content that isn't real and has
Speaker 1: other agendas. I would like there to be this outlet
Speaker 1: where there isn't that advertorial versus editorial editorial and and
Speaker 1: in very many ways, not only my own thoughts about
Speaker 1: that are important, but like a guy like Joe Rogan
Speaker 1: who has that idea already going when the people that
Speaker 1: he's inspired, he's I've known him for a while and
Speaker 1: he's inspired me. So I hope it just goes a
Speaker 1: natural course. I hope it benefits hunting. That's what it's
Speaker 1: here for. UM. It's not here to benefit skiers or surfers,
Speaker 1: but I hope they listen and understand a little bit
Speaker 1: of what's in our heads. There's a young boy waving
Speaker 1: at Calais right now. But I hope it just can
Speaker 1: be an honest and open conversation and a Catharsis for
Speaker 1: me personally to discuss some of the ideas that confuse
Speaker 1: me with very smart people and hope they can add
Speaker 1: to my own personal knowledge base for hunting in my
Speaker 1: own perspective, which I think I've already seen that it does.
Speaker 1: UM And you know, I hopefully can be an outlet
Speaker 1: for passion and the knowledge and all that type of stuff.
Speaker 1: Learning and growth are good things. I definitely content matters
Speaker 1: to me because I think storytelling can impact people. I'm
Speaker 1: sure it's impacted you. It surely has impacted me. So
Speaker 1: I don't think I would ever want to UM have
Speaker 1: something that isn't purely about that. So this is I
Speaker 1: think that's why we're in this truck here in this
Speaker 1: I like it. I'm excited. Does it make sense? It
Speaker 1: all makes sense that I just babbling along to follow
Speaker 1: your journey. And I think, yeah, in the in the
Speaker 1: hunting world, um again, we've you know, we've we've really
Speaker 1: focused on on the end, the the optimal end result
Speaker 1: for a long time. And and uh, I'll be the
Speaker 1: first to tell you that I will never consider myself
Speaker 1: an expert because I think ultimately the reason I love
Speaker 1: hunting is there are so many variables, so there are
Speaker 1: so many things that can happen, um that you know,
Speaker 1: I'm never gonna have it perfect. I'm never going to
Speaker 1: be what I considered the best right and and that's
Speaker 1: why I love it. Um so um yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: maybe a little bit like me, a little bit you, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think a little bit more varied in your talents
Speaker 1: than I am. Um. Like a lot of people might
Speaker 1: pick up archery and get really into the minutia of archery.
Speaker 1: I think maybe I picked up hunting and get into
Speaker 1: the menu, show the philosophy of it. Just as much
Speaker 1: as somebody might be a gearhead about a bow. I
Speaker 1: think I'm just kind of a get your head about
Speaker 1: the idea, like what it is. I don't know, maybe
Speaker 1: I think that's hopefully what we'll we'll come across that.
Speaker 1: It's more to me exciting to discuss ideas and to
Speaker 1: discuss not travel or or uh specifically ill to do something.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think that's part of part of
Speaker 1: also what I'd like to to just continue to do
Speaker 1: is just exchange ideas and have good conversation. Push it
Speaker 1: that way. Yeah, I like it. I like it too.
Speaker 1: So you're point of you know, going back to young
Speaker 1: Ryan calla here. I mean, yeah, I'm just I'm staring
Speaker 1: out the window of this truck on a trade show
Speaker 1: floor and people are masked in here to see uh
Speaker 1: mounts and stuff and just do something out of their routine.
Speaker 1: I think. And and if you were to go back
Speaker 1: seventeen thousand years and grab some short, hairy hunter with
Speaker 1: a sharp stick and be able to communicate to them
Speaker 1: what you are doing right now, this is where it's
Speaker 1: going to be. Yeah, yep, here we are. We've arrived
Speaker 1: at this, at this juncture. I will close out by
Speaker 1: saying that if this podcast, and I appreciate you kind
Speaker 1: of interviewing me to figure out what this is, because
Speaker 1: I don't I'm not probably good at just declaring whatever
Speaker 1: the hunting collective will be. But I will say this,
Speaker 1: if it ever becomes about me, let me know. Let
Speaker 1: me know. If it ever becomes about like who I
Speaker 1: am and what I do all the time, let me know,
Speaker 1: because I prefer it would be about guys like yourself,
Speaker 1: guys like Ranella, people like that, um, and then just
Speaker 1: a show about my shit. So if it ever anybody listening,
Speaker 1: if you ever feel like there's it's starting to become
Speaker 1: more about me than about other people, let me know.
Speaker 1: I would love to know that. I would love for
Speaker 1: you to tell me to stop doing it, because that
Speaker 1: is not my intention. So I like it. Man, No,
Speaker 1: I think yeah, you can bend a few years. It
Speaker 1: will be a fun, fun journey. Looking looking forward to
Speaker 1: listening and thank you very much, thanks for coming on
Speaker 1: see you well. Damn, that was an awesome conversation. Thanks
Speaker 1: of course to run Callahan for joining me, for everybody
Speaker 1: at first Light for doing what you do, make a
Speaker 1: badass gyar and support public lands. It was also a
Speaker 1: great time in Sault Like City this last weekend into
Speaker 1: Western Honey Conservation next bo at as of great conversations
Speaker 1: with smart people care about hunting. I can't wait till
Speaker 1: I hope to see you there. That's it. That's all
Speaker 1: there is episode number two. We will definitely get better
Speaker 1: for episode number three that will becoming next week at
Speaker 1: you But until then, visit the Hunting Collective dot com
Speaker 1: for articles, videos, and all kinds of good information. See you,