Speaker 1: Hey everybody, and welcome the episode number twenty nine The
Speaker 1: Hunting Collective. I'm Ben O'Brien and today I'm in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. On Capitol Hill and I'm hanging out with
Speaker 1: Jeff Crane and Andy Treeharn from the Congressional Sports Is
Speaker 1: Foundation and Unite. You might not know who Jeff and
Speaker 1: Andy are. You may never have heard of your intian
Speaker 1: sports This Foundation, but hopefully this conversation will change that
Speaker 1: and let you know how important this group really is
Speaker 1: because CSF is the foundational arm where the go between
Speaker 1: between the sportsman's Caucus and the hunting and fishing world,
Speaker 1: and the sports's caucus is porton Is because it is
Speaker 1: a three member group in Congress that have dedicated themselves
Speaker 1: to the legislative policies of hunting and fishing and protecting
Speaker 1: our rights. So CSF is let go with there the
Speaker 1: middleman for that conversation, and it is an importance comes
Speaker 1: and I think probably why this was important and me
Speaker 1: going in here was CSF. It's not a forward facing group.
Speaker 1: They're not Rocky Mount Nelk Foundation, they're not Ducks Unlimited,
Speaker 1: they're not backlunting Hunters Angler. They don't do a whole
Speaker 1: lot of marketing. They don't have members that they don't
Speaker 1: really have on the ground presence as we know conservation.
Speaker 1: But what they do is work for us every day,
Speaker 1: make sure there's a bipartisan voice for legislation, there's a
Speaker 1: bipartisan voice for doing the right thing for hunters in Englands.
Speaker 1: And that is to me. It's a little bit in
Speaker 1: the weed, but it's important as anything. And what I
Speaker 1: came out from this conversation with is a gratitude for
Speaker 1: Jeff Andy CSF and what they do. I want to
Speaker 1: shake their hand and say I appreciate you standing up
Speaker 1: doing all the hard work, digging down deep and making
Speaker 1: sure our government works for us and for what we love.
Speaker 1: So hopefully this conversation will inspire you to learn a
Speaker 1: little bit more about CSF, Understand what they do, Understand
Speaker 1: the congressional sources, talk why they're important, and be knowledgeable
Speaker 1: about those other things. So about further ado Episode over
Speaker 1: twenty nine, straight from Capitol Hill recording fellas, how's it
Speaker 1: going great? Good? Yeah, introduce yourselves. We have Andy and Jeff.
Speaker 1: We're here. I'm here in the UH. I'll let you
Speaker 1: guys describe it. We're here in the Congressional Sports Foundation office, correct,
Speaker 1: heart of the district. Um, Andy kicked away. Introduce yourself, sure,
Speaker 1: Andy Treehorn. I'm CSFs Federal Land Policy Director. On I
Speaker 1: live just north of Denver in a town called Louisville, Colorado. Awesome, awesome, Jeff,
Speaker 1: I'm Jeff Crane. I'm the president of the Congressional Sports Foundation.
Speaker 1: Home for me is Annapolis, Maryland, which is about thirty
Speaker 1: five miles east of here. And as you said, and
Speaker 1: we are two blocks from the United States Capitol, right
Speaker 1: on Capitol Hill. That's right, that's right. I've spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time here, grew up in this area. UM,
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time and when I was a
Speaker 1: child as a tourist, but then work for the n
Speaker 1: R and spent a bunch of time down this way
Speaker 1: when I did that. Um. But I always like to
Speaker 1: start these things as there's no video and nobody can
Speaker 1: see where we are. So Jeff, can you try to
Speaker 1: We're in your office, just to kind of describe the surroundings.
Speaker 1: Give us your use your best pro as Andy, feel
Speaker 1: free to help, but I'll chime in need so. So
Speaker 1: my best pros on this is that we like to
Speaker 1: practice what we preached ure and so being outside hunting
Speaker 1: and fishing is part of my life and to have
Speaker 1: the opportunity to be able to marry that with my
Speaker 1: work has been just a dream come true. So my
Speaker 1: office has taxidermy in it, sitting with a window that
Speaker 1: looks right out onto the street there and uh so
Speaker 1: here they are and and um, the I suppose the
Speaker 1: interesting thing is my grand Slam a wild Turkeys is
Speaker 1: in here. And that's mainly because my wife decided that
Speaker 1: she's allowing tax to drmy at home. But she thinks
Speaker 1: turkeys are ugly, and I think turkeys are beautiful, so
Speaker 1: they're always we got we got my big time turkey
Speaker 1: hunter and night I have not yet achieved the Grand Slam,
Speaker 1: so we'll have to. That could be a whole other
Speaker 1: podcast talking turkeys. But yeah, it's nice to uh, I
Speaker 1: feel kind of at home with tax Jermy d C.
Speaker 1: Probably not every office near the Capitol building has that. No,
Speaker 1: I would say it's pretty unique. So for sure, there's
Speaker 1: a few of them, a few members up on the
Speaker 1: hill that they've got, They've got a few pieces in
Speaker 1: their office. Yeah, it's nice to walk in there occasionally
Speaker 1: and specifically, you can think of Jeff spent some time
Speaker 1: in Congressman Don Young's office. He's got some real good
Speaker 1: stuff from Alaska in there that he can probably describe
Speaker 1: in detail better than I can. Yeah, you walk into
Speaker 1: the front of the congressman's office and there's a brown
Speaker 1: bear brug that's on the wall that he shot and
Speaker 1: it's a massive bear. And then you go into his
Speaker 1: inner office and there's all kinds of cool stuff from
Speaker 1: Alaska and North America, and then he's got African and stuff.
Speaker 1: So he's not afraid to where who he is and
Speaker 1: what he where. He his passions are on his sleeves.
Speaker 1: So it always if you feel like, you know, fourteen
Speaker 1: million hunters out there, you know, if you just if
Speaker 1: you just think about hunting sportsman not being just hunters,
Speaker 1: but um, if you just think about hunting, the percentage
Speaker 1: of the actual population that hunters are is very small.
Speaker 1: Would you compare that to the percentage of the hunters
Speaker 1: that the hunters are congressmen or are serving in Congress
Speaker 1: right now? Is in a very small percentage of folks
Speaker 1: that actually actively hunt? Uh? You know, well that that's
Speaker 1: that maybe is the question is the active hunters or fishermen,
Speaker 1: or those members of Congress that recognize that they have
Speaker 1: constituents that are actively involved in this because are The
Speaker 1: Congressional Sportsman's Caucus has grown to be the largest was
Speaker 1: to active bipartisan caucus on Capitol Hill. They're nearly three
Speaker 1: hundred members in the House and the Senate had a
Speaker 1: five and thirty five total members of Congress. So, um,
Speaker 1: that's a pretty good number to say the least. How
Speaker 1: many of those guys actually hunting fish? You know, they'll
Speaker 1: tell you, oh, yeah, you know, I don't know whether
Speaker 1: they do. They certainly don't have taxidermy in their office
Speaker 1: and stuff. But we, you know, we get them out
Speaker 1: to Clay's shoots and uh we we fish with some
Speaker 1: of the guys. And I've definitely seen pictures we you know,
Speaker 1: we do a slide show with our Big Dinner every
Speaker 1: year and asked asked members to send in pictures and
Speaker 1: it's great stuff, you know, them hunting, fishing with kids, grandkids,
Speaker 1: all that kind of all the stuff that we hold
Speaker 1: near and air. So you know, our one of our
Speaker 1: biggest jobs is just to work with them and show
Speaker 1: them the value in it for for conservation, their constituents, um.
Speaker 1: And then you know, it's it's a bonus for us
Speaker 1: if we're actually getting out into the field with them
Speaker 1: and you get to see him in action, and you know,
Speaker 1: some of them they're they're a real deal. There's a
Speaker 1: few real deal center Heinrich. I know, it's it's huge.
Speaker 1: He's in a d I Y public class. Real deal um.
Speaker 1: And it's not that it's necessary for those folks too
Speaker 1: to actively go and pursue those things, but as a hunter,
Speaker 1: it would be nice to know that they're they're there, um,
Speaker 1: because it's it's as you well know, one thing to
Speaker 1: go go hunting, another thing to support it, you know.
Speaker 1: I think that's something we struggle with a lot of times,
Speaker 1: you know, with our public images that to go do
Speaker 1: it into two be accepting of it and have not
Speaker 1: experiences that's a that's a pretty big gap. So it's
Speaker 1: it's nice to know there's some some of those and
Speaker 1: I think some of them, um, they don't like to
Speaker 1: talk about it for for political reasons, based on where
Speaker 1: they might be from. But um, I can think of
Speaker 1: a couple examples of folks that you don't hear them
Speaker 1: talk about it very much. But I know, they go
Speaker 1: out of their way to do it when they're they're
Speaker 1: back home, and um, you know they still interact with
Speaker 1: their constituents that hunting fish and UM, I get that too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And then you know, uh, staff play a really important
Speaker 1: role in terms of advising members of Congress and on
Speaker 1: issues that maybe the member himself for herself doesn't know
Speaker 1: as well. If you've got somebody on a that's a
Speaker 1: trusted member of your staff that does happen to enjoy
Speaker 1: the outdoors and hunting and fishing and they can lean in,
Speaker 1: you're probably going to get a good reception out of
Speaker 1: that too. So we worked the staff angle as well
Speaker 1: as the member angle to try to make sure we're
Speaker 1: getting folks out. And we do an August Recess clay
Speaker 1: shoot every year and and that fills up in about
Speaker 1: less than a day. And we have a big component
Speaker 1: for first time shooters with with instructors and if nothing else,
Speaker 1: somebody gets to pick up a shotgun and break a
Speaker 1: target and to spell some of the Hollywood miss about
Speaker 1: shotguns and what they are and what they do. Some
Speaker 1: of them can be so I auto, that's pretty scary.
Speaker 1: We even let them shoot some auto. So that's awesome. Well,
Speaker 1: that's a good a good segue into you know, it's
Speaker 1: pretty evident by the name, a lot of people will
Speaker 1: understand and know the name Congressional Sports on the Foundation.
Speaker 1: But then you guys would admit you're not as front
Speaker 1: facing to the community as Army F for Ducks Unlimited. Um,
Speaker 1: there's no membership drives where you guys are giving away
Speaker 1: any products or anything like that. But your your function
Speaker 1: is as important, if not more important for you know,
Speaker 1: the day to day life of hunters, legislation, policy, those
Speaker 1: types of things. So either one of you guys are
Speaker 1: both just kind of give a quick rundown of CSF,
Speaker 1: what it is, how it runs, um, and you believe
Speaker 1: it's impact. I know it's a long answer, but let's
Speaker 1: start to get into you know, how you would explain
Speaker 1: that to someone who's never heard of CSF. Great, So
Speaker 1: I'll start and we can cut it up in the
Speaker 1: sound bite so I don't get into a long monotone.
Speaker 1: But basically it was founded in eighty nine to support
Speaker 1: the then fledgling Congressional Sports Ones Caucus. Capitol Hill has caucuses,
Speaker 1: four or five hundred different caucuses. Um, you know some
Speaker 1: more known than others, and a caucus is nothing more
Speaker 1: than a bunch of elected officials that share some views
Speaker 1: on things that want to be educated on it. They
Speaker 1: were smart enough to realize, even with the staffs that
Speaker 1: they have in their member offices, that having an outside
Speaker 1: body that could kind of be that that conduit, that
Speaker 1: link between between the conservation world and the hunting and
Speaker 1: fishing world and these members of Congress was going to
Speaker 1: be important, and it was going to be important to
Speaker 1: have have it be here in d C. Be you know,
Speaker 1: in part staffed by people that understand the legislative policy,
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, our function is
Speaker 1: to try to affect legislative and and administrative policy. But
Speaker 1: it's a policy function. And so um, we're very different.
Speaker 1: We're not membership based. We're very different in that regard
Speaker 1: and so um that's how we started and it's grown
Speaker 1: and and he can talk more about the expanse and
Speaker 1: into the into the States, but UH almost every one
Speaker 1: of the national UH sportsmen's hunting, conservation, fishing, conservation groups
Speaker 1: our partners with us. So we play and we play
Speaker 1: a very niche role in trying to help advance things
Speaker 1: that that obviously we care about and so do their members.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and about fifteen years ago, UH, after the
Speaker 1: Congressional Caucus had been up and running for a while,
Speaker 1: Jeff and and some other folks that were here before
Speaker 1: my time, UH realized that a lot of hunting and
Speaker 1: fishing policy is made at the state level, with state
Speaker 1: game fish agencies creating the regulations state legislatures overseeing them.
Speaker 1: And at that time, there were a handful of states
Speaker 1: that also had sportsmen's caucuses in their legislatures, but they
Speaker 1: didn't really have a great way to communicate with one another.
Speaker 1: And UH see what was working well in one state
Speaker 1: not working well in others, UH weren't identifying threats to
Speaker 1: hunting and fishing collectively, and so UH CSF and Jeff
Speaker 1: in particular, had the the bright idea to create an
Speaker 1: umbrella organization uh for those state caucuses. And then we
Speaker 1: took that and ran with it. And since then we've
Speaker 1: been trying to encourage other states to establish sportsmen's caucuses
Speaker 1: that are bipartisan both chambers of the legislature. And then,
Speaker 1: UH we've been real successful with that. We've got them
Speaker 1: in forty eight states now. UM, and we put on
Speaker 1: a conference every fall where we try to bring them
Speaker 1: all together and have policy presentations, give them an opportunity
Speaker 1: to talk about what's going on in their respective states,
Speaker 1: communicate with one another. And we've seen a lot of
Speaker 1: successful policy initiatives come out of that, for where a
Speaker 1: legislator from one state will be talking to uh, someone
Speaker 1: from another state and say, oh, that's a really good idea,
Speaker 1: and we don't have that in my state. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna bring it back and start talking to my folks
Speaker 1: and see if there's a way that we can make
Speaker 1: this work for for my state, and that you guys
Speaker 1: work with the governors as well. We do. We have
Speaker 1: a Governor Sportsman's Caucus, Uh, same thing, bipartisan deal. We've
Speaker 1: got thirty five members all over the country, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, we try to serve as a resource for
Speaker 1: them in the same way. Uh. They're a little harder
Speaker 1: to get in one place and at one time than
Speaker 1: than state legislators, but um, you know we can we
Speaker 1: can play that role as well. If we get a
Speaker 1: phone call from one of their staff members and they'll
Speaker 1: call us with questions and say, hey, you know, if
Speaker 1: any other states looked at this and what was their experience,
Speaker 1: and um, you know there have been any lessons learned,
Speaker 1: could they do it better? And we can either give
Speaker 1: them that information or help them track it down through
Speaker 1: our relationships. When I imagine that to both of you guys,
Speaker 1: the you know, the term bipartisan isn't important in this function.
Speaker 1: You know, there is We can go through this in
Speaker 1: some detail or about about this idea around, but I
Speaker 1: think that there's the traditional idea that this this sportsman's
Speaker 1: community leans heavily Republican. And there's a bit of a
Speaker 1: movement in Andy's part of the world that some hunting
Speaker 1: and fishing organizations are starting to look a little bit
Speaker 1: more blue. And then the way that they act and function,
Speaker 1: um and concerned the public lands and things like that
Speaker 1: is there. You know, Jeff and your experiences, there been
Speaker 1: a change in in those forces a little bit right
Speaker 1: to left, how they view hunting, how they view the environment,
Speaker 1: how all that spins up into into the actual legislation
Speaker 1: and policy. Yeah, they're absolutely has and and even going
Speaker 1: probably a little further back in history, but you know,
Speaker 1: the several Southern and Bowl Weevil Democrats than the Blue
Speaker 1: Dogs and whatnot, Um, they they had they had a
Speaker 1: little bit more connection. I think it has to do
Speaker 1: really a lot with geographics. Um, you know, if you're
Speaker 1: from a district that's urban suburban, your connection maybe is
Speaker 1: less to the outdoors and that sportsman's way of life.
Speaker 1: Whereas you represent a more rural district, you might be
Speaker 1: more inclined. And so I think as you looked at
Speaker 1: the map, the Republicans tend to to control more of
Speaker 1: those those districts. And so that's why this perception that
Speaker 1: it that it leans, you know, further to the Republican side.
Speaker 1: And they they have it, but you know, um, we've
Speaker 1: got tremendous champions on on both sides of the aisle
Speaker 1: here that that really care about this. And when's the
Speaker 1: last time you went hunting and you got introduced to
Speaker 1: somebody and you asked them whether they were a Republican
Speaker 1: or a Democrat. I don't think that it's real awkward.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't come up up, you know. And and uh, um,
Speaker 1: that's not the that's not the binding factor on this.
Speaker 1: It's the it's the passion for the outdoors, it's the
Speaker 1: love of nature, it's the responsibility to be conservation minded,
Speaker 1: and that that crosses party lines. Acrosses gender, you know,
Speaker 1: and so um that's the beauty about working on this,
Speaker 1: but yeah, we could you know, more balance is always
Speaker 1: good in this town because you get labeled as being
Speaker 1: partisan on one thing that then it makes it harder
Speaker 1: to convince the other side that your your goals and
Speaker 1: objectives are altruistic and are about conservation and getting kids
Speaker 1: outside and all the stuff we know about. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I would add to that. You know, you reference being
Speaker 1: in the West, and I think there is some change
Speaker 1: going on demographically in that part of the country as
Speaker 1: well that's driving some of that. And speaking in terms
Speaker 1: of my day to day job and talking with folks,
Speaker 1: it's it's really more about when you sit down with
Speaker 1: a policy maker and you try to talk to them,
Speaker 1: whether they're on the right or the left, and it's
Speaker 1: more about whether they'll have a real conversation with you
Speaker 1: and try to understand where you're coming from in the perspective,
Speaker 1: whether that's Republicans on public lands issues or Democrats on
Speaker 1: firearms issues, or or both. And as long as there
Speaker 1: are folks that are out there, they are willing to
Speaker 1: have a conversation and work with you in a pragmatic way.
Speaker 1: I think that's what's most important, rather than some sort
Speaker 1: of label you you put on on folks. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: we always talk about on this podcast, you know, pro nuance,
Speaker 1: like there are as you you brought up some very
Speaker 1: just in in describing how to have a conversation, you
Speaker 1: brought some pretty polarizing issues guns, public lands, things that
Speaker 1: are immediately put up the walls of on this team.
Speaker 1: You're that team. I think that's especially in you know,
Speaker 1: we found ourselves in a situation, Jeff. You sure really
Speaker 1: noticed that a lot of our pursuits are complicated. They
Speaker 1: go across you know, age demographics, they go across different
Speaker 1: land uses, they go across a lot of different things.
Speaker 1: And for us to say I'm pro this, I'm anti this,
Speaker 1: without as a group as sportsman understanding what that really
Speaker 1: means to be pro something in anti something else, I
Speaker 1: think that's important. Have you found you know, in your
Speaker 1: many years of doing this and I know even prior
Speaker 1: to this you were a pH in Africa? Is that correct? Right?
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of other things that you did,
Speaker 1: you know, coming up before you were in the chair
Speaker 1: you are now. I mean, have you found that to
Speaker 1: be um? Yeah, I think I think being able to
Speaker 1: have the dialogue first of all, um, convincing people it's
Speaker 1: okay to to not have to be one and a
Speaker 1: lock of step agreement with one another. We probably would
Speaker 1: find the three of us may not agree on every
Speaker 1: single thing out there, and just in our conservation world,
Speaker 1: just from a different perspective. And being able then to
Speaker 1: try to to to map that course through through the
Speaker 1: political process is what you know, that's what we we
Speaker 1: specialize in doing. And you know, sometimes that's successful, and
Speaker 1: in particular and federal politics, a lot of times it isn't. Um.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of conflicting things that go on. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of pressures that go on. You can be
Speaker 1: dead right on the policy and still never get it
Speaker 1: done because it gets overtaken by either partisan politics or
Speaker 1: something else suddenly flares up. And and you know, we're
Speaker 1: not the we're not the number one thing if you
Speaker 1: look in polls, is to what americans buying large are
Speaker 1: concerned about, economy, jobs, threat on terror, I I A.
Speaker 1: Or it's the stuff that's first and foremost for everybody's life.
Speaker 1: And so we're down the ladder to begin with. So
Speaker 1: that art of trying to find that deal and find
Speaker 1: their way through on the stuff is part of what,
Speaker 1: you know, part of what makes this exciting and some
Speaker 1: days pretty dang frustrating. And I think you mentioned there's
Speaker 1: fourteen million or so hunters and anglers out there, and
Speaker 1: I I think part of the reason that we have
Speaker 1: been in the long term pretty successful is that that
Speaker 1: nuance and pragmatism where when big stuff comes up, you know,
Speaker 1: I think by nature we're a pretty pragmatic group and
Speaker 1: we can come together and uh go have those nuanced
Speaker 1: conversations with folks, and um, most of the time it
Speaker 1: turns out okay for us. And in the big picture,
Speaker 1: do either of you guys have a specific example that
Speaker 1: either recent or just something that was climactic for this
Speaker 1: organization that was pivotal two hundreds of anglers and it
Speaker 1: was was a you know, I would say, just a
Speaker 1: turnkey moment for Hey, we're going to treat this issue
Speaker 1: this way, and here's who's on board, here's who isn't
Speaker 1: on board. Because I'm sure there's a lot you know,
Speaker 1: public lands is the current trendything to talk about, but
Speaker 1: that wasn't always you know, top of mind for every hunter,
Speaker 1: every angler out there. Yeah, I can think of a couple. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, we this goes back a couple of years now,
Speaker 1: but um, we hadn't had a duck stamp increase in
Speaker 1: a real long time. And uh, that was something that
Speaker 1: was really important. But the political environment in Congress, um,
Speaker 1: not not wholesale, but just because of a few louder
Speaker 1: voices that had some control over the process, made that
Speaker 1: probably difficult, more difficult than it needed to be. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know it didn't go once I remember correctly,
Speaker 1: once or twice, and potentially brought down some other policy
Speaker 1: goals with it. And UM, let me say, is that
Speaker 1: just a tax? Like generally, we don't want to increase taxes,
Speaker 1: we don't give it. We don't give a ship what
Speaker 1: it is much. Yet even even though we were trying
Speaker 1: to explain to him, we are the people that are
Speaker 1: gonna pay. I always asking you for to tax me more.
Speaker 1: And yet they would still say, Now, I always use
Speaker 1: that as an example when I'm talking about so maybe
Speaker 1: this doesn't help my what I'm talking to a non
Speaker 1: hunter about, you know, the like I believe you guys
Speaker 1: coined the American system of conservation funding. Talking to him
Speaker 1: about that, I'm talking to him about there's this one
Speaker 1: tax writes about ducks, and we go to it's like
Speaker 1: the the only you know, nobody's argument. Give us the tax, right,
Speaker 1: we came up with it, we want it, let's keep
Speaker 1: let's keep raising as much as we need to raise. Right.
Speaker 1: So I always use that specific example to say, you've
Speaker 1: got a willing constituency that's willing to pay, and it's
Speaker 1: almost ingrained in what we do to pay. Absolutely, So
Speaker 1: there's an example of parts of politics saying like, well,
Speaker 1: we just can't we talk. We promised we wouldn't raise them, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then and then they came back the next Congress
Speaker 1: and got it done. Um, you know. And there's examples
Speaker 1: at the state level too, like where I live in Colorado,
Speaker 1: we hadn't had a hunting your fishing license fee increase
Speaker 1: and since two thousand five until this year, and you
Speaker 1: know that that money is just not going as far
Speaker 1: as it once did. I mean that's just math and
Speaker 1: uh um. You know, ten legislative session, we had bipartisan
Speaker 1: legislators that worked with the sportsmen's community bring a bill
Speaker 1: forward and I still can't tell you why that didn't
Speaker 1: pass that year. In past this year. Um, but it's
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where there's some pragmatism involved
Speaker 1: and a need to really go and educate people about
Speaker 1: who are paying these fees and why they don't mind
Speaker 1: paying more, Uh if if they believe in what it's supporting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good segue to to that term American system
Speaker 1: of conservation funding because I was writing an article recently
Speaker 1: about Pittman Robertson. Your colleague philho And introduced me to
Speaker 1: this concept, and I was like, wow, okay, we should
Speaker 1: you know, just like the North American model wildlife conservation,
Speaker 1: which wasn't something coin like a lot of people think
Speaker 1: at the turn of the century. It was coin of
Speaker 1: the eighties. Um. I think these are terms that can
Speaker 1: help us, not other important terms, because they can help
Speaker 1: us understand what's going on. But also it's inclusive of
Speaker 1: everything that's actually happening. So it's not just Pittman Robertson,
Speaker 1: it's not just license fees. It's inclusive of everything. So, um, Jeff,
Speaker 1: can you talk about how much is that a part
Speaker 1: of your job now to to you know, to fight
Speaker 1: to these things, maintain and educate people on their legacy
Speaker 1: and and explain that the A C A s CF
Speaker 1: and what that means, Uh, for every hunter and angler.
Speaker 1: That's a big one. I got Listen. What you'll understand
Speaker 1: is that I asked questions that are like eight and
Speaker 1: if we get to the first two, that's fine, let's go.
Speaker 1: Because I think you know, I'm hoping most of your
Speaker 1: listeners probably are familiar with with Pittman, Robertson and Dingle
Speaker 1: Johnson and those excise taxes on guns, m O, fishing, tackle,
Speaker 1: whatnot as being dedicated funding. So then you you you
Speaker 1: add on top of that the license fees and permits
Speaker 1: and things like that, and and it turns into the
Speaker 1: biggest funding source for most of the state fish and
Speaker 1: wildlife agencies around the country. And that is a very
Speaker 1: unique model to the United States of America and and
Speaker 1: a hugely successful model. And and that's something that we
Speaker 1: as sportsmen and women need to be proud of. Um
Speaker 1: not just because we're we're carrying the freight in terms
Speaker 1: of finances, but because of that just as further indicates
Speaker 1: our passion for for wildlife and it's game in non
Speaker 1: game species as we all know that benefit from good habitat, conservation,
Speaker 1: from clean water um from things like this. So this
Speaker 1: system isn't extremely important. And yeah, we do talk about it,
Speaker 1: I don't you know, And I know Andy and and
Speaker 1: some of the other guys on our state based efforts
Speaker 1: are are constantly watching because inevitably some somebody comes up
Speaker 1: with the idea of diverting those funds away and at
Speaker 1: the state level that cover some other budget shortfall. And
Speaker 1: fortunately the folks that drafted that legislation we're smart enough
Speaker 1: to think and putting safeguards in there that if you
Speaker 1: do that, then you know you're gonna sacrifice all that funding.
Speaker 1: And but we have to check those states back on
Speaker 1: occasion because somebody, you know, like I say, somebody's figuring
Speaker 1: out there's a pool of money that we don't We
Speaker 1: don't really care about turkeys. We we care more about schools.
Speaker 1: You know, let's divert it over here. So we are
Speaker 1: watching it. Um. From that side of things, we're working
Speaker 1: on other supplemental things to try to take some of
Speaker 1: the burden off the state agencies have got a tremendous
Speaker 1: amount of responsibility and and um, you know, that pool
Speaker 1: of money is and it's going as far as as
Speaker 1: it used to. And we gotta be watching for and
Speaker 1: we're working on some other things that we can get
Speaker 1: into to to try to look at some of the
Speaker 1: other issues. And funding is always important. Unfortunately it always
Speaker 1: comes down to two dollars support stuff. Course, of course,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a big part of our education mission too.
Speaker 1: You know a lot of these state legend slators were
Speaker 1: coming from a background of being insurance agents or teachers
Speaker 1: or you know, they're they're busy, normal people and if
Speaker 1: they have never hunted, or sometimes even if they have,
Speaker 1: they might not know where the money comes from, or
Speaker 1: that there are in many state agencies out there that
Speaker 1: received no general fund tax revenue um that don't know
Speaker 1: that there's a ten or eleven percent tax on firearms
Speaker 1: or ammunition or fishing equipment that supports their state agency
Speaker 1: that issues their hunting license. And so we do a
Speaker 1: lot of educational programming on that front too, and it's
Speaker 1: everything from the basics too. When they try to draft
Speaker 1: legislation to give away free licenses to some niche constituency um,
Speaker 1: which you know, maybe they deserve, we don't know, but
Speaker 1: we want them to have the information that if they're
Speaker 1: not charging what it cost to issue that license. They're
Speaker 1: losing federal funding from the exercise taxes. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: think there's isn't there a statute that says they don't
Speaker 1: spend it spend that money on UM conservation in the
Speaker 1: first was it two years? Uh, it's gone right, take it,
Speaker 1: which is which is a huge part of the Piven Robertson,
Speaker 1: Dingol Johnson funds. And so that's you guys, correctly, and
Speaker 1: then those states have to match. It's on matching thing.
Speaker 1: A lot of times they use the licensed dollars. But nonetheless,
Speaker 1: it's uh, you know, it's a it's a pretty incentive
Speaker 1: driven program when it really comes right down to well,
Speaker 1: somebody a long time ago was very you know, Frankly D.
Speaker 1: Roosevelt and the folks are back in the thirties when
Speaker 1: they had that conservation conference, came up with these programs,
Speaker 1: were pretty smartly. And do you think for it to
Speaker 1: be eighty years plus for that single program. And he's
Speaker 1: talking about license fees and UM Piven Robertson funds and
Speaker 1: Dingoel Johnson funds. I'm not sure what the number is,
Speaker 1: but it's a you know, if anywhere from I've seen
Speaker 1: anywhere from forty percent of state funding for conservation coming
Speaker 1: from and wildlife management is coming from that system now.
Speaker 1: And I think even even more important is that the
Speaker 1: that ascent legislation that says the states can't divert the
Speaker 1: hunting and fishing license money that they collect themselves protects
Speaker 1: the federal money. So it all works together. And you know,
Speaker 1: so we've gone since the nineteen thirties essentially without having
Speaker 1: any significant diversion of hunting license revenue away from conservation,
Speaker 1: which I I can't think of another program like it,
Speaker 1: and they may be out there, but it's it is
Speaker 1: pretty unique. And I one of the frustrated things about
Speaker 1: that program is that I, you know, I grew up
Speaker 1: in this I grew up in western Maryland and my
Speaker 1: dad hunted, My whole family hunted. I'm sure you guys
Speaker 1: had some similar experiences. Nobody they didn't set you down
Speaker 1: the first day you bought a license. Guess guess what
Speaker 1: this is what It's a beautiful thing. It's to be celebrated.
Speaker 1: It's part of our heritage. This is why you get
Speaker 1: to go hunting in the greater sense of the word.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a long story, but the big part
Speaker 1: of it is user pays public benefits. That's a huge
Speaker 1: part of it, and that's not a part of the
Speaker 1: storyline every young hunter gets to hear. Um. I hope
Speaker 1: they're changing that. Hopefully this conversation helps to change that.
Speaker 1: But I think it's such when we talk about it
Speaker 1: in terms of Capitol Hill, it's such an impactful piece
Speaker 1: of legislation. And I'm sure Jeff you could speak to
Speaker 1: how much legislation comes and goes. Um. And you know,
Speaker 1: the building blocks of our conservation movement are still here
Speaker 1: eighty years later. Um, that's pretty unique, you gotta be Yeah.
Speaker 1: And there have been attempts to to change it. Uh.
Speaker 1: In particular, there have been attempts to change Pittman Robertson
Speaker 1: and redirect some of that funding towards things like victims
Speaker 1: of gun violence and things like that. And so you know,
Speaker 1: we've had that that's that's been politically difficult to stand
Speaker 1: into that and say, no, this is not what this
Speaker 1: money is for, and we've got to protect the integrity
Speaker 1: of this kind of stuff and and so, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a there there's a constant need to be vigilant
Speaker 1: and keep an eye out because people are trying to
Speaker 1: do things that don't necessarily fit in with what we think.
Speaker 1: So I haven't heard a whole lot of solutions for
Speaker 1: how to replace that funding if if it goes away
Speaker 1: when people come up with bad ideas either Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: and then you talk about the number of hunters on
Speaker 1: the decline and there is a need for at some
Speaker 1: level to have a solution. Yeah, And I think there's
Speaker 1: a difference between replacing it and supplementing it. And um,
Speaker 1: Jeff alluded to it a little bit earlier, and you know,
Speaker 1: there are some things going on at both the state
Speaker 1: and federal level on that front. And UM, I think
Speaker 1: the sportsman's community generally speaking is UM. I think even
Speaker 1: since I've been here seven or eight years, the there's
Speaker 1: been a change in in philosophy and oh budness to
Speaker 1: looking at some of those things and trying to identify
Speaker 1: some solutions because that conservation ethic is is still very
Speaker 1: strong and important to a lot of people. Yeah. Do
Speaker 1: you guys have to do a lot of Have you
Speaker 1: done a lot to this point with the land of
Speaker 1: our Conservation Fund? Oh? Yeah, We've been involved in that
Speaker 1: for a long time. One of the things that that
Speaker 1: program wise is the making public lands public component of
Speaker 1: that UM, which was to direct a certain amount one
Speaker 1: point five percent or ten million dollars, whichever is the
Speaker 1: is the greater um to go to these projects where
Speaker 1: there are literally landlocked on pieces of access points to
Speaker 1: federal public lands, willing seller, willing participant that will put
Speaker 1: a right away easement, and those don't typically score in
Speaker 1: the scheme of things when they're when they're measuring projects
Speaker 1: under LWCF. So we worked with the coalition, with with
Speaker 1: the embron Ron Mental community to talk about, you know,
Speaker 1: incorporating this idea for us. It's really accessed for for
Speaker 1: hunting and fishing, but recreational access. You know, we're all
Speaker 1: concerned about kids not getting outside, and one of the
Speaker 1: issues becomes, you know, if you've got federal public lands
Speaker 1: and you can't get to UM, that's a problem. So
Speaker 1: we're trying to address that. That is in the current
Speaker 1: UH authorization language. Actually, they the Resources Committee when they
Speaker 1: passed the bill last week, increased it to three percent
Speaker 1: and twenty million dollars. So that was a that was
Speaker 1: a win right there in terms of you know, that
Speaker 1: ability because there's a lot of acreage, especially in the West,
Speaker 1: that is inaccessible and you know, we need all of
Speaker 1: us know that more access is going to be better
Speaker 1: for for getting people out there. Can you give me
Speaker 1: just just a quick I think people we were talking
Speaker 1: about earlier, as these things will come trendy. I think
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people hunting industry that know now
Speaker 1: what the Land of Water Conservation Fund is that maybe
Speaker 1: years past would have will laughed if they need to
Speaker 1: even know what it was, which is is a great thing.
Speaker 1: But can you give everybody that doesn't know just a
Speaker 1: really quick rundown of that program? All right, I'll start
Speaker 1: and then Andy can correct me when when I when
Speaker 1: I get talked about it. So you know, it started
Speaker 1: in the started in the sixties, and so I mean
Speaker 1: it's been around for a long time. And again the
Speaker 1: idea was where they were, uh in particular, they were
Speaker 1: offshore oil and gas royalties UM on federal federal waters,
Speaker 1: and the idea was to be able to redirect some
Speaker 1: of those royalties back to conservation through what they created
Speaker 1: as the Land and Water Conservation Fund. And so um,
Speaker 1: the program has been around again for a long time,
Speaker 1: you know, fifty fifty fifty plus years and and uh um,
Speaker 1: I'm just delighted that that there are some folks that
Speaker 1: are willing to listen to to the idea that you know,
Speaker 1: it's not it's not sacrilege to look at a sixty
Speaker 1: year fifty year old program and says there are ways
Speaker 1: to tweak this to make it, you know, more more
Speaker 1: applicable for the twenty first century than the middle of
Speaker 1: the twentieth century. And and so, um, we're supportive of
Speaker 1: the concept the program that we just appreciate the fact
Speaker 1: that we were able to work with partners to include
Speaker 1: some access specific language in there. And Andy, I don't
Speaker 1: know if you want to add anything. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that was a good summary. Um. You know, one of
Speaker 1: the challenges with that program as a whole that has
Speaker 1: been around since the mid sixties, and you know, it
Speaker 1: was coming out of the Eisenhower years, they created a
Speaker 1: Blue Ribbon Task Force to look at outdoor recreation in
Speaker 1: America was post World War two on the interstate highway
Speaker 1: system was new, and they realized that there was going
Speaker 1: to be a growing demand for recreation. And so those
Speaker 1: folks had a lot of um forethought and um, that
Speaker 1: was a very good thing. But I think one thing
Speaker 1: that gets lost in a lot of the publicity and
Speaker 1: the advocacy around LWCF is that it's it's really only
Speaker 1: been fully funded one time and its history and you know,
Speaker 1: going back to that pragmatic viewpoint of trying to get
Speaker 1: positive things done for the sportsman's community constituency, I look
Speaker 1: at that and say, you know, are there opportunities to
Speaker 1: do this in a different way that is either more
Speaker 1: attractive to appropriators or can get us over the finish
Speaker 1: line too full and permanent funding so that it doesn't
Speaker 1: have to go through the appropriations process every single year.
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, because it has become somewhat politicized in some ways,
Speaker 1: I think it can make it more difficult to have
Speaker 1: those conversations um because people become more rigid, and people
Speaker 1: in the advocate the community become more rigid, and then
Speaker 1: by extension, members of Congress become more rigid um in
Speaker 1: terms of their flexibility to look at things in a
Speaker 1: in a pragmatic way and and say, hey, how are
Speaker 1: there some changes that we could we could make that
Speaker 1: you know, maybe we up this from nine million to
Speaker 1: one point five in exchange for making some modifications or
Speaker 1: allowing some uh, you know, other folks to have a
Speaker 1: vested stake in this, and uh that that's a difficult
Speaker 1: message to deliver up there because everybody retreats to their
Speaker 1: corners and says, either this is great or this is
Speaker 1: not great. I imagine that rigidity comes from the fact
Speaker 1: that ours oil and gas involved, and I think that
Speaker 1: environmental issues involved. Yeah, those kind of things are coming
Speaker 1: together with this. Yeah, there is. And you look at
Speaker 1: you know, back to your point about Pittman Robertson and
Speaker 1: promoting that and educating people about it. Yeah. I will
Speaker 1: often wonder if if we put as much money into
Speaker 1: promoting Pittman Robertson UM as certain interests put into promoting
Speaker 1: l WCF, UM, would it become more of the sacred
Speaker 1: cow that LWCF has become. And um, you know, I
Speaker 1: think LWCF has has done things have benefited me personally,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean some of the some of that
Speaker 1: access I use all the time. I can think of
Speaker 1: two or three places, and I can think of a
Speaker 1: playground that Bosamontana where my kid was playing that I
Speaker 1: looked at the sign and it said thanks to the
Speaker 1: Land of War Conservation Fund. Absolutely seriously, Yeah, like are
Speaker 1: you know, there's there's just that's such an entangled thing
Speaker 1: to understand. Yeah, and it's back to the nuance. It's
Speaker 1: also difficult even when even when the money's there and
Speaker 1: it's been appropriated, getting to the to the agencies and
Speaker 1: and talking with them and how they spend it, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, our part of our job is to make
Speaker 1: sure that they're spending at least a good chunk of
Speaker 1: it in ways that ben of fit hunters and anglers,
Speaker 1: and um. You know that that is a very very
Speaker 1: complicated question. And you know, their landowners involved and willing
Speaker 1: real estate transactions and all these different layers to it
Speaker 1: that make it a um, a very important but also
Speaker 1: very challenging issue to deal with on a year to
Speaker 1: year basis. Yeah, that's a good the good point you
Speaker 1: make back to the point about you know, Pivin Robertson
Speaker 1: and that system of funding not getting shined up and
Speaker 1: put out there to the public as much. You know,
Speaker 1: and it feels We had a public lands roundtable on
Speaker 1: the podcast not long ago, and I was very much
Speaker 1: saying that it's easy to follow the trend, right, It's
Speaker 1: easy to hashtag something or say you're all about something
Speaker 1: without really understanding what's going on. And I think there's
Speaker 1: huge parts of that that mirror and politics. Some something
Speaker 1: becomes trendy, something becomes the thing to do at that moment,
Speaker 1: something that becomes things that makes you're popular inside the
Speaker 1: halls of Congress and outside. You go do it with
Speaker 1: out really understanding while leaving behind or or running right
Speaker 1: over top of a very important system in this case
Speaker 1: Pivian Robertson, it's great. Well, politics is a popularity contest
Speaker 1: that it is that it is, well, it's good. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know it's looking good that that the LWCF may
Speaker 1: get fund and perpetuity. I think that would. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: we'll see. I mean, there there's a lot going on
Speaker 1: on that front with the deadline coming up at the
Speaker 1: end of the month, and I'm personally not worried about
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm suppose I shouldn't say I'm not worried
Speaker 1: about it, but but you know, they're gonna they're gonna
Speaker 1: they're gonna pass some short term continuing resolution to keep
Speaker 1: the government floating along until after the elections. Um, the
Speaker 1: big deadline is to get this thing passed into law
Speaker 1: before the end of this Congress adjourns in December, because
Speaker 1: if you don't you got to start all over again
Speaker 1: with a new Congress. Nobody knows what that new Congress
Speaker 1: is gonna look like, but you know, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of work that's been done to get this year after
Speaker 1: year back up to this point. And we gotta We
Speaker 1: got a you know, a few years of authorization for
Speaker 1: it the last time, and now it's time to see
Speaker 1: if you can't, you know, drive it home. And as
Speaker 1: Andy said, see if we can get this done. And
Speaker 1: you know, the brass ring is to get it done
Speaker 1: with mandatory, permanently authorized funding. And you know, I still
Speaker 1: think it's a win if you get it permanently authorized,
Speaker 1: even if we have to go back to the appropriators,
Speaker 1: because you can come fix that later. You know, to
Speaker 1: go to zero and let let our perfect be the
Speaker 1: perfect be the enemy the good again. I'm probably I'm
Speaker 1: out on the limb where guys are gonna be throwing
Speaker 1: rocks at me, you know, for saying these things. But
Speaker 1: you have to be pragmatic in this job up here.
Speaker 1: And there are times when it's not popular to say,
Speaker 1: you know, we gotta cut, we gotta cut and run
Speaker 1: with us. We did that with gray Wolves and in
Speaker 1: Wyoming and Montana, the deal just wasn't there to do,
Speaker 1: you know, to I mean in Montana and Idaho, the
Speaker 1: deal wasn't there at the time, for for for Wyoming,
Speaker 1: let alone the Great Lakes. And you know, it was
Speaker 1: not popular to say we're gonna cut. We're gonna encourage
Speaker 1: cutting the deal and taking the wind for for Montana
Speaker 1: and Idaho, just to just to break the log jam
Speaker 1: and demonstrate we we have the backbone to say, you know,
Speaker 1: enough is enough. These things need to be managed by
Speaker 1: professional wildlife managers, not by not by the media and
Speaker 1: the hype in Congress and so um, those are sometimes
Speaker 1: the issues that that that we have to we have
Speaker 1: to pick a side, and you know it's not always easy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there's a lot of There's not a lot,
Speaker 1: but there's a few I can think of. I'm sure
Speaker 1: you guys could talk circles around me a lot of
Speaker 1: these issues. But things pop up, right, New Jersey black Bears, yeah,
Speaker 1: most recent thing. Right, These things just pop up, not
Speaker 1: out of nowhere. The New Jersey black bear thing has
Speaker 1: been been circling around, so give me a quick I
Speaker 1: think that's just a good example of these kind of
Speaker 1: issues that you're talking about. That pop up and you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: this one's been swirling for a while. But well there's
Speaker 1: that whether then there's good stuff too. I mean when
Speaker 1: when FLIP came up earlier this year when they passed
Speaker 1: the omnibus spending package, uh, I didn't anticipate that we
Speaker 1: were going to have the opportunity to do something that
Speaker 1: good as part of it. And you know, some of
Speaker 1: our friends in the land trust community came to us
Speaker 1: and said, Chairman Bishop is thinking about marking up a
Speaker 1: Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act bill that had been expired
Speaker 1: since two thousand eleven. And we the acronym is flip
Speaker 1: FA And it sounds kind of scary because it says
Speaker 1: land Federal Land Transactions. Yeah, so, uh, it does sound
Speaker 1: kind of scary, but it's actually a pretty solid program
Speaker 1: where BLM can go out and identify part of their
Speaker 1: regular planning process these isolated parcels or unusable parcels without
Speaker 1: a lot of value you to the public, and they
Speaker 1: can sell them and rather than that money just going
Speaker 1: into the treasury, it goes into something called the Federal
Speaker 1: Land Disposal Account, which they can pool money and use
Speaker 1: it to buy better lands, you know, or landlocked parcels
Speaker 1: or checker consolidate checkerboard things like that and uh and
Speaker 1: we said, yeah, well, we'd be happy to help you,
Speaker 1: uh with getting this program re authorized, but you know,
Speaker 1: we we have some language you'd like you to consider.
Speaker 1: And uh it was specifically to be able to spend
Speaker 1: a portion of that money on landlocked parcels that have
Speaker 1: hunting and fishing access and uh they said okay, because
Speaker 1: I assumed because they thought it would be helpful and
Speaker 1: uh getting it over the finish line. But you know,
Speaker 1: that was one of those things that we've been working
Speaker 1: on it for a while, but just the small window
Speaker 1: of opportunity something came up. We were ready, we could
Speaker 1: get it in there, and uh that flew through. I
Speaker 1: mean that was a three week process of getting some
Speaker 1: more money for landlocked parcels in perpetuity and that's a
Speaker 1: permanent authorizations. Yeah, I think I can think of more
Speaker 1: as many wins is is there are you know, trouble
Speaker 1: spots at this point. I can think of the fire
Speaker 1: borrowing that was in that same ammum was packing as
Speaker 1: another part of like whoa cool, Yeah, solve that problem. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it comes together when you know when they
Speaker 1: have to fund the entire federal government. Sometimes some opportunities
Speaker 1: that aren't always there. Yeah, there's a good bad I've
Speaker 1: tried to talk about that firebar Beca. Is it just
Speaker 1: a good example of something you'll never hear about, right,
Speaker 1: you ever hear about. But that's something that you know
Speaker 1: when you talk about is there enough money to manage
Speaker 1: these federal lands? Well, if you're stealing it for for fire,
Speaker 1: fire suppression, fire suppression, um, he has not as much. Right,
Speaker 1: you can't just go ask for more, I guess sports
Speaker 1: than you could, but they're not going to um. So
Speaker 1: those are small winds that could be celebrated as much
Speaker 1: as the fights I think in in our on our
Speaker 1: politics and our ad you know, being advocates, we just
Speaker 1: want to focus on the fight, like we gotta fight that.
Speaker 1: We gotta whack that mold down. We gotta whack that
Speaker 1: mold down, whack that one down. But sometimes you know,
Speaker 1: the dominants build passes and we've got a couple of
Speaker 1: wins to talk about. Yeah, doubt and some of the
Speaker 1: some of that gets a little policy wonkish, and you
Speaker 1: know that's that's part of the challenges. Why is that important?
Speaker 1: You know, Why why is far fire borrowing important? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, as you said, if you can't be if
Speaker 1: you're having to take money from inside the Forest Service
Speaker 1: and reprogram it for fire suppression because you're the West
Speaker 1: is burning up, or you're not being able to do
Speaker 1: the proactive things for trails and access points, for parking areas,
Speaker 1: for management of streams and other habitat and things that.
Speaker 1: I mean, that becomes a back to the dollars and cents.
Speaker 1: It becomes where can I put my Where do I
Speaker 1: can put my money? And you can't just let it burn,
Speaker 1: you know because people people see that, you know, so
Speaker 1: you know, I mean that that becomes those those little
Speaker 1: winds sometimes are are a lot bigger than just a
Speaker 1: little win. You know. I can think of one. This
Speaker 1: is now going back a long time ago in two
Speaker 1: thousand and five when UM the Highway Bill was being
Speaker 1: reauthorized and part of the Highway Bill is excise tax
Speaker 1: on motor boat and small engine fuel that goes into
Speaker 1: the Dingle Johnson account UM and in terms of for
Speaker 1: for bumping up that amount, and we were only getting
Speaker 1: fourteen point nine percent we as a sportsman's community out
Speaker 1: of the eighteen point three cents. So there was about
Speaker 1: a nickel in there that wasn't coming back into it
Speaker 1: was just going into the Highway Fund. And we successfully
Speaker 1: argued and got that money to come in there. And
Speaker 1: since that time it's over a billion dollars of additional
Speaker 1: funding for for fisheries, conservation and habitat, for boat ramps,
Speaker 1: for boat safety. You know, I mean that's real money
Speaker 1: at a looking at a little nickel and saying we're
Speaker 1: missing that on and getting our fair share of this thing,
Speaker 1: and that was not what it was intended. And we
Speaker 1: were able to get that back. That was a very
Speaker 1: boring little fight, and yet at the same time, the
Speaker 1: net impact of that thing has been dramatic. Yeah, when
Speaker 1: you put it in those terms, I think people are
Speaker 1: probably happy to have you guys around, right, So um,
Speaker 1: I am, and I think that it's those things are
Speaker 1: being able to it's it's erroneous at some level to
Speaker 1: expect every sportsman to understand all this stuff. You know,
Speaker 1: you still have the time of the day. They'd rather
Speaker 1: be sitting in a duck blind of course, and so
Speaker 1: I think, you know, as part of this conversation is
Speaker 1: understand that there's guys like out there like yourselves that
Speaker 1: are handling it, take care of it, working on their behalf.
Speaker 1: I think that's important, um, as much as anything with
Speaker 1: this policy stuff. Really, it bubbles up all the time,
Speaker 1: and it bubbles up to a point where they hear
Speaker 1: about it. Like the Black Bears, you don't hear out
Speaker 1: it until it's a it's a full on fist fight.
Speaker 1: But it'd be nice to cut that off for it
Speaker 1: before it's people with signs, you know, protest in the
Speaker 1: Black Bear. Yeah, and you know we do again, we
Speaker 1: do some of that stuff, and we do successfully cut
Speaker 1: it off before it gets there. Unfortunately, the you know,
Speaker 1: the ones that do show up, like the Black Bear hunt,
Speaker 1: you know, they make instant, instant national media stuff because
Speaker 1: people I have a wrong perception about what a bear is,
Speaker 1: and then then it just that just inflames it and
Speaker 1: by then then the game gets pretty dang hard for
Speaker 1: us at that point without a change in the administration
Speaker 1: up there. Well, yeah, and you've been so let's hit
Speaker 1: that real quick stup, assuming everyone knows. Can you give
Speaker 1: me a quick rundown of the most recent legislation past
Speaker 1: and New Jersey are the most recent ban, right, So
Speaker 1: it wasn't and again i'll let Andy if i'm if
Speaker 1: I go off. I don't think it was legislation. I
Speaker 1: think it was a decision made by the now governor
Speaker 1: uh and his department up there to say that they
Speaker 1: were going to suspend the bear hunt and definitely and
Speaker 1: basically stop it. And that's what's happened. And you know,
Speaker 1: all of us know that that management is done really
Speaker 1: well well, and it's regulated and hunting plays a critical
Speaker 1: role in that component of this thing. And the bear
Speaker 1: hunt has been very successful in New Jersey, and because
Speaker 1: New Jersey has a lot of black bears and and so, um,
Speaker 1: it's been a good tool. It's been working well. Um,
Speaker 1: the Anti's obviously got into somebody's ear or is he ear,
Speaker 1: and whispered enough and got enough traction on this thing
Speaker 1: that that they decided, you know, against the against the
Speaker 1: direction of their Fish and Game Agencies or DNROR whatever
Speaker 1: it's called New Jersey to go ahead and and implement
Speaker 1: this band. And you know, that's that's where politics can
Speaker 1: come in and in a bad way, you know. And
Speaker 1: so unfortunately, as I said, and maybe you know, hopefully
Speaker 1: it isn't gonna being something bad happens to somebody up
Speaker 1: there that's gonna trigger something. Um, but it's gonna take something,
Speaker 1: you know, beyond rational common sense. I think to try
Speaker 1: to put this back on track, and I think, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm afraid it's gone for this fall on. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: sounds like it is. Uh. Do you feel like it's
Speaker 1: a slippery slope there? I mean I'm always wary of
Speaker 1: the slippery slope part of me, like, don't make any
Speaker 1: changes or it's all gonna go. Um. Do you feel
Speaker 1: like the the bear hunting specifically we've seen in British
Speaker 1: Columbia and now you see it in New Jersey where people,
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, bears are a tipping point for where
Speaker 1: hunting lives and doesn't live and what's appropriate what's not.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like this recent set of bear related
Speaker 1: bands hunting bands are slippery slope or if if we
Speaker 1: allow it to continue, or if it does continue outside
Speaker 1: of our control. Next thing we know, they're banning deer hunts,
Speaker 1: and they're banning cod hunts, and they're banning all things
Speaker 1: like that. I would say, make no mistake that the
Speaker 1: same people who want to ban the bear hunt want
Speaker 1: to ban deer hunts. Uh, whether it's a slippy, slippery slope.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, we've had we've had this
Speaker 1: stuff going on. Um, you know, we lost spring bear
Speaker 1: hunting in Colorado, and um we opened black bear hunting
Speaker 1: in the state of Maryland and yeah, eight or nine
Speaker 1: or ten years ago something like that. Those and it's
Speaker 1: increasing and you know, the number of bears that they're taking.
Speaker 1: So there are there are some wins that go along
Speaker 1: with with the losses. Absolutely, and there's you know, the
Speaker 1: really screwed up thing about the New Jersey situation is
Speaker 1: that I believe that executive order that the governor signed
Speaker 1: directed his state agency director to ban bear hunting on
Speaker 1: the state game lands. And the ironic thing about that
Speaker 1: is all of those properties were acquired by the State
Speaker 1: of New Jersey use Pittman Robertson money that was produced
Speaker 1: by hunters and shooters. And so you know, I think
Speaker 1: there there's a philosophical and a practical problem there. Um.
Speaker 1: But you know, there's there's so many problems with the concept.
Speaker 1: I mean, since we lost the bear hunt in Colorado, um,
Speaker 1: you know, we've got we've got way more bears and
Speaker 1: a lot of those bears are dying anyway. From vehicle
Speaker 1: collisions or because they're getting into somebody's trash and steamboat
Speaker 1: or Aspen or Durango, and we've we've got over taxed
Speaker 1: State Fish Wilife Agency employees. You know, we had one
Speaker 1: summer where they were spending I think the statistic was
Speaker 1: just in one area between Glenwood Springs and Aspen, where
Speaker 1: a lot of those bear problems exist, forty thou man
Speaker 1: hours just responding to problem bears. And you know, I
Speaker 1: don't think there's anyone that is reasonable that thinks that
Speaker 1: our State Fish and Wildlife Agency employees time is best
Speaker 1: spent responding to Oh yeah, an old lady that says
Speaker 1: she's got a bear opening your trash can in her backyard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean go to go to California mount lines, the
Speaker 1: same idea, Yeah, yeah, any other thing. Per cent of
Speaker 1: those cats have household pets in their in their stomach
Speaker 1: when unique crop see them after the state has to
Speaker 1: go in and kill them because they've got in trouble. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's if you was if you were to
Speaker 1: stack up. I'm always at the point like hunters aren't
Speaker 1: always right, Like we're not always we're not always educated enough.
Speaker 1: She just just the regular person. I don't know about
Speaker 1: you man, and he's always right. That's why we've added
Speaker 1: him to the podcast. Jeff and I, we don't know
Speaker 1: no Maryland, that's right, apparently guys pragmatic. No, no, it
Speaker 1: all's out west. Um, that's why you're moving to monteam.
Speaker 1: I would get to know more and more that I
Speaker 1: think about that. But I think, yeah, you were to
Speaker 1: stack up the hypocrisies in the animal rights community that
Speaker 1: wouldn't take along and be pretty high stack Um, I
Speaker 1: think there you know, like you said, there's there's there's
Speaker 1: just so rooted in success, what's happened in the hunting
Speaker 1: space and fishing space to these conservation successes. You could
Speaker 1: stack them up as high as the hypocrisies on the
Speaker 1: animal right side and say, look, yeah, if you're an animal,
Speaker 1: you're listed on the Endangered Species Act, well, yes, say
Speaker 1: that if you it should be a victory to get
Speaker 1: delisted and hunted again. If you were to look at
Speaker 1: the whole of the species, if you look at this,
Speaker 1: you know, in the case of Wyoming's grizzling bear hunt,
Speaker 1: if you were to look at just those twenty two
Speaker 1: grizzlies that are gonna get killed. Okay, Yeah, but if
Speaker 1: you look at the whole of the population, it's it's
Speaker 1: a win. It's a victory to completely opened up, elisted
Speaker 1: and hunted again. And that's every uh, every species out
Speaker 1: there that it's a hounrible game species. Most of them
Speaker 1: were We're saved and and brought to bear by these policies,
Speaker 1: and most of them never ended up on the endangered
Speaker 1: species list. You look at you look at that list,
Speaker 1: you don't see a lot of game species on there.
Speaker 1: And I think there's something to be learned there. I
Speaker 1: wish more people would pay attention to that part of it, Um.
Speaker 1: But I think part of the stage grouse stuff is
Speaker 1: because there are people that are are committed to that
Speaker 1: because they enjoyed hunting them. Yeah, what are you know
Speaker 1: we get We can get really deep down this rabbit hole.
Speaker 1: But I would I'd love to just go over in
Speaker 1: some detail here in the last part of the podcast.
Speaker 1: You know what you guys are working on right now,
Speaker 1: um that maybe maybe it is getting publicity, maybe it's
Speaker 1: not something that you guys feel is very important to
Speaker 1: um the caucus into the foundation and to what you're
Speaker 1: working on. You know, I would imagine that like the
Speaker 1: main tenants that most hunters here about farm bill, Um,
Speaker 1: anything public Lilands related seems to be in their ear,
Speaker 1: and anything firearms related seems to be in their ear.
Speaker 1: But I'm sure there's many, many, many other things that
Speaker 1: even farm Bill seems to be something that used to
Speaker 1: be on the tip of every hunter's tongue, but not
Speaker 1: so much anymore. So. Is there anything I know, it's
Speaker 1: broad again question, but anything on there that you guys
Speaker 1: are pounding on really hard that that folks need to
Speaker 1: know about. Yeah, we've we've got a couple of things
Speaker 1: moving in the last week or two. UM. One is
Speaker 1: a bill called the Modernizing Pittman Robertson for Tomorrow's Needs Act,
Speaker 1: And I like how you guys with the act names
Speaker 1: are always it's impossible. Yeah, that's that's also by design,
Speaker 1: we're making so complicated that nobody can you can't ever
Speaker 1: keep up with them. But that one would provide the
Speaker 1: states a little more flexibility on how they use their
Speaker 1: Pittman Robertson allocations so that they can support some recruitment, retention,
Speaker 1: and reactivation. Are three. There's other are Yeah, there's another
Speaker 1: one for you, but they're they're somewhat restricted on how
Speaker 1: they can use that money, uh, as they should be.
Speaker 1: But I think there's a growing recognition that some of
Speaker 1: the declines in hunting numbers are a threat to the
Speaker 1: funding model we've already talked about earlier today. And UH,
Speaker 1: there are some states that want to have some additional
Speaker 1: flexibility to use that money to recruit and retain and
Speaker 1: reactivate new hunters. And so that's that's getting some traction. UH.
Speaker 1: There's another bill that's up is it tomorrow or tomorrow
Speaker 1: or Wednesday? That is called the Target Practice and Marksmanship
Speaker 1: Training Support Act, and that that one also allows the state.
Speaker 1: It's a little more flexibility with how they can use
Speaker 1: their shooting range grant programs. They're funded by Pittman Robertson.
Speaker 1: And part of the issue now is they have to
Speaker 1: come up with a state or local match to build
Speaker 1: a range. And this bill would lower the local or
Speaker 1: state match requirement to ten and rather than that two
Speaker 1: year window to obligate the money that exists now, they
Speaker 1: would extend it out to five. So the states and
Speaker 1: the locals have to come up with a little bit
Speaker 1: less and have longer to do it. And part of
Speaker 1: the motivation behind that is just with urbanization and uh sprawl,
Speaker 1: there's fewer places for people to shoot. They're more public
Speaker 1: land shooting conflicts out there, and you know, there's a
Speaker 1: there's a threat of lost access if you like to
Speaker 1: shoot on public lands and you live anywhere near a
Speaker 1: metropolitan area of any size. And so the hope is
Speaker 1: that if this passes, will be a little easier to
Speaker 1: get some ranges on the ground and build some of
Speaker 1: that stuff up, give people places to go, hopefully take
Speaker 1: care of some of those conflicts with other recreational users
Speaker 1: and adjacent landowners things like that. That's so those are
Speaker 1: good things and things that you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't know. Most hunter safety courses are all state
Speaker 1: hunter safety initiatives paid for by Pittman Robertson as that
Speaker 1: how it works, Yeah, at least partially partially, UM, folks
Speaker 1: just don't know that. I didn't know until recently. UM.
Speaker 1: And so there's just little parts of that that I've
Speaker 1: written about and talked about. But having you guys on
Speaker 1: to be able to articulate how it gets from an
Speaker 1: idea or a good idea, and sometimes it's like a
Speaker 1: back end good idea, like oh, we could do this, uh,
Speaker 1: in addition to all the other things we're doing on
Speaker 1: this bill or this package of legislation. So that's a
Speaker 1: that's a big deal. Yeah, I think you know, some
Speaker 1: of the administrative stuff has been really solid too. With
Speaker 1: the expansion of hunting in the National Wilife Refuge system. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, we've got hundreds of thousands of acres more
Speaker 1: places to go hunt now since they've been trying to
Speaker 1: marry those refuge regulations up with the state management objectives
Speaker 1: and state regulations. It sounds like we're gonna get be
Speaker 1: able to carry bows across national parks um real soon.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty excited about that. That was that one was
Speaker 1: just a ridiculous oversight by somebody, um seven or eight
Speaker 1: years ago when they passed that bill that allowed to
Speaker 1: carry a firearm across the national parks. So you know,
Speaker 1: if you're if you're wanting to go access BLM or
Speaker 1: for service or even private land, but you got across
Speaker 1: the national park to get there, you could carry a
Speaker 1: loaded firearm if you're a gun hunter, but not andy
Speaker 1: bows are dangerous carrying bows around. Somebody didn't get cut.
Speaker 1: Somebody had to sit there and ride those guys and
Speaker 1: ride those guys and ride those guys and say this
Speaker 1: is important enough that they're going to actually issue you know,
Speaker 1: um and whatever director's order or whatever it's gonna take.
Speaker 1: It took a regulatory change, I mean regulatory and nonce
Speaker 1: a regulatory change to move to move that needle and
Speaker 1: just take care of something that was an over I
Speaker 1: was was pretty simple on things. So you know, I
Speaker 1: think that's important too. I mean we, I think everyone
Speaker 1: in our society, but hunters too. There's these ideas that
Speaker 1: these large, you know, pieces of legislation or even legs,
Speaker 1: things that are legacy legislations have been going on like
Speaker 1: Pitt and Robins forever. They just come and go and
Speaker 1: they do their thing and nobody really has to work
Speaker 1: at it. But if you follow the money from you know,
Speaker 1: when the manufacturer pays their excise tax to where to win,
Speaker 1: it goes in a lot of cases to the I R.
Speaker 1: S and the you know, a US fish and wildlife,
Speaker 1: and then it goes to the states and the states
Speaker 1: have to do this. And if you follow that money,
Speaker 1: you just kind of get tired, right, It's hard to
Speaker 1: even read that stuff. So um, you know, folks just
Speaker 1: understand how how complicated, how good of a system it is,
Speaker 1: it's still complicated. It still takes so much to get
Speaker 1: that money in the right place and when it's there,
Speaker 1: to get it used in the right way. To think
Speaker 1: about all those guys sitting in a room in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirties coming up with that, Yeah smart, but smart without internet?
Speaker 1: Yeah smart. Yeah, that's a division. So I mean, that's
Speaker 1: you know, I think our challenges are to look at
Speaker 1: those big, big opportunities for the twenty first century. And
Speaker 1: you know, the little stuff is super important, and we're
Speaker 1: always going to be diligent and going after that, but
Speaker 1: some of these big things, you know. Um. Another one
Speaker 1: we haven't talked about is the Recovering America's Wildlife Act,
Speaker 1: which is uh an effort to try to get out
Speaker 1: in front of primarily the species of greatest concerns because again,
Speaker 1: the states just don't have the money anymore to go
Speaker 1: after all the all the things that the wildlife agencies
Speaker 1: have to do now. And there's somewhere in the neighborhood
Speaker 1: of eleven or twelve thousand potential candidate plant and animals
Speaker 1: species that that are could end up on the threatened
Speaker 1: or endangered species and I don't you know, I would
Speaker 1: argue nobody wants to see that happen. And if we can,
Speaker 1: if we can do proactive man dagement and and get
Speaker 1: out in front of this thing, it will not only
Speaker 1: be good for a conservation, it will be it'll be
Speaker 1: smart for America in terms of dollars and cents and so. UM.
Speaker 1: We've we've generated quite a bit of interest in this,
Speaker 1: in this legislation in the House and the Senate. We
Speaker 1: were candidly a bit disappointed that we couldn't figure out
Speaker 1: a way to weave it into the House Resources UH
Speaker 1: Committee mark up last week where they did the Atlanta
Speaker 1: water conservation funding. They did UH maintenance backlogs and park
Speaker 1: service and whatnot. There was a lot of money that
Speaker 1: was coming out and we're all supportive of that. This
Speaker 1: would have round it in our mind, this would have
Speaker 1: really rounded that package up to get to this level.
Speaker 1: To it just didn't make it yet. Um, we're still
Speaker 1: not giving up. We've still got you know, um, some
Speaker 1: other thoughts and things and in mind to try to
Speaker 1: make it happen. But you know, that would have that
Speaker 1: would have been a shot in the arm to add
Speaker 1: that put into that mix and Uh, now, those are
Speaker 1: the bits of disappointments, and when you're talking into the
Speaker 1: chairman and he's like, no, it's not gonna make it,
Speaker 1: and you're just you know, it's frustrating, but we're still
Speaker 1: going to be there. Ninety four House co sponsors on
Speaker 1: the bill right now, and and bipartisan um leadership on
Speaker 1: it in the Senate, and uh, it's just too important
Speaker 1: in terms of a big long term conservation fix for
Speaker 1: us to not be driving this thing as well. So now,
Speaker 1: and I think, how would you describe me? And I
Speaker 1: hear you talk about that, in my own mind, having
Speaker 1: some experience with the Sports's Caucus codifies kind of how
Speaker 1: important that caucus really is because of what it does.
Speaker 1: But how is you just described You know, we told
Speaker 1: people in the beginning what it is, but how would
Speaker 1: you describe its importance and kind of its impact on
Speaker 1: the caucus itself on legislation like that. If you look
Speaker 1: at a lot of the legislation that's out there that
Speaker 1: we've discussed during this podcast and that you discussed on
Speaker 1: other podcast, I would almost guarantee you that every one
Speaker 1: of those bills is introduced and largely supported by members
Speaker 1: of the Sportsman's Caucus not true on everything, but you know,
Speaker 1: there's an awful lot of support from that. It gives
Speaker 1: us the opportunity to be able to reach those guys
Speaker 1: in a very credible fashion. We've been around in this
Speaker 1: town for nearly thirty years. Um. The ethos that we
Speaker 1: have here is do not do not ever get caught
Speaker 1: up playing partisan politics, and do not ever get caught
Speaker 1: up given somebody partial information or god forbid, the wrong information.
Speaker 1: You know, you have to be CSF has to be
Speaker 1: the credible source that that they can rely on that
Speaker 1: we're going to give them the whole picture, tell them
Speaker 1: this is what's going on. You know, this is where
Speaker 1: it is. And and I think that we've we've earned
Speaker 1: that reputation because we're here, We see these guys, we
Speaker 1: see the staff members here, and so I think it's
Speaker 1: a critically important function to have that that group of people,
Speaker 1: if nothing else, that they trust us to get good
Speaker 1: information to them in a timely fashion because we can
Speaker 1: do it quickly here. You know, whether it's a electronic
Speaker 1: push up the button to get something up, what you
Speaker 1: could do from anywhere. But more importantly, if you have
Speaker 1: to hustle two blocks up the up the street for
Speaker 1: a meeting with somebody that gets called at five o'clock
Speaker 1: at night when they're saying, now, what exactly do you
Speaker 1: want us to slide in here? And you have to
Speaker 1: be there to explain that. You know, the Biparson thing
Speaker 1: strikes me as something that you know everybody can take
Speaker 1: to heart, like that that you guys are focusing on
Speaker 1: making sure what you're doing is best for wildlife conservation, hunters,
Speaker 1: anglers before it's oh, hey, we really believe that you know,
Speaker 1: we're pro extraction anti extraction. Don't start there. You start
Speaker 1: with um, the core of what we do, who we are.
Speaker 1: You know, the stuff hanging in your office tells a
Speaker 1: lot about those things too, and I think that's important.
Speaker 1: But have you seen, Jeff, because you've been around many decades,
Speaker 1: have you seen more challenges in recent administrations? You know,
Speaker 1: the Trump administration, the Obama administration. Have you seen more
Speaker 1: wild swings and partisan politics like I can think of
Speaker 1: the Bears the Year's National Monument is like the political
Speaker 1: football that they're just throwing back and forth. And I
Speaker 1: know from talking to some folks on the ground there
Speaker 1: that that just makes it harder to manage that that
Speaker 1: piece of land effectively if it keeps getting its designation
Speaker 1: change because it's a you know, political win or political
Speaker 1: loss or whatever. Have you seen that heightened in recent
Speaker 1: administrations or it has always been the challenge now, I
Speaker 1: would say, and not just administrations, the Congress to um.
Speaker 1: You know, Unfortunately, I think it's it's been heightened. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I think part of it is just the electronic age. Uh,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, you know, you're constantly being
Speaker 1: able to just bombard your position polarized. You know, people
Speaker 1: want to weigh in on stuff that they used to
Speaker 1: have to write a letter to you remember a Congress
Speaker 1: and things like that. I can just punch something into
Speaker 1: your keyboard. And unfortunately, it's just it has created that
Speaker 1: that image of polarizing and and our stuff gets caught
Speaker 1: in UM sometimes you know, a bear's years or something
Speaker 1: like that. Maybe it is in there anyway, but sometimes
Speaker 1: we just get caught. I mean, we've come so close
Speaker 1: to getting a sportsman's package done, you know, over the years,
Speaker 1: and then found out at the very end it's caught
Speaker 1: up in just purely partisan politics. They didn't want Obama
Speaker 1: to get a win, you know, and two years ago
Speaker 1: on his way out the door to sign a pro
Speaker 1: sportsman's bill, and that's what basically happened to it. And
Speaker 1: and you know, that's the kind of stuff that that
Speaker 1: is frustrating. And yeah, it's gotten worse, and it's both sides.
Speaker 1: There's there's plenty of blame to go across both sides
Speaker 1: of the political aisle. And um, the stakes are high,
Speaker 1: the money is high, um for these kinds of things.
Speaker 1: And as I say, I attribute part of it just
Speaker 1: to the electronic new age making it that much more polarizing.
Speaker 1: I would imagine that in the grand scheme of like
Speaker 1: human communication were toddlers when it comes to using digital communication.
Speaker 1: We don't know how to do it. We don't know
Speaker 1: how to do it effectively. Mostly it's just garbage. But
Speaker 1: you know, it's not it's good to know that there's
Speaker 1: there's a lot of winds happening in this building. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of winds happening. Then uh on Capitol Hill
Speaker 1: here for sportsmen, I mean, that's a huge thing I
Speaker 1: think for people to understand. It's not you know, if
Speaker 1: you get wrapped in a community of people, or you're
Speaker 1: wrapped in an organization that wants to make it seem
Speaker 1: like the sky is falling. It's falling in parts, but
Speaker 1: it's not all it's not all falling. It's it's never
Speaker 1: never as good as you think it's gonna be, and
Speaker 1: it's probably never as bad as you Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that goes back to that slippery slope argument. There's some
Speaker 1: more organizations around on both sides of of the ticket
Speaker 1: here that would say the sky is falling gets members,
Speaker 1: the sky is falling gets people to act, And that
Speaker 1: scares me sometimes to the to the point where where, um,
Speaker 1: I've seen it, like I said, I've seen it on
Speaker 1: one side and I've seen it on the other. I've
Speaker 1: seen one side that says I hate that organization, Like, well,
Speaker 1: you're doing the same thing they are, just for a
Speaker 1: different cause. Um, So that's pretty scary to me. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's you feel like, that's pretty damning on sometimes in
Speaker 1: the sports's community. Is just you want to feel like
Speaker 1: you motivate people to act, and your motivations can then
Speaker 1: become a little bit muddy. Doesn't help, Yeah, for sure,
Speaker 1: it never helps, you know, And and and that's just
Speaker 1: not our that's not our m oh here. Um, that's
Speaker 1: just not our style a or and and you know,
Speaker 1: do we get frustrated when things come off the rails? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you bet. You know, there's a lot of effort and
Speaker 1: time and energy and anticipation and when it doesn't go
Speaker 1: right it it can be pretty maddening. But you know,
Speaker 1: the winds are the winds are are equally as rewarding.
Speaker 1: And if we can get those hunter numbers to turn
Speaker 1: the corner and start coming back up, and we can
Speaker 1: keep making making sure that we've got clean water and
Speaker 1: you know, good landscapes and good habitat management and get
Speaker 1: people outside, you know, I think that's that's I know personally,
Speaker 1: that's what I get more motivated by, is to make
Speaker 1: sure that we can hand hand this off and you know,
Speaker 1: I can feel like I've done my part to pass
Speaker 1: it on, you know, so that's a huge part. Thank
Speaker 1: you for that. You're bad for sure. I think before
Speaker 1: we end the podcast, we should talk about hunting. That
Speaker 1: sounds good. You want to do layoff policy for a minute? Um,
Speaker 1: we're in Jeff, you're telling me about your your Colorado adventures.
Speaker 1: So what are you most excited about about the fall?
Speaker 1: You're gonna go hunt elk in Colorado? Second, rifle and
Speaker 1: second rifle and southwestern Colorado, and I have been doing
Speaker 1: it for a number of years now with a small
Speaker 1: group of buddies, and uh, you know, it's a high
Speaker 1: mountain camp. It's awesome and just for for a guy
Speaker 1: that that spends most of his time hunting in the east,
Speaker 1: just to be out on those mountains and in the
Speaker 1: vistas and you know that here the elk and just
Speaker 1: they're just magnificent. The views are magnificent, and the buddies
Speaker 1: that I'm with, it's a special time and we all
Speaker 1: look for word to it. And it's a little dry
Speaker 1: out there, some fingers crossed it. Maybe some moisture will
Speaker 1: generators and we'll take care of that for you. We
Speaker 1: direct some of this hurricane. We'll take it. Andy. What
Speaker 1: do you got on the dock? I've got a third
Speaker 1: season elk hunt in western Colorado and Grand Mesa lined up,
Speaker 1: going with some buddies from high school that I haven't
Speaker 1: hunted in a while with and uh, got some old
Speaker 1: men going with us. Should be some good stories, even
Speaker 1: older than you. Yeah, So hopefully they don't shoot anything,
Speaker 1: because I'm sure I'll have to carry it out if
Speaker 1: they do. But that's probably why I'm invited. So that's
Speaker 1: half the fun anymore. Yeah, yeah, I'm just off the mountain. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've got I've got two little kids at home, so
Speaker 1: any any time I can sneak out is a good time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know that feeling. Another feeling. Well, thank you, gentlemen.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you. Sit down, Thanks for what you do. Um.
Speaker 1: Thanks for fighting sportsmen and making sure we have a voice.
Speaker 1: Appreciate it. Thank you, Thanks, Thanks, that's it. That's all
Speaker 1: episode number nine in the books. I really appreciate Jeff
Speaker 1: Crane and Andy Treharn hanging out, what they had to say,
Speaker 1: how they describe what they do for a living, um,
Speaker 1: And really most of all to me, bottom line on
Speaker 1: this thing is how many times they brought up, brought
Speaker 1: up bipartisanship, how many times they brought up having any
Speaker 1: dal with parts of politics, um and having to work
Speaker 1: around them. And and bravo, bravo to these guys from
Speaker 1: being the voices for bipartisanship, for working hard on what
Speaker 1: I come. We consider some of these are the little things,
Speaker 1: the little details that will allow us to continue doing
Speaker 1: what we do outside. And so don't forget about Andy
Speaker 1: and Jeff and CSF what they do as go and hunt,
Speaker 1: you go and fish, and your money's are funneled back
Speaker 1: into conservation because they are important. So let's not forget
Speaker 1: them as we go out this fall. Go hunting. Uh.
Speaker 1: Next time on the show, we're gonna catch up with
Speaker 1: Charles the Rabbitman Rodney, another resident of the DC area,
Speaker 1: somebody I've hunted within the past. He is an amazing
Speaker 1: character and his nickname is the Rabbit Man. So come
Speaker 1: on back for that next week. Until then, Honey Collective
Speaker 1: dot com for articles, for video, for all the other stuff.
Speaker 1: With this podcast, I want you to continue to go
Speaker 1: there and hang out, and soon enough you'll find that
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a new home for the Hunting Collective.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about that in the week to come, very
Speaker 1: very soon, and hopefully you will pique that as I am.
Speaker 1: So we will see you for episode thirty next Tuesday morning.
Speaker 1: Back