Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome Episode number eight The Hunting Collective. I'm
Speaker 1: Ben or Brian. Today we are joined by pure nomad
Speaker 1: Sam Soholt. Sam somebody I met five or six years
Speaker 1: ago and as a young photographer in the hunting industry,
Speaker 1: and somebody that I became fast friends with, and somebody
Speaker 1: who not only did I respect who he was and
Speaker 1: what he did by respect that he's creative vision in
Speaker 1: his work and all the things he did with a camera,
Speaker 1: with a rifle, with a bow, whatever. And Sam's also
Speaker 1: somebody who lives a life that a lot of people
Speaker 1: could respect. He lives as a nomad, kind of doesn't
Speaker 1: have an address. It's hard to pin him down. I
Speaker 1: know he used to live in Montana and sometimes in
Speaker 1: South Dakota, but he kind of always was everywhere and
Speaker 1: doing things, living life the way all of us would
Speaker 1: want to, just with a ton of freedom. And most recently,
Speaker 1: Sam has built a bus. He didn't build a bus,
Speaker 1: He bought a US and then turn it into a
Speaker 1: camp mobile hunting camp and took it around and used
Speaker 1: that bus to highlight public lands um and he's also
Speaker 1: has a company called public Land Tease that he started
Speaker 1: that money goes back into backhuns and anglers for public
Speaker 1: lands from each purchase. So all these things put together
Speaker 1: makes Sam a force in the hunting world and somebody
Speaker 1: I call a friend and I'm happy to do so.
Speaker 1: So hopefully episode number eight will be a good one
Speaker 1: for you. Please enjoy Sam. So, Sam, what's up? What's
Speaker 1: going on? Not much? Um? I am actually just sitting
Speaker 1: in my pick out at the moment. I figured that
Speaker 1: would be the quietest place where I could record this week. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've done a few. This will be our second, or
Speaker 1: at least one of the participants, if not. Both were
Speaker 1: in a pickup, and I find that to be okay.
Speaker 1: I have no problem with that. Yeah, yeah, it works
Speaker 1: as long as you're not driving. You and cawhanded it
Speaker 1: in in the pickup in the show, didn't you, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is a bit of a Russian nesting doll of weirdness. Yes,
Speaker 1: we did. Um. Yeah, so you're not driving the truck
Speaker 1: though it's stationary. I'm not driving. No, I'm not driving.
Speaker 1: I parked, um, but I thought it seems fitting. I'm
Speaker 1: a fairly you know, travel a fair bit, so that's good.
Speaker 1: I might as well do it in my home. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, what I mean. Yeah, I feel like the
Speaker 1: first thing to talk about is that it's turkey season,
Speaker 1: because that's the only thing to think about right now.
Speaker 1: If anybody else's as a hunter and they're thinking about
Speaker 1: anything about turkeys, they're foolish. And I've had pretty much
Speaker 1: turkeys and snow geese. Yeah, you know, like whatever, whatever,
Speaker 1: snow geese, whatever, let's get okay in February, you can
Speaker 1: hut snow geese that track. Yeah, you got some turkey
Speaker 1: plants coming up? I do. Yeah, I'm gonna do a
Speaker 1: little turkey tour in the bus. Um. I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: chase some in Nebraska first before I go out to
Speaker 1: Boise for the b h A rendezvous, and then depending
Speaker 1: on timing, probably chase some in my home state in
Speaker 1: South Dakota, and then uh, you never know. It's the turkeys.
Speaker 1: With turkeys is kind of nice. You don't have to
Speaker 1: plan like a ten day trip. You know, somebody can
Speaker 1: call you and be like, hey, I've got turkeys something like,
Speaker 1: all right, I'll be there in the morning and and
Speaker 1: you go and shoot a turkey. You're right about that
Speaker 1: always the case. I know, it's not always the case
Speaker 1: for turkey hunting. But a lot of times, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not like you know, chasing Mulder or Elk, where
Speaker 1: you gotta have plenty of days to make sure you
Speaker 1: get it done. We're talking about this the other day.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like there's a way to do a
Speaker 1: public land grand slam in the States. There's gotta be
Speaker 1: Let's make that a thing. Yeah, there's gotta be. Let's
Speaker 1: make that a thing. Because I don't know that anybody's
Speaker 1: ever said or did that. I just shot an Osceola
Speaker 1: in Florida. I don't know if there Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: was looking around on the maps and the Onyx maps
Speaker 1: trying to figure out if there was public where you
Speaker 1: could turkey hunt, because I feel like that's the only
Speaker 1: missing piece. I mean, there's I know you can hunt
Speaker 1: easterns Rio's and Miriam's in public ground. I know that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if we can find the secret public around spot for Osceola's,
Speaker 1: we're in. I feel like between you and I though,
Speaker 1: like we know enough people in Florida where we could
Speaker 1: make that happen. Yeah, we just can't tell anybody if
Speaker 1: we find like the golden spot for Osceola's, No, we can't.
Speaker 1: It have to be like, I don't know how we
Speaker 1: pull that off. We just we have to do it
Speaker 1: very publicly but very secretive. At the same time. We
Speaker 1: would make we would just probably make up names. We
Speaker 1: wouldn't say what's really going on, that's right, Yeah, because
Speaker 1: I can't imagine there's somebody from Florida can right in
Speaker 1: and tell us all about the public land turkey. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I can't imagine there's a whole lot of that
Speaker 1: going on. Yeah, I wouldn't imagine. So, but it seems
Speaker 1: like a good goal that we need to figure out
Speaker 1: how to pull off in the next couple of years.
Speaker 1: It's it's true. Tell just tell everybody, why do you
Speaker 1: think turkey hunting is the best type of hunting there is?
Speaker 1: Because that's I mean, obviously that's the reality. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's okay, I'll just start. Turkey
Speaker 1: hunting is amazing. Uh, first of all, of springtime, like everything,
Speaker 1: you know, like just spring in general is great. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like the transition out of the deep freeze.
Speaker 1: And you know, if you live in the northern part
Speaker 1: of the US and everything starts, you know, everything's growing
Speaker 1: back and everything's turning green, and everything smells good, and
Speaker 1: then you go out and you chase these like twelve
Speaker 1: to twenty pound dinosaurs that basically yell at you and
Speaker 1: to try to attack you, and then you shoot him
Speaker 1: in self defense. Most of the time, it's it's uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I it took me a long time
Speaker 1: to get into turkey hunting. I never thought I would,
Speaker 1: Like I didn't like watching movies that you know, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't like watching turkey hunting. Is it
Speaker 1: just time side? It was just super boring. But I
Speaker 1: only did it one time, and I was like, I
Speaker 1: get it now, this is pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: like almost saying, like, tell me why Donald Trump is
Speaker 1: the greatest president or the best president? Yeah, you really
Speaker 1: phrase that. I feel like turkey hunting. Rogan talk ship
Speaker 1: on turkey hunting when he went with Ronella, and I
Speaker 1: feel like there's other people around that are popular to
Speaker 1: talk ship on turkey hunting. So I just feel like
Speaker 1: I need to be a voice for the greatness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: did they go kill did they kill any turkeys? I
Speaker 1: feel like I don't know if Rogan killed a turkey
Speaker 1: or not. Probably not. Well, that's that's probably why he's
Speaker 1: talking shit. On it. I don't know, but if he did,
Speaker 1: I'll get him eventually. But I just feel I feel
Speaker 1: like turkey hunting is just underrated. It's seen as like
Speaker 1: a redneck pursuit, which maybe it is. I'm a redneck.
Speaker 1: But even even if it is, it's worth it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're talking to a giant raptor with giant yeah terms. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so here's the question, uh for you and you've
Speaker 1: you've done a lot more turkey hunting than I have. Um,
Speaker 1: And a lot of people say that they're, you know,
Speaker 1: an incredibly smart bird. In my personal opinion, I think
Speaker 1: that they are so dumb that they are hard to hunt.
Speaker 1: Like they they flie down from the roost, they have
Speaker 1: no idea what they're doing. They're like a ping pong ball.
Speaker 1: It's just like, you know, it's like a it's like
Speaker 1: a puffed up the turn and then and then they
Speaker 1: just keep they go and they hit that field edge
Speaker 1: and then they just turn it just you know, just
Speaker 1: strutting around up. Yeah. Yeah, I mean that could be either.
Speaker 1: There's times when your turkey hunting and it seems like
Speaker 1: the most simplest thing you could ever do. See you
Speaker 1: go out there, you make something, you shut the carridor
Speaker 1: and they start gobbling, they come running and you shoot them.
Speaker 1: Like I've had things like that happened where you just asked,
Speaker 1: like last year, two years ago in Florida. But the
Speaker 1: turkeys are tough. All morning, they weren't really goblin. We
Speaker 1: didn't get into much. And we were walking back to
Speaker 1: the truck on this paved road and there was a
Speaker 1: little food plot just down over this little palmetto ridge
Speaker 1: and we were talking full voices, and I think this
Speaker 1: turkey gobbled at our voices was the first time it gobbled.
Speaker 1: And then I just went down over the hill and
Speaker 1: hit the call one time and it came running through
Speaker 1: this palmetto and I shot at like five yards. So
Speaker 1: then you're thinking like, mmm, I gotta tell you this
Speaker 1: can't be the hardest thing when that's when that's going on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But I just I think that we hunt them and
Speaker 1: just like a white tailed deer, if you were only
Speaker 1: hunting white tailed deer in November, you would think they're
Speaker 1: the dumbest, you know, pussy hungry things there ever was. Um,
Speaker 1: So I think we we and then you know they've
Speaker 1: habititated or they've cohabitated enough that we'll see him in
Speaker 1: our backyards and you see him in parks sometimes, and
Speaker 1: so anything you see in those environments you think might
Speaker 1: not be that's smart. But I've hunted swamp gobblers in
Speaker 1: Louisiana that you just thought, there's no way I'll you'll
Speaker 1: ever trick it into coming near you. I mean, they're
Speaker 1: just he just feels like you'd never get it done.
Speaker 1: So I think yes, and yeah, yeah, yeah, it's all situational. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I'm I'm reading an article now, uh from our boys,
Speaker 1: Steve Hiccoff. You ever met Steve Hickoff. I don't think
Speaker 1: I have. He's a turkey killing genius. So he has
Speaker 1: an article on realtory dot com called how to get
Speaker 1: your Turkey hunting Grand Slam on public Land. He wrote
Speaker 1: it in January, so he so the first thing he says,
Speaker 1: good news three quarters the grand slam of public land
Speaker 1: is easy. Bad news the quarter not accounted for as
Speaker 1: as Florida's Asceola subspecies. Tagging a public land Osceola is tough,
Speaker 1: I think, goes on. He goes on the list of
Speaker 1: how tough it actually is. Oh, yeah, seems worth, seems
Speaker 1: worth trying. Seems worth. See, that's it. We just gotta
Speaker 1: spend like a whole month in Florida scouting, sitting on
Speaker 1: the beach, drinking booze. That's what we gotta do. That's
Speaker 1: the only way it doesn't seem terrible. Hopefully Steve Hicks
Speaker 1: to this and can help us. I'll get an air
Speaker 1: condition or putting the bus and we can roll that down. Yeah. Yeah, man, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you get a lot of a lot of ladies get
Speaker 1: on that bus. Like when the bus pulls up and
Speaker 1: they see inside, a lot of a lot of young
Speaker 1: ladies want to get in there. Are you asking that question? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a question. No, they don't know. That's not a thing.
Speaker 1: It's you know, surprisingly enough, luckily I have a girlfriends.
Speaker 1: But it's not exactly. I wouldn't call it a female
Speaker 1: magnet um a big green and white school bus. It's
Speaker 1: not exact to the opposite. Second, Yeah, I would say
Speaker 1: for any regular listeners, I'm feeling a little bit more
Speaker 1: free flowing with the verbage today just because I'm drinking beer.
Speaker 1: And that's okay. Sam and I are good friends, we're
Speaker 1: not just acquaintances, so it's gonna Yeah, we've been in
Speaker 1: a few camps together. Yeah, a couple of times, been
Speaker 1: here and there. Um, so just this since we already
Speaker 1: touched on the bus. For those who don't know, give
Speaker 1: us the bus rundown and don't be shotting the details, okay.
Speaker 1: Um So, I it's funny. I was, I was thinking
Speaker 1: about this before we we hopped on the phone, and
Speaker 1: I was trying to figure out like when the bus
Speaker 1: idea first originated. And I actually remember telling the first
Speaker 1: time you and I that was up in BC with Rogan,
Speaker 1: and I remember telling you guys that I was thinking
Speaker 1: about buying a bus and that was what was that November?
Speaker 1: Yes almost yeah, be four years ago this fall? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so um yeah, I remember, like and I think it
Speaker 1: was like that's like spring of the the bus idea
Speaker 1: had like popped into my and and I was actually,
Speaker 1: you know, my brother and I had had talked about,
Speaker 1: you know, buying a school bus, and and actually we
Speaker 1: had originally talked about doing like a twelve state Turkey
Speaker 1: tour in a school bus. So this, you know, like
Speaker 1: what we talked about earlier, kind of segways nicely into this.
Speaker 1: But um no, I said, it took me a while
Speaker 1: to kind of wrapped my hand around actually purchasing long
Speaker 1: And it was not this last fall, but the fall
Speaker 1: before I was kind of coming off the hunting season,
Speaker 1: and I was just, you know, I had a good year,
Speaker 1: and it was had traveled a bunch and shooting photos
Speaker 1: and and hunting for myself, and and uh, the bus
Speaker 1: idea just hadn't gone away in at that point, I
Speaker 1: was like, you know what, I'm turning thirty this year. UM, Like,
Speaker 1: the amount of time in my life where I can
Speaker 1: do something like purchase a full size school bus and
Speaker 1: build it out into a camper is It's comminishing quickly.
Speaker 1: So I finally I was like, well, I'll just do it.
Speaker 1: And if I hay it, well then I know I
Speaker 1: hate it. But if I don't do it, I'm always
Speaker 1: gonna regret not you know, pulling the triggering doing this
Speaker 1: crazy adventure. And it was right after I decided to
Speaker 1: find a bus and buy one. UM, I actually called you,
Speaker 1: uh to talk to you about an idea that I
Speaker 1: had um with the bus project and actually relating it
Speaker 1: all to UM public land transfer awareness and trying to
Speaker 1: get the word out there, you know, to as many
Speaker 1: people as possible about the possibility of losing our public lands,
Speaker 1: and uh, you and I kind of spit ball back
Speaker 1: and forth on the phone, and like you know, I
Speaker 1: got in touch with b H and I have been
Speaker 1: working with them and have been working with a few
Speaker 1: other UM companies, you know, outdoor Life and those types
Speaker 1: of people to to get the word out there. But
Speaker 1: ye ha, it all originated the fall of and I
Speaker 1: bought a school bus from Colorado and and turned it
Speaker 1: into my rolling hunting camp. And how like when you
Speaker 1: see when you get is you bought a Bluebird? What
Speaker 1: year was your Bluebird school bus? That? Yeah? So uh
Speaker 1: some of the specs on it now so I yeah,
Speaker 1: it was the Bluebird U full size, so full size
Speaker 1: passenger UM and I bought it four so it's listed
Speaker 1: for fifty d And I was able to talk the
Speaker 1: guy down to thirty hundred sous I had at that point,
Speaker 1: I owned thirty seven ft long. Um. Yeah, so I
Speaker 1: owned thirty seven feet of vehicle. Dude. Right now, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm on eBay googling used school buses and this is scene.
Speaker 1: What's out there. There's a lot, It's amazing, unbelievable. I'm
Speaker 1: certainly not I'm not the first person to buy a
Speaker 1: school buss and turn it into a camper. No, but
Speaker 1: I am the first one to do it in the
Speaker 1: hunting industry and related all to public lands. I'll take that.
Speaker 1: It's like a small credit. Here's the guy that wants
Speaker 1: dollars or a twenty four pastor like a short bus. Well,
Speaker 1: what years it is a four wheel drive? I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: it doesn't look like look like something. It's probably just
Speaker 1: a year. Yeah, dude, four wheel drive short bus. Come on, man,
Speaker 1: like that's another you should you should tow that behind
Speaker 1: the bigger bus to deploy an all fer situations. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get a van, a four wheel drive van
Speaker 1: and build that out. Any anyway, continue, you've purchased this bus.
Speaker 1: Purchased the bus? Um, I bought in Colorado and actually
Speaker 1: parked it. My brother owns a hunting shop in Fort
Speaker 1: Collins and he's got a big lot behind his place,
Speaker 1: and I bought it and I parked it there for
Speaker 1: a while. Um Because, to be honest, I didn't really have,
Speaker 1: um any goal other than getting the bus, and then
Speaker 1: I was going to figure it out from there. Um.
Speaker 1: So I bought it and then I went to a
Speaker 1: show and I had, I talked to a bunch of
Speaker 1: companies about the project and what I was doing and
Speaker 1: um and that's where the like the connection to outdoor
Speaker 1: life came from. But it was at this point it
Speaker 1: was still just I owned a school bus and that
Speaker 1: was it. And yeah, so you know, and in the
Speaker 1: time between UM I bought it on New Year's Eave.
Speaker 1: In the time between Ben and UM April, I was
Speaker 1: just drawing plans and you know, thinking of ideas and
Speaker 1: UM not ashamed to say that I've done a lot
Speaker 1: of browsing on Pinterest, because apparently everybody else with a
Speaker 1: school bus puts all of their stuff on Pinterest, so
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of each oior design ideas. UM,
Speaker 1: and I just gotta you know, I kind of tried
Speaker 1: to figure out what I wanted it to look like,
Speaker 1: and then it at the very end, uh so I
Speaker 1: ripped all the seats out in February, uh March I
Speaker 1: was traveling for work. And then in April I drove
Speaker 1: the bus back to South Dakota, um my, so that
Speaker 1: I could park it at their lake place and do
Speaker 1: the whole build there. And which worked great for me
Speaker 1: because I got to leave it the lake and wake
Speaker 1: up and go work on the school bus. But I, um,
Speaker 1: at the end of it wasn't until the end of
Speaker 1: May that I finally painted the ceiling and actually got
Speaker 1: to work on the interior. Um. So I painted the
Speaker 1: ceiling and and then I put down the floor and
Speaker 1: see paint the ceiling, put down the floor, and then
Speaker 1: I put up all of the framework on the walls,
Speaker 1: so then I could put up all of the pine
Speaker 1: on the walls and and and bolt everything to the
Speaker 1: outside so that way but wouldn't shift around. But I yeah,
Speaker 1: I turned it into I took it from yellow school
Speaker 1: bus with no seats to mobile hunting camp in uh
Speaker 1: I guess nine weeks. Yeah, so you just went you
Speaker 1: just had like a did you draw a blueprint and
Speaker 1: then went to home depot or did you just kind
Speaker 1: of go? I mean you had a layout right before
Speaker 1: you went, and yeah, yeah, I had a layout. So
Speaker 1: after UM, so, I painted the ceiling and then I
Speaker 1: went in there. I went in there with like just
Speaker 1: masking tape and um kind of the measurements of everything
Speaker 1: I wanted to put in there. Uh So, like the
Speaker 1: queen bed is in the back, so I'm putting masking
Speaker 1: tape on the floor where the queen bed was gonna sit.
Speaker 1: And then I kind of just roughly like guess like
Speaker 1: how much space I would want between that bed and
Speaker 1: like the bunk beds, you know, and then I massed
Speaker 1: off the bunk beds where those were gonna sit. And
Speaker 1: then you know, I just worked my way from the
Speaker 1: back to the front um. And so I've got a
Speaker 1: queen bed in the back, I've got team sets of
Speaker 1: bunk beds um in front of that, so I can
Speaker 1: sleep five or six in the bus um and then
Speaker 1: in front of the bunk beds and the bunk beds
Speaker 1: all open up for tons of storage um, which is nice.
Speaker 1: I can keep most of my gear in the bunks
Speaker 1: or underneath the queen bed. And then in front of that,
Speaker 1: I have on the we'll say on on the starboard
Speaker 1: side of the bus. We I have like kitchen, uh
Speaker 1: kitchen areas. So I've got cabinets up top um for
Speaker 1: all of my cooking stuff or like all you know,
Speaker 1: spices and oil and like anything I would need to
Speaker 1: cook a meal. And then I've got a kitchen countertop
Speaker 1: that I've made out of old barnwood. And then I
Speaker 1: apoxed it, and I built built a cabinet that houses
Speaker 1: both my battery system and then storage for my um
Speaker 1: stoves and pots and pans and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: And then on the same side, I've got a little
Speaker 1: desk where I throw all of my photo editing video editing.
Speaker 1: And then on the side in front of the bunks,
Speaker 1: I've got a little room that was intended to be
Speaker 1: a bathroom, and I bought a portable toilet for it,
Speaker 1: but I have yet to use it. I just it
Speaker 1: turned into a just kind of like a little storage
Speaker 1: closet and hang a bunch of clothes in there and stuff.
Speaker 1: Most of the time, I just use Great Mother Nature
Speaker 1: for any outdoor facility needs. And then uh yeah, and
Speaker 1: then I've got any space from my appropriate fireplace in
Speaker 1: front of that, and then a couch and yeah that
Speaker 1: the inside is great for just like if it's just me,
Speaker 1: it's it's a ton of room and um, it's a
Speaker 1: great living space. And then any time I've got more people,
Speaker 1: I had a custom I custom built the framework, but
Speaker 1: then had that cam is sewed for it. I have
Speaker 1: a ten by twenty and closed awning that's it's next
Speaker 1: to the bus. So all in total, I have a
Speaker 1: little over four square feet of space when I have
Speaker 1: camps out. Man, Yeah, that's I don't know that how
Speaker 1: in the if I'm have any ingenuity in my body,
Speaker 1: but probably not enough to pull that off in the
Speaker 1: time that you did, and that I'm hoping you saved
Speaker 1: all the instant story material from those from those deals
Speaker 1: because that was Yeah, yeah, I've got a lot of
Speaker 1: I got a lot of content, um just saved on
Speaker 1: the computer and the phone. Are they save it on Instagram?
Speaker 1: And then now you can save Instagram stories to your
Speaker 1: feed or to your page. Can people go and look
Speaker 1: at that the build out on your so not right now?
Speaker 1: I could actually go back. Um, I could go back
Speaker 1: and add a bunch of stuff, but I'm during what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do is during this Turkey tour or like
Speaker 1: this Turkey and I'm doing the next couple of weeks. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm going to completely set up camp like everything, and
Speaker 1: then I'm gonna do a full walk through tour kind
Speaker 1: of my yeah, my entire design and what's in there.
Speaker 1: And then once i get that, if you at, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna let well and then I'm gonna try to do
Speaker 1: it like a live Instagram feed where I can people
Speaker 1: that have watched the video can ask questions about any
Speaker 1: part of it, the business and so your your general
Speaker 1: advice to folks would be that you need some ingenuity,
Speaker 1: a school bus and a ton of time and you
Speaker 1: can do it. Yeah, yep, yeah, I mean luckily for me,
Speaker 1: as you know, unless I'm on a photo trip, I
Speaker 1: don't have you know, there's not all that much going
Speaker 1: on in between in between trips, and so I was
Speaker 1: able to you know, I'd wake up it whatever seven
Speaker 1: am and make a pot of coffee and send a
Speaker 1: couple of unitals if I need two, and that I
Speaker 1: would walk outside of the bus and get my home
Speaker 1: my table, son skill son minor by the compressor for
Speaker 1: my mail gun, and just work until it was duck. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't even want to add how many hours, like
Speaker 1: two things like how many hours I spent inside of
Speaker 1: it just building it, and then how many times I
Speaker 1: walked in and out of it like just you know,
Speaker 1: go in, measure one thing, go out kind of board,
Speaker 1: go back here, like I mean ten thousand times in
Speaker 1: two months. I think the more like the more interesting
Speaker 1: part of it is how you have come to have
Speaker 1: that free time, right because a lot of people that
Speaker 1: are listening to this on their way to work or
Speaker 1: at work or in a cubicle, and they would love
Speaker 1: and most people would love to have the freedom that
Speaker 1: you have, right because it's just tell Polkes what your
Speaker 1: your job is currently and kind of what what that entails. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess my title would just be, uh, professional photographer
Speaker 1: in the hunting industry. Um, I don't know if that's yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I do a lot of a lot of things,
Speaker 1: but yeah, that's that's probably like as general as I
Speaker 1: can as I can get. Um but yeah, I started.
Speaker 1: I mean, it took me a long time for sure
Speaker 1: to get where I'm at. But um I jokingly I
Speaker 1: tell people I retired out of college basically, um but
Speaker 1: I my first job in the industry was I worked, Um,
Speaker 1: I was camerap and um video producer for Midwest Whitetail.
Speaker 1: I was finishing up my uh Masters of Business at
Speaker 1: North Dakota State. UM but I all I had was
Speaker 1: an online class left and so I took an internship
Speaker 1: with Midwest white Tail and moved to Albia and spent
Speaker 1: all roughly six months UM in Albia and was either
Speaker 1: hunting or filming twice a day and producing videos. Was
Speaker 1: producing the Michigan and Minnesota like weekly web shows, and
Speaker 1: then I was filming for the main show from Midwest,
Speaker 1: White Tale, and really picked up a lot of my
Speaker 1: you know, video education from from all the guys that
Speaker 1: I was working with now there and then that transition,
Speaker 1: and I moved to Colorado after that, and I was
Speaker 1: helping manage UM. Like I said before, my brother owns
Speaker 1: at that country hunting store, but I was helping manage that.
Speaker 1: UM it's called the Gannett Ridge, and I was producing
Speaker 1: video content for for that shop. And then I moved
Speaker 1: to Montana and the sales are up. Actually I um
Speaker 1: took a job through UH the owner of a rep
Speaker 1: age and see who sold to my brother and UH
Speaker 1: move in Montana. But shortly after that, I had an
Speaker 1: opportunity to move to Alaska and film a couple of
Speaker 1: different national TV shows for the Weather Channel and the
Speaker 1: History Channel, UM Coast Guard Alaska and then The Hunt
Speaker 1: for the History Channel, and I jumped on that, moved
Speaker 1: to Kodiak for about five months so and then from
Speaker 1: that it's just you know, it's from there, it's just
Speaker 1: been all networking stuff. So you know, I meet one
Speaker 1: person on one show, and then that led to History Channel,
Speaker 1: and then that led to me meeting Chris Ellis, who
Speaker 1: you know pretty well. And yeah, and Chris is a
Speaker 1: PR guy for in the industry, and he hired me
Speaker 1: to do my first professional photo shoot, um for Remington's.
Speaker 1: And then through all of those events that you know
Speaker 1: I met, it was actually a Reckington event where I
Speaker 1: met Mike Scobie who then forwarded you my portfolio and
Speaker 1: then hired to go up to b C. So it's um,
Speaker 1: I became a photographer. You know, I feel like I
Speaker 1: have a pretty good eye for photography. But I I
Speaker 1: think I'd became successful in what I do because of
Speaker 1: just networking as much as possible and just meeting you know,
Speaker 1: as many people as I could on every single trip. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's I'm sure that's a huge part of it.
Speaker 1: I mean, but there's some innate need, not to say,
Speaker 1: a desk that I think drives people to fine. I'm
Speaker 1: sure you found like what what's the what's the thing
Speaker 1: that's going to get me free or keep me free?
Speaker 1: And if it was networking, that would have been it.
Speaker 1: You know that that yeah, was it? Or if it's
Speaker 1: I need to be talented in these areas, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what you need to do. Yeah. No, I think I
Speaker 1: think forever, you know, up, I think I was. I
Speaker 1: was never destined to be, you know, at a quote
Speaker 1: unquote normal job. I always wanted to, you know, be
Speaker 1: in the outdoors. Um a long time, had a dream
Speaker 1: to be doing something in the hunting industry. And I
Speaker 1: think that the further I went down the past that
Speaker 1: I'm on, the more I realized how how much I
Speaker 1: didn't want to be like, you know, building every day.
Speaker 1: And um, Fortunately for me, I just you know, I
Speaker 1: was was able to keep that going and work my
Speaker 1: ass after where I am now so um, but I can't,
Speaker 1: I mean after doing it for so long and you know,
Speaker 1: and having the type of flexibility that I do, you know,
Speaker 1: and and it'd be I can hardly imagine you know,
Speaker 1: trying to work for a company or works or whoever
Speaker 1: you know, and where I clock in it whatever seven
Speaker 1: am and clock out of five or whatever it might be.
Speaker 1: It that would be really tough for me. You know.
Speaker 1: It might be really good for about six months and
Speaker 1: then be pooped up and pitching to go so right now.
Speaker 1: It only takes me about three days before move on
Speaker 1: to the next adventure. Yeah, I'm with you, man, I
Speaker 1: am tortured by that that balance as they call work
Speaker 1: life balance, but I just call it like life balance.
Speaker 1: Work is work is what you do that interrupts your
Speaker 1: life for sure. Well, I think you know it's as
Speaker 1: cliche as it sounds. I mean, we only get one
Speaker 1: shot at this whole thing. So I know, a long
Speaker 1: time ago I decided, like why, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: want to I don't want to waste my not that
Speaker 1: you know, working is wasting your life, but I just
Speaker 1: wanted to do as many things I would have just
Speaker 1: been completely more out at the end of my event. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, I do that working a normal job for
Speaker 1: me personally was not going to get me there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean that's good. I mean the good advice for
Speaker 1: people that are in that situation or who are are
Speaker 1: realizing that that their path maybe took them in a
Speaker 1: wrong direction, where your path I think took you in
Speaker 1: the right direction for you is that you know you
Speaker 1: can always change that. I mean, there isn't you there
Speaker 1: was no template for you like that, Nobody laid out
Speaker 1: like hey, Sam, if you if you go on this
Speaker 1: moose hunt with Ben and Joe Rogan and and take
Speaker 1: some photos, next thing you know, you'll have a career.
Speaker 1: Or hey, if you you want to shoot some Remington
Speaker 1: photos for some of some guns at a at a
Speaker 1: media event, Yeah, that next thing, you know, you'll be
Speaker 1: hanging out with Joe Rogan. Like, if you reverse the
Speaker 1: steps that led you to where you are, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: at each step you wouldn't believe the other. And that's
Speaker 1: how I am too, not a chiance. Yeah, you wouldn't.
Speaker 1: When you were in that Remington shoot, somebody said, hey,
Speaker 1: the next thing you're gonna do is take photos of
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan for a Peterson's Hunting cover in British Columbia
Speaker 1: and the moose You've been Like, shut up, dude, there's
Speaker 1: no way you're high. Yeah. Absolutely, well we should probably
Speaker 1: talk about that that hunt because you just posted, um yeah,
Speaker 1: this week wasted A couple of days ago. Was that
Speaker 1: it was a three year anniversary when I saw it
Speaker 1: hit the shelf first time? Yeah, so this is yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. I was actually in Arizona leaving a Remington
Speaker 1: New Products seminar media event and um, yeah, I got
Speaker 1: into the airport and there it was on the shelf.
Speaker 1: So this was the whole backstory on this. We kind
Speaker 1: of touched on a lot of it because I think
Speaker 1: it just it just is kind of the thread that
Speaker 1: pulls that that you're eyes relationship, just because it was
Speaker 1: such a great beyond just what it was like that
Speaker 1: the time spent together was so good that I was
Speaker 1: my position at the time. This would have been like
Speaker 1: I was a managing editor at Peterson Shunning magazine and
Speaker 1: we were we had done one issue the year prior
Speaker 1: that was. We called it the meat Eater Edition of
Speaker 1: Peterson Shunning and it was a giant piece of bloody
Speaker 1: meat April would have been April thirteen. A giant piece
Speaker 1: of bloody meat on the end of a knife, and
Speaker 1: there was. It was widely acclaimed and widely criticized. That cover,
Speaker 1: which you know, which is which, yeah, which turns out
Speaker 1: was a good thing, right, you know. And in that conversation,
Speaker 1: Steven Ronella was a big part of that article and
Speaker 1: he said to me, hey, man, I actually I asked
Speaker 1: him who else is is? Do you think it's just
Speaker 1: hunting of the meat or people that you know they
Speaker 1: are kind of new to hunting and are picking it
Speaker 1: up just for meat. And he said Joe Rogan, And
Speaker 1: I said, the guy from Fear Factor. Are you sure
Speaker 1: we're talking about the same guy. Uh. He's like yeah, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I take him hunting, you know, a few months ago
Speaker 1: and as first time hunting. But he just cares about
Speaker 1: the meat. That's all he wants to do. And I
Speaker 1: was like, well, I'd better call that guy and get
Speaker 1: it and get the low down from So I ended
Speaker 1: up calling him. We talked for a couple of hours
Speaker 1: and he got like a sidebar in that April feature
Speaker 1: article that included Ronnella. But then when we were thinking
Speaker 1: about like what's the April Meat Eater, because we wanted
Speaker 1: it to be an annual thing, what's the April cover
Speaker 1: going to be? My first thought was like, it's got
Speaker 1: to be Rogan, just for who he is, and through
Speaker 1: that time I had got to know him a little
Speaker 1: bit better. And so then we decide we were gonna
Speaker 1: get moose hunting because Joe said that's the most possible
Speaker 1: meat he could get is from a moose, and I agreed.
Speaker 1: We found an outfitter who was my Cockers, who's up
Speaker 1: in Quesnel, British Columbia and then we were at the
Speaker 1: last minute like, man, we need obviously need a photographer.
Speaker 1: A bunch of people weren't able to do it. Um
Speaker 1: and and Scobie came by. I was like, man, I
Speaker 1: met this young guy, this this guy Sam at this
Speaker 1: Remington writers event and he's super talented and he'll go
Speaker 1: with you prom and he'll do a great job. And
Speaker 1: so I think, I don't know if I called you
Speaker 1: or emails you the next thing you know you were
Speaker 1: signed up to come right, Yeah, I think I got
Speaker 1: an email and then you and Scobie both called me
Speaker 1: to wear like a little conference call, and uh yeah.
Speaker 1: I was basically like, hey, can you be in d
Speaker 1: C from November step to the ninth. And I don't
Speaker 1: I don't think you even finished the sentence. I was like, Yep,
Speaker 1: I'll be there. Yep. Sounds good. Perfect. Yeah. Most most hunters,
Speaker 1: when you say come to British columby November, they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can do Yeah, Yep, I can do that. Yep,
Speaker 1: I can make that happen. Yeah. So then we we
Speaker 1: went up there. The first time I met you, first
Speaker 1: time I met Joe in person, um, the first time
Speaker 1: I met Mike Hawkridge in person, and next thing you know,
Speaker 1: we're rolling around and a beat up pickup truck, chasing
Speaker 1: glass and cut blocks for moose and laughing our ass off.
Speaker 1: And that was one of the few times where you
Speaker 1: literally meet people for the first time and the next
Speaker 1: thing you know, you're having the time of your life
Speaker 1: with him. Whether you were hunting or not, I don't
Speaker 1: think it wouldn't matter, No, it would. Yeah, that wasn't
Speaker 1: bounding right trip, and there's you know, I need to
Speaker 1: go on a lot of different trips, and that the
Speaker 1: the feeling. You know, again, the truck in the camp
Speaker 1: is not always just that. Um so that was yeah,
Speaker 1: that was pretty cool. Yeah. So then we and it
Speaker 1: ended up being a hell of a successful trip. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we you know, like it's not the it's
Speaker 1: not the middle of the rut, so we're not you know,
Speaker 1: calling in bold from half mile away or whatever. But
Speaker 1: it was you know, we just spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time going to you know, different places and signing, finding
Speaker 1: any moose and possibly Tod and I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: still one of my favorite memories, not any h was
Speaker 1: when we spotted Joe's moose and not very big. I
Speaker 1: don't care, you know, you know, and then he shoots
Speaker 1: the moose and then we uh, you know, the next
Speaker 1: day we uh you know, I forgot the mute. I'll
Speaker 1: seeing up in there. And then we took that photo.
Speaker 1: And then the next day we go out and you shoot,
Speaker 1: I was right there, just sprinting down the road. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I still have that photo of the moose, like,
Speaker 1: you know, like just like in the background, Joe's just running, Yeah,
Speaker 1: just running. Well that was a whole like, so I'm
Speaker 1: looking at the cover now, I got my years wrong.
Speaker 1: The first cover was April fourteen, the second cover was
Speaker 1: April of fifteen. These things that happen, Yeah, these things
Speaker 1: happen different years, obviously, Um, but yeah, I mean I remember,
Speaker 1: like I look at the cover now, if you look
Speaker 1: at the April May her uh pigeons hunting. I'm sure
Speaker 1: you could just google Joe Rogan Peterson Hunting, you'll see it. Uh.
Speaker 1: It says eat what you killed. Down the left side,
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan celebrates the wild meat movement. Has a bunch
Speaker 1: of other blurbs and stuff around it, but it's just
Speaker 1: a picture of Joe holding the giant moose quarter for
Speaker 1: just I mean, there really is no reason to be
Speaker 1: holding it like that other than to just show people
Speaker 1: this is this is it, bitches, this is what so
Speaker 1: what we do. And I remember we shot a bunt.
Speaker 1: We had a bunch of ideas for how to shoot
Speaker 1: the cover and we we tried those and they just
Speaker 1: didn't quite work. And this, the cover of him holding
Speaker 1: the moose quarter, was kind of an afterthought. And we
Speaker 1: were standing in this weird like kind of dead field
Speaker 1: with not a whole lot going on. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: almost just like a little, you know whatever, an acre
Speaker 1: of pasture land. And he had enough, you know, there
Speaker 1: was enough of a rise where he was standing on
Speaker 1: the top of the rise and I was able to
Speaker 1: get low enough to get you know, a little bit
Speaker 1: more clear sky or great sky in the back on
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, yeah, because we I don't know how
Speaker 1: many different types of photos we shot. It was a lot,
Speaker 1: but I'm happy with the one that they ended up picking. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I remember in with the art director. I sat in
Speaker 1: he picked that photo and once I saw it in
Speaker 1: the cover, I thought, holy ship, that's gonna be good.
Speaker 1: When I saw and I and the other thing I
Speaker 1: remember is that Joe was bitch in the whole time.
Speaker 1: He didn't want to do it because he wanted to
Speaker 1: go hunt. He wanted me to get moved right like
Speaker 1: you still hit uncut tagging. So he was just chomping
Speaker 1: at the bit, you know. And I mean we didn't
Speaker 1: we didn't spend an overly long amount of time, you know,
Speaker 1: like it was the past few hours that we were,
Speaker 1: you know, playing with different ideas and stuff and sending
Speaker 1: it off whatever. But the whole time he was just
Speaker 1: like any time he had to, you know, pick something up, ever,
Speaker 1: he was just you know, basically his white knuckling it
Speaker 1: wanted to be out there chasing animals and not dealing
Speaker 1: with what do you what we were doing. I think
Speaker 1: later he trust at us though, like once he saw yeah,
Speaker 1: I think he was like, Okay, I get it. But yeah,
Speaker 1: So we we shot this thing and jump in the
Speaker 1: truck and we're driving out to a couple lock where
Speaker 1: he's seen a bull in the days prior to that.
Speaker 1: And come we're driving on the road and two big
Speaker 1: bulls run across a big for that area run across
Speaker 1: the road. So we parked the truck, get out, I
Speaker 1: jump out. I'm shooting a Blazar R eight straight pool
Speaker 1: action rifle. I jump out, getting the bar ditch, get
Speaker 1: up on the side these moves, run around this corner,
Speaker 1: and I shoot him. I just started wailing away. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's the last day or second the last day of
Speaker 1: the hunt, and we have we've liked, and we've classed,
Speaker 1: and like we haven't seen him moves anywhere near the
Speaker 1: size of either one of these bulls. So I'm up
Speaker 1: in this little area above the bar ditch and I shoot,
Speaker 1: hit it, Shoot hit the bull. He's stumbling around and
Speaker 1: I go to reload. He's dead at this point, on
Speaker 1: his feet. And I go to reload and rogue in
Speaker 1: his r and he started running down the road towards
Speaker 1: this bull who was stumbling back and falling around. By
Speaker 1: the time I get the gun back reloaded and back
Speaker 1: to my shoulder, he's halfway to the animal and it's
Speaker 1: just now fallen over and dieing. And and what did
Speaker 1: he say? Like, what do you say afterwards? I just
Speaker 1: wanted to be there when it died, or I wanted
Speaker 1: to see it die, or I can't. He's like he's
Speaker 1: like he's like I don't know, Like he went full
Speaker 1: Forrest gump on us, didn't he He just started for running.
Speaker 1: So we have that photo. Of course you have that
Speaker 1: photo and um and then we have we have that
Speaker 1: photo and then we have the cover photo. But I
Speaker 1: think just that hunt, I mean afterwards, we cut that
Speaker 1: bull up, took it back to camp to care of it,
Speaker 1: and then we went to uh two down in several
Speaker 1: bottles of what was it, spice Box Run, Oh god,
Speaker 1: spice by from Yeah, what a tear. Oh, we're just
Speaker 1: thinking about it. Yeah, no, I'm starting to gag a
Speaker 1: little bit. I'm just thinking about spice Box from now
Speaker 1: the makers. If anybody here works at the Spicebox from factory,
Speaker 1: let's listening to this. It's a fine product. It's just
Speaker 1: you can't drink. You can't drink two leaders of it
Speaker 1: expect to be all right. Yeah, I mean it's absolutely delicious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's spicy room. You know, you can't sit there and
Speaker 1: tell stories about the hunt and uh and keep you know,
Speaker 1: drinking glass after glass for several hours. Well, we ate
Speaker 1: we uh Joe was drilling up Moose liver and Moose
Speaker 1: heart and we were over there taking shots and partying
Speaker 1: with with our guide, my Hackage and having a fun party,
Speaker 1: and um just kind of got out of hand a
Speaker 1: little bit and we had a good time though. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then uh, during like while we were eating and
Speaker 1: cooking and drinking spicebox, but over the UFC event going
Speaker 1: on and Joe of it up and streamed it and
Speaker 1: he was basically commentating for all of us sitting at
Speaker 1: the table. And didn't the road kill beaver show up
Speaker 1: at some point? Yes, yeah, we forgot about that. I
Speaker 1: have a photo of you and Hawker's and a beaver. Now,
Speaker 1: these are the things that happened in the haze of
Speaker 1: Spikes Box room. Like this was kind of the next thing,
Speaker 1: you know, a beaver shows up. There's nothing you can
Speaker 1: do about it. Yeah, Mike just came through the door
Speaker 1: like that. I mean that thing was giant. Yeah, one
Speaker 1: of his buddies that has killed a giant beaver, a
Speaker 1: road killed beaver. Found a beaver on the side of
Speaker 1: the road and they just brought it in. We uh,
Speaker 1: they were cutting it up to eat it and we
Speaker 1: took some pictures with it, which is totally respectful. I
Speaker 1: thought of the animal and it's it's life, you know,
Speaker 1: I think. Uh. We were in Canada though, you know,
Speaker 1: like the never Failed. There's always some weird stuff that happened,
Speaker 1: and there's a lovely country, but there's always going to
Speaker 1: be something strange. Yeah, I love, no doubt love you can,
Speaker 1: but yeah, sometimes you're messed up. Nothing you can do.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, I just think everybody has a
Speaker 1: hunt like that. I think probably in their life. You
Speaker 1: know that that you I didn't know what to expect,
Speaker 1: and then it was it was something where even now
Speaker 1: when that image pops up, I don't really think about
Speaker 1: that cover and what people said about it later or
Speaker 1: anither reaction to it. I just think about the time
Speaker 1: we spent in camp and what that what that kind
Speaker 1: of meant for me. And you know, I also think
Speaker 1: that Joe during that hunt and you were there and
Speaker 1: you were kind of in on the conversation, Joe was like,
Speaker 1: you should start a podcast, Ben. I was like, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I was like, listen, Rogan, I don't even know what
Speaker 1: that is. It's nobody podcasts. I think, what am I
Speaker 1: going to talk about for hours on end on podcast?
Speaker 1: He said you should do it, man, I'll help you out,
Speaker 1: and I was all fired up. I think I even
Speaker 1: called my dad, So I'm doing a podcast and then
Speaker 1: I just got back to the real world and let
Speaker 1: it go. Well, I think what what happened was, uh,
Speaker 1: we got back and then it was not that long
Speaker 1: after that that you accepted a job with what you're
Speaker 1: doing now. Yeah, you're yeah, so then it just kind
Speaker 1: of put on the back turner just from moving on
Speaker 1: another Yeah, that's true. Yeah, it was. It was yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe say three or four months after that. Then I
Speaker 1: met you at a shot show and I said, Dude,
Speaker 1: I'm I gotta tell you, I'm taking a new gig
Speaker 1: at Yeddi And you were like, well, Ship, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: taking a gig at Yedi too. Ye that work ed,
Speaker 1: did ye are? But yeah, I mean that that Hunt
Speaker 1: I think changed a lot about the way I thought
Speaker 1: of things. I think it was the first time I
Speaker 1: realized that there could be and elevation and the conversation
Speaker 1: past our bubble. Because even with you as young as
Speaker 1: we both were at the time and still are, you
Speaker 1: kind of get into the industry bubble and you have
Speaker 1: your conversation and you feel like that's what it's always
Speaker 1: going to be, and then you meet somebody like Joe
Speaker 1: Rogan and you elevate the conversation with a with a
Speaker 1: cover like that and the image like that, and next thing,
Speaker 1: you know, you realize, man, we could talk to a
Speaker 1: lot more people. We could we could take this message
Speaker 1: and spread it a lot further than it's currently going.
Speaker 1: And so I think, I don't know about you, but
Speaker 1: for me, that was the first time I realized what
Speaker 1: what it could be. No, And I think in addition
Speaker 1: to that, do to mean if you if you're talking
Speaker 1: about like just eating the animals that you you know
Speaker 1: that you go out and shoot um. Like growing up,
Speaker 1: you know, we allgate whatever we did. We did a
Speaker 1: lot of bird hring when we had a lot of
Speaker 1: peasents and turned a lot of ducks into jerky and
Speaker 1: they do when we talt to do and you know,
Speaker 1: it was always all, you know, really good and tasted
Speaker 1: of it, but it it didn't it never seemed like
Speaker 1: something out of the ordinary because that's just what you did,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, And once you once you look
Speaker 1: beyond that, you know, like heating it through the lens
Speaker 1: of that cover, and like the controversy that it stirred
Speaker 1: up and and that you know, allowing people to talk
Speaker 1: more about you know, um basically knowing where your food
Speaker 1: comes from and controlling the consumption of your beat that
Speaker 1: type of thing. It, uh it allows you to open
Speaker 1: a mind about what hunting means to society as a whole,
Speaker 1: and then to me it's personally and actually made me
Speaker 1: appreciate while getting me way more than I ever had
Speaker 1: and what that you know, like what that means to
Speaker 1: me in relation to everybody else. Yeah. Actually, that's probably
Speaker 1: the first time that I really, uh man, was able
Speaker 1: to drill down to to how I wanted to go forward,
Speaker 1: you know, how I wanted to talk to people about
Speaker 1: hunting becaus see and Joe, you know, Joe shot the bully.
Speaker 1: Shot was a forked horned forking antlerd H young moose.
Speaker 1: I was a young bull and he shot it off
Speaker 1: the you know, shot it just in the bar ditch
Speaker 1: off the road, much like I did. And so you know,
Speaker 1: if you were if I were to fast forward four
Speaker 1: years and say, what's that the hunting purity score of
Speaker 1: that hunt? I was like, oh, man, when when it
Speaker 1: came down to she came down of the actual hunting,
Speaker 1: it wasn't all that all that great. Um. It was
Speaker 1: a rough time of year, the weather was weird. But
Speaker 1: when you if you take that away and be like,
Speaker 1: we just got each of us got two hundred pounds
Speaker 1: of meat, more probably than that. And I know I
Speaker 1: remember Hawkard's driving that meat down over the border into
Speaker 1: l A to deliver it to Rogue and um, and
Speaker 1: I remember how excited he was to shoot this fork
Speaker 1: antlerd you know, moose and what it meant him to
Speaker 1: cut it up. And it was like, wow, Okay, here's
Speaker 1: somebody who's forty some forty five years old, never hunting before,
Speaker 1: and doesn't give two ships whether it's a fork, a antler,
Speaker 1: or it's a moose. And I don't know if that
Speaker 1: was the first time I've been around somebody like that,
Speaker 1: but it was the first time I was impacted that
Speaker 1: that's seriously by that idea. Yeah, no, I would. I
Speaker 1: would definitely agree with that. I mean because of you
Speaker 1: and I both grew up in hunting families, and so
Speaker 1: when you're breaking down an animal, it's like it's not
Speaker 1: this brand new experience. Um. Really, I mean like when
Speaker 1: you're a kid, it's a new experience. But your dad
Speaker 1: or your older brother or your uncle or whoever takes
Speaker 1: you out hunting, like has done it however many times,
Speaker 1: and so you know, they don't make like a big
Speaker 1: deal out of it. But to watch somebody who you know,
Speaker 1: got to from start to finish, you know, shot the animals,
Speaker 1: skin the animal cut of apart like you know, and
Speaker 1: Mike was kind of walking through it like the different
Speaker 1: you know, sections to start cutting out, and it was Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was really cool to be part of that whole experience. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it changes you a little bit. That that changed me.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I wrote even this week when you
Speaker 1: posted that, Hey, it's been whatever three or fourty years
Speaker 1: since that happened, and I look back at that now.
Speaker 1: I'm glad it happened the way it did. I could
Speaker 1: have never guessed that that would have been. How would
Speaker 1: I would have all went down? But it sure did,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad it did. That's yeah, Yeah, I wanted
Speaker 1: to go ahead. Yeah, on that trip, I was starting
Speaker 1: to get a little bit nervous because it was getting
Speaker 1: later in the weeks before we ended up knocking the
Speaker 1: first moose down, and uh, but I'm yeah, I'm glad
Speaker 1: it all panned out the way it ended up. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: it did. And then I will I've got that the room.
Speaker 1: I'm sitting there now here with the bar h'm I've
Speaker 1: got that cover hanging on the wall. So it's something
Speaker 1: that I personally think means a lot, and hopefully it
Speaker 1: meant a lot to the you know, I certainly got
Speaker 1: a lot of compliments at the time, even more so
Speaker 1: later as as times going on. But um, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it's seminal in the way that I see things.
Speaker 1: The other thing I wrote down that I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk to you about because I think maybe you'll have
Speaker 1: some similar experiences to me or will be able to
Speaker 1: share some stuff is when public lands has been a
Speaker 1: big part of what you've been doing recently, right with
Speaker 1: the bus and just just how you grew up in
Speaker 1: a big part of who you are. When what was
Speaker 1: the first time you realize what public lands were like,
Speaker 1: what they meant to the country, what they mean to
Speaker 1: use the hunter? What was the first time you feel
Speaker 1: like you really had true perspective on public lands? You know,
Speaker 1: I mean slightly embarrassingly like I probably didn't think about
Speaker 1: it enough until until there was a possibility of them
Speaker 1: be like losing them. Um, you know, I mean it
Speaker 1: was always something that was just there, and so I
Speaker 1: think it's it's definitely something that I took for granted. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, growing up in South Dakota, there's
Speaker 1: definitely some public land, but it's nothing compared to the West.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, once I once I moved west,
Speaker 1: you know, and and Montana resident. Now I think it
Speaker 1: definitely opened my eyes too. You know, you look at
Speaker 1: the you know, you look at the atlas or the
Speaker 1: map or Onyx maps or whatever it might be in
Speaker 1: um Whereas back home it was you know, you've got
Speaker 1: whatever maybe a half section or or a full section
Speaker 1: of public and different spots um. Whereas you know in
Speaker 1: Montana you've got, however, many millions of acres and when
Speaker 1: you can park at one trailhead and you can just like,
Speaker 1: all right, I don't need to look at the map
Speaker 1: anymore unless I need to. Don't figure out where I'm going,
Speaker 1: like I just know I'm going to be on public land.
Speaker 1: I think that was definitely a an eye opening experience.
Speaker 1: You know, the fact that you can not only walk
Speaker 1: to that ridge, but you can walk to the ridge
Speaker 1: after that, and the ridge after that ridge after that,
Speaker 1: and you just you know, continue chasing animals. UM as
Speaker 1: far as your legs will carry you, um, but it
Speaker 1: should be perfectly honest. It wasn't until it was par
Speaker 1: of the platform to possibly transfer lands to the states,
Speaker 1: which for a lot of people out there that might
Speaker 1: not know if um is a cute way to package
Speaker 1: it up um and sell it to the general public.
Speaker 1: But as we've seen through history, a lot of the
Speaker 1: states that are given you know, land and it's managed
Speaker 1: by the states, a lot of times that ends up
Speaker 1: getting sold off. And uh so I think once I
Speaker 1: saw the possibility of you know, stuff being transferred, stuff
Speaker 1: being sold or you know, like land swaps of different stuff,
Speaker 1: I think it's it really opened my eyes to the
Speaker 1: opportunity that I've had in my life time to you know,
Speaker 1: spend and have experiences that have molded me into the
Speaker 1: person I am. UM. To have something like that go
Speaker 1: away for future generations was you know, kind of hit
Speaker 1: me pretty hard, for sure. And I think that was
Speaker 1: it was my exact same experience because that and that
Speaker 1: was my guessing of what your answer would be, because
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people I grew up on
Speaker 1: the East Coast in Maryland and we hunted Green Ridge
Speaker 1: State Forest like was our backyard, and we never I
Speaker 1: my dad never said hey, son, do you realize what
Speaker 1: we're doing right now? You realize what this land is,
Speaker 1: You realize what, who who it belongs to, and why
Speaker 1: it's important. It was just never much like everything growing up,
Speaker 1: it was just never a topic because it was the
Speaker 1: thing that you did, and there was never any need
Speaker 1: to explain it because it wasn't in peril and there
Speaker 1: wasn't There wasn't like, hey, you need to know this
Speaker 1: because you might lose it. It It was this is ours,
Speaker 1: it will always be ours, and this experience will be
Speaker 1: in perpetuity. And then when you start to get a
Speaker 1: little bit older and you see that maybe that's not
Speaker 1: the case, you start to want to learn and defend
Speaker 1: the thing that you grew up with as a reality
Speaker 1: of your life and just something that was always there
Speaker 1: for you, something that you probably needn't didn't even know
Speaker 1: you needed at some level. And so you so you
Speaker 1: learn a little bit more about public lands, probably through
Speaker 1: ross mosis, but also probably because it was important to you.
Speaker 1: Why why does then the you you know, flip the
Speaker 1: switch to activism as you have well, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I just um, it's you know, I growing up, you
Speaker 1: know I was a Ducks and Limited member, and I
Speaker 1: was Rocky mountin Al Foundation member, and you know, different
Speaker 1: conservation organizations. But it was you know, all of that,
Speaker 1: and there's nothing wrong with this, but all of that
Speaker 1: was more so about like you get the magazine and
Speaker 1: you go to the banquets and you you know, you
Speaker 1: hang out with other people that hunted that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: But I never you know, volunteered for creek clean up
Speaker 1: or nesting site clean up or fence removal or you know,
Speaker 1: whatever that was. And so I think there was probably
Speaker 1: a little bit of guilt there where I have been
Speaker 1: growing up in a in a country where I can
Speaker 1: go out and hunt, hunt, hunt, and I was never
Speaker 1: doing anything to give back. And so I think as
Speaker 1: the sportsman me like, I just looked at, you know,
Speaker 1: the voice that, even being a small voice that I
Speaker 1: have um in the hunting industry, and I just thought
Speaker 1: it felt like it was my duty as a sportsman
Speaker 1: to try to do what I can personally to protect
Speaker 1: that for future future generation. And so it was, you know,
Speaker 1: once that switch flipped, it was go time. And I
Speaker 1: was like, all right, I guess it's time to just
Speaker 1: talk about this and tell as many people and get
Speaker 1: involved and raise money, and um, you know, do whatever,
Speaker 1: do my part too, you know, have this be something
Speaker 1: that is an opportunity for anybody who not just people
Speaker 1: who are hunting now, but someone who might want to
Speaker 1: get into it, or you know, if I have kids,
Speaker 1: my kids and their kids, and you know, it's just
Speaker 1: it would be hard for me to live in a
Speaker 1: country where people can't grow up and have the same
Speaker 1: opportunity that I have right now. It's good for the soul.
Speaker 1: I don't know what else there is to say about it.
Speaker 1: I think without those wild places, there's no release. Um.
Speaker 1: And I think we, you know, we start to change
Speaker 1: as a society. Yeah, I mean I think, Um, I
Speaker 1: live in a country called Texas, and uh, it doesn't
Speaker 1: have the same ah doesn't have the same freedoms as
Speaker 1: the West has. I mean there's in Man. Before this,
Speaker 1: I lived in Illinois and it's the same way. So
Speaker 1: it's not it's not exclusive to Texas. I think are
Speaker 1: our idea of public lands and and the freedom to
Speaker 1: explore is decidedly a Western idea And that's probably for
Speaker 1: a lot of reasons want but mostly because a lot
Speaker 1: of that land is wilderness and a lot of that
Speaker 1: land can't be turned into a profit center, unlike Texas
Speaker 1: or Illinois might be able to with farm land and
Speaker 1: and um extractions. So yeah, I think that idea, Uh,
Speaker 1: it's kind of permeated in me and been been instilled
Speaker 1: in me over the last three or four years, maybe
Speaker 1: maybe five years, to the point where you know, I
Speaker 1: went from a twenty five year old person who loved
Speaker 1: to hunt and enjoyed, as you said, the same kind
Speaker 1: of banquet idea and the idea that my tag money
Speaker 1: went back to conservation to a person who's now early
Speaker 1: thirties who feels like there's a mission at hand, and
Speaker 1: if we don't all serve that mission, then to ten
Speaker 1: twenty years from now, we'll be sitting around and wishing
Speaker 1: we did. Right. Yeah, you feel like there's a generation
Speaker 1: gap there. My dad definitely always says to me, says
Speaker 1: he's proud of our generation for stepping up as we
Speaker 1: have because there's a need to step up. And I
Speaker 1: don't know that that the previous generation felt that need,
Speaker 1: and maybe there wasn't as pressing an environment. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't think it was as pressing for you know, like
Speaker 1: father's generation, simply because the generation before them had put
Speaker 1: into you know, the Pittman Robertson acting and I never
Speaker 1: remember what it's called on the fishing side, but a
Speaker 1: similar the what is it Dingle Johnson, which makes me giggle,
Speaker 1: Dingle Johnson, I'm a child, which is a fairly unfortunate name.
Speaker 1: But um no, I mean the previous generation had enacted
Speaker 1: both of those bills where you know, it was it
Speaker 1: was a huge stepping stone to you know, to to
Speaker 1: bring back the funding the conservation. And I think because
Speaker 1: like our father's generation was so huge, um, you know,
Speaker 1: in in hunting and fishing. I mean there were so
Speaker 1: many of them doing it that I think like their
Speaker 1: contribution simply from hunting licenses, fishing licenses, uh, conservation banquets,
Speaker 1: that type of thing is way bigger than anything that
Speaker 1: our generation is doing now because there are you know,
Speaker 1: there's the baby boomer generation is ten years from being
Speaker 1: done hunting and the you know that's of the current
Speaker 1: license holders, and there's there's nobody that's coming up to
Speaker 1: fill that gap. So I think it's our generation needs
Speaker 1: to do more. Um, Buying a hunting license is not enough.
Speaker 1: I mean it's great, Don't get me wrong. Like, I
Speaker 1: think anybody who has a hunter safety card, even if
Speaker 1: you're not going to help, to go out and buy
Speaker 1: a hunting license every year because it's a contribution to
Speaker 1: conservation and managing herds and managing land and that type
Speaker 1: of thing. But no, I think our generation definitely sees
Speaker 1: the need to take action and not just go hunt
Speaker 1: because it's not enough. Yeah, I mean it's it's hunting
Speaker 1: really peaked in the early eighties, and you looked at
Speaker 1: like when it really started to rise, it was it
Speaker 1: was post World War one, post World War two, and
Speaker 1: when a lot of people were coming back from the
Speaker 1: war and they had idle time, and technologies were starting
Speaker 1: to advance that allowed them to get for they're out
Speaker 1: into the wilderness and allow them to you know, even
Speaker 1: in the turn of the century talk about refrigeration and
Speaker 1: railways and just easier ways for people to get out
Speaker 1: and experienced hunting and they come back and enjoy the
Speaker 1: meat and it just enjoy the experience. And that I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that is where modern sport hunting came to be,
Speaker 1: because you know, people have hunted on this continent for
Speaker 1: many hundreds of years, as long as we've been on it.
Speaker 1: There's been hunting, but modern sport hunting right in the
Speaker 1: came to its peak in the early eighties as a
Speaker 1: part of our dad's generation, right, I mean that there
Speaker 1: was something like seventeen or eighteen million people purchase license
Speaker 1: um or worse, seventeen or eighteen million hunters or something
Speaker 1: like that, and that's kind of the peak. And I
Speaker 1: think that was the peak of our you know, around
Speaker 1: the time we would have been born, but also around
Speaker 1: the time when our fathers were in their prime. So yeah,
Speaker 1: ship man, they were part of the prime um in
Speaker 1: the history of modern sport and whatever. You know that
Speaker 1: it's been around. Yeah, And you know what's interesting about
Speaker 1: that to me though, is it was the prime for
Speaker 1: number of hunters, but it was nowhere close to the
Speaker 1: prime as far as number of species go, because like
Speaker 1: population numbers, Yeah, I mean I grew up waterfall hunting,
Speaker 1: and um, like the war fall numbers are the best
Speaker 1: they've ever been, and there's you know, like there's a
Speaker 1: less than half of the number of hunters there are
Speaker 1: that that we're in like the late nineteen seventies and
Speaker 1: there's like triple the birds or whatever the number is. UM.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of crazy man. It's it's been a
Speaker 1: strange shift, you know, away from uh, you know, people
Speaker 1: going away from hunting, and I think it's hunting isn't easy.
Speaker 1: It's not a you know, it's not a it's you know,
Speaker 1: in an age where instant gratification is you know, something
Speaker 1: that a lot of people seek, Hunting is not that. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: I always describe it very much as like the the
Speaker 1: idea of I'd like to go hunting, and actually going
Speaker 1: hunting and being proficient is like walking a tighter across
Speaker 1: the Grand Canyon. I mean, there's no there's no way
Speaker 1: to separate the idea from the reality and how far
Speaker 1: it is from from just somebody who may listen to
Speaker 1: this or who may just think independently from this, I'd
Speaker 1: love to go hunting and then trying to find um
Speaker 1: that access that skill, the idea, you know, to to
Speaker 1: process all the ideas that go with killing another living
Speaker 1: thing and then and then going back and doing it
Speaker 1: again and again and again. I mean, all those things
Speaker 1: are are tough to do, and I think our our generation,
Speaker 1: unfortunately unfortunately whatever gets to do them in the public
Speaker 1: eye because we choose to through social media, um, through
Speaker 1: media and you and I are in a business where
Speaker 1: we both profit off of hunting in a lot of
Speaker 1: different ways, and uh, let's just change things, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: and and kind of touching like adding to that, I
Speaker 1: think one thing we've done bad as an industry as
Speaker 1: a whole um. You know, we don't have we need
Speaker 1: a PR agent. The industry does. But the one thing
Speaker 1: we've I think we've done a bad job of is
Speaker 1: we we put so much emphasis on you know, white
Speaker 1: tailed deer hunting and elk hunting and mule their hunting
Speaker 1: and chasing all of these it's incredibly hard to hunt
Speaker 1: big game species, whereas like our fathers would have, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they deer hunt, but they also rabbit hunt, and they
Speaker 1: pheasant hunt, and they duck hunt, and they squirrel hunt,
Speaker 1: and they you know, they do a lot of other
Speaker 1: types of hunting and small game hunting. Where people now
Speaker 1: say they're thinking about getting into the sport and the
Speaker 1: person that they look up to, say is Joe Rogan, right,
Speaker 1: and like Joe Rogan got him into hunting. And then
Speaker 1: they go out and buy all the gear, and then
Speaker 1: they go out in the mountains and they get their
Speaker 1: asses absolutely kicked, and then they never go out again.
Speaker 1: Instead of starting with pheasant hunting or duck hunting or whatever,
Speaker 1: and you you know, you start with small game and
Speaker 1: you go out, you enjoy, simply enjoy the experience, and
Speaker 1: you might shoot a bird or two or rabbit or two,
Speaker 1: and it's it's it's all about everything else, you know,
Speaker 1: instead of focusing on a big game animal. I think
Speaker 1: I think that's made it really hard for people to
Speaker 1: get into it. Because the ultimate achievement, right, I mean
Speaker 1: killing with the bow, it should be the ultimate thing.
Speaker 1: I mean that should be something you work towards for
Speaker 1: your entire life, not something you walk up the mountain
Speaker 1: and do in a weekend. Yeah. And if if, if
Speaker 1: you've never hunted before, and you go out and you
Speaker 1: buy a bow and all the clothing whatever, and you
Speaker 1: drive out to Montan and you walk into the mountains,
Speaker 1: like is it's going to be mentally challenging. And when
Speaker 1: you don't shoot something, you're like, I just spent almost
Speaker 1: a thousand dollars on a tag. I spent clothing and
Speaker 1: a bow and all this stuff and fuel out here
Speaker 1: from all that, you know, I dropped ten grand to
Speaker 1: get into this, and then I didn't succeed in if
Speaker 1: you know, if success is killing an animal so that
Speaker 1: you know person's mentality. But it almost has to be,
Speaker 1: especially if you start pushing like we've done in the past,
Speaker 1: like meat is the meat is the goal, and well,
Speaker 1: of course killing something is the goal, because that's the
Speaker 1: only way that happened. There is no other way. I
Speaker 1: met a guy um two couple of days ago and
Speaker 1: here in Austin, and if you don't mind, I want
Speaker 1: to read I'm pulling it up now is when you're
Speaker 1: talking about this. This guy sent an email in to
Speaker 1: me through the Hunting Collective dot com, had listened to
Speaker 1: the podcast a few times, send an email in and
Speaker 1: then I actually got the medium a couple of days ago.
Speaker 1: But this guy's name was Daniel Porter, and he wrote
Speaker 1: and he said, Ben, I'm not a hunter yet. I
Speaker 1: grew up in a fairly liberal household in Washington, EC.
Speaker 1: Not only was I not connected with the hunting industry
Speaker 1: in any way, but in the middle of a concrete jungle,
Speaker 1: there's very little opportunity to do so in any way.
Speaker 1: And I also did not want to express my interest
Speaker 1: out of fear that I would be judged by my
Speaker 1: interest in guns. A year ago, I started listening to
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan. Through that podcast, I became familiar with John Dudley,
Speaker 1: Cam Haynes, Remmy Warren, Steve Ronilla, and a host of
Speaker 1: other individuals and companies that promote hunting. And then I
Speaker 1: heard you on the Gritty Bowman podcast, and it opened
Speaker 1: my eyes. Here was a guy with as simply a
Speaker 1: complex philosophy that I had been waiting for. The thought
Speaker 1: of killing an animal still bothers me, and I'm a
Speaker 1: forty four year old man. However, the idea that I
Speaker 1: could love animals still take one's life never occurred to
Speaker 1: me until I listen to what you and others had
Speaker 1: to say. It is a dichotomy that is truly, truly confusing,
Speaker 1: and yet one that I am desperately wishing to be
Speaker 1: immersed in. I have a twelve year old son, and
Speaker 1: I very much wanted him to be involved at hunting
Speaker 1: and to be aware of the history and how he
Speaker 1: got here in the first place as a species. We're
Speaker 1: going to go Haavelina hunting later this year so that
Speaker 1: we can both experience this together for the first time.
Speaker 1: And he goes on to say, a bunch of other stuff. Um.
Speaker 1: And I got to meet that guy, Daniel Porter the
Speaker 1: other day and we sat and talked for a long time,
Speaker 1: and he had um even the what you were just saying, Sam, Like,
Speaker 1: isn't that guy the archetype of what we were just
Speaker 1: talking about. I mean, listens to Joe Rogan, picks it up,
Speaker 1: wants to do it, and now has this great challenge
Speaker 1: of how the hell do I pull this off? Right?
Speaker 1: So he we talked about his biggest problem in Texas,
Speaker 1: living in Austin, Texas was access. So him and I
Speaker 1: talked through that for about an hour and I kind
Speaker 1: of gave him a bunch of ideas what access could
Speaker 1: be and then have you emailed with him and give
Speaker 1: him some ideas about where he might be able to go.
Speaker 1: But but he's trying to walk across that tightrope that
Speaker 1: is the Grand Canyon to get to the other side, um,
Speaker 1: which I find super interesting. I hope to follow this
Speaker 1: how followed Daniel and see how he gets gets it
Speaker 1: done because it's not easy. Yeah, And that's I mean,
Speaker 1: that's honestly, that's like a mini documentary in itself is
Speaker 1: follow to someone you know of that age who has
Speaker 1: never done it. Before and uh, you know, and followed
Speaker 1: their journey like into the sport. I think that would
Speaker 1: be super interesting to a lot of people who you know,
Speaker 1: may be on the fence about how they feel about
Speaker 1: hunting in general. Yeah, and I think I mean, we
Speaker 1: we know now as we start to do studies and
Speaker 1: look around as with that the baby boom or population
Speaker 1: that you mentioned, we know now that recruitment among or
Speaker 1: retention more of retention among young hunters who are introduced
Speaker 1: at the early age is much less effective than it
Speaker 1: is if somebody starts in their thirties. Now, because they started,
Speaker 1: they start just like you and I did, with very
Speaker 1: little understanding of like the the overall impact culturally and
Speaker 1: in our society. Then they get they turn eighteen, and
Speaker 1: they get a girlfriend, and they go to college, and
Speaker 1: they forget about hunting and a lot of them never
Speaker 1: go back to it. But if somebody starts in their thirties,
Speaker 1: when they have a child who they want to show
Speaker 1: um and they learn about it, it sticks because they
Speaker 1: they're already they're able to have the finances and the
Speaker 1: mental capacity to handle the damn thing and do it. Yep, yep.
Speaker 1: So then the real trick is how do we reach
Speaker 1: those people and how do we you know, cultivate that
Speaker 1: and get more of those people involved that If anybody
Speaker 1: has to answer that question, I have no idea, but
Speaker 1: I think there like so if you look at that
Speaker 1: thirty because I'm glad you brought that up. There's a
Speaker 1: great article. I'm trying to find it now. It's called
Speaker 1: there It is why we suck at recruiting new hunters,
Speaker 1: why it matters, and how it can fix it was
Speaker 1: written by Natalie Cribs in Outdoor Life recently here in
Speaker 1: Lasson in January, and she talks about a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff in this, but most I think, most importantly is
Speaker 1: if you take that thirty percent that's fifty five and older,
Speaker 1: that's a baby boomer, and you eliminate them from situation,
Speaker 1: we're kind of screwed. In fact, we're not kind of
Speaker 1: we're screwed when we're out of it. Where we went
Speaker 1: from seventeen million, hundred two to possibly and you know,
Speaker 1: six million or less. Yum. But I said, you know,
Speaker 1: and and and once they're done, I don't think continuing. Well,
Speaker 1: I like the phone the phone podcast. You get to
Speaker 1: do this, like you go, no, I'll go um. What
Speaker 1: I would say to that is, he's just like if
Speaker 1: somebody like Daniel so Daniels forty four and he and
Speaker 1: he listened to Joe and then found this podcast and
Speaker 1: other voices of people that have have helped him. But
Speaker 1: if he teaches his son, who's twelve, the new way, right,
Speaker 1: which isn't how we were taught, but is it's very um,
Speaker 1: I think very just understanding of the complexity of hunting
Speaker 1: and how it plays out in our society and urbanization
Speaker 1: and kind of the conversation that needs to happen for
Speaker 1: everyone to understand hunting. If that guy teaches his twelve
Speaker 1: year old son and you can get a hundred thousand
Speaker 1: or a million Daniels to teach their son, well then
Speaker 1: you have not only a new crop of hunters that
Speaker 1: are sub fifty five years of age, but then even
Speaker 1: a newer crop of hunters that are you know, youth
Speaker 1: hunters that are learning a new way. I think that's
Speaker 1: probably important overall. Yeah, I feel like that's probably the
Speaker 1: avenue we need to go down. Yeah, you know, quote
Speaker 1: unquote saved the hunting industry because I mean, once we
Speaker 1: you know, once we lose those hunting is not older
Speaker 1: hunting is not gone. Um, but our voice, you know,
Speaker 1: in any sort of policy making is is that's tough. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well you and I are both early thirties, so you
Speaker 1: we're kind of in that gap generation. That's that's kind
Speaker 1: of wondering what happened before us and what will happen
Speaker 1: in the future. I mean, there just isn't there's no
Speaker 1: answer to why either one happened the way it did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And uh so this is a kind of a different thought.
Speaker 1: But and you correct me if if you think I'm wrong.
Speaker 1: But I feel like there's there's less hunters now for sure.
Speaker 1: I mean that's in the math, but the hunters that
Speaker 1: are out there, I think through social media and through
Speaker 1: you know, watching people who hunt hard, I think that
Speaker 1: the people that are out there in the field are Um.
Speaker 1: Even though there's less hunters, if you go hunt public land,
Speaker 1: it feels like there's more hunter presence now more than
Speaker 1: ever because the mentality is like I gotta walk five
Speaker 1: miles in whereas it used to you know, whereas it
Speaker 1: used to be like I'm gonna go hunt, but you know,
Speaker 1: mile too off the road, Like that's good enough. Um,
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, I've seen it in a
Speaker 1: lot of places where I've been where there's not that
Speaker 1: many people hunting, but you end not bumping into people
Speaker 1: because they have the same mentality as as I do.
Speaker 1: Were I'm just gonna walk until I'm pretty sure I'm
Speaker 1: not going to see anybody, and then you know we're
Speaker 1: all sitting there on the same knob. Yeah, we're five
Speaker 1: miles in. I used to do it. I did that
Speaker 1: as a kid. I try to bawl the further I
Speaker 1: walked him. I'd run into like the highway and I'd
Speaker 1: be people and once I didn't seen anybody for the
Speaker 1: five miles I walked in. But yeah, I think we
Speaker 1: need to I think we need to recruit a new
Speaker 1: generation of road hunters. Yeah. New generation hunters are like
Speaker 1: the spook stuff into the core of the wilderness where
Speaker 1: we or we're waiting. Yeah. I would like to buy
Speaker 1: the license, but don't like to do all the work.
Speaker 1: They don't care about that. Pivot rarmers and tax I'll
Speaker 1: buy seven guns, that's fine, that's right. Yeah, fun this
Speaker 1: bit y. Yeah, I wonder I wonder how that'll how
Speaker 1: that'll all break down. I mean, it's going to take
Speaker 1: some decades for this all the shake loose and it's
Speaker 1: hard to talk about. It was just a bunch of numbers. Um.
Speaker 1: Natalie did a good job in that Outfore Life article
Speaker 1: of trying to break it down. But but it just
Speaker 1: it's gonna have to shake out. I mean, there was
Speaker 1: no way. There was nobody in you know, prognosticating what
Speaker 1: it would be. There's just no way. There's no way
Speaker 1: to know. And I guess my overall where I always
Speaker 1: stop when this line of line of conversation goes on
Speaker 1: is that I think urbanization is going to be hunting's
Speaker 1: biggest tool in the future, just because people are going
Speaker 1: to be living in these cities and they're gonna have
Speaker 1: this need to go outside and do something to connect
Speaker 1: them to nature, and then hunting is going to be
Speaker 1: They're waiting for him and they're like, oh this they
Speaker 1: do it one time, they're holy ship, this is awesome.
Speaker 1: Next thing. You know, I would agree with that. Well,
Speaker 1: shall see, we shall see what's next for the bus man.
Speaker 1: So the bus uh, I think it'll be a big
Speaker 1: year for the bus Um. Like I said before, I
Speaker 1: kicking it off with some turkey hunting and stuf Off
Speaker 1: rolling it out driving out to Boise for the b
Speaker 1: h A Rendezvous, and it's gonna be parked at um
Speaker 1: if anybody else is going out there that's listening to this,
Speaker 1: the bus is gonna be parked all weekend at White
Speaker 1: Dog Brewing, which is only about a block and a
Speaker 1: half away from the Boise Center. And I'm gonna trying
Speaker 1: to plan some event for Saturday, um with the bus
Speaker 1: and kind of be out there and given tours or whatever.
Speaker 1: But um, yeah, so going to the going to the rendezvous,
Speaker 1: and then UM, I'm gonna focus down. My original plan
Speaker 1: was to just live in the bus for a year,
Speaker 1: and uh, it turned I did that all last fall.
Speaker 1: It turns out I can't get anything done. I shoot
Speaker 1: a lot of photos and video, and I have all
Speaker 1: this great content, and but I don't have any time
Speaker 1: to sit down and and get it all, you know,
Speaker 1: get it out to the everybody who wants to see it.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna focus down a little bit this year
Speaker 1: and doing one or two big trips a month. Um,
Speaker 1: so you know, spring Turkey gonna do some stuff. And
Speaker 1: Black Hills National Forest in South Dakota, a bunch of
Speaker 1: other publicly turkey hunting here and there. But um, going
Speaker 1: into the summer. In June, I'm doing a trip up
Speaker 1: to the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota. I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: doing talking a lot about the potential mind site up
Speaker 1: there and kind of what that means and and that
Speaker 1: whole wilderness area. And then uh, July, trying to work
Speaker 1: out some sort of you know, backpacking trip or something
Speaker 1: out on the National Forest and out west somewhere and um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but basically gonna focus down one or two
Speaker 1: big trips a month and really you know, kick out
Speaker 1: a lot of content for people and and talk about
Speaker 1: talk more about public lands and and how they relate
Speaker 1: to private land and how we need both. And um,
Speaker 1: it's h Yeah, I'm gonna be doing a lot of traveling,
Speaker 1: a lot of photo and video stuff and obviously rolling
Speaker 1: into hunting season, it's gonna be it's gonna be busy,
Speaker 1: So it'll be It'll be a good year. I have
Speaker 1: no doubt about that. Do you are you realizing that
Speaker 1: I was just looking around on Instagram and uh, Instagram
Speaker 1: has that Joe Rogan cover on your page? Sensitive content? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I didn't. I wasn't able to see that, but I've
Speaker 1: had I don't know. People comment that that it was
Speaker 1: sensitive content, so man, I don't know. I mean it
Speaker 1: must be. Somebody must flag the post um, you know.
Speaker 1: It's like I had one person put a pretty negative
Speaker 1: comment on there, and so I deleted the comment because
Speaker 1: nobody needs that. And I'm assuming that they flagged it,
Speaker 1: you know, for whatever says this photo contains sensitive content
Speaker 1: which people may find offensive or disturbing. Just people in general,
Speaker 1: not certain types of people. But all right, yeah, which
Speaker 1: is pretty funny because it's literally just meat. It's a
Speaker 1: picture of meat. Man doing anything but holding a picture
Speaker 1: of meat. No, it's not like you know, it's not
Speaker 1: like Joe is holding it up like you're eating the
Speaker 1: giant turkey leg or something, which would be he's not
Speaker 1: even there. Yeah, oh god, this could be. We could
Speaker 1: go down and rat and all with this conversation. Holy
Speaker 1: sh it, I can't believe that photo is now sensitive
Speaker 1: content on the Internet. Anybody listens to this check my
Speaker 1: page because I can't. I guess you can't see if
Speaker 1: it's your own ships sensitive content. But yeah, it's nice
Speaker 1: to say. I think you and I post a lot
Speaker 1: of sensitive content. Yeah, a lot. Well that's good. I
Speaker 1: like to be in that, but which is fine. I
Speaker 1: think it made a lot more people look at it
Speaker 1: because you know, people want what they can't have, and
Speaker 1: they're like, I want to see what that is. Isn't
Speaker 1: that the funny part about that they think they're protecting people,
Speaker 1: but really that people are just drawn to whatever it
Speaker 1: is that they can't see. Yeah. Yeah, in this case
Speaker 1: Joseph Joe holding a moose leg. Only God damn moose leg.
Speaker 1: Yeah well yeah, good back to the bus. Um. I
Speaker 1: think I just personally appreciate what you're doing, and I
Speaker 1: think it's important in any effort to shine the light
Speaker 1: on you know, b h A or trc P or
Speaker 1: just just any piece of knowledge that folks can gain
Speaker 1: about these these subjects is important. I mean, I will
Speaker 1: you know, and all honestly, I'm a board member for
Speaker 1: b h A, but I don't. I think that just
Speaker 1: makes me more my my sense is a little more
Speaker 1: heightened when it comes to the public land discussion. Um.
Speaker 1: But I think it's important for people too. And you've
Speaker 1: done You've done a great job, especially with stuff in
Speaker 1: South Dakota you've been doing recently, and then Boundary Waters
Speaker 1: of just pushing people to get educated. You know, you
Speaker 1: can talk all day about how important it is and
Speaker 1: get all real fluffy about America and America the ideals
Speaker 1: and what public things mean. That's that's great. Anybody can
Speaker 1: fucking do that. Anybody can say that. Well, what but
Speaker 1: people can't say is let's educate you in the lane
Speaker 1: of Water Conservation Act, or let's educate you on the
Speaker 1: mind they're proposing for the boundary waters and what that
Speaker 1: really is and what that could mean for the future.
Speaker 1: I think those things are important. So I'm glad you're
Speaker 1: you're busting it making it happen. Yeah, you know, and
Speaker 1: you know, everything's of all right with ideas and whatever.
Speaker 1: My original idea with the bus was to travel all
Speaker 1: over the country and you know, go to different chunks
Speaker 1: and and then I realized that I I don't have
Speaker 1: to travel that far to tell the same story because
Speaker 1: it's you know, like I just want people to be
Speaker 1: able to relate to me and like what I'm doing
Speaker 1: and what I'm talking about with wherever they live. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't have to go to you know whatever, I
Speaker 1: don't have to go to Utah to talk about, you know,
Speaker 1: how important public land is. I can you know, I
Speaker 1: can go hunt my old haunts or explore some new
Speaker 1: places and and do the you know, tell the same message. Um.
Speaker 1: The one hunt that I'm pretty excited about this fall.
Speaker 1: I just found out that I drew ah my North
Speaker 1: Dakota any Deer archery tag, which is fairly tough to draw,
Speaker 1: and so I'm gonna go chase mule deer with a
Speaker 1: buddy of mine who lives in North Dakota. Um. But
Speaker 1: I'm pretty pumped up that because that entire like a
Speaker 1: lot of the western part western edge of North Dakota
Speaker 1: is National grassland, but it's also home to the Bachan
Speaker 1: oil field, and it has been like the extraction and
Speaker 1: the roads and the wells and all of that stuff
Speaker 1: that's been built on there. I'm I'm excited to show what,
Speaker 1: you know, a national like a federally owned place that
Speaker 1: has been turned into oil extraction. It's going to look
Speaker 1: like or can look like. And you know, one of
Speaker 1: the places in the country that molded Teddy Roosevelts like
Speaker 1: view of land was the bad Lands in North Dakota.
Speaker 1: And so you know, I want to show a bunch
Speaker 1: of you know, video footage and photography of that area
Speaker 1: this year, and you know, you can, like if you
Speaker 1: remove all those roads and all those wells, you can
Speaker 1: kind of get an idea of what it would have
Speaker 1: looked like with none of that infrastructure in there. So
Speaker 1: that's you know, I think I think doing projects like
Speaker 1: that means more than like just instantly cruising around in
Speaker 1: the in the bus going hey, I'm you know, I'm
Speaker 1: in as I want to. I want to do things
Speaker 1: that are a little bit more meaningful. Well good, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think those things are all important. And it's that
Speaker 1: you know, I've found recently, especially when like the Land
Speaker 1: and Water Conservation Act is up for for funding or
Speaker 1: up for defunding moreover um and people have started to
Speaker 1: talk about it. Well, I can guarantee there's a whole
Speaker 1: generation of people that have no idea what that is.
Speaker 1: And so you start to get this general idea about
Speaker 1: what that fund is and where it comes from, but
Speaker 1: you don't really see it in action, right you never,
Speaker 1: nobody ever does delivers you a tangible example of what
Speaker 1: that money from that fund goes towards or where it
Speaker 1: comes from, or you know, the whole process. IM same
Speaker 1: with Pittman Robertson, the same with with your tags and
Speaker 1: license fees. There's no, you don't buy the license, and
Speaker 1: then in the book it doesn't tell you where the
Speaker 1: money goes. H At least as far as I know,
Speaker 1: I've never seen that. No, you don't buy the rifle,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't tell you what where that tax went. Um,
Speaker 1: so I hope you know, things like what you're doing
Speaker 1: are just specific examples that people can use to give
Speaker 1: a tangible meaning to these ideas that were thrown around
Speaker 1: all the time. Yeah, yeah, bravo. And then you also
Speaker 1: have public land Tease. Yeah yeah, yep, so started a
Speaker 1: T shirt company to kind of kind of in conjunction
Speaker 1: with the bus project but um yeah, public land Tease
Speaker 1: dot com and five dollars from every shirt goes to
Speaker 1: back country hunters and anglers. And the reason, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of people wonder why I chose d h A,
Speaker 1: And the reason I chose h A was because right
Speaker 1: now they have the large, like what I feel is
Speaker 1: the largest voice talking to both people that hunt and
Speaker 1: people that fish. And to be able to cross that
Speaker 1: line is a is a big deal for me. And
Speaker 1: to be able to raise money for an organization that
Speaker 1: is has a huge voice on in both of those
Speaker 1: communities is a big deal. So but yeah, public plan
Speaker 1: dot com and I do have some news and it's
Speaker 1: coming out soon. I just need to get them mocks
Speaker 1: up on the um on the digital signment and get
Speaker 1: them on the website. So a pre sale good. I'm
Speaker 1: sure they'll be sensitive content. I'm sure they'll be probably
Speaker 1: very sensitively. Yeah, well, good man. Well, I just want
Speaker 1: to have you on the talk. I know we talk
Speaker 1: all the time. We'll be hunting a bunch this year,
Speaker 1: probably together. I'm sure we can't see not do that,
Speaker 1: which which I um, what we really need to figure
Speaker 1: out is how to get to it on the bus
Speaker 1: at some point this year. Well, that shouldn't be hard,
Speaker 1: like um no, it will be. Well, I'll probably let's
Speaker 1: just say this, if you have an event at the Rondeby,
Speaker 1: I'll be on the bus. I'll probably be the drunk
Speaker 1: guy in the back sleeping on the queen bed. I'll
Speaker 1: be sure to lock up all of my valuable thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: please please, But yeah, I mean I just think that
Speaker 1: as somebody who's relatively to most people a young man,
Speaker 1: and he's the same for yourself, Like, we've got a
Speaker 1: lot of years in this thing together, and it's good
Speaker 1: to know there's guys like you out there that care
Speaker 1: about the right stuff and they're doing the right stuff.
Speaker 1: And I'll close by saying thanks, buddy, I really appreciate
Speaker 1: all you're doing. Yeah, thanks for having me on beautiful
Speaker 1: talk to you man. Yeah, for sure, that's it episode
Speaker 1: number eight in the books. Appreciate Sam joining me talking
Speaker 1: about all things public lands, all things hunting. Same and
Speaker 1: I have a lot of stories to tell when it
Speaker 1: comes to big adventures. We've done a lot of them,
Speaker 1: and I appreciate always having Sam along. And uh, I
Speaker 1: always compare that guy too. If I he's my Johnnie,
Speaker 1: if I was Steve Ornell, he'd be my Joanna's pateel
Speaker 1: Us And all compliments to everybody involved in that analogy.
Speaker 1: I really enjoy Sam. He's a great dude. So hopefully
Speaker 1: that in conversation was enlightening for you guys. Thanks for
Speaker 1: check going us out. Go to the Hunting Collective dot
Speaker 1: com for more of this type of conversation. You can
Speaker 1: hear from Steve Ornella. You can hear from Ryan Callahan,
Speaker 1: John Dudley, Charles Post. You can hear from Shane Mahoney,
Speaker 1: Aubrey Marcus, anybody that we've had in the first seven
Speaker 1: episodes prior to this one is there at the Hunting
Speaker 1: Collective dot com. They're also on iTunes and Stitcher. You
Speaker 1: can also read articles and watch videos things that I've
Speaker 1: been involved in, not only on the website, but also
Speaker 1: at Benny ob three oh one on Instagram. Until the
Speaker 1: next time, folks, I really appreciate you all. Thanks for
Speaker 1: writing in, thanks for commenting. Please go subscribe on iTunes,
Speaker 1: Please follow us, Please tell your friends to the same.
Speaker 1: We'll keep cranking out content for you. Thank you, See
Speaker 1: you at bot time to f